#but that’s worth fuck all in capitalism isn’t it

[rokurookajima]

waking up ready to cry but also .. with a cruel angel’s thesis stuck in my head lol

[fairene]

do it for you / ln4 sneak peek

established r. lando norris x f!reader

warning ⋯ language, 18++ mentioning,minors dni.

a/n ⋯ do it for you is a recent ask that i got that absolutely transitions into the lando!dad series that i've been wanting to create. of course, all of these 'oneshots' can be read separately, but can also fall into a canonical storyline. also--- holy shit!! grace isn't dead!! yes, i know!!! i'm just as shocked as you guys are. but i can feel some groove coming back, but this probably won't be posted fully until the following week. hoping to get it to about 5-6k words before posting!

wc ⋯ 720

the morning of the dutch grand prix had you biting at the corners of your fingernails with anticipation. the summer break you had spent with lando was more than you could imagine— filled with delicious foods, sunny weather, morning swims, and of course, the sex. with more free time that lando had, he was utterly obsessed with you. he worshiped the ground you walked on, and it made you feel like more than the queen you deserved to be. 

in the paddock you stood, shifting on your feet, anxiously fiddling with your purse once your fingernails sufficed. lily joined at your side, ethereal with her effortless beauty, and she nudged you with her elbow. “you look nervous,” she gave a short laugh.

you scoffed but joined in on her antics. “do i?” you certainly did. lily raised her brows to inquire further of your apparent distress. 

relenting, you couldn’t resist her. there was no reason to— you were both practically attached at the hip. ever since oscar had been signed to mclaren, the two of you were inseparable. the famous mclaren WAGs. 

your relationship with lando had been going on for two years now. sure, you’d had some rocky slopes to climb with the schedule of his career and the development of your own; that’s the thing about relationships though, isn’t it? that no matter what hill you’d have to climb, you’d find one another on the other side. the two of you wanted to make it work, so there was no obsolete universe in which you’d never find each other. 

“he needs this, lils.” you practically sighed, finally gaining the courage to look her in the eye. she looked at you with the same softness that a mother would, or a best friend that you could count on. 

“you know he’ll do well.” oh, don’t you know it. lando, whilst on vacation, never took a moment’s worth of rest. he wanted this just as much as you did for him, a second career win. it was all that you could think about the moment you stepped off the plane before him in zandvoort. it was going to happen. you had a feeling. 

and a good one at that. 

qualifying swept by in a flash. the saturday afternoon was a clean sweep for your boyfriend in the front row. you couldn’t be more proud of him. when he was finished with his interviews and taking his leave with his half removed fireguard, you launched at him.

flinging your arms around his neck, he gripped onto your waist and thighs like his life depended on it. it did. your nose found the sweat against the column of his neck, inhaling deeply. you melted into him.

lando felt the same. with his forehead burrowing into the hair on your scalp, he let out a deep breath that he’d been holding since he got out of the car. 

“missed my sweet girl,” he breathed, the sweat and perspiration heating the hairs on your head. you sighed softly, relaxing into him as he held you tighter. 

you broke away from him, setting yourself on the ground. you stood happily in front of him, rocking on your heels and playing with the hem of the black, sponser-ridden firesuit. 

“‘m so fucking proud, lan. pole? pole on the first race back?” you were in shellshock, overjoyed disbelief. 

he raised a hand to cup your face before he’d be whisked away. the bracelet on his wrist caught your eye, one that he must’ve put on once he stepped out of the car. the friendship letter bracelet read loudly to you, it letters all capitalized. 

‘daddy’

you gripped his hand, observing the ornament. you raised a brow. 

lando let out a short laugh. “like it?” 

you flushed, staring down at the small, dainty thing. it had you shifting on your feet, ideas and fantasies running wild through your pillage of a mind. “maybe.” you hummed, stroking the beads with your index finger. 

“wore it for you.” 

the statement had you standing up straight. “really now?” lando nodded. 

and before he was whisked away, he whispered into your ear, “don’t get any ideas, baby. i know that look.” 

you were rendered speechless, and by the time you managed to open your mouth, he had already left through the door.

taglist ⋯

@landoslutmeout@basicallyric@mybluesoul1@toriiez@customsbyjcg-blog@sofs16@strengthandstay@mybluesoul1@f1fantasys@cmleitora @idgasb @amalialeclerc @laneyspaulding19 @staurdvst @oreosareara @sideboobrry11 @mortallyblueninja @fionamiller123 @2pagenumb @marvelfangirl04 @brune77e @allabouthappiness @tellybearryyyy @ringdingdingdingx @tillyt04 @danywonderland @rosebud224 @simpfortoomanymen @nataliambc @forcesensitivesoulmate @sweate-r-weathe-r @norlestappen @madszoca @milkandcookhot @fionamiller123 @16f1lc @jwiltsz @plotpal @inevesgf @theonottsbxtch

comment to be added!

[frownyalfred]

"That Clark is in love with Batman, not Bruce."

Fucking OUCH.

How does Bruce feel about this? How intense is that divide between Clark's love for Batman but not for Bruce? Does Bruce see himself as The Mask as he sometimes does, or does he think his real self is the man in-between, the one in the costume but with the cowl down and tired eyes?

Damn, imagine having a part of you be rejected, either because it's actually the REAL you or because it's a part you have to play and is therefore a part of you still. But COMPARTMENTALIZATION is written with capital letters in Bruce's mind so mayyyyybeeeee...

I guess it depends on how you write Bruce. Is Bruce Wayne the mask? Is Batman? Is the real man somewhere in between? Does anyone even know that person, other than Alfred? Could Clark get to know that person, if he wanted to enough?

I think a lot of those fics tend to write Batman as more real, more genuine, and the “version” of Bruce that Clark falls in love with. But isn’t Batman just as much of an act as Brucie is sometimes? It’s not untrue, but it’s an exaggeration of the truth in many ways. But they’re all PART of him, masks of his, still him.

I think what’s more interesting is Clark slowly realizing that none of those masks are truly real — but that the glimmers he sees in them, the things that he does like, are worth the digging. Batman’s quiet competency, Brucie’s sense of humor. Etc.

[mermaidxatxheart]

A Day at the Fair

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

Word count: 6665

Summary: the DEA are about to make a drug bust at the county fair and Javi gets distracted

A/N: thanks to @musings-of-a-rose for listening to me about all my nonsense lol

The crowd around them is loud, but Javier Peña can tune out crowds with the best of them. With a family the size of his, that loves to stick their noses where they don’t belong, he’d have to be.

His partner, however, always gets itchy in crowds. Steve Murphy isn’t a people kind of person. Or… maybe he is as long as they’re not cops. Who the fuck knows? Javi throws another dart onto the rotating dart boards. Bullseye number two.

Murphy scoffs, stuffing a nacho chip in his mouth. “How can you do that?” He asks, turning away from the booth to scan the crowd.

Their target hasn’t arrived yet and Javi is bored with a capital B. He didn’t want to do this drugs bust here at the fair, but Upper Management overruled him. Shocker. He throws another dart, almost not even paying attention and it lands on a bullseye once more.

“Patience, skill, it’s all in the wrist.” Peña shrugs.

“Whatever. I thought you didn’t like the fair.” Murphy mumbles.

“Entirely not true.” Javier says, watching a pretty girl walk by. “I just didn’t want to take down a drug dealer in front of little kids. I’ve got standards, man.” He grins, throwing the fourth dart without even looking.

“Jesus Christ.” Steve rolls his eyes with a sardonic chuckle. Bullseye number four.

“Do you want a go? We’ve got time for you to practice.” Javi teases, offering him the last dart. The booth is just a small square tent with open views on all sides so crowds can gather all around. Cheap stuffed animals are hanging from the ceiling, and Peña has his eye on a stuffed panda for his niece. In the center is a large disc that rotates around in a circle with five dart boards lying flat. If you can get all five darts in the center of any of the boards, you get a prize.

“Oh, fuck off.” Murphy mutters. “It can’t be that hard.” He takes the last dart and studies the rotating board intently.

Peña checks his watch, mostly just to mess with him. “Come on, pendejo, it’s not brain surgery.”

Murphy ignores him, as is usual, and takes his time before finally throwing it. It bounces off the metal rim and falls to the ground.

“Shut up.” He warns instantly, and Javi artfully disguises his shit-eating grin.

He pulls another five bucks from his wallet and hands it to the guy running the booth. Luckily for the two DEA agents, or maybe more for the guy running the booth, this spot has the best vantage point to keep an eye on the area of suspicion. They’ve been stuck in this area for thirty minutes at least.

“How are you not sweating, man? This heat is the worst.” Murphy says, shaking out his shirt.

“You lived in Colombia for how long? And after living in Texas-Florida heat is nothing.” He shrugs, throwing the first dart.

“Whatever, you freak. I’m gonna hit the head.” Steve tosses his nachos and wanders away.

Javi is mostly wasting time with the darts. But someone steps next to him and he’s glad Steve walked away. He throws the last dart and gets his bullseye as the pretty girl next to him watches, impressed. He gestures to the panda as his prize and you lean against the railing next to him.

“Interesting choice. I would have assumed the shark.” You say, the teasing smile evident in your voice.

Javi looks from the panda to you and back, examining it. “You think so?”

“Oh, absolutely.” You nod matter of factly.

“And why is that?” He asks, leaning next to you, keeping one eye on the area, but you have most of his attention.

“Sharks are mostly harmless until provoked. You seem like you could be dangerous, but most of the time it’s just not worth your effort.” You say.

He chuckles with a self-effacing nod. “Maybe.” He watches you tuck your hair behind your ear before you smile back up at him.

“What’s your name?” You ask.

“Javier.” He answers. “You?”

You tell him your name and he can’t help but think that it’s one of the prettiest names he’s ever heard.

“Can I ask, Javier, you don’t really strike me as the fair-goer-type. Are you having fun?” You ask.

“Why does everyone think I don’t like fairs?” He asks exasperatedly.

“Well, you did bring a gun.” You whisper, gesturing to the bump on his hip that’s his gun, covered only by his favorite Hawaiian shirt.

He starts at that. “How did you-“

You grin. “My ex-fiancé was a cop. Or, still is, I suppose.”

“Is him being a cop the reason he’s an ex?” He asks.

“No. It was the cheating, the lying, the secret family.” You tick off on your fingers like adding ‘secret family’ to the end of that sentence isn’t the most wild thing to reveal to a stranger. “I was fully ready to be married to a cop. But apparently so was his wife.” You shrug. “My dad, my uncles, my grandpa-all cops. So, lucky for you, I know not all cops are cheating dirtbags, and if I happen to meet a handsome cop at the fair and he were to buy me food or win me a prize, I wouldn’t say no.” You say and all he can do is stare as it dawns on him that you’ve actually been flirting with him this whole time. He used to be better at this.

“Peña.” His earbug crackles and it makes him jump.

“Peña, here.” He responds, never taking his eyes off your pretty face.

“Get your fucking ass ready, man. Target’s here.” Murphy says exasperatedly.

“Shit.” Javi curses.

“Duty calls?” You guess and he’s never been more annoyed at his job than now.

“Unfortunately.” He glances down at the panda in his hand. “Will you hold onto this?” He asks and you nod, taking it in your arms. “I’ll be right back.” He promises quickly before taking off.

That was stupid. He shouldn’t have promised you that.

***

You watch the most handsome man you’ve ever met jog across the green and vault himself over a low brick wall.

“Hmm.” You cross your arms over your chest, trapping the stuffed panda there for safe keeping. “Javier Peña.” You muse, walking towards the funnel cake stand nearby. You hope he does come back.

The panda intrigues you, as does the impeccable ability to throw darts at a moving target and never miss.

“I think I’ll call you Amanda, Amanda the Panda.” You tell it. “You look like you want some funnel cake while we wait.” And that’s exactly what you do. There’s a picnic bench nearby and you wait there until Javier isn’t busy anymore.

Whomever he’s arresting, they have a lot of stuff going on because it’s taking forever. You eat a funnel cake, a gyro, and some amazing brisket queso fries.

You snag a napkin not stained with grease and write your address on it. You see him hop back over the wall, heading for you and you smile to yourself.

“Sorry that took so long.” He huffs, running a hand roughly through his dark locks.

“No worries.” You smile at him. “Everything work out alright?” You ask.

“Better than we hoped.” His eyes drop to the stuffed panda tuwcked safely in your arms. “I can take that back.” He starts, reaching for it, but you twist slightly out of his grasp.

“Actually,” you hesitate and he frowns. “Amanda and I have bonded. And we’ve decided that-“

“I’m sorry, who’s Amanda?” He squints.

“Amanda the Panda. And we’ve decided to split custody. So, you can take her back tomorrow night, when you pick us up for dinner.” You tell the poor, shocked cop, handing him the napkin with your address on it.

He takes the napkin dumbly and clears his throat, a smile starting to tug at his pretty lips. “How does seven sound?”

“Like a date.” You reply, taking a step back. “See you tomorrow.”

He waves with a half salute and you disappear from his line of sight into the crowd.

Javi

“You’re really going?” Murphy asks in surprise.

“She’s holding my panda hostage.” Javi shrugs. The whole idea is absurd. But you were really fucking cute, extorting a date out of him.

Steve laughs. “I thought DEA agents don’t negotiate. What did she name the thing again?”

“Amanda the Panda. And who’s negotiating?” Peña grins, tucking his aviators on and heading out of the office’s front doors.

“Good luck with your hostage situation!” Murphy calls after him. Javier departs with a middle finger tossed behind him.

Nervously, ridiculously afraid to do the wrong thing, he buys you flowers. Not roses, that’s… a lot to get back a panda. But daisies? Absolutely.

He pulls up in front of your house and he can tell you’ve put a lot of work into it. The gardens are beautiful and in full bloom, filled with bushes and trees of a deep emerald green, flowers that are bright reds, soft coral pinks, and deep purples. Your house is a quaint one story cottage painted a pastel pink with a white trim.

He gets out of his little truck and walks up to the front door, a soft brown wood, the white paint worn down with age and sand blasting probably. A wreath made of bleached coral and seashells hangs on the door.

If this isn’t the most Florida home he’s ever seen.

He knocks solidly and it’s only a second or two before the door swings open and he’s momentarily speechless. Your hair is styled into soft curls, tempting him to reach out and touch them, run his fingers through them and make them a mess. Your lips are the softest, most delicate shade of pink. You’re wearing a sundress that is so tempting, he almost has to walk away. Thin white straps, bright red cherries with bright green stems. A gathered sweetheart neckline that shows off your heavenly curves perfectly almost has him wishing the weather was just a little bit cooler. But you’d probably find a way to torment him then, too. He can’t even force himself to look down your perfect body to see what kind of shoes you chose to destroy him with. He glances anyway. Simple white platform pumps.

Christ, he’s in trouble.

“I have to admit, I’m not sure I really expected you to show.” You tell him, drawing his attention back to your face.

“You look amazing.” He manages, handing over the flowers.

“Oh, thank you. These are beautiful.” You take them, stepping back and letting him into your home.

He’s not quite sure what he was expecting; maybe a lot of pink to match the outside, looking for all the world like an overstuffed cafe. But it’s actually quite comfortable. Soft colors: sky blue, blush pink-nothing in your face bright. The furniture is cozy without being an explosion of stuffing. It looks like a comfy beach cottage.

“I like your house.” He manages again as you set the flowers in a pretty vase on the coffee table.

“Thank you. I wanted something that reminds me of a day at the beach.” You smile at him and he loses his train of thought again. You select a soft white cardigan off the hooks by the door. “Ready to go? I’m excited to see what you have planned.” You say and he scratches at the back of his head.

“Ready.” He opens the don’t door for you and closes it behind him, waiting patiently while you lock it. “So, you enjoy being at the beach?” He asks, leading you to his little pickup truck.

“Yeah. I can’t imagine living in Florida and hating it.” You look at him curiously. “Do you hate the beach, Javi?” You ask as he opens the door for you, almost as if a yes would devastate you.

He closes it and walks around, climbing in. “No. It’s hard to chase someone in the sand, but I like the view.” He says, turning over the engine. Your perfume fills the space, swirls around him and he finds himself taking extra long breaths just to smell it longer. It’s floral, soft. Beautiful.

