#eminent car crash

[isittheboogieman]

Woaah dude, it's the silly dudes crossover, wow!!💥

_____________

That car is about to crash.

[starry-eyed-never-satisfied]

Crash Frehley AKA Ace-cidents

So I was just listening to Rock Soldiers, where Ace talks about the car crash he was in in 1983 (there's a reason he remembers it well, hmm wonder what that is?) and I got to thinking how many crashes were there in that period? 83 was the year after he left KISS, but a car crash was also the reason initially given for why he didn't play on Creatures Of The Night.

So, were there two crashes, one in 1982, one in 1983?

Or was there one crash in 1982 and Ace has just muddled the year?

Or was there one crash in 1983 and the 1982 crash never happened, it was just a made up excuse to hide Ace's eminent departure from KISS.

[romanceyourdemons]

although it’s definitely not my style of film, the italian job (1969) is an excellent example of a midcentury british caper comedy film, and a very emblematic sample of michael caine’s early career. the film, depicting a group of professional ne’er-do-wells from england carrying out an elaborate heist in turin, draws much of its comedy from the juxtaposition and blurring of low and high class, and of lawful and unlawful prestige. michael caine’s charlie croker, well-dressed and scummy with a thick cockney accent and a nice car, organizes the heist with the backing of the eminently respectable mr. bridger, a highly influential and quintessentially english gentleman who is, at the moment, in jail. the team, consisting of cockney thugs, ditzy blondes, flamboyant homosexuals, and a perverted (i.e. attracted to fat women) professor, is sent to represent england before italy and especially before the highly respectable and brutally violent mafia that controls italy’s comedically incompetent police. much of the film’s runtime and comedy is concerned with the alteration, driving, and crashing of cars, all treated with the style of childishly gleeful and cynically deadpan humor that forms the basis of, for instance, topgear. the stakes of the film are low, the ending is a pun, the characters never rise above caricatures, and i readily recognize that the italian job (1969) is a very fun film for those for whom this style of comedy clicks; for me, however, it really never has, and this film stays too neatly within the lines to stand out

[rxbysxllivan]

self-para  \  the calling. outside the daily dose. approximately midnight.

trigger warnings: knives, blood, murder, corpses, stabbing, death. mentioned: @dilara-kr , @yasmindemirxx , @kyleyangs , @veracalma , lu

back then, i was dauntless, and dawn could never know, and my weakness made me weep less than i would ever show you. i burned so bright it blinded, now i know that light guided me here.

After a long day, Ruby settles in at The Daily Dose. She’s a frequent coffee drinker, but not someone that often hangs around the small cafe—Deadlights is more her style. But they had been so busy with meeting Yasmin and Emine at the movies and doing some last-minute shopping that the cafe was the best place to crash.

Coffee in one hand, they’re scribbling notes with the other, lyrics scrawled under the tip of their pen. Nothing coherent, it doesn’t even rhyme—it’s more like poetry at this point in time—but there’s no way she’s focused enough to edit at this point. She just needs to get it out of her head and down on paper.

Somebody, it must have been a staff member, stops near her table to tell her they’re closing up. She blinks out of her stupor, sending them a nod before sighing. A final sip of her drink and she’ll head out. It’s getting late, anyway, and her weekend isn't exactly shaping up to be a lazy, hang-out-in-bed kind of time.

A blurry figure in the corner of her vision catches her eye, and Ruby turns as they set down their cup, squinting through the dark toward it. Unfortunately, the lifted trunk of their car blocks her full view of the person, and she can’t quite see whatever it is they’re holding. All she can see is their grey hoodie, and the way their armload flops. Almost like a corpse.

A winding feeling works its way through her gut, fear and curiosity grasping at her heart with a cold hand. Coffee and notebook abandoned, she stands, brows furrowed as she moves towards the door. Their steps speed up the closer to out of the store they get, pushing through the glass doors that lead inside as they move away from the cafe.

She definitely shouldn’t be moving closer, but if something’s gone wrong, she needs to know—either to warn others or to help. “Hello?” they call out, almost against their better instincts. Their voice is firm, somewhat angry as they step closer, high heels clicking on the concrete sidewalk. What is going on over there?

They round the corner of the car, but just as they’re about to move closer there’s a sharp pain in between her shoulder blades. It’s everything she can do not to scream as stumbles forward, heel catching on the sidewalk and causing her to crumble to the ground in agony. Their hair flips over their face, effectively blocking any further shot she may have had to catch the murderer in action.

Not that it matters; there’s no way she’s walking out of this. Another ripple of pain shoots through her as the knife is abruptly pulled out. She can feel the warm sensation of blood trickling down their back, staining their t-shirt with a deep red. They can’t take a deep enough breath to counteract the aching wound, only shallow gasps coming out as they reach desperately forward. If they can crawl away from their attacker, maybe they can get free. Somehow.

The intense, sharp feeling returns as the knife bites into her back again. And again, and again, and again, pain lancing throughout their whole body in spasms as the killer relentlessly attacks. Inwardly, she’s cursing herself for not traveling away with Lu, for not sticking up in New York with one of their many failed gigs. But Icarus flew too close to the sun. Her efforts were all for naught, and it ended tonight. 

They blinked, memories flashing before their eyes, too fast to count. 

Dee. Her best friend from high school, and one of the only ones that had stuck. Long nights spent talking about any subject under the sun. The other woman’s eternal optimism. Bonding over fashion. 

Yasmin. Playdates with Emine, or girl days with her mom. Just spending time in the other's presence. Coffee, drinks, parties, you name it. They’d literally just seen the other two earlier that day. Thank god they’d made it to the movies. 

Vera. One of her closest friends. Long wine nights around the tv—hell, they'd had one just a few days ago. (Now, they would never happen again.) The only one she'd consistently trusted with her secrets, aside from Kyle. 

Kyle. God, Kyle. Hadn’t he lost enough? It felt like only a few days ago that she’d apologized, their aggressive words at the gala still echoing within their skull. They still hadn't forgiven themselves though. Sure, they'd fought before, but never like that. And now, she'd never get a chance to fix things.

The world fades to black and Ruby can feel themselves fading with it. It’s time.

[ker18]

Beautiful Disaster (2)

Hello again, friends. I am really into the whole writing thing right now. But, I am no professional and all this is just a work of fan fiction from a wretched, battered soul. There may be absurd grammatical errors within this work, but please be gentle with me... :D

This was in no way intended to hurt or harm. Only to express thoughts in my head.

I do not claim to know anymore than anyone else in the issues plaguing the characters in the fanfic and this is not in anyway related to whatever truth they might actually hold.

With that said... please, enjoy... xD

-Sometime in the Future-

The leaves were rustling and tumbling over each other on the blanket of greens and yellows, the scent markers avid with dawn of the equinox, the tinge of fiery reds eminent in the overhang. The season was already showing signs of the beginning of the end but there she still was, sat on her front porch, looking out into the hibernating world. For five years, it had been hibernating… Five long insufferable years, filled with longing, yearning, and emptiness. For so long, she held on to the hope that there would still be another chance, an opportunity to make things right, a break in the stunt, or a redemption from the solitude.

She could still recall the last minutes, the fleeting moment, the pain – the excruciating grief, the tears, and the last goodbye before the actual fall. The recollection was as vivid as the day itself, no shield from the hurt, still inevitable in the way it came crashing down. For five years, she relived that moment over and over, every hour that dusk rolled by. She would convene herself on the same seat - blanket across her lap, a cup of jasmine tea in hand, thoughts in normalized disarray- and just allow the emotions to flood in.

There was an insincere calm that came with the chaos. First, memories would crash-in of the time when things were happier. The smiles, the dates, the late night talks, the stargazing moments, the promises, the sweet-nothings, the laughs, the hyper-awareness, the water colors, the teasing, the succumbing, the holding-back and then giving-in, the kisses, the touches, the skin-on-skins, the hugs, the warmth, the comfort, the scents, the breaths… the LOVE. All these came tumbling down as soon as the flood gates were released. She’d let them. It was the only way she could feel again. For those few minutes of seclusion, she would allow herself to relive it all and let it seep to revitalize her bones. This was the daily ‘bend before the break’… The instant where the grays showed other hues and she felt perpetual again.

“Babe? I’ll be here. You’ve got me. You know that, right?”

