#except having money part. I like having money

[cranky-crab-crabby-crank]

I agree with the spirit of this post (normally I side-eye witches proclaiming they can curse people, because of the non-consensual nature of bringing misfortune onto someone, but if you can really do that, why are all community efforts not put towards collectively cursing Elon and Jeff) however … you probably could have helped a lot more people with the same amount of money by donating to systemic fixes being fought for by NGOs rather than just shoring up people for a few items.

Except for the healthcare and lawyers for escaping an abusive marriage part (why did they need lawyers? We have no fault divorce laws? Is there some sort of info or aim omitted here?), most of these things were pretty superficial and not getting to the root of societal suffering like you seem to aspire to.

[ranpazz]

hahahaj

dazai nsfw below, we will get to ranpo later sbahajkw

do u think he's the type to fuck you in or on top of the car? getting back to this trope from my last ask too -- the wearing short and skimpy dresses. personally I feel he will be the kind to personally ask (or buy) you skimpy clothes like yk super short skirts and tops and stuff. I think he might be the kind to get off to it infront of u if you piss the guy off. pissing him usually means him getting jealous at literally anything. he doesn't get jealous but when he does, even the slightest thing can make him jealous.

he's sooo the type to talk to someone while u r under the seat sucking him off, like the window will be down just a bit so he can talk to whoever is outside.

wanna make him riled up? dress up in ribbons (I forgot what that's called) wear a robe/coat and get into his car and take pictures of yourself after discarding the robe/coat, take pictures with your legs spread on the backseat, straddle his seat and take a video of riding it. what's he gonna do? he's in another part of the country anyway.

..... except that dazai is a mysterious man, u dk how many connections he has and u always wonder how he has sm power. you think that now too as there are literally four or so guards escorting you to a flight to wherever he is and as you get into the hotel room he is staying at, you gulp. he's sitting there with a cigarette in his mouth, dark look over his eyes and the usual casualness or playfulness not even anywhere near him.

Oh IRAAAAA. YES HE IS.

NSFW BELOW THE CUT!!

He's a man of needs after all, and how can he resist his pretty passenger princess? Seeing you walking around in those skimpy outfits —It's a bonus if you have a letterman jacket with his initials on it— your pretty face flashing him a smile anytime you see him? You're immediately guided to the backseat for a quickie before his race. Or if a parking lot happens to be empty, you're taking him on the hood of his car.

He isn't a particularly jealous man, but I think he'd be dramatic to play it off. If a guy is bold enough to approach you and ask for your number and socials, or perhaps getting a bit too touchy, he can't help himself. Dazai will easily intervene, whether it be him coming behind you and snaking his arms around your waist or straightforwardly telling the guy to fuck off if he's not feeling cheerful. Afterwards, when you think he'll let off steam by fucking you, you've never been more wrong. He's got you on your knees, taunting you by stroking his cock after he instructed you not to touch him. And God he loves seeing you desperately trying not to touch yourself, attempting to ignore the breathy exhales and whines he's letting out.

As for clothing, unlike ADA!Dazai, Illegalracer!Dazai has money. After winning so many races and crushing high ranking opponents, the pay is incredible. He won't hesitate to buy you any clothes you like, lingerie, accessories, anything you want, you've got it. However, you think it's only fair to pay him back. So while he's all the way in a different part of the country, he leaves his precious car all to you. So what's the harm in dressing up all pretty for him in your letterman, lingerie in his favorite color, and your legs spread in the backseat as you take pictures for him? Or sending a video of you toying with your clit in the driver's seat? Though, once they're sent you're merely left on read.

It only takes a few hours before you've got his personal guards escorting you to a private flight to Tokyo Bay — courtesy of your man himself — and much to your surprise, your led to a hotel room before the escorts leave you standing just in front of the door. you can practically feel Dazai's presence within the room, and now you're sweating bullets. Because the second you open that door, he's on the bed, manspreading with a cigarette hanging loosely between his lips as he stares you down like you're nothing but prey to him.

[postoctobrist]

When me and my friends were young (but not that young) our small hometown town somehow got the money to build a 1000ft long pedestrian suspension bridge. We were bored and found that if we grabbed the suspension cable at its lowest point and pushed and pulled it at the right frequency we could slowly build up oscillations in the bridge. You could feel the walkway swaying underneath us and see the movement in the main suspension cable. We would do this with several people with one person counting out the beat until the oscillations got so large that the suspenders attaching the walk way to the main cable started to slam into the hand rail and make a horrible clanging noise. Then we would all be scared, and no longer bored so we would stop.

While doing this I was aware of the differential equations describing first and second order resonance in elastic structures with and without dampening. I had studied several engineering disasters where cyclic loading close to some multiple of the resonance frequency lead to collapse of buildings and bridges. It is a small town and I was bored.

I am bad at transitions, and I would like to ask for advice/articulate something. Mostly to force myself to articulate thoughts I have never spoken about, and you do not have to read all this. Because it is very long and large parts of it are honestly pretty horrible. I have for some time been making a very conscious effort to not think about "my gender". Because I felt that there would be no use in thinking about myself through that lens. Telling myself that I can do whatever I want regardless of gender. This seemed to work for me except I find myself paralyzed. I cannot imagine myself in a romantic or sexual relationship. Romantic or sexual attention I receive feels like it is intended for somebody else. Even in situations that should be simple where attraction is mutual I feel confused and conflicted. As I write this I am wearing clothes somebody gave to me almost a decade ago, they have holes in them and I never really considered what they look like to other people. A couple times a year when I make budget or apply for a job etc I thin about the future but only ever a year or two ahead. This future blindness gets so bad I often can't even make plans for the weekend. I find myself looking at my reflection as if trying to find something wrong with my appearance but I couldn't put my finger on any specific flaw. I look like an attractive man, what else could I ask for.

I have recently allowed myself to think about this and I am not sure that it is helping. I realize now that being a man can be an exhausting constant effort for me, and that certain things that I have been doing can alleviate this pressure. When I wear my long hair down, I do not imagine that I have become a women, but the act of wearing my long hair down and shaving my entire face is not something I would do to look like the manliest man. This almost symbolic rejection of my internal drive to act as a man has a profound effect on me. Especially when I am alone I find this very calming, my mind is a little quieter, my breathing is a little deeper.

However in public this is often over shadowed by a new discomfort. My already ever present sense of danger in public is heightened. Around many men I feel physically unsafe, as if a threat of violence lies just under the surface of every interaction. Around women my discomfort around men and with myself seem to combine and I cannot shake the feeling that I will make them feel unsafe. Making women feel unsafe makes me unsafe and so on. All this is worse the more feminine I am.

My small symbolic gestures of femininity in private would seem to have no real downside. Their benefits seem to come into effect as soon as stop trying to look masculine. However in the perception of others I feel a pressure to appear either completely man or women. I now find myself trying to appear feminine and this might be worse. Outside perception of me feels completely beyond my control. Which is a good excuse for me to repress any thoughts or feelings about it. I want to accept that this is outside my control, and also that I desperately want to control it.

Some of things I believe about this view of me from the outside are not things I would ever want to put on anyone else. I have never seen a person that would look worse with some musculature, and have always found strong people aesthetically pleasing and attractive. I enjoy being strong, it practical utility, the sense of security it provides me, and as an accomplishment I am proud of. Yet at the same time I sometimes find myself revolted by my muscles. My size, my veins, my bones, nothing about them is wrong except that they are there.

I feel I need to juxtapose any feminine attributes against my masculine ones (one earring is allowed but with short hair. Long hair is allowed in a bun but with stubble). To appear as a feminine man and not a failed attempt at manliness. Is this my reaction to a societal pressure or my own misandry against weak men? I have no way of knowing. Similarly I feel that the only way to be extremely feminine or a woman would be to subject myself to sexual objectification, and infantilization ("femboys" are only feminine as long as they are somebodies fetish and because they are boys and not adults). Again I cannot say if this is my reaction to a societal trend or my own judgement on other people. Either way I cannot help but feel that this pedophilic degrading view of femininity and women is a moral sin I have committed. Yet what possible use could there be in applying a moral judgement on my own thoughts? I don't choose to feel or think these things. I don't want to wear booty shorts, or dress up like a princess. Do I think less of those who do? If don't subject myself to this degradation in exchange for femininity will it be because I have the self respect of a man? Or is it just cowardice.

I don't want to look like a trans women. I want what my grandma has. She is a matriarch. The varicose veins on her arms, her short hair, a raspy laugh, a double mastectomy, these things are just the type of women she is. She is a mother of mothers. She might not be asked to pray over the meal, but her wisdom is an open secret among those that are really looking for ruthlessly honest advice. She must enjoy wearing jewelry (or she wouldn't bother) but never seems to take it too seriously. When telling a story about how she fought a bear off her daughters or cracking a joke about how she will die any day now her womanhood is so effortless, so inconsequential, so in the background that it almost seems almost useless.

oh my fucking god lady just take the fucking estrogen

[tmbgareok]

I consider you both an influence on my music/art, so here's a question, how was it like working on Lincoln?

JF: The great part was the new technology that was available opened things up for us sonically in some very exciting ways, with improvements in drum machines, along with just our basic stuff getting better. I had an actual Fender guitar by the end of that album and that was huge for me. The horizon line of what was possible seemed to just be ever expanding. We had started touring in earnest, and all our recording dates were interrupted by more live shows, but those experiences were revelatory for me in terms of singing and playing, and just putting things together. While the road work was exhausting, it made us better and better.

But it was also a very very busy time and hard to keep up with all the moving parts of our lives. I made a lot less money in 1988 and 1989 than I did in 1986 and 1987, just because I went from having a pretty great professional job to being a full time touring musician playing pretty bottom run gigs. So the brokenness was a bit of a drag.

As for the actual recordings-with a few notable exceptions, it seemed like the first time something worked in the studio it meant it was finished, which is not uncommon for people on a tight budget (or no budget), but kind of frustrating.

[storytowrite]

|You will always be mine ~ Lee Minho series|

PART 15

Paring: Minho x Y/N

Genre: smut, angst, university au

Word count: 2990

Warnings: sex, 18+, Minho is a psycho, dom!Minho, sub!reader, abuse, slight BDSM, kidnapping, violence, age gap, Minho is an university professor, Y/N can be hurt physically (and mentally too I guess).

Synopsis: Who knew that accidental fuck in the club bathroom with a handsome man will bring you to a lot of unexpected events.

Author's note: I kept this series for a really long time not sure if I want to post it or not, but I decided to do it anyway, so I hope you'll like it.

——————————

The trip lasted about two hours. Throughout this time, you were strapped down and immobilized in the passenger seat, while Minho was focused on the road. Although your body felt excitement, you began to have some concerns. You weren't sure what to expect from the man who had actually kidnapped you. And he did it with your consent, after all, you got into his car yourself.

“We've arrived, kitten.” Minho's voice suddenly broke the silence that had prevailed the entire way. 

“Where are we?” You asked, rubbing your wrists as the man untied your hands. You sat up slowly and looked out the window. 

Minho had stopped the car in a nice courtyard right in front of a fairly large wooden house. There was nothing around except the forest that surrounded the whole area. You trembled slightly. You liked it less and less. 

“You'll be safe here.” Minho said and got out of the car, then opened the passenger door and shook your hand.” Come in, I'll show you your new home.” He smiled broadly at you. 

“Wh-what? No, Minho don't joke around like that, okay? It's not much fun... I want to go home.” You said, looking around panicked. 

“As I told you, here is your new home, kitten. With me. Come on. Get out and do what I say before I run out of patience.” He said firmly. 

You obediently got out of the vehicle, trembling slightly in fear. You looked at him uncertainly not knowing what to expect. Minho turned around and started toward the house. You sighed heavily and moved after him. You knew that until you figured out some way to get away from him, you would have to play along as he told you to. 

As you crossed the threshold of the house, you swallowed your saliva loudly. The interior of the house was upholstered in light wood, contrasted by black furniture with gold accessories. It definitely did not look like an ordinary cabin in the woods. Until you were stunned. You stopped in the middle of the spacious living room looking around the room.

“Do you like it?” Minho asked, but didn't expect an answer. “Hungry? I'll make dinner.” 

“Minho... where do you get the money for all this? It's like you're an ordinary lecturer...” You started but he interrupted you in mid-sentence. 

“I invited you to my house, and all you think about is money, kitten?” He asked disapprovingly and stammered. “You shouldn't ask such questions. It's not nice to ask how much or where someone has money, you know?”

“Sorry.” You replied, quickly lowering your head and sticking your gaze into your shoes. 

“But...” He walked over to you and with his index finger lifted your chin, forcing you to look him in the eye. “I wouldn't know how to be angry with you, kitten, you know? I'll answer your question. In addition to teaching at the university, I'm involved in, um... how shall I say it? Ah yes! You could say I'm a collector of sorts.” He smiled at you and leaned gently over you. “And I collect not only beautiful objects.” He whispered in your ear, and ran your lips gently over his petal, at which you quietly sighed. “I collect many things. And you, you are my most important trophy.”

“I am not an object.” You said, and your voice trembled softly. You stepped back slightly while watching him. You took a few steps back, but Minho walked slowly toward you, smiling nonchalantly.

