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[sunshine-and-kookies]

UNHINGED (m)

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Summary-> The corporate recession has your company grovelling for funds.

As the relegated chief operating officer, you have to bear the brunt of seeking out an enterprising and successful shareholder who can revive your company for posterity.

As a sorry state of affairs, you're compelled to enlist the CEO of Jeon Enterprise for his help. However, The question remains.

Just how much convincing are you willing to do?

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Part: 1 of 2

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Pairing: Yandere Jeongguk x Female Reader

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Genre: Smut, Angst, Fluff, Yandere

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Warnings for both parts: Power Imbalance, Blackmailing, Manipulation, inebriation, smut, fingering, groping, penetration, some nasty stuff, light choking, a few corporate jargons, jk is a dick who is smitten with oc, jk is selfish asf, threats of violence (not against OC).

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Word count: 2.1k

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Disclaimer: This is a two-shot which delves into themes that may be triggering or dark in nature. It is important to note that the behaviors portrayed by Jungkook are purely fictional and do not reflect his real-life character. Reader discretion is advised. Minors are discouraged from engaging with this content. Remember, plagiarism is a serious offense.

“©© All rights reserved to @sunshine-and-kookies. No translations permitted without explicit authorization.”

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"This is unbelievable", you lament, hunched over your desk.

"How did the stocks plummet so much?"

"Miss. L/N, The stock market is a gamble." Mr. Kwon offers.

"I am aware of that Mr. Kwon. But the risks we took were calculated." You massage your temples, grumbling defensively under your breath.

The predicament at hand induced mixed emotions in you. On one hand, you were anxious. Anxious for the employees who have a family to fend for, the news headlines they'll be witnessing and the confrontation you'll need to have with the stakeholders.

On the other, less dominant hand, you felt uncannily relieved.

Ever since your company, Jubilee and Co, invested in the share market with you at the helm, you've been waiting for something to go awry.

Simply, because you couldn't fathom anything remotely auspicious happening under your leadership. Not because you didn't have faith in your capabilities. No.

It was because you've gotten the short end of the stick from life so often that you've grown accustomed to it.

And now that your trepidations have borne fruit, you feel the weight being lifted off your shoulders.

Gingerly clutching the cup of coffee perched on your table, you take a sip. This was not the time to wallow in self pity.

"Mr. Kwon, prepare an excel sheet that has all the consolidated data of the company's capital. We can't afford any delays. I have to begin looking for plausible shareholders."

You could feel the soreness kicking in, as you knead the knots in your shoulder.

It was gonna be a long day.

..............................................................................................................................

You peer at your phone's self camera for the umpteenth time.

Huffing, as you rake your fingers through your hair. Everything about your outfit seemed off but scrounging for a better one would take an eternity. You were living on borrowed time as it is.

"Miss. Y/N L/N, Mr. Jeon is ready for you."

You stand upright, hands clenching the portfolio in your hand futilely, your heels scuffing across the floor of the hallway.

Navigating through the huge corridor, you spot the door of the room where the incumbent CEO sits.

Knocking lightly, you speak "Mr Jeon?"

"Come in."

His husky voice beckons.

Drawing in a shaky breath, you step into the room.

And as soon as you do, you're rendered awestruck by the cabin.

It has expansive floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a panoramic view of the bustling city below.

The golden hour sunlight streaming in through the blinds.

The walls, adorned with exquisite golden motifs, which no doubt must have cost a fortune.

Fitting for a billionaire like him, you suppose.

Right in the center of the room is a rich mahogany desk, cluttered with documents.

Perched behind the desk is Jeon Jeongguk, the formidable CEO of Jeon Enterprises. It is renowned globally as the only firm which deals with technological ergonomics. Their unparalleled success transcended borders, setting the standard worldwide.

Needless to say, Jubilee and Co was a far cry from Jeon Enterprises.

You've read enough tabloids about the cold, formidable CEO to know what might transpire.

On behalf of your company's stakeholder, you'll ask him for help. He'll eye you incredulously, disdain marring his face before he politely calls the security guard to escort this deranged woman out.

You're taking a leap of faith coming here and hoping a tech tycoon like him even spares you a glance.

You hear him take a sharp intake of breath, prompting you to look at him.

His mouth was slightly agape, eyes widened, as he stared at you from across the room.

His gaze trailed your dainty form from top to bottom, eyes darkening the more they consume you.

You shudder.

You should have taken time to look for a more flattering outfit. Or maybe your hair was dishevelled?

Clearing your throat, you politely ask him, "May I take a seat, Mr Jeon?"

Caught off guard, Mr. Jeon suddenly stands up before motioning for you to sit.

"Please do, Miss...?"

"Y/N L/N." , you supply.

"Y/N..." His dulcet voice repeats your name, as though in a trance.

There was an eerie tension in the room but you would be damned if you let it get to you and lose this golden opportunity.

"As the chief operating officer, I'm here to represent Jubilee and Co."

This was it.

This was the part where you'll be catapulted out of the building by big and buff security men--

"How may I be of assistance to Jubilee and Co. today?"

You blanch.

Out of all outcomes you were expecting would ensue your introduction, this was the most unexpected one.

You were not prepared for this, how do you broach the proposal of an alliance now?

Quickly gathering yourself, you resume.

"We are honoured you have decided to give us the time of the day, Mr Jeon."

"Don't mention." His tone, though professional, betrayed a hint of eagerness.

"From what I presume, you're here to ask for an affiliation." He continues.

"Your stakeholders want Jubilee and Co to become a subsidiary under Jeon Enterprises."

You were tongue tied.

Mr. Jeon was an astute man. You'll give him that.

"Yes, sir. That is correct."

"And why, exactly, should I invest in a company that is, for a lack of better word, in shambles? Inundated with abysmal employees", He rejoinders.

You wince. No matter how true his word were, they were acerbic.

Jubilee was like a baby to you.

You've gone through hell to make it transition from a tier 3 brand name to a decently esteemed firm. You've spent countless sleepless nights looking after it, skipped meals to tend to it's wounds.

Chagrined, you speak before your brain can process your words.

"I understand your concerns, Mr. Jeon. But Jubilee is more than just its current state. It's a testament to resilience, to the countless hours of dedication and hard work put in by its employees, including myself."

Your gaze meets his, vulnerability shining in your eyes.

"Yes, we may have faced setbacks, but we've also overcome them. I believe that adversity often presents the greatest opportunities for growth. I understand your reservations, Mr. Jeon, but I urge you to consider the untapped potential within Jubilee. With the right investments and guidance, I firmly believe that it has the potential to rise from its current situation and flourish once again."

A hush falls over the room.

Jeongguk's gaze remained unwavering, fixed on your face throughout your entire tirade.

"Consider me convinced, Miss. Y/N."

"S-Sir?"

"I guarantee. Jubilee's stock will be restored, funds will be augmented, and brand reputation will be unrivalled. The employees that will henceforth be inducted will be recruited by my personal hiring team."

You can barely hear the rest of his sentence, already thrumming with excitement. Your mind plotting all the ways you can get back at the naysayers.

The resurgence of Jubilee is inevitable, now that you have Jeongguk on board.

"But, you must understand Y/N, there are no free lunches in this world."

And just like that all your dreams come crashing down.

"Pardon, sir?"

Mr. Jeon gracefully rises from his chair, closing the proximity between the both of you as he leans on the front of the desk, positioned directly in front of you.

"I'll accede to all your demands, but I want a fair trade."

Mr. Jeon's words hang in the air. You had hoped for a smooth negotiation, where was this coming from?

"What kind of fair trade are you suggesting, Mr. Jeon?"

A knowing smile tugs at the corner of his lips as he meets your gaze.

"I'll provide my expertise, my resources, to ensure Jubilee's revival," he begins.

"But in return, I ask for something beyond the confines of business."

There is a tacit silence enveloping the room.

The implication of his suggestion is glaringly blatant.

Situations like these were rife in the corporate world. Pleasure in exchange for business gains was not unheard of.

What was however, unheard of, was an employee of Jubilee engaging in such lewd dalliances.

While they were definitely slacking and inept when it comes to work and strategies, Jubilee has maintained a pristine image of possessing the most morally sound employees.

You are caught in a mire.

On one hand, you are disgruntled that he thought you were so shallow that you'll take him up on an offer as promiscuous as that.

But on the other hand, you are convinced this is your only shot at reviving Jubilee. Jungkook's assets and team marshalled together will undoubtedly take Jubilee to unprecedented heights.

"We have a deal, Mr. Jeon."

..............................................................................................................................

"Jeongguk, stop please! Not now, I have to get ready for a meeting."

"I don't renege on my promises, baby girl." He hums, biting your lower lip as his hands fondle your clothed chest.

"And I expect the same from you, yeah?"

The past few months have been very conducive for Jubilee.

As expected, with Jeongguk's acumen & assistance, the company is practically thriving, now in a league comparable to the unicorns.

And it had to be. You've traded yourself for its prosperity after all.

"Fuck", the expletive rolls off your tongue as a strangled moan.

His palms knead the flesh as he grinds his hips on your clothed pussy.

"You're so pretty, my baby. Got me wrapped around your little finger like a hormonal fucking teenager."

He grunts in your ear as one of his hands find purchase on your hip, the other smoothly lifting your pencil skirt to stroke your thigh.

"Kook, I c-can't"

He is terse as he pants, "Yes, you can. You will do everything I ask you to, am I clear?"

"Y-Yeah"

"Good girl" He dotes.

Unbuttoning your top and latching his tongue onto your now bare nipple.

"Stop teasing Kook, touch me already. I'm so fuckin' wet"

He grins as he resumes his ministrations on your inner thigh, cheekily peering up at you from where he is stationed, between your breasts.

"Someone's needy."

You huff exasperated, placing a hand on his as you halt him.

"Fine, I'll just ask Taehyung for help. He won't deny me anyways."

All air escapes you as you're suddenly jerked, your bare back meeting the wall with a thud.

You open your eyes at the sudden movement.

Jeongguk's laborious breath is laden with ire.

Eyes closed. Jaw clenched.

His previous playful beam, nowhere to be found.

He takes in a deep breath before opening his eyes.

They're the darkest you've ever seen them. Pupils enlarged to an extent that his eyes appear pitch black.

You fucked up.

His hand comes up as he lightly chokes you, not enough to hurt you but enough to cause a pool of wetness dripping down your thighs in its wake.

"Say shit like that one more time and see me burn that fucker alive."

"You have the fucking audacity to even think of another man, when yours is right in front of you? Don't you fucking forget who you belong to Y/N. You're fucking mine. Body, Heart and Soul. You've sworn your loyalty to me. You've surrendered yourself to me completely the day I agreed to buy that shitty company of yours."

Your panties are completely drenched at this point and you're unsure if its because you're turned on or petrified of how vexed he has become by the mere thought of you with another man, even though you had said it in jest.

Without any preamble, his fingers prod at your entrance as he sinks them in. Your walls embracing him like second skin.

"Even your tight little pussy isn't yours anymore. It belongs to Jeon Jungkook.”

He slaps your pussy immediately after, as though proving his point.

“And I don't fucking share, so you better pray to any deity you worship that I don't fucking catch you masturbating or so help me god."

He fingers you passionately. Not stopping even after you plead him to.

"T-Too sensitive, K-Kook."

Unbuckling his belt, He pulls out his penis. It stands tall, proud and red with pre cum oozing out of the tip.

You grab him for stability as he pushes the tip in, letting your walls adjust and clamp before he brutally picks up his pace.

"Tell me who you belong to." He bellows.

Too out of it, you fail to form a coherent response.

THWACK.

He slaps your ass hard.

Once. Twice. Too many times to count.

"I-I'm yours Koo, only yours." you manage to say, eager to cajole him.

"Damn right you are." He hums, seemingly placated with your answer. Picking up his pace, he spits in your mouth, meshing his tongue with yours, while his fingers play with your clit.

You feel the familiar warmth below your cervix, as you groan,

"C-Cumming"

He gently pats your hair, kissing your earlobe.

"Let go, baby."

As you ride off your high, too blissful to pay attention to your surroundings, you don't notice the way Jeongguk's gaze darkens.

............................................................................................................................

Part: 1 of 2

“©© All rights reserved to @sunshine-and-kookies. No translations permitted without explicit authorization.”

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Not-So Secretive Rendezvous

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2k

Warnings: smut, fem!receiving, age gap

Request by anon: I'd love a Spencer X Fem Reader thing,  say season 3-4 prince charming hair version ya know?  That era is totally hot.  Anyway, reader is Hotch's sister or Daughter, 10 year age gap between reader & Spence.  I'm a total sucker for a forbidden, sneaking, secretive thing with them getting caught in a very compromising position.  Hotch is fine with it but disappointed they didn't clear it with him. Maybe she works in the BAU but maybe not?  Some hot spice with his awkward self.  I always have a thought of him being so awkward around women in social situations like with JJ in the baseball game stuff, but with his Eidetic memory he definitely knows how to please women for sure.   Any other details i'll leave you with free rein!

Summary: You and Spencer are a new couple that is hiding your relationship from the team for two reasons. Hotch is your dad and Spencer is ten years older than you are. That doesn’t stop you from being with him. Not your dad and certainly not an office full of people.

Square Filled: public sex/voyeurism (2021) for @cm-kinkbingo

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

x

There are two reasons why you’re at the BAU--Spencer and Hotch. This is the place you want to work when you have the proper training and have done everything that’s required of you. You graduated high school before summer started and now you’re taking college classes with a degree in criminal justice while also getting in some hours at the police academy. It doesn’t hurt that your dad is the unit chief of the BAU, but you try not to let that affect how well you’re doing in and out of school.

The other reason is Spencer Reid. You two immediately hit it off when you first met and he’s been showing you around as much as he can without getting in trouble. He can’t tell you much about the cases the team has but he can give you advice and pointers for when you get a job here. Derek helps you with the physical stuff while Spencer is your own personal library book that just so happens to have all the answers you’re searching for.

After a few months of visiting your dad and the team, you and Spencer developed a relationship that only you two know about. Keeping your relationships a secret isn’t something you normally do because if you like someone, you’re all about showing them off to everyone. However, you and Spencer are ten years apart in age, and you don’t think your dad will appreciate his eighteen-year-old daughter hooking up with his twenty-eight-year-old subordinate.

It’s not a big deal to you and Spencer since you’re not newly eighteen. It’s September and you turned eighteen back in January. He’s been so good to you and is such a gentleman. He’s a romantic and loves taking you out on dates as much as he can. Your favorite date is when he puts a tent on the roof of his building, makes everything for a picnic, and you two spend the night stargazing there.

Unlike now when your visit is anything but romantic.

It’s been over a week since you’ve seen Spencer and you’re craving his touch. You’re not normally a sex-crazed teenager but you’re ovulating and you really need to feel his body on yours. You’re not ready for kids and you don’t know if or when you will be, so you’ll be using condoms because it’s a terrible time to get pregnant.

Not to mention your dad will quite literally kill Spencer.

“Hey, Y/N, what are you doing here?” Derek asks when he sees you.

“Just wanted to stop by to say hi. I hear the B Team is out right now so what better time to come?”

“Your dad is in his office.”

“Where’s Spencer.”

“Bathroom.”

“Okay, I’ll wait for him. Thanks.”

You turn to leave but Derek stops you.

“Hey, we’re still on for tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, I’m ready to learn that new self-defense technique.”

You walk straight for Spencer’s desk only to walk right past it and toward the bathrooms. Derek smirks and shakes his head knowing you’re not here to see your dad at all. Spencer comes out of the bathroom with his phone in his hand so he doesn’t see you right away. You open the door to an empty office and wait for him to pass by it before grabbing his arm and pulling him inside.

“Wha--?” He looks up and smiles when he sees it’s you. “Hey, baby. I didn’t know you were coming today.” You close and lock the door before shutting the blinds so that no one can look inside. “What are you doing?”

“Come here.”

You pull Spencer in and kiss him without warning, and he grips your hips not too hard. He gets lost in the kiss before the alarm bells ring in his head.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Spencer pulls away from you but you’re not done kissing him. You back up into the desk and sit on it while kissing down his neck. “Not that I’m not happy to see you but we can’t do this here.”

“Why not? Don’t you want me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then get me naked and fuck me.” It’s hard to think when all Spencer is thinking about is getting you naked. He’s not a sex machine who wants it all the time but it has been a week since he’s seen you, and the last case he went on was very stressful. “School has been stressing me out and I really just want some dirty sex with you.”

You don’t have to tell him twice. He spreads your legs and steps in between them before kissing you again. He runs his hands down your thighs and back up, only to slip them underneath your dress. You wanted to make sure you gave Spencer easy access. He expected to feel a barrier between his fingers and your pussy but there is none.

“You’re not wearing any panties?”

“I came here for one thing and one thing only,” you grin. “I wanted to make this easier for you.”

Spencer rolls his head back and cracks his neck before sinking to his knees. He’s not an expert in this department but he’s read enough books and watched enough amateur porn to know what he’s doing. He places a hand on your chest, pushes you down onto the desk, and bunches your dress around your waist.

“Remember, we’re at work and your dad’s office is right down the hall. You gotta be quiet.”

