#les me has spoken

[kleiner-detektiv]

New Bonus Story about Joel just dropped and volume 7 is in preparation! \(^o^)/

[entername322]

It takes two

Chaewon (ex Izone, Le Sserafim) x Male Reader x Minju (ex Izone)

Length: 10383 words

Previous part

What is the difference between love and obsession? For Chaewon the two are basically the same. How can you love someone without being overly obsessed with them? Whatever feeling she had for her ex is, insignificant. You have shown her what love is, what it truly means to be mutually in love. “Chae, can you let me go?” At least that's what she thinks, “No pup, I'm spending the whole night like this, whether you like it or not”, Chae continues hugging you. It's been a few hours since the two of you had sex, now that your mind is clear the first thing that comes into your mind is to contact Minju. Unfortunately Chaewon has wrapped her limbs around you like you are some kind of body pillow and has refused to let go. 

“Chae I need to go”, That's not a very appealing argument, “You don't NEED to go anywhere. You belong here, it's been a long day isn't it? Just rest up baby, I've ordered our food already”, Chae peck your lips, giving you a sense of urgency. It feels like, for every second you're here with her, you're just gonna fall deeper and deeper into the abyss. “No, I need to talk with mom. I have dinner with her”, It's very odd, even though you've gained considerable muscle mass, your body would just get easily overpowered by her. “Baby, do you love your mom more than your own wife?” Say yes pussy, bet you won't, “No, it's just that….. she's my mom. She misses me as much as you do”, Called it. 

“So what? You're a grown up now babe, you should stop being a mommy's boy. Unless you're into that type of stuff, then I'll be glad to be your mommy”, You struggle so hard to not get an erection from her words. Hard, get it? “Come on Chae, you know she's important to me. Besides you owe her for saving you did you not?” Chae frowns realising you're right. Also your mom is scary, so as a good daughter-in-law Chae will try her best to please her. “Hmpffff, I already ordered some food. But fine, go get dinner with your mom, after that you'll come back right to me. I want you to cuddle with me and feed me okay?” Chae let go of her hug just so she can hold you by the neck. “I….. I'll see later, okay Chae? Mom and I have a long conversation to make”, Chae's eyes darted around trying to dissect your expression to see if anything is off.

“You. Will. Come. Back. To. Me. Tonight.” Every word spoken with venom, and it might be your imagination, but you can feel her hands constrict around your neck. “Okay, I'll try”, Not good enough, “If you don't come back tonight, I will lock you up in here myself”, That is a good sign for you to never come back here. “Okay, I promise”, A smile forms on her face, “Good, then why don't I help you wash up before you meet your mom? I'll help you pick your clothes'', Chae pulls you up from the bed. “I…… I can shower by-”, Chae wouldn't let you finish your sentence and just kiss you. It's effective, you're half starstruck by her kiss and half guilty for all this. “I think you're just being shy. Come on baby you already saw my naked body”, Chae sees your silence and feels victorious, “Okay, but don't do anything funny Chae. I'm drained”, She frowns a little but she understands, for now.

Chae did not in fact do anything funny in the showers, she simply enjoys your body by caressing it a little but she never does anything more than that. “Okay, I want you to call me once you're there, and call me once you finish dinner okay? If you forgot to call me I'm gonna have to punish you after you come home”, Chae gives you an ultimatum, “Okay Chae, I'll see you later”, A quick kiss for good luck and she sends you off. Now where do you go from here? “Mom, I'm gonna be spending the night at Minju's place okay?” Would Minju be able to protect you better than your mom? “Haaaaaa, you spend 20 something years being confined in home and now you have a girlfriend and you don't even bother to greet your mom?” She doesn't sound that mad, “Sorry mom, I just forgot time while hanging out with Chae and I need to talk to Minju”, Hopefully it won't be the last time you ever talk to Minju. “Fine, but I want you to come back home tomorrow and tell me everything about her. Don't make your mom meet your girlfriend when I don't know a single thing about her”, You should do that, if Minju decides to let go.

“You know, you have some nerve ignoring me for almost the whole day”, Minju frowned at you the moment you got to her apartment, “Oh sorry, I just got carried away”, It's hard, it's really hard to face her right now. “Well come in, don't be a stranger. I hope you like the place, I haven't had time to clean it up”, Minju grabs your hand and pulls you in. The whole place is nice, but you don't really get to enjoy it as your heart is being eaten alive by guilt. “I'm too lazy to go outside babe, let's order some take out. I hope my favourite ramen place hasn't closed yet while we're gone”, Minju pushes you to the couch before laying on top of you.

“Minju……. I have something to tell you”, Minju raises her head while looking at you curiously, “It's about Chaewon. Something happened today”, Your whole body is shaking while your heart might just burst any moment. This confrontation isn't something you've thought through. “Babe? What happened today?” You suddenly feel her hand touching your face, unlike the usual warm and inviting sensation you only feel chill running down your spine. It's rare, but there are times when Minju would outright terrify you with her gaze, this is one of those times. “I don't know what happened to her but-”, Minju grabs your mouth shutting you up, her mouth is smiling but her eyes are, well they're just blank. 

“I don't care about what happened to her. I want to know what she did to you. Did she hurt you again baby?” Minju turns her body around, now laying on top of you face to face. “I…..” Just from your demeanour alone she can tell what happened, which angers her. Without waiting for your answer her hand ripped open your shirt to expose your chest that has been filled with new hickeys. “Baby, were you cheating on me?” Her hand lowers to your throat, much like how Chae did today, “I didn't mean to. But she just keep pushing herself on me and I-” Lied, you lied because truthfully you got lost in the moment and accepted her advances. “Oh? That whore raped you?” You flinch hearing Minju's accusations, “I mean, I'm not sure if it could be considered as one”, You're torn apart from trying to tell her that you cheated on her, while also trying to shift the blame from yourself. Honestly, this might end worse if you don't come clean, fully clean.

“No, no, no, no, no, no baby. If you don't want that to happen then it's rape, but if you do then it's cheating. So did she rape you or did you cheat on me?” For the second time in your life you are being strangled. Weird how both happen on the same day and by the two girls you hold dear to your heart. “It’s complicated, okay babe? She's confused and-”, Now this is an interesting strategy, trying to shift the blame from yourself and Chae by acting like she is insane. “I don't fucking care about what she is, all I'm asking is did she or did she not rape you?” Minju takes away your right to breathe. “Baby please”, You gurgled out, “No, say it. Did she rape you?” Fuck maybe Minju is just as insane as Chae is. Hey at least she has a good reason to, you're her boyfriend after all.

“Minju please, I have known her for so long and I know she's not right in the head right now. Please I'm really sorry for what happened today but I don't want her to-”, The answer is still inadequate for her, so she choke you again. “Baby….”, You tried to free yourself from her hand but it's really pointless, just like with Chae, your body just refuses to go against Minju. “It's been a long day baby. Let's rest up”, Minju whispers in your ears as everything fades to black.

.

.

.

The next day, you woke up with a headache, as you tried to get up you felt Minju resting on top of you. “Where are you going?” She is also woken up due to your sudden movement. “What? Where am I?” You try your best to recall what happened last night. “Hmmm? You're in our bed baby, just lay down and rest okay? It's still midnight”, It's not the next day, and it's not a good time to rest up. “Minju, I….”, Go on, protest about what just happened earlier last night, “What? Is your throat hurting baby? I'm sorry I guess I just got ‘carried away’, you know how it is”, Minju stares at you with some disdain in her eyes.

“I know I fucked up, I'm sorry. I understand if you want to-”, Your words interrupted by a sudden pain in your chest, “You think you can just cheat on me and leave me? You're gonna have to make it up to me babe”, Well, you're not really ready to break up with her from your mistake. However the way she says that makes you think that it's better to break up with her. “Baby….. I cheated on you”, All it takes is just a near death experience for you to say that, “I know, and I'm not over that, in fact I don't think that I will be over that anytime soon. But let's not forget, she raped you”, Talking about Chae, she must be furious with the fact that you went off grid.

“No Minju, i-”, Minju shut you up with a kiss, it's really, unsettling. The kiss feels like how Chae-, okay what is up with you? Why do you keep comparing her to Chae? Do you actually have feelings for Chaewon? “She's still in your mind isn't she?” Minju also notices it, “I’m sorry”, You can almost hear a snapping sound, as if a rope just got ripped from a heavy tension. “Baby”, She touches your cheek again making you pull back out of fear, “Sssshhhh, I'm not mad”, You didn't pick up on it, but she's telling the truth. Minju is not mad at all.

“Minju I just don't think I'm really over Chae. I'm sorry okay? I never want to hurt you, I guess I treated you like a rebound girl and I only realised it now. Today, when I saw Chae again I felt like I just got hit by a truck of memories. Maybe I am just pathetic like that, but I don't want to drag you down with me. Yeah I know Chae probably finds me to be a rebound guy as well, but i just can't let go of her. So I'm sorry, but I think I'm just a hopeless romantic who keep chasing someone I can never get”

Minju stays quiet for a while, it's the type of silence you've never seen from her before. She has always been cheerful and chatty, so seeing her in this state made you realised you really fucked up. You fucked up a promising relationship that could've and should've been a better option than whatever the hell is going on between you and Chae. “Oh baby, I do think you're pathetic”, That's harsh, but you deserve it. “Which is why I can't be mad at you. How can I be mad at a dog who is loyal to it's master”, What the fuck? Since when has Minju become so mean? “Minju, I'm sorry. I deserve that”, Is she mean though? Or is she just speaking facts?

“It's okay baby, I see what's happening now. I fell in love with a slave who has grown to love the collar that's hanging around his neck”, A kiss to your cheek, filled with so many sinister thoughts. You being you, only think it as her anger, completely missing the darkness within it. “Of course as a nurse I can't just sit still when someone needs my help”, You acknowledge that you need help, but it feels like she's talking about a different kind of help. “Minju, what are you talking about?” She leans in and kisses you again, her hands grab both of yours and push it against the bed. It feels wrong, but you can't pull away.

“Listen baby, whatever she's done to you, it's much worse than I expected. I was thinking that she must've hurt you a lot after all those years of leading you on. Now, I realised she has left a permanent mark in my man's heart. So I'll help you get away from her. After all if I want all of you I will need you to be in one piece, with no part of you being clutched by her”

You stare at her with confusion, what the hell is she talking about? “Haaaaa, what I mean is I'll help you get over her okay? Like an adult would, by having a….. civil conversation”, In your confused state you completely miss the ambiguous tone she uses on the last two words. “No Minju, I don't want to make things even harder for you okay?” You plead, “Ssshhh, I know you're too kind for your own good. That Chae girl really means a lot to you right? So let's have a talk with her tomorrow. I'll be there and make sure nothing bad happens. Relax baby, I'm not blaming you, for now. Your kindness is why I love you after all”, This isn't how you expect things to turn out. 

“Baby I don't know what to say”, Do you want to get over Chae? Or is she way too deeply rooted in your heart? “Let's do that okay baby? I'll accompany you to her place at lunch, then we can go to dinner with your mom. Perfect right?” Absolutely foolproof plan one might add. “You don't have to do that”, Whatever feeling you have in your heart you just label it as guilt. Despite it actually being a plea for salvation. Nothing good can come out of the lunch. Chae's domineering attitude alongside Minju’s sudden change of heart would just clash too much. But if you don't know then you don't know, hopefully you're ready for tomorrow.

“I, need to have breakfast with my mom first if you want to have dinner with her later”, Minju smiles and shrug, “I'll drop you off at her place then, and I'll pick you up after”, You look around to search for your phone, let's see how Chae will react to this. “Looking for your phone?” Minju pulls it out of the locked bedside cabinet, why does she put it there? “Yes maybe I should tell Chae first”, Minju gives it to you, but only after she pulls you into her embrace so that she can watch over your phone.

The first thing you notice is the 40 missed calls alongside 100+ texts from Chae. “It seems like she must've been as hopeless as you are'', Minju kisses your cheek while you open the wall of texts Chae has sent you. “I, feel worried about her”, Chae is not in the right state of mind, you get that, but you didn't expect her to turn so drastically out of nowhere. As you open your chat messages, Chae can see you have read them, so she instantly called you. “Answer it babe, put it on speaker”, Don't do it, “Okay”, You fucking idiot.

“WHERE ARE YOU PUP? I TOLD YOU TO COME HOME AFTER DINNER AND IT'S ALREADY WELL PAST MIDNIGHT. COME. HOME. NOW!!!!” Chae's voice blares through the speaker, echoing the walls of Minju’s bedroom. “You must be Chaewon right?” Minju answered in a…… friendly manner. Chae stays quiet for a while, “Who is this?” You can almost feel Chae hiss into your ear. “I'm Minju, my boyfriend told me a lot about you”, Chae didn't answer immediately but you could hear a loud crash from the other side. “Chae? What happened?” Of course you being you can't help but feel worried for her. “Babe? What are you doing with that bitch?” You glanced back at Minju, scared of how she would react. Surprisingly there's a meaningful smile hanging in her face, as if she finds this to be enjoyable.

“Oh he's just resting for the night. It's been a long day after all, both of us just got off the plane this morning and we're completely messed up by the jetlag”

“If he want to rest he can rest in his apartment, WITH ME”

“Oh? But it's not his apartment, his home is right here with me”

“Fuck you, where are you pup? I'm picking you up”

“I don't think so. My lovely boyfriend is going to rest for the night so please don't bother us”

“Listen up whore. HE'S NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND. Now fuck off and bring him back to me”

“Oh I'm sorry, but I don't think you two are in a relationship”

“We are bitch. So stop taking him away from me”

“Uggghhhh, so crude. You sure this is the same girl you've always talked to me about babe? She's a bad influence for you”

“FUCKER WHERE ARE YOU”

“Now, now, why don't you stop screaming and let me talk for once”

“I'M NOT SPENDING TIME TO HEAR A RANT FROM A WHORE. TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW BEFORE I CALL THE COPS”

“The cops? Where are you gonna send them to? You don't know where I live. Where WE live”

“Fucking bitch”

“Listen up Chae, can I call you Chae?”

“WHERE ARE YOU?”

“So Chae, my boyfriend here told me about what you did earlier today”

“So you know he belongs to ME. So stop being a fucking whore and return him to me”

“I must say I feel sad for him. Imagine going home after a year long job and meeting back with your old friend. Then instead of having a wholesome-”

“STOP FUCKING RANTING CUNT”

“Catch-up conversation you just got raped instead. I don't know you Chae, but I feel disappointed at you”

“What rape? It's love, stop lying to yourself. You know he loves me more than you”

“He does? Oh sweetie, are you aware of Stockholm Syndrome? Of course you are, after all you experienced it with your ex don't you?”

“Fuck off, don't put words into his mouth. Our love is pure and strong. It's you who's corrupting him so fuck off”

“I never put words into his mouth, I just make an educated guess”

“Stop this already, tell me where you are before I really lose my patience”

“So feisty. Anyway WE are calling because we want to set up a lunch with you tomorrow. You can do that right?”

“What fucking lunch? He's mine so stop taking him away from me. I swear to god I will tear you apart the moment I see you”

“That's good to hear sweetie, we'll come by tomorrow at lunch, see you tomorrow”

Oh right you're also here. Well most of the time you just cower in fear as the two girls brawl it out. You didn't even do anything when Minju hung up the call and took your phone away from your hand. “That went well right? Let's go back to sleep baby, you have to wake up early to meet your mom tomorrow after all”, Minju turns off your phone and locks it back in her bedside cabinet. Clueless as you are, you at least realise this lunch would end in your death. But what can you do? You can't confront Chae, she will just do whatever she wants with you. You also can't deal with Minju, your stomach would just twist and turn out of guilt for cheating on her. “Y-y-y-yeah, let's”, Your fate is sealed, you will die by tomorrow noon.

“Why are you holding her hand?” From the get go things are already going bad. Chaewon immediately tries to rip you away from Minju’s hand, however Minju wouldn't let go so a vicious tug if war started between the girl with you being the rope. “Enough, can't you see my boyfriend is hurting here?” Minju pulls your face into her embrace. The gesture really terrifies you because, “He's MY boyfriend”, Chaewon would just rip you out of Minju's hand. “Girls please, can we just stop this first?” You're gonna have to do better than that bucko. “Baby I'm trying to protect you from this fucking bitch okay? So just help me then I will stop”, Chae do another pull, “Look at her babe, first she hurt and torture you mentally for years, now she just starts to hurt you physically as well. Guess it's true what they said about the victim turning into the aggressor”, Minju shakes her head while pulling you back into her arms.

“You fucking what?” Chae's face turns sour, “What? Is it not true?” Minju kisses your cheek. “Hey, fuck off”, Chae sends a punch to Minju's face, and for the first time ever your body actually moves to stop her. “Chae”, You raise your voice making her frown even deeper, “See babe? She's insane and violent. You're lucky I'm here to save you”, Minju sighs, “Don't you dare speak another word bitch or I'll rip your face apart”, Chae then turns to you and kisses your other cheek, as an ultimatum of course. “Enough, I promise my boyfriend that I will be here to have a civil conversation with you, so let's have one shall we?” Minju smiles at Chae with confidence, “Fucking fake bitch”, Chae muttered under her breath.

Thankfully Chae does accept the invitation by pulling you, and by proxy Minju as well, to the couch. You sat down being sandwiched by the two of them. Chae's fiery and aggressive aura clashes against Minju's cold and elegant aura. This looks familiar. 

“So, Chae”

“Don't you fucking call me that”

“Chae, as you can see. Me and my boyfriend here is having a perfectly beautiful relationship”

“Oh I'm sorry, I think you're having a misunderstanding here. He's my boyfriend and you're getting in between us”

“I'm not a psychiatrist so I'm afraid I can't help you with your delusion. Of course I can refer you to some people who have the ability to help you”

“Delusion? That's rich coming from you. Don't you realise you're just a rebound girl for him?”

“I am? But you see it can't really be classified as a rebound if he's never been in a relationship with you in the first place don't you think?”

“What do you know about us? We have a strong relationship long before you even know him. It's pure and driven by nothing but love”

“I know enough. You two were just friends okay? Your love is being held by your ex boyfriend, how was he by the way? You two made up yet?”

“He’s not important and I do not love him. Don't put words in my mouth”

“Oh? So you were tormenting my poor baby here just for fun?”

“I never tormented him, we were young and clueless. I've already said sorry and he accepted it. Now we are more mature and has open up about our own feelings for each other”

“He doesn't have any feelings for you. Not anymore, after all I'm holding his heart, isn't that right babe?”

“Oh? You just called me an abuser earlier and now you are showing off your true colour. Don't trust this slut babe, she's playing with your heart okay?”

“Did I ever use the word abuser? How could you start putting words in my mouth when you just literally turn furious because you think I put words in your mouth? Are you perhaps a hypocrite?”

“Is that what you're having a problem with right now? Haaaaaa, it's always nice when the person you're arguing against starts talking about semantics. It's a sign that I'm winning”

“Talking about semantics I should make clear that this is not an argument. There's nothing to argue about”

“For the first time I agree with you, there's nothing to argue about. Right babe?” Chae leans forward and kisses your cheek.

“See, we're in agreement already. Did you like her farewell kiss babe? Now this is settled we should go back to our place and prepare for the dinner with your mom”

“Oh I see, you're projecting”

“About what?”

“About my delusion. Because you must be having something wrong with your head if you think I'll let my boyfriend leave with some whore”

“I see now, this is worse than I expected. We should get you to a mental asylum soon. A loss grasp of reality is a sign of schizophrenia”

“You see what she's doing here babe? She's trying to gaslight you. I think she's trying to put on a hero façade to try and hide the fact that she's the abuser here”

“Awww, don't be like that, aren't you weak with a hero complex? That's why you fall for MY boyfriend after all”

“That's true, but that doesn't change the fact that you're a whore and an abuser”

“This feels like a funny joke isn't it babe? You become a hero to save little Chae here from her abusive boyfriend. Now I'm gonna be the hero to save you from her. I think that's karma, or something like that”

“MY boyfriend doesn't need saving from me. Besides if it's karma then it's my turn to save him from you”

You're pathetic, you know that? While these two are fighting it out with words you just sat there like a meek puppy and didn't try to intervene at all. What's that? You're trying to sort out your feelings to pick which one to side with? Well you better hurry up soon or they would probably split you into two just so the other can't have you.

Luna seems to sniff your fear and jumps to sit on your lap. Giving you a cute meow to try and calm you down.

“Oh look, Luna acknowledge her master, and her master's wife”

“Wife? My, my, aren't you moving too quick? Does his mother even know about this relationship? You know my darling here loves his mother more than anything in the world don't you?”

“Of course she does, my mother-in-law would love to have us put on the ring”

“Is that so? Babe isn't your mom a police officer with decades of experience? Maybe I wasn't needed here, after all she would pick up all the red flags your friend here is showing”

“You’re right about one thing. You're not needed here, so why don't you take your pretty fake smile out of here”

The two have a little staring contest for a few seconds before the two of them leap in and hug you. “I think she's hopeless babe, let's just leave before she gets aggressive”, Minju tries her best to pull you away, “She's a manipulative bitch who's trying to steal you away from me babe. You see it right? Her fake smile?” Chae wouldn't let you move. “Stop confusing my boyfriend please”, Minju pulled your head into her embrace, “Your boyfriend?” Chae pulls your head back, almost snapping your neck while she's at it.

This time Chae pulls you into a kiss, trying to show Minju how strong your ‘love’ is for her. Minju wouldn't let Chae have her way and push her away before kissing you. “He’s mine, bitch”, For some reason Chae grabs onto your shirt and rips the button apart. “Are you sexually harassing my boyfriend right in front of me?” Minju scoffed, “See this? It's my mark, he's mine”, Chae pointed at the countless hickeys she left you yesterday. “Sorry to disappoint you sweetie, but I already covered them with my own”, Minju smiled proudly. Whatever is brewing between the two isn't good for you. First, you can feel their frustration against each other start to boil and spill over to their sexual craving. Second, they stop caring about your opinion entirely and just do anything they can to show their ownership over you.

“What are you doing?” Minju finally raises her voice as she sees Chaewon is nibbling on your chest. “He likes it when I bite him. Look at his face”, You are showing a pained expression but the two think you're enjoying it. “I know how to pleasure him better”, The fuck is happening? Like seriously what are they doing? “Can you say any truthful words just once?” Chae rolls her eyes at Minju before making out with you. 

Minju pulls down your pants and boxer, exposing your flaccid cock, “Haaaa, he's not even turned on by your advances”, Chae frowns seeing what Minju is doing. “Probably because your ugly ass is here bitch”, Chae tries to grab your cock but Minju slaps her hand away before kissing your cock. “Unlike you, I've been spending a year with him, exploring our body and kinks. I know what he's weak too”, The balls, that's what you're weak too. Minju leans forward and starts kissing your balls making your cock get semi erect involuntarily. “See?” Minju sends Chae a victorious smile, “Move bitch”, Chae pushes Minju away and starts to suck your cock, making you let out a moan, involuntarily as well.

Chae sends a meaningful glare at Minju before she swallows your cock all the way into her throat. How does she manages to do it when she can barely take you in her mouth yesterday? It's the pure power of spite she has towards Minju that pushes her over the max. “Fucking bitch he's mine”, Minju grab Chaewon by the hair and pull her away from your cock. The moment your dick got exposed to the cold air Minju leaps in and effortlessly swallow it down. Minju bobs her head up and down for a few second before Chaewon pull her back and take control of the blowjob.

Minju leans down and starts sucking on your balls, having your weak point attacked makes you let out another moan. “See? I know his weakness”, Minju smiles at Chaewon who just glares at her. “Yeah? My baby loves my body more”, Chae takes off her top and climbs up to you, pushing her tits to your mouth while her hand jerks you off. You try to stop her but the moment you open your mouth she just pushes her tits to your mouth. “Go on baby, I know you like to stare at them for years already”, Just as you thought this whole thing couldn't be more embarrassing. 

“Move your hand”, Minju bites Chaewon's hand and starts sucking your cock as Chae lets go. Seeing Chaewon is about to snap, your mouth starts to move and bite on her nipples. It manages to calm her down, but this also means you're encouraging them to continue. “See? He likes me”, Chae starts to caress your hair, Minju takes your cock off her mouth and her hand continues jerking you off. “So you just want to use him to pleasure yourself? Can't say that I'm surprised”, Minju uses both of her hands to jerk you off but her face is scowling. “Just say that you're jealous bitch, we are meant to be”, Chae reached down and tried to take over your cock.

Surprisingly Minju let it go, she crawls on your side and just jerks you off with one hand like Chae. “Come here babe”, With her other hand, Minju pulled you for a kiss. A moan slips out of your mouth feeling their hand start to move together in unison. “I don't think you understand, he's only moaning because he loves my slender little finger”, Chae scoffed before busying herself with your neck. “Deny, deny, deny, is that all you can do?” Minju took a break from kissing you just to bite back before jumping in to kiss you again. This whole thing is too much to you really. Your mind is very conflicted while your body is definitely turned on getting pleasured by the two women you love the most.