Your back encountered an obstacle - a glass door leading to the garden. You felt their coldness on your body and immediately winced. You wanted to take half a step forward, but Minho was already leaning over you. His hands were on both sides of your head. Even though the height difference between you was small, you felt really small.

Minho smiled at you slightly. He knew exactly what you must be feeling. He was enjoying this moment. He liked the emotions he was causing in you. He saw a mixture of excitement and fear in your eyes. And even if you denied it, he was definitely aware of the effect he was having on you.

"What are you going to do with me now?" You asked quietly. You knew there was no chance of escape. You looked into his eyes, which cost you a lot. Fear slowly began to take over your body.

"I'll rape you and kill you." He whispered in your ear and kissed you gently on the cheek, then pulled away with a quiet laugh. “I already told you, kitten, I won’t hurt you. You’re important to me.”

“Important people don’t get taken out into the middle of the forest against their will!” You suddenly shouted in a surge of adrenaline, and your voice was full of conflicting emotions.

“You can scream as much as you want, kitten. No one will hear you here anyway.” Minho shrugged. “You’re safe here… And only with me. Just as it should be. I already told you, you don’t need anyone but me.”

“I’m not your fucking property!” Anger began to take hold of you. “I want to go home! You’re fucked up!”

“Hm…” Minho tilted his head slightly, looking at you. “No.” He replied shortly. “Although you’re right, you’re not a thing. But you belong to me and nothing will change that, kitten. We’ll always be together, you know?” He pushed the unruly locks behind your ear. “And you can resist as much as you want, but it won’t change anything.”

“I want. To. Go. Home.” You insisted, your anger growing weaker and weaker.

“And I want a star from the sky! We all want something Y/N. I already told you, this is your home. Why aren't you even listening to me, huh? You’re mine now. My most important trophy that I have to protect!” His voice was getting more and more nervous.

“Protect? What the fuck are you trying to protect me from, huh? The only person I need protection from is you! You fucking kidnapped me! And you took me to god knows where!” You growled.

“I didn't force you to do anything, kitten. You got in my car of your own free will. I said I'd take you home. I didn't say whose. You didn't ask anyway." He replied calmly and shrugged.

"I didn't even think you wouldn't take me to my apartment Minho! You're some kind of a fucking psychopath!"

"Call me whatever you want kitten, after all you didn't specify what you wanted, not me." He replied nonchalantly. "You're probably hungry, huh? If you weren't you wouldn't be screaming like that. Eh... Sit down in the living room or explore the house. You won't get very far anyway. Oh and one more thing..." He pulled your phone out of your pants pocket. "You won't need this anymore." He winked at you, then broke the device in half, threw it on the floor and stomped on it.

You looked at the remains of your phone. Tears welled up in your eyes. You knelt on the floor and started to pick up what was left of the device. You felt bad. Lee Minho, the man you met a few months ago in the club turned out to be a completely different person than you imagined. You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye as he bustled around the kitchen. You were afraid of him and at the same time you felt the hopelessness of the whole situation. Alone with HIM in the forest. Without a phone. Without the possibility of contact with anyone close to you. You didn't know what to do with yourself, or what awaited you. Only Minho knew what he would do to you. And that was what you feared the most.

Minho, on the other hand, was pleased with himself. He knew that you were afraid of him and he understood you to some extent. In your place, he would probably be distrustful too. However, he didn't care that much about what you felt. The only thing that mattered was that you were with him. He wanted to keep you as close to him as possible and forever, and he knew that he would do everything to fulfill that desire.

"Dinner's ready." He said, placing a warm meal on the table. He glanced at you, still kneeling on the floor over the broken phone. “Y/N, come on, it's getting cold.”

But you didn't react to his call. You stared at the shattered device and tried to think of a way to escape.

“Hello, earth to Y/N!” Minho approached you. “I said dinner's ready. Come on in. Before I start getting nasty.”

“I'm not hungry.” You mumbled. “I want to go home, please.”

“I already told you this kitten, why don't you listen to me? You're home. Your home is where I am. Now I invite you politely to the table.” He said in a tone that didn't tolerate any argument, staring at you. You swallowed hard but followed his command. You sat down at the table and took a fork in your hand. “Enjoy.”

You started eating. Although you had no appetite, you ate what Minho gave you because you were afraid of his reaction if you accidentally disobeyed him.

“I'll show you around the house after dinner.” Minho suddenly spoke, breaking the silence.

“Okay…” You nodded. You knew that for now you had no choice and had to do what Minho told you. Otherwise it could end badly for you. You quickly ate your meal. Minho put the dirty dishes in the sink and walked over to you.

“Come on.” He said shortly and headed towards the stairs.

The house you were in had two floors. Downstairs there was a huge kitchen in a modern design, connected to the living room and dining room, all in an open space. In the living room there was a huge, black, leather couch, similar to the one Minho had in his apartment in the city center. There was a large TV hanging on the wall, and right next to it was a door leading to the garden.

The upper floor was decorated in a similar way to the living room. Upstairs there were four bedrooms and a study, which Minho immediately forbade you from entering. Each bedroom had a bathroom with a shower. In the master bedroom, apart from a huge bed with black satin sheets, there was a spacious wardrobe. In the bathroom, apart from the glass shower, there was a deep bathtub in the middle. On the counter against one of the walls were two sinks and a lot of cosmetics.

You hadn't noticed before that both the wardrobe and the bathroom were fully equipped. It looked as if Minho had been planning your move to this house for a long time. However, you didn't dare to ask him about it. You were afraid of what kind of answer you might get.

When you had already walked around the entire apartment, you went back down to the living room, Minho sat down on the leather couch and looked at you. His attitude was extremely nonchalant. Two buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned from the top. Even though you were afraid of Minho, you had to admit that his attitude and appearance impressed you.

“Okay, kitten.” He began, looking at you standing in front of him. “We need to establish some rules in this house. First, you have to listen to me. You are not allowed to go into the study upstairs and you are not allowed to leave the house. Besides, even if you tried, you will not succeed. There is nothing around, there is only the forest. Second, you can of course walk around the house and garden, but the garage is off limits to you. And third and most importantly, from today you belong to me. If I decide that you are a good enough girl, I will get you a phone… maybe you will get a computer in some time.”

“And what am I supposed to do here?” You asked, annoyed. “Wait for you like a faithful dog? You are psychotic! I want to go back to my apartment!”

“Kitten, apart from me you have nothing. This is your apartment now, whether you like it or not.” He replied calmly.

“You can't keep me here for the rest of my life. What about my studies? What about my family? And friends? They'll be looking for me!"

"And they'll find a dead body. It will be so massacred that they won't even think it could be anyone else." He replied unfazed, making you shiver. “Kitten, I've already arranged everything. You don't have to worry about anything. Your loved ones, well... they'll forget about you quickly. And as for your studies. What do you need them for when I'm your professor anyway? You're homeschooled."

"That's not how it works, Minho. I need to have contact with others. I can't sit around and do nothing all my life because that's what you want. And what if you get bored with me? Will you get rid of me like you did with Rheena?"

"Rheena, ah yes... Well, luckily you're not Rheena. Your luck, of course." He winked at you. "Rheena deserved what happened to her. But you don't have to worry, kitty, I won't hurt you, which I think I've already mentioned. You have a really bad memory and you don't listen to what I say... I think I'll have to teach you some lessons."

"I don't think I need your lessons. I don't know what sick game you're playing, but that's not right, Minho. Please, let me out and let's forget about this, okay? I won't tell anyone, I promise you." You didn't give up.

"Hm... no. I won't believe any of your promises, kitten. Besides, you already gave me up to the police once, right? I don't want it to happen again. Now, come to me."

You swallowed hard, but approached the man. For now, you decided to follow his orders and in the meantime figure out a way to escape. Minho looked you in the eye and pulled you onto him. You landed on his lap.

"Perfect." He smiled slightly. "Like I said... I have to teach you a lesson." He added and suddenly put you on his lap.

"Minho, what are you doing?" You asked, surprised.

“I’m teaching you how not to behave. Any disobedience will be punished.” His hand landed with a force on your right buttock. You let out a surprised cry. You didn’t have time to say anything when you were hit in the other buttock.

Minho gave five hard slaps on both of your buttocks. With each subsequent one you let out louder and louder cries. You didn't want to admit it, but the man's slaps caused a slight arousal.

Lee Know knew it perfectly well. He knew your body better than his own. He knew what he had to do to arouse you, without too much effort. And that was what he wanted. He gently massaged your buttocks, then moved his hand between your thighs, at which you let out a quiet sigh.

He began to rub your sensitive spot through the material of your shorts. Your breathing quickened, the more pressure he put on. You began to moan quietly. Minho took his time. He relished your voice. He began to gently make circles, then pressed lightly on your shell, making you moan even louder.

He felt the material of your pants getting wetter and wetter. He smiled slightly to himself. He laid you down on the couch and stood over you. He took off your pants and panties, and then looking you straight in the eye, he inserted a finger into you, which he began to gently move. All flushed, you began to writhe under him and sigh louder and louder. Minho watched your reaction carefully. After a moment, he added another finger, and pressed his thumb on your button. In response to the sudden stimulation, you moaned loudly. Minho didn't take his eyes off you.

Your lips were parted and your eyes were half-closed. You were all flushed and you were letting out louder and louder moans of pleasure. Minho was proud of himself, he almost brought you to the peak. However, as soon as he noticed that your orgasm was approaching with great strides, he stopped all movements. He pulled his fingers out of you and licked them, watching with a slightly mocking smile as irritation appeared on your face.

"You're cute, you know that?" He asked, slightly amused.

"Why?" You asked, surprised and irritated. “Minho, I was close.”

“I know, kitty.” He smiled. “But you haven’t been a good kitten lately.”

“But I was close… I can handle it myself.” You were already reaching out to finish what Minho didn’t want.

“Oh, you’re not allowed.” He grabbed your wrist tightly. “You’re not allowed to touch yourself without my permission, is that clear? Be good and you’ll get what you want, okay?” Saying that, he pierced you with his cold gaze that always made goosebumps rise on your body.

“Y-yes…” You agreed and looked away.

“Great, kitten.” Minho smiled widely. “Now, go take a shower. It’s been a long day, don’t you think?”

“O-okay.” You listened to the man and went to the shower, where you were lost in thought.

Maybe it won’t be so bad? You thought, standing under the stream of warm water. You didn't want to admit it to yourself, but you missed his touch, but the thought of it made you very uneasy. Your mind was saying one thing, and your heart was telling you something else. You weren't sure if you really wanted to run away from him. And that was what you feared the most.

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<- Part 14 | Part 16->

-> Series Masterlist

Taglist: @yaorzu-blog, @iovecb97, @hpnsfwaddict, @syedazarintasnim, @palindrome969, @biujulia @inlovewithstraykids

[dreamsofbroflovski]

Gunslinger!Kyle Broflovski x Reader - lovin' what your lovin' does to me

Also available on ao3!

Summary: You and your partner, Kyle Broflovski, are both gunslingers, roaming the United States on horseback looking for fights to pick and bounties to collect. But when the promise of a better life becomes clearer on your horizon, can you really go for it, change everything you know and take roots for the first time in your life? You find out in the best way possible.

Warnings: Wild West AU, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Language, Cunnilingus, Vaginal Fingering, Mating Press, Breeding, Impregnation, Mentions of Pregnancy, Period-Typical Sexism

A/N: There it is. My however-many-thousand-words-long tribute to one of my favourite gingers.

Fun fact, I'm actually as childfree as they go. Got a whole list in my brain of reasons why I really shouldn't have kids. However, if a certain ginger jew from Jersey knocked at my door asking me to be the mother of his babies, I'd just ask "how many?" and get right to fucking work on that.

If some parts of it sound weird, I really did write this instead of sleeping because I wanted it up ASAP and it's crazy.

“Look alive, my dear. We’ve arrived.”

I was jolted out of my thoughts by the gentle voice of my partner.

It was nearing the middle of summer and I was really feeling the dog days. The sun showed me no mercy as it tried to set ablaze what little skin I had showing to the world, which was basically just my unprotected arms. I had been on horseback since dawn without even mentioning a break, and hadn’t exactly considered that the weather at 4am, before sunrise, might’ve been slightly different from what I was currently experiencing now that the sun was at its peak in the sky.

I guess the only salvation when it came to my foolishness was that I wasn’t alone in it. As I turned to the man at my side, matching my horse’s slow speed on his own mount, I saw him wipe some sweat off of his face with the green bandana he kept tied to his neck - being tortured by the heat even more than me, inside of his heavy leather coat.

My partner. My lover, Kyle Broflovski. Notorious gun-for-hire, same as I. We had met many years ago, when he and I were both just seventeen - but life had already taken its toll on the both of us, leaving nothing except two jaded young adults with very little to lose. By then we were already gunslingers, I was here and there committing petty thefts while he worked as a watchman for some merchant in the region. I took his side in a saloon fight that turned into a huge shootout - not proud to say a huge part of its escalation was his fault, but well, at least we won - and the thrill of going through a life-or-death situation together might’ve created a bond between us right at that moment, because from then on we rarely left each other’s side.

