#huge bar

[fatpeopleofcolor]

Large minimalist dark wood floor wine cellar photo with display racks

International Conference On Molecular Systems Biology

[stafiredaily]

Large in New York Inspiration for a sizable, modern wine cellar renovation with a dark wood floor and display racks

[whostolethetaiyaki]

Wine Cellar in New York Inspiration for a large modern dark wood floor wine cellar remodel with display racks

[lunar-years]

It's really interesting how Peeta's quiet rebellion in the first games is kind of completely overlooked by everyone, right down to President Snow, while Katniss emerges as The Singular Target. To the extent that by the end of the book when they meet Snow, Katniss can tell right away that only she is to blame for the berry trick, whereas Peeta is quickly dismissed and then for a long time, an afterthought,

Like, yes, the berry trick was Katniss' idea, but it comes to her straight from Peeta's rhetoric!! "They have to have a Victor, Katniss" and before that on the cornucopia, when Katniss asks him why they won't just let Cato die already and Peeta responds "you know why." Like...both statements are vague enough to maybe not seem of any big concern to the Capitol, but Katniss is directly picking up on the undercurrent of his words. And you can't convince me that by the time they actually go to put the berries in their mouths, Peeta isn't fully aware of the same thing Katniss is: the Capitol won't let them both die. They need their Victor, or it falls apart. Yet to Snow and the Capitol, they truly believe Peeta is just a lovestruck idiot carrying out a double suicide so they can be together forever, Romeo & Juliet style. Whereas Katniss, in their POV, is doing it out of direct malice towards the Capitol, not love for Peeta. Even Haymitch doesn't let Katniss and Peeta talk afterwards and only tells Katniss the reality of the situation in the Capitol because he thinks that if Peeta finds out the truth he'll get too upset or won't be able to handle it and things will blow up.

This is after an entire Games where Peeta has been doing something that I have to imagine is pretty unprecedented, and definitely in contradiction to the entire mindset of the Games, which that he neglects his own self preservation instincts and safety to protect and save Katniss. He's kind of playing the Capitol the whole time, because right from the beginning he's refusing to participate in the inherent selfishness and division they try to sow in the Games. And he's doing so in ways he can easily get away, because Snow and by extension the Capitol don't see love as anything other than a form of weakness.

And I'm not trying to say that Peeta is this mastermind deliberately plotting intentional rebellion from page one, because yeah, his actions are largely purely driven by love for Katniss. But the thing the Capitol can't understand is that for Peeta, that love has always been inseparable from rebellion. One necessities and fuels the other. The paragraph Katniss spends lamenting on how horrified Peeta would probably be if he heard the way she and Gale talk about the Capitol in the woods is almost laughable as a reader, because girl, Peeta would absolutely be right there with you. Meanwhile, Katniss is shocked at herself when she so much as thinks the word 'murder' for the first time in relation to a death in the Games. It's just fascinating!

And again, that's not to say Katniss isn't also very much rebellious, especially as the narrative goes forward, but what's key is that her rebellion also stems out of love, and it strengthens over the course of the books as her love strengthens. Her first act of rebellion is volunteering out of love for her sister. And then slowly, her mindset in the game evolves from pure survival as she comes to love Rue, then Peeta. In nearly every case it's love that prompts further rebellion. The Capitol just can't see it because they can tell the star-crossed lovers narrative is on her end, but not Peeta's, a ruse. That's why Katniss is singled out as a threat and Peeta isn't. And by the time the Capitol/Snow realizes the love is reciprocated and that Peeta is the key weapon to use against Katniss, the love is already so deeply rooted that nothing can stop the rebellion that follows.

[hypewinter]

Dash didn't know what to make of being reincarnated as a hero but he figured this was somehow punishment for making Danny's life hell back in the day. Regardless, he swore he wouldn't squander this chance. He was going to be the nicest, more personable superhero on the block.

[creativitysloyalservant]

i have decided to break my lack of original posting on this blog to bring you my Thoughts on Rot in Paradise. because i played it as soon as i got up this morning and i have scoured for some opinions after finishing it, and now i have my own!!

