#because on a primal level I do NOT understand them and that pisses me off

[platypusisnotonfire]

I’m annoyed by irrational numbers

I know they’re real numbers

They exist

But they are infinite? But not. They are decidedly NOT infinity. But they are….infinitely repeating

It’s like infinity into atoms compared to infinity into the universe but like

They’re also REAL FREAKING NUMBERS that can define finite objects (circles for instance)

I’m not happy about them

[saintsenara]

For sure and fair play, HP was a long project! But yeah, JKR fiercely defending her inconsistencies almost forces us to fiercely point them. Out of spite. I do get that many issues were out of Harry’s radar and understanding, but JKR trying to convince the audience through interviews that the wizarding world doesn’t have the same prejudices as the muggle world just makes me conclude that she must be herself incredibly unaware of the privileges herself and people in her circle possess. Plus the whole HIV parallel that just sounds so misguided and sours the text to me. Yet here I am! Love your blog xx

the lycanthropy-as-aids metaphor is extraordinary in how tone-deaf it is and it pisses me off...

especially because it doesn't make sense at any point in the story. the complete transformation of how house elves think of their enslavement between chamber of secrets [in which dobby mentions whisper-networks of politically-engaged elves decrying their treatment at the hands of wizards] and goblet of fire is really fucking irritating, but it has some slight defence in the narrative shift that the series undergoes after prisoner of azkaban from children's boarding-school literature to something approaching folkloric epic.

[that is, chamber of secrets needs to wrap up with dobby being freed, the malfoys getting their - comparatively benign - comeuppance, and everything being well, because children's stories always end with that everything back to normal vibe, and so the fact that harry has just learned that the wizarding world has institutionalised chattel slavery and been remarkably unbothered by that fact can be shelved by the genre conventions. after prisoner of azkaban, the books end more ambiguously and are more interlinked, as they start moving towards their big conclusion in deathly hallows, and are also darker in tone. and yet she decided to use this shift in tone... to make elves love being enslaved...]

which is to say, perhaps the lycanthropy-as-aids metaphor could be justified as a standalone plot device within prisoner of azkaban - since the reader does hear lupin explain not only the shame and stigma wizarding society's poor understanding of his condition causes, but also how the state's callous discrimination against werewolves impacts his ability to access healthcare, education, and employment - which then doesn't work after the series' narrative shift, when jkr wanted to introduce characters like fenrir greyback...

except it doesn't work even then! because at the end of prisoner of azkaban lupin turns into a rampaging monster who has a desperate, primal urge to eat children - and reveals his condition to be legitimately dangerous to an extent which entirely justifies why parents would feel uneasy about him being employed in a school.

[and - especially - being employed without dumbledore appearing to put any safeguards in place to keep both lupin and his students safe.]

one part of the tragedy of the aids crisis is baseless social stigma at an individual level, absolutely, and lupin - who is a nice [ish] man who doesn't meet the stereotypes wizards appear to have of untransformed werewolves - suffers from this.

but another is the way this stigma drove a state-sanctioned looking-the-other-way and refusing to act while the bodies piled up - something there is no parallel for in the series' worldbuilding around werewolves, not least because it tends to have a positive view of states and their institutions [state corruption is always located in individuals - fudge, umbridge - rather than in the structures which enable them, which are seen as fundamentally sound, for example] which i would imagine most people who know even a cursory amount about the official response to the aids crisis are unlikely to share...

and another is that - since hiv has a very, very long asymptomatic period - it was spreading without anyone knowing it existed for years, if not decades, before it burst into the public consciousness with death on wholesale scale. and then it continued to spread in terror and confusion - for years, you couldn't know if you had it until you started getting sick, and then, when you could access tests [if you could access tests], you were told it was a death sentence, and you would be unable to pinpoint when and by whom you'd been infected, and you would be unable to know how many people you might have infected in turn.

nothing about the series' presentation of lycanthropy corresponds to this.

but, with this said, i think there are two parallels between the conditions which could be interesting in the hands of someone who approached them with care.

the first is to see lupin's role as the series' one "good werewolf" as a mirror to the fact that public opinion became considerably more sympathetic to those living with and dying of hiv/aids when it began to emerge that people [white! "respectable"! heterosexual!] had been infected via blood transfusions and treatments for haemophilia. queer men and intravenous drug users could be dismissed as having brought their infections upon themselves... but not someone [white! "respectable"! heterosexual!] who went into hospital for a routine operation and came out slowly dying.

lupin - the son of a prominent civil servant [with all the class status that entails], bitten as a child through no fault of his own, hogwarts educated, connected to establishment figures like dumbledore - makes a great poster child for a milquetoast "werewolves aren't all bad" campaign which manages not to offend the state's sensibilities by asking it to stop demonising pretty much every other werewolf in history...

the second is to think about the generational divide.

in countries where access to appropriate medication is widespread [and that there are many countries where this isn't the case shouldn't be forgotten], hiv is easily treatable, easily manageable, easily rendered untransmissable, and easily preventable. the quality of life - and the life expectancy - of hiv positive people is now broadly equal to that of their hiv negative peers. the number of aids-related deaths worldwide annually has more than halved since 2010 and, in 2024, it is possible to say that virtually nobody who is newly diagnosed with hiv will go on to develop aids.

this is - sincerely - one of the single greatest achievements in the history of medicine. and it's completely changed how we think and talk about hiv, what it means to be diagnosed with it, what it means to live with it, and what it means to know [and to love, and to fuck] someone who has it.

if we imagine that there are similar advances in the treatment of lycanthropy - with the wolfsbane potion, which seems pretty bare-bones, replaced with something which made the impact of the werewolf's transformation even less severe [or which prevented it altogether] - then being a werewolf in the 2020s would mean something very different than it did in the 1980s.

and if - say - lupin is right, and teddy inherits his condition, thinking about how enormously different his experience being a werewolf might be from his father's [even at a very basic level - not having to turn down invitations based on the moon cycle, for example], and how he would come to understand himself and understand lupin through this different experience, would be a genuinely fascinating premise for a fic.

but not if jkr was writing it.

[eego0]

Part 2 of the rant and why I have a problem with Laurance in MCD season 2

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why Laurance is outwardly jealous in season 2. He thought he secured Aphmau and it seems like she reciprocated his feelings for awhile. It was only natural that he got angry. The problem became a problem when he endangered (physically and mentally) the people he SWORE to protect because he got jealous.

I’ll go into why Laurance being plain mean to Aphmau about a relationship he knew NOTHING about was so upsetting after I cover the endangering of his loved ones.

1.) We’re gonna start at the end and work our way backwards- when he made the decision to not only JOIN THE SHADOW KNIGHTS IN THE NETHER (obviously it’s not that cut and dry since he was a rebel and actively doing things to piss off Shad and make his life more difficult), BUT LET OUT THE TWO PRISONERS OF PHEONIX DROP THAT HAD PROVEN TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO BE LETHAL. He could’ve left Pheonix Drop without letting out Sasha, the woman who tried to kill Aphmau’s infant son because he was a descendant LOOOONG down the Irene bloodline, and Michi, the woman who not only drugged and sold Aphmau, Katelyn, AND LAURANCE HIMSELF to werewolves that were either going to marry them off or kill them, BUT THE SAME WOMAN WHO KIDNAPPED APHMAU’S SONS AND WIFE TO TRAFFICK THEM….

Now this next part is going to be the longest section in this rant so buckle in if you plan to keep reading!!

2.) One of the scenes that makes me feel PRIMAL rage for MCD Aphmau is when she had to kill an imp that impersonated her DEAD lover and the father of her adopted child. She’s sitting on the alliance island beach with his bandanna in hand, still very shaken up. This situation happens after FINALLY she’s finally begun adjusting to life without Aaron once again, but her progress feels useless since her heart was plucked out of her chest and stomped on at his brutal reappearance. This is when Laurance feels the need to interrogate her on why she cares so much that Aaron is dead.

I don’t give a FUCK about all of the defenses people make for Laurance. “He’s a shadow knight!” “He couldn’t control his words!” “The calling made him more jealous/angry/unpredictable!” “He kissed her first!” “He liked Aphmau at first sight and she reciprocated his feelings at one point so his question was valid!” - It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship he thought Aphmau and Aaron had. It doesn’t matter if Laurmau didn’t go through in canon and he was upset. Laurance KNEW Aphmau and Aaron were friends. They lived in the same house and took care of Lilith together. They bonded over being lords and found comfort in each other when they couldn’t find comfort in anyone else. They were good friends to the public eye, and Laurance was a part of the public eye, though he saw them as more than good friends since he had a reason to pay extra attention. Point is, he only REALLY knew what Aphmau told him (outside of his inference) and she was set on keeping her relationships to herself. No matter what he thought their relationship was, he was being an asshole and had no right to talk to her like she was overreacting when she had a completely valid grief response to her friend DYING.

HE WASN’T EVEN THERE IN THE VILLAGE WHEN AARON DIED… HE WASNT THERE TO SEE THE DRAMATIC REVEAL OF AARONS SWORD AND BANDANNA IN THE HANDS OF GARROTH, THEIR BEST FRIEND THAT THEYD BEEN TRYING SAVE SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING OF SEASON 2. HE WAS ON A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY THAT HE TOLD NOBODY ABOUT. THEN HE SHOWS UP AND HAS THE GALL TO ASK HER WHY SHE WAS “making such a big fuss” OVER AARON AND HAVING TO KILL HIM WHEN AN IMP TOOK HIS FORM?

In any case, Aphmau would’ve likely reacted the way she did had it been anyone else in her group who died, but in that situation, at least Aaron would’ve been able to help her through the hurt and empathize with her emotions. Nobody else could talk to her on that kind of emotional level without expecting something back. But no, god forbid Aphmau ever feel any emotion aside from happiness and hope. She can have anger, but only the motivational kind that led armies. God forbid she chose her own love. That would dampen the mood and ruin the narrative everyone needed her to follow.

3.) Hyria’s forest. Aphmau is tired, pissed off, and scared. She’s spent days acting as a thief to get information on her son’s and wife’s whereabouts only to find out they’ve been taken out of the area and brought back around a village that’s close to their home. She knows they’re in danger and with Michi, the woman who trafficked her and her friends. She KNOWS the same fate or worse is going to fall on her family if she doesn’t find them in time. She’s in Narahka Village which has EXPLODED into chaos over the Tu’la invasion going into their nextdoor neighbor, O’khasis. And she can’t find Aaron. She just BARELY found Vlyad and they decided on their route home through a forest that people are KNOWN to get stranded in. And Aaron is missing.

Laurance was already upset that Aphmau was looking for Vlyad but he REALLY wanted to escape once she brought up Aaron (I definitely understand why he was pushing to leave since there were armed troops marching to Narahka but he also knows that Aphmau would gladly put herself in danger to save a friends. He’d do the same thing). Aphmau knows that she last saw Aaron in the ruins of Falcon Claw and he was out of it, but she doesn’t know if he’s still there.

She says, “Laurance, I can’t lose him!”

He replies, “I can’t lose you!”

They get to the edge of the forest and Aphmau is still frantically looking around to see if Aaron’s caught up. Laurance and Katelyn point out her behavior.

Laurance asks if she’s even paying attention to their planning knowing she’s preoccupied with her thoughts about Aaron’s whereabouts.

FINALLY, Aaron dashes through the forest and Aphmau calls out to him, running up to him just thankful that he’s okay. He says he knows a place to go.

Laurance stops Aphmau for this conversation that I’m going to transcribe here as a refresher for everyone:

———

L: What was all that about? The whole “worrying about Aaron” thing?

A: I was glad to see him..? I was incredibly worried about his safety.

L: So going up to him and practically embracing him is how you show that?

A: What..? Nothing even happened! Does it even matter?

L: I don’t like you getting so close to him.

A: wait. Are you- Are you jealous?

L: I wont lie, yes. It makes no sense.

A: First off Laurance, I don’t see why that’s any of your Business. I understand that you’re my guard, however, you allowed me to join a thieves guild and didn’t get upset, yet one small sign of friendly affection towards Aaron and suddenly you’re questioning my motives?

L: I just think you should be careful around him is all.

A: you don’t have any idea of who he is or what he’s been through, so I would appreciate it if you kept your jealousy to yourself on this one.

L: Hmph

A: Just remember what happened last time you got jealous Laurance, and the promise that you made me.. what’s going on?

L: It’s nothing, I’m sorry..it’s just, this situation is really stressful. The fact that you embraced Aaron and before that were obsessed with finding Vlyad…I don’t see why you need to care about any of them.

A: I think you’re letting your emotions get to you right now. Just know that if it were you, I’d do the same thing. i…know that we’ve shared some moments in the past, but my life isn’t as easy as just caring about a few people. Now, enough of this bickering, we’ll talk about this later.

——

I get it. People are into the possessive lover thing. Part of Laurance’s development is how he progressively gets more possessive as the calling gets worse. His coping mechanism for staying human is imagining a world where his perfect life is reality. We’ve all been there. But it’s an issue, and I’ll stand by Aphmau any day of the week defending her right to have other friends and find new love. She doesn’t owe anything to Laurance, which people on the Laurmau side of the fandom don’t consider often and fight with me about a LOT. Laurance became a Shadow Knight to buy Aphmau time in the nether during season 1. He died. But HE MADE THAT CHOICE. APHMAU DOESNT OWE HIM HER LIFE BECAUSE HE MADE THE CHOICE TO BUY HER AND CASTOR TIME. And you know what, even if she did, she repayed that debt by thought, action, and word every chance she got after he was out and safe. THATS WHY THEIR FRIENDSHIP WAS BEAUTIFUL! THEY SAVED EACH OTHER A LOT AND REPAYED EACH OTHER EVERY TIME!

Final thoughts (as of rn):

I love Laurance’s character as much as the next person. He’s charming, flirty, sweet, and has a VERY interesting downward spiral. Him and Aphmau would’ve made a good couple had they been official, but they weren’t. Aphmau reasonably fell in love with someone that made her feel stable and could truly empathize with/get through to her, which is important to remember.

It really bothers me how hard people in the fandom defend him even after seeing how he talked to Aphmau after Aaron died but even before. “It was justified!” Mmmkay..

To any Laurance lovers who’ve stumbled upon this post, I love him too, but understand that I can’t physically bring myself to love him more than my pookie bear Aaron💕💕💕 (please don’t dox me if you don’t agree🥺🙏🔥🔥🔥)/Lh

Thank you again for reading all of this and hearing me if you got this far- I love you all very much<3

[pearlescentplum]

Paper Moon Chapter 17

(the rest can be found on ao3 hehe)

Katsuki wasn’t opposed to sharing a room with Todoroki. In fact, when asked by his teacher if he wanted to, Katsuki was totally fine with it. Despite “ridiculing” and “teasing” (Midoriya’s words, not his), Todoroki constantly, Katsuki found himself thinking of him as a friend. As much as it made Katsuki feel physically sick to think, he liked Todoroki. He liked Fuyumi and Natsuo, too, despite the bullshit Fuyumi pulled earlier. 

He understood her annoyance, in a way. He understood how angry and frustrated she was. He understood that sometimes people say things they don’t mean when they're at their breaking points. He understood it all on a primal level because that is what Katsuki does himself, and everyone around him had been a victim of this rage at some point. He had no right to judge her. But still, it didn’t dispel the rage slowly building through him during the entirety of the conversation and the anger he was left with when Todoroki finally stormed out of the room. 

Katsuki pressed his back against the wall, staring straight ahead as he debated going inside or not. He had been there for a while, quite an embarrassing amount of time, but there was something inside him that didn’t want to even think about entering their shared room. Katsuki wasn’t opposed to sharing a room with Todoroki, he wasn’t at all, but right now, he definitely wished he didn’t. 

He knew Todoroki. He knew that he was probably pissed off and doing some dumb shit. He probably didn’t want to talk to Katsuki or even look in his direction. Katsuki knew that Todoroki had some snarky things to say to Katsuki up his sleeves that he could easily whip out at a moment’s notice, taking his anger and frustration out on Katsuki. Katsuki understood that he did the same thing, after all, but he knew that provoking Todoroki was the last thing he should do for Todoroki’s sake-

Ugh. Katsuki was thinking about Todoroki’s feelings now. Maybe getting impaled does make you soft. 

Fuck. He felt like shit, not physically but emotionally, unable to help but think about what had happened earlier today with that fucking argument. And now, with that family secret weighing on his chest, what was he going to do? 

“Why did you fucking say that?” Katsuki asked. The words unraveled out of his mouth before he could stop them. 

“Kacchan, can you please approach the situation with a bit more respect?” Midoriya said quickly, his voice hushed. 

“No.” 

“No, Bakugou’s got a point,” Natsuo said, “why did you say that, Fuyumi?

Fuyumi met Katsuki’s eyes, tears watering up in hers, slowly dripping down her cheek and collecting on her chin. Katsuki swallowed. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. 

“I-I don't know,” she said, her voice quiet and cracking, “I just…he doesn’t understand what I do- what WE do for him.”

Katsuki scoffed, rolling his eyes at her response. “Okay, that doesn’t mean you had to go and pull that shit. You knew what you were doing. You knew how he would react.” 

Fuyumi crossed her arms tightly over her chest, letting the tears roll down her cheeks without even bothering to wipe them. “I know.”

“You knew that would make him fucking….” Katsuki let out a long sigh, pressing his fingers into the bridge between his brows. He felt that familiar burning sensation deep in the pit of his stomach and the prickling on his skin.

“It's been hard for me recently-”

“For you?” Katsuki yelled, a sneer spreading across his face as he tried to stifle a laugh. “What about him? Have you thought about him?” 

“You don’t get it. It’s just rehashing everything and what’s happening with mom-”

Natsuo’s head whipped in her direction. “Fuyumi-”

“What’s happening with your mom?” Katsuki asked. 

“Kacchan-”

“She-” 

Katsuki let out a long sigh, tilting his head back to rest it against the wall. He liked drama, maybe even admittedly a little too much, but this was something else entirely. This was a little much. 

He couldn’t tell Todoroki. He couldn’t, and frankly, he really didn’t want to. He wasn’t about to be the person who told him and then had to take responsibility for the problems that would, without a doubt, ensue. Katsuki wasn’t about to be the victim of Todoroki’s wrath, no matter how selfish it made him. 

Was it selfish? Should he tell him?

“Kacchan,” Deku said, his voice abnormally stern, “you can’t tell Todoroki, okay?”

Katsuki scoffed, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. He couldn’t believe that Deku was arguing to keep something like this a secret from Todoroki about his own fucking mother. He couldn’t imagine how he would feel if he knew that his friends and family were keeping something like this from him. 

“No fucking way. He deserves to know.” 

Deku let out a sharp exhale through his nose, meeting Katsuki’s eyes with his own. “Seriously, Kacchan. You know how Todoroki is right now with his Dad and brother. You know this will just make everything so much worse for him.”

Katsuki glared at him. He couldn’t believe that Midoriya was on their side. This was a betrayal of their friend’s trust in them. This was something that Todoroki deserved to know. It wasn’t about his mental state or his dad or his brother or anything- it was about much, much more. Katsuki was pissed, to say the least, pissed at his siblings and pissed at Deku. Pissed at the nurses and doctors who wouldn’t let him access any media and pissed at Sensei for allowing him to sit here not knowing a thing beyond surface level about what was going on in his life. 