She recalled the cascade of emotions that overtook her the moment she heard those words, coming from the only mouth she could ever want them from. Those sakura lips were her life-force, her only means of survival in the world full of pandemonium. That voice was her voice of reason- the silencer to the unruliness of their day-to-day. Five years ago – and to present – she hadn’t a clue how she would go through every day without hearing that sweet influence. Up to date, her mind still processed that voice, still kept her promise to take the conversations to heart. Pain ensued in her chest where her heart lay, and she let it. Clutching at an imaginary handhold as tears threatened to fall, she moved onto another memory.

“Can you come over? Or should I just make my way to you?... You know what? Pick me up, please?”

Her mind’s eye reread the words and she remembered getting in her car, driving like crazy with one destination in mind. She overlooked the rain, the slippery street, the honks and beeps of traffic as she sped towards her terminus. All she knew at the time was that she needed to be in those arms, just as urgently as their owner needed her to be. She recapped exactly how that night went. As soon as the door was opened to allow her entry into more than just the room, she was enveloped into the warmest embrace. She remembered the whispers of gratitude as the strong arms weaved her into more than just body against her. She felt her heart soar and melt at the same time – melt in to what felt like home. There was no need to move, no need to speak, no need to mind, no need to do anything else but be in each other’s arms… and for that night, they stayed in. There was no rush in those moments, no race to finish anything that they started - there was just them, in the quiet of a room, their thoughts on full display for each other’s regard. Serene touches and sighs, beauty and grace, time and focus, unparalleled devotion were the courters of that night. And, these were welcomed with ardor.

”How could you, Babe? What does this mean for us?” Silent tears drowned the conversation until the silence was broken with the sweetest let down, “I’ll always love you, Babe. But, I can't... I'm sorry..."

The bitterest I love you she’d ever heard was that one right there. It felt like her world came crashing down on her that night, and every night since then. She saw the tortured look of love and betrayal on the face of the only person who had stuck by her through thick and thin. Suddenly, her voice of reason had ran out of reasons – reasons to fight for her, for them –and that’s when she knew that it was over. The sudden emptiness that masked those eyes that she loved, the coldness that radiated from the body she once burned to touch, the brusqueness of the rejection that arose – she felt it all smack her in the middle of her chest. Her heart fell and shattered, and she failed to find herself any excuses to save it from the instant break. ‘Coz she knew she hurt the one she gave it to and there was no greater pain than to see the hurt mirrored at her.

She scoffed and squeezed her eyes tightly shut as tears fell freely at the memory - eyes that had grown tired, but never ran out of sorrow. The sobs racked her body, making her hunch in on herself to pacify the sudden tear she felt in her battered heart. Because, until today, she still felt the ache, she still mourned her loss, she still loved the ghost of her derelict lover. She remembered the incalculable emotions that ran across the face of the one that once was so certain of her – the one that traumatized her the most was the look of agonized love. She couldn’t unsee that but what frustrated her the most was that she chose to walk away without letting herself explain... She was a coward! She was the biggest fool! She shouldn’t have! She shouldn’t have listened to that goodbye and held on. She would have… if she’d only known that it was going to be the last time.

               That was it. That one mistake was what cost her everything. The cross she bore for the past five years was born of that infuriating moment when she chose her pride over the love she had. In the snap of an instant, the click of a button, the turn of a head, and the blink of an eye, it was all gone. And it took her heart with it. The one thing that kept her together was the one thing that fell her. And, woe to her, she knew that it was all her fault. She let the tears fall freely now – crying in the way a forsaken soul would – cascades of lamented water soaking the blanket that was now pulled up to her chin. She bawled and she broke down, like yesterday, like the past months, like the last five years since that fateful day.

“Off to somewhere new... Time to heal.

 But, I’ll always love you…”

The last story she read before the radio silence. The last message to her, broadcasted for all to see. It haunted her and scarred her deeply. She saw and felt the remorse in those words, but also the exigency to leave. She felt the defeat wash over her. She pulled herself away and watched herself crumble and rupture, but she did nothing else to quell the decided.

               For months on end, she fell into a monotonous existence, only doing the bare minimum to survive. She lost time, she lost connections, and she lost herself. But nothing could compare to what she actually lost inside. She still kept on until hope reared its head. Deep within, she hoped - maybe, one day, she’d be given the chance… maybe one day, she’d be able to make things right. Maybe, one day, her love would come back… But, for now, she allowed herself these precious moments. The moments to reminisce and drown her system with actual feelings. She lived for these advent moments where she discovered exactly how much she felt, loved and lost.

               She basked in the ambience. Her lachrymose disposition slowly subsiding as she stared off into the last rays of the sunlight over the horizon. She wiped her tears, gearing up to head inside and resume her morose life.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

Her heart leaped at the voice. It was the voice from her thoughts… the voice she would never forget. The voice that brought a torrent of emotions with it. Her brain seared in anguish, threatening to explode at the seeming reality of that familiar timber. She refused to look for a moment, fear eminent in her chest to find nothing but the phantom of her memory, but her curiosity broke loose and made her turn towards the source of the dulcet voice. And there, time stopped – eyes, nose, lips, hair, smile, and regard… there was Love! She failed at words at first, exasperated joy and pain overcoming her. She stood slowly, air and strength refusing to support her. The speaker walked towards her, climbing the two steps to reach her on the porch, reaching for her hands with sincerity and adoration, familiarity engraved in her sights. When contact was made, calmness ensued…

“Hi…” She finally said, breathlessly, heart in her hands – figuratively but literally. 

[to-many-wips]

Atlas heard the crashing of whatever beast was making a mess of the city, people we’re running and screaming but Atlas? No, she was sitting at a café sipping her cappuccino, her long white hair which was in a braid flipped over her shoulder as a rush of air from a flying car blew past her, she didn’t even flinch. She had gone to this world to check in on people and creatures who were on the watch list, and maybe take a small break, Orion's though ancient beings with indefinite lifespans didn’t take many. At least Atlas didn’t. She finished her cappuccino and set down the glass, she stood up and walked slowly into the middle of the street. She looked up at the creature, it was a large alien looking creature. It lumbered down the street, she sighed and started walking towards it she rolled up her sleeves then started cracking her knuckles.

“It’s time to actually do my job I guess,” she said “that was a really good cup of coffee too,” she looked up at the creature over her aviator sunglasses, her eyes were inhumanly blue rimmed with gold they seemed to almost glow.

“What a brave little human,” the beast teased, She stopped for a moment as if calculating something then jerked her right fist to the sky twisting her torso as a massive skyscraper sized pillar of rock shot out of the ground hitting the creature in the jaw. Atlas pulled her arm down slamming her first towards the ground and the mix of metal, concrete and rock returned to its place in the earth. The creature stumbled but didn’t fall

“Your no human-“

“No I am not,” atlas outstretched her arms and closed her eyes then closed her hands vines shot out of the ground and wrapped around the creature, she brought her arms up then slammed them onto the ground bringing the beast down too.

“Now I’m going to take you somewhere where you won’t hurt anyone,” she touched his forehead and closed her eyes. A great golden light eminented from her hand along with a great wind. Atlas’ simple black jeans, blouse and leather jacket flickered then vanished showing an almost divine looking woman instead of a the almost punk looking collage student. The light got brighter and brighter and her eyes glowed with and ancient strength that showed her true age. Then as the storm of light and wind reached its apex it stoped. Both Atlas and the creature were gone, leaving nothing but some damaged road, a gentle breeze, and a small golden constellation of Orion on the concrete.

A monster is used to people running, screaming, frozen in fear begging etc. But someone sighing cracking their neck, rolling up their sleeves, and walking towards them is new.

[regard-luxury]

Chopard Mille Miglia Watches On The Market

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[evanthenerd83]

“Ceasing Begins”

The Ceasing began elsewhere. This was perfect, as it prevented many from spotting the signs. A majority of news media and medical experts had moved into the City, where there were more potential clients.

And it was perfect how the earliest cases started in isolated communities; farming villages, river settlements, places of low population. Nobody paid any attention to uneducated country bumpkins who cried out miracles. Why would they print warnings if some religious sheep had been the one to spout it?

Stories were shared amongst bar mates and congregations. People had suffered injuries from car crashes, falling down staircases, being shot, stabbed, poisoned, the whole cabal. They found themselves facing their own mortality.

Yet they would always survive. Even when their heads were punched clean through, hearts popped, brains caved in. It didn’t matter how far their flesh had been mangled. They could have been bled dry.

