#dead labour process

[gianttankeh]

Travis Johns / Marlo De Lara / Ali Robertson / Dead Labour Process at Reid Concert Hall, Edinburgh: 29/5/23.

Give Monday the slap it deserves with a quadruple-headed bill of real OUT sounds by a visiting artist, a new resident artist, a long-serving local artist and a freshly reanimated artist in a university building that none of them have ever played at before. You can find out more about this show and make a donation for tickets here.

[hinamie]

unconditionally

[timmydraker]

Thinking about Vampire Tim AU and him saving Bruce via turning.

None of the Drakes are actually Vampires, at least not permanently. It was a very strange instance that occurred out of pure chance and coincidence.

A pregnant Janet Drake in a foreign country having a run in with a starving vampire rouge that bite her just a few days before she gave birth.

Instead of the curse spreading to her, the labour of her child pushed and the spreading of lifeform spread to her baby as it was born. The child looked healthy, had no inhuman features, and they assumed her being so sick was simply the fact she was about to give birth.

Tim doesn’t realise what he is for a while purely because his parents are vegan and, until he was seven and had some beef from a classmates lunch, hadn’t had any blood enter his mouth.

Having to teach himself everything, Tim learned to manage both his hunger and abilities as quickly as he could. He studied history and mythos and did several test to figure out the limits to what he needed and could do.

He learnt that he could heal via blood, that he could go without air for days, and that his hearing was normal though his sense of smell was enough to distinguish blood types.

He learn that he could go two weeks without blood before it became a problem, but if he pushed it past three weeks he would start to experience literally decay.

Tim disconcerted his saving grace was that the hunger wasn’t as uncontrollable as people made it out to be in movies and books. At most, it was just like normal human hunger or thirst, and he was aware there was a huge variable in him being raised rather poorly.

He keeps it hidden for years, but then when he’s nineteen Bruce dies.

Not Batman, Bruce.

They got in a car crash of all things, the other drive running after they drove them off the road on the extremely rare instance that Alfred wasn’t driving.

Tim watched the tree branch in his foster father’s chest for several minutes as he thought about his options. Bruce was dead upon impact, gone with only the last wisps of life hanging to him.

Bruce was a father.

Batman was needed.

Even though it would out what he was, Tim forced his several sharp teeth out, all needle sharp and long enough his jaw had to unhinge slightly, and bit into his own wrist. The fangs, an inch long each, dug into his skin painfully before moving to dig into each of Bruce’s wrist and then finally his neck.

Tim smeared the blood into all three wounds and then squeezed as much as he could into Bruce’s mouth.

He had no idea how he knew what to do, trusting the instinct the curse seemed to just… give him.

When Bruce begins to breath again, Clark finally shows up. It’s been a total of eleven minutes and Tim only realises that the other took so long because he had been off planet, yet he is grateful because if he had been there…

Tim instructs Clark on how to cover up the scene, removing the cars and getting Bruce to the cave.

Dick is freaking out, worrying over his brothers ripped clothes and Bruce’s clear injuries, but Tim is quiet.

He takes Bruce’s medical cot and leads them both into a containment cell and then seals it, implementing his own lock as well as one of Bruce’s so no one can open it. He can hear someone banging on the glass a few times but he ignores it to stand over his father’s side and wait for him to wake up.

Naturally, when the older man does he’s panicked and screening Tim’s name.

Tim smiles at him sadly before taking hold of his hand, which Bruce immediately process as wrong.

“Why aren’t I dead?”

Smile growing sadder before fading to an almost formal look, Tim squeezed his hand before pulling away.

“I know you’ve had your suspicions and I thank you for trusting me regardless, but you are right. I’m not human Bruce, and now��� you aren’t either.”

He lets the worlds settle for just a moment before continuing, knowing the other will want all the information he can. They’re both so similar in that way.

“I was born a vampire, I will always be a vampire. I will explain that all to you soon, but what you need to know is this: you do not need to drink human blood, you will not loose control over your thirst if you allow me to train you, and yes I had no choice. Gotham needs Batman and I-… I need my father. I will not apologise for my selfishness, but I am sorry you have to be like me.”

Bruce is quiet but he doesn’t move to kick Tim out, nor does he shout at him or cry in betrayal.

He’s surprised, but not more than Tim had ever seen before.

It’s almost an hour of silence between them before Bruce speaks again, “You… you are actually nineteen?”

Tim scoffs and Bruce glares, which makes Tim smile more, “I am. My body will age until around twenty five, at least that’s my hypothesis. If you are turned you stay the age you were, but I was born.”

Bruce nods and after a moment reaches out for his son’s hand.

Another silence before he squeezes it, “Have you told the others about… this change?”

Tim winces, “I tried to keep us separated because I knew you would worry for hurting someone, but I knew Damian would break in if he couldn’t listen so…”

“Ah. Understood.”

Then, in another rare instance that Tim thought he wouldn’t see for at least another few years, Bruce opens his arms to him for a hug.

Naturally, Tim crumbles into his father’s arms and sobs louder than a war drum.

Bruce kisses his head and holds him tight, a vampire embrace.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Adventure Arc: Toppling the Toymaker

Artsource

Labour disputes in a lumber town lead an avaricious sawmill owner into a head on conflict with a grove of dryads

A dead man dressed like the king of a past era points the party to investigate a derelict playhouse staffed by puppets and hungry spirits.

Hoping only to save people from the horrors of war, a well meaning artificer builds a clockwork army that's poised to go rogue upon it's debut

Buffeted by an unnatural fog, the denizens of a flying city throw an inventors' fair to keep everyone's spirits up.

Unlike a lot of my arc sized adventures which tend to progress in a strictly linear fashion, I decided to try my hand at creating something more nebulous for a more open world style of campaign.

You could start these adventures in any order, and whether your party is your classic bunch of wandering dogooders guarding a caravan, a gaggle of thieves in the province's capital looking to loot a creepy building, or a group of crime solving sleuths,there's a way to get them tangled in this disastrous chain of events.

Endgame: Once the machines start going rogue, it'll be all too easy for the party and their allies to throw blame at the toymaker, imagine this is all part of some plan to conquer the territory while he sits safely in his flying town. To put an end to things, they'll need to improvise a means of returning to Thopperton, possibly having tfight past the legions of clockwork soldiers in the process. Once there, they'll find Gleebringer sealed inside his laboritory by his own creations, possessed by the dryads who cursed him and his industry.

[luxthestrange]

Incorrect quotes#958 Sol birthed luke-

Solo: I love it when people are like "Aww you look like your dad!~"OBVIOUSLY I LOOK LIKE LUKE-HE IS MY SON!!!

Mc, Sim & Barb*Giggling and chuckling at their boyfriend *

Solo*Showing pictures of luke* THERE WAS NO ADOPTION PROCESS HERE I BIRTHED THEM-WE HAVE THE SAME DNA THEY TOOK MY BONE MARROW OR WHATEVER!?!

