#if y'all can come up with some actual examples...

[allthewhumpygoodness]

I can't even remember a decent fictional example of this, but I *know* I've seen it somewhere because it seems so familiar... anyway one of my favourite whumpy/sickfic plotlines is when like. there's something going around an isolated community of sorts and everyone is getting sick -- and one person goes to get help from the outside world but ends up getting sick themselves on their way or once they get there. And later wake up being taken care of by whatever healer or doctor they went to get, panicking over their ailing friends back home and being quickly reassured that everyone is okay, they got there just in time and were able to help them, before helping whumpee themselves. Bonus points if one of their previously sick friends is also there looking after them, now fully recovered.

[simptasia]

you know britpicking? like where an american writes a fanfic set in england, or with an english character, and they get an english friend to look through it and check through it to see if the terms and phrases are accurate? (eg. flat instead of apartment)

well i propose there be such a concept for star trek

because people in star trek talk differently than modern humans. they use different words, different slang, phrasings. yes, they can speak casually but mostly it isn't like us. watch any of 90s trek and you'll see These People Do Not Speak Like Us

and, no disrespect, a lot of fic does not reflect this. and it irks me. they just speak like modern day people instead of... star trek characters. i personally think part of the fun of writing trek characters is writing it out to how they speak and how they would think

hell, this isnt even a fanfic problem. modern trek has this issue too. i think outta laziness. they have their people talking (and when in casual wear, dressing) like 2020s people and it pisses me off

its part of why strange new worlds feels like a high budget SNL skit

annnnyways. i propose this idea be called fact trekking

[fairysylveon]

if you're comparing bl3 or new tales to the movie I'm gonna need a full essay on my desk about why you think they're comparable or I will take you directly to jail

[rafesbabyg1rl]

Private session part2 is needed!! We all know Barry can be a dick head and he actually considers adding the having sex with a stripper option to customers when y/n finds out about this she obviously mad and saying no but when rafe finds outs about this he’s obviously mad and goes to Barry pissed saying wtf is this he obviously dose not want y/n to have sex with anyone else but him

Private Session - part two

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Summary: Rafe likes to watch reader while she works as a stripper. He asks for a private session in which he'll pay a large amount for her time. Rafe takes her home and uses her however he pleases. When he finds out Barry has been selling you to customers, he gets jealous, insisting that you must not sleep with anyone else.

Pairings: Stripper!Reader X obsessive!Rafe

Warnings: Rafe is obsessive of reader. Reader is a stripper. Mention of drugs (Rafe and Barry do cocaine), bondage (reader is tied up), p in v, unprotected sex, language, SLIGHT degradation, praise, oral (f receiving), fingering. SMUT SMUT SMUT!

Word Count: 4.8k

Author Note: Hey babes! I got this idea from this GIF , like just imagine he's sitting in the strip club throwing dollar bills at you like that. This fic is NOT proofread, it's almost FIVE AM and I have school tomorrow, well, today I guess...UGH. I just got this request and had to write this!! Also thank you all for the support on part one?!?!?! That's INSANE, I love you guys! I wanted to get this out asap for y'all. Sorry if it's actually shit, I'm so tired and also high. If you see any errors please feel free to correct me kindly! Thanks!

I promise I will work on The Watcher; I just got a bit stuck. Thank you guys for reading, I hope you enjoy! I love you all and stay freaky!

Credits: GIF from this post

Some time has passed since your ‘private session’ with Rafe. The first time you’d come back to work after your session with Rafe, Barry had talked to you at the beginning of your shift. Apparently, after seeing how much Rafe paid you for just one hour alone with him, Barry was inspired. He had told you that the club will now be providing a new “service” to well-paying customers. Customers now have the option to have sex with the dancers for the right price. Barry knew better than to sell his girls out for cheap, so the cost is rather high. And there’s typically only two types of men that have both the means and the money for it: the rich, old sugar daddies who probably can’t even get it up on their own and the rich, horny assholes of the island, take Rafe for example. 

When Barry had told you this, you were pissed. This was not in your job description; you’re a stripper not a hooker. You wanted to yell at him and quit. The issue is that when you got this job, you had signed a contract with Barry stating that you’d have to work there for at least a year or else you’d have to pay a fee. Knowing Barry, it’s a ridiculously large fee, ensuring that no one quit before their year was up. And it’s likely that the contract he made you sign isn’t even legal. But you're not going to try and find out, knowing that even if it’s not, that doesn’t matter to Barry. He’ll make you pay. And you don’t have that kind of money, that’s why you’re in this position in the first place.

Over the next few weeks, you’ve noticed that Rafe hasn’t been coming in as much. Not while you’re working at least. The few times he has come in, he hasn’t been alone, always coming in with a few other kooks and barely paying any attention to you. Which is definitely not normal for Rafe. You just assume that since he’s had you now, he’s lost his interest. You expected that you’d be relieved when he finally stopped watching you like prey, but now you’re not exactly sure what you feel. Does he not find you attractive anymore? Did he just lose interest after finally getting what it is that he had craved for so long? God, was it just you; did he see who you really are and run in the opposite direction? You knew that whole experience with him was too good to be true.

You’re snapped out of your thoughts as you hear the door to the back room open. Quickly, you grab one of the dresses hanging in your locker and slip it over you; it’s what Barry told you to wear over your lingerie when you do at-home sessions with clients. You turn, watching as your boss and none other than Rafe Cameron stumble in through the door. Rafe goes quiet, his expression going dead as he lays eyes on you. 

“Lookin’ good”, Barry whistles. “Where you headed, princess?” He asks as he turns away from you, sitting on a chair. Barry leans back in his seat, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small baggie full of white powder. You’ve always ignored his side business, always pretending you don’t see any of it. Which is what you do right now. Trying your hardest to ignore the fact he’s preparing a line on the small, glass coffee table, you finish up what you’re doing and close your locker a bit harshly.

“I have a client waiting.” You snap. You walk closer to where Barry is sitting and turn your back to him. “Tie me?” You ask, holding your hair up and waiting for him to tie the complex strings of your backless dress. Though he’s currently busy doing a line of cocaine. Without hesitation, Rafe steps closer, his fingers moving to tie your dress. You don’t have to see him to know he’s the one tying your dress. Your skin just immediately remembers his touch, causing chills to run down your spine at the flashbacks of that night. Rafe notices your slight shiver and smirks as he tries to figure out how the straps of your dress go. His hands linger on the skin of your lower back for longer than they need to and your breath hitches each time his skin comes into contact with your own.

When he’s done, he sits on the couch across from Barry, facing you. You turn back to them, not bothering to thank him. To be honest, you’re a bit pissed at him for starting this whole sex with customers thing. You know he didn’t intend to, but he’s the one who gave Barry the idea. 

Barry speaks up again as he wipes the excess powder from his nose. “When will you be back, I need you out on the floor.” 

I can’t do fucking everything, you think. Although your words come out much more politely. “It’s an at-home appointment so probably an hour.” You’ve had this client before, he typically finishes pretty quick. 

You hear Rafe’s loud breathing as he snorts a line which grabs your attention, making you briefly turn your head to look at him. You watch as he leans back, shutting his eyes and inhaling deeply as his high takes over. Rafe slouches in his seat, spreading his legs wide, making you quickly look away. Of course he notices how you’re reacting to him, he always notices everything about you. He crosses his arm and lets out a small sigh. 

Rafe’s tone is sharp as he cuts in. “At-home?” He questions, still trying to act as though he doesn’t care about the conversation you and Barry were having. 

Barry’s eyes linger on you for a moment, taking in the sight before turning to look at Rafe. “We now offer a new service: you can fuck any of ‘em bitches now.” You make a face at Barry’s words, not liking how he described you and the other girls. Usually he’d never say that in the presence of one of his “bitches”, but Rafe and Barry always brought out the worst in each other; their behavior much worse when they’re together. 

“Wait, what?!” He asks, sitting up a bit before calming himself down. He leans back against the couch, trying to seem all nonchalant. “So, they’re hookers?” He questions more calmly as he looks over to you. You recall having to tell him you weren’t a hooker the last time you saw him. You scowl, hating that he’s trying to prove you wrong and rub it in. 

“Hookers, bitches, call ‘em whatever you want. I should thank you for giving me the idea. I mean, do you have any idea how much money this is making me.” Barry boasts. “And miss pretty princess over here is our top money maker.” Barry gestures to you as you stand there, waiting for your chance to leave. “She brings in the most customers. Ain’t that right, darlin’?” You nod. Everytime Barry gets high, he doesn’t fucking shut up. Rafe just nods his head dryly, leaning down to snort another line of the white substance from the table. 

You take this as your queue to leave and you walk out through the door and back into the main part of the club. You walk through the crowd and search for your client. Leaving Rafe with a few moments to think in silence before Barry starts yapping about all the guys you’ve been fucking. Rafe is fucking furious with this new addition to the club. He had never intended for Barry to take inspiration from his actions, he just needed you. And now anyone else who wants you, can have you. How is it that you could say that you don’t go home with guys often, and turn around and go fuck a bunch of guys for a living right after? Was he just another client to you? Rafe can’t take it anymore and decides to take action. He shoots up from his seat on the couch and storms after you. 

As you’re walking, you feel a hand grip your arm and spin you around. You’re almost chest to chest with Rafe as he speaks down to you. “Where the hell are you going?”

“I have a client.” You explain, again. 

“The fuck you mean ‘a client’?” 

“You’re not the only one who’s willing to pay just to fuck me, Rafe.” You say coldly. 

He chuckles, responding sarcastically as he stares down at you with his wide, dilated eyes. “Thought you never went home with random guys?”

“I didn’t. Until you gave Barry the idea of selling me out to strangers for a quick buck.”

Rafe sighs, his grip on your arm loosening. “That’s not what I wanted. I mean c’mon, you think I want other guys fucking you?”

The implication in his words shock you, but you try not to read too much into it. Before you get the chance to respond he lets go of your arm, letting out a deep breath and shaking his head. Without question, he pulls his wallet out from his pocket, flipping it open and looking up at you. “How much is he gonna pay?” You stare at him blankly, confused in what he’s doing. He huffs out a long breath shutting his eyes for a second before bringing one hand up to snap in your face, grabbing your attention. “The guy, your…” his hand waves around in the air, gesturing outwards as he momentarily stutters. “...Client, or whatever. How much was he going to pay you?” He speaks more slowly this time, as if you’re stupid or something. 

“Depends.” You answer. The client you’re supposed to be meeting right now didn’t have an exact time planned, but you know how much he typically has the stamina for. 

He purses his lips, shifting on his feet. “Ballpark.” He demands. His gaze darted between your eyes, constantly shifting to look at both. 

Still confused, you hesitantly respond to his question, stuttering as you speak. “$800.” Immediately, he starts to count the money in his wallet, taking out the eight-hundred and then some. Rafe hands the cash out to you, but you don’t take it right away so he tucks it into the low cut neckline of your dress.

“There, now I take priority.” He takes hold of your arm again and drags you through the club and out into the parking lot. He walks you up to his truck, which you can now recognize. Rafe pulls the passenger door open for you and walks around to his side, climbing in and starting the engine. You know to get in, shutting the door behind you and buckling your seatbelt before looking over at him. Your stomach tightens as his eyes undress you. Rafe finally turns his head away, reaching over his shoulder to grab his seatbelt. Suddenly, it’s like the image registered in his brain and he whipped his head back to you, glaring at your thighs.

You noticed him staring at you, looking down into your lap. The super short dress you were wearing has ridden up, revealing the few hickeys that are spread over your inner thighs. His eyes find the others on your neck as well and he knows he wasn’t the one to leave them. You try to keep your customers from leaving hickeys and other marks in your body, but it’s like the more you tell them not to, the more they want to. It makes Rafe almost sick to his stomach when he thinks about kissing you with those marks; marks left on your skin from other men. He can’t stand it. Suddenly his mind is filled with images of you fucking other guys, he tries to shake out the thoughts but he can’t; they’re eating away at him. The two lines of cocaine from earlier not helping the situation, it only serves to intensify his anger. 

As he drives he looks over at you. He starts to rant, his voice booming inside the small tuck cabin. “Bet they can’t make you cum four fuckin’ times in an hour, can they?”  You only slightly jump when he startles you with the increasing volume of his voice. “They can’t fuckin’ touch you like I can, huh?” He glances at the road shortly, then he turns his head back to you. “Nobody makes you feel as good as I do, yeah?” He waits for a response.

You catch the hint. “Mhm…yeah.” You nod, chewing on your bottom lip.

When you get to Tanneyhill, Rafe comes to an abrupt stop in his driveway. He wastes no time before getting out of the truck and rounding the front of it to get to your side. Rafe pulls the passenger seat door open, grabbing ahold of your arm again. He tugs you inside, shutting the door behind you two. 

As soon as you hear the door shut, his lips are finding yours and attacking them. In the moment, he decides that his bedroom upstairs is too far and he takes you into the kitchen. He continues to kiss you, walking you backwards until your lower hips bump into the counter; in which he grabs your waist and lifts you up to sit on the counter. One of his hands finds its way underneath your dress and between your legs. In quick movements, he tugs your lacy thong down and off of your body. Once they hit the floor, he’s pulling your legs apart; forcing them to spread wide so that you’re exposed and accessible to him. Your pussy grows wet in anticipation of what he’s going to do to you; which is something that none of the other men have been able to make you feel.

Rafe brushes a light hand over your cunt, groaning into your mouth as he discovers how wet you are for him. Not some random guy at the club, but him. He continues to kiss you, swallowing the small moans that try and escape your lips. His hands move to his belt, working on getting it off. Once it’s off, he pulls his jeans down and steps out of them; only breaking the kiss once. The next thing to go in his boxers; he slides them down and lets them pool at his ankles.

With absolutely no warning or further preparation, Rafe slams into you. You choke out a moan, tilting your head back. Rafe starts to kiss the sensitive spot behind your ear just so that your cunt can squeeze around him even tighter as he jackhammers into you. “Fuuck…so tight.” He groans. “Did anyone else fuck you like this, hm? Did anyone else’s cock stretch you out like this?” He growls into your ear. His hand snakes around to the back of your head, gathering all your hair and tugging your head back so that you were looking at him. “That was a fucking question. Fucking answer.” He demands.