But they would live.

Medical experts in such places related these developments to their comrades. They sought reconcilement or refutation, a way to resolve this error. All they got was ignorance born from privileged knowledge.

They were ignored. Some pressed the issue, demanded that the professors and biologists came and witness this phenomenon. A majority of these would receive brief notices from the higher circles of academia. Credentials were revoked. Positions became vacant.

Evidence was suppressed by powers whose concern laid in maintaining their respectability.

Then the Ceasing came to the City. Slowly at first, with a cautious step here and a reluctant step there. Calls to emergency numbers dropped a staggering ninety-nine percent within the month of November. Politicians easily turned a blind eye towards the phenomenon. Public concern was taken hold by other matters, which were much more believable than the death of Death.

And the news media, ever the puppet of the City, aided in obscuring the problem. Hosts smiling and unblinking would nod along with pre-selected “experts” during interviews. Questions had been approved beforehand, as had the answers.

The threat was minimized within a single breath. Recent developments were repeated, including rising prices, eminent invasion by neighbors, crime rates skyrocketing across the entire nation. It did not matter if victims of those same crimes were still in the hospital; alive yet not alive, dead yet still screaming in agony.

Agony is a generous term to describe what they experienced. There are no names for those affected by the Ceasing, for they defy classification. Many may eagerly ascribe to them the moniker of zombies.

But they do not shamble, like the living dead. And due to their eternal state of pain, they do not hunger for human flesh, or anything. One could destroy their brains, if their brains are still intact, and this will not end their continued animation. Nothing on God's green earth could provide them with relief.

Shadows congratulated themselves behind closed doors, money exchanging hands. The truth was once again buried. No-one cared that hospitals were overflowing with patients whose conditions would never improve. That nurses and doctors—those on the ground floor, in the trenches—were constantly fighting against their own bodily limitations, battling fatigue and frustration. Why would they?

The Ceasing itself would not cease. Cosmic irony.

Months went by. Then years. Lives went on. Agony went on.

We are currently in our fifth year.

Our fifth year.

Want More? 👇🏻

[jessecrust]

games as art, part 2: who cares?

An eternity ago, I wrote a blog about a game you might have heard of called Elden Ring and why it and other games like Hades are probably works of art. It's something I think about far too much on lonely car rides to and from work (my commute is roughly 10 minutes). And it's something I've been thinking about a lot more lately having spent a good deal of my free time actively avoiding any new games and trying to get games from the 90s and 2000s to run on my PC without crashing. Honestly, it's actually extremely easy to avoid playing new games because they're released at a rate of about 2.5 a year in a good year.

And yet it somehow feels like there's never been more video game content out there. There's your multiplayer shooters, your MMOs, your "live service" games, mobile games, remakes, re-releases, etc. etc. I'm not one of those people who think you can draw a line between "real" games like something on a major console or PC and "fake" games like this cute thing I have on my phone called "Cats&Soup", but if every video game is indeed art then it is a unfathomably broad category.

Why does any of this matter? Well, if you've ever spent any time on Wikipedia, you may have come across this, or a similar, sentence:

Deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, Die Hard was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2017

One reason it's important to figure out what exactly we're talking about when we have these incredibly tedious conversations is so we can figure out what is worth preserving. I feel that in our Age of Content, as I'll call it, it's increasingly difficult to figure out what we should be preserving for future generations.

I don't think this is me being pretentious, although that word itself has come to mean something entirely different in the age of the never ending Battle Royale Multiplayer Shooter and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A few nights ago, I saw someone say Quentin Tarantino was a pretentious director because he didn't want to make a Marvel movie. That idea really bothered me, that someone would see a guy who spent his career making eminently watchable popcorn movies and think "what a snob". Yes, I admit, I got sad about one guy writing a tweet, that's really dumb, I know. But go type Martin Scorsese into a Twitter search and you'll find he's not alone in thinking there's something pretentious about making movies that doesn't include a CGI raccoon.

But back to the pretentious art snobbery, it's not necessarily a question of "real" vs. fake or art vs. not art. I've had a good time watching movies like Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Batman (which I wrote about), and even that weird Dr. Strange movie that people can't really decide if they liked or not. These movies are probably not in any real danger of disappearing, but other movies are and most, if not all, video games are. And no one is seriously making the claim that none of them are worth preserving: The Dark Knight, a movie about Batman, is part of the National Film Registry.

Film lovers like Scorsese and other writers, directors, critics, etc. have worked hard to preserve their artform for future generations. I can't think of any director or writer or video games that is doing the same for games. It already requires extensive modding to get some games to run on modern PCs, let alone tracking down physical copies of classic games that could easily cost more than you make in a full eight hour shift at your job. Game directors and writers are not celebrities in the way film directors, actors, and musicians are. Try to name a video game director or think of a game you've played recently where you even bothered to find out who directed or wrote it. The most widely known director of video games is probably Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo and I doubt even he would be recognized by more than a quarter of the general population despite being responsible for over 75% of your childhood nostalgia. Yes, there are plenty of hobbyists, academics, etc. that are doing everything they can to preserve games, but we need those artist/advocates to really drive home the stakes. Who better to talk about the history, love, and preservations of this medium than their own creators?

As more technology is pushed to the wayside, as physical media continues to decline and copyright laws in the digital sphere get stranger and stranger, there's a real danger of not being able to immerse yourself in the history of games in the same way you can with every other piece of human culture. What good is a top 100 video games of all time list if I can't even play them? I can't even play the version of Overwatch I bought five years ago. To be sure, this project is also necessarily anti-capitalist, since the rights holders to these franchises and IPs will fight/have fought tooth and nail to stop it.

Do you know why "you can run Doom on anything" became a meme? Partly because anyone can download its source code for free. Imagine if the same were true of every other game release on or before 1993.

To close, I'll tell another anecdote about a post I saw on the internet. I saw a comment somewhere, maybe YouTube, that said something to the effect of "I'm glad I'll get to play Silent Hill 2 when the remake comes out". This is a problem we have to solve quickly...

[sheerfreesia007]

Kinktober #9

Title: Kinktober #9

Fandom: The Gentlemen

Pairing: Raymond Smith x OFC

Author: @sheerfreesia007​

Words: 738

Warnings: Sex in a car, cunt is used but not in a derogatory way

Author Notes: I kinda am loving the c word to describe the nether regions. It’s so raunchy to me. It just hits harder. I might have to use it more.

Gif Credit: @guillermodtoro

You whined softly as you ground your ass back into his lap, his cock surging up inside of you with your movement. Your fingers dug into the sides of his knees as his long legs encaged you in his lap. Throwing your head back onto his shoulder you whimpered into his ear trying to get him to help you get off. Ray bit down on your ear gently before dragging his teeth against your earlobe. His hands slid up the silk material of your ball gown before clasping your knees and spreading them harshly.

You gasped when he bucked his hips up into you and slid his large hands from your knees to the insides of your thighs holding there as he began to earnestly fuck up into you. Your jostling body almost tumbled off him as his hips began to pound into you. The sound of his cock sliding in and out of you made your pussy clench around him and Ray grunted softly behind you.

“You’re an absolute dream love. A masterpiece encased in royal violet silk. You’re a queen among peasants.” he cooed at you in praise and you could feel yourself clamping down around him in pleasure. Your body was flushed and heated as you gasped for air while your orgasm crashed into your body. Ray groaned loudly before he plucked you off his cock and moved to lay you out on the bench seat he was sitting on.

Your loud keening cry filled the space that you two took up as his cock slammed back into your spasming cunt. He gazed down at you through his glasses as his hips pistoned into you spearing his cock into your cunt. You squirm underneath him digging  your heels in the seat beneath you as your orgasm was prolonged with the movement of his cock dragging along your walls.

“An absolute queen who needs to be worshipped and reveried over all others.” he said softly as fucked you into the seat. You were drowning as you gasped out for air that wouldn’t enter your lungs, pleasure was coursing through you and like an undercurrent it kept dragging you down to the depths. “I am just a lowly servant to your eminence.”

“Fuck Ray. Please fuck me. I need your cum to fill me. Please.” you whined under him and he stared down at you in admiration. He cupped your face and tilted it up to his before capturing your lips with his and began to plough into your cunt. Whimpering against his lips you felt your orgasm crash over you as your legs came up to wrap around his hips sinking your heels into his ass cheeks trying to keep him close to you as your walls fluttered and gripped his pistoning cock.