(and also i posted this on twitter but twitter has such a Shit wordcount that i'm also posting my things here with More Detail)

so! spoilers under the cut, please go and play the game if you haven't. it takes literally an hour (it only took nearly 2 hours for me because i like voice acting by myself and exploring every nook and cranny) and it's also free. so maybe come back into the tag once you're done.

okay, so i noticed quite a number of people being confused and disappointed on the lack of an explanation for the monster. it's brought up in the story as the central thing driving the plot, but it's never explained on what "she" is, why she's compelling people to eat a ton of fish-related food or hell, metal, and why this doesn't impact June at all.

but you know what I think?

i think that that's the point. the focus of rot in paradise isn't supposed to be on the monster.

yeah, it's the thing that pushes the plot along besides June and the gang going on vacation in this island. it's what's causing that uneasiness from the moment that guy grabs June's arm at the drinks, to the sheer unnerving feeling of witnessing people going to the ocean to get Raptured basically. i know i personally felt a chill when i saw that one dude literally eating chains and the other hauling an anchor, as if they're trying to make themselves heavier so they get taken by whatever She is.

but that's not the main point! the main conflict is about June and her friends.

as people have pointed out, this game is about toxic friendships and relationships! it's foreshadowed in the conversation that June has with the gang about her cousin (which i will also get into), and it carries it through the way her friends are horribly warped by this ocean Creature. June goes on a silly little vacation trip with her friends only for them to become so so different from themselves that they lash out at her and even hit her in McCoy's case.

but she still sticks it out with them. through the whole game, even despite their verbal abuse, despite being slapped, despite them being people that she can hardly recognise. she stays with them for the whole game, up until the point where you are given the two options at the very end. and she could still stay with them.

because they're still her friends. she cares about them even if they still hurt her. from the way June still tells Carmen to tell June if she needs anything after Carmen literally tells her to shut up and leave, the way June worries about Vonnie eating seafood even though she continues to stuff herself despite being implied to either hate or make an active choice to not eat seafood, to the way June still trudges out to sea screaming for McCoy to come back to the shore as he wades further in even after he slapped her until her nose bled.

it mirrors the conversation about her cousin, the reason for why June was looking forward to the vacation. that while she did comfort her cousin through all of it, June clearly says that "they were dickheads, and she should have ditched them a long time ago".

but it's funny, isn't it? that June, an outsider to her cousin's friend group, easily sees the pain that her cousin's friends are causing her, and immediately calls it as it is. that her cousin should have left the second they hurt her.

and yet now, when her friends hurt her, even though this was a quick and sudden change that happened in a span of three days, June still sticks around. her friends are dickheads right now, and we can see that in the way they interact with June, but she still stays.

because they're her friends. and how could she just leave them like this if it's something that's causing them to be this way?

so no, i don't think the monster is supposed to be the main picture. we don't need to know what it looks like, or why it needs to do this to the islanders, or how it's even doing it in the first place. it adds to the scariness of the game, as per the Spooktober Game Jam, sure, but that's not the point. might be a bit disappointing to some, but that's not the point.

the point is about June, and the choice that she needs to make at the end of the game.

it's a choice on whether she chooses to be pulled deeper into the tides and be with the friends who hurt her and will continue to hurt her in this way,

or to leave them to their fates, whether deserved or not, and resurface to a world where she's alone without her friends.

and even though the first choice hurts much more in the long run, doesn't the second hurt even more in the moment? knowing that you're alone at the end of all of this?

even if it is the right choice, i'm sure the pain must be unbearable in the moment.

[dejasenti99]

rocky, the arms dealer.

[lafcadiosadventures]

so there's this argentine/puertorican movie about a tango show. a bourgeois attempts to "but no homo!" tango, and raúl juliá and rubén juarez stop him right in his tracks. also, props to juliá for going, yeah the toxic yaoi is cool and all, but we cannot forget that tango is also about toxic yuri.

[architect-of-the-last-act]

Part II. On Spring Cleaning, the Lingering Frost

or alternatively: No weight is heavier than regret.

+ Spring follows the harshness of Winter. Though seen as a 'soft' season, it is associated with rebirth—bloody flesh transforming into itself, skin rupturing at the seams. A renewal of sorts. Soft it may seem, Spring is simply as kind as the winter allows it to be. ... In this life, how many ghosts haunt these halls? How many will you allow? Maybe it's time for an upheaval. Such is the role of Spring.

Part I | Part III | Part IV

authors below:

Illustrations from A Stepmother’s Märchen | Unknown | Spring Equinox, Jeanette Winterson | The Years, Virginia Woolf | We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson | South London Forever, Florence & The Machine | a letter, Germaine de Staël (translated by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper) | West Wind, Mary Oliver | Letters From Medea, Salma Deera | tumblr post, @/inelegancies | Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Becky Albertalli | Japanese Breakfast | The Letters Of Sylvia Plath, Sylvia Plath | Vincenzo Bellini | I, Carrion (Icarian), Hozier | I Don’t Smoke, Mitski | The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller | When the Sun Loves the Moon, Reinaeiry | Soul Mates, Lang Leav | a letter, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | This Is How You Lose The Time War, Amal El-Mohtar | Circe, Madeline Miller | a letter, Friedrich Nietzsche | Daily Haiku on Love, Tyler Knott Gregson | Ivy, Frank Ocean | The Vow | Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe | Mind Over Matter, Young the Giant | Great Expectations, Charles Dickens | I, Carrion (Icarian), Hozier | The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller | This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald | Light, Sleeping at Last | Thought Catalog, Kim Quindlen | Jay Vespertine | Unknown | Light, Sleeping at Last | City of Bones, Cassandra Clare | James Joyce | Night Walk, Franz Wright | Unknown

[hood-ex]

@dustorange you are so insane for this, I love yooou.

