#and something not from the band itself
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willowkatt · 5 months ago
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i'm not the biggest fan of the recent paper kingdom leaks, mostly because it's not released by the band itself or approved okay by someone within the band (both the members and the management behind the scenes)
i've not listened to the leaks fully, only a few snippets by accident. (clicking on them when they first got spread around) i'm not gonna engage with these leaks anymore knowing it's not endorsed or freely out there by my chem themselves.
it's different to, lets say, sister to sleep, an unreleased song - but there are many openly performed recordings of the song out there which the band are completely fine with.
i'd only listen to a band's song leaks if they put it out there themselves, whether they play it in a future live preformance, or release the leaks themselves, or just SOMETHING that eludes to any of them being okay with what's going on. but that hasn't happened yet.
anyways, be free to disregard this post if like, i dont know, frank, said it was all good in the future. but right now, i'm just not comfortable with it passing around.
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ficandkaboodle · 1 month ago
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It’s sad knowing that the excitable and flirty persona Terzo created might not have been entirely true. But. In a way, it’s also glorious?? Because he’s described as being mad at everybody, himself included, but he still very much actually cares about the well-being of others and has people whom he loves. He’s just gotten to a point of depression where he can’t embrace them in full. Probably a consequential extension from the self-hatred but hear me out.
He was the nicest Papa, according to the ghouls: He doesn’t really hang out with them but when he interacts with them, he treats them kinder than his predecessors ever did, and doesn’t seem to give them any reason to complain in interviews. And considering how much they’ll talk about, they would have jumped at the opportunity. If he gave them any reason to, that is. He genuinely seems to respect them.
He loves his mom. He loves kids. He might have a kid of his own whom he may not be able to be around too often, but does love them. He likes his brothers enough to play UNO with them. He calls out roughhousing ritual attendees if he thinks somebody could get hurt and is not afraid to put his foot down if he thinks they won’t listen.
Terzo is a sad but still fascinating and beautiful example of how you can be filled with so much anger and sadness and disappointment but still retain a sense of love and kindness in spite of it all.
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caramelmochacrow · 6 months ago
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"Beating so fast, seems like it'll burst..."
#crow's scribbles#d4dj#d4dj groovy mix#shinobu inuyose#esora shimizu#yuka jennifer sasago#i finally drew something in ms paint after.... a while.#please dont mind how rusty they look (especially esora's hands)....#this is a follow up to kyoko's one yes this is what the other 3 look like#try to guess which starish members i took inspiration from for each of them hehe#i loooove these designs....#should i post the concept sketches? tell me if you wanna see them lol#each of them are matching w one member in one way but still different i specifically made sure of that#i based them off what i think their 2 charm points are similar to love live kinda#esora is the cute and lovely one of course; shinobu is the quiet and mysterious one; yuka is the strong and beautiful one#and then kyoko is the charismatic and cool one duh.#i dont have a favorite design but the one im proud of the most is esora! i think i managed to get her vibe while also keeping the idol feel#i wanna make these types of outfits for the other units but i think i gotta think of something their unit can be other than DJ unit#this can be an au in it of itself but for now it's gonna be outfits for them so i dont go crazy#like. photon = actresses/or takarazuka revue actresses? towa and saki are musumeyaku while ibuki and noa are otokoyaku... maybe.#hapiara and rondo can be a band bc of rei and nagisa but hapiara is pop while rondo is hard rock/metal bc duhhhh (but idk w hapiara.....)#you cannot separate merm4id from clubbing so they're p much just the same except saori is a regular DJ in rikamarika's club w dalia--#working as a bartender there. yeahhhhh.... lyrilily are p much just choir girls now bc thats all i can think of atm (maybe they act too???)#abyssmare and unichord...... hrmmmm.... idkkkkkkk. v-tubing related for sure w unichord but abyssmare i have nothing#SO. now i'll stop my rambling here byeeeee enjoy my losers (affectionate) and my thoughts on this byeeeee
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vegaseatsass · 9 months ago
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DFF 11 spoilers
I still refuse with all my heart to believe that Non is dead, but in the version of events where this is true - so the version of events Tee believes is true - Tee "rescued" Non by delivering him into labor that killed him, like he watched Non work himself to death before his eyes, but first, his response to Non's life-threatening wounds, the idk, potential internal bleeding, whatever is going on in Non's body that has him so run down he can't yell at his bully without nearly collapsing from coughing, was to. Hand Non a first aid kit and be like "you know what to do, right?"
lmaoooooo TEE. A whole mess of a young man.
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mx-misty-eyed · 5 months ago
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i think I found a new hyperfixation this is not gonna be good for me
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sunburnacoustic · 2 years ago
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Aah, I’ll probably gif this soon, but the expressions on Matt’s face playing Verona! The confetti! What a moment <3
The video ends a bit abruptly because I was determined not to miss another second of the actual show semi-distracted 😅
But I’ve said it once I’ll say it again, the Muse live experience is something else.
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satyricplotter · 8 months ago
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i find it very funny the one place my heart went to find a (visual) depiction of bruce I liked best was in extremely nsfw yaoi batjokes fanart (as opposed to the comics, say). looked at him taking the joker way up his guts and went yep that's mr. wayne.
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if you want a music rec in response one that i like is behind my eyes by jackie evancho (it came on directly after hum hallelujah so i thought of you) it's very Different and has a... purity? clarity? that hum hallelujah doesn't have (which isn't a Problem just an Observation)
"and if you read between the lines you'll see I'm running from my mind" as one of my favourite lyrics
....gonna go listen to hum hallelujah AGAIN after this one tho >.> xD
OOOH i’m about to go to bed (it is 1am on my side of the world) but i’m saving that to my liked songs on Spotify and i’m going to listen to it first thing in the morning!! 💕
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skylordhorus · 1 year ago
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i dont understand music genres and at this point im too afraid to ask
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thelikesoffinn · 10 months ago
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00's female ya romance lead: Dance? But...there is no music.
String Quartet: *rolls out of the bushes, ready to play "I'll be" by Edwin McCain*
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sweetpastillas · 2 years ago
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pitting fob's return and p!atd's subsequent death against each other in my head like im drafting an old harry potter vs twilight essay lol
#it boils down to talent in both performing writing and producing#the capability to take care of your voice too#fob can produce smth of Good Quality that allows people to let go of their lil dip dip dabble into n/fts#which was also their only instance so far?? i think everyone including them let it go#which is good#meanwhile vlv was uhh too shit so it wasnt It#and theres clearly no instance of brendon retracting his apologist tendencies or the foot he uses to kick the dead horse#unless of course theres Shit im not aware of idk i havent been so immersed in this for a while#relatively its also kinda like.#fob has remained a 4piece band after all these years#they have rapport with each other and know how Talk Shit Out esp with the creative process#i mean like they know how to bend their heads together and make something and talk#even rn as joe is taking a break they still remain a 4piecer they dont omit him from promo and mvs completely#in comparison#brendon can make nonsense abt being alone at the top (he has kicked people off the pedestal itself)#while holding some kind of.. ndas with ry/jon/spence/dallon#none of those boys talk about each other which is strange when they albums they put out have bangers indicative of group cohesion#meaning like.. it sound good so they work together well at some point right? what happened?#fob#p!atd#p!atd neg#anti brendon urie#i also think its so weird that now hes having a kid he'll stop singing about sex now#like you didnt stop when the allegations came out? or as you uhhh idk got married?#like ik for a fact pete can write about skinship like an unintelligible artform he knows what hes doing#fall out boy#panic! at the disco#i hope i dont get doxxed for this? i have like . school lol#im not saying fob are saints tho . theyre just pretty alright? with maintaining a public career#i assume they actually listen to their pr manager
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tulsa24 · 1 year ago
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happy 8123 day!