“That’s it my love, give it to me. Milk my cock dry in that glorious needy cunt of yours. There are poems written about your cunt and how it takes me so well every time.” he coos down at you as he settles his hips against yours for the last time. You moan as warmth fills your belly as his cum shoots out into your awaiting cunt. You feel full and well satiated finally as you let your legs fall open around him while you descend from your high.

Ray gently brushes a strand of hair from your sweaty hairline as his eyes dance around your flushed and panting face. He smiles gently down at you when suddenly the partition between the back of the limo and the front lowers slightly.

“Sir, we’ve arrived at the gala.” says the driver with no emotion and you flush with embarrassment as you try to hide yourself under Ray’s body.

“Go around the block once more John. We need a moment.” Raymond says firmly before looking down at you in fondness. You flush again and Ray grins wolfishly as he grinds his cock into you making you gasp out and grip his biceps tightly.

“Yes sir.” John replies before raising the partition. You can feel the limo driving away from the driveway of the mansion where the gala was being held and you know that Mickey and Ros are going to have something to say about you and Raymond arriving late to the gala. But as Ray begins to lazily thrust in and out of you again you can’t find an ounce of fucks to give.

[lesbiancolumbo]

James Dean

It is sad for any moviegoer to have no great star burning during his or her most impressionable years. Many stars, no matter how well they survive passing time, are only eminent because of the way they first mark consciousness. Once penetrated, we never forget the scar. And knowing what Dean meant in 1955 and 1956 makes it possible to understand how Valentino once moved viewers to the quick. It is reasonable to say that Dean and I came in together. Eight years earlier, Montgomery Clift in Red River had seemed a possible older brother; but Dean was oneself and, at first, one marveled in the way a savage might be awed by a mirror.

I first saw Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (55, Nicholas Ray) at the Granada, Tooting. That is relevant because it was a huge and fabulously decorated cinema, the most beautiful I have ever known, modeled on a Venetian palace. It had mirrored corridors, the softest of carpets, and an interior so spacious that it was possible to evade the usherettes. Especially in the dark. I arrived early, some ten minutes before the end of the previous showing. As I stepped into the auditorium, my feet pushing through the pile, so, on the screen, Dean edged into the planetarium, doing what he could to talk Sal Mineo into surrendering to the police. Even then, it was apparent how far the moment drew upon Ray’s use of color and composition. But so much also depended on Dean. He made it clear that he wanted Mineo’s safety, but guessed already that the cause was perilous. Dean’s cry of anguish when Mineo is shot down was the very antithesis of the film’s inadequate title.

No matter that it was seized on at the time, Dean’s potency was not that of a rebel without a cause. Although he was vulnerable and sensitive, he never suggested youthfulness or callowness. On the contrary, he seemed older, sadder, and more experienced than the adults in his films. More than that, he seemed to sense his own extra intuition and to see that it was of no use. His resignation and fatalism showed up the restricted personality of the world he inhabited. Occasionally driven to anger or violence, Dean was not a rebel, but a disenchanted romantic, as brooding and knowing as the darkest Bogart—the Bogart of In a Lonely Place. Dean’s isolation is that of profound understanding; and his dislike of the world, far from being causeless, was based on the extent to which the world had fallen away from its proper nobility, into vulgarity, materialism, and self-deception. America today is broken apart. But in 1955 it seemed whole, tight, and solid, except when Dean’s tragic eyes surveyed it. He appealed to the young because he understood that youth knew some truths about the world that adults had looked away from: about the unfriendly cities, the instinct for violence, and forsaken emotional sensibility. The parents in Rebel are trite, hollow people: Ray signaled that by casting Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo) as the father. And in East of Eden (55, Elia Kazan), it is Dean alone who is prepared to make the trip from Salinas to Monterey, who bridges the worlds of his arrogant, puritan father and his resentful, unprincipled mother. It was through Dean’s eyes and Kazan’s dramatic skill that we saw no need to condemn either and no prospect of their ever living together. Thus he had a kind of bastard robustness, horribly caricatured in his Jet Rink in Giant (56, George Stevens), too plain a film to sense Dean’s depth. Nevertheless Dean was lucky with directors. Kazan gave him a charge, confidence, patience, and Julie Harris. But only Nicholas Ray could have given him a part that guessed at the looming alienation in America.

Dean died in a car crash as Giant finished shooting. He was set next to play in Somebody Up There Likes Me, proof that he could not always have expected parts or directors as good as Rebel and Ray. He might have faltered, as often as Brando has done. Equally, he might have become the man in Last Tango.

When Dean died, Valentino had been gone just thirty years. Now, Dean is over fifty years dead. But Dean is not dated yet. New kids, without great movie theatres to find him in, still fall under his sway. It’s easier now to see Dean’s intelligence, his dismay, and his sexual ambiguity. But he changed so much, in such a short time.

[fableworld]

image to my fanfic "Loyalty of an Android"

archiveofourown.org/works/3356…

He heard Gavin's gun begin firing. GJ500 and TR400 attacked him again. Ronan barely managed to dodge them and grab the smaller GJ500 around the arm and threw him onto the TR400 chest. It made the bigger android stagger, and Ronan kicked TR400 hard in the chest to make him stay down for a minute. GJ500 jumped him and managed to force his fingers through his skin and rib a small piece of his arm off him. Ronan roared in pain and picked up the smaller android and threw him at the other Goons. They fell to the ground of the impact of the thrown android. There was blue blood around the now still GJ500. They must have by accident shot their own android. Ronan tried to scan his damaged arm, but then he was hit by something very big and fast. At first, he thought it was the TR400, but the roaring motor told him it was something else. He hit a wall with a great impact, and he felt his good arm and shoulder shatter. He has been hit by a car. Driven by a manic-looking Jack. He has a head injury after forgetting the seat belt and has apparently hit his head on the steering wheel. Jack was still disoriented after the car crash. I don't want to die. Ronan pulled out his own gun. There had been hidden behind his back all the time. I don't want to die Jack's face froze in horror when he realized Ronan was carrying a gun and still able to move. He tried to get out of the care. I don't want to die Ronan pulled the trigger. Jack died of a gunshot to the head. “NINES!” he looked up and saw Gavin was pinned down. His hiding spot was at risk. Ronan groaned and pulled the damaged car away from him. His damaged arm only hangs in two cables. It was too damaged to be repaired. He ripped his shattered arm off him. He could also feel part of his face and chest were highly damaged. cored and metal was hanging from him and thirium were covering his shoulder and chest. 20 minutes before eminent shutdown.

I don't want to die TR400 walked confidently over to him “Not so tough now, huh, deviant hunter?” he grinned. Ronan looked right at him. He was not Ronan Anderson at the moment. he was RK900, the deviant killer. “I can still kill you.” he jumped the TR400 and punched his arm right through his stomach plate. There was a soft spot and ripped a fist full of cord and metal out of the TR400. TR400 staggered and held himself around the stomach with fear in his eyes. Ronan ignored how much this android looked like Luther. Right now... he needed to survive. The TR400 got a hold of his face to push him away, and he nearly took Ronan's eye.  If he were at full capacity, he would not have that much trouble fighting the other android. He was built to withstand attacks from other models, but at the moment, it was the TR400 that had the upper hand, with him only having one arm. A damaged chest and part of his face were ripped to shreds. 17 minutes before eminent shutdown. He needed to end this battle quickly. He jumped into the air and kicked the TR400 right in the neck there making him stagger before he tackled him to the ground. The TR400 pushed him off, but he got a second kick at the neck by Ronan on the ground. He felt the TR400's neck crack under the kicks. He was immobilized for the moment. He stepped on the other androids' neck, and the TR400 tried to get him off, but the kick Ronan had done to the neck made him weaker. “wait! I don't want to die!” the TR400 cried under him. “Me either,” Ronan said coldly and stepped hard onto his neck. It cracked under him, and the TR400 stopped moving when his head and body were separated. Ronan staggered over to Gavin, who had just handcuffed the last human there was still alive. He fell to the ground before he could reach the human. “Holy shit...Nines!” he heard Gavin cry out. He felt his arms on him “hey hey hey, hang on. Just hang on.” “I'm going to die in 10 minutes....” Ronan informed Gavin. “Don't say that! Fuck fuck fuck” Gavin swore and looked horrified at his broken body. He quickly took his phone up to his ear. His hands were shaking and blue “I need an android ambulance. Ronan is really badly injured” Ronan guessed he called the stations since he also gave them his location. He set the phone down and looked at him with panic “right... we can get you fixed. We can get you back.” “I don't want to die.” “I know, I know. Just... hang on” he looked lost at his mangled body. 8 minutes before eminent shutdown. “is there anything I can do? Something to stop the bleeding?” “Call Connor... call Hank... I want to … talk to them.” “Don't talk like that! We're going to get you back!” “No... no more... no more,” Ronan begged. He couldn't do it again. He couldn't take it anymore. “I'm tired...” “You can't leave me!” Gavin yelled at him with tears in his eyes, “you fucking android, you can't!” “...I can't do it anymore... I'm scared of going back.” “Phck...” Gavin swore and lay his head against his chest. He was scared, lost, and frustrated. He picked up the phone again. “Connor? I... I need your help...” 6 minutes before eminent shutdown