“I…”, you cry out as his cock repeatedly hits the extra sensitive spot deep inside you. A spot that nobody else can reach like how he does. “N-no…just you.” 

“Just me, what?” He continues, enjoying your struggle to form words as he fucks you at this pace.

“Just you can fuck me like this.” You admit. You’re not even saying it because he wants you to, but because you can honestly say that nobody’s ever fucked you like how he’s fucked you. 

“Good girl.” He praises. He runs a hand through your hair and slows his speed to a very slow, careful pace, admiring your features as your face contorts with pleasure. After about a minute, his hand finds your clit, his fingers rubbing harsh circles as his thrusts speed up to an unbearable pace again. He places a hand on your chest, pushing you down so that you’re laying with your back flat on the counter. 

The cold counter adds to the intense feeling. He pauses for a moment to pull your shiny, little dress up past your hips to keep it out of the way. When he continues, he’s drilling into you faster than before, giving you the last bit of his anger through his thrusts. Your back begins to arch off the counter, legs wrapping around his waist tightly. And just as you’re about to see stars, Rafe pulls out of you and steps back, pulling his boxers back up from his ankles.

An involuntary whine escapes your lips when his touch leaves you and you sit up on your elbows, trying to figure out why he stopped. Except he doesn’t say anything, he just lifts you up, carrying you upstairs and into his bedroom. 

When you get into his room, he sets you down just before the bed. “Shit, I almost forgot.” He mumbles. You furrow your brows and follow his gaze to his bed. On his bed sits a small gift box. You look back at him to find him staring at you. “Open it.” The demands, his tone almost displaying a small trace of excitement. 

You look back at the box, taking a few steps closer to the bed. You reach out to flip over the small tag on the box, it reads: ‘To: my favorite hooker’. Your breath hitches. He’s so frustrating with his persistence of using that word, ‘hooker’, when he knows you aren’t one. Well, you didn’t used to be one. But you have to admit, this seems almost…sweet, in a way. Sweet for Rafe anyhow. You fight back your smile as you reach both hands out, carefully lifting the lid off of the box, setting it on the bed. Inside the box lay some very beautiful, intricate lingerie; it’s clearly very expensive, judging on the fact that you can’t even pronounce the brand name. 

Rafe explains, “For what I ripped last time. I told you I’d replace it.”

“You did.” You say, getting lost in his eyes for perhaps a moment too long.

“Take it out.” He instructs and you obey, taking the delicate lingerie out of the gift box. Underneath the set, you find another gift. A vibrating wand as well as some thick ribbon. The vibrator you understand, the ribbon…not so much. You hold some of it up, turning to face him as if asking ‘what’s this for?’. Rafe understands what you’re asking and he responds vaguely. “You’ll see.” Clearly he enjoys keeping you on your toes, and you hate it. 

After changing into your new lingerie, you exit his bathroom and walk towards his bed. Quickly he has you laying on your back. He takes some ribbon from the box and straddles your waist leaning over you as he ties each of your wrists to a separate bed post. He then did the same with your feet. Now you’re all tied up for him, spread out on the bed and vulnerable. 

He leans down, hovering over you. He starts to kiss all over your body, his lips finding any open spot of skin on you. He pauses his kisses for a moment, leaning back up enough to look at you. He tells you, “Don’t wear this at the club.” Rafe leans in, pressing a quick kiss to your chest. “This is for me, yeah?” He mumbles, giving you yet another kiss. “My eyes only.” you nod in response, you agree. This is way too expensive to be wearing to the club.

“Yes, yes, only you.” You desperately plead. 

Rafe chuckles and starts to kiss down your body, He makes a momentary stop at your chest, mouthing over one of your nipples through the thin fabric, his fingers rolling your other nipple between his fingers. His actions elicit a loud moan to escape your lips as your body tenses up, struggling against the restraints. You now understand the ribbon. Last time, he had used rope to tie you up and it would painfully dig into your skin. But the ribbon was soft, not causing pain to be inflicted upon you as your body reacts to his actions. His mouth leaves your breast, moving to the other side, ensuring that it wasn’t left out. His hand also switches to pinch at your other nipple.

His mouth starts to travel down your body again as his hand reaches behind him on the bed to grab something. He mouths over your clothed cunt, making you whine and shiver underneath him; still sensitive from when he had teased you earlier on the kitchen counter. 

You hear a vibrating sound, but before your brain could register what it is, he’s using the new vibrator he bought for you, on you. He presses it firmly against your clit through the fabric of your panties. Your arms tug at the restraints in response, your legs trying, and failing to close. You feel so vulnerable, so exposed and weak. Lying here helpless as he assaults your small bundle of nerves. 

Rafe pulls your panties to the side, revealing your dripping cunt. He pushes the vibrator directly on your clit, sending a jolt of electricity through your body at the sensation. “F-fuck!” You cry, your abdominal muscles contracting as your eyes squeeze shut and your toes curl. Rafe leans in, using his tongue to lap up the juices that drip from your slick entrance as he keeps the vibrator steady on your most sensitive part. “Rafe!” You scream his name out as you cum, finally seeing the stars you were denied earlier, the build-up making it that much more intense. 

He pulls the vibrator away, only using his tongue to work you down from your high. When your body starts to relax more, he stops and moves back up your body. He sets the vibrator aside and kisses at your neck, leaving new marks of his own; darker and larger than the others. 

You’re still in shock at Rafe’s decision to use a toy on you. You definitely weren’t mad about it, that’s for sure. It’s just that typical guys won’t want to use a vibrator on you because they want to prove they’re better all by themselves. Rafe’s definitely good at sex, that’s just a given fact. But the confidence he has to use a vibrator on you, mixed with his skill…he’s fucking incomparable. 

Rafe unties your wrists, letting your arms fall and relax. Next he moves to untie the ribbon that ties your feet to the bed. Once you’re completely free, he gives you a moment, knowing how tiring that was for your body. He knows you need to recover if he wants to get more orgasms from you tonight. 

Though you appreciate his generosity, you want to help him out too. So you take him by surprise by placing your hand over his hard cock through his boxers. Except he still manages to be the one surprising you when he speaks. “Fuck…that feels…s’so good baby.” He groans, but moves your hand off his dick. “But let me take care of you, yeah? I know Barry’s got you workin’ a lot, hm? Heard you’ve got the most customers, is that right?” He asks, his hands starting to squeeze and massage at you calves 

“Mhm…” you agree, closing your eyes in relaxation. 

Rafe’s hands move to massage your feet, knowing the tall heels you’re always wearing have to be causing you some discomfort. And he knows he assumed correctly when you let out a deep sigh at his touch. “Nobody ever takes care of you, hm? Always just taking what they want and giving you nothing?” He leans in closer to your ear and whispers, “I like taking care of you.” Rafe starts to nip softly at your ear, making you moan softly. 

After a while, his hands leave your feet, moving back up your body. He gently pulls off the lingerie, setting it on the bed beside you two. He takes a moment to revel in the sight of you, taking in what he is lucky enough to have in front of him. One of his hands finds its way to your slimy folds, gently running over your entrance. He gathers some of your slick and brings it up to your clit as he begins to rub it in steady, slow circles.

Finally, he pulls his boxers off. He uses his other hand to hold himself at the base, gently stroking himself a few times as he looks down at you underneath him. Without much more preparation, he pushes himself inside of you. This time, he moves slowly. His mind isn;t clouded from the effects of cocaine and anger anymore, instead he just wants to help you feel good. He wants to take him time, even though you’re likely not going to last long after your previous orgasm. 

“Shit, so fuckin’ wet f’me. You’re always so wet for me, hm? Such a good girl. Such a good fuckin’ girl.” He groans, his mouth right next to your ear so you can clearly hear all his praises. “M’gonna have to talk to Barry for you. Can’t have you fuckin’ those other guys anymore. This pussy’s for me; it’s mine.” His speed gets faster, his pace more erratic as you get closer, your cunt squeezing around him tighter; ultimately bringing him closer to finishing as well. “Hm? You hear me?”

“Mhm…” you nod eagerly, getting so close to cumming that you can barely form a complete thought. “Y-yes Rafe. Yours, fuck! Yours.”

He gathers all your hair, tugging on it so that your neck cocks back, giving him full access to mark it up. He leaves wet, sloppy kisses all over your neck; sucking and biting at your skin. “Only a slut for me, right? Nobody else, not anymore.”

“Yes…sure, fuck, okay yeah!” You scream. The recognizable feeling of your stomach tightening just for the band to snap, making your back arch off the bed, pushing your body against his as you reach another orgasm. “Ohh…nngghh…f-fucking shit!” You curse, your hand clawing at his shirt, trying to take it off. Rafe understands what you need and does it for you.

It’s not long before he gets to his peak with the way you keep squeezing him; so wet that he just slips right in and out. But before he cums, he asks you a final question. “Can I?”,is all he says but it’s enough for you to know what it is that he’s asking. He’s already done it before, so you don’t see the problem, especially not right now. You don’t even have it in you to say no even if it was what you wanted,

“Mhm…please. Please cum inside me, Rafe. I-I need it.” You admit.

Without wasting another second, Rafe’s movements slow down as he releases his load in you; painting your walls white with his cum. You could feel his warm seed spilling out of you, mixing with your sticky juices. When he pulls out, you feel empty. Your lonely cunt left clenching around nothing. 

Rafe lies down beside you, wrapping his arms around you. You never had taken Rafe for much of a cuddler, but he’s full of surprises tonight. You return the action, wrapping your arms around him and draping a leg over him. 

After you’ve both had time to recover, you still just lie there, enjoying each other's silent company. But you finally decide to break the silence between you two. “Y’know, I have to admit that it is kinda nice to be with someone who can get it up without taking pills.” You joke truthfully, referring to all the old sugar daddies that pay for your services.  

Rafe chuckles at your words. He wants to say ‘I told you so’, to prove that he knew nobody else made you feel the same as he did, but fights the urge. Instead he just laughs. “Oh, I bet.” 

“Did…did you mean what you said about talking to Barry?” You ask on a more serious note.

Rafe looks at you, admiring your soft, tired, fucked-out expression as he runs a gentle hand through your hair. “Oh yeah, yeah. I can talk to him if you want. He usually listens to me.”

“And if he doesn’t?” You ask.

“Then I’ll make him.” He reassures you, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I started this, I’m gonna fix it, okay? So don’t worry. You ain’t gotta fuck nobody you don’t wanna no more, yeah? How’s that sound?”

“Thank you.” You mumble to him, your eyes starting to get heavy and droop shut. 

“I hope that means you’ll still fuck me.” He teases, petting your soft hair as he watches you. 

You just nod, too exhausted to engage in his jokes. Rafe just smiles softly, appreciating the fact that he has you all sleepy in his bed; his arms. Of all the time he spent watching you and admiring you at the club, he never was able to imagine this moment.

He presses one final kiss to your head before closing his own eyes, pulling you in tighter. “I’ll take you back tomorrow, that alright?”

“Mhm…” You mumble under your breath, already half asleep. 

“Goodnight.” He whispers, pulling the covers over the two of you. 

Thank you for reading! I greatly appreciate it! PLEASE feel free to leave Rafe x reader requests!! I LOVE getting them!

Again, sorry if this is bad. I'm so tired and too lazy/impatient to proofread/edit. I hope this is good enough to fulfill your request!

[cafterdark]

I don't think y'all truly grasp what fucking a god would be like.

Not only are they beings who can shape reality like clay, but they have such a massively different conception of time, morality, and existence that they become alien to you

For example, let's say you are a normal guy:

One moment you're looking at yourself in the mirror, the next in a quiet field. Before you even have a chance to react, a voice rips through your tissue paper body. It is multilayered, unable to stick to one voice, but is it smooth and alluring and almost feminine.

"I have chosen thee to be my temple." The voice says.

"W...who are you?" You stutter out.

The voice doesn't answer. For a moment you wonder if you've gone insane, then she begins. A thousand hands of light touch you, some delicate and precise, some wild and rough. They grab and grope and tear and claw and brush and pinch and slap all over, all at once. One hand grabs your short hair and forces you to look up in the air and she says:

"Let me show you your purpose."

You are launched in time to a temple, backwards or forwards, you don't know. It is lit by candles, showing that you're at the feet of a massive marble statue of a nude woman. The hands force you to your knees, all while feeling up your boiling body. You look up and only catch a glimpse of her beautiful thighs before you're unstuck in time again.

You feel yourself dragged back to reality. You're in a woman's body, being fucked by two other women in a dingy hotel. One hold the leash to a collar around your neck, the other holding your legs as she fucks you with her dick. The hands are still there and guide you, teasing each moans from your throat and buck of your hips. You've never felt this good ever as you start ascending the mountain of arousal. The collar chokes you enough for a momentary blackout

You're back in the temple, still looking up. You catch a glimpse of her hips, grabbable, with curves in just the right spots. You blink in awe and find yourself in another woman's body, actually no, a robot woman's body. You're connected to a machine made of tech so powerful you can't comprehend by series of wires and plugs throughout your body. A woman, dressed in lab wear smiles, kisses you, and starts the machine. You feel a jolt of pleasure shoot through you. The woman's smile widens, then a notification appears on your HUD

Sensitivity increased 150%

A soft glide teaches down your back and you feel your entire body kicks in response. You ascend further up, climbing step after step towards orgasm. Each touch the machine simulates makes you skip ten steps. The woman's laughs at you makes you skip more. The heat is unbearable, your fans spinning at Max speed, their noise filling the background. You get a warning notification about overheating and you're back at the temple.

The hands keep your arousal steady as the hand tilts your head further up still. You're enraptured by the most perfect pair of tits you have ever seen. The last bit of thought you we're holding onto is wiped away by their glory. But before you can properly worship them, you're thrown back in time.

You're in another temple, hazy and thick with the perfume of incense. You're in a priestess' body slick with oil, prepared to worship your goddess with your other priestesses. You look around and see the rest of your order staring at you and approach. After a long moment, you realize that you're the offering. The other women attack you with kisses and teeth and hands and nails in just the right spots. Each blow brings you closer to the peak. They pin you down and begin fucking you with their trained tongues and you blank out. You're so close now you can see the peak. You pray to just be allowed to reach it.

You're set back to the temple again and with one swift yank of your long hair, brings your eyes to the statues face.

It's you.