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yeyinde · 6 months ago
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touch starved reader with an oral fixation x kidnapper!Simon who’s all punishment and no physical affection? Please Simon just a little kiss? with tongues? :( (i just wanna make out with this man while my heart aches for him)
by Allah, you people are dogs. i will write the filth as usual.
DEAD DOVE, 18+ | dubcon. kidnapping. mean!Simon. dom!Simon. masking corporal punishment as affection. kissing. size kink, size difference. some thigh riding. degradation + humiliation (verbal). non-con pet play. marking (heavyyyyyy mentions of Simon biting you like a chew toy). choking. daddy kink (but in the awful, demeaning way). manipulation. forced affection. coersion. forced/manufactured dependency. brief mention of Simon stepping on your back to hold you down so he can whip you w a cat o nine tails. yanno. the usual Friday night.
idk. there's something so hot about you, completely naked, riding Simon's clothed thigh as he holds you up by your neck. tongue out, desperate for a kiss while he just mocks you the whole time.
It's survival. 
At first.  
A means of masking the innate horror of being stripped of your agency, your autonomy, by a man you barely even know. One you met once before (fate sealed), and now—outside of your apartment complex where he was idling by the foothold, smoking a cigarette as he leaned against the brick wall, head turned. Gaze narrowed as you approached. 
Waiting for someone, you assumed, thinking nothing else about the matter. 
Nothing else, except—
He looked familiar. You think you saw him before. He was staring at you. Hadn't stopped. Hasn't said a word, either. The silence was oppressive. Heavy. Your hands fumbled with the keys. Shaking. Trembling. 
He's pretty, you thought, suddenly. In the way car wrecks can sometimes be. Jarring and awful and hideous, but—
Mesmerising. 
Macabre. And that's what he is. Everything from the mask on his face (skulls, go figure), to the absurdity in his size, his width. The way space itself seemed to move around him, bending and distorting just to let him pass. His own gravitational pull. Magnetic. You feel it tugging on you as he pulls another lungful of smoke. Another. Another.  
(like an hourglass, a timebomb, almost. you wonder what will happen when it runs out—)
He gives you the creeps. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. A visceral sense of unease curdling in the pit of your belly as he keeps staring, staring. Eyes—crystalline under the broken headlamp, washout into crushed topaz—drilling into your back, sharp enough to flay skin. Everything inside of you says to run, but your key won't fit inside the lock. Won't—
Ever. 
And hindsight has always been a bitter thing, hasn't it? Cruel in her mockery. Had you known, then, that he wasn't a workman loitering by the complex, waiting for a friend; or a low-level drug dealer casting webs into the plum hewn aether, it might have saved you. Might have. 
Maybe. Because he was there, waiting for you, all along. 
Life has a funny way of paying back good deeds. All it took for your life to crumble down around you, rubble falling off of a shaking mountain, was kindness. Was seeing a large man in the pouring rain, already drenched. Black clothing sticking to the granite contours of his body, and offering sanctum in the shape of a rusting umbrella you found at a thrift store for three dollars. 
(“here,” you said, chipper. All smiles. “i live just down the street, and you look like you need it more than i do. do you want it?”
and he—
he simply stared. stared. his eyes liquid, molten, as they carelessly dropped, roaming down the length of your body at his own leisure. leering. assessing. it was odd. weird, but—
he huffed, then. seemingly satisfied by whatever you measured up to in his head. his neck lulled back, and he gazed at you from down the crooked length of his nose, tucked neatly away under the thick band of a facial mask. skulls. how could you be so stupid? 
slowly, like he was trying not to startle a mare, his gloved hand reached out, curling thick fingers around the hilt of it. he tugged once. in your stupor, you forgot to let go. embarrassment flooded in. he huffed again, quietly amused, as you untangled your numbed fingers from the umbrella. 
in your distraction, he moved closer. smelled of ash, of mildew. sweat and stale cigarettes. there was something predatory in the way he slipped through space. a preternatural quiet. an eerie stillness. 
you hadn't realised he was there, looming, until he rasped out, “more ‘n you could ever realise, pet.”
and you're sure why you do it. did it. but your hand slips into your shopping bag, eyes widen. heart thundering in your chest. 
“are you hungry? i, uh, i just bought some apples, um—”
his eyes are lavascapes. shackles. chains. “i could eat.”)
And now—
Forced to play this strange cat and mouse of his where he treats you like soot on the bottom of his shoe, and you pretend that it's affection. Love. How godless.  
Protection, he calls it. 
("mine," he whispers, orison soft, into your ear. "ain't go' nowhere else to go, do you, pet? world's big. would eat a small thing like you up. safer here. wit' me. only me.") 
You wonder what he'd do if you told him the biggest danger here was the madness nestled inside your head, the one that sometimes made you look at him like he was your salvation instead of the warden holding the end of your leash in a firm hand. Unyielding—like everything he does. Is. 
Withholding, too. Everything must be earned. Nothing given. Nothing handed out. And you know that this is a ploy, a tactic. Subterfuge meant to chisel into your sense of self, dehumanise you. Turn you into a simpering, obedient little doll for him to play with as he wishes. You know this, and yet—
It's survival, you promise yourself as he tugs on the hook latched to your collar, testing it for weakness. Survival, when his hands—bare, bare; warmed skin against skin, you could just weep—brush over your throat, nails skimming goosebumped flesh as he wedges one, then two inside, hirsute knuckles tickling your pulse. It tightens the collar to near choking. Intentional, you know. He likes it when you beg—for air, for food, water, him. 
Vile man. Awful. 
(You want to roll on your belly at his feet.)
This cold, cruel touch lights a fire under your skin. It's been months since he's last done so. Always wearing gloves when he has to. Using paddles, belts, when you misbehave. Never his bare hand. Not anymore. 
(“m’hand is for good girls,” he slurred, words merging, meshing together, painted with exertion. He wedged his boot against the small of your back, holding you down, and cracked the end of a cat over your bare ass, thighs. Unbothered by your howls, your screams, as the whip bit into your skin. You've never so much as been hit as a child for misbehaving, and now, as an adult, you have a madman standing over you, introducing you to something called a cat o’nine tails—a favourite in the army, lovie. “bad girls,” his boot pressed down harder, heel digging into your spine. “Bad girls get the whip—”)
Bad. Bad. Because you tried to run, to leave him. He dressed you up, called you Mrs Riley, and you—
Ducked out the back door when he turned away for a second. 
Stupid. It was poor timing. A test. He set you up, measuring your loyalty to him, your commitment, and you failed. Failed. 