[rainbowvamp]

Willow

Modern Reincarnation AU. Merlin and Lancelot go through a photo album. ~1700 words. Lancelot/Merlin. No warnings apply. (Mention of car wreck that killed Lancelot in a past life.)

A late birthday gift for Mod @little-ligi, because I couldn't have made this fest work without her. You're the best Ligi 💗

--

There’s no need to print photographs anymore. It’s easy enough to look at a screen and and flip through thousands, hundreds of thousands of images. But there has always been something special about choosing individual moments, perfect snapshots, and cataloging them into a book whose pages he can flip through. Merlin has been alive for over 1500 years. Books are one of the most familiar things he knows. One of the only things that hasn’t changed much in 1500 years.

People changed, clothes changed, transport changed, but not books. Those had remained nearly the same. You open the front cover and you look at what’s inside, just like always.

After 1500 years of adaptations, it was nice for this one thing to remain the same.

So when Lancelot hands him the photo album, Merlin is about to break his own face in half with how much he smiles at it. It’s a good thing, no a great thing, that Lancelot has done. The photo album is a deep forest green, the cover embossed with “The Book of Us.” In silver letters that Merlin traces with his fingers.

“What’s the occasion?” He asked, almost unable to take his eyes off of the book.

“Today is the day we met in this life, 10 years ago. I thought it might be nice.” Lancelot’s voice is so sincere, that Merlin has to look at him, has to look at the face of the man that he has loved without end or conditions for 1500 years. Tears prick his eyes because of all the love he see’s in Lancelot’s.

“I love you.” Merlin’s voice is soft when he finally finds it, and Lancelot crushes him to his broad chest, giving him a stability Merlin didn’t even know he needed until he had it.

“And I you,” Lancelot kissed Merlin’s cheek and Merlin’s fingers itched to open the photo album, but he didn’t want to leave the circle of Lancelot’s arms. He’s content to just listen to soft sound of Lancelot’s breaths, feel the pounding of his heart against his chest.

It’s Lancelot who finally breaks the silence. “Would you like to see the photos, my love?” His voice is soft and nonjudgemental. It’s obvious to Merlin that either a yes or a no would be acceptable.

“Yeah,” Merlin finally says, composing himself to pull away and walk with Lancelot to the couch.

They sit and Lancelot waits patiently for Merlin to feel ready to open the book.

The first few pages cover the span of over a year, with so few pictures taken before Lancelot knew him, before he remembered. Several of them are pulled from Instagram, captions included. There’s one of an empty seat and a drained coffee cup, and the caption just reads “I think I’ve met the man of my dreams.” It’s from their first coffee date, Lancelot’s post-date instagram update. Merlin laughed aloud, almost having forgotten it. The next is a candid shot of Merlin. They’d taken a weekend holiday a few months into dating and gone for a hike. The sun was setting behind Merlin, blurring out his features, but the silhouette was so obviously him.

The next was one of Lancelot cooking breakfast, looking over his shoulder to smile curiously at the camera.

Then the first selfie they’d ever taken together, complete with Lancelot pressing a kiss to Merlin’s cheek.

The photographs become more numerous, after that. Some of them and all their friends. There’s the photoset from Morgana’s birthday party (She’d rented a photo booth “because why they hell shouldn’t I spend Uther’s money on bullshit?”) There’s the Christmas photos for the dinner they always throw at Merlin’s because Lancelot doesn’t have any living family to go home to. Arthur and Morgana pop by when Uther becomes insufferable. Gwen and Elyan bring their father by to say hi. Leon stops by with gifts on his way to Mithian’s parent’s house. All these silly little moments caught on camera and made eternal, printed and carefully organized.

There’s the set they took at their third anniversary, a gift from Gwen and Arthur (who had recently gotten their heads out of unsavory places and started dating). There’s the picture of he and Gwaine standing side be side, smiling like old friends despite having just met twenty minutes ago. Merlin has a bruise forming on his cheek, but he’d insisted Lancelot take picture, to commemorate. “It’s not everyday I get in a bar fight, my love. Humor me.” And Lancelot always did.

There’s the terrible sledding disaster of 2015, where Merlin had crashed straight into a tree, and had been having too much fun to stop it with his magic. This is a still from a video, shortly before the actual disaster occurred. By the time the disaster was eminent Lancelot was no longer filming.

There’s the pictures he and Lancelot used to sneak of each other, just to have. Lancelot watching tellie. Merlin having a nap on the couch. Lancelot unclogging the sink. Merlin folding laundry. There was no rhyme or reason, then, for why they took the photos. It was a fun phase, each feeling challenged to take the most mundane pictures, always followed by a faked whining or griping.

There’s the picture of them from two years ago, in tailored suits, surrounded by friends, making their vows, followed by a series of all their friends dancing. A professional photographer had taken these photos, but Merlin always preferred the less polished pictures he and Lancelot took themselves that day.

Like the one Merlin had taken of Lancelot after he’d shoved cake in his face. Or Gwen’s candid picture of them gazing at each other like the biggest idiots in love.

Merlin doesn’t know when he started to cry, but he feels a tear roll down his face only when Lancelot pushes it away.

“I hope these are happy.” Lancelot puts his arm around him and Merlin nuzzles his shoulder. It’s enough, right now, to feel his warmth and smell his soap and just be near him. It’s grounding in a way only Lancelot ever was. The years with Lancelot, and there always seemed to be so many fewer of those than years without him, always made him feel the most alive. The most loved. The memories of Lancelot were good, but they didn’t sustain him, not like this would.

“Come here.” Merlins said, wiping his face and standing suddenly. He takes Lancelot’s hand and leads him out to the car.

“Where are we going?” He asked as they buckled the seat belts, but Merlin just shook his head.

“I want to show you something.”

—

The self storage place they pull up to is one of the last things Lancelot expects.

“Come on.” Merlin gets out and Lancelot dutifully follows, just like always. He lets Merlin take his hand again and watches as he pulls out a key ring that Lancelot’s never seen before and flips through them.

‘I put everything away, every time I meet one of you.” Merlin explains. “I used to have to keep the houses, to keep the things, but these are more secure.” He finally finds the key he needs as they stop outside a storage unit. “This one is from when we lived in the 1960s. Found you in Wales, then, of all places.” He smiled wanly. “We had 10 years together before you died in 1968. Car wreck.”

Lancelot only ever remembers bits of pieces of his past lives, normally only the good bits. “You weren’t with me, I presume?”

Merlin laughed as he wrenched the storage room door open. “You wouldn’t let me.”

“Is that why you never let me ride in a car without you now?”

“Part of it. I also just don’t like to be away from you.” Merlin flicked a light on and Lancelot was surprised by the sheer volume of things that existed in the room. “This was all of your things. I usually give myself about a year to wallow before I pack it away. If it’s here I never have to forget it, but I can still come and see it, if I need to.” He drags Lancelot to the back. On a wire rack there are plastic containers that looks like they’ve been taped shut. Merlin mutters a quick spell to remove the taping and then digs through the box. There are books, folders, papers, but then Merlin pulls out a photo album.

“I want you to see this. Because… I don’t know. It feels important.” Merlin is a very very old man, but he still doesn’t always have all the answers. Sometimes he just has to trust his gut and hope for the best.