Katsuki was more than pissed. He was enraged. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? So you think it’s fucking okay not to tell him? You agree?” Katsuki snarled, his voice much louder than he intended it to be. Anger was boiling inside him, popping like his quirk. 

Midoriya looked shocked for a moment but quickly softened, his gaze turning back to being that characteristic serious yet sympathetic expression. “No. I don’t think it’s okay. I think the way that everyone is handling things is…it’s stupid. They aren't doing what’s right for him.” 

“But?” 

“But it isn't our place to tell him.”

Katsuki furrowed his brow. How the fuck was it not their place? They’re his friends, aren't they? 

“Look,” Midoriya said, as if reading his thoughts, “it’s their family business. It wouldn’t be right to anyone involved if we told him. They chose not to, and even though I think it wasn’t a smart move, it wouldn’t be right if we went behind their backs. Maybe there’s a reason.” 

Katsuki hated it when Midoriya was right, and he was right annoyingly often. He was right about this situation. He couldn’t tell Todoroki about this. Not because he didn’t want to, as this was eating Katsuki up inside to not to, but because of the obvious- Todoroki is not mentally stable enough to deal with this predicament. Katsuki couldn’t, and he wouldn’t for Todoroki’s sake, no matter how wrong it felt. 

No, it didn’t feel wrong. It was wrong.

Katsuki pushed off the wall, turning to stare back at the door. It was quiet on the other end, eerily quiet. It was night. He knew that from the windows lining the hall, but this was Todoroki- the guy just didn’t seem to sleep. And when he did, he was still making noise, whether it was talking (or yelling) in his sleep or the weird thrashing he did late at night that always woke Katsuki in the middle of the night. The other side of the door was just too quiet . 

He didn’t know why he felt the way he did when he set his hand on the door handle. He didn’t know why he hesitated for just a moment or why an unfamiliar sensation gripped his throat with its frigid hands. A cold feeling enveloped his body, sending a shiver down his spine and filling his already aching stomach with a heavy sensation as if his dinner was a rock instead of flavorless miso soup and dry, overcooked katsudon that was comparable to a leather glove. This feeling was fucking weird. 

Katsuki snorted, laughing to himself at his ridiculousness. Todoroki Shouto normally filled him with a prickly feeling, the same feeling he got when Kirishima or Midoriya were around. It was annoyance, he had come to realize, but it was a lot less intense than the burning feeling he would get in his stomach and the urge to blow everything around him up like he normally felt with Kaminari, Mineta, and the others who all drove him insane. Maybe this was friendship. 

Todoroki was his friend. 

In one swift movement, Katsuki slid open the door to their room. He was met with an eerie darkness, which was not what he expected at 7:30 pm. As he stepped in, his footsteps echoed across the walls, filling the ghostly quiet that he was cursed with bearing. The lights from the city surrounding them poured through the windows, lighting the room enough for Katsuki to see that Todoroki was asleep in his bed, not even bothering to pull the blankets over himself or to even take off his slippers. 

Something about this scene was wrong, but Katsuki wasn’t sure what. Those cold hands tightened their grip around his throat, leaving his mouth as dry as if it were filled with cotton and his stomach heavy with those familiar rocks. His body knew something was amiss, even if his mind was none the wiser, but maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was better if he just didn’t know what was wrong. 

But that wasn’t in Katsuki fashion. He always had to know everything. 

Katsuki took a few steps towards the closed bathroom door, careful his footsteps were not too loud to wake Todoroki. He slowly set his hand on the handle and at an even slower pace, slid the door open, stopping every few seconds to keep it from squeaking. He was met with darkness, but when he flipped the flashlight on, his stomach dropped. 

There was hair on the floor. Red and white strands meshed together, the white difficult to see against the white tile of the floor, but the red standing out against it all like a drop of blood against a fresh coating of snow. Todoroki had been in here, probably having a massive panic attack about the bullshit that Fuyumi had said to him. He had been hurt and all alone with those thoughts, the thoughts that drove him to hurt himself to this degree. 

This was even more proof Midoriya was right. Todoroki was definitely not okay. 

Bakugou got on his hands and knees, ignoring the throbbing pang in his stomach as his body shifted in a way his wound did not quite like. He scooped the hair up, tossing it into the open toilet, ridding the room of all evidence of Todoroki. 

Fuyumi wiped tears from her face with the heel of her hand. At that moment, she looked so much older, so much more aged and mature as she stood before Midoriya and Katsuki. She looked like the photo of Todoroki’s mother that Katsuki had seen on Todoroki’s desk back at school. Fuyumi had those same tired gray eyes, foggy and unclear as if it were a rumbling, murky sky during a thunderstorm. Tears cascaded down her cheeks no matter how much she wiped them or hid her face with the sleeves of her white sweater, pouring down on her pale, flushed cheeks. She looked just like Todoroki’s mother. 

"She...my-our mother… she tried to kill herself.”

[revcleo]

There's a post which says that it's spreading a dog whistle to say "return to tradition reject" modernity and that's what fash want. I disagree, I think it's fine if people individually feel nervous about such things, but there's a massive difference between fascist usage and either parody or just straight up non fascist usage.

A similar thing is the little dark age meme, there's a big difference between one which is reminiscing of nationalised rail in the UK and one which calls modernist buildings inferior to classical architecture.

Neither of those are truly calling for a return to the politics of the past, but people who consider classical aesthetics superior to modernism is something which aligns with and draws people into fascist circles.

Abandoning a memetic style to fascists doesn't stop it from having plausible deniability, the dog whistle part is to appeal to people who don't even recognise the black sun.

The usage of various memes changes over time, in example: pepe, and the angry npc meme.

Pepe had innocent origins, then got big around the rare pepe ebay auction, then was adopted by various nerd cultures and most prominently by 4chan fascists, then it evolved into the only fascist groyper, but peepo also evolved from it. As it stands peepo does get used by some fascists but both peepo and pepe get used by a lot of twitch streamers. Inc lgbt streamers or otherwise harmless people.

This alarmed me at first, and there's still some emotes that I won't use amongst friends because they might be too alarming still, but I don't think that it's possible or correct to go around and say that pepe and peepo are off limits due to their fascist association.

The angry npc meme with the 4 panel version of the "reasonable" looking person who says something which turns an "npc" angry was doubly both a fascist meme in origin. Both the "npc" part, which is about implying people who aren't them are unable to think for themselves, and the angry meme, which was originally all about fascist talking points.

I was very alarmed the first time I saw someone post that meme outside of a fascist context, but I don't think that it's another thing to say it's been entirely tainted because I think it has the same or similar use of a lot of previous memes.

I don't think it's true that people posting memes which have a basis or have been well used by fascists either are spreading fascism or plausible deniability. Plausible deniability is a base feature of most fascist symbols. It's like saying pissing in the sea will raise the sea levels.

When otherwise harmless people do post memes of which the template is originated or founded in fascist spaces, it's alarming and worrying. It doesn't mean that all marginalised people have to be alarmed, or will be, maybe some are even posting the memes. You can calm yourself down, as I have, by checking who the person posting things is. Are they actually a risk? Is this someone you should preemptively block?

Humans love to pattern match, but this can result in jumping at shadows, I once made a joke in a queer server about my monkey brain reacting to something, and someone who had never posted and never did again, said how it triggered their trauma from being pushed out of a job by racists. Even though I am black and I was not talking about anyone but myself, they still felt threatened.

It is perfectly understandable how individuals may have a strong reaction to something, but that doesn't mean that either people who share the same marginalisations will or should feel the same way. Sometimes you need to take a deep breath and avoid the primal part of your brain which is shouting about a threat and reason whether that's true or not.

[sugar-petals]

Can you tell us how to please a soft sub and hard sub? Like what could a guy enjoy?

it’s 95% individual, i’d ask + negotiate before ideas for play. i can suggest scenes but still, it might not be his limits. to remember is what differenciates the two: hard subs enjoy pain + power, soft subs don’t.

you can likely please the latter if you’re a gentle femdom aficionado. still depends on what kind of GFD you like, but you can grow into the role you agree on, shift. it’s a bit easier: fewer prerequisites. ofc there’s etiquette + talent, but you can please by tuning into the role pretty well. 

the former: not as flexible. there are set qualities. understand this as a ‘needed with good reason’ profile rather than gatekeeping. sadism is the requirement. no 50-50 zone, you feeling that you are a natural is key. your sub won’t be happy if you merely try it. it’s usually clear to a domme anyways, you either lick your fingers for s/m or not.

↳ as for specific kinks. what i can give you is a list of things to AVOID for each.💡it’s a roundabout way to see what he prefers and each sub’s a different case but it’s a compass.

✏︎ soft subs — don’ts

hair-pulling -> choose fondles and pats instead wherever he likes it the most.

name-calling -> praise is usually preferred

yelling -> whispering/soft-spoken, this is an asmr zone ☁️

hard spanking -> lighter squeezes

no squishy props -> use pillows, blankets, plushies if he wants. but, in any case, you’ll need pillows. can’t have enough of those.

tears -> only as a spontaneous release [during aftercare], most soft subs aren’t into dacryphilia

chaos -> soft subs love consistency. 

too much genitalia focus -> don’t forget the smooches and forehead kisses, and massages possibly. if he likes that, tend to seemingly neglegible body parts even, like ears and toes. boop the nose.

toy overwhelm -> back to basics, never forget he loves your hands. idea: choose pastels for color if you do get toys. dramatic black/red/metal is for the hardcore femdom department and suits the mood better. you likely have that preference already if you strictly soft dom.

breath play -> stick to neck kisses. mouth gags, same thing, he probably isn’t comfortable with it.

leaving marks -> 50-50, again, ask what kind you can and cannot leave. if he likes it, do 20% marks, 80% affection.

pragmatic, planned aftercare -> make it extensive + adapt easily. seems counterintuitive since hard subs take a lot more, but let me tell you soft subs think aftercare is literal catnip. if you’re a big brain domme, you transfer some aftercare favorites to the main act. also, about pragmatism: unlike with hard subs (see list below: #21), come up with a more fine-tuned safeword/limit system. these are play scenes where you can go into many different directions so that’s why. 

straightforward -> it’s no problem if you’re the indirect or shy type as a domme, it’s about careful questions toward him here. many soft subs approach their dommes well with wishes. ironically, hard subs are the other way around, they might anticipate more unless they’re very extroverted. the biggest hard subs were the quiet kiddos at school 😉 soft subs can be bubbly and reveal their demands rather easily.

deprioritize your orgasm -> make him tend to you in a lazy, slow demeanour. spoil each other.

all over the place -> stick to bedroom bed, bathtub and couch unless otherwise requested. the point is to have a safe and comfortable spot.

breaking him -> never push, always guide. again, consistency, no highs and lows.

suppressing critique -> he wants to know where to improve, show him exactly how to do things the right way and work with mistakes. not humiliating, more like teaching. 

dungeon -> keep it above ground. 

hands-on ownership -> show him he belongs to you in other ways. spoil him, that’s the best way.

high heels -> too impractical for 80% of GFD activities. fetish gear generally doesn’t work here. just mentioning, it’s probably already clear to everyone. and, purely soft dommes don’t gravitate towards dominatrix fashion in the first place.

passive -> unlike with hard subs, you likely do a lot of the work. soft dommes are busier than people expect.

atmosphere? -> switch on the fairy lights, candles, make it dim. make it as romantic as possible.

power imbalance -> air to breathe for any hard sub, but soft subs prefer flatter hierarchies. mind you, your position is still one of guidance. 

✏︎ hard subs — don’ts

tender voice > grit and growl in their ear aye

questions > proportion-wise, give more commands instead.

no tools -> introduce some devices according to your couple taste.

lenience -> tame that provocateur 😄 you define where his place is. show him, physically. under your foot, kneeling, bowing? find that perfect position for the two of you. 

only caressing > choke and slap him, but ask/announce right beforehand.

unbridled aggression -> misguided way of dominance unless it’s primal play. i know it’s more negatively connotated but deliberate brutality is the word, you exact it while keeping rather cool. unless... he fancies you as the angry mistress, or passionate, punishing. but then again, no aggression. just brutality. the difference is huge. the more sadistic the play, the more contained your action. not all understated, just very directed and according to how you spoke about it, and according to the feedback in front of you. you get perfect awareness, not dizzy tunnel vision and fluctuating feelings. i say brutality because it indicates a person knows what they’re doing. aggression and anger means you bottle your judgement. the brain switches off there, it gets too erratic. also, aggression is less severe and a means to an end while brutality is for its own sake and goes heavy which is what hard subs enjoy: since they’re masochists. aggressive and violent dommes are just assholes, brutal hard dommes... are good dommes. 😛

free reign clothes -> tell him what type of outfit makes him domme candy. experiment plenty. don’t worry, most hard subs enjoy being told what to wear. and even if they don’t, suggesting it won’t piss them off. also, you can get strict and exacting as fuck with this. hard subs want your possessiveness in creative ways.

plain undressed -> chances are CFNM could be a hot idea sometimes, or fetish wear which is often appreciated in all things hardcore. then again, dressing up is no must, but definitely try all-black outfits, suits etc, whatever makes you radiate authority and the upper hand. remember, hierarchy. your superiority is what he enjoys during sex, he actually gets confused if you don’t show it in your particular way. if it’s not clothes, it’s the voice, anyway. the voice lives in his head rent free.

no control -> full body attention, grope him the way he likes. also, the nape of his neck is where your hand belongs. guiding his head is just...mmh ❤️

monotony -> hard subs like a rollercoaster. roleplay = perfect opportunity.

static plans -> important: hard subs learn fast. since pain-pleasure is involved their sensations are more intense so feedback is usually unequivocal. mind you, soft subs can sort their preferences well but for them it takes exposure to variety.

what’s a nipple? -> pinching and more is most likely welcome. ask and test.

spoiling -> spoiling no. rewards, yes. he works for it. what does he work towards? pleasing you completely. in your body and commands.

shy domme -> when it comes down to it, you need to be resolute and eloquent. if you struggle with it, e.g. start with being stoic. pick your favorite pokerface and have a signature smirk lmao! and definitely do in-depth talks. yes, about his desires. unlike soft subs, some guys take more time to open up here. 

dry -> lube. keep it wet, especially his tear ducts anyway. 

unsure experiments/not knowing the outcome -> seriously tackle and prepare skills. yes, whip your pillow first. you can ‘try’ things with soft subs, but you ‘do’ things with hard subs. why? less room for errors. you please him by being precise. don’t let it intimidate you, simply take it as a responsibility he respects you greatly for.

heels -> hard subs might like that. plus, you’ll often simply stand. he does lots of the work. hard dommes can be more laid-back than you’d expect. remember, you kick his ass and give orders. he’s a pretty active party. exception: he’s tied up.

hesitation -> hard dommes have to be quick. especially since we edge a lot. also, never hesitate to praise.

forgetting skin -> stimulate large areas as much as you can.

unarmed -> chances are he likes knife play, ask about it.

too much caution and pampering -> an insult to his esteem. i’m not kidding. he feels in his element when you don’t hold back anxiously. trust his strength 😊 it’s a perk of femdom in the first place, you may be working on more muscles and often more space on the body, most maledoms don’t have that luxury. the same goes for safewording, keep it simple and applicable for the heat/reflex of the moment. it’s counterproductive to be overcautious since it makes it too complex.

the usual spot -> if he’s down: play everywhere, consider every room together. a cold and hard surface does something for a hard sub. as does rug burn if he likes that. make him do all kinds of things 100% naked on a carpet while you watch, it’s so humiliating. i did it, the result was my sub discovering even higher levels of sluttiness. 

suppression -> ask him to let it out vocally when he’s shy or not experienced. you’ll both love what follows. most hard subs are screamers. i hope you don’t have neighbors.

soft illumination -> use artificial light. not just to make your patient - doctor roleplay perfect, but because a hard domme needs to see what she’s doing for safety reasons already. use your (soy wax!) candles to ruin his back instead.

serious -> hardcore femdom is at its best when it’s peppered with little giggles. bring a feather just in case.

PS: these can even apply if they enjoy doing both, you have to match your tone according to the mood and plan then.

[d3-iseefire]

Nevermore Chapter Three

As a child, Bilba’s favorite game had been a fantasy RPG where she’d spent her time exploring a massive world filled with all manner of amazing creatures and beautiful landscapes. 

It had also been filled with wolves. Not normal ones, but massive creatures known as Dire wolves. She’d used to complain endlessly about them, especially in the early parts of the game when her character was low level with poor weapons and armor. 

Her ire with them had not been improved when her father, who adored random trivia, informed her that the creatures were based on an actual, extinct wolf species that had once roamed the earth. Closer in size to a lion than any wolf currently in existence, the animals would have been apex predators on their own, let alone in a pack. 

The wolf looking at her right now reminded her of those old drawings and descriptions, except she was pretty sure he was bigger. 

He was lounging in front of a tree with his back legs vanishing under a large bush. His fur, thicker and shaggier than a normal wolf’s, was a golden brown, darkest along his back and lightning to near white along his legs and sides. His eyes were a brilliant amber that almost seemed to glow with their own light, and studied her with what felt like an unusual level of intelligence.

Bilba really hoped it was the sort of intelligence that suggested not eating the girl who’d broken up his majestic lounging by using him to break her fall. The tree behind him would have hurt had she hit it, but probably not as much as being eaten by an Eldritch god would. 

The animal was strangely calm, which Bilba took as a good sign. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed frozen in place, but it was long enough that her heart rate slowed and her breathing evened out. Whether this was because her nerves had genuinely settled or she’d moved past sheer terror and into catatonia. 

She started to give what she hoped was a reassuring smile only to cut it off as she realized that baring her teeth at a wolf might not be seen in the positive light she intended. 

Actually, now that she thought about it, how long had she been making direct eye contact with him? Wasn’t direct eye contact with a predator a VERY BAD THING?

She dropped her eyes, only to find them naturally locked onto his paws. His very enormous paws, with curved claws wider than her fingers and probably twice as long. Bilba swallowed, or tried to past the enormous rock suddenly lodged in her throat. 

There was literally nothing she could do. Move or don’t move, slow or fast, in the end it would all depend on whether or not the wolf chose to let her live. 

“Okay,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She risked a quick glance and saw the wolf’s ears perk up. “Sorry for rolling into you. I’m going to try to scoot away now, okay? Please don’t eat me.”

Her voice dropped to nearly inaudible on the last few words. Be a nice wolf, she thought desperately. A nice wolf like -- oh, crap, she couldn’t think of any nice wolves in media. What did that mean? Even bears had the Care Bears or Yogi or a whole host of others. She could think of friendly snakes, lions and even a shark or two, but not a single friendly wolf. 

That was such a bad, bad sign. 

The wolf caught her eyes and then, in what seemed an oddly deliberate motion, turned his head to where his feet vanished under the bush. He shifted and Bilba heard the distinct rattle of some metal object along with the clink of a chain. 

The wolf’s eyes turned back to focus on her, steadily. 

Trying to avoid any sudden movements, Bilba walked her hands back until she could ease herself into a crouched position. The wolf didn’t seem to mind, so she slowly braced her hands behind her and eased her body into a seated position. Her body protested the action, but nothing felt broken or seriously injured, simply bruised and sore. 