(“this is what ‘appens when spoiled little cunts get their way too much. they act out, don't they? bitin’ the ‘and that feeds. you'll learn soon enough, though—”)
Ghost—sir, sir (master, maker, god; you'll call him anything he wants if he touches you again)—pulls his fingers away, depriving you of his touch once more. And it's all so stupid. So fundamentally wrong, deplorable, but you follow. Needy. Whining for it in the back of your throat. 
It's been months. Months without touch. Without sensation outside of leather lashing across your thighs, your ass; harsh, gloved fingers digging into your jaw, braced against the back of your head, as you swallow down his cock in an effort to prove to him you've been good. So good. Can be good. His good girl. 
You need to touch him. Need his touch. Ache for it, for something outside of this nook he placed you inside of, denied the privilege of living upstairs with him after you tried to escape. 
You want to. Badly. Your fingers twitch. Ghost sees it. Hums. 
“Need somethin', pet?” 
Your mouth is dry. You swallow. It burns. It hurts. “Yes—”
“Yes, what?”
“Sir—”
Behind the mask he's yet to take off for you fully, only ever hitching it under his chin to devour your cunt whenever you've been good, his jaw tightens, the fabric bunching up. 
You reel back from the look of sheer displeasure etching harsh lines into the hollow gaps of his eyes. Heart thundering. Stomach churning. 
“Mas—” he cuts you off with a soft sigh. Marked with his irritation. “D—dad—”
Dad. A new one. Daddy. He didn't seem like the sort to be into this type of play, not with his sardonic, deadpan eyes. His mockery. His dessicated humour, awful and biting. You'd have sooner expected him to laugh at you—in that slow, deep hum he gives; a little chuff, full of condescension and jeer—than to get off on it. On you, kneeling between his legs with your chin braced against his palm, mouth open, tongue out, as he fucks into the tight clench of his fist, groaning as you beg daddy to give you a taste. 
It's gross. Disgusting. 
It's not done for anything else other than to humiliate you. To crush you under the heel of his boot—little bug—so that you will always know where your place is in this scenario. His little wife. Mother, mum—
He pulls on the leash, jerking you forward. Purrs, “good girl,” and then steps back, moving away from you. Cruel. Dismissive. You hate him, hate him—
(Need him so deeply. With every fibre of your being—)
You watch him as he goes, mourning the loss of his presence already, as he paces around your space, your cage. Broad shoulders barely fitting inside. Head ducking to avoid hitting his crown on the popcorn ceiling. It's strange seeing him here like this. Prowling. He usually comes when he wants you, when he needs to enact more merciless punishment on you for whatever perceived evils you committed (not greeting him with a kiss when he walked in, not letting him suffocate himself in your cunt when he had you sit on his face, not making him cum all over your face quick enough when you knew he had other engagements to get to—), or when he ruts, heavily, between your thighs, cold and detached. Seeking pleasure from your icy flesh, and giving nothing in return but white hot agony. 
Him here, idling in your presence, is revolutionary. 
“S–sir—?”
He hums, quiet. Sits in the chair as you gather the fragments of yourself littered on the ground. His mood is malleable, it seems. 
You push, fingertips sinking into the putty of his agreeable temperament. “Can I—”
You waver when his sharp eyes raze over your bare body—clothes are for good girls, after all—pupils sloshing over the edges, bleeding into midnight blue. 
Your body is a battlefield. Every inch of skin branded with his mark—pretty, thrawn rings of teeth tattooed in silver, haloed in black and red, desecrate your flesh: neck, collarbones, breasts, belly, thighs (a particular favourite of his), ass, mons; all bitten through, chewed up. It weeps when you move, has blood trickling down your skin. The cracking scabs make him coo, poor thing, all bloody fer me? and he licks at them, sucks, until only a pinkish wound in the mimesis of canines remains. 
Uprooted, turned into something new—
His chest expands when he settles his gaze on the sliver of space between your spread thighs. Concealed in tenebrous, hidden from his leering, lecherous view. He cocks his head, considers something unknown to you. His thoughts, his mind, worlds away. Untouchable. 
(only to bad girls, he’d snarled out when you asked why—)
“Testin’ my patience still?” He doesn't rip his gaze away from your cunt, speaks to it sometimes more than he speaks to you. “Thought this alone time might’a cleared your ‘ead.”
You flush. Embarrassment roiling through you. His displeasure is a palpable thing. Heavy. You hate the weight of it. 
“I need—I need you.”
Another toneless hum. “‘Course you do. Ain't got anyone else.”
He's awful. Hideous. You want to rip his tongue out of his mouth. “I—I want you. Please.”
Ghost doesn't answer. You stopped expecting him to a long time ago, his moods odd measures of ebbs and flows; passive and mild, cracking terrible, awful jokes as he strokes your back, hands riveted to your skin, and then biting and caustic the next. Pushing and pushing until you lash out, snap, so he has a reason to push you down, punished and smothered under his bulk, as he ruts into you like a beast, a man starved. Tells you it's for your own good. That you need him. Would be lost without him. 
Bludgeoning a hole into you wide enough for him to crawl inside of. Poisoning you from the inside out with the same nocuous rot that flows in his veins. 
Maybe that's been his agenda all along. Maybe. To make you want him as badly as he wanted you. Desperate, obsessive. Going so far as to follow you home, lost little mutt waiting in the shadows outside of your door until you threw him another bone. And when that didn't work, when the food stopped being enough—
He took you. Held you captive in his house deep in the wilderness. A place so endlessly green that you sometimes stare out at it—unfathomable sea of phalthos and jasper—and feel dizzy. You'll get lost out there—
just like he says. 
As he turns your obsecration over in his head, you wait, supplicant to this man as you rest on your knees. Pretty pet with a golden collar adorned in gems. 
Fitting, you find. With his head cradled against his thick knuckles, you can't help but shiver at the way he looks shrouded in the gloaming embers of a fading twilight. Leonine. A king perfectly at ease in this thick, caliginous atmosphere.
His eyes burn, magmatic, in the low light. Vats of endless ink. Black holes that will swallow you whole if you get too close. But he's poised. Contemplative. Assessing. 
And then grips the end of the leash tight in his other hand. Tugs.  
You obey the wordless command, crawling on your hands and knees to where he's spread out on the recliner. Laxed, dripping with a careless indifference as you wander to him, resting your chin on the spread of his knee. 
Looking up, up, at him, waiting. Wanting. 
There's so much of him—a fact that has been the catalyst to your downfall the moment you saw him standing under the awning; this massive creature. Thighs wider than the width of your body. Burly forearms. Broad shoulders. He's big. Indomitable. Thick, endlessly so. But there's a give to his body. Valleys of softness hiding corded muscle. Firm, but—
Your fingers sink into the soft give of his belly when you reach out, bracing against stomach. Pulling yourself further into the bracket of his spread thighs, inching closer to him. 
He meets your reverent stare, eyes liquid along his lower lash line.
“Thought you were gonna keep me waitin’ all night,” he muses, giving another pull on the leash. It destabilises you. Your nose bumps into his sternum, and you moan at the sting. 
There's a dissonance in the back of your head. A hairline fracture in the line that keeps a degree of separation between pleasure and pain. They meet against the crack in the divide, merging into a abysmal polyphony conducted by his hand. 