“You're cumming baby? Go ahead cum for me”, Chae bites your ear, “I know you've been horny since last night babe. Go on, cum for me”, Minju breaks off the kiss and starts biting your neck. Your body starts to shake as your cum shoots out. Chae has an inhuman reflex and puts her hand over your tip, effectively catching your sperm. After a while your ejaculation passed. Your cum drips down Chae’s hand into your shaft and Minju’s hand that's gripping your cock tight. As you are taking a breather the two girls get possessed by a sudden hunger and start licking your cum off of their hands. When that's not enough they jump down and have a scuffle trying to lick as many as they can from your cock.

“I did that” 

“Ha, you wish, it was my kiss that sent him over the edge. He's a softie after all”

“I think you're just projecting a lot, because it seems like you are the delusional one over here”

“If it's not for you he would cum under 5 second by me”

“Tchhh, all barks and no bites”

“I'll prove it to you right now, move bitch”

This couldn't end well for you.

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.

.

Pain, that's all you can feel right now. Your whole body is drained out of energy. The two of them take turns riding you while trying to prove something to the other one. After the 5th ejaculation you just pass out on the couch. Maybe it's a blessing because the two went to a loud argument blaming the other for masking you like this for an hour or so.

“Fuck”, You grunted as your conscious starts to come back to you. A heavy weight was out on top of both of your hands, looking around you realised the two are sleeping with you, each holding your arm. You're still in Chaewon's apartment, the room that you've lived in for years has turned to the worst. This is the second time you woke up here being held against your will after a mind-blowing sex that was forced upon you. 

What is happening? Why am I falling into this? I never asked for this, at all.

This whole thing is too much, you already have your guilt eating you alive after the cheating sex you had with Chaewon yesterday. Then you confront Minju about it and change her into this, you're not really sure what she turns into. Lastly, this whole lunch went way off the rail. You didn't even get lunch, the two of them do by drinking your cum while you just flop around like a fish. 

Fuck why is this happening to me?

You don't like this?

No way, I didn't ask for this.

Did you ever ask for this not to happen?

Huh?

You never asked for this but it's not like you take a stand and pick one of them.

It's all happening in one day. I don't have time to sort out my feelings.

That's true, but this whole thing could've been avoided if you just took a stand. Stop Chaewon before she pulls you to the bed yesterday. Break up with Minnie or even ghost him like an asshole. Or just simply stop their argument earlier before they start fucking you. It's really simple, pick one and they will protect you from the other. 

Fuck, is it my fault?

Not fully, let's be real this two are fucked in the head.

Fuck it's all my fault.

Uhhhhh, are you also going insane?

Fuck why did I let this happen?

Minju and Chaewon are deep in their sleep, they are also tired after all. Chae can't sleep the whole night as she's worried about you. Minju was restless and angry about your cheating, making her sleep less than ideal. So they don't get woken up when you get off the bed and put on your clothes. Standing there in your room, you watch the two girls sleep peacefully. You look at their face with a twisting pain in your heart, they look so peaceful that you feel guilty for bringing this storm to their life. 

I need to fix this.

That's true you should take a sta-

I need to leave them.

Wait what?

I did this to them. If I'm not around, they won't be tormented by me.

Oh come on stop this drama queen act.

I'm sorry, Chae. I'm sorry, Min. This is all my fault.

Are you seriously crying?

Please be safe.

Dude, you just ran away for a year because you got heartbroken. Are you seriously trying to run away again because of this? Even if you can literally fix this by being a FUCKING GROWN UP and just pick one.

.

.

.

Dear god, you're hopeless. Once again, you run away from your home, trying to get away from all these conflicting emotions that you have. You ran all the way to your mom's home again. It's so fucking stupid, you've been in this position before and this is how you react? After a year of some self finding journey you return back at home without changing at all. You didn't lose your feelings for Chae. You didn't mature and find the courage to stand up for yourself. You didn't do jackshit. 

Anyway, enough ranting. You return home, your mom is still out there at work so it's empty. You ran back to your bedroom, dropping yourself to your bed trying to calm yourself. Maybe you did something while you're out there, you managed to fix your terrible physical health and run all the way here without completely exhausting your body. That being said, you are mentally drained, so the moment your body touches the bed you just drift off to sleep. Like usual, you refuse to confront your feelings and run away from your responsibility.

This time, the consequences will be dire.

“Look what you did, you made him run away again. Goddamnit slut I just got him back and now he's ruining off again”, Chaewon screams at Minju. “ME? You were the one who caused him to run away last time, what makes you think that it's not your fault this happens again?” Minju screamed back. “If I could kill you right now I will”, Chae stares at Minju with a gaze that could kill, it would definitely kill you if she uses it on you. “Fuck off, I've had it with you and your antics. I tried to keep up a nice attitude-”, Chae wouldn't let Minju finish her words, “I fucking knew it, fucking fake bitch”, Chae screams. 

“Shut up you”, For the first time, a physical scuffle breaks out. Well calling it a scuffle would be a reach, Minju simply slaps Chae to shut her up. “Oh try that again, please I'm begging you”, Chae isn't mad over the slap, her fury is already over the top. She does feel excited as she can try to beat Minju up and call it self defence if Minju tries to touch her again. “Can’t you fucking see what you're doing right now? Do you really think he only finds me to be his rebound girl?” Minju restrains herself from sending another slap. 

“What am I doing? Bitch open your eyes”

“Stop for a second and think will you? Why do you think he ran away?”

“Because you're confusing him”

“Wrong, it's you who's confusing him. The details aren't important right now. What's important is that you make him feels conflicted”

“Like I said, he won't feel conflicted if you're not here”

“Do you actually think that would solve the problem?”

“Yes, fuck off and leave us alone”

“Oh you absolute buffoon. If your ‘love’ or so you call it is so strong, then why hasn't he stood up for you?”

“Tcch, you manipulated him until he can't think straight anymore”

“You really can't see what I'm trying to say, do you?”

“What? Stop being so fucking cryptic you fake bitch. Just spill it already”

“He can't choose between us”

“That's stupid”

“He's stupid”

“He's my boyfriend!”

“So you think he's smart?”

“........fuck off”

“Unlike you I actually care about him”

“What makes you think I don't huh?”

“Because you're more focused on making him yours rather than making him happy”

“Wrong!!!! I know how to make him happy, it's to grant him his wish that he has been holding on for years”

“Does he know that? Because as far as I remember you had a ‘date’ with him yesterday and yet he's busy texting me the whole time isn't he?”

Chaewon finally understands what Minju is going at, and she hates it.

“Are you actually saying that you managed to steal a piece of his heart already?”

Minju sighs seeing Chaewon finally getting her.

“I hate it, I hate the fact that I fall for someone who's still being chained up by you”

“You think I'm happy seeing him run off for a year and get taken by you?”

“I love him, more than anything in the world”

“I would die for him, and I would kill you if he ever asked me to”

“So do you understand what I'm saying now?”

Minju and Chaewon look at each other with animosity. It was as if they're trying to manifest the hatred they have in their heart to hurt the other person. Yet there's this hint of understanding between them. Sometimes, one must compromise in order to achieve their desire. Even if they absolutely loathe what they have to give up for it.

“I fucking hate you”

“The feeling is mutual”

“But if this is what it takes to keep him happy”

“Then I'll…… tolerate you”

“Yeah, tolerate”

“Peace, for now”

The two reluctantly reach out their hand with a look of disdain in their face. Then the two shake hands, creating a temporary alliance. An alliance that could prove to be detrimental to your mortality.

“He ran off to his mom. He always do”

“I need to fix that momma's boy attitude of his”

“That's my job”

“Where is his mom's place? We have a dinner with her later”

“Fuck if his mom notice anything wrong he's gonna take him away from me”

“From us”

“I'm coming to the dinner”

“Can you even put on a smile when I'm around”

“I can manage if you're not in my field of view”

“Fine, but if things goes wrong-”

“It won't, not let's move. His mom should be home in an hour. It's best that we get to him before her”

“Let's move then”

.

.

.

“Oy!” A loud scream woke you up from your sleep, it was followed by a painful slap to your back. “Agggghhhh, mom?” You grunted as you tried to wake up. “Why are you sleeping here?” You had such a nice and peaceful sleep, shame that you have to be woken up by reality. “Oh, well, it's a long story”, You grimaced remembering what happened earlier today. “God how on earth did I raise you for you to become like this?” Should you run away from your mom as well? “Sorry mom, there's a change of plan for the dinner today”, Your hand starts to get fidgety. “I know”, Your hand stopped, you look at her confused.

Did Minju contact mom? Oh god did Chaewon contact mom?

“W-w-w-what?” You managed to say, “Minju and Chaewon are already downstairs. Now go wash yourself and join us at the dinner table”, You can feel your heart just stop beating for a moment there. You look at your mom completely surprised and scared, too distracted with what she just said to register her slap to your head and her words to hurry up as she leaves your bedroom.

Chae and Min are here? What are they doing here? Oh god why are they here? Mom's gonna kill me if she hears what I did yesterday and today.

You sat on your bed for what felt like hours, despite only 5 minutes passed. Reluctantly you get off your bed and wash your face. Good, face your fears. Face your emotions and the consequences of your actions. Stop being a fucking pussy that run away from everything and everyone. It took you 10 minutes to gather your courage. Finally you take a deep breath and make your way to the battlefield.

““Hey oppa””

That is not the sound of a battlefield. They also don't look like they're preparing for war. Perhaps, this isn't a war, but maybe it would be much worse. “Stop standing there and sit down will you?” Your mom sighs seeing your stunned face. As you love to the dinner table the two girls pull you to sit down between them. Silence persists for some time before your mom starts to distribute the food. “We really want to try and cook something for dinner ma'am, but we kinda forgot time. I hope you'll like the food we bought”, Chae says, “It's fine, it sounds like my son just decided to sleep instead of preparing dinner for us after all”, Your mom glares at you.

“I-i-i-i-”, Don't know what to say. For a second you're considering the possibility that this is just a dream. “Oh, babe is just tired after last night. It was my fault, I'm sorry”, Minju squeezed your hand to make sure you know it's not a dream, “Yeah, I think I also drained him yesterday”, Chae followed suit by pinching your cheek. “It's fine, I know this restaurant, they have pretty nice ramen”, Your leg starts to fidget around making Minju and Chaewon reach down and squeeze it.

“So, Minju right? I've heard a few thing about you”

“Really ma'am? What did babe say about me?”

“Just call me mom or something. You too Chaewon, how many times have I told you to stop calling me ma'am”

“Ooppps, sorry ma'am. Can I call you mom as well then?”

“I guess he does leave you to be babysitted by me”

Chae shows a prideful smile for a second to Minju before turning to her food.

“So it seems like the two of you have spent more time with him since his return than me. Why don't you start to talk sweetie? First tell me why you never brought up that these two are sisters?”

They are?

“What?”

Both Chae and Minju kicked your leg lightly hearing your panicked voice. They exchanged a glance before nodding.

“We also don't know that. Babe never talks much about Chaewon. I mean he told me about her but I never made the connection”

“Yeah, and Minju never send me a letter for a full year”

“Oh please you never want to hear from me for years already”

“Well that's true, but can't you at least contact me before you run away like that again?” 

A new theory has come inside your head. Perhaps you got transported into a different universe.

“Sweetie, you never think about telling me this?”

Your mom forces you to stop imagining things and snap back to reality.

“W-w-w-w-well, I didn't had the time”

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

That's a pretty long sigh, something you know means your mom is absolutely way too tired to deal with anything.

“I'm sorry……. mom. I got too excited yesterday since he got home after a year of no contact. I just drag him across town to have a makeover”

“See? You prefer spending time with him over your own sister”

Why the fuck would they actually lied and acted like they're sister?

“Well, maybe you should contact me first? You just text me today asking if you can move in with me”

Oh, that's why.

“Move in with you?”

“Oh right, uhhhhh my apartment lease is already up. I was thinking about staying with Chae here for a while until I find another one. Of course, the world is small and we found out that she's staying at babe’s previous apartment”

“Yeah, the apartment is pretty big, so we can definitely share it for now”

“Of course, just a temporary arrangement as we-” Minju grabs your hand “-adjust to our normal lifestyle and find a new one”

Your mom was about to say something until she heard some tapping from below the table.

“What is that?”

She tries to look below the table but Chae stops her.

“Oh pup is just being nervous as usual”

“Hehehe, he's kinda scared about the living arrangements. But I'm sure we'll be fine, right babe?”

Chaewon reaches out to pat your head while Minju is gently caressing your hand. Beneath the table their leg went on top of yours to stop it from moving.

“Uh yeah…… this feels….. awkward”

The word you're looking for is worrisome or terrifying, but you realise the two would absolutely shred you if you keep acting weird.

“I imagine so. Well Minju, seeing my son is absolutely trapped in his own anxiety, why don't you tell me more about yourself. I want to know how my son can get his hand on someone who's way out of his own league”

“Hahahaha, you're too kind, mom. Well it starts when we meet on the plane…..”

In a way, it's kinda good that Minju takes the attention away from you. However this means Chae gets to do some bold stuff to you. Chae caress your thighs and occasionally get higher and grab your junk, right at the dinner table. Many times you tried to stop her, yet it just made her attack even more relentless. 

“Babe, can you show me where the bathroom is?” Minju has been noticing Chae's shenanigans and decides she needs to stop it. “Right, follow me”, The two girls send a glare at each other for a second before you guide Minju away. “So, why did you never tell me that you have a sister?” Your mom isn't stupid, she smells something fishy going on. “Well she's not exactly around for that long…….”

While Chae is making up some bullshit at the dinner table, you are being pinned down to the bathroom’s wall by Minju. “Min, what's happening right now?” The sight of your panicked face really makes Minju believe this is a right decision. “Listen baby, it's a long story. For now just know that me and Chaewon aren't in a hostile relationship. I'll tell you more about it later but for now be a good boy for me and stop acting so scared in front of your own mom”, Minju gently caresses your cheek, enjoying the power she has over you. “What does that supposed to mean? Mina I…… I left you and you two were-” Minju shut you up by holding your lips with her fingers. “I'm not over that babe. I don't like it that you just ran away from us”, She gave your cheek a little slap which made you wince. 

“For now just be a good boy and follow our lead okay? If Chae starts groping you again I'm gonna cover for you this time”, Do you really want to return to the dinner table? Looking at Minju, defying her words might be the worst option, so you reluctantly follow her back. “Sorry about that, so where were we?” Minju returns and takes control of the conversation again. Chae still tries to tease you but Minju keeps getting in her way starting a little scuffle at the dinner table. Fortunately your mom was too tired to notice anything. “You must be tired mom. You should go get rest, we….. also need some rest”, As per usual you just keep speaking out loud your concerns.

“Yeah, that might be for the best”, Your mom said, making the two girls nod happily. “Please have a nice rest mom”, Chae says while her face is beaming with a smile, “Thank you for the dinner invitation, I hope we'll meet again soon mom”, Minju also has a smile on her face. “Yeah, be careful on the way home”, The two then practically drag you out of there before you get to say anything else to your mom. 

“Did you tell him?” Chae put one hand on your cheek while looking at Minju, “I think we should tell him in our apartment”, Minju follows suit, trapping you between them. “There is no we, and you're not part of the apartment”, Chae scoffed, “Just stop doing that will you?” Minju and Chae exchange a heated glare before they continue walking, dragging you along with them. It feels like this apartment is just a coffin for you. In just two days years of memories are washed away and replaced by depressing experiences. The two sat you down at your bed, or perhaps from now on it's also their bed.

“Alright, who goes first?” Chae said to Minju, “Oh? Thank you for asking, why don't you go first?” You can't really tell if the two of them are being polite or just trying to piss the other off. “Well, babe, we have come to a conclusion. I think our fights are hurting you, and we don't like that. We never meant to hurt you pup”, Their touch, it's no longer warm and inviting like it used to, now everytime they touch you your body just starts to wince and shiver in fear. “We mean it, we love you babe more than anything”, The two hold your face together, making sure you can't look away from their crazed eyes. “We love you, and we know that forcing you to choose one of us would be too much for you”, Their other hand starts to caress your body, hoping they can arouse you for another round.

“So we decided that a truce is needed. We'll tolerate each other, as long as you're happy, we're happy”, Say no, say this isn't the happy ending you wanted. Say something goddamnit. “That's right pup, I know you can never say no. Even if I manage to get you to choose me you're just gonna get all broody and stuff for hurting this girl”, There's still some animosity between them, “If I manage to get you then you're also gonna get all depressed for hurting this close friend of yours. So I propose to her a simple truce, and we'll see how it goes from here”, Don't make any mistake. If you do this thing, it's gonna blow up right on your face.

“But, why?” You cautiously ask, “Because you are too scared to make a choice”, Did you near that? Did you fucking hear that? “I-i-i-i-i-” You just stutter like an idiot. “I think it's a bad trait of yours, however I decided to love you, because the universe makes me fall for you babe. So I'll love you regardless of your imperfections” Is this lucky or unlucky? “But, why me? Why are you two going this far for me?” You struggle to understand their point of view. “Haaaa, you're so stupid sometimes pup” Chae grabs your cheek, her eyes filled with playfulness, “Don't insult our boyfriend, but she's right babe, sometimes you're just so clueless” Minju's finger gently draw around your chest.

“Minju please” You know what she wants, you can see it in her eyes, “Come on babe, I know you can squeeze out one more round” It was less of a request and more of a demand. “No please, I'm still dying here” Once again you curse yourself for not having the spine to stand up to them. You pathetically try to flail around as Chaewon and Minju start to undress you. “See? Just one round babe, to seal the deal with this new arrangement” Minju smiles as she pulls down your pants and sees your half erect cock. “Hey, if we drain him he won't run away again” Chae smiles and unbutton your shirt, “Girls please” You try to plead, “Ssshhhh, just let it happen” Chae whispers in your ear.

Minju gently kisses around your balls trying to get you hard while Chaewon shoves her tits into your face, but you were too tired. “It's not working, ugghhh, seems like you need a little more stimulation babe” Chae and Minju exchange a glance before they start working. “What-” You tell as you feel Chae plays around your nipple, “It's my turn to now pup” She smiles. Minju on the other hand starts rimming you, sending her tongue to slither into your hole and hungrily make out with it. It works, the stimulation immediately sends your cock into its prime form. 

“I always knew you'll like this babe” Minju smiles before she goes back to rimming you, her hand starts stroking your cock while her eyes are staring at you. Chae moves to sit behind you, pulling your face down to be smothered by her tits while her hands are just teasing your nipples.

This feels, wrong. You're not one to kinkshame but this whole situation makes you feel like you're just being used. Like you're just some kind of a toy for them to play with. “Stop it please”, You whimpered but the two of them just smiled because in their eyes you're just too cute when you are like this. “Are you gonna switch or what?” Chae says, Minju sends her a disapproving look before pulling away and nods. Chae lets you go and crawl beneath you, taking Minju's place. Minju decides that she needs to take this further. Pulling your head down to rest between her thighs before she squeezes you with them. 

“I know you're such a sub, do my thighs feel good babe? I see that you have a certain type with girls” She smiles at you before eyeing Chaewon, Chae nods agreeing but then she just focuses back on making out with your hole. Her slender hands grab your legs and spread them apart, trying to push her face deeper into you. “Jeez Chae really like that huh? Let me pick up her slacks then” Minju stop squeezing your face because she needs her leg to love around as she gave you a footjob. 

“Fuck, please stop this” Maybe in a different time this would feels heavenly for you. However right now every single stimulation and touch feels like hell. Your body is burning up and your cock is dying already. “Awwww, we can't let you get blue balls babe, you're so close to finishing after all. Here let me help make this quick” Minju crawl on top of you before she takes your cock into her mouth. Chaewon also stops rimming you and just teases your balls, lightly biting on it and sucking it around.

It took roughly 30 seconds before you feel your ejaculation is due, Chaewon and Minju also feel it. They work together to kiss and lick around your cock as the last drop of your sperm spurt out. “Awwww, I guess he really is too tired huh” You can hear Chae whines, “Well if you don't want to I'll gladly take them” Minju said. 

The two exchange a look before they start cleaning out the cum from your cock. While you were laying there on your bed, completely out of it the two had a heated exchange. You completely miss the beautiful view of them licking each other's face trying to clean every last drop of your cum. “You're enjoying this aren't you?” Minju smiles seeing Chaewon’s face, “Hey I'm only doing this because pup tastes nice” Chaewon frowns. “He does, shame that we're gonna have to let him rest for now” Minju sighs and gives your cock one last kiss, “This is so addicting, but I'll try to calm down for now. Hopefully as time goes on pup gonna build up his stamina” Chae also kisses your cock before the two move to snuggle with you.

“Sorry pup, we just want a little celebration for our new arrangement” Chae smiles seeing your exhausted face, “That's right, we promise we'll play nice from now on’ Minju laughs as well. “I…….” Goddamn you're actually dying aren't you? “Also before we go and meet your mom today we pick up something” Chae took something out of the box on the bedside table. It was a handcuff, rather two handcuffs, “We don't like it when you run away like that babe” Minju pinch your ear, “And you did it to me twice already. So I'm not taking any chances” Chae put one on her hand and yours before handing the other one to Minju, “This might be a little uncomfortable babe, but we're sure we can get used to it soon” Minju also did the same with your other hand.

There is absolutely no more doubt, you are their prisoner from now on. Kinda funny that you ran away from Chae to break free from your chain to her. Now you come back and turn your you never did break free, and you got another chain on you. “Good night pup, I'm sure everything will turn for the better from now on” Chae kisses your cheek before snuggling to you, “I think so too, we'll take care of you babe, good night” Minju does the same thing. As the two slowly drift off to sleep a single tear falls down your eyes.

I'm so fucking pathetic.

[fushic0re]

─ 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑

𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒, 𝐒𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐍'𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋

𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗢𝗥 𝘅 𝗙𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗔!𝗦𝗜𝗥𝗘𝗡!𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗘𝗥

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 — a prophecy has tied you to the feathered serpent god before you had even existed. now, it’s time to come home.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 — 18+ ONLY; MINORS DNI. possessive behavior. near death experience. smut; penetrative sex, oral (f receiving), multiple orgasms, creampie (lots of cum bc i'm disgusting), breeding kink.

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑❜𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 — this has to be the most excited i've been for a fic in a long time 🥹 i had a blast including a little bit of my culture's superstitions and lore. my sincerest apologies for any inaccurate yucatec maya translations, i used a translator website. the song the reader sings is "daughter of the sea" by sharm. i hope you all enjoy! ♡

𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 —

⁀➷ “anak” - child.

⁀➷ “po” - a respectful term with no direct translation used when talking to someone of higher rank than you such as elders or your boss.

⁀➷ “mag ingat ka” - “be careful.”

⁀➷ “ka’a suku’un u?” - “cousin?”

⁀➷ “ko’oten tin wéetel in kaxtik ti’ le ajawo.” - "come with me to find the king."

⁀➷ "in yakunaj" - "my love"

⁀➷ "in k'áaté" - my one and only.

⁀➷ "le ba'alo' leti'e" - that is her.

⁀➷ "bienvenido tin wotoch ti', in reina." - "welcome my queen."

꒰ ͜͡➸ 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐘𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘, 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐀 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆! 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒❜ 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 & 𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑! ♡

FOR AS LONG AS YOU COULD REMEMBER, the ocean was your safe haven.

While others strayed from its depths for fear of the unknown, of the creatures that could be lurking down there, you had always been curious to know. There had always been an itch that couldn’t quite be scratched when it came to your love for the water. You frequented your local beach nearly every day, wandering aimlessly until you grew tired. Unlike others your age, your life was one of solitude. To an extent, you were content with it, for the ocean was your companion. It never judged you and always welcomed you. It listened when you spoke, carrying your worries far from you never to be seen again.

Nowadays, to your heart’s discontent, the ocean was not enough.

You were lonely. Truly lonely and feeling what it was like to be so for the very first time in your life. There were nights you stared into the abyss; eyes watery as you wished to drown in it. To be embraced by the one thing that was consistent in your life. Would you feel less alone then?

─

From the deepest point of the very sea you gazed into, the heart of a God grew heavy. K’uk’ulkan loved his people, adored them with every fiber of his body. Each and every one of the faces of those he ruled, dead and alive, were imprinted in his soul permanently. Every step he took was taken with them in mind. He prided himself for being a good leader, for doing everything and anything possible to keep his nation safe. After the events leading up to the alliance with the Wakandans, however, he did not know if that pride was deserved. He had made mistakes; misplaced his trust and allowed two of his own to die right in their very home. Namora, as loyal as she was, began to question his decisions. He was alone in bearing this burden with no one to rest his head on at night from the heaviness of the day.

What pained him the most? He knew he shouldn’t be alone.

He recalled the day he and his mother had been read the prophecy when he was a child clearly. The emotions he felt upon hearing those words spoken into existence were still fresh. There was someone for him. Just for him, and him alone.