You don't know how you know. It looks nothing like you, but it's you. And you're gorgeous you can feel the orgasm coming, it's so so so so close now. The world stops, your body freezes.

You find yourself stuck one step before the peak, staring at your beautiful features and unable to do anything about it. You're stuck there for a long time. An hour? A year? A Millennia? A second? You don't know. But by the end, you're asking Her to let you cum. She responds:

"Do you know your purpose?"

"Yes... Goddess," you pant out. "As your temple... Where your followers... Worship you"

"Good Girl" She says.

Those two words bring you over the edge and you find yourself cumming harder than you've ever done before. Each convulsion rips away a part of your past life, what you ate for breakfast, your job, your hobbies, your name. If you could think through the tsunami of pleasure, you wouldn't care. Goddess will provide, she always will. But for now, you are drowning in devotional ecstasy.

After an eternity, you finally feel the afterglow bleed in. The hands let go and you collapse to the floor, letting the darkness consume you.

You wake up on the bathroom floor and groan. Was it really just a dream? You get up and look in the mirror and see you. Not the fake you that you wore before, but the you Goddess crafted, her masterpiece. You smile and dance in your body, that statue turned flesh, and laugh a beautiful laugh to celebrate and thank Her.

"You know your purpose and are trained in it," She says in the back of your mind. "Begin."

"Yes Goddess"

You leave the bathroom and begin your new life. After all, what's a god without her temple?

[kelaeri]

The Many Languages of Dick Grayson

Apparently, according to Nightwing #54, he can speak 12, so I went on a little quest to see just how many I could identify.

Starting off with The Essential Batman Encyclopedia, the entry for Dick Grayson lists him as being trained in French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese with having some proficiency in an unknown Romani dialect. Given there are multiple examples of him speaking these languages throughout the comics, I am inclined to trust this claim. To start, we've got several examples of French (Gotham Knights #14, Detective Comics Annual #12, Nightwing #73, Grayson #10-- also featuring Spanish)

In Grayson #1 he speaks Russian only briefly, but in Detective Comics #36 he speaks it throughout.

As far as the Chinese languages go, while I believe Dick can speak Mandarin and/or Cantonese fairly well (Batman/Superman World's Finest #3), his Hanzi recognition and literacy could use some work.

Similarly, when the Titans head off to Japan in Titans Annual #1, we have Nightwing speaking Japanese in battle; however, when it comes to the prospective job of being a manga translator in Nightwing #125, he claims he doesn't know Japanese, which leads me to believe he is only proficient in speaking Japanese/Chinese and struggles with the writing systems.

So what about the languages not covered in the encyclopedia? To start, we have another romance language: Italian (Nightwing #72).

Followed by some alleged German (Nightwing #51, JLA #44)

And conversations in Farsi (Robin #175)

While I've seen some Tumblr and Reddit posts claim he knows Kikuyu, The Power Company: Manhunter #1 only says he "brushed up" on his Kikuyu before going to Kenya, so it is unknown how much of the language he actually speaks, but to me it doesn't seem likely to be a lot.

He also, to some unknown degree, speaks Tamaranean-- at least enough to hack into an alien computer (Action Comics #842).

As far as unspoken languages go, Dick is fluent in ASL, which is proven numerous times when he communicates with Jericho (New Teen Titans 1984).

And lastly, the two languages that remain rather uncertain are Romani and Cant-- largely due to the nature of the languages themselves and their representation in comics. "Romani," for instance, has several different dialects, and when Devin Grayson introduced it for Dick (Gotham Knights #20-21, Nightwing #91), she never specified which, and based on the lines she wrote, her research into the language was questionable at best. Writers since have recognized Dick's Romani heritage, but have not otherwise suggested he retained much of the language to be considered fluent.

Cant is an even wider term than Romani and can be seen as more of jargon for a particular language than a language itself, sometimes even being called a "pseudo-language." The colloquial term for American circus cant is Carny, or "Carny speak" as Boston Brand puts it in Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14 when he and Nightwing encounter a kid who speaks it.

So... this leaves us with 11 languages Dick has notable proficiency in: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Farsi, and ASL. And ~3 languages he has unknown proficiency in: Tamaranean, Kikuyu, Romani, and Carny/Cant (if you want to count it).

Maybe memory-loss Dick was including either Tamaranean or Kikuyu in that count from Nightwing #54, or maybe he knows some other language we haven't seen yet. Given how close the family is to the Al Ghuls, I personally think it would be cool if one of them was Arabic.

But anyway, hope you enjoyed this post! A lot I've seen covering this topic are very surface-level and label some of his more iffy languages as "fluent," so I hope this cleared things up. I've read tons of Nightwing, and I swear there are more examples, but sifting through the 1,000+ comics I've read of him is a lot haha. If y'all know of some others, let me know!

[creatingblackcharacters]

My Notes of Concern: Week 1

Yes, these will feel most directed at white folk. That is because y'all participated the most and were easiest to observe. But it's notes on and perspective for everyone 👍🏾

-For some of these characters where their Blackness was genuinely questionable (where we thought "this is a white man but grey", some I let slide to see how people would respond. What it suggested to me is that some of y'all often know what features you will consider "not Black" in your media. Which means you know when these Black characters are being drawn with eurocentric features. So you can SEE when it's happening... So then how often do you willingly let it slide in your media? It makes me wonder if participation in the Ambiguously Brown character design is more of a conscious act than I'd originally believed. Now again, this is likely bias of my userbase, but I did find that worrisome.

-But THEN, there were far more comments made and votes chosen that made me wonder... What do y'all think Black people look like? Because there would be characters that I could immediately see, that people would say were ambiguous. But then characters who were actually ambiguous would get peak. What went into that decision? I know I keep bringing it up, but it genuinely baffled me how Rene was deemed peak, but Iosef started off as mid, when Rene's design only covered half of his face.

-I think what I realized is that people are treating the things we say are offensive as... A checklist, and not really things that are applied in context. Which means we're not really understanding WHY things are offensive, just that we "should know" they are! Peeping and avoiding participating in racism will never be as easy as "these things bad!" It's not. We live day to day like a constant game (the Great American game, ha! Oh Kendrick.) of quick time events. You never know who's gonna say what and how they're gonna react, you only have context clues. If it were as easy as a list, life wouldn't be this hard and breaking this system would be easy 😭 Sorry.

-For example, characters with straightened hair. I felt like the concept of straightened hair is confusing to white voters. I say that because straightened hair is not inherently bad Black character design. We have styles with straight hair! This is just where intent comes into play. Does it look like this character's Blackness was taken into consideration on the style, or did they just plop on the Brazilian bussdown on their head? Did it do that little stupid hook shape on the ends that indicates waves, or did it actually look like "this is a Black character with flat ironed hair, or a wig, or sew in (etc.)"?

-For another example, skin that isn't perfectly brown, maybe even greyish. Okay. That can be an issue! What we then ask ourselves is: is that art style consistent with everything else, or is everyone else well lit and the Black character is not? Is this character grey because the artist clearly doesn't know how to work with deeper brown skin tones, or is it grey on purpose? So when you go forth in the future, remember that it's about the entirety of it. Can you tell from the art that this is purposeful, or a bias? Intent, or not?

-For yet another example: there seemed to be strong push about biracial characters and why their designs seem ambiguous (which is simply not always true), but that same understanding and grace did not seem extended to visibly light-skinned Black people. Why? And I was genuinely confused by this one. Because there are light-skinned Black people! And you can often tell when they're Black! My theory is that y'all found it easier to peep whiteness and therefore defend its features, but did not know how to recognize it in "full" (ick) Blackness. Like, regardless of how The Proud Family's colorism affects its character design, Trudy Proud is visibly just a light-skinned Black woman with flatironed hair. I don't see how that's not visible unless you've just... Never seen one before. 😅

-Just an aside- and this is just a passion of mine- I feel like there is an overrepresentation of what we expect Black biracial people to look like, which is light-skinned with fluffy yet loose textured hair. I don't understand how we get "white passing" people that are Black biracial, but the idea on the other end of the spectrum- Black biracial children with darker skin tones- is not a concept that occurs more often in media. Like, there has to be Black biracial children that don't "look like" whiteness, the same way there are Black biracial children that don't look Black at all! So I really think we ought to loosen our grip on what and how we deem "this person is mixed". Maybe they're just light-skinned. Maybe they're brown-skinned and biracial! But that's me. 🙌🏾

-The "I didn't know they were supposed to be Black" well, if you don't know a character is even supposed to be Black, how would you even know to look for narrative relevance, or even stereotypes? How would you even understand what's going on if you don't even know what I look like enough to even recognize that this is the story being told? This is another one of those "character design affects the writing" moments, but it's also a "I need to expand how I recognize Blackness" moments. Let's do better on that.

[queeleronwheels]

The Audience Was Never Meant to Like Mileven — A Season 3 Analysis

Before we start, I want to clarify the title: this is about how the audience was never meant to like Mike and El as a romantic couple. Their scenes in s1 and s2 were endearing and served to show us that they have an important bond. BUT...some people are just meant to be friends, y'all, and that's okay. And the writers of Stranger Things want you to know that, too. So here we go:

At the beginning of s3, Mike and El's romance is in full swing. They're kissing all the time and they're constantly together. How do we know this? Well, it's not because we get a montage of intimate moments between them. It's because of this guy, who says this about them in the first episode of the season:

Before you come at me, I am fully aware that this is played for laughs, and we're supposed to find Hopper's meltdown funny. Even so, they're planting these ideas in our minds from the first episode which sets the tone for the rest of the season, and even more telling is that they do nothing to convince us he's wrong. If anything, they do the opposite.

For example, in the next episode, we have a shot of El frantically pacing the front porch waiting for Mike to show up. She's not excitedly waiting on the porch swing for him, smiling warmly in anticipation of her lover's arrival. She is visibly distressed:

Why? Because he is two minutes late.

I think it's safe to assume he was supposed to be there at 9:30.

Any way you slice it, that's not normal or healthy. You could argue that they're just newly in love and that's why they're being insane, but Lumax, Jancy, and Jopper—couples we are meant to root for and that are likely endgame—are never portrayed like this. This is unhealthy attachment and obsession, and the audience is clearly meant to see it that way.

Next, we have Mike giggling and whispering in El's ear while Hopper is trying to have a serious conversation with them, which lends credence to Hopper's "he's corrupting her" line (obviously it's not that serious—and more on why this is an annoying line below—but it is meant to show that Hopper is not far from the truth: Mike does not bring out the best behaviour in El—and vice versa—and they're not very likeable together.)

Interlude: Corruption

I also want to bring up another scene where the word "corrupting" is used, and it's this one:

To Mike's credit, he does later tell El when he's apologizing that he actually likes that she and Max are friends now and was just jealous because he wanted El all to himself yikes lol but I'm bringing this up because it serves to parallel Mike with Hopper.

Both Mike and Hopper assume that El is this pure thing that can be "corrupted," which is both misogynistic and infantilizing. Regardless of their intentions, both of them are trying to control her and make decisions for her (the scene above is literally an argument about how El should get to decide her limits, not Mike). And the fact that we have Max, a girl, defending her independence just further emphasizes that El's entire existence has been shaped by men thus far, and Mike is no exception to that.

We see this season what El is like when she is "enlightened" by Max and steps into her own, and she's miles more confident, happy, and self-assured than she is when she's anxiously attached to Mike. So there's another strike against them if you care at all about El's wellbeing. (I won't get into it here, but Mike has been paralleled with Dr. Brenner in the past, and they really double down on that in s4 where they parallel him with both Hopper and Dr. Brenner, conveying to the audience that he acts more like a father figure toward El than a partner.)

Foreshadowing

We then have Hopper's line there's something very wrong with this thing between you and El which, apart from being just plain ominous, is a really interesting choice of words.

If they wanted to convey that Hopper is just being a paranoid overprotective father, they would've framed it that way. They could've made him say something like: “You’re spending entirely too much time with my daughter” “You guys need to take a breather for my sanity” “I don't feel right about this" etc. Instead, they framed it in such a way that it feels like he’s stating a fact ("There is something very wrong..."), and it's not temporary, either. The way he calls it a “thing” further emphasizes the idea that their relationship is not a normal healthy one, but more of an attachment/codependency that shouldn’t even be qualified as a romance.

This line feels very deliberate, and since it's in the first episode, I think it's meant as a direction for the audience for the rest of the season: pay close attention to these two, something isn’t right here. 

It's especially meaningful when you pair it with this scene earlier in the episode:

Dustin is talking about himself and Suzie, of course, but he is seriously beating the dead horse with this comparison—he says it in three different ways (not to mention El is pulled into frame, hanging on to Mike's arm, the moment he introduces the concept with the word "Shakespearean"). Then we have Max's "I got it" reflecting what the audience is thinking at this point (lol) and then they immediately cut to:

I have never seen anything more intentional in my life, like come on. This is a neon sign saying that these two cannot end up together. The reasons for this have yet to be revealed to us explicitly, but they are setting us up so that we won't be disappointed when it happens because 1) we will be so fed up with them lmao and 2) we will know that the relationship is not good for either of them.

Now Let's Question Some Narrative and Directorial Choices!

Maybe you're not convinced at this point, so let me posit this: when Mike and El skip together hand in hand down the hill on this lovely summer's afternoon, don't you think this would have been the perfect moment to cut to a private scene between them? So we can finally see them share a nice, tender moment that gives us a reason to root for them? Absolutely, this would have been the time to do it. But no, we get this instead:

Why are we constantly seeing other characters discussing Mike and El's relationship instead of actually seeing their relationship unfold?

Why is it that the two kiss scenes between them before their breakup don't serve to advance or give us insight into their relationship in any way, but instead serve to introduce and further Hopper's agenda (a character who canonically hates their relationship)?

After that first kiss scene, they even call each other afterwards and all Mike is talking about is how red in the face Hopper was, before this eyebrow-raising exchange: "I wish I was still with you" (strange phrasing for what could have been "I wish we were still together") and "I know, me too" ('I know' can easily be misconstrued as 'I know you do', implying one-sided feelings, and definitely didn't need to be written that way).

Why is it that one of the only halfway cute Mileven scenes this season ("Does your species like M&Ms?") only exists because Lucas made it happen?

Why is it that Mike can only say he loves El when she isn't in the room, in an excessively unromantic and performative setting?