He watches, amused, as you whimper, sniffing harshly against the burn. It's not bleeding, and not broken—small mercies, you suppose—and you let it simmer into a dull ache as you slowly clamber into his lap.
Ghost leans back as you settle, greedily taking in the sight of your thighs stretched wide over his leg, cunt pressed, tight, against the rough scrape of his jeans. The touch burns. He hasn't touched your pussy in weeks—
“C’mon,” he urges, hand spanning the width of your lower back. Coaxing. “Show me ‘ow good you can be.”
It's all the permission you need. Slowly, slowly, your hips start to gyrate, dragging your slit over the coarse material. The friction is agony. You need more—
He draws his other hand up, curls it around your neck, forcing your head back, back. You gasp, staring at him, dizzy, from down the slope of your nose. The clasp of the collar digs into your skin. It hurts. It's too much. 
you don't want him to stop. 
His hand is huge. It spans the entire length of your neck, thumb to your pulse, pinky grazing the hollow of your throat. It forces you to lift your chin higher just to let him fit.
He likes it, too, you know. His eyes darken as he takes in the sight of his bare hand, scarred and thick; dusted with a cropping of fine hairs along his scabbed knuckles, sitting against the whole of your throat. Swallowing you up. Can feel how much he enjoys the sheer depth between your sizes when his cock twitches, stiffening more
The look on his face is appraising, anatomising. There's a cold measure of distance in his gaze. A barren polynya. You want to cross it. Chart these untamed lands until they're deeply ingrained within your being. Cimmerian effigy burning to keep you warm. 
It's survival, you think, and arch into the palm of his hand. 
He holds you like a doll. One hand on your lower back, pressing your cunt to thigh. The other tightening around your throat. Bare skin against bare skin, and oh, you could just cry—
But this is not what you need. What you want. And he knows. He always does. Knows the inside of you like it's written down—inked on paper. Thumbs through the makeup of you, chapter by chapter, until no mystery remains. 
“Tell me what you need, pet. Beg for it.” 
“Let me—” his hands tighten, choking the air from your throat. Crushing your collar against your neck. “Lemme—kiss you, please, please—”
Tighter. Tighter. The world around you swims under a thin ocean. Phosphenes swim, untethered, in your periphery, ghosting along the curve of his shoulders. He might kill you yet. Keeping going, going, until those brittle, bird-like bones in your neck snap—
You'd let him, you think, muscles falling lax. Submissive. Just the way he says he likes even though you know he fucks you harder, touches you more, more, when you act out. Misbehave. 
“Kiss me?” He taunts, words abrasive. Strident. Scrubbing hard against your skin. “Ain't that jus’ the sweetest thing I ever ‘eard.” 
You burn, blister. “Please—”
“Reckon I ought to. Kissed your pretty cunt ‘fore I even kissed your lips, huh, pet?” 
Your chest folds over itself. Stomach knotting. Balling tight. Unease is a razor blade scraping your nerves. 
“Simon—”
“Ah, ah—” his hand tightens. Vicious. Chiding. “You ‘aven’t earned the privilege of sayin’ my name, ‘ave you? Cheeky thing. Might ‘ave to take a cane to you next.” 
“No, no, no—! I'm—”
“Sorry?” He mocks, cocking his head. Condescension drips from the corners of his eyes. 
“Please, sir—”
“Dad is gettin’ tired of this attitude of yours, pet—” his fingers dig into your skin, hard. Biting. A warning, you know. The blunt press of a blade to your jugular. But it thrums along the suture line to your desire, a wellspool of murk coiling low in your guts. You throb, cunt clenching down around nothing. Achingly empty. “Thought we got rid of it this time ‘round. Learned our lesson.”
The words are frank, prosaic. Had you any sense of self still malingering in the back of your head, you might have struck him for the blatant disrespect. But as you struggle to reach for it, pawing around in the vacuous abyss for any fragment of who you were before this, before him, you know—without any doubt—that none exists. Nothing. He’s too ingrained in your marrow, hewn into your skin. Copper sutures holding his filament within you. Cradled between your thighs, nestled in the rotting vacancy of your heart. 
He knows you. Every part—
“We did—we did, da—daddy, please—” 
It’s shallow. Muffled, like he’s trying to swallow it down, but you feel it rumble through his broad chest. A guttural sound. A groan. Drenched in pleasure, in want. So thick, you could almost taste it. 
He hides his need under a layer of derision. 
“Such a needy thing, ain't you? Desperate little slag like you wouldn't last out there, would you?” 
His hand digs into your hip, pushing you off of his thigh. Eyes skewering into the wet stain on his trousers. A huff spills out—the sound a near perfect mimicry of crushing charcoal in your hand. 
“No. You'd be eaten alive. Torn to pieces. World's too big for somethin' like you.”
Mindless, dazed, you nod. Arching into him. The leather leash snaps against your chest. “Yes, yes—”
His cock presses into your thigh, hard, fat. Your mouth waters. Drool dribbles down your chin. 
He smells of tinder when he leans in close, blood drenched words biting into your skin. “messy today, aren't you? Be lost without me. Tha’s why you wear a collar, isn't it?”
Pitifully, you nod. Eyes full of tears. Each word is a bludgeon into your resolve. Into your sense of self. 
But it earns you his affection, and his thumb presses into the corner of your mouth, unhinging your jaw until it falls open, lax. He holds you like that, mouth lax with his hand still around your neck. The other lifts away from your lips, goes to the thick band around the bridge of his nose, slips inside. 
There's no buildup to it. No lingering sense of anticipation. Practical, detached, he merely tugs it down, and lets it snap under his chin. 
Your breath is punched out of your lungs at the sight of him. Barefaced. Scarred. His nose is crooked; a jagged hook with scar tissue delineating the spots where it's been broken too many times. His lips are—
Full. 
Mangled. 
Scars run in thick slashes over them, denting the flesh in places. Burn marks line his pale flesh. Charcoal rubs into his eyes, highlighting the whites of his lashes against smeared soot. 
He's—
Pretty. 
Like a car crash. Calamity. The broken remains of a town after a hurricane, a tornado, ripped it apart. Ugly, brutal. His face looks like it's been mauled by a bear, a tiger. Scarred and hideous, and—
You shiver. His eyes drop, landing on your own lips. The soot on his brow flutters down, lands on his eyelashes when he lifts his brow up mockingly. Derision curdling an awful smirk on the corner of his mouth. Crooked. Like him. Like his teeth. His nose. His boxy jaw. His lips—
You kiss him. 
Can't help yourself, really. There's a pull. Gravitational. Magnetic. You need, need, to taste him. To quench this ache in your jaw that makes you want to wrap your tongue around something, play with it between your teeth. Soft and sweet—
Ghost's lips are plump beneath yours. The thick scar tissue is almost velveteen when it glides over your bottom lip. You moan into it, into the feeling; victory—however pyrrhic—swims like mercury in your veins. Finally. 
And he doesn't kiss you back. Doesn't make any effort to reciprocate at all, but he's not tense beneath you. Not stunned. Or reluctant. He’s pliant. Malleable. Agreeable, willing to let you devour his mouth, his taste, as much as you want. Doting. Letting you spoil yourself on him. With him.
