#hype-free environment

[cruelsister-moved2]

sorry but i think if youre making protest signs or wearing a shirt or whatever that associates lgbt people or abortion with satanism you are stupid as fuck 

[wiptw]

Pokémon Stadium Series

Nintendo 64 - Nintendo - 2000 to 2001

You as a Pokémon fan are absolutely fucking spoiled these days. Aside from the mainline games you have spinoffs and fangames offering different experiences, you have entire websites dedicated to documenting everything down to the internal maths of the series, there's no end to the free content you can access with an internet connection between emulators and battle sites like 'Showdown!', and it's now socially acceptable in most circles to be older than 13 and have something with Pikachu's face plastered on it (especially if you're female presenting, especially if your friend group is also infected with the Pokémon hype). Back in my day™ you had almost none of this. You had the anime on Saturday mornings, you had the early run Pokémon licensed merch which WOULD get you called a baby if you continued buying past 10-12, and you had the games. Those sweet, sweet games that indoctrinated a generation of young people into being gamers and awoke a horde of JRPG addicts.

Literally Me

So remember this when I tell you that Pokémon Stadium, both one and two, aren't great games because they do something back then that you can't get today; they're great for what they did back then. So Pokemon Stadium 1&2 were a duology of games from 2000 and 2001 respectively that allowed players to battle Pokemon in 3D, with the addition of some side content such as minigames included to prevent the game from being 100% Pokemon battles. Because otherwise, the game is in fact navigating a series of menus and completing Pokémon battles with 3D models.

Whether it's taking on the gym gauntlets, the marathon of battles in the Pokémon cups, or just free battles with friends and loved ones, 98% of the experience is either selecting Pokémon from a roster of pre-built 'rentals' or transferring them from a saved game using the Transfer Pak, then fighting them in a series of 3D environments. An experience which you can definitely do today using web apps but as I said earlier, we didn't have that.

The peak of Pokémon battles in 2000

So if you're buying Pokémon Stadium (either version really) you're already probably a Pokémon fan right? So that means you have Red/Blue/Yellow/Gold/Silver/Crystal, so why not just play that game and get the full experience? The fun of exploring, talking to NPCs, discovering new and exotic locations? Simple, because in those games battles looked like this

While in Stadium, battles looked like this

If you grew up watching the anime while playing the Gameboy games, there was this special kind of dissonance where you might find yourself saying "Yeah, (for the time) these graphics are RADICAL but I wish I had something closer to these cool Pokémon Battles they had in the anime." As you hide under the covers with your Gameboy Color worm light, nestled in your Ash Ketchum pajamas while you attempt for the 100th time to capture a ditto. Pokémon Stadium was the answer to this dissonance, providing you with vibrant 3D graphics unlike anything you'd ever seen before; bringing Pokémon to life in a way that would be unmatched until Colosseum came out during the Gamecube era.

So, to actual mechanics, you play both games pretty similarly; by building a team of Pokémon (either on your handheld or by using the rental mons the game provides) and take part in a series of battles to become the ultimate battle master. To use your own Pokémon, you'd need to use the aforementioned 'Transfer Pak' to plug in a copy of Red/Blue/Yellow (for 1) or Gold/Silver/Crystal (for 2) with a game saved to the cartridge; otherwise the rental Pokémon covered all released Pokémon (except for some hidden ones) allowing you to build your dream team, sans a few caveats here and there.

Evolved Pokémon have better stats but worse moves, while weaker Pokémon tend to have better moves to compensate

In terms of WHERE you can battle, there's two choices: Either in the Gym Leader Castle, or the Tournaments held in the center of the map on either game. Either way, the game will then have you battle through a series of 3v3 matches versus a set number of trainers who will also select 3 random mons from their full team of six.

A bit bare bones, but there's some spice to how things are run. For one, the rental system was a huge thing for us younger players back in the day. Even if you had the games some Pokémon were hard to catch, had evolution requirements some players couldn't complete (like the trade-mons), or were locked to a version you didn't have. The rental mons give you a list of every Pokémon (some exceptions, but not many) and then lets you build your dream team. Sure, you can't set their moves, EVs, IVs, and it's the era before abilities and natures but I CAN HAVE A MEOWTH/PERSIAN ON MY TEAM. Do you know what I had to do as a child to have this Pokémon outside of Stadium? I had to find someone in the American South who also enjoyed Pokémon, hoped they had Blue instead of Red, hoped they had a link cable, then get them to agree to a trade despite both of us being children (and therefore, objectively terrible) which likely meant giving away a rare Pokémon in exchange for what amounted to common garbage in their game because it was Version fucking Exclusivity™ and everyone seemed to know that meant you'd do anything to get that one fucking Pokémon you wanted.

In the handheld games, if you wanted to build your dream team then likely you'd have to put in some more effort than other games of the time would've required of you. With Stadium, your dreams come true, and if you already have that dream team you can just import them to fight in glorious 3D. Circumventing the fact that rental Pokémon are kinda terrible overall.

Don't feel like building? The challenge cup mode that gives you randomized team comps that has it's own charm (for masochists)

Not to say all of them were bad but construct a normal distribution of 'Good' to 'Bad' picks then that graph is gonna skew left so hard you'd be forgiven for thinking it was just a straight line. To keep every choice 'viable' Pokémon rentals were balanced around stats and moves. More powerful evolved Pokémon and Pokémon with high Base Stat Totals (BST) were given weaker moves and first form and low BST Pokémon were given generally better moves. Charizard might have better stats than Charmeleon and Charmander but his only fire type move is going to be something like Fire Spin. Conversely, Charmander might have Fire Blast but his stats are gonna make him an easy target for the computer's pokemon, which are not bound to the same builds as the rental mons you're using.

Once your team is assembled, then you're off to battle trainer after trainer after trainer with beautifully scored (for the Nintendo 64) soundtracks giving you an unearned sense of importance every step of the way. Battles themselves are conducted with a weird, but functional control layout where A and B access sub menus you then check with the R button before finalizing with the c-buttons, which on original hardware or a USB N64 controller is fine but on emulation with a more modern controller like Logitech, can be a little nerve wracking as you worry about whether your 'up' input on the control stick was up enough for the game or if you accidentally drifted right or left using an unintended move.

fun fact: the name of imported Pokémon affects their coloration in Stadium

Battles are also largely regulated by (at the time) tournament standard rules. Little and Pokecup have level restrictions, and all three non-random cups include clauses for sleep, held items, and repeat Pokémon. Additionally, in any cup if you win the round with all 3 Pokémon still in tact, you're granted a continue; meaning you can retry the battle if you lose. Additionally, there is no 'draw' outcome in these games. Use a move like Explosion or Selfdestruct and the game will register it as your loss on your final Pokémon, regardless of whether you took down the opposing fighter with you or not.

You'll be doing a LOT of back-to-back fights here against trainers with varied team comps, but even with over 246 Pokémon in the available potential lineup you'll get tired fast of fighting. This is, however, slightly mitigated by the 3v3 nature of the matches but even so be ready to here the same Pokémon noises, watch the same effects play out, and wait for the same health bars to tick down over and over as you claw your way to the spot of Pokémon Master.

The art style of non-battle scenes like the main map and minigame plaza have that nice, 90's charm to them as well.

If you do get tired of battling it out, then Stadium 1 and 2 both offer minigames for players to partake in. Either in a tournament format or by using the free-play browser, players are able to take part in a multitude of different Mario Party-esque (without the hand burning) minigames featuring the Pokémon as stars. Minigames consist of stick twirling, button mashing, and point collecting all while controlling fan favorite Pokémon such as Togepi, Eevee, Scyther, and Pichu with no real rhyme or reason behind why these game exist aside from a amusement park theming the minigame zones have for their icons and menus.

You won't get a real explanation as to why you're racing Donphans, cutting logs as Scythers and Pinsirs, or playing Simon Says with a bunch of Clefairy, but you don't really need that either. The games are fun, the models are charming, and watching Clefairy get smacked in the head for each wrong input brings me a level of joy I should probably talk about with my therapist. You won't likely spend hours in this mode, but it's a nice breather from the onslaught of battles otherwise.

fun fact: I still won't talk to some people because of the outcomes to Rampage Rollout over two decades ago. You know who you are.

Additionally there's a quiz minigame separate from the main selection of minigames with easy/normal/hard difficulty selections. Players compete to see who can be the first to get a number of questions correct before anyone else based on facts about the Pokémon (typing, size, silhouette, etc) or facts about the game (where you can find things in the game, names of routes and towns, names of figures in the game).

It's not the most challenging on easy or normal, but playing on hard the game will try to screw you with trick questions so playing with others becomes a balance of "do I let the question play out, or attempt to steal it before someone else can answer correctly?"

Sometimes even playing the game won't prepare you for how out of pocket the questions can get

The real advantage of 2 over 1 is that, in addition to minigames, the game has the trainer academy; a kind of in-depth battle tutorial to teach players not only the basics of Pokémon fighting, but also some secrets as well

You can learn about held items, a feature new to the second generation, as well as participate in mock battles to demonstrate the materials you've been reading and quizzed on. Some of this information for the time too was obscure or hidden knowledge, like the fact that using Defense Curl before using Rollout would boost the damage significantly or that using Stomp on an opponent who used minimize would double the damage.

Some type matchups just make sense, like Ground v Electric.

Overall though what really makes this game is the presentation. The soundtrack does a great job selling the feeling Nintendo wants you to experience, climbing the ladder in a tournament or the Gym Leaders Castle makes you feel powerful, and the little details on top of it all just tie it together in a nice package.

The fights, for example, are also narrated by "The Announcer". A bombastic voice shouting over every detail of a fight. When you score a crit, when you apply a status effect, even using certain moves will get the announcer loudly narrating each detail like a Pokémon prize fight. Seeing the ground rip apart when you use Earthquake is only half the charm, the other half comes from that man yelling in your ears "A DEVESTATING EARTHQUAKE ATTACK!". Clearing gyms or clearing opponents in one of the cups grants you gym badges, a dream for any child growing up on the handheld classics or watching the anime who wished they too could earn shiny bits of metal that gave them an inflated sense of importance.

I would literally kill everyone I came across if it'd get me a real life Zephyr Badge.

Stadium 1 and 2 aren't evergreen classics. They're stuck in Gens 1 and 2 respectively, the roster of Pokémon while impressive is largely useless and makes collecting trophies way harder than it has to be, and the games were made before things like abilities and double battles were introduced, leading to the Pokémon battling game missing out on the generation of Pokémon that made battling more fun (Revolution doesn't count, Revolution is dead to me and disappoints me more than I disappoint myself.)

But for the time especially, it gave fans an opportunity to experience a form of Pokémon more advanced than what the handhelds could output. It was a window into a world of potential that wouldn't be truly fulfilled until arguably the 3DS era of Pokémon released, and gave fans a fun little romp handcrafted for them at every twist and turn. Whether you were a gamer or you enjoyed the anime, there was something here for you.

Overall: 7/10 Sound: 8/10 (for the time) Graphics: 9/10 (for the time) Memorable Moments: Stadium 1: Hearing about Mewtwo, thinking he was an urban legend, then finding out he wasn't Stadium 2: Finally beating the elite 4 using only rental mons.

[yuvany]

#ENHYPEN WITH AN IDOL!READER

𝐄𝐍𝐇𝐘𝐏𝐄𝐍 with a popular idol •°

OT7 𝐄𝐍𝐇𝐘𝐏𝐄𝐍 x female reader :: GENRE / WARNING(S) :: fluff + secret lovers + kissing . . not proofread . .WC ; 829 ;; CHECK BOX !!

( reblogs + feedback always appreciated !! )

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆

His eyes trail your figure on stage, the details of your face and dress. Heeseung is in awe at how astonishing you look under the bright stage light, looking so elegant yet controlling, as if you knew the state was yours. Applauds the loudest when you finish your performance, a big smile reaching across his face. When you walk past him to get to your seat, the two of you bow to each other, still holding eye contact. When the announcer called out that you(r group) had won an award, Heeseung is excited for you, smiling and cheering, forgetting that there were other people around him. "Congrats on the award, Love." He says, kissing you gently on the lips after the award show.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆

Being on a variety show together was not easy for Jay. He could barely keep his eyes off you, subconsciously he'd slowly make his way closer to you. You notice this and step aside, not wanting any 'rumors' to spread. After the camera cuts, he approaches you, his hand sneakily finding your waist as he pulls you close to himself. "Don't you want them to know, baby ?" He asks sincerely and you reply, "Dearest, be professional, okay?" You kiss the tip of his nose and Jay gets embarrassed for being called out.

𝐒𝐈𝐌 𝐉𝐀𝐄𝐘𝐔𝐍

Everyone was basically aware that Jake admired you, never did they know that you two were in a romantic relationship. Clips online showed Jake looking at you from afar with a wide smile and eyes that glimmered, fans online argued that the two of you were just friends. He always wanted to go on a proper date with you, but that was like a dream because you two were incredibly busy people. When finally getting free time, Jake texts you in a flash, "Wanna go on a date, Lovely?" You of course agree, and while being outside, you're both forced to wear masks and caps to keep your identity hidden which he will complain about later.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍

Was an MC, and during today's episode was your group's turn to be interviewed. As you stepped onto the stage, applause filled the environment as Sunghoon introduced you and your group. Everyone bowed to each other politely, and Sunghoon backed away to give more space. You introduce your group, and he watches in awe with heart eyes. "How does it feel to be here?" He asks, his eyes glued on you. "Feels awesome!" You answer, locking eyes with him, the amount of time caught people's attention, how your eyes lingered on him. The mic in your hand gets transferred around as they give their opinion, but Sunghoon still won't take his eyes off you, he only glances at them before looking at you again.

𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐎𝐎

He was glad that the two of you worked in the same industry, that meant that you could run into each other more coincidentally. It was late at night when you walked out of the dance studio to see Sunoo right outside. "Hello, Handsome." You greet, closing the door behind you. "Evening, Princess." Sunoo says with a grin. You ask him what he's doing out here so late, and he simply said that he was on a walk after his practice. "Also wanted to walk you back, and maybe go to the cafeteria first." You nod your head, content with the plan. As you two walk there with your arm linked with his, you two explain your future schedules to plan something nice when free.

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐖𝐎𝐍

Would sneak backstage before your group's performance just to hype you up. "Where's Y/n?" You hear his voice from behind, and when you turn to look, you see your group member speaking to him, and he immediately runs over to you after thanking your member. "What are you doing here?" You ask confused and shocked, feeling Jungwon's hands holding you firmly by the shoulders. "Just here to see how you're doing, babe." He says, and you slowly nod. "Just a little nervous, that's all." Jungwon dusts off some fabric from your outfit and tells you you shouldn't be. "You'll be awesome, I know you've worked hard, no need to worry. I'll be watching you." He assures and kisses you on the cheek before running away.

𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐀 𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐈

Would complement you on his live. You(r group) released a new comeback? He'd promote it. "Have you guys heard [. ]'s new album." Riki read the comment, and he nods, his eyes seeming to hold more interest now. "Personally, my favourite is [song], what about you guys?" Riki pulls up his phone to play some of your music, but as well as sending you a message saying that some of his fans were your fans as well. You'd of course do the same when it comes to Enhypen's music. "Hmm? Romance:untold? Of course, I love it!" You answer when someone asks you about it. Fans then start to ship you guys because of how much you guys match, specifically airport outfits.

[joemama-2]

nanami kento has always been a patient man. he’s respectful and doesn’t talk to unless spoken to. he doesn’t like most people, might even hate some. but you’re not the type of person he would exactly hate, unlike a certain someone. he thinks you’re kind, polite, you always bow respectfully to your seniors, you diligently complete every task that’s asked of you. there’s also one more thing about you….he just cant put his finger on it. maybe you’re just tolerable, yeah that’s it.

you’re not a sorcerer, at least not a very good one. it’s why you’ve opted to be an auxiliary manager like ijichi and akari. “as long as i get to help the sorcerers in battle, i’m fine with whatever position i’ve been assigned.” you would say with a big and warm smile, innocently, naively. he thinks you’re too good for such a rotten society, something like that will get people killed. and he doesn’t want you on that list.

when he first met you back in high school, he didn’t think much of you. you weren’t a special grade, you didn’t have any awesome technique, you were just simply there. maybe you have connections, he thought. because there’s no way someone like you was admitted into tokyo jujutsu high. to this day, he doesn’t know how you did it. maybe you have some super cool talent that you didn’t like showing, maybe you just won over everyone’s hearts and they felt pity for you, he’ll never be able to find out. that’s one of his many regrets.

his other regrets are letting himself grow attached for no reason. no matter what, his eyes had a mind of his own, searching and scanning any room or environment for your figure. he chalks it up to protectiveness, you weren’t strong like he was and he didn’t want to see another comrade die. because thats all you were, a comrade. a comrade. a comrade. he chants this mantra into his mind every morning.

nanami didn’t know how it happened, but one thing led to another and he was always alone with you. comfortable silence was what he loved the most. you two could sit together for hours in a flower field you came across one day, just watching the sky and clouds form random shapes. you liked when they made hearts and little animals. although he always argued that they’re just clouds.

but, clouds almost reminded him of you. free, soft, floating around from place to place, and residing high in the sky. because he knew, no matter what, you were one of the few people who would go to heaven in this sick world, sick society. you belonged in heaven, you looked like an angel, acted like a goddess.

