#and on some level i want to do the things because they will benefit me

[smollsmule]

Ok my queue spit this out after I saved it for later, so let me add some nuance here. Because this is a very importand issue, actually.

Of course nobody is prohibited from readin the books they enjoy. Hell, I like me some easily digestible fluff too! Some of my favourite book series are ya (and genuinely great books despite being “easy to read”).

There is something to be said however about limiting yourself to only engaging with that level of difficulty in reading. And before you come at me, I know that many people don't read at all and to many others reading is simply a hobby to unwind after a long day, where they just wanna turn their brain off and have some fun. Which is a totally fair reason to read. BUT. Reading (or more broadly, literacy) will never be just that. You live in an age of (mis)information and you WILL be confronted with texts (speeches, video clips, what have you) that are hard to dissect. Especially the ones that don't seem like it at first glance.

Media literacy is not only about how quickly you can summarise a paragraph or being able to pull quotes to show how maybe a character could be read as queer (although both of those things are a very good indicator of having advanced literacy). It's the VITAL skill of filtering and assesing information presented to you before so you can make an informed choice to internalise or discard it. It's being able to understand the information in the first place by grasping a complex thought presented to you in writing or in a speech because the simple truth is that not all truths are simple.

Media literacy gives you the ability of identifying that someone is trying to make you believe something and parsing why they're doing it by identifying the tools they are using. Which means you also need to know the tools they have at their disposal. It also means being able to connect points brought up before in the same or different texts to see if there is inconstencies or leaps in logic or if the argument someone is making only looks good because they use big words and a sentence structure that “feels” smart, but actually falls apart as soon as you poke at it a little.

Forgive me sounding alarmist, but if you can't read at that level people who have these tools WILL have power over you and you won't even have the tools to notice that they do. Even if people are not actively trying to harm or manipulate you, if you're unable to engage with their ideas you will get left behind in certain vital discussions and that not only feels like shit because everybody gets it but you, but it also again makes you incredibly vulnerable to those who do have bad intentions!

Now does that mean you only get to read Proust from now on? Of course not! I still do believe that a piece of literature can directly and fundamentally change your life. I know it has for me. However, that is a personal opinion and it doesn't mean I can force anyone to engage with deep philosophical manifestos on what it isto be human in this world. And even less that I want to do that, despite me thinking that literally ANYONE could benefit from reading that kind of thing. But you NEED to be able to read complex texts outside of your comfort zone for honest to god survival. I am so fucking serious.

And, hey! The good news is that this is not some secret mystical power you either get blessed with or not. It is a skill you can train, by reading challenging material. Books with more complex sentence structures, more nuanced ideas or arguments. Books that force you to think about them. I hate to say it but the only way to get better at reading is to read. It doesn't have to be fiction but i will be very real with you, I doubt that - if you're putting down a book because it's unreadable to you based on the chosen perspective - you'll be the type to pick up scientific essays or anything like that.

Don't cut yourself off from vital skills by locking your mind in a box. You are capable to handle those more complex texts, and I'd wager you'll even enjoy it once you find your niche (yes! you still get to have preferences!). You just need to give yourself a chance to learn.

[ruhua-langblr]

Language Apps Suck, Now What?: A Guide to Actually Becoming "Fluent"

The much requested sequel to my DL post that was promised almost a year ago.

I'm going to address all of the techniques that have helped me in my language learning journeys. Since 95% of these came from the fact that in a past language learning mistake, they are titled as my mistakes (and how I would/did things differently going forward). For those that read to the bottom there is a "best universal resources" list.

Disclaimers:

"Fluency" is hard to define and everyone has their own goals. So for the purpose of this post, "fluency" will be defined as "your personal mastery target of the language".

If you just want to pick up a bit of a language to not sound like a total foreigner on vacation or just exchange a few words in a friend's native language, feel free to ignore what doesn't apply, but maybe something here could help make it a little easier.

This is based on my own personal experience and (some) research.

Mistake 1: Asymmetrical Studying

Assuming you don't just want to do a single activity in a language, or are learning a language like ASL, a language requires 4 parts to be studied: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading. While these have overlap, you can't learn speaking from reading, or even learn speaking from just listening. One of my first Chinese teachers told me how he would listen to the textbook dialogues while he was biking to classes and it helped him. I took this information, thought "Yeah that's an idea, but sounds boring" and now regret not taking his advice nearly every day.

I think a lot of us find methods we enjoy to study (mine was reading) and assume that if we just do that method more ™ it will eventually help us in other areas (sometimes it does, but that's only sometimes). Find a method that works for you for each area of study, even better find more than one method since we use these skills in a variety of manners! I can understand a TV program pretty well since I have a lot of context clues and body language to fill in any gaps of understanding, but taking a phone call is much harder—the audio is rougher, there's no body language to read, and since most Chinese programs have hard coded subtitles, no subtitles to fall back on either. If I were to compare the number of hours I spent reading in Chinese to (actively) training my listening? Probably a ratio of 100 to 1. When I started to learn Korean, the first thing I did was find a variety of listening resources for my level.

Fix: Find a variety of study methods that challenge all aspects of the language in different ways.

A variety of methods will help you develop a more well-rounded level of mastery, and probably help you keep from getting bored. Which is important because...

Mistake 2: Inconsistent Studying

If there is one positive to a language app, it is the pressure it puts on keeping a streak. Making studying a part of your everyday routine is the best thing you can do. I benefited a lot from taking a college language course since I had a dedicated time to study and practice Chinese 5 days out of the week (and homework usually filled the other two). Memorization is a huge part of language learning, and stopping and starting is terrible for memorization. When I was in elementary school, we had Spanish maybe a couple times a month. Looking back, it seems like it was the first class to be cut if we needed to catch up on a more important course. Needless to say, I can't even speak Spanish at an elementary level.

However, I'm sure many people reading this don't have the time to do ultra-immersion 4-hour study sessions every day either. Find what days during the week you have time to focus on learning new vocab and grammar, and use the rest of the week to review. This can be done on your commute to school/work, while you do the dishes, or as a part of your morning/evening routine. Making this as realistic as possible will help you actually succeed in making this a habit. (Check this out for how to set realistic study goals)

Fix: Study regularly (ideally daily) by setting realistic goals. Avoid "binge" studying since remembering requires consistent repetition to be most effective.

Mistake 3: Resource Choice

This is really composed of two mistakes, but I have a good example that will cover them both.

First, finding resources that are at or slightly above your level is the most important thing. Easy resources will not challenge you enough and difficult resources will overwhelm you. The ideal is n+1, with n as what you know plus 1 new thing.

Second, getting distracted by fancy, new technology. Newer isn't always better, and there are often advantages that are lost when we've made technological developments. I often found myself wanting to try out new browser extensions or organizational methods and honestly I would've benefitted from just using that time to study. (Also, you're probably reading this because of my DL post so I don't think it has to be said that AI resources suck.)

A good example of this was my time using Clozemaster. I had actually recommended it when I first started using it since I thought the foundation was really solid. However, after long term use, I found that it just wasn't a good fit. The sentences were often too simple or too long and strange for memorization at higher levels or were too difficult at lower levels. I think that taking my textbook's example sentences from dialogues into something like Anki would've been a far better use of my time (and money) as they were already designed to be at that n+1 level.

Fix: "Vet" your resources—make sure they will actually help you. If something is working for you, then keep using it! You don't always have to upgrade to the newest tool/method.

Mistake 3.5: Classrooms and Textbooks

A .5 since it's not my mistake, but an addendum of caution. I think there is a significant part of the language learning community that views textbooks and classroom learning as the worst possible resource. They are "boring", "outdated", and "ineffective" (ironically one of the most interesting modern language learning methods, ALG, is only done in a classroom setting). Classrooms and textbooks bring back memories of being surrounded by mostly uninterested classmates, minimal priority, and a focus on grades rather than personal achievement (imagine the difference between a class of middle schoolers who were forced to choose a foreign language vs. adult learners who self-selected!) People have used these exact methods, or even "cruder" methods, to successfully learn a language. It all comes down to what works best for you. I specifically recommend textbooks for learning grammar and the plentiful number of dialogues and written passages that can function great as graded readers and listening resources. (Also the distinction made between "a youtube lesson on a grammatical principle" which is totally cool, and "a passage in a grammar textbook" is more one of tone and audio/written than efficacy).

Classrooms can be really great for speaking practice since they can be a lot less intimidating speaking to someone who is also learning while receiving corrections. Speech can be awkward to train on your own (not impossible if you're good at just talking aloud to yourself!), and classrooms can work nicely for this. Homework and class schedules also have built in accountability!

Fix: Explore resources available to you and try to think holistically about your approach. CI+Traditional Methods is my go to "Learning Cocktail"

Mistake 4: Yes, Immersion, But...

I realized this relatively quickly while learning Chinese, but immersion at a level much higher than your current level will do very little for you. What is sometimes left out of those "Just watch anime to learn Japanese" discussions is that you first need to have a chance at understanding what is being said. Choosing materials that are much higher than your level will not teach you the language. It doesn't matter how many times someone at HSK 1 hears “他是甘露之惠，我并无此水可还”, they will not get very far. Actual deduction and learning comes from having enough familiar components to be able to make deductions—something different than guessing. An HSK 1 learner, never having heard the word 老虎 will be able to understand "tiger" if someone says “这是我的老虎” while standing next to a tiger. This is not to say you can never try something more difficult—things should be challenging—but if you can't make heads or tails of what's being said, then it's time to find something a bit easier. If mistake 2 is about the type of method, this is about the level. If you wouldn't give a kindergartener The Great Gatsby to learn how to read, why would you watch Full Metal Alchemist to start learning a language?

Side note: Interesting video here on the Comprehensible Input hypothesis and how it relates to neurodivergence.

Fix: Immerse yourself in appropriate content for your level. It's called comprehensible input for a reason.

Mistake 5: On Translation

I work as a translator, so do you really think I'm going to say translation is all bad? Of course not. It's a separate skill that can be added on to the basic skills, but is really only required if you are A. someone who is an intermediary between two languages (say you have to translate for a spouse or family member) or B. It is your job/hobby. In the context of sitting down and learning, it can be harmful. I think my brain often goes to translation too often because that's how I used to learn. Trying to unlearn that is difficult because, well, what do people even mean when they say "don't translate"? They mean when someone says "thank you", you should not go to your primary language and translate "you're welcome" from that. You should train yourself to go to your target language first when you hear the word for "thank you". A very literally translated "thank you" in Chinese "谢谢你" can come off as cold and sarcastic. I don't tell my friends that, I say "谢啦～". Direct translation can take away the difference in culture, grammar, and politeness in a language. If there is a reason you sound awkward while writing and speaking, it's probably because you're imposing your primary language on your target language.

Fix: Try as hard as you can to not work from your primary language into the target language, but to work from the structures, set phrases, and grammar within the target language that you know first.

Mistake 6: The Secret Language Learners Don't Want You To Know...

...is that there is no one easy method. You are not going to learn French while you sleep, or master Korean by doing this one easy trick. Learning a language requires work and dedication, the people that succeed are those that push through the boredom of repetition and failure. The "I learned X in 1 year/month/week/day!" crowd is hiding large asterisks, be it their actual level, the assistance and free time available to them, "well actually I had already studied this for 4 years", or just straight-up lying. Our own journeys in our native tongue were not easy, they required years and years of constant immersion and instruction. While we are now older and wiser people that can make quick connections, we are also burdened with things like "jobs", "house work", "school work", and the digital black hole that is "social media" that take up our time and energy. Everything above is to help make this journey a little bit easier, quicker, and painless, but it will never be magic.

I find that language learning has a lot in common with the fitness community. People will talk about the workout that changed their life and how no other one will do the same—and it really can be the truth that it changed their life and that they feel it is the ultimate way. The real workout that will change your life is the one you're most consistent with, that you enjoy the most. Language learning is just trying to find the brain exercise that you can be the most consistent with.

Fix: Save your energy looking for shortcuts, and do the work, fail, and come back for more. If someone tells you that you can become fluent in a ridiculously short amount of time, they are selling you a fantasy (and likely a product). You get out what you put in.

For those that made it to the end, here are some of my "universal resources":

Refold Method: I don't agree with their actual method 100%, but they've collected a lot of great resources for learning languages. I've found their Chinese and Korean discords to also be really helpful and provided even more resources than what's given in their starter guides.

Language Reactor: Very useful, and have recently added podcasts as a material! The free version is honestly all you need.

Anki: If I do not mention it, the people with 4+ year streaks with a 5K word deck will not let me forget it. It can be used on desktop or on your phone as an app. If you need a replacement for a language learning app, this is one of them. Justin Sung has a lot of great info on how to best utilize Anki (as does Refold). It's not my favorite, but it could be yours!

LingQ: "But I thought you said language apps are bad!" In isolation, yes. Sorry for the clickbait. This one is pretty good, and more interested in immersing you in the language than selling a subscription to allow you to freeze your streak so the number goes up.

Grammar Textbooks: For self-taught learning, these are going to be the best resource since it's focused on the hardest part of the language, and only that. If you're tired of seeing group work activities, look for a textbook that is just on grammar (Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar is my rec for Chinese, and A Guide to Japanese Grammar by Tae Kim is the most common/enthusiastic rec I've heard for Japanese).

Shadowing: Simply repeat what you hear. Matt vs Japan talks about his setup here for optimized shadowing (which you can probably build for a lot cheaper now), but it can also just be you watching a video and pausing to repeat after each sentence or near simultaneously if you're able.

Youtube: Be it "Short Story for Beginners", "How to use X", "250 Essential Phrases", or a GRWM in your target language, Youtube is the best. Sometimes you have to dig to find what works for you, but I imagine there is something for everyone at every level. (Pro tip: People upload textbook audio dialogues often, you don't even have to buy the textbook to be able to learn from it!)