“For His fealty, the First Son of Talokan shall be given a gift from the Gods; a descendant from the Heavens, a child of Bulan with the voice of an enchantress. For as long as He shall live, She shall rule the seas by His side.”

Years passed. Those years slowly faded into decades. After the passing of his beloved mother, it became difficult differentiating when those decades turned into centuries. Still, there were no signs of his soulmate. His people knew of the prophecy. K’uk’ulkan was all too aware of the anticipation his children felt as they eagerly awaited the arrival of their queen. Yet, she never came.

He grew angry at the so called Gods for turning on their promise – at her. Where was she? he’d hiss. My people, our people, have come dangerously close to being discovered. I have nearly died defending them all alone. My wings have been ripped from my flesh. Why isn’t she here? The prophecy meant nothing to him anymore. Just as he was naïve when he entrusted Princess Shuri with seeing his home, he was blindly foolish for believing in a fairytale.

Namor was without love in more ways than one.

─

You didn’t remember falling asleep. There was no explanation as to how you ended up perilously close to the edge of the water, the violent thrash of waves serving as a warning to you. Still, you remained completely still as fear immobilized you. You racked your brain for any recollections of your previous actions. Nothing came up. You couldn’t remember anything after you came home from the market.

Nothing, that is, aside from a single voice.

It cooed to you, whispered your name like it had waited a thousand millennia to taste it upon its tongue. Sang to you like you were its favorite person in the entire universe.

Come to me.

Come home.

In yakunaj.

In k’áate’.

Come home.

Taking a moment to steady your breathing, you slowly stepped away from the ledge before rushing back home. As you tucked yourself into bed that night, you tried your best to bury what had just transpired. You sought out every possibility – rational and irrational – that could have resulted in your odd behavior. You always went to the beach, maybe you just wandered there after dinner out of habit. Perhaps something went wrong with the batch of your usual tea and an ingredient that causes cognitive dysfunction was accidentally added to it. Maybe tomorrow morning you will wake up to a news report about your batch being recalled from all stores.

The explanation you vied for never came.

As time persisted, so did the bouts of blacking out, regaining consciousness, and finding yourself near the ocean. Each time, you got closer and closer to its waters. Every day after the next, you would feel the fatigue in your muscles from all of the walking. And yet, it did not stop you. You always found your way back to the ocean. It didn’t matter if you walked into ongoing traffic or if a concerned neighbor physically restrained you, the pull was stronger. Shamefully, you began to avoid leaving your home altogether. You couldn’t bear to face the condemnatory looks you were bound to receive. Whatever those in your area thought of you, you didn’t want to know. You were afraid enough of what you were becoming.

When you wake up from the next spell, you were waist deep in the ocean. Shivering as your thin nightgown stuck to your skin. Wrapping your arms around your torso, you salvaged any and all body heat. The gravity of your circumstances hit you all at once. Biting your lip, you held back your tears as your turned around and began making your way out of the water hastily. Just as your bare feet touched the white sand, you caught the eyes of the elderly woman who lived closed by. The two of you had never spoken, but her presence as a resident was always acknowledged.

“Sorry, po,” You spoke sheepishly, a polite and apologetic smile on your face.

Her expression was grave as she stared at you wordlessly. Silence stretched between the both of you and just as you were about to walk away, she harshly spat one single word.

“Magindara.”

Before you could seek clarification, she was back inside her small hut, the door slamming behind her acrimoniously. The only proof that the interaction with her was even real was the residual sting of her hostility and rage. Her persecution was the straw to break the camel’s back. Unable to maintain your resolve any longer, you fell to your knees and began to you’re your hands clutching at your chest in hopes to alleviate the pain. Humiliation, terror, anxiousness, and frustration were just a few of the emotions you were feeling. Even then, they were just the tip of the iceberg. As you cried to yourself, sand sticking to your wet limbs uncomfortably, you longed for nothing but someone to wrap you up in their arms – for someone to tell you that for once, everything would be okay. Just this once, you craved a life outside of isolation.

Once your breathing evened out, you stood up and leisurely began to talk along the shore. Soothing yourself in the only way you knew how, you began to softly sing.

“Beware, beware the Daughter of the Sea. ‘Beware’ I heard him cry. His words carried upon the ocean breeze, as he sank beneath the tide.”

Namora watched acutely as the quill in her king’s hands abruptly dropped to the floor. The warrior waited for the moment he would pick it up off of the ground and continue with his painting, but it never came.

“K’uk’ulkan?”

She received no response. His eyes held an indecipherable expression, one far away from the present.

“Ka’a suku’un u?” Namora repeated, her tone now carrying concern.

The King of Talokan turned to her for a split second before he stormed out of the room with speed she had never witnessed from him before. Namora was hot on his feathered heels, but the second she dived into the water, her cousin was nowhere to be seen.

“Attuma!” She bellowed. “Ko’oten tin wéetel in kaxtik ti’ le ajawo.”

K’uk’ulkan was stunned when he first heard it – the most beautiful sound to grace his ears. He was livid with himself for being unable to find a better word to describe the voice, for “beautiful” was such an understatement that it was borderline insulting. Without hesitation, he followed it. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know where it was coming from or who it even belonged to, he needed to find it. It called to him, turned him into a man possessed as he soared through the waters restlessly to get to it.

His head broke the surface, and that’s when he saw its owner – her. His soulmate.

She was the most exquisite living being he had ever laid his eyes upon. A gift from the heavens she was. Her beauty made him dizzy, his knees growing weak as he took in his beloved’s features. He admired her as she outstretched her arms, cupping the moon in her delicate palms. It paled in comparison to her. Everything did. Nothing could possibly compare. He remained paralyzed as she continued to sing, a foreign feeling settling in his stomach.

“Why this? Why this, oh Daughter of the Sea? Why this? Why did you forget your seaside days? Always the pride of our nation’s eyes, how could she go astray?”

The words of her melody pierced his heart. They reflected their journey far too accurately to be a coincidence. Did she know that she had always been destined for him? To be loved by the entire nation of Talokan? His lids fell shut slowly as he basked in her harmonies, feeling tranquil at last.

“I heard, I heard, across the moonlit seas, the old voice warning me. Beware, beware, the Daughter of the Sea. Beware, beware…of me.”

Namor studied her face as her song ended. He noted her red rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. Her damp nightgown stuck to her body tantalizingly. The despair in her hypnotizing voice was palpable. All of the wrath and resentment he had once harbored dissipated. Oh, my love. I have longed for you too. He could do nothing as he watched you turn your back to him from above, only pray for another encounter. He rose entirely from the sea, the wings on his ankles fluttering in the air as he watched her in the sky until she was safe in her abode. A quiet splash could be heard from under him. Attuma and Namora stared up at him expectedly.

“Le ba’alo’ leti’e’.”

He nodded slowly, eyes burning holes in the spot where she once stood.

“A human?” Attuma questioned, his voice rigid.

Namor shook his head.

“’A child of Bulan with the voice of an enchantress’.” Namor quoted the prophecy directly. “Bulan was a deity the heavens sent to the ocean to protect the moon from sea monsters. She is a siren; they are descendants of Bulan.”

“What is she doing on the surface?” Namora chimed in.

The king frowned, his fists clenching at his sides as he longed to feel her touch.

“She is lost.”  

─

Returning to the beach after the unpleasant encounter with the elderly woman who lived on its grounds probably wasn’t the most sensible decision. In your defense, however, nothing in your life was sensible nowadays.

Magindara was what she called you. A whole day’s worth of research, hundreds of Google searches, and several life crises later, you found out what it meant – siren. A subspecies of mermaids that were known for being especially vicious. You wanted to badly to laugh it off, to chuck it up to her being a senile old woman, but that was not an option. To do so would be like ignoring statistics. The facts of your life were laid out clearly; there was a connection between you and the ocean. A connection so strong that it bewitched you – mind, body, and soul. There were no traceable origins you could use to refute the woman’s claims. Afterall, you had no family. There was nothing more to do than return to the very place that could give you answers.

Your eyes darted everywhere in search of the familiar head of silvery locks. Once identified, you ran to her.

“Excuse me, po?” You called desperately, your eyes begging her for something. Anything. “What…what am I?”

She stared at you with a severe expression on her aged features.

“The man from the sea with wings on his ankles. Mag ingat ka, anak. He’s coming for you.”

You furrowed your brows in confusion.

“Could you expla—”

“Do not come back here.” She warned. “He will drag you down with him.”

With that being said, she entered her home and slammed the door in your face for the second time. Vexation filled you as you were met with another dead end. A man from the sea with wings on his ankles. What the hell was that alluding to? Did the elderly have to always speak in riddles? Were you in danger? Why was he after you?

You dragged your feet as you trudged home dejectedly. You were already exhausted, not sleeping a wink once you returned home after your stint last night. Sleep was unfathomable considering you were haunted by unanswered questions. Once you crossed the threshold of your bedroom, however, you could no longer ignore your body’s need for rest. Flopping down on your bed, you shut your eyes and instantaneously succumbed to a peaceful slumber.

That night was the last time you slept in your own bed.

The beach was eerily quiet, void of the usual sound of waves crashing against the shore. Seemingly, the ocean yielded to you, it’s queen, the second you stepped foot in its territory, entranced and guided by a single voice.

Come home. Come to me.

Your feet carried you to a cliff high above the sparkling midnight waters.

My love. My soulmate.

Home. You needed to come home. It was time. 

Come home.

Just a couple of more steps.

Come home.

This is your destiny. Fulfill it. Fulfill the prophecy.

Come home.

With that, you took one final step off the cliff and prepared yourself to plunder into the deep waters. Your feet were only in the air for a brief moment before a pair of strong arms caught you midair. Upon physical contact, you snapped from your trance with a sharp gasp, your heart pounding in your chest as you began to panic.

A deep, gentle voice lulled you. It was then that you finally registered who it belonged to. The being who had saved you was the epitome is beauty. Everything about him exuded regality from the air of confidence and ease he carried himself with, to the adornments on his muscular body. A large gold and jade neck plate took up the most space on his expansive chest. Ropes of auriferous shells and opalescent-like pearls hung around his neck. Gilded cuffs were locked around his biceps, wrists, and ankles. You quickly noted the alabaster wings fluttering away attached to them, the very wings responsible for suspending the both of you in the air. Your eyes trailed to his delicately pointed ears, embellished with jewels just like the rest of him. The only clothing he sported was a pair of emerald shorts that left nothing to the imagination. The walls of muscle that were his thighs were on full display, the muscles of a man built to withstand the brutality of the ocean.

This was the man the elderly woman was speaking about. The man from the sea with feathers on his ankles.

That revelation should have scared you. Every alarm in your body should have gone off.

Escaping him should have been the only thing occupying your mind. You should have kicked and screamed until your throat was raw and bloody.

But you did no such thing.

Instead, it was the way he looked at you, gazing at you with the most intense smolder in his eyes that occupied your attention. He gazed at you with pure wonder, and held you delicately yet fiercely in his arms like you were the most precious thing in the entire world. Instinctively, you placed your hands on his bare chest, mindlessly tracing the dew drops sticking to his golden skin. The beautiful man shivered beneath your touch.

“500 years I have waited for you.” He whispered reverently.

Your mouth opened, prepared for a response that never came. Instead, your vision went dark.

─

You woke up to hushed voices and heedful, diligent hands. One set of hands languidly brushed your hair away from your face. Another daintily shimmied clothing onto your body once they were finished drying you off with the velvetiest cloth to ever touch your skin. The last set secured what you assumed was jewelry onto your wrists, neck, and ears. Upon opening your eyes, your assumption was correct. The dress on your body was stunning, embroidered with hundreds of crystalline beads. The jewels on your wrists alone were probably worth more than what you had made in your entire life.

The women who stood above you were unlike you had ever seen before. Their skin was a brilliant shade of cerulean. Vibrant, yet pleasantly understated. Masks covered their mouths and noses, but you could still see the bright smiles behind them.

“Hello,” You greeted shyly. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

Each of them let out a small cry, their eyes welling up with tears as they bowed earnestly.

“Bienvenido tin wotoch ti’, in reina.” They spoke warmly in unison, forming a gesture with their hands at you respectfully. Their mother tongue was foreign to you, but not for long. As if you had spoken it your entire life, your mind made quick work of interpreting it.

Welcome home, my queen.

Once again, you were puzzled. You had no idea where you were or who exactly that man was and why he had taken you here. You obviously hadn’t a single inkling as to what he meant by “500 years I have waited for you”. Now, these women were calling you their queen in a language you had never heard your entire life but somehow had the ability to understand perfectly.

The sound of feet pattering lightly gradually got closer and closer until the man of the hour stood before you at the foot of the bed. The women attending to you immediately turned their attention to him, bowing and forming the same hand gesture you had seen moments ago. He looked just as regal still, now adorned in a cape tucked into golden plates of armor on his shoulders. He regarded them gratefully.

“Leave us, my children. Thank you.”

They bowed to you both once more before swiftly making themselves haste. You now had his undivided attention.

“I hope you slept well. The healers said showed signs of exhaustion.”

“I—” You cleared your throat nervously. “I did, thank you.”

The barest hint of a smile graced his features. With graceful and controlled movements, he poured water into a glass and handed it to you.

“Do not be nervous.” He spoke lowly. “Speak freely.”

“Thank you.” You squeaked out again, taking a generous gulp of water before speaking again. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“My people call me K’uk’ulkan. To my enemies, I am Namor. You are in our kingdom – Talokan.”

The water got caught in your throat mid swallow, causing you to cough obnoxiously. The man who you now knew as K’uk’ulkan, discreetly smiled to himself as if this was a reaction he had anticipated. Before you could blurt out another string of questions, he held his hand out to you.

“Come. I will remedy all of your concerns.”

As if you had done so a million times, you placed your hand in his and stood by his side. Namor lead the both of you through a series of corridors. Your eyes took in your surroundings with pure astonishment. Cavern seemed to be a secluded corner for the king, crystal waters surrounding its premises. Bits of glittery minerals were embedded into the sediment walls. An air of serenity blanketed the entire area.

From the corner of his eye, Namor gaged your reactions, his heart so full of unfiltered adoration that it felt like it would explode in his chest. His hand was still tightly clutched in yours like it was second nature. Subconsciously, you had drawn your body closer to his. He was a meticulous man of control and strategy, but at that very moment, K’uk’ulkan wanted nothing more than to take you into his arms and kiss you breathlessly. The moment was cut short when you reached his study. He offered you a seat at his desk, drawing the door shut behind him for privacy. It didn’t take long for you to deduce that the murals painted on the walls were ones depicting the history of Talokan.

“Centuries ago, my people took an herb that allowed them to survive underwater. The herb was infused with vibranium. We are the only nation aside from Wakanda to possess it.” He began, his hands tracing over a painting of a beautiful woman cradling an infant. “My mother was pregnant with me when she ingested it. That is why I am the way I am – why I am the only one out of my people that can survive on both land and underwater, fly, and age slower than the rest. For this, they made me their king. Their god.”

You listened intently, fascinated by the discovery that they had remained a secret for this long.

“There was a prophecy made shortly after my birth. The gods promised me a soulmate.”

Turning around to face you, he bore his soul to yours through his eyes as he read the prophecy to you. With each word that fell from his lips, the world around you spun quicker and quicker. It made sense. It all made sense.

“I gave up on the idea of the prophecy coming true as time passed. In yakunaj, when you have lived as long as I have, seen as much as I have, happy endings are nothing but meaningless fallacies. But then, that night came…the night I heard you sing for the first time.”

He approached you slowly, cautiously like a wild animal that would take flight if startled by any sudden movements. What happened next made your eyes fill with tears; he knelt before you. This man – a king, a god – surrendered to you with no hesitation.

“I have finally found you…” He breathed, his orbs shining with devotion. “You are home. Why do you think you have no family? No one to trace your roots back to? You were made for me. Mine.”

Your face fell in between the palms of your hands as you wept. Quickly, your hands were replaced by his. He held your face in his hands like he was holding the entire world, the pads of his thumbs gently brushing away your tears.

“Why the tears, my love?”

You shook your head, placing your hands on top of his. The spark you felt every time the two of you touched could no longer be ignored.

“Why did they just now bring us together?” You cried. “We’ve both been alone for all this time, how could they not do something about it!”

“Shhh,” Namor cooed. “You think I have not been angry with them, my sweet? I have held myself back from tearing their skies and oceans apart just to find you. But what I feel for you right now in this very moment? That feeling will always win.”

The both of you said nothing more, for there was nothing that needed to be said. Your long lost love held you in his arms as you liberated yourself from what felt like decades of anguish. His grip never faltered even as you gripped his flesh hard enough to draw blood. Instead, he soothingly rocked you as he recounted the stories of his people’s origins. Talokan was a clandestine national treasure, one of the only things on the earth that had not been bastardized. That was all the doing of this wonderful being who had been promised to you.

“They were wrong about you. Your name.” You whispered. “You’re not without love, quite the opposite actually. The actions you have taken, the lengths you have gone to protect your people and your home, are ones of a man consumed with nothing but love. You can see it in how happy they are.”

With cautious hands, you caressed his cheeks. He preened against your touch, melting right into your palms. The world would never see the stoic warrior king falter, but already, you had him firmly wound around your finger. He could sit there for hours soaking in your ardor.

“Our home. Our people.” Namor corrected. “They can’t wait to meet you.”

Lovingly, he pressed his forehead to yours, nudging the tip of your nose with his.

“Are you ready to meet them?”

He observed endearingly as your eyes widened as large as flying saucers as you nodded overzealously, a giggle tumbling from your lips. K’uk’ulkan noted once more how full of love he felt. He wondered if this was what your lives together would consist of, overcome with all of the possibilities. Was adoring you more than he did in this moment even conceivable? When your smile faltered slightly, worry filled him.

“I’ve never seen…myself.”

“I am honored to be the first to see your true form.”

The two of you stood, walking hand in hand out of his personal study and to the outermost cove surrounded with the most water. Inhaling shakily, you eyed what awaited below you with apprehension. You were not human, far from it, and yet it felt as if you and your true form were worlds apart. Namor was silent. He knew this was something you needed to do alone. The only form of assurance offered to you was a look of encouragement.

Slowly, you dipped one foot into the water and allowed the other to follow. Keeping your eyes closed, you focused on your heart rate as your body adroitly descended into the abyss of the sea. You could have easily fallen asleep if it weren’t for a tingly sensation disrupting your peace. It started small, gradually winding around you until all at once, currents of electricity bolted through your limbs. Instinctively, your lungs expanded, and you took your first gulp of air underwater. You ripped your eyes open in bewilderment when you didn’t choke on water. The clear-cut view you had of your surroundings despite no sources of light being near further consolidated your shock. A noise akin to a squeak and gasp escaped your lips and before you knew it, you were cutting through the waters with newfound ease until your head broke the surface.

Namor would have given everything to his name to capture the sight before him. There you were, beaming at him with unrivaled radiance. He stopped breathing when you lifted your tail out of the water. Just when he thought you could not be any more magnificent than you already were, you defied his expectations. The scales covering the muscle were a range of shades of lapis lazuli, emerald, and gold. Towards the tips of your forked fin, they all blended into a rich shade of dark indigo. Your torso was bare but hidden behind your locks as they cascaded over your breasts. Namor could have gawked at you for hours if it weren’t for you playfully flicking water at his face. He felt light and dream-like as your melodious laughter echoed through the cavern. He decided then and there that your laughter was his favorite song. The scowl permanently etched onto his face fell. In its place, a smile so wide it hurt spawned. For the first time in centuries, he laughed so hard his abdomen hurt.

Powerless to his desires, he dove into the water after you, finding shelter in your embrace once more. Intuitively, your tail curled around one of his legs. He submerged the two of you back into the water and before you knew it, his lips were pressed against yours. Skin to skin, naked chests were tightly pressed against each other, your arms locked around his neck as your mouths feverishly meshed against one another. A barely audible moan slipped from your mouth right into his as his tongue pushed passed your lips. Namor voiced his pleasure with a low rumble from his chest. Pathetically, you could cry again right then and there. How could you have gone without this your whole life?

A loud clearing of the throat caused you both to cease your ministrations. Namor was anything but sorry as he pulled away with the softest expression you had seen on his face thus far. He regarded the two individuals standing in front of you – a hulking man with long inky tresses and an ornate headpiece resembling the skull of a hammerhead shark and a fierce looking woman with a feathered lionfish-esque headdress. Though both clearly high up in the royal ranks with a cutthroat reputation to uphold, they studied you and Namor with mischief.

“K’uk’alkan, they are waiting for her.” The man spoke.

“You might want to put this on before you go.” Spoke the woman, pulling an opulent bra top from behind her back and extending it towards you.

The state of undress you were in hit you like a bus. Your face felt like it was on fire from embarrassment, your lover pressing a tender kiss to your heated cheek. Tactfully, he maneuvered you away from the eyes of the warrior you now knew was Attuma. The woman, his cousin and second in command named Namora, expertly laced you into the garment.

“That was so embarrassing,” You mumbled to yourself once your modesty was secured.

Namor cracked a hint of a smirk.

“Attuma and my cousin expected nothing less from us. Now, shall we?”

─

Talokan was a magnificent sight. The agriculture was impressive, the vibranium rich soil working wonders for the crops. Sea creatures from colossal sized sea turtles, lengthy luminescent jellyfish of different colors, lively fish, and enormous whales to start were one with the Talokanil, peacefully existing with one another. The treatment you received from everyone was something you would never get used to. Despite not knowing you, they acknowledged you as if they had known you their entire lives. K reina perdida they called you with earnest smiles and misty eyes. Our lost queen.

But you were no longer lost.

It was evident in the way the orcas sang with you as you glided through the waters, seemingly understanding you in a way no one else could. Namor’s soul was finally content after seeing you swim freely, laughing so hard your stomach hurt as a couple of toddlers crawled around on your tail. His people loved you. Just as he thought they would. And you fit right in just as you were meant to. With further exploration of your physiology, the two of you discovered that like Namor, you could survive both underwater and on the surface, donning a set of legs seamlessly upon contact with land. Your strength, speed, and agility matched up perfectly with his. For hours, he chased you through the ocean, the both of you weaving in and out between walls of coral and tall beds of seaweed with dexterity. You truly were made for him.

A week later, you were officially crowned their queen. You and Namor ended the celebration with an intimate wedding ceremony in the cavern. After years of going without each other, neither of you had the patience to wait for a union on a grander scale. You both were enough – you would always be enough. And as he laid your bare body across the bed he occupied by himself for half a millennium, he was confident in that conviction.

You felt dizzy as he pressed his hard bulge against your core. The most heavenly noise to grace your ears came out of your now husband when you raised your hips to grind against it. Your hands liberally roamed his chest, now stripped of his jewels, before slithering to his robust back. Your nails drew tiny half moons as they dug into his flesh when his lips made their way to the column of your neck. The decorum of countenance he upheld was nowhere to be found as he ravaged your breasts with his mouth, lightly tugging your erect nipple between his teeth before he began to suckle. You cried out pathetically. His lips twitched, umber orbs now staring up at you with lust.

“You are so noisy for me,” He purred. “I have not even touched the most sensitive parts of your body yet.”

“Please,” You breathed. “Please, I need you,”

Namor made his way down your body, leaving no part of you untouched by his lips. Deftly, he gripped your thighs and place both of your legs over his shoulders. Gently, he kissed your dripping core.

“You have me, my love. Always.” 

His mouth took you straight to heaven. He devoured you like a man starved, tongue flicking your nub of nerves tirelessly with precision. Your thighs were already trembling, but he had just gotten started. Your orgasm crept up on you, the strongest one you had ever experienced. It left you heaving with your back arched off of the bed, unable to do anything besides chant his name like a mantra. But your beloved’s ministrations did not cease. He continued working at your core, now swollen and glistening from your juices and his spit. The second orgasm built up slowly, the knot in your stomach getting tighter and tighter with each time he sucked your clit. The final straw was when you noticed his hips gyrating. He was pleasuring himself while pleasuring you. This time when you came on your lover’s tongue, no words or sounds were able to slip passed your mouth. You were quite literally speechless.

With a satisfied moan, he lapped up the rest of your arousal, cooing to you as you quivered and whimpered from hypersensitivity. His scorching body covered yours once more, his lips familiarizing themselves with yours. Namor held you tightly against him, whispering sweet nothings against your lips as you steadied your breathing. It wasn’t long before you felt the head of his cock prodding your entrance. Gripping your face firmly, he forced your eyes open. The frenzied look in his eyes as he languidly sunk into you alone could have made you come for the third time that night. But alas, the universe was on your side. Instead, you savored that moment – the feeling of him. Every inch, every vein, ingrained into your memories for as long as you shall live.

“You feel incredible.” Namor panted, now beginning to steadily thrust. “You truly were made for me.”

You could only respond with wanton cries, too consumed with desire. The king began to piston in and out of you until he was fully pounding you into your marital bed.

“Namor!”

He grunted into your ear, pulling out of you for a brief moment to flip you onto your stomach. He plunged back into you and picked up right where he left off. This time, however, he was brutal with the punctuality of his thrusts.