You’re about to respond when Spencer latches onto your clit. You slap a hand over your mouth to muffle the moan that slips out. It would be a disaster if your dad found out about this… or anyone. He kitten licks your clit and circles it before sliding his tongue down to your slit. He straightens his tongue and pushes inside of you, and his right-hand hooks up and over your leg so that he can rub your clit in hard fast circles.

“Fuck, Spencer, right there,” you gasp quietly.

“God, you taste so good,” he mumbles. “I can’t ever get enough.”

You reach down and slide your fingers into his hair before tugging on it gently. This is the exact reason why he’s been growing his hair out. He loves it when you tug on his hair. His mouth and fingers switch positions so that he’s sucking on your clit and sliding a finger into your tight hole. You squeal a bit loudly at the sudden change in pressure, and you bite down on your lower lip to prevent yourself from crying out again.

“Please, Spencer, I need more,” you moan.

He slides in another finger and curls them both so that he’s touching the spot that makes you see stars.

“Are you close?”

“Yes, fuck, yes.”

“Do you want to come?”

“Yes, please, Spencer,” you moan.

“Go ahead, darling.”

He gives a particularly hard suck on your clit that makes you come all over his face. He removes his fingers and laps up every drop you give him before standing to his full height.

“God, you’re so good at that.” You pull him down and kiss him, not minding that you can taste yourself on his lips. “I need to come again. I have a condom in the pocket of my dress.”

“You’re so needy,” he grins but doesn’t refuse you.

He pulls away and takes the condom you give him before unbuckling his pants. He’s always awkward at this part because he still can’t believe that he has someone who is interested in him like this. He’s not ripped like Derek or as confident as him but you like him because he’s none of those things. You love how socially awkward he is. You love his ramblings. You especially love it when he tells you random facts that have you questioning how he came to know that in the first place.

Spencer pulls his cock out and you almost salivate at the sight of it. You’ve given him blow jobs before but there will never be a time when you don’t want to suck him off. However this time, you just need him to be in you. He takes out the condom from the package and carefully rolls it onto his hard cock.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes, Spencer, please. Just get in me.”

You spread your legs wider and allow him to step closer to you. He pumps himself twice before lining himself up at your entrance. You toss your head back and gasp at the one… three… seven inches of him until he is fully seated inside of you.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” Spencer groans.

“I’m ready. Please, Spencer,” you beg.

He doesn’t want to be too loud so he doesn’t fuck you as hard as he wants to. He starts at a normal pace before slowly picking up speed, and you’re trying to stop the moans from coming out but failing. He covers your mouth with his hand as if that will stop you from moaning his name.

It’s been a long and stressful time for you both so it doesn’t take long for the two of you to get close to the edge.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come.” Hearing Spencer swear when he normally doesn’t is so hot. He hates swearing since he has such a big range of vocabulary that he can use, but he can’t help it when you feel like Heaven. “Are you close?” You nod wordlessly since Spencer’s hand is still over your mouth. “Come with me. One.” Thrust. “Two.” Thrust. “Three.”

You explode all over him just as he fills the condom up. He rides out both your highs as much as he can before slowing down. He removes his hand and you gasp when you feel him start to pull out of you.

“I don’t know how you haven’t had more girlfriends before,” you laugh as you pant.

“It’s usually my incessant need to ramble that drives them away.”

He takes the condom off and ties it at the end before pocketing it., He doesn’t want anyone to find it in the trashcan so he’ll throw it out in the dumpster outside.

“Have you seen Y/N? I saw her come in earlier.”

You freeze when you hear your dad’s voice outside the office.

“I think she went to see Garcia. You should ask her,” Rossi responds from right by the door. You hear your dad walk away before Rossi knocks twice on the door. “You two aren’t very quiet or sneaky.”

“Shit, I should go,” you giggle. You fix your dress and Spencer tucks himself back into his pants. The room smells like sex but you’re sure it will air out by the time anyone else comes in here. “I love you and I can’t wait to see you on Sunday.”

You lean in and kiss Spencer before unlocking the door.

“I love you, too,” Spencer grins. “We should do this again sometime.”

“Oh, we definitely are.” You open the door and notice Rossi is in the break room. You make sure the coast is clear before leaving the office. You turn the corner and go crashing into your dad. “Daddy, hi. I was just looking for you. Someone said you wanted to see me?”

Hotch looks up and sees Spencer leave the office from which you just came out. He didn’t bother fixing his hair as much as he should have so it’s a big messed up from how much you were tugging on it, and your lipstick is a bit smudged from Spencer’s hand over your mouth.

Hotch isn’t an idiot.

“My office. Now.”

You look up to see him looking at someone behind you. You look back and see Spencer staring at Hotch with wide, fearful eyes.

“Daddy, listen--”

“Don’t you have a class to go study for? Reid, now.”

“Yes, sir,” he nods and scurries past you to get to his office.

“Daddy, I love him. Please don’t kill him. I’ll talk to you later.”

You leave before your dad can say anything else. Hotch isn’t mad that Spencer is seeing his daughter. He’s upset that you two hid it from him. He’s not gonna kill Spencer but it is sure going to be fun to watch him squirm because he thinks he is.

x

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[strawbeerossi]

Let Me Hear You

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Unit Chief!Spencer Reid

Description: You and Spencer pull an all nighter to get caught up on paperwork. However whenever you decide to break to eat, you find yourself with some free time before the food gets there.

Content/Warnings: Talking about sex, food mentions and being hungry, unprotected sex, creampie

Word Count: 1.1K

Kinktober Day Twenty Five: Sound Kink

Navigation || Kinktober Masterlist || AO3

One thing you learned about Spencer was that he liked to let the world know what was his. For instance, he was proud for everyone to know he was the newest acting unit chief after Emily passed the baton so she could be the first female director of the FBI. It was a big achievement for him after spending years dedicating his time to his career. Another thing he liked to tell the world was about his academic career, all his PHDs and academic excellency being a proud achievement he was happy to let everyone hear about.

He wore these achievements like a badge of honor. Anyone in his shoes would. His personal life was more quiet, although one part of it was something he was far too proud to show off. You. You’d begun dating while you worked in a separate sector of the FBI, your transfer being about a year after you both started seeing each other. You enjoyed having a man as strong as him as well as a job where you did important things.

You’d currently been pulling an all nighter at the office, catching up with the shocking amount of paperwork you let pile on your desk. Spencer had planned on staying as well, so it worked out a lot better than you’d expected. You were both sitting in his office, the both of you having coffees filled to the brim for the night ahead. “You can summarize things, you know.” Spencer had commented with a chuckle, eyes looking over the huge statement you were writing. “This is a summary. Oh, my god. Is it too long?!” You asked while lifting your head to face your boyfriend, who chuckled. “No! I was just letting you know, that's all.”

As the paperwork dragged on, Spencer was eventually closing the file in his hand. “What do you say we take a break? I think we’ve earned it.” Which you didn’t object, your eyes crossed from all the reading and writing you’d been doing. As you placed the completed files to the side, you leaned against your boyfriend’s desk. “Should we order from that all night burger place in town? I’m pretty sure they deliver.” You inferred while Spencer was tapping his pen against the desk. “Yeah, let’s go ahead and order from there tonight. Seems easy and quick enough.” He chuckled. Which was exactly what you both did. After calling in your orders and confirming they did deliveries, it was a waiting game now.

“I know something that’ll pass the time.” Your boyfriend teased, eyebrows wiggling while you laughed and rolled your eyes with a smile. “Is sex on your mind all the time?” You asked in a teasing tone while he put his hands up in self defense. “Look at my girlfriend. Any guy would be lucky enough to be able to put their hands on you.” He was pushing himself to stand while offering a hand in your direction, tugging you up and to his chest when you took it. “Besides, don’t act like you aren’t jumping on me any chance you get.” He wiggled his eyebrows with a laugh, head dipping down to press a sweet kiss to your lips.

The sweetness eventually escalated though, your bodies pressed flush against one another as your kiss had deepened. You were backing up with Spencer’s assistance before your body was hitting the couch towards the left side of the office. With both of you giggling due to your eagerness causing you to fall back, your head was lifting as you could feel his hands moving to bunch up the skirt you were wearing. “We don’t have much time.” He murmured, which you nodded as you were pushing your panties to the side as Spencer pulled his cock from his slacks.

After giving a few lazy tugs, the thick head of his shaft was plunging into your hot, leaking cunt. Your hands were quick to grasp at his shoulders. “Fuck.” You hissed, biting your lower lip as his hips were snapping into yours. You were making an effort to keep it down, already knowing there were cleaning crews as well as other agents working late on the floor. Last thing you needed was to alert everyone.

However Spencer seemed to realize, his hands squeezing your hips as his head was dipping in order for him to whisper in your ear. “Let everyone know who’s making you feel good in here. I wanna get complaints.” He murmured against your ear, a moan tumbling out of your mouth at the request. “Tell the office that you liked getting fucked by your unit chief like the whore you are.” The words had your hands clutching his shoulders tighter as you were letting your head tilt back. His hand had slid down your body, thumb rubbing at your clit before he was pinching it between his fingers to elicit a cry from you, knowing exactly how to get you crying and moaning loud enough for every floor to hear.

“That’s right. Fuck. Take my cock so well. I know you love it when I pound your sweet pussy.” He hummed in her ear. “Bet you want me to fill you up too. Don’t you?” The words were enough to help drive you both closer to the edge, your eyes falling shut as the moans and whines just fell from your lips. Once the filter was taken away, you made it known that you were getting fucked in the office. As you’d both approached your orgasms, Spencer had managed to get rougher on you.

With his grip tightening on your hips, he’d let himself go overboard as he was jackhammering against the spongy button that he’d been prodding within the past few minutes.

The force had a fire spreading all throughout your body, louder moans and pleas for him not to stop now filling the once quiet and peaceful office space. As you were being fucked into oblivion, it wasn’t long until your cunt was clenching tightly around his cock, sucking him in as best as you could as your orgasm was making you see stars. Your body jolted with a few more rough thrusts before you could feel a warmth gushing inside of you, chest rising and falling rapidly as you were clutching your boyfriend tighter.

However it wasn’t long until you’d gotten a text, Spencer being the one to gently pull out of you before approaching the desk. “The food is here. Why don’t you lay here and relax? I’ll be right back.”

“Yeah.. Might be best..” you commented, face flushed as you were pulling your panties back into place and smoothing out your skirt.

“I’m starving anyway.” You laughed.

[zepskies]

Break Me Down - Part 11

Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x Female Reader

Summary: You’re a private investigator by trade, but now you happily sit at a desk — leading a surveillance team at Supe Affairs. After managing to end Homelander in New York, Soldier Boy escapes custody. You are recruited for the manhunt, joining Butcher’s team.

Truly, you joined the S.A. for the right reasons. But after you become his accidental hostage, Soldier Boy will break down every single one of them…

💚 Break Me Down Masterlist

AN: Happy Father's Day and early Juneteenth! In honor of the holiday weekend, here's an early chapter update. 😘

Word Count: 4,000 Tags/Warnings: Violence and peril, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff

Part 11: The Lion’s Den

“Where is she?” Ben asked, once he and Frank were loaded in the car. 

Loco and his team had to stay behind as their distraction for escape. If they weren’t slaughtered, they’d be taken into custody. 

Ben knew he could’ve wasted all of them, Butcher, his team, the CIA, but the nuclear power in his chest had refused to cooperate…

Anyway, Black Noir hadn’t been there. So it was all the more useless to stick around. The real plan was with you, and he was very surprised that you’d stuck to it…but maybe he shouldn’t have been.

“She was brought to the Tower,” Frank informed him.

Ben smirked. “Good. But pretty fucking stupid of Stan to stick around there when he knew I’d be coming.”

He looked over and noticed Frank’s frown as he drove. 

“Unless he’s not at the Tower,” Frank said. 

Ben’s smirk fell. Why would that prick take her there if…

“We have to be open to the possibility that his Chief of Security is taking the matter of his daughter into his own hands,” Frank said. “Or she’s improvising.”

Ben frowned. 

That didn’t change when they arrived at the Tower, and attempted to use the entrance through the back garage to avoid attention. But it didn’t matter. 

The entire squad of Vought security, included what looked like some added muscle (hopped up on what smelled like V24), met them when they reached the lobby of the building. Now that the Seven had been disbanded, there was no pretense of “good guys vs. bad guys.” It was just defense and siege. 

And in front of them all was Black Noir. 

“There you are,” Ben said, but the other supe didn’t even tilt his head in greeting. He was a still statue, an attack dog given a single mission. 

When Noir surged forward, Ben ran to meet him. It was a clash of blade to shield, fist to fist, grappling and reflexes that only Compound V could endow. The match tore through the lobby, then up the large staircase as Ben continued to fight his way up to Stan’s office. 

Frank was already on his way up to you, but it would take him time with Vought security crawling all over them. He was good, and temporarily a supe, but he was still just one man. 

Meanwhile, Ben and Noir’s fight spilled into the upper floors, through walls and offices and screaming employees trying to get out of their way. 

Once they reached near the floor below Stan’s office, Ben got an arm around Black Noir’s neck, and with his free hand tried to unmask him. He wanted to know for sure what lied underneath it, if it was actually the Noir he knew. Or if it was something else entirely.

But Noir twisted with superior reflexes and flipped Ben hard over his shoulder. In the process, he ripped off Ben’s helmet. His brown hair hung over his brows as he pushed to his feet, deliberately taking his time.

When he turned, Noir was standing there with the helmet crunched in his hand. Rolling his neck, Ben prepared to jump back into the fight, but a new sound reached his ears. 

He heard you on the floor above. And you were fighting someone…

Ben pressed a finger to the comm in his ear. 

“Frank, you got eyes on her?”

V24 had endowed the man with x-ray vision. A moment later, Frank patched through while he struggled and fought.

“She needs help,” he said gravely.

Ben took his hand off the comm, gritting his teeth. Black Noir was still waiting on him, attuned to Ben’s every move as the other supe brandished one of his blades.

Shit, Ben thought. He needed to end this. 

Right fucking now. 

That resolve helped him take a deep breath, then summon the energy inside him. He focused with the aim of blasting a clean stream of power at Black Noir; not enough to take out the whole building, but enough to take out just him.

His insides felt molten when the power collected, and finally released at his target.

Noir covered himself at the last moment with a piece of fallen debris (a half-crumbled wall), but it only created a small buffer. The force of the blast itself pushed him down the hall and through the side of the building.

Meanwhile, you were holding your own…but you were also getting beat to hell. 

You were battered, with blood dribbling down the corner of your mouth from a particularly bad hit. 

You were still standing though. 

“You’ve gotten soft,” Jon remarked. He’d broken a sweat, had some bruises, and was panting for breath just like you. But he was more in control as he swatted a well-aimed, yet ultimately weak fist as your strength waned. He used his own to smack you down again. 

“I gave you time to come around, and this is what you did with it,” he said, shaking his head. “Disappointing.” 

When you tried to stand on shaking legs, he kicked you in the dead center of your chest. You felt your ribs crack as you fell back into the glass coffee table. 

You gasped for breath, turning onto your side as glass pricked at your back, your sides, your arm. You coughed, wincing at the agony of knife-like pain near your lungs. Blood flecked from your mouth onto your arm, and for a moment, you stared at it in a daze.

But then Jon was above you. You tried to swipe at his face, but he bat your hand away, his brows furrowed angrily. He turned you back onto your back and wrapped a hand around your neck. Your eyes flew wide with panic. 

He squeezed with enough pressure that it wouldn’t crush your windpipe, but it was sure to knock you out eventually. You slapped and clawed at his hand, but he only shushed you. 

“What you need now is what you’ve always needed. A firm hand,” he said. “But I’m going to help you. I promise, I will.”

The fight drained out of you as it became impossible to breathe, and harder still to block out his words from entering your brain. 

But then, the vice around your throat was gone. Oxygen poured back into your lungs as you gasped, then coughed again when your fractured ribs protested. 

Your eyelids fluttered open in time to see your father thrown hard into the far wall. You heard the sick crack and breaking of bone as he landed.

Still, you struggled to breathe. 

Tears leaked from your eyes when you looked up and found Ben. His helmet was missing, and he wore a furious, steely frown. You opened your mouth, but nothing came out except for more coughing, and more blood.

To your surprise, he tucked his shield on his back and bent down to scoop you up into his arms. 

You cringed, uttering an agonized sound when he tried to move you. 

Ben hesitated. Looking down at you, some of his anger drained. He made a slower ascent as he straightened to his full height. 

And without a word, he carried you out of the room and down the ruined hallway. All the while, you stared at the side of his face. His jaw was still clenched, his brows knitted, his eyes set dead ahead. 

You wondered why he had to wait for moments like this to show you who he truly was. 

“What are you, some kind of hero?” you managed to quip, offering a small smile. 

Ben glanced down at you, and gradually smirked. “Something like that.” 

When his foot slipped on a piece of debris, he righted himself quick. But the jerking movement jostled you, eliciting another pained whimper. Your hand gripped at his chest, digging into the grooves of his suit.

“Hold on,” he murmured. His lips briefly pressed to the crown of your head. “We’re getting the fuck outta here.”

Your eyes closed at the tender touch, and a few more tears spilled down your cheeks.

“He…knew,” you managed to say. “Knew I was lying.”

“I know,” said Ben. “I should’ve fucking known better.”

You marveled at that near apology. Your lips trembled as you rested your head against his chest. You just couldn’t help it anymore.

