#i knew it was a big disparity but i never realized how big

[timberlakefan96]

I have a theory for why Harris lost that I haven’t seen much, and it’s not glamorous or exciting.

Basically: EVERYONE knows who Trump is, nobody knew who Harris was. That’s it.

Harris had 107 days or three months and 15 days to get her word out there, and Trump literally never stopped campaigning since riding down that escalator 3431 days, or nine YEARS, four months, and 21 days before Election Day 2024.

There’s a lot of talk about which policies Harris should and shouldn’t have championed, but lest we forget, the anti-Harris messaging for a sufficient portion of her campaign was that she had no policies, because nobody could name them.

Even when she was given a public platform, any coherent argument she could give was drowned out by the opposition, even when given coverage was opposed to that opposition. Remember the debate? Remember how the news cycle was dominated afterwards, not by her 90 page economic plan, but by whether or not Haitians ate cats? That’s important.

With so little time to campaign and so much airtime dedicated to Trump, she had to rely on social media and word of mouth to get her message out there, but this is also a very flawed strategy.

I think, if you’re here on Tumblr, you’re probably very internet-oriented, so it’s easy to think that everyone is on the internet, but the internet is a much smaller, much more fractured place than we realize.

I wrote several paragraphs showing social media statistics, but it made this post much longer than it should’ve been. I’ll make a separate post later. The big takeaway is that social media platforms have vested interests to appear as big and far-reaching as possible, but actual engagement statistics are vanishingly small. On Facebook, the largest platform by a country mile, less than a quarter of a percent of people who view a given post will engage with it, and that includes looking at it for longer than ten seconds. On Twitter, 97% of the site’s content is created by less than 25% of its users. The number of people in the US who post once a day is smaller than the population of Michigan. The number of people in the US who post more than once a day could fit in Michigan Stadium.

Due to the short timeframe, Harris’s campaign had to rely disproportionately on the internet, and the internet has a hard cap on word travel. Even if every single American on social media had access to perfect knowledge of Harris and her policies, you’re still only reaching half of all voting Americans, at best.

This also explains, I think, the seeming disparity between all the “unprecedented” early voting/registration reporting versus final vote tallies: the people who vote early AND report on early voting are going to be more active on social media in general, and, again, there’s a hard limit on how many people that can be.

Also, she still got 74 million votes, which is the second largest number of votes for any Democrat presidential candidate ever, behind Biden in 2020. And Biden was, himself, a very public, well-known figure even during his own Vice-presidency, in ways Kamala wasn’t.

At the end of the day, I really don’t think Harris‘s policies or interviews or debates affected her campaign at all. I think it was simply not enough time.

And she still managed more popular votes than literally every other presidential candidate in history, save two. There are definitely discussions to be had about her policies and why she lost and where the Democratic Party is going from here, but I also think it’s important to keep those discussions within that context. Did she misstep, veering more right as the election drew near? Should she have given clearer answers when asked about Palestine or Trans rights? Absolutely! Would that have helped her get more votes than Biden, who was a publicly known figure running against *the* least popular president in modern history during a period of historic turmoil? Probably not.

This is why I push back against people saying Harris ran a bad campaign. By any measurable metric, (The big, obvious one notwithstanding) she ran one of the best campaigns ever run by a democrat. Factoring in her limitations, it was, at least on paper, nothing short of miraculous.

This is also why I push back against doomerist claims that the country is more racist or misogynist than it used to be. Trump’s voter tallies did not significantly change between 2020 and 2024. In no genuinely bigoted country could Harris get more votes than Obama. There’s roughly the same number of bigots in America that there have always been.

The country did not move further to the right. It simply moved *away* from the Democrats. And even then, not by a whole lot. Just enough. Because people tend to gravitate towards what is familiar, and Harris, in three months, could not overcome the familiarity that Trump built over nine years.

I really do think it’s as simple as that.

And more: I think anyone trying to tell you otherwise is selling you something.

[thebiscuiteternal]

I love your larger age gap Nie Bros au! I want to float the idea of a role reversal larger age gap au where Nie Huaisang is the much older sibling of the pair, and Nie Mingjue is the baby brother.

Whew.

Honestly, it would lean more towards the "bitter" side of bittersweet, because Nie Huaisang has spent his entire fourteen/fifteen years of life knowing that even if his father has tried to love him, even though he has tried to be a good son, he's not the kind of heir his father or the sect wants and never will be. He's sharp and clever, but also small and sickly and exhausted easily and will never be a good night hunter or battle leader. He's so very un-Nie-like that only the fact that he shares his father's eye color and a few of his facial features keeps people from making accusations about his parentage (and even that doesn't stop them sometimes).

But at least his father never tried to replace him or his deceased mother, right?

And then, right after his father has just died, a midwife shows up with a strong healthy baby and a bundle of paperwork declaring the child fully legitimate, and Huaisang has to grapple with the realization that his father did very much try to get a replacement, and since the paperwork is all nice and legal, the elders and senior disciples likely knew about it and said nothing.

He wants to scream or vomit or break things or hit someone, but he does none of the above and just sits beside the crib and stares at nothing while the elders debate his future like he's not even present.

Then there is a little tug on his hair, and when he looks down, little Mingjue has a fistful of it stuffed in his mouth and is staring up at him with big green eyes and... dammit, he can't hate this kid. Mingjue doesn't know what's going on, has no idea how he's destroyed what little of a life his older brother had just by existing. It's not his fault.

Huaisang sighs and gently tugs his hair free, then reaches in to let Mingjue clutch his hand and giggle and gnaw on his fingers.

It's eventually decided that Huaisang will be (a puppet) sect leader, with provisions that as soon as the sect has decided Mingjue is old enough, he will abdicate and leave, so as not to complicate his brother's position by hanging around.

Needless to say, this does not make Huaisang feel the slightest bit better, but he has no choice other than to at least try to do well by his new title, which proves to be more difficult than it has to be because literally every single one of his decisions gets argued and debated and he's constantly being patronized even though it's apparent he's not as stupid as people expect him to be.

Ironically, the son who will replace him winds up becoming his only refuge. Since they didn't have the years of being brothers from the Reverse Nie "canon" timeline, Mingjue never grows up absorbing the disdain everyone else has for Huaisang. Rather, Mingjue has already imprinted on him and throws unholy fits when people try to keep them apart.

It's more common than not that Mingjue sleeps cuddled against his brother's chest in Huaisang's bed instead of his own crib. He starts developing a fierce protective streak before he even knows how to walk or talk, scowling at anyone whose tone he doesn't like when they talk to his brother and trying to grab for hair or throw things at them when he gets really upset about it. People learn quick that if they want to badmouth Huaisang, they have to do it out of earshot of Mingjue, and that only holds more true as he grows up and begins grasping language and starts becoming aware of the disparity between how hard his brother is trying versus the things people say about him.

Everyone else better start watching their insults before they find that Mingjue has grown to have more loyalty to the brother who loves him and does his damnedest to care for him despite all his other duties versus the sect who wants to split them up.

And that's as far as I've currently gotten with this idea.

[neonscandal]

What are your bakudeku fav moments? And what are your fav personal headcanons about them?

Okie, so I may have done a few head canons like this (and forgot to link the last five in the SatoSugu ask just like this... also the alternating colors was admittedly gratuitous but I'm not changing it now. Just know that I have regrets.). Maybe even drafted some moments like this but let's light this BBQ anyway. 💥

Horikoshi truly doesn't get enough credit for how perfect this panel and subsequent animation was. It's actually hysterical? Earnest Deku and Little Shit Kacchan. It's so them, I can't even.

HEAD CANONS

The Bakugo's are the Have's and the Midoriya's are the Have Not's but Mitsuki and Inko are so close that the boys never really knew the difference. Mitsuki helps Inko out where she can which is why Deku is a staple in their house growing up (free childcare for Inko and necessary socialization for her brat, Katsuki). You should see their childhood photo albums, they are both equally as embedded in one anothers' family histories.

When the boys first came to understand their economic differences, it was because of the disparity between their All Might merch collections and Bakugo realized it long before Midoriya. Subsequently, he staved off this epiphany by making it a point to always ask for "one for Izuku" until they fell out which Mitsuki obliged generously and proudly, knowing their relationship was precious but also a good influence on her gremlin.

I say they fell out but.. they didn't. Not in the ways that mattered. Bakugo is as big a nerd as Midoriya, he just has the sense to be more lowkey about it. Even when Bakugo was being a bully, he'd begrudgingly ask Midoriya (if Midoriya didn't ask first) to any midnight releases of All Might/hero movies and merch drops. They absolutely are the kind of dorks to camp out for limited release stuff. It's a lifelong tradition. Even if things went back to normal at school the next day, they still had that in common and both knew not to bring it up otherwise to maintain the balance of their twisted relationship otherwise. It's why, even after all this time, they're still so in sync. Also, by that point, the "one for Izuku" custom is so deeply ingrained that Mitsuki does it anyway. The turnover between Bakugo to Midoriya is so begrudging and awkward. All unspoken but a deeply rooted fact of their relationship.

Bakugo absolutely got them lost in the forest once. I think he took that fear and pivoted it into a refusal to ever be scared in nature again which is why he persistently enjoys the outdoors so much. It feels like revenge every time he comes back from a hike.

They made a blood oath to never tell anyone about how Mitsuki used them as drop in models for the Bakugo child clothing line because there was at least one season where they both modeled girls' clothes (Midoriya doesn't really care but Bakugo does). It's not that Bakugo cares or takes issue with a persons' gender, orientation or expression. He knows clothes don't define a person, he's confident and masculine either way and he knows he'd be the best looking person in a dress. He does, however, take issue with the fact that the hag likes to coo and lord the pictures over him because he was incredibly and disarmingly cute (which he acknowledges as "damn right" but despises the principle of the matter wherein his mom has anything over him).

Class 1A all notice the weird tension between the fire kid and the brittle boned dude who looks like he's never slept but just... awkwardly avoid it because they're just as emotionally underdeveloped as these two idiots. I also kinda think the confrontation between the two isn't always as bad as Midoriya's narration suggests because, I would hope in a class of hero students, someone would have intervened? But everyone picked up, day one, that they're just little weirdos and let them do their own thing.

In fact, no one finds Bakugo as intimidating as Midoriya does. Literally, no one. He's loud but compliant with a self-imposed bed time. His words are violent but his hands are skilled and intentional, never reflecting the carnage he threatens. Plus, he's a big ole dork! They know he's all bark and that's why people don't react to his rampaging (based in canon if you look at the provisional license exam, culture festival, Christmas, and Deku's secret training with Tsu, Ochaco and Sero). He used to be really bothered by Class 1A's lack of reaction to his yelling. They just kinda manhandle him to put him in his place and keep it pushing (again, see also Christmas episode and culture festival arcs). But now he accepts it as they accept him and he doesn't feel the need to be so abrasive and put up as many walls.

Midoriya, of course, notices this transition. Hyper fixated on it in fact. While he's super happy that Kacchan is settling in and finding his peace, he resents (but only a teeeeny tiny little bit) Kirishima in particular thinking this change is because of their friendship which he covets. He doesn't comprehend his own impact on or inspiration for this change, however. He never gives himself enough credit.

When Midoriya went all Dark Deku, Bakugo spent exactly one day a la Bella in Twilight sitting forlorn and waiting in the dark for the idiot to return. After the first 24, he pulled his Hermione pants on and got to work on the plan of recapturing the nerd by any means necessary.