Her new position put her near the wolf’s hind legs. The wolf caught her attention and then deliberately repeated its earlier action, a slow, deliberate look toward its hind legs followed by a shift in movement and the rattle of metal and chains. 

Bilba nodded shakily and scooted back a few feet closer to the bush. An uncontrollable tremor started to run over her, and her stomach was in knots but, overall, she still felt strangely calm. Perhaps she’d finally snapped, and gone insane. 

She leaned over and brushed back some of the branches of the bush. Silver glinted off the jagged teeth of a small trap locked tightly around one of the wolf’s paws. A thick chain led off the trap to a metal stake set deep into a rock jutting out from the roots of the tree. 

Even in the shadows under the bush, she could see how deep the teeth had dug into his foot. Blood matted the fur, and coated the ground underneath. From the pattern, it appeared he’d spent some time fighting to pull himself free by brute force. 

“Ouch,” she murmured, before mentally kicking herself at the inane comment. Now that she knew what to look for, she could see the wolf’s breathing was fast, sides heaving in a near pant as though he’d run a marathon, or was in extreme pain.  

Bilba shivered as her mind conjured just what it must feel like to have those metal teeth ripping through her foot. If she wanted, she could probably leave. The chain was short. If she gathered herself and lunged away from him, it was likely she’d take herself out of his range. She could get up and...only have the one threat to deal with instead of two. 

She could do that, and leave him here to suffer...or she could help and risk him killing her as soon as he was free. 

As if reading her mind, the wolf let out a low whine and laid his head on his front paws, eyes fixed on her. 

Bilba sighed. “Fine, you can put the puppy eyes away.” She leaned in to look closer at the trap. “I really hope I don’t regret this,” she mumbled to herself. She had enough regrets to last her a lifetime. 

At least if helping did end up being a mistake, it’d be a very short lived one. 

The thought was not reassuring. 

She spotted the release lever. She’d have to push it down, forcing the teeth farther into the wolf’s paw, in order to release it. “This is going to hurt.”

He gave another whine and then, to her surprise, thumped his tail on the ground. Bilba frowned, could he be someone’s lost pet? It would certainly explain his behavior. 

She refocused on the trap, and a strange exhilaration ran through her, slicing through the apathy and fog that had shrouded her the last five years. The thought of helping another living being, of mattering to another living being, if even for just a moment…

It made her feel alive again. A being that existed in the world, instead of a shadow merely watching it pass her by. 

It was growing darker, and the gloom gathered under the bush was growing nearly too thick to see through. Bilba got her phone out and thumbed on the flashlight app, bringing the trap back into sharp relief. 

“Here goes nothing.” At the very least, if the wolf killed her, she’d die with the satisfaction of knowing just how truly pissed Lotho would be that she’d finally escaped him. 

Thinking of Lotho dashed some of her exhilaration and the gray pall began to settle over her once again. Bilba grimaced and, desperate to get her mind off it, braced her phone against a few branches of the bush and grabbed the trap. She took a deep breath, got her balance settled and then squeezed on the trap. 

She didn’t immediately die, so that was a good sign. Hopefully. 

The wolf made a low, groaning noise and she clenched her teeth in sympathy. “Sorry.”

The teeth of the trap sank lower into the wolf’s paw, blood bubbling up from the jagged wound. In order to release, the lever needed to ratchet further than she had it so, with a mumbled apology, she rose onto her knees and leaned forward to get her full weight behind it. 

The wolf groaned again and Bilba shivered at the thought of how much pain she must be causing the animal. 

The lever slipped into its final position and, with a sharp click, the trapped popped open. Bilba pried it off the wolf’s paw, and he drew his legs in to lick at the wounded appendage. He showed no interest in harming her, and Bilba sighed and slumped in relief.  

“Hey Girlie! Where’d you get off to?”

Bilba’s heart leapt into her throat and she sucked in a sharp breath. She scrambled for her phone and shut off the flashlight. Darkness fell about her and her eyes widened. She hadn’t been paying attention to how long she’d been there, or how fast the sun was setting. There was still a little light left overhead, past the tree canopy but, underneath, it was fast approaching full dark.

“Come on, now,” the man from the parking lot called. He sounded closer. He must have gotten tired of waiting and come after her. “You can’t stay in there forever. Come on out.”

Beside her, the wolf gathered itself and lumbered up onto its feel. If Bilba had thought it was enormous lying down, it was nothing compared to him when he was standing. He was like a freaking mountain, rising over her. It elicited an instinctive, primal desire to close her eyes, and curl into a fetal position. 

“You’re starting to piss me off, girl! Get out here, now!” The voice was even closer, and it wasn’t dark enough to fully hide her if he should happen to look down the incline. She pulled her legs to her chest and gripped her phone in her hands. 

She really wanted to go home, even if home was hundreds of miles away and five years in the past. 

The wolf limped past her. Bilba watched as he scrambled up the slope and vanished, leaving her alone. The temperature seemed to drop, and the darkness grew heavier. Overhead, she could hear crashing in the undergrowth and she held her breath, desperately praying the man wouldn’t look down and see her. 

“Damn it, Bitch,” she heard him say, “where the hell--”

His voice cut off in a sudden yelp and Bilba flinched in surprise. 

A low, rumbling sound reached her and she struggled to identify it. Something in her subconsciousness seemed to understand what it was and, again, that primal urge ran through her. The same desire that, as a child, would have her diving under the covers to hide from the thunderstorm raging outside. 

Not that hiding under her covers did any good. 

Hiding at all had never done her any good. 

The sound came again and her mind finally registered what it was. 

Growling. Deeper and fuller than anything she’d ever heard, a deep, vibrating thrum on a frequency so low it was almost more felt than heard. 

The wolf. 

The man gave an almost inhuman scream, and then she heard thrashing heading back toward the parking lot. The wolf snarled, a sound that froze her blood despite knowing it wasn’t directed at her, and new thrashing started as it apparently gave chase. 

The distant noise of a car engine started, followed quickly by squealing tires as a truck fled the parking lot. 

Bilba shuddered. She was cold, in pain, and nothing stood before her now but a return to her life, or what passed for it. For a brief second she’d felt normal again, like she’d belonged somewhere, but the feeling was gone now and there was no getting it back. 

She started to get up, but paused as the burning in her ankle registered. She remembered feeling it earlier, but hadn’t been in a position to do anything about it. She tabbed her flashlight app back on and pulled her sock down to check her ankle. 

The light from her phone fell on her ankle, and lit on a small, glowing mark just above the bone. Specifically, the linked, geometric shapes that had appeared when she’d turned eighteen. The ones that had been dark until this very moment when they’d begun to glow a bright, golden color. 

Her ankle wasn’t burning. 

Her soulmark was. 

Her activated soulmark. 

And the only person she’d met since the burning had started was the creep from the parking lot.

Continue Reading on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27298015/chapters/66695635

[readyouagain]

The Hating Game: Epilogue

It’s a red dress kind of day. It’s Friday afternoon. I’m sitting in my office at Bexley & Gamin and I can see my reflection in my floor-to-ceiling window. Outwardly I look remarkably corporate, but on the inside I’m forever an immature little weirdo. I cross my legs and begin to play the Mirror Game with myself. The Staring Game. Even a whispered How You Doing Game. It’s just not the same without my opponent. It’s been a shitty day. I spent the afternoon fighting a valiant battle against Mr. Bexley over electronic distribution royalties, and then I found out that there’s a bug in our latest e-library app.   I’m so tired I can feel my own skeleton. I need to be lying on my perfect couch but it’s not going to happen tonight. It’s so quiet I can hear the fluorescent tubes buzzing. The elevator bings. Whoever’s just arrived on the tenth floor needs to be kept out of my office so I can get the hell out of here. Scott, our executive officer, is a pretty good gatekeeper. I can hear muffled conversation, and then there’s a rap on the door. There’s only one person in the world who can put so much short, sharp love into a single knock. “Come in,” I say. The door swings open and there he is.

Joshua Templeman is dressed in black. Everything, from his underwear to his cufflinks to his tie, is ink-black midnight. He enjoys the drama of it on a Friday, sliding into people’s office doorways like Dracula just as they’re loosening their ties and thinking about their weekends. All he needs is some devil horns and a pitchfork. I feel vaguely bad for whoever he’s been terrorizing today. He leans against the doorjamb and we’re playing the Staring Game for a minute until his dark navy eyes spark. “Shortcake,” he breathes like he can’t believe I’m real. “I missed you so bad.” My. Heart. Bursts. I stand up and go to him. He picks me up off the ground, kissing my jaw, my cheekbones, his fingers stroking my nape. He turns me in a circle and I cross my ankles prettily. The tiredness falls out through my feet and dissolves. He’s here, and I’m lit up. It’s the kind of light that never fades. People in the opposite building might be able to see us. Motorists at the traffic lights below can probably make out the silhouette of a ridiculously large man twirling around a ridiculously small woman. During one slow revolution I catch sight of Helen and Mr. Bexley, standing near Scott’s desk. They’re all looking at us like we’re the most gorgeously silly couple in the world. It’s accurate. We are. Helen glances at Mr. Bexley with a wry expression, and I swear I see a little moment of connection between them. I’ve been suspecting it more and more. I know love-hate when I see it. I speak into Josh’s neck. “I hate not being able to stare at your pretty face all day.” I breathe in his addictive, perfect scent. Deciduous trees in the sun. Evergreen trees in the snow. A pencil sharpened to a razor point, pressing into fresh white paper. “It’s against HR policy to stare at your corporate rival all day.” I hug him harder. “Whose HR policy?” “One of them, I’m sure. I’ll look it up.” Josh sets me down and kisses my cheek again. Once he starts, he can’t stop. In the elevator I’ll wipe off my Flamethrower lipstick so I can get my proper hello kiss. If I’m lucky he’ll hit the emergency stop button, although we’ve been pissing off the security guards with that. I treat myself to a nice squeeze of his torso before I remember the door is ajar. “Who have you made cry today, Overlord?” At the Sanderson Christmas party, I overheard his nickname and had to laugh. He earned it. “Nobody,” he tells me with adorable sincerity and a blink. “Not a single person. I’m a changed man.” I’m trying to teach him how to be more approachable. More understanding. More like me. At the first Sanderson Christmas party, I stood alone and awkward for an excruciating two minutes, during which time I was the subject of speculation. I felt like the word how was said a lot. I could hear their drunk, high-pitched whispers. She looks normal. Sweet. So small! How does she cope with that…monster?  We should rescue her. Maybe he keeps her chained in this basement. I waved like a dork to show that I was not shackled and was there on my own free will. They shrank back, then fell totally silent as their chief financial officer, aka the Overlord, approached me with a glass of wine. His eyes were soft with tenderness and my heart stopped beating until he restarted it with a kiss. The Overlord snuggled me into his side, fitting us together just right. Hard and soft. Darkness and light. Good cop, bad cop. I registered the jaws dropping. He’s smiling! He’s the Overlord, he calls them his Underlings, but I can see the little signs that he’s getting better at this. At a lot of things, actually. “Did you remember your dad’s present?” “Yep. We’d better get going if we’re going to make the party. Mindy and Patrick have been texting me obsessively. Don’t be late, don’t be late.” He’s sarcastic but I know how much this means to him. I give his arm a stroke and a squeeze. “We won’t be late.” I can’t lie on the couch tonight because I’m needed in Port Worth. I’m Josh’s little lucky charm. When I’m there, he and his dad don’t fight. Luckily for them both, I’m always there. “Got quite a collection by now, Shortcake,” Josh says, looking at the rows of Matchbox cars on the shelf behind me. He forgets our hurry and takes a red Volkswagen beetle out of his pocket, sliding it into one of the gaps. “My toys have given me a reputation for being quirky and approachable.” “No one would guess this strawberry-sweet exterior hides a complete hard-ass.” “I learned from the master. I’m known for being firm but fair.” “Mmm. Tell me more.” He loves sitting at my desk to look at everything I surround myself with, and he lowers himself down into my chair like it’s a milkmaid stool. His eyes are lit with a creepy kind of devotion as he looks at the castle of books against the wall, and the Smurf hiding in one of the battlements. He finds my bottle of perfume and smells the lid as he strokes my computer mouse. “That’s where you’ve been,” he says in a scolding tone to the cardigan slung on the back of my chair. He folds it into a bread-slice square on his knee. I’ve turned him into such a total freak. I’m an even bigger freak when I visit his office. I once touched the speed dial button on his phone marked SHORTCAKE just to make my cell phone ring. Then I was jealous of myself. That’s a sensation I feel a lot. How am I living this life? How did I win so much? Like he can read my mind, Josh picks up the framed photograph on my desk. It’s us together in the strawberry fields. Our eyes are summer bright, and I am sitting between his legs leaning back against him. Around us is a carpet of green, studded with red. The picture is a tiny bit crooked because my dad was a little overexcited by the secret he was keeping. Five minutes after this photo was taken, Josh said, “Hey, it’s an old Smurf in the dirt.” He knew nothing would make me drop to the ground faster. I scratched frantically through the leaves. Where? Where? What I found in the vines at Sky Diamonds Strawberries was a Tiffany blue box. Then I realized he was kneeling down, too. Lucy blue. True-love blue. Even as he squeaked the box open and began to speak, I was dimly aware of cheering from the house. My parents were spying from the office window. After I brushed the squashed berries from the back of his T-shirt, I learned that Josh had become an expert in diamonds. Carat, cut, color, clarity. He shivered with delight as he described staring at imperfections through a loupe. I could just imagine his laser eyes crumbling stones to ash. The way he tells it, he searched through a pile of worthless pebbles until he found something worthy of my tiny finger. I tell him it’s too big, too much, too perfect. He just laughs and says, I know, then makes me forget whether we’re still talking about a diamond. I think my cheeks are going pink right now. When he looks me in the eye, he smirks. He’s definitely a mind reader. “We need a vacation,” he decides, his finger straightening the terracotta tile I use as a coaster. I got that tile in Tuscany. “I’m taking you back. Cheese and wine and sleeping in the sun.” His eyes follow the line of my dress down my body. “Red dresses and champagne and carbohydrates.” A pause, and there’s a little vulnerability in his expression now. “I didn’t go crazy and dream it all, did I?” “I have frequently assured you that I’m real.” I take his hand in mine and use it to pinch my forearm. “I was there for every incredible second. I always will be. Now, quit talking about carbohydrates. You’re turning me on.” He laughs. “We’d better get out of here.” He grabs my coat and walks out to chat with Helen and Mr. Bexley. I log off and lock away the stack of slush pile manuscripts I’ve been reading as my own little treat. I lock my door and just watch his reflection bounce around off the slick, glossy surfaces that make up level ten. The only thing better than having one Josh is having a hundred. I look at the plaque on my office door as I lock it. It says, Chief Operating Officer, and usually it has me grinning like a dork. But right now, I’m smiling over something else. The gold ring on Joshua Templeman’s left hand has set off a shower of firework sparkles in this huge black prism. Each time I focus on one particular reflection, it fractures and doubles. It’s a kaleidoscope of his love around me now. There are a hundred gold rings. A thousand. It’s still not enough. I want to spin around while they circle me like fireflies. That’s how he makes me feel, every day of ours lives. It’s wonderful. It’s primal. It’s nothing short of a miracle. My name is Lucy Templeman.

[bondsmagii]

I mean to ask this genuinely, no hostility, but can you explain how you correlate scp to being in a cult? I dont disagree, I just cant articulate the reasoning as to why I dont disagree, and would like to see where youre coming from with this. Also, could you tag it with cults or cult discussion or something similar, please? Thanks! Have a good day.

OK [cracks knuckles] I will try and keep this as short as possible, but you have to understand I’ve been observing the wiki in the wild literally since its inception, so there is a lot of stuff to consider. anyway let’s buckle up.

[EDIT: after finishing, this is obnoxiously long. sorry. I encourage people to read it though, because yikes.]

I base this theory on a set of guidelines set out for spotting if an organisation might be a cult. generally cults are religiously based; obviously this does not apply here. as far as I’m aware, nobody sees the SCP wiki as a religion (yet). because of this a couple of the points regarding spotting a cult are irrelevant (they concern things like separation from the Church which obviously doesn’t apply) but nearly all of the others (even some religious ones) can apply if we provide context. so without further ado:

Signs You’re In A Cult and How the SCP Wiki Literally Fits Into All of Them

let’s start with the most obvious:

opposing critical thinking

something that has long pissed me off about the SCP wiki has been its complete inability to think critically. staff will literally ban people for criticising them, and the parameters of “criticism” have only grown wider and wider over the years. anything that is the “party line” is sacred; nothing can be improved upon because it’s already perfect, and Staff Knows Best. any policy changes are law, and any dissenting voices are silenced – even among younger staff members (length of service wise, not age wise). I have seen staff put on probation or demoted for arguing against pointless or pedantic policy changes; I have seen people of all levels banned for arguing with staff. if this doesn’t happen right away, arguing with staff over their decisions will absolutely get a target on your back, and they will find a way to ban or demote you as soon as they can.

any criticism on the wiki is frowned upon unless it comes from the Major Staff Members – these are people at the top of the hierarchy who can do no wrong, and as you can imagine, they’ve done some shit. staff has always had a problem with elitism, bullying, and even abusive behaviour (blah blah blah #NotAllStaff, but the ratio is quite concerning) and any criticism of their behaviour or even pointing this fact out is dangerous if you want to remain on the wiki. hell, I know many people who are aware of this who don’t speak up because they’re genuinely scared of retaliation. a lot of staff are really nasty people, and because of this attitude they are beyond criticism.

isolating members and penalising them for leaving

the penalising them for leaving part isn’t strictly accurate, because as far as I know, nobody has ever been bullied or threatened into staying on the wiki. however, I do remember a while back (2011/2012-ish) when the Foundation RP community began to show up on Tumblr, and the wiki began to get a fanbase that wasn’t contained on the site itself. staff were not happy about this and to this day they still constantly try and get a monopoly on all off-site locations. they have an official Offsite Outreach Team (yes, that’s its real name) who “reach out” to communities on other platforms (YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, etc) and set up an Official Presence there, and then they encourage everyone to use the Official Presence rather than the fan-made ones (which are often more established and better/more consistently run). there have been several off-site spats between staff and the fandom, because they arrive demanding the authority and respect they have on the wiki and get Big Mad when they don’t get it. just recently one (now ex) staff member, djkaktus, went absolutely primal on Reddit and banned a whole bunch of the community for daring to say that they didn’t like the new LGBT logo for pride month (many of these people were LGBT themselves and felt as though it was pandering/putting targets on their backs); several more years ago (2014, I believe?) I myself had a run in with the Outreach Team and it was one fucking hell of a headache that ended in a malicious smear campaign against me, so like. yeah.

as for isolating members, they do this via elitism. the above is an example of it (making everyone feel a sense of obligation or loyalty to the Official Presence), but a huge part of it has always been the elitist attitude prevalent on the wiki. the SCP wiki has high standards for writing (allegedly… I’ve seen some garbage on there tbh, same as any other website) and it uses this to bully and demean its users. criticism of writing is overly harsh but highly encouraged; anyone complaining that it was too cruel (which it often is) is ridiculed for being too sensitive. (staff have been working on this for years, but really nothing has changed; people have just gotten more between-the-lines about it.) this encourages a kind of desperation among new users to “rise up the ranks” and earn respect so they can be the ones dishing out the criticism instead; they will do so and then immediately act in accordance to their status, bullying others how they were bullied and sticking to their own “rank”. brief interruption: staff and bootlickers if you’re reading this and thinking of reblogging to defend yourself, the code word is yeet. if I do not see the word yeet in your reply I will know you have not read this thoroughly and tell me why I should then bother reading anything you have to say.staff themselves is incredibly removed and closed off from the rest of the community; they have a bunch of private chat rooms they hang out in, and inter-dating is common. they don’t tend to interact much outside the flock, and are the definition of cliquey. joining this rank is supposed to be an achievement, but really it’s probably the most dangerous place to be. I have seen so many staff members have literal, clinical mental breakdowns over the strain and treatment they suffer.

