#he's called post 10 it's fucking amazing

[ialwaysknewyouwerepunk]

watching a guy on youtube unclog drains. minimal editing, just a dude and his rake in a pair of rubber boots.... the rush of the fucking water as it's set free...... whirlpools in street gutters. haven't felt this relaxed in weeks

[lovscb97]

bang chan recs (18+)

key: !!! = personal favourite, s = smut, f = fluff, a = angst

add. notes: hai :3 i know i said i would make a skz recs list but the minute i scrolled thru my likes n started saving from chan onwards, i realised i had Too many recommended fics for him (this list is like 40 fics/drabbles long....) so i decided to just make member separate posts instead!!! i tried not to have repeats of authors to give u guys a broader scope to choose from n also sorry in advance that i yapped so much abt them it's just like . these r my all time fav authors so it's expected. anyways i hope u guys love these works as much as i do bcs they r from some of my absolute fav creators n plz give them lots of love n always make sure to appreciate these ppl <3

. . .

hopelessly devoted to you — @changbunnies (!!!, s, a?)

this was literally a 11/10 fic like i am not even joking rn. i luv greaser chan n even tho he messed up, the way he makes it up to mc is so so soooo sweet. the fact that he's so gone n pussydrunk while eating her out, the sweetness in how he holds her n fucks her is all too mindnumbing n i hope u continue writing bcs u r amazing at it!! i will always come back 2 this when i need a pick me up fr

2. bad idea — @hyunsvngs (!!!, s)

JUNOOOOO my lovely baby.... i adore u n all ur work always but this fic. This Fic. it changed the trajectory of my life. like not even kidding but i was a different person when i started reading this n when i finished it i was Changed. life is worth living now, the grass is greener n the birds always sing 2 me which i firmly believe is bcs of u n this beautiful yummy fic. i fucking LOVE stepdad chan sm like there's smth so gross n nasty abt fucking ur mom's bf n even tho mc is a menace, i still loved it. never stop doing what u do!!!

3. 1095 days — @luvyeni (s)

EX INMATE CHAN RAHHHHH!! i have akshewally been following ur work for so long n i LOVE!! the way u write :3 thank u for always churning out ur work so fast n being so good at what u do. im obv a sucker for daddy kink considering i eat it up every time n it's so fucking good i love how chan cares for mc n the way he gives it to her once he's back. mark my words i will EAT this man up n this fic whenever i stumble across it

4. milk and honey — @straykeedz (s, f, a?)

user straykeedz u have to stop... ur work too addicting n perfect.. ur depiction of chan too real n crazy (/pos)... they're gonna get u... but seriously i love bffs2lovers so bad n the way u always characterise chan n make him call mc so many cute pet names melts my heart :( i've also been following U for a long time n even tho everything u write is so so soooo good, this has to be one of my faves alongside ur inexperienced chan fic. i hope u don't pressure urself too much to update n jus do what u have to do :D

5. my wife — @chrizzztopherbang (s, f)

ngl i Think this is my first fic from u cus i followed u bcs of it n that's a given honestly cus newly turned husband chan?? eating his wife out metres away from his friends n family on the other side of the door n fucking her within an inch of her life right after they're pronounced husband n wife?? i love it i loved their bickering over who's a pervert n i just love the idea of mc finally calling the love of her life hers forever. i hope they r always happy alongside u

6. sweet nothing — @frenchkisstheabyss (!!!, s, f, a)

this fic actually changed me as a person too not even kidding. i EAT UP exes to lovers n the portrayal of it was so good here bcs there's so much unspoken tension between the two n then chan begging mc to not leave again n her promising she won't bcs all she wants to do is be his at last?? AWOOGAAAAA i need him so bad it's jinja michin (i am so cringe sorry..) ANYWAYS!! i hope u know tattoo artist + ex bangchan is a crazy combo n that the makeup sex was HOT HOT HOT!!! plz keep writing i adore u <3

7. pick you up — @moonchild9350 (!!!, s)

see idk if this is tmi but sex where ure being picked up n fucked is downright nasty in the best possible way n i fear i need to get railed like that by chan so u writing abt is literally u making my fantasies come true. this fic was a delicious mix of cute w chan telling mc he only works out so he can pick her up (based off of his bbl texts obv) n hot w him Actually fucking her within an inch of her life. i love all ur work tee bee eich so keep doing what ur doing!!!

8. spring has sprung — @cbini (!!!, f, s)

miss ems where do i even begin with u.. (u probably Do Not Know me but i know u smirk emoji. soz that was weird erm but ya i am the binnie anon who said u deserve changbin LOLZ) this fic was the perfect mix of cuteness w raw passionate fucking i love the idea of chan getting hard bcs ur dressed so preciously in a pretty dress i think it's rooted somewhere in his slight corruption kink which comes out def when u r all dolled up for him. anyways u never miss n i hope u know that <3

9. walking in on rooomate!chan / pt. 2 — @kacciidubs (!!!, s, f)

going 2 be very honest here i do not even remember what happened in part 1 bcs part 2 of this roommate chan fic actually blew my mind away like Seriously user kacciidubs u r insane!!! all ur work never misses n i am always so eager whenever u post bcs i've been following u n loving everything u put out for so long. ofc ur chan work is my favourite as u can tell but this fic... this fic was crazy the switch between daddy n sir oh my god what if i cream my pants rn. plz never stop writing <3

10. last nerve / pt. 2 — @cb97percent (!!!, s)

user cb97percent let me just preface this by saying whatever u write is INSANE. like i already knew u were a great writer but this fic? changed me as a person not even joking rn. the way mc n chan banter n how chan's an asshole who is pissed off how he can't get it up anymore unless he fucks mc is so funny n how the raw passion between them results in the best sex Ever. n ofc the ending w minho took me out n Yea i just . i have no words plz never stop writing to u as well

11. hush — @petrichor-han (s)

sucker for exhibitionism n sucker for chan so what better way to comemorate this occasion than by reading abt it? this entire scenario was so hot like honestly i can totally imagine chan's bitchass doing this bcs he's so cheeky in nature he would lose himself from the thrill of almost getting caught. u r amazing as always thank u for churning out so much content for kinktober may god or whoever u believe in bless u with eternal inspiration

12. daddy!chan helping you shave — @hyunjins-orange-slice-too (!!!, s, f)

i sent u an ask already talking abt how much i love u n everything u write but THIS. this made me weak in the knees bcs i have imagined this very scenario so many times if im being brutally honest. there's smth so sweet n domestic abt the act of helping ur partner shave n with daddy chan in the mix? kill me now plz. the way he asks if he can play w mc once he's done n how he sternly instructs her to be safe like omgkjdfjhjdfgjhhjg need him in ways that give the pits of hell a run for its money w how hot n nasty im abt to be fr

13. one last time — @baby-yongbok (!!!, s, a?)

like i said, i am a sucker for the exes to lovers pipeline alongside husband chan so while this isn't Either of those things entirely it still scratches the itch in my brain very very well. the way mc n chan exchange snarky remarks n how chan only says he's satisfied once they're done fucking OHHHH MYYYYY GODDDD... need this man carnally like i would dump him just so he can fuck me the way he fucked mc in this fr (that is a lie we r locked in 4 life). u r brilliant as always i always look forward to ur work so next time u r questioning if this is worth it just know lovscb97 on tumblr has ur back fr

14. chan ask drabble #1 — @skzms (s)

maymay.. my eternal luvr... the genius behind smrsmf minsung... ofc u were bound to eat this up n end up on this list. idgaf if it's just an ask answer or drabble bcs the way u write is so . so Elegant. i love how u always use ur words to describe the emotion lingering between ppl in love n the way u do it here w chan n mc, the way he reassures her afterwards n how he promises her he'll give her everything later while fucking his fingers into her ohhhh mannnn.. i can just imagine him in his suit thank u for bringing the vision to life fr

15. you're right, baby — @chlorinecake (s, f)

soft dom chan who is ur fiancé fucking u n claiming u bcs he's a lil pouty that u forgot ur ring?? n then going so far to say he'll cum in u to make sure everyone knows who u belong to?? RAHHHHHH HE NEEDS ME!!! this was written so deliciously i loved the way mc n chan cared for each other n also the ending was so cute LOLZ hope they r happy in every universe n that their wedding goes great fr u r an awesome writer user chlorinecake

16. silence — @valkyriexo (s, a)

make up sex make up sex make up sex!!! i love it so good even tho it hurts so bad when mc realises chan forgot to show up :( but the fact that he makes it up to her by begging her to not leave him n making her cum as many times on his tongue as possible for her to forgive him?? INSANITY!! the longing in their eyes n words n actions from how much they've missed e/o when he finally touches mc n oh man.. u ate this up

17. corruption — @goquokka00 (s)

STEPBRO CHAN RAHHHHH i am a sucker for him (in more ways than one iygwim eheheh.. soz) i loved the sinister blackmail u added into the story n how he fucked mc bcs of her bad grades by making up some shit excuse abt learning how to please someone like y/n u can't be this dense girl!!! (i'd do it too if he asked me #Tbh) ANYWAYS. idk how this didn't have more notes bcs it was hot asfk i hope u keep writing more stuff to come :3

18. chef's kiss — @hyuniepies (s, f)

the tenderness of mc n chan's love mixed w the nasty dirty talk ohhhh hyuniepies u r a GENIUS!! this is exactly how i imagine domestic life w chan would be like; him coming back home to u cooking a dinner n then fucking u absolutely silly on the countertop bcs he just can't wait after getting a look at ur figure n bcs he's missed u so much. i too would be obsessed w bangchan if (read: when) he becomes my husband teehee

19. chan ask drabble #2 — @miupow (!!!, s)

USER MIUPOW UR FUCKING BRAIN!! HOW DO U CARRY SUCH A HUGE BRAIN IN UR HEAD!!! DOES UR BACK NOT HURT FROM HOLDING UP THE DELICIOUS IDEAS OF BCHAN SIZE KINK!!! like i told u yst i love ur writing n i love U so bad. u always eat w every request or idea u come up with n i absolutely adore that for u i hope u truly never stop writing bcs u have a serious gift n i hope ppl keep telling u that constantly bcs i sure as hell will <3

20. pretty mouth of yours — @jeongin-lvr (s, f)

need to give chan head like . Yesterday. but OHHHH MEINNNN GOTTTT fiancé channie w mc sucking him off so pretty u know exactly what im a sucker for u dont u user jeongin-lvr? ur writing is tooooooo good i swear i have read so much of ur work n granted this is one of my fave chan works from u icl i love the jeongin ones even more but i'll add those to my innie recs list later :3 ANYWAYS!! plz never stop writing u r awesomesauce (cringe.) n i love u hope u r having a great day today

21. daddy issues — @hwan-g (!!!, s, a)

HELLO THIS FUCKING FICCCCC... it is so good so delicious so fucking beautifully written that it brought tears to my eyes no joke. i still remember the first time i stumbled across it n like wow.. i think i dmed u on my side reading account too to express how much i liked it bcs i rly Did like it truly was a piece of art n sometimes i can't believe ppl like u just write stuff like this for free?? u should be getting paid good money bcs all ur work ALWAYS eats <3

22. closing the distance / pt. 2 — @thefantasyden (s, f)

ik long distance relationships r tough n it's awful when u can't spend time w each other physically or touch either but hear me out . it would Not suck w chan bcs he'd do everything for u the way he does everything for mc in this fic. from how he shows up n is too nervy to kiss her to them finally touching each other for the first time n then she moves back to him?? ohhhh man i love love n i love U for making this ur work always eats n trust that i'll always come back to this fic when i need to rmb how much i love chan

23. riding chan's thigh/knees — @faeryacha (!!!, s, f)

i love daddy chan so bad im sorry im not even gonna hide it anymore n i love the way he was written here too, from the way he asks if mc wants to play to the way he has her fuck herself on him to get herself off like i'm not even into little space like that but the minute he refers to himself as daddy n speaks to me all soft n protective im on my knees on the floor ready to suck him off like my life depends on it. u ate so bad w this plz continue doing more amazing work in the future!!!

24. steamy desires — @notsoangels (s)

shower sex w chan mngnghfhghgh.. need him so bad id let him fuck me anywhere as he pleases but in the shower?? w the hot water cascading over us w just us in our little world like omgomgomg NEED. i love the simplicity in ur writing too n how it paints a picture in my mind bcs i can vividly imagine all of this happening like him making u squirt on his cock n then rinsing u off so u can spend time wrapped up with each other on the bed like plz. One chance plz.

25. the fuckboy next door — @seospicybin (!!!, s, a)

miss seospicybin.. how do u always do it? how do u always come out w the most mindbreaking jawdropping amazing insane array of fics without even breaking a sweat like hello? this series is so fucking good from the smut to the angst that hurts so good. i love the development of the plot n that chan tries So hard to be true to mc so he can be w her n the way she tells him to do it for himself like :( they deserve each other sm i am very much looking forward to part 4!!!

26. pussydrunk chan — @aeliuss (s, f)

mngngngngjghgh i love pussydrunk chan so bad n i love the idea of him being so infatuated w mc that he just Had to drag her away n eat her out. i also love that he's there to support her in the end n how turned on he gets from her just being herself like that is a real man!!! n the way it's so reflective of how chan is irl too? i feel like this is how exactly how he'd behave— needy but so so soo in love with u too

27. kitty — @bandgie (!!!, s, f)

no joke this fic made my pussy throb. i need him 2 do this to him so bad bcs i need Him so bad. the way u wrote the subspace drop n how immersed mc was in her role n the way chan guides her thru everything n then the aftermath of it like hngnngnfgddjghjgh... i always have loved ur writing but this particular piece rly got to me along w ur kinktober series i hope u continue to do writing bcs u seriously so so SO good at it fr!!

28. angel eyes — @temptaetions (!!!, s, a)

this fic. this fucking FIC. bro this is actual evidence of the fact that literary geniuses exist bcs the way u wrote so beautifully not just the actual smut but the whole storyline?? u r a godsend fr like u should be getting paid to put out work of this degree. not only r u a PHENOMENAL writer but i hope u never stop writing bcs this was actually so so lovely n amazing to read i wish i could revisit the first time i read this T_T

29. just (fucking) friends? — @snowyquokka (s)

HELLOOOO i love possessive fwb chan almost as much as i love ur writing!! the way he's so annoyed at how she said they're just friends so he takes out his anger on her but then at the same time asks her what her color is to make sure she's still okay WOWZAAAA.. need him Bad. n in the end when they both agree they don't wanna be just friends like chan.. i don't want 2 be just friends either.. come 2 me plz... anyways very yummy work fr

30. american whiskey — @straywrds (!!!, s, a)

this fic... how do i even begin w this fic... the way u write is actually so . so otherwordly yk? u rly pour all ur passion into ur writing n the way u describe everything like every emotion every detail every feeling it's so raw n real that it touches my heart. i can Feel what each of the characters go thru n the SMUT... the smut is so so delicious ofc. i've read ur other work n u r such a good writer plz keep going with what u do i will always support u fr

31. free use w/ soft dom chris — @hwanghyunjinenthusiast (s, f)

the dirty talk in this.. hngnngkgjjdgjjh. i need free use w daddy!chan just as bad as i need to reread this fic ten times until it's ingrained in my brain n any telepath w the ability to read minds out there is disgusted by how many times i think abt it (idk what this analogy was i am sorry). the way he eats mc out n the way he fucks her omgfkjdgjhjhgjh NEED HIM RAHHHHH u did so well w this

32. play tight / pt. 4  — @roseykat (s, a)

squirting w chan squirting w chan SQUIRTING!! W CHAN!!! the way he makes mc do it once n then immediately goes "yea i need to feel that on my dick" n fucks her within an inch of her life like ohmygodjkdjhsfghj i did eat up the angst too but the way u wrote them fuckinig was so nasty n delicious I ENJOYED IT SM!! this entire series is such a good read even tho it's not chan centered idk if there r more parts to it but if there r plz link me to them!!

33. dream you — @charmercharm3r (s, f)

ok i know we r discussing smut n all n trust that i will get to that but THIS!! this was so cute n precious ohemgee the way he loves mc n takes care of her n banters w her at the start so lovingly is so so precious to me i want him so bad :( the smut was also very delicious w chan switching to hard dom mode n making mc suck him off before ravishing her like oh my god PLZZZZ FUCK ME PLZPLZPLZ u did so well on this plz continue writing more for me at the least <3

34. brat-taming w/ chan — @blurboki (s)

this damn drabble was so.. hngngjfjghjhdgjh. i want 2 be a brat to chan so bad n act out just so he'll snap n put me into my place which is exactly what u wrote n i LOVED IT!!! it's so short n simple (not a bad thing at all btw) yet it's so powerful too? i love the characterisation of chan cus i firmly believe this is how he'd act in bed w a fussy bratty s/o like wow. Just wow. i love u and ur delicious mind i hope u r having a great day just for this :3

35. tell me all about it.. — @chnsbm (s, f)

hngnfjhdfsjghgjh the idea of chan making u forget all about ur stress n playing with u to help u sleep is so gfjfjjjffjhgjhjh HOT!!! the way he lovingly reassures mc like u don't need to worry abt it now just let me take care of u n how he's such a fuckin TEASE!! w the way he's touching her is so so hot u ate w this idea n i will forever die on the hill that this is really smth chan would do— tease u n make u talk while he's doing ungodly things to u just to see u stutter over ur words

36. be that guy — @daizymax (!!!, s, a)

i have said it once i have said it twice n i will say it one more time bcs i don't care how many times i need to reiterate it needs to be said: EXES TO LOVERS W CHAN IS TOP TIER!!! the smut in this was so delicious but the LONGING chan had for mc.. the way he felt the twinge in his chest for letting her go oh man.. i'd take him back if he so even looked at me but maybe im just crazy. BUT ANYWAYS!! this is possibly one of the hottest chan smuts there ever is so thank U for this delicious gift fr

37. more than just friends — @kwanisms (!!!, s, f)

werewolf chan my luvr... my big strong baby who will knock me up w his knot n fuck me until the sun rises RAHHHHHHHH!!! this was so so SOOOOO good n yummy like from the way he pinned mc to the wall to the way he ordered her around n how his self restraint snapped the moment she called him daddy like why's that so Me behaviour HELPPPP anyways user kwanisms u fucking ATE w this i hope ur pillow is cold every night u go to sleep <3

38. connected — @j-0ne25 (s, f, a)

let me just start this by saying I FUCKING LOVE U USER J-0NE25!!! ur interactive stories esp megaverse r so fucking good how r u so bigbrained my dumbass could never like actually JSDHJFJHGJH. anyways i rmb reading this very vividly n oh boy.. "baby patience, or do you need me to teach you a lesson?" Brother my panties r drenched n off dont even start w me rn. anyways this was so so delicious plz never stop writing i beg u

39. chan ask drabble #3 — @hyungszn (!!!, s, f)

saved the best for last but CLOVER.. (u dk me but i am ur biggest fan hai :3) "your mouth is saying no but your body is telling me a different story, mrs. bang." GRRRHJDJSDFJHKJSFKJSFKJGJ... I NEED HIM SOO FUCKING BAD!!! the way they banter even while having nasty sex n just love each other so bad n hello my breeding kink went feral w this. when mc asked him to not eat his cum out of her pussy n he was like "and why is that?" cus he wanted to hear her say it GRAHHHHH I WILL EAT HIM!!! on a side note, u r so so soooo amazing i have been reading ur work for so long i think since american pie n i can safely say u r one of the best skzblr writers i have ever seen along w so many other ppl like plz keep up the good work bcs i will ALWAYS support u for it !!!

. . .

add notes: thank u very much to all these amazing writers fr. if ur work wasn't featured here now do not fret!! i probably (most definitely knowing my dumbass) just missed it cus i didn't scroll Very far down in my likes (there's like 2k+....) so trust that u will most likely end up on the next recs list!! i love u all very much regardless if u r here or not n as always a very big thank u once more for all ur amazing hard work, u r all doing so well n i hope u guys know that <3

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 10: The One About the Audibly Loud Lukola FanFic

I’ll address the elephant in the room. And, no, I’m not talking about Jake Dunn’s brown suit! Or, that he’s posing with a man. Or, that Tyler commented “Bellissimo!!!!” on Jake's post.

I don’t think a lot of people understood the connection I was making this morning about “Mis-Directed,” Gwilym Lee, and Jake.  So, now I feel the need to explain because I don’t want people running with a narrative that goes in the opposite direction of where I was taking it.

Sorry, JVN, you’re getting pushed to the side again. I promise, I’ll get to you one day.

Let’s go back two months…

On September 25, Nicola posted to her Instagram stories a link to Alex Babsky’s post, which was a picture of Nicola. She had her hair and make-up done but she was wearing one of her own dresses (the black dress she wore in Australia and Brazil). Babsky captioned his post “[pink bow] @nicolacoughlan in London today for…well, never mind what for actually [laughing emoji with hand over mouth] [winking emoji] [shushing emoji].” Nicola responded, “You’re amazing it was so gorgeous to see you xxx.”

Babksy’s caption sent the fandom into hysteria wondering what the hell Nicola was up to. It didn’t help that this was the same day Luke updated his Instagram bio and used “Xx” and it didn’t help that Nicola was wearing the black dress she allegedly wore on her beach walk in Brazil with Luke.

Do you want to know what I thought the photo of Nicola was from? I’m not going to lie – I thought it was pre-wedding makeup. Seriously, not kidding. It reminded me of my own wedding day. Formal hair and makeup and my own dress that was easy to take off without messing up the hair and makeup. I never said I wasn’t a little bit delulu.

On November 5, an author named Lucy Parker announced on her Instagram feed that she had a new Audible book called “Mis-Directed” being released in February 2025. The post came with pictures of Nicola wearing the black dress and the same hair and makeup as the September 25 post. Nicola (presumably) is reading the part of Hattie Murton, and Gwilym Lee (presumably) is reading the part of Anthony Rafe.

Oh, okay.

Turns out, I was wrong.

So, Nicola and Luke didn’t get married.

Fine.

I have always liked crows.

But, wait a minute – what the fuck is this Audible book about? A woman who stars in a romantic drama called “Leicester Square” (what the fuck?) which was adapted from a best-selling romance novel (what the fuck??). Then, in comes our antagonist, Anthony Rafe, who plays opposite of Hattie and, let me quote here, “But when very real chemistry sparks during their scripted love scenes, Hattie begins to think the industry’s legendarily heartless Bad Guy [Anthony] might just a have a pulse after all. And Anthony, for his part, is caught off-guard by the way his heart races when he’s around his aggravating onscreen lover. As reality starts to imitate art a little too close for comfort, the world’s most unlikely couple might just have more in common than they thought…” (what the fuck???).