“Do your suspects run on the beach a lot?” You ask and he chuckles.

“No, thank god.”

“That’s good. The beach should be for fun things.” You say definitively.

“Like what?” He prompts. He could listen to you tell him things all day long. Doesn’t matter if it’s shit he already knows. Tell him again.

“Tanning, seashell collecting, skinny dipping, watching the waves and storms roll in, kissing in the rain.” You shrug. “The usual.”

He nearly swerves as you mention skinny dipping. You just might kill him. “I like your thinking.” He manages and you laugh.

“You’re adorable when you blush.” You say, half turning to face him in your seat.

“I don’t blush.” He protests.

You reach out softly and brush his cheek. “Right here. Just the cutest.” You tease and his stomach is a mess with butterflies. He captures your hand and kisses the back of it before setting it on the middle seat. But you don’t let go, instead, scooting closer, linking your arm around his and resting your cheek against his shoulder.

“Where are we going?” You ask.

“I was thinking Cuban food?”

“Oh my god, yes.” You agree enthusiastically, and he’s happy you’re so into it.

He parks outside the little restaurant and gets out, with you following him out of his door. You reclaim his hand, following him inside.

***

Javier is adorable, blushing at any little innuendo you make. You don’t think he’s innocent, just not used to being on the receiving end.

The restaurant is exactly what you would expect from a Cuban eatery. Full of life, culture, loud music, and amazing smelling food. There are couples dancing out on the cobblestone patio out back that you can spot as you’re led to a booth.

You slide all the way in, leaving space for Javi next to you if he wants, and you hope he does. He slides in next to you, arm draping comfortably on the back of the booth. The waiter sets menus in front of you and walks away to give you time to look.

You shift against Javi slightly, getting comfortable against the side of his chest, hoping that he doesn’t mind you getting so personal so fast.

“Have you been here before?” You ask.

“A couple times. The food is really good.” He says, opening one of the menus. “I like the Milanesa de pollo with white rice and black beans. Or the masitas de puerco.” He says, pointing them out on the menu.

“I get one, you get the other?” You offer and he chuckles.

“Works for me.” He agrees, flipping to the cocktails.

You’re watching him as he reads them off to you. He’s beautiful. You saw it yesterday while he was casually dominating the carnival game. But today? He looks less stressed, even if you do make him flustered.

He seems to realize you’re not really listening to him and he cuts off short, looking at you, confused. “Are you alright?” He asks and you can’t help but smile softly.

“Yeah, I’m perfect.”

The waiter comes back over and you let Javi order for you, his Spanish being far superior to yours.

“So, whole family of cops, engaged to one, looking to date another.” He starts and you’re already grinning. “Are you a cop?” He asks and you laugh.

“No. I’ve broken tradition. I was going to be a teacher, but hated it. So, now I’m a writer. I get to make my own schedule, my own office. My commute is from my bedroom to my living room.” You say and he laughs. It’s deep and a little rough.

“That sounds perfect, to be honest. Have I read anything of yours? I didn’t recognize the name.”

“Probably not. I write under a false name. I do a bit of everything-mystery, horror, romance. Whatever strikes me.” You shrug. “You also don’t seem like the type to have a ton of time to read.”

“Guilty, but maybe I’ll start.” He winks.

You clear your throat, fighting a sudden and overwhelming urge to kiss this man. He’s holding you, smelling oh-so-good, and taking an interest? Christ, you just might marry him.

“So, you know about my awkward ex. Anyone lurking in your past?” You ask.

“Oh, you know, just an almost wife.” He says so casually as he sips his drink that it’s almost payback for you doing it to him.

“Almost wife?” You press, eyebrows lifting high.

“Yeah.” He clears his throat gruffly, crunching an ice cube. “Her name was Lorraine. And she was amazing, and I left her the night before the wedding.” He says. He’s not proud of it-you can tell. But he told you, which says something to you, giving you a sense of warmth? Pride? Honor?

“Why?” You ask softly.

“It’s complicated, but the long and tall of it is that she lied about being pregnant to get me to marry her. Told me the night before the wedding that it was all fake. I couldn’t get past it.” He scratches at his chin.

“I don’t blame you.” You say, taking his hand over your shoulder. “I’ll tell you what, though.” You start, looking up at him.

“What’s that?”

“Their losses are our gains.” You say brightly and he presses a chuckling kiss to your temple, setting off a swarm of butterflies in your stomach.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself, sweetheart.”

Your food is served and not once while you’re eating does the conversation falter. You find out he’s a DEA agent. He’s recently moved back from Colombia where he was stationed. His family all lives in Texas but he only feels a little guilty for not getting back to see them often enough. But his ex is still there and that makes it awkward.

You push your empty plate away, satisfied. “Shit, that was delicious.” You sigh, patting your stomach. His eyes follow the motion and it’s hard to tell in the dim lighting, but you’re pretty sure his pupils got bigger.

“How are you at dancing?” You ask, tipping your head back to look up at him.

“I can hold my own. Would you like to dance?” He asks.

“I would love to.”

He drops cash on the table and leads you out under the string lights and pulls you close. The song switches to something slower. You don’t recognize it, but apparently Javi does. His cheek is resting against yours, holding your hand against the center of his broad chest as he dances the both of you across the semi-crowded floor. He’s humming along and you can’t help but close your eyes, leaning against him, completely at ease. You could very easily spend your days like this, dancing with him in your kitchen after dinner, glass of wine in your hand, this beautiful man in your arms.

The song ends and he pulls back from you, looking almost as reluctant as you are. “We have to go, cariño. I have more planned for us.” He says and you perk up.

“You do?”

“Of course. I need to make a good impression if I ever want my panda back.” He teases.

You grin. “Fair enough, Mr. Peña. Lead the way.” You tell him and he takes your hand, leading you out into the humid air. It’s starting to get dark and you wonder what he could possibly have planned.

He opens his door and you climb back in, sliding across the bench seat to make space for him. He climbs in next to you and gives you a smile before he starts his little truck.

You shift against him, getting comfortable once more. His big arm is around you and it doesn’t really matter to you where he’s taking you.

“Are you always this forward?” He asks, getting back on the road.

“I see no point in lying or hiding what I want.” You shrug. “I like you, I think you’re beautiful. Why would I hide that I want you?”

He gives a strangled sort of chuckle. “Jesus.” He tugs you close, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “I like the way you think, princesa.”

“Good.”

“It doesn’t bother you that I’m older?” He asks.

“Not at all. Men my age just want another mommy. Men like you aren’t looking for that, you’re more experienced, and you’re not looking to play games with my head. Either you want me, or you don’t.”

“Oh, trust me, Angelita, I want you. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting you.” He says, pulling into a drive and you recognize the drive-in theater. He buys two tickets and you smile to yourself.

Movies under the stars with Javier? What could be more perfect?

He backs his truck into a space and you look at him, confused. “How are we going to watch it backwards?”

“Come on.” He opens his door and helps you down. You wobble in the grass on your heels and he grins down at you. “God, you’re cute.” He climbs up into the truck bed and pulls out blankets and pillows.

You stare at him, surprised and amazed. Whatever you had expected from tonight, this wasn’t it. You watch him move around to make the truck bed comfortable and cozy for you. You might have to kiss him. You smile to yourself as he hops back out.

“Ready?” He asks, holding out his big hand to you.

“More than ever.” You accept and he leads you to the back.

“Want popcorn?” He asks. You nod enthusiastically and he chuckles. “Ok, doll face. I’ll be right back.” He jogs away to the concession stand a couple rows away and you slide up onto the tailgate while you wait for him. He comes back fairly quickly despite how busy the drive-in is. He sets popcorn and two sodas next to you and goes to move the speakers, setting them on the ledges of the truck bed. He comes back around and looks at you, almost waiting.

“It’s perfect, Javier.” You reach forward, hooking a finger around the top buttoned button of his shirt and pull him closer between your thighs. You press a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for making tonight so wonderful.” You say softly and his eyes dip closed.

“Of course, sweetheart.” He steps back for you to get comfortable and you cross your legs, removing your heels. You set them out of the way just inside the edge of the truck bed. He lets out a soft little noise and you glance at him curiously.

“Hermosa, you’re killing me.” He sighs, sliding up next to you and taking off his dusty boots. It’s almost weird to you how watching him take off his shoes feels like something intimate. You get the feeling that he doesn’t allow himself to be comfortable around many people.

He sets his boots next to your heels and shifts himself to the back against the pillows with the popcorn and your drinks.

“Coming?” He arches an eyebrow and pats the spot next to him. Yeah, you’re gonna kiss this man until your lips fall off.

You roll and turn to crawl to him on your hands and knees until you can twist and sit next to him.

“Shit.” You hear him curse quietly and you smile innocently to yourself. Glad to know you’re having just as much of an effect on him as he is on you. You shift against him comfortably as his big arm slips around your shoulders, holding you against him. He settles the popcorn between your thigh and his where you can easily reach it. You take a piece, popping it into your mouth. His thumb is brushing soft, slow strokes against the front or your arm next to him, his own like a bar across your chest.

“Do you miss Colombia?” You ask.

“Not particularly. I was down there for my job. I’m certainly not minding being back in the states right now.” He grins down at you.

You smile back, bringing his hand to your mouth, gently kissing his palm. The smell of him is surrounding you, encasing you in everything that is Javier Peña and you never want to leave.

His hand gently cups your throat, sliding up under your chin to tilt your head back for him. He presses those soft lips to your forehead and you close your eyes, crossing your legs tightly. This man is a menace that you will gladly invite into your bed. He shifts, another kiss to your temple, your cheek, his thumb stroking your jaw.

Fuck, you’re fucking wet.

The movie starts and he lets you go, turning his attention to the screen.

Rude.

***

He has you desperately trying to hide your peals of laughter as you fight for a piece of popcorn. Every time you reach for a piece, he’s tickling your sides, or taking your hand and eating the piece out of your fingers. His soft lips trap your fingertips in his mouth, his tongue brushing against the pads, licking them free of any salt or butter. His other hand tickling your side to distract you.

It’s when he nips your fingertips that you freeze, fingers still in his mouth. That turned you on more than it was probably supposed to. He releases your fingers and you don’t immediately pull away; instead, letting your thumb brush cross his soft-as-sin lower lip.

You don’t realize you’re holding your breath until you have to inhale extra and your lungs hurt. In that split second, your lips part, his gaze drops to your mouth and then you’re kissing. You don’t know who moved, maybe you both did.

His mouth on yours is like a flame, searing the air from your lungs. He licks at your bottom lip, parting you further, hands gripping at your back, and waist as you thread your fingers through his soft curls. You turn, swinging one leg over his big thighs. His hands grip your thighs, ruching up your dress as they slide up your body to your back and hair, holding you against his chest.

You rock your hips, trying anything to get closer to him, fingers deep in his soft locks. A little tug as you rock and you’re rewarded with the softest moan against your open mouth. His fingers press into your back, crumpling your dress in his possessive grip.

He breaks away from your mouth, kissing down your jaw, your throat, your shoulders as he slides the straps off.

“Hermosa, mierda.” He groans against your skin. “Por favor, can I touch you?” He whispers, and you nod, lost in the feel of him growing hard under you.

He kisses you fiercely, hand sliding under the hem of your summer dress. Soft fingertips skimming up your bare thighs as you nip at his lip, returning the kiss just as eagerly.

He pulls your panties to the side, burying his face against your bare shoulder. He groans as his pads swipe through your drenched folds, teasing your clit with little nudges.

“Cariño, all for me?” He teases. “You’ve been tempting me all night with this pretty dress.” He tells you in a whisper, rubbing tight slow circles around your sensitive little nub. He gives it a few minutes, drawing out your pleasure as it coils low and hot in your belly. You’re cupping his face, kissing him in between ragged breaths and soft moans, pleas for more. He slides his thick fingers down away from your clit towards your entrance, probing you and driving you crazy. He kisses along your neck, licking and sucking a very deliberate mark onto your skin. He nips at it, soothing it with his tongue and sucking before starting again as his fingers coat themselves in your slick before he pushes two inside your warm, velvety tunnel. He moans quietly against your chest. The stretch from his fingers alone is enough for you. You can’t imagine any other part of him yet. His thumb takes up tormenting your sensitive clit as his fingers stroke along your frontal walls easily.

“J-Javi,” your voice breaks as you try to be quiet. But all you can think about is him. The way he smells, and the way he’s clinging to you, the way his mustache scrapes against your skin, the way his tongue licks against you.

“Sh, sh, hermosa.” He coos, nibbling at your earlobe. “Gotta be a good girl for me. Gotta be quiet so all these people don’t know what a naughty girl you are, letting a cop touch this pretty pussy in public.” He says, his voice low and husky in your ear, only serving to make you wetter. You’re grinding against his hand, gasping against his cheek, clinging to him. His other arm is around you, holding you tight against him as he fingers you. “Good girl, baby. So tight, taking my fingers so good.” He praises and you’re melting against him. You lift up, body starting to tense as you try to escape the oncoming orgasm.

He catches the neckline of your dress with his teeth and pulls it down, exposing your breasts to him as you tremble, cumming on his fingers with a whine. “That’s it, baby. Such a good girl. You can give me more.” He encourages, latching onto a nipple and giving it the same treatment he gave your neck. Pleasure shoots straight to your cunt where he stokes it against your g-spot.

“J-Javi,” you gasp and he bites gently on your nipple in response. You shudder, grinding harder on his hand beneath your dress.

“Love the way you moan my name, princesa.” He fingers you diligently, never slowing down, his eyes always on you. “Most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, you cumming on my fingers. Wanna keep you like this.” He moans. You push down, grinding half against his hand and half against his crotch. He’s hard and aching, you can feel him twitch under you every time you moan in his ear.

You kiss him desperately, tugging at his hair as he steadily works you higher and higher until you snap for the second time. It occurs to you, somewhere in your orgasm-muddled- brain, that he has his fingers inside you out in public where anyone walking by can see. Your tit is out on display, granted it’s crushed against his broad chest, but still.

He licks a hot stripe up the center of your chest, along your throat, to your mouth, kissing you messily. “You’re dripping down my hand, hermosa. Got you so wet.” His own deep voice cracks as you whimper against his neck. “Want you to cum again. Want you to soak my hand, baby. Drench me and give me everything you have.” He urges, fingers picking up pace inside you and on your clit. His arm is wrapped tightly around you, holding you where he wants you. He sucks on your neck again, biting your skin and fingering you furiously.

Your soul leaves your body as you convulse and orgasm on his fingers. He holds you against his lap, making you take the pleasure he’s giving you. Not letting you escape from it like you normally would. He doesn’t stop. You wonder if his fingers are tired, but he doesn’t stop, chasing orgasm number four from your body. Your inner walls are clenching around his fingers, riding them with an unknown desperation as he marks up your skin with his perfect mouth. Small whimpers are leaving your body as he drags you higher and higher and higher and higher until your body snaps and you go slack, arching back away from him as you tremble with your most powerful orgasm yet.

He lays you back on the blanket carefully, adjusting your legs to be more comfortable. He pulls his sopping wet hand out from under your dress, holding it up for you to see it glistening in the moonlight. “So fucking pretty.” He praises. “Fuck, I could watch you cum all day long.” He says, licking his fingers and giving a small moan. “You’re fucking delicious. Sweetest pussy on earth.” He says, sucking his fingers clean as you watch him through half lidded eyes. He leans over you, kissing you deeply and letting you taste yourself on his tongue. Combined with his taste, you wrap your arms around his neck to keep him there.

He indulges for just a few minutes but then shifts himself between your thighs. “What kind of gentleman would I be if I let you walk around with your cum dripping down your thighs for the rest of the night?” He chuckles, lifting your dress.

“Should be your cum dripping out of me.” You say and he grins.

“That’s for next time.” He promises, and then his tongue is on you and you forget how to exist. His hand is over your exposed tit as he buries his head in your pussy. If you thought his fingers had you seeing stars? That’s nothing to the way his tongue brushes against every inch of you. He pushes it deep inside you, slurping at you, swirling around your already quivering clit. It traces every inch of your flower, searching for the nectar you release until he makes you cum two more times and then he declares you’re decent.