Solo:100% ME and you may be thinking~

"Oh that's just a guardianship-"

Solo*Dead-serious stare"*I WENT INTO LABOUR-

Part 2 of:

[whencyclopedia]

Lindow Man

The Lindow Man (officially Lindow III) is the top half of a male body, found preserved in a peat bog in Cheshire, England.

The peat bogs at Lindow Moss date back to the last ice age and were formed by holes of melting ice; they are now a tenth of their original size. Bogs often lead to the preservation of organic materials, particularly human remains, being acidic, cold, and devoid of oxygen. The brown colour of the skin, leathery texture, and appearance of human remains preserved in a bog are due to a type of moss that grows in bogs and when dead, lets out a substance that causes a tanning process.

During 1980s CE a series of finds were made at Lindow Moss by workers at a peat shredding mill (peat was then being harvested as fuel). These discoveries were small parts of the human anatomy, for example, a head known as the Lindow Woman and several limbs of other individuals. The most famous, largest, and important of these discoveries is the top half of a male body (the bottom half possibly lost when a digger cut up the bog) found in the summer of 1984 CE and called the Lindow Man. What is noticeable about this example and significant for study is that the hair, skin, and several of his integral organs were preserved. The body and surrounding section of peat were removed whole and taken away for study by a team led by British Museum scientists. Once safe in a laboratory it was the focus of analysis and has caused a great deal of excitement, producing an unprecedented investigation.

The beard, sideburns, and moustache made it instantly clear that the body was male. By calculating the length of his upper arm bone, it was estimated that he would have been between 1.68 m and 1.73 m tall. He was also well built, weighing around 64 kg. He was radiocarbon dated to between 2 BCE and 119 CE and was about 25 years old at the time of death. He was unclothed, apart from a fox fur armband. Using scanning electron microscopy researchers found that his hair and beard had been trimmed with a pair of scissors or shears. It is thought that he did not do any rough work or hard labour, based on his nails which were all manicured. Although the acid in the bog had removed all of the enamel from his teeth, there were no visible cavities, and what was left looked normal. Overall he appears to have been fairly healthy, but had slight osteoarthritis and an infestation of parasitic worms. It has even been possible to discover his blood group, O. Food residue discovered in his upper alimentary tract shows that his last meal was a griddle cake made from wheat and barley.

The reasons and cause of death have caused debate between scholars. There are signs of two blows to the top of the head with a heavy and bladed weapon and also a knife wound to the throat. There is also evidence for a blow to the back, by a broken rib. He had a thin cord around his neck which may have been used to strangle and break his neck, but some have argued that it was simply a necklace, because it is knotted in a decorative manner. Once dead he was placed face down in the bog. This horrific death may have been a ritual killing, a human sacrifice carried out, perhaps by the Druids. Or he could have been executed as a criminal or murdered by thieves, or if he was someone of stature, by his enemies. It is almost impossible to know for sure why he died, but the Lindow Man has provided valuable information and been subjected to more tests than any other ancient human being.

He was conserved by immersing him in a mixture of polyethylene glycol to prevent shrinking and then wrapped in cling film, frozen, and then finally freeze-dried. He is now on display in the British Museum.

Continue reading...

[clarionglass]

so i have been bitten by the sam reich!master bug courtesy of some phenomenal art by @northernfireart and uh. as is too often the case i had to write something otherwise if i didn't get it out of my brain i would go absolutely insane

(there may be more vignettes coming if i have ideas..... there are definitely other episodes i'd like to give the Treatment to, plus with the new dw series coming out on the weekend i may have ideas for how to incorporate the dw gang! however, i promise neither more writing or no more writing. that said, this was a lot of fun so there'll probably be more at some stage :D )

this has full spoilers for the game changer ep "escape the greenroom", but hey that's been out for a while now so,,,, if you haven't seen it i'd highly recommend it as an episode!

so, without further ado:

--

Samuel Dalton was a complete fiction, of course, but that didn't mean that when Sam Reich snuck back upstairs to get tied up in the “out of order” bathroom, the Sam that remained on the monitor, laughing at the contestants, was a pre-recording. And if Brennan, Siobhan and Lou had snorted at the idea of a time-travelling evil magician great-grandfather (for good reason), going in with the actual truth of the matter would have sounded like jumping the shark.

It sounded bizarre, but the time travel bit was the only part about his new partner in crime that was confirmably real. Admittedly, the jury was still out on “evil”—he gave off a weird vibe at times, but so far, no lines had been crossed, and it had all been funny as hell—so for now, Sam was willing to roll with it. But perhaps most surprisingly, there wasn’t even the possibility of blood relation between Samuel Dalton Reich and the guy who had shown up out of the blue one day with his exact face and a plan to really fuck around with things on Game Changer.

Yeah, the whole alien thing had really ruled out that particular prospect.

There had been various bits and pieces of confirmation that this guy wasn’t human through the time Sam had known him, but the final nail in the coffin for that one was when his doppelganger had looked him dead in the eye and tried on one of the heart rate monitors—sorry, “range extenders”—for As a Cucumber. The damn thing had literally sparked up, then died completely. Trying to process input from two separate heartbeats at once would do that, apparently. 

His doppelganger was a Time Lord, or so he had nonchalantly said one afternoon in casual conversation, though Sam still wasn’t sure if that one was a joke or not. It was hard to tell, sometimes, because he said the wildest things with the straightest face, and so far, most of them had turned out to be one hundred percent certifiably true. The time travel, the space travel, even the changing faces thing—it sounded objectively insane, but the proof was undeniable. 

There were some notable exceptions, though. Saying he’d been trapped for aeons inside Neil Patrick Harris’s gold tooth went just that bit too far to be believable, though Sam did appreciate his double’s slightly warped sense of humour.

It was that offbeat line of thinking that lent itself well to game design, as it turned out. He had a knack for coming up with ideas for Game Changer episodes, albeit with the occasional suggestion that went way beyond the bounds of good taste, and, as in the case of Escape the Greenroom, had devised some blinding twists on concepts Sam had already half-formed. The letter puzzle unlocking the secret door? It was perfect.

Understandably, Sam’s doppelganger had wanted to observe the fruits of their labours in real time, rather than watching the recording later. It happened, sometimes, particularly when it was one of his ideas that had made it through to the episode list—they’d swap places for a session, with nobody being any the wiser. Watching those edits back always felt a bit weird—it was uncanny how flawless the mimicry was—but hey, the guy was right. It was always fun.

Escape the Greenroom, specifically, with its “Samuel Dalton” conceit, provided them with a unique opportunity. Instead of swapping out the camera feed for a recording when the cast piled into the tiny secret room behind the wall, as per the original plan to get Sam in position to be discovered in the bathroom, they could just swap out the people. Sam would go upstairs, and his double would take his place at the podium, ducking out of sight when everyone came back to the main stage to “defuse the bomb”.