Without spoilers, Bakugo's prized possession is the All Might card they both have because AM remains to be the pinnacle for everything Bakugo hopes to accomplish. But Midoriya's prized possession and the thing he hid before everyone did room tours at Heights Alliance is a picture of him and Bakugo. No fanfare, no merch, just a picture of the two of them with a smile that goes cheek to cheek. It's what gives him strength and resolve to keep moving forward. Aoyama's totally seen it.

Midoriya knows why Bakugo goes to bed at 8:30PM. Yes, he's a sleepy little guy. But also yes, this is his private time to read his shojo romance mangas in peace. ✨ Midoriya stays abreast of his favorite stories waiting for an inevitable "!!!" text when something big happens because Bakugo can't download his... excitement? confusion? joy? with anyone else. (Technically, Kirishima is also aware of this habit, quite by accident, but Bakugo would never tell Midoriya that).

Doesn't seem like it but Bakugo totally spoils Midoriya. It's masked in the harsh way he tends to package everything but he makes it a point to always cook for him, he's really weirdly thoughtful about gifts (no special occasion required but he'll shove it in the nerd's chest), he nags to make sure Midoriya is taking care of himself, etc. When Midoriya falls asleep in random places, Bakugo is the one who covers him with a blanket, quiets the surrounding extras down and leaves him with an excruciatingly gentle thumb across his freckles.

Bakugo pays rapt attention to Midoriya's muttering. Generally, he's interested in the subject matter because he's also an overly analytical fanboy. But also, his attention will sometimes drift from appreciating Midoriya's face and fall to his lips. This is when he gets flustered and "loses his temper". Really, he's worried he got caught lacking and is pissed at himself. It'll happen again and again.

MOMENTS

Much longer series thats focused basically on their relationship so these aren't really moment moments but rather... pieces of the story.

Better in the manga, but Midoriya running into the slime villain fray was just... so momentous. Even before knowing it's impact, it was it was just so chest fluttering. Through and through, that kid has always been a hero. Quirk or not.

In retrospect, everything about the sports festival makes me want to swallow a throw pillow. From Bakugo starting to warm up to people, Bakugo being an eavesdropping little shit, Midoriya (and Aizawa) explaining Kacchan to onlookers, Bakugo unwilling to accept victory. So much of their individual personalities are laid bare but still, that unavoidable link to one another.

I hated the exam against All Might, too much tension/confrontation. But I loved when Bakugo took a hit meant for Midoriya and Midoriya subsequently powered up to sideline All Might AND recapture Bakugo's unconscious body. So on brand for them.

Midoriya still having a psychic connection with Bakugo's enigmatic ass in Kamino by sending Kirishima in for the rescue. I know that burned him up but he's so used to sacrifice.

Generally, every time Kacchan inspired the unlock of another OFA quirk because let's be so for real. Midoriya is Captain Save a Hoe when it comes to Bakugo and even simply Bakugo's honor. Like Bakugo can't defend himself.

Super Secret All Might Meeting in the gif above. It's just so comical, how different they are, but deep down they're so similar.

Dinner at the Todoroki's because that, too, was just so comical. You mean to tell me Bakugo can be considerate? He has manners? He's not always feral!?

First Shiggy Showdown, Bakugo's hero origin story revolving around his body moving to defend Midoriya just like Midoriya's revolved around him.

Bakugo risking further injury and limb to see Midoriya because that's the first thing on his mind as soon as he opened his eyes.

Super Secret All Might Training (with Tsu, Ochaco and Sero). The fact that Bakugo comes to terms with how shitty he's been but also that he cares so much about Midoriya that he can come to terms with the fact that his idol may be withholding stuff that could negatively impact his childhood friend. That reckoning when Midoriya still struggles to not put All Might on a pedestal is peak overprotective Bakugo.

Bakugo putting on his tie properly to appeal to Nezu and Endeavor about bringing Deku back in and how, just as Midoriya can speak to Bakugo's inner workings, Bakugo can speak to Midoriya's. Which is hilarious considering how they're both still pretty dense.

THE APOLOGY. No notes. Just kidding, one amendment. The apology followed by the forced bath of city rat smelling Deku, group project edition.

⚠️ Spoiler Warning through MHA Chapter 411.

The moment Bakugo takes the field against Shigaraki. He tells Best Jeanist to watch over everyone, as he knows he'll be abdicating that role, and he thinks about Midoriya. Which we now know he's been doing this whole time!?

Volume 29 manga cover.

Just as Midoriya has been a driving force for Bakugo, we see once again that Bakugo was a driving force for Midoriya with the way he absolutely loses his shit when he sees Bakugo's discarded body.

Volume 37 manga cover!

THE TELEPATHIC WAY THEY LAUNCHED BAKUGO TO ALL MIGHT'S AID. Featuring heavily: Bakugo and his Midoriya pickled mind. That success was so cathartic. But also Bakugo verbalizing what he felt he's always been hell bent on doing, looking out for Midoriya. Which again, kinda twisted but I'm interested to see how their story ends because I think we'll get some exposure to more of their background lore.

[reimeichan]

how does functional multiplicity feel, especially as a system aiming for final fusion?

I thought "functional multiplicity" was going to be this great big thing once I got there. That I'd finally know I was there, and that maybe with a bit more of a push I'd make it to final fusion. I thought it was going to be this giant shift in my psyche and stuff.

When, in fact.... it's really not. The change to get here was so gradual that I didn't even notice until I was talking to a few of my other friends who have reached functional multiplicity themselves about our experiences and I went. Wait. Is that.... me? Did I get here already and I didn't even realize it?

I was convinced that I'd only reach functional multiplicity once I was done with processing my trauma and challenging all the negative cognition and dismantling the maladaptive coping skills I'd picked up throughout my life and stuff. I'm actually shocked that's not quite the case. Don't get me wrong, I've done so much of all of that, and that's likely why I'm finally where I am now. But also... I know there's still a lot of work to be done and I'm nowhere near where I actually want to be.

But, I'm no longer struggling every day trying to keep track of what happened the day before. Even if I don't necessarily remember stuff, I know I can trust the other alters, and I know that they trust me. It feels like we're on the same page now for what we actually want in life, instead of everyone having their own disparate agendas and having us all fight each other to see who's "right" or who's the "best". I feel like my thoughts and opinions are heard, and the rest of them do too. I can actually feel my feelings and it doesn't feel like the world is going to fall apart or that I'm losing control. The me from six months ago could never!

I think, for me, the biggest change is that I'm.... actually planning to go back to school. My mental health took a drastic nosedive when I was in college and it felt like I never managed to fully get out of that all these years later. I never ended up getting my degree despite wanting one, and it's been a major source of shame and guilt in my system but especially for myself (as the main alter who dealt with school). I knew I wasn't ready to go back despite the people around me encouraging me to do so year after year. And, this year.... I think I'm finally ready to try again.

I could go on about so much that's changed for me but I'd be here for a very long time, so I guess I'll wrap it up with this:

It feels like I've climbed out of the labyrinthine dungeons and made it out into the sun. I still have a long road ahead of me, but it no longer feels so daunting of a task. I'm actually excited to see where the next phase of my journey takes me.

[crossstitchcodsworth]

Adventures in the Wasteland #2: Everyone Knew

I'm not putting these on a timeline. The first was post-game and this one story is mid-game. I'll just write as ideas come. Also, The Gauntlet can be Adventure #0

....

It wasn't hard to notice the way they looked at each other. From the day "Whisper" first found her way to HQ, everyone noticed she had her eyes on Deacon. She was an open book: it didn't take long for her to share her life with them and trust them.

They all knew that Deacon had been watching her for some time. The moment the concept of Whisper's existence was found on Institute servers, he took an interest in the project. Everyone had; the idea of the Institute releasing a prewar woman into the world was insanity. Cryogenic freezing seemed like a science-fiction pipe dream. Finding this entire plan was a miracle; they had a chance to change the future.

So, Deacon camped out at the Vault for an entire week. His eyes were placed almost constantly at the Entrance waiting for the dweller to emerge. And when Whisper did, she was nothing like he expected.

She was clumsy.

She was a little loud.

She was friendly.

She was a fan of prewar literature.

And lastly, Deacon found her beautiful. Of course, that helped quite a bit.

It wasn't like him to keep a mission this big to himself. He never said anything to anyone about it after he told them there was a dweller. He relayed Whisper's location, and that was it. His attachment to the dweller project kept him quiet. He didn't even tell them her name until she made it to HQ.

When it came to sending her on the field, Deacon was the one to volunteer to help her. He took Whisper on her first missions. Though they had some close calls and tough work, they always came back laughing a little too loudly. When she was gone, he'd keep telling her jokes. He was staring off into space sometimes, thinking about God knows what instead of working with his pre-war widgets.

Tinker Tom stared a conspiracy board in his head, making up stories about their field missions. Glory noticed how jealous Deacon was when she went on a mission with Whisper. Doctor Carrington noticed Deacon's blood pressure go up when Whisper was in the room. P.A.M. didn't notice shit. She's a robot. And Desdemona, she noticed the way Deacon blushed when speaking to Whisper.

There was a rule against fraternization, but Desdemona began to consider it was causing more problems than it was solving. The talks about it were causing the others to question it. If she wasn't enforcing the rule, why have it? Weren't they all friends anyway? It was especially strange if her pet theory was correct: that it was Deacon who made the rules to begin with.

Desdemona thought it best to confront him about it.

When Whisper was out of HQ, undercover, Desdemona called him over to talk. Deacon didn't question this. It seemed like just another day in HQ.

"What's up, Dez?" He was acting like his usual, fettered self. He showed no emotion. He just lit a cigarette and offered her a light. Desdemona declined.

"You've been acting strange lately. I'm not the only one to notice."

"When am I not acting strange?" Deacon laughed.

"I'm serious. You know the rules. Your relationship with Whisper is, well, too close."

"That's not your business." Deacon stiffened. He realized he had to actually confront himself. He had been trying to push those feelings to the back of his brain. It had been getting harder and harder with each passing day. Those feelings dredged up his past. They brought back memories that he'd also pushed himself to forget.

"It's everyone's business. It's gossip. Time we should be spending working has been spent talking about you and Whisper. It's unprofessional. This isn't like you."

"You don't know me, Dez. Not really."

"Tell me the truth. I already know it." Desdemona looked sternly at Deacon. He didn't budge at first. In her disparity, she snatched the sunglasses off of his face. "I'm fucking serious!"

Deacon's eyes were wet but not teary. She'd gotten to him. He angrily took the glasses back, hiding himself from her again.

"I think some rules are meant to be broken! There! I said it!" Deacon yelled, drawing the attention of the others in the room. "Nice talk, Dez."

With that, Deacon went to the escape tunnel. Alone. Desdemona realized she had been being watched. Everyone had stopped their work and just stared at where she was standing.

"Good talk, Dez. Good fucking talk!" Tom adjusted his headgear, then sarcastically clapped his hands.

"Tom, you know I-"

"Yeah, we know. You're getting rid of that rule. You could've been a bit nicer about it."

Glory chimed in, "He'll say something in his own time. Just relax. You've been acting like you're above this shit this whole time, but are you really?"

There was no time to answer. The door swung open. It was Whisper. In Whisper fashion, she'd swung the door too hard and let it hit the wall.

All eyes were on her.

She closed the door and gave it a delicate pat of apology. The eyes of the other spies seared into her soul. It was strange to see HQ so quiet. It'd felt like she circled back to the Institute all over again. When she faced everyone again, she didn't know what to say. She just awkwardly waved and walked up to Desdemona.

"Did you find Patriot?" Desdemona asked, breaking the silence.

"Yes." We can talk about it later. I'm exhausted." Whiper began to head toward the escape tunnel. It was almost as if she knew Deacon was in there waiting for her. But of course, she didn't. She was genuinely exhausted and wanted to sleep. Though the signs were there, the only person in the Railroad who had no idea about Deacon's feelings for her was herself.