We started out merely as colleagues, but feelings quickly grew, and how wouldn’t they? He was handsome, intelligent, kind, honorable and great in bed. Everything a woman would want, if she ignored the ‘outlaw’ part, which I wouldn’t and didn’t even want to. Now, eight or nine years later, we still roamed this godforsaken country together - making money by offering protection services to basically anyone who needed bodyguards or an extra pair of shooters defending their property, and also by tracking wanted criminals and delivering their filthy bodies to the law enforcers looking for them; sometimes living, sometimes dead. Sometimes it felt like he kind of preferred it as the latter.

But as he looked back at me and I allowed myself to get lost in his shining eyes and jovial smile, it dawned on me that, at least for now, that was gone. We were on vacation, so to speak. For the last couple of weeks we had been on the road almost non-stop, all so that we could make it to our destination as quickly as possible. 

Today’s leg of the trip had been rather quiet, save for the occasional snorting of one of our horses, but I liked it that way. After so many years with Kyle, I had come to enjoy even those moments of silence: we talked so much every single day, but even when we didn’t say anything I still felt comfort in just being by his side.

Plus, it had been the first time in a while that we managed to just not have to say anything. For the last year or so, we hadn’t been running by ourselves, instead making use of the connection and safety of a small group with other outlaws. Life with them was decent - we didn’t exactly love each other or keep any type of code, but we’d help wherever we could to make sure everyone’s lives were running smoothly. But it was very clear that my true loyalty was only to Kyle, and his to me. 

So, when about nine months in he started to become visibly bothered and complain more, unhappy about having to set up shelter right next to people he didn’t exactly trust, we started planning our exit. We were used to it just being the two of us anyway, so there were no worries, we just had to plan the exit in a way that wouldn’t create a fuss. The opportunity came in the best way possible - a few weeks after our first talk of leaving, Kyle picked up at the post office a letter from his best friend, Stan Marsh, inviting us to go to his farm just one or two states away for a few days' stay. We left camp at night, after everyone was already asleep, and set out on this trip to meet up with the people we were most likely to actually consider family.

Kyle and Stan had known each other since before even being born, one could say. Randy Marsh and Gerald Broflovski were very close friends as children, though they followed very different paths in life: while my partner’s father took to the books and became a lawyer, the Marsh patriarch bought a plot of land not too far from the small mountain town where they lived and built a small but sturdy farm, which expanded over the years and made decent money. It was called Tegridy - apparently, it was supposed to be “Integrity”, a word Mr. Broflovski taught Mr. Marsh, but the latter didn’t really know how to write it; and, by the time he finally learned, it was already too late and the whole region already knew it by the wrong name, so it stuck.

And that’s how Kyle and Stan grew up: kept close as can be from the very start. Mr. Broflovski would take his family to the farmstead whenever he found a little free time and the boys spent their afternoons playing in the open fields, fishing in the stream nearby and helping Mr. Marsh with tasks around the farm once they became old enough. They saw each other turn from dim-witted boys to respectable young men, and the world seemed infinite for them, bright-eyed adolescents who could experience all the great things life had to offer without shouldering any of its burdens.

Unfortunately, just a few weeks before Kyle turned sixteen, his whole family was taken from him in a violent gang attack, caught in an ambush on the wagon they were riding while coming back from a trip, stripped of every valuable they had on hand and then shot dead. My partner wasn’t present at the time of the crime, so he was spared - something that he struggled with the guilt of for many years, and that was his primary motivation for becoming a vigilante: going after criminals just like those who wronged his family, to take them to justice and, more importantly, making sure their sentences were served. 

When Kyle showed up at Stan’s doorstep for what would be his last conversation as a man without blood in his hands, it took a lot of arguing and convincing from Kyle for his friend to not immediately pack his bags, saddle up and ride alongside him. Stan eventually relented, settled for receiving Kyle’s letters and some rare visits, took over the farm and married a lovely young woman named Wendy Testaburger.

A lovely young woman who, turns out, hated Kyle and I’s guts fiercely. She came from a well-off household and left a comfortable life to be with Stan, so I guess having a pair of shabby gunslingers as the closest friends of her new family didn’t sit right with how she was raised. It also didn’t help that, every time we were around, Stan would drop everything he was doing and stick to us like a tick to a dog’s fur, asking Kyle non-stop about everything we were up to and making us fill him in on every single chase and shootout and bounty delivered, without leaving any stone unturned. His interest in the life was very noticeable, even if he tried to deny it during the multiple arguments we heard him have with Wendy when they thought we were sleeping. The new Mrs. Marsh was absolutely terrified that our constant presence would have a bigger impact on him the longer we stayed, and that someday our wicked ways would win Stan over and he’d ride off into the sunset with us and make her a widow - or, worse in her mind, a divorcée.

Her worries only waned after a particularly long stretch of time we spent at their place. Kyle had gotten badly injured in a shootout against one of our bounties - and, although my quick thinking managed to stabilize the situation to where he was no longer in danger, we still needed to lay low for a while as he healed, and sleeping on the dirt in tents moving from place to place was not it. So I found ourselves a wagon and showed up unannounced to the Marsh residence with Kyle and all of our belongings loaded on it. 

My guess is seeing the dangers of the job in real time and how precarious our day-to-day life really was had been a wake-up call to Stan, since after that his begging for me and Kyle to retell our epic stories had diminished considerably. With this, Wendy was finally able to rest assured that she’d keep her husband, and she was willing to get to know us better and have actual positive interactions. At least something good came out of that whole mess - to this day, Kyle’s left shoulder didn’t work as good as it used to, and he still felt this overwhelming pain at random times.

That is all to say the four of us had a very strong bond forged through years of experiences together, delights and torments shared - a bond that would never waiver even when Kyle and I were on the other side of the country cleaning up the trash and delivering bounties around the most different jurisdictions. So, when we received that letter with Stan and Wendy scolding us because we hadn’t seen them since before the lady got pregnant with their fourth and urging us to come back to Colorado for she was now on the last leg of that pregnancy, we figured it was the least we could do to pack our stuff and ride to Tegridy Farm to spend a few weeks with the Marsh family, helping wherever they needed to make sure that these last couple of days, or the few right after childbirth, would go as smoothly as possible.

It had been about two or three weeks that we had been on the road now and we were finally at our destination. To my side, the very familiar farm spanned across the land, its decent area determined by some flimsy wooden fences in need of fixing. The structures and inside the boundaries of the fence for the most part didn’t match its state of neglect; the cultivation fields with the seasonal crops were well-kempt, the stables and barn had a regular repair schedule, and the main house - the crown jewel of the property - stood elegant in the middle of it all, always clean and pristine courtesy of Wendy’s presence. The only other thing that might’ve seemed neglected in the farm was but a shadow behind the main building - the old house where Stan had lived during his childhood, which hadn’t been inhabited since his mother died, but that he also didn’t seem to have the courage or time to take down completely. 

As we crossed the wooden gateways and made our way inside the farm, the first member of the Marsh family to notice our arrival was actually their elderly chubby dog, Sparky. Stan originally bought him as a puppy to train so he would protect the animals and the land from intruders, but he quickly realized that this dog was a huge wimp and just wanted to play all day, promptly fleeing whenever he sensed danger. However, everyone had already taken a liking to the tiny fellow by then, so he became Wendy and Stan’s personal companion, sleeping inside of the main house and growing up alongside the kids as their pet. When he saw the outlines of us on top of our mounts riding towards the building, he started barking happily and ran as fast as his legs could take him, making a turn when he got to our horses and matching their pace alongside Kyle’s.

His barking must’ve alerted the other members of the household, since not long after he started, we noticed Stan getting up off his chair on the porch. “And look who’s finally here!” He announced as he walked towards us with open arms and, not long after, we saw Wendy’s smiling face appear in one of the second-story windows, her hand waving excitedly out of it as we approached in our steeds.

“Oh, come on, we didn’t take that long.” Though he had essentially just been scolded, Kyle had a glowing smile on his face. Just this moment made almost all the tiring parts of travel worth it, to see how glad my partner would get to see his brother after so long and realize that nothing had changed. To have those moments of his youth back, even if for just a short stay.

“Almost a whole year, Kyle!” Stan retorted, slapping the side of his friend’s arm with his raised hand. “Wait a little more and you might as well have come for the kid’s wedding by then.”

Our mounts slowed to a stop as we reached the front porch, and we heard the thundering noise of several footsteps bolting down the stairs inside. Before we could even dismount, the smiling faces of Stan’s two eldest children - a boy and a girl - ran towards our horses, shouting excitedly and asking questions too quickly and with too high-pitched voices for me to even begin answering them.

“Easy now, children.” A much more soft and pleasant voice managed to be picked up by my ears among the ruckus, and my eyes darted towards the door immediately. Wendy Marsh stood by the doorway, her current youngest child - just shy of two years, if I had my math right - hiding behind her legs. My best friend had one of her hands resting on top of her belly, bump visible even under the loose-fitting maternity dress she wore, and I felt the guilt strike at me on sight; It had been too long since we last saw these two, she had gone through all those changes to her body and mind across multiple months, while I was off somewhere shooting people. I felt like an awful friend.

And then she did something that reminded me exactly how she was more than capable of handling this situation by herself. “YOU DARNED LITTLE RASCALS! SHUT UP THIS INSTANT AND LET YOUR AUNT AND UNCLE SPEAK!” This bellowing, infuriated version of Wendy’s voice had the kids fixing their postures and closing their mouths in an instant, not even daring to breathe loudly anymore, and they gave us one last glance before sprinting back quickly inside the house. The toddler followed suit, waddling after its siblings as fast as its tiny legs could carry it.

With the coast now clear, Kyle quickly slid off of his horse, in a swift movement that only comes with years of doing that multiple times a day. I stayed on top of mine, however, and right after dismounting Kyle made his way to the side of my steed, raising his arms towards me. I turned my whole body to his side and let Kyle take hold of my waist, lifting me off the saddle and putting me on the ground with ease. I was more than perfectly capable of getting out on my own, I had as much experience with this as he did - but this was something he fancied doing, he wanted to be a gentleman whenever he could and there weren’t many opportunities in our daily life for him to fill that role, so he loved to have that little moment and I learned to appreciate it. Plus, he’d get fussy if I didn’t let him do it, so I humored him every single time.

“C’mon, Wends, no need for that,” I turned to her as my boots hit the dirt, “Stan’s right, it’s been so long. They’re kids, they’re just happy to see us.”

“Well, but they’re not giving you a hug before I do!” And she didn’t have to wait any longer, wrapping her arms tightly around me as soon as Kyle let go of my waist and moved his body out of the way. I hugged her back carefully, trying not to put any pressure on her belly, something that she didn’t seem a lick concerned about but kind of worried me a little bit. I heard my partner’s boots kicking the pebbles beneath its soles as he power walked towards Stan to give him a hug as well - although in their case it was more of a side hug, slapping the palm of their hands against the other’s backs amidst laughter. The type of salute men usually shared, not as tender as the displays of friendship between us women, but just as heartfelt. 

After a minute or two like this, Wendy let go of me and gave me one last warm smile before going over to Kyle and giving him a quick hug, and I took the opportunity to do the same to Stan. Even if we weren’t as close as him and Kyle, he was still like family to me. We didn’t linger on the greeting, though; My best friend could get quite possessive when other women were near her man, even if it was just me, and I wasn’t gonna make that lady angry if I could avoid it. 

I swiftly took my spot next to Kyle again, and Wendy did the same near Stan.  “You’re looking gorgeous, Wends,” I stated with a smile. “Really glowing!”

“(Y/N)’s right. Baby number four, too! Stan, you must be proud!” Kyle stretched his arm out and placed his hand on Stan’s shoulder, shaking him teasingly. Stan just laughed and shoved his friend’s hand away from him, but when he straightened his stance again, his chest seemed a little more out than usual and his chin a little more high up. With his pride visible like this, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a rooster, or a peacock with its feathers all spread out.

“Thank you so much, you two. You’re really sweet,” Wendy wrapped her arms around her husband, hugging him from the side, face as happy as could possibly be - but then those smiles turned into a pout. “But don’t think being sweet is going to redeem you! You’ve barely written to us these months! We’ve been worried sick!” 

“Good thing we’re here now to tell you all about what we didn’t write,” Kyle said as he walked back near our steeds. ”Just let me hitch the horses somewhere out of the sun. I won’t be long.”

“No need.” Before we could take action, Stan quickly put two fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly, catching the attention of a nearby farmhand passing through, who stopped in his tracks and beelined to us. It was a young man, couldn’t be older than eighteen, with tanned skin from the hours under the sun, strong arms and a serious expression. “Oi, Milton. Take these horses here, lead them to the stables with the others and give them some water. Ah, and make sure they’re fed, they’ve been hours on the road.”

Milton gave a quick nod and took our horses by the reins, leading them slowly towards a big building to the left of the house. We followed him with our eyes for a couple of seconds, in silence. “Well, anyway, let’s take this conversation inside as well,” Wendy suggested, gesturing with her arm towards the house, her expression softening. “I’m sure y’all don’t want to wait out in this sun any more than the horses did.”