Sam was keen—hell, if their situations had been reversed, he’d want to be there to watch, too—but caution raised a flag. “You don’t think it’s too risky?” he’d asked when the subject was first raised. “Both of us being in the same place?”

His doppelganger had shrugged one shoulder with supreme unconcern. “The crew won't notice.”

At the time, Sam had shot him a sceptical look, but right now, Sam-Reich-in-a-purple-tie and Sam-Reich-in-an-orange-tie were standing backstage post-record, clearly visible and and calmly chatting, and not a single member of the crew had given them so much as a second glance. 

…Hardly even a first glance, come to think about it. If anyone looked over their way, their eyes seemed to… not exactly go through them, but slide over the two of them like water. He was tempted to wave to Nico or Ash or someone, just out of pure curiosity, but something in the back of his mind told him that wouldn’t be the world’s greatest idea. He had a funny feeling he wouldn’t like to see what would happen next.

(He’d given the prop bomb back to the crew once the cameras stopped rolling, and though it looked the same as the one he remembered from before he’d headed upstairs, it felt different in his hands. Heavier, more… serious, somehow. He was sure nothing would have happened—but at the same time, he was suddenly very glad that the cast had cut the correct wire with no less than a minute fifteen to go.)

(The jury was still out on evil, after all.)

“Worth coming in for?” he asked instead.

“Absolutely,” his double replied with relish. “Locking those three in a small room for an hour? Brilliant, fantastic. Inspired. It was absolute chaos.”

“Have you seen up there?” Sam asked, a smile starting to spread across his face. “They messed up the set real bad.”

His doppelganger smirked at him. “You know it took literally two seconds from you telling them to escape the greenroom for Lou to smash that guitar?”

Sam shook his head. “Oh my god. Yeah, they were stressed.” 

“Mmm. Some real panic in that room,” his doppelganger agreed, and Sam chose to ignore the faint note of satisfaction in his voice.

He shifted his weight, settling back to lean against the table behind the set, in the exact instant his double decided to do the same thing. It really was freaky how similar they were, down to the smallest mannerism—like looking in a mirror, only weirder, because the face that looked back at him was truly his own face, not mirror-reversed. Even now, it still caught Sam off guard from time to time, but at least it had faded into a more comfortable kind of strange. He had an exact lookalike who was an actual time-travelling alien. Cool. Doesn’t everyone?

The pair shared a companionable silence for a few moments, before a thought Sam had been turning over for a while rose to the top of his mind. He shifted again, this time on his own, and he felt his double’s regard swing up to fix on him like a magnet. 

“Okay, real talk,” he started, and his doppelganger frowned back in an approximation of confused innocence. “What’s all this for?”

“Who says it has to be for anything? Aren't we just having fun?”

Sam hummed, considering. “Yeah. No, I'd believe that, if I didn't sometimes walk into production meetings and find out I'd apparently been very specific about the people I wanted for certain episodes.”

“Point for Sam,” his doppelganger acknowledged with a grin. “You got me. Wasn’t hard to make a few phone calls on our joint behalf.”

“Yeah, but why?” Sam pressed. “I mean, Siobhan, Brennan and Lou are always great comedy value when you put them together, and it was awesome to have them for this, but I get the feeling you’re thinking of something other than making good content.”

“Who, me?”

With that, his double gave him a look of such overdone pantomime innocence that Sam suddenly and thoroughly understood why, not half an hour earlier, Brennan had very seriously threatened to push him down the stairs. 

He rolled his eyes, which earned him a smirk for his troubles.

Dropping the act, his doppelganger continued. “I’m expecting an… old friend, I guess, to show up at some point, and—well, I’d like to put on a really special show for them. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try a few things out, you know?”

Ominous pause aside, that was actually kind of sweet. Sweeter than he’d been expecting, that’s for sure—he was half anticipating the revelation that he and his cast were subjects in some weird experiment. Hey, that still couldn’t fully be ruled out, but still.

“Okay,” he acquiesced. “Well… just let me know, next time? Before you start ordering in my cast like takeout?”

“Who says they’re your cast?” his double shot back with a twinkle in his eye, and Sam snorted.

“Fine. Our cast, then. But seriously, let me know?”

His doppelganger nodded, which, if not quite fully convincing, was good enough. 

“Oh, and do you know when your friend might be arriving?” Sam asked. “Because if you wanted to plan something, we can—”

“I don’t know,” his doppelganger interrupted. “So yeah, we’ll have to move fast when they do get here. But I’ve got it under control.”

He broke off, then shot Sam a mischievous grin. “In the meantime, though, I’ve had this fun thought about time loops…”

[demons-art-hell]

"The Incident"

The End is a highly monitored site, utilised for resources and the unique and mysterious mobs that dwell within

Ordinary people are not allowed access, but there is an aplication process to enter

Applicants must have a valid cause for entry to be granted a permit, and will receive training in elytra use for at least 10 hours (typically delivered in 2hr sessions over 2 weeks) before entry

Winged hybrids exempt

Small groups are taken at a time with an experienced guide to ensure safety

Accidents are rare. Minor injuries from endermen or shulkers have been reported on occasion

A death in the void is a painful one. The person freezes, suffocates. It is slow

Only one death has been reported After saving another applicant from a sudden attack, an avian was left with a torn wing

He fell into the void too quickly for the guide to rescue, but managed to get out and back on land using an enderpearl

Unfortunately, he was dead before he hit the ground

CPR treatment as well as warming the body restarted the man's heart and restored his breathing in under a minute

Outside of needing new wing feathers to grow in, a hospital follow up reported no significant lasting damage, but was admitted to monitor his recovery

The victim went home against medical advice after one week when he recovered from his dizziness, tiredness, balance issues, and rib bruising

Reportedly, the man still had low temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure, and slow, but not laboured, breathing at time of discharge

Tiny Mumbo after the gbau lore drop :3

[rentsturner]

The Jeweller’s Hands - AT

Professor!Alex Turner x reader

Warnings: smut, unprotected sex, restraints, sub space, gags, edging, teasing, teacher!student relationship (but they met before that), aftercare, pet names

a/n: this is the dirtiest thing I’ve ever written and it’s not even that smutty, it’s mostly aftercare and fluff with a healthy dose of subspace. this was written for my bestie @martinipoliz . don’t like it - don’t read it

It had been a long night - a very long night.

Teasing Alex while he was teaching your class had not been your best idea, not by a long shot. The expression on his face as he watched you smirk at him from your desk was enough to turn your insides to ice. But you hadn’t stopped with some harmless flirting, no, you were feeling a little braver than that. When he returned your essay, your hand grazed along his, giving him doe eyes as he towered over your sitting form. Then, to top it all off, you whispered ‘Was I a good girl, sir?’