Let’s start with Leicester Square. What the hell is Leicester Square? Oh, the name of the fake television show on which Hattie and Anthony star. Sure, Jan. Is it odd to anyone else that Leicester Square is the name of the location of where the London premiere of Bridgerton Season 3 took place? You know, the event that happened hours before Papsmear.

Then we have the make-believe show being adapted from a best-selling romance novel. Mmm hmm.

Let’s try and not make the connection between Luke and Anthony. Mmm hmm.

And, let’s add fuel to the fire and have two co-stars falling in love with each other.

Yeah, we get it. It’s a Lukola FanFic being read by none other than Nicola. I mean, the only way it could be any better is if Luke was reading the part of Anthony Rafe! But, no, that part is being read by Gwilym Lee (who is fantastic in everything he does, by the way).

Who is Gwilym Lee? Well, he’s an actor (my father calls him “Midsomer”). Ask Mr. Google about him. But, if you check out his Instagram feed, you will find that he knows Jake and has since, at least, 2022. Is it possible that Nicola met Gwilym through Jake? Yeah, it is.

Now, why do I find this situation intriguing? Specifically, why did I find the post from Jake this morning posing with Gwilym interesting (and a bit shady)? Let me explain.

The Jakholes took the “Mis-Directed” FanFic as shade towards the Lukolas. Yes, they went there because that FanFic does not (in the least) fit nicely into their Jakola narrative. I mean, if it wasn’t shade to the Lukolas, how weird the storyline must have been for Jake! The writing was audibly on the wall, in big red letters, but the Jakholes chose to spin it into something messier than my hair in the morning after sleeping on it wet.

What exactly is this theory? Well, per the Jakholes, Nicola hates the Lukola fandom so much that she sat and read (likely, for hours) this Lukola-coded FanFic just to spite us! I mean, Anthony is a bad boy in this story and “everyone loves to hate” him (don’t forget, Luke became the devil incarnate after Papsmear). And, Hattie is tired of the “brutal press, overly invested fans, and a cutthroat industry…[that] would give even Pollyanna an edge of cynicism.” The Jakholes believe this means Nicola is saying she’s really in love with Jake and she wants us all to know that by reading a Harlequin-style romance about a woman who falls in love with her costar! Oh, my God!! How could she?!

What in the actual fuck are the Jakholes drinking with this bullshit? I know, I know. I shouldn’t expect anything better from people who ship Jake with Nicola. In fact, if I was a Jakhole, I might buy into this conspiracy theory. But, I’m not a fucking Jakhole. And, guess what Jakholes? I don’t mind breaking the hearts of Lukolas by saying we’re probably never going to see sexy-hot Brazil pictures of Luke and Nicola, so I don’t mind telling Jakholes to put this theory back into Davy Jones’ locker and feed it to that bitch Kraken.

Let’s talk a bit further about the absurdity of this “Nicola is shading Lukola” subplot from Hell.

We will pretend Nicola hates Luke. She hates Lukola. She baits the Lukola fandom for shits and giggles.

What would this make Nicola?

It would make her a villain, for starters (and “villain” is me being extremely nice).

More importantly, it would make Nicola a PR nightmare.

Even if Nicola and Luke despised each other, do you believe Netflix, Bridgerton, and Shonda Land would allow Nicola to play games with the Lukola fandom? Talk about playing with fire!

The reality is the lines between Polin and Lukola are heavily blurred at this point. I hate to say it – and maybe a lot of you will view me as a complete asshole after I say this – but, if I learned Nicola was shading the Lukolas (therefore, in my opinion, trolling Luke), I would not be interested in Bridgerton Season 4. Or, Season 5. Or, any season after that. Or, in Nicola, for that matter. You’re welcome to have your own opinion about this but I would feel incredibly betrayed, and not just by Nicola. On top of that, for me, Polin has become Lukola. They’re so blurred, they don’t even resemble a line anymore. Maybe that’s a bad position to be in, but that’s where I’m at. Sorry, not sorry.

I’m not going to rehash the breadcrumbs left by Nicola that support Lukola – if you know, you know (or you can catch up by spending an afternoon on Tumblr). Even Luke, in his own way, leaves Lukola-coded crumbs. We also have damn convincing evidence that Netflix, Bridgerton, and Shonda Land support Lukola. I mean, even they’re blurring the lines with “Nicola and Luke’s Cutest Moments” and interestingly timed images of Polin. So, do you think they’re going to let Nicola fuck with that on a public forum?

That would be a cold, hard NO.

But, this Audible book – “Mis-Directed” – is loud and made louder because Nicola is reading it.

So, what is this Audible book? Shade? Or, Nicola being cutesy? I’m going to place my bets on the latter solely because, like I said, the Corporate Office is not going to let Nicola shade Lukola because it has a direct effect on Polin.

That’s not to say that the excitement of this Lukola-coded “Mis-Directed” FanFic wasn’t attacked by the Jakholes from all sides, and the wind – for the moment – was kicked out of it. That’s a different story for a different day.

But, what I found so intriguing about Jake’s post today is that, of all the people he could have included in his photo (because there’s obviously lots of people at this event), he chose Gwilym. And, this means people will look into Gwilym. People will realize that Gwilym is the other side of “Mis-Directed.” People will realize Jake and Gwilym are friends. People will realize that Jake’s friend is reading a Lukola-themed romance novel with Nicola.

And, if we agree that the book is not shade towards the Lukolas and we agree that Jakola is not real, what is the significance of the connection between Jake and Gwilym? Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m overthinking it. But, the connection – at least in my mind (and it’s been there since November 5) – is that Jake supports “Mis-Directed” because he supports Lukola and he has always been there, helping Nicola lay the breadcrumbs. He wanted people to look into Gwilym and make the connection. Jake could very well be the one who suggested Gwilym read the part of Anthony. Jake is the degree of separation.

I want to close this out by noting that Jake also liked the post Nicola has pinned on her Instagram grid – the black and white one about her Time 100 article. You know, the one where Nicola says, “A lot of people really want me to marry Luke.” Follow the links and it will take you to this article. That’s an interestingly placed like by Jake, in my opinion – as is his photo op with Gwilym.

[judebelle]

been thinking ab joao and reader hooking up behind his teammates backs'... like they've been "involved" for a while but sometimes the tension is too much and they have to sneak away iykwim ;)

sneaky - j.f. x reader

a/n : omfg anon ur gonna be the death of meeeeeee!! also i made this kinda long since i havent posted in a while, oops..

pairing : joao felix x fem!reader

word count : 2.3k

summary : joao and u prefer to keep your love life private, secret even, but the the flirty looks and knowing smirks from across the room are becoming unbearable.

cw : smut obv, lil bit of alejandro x reader, sneaky joao and reader, unprotected sex (wrap it b4 u tap it ppl), make outs, cursing, me not bothering to accent his name lol sorry

---

you were starting to regret going out to dinner with your friend alejandro and his teammates.

the only reason why being that one of his teammates had become more.

hooking up with joao felix on the down low has been fun, you won't lie. and while you enjoy sneaky quickies and flirty messages, there were times where you wish you could just tear off his clothes and fuck that smug smile right off his face.

you were currently sitting in a restaurant, a private room and table was booked for alejandro, his barcelona teammates, and their plus ones. you and alejandro had become inseparable ever since you met in spain a few years ago, and you had grown increasingly close to his teammates.

very close to a certain mr felix.

the first time you met joao, it wasn't anything magical, you just thought he was fit. alejandro had introduced you to him when he came on loan to barca recently, and you just couldn't get him out of your head.

it seems that the feelings were mutual, as that very same night he followed you on instagram. you, of course, played it cool and took your time following him back (you waited like 10 seconds).

from there, you two messaged often, especially after the team would hang out.

joaofelix79 : u got home safe?

ynsusername : ofc i did

ynsusername : alejandro wouldn't let anything happen to me

joaofelix79 : that's good.

you two started messaging more, sometimes even calling each other late in the night. you couldn't explain why, maybe he was just fun to talk to.

you would complain to him about work, and he would complain about a mistake he made in training.

eventually, you two started hanging out alone.

not anything crazy, of course.

joaofelix79 : hey

joaofelix79 : js noticed im about to drive by ur place

joaofelix79 : wanna get some ice cream? my treat

how could you refuse that?

it wasn't all that shocking to you when a surprise ice cream date turned out into a steamy make out session on a bench in a park in the middle of the night.

"we should stop, someone might see us.." you murmured against the portuguese boy's lips, you yourself making no effort to.

"ok, if that's what you want." he pulled away from you, his fluffy hair disheveled thanks to you.

"5 more minutes" you placed your lips on his again, feeling him smile against them.

from there, weekly hangouts became almost nightly. he would pick you up in his car, and you would drive anywhere. you just needed an excuse to make out. you even put your number in his phone.

eventually, joao grew tired of the make outs that led to nothing, and you did too.

12:03 am - joao : wyd

12:03 am - you : was ab to put some instant noodles in the microwave lol

12:04 am - joao : dont bother

12:04 am - joao : come eat at my place

12:05 am - joao : i ordered uber eats

of course, you went, and you two ate the chinese takeout he bought. you two sat and laughed together at his attempt at using chopsticks.

and then you found yourself perched on his kitchen counter, him in between your legs while he rammed into you mercilessly. you left red marks across his back and biceps.

"my god, you feel amazing, querida." joao's words were muffled as his head was nuzzled into your neck, his lips caressing your hot skin with every word he spoke.

"i'm so fucking close, joao.." you whined and whispered curses while your hands found themselves travelling from his arms to his hair, tugging on the soft brown locks.

"let go, y/n, i'm close too!" he removed his flushed face from your neck and connected your lips together again, breathing heavily into your mouth.

you came undone with a sharp whine, arching into him. his thrusts became sloppy as he let out a long groan against your lips, releasing into the condom.

that was the first time you two had fucked, and it definitely would not be the last.

his house was usually where you two would hook up because it was so big, and you didn't have to worry about anything when you were there.

you two fucked anywhere - on the bed, in the shower, on the couch, even in the laundry room.

you found that it didn't really matter where you were. if either of you were craving the other, it happened right then and there. it was fun. it kept you on your toes, kept things fresh and fun.

but it became a curse when you two were at a team dinner.

---

"si, i told him he could go fuck off if that was what he wanted. that guy needs to learn some manners, for fucks sake!"

the table erupted in laughs as pedro went on about some story that you weren't really paying attention to to be honest. you were sat right beside your good friend, alejandro, who was very intrigued in pedro's story and hadn't spoken to you more than twice this evening.

across from you was joao. he was wearing a black dress shirt that hugged his biceps perfectly along with black dress pants. of course, to make your life more difficult, the top two shirt buttons weren't done up.

one more open button and everyone would've seen the hickey you gave him the other-

"isn't that right, y/n?"

alejandro was speaking to you, and you were too busy staring at joao's biceps to hear him.

"hmm? sorry?"

"i said, it was you who i walked in on dancing silently in the darkness darkness of your room, right?" alejandro smirked at the sight of your cheeks going red, this memory being nothing short of embarrassing to you.

"yup, that- uh- that was me..!" you looked down in humiliation as the table giggled at alejandro's unexpected story about you. he loved embarrassing you, it was his thing. he found it fun because he thought of you like a little sister.

you looked up to see joao, laughing along with everyone else at the table, finding amusement in your misery. you shot him a playful glare.

"i'm only teasing, mi corazón." alejandro chuckled before ruffling your hair. "ale!" you whined, fixing your hair. his friends teased you. they all thought of you as their little sister, especially you being one of the younger ones.

the men continued on with their conversations as you continued looking at joao from your end of the table, only this time, he was looking at you too.

he was taking a slow sip of his water, eyeing you down.

joao wasn't the only one dressed all sexy tonight. you wore a short black satin strapless dress that hugged your figure perfectly. you thought of joao when you picked it out, you thought of him while putting it on, and you thought of him taking it off.

it seems that joao had the same thought. the way he looked at you from under his lashes gave you the impression that your outfit choice was a smart one.

you sent him a quick wink.

he smirked and dropped his eyes to your cleavage, widening them.

you rolled yours before continuing to eat your steak.

---

you couldn't take it anymore.

something the way he laughed with everyone at the table, his hair flowing when he turned his head. he had on a gold rolex and a gold chain, both glistening under the lighting over the table.

it was the way he carried himself with such confidence. he knew he was hot, and he knew you knew it too. that confidence definitely carried over into bed.

finally, you got up from the table, excusing yourself to "make a call".

shooting joao a quick look, he took the hint. his eyes followed you, watching you exit the restaurant and head towards the parking lot. after an agonizing 30 seconds or so, joao told everyone he forgot something in his car, and made a beeline to where he saw you last.

he saw you standing outside his car, waiting for him. he made his way towards you.

"so, who did you have to call?" he teased, his eyes waiting for your reaction. you scoffed and rolled your eyes, "very funny.".

you wrapped your arms around his neck, bringing him closer to you as you leaned against his car. he smiled down at you before looking over your figure.

"nice dress.."

"just take it off."

---

you two had squeezed into the back of his car, leaving nothing but surrounding street lights as your light source. you straddled his waist, rocking your hips while you smashed your lips against his. you two were breathing heavily, occasionally breaking the kiss to huff and puff before going back at it again.

joao's arms were wrapped tightly around your waist, his right hand occasionally sliding down to cup and smack your ass. his actions made you yelp into the kiss. your arms were everywhere. cupping his face, on his shoulders, in his hair, on his chest, on his abs.

it was like you two hadn't seen each other in years. like you were drowning and the only way to breathe was.. this.

your smooth rocking of the hips created a hard bulge in joao's pants which felt great on your throbbing clit. he groaned into the kiss, breaking it for you to breathe and to leave kisses down your neck.

"so, fucking, horny" he broke each word with a kiss. you moaned above him. "you can't even last one dinner party without my hands all over you?" you wanted him to shut up, so you grabbed his face in your hand and smashed your lips against his.

you started unbuttoning his shirt, but your hands were too shaky to do it quickly. "take this off, god damnit!" you groaned as he laughed and began unbuttoning it himself. you hiked your dress up and helped him with the last few buttons.

you moved his shirt partially off him, leaving it on his arms since you couldn't be bothered. you leaned down to kiss his chest while looking up at him. he was smiling down at you, hands rested behind his head.

he brought you back up to pull the top of your dress down just enough so that your tits would pop out. when they did, he licked his lips. now it was his turn to lean down and suck on them, making you tilt your head back and pant.

"joao, we dont have time for this-"

"shhh, patience princesa. don't worry." he went back to sucking.

"they're going to realize we're gone- joao!"

he couldn't bring himself to leave your tits alone, but when he did, you quickly reached down and undid his belt , not even bothering to pull it off.

"estás mesmo excitado, não é?" (you're really excited, aren't you?)

you nodded and bit your lip.

he unzipped his pants and pulled his hard cock out of his boxers. you raised yourself up on your knees and hovered over his dick. he held it up with one hand, the other resting on your hip.

"are you ready for me?" he teased.

"enough questions." you cut his teasing short as you took his cock in your hands yourself and sunk down on him.

joao hissed at the unexpected pleasure. he looked up at you, gasping for air above him before tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

"move for me, bebé."

you did as you were told, lifting your hips up until just the tip of him was left in you, before sinking back down on him, agonizingly slow.

he shuddered at the feeling.

you picked up the pace, causing the car to rock. your tits bounced in his face, causing him to twitch inside you.

"fuck, y/n, you're amazing-" you laugh breathlessly above him, your hands resting on his shoulders for stability while his gripped your hips tightly.

after some time, your thighs were burning, and you were getting tired. joao picked this up, taking control. his grip on your hips was put to some use as he moved your hips up and down for you. he lifted and dropped you so easily and made you move so much faster. you felt the air leave your lungs and arched your back to stick your tits in his face.

he grinned as he thrusted his hips up, meeting you in the middle. he tilted your body back, and started to hit the spot inside you that made you see white.

your pants and gasps turned into moans and whines as you felt the bundle of heat in your core.

"joao, i'm close" you warned, your nails digging into his shoudlers.

"i'm right there with you, baby, oh," he groaned and grunted as he watched him drill into you faster and faster. "meu deus, foda-se!" (my god, fuck!) he hissed with gritted teeth as he felt you clench around him.

his pace was too much for you to hold back. you let go with a gasp and moan, your hand slamming and sliding down the steamy car window, leaving a print.

joao was, indeed, right there with you. he pulled your body off of him and set you down on his thighs hastily before stroking his red, throbbing cock, cumming all over your stomach with a string of grunts and pants.

you both sat there in the hot and dark car in disbelief, covered in sweat and panting, after having the most mind blowing sex you've ever had. you leaned your forehead against his and smiled. he chuckled before teasing you once more.

"let's go. we don't want to miss dessert, do we?"

[tallulah477]

Pretty, But Not Stupid

Extra of Hunting the Tawtute

Kinkmas Day 10: Breath Play

Pairing: Lo’ak x Fem!Human!Reader

Word Count: 3.8K

Warnings: AgedUp!Lo’ak, Dark!Lo’ak, ***NON-CON***, Dub-Con, Breath Play, Choking, Size Difference, Alien Genitalia, Oral (male receiving), P in V, Belly Bulge, Creampie, Scenting, Mention of knots (but no knotting yet), Slight threesome (and Dark!Neteyam), Mentions of death/dead bodies, Reader is not having a good time (although idk...i think she’s having a great time), Mentions of war

A/N: Guess who’s back, besties!! Been MIA, slacking on prompts, and about to lose my fucking mind with all my family around, but I somehow got this done and I’m about to read as many fics as I can before someone else demands my attention.

A/N 2: This was not intended to be a full Part 2 yet, but it's way too long to be called a drabble. So I’m calling it an extra for now until I decide what to call it lmao. Hope y’all like it 🧡

A/N 3: DEDICATED TO @oakbuggy AND THEIR AMAZING ARTWORK (Everyone stop reading and go look at their art rn, all of them are god-tier but the one for Hunting the Tawtute definitely holds a special place in my heart. Thank you again, Buggy! You're amazing!)

Summary: With their father’s impending retirement as Olo’eyktan, Neteyam has more responsibilities to the clan and less time to see his favorite human. Thankfully, Lo’ak is there to pick up the slack.

**PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS - DON'T LIKE, DON'T READ**

Translations:

Vrrtep - Demon

Tawtute - Human

Sevin - Pretty

Palulukan - Apex predator resembling a lion or panther

(Mountain) Banshee/Ikran - Large, dragon-like aerial predators

Mawey - Calm

Narlor - Beautiful

Tam tam - Calm, be content, there there

Srane - Yes

Yawne - Beloved

Paskalin - Sweet berry (term of endearment)

Their father is stepping down as clan leader - at least that’s what Lo’ak tells you when he comes to visit you in the isolated hut the brothers have set up for you on the side of a cliff face. It was for your own protection, they told you. You couldn’t stay in the village yet, their father would never allow it, and you clearly couldn’t be trusted not to run away if they built you something on the forest floor. 

“Tawtutes with their tiny brains are stupid,” Neteyam had sneered as he hauled your combined weight up the cliff side. Your arms locked around his neck tightly, legs wrapped around his lithe torso as your eyes squeezed shut, determined not to look at the insane height you were being pulled to. “You might think to run away and then become the next meal of a hungry Palulukan.”

“Nah, bro,” Lo’ak said, the grin on his face audible in his teasing words as he climbed up the cliff behind you, ready to catch you if you decided to end it all right there and try your hand at plummeting to your death, no doubt. “Our little vrrtep would never run from us. Right, sevin?”

The hut they built for you was as cozy as it could be. Assembled further into the cave and away from the treacherous cliff side, thick material wrapped around sturdy posts to keep out any harsh weather that the cave itself couldn’t keep out. They’d given you plenty of blankets, assuring you that even though your human nose can’t smell it, their scent is all over them.

“To keep you smelling like us, when we can’t be here to do it ourselves.”

But they’re always around, day after day they come for you. Lo’ak grinning a deceivingly sweet smile and Neteyam’s amber eyes burning holes into your face as they grab at you, pulling you towards them as they all but rip off the loincloth and chest covering they gave you, baring your marked up body to their hungry gazes. They spread you open, fucking you and fucking you until you’re a crying overstimulated mess, drooling and teary under your mask as they fill you up. 

They know exactly how to touch you, where to press, where to rub, where you’re most sensitive. They learned how to play with your body better than you could ever know how, dragging orgasm after orgasm out of your trembling, exhausted body until your left limp and they’ve decided they’ve had enough for the day. 

Your body still struggles to take their cocks (although they love to tell you that you were made for it - “made to be our little cocksleeve”). Your only saving grace is that they’re still not sure if they can knot you. They’ve gotten close to trying, instincts desperate to push that large ball of tissue at the base of their cocks inside your already stuffed to the brim pussy. You feel how they test the resistance, pushing juuuusttt a little deeper, the swollen knot stretching you even farther than you ever thought you could stretch before they back off. 

When they fill you full of their cum, it’s with their own hand squeezing tightly around the knot. 

Usually, it’s both of them. This time, you’re shocked to see only Lo’ak climbing over the edge of the cliff. 

“Neteyam sends his regrets,” Lo’ak says, kneeling down to wrap his arms around your body and press his face into your neck. His flat nose presses against your rapidly increasing pulse point and breathes in your scent. “He said to tell you that he’s sorry he won’t be able to visit you today, but that he’ll make sure to come see your pretty face and fill your tight pussy tomorrow.”

Your face flushes hot at his words, shivering when his nose slides up to nudge just behind your ear, but you stay silent. 

“But that’s good news for me,” He continues. “Because that means I get you all to myself for tonight.”

Neteyam isn’t coming to visit you today because their father is stepping down as clan leader, which means increased training, more hours at council meetings, and less time to sneak off with his captive human. 

“What does that mean?” You can’t help but ask. Lo’ak’s hands smooth down your sides, large palms dragging over your bare skin until they’re squeezing your ass. Your voice cracks at the feel, but you push on, your eyes doing their best to keep contact with his bright amber ones. “Your father stepping down? What does that . . .” 

What does that mean for me?

“Nothing you have to worry about right now,” He says.

Without warning, he stands, pulling you with him so your legs wrap around his torso as he supports you with a hand on your ass. A loud yip rips from his throat, echoing through the cave as he walks you both towards the cliff’s edge. The responding roaring shriek makes you cower against him as the large dragon-like animal lands on the platform behind you, wings flapping hard against the wind. 