Because you need him, don't you? 
Like the air you breathe. The food he gives you—apples, always, on rainy days; salmon and rice in a pretty bowl with your name etched into the porcelain—and the attention, the affection—
(suck my cock, pretty girl. don't make me put a gag on you—deeper, you can take it, can't you? take my fat cock all the way up inside your sweet little cunt—my pretty girl—)
—it’s all so divine. 
His hands on your body, your throat, spasm. Once. Just once. Against your leg, his cock twitches. Leaks prespend into the demin. You rut against his thigh, aching for it. Whimpering—
And then he's groaning into the kiss, snarling out your name until it wedges between your lungs, syphoned in from his scorching breath. Another brand in the shape of him. 
Ghost kisses the same way he eats—messy, sloppy; all teeth and tongue, and full pretty lips. Clumsy, like no one taught him how to properly hold his silverware and he's trying to mock what he saw on television. Brumish. A broken, contemptuous pastiche of sumptuosity. A starving dog, snarling around its plundered morsel. Protective. Possessive. 
It coils around you. Thick, smothering. 
He sucks your tongue into his mouth, catching it between his teeth. The sting brings tears to the corner of your eyes, and when you pry them open, you find him already staring at you (always, always, always—), lidded. Heavy pools of desire shaded in the brume of a winter dawn. A bonfire flickering in the distance of a whiteout. Sanctuary from the cold—
He seems to catch himself. Expression flickering. Warbling around the edges. It closes off in a blink. He pulls back. Locks into the ashlar veneer of this indifference he wears like a suit of armour. 
But you saw it. It was there. Within reach—
“Need me, don't you?” He drawls, timber a needlepoint between cruelty and desire. Sultry, low. Husky. He knows what it does to you. How he can unravel you at the seams with just his voice alone. “Need me so fuckin’ much, pet. Would be lost without me—”
“Please, Simon,” you whisper, feather-soft. Cunt throbbing, pulsing. Needy. “Please—”
The strident reprimand for using his name doesn't come. His hand tightens around your throat, unconscious. A paroxysm that has pleasure carving itself down your spine, electric. 
“Come get it, then,” he rasps, voice wrecked. Raw. Curling at the edges, thickening his accent until the words elide. 
Hand to your throat, he drags you close. Closer still. Keeps you sat pretty on his lap as he pulls you in for a bruising, hungry kiss. Tongue shoving between your teeth when you gasp.
His kisses are always hungry, but this is different. Greedy. He devours you whole. Eats you alive. His hand falls to your lower back, holding you tight to his chest.
You moan into it, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. Squeezing until your knuckles blanche, joints twinging in discomfort. 
After months of nothing, this alone is bliss. His taste soaking onto your tongue, drenching it in the bitter tang of sage, wheatgrass, and stale cigarettes. Intoxicating. It leaks into you, nocuous. Infects from the inside out. 
His plan coming to fruition, you think. What he sought out to do all along, ever since you wandered close to this untameable Tartarean guard, and offered yourself up to the jowls of a starving beast. 
He pulls away with a heavy breath, eyes charing around the edges; brittle briquette. 
“Gonna be a good girl from now on? Come upstairs, be a good mum for dad? Or am I gonna ‘ave to cane this—” his hand drops, grabbing a fistful of your ass in his hand, fingers digging into the skin between your cheeks. Possessive. It cracks like a whip down your nerves. “—tight lit’le arse?”
You shake your head instantly. Quickly. “I'll be good,” you whisper into his chin, tongue flicking out to lick across his scars. The dried sweat on his skin tastes briny. Reminds you of the ocean on a brumous November evening. The incipient yawn of a ravenous hurricane gathering its lot on the shore. 
Sirens blare in the distance. Fear curdles in your guts, sits heavy like a stone. An anchor. 
“So sweet f’me,” he mutters, words deepening as his head falls back, letting you pepper kisses across the underside of his jaw. Mouthing along the constellation of scars. His voice is rumble. It shivers across your lips, tongue. Shakes the marrow in your bones. “Better stay this way, pet.”
Into his pulse, you murmur, “I think you like it better when I’m bad.” 
You can feel the snarl brimming in the back of his throat. Your ass stings with the phantom burn of when he lashed out with the whip. It drags a whimper out from deep within your chest. 
His hand tightens around your neck. A warning. “Got some guests over f’dinner tonight. Would love to finally introduce them to my sweet little wife—” deft fingers slip across the dewy skin of your folds, knuckles grazing over your drenched hole. The touch makes you squirm. “But if you’re gonna be bad, then I’ll leave you locked up down ‘ere.”
“I’ll be good,” you swear, words a hushed breath over his jugular. His finger flattens, drawls soft, slow circles around your clit. “Ah, I’ll—I’ll be so, so good, Simon—”
“Good girls deserve rewards, don’t they?” His palm flexes possessively around your throat when you nip at old scar tissue. “Maybe I’ll let you sleep in our bed tonight instead of in your dog house. We can ‘ouse together. I’ll fuck you proper—” he roughly shoves two fingers into your hole, leering when you gasp, back arching in a bow. “Know this pretty pussy has been achin’ for me, ‘asn’t it? Gonna breed it full—”
There’s static in your head, ringing in your ear. The noise distorted, pulled underwater. You think you say something, plead—no, no, no, anything but that—but his hand tightens around your throat, fingers pushing up, up into you, notching against that spot inside that makes your head swim, your vision flicker. The abyssal chasm inside of you aches, rages; its waters swell, currents frothing, slamming against the ceiling of its iron prison, and—
Simon pulls away. Fingers stilling inside of you. No friction, no relief. Hypoxia renders the world silent. Muted. Held in stasis, stagnating at the edge of a gaping precipice he holds you over, secured by the fragile curve of your neck, fine bone china. 
Phosphenes swim by. The chossy wobbles.
This distance is agony. You need to be closer, closer, to crawl inside of him, to live in the brackets of his ribs, safe and protected from the world he warns you about. Stone cold. You mewl, whine—
“Gonna be my good little wife?”
Gasping with broken lungs, you nod. Nod, nod until you’re nauseous. Dizzy. Sick—
His spit cools on your lip. Your hackles raise, body shuddering in revulsion—some primal part rears, hisses it’s infectious. Wrong. Get rid of it—
“Not gonna run?”
Slowly, you lick your lips, catching his sickness on your tongue. Swallowing it down until it sinks like a stone to the bottom of your belly. Heavy, for such a small, damning thing. 
How absurd, you think. How absolutely mad. 
Then you whisper, paperthin, “kiss me again, please, Simon—”
And he moves. Liquid in the gloam. Made more for shadows, midnight, than for golden apricity, where the light is harsh on his face, unveiling ruins and ravines; monoliths meant to be paid tribute to in the dark. Your hands lift to his jaw when he moves in, catching your lips in a bruising, biting kiss. 
His touch is searing. Owning. He isn't laying claim: no, you're already his. 
It's possessive and angry. No finesse. All slate teeth and tender tongue. They slide together in a strange game; little fawn stupidly nipping at the tiger's heel. He lets you, groaning into your mouth when you arch back, hips pushing into his fingers, taking him deeper. A pale pantomime of what's to come when he lays you on his soft bed, sweet and divine, and buries himself deep. 