“Am I your enemy, wife?” He taunted. “Are you even worthy of any mercy I have to spare?”

At this point, you could not even recognize the sounds you were making. They were debauched. Depraved. Combined with rhythmic percussion of skin against skin and the squelch of your wet cunt each time Namor entered you, the song you two orchestrated was one only for the lecherous.

“K’uk’ulkan,” You barely managed to murmur. “I’m s-so close, you make me feel so good,”

He hummed satisfactorily, driving into you even faster.

“You are, aren’t you, my sweet? That’s it, sing for me. Take my seed. Carry my children.”

“Please!” You screamed as your walls convulsed around his cock. Please come in me,”

With a shout and one final thrust, he released in you. Rope after rope, he filled you with his cum with proclamations of everlasting love on the tip of his tongue. His cock remained nestled deep within you as you both descended from your highs, keeping his spent from spilling. He shuddered at the image of you round and radiant carrying his child and just like that, he was hardening inside you once more. As you lay there, thoroughly cock drunk, he began to pull out of you and slowly push back in. This time, he was tender and gentle, unhurriedly focused on taking you apart for one final time that night. The two of you had centuries left together. There was no need to rush. Then again, Namor could live another 500 years with you by his side and still feel like it was not enough. He needed you forever, and then some.

“I love you,” He whispered against the blade of your shoulder. “You are everything.”

The next morning you would wake to the sight of your husband painting a new mural. One of a beautiful woman with the upper body of a human, and the lower body of a fish. By her side, a man with ears that pointed to the skies and wings on his ankles, their eyes locked and hands intertwined.

The beginning of your story.

[chvoswxtch]

oi, matt! can i get a macchiato? mayhaps over ice if that’s what the barista has to offer today….

matt x assistant!reader at nelson and murdock is one of my favourite flavours ever. i just neeeeed your take on it.

you know I had to kick off the celebration with this slut (works for you or matty) <3 also just so you know I could've kept going with this forever but tumblr told me to shut up bc apparently there's a word limit on answering asks but you get the picture ;)

as a reminder, over ice means it's spicy ! (minors dni)

headcannon below the cut

matt murdock is an hr nightmare

when foggy mentions that nelson & murdock could desperately use an assistant since karen is now at the bulletin, before matt even has a chance to speak, foggy is warning him to keep his dick in his pants

and when matt pulls that face (you know the one, the "she wanted to teach me" look of faux innocence) foggy reminds matt that not only is he a whore but he also has a history of being tempted by forbidden fruit (he probably fucked all the female interns at landman and zack, and then there's karen who he would've slept with if frank & elektra hadn't shown up but that's a different story for a different day)

matt does the lil "i cross my heart" thing and swears to foggy that he won't get involved with the new assistant

he also makes this promise to himself bc let's face it he's a human disaster who's life is constantly falling apart and the last thing he needs is drama that could've been avoided if he thought with the right head

but then the day of the interviews arrive and you walk in the room, and matt knows at that moment that he is completely fucked

your scent hits him first, something soft and subtle, a breath of fresh air from the stuffy office smell and the lingering assault of pungent perfume left behind by other candidates that had given him a dull headache

then it's your voice, god your voice, it's the most melodious sound he's ever heard. it's gentle but crisp, and your alluring intonation has him hanging onto your every word, especially his name that fell from your lips in greeting

touching your hand nearly does him in, bc getting to feel your smooth skin caress his rough palm makes it even worse. there's a an electric spark that tingles in his fingertips and shoots throughout the rest of his body, and he finds himself wondering if you feel it too, but then catches himself and quickly plasters on a professional appearance

it was one thing that every single thing about your existence drew him in, but the fact that you were also intelligent and well-spoken, deeply passionate and genuinely empathetic, while also quick to craft clever responses without your sharp wit coming off as ostentatious just made matt want you more

matt was uncharacteristically quiet while foggy asked most of the questions, to which you gave perfect answers, and occasionally chimed in with a few of his own just to redirect your attention where he wanted it: on him

by the end of the interview, foggy was sold on you, and so was matt, but for duplicitious reasons

matt tries so hard to keep his promise, but fuck do you make it (and him) hard. he makes a point to never be alone with you in the office. if a round at josie's is suggested, he makes sure foggy or karen will also be there. he tries to balance between being friendly while also being professional, trying to find the invisible line that crosses from innocent inquisitions to dangerous territory

he does his best not to initiate physical contact, which proves to be difficult, bc you're a hugger and always politely offering matt your arm to guide him whenever you go anywhere

you're so kind and thoughtful and treat him the exact way you treat everyone else and it makes him want to put his head through a wall bc every day that he spends with you makes this attraction worse and worse and he can't tell if it's purely physical or if it goes deeper than that

and then one day he just fucking snaps

matt has a really bad day. a lead he'd been working on for weeks ended up being a dead end, and matt had taken his frustration out on some petty thug in an alley, but it wasn't enough. he'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed, late at that, to a handful of voicemails from a pissed off foggy. it had been a grueling day in court, all of his senses were overwhelmed, and he had so much pent up tension in his body that he felt stiff

he was so wrapped up in himself that when he walked through the door of the office, he didn't realize he'd broken his own rule: never be alone with you

as soon as he realizes his mistake, he heads towards his office, returning your polite greeting with a grunt of acknowledgement. he hoped that you'd leave it alone, that you'd say something like you were just about to leave, and he'd be spared from you coming closer. but you being you, noticing every little detail and having learned to read matt, could tell something was off

you just wanted to help. you always just wanted to help, and matt loved that about you, but right now, it was only making this more difficult for him bc his self restraint was deteriorating

and then you gently touched his shoulder and matt let out a groan bc he could smell what you'd done the night previously. the scent of your arousal was still embedded in your skin even though you'd washed your hands several times, and the scent of soap was almost nonexistent as matt's nose focused solely on the delectable scent of your pussy on your own fingers

he'd made himself come many times to the thought of you over the last few months, but knowing that you'd fingered yourself last night possibly to the thought of him is what broke his resolve

matt didn't need his heightened senses to know you were attracted to him, that you felt something for him too. he knew it because he knew you, and sometimes you were obvious even when you thought you were being subtle for the sake of both your friendship and your professional reputation

before either of you could process what was happening, matt was devouring your mouth in a heated kiss, your blouse was halfway unbuttoned, just enough for him to pull down the cups of your bra to leave your tits spilling into his welcoming hands. your soft whimpers echoed around the empty office as he toyed with your nipples while assaulting your neck with his teeth and tongue

in record time you were bent over his desk, skirt bunched up around your hips, panties caught around your calves, and matt was pulling down his zipper to free his fully hard cock

the immense relief he felt as he sank into you fully from behind nearly brought him to his knees. he didn't know if it was the heightened allure of having something he wasn't supposed to, or how perfectly your tight cunt enveloped his thick cock, but he quickly got lost in your warm walls like a dazzling labyrinth he never wanted to escape

you were so fucking wet that it was obscene the noises your pussy made welcoming his cock as he pounded into you over and over and over again. but his favorite sound was you chanting his name, desperately pleading for more, which he was all too happy to oblige

you took him so well, your pussy enveloping his cock in a greedy manner, not allowing him the chance to slip out despite how soaked you were. he reached as deep as your body would allow and fucked you relentlessly like a madman on a mission

his rough hands gripped your hips in a bruising manner, and he was completely lost in a fog of lust. it didn't take long for either of you to come undone and it finally clicked for matt that he wasn't the only one that had been depriving himself for the sake of not crossing a boundary when your cunt tightened around his cock before flooding him with your release

matt waited until the absolute last possible second, swiftly pulling out with a hiss as he replaced your pussy with his right hand, stroking his cock at an inhuman speed just a few times before coating your ass in ropes of his come

he collapsed in his chair, but not without wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you down with him. the sound of heavy panting filled his office, and the air was humid and drenched in the scent of sex. matt nuzzled his face into your neck, hugging your back to his chest while the two of you attempted to catch your breath

he's able to pick up on the fact that your heart is still racing not bc of the incredible spontaneous sex, but also out of anxiety about what happens next, so matt decides to break the silence first

"I uh...know this is kinda backwards but, I was wondering if I could take you to dinner?"

in conclusion, he's a fucking menace

[tomanyhusbandz]

His Girl

18+ no minors

David x Black fem reader

Summary: David McCall spots you one day at the mall with your friends and find you the most intriguing. sneaking in your room, one night your father lectures you through the door, and David’s possessiveness kicks in, and he decides to stake his claim on you while your father speaks on the opposite side of the door. 

Author’s note: yall know the drill straight off the top (of my head)

Black fem reader,smut ish, possessiveness,kissing,biting,smoking

Mini flashback

You had not to long ago moved to this VERY suburban neighborhood with your mother and father who where both big shot lawyers and it was really awkward for you and your parents but you figured since they had so much money it shouldn’t be a problem to blend in. You had made a couple a friends on your first day at the new neighborhood school shockingly everyone was trying to get a piece of but you’d just roll your eyes and go on about your day not wanting to be anyone’s token black friend, despite that you met Nicole and Lora and they seemed pretty chill then one day you three where out and about at the mall when you notice a group of guys. They looked sketchy too sketchy for yours and Nicole’s liking but Lora was a free spirit you where fiddling with your nails when you noticed the silent one staring at you like his undressing you with his eyes.

He smiled with his eyes mysteriously watching your every movement down from your Mocha brown skin,Chanel pumps and frilly socks to your short black plaid skirt showing just a peek of your bow tattoos behind your thighs and that oh so neatly short button up white dress shirt you tied at the bottom making your curves teasingly entice anyone you walk past. You were like a siren you already had him hooked and he didn’t even know your name yet it made his breath catch and his heart flutter just from you rolling your eyes at him.

“Lora come on les go .. before I slip over this one’s drool” you say pointing over at him with your thumb making Nicole laugh covering her mouth one thing about you is your very out spoken something Lora couldn’t top you in

“So it’s like dat .. I can’t admire your beauty without you insulting me I’m wounded baby” The sexy stranger says with a million dollar smile on his face making you mentally bite your lip he was the hottest white boy you’ve seen in this town with a Jersey accent to top it off, doesn’t mean you ain’t gonna play hard to get

“Don’t call me baby i ain’t no body’s baby you have to earn this .. your cute though ciao !” You say linking arms with Nicole and Laura making sure to swing your hips as you walk away

“Ha! Well I’m David what’s your name!” he says shouting biting his lip as he follows running he catches up silently behind you his eyes watching your hips like a cat clock

“Y/n and that’s all your getting” you say laughing at his sudden per suite of getting anything he can from you

“Oh my gosh hooked already and she hasn’t gave you anything” Laura says a bit annoyed but humored as you all finally make it to your Ferrari which you let Nicole drive because you’ve seen Laura drive and it wasn’t the best

David silently watches you all climb in before quickly grabbing your hand and helping you climb over the seats watching you sit you look up at him and his grin with a sudden charm, a dangerous charm like he was hiding a bit of malice behind it but you shook the feeling as soon as he leaned both arms on the car supporting his chin he laid on top of them.

“So you gonna let me take you out .. or I gotta beg” he says his eyes low lidded and dark something about that you liked made your chest burn from the inside

“Mhmm I don’t know as much as I’d like to see you on yo knees I’d rather not .. but yeah you can take me out” you say biting your bottom lip the car revving up in the background you both ignore that signal from your friends you grab your receipt and write your address down and number handing it to him

“Good I’ll see youuu tonight ? but before you go you gotta give me something” he says in a whisper you both close to each other’s lips your French tip nail tracing his lips

“Do I ?” You say leaning closer to kiss him then the car slowly pulls off and the girls cackle along with you as you blow him a kiss

You watch from the back seat of the low top rrari he stands in the parking lot smirking as if he won the game you to just played you knew he was going to be trouble but you didn’t mind it, it was more fun for you that way you couldn’t piss your parents off anymore than you have.

Mini Flashback over

Ever since then you to had been inseparable where ever he went is where you went and same went for you. But sometime you needed space and that’s when David’s controlling side came out and he wanted to argue or try and manipulate you and make you feel bad about going out without him but he gave up on that when he realized you were going to do what you wanted anyway. No matter what he did you wouldn’t leave him even when your parents disagreed about him you kept seeing him and when they grounded you, you snuck out or he snuck in you where down for him and he was down bad for you.

Currently you where both in your room after you where grounded for the six time for joy riding in your dads new bentley with David and his friends your parents think his a bad influence on you but you didn’t care. Music played silently in the background as you blew smoke from your mouth and into David’s while you straddle him he laid under you examining your face, you scored some weed from his friend for free so you both were just silently mellowing out in your room while David rubbed his rough hands along your soft semi naked thighs fingertips sneaking under your pajama shorts, This was promptly his fifth night sneaking in and you were sure your dad knew but again you didn’t care.

“What ? .. you starin at me” you said smiling while the blunt hangs from your lips slapping his muscular chest his yankee cap backwards on your head

“Nothing you just look good on top of me” he says biting his lip and slapping your butt then taking the blunt from your lips

You giggle at his response before he could put the blunt to his lips you lean down and kiss his lips. He kissed you back possessive wrapping his hands in your hair tightly making you wince a little but shiver at the same time before he released you and took a hit then blew it out.

“So Lora has these too friends that wanna buy from you or maybe get it for free buttt they say they don’t like yo creepy rockstar friend” you say trying to slide off of him but he presses your thighs down so you can’t move keeping you in place with one hand

“Well then they don’t need a buy from me .. besides you the only one getting anything for free cause you mine “ he says in a growl almost intimidating you but making you excited at the same time

Before you could answer him you hear footsteps outside the door sounding like expensive dress shoes which only meant it was your dad again coming to lecture you about making good choices and dropping David.

“Are you smoking in there ?” He says frowning from the other side of the door that smell was familiar to him it reminded him of back when he was a teen the same reason he didn’t want you around David because of the stupid things he did

“NO! Daddy please not tonight i get it okay” you say rolling your eyes you look down at David who sits up on his elbows whispering for you to come closer which you couldn’t say no to he got a kick out of asserting dominance on you

“ Don’t get smart with me .. im just hear to tell you im sorry i just want what’s best for you” he says taking a deep sigh laying his forehead on the door in frustration

“Mhm ..” you say throwing your head back as David nibbles on your neck licking over the purple mark he left from earlier now sitting all the way up with you still in his lap he hold your waist making you grind against him

“And so does your mother we don’t want you knocked up and throwing away your future for some psycho your my little girl i just don’t wanna see you hurt ” he says sounding as if his waiting for your response not being able to hear much over your music playing in the background

“Mmh Dav … stop his right on the other side of the door” but he didn’t stop David’s hate fire was fueled by your fathers hateful words towards him he was right, David was a sick but he was sick for you and you for him, he knew you where down for whatever he asked you to do even if it meant pissing your parents off.

“Mh so .. I hope he hears us just so he knows’’ he says slipping his thumbs into the sides of your shorts bringing them under your butt revealing your satin panties, as he watched your eyes shut from his rough yet soft nibbling on your skin, your back arched over the edge of your bed a little

“ k-knows what” you say out of breath for his overstimulating bites and groping

The bed creaking from his slipping you off his lap and taking off his pants revealing his toned legs then he slips off his jersey showing his toned abdomen and wide shoulders. he turns around and bites his lip at you as he watches you from the bed, lean back on your elbows with your legs wide open and your shorts fully removed and just your panties on. Something his always imagined seeing you in he had just been playing nice since the first day you met the little cat and mouse game you would like to play, and he wanted to wait until you were ready but he could tell by that love drunk look on your face you wanted nothing but him.

“What’s that noise in there … is someone there and you’re lying to me again y/n!!” Your dad shouts from the outside turning the handle but it wouldn’t turn David smirked again and went over to you standing between your legs you lay back and slide your hand down his toned chest while yanking at his boxers eagerly.

“ That your my girl .. “he says watching your hands yank at his boxers pulling them all the way down as your dad hollers banging on the door in the background making David’s revenge all the more sweeter

[dixons-sunshine]

Yielding Isn’t My Middle Name—Chapter 4 | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

(GIF by @dixonscarol)

Chapter Summary: The arrival of Liam’s brother could only mean trouble. However, you and Daryl had to keep up your facades and win their trust. That should be easy, right?

Warnings: Swearing, talks of attempted SA, attempted murder, just read with care.

Word count: 3.1k.

A/N: It’s finally here. Chapter four. I can’t believe I actually finished this. It’s not great but it’s way better than the last chapter, in my opinion. (I made a few references to the show and past episodes in this. I’m genuinely interested to know how many of you catch them lol.) Anyways, I hope you like this!

Taglist: @dixons-girl89 @jupiter1700 @enlightndone @shadowcitrine @ddamm @caseylicious @celtic-crossbow (comment/DM to be added/removed!)

“Liam, why didn’t you tell me that I would be in the presence of such beauty? I would’ve worn my best rags for this occasion.”

“Oh, please, brother. You and I both know that you aren’t capable of dressing to impress,” Liam countered with a smirk. However, he turned back to you and Daryl, his eyes alight with something you couldn’t quite decipher. “Say, the two of you must be dying of thirst. Where is Mariah?”

As if being summoned, Liam’s wife entered the room with a tray of drinks. A glass of wine, presumably for Daryl, a glass of scotch, presumably for Liam, and a glass of water, which you knew was yours. Mariah placed the tray down on the coffee table in the living room, wiping her hands on her shirt. Her eyes nervously darted between Liam and Lucas, the strange man that had flopped himself down on the couch a mere two minutes prior.

“Hey, Mariah,” Lucas greeted her in a flirty manner. “How’s life been treating you, beautiful?”

Before Mariah could open her mouth to speak, Liam interjected. “Bugger off, Luke. You know she’s spoken for. In fact, so is she.” He vaguely motioned over to you. “Sorry for my brother’s vulgarity, mate. He has absolutely no filter,” Liam apologized, regarding Daryl with an apologetic look. The Sunny Meadows’ leader, seemingly struck by a sense of realization, shook his head and readapted the smile you were growing to hate. “How about we each take a seat and discuss your stay with us? It would do us good to get to know each other better, don’t you think?”

Your eyes nervously flitted to meet Daryl’s cerulean ones. The archer both simultaneously exhibited a sense of nerves and a sense of determination, though he managed to uphold his tough facade in the eyes of the people who didn’t know him, and you mentally applauded your husband for being able to do so. You were hurting, exhausted, and about two seconds away from either breaking down, or throwing punches. There was absolutely no in-between.

“Please, do sit down.” Liam practically shoved his brother’s feet off the couch to take a seat next to him, before motioning to the couch across from him. “Let’s have a chat.”

You hesitated for a split second, before sighing and ultimately accepting his offer. If you and Daryl had any chances of escaping, it would have to start with getting on Liam’s good side. If you earned his trust, he would be less inclined to have armed guards following you around, meaning that you and your husband could potentially then have a clear shot at escaping. There was seemingly no other way to go about it. You could only hope that Daryl would go along with your plan.

Daryl reluctantly joined you on the couch. With your husband by your side, you felt more at ease under Liam’s intense green-eyed stare. When Liam leaned forward to grab his glass of scotch, you leaned forward to grab your glass of water, as well as the wine for Daryl. You then turned your head to thank Mariah, but you quickly noted that the leader’s timid wife was nowhere to be spotted. She had seemingly made herself scarce, another fact you locked into the depths of your mind for potential future use.

“So, tell me, what are your skills?” Liam began while taking a leisure sip of his drink. “What could the two of you contribute to our community?”

Shit. You couldn’t tell the truth in this situation, could you? If they knew the true extent of your’s and your husband’s abilities within and outside of a community, would they somehow use it to their advantage? Would they force the two of you to hard labour? Would they kill you if they deemed you too dangerous? You didn’t know, and not knowing made you nervous.

“M’a good fisher. Know my way ‘round a fishin’ rod. M’also a decent gun’s man, but I don’ feel confident in my skills to say m’good,” Daryl quickly and smartly responded to the question, cleverly noting that you wouldn’t be able to quickly improvise at that moment. “She ain’t usually part of my designated run crew ‘cause I choose to keep her outta harm’s way, but our camp got overrun and s’jus’ me and her now. Was teachin’ her the ropes when yer men kidnapped us and brought us here.”

“Oh, no. I don’t like that word. ‘Kidnapping’ sounds so harsh,” Liam interjected and shook his head. He placed his glass down on the coffee table before continuing. “We don’t kidnap people. We save them. We get them off the harsh streets of this new world and give them a new sense of purpose. We give them a place to call home. The two of you were on your own out there. You just admitted to it. We didn’t have to bring you here, but we did. We saved you.”

“What, so yer community’s the world’s saviours or some shit?” Daryl grumbled under his breath, his fingers tightening around his glass, his wine left untouched.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Lucas cut into the conversation, his green eyes—similar to his brother’s eyes—regarding Daryl with an intensity that would have any man trembling in their boots. However, Daryl wasn’t just any man. He stared back at the Davis brother with an intensity of his own.

Liam—either extremely smart or extremely stupid—interrupted the intense stare-off with the clearing of his throat. He clapped his hands twice and stood up from his seat. “No need for the hostility, gentlemen. We’re all mature, responsible, reasonable adults here. No need to rip one another’s throats out.”

“He’s right,” you agreed, shooting Daryl a look that he cleverly knew meant he needed to back off a bit. “I’m so sorry, Liam.” You feigned an apologetic tone. Truth be told, you’d quite enjoy seeing Daryl put an arrow in Lucas’ rear end, but it would do neither of you any good at that moment. You had to remain civilized with these people, no matter how difficult it proved to be. In your mind, there was no other way to go about leaving that place. You had to gain their trust, and then strike. It was the only way.

Liam shook his head and motioned over to the door adjacent to him. “Perhaps talking to you both one-on-one is the best course of action here. Daryl, if you’d be so kind, I’d love for you to join me so that we can have a nice chat.”

No. The simple word of denial was resting right on the tip of the archer’s tongue. He was one breath away from uttering that small word that could classify as a complete sentence. However, the knowledge that he could potentially gather vital information that could help with your escape from that place proved to his utmost concern at that particular moment. So instead of yielding to the urge to deny Liam’s request, he pushed his pride down to the depths of his being and nodded. “Alright. Let’s jus’ get this over with.”

Liam sent Daryl a satisfied smile. “I like your style. Indeed, let’s get it over with. The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can get you both settled into your chambers. Please, follow me.”

Daryl spared you one last glance, his eyes trailing from yours down to your abdomen, a silent promise that he would somehow get you both out of there, before getting up from his seat and disappearing into—what you assumed to be—the office. The door shut behind him, effectively cutting you off from hearing what the man was discussing with your husband. It also cut your husband off from seeing and hearing what was going on outside the room.

It cut him off from Lucas’ unnerving gaze, a gaze that rested solely on you at that moment.

You cleared your throat and finally brought the glass of water up to your lips, the cool, refreshing liquid disappearing down your throat. You had never wished to be able to drink alcohol before more than you did at that moment. However, you didn’t just have yourself to think of anymore. There was a life growing within you, and you’d be damned if you put their life in jeopardy just because you wished for some liquid courage.

“So,” Lucas began, effectively snapping you out of your thoughts. His eyes trailed over your form in a provocative manner, and it made you want to hurl. However, you refrained from doing so, instead allowing a small shiver of disgust to trail over your spine. “What’s your story?”

“My story?” you questioned confusedly. Of everything the British-accented man could have asked or said at that moment, you definitely hadn’t expected that. “What do you mean?”

“Well, just that. What’s your story? How have you survived this long? I mean, just the two of you on the road since all of this began? It seems impossible that you haven’t kicked the bucket by now.”

You had to refrain from rolling your eyes. You didn’t miss the way he had said “you”, and not “one of you”. You could clearly see what type of man you were dealing with. You cleared your throat, placed your glass on the table, and got up from your seat to take a few steps away from him. “We weren’t alone. We had a camp, with a whole bunch of people. It got overrun a few days ago. It’s been just us since then,” you explained, going with the lie Daryl had told them.

“So, that redneck, is he your husband or something?” Lucas inquired, getting up from his seat as well.

You hesitated, afraid to reveal that fact to him. However, you knew that Liam knew of your marital status, so there was no point in lying to the other Davis brother. “Yeah, he’s my husband,” you finally told him, taking another couple of steps back when Lucas started approaching you.

Lucas gave you a small smirk, one that had you rather scared. “And he makes you happy?” he asked in a low, dangerous tone.

You gulped nervously and backed up even more. “Yeah, he does,” you agreed, your heart beginning to pound against your ribcage.

“Do you love him?”

You were beginning to get extremely freaked out. The expression on the man’s face made you want to run and never look back, but where could you possibly go? He had you cornered. There was nowhere to run. “Of course I do,” you replied, your voice cracking slightly.

“As my brother’s right hand man, I have certain privileges when it comes to giving orders. If I tell our men to kill someone, they’ll do it, no questions asked. So...” Lucas trailed off, his voice low and dangerous as he cornered you against the wall. “If you truly love your husband like you say you do, and with love means you probably don’t want him to die, how about I make you a little proposition; you spend one night with me, and I don’t have your husband killed?”