You are, in fact, not decent. You should like to show him right here right now how indecent you would like to be with him, but you currently can’t move. He fingered the bones right out of your body. He adjusts your dress, covering you back up and making you proper again. He lies next to you, the both of you facing the wrong way for the movie, but you don’t even care. You curl up against him, head on his chest listening to his heartbeat.

“I’ve never cum like that before.” You tell him and he chuckles, his fingertips tracing lines down your bare arms.

“That’s a crying shame. You’re stunning, and when you cum-it’s like a whole different level. I would love to watch you cum over and over all day someday. Just to watch that face you make and hear those gorgeous noises.” He says and you feel yourself blushing. “Maybe next time, we can be somewhere for you to be loud. Wanna hear you scream my name.” He whispers and you groan.

“That probably won’t be a problem.” You admit and he laughs quietly. “Can I-“ you reach for his belt buckle, but he catches your wrist.

“This was about you tonight, hermosa.” He says, pulling your hand back up to hold it on his chest.

“You look uncomfortable.” You tell him and he chuckles.

“Reward of a job well done. I like a little bit of pain.” He says softly.

You file that bit of information away for later. “Alright, just don’t go exploding. I’d like to see you again.” You warn him and he kisses the crown of your head.

“Not to worry, princesa. I won’t explode without you.” He promises and you snuggle more against his chest, satisfied and getting sleepy.

***

Javi

He looks down at you, asleep in his arms and drops his head back down. He’s in trouble. He likes this way too much for this to be his first date with you.

The credits are rolling but he doesn’t care that you both missed more than half of the movie. He lifts his head, kissing the top of your hair.

“Hermosa,” he whispers. “Wake up, pretty girl.” He says gently rocking your shoulder. You don’t move and he gently shifts you off his chest and onto your back. He kisses your forehead, between your cute little eyebrows, the tip of your nose. One temple, then the other. He can see your eyelids fluttering. He kisses down your cheek, the point of your chin, up your other cheek.

Christ, you smell good. He nudges your head to the side with his nose, kissing down your neck, admiring his handiwork with the hickie he left. He licks at the hollow in the center at the base of your throat. He allows one small nip at your skin, soothing it over with his tongue as your face scrunches and you whine softly. He trails slow kisses down your sternum, nipping at the top of your perfect breasts. He licks there, too and you shiver as the cool breeze blows over it.

You whine again, your hands coming up to settle in his hair. He kisses down between your breasts, down over your stomach, hands bunching up your skirt, wondering how far you’ll let him go with this.

“Don’t be a tease, Peña.” You mumble, eyes still closed and he chuckles.

“Movie’s over, cariño.” He comes back up, brushing your soft cheek with the back of his knuckles.

“And?” You sigh, pulling his head to yours and he laughs, kissing you with repeated quick little pecks. “You’re such a menace.” You complain.

“I’m aware.” He grins, rolling back over next to you and you sit up.

“Do you have to work tomorrow?” You ask, rolling against his chest and looking down at him. Your hair falls into your face, tickling him. He brushes it back, taking every chance to touch you now that he knows he can.

“I’m not supposed to. But in my line of work, you never really know.” He says.

“Okay. I can live with that.” You kiss him softly and pull away too quickly. He tries to follow, half sitting up and you laugh.

“I should take you home before the bugs eat you alive.” He says, sitting up next to you and leaning back on his hands.

“Unless you want another go at it.” You wiggle your eyebrows and he laughs.

“I’m not saying no.” He turns and scoots to the tailgate, pulling his boots on. You slide next to him and he gets down, scooping you up easily.

You shriek and laugh, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Smooth.”

He winks and sets you in the front seat. He returns the speakers, gathers up the pillows and blankets and throws away the popcorn. He climbs back in and returns your shoes.

He starts the truck and is pleased when you lean against him again. He could very easily get used to this. He drives you home, parking out front. He climbs out, holding his hand out for you. He doesn’t let it go, though, as he walks you to the front door.

You hesitate at the door, fiddling with your keys. “Can I tempt you to come inside?” You ask, looking up at him.

“Darlin’, if anyone could, it would be you. But, I think I’m going to say no tonight. I always rush into everything and this-I want to take this slow.” He says, his heart cracking at turning you down, but you don’t get mad, you just smile at him so sweetly.

“Alright.” You beckon him closer and kiss him deeply, arms wrapped around his shoulders, on your tiptoes, fevered. He returns it, hands bunching into fists against your back.

“Christ, woman.” He pulls back, heart racing and breathing hard. Luckily, you look just as flushed as he feels. “Can I see you tomorrow?” He asks.

“Pending any major drug related emergencies? Absolutely.” You nod and he grins.

“It’s a date. Breakfast? I have plans.”

“I can be up in time for breakfast.” You agree.

“Perfect. Goodnight.” He says softly and makes sure you get inside and the door locks before he walks back to his truck. He climbs inside, grinning like an idiot. And it isn’t until he starts the engine that he remembers the stupid panda.

“Fuck.”

[ciderjacks]

Like I’m sorry I just really can’t get over how many of you said outright that you didn’t consider their art and effort worth anything, that you preferred when they didn’t have creative freedom due to financial strain, that their employees are “unnecessary”. What the hell?

Ykwat I hope that watcher succeeds and does better than they’ve ever done before and never associates with their fanbase again. And tells all of you to fuck yourselves. And cancels their lives and doesn’t refund anyone. Yall suck. The way you people are acting is some shit beyond shameful.

[candlewaxandp0lar0ids]

this is halloween || seungmin x reader

Summary: Working Halloween night is just like any other night as far as you're concerned — with the promise that you'll get your pick of unsold candy in the next few days. Your coworker Seungmin, on the other hand, insists that it's one of the worst nights of the year. Who knows, maybe the night will turn out memorable for you, and not so horrible for him.

Word count: 4k

Genres: friends to lovers, coworkers to lovers

Warnings & Tags: light angst, some fluff, brief mention of past bullying, spooky atmosphere, customers being assholes.

A/N: Second installment in my Halloween mini-series! This one's for Seungmin, hope you'll like it!

Jeongin · Felix

Halloween is, as far as you’re concerned, just another night that you need to get yourself through. You’re fairly neutral in your feelings about it. You don’t like the weird crowd it brings with it, but they’re not that much weirder than the people that come in on full moons, at the 24/7 convenience store where you work, and you deal with them once a month. You do like that you get first pick on the candies that go on sale right after it’s passed. Don’t like the colleagues that go all in and insist that you should get dressed up; do like that the store gets decorated and the purple, orange and black colors they always pick.

All in all, Halloween’s fine. The candies make it worth it, mostly, as far as you’re concerned. You don’t even mind entertaining the few kids that come in looking for candy. You’ve got a jar by your cash-register that you can pick from for them — company policy. This year, you’ve even agreed — with, mind you, a very pronounced eyeroll — to wear a witch hat on your head. It delighted the children, amused some of the adults, and pissed off most of the ones you didn’t like in the first place, the ones that asked you if you planned to work at a convenience store forever or commented on what it had to mean for your studies, your intelligence or the way you were raised.

The ones you like the least are the ones that tell their kids ‘see, this is where you’ll end up if you don’t do well in school’ while pointing at you.

Since the hat makes them judgmental but isn’t punishment enough for them, you also shake their carbonated drinks, discreetly mind you, before handing them back to them.

On top of the shitty, boring, rude clients, that are less frequent when you’re nights, there’s one other person that doesn’t like the hat. One person that practically hissed at you when he first walked in and you were wearing it. One person who has very strong feelings about Halloween, in that he fucking hates it.

Seungmin’s spent the past month mumbling about how Halloween used to be a pagan celebration that’s been recuperated by capitalism. It’s not like you think he’s wrong, but the whole thing has made you quite wary of how he’ll be when Christmas or Valentine’s day will come around.

Seungmin’s usually one of your favorite colleagues. You like his dry wit, the snide comments he makes about some of the weirder customers. You like that he doesn’t hesitate to step in when you’re dealing with guys that think they can make a move on you because they’re alone in the store and it’s two am. You like how he lights up when you ask him a question about basketball or how he grows shy when you talk about the singing lessons he’s been taking but is very secretive about.

Oh, and you like that he’s hot. Obviously.

Even now, when you walk by him to get behind your register and wave at him, hat firmly on your head, you can’t hold back a laugh when he shoots you an utterly disgusted look.

“Have a good night, Seungmin!” you shout at him.

“I won’t!” he yells back. You think there’s the ghost of a grin on his lips then, and you take your seat with no small amount of pride at the thought that you made him smile on Halloween night of all nights.

It’s not a great victory, but you do need it to get yourself going as you get to work. The first hours are usually the busiest ones, especially on a night like that, and you don’t have much time to yourself, whether to think, be bored, or steal glances at Seungmin over your shoulder. Even when you get the chance to do that, he’s busy himself, and you don’t get to tease him about Halloween, or laugh at one of your insides jokes.

You’ve been here for a couple of hours when a group of college students walk in, and you groan inwardly. It’s not that you mind college students as a rule, you’re one yourself most of the time — some of your best friends are college students! — it’s just that tonight, it means that they’re either here to buy alcohol for later use, and you’ll have to ask for their ID, and they might not be of age, and it’s going to be unpleasant. Or, and the alternative is actually worse, they’re already drunk from pre-gaming, and they’ll be annoying. It doesn’t help that you know they definitely won’t be the last to show up tonight.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t relieved when they don’t pick your register once they emerge from the store, but you immediately grimace in sympathy as they line up in front of Seungmin’s.

The store’s mostly empty by now, so you don’t have much better to do than to turn around to watch the scene. There are a few regulars that you know will be making their rounds no matter what later on, and someone will have to go through the store to check the inventory in a few minutes, but that can wait a little longer.

Even through the group of young men, you can see that Seungmin’s shoulders are tense, his jaw tight. Yup, they’re drunk, and probably being assholes, because he usually doesn’t have much trouble dealing with people.

He sends them away with a tight-lipped smile and a muttered ‘have a good night’ that you can still hear from your seat, because the phrase, which you’re supposed to tell each customer before they walk through the door, is engraved in your ears by now.

You walk up to him once you’re back to being alone in the store together.

“You okay?” you ask him, more sympathetic than you were earlier.

He deadpans at you before groaning, pinching the bridge of his nose as he closes his eyes.

“People are just so loud,” he sighs.

“Aw, am I people?” you fake-pout, hoping to cheer him up, and the corners of his lips tremble but do not quite curve up.

“You’re tolerable.”

You scoff, roll your eyes playfully. You miss the way Seungmin’s eyes soften as he watches your antics.

“You want to go take a walk through the store?” you offer him, tone more serious. “Could help clear your head, though I’m afraid there are decorations up everywhere.”

Another groan, before he gets up.

“I guess I can deal with that. If I absolutely have to.” Now on his feet, he looks down at you, and his brow furrows. “Call me if there’s an issue.”

“There won’t be.”

He glares for a second more, and it’s cute actually, it’s really cute, that protective look in his eyes, but you don’t need him to be right now — except maybe to feed your ego.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he says like it’s a warning, before walking away with one final glare. You wave your fingers at him, before going back to your spot.

Now, you have more than enough time to get bored. Your phone is in your pocket, but you’re familiar with the angle at which the cameras are filming you, and you’re not bored enough yet to risk it. That time will come, no doubt about it; it always does. You can hold it at bay a little longer though, so you do, resting your chin in your palm as you let your gaze wander over the store or slide back towards the doors. There’s stuff you could do inside the store, but you’re not supposed to leave the registers unattended, which means you have to sit there, useless, until Seungmin comes back or someone walks in.

The first option would make you happier for sure.

As the minutes stretch out into what feels like hours, and Seungmin doesn’t come back, probably having found some issue he can fix, your eyes linger on the windows. The night is pitch black outside, with the harsh, white light of the street lights that dot the parking lot as the exception. From your spot, they leave islands of perfect darkness in between them. It unsettles you, looking at it, always does, despite how long you’ve been doing this job. One of the street lights has been blinking for the past week, and no one’s bothered to do anything about it yet.

You’re staring at it, complaining internally about how unsafe it makes you feel and about how it could just decide to stop working as you’re walking under it when you’ll leave the store in the early hours of the morning to catch the first bus home, when, after one final on-off-on, the light goes off. Despite your eyes being right on it, it catches you off-guard, startles you. You wait for it to turn back on.

It doesn’t.

There’s nothing to be scared of, you’re aware of that intellectually. It’s not the first time that one of the streetlights has died on you, it’s probably happened on one of your shifts before, too. Still, one glance at your phone tells you it’s 11:59, and that is an odd enough coincidence to make you tense. You stare into the night a while longer. Obviously, there is no one out there — you would have seen them by now.

But as the numbers on your phone change to 12:00, the automatic doors slide open and a gust of wind rushes in, and suddenly you’re absolutely frozen in place, convinced, in a way that is as far from rational as possible, that there is something there.

You nearly scream when you feel a hand on your shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Seungmin asks you as he spins your chair around, a concerned frown on his face.

“I’m fine, it’s just the—” By the time you turn back around, the doors have slid close again. “The doors opened,” you say with what you hope is a nonchalant shrug, while your heart is still beating erratically, “but there was no one here. It must have been the wind.”

He looks at you a little longer, than at the doors.

“I guess,” he replies slowly. “It just better not be one of these jerks trying to play a prank on us.”

He sounds so indignant then that you have to smile.

“I haven’t seen anyone out there since these college kids left earlier. I think we’re good.”

Seungmin keeps staring at the door as though his eyes could pierce through the darkness, then, when they decidedly can’t, shakes his head.

“That’s why I hate Halloween,” he mumbles under his breath, but he’s close enough for you to catch it, something you’re doing your best not to think too much or too hard about.

“I thought it was the capitalism.”

“That too,” he says without having to think about it for even a second. “But it’s mostly the mean pranks. I’ve—” Then he interrupts himself. You wait a little, expecting him to resume the story once he feels ready. When he doesn’t, you put your hand on his, rubbing your thumb over his skin. His hand is warm under yours.

“Are you okay?” you ask. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s— fine. It’s been a long time. I guess some kids had just seen Carrie and thought it would be a really fun idea to test it on me.” He sounds annoyed at himself for still being upset about it rather than at these people, and that makes anger boil inside your chest. On the one hand, maybe it won’t do much good to express that feeling; on the other, maybe that’s just what he needs.

“What fucking assholes,” you say, and laughter spills out of his lips, his bright, toothy grin visible for the first time since the beginning of the night.

“You don’t need to have beef with thirteen year-olds for me,” he tells you fondly. “I’m sure they would never do it again.”

Sure, but that means that he’s the one that’s stuck with the effect of one ‘prank’ that they don’t have to think about again. Which pisses you off even more, actually, though this time you keep your mouth shut.

“I’m sorry, I wish I’d asked you if you wanted to take this shift. I’m sure we could have found a replacement.”

Seungmin just shrugs at that.

“Like I said, I’m fine. And I’m not going to let people scare me anymore.”

There’s something definitive to his tone, and you can tell it must be a promise he’s made to himself a long time ago. For the next seconds, it’s just his eyes in yours, your hand on his.

Then the doors slide open and old Mrs. Yang walks in, pushing her cart and dragging her elderly husband along with her. She has insomnia and likes to do her shopping without being bothered by other people, and he dutifully accompanies her each time, no matter how tired he is. Both you and Seungmin greets them with a smile.

By the time they’ve both disappeared in the aisles, Seungmin’s back in his seat.

Time keeps crawling at a snail’s pace after you’ve checked them out. There are more regulars, more college students, followed by other unbothered — or slightly bothered by the presence of disguised teenagers and young adults —  regulars, and then college students again. All in all, you’d say the night goes okay. You do have to take a stern tone with some people who want to empty your bucket of sweets, something that children’s mothers usually do for you, but that’s not unexpected.

It’s around 3am that you hear Seungmin’s voice call for you. You yawn as you turn towards him.

“Did the three guys come out yet?”

You blink at him.

“Which ones?”

“Frat boys. Red shirts with their logo on it. Have you seen them come out?”