“let’s go to malaysia together.” you told him randomly one day, seeing an ad pop up about a beautiful vacation spot. kuantan. he didn’t take you too seriously. malaysia? out of all places? he didn’t see the hype.

all these thoughts flood his brain when he sees your body, looking lifeless and bloody, next to ijichi. you two have huge stab wounds in your mid-section. however, you have a bit more than your co-part, clear signs of your fight. even when you know you don’t have the upper hand, you won’t hesitate to fight back.

it’s hard as he carries you two, having to make sure ijichi doesn’t fall off his back while simultaneously holding you close to his chest. his heart twists and turns, stomach churning the entirety of the slow walk he does to bring you two back to ieiri. his mind is running rampant, constantly looking down at you. you can’t be dead, he thinks. neither of you two are dead, he can’t see more comrades die.

it’s almost weird to him how his throat tightens, tears stinging at his eyes. you don’t move, head lolling to the side as barely a sign of a breath is escaping your lips. your skin is pale and bruising. he hates it, hates how you look, hates how hurt you are, hates how he wasn’t there to stop it and protect you.

he sets you down first once he reaches shoko, handing the passed out ijichi to her. finally, he kneels down, taking in your appearance. nanami rarely gets mad, at least not seriously. but this time, he’s absolutely furious. silently seething as he breathing gets heavy. his fists clench by his side, nails drawing blood into the skin.

he gets up, no being able to stand how you look. but, he forgets you’re a fighter, forgets that no matter what, you look out for the sorcerers. out for him.

“kento….” you straggle out, hand weakly clutching onto his. you can barely keep your eyelids open. you mutter out the next few words. “…man….blonde……ponytail……s-sword….”

ah, he thinks. that’s his target.

he gulps, simply nodding. but your hand stays clutched onto his. using all your strength, you open your eyes wider, and he hates the tears that form in them. “….come back to me please…..”

he feels like crying with you. but he can’t, not now at least. he kneels down again, bringing the back of your hand up to his lips to press feather light kisses to each knuckle. his other hand gently uses his thumb to wipe your tears, treating you with utmost care. “kuantan,” he murmurs. “when this is all over, i’ll take you.”

you weakly chuckle, more tears falling at this point. “..p-promise..?”

he hesitates, but you notice. “promise.“ he says back, leaning down to give your forehead a kiss, sealing the promise. he places your hand back to your stomach before getting up to leave, not before sparing you one last glance.

and as you watch him leave, you don’t even know that it’s the last time you’ll ever see him, last time he’ll ever see you. because you trust his word, trusted that he’d come back to you.

nanami leaves with a heavy heart, staring death in the face and yet all he can think about is you. there’s many regrets he has.

he broke your guys’ promise, he hopes you won’t stay mad at him.

he won’t be able to take you to kuantan.

he won’t be able to see you, hold you, talk to you.

and finally, he wasn’t able to confess that he loved the simplicity. that he loved you.

he’ll see you again, in heaven and in another life. until then, he’ll watch over you. because nanami kento has always been a patient man.

[tenko-thinks]

Upper moons and an s/o with large breasts

Cw: a reader with some huge honkers. I'm talking a real pair of badonkers. Some HUGE habagah-- anyways, suggestive , mentions of lactation?¿ I'm projecting my back hurts

Ft. Douma Akaza and Gyutaro

Requests are open i encourage them, im not that creative

♡ ------ ♡

Douma

Douma is one person I see that values breasts on a feminine partner. They imply fertility, after all.

And that implies youth. Beauty. Which is quite attractive not only to the part of you that he desires to devour. But also to the part of him that is a.. Man.

His hands are almost always trailing down to your breasts. Resting on the softness there.

He only becomes handsier over time, bolder and pretty uncaring of boundaries. Or public opinion. He has a right to squeeze, he feels.

When he's bored he enjoys them in an almost cat like fashion. Lifting them and releasing them to watch the jiggle of soft flesh.

Absolutely the worst to sleep with though you'll be in bed and a hand with find your tit under your clothing and it's like Antarctica. He thinks your reactions are to die for. So he's going to keep doing it of course.

There's a part of him that wants to delve deeper on the idea of your fertility. Watch your breasts swell. He wonders if your milk would be like drinking your blood? Just as devine?

Also you're twinsies with fat tits congrats

Akaza

Akaza does not strike me as someone who cares about the body of his partner so long as they're healthy.

However he cannot deny his base attraction to. The simpler things in life. If you're well endowed. Well, it only means more of you to love.

And love you he does. He's not great at showing gentle affection but words of affirmation are natural to him.

If you're insecure of your chest? He's there to soothe you.

If you're proud of them and love showing them off? Free hype man.

#1 malewife no matter the form his s/o takes i will die on this hill.

Pull a "my tits feel heavy" and ask him to hold them. It'll be funny i promise.

Gets very flustered around you in the nude however. Pointedly NOT looking at your chest. Save him.

Gyutaro

Living in yoshiwara, Gyutaro has seen numerous women. Most of which bearing a few extra pounds on their chest.

He hardly even knew smaller boobs existed . Sure he knew they Did but big was average to him. So I can definitely see him being more of a tits guy just by nature of his environment.

He's an asshole though , bless his heart. Very much the type to just like. Lightly swat at your boob when you annoy him or catch him off guard.

Laughs if your chest is sensitive, and he will abuse that knowledge. Going out of his way to find situations to tease about it.

He however also knows the downsides of having them as well. Considering he's a brother to a sister in a similar predicament as you. Back pain or whatever.

So to make up for his unrelenting teasing, Gyutaro will often just hold you. Or help you crack your back. On a good day he might give you a shoulder rub if you ask nicely. He will call you a loser or pathetic ♡

He often has Daki bringing you warm compresses or bags of rice to rest on your lower back. When she doesn't cry about it, she's actually surprisingly understanding about the whole situation. Not that she'd say that through her pride.

[purin-gambler]

ooo semi eita he is a ride i would not survive the way he is a musician in timeskip makes him even more hot omg im drooling i need to request a scenario of having the sloppiest soaping wet steamy make out session with himm aaaaaaavshhsbsb like before he goes on stage to preform too *explodes* im desperately needing boyfriend semi i would be so weak to his touch and voice 😭 AAAAA his voice don't even get me started i think i will actually explode if he whispers sweet or freaky words in my ear while doing it GAAAHHHDGSHSJ

‘the show must go on’ - semi eita

wc: 1.8k

cw: nsfw - minors dni, timeskip spoilers, minimal cursing

⚄ notes: just a pretty heated and descriptive makeout session so minors do not interact, timeskip semi, fem reader, gets kinda suggestive at the end(?) but no further detail

☁︎ a/n: i shouldve expected a request like this from you girl BAHAHSH. i knew youd throw a semi request eventually but this being my first kind of post like this, i was not expecting 😭 this took me quite a while to finish, so this ones for you 🤨🫵📸

it was difficult to say what prompted this current chain of events. how you were all too quickly greeted by your boyfriend before his livehouse concert, and now pinned up against the door frame in one of the storage rooms, trapped between his arms that invited you into his embrace. though maybe, inviting would be too sweet of a way to consider this current predicament, because the stance he stood indicated that he plans no such route for you to maneuver or make any sudden changes to this position. he towered over you, keeping you beneath him with no escape.

semi, who was already dressed in his performance outfit, made it clear, he was concert ready. ready to showcase his abilities as a preformer and create that rush of adrenaline from being up on stage. the surge of the crowd that roared of applause, cheer, and terrible notes of the audience attempting to sing along. he would immerse himself in this environment and relish it for the short few hours he would be free, shining up on that stage.

although to contrast the image of this passionate performer that stood in front of you now, was to you, the image of your boyfriend who seemed to yearn something other than the spotlight.

not the stage, the audience, and definitely not his bandmates, but you. the highest desire he could ever crave for. someone so dear to him that could so easily tear him away from the reverie he was so lucky to call his occupation.

so when a questioning glare from you was signaled to your boyfriend with a line up of queries ready to spill from your lips, he took it as his cue to allow one arm to drop from where it was pinned onto the frame, bringing his large hand up to delicately caress the apple of your soft cheek. a slight scrunch in your face was present for only a mere second, as you felt the dry callus of his fingertips meet the softness of your skin. fingers that would professionally glide through the harsh surface of metal strings from his guitar almost every night.

the callused skin left on his fingertips being proof of his passionate endeavors on stage, a side of him you had fallen so hard for. and with that very same passion present and seeping off him at this very moment, you knew, his current flame was prompted because of you. the exhilaration of the flashing lights on stage, the hype of the crowd, or that feeling of freedom as a performer- couldnt compare to the passion that stemmed from his increasing desire for you that would never wither.

with semis hand now inching further and oh so slowly gliding its way down from your cheek and grazing down to your neck, a sharp breath escaped between your parted lips. head slightly upturned in reflex due to his wandering hands traversing further down towards your throat, freely exploring fingers drifting along your gentle flesh. following with a shaky breath you muttered to him, “don’t you have a performance to get ready for?” a slight chuckle tinged your voice, one that had faltered soon after that wandering hand now made its way back up to your face, the pad of his thumb smashed onto your two lips, hushing you for breaking the tension laid between the silence.

semi, in slight entertainment, only scoffed at the words you communicated. “what, you think i dont have time for my girlfriend?” his words were hushed, and blurted as more of a taunt than anything.

truth be told, there was a concerningly small line between now and the time he would make his appearance with his band on stage. even from where you both were hidden away in a backstage storage room, the clamor and anticipation of the audience was striking to your ears. a large crowd of individuals counting down the minutes before the groups entrance, their performance being the most anticipated one of the evening, incomparable to the support that the previous bands preforming before them had recieved.

they were truly the most awaited band on the roster tonight, but even the crowds increasing uproar, or the countdown of the clock wasnt enough to hinder or even convince your boyfriend in the slightest about tearing himself away from you.

“ten minutes semi eita. there is ten minutes between you, your band, your guitar, that stage, and the crowd.” the air of your voice signaled warning, assuring that he was aware of what he was getting himself into, and yet it only seemed to fuel whatever sense of desire was building up in him.

“that sounds more like ten minutes between myself and the love of my life. i’ll take that instead.”

a protest was already lined up on your tongue, but semi was quick to snatch the words threatening to escape your lips.

as if it were air, he caught your breath like his own oxygen, leaving you absolutely speechless when his mouth was now pressed against your own.

whatever resolve you had to stay grounded had only collapsed so quickly. similar to the way a chord from his guitar would echo and shatter through the atmosphere in a melodic rapture, he broke through you the second he tore apart the last remaining inches of proximity between you both.

there was no resisting this delightful invitation of his affection. it was so clear that he craved the sweet taste of your love, and he wouldnt stop until he recieved his fill.

semis lips moved in a motion of greed, his demeanor tainted by nothing but his want and need. the need of feeling you against him, the need of your taste, the need of you.

and you needed him just as bad.

you werent sure if it was the exhilaration of having him all to yourself during a time where others demanded his presence, or the heated rush deriving from this mutual craving, all before he needed to leave and youre left untouched by him once more. though whatever influenced this spark didnt seem to matter.

the best thing to do was relish this feeling.

lunging even closer to neithers of yours possible expectations, your arms were brought up to embrace semi, hands now tucked away behind his neck and holding him dearly.

the motion of your lips danced in sync, not a beat misplaced in this rhythm. though it was far from a gentle dance, with the mixture of your shared eagerness combining, your lips met again and again like crashing waves. your boyfriends lips molded perfectly with yours, aligned at all the right angles, as you tried so desperately to keep up.

he would only continue to grow more needy the more he found himself becoming intoxicated by the feeling of you, drunk on the sensation the longer he indulged. pulling away for only short moments to intake a singular breath before diving back onto you.

with the kisses only becoming rougher, he prodded for entrance which you so gladly welcomed when the wet muscle of his tongue greeted the inner cavern of your mouth. there was no hesitation in his actions, taking in all of you to his hearts content. a hum of delight voiced from deep within his throat when his tongue explored and intertwined with your own. each sense you felt from your mouth was fixated on the sensation of him and being overtaken by him.

it seemed to be endless, this session that only flourished to such a heated intensity. the stimulation from the moment was dizzying when semi found his hands wandering across your body again, feeling your body he was so familiar with and couldnt get enough of everytime. your body was mapped into his memory, he always knew which parts to caress and hold onto, parts he was never shy to show love to no matter how they were seen by the rest of the world. and that attention would make you vulnerable and weak to him every time.

so when you felt his pair of hands squeeze down at the plush of your hips, delicately caressing his hands in a rougher motion to match the kiss, it was difficult to conceal the surprised yelp that had been muffled by the wet soaping sounds of your heated makeout session. a result from both of your tongues traversing in an adventure together, which caused strings of wetness dripping down from the sides of your lips.

in a reflextive motion to his touches that felt so good, your hands moved up from their grip behind his neck, now intertwined into the ash colored locks of his soft hair. a groan escaping him when he felt the burn in his scalp when you accidentally tugged onto him a little too roughly. all while your tongues were still too busy in their dance, and lips glossing and wet from the intimacy.

you were both far too sunken into desire, enjoying the company of each other. everything seemed to be long forgotten, the reason you were even both hiding in this storage room to begin with, the urgency of yearning for each other this desperately all too much of a blur. with how lost you were in this haze that was entirely created by the man you love, everything surrounding you didnt seem to matter. the noise of the crowd long sinced tuned out.

the fiery friction between your shared love was all you both knew, and the feeling was never getting old. this kiss could last forever and only ignite all the more intensity. neither of you would complain.

but what you hadnt bother to consider, was his bandmates that would be frantically searching for him throughout this time.

so when both of your bodies were suddenly toppled forward from the door frame you were both pressed against, a surge of panic overtook you and semi.

the poor drummer of their band having to bear and witness the sight of how disheveled you both were. clothes wrinkled, hair a mess, lips swollen glistened in wetness, and dazed like a deer caught in headlights.

“what the fuck.” was all he said. relieved to have found their missing guitarist, but deeply regretting that it was him to have succeeded in that task of all people. so he walked off, to signal the remainder of his band about his whereabouts, leaving the two of you to make yourselves presentable again.

semi shifted awkwardly, his hand brought to his lips, wiping off the aftermath, before checking the time on his phone.

a minute before show.

he turned on his heels to face you, a dumb smile present on his lips when he finally drank in the sight of the love of his life.

“theres no way were stopping there.”

a light giggle fell from your lips, “go preform, eita.” you reminded, reciprocating the same expression he wore.

and with a nod, he rushed off to his band who greeted him with a mix of scolds, hollers, and light punches on the shoulder.

whatever endeavors you would find yourselves in after his preformance would only be all the more eventful. especially after an exhilarating time on stage, its hard to say how gentle he would be handling you later that night.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Real innovation vs Silicon Valley nonsense

This is the LAST DAY to get my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

If there was any area where we needed a lot of "innovation," it's in climate tech. We've already blown through numerous points-of-no-return for a habitable Earth, and the pace is accelerating.

Silicon Valley claims to be the epicenter of American innovation, but what passes for innovation in Silicon Valley is some combination of nonsense, climate-wrecking tech, and climate-wrecking nonsense tech. Forget Jeff Hammerbacher's lament about "the best minds of my generation thinking about how to make people click ads." Today's best-paid, best-trained technologists are enlisted to making boobytrapped IoT gadgets:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Planet-destroying cryptocurrency scams:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/15/your-new-first-name/#that-dagger-tho

NFT frauds:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/06/crypto-copyright-%f0%9f%a4%a1%f0%9f%92%a9/

Or planet-destroying AI frauds:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

If that was the best "innovation" the human race had to offer, we'd be fucking doomed.

But – as Ryan Cooper writes for The American Prospect – there's a far more dynamic, consequential, useful and exciting innovation revolution underway, thanks to muscular public spending on climate tech:

https://prospect.org/environment/2024-05-30-green-energy-revolution-real-innovation/

The green energy revolution – funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act and the Science Act – is accomplishing amazing feats, which are barely registering amid the clamor of AI nonsense and other hype. I did an interview a while ago about my climate novel The Lost Cause and the interviewer wanted to know what role AI would play in resolving the climate emergency. I was momentarily speechless, then I said, "Well, I guess maybe all the energy used to train and operate models could make it much worse? What role do you think it could play?" The interviewer had no answer.

Here's brief tour of the revolution:

2023 saw 32GW of new solar energy come online in the USA (up 50% from 2022);

Wind increased from 118GW to 141GW;

Grid-scale batteries doubled in 2023 and will double again in 2024;

EV sales increased from 20,000 to 90,000/month.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/blog/2023/12/19/building-a-thriving-clean-energy-economy-in-2023-and-beyond/

The cost of clean energy is plummeting, and that's triggering other areas of innovation, like using "hot rocks" to replace fossil fuel heat (25% of overall US energy consumption):

https://rondo.com/products

Increasing our access to cheap, clean energy will require a lot of materials, and material production is very carbon intensive. Luckily, the existing supply of cheap, clean energy is fueling "green steel" production experiments:

https://www.wdam.com/2024/03/25/americas-1st-green-steel-plant-coming-perry-county-1b-federal-investment/

Cheap, clean energy also makes it possible to recover valuable minerals from aluminum production tailings, a process that doubles as site-remediation:

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/toxic-red-mud-co2-free-iron

And while all this electrification is going to require grid upgrades, there's lots we can do with our existing grid, like power-line automation that increases capacity by 40%:

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/13/1187620367/power-grid-enhancing-technologies-climate-change

It's also going to require a lot of storage, which is why it's so exciting that we're figuring out how to turn decommissioned mines into giant batteries. During the day, excess renewable energy is channeled into raising rock-laden platforms to the top of the mine-shafts, and at night, these unspool, releasing energy that's fed into the high-availability power-lines that are already present at every mine-site:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/02/06/this-disused-mine-in-finland-is-being-turned-into-a-gravity-battery-to-store-renewable-ene

Why are we paying so much attention to Silicon Valley pump-and-dumps and ignoring all this incredible, potentially planet-saving, real innovation? Cooper cites a plausible explanation from the Apperceptive newsletter:

https://buttondown.email/apperceptive/archive/destructive-investing-and-the-siren-song-of/

Silicon Valley is the land of low-capital, low-labor growth. Software development requires fewer people than infrastructure and hard goods manufacturing, both to get started and to run as an ongoing operation. Silicon Valley is the place where you get rich without creating jobs. It's run by investors who hate the idea of paying people. That's why AI is so exciting for Silicon Valley types: it lets them fantasize about making humans obsolete. A company without employees is a company without labor issues, without messy co-determination fights, without any moral consideration for others. It's the natural progression for an industry that started by misclassifying the workers in its buildings as "contractors," and then graduated to pretending that millions of workers were actually "independent small businesses."