You couldn’t believe your ears. Your mind was struggling to comprehend what the man had told you. You couldn’t even utter a single word. You were the exact definition of a deer caught in headlights. Lucas had you trapped against the wall, his arms caging you.

He moved one of his hands to tightly grip your chin. “I didn’t hear a no...” he trailed off with a wicked smirk. His other hand trailed down your face and down your body, his fingers trailing over the top of your jeans. “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll take good care of you.”

Your mind finally caught up with you. You were in serious danger. You had to get out of that situation, and quickly. You didn’t have any weapons with you, due to the men from earlier having confiscated them. However, you could make out the distinct glint of a gun resting on the table in the far corner of the room. You had to get to it. However, you had to get out of the vile man’s grip first.

Your mind was in overdrive. You barely even noticed that you had somehow managed to grab an ornament from the shelf next to you, or that you had brought it over Lucas’ head. You only realized that fact when the man tumbled down to the ground and you were sprinting towards the weapon.

“You bitch!” Lucas roared loudly, stumbling while trying to get to his feet. “I’m gonna fucking kill you!”

The gun soon found its place in your hands. You were relieved when you noted that the weapon was fully loaded. That definitely gave you an advantage. However, your relief soon dissipated when you saw Lucas draw his own weapon from his waistband. You had to think fast. You couldn’t let the man kill you.

Before you could even fully process what you were doing, you cocked the gun and shot at the man. However, Lucas managed to duck in the nick of time, so instead of being shot through the chest, like you had intended, the bullet penetrated his shoulder instead, making the man stumble back down to the ground. That didn’t mean that the shot hadn’t hurt him, though. The scream of pain he had let out was damn near deafening.

You took a few steps closer to the man, prepared to end his miserable existence once and for all. However, a pair of arms encircled you and a cloth with a weird, chemical-like smell was brought up to your face. You thrashed around in the person’s embrace and tried to scream, but to no avail. Your vision quickly got blurry. The gun fell from your hand down to the floor, and you quickly followed suite when the person let go of you. The last thing you could remember seeing was your husband. He was struggling to get to you, held back by two other people you hadn’t even realized were in the house.

After that, everything went dark.

Daryl Dixon couldn’t remember the last time he had been as terrified as he was at that moment. You hadn’t woken up yet. Whatever they had used to knock you out was extremely potent. You had been out cold for hours, and that fact made Daryl scared. Were you okay? When were you going to wake up? Hell, were you even going to wake up? Were you... Daryl couldn’t even finish that last thought. He didn’t want to.

If Daryl’s calculations were correct, the two of you had been in that cell for a little over two hours at that point in time. After Liam had heard his brother yell, he had signalled for backup on his radio and had sprung into action. Daryl had instantly known that you were in trouble, and when he had seen that you were about to shoot Lucas and that some person had walked up behind you with something in his hands, he had wanted to grab him. However, he had been grabbed and pinned down and injected with something, rendering him unable to help you. After that, the two of you had been dragged down to a dungeon of sorts, where you both had been shackled to the wall.

Daryl wanted to kill Lucas. He didn’t know exactly what had happened that made you ditch your “we have to gain their trust to escape” mindset, but he knew it had to be something big if it meant you wanted to kill someone. You wouldn’t kill someone without a reason. You just weren’t that type of person.

The sound of metal doors opening had Daryl’s head snapping up. Liam emerged from the stairs, two men following behind him. Liam’s green-eyed glare met locked with Daryl’s blue-eyed one. However, the man simply opened up the cell and stalked in with the two men hot on his tail.

“How are you doing, mate?” Liam questioned. Daryl simply glared at the man, refusing to acknowledge his question, making Liam chuckle. The man crouched down in front of him. From up close, Daryl could clearly see a scar that tugged at the edge of his mouth. Had that always been there? “Oh, back to being the silent type, huh? Without your little wife to do all the talking for you, you’re not gonna be much use for information, are you?” When Daryl still didn’t say anything, Liam stood back up, towering over the archer menacingly. “Don’t worry, we have other ways to get information out of people. Plus it means we get to punish the wrongdoer in the process. It’s a win-win situation, don’t you think?”

Daryl didn’t like the sound of that threat. Liam turned around and walked over to your unconscious body, unlocking the chains from your legs and arms. The archer’s eyes widened in fear. “Wait, no! Don’ touch her!”

Liam simply chuckled as he continued working at the chains. “Oh, so you’re not completely mute. Still, it won’t do you much good now.” With the chains removed from your limbs, Liam harshly pulled you up into his arms, your unconscious body limply doing his bidding.

“Ya best let her go, ya fuckin’ asshole!” Daryl yelled angrily, desperately pulling against the chains that kept him shackled to the wall. Despite the furious facade the archer was keeping up, he was scared beyond belief. Where was this guy taking you? Would they hurt you? Would they kill you? He didn’t even want to entertain that last thought. “What are ya gon’ do to her?”

Liam, the man responsible for bringing the two of you to that hellhole in the first place, harshly pushed you into the arms of another man. He turned to Daryl with a wicked smirk on his face, the scar at the edge of his mouth adding to the cruelness the man exuded. Daryl would never admit it, but that look sent a terrified shiver up his spine.

“All I’m gonna say is that she never should’ve tried to kill my brother. Now she has to pay, just like everyone else.” With that, Liam turned back around and stalked out of the room with an air of arrogance around him. His henchmen followed closely behind, one of them dragging your unconscious body like you were nothing but a mere ragdoll.

As hard as Daryl pulled against the chains, as loud as he yelled, as much as he pleaded, it didn’t matter. The door to his cell was closed with a loud bang, leaving him in the darkness, alone with his own thoughts. As tears filled the huntsman’s eyes, only two thoughts remained on his mind; would he ever see you again, and would your unborn baby be okay?

[mothiir]

a great kindness done

this is a sequel to the fic words rarely spoken but you don’t need to have read that to understand this. the only background is that the POV character is a serf who said one nice thing around peturabo, who responded — calmly and rationally — by dragging her off and jerking off onto her face. @moodymisty hope this is okay I wrote it in one go and couldn’t be bothered to proof read it so it’s not my finest work 😅

cw: power imbalance, dubcon in that no one reallyyyy gets the chance to say no.

—

—

It was not the Men of Iron who felled the corrupt government that held dominion over your planet, but the yellow-clad Imperial Fists, led by their father Dorn — and yet it was the Iron Warriors who rebuilt afterwards, smelted ore from the. cavernous depths of the planet, built barracks and cities and factories, and it is the reconstruction that matters more. Anyone can siege — it takes real talent to build —

“No,” Perturabo says, tearing your dress open with one flick of his wrists, your breasts spilling free. He kicks the door to his quarters closed, hard enough to dent the durasteel. “No, it’s — hard to siege —“

“Of course my lord,” you stammer, rewriting your internal script. “I’m so stupid, please forgive me —“

“Not stupid,” he growls. “Just human, foolish — “

He lifts you up with one hand, effortlessly strong, palm large enough to almost cover your entire arse as his fingers bite into the meat of your thighs. With his free hand, he fumbles at his armour; removing the entire suit would take time, and the assistance of the Iron Circle (he allows no serf near his armour), but he’s in a hurry, and so only bothers with his codpiece. It clatters to the floor with an uncharacteristic lack of care. You imagine the machine spirit within fuming at the ill-treatment.

“—sieging is hard, and rebuilding as well, and the people who hail the Fists are — are misguided, silly little children with shiny trinkets and —“

You don’t get any further into your mollifying speech; Peturabo’s tongue fills your mouth. He doesn’t kiss so much as attempt to lick your skill clean from the inside, his gauntleted hand biting bruises into your buttocks.

“You’re mine,” he says, pulling away. A strand of saliva stretches between his mouth and yours.

“Always,” you say, privately wondering what his reaction would have been had you done more than simply thank the Imperial Fist. For that is what set this whole affair off — all you did was smile, and thank the Astartes, because he had held a door for you. That was that. And here you are.

“Mine,” he growls, again, his voice slipping lower, into a register that sounds more chainsword than human. It frightens you on an instinctive, primal level — like standing before the merciless churning of a great furnace, and knowing that should you fall in, even your bones would be reduced to ash.

“Yours,” you echo. “All yours.”

It has been barely three weeks since the start of your — well, relationship is a strong word for what amounts to kidnap and a permanent assignment to Perturabo’s service. Rather: a permanent assignment to service Perturabo. The work is certainly easier than your previous role — cleaning, some mending, plenty of time on your back — but although the rations are better, you do wish that some of them were not routinely painted across your tits.

“Yes,” he says, and buries his face in your neck, inhaling deeply. His forehead crumples, as he huffs annoyance. “You smell wrong.”

“I’m — I’m sorry —“

You can’t help your gibbering apologies, even though you know it irks him when you show any outward sign of fear (“I’m not going to hurt you, you foolish little whore,” he once thundered, in a surprisingly unsuccessful attempt at comfort).

“No. Not your fault. Mine.”

He drops you onto his bed, standing before you, his cock level with your face. He strokes himself — once, twice — then shoves it towards your mouth. It bumps against your slack lips, and he grunts in frustration.

“Open. Now.”

You let your tongue loll out, slurping around his prick; he likes it when you’re messy and wet, drinking him down like he’s the only nourishment you’ll ever receive. For the first three days, you had thought this the case, until you realised that no, he’d just forgotten how often humans were meant to eat — he wasn’t planning to force you to subsist on a diet of Primarch ejaculate.

He rubs his length over your face, almost poking you in the eye a few times, deliberately working his pre-cum into your hair. He likes that as well: leaving you covered in the remnants of his pleasure, often refusing to allow you to wash it off afterwards. You keep your mouth open, like a mindless hole for him to grind against and spill inside.

“Not enough,” he mumbles, and catches your jaw with his index finger and thumb. “Need to be inside — this will hurt.”

You don’t have time to protest, or even ask what he means. He pulls smartly down, forcing your jaw open, and something clicks. Pain streaks up to your ears, and suddenly you can open wide enough to accommodate his cock. He moans satisfaction, and forces himself deeper into your throat, heedless of the scrape of your blunt, human teeth. Your body starts to panic at the lack of air; you want to pull away but you can’t; you want to breathe, but you can only manage strangled sips through your nose, and hurking gasps through a jaw that feels fucking dislocated —

And then it is over, and Perturabo pulls out, and the dark wings of terror beat a little softer. Drool drips from your abused mouth; your eyes stream. You want to ask him what the hell was that, what — and before you can think how to form the words he’s pushed in again, his fingers holding your mouth open, one hand cupping the back of your head to angle you to his liking. It takes him a few bruising thrusts to the roof of your mouth before he gets it quite right, and slides down your gullet in an implacable surge.

He continues like this for long enough that you lose track of time: your world reduced to the thick, sloppy sounds of him fucking your throat; the pain in your jaw; the slap of his balls up against your chin; the smell of him, like gunpowder and hot steel and something else, something completely inhuman. He takes you to the verge of blacking out — your vision blurring, your thoughts growing disjointed — and then permits you a hard swoop of a breath, before pushing back in. When he does eventually cum, it’s as you breathe in — you end up inhaling some of his cum, coughing and sputtering up the last little bit of your dignity, along with a wad of white gunk.

“My — my lord —“ you gasp, trying to form words: give me a moment to breathe, let me rest —

“You’re mine, aren’t you?” There’s an edge to his voice now — needling and hungry. “You’re all mine.”

He wrenches you up by the hair, catches your jaw and feels along the sides. You’re as delicate as a bird next to him, and just as fragile.

“Nothing broken. You’ll be fine.”

“Yes my lord. Thank you my lord.”

He grunts irritably, and you scramble to think what you could possibly have said — and then it occurs to you. Thank you my lord. Exactly the words you’d spoken to the Imperial Fist.

Before you can think of a better way to convey your appreciation, Perturabo has shoved your face back into his groin, this time forcing your lips against his balls.

“Suck,” he says, and you do: rolling crinkly skin against your tongue, taking the warm weight of them in your open mouth. Perturabo, a man of few words at the best of times, directs your mouth back to his cock by dragging at your hair.

The second time he cums it is all over your face. You get a brief reprieve as he wrangles off some of his armour, enough that he can clamber onto the bed without his limbs being held to stiff attention.

Then he flips you onto your hands and knees, slots his cock against your cunt — you feel him snigger at your panicked clench — then slides himself to his more accustomed place: fucking between your bruised, tender thighs.

“One day soon,” he pants, as he thrusts, “I’m going to fill that tight cunt up.”

“Yes — please —“ you reply, exhausted and sticky and barely able to string the words together. “But let me prepare — first —“

He leans over your back, hunching awkwardly so he can lick at your neck, his breath humid in your ear.

“Yes — will split you open — split you open and fuck you full and everyone knows that you are mine —“

He flips you back over before he cums, milking his release onto your chest. You feel his cum starting to dry in your hair, cling to your skin; you feel absolutely disgusting. And yet Perturabo looks at you with a bizarre mix of hunger and tenderness. Like you are just the most precious thing he has had the privilege to own.

By the fourth time, you think he’s starting to calm down. The rest of his armour discarded, the Iron Circle tidying as discretely as war machines can, and he has you stroke him off with your sticky, trembling hands.

“Open,” he says, and you let your jaw hang slack, the hinges still aching. His release spills all down your front as you make a lacklustre attempt to swallow what catches on your tongue.

You don’t think your throat will ever work properly again. Maybe he’s ruined it entirely, shaping it into nothing more than a cocksleeve for his use.

The tenderness is back in his eyes as he lifts something up to your face. Too fucked out and bleary to register what it is, it’s the camera flash that alerts you to the pict he’s just taken.

“Hey!”

“Shhh. This is just for me. Just to see how pretty you are. Just to remind me.”

He strokes your hair, heedless of the cum drying in it, and inhales deeply, grinning at how thoroughly you smell of him. No one will ever mistake you for anything other than his.

“And no more thanking Imperial Fists, yes ?”

“Yes my lord,” you say.

[canmom]

music and narrative {[0]}

so. as part of the ongoing music researches, I've for a while wanted about the relation between music and narrative. that's going to be a long project! but to begin with I wanted to run down the examples I know, and maybe solicit a few more~

now, on some level, nearly any song has some degree of narrative. your basic love song introduces us to some characters - singer, object of their affection - and furnishes them with emotions and desires. moreover, music can play a role in a narrative without literally relating events - indeed, the art of soundtrack design is definitely a subject I want to look into at some point. even songs addressed directly at the real world, such as political songs, construct some kind of narrative.

however, for these purposes, I'm interested in songs that go a bit further in the direction of telling a fictional story, especially when those link together into whole albums (sometimes called a concept album, though this is a slightly broader concept). which can work in a lot of ways!

for example, Janelle Monae's The ArchAndroid tells a sweeping scifi story of an android fleeing an oppressive society and becoming an unintentional figurehead of revolution. it sketches out a wide-reaching set of influences in constructing a scifi world, but you'd be hard-pressed to boil it down into a simple series of events - it prefers to leave a lot to interpretation. by contrast something like Splendor & Misery by clipping. deals with kinda similar subject matter - a scifi story, an escaped slave, artificial intelligence - but with a different musical approach and perhaps a slightly clearer narrative arc; sometimes directly narrating the thoughts and actions of characters, or slipping into memory, but also drawing less direct musical parallels with e.g. gospel tracks and slave spirituals. both excellent albums - both solve the problems of conveying a story musically in different ways.

of course, the largest pool of examples here comes in the context of musical theatre, and further back opera. (the exact transition from one to the other is something I'm going to need to research). particularly interesting to me are sung-through musicals such as Les Misérables, in which there's no spoken sections in between the songs. this restriction means the songs (and staging etc.) have to do all the work of conveying the events of the story.

there's a lot to be said about the various traditions of musicals (for example). there's even more to be said about the history of opera - both the Western traditions and other musical traditions that have been given the label such as Chinese opera. but that will have to wait for later day in the project because otherwise this entire post would be a huge list of musicals, and I want to try and wander all over the shop.

what I'm most curious to find is music that tells a story all on its own - no actors or staging, but more similar to oral narration. of course, in the present era, music is often released along with videos, and these can tell quite elaborate stories that will become part of the overall 'message' communicated by the song, so the lines are a bit blurry! but since the aim of this series will be to look for ways to convey narrative using music, I'm looking for examples where the music does most of the heavy lifting.

music that tells stories is something with a looong tradition in folk music, pretty much the world over. in Europe, the ballad was a common form for it, a word that survives into the present. it seems that most cultures have had some kind of tradition of wandering itinerant musician-poets - for example, at various points in history, there were biwa hōshi in Japan (pictured) and griots in West Africa, medieval Europeans had minstrels, the Celts had bards, the Occitans had troubadors...

moreover, work and marching songs such as sea shanties would also have a certain degree of narrative to them, in addition to their main function of keeping a group moving in time.

in modern times, people will sometimes attempt to reconstruct how this kind of music and lyric poetry would have been performed. you can naturally only go so far with the archaeological evidence, but I'm fond of Peter Pringle's recordings of segments of the Epic of Gilgamesh, using period instruments if not necessarily a period musical style!

in the modern age of recorded music, these traditions have become much more niche, but there are still artists who use music as a vehicle to tell a fictional narrative. (fair warning: I'm a huge nerd, so most of the examples I know are like, supreme nerd shit. also about ten years ago I was given an assortment of metal from a friend which included a bunch of what I'm about to put below.)

to begin with I've naturally got to talk about my friend Maki Yamazaki (Dr Carmilla) and the band she founded but later left, The Mechanisms. They tell a story of a sprawling gothic scifi universe, with the band playing the role of travelling space pirates who observe the (invariably tragic) tales that unfold. The Mechanisms' music starts as folk song pastiche, but gradually gets more original, although narratively they keep the approach of crossing over mythology with genre storytelling (fairy tales as space opera, arthuriana as space western).

The Mechanisms got a significant measure of international fame washing back after their frontman Johnny Sims got really big on some podcast or something.

Maki's solo music as Dr Carmilla took things in (from a narrative sense) a more abstract direction, using elaborate production and an incredibly textured sound to tell a (so far!) fragmentary story of the tragic space vampire Dr Carmilla and her doomed relationship with another vampire Lorelei (for example). And I'm gonna have lots more to say about them all, in the future, but this is just an overview so let's not get ahead of ourselves!

In a related vein (though I'm much less familiar with them) comes indie band Decemberists, who often create narratively driven songs - for example, The Mariner's Revenge Song depicts a sailor's motivation for extracting bloody revenge on someone who wronged him, with the actual violence conveyed by an energetic instrumental break. A subject that reminds me of the Clockwork Quartet, now long gone, who managed to record just three of their songs from a larger project, yet stand out as way more interesting than most of the steampunk milieu - with for example The Clockmaker's Apprentice giving a very fun antihero-revenge narrative to the ticking beat of a clock, and The Doctor's Wife a compelling tragedy of desperate medical science.

There's definitely something in common with this type of storytelling and the subgenre termed rock opera, which has a pretty long history going back to the late 60s (SF Sorrow by Pretty Things and The Story of Simon Simopath by Nirvana, thanks wikipedia), with notable examples including some incredibly popular albums like Pink Floyd's The Wall (which was adapted into a partly animated film using animations by Gerard Scarfe, c.f AN86) and My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade. In many of these, the connection between songs and narrative is fairly abstract and metaphorical - most of the examples mentioned are about the psychological arc of one character.

Calling this a genre or subgenre is kind of a stretch recently - just in those four examples we see a pretty wide range of musical styles, so it's more like an approach to album writing. Still, for want of a better word, there's definite overlap between this 'genre' and musicals. For example, the history on wikipedia cites The Rocky Horror Picture Show as an example of rock opera, which in my head it's just a musical. (Anyway, exactly the taxonomy of regular opera/libretto, rock opera and musical theatre is not that important anyway, because we want to look at the techniques of all of them!)

A more direct narrative comes in the work of The Protomen, who have the 'no way that would work' premise of creating a huge, dramatic, emotional story based on the plot of the Mega Man games. By putting the focus on the tense relationships of the fought main characters (scientists Light and Wily and robot boys Proto Man and Mega Man), and their sense of rejection and betrayal by the broader society, they somehow pull it off.

Moving gradually in the direction of (progressive) metal, we encounter Ayreon, whose entire career has been telling psychedelic and occult stories of time travel, aliens, warnings projected into the past, out of body experiences, and the history and direction of humanity. I'm not sure if all of their albums fit together into one big story exactly, but certain ideas seem to keep coming up - for example, future societies or aliens sending warnings to humanity to fix our shit before it's too late. In some of their albums (e.g. The Electric Castle) they follow the device of having each member of the band play a character in an ensemble cast, bringing it a bit closer to something like a radio play.

Also in metal land we find the rather unique project Charlemagne: By The Sword and the Cross, best known for that time Christopher Lee shed the blood of the saxon men. This is using music as a vehicle for a (more or less) historical story, featuring an old Charlemagne (Lee) reminiscing on the various awful things he did over the course of his life. Apparently they made a sequel to this album, which I never realised!

As well as history, metal also likes to lean on literature and poetry. For example, Kamelot (classed, apparently, as 'Power Metal') have a rather fun adaptation of the story of Faust into two albums, Epica and The Black Halo. Iron Maiden famously took on the Rime of the Ancient Mariner in a 13 minute song. And that's not even to get into all the songs dealing with Tolkien.

Moving on from metal before we start listing a hundred songs about vikings, it's worth looking more broadly for music about history, since it's a pretty major overlap with fictional storytelling! For example, the Boney M song Rasputin tells an incredibly catchy account of the assassination of Grigori Rasputin. Another rather more charged example comes in Nakam by Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird, about the unsuccessful paramilitary plot to poison six million Germans as revenge for the Holocaust.

If you go looking, you can find an impressively long list of historical songs compiled by 30 users of lyrics website Genius - though many of these I feel don't really count, since they were describing contemporary events when they were written.

Of course, there is a heavy overlap between this subject and political songs - in many cases the historical subjects are invoked to comment on the present. For example, Wernher von Braun by Tom Lehrer was written at a time when von Braun was leading the US space programme. In many cases, the songs simply invoke a historical event to express a feeling, assuming you already know what happened. Others may recount events more or less directly, before seguing into a verse or two at the end about why it matters now. Most of the songs in this list focus on recent (20th-century) history, sometimes they reach further back - mostly to talk about colonialism.

Historical songs can also be quite oblique. For example, Mili's song Salt, Pepper, Birds and the Thought Police is about the life of Korean poet Yoon Dong-ju, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from the content of the lyrics unless you were already familiar with Yoon's life. More on Mili in a moment - most of their songs are more fictional.

One thing I'm curious about is whether there are examples of more historical fiction in music, which tries to imagine the thoughts and feelings of historical characters... well obviously there's Hamilton, and perhaps that illustrates why there aren't a lot more songs about non-recent history, because the vibes can be off.

Storytelling is still a powerful mechanism even in a contemporary, political song. Take Construção by Chico Buarque - the story it tells is of the pointless death of a construction worker; with the lines ingeniously remixed over the course of the song, this turns into a wider illustration of the ruthlessness of the system that killed him. Its lyrics are absolutely fucking genius, even if you don't speak Portugese.

Speaking of language, most of the examples I've covered so far are in English, since well, that's my native language. It's naturally a little harder to access a story in a language you don't speak, but in these days of subtitles, we kinda can! So for example I can encounter projects like MILGRAM, something of a combination of music project and voting-driven story, in which we are introduced (by character song) to a number of characters facing execution - and then invited to vote on who should die. Heavily illustrated, it is somewhere vaguely in the space between album and straight-up anime.

I mentioned Mili already, but many of their other songs have a strong narrative arc to them, and sketch out the contours of a fictional setting. For example, one of their best-known songs is world.execute(me), which portrays the failure of a bdsm relationship between an AI girl and her creator. Which is relatively grounded by Mili standards - other songs depict for example the relationship of a jiangshi and a mad scientist cooking food, or a witch reanimating a knight with scientific methods to kill on her behalf.

And I think that will suffice for now. But we are of course only scratching the surface - this is by no means supposed to be an exhaustive list but I'm sure there's stuff that I'll be kicking myself for not mentioning. Mostly, however, this is a request for recommendations - particularly, of music from genres I haven't addressed in this post, and especially non-English languages, or that convey their stories in especially creative or unusual ways.

This project will likely be a long time in the works - it's something of a supplement to the Music Theory Notes (for science bitches) series - but my aim will be to pick out a few of these to examine how they go about conveying narrative through songs. Because I think that's kind of one of the big things I want to do with music.

ok canmom out i gotta go play some music. see you next time!

[batsplat]

This line made me sooooo insaneeeeee

BUT ITS TRUE

they did not expect it from each other

You mention that after sepang 2015 that marc refused to take it lying down and retaliated, would you say that one some level vale expected him to just take it?