And she was damn right. We excused ourselves in and went through the doorway, sighing in relief as we found ourselves in the shade at last. “No issues on the travel, I assume?” She asked with a smile as Kyle took his hat off and put it in the hanger next to Stan’s.

“Just a tiny quarrel with the sheriff last town back, nothin’ major.” It had actually been a little bit more than that, but we didn’t want to worry our friends. The sheriff, an extremely unpleasant fellow who spent more of his time harassing the local ‘working girls’ than actually doing his job, seemed to have a real problem when people who actually wanted to stop crime came along. So, when we showed up to the town with a local thief tied up on the back of Kyle’s horse - captured in an extremely convenient encounter nearby - the so-called law enforcer decided we were ‘trying to come for his position’ and threw the tantrum of a lifetime looking for any reason to have us arrested. Luckily no guns were drawn, we left as quickly as we arrived, but the stress of the whole situation still stuck to us for a couple miles after that.

“Fuuuuck, I hate that feller. Please tell me you beat his ass.” Though Stan apparently had tried to make his dislike of the sheriff known only to Kyle, he did so in a rather loud tone, which made us all turn to him. “Short fat motherfucker loves to pull on my dick whenever I’m in town for anything. Pisses Wendy off, too. Damn failed abortion is what he is.”

“Language, Stanley!” Wendy chided, glaring at him. We heard a couple of giggles, quickly suppressed, and I turned my face upwards - on the second floor, leaning on the balustrade near the staircase, the children gathered, looking down at us and listening in on our conversation.

Kyle and I could only bend over ourselves laughing as the heavily pregnant Wendy chased upstairs, going after her much faster children to try and give them a thorough scolding as they yelled out their brand new vocabulary, while Stan made sure to quickly leave the scene so as to make it harder for himself to be next.

Oh to live this life on the daily.

༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩♡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚

The rest of the afternoon went by without any issues. Kyle and I managed to take our first proper bath in days, which was extremely appreciated, and then our attention was almost immediately snatched by the Marsh children. My guess was they didn’t get many visitors on the farm, at least not many that were interested in hearing what small kids have to say, so now that they had people to talk to they were sure to teach us all the new things they had learned and play lots of different games with uncle and auntie.

With evening approaching, Wendy prepared some roast beef with mashed potatoes and fried red tomatoes with garlic, along with a whole apple pie for dessert - under the pretext that since guests were over they had the obligation of making more food to be sure we wouldn’t starve, and maybe spend a little more on the process. She knew Kyle and I would be fine with whatever she prepared, her cooking was so good she could probably boil tree bark on her stove and make it the best meal we ever had, so I knew the sizeable dinner was more a satisfaction of her pregnant whims. We all ate until we almost couldn’t fit in our pants anymore, and after the couple put their kids to bed, Stan brought out a nicer wine and we chatted our more mature matters well into the night. 

After a while, Stan and Kyle decided to go out for a smoke and a night walk around the property, leaving me and Wendy to clean up the dinner mess so that we could ‘talk about our feminine issues’, whatever that meant. So we picked up the dirty tableware and took everything to the kitchen, where she had previously set up two buckets - one with warm water and soap, one with clean water - for the dishes.

After we set everything on the counter and she tried taking another step going for the filled buckets, I immediately put my body in front of her, blocking her next steps. “No no no, little mama!”, I declared, putting both my hands on Wendy’s shoulders and pushing her slowly towards the smaller table in the kitchen, which they used for breakfast. “You’ve already done too much today and been on your feet all this time. Now it’s my turn.”

She tried huffing, stomping her foot and going around me, but my grip on her shoulders was strong enough that she couldn’t, so she bitterly relented and took a seat on one of the flimsy brown chairs near the table. “I’m pregnant, not disabled”, I heard her snort behind my back as I finally let go of her and turned towards the pile of dirty dishes.

“I know, I know,” was my reply while I picked up the first dirty plate and dunked it into the soapy water. “But you made this whole dinner for us and it was delicious, Wends. Lemme do this for you, will ya?”

“You helped with the fried tomatoes,” she retorted.

“Sure, but I’m not the one with a whole baby inside me.”

She giggled. “Not yet.”

My hand stopped in the air halfway through grabbing a dirty wine glass. “Come again?” I inquired as I turned to her with raised eyebrows.

“You tell me, (Y/N)! Ever since before I met you you’ve been running from place to place shooting people for money. Don’t you think it’s time you and Kyle settled down, bought a house somewhere? Maybe you two could even get married and finally stop living in sin.”

Her comment had me rolling my eyes, but I still let out a chuckle; the Marshs weren’t all that religious by any means, and Wendy was a particularly outspoken proponent of women’s right to choose how they wanted to live, so I knew she was just taking a jab. “You have no right to use that against me, miss,” I pointed a soapy wet index finger at her, “Not when I know all about what you and Stanley were up to before your daddy let you get hitched.” It was true and she knew it. After we finally became close friends, I was Wendy’s main confidant, and she’d told me all about her relationship to Stan prior to the marriage - tales in great detail about the different places where they met and spent the night together in secret when they were younger. They had lived basically a whole second relationship together away from prying eyes, and the only people who knew about it were within the same mile radius right now.

Hearing this, she smirked and lifted her left hand close to her face, so I could clearly see the back, and I knew then and there that she’d had the last laugh. “And it worked.” With her other hand, she pointed towards her left ring finger, and there was no pretending I hadn’t noticed the shiny golden wedding band she always kept polished to perfection.

Although we had been partnered all those years and were as close as two souls can be, legally Kyle and I weren’t married. We reckoned there was no need, we already spent every single moment together, putting ourselves in danger for each other during the day and sleeping in the same tent at night. Take away the expensive ceremony and we’re husband and wife. Plus, weddings were usually very religious affairs, and not only were we both very distant from that reality, there was also the tiny fact that we were well-known gunslingers (no matter how lawful we thought ourselves to be, killing someone, even a criminal, is still a cardinal sin) and I’m sure your usual religious leaders aren’t willing to officiate for people like that.

And then there was the matter of children. I had always wanted them, it was one of my plans for life, but I had pushed that aside the moment I picked up a gun for the first time. Kyle and I didn’t keep residence on the same spot for too long - we’d lived places, worked for people for a while, but nowhere that we could actually safely stay for years on end. Our normal life was that of setting camp everywhere, to avoid being tracked by any enemies we made along the way, having to move extremely quickly - and sometimes even that wouldn’t be enough and we’d have to face conflict head-on. We could never do that with a child in our arms, it would be a recipe for disaster. Besides, with my age, I just felt too old for them at this point; all the mothers my age had their kids way earlier and it felt weird to start now, like I wouldn’t have anything in common with them. That ship had sailed.

I knew all of that and I was alright with it. My love for Kyle didn’t need no overpriced dress or ring to be real, and we didn’t need kids to have a real family. Hell, so many couples go through that whole song and dance of getting married only to end up cheating and abusing each other beyond belief! If that’s what marriage is, then I don’t want any part of it, thank you very much. We were doing fine. 

So it was the little girl inside of me that felt that little stab of jealousy seeing Wendy’s shiny jewelry and huge belly - the little girl that did grow up flipping through wedding catalogs to see the pretty dresses, that spent her childhood thinking of the names she’d give for her future children and hearing stories about young ladies who met their Prince Charmings and lived their happily ever after, before life took its turns and made her into a killer. This little girl would’ve loved to have a house and kids, and would’ve taken Wendy’s offer in half a heartbeat, but she didn’t have the right to live anymore. 

So as it came, it went. I went back to the dishes, acting like this conversation hadn’t affected me any more than our other casual chats during the day. “Wendy, we can’t,” I said as I splashed a handful of forks inside of the now cold water, “We’re gunslingers, in case you forgot. We don’t have a house like you and Stan do. Ya think a child should grow up living like we do? That ain’t fair.”

I heard the drag of her chair as she got up from it and moved towards me, but before I could turn to tell her to sit down again, she had already closed the distance between us with very quick steps. “You don’t have to live like you do.” She grabbed my right hand between hers and looked me in the eyes in a way that seemed almost like she was pleading. “We told you already. There’s the old house in the back you can take, it just needs some fixing up, Stan would be glad to do it. The kids love having you around, you can help care for them and if you have some we can help too, they can grow up together-”

“Wendy, we’re not gonna live on your farm!”, I interjected before she could go any further in her crazy rambles. Rambles that it wasn’t my first time hearing about - both in letters and in person, she’d sometimes go on about how we should create roots and start a family somewhere nice, while underlining how the farm had all this space and needed more workers and the kids could use a few more friends… “This is y’all’s house. We ain’t gonna impose on your life like that.” I wriggled my hand away from hers. ”And gunslingin’s our job, it’s all we know to do. We wouldn’t know how to live like you do. So just drop it, please.”

She patted her now free hand against her dress to dry it and didn’t seem to want to look at me anymore. “The beauty of being alive is that you can learn.” I heard her say meekly, which made me feel extremely bad that I had been so firm with her when she was so excited about her ideas - but I didn’t want to give her hope, or rather, give myself more hope by listening to her.

I reached to pick up another dirty dish from the pile, but my hand grabbed at nothing. While giving Wendy’s babbles my undivided attention, I had mechanically done all of the washing, now everything just needed to be dried and put away. But, as I stretched my arm out to grab a clean dish towel, it was her time to stop me in my tracks. “I’ll take it from here.” She declared as she reached for the rag before I could and snatched it out of my range. When she heard me gasp and scramble for a rebuttal, she added: “No buts, you must be tired, y’all were on the road all morning and then the kids were also a handful. You’re done for the night.”

“I ain’t going to bed anyway,” I noted, “If you want me to do nothing then I’ll stay here with you ‘till you’re done.”

“Don’t worry about me. It’ll be quick, I’ll dry this all off, and then I’ll go out to call the dog back inside anyway, might as well give the men a shout to come to bed too.” She shrugged as she picked up a wet plate.

I honestly wanted to argue a bit more and not leave her alone like that, but my aching back was very interested in what she suggested - I had spent my whole morning on the back of a horse and then the whole afternoon chasing after zippy children. I sighed in defeat and nodded, earning from her an earnest smile. “Very well then, but tomorrow everything’s on me. Don’t wanna see you up and about before noon, understood? Good night.”

I turned on my heels to leave, hearing her giggle behind me. “Sure thing, (Y/N).” I started walking out of the kitchen, but just then she uttered: “Just… Think about what I said, alright? Good night.”

I looked back over my shoulder to see if she was going to say or do anything else, but her back was already turned to me, as she stared at the window above the counter, watching over her property.

I suppose I ended up doing what she last told me to do in the end, because our little chat really stuck with me through the next minutes.

༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩♡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚

Even after all the time I spent getting myself prepped for bed, Kyle still hadn’t returned by the time I was done with it. So I picked up a book from Wendy’s collection - reading was one of her main hobbies, growing up educated as she was, and she kept it up even after moving to the farm - and cozied up under the blanket of the guest room bed. I was happy to have something different to read this time; Kyle and I had a couple books with us, we liked to read whenever we had the free time, but it’s God awful having too many things when you’re always moving from place to place, so we kept our assortment to a minimum. Turns out it’s very easy to get annoyed at a book when it’s the only one you ever read, and those I had in my bag were starting to become a real eyesore.

This one I had in my hand I’d never seen before, but the cover was nice enough and the summary got me on its hook, so I was pretty intrigued. It was this fictional story about an outlaw who got diagnosed with a terminal disease and spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his sinful deeds, while also uncovering some truths about the people he was most close to. Without even realizing, even during the first paragraphs, I had grown attached to the main character - his sorrow as he looks back at what he managed to do with his life, when he remembers all the bad things he has done that brought him to his current situation, and the way he tries to change and make the lives of those he loves as easy as possible with the time he has left. 

It put me into deep thought rather fast. That character managed to change everything about his life, his core beliefs and priorities, when faced with the inevitability of death. He didn’t think he could, in his mind he was doomed to be nothing more than the sins he committed, and to pay for them when the time came for that - but, although he didn’t manage to live the happily ever after everyone wants out of life, he still managed to protect those he loved and leave an everlasting mark on the people around him.

‘The beauty of being alive is that you can learn,��� Wendy’s voice echoed in my mind again, teasing me with promises of a better life. Maybe it wasn’t too late for me and Kyle to change. We had something most others in our line of work didn’t have the luxury of - we had people willing to help us. But then again, did Kyle and I want to be helped? We had never considered such an option besides drunkenly debating those hypotheticals every once in a blue moon. It was possible that he didn’t even want something like this, and I’d rather bite my tongue out and never speak again than do so and lose him forever over it.

The sudden squeak of the ancient guest room door opening shoved me right out of the depths of my brain into the real world. Kyle was back from his long walk, whistling absentmindedly some random tune he probably picked up at a saloon. The rather acid stench that usually accompanied someone who had just smoked didn’t enter alongside him, and that I was glad for; He had obviously taken the time to air himself out and get all the smell out of his body before coming back in. I wondered if Stan had the same care towards his pregnant wife. “Sorry I took so long, Stan just wanted to show me the new horses and we ended up going for a ride on them.”

“No problem. I found myself something to do anyway.” I closed the book in my lap and lifted it briefly to show him the cover, before setting it on the nightstand, as far as I could from the candle that was also on top of it.