(The family discussion line is hilarious when following this bombshell Mike just dropped. Reminds me of "Will you be like my brother?" and all the more tongue in cheek when you view Mike as a brotherly/fatherly figure in El's life.)

Why are the highs and lows of their relationship portrayed so unemotionally, with cheesy pop ballads playing in the background of their kissing scenes—which are in turn cut up by comically angry Hopper scenes—and the most unserious, tonally cheery breakup I have ever seen?

Why is it that the only other glimpses we get into Mike and El's relationship from their perspective are scenes where they're lying, fighting, or failing to communicate?

-> I'll go ahead and answer this last one: it's because there is no romantic substance to their relationship, so they have nothing else to show us except two incompatible people trying to make it work.

Mileven Jeopardizes Other Relationships

The rain fight scene between Mike and Will highlights a very important point:

Will: You're ruining our party. Mike: That's not true! Will: Really? Where's Dustin right now? Mike: *deafening silence* Will: See? You don't know, and you don't even care, and obviously he doesn't either and I don't blame him! You're destroying everything and for what? So you can swap spit with some stupid girl?

We are meant to sympathize with Will here, and we are shown that he's correct based on Mike's treatment of him and Dustin (honestly the scene before this, when they're making fun of Will's campaign, is brutal to watch. It isn't up for debate that they treat him horribly). Mileven canonically jeopardizes Mike's relationships, and a healthy romantic relationship should not require sacrificing other important people in your life.

Now, you could argue that Lucas also has his head up his ass this season, but it isn't because of Max. It's because of Mike and his relationship drama. Lucas and Max are fine helping Dustin build Cerebro, and they're also not losing their minds when they're apart from each other. That's an important difference being highlighted between Lumax and Mileven, which I think are meant to be foils of one another given they are all at the same stage of puberty, in the same Party, and seemingly at the same stage in their relationships.

But something else that's important about this is we the audience don't want to see the Party fall apart either! We love the Party! And the writers are purposely making it so that a united Party and Mileven are mutually exclusive, which is yet another tool to push us not to root for them. You may think that's a bold statement, but consider this:

They could have written it so that Mike smartens up after this fight and is able to better balance his relationship with El and other people, but that is not what happens. Instead, s4 rolls around and we see that it's gotten even worse—Mike is literally incapable of being civilized with Will in California until El and him are on the rocks again. He has a functional relationship with Dustin and Lucas (arguably for the latter, but only because Lucas has his basketball/popularity baggage) back in Hawkins because El is not around.

I'll let that simmer as I introduce:

Addressing a Counterpoint

I want to make it clear that I'm trying to be objective as possible here, and there are some sweet shots of Mileven in the latter half of s3 that can be used to argue against all of this. Mike is very caring and protective over El while they're dealing with the supernatural plot—he rushes to her aid a lot, checks in, and helps her hobble around on her injured leg. He clearly cares about her a lot, but I'm here to say: these are not explicitly romantic, or even romantically coded, scenes/actions, and they seem to go out of their way to make a point of this. I've run out of image space on this post and this point doesn't really pertain to why we're meant to dislike Mileven, so I may make a separate post and link back here. But in summary:

In the final episodes of s3, when they're in peril, we often see Mike's actions toward El repeated by other characters, especially Max. I find it really interesting that both Max and Mike are helping El get around on her injured leg in the final episode, as if to make it glaringly obvious that the care being shown to her can be read as platonic. Pair that with Mike attacking Billy after he knocks Max—a character Mike consistently butts heads with—unconscious, to remind us that this is how Mike behaves with anyone he remotely cares about (leader Mike rise uppp).

And finally, there are almost always other characters in frame during these sweet Mileven moments (which detracts from the intimacy and any sort of romantic mood) apart from 2 or 3 brief clips, the one below being the longest (and guess what? This one was famously unscripted):

(I'm emphasizing that it was unscripted/undirected because, even though they kept this shot in—because it is a great, dramatic shot—the writers never actively thought about giving Mike and El an intimate moment like this during the heat of battle, because once again, it was never their intention to progress their romance in a positive way.)

So yeah, Mike and El care about each other, undoubtably. Obviously they're going to protect one another during life-or-death moments. But this doesn't cancel out the fact that their romantic relationship is a constant source of negativity for them and other characters throughout the season.

Conclusion

I'm just going to say it outright: Mileven is unlikeable and we are meant to see it that way. They have purposefully shown us the drastic shift from their cute platonic/first crush (however you want to see it) dynamic in s1 and s2 when they weren't actually in a relationship, to their toxic dynamic in s3 when they are in a relationship. This is to say that this pairing does not work romantically.

Why, then, did the writers put them back together after their breakup at the beginning of s3? Because this relationship serves as a driving force for both Mike and El's character arcs. If they had broken up for good in s3, there would be nothing holding El back from "finding herself" in California in s4, and then her arc would be over by the time we get to s5. And Mike needed this:

to further his sexual identity crisis, ultimately leading to his deep denial and posturing in s4, and setting him up for his latent homosexual awakening in s5.

This is a s3 analysis so I won't go too deep into s4, but just to say that all s4 does for this relationship is show us more explicitly the flaws that exist within it. We are no longer just seeing them being annoying through the eyes of other characters, we are now seeing how their lies and miscommunication affect Mike and El themselves. If s3 was designed to get the audience to dislike Mileven, then s4 was designed to show us that Mike and El don't like it anymore, either. Neither of them is having a good time, and it shows.

I am actually begging to engage in respectful conversation with a Mileven shipper about everything outlined here, because to me it's just mind-boggling that people can view this relationship as something positive to root for!!!!! I am dying for Mike and El to end their storylines as the good friends that they are.

[brynvivix]

"don't vote for Harris or you're supporting genocide" "voting blue is still voting for fascists" Then what else do you expect us to do?

Here are some options y'all seem to insist on and why they're fucking stupid:

Vote Third Party :: Until we have ranked-choice voting (and probably even if we did have ranked-choice voting), it is practically impossible to make a 3rd-party candidate viable. There's not enough of the population that's far enough from moderate to give up their "safe" blue vote for some "revolutionary."

Don't Vote At All :: I'd prefer to pick my enemy. If I'm going to be working in spite of the government, or even against it in some ways, I'd rather the people I'm working against not already be targeting me for being queer, for example. If my options are "bad" or "much, much worse" I'm gonna pick "bad" and try to improve things from there.

Violent Revolution :: It's a cosplay power fantasy in the same vein as the Right-wingers looking for a reason to shoot protesters. Assuming you even have enough people organized and enough firepower to pull that off in the first place…have you prepared a plan to keep the innocents alive and safe? Are you sure you can keep supply chains for food and medicines intact? Are you sure there will be resources available for the disabled, the scared, the young and old, those who won't be able to fight and still need to be taken care of? Turns out revolution is ugly and causes a lot of undue collateral damage. Are the lives "saved" really going to outweigh those whose lives will be upended and destroyed? It's not like a newly-toppled, unorganized country will be able to do anything about Israel/Gaza, so you're just hurting and killing far more people than you're saving.

As for the power you do have to better things (and make Leftism more viable as a political stance in the US)?

Work at the level of your local government. If you're in a small enough town or neighborhood and think you have what it takes, run for local office. Be a local face of the left wing; you're far more likely to sway a small town to your views than the whole country, and each small town with a socialist-leaning government is a dot on the map for larger-scale viability, and you can help keep your community safe while trying to build up in scale.

Build community so we can keep each other safe if worse does come to worst. Push mutual aid initiatives, help at food banks, grow produce to donate to those in need, apply to work at your local free clinic, empower local businesses whenever possible so that if there is a socioeconomic collapse, you and those you love aren't left completely without resources.

Protest, and make it disruptive. You can be disruptive without being violent: graffiti, blocking roads, encampments, sit-ins, to name a few examples. Create inconveniences so it gets people's attention whether they like it or not.

Above all, FUCKING VOTE BLUE. You're choosing your enemy. You get to help decide if the government we're working in spite of is run by milquetoast neoliberal war hawks who do, on some rare occasions, actually make things marginally better…or full-tilt Christo-fascists who want to kill some of us for kissing people with the same genitals as us. There aren't any other options that are going to be picked. It sucks, but at the bare minimum we can pick the option that isn't going to actively murder us while we try to build up viability for a candidate who won't sell out brown people to an ethnostate.

If you aren't doing at least one of the things above, then don't lecture me about how I keep myself and my community safe. I'd love to see a United States (or some future iteration of it) that acknowledges the sovereign rights of indigenous peoples, that doesn't fund genocide, that provides healthcare as a basic human right, that doesn't meddle in every other country's business. But if we are to see that, let alone help that happen, we need to survive this next presidential administration.

Edit: y'all have lost reblog privileges. If you wanna screenshot this and have stupid unnuanced opinions OFF of my post, be my guest. Just leave me tf alone.

[cherrydbear]

Since y'all seemed to like this I'll keep rambling on the subject, I can do this all day. Here are some of those examples where I think their friendship really shines through:

From Sanji's perspective, this guy just showed up outside his restaurant one day, dueled the legendary swordsman who slashed Don Krieg's fleet to pieces, willingly got cut almost in two, nearly bled to death, was tied up by his own crew and then captured by the Arlong pirates, still singlehandedly escaped and came back to join the fight and defeated one of Arlong's best fighters, then nearly bled to death again and woke up just in time to drink himself silly at the afterparty. I've heard people say they "match each other's freak" and that's the truth. Sanji watches this absolute wackadoodle of a man and knows he's found someone who matches his freak. From Zoro's point of view, some cook at a floating restaurant just fed all of their enemies out of principle before kicking their butts. How could he not respect that sort of unconditional adherence to a sense of honor and justice? Especially considering he himself experienced starvation not too long ago in Shells Town. Now this cook, the newest stray in Luffy's collection, immediately proves himself to be immensely capable both in the kitchen and on the battlefield, incurs injury to himself without complaint to protect these people he barely knows, and still is the only person to come sit by Zoro and check up on him. So Zoro knows that Sanji has a heart of pure gold, and I think that's a big part of why he gets frustrated when Sanji tries to cover it up with bravado and perviness.

This scene was really interesting to me because usually when someone demands that Zoro does something, he grouches and grumbles about it, so in this case it seems he just spontaneously started helping out himself. And if there was ever a man whose love language is acts of service, it's Roronoa Zoro. He seems to be more of a "companionable silence" kind of guy, while Sanji's a talker and will say anything to keep feeling connected. Now, I don't know if this is just a me thing, but I like to say my friends' names a lot, even just because the association with them brings me joy, but I rarely use the names of people I'm not close with except to refer to them in third person or to get their attention. In this scene, it seems to me that Sanji keeps repeating Zoro's name as a way to show he's thinking about him and appreciates him being there, though I might just be projecting.

Now, I know shippers go crazy over this one, but I think it's honestly really solid platonic evidence and I'll tell you why (not to dissuade shipping, I think you have to be friends before you can be more than friends so all of this can be fuel for the ship too if you want it to be). Firstly, they're comfortable enough to sleep this close together. Sanji's resting his sleepy head right on Zoro's shoulder (it should have been me, not him) and Zoro just lets him. Also note real quick, only a short distance away Luffy is using Usopp as a pillow, so they're all a cuddly cozy little family. When Zoro notices Sanji mistakenly trying to kiss him, he doesn't even move away, he just makes a face and waits for Sanji to wake up so he can make fun of him. Sanji, for his part, doesn't act embarrassed or disgusted that it turned out to be Zoro there, only playfully mad about his expression. They squabble for a few moments before Luffy pushes past them and they turn their attention to the next thing, argument forgotten, proving that neither was actually angry about anything and they were merely enjoying the opportunity to bicker.

This is from the hunting competition in Little Garden that I mentioned before. I just wanted to point out that both of them are grinning and clearly having a grand time.

(I love how Sanji's hands are just massive sometimes.) They have the entire forest clearing, and Sanji chooses to sit his little booty down right next to Zoro and toss his food at him. They're just like those kids in elementary who had beef over who has a more impressive Pokémon collection and would always sit next to each other at lunch to compare cards and play together at recess but claim they're archnemeses. And for as much as Sanji implied to Usopp (though oblivious) that the heart shaped vegetables were just for the ladies, he did choose to make it and serve it to the whole crew. Speaking of the ladies, Sanji is always adamant about protecting them, but he was perfectly fine with leaving Nami and Robin in Zoro's care, just as Zoro trusted Sanji to take care of Luffy and Usopp.

I also loved how Sanji packed Zoro a cute little lunchbox for exploring and he was NOT going to let no stupid south bird take it from him.

Alright that's all for today folks I gotta wake up in like 5 hours for work lol

Continuation from this post

[dixons-sunshine]

Unholy | Vamp!Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Summary: While on a run for some supplies, you and Daryl stumbled across some of his old “friends”. Something happened that struck up an old hunger in the archer. However, with the strict “no feeding on humans” rule that Deanna enforced on Daryl, that hunger wouldn't get satiated. Well, not without your help, at least.

Genre: Smut.

Era: Early Alexandria.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, death, dry humping, ejaculation (male).

Word count: 5.5k.

A/n: Um, so this got way longer than I had originally planned lol. Whoops. Anyways, this was written for two of the loveliest people I have the pleasure of knowing. @darylssunshine and @lazyneonrabbitt. I hope I did your ideas justice. (Although I feel like I failed because the plot is all over the place.) Also, before anyone comes at me for the way I wrote Daryl as a vampire, I know the lore isn't factual. I just wanted to create a version of him that resonated with me, y'know? Anyways, apart from that, I hope y'all enjoy!

“Christ, woman. Ya gotta be more careful. One wrong slip and yer tumblin' down, and somethin' tells me the landin' ain't gon' be soft.”

You chuckled as Daryl tightly wrapped his arm around your waist, effortlessly lifting you onto the platform that you had been attempting to hoist yourself onto only a mere five seconds prior. The platform wasn't that high and the climb wasn't that difficult, but your partner was being extremely overprotective that day. Well, you guess you couldn't blame him. You had just been given the go-ahead to go on runs again by the community doctor, so his overprotectiveness came from a place of good intentions.

“Careful, Dixon. It's starting to sound like you actually care about little old me,” you replied, a playful edge to your voice. You extended a hand and helped hoist Daryl onto the platform. You knew your help wasn't needed, but your partner would never make that known to you.