It's also the natural next step for an industry that hates workers so much that it will pretend that their work is being done by robots, and then outsource the labor itself to distant Indian call-centers (no wonder Indian techies joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians"):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/17/fake-it-until-you-dont-make-it/#twenty-one-seconds

Contrast this with climate tech: this is a profoundly physical kind of technology. It is labor intensive. It is skilled. The workers who perform it have power, both because they are so far from their employers' direct oversight and because these fed-funded sectors are more likely to be unionized than Silicon Valley shops. Moreover, climate tech is capital intensive. All of those workers are out there moving stuff around: solar panels, wires, batteries.

Climate tech is infrastructural. As Deb Chachra writes in her must-read 2023 book How Infrastructure Works, infrastructure is a gift we give to our descendants. Infrastructure projects rarely pay for themselves during the lives of the people who decide to build them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

Climate tech also produces gigantic, diffused, uncapturable benefits. The "social cost of carbon" is a measure that seeks to capture how much we all pay as polluters despoil our shared world. It includes the direct health impacts of burning fossil fuels, and the indirect costs of wildfires and extreme weather events. The "social savings" of climate tech are massive:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/climate-and-health-benefits-of-wind-and-solar-dwarf-all-subsidies/

For every MWh of renewable power produced, we save $100 in social carbon costs. That's $100 worth of people not sickening and dying from pollution, $100 worth of homes and habitats not burning down or disappearing under floodwaters. All told, US renewables have delivered $250,000,000,000 (one quarter of one trillion dollars) in social carbon savings over the past four years:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/climate-and-health-benefits-of-wind-and-solar-dwarf-all-subsidies/

In other words, climate tech is unselfish tech. It's a gift to the future and to the broad public. It shares its spoils with workers. It requires public action. By contrast, Silicon Valley is greedy tech that is relentlessly focused on the shortest-term returns that can be extracted with the least share going to labor. It also requires massive public investment, but it also totally committed to giving as little back to the public as is possible.

No wonder America's richest and most powerful people are lining up to endorse and fund Trump:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-05-30-democracy-deshmocracy-mega-financiers-flocking-to-trump/

Silicon Valley epitomizes Stafford Beer's motto that "the purpose of a system is what it does." If Silicon Valley produces nothing but planet-wrecking nonsense, grifty scams, and planet-wrecking, nonsensical scams, then these are all features of the tech sector, not bugs.

As Anil Dash writes:

Driving change requires us to make the machine want something else. If the purpose of a system is what it does, and we don’t like what it does, then we have to change the system.

https://www.anildash.com/2024/05/29/systems-the-purpose-of-a-system/

To give climate tech the attention, excitement, and political will it deserves, we need to recalibrate our understanding of the world. We need to have object permanence. We need to remember just how few people were actually using cryptocurrency during the bubble and apply that understanding to AI hype. Only 2% of Britons surveyed in a recent study use AI tools:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c511x4g7x7jo

If we want our tech companies to do good, we have to understand that their ground state is to create planet-wrecking nonsense, grifty scams, and planet-wrecking, nonsensical scams. We need to make these companies small enough to fail, small enough to jail, and small enough to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

We need to hold companies responsible, and we need to change the microeconomics of the board room, to make it easier for tech workers who want to do good to shout down the scammers, nonsense-peddlers and grifters:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Yesterday, a federal judge ruled that the FTC could hold Amazon executives personally liable for the decision to trick people into signing up for Prime, and for making the unsubscribe-from-Prime process into a Kafka-as-a-service nightmare:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/amazon-execs-may-be-personally-liable-for-tricking-users-into-prime-sign-ups/

Imagine how powerful a precedent this could set. The Amazon employees who vociferously objected to their bosses' decision to make Prime as confusing as possible could have raised the objection that doing this could end up personally costing those bosses millions of dollars in fines:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

We need to make climate tech, not Big Tech, the center of our scrutiny and will. The climate emergency is so terrifying as to be nearly unponderable. Science fiction writers are increasingly being called upon to try to frame this incomprehensible risk in human terms. SF writer (and biologist) Peter Watts's conversation with evolutionary biologist Dan Brooks is an eye-opener:

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-collapse-is-coming-will-humanity-adapt/

They draw a distinction between "sustainability" meaning "what kind of technological fixes can we come up with that will allow us to continue to do business as usual without paying a penalty for it?" and sustainability meaning, "what changes in behavior will allow us to save ourselves with the technology that is possible?"

Writing about the Watts/Brooks dialog for Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith invokes William Gibson's The Peripheral:

With everything stumbling deeper into a ditch of shit, history itself become a slaughterhouse, science had started popping. Not all at once, no one big heroic thing, but there were cleaner, cheaper energy sources, more effective ways to get carbon out of the air, new drugs that did what antibiotics had done before…. Ways to print food that required much less in the way of actual food to begin with. So everything, however deeply fucked in general, was lit increasingly by the new, by things that made people blink and sit up, but then the rest of it would just go on, deeper into the ditch. A progress accompanied by constant violence, he said, by sufferings unimaginable.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/05/preparing-for-collapse-why-the-focus-on-climate-energy-sustainability-is-destructive.html

Gibson doesn't think this is likely, mind, and even if it's attainable, it will come amidst "unimaginable suffering."

But the universe of possible technologies is quite large. As Chachra points out in How Infrastructure Works, we could give every person on Earth a Canadian's energy budget (like an American's, but colder), by capturing a mere 0.4% of the solar radiation that reaches the Earth's surface every day. Doing this will require heroic amounts of material and labor, especially if we're going to do it without destroying the planet through material extraction and manufacturing.

These are the questions that we should be concerning ourselves with: what behavioral changes will allow us to realize cheap, abundant, green energy? What "innovations" will our society need to focus on the things we need, rather than the scams and nonsense that creates Silicon Valley fortunes?

How can we use planning, and solidarity, and codetermination to usher in the kind of tech that makes it possible for us to get through the climate bottleneck with as little death and destruction as possible? How can we use enforcement, discernment, and labor rights to thwart the enshittificatory impulses of Silicon Valley's biggest assholes?

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/30/posiwid/#social-cost-of-carbon

[zombholic]

MY KIND OF LOVE — abby anderson

summary — illegal boxing was never on your bucket list until your friend brought you to one.

description — poc fem!reader, illegal boxer!abby, reader has tattoos and a couple of piercings, mentions of drug usage, bidding, sexual themes, not for minors.

chapters — two, three, four, pending.

— 🥊　　 ◦ ✺ 　 🚩　 ⟢ —

“Jesse, I really don’t wanna see your ass get rocked by some she-hulk.” You were wiping down the bar as it was starting to close up, your annoying but dear friend for many years was indeed begging you to go to one of his also many illegal boxing matches.

“No Y/nn, listen if you go with me I swear I will fix your car for free, please I just want someone to go with me.” He clasped his hands together under his chin begging you.

“Fine, only because you’re fixing my car for free.” Rolling your eyes at the boy man.

“I’ll pick you up at 10.” He shoots you a wink before heading out the bar doors.

Sliding your arms into your sweater you turned the light off on the open sign and locked the doors, quickly getting into your tiny vehicle to speed back to your even tinier apartment.

You were quick to freshen up, only wearing basketball shorts and a black wife pleaser that showed off your tattoo pieces. You slipped on your worn out black converse and left your natural, it was an underground boxing match there was no need to dress up so you quickly shot Jesse a text that you’re ready.

Jesse was there in ten minutes, you guys reached a very strange looking building but he had assured you it was quote on quote safe.

He took you into a supposed locker room, and started wrapping his hands in a white wrap. He was shirtless with a pair of blue shorts, Jesse wasn’t ugly of course he was very attractive and if you weren’t a raging lesbian you probably wouldn’t had sex with him already.

“I wont lie, Abby scares me with the way she fights.” Jesse admitted as he started air boxing you.

“I would be scared her too— stop you’re fucking annoying.” You slapped his fists away.

“How much is the bidding anyways?” You both started walking over to the arena, it was small with quite a handful of people that looked like they would watch illegal boxing.

The ring was used and looked very unsanitary but you stood over the edge of the bars watching Jesse enter them, rubbing his shoulders trying your best to hype him up but deep down you knew he was going to get his shit rocked.

“I think it was around two grand.” He took a chug of his water.

The arena grew louder, Abby’s name being chanted as you watched her jog down to the ring. Her hair in tight dutch braids, you could see the bandage wrapped around her chest that poked out of her white fitted tank top, her red shorts showing off her toned thighs that could actually crush you to death.

“I am not bidding on you.” You gave him a worrisome glance before jumping down and taking your place in front of some people.

“Now who’s ready to see our boy Jesse get his ass demolished by the one and only Abby Anderson!” You swore you saw this episode on spongebob and knew it was not going to end well.

“Start bidding motherfuckers! Money goes in the bucket!” A guy and a girl running around collecting money from the crowd, the howls and roars from them only getting louder.

This was not your environment.

You watched at they placed in their mouth guards, Abby slowly walking around Jesse like she was ready to rip his jugular out. She was first to hit him with a punch straight to his cheek, the blood already spewing out his mouth.

Wincing at the sight you couldn’t look away, he begged you to come here to watch his get obliterated by this woman who literally beats men for a living.

Jesse threw an uppercut under her chin she was quick to wipe the blood off her lips, her expression was deadpanned. She threw a couple more hits to his stomach, nose and his head. You watched your friend collapse to the floor his face screamed in excruciating agony.

The round was called out since he was on the floor, you ran over to him crawling under the rubber like bars making your way to him trying not to touch the blood or else you would pass out too. Grabbing his face you pushed his hair away from him seeing the bruises forming on his stupid face.

“Need your girlfriend to revive your bitchass?” Her mocking voice spoke behind you.

“I’m not his girlfriend Ms. She-Hulk, and fuck off you won stop being a bitch.” You turned your head to shoot her a glaring look.

She shot her hands up in defense, her tongue poking her cheek with the cockiest smirk plastered across her bloodied face. “Don’t start with me girl.”

“Or what?” You stood up crossing your arms over your chest as you shot deathly rays into Abby’s face.

“I wouldn’t even have to prove anything.” She twirled your hair around her finger.

You were quick to push her shoulders back, the audacity she had to touch you was beyond comprehension. She barely budged, her build so broad and strong it was a joke to have even pushed her.

I guess your joke of a statement ticked her off, she was quick to pushback on you but harder causing you to fall back on your ass.

“I could do much worse than push you on your fucking ass little girl.” All you could do was look away the crowd was quick to chatter and mumble about the situation.

— 🥊　　 ◦ ✺ 　 🚩　 ⟢ —

authors note — i swear guys the other parts will be better I PROMISE this is the best i could do for someone who doesn’t know shit about boxing. ask to be on the tag list!!

tag list — @atomicami @whore4abby @doepretty

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Hi!

I just wanted to say that I absolutely love all of your COD fics! Your Price fics made me fall in love with him (I saw a recommendation for See No Evil on TikTok and just went down the rabbit hole from there (it’s also my comfort fic)) and Laughing Poets made me buy Ghosts for Keegan. Your writing is so beautiful and poetic and has inspired me to start writing again after a really bad writing’s block!

I also did want to put in a request for Ghost (because I love him so much) but given his hype, I understand if you don’t want to write for him or if it may be hard. But I was hoping that this hasn’t been done before (much) and that I could read it in your words since you are so amazing!

I was thinking of the reader being a CIA agent that was working undercover to get classified information and 141 was sent in to extract her after she was compromised. And her and Ghost don’t really get along at first, like they don’t hate each other but they could just care less about one another. But then they get separated and one of them is injured and the other fights tooth and nail to get to them, realizing how much they care. I was thinking that her callsign could be ‘Reaper’ but it can be anything else if it fits better. It can be angsty (because that’s the absolute best genre), fluffy, nsfw, whatever you want to do with it.

I know this is asking a bit much and I’m sorry for that. Feel free to change it as you see fit and do whatever you want with it, if you want to do it. I really appreciate and love your work!! Thank you!!

'Til it Hurts

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Reader

Synopsis: You thought that it would be easy - moving on and blazing your own trail, but at every step, memories seem to come back and haunt you. And the biggest memory takes the shape of a man with a skull mask. Can you still deny what you had always felt when he stands at your side once more?

Word Count: 12.5k

Warnings: This duology will be 18+ and contain the following: intense gore, blood, violence, vulgar language, angst, fluff, suggestive content, (smut, p in v sex, virgin!reader (relevant to plot) all in part 2), abuse of power in the past, toxic working environment in the past, copious flashbacks, soft!simon because I love him like that (I guess considered ooc), banter, etc...

A/N: Part 2 will be posted tomorrow after I edit it and the link will be added to this part as well for ease of access. But, anna, that's wild that people post about my work on tiktok, lmfao. I'm so glad I helped you out of that writer's block, though! Enjoy part 1, Love (I did change it around a bit)!

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You often think of the friends you had when you were six. The neighborhood you grew up in was full of other kids your age, and there was practically a horde of young boys and girls outside at any given moment. Early mornings were ripe for adventures – ears perking up from your pillows at the sound of bird songs and lawnmowers like an instinctual call to cause mischief. Days would run long and nights would end late with games of tag. 

It was inevitable, at this point in your life, to not think about where your friends would be now. Were they happy? Starting families and getting married on island resorts; white sand underfoot and a gentle lapping of ocean water? You’d lost contact a long, long, time ago – never bothered to get back in touch, though you know things might be better if you had. 

God, you’d never have friends like that again. 

Selfless. Genuine. Without competition or a need to stab each other in the back. Friendships built on a childlike innocence that was never meant to stay or grow with the brutal stretch of years. People mature. They harden, sharpen. 

They break themselves to fit a mold of what they want to be without even realizing…Or maybe that was just how you grew up. 

Your feet pound against the cobblestone streets of Bergamo, Italy, as you make your way through the packed road of the Upper Old District. Under your chin, your fingers go up to grasp the scarf around your neck and pull the thick navy fabric up farther. Fast eyes flicker over faces as a fake plastered smile splays over your lips, and your jaw holds a tension that seeps into your shoulders.

Keep the act up, you have to remind yourself, fingers heavy at your hips, don’t let the facade slip, or else it’s over before it begins.

At your sides, past the unending sea of loudly speaking humans and loyal animals alike, the broad expanse of ancient architecture calls to the history of this city; red-terracotta roofing, extravagant greenery, and pillars as tall as the buildings themselves. A picturesque land filled with mysteries lost to time, stories never told beyond the scratch of a pen and moth-eaten parchment. 

A city now filled with killers. 

“Sitrep,” you grunt into the open channel, the earpiece fizzling as it sits in the clutch of your canal. No one answers and, slipping past a family of tourists, you glare at the ground; heart going so fast you feel like it could jump-start a car. “Damnit!”

The seconds draw on and as you pick up the pace, now shoving your way through the crowd, you feel eyes on you. Slithering over your skin like oil. 

Not good. 

Shit. Karver, where did you go!? 

Karver ‘Rigs’ Massarini was an informant – someone who’d been giving you everything that you needed to know about the cell in this area; along with a grouping of eyewitnesses to a stash of ICBMs. A stash that could do some serious damage if they stayed here with the wrong people. Intel suggests that those very missiles were going to be shipped off to Mexico in only a few days, smuggled across the border into United States territory with the intent of doing some pretty awful stuff and framing the US. 

If you and Rigs weren’t quick with this, so many innocents would suffer.

You’d already gotten into contact with Mexican Special Forces yourself, warning Alejandro Vargas and Rodolfo Parra of a possible breach and to watch for any unregistered shipments on the docks or coming in from the air. 

But now Rigs was missing, and you had a funny feeling you were being trailed. 

Back alley. You take a quick right, boots slamming to the ground and heart hammering. Get away from the civvies in case someone decides to go trigger-happy. 

This cell was known for being deadly, Mr. Massarini had sent the file over to CIA headquarters before you were shipped out; Laswell had set you on it right away without even taking the time to read it entirely.

“Extremely high Kinetic; I’m giving you full Execute Authority on this, Reaper. We’re running out of time. Find those missiles.” 

Torture, kidnappings, mutilations, the list went on for this group and how far they would go to keep secrets. No one had gotten any clear insight as to what their motives were – just that they needed to be put down in exactly the ways they had been doing to others. Ruthlessly, before they grew bigger or spread their influence beyond borders, and created a group that could rival what Al-Qatala had been. 

So that was where you came in. 

God, you wished Farah and Alex were here with you – at the very least you could rely on them to help, even if you sectioned yourself off from others more than a dying cat. There was a reason you preferred being sent in alone with only your wits.  

Mostly because of situations like this.

“Rigs, sitrep. Where are you,” you try again, the close walls shrouding in your shadows. Throwing looks over your shoulders, you take down deep breaths, a growl gradually digging itself a hole in your esophagus. Desperately, you say, “I’m heading back to the safe house ASAP. Wait for me there.” 