“You’ve gotta tell me what this one is about later.” He sat down on the narrow bench in front of the bed and began taking off his boots. “Did you and Wendy have fun together?”

“Sure thing, it was real nice”, I answered, “Lotsa great talking about our feminine issues and stuff. What about you, macho man?”

My voice carried a hint of sarcasm that he picked up on immediately. He turned his body slightly so he could look at me. “Sorry about that, I guess.” He rolled his eyes. “But you know you and Wendy don’t have the same kind of conversations Stan and I do. That’s what we meant.”

“I know, I know, I’m just playing with ya.” The reassurance that I wasn’t actually mad at him or his friend for the earlier comment made him relax a little. He turned his back to me again and started unbuttoning his shirt as I kept talking. “We really had a nice talk, her and I. It feels so good to be back here.”

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear that. Let’s make the most of the next days then.”

As he got up from the bench to remove his pants, I took the opportunity to take a good look at his body. Kyle had a very lean build, it was quite hard for him to gain weight and build those big muscles some other guys had, but he was by no means weak; doing stuff at camp, handling bandits to bring them to jail and the exercise it all took made him a very fit guy who could stand his ground even without a gun. He was also quite pale, at least for someone who spent almost all his time outside, and had plenty of freckles peppered all around his soft skin. I remembered Milton again, the farmhand Stan hired, and wondered if working on a farm every day under the sun would make Kyle look like that too - I hoped not, I loved my partner the way he was, didn’t want him to change a thing. But I knew it wouldn’t: After many summers together, the only thing I ever saw the sun do to Kyle was make him redder than a tomato all over, and his skin would usually start peeling a day or two later, which was why he preferred to wear long sleeved shirts even in the hotter months.  

There they were, the thoughts of being on the farm again. I blinked and focused my blurry eyes on Kyle again. He had stopped undressing. “Everything alright, honey?”, he inquired, looking at me with a frown.

“Ya, it’s nothin’. Just thinkin’ ‘bout how handsome my man is ‘s all.”, I was quick to answer. He shook his head with a smirk and, without answering, went back to taking off his undergarments.

When he was fully in the nude, he made his way towards the bed, not bothering to put on any sort of sleepwear. In that, he matched me - besides the bedding, there was nothing covering my body. This was normal for us: there was literally no part of our bodies that the other hadn’t seen, so why bother hiding anything? Besides, it made everything so much easier when we didn’t have to spend time ridding ourselves of all that fabric before making love. It had made for some embarrassing situations in the past, where we had to jump straight out of our beds, guns drawn, prepared for trouble; but, no matter how much we told ourselves that we really needed to stop being lazy and start wearing our pajamas, we’d still lay down the next night in our birthday suits, because there was no shame anyone else could make us feel that was more important than the feeling of his warm skin against mine.

“But you wanna know what’s funny?” Kyle commented as he pulled up the covers on the right side of the bed to lay down beside me, “Stan asked me again what I thought of the old house. Said this time we’re not getting away.”

Him bringing this up came as a shock - my eyes widened and I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. Was this man a seer or something? How come he knew to bring up exactly the thing that was eating at my mind the whole night?

I managed to keep my cool and let out a laugh that might’ve sounded a bit too loud for comfort. “Wendy did the same thing to me!”, I yelped, “The way they talk about this with us you’d think they were tryna sell us the farm.”

“They really want us to move in.” He let out a deep exhale as his head hit the feather pillow after a whole day with very little rest. “And he did say Wendy would talk to you and have you hooked on it. That by the end of the year you’d have ‘a bun in the oven’ and I’d finally know the joys of being a father.”

“I’m sure it was just the wine talking. You know Stan’s a major lightweight.” Again with my deflecting. The truth was I didn’t want to give away that Wendy’s suggestions were slowly building a nest in my heart, because I knew it couldn’t stay. Maybe joking around a bit with Kyle would remind me of the situation we were in, that this idyllic little house life we led was only temporary, and that we were bound to go back on the road after a few days, in search of more work. All I couldn’t do was make my current interest too overt, and I would forget about it just fine.

“Eh, I don’t know… He seemed pretty serious to me. Not like he does when he’s drunk, and I’d know that.” He turned on his side, facing me, and I could see the reflection of my candle’s flame dancing inside his olive eyes as he stared intently. Either he was really captivated by it, or he didn’t want to look at me for some reason, and that made me even more worried. He stayed like this for a couple of minutes, during which the room fell to almost complete silence, only broken by the crickets outside or the occasional cackling of the tiny flame. “And… What did you think?” Kyle finally asked, lifting his face toward me, studying my features just in case they gave a different answer than the one that would come from my mouth. “About what Wendy said, I mean.”

“Hey, now, what I thought doesn’t matter.” It was now my turn to look away and stare at the flame, wanting to just blow it out and dunk the room in darkness, all to not continue this conversation. “You know it’s just silly daydreams she has. They don’t get out as often as they used to, with the children and whatnot, so she stays inside and comes up with stuff like this.”

Kyle rapidly sat himself up in the bed and cupped my face in his hands, turning it so that we could finally be looking at each other. “You know your thoughts are the only ones that matter to me.” He stated firmly, gazing into my eyes with even more certainty than that which he had in his voice. “I don’t care about what Stan or Wendy want. But if you have something to say, you have my full attention, no matter what it is.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, bringing my right hand up and resting it on top of his. It was fine. I knew I couldn’t just lie to Kyle here, he’d figure me out. And, with all his brains, surely he could come up with a logical explanation for my troubles and help me see the most sensible path. “Look, I’m sure they mean well and it’s such a pretty idea”, I started, “I’d love to do that if our lives were different. But as it is it wouldn’t stick, honey. There’s no point in pretendin’.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

I expected all sorts of reactions from Kyle, but not this one. His hand withdrew from my face as he pulled his upper body slightly away from me, but still kept his stare fixed. Both his eyebrows were raised and his eyes were wide, and his mouth fell slightly open as he breathed through it. He looked like someone would if they heard something they didn’t want to, or received disappointing news; which wasn’t how he usually reacted to those situations - Kyle was the type to argue his point to the bitter end, so disagreements usually came with a lot more anger instead of sadness or anxiety. This time, he seemed hurt.

“Oh, honey… You know why.” I rested my hands on top of my chest, feeling my heart accelerate, and trying to ground myself before the shock became too much. “We can’t put a child in a world like ours. Would be torture.”

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be a world like ours. We can live here, at least temporarily, and then we move somewhere else. Stan already gave us the go.”

“Kyle, you know we have targets on our backs!” I tried moving my body closer to his, like that might get the point across easier, my voice denouncing my increasing concern with his reaction. “All these people we sent to swing, their buddies always try to come after us. Stan and Wendy don’t deserve this. We can’t risk them.”

“How? We’re in the middle of bumfuck nowhere!” There it was, the anger flaring his nerves. It always happened when something hit close to his heart, he felt the need to explain himself and make the people around him ‘see reason’ - I knew that behavior too well, though I wasn’t normally on the receiving end of it. But right now this wasn’t about logic or reason. These were his wishes. “We’ll disappear. I’ll change my name, you’ll change yours, we fake our deaths, these people don’t remember anything anymore after a couple of months anyway!”

Although I kept on nervously laughing, he was hitting all the right points, the points my own heart made when it wanted to feed on the delusions for a while longer. Kyle was very good at that - if he thought something was the better option, he’d twist both Heaven and Hell to make it make sense. “Oh yes? Well, say we go through with it, what do we know about ranch life?” I let out another nervous laugh. “Can you plant anything? Feed cattle?”

“Does that even matter?” In a quick movement, he climbed on top of me, knees at the side of my thighs as he straddled my legs, the blanket draping from his shoulders since he didn’t bother getting out from under it. We didn’t break eye contact for a single second. “You know I learn fast. If I-You want this, then we can figure it out!”

Clarity struck me like a bullet. Did he just say ‘I’? “Stan… Didn’t really talk to you about anything, did he?”

He shook his head again, less enthusiastically this time, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Do you remember a couple months ago, after you and I left the gang, when we talked about life with a house and kids and what we’d do if we had that?” I nodded, before realizing that he couldn’t see the gesture anyway - but he took my silence as agreement and continued talking. “I sent Stan a letter soon after. At first it was just to vent, but then he replied with their suggestion and I thought… Well, we could at least try.” The end of his sentence brought with it a faint smile to his lips, and he opened his eyes again slowly.

For the first time in this conversation had my little fit of laughter been genuine. The three of them had put all this in motion right under my nose, based on one wishful conversation we had, which Kyle had taken to heart and made sure to come to fruition. “I thought you liked the hunt, though” I said, head tilting to the side. “Liked bringin’ people to justice an’ givin’ ‘em what they deserved, no?”

“I like that, but I love you.” He answered without missing a beat. Felt like he was plain waiting for it. “And besides, it’s not like we can’t be virtuous people and do what’s right even without spending all our lives chasing after criminals. Our honor comes from our hearts, not from the barrel of our guns.”

Good ol’ Kyle with his smooth way of talking. It was one of the many reasons I fell for him - though his day-to-day life was rough and he shot outlaws for a living, deep inside he was still a very caring man, someone intelligent who saw all the bad in the world and still chose to do good. “Where did you even learn to talk like that?” I chuckled. “You shoulda been a writer, not a shooter.”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll get started on that now, since I’ll have more time.” Taking my hands in his, he kissed my knuckles lovingly. Then his thumb grazed my empty left ring finger, his touch, as soft as his rough hands would allow it, lingering for a couple of seconds. “After the wedding, that is.”

“Wait, you serious?” This night was getting so filled with surprises, I might just believe someone if they said Sparky was a human in disguise. “No need for that, my dear. I’m already yours.”

“But I want to do it.” His hands let go of mine and he moved his body closer to me, giving me a quick peck to the forehead. Then he suddenly grabbed the blanket and yanked it to the side, throwing it on the floor and leaving both our bodies completely exposed. “And we gotta do it quick, before you start to show.”

Before I could ask him what I’d start to show, he pulled me by the shoulders and smashed his lips against mine fiercely. My hands shot up to grab his curls, making him groan into my mouth and deepen the kiss - and there it was, the now faint taste of the cigar I hadn’t smelled previously, spicy and earthy, but it tasted like the sweetest thing on the planet just because of the sheer passion we shared right now.  

As I felt Kyle’s hand drift up from between us to knead at my breast, I broke the kiss with a gasp. “Wait, here?” I asked, surprised, though the corners of my mouth curved up, snitches of my excitement.

“Now.”, he declared, straightening his legs and propping himself up in his arms to give me space to slide down and lay beneath him, with my head now on the pillow and my legs spread. When I broke eye contact for just a second and finally looked down, I saw his dick was already almost fully hard - was the simple idea of getting me pregnant enough to make him like that?

“Can’t wait to see how you’re gonna explain this to them tomorrow” I said with a giggle as Kyle lowered his body, putting his weight on his elbows, and planting kisses all over my face. My subdued laughs quickly got replaced by soft hums as he started going down the side of my neck with his lips, while his hips started rocking against mine, his cock grinding against my body and the tip spreading some warm precum over my lower abdomen with each slow movement.

His answer, unlike most everything he ever said, was simple, direct, and left no leeway for questioning. “Well, it would do them some good to get used to it.” I felt my face burn like the damn candle as he said that, and my pussy starting to drip with wetness, the arousal soaking into the bedsheet. He stopped his kisses for a moment to put his mouth to my ear, and when he whispered his next declaration, it felt like it was going straight to my cunt: “Because I’m keeping you filled up now. Make you mine all the time and no one can do a damn thing about it.”

“Oh, you gonna change your mind when I’m all big and swollen…”, I drawled feebly. Disputing his claims was getting hard now since my brain was getting foggy with desire, but I still had to try, even if just to hear him singing praises to me some more.

I felt his left hand coursing through my body, stopping with his palm flat on my midriff, feeling almost cold with how hot I was getting all over. “Absolutely not,” He whispered again, “You’re gonna be even more fucking gorgeous when you’re carrying my child. I’ll make love to you every single night.”

My hand started to move down between our bodies, too, as I tried to reach for Kyle’s throbbing cock, wanting to make him feel good - if I couldn’t with pretty words like he did me, at least I knew I could do it with actions. But, when my fingers touched his leaking tip, he immediately took his hand off my belly and gripped my wrist, moving it back to the side of my body. As I looked at him with a puzzled expression on my face, he simply shook his head, gave me another peck to the mouth and started pushing himself down on the bed, only stopping when his face was level with my pussy and his palms were flat at the side of my hips.

Just by seeing him there, I could feel my walls clenching around nothing, almost like they begged on their own for his loving and experienced touch. Kyle was a damn great lover and from the very first day we laid together it was like he knew all the right ways to make me come undone, and he had no shame about anything he did to achieve it - most of all, he was eager to do it. By God did this man love to please me. If that was what was waiting for me every night from now on, I could very easily get used to everything else.