It wasn't hard to notice the way they looked at each other. It wasn't hard to eavesdrop either. From the entrance of the escape tunnel, the others heard the would-be-lovers in quiet conversation. They discussed a trip away from HQ to go on alone.

Desdemona decided to let them. She hoped they'd come back different. Even she'd pushed herself to the new low of gossiping and investing herself in their relationship. Maybe giving them a nudge would solve the problem on its own.

Everyone knew. It's time Whisper did too.

[thescouts]

There was a not-insignificant period of time during the development of the Severance Season 2 finale where I was convinced the title should be ‘Innie Sandwich.’ It made perfect sense to me: Mark is his Outie on the surface, his Innie on the severed floor, and his Outie on the testing floor below. This ‘sandwich’ is the arena he must navigate in order to save his wife and attain the peace he’s sought throughout the series. Also maybe it’s a callback to the sandwich Devon made him in the pilot or something.   Ultimately I was convinced to change the name to ‘Cold Harbor,’ which in hindsight was probably the right call. This is illustrative of how Severance benefits from the collaborative process, with many people working together to create something insane that also somehow works. For this episode, we wanted it to feel as distinct as possible from our Season 1 finale. Where that chapter was short and tight, this one would be big and epic and move wildly between tones and contain a full marching band if in any way possible.    The first sequence is one that I’ve been excited and terrified to write since the show began. I knew Innie and Outie Mark had to face off at some point, and with their needs and resentments both coming to a head, this was the time to do it. The challenge was to make an interesting scene out of a man filming videos to himself on a deck, and here again I had to rely on the skill of my collaborators. We had to sort of build the language of that sequence as we were shooting it, between the performance, editing, direction and writing. We probably rewrote this more than any scene we’ve ever done, and I think if you listen closely in the final cut, you can hear me typing feverishly on my laptop just offscreen.    The other moment that really scared me was the final one, because I knew we had to get it right. In a season that starts with Innie Mark bolting from an elevator to find his Outie’s wife, we’d long known that his final act would be to turn his back on her, prioritizing his own life and love over that of his “real” self. It had to be both triumphant and agonizing, and communicate the complexity of the journey he, Helly and Gemma have been on. I wrote a bunch of versions with a lot of dialogue, but in the end, we realized that the whole story could be told on the faces of these incredible actors. I’ve never been so proud to have written a scene that mostly just consists of people saying “Mark.”   The episode that takes place between these two scenes is wild, often psychotic, and my favorite chapter of the show so far. Between Milchick and Kier’s vaudeville routine and the elevator murder oopsie, it’s a lot of disparate flavors, but I think it’s held together by the emotional core established in that first and last scene. You could say these moments serve as bookends for the episode, but personally I prefer to think of it as a sandwich. Dan Erickson

[xenomutt]

Tell me about the damn setting!

I finally figured out what the core of the problem was with that book. When characters think about things, it is just a few words (often just "he thought about it") that never go into detail about what the thoughts are or the process of getting there. Characters just constantly make decisions and inferences without telling the reader about them. In a science fiction book that has told me so little about the rules of the setting, I NEED to be able to learn from the characters, but the author always keeps things hidden!

Instead, all the detail goes into describing emotions. But I have no context for them. I was constantly reevaluating my expectations based on how strongly characters reacted to things, but it was all just unsatisfying guess work. I never knew if a character was overreacting or being stoic in the face of disaster or what. Like, if a science fiction story has one character being super stressed about the feeblethorps but a richer character is less stressed, one can infer that feeblethorps are a costly obstacle. But there's a big fucking difference between an annoying extra cost that will cause some short term belt tightening and a cost that requires years to work off. And there was no way to tell which choice the author had made for the setting!

For instance, I posted that I was irritated that HRT was still important in a setting where uploading your mind into a new body is easy. As the book goes on, I gradually got a sense that new bodies were more expensive than I had first assumed. In the last quarter of the damn book, I FINALLY learnes that a new body can cost decades of work. Every earlier bit implied that new bodies were a large cost, something you get insurance to pay for, but still a normal and frequently used part of the setting.

Turns out the setting has crazy wealth disparity that the book just didn't feel like telling me about until it was nearly over. It is a setting with megacorps, but it never told me what the lowest rungs of the economic ladder looked like! Megacorp settings have lots of different ways for the poor to be oppressed, but the book waited so long to tell me what flavor was being used. Until the very end, I had no idea that there were little orphans toiling in factories. I thought it was just wage slavery, and I had no way of knowing otherwise. It just never came up until the end.

I couldn't know this, because I only had the emotions of the characters to go on. I never got solid enough facts to judge those emotions. And the characters only ever reflected on their emotions, not on anything concrete on the setting.

Grumble.

The book was also full of fanfiction tropes, like the big important "Oh" when a character realizes they are in love. A frequent criticism of fanfiction-esque writing is that it assumes the reader already knows the setting and characters, and that sure feels like what happened with this book. All the energy went into the emotional stuff, which is what fanfiction is often said to be best at, and I just never learned enough about the setting to put those emotions in any useful context.

[astecra]

Thoughts of a 23 year old living in a world of ever-evolving Materialism

Thinking of my childhood, and seeing old videos of my childhood homes, I see how many things we had as a family. We didn't have a lot of money and we didn't have a big apartment or any fancy things -but we did have a lot of things. The reason for that is because we took great care of what we had, and made sure to treat it with respect. I was the youngest of three girls, so naturally I had a lot of hand-me-downs. But I don't remember ever being annoyed about the hand-me-downs, or ever having a desire for owning my own things. I never really knew why hand-me-downs didn't bother me the way it seems to bother a lot of other 'youngest' children, but now I realize its because we were all raised, and lived in an environment, where we took care of the things we had. Any of the toys that were handed down to me were in tact. Granted, they didn't look brand new, but they didn't look old or overly used either; they just looked like they had been played with. Like they were loved. The same goes for all the clothes I inherited from my sisters. We now live in a time where two things happen: tangible items, 'things', are being mass produced because people constantly want to buy new things, and people want to constantly buy new things because things are constantly being mass produced. The supply and demand of basically anything you can think of has increased ten fold. And as a result, the quality of everything has significantly decreased, because you simply can't create quality work in a hurry. This then leads to incredibly high prices for things that take a little longer to be made, and feeds into the incredible economic disparity that we are all witnessing and suffering from. Also, obviously this all ties into how labor is being exploited on such a large scale - because it's nearly impossible to ethically produce all of these items in a timespan that meets the demand of consumers. But it really doesn't need to be like this, and we CAN change this. And no, you don't need to stop buying things that you see in the store or online and love, or that you have to restrict yourself from treating yourself to nice things. I'm a taurus, so I constantly see things I like, and rarely don't buy the things I love. I LOVE treating myself. What you can do however, is simply just take care of the things you DO have, value them and maintain them so that you can use them for a long time and wont need to buy something to replace it in a couple months time. This is not only more ethical and ensures you have nice things for a long time, but would also allow you to be more conscious of how you spend your money, and I guarantee that it will save you A LOT of money and make you feel less guilty in times where you do splurge on something. You'll get to buy nicer things because you'll have more financial access to them, which in turn will surely make you to want to take care of the things you buy. I'm not talking about the daily coffee you get that makes your day even just a little better. I'm talking about tangible items intended for long use. You don't need a new set of headphones every year. You don't need a new phone case, or water bottle, or jewelry every couple months. You definitely don't need 90 pairs of shirts. You're not Paris Hilton, chill. It makes me really sad how the quality of everything is decreasing, and how people don't see the value in the things they have anymore. I understand that this is very normal, because its impossible to constantly have something new and recognize the value of it when in a couple months if not weeks or days, you'll just replace it with something even newer. But I miss the simplicity of how things were, and hope we can all someday go back to loving the things we have, instead of being slaves to capitalism and materialism - constantly wanting more and more, and in turn losing the joy, appreciation and acknowledgement of value of the things we do have.

[gatheringbones]

["As they reached their thirties and forties, several of my interviewees lamented, their involvements with other lesbians, as lovers, friends, or simply acquaintances, were often highly emotionally charged and even "merged." As Cindy Ross told me,

Often I felt these incredibly empowering feelings which allowed me to break out of my isolation, and see myself at one with those around me. It was exhilarating and empowering. A lot of the energy I felt for being a lesbian came from the feeling of being a part of community of other lesbians. But sometimes the shit hit the fan. People were hurt. It was difficult for us to say why we did certain things: were we doing them for ourselves, or for our friends? We couldn't tell the difference between the two sometimes.

The earlier tendency to idealize and aristocratize lesbianism had been transformed into a sense that lesbian relationships were particularly problematic. Cindy talked about her realization one day that "everyone in her circle had slept with someone else." It was "fun, exhilarating at times, but also scary. We had lost a sense of ourselves." In the parlance of object relations psychoanalysis, this was a problem of merging: the loss of boundaries between self and other.

Karen Savo joked that when she became a lesbian, she first thought "everything was going to be so great. It was going to be tra-la-land— like you died and went to heaven. Women were going to be the answer to all my problems." She spoke of the way her idealism had faded as she had gotten older, referring in passing to her conflicts with an ex-lover. "But it was really only the beginning of my problems," she laughed. Sharon Liberman recalled witnessing two women she knew in a "marital" quarrel. "I couldn't believe anyone would be involved with a woman if she was going to call you things you would never tolerate a man calling you. One was saying: you bitch. The other was saying: you asshole. To me it was like: what's the big deal about lesbian relationships? They can be just as screwed up as any others— sometimes more so." Others spoke of the "trashings" that had taken place in many lesbian communities: the attacks meted upon women who slept with men, women who brought their boy-children to all-women's events, middle-class women who failed to renounce their "class privileges," and others who dared to step out of line— however the "line" was configured at any particular place and time. Particularly after the mid-1970s, in many lesbian feminist communities separatists initiated border skirmishes, a series of acrimonious battles for inclusion and exclusion that led to frayed nerves and even more rigid community boundaries. As I have suggested, women of color were acutely aware of the limits of such a politics.

Though few of my interviewees mentioned these challenges specifically, they clearly contributed to what I am here calling the "decentering" of lesbian feminism/ The brand of feminism that spoke of retrieving a lost sisterhood, which had animated many individuals' hopes and desires, was losing its clarity of vision. The fun and excitement women experienced during the initial period of lesbian feminist mobilization— posing challenges that had never before been articulated in public, building a new oppositional culture, and reshaping a sense of self— were dissipating.

Clearly, the terms by which sexual and close, nonintimate relations among lesbians were defined made them difficult to live up to. Because the stakes were so high— not only were lesbian relationships highly stigmatized in the dominant culture, but they were also highly prized within the subculture— they were heavily charged in numerous ways. But how could any relationship be devoid of power and conflict? The "aristocratization" of lesbianism had so simplified and romanticized the realities of human existence that when such tensions finally appeared, they were often doubly disturbing, because of the great disparity between expectations and reality. As the "little disappointments" accumulated, the initial euphoria felt by many women in lesbian communities began to fade."]

arlene stein, from sex and sensibility: stories of a lesbian generation, university of california, 1997

[grinchwrapsupreme]

That rarepair bracket got me curious so I went and made a chart of the top 10 pairings in the Torchwood AO3 and uh... well...

huh...

[gyundo]

“I’m so glad I forgot my towel”

Dong Si Cheng (WinWin) x Male Reader!

SMUT!! DNI if under 18!!

Gege kink, muscle kink, underwear kink, size kink

Plot: Y/N is a first year college student and he develops a crush on winwin, his first friend. Little does he realize the implications and depth of Winwin’s attractiveness.