Your right hand gravitates to your pocket, slipping through the fabric and pushing aside the ripped seam at the bottom. The sheath at your thigh pinches you with every step, but you’ve endured it for years, calluses breeding where the leather had chaffed the flesh to toughness. To an ingrained perfection. Flinching when your fingers bump against the handle, the metal adornments feel cool to the touch despite the sweat dripping down your spine; temperature and nerves leaving your palms sweaty. 

None of this was going to plan.

You caress the small Dirk blade strapped to you, and when the first footsteps enter the alleyway behind you, your hand clenched into a loose fist around it. Your eyebrows pull tight with annoyance.

Taking a slow breath as the trailing stranger begins to move faster, you take a corner, halting the second you were out of sight. You nonchalantly turn on your heel and lean into the wall, feeling your body conform to the building and the stone dig into your back. 

The material is cold, and as you raise your Dirk up, you flip the blade parallel to your forearm, wrist lax, and fingers still. A slow breath flows from your barely-parted lips. 

3 seconds. You don’t blink, only gazing out across the space and noticing the dark shadow gaining ground. 2…1…

Your body jerks forward, free hand snapping out and grasping the fabric of a shirt. Twisting your hips, you plant your feet and wrench the stranger around the corner, breath coming out in a loud snarl. Without a shout, you have the person’s back shoved to the building in an instant, blade held above an Adam’s Apple. 

A man, then.

“I’m going to give you one full minute.” Your Italian was only surface level – far better at understanding others than speaking full sentences. But you think whoever this man is comes to a conclusion well enough. “Before I cut you open and watch the life spill from your eyes.”

You don’t recognize this person, his sharp face or dark, sly, eyes, and with a quick assessment of his large stature you figure out he’s the basic definition of a man sent to complete a job. One that would have left you dead if you were anything less than a contracted CIA Agent on a job. You had been trained among the best from your time in the Marines – years on Special Ops forces; taking point. Even if they were the worst times of your life, you still learned a great deal from them, particularly, how to know when to cut your losses. 

With one look into his smug face, you know that this stranger would tell you nothing. 

Your lips formed a grimace, teeth flashing under flesh at the rod-straight form of the man under you. He was smirking with eyes seeming to be laughing at you. Arrogant. Self-assured. 

“You’ll get nothing out of me, Reaper. We are already on your trail.” Your head tilts, a numb huff escaping your throat and pushing the individual's hair back as a breeze would. There was a small pause; tiny shiftings of your feet as your blade digs ever deeper. 

A thin trail of blood falls from the placement, and your muscles writhe under the epidermis. There’s no thought behind the laugh that enters the air, that cold, dark, thing that’s more of a bark from a hellhound. It was just a realization that no matter where you went, there could never be anything unique anymore. Everyone was always the same. 

“You’ll never get it out of me-”

“Break my bones; rip my flesh, you will never make me talk-”

“If you want to see me beg, you’ll be disappointed-”

There were countless memories you could bring to the precipice of your mind and re-live; moments ingrained into your psyche like a tattoo is to skin. So you can only smile and nod, scarf swishing around your neck. The man looks confused now, if not slightly nervous. That self-assured attitude leaking to the ground. Eyes as dark as obsidian beginning to snap back and forth – looking for a saving grace in the make-up of ancient stone that wasn’t going to come. 

You wondered how many people had died in this city throughout history. The stories lost to time. Have these alleys seen war? Famine?

Have they seen murder? 

But you are a woman of your word. A minute passes in tense silence, your eyes never leaving his own and ears carefully in tune, twitching like an antenna, to the joyous shouts and laughter just a street over. Here you wait like a rat in a trap, though you like to believe yourself more of the metal Hammer than the unknowing participant in a dance of death and wits.

You tighten your grip on your Dirk, shrugging up at the man. Your face is nonchalant as an understanding smile grows. As simple as a server at a restaurant.

“I believe you.” And you run the knife’s edge across his flesh like a match to a striker before he can scream.

Stepping back, you’re suddenly thankful for the scarf over your sweat-slick neck because as the spray of blood splatters over your nose bridge and forehead, you swipe it away with one of the ends of the thick fabric. You let the body drop, watching large hands snap to the gushing wound like that alone would stop the cold grip of death. 

Your mark has been met. 

The External Carotid Artery was easy enough to cut, though you had to dig deep for it, and it seemed the man had moved mid-slice. Frowning while the man gasps and gurgles; flails as a fish would, you study your work as you flick the blade clear of blood. Your brows furrow. 

“Nicked the Thyroid Cartilage, hm.” Sighing and shaking your head, you sheathe the Dirk and twist on your feet, still intent on making your way back to the hotel safe house and trying to find a lead on Rigs. The slumping of a body reverberates a moment later, a grandiose death rattle, and still, only a street over you hear animated conversations – the bustle of traveling feet, and the sound of the breeze. 

You often think about the friends you had when you were six. But, now, instead of being the one who fought off the monsters at the ends of the beds, you had become it. The monster. The boogeyman. 

The Reaper. 

Oh, what would they think of you now? 

You swipe at the blood along your fingertips, seeing the red bleed under your nails with such a numb feeling that it scares you more than anything. Taking down a gathering of saliva that feels more like a slug in your throat, you wonder when you lost the ability to value human life. Of course, the answer was slated in those early years in Special Ops, but you don’t dwell on those times. 

In fact, it was better if you never thought of them at all. 

Taking a left, you hum a tune under your breath and listen to the birds sing as the blood dries. 

—

The meeting room wasn’t even a room, just a vacant air-craft hangar that had been fitted out with two rows of metal fold-out chairs and a projector. Shadows danced over the floor, long streaks of darkness over concrete. 

“...I’ll be giving you full Execute Authority – but this mission is completely Black. Host weapons only. No Evac team.” Laswell’s voice echoes off the ceiling, and Ghost’s eyes flow over the projected intel, memorizing the faces and locations with nothing more than a blink of his blue eyes. Fluttering eyelashes caress the hard material of his mask before settling. 

Task Force 141 was being sent off on another deployment again, deep into Belarus and near the Russian border.

“Time frame?” The Captain asks, standing a small distance away and leaning against a crate of ammunition. His arms are crossed; jaw is loosely set. 

Kate looks at him, above the heads of Gaz and Soap, and nods her head before she comments, “one week.”

Gaz huffs from ahead of the hulking form of Ghost, and the silent man shifts his attention back to the group. 

“One week, Kate? No offense, but we don’t even know if the bastard’s in Belarus.”

“‘fraid to get dirty there, Garrick? Ah, we’re good enough for it.” Soap elbows the male at his side, and the masked man releases a puff of breath one row back. The Scot twists in his seat, mohawk tendrils falling over his forehead, and smirks. “C’mon Lt. back me up here. We’ve got this in the bag already.”

“Bit confident, Johnny?” Ghost grunts out, accented voice low and muffled from under the black fabric over his lips. His hips shift over the chair, legs splayed and arms crossed as he reclines back; letting the bulk of his gear weigh heavy. “Just wait until you’ve got us sitting on a pile of dry leads and rotting corpses.”

“Eh, nothin’ we haven’t dealt with before.”

“Focus, you three.” Kate interrupts as Gaz rolls his eyes to himself, fixing his ball cap over his head with a fast flick of his wrist at the antics of the other two. “You’re going to be shipped out at 2000–”

An easily recognizable ringtone starts to play. 

Blinking in surprise, Laswell takes a glance at the table that had been long forgotten and spies her phone buzzing over the metal. Her light brown hair, kept securely tied back, swished at the nape of her neck. She wastes no time.

Briskly walking over, the rest of the men in the room watched intently, heads perked up. Ghost couldn’t stop the pique of interest at the strange behavior, though his form remains still, only making a noise under his breath in contemplation. In the hold of his crossed arms, his fingers tighten.

“Not the person I’d imagine keeps her phone on for just anyone…” Gaz makes a slow comment, and John slides up beside him, hands hooking onto the sides of his combat vest. Watching. 

“Hm,” their command affirms.  

 Kate picks up her phone and immediately answers, brows furrowed. She shifts her weight as an inhalation reverberates. The conversation on the other side was too muffled, a small droaning the only signal that someone was on the opposite.

Unconsciously, Ghost straightens in his chair as the rolled-back sleeves of his undershirt leave his black ink tattoos on display. A deep intrigue spilled in his chest but otherwise, he was still focused on the previous instructions for the next Op. This was just another cog in the wheel, perhaps a location change for their safe house, or an accelerated timeline. No matter, they would get it done regardless–

“Reaper?” Laswell speaks, and blue eyes slide to stare at the Captain, whose legs had tensed. “What’s happened–” 

The Lieutenant knows something was wrong just by the simple fact that he’d never seen their Station Chief talk on her personal phone with that look on her face before – he’d seen it mirrored on the Captain and he’d clocked it from her just as simply. The wrinkled skin at the side of her eyes, and stiff-set lips peeled back in a frown. She’d always been serious, but the air was different. 

Reaper? He runs through the database of his mind and ignores Gaz’s and Johnny’s muttered words and glances. 

“Now who do you think that is, then?” Soap grunts out. Ghost doesn’t answer.

Brows furrow. 

Sounds familiar, the man can’t help but admit. 

“Patch me through. Now.” Kate slips to the computer a few steps away and opens a fresh tab, sorting through files and months of intel as if it mattered just as much as a bug under her heel.

“Kate?” Price prompts. The woman only holds up a finger and keeps the phone in between her shoulder and cheek, hands fast across the keys. 

Soon enough, a feed pops up on the projector, and the three previously sitting all rise to their feet in an instant. 

An open wound is in the process of being stitched and displays itself over the entire available space, violent red internal flesh puckering over the edges of…Ghost narrows his eyes, unphased.

Was that a fabric needle and thread being used for sutures? Resourceful, he admits.

“Bloody fuckin’ hell.” The manchester man levels thought the blandness of the tone contradicts itself. “Where’s this feed from, Laswell?”

“What the fuck…?” Soap growls out, and the Scot blinks at the screen in shock as the Brit beside him lets off a sound of disgust akin to a sick cat. 

“Reaper, sitrep.” Kate doesn’t flinch, rushing off into procedure as steady hands delve back into flesh, blood falling from their fingers like water to splatter to a rundown wooden table. The world-away computer was most likely getting a rain of crimson all over the keys at this rate. 

Price grunts under his breath. 

“Shit,” a distinctly feminine voice wafts out, a harsh sigh held back, though the annoyed tone was noticed immediately, “can’t a girl stitch herself up in peace? Besides, Watcher-1 answer me this, huh?” The computer is jerked, its screen going staticky as Ghost watches with roving eyes to take in the background when the visibility returns. A bed, nightstand, and sitting by the floor of the front door, copious amounts of weapons. The man takes stock – an M13 assault rifle, X12 handgun, and Arctic .50 sniper rifle. Ammunition lines the floor in a way that leaves Ghost’s lips thinning under the mask. 

Someone’s in a hurry. But from what?

“…what goddamn hotel doesn’t have mirrors in it?” Kate’s sigh can be heard a mile away. “No, I’m being serious here, Watcher – how the hell does that happen?” 

Watching you take a step back, Ghost as well as the other three all blink in surprise when you come into view. Your top was off, only a sports bra covering your flesh, as your focus stays on the digging needle you send into yourself over and over. 

Yet again a feeling of intense familiarity strikes the Brit in the chest. Your soft face, your hair, your voice. It was infuriating.

Who are you? The inability to call forth a memory leaves the fists at his sides gradually clenching under his gloves. 

“Reaper.” Seriousness grows in the Agent’s voice, and Price lets out a slow chuckle that leaves Gaz turning to him in confusion. 

“Sir?” But the inquiry is ignored.

“Still as stubborn as ever, then, Reap?” Everyone sees your hurried stitches stop, head snapping up as they clock a veiled panic behind the iris’. 

Your eyes tell all the story they need, and Ghost’s body freezes as the color evokes a physical twitching of his hand. 

“Holy hell,” he utters under his breath so silently no one even realizes he spoke; eyelids pulling back before settling like nothing had even happened.

“You know, you're the first person who’s been nice to me out here.”

“...Then I’d tell you to get better friends, Sergeant. I’m not sticking around.”

“I never said they were my friends, Ghost, and I never expected you to stay, anyways. That’s not how this works.”

“You’re right. It’s not.”

“Bravo-06?” You ask, voice sometimes cutting out over the line. A laugh breaks out, and a small smirk twitches the corners of your lips, “Hey, Old Man, how’s it going over there? Been a while.”

“What have you got yourself into now?” Price asks, chuckling under his breath with a groaned continuation, “and how do you need me to get you out of it?”

The spectral man now watches with a newfound fervency, blue eyes boiling so violently that if anyone had seen, they would have thought he was about to attack. Like a split second of eye contact with a wolf before it rushes. The build of his shoulders was still loose, however, and the only indication of shock was his optics; the mask shrouded all. 

But there was a subtle movement of his hips, feet transferring over the floor to stand shoulder-length apart.

“Oh, this,” you point to your injury with a free finger, tying off a knot on the last line of sutures. “Nah, it’s nothing. A couple of assholes tried to get the jump on me a block back, one had a knife on ‘em.” Your hand tosses the needle and thread to the table, a muttered, thunk, sounding off. Looking down at your work with a raised brow, everyone watches. “Took care of it – they gave me a name, too, but with the trail of bodies I left today, I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t pan out.” 

A pause before you turn your head back up, face now completely serious as you focus on Laswell. 

“But we have a bigger problem, Watcher. Rigs is gone; I think my position’s compromised. I’m going black.” Your form leans to the side, and a wrinkled t-shirt is thrown over your head. From your mouth, a stifled groan releases. Ghost blinks in surprise.

The Captain’s lips thin, and he looks at a tight-wound Kate. 

“I have a contact in the lower levels, Reaper, meet up with her and she can have you out of the city by tonight. I’ll send over her info.”

“No can do, Watcher.” You sigh, and Ghost simply stares, following your figure as you back up, heading to the X12 and shimmying it into the back of your pants before looking over your shoulder. Kate hums under her breath. “If they’ve got Rigs,” Walking quickly back over to the computer, one of your hands grasps the top of the frame, thumb poking out from the corner. You tilt your head. “I ain't leaving without him right behind me. I’ll be in contact in a month – if I’m not, then I’m dead already.” 

Your chuckle strikes a cord through the room and Soap snorts in answer. 

“Glass-half-empty kind of person, then?” 

“I’d say,” Gaz mutters.

Continuing, you’re about to say something else – lips already partially parted and breath sucked in  – before your eyes lock onto Ghost. The atmosphere of the room flips like the page of a book. 

You stare at him with what seems to be a million emotions flying past the glossiness of your optics; lids already peeled back and whites showing in a display that showed more than told. The man could only begin to imagine what you were thinking – how long had it been since he’d seen you last? You’d obviously gotten out of your Marines Special Ops unit. 

Not quite how I remember you. It wasn’t hard to recall that small branch of the MRR – Marine Raider Regiment – and how they treated you. But that wasn’t any of his business. He’d been there to do a job, and he’d accomplished it. Quite thoroughly, if anyone would have checked the file after it was all over. 

Ghost’s life was counted in the sands of an hourglass, small, molecular, bits hitting the bottom one after the other; rarely was that time wasted on pointless squabbles and words but at that moment, he was conflicted. 

The Brit had never expected to see you again, and the sand briefly halted when you spoke. Hm. 

Yes, he remembered that voice… he’d just never heard you this confident before. 

“Ghost.” He watches the emotions on your face settle, and he was thankful for the mask covering his visage because he knows he would have left at least a small twitch of his lips slip. “Long time no see.”

“Mutt.” The Lieutenant nods in a monotone greeting but notices a slight jerk of your shoulders at the name. His eyebrows furrow, but mentions nothing as his pulse slows. 

Your neck moves as you swallow, looking to the side as a dark curiosity fills the space in Ghost’s lungs; head nanoscopically tilting to the side like a vulture. 

“Nice seeing you, Bravo-06,” You tilt your head toward the Captain before clearing your throat and addressing Laswell. “I’ll be around.” 

It wasn’t hard to tell that the title had made you freak, a kind of bad cloud suddenly springing to life above your head. 

Seems to bother her more than being in a Hot Zone, Ghost tells himself, the deep well of dark water in his gut still. That didn’t make any sense. He watches your hand slaps over the computer and the feed goes dark in an instant. 

The room is more silent than Ghost is. 

“Kate, she’ll need our help.” Price shakes his head from side to side; body moving to the front of the room. “I’m not asking.” 

The two talk it over as Ghost’s mind trails, head tilting down more towards his chest as his eyelids narrow. 

“Hm,” He grunts, arms tensing as his grip shifts. Soap turns around as Gaz goes to join the conversation between the Captain and the agent.

“What? Know ‘er or something, Lt?” The Scot asks, slapping a hand on the taller man’s arm. Ghost eyes lock on the grip before he blinks, looking back up and leveling the Sergeant with a dead stare. Johnny laughs awkwardly and moves his limb back to his side. “Just…didn’t peg you for the type to start relationships.”

The Lieutenant turns down the aisle of chairs and lets out a bland, “negative. Leave it, Sergeant.” 

Why did you react badly to the namesake you’d gone by for the entire time you’d been in Special Ops? Mutt was when everyone had called you when he had been around for that short time. 

He felt no great concern for you – no hatred or care – you were just another Agent that would probably end up dead like everyone else. Another time, maybe, he’d have gone in a heartbeat, and if the team decided to go after you, he’d follow. A mission was a mission, it wasn’t like it largely mattered. 

But there was something in the back of his mind. Intrigue? Yes, perhaps. The blue-eyed Lieutenant wasn’t one to dwell on these types of things, but a colleague was still a colleague. 

Whatever the outcome, he’d do his job with all the ruthlessness and tact he always did.