Daryl straightened his vest and rolled his eyes at your playful comment. “Nah, I dun' care.” He walked off and allowed himself a small smile at the sound of your hurried footsteps to keep up with his speed. “M'only keepin' ya 'round 'cause ya make a mean deer stew. If it weren't fer tha', I would'a gotten rid'a ya a while ago.”

You scoffed and hit the archer on his chest, before bringing your hand to rest over your heart in mock-offense. “How dare you?” you started in a dramatic, over the top fashion. “I'll have you know that I have a million different qualities for people to want to keep me around. I can't think of specific examples right now, but I'm sure I have other qualities.”

Daryl chuckled and wrapped his arm around your shoulders, placing a tender kiss to the side of your head. “Yeah, ya do. I was jus' playin'.” He pulled back and took your hand in his, allowing you to intertwine your fingers together. “And I can think'a specific examples. For one, yer incredibly smart. Yer loyal, a good friend, and ya—”

Daryl suddenly cut himself off, making you frown. The archer pulled his hand away from yours as he took a few steps forward, his eyes darting all over the place. His head was slightly cocked to one side, a clear sign that he was trying to hear something, something that you couldn't. His body was visibly tensed up, and his entire defensive demeanour had you on edge.

“Daryl, what's wro—”

You never got to finish your question, because in a matter of milliseconds, Daryl was rushing towards you and wrapping his arms around you, before throwing the both of you over the edge of the platform you were on. Your mind could hardly comprehend what was happening, so no screams or anything escaped you. Before you knew it, the two of you landed on the ground, with Daryl laying flat on his back and you on top of him. The archer had clearly situated himself in a way so that he would take most of the damage the fall caused. Before you could even begin to comprehend what had happened and ask him why the hell he did what he did, an array of gunshots echoed through the air, the bullets ricocheting off of the metal on the platform you and Daryl had stood on a few seconds ago. As quickly as the bullets started flying all over the place, just as quickly, they stopped. In their place, all that could be heard were the bloodcurdling screams of the perpetrators.

Your heart was attempting to pound out of your chest. The screams were dying out one by one, and you could only assume that the walkers had gotten to the people who had shot those guns. The feeling of Daryl's hands gently yet firmly lifting you off of him snapped you out of your thoughts. “Daryl, wha—”

“No time.” In one, swift movement, Daryl was on his feet and he had tugged you up as well. He grabbed your hand and started pulling you behind him, clearly in a rush to escape the building. “We gotta go. They can't see ya. They're gon' kill ya. I can't let that happen.”

“The walkers?” When Daryl didn't respond, you harshly yanked your hand out of his grip. The pain spread through your body at the movement, but you couldn't think of that. The archer spun around to face you, his eyes showing how panicked he was, something extremely rare to see. The panic in his eyes stirred up a sense of dread in you. “Dar—”

A few whistles echoed through the room, effectively startling you. Daryl cursed under his breath and hurried to stand in front of you, shielding you from whatever danger lurked in the shadows. Your heart sped up considerably, the fear in you spiking through the roof. Daryl clearly sensed it, and apparently, so did the danger in the shadows.

“Aah, yes,” a deep voice ominously snarled from the shadows. “She smells fucking good.”

“So good,” another voice chipped in. “She'll make a nice addition to our feast tonight.”

“We're adding her to the rain?”

“Hell yeah. Everyone should have a taste. We're not selfish, Stevie.”

“Holy shit,” another voice chipped in, this one much higher and more feminine. “Boys, look at that. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?”

“We sure are, Janine,” the first voice agreed. “It's Daryl motherfucking Dixon, back from the grave.”

With that, the voices made their visual presence known. From the shadows, three bodies appeared. Two guys and one woman, all sporting smeared blood on their mouths, emerged from the shadows. Daryl visibly tensed and shifted in front of you, forming a protective barrier between you and the unknown people.

“Hey, guys,” Daryl drawled out hesitantly, his body still acting as a protective barrier in front of you. “Where's the others?”

“Holy shit, it really is him,” one of the guys laughed, clapping his hands together twice for added emphasis. “Daryl Dixon. What's up, man? Last I heard, Tommy told us you were dead. Told us that asshole brother of yours got mixed up with some hunters and killed you. Glad that isn't true. The gang's still going strong, believe it or not. The others are out searching for food. They will be thrilled to see you. We missed you around here.”

“Speak for yourself, Stevie,” the woman—Janine, you guessed—scoffed, folding her arms over her chest. “This asshole left us to die all those years ago. We should kill him and that bitch he's trying to protect.”

“What, that human?” the guy barked out with a laugh. “Please, Daryl here is too smart to be hanging around with humans. He's keeping her alive to feed on her. You know how tough it is to get decent food nowadays. The flesh eaters are beating us to it.”

“Please, don't make me laugh. Dixon?” the other guy piped in. “Guy's too much of a pussy to keep a human around for that. You know how hard it was to convince him to feed on humans. Son of a bitch was planning on going vegan and drinking animal blood. It wouldn't surprise me if the little human is his friend or something.”

As the two guys started arguing, with Janine rolling her eyes and trying to break up the argument, Daryl started whispering to you. “Ya see tha' openin' there, righ' between those two pieces'a metal?” When you nodded, he continued. “I'mma need ya to stay real quiet, head tha' way and hide, alrigh'? Thing's are gon' get messy. I need ya outta the line'a fire. I know ya have a bunch'a questions, and I'll answer 'em all later. I jus' need ya to do wha' I ask, okay?”

“Okay,” you mumbled quietly. “I love you.”

“Love ya too. Now go.”

Following his orders, you slipped away from behind him, praying harder than you ever had before that you didn't capture the attention of the others. You weren't stupid. You knew exactly what these “people” were—vampires. And based on that little interaction, and Daryl's panic, you were certain that they weren't exactly the friendly type of vampire, either.

You were nearing the opening that Daryl had talked about, succeeding in not making a sound, until you felt a whoosh beside you. You stood face to face with one of the men, the guy giving you a creepy smile. “Where do you think you're going, baby? The fun is just beginning.”

Before you could make a run for it, the guy had pushed you and you were flying through the air, your back soon making harsh contact with the wall. All the wind got knocked from your lungs, and your vision got a bit spotty. Bringing a hand up to the back of your head, you could feel the stickiness of the red liquid before you saw it. You were bleeding.

The scent of your blood filled the air, and hunger instantly dawned on every vampire's face—every face except Daryl's. In seconds, they were all lunging for you, only stopping short because Daryl used his body as a protective barrier again. “Don't,” he warned them.

Janine laughed wickedly. “Looks like Derek was right after all. You're still the same fucking wimp you were all those years ago. Still protecting your precious little humans.” Janine licked her lips, her fangs elongating. “I'm gonna have so much fun watching the life drain from her eyes.”

The last shred of the archer's patience snapped, and before anyone could properly see what he was doing, he lunged for the woman, snapping her neck effortlessly. The woman's life drained from her eyes—temporarily, as Daryl had told you that the only way to properly kill a vampire was by getting it in the heart—and that was enough to send the other two into a fit of rage.

“You motherfucker!”

Daryl grabbed the guy that was charging at him and threw him to the other side of the room. He briefly turned to look at you, quickly helping you to your feet. “Go! Get to tha' openin'!”

You definitely didn't need to be told twice. Walkers were predictable. They were loud, clumsy. You could handle walkers. Vampires were an entirely different ballpark. Daryl could easily overpower you without even using his full strength. You definitely did not want to find out what a vampire using its full strength could do to you. Ignoring the pain in your body, you bolted for that opening, wanting to get out of the line of fire. You didn't want to leave Daryl alone with these psychopaths, but you knew you didn't really have much of a choice. You'd be more of a liability than much help. Being safe would ensure that Daryl had a clear mind. He could defend himself. He'd be okay.

When Daryl saw you crawl into the opening, all hell broke loose. The guy—who Daryl knew from his life before the outbreak to be Derek—met a cruel, agonizing end. He had made the mistake to try and get to you. Daryl rushed over to him, grabbed him and pushed him forward, right into one of the metal rods sticking out of the wall. The rod impaled him in the chest, right through the most vital organ that kept him alive. Derek yelled as the rod drove right through him, but as soon as his heart was touched, he fell deathly silent—emphasis on the deathly. Two down, one to go. Daryl turned around and faced Stevie, the biggest and strongest vampire of the three. The archer knew that he had his work cut out for him.

Stevie approached Daryl threateningly. “What the hell are you doing, man?” he asked in a low, dangerous tone of voice. “That one human can't be worth more than years of friendship with us. All can be forgiven. Hand her over, add her blood to the rain, and everything will be fine.”

Daryl practically growled, his eyes alight with a fiery glare. “Ya add her blood to tha' fuckin' rain yer talkin' 'bout, I'll fuckin' kill ya.”

Stevie shook his head in disappointment. “Matt was right,” he began. “I never should've turned you. I should've left you to die on the side of that road.”

“Yeah, ya prolly shoulda.” The two men lunged for the other, the two colliding against each other harshly. However, by some stroke of luck, Daryl quickly got the upper hand. He unsheathed his knife and plunged it deeply into the other man's chest, eliciting a scream from him. Daryl firmly gripped the shirt of the man, bringing his face dangerously close to his. “Nah, scratch tha'. Ya definitely shoulda let me die tha' day. Guess s'a bit too late for tha' now, huh?”

With that, Daryl withdraw his knife and threw the almost lifeless corpse away from him. However, what the archer didn't know was that he threw the body right into a lever, the same lever that activated the rain the other vampires had been talking about—a blood rain.

Human blood sprayed out of the sprinkler system and rained down on Daryl, drenching him in seconds. The scent was extremely overwhelming to him, and when Daryl lifted his head to see where the blood was coming from, a few drops fell onto his lips. Against his better judgement, he licked his lips, the taste of human blood filling his taste buds for the first time in years. The taste overwhelmed his senses completely, and it took every ounce of self-restraint he had not to just open his mouth and greedily absorb every droplet of blood that fell from the sprinkler.

“Daryl?”

The sound of your voice instantly caught his attention, and he forced himself to snap back to reality. Janine would only be out cold for a few minutes more at best, and he had no idea when the others would return. He had to get you out of there. “C'mon, we gotta go,” he spoke up hoarsely. He quickly walked over to the woman and plunged his knife into her heart, ending her life completely, before making a beeline for the door you had come through earlier.

You quickly followed behind him, confused by his haste, but you refrained from saying anything. Your head was still throbbing painfully and your body was aching all over. Plus now you were drenched in blood, so that added to your discomfort. You silently climbed into the truck you had brought out with you for the run and started it, watching Daryl climb onto his newly-assembled bike and speed off. You shifted the truck into drive and followed behind him, leaving the factory behind you.

The drive back to Alexandria was long, and all you had to accompany you were your own thoughts. You had a million questions you wanted to ask your partner, and you needed answers. One problem you encountered when you finally got home, though? Daryl wouldn't be near anybody, not even you. When you got showered and wanted to settle down, Daryl was nowhere to be found.

The only thing that was left in his absence was an open window and a short note explaining that he'd be fine and not to worry about him.

Three days. It had been three days since that incident at the old factory. Three days since Daryl had disappeared. Three days since you were promised an explanation.

As quickly as you were given permission to go on runs again, just as quickly you were placed on bed rest again. That vampire had thrown you with quite the force. According to the doctor, Denise, you had bruised your ribs, and rather badly, too. She told you that you were lucky they weren't broken. Your back was also really badly bruised. It made sleeping rather hard, and without your partner there, your own personal space heater, sleep completely eluded you.

The house was relatively quiet that day. With you being placed on bed rest and banned from helping out around the community, you laid on the bed while staring at the ceiling, the only thing occupying your mind being the memory of you hugging Daryl for the first time; it also happened to be the first time you had commented on the warmth his body emitted, despite his “undead” nature. However, the archer had simply chuckled, vowing to explain it to you another time.

The sound of the window to your bedroom opening had your senses peaking to high alert. You grabbed the knife that rested under your pillow and hurriedly sprung up from the bed, clutching the weapon tightly. However, you calmed down once you saw who it was; your partner, gripping his crossbow while holding a dead squirrel between his teeth.

“Daryl, oh my god,” you breathed a sigh of relief and helped him through the window. However, once he was inside, Daryl firmly pushed you to the side and tried to put as much distance between the two of you as he physically could without having to leave the room. That made you confused. “Daryl, what—”

“Dun' come any closer. Please,” he mumbled out weakly, removing the dead squirrel from his mouth and tightly clutching it in his hands. “I dun' wanna hurt ya. Jus' needed to see if ya were alrigh'.”

“Hurt me?” You took a small step forward, stopping short when Daryl tensed up. “What do you mean hurt me? That's impossible. You can never hurt me.” You took a tentative step towards the archer, determined to show him that you didn't fear him, despite the warning that he could hurt you. You didn't believe that. He could never hurt you. Of that you were certain. “I don't know what's going on in that amazing mind of yours, but I want to understand. Please. Talk to me.”

Daryl let out a shuddered breath when your hand made contact with his cheek, unknowingly dropping the dead animal on the ground. Your scent was heavily intoxicating, like some drug he could easily get addicted to, and it made it extremely hard for him to keep his hunger at bay. Still, he tried. He tried his hardest. He would never willingly hurt the most precious thing in his life. He'd much rather have his own heart get ripped out than hurt you.

His instincts somewhat got the better of him. Daryl slightly turned his head and kissed your wrist, his teeth barely scraping against your skin. You inhaled sharply at the contact, your mind instantly flooded with thoughts that Gabriel would declare unholy, but you forced yourself to think straight. There would be time for things like that another time. For now, you had to get through to your partner. You had to figure out what was going through his mind. And you had to figure out why his gorgeous ocean coloured eyes had adapted that crimson colour when he was actively feeding not even five minutes prior.

“Talk to me,” you begged, pleaded, in a soft tone. “What's going on?” A few beats of silence passed. Daryl withdrew from your touch and took a few steps back, and you were convinced that he was going to shut you down, but you were pleasantly surprised when he let out a deep sigh and nodded.