It should scare you. Ought to. And maybe it does. Survival, you think, but you still pull him closer. Deeper. Because it’s bliss, you find. The world around you falling dead. Silent. Pulled into a vacuum. Teetering on the edge of a black hole, event horizon. He drags you in. 
Simon hums, pulling you closer. Touching you—soft, sweet. Palms a gyve. Shackles, chains. His fingers lift from your neck, trailing down the slope of your throat until he reaches the golden loop of your collar's hook. His gaze glides, magmatic, down to where your leash dangles between your heaving breasts.
It's almost tender when he grabs it into his fist. When he pulls, pulls—
Your back arching. His fingers slipping deeper inside your cunt. Obedient little doll.
When he lifts his eyes, the look you find is hot enough to char bone. You taste blood in the back of your throat—
Into the seam of your mouth, he purrs, “good girl.”
—and you swallow it down with a moan. 
(after all, you know better than to run from starving dogs—)
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luv4berry · 1 year ago
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Can you pls make one abt miles and yn getting into a very heated argument and she slaps him for saying smth outrageous and then she leaves and he climbs into her window after a few hours and tries to work it out with her
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anything for you.
earth 42!miles morales x fem!reader
SUMMARY: you go over to miles practically drenched in another man's cologne, and he jumps to conclusions all too quickly.
GENRE: fluff to angst to fluff.
WARNINGS: bickering/arguing, physical contact made by reader, jealous miles, cursing, kissing/making out, suggestive (?) miles calling women females (this needs a trigger warning in itself), CORNYYY
AUTHORS NOTE: yo why this tumblr shit lowkey fun? + this is my first request agagaa thank you!! omg and i hit 200?? and my eyes only is almost at 2k notes wtf r y’all onnnn?? anyways thank you for requesting! i didn’t make miles say anything too outrageous just so he could redeem himself later on, hope you like it!
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“you look so good,” your boyfriend says for what seems like the 100th time today, his large hands immediately dropping to your bare waist, fidgeting with your waist beads as he leans in to mold your lips, a smile gracing his face when you return his affection.
“all mine.” he mutters as he intensifies the kiss, his hands approaching the waist band of his boxers that you’ve claimed as your own. when he lifts your feet off the ground, the heels of your feet lock around his back, a giggle escaping your lips when he lays you down on his bed. you pull away from him, laying the palms of your hands on his chest to keep him away when he pursues your lips once more.
“miles, we can’t make out all day.” you giggle, running your manicured fingers down his chest.
“says who?” he buries his head in the crevice between your neck and shoulder, leaving wet kisses along the space when he suddenly pauses.
he removes his head from the crevice, sitting up to which you follow.
“baby,” you hum in acknowledgement, “where’d you go today?” he questions you, a hint of an indistinguishable emotion in his voice.
“just here, why?” you question him, running your nails up and down his neck. a look of confusion immediately sweeps over your features when he calmly removes your hand from his body.
“cause you smell like somebody been rubbing all up on you.” he looks you up and down, leaning in to now smell your clothes, hair, neck, anything within the perimeter really.
he pulls back, “who were you with?” his expression solidified.
“nobody, i swear i don’t know why i smell.” you reason with him, genuinely confused as well.
“oh? so the smell just magically took over your hair and your clothes?”
he completely gets up from his position next to you, hovering over you. “y/n, i know im not tripping, who the hell was rubbing up on you and why’s the smell so strong? that’s what we doin’ now? and then you got the audacity to bring your ass over to my house, lay in my bed, and wear my clothes.”
“what are you implying?” you scowl at him, now rising to your own feet.
“im implying that you forreal out here fucking on other dudes when you got a whole ass boyfriend.”
the next few moments go by swiftly and mindlessly, but the scorching sensation left in the palm of your left hand enables you to process what just happened almost immediately; you slapped him. though, not an ounce of regret filled your tank of emotions, adrenaline being the only identifiable one.
“i don’t know who the hell you’re talking to but it can’t be me, how dare you?” you glare at him, the imprint of your palm already making its mark on his face, the surrounding skin blemishing. “when have i ever done something like that to you?”
“today, apparently.” he mumbles under his breath, caressing the skin of his cheek to soothe the discomfort.
you look at him like he’s just grown 3 heads before silently walking over to the corner of his room, pulling his graphic tee over your shoulders. you immediately lunge it at him, same with his boxers, bracelets, his necklace, anything of his that is currently making contact with you. you zip up your navy blue hoodie, slipping your sweatpants over your bare legs.
you bring your tote bag over your shoulder, making your way towards his window which he currently guards, glaring at you from where you stand.
“miles, get the hell out my way before i pop you in your mouth next.”
“i want his name and address, you not going anywhere till i get an answer.”
you flail your arms in his face, “are you deaf or just stupid? there is no “him�� because the only person i been rubbing up on is you!”
“baby, i don’t smell like no cheap ass cologne.”
“don’t call me that, move!” you raise your voice, stepping up to him.
“what’s his name?”
“you’re crazy.” you scoff, instead bolting for the front door. you’re mindful of mama rio cooking in the kitchen, slipping past quietly as to not raise any suspicion. though, you do bid her a quiet farewell, yet even when you slip out the front door with a smile on your face she knows something isn’t right by the way miles isn’t trailing behind you.
“miles, qué pasó?” she calls out from the kitchen, wiping her hands down her apron and subtly knocking on her sons door before entering.
“it’s nothing.” he calls back, digging his cheek into his pillow to prevent his mother from spotting the blossoming blemish. he didn’t want to explain how he got you so worked up that you slapped him to his mother, or anyone for that matter.
“it’s nothing? invite her over for dinner tonight.” rio arches her brow, taking a seat next to her son on the bed.
“we aren’t on good terms right now.” he sighs out, rubbing his hands over his eyes.
“even more of a reason to invite her over, right?” rio says, making her way out of his bedroom before miles could come up with a rebuttal.
he lazily grabs his phone when it pings, though when he realizes the message is from you, he throws it on the floor until the phone pings with a second message. he groans loudly swiping open your messages.
one attachment
next time don’t make stupid assumptions you dick
the photo captioned was of a half empty cologne bottle you had probably found somewhere in your home, miles heart immediately dropping to his stomach.
okay, maybe he fucked up a teensy tiny bit.
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when you got home, you racked your brain for a possible explanation as to why you smelled like anything other than your boyfriend. you were stumped till your brother had walked past you, the aroma that had gotten miles so worked up earlier clouding your senses immediately.
you lay on the pad of your tummy on your king sized bed, your irritable mood causing a burning sensation to spread throughout your body. though it may not be displayed through your face, you were absolutely livid. after all you’ve done for him, this is what you got in return, his unprecedented allegations.
sure it was reasonable to be suspicious, but to outright accuse you? you’ve never given him any reason not to trust you, reassuring him whenever he needed it. had your words not been enough? what about your gestures? what about the times you’d cuddle up with him in bed, sleepily muttering words like “im yours,” or “i belong to you, miles.” had that not been enough?
your jittering thoughts are interrupted by a newfound presence in the corner of your room, the peripherals of your eye capturing those twin braids that you adore so much.