He started planting small kisses on the inside of both of my thighs as he pushed my legs slowly up, my knees now almost hitting my chest. His lips felt soft and endearing on my skin, but this was not where I wanted them - and he knew it, with the way he held my gaze the whole time as he did it, his eyes glittering with his teasing ways. Every few kisses, he’d break the sequence with a slight graze of his teeth on my skin, the softest of bites, but enough to make all the fine hairs in my thigh rise up in a pleasurable goosebump.

Just as I was getting tired of the wait and was contemplating pulling at his hair to bring him away from my leg, it was like he had read my mind again. He let go of my thighs and put his hands on my hips, not quite gripping them, but steadying them in place. I closed my eyes and sighed contentedly as he licked a stripe from my already very wet cunt to my clit, giving it a very quick kiss at the end, which made me wonder for a second if he was about to start teasing me again and how long for. But then all thoughts left my brain as soon as he started swirling his tongue over my clit, in a pattern I didn’t know or care about, making me squirm almost immediately and dig my nails into my palm.

His tongue slithered down, making its way to my entrance, and my hips started rolling against his mouth, trying to help his movements as he fucked me with it. He’d grunt every now and then as he did it, lost in the satisfaction he felt by pleasuring me, and sending the vibrations through my heat, making me even wetter. I could feel him staring at me from down there, too, despite my shut eyes; He always paid attention to every reaction of mine, licking and sucking all the right parts that he knew made me squirm.

Then he moved up with his mouth to focus on my clit again and my hands darted down to grab at his hair, my palms hurting at the spots where the little crescent shapes from my nails had formed. I felt one of his fingers circling my entrance, gathering my arousal before plunging fully deep inside, my walls almost sucking it in. Another one soon followed and he started pumping them in and out while curling them upwards, massaging my sweet spot perfectly, still never missing the pace of the swirls of his tongue on my hardened bud.

It became too much too quickly. The dam holding back the river of my climax broke after not much longer and my orgasm washed over me violently, every single muscle in my body tensing up and my thighs pressing strongly against the side of my lover’s head while my hips rocked against his mouth, chasing my pleasure to its bitter end. One of my hands darted up to cover my mouth immediately, muffling the loud cries I let out as it happened, my one and only moment of clarity during the whole release.

And even then Kyle didn’t stop his ministrations, his hand covered with my juices as his fingers kept pushing inside, making way through my tightly clenched walls. After I came down from my haze, however, the overstimulation started to become rather painful - only when I managed to collect enough strength to tug at the back of his hair rather fiercely to pull him away from my cunt did he stop, and even then I swore I could see for a brief moment a hint of disappointment in his eyes.

Kyle positioned his body between my legs again and took his time to run one last stripe along my slit with his fingers, the ones he used inside me, before bringing them to his mouth and licking them clean, with his eyes closed. He did this every time, not wanting to waste even a single drop of me. I was his favorite whiskey and, when it came to that, he was a damn alcoholic.

This time it was me putting my hands on Kyle’s shoulders and bringing him down for a kiss, running the tip of my tongue across his lips lightly, tasting my love in him. When we parted, gasping for air, I leisurely ran my hands over his upper body, caressing every inch of him they could reach - his cheeks, then down his neck, around his collarbone, his chest, until my left hand stopped at his shoulder, on top of his biggest and most visible scar.

Kyle had plenty of scars, these things came with our line of work, but this one was different. Not caused by a bullet or a knife, but rather by fire itself - a dynamite explosion that caught us by surprise during a shootout in this very state we were currently in. That fire almost took my lover’s life, dragged both of us into months of suffering and stress, and even years after it was extinguished we still carried with us not only the trauma, but a physical reminder of everything it claimed. 

The physical scar itself was a bit rough to the touch and full of small streaks and bumps all over. It spread all over his shoulder into the right side of his chest, his upper arm, and a bit over his back. Across the years, its color had faded from a gruesome brown to a slight reddish tint, but it still had a jarring contrast to Kyle’s pale skin. No part of it was delightful, if I’m being honest. Yet I’d kiss it every single night, caress it at every opportunity and massage it with expensive essential oils whenever those were available; because I’d take a whole life with that scar over even a single second of the alternative.

“You saved me, you know,” He murmured with a sigh.

“I know, because you say it all the time.” I chuckled. “But we ain’t gotta talk about that anymore, dear. You know I’d do it again.”

“Not that day. Well, yes that day, but also all the others before and after that.” He lowered his head closer to mine so that our noses and foreheads were touching, and his warm breath ghosted my lips, bringing the lustful haze back to my brain. At this point I didn’t know what I wanted to do more: Hear his voice forever as he whispered his praise and love towards me, or kiss him until I could feel all these words inside of my skin.

My partner took himself in his hands and started to slide the tip of his cock up and down between my folds, from my entrance to my clit, making my whole body twitch a little when he got to the still very sensitive bundle of nerves. “And you might just be about to save me again,” He continued, aligning himself with my entrance, “You’ll be the perfect wife and mother. My wife and the mother of my babies.”

Kyle pushed himself inside of me slowly, inch by inch, being extra careful as his big and thick cock stretched out my cunt. It didn’t hurt much, I was used to it after years of taking him regularly, but he still wanted to make sure I was comfortable every single time before continuing. 

Once I gave him a smile and a small nod, he started to push in and out slowly, letting me feel every single twitch of his cock inside me and every one of those veins I knew so well pressed against my walls in their entirety. He quickly built up momentum, however, and soon the room was filled with the squelching sounds of my wetness being pounded against, his hips striking my body and the bedframe hitting the house’s wooden walls perfectly synchronizing with it. After a while like this, without warning, he picked up both my legs and brought them over each of his shoulders, pushing my knees back against my chest, my toes touching his hair as they curled in pleasure.

Kyle was hitting my cervix with every strong thrust now, sending sharp and slightly painful stings that jolted through my lower abdomen with every smash of his soft head against that barrier. And yet, every time I felt those, I just wanted more and more; Having Kyle deep inside me in this position always managed to cover all the right spots inside of me, I just wanted to hold him, keep him there. And I knew he was feeling just as good as I was - the sounds coming from his throat were getting louder and louder as he shut his lips tighter to prevent them from turning into full brown growls, his fingertips whiter than ever since his grip on my hips was so fierce I was sure by tomorrow I’d have a few bruises there.

“K-Kyle… Aaaaah… Give… Me…” I whimpered between moans, stretching my arms towards him, nails scratching against his skin as I tried to grab his hips, keep them glued to mine forever.

“Lord… You want me even more, do you?” He responded with shaky breaths, and I immediately felt it when he picked up even more speed - a move made even easier by the amount of slick built up in and around my pussy -, jackhammering into my cunt and making me see stars both from pain and pleasure. 

At this point I should’ve known there was no point in even trying to hide our sinful sounds anymore, but I still felt like I needed to do it. I tried to pick up Kyle’s pillow from the side of my head and put it over my face to muffle my constant cries of satisfaction, but my partner immediately grabbed it from my hand and tossed it back in its place with a growl.

“No. Don’t hide it. I want to see it. The face you make… When you cum for me and I stuff you up to the brim.”

The scene he described burned into my brain almost immediately and I could think of nothing else. For him to fill me up, give me a baby, make us a family - it was all I wanted out of life now, and the mere thought of it was enough to have my muscles tensing and that familiar pressure on my lower abdomen to start building up again, threatening to snap. “Please, Kyle,” I whined, “Breed me. Give it all to me… I need it…”

“I know you do, darling...” He leaned closer to me to give me a kiss, the clash of our lips messy and awkward with our desperate need to touch each other and the fogginess in our brains, but we didn’t care. I just wanted to have him as close as possible. “I need it too… Cum for me, please. I want to feel you milking my dick to the last drop.”

He needed not ask further. For the second time that night I felt my whole body burst into electricity, my cunt spasming like crazy as I tried to give Kyle exactly what he asked of me, exactly what I felt like I was meant to do all along. My legs trashed all over near his shoulders and my back arched as I lost control of my body with the waves of pleasure that washed me over.

The tightness around his cock as my walls fluttered around him and my face contorting in absolute pleasure as I came were what finally did him in. Kyle threw his head back while he came undone inside me, grabbing my hips and pulling them towards him as he buried himself deep into my core, his manhood throbbing, painting my walls with his seed. The sensation was extremely new to me - I felt the warm spurts painting my walls, filling me up and leaving Kyle’s mark somewhere no other man could ever reach.

I wasn’t used to Kyle finishing inside of me. Considering the everlasting battle between our higher than average libidos and our fear of having children, the closest compromise for that was having him do it on my breasts, belly, mouth, face, even ass if he was feeling wild enough. On the rare occasions where he did cum inside, I couldn’t even enjoy it - my brain would immediately be flooded with stress and worry, shutting down any other sensation, and I’d spend the next month or so losing sleep waiting for my next period so I could finally be at peace again.

But here there was none of that. I could relax and ride out this high with him. I let him have his moment, heaving my exhaustion away quietly as I admired the red flush on his pale skin and the sheen of his sweat under the candlelight, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he panted like his lungs weren’t big enough for the amount of air he needed to live. When he finally opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was me, I felt wrapped up in his love all over again.

When his breathing started to steady, I figured he’d get himself off of me and take his place by my side on the bed. Instead, he just laid his whole body on top of mine, somehow being careful enough to not crush me under his weight as he collapsed.

“Kyle?” I gave him some quick taps to the shoulder with my fingers after a minute or two like this in silence, when I’d started to worry that he might just fall asleep. “C’mon, dear, you gotta scoot over if you wanna sleep.”

“Hmph… Sorry…” He groaned, with a sluggishness that made clear he was indeed just a few sheeps counted away from deep slumber. “Wanted to make sure to keep it all in. Don’t wanna waste…”

Even though he clearly didn’t want to, he slowly moved away from me and rolled to his side of the bed. When his dick withdrew from me, I suddenly felt a bit empty and wondered briefly if I couldn’t have tried to sleep like that or at least stay a little longer.

“Sorry, my dear,” I planted a kiss to the side of his head, “But you know, if you don’t get me pregnant tonight, we have plenty of time now.”

I sat back on the bed briefly to blow the candle out on the nightstand, plunging our room into almost complete darkness. As soon as I laid my head back on my pillow, Kyle brought his arm over my body and pulled me closer to him, nuzzling my hair.

“We have plenty of time now,” He whispered, with more energy in his voice this time.

And we definitely did.

Dividers by @cafekitsune

[hussyknee]

I replied to @aelfwyn and @homosociallyyours the comments but I'm going to C+P them here because y'all USAmericans need to stop seeing yourselves as an exceptional kind of monster. As a settler colony, the dynamics are more complex, but being conditioned to put race solidarity above class interests isn't a uniquely white thing. It's a colonial thing that's shared by the majoritarian population of most nations in the Global South because our countries are colonial borders that we inherited. Once the Europeans fucked off after 200 years or so, suddenly there's a former administrative border that's 70% Group A and 30% Group B. Group A then consolidates power by genociding the shit out of Group B, colonizing their land. And then any yahoo from Group A can get their fellows to sacrifice their own class interests by promising to keep Group B in their place. Cue decades of separatism and militarization, keeping the country in a state of emergency that leads to an autocratic government and eroded democratic freedom.

Basically, post-colonial Global South nations like us have inherited the same violence you see in white settler societies like the US, Israel, Australia, except for the part where y'all get rich by keeping half the world in war and poverty lol. But the exploitation, war mongering and refugee crises created by that end up empowering your own fascists and creates an untouchable elite class that wreaks havoc even among the settlers at home— which is where most of the West is at now. You experience the same violence we do, but only in the end stages of colonialism.

This is why for Sri Lankans, watching the US and the West the last few years gives us déjà vu. You know how the US ousted Trump in 2020 but then the Dems were such a bunch of out of touch crony capitalists that betrayed all the minorities that turned out for them and allowed the hatred of immigrants and Muslims to became so widespread that Trump is now back in charge with control of House, Senate and Supreme Court? That happened to us in 2019.

(Putting in bullet points so you can follow easier.)

– The Rajapaksas came to power in 2005 by promising what Sinhalese Buddhists call "ending the civil war" and the rest of the world calls "the 2008 Tamil Genocide". They were all but worshipped as saviours of the nation and became a political dynasty on a wave of rabid entho-nationalist fervour.

– However, they put paid to all that loyalty and goodwill over 10 years of Marcos-level corruption, extra-judicial terrorism, embezzlement, nepotism, fraud, civil rights suppression, and autocratic rule.

– When Mahinda Rajapaksa tried to amend the Constitution and contest for the Presidency a third time in 2015, even his own home district turned out to oust the lot of them in favour of a coalition govt.

– This coalition was created between a splinter faction of the Rajapaksas's ethnofascist socialist party led by diet racist Maithipala Sirisena (nicknamed My3) and the minority-friendly neoliberal Opposition led by Ranil Wickremesinghe.

– (He is known for despotically sitting on the party leadership pot for 40 years while unable to shit.)

– This ramshackle entity was called the "Yahapalanya" Government ("Good Governance"...government) No one really trusted or liked it but they were the "lesser evil" compared to the Rs.

– (Yes, our left-wing is fiscally liberal and socially conservative and right-wing is socially liberal and fiscally conservative. The kind of situation Tankies cannot compute. But honestly the difference between them is that neoliberals sell national resources to foreign investors and pocket the money and the socialists accrue foreign debt for national infrastructure that they then rob at both ends. They're both varying levels of ethnonationalist union-busters.)