“Was my idea,” you admitted.

“Yeah, well, evidently not all your ideas are aces,” he said. 

You could’ve gotten angry, but you saw the way he moved with care, trying not to slip again for your sake. You tried at a smile. 

“Guess not,” you said, though you bit your lip at the pain that seemed to radiate through your entire body. Ben seemed to notice. 

“Just relax,” he said, a deep rumble. But there was a soothing note to it, you thought. Or maybe, you just liked the sound of his voice. 

Then silence fell between the two of you, both comfortable and tense as Ben focused on potential threats in his surroundings. 

All the while, you continued to rest your eyes. Instead of your pain, you tried to concentrate on his steady heartbeat beneath your cheek.

“It’s about fucking time,” you eventually heard Ben grouse. 

You opened your eyes and were relieved to see Frank exiting the stairwell to meet you and Ben. His face and black tactical gear were splattered with blood, but he looked fine, more or less. His gaze roamed over you with his usual stoicism, but you thought you saw a glint of concern.   

“I take it Stan Edgar isn’t here,” said Frank. 

“You could fucking say that,” Ben snarked. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

“Sir.” Frank saw something ahead, behind you. Ben turned to find Black Noir silently standing in the middle of the hall, with a large, suspicious-looking gun in his hands.

Without taking his eyes off Noir, Ben gestured to Frank. He came up beside you, and Ben passed you into Frank’s arms.

“Get her out of here,” Ben ordered. With a nod, Frank carried you back the way he came, towards the staircase. You tried to peer over his shoulder.

“He shouldn’t face Noir alone,” you said, even though every breath was a challenge with the sharp pain in your chest. 

“He’ll meet us after,” Frank told you. But as soon as he started down the stairs, a fresh team of Vought security and police came to meet you.

Meanwhile, Ben stared down the hall at his opponent. Black Noir activated the strange gun, which lit up with a blue energy. 

“You can bring out any kind of fancy artillery you want, but it’s not going to stop me from killing you,” Ben taunted.

Noir remained silent, of course, but he aimed the gun and fired. It shot a potent, crystal blue beam of energy that ate through Ben’s shield, and eventually hit him in the chest before he could finish revving up his own power. The blast from the gun, it wasn’t hot. 

It was ice cold. So frigid that it extinguished the heat that had been building in his chest, but it wasn’t diffusing his power completely…it just made it even harder to control. 

And the resulting backlash was overwhelming.

Ben woke slowly, like wading through molasses. Usually his mind was sharp, even when he woke from a booze-induced coma. Now he felt groggy, and it was hard to focus or even force his body to sit up on the hard cot he was laying on.

Glancing down, he realized he’d been changed out of his suit. He was dressed in a plain gray shirt and matching pants, no shoes. He knew a prison outfit when he saw one, just as he now knew where he was: a white padded cell. 

Fuck.

At least it was better than a frigid coffin…but in his mind, not by much.

He slid his legs over and managed to push up onto his feet. 

Why’s it so fucking misty in here? he thought, waving his hand through the smokey air. And why was he so tired?

He soon got his answer when he realized who stood at the large window at the front of his cell. 

Stan Edgar. 

The man himself, dressed in a well-tailored navy suit, was watching him with crossed arms. 

“We did hope you would remain on sabbatical,” said Stan. “But I had a feeling you would return, and come directly to us.”

Stan gestured to the large cell. “This was our contingency plan.”

Ben made his way, with difficulty, closer to Stan, who pointed at the air vents above that were pumping in a gas of some kind.

“A light mist of Novichok,” Stan explained. “Enough to keep you docile.”

“And if I’m not?” Ben asked. His voice was edged with grit, and the promise of retribution. 

“We can up the dose, put you to sleep indefinitely,” Stan replied. “But you have my attention. What would you like to discuss?” 

“The conversation I planned on having was…a little different,” Ben said darkly. “But first, let’s start with what you used to clone Black Noir.”

“I suppose there’s no real harm in telling you,” Stan said. Even his voice was grating on Ben’s ears, the smug prick. 

“We kept some of Homelander’s blood as an insurance policy. But, we’ve learned from our mistakes.”

“Right,” Ben scoffed. “How’s that?”

“This Noir is not a carbon copy, but nor is he a megalomaniac. He’s under our control,” Stan said.

“Until he isn’t,” Ben snarked. If he thought about it, that was something you would say. Maybe your penchant for smart-ass remarks had gotten into his head.

“And that new gun?” he asked. “Don’t tell me your little lab rats put that together just for me.”

Stan’s lips made a wry turn. 

“It was a breakthrough project. Temporarily destabilizes the energy you generate when you charge up like a Power Puff Girl.” Stan thought for a moment, then inclined his head. “A reference, I realize, which may be lost on you.”

“So what’s the play here?” Ben said. He was getting impatient. “You know, when I break out, things aren’t gonna be pretty.” 

Stan didn’t seem bothered by the clear threat. 

“In the meantime,” he said, “you won’t be alone.” 

Stan stepped back and revealed the cell right across the hall. Through the window, Ben could see you, lying unconscious on a shitty cot in similar gray pajamas. His brows crunched as he narrowed his eyes, trying to peer in closer. You looked like you’d been bandaged up, at least.

“You also managed to put my Chief of Security in Intensive Care, but his daughter should be fine…if a bit worse for wear,” Stan informed him. 

Ben glared back, his lips curling. Sloppy of him. He should’ve made sure that bastard was dead. 

“That’s cute, considering he’s the demented fuck who beat her to hell,” Ben said. 

Stan rose a solitary brow. “And at whose behest did she enter the lion’s den?”  

Ben had nothing to say to that.

You woke with a pained groan before your eyes even opened. Your body felt like a walking welt. 

Your brain pounded like bongo drums, your chest felt tender with every infinitesimal movement, but you realized that you’d been seen to medically, at least. Your head was bandaged, and you felt that the blood had been wiped from your face and arms.

You looked up and found, with a sigh, that you were indeed in a cell. But you softened when you found Ben through the large glass window, in a cell of his own. He was sitting on his bed, arms crossed, with his back against the wall. His eyes found yours, and his lips twitched.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

He sounded off. Tired, you thought. And you noticed a steady mist being piped into his room. 

Shit. Novichok, you surmised with a frown.

“You okay?” you asked. 

Ben chuckled a little. “You’re the one who looks like hell.”

“Why, thank you,” you replied wryly.

There was a pitcher and a cup of water on a tray, a small paper cup of what you assumed were painkillers, and an ice pack next to you on the cot. 

You hesitated on the pills, but in light of your incredible pain, you had no choice. You took the pills, drank the water, and grabbed the ice pack, pressing it against your sternum. You sat up all the way with a slow gait and a pained groan.

“Go slow,” he warned. “Bet you’re missing that Temp. V right about now.”

You rolled your eyes at him. 

“How’d you get caught?” he asked.

That succeeded in dimming your mood. You explained that Frank had been forced to set you on your feet when you were confronted by more security and a police squad. 

The man had been a one-man weapon; hopped up on V24 as he was, he managed to fight his way down to the garage, where you slowly, painfully crept down there.

You and Frank had almost reached his car, but you held him back. You were stubborn about waiting on Ben, even considered going back for him.

That was when the shot rang out, hitting Frank point blank in the chest. 

Before you could even bend to help him, you were taken, dragged back into the building, and knocked out before you could take your captor’s gun. 

You tried in vain to wipe away fresh tears while you retold the story. 

Bottom line: Frank’s death was your fault. Though while he frowned in disappointment, Ben didn’t seem to hold it against you.

“Good on ya, Frank,” Ben murmured. “You went down fucking swingin’.”

“What about you? What happened with Black Noir?” you asked after a moment. Sniffling, you met Ben’s eyes.

He eventually told you about the strange gun Vought had commissioned just for him. And the more you listened, the deeper your frown became. It sounded impossible.

“Makes you wonder what else they’ve been cooking up in that lab,” you muttered. 

“Other than Noir?” Ben quipped. He told you about that too. 

“We can figure this out,” you said. “If nothing else, my team, the CIA, they’re looking for both of us…if for different reasons.”

Ben scoffed at that. “A silver lining there. Make no mistake, we’re getting the fuck out of here. Just…need a minute to think.” 

But he was starting to wane. It was taking all his energy to concentrate on your voice, to even keep his eyes open. The steady stream of gas being pumped into his cell made it damn near impossible, and it was frustrating beyond belief. 

Because if he fell asleep now, there was no telling when he’d wake up. And fuck if Ben would ever admit to the panic he felt welling up into his chest.

“Aaah, fuck!” he growled, pounding a fist against the wall.

You noticed, biting your lip in concern…until an idea made you smile. It was something you used to do to distract your sister when she was little. 

“Why are colds bad criminals?” you asked. 

Ben just blinked at you. “What?”

He asked not because he understood what you were doing, but because he was genuinely confused.

“Because they’re easy to catch,” you said, making a drumming motion with your hands. “Buddum-ch.”

Your neighbor just stared back at you, unimpressed.

“Okay, not a fan of that one. Let me see…okay,” you raised a finger. “What does a baby computer call its father?”

Ben’s eyes narrowed, like he couldn’t tell if you were serious.

“Data!” you said, biting your lip at an embarrassed smile. It curved Ben’s lips, but he was stubborn.

“Why was 6 afraid of 7?” you asked. 

“Jesus Christ, enough…” he muttered. 

“Because 7’s a dick, that’s why,” you said. And your straight face lasted for all of three seconds before you ended up giggling. It hurt your bruised body, but it lightened you to see the reluctant smile tug its way onto Ben’s face. 

“All right,” he said at last. He briefly closed his eyes, trying to remember a joke he’d heard Loco tell. “How do you make a pool table laugh?”

You smiled. “How?”

“Tickle its balls,” Ben said. Your answering snort deepened his smile into a smirk. 

“Playing bridge is just like sex,” you said. Ben shook his head. His grandmother used to play fucking bridge.  

But regardless, he took the bait.

“How’s that?”

“If you don’t have a good partner, you better have a good hand,” you said with a smirk. 

Ben made a sound of amusement, though it wasn’t quite a laugh. You traded these back and forth, each trying to make the other crack with progressively dirtier jokes (though you suspected Ben was just trying to disgust you). 

You considered yourself the winner when Ben finally chortled a deep, belly laugh that showed his charming smile. 

It made you smile in return. 

Ben rested a hand on his chest, but when his mirth died down, he realized just how tired he was. Still, he wasn’t ready to let go of this. His connection with you tethered him to reality, even if reality sucked dick right now.

His gaze met yours. “Why don’t you sing something, crooner?” 

You bit your lip once again. “Like what?” 

Ben’s eyes closed.

“You know the one,” he said. A softer smile graced your lips, though he couldn’t see it. 

“You’re getting sentimental in your old age,” you teased. He chuckled. 

“Just sing, for fuck’s sake.” 

His brows were knitted, like he was trying all he could to stay awake. You took pity on him.

“If I didn’t care, more than words can say…” you began to sing softly. “If I didn’t care…would I feel this way?”

Every extended note was painful, but it was worth it to see his face relax.  

Stan Edgar’s lips pursed, and he set down his cell phone on his desk. Victoria was screening his calls.

Disappointing, he thought, but not unexpected. He surveyed the cleanup crew wiping up debris, glass, and blood from the lounge area with a dispassionate gaze. 

This was going to take a while.

So after drumming his fingers on the mahogany surface, Stan decided to push up from his desk and head downstairs via the elevator. It took him all the way down to Level 0, the home of one of Vought’s most secure R&D labs. 

There his most trusted scientist, Dr. Tonya Baker, was at the helm with her team at work on various projects. Most of which were not sanctioned by the government. 

Stan folded his hands behind his back and reached her side, and she set down a beaker filled with a green, buzzing liquid. 

“Good afternoon, sir,” she greeted. 

“Tonya, you know what I’m about to ask,” he said. She bobbed her head and turned to face him in her rolling desk chair. 

“We’re still working on solutions. Without his cooperation, safely extracting Soldier Boy’s DNA is a tricky thing,” she said. 

“You don’t say?” Stan said dryly. “What are our options?”

“Well, needles will only break, as you know,” said Dr. Baker. “The scientists in Russia found that only Soldier Boy is strong enough to break his own skin.”

“And I doubt he’ll open a vein for us,” Stan said, “even if we threaten to put him to sleep.” 

He didn’t even think leveraging with the girl would aid, more than complicate their goals. While it was something to consider, Stan would rather find the path of least resistance here. Soldier Boy was…volatile at best. 

“How much of Homelander’s blood remains?” he asked. 

“None,” the doctor replied. “We used the last of it to clone Black Noir. And a hair sample is not enough to create additional subjects…at the very least, a urine sample. Even Dr. Vogelbaum managed that.”

Stan sent her shrewd look. If only he still had Dr. Vogelbaum in his employ. If only the man were still alive.

What a waste of a talented, resourceful man.

“That will be a problem,” Stan said. 

“Not necessarily.” Dr. Baker adjusted a monitor screen at her desk. It displayed the feed from Soldier Boy’s cell. 

She pointed to the toilet in the corner of the cell. Then she called over one of her assistants.

“Tell Maintenance to cut the water, and then a section of the pipes.”

AN: Okay. 😅 I know I'm gonna get some mixed reviews on this one (Let me know what you thought!).

But despite the teaser, I think you'll enjoy where the story's headed next...

Next Time:

They wheeled in what looked like a large metal casket. You had only seen one of these in pictures, but it had to be a cryochamber.

A doctor in her mid-fifties accompanied them, giving directions on how to safely enter Ben’s cell. Your eyes widened.

“What the hell are you doing?” you shouted.

Panic trilled down your spine as the guards fitted themselves with special suits and gas masks. The doctor turned toward you as the guards led you out of your cell and into the hall.

“You’re being transported,” she informed you.

Keep Reading: PART 12

Soldier Boy Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Series Tag List:

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[sunxxxie]

Looking for a Fic

You know that feeling when you find an absolute gem of a fic, so good that in your mind it's actual canon content...so good you have dreams about it and even after *years* it's ever-present at the back of your mind. But when you go looking for it, it's GONE?! Sending you spiraling for several weeks as you desperately scour the web for it. And after several weeks and cryptic dreams about the plot, you feel as if you might be slowly loosing it.

Well, that's my current situation. I'm getting desperate- so desperate that I'm on tumblr.com begging for help(not desperate enough to log into reddit tho). Please tell me I'm not crazy and I didn't dream up one of the best fics I've ever read.

The fic was a Lego Monkie Kid fic centered around Bai He (aka LBD's host) after the events of season three. Itwassowellwrittengodineeditnow.

From what I remember:

Shadowpeach was the main romantic(kinda) relationship mentioned although from the few chapters I read it focuses more on the platonic relationships at the beginning. Also PIF and DBK were briefly implied to be in a poly relationship with an original female character which was cool.

The description was something along the lines of: "Bai He is just trying to pick up the pieces of her life after the Lady Bone Demon is gone. Luckily, she has the help of MK and the others... something something- Wukong noticed the shadows of the male primate circling the island but never having the courage to come closer.." Or something like that.

Bai He my emotionally repressed princess/affectionate. You could tell the author wrote her character with a lot of love. She was an orphan who had been in the care of an orphanage in France(I believe) before she became a street kid in China. There was also this underlying subtext that her time spent in France was during the 90s(the lore bro, the *lore*). Bai He's disconnect between her ethnic background compared to the rest of the gang made her interactions with the main cast really unique.

Lady Bone Demon's relationship with Bai He was portrayed as almost like an abusive/manipulative parent that you can't seem to completely hate because they're your parent and they're doing what they think is the best for you. Chiefs kiss.

Any fic that mentions the nuances of LBD and MK's dynamic instead of watering down her character to that vile evil Witch who wanted to destroy the world>>>>>>

The subtle world building 🙇peak🙇. The story literally began outside the city where the residents were evacuated. This included the main gang who'd basically already taken Bai He in. There were passing mentions of other mythological pantheons. Plus references to the JTTW.(the author mentioned something about Wukong having descendants which was mind-boggling to me- ik it's inaccurate but whatever.)

Monkey King basically got custody of Bai He and he took her to Flower Fruit Mountain to watch over her condition.

The author detailed Bai He's struggles with her past and her present situation as she was no longer fully human.

Nahza(my goat) was there, living up to his role as protector of children.

The closest fic I've found is 'A Bone to Pick' by SmilesThroughFandoms but the vibe is off. It isn't the same.

It was incomplete with more than 20 000 words and posted somewhere between late 2022/23.(this was the general time frame I read the fic before loosing it. In my defense I (a) didn't have an ao3 account at the time and (b) I was reading it in incognito mode🤡)

If anyone has any information about it please please please please please tell me.

[emberfrostlovesloki]

Halloween Honey [Emily x Reader]

Photo credits: Left (@ancientsstudies) Center (@zendobx) Right (@iambrochella)

Prompt: Emily introduces the reader to the team at Derek’s townhome on Halloween night. After they get back to Emily’s apartment, they take their relationship to the next level. 