And also could you please recount events in which marc also waged mind warfare on other people after the divorce™ I think that the psychological aspects of his style are so incredibly interesting like how in le mans, bezzechi kind of crashed out and how viñales mentioned in post race interview how " when he heard marc's bike he knew it was over"

Thank you for your very valuable contributions to motogpblr, you enrich the experiences of all

right. right! following on from this post... fair warning: 'what was valentino's plan in sepang 2015' and 'what mind games has marc cooked up over the years' are two questions that don't exactly lend themselves to concise responses, though I've done my best to edit this down to a somewhat more palpable length. so *cracks knuckles*. let's do this

first off, sepang 2015. yes, marc did very much refuse to lie down and, yes, he did instead very much retaliate. I'm not sure if I'd say valentino expected marc to 'take it' exactly, though the hope would have been that it would a) make him more cautious around valentino, b) throw him off-balance, and c) make him more error prone. I mean, certainly you'd have to assume he didn't expect marc to react like that because.... well. otherwise, why would valentino have done it? yes, he has repeatedly alluded to having wanted race direction or dorna or whoever to step in, but those guys infamously aren't particularly proactive. and, let's just pretend for a second here that marc really had been plotting to ruin valentino's title - what are you going to do about it if you're the ones responsible for enforcing the rules? even after sepang, when it was reasonable to suggest marc had been messing with valentino in that race specifically, there was only so much they could do. sure, the main reason they didn't penalise marc was because he'd crashed and had in essence already been penalised. but if you want a more drastic penalty, then you're going to have to show that marc is doing something emphatically illegal. I mean, it's not like race direction penalised valentino when he was racing jorge in what can only be described as a cheerfully malicious manner in motegi 2010, at a time when jorge was close to sealing that year's title and the two of them were racing for *squints at notes* p3. they can't actually stop you from being a little shit, you know

this line of argument might be ascribing too much rationality to valentino's actions - maybe he was hoping race direction would do something. it's worth pointing out that one of valentino's later comments (from march 2016) to my reading suggests that valentino had already spoken to race direction several races before sepang about marc's behaviour, but they didn't listen to him. the sepang presser then constitutes an attempt to publicly force their hand... except it still wasn't enough. and a part of valentino surely must have already known it was going to go wrong after saturday's qualifying. the incidents during the practise sessions that weekend weren't particularly egregious, but they involved two riders who were both clearly willing to play games with each other (including in some towing-related shenanigans). crucially it's not really the type of thing that would happen if one rider had been spooked so badly they're making sure to ride on eggshells around the other bloke. at the end of the day, valentino thought he could unnerve and disorientate and unsettle marc - and if you're being generous you could say he at least picked the right target. marc had broadly demonstrated he could be unsettled that year, which jorge had very much not

if you're being less generous you could say 'but it's crazy he's doing this to the bloke who isn't even his title rival'. which is the whole problem from valentino's perspective - he simply couldn't engage jorge in direct combat (and again, this does make it more remarkable he even got it to valencia given one of his big big strengths in title fights was being completely neutralised). jorge has been involved in plenty of great battles over the years, but his 2015 title was won purely on raw pace and having just enough tracks where he was fast and it wasn't raining for things to work out in his favour. it was marc who valentino was continually getting into fights with, whether at argentina or assen or silverstone or... well, even phillip island, valentino fights marc a hell of a lot more than he does jorge. which makes for a weird championship in a lot of ways, but also makes it a bit inevitable that valentino ends up disproportionately focused on a bloke who isn't actually his title rival

if you want to be even less generous, you can say it was a rather radical misread of marc's character from a man who (any conspiracy theories aside) has always seemed to understand marc pretty well. like, this is the thing right, obviously hindsight is 20/20 and all that but can you really imagine any universe in which marc hadn't done something roughly along the lines of what he did that weekend? in a way, this is probably the bit that bothers me the most about the whole thing, just feels like it couldn't have ever achieved what valentino intended it to. I can excuse breaking the heart of the kid who hero worships you, but I draw the line at being kind of dumb

the way I'd break it down is by looking at why he was in a headspace in which he wasn't making good choices, and then consider what his actual thought process (however irrational) might have been. so on the one hand, you've got all the contributing factors that explain the poor decision-making process, that explain why he wasn't thinking clearly. on the macro level, you have the arc of his career and what this title meant to him and how it fits into his desire to win on his own terms and prove everyone wrong and all of that. you have the pressures of that specific season and how it had gradually gotten more and more intense post-assen, the influence of the people around him and how they had allowed/contributed to him getting increasingly distracted from the actual riding as the season went on. this factor obviously includes the man who actually presented valentino with the phillip island telemetry and had seemingly been badmouthing marc for more than two years. you have the arc of valentino's relationship with marc, his belief that marc was a sore loser who only played nice with valentino while he was winning and who valentino thought he had been more than generous to in response to marc's lack of composure earlier that season. this eventually coalesced into a mental list of all the times that year valentino felt marc had fought him differently than he would anyone else, from argentina to assen to silverstone to misano to, of course, phillip island. you have the compressed time scale - four days from the race at phillip island to the presser in sepang, at a time at which valentino will have been at his most exhausted and spent after the travails of first motegi and then phillip island at the closing stages of the toughest season of his career. it's this that creates the sense of urgency, the need to do something now to stop the opportunity from slipping away. and then, of course, on the micro level you have the actual details of the supposed conspiracy that relied on the specifics of how the race at phillip island ended up unfolding... of tyre management and seagull murder and fluctuating lap times and suspicious late race pace and a perfect last lap

which, okay, I think it's fairly obvious that valentino wasn't thinking clearly. but he still must have been intending the presser to do something, something that was different from what it actually ended up doing. now, the way this works in my head is that valentino basically did the equivalent of pressing a big red button labelled 'chaos'. if you do what he does in the presser, that's the inevitable outcome, right: you're ensuring this entire weekend is going to be a complete mess. in theory, you're the one person who's had the chance to mentally prepare yourself for that mess, because you're the person who's pressing the button. you're hoping everyone else will be off-balance, distracted... to some extent it's less about wanting to intimidate marc per se (bad idea!) and more about making sure he has other stuff to worry about. maybe you're hoping marc's going to make some mistakes, crash in ways that aren't caused by a movement on your part that looks suspiciously like a kick, be a little out of it all weekend. I mean, marc did have a tendency to hit the deck when under pressure that year. the hope is at the very least he's going to be a little more cautious, so worried about ruining his reputation that he's not going to attack you too hard. basically, hope he does anything other than what he actually ended up doing, aka throwing himself at you again and again in the race in a sort of agonised fury that paid no consideration whatsoever to his reputation, ruined or otherwise

this is where the sepang 2004 parallel is at its most instructive to me. you're giving everyone something to talk about and you know it's going to be the centre of attention that weekend and you just kind of have to hope that the chaos ends up creating an opportunity. and, for a hot second there, it did look like valentino might have been onto something. he qualified on the front row for only the fifth time that season (y'know his qualifying actually got a fair bit better in 2016, presumably because he just wanted to maximise the number of awful vibes pressers) and he outqualified jorge for only the second time that season (again I don't mean to be rude but, jorge, how the fuck did you almost lose that title what were you DOING). it's pretty unfortunate that the very start of the sepang race played out in the exact perfect way to allow dani and jorge to escape while marc and valentino started divebombing each other. this is the thing right, there are lots of ways that race could have unfolded and it basically could not have gone any worse - and it's helped make valentino's initial decision to blow shit up age particularly horrendously

the other underlying explanation is a somewhat more opaque one. people want to feel good about themselves, they want to have a positive sense of identity along several different metrics like self-worth and moral virtue and so on. it doesn't feel good to lose, and it especially doesn't feel good to lose if you've tried really, really, really hard. a lot of sports psychology is about the challenge of managing vulnerability. there is something inherently vulnerable about competing in the public eye: you are trying hard to win but there is always the possibility that you will lose. if you lose with other people watching, you are making your inadequacy public knowledge. this is why athletes search for explanatory mechanisms - maybe they make a public show of how they weren't actually trying hard, about how they don't actually care that much, or maybe there's something they can blame like the machinery or injury or the team not being on their side or whatever. maybe there's someone to blame. a narrative of sabotage allows you to preserve belief in both your own ability and your own self-worth; it is the perfect explanatory mechanism. and to some extent, this type of thing is necessary - you're not going to be able to compete well unless you have high self-belief to the point of delusion, which means you do have to tell yourself all kinds of things to keep the faith. but paradoxically, these explanatory mechanisms are also incredibly dangerous, because you cannot compete to the fullest extent of your ability if you are not throwing yourself into what you are doing in your entirety, without any restraint or self-defence. you have to be open to experiencing the pain of defeat in its rawest form to be at your best. you have to be willing to go to those infamous 'dark places' within yourself to win. the moment you are thinking about how you will explain your defeat, chances are you've already lost

but hey, I've never competed in a motorbike race before, what would I know of the psychology of it all? let's get the words of someone who should know a little more than me:

Looking back, what I said about wanting a bike that could win at Welkom, well, that was a way of boosting morale, an attempt at wishful thinking. You can't demand something like that. And even if you get it, there's no certainty you'll win. But then again, we riders always say all sorts of things. Sometimes we believe what we say, even when it sounds crazy, other times we're just being hopeful and, still at other times, it's all an exercise in self-delusion. We try to convince ourselves of something, because ultimately, every time you step on the track, words don't matter, and it's just you, the bike and your opponents. In fact, that's the only time you really have a clear picture of things. When you're actually on the track, racing against your opponents. That's when you know where you are and where the others stand. You know how your bike is doing and how those of your opponents are faring. That's the moment of clarity. Then, you can say whatever you like to everyone else: your chief mechanic, your mum, your girlfriend, the press... but, deep down, you know the truth and you know it with crystal-clear clarity. You can tell people you fell because the bike didn't follow the trajectory it was supposed to follow, or tell them that you're actually really fast, but the bike simply isn't. Inside you, however, you know the truth. You know you fell off because you made a mistake, or because your opponent is simply faster than you. And the opposite is also true. Deep down, you know whether your victories were deserved. You know if you won races on the turns, when it's down to your ability as a rider, or on the straightaways, when it's all about the power of the engine. You know the others are looking to make excuses when they say you beat them just because the bike was better. I always knew the truth behind each of my victories, and behind each of my defeats, too. I knew exactly why and how I won or lost. And so, at the end of 2003, after winning everything in sight with the Honda, I was certain I could win with another bike. But, of course, until I actually did it, I couldn't be truly certain. Thus, I set off on my journey, in search of that place where certainty meets truth.

(sidebar: I find it funny how the bit about straight line speed reads like just an extremely obvious dig at casey in his ducati days but, published in 2005, your honour he's innocent)

what valentino describes in that passage is the awful, inescapable secret at the heart of all competition: at the end of the day, you do know. you can only do so much to protect yourself from the truth. you have to tell yourself a story, even if it's crazy, engage in all manner of self-delusion to throw yourself into the field of battle again and again and again - where inevitably you are going to lose, again and again and again. any great athlete has to start out at least a little delusional, for there is something inherently insane about thinking you will be one of the very best in the world in your field. eventually, much of that delusion may turn to reality for the chosen few, but the delusion never completely goes away because there is always more to win and always more losing to do along the way. when the delusion stops, so does your career. valentino's endless capacity for storytelling and self-delusion is inherent to his success - he would not have been as good as he was if he had not found all these stories to tell himself, all these reasons to believe, to keep motivating him, to wring special performances out of himself when he needed them most. he told stories that were ridiculous until he turned them into reality. if valentino were anyone other than the person who killed his tenth title in sepang, he would not have won the other nine in the first place

and yet, chances are, valentino already had lost headed into sepang. chances are, he knew as much. chances are, he chose the kindest possible story to make sense of it all. at the very least, what he wanted to do was expose the truth as he saw it - make sure that everyone in the world knew what marc had done to him even if it didn't end up saving his title campaign. but in exposing one truth, at the same time he managed to obscure a different one. because in the end, certainty never did meet truth in 2015, because we'll always have a question mark about what would have happened if valentino hadn't said what he had said in that press conference, what would have happened if marc had reacted differently, what would have happened if race direction hadn't handed out penalty points or if marc hadn't been so hurt and angry he was unwilling to take risks against jorge in valencia. yes, of course it's likely that jorge would have won anyway, but we don't know that. it's 2006 all over again, isn't it? there's a likely winner, there's maybe somebody who should be winning, but there's never any certainty. that's why we line up on sunday, or so the cliche goes. the main lasting success of that press conference is that it has cast a shadow over the whole championship - not just in the sense of making the whole thing unpleasant to think about, but in the more literal sense of concealing the realities of that title fight, of generating ambiguity as to how it all might otherwise have played out under more 'normal' circumstances

except, of course, valentino has told us himself that he does know the truth about all of his victories and defeats. of course he knows jorge was faster than him that year, which is why he wasn't trying to win that title on pace. by any reasonable standard, there's no shame to that, not at that stage of his career and not against that level of opposition. there's plenty of ways in which valentino was the stronger rider that year, still, somehow, and enough sliding doors moments that would have given valentino just enough points and granted him a completely deserved title. but of course it was still frustrating, and it was frustrating to be reminded constantly in the paddock - including by marc - of how jorge was the faster of the two of them. valentino knew he couldn't beat jorge on pace, which is why he never tried to, but it still wasn't easy. it still required him to just... put away his ego, ignore all the snide remarks about his speed, ignore marc's digs and jorge's cockiness, and just devote himself to winning the title in the only way he could. that's the heart of 2015: it's all about valentino suppressing his worse instincts right until the moment he doesn't. it's the pressure, it's all the blows his ego has taken that year...

and of course, it's also marc. at the end of the day, it'll always come back to that - the fact that marc had made himself into someone who had the power to genuinely hurt valentino and how he then managed to make himself a target of valentino's suspicions (topic for another post). going into sepang, valentino already knew that more likely than not he was going to lose the title, and he decided he blamed marc. at the very latest during the race, he knew he was almost certainly going to lose the title, and now he definitely blamed marc. that's how it goes, isn't it... valentino's reasons for saying what he said in the press conference were complicated, but marc's actions then proceeded to simplify everything. any uncertainty, for valentino, was removed by that race. it was stripped away even further, if possible, by how marc approached the valencia race and his decision that he wasn't going to risk anything - not when it could help valentino. their whole tragedy, of course, is that if you had placed valentino in marc's shoes that weekend at sepang, he would have done the exact same thing

which is unfortunately as smooth a transition as I can come up with to stop discussing valentino's psyche and starting discussing marc's. let's talk mind games

the first point that's worth stressing is this: most of the mental pressure that riders exert on each other happens on the track. I think this is where 'mind games' becomes a bit of a tricky term, because inherently the connotation there is that you're doing something a little sneaky, a little underhanded to get under the skin of your opponent. but valentino has said it himself: you need to be performing on-track for any of this to work. and it goes beyond that - the on-track performances are key in determining what kind of psychological pressures you are exerting on your opponent. ideally, this is a symbiotic relationship where, as valentino puts it, the off-track 'work' that makes the opponents 'suffer' is used to... well, just back up what you're doing on the track, to make sure they're getting the message. to just play with them a little in a way that is conducive to bringing about further on-track success

so, in the interest of not getting bogged down in semantic debates about what exactly counts as playing 'mind games', I'm going to throw out the term for now. I think it's interesting in itself that this phrase is how people refer to that kind of behaviour, something about how it comes across as just a little derogatory, a little suspect... but we're going to ignore that. it's completely useless to discuss 'mind games' as this kind of ethereal higher-plane tactic that only happens in press conference rooms and on three hour long podcasts, as if it's somehow disconnected from the reality of what's actually happening on-track. (on-track behaviour is also at times referred to as mind games - but less frequently, and it tends to be used more for behaviour in non-race sessions.) it's also a bit of a sleight of hand: there's not anything inherently more 'honest' or 'straightforward', anything less 'psychological', about deliberately bullying someone on the track versus saying something snide about them to the media. what we are interested in here is the question of mental pressure, how riders exert it on other riders, and how riders go about working on the suppression of their rivals. basically, for a more fun term, think of anything you'd consider to be psychological warfare and go from there (the ask does actually specify mind warfare, which feels like a happy middle ground)

and just to reiterate this, the vast majority of the psychological work valentino himself did on his opponents - including in ways that marc has gone on to emulate - was done on the track. a race like laguna seca 2008, which relies so heavily on tactics and valentino's assessment of casey as a person and what message valentino decided to send casey that day... well, it may have had its effects reinforced off-track, but fundamentally that's still a heavily 'psychological' victory that enraged and unnerved casey through what valentino was doing during the race. and if you're assessing valentino's 'mental game' while leaving out laguna 2008, you really might as well not bother

so what we're looking at here isn't going to be exhaustive, but it's still going to hopefully cover most of the major aspects in a way that gives a sense of that integration between the off- and on-track. now, coming up with a list of examples isn't all that easy, because first of all... man, marc's been around for a long time by now... if we recounted every minor incident with another rider, we'd still be here by the time twenty to thirty years have passed and valentino finally gives marc a call. second of all, marc does undeniably leave less of a paper trail than valentino. partly he has objectively gotten himself involved in fewer feuds (though I'd argue there are also circumstance-related factors there), partly he's also been warier of how he approaches this kind of thing as a direct result of sepang 2015, and partly it's just a question of personal style

valentino tries to suffocate you with the paper trail, leveraging his skills at manipulating the media to make your life unpleasant, to throw distractions in your direction, at times to make sure you are overwhelmed by the frenzy and the noise and the chaos. all this, obviously, he does in addition to making your life on-track as miserable as possible. marc prefers a slightly quieter approach, maybe an indirect dig here or there, a habit of letting you know on the track if he's decided he has a problem with you. which means that a lot of what people consider marc's 'mind games' basically go something like this: a) rider does something to piss marc off (this can just be 'beating him'), b) marc does something dubious to them on-track, c) rider complains about marc, and finally d) marc goes ?? idk why they're saying all that but not really my problem :) and goes along his way

but that does make it a little tougher to actually provide a good overview of what he's doing - because, at the end of the day, I too can only be so certain that he's attempting to fuck with rivals. that's the nice effect of it, right, you get these statements from other riders where they're complaining about marc and broadly speaking I do believe them when they say he's being a little shit again... but it's a little harder to prove that this is his intention. which means they also end up engaging in a form of shadowboxing, where they think he's messing with them and they say he's messing with them but it feels kind of one-sided and silly and like maybe they're simply imagining things. which must be just... incredibly annoying. god

in a way, the best proof we have that marc regularly fucks with his opponents is that everyone in the paddock is more or less agreed in their belief that he is constantly engaging in psychological warfare. you've got other riders saying that marc is continually dabbling in 'mind games', you've got journalists on their podcasts saying that marc is always messing with people and is an awful teammate to everyone who isn't his brother etc etc, and you kind of assume they'd be the ones to know. though, if anything, this can mean they sometimes have a tendency to overshoot, which is how we got endless speculation at the start of this year on whether marc was lying to people or sandbagging or whatever when he was busy adapting to a new bike. sepang isn't irrelevant here - marc became more closed off and private and secretive and circumspect about his real feelings as a direct result of how bad that whole experience was for him. sometimes it feels calculated to unnerve his competitors, and sometimes it does seem more about just protecting himself. but that's the thing, right - if you acquire a reputation for "mind games", then people will think you're fucking with them even when you're not. which can be useful! but, as should be obvious, it demonstrates that just because somebody is accusing marc of engaging in gamesmanship, doesn't mean it's actually true (which is also of course the case for valentino)

^'who's most likely to play mind games in a press conference?' winning here! alex rins hands on hips we will get to you in a bit

all that being said, we do have plenty of fairly clear examples of the ways marc tries to fuck with his opponents, so let's get to those. here are the elements I'll focus on: 1) an explanation of how the on-track exertion of psychological pressure works, in races as well as outside of them, 2) intra-team dynamics, and 3) some specific examples of how the on-track and off-track tactics are integrated. again, far from exhaustive - the examples are supposed to be more akin to illustrating marc's approach rather than definitively listing every instance in which marc has exhibited a particular behaviour. the streamlined approach, if you will

so, let's start with the actual racing. the aspect you bring up in the ask: the intimidation. bez doing his sad little crash out of p2 in the le mans sprint, maverick thinking it's so extremely over the moment marc came too close in the main race. I've edited this section down a lot to avoid getting too into the weeds here, but let's just give the brief sparknotes version of how this intimidation works:

speed: if you are not capable of performances that unnerve your opponents, obviously you will not unnerve your opponents. no shit. marc's sheer pace is terrifying in its own right... it makes you wonder if that cushy gap you have to him is quite as cushy as it looked a lap ago. how often he seems to be able to access something special, how it piles on pressure in the context of a title battle to know that he is fast pretty much everywhere. the speed does a lot of his work for him in the intimidation department, nothing fancy required

circumstance: so, say you've got an alien behind you. not to name any names... but there are some aliens where, if they are having a good weekend, they wouldn't be behind you in the first place. that doesn't mean the alien can't still be plenty scary... but when they're at their best, they're dominating out front and so are less 'threatening' when they're sitting on your rear tyre. when things aren't going their way in a given weekend, you maybe don't have quite so much reason to be worried. marc (similarly to valentino) is a lot more flexible in how he wins his races - which might mean he's looking very ominous from say p5 at the end of the first lap. there's less possibility of respite, less chance that if he qualified badly, he has the decency to still be slow come sunday. if you find yourself on the same bit of track as marc... that's probably not great news for you in any weekend

aggression: the obvious one. marc isn't as afraid to crash as everyone else is, he's willing to go for it if he's given half a chance - which he never fails to remind people of. he said it about half a dozen times at le mans this year, including with his competitors in the same room. convenient when you have such an immutable character trait you couldn't do anything about even if you wanted to, which also just happens to make you terrifying to fight with. sometimes he mixes up this rhetoric a bit - e.g. in 2016 after his messy 2015 he did talk plenty about his newfound maturity. still, not bad if his opponents are constantly reminded of how unyielding he is... which is of course part of the reason why he bangs on about it so much

(on the flip side, while it is obviously in his best interest to barely say a word against hard racing because it would make him come across as a massive hypocrite, marc has this nice little habit of reframing his opponent's moves as just not being particularly sensible in that situation. look at how he talked about the pecco portimao crash this year - sure, it's a racing incident, but it also wasn't "necessary" to fight like this for fifth/sixth place given pecco had a championship to consider. pecco's move was "too optimistic" - and, my favourite bit, he would "learn" from what had happened. which is nicely condescending, and a good way for marc to criticise aggression in a more circumspect manner: don't call your opponent dangerous, call them an idiot instead)

tactics: linked to the second point - part of the reason why valentino instantly recognised himself in marc and has always acknowledged what a clever and tactically astute rider he is. the other aliens to varying degrees tended to prefer the 'start fast and fuck off' approach to winning races. by contrast, it's hard to really pinpoint what an 'average' race win would look like for either valentino or marc. they are capable of the 'dominate out front' victory (marc historically more so than valentino), but they also have a bunch of other ways of winning races that all produce their own psychological effects on their opponents. to give a few brief examples, you've got the 'stalking and studying' approach, closely tailing opponents and gradually ramping up the pressure while you analyse where they're strong and where they're weak before eventually making your move. you've got the 'comeback ride', which is frustrating in how it means the field is basically never guaranteed a break from these assholes - this is all about relentlessness and generating a sense of inevitability. you've also got the 'fucking around before fucking off' approach, where you get involved in a scrap for much of the race and it looks like you and your opponent(s) are on equal footing... before suddenly pulling the pin and disappearing off into the sunset. there might be good reasons for marc and valentino to stick around that don't just amount to 'playing with their food' (though there is that too) like tyre preservation or figuring out grip levels in the wet or whatever. nevertheless, it's intensely demoralising for the competition, because it almost feels like the whole thing was a lie, an illusion of a fair fight... they've been tricked into thinking they had a hope of emerging victorious. obviously, all these different ways of winning are also investments for the future, so that next time your opponents are in xyz situation you generate uncertainty and doubt and preemptive frustration in their minds, as they wonder whether they can really get the better of you this time

now, obviously a lot of this is just about marc's natural strengths as a rider - but the point is that these operate on the psychological level as well... and you can gently encourage this with a little bit of extra off-track 'work'. what you say about your own aggressive riding, what you say about your opponents' aggressive riding, any impression you want to reinforce in the minds of your competitors. there's a lot of long-term reputation management involved here. (a little more about these reputations in the context of argentina 2015 in this post.) most of the 'intimidation' happens on-track, and it's also a result of deliberate riding choices that aren't just about winning any given race. of course, it's helpful if you are particularly adaptable to different race situations, if your flexibility allows you to reinforce the impression that you are always a threat. if successful, you can make sure your opponent is already mentally beaten by the time they know you're coming for them. (I'm not personally massively a fan of the term, but this kind of thing is what generally counts as the 'aura' an athlete has.) ideal, really - to be so intimidating your opponents can't even put up a proper fight

then, of course, there's the stuff that happens outside of races but in practise and qualifying instead. a perfect opportunity to be a dick to others on-track without the stresses of a race. which means... well, look, we can't ignore marc's habit of sitting on other riders' rear tyres when they're attempting to hook together a fast lap. the towing thing radically escalated when the honda was at its least competitive post-2020, but marc was definitely very much already at it before that. (incidentally, one of the cuntiest things he has ever said was when he pointed out in 2019 that he was leading so many laps in the actual races that he wasn't getting much chance to study the other riders there.) nobody really needs me to list every single towing-related controversy marc has involved himself in over the course of his career, but it might be a good idea to get the thoughts of somebody who knows a thing or two about fucking with his rivals. valentino himself has gotten the towing treatment a few times over the years courtesy of marc, and both pre- and post-sepang his stance has generally been 'listen it's a dick move but smart play, gotta hand it to him'. take this from catalunya 2019:

and y'know, he gets to the heart of the whole matter rather nicely -thanks to the local marc marquez understander for logging in years before the discourse about it became such a big thing. marc follows other riders around because it's a great way to study them and he also does it because he knows it's extremely annoying. it's annoying both because you know you're helping out another rider who you don't want to be helping out, and because it is just quite distracting to have someone that close to you, being able to hear their engine, etc etc. one thing that changed after 2019 was how necessary it was for marc to do this... marc went crazy with it at a time when it was often the only way he could put together a decent lap (and also because it played into the strengths of the honda, for a given value of the word 'strengths' - he's spoken a fair few times this year about how he finds it harder to follow other bikes on the ducati) (not for lack of trying). but valentino is also spot on in that marc is excellent at choosing his victims, how marc understands you have to pick someone who needs to put a good lap together and has no choice but to drag you along with them