Ghost’s hand goes up to fix the position of his mask and glances at the blank projector stream, eyes boring into it as they darken. A moment later, he was leaning against the ammunition crate that Price had previously been on, arms crossed and ears twitching at the ongoing battle of wills; isolated to himself as his intimidating form towers ever upwards. Spine straight. Bones stiff. Eyes grim. 

You’d been nice to him – a person that, for the limited time he’d interacted with, had left an impression that was only just starting to come back full force. Smart and resourceful; not too bad on the eyes. 

He takes down a sigh. Stubborn…but undoubtedly loyal. 

His thumb brushes your cheek, and you look up at him as if he wasn’t the one in a mask – as if his entire being was laid bare before you. He swipes away the trail of blood with one firm press. The gentleness of your skin is known even through his glove.

“You’ll live, Sergeant.” He utters, teasing in his monotone voice, “now, where the hell are we goin’? Gun’s itchin’ to lay a few out.” 

Ghost would have smirked at the way your eyes dilated if he had the ability, but in the end, he brushes past. Because if he hadn’t, you would have seen his own do the same.

‘Reaper,’ he frowns, feeling the ammunition crate dig further into his hip, they never called you that one.

Perhaps the real battle of wills was happening inside of him – not five feet away between his Captain and his Station Chief.

—

You remember every interaction like it was yesterday, and although he might not, you can’t help the memories from flooding as you gather your gear. Stuffing guns into duffel bags and intel into crossbody sacks that weigh you down like boulders. 

Fuck, you open the back window and shimmy out into the back streets, knowing that your position is compromised and not waiting any longer to test your luck. Your side burns something awful; horrible stitches peeling back skin as you groan in pain. What the fuck was Ghost doing with Price? I didn’t know they knew each other. And the two other men in the room…eh. Not the problem right now! 

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” you pant, swinging your legs out of the window frame and sharply inhaling when a suture tears. “I’m never in the loop.” 

In all honesty, you don’t want to be – too complicated. It’s better to just stick around and be told what to do. 

Glaring down at the ground with glazed eyes, you only take a breath of hesitation and let off a curse before dropping. 

Your knees take the brunt of the force, and the ricochets of landing on cobblestones travel up your ankles and leave your legs shaking. If you weren’t running on adrenaline, you would have come up with a dirty joke to mutter to yourself. 

The discomfort can only last so long, you tell yourself, and ignore the spreading liquid on your side, only thinking of Rigs and the mission. 

And Ghost. 

Gritting your teeth, eyes vulnerable, you turn down the backroad and stay away from others, drowning in memories more deadly than blood. It had been a while since you had thought of it – the lockbox in the back of your mind keeping all under tight watch; guard dogs with metal teeth and chained necks. 

But that title; that namesake you’d scrubbed your skin raw over. Mutt and all the others said in cruel breaths. Oh…but Mutt. 

Mutt was the worst of them.

Your hands were vibrating, the tremors traveling up your wrists and arms – past elbows and bruised flesh under skin; bloodied nose and quivering lips. Why did they always yell at you? But worse, why did they always make you do the dirty work? 

The Captain, everyone just called him Alke, was standing in front of you, berating your accuracy on the last round of target practice. Fortunately, this deep into the Unit itself, you’d found a way to let it go in one ear and out the next, eyes as blank as a starless sky. 

You could see the spittle flying from the man’s lips and some even splashes across your cheeks like acid, but there was something artful to the way you didn't react. A culmination of crafted numbness that bleeds like trauma. It was a constant, everlasting, void.  

What they were making you into was not what you wanted, but what possible other option was there? Resign? No, this was nearly an unimaginable position to be in at such an age. You deserve to be here. Should you report the blatant unprofessionalism and favoritism in the ranks? And be blacklisted by these people's friends so that you never ascend the line?

Your ears twitch. 

“...You’re not sleeping until your marks are perfect – else we’re overthinking your position in this Unit. Can’t have a Mutt in our ranks, can we?” The last sentence is punctuated with a ruffling of your hair almost like a brother would; teasing, but you know that isn’t what it symbolizes. Harsh laughs and mocking remarks from the bystanders. “Least of all one that’s gonna get us killed. Tch.” When you don’t answer, staring off in a daze at his nose in a perfect image of formation, the Captain raises an eyebrow. “Affirmative,” he smirks, “Mutt?”

“Sir!” Your mouth shouts, though the action is more instinctual as your back straightens.  He frowns at that, perhaps wanting to torment you more, but huffs and files out, ordering the rest to follow with one last call.

“I expect you to be up for morning drills an hour early. I’ll be checking your shots myself.” 

“Sir!” 

After everyone’s gone, you blink back to reality. There’s a second of confusion, creases forming in your forehead at the sound of birds and blowing glass. Head turning side to side, your lips thin at the absence of others as if only realizing how spaced out you’d actually been. 

Flashing teeth and heated eyes flash through your mind before you blink them away. Signing away the tense nature of your chest, you clear your throat and relax your legs. Your vision slides to the corners of the concrete dugout, snapping past sectioned-off areas for privacy to search if there was someone who might have stayed back. 

Not finding anyone, your hands, clenched behind your back, loosen and fall limp to your sides like bags of rock. One weakly goes to swipe at the trail of blood from your nose, wrecking your already wrinkled sleeve with crimson; but soon an identical trail drips off your chin regardless. Licking your lips and tasting copper, you take a shaky breath and nod to yourself. 

You knew what shooting all night would bring on – lesions under the firing pad covering your shoulder; deep-rooted pain leading to nerve damage later on. Blisters that leak puss and blood onto your bedsheets. Not to mention the mental strain, the bags under your eyes burn from lack of rest. 

Gritting your teeth, you walk over the tossed rifle on the floor and pick it up with shaky fingers, the tips flinching back from the cool metal before encompassing it tightly. 

Silently, you get on your stomach and set the weapon in the crook of your already pain-laced shoulder. Your blood splatters the stock.

—

It had been two weeks with no luck in finding Rigs, and you were starting to get paranoid.

Staring at the dead body tied to the wooden chair, you growl and tear your Dirk from the woman’s chest angrily. 

There had been increased police patrols from all the corpses you were leaving, so you’d compromised and limited the chance of being caught at the same time. 

Bergamo, Italy, was an ancient place, and the underground was what you were now both metaphorically, and physically, exploiting. Sewer systems. Catacombs. You’d lost track of the paths you’d taken a million times over, and had started to hate the constant darkness only kept back by the small hand lamp you’d stolen. 

But there were ups to this constant downward slope. 

It made interrogations increasingly easier to pull off with multiple feet of stone all around you. The screams don’t meet the surface.

“Catello Tullio,” you mutter, caressing your sensitive side with your free hand and placing your blade on a turned-over piece of rock. The area reeks of blood and gore, a stack of bodies chucked carelessly in the corner beginning to reek something awful; even as you have another to add to the count. It wouldn’t be long before the rats came in droves.

Another given name, another score. But this one was new. Apparently, the title of the one that took Rigs while he was out getting more rations in the market. 

You point a finger at the slumped body, “you better hope I don’t find you in hell if you gave me the wrong damn name.” 

Grabbing your light, you stalk off down one side of the tunnel back to your camp, dodging drag lines that strike your eyes with their crimson streaks. 

The raggedy blanket and gun-sack you’d been using for a pillow take form in the dark, and somewhere in the corridor a rat squeals; feet pitter-pattering until it disappears altogether. You didn’t even want to think of the spiders living down here. Files and notes are strewn along the floor, perfect hiding places for eight-legged monsters. 

You couldn’t do anything until nightfall. It was just too risky. 

Massaging your side as you bend down, you grimace at the partially healed wound and scoop up your pistol before plopping to the ground with a grunt. With the deadly object held in your lap, you take a moment to breathe and try to push away a growing headache in the back of your skull. 

“This has to be one of the worst Ops on record, huh?” your small voice speaks back to you in bouncing waves of echoes as you begin to fiddle over the gun's small grooves and dents. “How did you manage this, Reap?”

Smiling blandly, the overwhelming quiet and nothingness all around you is like a curse. And in those pockets of a void, your mind always trails to him – or at least it had been for your time on the run. Ghost. That dark and brooding mass of horribly bleak humor and…well…you couldn’t call him mean. 

Your eyebrows furrow.

He was never mean to me. 

There were soft instances where you would question yourself as to if the Brit had possibly had some affection for you. It wasn’t a long shared history of course, but you had sworn that there was something about the way he looked at you…something that you remember so vividly…

You shake your head and stand after a small while, stretching your feet. Placing your pistol in the back of your belt, the weight brings you dull comfort.

 Shining your light on the hand-held radio on the ground in passing, you rove back to it after you scan the perimeter. Its black metal mocks you.

No one’s coming to help ‘cept you. One voice says, and another grunts out, get it together, Mutt. 

You turn on your heel to go and take a breather to disperse your dark thoughts but only make it three steps before your eyes widen, lips parting in awe. Nearly falling flat over yourself, you whirl around in an instant. 

A static enters the air as if the gods above were laughing at you - toying with your fate like it was a rock tossed to the sky. The familiar British drawl causes your chest to tighten, though the sentence is broken and barely understandable.

Someone’s here for me! A smile slashes your face – fierce hope lighting your eyes. You hadn’t wanted anyone to explicitly come for you, but this was a welcome discovery. Someone to talk to!

“--eper…Copy?” Darting like a cat, you move so fast that you stumble over rocks on the way there. “Lead…cafe…red cloth…Out.”

By the time you snatch the small black object, the garbled and firm tone has already shut itself up. Your mouth parts.

“Shit!” You yell, shaking the thing in your hand with an iron grip, hissing like a snake. You look above you at the cracked ceiling of stone and a growled accusation.“I’m too deep…Fuck. Gotta get up there if I want to be able to respond.”

But it hadn’t all been fruitless. Lead. Cafe. Red cloth. You clip the radio to your belt and make sure your shirt covers your weapon; pat your thigh and tell yourself to stop forgetting your Dirk everywhere before setting off in a jog. The light flashes over dead eyes and stiff bodies.

You snatch the blade off of the stone as you pass it, slipping it into your cut pocket and hearing the satisfying clink of it sheathing.

“Let’s just hope I don’t smell too bad…” You say aloud, chuckling, and listening as the sound echoes off the stone. If no other company, you still had the sound of your own voice. 

You couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing. But, you were getting side-tracked. 

A Cafe with red cloth, then. Not exactly the place you’d go for an intel swap, but if someone had been trying to contact you for more than a week, you’d imagine they were getting desperate at this point. 

If I had known…you frown. 

Thinking over the multiple blueprints and pictures of the city in your files, you go through your internal cabinet of knowledge for color schemes - not what you’d have thought you’d be using it for, but, oh well. A lead was a lead.

“Golositá!” You laugh, sudden glee on your face as you dodge a pile of large stones; lips peeling back as you take a fast corner. “Gluttony! Of course, that’s the place.” 

The bustling business on the upper side of Bergamo with red table cloths as well as red awnings extending into the street. Anyone would be a fool to miss it. 

Like blood lining the street. 

You force yourself to run faster.

—

You met him last, despite being a Sergeant. The Captain had you up late last night yet again – running the forest trail this time rather than shooting. In the back of your mind, you wondered if it surprised him when you were still up early with the others; from the looks that he was giving you, you just decided that, yes, he was. Or he was just pissed he didn’t have an excuse to get rid of you. 

Blinking away fatigue, you keep your stance relaxed as a gargantuan shadow comes to loom ahead of you. 

The man everyone had whispered about called himself ‘Ghost’ and, if nothing more, was certainly intimidating. Shoulders wider than a bench, arms as rounded and as strong as boulders; not to mention the tattoos that made him look like he took cross-country motorcycle rides in his spare time. Tan tactical gear and dark patches for the SAS, the red and white British flag. Gloves covered his large hands, straps carried knives on his biceps and thigh. Something akin to a tan cape that was loose around his hidden neck.

But the mask was what really caught your attention; your head tilting with an innocence that no longer lives in you.

Skeletal. Half a visage of a dead and gone intimidation of humanity. Sewn into a hood of black cloth from which only the eye sockets were open…But the eyes there were no different than if the holes had been empty in the first place; as if the person inside was as dead as sun-bleached bone. Was a corpse piloting this suit?

Ice blue. Freezing blue. Harsh. Colder than a grip of a phantom, you thought as you blinked up at him, colder than the nights you would stay awake working yourself to death. You watched this Ghost’s chest move in a steady inhalation and you stuck out a busted-knuckle hand. Foolish, maybe, but there were worse things to be afraid of than a mask. Then of those eyes that made your spine shiver. 

But you didn’t look away.

“Pleasure, Sir.” There was a moment of tense silence where your Captain, at Ghost’s side, was frowning at you silently. The man could say nothing as long as this SAS member was here to assist in your next Op overseas. At your sides, your colleagues on the tarmac shuffle on their feet like nervous penguins. 

Ghost glances at your hand, and you try not to show how fast your pulse is running when his eyes leave a cold trail as they grace your split knuckles and torn nails. He ends with a slow look at your name patch. 

“Sergeant.” He says and slips past without another word. His shoulder brushes against yours, and you inhale smoke and ash; gun-cleaning solvent paired with a canvas tent. Dirt and metallic blood. Snickers bounce off air particles, striking your ears as an embarrassed heat rises to your cheeks, but that scent stays in your nostrils for days. 

Your Captain scurries after. 

“Erm, forgive, Mutt. She’s a helluva strange woman, that one.” You keep your sneer hidden, a hiss lodged in your throat and a twitching finger. But your anger isn’t directed at the masked beast that stalks away. That yapping bully of a Captain would hold all of it as long as you were here.

At that point, you were sure you’d seen the last of Ghost until the Op – not really getting the feeling he’s a people person so much as a ‘give orders and follow them’ type. 

But that was fine by you, it didn’t change anything. You’d been told to go back to the firing range tonight for opening your mouth and ‘making an embarrassment of the Unit’....whatever that meant. All you did was welcome the guy with the barest hint of a good attitude. 

You supposed manners were a foreign concept around here.

The world ahead of you was blurring, red circles in your eyes that gloss over with water every minute you force yourself to stay awake. The stars were out, sky dark, and the area was only lit by large lights situated around the base. In some sort of strange way, you enjoyed the sound of crickets and the cold breeze over your bare arms as if the only sense of peace you got was when you were half-passed out, nailing shots from a rifle. 

The stock was where it always is, your cheek pressed to the side; staring down the scope at the multiple holes in the paper targets. Dots surrounded by multiple other dots like a slice of cheese. You suppose that made you the hungry mouse in that case. 

‘A mouse with a fucking day before she drops.’ You frown, blink, and pull the trigger as the trees rustle. The force lands directly on your shoulder – the kickback is usually not one to bother you, but seeing as your appendage was one bad day away from being dislocated and forever damaged – you took it with a grit of your teeth. 

And you took it because you knew you could. Just as you knew that you felt a pair of eyes on the back of your neck. Freezing, you remove your finger from the trigger and loosen your grip. Turning your head to the side, a free hand goes up and shifts the ear mufflers from your head to your neck in a single movement. 

You swear your heart jumps to your throat when you see a skeleton’s icy blues numbly watching you; arms crossed while a nice-looking SA-B 50 Marksman Rifle sits against the wall at his side. How…long had he been there? Watching?

“What’re you doing, Sergeant?” Ghost asks sternly, that Manchester accent making him sound harsh. Grating like a rock being run against concrete. “I’m sure your Captain wouldn’t be thrilled at a scene like this, eh?” 

Blinking, you remind yourself to breathe before answering – voice tough and hoarse.

“I have my orders, Sir. You’re free to join me.” 

You turn back as a grunted huff falls from behind muted cloth. Ghost walks up to your laying form, standing on your left side and picking up the binoculars from the hanging hook in your station. As you look back through your scope you don’t know why, but you hold your breath; waiting for something.

“...Not a bad shot. You’re prone to firing more to the right, judging from the grouping. I’d fix that, less you miss a moving target runnin’ the opposite.” He lowers the object - staring from the side of his eye. From your position, your neck cranes to see his fingers twitch. “Wouldn’t want that, would we?” For someone you’d expected to be quite harsh – though you had no doubt he still was – Ghost was more sarcastic in his mannerisms. 

Backhanded comments that wound sting if you got on the other end of them.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Sir.” Shifting your grip, you move the stock farther up your shoulder, feeling an immediate release of tension, though the expansive trauma still leaves needles in your tissue.

“Hm, pay attention and you just might learn something.” You feel yourself quirk a lip for the first time in months; your mouth doesn’t stop to think.

“You mentor a lot of people in the middle of the night, then?” 

“Only the ones stupid enough to be awake.” He takes a step back, going to grab his own rifle as his footsteps don’t even make a sound.

‘Quiet for a guy with thighs that could choke me out.’ 

Your brows furrow at the heated thought, taking a slow breath and flexing your hands as the shadow disappears from over you. Why were your hands sweaty?

Were you…afraid? That…that wasn’t it.

“You’re up too, you know, Sir. Bit hypocritical.” This was the first time you’d had a full conversation with someone since you’d gotten in with this Unit. A mildly pleasant one, at least…you wouldn't really call this bonding.

“I can always leave ya’ to it, Sergeant.” Deadpanning the words, you clear your throat and fall silent at the threat. 

‘No,’ you wanted to comment, ‘no, I want the company so badly it hurts.’ 

You swallow saliva and reposition your ear mufflers back over your head, heart bruising your ribs, as you bring down a calming breath of air to still your nerves. 

The two of you don’t speak again, and you don’t ask why he takes the shooting cubby right next to yours, the nose of his rifle peeking out from the concrete wall. You certainly don’t ask why he’s up, either.

And in return, he doesn’t ask you the same.