Pairing: Emily x female presenting reader. The reader uses she/her pronouns 

Category: Fluff/smut 

Word Count: 6.5K 

A/N: Content Warnings below the cut. This is an 18+ story. Minor’s DNI. Please respect that boundary. Good evening and Happy Halloween!!! I hope you are all having a fun and safe Halloween. This is the third installation of my informal Emily Prentiss x reader series. Parts I and II can be found (here) and (here).  I thought that it was about time that the reader got to know Emily’s friends, aka the BAU team. You could also read this as a stand-alone. The only background I think you need is that the reader is an intern for a senator. The title is based on Derek’s infamous line in the show. I hope you all like this and have a good night. If you do enjoy it, likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated! Love - Levi. 

P.S. The Latin is just a mistranslation of the rite of exorcism. It's Google translated, so it might be wrong.

Content Warnings: Sex (Emily and reader receiving [oral - Emily and fingering - reader]), the reader has some anxiety, a horror movie is watched/discussed (The Conjuring), brief mention of dead bodies, light drinking. If I missed any, please let me know. 

List with all stories

_y/n_ = you name 

_l/n_ = your last name 

_y/f/s_ = your favorite senator 

_f/j/t_ = your favorite jewel tone 

_y/f/s/t_ = your favorite shoe types - aka, heels, sneakers, creepers, loafers, etc. 

_y/f/c_ = your favorite color 

Emily and _y/n_ were cruising down the road. A Florence + The Machine Spotify playlist was on shuffle playing from the stereo. It was quiet for a moment, and Emily briefly looked over and took her eyes off the road to look at her partner. _y/n_ was twisting one of the rings on her left hand, looking at her fingers with an apparent, deep interest. Prentiss focused on the road again and asked, “_y/n_, what’s on your mind? You seem a bit preoccupied.” _y/n_ flushed slightly. She looked at Emily, who was softly illuminated by the lights on the dashboard. When Emily told her more about the actual science behind profiling. She particularly stated, “It’s nothing like NCIS or CSI. Though the team's cases might look interesting and sound exciting, the real thing’s no fun at all. It’s just stress and dead bodies..” _y/n_ had nodded along. She understood where Emily was coming from. _y/n_ often got the same response when she told anyone that she worked in politics. Someone was always bound to say, “Oh, so like Parks and Rec?” with an uninformed laugh. She normally didn’t correct them. It wasn’t worth the work. Thinking back to the conversation with Emily, she had asked, “So, are microexpressions real? Can you tell if someone’s lying or not?” Prentiss had thought for a moment, and replied, “Well microexpressions are real, and there is a science behind it, but I think they're exaggerated in the media. Those expressions are just there on the face for a millisecond. Unless it’s on film, people can’t really see them. There’s only one person I know who might be able to use microexpressions as a defense.” This had piqued _y/n_’s interest, and she asked, “Who is it?” Em laughed and said, “Aaron, our Unit Chief.” _y/n_ nodded along. She was slowly getting to know more about the team. Their names, of course, and smaller things like the normal roles they took in cases, and their personalities. Emily had promised that _y/n_ would like JJ and Garcia, and she was looking forward to meeting them. Emily had promised _y/n_ early on in their relationship that she wouldn’t profile her. But it didn’t take a profiler for Em to tell that _y/n_ was anxious about something. Finally, _y.n_ replied, “What if they don’t like me? The team? They sound so smart and talented. And if they’re anything like you, well then that just confirms it. I’m just boring old me, ya know.” 

Emily briefly turned to look at _y/n_ and took her right hand off the steering wheel. Em placed it on _y/n_’s hands, stilling the nervous tick of twisting the rings on her fingers. When _y/n_’s hands were calm, Emily moved her hand to _y/n_’s shoulder. She quickly checked the road before returning her gaze to her partner. The slightly worried look painted _y/n_’s face in the way her brows were pressed together and the tension in her lips. Prentiss let out the smallest of breaths and replied, “_y/n_, you’re wonderful and beautiful, and kind, and you’ve been so good to me. You’ve been patient and loving, and you understand when I’m stressed and need space.” When Em was sure _y/n_ was listening, she focused on the road but continued speaking. She said, “The team is going to love you. Penelope and JJ have been dying to meet you, and I know that you and Spencer could probably write a dozen books together. Yes, the people on the team are smart, but you are wickedly intelligent about the law and handling people. Getting them to listen to you. This isn’t a contest; I want you to get to know the other people in my life.” At Emily’s encouraging words, _y/n_ relaxed. She felt better after being hyped up by Em. “Thanks, Em. I needed that.” Emily smiled and said, “Anytime, love.” Emily could feel _y/n_’s gaze on her. She could feel _y/n_ beaming at her, and she felt slow warmth pool in her stomach and drip downwards. _y/n_ was a very affectionate person. She loved physical touch. Emily was less so, but they had started a few routines that met both their needs for touch. They would hold hands under the table at dinner, and as they walked down the street from various cafes, art museums, and curio shops, Emily would snake her arm around _y/n_’s back, holding her waist securely. 

It was only a few minutes later that they arrived outside Derek’s townhouse. Emily recognized Garcia’s and Spencer’s cars parked right out front. Emily parallel parked, and once her keys were out of the ignition, she turned to look at _y/n_. _y/n_’s eyes were shining in the darkness, and Prentiss couldn’t stop the grin that she gave_y/n_ as she said, “Come here you.” They both leaned forward over the center console and kissed. As their lips met, their breath on the other’s face made them flush. Their lips were a bit tacky as Emily was wearing matte red lipstick and _y/n_ was wearing a glossy black lip. The kiss turned a bit more passionate, and Emily threaded her hands through _y/n_’s hair. _y/n_ similarly put her hands around Emily’s neck. When they pulled apart for breath, they both could feel the sexual tension in the cab of the car. Emily cleared her throat and asked, “You ready to go in there?” _y/n_ smiled and said, “I am, but maybe you should look at your mouth first?” Emily looked at _y/n_ quizically before _y/n_ turned on the lights in the car and pulled down the visor with the mirror. Emily flushed when she realized that some of _y/n_’s lipstick had transferred to her mouth. Emily spluttered slightly and fished around in her purse. She found some tissues and removed the transferred gloss. In doing so, she took off a good bit of her own makeup. Prentiss looked in her bag to reapply her lipstick. When she didn’t find the tube, she softly said, “Shit.” She had left it on her vanity. When Em looked up, _y/n_ was extending her black gloss. Emily looked apprehensive, and _y/n_ said, “I think it’s either this or you take off all the lipstick. You know you look great in black Em, I’m sure some black lipstick will look incredibly hot on you. Plus, we can kiss that way and none of your friends will know.” Prentiss flushed at the compliment and the idea of her kissing _y/n_. She took the offered makeup. Before she put it on, she said, “See I told you you were smart, _y/n_.” Em booped _y/n_’s nose with her finger before she turned to the mirror. 

The couple reached Derek’s door, and Emily knocked twice. After a moment Morgan’s strong build opened the glass door, and he gave one of his best smiles to Emily and _y/n_. Morgan extended a hand to _y/n_ and said, “Hey, _y/n_. I’m Derek, Morgan.” _y/n_ smiled back and said, “_y/n_, _l/n_. I’m so happy to meet you.” Derek extended a hand and _y/n_ took it. The shake was firm, steady. Em had described Derek as the protector of the team. Rash sometimes in his desire for his friends to be safe. As _y/n_ stood in front of the man now, she could see how that might be true. Morgan moved back a step and said, “Please come on in. The gang’s all here. As they stepped into the nice space, Morgan gave Emily a side hug and one of those smiles that said, “I like her already.” As they moved through the hallway toward the living area, Morgan pointed out the kitchen and the guest bathroom to _y/n_, stating, “Please make yourself at home. Drinks are in the kitchen and if you need anything, just let me know.” _y/n_ nodded and thanked him for his hospitality. Of course, Prentiss knew where all of these things were, but Morgan was particularly about meeting new people and showing off his space. When Derek had first invited her over for a friendly dinner, she felt a bit awkward, but once she had gone, Prentiss realized that her friend was a natural host. Gifted at making people comfortable in his home. Now, whenever Morgan was hosting, she attempted to make it. Emily was happy that this was where _y/n_ was going to meet the team. 

As the trio moved into the living room, everyone that was seated stood. Penelope was up first, bridging the gap between herself, Emily, and _y/n_. Garcia extended a hand and said, “Oh my gosh, hi. I’m so happy to meet you!” _y/n_ smiled and said, “It’s lovely to meet you too… Penelope?” Garcia did a little happy dance and said, “Yes! How did you know?” As soon as the woman, wearing bright neon colors, with blond hair in pigtails had approached _y/n_, she knew who she was. Instead of saying any of that, she said, “Oh, you know, just my telepathic abilities.” This response made Garcia so happy that instead of offering a handshake, she said, “I’m sorry, but can I hug you? I think you may be my favorite person to ever exist.” _y/n_ lending into Garcia’s open arms and relaxed at her touch. In Garcia’s arms, _y/n_ felt warm and safe, and she made the observation that Penelope smelled distinctly of bubble gum. When they parted, Garcia ushed _y/n_ toward the others. JJ and _y/n_ shook hands and had a brief introduction. JJ looked over _y/n_ quickly. The Media Liaison realized exactly what Emily was talking about with _y/n_ being not only beautiful but also fully present. When JJ looked at _y/n_ there was no distraction, no wavering energy; she was fully focused on what JJ was saying. As someone who interacted with loads of people on a daily basis, having someone so centered felt like a breath of fresh air. JJ said, “It’s nice to finally meet you _y/n_. I can’t believe it’s been almost three months since Em met you in that dressing room. _y/n_ flushed at being reminded of how Emily and her met. It was still one of her favorite memories. Sometimes she forgot that JJ had been on the other end of Emily’s phone call when she had complimented Emily. The last introduction with Spencer was calm. Reid extended his hand and introduced himself. _y/n_ thought that maybe he was a bit shy. _y/n_ hoped to see more of his personality, and his smarts eventually. With how much Prentiss lauded his brain, she was excited to see it in action for herself. Everyone found a spot in the living room. Derek and Garcia were on the couch with Emily and _y/n_. JJ found herself on the loveseat adjacent to the couch and glass coffee table. JJ patted the spot next to her, but Reid opted to sit on the rug by her feet instead. Derek said, “Reid, what are you doing?” Spencer looked over to Derek and said, “I don’t want to be on eye level with the screen. If I sit on the couch, I’ll be looking directly at the movie, and you know I don’t like the possession or doll stuff.” Derek chuckled and said, “Well, suit yourself pretty boy. Also, how can you do this job and be afraid of a ghost or some dolls?” Spencer reddened and made some small protestation while the team ribbed him gently. It was all in good fun. The team had voted on three possible films: The Exorcist, The Conjuring, and Brahm’s The Boy. As everyone debated which film to watch, Emily went and grabbed her and _y/n_ some drinks. 

The group had decided on The Conjuring, and once everyone was settled in with a drink, they started the film. The first time Annabell came on screen, everyone laughed. The film progressed, and the Perron family got more scared in their new home _y/n_ relaxed a little and settled closer to Emily. Just as Emily had assured her, the other members of her team were kind and normal people. They laughed at the family's silly responses to the strange phenomena happening on screen. Once they were playing the clapping game in the movie, Spencer said, “The mom shouldn’t be playing this upstairs. With the wrong footing, she could easily fall off the second floor to the first. Did you know that around 1,000 people die from falls on staircases each year, and over 3,456 of all ages and abilities are injured on them annually.” After Reid finished this commentary, Penelope said, “They should hire you as a consultant for whenever the studio makes another cheap sequel.” This got a chuckle from everyone. Once the spirit of Bathsheeba showed up for the first time on top of the girl’s wardrobe, everyone jumped and then Derek said, “Baby girl, I think you need some lotion and to up your skincare routine.” This got a big laugh out of everyone. During the third shot where the camera rotated 180 degrees, _y/n_ added to the conversation, asking, “I know about the Dutch angle and eye level shots and all that jazz, but is there a term for this? It’s starting to get boring as a visual device honestly.” There was a moment of silence as the question lingered, but Spencer quickly said, “Well, I’m not sure if it’s a technical film term, but maybe something like an inverse shot or a flipped angle or something? That might be apropos here.” As the scene got more tense, _y/n_ very quietly replied to Spencer, saying, “That sounds about right.” When everyone got ready for the climax, Emily gently squeezed _y/n_’s hand and gave her a soft kiss on the temple. She whispered, “See. I told you you and Reid would get along swimmingly.” _y/n_ hummed slightly, squeezing Emily’s hand back. The film wrapped up and everyone got up and stretched a bit. Penelope, _y/n_, and JJ took turns in the bathroom. When _y/n_ exited the facilities, she found Emily and Derek trying to comfort the tech whiz. Although Spencer had said he didn’t like films with possession as a theme, it seemed that Penelope was the most affected of all of them. Derek was trying to take the compassionate approach saying, “Sweetness, it’s all just made up. None of it’s really real. They exaggerated and added scary music so you’d feel scared.” _y/n_ stopped herself from commenting on the real Warren family and their troubled history as paranormal investigators. JJ chimed in, “At least the movie ended happily Pen. There was a real hope for that family. Love won. It can’t be that scary if love won.” This seemed to help Garcia a bit. _y/n_ moved into the kitchen and got another drink. As she walked to stand next to Emily, she gave Garcia a pat on the arm. Penelope looked at her and smiled, saying, “Thank you _y/n_.”

Thinking about the inaccuracies of the film, she said, “You know that exorcism scene always bothers me. I know secular shows aren’t concerned about the actual ritual of an exorcism, but still, you could at least get the Latin right.” This comment had the rest of the party looking at her. _y/n_ flushed, and said, “I might have considered a divinity degree before political science consumed my life.” Everyone chuckled and Reid said, “You’re right. Ed says “‘Verte malum de inimicis meis; in veritate tua disperde illos.Omnenus: Sponte sacrificabo tibi,’ where it should be...” Before Spence could answer, _y/n_ replied, “‘In veritate tua disperde illos. Omnes: Sponte sacrificabo tibi.’ It’s not like the church and other religions have been performing those types of rituals for centuries or anything.” As she said this, Reid gave her a genuine smile and nod of recognition. With the topic on the table, Reid started running with it and began to ramble about how the ritual of expelling alleged dark forces had changed over the years. _y/n_ leaned into Emily gently, as she listened with keen attention. Again Emily was right. Dr. Reid was brimming with knowledge. _y/n_ hadn’t expected her girlfriend to lie or exaggerate about her friends, but when she had heard all the descriptions of the members at first it felt a little too impossible to believe. Once Spencer had finished his ‘brief’ history of exorcisms, Derek turned to _y/n_ and Prentiss. He said, “Alright Emily, you still haven’t explained fully how you met _y/n_. And JJ and Garcia are still talking about that first date. Every time I bring it up you say that you’ll tell me soon -- and I think it’s time to pay up.” Emily chuckled and said alright. I’ll tell you.” Prentiss detailed her first meeting with _y/n_ and then described their first date. _y/n_ would chime in with certain funny or cute moments,  and Morgan was eating up the story. After another hour or so, everyone decided to start heading out. _y/n_ said goodbye to everyone, giving hugs or handshakes. As she approached Garcia, Penelope said, “I’d love to go shopping with you sometime. Your style is so cool!” _y/n_ flushed and said, “I pinky promise. I’ll text you, and we can set something up.” Penelope nodded enthusiastically. Derek walked the couple to the door, he gave _y/n_ a side hug and said, “If you ever need anything, you just let me know, alright.” _y/n_ nodded. His sincerity was touching. She thought back again to what Em had said about him being protective, and she fully saw it now. _y/n_ replied, “Thank you, Derek. Thank you for having me over. It was a really great night.” Morgan beamed and said, “Well then, I can’t wait to have you over again.” Derek and Emily said their goodbyes and “See you Monday’s.” 

In the car on the way back to Emily’s apartment _y/n_ said, “Em, they’re all so sweet. So kind. I’m so happy to have met them. And I’d like to meet Aaron and Rossi too if I can sometime.” Emily smiled and said, “I’m glad you like them, and you had a good time. And believe me, Dave asks about you constantly and Aaron has too. I’m sure you’ll meet them when there’s time.” The pair drive back toward Emily’s side of the city. As they moved down the road Emily considered how they had gotten closer over the few months they had known each other. Emily was protective of her past. She had to be with what she had gone through. Revealing too much could make _y/n_ an unintentional target. But _y/n_ had been so open, so gentle with her that she couldn’t help but open up to _y/n_’s warm care and affection. They had become more physical around each other too. They had slept in the same bed many times now. Their bodies pressed close. And on one of those evenings, Emily had moved her hand beneath _y/n_’s linen shirt and brushed her fingers over the buds of _y/n_’s breasts. While she had done this, _y/n_ had stroked over her clothed sex with two fingers. As much as Emily had wanted to take it farther that night, they had both been exhausted. Emily had just returned from a long case, and _y/n_ had had a long night in the office trying to proofread a 500-page long bill from _y/f/s_. The passion was there, but not the energy. Em had promised _y/n_ that she wanted this -- desperately, but that she wanted to give her her all for the first time. _y/n_ had agreed. They rode back toward her apartment, and Emily thought of that first brief intimacy. She began to pool with desire again. She wondered if this was going to be the night that they would reach that stage in their relationship. While Emily thought this, _y/n_ couldn’t tear her eyes off of her partner. _y/n_ tried not to sexualize Emily often. She was too dignified for her to be drooled over. But now and then, Emily would look at her a certain way, or say something so profound that _y/n_ wanted to kiss her all over. To kiss every part of her body. A specific region, flushed and pink came to mind, and _y/n_ had to stifle a needy sigh. _y/n_ had always found Emily attractive, and the night that they had been most close replayed in her mind often. The feeling of Em’s hands, tender yet firm, moving over and teasing her breasts left her breathless and wanting if she thought about it for too long. Now as _y/n_ looked at Em, was one of those times. _y/n_ begged anything out there in the cosmos that they could have that and more tonight. 