(there’s nowhere to neatly slot this in, so: I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but SCP fans, when you spot them on other platforms, are snooty. not casual fans, but those involved with the wiki? I can spot them from a mile away, because whenever the Foundation is mentioned, there they are, acting like they’re part of some cool club. some of these people are innocent (they’re just mimicking the behaviour of other members) but some of them really do seem to think that their site is somehow better than whatever site they’re on, and it’s really creepy to see.)

emphasising special doctrines outside of scripture

obviously this is religion-specific, but with context it can fit. if we take scripture to mean SCP lore, and special doctrines to mean differing headcanons, ideas, writing styles, etc… oh boy.

there’s something that’s often said on the wiki: there is no canon. buddy, there is. yes, you can write whatever you want technically, and you can disregard headcanons you don’t like and you can build on different things and theoretically people can just ignore your shit if they don’t like it, but that is not what happens. there is absolutely a canon, and deviating from it will get you downvoted into oblivion and even personally attacked. people will accuse you of the most ridiculous shit, like desecrating the wiki or betraying the universe or whatever. so where does the emphasising part of this come in?

why, it’s simple! if one of these special doctrines (headcanons or whatever) comes from staff or an Approved Member, it’s fine. go nuts. even if it’s something that anybody else would be absolutely slaughtered for, it’s fine if staff approves. there is no creative freedom on that wiki, and anyone attempting to carve a piece out for themselves will suffer for it. one of my close friends still gets hate for an SCP he wrote featuring heavy headcanons and building on existing lore about a well-known character, and some of this hate is because he didn’t set the fucking article out “how it should be”. 

seeking inappropriate loyalty to their leaders

oh boy. staff are god on that website. they’ll deny it, but they know it’s true. many of them are arrogant and, in my opinion, some of them are pathologically narcissistic. they think they are hot shit, and they encourage people on the site to believe the same. a huge majority of users on the wiki are high school students, so 15-18 years old. the next huge group are college-aged, so 19-22 or so. several staff members are in their mid-20s up to 30s, maybe even coming 40s or early 40s now. when you’re in your mid-20s, it’s very easy to look cool to a 15-year-old. it’s very easy to look at a young userbase and convince them that you’re hot shit, and that’s what staff do. they act like it; most users respond to it, and if anyone dissents? see point one.

staff have always had double standards. from the very beginning of staff, they have gotten away with a lot more than the average user. staff have been allowed to bully, ridicule, harass, dismiss, shit upon, and target people with reckless abandon, usually only meeting punishment when other staff members feel too inconvenienced by them. a lot of the time when they’re punished, it’s a lot lighter than it would have been for an average user (a month ban rather than a permaban, for example). this is seen as almost a point of hilarity for a lot of people, who think it’s cool and just a right you get when you’re staff. you know best, you’ve seen some shit – who can blame you for slamdunking a 15-year-old’s first SCP?

the amount of respect and adoration these people demand is ridiculous, and anybody daring to criticise them ends up on a shitlist. staff show up in other areas (Tumblr or Reddit) and expect that same amount of respect, even among people outside of the wiki who might just be casual fans. they act a lot more important than they are, and demand that everyone treats them appropriately. I’ve seen staff members throw shitfits because they didn’t get enough upvotes for their articles, and many staff members’ quality of work declines when they make staff, simply because they know that they’ll get easy upvotes as soon as people realise it’s a staff member who wrote it. downvotes are enough to get you put on a shitlist. 

publicly, their word is law. you are not allowed to debate with them in the forums if they put a “stop” on the topic; the same applies in the IRC chat. if staff says “stop”, you will be punished if you mention it again. you are allowed to discuss it with them privately, but I think that’s rather insidious, as staff have been known to twist facts and withhold information before. this gives them a public persona of always being right – and something else that cults do is silence dissenting voices so nobody who might agree can see other people saying the same things and feel encouraged/emboldened. 

crossing Biblical boundaries of behaviour

again, we’ll need to contextualise this. if Biblical boundaries are things like sins and all the stuff the Bible says Do Not Do, then in this context these are the wiki rules. staff (and their friends) will constantly cross the rules, as previously mentioned, and they will get away with it.

the wiki rules say “don’t be a dick”. I have caught staff bullying people countless times, and no doubt there’s more I haven’t caught. even out in the open, staff are argumentative, dismissive, rude, intimidating, and oftentimes plain nasty. the wiki rules say “don’t coldpost articles; get feedback”. staff is just out there throwing their shit onto the wiki and expecting an avalanche of upvotes in five minutes Or Else. policies are made that set parameters and staff changes them whenever convenient – for example, the long-standing rule that things that occur off-site are not the responsibility of the Disciplinary Committee (yes, its name.). unless, of course, it’s someone they don’t like. a major staff member bullies somebody on Tumblr? “sorry, it was offsite, not our problem”. someone staff doesn’t like gets into a brief spat on Reddit? banned for harassment. 

there are countless examples of this, from small things to major things like bullying, harassment, and even abuse (or enabling of abuse). staff will punish people for transgressions and then turn a blind eye to a fellow staff member committing a transgression that was ten times worse. they have even protected rapists and sexual predators in the past – another kind of behaviour common in cults, because that’s what happens when you combine narcissism and entitlement with total authority.

that’s the main bulk of it

but now the context has been established, here are a few more concerning things I’ve noticed (quickfire now):

cults shit on former members

and the wiki does the same. any staff member that’s grown fed up of the groupthink and the cliquey attitude and how nasty people are or who has been mistreated by staff themselves; any regular user who feels the same and vocally quits? shat upon. lauded as a bastion of whatever is wrong with the wiki. declared an Enemy and rallied against. it is so creepy.

cults use Us vs Them mentality, especially in language

broad declarations establishing a community and a community spirit in the face of adversity are common in cults. appeals to emotion and loyalty are used in a very manipulative way. catastrophising and fearmongering is common, too. I’m seeing this in how the recent drama with the legal issues is being handled. broad appeals to “defend the wiki”, hashtags being encouraged, emotional speeches from staff about how it’s a make or break situation… 

…and this is being reflected in the absolutely insane comments people are responding with.

this is a fucking writing website. the above is not a normal reaction at all.

the attitudes of regular users quickly grow concerning

people very quickly get obsessed with the wiki and it defines their lives. they seem to feel as though they owe something to it or they need to serve some kind of a purpose; many people try and “get the word out” and become voluntary spokespeople. they go around practically preaching, and I do not see the users of any other website doing this.

cults want full control over how they’re seen by outsiders

and the scp wiki does the same. as mentioned previously, when the fandom grew and spiralled off the wiki to other sites, staff debated for weeks over what to do. brief interruption the second code is shrek is life.they were not comfortable with the idea of the wiki having an independent fandom, and for years now they have been in constant struggle with offsite communities, trying to gain the same amount of control they have over the wiki. it’s impossible to do so thoroughly, and it’s clearly an annoyance for them.

cult leaders will let “lesser” members do their dirty work for them

and guess what staff does? rather than wade in there and get their hands dirty with internet arguments, they’ll sit back and let regular users dogpile on dissenters and say all the things staff shouldn’t be seen to say in public. note how even if this would violate the bullying policies, they’ll just get a warning so long as staff agrees. 

in conclusion

@ everyone on the scp wiki: yall know you’re in a cult, right?

[thecoleopterawithana]

Hello, I'm the last anon you answered to. I'm sorry if I came out as defensive because it wasn't my intention. In fact I've always thought that John was bisexual until I started questioning everything. ( I'm a bisexual guy myself and I'm perfectly happy with the way I am ! ) It's just that I feel like Yoko would just say whatever she wants on John to suit her agenda. John's sexuality had always been an interesting topic and dropping something like that would gaib her publicity this is why I --

I question the authenticity of her claims. She could have lied about it just to attract attention… And I’d be disappointed because John was in fact my idol and he gave me the strength to come out as bi to my family. But there’s so many anecdotes about him being homophobic that it just makes me sad and this is why I hardly doubt that he was a bisexual man…As for the Cynthia quote I heard her say something like “ John was afraid of homosexuality just like everyone ) in a video on Youtube –

I am very conflicted because I’ve watched videos of John ( interviews etc ) and many comments said that he was very skilled at manipulating people and wasn’t as honest as he appeared to be, which is why I doubt. John had always been the rebellious type and I started thinking that he was using the bisexuality topic to shock and make people talk about it which is disappointing. Was he dropping hints that he was bi to piss off people and make publicity ? This is what I believe : (There is also -

Something he said to Alaister Taylor where he said that he was trying to spread the rumor that he was gay or bi just for fun and he told him that he would never shag a man because just the thought of it turned him off… Yet he also told him that he adored Brian so much that he would have done anything with him ( he contradict himself here. ) So yeah I didn’t want to be rude. I apologize. I think I need reassurance. Could you please analyse everything I said if u don’t mind please ? : (

-

Anon 2

At the very least all these years later isn’t it circumstantially suggested that John had very private gay encounters, and was uncomfortable making them public, yet wanted to hint at them so he could deal with this matter int he future? He was protecting his privacy and his ego, and perhaps wasn’t yet ready to reveal either his encounters or mixed feelings of bisexuality. His encounters have been protected by those with whom he was involved, people thameant a lot to him, no?

-

Anon 3

hey! by any chance, do you have knowledge of the quotes where john said “sex with girls felt like a performance after the first time” and “i was never sexually attracted to women before yoko”? i am SURE i’ve seen the first one somewhere on tumblr, though the second one is more of a quote of a quote so i’m not sure if it’s real or not dfkdjk thanks, anyway!

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Anon 4

Hello! Is it true that John used to be very attracted to the drag scene in St Pauli ( I guess that was the town I read about ) and that basically the drag / gay scene made him feel comfortable and at home? Says a lot about him!

-

@tbhmarjj

I adore you, thank u for this blog and ur beautiful mind. i doubt johns bisexuality at times tbh considering he went to great lengths for publicity and he wanted to be an LGBT ally, be cool and outspoken and as he himself said it was trendy to be bi. but then again he was obsessed with Paul in so many ways and he was the embodiment of John’s ideal man. beautiful, talented, intellectual. I’ll be patiently awaiting ur posts exploring Paul’s views on johns sexuality.Thank u

-

Hello again, anon! 

I want to begin by thanking you for getting back to me after I answered your ask and for clarifying where you were coming from when you wrote it. It really is quite hard to fully get the tone of a written message, especially one that is so short that you have no context to draw from to get the emotional meaning behind it. It really appeared to me when I read it that the concern was not who was saying it (Yoko) but about what was being said (John was bisexual). I can now see that was not the case and I appreciate that you’ve made that clear. 

I also hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the opportunity to include in this answer all of the other asks I’ve been receiving regarding John’s sexuality. It’s clearly a topic of great interest in this community. So I’ll be attempting to address all the points raised here. Again, this is nothing definitive; only my personal readings of the situation as I find it at the moment.

Before I do answer, though, I’d just like everyone to take a deep breath and a step back. Let’s try to examine this topic a bit more objectively. 

I understand that sex is kind of major in our society. Our notion of identity is tightly bound to our classified sexuality and gender. Sexual relationships (or amorous relationships) are seen as the epitome of human connection and the ideal everyone should be striving for. And people fundamentally want to be loved and not alone, so it makes sense that figuring out who is a potential companion (and if that companion is interested back) is such a big deal.

But despite these layers of meaning and societal pressures, we should keep in mind what sex represents, essentially, from an evolutionary point of view. 

For social animals who derive pleasure from sexual stimulation, sexual intercourse is – like all the other kinds of affection – a way to build connections. 

If you want to find examples in nature, just look at our ape cousins, the bonobos. The also called pygmy chimpanzee lives in a matriarchal society where sexual behaviour plays an essential role in strengthening social bonds, lowering tension and keeping the peace. Bonobos don’t discriminate between gender or age (except between mothers copulating with their own adult sons, so as to prevent cross-breeding). It’s the true “free love” society; evolution took “make love, not war” and ran with it. 

Our own culture seems more similar to that of bonobos’ northern neighbours, the common chimp. Their patriarchy is more conservative regarding sexual intercourse, which is mainly used for reproduction purposes, and their power structure is based around intricate political games, where males form alliances and try to get public support in order to overthrow the ruling party.

I find it endlessly curious to look at these two species, whose physical separation by the Congo river made them diverge so starkly in their social organization, and compare them to the struggle between these same two natures that we find in our own society. 

All this to say that, from a simply biological point of view, I have to agree with John and Yoko when they say that everyone must be bisexual. If sexual intercourse as a social behaviour is, inherently, all about establishing bonds and connections, the extent to which those connections are “allowed” to be built depends entirely on the hierarchal structure that same society is trying to preserve. In other words, what is classified as morally right or wrong is more reflective of the rules in place to keep that society working as it is, than it is of what is naturally present as a drive. 

If your brain is primed to seek pleasure and sexual intercourse brings you pleasure independently of the partner’s gender, then the partner’s gender should be inconsequential.

But unlike bonobos, humans are kind of touchy about touching. So there are other levels of information influencing behaviour. The processes of socialization – of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society – and enculturation – by which people learn the dynamics of their surrounding culture and acquire values and norms appropriate or necessary in that culture and worldviews – are as determinant as the genetic factors influencing behaviour. In fact, this added education can be so effective in curbing your “primal instincts”, that one might forget they have them in the first place. 

Thus, the concepts of gender identity and sexual orientation are a constantly shifting construct based on the various interactions between your genetic makeup and social influences. 

I just think that, in order to have this discussion, it’s important to separate the various levels of it and be clear about which we are referring to.

There is the basic evolutionary drive to seek pleasure and form connections.

There is the social education about that same drive and how it is allowed to manifest itself.

And integrating all these different signals and information – various potentials which manifested as attraction – there finally is a behaviour, a choice.

And finally, there’s the external point of view of other members of society looking in and trying to discern other people’s drives and how they relate to their choices (that’s us now). The problem is, we often throw our own drives and choices into the mix, especially with regards to something as personally defining as sexual orientation. 

So we have to make very clear in our minds what is the end goal here. Why are we interested in discussing this topic? Are we looking to discern as much of the truth as we can get it, objectively trying to understand these human beings? Or are we trying to confirm our own projections on them? And please, don’t take me wrong. All these are valid reasons to be interested in a subject. Often how it resonates with us, so personally, is vitally important to reaching a greater understanding about ourselves and learning how to communicate that to others. 

But in the same way a piece of music can make you have a transformative emotional experience that the artist didn’t necessarily go through, it’s important to remember that our own inner-life might be affecting how we examine others. Better be mindful of what we project, lest we think are finally seeing inside another person when in fact we are only looking at our own reflection. (And honestly, I believe getting to truly know ourselves in this processes can be a hundred times more valuable than knowing the other. By learning to recognize ourselves we can better understand other people and vice-versa.) 

So if it is important to you that John is bisexual, my honest opinion is that all the information can be read in a way that confirms it. We’ll hardly ever know for sure, and based on what we do know, that can certainly be the takeaway. 

But if we want to objectively examine John’s sexuality, we shouldn’t bring in a confirmation bias. Meaning that we should be emotionally detached from the outcome, as long as it is as close to the truth as we can get. But this is only where I’m coming from, and I’m a bit of a scientist. It’s totally fair if you’re not in it for the same reasons. Though again, working under the assumption that you want to know my stance on it, let’s proceed.

I understand your reservations regarding Yoko as an unreliable narrator. To analyse Yoko’s motivations would be an interesting topic, but one which I will not go in at the moment as I don’t feel sufficiently informed about Yoko as a person to give an extensive examination.  

But in my opinion, there is a whole lot of other information available from which to draw from other than Yoko’s statements. 

I also get your and @tbhmarjj‘s concerns about John’s declarations during the 70s. But it’s the same question I posed in the previous post: Was the “bisexual chic” fad of the 1970s merely a publicity stunt for those involved? Even if it was, did it make the experimentations undertaken any less true? Were they just faking it for the press or were they finally allowed to try and be open about it? 

Because I come from the biological background that places sex as a positive social interaction like any other, meaning that its purpose is to create bonds and the pleasure is our “reward” for doing it, I tend to believe that the behaviours were genuine. The drive there is real. As real as the internal constraints that would act on them as a result of societies shifting expectations and permissions. And this socialization is as determinant in the creation of sexual attraction as anything. So based on our definition of sexual orientation, all those bi rockstars of the 70s could have effectively stopped identifying as bi once the new social norm overrun their own internal drives and the previous less conservative status quo. That didn’t make them less bi when they were. 

It’s funny, but in terms of gender and sexuality, nothing is real so everything is. 

So yeah, I think that John could have been bisexual the second he felt he was. But because the social tide was likely to shift, it was better to also maintain a measure of deniability: it was just for show, it’s not serious, I was just taking the mickey out of you and you fell for it! Of course John was smart enough to leave space there to retract. He and Paul had mastered the art as communicators through song. They could claim them to mean everything and nothing as it suited them. As Anon 2 says, it’s a protective measure. 

So I think that at some point in time, John genuinely identified as bisexual. Now whether he acted on it or not is another questioned entirely. As Anon 2 points out, there are various circumstantial accounts, but these are always tougher to verify. 

I tend to believe Yoko when she says:

So did Lennon ever have sex with men?

“No, I don’t think so,” says Ono. “The beginning of the year he was killed, he said to me, ‘I could have done it, but I can’t because I just never found somebody that was that attractive.’ Both John and I were into attractiveness—you know—beauty.”

I ask what she makes of the people outside the building, the crowds still at Strawberry Fields.

Ono misunderstands, or mishears (or is simply focused on the last strand of our conversation), and continues to talk about sex.

“I don’t make anything out of it. When you’re not really interested in that sort of sex, you don’t think about it. Both John and I surprisingly were very passive people. Unless somebody made a thing out of it, if they made a move, I wouldn’t even think about it.”

— in Yoko Ono: I Still Fear John’s Killer by Tim Teeman for the Daily Beast (13 October 2015).

At least I believe he at least never “fully” did it, in the sense of full-blown anal sex. I think there might have been “milder” homosexual interactions, such as handjobs, that could be rationalized as not entirely gay (the thing with Brian in Spain being one of them.)

Regarding the drag scene in Hamburg Anon 4 was asking about, I agree that it also provides information about John. Though I think it’s mainly about his gender identity rather than his sexual orientation (though the two are invariably linked in the construct as well).