“Ya remember those vamps tha' we encountered three days ago?” When you nodded, he continued. “I guess ya can say tha' they were my “friends”. When I got bitten by Stevie way back when, they took me in, showed me the ropes. They told me tha' if I wanted to survive, I'd have to live according to their customs. I'd have to feed off'a humans. For a while, tha's all tha' I knew. I mean, they've been alive for decades. I was a nobody, jus' some kid they took in. It didn't mean tha' I liked it, though. I wished more than anythin' for a way out.”

Daryl stopped for a moment and sat down on the bed before continuing. “But then they said tha' to prove myself, I'd have to kill my brother, drink his blood. Tha's when I jus' couldn't do it anymore. I got some vamp to pretend to have gotten into a scuffle with me and to tell everyone tha' he had killed me. I got my act straight and searched for alternatives, and tha's how I started becomin' “vegan”. I haven't had human blood again since then. Well, not since...” Daryl cleared his throat, his breath hitching when he inhaled too deeply and caught a whiff of your intoxicating scent again. “Not since tha' whole ordeal with those bastards. The blood tha' rained down on us was human blood. I made the mistake of tastin' it. Now nothin' s'satisfyin' my hunger. Not deer, not squirrel, nothin'. M'so goddamn hungry and I dun' know wha' to do.”

Silence. It got so silent that one could hear a pin drop. It got so silent that you could hear someone fiddling around with the pots and pans in the kitchen, that someone being Gabriel. The priest, although not very liked by your group, had been allowed to stay in your home. You were sure that if he had heard Daryl's confession, he'd run to Deanna first chance he got. But that wasn't your main focus at that moment.

Nothing would satisfy his hunger. No, that definitely wasn't something you believed. No animal would satisfy his hunger. However, you were sure that you could think of an alternative to his problems; you could be his solution. Seeing your man in such a state broke your heart, and if you could help him out of his terrible predicament, how could you say no?

With your decision made, you moved over to Daryl. You slowly straddled his lap and looped your arms around his neck. Daryl inhaled deeply and moved to grip your hips and lift you off of him, not trusting his own instincts, but you didn't allow him to do so. “Don't,” you whispered, gently brushing his hair away from his eyes.

Daryl's now blood red eyes stared at you, a small whimper escaping him. God, you smelled so good. It was getting to be too much to handle. If he didn't put some distance between the two of you, he'd most certainly do something he'd end up regretting. “I dun' wanna hurt ya. Ya smell so good and m'not sure I can control myself much longer. I have to go. I—”

“Don't,” you repeated your earlier statement. “No matter what you do, nothing satisfies your hunger, right?” When Daryl nodded, you continued. “No animal blood satisfies your hunger. My blood will.”

“Nah. I ain't doin' tha',” Daryl denied your offer, his breathing starting to fasten at the idea. He had to admit, the thought of tasting your blood sounded extremely appealing to him, but he couldn't. He didn't know if he'd be able to stop.

“It's either with me, your partner who won't snitch on you for this, or some innocent person. If you don't feed now, some innocent person is going to die. We don't want that.”

“Nah, I can't.” Daryl's words rung through the air as his breathing became more erratic. Although he was steadfast in his denial to your gracious request, his fingers tightened their hold on your hips. “I haven't drunk from a person in years. Wha' if I can't stop?”

“That won't happen,” you told him reassuringly, your fingers gently working through his hair. “I trust you. You'll know when to stop.”

Daryl inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as his self-restraint started to dwindle even more. “But, Gabriel's here. He's gon' hear everythin',” he mumbled, lowering his head to rest on your shoulder. “Ya've heard me when I feed on animals. Increase tha' by ten when it comes to human blood. He's gon' tell Deanna and m'gonna be kicked out, maybe even killed.”

“Well,” you began with a seductive smirk. You pulled back, moved your hands down to grip the edge of your shirt and tugged it over your head, leaving your upper body completely bare to your partner's now lustful gaze. “I guess you need some motivation to stay quiet, huh?”

Daryl let out a shuddered breath, his eyes trailing over your body. Any ounce of his self-restraint flew out of the window. All he thought about was you, and how absolutely amazing you'd taste, and he didn't want to admit that the thought sent blood rushing straight down to his dick. “Wha' do ya have in mind?”

Your smirk widened slightly at the feeling of him growing hard beneath you. Your hands moved to the back of his head, your eyes alight with mischief as your idea came out to play. “I'm gonna give you what you told me was your favourite thing and pair it with feeding you,” you began, leaning forward to place a soft kiss on his lips before pulling back. “This.” Without even giving him time to process your words, you gently yet firmly brought his face down to your boobs, stuffing his face between them. “Drink.”

To say Daryl was surprised would be an understatement. He definitely hadn't expected that. Even just offering to help satisfy his hunger by drinking your blood was unexpected, and then that happened? However, he knew that you weren't about to take no for an answer, so very slowly and gingerly, he pressed a few kisses to your now bare chest, mentally preparing both you and him for what was about to transpire.

The small action had a white-hot fire shooting down through your body, all the way to your core. Without even fully registering what you were doing, you moaned softly and slowly ground yourself down against his erection, eliciting a broken groan from the archer. His self-restraint fully dissipated. His fangs elongated and he finally sunk them down into the flesh of your boobs, right above your nipple.

You yelped at the unexpected pain that came from his fangs penetrating your skin, but you refrained from pulling back against the pain. The pain would soon go away, you reassured yourself. The thought barely had time to sit in your mind until it was proven correct. The pain very quickly dulled into something more manageable and, dare you even say it, something way more pleasurable. The feeling had you rolling your hips against his, a desperate attempt to relieve the ache that formed at your core.

Daryl groaned at both the feeling of the pressure you bestowed on his clothed cock and the taste of the delicious crimson that filled his taste buds. You tasted better than anything he'd ever had before in his entire existence, human or animal. It was almost unbearable. His senses were acutely aware of you. Only you. He couldn't focus on anything else.

Subconsciously, Daryl started moving his hips up against yours, begging for any sort of friction to relieve the ache in his pants. You moaned at the feeling, grinding yourself down against him harder. Daryl wasn't going to last long, and you knew it. You knew his tells for when he was close. And for some reason, the thought of him falling apart simply by the taste of you and the little bit of friction pressed against him was so incredibly hot to you.

Daryl was close, in more ways than one. He was close to coming. He was close to retracting his fangs from your flesh as to not take too much of your blood. He was close to metaphorically dying. He was on cloud nine at that moment, and he never wanted to come down. Your blood was an addictive drug, one that he never wanted to get clean from. There was no rehab for him when the drug he was consuming at that moment was so damn good. He couldn't get enough of you. And after this whole ordeal, he doubted if he'd ever be able to go back to his former animal-drinking ways.

One last suck, one last mouthful of your delicious crimson liquid and one last grind of your hips had him tumbling over the edge. His body shook at the powerful feeling of his orgasm, white, hot spurts of his release coating the insides of his jeans. Daryl whimpered against your flesh, the intensity of it all making his mind incredibly foggy.

“That's it. Good job, Baby. You did so good,” you whispered soothingly, your mind also hazy from both the blood loss and the loss of your approaching release. However, you wouldn't tell Daryl about that last part. He could take care of you another time. Besides, even if he was willing to help you out at that moment, you doubted that you would be able to. You felt very light-headed, and all you wanted to do was collapse into your partner's arms.

Daryl withdrew his fangs from the skin of your breast. He looked up at you with his now-blue eyes, only small specks of red still coating the beautiful irises. “Ya alrigh'?” he asked you quietly, warily eyeing the way you eyes started to droop. “I didn't take too much, did I?”

You slowly shook your head. “No. I'll be okay. Just a bit light-headed.” You forced your eyes to focus on Daryl, desperately wanting to reassure him that you didn't regret a thing and that you were indeed just fine. “I promise I'm okay, Dar. You didn't take that much. I just need to rest and I'll be fine.”

Daryl hesitantly nodded before lowering his head to the wound his fangs had made onto your flesh. He gingerly licked at the blood that poured from the open skin before going back to the source, gently licking at it. “This'll help it heal faster,” Daryl explained, although he didn't have to. You were well aware of the healing attributes his spit carried. He had “magic spit”, as you had jokingly called it once before.

When he was done, he gently lifted you off his lap, placing you down next to him. He grabbed your shirt from the ground and helped you to put it on. “C'mon, in bed with ya. Ya need to take it easy.” When you complied with his request, he took it upon himself to clean up the mess he made in his jeans. He shuddered as he slowly undressed himself, his release sticking to him in a way he didn't like. He grabbed his rag and cleaned himself up, before grabbing a fresh pair of sweatpants from the dresser and putting them on. When everything was done, and with the immediate risk of hurting you gone, he clambered into bed with you. He wrapped his arms around you, cuddling you from behind. He was certain that you had fallen asleep, but he was pleasantly surprised when he heard your voice.

“Should you be this hot?” you asked him, turning around to place your head on his chest.

“Wha' do ya mean?” Daryl asked you in confusion, his arms adjusting to hold you close to his chest.

“Well, vampires are considered to be dead, right? Dead things are usually cold. You're not. I wanna know why.”

Daryl chuckled and shook his head. “I dun' really know why. There are a bunch'a different types'a vamps. M'guessin' the reason I have human heat s'cause I didn't fully complete the “transformation” process. Yer supposed to drink the blood'a the vamp tha' bit ya to fully transform into one. I never did tha'. Stevie didn't want me to and said it didn't matter whether or not I did. Guess tha's wha's keepin' my human traits in check.”

“What happens to those that don't fully transform?”

“Not much. We dun' become immortal. Tha's why m'agin' jus' like everyone else. Tha's a huge plus for me. I definitely dun' wanna live forever. We need human food to survive jus' as much as we need blood. Can't survive purely off'a blood and can't survive purely off'a food. Need to have both.” He stopped, placed a tender kiss on your forehead, and continued. “We can walk in the sun without dyin', so tha's good. And, uh, we can make babies who are completely human, but I dun' know how true tha' is. Never tried it 'fore.”

You giggled and pressed a kiss to his clothed chest. “Well, I'm always up to try it. To test out that theory. Just tell me when.”

Daryl's breath hitched in his throat. You couldn't be serious about that, could you? “This yer way'a tellin' me ya want a baby?”

You shrugged and closed your eyes, letting out a contented sigh. “I'm not getting any younger. I kinda want to start a family. But it's okay if you don't want to. I'd never force you to...” you trailed off, your breathing evening out.

Daryl looked down at you in surprise at your revelation. You wanted to start a family? With him? The thought both scared and excited him. “Ya really want tha'? With me?” he asked you. However, he got no reply. You were fast asleep. He chuckled and pressed a tender kiss to the top of your head. “We'll talk 'bout it when ya ain't delirious from blood loss.”

[advantage-artrick]

i probably think about art coming in his pants at least fifty times a day. . . i really wish that was a joke.

it's gotten so bad that one of my favorite pastimes now is making a list of things i just know would have him shooting off before he gets his shorts down.

without further ado, here's a small fraction of what i've thought of so far!

CW: lots of nsfw stuff (mdni). nobody takes their pants off, but there's still some grinding, a little choking, mild degradation, very light d/s, and some other unimportant things. proceed with caution, i suppose.

(this post is entirely art x patrick, but if y'all are at all interested in an x reader or an x tashi part two of this list, i can totally make that happen!

also, if you've got anything to add to this one for a second artrick list, i am just dying to hear your ideas lol 💕)

XOXO

• starting off strong with ✨️dry humping✨️. i feel like this requires no explanation, but i'm going to give one anyway.

when art and patrick make out, it's never planned. or at least, it's not until after the challenger. pre-stanford (and maybe a few times at stanford), if they make out it's because they're drunk, high, exhausted, or just generally not in their right minds.

because of this, it's always messy and desperate and painfully uncoordinated, which is a winding road that- no matter which way they turn- always leads back to filthy, ankles-around-the-waist grinding. grinding that looks a lot like they're trying to fuck each other through their nicest party jeans.

while they have yet to attempt this feat successfully, they aren't ever gonna give up, because they just know that once art manages to last longer than four minutes, there's no telling what they'll be able to accomplish.

but it really isn't art's fault that he shoots off so quickly when they're kissing on his bed. the feeling of having patrick's tongue in his mouth while his impressively large (and very warm) bulge rubs up against his own is just too much for him to handle. and then he starts moaning, and patrick starts grinding harder, and when he folds art fully in half to rut desperately against his ass, the poor kid doesn't even stand a chance.

he always feels so secure being held down and pretend-fucked by his best friend, but still there's so much electricity running through him that it's impossible for him to relax. it's an electricity that just builds and builds, and he can't take it anymore because patrick's dick is right there, but he can't feel it like he wants to. then he imagines what it would actually feel like without their clothes in the way, and in no time, his unexposed cock is spurting messily in his underwear. it goes on for what feels like forever, leaving an obvious wet spot on the denim as payback for all the chafing friction it inflicted upon him.

he whines and gasps into patrick's mouth the whole time, making it impossible for him to not have noticed. and although it's always going to be embarrassing for him, seeing patrick glance down at the stain with a smirk before leaning back in to kiss him even harder will always be more than worth it.

"you do that every fucking time," patrick laughs, leaving a trail of kisses down his neck that makes art shiver and practically melt beneath him. "it's adorable. my favorite part by far."

"shut up. . . this is the last time we're doing this anyway, so i hope you fucking enjoyed it," art slurs, and there's not even a pinch of real frustration in his voice as patrick bites down softly on his collarbone.

art frowns, but he tilts his head to the side anyway to give patrick more room to work. he must be even drunker than he thought to let him keep going when he's already gotten off.

well, to even be doing this in the first place, he already knows he's hammered.

"uhuh, i'm sure," patrick responds, smiling deviously against art's pale, overheated skin. "you know, you say that every time too."