As Emily and _y/n_ got into Prentiss’s apartment. There was an anticipatory, hungry feel to the air. Emily turned on some lamps in the living room. She had asked _y/n_ if she wanted to spend the night, as they drove back and _y/n_ had readily agreed. As Prentiss turned to ask _y/n_ what she wanted to do; if she wanted a drink of water, or anything in particular, she was almost shocked at what she saw. The look of pure desire on _y/n_’s face. _y/n_ closed the gap between them and noticed how Em cocked her head to the side almost confused by her want of her. When _y/n_ was flush with Emily, she pressed herself close to her girlfriend. _y/n_ stroked her hands through Emily’s dark hair. After a few seconds of this, _y/n_’s right hand rested on the crown of Emily’s skull and gently guided Emily’s mouth to hers. Emily easily, amicably acquiesced; allowing herself to be guided to _y/n_’s full lips. As their mouths met, Emily felt that pool of desire begins to flow downward again. It took all of her concentration to not moan at the close contact with _y/n_. Prentiss didn’t want to sound needy yet, but she felt that way. She longed for _y/n_’s touch in places yet unexplored. When _y/n_ ran her tongue over Emily’s lower lip, asking for control, she didn’t want to stop _y/n_ from having that access. As Em let  _y/n_ into her mouth, there was a mutual understanding of comfort and dynamics. Neither one of them was acting as a dominant or male persona. They were both just seeking comfort and pleasure in the other. When both Emily and _y/n pulled back for air, there was a moment of silence, of stillness. After a beat, _y/n_ said, Em. I need you, all of you, tonight. If you’ll let me?” Prentiss nodded and breathily said, “Oh God, yes, _y/n_. I was afraid I was moving too fast, and to hear you say that makes me feel so desired. You wanna go the bedroom, Baby?” _y/n_ agreed in a high pitch. Em took _y/n_’s hand. They moved slowly to the mauve-colored room. As they walked, there was a longing that they both let linger. After tonight, they would be joined in a way that would change the dynamic of their relationship from here on out, and they wanted to give space to that fact. 

In the bedroom, with the white door closed, _y/n_ turned to Emily. She was wearing a charcoal grey blouse that buttoned up the front. There was a bow that was tied at the collar. _y/n_ started by gently tugging the bow undone. She settled the strips of fabric that formed the extra edition of the collar behind Emily’s neck. She then moved to the buttons of the shirt. Slowly, with care and precision, _y/n_ began undoing the buttons of the silk shirt. As each inch of skin was revealed, _y/n_ reveled in its exposure. There was a reverence in her gaze that Emily had rarely seen. When Emily had been intimate before, there was always a hunger in the look of her lovers, male and female. A desire for pleasure. This was all fine and good, but the awe on _y/n_’s face was new. There was also a hunger, but not like she was a thing to be had, sucked dry and then left in the cold morning air uncovered. Thinking of this had Emily let you a sigh of desire. Emily’s head was slightly tipped back, her mouth half open, taking needy breaths. Through her half-lidded gaze, she saw _y/n_ smile at her noises. Emily wondered what _y/n_ moaning sounded like, and her sex pulsated at the idea. Her arousal intensified. When the last button was undone, _y/n_ pushed the silk off Emily’s shoulders and to the floor. The fabric fell to the floor with little sound. _y/n_’s gazed over her form. The lovely planes of Emily’s skin shone in the light of the lamps illuminating the room. _y/n_’s warm hands slowly started moving over the exposed flesh. Circling Emily’s stomach. She felt up the side of her waist. _y/n_’s hands then moved higher, ghosting over Em’s covered breasts. _y/n_ noticed that the bra was slightly padded and the underwire looked uncomfortable pressed too tightly under the sensitive tissue. _y/n_ would be sure to address this soon. But for now, she moved her hands to Emily’s clavicle, running over her collarbones. _y/n_ noticed that Emily had some birthmarks adorning her skin. One was above her right breast, and the other two were on Emily’s torso. After spending a bit of time feeling over Em’s upper half, _y/n_ softly fell to her knees and began working at the button and zipper of Prentiss’s black slacks. Emily watched as _y/n_ pulled down the fabric of her pants and realized that _y/n_ was kneeling at her body like it was a temple, and Prentiss thought she couldn’t possibly be loved more than this. When her pants were pooled at her feet, Emily moved her right foot up, and _y/n_ pulled her foot free. The process was repeated with the left foot. 

At this point, Emily had to reciprocate. She helped _y/n_ her feet and said, “You are so good to me. You have no idea how good you make me feel.” _y/n_ smiled and said, “I think I share in your feelings, but putting it to voice, especially now, feels a little difficult.” Em laughed softly at the comment, as her hands moved to the zipper at the back of _y/n_’s _f/j/t_ colored dress. The invisible zipper needed a bit of effort, and Emily carefully held the fabric at the top of the dress as she applied more pressure to get the zipper to move. The zipper was fine moving down the teeth until it got to the waistline, where the fabric was doubled. Here, even with her careful pulling the zipper didn’t seem to want to budge further, and it wasn’t because the dress didn’t fit _y/n_. It fit like a glove custom-made for her body. After another minute of struggle, _y/n_ burst out laughing and said, “Sorry. It’s so funny. I didn’t want to say anything because it was so sexy. You were taking my breath away, but as soon as you started doing that, I knew you were going to have trouble. You have to jimmy it a certain way to get it past the waistline.” Emily gave a little huff, and jokingly said, “Well you could have told me that before.” _y/n_ smiled and said, “Well, I have a potential solution from here on out?” Emily smiled and replied, “Shoot.” _y/n_ leaned forward and said, “We can be nude every time we meet from here on out?” Emily flushed and teased back, “How do you think the senator would like that? How about my boss?” _y/n_ gave Emily a large grin, and she said, “They don’t have to know.” While _y/n_ said this, they moved their hands to their back and Emily gave her space to work the ornery zipper past the difficult spot on the track. Once it was past the waistline, _y/n_ let Emily take charge again, and she quieted to let the moment have its full impact. Prentiss appreciated this, as she moved the zipper down the final six inches of track. As _y/n_ had done with her shirt, Emily removed the fabric of the dress, and _y/n_ moved out of its constraint at her ankles. Emily had taken her heels off when she had gotten in the door, but _y/n_ still had hers on. Thus, Em paralleled _y/n_ and dropped to her knees, and helped remove _y/n_’s _y/f/s/t_ and socks. The last article of clothing that needed to be disposed of to make _y/n_ as bear as Em was _y/n_’s tights. Prentiss took care of removing this thin layer of nylon. Prentiss didn’t want her short nails to snag the cloth and tear it. Once the tights were disposed of, the profiler moved and kissed over _y/n_’s clothed vagina. At the intimate act, _y/n_’s breath hitched, and she said Emily’s name with a need not yet voiced. 

_y/n_ pulled Emily up and to the bed. Both moved to remove the other's bra and their hands were a tangled mess, as they tried to both do the same thing at the same time. Again there was a soft laughter between them. Emily said, “If this happened to anyone else _y/n_ I would be so mortified. I would have lost my chill the second the zipper snagged. But with you, with your patience and calm and understanding it doesn’t feel like a big thing. I can honestly laugh with you. It reminds me of our first meeting, and I’m so lucky to have you in my life.” _y/n_ beamed and said, “You’re someone I want to be real with Em. I want to laugh with you and cry with you, and God do I want to have sex with you.” Hearing this, Prentiss flushed and then both of them moved again as they clasped behind the other's back to undo the other’s bras. As both women disrobed and looked at the other, the feeling of deep longing washed over them. Emily whispered, “You’re so beautiful _y/n_. So beautiful.” She leaned forward and kissed over _y/n_’s breasts. The warm, wet feel of Emily’s mouth over her sensitive flesh caused her nipples to harden. Emily took one of the taught buds in her mouth. She sucked and swirled her tongue over the nipple. _y/n_ let out a sigh, and her own hands moved to Emily’s chest. _y/n_ began kneading Em’s breasts. Without her bra on, the tissue was just slightly less perky than when trapped in the confines of a bra. Em’s nipples hardened too, and _y/n_ used her fingers to pull and tug at the sensitive areas of her body. Emily had to move her mouth away from _y/n_’s breast, so she could let out a gasp of pleasure. Hearing this from Em, _y/n_ moved her hand lower and began rubbing two fingers over her clothed sex. Emily’s panties were wet, soaked through, but _y/n_ hadn’t had the chance to notice, as they were black; hiding the level of Emily’s arousal. _y/n_ said, “Let me get you out of those…” _y/n_ was going to say underwear, but noticed the small VS charm on a tiny silver charm sitting at the center of the delicate bow at the middle of the elastic holding the garment up. Emily chuckled and said, “Hey listen they're comfy and sexy. Two birds one stone?” _y/n_ grinned and said, “There’s no complaints from me love.” _y/n_ leaned down and kissed the second bow, realizing that Emily had had a bow at her neck and a bow down here. Knowing how detail-oriented Em was, it wasn’t by accident. 

Emily was about to ask if she could get _y/n_ off first, but _y/n_ stopped her by saying, “Em, please. You’re out there every day saving people who don’t even know it. Who will never understand the things you sacrificed for them? So please let me do this for you first. After that, you can fuck me into tomorrow, but I want to do this.” Emily swallowed and nodded. With her consent, _y/n_ removed Emily’s panties, sliding them off of her hips and down her legs. The underwear was discarded on the floor with their other clothes. _y/n_ looked at the flushed folds of Emily’s vagina and the small patch of dark pubic hair near her entrance. _y/n_ couldn’t wait to get her hands and face in that hair, that needy region. _y/n_ wanted to ensure Emily’s comfort and pleasure and asked, “Would you like oral, or my hand, or I can use a toy you like if you have one?” Emily took deep breaths and said, “I want your mouth. I want those pretty lips of yours on me; in me.” _y/n_ hummed. Both she and Emily had washed off their makeup, so _y/n_ was ready to dive in. _y/n_ got on her knees on the bed. She also pulled Em’s knees up to a ninety-degree angle and a good distance apart so there would be room for her face. Before she started, _y/n_ said, “Tell me if it’s not good. Tell me if you need to change techniques at any time. And, please put your hands in my hair if it is good. I’ve dreamed of that for that last month and to have it happen for real is making me so hot and bothered right now.” Emily nodded and said, “I promise to do those things if I need to. But most certainly the last will be happening.” With this said, _y/n_ moved down. The heat and moisture was alluring to _y/n_. She started by running her nose up the area and wetting it. After this, _y/n_ ran her tongue over Emily’s folds. The taste was slightly salty, but there was a slight aftertaste of talc or matcha — a drying earthy taste. _y/n_ kept moving her tongue this way, and the words and noises came unbridled from Emily. After a few moments of this, _y/n_ started to move her tongue in an infinity symbol moving from the entrance to the clit with each pass. While this was happening, Em moaned out _y/n_’s name. When _y/n_ started sucking on the clit, Emily knew she was racing toward a strong climax. At this point, she ran her hand through _y/n_ hair, pulling and tugging it gently from the follicle. Her grasp strengthened as the feelings got more intense. In the end, Prentiss was moving her hips to increase the friction, and in a moment of pure ecstasy, she felt her body clench and then let go. Emily cried out in pleasure and held _y/n_’s face where it was, pressed to her sex. _y/n_ slowed her tongue slightly, to let Em down gently. As the waves of heat and joy moved through her in long waves, Emily was sure this was the best orgasm she had ever felt. 

Once Em had calmed and found herself again, she moved with a passion, getting up and looking at _y/n_. Emily said, “My turn. Let me, ‘fuck you into tomorrow’ like you just did with me. So tell me, what gets my girl off? I’ve got toys like a vibe or a strapon. What do you want, Baby?” _y/n_ very quickly flushed and said, “I just want your hands in me. I’ve dreamed about that too.” Em replied, “Well, well, you shall have them. Now grab that pillow and lay down for me _y/n_. _y/n_ did as told, and Emily positioned the pillow at her partner's lower back and then pushed her back onto the mattress. Prentiss took off _y/n_’s _y/f/c_ bikini-style panties and discarded them at the foot of the bed. Emily kissed _y/n_ passionately, as she started to rub _y/n_’s exposed vagina. Emily could feel _y/n_ dripping against her fingers. Sliding her fingers up and down _y/n_’s labia and clit was so easy. After a few moments of this, and when her pointer and middle fingers were thoroughly coated, Em moved her fingers slowly into _y/n’s entrance. _y/n_ was tight against her hand. At this sensation, _y/n_ gave a needy whine and Prentiss asked, “Is that good for my love?” _y/n_ gasped and replied between breaths, saying, “So good. You feel so good in me.” Emily smiled and said, “Good. I’m glad.” Emily started pumping in and out of _y/n_ while her other hand moved to _y/n_’s left breast. As _y/n_ said her name and moaned against her touch. Emily moved the fingers that were inside _y/n_ to curve up so that she reached _y/n_’s g-spot and _y/n_ made a loud, desperate noise. Hearing this, Emily moved the hand that had been on _y/n_’s breast to _y/n_’s clit and rubbed fast circles over it. _y/n_ could feel herself about to snap as Em’s movements became more frantic. The dripping of pleasure from _y/n_ had moved from a drip to water to an ocean waiting to burst free of a dam. With one more thrust of the hand and movement over the clit, _y/n_ broke down entirely, as she lost control and shouted out in pleasure. _y/n_ had never been so vocal in her response. After a second, Emily removed her hands and moved to kiss _y/n_’s mouth, taking the breath from her partner again. Em rubbed her sticky hand over _y/n_’s thigh. As they both came to themselves a bit, _y/n_ said, “I’m so lucky to have you in my life Em. To have met you the way I did. I love you so very much.” Emily nodded and said, “Same here. You make me feel so happy, and so good and worthy.” There was a silence and Prentiss noticed that neither of their bodies were ramping down, and Em asked, “Would you be down for a second round, _y/n_?” _y/n_ smiled and said, “I was waiting for that profiler instinct in you to notice. How about we come together this time?” Em smiled and nodded. As both women got ready for another set of pleasure and release, they both knew that they were meant for the other both physically and in spirit -- and there would be many more nights like this, bleeding into tomorrows. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…

[leftistfeminista]

'I Won't Stop Until Israel Admits Its Ties With the Pinochet Regime'

Lily Traubman, who immigrated to Israel in the 1970s, hopes the documents she is trying to get from the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry may even contain information on her father's killers.

A year ago there were headlines when four women filed a suit for sexual abuse they suffered in prison during the Pinochet period. They demanded that the abuse be recognized as a political crime and that their torturers be brought to trial. Were such attacks something that was directed from above?

Of course. Have you heard of “La Venda Sexy”? It was a detention center where people were tortured. The name actually means “Sexy Blindfold,” because the detainees’ eyes were covered the whole time and they were subjected to sexual abuse.

All the detainees were blindfolded the whole time?

Yes. They were arrested, blindfolded and put into a room, together, with their eyes covered. Then they were tortured. Most of the female detainees were raped and underwent sexual abuse. A girlfriend of mine was held there but was not raped. She told me she’d felt fortunate, but then came New Year’s and she was raped. They’d kept her for the holiday.

Venda Sexy was truly awful. They had dogs that were trained to rape women, and they would force spouses and family members to watch the rape. More and more testimonies about these abuses come out all the time.

And throughout this whole period, Israel, under prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres, maintained excellent relations with Chile. The two countries supported each other in the United Nations and signed bilateral agreements. Army Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur visited Chile in 1978, as did Deputy Prime Minister David Levy in 1982. Both met with Pinochet.

Pinochet was even invited to the synagogue in Santiago on Yom Kippur. Other presidents were not invited.

The documents declassified by the Americans also contain references to arms deals with Israel. Secretary of State George Shultz noted in a 1984 document that Britain, France, Israel and Germany were Chile’s arms suppliers.

All the weapons of the Chilean police and army were Israeli. In Chile I went around with a photograph of my brother in uniform. At checkpoints and in searches I would take out the picture and tell them that this was my brother, who was an officer in the IDF – even though he was a regular soldier – and that did the trick. The Chilean army greatly admired the Israeli army. When Pinochet wanted to visit Israel, he threatened that if he were not received here he would cancel a large arms deal. No dictator in the world, however bad he may be, can exist without international support. The dictatorship in Chile lasted as long as it did because there were countries that supported it, and Israel was one of them.

Israel describes itself as “the state of the Jewish people,” but there are about 20 missing Jews in Chile who were murdered during that period, while Israeli governments and the military maintained close ties with Chile, accorded it legitimization in international forums and provided aid and training to its military and intelligence units.

[eljeebee]

Content Warning: There are pictures in this update that I edited with motion blur that may cause motion sickness. Please proceed with caution.

Lavender!