You do remember them coming in, now that he’s mentioned them. You for sure haven’t checked them out. The last people you saw were that exhausted single mother balancing her sleeping toddler on her hip, which is what you tell Seungmin. He rolls his lips together.

“They’ve been in there for a while.”

You get up, stretching and wincing as blood circulates in your body again. You pick up the coffee Thermos you never forget to bring with you — you’d probably die if you did — and show it to him while you get used to being on your feet again.

“Do you want some?” you ask. “I’ll go check where they are.”

Chances are they’ve raided the candy aisle, possibly the booze aisle. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened, just means you have to get ready for an unpleasant conversation. That, too, is an art you’ve unfortunately had to master since you started working here.

“Call if you need anything,” Seungmin says, and you wave at him vaguely, both to say ‘I will’ and ‘It won’t be necessary’. You can handle yourself.

After your weird experience with the parking lot light earlier, you’d think walking through the store’s empty aisles would make you uncomfortable, but the truth is, you know the place by heart. They feel familiar to you, and you see no reason to be nervous.

You start by the alcohol aisle, just to get that out of the way, and nearly breathe a sigh of relief when you don’t find anyone there. That could have gotten very messy. After quickly checking that everything is in order, you start walking again. Candy aisle it is.

As you approach it though, you have to note how quiet the store is, much more than you’d expect with three frat boys stealing and probably eating candy. It’s odd, so you’re not all that surprised when you reach it and you find it empty too, with nothing out of place as far as you can tell. Shit, you don’t want to be playing these games. You spin on your heels, ready to do what you probably should have done in the first place and make an announcement with the mic, when you see a man standing, thirty feet away from you.

The figure, you recognize immediately. A black hoodie and, of fucking course, the ghostface mask from the Scream franchise. You physically couldn’t roll your eyes any harder than you do then.

“Hilarious,” you say. “You got me. I’ll be waiting for you at check-out once you and your friends decide that you’re done playing around with minimum-wage workers.” …who are not getting paid nearly enough for this shit.

Since you’re not walking past that guy, you take a few steps towards a different aisle. When you reach it, though, there’s another man, exact same attire, exact same frozen stance. Twenty feet away from you this time. You let out a dry, unamused chuckle. You still don’t want to walk towards him, but you’re also all too aware of the fact that there’s a fucking third one hiding in wait somewhere. These guys are all bark and no bite, you’d bet on that, but you’re no less uneasy, eyes darting around to figure out an exit route.

You take a step back. The man take a step forward. You grit your teeth.

“Stop that.”

He takes another step. Fucking asshole.

You turn around, and right fucking there, right behind you, is the third one.

You scream. It just comes straight out of you before you can control yourself, and even if he’s trying to keep up the façade, you see the guy’s shoulders shake in laughter. Shit, you’re not doing this. You dart past him, intent on going back to the front of the store, but by then, the first guy has moved to be in your way. He walks towards you in a way that you’re sure is supposed to be menacing, shoulders squared, and you’re getting ready to give him a piece of your mind when, out of nowhere, Seungmin’s fist connects with the guy’s jaw.

You take way too much pleasure in the way he falls down and hits one of the display units, which leads to all the packs of pasta in it to land on him. They’re not heavy enough for it to hurt, but it still gives you intense Schadenfreude. While you’re still staring, Seungmin grabs your shoulders, looking at you with panic in his eyes, checking that you’re okay. Once he spots the two other men, he pulls you behind him, standing between you and them. It’s both endearing and pretty useless.

“Start running,” he mumbles to you before you can explain the situation.

“Dude, what the hell!” the man he just hit protests behind you, extricating himself from under all the pasta.

“Yeah, uh, these three are the frat bros,” you inform him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“C’mon, man,” one of the two that are still standing says as he pulls his mask off, “that’s not cool.”

“You better hope he’s not injured, ‘cause—”

“They were trying to get themselves banned from the only convenience store near the college that’s opened 24/7,” you interrupt, narrowing your eyes at them, “and they figured that harassing the employees was a great way of achieving their goals.”

They seem to hesitate at that.

“It wasn’t harassment…” one of them says weakly.

“Of course it is!” Seungmin snaps, voice filled with more anger than you’ve ever heard. “We’re working here! And it’s a fucked-up thing to do, if you want to scare people because you think it’s funny, at least do it on people who have a choice!”

The three guys are starting to look more and more sheepish, in a way that you’d almost find sweet — aw, grown men who have no concept of boundaries but can still learn! — if you weren’t so pissed.

“Okay, okay, we’re leaving,” they all start saying as they take off their hoodies, giving you more than enough time to memorize the name of their frat, help their friends up and start walking away. “But you won’t ban us then, right?” one of them has the absolute nerve to ask.

“We’ll think about it!” is your shouted reply at that, which seems to satisfy them.

“We will?” Seungmin asks you quietly.

“Obviously we’ll ban them,” you reply, no louder than him. Fucking assholes.

When he turns around to face you, you’re careful to check his expression. His fists are still clenched, his jaw still tense.

“Are you okay?”

He exhales, long and hard.

“Yes.” He answers with surprising strength. Then a grin. “It felt great, actually.”

You watch him open and close his hand a few times. His knuckles are slightly bruised, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.

“Are you okay?” he asks you after a few seconds.

The question catches you off-guard. You have to take a moment to think about it, and when you do, you let out a sigh.

“I’m glad you got here when you did,” you tell him honestly. “I knew it was them, but it still was a bad experience.” Again, not the first time you’ve had to deal with weirdos in the store, so you’re not even that shaken, but having Seungmin to lean on for sure plays a big part in that. “We really need to get back to the front, we’re not supposed to leave the registers unattended,” you say with a grimace. Actually, if the boss decides to randomly check the footage for tonight, you’re as good as fired.

His hand wraps around your wrist before you can walk away.

“You should go out with me,” he says, all in one block, when you turn around.

You stare.

“What?”

His mouth hangs open as red forms on his cheekbones first before it spreads to his whole face.

“Sh– Sorry, I– That was the adrenaline talking, don’t– Don’t–”

Ah, he’s just too cute.

“No, I quite liked what the adrenaline was saying, I just wasn’t expecting it,” you say. “Could I hear it again?”

When he turns to face you, he’s just as red as before. He clears his throat and is still refusing to look you in the eye when he speaks.

“Would you— Would you like to go on a date. With me.”

“Yeah,” you say, “I would”. You could tease, you’re certainly tempted to do so, but it’s clear that it took a lot from him to even ask, and you don’t want him to think that you’re unsure. Because, well, you’re not. You’d love to go on a date with him. It makes your heart flutter in a soft, fragile way, and you know that anything after that will need to be carefully nurtured, if you wish for it to bloom, but that is something you can deal with later. For now… “Would you mind if I gave you a little preview? As a thank you?”

Seungmin swallows, then very, very slowly, he nods.

You push yourself on your tiptoes, holding both hands behinds your back, and close your eyes while you press your lips against his. It’s soft. Sweet. Your lips move against his gently, and you feel him tilt his head to kiss you back while he stands still, with the exception of one of his hands coming up to grab your shoulders, to keep you stable or to keep you from pulling away too fast, you can’t tell.

Heat spreads through you when his long fingers caress your arm, and you feel your face warm as the kiss intensifies, without either of you daring to move, too afraid of breaking the spell.

When you do pull away, you meet his eyes for a second, before he looks away, trying to hide how wide he’s smiling.

Ah, you just can’t wait for that date.

again, don't know if this was any good but i hope it entertained you :) would love to know your thoughts and if you don't feel like leaving a comment (i don't bite i swear), please consider reblogging, it helps showing the story to others <3

permanent taglist: @lethallyprotected @jisuperboard

[enbycrip]

I keep seeing and hearing things from friends and other folks I hugely respect who work in really *important* professions and areas of life - science, museums, art, education, care and nursing, medicine - beating themselves up as they are fucked around and treated badly. And one of the things I keep hearing is “I’m such a fool, I made a really stupid choice of career, I’m clearly not good enough for this”.

And I need to say this:

Mate, you did *not* make a bad decision re your career.

You made the decision based on your passion and ability for something that is *incredibly important*.

The fact that you did so in fucking end stage capitalism when industries, professions and areas of work we should be investing in heavily are being gutted because capitalism doesn’t value vital things is *not your fault*.

And trust me, as a person who has a pretty severe energy-limiting illness; it’s *not* a moral failure to be burned out. It’s actually a really normal human response to *things being hard* and being overwhelmed by things that are not your fault.

You are accomplishing things, and pretty awesome things at that. But it’s also worth bearing in mind that you actually have worth as a human that isn’t tied to a job or career, or to the art of whatever medium you produce, or in being smiley and upbeat for your mates.

*You matter regardless of what you produce.*

And every time that feels inadequate, or like an excuse, remember how much effort capitalism and capitalist institutions put into convincing you of that, and that these things are *your individual failures* and *not* systemic problems caused by social failures to value what actually matters in the world.

I sit here and tell myself this all the damn time because it was literally the only way to survive in a world that wants me to believe that my life as a disabled person with limited capacities and a lot of need for rest is meaningless, and that that fact is my own fault. I’m getting better at internalising it now, but it means it hurts even damn more when I see wonderful people who are doing important work being beaten up by the same things I was, and to an extent still am.

I also have to tell you; as a disabled person with a *very* limited ability for paid work, or for a huge amount of unpaid work I desperately want to do, it is *really* difficult to hear much more abled people denigrating their achievements that feel far far more than I will very likely ever be able to do.

Please do think about the impact your words have when you broadcast your internal self-loathing out there. There *will* be people you care about dying a little bit more inside every time you denigrate stuff you have achieved that they have been holding as a distant goal.

I am not trying to guilt anyone by saying this; I am saying it because hearing about how my internalised fatphobia and letting out my self-loathing over my relatively thin body was harming fat folk I cared about was one of the things that helped me get a good bit of the way over some crippling body image stuff.

Valuing yourself and what you actually do, are, and contribute is *hard* work, and it’s so worth doing.

It is not “losing your standards” or “becoming complacent” to recognise how much of what you struggle with is systemic and *not* your individual failures. It is realising the amount of work an unequal and abusive system puts in to stop people from resisting it and turning our energies from beating ourselves up in self-hatred to *working for change*.

[alchemistc]

goon | bucktommy | chapter five

check out the hockey glossary here (updated through chapter five)

Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

read Chapter Five on ao3

Eddie pulls into the parking lot still grinning at the recollection of the first time he’d met Evan Buckley, and Tommy can’t help but smile back, all the air in his lungs spent on the breathless laughter he’d expelled on the drive over.

“He actually thought I was there to replace him, or something,” Eddie says, fondly, amusement and affection seeping into his voice, and something clicks, just then. Tommy doesn’t have time to think about it, though, because half a second later Ravi is banging on the passenger window, looking harried.

Tommy rolls it down with one eyebrow raised.

“Closed practice,” Ravi says, with a kind of warning tilt to his expression, and Eddie’s smile evaporates in the drivers seat.

“Shit,” Eddie says, and Ravi nods emphatically.

Tommy’s been here going on three months, and this is the first time he’s even heard a whisper about closed practice. Sure, there are days where fans don’t fill the stands, and days when the media doesn’t seem inclined to make an appearance because there isn’t any story worth telling, but as far as he knows, Bobby Nash hasn’t held a closed practice in at least a few years. Back when he was brand new and fighting an uphill battle for a point or two a week, yeah, he’d definitely heard a few of those stories from guys like McKinley and even a few of the guys who’d been traded, in the following few years, to teams Tommy played for.

But Tommy can’t think of a reason why Nash would want to do that now.

Gerrard had held them for the opportunity to pick on whoever he felt like singling out on a given day, but that’s not Nash’s style.

“He called up four guys from Loveland,” Ravi continues, and next to Tommy, Eddie grimaces.

“Scrimmage?”

Ravi nods forebodingly.

“Shit,” Eddie repeats, and Tommy takes a deep breath, not quite sure if this is actually something to be worried about, or more melodramatics from a bunch of guys who’ve never had to play for the likes of Tortorella or Gerrard. “Does Buck know?”

“Buck’s the one who told me,” Ravi says, and Eddie whistles through his teeth.

“Is he already picking on the Eagles guys?”

“He’s got The List out,” Ravi informs them gravely, and Eddie actually leans forward and knocks his head against the steering wheel, startling Ravi when his forehead hits dead center on the horn.

“What’s the list?” Tommy queries, using the back of his hand to shove Ravi gently out of his way, opening the door before he rolls up the window to allow them to continue this conversation. He’s almost positive this is a late hazing, at this point, but never let it be said that Tommy won’t take any opportunity to let Buck’s team talk about him.

(Fucked, with a capital F.)

“You don’t wanna know about The List,” Ravi tells him ominously, dancing out of the way of the bag Tommy swings out from the back seat before shutting his door behind him.

“Tell me anyway.”

Ravi falls into stride beside him, detailing a nightmarish demon of a man who hazes the new kids and the old hats alike with pop quizzes on regulations and unspoken rules, right before drilling any random passersby with questions about the system they play until he was satisfied they fully understood The Process.

Tommy hasn’t seen a trace of this monstrous demon, but he’s actually kind of looking forward to finding out if this is a real thing Evan Buckley does. It sounds objectively hilarious, and also a little adorable.

It’s been two weeks and Tommy’s gotten a couple texts, a single call, and some heavy looks across a table at team dinner, or the locker room after practie, with no idea what, exactly, he’d said or done to draw Buckley’s ire. He actually thought I was there to replace him, Eddie had said, not five minutes ago, and Tommy takes the rest of the walk (Eddie and Ravi on either side of him looking like they’ve just gotten their marching orders) to reassess the last month or so.

Things had been great, after the All-Star game.

The new guys were still learning the system, which has an admittedly sharp learning curve, and they’d lost a few games, in amongst the grind, but Tommy was skating better, and Buck was pulling off some pretty spectacular shit every night, breaking ankles and running up enough points to throw him into the Norris conversation. McKinley had suggested some line mix-ups that had actually helped the new guys both pick up the pace and start to work within the system as it was designed to work.

Eddie had been making a point to pull Tommy in, inviting him out to places with the team, and sharing his sparse father-son time with Tommy, spending a few extra minutes out on the ice with him on practice days to try to give him some tips on his movement, his edgework, his stick handling skills.

For two and a half weeks Tommy had spent his nights stretching out sore muscles, icing aches and pains, and watching game film on mute, listening to Evan Buckley talk to him on speaker about the perils of simple carbohydrates while he shoveled two-day old shrimp fried rice into his mouth.

And then he’d been left on read for three minutes and barely spoken to him since.

In hindsight, it makes plenty of sense. Hell, he’d joked a million times to himself that Buckley and Diaz lived out of each others pockets; of course, of course Buckley would be upset by the perception that Eddie Diaz could in any way attempt to replace Evan Buckley.

Tommy will talk to him after practice. Maybe take him up on the beer he’d promised to buy Tommy in exchange for a few lessons on keeping his blades planted during a bout. (Nash and Hen don’t need to know he’s giving their star defenseman fighting tips.)

It’s as good a saying shutout with twenty minutes still left in a game.

Tommy isn’t actually paying attention, when it happens. He’s mostly trying to remember what he knows about their penalty kill, how it functions, which point of the diamond he’s supposed to maintain a five foot radius around while the power play unit hammers them with shots towards the net.

He is very firmly not thinking about how flustered he’d felt, walking into the lockers to find a half-dressed Evan Buckley wielding an actual clipboard, going through equipment checks with four Eagles players like Buck hadn’t previously played a game or two with all but one of them. Like the Eagles don’t closely follow the same system the Avs play. Like they’re not fucking professionals, themselves. Nothing about it should have done a single fucking thing for Tommy, and yet, while Buck made his way down the checklist and Wagner and Ivan elbowed each other in amusement as the fresh-faced kid who’d yet to be called up until today seemed to waffle between consternation and the need to prove himself.

Tommy doesn’t have a praise kink. Or a degradation kink, come to think of it.

But he’d suddenly realized he absolutely had a thing for Evan Buckley leaning into the obsessive perfectionism. (He’d had the irrational desire to see what his Google calendar looks like, and had to stuff that away immediately while Wagner waved at him from across the room and received an icy glare from Buck for daring to interrupt.)