It was just quiet enough to pass over the heads of the other students, but your seductive phrase went straight to Alex’s head and he stopped dead still next to you, his brain trying to process if you’d really just had the guts to say that outloud. When you fluttered your eyelashes at him, almost comically, you heard the lowest, quietest growl slip out of Alex’s mouth. He was not happy, not at all. These little flirtations may seem playful, but to Alex, your teacher, your boyfriend, this was very much not allowed. You were in serious trouble.

So that’s how you ended up spread eagled across his king-sized bed, arms tied to the bedposts by Alex’s various silk ties, and Alex between your legs, his hips pistoning into yours as he chased his own release. You’d finally been allowed to come, after multiple rounds of edging and teasing - ‘Don’t give what you can’t take, princess. You tease me, I’ll fucking tease you.’

Now your mind was fuzzy and warm as the euphoria of your orgasm ebbed away, the feeling of Alex’s damp skin rubbing against yours as he thrust into you becoming a little much, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew it wouldn’t be long now, perhaps from the laboured groans emanating from his chest, the way his hands were clawing at your thighs in a way that was sure to leave bruises, the beads of sweat dripping from his brow onto yours. Your jaw was beginning to ache from the spider gag firmly holding your mouth open and you were desperate to wrap your arms around Alex, the floating feeling in your head bringing with it a craving for skin to skin contact.

Finally, you felt the warm release of Alex’s seed deep inside you, felt the weight of him as he collapsed onto your chest, panting as he caught his breath. His unruly hair tickled your nose a little, causing you to whimper as best as you could around the unyielding gag.

Alex heard you though, lifting his head up to look into your glazed over eyes, recognising that it was too much for you now and knowing exactly needed.

‘So good for me, baby, eh? Took your punishment so well, such a good girl.’ he murmured between pants as his fingers gently undid the strap of the gag, slowly removing it from your mouth as you whined in discomfort.

‘There we go, princess, I’m gonna pull out now as well, ok?’

But you shook your head frantically before he could push himself up off your chest, the need to wrap your arms around him becoming unbearable. The words wouldn’t come out, instead another desperate whine slipped from your mouth. It was a good job Alex knew you well.

‘Arms first? That’s fine, baby, here you go.’ He untied the silk restraints with ease, rubbing your wrists gently with his fingers, before slowly massaging your aching jaw.

‘Better?’

You nodded as you wrapped your arms around his frame, dragging your nails up his sweaty back, pulling on the dark locks of hair that were beginning to curl around his ears, before running a thumb over his cheekbone. Alex relaxed slightly as he saw a little more focus come back into your eyes, the skin to skin contact obviously easing your previous discomfort.

‘’S okay, baby, am right here, yeah?’

You nodded again into his chest, inhaling his scent - sweat, sex and cigarettes. It went straight to your head, like your own personal dose of heroin. There was silence for a few minutes as you relaxed into Alex’s arms. He pressed a chaste kiss to your hairline, an apology, before he adjusted himself slightly, his now soft cock slipping out of your folds with a faint pop. You winced at the empty sensation, the fuzziness still crowding your head a little.

‘Need to clean up, love, I’ll be ten seconds, promise.’

You rolled into the duvet, curling up as you heard Alex’s retreating footsteps. He appeared again a few seconds later with a warm washcloth and sat on the end of the bed.

‘Open your legs, sweetheart.’

You whined and shook your head into the duvet. You were tired and you wanted to sleep and you wanted Al’s warm body back next to yours.

‘Come on, princess, I need to clean you up. The quicker we do this, the quicker we can go to sleep, ok? I know you’re tired.’

You shook your head once again, but Alex stroked along your thigh slowly, calming you a little, and you lifted your head to look at him with blurry eyes.

He smiled at you, his cheeks still a little pink from exertion, his hair messy and falling into his eyes. ‘For me, princess? Please?’

A little nudge on the inside of your thigh was enough to persuade you and you whined softly as the cloth brushed against your sensitive cunt, but it was over quickly, Alex stroking your thigh the whole time.

‘All done. Such a good girl.’ he cooed into your ear, pressing his hand to your back to pull you into his chest once again.

He threw the cloth away, grabbing your pyjamas from under the pillow and helping you into them with steady hands, whispering praises whenever you seemed a little fragile. He tugged on a fresh pair of boxers before settling into the bed, tucked up behind you so his chest was pressed against your back, his face buried in your hair, legs tangled together under the covers. The huff of his breath against your hair helped to ground you, almost as if he was blowing away the cotton wool in your head.

After a while, you turned to face Alex.

‘Back with me, princess?’

You murmured a small ‘yes’, trying to stifle a yawn at the same time. He chuckled and you felt the vibrations in his chest.

‘Was it alright? Didn’t go too hard on you, did I?’

‘No, Al, I loved it. I’m just knackered now, that’s all.’

‘That’s when I know I’ve done a good job.’ Alex chuckled again and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

‘You’re hot when you’re angry, y’know?’ You smirked up at him.

‘Yeah well, that’s what happens when you tease me while I’m trying to teach.’

Your smirk grew even wider at this but Alex knew exactly what you were thinking.

‘Uh-uh, don’t you dare do it again. Did I not just teach you that lesson?’

——————————————————————————

Thanks for reading! Hope yous enjoyed

[walking-loather]

"liberals want abortion at 9 months!"

At nine months they don't "abort" the baby, they induce labour; they deliver it. If the infant dies, it was either already dead in the womb, or it was dying.

"liberals want late term abortions"

Let me make one thing very clear. If an abortion is happening at 7 months, 8 months, 9 months it is because something has gone catastrophically wrong with the pregnancy. Do you think women who carry a baby for more than half a year decide on a whim they don't want their child anymore? Because that's what it is at that point to them: a child.

Late term pregnancy complications are treated in two ways. They either induce labour to remove the baby from the mother -- at which point it is born, legally considered a living person, and therefore illegal to kill (infanticide) OR they abort the fetus. Why do they abort? Because the fetus is dead.

If you need an abortion late term, the fetus is dead. If the fetus is dying, they do not abort, they deliver the baby. That's what happens. If the baby dies after being removed from the mother, or in the process of being removed from the mother, it was already going to die. It is a stillbirth. If it dies hours or days later, it is a tragedy.

You abort a late term fetus because it is dead. You abort a late term fetus because it has catastrophic developmental abnormalities. You abort a late term fetus because it is killing the mother.

Abortions only occur when there is no other option. At that point in development -- if the baby is dying in the womb or putting the mother's life at risk -- they opt to do an emergency c-section instead.

Every woman who needs a late term abortion WANTED her baby. She didn't carry that pregnancy into her third trimester without imagining that child in her arms. These are families who have built cribs, bought clothes, and picked names. Imagine going through the worst experience of your life -- losing your child -- only to then find out your life is hanging in the balance because doctors cannot remove a baby from your body; a baby that is already dead or soon to be. Imagine the grief being compounded by a life threatening medical emergency.