Hm…

“Laaaaveeendeerrr! Wake up!”

Lavender groaned as she blinked awake. “Kashvi…?”

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Kashvi giggled.

“What time is it? It’s too early…”

“Sleeping in won’t do if you’re going to be with the Seekers for the duration of your pilgrimage! They’re quite strict with their schedule, so get up! Breakfast is ready!”

At the mention of the Seekers, the tendrils of sleep washed away. “I’ll get ready!”

“Good morning, Diego,” Lavender greeted Diego, the monastery dog. He let out a soft bark in reply. “Good morning, everyone.”

She received gentle good mornings from the monicus as she sat down amongst them.

“They’re waiting downstairs for you,” Lakandiwa said.

“Oh, uhm, they’re not going to join us for breakfast?” Lavender then, sputtered, “D-Do they even eat?!”

Everyone laughed. Lakandiwa said, “Of course they do, that’s why Lawa and I woke up early to make breakfast. They tend to get up early.”

“They said to fill you up,” Chief Song chuckled, “it seems like they’ll be giving you a hard day today, Ms. Lee.”

Lavender finished her breakfast. She went down to the prayer room and saw two figures meditating in front of the image of the Watcher. She hesitantly stood there.

“Come. Meditate with us,” a female voice said. Her voice was smooth and cool. It has a tad bit of sharpness to it.

Lavender sat behind her. She took notice of the other Seeker’s ear. Pointy. A vampire.

“…I’d guard the monastery with Diego. And Seeker Mata too…”

She tried not to think about what Kashvi said last night and joined them in meditation.  

“Lavender Lee,” the female Seeker regarded her. “I am Iris. The First Seeker.”

“My name is Mata,” the vampire Seeker said. “The Second Seeker. I could hear your thoughts earlier, Lavender. Yes, I’m a vampire. It’s a long and old story.” He gently smiled.

“You are summoned to train,” Iris said. “You are the second Pupil that we will train, and the Watcher deemed it that you are ready to receive the Gift she will bestow upon you – a portion of her power. There are no longer wars waging between Circle Mages and…other races…and you might be thinking that this is useless.”

“But this is a gift from the Goddess,” Mata continued, “It is not useless. You will be able to use it, no matter how small the actions are. This training is not just any training – it is also our observation whether your strength and your character passes our judgement. The Gift is too much to bear – your predecessor had become greedy and abused it.”

“You have shown us promising faith and goodness, and I trust you will not disappoint us. This pilgrimage will test you, whether you will stay as the Pupil or not.”

“What happens if you didn’t see me as…promising?” Lavender anxiously asked.

Iris replied, “That mark on your back will vanish, and you will no longer hear from us in your mind. Our connection will be severed.”

Mata sensed her anxiousness. His gentle voice soothed her. “But we believe in you, Lavender. You are a good child.”

Iris nodded. The corner of her lips curling up. “And you’re a spellcaster. You have a background with magic. Unlike your predecessor.”

Her first training was to spar with Iris. Lavender was surprised that the First Seeker is a spellcaster – no, a mage. She could see the difference between a spellcaster and a mage – Iris fought differently, her moves were precise and firm. To Lavender, it is a sign that the Seeker is battle-hardened.

Lavender stood no chance with this, she’s not as strong as the sages, especially since she was trained not for battles but only for decent defense and only for practice. She was never trained for fighting.

“You are not taking this seriously,” Iris clicked her tongue.

“But I am!” Lavender panted. “That’s what they taught me!”

“What the Sages taught you is not enough. You cannot use the Gift half-heartedly. It is good they taught you basic practices, but you need better offense and control. Again!”

Lavender doesn’t know the time now, but apparently, it’s lunch. Mata placed down a blanket and a basket of lunch that Lawa had prepared. Iris had finished already, so Lavender sat alone, eating her food. Not that she minded. She couldn’t really talk because she’s famished. It’s her third helping.

“I think you went hard on her,” Mata chuckled. “Were you that excited?”

“Who wouldn’t? It has been a while since I could spar with another mage,” Iris huffed, but she was smiling.

“But she’s a spellcaster, not a mage.”

“Same thing,” Iris looked at him. “The difference is that spellcasters limit themselves. They don’t want to follow the path the Circle Mages had gone.”

Mata hummed.

“You cast like a child!” Iris yelled.

Lavender let out a shout of frustration as she fought back, but before she could retaliate, the Seeker’s magic lifted her up in the air...

This will hurt like a bitch tomorrow...

“Oh, welcome home. I’ll fix something for you,” Kashvi smiled. “Crimson tea, Seeker Mata?”

“Yes please.”

Lavender floated on the bath pool. The warm water soothed her aching muscles. “My arms huuuuurrrttt! I feel so exhausted!”

Mata went in the pool. Lavender felt her body feeling warm. “Woah, what are you – ”

“Taking a bath,” Mata titled his head, confused. “This is a communal bath.”

She chuckled awkwardly. “Oh. Oh yeah. Hahaha. Yeah…”

Iris finally joined them. The Seekers stood on one side of the pool, quietly scrubbing their limbs. Lavender stood an arm’s length away from them.

“Uhm.”

They looked at her.

“Do you always bathe together?”

“Yes,” Mata said, still confused. “Why?”

Iris huffed. “Whatever you’re thinking, you must shed those thoughts. These thoughts will hinder your control with the Gift. This is a communal bath. Even the monici bathe together.”

Lavender pouted, “I know that…!”

She splashed Iris.

“You cast like a child, you act like a child,” Iris said, putting emphasis on every child she said. She splashed her back.

Mata laughed.

[vague-humanoid]

@el-shab-hussein every accusation is a confession

Outgoing chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rafi Peretz, of the Israeili Defense Forces, who is stepping down after six years in the position is being replaced. And, his successor, Rabbi Col. Eyal Karim’s appointment is being met with backlash — as he is outspoken for allowing soldiers to rape women during wartime.

Karim, who was announced on Monday as the intended new IDF chief rabbi, has provoked controversy with previous misogynistic statements, such as opposing female conscription and implying that rape was permissible in times of war.

In 2012, Karim’s controversy started when the Hebrew religious website KIPA, asked him, in the light of certain biblical passages, if IDF soldiers were permitted to commit rape during wartime despite the general understanding that such an act is widely considered repugnant.

His answer enraged many Israelis.

“Although intercourse with a female gentile is very grave, it was permitted during wartime (under the conditions it stipulated) out of consideration for the soldiers’ difficulties,” he wrote. “And since our concern is the success of the collective in the war, the Torah permitted [soldiers] to satisfy the evil urge under the conditions it stipulated for the sake of the collective’s success.”

In other words, soldiers can rape innocent women during times of war in order to keep their morale up.

[ridenwithbiden]

"In April 2020, Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army private, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas. The killer, aided by his girlfriend, burned Guillén’s body. Guillén’s remains were discovered two months later, buried in a riverbank near the base, after a massive search.

Guillén, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Houston, and her murder sparked outrage across Texas and beyond. Fort Hood had become known as a particularly perilous assignment for female soldiers, and members of Congress took up the cause of reform. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the Guillén family to the White House. With Guillén’s mother seated beside him, Trump spent 25 minutes with the family as television cameras recorded the scene.

In the meeting, Trump maintained a dignified posture and expressed sympathy to Guillén’s mother. “I saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military,” Trump said. Later in the conversation, he made a promise: “If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that,” he said. “I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you.”

Natalie Khawam, the family’s attorney, responded, “I think the military will be paying—taking care of it.” Trump replied, “Good. They’ll do a military. That’s good. If you need help, I’ll help you out.” Later, a reporter covering the meeting asked Trump, “Have you offered to do that for other families before?” Trump responded, “I have. I have. Personally. I have to do it personally. I can’t do it through government.” The reporter then asked: “So you’ve written checks to help for other families before this?” Trump turned to the family, still present, and said, “I have, I have, because some families need help … Maybe you don’t need help, from a financial standpoint. I have no idea what—I just think it’s a horrific thing that happened. And if you did need help, I’m going to—I’ll be there to help you.”

A public memorial service was held in Houston two weeks after the White House meeting. It was followed by a private funeral and burial in a local cemetery, attended by, among others, the mayor of Houston and the city’s police chief. Highways were shut down, and mourners lined the streets.

Five months later, the secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, announced the results of an investigation. McCarthy cited numerous “leadership failures” at Fort Hood and relieved or suspended several officers, including the base’s commanding general. In a press conference, McCarthy said that the murder “shocked our conscience” and “forced us to take a critical look at our systems, our policies, and ourselves.”

According to a person close to Trump at the time, the president was agitated by McCarthy’s comments and raised questions about the severity of the punishments dispensed to senior officers and noncommissioned officers.

In an Oval Office meeting on December 4, 2020, officials gathered to discuss a separate national-security issue. Toward the end of the discussion, Trump asked for an update on the McCarthy investigation. Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense (Trump had fired his predecessor, Mark Esper, three weeks earlier, writing in a tweet, “Mark Esper has been terminated”), was in attendance, along with Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel. At a certain point, according to two people present at the meeting, Trump asked, “Did they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?”

According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000.

Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “Fucking people, trying to rip me off.”

Khawam, the family attorney, told me she sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received by the family from Trump. Some of the costs, Khawam said, were covered by the Army (which offered, she said, to allow Guillén to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery) and some were covered by donations. Ultimately, Guillén was buried in Houston.

Shortly after I emailed a series of questions to a Trump spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer, I received an email from Khawam, who asked me to publish a statement from Mayra Guillén, Vanessa’s sister. Pfeiffer then emailed me the same statement. “I am beyond grateful for all the support President Donald Trump showed our family during a trying time,” the statement reads. “I witnessed firsthand how President Trump honors our nation’s heroes’ service. We are grateful for everything he has done and continues to do to support our troops.”

Pfeiffer told me that he did not write that statement, and emailed me a series of denials. Regarding Trump’s “fucking Mexican” comment, Pfeiffer wrote: “President Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.” He provided statements from Patel and a spokesman for Meadows, who denied having heard Trump make the statement. Via Pfeiffer, Meadows’s spokesman also denied that Trump had ordered Meadows not to pay for the funeral.

The statement from Patel that Pfeiffer sent me said: “As someone who was present in the room with President Trump, he strongly urged that Spc. Vanessa Guillen’s grieving family should not have to bear the cost of any funeral arrangements, even offering to personally pay himself in order to honor her life and sacrifice. In addition, President Trump was able to have the Department of Defense designate her death as occurring ‘in the line of duty,’ which gave her full military honors and provided her family access to benefits, services, and complete financial assistance.”

The personal qualities displayed by Trump in his reaction to the cost of the Guillén funeral—contempt, rage, parsimony, racism—hardly surprised his inner circle. Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice. Former generals who have worked for Trump say that the sole military virtue he prizes is obedience. As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” (“This is absolutely false,” Pfeiffer wrote in an email. “President Trump never said this.”)

A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trump’s military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.

Retired General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran, told me that Trump does not comprehend such traditional military virtues as honor and self-sacrifice. “The military is a foreign country to him. He doesn’t understand the customs or codes,” McCaffrey said. “It doesn’t penetrate. It starts with the fact that he thinks it’s foolish to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit himself.”

I’ve been interested in Trump’s understanding of military affairs for nearly a decade. At first, it was cognitive dissonance that drew me to the subject—according to my previous understanding of American political physics, Trump’s disparagement of the military, and in particular his obsessive criticism of the war record of the late Senator John McCain, should have profoundly alienated Republican voters, if not Americans generally. And in part my interest grew from the absolute novelty of Trump’s thinking. This country had never seen, to the best of my knowledge, a national political figure who insulted veterans, wounded warriors, and the fallen with metronomic regularity.

Today—two weeks before an election that could see Trump return to the White House—I’m most interested in his evident desire to wield military power, and power over the military, in the manner of Hitler and other dictators.

Trump’s singularly corrosive approach to military tradition was in evidence as recently as August, when he described the Medal of Honor, the nation’s top award for heroism and selflessness in combat, as inferior to the Medal of Freedom, which is awarded to civilians for career achievement. During a campaign speech, he described Medal of Honor recipients as “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” prompting the Veterans of Foreign Wars to issue a condemnation: “These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.” Later in August, Trump caused controversy by violating federal regulations prohibiting the politicization of military cemeteries, after a campaign visit to Arlington in which he gave a smiling thumbs-up while standing behind gravestones of fallen American soldiers.

His Medal of Honor comments are of a piece with his expressed desire to receive a Purple Heart without being wounded. He has also equated business success to battlefield heroism. In the summer of 2016, Khizr Khan, the father of a 27-year-old Army captain who had been killed in Iraq, told the Democratic National Convention that Trump has “sacrificed nothing.” In response, Trump disparaged the Khan family and said, “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures.”

One former Trump-administration Cabinet secretary told me of a conversation he’d had with Trump during his time in office about the Vietnam War. Trump famously escaped the draft by claiming that his feet were afflicted with bone spurs. (“I had a doctor that gave me a letter—a very strong letter on the heels,” Trump told The New York Times in 2016.) Once, when the subject of aging Vietnam veterans came up in conversation, Trump offered this observation to the Cabinet official: “Vietnam would have been a waste of time for me. Only suckers went to Vietnam.”

In 1997, Trump told the radio host Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was “my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” This was not the only time Trump has compared his sexual exploits and political challenges to military service. Last year, at a speech before a group of New York Republicans, while discussing the fallout from the release of the Access Hollywood tape, he said, “I went onto that (debate) stage just a few days later and a general, who’s a fantastic general, actually said to me, ‘Sir, I’ve been on the battlefield. Men have gone down on my left and on my right. I stood on hills where soldiers were killed. But I believe the bravest thing I’ve ever seen was the night you went onto that stage with Hillary Clinton after what happened.’” I asked Trump-campaign officials to provide the name of the general who allegedly said this. Pfeiffer, the campaign spokesman, said, “This is a true story and there is no good reason to give the name of an honorable man to The Atlantic so you can smear him.”

In their book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser reported that Trump asked John Kelly, his chief of staff at the time, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump, at various points, had grown frustrated with military officials he deemed disloyal and disobedient. (Throughout the course of his presidency, Trump referred to flag officers as “my generals.”) According to Baker and Glasser, Kelly explained to Trump that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.” This correction did not move Trump to reconsider his view: “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the president responded.

This week, I asked Kelly about their exchange. He told me that when Trump raised the subject of “German generals,” Kelly responded by asking, “‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’” He went on: “I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals? And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.” Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel.

Baker and Glasser also reported that Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, feared that Trump’s “‘Hitler-like’ embrace of the big lie about the election would prompt the president to seek out a ‘Reichstag moment.’”

Kelly—a retired Marine general who, as a young man, had volunteered to serve in Vietnam despite actually suffering from bone spurs—said in an interview for the CNN reporter Jim Sciutto’s book, The Return of Great Powers, that Trump praised aspects of Hitler’s leadership. “He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’” Kelly recalled. “I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, (Hitler) rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world.” Kelly admonished Trump: “I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.’”

This wasn’t the only time Kelly felt compelled to instruct Trump on military history. In 2018, Trump asked Kelly to explain who “the good guys” were in World War I. Kelly responded by explaining a simple rule: Presidents should, as a matter of politics and policy, remember that the “good guys” in any given conflict are the countries allied with the United States. Despite Trump’s lack of historical knowledge, he has been on record as saying that he knew more than his generals about warfare. He told 60 Minutes in 2018 that he knew more about NATO than James Mattis, his secretary of defense at the time, a retired four-star Marine general who had served as a NATO official. Trump also said, on a separate occasion, that it was he, not Mattis, who had “captured” the Islamic State.

As president, Trump evinced extreme sensitivity to criticism from retired flag officers; at one point, he proposed calling back to active duty Admiral William McRaven and General Stanley McChrystal, two highly regarded Special Operations leaders who had become critical of Trump, so that they could be court-martialed. Esper, who was the defense secretary at the time, wrote in his memoir that he and Milley talked Trump out of the plan. (Asked about criticism from McRaven, who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Trump responded by calling him a “Hillary Clinton backer and an Obama backer” and said, “Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that?”)

Trump has responded incredulously when told that American military personnel swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. According to the New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt’s recent book, Donald Trump v. the United States, Trump asked Kelly, “Do you really believe you’re not loyal to me?” Kelly answered, “I’m certainly part of the administration, but my ultimate loyalty is to the rule of law.” Trump also publicly floated the idea of “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” as part of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and keep himself in power.

On separate occasions in 2020, Trump held private conversations in the White House with national-security officials about the George Floyd protests. “The Chinese generals would know what to do,” he said, according to former officials who described the conversations to me, referring to the leaders of the People’s Liberation Army, which carried out the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. (Pfeiffer denied that Trump said this.) Trump’s desire to deploy U.S. troops against American citizens is well documented. During the nerve-racking period of social unrest following Floyd’s death, Trump asked Milley and Esper, a West Point graduate and former infantry officer, if the Army could shoot protesters. “Trump seemed unable to think straight and calmly,” Esper wrote in his memoir. “The protests and violence had him so enraged that he was willing to send in active-duty forces to put down the protesters. Worse yet, he suggested we shoot them. I wondered about his sense of history, of propriety, and of his oath to the Constitution.” Esper told National Public Radio in 2022, “We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at General Milley, and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?’” When defense officials argued against Trump’s desire, the president screamed, according to witnesses, “You are all fucking losers!”