“You resent me,” Dick says quietly, breaking the silence. “Don’t you?” Bruce’s hand spasms. He jerks his chin to his chest hastily, surprised. He tries to cover it.  “No, I don’t.” “Yes, you do,” Dick says. “You do. Because I’m not him. You resent me for being something different from what he was. For not remembering. I can tell.” Bruce exhales sharply. It’s unsettling how well he knows him even now. But it’s still not the same.  “I don’t begrudge you having your life taken away from you, D—” he stops. “I don’t begrudge you anything. I—you are significant, to me, and I—” There is another silence, the trees rustling.  “...I wanted you back more than I ever wanted anyone else back from the dead. More than I ever wanted anything in my entire life.”

THE LAST LINES. THE LAST LINES!!!

[galaxiasgreen]

🍺🖤This Hell We Create

Sebastian x F!Muggle!Reader with eventual smut, minor Garrinis [E-Rated, 4.7k words]

He pulls you so close there's a mere thread of air between the tips of your noses. You look up and see a man lost in the midst of his demons, drowning under a pain so core-deep there's no hope of excavation – and in the reflection of those coffee eyes, you see yourself, the angel, the life ring, the last hope that keeps him tethered to the world. "No." The word punctuates with unyielding command. "No. I would never, ever let them hurt you. I swear it to god." "I don't care about God," you whisper. "Swear it to me."

The truth comes out as you sew Sebastian's wounds.

[MASTERLIST][FIRST][PREV][NEXT] [read on AO3, read on Wattpad]

TW: alcoholism, coarse language, blood/ injury, surgical stitching, explicit smut MDNI (dirty talk, table sex, porn with feelings, semi-public sex, very slight breeding kink).

5. living and surviving

Sebastian comes to when you hold smelling salts under his nose.

Between last breath and now, you were a mile out in the centre of town, a minute's walk from the pub, maybe more, depending on how far astray you were led by Harlow's men. You have no idea how you ended up in some cramped one-bed flat overlooking a dim, dingy street near the docks – and until you noticed the empty bottles strewn on a damp, sticky floor and smelt a musk of sweat and leather infused with the bedsheets, you didn't know where you were either. The garret converted from a servant's quarters feels like its own world, not quite tangled with reality.

But Sebastian's bloodied body is no dream. Everything that's happened – waking up in the middle of the night, Harlow attacking, Sebastian interfering, then transporting to his lodging in the blink of an eye... you can barely process it.

His eyes flutter open at the smell, and you place the salts aside to wipe the sweat from his brow. Now is not the time to panic; Sebastian needs you. You can't let it get to you while he's on the brink of seeing his parents again.

"Easy. You blacked out."

"Fuck." He winces. "I..."

He tries to reach for his pocket – you stop him. "I told you to take it easy."

"Need... drink..."

"No you don't. I got some bandage from your bathroom and cleaned and wrapped the wounds, but the one on your chest is too deep. It needs sewing. Have you got a needle?"

His gaze drifts to the empty whisky bottle on his bedside drawer.

"Don't tell me you used the good stuff?"

"You won't get to appreciate the good stuff if you die." You sink down onto the chair, staring at the dried blood on your hands. "My parents, Sebastian. What if Harlow—"

"He won't," he says gently, making you look at him. "He'll want to go lick his wounds and whinge about losing to a child." Fresh blood blooms into the bandage when he sits up. "There's an emergency kit in my bathroom, under the sink. Can you grab it?"

The kit turns out to be a canvas basket of unmarked phials of an oozing grass-green liquid.

"What the hell is this?" you ask, when you hand one to him.

Instead of applying it to cloth, like you expect, he places the phial to his lips. Half of it bobs down his throat before you slap it away, smashing it against the wall.

"What the—!"

"For God's sake, are you insane? Taking some potion like that? No herbal nonsense is going to clear a wound. That's not a natural colour!"

His head cocks, like he's thinking of some joke.

"Potion, you say?"

"It's not funny." You snatch an old shirt and press it to the wound – he lets out a yelp. "I told you, it needs sewing. You must have a needle somewhere."

"I don't." Already he sounds better, and colour returns to his cheeks. "You've got one at the pub?"