I mean, think about why he just couldn't seem to leave poor pecco alone for a while there. first of all, pecco is fast, and marc clearly feels quite comfortable following him around. secondly, pecco tended to put himself in positions where he really needed a good lap because he'd gotten himself stranded in q1 or only had one more shot at a lap or whatever. plus he was fighting for championships, so he couldn't afford to fuck marc over out of sheer spite. thirdly, pecco has been fighting for titles for the past few seasons, making him one of the riders to beat. which means that marc was motivated to a) study him, and b) fuck with him - both of which were investments for a future in which he could fight pecco properly. makes complete sense! insanely irritating if you're the victim, which is half the point. also helps that pecco very obviously found the whole thing frustrating and tiring and really hated being asked about it, but also was equally obviously adverse to kicking up too much of a fuss about it for various reasons. the perfect victim

on the flip side, marc has been known in the past to be quite careful about who he is giving a tow, like for instance this from brno 2014 (ironically the first race that year marc did not win):

The two front row slots for the Ducatis were a problem for Rossi, dropping the Movistar Yamaha rider down to seventh, and the start of the third row. Rossi joked darkly about Marquez’s strategy, claiming that he was giving the Ducatis a tow to put them in between him and his main rivals. “For sure he is clever,” Rossi said. “He doesn’t pull Jorge, me or Dani, always a Ducati.” Marquez laughed at the suggestion, admitting only half of Rossi’s accusations. He certainly didn’t look for Ducatis to give a tow, but he would not give one to his rivals, he said. “It’s your decision to close the gas,” Marquez told the press conference. “If it’s Dani, Jorge, or Valentino behind me, for sure I will close the gas, but if it is another rider, it doesn’t matter.” That is in itself an admission of just how little competition Marquez sees. He is prepared to give anyone a tow, except for the other factory Honda and the two factory Yamahas. In effect, he is dismissing the threat from any other riders. Harsh, but fair.

and, y'know, if it were so easy then everyone would do it. you need a certain level of skill to actually pull off the towing bit, which marc is clearly very good at. you also need to have a good feel for picking your moments, who to bully, when to slot in behind them, all that kind of thing. and, lastly, you also need the sheer power of shamelessness on your side. which, that should more or less cover it... there are some real gems like mugello 2019 where marc accused ducati of ordering pirro to shadow him and then played a complicated game of chicken to catch a tow from dovi and snag pole, or mugello 2021 where marc was so determined to follow vinales through q1 that he was even alert enough to dive back into the pits with him as vinales tried to get rid of the small train of guys following him... but overall, I think valentino did a pretty good job at summing up the main points for me, so let's leave the towing discourse at that. returning to catalunya 2019, obviously it is also extremely valentino that he then had a sneaky little look at the honda's dashboard 'just out of curiosity'. truly a meeting of the greats, those two, we'll never find their like again

let's move on to intra-team fuckery - which is all about suppression of rivals. your first job is to beat your teammate, and the first arena of trying to fuck with your opponents is what happens within the team. my general assumption here is that marc's particular approach is less inspired by valentino and more just the result of his natural competitive instincts (which, to be clear I do think is true for much of the tactics described in this post). it's also not something... I know the ask specifies post-2015, but I don't think it's something that changed after sepang, except insofar as marc had won the most important teammate war of his career and didn't need to be quite as aggressive towards dani any more. given the continuity between the intra-team situation pre- and post-2015, I'm not going to make much of a distinction here and just rattle through some details about the intra-team dynamic from the start of marc's time in the premier class

so, the first bit of context that has to be acknowledged: a lot of the dani/marc war wasn't really fought between the two of them directly. both of them had... well, rather drama-happy managers, who a) were willing to do a lot of the mudslinging on the behalf of their charges, and b) were pursuing agendas of their own to establish themselves within the honda hierarchy. I think it's fair to say that not all of what they were getting up to was necessarily just about acting in the best interest of their riders - and it is an internal power struggle that could've had pretty disastrous consequences for marc in particular. here's a longer write up I quite like about the situation within honda in 2013, which came to a bit of a head with the phillip island fiasco (when marc was disqualified as a result of failing to change bikes early enough). just a few excerpts (though again I'd recommend reading the whole thing):

(gabbarini is pecco's crew chief these days by the way, small world.) so obviously a lot of this is kind of dumb, not least because marc came very close to losing that year's title to a yamaha rider as a result of all this behind the scenes bullshit. it also is just the kind of thing that happens when you lock a bunch of big egos into a small space within a competitive environment - and is a nice little insight into the early year machinations that were going on as marc and his team attempted to establish themselves within honda. which they did in part by pushing through key personnel changes that replaced anyone too closely associated with the old regime... and there's also the less pressing but interesting question of whether (as casey believes) marc's team pushed casey out the door because they felt 'threatened'. this sort of backroom manoeuvring is part of the game, albeit an unsavoury one, and great athletes do have a tendency to be ruthless in asserting themselves within team environments

of course, by 2014 marc was asserting himself ever more on the track. dani might not have yet fully accepted the number two status, but he was increasingly pushed into a position where he knew he had to play along, to not kick up too much of a fuss in his own best interest. did that perhaps play a role in how all those 2013 complaints about marc's aggressive riding - not least when it caused dani to crash in aragon and effectively ended his title bid - died down a little in the following years? who's to say! of course, marc has been pretty open in admitting his abrasive approach to the teammate dynamic, which he was kind enough to shed some light on more recently in marc marquez all in. I assume pretty much everyone reading this will have watched marc marquez all in, but for reference I've still included a transcript of the relevant bits of marc marquez all in. here's marc talking about the teammate relationship:

Dani and I, now we get along great, and he's an amazing person. But in 2013, 2014, there was a lot of tension. He was the king, the number one. People listened to what he said in the box. Everyone expected something from him... The team was focused on him. And out of nowhere comes this kid. A kid in his first year after Moto2. And well, first race and... boom. Second race, boom. And it's a hard pill to swallow. [...] I've never been a nice teammate. I've always liked to... You've got to make your teammate's life impossible, if you can.

and dani's take:

Those years there was a lot of tension because we were fighting for the same thing. He knew about my potential. That's why he always tried to stick to me, so I had no space to really take off. [...] He's very competitive. That's his strong suit, how competitive he's always been with everything.

and then at the end of that segment, marc says the following:

It is true that after 2015, 2016, everything calmed down, and we had a good, normal teammates relationship. After a while, I think you learn to accept the situation, right? It happens, and I'm sure it'll eventually happen to me too.

which I suppose is a fairly diplomatic way of saying the relationship got better when marc had won the war and dani had to 'accept' his lot in life. the king is dead long live the king, etc etc. intra-team competition is perfectly natural, but of course that doesn't mean all riders approach that dynamic in the same way. dani's "I had no space to really take off" is a nice way of putting it I feel, how he talks about marc 'sticking' to dani, marc's determination to just continually work away at his teammate... to suppress him, to smother him, to ensure that not only was marc winning the war but he would keep winning the war. marc made that team his own and he ensured that dani's continued presence in that team was happening on marc's terms. a job very well done

marc is also remarkably open in describing one of the specific tactics he utilised to achieve the desired effect in suppressing his teammate. in marc marquez all in, he admits to intentionally giving misleading bike feedback when it could give himself an advantage over dani:

But back then we had a great bike, everyone worked well. So if a replacement piece worked for him, I didn't like it, "This doesn't work. I want this one. I want this replacement piece, since I'm leading it. I want it. Don't give him this." "You want to try it?" "Yeah, sure." But I didn't want to.

now, listen, I'm sure this kind of thing does happen. that being said. marc, come on, not everyone is engaging in this degree of underhanded behaviour wherein you're intentionally hampering your teammate's efforts to improve the bike just to ensure you continue to have an edge over them. let's make a casey stoner comparison, given that I am legally obligated to mention him in most of my posts. he is actually relevant here though, as dani's pre-marc teammate and the bloke who would have more likely than not been marc's teammate if he hadn't retired. casey talks a bit in his autobiography about working with pedrosa at honda, mentioning how it was nice to have a teammate with a similar pace so they could actually develop the bike together. he also says this:

I never felt threatened by a teammate because I have never had one that I felt was consistently quicker than me and throughout my career our biggest competition always came from outside the garage. Still, I have great respect for Dani, our partnership was a fruitful one and I think we worked really well together to help Honda build their best ever bike in the RC213V.

while I do quite like the implication that casey would have felt 'threatened' by any teammate who could match him, I think it's fair to say that this is a pretty different approach from what marc's describing above. of course, casey could be misleading us... but, call me naive or gullible or whatever, I really just don't think casey was pulling that kind of shit on his teammates. I'd go so far as to say that this kind of thing is maybe not quite as widespread as marc portrays it as being. it might also be worth quickly bringing in casey's thoughts on such a combative style of teammate relationship (from 2009):

probably for the best we never got to see how that particular teammate dynamic would have played out! also, luckily enough, we do actually have somebody who can corroborate that casey and marc behaved differently as teammates. let's get the thoughts of dani himself (april 2023, so after marc marquez all in had been released):

“At least in the team we were in, HRC, it was like this: the one who goes the fastest is the number 1, the one who chooses the parts and the one who determines the direction a bit. “When [Marc] arrived, I was in that position and with the races and the championships he took that position and decided in his own way. When I was directing more the evolution of the bike I had the parts first and I never thought in [my] own way.  “My way has always been to do the best for the team, and if I have the best parts to make the bike the best, I'm not thinking about my rival right next door, but about Yamaha, Ducati... whoever the rival was, because I consider myself part of the brand. Later he had that other way of doing it.  “I don't think I was missing [the same way as Marquez], because my way of being was that one. For example, before Marc came in, with Casey Stoner, he never played that game either."

so, yeah, maybe not completely universal behaviour. I don't know, I do find it kind of charming that marc has this very 'ah well everyone does it' attitude. now quite honestly I personally would not admit to this sort of behaviour even in confessional amazon prime documentaries - and it's fascinating what kinds of things he has a filter about and at what times he just decides to be, uh, very candid. I mean, I suppose this is a nice way of publicly forewarning any teammate who isn't your brother that you're going to try and make their life miserable. so that's something. anyway, marc did obviously win the internal war - which is the kind of thing that does matter if you're trying to impose your will on bike development... even if you're just doing so to fuck with your teammate. so by 2016 you reportedly had a situation where marc's direction was being followed to the extent that it harmed all the other honda riders:

But Pedrosa claims he had no input in the decision, and is now paying the price of having to compete on a bike built around Marquez’s preferences. The 30-year-old also said that he knew he would be in for a difficult time in 2016 as early as the Valencia test last November. "In the end we didn't have many specs [of engines], but out of the ones we had I wouldn't have chosen the current one,” Pedrosa admitted. "When we picked the bike I already knew things would be very hard. I already knew how the bike handled in November. But it is what it is. The choice of bike that we have was [Marquez's], I had nothing to do with it. For the moment, he's ahead and he deserves to be. He likes the bike, he adapts better to it, while I struggle more. That's obvious, you can see it in the results and in the way we ride." Pedrosa said the poor performance of Honda’s satellite bikes this season in comparison to previous years was yet further evidence of how the RC213V has been designed around Marquez’s needs. Cal Crutchlow’s sixth place at Catalunya has been the best result for a Honda rider besides Marquez and Pedrosa of the campaign so far. “You have to think of the team, not only about yourself,” Pedrosa added. “If you look at the rest of the Hondas, they are a lot further behind than two or three years ago, when you had [Stefan] Bradl or [Alvaro] Bautista finishing fourth or fifth. Now they are 10th and further [back]. So we have to try to get the other teams to work too."

obviously, to some extent teams following the lead rider and prioritising their feedback is completely natural and even wise - they're the one who is winning for you. it does also end up being a bit of a self-perpetuating cycle that makes the rider already winning more likely to continue winning, which helps explain why these riders are even so invested in their internal bickering. all that being said, of course it's worth noting that different riders conceptualise that teammate relationship differently, and the extent of intra-team cooperation can vary drastically. marc has a very particular understanding of that relationship when he is paired with anyone who is not his brother - one that is generally speaking pretty far along the combative end of the scale

unfortunately, we never really got to see how bad the whole marc and jorge (also not the easiest of teammates) situation could have gotten. in 2018, their relationship was definitely better than say 2013, but also jorge was still perfectly happy to criticise marc - whether after argentina, or that whole aragon incident they had

(marc did call jorge afterwards to check in on him, which jorge did appreciate.) but jorge never had the pace in his honda days to threaten marc, so nothing really got going between the two of them. if memory serves, the closest we ever got was catalunya 2019, where they had a bit of a coming together in practise - incidentally the first (and in retrospect only) weekend that season where jorge had potentially dangerous pace

But Lorenzo’s apology seemed to clear the air. Marquez explained that once he “was calmer” and the fear of dropping outside the all-important top ten had subsided, he could see the #99’s point of view. Marquez also noted how he was twice penalised in 2018 for similar actions to Lorenzo’s in FP3. He then pointed out how neither his team-mate, nor Joan Mir, who blocked the reigning world champion at one point during the Mugello weekend, were punished. Speaking to Spanish journalists after Saturday’s press conference, Marquez, said, “He [Lorenzo] apologised to me, because he was in the middle of turn three. While people can say it's only free practice, it was the third one, in which the last laps are like qualifying. “I was so angry because I knew that my lap was the one to enter Q2 directly. In the end I finished ninth, the worst classification of the year. It’s clear that last year I was twice in the middle of the track and on both occasions I was penalised. At Mugello I came across [Joan] Mir, we touched and everything and then at the end of FP3 it happened again with Lorenzo. But this happens... When it does everyone has to be judged equally. There is no difference. He simply apologised. Logically [after the session finished] I was calmer and I understood, because no rider waits in the middle of the track – or at least I hope they don’t."

obviously, this isn't like, a big deal, but in the moment it was one of those 'oooh maybe this'll go somewhere' incidents and the eternal drama enthusiasts in the commentary box were talking about it at the start of the race. like I said, that was jorge's first honda weekend where he was showing actual pace, so it felt like this might be building to something. except then, uh, jorge decided to skittle all of marc's rivals in one go in the race itself and somewhat hilariously managed to just miss marc. and then jorge got injured again the next race and it all just kinda fizzled out after that, so we never really got to find out what dramatics could have been possible there

and that's it as far as teammates prime!marc had in the premier class go. childhood rival pol espargaro took on the mantle for two years in 2021-22, at a time in which there was much kerfuffle about honda's development direction and whether they'd followed marc's path for too long. espargaro did attempt to assert himself in that team and they did try to develop the bike in a way that suited all the riders better rather than just marc, which *gestures at honda post-2020* worked insofar as marc also ended up in the trenches. that being said, pol was never a particularly serious threat to marc - aside from that one race to start off 2022, which maybe prompted a little bit of needle from marc (based on what the podcasts™ were saying at the time in any case) but nothing dramatic - so, y'know, that was kind of that. in those two years plus the year where marc had joan mir as his teammate, of course you can go into the weeds and dig out minor disagreements... but apart from the conversations around development direction and how marquez-centric honda should be going forward, it's just a bit of a different vibe when you're beefing for pee one million or who gets to be the leader of that year's crash rankings. of course, if you really want to stop marc from tormenting you, maybe you should just try being his literal brother. pecco, if you want any more useful advice like that: I offer very reasonable rates, just give me a call and we can hash something out

so, we've covered how the on-track stuff works and looked at the intra-team dynamic - what's next? time to explore a little more how marc goes about unsettling his rivals, how he attempts to give himself the decisive edge over his opponents... and also, what purpose this all serves when it comes to his own psychology. intimidating rivals typically has another underlying goal: it's about motivating yourself. it's about proving to your rivals just how far you'll go to beat them while proving as much to yourself in the same breath

again, at times we're a little light in terms of an actual paper trail of this intimidation... given that marc does like to take on the role of the aggressor in on-track disputes, often he doesn't even have to be the one to comment - and instead the onus is on his rivals to voice their dissent. there's also the issue that marc did have a paucity post-2015 in terms of 'serious title threats over the course of multiple seasons' - which, I don't know, this does feel like a thing somehow, you just don't really build feuds in a single season. even valentino, known feud enjoyer, always needed a little longer to really get something going. looking at marc's career, obviously you do have dovi, with whom he had a very cordial rivalry between 2017 to 2019... but the only year in which dovi was a serious title threat was in the first year of that rivalry, in 2017. after dovi's poor results in the first half of 2018, that title bid was essentially dead on arrival, and the 2019 title fight generously lasts until catalunya when jorge skittled the field minus marc. there's a couple marc rivalries with young challengers that looked like they were just about to kick off after 2019... but, well, we'll never find out how those would have played out. and it might be worth pointing out that in his prime, valentino's disagreements with riders who weren't serious threats to him winning titles didn't really go beyond what marc had going on with assorted other riders from 2016 to 2019. it's a bit of an open question if you want to attribute marc's lower number of feuds primarily to his actual personality and how it differs from valentino's, or whether you think it just reflects their respective competitive situations. the boring answer is that it's probably a combination of both of those things

that being said, obviously you can engage in a wee spot of psychological warfare without it escalating to feud level. now, let's get the obvious out of the way: marc and valentino were still very much at it post-2015. of course they continued to be deeply invested in their attempts to undermine and mess with each other. but, let's be honest, they're their own special little thing and it's just going to derail this post if I pay too much attention to them. there's a certain level of feuding where it becomes increasingly detached from any sort of actual competitive calculus and is more about a fraught relationship between two people who have managed to severely hurt each other. that being said, it's worth pointing out that marc was perfectly capable of using that feud to spur himself on. for the easiest evidence of that, just look at some of his misano performances... in 2017, valentino had just nerfed himself out of the title fight, whereas in 2019 he was no longer a serious threat to marc on-track. and yet despite how valentino wasn't the on-track rival marc should be concerning himself with, in both cases marc ended up using his valentino-related rage to find that little bit extra within himself in order to steal the victory

^from the marc (+ dovi) race rec post

there's plenty to be said about the misano 2019 qualifying incident, but let's set aside the specifics for now (though, speaking of towing-related drama, marc had again during fp3 shadowed valentino around the track, which... why are you hounding this man in misano of all places, marc). the whole kerfuffle certainly didn't hurt marc's race performance, and it's fair to say he seemed particularly thrilled with that victory. obviously, these were pretty pointed celebrations, very in your face, big fuck you to the nation of italy and valentino rossi specifically. celebrations like this are important in both what they're signalling to the enemy and what they're signalling to yourself. if there's one thing you can learn from valentino, it's that a celebration is a public message, and can function as a statement of sorts about what the victory 'meant'. what's the story you're telling with your victory? what do you want to take away from this race? what do you want your opponents to take away from it?

misano that year had come after marc's struggles in last lap duels, with the two races directly preceding it featuring last lap losses to dovi and alex rins respectively. now, on the one hand it's not always catastrophic on a psychological level to be constantly losing last lap duels... because in marc's case they did help reinforce just how dangerous he was, where even at his weaker tracks he would hound his rivals until the very end. on the other hand, obviously it's preferable to have a reputation for winning last lap duels as opposed to losing them - not least because it adds to how intimidating you are when you are locked in another last lap duel. valentino of course had a reputation for being lethally effective in that sort of situation, and it's nicely helpful if your enemies assume they're fucked when you're in their postcode with around three laps to go. I discussed this dynamic a little bit in how it relates to the sete rivalry here and here, which links back to the discussion of how you exert psychological pressure on the track. some relevant excerpts, plus some of my race notes:

marc is obviously more than capable of adopting similar tactics in his racing, but the sete rivalry still holds up as a really good demonstration of the kind of rewards you can reap through a steady diet of psychological intimidation. this is why it's so important to keep an edge over your rivals: you want them to be haunted by the ghosts of all your past on-track encounters whenever you're fighting to the point where it's detrimental to their actual riding. anyway, let's quickly check who marc was actually fighting with during the last lap of misano 2019, and whether that might have had anything to do with why marc was so thrilled to get the victory. oh, the rookie revelation of 2019 and the guy marc quickly identified as the big big threat of the future, you say? poor little fabio quartararo who still hadn't won a race yet, but who marc managed to dramatically deny on two separate occasions that year on the final lap? getting in early on the mission of building up some crucial psychological baggage, are we now?

obviously, and pretty tragically, this future investment on marc's part has ended up being completely irrelevant (unless yamaha wants to do something so so crazy for me and build a functioning bike before marc's hair goes grey), but equally obviously none of us knew that at the time. and fabio was able to take away some positives from the misano experience:

“I knew he would try something, but you never know with Marc,” said the Frenchman. “He can overtake and pull away because I really don’t know if he really saved his tyre. “The good thing was I could overtake him back, and this going home gives me a lot of confidence, to say ‘he’s a seven-time world champion, but we can overtake him’. So, he’s a human like us.”

because that's what it's all about, isn't it. giving the opposition the impression that you're not even human - and, even if fabio is saying the experience gave him 'a lot of confidence', imagine how much more confidence he would've gotten if he'd won. also, check out fabio's comment about not knowing whether marc had been saving his tyre. that's why the 'fucking about before fucking off' approach to races is so effective: because of how it generates uncertainty, it generates doubt, it makes your rivals wonder even during races whether there's a chance you're just toying with them

we do have a bit of a sample size issue here when it comes to assessing marc's celebrations, in that his two last lap duels with fabio came a) in valentino's backyard, and b) when marc sealed that year's title. it means that if the celebrations seem excessive, there's still other plausible explanations for why marc was so happy to get one over the rookie that aren't related to trying to bully fabio into submission for as long as he still could. did marc really use them as a way of reminding everyone, including fabio, including himself, of who's really in charge? again, you'll have to draw your own conclusions

I'm doing my best not to cover anything that's happening this year too much, since this is the stuff I'm assuming people reading are basically familiar with. but of course, if we're talking 'pointed celebrations' then there's also a few from this year that stand out. this isn't to say that marc's joy at his ducati successes have been anything other than genuine, that he isn't happy or relieved or revitalised by his current season... but, well, part of being revitalised is also being back in the game where fighting for titles is concerned. take the jerez celebrations, ecstatic in spite of losing a tight battle, openly loved and adored by his home crowd. look at how he's done his thing repeatedly this year of engaging with all these crowds, getting them to celebrate with him specifically. a cynic might say it's a way of reminding his opponents that they might be winning right now... but they should never forget who the crowds have really come to see. which would be charmingly valentino of him. while marc (probably wisely) never went too far in mimicking valentino's unique style of celebrations, he is an avid enough student to understand the importance of the theatre of victory. like in his third ever premier class race (from the jerez post):

racing is one thing, but it's always important to consider how you're reacting in both defeat and victory. like valentino before him, marc prefers not to openly show his rage. like valentino, more often than not he will be publicly magnanimous in defeat. like valentino, he's not adverse to twisting in the blade a little further in victory. like valentino, he's very much aware of when a camera is watching him. with marc, you can also observe how determined he is to appear unaffected and unbothered by the effects of sepang 2015 on his public image (except in displays of very carefully managed vulnerability like marc marquez all in). there's plenty of examples of this, but most relevant here is how marc concerns himself with not being openly affected by fans booing him. take blowing kisses to the misano 2017 crowd after his warm up crash... which, looking at his post-race presser comments, whatever he may say clearly (and understandably) did bother him. likewise, see the glee of the misano 2019 celebrations. with those celebrations, he's trying to tell you that not only does it not bother him that they're booing, but instead he relishes it. the more they do this, the more he will win

one more case study before we wrap this post up, this time using a specific rival to illustrate some of his more common tactics and how the spats he gets himself involved in generally play out. said rival is alex rins, who especially in 2019 had emerged as one of marc's prime challengers. now, before we talk about any disagreements between those two, I do have to mention that rinsy has a bit of history with the marquez family (this from 2016):

in the end, dani stayed on for another year and was replaced by another ageing spaniard marc felt confident he'd have the measure of while rinsy signed for suzuki - so it's very unlikely marc had to play any active role in blocking him from taking the seat. that being said, obviously the main takeaway is the bad blood stemming from alex marquez's moto3 title campaign and how alzamora organised that team around the younger marquez. god knows how rins felt about this by 2019, but I doubt he'd just forgotten about it. there's also this from 2020, which to me reads as a little dismissive about someone who was your teammate in moto3? I don't know, judge for yourself:

anyway, back to marc. the 'biggest' incident between the pair of them was a coming together in qualifying at brno 2019 (one of the all time great qualifying performances from marc by the way, well worth a watch):