Trump has often expressed his esteem for the type of power wielded by such autocrats as the Chinese leader Xi Jinping; his admiration, even jealousy, of Vladimir Putin is well known. In recent days, he has signaled that, should he win reelection in November, he would like to govern in the manner of these dictators—he has said explicitly that he would like to be a dictator for a day on his first day back in the White House—and he has threatened to, among other things, unleash the military on “radical-left lunatics.” (One of his four former national security advisers, John Bolton, wrote in his memoir, “It is a close contest between Putin and Xi Jinping who would be happiest to see Trump back in office.”)

Military leaders have condemned Trump for possessing autocratic tendencies. At his retirement ceremony last year, Milley said, “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator … We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.” Over the past several years, Milley has privately told several interlocutors that he believed Trump to be a fascist. Many other leaders have also been shocked by Trump’s desire for revenge against his domestic critics. At the height of the Floyd protests, Mattis wrote, “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.”

Trump’s frustration with American military leaders led him to disparage them regularly. In their book A Very Stable Genius, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, both of The Washington Post, reported that in 2017, during a meeting at the Pentagon, Trump screamed at a group of generals: “I wouldn’t go to war with you people. You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.” And in his book Rage, Bob Woodward reported that Trump complained that “my fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.”

Trump’s disdain for American military officers is motivated in part by their willingness to accept low salaries. Once, after a White House briefing given by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, Trump said to aides, “That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?” (On another occasion, John Kelly asked Trump to guess Dunford’s annual salary. The president’s answer: $5 million. Dunford’s actual salary was less than $200,000.)

Trump has often expressed his love for the trappings of martial power, demanding of his aides that they stage the sort of armor-heavy parades foreign to American tradition. Civilian aides and generals alike pushed back. In one instance, Air Force General Paul Selva, who was then serving as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the president that he had been partially raised in Portugal, which, he explained, “was a dictatorship—and parades were about showing the people who had the guns. In America, we don’t do that. It’s not who we are.”

For Republicans in 2012, it was John McCain who served as a model of “who we are.” But by 2015, the party had shifted. In July of that year, Trump, then one of several candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, made a statement that should have ended his campaign. At a forum for Christian conservatives in Iowa, Trump said of McCain, “He’s not a war hero. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

It was an astonishing statement, and an introduction to the wider public of Trump’s uniquely corrosive view of McCain, and of his aberrant understanding of the nature of American military heroism. This wasn’t the first time Trump had insulted McCain’s war record. As early as 1999, he was insulting McCain. In an interview with Dan Rather that year, Trump asked, “Does being captured make you a hero? I don’t know. I’m not sure.” (A brief primer: McCain, who had flown 22 combat missions before being shot down over Hanoi, was tortured almost continuously by his Communist captors, and turned down repeated offers to be released early, insisting that prisoners be released in the order that they’d been captured. McCain suffered physically from his injuries until his death, in 2018.) McCain partisans believe, with justification, that Trump’s loathing was prompted in part by McCain’s ability to see through Trump. “John didn’t respect him, and Trump knew that,” Mark Salter, McCain’s longtime aide and co-author, told me. “John McCain had a code. Trump only has grievances and impulses and appetites. In the deep recesses of his man-child soul, he knew that McCain and his achievements made him look like a mutt.”

Trump, those who have worked for him say, is unable to understand the military norm that one does not leave fellow soldiers behind on the battlefield. As president, Trump told senior advisers that he didn’t understand why the U.S. government placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action. To him, they could be left behind, because they had performed poorly by getting captured.

My reporting during Trump’s term in office led me to publish on this site, in September 2020, an article about Trump’s attitudes toward McCain and other veterans, and his views about the ideal of national service itself. The story was based on interviews with multiple sources who had firsthand exposure to Trump and his views. In that piece, I detailed numerous instances of Trump insulting soldiers, flag officers and veterans alike. I wrote extensively about Trump’s reaction to McCain’s death in August 2018: The president told aides, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” and he was infuriated when he saw flags at the White House lowered to half-mast. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” he said angrily. Only when Kelly told Trump that he would get “killed in the press” for showing such disrespect did the president relent. In the article, I also reported that Trump had disparaged President George H. W. Bush, a World War II naval aviator, for getting shot down by the Japanese. Two witnesses told me that Trump said, “I don’t get it. Getting shot down makes you a loser.” (Bush ultimately evaded capture, but eight other fliers were caught and executed by the Japanese).

The next year, White House officials demanded that the Navy keep the U.S.S. John S. McCain, which was named for McCain’s father and grandfather—both esteemed admirals—out of Trump’s sight during a visit to Japan. The Navy did not comply.

Trump’s preoccupation with McCain has not abated. In January, Trump condemned McCain—six years after his death—for having supported President Barack Obama’s health-care plan. “We’re going to fight for much better health care than Obamacare,” Trump told an Iowa crowd. “Obamacare is a catastrophe. Nobody talks about it. You know, without John McCain, we would have had it done. John McCain for some reason couldn’t get his arm up that day. Remember?” This was, it appears, a malicious reference to McCain’s wartime injuries—including injuries suffered during torture—which limited his upper-body mobility.

I’ve also previously reported on Trump’s 2017 Memorial Day visit to Arlington National Cemetery. Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, accompanied him. The two men visited Section 60, the 14-acre section that is the burial ground for those killed in America’s most recent wars (and the site of Trump’s Arlington controversy earlier this year). Kelly’s son Robert, a Marine officer killed in 2010 in Afghanistan, is buried in Section 60. Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” At first, Kelly believed that Trump was making a reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand nontransactional life choices. I quoted one of Kelly’s friends, a fellow retired four-star general, who said of Trump, “He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself. He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker.” At moments when Kelly was feeling particularly frustrated by Trump, he would leave the White House and cross the Potomac to visit his son’s grave, in part to remind himself about the nature of full-measure sacrifice.

Last year Kelly told me, in reference to Mark Milley’s 44 years in uniform, “The president couldn’t fathom people who served their nation honorably.”

The specific incident I reported in the 2020 article that gained the most attention also provided the story with its headline—“Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers.’” The story concerned a visit Trump made to France in 2018, during which the president called Americans buried in a World War I cemetery “losers.” He said, in the presence of aides, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” At another moment during this trip, he referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who had lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for dying for their country.

Trump had already been scheduled to visit one cemetery, and he did not understand why his team was scheduling a second cemetery visit, especially considering that the rain would be hard on his hair. “Why two cemeteries?” Trump asked. “What the fuck?” Kelly subsequently canceled the second visit, and attended a ceremony there himself with General Dunford and their wives.

The article sparked great controversy, and provoked an irate reaction from the Trump administration, and from Trump himself. In tweets, statements, and press conferences in the days, weeks, and years that followed, Trump labeled The Atlantic a “second-rate magazine,” a “failing magazine,” a “terrible magazine,” and a “third-rate magazine that’s not going to be in business much longer”; he also referred to me as a “con man,” among other things. Trump has continued these attacks recently, calling me a “horrible, radical-left lunatic named Goldberg” at a rally this summer.

In the days after my original article was published, both the Associated Press and, notably, Fox News, confirmed the story, causing Trump to demand that Fox fire Jennifer Griffin, its experienced and well-regarded defense reporter. A statement issued by Alyssa Farah, a White House spokesperson, soon after publication read, “This report is false. President Trump holds the military in the highest regard.”

Shortly after the story appeared, Farah asked numerous White House officials if they had heard Trump refer to veterans and war dead as suckers or losers. She reported publicly that none of the officials she asked had heard him use these terms. Eventually, Farah came out in opposition to Trump. She wrote on X last year that she’d asked the president if my story was true. “Trump told me it was false. That was a lie.”

When I spoke to Farah, who is now known as Alyssa Farah Griffin, this week, she said, “I understood that people were skeptical about the ‘suckers and losers’ story, and I was in the White House pushing back against it. But he said this to John Kelly’s face, and I fundamentally, absolutely believe that John Kelly is an honorable man who served our country and who loves and respects our troops. I’ve heard Donald Trump speak in a dehumanizing way about so many groups. After working for him in 2020 and hearing his continuous attacks on service members since that time, including my former boss General Mark Milley, I firmly and unequivocally believe General Kelly’s account.”

(Pfeiffer, the Trump spokesperson, said, in response, “Alyssa is a scorned former employee now lying in her pursuit to chase liberal adulation. President Trump would never insult our nation’s heroes.”)

Last year, I published a story in this magazine about Milley that coincided with the end of his four-year term. In it, I detailed his tumultuous relationship with Trump. Milley had resisted Trump’s autocratic urges, and also argued against his many thoughtless and impetuous national-security impulses. Shortly after that story appeared, Trump publicly suggested that Milley be executed for treason. This astonishing statement caused John Kelly to speak publicly about Trump and his relationship to the military. Kelly, who had previously called Trump “the most flawed person I have ever met in my life,” told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump had referred to American prisoners of war as “suckers” and described as “losers” soldiers who died while fighting for their country.

“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly asked. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs, are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family—for all Gold Star families—on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”

When we spoke this week, Kelly told me, “President Trump used the terms suckers and losers to describe soldiers who gave their lives in the defense of our country. There are many, many people who have heard him say these things. The visit to France wasn’t the first time he said this.”

Kelly and others have taken special note of the revulsion Trump feels in the presence of wounded veterans. After Trump attended a Bastille Day parade in France, he told Kelly and others that he would like to stage his own parade in Washington, but without the presence of wounded veterans. “I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.”

Milley also witnessed Trump’s disdain for the wounded. Milley had chosen a severely wounded Army captain, Luis Avila, to sing “God Bless America” at his installation ceremony in 2019. Avila, who had completed five combat tours, had lost a leg in an improvised-explosive-device attack in Afghanistan, and had suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage as a result of his injuries. Avila is considered a hero up and down the ranks of the Army.

It had rained earlier on the day of the ceremony, and the ground was soft; at one point Avila’s wheelchair almost toppled over. Milley’s wife, Holly­anne, ran to help Avila, as did then–Vice President Mike Pence. After Avila’s performance, Trump walked over to congratulate him, but then said to Milley, within earshot of several witnesses, “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.” Never let Avila appear in public again, Trump told Milley.

An equally serious challenge to Milley’s sense of duty came in the form of Trump’s ignorance of the rules of war. In November 2019, Trump intervened in three different brutality cases then being adjudicated by the military. In the most infamous case, the Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher had been found guilty of posing with the corpse of an ISIS member. Though Gallagher was found not guilty of murder, witnesses testified that he’d stabbed the prisoner in the neck with a hunting knife. In a highly unusual move, Trump reversed the Navy’s decision to demote him. A junior Army officer named Clint Lorance was also the recipient of Trump’s sympathy. Trump pardoned Lorance, who had been convicted of ordering the shooting of three unarmed Afghans, two of whom died. And in a third case, a Green Beret named Mathew Golsteyn was accused of killing an unarmed Afghan he thought was a Taliban bomb maker. “I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state,” Trump said at a Florida rally.

In the Gallagher case, Trump intervened to allow Gallagher to keep his Trident insignia, one of the most coveted insignia in the entire U.S. military. The Navy’s leadership found this intervention particularly offensive because tradition held that only a commanding officer or a group of SEALs on a Trident Review Board were supposed to decide who merited being a SEAL. Milley tried to convince Trump that his intrusion was hurting Navy morale. They were flying from Washington to Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, to attend a “dignified transfer,” a repatriation ceremony for fallen service members, when Milley tried to explain to Trump the damage that his interventions were doing.

In my story, I reported that Milley said, “Mr. President, you have to understand that the SEALs are a tribe within a larger tribe, the Navy. And it’s up to them to figure out what to do with Gallagher. You don’t want to intervene. This is up to the tribe. They have their own rules that they follow.”

Trump called Gallagher a hero and said he didn’t understand why he was being punished.

“Because he slit the throat of a wounded prisoner,” Milley said.

“The guy was going to die anyway,” Trump said.

Milley answered, “Mr. President, we have military ethics and laws about what happens in battle. We can’t do that kind of thing. It’s a war crime.” Trump said he didn’t understand “the big deal.” He went on, “You guys”—meaning combat soldiers—“are all just killers. What’s the difference?”

Milley then summoned one of his aides, a combat-veteran SEAL officer, to the president’s Air Force One office. Milley took hold of the Trident pin on the SEAL’s chest and asked him to describe its importance. The aide explained to Trump that, by tradition, only SEALs can decide, based on assessments of competence and character, whether one of their own should lose his pin. But the president’s mind was not changed. Gallagher kept his pin.

One day, in the first year of Trump’s presidency, I had lunch with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, in his White House office. I turned the discussion, as soon as I could, to the subject of his father-in-law’s character. I mentioned one of Trump’s recent outbursts and told Kushner that, in my opinion, the president’s behavior was damaging to the country. I cited, as I tend to do, what is in my view Trump’s original sin: his mockery of John McCain’s heroism.

This is where our conversation got strange, and noteworthy. Kushner answered in a way that made it seem as though he agreed with me. “No one can go as low as the president,” he said. “You shouldn’t even try.”

I found this baffling for a moment. But then I understood: Kushner wasn’t insulting his father-in-law. He was paying him a compliment. In Trump’s mind, traditional values—values including those embraced by the armed forces of the United States having to do with honor, self-sacrifice, and integrity—have no merit, no relevance, and no meaning."

Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and the moderator of Washington Week With The Atlantic.

[cherry15329]

After several Ace Attorney polls, here are the voting results of the most popular judge, defense attorney, prosecutor, detective and female assistant! Thank you so much for voting👍🏻🤘🏻👏🏻✌🏻!

Judge: The Honorable Judge (aka Udgey)

Defense Attorney: Apollo Justice

Prosecutor: Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth

Detective: Detective Richard 'Dick' Gumshoe

Female Assistant: Maya Fey, Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique and head of the Fey clan

[princesssarisa]

Snow White and domestic work

I have plenty of misgivings about Snow White (2025), but I do think some of the venom being hurled at it is slightly over the top.

For example, the way some people on the Internet have lost their minds over the trailer's one-second clip that shows Snow White dancing and singing "Whistle While You Work" while the dwarfs clean the house around her.

Suddenly everyone has decided that the new Snow White is nasty, lazy spoiled brat who forces the dwarfs to do the cleaning. And maybe she will be, for all I know. But maybe some people are jumping to conclusions: the clip in the trailer is barely a second long. I'm sure that in the full scene, Snow White will pitch in and do her share of the cleaning too. Secondly, it's nothing new for the dwarfs and Snow White to clean the house together. The 1955 West German film version has a long sequence where they do just that.

Obviously the Disney remake has made this change in the name of "feminism," and I can imagine it being handled in an annoying, ham-fisted way, which makes Snow White seem like an entitled brat who's unwilling to repay the dwarfs' kindness by working. But at the same time... isn't it slightly valid? Countless women are burdened by the fact that their husbands, boyfriends, or other male housemates view housework as "woman's work" and don't do their share. Statistics show that even women with full-time jobs still do most of the housework at home too. Is it really so bad for a family movie to speak out against this tradition and show male and female housemates doing their housework together?

Of course the backlash is all part of the current postmodern trend of defending traditionally feminine characters from all the detractors who label them "anti-feminist," and arguing that they really are positive, empowering role models. That's all well and good, but sometimes I think the defenses go too far – they sometimes seem to deny that there's anything outdated about these characters' portrayals, and cry "Internalized Misogyny," "Girlboss," "Not Like Other Girls," etc. any time a heroine rebels even slightly against gender conformity. Sometimes it feels as if postmodern feminism wants all women back in the kitchen.

I've written about this issue in Snow White before, but I'll do it again. Both of the above statements can be true:

(1) A heroine who cooks and cleans isn't "anti-feminist" in the least. These are essential chores, regardless of gender, and demeaning them does no good to anyone. In the case of Snow White, she doesn't just do domestic work because she's female. The dwarfs do her an immense kindness by letting her live with them, not only because she's another mouth to feed, but because she's a fugitive whom the country's evil and powerful Queen wants dead; as Grumpy points out in the Disney version, the dwarfs are risking their own safety by hiding her. It's only natural and right that she should repay them in some way, and since she has no money, the best thing she can give them is work. They dig in the mine all day, with little time to clean or cook too, so it makes sense that she should do those chores for them; it's a fair and reasonable division of labor, with the dwarfs as the breadwinners while Snow White takes care of the house, even if it is traditionally gendered. The fact that she's willing to work shows her good character, especially since she's a princess, yet humble enough to keep house for seven peasant dwarfs. And in the Disney version, cleaning and cooking are the chief skills she knows, because her stepmother has denied her a traditional royal upbringing and forced her to work as a scullery maid. Yet not only does she not let this oppression break her spirit, she turns it to her advantage by offering her domestic skills in exchange for a new home.

(2) Snow White's cleaning and cooking don't exist in a vacuum. By putting so much emphasis on the domestic work she does for the dwarfs, both the Brothers Grimm and Disney were portraying her as an ideal female by the patriarchal standards of their day. And those standards are outdated. Heroines of today shouldn't have to cook and clean to be considered role models. Nor should children be taught that cooking and cleaning are "woman's work," or that a girl who lives in a house full of men should automatically be the one who does all the housework. In a modern reimagining of Snow White, it's valid to want to downplay her domestic work, or to portray the dwarfs as helping her around the house – which they've already done in versions from as early as 1955.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Reckoner: Final Part

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.3k

Summary: Your world is turned upside down when you get in trouble for something you didn't even do. The entire team is in uproar over this but Hotch says he will take care of it. Can he? Or are you doomed to live out the rest of your days in misery?