Here are some quotes about it:

With his four months’ greater experience, Sheridan was an ideal guide to the Reeperbahn’s more exotic diversions, like the Schwülen laden. Stu Sutcliffe later wrote home in amazement that the transvestites were ‘all harmless and very young’ and it was actually possible to speak to one ‘without shuddering’. Though raised amid the same homophobia as his companions, John seemed totally unshocked by St Pauli’s abundant drag scene; indeed, he often seemed actively to seek it out. ‘There was one particular club he used to like,’ Tony Sheridan remembers, ‘full of these big guys with hairy hands, deep voices—and breasts. But they used to make an effort to talk English. There was something about the place that seemed to make John feel at home.’

— In John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman (2008).

And according to Horst Fascher (bouncer at the Indra Club and the Kaiserkeller):

It wasn’t just girls that were on offer to young english rockers. Monica’s Bar was Hamburg’s notorious transvestite club. For one or two English musicians, Monica’s was just another part of the Hamburg experience.

HORST FASCHER: One night Monica said, “Come, come and look. One of your boys is in the séparé.” “And who is it?” And she said, “One of the Beatles.” “Let me look”. She said, “Be careful. Look only sneaky-like.” But I did. I grabbed the curtain, pulled it aside and there was sitting John in… in a position with that girl, and you know. He felt really ashamed and I said, “John, don’t worry man. I did that all before.”

— In The Beatles Biggest Secrets. [Transcription is my own and I’m not too certain of it.]

Though there certainly might have been an aspect of sexual interest to it, I think John’s fascination with the drag scene was also the kinship with the queerness he felt inside himself; mainly in regards to him wanting to express his more sensitive side, which is coded as feminine in our society. So I think seeing men indulging in femininity and nonnormative behaviour resonated with him.

Also, I think it’s even more important to understand John’s relationship with sex in general, regardless of the partner. 

To that end, the quote mentioned by Anon 3 is of special relevance:

When I was a kid, I wanted to shag every attractive woman I saw. I used to dream that it would be great if you could just click your fingers and they would strip off and be ready for me. I would spend most of my teenager years fantasising about having this kind of power over women. The weird thing is, when the fantasies came true they were not nearly so much fun. One of my most frequent dreams was seducing two girls together, or even a mother and a daughter. That happened in Hamburg a couple of times and the first time it was sensational. The second time it got to feel like I was giving a performance. You know how when you make love to a woman that the moment you come, you get a buzz of relief and just for a moment you don’t need anyone or anything. The more women I had, the more the buzz would turn into a horrible feeling of rejection and revulsion at what I’d been doing. As soon as I’d been with a woman, I wanted to get the hell out.

— John Lennon to Alistair Taylor (Brian Epstein’s assistant), 1965. In his autobiography With the Beatles: A Stunning Insight by The Man who was with the Band Every Step of the Way (2003).

And another important passage is in reference to Janov’s Primal Scream Therapy:

Well, his thing is to feel the pain that’s accumulated inside you ever since your childhood. […] The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents do not need you in the way you need them. When I was a child I experienced moments of not wanting to see the ugliness, not wanting to see not being wanted. This lack of love went into my eyes and into my mind. […] Most people channel their pain into God or masturbation or some dream of making it. […] But for me at any rate it was all part of dissolving the Godtrip or father-figure trip. Facing up to reality instead of always looking for some kind of heaven.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Robin Blackburn and Tariq Ali for Red Mole (8-22 March 1971). [I really can’t stop pointing to this quote as one of the most important in order to understand John Lennon.]

As he reiterates in ‘I Found Out’ (1970): Some of you sitting there with yer cock in yer hand / Don’t get you nowhere don’t make you a man

To me, John’s pursuit of sex is, like most things in his life, essentially about filling this black-hole of emotional pain. He internalized the lack of love from his parents, which went into his eyes and mind, until he himself believed he was unlovable. This lack of self-esteem translates into a lot of pain and the need for an external solution for that pain. 

The external solution is not wanting to feel so vulnerable any more. This can be achieved either by trying to seize control, by exerting it over others or having them look up to you (e.g. “fantasising about having this kind of power over women”; “some dream of making it”). Or it can be achieved by handing control over and being taken care of (e.g. “people channel their pain into God”, “I’ve seen religion from Jesus to Paul”.)

Sex as an activity can play into these various dynamics: it can be used to feel power over others, as John started out; it can be used as an escapist distraction, like a drug (e.g. “you get a buzz of relief and just for a moment you don’t need anyone or anything”); and it can be used as giving yourself over and being loved, looking to receive that which you can’t get from yourself. 

As time passed and the first two solutions stopped working, I think John focused on the third: sex in the context of an emotionally close relationship as the ultimate intimacy and proof that he was loved. And because he wanted to absolve himself of responsibility, to be taken care of, his partner needed to be someone on the other end, someone who had control. In our culture, this reads as a masculine figure (e.g. “father-figure trip”). 

This may be from a female, whose masculine qualities were what attracted John in the first place:

In this intense, intimate and revealing original cassette recording of a private conversation in 1969 between John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the couple speaks primarily about Yoko’s past relationships, her music and art, and their random views on sex, love, promiscuity, and homosexuality. […] [Lennon] adds that he had never met an attractive woman that had sexually aroused him to any great degree.

— Description of the 45-minute audiotape auctioned in 2009 by Alexander Autographs.

I used to say to him, ‘I think you’re a closet fag, you know.’ Because after we started to live together, John would say to me, ‘Do you know why I like you? Because you look like a bloke in drag. You’re like a mate.’

— Yoko Ono, interviewed for New York Magazine (25 May 1981).

Or the partner he was looking for could be found in the (often dominant) person he was most emotionally invested in his whole life. 

All I want is you / Everything has got to be just like you want it to

And in a society that establishes that the closest two people can be, the greatest intimacy they can share, the ultimate declaration of love is to live in a monogamous amorous relationship, is it any wonder that John felt he could only believe in their relationship if they were together like that? Is it any wonder that he would doubt Paul’s affections because Paul apparently wasn’t willing to express them like that? 

JOHN: It’s a plus, it’s not a minus. The plus is that your best friend, also, can hold you without… I mean, I’m not a homosexual, or we could have had a homosexual relationship and maybe that would have satisfied it, with working with other male artists. [faltering] An artist – it’s more – it’s much better to be working with another artist of the same energy, and that’s why there’s always been Beatles or Marx Brothers or men, together. Because it’s alright for them to work together or whatever it is. It’s the same except that we sleep together, you know? I mean, not counting love and all the things on the side, just as a working relationship with her, it has all the benefits of working with another male artist and all the joint inspiration, and then we can hold hands too, right?

SHEVEY: But Yoko is a very independent person. Isn’t it— [inaudible]

JOHN: Sure, and so were the men I worked with. The only difference is she’s female.

SHEVEY: But you didn’t find it difficult to make that transition?

JOHN: Oh yeah. I mean, it took me four years. I’m still not – I’m still only coming through it, you know.

— Interview with Sandra Shevey (June 1972).

I know I keep posting this quote, but I don’t think he can make it more obvious than that: it’s not about the sex. Or rather, the sex is not the primary thing. 

He didn’t push all those years because he was uncontrollably horny for Paul. John just wants a physical manifestation, a more tangible “proof”, of his emotional connections. He wants to be able to hold hands, be held and perhaps also have sex with his best friend; he needs those proofs of love through the means of physical affection because he won’t believe Paul’s love for him is there otherwise (or that it’s as great as John’s).

Would society normalizing other kinds of relationships – such as friendships – to be as important or on the same level as amorous (romantic/sexual) ones, have helped John and Paul? Most likely. 

Would society normalizing same-sex amorous relationships have helped John and Paul? Perhaps. (For this one we would have to look more closely at Paul’s needs and desires.)

All this to say that John’s idea of sexuality was extremely influenced by society, and in his case, the rule “amorous relationships are the normative ones” outweighed the “heterosexual relationships are the normative ones”. 

The conflict occurred when from Paul’s perspective, the priority of the rules was the other way around. I think Paul was ready to ignore society’s norm and live his life with his friendship with John as the most important relationship. But he also wanted a heterosexual one. (But more on that on a post of its own.)

For now, I hope I have more or less managed to express my thoughts on the matter of John’s sexuality. 

Thank you so much for reading through all that and for reaching out in the first place! I truly appreciate it!

[ladyfogg]

Cold is the Night - 15/20

Cold is the Night - 15/20

Fic Summary: You and Pat have known each other for years but this summer, everything will change. As the two of you start to grow close, your matching tempers threaten the foundation of your rocky friendship and prevent both of you from realizing your true feelings. Cold is the Night Masterpost. 

Fic Song: Cold is the Night by The Oh Hellos. Fic playlist can be found here. 

Pairing: Pat Murray/Female Reader

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Language, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, Multiple Chapters 

Things slowly returned to some semblance of normal in the Murray household. While there was still tension between Pat and his dad, it was getting better each day.

Regardless, Pat was on edge but for an entirely different reason. 

Your opposite work schedules were starting to get to him. All he wanted to do was spend time with his girlfriend but one of you was always working. Thankfully, the new person you were training would be on their own soon, giving you more freedom with your schedule.

Pat was also in talks with his manager about switching to the night shift. It would line up with yours, giving you mornings and afternoons together. But it was all up in the air. 

When the Saturday of the game rolled around, Pat received some shitty news.

"What do you mean you have to work?" he asked after you let him know. "It's too early for your shift."

"I had cover for someone, they're having minor surgery."

Pat clenched his jaw, trying to force himself to take a deep breath. "I really, really need you there, babe."

You looked incredibly guilty and reached out to take his hand. "I'm so sorry."

He wanted to be angry but he really couldn't. It wasn't your fault and with bills to pay, you couldn't skip a whole shift. Especially when the half one you missed the other night would be on the same check.

Pat squeezed your hand. "I know you are. I just miss you. We haven't had a chance to be alone since I went back home." 

"Ugh I know and it's fucking driving me crazy. I don't know what to do." You looked just as frustrated as he felt. "How much time do we have before you have to go?"

"Not much."

"Wanna make out?"

Pat sighed. "No. Well, yes, but not when we have a time limit. I'm frustrated enough as it is."

"Tell you what, I'll come pick you up after the game. I should be done around the same time. You can sleep over tonight."

That made Pat grin, a myriad of dirty plans coming to mind. "I like the sound of that."

Grinning back, you leaned in close, lips brushing his. "You'll like the sounds I make tonight even more." You kissed him and he leaned into it with a hum before reluctantly pulling away. 

"Well, I should go then," he said, stroking your cheek. "I'll see you later."

"Definitely." You gave him another kiss. "I'm really sorry, babe."

Pat was in an awful mood by the time he got to the field. 

"Hey, Murray," Ty greeted him as he threw his bag down.

"Hey," Pat muttered.

"Uh oh, someone's grumpy," Vinnie cood. "What's wrong, future brother-in-law?"

Pat's head whipped around to stare at Vinnie with shock. He was sure he must be talking to Ty but he clearly was looking at Pat when he spoke. "I'm not...why would you...we're just…"

The thought of marrying you hadn't crossed his mind considering you had just gotten together not too long ago. But now, the image was all he could picture and it scared him half to death. 

He must have looked terrified because Vinnie immediately started backtracking, something he never did. "Whoa, whoa, man, relax," he said, realizing he hit a nerve. "Just a joke."

It wasn't the idea of marriage that scared him, but the fact that he liked the image of you in a white dress. It was bad enough he almost told you he loved you after a few days of dating. Luckily he caught himself. 

Pat's shoulders relaxed and he let out a shaky breath. "Sorry. Of course it was a joke. I'm just on edge right now."

"What's wrong?" Maz asked. "You guys have another fight?"

"No. She can't make it to the game today," Pat explained. "And we haven't had much time to spend together over the last few days. It's making me crazy."

"Murray's pissed cuz he's not getting any," Barone announced as he walked by.

"Shut the fuck up, Barone! You don't know what you're talking about." Pat glared. "I'm getting plenty."

"Nope! Not listening to this!" Vinnie declared, covering his ears. He walked away loudly singing to himself.

"But not sliding into home I bet." Barone smirked. 

Pat's cheeks burned with embarrassment while Maz shook his head at Barone. "My sex life is none of your business."

"Trust me, Murray, if you were gettin' some, you still wouldn't be so tense."

Pat took a step toward Barone, ready to throw down. But Maz stepped between them.

"Barone, walk away," Maz ordered with a glare.

"Whatever, dipshits."

Pat watched Barone leave, still fuming. Maz pulled him to the side, making him sit with him on the bench. "Don't let him get to you," he said. "Your relationship is between you and her. No one else."

"It's not about the sex that's got me worked up," Pat said. "That's whatever. I don't care about sex. We both want to take things slow."

"Then what's wrong?"

Pat hadn't said the words out loud and he was almost afraid to. Because once he did, they were real and his new relationship became infinitely more serious. Not that it wasn't already but love brought things to a new level.

As always, Maz seemed to know what he was thinking because he suddenly grinned. "Dude," he chuckled. "You've got it bad."

Pat gave him a small smirk. "Yeah. I do."

And just like that, the weight he had been carrying lightened slightly. Though a whole new slew of fears came to the surface.

"I take it you haven't told her."

"Fuck no, it's too soon."

"It really isn't though. You guys have known each other for years."

"Yeah but we've only been dating for like, a week. I don't want to scare her off."

Pat was torn. He was treading through a minefield of new territory. You were the first serious relationship he'd had, and his deep feelings scared him. It was all so new and sudden, he wasn't sure how to process the situation. 

Maz nodded with understanding. "Well, you can still show her at least."

"Maz! Can you come here a sec?" Ty called, clipboard in hand. 

"Yeah, Ty," Maz said. He gave Pat a nudge before he stood. "I'm really happy for you guys. You seem happier." He paused. "Well, aside from today."

Pat watched him walk away, thinking over what he had said. Unfortunately, the thoughts consumed him the rest of the day.

The game went about as well as he expected it to. He had no problem catching the ball, but when it was his turn at the plate, anxiety took over. It didn't help that his mind was still miles away, thinking of all the ways he could show you his feelings without saying them out loud yet. 

After his first strike, he forced himself to focus, but it didn't help. 

He didn't hit a goddamn thing.

The pity on his teammates' faces made him feel worse. Pat sat on the bench with a huff, checking his phone. Normally, you text him if you're not busy but he had no messages waiting. He wished you were there. He wished he could look up and see your face in the stands, cheering him on.

He scrolled through the pictures on his phone, smiling at the ones he managed to take of the both of you. Seeing your face made his frustration ease slightly. For the first time ever, he wanted the game to hurry up and be over. He had almost forgotten he'd be staying at your place after.

A night alone with his girlfriend was something he desperately needed.

Someone called his name and he put his phone away before he grabbed his glove and headed to the field.

The D-Backs managed to scrape by and win, but just barely. Still sour over his poor performance, Pat hurried to gather his things before he was roped into a team celebration dinner. 

As he walked to the parking lot, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw your car pull up. He was sweaty, hot, and beyond frustrated. Not just because of the game but his own traitorous brain.

He climbed into the car and quickly noticed you looked as annoyed as he felt. His heart sank.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Fine," you said, a little too firmly. "How was the game?" 

"Shitty. How was work?"

"The fucking worst."

"If you want to reschedule for tonight, I get it."

Tension left your shoulders and you reached over to take his hand. "Knowing I'd be seeing you was the only thing that got me through my day."

Relieved, Pat smiled and kissed your knuckles. "Me too."

The ride to your place was done mostly in silence, both of you trying to relax. When you got there, Pat went to take a shower, hoping the cold water would help. It did, a little. He stopped thinking about the game and was more focused on you. 

His frustration was transforming into strange sexual energy. Pat was never one to be dominating when it came to sex, but his failure earlier was causing him to want to pin you against the wall and kiss you like his life depended on it.

Being with you was the one thing in his life he knew was right. And though your sexual activities together were fairly limited, getting you off seemed to be something he was really fucking good at. 

He left the shower and pulled on a pair of boxers and nothing else, leaving the bathroom in search of you.

You were furiously wiping down the kitchen counter as you worked through your own feelings.

Pat stood in the doorway, watching your body as you moved. Something deep and primal was building and he knew one look from you would be all it took for him to act.

As if on cue, you glanced over to find him staring. "Can I help you?"

Pat crossed the room in two strides. Without waiting for a reaction, he hooked his arm around your waist and crushed you to his chest. His kiss was rough and demanding, pouring all his feelings out in one simple action. He pushed you until your back hit the wall, rattling the dishes in the cupboard.

You gripped him tight, fingers digging into his arms as you shoved your tongue past his lips. Your mouth was hot and eager and Pat couldn't get enough, hands fumbling with the button of your jeans. Once he got them open, his hand slipped inside, seeking your heat.

His lips found their way to your neck, kissing and sucking the sensitive flesh as his fingers slid between your folds. You groaned, hooking your leg around his to keep him in place. Not that he planned to go anywhere.

With one hand on the wall to steady himself, Pat fingered you roughly, reveling in how soaked he had made you in mere seconds. He drew back slightly to look into your eyes, heart hammering in his chest at the pure lustful gaze you fixated him with.

Pat's chest heaved as he panted, the intensity of the moment putting his nerves on edge. You looked equally worked up and the next thing Pat knew, you lunged in for another kiss.

Mouths collided in more painful kisses as your hands felt him up, your hips moving along with his hand. Weeks of intense emotions and sexual feelings made worse by your equally terrible days had finally come to a head.

"Fuck me," you groaned.

It took him a second to register what you said. When he did, Pat's hand stopped and he pulled back, still panting. He stared at you with excitement. "Are you sure?"

He wanted you more than he wanted anyone before and he needed to confirm you were just as ready as he was. You whimpered and ground your hips against his hand.

"Fuck me, Pat," you ordered. "Now." 

With a groan, Pat pulled you into another kiss. 

[brideofedoras]

God Can’t Help You Now

A little one shot I wrote a while back based on an edited image created by cptn-jtk and the ideas people were reblogging.

My OC Eleanor happens to see a message sent to an ensign and confronts her brother.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or the characters, only my OC.  GIF found on Google.

Warnings: mentions of naughty photos, some dirty words

Word Count: 1000+

Enjoy!

Eleanor’s eyes widened when she saw the message flash onto Ensign McAllister’s PADD.  “Who sent that to you?”

The young man jerked and nearly dropped the device as he whipped around to stare at Elle.  “The captain, ma’am.”

Elle reached out and took the PADD from him, shaking her head.  The manipulated photo was of Leonard, taken on the bridge a few weeks back when the CMO had snarled at Jim’s enthusiasm for their five-year mission.  A photo she had taken because the expression on his face was priceless.

How Jim had gotten ahold of it was beyond her.  

God can’t help you now had been added to the image.  The message accompanying the photo was short, to the point, and if she weren’t so upset with her brother for this little stunt she would have snorted.

“It has come to my attention that you have missed a medical evaluation with Dr. McCoy and/or his medical staff despite pre-programmed reminders on both your PADD and your communicator.  Please report to the MedBay in a timely manner before our Chief Medical Officer sees fit to track you down.  Thank you.  –Captain James T. Kirk.”

She handed the PADD back to the ensign.  “Thomas, would you mind forwarding that message to me?”

“Wh-why?”  McAllister stuttered before flinching.  “I’m not being insubordinate, I promise!”