He doesn’t see it, is the point he’s trying to make. From the left of his goalie, Tommy takes a puck to the bucket and watches Buckley circle back up to the top of the zone while he blinks away the dull gong-like ringing in his ears, watches Ivan shovel the puck back to Buck and Buck slide left, right, barely keeping it in the zone when he spins away from a poke check, and then Wagner skates right through Tommy’s line of vision, and by the time Tommy repositions himself, Buck is chasing after Eddie, who has the puck and a clean sheet of ice straight to Chim.

Tommy keeps up with Wagner down the ice, Buck chasing ahead of them, and with just the team and coaches in here, Tommy can hear a lot more than he usually can, even in a practice setting— the sound of the guys on the bench chattering away, taking notes on how a PK is actually supposed to function; the slice of eleven sets of blades gliding over the ice; the chirping from Eddie as he taunts Buck, five feet behind him, and Buck’s loud, loud guttural shout a moment before he catches a burst of speed and extends his knee just as Eddie winds back to shoot the puck.

Eddie goes down with a groan of pain, and they all slow, the momentum of the chase propelling them most of the way as Eddie curses, a loud mix of English and Spanish while Buck drops his stick to his knees and sucks in a few steady breaths.

Hen is out on the ice about fifteen seconds later, and things devolve from there.

Eddie flops into the seat next to Tommy, ten minutes into their flight, and Tommy raises a curious brow, eyes darting up from his book when Eddie just sighs. Six rows up, Buckley is making friends with the d-man they’d called up from Loveland, just in case Eddie’s knee acted up and he had to be scratched from the lineup.

It’s the first time in three months that Tommy has seen them sit in separate rows on a flight.

Eddie shrugs half-heartedly when Tommy tilts his head in question.

There’s enough chatter going on that Tommy doesn’t feel the need to pull out his phone and have this conversation through his fucking notes app, but he keeps his voice low, regardless.

“How’s your knee?” he starts, because despite how close they’ve become, he’s under no illusion that he can just dive straight into the “we made your best friend mad, how do we fix it” conversation without some small-talk to ease them into it.

Or maybe they can. “Recovering from Buck’s possessive streak pretty well, actually,” Eddie says with a breathy snort. “Wish his ego would get on the same page as my knee.”

Tommy bites down on the urge to defend him, of all things, but a moment later Eddie sighs.

“That wasn’t fair. Buck is — he gets a little weird, sometimes, about the people that are important to him.” He pauses, fingers tapping against his thigh as he shoots a careful look at Tommy. “I feel kinda bad. All he ever wants is to feel like he’s being included.”

“You’re allowed to have more than one friend,” Tommy intones, and then feels for a moment like walking it back at the lofty tilt of Eddie’s head, his pursed lips, his deadpan expression.

“Buck has about five million attachment issues and three people he trusts implicitly, and one of them has been inadvertently icing him out since he left for the All Star game. He’s second guessing six years of friendship because he didn’t realize dating wasn’t the only thing that could take my attention away from him for more than five minutes at a time.”

Tommy thinks that’s probably an oversimplification, but he gets the gist. “Have you talked to him?”

“Not successfully,” Eddie intones, with a nod towards the back of Buck’s head.

“I’ll talk to him.” Eddie gives him a grateful tap, two knuckles to Tommy’s knee, and shifts back into his seat, stretching his leg out into the aisle. “Maybe wait until after the game. Dallas is only six points behind us and I’d much rather he take a run at Duchene than you, if he doesn’t like what you have to say.”

The chuckle that escapes containment is a little self-deprecating, but Tommy tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and pretends to get some shuteye while he ponders what the hell he’s actually going to say to Buck. After the game.

Letting Buck stay mad is either gonna make or break this game. Tommy hasn’t decided yet, but it’s a running concern, as they go up one, then Dallas ties, then Dallas captures the lead in the closing minutes of the first. Buck is agitated down the tunnel, agitated through intermission, agitated as he lines up for the opening puck drop of the second period, agitated as Dallas mucks things up in the neutral zone, agitated as the refs miss an interference call that he’s been penalized for at least three times in the calendar year, so far.

He’s agitated as he gets smashed into the boards behind Dallas’ net, and agitated as Diaz misses his pass and the puck trickles out of Dallas’ zone, and agitated when Dallas takes advantage and nearly goes up another goal, the puck clanging off the iron before Chimney can scramble from one side of his crease to the other.

Dallas plays a shitty, boring game of keep away, jamming up every play they try to make in the neutral zone, and with two minutes left in the second, Buck takes another nasty hit against the glass, sandwiched between Benn and Hintz with the puck no where close to him. The no call is probably his last straw, when he comes away bleeding with Hintz’s stick still stuck in the padding of his helmet.

Back on the bench, Buck washes out his mouth with water, grimaces as Hen dabs at the cut just to the side of his eyebrow, an uncanny match to the birthmark on the other side of his face, and proceeds to argue with Nash for thirty seconds as the clock ticks down and Nash keeps him on the bench.

Nash has a rule, in these scenarios. They play for the next five minutes, every time, no game too far out of reach because they’re just setting up for the next five, but the important piece is handing off the last five. Whatever happened, whatever will happen, once the previous five are up, they’re done. There’s no changing them, only learning from them.

And Buck is clearly not ready to hand it the fuck off.

With twenty-seven seconds left and the puck once again stuck in the middle of the ice, Buckley and Diaz replace Manson and Girard, and Buck takes about half a second to assess the run Duchene is making towards their zone before he seems to make a decision.

It’s a legal hit, technically speaking. He catches Duchene with his head down, but Buck has both speed and a build up of negative emotion just leaking from his pores, at this point, so when they meet in the middle and Buck locks his elbow, the crash ends up looking more like an explosion of momentum, from Buck’s extended mitt, through Duchene’s chest. Buck stays standing and Duchene goes ass over tea-kettle, legs going out from under him and the puck trickling off his stick right into the space behind Buckley, where Diaz skates over to scoop it up and send it careening through a free patch of ice towards McKinley.

Duchene doesn’t snap back to his skates, right away, and Tommy can’t hear it over the noise of the crowd, but in the moment before Buck follows the puck on it’s way towards Oettinger, he bends to say something that has Duchene seeing fucking red.

Christ.

Tommy supposes he can add another player to the list of people who are gonna throw a fucking target on the number 18.

McKinley ties it up with seven seconds left in the period, but on the skate back to the benches Duchene decides to get chirpy. Buck gets through the glove taps just in time to have his stick snaked out from it’s loose hold by a smirking Duchene, and the shoving match the commences almost gets their entire first line thrown in the box for the start of the third, but it’s Buck that puts them all on notice as they skate back to their own benches.

“You’re a fucking joke, man!” Buck yells, still half-hanging off the sideboards, skate firmly tucked beneath the bench to give him leverage to lean back out and make direct eye contact with Duchene. “Your career is a joke, and you’re an embarrassment to the league. How’s that ring chasing going, Matty? I fucking lit you up, asshole, and I’ll do it again!”

Tommy makes the mistake of staring through the glass towards the Stars bench, where Dumba is staring directly at him. So. There’s that.

Whatever Duchene shouts back is lost to the final whistle and a battle for the puck that Stankoven ends up shoveling into his own zone just to kill off the last few seconds on the clock.

The ire hasn’t left Buck, once they’re in the room. They can all feel it, attitude fucking rolling off of him as they listen to Bobby walk them through his strategy to get rid of this congested mess of a game and get through to the net.

Tommy spends his twenty minutes trying to remember his last fight with Dumba.

It’s a tie game. There’s an edge to be had to winning a territorial fight like this — momentum can swing based entirely on whether or not Tommy’s fist makes contact enough times to fire up his team. The problem is the one player who’s been fired up the entire game isn’t doing shit to generate the kind of momentum they need to break out of this slog of a game and build some fucking offense.

There’s another option. They’re all pissed at the refs, and have been all game, and Tommy’s the locker room guy, the one they look to when their stars have said their piece and the coach has left them to their own devices. If the refs toss him, they’re gonna be amped the fuck up.

Nash would be pissed he’s even thinking about it. Buck might actually pick a fight he can’t win, if Tommy doesn’t play it right. Fighting Dumba won’t work, for this, so he’s gonna have to suck it up and play the villain, ignore the heavyweight fight and go for something gritty and fucking rude.

Benn, then.

It’s been a while since Tommy’s laid out Jamie Benn.

Both benches get warnings from the refs before the start of the third, and Buck blatantly ignores them the moment he’s on the ice, chirping every single black-and-neon green sweater that has a chance of hearing him, missing setups because he’s too busy laying reverse hits and generally being a pest.

Tommy absolutely shouldn’t find anything about this remotely amusing, because if he keeps it up, Dumba is absolutely gonna find a way to challenge Tommy, and everyone else is too frustrated with this new and unimproved Buckley. The problem is, Evan Buckley the pest is fucking hilarious, and the few insults Tommy has managed to catch are not only fantastically amusing, they’re also bitingly specific. Buck’s putting his stats and lore knowledge to good (evil) use.

He’s pretty sure he even catches a slyly worded allusion to cunnilingus that Benn very clearly does not like one bit, but Benn doesn’t have time for retaliation because Buck takes his momentary lapse to pick his pocket and spin into the Stars zone with three Avs on his heels.

The puck pings off the crossbar five different times before the Stars get possession again, and with fifteen minutes left in the game, Dadanov snipes one past Chim into the net.

Tommy can feel the bench deflate.

Dallas shaves another three and a half off the clock by clogging up the neutral zone before Tommy gets an opportunity on the ice with Benn’s line, and he doesn’t waste any time — down a goal with eleven and change left in the game, he doesn’t see a whole lot of other options, and he doesn’t really give Benn the opportunity to not engage.

It takes a bit of maneuvering.

Stripes haven’t called shit all game, from either side, so it’s a risk, either way, and Tommy’s goal isn’t to actually injure Benn, just make the hit look bad enough and blatant enough that they’ve got no choice but to call it. He waits until the puck has been off Benn’s stick for a hot second before he slams him into the boards, and the crowd gets loud.

The whistle blows, and just for the hell of it, Tommy wraps both hands around his stick and shoves it into the middle of Benn’s back when he tries to get back to his feet.

Johnston gets an arm around his neck half a second later, and both linesmen come careening in to break it up.

He’s assessed with five minutes, which isn’t ideal, when that shaves off half their time left in the game, but a minute and a half into the penalty kill Heiskanen takes a chop at Ravi when he manages to get the puck down past the red line, and suddenly they’re four-on-four for at least the middle portion of Tommy’s gamble.

Dallas’ special teams aren’t as good as theirs — not when they’re evenly matched — and when McKinley finds Panikkar with a stretch pass there’s no one in the lane to intercept.

Tie game, with a minute and a half left in Tommy’s major, back to being shorthanded, but there’s signs of life on the bench, and Buck seems to have finally fucking cooled his jets (Tommy spends forty seconds wondering which one of them convinced Bobby to force a Honey Stinger into his hands).

In typical fashion, the moment Tommy’s out of the box, Dallas returns to slowing the game right down, well aware that it’s the easiest way to neutralize the Avs offense, and the minutes chip away while Tommy watches the clock.

On a flyby, Duchene chirps at Buck and Diaz both on the bench, which is ultimately the Stars fucking downfall, even if they don’t know it.

With forty-seven seconds left on the clock, Diaz skates through traffic and gets a saucer pass down the ice to O’Connor, and Lundkvist blows a tire in his attempt to defend him.

The puck sails in right under Oettinger’s blocker.

In the locker room, ten minutes later, Tommy catches Nash’s eye and does his best not to look guilty, but Tommy has studied Nash’s career, and they both know exactly where he’d gotten his ham handed idea from. The expression on Nash’s face tells him everything he needs to know about how quickly he’ll end up a healthy scratch if he tries it again.

Tommy’s still working through his wording, five hours later, when he settles into his room in Boston. Tomorrow’s a rest day, nothing but a coaches meeting on the books, so regardless of how things go with Buck, he’s at least got the advantage of a full day where they’re not required to speak to each other, once Tommy’s said his piece. He’ll give Buck the night, let him sleep off whatever agitation had had him so hot all day, knock on his door in the morning and apologize, maybe convince him to grab another coffee, if the apology goes decently.

And if not, he’ll have the day to lick his wounds and remind himself that he’d absolutely known he was setting himself up to hurt his own feelings.

He’s eternally grateful his trade had happened so early, because he’d heard rumblings on the plane ride over that the Altitude team was planning a half-day of get-to-know-the-new-guys coverage, and he’s already done his thirty-minute sit down with Keefe.

The knock on his door startles him out of his reverie, and when he swings the door open, he doesn’t know exactly what he’s expecting, but it sure as hell isn’t the chagrined, lopsided smile of Evan Buckley, leaning against the door frame and looking contrite.

“Buck. Hi.”

Buck’s chest rises with the deep breath he takes.

“Hi,” he says, and in the dim hallway light, with his shoulders turned in on themselves, he looks suddenly vulnerable and tired. “Can we talk?”

[shitty-fate-merch-daily]

Have one day left before the end of my first week at my first full-time job.

Man is this really all there is to life? Wake up early chug, my daily dose of stimulant, and fight people on the roads, work for 8 hours, put my life on the line to fight even more people on the roads, lay in bed and scroll for 2 hours, get everything ready for the next day, sleep, and repeat. And on the weekend I have to do chores and shit.

I understand why all the adults in my life are so ambivalent about the suffering of others and the problems in modern society, the few hours I get to myself in the day I can’t bring myself to focus on anything negative.

I got a chance to finally live for myself during college and now I can’t go back to the dehumanizing structure of middle and high school. Honestly I wish I’d never gone, never learned there was something better.

Everyone else just accepts that this is the way that it is so it has to be done. But having an understanding of capitalism and knowing this isn’t the way it should be makes it hard to imagine any future worth looking forward to. All this exhaustion just for like… an actual vacation every two years? Fuck off.

[ph0enix-12]

Ichorverse- Chapter 2

~ Flaming perseverance ~

It’s Killer’s turn this time.

The amount of trouble this chapter gave me isn’t even funny anymore, I was stuck on it for a good 3 months and in those months I managed to write up to chapter 8.

So, everybody, THANK YOU @thevoidfairy . She helped me write a good chunk of this ch you will see a lot of author notes in this one, because I am still very salty.

CW cults, burning at the pire, burns

<- Chapter 1 . Chapter 3 ->

He was given quite the weird name. Afterall, not everyone names their kid “Killer”.

He didn't have parents, most children in the colony didn't and they may never know why that was.

He grew up like any kid in a cult, working to kill gods, of course. (note the author's sarcasm)It was a dumb and unrealistic expectation to give to a bunch of orphaned children, everyone knows that gods cannot be killed. And yet, the elders of Killer’s colony were certain one of the children would be able to with enough training and finally gain favor from the Titans, ancient creatures from the first generation of the world.

The child would only learn later in his adult life the truth about the treacherous Titans, truths the elders refused to see even when right in front of them. Their hatred for the six gods was blind. No matter how much good they did for the world, for the elders, they were only golden traitors that destroyed the old world.

All children with the “destiny” to dethrone the gods were kept away from the rest of the colony, hidden in tents close to the wooden wall so that others would not distract them.

Yet, they couldn't keep KIller’s curiosity at bay for long.

As soon as the mortal child could walk, he found ways to sneak away to the wall, built out of full and sturdy tree trunks that Killer could climb like an agile cat, he was small enough anyway. He would climb up the wall and let out a gasp every time he saw the far away capital and the giant palace on top of the sea, he was mesmerized by the white waves crashing gently against the rock and protecting that marvelous place.

Of course, seeing the outside was strictly forbidden, and yet he couldn't help showing the other children as well.

They were found one night as they climbed back down. They were terrified as they stood in front of the elders, knowing punishment would not be merciful even if they were children. Something happened to Killer that night, something burned inside him and for some reason- as his soul shaped on the outside of his chest- he stepped forward, taking the blame himself for the whole ordeal.

His soul burned bright in the shape of a target, making the elders gasp in shock.