He takes the album gently. It doesn’t smell stale the way old books usually do, most likely due to Merlin’s magic, but he flips it open anyway, without question. The first picture is of him and Merlin, a different him, but the same Merlin, Merlin’s arm is slung over him and they’re posing much more like a happy couple than a pair of friends. “Who took this?” He asked, tracing the lines of Merlin’s face. He looks so much older here than the Merlin he knows.

“Elyan. He liked photography. Took well to most of the Arts that life, actually.” Merlin smile and flipped a few pages to show Lancelot a picture of Elyan with a painting. “Abstraction was sort of the thing, then. He does a good job of it.”

“I don’t know anything about art, but it’s very compelling.” Even in the dreamy old photo, which was saying quite a lot.

“I brought it, a few years after he died. It’s in one of the other units.”

“How many of these do you have?” Lancelot asked, turning the page and almost laughing aloud at the image of Gwaine holding Arthur in a headlock. The two of them never changed, apparently.

“Just a couple. There are quite a lot of units in each building.”

“You own this building?”

“I’ve been alive for 1500 years, my love.” Merlin kisses his cheek and Lancelot closes the album. “I have a lot of stuff.”

“We’re taking this with us.”

“That was always the intent.” Merlin closes the box and spells the tape back into place. “That was a gift from you, too, actually, birthday present.”

“I’m predictable.”

Merlin laughed and wrapped an arm around Lancelot, tilting his head up to kiss his forehead. “You’re sentimental, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He pulled Merlin’s head back down to kiss hims squarely on the lips, making Merlin finally pause for the first time since they’d gotten in the car. “Neither would I.”

[blueiscoool]

Rock Legend Pete Townshend’s $21 Million Historic London Mansion

Rock ‘n Roll royalty has passed through the doors of this magnificent London mansion built in 1775—and probably all-too-often passed out on the floors.

For a quarter-century, The Wick, as the house is known, has been home to legendary The Who lead guitarist and co-founder Pete Townshend.

Perched on a hilltop in the leafy West London suburb of Richmond upon Thames, with jaw-dropping views of the River Thames below—the view is so special it’s protected by a 1902 British Act of Parliament—this four-story, six-bedroom mansion offers over 8,500-square-feet of interior space.

Before Townshend bought it, it had been owned by Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood who had converted the home’s one-time billiards room into a recording studio.

It was here where the likes of Clapton and Bowie, Jagger and Richard, Harrison and McCartney—entering through a discreet side-street door—frequently showed-up to jam.

“We’d fall asleep on the studio floor and wake up to find a room full of musicians who hadn’t been there when we crashed,“ Wood wrote in his 2003 book Ronnie: The Autobiography.

But according to Perry Press, of London estate agents Pereds, that holds the coveted listing, an equally fascinating and star-studded part of the home’s history was when Ryan’s Daughter actor Sir John Mills owned The Wick.

“He had lots of photos of The Queen Mother around when she visited  the house, and told us stories of Sir Laurence Olivier and Gone With The Wind’s Vivien Leigh acting out a scene from Romeo and Juliet in front of the drawing room fireplace,” he tells Robb Report.

According to Press, Sir John bought the house in 1950, sold it in 1956, and bought it back again in 1964 before passing it on to Ronnie Wood in 1972.

“Almost as soon as he sold it to Ronnie, he was calling us to see if it was possible to buy it back. Either he was sentimentally devoted to the place, or just couldn’t make up his mind,” says Press.

The Rolling Stone guitarist, who recorded two solo albums at The Wick, would go on to sell the house in 1976 to music industry executive Derek “Dick” Leahy who produced George Michael, Donna Summer and Britain’s Bay City Rollers band.

The Grade 1 listed Georgian-style mansion was designed in 1775 by eminent architect and engineer Robert Mylne for a Lady St. Aubyn. It was built on the site of the Bull’s Head tavern and was steps away from the then newly created 2,500-acre Richmond Park—still the largest royal park in London.

“The design is like a doll’s house and gives the illusion of being much more modest in size than it is. The home was Listed Grade 1 in 1950 for its architectural and historic interest,” says Pereds’ Press.

Key features include stunning, oval-shaped living rooms with stately fireplaces, vaulted ceilings, an elegant drawing room with views of the river, a glass conservatory, a heated pool and pool house, a large storage cellar, plus secure parking for a dozen cars.

As for that famous basement recording studio, little is left. One of the rooms was turned into a wood-paneled TV room, while the other is, according to Press, ripe for converting into a gym.

Why has Townshend, 76, decided to sell? According to Press, he and his composer wife Rachel Fuller came to the decision after spending over a year in Covid-19 lockdown at their Oxfordshire country home, Ashdown House. With a luxury apartment in Central London as well, seems The Wick has become what Press calls “surplus to requirements.”

But don’t expect too much negotiation on price; Mr. Townshend is only accepting offers “in excess” of £15 million, or $20.8 million.

As for kicking back on the home’s 200 feet of terracing with sweeping views of the Thames, and thinking of all the great music created in the basement below? Priceless.

By Howard Walker.

[haloud]

things we could burn in one go (eminence) - chapter 11

also on ao3

Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Isabel Evans & Max Evans & Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Forrest Long/Alex Manes Additional Tags: post-s2, Canon Compliant, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Starts Forlex Ends Malex, Other Characters May Appear, Tags Subject to Update, Mutual Pining, Breaking Up, Getting Together

Chapter Summary: Jones lets Michael in on a secret.

Excerpt:

He took a step back, but the symbols he’d touched continued to glow, burning into the surface of the pod. They pulsed, gold and fiery, for several seconds, before dimming, the colors of the pod pausing, like it was holding its breath.

Then it flickered; Michael yelled in shock as the symbols lifted from the surface, shimmering and gold and shaping themselves into a familiar-unfamiliar form.

A young woman, hair pulled back severely, wearing a stark-white uniform—at least, it looked like a uniform, almost like scrubs—looked down at Michael. The corners of her mouth turned down, a line formed between her brows that Michael saw most days in the mirror, but her eyes gleamed with some other, indefinable emotion.

Michael couldn’t breathe.

 Thursday, 8:30 am

Wiping his hand across his forehead, Michael squinted down into the guts of the Acura that was his latest patient. An easy fix, the job should have been done half an hour ago, but Michael’s mind wandered mercilessly, pulling his eyes to empty space, turning his thoughts to white noise worse than the static on Sanders’s busted radio blaring out oldies from the office. With a final jerk of his wrench, he declared the Acura done and dropped the hood, pacing over to his water and taking a swig. The water did little to cool him off; he paced back to the next car of the day, popped it open, and immediately slammed it shut again with a frustrated sigh.

Fuck, he’d barely been here an hour; he had a backlog a dozen deep or more; what the fuck was wrong with him?

No breeze disturbed the air or lifted the heat, already heavy on the skin even in the early morning. On a normal day, Michael worked methodically in the peace, savoring the solitude, time slipping away under the satisfaction of skill applied and challenge met. No matter how much Sanders griped, Michael always got the job done and the customer satisfied, keeping the lights on, no matter how old and dusty they might be. But today, Michael couldn’t reach that meditative place; his skin crawled in the silence, and his teeth grit at every sound.

Walk. He needed to—walk, exercise off some of this nervous energy. He’d been cooped up after Jones, too long, his feet restless, buzzing all in his veins. It was too early for him to take a break without catching shit from Sanders, but he’d live; Michael would work late, maybe, after the strategy meeting, however long it took, to make up for it. Right now, he couldn’t stay, penned in by the junkyard fence, rattling around in it like a caged dog.

A mile in, Michael realized he had a direction. The buzzing inside him tuned to a frequency, and he followed it, a call sense-familiar, a call like the one that bound him to Max and Isobel and them to their pods, a full-body variation on the sensation of touching alien tech.

Shading his eyes, Michael pulled out his phone and dialed Isobel—nothing. No signal. Of course. With no way to know if this call resonated in Max and Isobel too, he couldn’t do anything but continue on into the desert, following a familiar heading. On foot, it might take hours. It might mean everyone coming to meet him and him not being there, everyone panicking, Alex, panicking. Could he really do that to them again? Reckless, irresponsible, selfish—but none of those thoughts penetrated past the ineffable signal, and Michael walked, to the source of it, the origin.

The cave, at least, dewed cool and refreshing, sheltered from the sun and sand. Michael’s lungs thanked it too, a sanctuary from the hot late morning filling them every step of his trek. Once inside, it was only a short distance to the pod chamber, where Michael stopped.