She fought to not roll her eyes.  The ensign was a complete idiot, and she wanted him out of her labs.  “I know, Thomas,” she sighed.  She stopped herself before she could reach up to pinch the bridge of her nose, something so Leonard-like it scared her.  “How Captain Kirk got his hands on that photo, and why he decided to use a photo of Dr. McCoy is beyond me…”  She looked up to meet the ensign’s scared brown eyes.  “We’re two weeks into the mission, it’s been hectic getting the labs set up and ready for the first exploratory excursion.  Our chief medical officer is more understanding than our captain claims.”

“Doctor Kirk…”  McAllister started to say something but trailed off slowly.  Then his eyes widened.  “Are-are you related to the captain?”

This time she snorted.  “Yeah,” she nodded.  “Captain Kirk is my twin brother.”  She pointed to the PADD.  “I took that photograph of Dr. McCoy when we warped off at the beginning of the mission.  He’s my boyfriend.”  She smiled when the ensign let out a strangled I’m so fucked.  “Forward that message to me, please.”

McAllister nearly dropped his PADD as he scrambled to do as he was told.  

Once her PADD pinged with a notification she excused herself and headed to the Turbolift down the corridor.  “Bridge,” she instructed the computer.  Seconds later she requested permission to enter the bridge, her eyes locked on her brother.

“Permission granted,” he turned to smile at her.  

Movement to his right drew her attention.

Elle froze.  Fuck me, she internally cringed but managed a smile for Leonard.  “Captain, may I request a moment with you?  Alone?”  Her smile turned apologetic for the doctor, who nodded.  She flicked her eyes back to Jim just in time to catch him masking the slight panic in his eyes.  

Jim nodded.  “Mr. Sulu, you have the con,” he stated before motioning for his sister to head to the ready room.

Once inside with the door shut behind them, Eleanor pulled up the message on her PADD.  She held it out to Jim.  “How the hell did you get this picture?”

“I borrowed your PADD, remember?”  He grinned.  “Looked through the pictures and found this, thankfully before I found the vacation pictures you guys took.  Really, Sis?”

Her eyes widened when she realized what he was talking about.  “You went through my personal PADD?”  She screeched.  “You looked through my personal photos?”

“Never making that mistake again,” he groaned.  “Seriously, Ellie?  I’ve seen Bones naked more times than I care to remember, but my own sister?”

“What Leonard and I do in our private time is just that, Jimmy,” she growled at him.  “It’s not like you haven’t done it yourself.”  She leveled a look on him despite the hot blush consuming her.  She couldn’t believe he’d looked through the risqué boudoir photos she and Leonard had done when they had gone to the mountains in Georgia for a romantic getaway before they had to report back to Starfleet.  “Why the hell did you send out that photo to Ensign McAllister?”

“Bones was bitching about how several crew members missed their intake evaluations,” he sighed heavily.  “Figured I’d have a little fun with sending out a warning.”

“Yeah, and McAllister damn near cried when he finally realized his supervisor is related to the ship’s captain.  He damn near wet himself when I told him the chief medical officer is my boyfriend.”  Elle huffed out a heavy sigh.  “I need to talk with Spock about having him transferred to another department, he’s not cut out for my labs.”

Jim snorted.  “He really nearly pissed himself?”

“Yeah, and you’re going to die once I show this to Leonard,” she held up her PADD.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he lunged forward but she sidestepped.

“What makes you think I’m going to let you get your hands on my PADD again, Jimmy?  There’s more naughty pictures on here.”  

He recoiled.  “I don’t want to see any more photos of Bones with his hands covering your… your boobs,” he whined.  

“His hands covered more than just my boobs,” she smiled before heading toward the door.  Damn but she really missed that cabin in the mountains.

“NO!”

“Computer, please page Dr. McCoy to the ready room,” she called out.  

The door slid open immediately.  “What the hell is going on?”  Leonard demanded as he strode into the room.  “I heard screeching and yelling!”

“He went through the pictures a couple of weeks back,” she braced herself for Leonard’s reaction.

“That explains the damned death glares,” the doctor grumbled.  “Is that why you dragged him in here?”

She shook her head.  “No, but this is,” she held her PADD out to Leonard.

“Ellie, no!”  Jim cried, but slumped when he realized he was well and truly fucked.

“What the hell is this?!?!?!”  Leonard exploded, anger darkening his hazel eyes as he glared at the captain.  “Dammit, Jim!”

“I thought it would be good motivation to get people to the MedBay!”  The captain defended himself, warily eyeing the vein throbbing in Bones' temple.  “I mean, it’s true!”

“For you, yes, for them?”  Leonard snorted.  “I can’t have the new crew thinking I’m a tyrant, Kid!”

“I could always leak some of those… photos,” Jim shuddered and shrank back when Leonard took a menacing step forward.

Elle bodily blocked Leonard.  “You’ll do no such thing, Jimmy,” she warned her brother.  “Because do you really want for everyone on this ship to see your baby sister naked?”

“No!  Eww, God no!”  He made a gagging sound and yelped when Leonard growled and tried to move around Eleanor.

“Oh, no, you don’t, Leonard,” she braced her hands on his chest and pushed him back.  “Come with me.”  

Surprisingly McCoy allowed her to push him toward the door.  Once they stepped back onto the bridge she turned him toward the Turbolift.

“You just gonna let him insult you like that, Eleanor?”  Leonard demanded once they were in the lift and on their way to the deck their quarters were located on.

“He wasn’t insulting me, Leonard, he was repulsed at the thought of me naked,” she touched her left hand to his chest.  “And terrified at the thought of every crew member getting an eyeful.  Or terrified at the thought of the murder spree you would go on if anyone else saw me naked.”

The growl that vibrated through his chest and reverberated through the Turbolift was primal.  “Don’t want anyone else gettin’ the pleasure of seein’ what only I have the pleasure of seeing, Sugar,” he moved suddenly, pinning her to the back wall of the lift and kissing her soundly.

She gasped and pushed on his shoulders when he stooped to pick her up.  “Oh, no, Leonard,” she whimpered when he nipped at her neck.  “Cam-“ her protest was swallowed in another kiss before Leonard reluctantly set her back on her feet.

McCoy glared over his shoulder at the camera she tried to point out to him.  “Damn nosy bastards.”

[cchellacat]

Thank You For Your Service:Pt3

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Wintershock: Bucky Barnes x Darcy Lewis

18 + For some smut.

For the next week Darcy stuck to the confines of the Tower. It wasn’t hard, the place was a veritable mini city in it’s own right. The first floor was made up of two restaurants, a boutique and spa. Never let it be said that Tony would ever let anyone in his employ do without the essentials.  There was also a fantastic lending library on five, a gym for the Avengers personal use on sixty-five and an Olympic size pool on sub-level three.

She spent plenty of time stewing over the thought of him knowing who she was that first night, but eventually she admits to herself that he seemed shocked when Tony introduced them too.  She still made it her mission to avoid James Barnes at all costs though, she wasn’t ready to face him yet.

Every time he tried to track her down, she used the private elevator and Jarvis to circumvent his attempts.  Luckily Jane had left for a short trip to Culver to give some lectures, so Darcy wasn’t stuck in the labs where she knew she was all too easy to find.

The problem of Barnes as her bodyguard was keeping her from sleeping well.  She was still furious with him and pissed at Tony for making her comply, but she had went back and retrieved the tablet he’d left her and after reading through it she knew he had a point.  It still chaffed though. She had spent so much of her life looking out for herself that it went against everything in her to allow someone else, no matter how well meaning or right to dictate how she conducted herself.

The problem is that she is frustrated and confused by the sudden insistence.  She's been working at SI for two years without a bodyguard and only a light protection detail when she and Jane go to international conferences. Darcy is convinced the only reason Tony is insisting on a bodyguard now is because he found out she was his daughter.  Thor insisting on Jane having protection when he wasn't there makes far more sense, she is the future Queen of Asgard and he knows there are people who are opposed to Jane’s future status. Darcy is just a low level assistant, no one even knows about her blood connection to Tony.

She also spent some of the time the past week, researching him.  Oh, she knew the basics, everyone did, but what Shield and the Avengers allowed released to the public was far less than what she could get her hands on hacking the Tower servers.  Jarvis was good enough not to tattle on her, so there was that. After the confrontation in the elevator she had also had to get into Jarvis code and convince him to delete the footage of their hate fueled sexcapades, the last thing she wanted was Tony blowing a fuse because she got her freak on with Bucky Barnes.

She hadn’t been able to resist watching it before she deleted it though.  Watching them tear at each other was thrilling, it had been primal and raw. Seeing it from the outside, coupled with the memory of how it had felt, she had touched herself, coming harder by her own hand than she had in years.  It took her breath away to see him fuck her, to watch as all that raw strength, a body made and sculpted for war, held her effortlessly, taking her apart. She lost track of everything watching it, watching them, their reflections carrying into infinity as he claimed her.  It’s what it was, there’s no other way to describe how he took her, even as she claimed him back, teeth and nails marking him. She blushed seeing it, seeing her own wanton abandon.

Watching as her body arched into his and how she pulled on his hair, the grunts he made as she clenched around him had her cuming around her own fingers.  It made her ache to feel him again, to have him fill her with his cock and mutter filth in her ear the way he had. She watches his face when he makes her come, sees the awe and possession in his expression, the way he looks at her like he wants to keep her.  It’s how she knows that it isn’t just her imagination. There is something important between them, something visceral and deep.

He could have broken her if he’d been any less in command of himself.  She knew that now, understood and was thrilled by the thought of it. She’d seen the footage of the Winter Soldier on the bridge in DC.  He and Steve had been all out against each other on that highway and Barnes had held the upper hand, had been winning even before Steve realised who he was.  She was just a fragile human, the control he exerted over himself even as they lost themselves in angry lust had been absolute.

She’d stood in front of her bathroom mirror every evening and morning, fingers tracing over the bruises he had left and knows he could have broken her bones, but he hadn’t.  He’d left his mark, his fingerprints on her skin, blue and purple fading to green and yellow. When they were finally gone she had felt bereft. Part of her wanted those marks back on her body, claiming her, branding her. When he’d been inside her she’d felt whole in a way she’d never experienced before.  

Knowing his story better after pouring over the files only made her want him more.  She wanted to hate him, she really did, but he’d promised he hadn’t been following her, that meeting her had been just that, a coincidence.  She believed him, but that didn’t mean she was going to make this easy on him.

She’d eventually calmed down after everything and decided to beard the lion in his den.  The surprise on his face when she turned up at his office door had been genuine.

Darcy  smiled nervously at him from the doorway before stepping inside. Bucky looked up at her knock and motioned for her to come in.  The office was utilitarian and almost empty, other than the desk and chairs. Book shelves lined one wall, bare and waiting to be filled, on the window sill was a large cacti, the kind you see in garden centers the world over.  She wonders who bought it for him, somehow knowing it’s not the sort of thing he would have chosen for himself.

“Hey.”  it’s all she manages to say.  Unsure of what you're meant to say to the guy who’s fucked you twice but whom you’ve never actually had a proper conversation with.  

“Darcy.”  He seems just as unsure of where they stand as she does.  He stood there, waiting until she sits down before retaking his seat.

The silence makes her edgy and she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Nice cactus... how’s it going?”

He spares the greenery a quick look of derision before turning his attention back to her.

“It’s good, getting through a review of personal and doing some additional background checks, I didn’t realise how much paperwork this damn job was going to involve.”

She smiles, fingers drumming against her thigh.

“You know this position comes with a PA, right?  Haven’t you found someone suitable from HR yet?”

“I guess  just haven’t gotten around to it yet.  Still a lot of things on the list, honestly I think I forgot with everything.”  he gestured vaguely at the boxes of files on the floor around his desk. “But, what can I do for you?”

“I umm, I wondered if you wanted to get a drink tonight.  Let me apologise for jumping to conclusions the other day.”

It’s as close as she’ll come to saying she was wrong for being so upset with him.  A peace offering and a date in one.

Bucky sighs and looks down at the desk, flicking an eye off to the side and the moving a file over the offending paper.  She holds her breath, thinking this was not the response she expected. She sees it coming even before he speaks.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.  It wouldn’t be right.”

“Why not?  We’re both consenting adults, you’re not my employee and I don’t work for you…”

“It’s a conflict of interest Doll.”  he still won’t look her in the eye.

“Why are you so determined to keep me at arms length?  I’ve seen the employment contact Tony had you sign, there’s nothing stopping us from seeing each other.  I know I’m not wrong about this, you like me, I know you do.”

“You’re right, I do, but we still can’t do this.  I need to focus on my job, I can’t do that properly if we’re involved.  I don’t want to slip up and you get hurt.” he sounds sincere, but she’s known men who could do that even when they were lying, and right now he wasn’t telling her everything, she could feel it.

“So assign me my own protection detail.  I’ll follow the rules, not cause any trouble.  Tony won’t mind so long as I stick to the program.”

“I can’t do that, Tony asked me to be your personal security, I gave him my word, I’d never forgive myself if another Stark died when I could have stopped it.”

She feels the bottom drop out from underneath her.  More excuses, she’s an idiot, maybe he was interested enough to fuck her but not have a relationship. The thought tasted bitter in her mouth.

“You don’t have to lie to me, if you don’t want to go out with me.”

“Doll, it’s not like that, I do like you, I just…   I can’t trust anyone else with your safety.”

She stood quickly, and strode to the door, she had to get out of there. there is a clatter of the chair as he stands and comes after her.  It’s like the elevator all over again, he catches her before she can open the door, pulling her round to face him, she braces her hands on his chest, all too aware of his body only a hairs breath from her own.

“Darcy, please understand, it’s not about you, this is on me.”

“Then quit.  Tell Tony you can’t do it, tell him we already knew each other, that we want to date.  He’ll understand. You’re not responsible for me just because you played a hand in Howard and Maria’s deaths.  I never even knew them. Give me another security detail.”

His grip on her arms tightens briefly, she sees the conflict in his eyes.

“I’m not going to break my word.”

“No, but you’ll break my heart just fine.”

She pushed out of his hold and spun, leaving him behind.  This was not over.

IT doesn’t make any sense.  Why would she merit the Winter Soldier as a bodyguard and not Jane? Why would she get the scary supersoldier when Jane is the bigger target of the two of them? There was something more going on, there had to be.  She just wishes she could figure out what. Until then, well. She knew now, from his reaction at the last, he definitely wants her, just as much as she wants him. She has to make him see she’s not going to give up.

If he wanted to be her bodyguard so badly, well, she’d make him jump through so many hoops and over so many obstacles he’d quit.  He was just as affected by her as she was by him, that much was clear, but she knew he’d resist letting anything happen between them while he was meant to be her protection. But she wanted him, badly. Badly enough that she’s prepared to tie the man in knots until he resigns as her bodyguard, because she knows in her soul she needs him, she wants to know if they could be something.

The first time she decides to leave the Tower is Tuesday evening, there’s a great little pizza place in the East Village that she’s been dying to try out, she knows she should call him, tell him she’s going out, but she wants to know what will happen if she doesn’t.  So sue her, she’s always been too curious for her own good.

The trip down in the elevator is smooth as always but being in the small space, the memories of what he’d done to her push to the front of her mind.  When she gets off on the ground floor she’s wet and frustrated and ready to turn around and got back to her apartment and deal with the unexpected arousal.  Before she can call the lift back she spots him. She’s not sure if she’s surprised to see him, leather jacket and gloves on, standing by the front door of the lobby.  He looks good, the look he gives her and the small smirk enough to make desire and ire curl in her belly in equal measure. She squares her shoulders, unable to back down now and crosses the lobby at a clipped pace.

He doesn’t say anything as she marches past him, just opens the door for her and follows behind.

Darcy is hyper aware of him, just feet behind her to her left.  She refuses to turn a head and look at or acknowledge him, but part of her itches to sneak a peek, to take in how fucking pretty he looked.  The whole trip goes off without a hitch, he trails after her, she grabs some dinner and then he follows her back.

The little trip out served its purpose, he knows when she’s leaving, good.  The next three days she randomly pops out of the tower on a ridiculous number of errands that have her all over New York.  She can see the irritation building in him, the way his gaze narrows as her smiles become sunnier and sunnier. She takes a deep satisfaction in making him follow her from lingerie shop to lingerie shop, dumping the many bags she exits with into his arms.

It’s day four of “Drive Barnes into Early Retirement”.  She set her alarm for 3:45am. There’s a 24 hour lending library halfway across the city she likes and she’s already booked her Uber.  She wonders what he’ll make of this trip. By her calculations he would be in bed right now, sleeping. Jarvis would alert him of her intention to leave, she can’t wait to see if he can catch her before she makes it into the Uber.

She had slept in her clothes, so grabs her purse and coat and high tales it out of her apartment and into the elevator.

When she reaches the lobby he’s not there.  She only hesitates for a moment before striding outside, looking for her ride.  It’s not there yet. She stamps her feet against the chill and checks her phone impatiently.

She thinks she should feel less surprised than she is when a black SUV pulls up and Barnes rolls down the window.

“Get in.”  it’s terse and strained and she can see the dark circles under his eyes.  For a second she feels at least a little guilty for running him so ragged but then stamps it down.

The drive to the library is tense and silent.  She looks out the window and resolutely ignores him, scrambling out of the car when they arrive and hurrying inside before he can do something dumb, like open the door for her.

Inside she scurries away till she finds the section she wants and peers at the titles.  She can feel him watching her at first as she wanders the stacks. Eventually she gathers the books she wanted and finds a nook to sit and read in.  He takes up the chair opposite her and sits with a book of his own.

For the next hour she reads without much focus, finding herself going over the words three of four times before giving up.  When she looks over at him he’s slumped in the seat, book closed in one hand and his eyes shut. Again, the traitorous feeling of guilt creeps in.  She knows he’s been working hard the last two weeks, increasing security for the Tower, putting new protocols in place, reviewing the existing personnel and a whole slew of other things, she hasn’t made any of it easier on him.

The thing is though, it stung.  She wasn’t good at handling rejection, even when it came from good place.  He’s trying to do the right thing. Keeping his work and personal life separate.  She gets it, but it’s frankly ridiculous. He’s already slept with her, twice, not that she could call it sleeping.  She finds herself staring at hm again, in all honesty he is hard to look away from. Fuck he looked cute like that, all soft and warm and vulnerable looking. There was a tiny little frown line between his eyes, she wanted to smooth it out and kiss his brow, take away whatever was making him anxious.  Then again, she’s probably the cause of it. She sighs and waits. She’s not going to wake him up yet.

The light slowly filters into the space as the sun rises and she keeps watch wondering if she should rethink this whole thing.  It’s nearly seven when she finally reaslies she’ll have to wake him if they want to be back at the Tower and have time to get ready before work.  Jane is back today too, so Darcy knows she’ll have a heap of work of her own waiting in the lab.

She puts the books she chose back on their shelves and grabs the one he was holding too, it had dropped to the floor an hour earlier, but he hadn’t stirred, he must have been really tired.

She tries waking him gently, just calling his name, but he’s out for the count.  Giving up she places a hand on his shoulder to shake him and suddenly finds herself held down across his lap, his hand at her throat, his eyes wide and blue, inches from hers.  His grip goes slack immediately, she can see the horror in his expression and she grabs the bionic hand at her neck, holding it against her chest.

“I’m fine, I know better, I won’t wake you like that again.”

For a moment everything is still and then he closes his eyes and rests his forehead to hers.

“I could have killed you.”