It was Y/N’s first year of college. Choosing to attend a big state university, Y/N was scared that he would drown out in the sea of students and be forgotten once again.

Y/N had always been a quiet boy who kept to himself in high school. He never had many friends due to his interests in drawing, which kept his social battery satisfied. That being said, Y/N never had a crush either.

Ultimately choosing to study Mandarin, Y/N was excited to start in a place where nobody knew him as a quiet nerd who was always drawing all the time.

Y/N’s major was relatively small, yet something (someone one) else that caught his eye wasn’t.

Dong Si Cheng, the prettiest boy Y/N had ever seen, was sitting in the middle of the classroom when Y/N chose to take a seat next to him, entranced by his beauty.

His perfect pecs showing through his compression shirt, and his large back highlighted through its disparity with the back of the chair made Y/N’s heart skip a beat. He had never been attracted to anyone, let alone another boy.

And above all, winwin’s face was so perfect that even a greek sculptor couldn’t have thought of it. His luscious, elegant, and plump lips made Y/N feel a certain way. His eyes, full of warmth and mystery, made Y/N want to get to know him better. But his hair, was the best styled hair Y/N had ever seen.

So simplisitic, yet sicheng’s face was perfectly framed by his evenly cut hair.

“H-Hello, I’m L/N Y/N. ” Y/N muttered as he sat down, staring at Winwin.

“Hey there, I’ve never seen you before. My name’s Sicheng by the way. What year are you?” Winwin questioned.

As the conversation went on, not only Y/N come to realize that only to add to his list of perfections, Winwin also had a great voice, but that he was also one year older than Y/N. Y/N had forgotten that due to his advanced level, he was placed in a second year class.

Winwin asked Y/N to eat lunch with him that day, a gesture which warmed his heart, as nobody had ever asked Y/N for lunch before. He was always used to sitting alone in the cafeteria.

As time went on, Y/N and Winwin got to know each other. Y/N always felt flustered by the interested his senior showed in him and his interests, and he always found himself blushing when he saw the elder in especially attractive clothes.

“Gege—-,” Y/N would often call out when WinWin would grab a drawing object of his and hold it out to where Y/N could not reach it. Y/N was a short boy, (Y/N height) cm, and his precious Sicheng-ge always towered over him at 183 cm. He was always in awe whenever he saw his gege’s large hands, long legs, and well-built body. They sparked a feeling in him that made Y/N want to touch him.

Eventually, Y/N started wondering how large Winwin’s other body parts would be too.

“Wh-WHY am I thinking about how big THAT would be,” Y/N once questioned himself.

Although Y/N was confused about what he felt, he definitely knew it was well beyond what was to be expected in a crush. He knew his senior’s body made him feel a certain pressure in his lower body, although he didn’t know what to do about it.

Eventually, Y/N and Winwin’s friendship got to the point where winwin would often come to Y/N’s house to study with him or just to talk to him and tease him. Winwin also developed a small liking for the small boy. His cute little hands and angry pout whenever he hid something Y/N needed made him feel so precious to be able to share those moments.

It even got to the point where Winwin would stay for days on end, and even a part of Y/N’s closet had Winwin’s clothes for when he’d sleep over instead of in his dorm.

One day, on his usual trip back from the gym, winwin realized he forgot to bring clothes to change into after his workout and shower.

Thinking it was no big deal, winwin took off his shirt and walked over to Y/N’s place to help the younger with some of the idioms or cheng yu, that he was struggling with memorizing.

However, a monster awoke inside Y/N when he saw his half-naked gege opening the door to his apartment.

The washboard abs, strands of hair cling to his forehead with sweat, along with the well defined biceps and pecs that Y/N admired out in the open, was too much for him to bear.

Just as winwin was about to sit down, he also took off his sweat-drenched shorts next to Y/N before sitting down with only his boxers on. The smell of sweat with winwin’s musk made Y/N instantly blush and he felt his own asshole begin to quiver.

Y/N was unable to memorize any cheng yu, trying to memorize the shape of winwin’s muscles instead and trying to sneak a peak at the shape of his bulge instead.

He did, however, get to see Sicheng’s well developed thighs, which he wanted to touch so badly.

Winwin got up quickly, saying, “Y/N, you’ve been really out of it today. I hope you’re okay and I’ll go take a shower here before we try it again, okay”. He hugged Y/N to show his support, unaware that the waves of musk made Y/N feel a huge pressure in his lower body.

Just As Winwin was about to go into the bathroom, he took off his underwear outside and headed in to take a shower.

Y/N quietly sitting at the dining table, still reeling from the pheromone influx he got from the hug, was not ready to smell a huge amount of winwin’s musk again. It was like winwin’s underwear was a candle, releasing scent everywhere.

Y/N, feeling dizzy, walked to winwin’s underwear and slowly brought it to his mouth and nose. He began to sniff it deeply, and it brought out moans that Y/N had never made before. He quietly took the underwear with him to his bedroom, where he thought he could sit until his erection subsided.

However, Sicheng quickly rushed out of the bathroom and forgot to knock before opening Y/N’s room.

“Do you have a—-,” Winwin was about to ask, before he spotted Y/N, with his eyes closed, sniffing his briefs loudly.

Quietly walking over to Y/N, he shook the boy before admitting, “I didn’t know you where into me like that, Y/N.”

Y/N was left speechless as winwin got on top of him and started kissing him. Oh, how Y/N had wanted to know how his gege’s lips felt.

Winwin ripped off Y/N clothes and brought his cock close to his mouth before quietly putting the tip in his mouth.

“No-Gege-AAAH,” Y/N exclaimed as winwin quietly sucked on his cock. Sicheng, excited that Y/N was so attracted to his body, was excited to see his reaction when Y/N would finally see his cock.

“Now, it’s time for you to do that to gege with your small, cute little mouth,” Winwin grinned at Y/N.

Y/N was shocked as he saw his gege’s huge cock, roughly about 10 inches long, with a fat vein on the right side. His boy pussy felt extremely shaky, as it quivered upon this sight.

“Suck on it, baobei,” Winwin said as he brought Y/N’s mouth closer to his cock. As if it was instinct, Y/N immediately wrapped his lips around winwin’s cock, which barely fit in his small mouth.

Feeling winwin’s large hand on his head guiding him, Y/N began deepthroating Sicheng’s dong, while enjoying the heat winwin’s large fingers were exerting on his head.

Winwin had never felt such tightness in his life, and he rolled his eyes back as Y/N stared at his abs and thighs, touching them with his little hands.

Tears began to come out of Y/N eyes as his gege’s cock was still trying to fit in his mouth all the way. His throat felt full and despite being unable to breathe, the sweaty, musky taste of his crush’s large dick made him feel like he ascended to a seventh heaven. His nose in winwin’s crotch, the center of all the musky glory, made his stomach churn and want to taste more.

As winwin pulled his cock out of Y/N’s mouth, he could tell Y/N wanted something. Y/N immediately stood up and started licking Winwin’s armpits.

“Gege, I want to- I want to taste the way you smell. You smell so manly and good I can’t get enough of it,” he proclaimed as winwin flexed his biceps, which Y/N quickly moved his lips over. Winwin then sat down on the bed, and Y/N moved his mouth to Sicheng’s crotch, inhaling it over and over as he licked Sicheng’s huge dick, and sucked on his balls, as winwin continued to moan.

“Gege, I need something more, and I want more of this addictive feeling, but I don’t know what else we can do. I feel sad when I think this is the limit of how much I can absorb you.”

“Xingan, there’s much more we can do. Just be prepared for this to hurt a little bit,” Winwin moved his hands to Y/N upper chest, where he toyed with his nipples and then moved his fingers up to Y/N’s mouth.

“A natural slut,” Winwin thought as Y/N sucked his fingers like he enjoyed every ounce of musk on them. Y/N was so addicted to the feeling of winwin’s large body on top of him and feeling his large hands all over his chest, that he wasn’t prepare for when sicheng’s fingers began to touch his asshole.

“GEGE, it’s dirty there,” Y/N complained as Winwin pushed one finger inside, “ah-UNG”.

Y/N, as if instinctively for his virgin self, began to spread his legs open wider for winwin to finger him at a better angle.

Drool came out of Y/N’s mouth as winwin’s long finger hit a spot inside him. “AAANG,” Y/N yelled.

“Gege’s gonna push his huge cock inside this virgin bussy of yours and wreck it so good, you won’t be able to walk next week. I’m gonna make you pregnant and give you a present for saving yourself just for me,” Winwin said with a sexy smirk.

Y/N put his hands on Sicheng’s huge, muscular shoulders, as he was unprepared for what was to come. Thoughts about how it would feel and whether his ass could ever stretch back were overpowered by excitement of taking his gege’s oozing manliness and being able to interact with his large body.

Yes, what Y/N had subconsciously wanted all this time was to be dicked down by winwin, and treated like his personal boy toy. He wanted to be bred by the possessor of such a huge, muscular body. He wanted to feel his large body parts all over his petite frame and to marvel at the size difference.

“You ready?” Sicheng asked as he aligned his top at Y/N’s entrance. Y/N nodded, and Sicheng began to rub his tip up and down Y/N’s entrance to not only make Y/N want him more, but to also make precum for his cock to slide in easier because once sicheng would penetrate him, he wasn’t going to stop until he and Y/N cum repeatedly.

Seeing Y/N’s eyes that screamed he needed to be fucked, Sicheng pushed his large cock roughly into Y/N’s cute hole all at once. Tears immediately formed at Y/N’s eyes, as he hadn’t felt anything inside his ass before, but now a large, 10 inch cock was bulging his stomach and his hole felt overstuffed.

However, just the thought of Winwin inside of him and touching his still-sweaty back, Y/N’s horniness overpowered everything, even the pain and small drops of blood that came from the tiny rips from Sicheng’s huge cock penetrating him so roughly.

“Sorry, my precious Y/NN, I just couldn’t stand it anymore and I wanted to give you the cock you’ll be getting for the rest of your life right now,” Winwin said as he sluttily kicked his lips.

Y/N immediately began moaning, “AAAH SO-SO GOOD,” as Sicheng began to move his cock in and out of Y/N’s small ass.

Y/N couldn’t stop touching Winwin’s abs and enjoying the feeling of his thick thighs on his own body, in fact, winwin’s thighs seemed to provide warmth all the way until 5 inches from Y/N’s ankles. He loved how the taller man encapsulated his being, and wanted to be wrecked even more by him.

Y/N continued to mutter “G-ge-GEGE,” as he would try to say how good it felt to be stuffed by winwin’s huge, sweaty cock and how nice the residetual sweat from his body felt to him, and how good it felt to be taking such a large man.

Winwin moaned as he felt his cock almost being cut off with the tightness of Y/N’s hole, and he repeatedly began taking half of his cock out and pushing it back into Y/N from a different angle to stimulate his prostate.

In a state of euphoria he had never felt before, Y/N’s body felt hotter than he knew possible, until Sicheng leaned over him to lick his lips.

Opening his lips out of pleasure, his senior swirled their tongues together in a marvelous dance that connected them in another, wet dimension, as they both felt they could enjoy this moment forever. As winwin broke the kiss and left Y/N’s entrancing mouth, a thick strand of saliva connected his and Y/N’s lips.

Winwin immediately increased the pace of his thrusts to keep his junior in a state of constant pleasure. Y/N continued to yell for more and winwin kept dicking him down, addicted to the feeling of using the small boy as a cocksleeve.

Growing to a proud 5.3 inches itself, Y/N’s cock turned red and rock solid as Y/N felt an unfamiliar churning throughout his whole body.