“We’re going on an adventure,” Lo’ak says as he walks you closer to the banshee. You whimper, arms locking around his neck so tight you’d think you would be choking him if you could think straight. But you’re not, head whipped around staring wide eyed at the monstrous creature as it turns its head sideways to stare back at you. 

“Lo’ak, no,” You beg through gritted teeth, but he ignores you as he approaches the banshee, his hand settling lovingly on its snout. 

“Mawey,” he coos, carefully rubbing along the blue leathery skin on the banshee’s snout, but you’re not sure if he’s trying to calm the large animal or you. “Mawey, narlor,”

“Lo’ak, no,” You plead, still clinging to his upper body. Tears pool in your eyes and a panicked whimper escapes your lips when you feel the puffing breath of the mountain banshee on your back. “Please, please, no!”

But you’re ignored again, even when your body goes rigid at the feel of that rounded snout pressing against the curve of your spine, hot exhales practically burning your skin as the banshee sniffs at you. Fuck, fuck–you could die. Right now, you could die in a second, that snout pressing into your skin could disappear, replaced with dual rows of long curved teeth that would take only a second to open and bite down and rip you clean in half. 

You can hear the smile in Lo’ak’s voice from where your mask is digging into his collarbone, his soft murmurs of encouragement loud even through your terrified thoughts. “Srane, tam tam. Look at my two beautiful girls, getting along so well.”

He moves swiftly, not leaving room for any more pleading as he bonds with his banshee and climbs on, bringing your clinging body with him. The rush of air as the large animal takes flight makes you squeeze Lo’ak tighter, desperate for safety as you feel the wind bat at your back as the banshee cuts through the sky like a bullet from a gun. 

“Is this all it takes for you to cling to me, sevin?” Lo’ak teases as he rests a secure hand on your trembling figure, all five fingers spread so wide that they nearly span the entirety of your back. “A little ikran ride and I get you all cuddled up, nice and close?”

You ignore his dig, teeth clenching together as you fight to find your voice around the wind rushing around your ears. “W-where are we going?”

Lo’ak nudges his chin against the top of your head. “You’ll see,”

The flight feels like hours. Hours of watching miles and miles of trees and forest thousands of meters below from over Lo’ak’s shoulder. Logically, you know you’re exaggerating. It hasn’t been hours, and even though you’re still high enough to die as a splat on the ground if you were to fall, it's probably not as high as it feels. But heights have never been your friend, and frankly, neither has time management. 

It’s only when the banshee lowers to the ground and Lo’ak dismounts, depositing you on your own two unsteady feet, that you realize where he’s brought you on your ‘adventure’. 

Your mouth opens in horror at the remains of your old home. The RDA outpost, a once tall and strong fortress that housed the lives of hundreds of humans, now practically nothing more than a heap of rubble. The walls once meant to provide safety to those within them have crumbled down, victims of their own explosives used against them by the enemy. Debris lines the paved ground, thick boulders and metal platings that were once walls, bullet shells glinting in the sunlight. There’s a few AMP suits scattered around the battlefield - you can’t see inside them from your vantage point, and you’re terrified of what you might see if you get too close. 

“This way, tawtute,” Lo’ak says, reaching for your hand, but you yank it away before he can grab it. 

“No,” You say, but the firmness in your voice is overshadowed by the shakiness. “No, I’m not going in there.”

“Yes, you are,”

Another headshake. “No,”

Quick as lightning, his hand shoots out and grabs the bottom of your mask, gripping on the valve at the bottom as he bends down so his face is level with yours.

“Demon,” He growls, fangs on display for just a moment. A warning. “You are pretty, but not stupid. You do as I say.”

Fear claws at your throat and your hands immediately latch onto his wrist, silently begging for him to not pull your mask off. He never does, and neither does Neteyam. Not as a punishment at least. When they use your mouth, there’s always a warning - a “hold your breath, yawne,” before the air is cut off from your lungs and your mouth is full of alien cock. But the fear never leaves, the possibility is always there at the forefront of your mind, and you cling to his wrist like the lifeline it is. 

Lo’ak’s face softens at your expression, grip loosening from your mask as his hand slides to cup the back of your neck. “You know I would never hurt you. You need to trust me,”

Hesitantly, you shake your head again. You’re pushing your luck, you know it. But you’ve learned Lo’ak is the more lenient of the brothers and will tolerate more ‘disobedience’ than Neteyam will. “I can’t,”

“Yes, you can. Nothing in there will hurt you. If anyone is left in there, they’re dead,”

And that’s the problem. The terror of facing the place where life as you knew it was ended in a heartbeat. If there’s still people in there, people you once knew, people you talked to, some people who were good, lying on the ground . . . lifeless . . .

In the end, it’s not a choice. Lo’ak sighs, pulling you back in his arms and cradling you to his chest like a toddler. You sniffle, eyes sliding shut, determined to not watch as he walks you towards the remains of the outpost. 

It’s hard to admit, but being carried by the brothers can be really soothing if you let it. They move swiftly, with grace and confidence in every step, careful not to jostle you despite the usually uneven terrain of the forest. It’s even smoother now as Lo’ak walks across the flat pavement of the base. If you close your eyes, it can almost feel like you’re floating.

There’s a loud chu-chunk sound followed by the rapid hiss of air and the loss of sunlight behind your closed lids. You open your eyes to see that Lo’ak has found a still intact entrance, the airlock working to adjust the oxygen levels to whatever lies beyond the interior door. He smiles when the pressure stabilizes, opening the door and stepping into the inside of the base. This time, he doesn’t warn you when he pulls off your mask, the sound of escaping air hitting your ears, but you don’t choke. Instead you can breathe, deep complete breaths without the need for a mask covering your face. 

Lo’ak wastes no time nuzzling his face against yours, sliding his cheek across every new inch of face and neck that he can comfortably reach, a deep content rumble vibrating through his chest. 

Scenting you. 

“I can smell you,” He whispers, lips pressing against your cheek. “Not just you right now, but where you were, where you’ve been, here, within these walls.”

“W-what?”

His feet carry him, guided by an old scent that you can hardly believe is here after so long. But it is, it has to be - you know the journey, have walked it hundreds of times during your time on Pandora, but you can’t imagine that Lo’ak would. You don’t think he ever went inside the outpost during the attack. He shouldn’t know that it's the second hallway instead of the first, shouldn’t know it’s two left turns and one right, and that your door is the 3rd on the left. But he does. 

He even knows which bed was yours and which was your roommate’s, only confirmed when he drops you down onto the thin RDA issued mattress against the far side wall. You land with a yelp, bouncing slightly from the force of the drop, but your noise of surprise is cut off by Lo’ak’s lips against yours.

“Stupid humans,” He growls against your lips. “Can't even breathe air without help. Wish I could teach you, so I wouldn’t have to go without your pretty lips on mine every day.”

You whine into the kiss, his big lips nearly twice the size of yours as they capture your mouth completely. It’s not the first time he’s kissed you, but it’s the first time you can breathe while it happens. 

He pulls away after a few more kisses, his breathing shallow as he reaches for something tied to his loincloth. It’s only then that you see the CO2 mask that’s been attached to his hip this whole time. He pulls the cross strap around his body, the mask hanging low on his chest and the CO2 canister hanging around his hip. He brings the mask to his face with one hand, taking in a few deep breaths, while the other hand works at the ties on his loincloth. 

The material of his covering falls to the ground and he drops the mask in favor of gripping your chin, thumb rubbing soothingly across your cheek. 

“Someone wants to play with you,” He purrs. “Be a good girl and invite him out, okay?”

Your breathing is shaky as you rise up on the bed, knees pressing into the mattress as you come face to face with the flat plane hiding Lo’ak’s cock. His hand moves to the back of your head, guiding you forward until your lips press against the smooth space between his thighs. 

Experience has you knowing what to do now, how to hold onto his thighs with both hands to keep yourself steady as you pepper gentle kisses along the hidden slit. Lo’ak tips his head back at the feel of your tongue sliding along the seam, little teasing kitten licks against the engorging slit that are always from him demanding them, demanding the slower teasing buildup, rather than you being coy. 

He pushes your face harder against him, hissing a ‘yeah, good girl. Like you fucking mean it,’ as he urges you to lick him deeper. When his slit opens, puffy and dripping, you can’t help the moan that falls from your lips as the sweet taste of his slick coats your tastebuds. It controls your body, whatever is in the slick. You feel it, making your body heat up, making you want things you definitely don’t - and you’re in the thick of it now, no mask or breathing breaks to cut whatever effects it usually has on you. It sets your body on fire now, making your thighs clench together as wetness pools in your core, and your brain fuzzes as the first touch of Lo’ak’s cock teases your lips as it starts to slip past the slit. 

You don’t know how long he keeps you there, sucking his cock. He’s dragging it out, taking advantage of the rare opportunity he has now of you without your mask. He drags your mouth along his cock, staring down at you with hooded eyes and letting you suckle gently on the lavender tip. Sometimes he’ll growl, pushing you down harder on his length just to hear you gag when the tip of his cock hits the back of your throat. Other times he’ll pull you off completely, twisting your head so that your lips wrap around his girth from the side, before sliding you slowly back and forth along his length, tongue running over each and every bump and barb along the hot cerulean skin, the bright bioluminescent freckles decorating his cock practically shining under the layer of slick and saliva. 

When he’s finally used you to tease himself enough, he pushes you back flat on the bed, large hands wrapping around your calves and pulling you closer so your ass is just barely hanging off the side. You whimper when he pulls your legs apart, ripping the soaked loincloth from your body, hungry amber eyes staring at your swollen, wet cunt.

“Such a pretty girl,” He moans. The tip of his cock slides along your folds, nudging against your clit before sliding back down and positioning at your entrance. “You ready?”

Your brain is fuzzy and your clit is throbbing, hole clenching with the need to be filled. You close your eyes, looking away from his intense gaze - you don’t want it, you try to remind yourself, you don’t, he’s making you. But a swift smack on your thigh makes your eyes fly open again, Lo’ak’s hard gaze seeming to cut into your very soul.

“Say it, demon. Wanna hear you say it,”

A small cry escapes your lips, body unconsciously trying to bear down on his cock even as you shake your head. He shifts forward just the tiniest bit, lavender tip just barely pressing against your drooling hole enough for it to start to stretch before stopping again. 

“‘Need you, Lo'ak,” he recites, brow cocked, expecting you to repeat it. “Say it.”

“Fuck!” Is what comes out instead - a whiny, frustrated curse, that has your eyes tearing up again and Lo’ak’s ears pinning back against his skull.

His hand is quick to wrap around your throat, fingers digging into the blood vessels at the side of your neck as he hisses down at you. Your hands wrap around his wrist again, fingernails digging in and no doubt leaving red crescent shaped marks in the blue skin. He’s not squeezing your neck, not crushing your windpipe out of anger. You can breathe, the gulping breaths your gasping for are making it into your lungs, but the fingers pressing into the blood vessels make it feel like you can’t. Your head is clouding again, fuzzing like TV static, vision going blurry as his hand doesn’t relent. 

“Fine,” He grunts. “You don’t wanna talk? Don’t.”

You want to scream when he pushes forward, cock bullying its way past your entrance and inside you, stretching you and filling you up. It’s slow and torturous as he fills you impossibly full, the barbs along his length scraping ruthlessly against your slick walls. He sighs, ears flicking in pleasure as your heat envelopes him, stretching around his girth so perfectly he swears you were made for him. 

You can feel the bulge in your belly, the pressure disappearing and reappearing again as he begins to move inside of you. Long, purposeful strokes meant as a punishment, meant to make you feel every agonizingly blissful inch of him as he fucks into your soaked cunt, harder and harder with each thrust. Your mouth moves trying to form words, sound fleeting save for the barely there whispers of ‘fuck’, ‘oh my god’, and ‘please’. Lo’ak hears them anyway, leaning down to silence you with a filthy kiss. His hips pound against yours, unrelenting in their mission to completely fuck the soul of your body, and the sound of slapping skin against skin mix with Lo’ak’s groans and your barely audible breathy whines. 

Lo’ak’s fingers find their way to your swollen clit, rubbing persistently at the sensitive nub until you're crying into his mouth, thighs trying desperately to close together but can’t because of his body between them. The thick press of his knot against your entrance is what pushes your oversensitive body over the edge.

At the first suffocating clench of your pussy around his cock, Lo’ak releases your throat letting all the air it felt like you weren’t getting back into your lungs in a rush of oxygen. You gasp, crying against his lips as you arch up against him, creaming pussy fluttering around him as you cum on his cock. He growls when your teeth latch onto his bottom lip, blunt teeth digging in enough to draw blood, but the way he immediately grabs your hips, shoving his knot against you as hard as he would dare without actually penetrating you, tells you that it was a lust filled growl this time, not an angry one. 

He moans when he spills himself inside you, face pressed against your neck as he fills you up. You swear it feels almost scorching hot, heating you up from the inside and then out as it spills from around Lo’ak’s still buried cock and runs down the curve of your ass and onto the bed sheets. 

Someone clears their throat from behind Lo’ak, and you gasp at the sudden sound, frantically trying to look around Lo’ak’s hulking body to see who it is. 

Lo’ak sighs, undisturbed by sudden intrusion, even going as far as rolling his eyes before slowly pulling out of your used cunt - more of his cum spilling out onto the bed now that he’s not still inside you to keep it in. “Wasn’t expecting you today, bro,”

Your eyes widen when he moves out of the way, revealing a smug looking Neteyam in the doorway, still very much dressed up in his warrior’s gear. 

“I had to make time to see our pretty little demon,” Neteyam says, bright amber eyes sweeping over your exhausted form. He crosses the room with three long strides, one knee pressing into the bed as he leans down to press a soft kiss to your cheek. “That was a nice show. I know you’re tired, paskalin,”

His eyes meet yours, amber irises practically swallowed up by the blacks of his pupils. A hand presses against your belly, sneaking down towards your oversensitive pussy, his pointer finger reaching out to tap against your clit as you whine. 

“But it’s really not fair that you smell more like Lo’ak than me now, is it?”

**Special thanks to @neteyamsyawntu for the prompt!

Taglist: @eywaite @loaksulluyswife @erenjaegerwifee @f-cklife @beautiful-brown-skin-05 @anastasia1777-blog @localjasmine @tsewtx @skywonder @neteyamswillow @luvv4j4ybe11 @pandoraslxna @avatarwifey

[ghostgirl-22]

so i actually need pt 2 to the older patrick younger art fic right NOW.. jk but it was amazing

Y’all. Y’ALL. I heard you. And though I don’t really love writing sequels… I’ll do anything for you honestly <33

Original.

It’s a mess and way too long which is prbly to be expected by now. Idk. Sometimes you just have to get out of your head and post 😭

18+ NSFW

CW: AGE GAP 10-11 years, power dynamics, teacher/student vibes, first time vibes, AND mild daddy!kink whoopsie! How did that happen? Obviously if any of these things make you uncomfortable don’t read. I don’t take it personally. I’ll explain myself a bit. Art in my imagination here didn’t get constantly shown up by Patrick and because Patrick wasn’t there Art got the attention Patrick got for his skills so he’s a little more arrogant (still a little insecure because that’s his core) and still messy. Patrick had the Tashi injury which makes him a little less arrogant (brought down a notch but still overcompensates and actively self sabotages because that’s his core) and still messy.

——

Art is still keyed up the next morning. His roommate, Devon, is bragging about hooking up with a senior. Art is trying to pay attention but all he can think about is how he got on his knees and gave messy head to Patrick, Coach Zweig, his 31 year old ridiculously hot tennis coach. And how Patrick practically promised to fuck him if he was a really good boy all week. He’s sitting on his hands trying not to go crazy.

“What did you get up to?” Devon finally asks him. Picking up his towel and getting ready to shower.

“Can you keep a secret?” Art asks.

That makes him sit back down. “Yeah of course.”

Art tells him about Patrick, most of it anyway, watching his eyes widen. He’s not on the tennis team but he’s heard enough about Coach Zweig from Art that he can’t help giggling.

“You’re fucking joking.”

“I’m not, I swear.”

“Holy shit. And I thought I was doing something with that senior. Wow. This would only happen to you.”

Art isn’t sure what he means by that but he’s suddenly asking a million questions. Art tells him some things, embellishing and withholding various details. The closest Art ever came to actually fucking a boy was when he used to sneak in Devon’s bed whenever he got horny at night. They were so close to fucking when Art made him stop. so he made Art promise to stop leading him on. And now they’re proper roommates with boundaries and everything. Though sometimes Art thinks if he asked for it Devon would still fuck him.

Devon thinks it’s hot, the whole Patrick thing. Thinks Patrick wants to make Art his kept boy. “Well I mean… he’s old and everyone says he’s loaded, right? He can give you whatever you want.” Devon says.

“Please, he wouldn’t even give me his phone number.” Art says dismissively. “And I don’t need to be kept I just need his dick.”

Devon chews his bottom lip looking Art over and Art wonders if he crossed a boundary. He’s so fucking messy with them.

“Lucky him,” Devon says dryly, rolling his eyes. “But maybe you should milk it. You’re young and beautiful and blonde and he’s your coach so it’s like.. it’s kind of illicit. He could get you a nice place off campus… be your sugar daddy. Girls do it all the time.”

“I think he’d kill me if I ever called him that,” Art laughs, making up his mind to definitely call him that at some point.

Devon agrees to come out with him next weekend but he still has to wait the whole fucking week. It feels like torture.

They have practice everyday and a game on Friday. Which means Patrick’s in those short shorts running them around the court every single day. Art can’t keep his mind off of him. Just wants his attention so bad, everyday he’s doing everything he can just to get Patrick to look in his direction. But Patrick’s got an epic poker face. He’s so fucking cool and calm and collected. So good at acting like nothing happened. Like everything is the same and they never did what they did.

There's one difference. Instead of having the assistant coach do it… he’ll bring Art to the side and personally correct him when he thinks Art could play better. Show him how to position himself, swing the racket, follow through. Big hands, rough hands, gripping Art's waist to turn his body, his wrist to direct his swing. The same hands that effortlessly lifted off his lap the other night.

“Can’t be all talk and no action sweetheart,” Patrick says lightly, as he’s standing behind him. God. It’s actually stupid how sexy he is. Art’s never thought this much about being penetrated, ever. He makes sure to arch his back just a little more than he usually does. Patrick presses a hand to the small of his back.

Art fingers the grip of his racket. “I don’t think I was all talk.”

Patrick chuckles, low and soft. “Stop it. Focus. Bring that energy here,” he says, “all that confidence right here and no one will rattle you.”

“Like this?” Art demonstrates. He makes a mess of it just so that Patrick will touch him again. It takes a minute before Patrick catches on.

“I think you get it,” he says dryly.

“Please show me one more time. I just wanna be a good boy for you,” Art says lightly. It makes Patrick swallow… his gaze falls helplessly over Arts body and then he looks away smirking.

“Are you having fun?” He says, leaning in close, eyes all crinkly with amusement.

Art wants to kiss him. “Mmhm,” he hums, pressing his lips together. “Though sometimes it still feels like my mouth is so full of you I could just… choke.”

“Yeah… right…” Patrick rolls his eyes, still smiling and then he takes a deep breath and drags his hand over his beard. “Hm…What’s today?”

“Wednesday,” Art says.

“And my plans for the weekend are still up in the air,” he says, patting Art on the shoulder as he takes his racket and turns to face the team. “Five laps around the court, everybody, let’s gooo!” He says loudly, blowing his whistle. “Fucking hustle!”

There’s an audible groan and the sounds of rackets dropping as everyone stops what they’re doing and starts running. “Go join them. And if you keep it up it’ll be sprints next.” Patrick says softly.

Art grins, as much as he hates running and he’s sure his teammates will assume he’s responsible for this bit of conditioning, it was still totally fucking worth it.

He probably should’ve focused more but he wins on Friday in spite of himself. Tennis is such a mental game and while he’s generally confident and loves the attention that comes with playing as number one on the center stage, he’s not consistent. That’s what Patrick always says at least. There are opponents that leave him feeling less sure of himself and then he tends to get in his head imagining he’s somehow inadequate or deficient.

One of those players is a French recruit from UCLA, Jensen Bordeaux. Art starts out strong. Crushes it in the first set. But when Bordeaux fights back in the second and he falls apart a little. It’s a bad habit. He wins another game but it’s not enough. He ends up nearly going into a third set.

“Remember what I said,” Patrick takes him to the side between points. “Stop acting like you can’t finish him off. You can have whatever you want right?”

Art gazes at him and bites his lip. “Mmhm.” He nods.

“Good. You know what you want. Just take it. Okay?”

“Yeah okay,” Art says breathlessly.

“Good boy,” Patrick says, rubbing his shoulders, a little smirk on his lips. “Try not to… you know… choke.”

Art feels heated from the inside out. He goes back on the court except he’s not thinking about the game. Instead he’s so anxious for the promise of tomorrow night that all this begins to feel like a mere obstacle to that. He makes easy work of it, winning the tiebreaker and shifting it so that Stanford goes home the winning team.

Everyone on the team goes out to a frat party to celebrate and Art is so drunk and horny by the end of the night. He stumbles into his dorm at 1 am, falls drunkenly into bed and starts touching himself. Fingers in his mouth imagining it’s the heavy weight and thickness of Patrick’s cock. Imagining Patrick’s large hands in his hair, imagining the soft, easily amused tone of his voice as he murmurs. “Good boy.” Makes him come so fast and hard he passes out.

He’s a mess in the morning. In more ways than one. They don’t have practice after game days so he sleeps off his hangover and the day flies by. He takes a long hot shower before he gets ready to go. Anxiety and anticipation competing for space in his brain and body. Devon loans him clothes that are so much tighter than anything he wears regularly. “Trust me, he’s gonna be all over you in this.”

They get there at the same time as last week but Patrick doesn’t come right away. Art’s waiting and waiting and waiting for Patrick to show up at the gay bar. Devon is at a table, a new boy on his lap and they’re making out. Art is half tipsy, swinging his legs on a barstool while this guy from the baseball team stands between his thighs asking him everything about tennis like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. And that’s when Patrick finally arrives. He spots Art across the bar and smirks. Art gets up right away, making excuses to the now frowning baseball player about seeing him around on campus.

“That was fast,” Patrick smirks, as Art sidles up next to him.

“Well I didn’t know you’d take so long to come,” Art says, moving closer. “Is that an old person thing?”

”Mm, you…” Patrick chuckles, tapping his credit card on the bar. He’s got such a great smile. God. Art is so far gone. This is tragic.

“Can you buy me a drink?” Art asks in his ear.

“No fucking way,” Patrick says, amused.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously, how many drinks have you had tonight?”

Art holds up 3 fingers.