"Obviously."

"Then we'll go back."

"You're in no state—"

"We can check on your parents."

The retort vanishes. Realistically you can't say no. You had every intention of making sure he was okay before going yourself, but Sebastian's method of transport, whatever that entails, is a lot faster. You take his outstretched hand and shut your eyes, and as quick as it takes to adjust to the pleasant fizzing his grip brings do you return to the pub's main hall like you never left.

Sebastian barely teeters. For someone badly injured not ten minutes ago, his recovery is remarkable, and he prowls along the surroundings with molten grace. Every shadow seems sentient and beastly, every corner a secret, and when the darkness is both the cloak and the dagger, turning from friend to foe at whatever whim it designs, the potential for danger flares panic in your belly. You were a fool to follow the noises. A fool to fall for the trap. Harlow plucked you up like you were nothing. If not for Sebastian, you'd be dead. Or wishing you were.

Sebastian's presence is the only thing keeping those thoughts at bay, and when you check your parents upstairs – fast asleep and undisturbed – relief douses some of those flames.

After a cursory perimeter patrol, Sebastian lumbers back into the hall and sits on the edge of a table. You fetch an emergency kit from under the bar and light a candle, exposing how much worse the wound has become. Some sort of gungy discharge weeps through the bandage, a worrying shade of yellow.

"I can clean the infection." You scooch closer, ignoring the way the smell of his sweat makes your mouth dry. "It— it should be okay."

"Hope so. Can't imagine dying in your pub would be convenient."

"Don't you realise that could have happened?" you snap, letting out the tiniest vent of emotion. "Fuck, you got off light, Sebastian! You could've been left with a hundred stab wounds or beaten so hard you were unrecognisable or killed in a bloody alleyway—"

He intertwines his fingers with yours suddenly, curbing the tremors.

"I'm all right, bar girl. I will live."

It's an invitation of calm in calamity. He's okay. He'll live. You repeat it over and over again, trying to absorb the words and focus on his grip. It anchors you, devours you, makes your heart soar into the vast endlessness of the night sky. Is it the anxiety of Harlow's attack that makes your knees weak, or is it him, an embodiment of light on the wings of darkness?

You pull away, flustered. For fuck's sake. He's covered in blood, bruises, sweat and dried alcohol. He's confusing and contradictory and crass. He's an illusion of perfection, an enigma no close to being solved. He should not be an option – ever. But your body tingles with desire as you singe a needle beneath the kettle's boil.

What would it be like to taste him? What would it be like for him to taste me?

"You know," he says, "I could've just drank the potion and saved you the hassle."

You sit opposite him to thread it, aware of his penetrating gaze. "Yeah, and then I'd be reviving your arse from bloody cardiac arrest."

"Might be worth it for a kiss."

You look up at him, stunned.

"The kiss of life, bar girl." That insufferable smirk. "Keep up."

You finally stick the thread through the eye, and when he removes the bandage, sodden with blood, you get a proper look at the damage. It's a clean slice down his chest, not long but deep. Strangely, it seems smaller than it was before.

"Shirt off, I need full access to sew it shut."

His mouth crooks upwards – handsome and charming and utterly vexing.

"First a kiss, now my shirt? There are easier ways to get me in bed, bar girl."

But he obeys, peeling off the soiled linen.

And by God do you stare.

It's hard not to. Sebastian Sallow is built like fucking Adonis. Chiselled, hard abs, perfectly moulded shoulders, tufts of hair that run a course down his chest, hinting at the V-shape below the trouser line, and freckles – so many freckles it could fill a night sky.

And tattoos.

There's more than the runes and the 706 – his body is a monument to ink. Black and gold snakes coil around his arms. Lilies bloom across the waist. There are bones, cracked and whole, compasses that point north, faux claw marks and barren oaks struck by lightning. When you inspect his back, the eyes of a white fox peer at you, the pillar of a dark building bisects crashing waves, a strange clock chimes with six differently-sized faces and a silver globe glows, suspended in air and intricately filigreed. Other symbols decorate him too, most you don't recognise, and there are dates on his wrist, XXVIII-III-MCMI, and another, III-II-MCMI.

He is terrifying – and beautiful. He's not the canvas, but the piece in itself, an accumulated expression of ideas, love, joy, sorrow and pain, engraved on his surface like the epitaph on a tomb.

ᚺᚲ706

"This one," you mumble, reaching out, hesitating before your fingers graze the fine bristles of hair. "The runes, and the number 706... what does it mean?"

"This," he says, "is my identification number."

"For what?"

"Sew me up and I'll tell you."

Maybe you won't need to. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why someone might be branded this way.