It makes me furious when conservatives deliberately spread misinformation about what abortion looks like in the third trimester. Doctors will not abort unless there is no other option, they will just deliver the baby. This is not a case of women deciding to maliciously kill their children for the fun of it, and to insinuate such is disgusting.

-----------------------------------------------

Additional context bc tumblr is a hellfire and I know someone is going to read my statements in bad faith: I am giving my opinion in black and white terms. There is obviously nuance in regards to certain things I say, but generalisations in this instance is more impactful. I care about describing the experience of the overwhelming majority, rather than strategically using my words in order to provide a perfect opinion that applies in 100% of all cases all the time. No one desires to have a late term abortion. No one plans on having a late term abortion. If a woman had the ability to terminate a pregnancy she didn't want -- as her right should be -- then no woman would carry a fetus into the third trimester only to then decide she doesn't want to anymore. When women have the right to choose, they don't choose late term abortion for the hell of it.

However, I am also of the opinion that a woman should be able to change her mind about being pregnant at literally any point during her pregnancy. I wholeheartedly support a woman's right to choose, no matter what. No. Matter. What. But please use Occam's Razor. Which is more likely? That she has literally no other option than to abort late term, or that she suddenly decides she doesn't want a baby anymore at the 11th hour? Please exercise critical thinking.

I also deliberately chose to use the word woman. Once again, I'm focusing on what is the case for the overwhelming majority rather than trying to use less impactful language to be perfectly accurate 100% of the time. Abortions are only performed on female-bodied people, and ~98-99% of the time, people with that anatomy identify as women. Talking about it as a gender neutral issue obscures the misogyny and sexism that underpins the matter. Conservatives don't want women to have the right to choose because they have reductive gender values and believe that women should be pregnant for a multitude of reasons, but the most maddening of which stems from the belief that childbirth is divine retribution for Eve sinning against god. They don't believe women should have rights or autonomy because they are patriarchal and their sexist ideology demands women be baby makers. They want women to be property, and as long as they desire to assert reproductive control over women, abortion is a women's rights issue.

[gianttankeh]

TFEH presents: Mariam Rezaei / Mariam Rezaei & Ali Robertson / Marlo De Lara & Euan Currie / Off Brand & Stewart Smith at Fruitmarket, Edinburgh: 20/12/24.

Sack off yr office Xmas party once again and head to Fruitmarket for TFEH's annual non-denominational non-idiomatic festive celebrations. Also just added: Some Prepared Remarks Concerning Christmas Music and Bourgeois Irish Subjectivity by Colm Linnane.

You can find out more & buy one of the last few tickets here.

[cosycafune]

DON’T YOU SEE?

you’re scared, terrified. no matter where you go, ryomen sukuna’s always capable of finding you. you curl, hiding within every corner — but he discovers every limb of you. you long to run, but outrunning someone so powerful refrains from doing you any wonders. don’t you see? why won’t you see?

royalty sukuna x cursed user y/n. book acts: eventually smut, ptsd, terror, abuse, violence, murder, hysteria, breakdowns, distraction and more.

this is simply a small teaser. epilogue: fate’s fool. chapter 0.5.

Thunder etches upon your tainted environment. Your limbs are quivering with shock, dazed and heavy with blasphemous sins. There’s not a fragment of purity that reigns upon you, all of that is stored within the perished body at your nude feet.

Everything’s an ample, twisted sick mess — in the way your eyes exhibit fear, confusion and unshakable distraught. Nothing’s bound to measure up anymore, as you’re left with the choice of eternal punishment or a swift death.

You’ve slaughtered Lord Sukuna’s favourite royal advisor, all because he’s fingers longed to grasp upon you. You, someone who Lord Sukuna deemed as an innocent, untouchable muse — bound to be protected until the end of time lays.

However, you’re tarnished. Your ivory dress’ smeared with anchors of the wailing dead man’s blood. The blood’s taunting your haphazourdly self, glancing down at him — your fingers licked upon with fear for the first time.

Desperately, your eyes are abnormally wide — deathly hope flooding your pounding ears. All you could process is the light wisps of sound, the laughing thunder and the sound of your creeping demise.

Every sick act’s fated to fall in place, but you’re not fate’s fool today.

“Lord Sukuna’s going to murder me, the person he says is the face of innocence,” Frowning, flinching at the intensifying thunder, you mindlessly whisper.

“I was supposed to be his wife, freed of any sins for him,” Silently shrieking, impatient at the lifeless dead body, your heart swirls as your hoarse words fall.

“But now, the end of my reign is here,” Speaking with determined anger, you harshly kick Sukuna’s advisor’s defenseless body — your anger ruling the submissive thunder.

Unwilling to fathom your image being tainted by the sin of man, you continue to kick the man. Kick him for attempting to steal away your innocence, longing to romance you — only to threaten you with planned death.

The young man was keen on you being his own, accustoming to his unknown home and becoming his wife. Becoming a labour machine, delivering his children and raising them until they’re capable of individualism. Not once did you long to mould into his unworthy standard, you’re more than that.

You were.

“I fucking hate you, you greedy pig,” Stirred with disdain, you glance down at your bloody nightgown with a grin — feeling an ounce of sickly freedom.

“I’ve got to leave now or Lord Sukuna’s going to punish me, making me his eternal servant,” Fearful of the idea, you glance at the cooling thunder — looking outside towards the escapable garden.

After all, Sukuna gifted you the second best room — in hopes you one day become his betrothal. A betrothal he was bound to elope when you both turn twenty-one, but you had to leave now. There’s no future in a place that would discriminate against you, shunning you from the purified eternity that once longed for you to cosy in its parted arms.

“If I pretend to have died, too, Sukuna’ll find someone else,” Mumbling with levelheadedness, you search your room for your savings — picking out a stupidly large amount of money and a black clock.

A red clock, just so you could pair with the cloudiness of your untamed sin. A sin you have to coddle because of the greediness of someone else’s heart.

Out the balcony door you go, fleeing from an environment that once caged you within the best ways. Yet, now, you’re set to flee towards a secret cottage you built — away from everything you’ve ever known.

All you pray for is for Sukuna to not find you.

—

Don’t you see? Prologue status: completed.

—

Don’t copy, modify or claim my work to be your own. all rights reserved: cosycafune. 2024.