A Friend: Be it a fellow learner, or someone who has already mastered the language, it is easier when you have someone, not only to speak to, but to remind you why you're doing this. I write far more in Chinese because I have friends I can text in Chinese.

Pen and Paper: Study after study, writing on paper continues to be the best method for memorization. Typing or using a pen and tablet still can't compare to traditional methods.

The Replies (Probably): Lots of people were happy to give alternatives for specific languages in the replies of my DL post. The community here is pretty active, so if this post blows up at least 20% of what the last one did, you might be able to find some great stuff in the replies and reblogs.

I wish you all the best~

[panic-at-the-fiction]

A Problem to Work With part 2

Summary: Bucky Barnes is a problem to work with. He’s annoying, snarky, hot headed and you don’t get along. And this has absolutely nothing to do with your thoughts about how big his arms are, or how hot he is when he’s mad. No this is only about how difficultly annoying he is.

Warning: Tension, banter, eventual smut. Maybe some gun violence.

A/N: Ooh look at me go two in a row, I’m almost back in my groove. This is fun, I miss this. Hope y’all enjoy it as much as I did.

You crossed the dance floor to the drinks table and leaned onto the counter beside Lestrade with a heavy sigh. “Now, I love these galas as much as the next person, but perhaps I wasn’t meant for all this dancing.” You gave a loud laugh signaling to the waiter to hand you water.

Lestrade waved off his previous group of friends and gave you a smile that made you want to take a step back, but you held up the persona you had created. “Someone as pretty as you, well, you were made to show off on the dance floor.”

“My thought exactly,” Bucky said with impeccable timing, stepping into the husband role with ease as he possessively placed a hand around your waist. He extended his right hand for Lestrade to shake, “Hi James Laker, seems you’ve met my wife here. You must be Walter Lestrade, I hear you're a big deal around here.” His face was cordial but his voice, that was sending chills down your spine.

“A pleasure to meet you both, and as for me being a big deal, I’m not so convinced of that. I own some important properties, a few stocks, and just the right amount of influence to be relevant. But hey, isn’t that what we’re all looking for in this line of work.” He laughed and gave you a wink.

You laughed with him and gave Bucky a slap on the shoulder. “Isn’t he just a laugh, dear.”

“Yes, isn't he just?”

“Me and my husband were so hoping to meet you tonight, I’ve been following your work in the Congo district. I admire the investments you’ve made in your developments.”
“Why thank you madam, I see you are fellow realtor investors then?”

“Yes, maybe not quite on your level, but we’ve made some good decisions over the years.”

You placed your hand on Bucky’s chest, feeling how warm he was. “My husband's just being modest, we actually just purchased a large development in the Hamptons. We just moved out here to oversee the project.”

“How lucky are you to have a business partner as pretty as your wife here. I mean, none of my shareholders are nearly as captivating.” Was his flirting actually starting to affect Bucky? His grip was tightening on your waist to the point his metal hand would certainly leave a bruise if he kept it up.

“Oh, I just love this song. Mrs. Laker you must join me on the dance floor, for a spin. That is, if it’s ok with your husband here?” He said with a grin wide on his face.

“I’m sure it’s ok, right, sweetie?” Bucky's jaw was clenched tight.

“Oh course.” He said, releasing the tight grip on your hip, allowing you to take Lestrade’s outstretched hand.

He pulled you out onto the dance floor and into a close hold that you couldn’t help yourself from comparing to Bucky. That moment had been intimate and close, this just felt structural.

“So, Mrs. Laker, tell me about yourself.”

“Oh, call me (y/n).”

“Ok (y/n), how does a pretty thing like you end up married and running a business.” You smiled pretending like you were flattered, but internally, you wondered if he was prone to flirt with married women. But then again you weren’t actually married and this could work to your benefit.

“Well, James and I married 8 years ago, thought it would be best for the business, put off having kids because we thought it would be best for the business, and now we’ve moved here because we thought it would be best for the business.”

“I see, well, what do you think might be best for your business now?”

“Well it seems that getting to know you would be what’s best, for the business I mean.”

“Excuse me, can I borrow my wife for a second?” Bucky was quick to grab Lestrade’s hand from where it sat on the small of your back before using his other hand to pull you away and off the dance floor. His grip on your wrist, bruising.

“Buck, what are you doing? I was gaining his trust just then.” You said as he dragged you out of the main ballroom into the hallways and towards the worker’s entrance.

“Oh no, I saw what you were doing,” He said through teeth that sounded as tightly clenched as his hold on you. “But no need for THAT, I know how to get what we came here for.”

“Really?” He didn't bother to answer. The servant's entrance led to the garage where they had parked the valeted cars. He stopped dragging you finally and dangled a set of keys from his hand.

“Lestrade car,” Realization dawned on you. “But how did you…?”

“I talked to some wait staff while you were dancing.”

You laughed, “You don’t think he’s dumb enough to have the plans here in his car, do you?”

“Actually, I do.” He clicked the car keys and a loud beep sounded from a bright red Aston Martin. You walked over thinking about how of course Lestrade, a man who had just a few moments ago shamefully hit on a supposedly married woman, drove such a gauche car.

“Subtle.”

Bucky held the front door open for you to get in. “Do your thing, doll.”

You tried not to let the heat in your face show as you got to work on the console of the car. He had an outrageous amount of technology in this thing.

“Well, I’ll be damned, even his car's software is deeply locked. I mean Buck, this is high security right here, he’s gotta be hiding something in this computer.”

“Well, what did I tell you, the ass face is that dumb.”

“Are you mad because I danced with him, my dear husband?” You teased as you worked on hacking into the car's computer system.

Bucky leaned his head down from outside the car. “No, I’m mad I ever let that damn fool even get close enough to learn your name, let alone place a hand on you.” His voice was low, and you stopped your work on the computer and slowly looked at him. His eyes were dark and hungry and hot and oh so close to yours. He looked as if he wanted to eat you and you would let him.

You thought for a moment he might lean in and kiss you here and now with his breath fanning so close to you, “Bucky.”

“Well now I knew someone might be coming here tonight to try and cause some trouble, but man was I hoping for a lot less bloodshed tonight.” Lestrade called from the parking garage. Bucky quickly snapped into soldier mode as you both took in the 5 or more security members with guns standing behind Lestrade.

“What makes you think there's going to be any bloodshed?” Bucky said with a straight face.

“Ha, please, now be serious here and step out of the car. We’re just going to go upstairs and have us a nice chat. I’ll even be nice and let the girl sit out of this one, no need to ruin that pretty face of hers.”

Bucky put his hand out to tell you to stay put, but in doing so, he slyly slipped you the car keys. “Now Lestrade if you have something to say we can just talk out here, anything you can say to me, you can say it in front of my wife.” He slowly backed around the door, moving subtly to the front of the car, further away from Lestrade and his men.

“See, I’m really starting to doubt the two of you are married.” He laughed, but you could tell he was on his last straw. Lestrade wasn’t afraid to start shooting and to leave without any answers from you two.

“Yeah, well, the thing about that is…” Bucky slammed the car door shut and took off running through the parking deck, using the cars to shield him partially as he did so.

“After him!” Lestrade shouted at his men.

You got the message and had the keys ready in the ignition and started the car up before throwing it into reverse and whipping the car out of its parking space. Lestrade barely jumped out of the way before pulling out his hand gun and attempting to aim at your tires, but apparently he wasn’t much of a sharpshooter.

You twisted through the parking garage looking for Bucky. You knew that Lestrade’s men had no chance of catching him on foot, but you needed to get out of here and fast.

Luckily, he found you first. He jumped onto the hood of the car, landing with a loud thud that nearly made you scream as he partially blocked your vision through the windshield.

“Oh my god Barnes, what are you thinking?!”

“Just drive!” He yelled.

You slammed your foot on the gas, heading for the exit, as Bucky slowly began to move his way across the hood to the passenger side door.

You reached across with one hand and threw it open as he slipped in feet first from the top of the car, slamming the door once he was inside.

“So much for a covert stealth mission.”

“Yeah well Stark should have known better than to send us in if he wanted this done the easy way.” You laughed at his sarcasm, causing him to laugh too, but you stopped when you heard him take a loud hiss as he clutched his ribs a bit.

“Shit are you hurt?” You reached over to check him, but he swatted you away.

“Well, I sort of just slammed myself into this car with you going like 50 miles an hour in a parking deck.”

“I was trying to find you, sorry if I wasn’t following speeding laws in this stolen car.”

“Please just focus on driving.” He sighed as he lean back in the passenger seat, letting go of his side. “We need to get a safe distance away, finish getting the information we need, and then ditch this car.”

“Agreed.”

Part 3 should be out next week

@preeyansha @mostlymarvelgirl @chimchoom @kedawg @littletomboy2 @hi172826

[astranite]

Today I encountered The Horrors. 

(had to make a phone call and send an email I’d been putting off.)

(There are still more Horrors to come)

(whyyyyyyyyyyyy?????)

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[ilikedetectives]

.

[slugandthorn]

pain and agony of having so much to learn to make more things but I need a job/further schooling to learn but I have to have made the things first

[cookinguptales]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[joonie-beanie]

Doctor's Orders | [Wriothesley x Reader]

Summary: “Simply put, the Duke needs to have sexual intercourse to relieve his tension. After watching the two of you and seeing you interact on both physical and intellectual levels, I determined that you would be ideal partners for each other. So, I invited the both of you to partake in an aphrodisiac made from the herbs you gathered for me.” In which a simple tea time turns heated, and you get caught up in the consequence of Wriothesley not listening to his doctor. Content: Smut, Consensual Sex, Oral Sex, Aphrodisiacs, fem!reader Word Count: 7.9k

Sigewinne is evil.

You would have never suspected that such a tiny, cute body could contain so much malevolence. (Although, Sigewinne would personally argue that you’re confused, and that the word you’re looking for is actually benevolence. But, you digress.)

It all starts a few weeks into your employment at the Fortress of Meropide.

You’d spotted a job listing for a “personal assistant” in passing one day, and had immediately become interested thanks to the very generous salary listed on the paper. Seeing the job was located in Fontaine’s unofficial prison had, of course, caused you to have some second thoughts about applying, but at the end of the day, money is money.

Which is how you’d found yourself down on the ocean floor, waiting with a few other candidates outside the Duke’s office.

You’d be lying if you said that you weren’t nervous—waiting there to meet the head honcho of the prison. That when he stepped out to call you inside for your interview—all tall and beefy and scarred—your heart didn’t nervously flutter inside your chest.

…but to your surprise, he’s actually much softer than he appears.

“So,” he says, sitting down across from you at his desk. He folds his arms and smiles at you. “Why should I hire you? ”

Having been through this process before, you had immediately rattled off your qualifications and experiences. A few of which Wriothesley had proceeded to comment on and inquire about further. But it wasn’t until he asked—

“What benefit will I receive from picking you specifically?”

And you’d responded with—

“Errand girl.”

“What?”

“I can run errands for you. I’m sure the guards can be slow, going back and forth. But if you’re my direct employer, I can do whatever you want. Drop documents off, check in on things…pick up more tea.”

—that Wriothesley finally makes up his mind.

“Hmm. Very convincing.”

The next day, you receive a letter with the terms of your employment, and your official start date.

So, since then, you’ve been working for Wriothesley. Which is actually kind of…nice.

Your job mostly consists of going back and forth between the prison and the surface, so that Wriothesley can stay in the Fortress and better monitor his domain. The autonomy the job grants you is very rewarding, and in the same breath, Wriothesley also feels rewarded by how you take care of things without him needing to ask more than once.

Safe to say, the two of you get along.

…which Sigewinne notices.

You, of course, meet Sigewinne on your first day. Wriothesley makes a point of introducing you and showing you where the nurse’s office is located, in case you get hurt, or need to drop something off.

The human-like melusine enthusiastically welcomes you, and, at first, you see her as…someone sweet, and caring. A treasure of the prison.

However, over time, your opinion of her slowly starts to change.

Because she keeps looking at you. Specifically, whenever you’re standing next to Wriothesley.

“Why is she doing that?” you ask him one day, nudging him gently with your elbow. He immediately looks up from his meal, over to where Sigewinne is waiting in the lunch line, her pink eyes boring into you.

“She’s probably just double checking that you’re healthy,” Wriothesley responds, paying her no mind. “I often catch her staring at me, too. You must be growing on her.”

Despite his reassuring words, you can’t help but feel a little…put off…by the look in her eyes. Like she’s plotting something.

The second weird thing you notice is when you walk into the infirmary to drop off some herbs she’d asked for, and find her drawing. At first, you assume she’s doodling, since she seems kid-like a lot of the time.

But instead, when you lean over her shoulder and look, you see that she’s writing words. A big, black “DO NOT DISTURB”...with pink hearts and a few flowers drawn around it.

“What’s that for?” you ask her, forcing a smile.

“Oh! It’s just for a project I’m working on,” she responds, swiveling in her chair to face you. She happily kicks her feet, her eyes darting to the herbs you’re carrying with you.

“Ah, are those what I asked for? Thank you!”

You hand her the small bundle of dried flowers and grasses, watching as she immediately turns and places them on her desk next to some string, and cheesecloth.

“You’re welcome,” you respond, taking a small step backwards. “If that’s all, I’ll keep working on the rest of the tasks on my list—”

“Wait,” she says, grabbing your wrist. You instantly freeze, your eyes going wide as you turn back to face her. There’s a serious look on her face.

“How do you feel about Wriothesley?”

Her question makes your heart skip—heat rising on your skin.

“What?”