After a brief swish of acid-dipped cloth, the needle goes through his skin. His jaw sets and he lets out a low rumble of a groan, a noise that sets your blood pumping. You close the suture as fast as you can, hoping not to extend the moment of pain, but it seems to go on forever, his ember gaze burning firelight into your soul.

"I went to prison," he says quietly, when you're almost done. "Ten years."

You go rigid. "For?"

Petty theft, fraud, anything but the worst ones.

But he looks away.

"Murder."

Fuck. It hits you like a punch – his hands around some faceless victim's neck, or a knife in hand, glistening red. He ended another life. The air parches, hot and heady.

"I swear I would never do anything to hurt you," he says, reading your horror. "I didn't—" His face contorts, like he knows better than to finish that sentence. "I learnt my lesson."

"What, that killing is bad?" You give him a sad smile. "I learnt that when I was five."

He lets out a derisive snort. "I was... a difficult child." For the first time ever, Sebastian seems sheepish, bashful. "Our parents died when I was young and the only relative who could take us in was our uncle. He didn't give a shit about us. Anne was dying and he hated that I was trying to help her, and I... I just snapped.

"Kath was there. It's why she resents me. We were close, me and her, but then she was implicated – and she never forgave the choice I made."

The last thread knots evenly. You cut it clean. With one final wipe of carbolic acid, all that's left is a long, wicked seam, slashing diagonally through his final tattoo, a skull.

Some wounds, it seems, can never be mended.

"Your sister... she had cancer?" you ask hoarsely.

Sebastian inhales deeply. "Something like that."

"I'm sorry."

"No. Fuck." He laughs and rakes a hand through his hair – the movement tugs you along like a helpless skein of thread. "She didn't die from it. She lived with it. Then everything happened with my uncle and every day in that shithole prison I thought of her and hoped she was all right. She forgave me, you know, for it all. Took her eight years, but she did. Finally wrote me a letter on our birthday. I was so happy I'd get to see her again. But prison – the prison I went to... it changes you, makes you lash out and do things to protect yourself. I made enemies there."

"Like Harlow," you whisper.

"During school he made Kath's life hell, so in prison I made hell for him. He took that personally. When I got out, I finally reunited with Anne... and when he got out, he thought he'd get me back after all those years."

It hits you again, a soundless but fatal strike. What he means, what he's suggesting, is so awful it leaves you breathless.

"Sebastian, you... you can't let him get away with it."

"What else can I do? Anne is dead. She was the light of my life and he just winked her out like she was nothing."

The almighty fist, and the weak little grape.

"If you do nothing," you say firmly, "he wins."

"He's already won. He took my twin sister."

"And who's to say he won't take a shot at Ominis? Or Garreth? Or... or me? He already has and I was a fool to fall for it—"

He pulls you so close there's a mere thread of air between the tips of your noses. You look up and see a man lost in the midst of his demons, drowning under a pain so core-deep there's no hope of excavation – and in the reflection of those coffee eyes, you see yourself, the angel, the life ring, the last hope that keeps him tethered to the world.

"No." The word punctuates with unyielding command. "No. I would never, ever let them hurt you. I swear it to god."

"I don't care about God," you whisper. "Swear it to me."

These coffee eyes grind you up and spit you out anew. His lids lower, his attentions wandering down your face, down the slope of your nose to the peak of your lips. They fixate there, lit with a whetted appetite.

"I swear it to you," he breathes.

Your gaze goes to his lips too, and his tongue moistens the curve.

"Prove it."

Sebastian hesitates.

It's the last time he does.

His thumb finds the column of your throat and wanders upwards until the pad grazes your lips, starving for a morsel of a taste. His mouth parts again, and you breath his air, every atom like divine nectar. You would beg for a taste. Sensing the hunger, his lips tug into an insufferable, delicious, affectionate smirk, and his other hand brings your chin closer to finally seal the gap.

Sebastian kisses like you're the last breath he'll take before falling to the ocean deep, never again to resurface. It isn't tender but consuming, taking, greedy. He wants. For the longest time he forgot what that meant to a body broken by grief and seduced by dependency. Now he takes it back. This is the rawest form of seizing control.

You dig your nails into his scalp, and his curls coil around your fingers like snakes on a vine. You want too. To give, to take, to stake your claim in a way no one else can. Sebastian is spontaneity and release and desire and imperfection. The storm and the eye, at once unpredictable and comforting. Your days are mapped, aligned and ordered for years to come, as a corpse that breathes and moves and survives, but he guides you to that last missing piece – the spirit of the human soul.

He grips your hips, swapping you around so you're pressed to the table, and kisses again fiercely, taking ownership of your mouth like no one has before. Pressed down, your back hits the table in an arc, and Sebastian sucks on your lips greedily, he the alcoholic, you his last pint of beer.