“You didn’t.  You didn’t even hurt me, just restrained me.  I’m fine, see?”

She keeps her tone light and reaches a tentative hand up to cup his jaw, her thumb brushing against the growth of stubble on his cheek.  This close she can clearly see the grey creeping through the dark, it's adorable and so human she wants to coo.  

He opens his eyes again and she feels lost looking into them. She thinks she can see everything in the blue, every thought that crosses his mind seems to be reflected there.  Guilt, remorse, frustration, gratitude… the heat rapidly creeping into his gaze sends a frisson of desire through her, skin prickling, nipples hardening and warmth pools in her belly.  

He’s going to kiss her, she can feel it in her bones, sees the way his eyes drop to her lips and back again and she grips his shoulder even as he heart starts to pound.  

Why does it feel like this with him? It’s the only thing she has time to wonder before his lips meet hers. Soft and warm, moving over hers, the kiss is gentle, slow.  Full of something unknowable and dark. His hands grip her waist, pulling her up till she’s sitting in his lap, his mouth coaxing hers open, one brush a time.

The first swipe of his tongue at the seam of her lips leaves her gasping.  He kisses her with the sort of focus that wipes all thought from her mind, makes her weak all over and has her mewling like a kitten with each stroke of tongue to hers.   All she can feel is him, the restrained strength and power under her hands, the taste him on her tongue as he plunders her mouth.  She wants to crawl inside his skin, wants to put aside the past two weeks and start over, right here, now.

Her body already knows his touch, it sings under his hands, as he runs his fingers under the hem of her shirt, skimming over her skin, pulling her closer.  She finds herself with her hands in his hair, soft and curling at the ends as she tugs on it gently, the tiny little growls of need he makes when she does it, brings a curl of a smile to her lips.  This is everything she wants with him. Heady kisses that last forever, wandering hands and the smell of him, deep and earthy saturating the sheets of her bed. She curls into him, to his warmth and sighs some more as he makes love to her with his mouth. She’d forgotten what just kissing was like, how good it could be, how meaningful.

The sudden and insistent ringing of his phone interrupts them.  He pulls back from her, both of them a little breathless, but she sees the regret begin to set into his expression and pushes off his lap, standing and grabbing her purse and coat.  It’s like being doused in ice water, the abrupt turn from something deep and warm to the cold indifference of his rejection, hollowing out her soul, leaving her empty. She’s vaguely aware of him answering the phone, of the gruff impatience in his voice as he talks to whoever is on the other end. She uses the brief few moments to pull herself back together, to plaster a facade of calm nonchalance over the bitter burning sting of his regret. She won’t let him see how much it hurts, won’t let him see how close she is to begging for him like some love sick ninny.

“You ready to go?”

She doesn’t turn, can’t bare to look at him and see that same dismissal again.  She just nods and makes her way out to the car, once again hyper aware of him only feet away.

In the SUV she jams a finger at the radio and switches till the sound of Eric Clapton comes loud over the speakers.

“We can’t keep doing this Darcy.”  

She wishes he didn’t sound so vulnerable, his voice bordering pleading in it’s tone.  It gets her back up, sours her mood still further. God, he made her feel so much. Being in his orbit was enough to give her emotional whiplash.  Why was he denying this? Them? She knew something had changed again in that library, something more growing in the space between them. Part of her wanted to rip it out and kill it before it grew, afraid he would only hurt her more.  When he reaches for her hand she draws it back quickly. How dare he try to touch her after that? After ending things before they began, again.

“We, can’t?”  She questions waspishly, staring straight ahead, denying him the ability to read her eyes and see the truth..  “I’m not the one going around kissing people, that was you, remember?”

From the corner of her eye she sees his grip tighten on the wheel, flesh hand going white at the knuckles from the pressure.

“You’re right.  It’s on me. It won’t happen again.”

She thinks he believes what he says, but she knows better.  The air between them still full of tension. Darcy digs her nails into her palms, counts in her head to ten, then fifty before slowly releasing a breath she had been holding and loosening her fists.  She needs time to pull back and reassess. Maybe this whole thing was a mistake, and she was making it worse. Perhaps he was right, and they should be nothing more than client and bodyguard.

“I’ll email you my schedule this afternoon, so you know when I’ll need you.  I probably won’t be going out much. Jane’s back today, so you’ll be rid of me for a few days.”

She keeps her tone as impersonal as possible, but a small sliver of bitterness underlays it.

“I don’t mind taking you wherever you want to go Darcy.”

“Miss Lewis.”

It slips out, hard and absolute.  She glances at him long enough to watch his jaw tighten and the flash of hurt in his eyes.  If he wants this to be nothing more than a business relationship he can treat all of it as such.

“Yes Miss Lewis.”

She doesn’t flinch when her name leaves his lips, coated in rime and cutting the air between them like diamond.  She wants to throw up, the sickening feeling of loss she’s brought on herself a leaden weight of doom in her gut.

Nothing else is or needs to be said.  When they get back, they go their separate ways.  He opens the car door for her, standing at attention as she alights and brushes past him, her legs feeling like jelly even as she forces herself to walk confidently into the lobby and into the elevator.  The damned elevator with its mirrors and memories reflected in them to infinity. She spots him briefly at the security desk before the doors close, his face a grim mask, his eyes hard. They flick up for one agonising moment to meet her own and her lips tighten in pain.  She wants to lash out, to scream. This is his fault, he’s the one that started it, kissing her after saying he couldn’t, can he blame her for feeling angry, for giving him what he wanted? The doors close and all she’s left with is her own face, pale of colour, even her lips bleeding white are the edges.  She feels like she’s fighting a losing battle, her body and heart and mind all wanting something different. She needs help.

Darcy gets back to her apartment to find Jane in her kitchen, coffee on and a bright box of pastries on the counter.  The look of concern on Jane’s face when she sees her has the bubbling sob Darcy had been holding in bursting out before the door can close behind her.  She throws herself into Jane’s arms and clings.

“Oh Darcy, Honey, it’s okay, I’m here, I’ve got you. Tell me everything.”

The soft words are exactly what she needed, the whole story falling out between angry tears and gut-wrenching sobs.  She is so glad her friend is back. Jane will help her, Jane will be her rock. The two women had relied on each other for so long that Darcy formed the sort of strong connection with Jane she thought she would feel if she’d had a sister.  

They spend the rest of the day on the couch, work forgotten as they pick thought the events, trying to figure out what it meant.  Jane always the voice of reason, grounds her, gives her hope. She holds onto it carefully. There was more going on, Jane thought so to. Now she just had to figure out what. 

Tagging: @eurynome827  @omnomsauruswrites  @thesaltyduchess  @spacemansam   @book-dragon-13  @loricameback  @jobean12-blog  @sallycanwait68  @lookwhatyoumademequeue  @letstalkaboutsebbaby  @thatgirlkei  @marvelousmeggi  @grimeysociety  @msruchita  @southerncross47

@libbymouse  @randomlittleimp  @slytherinstarkravingmad 

if anyone wants tagged for the next chapters let me know,

[happymetalgirl]

Lindemann - F & M

The surprising part is not Rammstein’s Till Lindemann and Swedish Renaissance man Peter Tätgren releasing another album together after the two minds met on 2015’s debaucherous Skills in Pills; it’s that the duo’s sophomore collaboration together coincided with Rammstein’s return from their ten-year silence this year. It’s not the wildest thing in the world for the two releases to come out the same year, but I just wasn’t expecting it with how much Rammstein was clearly putting into their self-titled album this year. And I don’t just bring this up for the mere statistical content; it will come up later.

While this project (Lindemann) is a duo on paper, and while Per Tätgren’s instrumental talents drive that front of the duo’s music, Lindemann, as its being named only after the Rammstein frontman, is more of a solo project in spirit, with Tätgren serving his usual purpose as a hired gun to help Till Lindemann achieve his artistic vision. Much like how his Rammstein compatriot Richard Kruspe had chosen to do on his side project, Emmigrate, Till Lindemann sang entirely in English on his solo project’s debut record, Skills in Pills, for which the Rammstein frontman had clear artistic reasons. While not shy about taboo or uneasy topics in Rammstein’s music, Till Lindemann’s poetic talent has given extra artistic depth and creativity to the band’s approach to such challenging subjects, their fearlessness to write songs about the most uncomfortable of topics becoming a big part of their notoriety and identity, and their singer’s astute wordsmithery allowing them to do so beyond mere shock value. With Skills in Pills though, the Rammstein singer wanted to express himself and his promiscuous side more personally and in primal honesty. The songs on the album generally revolve around sex and Till Lindemann’s personal experiences and fantasies. And the readily understandable and more upfront English lyricism (in comparison to his German lyricism) really highlights the primal lust within the various songs, with songs like “Fat”, “Ladyboy”, and “Golden Shower” being pretty self-explanatory by their titles alone. It’s an album that really captures that overwhelming urge of being really horny for something and just being like “ugggggghhhh, I just wanna fuckin’ get pissed on right now! AAAAGGGHH!!!”. While that’s not my thing, I get the feeling. There’s no song about eating ass, though, which is a travesty. But I’m sure someday we’ll get a Rammstein song about eating ass. The highlight of the album though, is probably the morbidly comical “Praise Abort”, on which Lindemann complains about having too many damn children because he only has sex without a condom and is jealous of all his friends who can indulge themselves rather than some thankless offspring. Musically, the album isn’t too far off from the industrial metal the German’s main band makes, though with a focus more on rocking grooves rather than crushing metallic power.

On F & M, standing for “Frau und Mann” (man and woman), Lindemann returns to writing in German, which does see a return in lyrical complexity and creativity, but not as consistently as it was on Rammstein’s album earlier this year. The album starts out with the invigorated arena chugging of “Steh auf” (Stand up), whose chorus’ emboldened call to get up out of bed is given some foreboding eight-string treatment by Tätgren. The speaker of the song is eventually revealed to be not just Lindemann urging us to get off our asses, but a character in a much darker tale, a child begging their wasted or perhaps even fatally overdosed mother to get up and take them to the circus. It’s a fucking grim piece of poetry in the same vein as “Puppe” off the self-titled Rammstein album, another testament to Till Lindemann’s ability as a compelling poetic storyteller of the most ghastly variety.

At its best, the album is full of the kind of poetically insightful and captivating writing that Rammstein is known for, and with the powerful instrumentation to back it up. And while it peaks early with “Steh auf”, there are plenty of worthy tracks on F & M that seem to have been written in a similar mindest to what much of Rammstein seemed to have been written in. “Allesfresser” (German for omnivore) is another synthy, dancy, and unsettling banger about insatiable consumption that at first seems to just be about plain old indiscriminate gluttony, but the song seems to be about relating that to overconsumption on a larger scale, humankind eating up everything in the world carelessly and to the sound of music as a representation of our distracted obliviousness to the effects of it.

The industrial metal banger “Gummi” (rubber), about a latex suit fetish, both sounds and reads like something that would have been right at home on Skills in Pills, while the similarly BDSM-motifed song “Knebel” (meaning “gag”) is this kind of comedically pathetic, poetic, woeful, and intentionally surface-level meditation on the general struggles of life (by a speaker who seems like the archetype of a frustrated disenfranchised man with ample privilege) over some bare acoustic folk instrumentation interspersed with this expression of loving “you” with a gag in mouth, which seems more about this kind of person actively silencing anyone wanting to interject their own perspective into his masturbatory meditations on destiny and the hardness of life, which explodes suddenly into a metallic tantrum of “I hate you.” All in all, pretty funny (or maddening) song depending on how you look at it. In a similar vein, “Ach so gern” is another accordion-laced, campy, café-folky ballad about a womanizer recounting in seemingly increasing insecurity his pushy sexual conquests. The kitschy tone of the song leads me to believe that this character is being made fun of, but it is hard to read that in the lyrics’ portrait alone.

Another tongue-in-cheek cut, the choir-backed industrial rocker “Platz Einz” seems to be a similarly silly portrait of deluded overcompensation about the egotistical, autofelatiolic attitude of a bigtime music star. The cleverness of the song is in the tone of course, and the bombastic production certainly helps out with that, though it’s such a closely performed piece of acting that it’s uncanny distastefulness makes it a not so fun song to listen to, which might be kind of the point.

The song the album’s title is derived from “Frau & Mann” simply lists a whole bunch of opposites as if to point out how silly the reductiveness of everything into binaries is, leaving the inclusion of man and woman in that list to be, well... I don’t think I need to spell it out. While I appreciate the lyrical concept of breaking down gender binaries, the song musically is kind of bland and features this kooky “ay ay ay!” sort of chant that I just can’t take seriously, but maybe that’s also part of the point.

The album is not without its flatter moments though, songs that feels like they might have been odds and ends or unfinished projects from Rammstein’s most recent recording sessions, as they sound similar in tone and structure despite Peter Tätgren’s embellishments. The second track “Ich Weiß es Nicht” is a more industrially heavy, yet also dancy, track about the confusing haze of amnesia, not the most lyrically or musically creative track on the album. The song “Blut” is a big choir-backed lament seemingly about self-harm in the form of cutting or even suicide. The lyrics are kind of vague and romantic, but it’s possible there’s something I’m missing in the tone of it all since I’m not a native speaker. “Schlaf ein” is probably the most underwhelming song on the album, a kind of cheesy orchestral piano lullaby, not really doing anything at all musically exciting or lyrically interesting. It sounds like a generic part of a kid’s movie soundtrack and the flowery imagery is nothing new for Till Lindemann, who is punching quite below his weight on this one.

On a more mixed note, while the shoulder-shrugging lyrics of the closing string-laden ballad don’t really do much for me, the gradual swells of the instrumentation and Till Lindemann’s vocal performance over it are enough to make up for it.

It can’t be said for certain, but for better and for worse, much of F & M seems to be made up of leftovers from the latest cranking of Rammstein’s creative mill, tracks that might have been made into B-sides on that album. There are some bright highlights that would have sounded great on that album in place of other tracks, but perhaps deemed too thematically redundant, like Till Lindemann had the choice to include either “Puppe” or “Steh auf” on Rammstein’s seventh album and ultimately went with “Puppe”. And despite its several eccentric moments and arguably more consistent composition, F & M lacks that flamboyant character that Skills in Pills had, and it seems more like a decent Rammstein leftovers album than a Lindemann solo album.

I’ll still take it/10

[undertaleowl]

I just read your imagine with the S/o gets kicked out because of depression and I'm really glad you did that, I'm not the one who wrote that, but I do have depression and it did bring a level of comfort and I thank you for that. I was wondering if you could also do the UF and SF skelebros too by any chance?

I’m very happy that I was able to help. I know, Depression is a bitch that’s constantly whining in your head. So if there’s a drabble or scenario I can do to make that whining shut up for a bit, I’ll do it. Comforting UF and SF skelebros underneath the cut, strong anon!

NOTE: this will be tagged tw: trauma. Just because this ask covers a wide variety of things that may be triggering to certain individuals, even if I can’t immediately identify them. Thanks.

UF Sans

“WHO THE FUCK?” were about to be the first words out of his mouth as his protective instincts reached their peak. However, when you stared at him, the complete despair made the primal part of his mind take a seat. Not knowing what else to do, he sat down on the couch and opened his arms to you, silent. If he spoke, he would make you worse, he just knew it. When you launch yourself into them, he formed his body with magic so that would have a cushion to squeeze as you let yourself cry into the crook of his neck, his sturdy body weighing down your body’s shudders and flinches.  

He didn’t say anything, but he pet the back of your head lightly, using the tips so he wouldn’t get your hair tangled in the joints. Occasionally, he’ll bump the bottom of his jaw on your head gently as a reminder that he was here. That was probably all you needed right now. While promising to kill whoever hurt you would have been comforting to a distraught monster in the Underground, it would probably just be something to pile on to whatever intense panic you were feeling.

It seemed like hours to Sans, because he was so worried for you, but eventually your waterfalls of tears faded into rivulets. You finally looked at Sans, only to see him still hugging you, his chin resting on your shoulder. With how he was holding you, it didn’t seem like he was going to let go anytime soon.

“What happened to ya, doll?” he asked as gently as he could. His voice was still gruff despite the softness, but it’s warm baritone shine gave you a small amount of comfort. When you revealed that your parents kicked you out, his grip on you tightened protectively.

“What do you want to do, sweetheart?” he asked softly. It doesn’t matter what you answer here, because he will be behind you all of the way. You may have to stop him from at least maiming your pathetic excuses of “care-givers”, but it’s all for you. He’ll do anything for you, if that means he never has to see you like this again.

UF Papyrus

He does ask, “WHO THE FUCK DID THIS TO YOU?!” when he sees you practically dying an emotional death on his couch. Your cries have worried Doomfanger, who is meowing  concernedly and curling around your ankles t to comfort you. Papyrus growled, not at you, but it isn’t as if you were calm enough to understand, so when you try to leave so that you’d stop “bothering” him, he pulled you back by the wrist.

“No! Please, you don’t seem to be injured, so tell me who has made you become like this?!” he demanded, but even you can hear the quaver in his voice. He is so worried for you, there is no way that he can leave you with how you are. If you were in the Underground like this, you would be dead. He knows that he’s not there anymore, but some habits die hard, and his ultimate goal is to protect you. He knows that sometimes your depression can make you feel overwhelmed, and maybe this was an extreme case of that? He raced up the stairs after commanding you not to move. He grabbed the noise-cancelling headphones and his old MP3 and rushed back to the couch. He pressed play and pressed the headphones over your ears, trying to be more stable for you than he felt.

He didn’t know if this method would work, so he sat down next to you and pulled you against his chest and draped his arm protectively around your shoulder. The two of you wait out these intense emotions causing you so much pain. He almost hoped that you would fall asleep against him, just so that everything would seem brighter for you tomorrow. You don’t fall asleep, but your tears subside and your hiccups become sniffles and whimpers. Papyrus took off your headphones and gave you a worried glance.

“Are you back?” he asked. Sniffling, you nodded, and you revealed everything to him to the best of your ability. He is furious and he offers to destroy your parents for you, which makes you cringe even more, so Papyrus takes that as a “no”. He sets up a room for you that night, and magically, the next morning, all of your belongings are there waiting for you.

SF Sans

He is the most prepared for your emotional upsets than any of the other Sanses. It was second nature to him to have a mental health pack prepared for you when you became his datemate. He sighed sadly before walking over to you calmly. He touched his teeth to your temple in a skele-kiss to get you to at least acknowledge his presence.

“I am here. I am going to go get the pack for you, and then I will be right back. Please wait here, and I will be right here next to you,” he promised. He took a hold of your hand. “Squeeze once if you understand what I just said.”

You were not in a full-fledged panic attack, thank the heavens, so you squeezed back. Good. That meant that he didn’t have to bring the panic attack care package down as well. Not that he minded doing that for you, but the longer he spent gathering materials to make you feel better, the more time he spent away from you when you clearly were in distress. You needed him, and he was not going to disappoint you.

He brought down the box titled “Y/N Depression Kit”, which consisted of your favorite small snacks, pain relievers for any aches that the Depression might have triggered in your too-fragile body, a bottle of water, a mobile CD player with a mix CD of your favorite soft songs, headphones, a blindfold, and a back massager. He held the blindfold in front of you, asking if you wanted it or not. If you were feeling overwhelmed, it helped to take some of your senses away. It doesn’t matter if you said yes or no to the various items, he was there guiding you through all the same.