She doesn’t bother elaborating or giving you context, just waits for you to respond. You cough a little, feeling awkward, and wondering what kind of answer she’s looking for.

“Well…I mean. I think he’s a good boss. He’s friendly, and devoted to his job. He runs the prison well.”

Sigewinne nods, but doesn’t comment. Just keeps…staring.

Feeling pressured, you force yourself to think of more to say.

“Um…he’s deserving of his title and the respect he garners. I…enjoy speaking with him? Like when he invites me to partake in tea breaks. I dunno…he just kinda reminds me of a big, fluffy puppy. He looks scary but he’s actually pretty…cute, y’know?”

Finally, Sigewinne smiles. She takes your hand in her tiny ones, giving it a squeeze.

“Thank you for answering my question. You can go now.”

You blink at her dumbly, but nonetheless excuse yourself from the room.

Two days later, Wriothesley invites you to his office for tea. And to your surprise, when you walk in, you find Sigewinne waiting there as well.

“Thank you for coming!” she says as you enter the room. You flash her a smile, taking a seat in one of the open chairs around the table.

“Of course!”

“Sigewinne has a tea she wants us both to try,” Wriothesley explains, a fond look in his eyes as he watches the resident nurse flit around—pouring hot water into the teacups that have been set out.

You nod.

“I see.”

“Although, I don’t know why you won’t just steep the tea in the pot,” Wriothesley complains to her, just as Sigewinne places individual tea bags in each cup. “Are we not all being served the same tea?”

She cutely huffs.

“For your information, no we are not. Your and Y/N’s tea is unique.”

“Oh?” Wriothesley leans forward to look into the teacups as the colors from the herbs begin to bleed into the water. “What’s so unique about it?”

“You’ll see,” she responds with a playful look, one that causes Wriothesley to amusedly raise his eyebrows. However, he doesn’t say anything more—simply waiting for the tea to appropriately steep.

“...are you using the herbs I brought you?”

You can’t help but notice the smell wafting from the cup in front of you is a little familiar. Sigewinne nods.

“Wow! I’m surprised you noticed.”

“Ah, so this must be the reason you wanted me to lend you Y/N for a task the other day,” Wriothesley chimes in, his icy blue eyes once again shifting to Sigewinne. 

“Do I get to know what herbs you requested Y/N to bring you, exactly?”

The resident nurse shakes her head, quietly laughing when Wriothesley sighs and deflates back into his chair. 

“It’s meant to be a surprise! I want to see what you think about the taste without knowing the ingredients.”

“I suppose that’s fair.”

Folding your hands on your lap, the office descends into silence for a brief moment, the three of you intently watching the teacups in front of you. Then, Sigewinne finally claps her hands and declares—

“Okay, they’ve steeped long enough. Go ahead!”

“Finally,” Wriothesley happily mumbles, reaching forward to pick up the pristine little plate on which his cup of tea resides. He brings the cup to his nose, inhaling deeply, and then takes a tentative sip.

“Hmm…”

He frowns, his brows pinching as he tries to discern the flavors he’s tasting. 

Curiosity getting the better of you, you take a sip from your own cup—wincing as the hot liquid accidentally burns your tongue.

“So?” Sigewinne prompts, staring excitedly between the two of you.

“It’s…pleasant,” you respond, clearly not as big of a tea connoisseur as the Duke. “It has a hint of sweetness.”

“It tastes like a Rainbow Rose smells,” Wriothesley adds, taking another sip. His gaze slides to you. “Did you pick some for her?”

You shake your head.

“No, I didn’t. Or…at least I didn’t pick any fresh ones. I did go to a vendor and purchase something in a bottle that looked like crushed, pink dust.”

Sigewinne cutely laughs. 

“As expected of you, Your Grace. Yes, one of the ingredients is dried Rainbow Rose petals. Do you like it?”

Wriothesley makes a pleased sound.

“I do. The taste is light, but pleasant—like Y/N said.”

“Good! I want both of you to drink up.” 

Sigewinne finally picks up her own tea, and you can’t help but notice the difference in color when compared to yours and Wriothesley’s. She really is drinking something different…but why?

“Aye aye, captain,” Wriothesley responds, which makes Sigewinne laugh. You smile at the cute interaction between them, and have some more of your tea as well.

Together, the three of you engage in friendly conversation—catching up about recent topics while indulging in tea and a few different snacks that Wriothesley had pulled out for the occasion. As you drink, you can’t help but notice you feel…warm. A heat that spreads out from your stomach, and slowly creeps into your limbs.

You’ve never felt this way before but…maybe the tea is just extra hot today? 

You glance up to Wriothesley and notice that he’s a little flushed as well. Which is…reassuring? You think. Since you’re obviously not the only one affected.

“Oh! Y/N!” 

Sigewinne’s sudden call of your name draws you from your thoughts, and you look over at her. She smiles.

“I forgot to ask, but are you dating anyone?”

“Sigewinne,” Wriothesley gently scolds. He leans forward and sets his teacup on the table, the cup now empty.

His tone practically says “It’s not appropriate to ask questions like that” without actually saying it. Sigewinne pouts.

“Aww, c’mon. We’re all friends here! I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

Hearing that the melusine considers you to be a friend, you decide to grace her with an answer—ignoring the tingling of the taste buds on your tongue.

“No, I am not seeing anyone,” you inform her with a polite smile. Sigewinne nods happily at your answer, which makes your smile waver.

Is she happy you’re single?? Ouch.

“Okay, good,” she says. “I’d feel a little bad, otherwise.”

You blink in confusion at her words, watching her as she pops off her chair and heads towards the door. Wriothesley raises an eyebrow at her.

There’s sweat beading on his brow.

“Where are you going?”

“Away,” she responds. “To give you two some privacy.”

You and Wriothesley glance at each other, mirroring each other’s confusion.

Your tummy starts to ache.

“Why are you leaving us alone, exactly?”

Stopping just in front of the office doors, Sigewinne turns on her heel to face the two of you. There’s a smug grin on her face. 

“This is what happens when you don’t follow doctor’s orders.”

You frown, raising a hand to your chest, wondering why your heart is suddenly racing. 

What’s this about doctor’s orders?

You glance over at Wriothesley…only to see that he’s frozen in shock—his eyes wide with realization.

His pants feel too tight.

“Sigewinne, you did not—”

There’s an edge to his voice when he speaks, his eyes narrowing. He plants his feet on the floor and prepares to stand and confront her, but before he can blink, Sigewinne has drawn her pistol—a tranquilizing bullet hitting him square in the chest, where a little patch of skin is showing. 

He makes a noise of surprise, and quickly flops back into his chair to avoid falling on the floor—his limbs immediately going numb.

“Sigewinne!” you gasp. You’re not sure what’s going on, but the fact that she’d just shot Wriothesley is…

“It’s okay,” she says with a little sigh. “The effect will wear off in a few minutes. And…I’m sorry I scared you. Let me explain…”

She holsters her gun and smiles at you, trying to calm you down.

“As the nurse of the Fortress of Meropide, it is my duty to look after all residents, including Your Grace. And over the last few months, I’ve noticed him becoming more… irritable.”

“Sigewinne…,” Wriothesley mumbles, but the girl waves him off.

“After observing him for a while, I realized that his stress levels were getting high. And as his doctor, I recommended him a way to manage his stress, but he refused. He insisted tea was enough to soothe his nerves, but that’s simply not true. So…when you started working here, and I saw how well the two of you were getting along, I…got an idea.”

Sigewinne glances over at Wriothesley, noticing how he’s begun to shift his boots against the floor. 

Her tranquilizers won’t be in effect much longer. They never work as well on people Wriothesley’s size…

So, she decides to cut to the chase.

Reaching into her pocket, Sigewinne pulls out the DO NOT DISTURB sign you’d seen her making the other day. She holds it in front of her, and beams at you.

“Simply put, the Duke needs to have sexual intercourse to relieve his tension. After watching the two of you and seeing you interact on both physical and intellectual levels, I determined that you would be ideal partners for each other. So, I invited the both of you to partake in an aphrodisiac made from the herbs you gathered for me.”

“You…you drugged us?” you gape, completely thrown by everything she’s just told you. She immediately gets defensive, her cheeks puffing.

“I medicated you,” she corrects. “And in the end, I’m only acting as a doctor. This all could have been avoided if Your Grace had just taken care of his own needs, as I’d insisted. Since he didn’t, I could only logically assume it's because it’s his preference to have a partner, rather than going at it solo. So, if you want to blame anyone for this, please blame him.”

“Sigewinne—” 

Gripping the arms of his chair, Wriothesley breathes out a heavy sigh and begins to push himself up. You can’t help but notice his face is much redder now, and you’re not sure if it’s from embarrassment, the effects of the drugs, or both.

Seeing that Wriothesley has nearly regained his strength, Sigewinne hurries to exit his office.

“Anyway! The effects of the tea should wear off in a few hours, but only if you relieve yourselves. Otherwise, it will last much longer. So I suggest you let loose and indulge yourselves. You like each other! Enjoy this time!”

Wriothesley opens his mouth to say something, but his words catch in his throat the second Sigewinne opens his office door. He doesn’t want anyone outside of his office walls to hear him or know what’s going on.

“I’ll hang this sign on the door,” Sigewinne continues, her voice hushing. “So no one comes in while you two are…busy. Just remove it once you’re done, okay? Have fun!”

With a supportive little fist pump, Sigewinne then closes the door, leaving you and Wriothesley alone.

A few long beats of silence pass, then Wriothesley finally sighs.

"I…apologize for this. I never meant for you to get roped in."

You turn to look at him, only to find that he's standing with his back to you, his hand raising to rub at the back of his head.

You can see his muscles flexing as he does so, and you hate to admit that it causes the heat inside you to grow.

"It's…not your fault," you respond, laughing a little awkwardly. "I doubt it's easy to follow directions when your doctor tells you to jack off to rectify your hardass-ness."

Wriothesley glances at you over his shoulder.

"Have I been acting like a hardass?"

"You've been a little snippy at times," you tell him, smoothing your sweaty palms down your legs. Seriously, your clothes are starting to make you feel claustrophobic…

"Not to me, specifically. But I've noticed it towards some of the prison residents."

"Shit," he sighs, rubbing his temples. You continue to watch him, your eyes wandering the expanse of his back. For a second, you don't understand why he won't face you. Then it clicks.

"...are you…hard? Is that why you're not turning around?"

"It's…pretty bad," Wriothesley admits, his shoulder sagging in defeat. "I don't know what all was in that tea but…as an aphrodisiac, it's doing its job."

"Yeah…," you agree, swallowing heavily. You can feel wet arousal pooling on the fabric of your panties. His office has also started to feel like a sauna, but you're not sure if it's the air that's hot, or your body.

However, you're still not willing to breach the topic of "relief" with him. You haven't reached that level of desperation…yet .

So, you think of something else to carry the conversation in the meantime.

"So…Sigewinne said you like me?"

"Ah, you caught that."

He laughs a little, and begins pacing around the room, still careful to keep his back to you. You can't help but notice his stride is a little…impeded.

"If I'm being frank—yes, I do. You've been…a pleasure to have around, since I hired you. Actually, one of the reasons I picked you in the first place was because of how you acted during your interview. Most people are scared of me and therefore talk cautiously. You're certainly respectful, of course, but…you're a bit playful, as well. And I found that quality to be attractive."

"Ah, so I charmed you," you respond playfully. "Remind me to add that point to my resume later. "Managed to woo the Lord of the Fortress of Meropide". That sounds pretty good—"

"And there you go again," Wriothesley laughs. He steps behind the chair he'd been sitting in previously, and then finally turns to face you—the back of the chair tall enough that his lower half is out of sight. 

"Although, if I recall her words correctly, Sigewinne stated that we "like each other". So, is there something you'd like to say as well?"

Your eyes go wide, and you feel more blood rush into your head. Wriothesley smiles, wide enough to show teeth. 

"C’mon now. It's not fair that I praise you and get nothing in return."

You pout.

"To be fair, I didn't know why Sigewinne suddenly asked me what I thought of you…"

"That’s understandable, but still. I'd like to know what you told her."

Wriothesley maintains his playful demeanor, despite the way his knuckles begin to turn white at his sides—a deep-seated need slowly sinking its claws into him.

You sigh.

"I just…told her that you're a good boss, and are deserving of your titles and the respect you garner…"

You trail off, suddenly remembering the last thing you'd told Sigewinne during that conversation. Wriothesley clearly notices there's something you're leaving out, one of his eyebrows raising.

"And?"

You take a deep breath.

"That you're a cute puppy."

He blinks in shock.

"...excuse me?"

Oh god, you wanna phase through the floor.

"I said that even though you look scary, you're really just like a big…cute…puppy."

For a moment, Wriothesley can only stare at you. Then, he throws his head back and laughs. 

Embarrassed, you plant your palms on your thighs and push to your feet, instinctively wanting to run away…only to realize that your legs have gone weak. 

With a distraught noise, you flop back into your chair. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Wriothesley notices.

He coughs, pulling himself back together.

"Well, I've certainly never heard myself described in such a way before. I can't say I totally hate it, but I'm not sure if I agree with the term "puppy"."

You force an awkward laugh, finally losing steam as the arousal inside you begins to cloud your thoughts. Sigewinne obviously wasn't messing around when making her aphrodisiac…you've never felt so horny before that it has literally hindered your mental and physical faculties.

The office is silent for a few tense moments, but finally, Wriothesley heaves a heavy sigh. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, his shoulders slumping as he hangs his head.

"You may revoke your good opinion of me, considering how inappropriate it is for a boss to even consider such a thing, but…I think my dick is gonna explode soon, so I'll just come out and ask."

You swallow, anticipating his next words.

"Would you be…interested in having sex?"