"I want you," he breathes into your ear. "Fuck, I've wanted you for so long."

You gasp when his teeth bite down on your throat, marking you for himself. The pain is welcome and ingratiating and your sex throbs, begging for attention. His hands greedily unbutton the top of your ruined nightdress, yanking the panels apart to give him access to your breasts.

"Sebastian," you cry, as his tongue licks the sore spot on your neck, and his hand finds the nipple, erect and waiting. He thumbs it in taunting swirls. "W-We can't."

"Why not?"

"My pub... people use these tables..."

He winks. "'Bout time we broke it in, don't you think?"

Somehow it heightens every sensation. The hardness of the table, the wrongness of the act. Tomorrow people will drink and dine here and you do not care. Sebastian knows it. He grasps your face, slipping his hot tongue into your mouth and claiming it for his own, and you whimper, drawn so entirely into him that all you can think, taste, feel, is him.

Your lips smack when he breaks off. His hands run through your hair until the strands spill over the edge, and his lips find other pursuits – your jaw, your throat, the other side of your neck.

"I'm not a good person," he whispers as his hands rip the top of the dress clean off, exposing your breasts again. "I've lied, I've hurt, I've killed.... and I've paid the price. I gave up pretending to be someone I'm not. But you make me want to try."

His tongue slithers over the arc of your breast.

"You are good, Sebastian," you stammer out. "You are—"

His teeth clamp on the nipple – pleasure bursts up your chest. He sucks, pulling upwards as he does, and your sex pulses so badly you close your legs and hope the friction will suffice.

"Sebastian— fuck—"

He lets go, panting, kissing the sore nipple before moving onto the other, and you cry out again. Bite, suck, pull. The cycle tortures you. When he bastes the nipple with his tongue, a soothing gesture, you try to catch your breath before his kisses trail to the junction below your navel.

"You make me want to fight. You make me want to be better. You make me want to start again. Before you I was surviving... you've taught me how to live."

You're delirious with emotions, pleasure yes, but joy too, threatening to make you burst. How can he say that when he's the one giving you this celestial high? Sebastian litters kisses all over your skin, some gentle, some with teeth, uncaring of how ungroomed you deem yourself when he parts your legs. The first stroke on your clit is fire, his fingers a firmness in the wet slickness of your folds.

"Sebastian—"

"I make you this solemn vow." He probes more firmly over the nub, sending wave after wave of pleasure. "I would hunt everyone down if it meant I could keep you safe."

He rubs until you're swollen and desperate and rabid for more than his touch. You want him inside you. Now. Yet some part of you not mad with pleasure manages to raise your head to look him in the eye.

"You... you'd create hell for me?"

Those coffee eyes flicker to meet yours – and they glimmer in a kaleidoscope of lust.

"I wouldn't create hell for you, bar girl." He grins. "I'd raze it."

The finger slips in so easily, like you were made to fit him. Your head hits the table and a cry rips almost involuntarily from your throat. Sebastian gives you little time to adjust before he pulls out and thrusts back in, the intrusion a mercy of pleasure. You clench around him, desperate to be stretched more.

"How badly do you want this?" he finally asks, bringing attention to the dirtiness of his act. "You feel like you like it."

You bite your lip as he rolls in and out. "God..."

"Do you like it?" he demands. "Say it for me."

"Yes," you say – whine. "Yes, I like it."

"You like what?"

"W-When you fuck me with your fingers."

He scoffs, propelling so fast you feel pleasure quickly coalescing. "So impatient, love. I'm only using one."

Love. The term of endearment sends a shudder up your spine. A second finger slides into your warmth, turning that shudder into a quiver, and a third turns it into a quake. Then he curls upwards, searching for that sweet spot that makes your vision dizzy. It doesn't take him long to find it, when your breath catches and your eyes shut, and he thrusts in and out with breathless pace, determined to undo you. You give in to the pressure like ice to fire. You're so close. Fuck, it's frustrating and powerful and pure ecstasy. You rock your hips in time to him, chasing your orgasm.

"Not yet."

"W-What?"

He slows suddenly, maddeningly, and then slips out, leaving you cold and empty. "Not yet."

"Sebastian," you bark, "you better finish me off or I swear—"

His low chuckle cuts you off. He goes back to gently thumbing the pearl, ebbing your pleasure back to an insufferable ache. You hiss when he stands upright – his own pleasure evident by the bulge in his breeches.

"You're going to cum," he murmurs, "when I let you."

His hand comes away, and you let out a needy, pathetic wail that ignites the fervour in his eyes. He stares at you unflinching as he discards his bottom half and allows full view of his cock. It's big, far bigger than any you've ever taken before, proudly erect and forked with a prominent vein. The tip is already beading, and he gives it a few pumps with the hand wet with your juices before running his fingers up and down your thighs.