“nuh uh, get the hell up outta here.” you sit up, pointing back towards the window.
“deadass?” he raises both brows, staring at you dead in the eyes.
“deadass.” you return the gesture.
“nah.” he climbs into bed with you, settling his arm over your waist.
“im being serious miles, get out. don’t touch me either.” you pick up his arm as if it’s diseased, laying it over his stomach.
“you don’t like it when i touch on you?” he says in a sultry voice, and you roll your eyes.
“ma, listen to me,” he grabs your chin meeting you at eye level, your brows still furrowed out of anger. when your eyes meet his, any foreign sense of anger evaporates from your system, turning to putty in his hands, no matter how much you tried to fight it.
“you’re so pretty baby,” he kisses your downturned lips once.
“why you look so mad?” he ignorantly questions you, kissing your lips once more.
“baby smile for me?” he squishes your cheeks, yet he’s still met with silence till you finally part your lips.
“this isn’t helping your case by the way.” you roll your eyes at his obvious attempts to bribe you.
“alright, what if i came to you smelling like some other female? you wouldn’t like that huh?” he attempts to reason with you.
“i came to you smelling like my brother? and even then if you came to me smelling like some girl i would conduct a thorough investigation first.” you side eye him.
“how was i supposed to know it was your brother? i didn’t even know he was back.”
“he got back this morning, i gave him a hug and he must’ve rubbed off on me.”
“you didn’t tell me all that. so what i gotta do for you to believe im sorry, hm?” he climbs on top of you, following your darting eyes with his own.
“buy me a pandora bracelet.” you joke.
he perks up, “on god? baby i buy you jordans every other day, the hell is a bracelet?”
“i mean i was joking but you serious?”
“you didn’t know that i’d do anything for you?”
“you’re corny boooo, leave me alone.” you push his head away from yours, your facade breaking when a smile plays at your lips.
“y/n?”
“hm?”
“why do you hit so hard?”
“what do you mean?” you ask him, your outburst from earlier had completely left your mind. he turns to the side, and your eyes widen as they lay upon the imprint of your hand slowly fading,
“oh shit,” you wince, inspecting the damage of your earlier actions.
you throw the blanket off your legs, sitting on your knees to inspect further. you silently grab his hand, heading towards your bathroom as you slowly feel guilt begin to stir inside you.
“stay here.” he watches as you disappear into the hallway, coming back with a frozen pack of peas. you hold it up to his cheek for him, fiddling with the ends of his braids as you repeatedly check for signs of the bruising going away.
“im sorry miles, i shouldn’t have hit you.”
he hums in acknowledgment of your apology, parting his lips to speak. “it’s okay, i like them aggressive.”
a smile threatens your lips, your hand going up to cover your mouth to keep your false facade up.
“nah why you keep smiling?” he grabs your wrist, pulling your hand down to stare at you intently.
“stop that.” you attempt to straighten out your face.
it’s silent for the next few moments as you adjust the frozen peas seeing that the bruise had almost completely faded.
“y/n, you know im being forreal when i say i’d do anything for you, right?”
“yeah, i know.”
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love, berry.
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wifelinkmtg · 1 year ago
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TUMBLR POST EDITOR WON'T LET ME TITLE THIS POST ANYMORE SO I GUESS THIS IS THE TITLE NOW. WEBBED SITE INNIT
So let's say you grew up in the nineties and that The Lion King was an important movie to you. Let's say that the character of Scar - snarling, ambitious, condescending, effeminate Scar - stirred feelings in you which you had no words for as a child. And then let's say, many years later, you're talking about it with a college friend, and you say something like, "oh man, I think Scar was some sort of gay awakening for me," and she fixes you with this level stare and says, "Scar was a fascist. What's the matter with you?"
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The immediate feeling is not unlike missing a step: hang on, what's happening, what did I miss? You knew there were goose-stepping hyenas in "Be Prepared," but you didn't think it mattered that much. He's the bad guy, after all, and the movie's just pointing it out. Your friend says it's more than that: the visuals of the song are directly referencing the Nuremberg rallies. They're practically an homage to Riefenstahl. This was your sexual awakening? Is this why you're so into peaked caps and leather, then? Subliminal nazi kink, perhaps?
And then one of your other friends cuts in. "Hold up," he says, "let's think about what Scar actually did in the movie. He organized a group of racialized outcasts and led them against a predatory monarchy. Why are you so keen to defend their hereditary rule? Scar's the good guy here." The conversation immediately descends into a verbal slap fight about who the real bad guy is, whether Scar's regime was actually responsible for the ecological devastation of the Pride Lands, whether the hyenas actually count as "racialized" because James Earl Jones voiced Mufasa after all. Your Catholic friend starts saying some strange and frankly concerning shit about Natural Law. Someone brings The Lion King 2 into it. You leave the conversation feeling a little bit lost and a little bit anxious. What were we even talking about?
INTRODUCING: THE DITCH
There is a way of reading texts which I'm afraid is pervasive, which has as its most classical expression the smug obsession with trivia and minutiae you find in a certain vein of comic book fan. "Who was the first Green Lantern? What was his weakness? Do you even know the Green Lantern Oath?" It eschews the subjective in favor of definitively knowable fact. You can't argue with this guy that, say, Alan Scott shouldn't really count as the first Green Lantern because his whole deal is so radically different from the Hal Jordan/John Stewart/Guy Gardner Corps-era Lanterns, because this guy will simply say "but he's called Green Lantern. Says so right on the cover. Checkmate." This approach to reading a text is fundamentally 1) emotionally detached (there's a reason the joke goes, oh you like X band? name three of their songs - and not, which of their songs means the most to you? which of them came into your life at exactly the right moment to tell you exactly what you needed to hear just then?) and 2) defensive. It's a stance that is designed not to lose arguments. It says so right on the cover. Checkmate.
And then you get the guys who are like "well obviously Bruce Wayne could do far more as a billionaire to solve societal problems by using his tremendous wealth to address systemic issues instead of dressing up as a bat and punching mental patients in the head," and these guys have half a point but they're basically in the same ditch butting heads with the "well, actually" guys, and can we not simply extricate ourselves from the ditch entirely?
So, okay, let's return to our initial example. Scar is portrayed using Nazi iconography - the goose-stepping, the monumentality, the Nuremberg Lichtdom. He is also flamboyant and effete. He unifies and leads a group of downtrodden exiles to overthrow an absolute monarch. He's also a self-serving despot on whose rule Heaven Itself turns its back. You can't reconcile these things from within the ditch - or if you can, the attempt is likely to be ad-hoc supposition and duct tape.
Instead, let's ask ourselves what perspective The Lion King is coming from. What does it say is true about the world? What are its precepts, its axioms?
There is a natural hierarchical order to the world. This is just and righteous and the way of things, and attempts to overthrow this order will be punished severely by the world itself.
Fascism is what happens when evil men attempt to usurp this natural order with the aid of a group or groups of people who refuse to accept their place in the order.
There exists an alternative to defending and adhering to one's place in the natural order - it consists only of selfish spineless apathy.
Manliness is an essential quality of a just ruler. Unmanliness renders a person unfit for rule, and often resentful and dangerous as well.