“Is that how many fingers I’m gonna have to put in before I can… nevermind…” Patrick says.

Art grins. Warmth spreading throughout his body. “It’s really big,” Art whispers. “Maybe you need four?”

“God…” Patrick laughs, incredulous. “I shouldn’t even fucking be here.” He sighs, as the bartender approaches them. He orders a whiskey and because it’s two for one he gives in and lets Art pick something. He orders rum and coke.

Art feels giddy as he sips on it.

“So used to getting whatever you ask for,” Patrick says, looking him over, teasing a finger into one of his belt loops. “Twenty years old. God. You make me fucking crazy.” He whispers in Art’s ear.

Art can’t help grinning.

Patrick makes him wait while he talks to people his own age. Acting all wholesome. “Oh he’s just one of my players, I’m gonna make sure he gets home safe.” He even gives Art the key so he can wait in his jeep. Art’s hard as soon as he gets in it. Listens to music too loud and ponders touching himself.

He’s kissing on Patrick right away when he finally gets in the car. He’s been so eager all week. “Mm…” Patrick pulls back, tangling his fingers into Art’s hair. “Fuck… gimme a minute to get you home, okay?” he says and he turns on the engine and puts the music back at a sensible volume.

“Is it far?” Art asks.

Patrick huffs a laugh. “Take a deep breath.”

It doesn't help. Everything smells like him. Art puts a hand on Patrick’s thigh, his skin is so heated. He remembers how warm Patrick’s cock felt in his mouth and then his mouth starts watering.

“Is Tashi there?” Art sighs.

“What do you fucking think?”

Art leans close, just breathing him in. Resting his head on Patrick’s shoulder. ”She’s so pretty.” He hums.

“I know.”

“You’re so pretty.”

Patrick chuckles, a low vibration Art can feel from his throat that makes him shiver. “And you're so tipsy. And so fucking young.”

“But you like it.” Art says softly, rubbing Patrick’s thigh. Skin so warm he’s like a furnace. Already hard enough that Art can feel it.

”And I know I’m gonna regret it.”

Their house is actually huge. On the nicer side of Palo Alto. It’s one of the ones with a pool and a tennis court and a crazy nice view of the city. Art doesn’t know any of this until later because as soon as they're inside he’s trying to get his tongue in Patrick’s mouth. Patrick walks him back towards the living room where there’s a huge leather sofa. Art climbs onto his lap as soon as he sits down. Patrick is touching him everywhere, fingers tangled into his hair. Hands under his shirt, rubbing him, teasing him. Art is just trying his best to feel him, lick into his mouth and taste him. All while grinding against his prominent bulge. Grabbing at his zipper trying to get it out.

“Can you fuck me?” Art begs against his lips.

“Fuck,” Patrick breathes against his lips, he’s gripping Art’s waist tightly. Slowing him down. He sighs like he’s trying to pull himself together. “Mmkay. God. Stand up a minute. I need to get a condom and some lube.”

Art gets up reluctantly, nervous energy making him bounce on his toes like he’s waiting on a serve. Patrick smirks, “Relax… I’ll be back in a minute.” He pats Art’s shoulder as he gets up and disappears into another room. It doesn’t matter whether Art sits or stands, he’s anxious. He looks around the lavish room, fancy furniture, paintings that look expensive. Massive kitchen like the kind you see in movies. Patrick comes back and he’s all loose, t-shirt wrinkled, hair messy, eyes soft. He’s probably done this a million times. He’s got a condom between his fingers which he hands to Art.

“You wanna put it on me?”

”Mmhm,” Art says. He’s also carrying a little bottle of lube. Art’s trying to rip the packet open but his hands are all shaky. Especially when Patrick lifts his t-shirt off, he’s so solid, strong biceps, chest hair that gets darker condensed down the line of his stomach to where his jeans are unbuttoned. Art wants to lick it.

“Okay,” Patrick settles on the sofa, kicking off his shoes. “Give me that, you pretty little virgin and take those clothes off.”

Art hands him the condom a little embarrassed, and starts undoing his jeans. Kicks off his shoes and peels off his shirt so he’s only in boxers. Patrick bites open the packet and eases his jeans down and his cock out. Art takes shallow breaths watching him roll the condom on. It’s so big the condom is a magnum size and it fits snug. He’s heard horror stories about first times, even read a few on Reddit and he’s starting to feel a little panicked.

”Look at you.” Patrick says softly, eyes dragging slowly down Arts body. He pulls Art onto his thighs, god he has thick muscular thighs, Art can’t help wiggling. Patrick’s got him close so their cocks line up, and his palm is covered in lube and he’s gripping them both at the same time. It feels so fucking good Art thinks he might come too fast. He’s moaning, eyes squeezed shut when Patrick stops. Art opens his eyes to see Patrick wetting his fingers with more lube and slips a thick calloused finger back along Art’s entrance. Art feels himself seizing up as Patrick presses slowly inside.

“Take deep breaths,” Patrick whispers. Advice Art tries to follow but it just feels so crazy. He eases another finger in and Art tenses even more.

“Mm if your so fucking tight, I can’t fuck you sweetheart.”

“Does it hurt?” Art whispers.

Patrick takes a breath. “Yeah a little at first… but I think I can make it feel a little…uh better…”

Art shivers, his body suddenly overrun by pleasure as Patrick’s teasing his fingertips deep inside him. Art can hear himself moaning voice suddenly pitched so high he barely recognizes it. “Please… please… “he begs. “Please fuck me… fuck me… fuck me daddy.” Art gasps, losing himself as he’s riding the sensation.

“Fuck… what did you call me?” Patrick whispers.

Art bites his lip, his body heating up immediately with embarrassment. “Mm sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to… I meant like sugar…” He says softly as Patrick slowly pulls his fingertips out. Art is breathless. Patrick doesn’t look mad but his expression has gone heady.

“Fuck… I can be daddy if you need it,” Patrick breathes. “Come…sit on daddy’s dick. Holy shit. What are you doing to me?”

Art swallows, his stomach doing flip flops for the way Patrick says it. He sits up on his knees, he can feel Patrick lining up. It actually feels like a lot. Like way too much. Impossible to take. He’s got his eyes squeezed shut and watering feeling the insane stretch as he sinks so fucking slowly down on it.

“Oh god,” he keeps whispering over and over like a prayer.

“Fuck,” Patrick breathes. His hands gripping Art’s waist.

He’s anxious moving slowly, gripping tightly, it’s too much, he’s too full. And Patrick starts to adjust him while gently rubbing his tummy. “Relax… lets try this angle,” Patrick whispers. Fucking into him in a way that he starts hitting that pleasure spot deep inside with even more intensity. “Good… good boy…that’s right…breathe… breathe… keep breathing… fuck…” Patrick coaches. And then slowly as it happens Art is moaning, bouncing on his lap just to feel it hit over and over and over and over again.

“I wanna… mmm I like it so much. wanna do it all the time,” Art moans nonsensically as he’s riding, not sure what’s happening, just that he’s seeing stars. “I wanna fuck you all the time. All the fucking time. wanna fuck you at school… during practice. In your bed. Wanna be your boy toy. Play with your big dick. Fuck me, oh fuck… fuck me daddy, daddy please. It feels so fucking good.”

“Jesus,” Patrick groans he barely grips Art’s cock and he’s coming loudly, spurts of it covering Patrick’s chest and his own. He can feel Patrick still pressing up into him, it suddenly feels like way too much. Every movement making him shake with how sensitive it feels and then Patrick stills, swearing over and over, gripping Art’s body tight and burying himself deep. Low gravelly sounds against Art’s ear.

”Fuck,” Patrick gasps, breathlessly. “Oh… god. You’re so… fuck I’m so screwed.”

“Mm,” Art collapses against his chest, running his fingers down Patricks soft chest hair all painted with his jizz. His knees are all sweaty and sticking to the leather but he doesn’t really care. He just wants to be close. Patrick is gently rubbing his lower back and it feels amazing. Art can feel him softening and slowly slipping out of him, he thinks he might fall asleep like this.

“You okay?” Patrick asks.

”Mmhm,” Art says.

“You sure?”

”Yeah. Can we do it again?”

“God,” Patrick laughs. “I need at least five minutes and I need you to get up cause I gotta piss.”

“No,” Art whines, unhappy about anything that means he won’t be warmed by Patrick's body heat even for a second. He wraps his arms around Patrick’s shoulders.

Patrick chuckles. “I can’t go anywhere?”

“No,” Art says. “You’re my pillow.”

“Guess I fucked your virgin ass good,” Patrick says.

“For an old guy,” Art says softly, smiling against Patrick’s throat.

“For your daddy, you little freak…” Patrick says gently, squeezing his ass. “Come on, get up or we’re gonna have a bigger mess to clean up.”

Art groans and unwraps his arms. “Can I come?”

“To piss?” Patrick raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Art nods.

Patrick smirks and rolls his eyes before gently curling his fingers into Arts hair. “Yeah sure, come on.”

Art kisses him and he sighs into Arts mouth. “I need a fucking cigarette too.”

“Can I stay over?” Art asks against his lips.

“Mm…” he ponders and sighs. “Fuck it I don’t know why I bother pretending to set boundaries with you…” he says, helping Art to his shaky feet. “Tashi will be home tomorrow afternoon. So you know… better not sleep too late.”

Art grins at him. “Does she know about me?”

“Does she know that after I finally got a good job as a tennis coach at my old school that I’m this close to losing it because I can’t help fucking my barely legal 20 year old star player? No actually. She doesn’t know.” He says dryly.

Art laughs. “I wouldn’t tell. But I mean imagine if I slept with you both. I’d learn so much about tennis.“

Patrick snorts, “This kinda talk is gonna make me take you home tonight actually…”

“Mm too late. You let me call you daddy,” Art grins. “You’re never getting rid of me.”

[theclassiccherry]

class 2-a misc. headcanons

hey, I'm cherry. welcome. recs are open if you're interested. much love, drink some water, and take care babe. (also, a lot of this turned into their music tastes, so??)

tw: language, but that’s expected w me

====

-Todoroki and Momo are both well traveled, having been to multiple countries, and at one point or another becomes something the two share about with one another.

-Deku absolutely had a fnaf phase.

-It's canon Bakugou likes romance novels; however, sharks I present to you: Bakugou watches Bridgerton. Send tweet.

-Mina has a fake and has used it to buy alcohol; however, this doesn't work so well after the sports festival after she's disclosed as a first year.

-I saw someone posted that Bakugou is a Kendrick Lamar fan, so whoever originally posted that, full credit to you (if you know, please comment and I'll tag them) -- I'd like to add he's a Future, Metro, 21 Savage, and The Weeknd fan as well, and you bet your ass he's training to The Hills, 10 Freaky Girls, and Mask Off.

-Bakugou has a skin care routine.

-Kirishima knows 'Unwritten' by Natasha Bedingfield by heart. If it gets played, he gets into that shit.

-There's a speaker system in Gym Gamma, and everyone takes turns on aux whenever there's a class practice. Songs that get played most are as follows:

Surround Sound by JID, 21 Savage, and Baby Tate

Without Me by Eminem

Literally anything that's by Rihanna, Pitbull, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, or Blackpink

m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar

10 Freaky Girls by 21 Savage and Metro Boomin

Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar

(idk I feel like rap goes hard when you're training to kick ass, yk)

Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi (one of kiri's favorite songs)

yk Smooth Operator by Sade too 😭

-After the drake disses, no one is allowed to play drake, it gets vetoed almost immediately. however when not like us comes on, everyone holds the 'A MINORRR' and it's fucking gold

-Bakugou, Mina, Jirou, and Kirishima are primarily in control of the music cause the class tends to like whatever they play, but if enough people yell skip, the song gets vetoed.

-Deku could roast the shit out of someone if he chose to, like if you put him in Wild'n'Out he'd gut bitches, he's just too nice and keeps his mouth shut 99.9% of the time. Considering he knows so much about people, their habits, and quirks, he's also unintentionally got dirt on people. All of saying is, Deku could 1000% pull a Kendrick Lamar and end someone's career if he just decided to.

-Inko Midoriya brings food over to the class dorms for those who choose to remain in the dorms. She's the emergency contact for like, half of the class, and is essentially everyone's mom. If something's wrong, Momma Midoriya is already in the mom van and on the way.

-Mitsuki is a wine mom. Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.

-Kirishima has like, 50 flavors of protein powder. it's all stacked neatly on a shelf in his dorm.

-Kaminari has been banned from the kitchen, he's too much of a liability once he starts 'cooking'.

-Sato keeps a cookie jar, and bakes fresh cookies every couple days - it lives in the kitchen off to the side. He's also just really laid back, and if you're on your cycle and have a specific pastry you're craving, if you ask, he'll make it for you fresh if he has the time.

-Kirishima is a hugger and if you've had a bad day, and need a hug, just hug him. He'll sit there and hold you as long as you need, stating it's, "manly to hug it out!"

-Deku also gives amazing hugs, but is too shy to do so with people he's not close with.

-Mina and Hagakure host dance parties every Friday night for the girlies. No boys are allowed, but Aoyama is invited because he's fabulous.

-Bakugou, Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero play Fortnite and COD together. Kirishima called them the 'Baku-squad' once and that's when that term was first coined by the group (in my headcanons). Bakugou secretly likes that it's named after him.

-Deku, Tsu, Uraraka, Todoroki and Ilda have a Minecraft server together. Deku built a massive All Might and proceeded to live in it, Tsu has a hut by the mangroves, Uraraka lives in the cherry biome, and then Todoroki and Ilda have this really organized massive house in a spruce forrest. When everyone saw it for the first time, they all went, "holy shit...". Lest to say it soon becomes the HQ of the server when they suit up for the ender dragon fight.

-Speaking of Minecraft, Deku builds the most elaborate red stone you've ever seen, but cannot explain how and what he built to save his life. He also owns all of the Minecraft books that came out in like, 2016.

-Aizawa lives on Melatonin gummies, black coffee, and shear force of will. I also feel like at one point in his early 20s he smoked cigarettes then quit.

-Sero's hammock is something he keeps as a privilege after Bakugou broke it.

-Bakugou just happens to 'make too much' food and happens to make sure his friends have eaten properly.

-Present Mic is a die hard Mitsuki fan.

-Aizawa genuinely loves his students and does little things for them. Like at graduation, there's a small note from him to each student in their diplomas for them to find later. It's personalized for each of them, but he gives his personal contact to all in case they ever need anything (he would drop everything and help but he won't say that out loud).

-If Bakugou or Midoriya ever got ahold of Thor's hammer, they'd both be worthy. Bakugou more-so at the end of the series than the beginning. Kirishima could also lift it depending on the situation.

-Mineta's been sent to detention multiple times for looking up things he should NOT be googling on the school WiFi. Aizawa is really sick of his shit, he refuses to even look at the links anymore cause it's bad, and so he just lectures him like a hopeless parent and then gives the Chromebook back lmao

-Aizawa uses his body wash as face wash and has flawless skin.

-If Denki was a vine, he’d be the *calling roll call* “Uh, Shithead?” “It’s pronounced shi-thead”

copyright © @theclassiccherry

[mostlysignssomeportents]

All the books I reviewed in 2024

I reviewed 26 books this year: 15 novels, 5 nonfiction books, and 6 graphic novels. Even though I feel perennially behind on my reading (and objectively, I do have 10 linear feet of "to be read" books on the shelf), I think this is a pretty good haul.

Books are pretty much the ideal gift, if you ask me. Of course, I'm biased as a former bookseller and library worker, and as an author (of course) – I had three more books come out in 2024 (see the end of this post for details).

I started a lot more than 26 books this year. Long ago, I figured life was too short for books I wasn't enjoying, and I'm pretty ruthless about putting books down partway through if I think they're not going to reward finishing them. I probably start 10 books for every one I finish. However, I do review more than 90% of the books I get through. It's rare for me to keep reading a book all the way to the end if I'm not enjoying it enough to unconditionally recommend it. I rarely review books I don't like – there's not really any point in cataloging the list of books I think you won't enjoy reading, and most books I don't like very much are broken in ways that are too banal to comment upon.

The list below is pretty great, but if you're looking for more, here's the haul from 2023:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/01/bookmaker/#2023-in-review

NOVELS

I. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

A fucking banger: it's a taut, unguessable whuddunit, painted in ultrablack noir, set in an alternate Jazz Age in a world where indigenous people never ceded most the west to the USA. It's got gorgeously described jazz music, a richly realized modern indigenous society, and a spectacular romance. It's amazing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/04/cahokia/#the-sun-and-the-moon

II. After World by Debbie Urbanski

An unflinching and relentlessly bleak tale of humanity's mass extinction, shot through with pathos and veined with seams of tragic tenderness and care. Sen Anon – the story's semi-protagonist – is 18 years old when the world learns that every person alive has been sterilized and so the human race is living out its last years.

The news triggers a manic insistence that this is a good thing – long overdue, in fact – and the perfect opportunity to scan every person alive for eventual reincarnation as virtual humans in an Edenic cloud metaverse called Gaia. That way, people can continue to live their lives without the haunting knowledge that everything they do makes the planet worse for every other living thing, and each other. Here, finally, is the resolution to the paradox of humanity: our desire to do good, and our inevitable failure on that score.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/18/storyworker-ad39-393a-7fbc/#digital-human-archive-project

III. Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee

A dreamlike tale of a public-private partnership that hires the terminally endebted to invade the dreams of white-collar professionals and harvest the anxieties that prevent them from being fully productive members of the American corporate workforce.

We meet Jonathan as he is applying for a job that he was recruited for in a dream. As instructed in his dream, he presents himself at a shabby strip-mall office where an acerbic functionary behind scratched plexiglass takes his application and informs him that he is up for a gig run jointly by the US State Department and a consortium of large corporate employers. If he is accepted, all of his student debt repayments will be paused and he will no longer face wage garnishment. What's more, he'll be doing the job in his sleep, which means he'll be able to get a day job and pull a double income – what's not to like?

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/08/capitalist-surrealism/#productivity-hacks

IV. The Book of Love by Kelly Link

If you've read Link's short stories (which honestly, you must read), you know her signature move: a bone-dry witty delivery, used to spin tales of deceptive whimsy and quirkiness, disarming you with daffiness while she sets the hook and yanks. That's the unmistakeable, inimitable texture of a Kelly Link story: deft literary brushstrokes, painting a picture so charming and silly that you don't even notice when she cuts you without mercy.

Turns out that she can quite handily do this for hundreds of pages, and the effect only gets better when it's given space to unfold.

It's a long and twisting mystery about friendship, love, queerness, rock-and-roll, stardom, parenthood, loyalty, lust and duty.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/13/the-kissing-song/#wrack-and-roll

V. Lyorn by Steven Brust

The seventeenth book in Steven Brust's long-running Vlad Taltos series. For complicated reasons, Vlad has to hide out in a theater. Why a theater? They are shielded from sorcery, as proof against magical spying by rival theater companies, and Vlad is on the run from the Left Hand of the Jhereg – the crime syndicate's all-woman sorceress squad – and so he has to hide in the theater.

The theater is mounting a production of a famous play that's about another famous play. The first famous play (the one the play is about – try and follow along, would you?) is about a famous massacre that took place thousands of years before. The play was mounted as a means of drumming up support for the whistleblower who reported on the massacre and was invited to a short-term berth in the Emperor's death row as a consequence.

The plot is a fantastic, fast-handed caper story that has a million moving parts, a beautiful prestige, and a coup de grace that'll have you cheering and punching the air.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/09/so-meta/#delightful-doggerel

VI. Till Human Voices Wake Us by Rebecca Roque

A teen murder mystery told in the most technorealist way. Cia's best friend Alice has been trying to find her missing boyfriend for months, and in her investigation, she's discovered their small town's dark secret – a string of disappearances, deaths and fires that are the hidden backdrop to the town's out-of-control addiction problem.

Alice has something to tell Cia, something about the fire that orphaned her and cost her one leg when she was only five years old, but Cia refuses to hear it. Instead, they have a blazing fight, and part ways. It's the last time Cia and Alice ever see each other: that night, Alice kills herself.

Or does she? Cia is convinced that Alice has been murdered, and that her murder is connected to the drug- and death-epidemic that's ravaging their town. As Cia and her friends seek to discover the town's secret – and the identity of Alice's killer – we're dragged into an intense, gripping murder mystery/conspiracy story that is full of surprises and reversals, each more fiendishly clever than the last.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/16/dead-air/#technorealism

VII. The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein

Randall "XKCD" Munroe pitched me on this over dinner: "All these different people kept recommending them to me, and they kept telling me that I would love them, but they wouldn't tell me what they were about because there's this huge riddle in them that's super fun to figure out for yourself. "The books were published in the eighties by Del Rey, and the cover of the first one had a huge spoiler on it. But the author got the rights back and she's self-published it."

How could I resist a pitch like that? So I ordered a copy. Holy moly is this a good novel! And yeah, there's a super interesting puzzle in it that I won't even hint at, except to say that even the book's genre is a riddle that you'll have enormous great fun solving.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/04/the-wulf/#underground-fave

VIII. Moonbound by Robin Sloan

Moonbound's protagonist is a "chronicler," a symbiotic fungus engineered to nestle in a human's nervous system, where it serves as a kind of recording angel, storing up the memories, experiences and personalities of its host. When we meet the chronicler, it has just made a successful leap from its old host – a 10,000-years-dead warrior who had been preserved in an anaerobic crashpod ever since her ship was shot out of the sky – into the body of Ariel, a 12-year-old boy who had just invaded the long-lost tomb.

This is doing fiction in hard mode, and Sloan nails it. The unraveling strangeness of Ariel's world is counterpointed with the amazing tale of the world the chronicler hails from, even as the chonicler consults with the preserved personalities of the heroes and warriors it had previous resided in and recorded.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/11/penumbraverse/#middle-anth

IX. Fight Me by Austin Grossman

Aging ex-teen superheroes weigh the legacy of Generation X, in a work that enrobes its savage critique with sweet melancholia, all under a coating of delicious snark. The Newcomers – an amped-up ninja warrior, a supergenius whose future self keeps sending him encouragement and technical schematics backwards through time, and an exiled magical princess turned preppie supermodel – have spent more than a decade scattered to the winds. While some have fared better than others, none of them have lived up to their potential or realized the dreams that seemed so inevitable when they were world famous supers with an entourage of fellow powered teens who worshipped them as the planet's greatest heroes.

As they set out to solve the mystery of the wizard who gave the protagonist his powers, they are reunited and must take stock of who they are and how they got there (cue Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime").