Seeing the younger’s obsession with his body and cock, winwin stuffed his underwear into Y/N’s mouth before proceeding to pound him mercilessly.

“Take that, you slut. You love my body and want me so bad, so take all of my huge dick. I’ll fuck you so good you’ll only want me from now on, and you won’t be able to cum without me. I’m gonna breed you and cream you so good, cum will be dripping out of your ass for hours”

Y/N’s hole seemed to grow wider as Winwin repeatedly pushed his manhood inside of it, at a rate that was only increasing. Y/N, on the other hand, felt his eyeballs roll all the way to the back of his head from taking winwin’s huge manhood, basking in his musk, and touching his large body.

Winwin’s slapping of Y/N’s ass made it unbearable, and as Winwin pushed his tip right next to Y/N’s prostrate, a huge amount of cum spurted out of Y/N’s cock, splattering Winwin’s abs and chest.

Y/N’s body, wanting to absorb and take as much Sicheng as possible, still kept taking and enjoying the overstimulation . Winwin flipped over Y/N so they were in a reverse cowboy position and moved his humungous, veiny cock back into Y/N’s hole with a speed unmatchable by animals in heat.

Clasping Y/N down and kissing him more as he groaned, Sicheng’s cock shook around Y/N’s organs as it reached its climax and shot a huge spurt of delicious, thicc, juicy cum all over Y/N’s formerly virgin walls.

Y/N loved this feeling and realized that no matter how great the drawings he made were, the best painting was inside his own anus, made by the one he found created sexier than all.

Cum leaked out of Y/N’s ass as Winwin took his cock out. So much semen was inside him that Y/N felt half as full as he did with Winwin’s cock inside him.

“Gege, I love this. You’re gonna make me pregnant.”

Winwin admired his work as his cum leaked out of Y/N gaping hole that he made that way, by the tablespoons.

“I’m so glad I forgot my towel,” Winwin said before pushing his still/hard cock into Y/N and beginning to do him again mercilessly for what would turn into 4 hours.

Author’s Note: I would like to say that this is the first fan fiction i’ve ever written, the first smut, and I wrote this at 3 am! Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you thought. I’d also like to dedicate this to @jiyeonnnn, one of my most favorite male smut writers on this website!

[we-are-so-close]

Better Man pt. II

Pt. I Pt. III Porco Galliard x fem!reader ; Canon Divergent word count: ~2.4k |18+ Minors Do Not Interact Please| warnings: reader has amnesia/gets headaches and blacks out; reader has derogatory remarks made about her a/n: this is part two of my entry for the Paramour Collab hosted by @blkladyelle ! I'm really excited that I'm able to participate in this. I really tried to write smut in here, but I just couldn't find the right words. Feedback is always appreciated!

Background: A few months have passed since part I. Reader and Porco have grown closer since the rooftop outing. The warriors were allowed to go home for a day in order to spend time with their families.

"You're sure this is okay?"

"Yes."

"And Zeke was fine with this?"

"Yes."

"And I'm not going to impose or be a burden or anything?"

"No." He stopped walking and turned to face you. "You aren't a burden and everything is going to be okay. Now, stop asking questions and stay by me."

The blue band on your arm was enough of an indication to let those around you know that you didn't belong. You wished you could cover it up, tell the people that you're on their side, you fight for them. But hiding or removing the band was a very serious offense. A punishment that outweighed how embarrassed you felt. But being around Porco did ease your nerves ever so slightly. 

"Porco, I-I'm nervous." You fiddled with your fingers as you tried to keep in pace with him. "Everyone hates me."

Without missing a beat, Porco replied, "I don't hate you, ______."

Heat rose to your face, a little lump caught in your throat. "I’m glad you don’t hate me. Your opinion means a lot to me."

He quirked an eye at you and panic screamed through your body. That was supposed to remain a thought; he wasn’t supposed to know how big of an impact his opinion had on your well-being.

"Ahh, please forget that last part."

"Hm...are you going to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks of you?"

"Yes, I'll stop."

"Then perhaps it'll slip my mind."

The rest of the walk was silent, your thoughts trying to sabotage you every step of the way. The two of you were stopped once by some officers, and panic stretched through every part of your body. Porco did the talking and showed the officers a note that was signed by Zeke and Commander Magath. They deemed it valid enough and let the two of you go on your way. 

"You okay?" He asked as soon as you were out of earshot of the officers. 

"Mhmm," you hummed shakily as you nodded. 

"We're almost there," he reassured you. 

The houses in this part of town were very rugged. It made you realize the disparity between the classes of people. The closer you got to one of the houses, the heavier your legs became. His parents were not going to see you the way Porco did. 

An older woman rushed from the front porch and hugged Porco. 

"Welcome home, dear. It's been too long. Go inside and freshen up, dinner will be ready soo-" She stopped talking when she saw you. 

"Porco, why is this filth in our yard?" Her eyes scanned you up and down.

"Ma, this is ______. She's a warrior like me. She's been fighting by our side for a couple of years."

You give a meager wave, knowing that nothing you say or do will convince her that you aren't evil.

"I do not want this devil in my yard, let alone in my house. It has to go."

"Ma, she's not a devil. She's actually really nice and a great warrior."

"Really nice? You tell that to your brother." Her eyes were piercing, and it made Porco flinch. 

"She's not like the ones who took Marcel. She's different. Give her a chance, please."

She stared at you hard. It was one of the most uncomfortable things you had ever felt. You knew what she was thinking; you were evil and the reason why one of her sons never came back home. And could you be the reason her other son might not come back home? You wanted to tell Porco that it's okay, you could just go back to the barracks. But you knew you couldn't go back on your own. 

Porco hugged the woman, effectively breaking her gaze from you. She seemed to let up her incessant bickering and told him to make sure you acted right in their home. She walked back inside and Porco came back to you. 

"I'm sorry you had to hear that. She's a really good person once you get to know her." He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. You couldn't be angry with her; in a way, you knew this would be the reaction you were bound to receive. 

"It's okay. Just tell me what are the rules of your parents' household." 

Porco spent the next few minutes explaining the expectations of his parents. His mom was more strict than his father, but he wasn't a pushover. 

"Just...let me lead. You'll be fine." He put his hand on the small of your back, and your whole body felt like it was on fire. He guided you to the front door where you both took your shoes off. He led you to the dinner table, making sure you sat right next to him. His parents were on the opposite side of the table as you two. 

Porco prepared his plate and then he prepared a plate for you (if you had to guess, his ma might have yelled at him for preparing your plate before his). Sitting as quiet as a mouse, you graciously ate the food that had been prepared. The dinner was mostly silent, with Porco answering his parents' questions with one or two word answers. Every now and then your focus shifted from your plate to Porco. You dared not linger too long, because it felt as though his parents were boring holes into you with their stares. Their hate and disgust did not go unnoticed by either you or Porco.

“Pock,” his father started, his eyes not leaving his plate, “we’ve been gracious enough to let her into our house and eat our food, but our patience is just about out. She needs to leave.”

Embarrassment began to spread from your stomach up to your face. Your heartbeat began to pound in your head. 

“Pops, she hasn’t even said a word since she’s been here. You haven’t even given her a chance.”

“She doesn’t deserve anything from us. She doesn’t deserve the kindness you’re showing her. She’s a devil, and the only thing she knows how to do is take and deceive and hurt.” His silverware clinked loudly onto his plate, effectively cutting off Porco’s next words. 

The tension in the room was thick, an argument was bound to erupt. Porco was fighting for a lost cause, and you didn’t want him to be on bad terms with his parents. 

“Ma, Pops, you-”

“It’s okay, I can go,” you whispered as you gently and discreetly placed your hand on Porco’s thigh. His deep scowl slowly melted away as he looked at you. It made the thumping in your head pound even harder. Scooting the chair out from the table, you stood and bowed deeply toward the Galliards. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Galliard, thank you for allowing me into your home and for the lovely dinner. I will see myself out.”   

The voices of the Galliards rang through your head as you made your way to the front door. This whole trip had been wishful thinking, but deep down you knew that you were never going to convince people that you were anything but a devil. The emotions you were feeling were overwhelming, and, in addition to your headache, you weren’t able to think straight. 

“______, wait.” 

“Just give me the note from Zeke and I can go back. At least then you can spend some time with your family.” The room began to move, causing you to place one on your hands on the wall for stability as you tried to put your shoes on. 

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about, Porco. I knew this would happen. It’s okay.” You held out your hand waiting for him to give you what you needed. A sharp pain shot across your head, causing you to wince. 

“Is-is it your head, again?” Porco asked with concern. 

“Yeah,” you groaned. “It’ll be fine. I just need to get back before it gets too bad.” A cry of pain escaped your lips. You began to grow dizzy and the room started to fade to black. The last thing you heard was Porco’s voice calling your name. 

Screaming. Thundering. Whirling. Specks of light appear just out of your line of sight. You feel as though you are running as fast as you can, but something is holding you in place. You are shouting for someone, but your voice is stuck in your throat. Tears are streaming down your face. You reach your hand out in front of you, hoping to grab onto whatever you were trying to hold. 

You awoke with a gasp, sitting straight up, tears gently falling from your eyes. Using the back of your hand, you wiped your face, taking away any evidence of the dream you hoped you didn’t have to relive. A second or two pass by before your eyes fully readjusted to the room you were in. It was unfamiliar, but still comforting. A pristine, untouched bed sat on the opposite side of the room from you, a desk and chair sat in front of the window, and a bookshelf and a couple of dusty toys in the corner. A room for children. Or what used to be a room for children. 

“Hey, you’re awake! Don’t sit up too fast.” Porco was by your side immediately helping you to lay back down. 

“Where am I?”

“You’re in my bedroom. You fainted at the front door, so I brought you in here to rest. Um, here, I also brought this.” He placed a cool washcloth over your forehead. His hand grazed over your jawline, but he quickly pulled away. “You’ll have to stay here for the night; it’s too late for us to go back to the barracks.” He was shuffling through a closet and pulled out a pillow and blanket. He tossed them on the floor in front of his bed. 

“You can sleep in my bed and I’ll crash on the floor.”

“What? No.” You sat up again, staring hard at Porco. “This is your bed, your home. I’m sure your parents aren’t thrilled that I have to stay. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“You have a head injury. The floor is not suited for you. Quit being such a pain in the ass.”

“Bite me, Galliard,” you growled. 

He laughed. It was a genuine laugh and it had become one of your favorite sounds. You couldn’t stay mad or upset when you heard him laugh. 

“Porco,” a voice from the hallway called out.

“Hm, I’ll be right back.”

Carefully, you stood up to make up your spot on the floor. The quarrel Porco had between his parents was all on your behalf, and you didn’t want to be the reason they stayed angry at him nor did you want to give them more of a reason to hate you. So, the floor for one night was more than enough of a fair trade. 

"Did I not say that you could have the bed?" Porco asked as he closed the door behind him.

"You did, but," you paused to reflect on how harsh this might sound, "but I'm not wanted here, and don't deserve the luxury of a bed."

The air stilled and neither one of you moved or looked at each other.

"But I wanted you here," he finally said, breaking the awkward silence that lingered between you. "It's my fault you're even feeling like this in the first place. I just wanted my parents to feel the same way I feel about you. But I misjudged their perspective." He knelt down beside you and hoisted you back up onto the bed. He sat on the floor with his back against the bed frame, hands running through his hair.

"And how do you feel about me?"

"Just forget it. I've already made a fool of myself. It was stupid to bring you here."

The bed creaked as you got off of it once more.