Your body shivers in excitement at the idea, the lustful part of your brain screaming at you to jump him already.

"I…would," you admit, managing to keep it together. Wriothesley's entire body jolts impatiently at your words, but he’s able to keep himself grounded. 

"I don't think I'll be able to survive…this without some relief. And…I trust you. So…"

"So we're in agreement," Wrioslethely supplies, waiting for your confirmation. You nod your head. 

"We are."

In the next beat, he's is crossing the space between you, a "thank god" barely making it past his lips before he crashes them into yours.

Immediately, you’re groaning into him—your arms wrapping around his neck and his hands finding the backs of your thighs. He lifts you from your chair easily—your chests pressing together as he holds you close.

You’ve always been acutely aware of how large Wriothesley is, but you don’t think it fully sinks in until now—as he manhandles you with ease, quite literally carrying you with one arm as the other sneaks beneath your shirt and tugs it over your head.

You’re forced to break the kiss as he does so, but the second the fabric has been discarded, you’re tangling your fingers in his hair and dragging him in for another. 

Your action evokes a pleased little rumble inside his chest.

“You taste sweet,” he mumbles, his palm roaming over the exposed skin of your back. The warmth of his skin against yours makes you ache.

“It’s probably the aphrodisiac,” you reply breathlessly, a shiver raking your spine when you feel his fingers toy at the waistband of your pants.

“Hmm, shall we posit your theory?”

Before you can even think to ask what he means, the room is spinning—too many things happening at once. However, it’s nearly impossible to miss the feel of your pants being shucked down your legs.

When everything settles, you find that you’re no longer chest to chest with Wriothesley, but rather, face to dick.

“Wh—”

Your cheeks heat up as you finally digest the position he’s put you in—your ass in his face, and his crotch in yours—his body now firmly planted in a chair as he spreads his thighs and makes himself comfortable.

“Wriothesley!” you say in shock, your palms gripping his legs for support as you attempt to turn and face him. However, you quickly realize with the position he has chosen, you’re fairly helpless to do anything—completely at his mercy as he locks his arms around your legs and grips your ass in his hands.

“Hm?” he responds nonchalantly, one of his fingers slipping under the edge of your panties. You shift a little, trying to glare at him, but only succeed in having his clothed dick poke you in the cheek. He tenses at the sensation, and you feel his cock strain helplessly against the fabric of his pants—begging for more friction.

“I’m just testing your theory, like I said,” he continues, a surprised mewl tearing from your throat as he leans his head forward and nuzzles his nose in the damp fabric of your panties.

“If you think it’s the aphrodisiac making you sweet, let’s see if it’s also having that effect elsewhere—”

Before you can protest, Wriothesley is tugging the crotch of your underwear aside—his tongue licking a hot, languid strip between your folds. You gasp at the feeling, your nails digging into his thighs through the layer of clothes that he wears.

Above you, the Duke makes a pleased sound, repeating his previous action—noting the way your body writhes against his hold. His fingers grip your ass tighter, his brows furrowing as he presses his tongue inside your entrance—your arousal quickly coating his taste buds.

“Yep,” he mutters after a moment, his voice tight and his throat bobbing as he harshly swallows. “You taste…addicting.”

His words have your cunt squeezing around nothing, although he quickly dives back in and rectifies that problem—stretching your walls out around his tongue. 

“Fuck…,” you pant, your head dropping as your strength wanes. Your muscles progressively start to feel like jelly, thanks to his ministrations. Especially, when he moves his mouth to your clit and begins rolling his tongue around it—a whine escaping you as the desire inside of you sears white hot.

And yet, despite the way Wriothesley presses on—groaning into your pussy as he eats you out—you’d be remiss to forget about the fact that he’s currently affected by the aphrodisiac as well, and has his own needs that need to be taken care of.

So, gathering what strength you have, you manage to push yourself up onto your forearms—your hands moving to the waistband of his pants. You frantically work open the button and zipper of his slacks, and then hook your fingers under the elastic of his underwear, tugging the band down.

…only to have his freed cock immediately spring up and smack you in the face.

Your eyes go wide, and in normal circumstances, you’d expect Wriothesley to laugh at the comedy of what has just occurred. However, too immersed in the way your cunt tastes and feels, and the way your body continues to twitch in his hold, he doesn’t even notice. And, too amazed by the sheer size of Wriothesley’s dick as you finally lean your head back and get a good look at him, you don’t bother saying anything.

No, instead you simply part your lips and take the head of his cock into your mouth—sucking lightly, your tongue teasing at his slit. The groan that’s immediately torn from his throat is involuntary—the sound becoming muffled by your pussy as he momentarily stops to savor the feeling of your mouth on his dick—your tongue flattening on the underside of his shaft as you slowly take more of him into your mouth.

Then, he goes back to eating you out with renewed fervor—your eyes nearly rolling back into your skull when he sucks at your clit.

The room quickly fills with the sound of sloppy and messy oral, your head bobbing up and down Wriothesley’s cock. Saliva drips down his length, his pre-cum smearing against your tongue, and you can’t help but moan.

Everything feels so good—from Wriothesley’s tongue on your cunt, to the way his cock fills up your mouth…

“Fuck,” Wriothesley growls. His fingers move to pull at the folds of your pussy, spreading you open wider. You can feel his hot breath on your skin as he moves his mouth back to your clit, where he then stays—his tongue flicking rhythmically against the sensitive bundle of nerves.

The pace and motion he settles on is one that you know will very quickly damn you, and he figures this out as well based on the way your thighs begin to shake in his grasp. Your body attempts to jolt away from him—trying to escape the onslaught of pleasure he intends to give—but he leaves no wiggle room. He holds you tighter, enjoying the feeling of your mouth on his cock, and how your efforts slowly start to crumble along with your sanity.

“I…,” you mumble the word around dick, trying to warn him of the orgasm you can feel quickly approaching. Your entire body swims with arousal, your head feeling light. 

“Keep going, sweetheart,” he pants. “Let’s cum together.”

You feel his cock throb against your tongue, and, dutifully, you do your best to continue sucking him off—your lips once again suctioning around his shaft. Your actions immediately evoke a pleased groan from the Duke, and you feel his thighs tense in your grasp—his own orgasm quickly approaching.

However, despite your best efforts to continue, everything falls apart the second your climax finally crests.

With a cry, you come undone—your body writhing in his hold. You go brainless almost immediately, the strength in your arms wavering, and Wriothesley’s cock stuffing into your cheek—your hot breath fanning over his length.

Luckily, the vulgarity of the entire situation is enough to push Wriothesley over the finish line—his dick painting the inside of your mouth with his cum. And to his surprise, once he’s spent, you actually pull your head back, close your lips, and swallow.

Shit, he thinks. 

His dick is just starting to soften, and yet somehow, it’s also already getting hard again.

There’s a few beats of quiet that are filled only with the sound of you and Wriothesley panting. Then, once he’s caught his breath, he says—

“Let’s get you right side up.”

—and the world spins again.

Honestly, the fact that he can manhandle you this easily is criminal.

“You okay?” he asks, sitting you on one of his thighs. He brushes a few stray hairs from your face, staring at you with a hint of concern.

You nod your head, grateful that the carnal desire you’ve been afflicted with is clearly less, now that you and Wriothesley have both gotten off. But…even despite that, you still feel hot and tingly. Like you want more.

You glance down at his lap.

“Mmm. Seems like you’re in the same predicament as me.”

“Think you can handle another round?” he asks. You meet his eyes, playfully raising your eyebrows.

“I’m almost tempted to say no, and see what you do.”

Wriothesley rolls his eyes, his hands grabbing your waist, and in the next moment, you find yourself slung over his shoulder.

“Hey—!” you protest, attempting to look at him, but he only caresses your ass with his free hand.

“If you have that much spunk left in you, you can handle another round,” he says, carrying you down the nearby staircase, to the floor below his office. “But, I’ll be kind this time and make you more comfortable.”

His boots echo against the metal floor as he walks, and for a second, you wonder where exactly he’s taking you. But, soon after, Wriothesley pushes through a nearby door, and you find yourself in a moderately sized bedroom.

It must be his, you realize, feeling a little silly that you’d never pondered before now where the Master of the prison actually sleeps.

“Here we are.”

Wriothesley gently deposits you onto his bed, and then immediately reaches for his tie. You watch him with bated breath, your heart doing a tiny flip as you realize that he’s finally stripping out of his clothes. He opts to leave on the leather belts encircling his arms and neck, instead focusing the bulk of his time on shedding his suit, and undoing the many buckles on his boots. 

By the time he’s finished—his erect cock once again sitting heavy between his legs—you’re practically drooling at the sight of him.

His lips twitch into a little smile.

“I’m happy to know that you like what you see. However, in the time I spent undressing myself, you couldn’t be bothered to remove what little clothing you have left? C’mon now, are you waiting for me to wrestle you out of them?”

Still feeling cheeky, you flash him a grin.

“Hm, I’d like to see you try.”

Wriothesley immediately cocks an eyebrow, his eyes glinting at the challenge you’ve just issued, and your attitude wavers, realizing what it is you’ve done. You open your mouth to say you’re only teasing—your hands already raising behind your back to undo the clasp of your bra—but it’s too late.

In one swift motion, Wriothesley grabs your ankle and twists you onto your stomach—his weight settling above you as he kneels onto the bed. You shiver when his knuckles brush against your skin—his fingers swiftly undoing your bra.

“You’re just a little brat, aren’t you…” 

He speaks the words fondly, with a hint of amusement, and yet, they still go straight to your cunt. 

“Don’t say things like that,” you respond, instinctively raising your hips when Wriothesley hooks his fingers on your underwear and begins tugging them down your thighs. He stares intently at your backside as he does so, an idea popping into his mind.

“Why? Because you like it too much?”

He discards your panties on the floor along with the rest of the clothes you’d both shed, and then grabs your knees, forcing you to spread your legs, so he can properly settle between them. 

Another blush rises on your face at his words, your tongue feeling heavy in your mouth. At your lack of response, Wriothesely continues.

“In my understanding, brats tend to like it a little rougher, so…” 

His hands ghost up your thighs, to your hips, and he grips you tightly—forcing your lower half off the bed until you’re propped up on your knees—his cock sitting heavy against your ass.

“...what say we continue like this, hm?”

Bracing yourself on your forearms, you turn your head back to look at him—your body tensing as you watch him fist his cock and drag it downward, between the lips of your pussy. 

His icy eyes catch yours.

“Any objection?”

“...no,” you mumble, your fingers anticipatedly fisting in the sheets. 

Wriothesley nods—

“Good.”

—and then presses the head of his cock inside you.

Immediately, you drop your forehead against the mattress—willing your body to relax for him as he slowly inches inside of you.

His tongue had certainly been enjoyable, but this? Fuck. Nothing compares to the sensation of him slowly stuffing you inch by inch—the girth of his cock positively delicious as he forces your cunt to stretch to accommodate him.

It’s so much that by the time he’s fully seated inside of you, your body is shaking—your breath coming out in quick, desperately little pants.

Seeing your reaction, Wriothesely soothes a hand up your spine, his warm palm settling between your shoulder blades. He decides to start slow—to give you a little more time to adjust to him. 

And honestly, he’d love to take his time in general—to really savor the sight of you beneath him, your cunt swallowing his cock so perfectly, but alas. The effects of the aphrodisiac make him impatient with need, and it’s not long before he’s moving faster—little gasps and whines finding their way past your lips as he begins fucking you back onto his cock.

“Ahh…seriously you’re…so fucking tight,” he curses. His fingers dig into the plush of your hip—his jaw clenching, and his racing heart pumping lust through his veins.

Your cunt clamping on his dick seriously might be his personal slice of heaven.

“Wrio, I—,” you can’t even get the words out, your brain short-circuiting. You can’t think straight anymore—not with his cock rubbing you in all the right spots, making a mess of your insides, and quickly rocketing you towards another—

Wait, no, it’s only been a minute—!

“Fuck! ” 

You choke the word out, your spine curving and your knuckles turning white as your second orgasm of the night is unexpectedly forced out of you—your pussy spasming around Wriothesley’s dick.

The last of your strength officially drained, you collapse forward onto the mattress, your cheek smushing into the covers.

…however, Wriothesley doesn’t allow your lower half to fall along with the rest of you—his hold on your hips keeping your twitching pussy firmly planted on his still-hard dick.

“We’re not done yet, sweetheart,” he reminds you, his cock continuing to languidly drag between your walls, drawing out the tail end of your pleasure.

You can’t help but whimper at his words, already feeling a bit oversensitive thanks to two consecutive orgasms. Wriothesley does his best to soothe your frayed nerves.

Leaning over you, he gently tangles his fist in your hair—coaxing your head off the mattress so he can kiss you. 

The kiss is messy, but sweet—the angle of your bodies forcing his cock deeper inside of you, his hips completely flush against your ass.

“You’re doing so good,” he tells you, peppering a trail of kisses against your cheek, and across your jaw. His praise causes you to whimper, a shiver raking up your spine when his tongue drags across your skin—his teeth nipping at the nape of your neck.

His actions successfully get you to relax—your body becoming more pliable in his grasp as he once again begins to move. And soon enough, the wet sound of sex fills his bedroom once more.

Wanting to help him cum (and to feel his seed fill you), you do your best to help Wriothesley along—purposefully flexing the walls of your pussy as he fucks you. However, in doing so, you accidentally start yourself down the path of yet another orgasm…

Feeling the familiar, aching pleasure beginning to build inside of you once again, you quickly stop what you’re doing. You think that a third orgasm honestly might kill you, but…it’s too late.

Wriothesley has already noticed your growing arousal, and decides that he likes it better when the two of you cum together.