The publisher's strapline for this book is "The Avengers Meets the Breakfast Club," which is clever, but extremely wrong. The real comp for this book isn't "The Breakfast Club," it's "The Big Chill."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/01/the-big-genx-chill/#im-super-thanks-for-asking

X. Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby

Kristen is the "Chief Emotional Manager" for Wuv, a hot startup that has defined the new field of "affective computing," which is when a computer tells you what everyone else around you is really feeling, based on the irrepressible tells emitted by their bodies, voices and gadgets.

Managing Sumter through Wuv's tumultuous launch is hard work for Kristen, but at last, it's paid off. The company has been acquired, making Kristen – and all her coworkers on the founding core team – into instant millionaires. They're flying to a lavish celebration in an autonomous plane that Sumter chartered when the action begins: the plane has a malfunction and crashes into a desert island, killing all but ten of the Wuvvies.

As the survivors explore the island, they discover only one sign of human habitation: a huge, brutalist, featureless black glass house, which initially rebuffs all their efforts to enter it. But once they gain entry, they discover that the house is even harder to leave.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/13/influencers/#affective-computing

XI. The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy

A queer coming-of-age tale in the mode of epic fantasy. Lorel wants to be a witch, but that's the very last of the adventurous trades to be strictly gender-segregated. Boys and girls alike run away to be knights, brigands and sailors, but only girls can become a witch. Indeed, Lorel's best friend, Lane, is promised to the witches, having been born to a witch herself.

Lorel has signed up for witching just as the land is turning against witches, thanks to a political plot by a scheming duchess who has scapegoated the witches as part of a plan to annex all the surrounding duchies, re-establishing the long-disintegrated kingdom with herself on the throne. To make things worse (for the witches, if not the duchess), there's a plague of monsters on the land, and the forests are blighted with a magical curse that turns trees to unmelting ice. This all softens up the peasantfolk for anti-witch pogroms.

So Lorel has to learn witching, even as her coven is fighting both monsters and the duchess's knights and the vigilante yokels who've been stirred up with anti-witch xenophobia.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/24/daughters-of-the-empty-throne/#witchy

XII. Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

A story that will make you drunk on language, on worldbuilding, and on its roaring, relentless plot. The action is set on Chynchin, a fantastic Caribbean island (or maybe Caribbeanesque – it's never clear whether this is some magical, imaginary world, or some distant future of our own). Chynchin is a multiracial, creole land with a richly realized gift economy that Hopkinson deftly rounds out with a cuisine, languages, and familial arrangements.

Chynchin was founded through a slave rebellion, in which the press-ganged soldiers of the iron-fisted Ymisen empire were defeated by three witches who caused them to be engulfed in tar that they magicked into a liquid state just long enough to entomb them, then magicked back into solidity. For generations, the Ymisen have tolerated Chynchin's self-rule, but as the story opens, a Ymisen armada sails into Chynchin's port and a "trade envoy" announces that it's time for the Chynchin to "voluntarily" re-establish trade with the Ymisen.

The story that unfolds is a staple of sf and fantasy: the scrappy resistance mounted against the evil empire, and this familiar backdrop is a sturdy scaffold to support Hopkinson's dizzying, phantasmagoric tale of psychedelic magic, possessed children, military intrigue, musicianship and sexual entanglements.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/20/piche/#cynchin

XIII. Julia by Sandra Newman

Julia is the kind of fanfic that I love, in the tradition of both The Wind Done Gone and Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in which a follow-on author takes on the original author's throwaway world-building with deadly seriousness, elucidating the weird implications and buried subtexts of all the stuff and people moving around in the wings and background of the original.

For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.

This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. Through Julia's eyes, we experience Oceania as a paranoid autocracy, corrupt and twitchy. We witness the obvious corollary of a culture of denunciation and arrest: the ruling Party of such an institution must be riddled with internecine struggle and backstabbing, to the point of paralyzed dysfunction. The Orwellian trick of switching from being at war with Eastasia to Eurasia and back again is actually driven by real military setbacks – not just faked battles designed to stir up patriotic fervor. The Party doesn't merely claim to be under assault from internal and external enemies – it actually is.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/28/novel-writing-machines/#fanfic

XIV. The Wilding by Ian McDonald

McDonald's first horror novel, and it's fucking terrifying. It's set in a rural Irish peat bog that has been acquired by a conservation authority that is rewilding it after a century of industrial peat mining that stripped it back nearly to the bedrock. This rewilding process has been greatly accelerated by the covid lockdowns, which reduced the human footprint in the conservation area to nearly zero.

Lisa's last duty before she leaves the bog and goes home to Dublin is leading a school group on a wild campout in one of the bog's deep clearings. It's a routine assignment, and while it's not her favorite duty, it's also not a serious hardship.

But as the group hikes out to the campsite, one of her fellow guides is killed, without warning, by a mysterious beast that moves so quickly they can barely make out its monstrous form. Thus begins a tense, mysterious, spooky as hell story of survival in a haunted woods, written in the kind of poesy that has defined McDonald's career, and which – when deployed in service of terror – has the power to raise literal goosebumps.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/25/bogman/#erin-go-aaaaaaargh

XV. Polostan by Neal Stephenson

Not a spy novel, but a science fiction novel about spies in an historical setting. This isn't to say that Stephenson tramples on, or ignores spy tropes: this is absolutely a first-rate spy novel. Nor does Stephenson skimp on the lush, gorgeously realized and painstakingly researched detail you'd want from an historical novel.

Polostan raises the curtain on the story of Dawn Rae Bjornberg, AKA Aurora Maximovna Artemyeva, whose upbringing is split between the American West in the early 20th century and the Leningrad of revolutionary Russia (her parents are an American anarchist and a Ukrainian Communist who meet when her father travels to America as a Communist agitator). Aurora's parents' marriage does not survive their sojourn to the USSR, and eventually Aurora and her father end up back in the States, after her father is tasked with radicalizing the veterans of the Bonus Army that occupied DC, demanding the military benefits they'd been promised.

All of this culminates in her return sojourn to the Soviet Union, where she first falls under suspicion of being an American spy, and then her recruitment as a Soviet spy.

Also: she plays a lot of polo. Like, on a horse.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/04/bomb-light/#nukular

NONFICTION

I. A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

Biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith set out to investigate the governance challenges of the impending space settlements they were told were just over the horizon. Instead, they discovered that humans aren't going to be settling space for a very long time, and so they wrote a book about that instead.

The Weinersmiths make the (convincing) case that every aspect of space settlement is vastly beyond our current or reasonably foreseeable technical capability. What's more, every argument in favor of pursuing space settlement is errant nonsense. And finally: all the energy we are putting into space settlement actually holds back real space science, which offers numerous benefits to our species and planet (and is just darned cool).

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

II. Dark Wire by Joseph Cox

Cox spent years on the crimephone beat, tracking vendors who sold modded phones (first Blackberries, then Android phones) to criminal syndicates with the promise that they couldn't be wiretapped by law-enforcement.

He tells the story of the FBI's plan to build an incredibly secure, best-of-breed crimephone, one with every feature that a criminal would want to truly insulate themselves from law enforcement while still offering everything a criminal could need to plan and execute crimes.

This is really two incredible tales. The first is the story of the FBI and its partners as they scaled up Anom, their best-of-breed crimephone business. This is a (nearly) classic startup tale, full of all-nighters, heroic battles against the odds, and the terror and exhilaration of "hockey-stick" growth.

The other one is the crime startup, the one that the hapless criminal syndicates that sign up to distribute Anom devices find themselves in the middle of. They, too, are experiencing hockey-stick growth. They, too, have a fantastically lucrative tiger by the tail. And they, too, have a unique set of challenges that make this startup different from any other.

Cox has been on this story for a decade, and it shows. He has impeccable sourcing and encyclopedic access to the court records and other public details that allow him to reproduce many of the most dramatic scenes in the Anom caper verbatim.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/04/anom-nom-nom/#the-call-is-coming-from-inside-the-ndrangheta

III. The Hidden History of Walt Disney World by Foxx Nolte

No one writes about Disney theme parks like Foxx Nolte; no one rises above the trivia and goes beyond the mere sleuthing of historical facts, no one nails the essence of what makes these parks work – and fail.

The history of Walt Disney World is also a history of the American narrative from the 1960s to the turn of the millennium, especially once Epcot enters the picture and Disney sets out to market itself as a futuristic mirror to America and the world. There's a doomed plan to lead the nation in the provision of an airport for the largely hypothetical short runway aircraft that never materialized, the Disney company's love-hate affair with Florida's orange growers, and the geopolitics of installing a permanent World's Fair, just as World's Fairs were disappearing from the world stage.

In focusing on the conflicts between different corporate managers, outside suppliers, and the gloriously flamboyant weirdos of Florida, Nolte's history of Disney World transcends amusing anaecdotes and tittle-tattle – rather, it illustrates how the creative sparks thrown off by people smashing into each other sometimes created towering blazes of glory that burn to this day.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/15/disnefried/#dialectics

IV. Network Nation by Richard R John

An extremely important, brilliantly researched, deep history of America's love/hate affair with not just the telephone, but also the telegraph. It is unmistakably as history book, one that aims at a definitive takedown of various neat stories about the history of American telecommunications.

The monopolies that emerged in the telegraph and then the telephone weren't down to grand forces that made them inevitable, but rather, to the errors made by regulators and the successful gambits of the telecoms barons. At many junctures, things could have gone another way.

Most striking about this book were the parallels to contemporary fights over Big Tech trustbusting, in our new Gilded Age. Many of the apologies offered for Western Union or AT&T's monopoly could have been uttered by the Renfields who carry water for Facebook, Apple and Google. John's book is a powerful and engrossing reminder that variations on these fights have occurred in the not-so-distant past, and that there's much we can learn from them.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/18/the-bell-system/#were-the-phone-company-we-dont-have-to-care

V. A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown

A frustratingly hard to summarize book, because it requires a lot of backstory and explanation, and one of the things that makes this book so! fucking! great! is how skillfully Brown weaves disparate elements – the unique house he built in Austin, the wildlife he encounters in the city's sacrifice zones, the politics that created them – into his telling.

This series of loosely connected essays that explains how everything fits together: colonial conquest, Brown's failed marriage, his experience as a lawyer learning property law, what he learned by mobilizing that learning to help his neighbors defend the pockets of wildness that refuse to budge.

It's filled with pastoral writing that summons Kim Stanley Robinson by way of Thoreau, and it sometimes frames its philosophical points the way a cyberpunk writer would.

The kind of book that challenges how you feel about the crossroads we're at, the place you live, and the place you want to be.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/17/cyberpunk-pastoralism/#time-to-mow-the-roof

GRAPHIC NOVELS

I. Death Strikes by David Maass and Patrick Lay

"The Emperor of Atlantis," is an opera written by two Nazi concentration camp inmates, the librettist Peter Kien and the composer Viktor Ullmann, while they were interned in Terezin, a show-camp in Czechoslovakia that housed numerous Jewish artists, who were encouraged to make and display their work as a sham to prove to the rest of the world that Nazi camps were humane places.

Death Strikes was adapted by my EFF colleague Dave Maass, an investigator and muckraker and brilliant writer, who teamed up with illustrator Patrick Lay and character designer Ezra Rose (who worked from Kien and Ullmann's original designs, which survived along with the score and libretto).

The Emperor's endless wars have already tried Death's patience. Death brings mercy, not vengeance, and the endless killing has dismayed him. The Emperor's co-option drives him past the brink, and Death declares a strike, breaking his sword and announcing that henceforth, no one will die.

Needless to say, this puts a crimp in the Emperor's all-out war plan. People get shot and stabbed and drowned and poisoned, but they don't die. They just hang around, embarrassingly alive (there's a great comic subplot of the inability of the Emperor's executioners to kill a captured assassin).

While this is clearly an adaptation, Kien and Ullmann's spirit of creativity, courage, and bittersweet creative ferment shines through. It's a beautiful book, snatched from death itself.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/23/peter-kien-viktor-ullmann/#terez

II. My Favorite Things Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris

The long, long delayed sequel to the tale of Karen Reyes, a 10 year old, monster-obsessed queer girl in 1968 Chicago who lives with her working-class single mother and her older brother, Deeze, in an apartment house full of mysterious, haunted adults. There's the landlord – a gangster and his girlfriend – the one-eyed ventriloquist, and the beautiful Holocaust survivor and her jazz-drummer husband.

Ferris's storytelling style is dazzling, and it's matched and exceeded by her illustration style, which is grounded in the classic horror comics of the 1950s and 1960s. Characters in Karen's life – including Karen herself – are sometimes depicted in the EC horror style, and that same sinister darkness crowds around the edges of her depictions of real-world Chicago.

Book Two picks up from Book One's cliffhanger and then rockets forward. Everything brilliant about One is even better in Two – the illustrations more lush, the fine art analysis more pointed and brilliant, the storytelling more assured and propulsive, the shocks and violence more outrageous, the characters more lovable, complex and grotesque.

Everything about Two is more. The background radiation of the Vietnam War in One takes center stage with Deeze's machinations to beat the draft, and Deeze and Karen being ensnared in the Chicago Police Riots of '68. The allegories, analysis and reproductions of classical art get more pointed, grotesque and lavish. Annika's Nazi concentration camp horrors are more explicit and more explicitly connected to Karen's life. The queerness of the story takes center stage, both through Karen's first love and the introduction of a queer nightclub. The characters are more vivid, as is the racial injustice and the corruption of the adult world.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/01/the-druid/#

III. So Long Sad Love by Mirion Malle

Cleo is a French comics creator who's moved to Montreal, in part to be with Charles, a Quebecois creator who helps her find a place in the city's tight-knit artistic scene. The relationship feels like a good one, with the normal ups and downs, but then Cleo travels to a festival, where she meets Farah, a vivacious and talented fellow artist. They're getting along great…until Farah discovers who Cleo's boyfriend is. Though Farah doesn't say anything, she is visibly flustered and makes her excuses before hurriedly departing.

This kicks off Cleo's hunt for the truth about her boyfriend, a hunt that is complicated by the fact that she's so far from home, that her friends are largely his friends, that he flies off the handle every time she raises the matter, and by her love for him.

Malle handles this all so deftly, showing how Cleo and her friends all play archetypal roles in the recurrent missing stair dynamic. It's a beautifully told story, full of charm and character, but it's also a kind of forensic re-enactment of a disaster, told from an intermediate distance that's close enough to the action that we can see the looming crisis, but also understand why the people in its midst are steering straight into it.

Packed with subtlety and depth, romance and heartbreak, subtext that carries through the dialog (in marvelous translation from the original French by Aleshia Jensen) and the body language in Malle's striking artwork.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/25/missing-step/#the-fog-of-love

IV. Bea Wolf by Zach Wienersmith and Boulet

A ferociously amazingly great illustrated kids' graphic novel adaptation of the Old English epic poem, which inspired Tolkien, who helped bring it to popularity after it had languished in obscurity for centuries.

Weinersmith and Boulet set themselves the task of bringing a Germanic heroic saga from more than a thousand years ago to modern children, while preserving the meter and the linguistic and literary tropes of the original. And they did it!

There are some changes, of course. Grendel – the boss monster that both Beowulf and Bea Wulf must defeat – is no longer obsessed with decapitating his foes and stealing their heads. In Bea Wulf, Grendel is a monstrously grown up and boring adult who watches cable news and flosses twice per day, and when he defeats the kids whose destruction he is bent upon, he does so by turning them into boring adults, too.

The utter brilliance of Bea Wulf is as much due to the things it preserves from the original epic as it is to the updates and changes. Weinersmith has kept the Old English tradition of alliteration, right from the earliest passages, with celebrations of heroes like "Tanya, treat-taker, terror of Halloween, her costume-cache vast, sieging kin and neighbor, draining full candy-bins, fearing not the fate of her teeth. Ten thousand treats she took. That was a fine Tuesday."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/24/awesome-alliteration/#hellion-hallelujah

V. Youth Group by Bowen McCurdy and Jordan Morris

A charming tale of 1990s ennui, cringe Sunday School – and demon hunting.

Kay is a bitter, cynical teenager who's doing her best to help her mother cope with an ugly divorce that has seen her dad check out on his former family. Mom is going back to church, and she talks Kay into coming along with her to attend the church youth group.

But this is no ordinary youth group. Kay's ultra-boring suburban hometown is actually infested with demons who routinely possess the townspeople, and that baseline of demonic activity has suddenly gone critical, with a new wave of possessions. Suddenly, the possessed are everywhere – even Kay's shitty dad ends up with a demon inside of him.

That's when Kay discovers that the youth group and its corny pastor are also demon hunters par excellence. Their rec-rooms sport secret cubbies filled with holy weapons, and the words of exorcism come as readily to them as any embarrassing rewritten devotional pop song. Kay's discovery of this secret world convinces her that the youth group isn't so bad after all, and soon she is initiated into its mysteries, including the existence of rival demon-hunting kids from the local synagogue, Catholic church, and Wiccan coven.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/16/satanic-panic/#the-dream-of-the-nineties

VI. Justice Warriors: Vote Harder by Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson

Vote Harder sees Bubble City facing its first election in living memory, as the mayor – who inherited his position from his "powerful, strapping Papa" – loses a confidence vote by the city's trustees. They're upset with his plan to bankrupt the city in order to buy a laser powerful enough to carve his likeness into the sun as a viral stunt for the launch of his comeback album. The trustees are in no way mollified by the fact that he expects to make a lot of money selling special branded sunglasses that allow Bubble City (and the mutant hordes of the Uninhabited Zone) to safely look into the sun and see what their tax dollars bought.

So it's time for an election, and the two candidates are going hard: there's the incumbent Mayor Prince; there's his half-sister and ex-girlfriend, Stufina Vipix XII, and there's a dark-horse candidate Flauf Tanko, a mutant-tank cyborg that went rogue after a militant Home Owners Association disabled it and its owners abandoned it. Flauf-Tanko is determined to give the masses of the Uninhabited Zone the representation they've been denied for so long, despite the structural impediments to this (UZers need to complete a questionnaire, sub-forms, have three forms of ID, and present a rental contract, drivers license, work permit and breeding license. They also need to get their paperwork signed in person at a VERI-VOTE location, then wait 14 days to get their voter IDs by mail. Also, districts of 2 million or more mutants are allocated the equivalent of only 250,000 votes, but only if 51% of eligible voters show up to the polls; otherwise, their votes are parceled out to other candidates per the terms of the Undervoting and Apathy Allotment Act).

What unfolds is a funny, bitter, superb piece of political satire that could not be better timed.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/11/uninhabited-zone/#eremption-season

As I mentioned in the introduction to this roundup, I had three books out in 2024; a new hardcover, and the paperback editions of two books that came out in hardcover last year. There's more on the horizon – a new hardcover novel (PICKS AND SHOVELS) in Feb 2025, along with the paperback of my novel THE BEZZLE (also Feb 2025). I just turned in the manuscript for my next nonfiction book, ENSHITTIFICATION, which will also be adapted as a graphic novel. I'll also be shortly announcing the publication details for a YA graphic novel, a new essay collection and short story collection.

If you enjoy my work – the newsletter, the talks, the reviews – the best way to support me is to buy my books. I write for grownups, teens, middle-schoolers and little kids, so there's something for everyone!

I. The Lost Cause A solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency. "The first great YIMBY novel" -Bill McKibben. "Completely delightful…Neither utopian nor dystopian…I loved it" -Rebecca Solnit. A national bestseller!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865946/thelostcause/

II. The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation A detailed disassembly manual for people who want to dismantle Big Tech. "A passionate case for 'relief from manipulation, high-handed moderation, surveillance, price-gouging, disgusting or misleading algorithmic suggestions. -Akash Kapur, New Yorker. Another national bestseller!

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

III. The Bezzle. A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash. "Righteously satisfying…A fascinating tale of financial skullduggery, long cons, and the delivery of ice-cold revenge." –Booklist. A third national bestseller!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle/

[harrysgal]

I DIG YOUR CINEMA (5)

harry styles x yn aspiring filmmaker — social media AU

About the smau: yn starts posting videos on youtube and is trying to build a career as a filmmaker. Things are going pretty well for her and she starts getting more attention when she creates content about shows she goes to. She’s also a fan of Harry’s music and some of his fans start getting suspicious when his team starts interacting with her.

Disclaimer: The story it’s set in 2021 and it will follow their relationship through the LOT leg in the US. Since this is nothing but fiction, I will be following some of the real timeline but also adding my own stuff. On top of that, I won’t be basing myself on Harry’s actual posts.

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PART 4 — THE VIDEO // MASTERLIST

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I DIG YOUR CINEMA (PART 5) — FROM SAN ANTONIO TO DALLAS

liked by bestfriend, sisterinlaw, cuteguy and 63,157 others 

yourinstagram sightseeing tonight 😍 getting to know these cities only gets better and better guys 

view all 9,105 comments

harryfan7 was this before or after dinner with harry? 😏

↳ harryfan3 stoppp. my heart cant take it ↳ harryfan11 no bc the idea of them walking together and stopping to take pictures it’s just so 🤏

lookitsnyoh 🦭 pillowpersonpp 🦥 anthonypham 🧸

↳ harryfan not the teddy bear!!! 

harryfan117 MISS SARAH JONES IS HERE user8 whats with all the emojis guys!! let me innnnn  user1 YOU’RE BACK 🥰 bestfriend its not the city its all you baby bc you light up the world like nobody else

↳ harryfan that was just… ↳ harryfan5 HEJAHDH NO YOU DIDNR ↳ yourinstagram ….  ↳ yourinstagram i dont even know how to react  ↳ bestfriend wish i could say im sorry or embarrassed but im actually not 

cuteguy Looks amazing!

Sep 10, 2021 •

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liked by user1, user4 and 517 others

cuteguy congrats darling ＠yourinstagram 

view all 75 comments 

harryfan60 see?? she isn’t dating Harry

↳ harryfan58 I fucking knew it  ↳ harryfan62 hope this pr nonsense stops 

user14 little sus but alright ig  randomguy cool bro  user44 dude there’s no way she hasn’t cheated on you lol user3 you guys are so fucking disrespectful can you pls leave this man alone???

↳ user26 I mean he’s the one who decided to go public so… 🤷‍♀️ ↳ user3 his ig being public doesn’t automatically mean you’re supposed to be rude tho. 

user36 Am I the only one who finds this picture adorable?

↳ user38 me too!! i was looking for a nice comment about it lol thanks! ↳ user36 I mean they definitely look like a couple and idk it’s a cute pic :( ❤️ liked by author 

Sep 10, 2021 •

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liked by annetwist, bestfriend, cuteguy and 63,879 others 

yourinstagram update time: went out for a run and my lungs got on fire. view was great though. zero complaints. also the show last night was INCREDIBLE. 

view all 13,719 comments

bestfriend shut up you actually went for a run?? 