He doesn’t react when you tell him the story, but he’s staying his happy place in his head, throwing bombs at your parent’s house as he laughs maniacally at their pathetic faces when everything is destroyed. That spare bedroom in the house is now yours, and you will be staying with them until he deems you fit to be by yourself. For the night at least, you will be under the love and protection of the fierce Bomb Berry.

SF Papyrus

He felt his soul stop thrumming when he sees you crumpled in on yourself on his couch. At first, he thought that he’s the one who made you this way. It’s a reasonable assumption that he was the one who caused it, because otherwise, why were you at his house? However, that assumption goes out the window when you look up and just see him staring at you. Instead of wincing back because of guilt, you went to the only comfort in your life at the moment– Papyrus. 

When you hugged his midsection tightly, sobbing, Papyrus feels pissed at himself for assuming that you were that cruel to sob in front of him if he were the problem. You would have just told him if you had a problem with him without manipulating his emotions like this. Instead, he shushed you as calmly as he could, even though he was positive that his voice was wavering and shaking like it was when he confessed to you for the first time.  

“I’m here, muffin. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, and it’s all gonna be okay,” he assured. “I’m right here, and I’ll stay with you, okay? For as long as you need.”

He didn’t know if you had even registered what he said, but he kept up the mantra. You were clinging to him like a sloth, so he had to be that source of strength for you when you couldn’t be strong for yourself, just like you were for him. You wouldn’t have come to him if you didn’t think that he could help. He had to make you feel safe. He had to. His mantras stayed steady, even when he realized that you both had been standing like this for forty-five minutes.

He gently shimmied the two of you back over to the couch when he felt your breathing even out. He guided you away from him so that you had room to lay your head on his lap. He laughed softly when he saw your beautiful eyes staring up at him.

“Hey there, cutie. You come here often?”

That succeeded in getting a small laugh out of you, and the sound made his soul soar. From there, you told him everything. He didn’t interrupt, and you got everything off your chest. He didn’t say anything after your explanation is over. Instead, he just picked up your hand and places a skele kiss to the palm.

“Stay with me.”

Only three words, but they meant more than just the command.

[raendown]

Chapter: 3/9 Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 3815 Rated: M Summary: Walking patrol around a university for mages probably sounded like a wild time but Tobirama has never found it all that exciting. He’s not even technically supposed to be here. When responding to a tripped alarm becomes a desperate attempt to stay alive, however, excitement is the last thing on his mind. All he’s ever wanted is a quiet life alone with his books until he finds himself bound to Uchiha Madara in the most impossible way and finally learns to think about more than just himself - in a way.

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Chapter 3

By the time Madara woke up Tobirama was certain he had a complete mental list of all the possible challenges they might be facing in the days ahead of them. The second that Madara became aware of the world again he realized that there was one significant thing he had failed to even consider as an option.

“He’s cold.” The thought occurred to him so suddenly he hardly realized he’d spoken out loud until Tsunade looked over from the bed of another unconscious patient she was tending to.

“Really? And how would you know?” she asked.

“We can feel it,” he said with a note of wonder in his voice. And it was true, dawning in the back of his mind was the vague sensation that his second body – and that right there was a whole new can of worms – was chilly. Tobirama yanked the blanket off his own mattress and pulled it over on to the other as best he could. As soon as he did so he felt the aimless gratitude of a sleepy mind that finds warmth without being conscious enough to understand its source.

Madara’s fingers tightened around his briefly, no signs of trying to get away. The closer he drew to actual consciousness the more Tobirama felt his sense of self blurring around the edges. What Madara felt he could feel and what Madara was thinking danced along the edges of his own thoughts, just close enough that he could push himself in to them if he so desired. Out of habit he asked himself why the hell he would want to know what Madara was thinking and almost immediately he berated himself for being a stuck up prick. Tobirama frowned.

“Well we don’t like that,” he murmured.

Relaying the same revelations to Madara as had been given to him upon waking turned out to be somewhat anticlimactic. Able to latch on to Tobirama’s calm state and subconsciously already aware of these things, he took the news with no more than a light frown and a distracted hum.

Having him awake also came with the unexpected boon of solving Tobirama’s ‘royal we’ problem as they both recovered their unconscious sense of self. The less they leaned towards that diaphanous line between their minds the more they were able to think in the singular. It was harder when they strayed towards each other, naturally trying to slide together as one person, but Hashirama was good enough to point out when they began to speak in ‘we’ and ‘us’ to warn them what was happening.

Other problems arose rather quickly when it came time to decide where they should stay for the foreseeable future. Obviously both of them wanted to stay in the comfort and familiarity of their own rooms – and even more interestingly they each yearned for both places at the same time, feeding off of each other’s desires until it was impossible to tell which of them wanted what. In the end Hashirama flipped a coin and shuffled them off to Tobirama’s rooms.

Something none of them, as reasonable and intellectual adults, thought to consider was what hundreds of students might take away from seeing their professor and the infamous forever-but-technically-not-a-student walking through the hallways hand in hand. It took several waggled eyebrows and over a dozen outbursts of whispering before mortification shot through their bodies as though the thought had occurred to them at exactly the same time. Letting go was a non-option, however, so they did their best to close their ears to the fast moving gossip about a teacher-student relationship, despite the fact that Tobirama only technically qualified as a student because Hashirama let him stay there without forcing him to become a professor.

If he hadn’t enrolled in any classes for the last three years and he refused the teaching positions every time they were offered to him then he needed some sort of excuse to stay. He’d have been kicked out by the Board of Magical Education a long time ago if he weren’t related to the Headmaster.

Of all the small mercies they didn’t expect, Tobirama’s quarters were at least closer since they were located in a quiet corridor just passed the student dormitories but a floor below where the professors resided. Twin sighs of relief escaped their lips once they had a solid door closed between them and the rest of the world. As one they turned to survey the room before them with a critical eye.

To Tobirama it looked like home, familiar books stacked in patterns that would look like nonsense to anyone else but made sense to him and him alone, ingredients for his elixirs balanced on every surface and summoning crystals dotted in random places, the occasional personal touch present in the form of one of Hashirama’s sculptures and that sword he once wrestled from a basilisk. Even the dust sprinkled deliberately in certain places to mark whether his things had been messed with was a sight for sore eyes. Were he alone he would have taken a deep breath and allowed himself to sink in to the knowledge awaiting him.

But he wasn’t alone. He was held back from diving headfirst in to the closest tome he could reach by the sheer exasperation he could feel drifting over through his link to Madara. Apparently his companion found this level of chaos to be stifling instead of inspiring, their bodies tensing with minor claustrophobia. Tobirama wrinkled his nose. It had taken a long time to organize his belongings properly and he was loathe to disturb them now.

“Shall we go through to the other rooms?” he asked.

With no one else living near him and his unique status as perpetual researcher he had quite a lot more space to spread himself out than most others in the university. Madara held his arms close to his body so as not to upset any of the carefully stacked books around them and Tobirama was almost knocked off his feet when he realized why, that Madara was feeding in to his reverence for his possessions and probably unconsciously treating them like they were his own. Fascinating. That was definitely something they would need to explore.

The next room over was much more tidy and excluded any strategically placed dust, much to Madara’s obvious relief. This was where he most often came to read, although the compartmentalizing part of his brain refused to see it as a place to store anything and so the tomes he read from went back in to the other room when not in use. He wasn’t at all surprised to see Madara’s attention hone in on his favorite chair.

“We can’t both sit in it,” he muttered dryly.

“Right. Well we shouldn’t both have to do anything. I mean, I’m not saying…”

Madara trailed off but Tobirama waved him onwards impatiently, already aware of what he was trying to say. Awkward as it was to admit, it was obvious that neither of them were willing to even think of the option to separate entirely. Their cores had merged so completely it wasn’t likely anything could separate them even if they wanted that. Even other magical folk wouldn’t truly be able to understand what they were going through. The only way Tobirama could think to describe it would be to say that they now only had one soul to share between their two bodies and it was as thrilling to think about as it was terrifying. All the hatred that he had once carried for the man at his side had been replaced with nothing more than the natural and instinctive desire to stay whole, uninjured, just as any other human would want.

“Anyway. I’m not saying that. But it would be much more convenient if we didn’t have to be leashed together all the time. You will agree, I think, that your darling niece only wanted us to stay in the infirmary for the rest of the day because she wanted to see what would happen the first time one of us had to piss.”

“She’s always had a very strange sense of humor,” Tobirama mused.

“I don’t like being the butt of a joke.”

“But you make such a nice butt.” As soon as the words were out they both paused, Tobirama’s jaw snapping shut. He had the distinct impression that he’d been trying to say two things at once there and only one of those points had originated from himself.

Letting the moment slide, Madara cleared his throat. “Whatever. Let’s just see what happens with this because I really don’t want to take you to the bathroom with me.”

“As much as the very thought horrifies me as well, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea just yet. Even while unconscious our reactions to separation were worrisome.” Tobirama twisted his mouth to one side in thought. A moment later he frowned because he’d never made that expression before in his life and Madara was mirroring it back at him. “Never mind. Perhaps you’re right.”

“Oh? So y-”

“Don’t. You wouldn’t let me say ‘I told you so’ before, what makes you think I’ll let you say it now?”

Madara pouted but conceded the point.

Ignoring the squashy armchair they both wanted to sit in, they stepped over to the couch instead and sat together to think over how to go about this little experiment, trying to convince themselves and each other that they actually wanted to do it. Privacy would indeed be nice in certain situations but the draw to stay together went beyond instinctual. It was primal. Eventually it was Tobirama pointing out that letting go of each other’s hands didn’t mean they had to completely separate, just that it would be nice to have access to their own limbs. Madara agreed with relief obvious in his eyes.

“Yes, right, so if I touch you somewhere else then we should be fine.”

“Exactly.” Tobirama nodded decisively.

He waited until Madara had shuffled across the seat cushions to press their hips together before very slowly and very carefully unfolding one finger at a time. Both of them tensed as they edged their palms apart only to relax when absolutely nothing happened. Evidently they had been worried over nothing. Feeling a little ridiculous that they had let themselves get so worked up about this, Tobirama huffed and moved to get off the couch.

Immediately he fell to his knees with his head cradled in both hands, unable to process the sheer agony ripping through his body. No words could ever possibly describe the pain, his very soul itself torn in to pieces and every one of those pieces burning, tearing, grinding, shattering, all at once. His mind screamed until he couldn’t tell whether the sound was coming from his own throat or from behind him and he had no idea how to stop it until suddenly the world fell quiet again.

Madara’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly, was the only thing anchoring him to the earth in that moment. Panting like he’d run for several miles, Tobirama fell back in to the man’s knees and marveled that he’d managed to avoid falling off the couch too in his lunge to bring them together again.

“Right,” he whispered. “So that didn’t work.”

“Clearly not!” Underneath the attempt at a good snarl Madara sounded just as breathless as him despite the sparks lingering in his hair.

“New plan: you’re just going to have to suck it up and piss where I can hear you. Disgusting but necessary, it seems.” Tobirama ran one hand through his hair and settled further between Madara’s knees.

Then he jolted to one side and almost separated them again when the man shifted in place to harp down at him. “What kind of scientist are you? You’re not supposed to give up after one experiment!”

“I’m not a scientist, Madara. That is a non-magical word and I think we’ll both agree you don’t want me to prove I have magic right now. I am, first and foremost, a scholar. We had an idea and it ended with great pain. My new idea is maybe not feeling that amount of pain again in the near future!” He would have jabbed an elbow backwards in to the idiot behind him if he weren’t so comfortable in his current position.

He was a little amazed when Madara failed to offer some sort of comeback and for a moment he entertained the incredible notion that he’d actually won the fight that easily. Then he felt thoughts not his own pressing in against him and frowned as he danced around the edges of the muddled confusion and uncertainty his companion was experiencing.

“Was it something I said?”

“Did you just call me by my name?” Madara asked, wiping away the humorous grin trying to form on Tobirama’s face.

“Sweet spirits I did. You’ve infected me. You don’t think of yourself as a pea-brained bastard so now I can’t either! This is intolerable!”

“Hey!”

Offense suffused his entire mind, so strong was Madara’s reaction, and Tobirama heaved a sigh of irritation. “Among other things that are also intolerable. I have to pee.”

Madara shuddered.

The next few days were dotted with similar experiments, most of which ended in exactly the same mixture of pain and desperation to reunite. When Hashirama stopped by to check on them they absolutely refused to answer any questions about what was ‘really so bad’ about being stuck together. Apparently certain parts of their situation hadn’t occurred to their Headmaster and neither of them were really jumping at the chance to explain it to him.

On the fourth day they had a breakthrough at last, though neither of them realized it at first. Being forced to sleep in the same bed had led to all sorts of things they both agreed to never speak of and waking up with Madara’s head tucked under Tobirama’s chin, warm and solid and perfectly shaped like he was meant to fit there, was far from the first one. It even took a few minutes for both of them to work their way out of the haze that always fell over their collective consciousness whenever they were wrapped up too tightly, minds working together in such harmony it was difficult to remember why they shouldn’t.

They both came back to themselves at the same time and, upon realizing the compromising position they were in, gave matching grunts of disgust and rolled away in opposite directions.

“I never cuddle,” Madara insisted. “This is your doing.”

“You can’t lie to me, remember? I can feel it when you lie.”

“Ugh, fine, but I would never cuddle with the likes of you! Even if you are somehow me now…sort of. This whole thing still hurts my brain when I try to think about it.”

Tobirama sniffed. He was on the verge of some sort of acerbic comment about how little Madara’s brain ever worked but held back, rather upset by the fact that he now knew how untrue that was. Having free tickets in to each other’s heads had led to all sorts of insights, chief among them being that Madara wasn’t nearly as stupid as Tobirama always assumed and that Tobirama wasn’t half as unfeeling as he preferred the world to think.

Such revelations had been uncomfortable on both sides and were quickly added to the ever-growing pile of things they agreed not to talk about. At least on that they were in accord.

Instead of the snarky comment he’d been gearing up for Tobirama sat up and stretched his arms above his head. There was no pretending his thoughts had been headed anywhere else but he did have enough dignity not to bring it up and start an unnecessary fight. Only after he’d brought his arms back down, one of them scratching at his chest, did he realize that his head was…oddly quiet. Where he would normally feel irritation or some other form of thought process from his companion there was a strange and worrisome sort of vacancy.

“How did you do that?” Madara demanded in a breathy voice.

“I’m not sure what I even did,” Tobirama admitted. When he looked down, however, he could see right away what the man was referring to.

They weren’t touching anymore. Still tucked in to the same bed, their bodies were a mere couple of inches apart with no physical contact at any point and yet there were no signs of pain. Madara slowly pushed himself up to rest on his elbows while Tobirama tried to work out how he felt about this.

“Unexpected,” he said. “Convenient, though. It will probably be good for us to get a bit of distance.”

“Right, yes. Good for us.” Madara cleared his throat and refused to let their eyes meet. Looking away, Tobirama pretended he didn’t understand why.

“Well, it looks like we’ll be able to go about things a little differently today.”

Swinging his legs out, he made to get up and walk over to the dresser to pull out a fresh set of clothing, his first idea being that it would be nice to finally shower alone without someone standing just outside the curtain with their eyes closed, hand pressed against his back so he could wash his hair. Those plans were thrown out the window when he stood up and immediately collapsed as an all too familiar pain washed over him. From the mattress above him he could hear Madara whine.

Just as he had been all the other times they attempted to separate Tobirama was immediately filled with an all-consuming need to get back to his other half. Everything in the world felt wrong as he forced his body on to its knees so he could crawl back on to the mattress and reach across it the find Madara’s hand. The moment their skin connected they both gasped with relief.

“Alright. Nothing really so different.”

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Madara snarled.

“You are absolutely welcome. Happy to have provided my services.”

“Facetious,” the man hissed.

Tobirama stared up at the ceiling and held on tighter to the hand grasping at his own. “Sometimes,” he agreed.

“But you weren’t touching me! We were fine!”

“I think it’s best if we take things slowly. Think of it like a new muscle that we need to stretch little by little until we learn the really flexible moves.” He grinned at the wave of prudish disgust from his partner, proud of himself for working an innuendo in to such a serious conversation.

“Just for that I’m sending a note to Hashirama that I’ll be attending my own class today.”

Shooting upright in the bed, Tobirama looked down at the other man with outrage twisting his expression. “You most certainly will not!”

“Well I need to get back to my job sometime or eventually they’ll stop paying me.” Madara struggled upright as well. “So far we’ve stayed holed up in your rooms so that you can get lost in your research and the only contact we’ve had with the outside world has been your relatives. I’m going mad! You’re not the only one who would like to get back a bit of normalcy!”

Brows pulled down so far they nearly overshadowed his eyes, Tobirama hoped his glare at least balanced out the abrupt shock he was probably giving off in waves. The last few days had been sprinkled with a number of discovering about each other and he faced each one of them with a vague sense of betrayal. How dare Madara slowly grow more human in his eyes? What made it worse was being forced to recognize that he was being selfish and inconsiderate – and actually care about it. He very much did not appreciate being forced to see things from Madara’s point of view.

Chief among the reactions lingering just behind that malleable wall between their conscious minds was the sadness and longing that came from not seeing someone for too long; Madara missed his students, apparently. Tobirama had always assumed that his nemesis took a teaching job because it was easy and secure and it provided living quarters as well. Finding out that he actually liked his job sort of threw half of Tobirama’s impressions of the man out of whack.

Madara was supposed to hate kids so that Tobirama could hate him in return. It was irritating to find out the opposite was true and find himself ever so slightly endeared to a man he’d always disliked.

“No classes,” Tobirama grumbled at last. “But I guess we can get out of here for a little while. Where else do you want to go?”

“Literally anywhere but here. I want to see something other than these walls. We could have lunch with you brother or something, I guess.” Shuffling around, Madara pulled them both off the bed and headed for the bathroom so he could perform his morning ablutions. Tobirama hissed at him.

“One would think you’d gotten tired of him too.”

Madara conceded that point. While neither of them had overly large social circles and they were used to seeing a lot of Hashirama, they were also both used to having other people around occasionally to break up the madness a bit. Seeing anyone else would be a relief after dealing with only him and each other for so long. The only problem was that there really wasn’t anyone else in the castle that either of them were very interested in going to visit.

“What if we went to the library?” Madara asked suddenly. Hand reaching for his toothbrush, Tobirama paused like he’d seen a ray of hope.

“The library?”

“Yeah, it’s perfect. I can put out word that I’m willing to work with any students who need it and you can do your…whatever it is you do with your books. Make love to them with your eyes or something.” He snickered at his own terrible joke.

Rather than reprimand him Tobirama nodded slowly.

“I think that’s the best idea you’ve ever had.”

“Wait, seriously? You’re not going to fight me on an idea I came up with? Even a little?” Madara hummed thoughtfully. “Strangely I’m a little disappointed.”

Tobirama snorted and refused to comment. He didn’t want to piss the man off and ruin this chance to go visit his favorite place in the whole world. Whatever other problems existed in his life they always had a way of not mattering as soon as he stepped in to that glorious haven, the home of all knowledge, books as far as the eye can see and all of them patiently waiting for his attention. Maybe the day hadn’t started off as well as he’d thought but it was certainly looking up now.