—

When you find Golositá you’ve managed to sneak through the city unseen, taking every backroad and alley you could as the heat of the day increases to near sweltering. Panting, you stick to the thin shadows of the path across the street, eyes dancing over red cloth and flicking to faces; studying visages as one would a medical report. 

Your chest hurts, and you run a hand over your side, feeling the raised skin under your shirt before digging into the aching ribs. All this running around and little food to help keep your normal strength was troublesome, and it would only get worse if this Op from hell continued. 

I need new intel. Badly.

About to retreat, not finding anyone you recognize off the bat, a black-shrouded figure kisses the side of your vision as if a phantom. 

On the outside table, the farthest removed, a man sits stiffly with an untouched teacup in front of him. Smirking, you can’t help but scoff at the thought of Ghost using the thing – you’d think his thumb and forefinger would break the delicate porcelain in an instant. Like a spine over his thigh.

Your cheeks heat. 

He looked almost identical to what you remember – minus the gear, obviously – and your stomach twisted at the thought. Was a simple look enough to bring you to the breaking point? Why were your lungs tight?

As if feeling your stuck eyes, those icy blues shift from people-watching to lock onto yours immediately. As hollow as they always were, it seemed. He blinks and the blonde eyebrows on his sliver of visible forehead move.

Shit. Your hips trade weight. Look at you.

Loose shoulders under a rugged buttoned-down and painted balaclava make your breath go thin, not able to resist sneaking a glance at those tattoos you remember so vividly. Yes, that was still Ghost.

Jesus, is this how it felt to see someone you barely even remembered suddenly appear? Was it elation or caution that was making your heart race? 

Ghost doesn’t look surprised. His eyes don’t widen; don’t soften or light up. They blankly watch you as you shake away the shock and raise a brow in return. A sarcastic finger goes to your head, and you mock salute. 

What are you doing? You seem to ask, a mischievous expression growing as you start forward when he dismissively narrows his eyes. You look ridiculous. Are you asking to be spotted? 

The man leans into the too-small chair he sits in, one hand going to hang off the back and the other resting on the tabletop. Gloved fingers tapping morse in slow measures.

Clear. Come here. He follows you with his gaze, head stationary, as you enter the flow of traffic, smiling at people at your sides and letting off polite greetings when you could. Steadily striding, you weave through groups and individuals like water, legs steady even as your ears pick up every little sound. 

A comfortable middle point of visible excitement and strict business. Why were you so…happy?

When you approach Ghost’s table, you slip up beside him with a sly chuckle, pulling out the chair to his right. You, softy, lower yourself down into it, not turning to him but instead simply making sure no one had followed you with a quick scan. His heat only adds to the warmth of the day like a walk through damnation.

“Well, well, well,” you smile, addressing the SAS member with his shadow hanging over you once more; such a heavy thing, though you don’t mind. Your expression mellows to have it above you again. There was a safety to it, you had to admit. The cold comfort of death. “Trip to Italy, Sir? Take a little vacation?”

“Came to bail out a bird from my past,” You smell that scent again – smoke and ash; gun-cleaning solvent paired with a canvas tent. Dirt and metallic blood. “And if I ever went on a vacation, I sure as hell wouldn’t pick this place. ‘Bout to burst into flames; traumatize a few kids and their mums.” 

Hadn’t he changed even a little bit? 

“Now that’s dark.” 

“Never said it wasn’t.”

Of course he hasn’t, you answer your own question, feet shifting and skin pliable, why would he? He isn’t like me – didn’t have to reinvent himself based on atoms and in the wake of silent nights. 

There was a piece of you that believed that Ghost had always been this way, though you knew it was false. Nobody in this profession was just born like this, they were led to it. Whoever it was under the mask or balaclava didn’t matter anymore. 

They had died a long time ago.

“Not a fan of the history, Brit?” You tease, bringing up a hand to itch at your undereye, finally taking a peak at the form that nearly swallows you. 

Your lids try not to peel back, but you didn’t realize how close you’d sat next to Ghost – any closer and you would be in the crook of his arm; the relaxed spread of his knee bumping into yours and arm over the back of your seat. Trying to act nonchalant, you ignore the strange swirling in your gut with a hum and a twitching of your leg.

Stop that.

“Don’t care a smidge, just not a fan of the damn heat.” The gruff man responds with his inked arm on the table flexing, as though he was tenser than he showed. Ghost clears his throat, “needs a good downpour, eh?” 

“Try living underground for two weeks. Literally. Sun’ll feel like a blessing.”

“Fuckin’ hell…That’s why the radio wasn’t working, then.” While this was all cute – re-learning each other like a shaken puzzle – there were dangers to being this open. The Brit would be fine, but if you got spotted, well, there would be worse things to worry about than an achy side and a pile of bodies in a tunnel.

“You got something for me, or are we here just to stand out like bullet holes in a forehead?” Feeling his head tilt to you, snaking down your form, your body leans forward, palms sweaty as they lock on the table. “Price with you? The other two I saw on the feed?”

“Negative. Op in Belarus. Sent me in alone.” Your knees brush, delicately; like a touch of down feathers. You refrain from taking in a shallow breath, knowing he’s analyzing every movement with a hidden mouth and gentle huffs of air that rises his sculpted chest. Through a grunted sigh, Ghost tells, “The Old Man insisted. Laswell thought you’d be alright by yourself, regardless,” and falls silent.

What was he doing? Why was he talking with that rasp in his tone? Your heart swells at the comment about Kate, but a confusing feeling settles in your lower body. Why did the air feel thick?

The warmth of the sun was making your skin perspire, leaving a sheen of sweat over your arms. But the thought of heat stroke fled as you became hyper-aware of the man beside you, keeping careful not to touch you, though his gaze still bore into the side of your face like prodding fingers anyways.

He can’t quite figure you out, he admits to himself. So much of you was different – and he couldn’t tell how. 

She’s lighter, he tightens his face, not the same as when I left. 

But there had been an utter satisfaction when he’d seen you in that alleyway, even if you were different in a million ways, that would never change. Ghost’s body had loosened, his clenched jaw let go, and snappy answers to servers stopped entirely. 

Because those were still the same colored eyes that he remembered. He takes a long breath. 

Through the haze under your creased skin, a red alarm starts to sound off. Not because of the confusing way you felt the chilled form of Ghost on a near internal level, but because of the hooded individual across the street.

When your eyes lock, they back up three paces and bolt down the adjacent street, vanishing into the crowd. Your expression darkens, and Ghost shifts his attention from your face to the streets. 

His eyes blankly follow where you were looking.

“Come on,” you get to your feet, hand snatching at the SAS member's sleeve, dragging him with you as a mother would a toddler. It was ironic – if he resisted, you wouldn’t be able to force him to move, not in a million years, but he slid off his chair with fluid muscles. 

He doesn’t question you when he’s brought into an offshoot of the road, vacant of tourists or locals besides a stray cat and a few scavenger birds. Flies jump off garbage cans, buzzing through the air above your heads as you level Ghost with a serious stare. 

You nearly stumble over your words when you get to look at those long blonde eyelashes that you remember heatedly, but push through as they move to half-lid his blank eyes. Your heart skips beats as you spare looks up and down the space.

What the fuck is going on with me? Focus. This is serious. 

But, Jesus, he should really stop looking at you like that.

“You said you had a lead over the radio – anything on someone called Catello Tullio by chance?” You ask, voice like stone.

“Tullio?” Ghost hums in the back of his throat, all business, hips moving under him as he goes to glance at the street. His balaclava moves as he speaks. “Someone made a mention of it. ‘Fore I put a knife in ‘em, ‘o course.” Nodding, he huffs out, “On me.” 

Turning on long legs, he starts to walk farther down the path, and you follow at his side, peering up and eager to gain more intel. “You’ve caused quite a panic around here, Sunshine. Cell’s terrified of the ‘Reaper.’ I’m nearly impressed.”

He briefly flashes an optic to you, heart betraying him as he remains locked on your lips. Rotating his jaw, he turns back forward.

“Oh, my,” smirking slowly, you roll your eyes, “whatever will I do without your approval, great Ghost.”

“Dunno – kick the bucket probably.” Shaking your head in false annoyance, the slow, mocking, stain in the man’s tone leaks into your very DNA; coating it with honey. Like a warm sunrise, you clock a small hitch in his chest and equate it to muted chuckles when you laugh. 

“Don’t go placing bets, now. I’m not so easily broken.”

“Oh, wouldn’t think of it, Sweetheart. Wouldn’t be my handiwork if it happened,” his tone goes light, “don’t wanna take credit away from you.”

“Brit.” You spit with fake venom.

“American.” He grumbles back, but you clock the small spark in his iris, cold blue bouncing silver light like snow. 

He sounded…entertained? Snide in a sarcastic way. 

Your mouth rises in a stupid, dopey, grin as you stare from the side of your vision, chest jumping in easy comedy. What a strange pair you two were, but you find you liked his company even more, this time around. 

Or maybe he had changed slightly. Or maybe it was just you.

At the end of the day, you were relieved that it was easy to talk to him. Conversations with corpses are a bit one sided, after all.

Ghost’s lips had to be at least quirked under that dark fabric to achieve mischief like what he was spitting out, you leveled with yourself. At the minimum, the man wasn’t annoyed he’d been forced out of his own primary mission because of you. 

You remember he wasn’t averse to cracking jokes – particularly dark ones – but it had…it had never felt like his before.

Strange, you admit with a raised brow and a cocked head, cheeks burning for no apparent reason. You’d gotten him to chuckle? Holy hell, you deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for that. I’d think he would be pretty pissed about being sent here. He’s never been one to fuck around. 

You both continue in easy silence until you decide to speak once more, intent on asking where you were being led. 

Ghost’s head had perked up in what you assumed to be soldier-like attention, but then his head had whipped behind the two of you. Oblivious to his shift in mood, like a dark cloud, you open your mouth.

“Well, where are we–” 

“--Get down!” Hands slap on the back of your arm and jerk you to the opposite wall as a loud echo rings out. Whizzing over your head so close that you feel the breeze of it. 

Gasping, the air is expelled from your lungs in one fell swoop; your spine grating over the rough stone as your legs scramble to keep upright. Wiping away the shock quicker than an eraser over a whiteboard, your neck snaps to the problem; brain already hardwired to get over being shot at and the adrenaline that floods your veins immediately after. 

Across the way, Ghost’s fast hand was reaching to the back of his outfit – without a doubt going to grab a concealed weapon. Eyes fiery and arms tight. And as though you were seeing it happen in slow motion, you lock onto the hostile in the middle of the alley back the way you both came. And then onto the hooded silhouette ahead of you. 

Boxed in. 

Hyperfocused, all of it happens in only three seconds, two trained professionals protecting each other without even realizing it. 

One, you realize how this will have to play out if you don’t act immediately. You don’t know how you can trust Ghost to take the other hostile while you focus on the one ahead, but you don’t question it. Two, your gun lays heavy in your hand as your legs pivot. Three, you fire double shots with a loose finger and hear mirrored gunfire from the man beside you. 

You don’t bother watching him drop.

Snapping your head backward with a rageful expression to see Ghost’s corpse hit the floor with a cracking of a skull, shouts start to ring over the city. When you lower your weapon, you turn to notice the Birt examining your own downed hostile with a satisfied stare. If you hadn’t had his back, he would have been shot in it. 

But what you didn’t know was that he was thinking the same thing about you. 

Turning to stare at each other, your widened eyes lock; fingers twitching along the cool X12’s metal as those stormy iris’ only seem to darken further when they dart to your lips. Like staring into a wild animal’s gaze and pretending you’re not in a trance because of it – stuck in that moment of infinity and nothingness with not a single muscle moving. Waiting for either a mouthful of fangs around your supple neck or for the beast to turn away with grace and practiced steps. 

You swore Ghost’s mouth parted under that damned balaclava, but whatever he was going to say was lost when the world came back in a violent storm of screams. Panicking, you gape at the entrance – seeing multiple shadows shoving through the crowd to get to you.

“On me!” Keeping your pistol in one hand, you bolt, hearing heavy footsteps pounding behind you as your mind begins to run.

Ghost trails without a single doubt in his mind as to why he’s following you, and it makes him cautious. 

Catacombs, you decide, get under the city and backtrack to the outskirts. Survey and have Ghost tell me his intel before making a move…yeah! 

“Where are we headin'?!” Ghost shouts, keeping right your heels as you turn corners. Gunshots ring over your heads as you jump up small groupings of tile steps, blood pounding in your ears. You try to remember the maps you had stored in your files underground. Left…no, two rights. Shit! I need to be higher – see the streets like a bird would! “Reaper?!”

“Do you trust me?!” You call over your shoulder, and though it seems deranged, a smile forms over your lips. “I’ll need an answer in the next few minutes, yeah? I’m on a time crunch!” 

“What are you on, Girl?” The adrenaline speaks to you, propelling your legs faster and faster. You vault over a fallen trash bin and take the shock to your ankles as it travels to your thighs. Snickering, you feel the brooding man’s presence like you always could – just beside you like a loyal hound. His focus excites you as you put your gun away in the small of your back. “Bloody hell! Not giving me a choice?”

“Not if you don’t want to get shot in the ass!” Taking one more right, you find yourself rapidly approaching a dead end, tall walls, a balcony, and a large dumpster – the flap already closed overtop. Not answering the man as he barks out a comment, you throw yourself atop it with a puff of breath and spasming lungs. 

Laughing, your hands don’t falter. Reaching up with eager fingers, you grab at the black metal front of the balcony a small distance above and suck down a hot breath. Your arms strain, sickly sweet sweat on the top of your lip, and eyes wide with glee despite the gaining footfalls rising like a battlefield cry. Jerking your body up with only your upper-body strength, you slide your abdomen over the railing with barely a second passing. Once your feet are firmly on someone's property, you twist around and slap your hands to the metal with a twinkle in your vision; face wrinkled with all the animated amusement. 

A wide grin is stuck on you.

Ghost stares up with slightly widened eyes from the ground, arms poised on the garbage bin.

Oh, hell, when she smiles like that…

“But I can’t judge, can I?” Teasing, you extend a helping grip with a smirk. “Everyone has their fetishes, hm, Ghost? Maybe yours is just having a gun pointed at you.” 

He blinks at that, but knowing the urgency in the back of your throat, he pushes himself up with a grunt. You try not to watch his muscles strain, but spy the way the veins in his forearms grow larger as his alluring hips flex. They situate themselves under him as he crunches before straightening in an instant. 

Fuck, don’t drool, you scold, lips lightly parted like seven devils were flying in the back of your mind. Jesus, imagine the weight those things can carry…shit. Wouldn’t mind losing my virginity to that. 

A leather-coated hand slaps into your awaiting one. You snap back to a screaming reality and stare down into hypnotic sheens of ice and…wait…did Ghost have fucking green flecks near his pupils?

“You sure it isn’t yours, Sunshine?” He harshly comments, and his balaclava moves with a rising of his eyebrow. 

Clearing your throat, you murmur a weak reply as your face begins to feel like a blazing fire, squeezing his limb before pulling. He chuffs. Grunting violently, you know he does most of the work in helping himself up, though the Brit still slaps your shoulder in comradery when he’s stable. Kneeling down, he forces himself into the wall behind the two of you, fingers weaving to create a cuff over his knee. 

Tossing his head up, he motions with urgency.  

“C’mon. Be quick ‘bout it.”

Catching one foot in the basin of his clutch, you force down your illicit thoughts about Ghost and jump, pushing off with your opposite leg on his shoulder and his added boost. Scaling the wall, you arch and scramble - with a growing bite in your side – to the terracotta-shingle roof.

Following after and checking your six, the beast of a man joins just in time. 

Shadows dart around the corner far on the ground, and the both of you are speeding animals over the rooftops in the meantime. Against better judgment, boots pounding the tiles, you release loud bouts of genuine laughter. 

How long had it been since you’d had such fun? Enjoyed someone else's company like this? Running across homes, you look at your side, only to find Ghost’s eyes already digging into you. Unrelenting. Unmovable. Panting, you smile brightly, giggles making your sides hurt something awful but your pace doesn't slow for an instant. 

All it took was a glance at the streets – you know where you are now. 

“Enjoying yourself, Reaper?” He asks, arms pumping and barely winded, and you wonder for a moment how he breathes under that covering of his – it had to smell horrible by the end of the day.

“For…the first time in ages, Ghost.” He chuckles at that, and it is a betrayal of his nature. How could someone so violent, so cloaked in oceans of blood, produce such a soft sound? A genuine sound that makes your stomach flip? 

His bewitched eyes rove back in front of him, and he can’t deny the simplicity of speaking to you. It wasn’t a chore, just a conversation with a person who he wouldn’t mind having on 141 at his side. 

There were few people worthy of that.

You swallow thickly and take point, leading the shadow of death to your home underground so you can re-evaluate. 

You can only wonder why you don’t feel nervous as he watches over you, skin marked with horrors but his hand had fit so well in your own. And you also wonder how you can come to care for someone you haven’t seen in ages so quickly, as if you’d both been around each other for years. 

Had you really ever forgotten him? Or just tried to push the affection, both emotional and physical, for him out? But that was the problem, you tell yourself with a clenched jaw, that physical attraction. All of that was just…tied into a million knots. Complicated. 

You’d never had sex before.

And, Ghost questioned himself as he watched your legs move, did he forget you out of necessity? Because those eyes of yours won’t leave him alone, and he so very much enjoyed looming over you.

He sighs heavily and follows in silence.

—

When you first joined them, they all created rumors. This was long before you were permitted solo Ops, long before half of your file was filled and bleeding with black ink that would shame a warlord. When everyone just thought you were signed up because you were some unhinged kid, brimming with unchecked problems and willing to throw everything away just for the chance to prove yourself. Who got into it for kicks. 