↳ harrystyles I wouldn’t call that going for a “run”.  ↳ bestfriend okay that actually makes more sense now ↳ yourinstagram excuse me????? 

harryfan OMFG harry interacting with yourbff??? 

↳ harryfan5 I KNOW! where are you ＠bestfriend are you still alive???  ↳ bestfriend no  ↳ bestfriend but im pretending to be cool about it so 🤫 ↳ harryfan OMFHAJDHPAHDJ ILY

cuteguy 😍 user7 yessss! two days in a row!!!! thank you!!! user1 looks so prettyyyyyy! hope you’re doing okay <33

↳ yourinstagram i am!! thank you love <333 

yourbrother Won’t believe you’ve moved your ass to be healthy until I see it.  

↳ yourinstagram the fact that you dont believe me wont change the fact that it happened :D

harryfan15 harry is such a stalker. interacting with her posts when he doesn’t even follow her lol harryfan25 Anne started following her!!!  user10 Not to rush you, but are we getting more videos anytime soon? I was so used to getting one every week… :( user25 So… She’s officially dating that cuteguy, isn’t she? 

↳ user17 What? Who said that?  ↳ user25 TMZ updated that article of her and Harry having dinner with this picture of them ↳ user17 Oh… Where can I see this picture? ↳ user25 She’s tagged on it. ＠cuteguy posted it  ↳ user13 i wouldn’t believe (or read) TMZ guys ↳ harryfan68 funny how you won’t believe TMZ when it’s about this guy but you’ll believe them when it’s about harry ↳ user13 lmao I’m not in that fandom so I couldn’t care less about her dating harry or not. 

harryfan13 SO WE ARE ALL GOING TO IGNORE THE FACT THAT HARRY AND YN WENT OUT FOR A RUN TOGETHER?????

↳ harryfan60 Yes bc no one actually believes they did. Next. ↳ harryfan68 hahaha you ate this one 

Sep 10, 2021 •

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liked by harryfan, harryfan2, harryfan3 and 4,375 others 

harryupdates A fan met Harry in San Antonio today! 

According to the fan, Harry said he was on a tight schedule so couldn’t stay for a chat, but agreed to take a quick picture and thanked her for going to the show. 

view all 675 comments

fanwhometharry “Thank you so much I hope you enjoyed it”, those were his words exactly :’)

↳ harryfan27 OMG IT WAS YOU?? YOU’RE SO LUCKY ↳ fanwhometharry I know!! Thank you!!! ↳ harryfan24 was he alone??  ↳ fanwhometharry No, he was walking with his personal trainer and Yn ↳ harryfan52 his personal trainer also has a name btw and it’s Brad  ↳ fanwhometharry Sorry, I don’t keep up with his personal trainer 🤷 I only know Yn bc I watch her youtube videos ↳ harryfan9 don’t apologize they’re always finding something to complain about lol happy for you!!

harryfan72 How convenient… He always agrees to take pictures when Yn is around 🙄 

↳ harryfan68 right??? almost as if he WANTS people to spread the word… 

harryfan13 I KNEW I WAS RIGHT AND THEY WERE TOGETHER

Sep 10, 2021 •

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liked by annetwist, bestfriend, cuteguy and 61,574 others 

yourinstagram DALLAS! you are sooooo so pretty <3 we arrived yesterday and im already in love. it was a sunny afternoon so i went out for a walk, and as i was on my way to buy some flowers to myself (bc i wanted some so i got some) i had one of those surreal moments thinking about how lucky i am to be where i am right now. im always waiting for this feeling to eventually go away so i can come back to my “old life” and my “old self”, but now im kinda considering that as time goes by and i get to know more and more places, it will actually only grow bigger and bigger, right? :’) 

(in that case, feel free to unfollow me now bc the annoyance will only grow bigger and bigger as well — consider yourself warned.)

view all 14,102 comments

sisterinlaw The summer vibes are gorgeous! harryfan42 WAS HARRY WITH YOU????  user1 another post??? feels like going back to the old times im so happy!!! harryfan64 this girl won’t even post her face and she got like 4k new followers in one day 

↳ harrystyles82 It’s the Harry Styles effect  ↳ harryfan64 glad im not the only one who sees it 🤡

harryfan YN? DID YOU ACTUALLY JUST SAY I WANTED SOME SO I GOT SOME??? 

↳ harryfan5 i saw that too i was like… okay 😂 ↳ harryfan9 hahaha I hope she actually did get some tbh  ↳ harryfan13 ME TOO!! ↳ bestfriend yes. she 100% did ↳ harryfan9 😲 ↳ harryfan lmaoshuahsjbjh  ↳ harryfan17 wait ＠bestfriend she 100% say “i wanted some so i got some” or she 100% got some?  ↳ harryfan23 oh god i cant believe this is a real conversation you guys are having HAHAHA

user17 please keep feeding us with your random cute posts!! <3 i love them!! bestfriend fgs ＠yourinstagram have some manners  bestfriend i thought you didnt like exposing yourself like this  bestfriend also… your mom is on instagram so…  bestfriend PLEASE 

↳ yourinstagram omfg shut upppp ahusdhjahj ↳ yourinstagram stop encouraging the nonsense behavior??? ↳ yourinstagram you KNOW i meant the flowers ↳ yourinstagram i wanted some FLOWERS so i got some FLOWERS ↳ bestfriend yeah i know 💐 ↳ bestfriend sorry its just too funny sometimes 💋

loveynrry did anyone else notice yn hasn’t liked THAT picture yet? 👀

↳ user4 which one? ↳ loveynrry the one @/cuteguy posted ↳ user4 ohhhhhh 👀 ↳ user4 also did you notice yourbff doesn’t follow him ↳ user9 shit ＠user4 i hadn’t noticed that  ↳ loveynrry i did, yeah… thats why im sus about him ↳ user4 I mean, I trust yourbff judgement soooooo…… 

Sep 11, 2021  •

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— — — — — 

PART 6: PHILLY AND DC

— — — — — 

[scoonsalicious]

Unwanted: Chapter 10, Uneasy - Pt. 3

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, mentions of sex, Jade Carthage (sorry), petty behavior.

Word Count: 368

Previously On...: The Lion, the Witch, and the Audacity of this Bitch... Bucky had the balls to answers a call from Jade, abruptly ending sex with you to do so. You contemplated getting back into your old self-harm habits, but decided against it. You and Bucky argued, and it seemed like you really got through to him when you asked him to think of how he'd want you and Steve to interact every time he found himself in a situation with Jade. I'd say it seemed to work, but this is only Chapter 10 out of 28 :(

A/N: As promised, due to my lack of any updates yesterday, here's your second update for today! It's short, I know, but at least you didn't have to wait an entire day to just get < 370 words! :D

I love you! (no question mark) Also, when reviewing it to post, I noticed there was no swearing, and I thought 'can't have that! gotta reputation to maintain!' So I added a 'fucking' at the end, just to keep things on brand.

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

Taglist: (Please let me know if you’d like to be added!) @jmeelee @cazellen @blackhawkfanatic @les-sel @marcswife21 @buckybarnessimpp @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @erelierraceala @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @jupiter-107 @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready @missvelvetsstuff @angelbabyyy99 @keylimebeag @maybefoxysouls @crist1216 @vicmc624 @sashaisready @j23r23

While Bucky took his shower, you threw on one of his Henleys and made your way to the communal kitchen to grab some snacks for your film. To your disdain, Jade was already there, pouring herself a glass of juice.

“Trouble in paradise?” she asked with a smirk as she put the juice back in the fridge. “I didn’t mean to overhear, but you and Jamie were just arguing so loudly.” 

“We’re fine,” you said. You grabbed a couple of bags of chips, some Twizzlers, chocolate, and some drinks. “But thank you so much for your apparent concern.”

“Didn’t sound fine to me,” she beamed. “You forget, I have super soldier hearing. Maybe you should consider getting a new therapist, since the one you’re seeing now clearly isn’t helping. I’m heading back to my room, but don’t feel the need to keep the fighting down on my account, ‘kay? It’s better than Netflix!” With a wink, she turned and walked out the door, juice in hand.

In your anger, you were gripping one of the bags of chips so tightly, it popped open in your hand. Coming to a quick and, probably stupid decision, you grabbed your snacks and raced back to your room.

Bucky was just coming out of the bathroom, with only a towel around his waist, when you burst through the door, tossing the snacks and drinks onto your nightstand.

“Ready for the movie now, doll?” he asked, toweling off his damp hair.

“Changed my mind,” you said as you started taking off your clothes. “Sex is back on the table.”

Bucky grinned at you, but his face quickly fell. “Are you sure, sweets? What changed all of a sudden?”

You pulled the towel from around his waist, licking your lips as his cock sprung free, already growing hard in front of you. “Just something I heard,” you told him before pouncing on him. “I’m gonna need you to make me scream, Barnes.”

“It’ll be my pleasure, doll,” he said before hoisting you up and kissing you.

You knew you were being petty, and it was not a great quality, but you didn’t care: you were going to make sure Jade Carthage heard every. single. filthy. fucking. thing.

<- Previous Part / Next Chapter ->

[likeadevils]

1989 Timeline

This is a very long post that puts all the songs on 1989 in order of Taylor creating them. I’ve also included a few other songs she worked on while writing 1989 and quotes from Taylor and her collaborators talking about her process

Of all the albums in Taylor's discography, I think this is the one that improves the most when you listen to it in order. All of those things Taylor was talking about in the promo for this album-- how this is an album of her coming into her own, figuring out her values, learning to stand on her own two feet-- it all clicks into place. Listening to it in order has made me cry on more than one occasion, and it's also the thing that made me start this whole crazy process of figuring out the dates she wrote each song.

If you don't want to read the whole post, check out this playlist of the album in order or this playlist of her entire discography.

I’ve also added this color coded scale of how sure I am of the date: 

Confirmed: There is some type of official source for the date

Inferring: Nobody has officially said “This is when we wrote it,” but all available evidence points to that date

Speculation: This date is based on guesswork and is highly likely to change, or, all that is known is the general season.

Unknown: All that is known is the year (from the US Copyright Offices)

Without further ado...

Oct 6, 2012: Taylor seems to have been in a studio in London (Note: I have no idea where this photo comes from and I can not find a place that specifies if this is a music studio or radio interview.)

This Love: Oct 17, 2012 (Confirmed)

October 19, 2012: Taylor mentions wanting to work with Imogen Heap, prompting Imogen to get in touch with Taylor

Time Interview: Who’d be your dream collaboration, especially now that you’re taking more musical risks? Let me think. Imogen Heap! She’s amazing. Taylor: Someone asked me in an interview "Who would you like to work with?" and I said Imogen Heap. I get an email to my management, sent like "Imogen just saw that Taylor just said an interview that she would like to work together" She said "Why don't you come out to my studio." Imogen: I got a phone call [in 2014] saying Taylor Swift was in London, she'd love to work with me and the only date she could do (between 4 sold out 02 arenas!) was the day after we got back, Sunday. It was both unexpected and not at the same time as I'd heard Taylor was a fan a while back via this Time magazine piece but somehow didn't think it would actually happen.

Fall 2012: Taylor possibly writes a song with Harry Styles and Jacknife Lee (her producer for The Last Time).

Jacknife Lee: “It was out of my field of expertise and interest, but I was intrigued and my girls were thrilled. Taylor was nice and very professional. She knew what she wanted and there was no fucking about. She was seeing Harry Styles at the time, so he came to Topanga on her recommendation. She wrote a few songs with him, and it was the same thing – quick. But this time it was more directed by the management and label. They were after something specific. I wanted more acoustic and gentle, almost Americana, and they wanted bombast. They got what they wanted, and that was the extent of my foray into teen-pop territory. It was fun.”

All You Had to Do Was Stay: Jan 10, 2013 (Confirmed)

Taylor is photographed outside Conway, and then tweets "Back in the studio. Uh oh..." Later, Taylor confirmed that she was recording All You Had To Do Was Stay. Taylor: I had a dream that my ex showed up at my door, knocked at my door, and I opened it up, and I was about ready to launch into the perfect thing to say [...], Instead, all that would come out of my mouth was that high-pitched chorus of people singing, 'Stay!'...and then you go to say something else, and it's just like 'Stay! Stay! Stay!' And I woke up, I was like 'Oh, that was mortifying. But that's kind of a cool vocal part.'

January 11, 2013: Taylor is photographed outside Conway again

How You Get The Girl: Jan 15, 2013 (Confirmed)

Taylor posts a picture of her playing a guitar in the studio, captioned "Somewhere in LA..". Later, Taylor confirmed that she was recording How You Get The Girl. Given what was going on in her personal life, she likely wrote this sometime in the fall/winter of 2012, but all we know for sure is the date she recorded it.

February 9, 2013: Tweets "Grammy rehearsals last night, studio today, who knows what tonight holds! (I do. Laying around watching TV and eating candy.)"

March 6, 2013: Taylor is photographed outside a studio in LA

March 23, 2013: Posts a picture of her playing guitar captioned "Pre show. Columbia, South Carolina"

I Wish You Would: May 28, 2013 (Inferring)

Taylor is photographed out for lunch in Rhode Island with Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff on May 27, before leaving for her show in Phoenix, Arizona the next day Taylor: "Max Martin and [Karl Johan] Shellback [Schuster] were the last people I collaborated with on [2012 album] Red, and I wished we could have done more and explored more. So going into this album, I knew that I wanted to start with them again. Then I thought, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to work with Ryan Tedder?” And then I was with Jack Antonoff and Lena Dunham at the beach, and we started talking about our favorite ’80s music. All of this started happening organically, and I found myself gravitating toward pop sensibilities, pop hooks, pop production styles." Jack:  "We were hanging out at her house in Rhode Island and we were talking about John Hughes movies, and a lot of the music that inspired [them], and just this general culture of sound in that time period that was really larger-than-life in an anthemic, positive way. These songs could be at the end of films that were really, really beautiful and said a lot. That actually ended up being a song called 'I Wish You Would' which is going to be on her album. We first worked on that song together and realized we kind of have a good thing. Taylor: “This is a song I did with Jack Antonoff, and Jack is one of my friends and so we were hanging out and he pulled out his phone and goes "I made this amazing track the other day. It's so cool, I love these guitar sounds." And he played it for me and immediately I could hear this finished song in my head, and I just said "Please, please let me have that. Let me play with it, like send it to me" And so he sent it to me and I was on tour and this was me playing the track on my laptop recording me singing the vocal into my phone and it ended up being a song called "I Wish You Would", because Jack wrote back and said "I love that".”

June 7, 2013: At the CMA fest, Taylor is asked if she's started writing for her next album yet

“It's starting, all the anxiety is starting and when the anxiety starts, then the writing happens right afterward, usually. Um, so, yeah, I basically... I like to, I like to write for about two years before I'm finished with an album because I... at this point I kind of know that whenever I write in the first year is going to get thrown away, because, I'm going to like it, but it's going to sound a little bit like the last project I had, and the second year usually ends up sounding like the next project. So I think at this point, at this point I feel like staying the same is the easy way to go but it's not the way that I want to go, creatively. I think you need to challenge yourself, I think you need to change up your influences, I think you need to be inspired by different things that you've been inspired by before, and, uh, y'know, It's harder to call people you don't know, and it's harder to think of topics you haven't covered and think of new ways to say old emotions that everyone feels, but, that's the goal at this point."

June 20-21, 2013: Taylor and Selena Gomez hang out, and Taylor potentially writes Wildest Dreams.

July 15, 2013: Taylor gives a brief interview to Rolling Stone

“The floodgates just opened the last couple weeks,” she says of the songwriting process. “I’m getting to that point where I’m irritating to be around because I’ll be with you for half the conversation and then the second half of the conversation I’m clearly editing the second verse of whatever I’m writing in my head.” “I really loved collaborating [on Red],” she says. “You work with a lot of different people and you find the people you have this dream connection with in the studio. I know those people and I know the ones I want to go back to. But I also have a really long list of the people I admire and I would really love to go and contact. So that’s kind of where that is.” “I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point? It’s so overwhelming that when you’re starting a project there are such endless possibilities if you’re willing to evolve and experiment. If you’re willing to become a different version of yourself, you can really go anywhere with it. And that’s kind of where I am. The kind of the laboratory experimental stage of really catching onto a new thing that I’m liking.”

July 18, 2013: Taylor unfollows the three backup dancers that left her tour for Katy's, meaning Bad Blood was likely written sometime between July and November 2013.

Sweeter Than Fiction: Summer 2013 (Speculation)

Taylor wrote this one over email, and then it was recorded in New York (partially in Jack's living room, partially in an actual studio)

August 25, 2013: Taylor and Selena Gomez hang out at the VMAs, and Taylor potentially writes Wildest Dreams.

August 25, 2013: Taylor gives a brief interview on the VMAs red carpet

"But I think [songwriting is] about to start to kick into full gear. I'm about to go into the studio. It's about to get really intense."

Out Of The Woods: September 14 2013 (Inferring)

On September 14, Fun cancelled their show. Taylor was likely either flying to or from Charlottesville, where she had a show for the Red Tour. Jack: "When I did the track for Out of the Woods, which is a Taylor song that I'm really proud of, there was some issue at a venue and our show was canceled that night and I didn't have my stuff, I had left it on the bus, so I only had these old samples on what was on my laptop, and caught up that 'oh oh'' thing, and I only had one drum kit on there, and these dumb little things [sometimes turn into a great song]" Jack: "So 'Out Of The Woods' was the third thing we worked on together, and probably the easiest. I sent her the track for it, and she sent back a voice note with the verse and chorus in what felt like five seconds. And it was just perfect. It's eerie how similar it is to what the final product is." Taylor: "This is a track that Jack Antonoff sent me, and I was actually on a plane, I got it and I got on a plane and I'm listening to it, and I'm just like listening to it and mumbling melodies cause the song came to me immediately like, in full [...] I think what I should start by playing you, is when I got the track, what I sent him like an hour later, and it is, me.. um, me singing what came to me, which ended up being the finished version of the song, or at least really close to it."

September 20, 2013: In a brief interview with USA Today, Taylor says she plans to work on her next album between the next few legs of the Red Tour

"I’ll be in the studio, figuring out what comes next. I really like to take two years to make a record, and I’ve been writing and doing stuff for the last year. This is kind of the year that it goes into overdrive, and it’s all I think about and I become obsessive over it and I’m hard to talk to"

September 22, 2013: Taylor gives an interview to New York Magazine where she talks about her plans for TS5

These days, Swift is thinking a lot about her next record. While on the Red tour, she’d been writing songs and stockpiling ideas: reams of lyrics, thousands of voice memos in her iPhone [...] she plans to spend much of 2014 writing and recording the new album, a prospect she finds exhilarating and terrifying. “I worry about everything. Some days I wake up in a mind-set of, like, ‘Okay, it’s been a good run.’ By afternoon, I could have a change of mood and feel like anything is possible and I can’t wait to make this kind of music I’ve never made before. And then by evening, I could be terrified of the whole thing again. And then at night, I’ll write a song before bed.” Swift hopes to collaborate with new songwriters and producers. But she planned to begin, she said, by heading back into the studio with Max Martin and Shellback. “I want to go in with Max and Johan first, just to figure out what the bone structure of this record is going to be. “I have a lot of things to draw from emotionally at the moment. But I have to draw from them with a different perspective than on Red. I can’t say the same things over and over, you know? I mean, I think it’s just all the more important that I don’t ever allow myself to coast. At the same time, there’s a mistake that I see artists make when they’re on their fourth or fifth record, and they think innovation is more important than solid songwriting. The most terrible letdown as a listener for me is when I’m listening to a song and I see what they were trying to do. Like, where there’s a dance break that doesn’t make any sense, there’s a rap that shouldn’t be there, there’s like a beat change that’s, like, the coolest, hippest thing this six months—but it has nothing to do with the feeling, it has nothing to do with the emotion, it has nothing to do with the lyric. I never want to put things in songs just because that might make them popular, like, on the more rhythmic stations or in dance clubs. I really don’t want a compilation of sounds. I just need them to be songs.”

September 28-October 5, 2013: Taylor and Selena Gomez are in the same city, and Taylor potentially writes Wildest Dreams.

October 12, 2013: Taylor gives an interview to the Associated Press

Swift: I think the goal for the next album is to continue to change, and never change in the same way twice [...] How do I write these figurative diary entries in ways that I’ve never written them before and to a sonic backdrop that I’ve never explored before? It’s my fifth album, which is crazy to think about, but I think what I’m noticing about it so far is it’s definitely taking a different turn than anything I’ve done before. AP: You said recently you’ve been working on songs for the new album for about six months. What can you tell us about what you have planned? Swift: It’s too early to tell who are going to be my predominant collaborators, but I do know that my absolute dream collaborators were Shellback and Max Martin on the last project. I’ve never been so challenged as a songwriter. I’ve never learned so much. I’ve never just been so excited to show up to the studio every day, just because you never know what we’re going to put together. I’ll bring in ideas and they’ll take such a different turn than where I thought they were going to go, and that level of unexpected spontaneity is something that really thrills me in the process of making music. ... What if we did this? What if we made it weirder? What if we took it darker? I love people who have endless strange and exciting ideas about where music can go."

October 14, 2013: At the NSAI, Taylor talks about reinventing herself for different albums

"I’m making my 5th record now, so I think you have to change things up, you have to explore different corners of music as much as you can. Cause I really, it’s been a big goal of mine to never make two albums that sounded the same. I really want my fans to be able to be like "Oh that song? Clearly that's from the Fearless album", "No that one, that one was from Red" and so I’m in the process of doing that thing all over again for my 5th album and it’s amazing to be in the studio and to be songwriting again, and be honored for songwriting tonight"

Blank Space: October 26, 2013 (Inferring)

It looks like she’s wearing the same outfit in this behind the scenes footage and these candids Taylor: "I was going into write with Max Martin and Shellback, who are two of the primary collaborators on 1989, and I... was preparing all these things, and I, I think Blank Space was like the third thing I played them, and they just stopped and they were like "NO, this is the first thing we're working on today." [...] I had the idea for the chorus and I had the hook, but a lot of the verse was gibberish." Taylor (On what song took her the least amount of time to write): "Blank space, cause I'd written a lot of the lines down already in the year preceding the session"

October 29, 2013: Tweets "Sitting in the studio writing the next album (!!!!) and wanted to thank you for the American Music Award nominations!"