[youremyheaven]

something that's always bothered me about conversations of mental health and well being is that, it's incredibly hard to isolate one's mind as a site of conflict and "treat" it on its own. a person is more than their family, genetics or upbringing. their environment, the culture & society they live in, their lifestyle, the kind of food they eat and the kind of work they do/don't do, are all so influential in affecting a person's well being and frame of mind. if u eat a shit ass diet full of store bought processed food and junk and get no sunlight and don't have any greenery around u, of course ur going to be fucking miserable. what the fuck is a pill gonna do about that??? so that u can keep showing up to ur dead end job and let them profit off ur labour?

capitalist narratives about mental illness are always about keeping someone medicated enough to function well and keep the system in its place and capitalist narratives of mental well being encourage a happy parade of consumerism

yk who benefits from all this?? not you. you eating sea moss for breakfast isn't going to fix you bc beyond individual responsibility and seLf cAre, systemic changes like a 4 day work week and gee idk BETTER PAY would significantly enhance the quality of ur life and make u want to kys less

it's radical to live a slow and sustainable (and sustainability applies to the individual as much as the environment, u need to live a life that doesn't make u crash and burn every few weeks) life in a world that demands that u numb urself and keep fucking going 🔥

and I'd rather be a fucking radical than blame my parents for how my life turned out to be. bc if the system were fucking built differently it wouldn't fucking matter.

western psychology has ppl brainwashed when it's fundamentally created as a tool to suppress the masses and I will die on this hill

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: Grandfather's Hungering Maw

Said to have been carved by an exiled dwarven king after his name and ignominious deeds were stricken from the records of his clan, this brooding edifice contains a darkness far deeper than any normal glacial cave.

The dungeon's name comes from a settlement in the foothills, with a mostly human population ignorant of the monument's dwarven origins. In their myths the face is infact that of a great giant, tricked by the folkhero founder of their village into staying very, very still while he was served a great feast, growing so spoiled and indolent that he was eventually buried by the mountain snow and froze solid. A recent series of avalanches that've buried paths and even destroyed homesteads have put it into people's heads that grandfather might be waking up.

Adventure Hooks:

A merchant caravan the party is riding along with takes a detour up into the highlands, following rumours of a village that's paying a premium for foodstuffs of late. Upon arrival they're strongarmed out of their cargo by a crowd of armed villagers, who heap the provisions on an overburned yak cart set to depart up the mountain on the next day. Fear of the giant has made some of the villagers turn into a panicked mob, emptying the granaries and raiding their neighbour's larders to supply ever larger and hastier "tribute" runs up to the mountain's mouth. Food is growing scarce in the village, and those with the foresight to worry about winter provisions dare not speak up: An old woman was accidentally killed trying to fend off the toughs uprooting her garden, and her still warm body was piled into the yak cart next to her unripe rutabagas.

Seeking the power of her infamous ancestor, a disfavoured daughter of the dwarven throne has ventured to the Maw with a group of sellswords in tow in the hopes of discovering the means of making herself queen. Down into the mountain's gullet they've found a great labyrinth, hewn over centuries by the still shuffling corpse of the nameless king, unable to fully rest until he has constructed a tomb worthy of his hubris. The would be ruler and her entourage are eating well thanks to the unsuspecting villagers' food deliveries, and have a few agents in town helping the process along while they continue their delve.

There's more than a stone worn skeleton and a few fortune hunters inhabiting the depths. A millennia ago Ahlkenahl the Vanquisher was a feared demon of war, thought invincible before the dwarven king forged a ring with the fiend's true name inscribed upon it and forced the Vanquisher to pledge an oath of eternal servitude. Driven into exile along with his mortal captor, Ahlkenahl has resentfully laboured alongside the king as he descended into witless undeath, even centuries after the ring was lost somewhere in the tomb along with the chipped fingerbone it rested on. The demon's occasional demolition filled bouts of rage cause the avalanches on the mountain's exterior, and they've only grown more frequent as he's attempted to stop the Heir and her underlings from finding the ring.

It's a three way race between the players, the dwarven heir, and the fiend to see who can find the ring first, having to not only battle eachother, but subterranean monsters, collapsing tunnels, and freezing glacier caverns along the way. Of course Ahlkenahl doesn't play fair, as the fiend can revive any body that finds its way into the Hungering Maw (such as dead villagers loaded on the Yak cart or slain sellswords) into undead minions, growing in strength as the situation becomes more desperate. The fiend can even send the undead down into the valley to do his bidding, chasing after whichever group managed to get the ring first or even go on a murder-filled supply run to bring back more bodies.

Simply getting the ring isn't enough to control Ahlhenahl, as the war-demon's true name is written in an infernal script that must be researched before it can be understood and spoken aloud. This gives the party a chance to catch up if the heir makes it out of the labyrinth with the prize and vice versa. It likewise gives Ahlkenahl's undead minions time to become a real threat both in number and as he deliberately creates more fearsome versions.

The Vanquisher can freely communicate with anyone holding the ring, an ability originally intended to allow the exiled king to command his bound demon in the field which now allows Ahlkenahl to whisper temptation into the ear of whoever holds it. Think of what he could do for them if they let him out of the labyrinth, the enemies he could slay, the kingdom he could carve on their behalf. Sure it would mean unleashing a walking massacre on the landscape but what's a little carnage between pactmates?

Art1 Art2

[funeral-division]

🕸🥀IN YOU, I CONFIDE Pt II🥀🕸

Pairing: Dead x Fem!Reader

Synopsis Part II of 'In You, I Confide'

Warning/s: No use of Y/N, NSFW, Smut, female reader, hair pulling, riding, p in v, little repetitive due to loss of inspiration.

He lays motionless on the cold concrete floor, staring blankly up at the water-stained ceiling. His greasy blonde hair is splayed out around his gaunt face, dark circles under his haunted blue eyes. The stench of unwashed flesh and stale sweat permeates the dank basement air.

Pelle remains still as a corpse, barely seeming to breathe. Only the slight rise and fall of his concave chest indicates he's still clinging to life, albeit reluctantly. His pale, almost translucent skin seems to glow sickly in the dim light filtering down from a single bare bulb.

His eyelids flutter slightly as he feels your fingers tangling in his greasy locks, a faint shudder running through his emaciated frame. But his glassy stare remains fixed on some distant point above, lost in the foggy haze of his own tortured mind.

A low, guttural moan escapes Pelle's chapped lips as you continue to move atop him, the sound devoid of pleasure, tinged with something darker - a perverse mix of revulsion and masochistic need. His long, spindly fingers twitch at his sides, itching to carve fresh lines into his pallid flesh, to feel the sweet sting of pain that might briefly pierce the numbness consuming him inside and out.

"Don't stop" The words barely register up, so quiet you could've thought your mind was playing tricks on you. He doesn't make any sound whatsoever. Just the few occasional grunts and his laboured breathing.

Suddenly, Pelle's eyes snap into focus, boring into yours with an intensity that's both unsettling and mesmerizing.

"I wonder... if this is what death feels like. Being used. Being nothing. Just a vessel for someone else's pleasure." A mirthless smile twists his cracked lips. "Maybe that's all I am now. All I'm good for."

"Pelle" You start but his hands come up to grip your hips with surprising strength, blunt nails digging into your soft flesh hard enough to leave crescent-shaped indents. He pulls you down harder against him, seeking friction, punishment, anything to make him feel something beyond the bone-deep emptiness.