They would say you enjoyed it, killing. Reveled in it, really. That it got you off when you were covered in blood and crimson guts as they pooled at your feet. 

You suppose that was what turned you away from sex in general – those heavy comments said with no remorse that stuck with you. It was fear almost, a genuine twisting of your mind to make it your fault. It wasn’t your fault, you knew that; you could sleep with anyone you wanted and the comments weren’t a brand on your skin.

You could forget about it. You should. 

But the words were so mean. Just cruel for the sense of being cruel. And it stuck with you.

If that was all anyone would see, why try and force them to look away? You kept to yourself, never spoke unless spoken to, and shoved all of it down like a kill switch. No sex, no relationships. Nothing to make you think about the rumors. 

Getting off on death? You were horrified at the concept, horrified that people would play around like that with you – with your life!

You just ended up telling yourself you wouldn’t feel it until it hurt too bad. In a way, you were right…but you can only force emotions down for a while until they break forward like a fist to the mouth. 

Besides Mutt, they had many names for you – titles and backhanded monikers. Rabid. Demon. Devil. Monster. Sometimes, beast.

But they all had the same meaning. Inhuman. Wrong. 

It shouldn’t have bothered you that much. It…It shouldn’t have made you stay up at night still thinking about the way they would laugh and pinch your arms as you were left shaking; drowning in gore not your own because they sent you into the heart of the Hot Zone for a few jokes. Teasing you about how you probably touched yourself because of it.

But it was just an excuse to make you too scared to leave. Your reputation…

“There’s that Devil for ya’, always ready to slit some more throats for us. You think you could do the next few, Mutt? You’ll love it, I know you will. I’ll give you a good report if you do it without alerting the guards – see there… ‘Course you will. Fucking freak.”

Your eyes stare forward blankly, Dirk leaving a dotted fluid trail over the dusty ground.

Why did they do this to you? 

TAGLIST SIGN-UP || Here

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(sorry that some of these don't work! I have no idea why!)

[fairylightsinthemist]

Sleepovers with the ‘96

Yellowjackets

Jackie Taylor

- Jackie loves any excuse to hang out with you, and having a spend the night at hers??? Ohh she’s so ready

- She made sure to get your favorite snacks, rent your favorite movies, and had all the festivities planned out

- when you get there she almost bursts of excitement, and you follow her up the stairs to her room

- the whole night is spent being very close, doing makeup (or doing just her makeup , she didn’t mind!), doing nails

- really any way Jackie could be close to you or touch you, whether that be holding your hand as she painted your nails, or doing your hair, or just sitting close to you while watching movies, she did

Shauna Shipman

- Shauna and you came up with the mutual idea for a sleepover at her place when you both didn’t want to go to a party on a Friday night

- You arrived at 7, and her parents had got y’all some pizza and soda!!! Yipeeee!!!!

- You and Shauna sort of felt awkward at first, but you soon got into the groove of things once you got to her room

- since you had to wait until her parents were asleep to watch the big tv in the living room, you guys mostly spent your time just talking about school or the future, and all that stuff

- Shauna was a great listener, and you made sure she felt heard as well

- You guys speculated on whether or not you’d make it to nationals this year, and got super hyped (oh lord we all know how that went 😔)

- It was a very mellow night , and you told Shauna that this should be a new thing you two do whenever you’re both free again

- Shauna, of course, agreed and said anytime!!

Taissa Turner

- Maybe it was Taissa’s serious demeanor, but you never imagined her having sleep overs

- But, when she invited you over to her house and said to bring a bag, you were really surprised and really excited

- Taissa kept a clean room, and everything was so organized that you were kinda scared to touch anything

- Taissa noticed that you were sort of stiff and smiled and started showing you around to ease the tension

- Once you were acquainted with her house and room, you felt better

- The conversations stayed on soccer, but soon it branched out to your personal lives, and you learned a lot about her that night

- The next day, you took a Togo plate of breakfast from her parents and a few fun Polaroids you and Taissa took the night before :))) yayyyy

Misty Quigley

- Misty was always inviting the girls over to hang out, so when you agreed to go one night, Misty was over the mooooon

- Not having much friends, she took extra special care of all the plans that she had for you

- Along with all of the usual sleepover stuff, she had even convinced her parents to let her borrow their car and y’all went out to eat

- Over dinner, you ended up getting to know Misty really well, and found that she wasn’t like everyone says she is

- Misty and you talked well into the night, and you don’t even remember falling asleep

- When you were back at school that Monday , you told all girls how much fun you had, but they just thought it was you being nice. It really wasn’t , you had fun!!

Natalie Scatorrcio

- Nat’s house wasn’t the best environment to be in, so when the idea of a sleepover was brought up, your house was the place to go

- You tidied everything up and made sure it looked great, and Natalie was impressed

- You both spent the night watching movies and spinning vinyls on your record player. She really liked your taste in music

- if there was a pet in your house, Natalie instantly loved it, you had no idea she liked animals like that!!

- you gave your bed to her and slept on the ground, but she wouldn’t have that, so you guys were side to side in your bed all night talking and laughing and having a great time

Van Palmer

- You had been dying to go over to Vans house forever, and when she finally asked you were pumped

- Her room was amazing, it was unique

- she had lots of movie posters on the wall , and funky antiques spread out all over the room

- Van and you played board games for a solid two hours , and you learned she was as competitive off the field as she was on

- it was her idea to prank call some of the girls, and you guys laughed so hard at their reactions

- Van also had a Nintendo 64, and she kicked ass at Diddy Kong Racing and Mario Kart. Don’t worry, you had her beat when it came to Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2.

Lottie Matthews

- Lottie wanted to come over to yours because she said her house was boring, so you didn’t argue

- She was fascinated with all your possessions, and how “lived in” your house was (you weren’t sure what that meant but whatevs)

- Lottie and you talked all night, and you were happy to get to know her better

- You had Dirty Dancing on VHS, so of course you both watched that

- after that, you were inspired to have a dance party, lots of Spice Girls, TLC, and Destiny’s Child was sung that night

- - -

AN: I swear I’ll make more content that isn’t sleep related but for now enjoy

[moralesluvr]

mmmm imagineeee miles 42 with his party girl gf— who literally cuts up at parties i mean like— dancing on tables, body shots, she’s everywhere and she’s dragging him along for the ride!! Like she’s twerking and dancing and people recording best believe miles is there lazily scrolling on his phone while his hand is on her ass, he’s so supportive •^•

stargirl ft. miles morales

♡ pairings & aus: earth42!miles morales x black!fem!reader ♡ summary: clubs are definitely your thing. drinking, dancing— you want it all. and your boyfriend is there every step of the way. ♡ warnings: miles being very babygirl!! (and the best hypeman) uhh mention of drugs and dealing, maybe sum language ♡ a/n: thanks for your request!! I WAS DANCING WHILE READING IT LMAO ♡ got a request? | masterlist ♡

A BASS FILLED BEAT FILLS YOUR EARS as you enter the club. Your stilettos clack against the floors as your eyes pan across the environment of the club. Your nostrils flare at the scent of marijuana and vodka, warm air hitting your skin as you walk in, your boyfriend practically glued to your hip. His hands trickles to your waist, “Stay close, mami.”

“Miles, this is a club.” You remind him with a laugh, and he just shrugs as you walk over to the bar from your pregrame drinks. You’re dress clad in a short, opaque mini-skirt and a sheer silvery top that clings to your frame, your black bra and belly button piercing visible underneath.

Your boyfriend knows that being in the club is your thing. You take all the shots, sing all the songs— and you’re always in the middle of every dance circle. He always admired how free you could be, he found it insanely attractive.

Strutting over to the bar, you sit down at a stool and ask for a vodka, while your boyfriend orders a somber moscato. You smile at him, “Not partyin’ with me tonight?”

“Nah, I’ll be your lil’ hype man while you do yo thang.” Your boyfriend smiles, eyeing you through the rim of his drink. You flash your tooth-gem accented pearls at him, wiggling your eyebrows as the bartender slides your drink across the wood of the table. You down your drink quickly and request another before you hear 6 Foot 7 Foot by Lil’ Wayne blast through the speakers. Your jaw drops as you quickly spring up from your chair, gesturing for your boyfriend to follow. He does, and you squeeze your way into the dance circle, seeing some girls that you met before at a different club. They greet you excitedly, “Get in the circle!”

You’re in the center, your body moving to the beat of the music as people surround you, hyping you up. There’s flashlights moving to and fro, and when the second beat drops, you’re leaning over with your tongue on the edge of your chin, your ass moving in a circle as people scream behind you. You feel a palm grab your waist, and you crane your head to see your boyfriend sitting on a couch behind you, scrolling through his phone mindlessly with his other hand. You giggle, standing up when the song ends, clapping a couple times.

You feel a tap on your shoulder from one of your friends, “Somebody wants to do body shots on you! You up for that?”

Grinning, you reply, “Hell yeah. Where they at?”

She points to a tall, dark skinned black girl. She’s got a nose piercing and her hair is braided in two braids that trail down to the middle of her back. She’s wearing an extremely tight black dress, and you raise an eyebrow with a smile as you eye the shot of tequila in her hand. People are behind her, waiting for your guest appearance for the shot. You walk over and people are following, including your boyfriend, who’s literally recording the entire thing.

You prop up onto the table and pull your shirt up, feeling the warm alcohol on your upper stomach, salt tickling your brown skin. You feel the girl’s teeth sink into your soft flesh, sucking the liquid off of your tummy. You grin and so does she, people cheering and hollering behind your table.

Your boyfriend comes up to you when everyone disperses, a grin on his face. “You did so good, ma.” He grabs your waist as you stand up, hopping off of the table. His hand grazes over your ass as you yelp, his fingertips sinking into it, “You ready to go?”

Smirking, you grab your boyfriend’s hand and bite your lip, dragging him over to the bar. You pull your shirt up, the hem teasing just shy away from the top of your bra.

“Wanna take a shot?”

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 ☻ thank you for reading!

𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐑-𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓🕷️: @queenesther996 //@sukunas-slutty-bitch // @c3f21 // @wydney // @rinnyisnothere // @brieryann // @moisttowllet // @Dee-m-cee // @liliummz // @starhrtz // @daisydark // @randomhoex // @solanawrld // @whore4hobie // @tanakaslastbraincell // @simp4miguell // @nyrovi3 // @my3tumbles // @aziulsworld // @enchantingfoxsparkles // @mancerseedu // @cafehyunji // @personofyou // @mcdvsr // @kopiivie // @ellatienesuscosas // @venuswash3re // @calliarlerte

𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ✎: @Dee-m-cee // @euphorichappiness10 // @adoree-kaelynn // @mhadnirb // @mmst4rz // @iris-theflower // @fleurrieerecs // @kenlani // @kala2022 // @ilyless // @milesmolasses

[genevawrenn]

I have a few things to say about Quackity's stream and the QSMP as a whole.

If you haven't watched the stream, please do so here, I refuse to paraphrase and believe it should be watched in its entirety to form your own opinions. [Here is the YouTube link]

First of all; I don't think any of the actions Quackity took were deliberately malicious. I believe, in my opinion, he got swept up in the excitement and hype surrounding this new project, and we all know how easily that can happen. It's so easy to ignore the small things when you are being showered in positivity.

I think the project got far bigger than he thought which opens up everything to a lot of criticism.

But he does not deserve to feel unsafe, nor is it any sort of appropriate to send him death threats under any circumstances. Nor to anyone, that is a line we should not cross.

Please, for the love of everything, remember this is one of the biggest projects he has ever attempted. Balancing management, his real life, and his public figure status must be incredibly stressful, and you can only do that for so long until things start to go unnoticed. Someone spread so thin is bound to crack, and unfortunately, I think that's what happened with the administration. He's an incredibly busy guy, and to expect him to be so hands-on with the project while keeping up with the rest of his life and future prospects is an inhumane task to keep up with.

Yes, I absolutely agree that healthy amounts of criticism are necessary in something as groundbreaking as this. But under no circumstances *ever* does that become something you can threaten another's safety over.

I also agree he should have said something and apologized to the previous admins who were brave enough to share their story. But I also can agree with the fact this might have been better done privately, at least as much as possible, because the moment you get the public involved someone malicious is going to rip their words apart to use in whatever fashion they wish.

But it's hard to be truly objective and honest when every word you ever say online could be misconstrued and twisted to suit another's fancy.

I think that's where most of the issue lies, at least to me. There are systems in place when handled in a law environment to protect those affected. The moment anything goes public, it's free game for someone to use as they wish.

I think in certain situations, getting the public involved in the good fight is a sound decision, for a group of people are louder than one individual. But it can also grow wildly out of control if not handled properly, and for a delicate situation like this, I think it's only drawn the whole situation out to a painful amount.

I dislike the fact that a lot of my passion has disappeared for the server because this server is full of people whose content I enjoyed previously and some I've only now discovered.

But, I still do believe it's possible for us to hold hope. I have to hold onto that because if there truly is a way for this to turn around it can serve as an example it's possible to recover and put your best foot forward.

I think there's been mistakes all around, blown wildly out of proportion, but I do still want to give this place a chance.

Because what an example it could become if solutions can be found that helps all the parties and the fandom affected by this all.

That's all. Again, this is just my opinion, and I want to discuss it if people want to talk about it reasonably.

Please form your own thoughts after watching the stream, and try to keep an open mind. I understand this might drive a lot of people away, but I believe in the heart of what QSMP is.

This server and community are meant to unite people from across the world. Let's give it a chance to continue to do so, eh?

Edit for some clarification ;

I do not blame the admins for doing what they had to. I'm proud of the brave actions they took facing such a massive community head-on.

I just wish it all could have gone down differently, but we can't change the past, only hope for a better future.

[Here is a transcript of the stream from Twitter, please watch the stream as a priority though]

Edit 2: adding this too

[dearly-somber]

get high | h.it

-> pairing. it-boy!intak x female reader

-> genre. high school!au, acquaintances-to-???, pwp plot what plot (this fic is vibes only)

-> rating. 13+

-> w/c. 2190

-> warnings. weed, making out, kind of dub-cony ngl 😭, suggestive ending

-> a/n. I’ve never smoked weed before, so if anything’s inaccurate feel free to edumacate me🤡👍🏻 Also: I have nothing against weed or the people who smoke it as long as it’s done responsibly and in a safe environment 😌

-> collection. misc

-> started. Mar. 19th, 2024 @ 22:40

-> fin. Sun., Oct. 20th, 2024 @ 22:48

-> edited. Tues., Oct. 22nd, 2024 @ 13:20

-> divider credit. @xxbimbobunnyxx

You‘ve never understood the “hype” around weed.

Granted, you’d grown up in a very anti-drug household, so you went into high school with the mindset that whatever long term negative effects occurred after smoking weed would far outweigh the momentary high you’d heard people talk about on so many occasions.

Except, you’d never expected yourself to acquaint yourself with Hwang Intak: one of the most popular kids in senior year, Intak was well-known for his chill house-parties and phenomenal dance skills—a total catch and in with the so called “it-group”, he wasn’t someone you saw yourself ever interacting with, let alone befriending.

That was, of course, before you realized you shared nearly half your classes with him.

You weren’t very popular—sure, people knew you (it was impossible not to when you’d befriended a hoard of social butterflies and were known at least visually for your intimidating, no-nonsense RBF), but you’d never truly made friends with any of the kids higher up in the social hierarchy than “is friends with popular kids but isn’t actually popular themselves”.

So imagine your surprise when, on a seemingly random Tuesday morning during one of your double accounting periods, Hwang Intak strolled up to your desk with a friendly smile on his face, his voice light and airy as he asked, “You’re Y/N, right?”

From there, you’d started talking more and more, until one day he cornered you on your way to your locker after your sixth period, leaning against the wall as he spoke.

“You free this weekend?” he asked.

You raised your brow skeptically, looking warily over your shoulder at people making grouchy faces at having to step around you to get to where they needed to go. “I don’t think so, why?”

He grabbed your forearm and pulled you into his bubble and out of the way of the bustling student body.

You gulped up at him, cursing the heat you felt crawling up your throat at the closeness between you.

“I’m having a small get together with some friends to celebrate my birthday,” he said, putting his hands in his pocket as he tilted his head against the brick wall next to you. “I was wondering if you’d wanna join.”

Your eyes widened. “Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Uhm… I mean, I—yeah, sure, I’ll be there,” you coughed, thanking the heavens above he seemed not to be focusing on your neck; you could feel how hot you’d gotten without needing to check first.

“Cool,” he said. “I’ll see you this weekend.” He smiled charmingly and began walking towards the staircase (where you belatedly realized a group of his friends were waiting for him), but panicked a little realizing you had no idea where to meet him.

“Intak!”

He turned around with a hum, his eyebrows raised ever so slightly.

You cleared your throat, rocking on the balls of your feet. “Where are we meeting?”

“Ah,” he laughed, walking back to you with a grin so captivating you were surprised your mouth wasn’t hanging open. “You have a pen?”

“A—uh, yeah, hold on, lemme just” —you dug around in your bag for your pencil case before pulling out a black pen and handing it to him, perplexed.

Your eyes widened when he reached once again for your forearm, ducking his head as he shook the pen out and began writing what you assumed was his number on your exposed skin, drawing a weirdly symmetrical, grinning heart with little devil-horns and a tail at the end.

“There we go,” he said, tucking the pen into your emblem pocket with a boyish grin.

He laughed at your bewildered expression as he backtracked toward his friends, the look he gave you sending a hoard of butterflies loose in the pit of your stomach. “See you soon, Y/N! I’ll text you the details!”

“I, uh” —you pinched yourself— “yeah, okay!”

Now, you’re probably wondering—what does any of that have to do with weed?

Well… maybe it’s easier to just show you.