November 1 : While promoting Keds, Taylor is asked about her next album

"What I go through is going to be the story that I tell. I think lyrically, I always try to tell my fans exactly what’s happened to me in the last two years, and that’s the thing they can expect. Everything else, they won’t be able to expect. Having been in the studio with this one, I’m just like… oh, this is going to be fun"

Bad Blood: Fall 2013 (Speculation)

The backup dancer drama seems to have kicked off in mid-July. Given that it's produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and Taylor was in the studio with them pretty much non-stop from October-November, we can assume that it was recorded sometime in the Fall of 2013

New Romantics: Fall 2013 (Speculation)

Unfortunately, Taylor doesn't really talk about this song. Given that it's produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and Taylor was in the studio with them pretty much non-stop from October-November, we can assume that it was recorded sometime in the Fall of 2013

Wildest Dreams: Fall 2013 (Speculation)

Selena reportedly told a fan she was there when Taylor wrote this, and I've noted above all the times Selena could have been with Taylor in 2013 (Here's my personal ranking of how likely each date is). Given that it's produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and Taylor was in the studio with them pretty much non-stop from October-November, we can assume that it was recorded sometime in the Fall of 2013.

Wonderland: Fall 2013 (Speculation)

Another one Taylor just doesn't talk about all that often. Given that it's produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and Taylor was in the studio with them pretty much non-stop from October-November, we can assume that it was recorded sometime in the Fall of 2013

Nov 20, 2013: Taylor posted "While in the studio, I came to the realization that my bangs are long enough to use as a sleep mask on long flights. Then I remembered I don't ever use sleep masks on flights. So really, I just need a haircut"

November 25, 2013: Taylor and Scott Borchetta have a meeting to talk about her plans for TS5 and are both asked about the next album at the AMAs

Taylor: “We got a lot already. There are probably seven or eight [songs] that I know I want on the record. It’s really ahead of schedule for me. I’m just stoked because it’s already evolved into a new sound, and that’s all I wanted. And I would have taken two years to make that happen, but it just kind of happened naturally, so that’s all I could really ask for.” Scott Borchetta: "Well earlier today we got together and she played me seven new songs, and she’s just on fire. The level of desire and passion that she has just to keep getting better, she’s an artist that just really never wants to just say ‘Well okay this is good enough’. It’s always gotta be better. She’s in amazing creative place right now." By the end of November, Taylor had likely recorded This Love, All You Had To Do Was Stay, How You Get The Girl, I Wish You Would, Out Of The Woods, Blank Space, Bad Blood, New Romantics, Wildest Dreams, and Wonderland. That’s 10 songs total, 5 of which were likely recorded in the past two months, and 7 that had been made since Taylor and Jack had their conversation about 80s music in May.

Dec 21, 2013: Taylor briefly talks to Billboard about TS5

"I’m really loving collaboration right now [...] I see it as a bit of an apprenticeship. I want to be around people who love writing songs and have done it for years. Every time I’m in a studio I’m learning, like how to build a drum track, and getting a new perspective on things. It’s so thrilling to keep learning on your fifth album. As soon as [an album] comes out I’m figuring out what the next one will be. It’s gotten to the point where each one is a reinvention, which is what I like best. I like it when it sounds new and people don’t know where you’re going to go next."

Say Don't Go: Jan 1, 2014 (Confirmed)

Diane Warren: Warren, who typically writes on her own, says the two of them “sat down and wrote the song […] from scratch” during the last few days of 2013. She remembers being impressed with how specific Swift was with her lyricism and how considerate she was about how her fans might receive it. “She was very particular about how she said certain things. It was a really interesting experience. She gets her audience [...] She’s deeply aware of how her fans want to hear something. I can’t explain it, but that’s probably why she’s the biggest fucking star in the world.” Several days after writing the song together, they got into Warren’s office to record a demo, where Swift played it on her acoustic guitar. “We demoed it on New Year’s Day. And I’m a workaholic, and that’s fine for me,” she says. “But I remember being impressed that she did, too. Everybody’s on vacation, but she showed up.”

You Are In Love: Jan 2014 (Inferring)

This song is copyrighted for 2014. Taylor has said a few times that Clean, Shake It Off, and Style were the last songs written for the album, meaning You Are In Love was likely completed in January or early February. Given Taylor's busy schedule in late January and early February, I'd guess this was written at some point in early January. Furthermore, I'd guess it was sometime after the 9th, when she returned from looking at house in New York.

I Know Places: Jan 22, 2014 (Confirmed)

Taylor: "I sent this voice memo to Ryan Tedder because I'd always wanted to work with him, and finally we scheduled some studio time. So I always wanna be prepared, I wanted to send him the idea that I was working on before we went into the studio just in case he wrote back and said "I can't stand that, I wanna work on something else, think of something else" So I just sat down with the piano, put my phone on top of the piano and just kind of explained to him where I wanted to go with the song, how I saw the melody sitting in and we ended up recording the song the next day and it ended up being on the record called "I Know Places" So this was the voice memo that I sent to him the night before we ended up finishing the song"

Welcome To New York: Jan 23, 2014 (Confirmed)

Ryan Tedder: "I thought we were going to walk in and start something from scratch because that's what I was used to. Then she calls me and says, 'Is it cool if I already have an idea?' I said, 'Sure.' She said, 'I have this song, I'm obsessed with New York and I just moved there, I want to write an ode to New York because no one's done it in a long time.' And then she sent me a voice memo. She's like, 'I want it to sound like 1980s.' So the next day I brought in a Juno-106, which is a very 1980s keyboard and I literally programmed that entire song right in front of her. It was very much on the fly, and that song was done in about three hours. And I did the rest of the production I think later that week. I was in Switzerland on a tour bus, and I did four versions of 'Welcome to New York,' one of which I liked personally more, but the thing about artists is they become very obsessed with the demo. She was in love with the demo so no matter how hard I fought, she brought it back to the demo, so really what you hear is what I did on the first day."

January 26 2014: Dianne Warren says that she recently wrote a song with Taylor

"I worked with Taylor Swift on a great song [...] I'm excited about the [song] that we did, it's pretty cool Dianne in 2016: “I know [Swift] likes it, so hopefully it will see the light of day. I know she really likes the song. She didn’t want me to give it away, so hopefully that means she wants it.”

January 26 2014: Taylor loses Album of the Year at the Grammy's to Daft Punk. She tells a few different stories about what the rest of the night looked like for her-- in some she goes home alone, in some she has some friends over-- but in all of them, this is the night where she decides that she's gonna name the album 1989, and she's not going to let her label tell her to put any country songs on it.

Clean: Feb 9, 2014 (Confirmed)

According to Imogen Heap's blog post, Taylor had the first verse and chorus by the time they got into the studio, and then wrote the second verse and bridge during the session. Taylor's part was wrapped up in 9 hours, ending at 8pm, while Imogen stayed up until 4am because she didn't want to stop working on it. Taylor: ""Shake It Off" and "Clean" were the last two things we wrote for the record, so it shows you where I ended up mentally. “Clean” I wrote as I was walking out of Liberty in London. Someone I used to date— it hit me that I’d been in the same city as him for two weeks and I hadn’t thought about it. When it did hit me, it was like, ‘Oh, I hope he’s doing well’. And nothing else. [...] The first thought that came to my mind was – I’m finally clean." Imogen Heap: I was really writing the tiniest amount just to help her do what she does. I put some noises to [“Clean”], played various instruments on it, including drums, and anytime she expressed she liked something I was doing, I did it more. It was a really fun day. She recorded all her vocals [for “Clean”] during that one session. She did two takes, and the second take was it. We always thought she would probably re-record it, because we thought it can’t possibly be that easy. But after we lived with it for a few months, we felt it was great.

February 15, 2014: Taylor posts "It was a studio Valentines Day with Max and Johan!"

Shake It Off: Feb 15, 2014 (Confirmed)

Lover Diaries (From Feb 22): "This week I’ve been in the studio with Max and Johan every day and it has been the most creatively successful and fulfilling time. The first day, Johan just made a really up tempo drum beat because we decided we needed something UP and light. We worked at it for a few hours before I just started singing “shake it off, shake it off.” And then the best way I know how to describe it is that the chorus just fell out of the sky. It ended up being this song about doing your own thing even though haters are gonna hate, and you just have to dance to your own beat. We all went home and I wrote the first and second verses and brought them in the next day. We wrote this chanty cheer leader bridge that I absolutely LOVE. We spent all day doing vocals and the next day recording background vocals. I think it’ll end up being the first single and Max said it’s his favorite song he’s ever been a part of." Taylor: "The problem was, I had all these lyrics, and I didnt have, like... writing session was coming up and I'm just like "I'm not getting a melody, I'm dead, I don't know what I'm gonna do." The thought terrified me, so I just sorta sulked into the studio and I was like "Guys, I have like an idea but its like, lyric, but I... and I know the vibe I want-- I want it to start off and the second the song starts, I want it to be the song where like, if it's played at a wedding, and there's this one girl who hasn't danced all night at the reception, all her friends come over to her and there like "You have to dance, come on, you have to dance on this one!". That's what I wanted. So I was like "Shellback, can you just go to the drum kit and try to play that?" Taylor: "There's one thing that I've always said to Max, is like "I don't like horns" I just always had a thing about it, I was always like weirdly scared of it, or intimidated by horns, I don't know what it was? It's a weird, like, nerdy studio fear of mine. I was like "No, no horns!" and I don't.. I don't even know, I don't have a reason for it, I love songs that have horns on them, I was just like "I don't think I can pull off horns." Strange. But, he goes over to the mellotron and he starts playing this horn sound. I'm like "What are you doing. Don't do that." and he's like, "No, I think this is cool" and I'm like "No it's not cool, and where are your chorus chords, because, that, you're just playing three chords over and over again and I can't make a chorus out of them, why don't you go to like a chorus chord that starts off the chorus, where is the one, like why don't you go--" and then there was this moment, where I thought of the whole chorus, and it's over the chords that I had just told him are not "chorus chords", which is a ridiculous thing to say."

February 18, 2014: Taylor is photographed entering Conway Studios

Style: Feb 19, 2014 (Confirmed)

Niklas Ljungfelt (guitarist): I played on “Style,” a song I started with Ali Payami for ourselves. He was playing it for Max Martin at his studio; Taylor overheard it and loved it. She and Max wrote new lyrics. But I recorded the guitar on it before it was a Taylor song. It was an instrumental. I didn’t have a clue that Taylor would sing on it. The inspiration came from Daft Punk and funky electronic music. Taylor: I'm pretty sure after we finished this one I knew the record was done. Shake It Off and Style were the last two songs to be written for 1989.

March 2014: Taylor's interview with Glamour is published (likely conducted two months beforehand)

TS: Working on this album has been unbelievable [...] I'm already in love with it. It's so different. CL: What's the new sound? TS: On Red I did three songs with Max Martin Shellback [...] I think we'll be doing a lot more than three songs together on the next album [Laughs].

March 26, 2014: Taylor is photographed entering a music studio in New York

"Slut!": 2014 (Unknown)

Taylor: The song “Slut!” is a song we wrote for 1989 and in it, I kind of cheekily play on the discussions at that time of my life around my dating life. And that’s not the only time on 1989 that I’d done that, I’ve done that on “Blank Space” and when I came down to having to pick songs for the album, I think I though, “Okay, well, I’m going to choose ‘Blank Space’” and, unfortunately, had to make some tough decisions in terms of what to put on the tracklist. But I love this song because I think it’s really dreamy. And I always saw 1989 as a New York album, but this song, to me, was always California, and maybe that was another reason it didn’t make the cut, because sometimes, thematically, I just had these little weird rules in my head. But I’m so happy it’s finally going to be something you guys hear, because I have always been proud of it, I’ve always wanted it to come out into the world and now it is, so yay!

Suburban Legends: 2014 (Unknown)

Taylor hasn't talked about this song, and it was produced by Jack Antonoff, who she didn't schedule time in the studio with in the same way she did with Max Martin and Shellback, so there's not a lot to work with.

Is It Over Now?: 2014 (Unknown)

Similarly to Suburban Legends, Jack produced this, so there's no obvious point in time to point to. She has spoken briefly about it though. Taylor: “Is It Over Now” is a song I wanted to end the album with because I think it’s kind of a fun play on words of like, “Is the album over now?” I always saw this song as sort of a sister to “Out Of The Woods” and “I Wish You Would,” I kind of saw those songs as similar, so, unfortunately, when we were making these decisions of what to put on 1989 and what to leave behind, I had to make some tough choices, and now it doesn’t matter anymore because you guys are going to hear all the songs. I’m so happy this song is out. I really love the “let’s fast forward to three hundred takeout coffees later,” that session, I just feel like head banging to every time it comes on. Hope you agree.

May 30, 2014: Taylor writes in her diary:

So a crazy story unfolded in the last 24 hours. Last night, I had this vivid dream where the photo I’d chosen for the album cover wasn’t good enough, intriguing enough, artful enough. It woke me up. I couldn’t shake it and it stayed with me all day. Because that nagging feeling I’d been pushing back for weeks was now confirmed in my gut … It wasn’t good enough. I went to the venue, mind racing, wondering if I’d have to do an entirely new photo shoot … I got to my dressing room with newer versions of the “cover.” I looked at it and felt nothing. The team pulled up this new scanned file of the Polaroids we had taken during the shoot. I saw within 10 seconds. The shot. The cover. It’s a Polaroid of me sitting against a beige wall with a blue seagull swear shirt on. You can see my red lips, but the photo cuts off my eyes. From some reason unknown to me, it’s the most intriguing photo I’ve seen. I think it’s the mystery of not seeing my eyes. Maybe it just looks effortlessly cool. The craziest moment came when something caught my eye. The cover photo is photo 13. I kid you not.

August 23, 2014: Taylor is photographed walking out of a studio in LA (Note: I can not find a place that specifies if this is a recording studio, dance, photography, radio, or television studio.)

Now That We Don't Talk: Summer 2014 (Speculation)

Seeing as Taylor said she didn't have time to figure out the production, I imagine this came fairly late in the process. Taylor has a habit of adding songs right up to the deadline-- with Folklore and Evermore, she added multiple songs a week before the album came out. The latest she added songs to albums while signed to Big Machine was September, though (both Forever & Always and So It Goes...), so I assume that's the absolute latest she could've added a song to 1989. Taylor: "Now That We Don’t Talk” is one of my favorite songs that was left behind, it was so hard to leave it behind, but I think we wrote it a little bit towards the end of the process and we couldn’t get the production right at the time. But we had tons of time to perfect the production this time and figure out what we wanted this song to sound like. I think it’s the shortest song I’ve ever had, but I think it packs a punch, I think it really goes in. For the short amount of time we have, I think it makes its point.

And that's all for this timeline! Check out my others:

TIMELINES: debut • fearless • speak now • red • 1989 • rep • lover • folklore • evermore • midnights PLAYLISTS: debut • fearless • speak now • red • 1989 • rep • lover • folklore • evermore • midnights • entire discography GENERAL: tag

[lovecomedy]

If you need any convincing that Noel and Liam Gallagher are incestuous freaks (affectionate), here's the basic information you need

First of all. The kisses

Loch Lomond kiss, where they just... made out on stage in front of cameras. Cool. There's a gif with every photo from every angle.

Another kiss, this time in Japan. Here's the actual video.

And here's the same video but together with nice quotes from their 2016 documentary:

Here's a 2005 award event where they kiss again and also look quite in love

And here's Liam straight up groping Noel during concerts:

General stage antics and more groping:

Just one more groping

Ok. Let's talk about the music, then

Oasis has a song that Noel wrote called "My Sister Lover". The title speaks for itself, really. It includes amazing lyrics such as "You're my lover, I'm your brother"

But there's more! Noel used the same chorus of this song (with different lyrics) for a song he released in his solo album, 20 years later. It's called "Lock All the Doors". The very first line says: "She wore a star-shaped tambourine, prettiest girl I’d ever seen". And guess... guess who famously played a star-shaped tambourine? Liam! And Noel was the one that gifted him the fucking tambourine!!

Liam wrote a song for Oasis called Guess God Thinks I'm Abel

I'll just link everything that's been said about this song, because it really is batshit insane that this song exists

(It's common in the north of England to refer to things and people as "our". When either Liam or Noel say "our kid", they're talking about each other)

Liam has the tendency of thinking every song Noel writes is about him, including the love songs

Here he says "I'm his muse", along with some other interesting quotes

Ok, now we're on to suspicious quotes!

They had sex last night, according to Liam

This one is my favorite:

Of course this one is just all the weird quotes jammed in one post, you can feel yourself going crazy as you read it

Noel assures us that Liam knows about his arse

Other people confirming that they act like a couple. And them being fucking weird about each other’s marriages.

This one has Noel saying Liam is deeply in love with him. At the bottom, Liam's tweet.

Actually Liam always tweets things that basically confirm they're relationship. Like when somebody asked him if he ever rimmed Noel. Yeah.

This radio interview is where the most lovely quotes come from. Only Noel was supposed to be interviewed but then they both showed up PISSED DRUNK. Transcription in the same post

Even More weird quotes

This one involves the word impregnate

Noel making a suspicious comment about his daughter and son, Anais and Donovan

I think to be convinced you really just need that, but I'd like to add some niceties.

Just genuinely enjoying each other’s company

This is from the Oasis; 10 Minutes Of Noise and Confusion documentary. As Noel is kissing Liam's cheek, Liam is saying "He’s a fucking cunt and I hate him and I love him and he twists my melon, man. He’s the best songwriter in the fucking world.”

Some sweet quotes, and some less sweet ones as well

From the Supersonic documentary

Hugging after playing football

Just being silly

To finish off, two wonderful video edits with endearing moments

[four-leafed-queer-gal]

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧Hi there! You can call me Clover!𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧toki! mi waso Kowe!𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

‧₊˚🌿✩ ₊˚🪵⊹♡‧₊˚🌿✩ ₊˚🪵⊹♡

I AM NOT ON POST LIMIT

I hate to do this, because there are some genuine and important donation pages and the like out there, but a few bad apples mess it up for everyone I suppose.

ATTENTION EVERYONE:

UNLESS WE ARE MUTUALS, DO NOT SEND ME ASKS WITH DONATION LINKS. IF YOU DO, I WILL ASSUME YOU ARE A BOT AND YOU WILL BE BLOCKED.

More below the cut ::3

♡ 18 years old, & a Saggitarius! (Fuck the new zodiac sign system, Sagittarius for life, I'm not a Scorpio)

♡ ✨Taken✨ by the amazing @theacemagpie, the Black Bat to my Spoiler 8/7/2024 (Or 7/8/2024, if you use DD/MM/YYYY)

♡ my pronouns are she/they! 🏳️‍⚧️

♡ I have ASD, BPD, PTSD, and ADHD ☘️

♡ I love languages! I can only speak English fluently, but I'm learning a little bit of everything! If you can name it, I likely know at least one or two words! 🗣️

♡ I like Marvel, PJO, Avatar (Both blue people and not blue people), Batman, Hunger Games, Suits (The show), Skyrim, Ben 10 (Not the reboot), and more! ✨

♡ Therian! Theriotypes: Spotted Hyena, Sea Wolf, Viperfish, Vampire Bat, Arctic Fox, Eleonora's Falcon, Moth, Barracuda, Thresher Shark, Raven, & Cheetah (Plus others I haven't figured out yet)

♡ my favourite animals are dinosaurs 🦖

♡ I love to read 📚

♡ I enjoy writing! ✏️

♡ I am questioning my religion, I have no idea anymore tbh- Half considering making one-

"People are going to talk shit about you no matter what. May as well give them an interesting topic!"

𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊

Please DNI if: you’re queerphobic, anti-self dx, someone who supports beastiality, zoophilia, pedophilia, rape, etc, or if you’re racist, ableist, sexist, or fascist. Be nice! I know the block button exists but I don't like using it, and much prefer to argue and correct falsehoods ✨☘️

Am Israel Chai | עם ישראל חי

Zionism doesn't mean "Kill The Arabs," otherwise very few people would be Zionist; It means "Jews Deserve a Place in the Land that's also sacred to the Jews."

Proudly hoping for a two-state solution

Taylor Swift makes halfway decent music and is a bad person <3

"Be humble, be kind, but don't be afraid to drag the fucker who crosses the line" - La Storia

✩°𓏲⋆🌿. ⋆⸜ 🍵✮˚

Side blogs! Pls interact with them?

- @cass-daughter-o-ari RP blog for my PJO OC, Cass Clemens!

- @the-axolotl-queen Blog for the Axolotl Kingdom! I'm the Queen, obvs-

- @montoya-son-o-nemesis RP blog for my PJO OC, Jason Montoya!

- @lucas-bane-son-of-punishment RP blog for my PJO OC, Lucas Bane!

- @lughs-lightheaded-son RP blog for my Celtic PJO OC, Aidan O'Neil!

- @daughter-of-the-cailleach RP blog for my Celtic PJO OC, Taran Keir!

- @ronan-child-of-ogham RP blog for my Celtic PJO OC, Ronan Callahan!

- @behold-a-man-everyday Behold! A man! Everyday!

- @diogenes-totally-real Diogenes the Cynic gimmick blog!

- @aeolus-the4winds RP blog for Aeolus, Notos, Zephyros, Boreas, Euros, Aeolus, Auster, Favonius, Aquilon, and Vulturnus!

- @the-fmby-north-carolina-totally Gimmick blog, a Femboy North Carolina!

- @antiquitian-empire-real Gimmick blog, Antiquitian Empire! A micronation!

- @literally-the-first-state Gimmick blog, Delaware! The first state in the United States!

- @four-leafed-queer-writing Writing blog! I'll reblog writing tips, and sometimes post original stories of mine!

✩°𓏲⋆🌿. ⋆⸜ 🍵✮˚

Here are some of my cool humans (moots)! 💚

♡ @theacemagpie My amazing girlfriend! A fellow fan of numerous fandoms, and a speaker of multiple languages! <3

♡ @star-dust-shark Mack! He's a super cool dude, and who made most of this intro post! Go check out his blog!

♡ @lucas-iamgod Lucas! He's also a really cool guy, you should check out his blog!

♡ @hugs4neth-official Neth + others! They're all really cool, and in my experience are nice. (THEY BACK, BITCHES)

♡ @green-thighs-save-lives I honestly don't know much about him, but he's a nice, chill guy from our interactions.

♡ @violet-hady Hady! Great person, good friend, though always tells me to be healthy and stuff-

♡ @ankoku-teion Sarah! My lovely Irish moot, and fellow sword lover

♡ @poemsofanentomologist An anentomologist! They're really cool, they write poetry and have inspired me once or twice to write some of my own!