"Will you stay in the damn be-"

He was caught off guard. The last thing he was expecting was for you to kiss him. Especially after everything he put you through today. Before he could register that you were actually kissing him, you pulled away.

A burning heat rushed to your face when you noticed his confused look. The thought of ruining the only good thing you had going for you in this place raced through your mind.

"Porco, I'm sorry! I thought you..I mean...I...I..."

In an instant, Porco's lips softly found their way onto yours. He lifted you up onto the bed without breaking the kiss. Heavy breathing and the sounds of you trying to catch your breath between each touch of your lips filled the room.

"______," he said in between breaths.

"Yes?" You responded back in between another breath.

He pulled away for a brief moment so that he could look you in the eyes.

"______, I've been thinking about this for a while. Trying to figure out my feelings...how you make me feel." He paused, his eyes leaving yours, trying to gather up the courage to say what he needed. One last sharp inhale through his nose before he finally got it out. "I love you."

A feeling of warmth and happiness filled you. Your hands rested on either side of his face, gently moving him toward you. The pads of your thumbs brushing over his cheekbones, your eyes scanning over his face. When his eyes met yours, you leaned up and whispered, “I love you, too,” before kissing him again.

The rest of the night was spent in Porco’s embrace. The silence that normally sat awkwardly between the two of you finally felt calm and comfortable. Legs intertwined, his arms wrapped around you, your face buried in his chest; all of this gave you a sense of belonging. For the first time since you could remember, you felt wanted, you felt safe, you felt loved. A sense of peace and happiness befell you as the both of you drifted off to sleep. When you woke up in the morning, there was nothing that could take away what Porco had just given you. 

[therealvinelle]

Hi, I was reading a post here in Tumblr about how Edward has two gifts, he can hear thoughts and is super fast, so I wonder what is your opinion about this topic?.

Furthermore, what others power might the Volturi's leaders and guards might have?

Edward has one gift, and it’s telepathy. Being fast isn’t a gift.

Strength, speed and even senses is varied among vampires. Some, like Emmett, are on the extreme end, but that doesn’t make Emmett gifted, nor does it mean that the rest are at an equal level. The Cullens have clear variations between them.

Physique appears to play a dominant role in how these variations play out: Alice, who was malnourished and never made it past 4′10″, is the physically weakest of the coven, while Emmett at 6′5″ and a mountain of muscles is the strongest. This is made very clear during the baseball game:

“Emmett was hovering close to third (base), knowing that Alice didn’t have the muscle to outstrip Rosalie’s fielding." (Midnight Sun, chapter The Game)

There’s also the fact that it’s taken for granted that Emmett would be intimidating to other vampires, and he is dismayed when James is more worried about Jasper, who is lean.

I suspect this disparity exists simply because a large frame means more tissue to have blood in. Newborns, animal, and human-eating vampires all having a difference in terms of strength is proof that blood has the final say in a vampire’s prowess, so Emmett being able to contain more of it than Alice and therefore being stronger makes sense to me.

This isn’t the meta for me to get into that, but I don’t think vampires have muscles in the sense we do. Or rather, we can’t know that they do. Renesmée is proof that Edward retains his human DNA, or she would be a clone of Bella. Nahuel is proof that Joham retains a Y-chromosome. Does this mean that vampires have different cell types? Does a vampire’s stone-like skin still contain human DNA? One would think yes - except, if you rip a vampire apart, you get rubble. The parts are all solid. There’s also Carlisle theorizing that vampires digest blood by absorbing it through porous tissue, which makes me wonder why he dismissed his digestive system (my guess: vivisection fun times with Aro in Volterra. Carlisle couldn’t have done it on his own, and Aro is the only one mad and curious enough to be down for that). I’m getting off-topic - what I’m saying is, we don’t know how vampires work, meaning I can’t build this meta off of the assumption that they have muscles. I simply can’t know for sure that they do.

The important thing is that a vampire’s physique is a deciding factor in how strong they are.

There’s also Laurent’s warning about James, that he has “unparalleled senses”, meaning some vampires are better at sight, hearing, and smell than others. I can believe that, because we have canon examples of vampires being bad at tracking.

There’s Edward in Port Angeles, who couldn’t track Bella’s, his singer, scent to her location, and (I admit this one is conjecture but it’s so probable that I say it goes) Carlisle’s creator, who after taking care of the mob must have realized he’d bitten one of the humans, meaning a newborn would soon be loose in London. This is punishable by death by the Volturi. The fact that he didn’t return to finish Carlisle off means that he was unable to find him. I remind the audience that Carlisle was bleeding and suffering the effects by a venom intended to paralyze the victim. To put it this way, Carlisle wouldn’t have survived James, or anybody with a trace of tracking competence. By comparison, Carlisle was able to locate a dying Rosalie by the smell of her blood, even though there wouldn’t have been a trail for him to follow, as her body had not been moved.

When it comes to these disparities in strength and speed among the Volturi, I imagine Jane and Alec are the physically weakest members of the guard, and among the slowest. They’re prepubescent, meaning no muscle for them, and their height (a humble 4′8″ and 4′10″) implies very short legs. They’re simply not going to get as far as an adult would, not in the same number of steps. Renata at 5′0″ is another tiny vampire lady who likely isn’t very strong or fast.

That’s not to say I think these physically weaker members of the Volturi guard are necessarily useless in hand-to-hand combat, Alec at least is a boy stuck in a playful age, and the males around him are trained warriors. He’s probably picked up a few things over the years.

As for the others, Aro is described as frail-looking, which hints at him being quite thin. I don’t think he’s weak, if he couldn’t win a fight he wouldn’t be around, but I do think he’s probably below average in terms of strength. Caius I picture as a Harrison Ford type, so of course I’m gonna think he’s a bit burly, but this is me headcanoning and not actually hinted at in canon. Marcus is 19, so I imagine he can only be so strong.

Back to Edward’s speed.

He’s a 6′2″ teen, that’s code for “very long legs”, though I’m actually going to go ahead and posit that he’s not actually that fast. Strap in for this next part:

The guy was a teenager who lay dying for an undisclosed amount of time. The fact that Carlisle had the time to get to know his mother points to a few weeks, at least. And Edward was very ill:

Elizabeth worried obsessively over her son. She hurt her own chances of survival trying to nurse him from her sickbed. I expected that he would go first, he was so much worse off than she was. (New Moon, page 21)

Muscles atrophy quickly, never more so than when you’re a teen ravaged by fever, on your deathbed. And as I’ve explained above, I think your physique in life ties directly into your vampiric prowess.

I think Edward is certainly the physically weakest of the male Cullens, quite likely weaker than Rosalie as well, maybe even Esme.

Now, speed is not the same as strength. However, for humans, the two are connected. It’s the muscle fibers in our legs that determine our speed. Basically, type I fibers make an enduring runner, type II fibers make a speed runner. So, assuming that vampires retain their human musculature, one could argue that Edward had a lot of type II in life. However, Carlisle when he was human was able to outrun the mob he was with:

He ran through the streets, and Carlisle — he was twenty-three and very fast — was in the lead of the pursuit. (Twilight, page 158)

Carlisle clearly had a lot of type II fibers, and unlike Edward he was in peak physical condition when he died. He was also an adult who’d had more time to develop musculature, while Edward was a seventeen-year-old. If musculature was a deciding factor, one would think they would at the very least be of equal speed, though realistically Edward should be slower.

So, if it’s not muscles, what is it that makes Edward faster than the others?

It could be a matter of technique. Except, the way Bella describes movement when she wakes up as a vampire, it’s all very automated. Her body knows exactly how to do everything, and executes it without much input from her:

After that first frozen second of shock, my body responded to the unfamiliar touch in a way that shocked me even more.

Air hissed up my throat, spitting through my clenched teeth with a low, menacing sound like a swarm of bees. Before the sound was out, my muscles bunched and arched, twisting away from the unknown. I flipped off my back in a spin so fast it should have turned the room into an incomprehensible blur—but it did not. I saw every dust mote, every splinter in the wood-paneled walls, every loose thread in microscopic detail as my eyes whirled past them.

So by the time I found myself crouched against the wall defensively—about a sixteenth of a second later—I already understood what had startled me, and that I had overreacted. (Breaking Dawn, page 251-252)

Growling, crouching - those are all distinctly vampiric, non-human ways to act. Bella didn’t learn this, her body knew it of its own accord. When she later runs, she explains it as happening the same way - she just does it.

The way Bella experiences it, vampiric movement is like a package she downloaded, and that executes her instinctual commands with no need for her to actually know how to do any of this. Her grace is another example of this - Bella Swan may be in charge of her own consciousness, but the venom is entirely in control of her body.

Given these facts, I don’t think it’s technique that makes Edward a better runner than others. His technique is likely similar to everyone else’s. If it isn’t, if technique is what makes the difference, then who is and isn’t fast is an arbitrary process.

With that, we get to my controversial theory about why Edward is the fastest Cullen: he’s not.

Running and being fast is the only thing about vampirism that Edward enjoys. This is for another meta, but Edward is extremely depressed about every single other bit of it. Every aspect of being a vampire torments him.

Except the running. He enjoys all of it, especially being the fastest, so much. And as a newborn, he would have been faster than Carlisle.

But after that, when his newborn strength faded…

I honestly think that Carlisle decided to just slow down a bit when running with him, let Edward have this. It’s no skin of his back, and it makes Edward happy, so why not.

Esme joins the family, and of course she would be down for this. Nothing is more parental, more maternal, than losing at checkers to make your child happy, after all. Could also be she’s not very fast herself, but even if she were then she would downplay it to make Edward feel like Jesse Owens.

Enter Rosalie, who would think it’s completely ridiculous, yes, but she would also recognize this excellent opportunity to call in a big favor from Carlisle later on. There’s also the fact that I think Carlisle has a gift (yes, yes, meta is coming, people) that makes him very persuasive people. And also that for all that Rose gets a lot of bad rep, she is very generous and loves her family, if being fast makes Edward happy then alright.

Emmett is an easy-going guy, he goes along with things. Alice adores Edward and would go along with it. She also has tiny matchstick legs and couldn’t outrun him if she tried. Jasper could not care less.

Bella does get outrun by Edward after waking up, but she also did zero exercise in life (listing this in case musculature matter), had Renesmée devour her from within rendering her emaciated, and then died like a slasher movie murder victim. There’s not a lot of blood in her, and what little blood there is doesn’t have a lot to work with. She does defeat Emmett at arm wrestling, so I’ll concede that. However, there are enough extenuating circumstances surrounding Bella that I think my “Edward isn’t that fast” theory survives his ability to outrun her.

So, I believe Edward is the fast Cullen because Carlisle told a white lie in 1919, no one ever corrected that, and now it’s too late.

[ficsnroses]

𝑯𝒊𝒔 - 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐜

johnny silverhand x fem! V [reader]. 

summary : johnny and you both want this, a physical exchange to feel relief. 

warnings : smut, nsfw. rough unprotected sex. swearing. 2.5k words. no spoilers other than johnny’s status.

notes : something new! next to zero plot, just some good ol fucking each other’s brains out smut. I had a lot of fun writing this, might write some more fics for him if readers are interested. enjoy! feedback appreciated as always. also! i’d love to read some johnny fics if you have recommendations :)

She’s slipping away, day by day by day.

Exhilarating, exhausting. The steps under her feet hurt, they mock. With each dragged, littered breath trudged out her lips, she crumbles. Crumbles in what feels as if the boneyard of a dream; the debris of a reverie.

She hurts, she needs relief. Something temporary to match what swills inside.

Relief that would come in something more than amber kissed crystal glasses, something stronger than the wash of bitter liquor searing down her throat. Alcohol feats in her head- but so does he.