• alright, next up we got ✨️wrestling✨️.

of all of these examples, this is the one that i imagine happens at the most inopportune times. meaning, when they're fully sober and often at the gym or fucking around on the court after practice.

when art and patrick really get into it enough to start tackling each other, it's usually art who provokes it and patrick who initiates.

art likes to make fun of his roommate for being stupid and dirty minded, and for having the most eccentric serve known to mankind. he can get pretty ruthless with his words sometimes, but there are never any hard feelings because patrick knows he loves him.

sometimes patrick retaliates by calling art short (even though he's only got an inch on him) or prudish or nerdy, but that's not nearly as much fun as snatching art's hat off his head. . . or his phone from his hands, or his favorite tennis ball from the air when he tosses it.

it's not even close to as fun, actually, so that's what he does a good majority of the time.

needless to say, art still hasn't quite accepted that he is incapable of stealing anything back once it ends up in patrick's obnoxiously quick hands. because of this, he always gives his all into retrieving it, chasing his best friend around the court and tackling him to the ground when patrick lets him catch up.

within a few seconds, they're a mess of limbs on the ground, hands pushing and pulling anything they can reach in an attempt to pin the other ones' down.

it's never long before whatever patrick stole is discarded and forgotten on the ground beside them. no matter why they started the match, the only true goal once they get going is to not be the first to tap out.

patrick always wins in the end, but never without a struggle, which is why he only wins once art is face down on the ground, groaning with his arms pinned tightly behind his back.

usually patrick sits on him at that point, squeezing his waist with his thighs to keep him from getting up. sometimes he leans down close to his ear and huffs, "take it back, donaldson. i'm not getting up until you take it back."

art whimpers, unsure if it's from the stretch of his muscles or the hard press of his boner against the concrete.

"fuck you," he responds, whining again when patrick twists his arms harder. "fuck, stop it. you win! you win, pat, just stop. please."

but patrick ignores him, laughing at his weak attempts to throw him off.

"nuh-uh, not until you take it back," patrick says again, grinning. "as a matter of fact, i think i want you to apologize. yeah, that sounds more like it. i'll get off when you say you're sorry, and that you love me very much," he mocks, leaning down again to wrap his arm around art's neck in a chokehold while the other holds on tight to his wrists.

art groans again, struggling to take a deep breath from how tight patrick's arm is around his throat. his face feels so hot, and his dick just keeps getting harder, and he almost wants to keep fighting just so he doesn't have to look him in the eyes like this.

"say it," patrick growls, his bicep constricting even more, and art's giving in without even consciously deciding to.

"Fuck, i love you. i love you, i love you so much, please get off," he babbles, and just speaking the words out loud is apparently too much for him in that state.

before patrick can even roll off of his back, he's coming, crying out embarrassingly loudly as he shakes through it. when he comes to about a minute later, patrick's sitting on the ground beside him, just staring.

his face is pink, and his legs are pulled up to his chest so that his crotch is fully hidden from view. he's breathing pretty heavily too, but that could've just been from the exertion of their little tussle.

"you, uh, okay?" he asks quietly after a moment, not sure what exactly he's supposed to do in a situation like this.

art looks back down at the ground, pushing up slightly onto his arms. he doesn't want to stand up, unsure of what the damage would be if he did.

he has hot, humiliated tears in his eyes, and he's so sure that he's just fucked things up between them permanently. i mean, what kind of best friend orgasms because of a little playful choking?

"it's okay, dude. we can. . . we can stay here for a minute," patrick says in response to his silence, cutting through art's anxious thoughts and bringing him back to the present.

slowly, patrick stretches his legs back out, revealing the obscenely tented crotch of his loose tennis shorts.

"i don't really wanna join your walk of shame."

art blushes further, unable to tear his eyes away. it just looks so. . . developed, like he's been hard for a while at this point. art swears for a second there that he even saw it pulsing angrily through the fabric.

"oh. . ." he mumbles, glancing back up at patrick's face uncomfortably. he looks like he wants to ask about it, so patrick tosses an explanation out before he gets the chance to.

"you moan like a girl when you come," he jokes, grinning shyly to test the waters.

"do not!" art whines, finally finding the strength to stand up, and his soaked crotch is right in patrick's face before he remembers where they are and sits back down so fast he hurts his tailbone.

it looks bad. fuck, it looks really, really bad. there's so much it looks like he pissed himself, and they both saw that it had leaked very noticeably onto the court. he'd have to remember to rinse that with his water bottle before they left.

"holy fuck, dude," patrick gasps, trying to forget what he just saw before the image is permanently seared into his brain. "that's. . . wow."

"oh, shut up! this is all your fault, anyway."

patrick just smiles at him warmly, an unreadable expression behind his eyes.

"i know."

• last but not least, we have ✨️massages✨️.

i'm sure it's not uncommon for patrick and art to complain to each other about muscle aches and knots they can't get rid of in their backs. it's just something that comes with tennis being their only hobby and probably future career.

they spend so much time training and practicing, and since they're still so young and reckless, they haven't quite gotten in the habit of stretching like they're supposed to.

because of this, patrick can't seem to pay art a visit without having to watch him wince and hiss every time he moves his arms a certain way. even worse, art always brushes off his concerns like he's not clearly in pain when patrick asks if he's alright. it's insufferable.

"that's it. get your ass on the bed," patrick orders when he's still refusing to admit it the day before patrick has to leave.

it's a ritual at this point. it happens every single visit, at the same exact time, and in the same exact way.

art sighs, not putting up much of a fight since he knows his best friend won't take no for an answer. they've both already got their shirts off, so it would be all too easy for them to get him fixed up anyway.

he sits cross-legged in the center of his mattress, pouting while patrick settles down behind him.

"tell me where it hurts," patrick commands again, ignoring art's petulant frown. "i mean it, art. i know you're too stubborn to get it checked out and i am not leaving until you tell me."

"my shoulder," he mumbles after a moment, gasping when patrick immediately settles his hand right over the muscle that's been bothering him.

"right here, right? yeah, that spot's a bitch to get rid of," he comments, slowly adding more pressure until art is crying out softly in pain.

"oh hush, you baby," patrick mumbles, feeling around the area with his fingers. "i've barely even touched you."

art bites his lip to keep from making any more embarrassing sounds. he inhales sharply when patrick digs into the muscle hard with his thumbs.

gradually, he begins massaging his shoulder just like one of their coaches taught him to, rubbing the knot in tight little circles to loosen it up a bit.

art lasts less than half a minute before he's crying out again, trying to pull away from the prying fingers. patrick holds him in place easily, and art can sense the way he's trying not to laugh.

patrick just scoots in closer to him, pressing his toned stomach against art's back as he continues to work at his tense shoulder.

"you're okay, art. just let me help you, yeah?" he hums in his ear, sweetly condescending like he's talking to a toddler with a scraped knee.

"that's it, you're doing great."

art can sense distantly that he's being made fun of, but the words still make his cheeks flush and his dick hard in a matter of seconds. plus, the feeling of patrick's hot skin against his own is not helping in the slightest.

he whines when patrick hits a particularly sensitive spot, but he doesn't try to get away again. he knows the attempt would be futile. at this point, he's just focused on trying to find ways to keep his torturer from spotting his obvious hard-on.

"is it starting to feel okay?" patrick asks softly, wanting to make sure his treatment is actually working.

oh, if only he knew.

"yeah, fuck," art whimpers, the feeling of patrick's hands on him searing like they're branding his skin. "it's better, i think."

patrick laughs, digging in harder until art is almost writhing in his grasp.

"better isn't good enough, art. you're not getting out of this that easy," he says, and he keeps on going for a painfully long time.

the whole time he works, he's talking, making it impossible for art to get his fucking boner to go down. with the way patrick sits slightly taller than him, art keeps thinking there's no way he hasn't noticed by now. but neither of them dare to mention it.

"you're doing so good. just a little longer," patrick whispers, and art swears he must be doing it on purpose.

at some point the pain turns to relief which turns into pleasure, and all of a sudden he's biting his lip for an entirely different reason.

"yeah, there we go. that's it," patrick grins when art lets a little moan slip out by accident. "i told you i'd take care of you, didn't i?"

art moans again, leaning back into him involuntarily, and patrick takes it as an invitation to let his hands travel elsewhere.

now he's massaging art's other shoulder, and his sides and his lower back, and art's eyes are rolling back in his head because it just feels so good. not even because patrick is a particularly talented masseuse. it's just because he's patrick.

and his hands are so big and warm, and he's still fucking talking, telling art how good he was for him, and all of a sudden art's coming entirely untouched.

and patrick just watches it happen. he watches him whine and shake and he watches his eyelashes flutter uncontrollably, and he doesn't slow his hands down for even a second while art's breathing through the aftershocks.

he just watches, and when it's over he rests his head on art's now healed shoulder and just whispers, "don't worry, baby. thats perfectly normal. happens to the best of us, alright?"

and art just nods robotically, watching it leak from the leg of his boxers in shame.

'it's okay,' he thinks, his brain still fuzzy from the sudden orgasm. 'it's normal. . . it's not cuz' he said i was good. . . it's not.'

okay, that's it! part two, anyone?

XOXO ✨️💕

[alessiathepirate]

Squid Game

CUDDLES AND AFFECTION (headcanons): Seong Gi-hun x reader

Summary: S1 Gi-hun and S2 Gi-hun are very different - their affection and the cuddles just aren't the same...

Notes: English isn't my first language. I apologize for any mistakes I may have made while I wrote this short story.

This is my first time writing headcanons and my first time using 'you'. I'm sorry if it feels weird, but this is my first attempt writing this format. (I can't really explain it, but using 'you' instead of 'she' for example just sounds off in my first language, so I've never really attempted to use it in English.)

Warnings: angsty but cute (I'm sorry, but season 2 broke me so I'm here to break y'all too)

●●●

♡ S1 Gi-hun is the little spoon; or regardless of the cuddling position, he just likes to be held -- I feel like he needs some kind of emotional security, and the feeling of being held gives him just that.

♡ He has enough issues with the loan sharks, he has enough fear to burry him for a lifetime; so being cuddled in bed or on the couch -- or literally anywhere -- gives him emotional safety. And he craves that, along with the need to be loved and wanted.

♡ Let's be honest here: being in a relationship with someone who has a gambling addiction can be hard: and even if Gi-hun tries to change and avoid gambling for good, there are times when he fails. But being held at night gives him the courage to continue and try again. The fact that you still hug him and hold him - even though previously that day you looked at him disapprovingly - means that you aren't angry and that you're there for him through thick and thin.

♡ S1 Gi-hun is the kind of guy who loves to rest his head on your chest and listen to your heartbeat - and during these moments he thinks how lucky he is to have you; and how impossible it feels that he found someone who actually loves him, even though he feels like he doesn't deserve you.

♡ -- and if during these moments, when his head is on your chest, you decide to play with his hair, you can bet that this man will be out like a light and have the best damn sleep of his life.

♡ S1 Gi-hun is still full of light, laughter and hope. And he isn't afraid of showing his happiness to the world - and with happiness he means you. He likes to hold your hand in public and kiss your cheek here and there. He's also a yapper - he just won't shut up. Not like it bothers you: when you two are in bed he'll tell you stories and jokes; and he feels his heart flutter when he can make you laugh.

♡ Being late is also an everyday occurence with him - so there are times when you'll sit on a bench in the subway, both of you cursing the time, while he rests his head on your shoulder. (You might get his cap too - who knows...)

♡ To S1 Gi-hun you are a getaway from life. Your presence alone makes everything feel easier, solveable and less horrible. He still makes sure you won't ever meet the loan sharks who are after him - he doesn't want them to use you against him.

♡ When you two join the games - and after it's been made obvious that whoever loses, dies - you'll be attached by the hips. He'll hold your hand, kiss your forehead and do his absolute best to look out for you. He'd offer you his own food and water too - he wants you to be strong. Yet you'd decline. You need him strong too.

♡ At night you share the same bed and he hugs you close - no exceptions. He rests his head in the crook of your neck as he gently massages your scalp, so you'd fall asleep easily. He whispers how everything would turn out great in the end - and he still believes that they would.

♡ The moment the possibility of a raid comes up, Gi-hun won't let you out of his sight. He makes the team, including you, build a barricade, and he always wants to be the one to keep watch. It's impossible though - but he doesn't seem to care, all he wants is for you to sleep safely. Yet his plan fails - you never sleep when he keeps watch: you always sit next to him, with your head resting on his shoulder as you two try to reassure each other.

♡ There are times - like after the marble game - when he just holds you as you both cry. No words are said. He just needs the physical reassurance - like you.

♡ With S1 Gi-hun you can see the emotional, psychical change he goes through -- and it's heartbreaking. Suddenly he talks less, he smiles less - the only thing what stays the same is the snuggling. That's the only aspect of himself he never loses.

♡ Sae-byeok's death is the final nail in the coffin - for the both of you. After that you aren't the same and he isn't the same. After Sang-woo's death, it's even worse: you two win, but at what cost?

♡ The loss is obvious: no more yapping, no more sudden kisses, no more puppy dog eyes.

♡ Staying with this 'new' Gi-hun is crucial: he has you, you have him - the only person left worth living for (other than Ga-yeong).

♡ This Gi-hun has a new favourite thing, the only thing what can keep him calm and somewhat happy: you, resting your head on his thighs as he plays with your hair. It became his favourite after a drunken night spent at the river - during which you fell asleep. That was when he promised himself that he'd make you happy again and he'd do anything to protect you from life - which was much darker than he had initially thought.

◇ S2 Gi-hun is the big spoon; he now always has his arms around you, he has you tucked under his arm, close to his chest -- he just wants to protect you from everything.

◇ Nightmares aren't rare at all - in fact, they are pretty common. It doesn't matter who has them though: you or him -- after comforting the other he always stays up afterwards. It's always him, never the other ways around! He just rests his chin on top of your head as he looks around the dark motel room every few minutes.

◇ S2 Gi-hun sleeps with a gun under his pillow, and with a gun on your nightstand.

◇ S2 Gi-hun is no longer a yapper - even if you cuddle, there are no more jokes or fun stories. It's just you and him being quiet while he draws imaginary shapes into your skin.

◇ Every time you two have to leave the motel, he always has a hand on you - hand-holding, an arm around your waist; it doesn't matter. He needs to feel like he's there to keep you safe.

◇ Whenever you two drive around, looking for the Salesman, he has a hand on your thigh. It's him reassuring you that he's there - and if this nightmare ends he won't leave.

◇ If you happen to fall asleep in the car, you can bet he'll put those sneaky locks of hair behind your ears. His fingers would gently caress your face, before letting you nap. He'd still glance at you though and smile at how peaceful you look. This would be the only time S2 Gi-hun smiles - because you are the only person on Earth worth smiling for.

◇ After the Russian roulette? He'll hold you tightly, tighter than before - if it's possible.