♡ @i-am-thoroughly-confused A fellow therian & fellow bat! They are a good being :3

♡ @poppitron360 A fellow PJO enjoyer! They've got great takes on Riordanverse stuff, y'all should check out their blog!

♡ @justagremlinoncaffeine Gremlin! Cool person, really nice, I've enjoyed every interaction I have with them.

♡ @unstableunicornsofasgard Forrest! Also a great person, ¡y el habla español!

♡ @theacemagpie Magpie! An amazing person! Honestly can't believe it took me this long to add her to my pinned, lol-

♡ @peace-love-and-french-toast Amazing human! I sometimes do PJO rps with them, and with a bunch of others! They run @cabinseventheaterchick, and do a darn good job!

♡ @lizzzzzzzzzzzzzz---lol We haven't interacted much, but Liz is a great person, and what little interaction we have had has been good!

♡ + All my other moots! I have a lot, so I can't list all of y'all, but you're all amazing!

₊˚ʚ 🌱 ₊˚✧ﾟ.

"Either walk like you are the Queen, or like you don't care who the Queen is." - Ngaru

Have a nice time! <3

(Notes: Intro post was made by @star-dust-shark!! If you want one like it, go check out Mack's blog!! Credit for the shark pictures goes to @/dadstielkline)

[futuregws]

HOTD FANS BEING WEIRD PT 8429479

The post:

Notice how it says in 10 years (not that it matters in my opinion) and how it only speaks of Emma D'arcy....yeah well this are the comments

Uhm.......first of all, this is not about Tom or Matt or your imaginary friend this is about Emma and it's not even about HOTD so why tf are this comments so pressed and bitter mentioning everyone else and also let's not even bring up the misgendering bc what's new I've been saying half of the problem/hate is transphobia but people don't listen.

And look I know it's all opinions and different tastes but it's still mind blowing to me how you can call an actor who has delivered so many incredible scenes including a whole ass episode with just 1 line "awful" and that this other actor and that other actor are better when first of all it doesn't matter they can both be fucking phenomenal and also it's like I've said a million fucking times the other actors can do the bare minimum and get praise and Emma will never even get that for doing the amazing work they do.

And I'm not gonna lie I'm starting to get seriously tired of this Tom vs Emma bullshit, even seeing people say that "he carried the season" like at this point everyone needs to stfu. Last season it was Emma vs Olivia and Milly and now it's gonna be Emma vs Olivia and Tom and you already know Emma somehow will never win

And I'm gonna be completely honest here there's some actors in the show that I'm not gonna mention and I do love them but they were nothing special but the praise they have been getting is out of this world

[bloodyinkandquill]

Rocket and sibling Reader

ok it is a full week since i last worked on any of these, lets try and get like three done and post them all, we got rocket and singling reader first coolio, ok technically we have shuriken x knife reader then toxic yuri reader x scythe but i have no clue what to do for the shuriken x knife reader imma reach out to the requester if they didn’t request on anon and ill do the scythe after this because i kin rocket so i wanna do this first, even if i self ship with scythe

- Even if Pokémon doesn’t exist in the world of Phighting you and your brother are straight up Team Rocket Jessie and James, one of you spawned, hung around the spawn building for a little while when suddenly ‘you have a sibling here you go’

haven’t worked on this since the 21st it’s the 15th now, ok let’s do this shit i’ve got kesha playing for motivation it’s only 10:30 i got this… let me read his wiki real quick so this is as accurate as possible, alright let’s do this, chappell roan decided to play but im not complaining about good luck babe

- Even thought one of you is older by a few months, maybe a year at most, you just decide to say you’re twins, sharing a spawn day even if legally that is not your spawning day, while still in the spawn building’s care you get each other a small but heartfelt gift, either stolen, bought with stolen money, or hand made, you both kept every gift

- You both had explosive and dangerous gears, and with how violent Playground is you both end up angry and in a lot of fights, but the only demon either of you let your guard down around is each other, dressing the others knuckles with stolen gauze as they either boast about the fight they just won or grumble that they didn’t even try

- Since unless you’re both in private you don’t let your guards down if either of you wanna discretely say ‘I’m here’ you softly bump horns, almost in a pavlovian fashion both of you instantly calm down some

- You two only really had each other so you both were very clingy to each other, falling asleep in whatever shelter you could cuddling to conserve warmth, and it makes it easier to protect each other in case someone stumbles upon you two, usually thought you would take turns sleeping and the other would keep watch, Playground is fucking dangerous so neither of you felt too comfortable both sleeping at the same time, especially when you had no home, just abandoned buildings or dark forgotten alleyways

- Rocket is a bit more reckless than you, so you on probably four, maybe five separate occasions had to grab him and book it, a wrongly timed and placed rocket and people were chasing you wanting you dead, he’d laugh maniacally and you would join him, once you two were somewhere safe that is, but if you got hurt because of him he’d feel like shit, if it was bad he might even cry and beg for you to forgive him, but you could never stay mad at your brother, after all you only had each other

- When the incident happened that cost him an arm and a leg you weren’t spared, coming out with your own bad injuries too, you both knew, you had to get out of this place, it was too dangerous and you couldn’t loose each other, so you left once and for all, vowing to never come back

- -Skip to after Zuka adopts you i’ve wrote how i think that went down before for a creative writing assignment i don’t wanna do it again sue me

- You slowly began to relax, Zuka gaining your trusts slowly but steadily, giving you what you needed, space, a shoulder to lean on, a trip to a rage room, whatever, overtime you both calmed down more, redirecting your anger to pyromania, ok maybe not the best but fire and explosions were fun!

- One day Zuka called to you that you had guests, when you went to the living room the last thing you expected to see was a deity but his son was chill, the three of you got along great, slowly becoming amazing friends, when he recounted a time two years ago he dyed his horns green to match his dad it gave Rocket an idea

- From that day onwards Rocket had you or Sword help him carve his horns to look more like your adoptive father, you’d chat, gossip, smack talk, and bicker while shaving down the extra parts on your bother’s horns, it was during one of these monthly times that you jokingly suggested maybe you two could become phighters, fast forward two months later you were sneaking out to go sign up for the next phight, Zuka wouldn’t approve so it was easier to ask for forgiveness then to ask for permission

- Even as you two changed your relationship never really did, you two stayed incredibly close, still pretending you were twins and even if you were no longer alone you both knew you could rely on each other to hell and back

coolio hope this is good lemme work on the next one, it’s 11 if i keep up with this pace i’ll have the three finished before midnight then i can do the final request(s?) tomorrow morning since i’ve got classes

[lucid-loves]

Taste Like Venom ~ Simon "Ghost" Riley Part 4

Pairing: Ghost x assassin!reader (fem!reader, no use of y/n, callsign “Hex”)

Word Count: 3.6k

CW: angst, violence, blood, strong language, scars, enemies to lovers trope, slow burn, fluff, clear attraction and sexual tension, smut later on, reader POV and ghost POV, minors dni, Soap lives in this AU

Let me know if I missed any CWs.

Story Synopsis: After Makarov gets away once again, Laswell decides to force a favor from you, the world’s greatest assassin and best-kept secret. You are now expected to help the 141 with taking down Makarov in addition to playing nice with them. It’s hard to play nice when you have always worked alone. It doesn’t help that one of the team members, Ghost, gets curious about you in each interaction. 

Chapter Synopsis: While you are alone in your own hotel room, the men talk about you over Italian cuisine. This includes speculation on Ghost’s feelings for you. Meanwhile, you are already gearing up for infiltration to tap the target building. Ghost decides that he wants a front-row seat to your show.

A/N: I am adding a taglist from now on for those who want to be a part of one. I made a post asking people to like it if they wanted to be part of it. If you would like to comment that you want to be in a taglist, you can do so on this post~

Taglist: @eatingtheworldsoffanfiction @dory-98 @cum-tea-and-towels @completelymarveltrash

Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Part 10

Good God, authentic pizza was absolutely amazing. The standard for pasta was incredible as well. It beat the standard cafeteria food back on base by a landslide. The 141 grimaced as they thought about someday having to return to the food back home. Even the food they’ve eaten out of your fridge has been refreshing to their taste buds. Soap was the most vocal about his dread of the mass-cook cafeteria food as he devoured another slice of heaven. “Christ, going back to bland spinach and soggy rice is going to be fuckin’ painful!”

“Remember when they tried to do a taco night. Fucking hell, the lettuce was dripping fat like a sponge.” Gaz added as he took a swig of whiskey. It wasn’t the Italian choice of liquor to pair with food, but it was the 141’s choice. Not Ghost’s though. He missed his Kentucky bourbon. 

“Last Thanksgiving was the most painful for me. Turkey was drier than my fuckin’ belt.” Soap chuckled, trying not to drip sauce onto the bed with how his whole body laughed with him. They were eating in one of the double queen hotel rooms, away from the public eye. When they were all together in a group, they often garnered attention. Such was the price for being such large, capable men.

“Anyone reckon that Hex is up yet? Food is gonna get cold.” Price inquired. They had saved some food for you. A plate full of different things since no one knew what you liked. Even Kate didn’t know when they called to ask her. Still, they tried their best anyway. And their best was getting cold on a ceramic plate.

Soap shook his head in refusal. “I’m not gonna knock on her door. The lass scares the shite out of me.”

Gaz laughed out loud. “Soap? Afraid? Never thought I’d live to see the day.” 

“Hey, you weren’t the one that nearly lost an ear! With fuckin’ car keys of all things.” He defended, taking a long swig of his own drink. He clearly wasn’t going to forgive you for that any time soon. It made him annoyed when he thought about the fact that you probably didn’t care. 

Price shrugged and poured himself another drink. “You were kinda asking for it, Johnny. I think I would’ve nearly killed you too if I’m being honest.”

“Well, Lt. made the joke first and he didn't nearly get stabbed.” He continued to argue, looking to Simon for an answer on how it was different when he cracked the joke. Ghost just stared with indifference, sitting in the corner with his mask halfway up. Even if he was with the people he trusted with his identity, he just felt more comfortable hiding his face while he ate.

The room went quiet for a moment as the men thought about it. Out of all of them, Ghost seemed to be the one that was able to get the closest to you. You still pushed him away by miles, but it was definitely closer than they were getting. Kyle took another slice of pizza, the fresh basil so vibrantly green that it looked like it was glowing. “How do you feel so comfortable pushing her boundaries, Lieutenant? One attempt at our lives is enough for us to back off. Yet, you seem to keep going back for more.”

The men waited for an answer, an idea crawling into each of their heads. Price had already picked up on it by now. He noticed as soon as Ghost lifted you in his arms. Gaz vocalizing his observation out loud just now triggered Soap to realize it too. A slow, knowing smirk crept along Soap’s lips. Simon scowled at the insinuation, reading all of their minds. “All of you can bury your ideas six feet under. I’m just trying to get her to trust us. The mission will go a lot smoother if she does. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can go home.”

All of them returned to enjoying their meals, unconvinced by Ghost’s protest. Was Simon attracted to you? Absolutely. Did he like you? Well, he certainly didn’t hate you. The biggest problem for him was that you were dangerous. Not just from an ability standpoint, but from an emotional standpoint. While he did want to get close to you, he still wanted to keep you just out of arm’s reach emotionally because he knew that you would burn him. Poison him with that venom of yours. He knew if he really did fall for you, he would never stop falling. 

For the sake of the mission and his own preservation, he convinced himself that you were only a temporary attraction. A beautiful woman with incredible power that will return to the unknown as soon as this is all over. His teammates knew better, though. In all their time of knowing Simon, he has never shown interest in women. Always too busy. Always too focused on work. Not even making time for hook-ups. When you came into the picture, you got his attention in a way they have never seen before. That meant a lot to them.

“Regardless, you have the honor of delivering our assassin her dinner, Lieutenant.” Price smirked, abusing his power as Captain to avoid feeding the feral woman next door. Ghost clenched his jaw, cursing out John in his mind as he got up.

The men continued their lighthearted conversation as Simon walked out, plate of food in hand. Taking a deep breath, he walked to your door and knocked. When there was no answer, he thought that perhaps you were still asleep. So, he took out his spare keycard to the room and welcomed himself in. 

The room was dim, large shadows casing over the beige walls. A few laptops were running on the desks, already hacked into the security cameras of the target building. You’ve actually been up for a while and have been busy getting things ready for your infiltration. It was alarming when you woke up in your hotel room instead of the car at first. However, it didn’t take you long to figure out that someone must’ve carried you. You were pretty sure who it was, but you didn’t dwell on it. There was work to be done and you had wasted too much time with sleep. 

Kate helped you get into their systems. From there, a layout of the building was mapped out along with the IDs of everyone working for Makarov. You have watched enough security footage to take note of the guard routes. All that needed to be done was planting the taps to allow you to listen in on everything. Nothing was going to be unheard. Not even the sound of a guard taking a bathroom break.

Simon watched you fasten a black belt tight around your hips that carried a collection of small throwing knives. You wore new pants, a long sleeve turtleneck with a hood, and boots. All tight. All black. His hands ached to reach out in order to trace your prominent curves. He wanted to feel the thin fabric of your shirt, the heat of your skin exuding through it. 

Instead of that, he placed the food down on top of your dresser, resisting the temptation. “Not going to eat first?”

You didn’t even glance his way, something he wanted to fix immediately. “No. It will weigh me down. I had room service bring up some fruit earlier. It will tie me over until I get back.”

“You’re leaving now?” He questioned, anger rising in his tone. You should have let them know that you were awake. That you were set up with the tech. That you wanted to proceed with the mission with a lookout. You shouldn’t have intended to do this alone.

But, you couldn’t help it. This is how you have always worked. Besides, to you, there was no reason to waste time with unnecessary things like knocking on their door to let them know you were ready. What were you? A fucking dog looking to be let out? “Now is better than later. Security usually lets their guard down after meals. It’s not too late in the night to expect intruders too. Now is the optimal time for me to place the taps.”

Simon scoffed at your unapologetic reasoning. “And you were just going to do this alone? Not even someone to watch the cameras out for you? What if you get compromised?”

Here we fucking go again. You grabbed the taps sitting on the desk, putting them in a small satchel securely tied to your belt. “Can you not criticize the way I do things every fucking conversation? I’m doing what I do best, Simon. I’ve never been compromised before. That’s a streak I intend to keep.”

He stepped towards you, his frame menacing as he towered over you. Hearing your name come from your lips was still something he wasn’t used to. Despite that, he wasn’t going to let you do this alone. This time, his tone was gentle yet resolute. “I’m letting the force know and I’m going to monitor the cameras.”

Looking up into his eyes, you could see that he wasn’t going to waver from his decision. There was no point fighting about this, you finally decided. Not even twelve hours ago was your last fight with him. A part of you was getting tired of it. Stepping back towards the hotel window to leave, you threw in the towel. It wasn’t going to stop you from getting the job done anyhow. “Do whatever you want. I don’t give a shit.”

“Hang on.” Ghost stopped you, his hand reaching out to grab your wrist. He pulled you towards him, using the advantage of his strength to have you close to him. Anticipating you to either reach for your knives or strike him with your other hand, he prepared to guard himself. However, you never used the same trick twice in a row. 

Like a forceful tango, you stepped your full weight forward to catch him off balance. You then pushed further as he was forced to step back lest you headbutt him, your hand now having the room to land on his chest with a quick, sharp force. In Simon’s fall, you swiped his sheathed knife from his own belt. Before he knew it, he was laying on his back on your bed, you straddling him, his eyes locking with yours that blazed with victory. 

Ghost’s strong hand was still wrapped around your wrist, but your free hand had his own knife pressed against his chest. Right over his heart that was thudding against his chest like it wanted to break out. The hot blood in his body was pumping into overdrive. Not in fear of death. No. In pure, passionate attraction. He swallowed hard, fighting back the urge to still pull you down and kiss you through his mask. Even if it would cause the knife to be plunged into his heart, the thought of being able to share a passionate kiss with you didn’t seem like a bad tradeoff.

Tendrils of your hair fell past your face, framing a beautiful jawline he wanted to trace with his lips. The image of you gasping in shock and pleasure as he squeezed your hips flashed in his mind for a second. It wouldn't have been hard to do. His other hand was still free but frozen as you pressed the tip of the blade into his chest. He also imagined the potential sweetness of your tongue, giving him a taste of dessert after dinner. He wanted to be the one to catch you by surprise and submit to his will. Only, you would love it and beg for more through feverish kisses and the grinding of your hips against his.

Christ, he was getting a boner. 

He wasn’t the only one who was feeling it, though. The sound of your own heartbeat was flooding your ears. You couldn’t seem to pull away from his blue eyes that so heatedly begged for you to come closer. The heat already felt from your body pressing against his didn’t feel like enough. Especially when you began to feel his growing hardness pressing against you. That just made your own sex tingle with need.

You got off of him quickly, putting distance between the two of you. What the fuck were you doing?! What the hell was wrong with you?! You haven't been with anyone for so long, but it was no excuse to get so swept up like this. Not with someone like Ghost. Not with someone like Simon Riley. You needed to get a fucking grip. Get your head on straight. Damn it, you were better than this!

Slowly, he sat up and cleared his throat, trying to pretend that what just happened wasn’t the sexiest thing he’s ever been through. His knife was tossed onto the bed next to him, your movements quick as you rushed to get the fuck out of there.

However, when Simon called your name, you froze. He sounded a little breathless, his voice making you shiver. “Hex, wait.”

Simon stood from the bed to grab something from the desk. Cautiously, he walked towards you, now learning his lesson that it wasn’t a great idea to just grab you so suddenly for multiple reasons. At a slow pace, he opened his large palm to show you a small earpiece. Still being careful with his speed and touch, he lightly brushed your hair behind your ear and inserted the earpiece for you. You flinched as his fingers brushed against your jaw, butterflies erupting within you.

“You’ll be able to hear me through this. I won’t say anything unless I really have to. You’ll be able to talk to me through it too. Whatever you want, whatever you need, just say it.” Ghost promised. 

You couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. You feared that using your voice would reveal just how flustered you were over what just transpired. Instead, you gave a simple nod and headed back to your window.

The nighttime breeze flooded in as soon as you opened the window, the chill seeping into your bones. Good. You needed to cool off. Without looking back, you slipped out into the night, leaving Simon behind to wonder if supposed enemies were supposed to be attracted to each other like this. 

~

The shadows concealed you, the moonlight accentuating them on every surface they could touch. Quietly and quickly, you moved from shadow to shadow until you stumbled upon the targeted building. From the outside, it looked like a rundown, abandoned office building up for sale. The place was hidden away, tucked behind the forefront of what Italy wanted to offer instead. Beauty. 

You watched armed men standing guard, looking out into the alleyways for enemies. Sticking to the shadows, you crept along the side of the building before spotting an open window just above you. Taking a deep breath to focus your mind, you sprung into action. With a few wall jumps, you were right in one of Makarov’s weapons depot. 

From the laptops back at the hotel, Ghost carefully watched the footage, almost holding his breath as he searched for you. His team gathered into the room once he told them you had left already. They had assumed that all the time he spent missing with you was just him helping set up the tech. He didn’t correct them on this. Like you had said before, never underestimate the power of assumptions.

Relief washed over his shoulders as soon as he saw your figure invade the building. Just as fast as you had entered, you hid, dropping a tap that was modeled to look like a dead fly onto the dirty tile. The place was dusty, the smell of stagnant air filling your lungs. The men here didn’t care about the cleanliness of the place. Fortunately for the 141, that meant that they wouldn't have to worry about anyone cleaning up the “dead flies.”

All of the men watched the footage as you swiftly made your way from room to room dropping flies. Soap double checked to make sure that the enemies’ own footage was still scrubbed as you worked. Regardless, you moved so carefully that any video of you just looked like a weird, black glitch. You were in your zone. This is what you did for years. This is what you have secretly missed doing.

Every move you made was calculated, following a strict regime based on the men’s own schedule. As you dropped more and more taps, Price began to check if they worked on his end. Sure enough, they could hear everything.

Gaz noticed that Ghost’s body was rigid, his eyes refusing to leave the screens. He was keeping track of you like he would lose sight of you if he blinked. Wanting to ease his worries, he began to prepare some tea using the hotel’s electric kettle. Kyle was always one to look out for his friends like this.

A hot cup of black tea was placed in front of Ghost, the smell already releasing the tension in his muscles. Gaz pat his stiff shoulder. “She’s gonna be alright, bruv.”

Ghost gave a silent nod, finally taking a moment to let his eyes wander off of the monitor to have a sip of tea. Now that he was more relaxed, he viewed your movements in a more admiring way. None of them could pull off how smoothly you moved. How easy you glided through like a gust of wind passing through. Even when you were close to an enemy, you kept your cool, refrained from killing, and moved on without detection. 

You were a god damn modern-day ninja. A fine one at that.

In less than an hour, you had swept through the whole building without detection. Every tap was planted. Not once did you hear Simon in your ear either. You were glad. You felt like if you heard his voice through the earpiece it would break your flow. But, a part of you did yearn to hear his deep voice so close to you. 

Getting out was the easiest part. Having no one seen you come in, you took the same route out. When you came back through the window, you were met with grateful smiles and words of praise that were foreign to your ears. Ghost wanted to be the first one to say something about your skills, but loud-mouth Sergeant Soap beat him to it. “Damn, Lass! I think you just set a record for 141!”

“That was quite impressive stuff there, Hex. It was like you were never there. Kate was right about you.” Price grinned as he thanked you in his own way.

Gaz hopped on the headphones to listen to the taps as soon as his Captain moved. “All of them are working just fine. I’ve only ever seen moves like that in movies and video games. Job well done!”

You were unsure of what to do with all of this attention, never having experienced it before. When you worked alone, there was no one to tell you that you did well when you got back. You didn’t know if all of this flattery made you feel good. In all honesty, the confusion you felt about it made you a little sick to your stomach.

Weaving past them all, you grabbed your cold plate of food that Simon brought to you earlier and left without a word through the door. After receiving some worried glances from his soldiers, Price provided some words of reassurance. “Don’t worry, men. Hex probably isn’t used to having people wait for her like this, let alone praise for good work. Give her time.”

As the team brought back some of the tech to monitor from their rooms, Ghost stepped out into the hallway to look for you. He initially thought that you would be in one of their rooms to use the microwave, but you were nowhere in sight. While he wanted to keep looking, a call by his Captain to help made him call it there for the night. 

And so he spent the rest of the night bunking with Soap, listening in on private conversations and thinking about you. Meanwhile, you spent your night eating a cold dinner alone on the hotel rooftop. Overlooking the city, your own mind occasionally wandered against your will towards Ghost and how it would feel if his heat saved you from the autumn winds chilling your skin.