What the fuck? Like coming out of a trance, Michael whirled around to see the way he came, no memory of it but the body-memory of aching feet.

Nothing there. The pods shimmered on. They had no answers; they weren’t even asking him why he was there, though he asked them. Silence.

Michael crossed the cave and stood in the center of the triad. First, he touched the pod that held Isobel for their new life and held her against death, running his fingers along the cool, frictionless surface. Next, he caressed Max’s pod, and finally, he stood in front of his own, if he could call it a possession, and slid his hands into his pockets.

“Well, I’m here,” he said aloud. “What, did you need something? Spit it out.” He snorted.

���Michael?”

He flinched at the sudden noise, but turned on his heel as his mind caught up with his instinct.

“Max!” he called back. “Dude, what the fuck are we doing out here? Have you talked to Isobel—”

The entrance to the pod cave was short, barely a crevice in the rock that held this chamber, unlike the deeper mines and systems that dotted these hills. Sound traveled fast from the entrance, and so did feet.

It wasn’t Max.

“Michael,” Jones said solemnly, with a shake of his head and a cluck of his tongue. “It disappoints me to have to call you out like this. I thought, after the conviction you showed last time, that you’d return for another lesson.”

“Jones,” Michael replied, taking a step back.

“We could have walked here together; I have plenty of stories to tell to pass the time.”

“Why did we have to walk here at all?” Michael demanded.

“You may have experienced the joys of traversal, but it isn’t something to be done lightly. It takes a great deal of energy and mental focus and fortitude—”

“I’m not talking about walking,” Michael snapped, “I’m talking about here. Why am I here? Why are you here?”

“Well, call me curious,” Jones replied pleasantly, folding his hands behind his back as he began to circle the trio of pods. “I had such a small sample of the woman’s handiwork to study during my confinement, I had to see her stasis pods for myself. The craftsmanship is truly remarkable. Truly remarkable.”

He gave Max’s pod a condescending pat. Michael clenched his fists.

“Most pods have a tendency to decay or have a decaying effect on their inhabitants.” Jones continued his circuit of the pods, passing Isobel’s. Michael stepped to the side so they circled each other, unwilling to let him too close. “But the timed release on these specimens taught them to ration their energy, and here they are, close to a century after crash-landing. Remarkable.”

“Are you telling me my mother built our pods herself?”

“Built, engineered, programmed, grew…” Jones waved a hand. “All of the above. Don’t be so limited in your thinking; you know better than that.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Don’t I? I thought we were getting to know each other quite well. How has Max been lately?”

“Shut up,” Michael snarled.

Jones chuckled. “That’s no way to speak. I didn’t come just to monologue; I came to give you a gift.”

He stopped beside Michael’s pod, and Michael stopped when he did. The entrance to the cave was at Michael’s back; he should cut and run from this vantage and let Jones do whatever he wanted with the pods—but in the middle of the desert, where was he supposed to go? His phone still had no signal, and there was nothing for miles. It would be child’s play for Jones to catch him. Or Jones would wait until Michael was home, until he thought he was safe, and crawl inside his mind to pull him out again. Was anywhere safe? Could Michael be trusted now, or was Jones inside him, somewhere beneath his skin, a trigger buried beneath Michael’s jumbled memories of that day waiting to be tripped?

“When I first came to make my observations, something clever caught my eye.”

Laying a hand on the surface of the pod, Jones’s eyes gleamed as a symbol drew itself beneath his touch, the familiar three-pronged alien sigil.

“It was on the door to your cave,” Michael said. “We’ve seen it our whole lives. You know what it means?”

“Of course. But that can wait. Come closer.”

Michael stalked a few feet, still keeping a wide berth. As he approached, one side of the symbol burned brighter, a circle with a bold, askew cross within. Jones touched a few more symbols in sequence as they rose to the surface.

“If you had persevered through your ordeal instead of running straight to Max, you would be able to read this,” Jones said idly.

“That’s a funny way of saying ‘gee, Michael, sorry for the attempted murder.’”

“Apologize?” Jones still didn’t look at him, face impassive, barely a flicker of irritation passing across it. If Michael didn’t know Max so well, he would know nothing about this man at all. “What good is an apology? I told you before—pain is an excellent teacher. Of course, there are those who disagree.”

He took a step back, but the symbols he’d touched continued to glow, burning into the surface of the pod. They pulsed, gold and fiery, for several seconds, before dimming, the colors of the pod pausing, like it was holding its breath.

Then it flickered; Michael yelled in shock as the symbols lifted from the surface, shimmering and gold and shaping themselves into a familiar-unfamiliar form.

A young woman, hair pulled back severely, wearing a stark-white uniform—at least, it looked like a uniform, almost like scrubs—looked down at Michael. The corners of her mouth turned down, a line formed between her brows that Michael saw most days in the mirror, but her eyes gleamed with some other, indefinable emotion.

Michael couldn’t breathe.

“I hope you never hear this, darling,” Nora said. Or—she didn’t speak, but Michael heard her all the same.

She said, “I hope the journey goes smoothly and we land softly in a new life, and my attempts to find some kind of goodbye can just be deleted like a bad dream. But I’ve been having a lot of bad dreams, baby, and I can’t let this go without a contingency.” She huffed a short sigh. “So here I am.

“You’re sleeping in your room right now. You know its your last night in your little bed, but I’m not sure it’s sunk in exactly what that means. Is it wrong that I’m glad for it? I don’t want you to be afraid. I never want that.

“But if you’re seeing this, it means I’ve likely already failed on that front, so what is there to say except I’m sorry? I’m so sorry, baby, if you’re seeing this. I love you so, so much, and I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to tell you how much I love you without holding you in my arms—these words, these feelings, they aren’t enough. Nothing I say could be enough. But baby, just know that you are the only thing in my heart. Your brilliant mind, your big heart, you are so wonderful, and having you in my life has been my life’s greatest blessing. No matter what, I know you’re out there—even if the worst comes to pass, even if you’re out there alone, even if you come to hate me for abandoning you, any word with you in it is worth saving, no matter what else has been destroyed.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, my son. I’ll love you even more tomorrow, for every day we’re together and every day we’re apart. Goodbye, and goodnight.”

Nora’s form reduced to gold once more, sinking back into the pod, and the silence that followed sucked everything in with it, sucked the air straight from Michael’s lungs. The whole world blurred behind his eyes, his left hand clawing over his chest, over his racing heart, his mouth working to find the words, words his mother hadn’t even known in the much more primal language of thought and emotion sown softly directly into his mind.

He'd felt, all these things, all those emotions she spoke of, hand to hand, through the grime and glass, condensed into one split-second, the atom before the bomb. The love, she’d poured it into him, a vessel too cracked and flawed to hold it. Would having words put to it help him understand? Lyrics to the harmony and melody?

“Touching,” Jones murmured.

“Shut the fuck up,” Michael said, voice cracked to pieces.

“What? I mean it. A mother’s love. No force like it in the world, wouldn’t you say?”

Jones began to circle again, approaching Michael.

“That love brought you here across the stars. Would you like to thank her? Or condemn her? She left you the burdens you bear, after all.”

“It’s not her fault the military locked her up and tortured her!” Michael shouted, a boom to his voice that shook the cave around them, shedding dust like the old days, when Michael’s rage moved furniture and shook art from the walls and moved minds to thoughts of hellfire.

“You really don’t hold a grudge? Not even in the slightest?”

“Why do you care? You hated her, right? Because she got one over on you, she got Max away from you. And she outsmarted you again here on Earth.”

At that, Jones sighed. He took a step closer, and this time Michael stood his ground, his mother-made pod at his back. Jones’s eyes shone glassy in the low, shifting light.

“Thank you, Michael, for that eloquent declaration of your loyalties. I’m disappointed in you, but it does uncomplicate things.”

He flicked his hand and Michael flew across the cave, head slamming sickly into the wall, like Michael had flung Jones when he fled from him the last time. As the world swam and a hot trickle wound down the back of Michael’s neck, Jones approached leisurely.

“See, for a sec, I thought the soft approach was working on you, Michael. I thought my charm was still good, even after all these years. You want to learn. You want the knowledge, the understanding. You want to stand in the light of the truth. Don’t you?”

Michael spat, and Jones ground him a few feet up the wall, his back scraping stone inch by jagged inch.