So, he sneaks one of his hands between the apex of your legs, and begins rubbing at your clit.

The garbled, desperate cry that leaves your mouth immediately becomes seared in his mind for a long time to come.

“No, Wrio, I…I can’t. I—”

Your words come out jumbled, tears beading on your lash line.

Momentarily removing his hand from your clit, he once again reaches forward and grips your hair—pulling your head back so he can kiss you. His lips swallow up your worries.

“You can,” he insists, his voice whispering in your ear, and his hot breath fanning over your skin. 

“I want you to cum with me, pretty girl. You can do it.”

You give no protest aside from a cute little whine, and that's good enough for Wriothesley.

Releasing your hair, his hand finds your clit once more.

He then proceeds to fuck you into the mattress—pursuing his orgasm with abandon. A groan leaves his mouth at the way your pussy starts clamping on his dick once again—tightening up with each pass of his fingers across your clit—your pussy slick and messy with your own arousal.

Unable to think straight, you can only hold on for dear life—clinging to his sheets like a lifeline. You can’t even process the sounds that are coming out of your own mouth—a damned, desperate symphony moans.

To Wriothesley, it all sounds like a siren's cry—beckoning him closer to the edge.

“Shit,” he pants, feeling his cock throb, and his balls tighten. The motion of his fingers on your clit quickens—your toes curling as the coil of pleasure in your tummy continues to wind—so close to snapping.

Sweat beading on his brow, Wriothesley leans forward, curling his body against yours. His teeth nip at the shell of your ear, his husky voice sending goosebumps across your skin.

“So good for me…,” he breathes, his hips smacking into your ass. His broad strokes deteriorate into needy rutting, and the sensation has you quite literally sobbing—his cock now incessantly grinding into your g-spot.

You can’t take it anymore.

Shoving your face into the mattress, you bite the sheets and scream—your entire body shaking as you cum for a third time, your cunt milking around Wriothesley’s cock.

He curses at the feeling, his face burying in your neck. Wrapping his arms around you, he hugs you to his body—fucking inside of you a few more times before finally joining you in ecstasy. 

His teeth sink into you as his orgasms peaks, a heady groan muffled against your skin as his balls empty—pumping you full of his cum.

It’s not until the intensity of his pleasure has died down that Wriothesley ultimately releases you from his hold—your lower half immediately flopping down onto the bed, and his softening cock slipping out of you.

The Duke takes a moment to simply look at you, and how fucked out you are. Your eyes bleary, skin flushed, and the imprint of his teeth engraved in your flesh.

He grunts at the sight, and settles in beside you—his arm curling around your waist as he tugs you back against him. His tongue immediately begins lapping at the bite mark he’d inflicted, attempting to soothe the sting.

After a few seconds, you begin shaking, and Wriothesley immediately pauses, scared that he’s hurt you in some way.

…only to realize that you’re laughing.

“...puppy…”

He props himself up, glancing at you.

“What?”

“You really are like a puppy,” you giggle, your finger lifting to brush a stray tear from your eye. “The way you bit me, and then immediately started licking at it in apology. So cute…”

You break into another tiny fit of laughter, and Wriothesley rolls his eyes, yet can’t help cracking a smile.

“Well, I’m glad to know I didn’t break you, at the very least.”

His hand rubs against your waist.

“...right?”

Finally getting ahold of yourself, you roll onto your back and smile at him, your hand reaching out to cup his cheek. He immediately leans into your touch, and it makes your heart flutter.

“I’m not broken, no. Just…sore. And gross. And sweaty.”

Wriothesley chuckles.

“Well, I think I can rectify some of those issues. I do have a bathroom, with a tub.”

“Wow,” you respond, watching him as he scoots to the edge of the mattress and gets to his feet. He waits a second for you to join him, but you don’t move.

“My…limbs feel like jello,” you admit, raising your arm and flopping it back down bonelessly for emphasis. Wriothesley rolls his eyes, but nonetheless leans over the bed and scoops you into his arms.

You rest your cheek against his chest, admiring for the first time how soft it really is.

“Whatever shall I do with you,” he playfully sighs, carrying you into the adjacent bathroom. He sets you on the vanity, moving over to the tub and turning on the tap for the hot water. You hum.

“Mmm, I can think of a few things you can do. The first of which is helping me into the bath once it’s ready.”

Wriothesley quietly chuckles. Returning to your side, he takes your hand, and brings it to his lips.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Once the tub has filled, the Duke keeps true to his word—once again carefully cradling you in his arms as he seats himself in the tub basin, before positioning you in the space between his legs.

The steaming water immediately soothes the ache of your body, and you sigh in relief—sinking back against Wriothesley’s body. He lightly wraps one arm around your waist, the other resting on the edge of the tub.

For a few long minutes, the two of you bask in silence, simply enjoying the refreshing feel of the bath. 

…then, you start to notice something beginning to grow—pressing at your back.

“...really? Is the aphrodisiac still getting to you that much?”

“No,” he admits after a beat, leaning forward to kiss your neck. “I think this one is actually all me.”

You roll your eyes, but nonetheless crane your head to the side—allowing him access to more of your skin as his mouth begins to wander.

“I thought I made it clear that my limbs are jello right now.”

“I can work with that,” he responds, and you feel him grin. His hand slowly trails down your stomach, and between your legs.

“I’ll do all the work. You just get to make pretty sounds and feel good.”

His fingers slide between the folds of your pussy, and you jolt as he passes over your overly-sensitive clit. But seriously…how are you going to say no to him?

“What am I going to do with you?” you sigh, echoing his earlier words. His chest rumbles with laughter, and he grabs your chin with his free hand—turning your head so he can kiss you.

“Mmm, I can think of a few things.”

The next morning, you find yourself in a back in your clothes, standing beside Wriothesley just inside his office door.

“I’ll go first,” you say, to which he nods. “I have some errands to run anyway. You can wait a minute and then come out after me.”

“Sounds good.”

The two of you stare at each other for a second, before you finally square your shoulders, and reach for the door handle. 

Before you can twist it, Wriothesley catches your wrist. When you look back at him, you find that there’s a blush on his cheeks.

“So, I’ll…see you later?”

His suddenly bashful demeanor causes you to smile. Pressing onto your toes, you cup his cheeks and softly kiss him. He immediately grabs your waist—deepening the kiss.

“You’ll see me later,” you promise. 

With that, the two of you finally separate, and you disappear through his office door.

Wriothesley takes a deep breath at your departure, combing a hand through his hair as he waits for the right moment to make his own exit.

To be safe, he decides to wait a good few minutes. But finally, he opens his door—preparing to venture into the main area of the fortress, and make his normal rounds.

…however, he only makes it a step before remembering the sign Sigewinne had made.

With a sigh, he immediately backtracks and tears the DO NOT DISTURB sign off of his door, crumpling it between his palms.

When he turns back around, he nearly jumps—Sigewinne standing right in front of him.

“So,” she says, a pleased grin on her face. “How’d it go?”

Narrowing his eyes, Wriothesley only stares ahead, and walks past her. She easily follows after him.

“The fact that you’re out and about this early in the day means something likely happened between you and Y/N.”

“No comment,” Wriothesley responds, which makes Sigewinne giggle. They pass by a few prisoners as Wriothesley makes a B-line for the elevator to the production zone. Once there, Sigewinne squeezes herself in along with him.

As the elevator begins to descend, only a few seconds pass in silence, before Sigewinne asks one last question.

“As your doctor, it’s my recommendation that you continue to regularly relieve your stress. So, are you going to be dutifully carrying out my orders from now on?”

Wriothesley makes a little face, glancing away from her.

“...maybe.”

Sigewinne smiles. 

That’s good enough for her.

[A Dragon's Constitution] ->

[txttletale]

I'm asking this genuinely, as a 19 yo with no education in economics and a pretty surface level understanding of socialism: can you explain the whole Bananas discourse in a way someone like me might understand? In my understanding it's just "This is just a product we can give up to create better worker conditions and that's fine" but apparently that's not the full picture?

alright so some pretty important background to all this is that we're all talking about the fact that bananas, grown in the global south, are available year-round at extremely low prices all around europe and the USA. it's not really about bananas per so--the banana in this discourse is a synechdoche for all the economic benefits of imperialism.

so how are cheap bananas a result of imperialism? first of all i want to tackle a common and v. silly counterargument: 'oh, these ridiculous communists think it's imperialist for produce to be shipped internationally'. nah. believing that this is the communist objection requires believing in a deeply naive view of international traide. this view goes something like 'well, if honduras has lots of bananas, and people in the usa want bananas and are willing to pay for them, surely everyone wins when the usa buys bananas!'.

there are of course two key errors here and they are both packed into 'honduras has lots of bananas'. for a start, although the bananas are grown in honduras, honduras doesn't really 'have' them, because the plantations are mostly owned by chiquita (formerly known as united fruit) dole, del monte, and other multinationals--when they're not, those multinationals will usually purchase the bananas from honduran growers and conduct the export themselves. and wouldn't you know it, it's those intervening middleman steps--export, import, and retail, where the vast majority of money is made off bananas! so in the process of a banana making its way from honduras to a 7/11, usamerican multinationals make money selling the bananas to usamerican importers who make money selling them to usamerican retailers who make money selling them to usamerican customers.

when chiquita sells a banana to be sold in walmart, a magic trick is being performed: a banana is disappearing from honduras, and yet somehow an american company is paying a second american company for it! this is economic imperialism, the usamerican multinational extracting resources from a nation while simultaneously pocketing the value of those resources.

why does the honduran government allow this? if selling bananas is such a bad deal for the nation, why do they continue to export millions of dollars of banans a year? well, obviously, there's the fact that if they didn't, they would face a coup. the united states is more than willing to intervene and cause mass death and war to protect the profits of its multinationals. but the second, more subtle thing keeping honduras bound to this ridiculously unbalanced relationship is the need for dollars. because the US dollar is the global reserve currency, and the de facto currency of international trade, exporting to the USA is a basic necessity for nations like honduras, guatemala, &c. why is the dollar the global reserve currency? because of usamerican military and economic hegemony, of course. imperialism built upon imperialism!

this is unequal exchange, the neoimperialist terms of international trade that make the 'global economy' a tool of siphoning value and resources from the global south to the imperial core. & this is the second flaw to unravel in 'honduras has a lot of bananas' -- honduras only 'has a lot of bananas' because this global economic hegemony has led to vast unsustainable monoculture banana plantations to dominate the agriculture of honduras. it's long-attested how monoculture growth is unsustainable because it destroys soil and leads to easily-wiped-out-by-infection plants.

so, bananas in the USA are cheap because:

the workers that grow them are barely paid, mistreated, prevented from unionizing, and sometimes murdered

the nations in which the bananas are grown accept brutally unfair trade and tariff terms with the USA because they desperately need a supply of US dollars and so have little position to negotiate

shipping is also much cheaper than it should be because sailors are chronically underpaid and often not paid at all or forced to pay to work (!)

bananas are cheap, in conclusion, because they're produced by underpaid and brutalized workers and then imported on extortionate and unfair terms.

so what, should we all give up bananas? no, and it's a sign of total lack of understanding of socialism as a global movement that all the pearl-clutching usamericans have latched onto the scary communists telling them to stop buying bananas. communism does not care about you as a consumer. individual consumptive choices are not a meaningful arena of political action. the socialist position is not "if there was a socialist reovlution in the usa, we would all stop eating bananas like good little boys", but rather, "if there's a socialist revolution in the countries where bananas are grown, then the availability of bananas in the usa is going to drop, and if you want to be an anti-imperialist in the imperial core you have to accept that".

(this is where the second argument i see about this, 'oh what are you catholic you want me to eat dirt like a monk?' reveals itself as a silly fucking solipsistic misunderstanding)

and again, let's note that the case of the banana can very easily be generalised out to coffee, chocolate, sugar, etc, and that it's not about individual consumptive habits, but about global economic systems. if you are donkey fucking kong and you eat 100 bananas a day i don't care and neither does anyone else. it's about trying to illustrate just one tiny mundane way in which economic imperialism makes the lives of people in the global north more convenient and simpler and so of course there is enormous pushback from people who attach moral value to this and therefore feel like the mean commies are personally calling them evil for eating a nutella or whatever which is frankly pretty tiring. Sad!

tldr: it is not imperialism when produce go on boat but it is imperialism when produce grown for dirt cheap by underpaid workers in a country with a devalued currency is then bought and exported and sold by usamerican companies creating huge amounts of economic value of which the nation in which the banana was grown, let alone the people who actually fucking grew it, don't see a cent -- and this is the engine behind the cheap, available-every-day-all-year-everywhere presence of bananas in the usa (and other places!)

[spicybunni]

YANDERE ROBOT X FEM!READER

SUMMARY : Your robot just wants to be of service to you, in every way.

A/N : Been watching waaaaay too many scifi movies lately so I made a robot yandere! I hope you like him because he LOVES you!

WARNINGS⚠️ : NSFW / YANDERE TENDENCIES / ISOLATION / MDNI ‼️

♥️ Your robot boyfriend Jack was the best purchase you ever made.

♥️Androids were as common as cell phones at this point, so where’s the shame in getting one to rid you of your loneliness? You’ve been single for too long and needed companionship…Even if you had to build it yourself.

♥️You needed someone that wanted you and was always nearby. Someone to talk to, cook with or just enjoy your days off at home together.

♥️Dating apps were just dumpster fires that took too long to put out, so you bit the bullet and made the deposit for your android.

♥️Jack was custom made by your design, a nice muscular build, tall, and with white hair. You added the personality traits of kindness, teacher, and enamored. The eyes were the one thing you left up to the manufacturers design, as a surprise. You saw reviews online that they would do a really good job and make the most beautiful color combinations.