◇ S2 Gi-hun doesn't think his own life is valuable. That's why during the games he won't try to save himself - he'll try to save you and all those other players. It leads to a serious conversation full of tears - neither of you should be here, especially without that tracker. You have to explain to him that he matters, he's your everything and he needs to survive and live for you. He promises to try, but his heart isn't fully in that promise...

◇ S2 Gi-hun barely sleeps - he's too scared: a raid might break out and he needs to keep you safe. Jung-bae would be the only one who can speak some sense into him: he tells him you need him too, and alive at that. He sends him to bed, not taking no for an answer, and keeps watch with Young-il. Jung-bae watches how Gi-hun lays down next to you and holds you close with a small smile.

◇ S2 Gi-hun always sleeps with his back towards danger. You always get the safest side of the bed, there's no chance someone could sneak up behind you.

◇ To S2 Gi-hun you are everything: stability, hope, love, happiness... He can't even think about losing you too.

◇ During the raid against the guards, he always has you behind him; either with Jung-bae or Young-il. Gi-hun needs you safe - there's no way you can go with anyone else. He almost sent you away to go with Young-il and attack the guards from behind (that was the safest option for you in his eyes) -- yet that's when you stand your ground and tell him there ain't no way you'll leave him behind. That's when Gi-hun realizes how much you truly care about him - a thought that never seemed important ever since S1. He just lets you hug him as he tries to surpress the tears. A thing never changed - he still feels like he doesn't deserve you.

◇ And when you have to surrender; when you have to give up the fight; he kisses you and hugs you one last time. He promises nothing bad will happen to you, he promises that you will get out alive...

◇ He just hopes that he isn't lying to you...

[ekebolou]

I get that people have complicated relationships with higher education, and that's 100% reasonable, but there's something I want to point out.

when you hear a popular podcast or youtuber or history show or see a popular history book or article say it's 'revealing' or 'uncovering' or 'bringing to light' or 'reevaluating' some story of the past, it's usually doing so off of academic history work done by people in academia.

Journalists and your average YouTuber are generally the worst about not crediting this work,* but it's there in the background, nonetheless.

That work - academic research, particularly of this kind, and the articles, books, and other information it produces - doesn't get done without institutional support. That is, like with everything, sure some enthusiasts will keep at their particular interests hell or high water, and rich folks can peruse to their hearts' content - that's what fueled the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries' ever-increasing investigative output.

And that should be concerning, not comforting.

Not because all of that output was wrong or terrible or misguided - a lot was, but much of it is still essential, foundational, exceedingly rigorous and useful - but because much of modern history work, twentieth century on, has been a century-long battle to correct some of deeply culturally embedded beliefs an almost wholly dilettante pursuit of the past generated. It's kind of a joke in English-language scholarship that the Victorians ruined everything, but like, for real, y'all, the Victorians left us some BURDENS, from fake relics created for ~the aesthetic~ to defaced and destroyed historical documents.

Academic research in itself is not some kind of panacea. we're not shitting on dilettantes (I am very much a dilettante, in my way) and so-called 'amateurs', who are vital and excellent contributors to knowledge. We're also not saying institutions are always perfect and good and don't need to change. I'm saying that robust, diverse, in-depth, careful, broadly reaching, and most of all interesting and new scholarship requires something on the scale of institutional support.

This is not just because that's where your historians live, but because in a very practical sense, that's where your archives live. You do actually need a big building stuffed with Things Of The Past well-maintained and with a core of well-trained and extremely cool (like librarians, all archivists are extremely cool in my books, even if they're kind of assholes, as long as they are good archivists).

Archivists are currently doing a lot with very little support - like a lot of academics and librarians, really - because that's what people do. When they care about doing something, they get along, they scrape by, they suck it up. But they need buildings, they need climate control, they need continuing training and new people coming into the field - if the idea is that we have so many documents from the past extant today because archives DON'T need institutional-level support, then you are severely misinformed about how much of the past has survived to the present day. And if the idea is that we'll preserve the IMPORTANT bits of the past regardless then you're also sadly misinformed about how good we are at determining what's important, and how frequently (and with growing frequency) disasters of various kinds wipe places out (Lisbon 1755, for example), and how robust any of our documentation (often ESPECIALLY the 'important' stuff) is in terms of long-term survival.

There's a theory going around that THIS period - like the 2000s through today and into the future - will produce a 'dark age' for future historians because the digital infrastructure which not only underpins almost all of our day-to-day lives but is how we've decided to 'save space' - by preserving things digitally rather than in hard copy - is so unspeakably vulnerable and weak. Everyday folks have already, for the most part, lost access to things like CDs, which have a lifespan of something like 100 years at the most. Proprietary softwares, black box devices with irreplaceable parts, flimsy modern materials with difficult to preserve features mean a whole of information that drives our lives today will simply become inaccessible in, actually, a very short time.

Archives - vast storehouses under careful supervision full of well-organized stuff that might potentially be important one day - need institutional support, but also, on their own, are kind of... well, let's just say, Historians will also say shit like they 'uncovered' a 'hidden history' in a previously 'lost, unknown' document that some archivist put in a special box on a special shelf and carefully catalogued for prime findability. It's a symbiotic relationship that doesn't always get its due. An archive on its own can be very useful to a local community, an individual business, a specific family, all kinds of things - but to get History out of it, you need some Historians or suitably rabid individuals of other castes. You need both, or you end up with the pseudo-histories of nineteenth-century rich folk that then get to determine what we believe is possible for the future by what we are told of the past. It's a bad scene.

Again, there are further steps to take - not over here defending institutions as they stand. We were, at one point, on our way to accessible higher education, meaning everyone had a chance to go to pursue their interests, before we started seeing Universities not as a social good and social resource but as job training and profit centers and cut social funding as demanded by business ghouls. Higher education and academia as it functions now has done a lot of damage to people's lives.

But institutions are much harder to build than to change, and change is hard enough. Once an archive is defunded, its collections distributed or destroyed, you typically don't get it back. Like certain species of sea creatures with long gestational periods, once you destroy the mid-range of the population - the bit that raises up the next generation - your population collapses and its very hard to get things back on track (historians and other academics who require lots of investment and training and time and experience are like the sea creatures, you see).

You can, of course, start new. We've done that a lot, as a species. It's always possible. But it's a bit like running out of a fire empty-handed instead of grabbing your wallet as you go. Sometimes you just gotta go, and that's always safest - sometimes you just can't think or there's no time to think and you couldn't get to anything useful if you wanted to - but if it's matter of looking at the wallet in your pants pocket and dipping down to grab it (and maybe pants!) while you bolt then yeah, ought to try. Maybe the pants catch fire and you've got to abandon them anyway to save your life. That's reasonable. (This is just an analogy - fire safety generally says to get ye gone with your life and health intact ASAP, just for the record - don't stop for shit and don't go back in).

The point of this is that next time you're enjoying some popular history content (please save me from this word) or learn some cool fact about the past, think about the fact that none of that get down to you without a big chain of people all joined together doing different things. And that big chain needs nice big social supports to exist. The social supports are hard to change, but the chain is easy to lose without them. It's a group effort all the way, even that little fucker who didn't credit the work they used to make fun videos is important.

That content doesn't happen without the structure to support it - or even worse, that content lies to you. Makes stuff up. The stuff it makes up isn't going to be fantasies of freedom and equality, at least going by what's been made up before.

Hate the academy, want it to change, act to reform it - all very good, go for it, no desire to stop you (except maybe the hating part, try to hate more specifically, like individual actions or aspects of the academy, if you're going to hate on stuff, but, like, hate can be unhealthy, get some peace in your life if you can). Things are bad enough without also feeling like you have to take on a crusade to save archives or other institutions - though honestly just participating in your local history scene, giving them time and attention, is really valuable help - so that's not really the call to action here. The call is just asking you to notice the big structures that enable these small joys.

Don't let yourself be convinced that they somehow happen in a vacuum, that they'll just persist somehow like getting Deliveroo at your off-grid mountain cabin. A lot people helped make that stupid podcast about Marie Antoinette's toenail fungus happen - and there's way more than that waiting! If we can just keep letting people make archives, study stuff, fuck off on fruitless searches for things that were never there and instead find stuff we never KNEW was there. There's so much of that to be done! The more the merrier on who should be doing it! But if we want that, we got to figure out how to support it, to keep what we've got, build more of it, or it'll be the same shit about Marie Antoinette over and over and over and over and over because that'll all we'll have to build from.

Anyway, if you've never done it, take a ghost tour. Visit a museum nearby. Pop into an archive and just ask them some stuff. Get on these web pages that do things like recreate Angkor Wat as a virtual tour, go watch a Youtuber do a frothing-at-the-mouth defense of Charles Lightoller, or even better, read this reddit thread about whether Dua Lipa would have survived the Titanic sinking based on her music video. And just think - holy shit, isn't it cool that we have a society, a whole social structure, that could produce such a thing? And it's right here, at my fingertips, ready to disappear.

*there are reasons for this, some related to format and legibility/accessibility that still shouldn't eliminate the need to credit others' work and others cowardly excuses for parasitism

[saintspeils]

✮ How I shifted ✮

✧ (And how you can too) ✧

╰☆☆ To start ☆☆╮

i'm sure you've heard HUNDREDS of shifting stories that tell you "all you need to do to shift is simply just decide to." believe me, i get the frustration you feel after hearing/reading that. And while I agree that the common statement is true, it doesn't do much to help you understand it better.

so, i'd like to go in depth about what it means to decide to shift, my first shift, and what i believed changed in me to make that my first successful shift.

My first shift

my first shift was actually at night. i had just eaten dinner while scrolling loablr (love y'all) and wanted to hop into the shower. all those people telling you about their first shifts that ended up being when they least expected it? they meant it 😭

anyways, after i had gotten into the shower, i stood there for a minute with water dripping down on my back. i sort of just zoned out and started to think about shifting as a whole.

it finally hit me, somehow. shifting isn't hard at all. Simply decide to shift, decide that, you, in that moment, have just shifted. truly believe that no matter what you have shifted. And from there i imagined my dr, feeling all of the sensations on my body and looking around my dr room.

and so i decided to believe i had shifted, ignoring the water pounding on my back, and only focusing on my dr. and GIRL, when I tell you what came next was REAL i mean itttt

like no joke it was that deciding factor that accepting shifting was something i had just done was all i needed.

"but sophie! how do i do that!?" ☆☆╮

╰☆☆ well, it's easy.

all of those descriptions you've heard about what shifting really is? That it's just some divine thing that happens when you completely let go and the universe throws you into your dr? that you'll know you shifted when it happens? throw them out of the window immediately.

throw them out of the window. and once you do, decide that shifting is what you make of it. decide that shifting is simply not believing a thing about what this reality has to say. it's what you believe it is.

example, decide that shifting is imagining your dr and taking note of your surroundings. decide that feeling remnants of this reality while imagining your dr don't matter. if you decide that your interpretation of shifting is shifting, you'll have shifted. and in turn, you'll truly have changed your perspective.

the pure satisfaction that comes with your first shift is completely unmatched. so to end this off, im not going to tell you to keep trying, and youll shift eventually. im going to tell you to decide what shifting is to you, and decide you are going to do exactly that.

so go on, don't be shy. go get ur first shift right now and change that part in your bio that says you've never shifted.

[mythica-ithaca]

the fact that I see some of y'all posting more about how important it is to vote for Biden than you ever have about Palestine just shows that you fucking "vote blue no matter who" people genuinely don't give a fuck about anyone but yourselves.

you only choose to speak up when YOUR hypothetical rights are threatened. you love to fear monger about how much hypothetically worse it would be under trump than acknowledge the actual atrocities that Biden is committing and condoning every single day. how exactly is he the "lesser" of two evils for?

do any of you actually look at the images coming out of gaza, or are you too fucking ~triggered~ to fully acknowledge other peoples suffering rather than your own. have you seen the video that came out recently of the little boy whose brain is exposed, about to be laid next to his dead family members, only to twitch and seize in his fathers arms as he screams and runs in horror to find a doctor, because his son is alive. his brain is literally falling out of his skull but he is still alive. that is one brief example of the most horrific shit you've ever seen in your life coming out daily for almost a year. how on this earth can you watch that and possibly claim that Biden is in any way shape or form "less" evil.

instead of demanding that the dnc force a different candidate, you're trying to guilt trip people who have actually seen the mutilated bodies of children on their timelines every single day and watched the press briefings of bidens administration denying genocide and defending Israel at the expense of literally everything else for the last 8 months, into voting for a man who supports it 100% and has not and will not be convinced otherwise.

this is where allowing them to push widely unpopular and centrist candidates has gotten us. it didn't work with Hillary in 2016. it BARELY worked in 2020. and hate to break it to you, but its probably not going to work again. so congrats. your "vote blue no matter who" rhetoric has got them thinking that they can push the most right leaning liberals on us and think that we'll vote for them just because they're in a blue tie instead of a red one.

if you care about democracy like you say you do, then the Democrats should be fucking TERRIFIED that you won't vote for them if they don't deliver. not constantly reassured that they can commit literal fucking genocide and still get your votes if they dangle abortion rights over your heads. you realize they see those posts too right? the ones that say "Yes! protest vote in the primary but make sure to actually vote for the guy in the general!!" like. you are literally telling them how performative your activism is.

if every election at this point is the one where democracy is on the line then we are already fucked. if they don't get it through their heads now that we will not support this shit, then every election to come will be between a fascist and a fascist who cares slightly less about whether gay people get married or not. but that's all you care about right? as long as your domestic policy is in your favor then the rest of the world can suffer at your tax dollars.

this isn't about morality voting. this is about recognizing that there is not actually a "lesser" of two evils in this situation, just because you think that the causes that you personally care about will be less affected one way or the other. because what if it was abortion rights? what catholic Joe Biden was firmly against abortion and was threatening to ban it completely and throw anyone getting or giving one in prison for murder. what if it was videos of lgbt people being slaughtered coming out every single day for a year. genuinely fucking ask yourself if you'd still be saying "vote blue no matter who" and that he's the "lesser" of two evils.

vote for whoever the fuck you want. and I do genuinely urge you to vote for the most progressive candidate you can for the house and senate and your local elections. but for the love of god, stop trying to convince people that there is, in any sense of the word, a "Lesser" evil in this situation. stop trying to absolve yourselves of the fact that you are CHOOSING evil. it's genuinely sick.