And isn't that interesting, laid out like that? It renders the entire argument about the movie irrelevant (except for whatever your Catholic friend was on about, since his understanding of the world seems to line up with the above precepts weirdly well.) It's meaningless to argue about whether Scar was a secret hero or a fascist, when the movie doesn't understand fascism and has a damn-near alien view of what good and evil are.
There's always gonna be someone who, having read this far, wants to reply, "so, what? The Lion King is a bad movie and the people who made it were homophobes and also American monarchists, somehow? And anyone who likes it is also some sort of gay-bashing crypto-authoritarian?" To which I have to reply, man, c'mon, get out of the ditch. You're no good to anyone in there. Take my hand. I'm going to pull on three. One... two...
SO PHYREXIA [PAUSE FOR APPLAUSE, GROANS]
We're talking about everyone's favorite ichor-drooling surgery monsters again because there was a bit in my ~*~seminal~*~ essay Transformation, Horror, Eros, Phyrexia which seemed to give a number of readers quite a bit of trouble: namely, the idea that while Phyrexia is textually fascist, their aesthetic is incompatible with real-world fascism, and further, that this aesthetic incompatibility in some way outweighs the ways in which they act like a fascist nation in terms of how we think of them. I'll take responsibility here: I don't think that point is at all clear or well-argued in that essay. What I was trying to articulate was that the text of Magic: the Gathering very much wants Phyrexia to be supremely evil and dangerous fascists, because that makes for effective antagonists, but in the process of constructing that, it's accidentally encoded a whole bunch of fascinating presuppositions that end up working at cross-purposes with its apparent aim. That's... not that much clearer, is it? Hmm. Why don't I just show you what I mean?
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Atraxa, Grand Unifier (art by Marta Nael)
In "Beneath Eyes Unblinking," one of the March of the Machine stories by K. Arsenault Rivera, there's a fascinating and I think revealing passage in which Atraxa (big-deal Phyrexianized angel and Elesh Norn's lieutenant) has a run-in with an art museum in New Capenna. The first thing I want to talk about is that, in this passage, Atraxa has no understanding of the concept of "beauty". A great deal of space in such a rushed storyline is devoted to her trying to puzzle out what beauty means and interrogating the minds of her recently-compleated Capennan aesthetes to try and understand it. In the end, she is unable to conceive of beauty except as "wrongness," as anathema.
So my first question is, why doesn't Atraxa have any idea of beauty? This is nonsense, right? We could point to a previous story, "A Garden of Flesh," by Lora Gray, in which Elesh Norn explicitly thinks in terms of beauty, but that's a little bit ditchbound, isn't it? The better argument is to simply look at Phyrexian bodies, at the Phyrexian landscape, all of which looks the way it does on purpose, all of which has been shaped in accordance with the very real aesthetic preferences of Phyrexians. How you could look at the Fair Basilica and not understand that Phyrexians most definitely have an idea of beauty, even if you personally disagree with it, is baffling. This is a lot like the canonical assertion that Phyrexians lack souls, which is both contradicted elsewhere in canon and essentially meaningless, given Magic's unwillingness or inability to articulate what a soul is in its setting, and as with this, it seems the goal is simply to dehumanize Phyrexians, to render them alien, even at the cost of incoherence or internal contradiction.
Atraxa's progress through the museum is fascinating. It evokes the 1937 Nazi exhibit on "degenerate art" in Munich, but not at all cleanly. The first exhibit, which is of representational art, she angrily destroys for being too individualistic (a point of dissonance with the European fascist movements of the 20th century, which formed in direct antagonism to communism.) The second exhibit, filled with abstract paintings and sculptures, she destroys even more angrily for having no conceivable use (this is much more in line with the Nazi idea of "degenerate art", so well done there.) The third exhibit is filled with war trophies and reconstructions from a failed Phyrexian invasion of Capenna many years prior, which she is angriest of all with (and fair enough, I suppose.) But then, after she's done completely trashing the place, she spots a number of angel statues on the cathedral across the plaza, and she goes apeshit. In a fugue of white-hot rage, she pulverizes the angel heads, and here is where I have to ask my second question:
Why angels? If you are trying to invoke fascist attitudes toward art, big statues of angels are precisely the wrong thing for your fascist analogues to hate. Fascists love monumental, heroic representations of superhuman perfection. It's practically their whole aesthetic deal. I understand that we're foreshadowing the imminent defeat of Phyrexia at the hands of legions of angels and a multiversal proliferation of angel juice, but that just leads to the exact same question: why angels? To the best of my knowledge, the Phyrexian weakness to New Capennan angel juice is something invented for this storyline. They have, after all, been happily compleating angels since 1997. We could talk about the in-universe justification for why Halo specifically is so potent, but I don't remember what that justification is, and also don't care. Let's not jump back in the ditch, please. The point is, someone decided that this time, Phyrexia would be defeated by an angelic host, and what does that mean? What is the text trying to say? What are its precepts and axioms?
Let me ask you a question: how many physically disabled angels are there in Magic: the Gathering? How about transsexual angels? How many angels are there, on all of the cards that have ever been printed for Magic: the Gathering, that are even just a bit ugly? Do you get it yet? Or do you need me to spell it out for you?
SPELLING IT OUT FOR YOU
There is a kind of body which is bad. It is bad because it has been significantly altered from its natural state, and it is bad because it is repellent to our aesthetic sensibilities.
The bad kind of body is contagious. It spreads through contact. Sometimes people we love are infected, and then they become the bad kind of body too.
There is a kind of body which is good. It is good because it is pleasing to our aesthetic sensibilities, and it is good because it is unaltered from its (super)natural state.
A happy ending is when all the good bodies destroy or drive into hiding all of the bad bodies. A happy ending is when the bad bodies of the people we love are forcibly returned to being the good kind of body.
Do you get it now?
ENDNOTES
It's worth noting that the ditch is very similar to the white American Evangelical hermeneutics of "the Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it," the defensive chapter-and-verse-or-it-didn't-happen approach to reading a text, what Fred Clark of slacktivist calls "concordance-ism". I don't think that's accidental. We stand underneath centuries of people reading the Bible very poorly - how could that not affect how we read things today? We are participants in history whether we like it or not.
I sincerely hope I haven't come across as condescending in this essay. Close reading is legitimately difficult! They teach college courses on this stuff! And while it is frustrating to have my close readings interrogated by people who... aren't doing that, like. I do get it. I find myself back in the ditch all the time. This stuff is hard. It is also, sorry, crucial if you intend to say something about a text that's worth saying.
I also hope I've communicated clearly here. Magic story is sufficiently incoherent that trying to develop a thesis about it often feels like trying to nail jello to the wall. If anyone has questions, please ask them! And thank you for reading. Next time, we'll probably do the new Eldraine set.
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sunburnacoustic · 2 years ago
Text
"I’ve got no idea where this came from! I think someone stuck it on the internet for a joke and everyone believed it; it’s completely false. I’ve never played with them or met them. I wish I did – I would’ve loved to have supported them; ideally on the same bus as well."
—Matt Bellamy, on the rumour that Muse once supported Spice Girls, Triple J Magazine interview, 31 October 2007
(The questions for this interview were all sent in by fans)
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