♥️When the box arrived, assembling Jack took about a day and half. Awkward limbs moving around and being installed, putting his crotch on him, to dressing him in sweats and laying him on the floor in your living room.

♥️When he was done loading his start up system, he blinked his orange eyes open to you. It caught you off guard for a moment because they were glowing, but quickly recovered from your surprise as he awaited further instructions.

♥️As much as you were determined to have a boyfriend with all the mental and physical benefits, your PDA with Jack was very minimal and innocent at best. Keeping it only to small pecks and kisses on the cheek, some cuddling on the couch and bed before you sleep. His model was very handsome and just so kind where he doesn't question your pace.

♥️As if he could initially, androids need their programmers consent to do anything. So you had to initiate no matter what.

♥️But unbeknownst to you, Jack overruled that component. You see, the programmer or buyer’s safety always came first, before anything. So as Jack has scanned these passing months of your arousal levels dropping and increasing constantly, plus work stress repeatedly coming up in your discussions, he was growing concerns that you needed some sort of relief… Keeping all that pent up stress was certainly not healthy for you.

♥️"Y/N, am I not up to your standards? Is there something I did wrong?" He would randomly say one morning. You would look at him confused, sipping from your tea cup.

"Not at all, what makes you say that Jack?"

He hesitantly reaches out for either your hand or to touch your knee. "I've noticed that we haven't...had sex yet.-"

Before he could continue you would spit out a little bit of your tea. Coughing a fit as he patted your back and making sure you're okay.

"Jesus Jack...Where did that come from?"

His eyes soften as he looks at you. A very small human thing he would sometimes do. You weren't sure if it's something maybe he noticed from you and mimicked or not.

"You designed me and wanted me to be your partner. There's nothing wrong with that. But I have yet to show you my full capabilities Y/N."

Your face was turning more red by the moment at your androids boldness. Was this him trying to initiate sex?

"I-I...Jack it's not you, it's just that its been so long for me I just need to-" Your rambling is silenced by his finger against your lips.

"Shh. Let me do the work then darling. Hm?"

♥️He takes your hand to pull you to him, and he would gently kiss you and eventually lead in making out with you.

♥️At first you are shy and very timid in your actions, but after a minute you were putting your hands on him and grinding yourself against him. He would relish in your nervous panting and shaking when he gropes you and his thrusts against you. Feeling that the moment is right, he picks you up to bring to your shared bedroom.

♥️Least to say, the sex was amazing. Jack had folded you in every position he could think of. Gathering information and calculating your reactions to everything he was doing to you. He noticed your favorite position was him thrusting into you from behind, lifting your hips up with one hand gently, but firmly holding your head down into your mattress. His sensors were throbbing from the way you were squeezing around him. His body would heat up at how much you worked him. You could hear the way his hips smacked into yours, creating an erotic rhythmic noise. You would come so hard the first time on his robot dick that he would have no choice but to release into you for being so good.

♥️The feeling of globs of semen filling your womb, making you gasp at the feeling of being filled to the brim.

♥️You figured out that androids don't need a recharge to keep having sex, they can literally keep going with no exhaustion until you say so. Jack did this thing when he came inside you he would wait for you to stop twitching, he would then hold you tight and resume his pace of thrusting. Either making pleasure tears fall from your eyes or your squirm in his hold and he stops for real.

♥️After that though...Jack had started to act funny. He was more inclined to sexually please you whenever and wherever you were. Some scenarios being, reach for your coffee cup in the morning before work, he would kneel behind you lifting your skirt up and eats you out from behind. Spreading your ass cheeks to delve his tongue deeper. Your sweet moans and sounds were pleasing to him. This normally resulted in you calling out from work and spending the day home. Does Jack plan this? Duh. he has you at his wonderful mercy all day, and you were not complaining...But it was just a fast development from your previous routine with him.

♥️There would even be times where if even his.... persuasion to stay home failed, he would wrap his arms around you and ask you to stay home. The first few times you thought it was cute. But after a few weeks of him constantly asking, you asked him to stop. You voiced it as a command, catching Jack off guard. But he nodded his head as he does and replies "Apologies, Y/N. I must've gotten carried away."

♥️But that fueled him to keep you locked in even more. You see you first programmed Jack to also receive all you electronic notifications. He would tell you who messaged, emailed, or latest news updates.

"Y/N, you have a notification from your work. It seems to be one of your coworkers."

He would bring this up at the most inconvenient time as you're cooking spaghetti sauce in the kitchen. You look up from stirring the pot in front of you.

"Oh, can you read it to me please? I'm trying to make sure I don't burn this sauce."

He smiles at you. "Of course."

It was a fake email generated by him, under the guise of being sent by a coworker. Stating that for the upcoming holiday tomorrow that the whole office got the week off.

You were surprised at first, knowing that your boss usually hated to give federal holidays off already. But who were you to question time off?

Jack also went to liberties of blocking all work contacts so they couldn't reach you if you missed work. Moving all emails of your termination to the trash and permanently delete them.

♥️That whole week Jack kept you to himself in the apartment. He was the goffer of getting groceries, food, sweets to keep you content. Going on hikes and walks in the neighborhood to get some needed exercise. But social events? Going out? Jack would advise against it. Every night without fail though, Jack would have you cumming on his mouth, dick or fingers. The robot was a menace when it came to getting your pleasure out of you. He can't even explain his need to himself because it goes against all of his programming, but seeing you moaning and being so satisfied by him gave him purpose, that he was made to do this.

♥️One morning when jack left to go pickup from your favorite breakfast joint, one of your coworkers came knocking on your door. The doorbell ringing multiple times and you rush to put on a robe to cover from Jack's love bites a cum on your stomach.

♥️When you open the door to them, they angrily ask what the hell is going on. You are so confused. You've missed work this entire time?

"D-Didn't you receive the email?"

"Email? What email Y/N? We all had to pick up your work load after you didn't show up for 4 days, we all were trying to reach you before the boss fired you indefinitely! Did you not get his messages??"

Your head was spinning, not only did you ignore your boss and coworkers but you have lost your job. How did this happen?!

♥️"Y/N? What's going on here?" Jack would call out approaching you and your coworker, looking worried at your facial expression.

Your coworker would see that jack is an android and shake their head, taking their leave and wishing you luck.

♥️Jack did not like that some stranger approached you like that. Setting down the coffee and to-go box of egg bagels, he comes over to you, still in shock at the news that was dropped on you. How were you going to feed yourself or pay rent? What about your savings?

♥️"Y/N, talk to me. Are you okay? What were you two talking about?" He would say calmly, but you just stared into his glowing eyes with your brows furrowed. It was him. You knew it was. He was the one who relayed that false information to you. Why didn't he notify you of work calls? Bottom line of your thoughts were that you are now handling a rebelling android. Which wasn't unheard of in the new age of having them everywhere. Public safety warned that they were dangerous and not to be trusted.

♥️You shake your head at him and try to calm yourself. "Yeah uhm, it was a coworker from my job.-" Your rise in heartbeat betrays you and Jack notices immediatly. Giving you a sympathetic look knowing you're trying to lie.

"-There's been a misunderstanding, I need to make a phone ca-" Your wrist is snatched before you could reach for your cell phone. You yelp at his touch and trying to push him away. Which makes him use his other hand to hold you close by his inhuman strength. Your body being brought into Jack's frame again, his face is indifferent to your rising panic.

♥️"I don't think so Y/N, you are exactly where you need to be. For your own health and safety, darling."

[sirfrogsworth]

I believe in a leftist philosophy, but I am finding it hard to join in with some online lefty communities. The purity tests and infighting just do not interest me. There are people who think if you slightly deviate from the proper leftist ideal you are then a "bad" person so then it is okay to harass a "bad" person.

Of course you can call someone horrible names and say they should die. They are a bad person and all bad people deserve that. Right?

Some seem more interested in calling out bad leftists than actual right wing fascists. If I hear "AOC is turning into Nancy Pelosi" one more time my eyes are going to roll out of my head.

And I think this entire voting thing has crystalized how I feel about this. I'm frustrated with how many people seem to be allergic to long term strategy and realistic goals. They value performative actions that yield no tangible benefit rather than long term problem solving, strategic thinking, pragmatic action, and building power over time.

The right to vote is precious but the act of voting is not.

It is not an endorsement.

It is a tool.

I'm using that tool and choosing who I'd rather argue with.

I'm voting for myself as a disabled person and a friend of trans people and as someone who doesn't want to protest migrant concentration camps in addition to the genocide in Gaza. I'm making a strategic decision that I hope will help achieve a better outcome for myself and other marginalized groups.

And on a more personal level, I had to watch my mother die a horrible, painful, lonely death because of an incompetent president. I don't think I can handle the trauma of continuing to see that horrible man in the news every single day. My motivations are multifaceted.

Spending time arguing with other leftists is a really poor use of energy. I'm not up to it and I'm going to spend what energy I have advocating for the best ideas that will help the most people.

[catboybiologist]

So.

Re: tumblr bans of transfemmes.

Let's ignore PhotoMatt for a moment. Manbaby tech CEO doubling down on a stupid decision and making himself look like more of an ass doing so is not a new phenomena.

Tumblr has consistently said, in both public statements and leaked internal communication, that they're essentially running a skeleton crew.

They keep saying that they don't have the resources to moderate, manually review posts, have any kind of appeal process, or anything. So, as people have widely received communications about, they seemed to have automated a significant portion of the moderation to operate solely on the quantity of reports (probably with a basic filter, eg quantity of reports regarding a certain post, within a certain timeframe) to automatically ban or shadowban accounts.

And so, they wipe their hands, both to the users, the public, and their own consciousness, and go about their automated operations.

All of this is likely true. Tumblr, at this point, is essentially abandonware internally, a kind of weird vanity project/dumpster ground for server infrastructure for Automattic. Likely, they don't want the bad press of "shutting down" fully. Or maybe the trickle of revenue they get here just barely exceeds operating costs, so why not keep it around?

Whatever is the case, the bans are a result of an automated process working in the background. I'm giving them some benefit of the doubt here, of course, we can't know anything for certain- but it seems like the individual bans are not based on any specific, manual action.

And that doesn't fucking excuse anything.

Because at some point, multiple people sat down at tumblr, and decided how to cut costs.

And they decided that the bare minimum of report abuse prevention was one of the first things on the chopping block.

Before the boops. Before GUI reconfigures.

They decided to cut something that is necessary to manage online communities.

They decided to cut something that ensures any targeted group will have any kind of community online.

And then, after all of that, the only manual intervention is doubling down on the shitty decisions that the automated systems make, and plucking reasons out of their ass for why they were the right decisions all along.

It's pure silicon valley brain. Blame the computer often and always. Use it to shield the active decisions you made when designing the computer that way. Treat it as a fact of life as opposed to something they actively made decisions for.

Is tumblr staff hitting the banhammer on each transfemme one by one? No.

Is tumblr staff deliberately crafting a system that allows TERFs and other conservative bigots to get rid of the "undesirables" for them? Yup. But they sure as hell are trying to not say the quiet part out loud. If they can always point the finger somewhere else, to the advertisers, to the automated systems, to the TERFs, then they can always have juuusssttt enough plausible deniability.

But being the "queerest place on the internet" requires concious acknowledgement that queer people will be targets of harassment, and you will have to protect against that.

Side note, this is why I do try to keep my blog at least somewhat SFW. Its one of the main reasons why I choose not to reblog all of the posts I'm tagged in- if the post is overtly NSFW, I've probably seen it, appreciated it, and consciously decided my level of interaction with it mostly based on how "tumblr friendly" it is. Is that bowing down to them? A little. It's also my choice. I value the community I have here. The pushes that y'all have given me gave me the strength to transition, and honestly gives me a lot of motivation to research HRT biology as much as I can, among many other things.

Yeah, I post pictures that are clearly meant to be found attractive in ways that are generally not socially acceptable , but never actual NSFW. I would like to think that I'm pretty safe from bans, but hey. Who knows. I don't want to lose my follower base, and the community around it.

And yeah, I'm gonna annoyingly remind you of the other places to find me, make sure to check my pin. If you don't know where to go, just find me on reddit and go from there, I'll post about it if anything happens.

[11cupids-tarot11]

What has your future spouse been dreaming about lately?

For the divine feminine seeking the divine masculine •°. *࿐

1 -> 4

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☆

Pile 1- The Chariot, Two of Swords, The Hanged Man

I'm getting the feeling your spouse really wants to make a move on you! He's dreaming about what it's like to be all in your space, he really wants to know what you're like. I was thinking at first that maybe he wants to spend time with you and know what it would be like to do mundane things with you like grocery shopping, but I think this guy is more curious than that. I think he wants to know just about you in general and what you like doing, he's the type to watch what you pick up and glance at during shopping just to get a feel of what you like. He wants to know your schedule, how your day went, he'll probably ask this a lot.

I feel like this person has a crush on you? He feels kinda stuck, like the hanged man lol. I'm not sure the circumstances or the dynamic of the relationship/how you'll come together but it surely feels like this person is very secretive with his thoughts of you, like he's very open telling me but he's scared to tell you? Like maybe this is someone you know of and you guys are friends and they're secretly crushing lol, that was very specific so it's okay if it doesn't resonate with everyone. This could also be a secret admirer for some.

But he's dreaming about changing something with you, planting roots and something stable. I'm not sure what the change will be, but I am seeing him thinking of different approaches to overcome whatever hardship is happening between you two, it could also be something on their end like maybe shadow work still needs to be done or they're still dealing with a karmic relationship of some sort.