"You gave me a head start," you say, ravenous to try him.

"Oh, don't worry about that, bar girl," he says, leaning closer, grazing the tip against you. His face betrays a flicker of pleasure. "I'll make sure we're even."

Sliding along your entrance makes a sinfully loud, wet schlick, but he rubs at a leisurely pace, building you back up again until you're clawing the table's edge.

"If you keep doing that—"

But he continues to grind himself lazily through the slick folds, getting slicker by the moment. You open and close in time with each thrust, stimulating yourself, hips rocking, rhythm quickening until you're on the verge of letting go again.

He grips your hips with one hand, and the other finds your clit – the perfect time. "Cum for me, love."

It's too much. The orgasm implodes – the pleasure pulses through every fibre of your body as you dig your nails into the table's edge so hard you graze the polish. That dam of frustration crumbles to relief, to reaching the second celestial high of the night. Sebastian rides along with the aftershocks, each thrust slow but demanding, coating the base of his cock with the sticky release until his skin shines with it.

"Not bad," he murmurs, as he runs his tongue over his thumb, eyes glimmering with satisfaction. "But I think we can do better, bar girl. How badly do you want me inside you?"

You pant, barely conscious. "Sebastian—"

"Say it," he trills. "Or..." He pulls back, leaving you cold and aching for his touch.

You grunt loudly. "Just fuck me already!"

With that shit-eating grin you adore, he takes his cock and lines it up. The tip kisses your entrance; you can feel him, hot and sticky and wide, encouraging you to open for him, each sensation honed tenfold with anticipation. The push inwards stretches you gaping, and you widen yourself as far as you'll go to pull him inside, accommodating each inch until his hip is flush with your thighs. God, it feels amazing. He was always meant to fit, always meant to fill you completely.

"Fuck," he mutters, "you are tight."

You clench down, and his eyes flicker to yours, wild with lust.

"Minx."

He lets out a strained breath, that smirk finally giving way to a pleasure that knits his brow together. He's so warm, and... safe. As he repositions, curling his arms around your legs, you suddenly, dizzily, experience a completely new sensation – you want to take all of him, to let him use you for his own pleasure. To be pumped full of his seed, every drop until it fills the cracks and drips down your thighs, and even more after that. You want him to claim you, to fuck you so hard the rest of the shitty day fades into oblivion. Nothing else matters, only him and this perfect moment.

Being with him is truly freeing. It is truly living.

He flicks curls out of his eyes. "I have no intention of going slow."

You match his smirk.

"Good."

He withdraws – then slams back inside. The friction makes you cry out. Sweat beads his brow, but he does it again, and again, not once taking his eyes off you, coffee as dark and deeply seducing as hell itself. He keeps your thighs in a vice grip as he thrusts into you with a ruthless pace. His, the motions say. You are his. His rhythm starts to speed up, his balls slap noisily against your arse.

"You have— no idea— how long I've wanted this," he growls, each thrust punctuating his words. "No idea— how much— I've wanted to fuck you."

He releases your legs and braces his hands at your sides, finding a new angle to pound.

"You're taking me so well," he groans. "Tell me you want me."

"I want you."

"Tell me you're mine."

"I'm yours." It comes out ragged and emotional.

His pace quickens. You drink in the scent of his sweat, his love-making. Fire gathers in your core. It's painful to hold it off until he's closer. It kills.

His breath shudders.

"I'm yours too."

It's too much. Tipped over the edge, the second orgasm sends pulses a pleasure so cosmic you black out for a moment. Each thrust is a mark of possession – your possession. He belongs to me. Only me. You clench around him as he plunges frantically into you in the chase for his own pleasure. With one final groan, he pulls out, thrusting madly into his hand until he doubles over, bleating a beautiful sound, brows knitted together and head craned as the thick ribbons of cum spill over your belly. His mark, left on you. I belong to him. Only him. He pumps until he's spent, leaving the residue hanging off his fingers like spun sugar.

"Sebastian..." you mumble.

He finds his way to your lips in a daze. This kiss is tender, full of love and appreciation, wanting, but in the small ways, too. Too exhausted to return the affections for long, you part from him and marvel at the way he smiles – like a sunrise on the highest mountain peak, so hopeful and full of life.

"I could get used to that," he pants out, tracing the cum on your stomach. "Vigorous shagging."

"Jesus Christ." He laughs and you eye his wound; red and sore but miraculously intact, despite his best efforts. "You shouldn't have exerted yourself so much."

"Oh, you care now that you've used me?" he teases, sitting you up to place kisses on your bare shoulder. "I never thought you'd look twice at me, you know."