He feats in her head, he’s taking over. Day by day, by day.

“Hey highness, why don’t you make yourself useful and get more smokes.”

His voice comes in loud barrels, thuds of lightening that crash in her veins. It’s sharp, pronounced. Gravelly, a contrast, disparity to her quieter, mellower one- one that caused a ruckus to be heard for the entirety of her being, to be remembered.

Yet, it hadn’t gotten her far. She’d been far from what she’d dreamt.

       Her voice, her quiet, broken voice that plead to be heard.

He stands crisp, muscled back brave against the cold metallic wall. Broken drags and hostile exhales haste out his throat, the tared smoke serving as a dire remembrance of what he used to be.

Real.

“Gonna move or what?” Strong, cynical. The tone he spits is rough, pessimistic. He’d come as a parasite, something humane no more, driven by a dream, a delusion. His delusion, he’d use her for. There’s no affliction in his voice, no compassion. His voice registers dimly through the rumble of her own agony.

Somewhere along blurred lines, parasitic growls became usual; anticipated.

It’s tough being angry at someone who hears you.

And somewhere along the dreary lines, he’d felt it too.

It’s tough being angry at someone who sees you. Sees someone, the world had long forgotten.

Her voice comes in sharp daggers, strident. “Shut up.” Long for relief brews in her nerves, threatens to overtake. Threatens to destruct. “Shut the fuck up for one second” She growls, a low huff under her breath. The burn is breaking her, the yearn scorches inside long empty walls.

He knows too, he senses the deliberation inside her. He feels it in cold, chilled ghastly bones. He could help her, and she could help him, with something more than the mission at stake. Something sinfully bigger than the dream.

Something to feel human, again. He walks, a hologram that leaves louder, heavier steps than anyone she’d known prior. She feels a tingle; a twitch in her skin ignites, she feels a dark warmth.

It comes from him; it calls from his body.

“You’re an asshole. Nothing more.” She pierces, the toxins fall her lips, a desperate attempt to keep him away. Keep him out.

The drags of his steps thud louder in her head, the shift of his holographic form closer. There’s a hoarse gravel in his throat, something so negative, yet so familiar. So painfully familiar. He lives inside her, he’s all she’s began to remember. “Cigarettes make me feel something.” The cool air that stings the nape of her neck sends a shiver down her spine. “Something fucking real for once.”

“Fuck off.” She spits, avoiding a sworn intense gaze. Her stare in the abyss out the distant paned windows causes a churn in her mid, something sickening. A quiet realization falls, creeping.

“You’re taking over me.”

A chuckle off his mouth, a smirk curled to his thin taut lips. “We are bound.” He growls. “And I am owed.”

Chained; she reminds herself. You are chained, shackled to him.

“You’re owned nothing.” She grits. He watches the way she tenses, visibly burning.

In his hallow shell of a mind long forgotten, he’d undressed her a thousand times; watched the way she slept so vulnerably, thought of the way the threads that hug her body like a lover could peel off so easily. So sinfully. “Can’t help but wonder what this pretty pussy of yours could make me feel instead.” A growl emits his throat, stocked fingers finding their way palming thin fabric shielding her cunt from prying gaze.

And the touch that registered leaves her panting. His touch, something she’d never felt before, was real. He was real. This ghost that drowns in her every thought was existent as day, dark as night.

“You want me, as much as I want you.” His voice comes in drowned out waves; the long inside her body for something physical slowly enveloping. “Fucking say it.”

She dreams of relief, of release. She dreams of good, pleasure that could wash her lungs; quench the burn. She dreams of something more than the familiar scald of liquor sent in cascades down her throat. She dreams of something physical, something filthy to satiate relief.

Sex starved, she succumbs. Sex longing, he smirks, and smirks,

       and smirks.

Stop, says her mind.

Go, haunts her body. Let him use you the way you’ve always wanted.

“Fuck me.” She mutters, breath rugged, crisp desperation rung on shade stained lips. “Fuck me. Now.”  The words rip, long pent frustrations urge. He’s far too appealing, perfectly groomed beard and lengthy locks raven on his mane; toned muscles, cryptic bolded ink litter his skin. Deep-rooted ink bedecks his un robotic arm, and she sighs at the way his smirk induced lips crawl at her neck. Lingering kisses, gentle bites leaving faint purple bruises to her delicate skin;

Something about the way he speaks, the way his touch held the power of a million fucking bullets.

Unmatched, unprecedented.

Cold and stoic, his bionic hand plants to her chest, above the valley of perfectly plump breasts. Slowly, he guides, her body finding refuge on her bed covered in a sea of soft sheets and cottoned pillows. The same bed, where she knew he’d fuck her into oblivion, now that she’d asked.

A fire burns in his belly, a smoke that matches lustrous eyes roving and bulging pants. Through brown leather, the outline of his impressive cock causes a gulp in her throat, the anticipation tightening in her ached cunt, long yearned for the fruit of any friction. “Take everything off.” His shallow voice demands, and she watches the way he palms a throbbing cock shielded from her gaze.

Johnny was equipped, experienced; expert to say the least. He knew well how to please a woman, how to mix the perfect blend of pain and pleasure. If there’s one thing groupie affairs taught;

all pussy is good, but only few, came heavenly.

He’d known since he’d saw her, since their first encounter. There’d been no place he’d wanted to be buried guts deep, no place as tight, warm, inviting than her cunt. Her movements follow obliged, skimpy cloth and thin bottoms tugged off for his view. Amatory lace bottoms and a matching bra unhook through the brittle fingers of her hands; her eyes never leave him. The way his prying eyes dig into hers, piercing. He palms, and strokes, cold hands moving to unbuckle a heavy belt that falls to the floor with a dense thud.

In the chilled air of the futuristic room, a cold shiver pecks at her skin; inch by inch a warmth blazes inside. The anticipation of what Johnny would, could do to her. He could destroy her.

He could ruin her, with every thrust.

Much to his splendour, her bare breasts sit perfectly swollen on her chest, pert, hardened nipples vibrant with tint. Silky skin, perfectly dewy. She was a fucking goddess in her own right; a sex siren his cock pulses for, in dire need. A flush to her skin ignites, visibly frustrated. “Haven’t been fucked in a while, have you.” He states firmly, less of a question than proclamation. A cold, robotic finger grazes her bottom lip, stony, iced, a snicker loiters. “Or haven’t been fucked well?” His finger trails down, gently, sub-zero, feather light as it glosses her skin, brushed against the petals, the slippery folds of her tender womanhood; two digits enter, curling inside her beautifully slick, warm walls.

“You’re gonna remember me for days, princess. Gonna wreck this pretty pussy of yours, show you what it means to be alive.”

In this moment, she’d swore she belongs to him. She’d permit his pessimistic soul to do whatever he sought, with her frail body.

“Gonna pull it out or what, coward.” She allows, that familiar confidence she’d so desperately tried to hold true finding light once again.

She tries, she pleads to be strong. Yet she knows, she’d be sure. She’d crumble under him; she’d fall mercy to his mechanical touch.

“Patience.” He sneers, motorized hands unzipping. “Patience is virtue, darling.”

Somewhere along the way, she’d gotten accustomed to snarky remarks, egotistical transcriptions.

His cock falls out of his pants, heavy, thick, big, beautiful. She swallows, intrigued by the grandeur, a rosy tip swells with beads of wet pre cum, seeps. A thunderous vein runs down a curved shaft, copious balls surrounded by a jungle of dark hair.

She swallows at the sight; his words stay true. Intimidated, she’d for sure remember him, for days. The ache he’d leave would triumph for days to come.

“On your back.” He demands, pants long forgotten to the flat below, a few meagre tugs jerked to his raw, throbbing member.

Johnny Silverhand had fucked countless women, yet none made his cock as painfully erect, tender as she did. In the most sinful of ways, his cock would become her prisoner, and they hadn’t even started yet. With a rock hard cock digging into the skin of her stomach, he takes positon above her, towering. The scent of need fills the air as silky legs spread for his taking,

She spreads for his taking. A gasp dies in her throat as his cock springs, the deep baritone moan in his chest grumbling as his erection dips forcefully into her tiny mouth, impeding down her throat with a sole thrust. His hips buck forcefully in her wet, tight mouth, lingering as his jaw tightens, before plummeting out.

He’d primed himself in her throat, preparing to be buried between feeble legs, drowned inside her tender cunt.

Glancing between sweat stippled bodies, she stares and stares when his hands line a pulsating cock up with her entrance, firm hands planting to her hips, his massive member sinks inside her, rough, robust. A heavy thrust implores, big, warm, beautiful. One deep, harsh thrust was all it took. All it took for her to ascend, a loud moan of pure pleasure let off her lips at the sheer weight of him inside.

The bass of his voice moans harsh, sucking in a sharp breath to the feel of her wrapped, glistening his cock with her creamy, wet releases. His pace proves animalistic, hard off the get go, minimal time for her to adjust before he pounds her hastily, laboured breaths and quickened heavy exhales channelling out both their bodies. Delicate, weak arms desperately hold his broad shoulders as he drills into her needily, sloppily, the sound of thick balls slamming her core echo grey walls, dark eyes and enticingly deep grunts kissing her ears as he takes her body whole. “Fuck…you’re...” He breathes, rugged, harsh. “You’re…so fucking tight. So fucking wet.” Growling, he watches her become a whimpering, disorderly mess under his weight as beautifully plump breasts jerk hastily to his hostile pace. Her eyes flutter closed, lips slightly agape as she breathes tiny, gasped moans, fingernails clawing into his fleshy shoulders.

His hips rock expertly, so rough, so quick she feels warm tears singe in he corners of her eyes at how well he fucks her, how guttural his moans fall. Praises for her pussy dawdle his lips in hasty exhales, chasing his orgasm as her cunt cocoons, moulds to his cock so perfectly; as if a glove, as if she’d been made just for him. Solely for him to use, for him to fuck. His hold on her tightens, hands kneading tantalising hips as one moves to squeeze her breast, tough. The stretch he leaves proves incomparable, eyes widening when the curve of his cock hits her G spot repeatedly, hisses of her name and rapt desire overtaking. A selfish pace conjures, her body jerks, stifling moans with each imperative thrust.

The pain, the pleasure. The unholy pleasure of this parasite splitting her inch by inch. His cock glides easily, slips in and out gratifyingly; whimpers and yelps brew her voice, a chant of his name desperately recited as if a prayer she’d held, punctuated by growls and throaty gruffs of his. With her tits bouncing vigorously to his pace, Johnny’s need only cultivates further, and he drowns in the feel of her heavenly cunt.

His, all, and only, his.

Her legs tremble, a bite sinks into her arm covering her mouth to cage particularly gruesome moans. The violent labour of his hips, over and over, and over leave every vein inside her snapping, every nerve ending sparking with lust, she feels him all. His entire cock barely fitting; she squirms under him, his buttery voice filtered with demand. “Tighten up for me. Milk this cock like it’s the last thing you’ll do.” His moans fall heavier, as his thrusts; sultry, stiff voice surging her ears as he shudders, shivering, buried deep, deep inside. A cocktail of glossy, creamed releases they’d create together drip to the sheets below, although neither cease to care.

A joint euphoria builds, something they’d needed dire. Her limbs wrap his frame, his muscles cage her tight. He pounds, he thrusts, he jolts, he relishes in the tender haven she’d given him to spoil in; the sound of his cock slicking in her wetness through unaltered thrusts proves far too much, she feels each ridge, each inch of his godly cock assaulting her core.