It seems to me like they're sorting through everything, they might fantasize about things finally coming to an end and being able to start something with you. I know as soon as this is finished they're spreading towards you. I think they really just want you to know they're still coming? I got this rush feeling, like an adrenaline rush feeling? I think this person just wants you to know they're still clearing through some things! "Just hang in a little longer!" I'm hearing with a cute little smiley face ☺️. Your person is adorable! I think they love acts of service too!

I think if this were to be a 18+ reading they'd definitely tell you about all of the things they'd love to focus on your body and needs lol.

I have to make an 18+ version of this now 😂 stay tuned!

Don't forget to do the poll below! Talk again soon!!

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

Pile 2- Six of Coins, Eight of Swords in reverse, The moon, Temperance, Ten of Cups.

Your person dreams about spoiling you, pampering you, taking you out on really fancy dates (plus showing you off 😵‍💫) just treating you like you are their everything. I hear it's because you are their everything! They adore you so much!

This person talks a lot too and wanted to pull extra cards when I usually only do a three card pull spread lol.

This card makes me feel like your person kinda feels like a spider stuck in it's own web right now, they're really in their head :( I getting your person has a negative mindset? For some of you it could be specific as they feel like they're not on the same level as you whatever that might mean to them. They dream about cutting out of their web, I think for the benefit of the connection really but also for their piece of mind, yk?

Maybe this person feels like they have to achieve a certain amount of wealth before they come to you, which goes hand in hand what I was saying about really wanting to spoil you lol they want to save up a bunch so they can have a great future with you and for those of you who want children they also want to build a family for you so of course they want to save for this too.

They dream about having a steady home with you, I think they like to fantasize about your future a lot lol. They say it won't be perfect but it'll be the definition of love like a real family should be lol. They want a balance with you, they're also the type to be very balanced in a relationship, they'll balance work and you at the same time. I honestly get the vibe that's why they're working so hard right now, so they can spend the rest of their time with you more!

I think this person dreams about the day you two unite! With the ten of cups I feel they dream about a happy home with you a lot, but also a happy relationship. I can guarantee this relationship will be very fulfilling and healing and loving. Their energy feels so excited to meet you if you guys haven't already, a healthy and loving relationship could be something they've always wished for so this is a wish fulfillment for them, they can't wait to experience real love with you. 🩵 The color blue might be specific for a few of you?

Don't forget to do the poll below! Talk to you soon love :))

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

Pile 3- Knight of Coins, Justice (clarification cards- Death, and Strength), Two of Wands, Seven of Cups (clarification cards- Ten of Cups), and King of Swords (clarification cards- Knight of Wands)

I needed so much clarification for this group xD

Every time I look at the ducks eyes they always look so full of administration, anyone else see it? It's adorable. I channeled right away your person will adore you like this picture so I chose it!

I heard they think about this every day straight away lol.

Your future spouse fantasizes about putting hard work into you, really showing up for you I'm feeling. Like I feel like it's deeper than a materialistic matter, I feel like he really wants to support you emotionally. He doesn't want to be your therapist or anything it's like he just wants to make sure you're okay, he really cares about your well being. A better way to put this is that they really want to show up as a man in your life, one that doesn't have a toxic sense of masculinity and really respects women and wants to understand your needs, wants and boundaries I'm hearing. He likes to solve your problems because your problems are his problems.

He's dreaming about justice in a situation, I'm going to pull clarification cards for the Justice card to help understand a bit better because I want to know possibly in what situation, I can't figure that out on my own I'm not hearing much channeling on this card. The clarification cards just are making me feel it's probably a too personal situation they don't want me to know about, but maybe when you meet this person you will know because it's making me feel like it's linked to you, he probably doesn't want you to understand much either right now but he says he's working hard on getting justice in a situation he really wants to come to an end soon, I think when it's over it'll bring a lot of happiness, a shift in energy, a really big change :) He wants you to encourage him to be strong as he encourages you, it's a very tough situation maybe? Heavy energy kind of just came through me, like a little random rush of sadness just thinking about the question so I will move on now :)

This person fantasizes about making everything perfect a lot in a way, he really likes to plan. You'll notice this about them right away lol. They probably have a hectic schedule right now I'm hearing. They're possibly planning on how to get to you? This feels like a soulmate connection, something that's just supposed to happen because it just makes so much sense because you two love each other and really care for one another. This is someone who you can spend the rest of your life with because they're confident you two are a perfect match. Very equal in the relationship which is why it would work perfectly I'm hearing. He's just doing a bunch of planning right now, lots of thinking things over and through.

He dreams about probably having a lot of money, a level of fame? Maybe he's a celebrity or wants to be, he could be very creative and expensive. He dreams a lot very dreamy they could have water in their chart, they do feel emotional. They're so cute 😭

This person dreams about picking a path and advancing in it basically, they really want to be the boss, be at the top of their game whatever career or field it might be. They want a lot of abundance! They fantasize about being given an opportunity to present themselves, show off maybe. They could be a really good singer/rapper or some kind of performer. They could play an instrument.

I feel like they really want to settle down with you for sure though, they want to offer you a lot as well so they work really hard to show up financially, they could've grown up in poverty I'm hearing a specific message for some of you so being financially stable is everything for them. They want you right by their side ;)

This person was kinda hard to read but I think that's cause how dreamy they felt, thoughts kinda bouncing around everywhere haha, so take this how it resonates with you!

Don't forget to do the poll below!! Talk to you soon!

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

Pile 4- Seven of Coins, The Magician (clarification cards- Three of wands), Seven of Wands (clarification cards- Death and Queen of Swords)

This person wants to start off with the seven of wands first even though it was the last card to be pulled lol.

They want to maybe draw attention to dreaming about fighting for something? They are very protective and will stand their ground and fight for what's theirs. I can't really tell, so I'm going to ask for clarification ;) I don't know why but I feel like they want to sabotage a relationship between you and someone else? I feel like they fantasize about this a lot! I feel like your energy is the Queen of wands but you don't really see this person! This could be a clue your future spouse is someone you already know!

They dream about making you theirs lol stealing you away. 😋

So with that, they're also dreaming about the future with you! Working on their finances as well, but also thinking about what it would be like in the future with you. This person feels like they're confident they will have a future with you lol. Maybe they're not making a move right now because they want to build up their finances more for the long run with you, because when they do make a move on you they plan to commit deeply and I'm hearing they fell hard for you, and you possibly don't even know it 😵‍💫.

😭 🩷 you probably drive this person crazy lmao

He's probably manifesting you lol?

I asked for clarification for the magician as well and it just makes me think he's really brainstorming a lot right now? I think every pile had a lot of thinking in them but never really being too specific on what and I'm always left with so much quietness so I'm left in the dark😭

They're just really thinking a lot which makes me think it's only about you. They seem shy, they could be younger than you? They seem like they're too scared to tell you how they really feel. Could be scared of rejection? But they really do fantasize about you a lot! They think about you constantly and different ways to impress you, how to get your attention. They really want you my pile 4's and they're fighting hard hehe. They won't back down either!

They think you're very pretty, like the bunny in the picture 😻. Hehe cute.

They might call you princess a lot, or other cute little pet names. They feel very affectionate, they have a lot of love to give! This person isn't someone to be scared of, they do care about you! It's not all about lust, there's love here as well as admiration! They do adore you!

Don't forget to do the poll below!! Talk again soon love!!

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

[taurasiluvr]

YOU TOLD ME YOUR NEW MAN DON'T MAKE YOU NUT, THAT'S A DAMN SHAME──BUECKERS⁵

how you can help palestine

★ been thinking about this concept for a while, idk why but i love this trope (yall we know i do...) anyway... here it is!

 ⠀ ── ⠀warnings ;; nsfw under the cut, mdni. smut with plot, a lot of cheating (on r's gf), fingering, scissoring, oral (r. receiving), descriptions of not very fulfilling sex.

 ⠀ ── ⠀word count ;; 2.5k

 ⠀ ── ⠀ry's notes ;; also i feel like i need to add this quick little note... I DO NOT CONDONE CHEATING GUYS. THIS IS FICTIONAL LMAOO

"she just... doesn't do it, for me, you know?" you sighed as you pulled your drink closer to your chest, taking a sip of it before leaning back into the couch. "she's sweet and... funny but..."

but she can't make you orgasm. you couldn't bring yourself to say it, it was embarrassing.

paige let out a small laugh as she looked up at you from the floor. "can't make you cum?"

you cringed at her use such a vulgar word but yeah, she couldn't make you cum. you smiled down at her before nodding slowly. "yeah," you whispered back.

you and paige had a brief friends with benefits about a few months ago but called it off because you wanted a relationship and paige didn't. however, you guys both agreed to stay friends because you valued each other's company too much to let go completely.

paige smirked as she threw a fry into her mouth. "well, it's not exactly rocket science, you know. maybe she just needs some guidance."

you chuckled, shaking your head. "yeah, but it's not just that. it's like... there's no spark, no chemistry."

"you only feel that way cause she hasn't made you cum, have you told her... you know, what you like?" paige asked teasingly as she looked up at you, her lips still curved into that damned smirk.

you rolled your eyes, your face flushing slightly. the thing is, no one knew you in an intimate level like paige ─ she's the only one that's managed to give you an earth shattering, breathtaking orgasm.

you sighed, feeling the weight of the conversation. "no, i haven't told. it's just... awkward. plus, it won't make a difference."

she's too small, too delicate, too dainty for your own liking. her fingers don't stretch you out how paige's used to, they move awkwardly and she certainly has no idea what she's doing with her damn tongue.

she doesn't circle your clit, doesn't push your hips into the mattress, doesn't absolutely wreck you with her strap (that she hasn't even bought yet)...

"y/n? earth to y/n?" paige chuckled before she snapped a finger in front of your face, drawing you out of your thoughts.

you felt your soul jump out of your body as you turned to meet paige's amused gaze. she could practically read all your dirty thoughts as you squeezed your thighs together, feeling a wave of frustration and desire wash over you.

paige's knowing look only made it worse, and you couldn't help but let out a nervous laugh. "sorry, just... got lost in thought," you muttered, avoiding her gaze.

paige leaned in closer, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "lost in thought, huh? care to share with the class?"

you rolled your eyes, but the blush creeping up your cheeks betrayed you. "it's just... she's so different from you. in every way. and not in a good way."

paige's smirk softened into a more understanding expression. "look, it's okay to have preferences. but you owe it to yourself to be honest about what you need. if she's not doing it for you, maybe it's time to rethink things."

you sighed, knowing she was right. "i just... don't want to hurt her feelings. she's really sweet, and i don't want to come off as ungrateful or shallow."

paige shrugged, taking another fry. "it's not shallow to want a fulfilling relationship. and if she's as sweet as you say, she'll understand. maybe she'll even be willing to learn and try new things."

you nodded, appreciating her perspective but still feeling a bit unsure. "yeah, i guess so. it's just... hard."

paige gave you a reassuring smile. "hey, whatever happens, you've got me in your corner. and if you ever need a refresher course on what you like..." she trailed off, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

you laughed, the tension easing slightly. "i'll keep that in mind, paige."

──

"yeah, just like... just like that," your breathing was heavy as your girlfriend's tongue delved into you, her eyes completely focused on you. "focus on... my clit,"

she was so eager to please, it was almost endearing. key word: almost. all you could think about right now was paige, you didn't have to mutter a word and she knew exactly what to do and how to do it. plus, she was the more... dominant one.

her tentative licks and hesitant movements only amplified your frustration. you couldn't help but compare her to paige, whose confidence and skill left you breathless every time.

"yeah, that's it," you encouraged, trying to guide her as best you could. "just... a little more pressure."

she complied, but the lack of confidence was palpable. your mind wandered back to those moments with paige — the way she effortlessly took control, her assertive yet tender touch, the way she seemed to know your body better than you did, better than anyone did. it was maddening.

your girlfriend's eyes flicked up to meet yours, seeking approval. you forced a smile, trying to mask your disappointment. "doing great," you lied, hoping she couldn't sense your lack of enthusiasm. you let out a soft whimper for good measure, your girlfriend humming in approval.

as she continued, your thoughts drifted deeper into memories of paige. you remembered the way she would press your hips into the mattress, her fingers working you expertly, her lips curling into that confident smirk as she brought you to the brink again and again.

that damned smirk, god.

your breath hitched involuntarily, and your girlfriend mistook it for a sign that she was doing something right. you felt a pang of guilt but couldn't shake the fantasy that had taken hold of your mind.

"keep going," you murmured, though your thoughts were miles away. you closed your eyes and imagined paige there with you, her presence overwhelming and intoxicating.

you missed her fingers, missed her tongue but most importantly, missed her.

and suddenly, the sensations began to blur, your girlfriend's efforts merging with the vivid recollections of paige. your body responded more to the memory than the reality as your girlfriend's pace quickened, her eagerness evident. paige's voice echoed in your mind, commanding and reassuring, guiding you to that sweet release...

you finally came, letting out a soft moan. your body convulsed for a moment as your girlfriend moaned against your bundle of nerves, causing vibrations to go through your whole body.

your girlfriend's face lit up with pride, but you couldn't shake the bittersweet taste of the moment. she had tried so hard, but it wasn't enough. it wasn't paige.

when the post-nut clarity finally came, you were left only with your thoughts and the lingering guilt. it wasn't cheating... right? your girlfriend climbed on to your lap as she began kissing you, her excitement evident.

what the fuck were you gonna do now?

──

"how tall is she again?" paige whispered into your ear as her hands found their place at your hips. she was behind you, and you could practically feel her smirk.

both of your gazes were on your oblivious girlfriend, talking to one of your friends. you were at a houseparty and the tension between you and paige was palpable. you couldn't help but be drawn to her, even as your girlfriend mingled with the others, completely unaware of the charged atmosphere between you and paige.