This, somehow, spared him from the harsh flogging ahead, even if what would happen in the following years would be an unofficial and somehow worse punishment.

He was moved away from the other children and trained personally by the elders.

He was their answer, the one that will finally take down a god. And not just that. Killer was expected to find heretics and bring them to the pire

Killer loathed being alone, he couldn't take it for much longer. He would spend his days alone, watching the other members walk by, listening to everything they said. He wished he could talk with them, wished so desperately to have connection…but the most interaction he was allowed was to drag the heretics to the pire. (What joyful conversations)

He hated it, he hated with all of his fucked up soul the way his people screamed in the flames, the way the others looked at him, knowing anyone of them could be next if Killer decided so.

He felt himself start to break over the years, one death after another, making him wonder at night whether what he was doing was right. He began to wonder if killing the gods was worth it, or if it was a delusion made by man. He wasn’t sure…if he could take it anymore.

Only a year later, he hit the final straw. One of the children he had first looked over the wall with, had claimed the cult leader was crazy, that the gods can’t be killed. Killer shook, looking down at the ones he had called a sibling and they looked back, eyes filled with rage, they yelled at him, how he was a hypocrite for doing this, he had been the first of them to look over the wall.

He didn’t say anything back then, he knew they were right, he was the one who should be burning, not them. He couldn’t watch as they burned at the pire, knowing their eyes were boaring into him as they died.

That night, he didn’t sleep (not that he did most nights) but this night was different. He wasn’t laying in bed, he was outside looking up at the stars ...the ones the gods made, well, Nightmare made, the god who was first on the list, who he was to end. He...wasn't sure he could do it anymore.

When he looked at those little lights in the sky, he felt calm, happy even, something that was rare for Killer, actually, feeling much of anything was pretty darn rare for him. After everything he has done, he didn’t feel like he deserved to feel, but the stars...they whispered otherwise. Calling him to do something drastic, something that would change his life…to become one of the heretics he had helped burn.

Not like he had anything to lose anyway, the other members of the cult didn’t see him as a person, they saw him as a thing who would kill them or their children if they stepped out of line. The elders saw him as a thing, something for them to use to get what they wanted. None of these people cared about him, nobody loved him here.

All he was, was a thing.

That’s all he was, all he ever would be, he didn’t want to live like this anymore, so there really wasn’t a reason not to finally tell the elders what he thought. The morning after he saw the stars, Killer decided would be his last. He knew he was going to burn that night, but it didn’t stop him from screaming at the elders in front of everyone at meal time, telling them they were fucking crazy, how no one could killer the gods, not even one of them. Like his sibling had done.

He didn't even really have proof- but how can someone that made something as beautiful as the stars, ever be what they described?

Of course, they didn’t particularly like that, having to get some of the men to drag him off to the pire. But it was Killers last day, he had no intention of going out quietly, yelling about how everyone was delusional, scratching, biting and clawing even while he was being restrained. And like the many times he had seen before, he was hoisted up on the pire, people throwing logs under him quickly even as he kept clawing and screaming every profanity he had in his vocabulary. However, he wasn’t immediately burned, no, he was left on the pire until the evening.

During that time he was just...alone like always, no one looked at him, no one spoke to him, but he was used to that.

Just before evening, one of the elders approached him with a frown, glaring up at the pire he was tied to. Killer couldn’t stare at him in the eyes, knowing the look the elders were giving him. One of disappointment and hatred.

It was almost like a dream when people started to gather around, it was so unreal to not be in the crowd, not being the one looking up at the pire, but the one looking down at the people. It was all hazy for Killer after that, the fire was lit. It slowly crept up around him, nipping his legs, then arms. And then all he felt was hatred, pure and unbridled.

He didn’t hurt anymore, the smell of his burning bones no longer affecting him. Anger filled him, and it started to drip from his sockets, his eyelights disappeared within his hate, his morality disappearing in that moment.

Rage and pain flowed from his eyes and he tore his way out of the ropes, the fire still burning his clothes as he lunged at the elder who looked at him earlier, tearing him apart as the others ran. He tore into anyone who dared approach him, just like they had taught him to do.

And in that moment he was no longer just some toy, the flames bending to his will and spreading to burn everything, just as they burned him. The whole village turned to a inferno of flames and screams.

The things that the cult members had said about him were true now, he wasn’t a person, he was a force of nature, inevitable as their death. Well, they were the ones that asked for a murder machine. But you can’t live in the flames forever, at some point you shall burn as well, and Killer was no exception to that rule. He felt the pain again, and his screams joined the ones of his once family, who had cast him aside.

He ran blind into the night, under the stars that had encouraged this, he stumbled, leaving the fire behind, leaving himself behind. The boy who had bent to the will of others died in that fire and now a man walked out, one who would never let himself be taken advantage of again.

__________

Somehow, he wasn’t dead by the time he got to the local town, stumbling his way into the first building he saw and pretty much immediately everyone freaked out, (what else would you do when you see a half dead man walk into your favorite restaurant afterall?) They got him bandaged up the best they could and tried to heal him as well. But Killer was stubborn now, stubborn as a mule, and he left once his wounds were wrapped, not accepting anything from anyone.

He didn’t need charity.

Luck however, was sprinting away in the other direction of Killer as fast as possible, leaving him to fend for himself in a world where he didn’t know the rules. He had no idea what coins were, he didn’t know what any of this shit was. So he did the only thing he knew how to do, sneak around and take things.

Like in his village though, there were a lot of guards here, always looking and watching for people like him. Soon enough he figured why not get his hands on one of their weapons then, to defend himself (because he obviously wasn't JUST curious, of course) . Turns out, stealing from a royal guard isn’t a good idea at all (who would have guessed, Killer) a miscalculation on Killer's side, the guard quickly noticed and he was promptly cuffed and dragged away. He swore he could hear lady Luck snickering at him.

Now, in a cell and very much angry at everything once again, he tried to get out, wiggling the bars, hitting them, he even bit them at one point, but nothing worked- until he remembered he could use magic (what a genius, people). Deciding it was his best bet, he summoned a few flames and threw it at the bars, surprisingly, it worked and the bars melted because of the heat. He smiled smugly to himself, squeezing through the hole he made to make a run for it.

He wasn't sure what to do now as he looked around, cursing at his burns again, so he walked up the stairs he found in a hall he found himself in….and kept walking up the stairs….and more stairs…. Why were there so many fucking stairs.

He decided then, he didn’t like stairs. But as he walked, his angry mumbling was interrupted by their ending (about time). He smiled even more smugly, he had gotten out and no one had even noticed! He walked a bit more, getting distracted by how big the place was, wandering his way straight into- the king himself.

He looked at the king and the king looked at him, both slightly startled to see the other.

Killer backed up a little, almost falling down the stairs behind him. The king backed up as well, almost screaming out for help. Killer practically jumped, closing his mouth just in time, “no no no!” He pleaded, looking scared, “please don't yell!”

The king smacked his hand away, almost looking offended. “Give me one reason why I shouldn't “ he crossed his arms. Killer wanted to reply in a snarky way, since the king was giving him attitude, but he was petrified for a moment.

This was Nightmare. The king- no, the god he grew up learning about. He had to get this right the first time “I uh-” black tears ran down his cheeks as he thought up a totally clever excuse, “I am the cleaning lady-?”

The king looked at him unamused and completely stone faced. “Really? That is the best you had?”

Killer shrugged, “I gave it my best shot. You have to admit, it was pretty good for a desperate attempt.” The king still looked unamused, ready to call for the guards or Horror- but then his eye was caught by the burns on Killer’s arms..and his soul melted a little.