"More," He rasps, his accent thickening with desperation. "Hurt me."

"What if I don't want to?" Pelle's hands fall away from your hips as if burned, his expression twisting into one of confusion and hurt. For a moment, he looks almost vulnerable, like a lost child. Then the shutters come down over his eyes once more, his face settling back into its usual mask of detached apathy.

He turns his head away from you, fixing his gaze on a rust-stained pipe in the corner of the basement. When he speaks again, his voice is flat and lifeless.

"Why would you care? I'm nothing. Less than nothing. Just a walking corpse taking up space." He laughs then, a harsh, grating sound devoid of humor. "You should thank me for giving you the chance to use me however you want. It's not like I have any other purpose."

"You're my corpse, I don't wanna hurt you anymore than you already are" Pelle tenses as your hand strokes his matted hair, his breath catching in his throat. For a brief moment, a flicker of warmth sparks in those deadened blue eyes, quickly snuffed out by the ever-present darkness.

He swallows hard, adam's apple bobbing in his slender throat. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse with emotion he struggles to understand.

"Your corpse?" A bitter laugh escapes him. "How... romantic." The sarcasm drips heavy, but there's a note of genuine confusion beneath it, as if he can't quite process the gentleness in your touch, your words.

Slowly, hesitantly, he reaches up to cover your hand with his own, his skin icy to the touch. He holds it there, savoring the contact even as suspicion clouds his features.

Pelle's brow furrows as he tries to make sense of your words, your gentle touch. It goes against everything he knows, everything he believes about himself and his place in this world. After a long moment, he speaks again, his voice rough with disuse and raw emotion.

"Why do you say such things?" He turns his head to look at you fully, his gaze searching, desperate to find the lie, the trick. "No one wants me. Not really. I'm a monster, a freak. Even I can't stand to be around myself most days."

His free hand comes up to trace the jagged scars littering his arms, a self-inflicted map of his inner turmoil. "This is who I am. Damaged goods. Using me is the only kindness anyone could show me."

"Well then let me fulfill you" Pelle's eyes widen fractionally at your words, a glimmer of something - hope, fear, disbelief - flashing across his gaunt features before being quickly suppressed. He searches your face intently, looking for any sign of deception or ulterior motive. Finding none, he releases a shaky breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

Slowly, as if moving through deep water, he sits up, bringing himself closer to you. His movements are stiff, unpracticed, like a marionette being controlled by an uncertain puppeteer. Up close, the full extent of his deterioration is apparent - the sunken hollows of his cheeks, the dark shadows beneath his eyes, the almost translucent quality of his skin stretched tight over sharp bones.

"Such a pretty corpse~" You caress his cheeks, softly rutting your hips against his own.

A shudder runs through Pelle's emaciated frame at your touch, your words. Pretty. Him. The concept is so foreign, so utterly alien to his warped perception of himself that for a moment he can only stare at you in stunned silence, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly like a fish out of water.

Then, slowly, hesitantly, he leans into your caress, his eyes fluttering closed. A single tear, crystal clear against his pallid skin, rolls down his cheek to be caught by your thumb. His hands come up to rest lightly on your waist, not pulling you closer, but simply maintaining the connection, the anchor in a sea of confusion and longing.

Pelle's breathing quickens as you rut against him, each movement sending jolts of sensation through his numb body. You keep rutting, gasping when you accidentally slam down on your sweet spot.

Pelle's eyes fly open at the sudden, intense sensation, a strangled gasp tearing from his throat. His fingers dig into your waist, clutching you tightly as if afraid you might disappear if he lets go. A flush, pale and patchy, spreads across his hollow cheeks, stark against the sickly pallor of his skin.

Pelle's hips buck involuntarily upward, chasing the fleeting spark of pleasure. It's a foreign feeling, almost painful in its intensity after so long numbed by despair. He pants raggedly, his thin chest heaving as he tries to process the overwhelming sensations assaulting his senses.

The rational part of his mind screams that this is wrong, that he doesn't deserve this gentleness, this pleasure. That he is a monster, unworthy of touch, of affection.

But for once, Pelle pushes those dark thoughts aside, focusing instead on the warm weight of you in his lap, the softness of your skin beneath his trembling fingers. He surges forward, burying his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply. You smell of life - of clean skin and shampoo and something uniquely you. It fills his lungs, his head, drowning out the constant hum of death that echoes in his skull.

Pelle's hands start to move then, sliding up your sides, mapping the curves of your body with clumsy wonder. He tugs at your clothes impatiently, a low groan rumbling in his chest. The heat building between your bodies is a stark contrast to the chill emanating from his own flesh. He needs to feel more of you, to lose himself in your warmth, your scent, your touch.

Pelle's eyes snap open at your muffled cry, hazy with lust and confusion. He blinks rapidly, trying to clear the red fog from his brain, to remember where he is, what he's doing. The sight of you above him, flushed and panting, brings a rush of clarity - and guilt. His hands fall away from your body as if scalded, curling into fists at his sides.

He scrambles backwards until his back hits the cold concrete wall, putting as much distance between you as the small room allows. He hunches in on himself, arms wrapped tightly around his middle, rocking slightly. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse with unshed tears and self-loathing.

"I... I can't. We shouldn't." He swallows hard, forcing the words out past the lump in his throat.

"You're really gonna deny me now?" You stare up, having yelped when he pulled out quite harshly.

Pelle flinches at the hurt and accusation in your voice, squeezing his eyes shut as if physical pain radiates from your words. He shakes his head vehemently, blonde strands falling into his face, obscuring his expression.

"N-No, I..." He takes a shuddering breath, fighting to gather his scattered thoughts. "It's not... I'm not worthy. Of this. Of you. I'm poison. Everything I touch withers and dies. Including myself."

He looks up at you then, his haunting blue eyes filled with anguish and desperate longing. "Don't you see? I'm already dead inside. This thing between us, it's just a cruel illusion."

"Well then let me bring you life, at least for a short while" Pelle's breath catches in his throat at your words, at the raw sincerity shining in your eyes despite the desperation lurking there. For a long moment he simply stares at you, his heart pounding a staccato rhythm against his ribs as he wars with himself internally.

Slowly, he reaches out one trembling hand, hovering just shy of touching you. "And what happens when the illusion fades? When the life you breathe into me inevitably suffocates under the weight of my own darkness?"

Even as he speaks, he finds himself leaning forward, drawn to your warmth like a moth to flame. His fingertips ghost along your arm, the lightest of touches, barely there at all. "I don't want to drag you down with me. To taint you with my filth."

"Think of it as purification" A shudder runs through Pelle at your words, at the implication behind them. Purification. Salvation. Concepts so foreign, so utterly alien to his twisted worldview that they make his head spin. He wants to believe you, wants to sink into the promise of absolution in your arms. But the doubt, the ever-present specter of his own worthlessness, claws at the edges of his mind.