It's an endearingly sad thought. Your head lolls to allow him better access. "Definitely not when you first walked in here."

"That Sebastian couldn't get his dick up."

"That Sebastian couldn't get himself up."

A finger sweeps across your forehead, tucking back a stray hair – the tenderness makes your bones melt. "You didn't have to help me, but I'm glad you did. I'm glad you're in my life. It's better with you in it."

"I wouldn't be here if you weren't a good person at heart, Sebastian Sallow."

A bashful sweep of crimson makes every freckle glow. His eyes lower to half-lids.

"I know addiction is a curse," he whispers, "but if there's one thing I'm willing to crave, it's the way your smile takes my breath away."

You seize him for another kiss, this time with all the fumbling, giggling and yearning of a first. His broad hands, branched with a river network of veins, cups the back of your neck as he kisses with as much ferocity as he does tenderness. He wants, you want. Separate you survive, but together, with your bodies intertwined and your souls connected, you live.

In a perfect world, this is all there is. You, your life and the man who loves you. But though you wish you could snuggle closer and shut your eyes to what lays beyond the walls, the high must wane eventually. It's a satisfying, but unnerving feeling to have when you pull away.

"What do we do now?"

"Already keen, bar girl?" Sebastian smirks, thumbing your waist. "Didn't think you had anything left."

"I meant," you say gently, "about Harlow."

"Please can we not talk about him when my cock's poking your thigh?" At your deadpan stare, he scrubs a hand down his face. "Look, I don't know right now, but I'll think of something." He draws you close, kisses your forehead. "That's a promise. Don't worry."

"You know I'll worry anyway." You go to stand. "Now I need to clean up. You've made a terrible mess."

But Sebastian scoops you into his arms, and in the darkness, his grin is sinful and wicked.

"Your mistake, bar girl," he growls, heading towards the stairs, "was thinking we were done."

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[Gorgeous art by FlamboyantJelly] [Divider credit]

[mydearthisbe]

Reasons to Watch Drive-Away Dolls (2024):

Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as Jamie and Marian, in the 90s Lesbian Road Trip Adventure Crime Comedy of Our (My) Dreams

It was delightfully absurd! I love a movie that is off-kilter at every turn!!! The stakes are escalating but rather than suspenseful, it is snappy and spirited

If you have ever wanted to watch a crime movie where the criminals are so incredibly inept at committing crimes that they have to keep pleading with lesbians they've just met to help them, this could be the movie for you

If you have ever wanted to watch a movie where for every scene involving violence there is also a longer lesbian sex scene, this could be the movie for you

Curlie, the Drive-Away Rental Dealer, who is decidedly in a different genre of movie, and who doesn't like people calling him Curlie (his actual name) because it's too familiar, deserves his own shout-out

This movie was exactly the right length!! It didn't drag, it told the story exactly in as much time as it needed (1h24min)

There is only one character in this movie who is based on a real person, and while I could not have predicted who that would be, they were once described with the phrase, "Someone like [them] should be in the Smithsonian."

Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, who are married, in a polymarous relationship and the latter of whom is a lesbian, directed and wrote this self-described B movie and have been trying to get it made for almost 20 years, which is incredible dedication

Quotes like: "Take the wall dildo." "It's your dildo, Suzanne."

[ladamedusoif]

UNHOLY FERAL NOISES

[thelonelyshore-if]

I am so desperately close to finishing my big mystery scene for the chapter. It's unfortunate, because I want to keep writing, but I have to be a responsible adult and go to sleep. A pity, truly. Especially because as soon as I've wrapped this up and tested it, I can finally get it out to my beta readers and we'll all be one step closer to the chapter's release.

Sigh. Well, since I'm impatient and sad that I can't stay up all night writing, here are some previews from said mystery scene. Enjoy <3

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Something I will forever adore about judaism is that it's all so so familiar

This past class, the leading rabbi showed us a clip from a movie about someone's bar mitzvah and at the end when they were dressing the torah and starting to parade it and sing it's like... I know how to sing that! It's all the same, I know how to sing that!

I've talked about it before, but I find so much comfort in knowing that no matter where I end up, we'll all be chanting and singing the same songs. We have sung them forever - l'dor vador, we've been singing them for generations

[ninjaaa-go]

Was anyone really bothered by how dismissive all of the ninja expect Nya are about the whole Jay situation in dr s2 p2? Like, I get the whole tournament situation is important and they can’t just bail, but no one even really seemed to care at all. Cole is Jay’s best friend and he barely had anything to say about it all and hardly seemed concerned about Jay literally shattering the good in his soul and leaving so they’ll have no idea where to find him again.

That all just really didn’t sit right with me.