“So loyal. So dedicated. There is so damn much of that woman in you, no matter what kind of taint this rat-hole planet has left you with, human.”

The word oozed off his tongue like a slur.

A sneer on his face, Jones continued, “I hope it gives you solace while it can. I know it has a certain soothing effect on my own guilty conscience.”

“You’re fucking insane!” Michael gasped out. He flung his mind at every loose object around him, but nothing budged, his powers weak and fickle and inadequate.

In rage, they’d never failed him. But beneath his placid face, in Jones was something stronger than Michael, stronger than rage. But not stronger than Michael’s mother; not stronger than Nora Truman; not stronger than her by any other name she may have claimed in languages Michael would never speak.

Jones wasn’t stronger than her. So Michael would find a way. She sacrificed too much for him to give up now.

“Even on this life-forsaken psych-dumb wasteland planet, you have to understand that there are crimes and there are punishments,” Jones seethed. His composure was cracking, the man they’d first met in that cave pushing through the veneer he’d constructed over the months he’d been among them. He didn’t wait for Michael to respond, ranting on, “She stole from me. Ran from me, a fucking pirate! She stole my healer! My people! My heir. She had no right! And, not content in her flagrant audacity, she put me in a fucking hole in the ground! There are crimes and punishments. But she is beyond me now.”

Michael’s back lifted from the wall and slammed down again. He groaned as his vision went gray and his stomach heaved.

“She got what was coming to her. A fitting enough end, destroyed by the world she thought would hide her. But how can I be satisfied without a little vengeance of my own? Now that I’ve seen her message, my path at last is clear. You’ll do.”

The invisible iron bars pinning Michael six feet in the air disappeared, and he slumped to the hard-packed floor, air sawing through his chest, ribs screaming with every wheeze.

“Wouldn’t she be proud to see you now,” Jones murmured, and everything went dark.

When Michael came to, the world swam dim and gold into view, and squinting and wincing it took him a full minute to absorb his surroundings. He was slumped on the ground beneath the ladder of his workshop. Every bone and muscle ached; every breath seared inside him and ached its way back out.

“Michael! There you are. For a moment I was afraid in my excitement you’d gotten a little ahead of me,” Jones cried jubilant from across the room.

Staggering to his knees, Michael groaned, “Don’t fucking touch—how do you even—know this—”

“Either I plucked it out of your ripe mind when you offered it to me or I know someone who knows you,” Jones said. Something clanked as he tossed it. “Believe whichever, it doesn’t matter to me.”

He flung the tarp from Michael’s worktable, baring the console skeleton before his greedy eyes.

“This—” He laughed. “You truly are a marvel, you stupid boy. What I wouldn’t give for time and space to study you. Mold you. It’s almost a pity.”

“If Max is what you want, he’ll never forgive you if you kill me,” Michael slurred.

“Max is a piece of the puzzle. One piece,” Jones said. “And there have to be three. Or hasn’t anyone told you?”

Jones whirled away and went back to rifling through Michael’s papers, muttering to himself. Inching a little more upright, Michael craned his neck to look at the opening to the bunker, thrown wide, sunlight streaming down. He blinked in the sunlight piercing his pounding head, frantically trying to calculate the time. How close were they to crossing paths with everyone? Had Michael’s stupid wandering called the fox right in? Alex, Isobel, Max, Maria—

“I know, I know, no time to waste,” Jones said. “As entertaining as your little drawings are. We have things to be getting on with.”

With one hand, he seized the console, and with the other, he seized Michael, seized each of his organs in brutal turn, Michael sputtering and choking, writhing for relief that wouldn’t come, a beetle crushed beneath a boot.

“Let’s go somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”

[not-poignant]

Heyy Pia! I hope you are doing well in these very difficult times<3 I am very interested in psychology, and gender and sexuality, and I was wondering whether you would share some of the books (or anything else really) you used for research on Mika's character, specifically his career in psychology as a sex therapist and his specialization? Thank you so much in advance, and have a lovely day :)

Hiya,

First things first, I kind of invented Mika’s position. It’s not based on anything I’m aware of directly. I know there are good sexuality and gender specialists out there, but I’ve never met one, and the only time I ever saw a sexologist it was a genuinely abusive exercise in asexual oppression and it was hideous and if I ever see her again I’m going to punch her in the throat. *coughs* No I wouldn’t do that. But I did think about it once I realised how harmful she’d been.

So Mika’s position is kind of a syncretic imagining of psychology, psychoanalysis, up-to-date research on diverse gender and sexualities (I know there are DGS specialists for teens and children for sure, though), including a very open and approachable attitude about kink.

I didn’t use any specific books to research Mika’s character. I’m going to do some book recs in a hot second, but I think it’s worth me stating that I started reading like, books on psychology (both those for patients and then quickly progressing to those for practicioners at around 17 years old) when I was 14 years old, and I’m 38 now so that’s... *thinks* 24 years of taking out and ordering in every book on trauma and psychology I could get my hands on in about three different libraries, buying books and throwing out well over seventy long before Goodreads existed (I was never a fan of The Courage to Heal lol), and so what I own now is an extremely curated list of books based off reading hundreds throughout my life. And it’s very ‘me’ specific rather than ‘general.’ It just helps I’m largely writing trauma recovery, lol.

That and seeing some 19 therapists (psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, psychoanalysts and one specialist in traumatised refugees from ASETTs who was super helpful because my own case is quite extreme and most therapists weren’t equipped for my level of PTSD and the events that caused it - which many therapists didn’t want to admit until they’d done some damage; it’s cool, my last two have been spectacular), and absorbing the things that helped me, and the things that didn’t, and recognising that some of the things that didn’t help me might help other people (I would hate Dr Gary as a personal therapist lmao).

And then a lot of Wikipedia articles to stay relatively up-to-date. And also organisations. Pure O in particular is very well-represented by patient advocate websites and I’ve read page-to-page most of the major ones.

Which means...I don’t often consult books on specific subjects before writing them anymore in this arena. I brushed up very briefly on the Karpman drama triangle to make sure I wasn’t getting it wrong (I wasn’t), but outside of that, most of everything else is like a very ridiculous mix of stuff that I don’t expect anyone to take on board, but works for me.

Anyway, this is my current list of psychology books that are of the most interest to me but have literally nothing to do with Mika’s speciality, unfortunately. If you’re looking for further reading on DGS psychology, I don’t have it. It’s largely a new field and focused in on adolescents and children. You’d be better off contacting those therapists directly and asking them for the publications that are coming out that they recommend.

Now to my books:

(One of those authors in that list was actually my therapist for a few years lol).

Missing from this book because I mistakenly lent it out and will never see it again, is the highly highly seriously can’t fucking recommend it enough: The Trauma Spectrum by Robert (Bob) Scaer, which kind of blew me away, and distlils and synergises a lot of the above books into something eminently understandable whether you’ve experienced a single car crash, or decades of sexual assault.

The Body Remembers is a good one for anyone curious about how trauma expresses itself through the body i.e. like Efnisien’s ongoing somatisation. And Levine’s Waking the Tiger looks at physical techniques designed to ‘unlock’ that trauma, though I don’t really write about that as often. Colin Ross’s book on The Trauma Model looks at comorbidities and more importantly, looks at things like the drama triangle and what it looks like when psychiatrists start really fucking up.

Some of these books are really fucking expensive, so I highly recommend first requesting them through your local libraries, or alternatively, seeing if there are updated or newly recommended sources, since obviously some of mine I have been ordering/collecting since the 90s. I’m pretty sure I got The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild in 2000 when I was 18 years old, as an example. 20 years on, and trauma sciences and studies have progressed (though some of these books are more recent).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure great DGS therapists exist for adults, I just haven’t met them, and they aren’t all kink friendly. And many kink and DGS friendly psychologists have done a standard psychology curriculum with maybe a few specialised units and aren’t necessarily progressing through to an MA or PhD like Mika did. (There’s nothing wrong with that, most folks don’t need more than that). I did enough research to know the preferred term is DGS (Diverse Genders and Sexualities) and then from there came up with Mika and his approach without any further research beyond just...what I’ve absorbed over the years.

I am fortunate enough that I tend to remember a lot of what I read, though as always, I’m biased towards remembering the things that interest me most personally, which means I’m missing a lot of information and always have more to learn. I write fiction, at the end of the day. :)