The god sighed defeated “...just come in”

~~~~~

I am very very salty still even if I got it done, Killer will probably be bullied often by me because of this stupid chapter.

Once again THANK YOU FLORA

(Killer doesn’t get an illustration cause he gave me problems and I’m salty)

[toooster]

Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

Request: listen to my words very carefully. This is a process. Step 1) wait for love is the law by Gigi Perez to come out. Step 2) analyze that song like no other. Step 3) write the most gut wrenching fic about it and return it to me. Here is my theory. In my eyes Dreykov believes he resembles god, and is better than anyone else. Therefore the widows have to follow extremely strict rules, almost like it’s their religion. Now here is were the fic idea comes in, Natasha meets reader. It starts as a friendship, helping each other out, etc. Until the two seem to catch feelings for one another, in which the staff notices and tells Dreykov. Dreykov sees this as a threat because it could mess them up, mess with their minds, so they are separated. Never allowed to see each other. Love was the law, but religion was taught. Obviously that’s leaving it on a cliffhanger so I need you to fill in the blanks, make it absolutely amazing. Make me cry a little. You see where I’m going with this?

Warnings: Cussing, TW!Dreykov, talk of killing, violence, not being able to see her gf 💔

A/N: I’m thinking I might do a Part 2 and turn this into a series, let me know if I should!

this took so incredibly long..but it was totally worth it! Enjoy!

Capital loss.

Taken to the Red Room at 5, there was never room for error as y/n got older. Dreykov saw her as a weapon, nothing more. Never once was she viewed as a human, to Dreykov she was a weapon, and to the staff she was nothing but an object that they could abuse.

“Not good enough!” Karen, a staff member yelled. Y/n had to have “special training” due to her misbehaving. Well in their eyes it was misbehaving, but to anyone else it was just a teenage girl rebelling.

“I hope she chokes and dies.” Y/n said as she stabbed the unknown piece of meat on her plate. “Don’t you think that’s a bit far? Yes it’s their jobs and all but do you ever wonder that maybe this isn’t what they want?” Nat asked as she sat across from the girl.

“I could give a rats ass about what they want.” She said rolling her eyes at Nats ridiculous comment. “You wanna train with me later?” Nat asked interrupting the silence.

“Sure.” Y/n replied bluntly, Natasha wasn’t sure what it was she found so endearing about the girl, ever since they were small Natasha had a certain interest in her. Maybe it was out of sheer curiosity, or maybe it was something deeper? Natasha wasn’t sure just yet.

Love was the law.

The two girls sparred for a while, neither giving up. Unfortunately, they both are extremely hard headed and stubborn. “You’re not winning.” Y/n said with a smirk on her face. Natasha felt a weird sensation in her stomach, maybe that weird meat went bad?

A staff member stood outside the room staring in through the plexiglass window, a disapproving look on her face.

“Sir?” Susan, the staff member from earlier asked quietly. “What can I do for you Ms. Blancher?” Dreykov replied turning around slowly in his chair. “I’d like to bring up something that I think you should be aware of..” “And that would be?” He said as she sparked his interest.

“Ms.Romanoff and Ms.L/N. They seem to be spending quite a lot of time together recently, I’m just concerned that their “friendship” will get in the way of training and missions. We need them as focused as possible, and this “friendship” could impact their focus.” Blancher spoke slowly, emphasizing the quotations around friendship.

“mhm..What do you think I shall do?” Dreykov asked, “I think separating them would be for the better. And with Ms.L/N’s past it wouldn’t be such a horrible idea.” She responded with a smirk.

A week had gone by and Natasha wondered why she hadn’t seen Y/N in some time, “Yelena, where’s Y/n?” Nat asked, her voice laced with concern. “You didn’t hear? She was moved to the other squad, with Macy.” the younger sibling explained.

“What? Why?” Natasha asked quickly, “I don’t know, I’ll ask Macy when I have the chance.”

“This is so fucking stupid.” Y/n said throwing her hands up in the air, “Why did you even get moved? Did you guys..do something?” Macy said hunching down over the table whispering. “What? No!” “Well I know how you can be sometimes. It’s no secret you have feelings for Nat, and when you want something you make sure you get it.” Macy shrugged.

“I don’t like Nat. We are friends, and that’s all.” Y/n said pointing at Macy, “Plus even if I did like her, it’s not like she’d like me back. Because “lesbians” are frowned upon.” she said looking at her feet.

But religion was taught.



[feroshgirlsims]

Chapter 3.2 - What Not to Wear

VLAD

It’s Wednesday, two days until his date with Alice, and Vlad is no closer to having something to wear. William volunteered to go shopping, but Vlad declined. He doesn’t have the money to find something that meets his exacting standards, and the salespeople always complain when he tears out the tags before trying anything on. 

It’s honestly a fucking headache. 

He drops his bag by the front door and toes off his boots. His mother hums in the kitchen, frying up something divine. 

He stuffs the simoleons they found on the body the other day into the jar on the counter. Truthfully, the Strauds didn’t lack money; it was just that cleaning it already took a lot of effort, and they didn’t want any unnecessary attention. 

Plus, his mother thinks a lack of simoleons keeps them grounded. “Capitalism rots the brain and erodes free will” is her favorite saying. That and “It doesn’t make much sense to pay when you can steal.”

“You’re home!” she turns and smiles, pulling him into a hug and ruffling his hair. Vlad fidgets but doesn’t fight. “I thought you were eating on campus,” she says when he finally twists out of her grasp.

“William has a study group and the cafeteria is serving macaroni salad. Do you know how long that food has been sitting? Ages. It’d be the perfect cover for a poisoning. I’m surprised I’m alive.”

His mother snorts. “No one would murder you by poisoning a college cafeteria. The likelihood of you getting medical attention before your body gives out is too high. Even fast-acting poisons are slower than you think.”

She would know. Julia Straud is an expert in poisons. It’s an interest of Vlad’s, too. Usually, they talk about it for hours, but today, he isn’t in the mood.

He heads for the couch and collapses, letting the muted feeling that’s been dogging him all week wash over. The high from the brawl with Christopher might’ve carried him, but one punch was nothing to get excited about. Instead, the buzzing under his skin has simply grown when, for once, he’d just like silence.

“Why so sad, my sweet darling?”

Vlad’s eyes flash open. His mother is standing over him, smirking. 

“Is sleeping illegal in this house?” he grumbles, “I didn’t think that was one of the rules.”

“Don’t be disrespectful. You know it’s not,” she shoves at his legs until he sits up. “Why do you look like someone just shit in your oats?”

It isn’t any use keeping secrets, although it’s not expressly against the rules. His mother has a way of hunting down every hidden truth. She couldn’t wrangle their merry band of lunatics otherwise. “I have a date—”

“Oh, my lands—”

“Do not get excited.” He cuts her a sharp look. “It may go nowhere. Your expectations should be in the basement,” Vlad pauses, “Actually, lower than that. Your expectations should be in hell.” 

It’s not that he didn’t understand William’s advice about being a better version of himself. It just seems impossible to follow it. Pretending is fine in short bursts, like when the police are questioning him, but pretending for the sole purpose of getting someone to like him? Even if he could manage it, the whole thing would be so exhausting he’d need a week of sleep to recover. 

And what if Alice was like Fuifui? What if she got confused about who he really was?

“You could buy something you like,” she offers, “Go to one of the fancy boutiques in town where the salespeople peddle temptation to ruin like the devil taught them.”

“It’s called clothing, mother, not ‘temptation to ruin.’ And obviously, that’s not an option. I don’t know why you, of all sims, would suggest that.”

Her eyes narrow, “Because I love you. If you want to buy something to wear on this date, then I will make it happen. By any means necessary.”

It’s not worth it. Holding this territory is hard enough without assholes like Jacques Villareal getting ideas in his head because he thinks Julia's spendthrift son is a weak spot.

“Never mind,” Vlad groans, “And I actually mean it. If I find money under my pillow or in my wallet, I will be fucking pissed.”

PREV | NEXT

(Part 2 of 4)

[faithforgottens]

𝒅𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒚𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆.

from the writer’s desk: i’d tell you i started this a year ago after deciding i needed closure on post - crying on newport beach about how i’m incapable of being loved but that would mean me unloading all over the dash, and nobody needs that. i’m just a girl, out here projecting like tomorrow’s not coming, and thought i’d share. please know that i love carol, i just had to pick a character that i didn’t have strong emotional attachment to in order to play my villain. motivation to continue this would be much appreciated, thnx.  summary: you’ve been stuck in carol’s web for nearly four months now, and you need a distraction before you go postal and commit a capital crime or worse, tell her you love her. fortunately for you, natasha’s willing to offer her services. contains: college!natasha x female reader —— warnings include toxic relationship dynamics that involve infidelity, gaslighting and cheating, marijuana use, alcohol consumption, nsfw content [ fingering, dirty talk ]. →  inbox status: OPEN                                        don’t repost my works anywhere.

INCOMING MESSAGE FROM — SATAN    💬     am i gonna see you tonight?

INCOMING MESSAGE FROM — SATAN    💬     :(

INCOMING MESSAGE FROM — SATAN    💬     hellllllooooooooooo??

INCOMING MESSAGE FROM — SATAN    💬     I WANNA SEE U I MISS UR PRETTY FACE

INCOMING MESSAGE FROM — SATAN    💬     pls come tonight. it would mean everything to me

You’ve never claimed to be smart.

In fact, you’re pretty sure you have to fall on the opposite end of that spectrum in order to bother showing your face tonight at the behest of Carol fuckin’ Danvers. Satan. It’s the work of the goddamn devil pulling you from the clutches of your apartment’s comfortable silence where you’d be much better off riding through the nuanced gut-punching waves of disappointing Carol guilt instead of the hell storm that is being played once again by Carol guilt. You even put on eyeliner for such an occasion, because if you’re going to get fucked over (either physically, emotionally, or both), you might as well look good doing it.

Her name’s still lighting up your phone as the Uber drops you off at the curb, boasting a flood of pictures on Snapchat that illuminate the awaiting scene inside of the frat house through blurry streaks of glass bottles and marijuana smoke and the pale expanse of her neck where a glint of her gold necklace flashes is promised to you to do as you wish, leaving behind bruises or lip prints. It’s an enticing picture painted for you. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think maybe tonight will be the night she tells you she’s free from the clutches of Maria, her perfectly sane girlfriend that you’ve only ever known through Carol’s jilted lens, and that she’ll even let you climb her like a tree in front of her friends.

Lucky you.

Except you do know better. In the pit of your stomach, you know the reality is that you are in closer proximity than Maria, which therefore makes you the most convenient piece of ass at Carol’s disposal, that Carol believes — and is likely right about how — you’re still wound tight enough around her finger to make you drop to your knees like a good little girl, blinded by her golden halo of hair and the whiskey-soaked taste of her lips and ready to excuse her shit treatment of you. That even feeling like you have her for the beat of a butterfly’s wings is worth your sanity. And despite it all, it isn’t enough to keep you away. It’s not enough to exile the parts of a masochistic heart beating in your chest that somehow loves her, even if the only part of you she loves is your willingness to show up for her.

Carol’s fraternity is co-ed, which means that between all of the brothers, their social circle extends to the farthest corners of the university — they consume a fair bit of your own, considering you have at least two classes a semester with Bucky, sit with them at Wanda’s softball games (mostly so you can talk shit about your high school ex that made the team), and rent study rooms at least once a month with Thor, Bruce, and Val to spiral into late night insanity while you all contemplate the meaning of life and attempt to memorize vocabulary words. You slip in through the door, bass thudding into your molars and the heavy blanket of smoke and sweat covers your bare shoulders as you weave your way through the house.

“Look who finally showed up!” Behind the counter in the kitchen is Sam Wilson, running position as makeshift bartender. You detour long enough for a vodka and Diet Coke, stopping next to the barstool that Bucky’s perched on. He tucks you underneath his arm for a side hug, other hand tipping his own solo cup back as he tries to drain the last bit of liquor down his throat.

They’re good friends to you. It’s why you hate doing this dance with Satan — because at some point, you feel that there’s going to be a tectonic shift between the two of you that dredges up a rift in the concrete and you don’t know who will be left on your side. You don’t know who you’ll be able to look in the eye and lie to about Carol, who would pick you over her. You don’t even know if any of them would believe you or would write you off as crazy as you’ve been writing yourself off as of late.

You tell yourself that you’re trying, goddammit, to shove that piece of yourself back into a locked drawer and enjoy the company of your friends.

“Anybody seen Danvers?” you pitch as nonchalantly as you know how, planting your elbows down onto the granite of the counter while you watch Sam mix your drink. He goes heavy on the vodka, which you quietly appreciate.

Bucky snorts. “Yeah, we’ve seen her alright.”

“She’s in the dining room trying to rally everyone into a round of strip beer pong,” Sam explains. “Last we saw, she got her shirt stuck in the chandelier.”

“The face of class, this fraternity,” you tease as Sam hands you your drink. He can’t help but laugh, a jovial, guttural noise that makes you smile, even though your stomach is currently in your throat.

You bid them farewell and snake through the living room, trying to avoid the furniture or the bodies of other people and almost always fail in avoiding both at the same time as you carve out a path to the dining room. It’s densely packed, which forebodes the game of beer pong that the boys mentioned. You try not to cut your elbows into the bones and flesh of others to make your way through, but your adrenaline is humming at the thought of seeing Carol, the thought of her body glowing in the house lights and the cut of her physique out on display for anyone, including you, to openly ogle without abandon.

“Goddamn, Danvers!” someone yells mirthfully. “Keep it in your pants!”

Whistling down to one thought, one track, your mind lasers in and you’re positive that the sharp point of your elbow nails T’Challa directly in the ribs as you finally make it to the inner lip of the circle around the dining room table. It’s desperate. You know it’s desperate. You'll care about it later, you’re sure, but for now, all that’s on your mind is her.

“For the love of fuck, I—” Someone stumbles back into you, dark hair in frizzy waves and the bill of their baseball cap nearly jabbing straight into your nose. Wanda Maximoff spins around, her eyes lightening up at the sight of you as she grabs onto your wrist to stable herself. “Oh! Hey, babe,” she says with a smile. “Didn’t know you were coming.”

“Me either,” you tell her, trying not to be blatant as you scan for Carol. “Carol didn’t tell me until last minute.”

“Boo,” Wanda pouts, before turning to yell over her shoulder, “Danvers! Fuck you!”

“Get in line!” Carol calls back, and your head locks in on where her voice comes from. Your stomach plunges into free fall when you see her: as promised, she’s standing around in her sports bra and jeans, white teeth glinting and blonde hair curling around onto her tanned shoulders, biceps on display and her arms snaked around — her.

Maria Hill, in the flesh, pressed against Carol’s side and her chin balanced on Carol’s shoulder as Carol makes a shot one-handed that successfully lands in a cup on the opposite end of the table. Carol cheers victoriously, and Maria kisses her cheek, and you notice that Carol’s hand on Maria’s side drifts down towards her ass.

All of Carol’s messages swim inside your mind, the ones where she assures you that it’s all real, that she and Hill are done, that Hill’s holding her back, that she’s felt things for you since the moment she laid eyes on you and just knew; the ones where she paints a beautiful picture of a future with you, the same picture she’s just doused in cheap spirits and ruined for the dozenth time. Your drink suddenly tastes like arsenic, heavy and uneven in your stomach, the room shrinking and heat crawling up your neck in an uncomfortable panic. You are going to be sick.

Wanda’s voice comes through in the midst of the ringing in your ears. Fuck you, Danvers.

It takes you a moment to realize that Wanda’s voice isn’t just a reverberation inside your mind, but is right in your ear. “Hey!” She calls your name again, and you finally snap your attention back to her. She scans over your face for a moment, eyebrows folding in the center of her brow. “You alright? Where’d you just go?”

The shock is fresh on your face, salt water from the crashing wave that’s irritating your eyes — you refuse to let yourself cry, here in front of everyone, because all that’s going to do is open the door to a conversation you don’t want to have, incite a fight with Carol that you’ll surely lose, leave you feeling even lower than you do at the moment. You shake your head, trying to shake whatever emotions that aren’t nonchalant off of your face. “Noth—nowhere,” you stammer, voice an octave higher than usual. Wanda’s perplexity only deepens. “More crowded than I thought. Got beer-splashed.”

Wanda breaks into a smile, seemingly buying your excuse. “C’mon, what’d you expect?” she ribs. It’s a loaded question, and if Wanda wasn’t Wanda, you’re sure it’d be enough to light your rapidly shorting fuse. The thin strain in your falsified smile must give something away, because she softens the slightest bit and wraps her arm around yours. “Let’s go downstairs. I’ll kick your ass sideways in pool.”

You appreciatively take Wanda’s out, allowing her to guide you away from the Carol show and the crowd of people you have steeled yourself in order to not cry in front of and head with her towards the basement, which the frat has renovated into a lounge space with a giant television, sectional that is infamous for its hosting of The Threesome, and the pool table. It hasn’t garnered quite the same audience that the beer pong game has, but less people means you feel slightly less suffocated. Carol’s still got her foot on your throat, but down here, it’s easier to maneuver and act as though you haven’t just had yourself made a fool in front of everyone without them knowing.

Relieved for the little things, like elbow room, you sit down on the arm of the sectional and take a long drink from your cup — if you’re going to survive the rest of the night without your tail tucking between your legs (and you’re determined to further your self-sabotage by going the extra mile to ensure Carol knows she fucked up, even though it’s likely she doesn’t care) you’ll have to be drunker than this. Wanda adjusts her hat on her head and picks up a pool cue, glancing back over her shoulder at you. “Want someone to show you how it’s done?” she teases.

You lift your cup in acknowledgment, smile shedding off of your lips. “Go for it.”

As Wanda weasels her way into the current game of pool, you do a quick intake of who all’s downstairs. There’s a few of the brothers, a few of the brother’s dates, people that are otherwise background characters designed to make campus seem at capacity but not so many people that no one would notice if you threw up in the corner or worse, started crying. You purse your lips around the rim of your solo cup, scanning the company around the pool table. Wanda sidles up next to another one of her brothers, poking her with the pool cue. “Nat!” Wanda whines. “Give me room.”

Natasha Romanoff shuffles out of the way with the roll of her eyes. “Poke me with the stick again and it’s gonna go somewhere less than ideal.”

Wanda flicks her middle finger upright before hunching around the shape of the pool cue. “You don’t scare me, Natty.”

“Your funeral.”

Your eyes follow Natasha out of the way, and she feels their weight because the next thing you know, you’re off the cliffs and deep somewhere inside the greenery of her eyes. They’re pretty eyes, you idly note, and you find yourself mulling over Natasha Romanoff, as a person, as a concept, as Natasha. She’s the oldest of the girls in the fraternity, a senior to your junior, and she’s been around for so long that it’s hard to remember a time when she wasn’t there. It’s hard to imagine a room without her in it, a constant fixture on the mantel that you don’t even bother acknowledging it anymore.  

She cocks an eyebrow at you after what’s sure to be a long moment of staring, and Wanda, who is unfortunately more observant than you’d like to believe, begins laughing. “Am I interrupting this little staring contest?”

Natasha smirks. “I could win a staring contest and kick your ass at the same time, Maximoff.”

“Show off,” Wanda grumbles as she passes the pool cue over to Natasha. She then looks at you, and whatever grumpiness dissipates, her shit-eating grin returning. “Now, you on the other hand,” she preludes with a gesture towards you. “There’s no way.”

You drain the rest of your drink and discard the cup off to the side. "You talk a lot, Wan,” you inform her as you walk up to the side of the pool table. Wanda just grins as you turn to Natasha, gesturing for the pool cue. “Let me have a go.”

Natasha acquiesces and passes you the pool cue, giving you the space you need coupled with a low nod of encouragement. There are a few clusters of balls around the table and you’re trying to eye up a shot that’ll give you not only a handful of points, but will get Wanda off your back — even if you are grateful for the timing of her diversions.

Unfortunately, it’s not enough; you can still hear the laughter and music through the walls from upstairs, a raucous noise that scatters your train of thought. Is it Carol? What’s she doing? What’s she whispering into Hill’s ear? Does she know you’re even here? Does she care? 

Probably not.

You take the shot without thinking, balls ricocheting off the sides of the pool table. Wanda barks out a laugh. “Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”

“Just getting warmed up,” you say stiffly, handing the pool cue off.

Wanda’s face is alight with amusement, nodding slowly as she moves around the pool table for her next shot. “Okay.”

You’re too far in your head, and you know it. You’re content to linger on the outskirts of the game while everyone else that Wanda goes about recruiting takes their turn. It’s a few minutes or an hour before the cue ends up back in your hand, like a rickety sort of clockwork that is unexpected but also entirely predictable. You assess the situation and find a decent enough angle now that the game has progressed, significantly so.

You bend over slightly, eyes fixed on a blue ten that’s not too far from the cue. Before you can make the shot, you hear someone behind you muttering. “Do it like this.”