– The neoliberal policies of the Yahapalanya coalition began to rebuild the economy. But they ignored the poor and working class who were struggling and starving, ignored the minorities that were being terrorised by ethnofascist mobs, and generally reminded everyone how much they were the same kind of incompetent, corrupt, crony capitalist assholes. Pointing at dollar rates, industry gains and the rise of the gig economy while the majority of poor still can't put food on the table isn't a winning argument, especially while scamming the Central Bank and protecting your own crooked MPs. (Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.)

– They still might have won a second term, especially after the Rs jumped the gun in 2018 and attempted a Parliamentary coup by getting President My3 to defect back to them. That put the Rs back in disfavour, but much less so than they were in 2015.

– But the coup led to Yahapalanya's My3-Ranil hell marriage falling apart once and for all.

– Amid the disarray, the Rs got a bunch of ISIS radicals from nowhere to orchestrate the worst terrorist attack we've ever experienced on Easter Sunday 2019, that the Yahapalanya govt failed to prevent out of sheer shocking incompetence.

– (Anyone with a brain knew they were behind it the minute the bombs went off, but no one can accuse the average voter of having one when the alternative is the opportunity to scapegoat a minority).

– The My3-Ranil coalition proceeded to completely bungle the aftermath, refusing to resign from either government or their respective party leaderships, going after any and all Muslims as hard as the Rs ever did, and mud-slinging at each other instead of taking responsibility.

– Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mahinda's brother and Defence Minister who was in charge of the Tamil genocide during his Presidency, became the rallying cry of the nation

– The neoliberal party (UNP) got sick of Ranil and realized they'd never win another election under his leadership with the entire country howling for his blood. All but a handful of them walked out from under him and formed their own party, the SJB, which stood as the Opposition.

– Meanwhile, the Rs created their own party, absorbing most of the socialist legacy party (SLFP), and made the SLFP itself a minor coalition partner under My3—thus effectively dismantling the two-party legacy of 75 years.

– The new neoliberal party SJB, lacking the structure and generational support of their parent, couldn't find its own ass with both hands and a mirror on a stick. And so Gotabaya Rajapaksa swept to a landslide Presidential win in 2019 virtually unimpeded on the wave of racist, Islamophobic hysteria.

– That's right, we hated Tamils and Muslims so much we elected Mahinda's barely-leashed attack dog that his own brothers feared, who was known to disappear political dissenters and feed them to crocodiles. (No, really. He did. This is a guy who has a shark tank in his house. Fuckin' James Bond-ass villain.)

– This was followed by a super majority for the Rajapaksa party in the 2020 Parliamentary elections, only the second in our history. It installed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, glutted the Parliament with Rajapaksa cronies and yes-men even worse and allowed them to introduce Constitutional amendments that basically made Gota all but king.

– Gota then disregarded all his advisors and his brother and proceeded to completely bankrupt the country via massive fraud during COVID. Within two and half years, our treasury was completely empty. We had no fuel, food, medicine, we went into 7 hour brownouts in the middle of a heatwave, people died in miles-long queues for essentials and cooking gas, the country ground to a stand still.

– This is why in April 2022, one of the most massive sustained country-wide citizen protests in the world erupted in Sri Lanka. Apparently the Sinhalese Buddhists that brought these fucks to power could stomach genocide, war crimes, tortures and murders of journalists and activists, scapegoating, terrorizing and witch hunting minorities and busting unions, but when the urban middle class SinBuds can't feed OUR children is when we have enough.

– The govt repeatedly brutalized protestors for weeks until the working class and poor finally snapped and burned down several dozen of their houses, including the Prime Minister's mansion. It was only then that PM Mahinda resigned and Parliament dissolved. (I say again, protest only works when you're prepared to resort to violence as the alternative.)

– Then instead of resigning himself, Gota went to fucking Ranil, who in 2020 had failed to win his own seat in Parliament and was only there because of a Constitutionally reserved seat for the UNP.

– After twenty fucking years being enemies, Gota made a deal that allowed Ranil to be PM again in exchange for heading an interim coalition govt with the Rajapaksa party.

– Ranil got the urban liberals to turn on the poor and unions by waving a return to stability and fuel resupply in front of them, which made the protests break down.

– Predictably, nothing got better.

– A few weeks later, hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans travelled to the capital during the fuel crisis. They came hanging off trains, loaded on top of trucks and buses, and even on foot. They all physically stormed the President's mansion and forced Gota to flee the country.

– While Gota was flying around like panicked bird trying to find a country without an extradition treaty and the Lankans lit fireworks in celebration, Ranil forced a Parliamentary vote that made him Executive President once Gota resigned, and created another interim govt.

– HE GOT THE LIBERALS TO BETRAY US AGAIN.

– He had the military crack down on protestors (firing tear gas from helicopters!!), making arrests, allowed all the Rs and their cronies to come back yet again, and refused to call elections for another 18 months.

– (I personally became suicidal over it and it's why I will kill liberals on sight. They are the worst kind of maggot in creation, a knife hovering over the back of every left-wing push for change.)

– Ranil being Ranil he fucked over the "stability"-minded libs for the second time as well.

– By the time he was forced by the Supreme Court to call elections, the entire country was furious and sick to death of the entire two-party clown show and all the career criminals on both sides of the fence.

– The left-wing 3rd party coalition the NPP, that formed around the nucleus of the former Marxist party, the JVP, was the only one that rose in people's estimation. They were the only one that had stayed on ground zero of the protests with unconditional support for the unions and students without trying to co-opt them. They had run on an anti-racist, truly progressive platform, promising to crack down on corruption in 2020 and had been reduced to just three seats, but those three seats were occupied by charismatic, erudite, canny and organized MPs free of scandal. They were literally the only feasible option by virtue of being the only one that wasn't a disorganised, flaming dumpster fire run by crooks.

– But even then, 30 years of Red Scare was so effective that JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) is the only one to become President without an over 50% majority in the first preferential vote.

– AKD dissolved Parliament immediately and announced General Elections, operating until then with a Cabinet that only comprised the three seated NPP members (himself, my professor, and Vijitha Herath, that ended up beating her as the MP with the most preferential votes in any election. Boo.)

– The bunch of incompetent nepo babies in the Opposition SJB further alienated, enraged and disaffected even the ones that had turned out for them six weeks previously—

– —so that at the General Election, every single district turned red. The whole country has never turned any one colour in our 75 years of universal franchise. Even people who predicted a 2/3rds majority are shocked. Apparently the Tamils and Muslims of the North and East are just as sick of their own representatives.

So now we're in this new era of what-the-fuck where we can apparently expect things of our elected representatives other than "please don't fuck us over too badly", but it remains to be seen whether any long term lessons will stick.

Basically, if you live in the US, you can also look forward to this kind of thing if Trump burns the whole place to the ground in less than 4 years, along with the GOP. Sooner or later it will be the white liberal's turn to be eaten, and that is when the left will be able to rise up and answer fascism with violence. Nick Fuentez's house got burned down so you can already see it starting to happen. All you had to do was get white women on your side.

Also the reason our protestors weren't massacred like others have been historically, and how Bangladeshis were this year, is because enough of the military and police personnel were also disaffected that they decided they weren't paid enough for this and even joined the protestors in the end. At some point, even the enforcers of the elite must realize that they are the working class. The army and cops that protected Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh did not, and it did nothing to deter the student protestors that led the charge. Students of public unis here were also the ones who were our vanguard. Student leaders are the great white hope of society and every time we let the state throw them to their dogs we're letting ourselves get eaten alongside them.

Trying to explain what the fuck just happened in Lankan politics today.

The leftist party has won 159 seats out of 218 in the Parliamentary elections. The single biggest landslide win since we broke from the British and achieved universal franchise in 1948.

Any party achieving a super majority in the executive and legislative is, objectively speaking, bad. It disables checks and balances, which is a catastrophic thing for any democracy, and the only two other times it's happened for us has irrevocably eroded the fabric of civic rights and democratic freedom. Also, the reason the NPP won the North and East is that the colonized, genocided and subjugated people there have no faith in electoralism anymore. The way this government has engaged minority issues has been utterly abysmal and now they've been rewarded for it.

On the other hand:

The winners. Are all. Grassroots. Candidates.

We have voted out every single career criminal that's been barnacled into the Lankan political arena since before I've been alive. The fascist party has only three seats. The other fascists didn't win a single seat. The neoliberal legacy party won none. There are only forty people in Parliament that represent any sort of dynastic political legacy. After 76 solid years of nothing but political dynasties.

This is barely five years after the Rajapaksas swept in and absolutely glutted the Parliament with their family members and cronies end to end.

This is the illegitimate interim government we had for most of the last 18 months. We literally, physically, chased the Rajapaksas out of the country and this fucking demon set up a puppet government just so he could finally sit in that goddamn chair and be the despot he'd always dreamed of in exchange for letting them all come back. He's now gone. His entire circle is gone.

THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GONE.

In US terms, just imagine the entire GOP and the worst of the Dems destroyed and purged from Congress and Senate, the Green Party in control of all three branches of government, an unmarried abortion rights activist Vice President, and the Dems reduced to barely 20% of the House. Five years from now, when Trump's GOP has control of everything.

This is my anthropology professor. She joined politics from the small nascent leftist coalition to help keep the government accountable. She's now the Prime Minister and the most popular Parliamentary candidate in the nation's history.

On the other hand— the woman who helped make me a radical anarchist and literally helped write a book on political dissent and resistance...now is the state.

But there are so many women in Parliament! We had the lowest female representation in a South Asian Parliament and some of them were from the list of seats reserved for parties rather than elected ones. Most were either anti-feminist conservative embarrassments, widows and daughters of elite politicians and neoliberal shills. It's still only an increase of a few percentage points but now we have elected academics, feminist advocates, activists! THERE IS A REPRESENTATIVE FOR MALAIYAHA TAMILS IN THE CENTRAL PROVINCE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY AND IT'S A YOUNG WOMAN! This is the plantation community that still live in conditions closest to the slavery the British forced upon them two hundred years ago!

I'm like. Completely mindfucked. To be very very clear, these people are not Marxists or anything near; they're mild social democrats who would only be threatening to like, USAmerican liberals, who are now center-right. The actual chances for radical reform are still quite low, and the opportunity for further erosion is extremely high.

On the other hand:

What the fuck.

Sometimes living through historical events is really damn amazing.

[malenjoyer]

I just had a passing thought about my own stuff from an outsider POV. I wondered if anyone who’s not a huge fan of dick questions why Dick Grayson in most of the stuff I post…

Why all of a sudden Dick Grayson is the bus driver- because I hired him!!! I want to see him! I’m gonna put him in everything!

[gloriousmonsters]

ok listen. listen. hear me out. what if Angel was the one to propose the contract

like.... the intensification of heartbreak and guilt when Val tells him 'I own you, or have you forgotten that?' as Angel looks at his signature, the heart he drew next to it. the extra layer in 'what's the worst part of this hell? I can only blame myself'. and above all it plays well with my observation that their contract had to have been composed with some level of input from Angel, because... why on earth/in hell would Val have given him control of his life outside of the studio; and while Val invokes the contract to put Angel back in 'his place', Angel invokes it to remind Valentino that he can defy him. It's actually similar in composition to a kink contract/agreement--if I'm in this specific place, you hold all the power and call the shots; but outside of it, I don't give you that level of control. Angel can straight up tell Val to fuck off in front of a crowd and all Val can do is say he'll make Angel regret it next time he's in the studio (and isn't that an extremely dark variation of the classic kinky romance beat of 'sub misbehaves when they're in public and can get away with it, dom promises they'll pay for it later'?)

so like. all of that about the contract also works if Val proposed it, but I love headcanoning that their relationship was on the rocks around the time it was signed, and one of the factors was Vox coming onto the scene... and so now i'm just thinking about Angel in his peak era of both-sides-ing their relationship problems, knowing his 'commitment issues' (partly real, partly consisting of val's 'you know other men??' issues) are a major cause, furious and disconcerted at someone else drawing so much of Val's attention, wanting to make a stupid desperate Hail Mary pass to save their relationship but devoid of the usual options of 'have kid' or 'impulsively propose marriage' or 'move to a new house that's inevitably haunted' i watch too much horror, going for the option of '...hey do you want to make the kind of binding contract that is accessible to us?'

and surely it's not that stupid! he's only really giving Val a formal version of the power he gives him already, right? Val's his dom and his director and manager, and maybe there's... problems but it's mostly been great for Angel so far, so if having it on (magic eternally binding) paper would make Val happy and make him understand that Angel really wants him, wants them, the risk is toooootally worth it. just, best not to tell Cherri about it she'd definitely think it was insane.

(and when, much later, she learns about the contract and berates him for being an idiot and not telling her when Val brought it up, maybe don't correct her assumption. just keep it to yourself and feel even worse.)

[energysynergymatrix]

Ok I bit the bullet and made an Ososan OC and his full name is Len Kanemaru.