Pelle's hand moves from your arm to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing over your lower lip with a feather-light touch. "And if it's not enough? If I can't be purified, can't be saved, no matter how hard we try?" His voice is low, rough with emotion, his eyes searching yours desperately. He leans in closer, until his forehead rests against yours, sharing breath. "I'm scared"

Something shifts in Pelle's expression at your gentle plea, a flicker of hope amidst the despair. His shoulders slump in defeat, the fight draining out of him as he nods almost imperceptibly.

He wraps his arms around you, pulling you flush against his thin frame. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply, letting your scent wash over him - replacing the ever-present miasma of decay and misery that clings to his skin.

One hand comes up to tangle in your hair, holding you close as if afraid you might disappear. The other traces idle patterns on the small of your back, a hesitant caress.

"Okay," he murmurs against your skin, his voice muffled and thick with unshed tears, "just for a little while. Help me forget."

His fingers tremble as they map the contours of your body, committing every dip and curve to memory. He kisses a trail of fire up your neck, nipping and sucking at your pulse point, marking you as his own. Even as he loses himself in your touch, a part of him recoils at the intimacy, the vulnerability it entails.

He rolls onto his back, pulling you on top of him, needing to feel your weight pressing him into the mattress. His hands slide under your shirt, calloused palms skimming over soft skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Pelle arches up into you, grinding his hips against yours with a low groan. The friction is delicious, maddening, stoking the flames of his desire higher and higher.

"Fuck" he gasps out, his accent thickening with arousal, not catching onto your lips which are pursed as you think to yourself.

"Do you wanna take this to the coffin?" Pelle stills at your suggestion, a shudder running through him that has nothing to do with arousal. His eyes widen, a flicker of something dark and twisted passing through their icy depths. When he speaks, his voice is low and intense, tinged with a note of manic excitement.

"The coffin?" He repeats slowly, savoring the syllables on his tongue. A slow, unsettling smile spreads across his gaunt features. "You'd... you'd really fuck me in there? Surrounded by death, by the cold embrace of the grave?"

Pelle sits up abruptly, his movements jerky and agitated. He grabs your wrist in an iron grip, his other hand already fumbling with the zipper of his battered leather jacket.

"Come on, then. Let's do it." He climbs into the coffin with a manic energy, his movements erratic and uncoordinated in his eagerness. He lies back on the plush velvet lining, staring up at the ornate lid above him with wide, feverish eyes. His chest rises and falls rapidly, shallow breaths echoing in the confined space as he reaches out for you with trembling hands, his nails digging into your skin as he pulls you down on top of him.

"This is perfect" he whispers, his voice reverent and slightly unhinged, "Like being buried alive together. Our own private tomb."

Pelle's hips buck up against yours, seeking friction, his arousal evident even through the layers of fabric separating you. One hand slides down to palm himself roughly through his jeans while the other tangles in your hair, yanking your head back to expose your throat.

"You're twitching" A choked laugh escapes Pelle's lips at your teasing remark, the sound rusty and unused. It transforms his face, softening the sharp angles and haunting shadows, making him look almost boyish.

"Can you blame me?" he murmurs, his hands coming up to rest tentatively on your hips, "Having you straddling me like this, feeling your heat... it's enough to make a dead man come back to life."

Pelle's thumbs rub small circles on your hipbones, the gesture almost unconscious, as if he's trying to memorize the shape of you. His gaze drops to where your bodies meet, watching with rapt attention as he grinds up against you with a soft groan.

His hands slide up your sides, fingertips tracing the curves of your ribs, the swell of your breasts. He cups them gently, thumbing your nipples through the thin fabric of your blouse until they pebble beneath his touch. His head dips, burying his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply.

"You smell so good," he mumbles against your skin, his lips brushing your pulse point with each word, "Like life and warmth and everything I'm not. I want to drown in you, lose myself in your scent, your taste, your touch..."

Pelle nips at your throat, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. His hips surge up, grinding his fully erect cock against your clothed sex with a low moan. "Please," he begs, his voice rough with desperation.

"Always"

---------------------------------------------------

Words: 2611

Characters: 15,101

Date: 12/01/2025

Time: 02:18am

Proofread: YES / NO

Signed: @Funeral-division

[stanestreet]

As a November 2024 report by the think tank the Other Half puts it, what are described as “mercy killings” are “very frequently the violent domestic homicide of elderly, infirm or disabled women by men”. Women are the majority of unpaid carers – 80 per cent, according to the King’s Fund. But, strangely, they appear much less likely than men to become “mercy killers”.

This discrepancy is impossible to separate from the wider belief in society that women are a kind of property owned by men. It is seen as a woman’s natural obligation to look after a man, but when a man has to look after a woman, it becomes an unreasonable imposition.

Hence the sympathy a man can draw on if he kills his wife while feeling overwhelmed by her needs. Mungall claimed to have seen an expression in his wife’s eyes “like an animal who needs to be put down and cannot say it” – a comparison that makes him the owner and her the pet.

Are we really supposed to believe that a man who feels that way about his wife is incapable of pressuring her into applying for a medically assisted suicide? In response to concerns from critics of the bill about this possibility, supporters of the bill have pointed to what they regard as its extensive safeguards. Simon Opher MP, a former GP and a member of the bill committee, has even said it is “judging doctors harshly to say that they will not spot coercion”.

Personally, I find Opher’s statement less reassuring and more indicative of a disturbingly blasé attitude to the possibility of abuse. In the limited window of a consultation, it is all too easy for a doctor to miss the signs. A YouGov survey for the charity SafeLives found that half of healthcare professionals felt unable to identify domestic violence. Sometimes, the doctor in question might even be actively untrustworthy: think of Harold Shipman, whose victims were predominantly elderly women.

The more common scenario, though, is the patient who, through lengthy cruelty and coercion from a partner or carer, becomes genuinely convinced that she (or sometimes he) is a burden who would be better off dead. Such a person may even refuse treatment, causing a curable disease to become terminal and placing them within the purview of the bill.

Legislators should be profoundly alert to this danger. Left unaddressed, it could place the state in the grotesque position of becoming a lawful accomplice to abusers. Yet unaddressed it remains. Of the nearly 50 individuals who gave oral evidence to the Public Bill Committee, not one was an expert in male violence or coercive control. (Jane Monckton Smith, an academic who studies femicide, was called but unable to attend; the committee did not attempt to find a substitute for her.)

From the start, the Terminally Ill Adults Bill has been a rush job – in the words of one former Labour adviser, “a quick-and-dirty policy development process that wouldn’t be close to good enough for 99 per cent of the laws made on our behalf”. If it becomes law, Labour risks turning the healthcare system into an executioner for those most in need of protection.

How the assisted dying bill could unleash male violence