When you glance over your shoulder, it’s Natasha, only a few inches from where you stand, hands hesitating before she reaches out. “Back up,” she guides, her hands stationing on your hips and forcing you to take a half-shuffle of a step backwards. “And lift your elbow like this.” You’re clay and she shapes you how she wishes, her touch feather light. “Okay. Now try.”

You do exactly as she says, pool cue shooting from your hand and colliding with the cue ball. The ten you’ve had your eyes on sails into the pocket without any interference. 

“Nice shot, sweetheart,” Natasha says, her voice ghosting along the back of your spine. As you straighten up, you glance behind you, noticing the faint grin along the curve of her lips.

“Well that wasn’t sexual at all,” Wanda comments with a low whistle as the pool cue returns to her grip. “Do losers get laid still? I wouldn’t know.” With a toothy flash of a grin, she draws the cue back and makes another shot — you’re not entirely focused on her efforts, thanks to the gravity of Natasha’s sights still pressing deep into your skin.  

Wanda talks a big enough game that she recruits nearly everyone standing around the pool shot to give it a go, which provides a window of opportunity for Natasha to brush a hand along your shoulder and steal you away. “Up for a smoke?” she asks, and you nod. You allow her to lead the way out through the basement’s French doors, slipping outside into the backyard where the sky is dotted with stars, the air smells only the slightest bit cleaner, and the music is nothing but a dull pulse from inside the house.

Natasha steers you away from the patio where other fraternity brothers and their guests are sitting around, enjoying their drinks and laughing amongst their idle, stoned conversations around the fire pit. You follow her into the grass, trailing around the side of the house until the two of you don’t have any other company aside from each other and Thor’s knockout rose bushes that he takes great pride in.

She leans up against the wall, hands fishing in the pocket of her jacket for her lighter. For someone who’s devoted the rest of their evening to shooting metaphorical (or even literal) middle fingers in Carol’s direction, you’re still too far on edge to be nonchalant about any of it. The quiet is all consuming, maddening inside of your buzzing mind. Natasha produces a joint, embers burning on the end as she lights it and brings it up to her lips. You’re left to watch as she takes a long, casual drag, a cloud of smoke billowing from her lips on the exhale. Her wrist then extends, offering the joint up; if there is such a thing as too eager, you’d be the poster child for it, the way you pluck it from her fingers and take a hit.

“Something on your mind?” she asks, her voice a low drag of gravel against the muted bass thud inside of the house. You open an eye and glance over at her, her green eyes burning holes through you as she watches. 

“Eh,” you mutter half-heartedly with a shrug. “Not worth it.”

You pass the joint back to her after you take one more drag, your eyes fixed on the steady stream of smoke that you forcibly control the exit from your mouth. It’s nice to have control over something, you think, even if it is, to some degree, just seeing how long you can hold your breath. 

“Seems like you could use a distraction,” Natasha comments, fingers idly rolling the joint between her fingers as smoke still curls from the tip. 

You laugh, a low and guttural noise that’s passive at best. “Yeah, probably.”

Natasha turns so her entire body is facing you, and it doesn’t register, the way that she’s looking at you, until you feel her brush your hair off of your face. Your eyes fully open, somewhat surprised by the action, watching her carefully. Natasha’s a lot of things, but gentle isn’t one you’d readily associate with her. It’s almost like she’s handling you like glass, waiting for the right moment to shatter you. It’s a hiccup in your chest, a strange feeling washing over your body.

“Let me distract you, then.” She says it simply, like it’s the most logical conclusion to arrive at.

“Nat, what...”

“C’mere.” One of her hands encircles your wrist, guiding you closer. You follow wordlessly in her guidance, unsure of what she’s doing or what’s to come. She takes another hit of the joint, her eyes glowing the same way the end of the joint does, a low burning fire that seems to grow hotter the longer your eyes are connected. 

The hand holding your wrist slides up your body until she’s cupping your jaw, her thumb darting across the expanse of your face to swipe across your lips in a prompt to open them. She lowers the joint, bringing her face inches away from your own as her mouth forms a perfect circle and releases smoke. You’ve shotgunned weed before, but never at such a close proximity. Natasha breathes out and you breathe in, eyes fluttering shut at the intimacy of the moment. 

“Gonna let me distract you some more?” she whispers, and you barely register yourself nodding before her lips capture your own. Her mouth is plush and soft but nothing about her is gentle anymore — this is where she forces a spiderwebbing crack across your surface, the deft way in which she manipulates your lips to do exactly as she’d like, her tongue skating across the skin and opening your mouth to allow her access. You can’t help but to sigh into the kiss. She is exactly what she claims she is: a distraction, a welcome reprieve, and the golden halo around Carol’s head seems fuzzy and jilted now.

Natasha kisses you like she’s trying to set you on fire; at some point she has absconded the joint and ground out its remnants into the mulch, both her hands cupping your face as she boxes you in with her legs and adjusts the two of you so your back is now flush against the wall. “How’s this?” she murmurs against your ear, lips starting a descent down your neck that is feather light and the gentle scrape of her teeth.

“Very... very distracting,” you stammer out, fingers curling into fiery red hair. 

“Good,” Natasha hums, her mouth vibrating over a particularly sensitive spot on your collarbone that causes your grip in her hair to tighten. “Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be so far in your head.” 

You nod, thankful for the reward of her body pressing against yours. 

“What d’you say?” Her voice ghosts over your skin, and for a moment, you’re not sure what it is she’s asking. It takes a moment, the weed and the liquor clouding your mind, but the dig of Natasha’s blunt fingernails into your hips and the graze of her teeth along your skin serves as motivation. “Huh? What d’you say, princess?” 

“Thank you,” you gasp, the feeling of her mouth tightening around your skin wet and hot sending a glimmer of electricity down your spinal cord. Natasha chuckles, a dark and melodic noise that buzzes through your body. 

“You’re welcome,” she croons. “’S that all you needed? Or do you need more?”

More. It’s the knee jerk response you have, the way your world has narrowed down to just her and the scent of her heady perfume and each individual curve of muscle is now flush against you. Your eyes open only to see Natasha grinning like she’s the fuckin’ devil. 

Maybe you were misplaced somehow.

Natasha’s hands drag over your sides, up and down roughly as she kisses you and forces your legs farther apart so she’s able to snake one of her thighs in between them. She rucks your top up on the edges, fingers brushing over your skin in a delightful contrast to the cool evening air. Natasha is hot, her touch burning and singeing the skin wherever it moves. She’s painting you out of ashes and making you into something beautiful, something uniquely her own. Her hands slip underneath your shirt and you feel one hand trail upwards, fingers wrapping around your breast before squeezing. It elicits another tiny moan from you, which Natasha swallows down with a kiss. “Shh,” she hisses against your lips. “Be quiet.”

You arch into her touch as her fingers slip beneath the cup of your bra and pinch your nipple tight, another squeak of pleasure groaned into her mouth. It only encourages her further, the other hand of hers moving in the opposite direction. “Want me to touch you?” she whispers in your ear while you press your mouth into her shoulder, breath warm against your ear and her teeth just barely missing your earlobe. “Bet you’re not distracted now; only thing you and that pussy are thinking about is me, huh?”

“Fuck, Nat,” you mumble into her skin.

“Yeah you are,” she replies with a shit eating grin, your head tilting back until it roughly meets the back of the wall as her hand goes up your skirt. 

You’d been meticulous prior to coming over, thinking on whatever lone star trailing in the sky that you’d be seducing Carol tonight; you’d purposefully worn your skimpiest pair of underwear just to show her what she could have if she was with you. It’s only when you see the look on Natasha’s face, the way her pupils dilate and her jaw slackens the slightest bit as her fingers skim in between the folds of your thigh and vulva and feels lace that you feel something resembling satisfaction. “You came ready for a distraction, princess,” she grumbles, moving your underwear to the side and swiping her fingers through what is now sheer want dripping from you. “Fuck, you’re wet.”

“N... Nat,” you whine, squirming around in the pursuit of pressure. “Touch me.”

She places the tip of her finger at your entrance, just barely teasing it in. “Ask nicely, honey.”

The words spill from your lips without thought. “Please, Nat, please touch me, fuck m—” She cuts you off as she slips her finger inside of you and you all but rocket up the side of the wall at the feeling. Her free hand, still underneath your shirt, wrestles out from beneath the fabric and is slapped over your mouth to muffle whatever noise you make.

“Thought I told you to be quiet,” she says between her gritted teeth. “Here.” She presses her index and middle fingers against your lips and you acquiesce, opening them wide enough to allow them to slip in. “Suck.”

You do as you’re told, happy to oblige as she begins to finger you. There’s nothing soft or sweet about the way she fucks you; she adds another finger and finds a steady rhythm, curling each time she’s knuckle deep inside of you just so she can be rewarded with you humming around the fingers in your mouth. It amuses her to some extent, the way her eyes have darkened and her mouth is slightly agape. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and considering how tight you are wound, you’re not going to last long.

"Clench around me, pretty girl,” she hisses amongst the other litany of dirty things she’s whispering in your ear. “Such a sweet pussy, does whatever I ask it to; what if I want this pussy all to myself? You gonna let me have it?”

You nod, Natasha withdrawing her fingers from your mouth before she hauls you in for the filthiest kiss of your life. “Fuck,” you whimper against her lips. “Yours, Nat, your pussy.”

“Yeah, I know. This is my pussy now, all tight and hot and wet and desperate just for me. This was what you needed, wasn’t it? Needed me to fuck you silly until you forget how to put one foot in front of the other.”

“Please, Nat, gonna...” 

“What?” she teases, her thumb flicking across your clit and you know that she’s doomed you, mind and body barreling down a track that there is no return from. “What, baby? Use your words.”

“Gonna come,” you manage to get out, and she fucking laughs.

“‘S right,” she agrees. “Gonna make this little pussy come all over my fingers, since I’m the only one who can. That right?” You nod; her fingers tighten in your hair and pull your head back so your neck is exposed for her. “C’mon, baby, wanna see you make a mess on my hand. Come for me like a good little slut. You know you want to.” You do, you do, and everything is bordering on the edge of too much the way Natasha is sucking your neck and rubbing tight circles on your clit. “Show me who’s pussy this is. Come.”

Another few thrusts and flicks of your clit and you are gone, Natasha bringing her mouth back to yours to swallow the keens and cries of you hitting your climax. The brick wall underneath you scratches at your shirt but it is a heavenly feeling, losing control underneath Natasha. She just smiles when she pulls away and you slump into her, perfectly sated. 

“That was hot,” she says with a wicked grin, pulling her fingers out of you. She doesn’t break eye contact as she brings them up to her lips, sucking your taste off of them. Her eyes alight with pleasure, a contented hum reverberating from her vocal cords. “Thanks, pretty girl.”

Beat that, Danvers.

[sumoattack-gooddog]

Here’s the thing about WatcherTV,

Let’s talk about what’s being offered —

Let’s talk the financial —

Let’s talk the unanswered —

Let’s talk the solution —

Cumulatively since they began — trailers included — Watcher has 377 videos available for view. Netflix has 17,000 titles. Episodes, movies, and most recently games. If the minimum price of Netflix at $6.99/month provides that, how can one justify $6/month for WatcherTV? 2.2% of Netflix’s size is what Watcher is offering — all of which are currently free on YouTube.

The closer similarity, of course, would not be Netflix but Dropout. The prices of their subscriptions are equivalent, but again, what isn’t, is the amount of content. There is already a significant backlog of videos that can be consumed for new subscribers AND three different shows which post weekly. Had the company come forward with a backlog of new media at the ready to be watched, people would have been far more receptive to this proposal.

I understand that, as a creative, you have certain aspirations for making the best version of your idea. You want what you put out in the world to be as close to the image in your head as possible. Sometimes there are constraints due to time, due to money, due to manpower — so on and so forth. I recognize that. I, myself, have worked professionally, academically, and privately in film/media production. I Understand.

What I do not understand is the decision to ostracize a larger portion of your audience. Not everyone can afford a new streaming service — especially one that offers such little in return for the cost. But beyond the American-centric perspective of it. This platform isolates the majority of foreign fans, especially those who are subject to exchange rates. What I have seen some refer to as “the price of a single coffee,” for others is a week’s worth of food.

This community was beautiful and passionate and diverse as a result of its ability to be easily and freely consumed. That will be lost without change.

Furthermore, we see issue derived from the lack of transparency as to what is being offered. We are being promised “bigger and better,” new things, and the return of collapsed things. However, there is a significant lack of clarity and it is felt. Beyond Travel Season and its upcoming May time release, there is no clarity as to what (beyond the old content) people are getting. Yes, there is the vague promise of future seasons of the fan favorites, but there is no clear time as to when. If people subscribe now, how long will they be waiting for content that isn’t already free?

How can this be fixed? Frankly, good fucking question. Perusing through the comments, it’s pretty clear that a majority of fans feel blindsided and lied to. Watcher has consistently denounced capitalism and condemned corporate greed, and to what extent this behavior falls into it definitely raises some questions. I think it is worth acknowledging, they are a company that has grown to put out content. That means they are responsible for 27 (I believe) paychecks, beyond their own. But that is not the only explanation for why they’re doing this. Or their most prominent one — I’ve already acknowledged their bigger and better mindset, but their other reasoning was that they are at the mercy of advertisements. And that this will stop those.

Well, what if it didn’t? The most obvious compromise, in my mind, would be something like Peacock’s cheapest streaming option of roughly $1/month which includes ads to make up the subscription cost disparity from their ad free option. That is far more manageable for most, even with exchange rates, than $6. It would still be a luxury beyond free, but most people would be able to justify a 1 USD splurge especially while waiting for content backlogs to actually come out.

I don’t hate the Watcher company after this, but I am frustrated and disappointed by their announcement. I am sure it was not done without thought, but it does not feel like it given what they have to actually show for this decision. I have been a consumer of their content for 10yrs, and it is what helps me during troubling times — Just as Shane acknowledged caring about. I would hate to lose the connection to this wonderful community because of a narrow minded perspective on the future. I urge @wearewatcher to consider this moving forward.

[evita-shelby]

12 Days of Smuff: Day 3

Day 3: in nature + deep-throating

Luca Changretta x Eva Smith

Cw: hiking, mentions of bear shit and smut.

The only reason he had agreed to give the country club a chance was because it was a symbol of wealth.

Luca had grown in cities, the only nature he knew of was the one in parks and gardens.

His wife had split her time between various country homes even when she was in boarding school in the capital city. She had readily accepted the cottage her family leased every summer at the rather exclusive country club before Luca could pretend to have an opinion about it.

After the loss of their first child, Luca didn’t like denying her anything and he saw no problem in spending a week in upstate New York doing whatever the fuck rich people do in the country.

“We should go for walk today.” Eva said dressing in utilitarian clothing he had never seen and tossed him clothes he doesn’t recall ever being fitted for.

Tweed clothes, the hardy kind men wear for work. Like the one the Shelbys would wear because that’s all they had.

But he trusts his maga and wears them to their hike. It was just a walk anyways, nothing special about it just like the swimming and the games here.

“Eva, I think we should stick to the path.” The Italian Capo says as he evades the bear shit on the ground.

Knowing his wife, they might as well be going to see the bears.

“Trust me, its going to be worth it.” The witch says when they leave the clearly outlined paths and walk past the signs that warn of bears.

It isn’t.

There are bugs, more shit, dead animals in various states of decay and they don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Eva isn’t bothered at all, chatting and telling him how close they are to their destination while looking as fresh as a daisy.

“I fucking hate this place, why did I listen to you?” he complains after they stop for a break in a clearing.

“Because I am always right.” Eva doesn’t look bothered by his words. In fact, she was counting on it going by the way she kissed him against the tree. “Anyways, we’re here.”

At some point she admitted that she wanted to fuck in the woods, to see the trees and the skies as he ruined her pussy where no one but God could see them.

Luca supposed it was all worth it when Eva got on her knees for him.

She had a wicked mouth, one that had him grateful to god that the man who taught her how to do this was already dead.

His hand threads itself in her hair and pulls at the ponytail she wears for the occasion. He thrusts deeper into her mouth, hitting the back of her throat with a groan.

Eva had learned to take him all the way by the time they came back from Italy, plenty of practice with how greedy his pussycat was for his cock.

“You can suck out my soul through my cock, strega, but we’re never doing this again.” The Capo warned as he stopped her ministrations before sinking down her throat before fucking her face in earnest.

[thagomizersshow]

I said a few days ago that I’d share my criticisms of Jurassic Park, so here goes. At its core, JP is a movie that has one message in the text and another in the subtext, and this all comes down to why of the park’s failure.

The film’s dialogue famously ascribes the failure of the park to hubris; don’t mess around in god’s play place (aka genetics) because you don’t know what will happen. Ian Malcolm’s "life finds a way” criticisms of the park are portrayed by the characters as correct. Malcolm even says that “he hates being right all the time.” It’s also worth mentioning that Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg have both been interviewed on the message of Jurassic Park, and they both said it is about the misuse of science, in agreement with Malcolm.

That is the text. This all-too-common sci-fi story about humanity meddling in the domain of the gods. Which, BY THE WAY, did not originate with Frankenstein as I said in one of my earliest videos. I’ll argue now that lumping Frankenstein in with JP and other “man’s hubris” stories is an oversimplification and possibly even a straight up misreading, but that’s a WHOLE ‘nother post.

Now, when we look at the events of the story, rather than the dialogue, a different message is revealed. Looking at the actions that actually lead to the failure of the park, it’s clear scientists failing to account for something has nothing to do with it.

Yes, the dinosaurs turn out to be breeding, but this has zero effect on the events of the film. Maybe if they had included the raptors changing sex, like they do in the novel, this argument would have a leg to stand on, but as the film exists the discovery of breeding dinosaurs makes no difference to the plot. You honestly could cut this scene out and the film wouldn’t miss a beat.

The real reason for the park’s fall is much more mundane: Hammond didn’t pay one of his workers enough.

Dennis Nedry is honestly one of the most disgusting portrayals of a “disgruntled employee” ever put to screen. He’s written to be the least sympathetic character possible; he’s messy, annoying, gluttonous, physically inept, and to top it all off, of course he’s fat, a trait most often given to characters who are either comic relief or villains. So, when he complains about not being paid well enough, the audience is already primed to think of him as unworthy of sympathy.

This in spite of his clearly incredible feat of automating the entire park single handed. Nedry’s decision after being fucked over by a multi-billion dollar company — like anyone with a backbone — is to try and fuck them right back. In this case, it was by stealing their shit, which may not have been the best choice (workplace organizing, man, c’mon), but I honestly can’t fault him for it. He deserved better than to be the audience’s hate sink, and we can put full blame on the writers and director for creating such a vile representation of a worker.

All this to say that the theme park’s failure, and all the deaths it caused, fall on John Hammond’s shoulders. Not because he “didn’t stop to think if he should.” Not because “life finds a way.” But because he treated a worker like shit who knew more about the thing they made than he did.

Now, finally, I want to address the fact that I’m not the first person to make a Marxist analysis of JP. In fact, Idea Channel made a video on this topic forever ago, and there are literal academic papers on this topic well worth reading. The point I want to make is not just that JP says something about capitalism, but that the subtextual message about capitalism is at odds with the textual message about the hubris of scientific advancement, AND this degrades the film’s quality massively in my eyes.

If Nedry was portrayed as sympathetic, if Hammond’s abuse wasn’t glossed over, if someone called Malcolm out on how he isn’t right all the time, then MAYBE this movie could be an actual good commentary on capitalism. But as it stands, it feels like it ignores the questions its own story brings up, and even worse, is really mean spirited towards fat people and workers who’ve been wronged.

As much as I love SO much about Jurassic Park, including acting, cinematography, effects, editing (honestly SUCH good editing), the script itself falls apart so badly at the seams I struggle to enjoy it the way I used to. This, combined with the fact the series has turned into a nostalgia driven sludge machine, and I just can’t bring myself to engage with this franchise in a positive way anymore.