He's the so-called perfect guy, pretty boy barista type turned up to 11, who might as well have manifested from thin air, who has genuine fanboys and fangirls, and most of the Matsunos want him fucking dead. He's oblivious to both of these aspects of the public opinion and seems kind of empty headed for the most part. He is also struggling just as badly as them but literally no one would believe him if he told them.

He also wants to kiss the oldest DESPITE the fact that his brothers are so jealous of him for being so perfect. Shenanigans ensue.

If you want a more detailed write up about him read the cut.

OK SO . Len is a guy trying his best to pretend to be an adult despite wanting to be anything but it. Unlike the Matsunos who dont pretend to be an adult and are anything but it, Len is trying to push through adult life while wanting to return to childhood when things were easier.

Sure he has a job as barista, but he's poor with money, spending it like he's still a teenager, struggles to maintain contact with people he’s befriended outside of work, DESPITE thinking people hating him is the end of the world, and surprisingly, still lives with his parents.

The thing is that he's REALLY good at pretending to have it all together. He has quite a few fanboys and fangirls and is often described as a prince. (It’s because of his charmingly good customer service skills that is his only real social experience post highschool.) But, despite being in his mid twenties, hes kind of poorly equipped socially and is unable to pick this up, despite it being clear to literally everyone.

(Like he thinks he’s being bad at pretending to be a well put together adult, and then turns around and can handle rush pretty well understaffed, not make any mistakes, and still keep a pleasant demeanor that his admirers swoon over. Anytime someone does act like a fan trying to get his love it’s met with confusion and just. “Huh.” more than anything. He doesn’t even reject them because he doesn’t realize so many people are in love with him)

This includes quite a few Matsunos who are jealous of him for being so popular (and admittedly kind of cool), find his princely yet oblivious attitude almost annoying, and somewhat creepy because of how much he knows about them from highschool. And those who aren't irritated by him are relatively apathetic towards him.

The only reason theyre so aware of him is the fact that he and Todomatsu worked at the same cafe before the latter quit. It was after he quit that Len properly met the sextuplets, having a chance encounter with the boys sometime after. Todomatsu was already irritated by him, by again, seeing above, but also because he already seemed intimately familiar with Totty during his highschool years.

It's like they had a whole classmate just manifest into being while skipping the "actually go to class together" part.

(They did actually go to school together but literally no one knew he existed during then. Not to their fault though, Len was basically that one vine that's like "I can't I have so much to do tomorrow" *fucks around on the keyboard. Because of that Len ended up being bad with people by the time he graduated and was ushered into the work force by his parents. As a result he can't really keep friends, often times contact dying off on accident. A lot of the time spent working is him TRYING his best to maintain relationships as an adult but it never really works out. Deep down Len wishes he could redo highschool, so he could not only get this skills but also find some memories that he so clearly missed out on. Because he willingly opted out of making those therefore other people don’t remember him. As far as he knows he hasn’t really had a friend since middle school.)

But like after the two and Totty's brothers encountered each other in public a whole bomb got dropped and nothing was the same.

Despite generally not liking him the Matsunos keep him around, mostly due to Totty's insistence saying they can use him (so they cant kill him yet!) but because Len is kind of bad with people in general outside of having a fandom (that, again, came with his customer service skills), and the Matsunos are the Matsunos, this never ever goes well.

Despite this and how much shenanigans the Matsunos end up dragging him into, he considers them friends since its the closest relationship he's maintained outside of his house. On top of that, he almost admires them for being NEETs. He's kind of ashamed of it, because he knows they have to be an adult, but because he's struggling so much as an adult, he wants nothing more than to be like them. He wants to stop being an adult and return to highschool.

It's why he takes to Osomatsu so much, since he seems most open about how shitty he is and how much he doesnt want to grow up. Like weirdly enough, his man-child behavior is what makes Len likes him so much. Sure he also has a big heart and loves his family, and Len can acknowledge Oso’s best aspects, but it’s the worst parts of him that loves.

And that admiration for having his character laid out flat and embracing his childishness despite his age and situation, how he practically will just grow up when he wants to rather than when he has to (unlike Len), makes the perfect man fall for the loser guy.

The more he hangs around the Matsunos the more they encourage him to tap into his evil side, and may end up making him worse, but for now he's Mr Perfect and most of them hate him for that. He doesn't get the message though so he's just kind of hanging around them for now.

Anyways he and Osomatsu are literally I'm Glad You're Evil Too to me . And also look at these sketches of him .

[illusionremember]

tbh i always take statistics offered up like this with a heaping tablespoon of salt. Whomst is being polled to find these statistics? Personally, I have never been a part of a study like this. How are they collecting their data? Is this based on test scores? Graduation stats? If you follow the link to this website, they don't give any background data for this study — no poll numbers or parameters listed, no reference to where they sourced the data or how they analyzed it or who did the work to analyze it. I also notice that this website links to AI resources for professional development — if they push AI, are they using it to create content?

To be clear, I'm not saying that illiteracy isn't a problem or that it isn't worsening. But these numbers seem alarmingly high to the point where I don't quite believe them.

Some of the "factoids" that they list don't track logically, especially when they start talking economic impacts - for example, "School dropouts cost our nation $240 billion in social service expenditures and lost tax revenues" Correlation is not causation. Is it that people who can't read cost money, or is it that people who grow up in generational poverty and rely on social services to survive (which is what social services are THERE FOR) also have higher rates of illiteracy because they go to lower income schools, have less disposable income to support reading and education, and are going to school hungry, tired, ill, or stressed due to poverty? Are illiterate people costing us money, or is economic stress leading to lower literacy rates? It seems suspicious to me that they frame this as having an impact on taxpayers rather than address that taxpayer money is MEANT to help take care of citizens in need. That's what it's for.

So why frame this as "here's how illiteracy is a drain on society" instead of "people most disenfranchised by our society are deeply affected by illiteracy"? In fact, that entire factoid sheet is framed that way - look at the titles of each section: "Literacy data and its impact on the nation, the economy, society, and the classroom" Now this could be a framing device to try and appeal to people who don't care about literacy but do care about where their tax money goes, but it's still implying the onus is on illiterate people rather than the systems that lead to poverty and illiteracy.

Furthermore, since this link goes to the 2022-2023 timespan, I took a step further on the webpage to see the ones for 2024-2025 (which we are not yet through, btw)

Most of the stats listed have not changed from two years ago, except this one that caught my eye:

2022 - Illiteracy costs American taxpayers an estimated $20 billion each year.

2024 - Low levels of literacy costs the US up to 2.2 trillion per year

Do you see that enormous fuckin jump? In just two years? and there's no details given — what's the breakdown of that alleged cost? Where are those trillions of dollars going, exactly? Is it really literacy levels, or is it poverty levels, poorer employment, or stagnating wages that lead to people relying on social services?

Another factoid I question: "54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level)." How did they calculate that? How did they collect the information necessary to determine this? They don't tell us that.

Even if the statistics are true, I don't think that slapping this little stats listicle up everywhere is actually helpful unless you are trying to shock people or make them scornful and disdainful of impoverished and/or illiterate people. It's giving parent scolding their kid about their report card without asking what's going on in the kids life or trying to fix it. So what are the actions we can take here that are actually productive? So I took a look at the website that posted this to seek out what they are trying to encourage us to do with that knowledge. What is their call-to-action?

This National Literacy Institute, when you look into their website beyond this stats sheet, is a business that offers professional workshopping for schools. They hosts teachers' conferences and programs to share current educational practices.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, and I'm not trying to say they are bad or even untrustworthy — but people need to keep in mind that this stats sheet is a marketing technique for them. They give these statistics and then say, "We can help with that! Hire us to train your teachers." Maybe they can. Maybe they're more reputable than I'm giving them credit for here.

But I'm writing this, not about their reputation, but about the gut response to reblog and repost stats like this and go "oh my god we're screwed". That's not productive.

When you see info presented as facts and it comes with numbers, you need to dig deeper. Numbers are easy to make up, especially when people don't fact check what they're looking at. Furthermore, the productive question to ask here is not "how did we get here?" but "what can we do about it?"

So, readers, how can we work to encourage reading comprehension, boost education, and thus improve literacy?

https://x.com/StrangerJosh11/status/1856410822983201030

It’s dire out here

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Some mild existential dread in the house today

[thegreatyin]

who is the scoundrel? I see you posting about them(it? Idk) all the time but I haven’t figured out who they are

my fallen london OC! i made them by accident a few months ago and as you can tell ive very quickly developed scoundrel brainrot. it's a terminal illness for which there is no cure and the symptoms are instead of brain there is scoundrel.

in terms of actual character rundowns, their full moniker is The Bandaged Scoundrel, though i tend to call them "the scoundrel" for short. their real name is D█████, but they'd sooner die permanently than respond to or even acknowledge its existence.

they are! a bastard! a rat! a son of a b___! a motherf______! they are vain beyond your wildest imagination and they think they're the most infallible perfect being in all of existence and they have the exact attitude of a saturday morning power-hungry cartoon supervillain on cocaine.

and also, perhaps most importantly, they're Really Fucking Stupid. because of course they are.

they are resplendently awful. they are inevitably going to cause their own demise in an act of pure karmic retribution. they are a speck of dust in history that desperately keeps trying to insist they're actually a tornado. i love them dearly.

in loose conclusion while also acknowledging ive explained literally nothing; my goofy silly victorian london browser game player character that deserves to get timetraveled against their will to the 21st century specifically so they can get hit by a truck

[chrisbangs]

hello... (and bye ig 👋)

[libertarian-druid-ny-separatist]

Feel a need to clarify since this is gaining more traction than my usual drivel.

I'm not trying to justify, from any pov, the Atlantic slave trade. I'm just pointing out that a slave trade needs 3 parties. The buyer, the seller, and the slaves. Spaniards were the buyers, and only bought from the African slave lords because they weren't Muslim (we can get into the Barbary and other various Arab slave trades on another post) and the Africans were just profiting off their own wars or being sold as slaves.

One reply brought up Mansa Musa, a bit inaccurately admittedly, but the world's wealthiest man, made his money on the backs of other African slaves in his Salt mines.

Nobody should be profiting from chattel slavery in the year 2024. Nobody should be profiting off of any sort of slavery in 2024. The Chinese communist party just manages to with ease because we've been bending over backwards for them as a revenue source and cheap source of labor. Obviously with shit conditions, but more clearly revealed as just straight up slavery in Xinjiang as of late.

While I get the feeling some companies knew, I won't make any direct accusations without proof. Instead, I just won't buy from them, opting instead for Korean made phones (if that's any sort of hint).

Our global trade is fucked if you're trying to buy ethically. But if you're a diabetic, it becomes a little easier since you're not usually eating any chocolate. After that it's just not buying rubber goods or anything made in China, Yemen, east Africa, parts of northwest Africa and nations in a state of civil war.

Basically, if you're trying to buy things ethically, you stick to America and American allies like Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other nations we've invaded. I shit you not, with the exception of the last 30 or 40 years, the nations we've invaded tend to (emphasis on tend to) have more ethical labor laws.

The big thing is to not buy from China. Especially not Chinese importers like temu. If you're buying from Hong Kong, that's one thing, they're an autonomous region with their own laws and labor practices (for now). I'd prefer to be buying Tibetan goods, but that hasn't been a thing for a few decades.

Free East Turkestan, Free Tibet, Free Hong Kong, and support an Independent Taiwan.

If you're buying off Temu, it had better have one of those messages on it. Fuck their system up, support indigenous populations of east Asia, and fuck the ccp.

Huh. Almost like temu was always meant to be divisive as fuck in one of only a few nations that are multiracial with equal rights.

Especially when the terminology is so inaccurate. Bought. White people bought slaves from other Africans. Nobody was stolen. Hate me all you like for that sentiment, but it's true. People were bought and sold as property. That's largely changed everywhere but the middle east, parts of Africa, and China. Where those t shirts are made.

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

What the food pantry on campus does:

- gives me snacks and drinks to supplement my regular groceries, breakfast stuff, maybe ingredients for 1-2 actual meals

What the food pantry is really bad at doing:

- giving me food I can make into proper meals for the week

Oh you want juice? Here’s 2 little juice boxes. Nothing else; they’re limited. You want pasta sauce? 1 can; limited. You want produce? 2 produce item limit, except for the apples which are starting to spoil. You can have all of those. You want frozen chicken? One container only. Oh, they’re all stuck together and frozen? Sorry, you can’t have two; no chicken, I guess. Pasta? One box only. Rice? Two small bags, max. Breakfast bars? Yeahhhh, those are a snack, and you can only have five snacks, total. But if you put those pop tarts back, you could have some! Oh, you want donuts instead? Sure! But that’s a bakery item, and you can only have one baked good, so you’re gonna need to put that bread back. You want ziploc bags? Here, have two. Not two boxes, two bags. Item limits. Sorry. You can come back next week!

How the fuck are people supposed to actually *use* these things for weekly meal planning if there’s not enough to last a week???

I swear I am grateful for these resources I’m sure they’re doing the best they can with what they have I’m just *frustrated*. I’m trying to spend less on groceries bc I can’t really afford them. It’s nice that the food pantry gives me these small portions to last me a couple days. But that still leaves several days with not enough food unless I’m really creative or go grocery shopping, and I simply do not have the energy or time to be really creative.