“Y/NNNN!” Intak grinned at you from his couch, shamelessly eyeing you up and down as you walked sheepishly into his living room.

You waved awkwardly, feeling heat creep up the column of your throat when he giggled and waved back, a dumb grin on his face.

You fiddled with the hem of your white skirt, tugging the sleeves of your black Kuromi sweater over your fingers as one of Intak’s older friends, Choi Jiung, ushered you to sit between Intak’s legs.

“So…” You cleared your throat, crossing your spread legs at the ankles so you didn’t have to worry about accidentally exposing anything you didn’t want exposed. You forced a relaxed smile. “What are we doing?”

Jiung laughed good-naturedly, pulling a girl you didn’t recognize into his lap. “We’re smoking,” he said with a smile, his eyebrows furrowing in curiosity as he asked, “Have you smoked before?”

You hummed uncertainly, fiddling with your fingers—the heat of Intak’s legs against your arms was making it incredibly difficult to think. “No, I don’t really smoke…”

The girl in Jiung’s lap’s eyes widened. “What? Never?”

You shook your head.

“Not even once?”

“No,” you whispered, resisting the sudden urge to spring up and dash for the door.

“Ash,” Intak reprimanded, shifting in his seat.

Just as you were about to turn your head to look at him, his breath hit the back of your ear, his hands on your shoulders and a smile in his voice.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he assured you. “It’ll help you relax, though.”

He massaged your shoulders to emphasize his point and you tried very hard not to squeak in surprise.

Since when was Hwang Intak so good with his hands?

“You wan’ a hit?” Jiung offered, holding a joint out to you with wide eyes and raised brows; weirdly innocent-looking considering the situation you were in.

You swallowed a lump in your throat.

On the one hand, you were kind of scared. What if all those things your parents had said were true? That one hit meant you’d be a goner forever and start doing hardcore drugs because you’d started with the “Gateway”? That if you started now you’d become immediately enslaved to the high and never recover?

But, despite those worries, despite those fears…

Intak hadn’t stopped massaging your shoulders—rather, he’d dragged his hand to the base of your neck, gently pressing his forefinger against your pulse-point before sliding it down to brush across your exposed collarbone.

Thank the heavens he chose not to comment on the shiver that shot up your spine, but it was clear in the little huff of air behind you that he found your reaction amusing.

Really, you were curious. And maybe you wanted to impress him.

Just a little bit.

So you nodded, smiling awkwardy as Ash—Jiung’s girlfriend(?)—whooped and clapped with an obnoxious laugh of encouragement.

You took the already-lit joint from Jiung, holding it between your pointer finger and thumb, inspecting it.

Intak giggled, “Just put it to your lips and pull.” His chest expanded with the amount of air he sucked in through his teeth, letting out an exhale with an exaggerated grunt of relief.

You nodded uncertainly, releasing a nervous breath before bringing the joint up to your lips.

“There we go,” he whispered next to your ear, his chin resting on your shoulder as his hands ran up and down your arms; bold from the cannabis or because you were in his house, you didn’t know.

Not that you really cared, anyway.

You mimicked Intak’s movements and set the roll down in a coughing fit, waving your hand in front of your face like it’d stave off the aching burn traveling from the back of your throat all the way through to your lungs.

It took a couple of seconds for you to stop coughing, looking around the room with your hand fisted in front of your mouth and tears pooling in the corners of your eyes.

You met the expectant eyes of Ash and Jiung—and then you… laughed. And you laughed a little more, and some more, until you were giggling dumbly because why were they looking at you like that!

“Atta girl!” Jiung hooted, leaning far back into his chair before taking another hit from his own blunt.

“How d’you feel?” Intak asked, his eyes lighting up when you turned your head to look at him proper. His pupils were visibly dilated, sucking you in a little like a black hole.

You grinned, leaning back against his knee.

“I feel good,” you slurred, letting your eyes roam his face and grinning when he seemed to smile brighter because of it. “Really good,” you admit.

“Yeah?” Intak said, licking his lips. “Calmer?”

“Mmm…” You dragged your lower lip between your teeth and indulged in the wonderful cartwheel your stomach did as Intak watched the motion with rapt attention.

“Now,” Ash clapped her hands together, wiggling her eyebrows with a devilish smirk. “Let’s play truth or dare.”

“Y/N!” Ash yelled, completely indifferent to Jiung’s lips attached to her neck, “truth or dare?”

You hummed playfully, still leaned back against Intak’s leg.

You’d mellowed out considerably since you had your first pull around twenty minutes ago—you were leaning against Intak like it was normal and the hand he was running through your hair didn’t even make you bat an eye.

“Dare,” you said with a grin, light and happy and relaxed—more relaxed than you’d been during summer break!

Ash grinned mischievously, bringing a hand up to pull at Jiung’s hair, looking at him over her shoulder with a vicious smile. “I dare you to kiss Intak.”

“That’s boring,” Jiung panted, his cheeks tinged pink as he licked his lips and watched Ash with a furrowed brow, head tilted back with her firm grip in his hair.

She rolled her eyes, but turned to you and said, “Fine. I dare you to kiss Intak’s tongue.”

You licked your lips with an excited giggled, using Intak’s knees to push yourself up before turning around to smile at him with a happy sway in your step.

Intak watched you with a lazy grin as you walked between his legs, setting your hands beside his waist and leaning forward at a 90° angle to connect your mouths in an easy kiss.

“Yah!” Ash laughed, the sound breaking the two of you apart. “That’s not his tongue!”

You giggled and waved her off, looking down at Intak with hooded eyes.

“Stick your tongue out,” you ordered, staring at his mouth like a starved animal.

Intak grinned, watching you like a puppy watches his owner as he obediently stuck his tongue out, leaning cockily back into the couch.

With a surprising ease, you leant down and touched your lips to his tongue, so intrigued by the feel of it you gave it a little kitten lick of your own.

Intak groaned as he grabbed you by the back of your neck and pulled you in for a very heated kiss, sticking his tongue in your mouth and tilting his head for better access.

You were on cloud nine and vaguely floaty, setting your hands on his upper thighs to keep yourself from wobbling over.

You only pulled away after Jiung let out a low whistle, Intak, lips red and swollen with a possessive hand on the nape of your neck and a hungry, nearly insatiable look in his eyes.

“Well, shit,” Ash laughed, leaning back against Jiung’s shoulder. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Y/Nie.”

You licked your lips as Intak leant up to press a chaste kiss to the corner of your lip, a confused noise leaving you when he suddenly pushed himself to standing.

You felt a little flip in the pit of your stomach at how tall he suddenly felt now that you weren’t towering over him, biting on your lip as he grabbed your hand.

“Let’s go to my room, hm?” he asked, not really waiting for an answer as he lead you to the stairs. “Get some privacy.”

You waved to Jiung and Ash (though neither of them waved back because they’d opted to start sucking each other’s faces off), watching with a growing fire the way Intak’s back muscles moved when he walked.

“You’re a good kisser,” you complimented as he lead you upstairs, laughing when he brought you into his room. He shut but did not lock the door behind him.

“Yeah?” he smirked. “How good?

“Very,” you assured, eagerly standing on the tips of your toes and wrapping your arms around his shoulders so you could keep kissing him.

“Mmm,” he hummed against your lips, guiding you back until the two of you were laying flat on the edge of his bed, his hands running up to trace the bare skin under your shirt. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

You nipped his lip, sighing into his mouth when he gave your waist a little squeeze. “I’m a little out of practice,” you panted.

He chuckled, pulling away to give you a devilish smirk. “We can practice.”

And so practice you did.

[your-enby-antihero]

What a fucking crazy set of episodes. I was so curious how they would adapt Glintshore since they didn’t have Kynan as a mentee figure for Vax. The crazy hallucination gas that Ripley used to get Percy alone as opposed to in campaign in the group battle was really intriguing. The environment they created for the lab on Glintshore was magical. Also the effect of Scanlan being gone on later bard’s lament incident is going to be cool to see. Really fun to see freeing Percy in that flash back since we’ve seen it before in the comics as well, I really am having such a ball as a Perc’ahlia enjoyer. Also the twin moment in that episode fucking sends me they’re so fucking sweet, love them sibbies. And the fight in the 9th episode were so fucking fun having Kash die is interesting, I wonder if he’ll make a return. Finally I am so fucking hype for this Raishan fight, I really hope they keep the details of her defeat from the original campaign! Anyway banger set of eps cannot wait for the thrilling ending of the season next week😈😈😈.

[sunnystrollblog]

So some ideas that I think would be cool for the Borrower au (that you are completely free to ignore or veto):

The Borrower trolls do end up moving into the village but they pull a Canon Branch and immediately start building a series of Ant-like tunnels under it. Both Peppy and Poppy worry about them collapsing like the escape tunnels but eventually are convinced to let them do it.

Borrower trolls have a bit of a skewed sense of ownership. Like they respect sentimental objects but otherwise it's the Classic Borrower idea of "is it useful? Will you notice its absence? Good it's ours now."

To outsiders it's almost impossible to tell the difference between a regular Pop troll and a Borrower troll. After Barb's invasion this accidentally gains the whole tribe the reputation for being 'Preppy Neon Sleeper Agents'. This reputation is strengthened when the Putt-Putts come into the picture.

Ooooh I love these ideas and I’ll expand on it. When borrower trolls are reintroduced into troll society the other pop trolls have no idea how to interact with them. For one they don’t party much afraid it could lead a dangerous critter to them. So it hard to get them to join in group activities were there is going to be a good amount of noise. Not to mention that if anyone feels threatened at any time they can go in four different survival reactions. Defenders usually go for fight, scavengers go for freeze/hide, rescuers go for fawn and caretakers are a toss up which can be very dangerous for whoever makes them feel threatened. the first time regular pop trolls saw branch take down a large critter with no sweat was definitely surprising. They’ve also developed harder skin to deal with the rough ground in Bergen town

Secondly their diets have changed drastically since they were used to scavenging for any scraps of food they could get their hands. It’s not uncommon to catch borrower trolls taking discarded foods from the trash or even just storing away any food items given to them. And pop trolls sorta had trouble feeding the caretaker trolls because they literally refused to eat until all the younglings did.

And gift giving is a nightmare because of how practical these trolls are. Now the first time someone gave hype a gift our boy immediately broke it apart and basically only kept the parts that he could use for traps or another invention. It wasn’t until the troll who gave him it started crying did he understand that’s not a normal thing to do. So yeah gifts need to be practical especially clothing.

Now while some borrowers look basically the same as others trolls that’s not the case for many as their roles in the compound influenced their outfits drastically. For example scavengers wear things that can blend in with their surroundings so now that they live in the forest they wear floral clothing mostly consisting of green leaves or flowers that can blend into the environment. Caretakers wear soft and simple clothing so the children can recognize them immediately. Rescuers and defenders wear any protective clothing anything that can hold together in a fight and they’ll wear it. But if you didn’t know that about them then yes you’d have absolutely no idea you’re talking to someone who could snap your neck in less than a second and who’d use your body as critter bait

But there are still some things that are similar. Like hugs, now you might think they’d all be touch averse because of living in Bergen town for so long. But actually hugs and physical contact helped a lot of trolls when they lived under the bergens. It took away some of the stress and anxiety that living there caused and it helped them stay connected to each other even when words were hard to find. And music is another thing that they hold dear, now just because they couldn’t play loudly didn’t mean they didn’t listen to music at all. In fact lullabies and and soft instrumental songs were loved by all no matter the age

Anyway yeah they’ve all changed a lot since the troll tree. But they still are trolls and that doesn’t change just because they’re different now. Just means others need to be more accommodating

[nico-esoterica]

"Help! My SP has a Problematic Chart!" (LOA Edition)

The planets don't have to mean a damn thing, just fyi. But if you are an astro-girlie who still likes reading synastry but you feel conflicted bc you know you control your reality now, i gotchu.

Saying this as a professional astrologer, you need to know anyway that it's always about the individuals involved and their choices regardless of what any readings say. Another thing to know is that you can just tell yourself that you have perfect synastry and everything works. I've done this before and it was magic.

But as far as placements go, change the story:

"But they have venus/their moon/juno in aries/gemini/libra/sag/aqua, it means they'll cheat!" - That's an affirmation, careful. But look:

🍥 Aries placements = Loyal, actually. They want praise and attention because they're terrified you'll leave them and make someone else your number one. Their biggest fear is that you'll think someone is better than them.

🍥 Sagittarius placements = They share a traditional ruler w/ Pisces for a reason. Everything you can say about Pisces you can actually attribute to Sag as well. When they're in love, they're very moonstruck, dreamy, and infatuated. What happens w/ a lot of them is that they project their fear of being limited/trapped onto their partners so that's where the flightiness originates. Some weren't raised in households that nurtured their explorative minds and curiosity and it was met with control and abuse. When you start working to the far end of the signs, you see a common upbringing story.

Another thing - Controversial take maybe, but theeeeey want to be utterly devoted to the right person. Jupiter/Sag is also about belief, religion, and spirituality as well but it's the structural and institutional aspect of it. So, relationship wise, they are fine w/ orbiting around the right person forever. Their flightiness is a response to that quality of them being exploited early on. This is why hard Jupiter and 9H/12H points in natal charts suggest religious indoctrination and/or there being a strong authority figure they couldn't say no to. But even as adults, natives w/ these charts have a sort of love/hate affair w/ authority/control. That's still a devotional element. That person is a very loving and commitment-centric person. They just don't want to be hurt is all. So, I'd recommend to start seeing those positive traits.

🍥 Air placements = Loyal, trusting, and emotionally available. They just won't act like that if they don't feel safe. They were taught by their environments that masking was effective bc said environments didn't care about who they were if they weren't agreeable or palatable. The free thinking-ness is also usually a response to dogmatic and authoritarian households. Especially w/ Aqua placements. If you tell yourself that they feel safe and vulnerable around you, you will see that's who they've always been. Don't believe pop-astro hype.

🍥 'Flirty' charts/placements where there's a lot of Venus, Pisces, Taurus, Libra, etc, can be refocused to just center around You. Natally speaking, people like this are usually quite relationship-centric and want their world to be in their partner. It's just that they learned they were rewarded for seeming available and they will have weaker boundaries because of it. It's not that they're players. They just learned that they couldn't say 'no', even if they wanted to. This can lead to a disassociativeness and numbness to said attention where it auto-pilots and the real them isn't actually engaged at all but they're used to it so the boundaries stay permanently down. From a new story standpoint, take all of those lovers' qualities and say they only have eyes for you and are the biggest romantic ever and they will be :)

🍥 Commitment-phobic/Distrustful placements/aspects (saturn/pluto/scorp/cap-aqua, etc) - This is another hurt person again. No one is just born fearing intimacy and commitment. The reason the walls go up so thick is because these people are extremely sensitive and susceptible to 'loving hard and falling hard' bc they get wrapped up in who they love as people and have a problem letting go. Natally speaking, there is almost always going to be trauma involved here. You can revise your sp's story and/or you can tell yourself how trusting, loyal, passionate, and tender they are (bc it's true!). They have feral cat syndrome. But once you show them some love and change your story? They're the sweetest kittens, I promise :) But omg if you wanted someone who's super ride or die? You've got the right person!~

🍥 Water placements: Give them a plant (that's hard to kill) or a stuffed animal of their fave childhood character, I am being so serious. You see a lot of insecure attachment issues, self-victimization, and almost untraceable manipulative behavior when these people are insecure. They're very emotional and that quality, in my experience, is the result of coming from families that don't always value that and prefer emotional suppression. A child comes along who's the antithesis of this.

Them being emotional and sensitive is typically abused and exploited and they turn into overgivers and find ways to 'bargain for affection' but want to 'keep' the people to avoid abandonment so they'll find screwy ways to attach themselves inappropriately. So, they'll hold them hostage. Water can both heal and drown w/ submergence. The inverse of this is someone who's very grounded and has little healthy outlets to poor their emotional intensity into, are excellent listeners, intuitives, and people who you will genuinely never feel unloved or unsupported around. Water placements are lifers as people. So, change your story and let yourself experience the best of them :)

🍥 Note: Even tho the below says hard aspects, this can apply to anything you think fits. Even helpful aspects can have the opposite effect!

Hard Sun/Moon/Asc aspects? - They disassociate/mask and fear intimacy/vulnerability. Abysmally low self esteem. Sun/Moon issues can also point to issues w/ their parents. Change the story.

Hard Venus/Mars aspects? - They overgive, fear taking action, take things too far, have poor boundaries, and don't know how to safely take action in a way that benefits instead of hurts them/others. Change the story.

Hard Merc/Jupiter aspects? - They overthink/overcomplicate everything, are very intelligent and/or lucky but chronically doubt themselves or think they'll be limited bc of experience, they overextend themselves and overplan, they overstimulate/overwhelm themselves bc they might be stressed out or coping. Change the story.

Hard Saturn/Pluto aspects? - They fear loss of control, plan for the worst, don't trust easily, prone to doomerism and melancholy, can cope in self-destructive ways, operate from a fear-based logic from heavy trauma. Change the story.

Hard Uranus/Neptune aspects? - Fear they can't ever do things/get things at the 'right time', can disassociate and check out in maladaptive ways, can be flighty and irresponsible, have really great ideas but execute them poorly, have trouble believing in themselves, have poor boundaries and/or run away from everything. Change the story.

Everything else that's potentially problematic astrologically is just you ruminating over the old story instead of the one you want. The chart's complexity doesn't mean anything over said story. You can use it as an aid that'll have little stories you can choose to believe or discard. But just know that no matter how favorable or difficult a chart is or what your compatibility says, only your assumptions will reflect.

So I don't recommend overanalyzing these charts unless you wanna be utterly Mercurial/Plutonic and write every little thing down and change the meaning they have..which you can totally do and I've personally done. Lmao. Have fun!~