“Gonna cum,” Johnny asserts, pace never faltering. She jolts, and jolts, and cries, and whines to his speed, to his feel. Within a few particularly intense thrusts, lewd moans drive out her lips in frantic succumb, her pussy throbs for him, skin colliding, arousing him further. Holding dearly, she practically melts into him, hips bucking to meet his as a blissful, earthshattering orgasm washes over her in currents; in oceanic waves, a tsunami of all things good, all things filthy.

Her pussy falls sore, aching, delicate from the action when he grunts imperatively, the sound of hammering hips into her heat dying down when his cock twitches within her, slipping through silky arousal easily, slamming relentlessly when his high comes. It comes, he cums, deep, deep inside her trifling cunt, swollen thick and jerked as spurts of hot, scotching cum coat the insides of her pussy. The groans he lets out prove impatient, hoarse, coursing, currenting through her ears. She beats with his succulent release inside, a cocktail her juices and what he’d left behind coating the insides of her thighs.

In sex gratified bliss, her eyes widen when he collapses on top, thunderous arms holding her still, cock excruciating felt within. Tonight, she’d been told. She’d been shown,

Johnny likes it

Sloppy. Vulgar. Tight.

pornographic.

       Johnny likes it rough, hard.

Ruthless, and she’d crumbled in each inch of it. Addicted, long gone. He’d sworn the same, intoxicated by her unrivalled cunt, those soft, whingeing moans that flee her lips;

With their skin sticking together through beads of peppered exertion, laboured puffs and heavy huffs pound in their chests, bodied still fitted together as if a puzzle piece, cock still sheathed inside. Simpering, smirking, his cold, contemporary finger lifts the faint of her chin,

the world seemed to have ended in this moment.

her world had ended, shaken.

But time still passed, it passed, it tightened, clawed in her chest.

Nothing compared to him, nothing tasted as sweet.

“We are bound, kitten. This pussy is mine, and mine alone.”

       A declaration, a fate written.

He’d taken over another part of her; and this time, she let him.

Her body belongs to him, in all forms.

His fuck doll, she’d be.

And she knows, she feels it in her bones. He’ll be the death of her through what comes;

       he’ll love to ruin her.

 and she’ll love, to be his.

➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴

My taglist will be posted in reblogs, let me know if you want to be added or removed! :)

[desmondkane-of-ao3-fame]

i hc that willow can sing rather well, she probably has a very soft voice. its nothing particularly special but she enjoys singing and she’d have joined the hexside school choir if one of eda’s incidents hadnt resulted in it being disbanded

It’s hearing it for the first time that makes Skara confirm to herself that she loves Willow.

It’s a lovely day in the Human Realm, and when Luz sends them photos of just how clear and big the sky is, Willow and Skara decide to have an impromptu date in the Gravesfield park, where a place they’ve enjoyed together before. They get a few sandwiches for a picnic, find a perfect spot under a large oak, and enjoy themselves, laughing at personal jokes, talking about each others days, and enjoying each others company. An hour or so in, Skara curls up in Willow’s lap, yawning. She earns a smirk from Willow, who takes advantage of the opportunity to stroke Skara’s hair gently. And, of course, sing.

It’s an old Boiling Isle’s lullaby. Nothing incredibly special. And it’s the sort of song that Skara’s heard before, a thousand times, even from her own mom. But even so, when she hears Willow sing it, she stops, looking up at her in absolute awe. She’s never heard her sing before, but it’s just like Willow herself. Soft and gentle, but strong and confident. It’s this combination, these seemingly disparate elements mixing together so seamlessly, that made her voice so perfect.

It was these disparate elements mixing together so seamlessly that made Skara realize she truly loved Willow.

When Willow finishes singing, she see’s Skara staring up at her in awe, and starts getting nervous. She apologizes, talking about how she’s embarrassed at her singing voice, getting flustered and thinking Skara’s going to make fun of her, even if she knows she won’t but-

“I love you.”

It’s not the first time Skara’s thought it, but it’s the first time she’s said it aloud, and the first time she knew it wasn’t just infatuation, but genuine love. Willow wasn’t expecting that reaction, not at all, and she just stares at Skara, staring at her, still in awe of her and her lovely, lovely voice.

Then, Skara blushes beat red as she realizes just what she said, and now it’s her turn to be nervous and flustered as Willow stares. She says she’s sorry for making things awkward, that if she wants to break up and leave her alone forever she totally gets it-

And Willow just laughs and brings Skara to her chest, holding her close and telling her that she loves Skara too, before kissing her, smiling all the while.

Both girls are still blushing, but no longer in embarrassment. They’re both just happy to be loved. So Skara kisses Willow again and curls into her, asking for another song, which Willow proudly delivers, and which Skara mindlessly drifts off to, softly whispering ‘I love you’ every so often just to let Willow know she does.

And Willow, kissing Skara’s forehead as she drifts off to sleep, says “I love you too, Skary.”

[whenrockwasyoung19]

As a historian, I really want to do a piece on how 9/11 has been commemorated and how it’s been remembered by the people who lived through it and the generation that came up after. So I need to see 9/11 memes so I can determine what jokes about 9/11 are deemed acceptable by society, if any, and which ones are purely tasteless.

Having lived through that time, and remember the South Park era of comedy, I saw a lot of 9/11 jokes in the years after the attacks. They were tasteless then but laughing at them felt cathartic in a way. We’d all been through this collective trauma, and laughing at some shitty jokes was a way of coping with that trauma. But were these jokes tasteless? Probably.

I feel like as we get further away from the event, our memory of it gets more and more distorted. I think for a lot of people who weren’t there and don’t share that collective trauma they can be more cynical about it than the people that were. What do I mean by cynicism? This refers to a couple of trends I see in 9/11 discourse. The first is tasteless jokes, usually in the form of memes. The second is discourse that usually makes a lot of (false) comparisons between 9/11 and some other tragedy. This can be a comparison between some military mission performed by the US military or a natural disaster and most recently the pandemic. The emphasis in these comparisons is that 9/11 wasn’t that bad actually OR what America has done in retribution for 9/11 is worse than the original act itself. The latter point isn’t necessarily wrong but using a tragic event in which thousands of people lost their lives to do it, while an effective rhetorical strategy, can also come off as cynical and disrespectful to the people who survived it or lost family members. I feel like the best way to make that argument is to emphasize how horrible 9/11 was but explain that what the military did in response was perhaps even more destructive and cost more lives. I think deemphasizing how bad 9/11 was or just using it to make a political argument can read as disrespectful and not enough people find that tricky balance between political argument and disrespect.

As for the but such and such was worse, those people can shut up. Like I can entertain conversations about the actions of the US government and military in response to 9/11 because those are conversations worth having. This sort of cynical worldview doesn’t actually yield effective discourse. It essentially posits that because more people died in say a hurricane or an Earthquake that that event was a bigger tragedy. But as a historian, I can tell you that historians don’t claim that something is more significant or even more tragic or less tragic just because at some point in history a worse thing happened. Like as a historians were more aware than most how many bad things have happened in history, so there is no point in comparing all the tragic things to all of the other tragic things like some kind of mad web. Like there is no point in comparing a natural disaster to a terrorist attack because they are in no way similar other than the fact that innocent people died. They are far more dissimilar than similar, and comparing to disparate events that may not have even happened around the same time doesn’t make any sense. What points of comparison are we drawing and to what end? What does that really tell us about the society we’re living in or were living in during the time of these events? So just the business of comparing tragedies is a pointless endeavor but it also posits that the only thing that measures how tragic something is is it’s death toll and that’s not true. 9/11 is a tragedy not just because innocent people died but because of how meaningless their deaths were. They were caught in the crossfires of a conflict that these random office workers, flight attendants, flight passengers, and first responders had nothing to do with. An ongoing struggle between the East and the West, the dynamics between the most powerful nation on Earth and tiny subsections of a massive global religion has nothing to do with these people who died and yet they lost their lives anyway. Now that is true of any civilian attacks. But that’s the thing: there have been far worse civilian attacks in history, even some conducted by the US military (the Dresden bombings come to mind) but that’s kind of the problem with drawing comparisons. I can’t really say if the Dresden bombings and the Blitz were worse than 9/11. It simply doesn’t feel like my place to say to someone that suffered that your tragedy is actually smaller or less significant than this other tragedy that happened some other time. They are all hugely significant in their own ways, they are all tragedies, and they should all be remembered and discussed with reverence.

I do feel that a lot of the comparisons between 9/11 and some other tragedy come from this place of “why does the US make such a big deal about 9/11 and not xyz tragedy?” And this is a valid question but not all of the answers come down to “the US doesn’t care about xyz tragedy” or “the US only cares about itself!” So let’s go through some reasons why the anniversary of 9/11 is so widely covered. Firstly, it happened on our soil. Countries are always going to honor things that happened to them. It’s just a thing. If it affected the people in that country, then yeah they’re gonna go on and on about it. Secondly, it happened 20 years ago so it’s still in very recent living memory. Most people alive on the planet have vivid memories of that day, so most people still remember what that day felt like and want to honor the victims and commemorate it. Thirdly, all the cynical reasons. Yes the US is less concerned about anything else that’s happened outside of our borders. What happened to us matters more to anyone else. No this isn’t great but I’m just reporting the state of things. And yes, the US is selective about what it remembers and what it doesn’t, and the government has a history of struggling to acknowledge the bad things America has done. And lastly, America never really stopped being overly nationalistic like a lot of other countries did after the rise of fascism scared them out of ever doing that shit again. America just maintains its nationalism. Maybe one day it’ll have a more nuanced perspective of itself like other countries do but we’ll see. So yeah there are a lot of reasons why the US makes a big fucking deal about this day and will forever and not all of them are bad or reason to criticize.

Ok now to acknowledge the memes. God any time I tell kids not to make memes about 9/11 I feel like a grandma. I mean I could go on and on about how it’s disrespectful but the people making them know this and don’t care. I guess I’m more interested in understanding why people make memes about a national tragedy. I think it has to do with how 9/11 has been remembered which is largely clouded by all of the political and military stuff that happened as a result of it. For people who learned about 9/11 years after it happened, they didn’t experience these events in real time. For those of us who lived through it, we didn’t know all that was going to transpire because of it. On that day, all we really knew was that thousands of people were dead and more were going to die in the conflicts that would result from it. We didn’t know that the wars would last decades or how pointless it would all be in the end. We had no idea how shitty George Bush was or how incompetent his administration was. We definitely had no idea that Trump was coming. So for a lot of us, we can separate the mess that happened because of the attacks from our memories of the attacks. It’s so much easier for us to think only about the events of that day because we were there. We have specific memories of it which we can latch onto rather than just thinking about news footage or events that came later.

And the cynicism that people feel is somewhat earned. The attacks obviously spurned two decades of Islamaphobia as well as countless military attacks in the Middle East. For a lot of young people, they feel like they’re supporting Muslims or standing against Islamaphobia by disrespecting an event that prompted so much Islamaphobia. And I get that. But also that’s not the way to do show your support or take a stand. Keep in mind that the people who died that day had no idea what they were dying for. Most in their last moments probably didn’t even know it was a terrorist attack. The American people didn’t even realize the first plane was an attack. So it doesn’t really make sense to disrespect their memory when it’s not their fault that their deaths resulted in so much pain and suffering for the Muslim diaspora. Disrespect the people who were openly Islamaphobic after the attacks, criticize the American government for their actions in the Middle East. But not the people who had no control how their deaths were remembered or used by politicians, military leaders, white nationalists, and other racists to attack Muslim people.

As a historian, it’s my job to try to apply a historical context to people’s actions. A lot of people have done this to observe why people responded to the attacks the way they did. Now I want to use it to understand why so many young people feel at best indifferent to the events of that day and at worst resentful and disrespectful towards ur