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

Thankfully, the team has the current case to keep them occupied so they don't think about you, but Spencer doesn't have that outlet. He's stuck in Penelope's office forced to think about you, what you might be going through, how you must be feeling, and how he can't do anything about it. He's bouncing his leg up and down rapidly because his anxiety is spiking. He would bite his nails if they hadn't already been bitten down to the nub.

"Spence, why don't you take a walk? I'm sure it'll do good to clear your head," Penelope suggests.

"No, thanks."

She sighs and turns back to the computer screens before calling Rossi. She's been working hard on her end to try and figure out who The Planner is.

"What do you have?" Rossi answers.

"I've concentrated on the last three cases because they left the freshest e-prints. However, over a hundred thousand cases pass through the Long Island Court."

"Who had eyes on the files?"

"Literally hundreds of people."

"Change track. Focus on The Enforcer. Look at mob-related murder trials on Long Island over the last ten years. We're looking for a hitman."

Penelope types quickly and comes up with a shorter list, albeit still long.

"There are over ninety-three mob trials in the last ten years."

"Put aside any trials that resulted in a conviction. Weed out mistrials and arraignments."

"Nineteen."

"Were any of those on trial suspected of being hitmen or enforcers?"

"Three, but I got something else here. Tony Mecacci's case was judged a mistrial but check out his suspected victim."

She sends over the file immediately so they can look it over. His victims are the same as the team's current victims. All were shot in the same style as the ones on the file.

".22 caliber, right?"

"Bulls-eye."

"Cross-match our profile of The Planner against all those connected with this trial."

Penelope continues to type as she speaks.

"Let's see here. We have prosecuting lawyer Garret Daniels, Judge Boyd Schuller, criminal defense lawyer Paul--"

"Wait, did you say Judge Shuller?" Rossi cuts her off.

"Yeah, I'm sending over a photo."

Rossi waits for the photo to come through so he can confirm whether or not he knows this person. He does.

"What's wrong?" Hotch asks. "Do you know him?"

"No, but I knew his wife. Two years ago, she was driving home from work and was killed by a drunk driver."

"That could be the tragedy."

"She was the love of his life, that's for sure."

Penelope digs into the Judge's life to see what kind of dirty secrets he has.

"Twelve months ago, Judge Shuller took a leave of absence due to health issues. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He has six months to live. That's when the killings started."

"You don't seriously think Judge--"

"Judge Schuller is the planner. Yes, I do," Rossi cuts off the detective. "It fits the profile, and Tony Mecacci is most likely Bosola the Enforcer. What have you got on Bosola?"

"He went off the grid after his last trial," Penelope answers.

"JJ put out a statewide APB and release Mecacci's photo to the media," Hotch orders, and she leaves to do it.

"Judge Schuller's a highly-respected man. We can't just walk in there and accuse him of serial murder."

"Then I'll go to the attorney general and petition the Chief Justice if I have to."

Rossi looks behind Hotch to see Judge Schuller walk right into the police station as if he knew the team was talking about him.

"Maybe not."

"I believe you're looking for me," the Judge says.

Judge Schuller is taken to an interrogation room to be questioned by Rossi and Derek.

"You know we have to advise you of your rights," Derek says and sits across from him.

"I waive my constitutional rights against self-incrimination."

"When you walked in here, you said, 'I believe you're looking for me'."

"Yes."

"Your timing was impeccable, but how could you know that?"

"I knew it wouldn't take you long to find me. Not after what I've left behind."

"So, you don't deny any of this?" Derek asks.

"Why would I? What you see as a crime, I see as justice."

"Ray Finnegan was a friend of mine," Rossi glares.

"Ray Finnegan was a criminal. You should choose your friends more wisely."

"It must have really thrown you when Ray showed up at Emma's funeral."

This pisses Judge Schuller off, and he slams his hands angrily onto the table.

"How do you know about my wife?"

"You have absolutely no idea who I am, do you?"

Ray told Rossi that everyone only meets Bosola once. That means Judge Schuller had to have given Bosola a list of names. He would never have to meet him again, just to make final payments on proof of death which he can send electronically. If anyone can get into Schuller's personal files and financial record, it would be Penelope. She has to do it quickly before everything gets shut down.

Detective Gill made a call to Schuller's office a few hours ago and told them they had two suspects, which means he knows what the police know. Schuller knows the FBI is onto him, which means he didn't come here for a confession. He has a list, and there is more to come.

He came here to stall.

"Can we just get on with what I came here for?" Judge Schuller sighs.

"Why? So Bosola can go on and carry on whatever it is you asked him to do? No. You call him and you end this," Derek says.

"Even if I could, I wouldn't."

"She was born Emma Louise Taylor on the 4th of July, 1958," Rossi reminisces.

"You could get that from anywhere," Schuller glares at Rossi.

"When she was six, her dad bought her a black and white homeless kitten."

"No, if she knew you, she would have told me."

"She named it Oscar," Rossi continues, "after Oscar Wilde. Out of all of Oscar's work, she loved an ideal husband the most."

The judge is getting angrier by the minute the longer Rossi talks about his wife.

"I don't know how you know all of this about Emma or what you hope to achieve, but we're done. You know the charges. Charge me."

"Is that what started all this insanity? Emma's death?"

"What started all of this was the thirty-five years I had to sit and watch as the system I swore an oath to protect failed the very people our justice system was meant to protect!"

"I wonder what Emma would make of all this."

"Every single person on that list deserves justice, and it's justice they managed to evade," Schuller shouts.

"So, you do have a list?" Rossi smirks.

"I'm finished talking."

Rossi and Derek continue to work over Judge Schuller while Emily is in another room talking to Penelope over video chat. Spencer isn't in the room because she managed to convince him to take a lap or two around the building to clear his head or try to.

"Hey, where's Spence? How is he doing?" Emily asks when she notices the lack of Spencer's presence.

"He's not doing too good. He doesn't have the hands-on work like you guys have to keep him distracted. It's killing him knowing Y/N's in jail for something she didn't do."

"Yeah, I know. It's hard on us, too. We don't talk about it but I know we're all thinking about it. Hotch will fix it once we're back, I know it."

"Yeah, me too."

"So, what did you find out about Judge Schuller?"

"We've got loads of two-way traffic going on, which means someone is trying to bounce us out."

"Okay, Bosola doesn't come cheap, so Judge Schuller had to have made some pretty substantial transactions."

"I've got wire transfers to a Cayman Island bank, and that's where the trace ends."

"How many and how much?"

"In June, he debits numerations of nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine dollars every few days four separate times. Then, he takes a break for a few weeks until he makes his final transaction for the same magic number. Anything less than ten thousand dollars keeps the IRS off your trail."

"So, the final payment must be for proof of death. That makes fifty-thousand dollars the price of a kill."

"He did that three times over a period of twelve months, but two days ago, he raised his account for a hundred thousand dollars all in one hit. He also closed all his accounts and handed his entire estate over to a victim's support group." Penelope gasps in shock and groans in frustration. "Someone who isn't suffering from too many brainiacs in the high-tech kitchen just bounced us out."

"Good job," Emily praises and hangs up. She returns to Hotch to tell him her findings. "If our calculations are correct, there are two more names on that list."

"There are."

Hotch replays the footage from the interrogation from when Emily was on the phone with Penelope.

"Every single person on that list deserves justice," Judge Schuller says and looks at his watch yet again.

"He said deserves, not deserved. Look right there. He looks at his watch for the second time. Whatever he's waiting for is about to happen."

"I don't think you knew Emma at all," Rossi continues to antagonize him. "At least not the one I knew. I made an excuse for myself that I wouldn't be welcome at her funeral. The truth is, I couldn't face it."

"You knowing Emma changes nothing."

"Oh, but it does. Emma changed the lives of everyone she knew, but at least Ray and I saw her death for what it truly was--a tragic accident."

"Dan Patton was drunk. He murdered Emma as surely as if he put a gun to her head!" Judge Schuller yells.

"Is that why his photo's not here? You're saving the best for last? How many other people have you targeted? I want the truth."

"I have nothing more to say."

"I do. I ran into Emma a few years ago at a hotel in Manhattan. I was working on a case and so was she. I knew she was married, but I didn't care."

Judge Schuller knows what Rossi is implying and he refuses to accept that his wife was cheating on him.

"No, she wouldn't... Emma would not do that to me. You're lying."

"Am I?"

"I want the truth."

"You first."

The Judge sighs knowing he's cornered and decides to give it up.

"Dan Patton is the last one. There are no more. Now, tell me the truth."

"That night in Manhattan, she told me our connection was so strong that it could never happen only once, and I was fine with that."

Rossi leaves with a smirk on his face, and the judge is shocked. He shakes his head and looks at Derek who is still seated.

"At least you now know what kind of man you're working with."

"What kind of man are you?"

"I've had enough of seeing the guilty walk free of their sins."

"What about your sins?"

"I got cancer for mine."

Emily, Hotch, and Detective Gil went to Dan's apartment after checking the police department he works for. Turns out Bosola got to him before the FBI could. They found him with two bullet holes, one in the heart and one in the head, but also beaten to death. Bosola is nowhere to be found because he killed him and left immediately after like a professional hitman.

There's no way Bosola is getting off Long Island since the FBI has all ports, roads, and airports guarded to make sure he doesn't get away. Judge Schuller is being moved somewhere safer because he is a high-court judge, which makes this a federal case now. The FBI is taking over this one before more people get killed. If Dan is dead, then the judge's list is complete.

However, something isn't adding up.

The Judge gave away his entire estate and all his money, and he closed out his accounts and paid off his utility bills. He has cancer but he has six months left to live. Why would he pay off his bills now and give away everything he owns? Not to mention the one hundred thousand dollar payment for not one but two more kills. If Dan was killed, then there should be one more.

Usually, the judge waits for confirmation of death before sending the payment, but he knew he wasn't going to be around to see this last proof of death. He sent everything over because he was not making it ten feet out of the police station.

Bosola has one more kill to make before moving on to another client, and it's Judge Schuller himself. With a crowd of reporters and a bunch of bystanders, it's easy for him to blend into the crowd. He managed to shoot Schuller in the heart and escape without anyone seeing him.

Case closed. With that major distraction out of the way, everyone is now focused on you and your situation. No one has said a word or talked about it since Hotch arrived in Long Island, but he's been making calls since getting on the plane to figure out what he can do to help you out.

The first person to get back to him is the lawyer that your dad snagged for you. He got ahold of his contact information and asked nicely to be let into the loop since he is your boss.

"Steven? Did you hear anything?" Everyone knows what Hotch is talking about so they stop what they're doing and listen to his side of the conversation. Hotch looks visibly upset which isn't a good sign. "Are you sure? ... There's nothing you can do for her? ... What about bail? ... Is there anything I can do? ... Okay. I appreciate you calling me. Thanks."

"What did he say?" Derek is the first to ask.

Hotch looks down and tries to keep the anger and frustration off his face as much as he can. When he feels he's neutral, he looks up and addresses the team.

"Y/N is being transferred to Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland awaiting trial and bail. He said they have everything they need to convict her, and it's not looking good. Whoever did this really wants her to suffer for it."

Everyone is sent into silence because no one can believe this.

"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruit than strict justice." - Abraham Lincoln

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Shiryn Ghermezian

Celebrities who have regularly expressed anti-Israel sentiments since the start of the Israel-Hamas war stayed quiet on Wednesday in response to a heart-wrenching new video that shows the moments when five female Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, John Cusack, and Bella Hadid were among the celebrities who stayed tight-lipped as the world saw the newly released, firsthand footage in which Hamas terrorists force the female Israeli soldiers, who are covered in blood, against a wall and threaten to kill them. The women, some of whom are teenagers, were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists at the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip. The video was taken by body cameras on the Hamas terrorists and the hostages were identified as Naama Levy, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa, Liri Albag, and Karina Ariev. They have been held hostage by Hamas terrorists for more than seven months.

In the clip, Hamas terrorists are heard telling the hostages in Arabic, “you dogs, we will step on you,” and “our brothers died because of you. We will shoot you all.” They also call the women “so beautiful,” and one terrorist points to the hostages while saying in Arabic, “here are the girls” who can get pregnant and “these are the Zionists.”

Instead of addressing the new Hamas video, Ruffalo — who supports a Israel-Hamas ceasefire and has condemned Israel’s war against terrorists responsible for the Oct. 7 attacks — instead expressed support on Wednesday for the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and his demand for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s defense minister, and three Hamas leaders.

Meanwhile, Cusack called Israel “war criminals” and shared a tweet that described the Jewish state as “genocidal,” but made no mention of the Hamas video.

Among the pro-Israel supporters who have used their social media platforms to draw attention to the video, actresses Amy Schumer and Emmanuelle Chriqui shared on their Instagram stories a post that lists the names of the five female hostages in the clip and the message “bring them home now.”

[thequeer07puss]

Apollo, Leto, Hera and Zeus: a story of dragons, families, reputation and politics

The Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo presents a pretty cool story about the Most Greek of the Greek Gods, He who shoots the Silver Bow, the god Apollo, whose birth is recounted in the hymn whose main characters act in a complicated theological, familial and political web. The gods and the monster are part of the complex game of politics and wit that the chief gods like to play, and each one of them has their set of cards to play.

Leto and Apollo: Devoted Mother and Beloved Son

Apollo is chronologically Leto’s second child, born on the island of Delos, which is (depending on who you ask) also the body of her sister Asteria, who turned into an island to escape the advances of the King of the gods. The place of birth of the baby god places Leto’s delivery under a strictly familial context and the protection of every matron figures in his life, since even his sister Artemis is said to have helped to bring him to the light. Leto did everything she could in order to be able to give birth to her children, travelling to every island of mainland Greece to look for a suitable place. The relationship between Leto and her son is one of deep love and devotion, the same one that brought him into the world, and the one that he would defend with all his divine strength.

Apollo and Zeus: Mirrored lineages and Decked Destinies

Apollo’s story is almost a perfect mirror of Zeus. Their stories are eerily similar when put in juxtaposition. Both of them are the sons of the almighty ruler of the universe, born in difficult circumstances, with Zeus being born at risk of being eaten by Kronos and Apollo being born under Hera’s restriction, who grow up to have a large number of both male and female lovers and become beloved by the Ancient Greeks who build them a lot of temples, one of them being famous for an oracle (Dodona for Zeus, Delphi for Apollo). These two gods cement their power by defeating a monster with whom the goddess Hera has a link with (Typhon and the Dragoness to whom Hera have Typhon to be raised by, as well as to chase the pregnant Leto). However, one element is missing from this almost perfect copy of the King of the gods: Apollo never succeeds his father by the classic overthrowing myth of the succession cycle, both because of the fact that Zeus reigns supreme over the universe and is its definitive leader, but also because of Hera’s meddling (I’ll discuss that later). As a result, Apollo is an imperfect mirror of his father, a reflection but not a twin of Zeus, and as such he does not get to make decrees over the whims of fate like Zeus Moiragetes, but instead merely speaks his prophetic will and gets most of his prophetic powers from him.

Hera and Leto: Political Rivals in the Succession Game

Leto was Zeus’s sixth wife, the one that came just before Hera, yet she conceived her children after her separation from Zeus, a feat which would make any former queen proud that she had not been left behind and is still desirable enough for the king to grant her favour, and would allow her a special place within his heart, a place special enough for her to get privileges and share some of them for her children. This almost concubinal relationship between Zeus and Leto is a direct threat to Hera’s rank as sole queen and equal of Zeus, which led her to prevent Leto from getting the privileges she could get if she ever had children, as it would tie her to Zeus’s household forever, as well as make him feel more kindly towards any children they may sire by forbidding her from giving birth anywhere in mainland Greece, making the relationship between Hera and Leto seem to be more akin to political rivalry and defense of her title than just plain jealousy which people usually associate with Hera.

Hera and Apollo: Branded Forevermore

Apollo, the mirror of Zeus, the beloved son of Leto, was born from a loophole in Hera’s decree, and probably the best possible god to designate as an heir for Zeus. However, the birth of this very important and powerful deity is a direct threat to Hera’s position, as Zeus may choose to look more kindly upon him and his mother than her and her children, which is the exact same reason as to which she cursed Leto in the first place. Through the trial and humiliation of being rejected by every place on earth attached to the sea floor and having the previous wife of Zeus give birth on a barren rocky island while simultaneously being ruthlessly chased by a monster, Leto is publicly declared obsolete by Hera and any children that may come by her and Zeus is immediately branded as illegitimate, a blazing and painful reminder of the one whom Zeus chose to share his bed with and of the definitive queen with divine prerogatives that entitle her to declare who enters Olympus or not. Apollo enters Olympus eventually, but not before slaying the monster sent by Hera to hunt down his mother and raise the dreaded Typhon who would serve as the ultimate challenge to Zeus’s rule, effectively taking revenge on him for the transgression that was the lone birth of Athena, and reaffirming his power in that special way only she knows.