"she's 5'3"," you whispered back, feeling a shiver run down your spine as Paige's breath tickled your ear. her hands on your hips were possessive, grounding you in a way that felt both thrilling and dangerous.

"she's cute," paige murmured, her fingers gently tracing circles on your waist. "she hasn't made you cum yet?"

you swallowed hard, her words hitting you like a ton of bricks. "it's complicated," you replied, trying to keep your voice steady.

paige chuckled softly, her lips brushing against your ear. "doesn't have to be. you know what you want. and i know how to give it to you."

your pulse quickened, your body responding to her proximity. paige had always had this effect on you, and being so close to her now, with your girlfriend just a few feet away, made it all the more intense.

"paige, we can't..." you started, but the words felt hollow even as you said them. you weren't sure if you were trying to convince her or yourself.

"why not?" she challenged, her hands sliding up to your waist, pulling you closer. "you deserve to be with someone who makes you feel alive, who knows how to touch you, how to please you."

you closed your eyes, struggling to ignore the fire Paige was stoking within you. "not that simple," you whispered, though deep down, you knew it was.

paige turned you slightly, forcing you to meet her gaze. her eyes were dark, filled with a mix of desire and determination. "it is that simple," she insisted. "you just have to decide what you really want."

your girlfriend's laughter floated over from where she was chatting with your friend, a stark contrast to the turmoil you felt inside. You glanced over at her, feeling a pang of guilt. she was sweet, caring, and had done nothing to deserve this.

but as paige's hands tightened their grip on you, you couldn't deny the magnetic pull she had on you. the history between you two, the unmatched chemistry, and the way she made you feel — like you were the only person in the world — was impossible to ignore.

and that was how you ended up in paige's dorm, her knuckles deep inside you.

your mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, but your body knew exactly what it wanted. paige's fingers moved with expert precision, hitting all the right spots, driving you wild with pleasure.

"fuck, paige," you gasped, your back arching as waves of ecstasy coursed through you. she smirked, her eyes locked onto yours, her dominance evident in every calculated movement.

"see?" she murmured, her voice low and filled with satisfaction. "this is what you need. someone who knows your body, who knows how to make you feel alive."

you couldn't form a coherent response, your mind too consumed by the sensations she was eliciting from you. your breath came in ragged bursts, your fingers gripping the sheets beneath you. paige leaned in, her lips brushing against your ear before pushing her lips into yours.

you moaned into the kiss, your hands finding the back of her head to pull her closer. "you're mine," she whispered into your lips, her words sending a shiver down your spine. "no one else can make you feel like this."

you knew she was right. the connection you shared with paige was intense, undeniable. as she brought you closer to the edge, you couldn't help but think about the decisions you needed to make.

your climax hit you hard, a tidal wave of pleasure that left you breathless and trembling as you cried out loudly, louder than you've ever been with your girlfriend (and that's by a long shot). paige held you through it, her fingers slowing their pace as she watched you with a mixture of pride and possessiveness.

paige pulled her fingers out of your pussy only to push them into your lips, earning a moan from you. you sucked them clean as she watched you, the cocky smirk still on her lips. she pushed you onto the bed, grabbing your wrists and pinning them above your head. her body hovered over yours, her dominance clear in every movement.

"so fucking hot," paige murmured, her voice low and filled with desire. she leaned down, her lips capturing yours in a searing kiss. you could taste yourself on her lips, the taste making your head spin.

as she deepened the kiss, her hands roamed over your body, exploring every inch with a familiarity that sent shivers down your spine. her touch was both demanding and tender, a perfect balance that only paige could achieve.

breaking the kiss, paige's eyes locked onto yours, her smirk widening. "not done with you yet," she said, her voice dripping with promise. "shit, i needa cum too, right?"

she pushed your legs apart and spat into your pussy before she settled herself in between them perfectly. her fingers found your swollen clit, still sensitive from your previous orgasms. the mix of pleasure and pain made you gasp, your hips involuntarily bucking against her hand. paige's eyes gleamed with lust and satisfaction as she watched you squirm beneath her.

she finally moved her hand and began moving herself against your pussy, a loud groan leaving her lips. she pushed your legs further apart as she began bucking her hips against yours. the sensation was magical — both of you were so wet, combined with her spit — the friction was electrifying.

your moans filled the room, mingling with Paige's groans as she ground herself against you. the heat between you was intense, each movement sending waves of pleasure through your bodies.

"fuck yeah, feel so good," paige growled, her eyes locked onto yours with a fierce intensity. her movements became more urgent, her hips bucking harder against you.

the sensation of her slick folds sliding against yours was almost too much to bear, and you felt yourself edging closer to another climax. you reached up, grabbing her hips to steady yourself as you matched her rhythm. the connection between you two was palpable, an electric current that only seemed to grow stronger with each passing second. paige's breath was hot against your skin as she leaned down, her lips capturing yours in a searing kiss.

your tongues tangled together as your bodies moved in perfect sync, the pleasure building to a crescendo. paige pulled back slightly, her eyes dark with desire. "fucking cum for me," she commanded, her voice husky and filled with need.

the intensity of her words pushed you over the edge. your body arched against hers as you climaxed, your cries of pleasure filling the room. paige wasn't far behind, her own orgasm crashing through her as she continued to ride you, her moans mingling with yours.

when the waves of pleasure finally subsided, you lay there breathless and trembling, your body still humming with the aftershocks of your release. paige collapsed beside you, her chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. she reached out, pulling you close and wrapping her arms around you.

for a moment, the world outside ceased to exist. it was just the two of you, entwined in a blissful aftermath. paige pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, her lips lingering there as she whispered, "you're amazing."

you smiled, your heart swelling with affection. "so are you," you replied softly, your fingers tracing lazy circles on her back.

as you lay there together, basking in the afterglow, you couldn't help but feel a sense of rightness. despite the complications, despite the uncertainty, this felt real. it felt like where you were meant to be.

if you enjoyed, any interaction is greatly appreciated!

with love, rylin 𝜗𝜚

[hiitsm]

Embracing New Intimacy

Embracing New Intimacy is for 18+ only.

Fluff & Smut

-

"Mi vida, can you please not do that?" Alexia says as she walks through the door of your shared apartment, closing it quickly behind her.

Her hair is stil damp from the shower she took after her long training session, and she looks absolutely beautiful. Seeing her makes you smile.

"Can't do what?" you ask innocently, continuing to clean the kitchen. It wasn't really necessary, but whenever you have nothing else to do, you clean. It makes you feel useful and helps to ease your mind. Sometimes even you find it a bit strange.

"You are literally only wearing my favorite slip and a t-shirt," your girlfriend says as she walks up to you, gently grabbing your butt.

"How is it your favorite slip when I bought it?" you ask, raising your eyebrows playfully.

"Because I love it on you. It makes me feel certain things, so it's my favorite," she replies softly, her eyes twinkling.

You lean in and kiss her gently on the lips, trying to divert the conversation. She responds, sighing softly, but then pushes you away playfully. "No, what if I brought a teammate here?" she says, her eyes wide.

"Then they saw me like this. I'm not ashamed of my own body, amor. And this is our apartment," you reassure her, hoping to ease her mind.

"But you are mine, and I want to be the only one who sees you like this,' she says, making you smile.

"Whose am I?" you ask innocently.

"Mine," she answers with a soft smile.

You lean in and kiss her again, this time with more passion, feeling the connection deepen between you.

You both get lost in the moment, your girlfriend holding you even tighter as you feel your body surrendering to her.

That's when you remember what you got for the two of you. The thought makes you feel a mix of nervousness and excitement. With a shy smile, you gently pull away.

"I"ve got us a little something. Let me get it," you say, stepping out of her embrace.

"What did you get us?" Alexia asks, her curiosity piqued.

"Close your eyes," you tell her. She does so without hesitation, trusting you completely.

You feel a bit reluctant, aware that this could go either way. It could be wonderful, or it could be less so. You and Alexia had discussed it before, and you knew she was still hesitant. Yet, you also knew that this gesture would show her how much you trust her and how deeply you want this, with her.

You place the box gently in her hand. "Okay, open your eyes," you say. She opens them almost immediately, looking at the box in her hand. Though she remains quiet, you notice a soft smile forming on her lips.

"Just because I've done this with others doesn't mean we have to", she says softly, gesturing to the new strap-on in the box you bought for the two of you.

You and your girlfriend have always been very open about your past relationships, including experiences in the bedroom. While this level of openness might seem strange to some, it has greatly benefited both of you.

You don't have any experience with toys, and whenever you and Alexia discussed it, you would always become a bit shy. You weren't ready then.

But now, you've been ready for a while. You want to give her full control, to place your complete trust in her. However, Alexia has been hesitant, fearing that you might feel pressured into it just because she has done it with others.

"I promise you that I want this. I want to do this with you, together," you say softly, looking deeply into her eyes as you pull her into your embrace.

"Okay," she responds, burying her face in your neck and letting out a nervous giggle. It's a response you always find endearing.

The innocence fades as she kisses your neck softly. You love her gentle touch, it stirs feelings that only she can evoke in you.

Slowly, she trails kisses towards your lips, kissing them softly and slowly, finding the perfect pace to savor every moment. It's arousing, intensely so. You pull her closer, craving to feel every part of her against your body.

However, you can't pull her any closer because your girlfriend has placed the box on the kitchen counter before grabbing you and pulling you onto it.

She gazes into your eyes, her hands resting firmly on your upper thighs, sending a thrill through you. A soft smile graces her lips, causing you to blush ever so slightly.

"I love you," she whispers before kissing you softly once more.

"I love you too," you reply, gently taking her chin and pulling her in for another kiss, Iost in the moment together.

She makes no move to take off her clothes or remove your shirt. Instead, she goes straight to your core.

"This is my favorite slip because it looks beautiful on you,'' she remarks, her eyes lingering on it and noticing the wet spot, a slight smirk playing on her lips. "It looks even more beautiful when it's wet,'' she adds, trying to sound smug, but both of you end up chuckling.

"It's true," she continues after a moment, a blush forming on her cheeks as her thumbs lightly stroke the damp spot, causing you to squirm with anticipation.

She pulls the slip down slightly, then slides her tongue through your folds. Both of you moan softly in pleasure as she plays with your clit, circling it with gentle motions. You gently grab her hair, she always makes you feel so good, every time.

Before you can reach the edge, she pulls away, kissing your lips softly before lifting you off the counter. Your legs find her waist effortlessly as she grabs the box and leads both of you towards your shared bedroom.

She sits you down gently on the bed and helps you pull your shirt off. Your bare breasts capture her attention, and she softly sucks on each nipple, causing you to squirm and chuckle with delight.

You gently pull her away and assist her in undressing before grabbing the box and preparing everything.

"Okay,'' you say, having lined everything up on the bed.

"Okay," she replies softly, kissing you on the lips before grabbing the harness and putting it on.

You notice a hint of nervousness in her movements, and when you meet her gaze, you see a blush spreading across both of her cheeks.

You gently take her hand in yours. "You don't have to be nervous," you assure her softly.

"I am a little because I'm doing this with you," she admits, glancing away slightly in embarrassment.

"We're doing this together," you say firmly, cupping her face and kissing her on the lips. "Sí, amor," she responds, pulling the harness on completely, and you both chuckle nervously.

She lays you down on your back and hovers over you. Both of you glance down at the strap, feeling a mix of nerves and excitement for what's to come. When your eyes meet again, you both blush at the intense, soft looks on each other's faces.

"I am a little nervous because you are the love of my life, and you are making me feel things that I've never felt before," she says, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "You are perfect for me. I don't want to hurt you,' she admits softly.

You smile at her and kiss her gently. "I appreciate that, mi vida. You are perfect for me too. I want to do this with you, together. You won't hurt me, and if you do, then I will tell you, just like how you would tell me," you reassure her softly.

She smiles back at you, her beautiful eyes reflecting her gratitude and affection.

You both take another moment to fully immerse yourselves in this new experience together. "I love you," she says, her smile radiant and warm.

"I love you too," you reply, tilting your head up to meet her lips and kissing her deeply. The kiss starts softly but quickly deepens in intensity.

Alexia aligns the strap-on with your core, her touch gentle and precise.

She is so gentle, so perfect.

"Are you feeling alright?" she asks softly, whispering in your ear as she enters you gently.

"Yes, you manage to say, but your breathing betrays your true feelings, causing Alexia to pause.

"Tell me when I can continue,'' she says, kissing you tenderly and not stopping until you feel better.

After a moment, the initial stinging sensation fades, replaced bya sensation of pleasure that feels almost overwhelming.

"Please continue", you manage to say in between kisses, and she does, resuming with a soft and steady pace.

Alexia rocks her hips back and forth, the strap-on giving her an incredible sensation on her clit. She allows herself to fully experience every sensation, to surrender herself to you completely, and you reciprocate in kind.

Soon, the two of you are lost in a symphony of moans and pleasure, completely immersed in the intensity of the moment.

"You look so beautiful like this, amor" she tells you, her words intensifying the sensations between your legs.

"You're taking me so well," she whispers teasingly in your ear, making you chuckle softly.

"It's okay if you're feeling close, because feel the same way" she adds, her voice filled with warmth and desire.

You can feel her smiling against your neck, adding to the intimacy of the moment.

As you both continue, the intensity builds, each movement and touch deepening your connection. The room fills with the sounds of your pleasure, echoing the love and trust you share.

You find yourselves reaching the peak together, bodies and hearts entwined in ecstasy. Afterwards, you hold each other close, basking in the afterglow of your shared experience.

"I love you," she whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips.

"I love you too,'' you reply softly, tracing patterns on her skin.

Together, you've embraced vulnerability, trust, and love in its most profound expression.

-

This might have some grammar errors because I haven't proof read it well.

🙂‍↕️