During qualifying at Brno, cameras picked up the end of a tense tussle between MotoGP champion Marc Marquez and Suzuki's Alex Rins. The pair were caught putting some close passes on each other before pulling into pit lane, where they continued to 'duel' - until Marquez reached out with his arm to put some space between their machines. Marquez then over swapped to slick tyres and romped to pole position on the drying track, with Rins claiming sixth on the grid. "It's a tricky thing because for sure [Marc] is now one step in front of everybody. He put the slick tyres and he was super-fast. But I think he has no respect for the other riders. He is riding on his way," said Rins. "I will explain to you what happened: On Corner 5, he went a little bit wide and behind him was Miller and me. When he went wide, he looked back and saw Jack and me. Jack passed him, but then he went back onto the line and sincerely he disturbed me. I was pushing. I was not super-fast, but I was pushing. "So on the next left corner I tried to do my line. He opened a little a bit the door and I go in. I touched him, but I think it's his fault; if he is riding slow he needs to open the door and that's it. But anyway, then on the last corner he braked super-hard to overtake me [back]. Then when we were coming into the box I was in front of him and I go straight and he has no space to go by my side. If I was him, I would cut the gas…" "I ran wide at Turn 5 and Jack overtook me because I checked behind and I only saw him, so I tried to follow Jack because I know he had good pace. Then I went a bit too wide and there was a small space, but enough and [Rins] ran into me…" said the Repsol Honda star. “The funny thing was when we entered the box and the tyre wall was there [in front of me] and I didn’t have the space [to get through] because he was going that way. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but for me it wasn’t important. I lose zero time on these sort of things.” Told Rins had said he had no respect for other riders, Marquez responded: “Of course I don’t agree with this, it is his opinion." "It's not the first time," Rins had explained earlier. "Everybody knows Marquez and everybody knows that he has an incredible talent, but also what happened in FP1 with Vinales was more-or-less the same. Marc loves to play this game and try to get in the head of other riders. But in my case I'm really calm. I just tell the truth and that's it." Asked if he thought he needed to try and get into Marquez's head, Rins responded: "No, I don't think so…. For sure if I'm fighting for the world championship with him I will try to do something, but he's 80 points in front of me - maybe he's scared, I don't know!" Austin winner Rins, who has fallen in the last two races, is fourth in the world championship.

their most significant race clash was in silverstone 2019, where alex got the better of marc in a very dramatic last lap duel. I've heard journalists make vague reference to marc not taking that loss particularly well, though... again. hard to actually pin him down on a lot of this! but we do have more extensive comments rinsy provided in early 2020 to work with, and he at least seems to agree with that assessment:

"Marc is so good at these mental things, he plays a lot with all the riders," Rins told the official MotoGP website. "For example in Brno last year, I was on a fast lap, he looked behind at me and opened the line a little bit, but not too much. I was on the dry line and I touched him. I lost my lap, but I continued pushing. Then in the last chicane he overtook me so closely, we were so close to a crash, and then he went into pit lane. From that moment, I said to myself, Marc is considering me as a rival." Rins - who declared "Marquez has no respect for other riders" immediately after the incident - got his revenge in the form of a thrilling last-corner victory pass on Marquez a few weeks later at Silverstone. "Marc is the man to beat and the rivalry is so high," Rins said. "More in 2019, because I shared more moments on track with him. For sure whenever he finishes just in front of me, I'm a bit angry, I want to beat him. But also for him. I remember when I beat him in Silverstone he was so, so angry." Rins added: "I like this because it means that I'm doing a good job. Marc is an incredible rider, winning a lot of races and championships, and if he thinks of me as a rival, it means I'm there fighting him." Rins took two wins on his way to a best-yet fourth in the 2019 MotoGP standings.

now, yeah... the problem is that this is all very much hearsay (but no more so than plenty of similar comments valentino's rivals made about him!) and rinsy could just be lying about this or misinterpreting it or whatever. we are very low on actual evidence for the stuff he says here. if you watch silverstone 2019 and the aftermath, you will not see a marc who visibly looks angry - of course you won't, because he almost never looks visibly angry. unfortunately, we don't have the chance to grill alex on why exactly he was left with this impression. at the end of the day, like with valentino, when it comes to evaluating the honesty of a lot of these character references you will just have to make up your own mind. like with valentino, some of these men will either be exaggerating the extent of the harm or just straight up making shit up. then again, like with valentino, the number of people who do seem to have the impression marc was fucking with them maybe suggests that there is something to these allegations

just a few things to note here... to highlight some of the common features that tend to crop up in these marc incidents:

there's the accusation of lack of respect towards other riders - valentino is the one who most infamously made that accusation in the aftermath of argentina 2018, but of course he's far, far from alone in making comments along those lines. marc certainly has a tendency towards being... uncompromising in his approach, shall we say, which can at times lean towards treating his competitors mainly as obstacles and inconveniences

the anger that's being attributed to marc. which he doesn't tend to directly express towards his competitors off the track! but if he is angry, it may instead... seep into how he approaches instances where they share space on-track, as well as affect his general demeanour towards them

there's rinsy suggesting marc is known for playing these games, that he does it a lot, and he's also known for being very good at them... which again is often something we only hear about indirectly, but of course it's interesting if that's the general paddock consensus

there's also rinsy's insistence that marc's games don't bother him at all - he's just calmly noting that marc's engaging in them! again, it's quite hard when you're familiar enough with valentino's oeuvre to not be slapped in the face with the similarity in some of the rhetoric their rivals use. doesn't mean all of these different dynamics are directly analogous, but it does speak to how determined the rivals in question tend to be in... y'know. telling themselves that they're above the whole thing. unfortunately, sometimes it is just very, very hard to be unaffected... and sometimes you're already losing by talking about it, because it shows you've been thinking about it

which, check out marc's response. 'oh, obviously I don't agree I lack respect' 'ah, I lose zero time on these things' (for another example of him using similar language, you could of course look to his comments about bez last year in valencia). this is marc's go-to - he generally quite likes to deny the existence of a problem, makes it sound like the whole thing is very one-sided... he keeps his distance and can maintain his poise and this veneer of neutrality, where he is not causing any drama. maybe the other guy's just imagining things! that's really not marc's problem, is it now

lastly, you've got this notion of marc messing with other riders selectively, and specifically doing it when he's identified you as a potential threat. again, maybe you think alex is reading too much into it! but equally, it's worth noting that we have as much evidence for marc messing with rinsy as we do for, say, valentino messing with casey in practise sessions in 2006 (as casey's autobiography claims). it would have been completely competitively reasonable for marc to identify alex rins as one of his primary threats in the future... and it would also not be hugely surprising if marc wanted to maintain a psychological edge over him

incidentally, at 2020 jerez rins and marc had another little run in during a practise session - where alex was left 'visibly frustrated' after marc was slowing down on the racing line while rinsy was completing a flying lap, which he ended up having to back out of. this denied rinsy direct entry into q2 (though marc didn't end up being penalised for it). of course, marc's jerez race reached an unhappy conclusion and rins was too injured to even start it, and after that they've never been even remotely close to fighting for a championship. though there's still a little bit of needle between the pair of them, mainly resulting from how rinsy ended up joining lcr honda in 2023 after suzuki departed the scene. there's marc's reasonably innocent comments in 2022, on a day in which rinsy won another last lap duel for the victory in phillip island:

"I will not give any advice," said Marquez. "For me it is another opponent. It’s good that joining Honda is one world champion [Joan Mir] and one rider that is winning races with another manufacturer.  "Like this we will see exactly the level. I’m working really hard for the 2023 project with Honda and they are working really, really hard too. I don’t say I wish [him] the best. Let’s just go and see. He is another opponent, if not it would be fake’."

or here, take this from before mugello 2023, again mostly innocuous:

By contrast, Marquez believes Mugello is one of Rins’ best tracks and he wasn’t surprised to see the COTA winner at the sharp end. “No [I’m not surprised], because Rins, even with Suzuki, had 5-6 circuits where he is very fast and then others where he struggles more. Normally here with Suzuki, he was very fast and very consistent,” said Marquez, whose only premier-class win at Mugello was back in 2014. “He is really good in fast corners so, for example, in Le Mans he was struggling more than me and here he is very fast. It is good for Honda and Honda riders that someone is faster because like this you have more chance to look and compare the things.”

love being told I have "5-6 circuits" where I'm very fast. or take rinsy's innocent surprise that marc didn't end up winning at the sachsenring, and how he suggests it was maybe because of all the pressure marc had been feeling:

"It's hard, it tastes very bad to me because Marc has a fucking talent and it's not being easy at all,” Rins was quoted by DAZN. “But hey, in the end you have to turn the tables, you have to win, you have to build a winning bike. "Damn, I thought that Marc would also win in Germany. What happened? I don't know, I have no idea. Pressure, extra pressure, I have no idea.”

and then, of course, there was always that little hint of tension that came as a result of rinsy being honda's only race winner that year, at marc's beloved cota of all places... which became a bit of a discourse point (not always propagated by rinsy) to say that, hey, maybe the honda wasn't so bad after all... anyway, here's what marc said when rinsy signed for yamaha:

Repsol Honda rider Marquez was asked about Rins’ departure and answered: “I had an interview, they asked me about this rumour. I said ‘I don’t think so’ because Rins won a race and he said ‘it’s a good bike’.  “So I didn’t expect this move. But then the day after! I’m happy for him, it’s a good move, he’s moving from a satellite team to a factory team. Yamaha has power and energy from the past.”

marc had said 'surely not' but then the very next day he was left shocked and taken aback! he'd thought rinsy loved the bike so much! he'd thought rinsy felt it was actually a good bike! he'd thought rinsy would never want to leave! how unexpected this whole thing was to him!

(there was also talk about rinsy's unhappiness at how honda treated him and his development feedback - but as there is less than zero evidence marc had anything to do with that, let's leave it there)

did marc really behave differently towards alex rins because he saw him as a threat? probably! possibly? probably! but he hasn't really felt the need to say as much. sometimes, you can fuck with people by staying silent, and sometimes you can fuck with them just because you have a reputation for mind games - which marc, like valentino, has acquired over the years. ideally, your on-track plus off-track presence gets to the point where you don't really need to do anything and can let your opponents engage in shadowboxing while you can spend your time in more useful ways. think of that excellent clip from motogp unlimited where poor joan mir complains about marc's towing, freaks out when he realises the press has said he's complained about marc's towing, and then goes to explain to marc how he hadn't actually complained about marc's towing. and marc, with the air of a man who has been high on painkillers for the past week and hasn't given joan much thought beyond contemplating how well he'd pair with potatoes, graciously accepts this explanation - which joan is painfully, obviously relieved by. marc wasn't playing any 'mind games' in this clip, he was just standing there. but sometimes that's all you've got to do! call it a good return on prior investment. (partly this is also just a result of the status the sheer extent of marc and valentino's successes provides them and, relatedly, their power and influence within the sport.) here, from one of oxley's books:

Once you've established a reputation for trickery, you can confuse people without doing anything. At this year's [2009] German GP Casey Stoner accused Rossi of attempting to confuse his rivals by scrubbing the white sidewall paint from his front slick; the paint denoting Bridgestone's softer compound tyres. In fact Bridgestone had run out of white paint (no, really), but the reality didn't matter because Stoner was sat on the grid, convinced Rossi was playing tricks when he should've been getting himself in the zone, focusing on his race.

that's the ideal, right: you don't even have to do the dirty work yourself because it's the reputation doing the work for you. marc inspires a similar effect on riders, where he just gets them to the point where they're spending way too much time hyper-analysing whatever he's doing at any given moment. which means that he doesn't actually need to be trying to fuck with anyone for the effect to still be the same. free and easy, what's not to love

so, that's it, more or less. all the on-track stuff, from 'how to build up an intimidating presence 101', to just being extremely annoying in non-race sessions, to trying to mess with your teammate, to more generally how you go about handling disputes with other riders. managing your motivation, their motivation, everyone's motivation. of course marc's not quite scaled the heights (yet) of cursing another rider to never win another race again - which, hey, nobody's perfect, but I think he's built together a fairly decent resume for himself! there's plenty more stuff you could get into here, c.f. 'everything that's been going on with ducati internal politics this year'... but this post is more than long enough, and you can follow all that stuff while it's actually happening. a few more related topics I've deigned outside of the scope of this post include how he generally manages perceptions of himself and his performance potential in ways that aren't targeted at any specific rival, for instance how he talks about his injury and has a tendency to change his tune depending on what's convenient at any given time, or how in the past he managed perceptions of the competitiveness of his honda package. likewise, I also haven't discussed the actual success rate of these tactics: let's not forget that trying to fuck with your rivals doesn't... always produce the effects you want it to. (sometimes just in kind of dumb ways, like I get messing with the rookie sensation but please try not to crash when catching a tow, marc. "marc clearly tried to get into fabio's head and I think he hit his head himself quite big." "so, I think it's karma. fabio's on pole and I hope marc is uninjured of course. but he tried to get in his head because he knows fabio is fast." not ideal!) but, hey, the most important thing is he's trying hard and having fun. or something

because that's the thing, right. when you are attempting to exert psychological pressure on your opponents, when you're trying to weaken your rivals, inevitably this also has an effect on you. there are athletes who prefer to completely ignore their opponents and act as if they are essentially competing on their lonesome. neither valentino nor marc fall into this category. as a result, how you behave towards your rivals inevitably also becomes at least in part about motivating yourself. you are attempting to focus your mind in some way - whether it is to see your rival as an enemy or to simply distance yourself from them or otherwise. you may even be minded to treat your rival particularly warmly, knowing they are less likely to give you grief if you have ensured the interpersonal relationship has remained amicable... maybe even looking for a slight psychological edge if they are not sufficiently motivated to beat you. maybe that too is about managing your reputation and drawing a line under past unfriendlier rivalries, to distinguish your most beloathed rival from all the others. you may need to find a way to keep the fire within going, to reinvigorate yourself even in periods of relative competitive tranquillity by giving yourself something to be angry at, a reason to fight and to win out of spite... finding reasons to care, again and again and again. celebrating with exuberance not just because you are genuinely filled with joy but also because you need to be filled with joy - so that you can find it within yourself to keep fighting. there's never just one brain involved in the arena of psychological warfare. to succeed in sports the first person you have to play mind games on, after all, is yourse- *gets taken out by sniper rifle*

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with the Los Angeles Times (2024)

“This is where all the cruising happened.”

Jonathan Bailey and I are standing in Pershing Square on a bright, blustery spring afternoon, nearing the end of a homemade queer history tour of downtown L.A.: One Magazine, Cooper Do-Nuts/Nancy Valverde Square, the Dover bathhouse, the Biltmore Hotel and this, the city’s former Central Park, a haven, since before World War I, for “fairies” and “sissy boys,” servicemen on leave and beatniks on the road.

“Is it still happening now?” he asks.

“Probably not as much,” I venture.

“Well, you let me know if it’s happening,” he teases, a mischievous smile lighting up his face.

Bailey understands the uses of the charm offensive. As Sam, the handsome Lothario of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s delightful pre-”Fleabag” curio, “Crashing”; Anthony, the romantic hero of “Bridgerton’s” second season; and John, the jerk of a protagonist in Mike Bartlett’s love triangle play “Cock,” the English actor, 36, has swaggered up to the precipice of superstardom. With roles in such studio tentpoles as “Wicked” and “Jurassic World” on the horizon, he may just break through. Yet he delivers career-best work in Showtime’s queer melodrama “Fellow Travelers,” as anti-Communist crusader-turned-gay rights activist Tim Laughlin, by leaving behind the self-assured rakes and tapping a new wellspring: soft power.

Tim may be, as Bailey puts it, “an open nerve,” but as it turns out, the devout Catholic and political naïf — who falls for suave State Department operative Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) just as Sen. Joseph McCarthy tries to purge the federal government of LGBTQ people — is formidable indeed.

Stretching from the Lavender Scare to the depths of the AIDS crisis, in scenes of tenderness, cruelty and toe-curling sex, Bailey’s performance communicates that little-spoken truth of relationships: It takes more strength to submit than it does to control. The former demands discipline, courage, trust; the latter requires only force.

“In ‘Bridgerton,’ [Bailey] is like a Hawkins Fuller character — he is very sexy and has lots of power, has that kind of confident charisma that absolutely is not Tim at all,” says “Fellow Travelers” creator Ron Nyswaner.

But any doubt about Bailey’s ability to mesh with Bomer, who boarded the project early in development, was put to bed with the actors’ virtual rehearsal of a meeting on a park bench in the pilot. “‘Well, that’s a first,’” Nyswaner recalls an executive texting him. “I cried in a chemistry read.”

‘Am I inviting people in?’

Bailey grew up in a musical family in the Oxfordshire countryside outside London, and this, coupled with an appreciation for the morning prayers, choir practice and Mass he attended as a scholarship student at the local Catholic school, fed his precocious talents. (“I loved the performance of it,” he laughs. “Not to diminish the celebration of religious process, but I did love the idea of wearing a gown.”) By age 10, he’d appeared in the West End, playing Gavroche in a production of “Les Misérables,” an experience he now recognizes as an encounter with a queer found family — albeit one shadowed by the toll of the AIDS crisis, which peaked in the U.K. in the mid-1990s.

“When I’m asked about my childhood, there’s so much I don’t remember, and I think that’s true of anyone who’s been in fight or flight for 20 years,” he says. “I would have been in a cast of people whose friends would have died in the last seven years. I think of where I was seven years ago. I had all my gay friends then. It’s only retrospectively that I can retrofit a real gay community around me [in the theater], that I just wasn’t aware of [then].”

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, American and British culture presented queer adolescents with a bewildering array of mixed signals. As beloved celebrities came out in growing numbers, and the battle for marriage equality became a central locus of LGBTQ political organizing, the media continued to propagate harmful stereotypes of gay men as miserable, lonely, perverted or worse — and, Bailey remembers, callously turned George Michael, arrested on suspicion of cruising in a Beverly Hills restroom in 1998, and Irish pop star Stephen Gately, who revealed his sexuality in 1999, fearful he was about to be outed, into tabloid spectacles.

No wonder Bailey, like many LGBTQ people of his generation, should feel the “chemical” thrill of “validation and acceptance” during London Pride at age 18, then embark on a two-year relationship with a woman in his 20s.

“Dangerously, if you’re not exposed to people who can show you other examples of happiness, you think that’s the easiest way to live,” Bailey says. “It’s funny. You look back and you can tell the story in one way, which is that I always knew who I was and my sexuality and my identity within that. But obviously at times, it was really tough. I compromised my own happiness, for sure. And compromised other people’s happiness.”

Disclosures about his personal life have become particularly thorny for the actor since the premiere of “Bridgerton,” the blockbuster bodice-ripper from executive producer Shonda Rhimes.

“The Netflix effect does knock you off center completely,” he says, recalling the experience of finding a paparazzo waiting outside his new flat before he’d even moved in. “Suddenly, you do start having nightmares about people climbing in your windows... Even now, talking about it makes me feel like, ‘Am I inviting people in?’”

He is also critical of the media for churning out headlines about the smallest details of celebrities’ private lives, often detached from their original context. In an interview with the London Evening Standard published in December, Bailey described a harrowing encounter in a Washington, D.C., coffee shop in which a man threatened his life for being queer — and, in recounting the experience, offhandedly mentioned the “lovely man” he’d called, shaken, after it happened. Although Bailey acknowledges that the original story handled the subject with aplomb, he felt dismayed that more attention wasn’t paid to the intended warning about rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment: “The only thing that got syndicated from that story was that I had a boyfriend, and it wasn’t true,” he sighs. “It was kind of depressing, if I’m honest.”

Still, Bailey, who once turned down a role in a queer-themed TV series because it would have required him to speed along revelations about his personal life he wasn’t ready to make, is prepared to embrace the power of vulnerability when it feeds the work. Although a member of his inner circle expressed doubts about “Fellow Travelers’” steamy sex scenes, for instance, the actor intuited that they were what made the project worth doing: “I was like, ‘I’m telling you, they are the reason why this is going to be brilliant.’”

‘He’s changed my trajectory in my own life’

To those who would complain about the state of sex in film and TV, “Fellow Travelers” is the perfect riposte. All of it matters, from Tim’s first flirtation with Hawk to the finale’s closing minutes, because the series, at its core, is about the importance of soft power: the strength required to bend, but not break; to adapt, but not abandon oneself; to survive without shrinking to nothing in the process.And depicting that through sex, specifically gay sex, makes “Fellow Travelers” radical indeed.

Bailey understands that baring so much comes with certain risks. When I tell him that research for the story has filled my algorithmic “For You” feed on X (formerly Twitter) with speculation that his onscreen relationship with Bomer has a real-life element, he notes that “shipping” fictional couples and costars alike has long been part of Hollywood fantasy. But he bristles at the implication that he and Bomer are anything but skilled actors at work.

“I would love for people to know that the success of our chemistry isn’t based on us f—. It’s actually about us leaning into the craft,” he says. “It’s a vulnerable situation to be in, talking about it on record. I don’t want to rob people of their thoughts. But I do have a set of values, and as an artist, you don’t need to be f— to tell that love story.”

Underlying that craft, Bailey adds, is the confidence to speak up, as with one scene in “Fellow Travelers” that was adjusted because he said, “I don’t want to be naked today.” He learned to use his voice the hard way: In his early 20s, he recalls, he was once “bullied” on set when “someone was threatened” by him and vowed to himself, “I’m never going to do that to someone. I’m never going to allow that to happen.”

This impulse to direct his influence in support of others has blossomed further with “Fellow Travelers.” On the day of our interview, Bailey enthuses about an upcoming meeting with legendary gay rights activist Cleve Jones and shares his idea for a docuseries recording the stories of elders in the LGBTQ+ community while they are still here to tell them. He describes lying in a hospital bed on set on World AIDS Day, in character as Tim, surrounded by gay men who had lost friends and lovers during the crisis, and finding himself thinking, “What do I want to leave behind?”

“I think he’s changed my trajectory in my own life,” Bailey says.

This is, perhaps, the most common reaction I know to diving deep into queer history — the understanding that we, like our forerunners, are responsible for shaping the queer future, whether in politics, society or art. No one is going to do it on our behalf.

As we stand on the nondescript corner now named for her, I relate the story of the late queer activist Nancy Valverde, who was arrested repeatedly while a barber school student in the 1950s on suspicion of “masquerading” because of her preference for short hair and men’s clothing, and later successfully challenged her harassment by the police in court.

“What a hero!” Bailey exclaims, wondering at Valverde’s bravery. “The thing that’s so interesting with power battles is, ultimately, identity is the thing that gives you the most strength and power in your life, isn’t it?

“Because that’s one thing people can’t take away from you: who you are and how you express yourself.”

Source

[dino-fart]

Hello my Queen 😍😳. I have an Aqua Papí request.

He asks her to burn the world with him. (Y/n) is unsure about his offer. She took is a rule of a nation hidden from the world. He wants her on his side to fight Wakanda.

Namor perhaps seduces her *cough* smut. 😳 Into saying yes?? 😍🇬🇹 Thanks, queen.

@clea-strange-is-the-way

ALL BOW DOWN TO MY EMPRESS!! THIS REQUEST IS GOD TIER!

“Tell me why we are here, yet again.” Your advisor mumbled annoyed. 

“Because King Namor has called to speak with me.” You said softly. You stood at the shores of the ocean in your blue sleeveless dress. Your hair was in a half updo and your silver crown on your head. You had met Namor a few times and each time he asked you the same thing. He was relentless but you would not be persuaded. 

“King Namor has called for you, what, ten times this past month? I’m beginning to think he enjoys wasting our time.” The advisor huffed. You rolled your eyes then turned to the ocean when you heard footsteps in the water. “Here he comes.” Your advisor mumbled. 

“King Namor.” You said looking at the perfectly sculpted man. 

“Your highness.” The sea king finally approached you. He stood merely a foot from you. 

“Before you begin, what is the purpose, this time? Hm? Her majesty will not fight your war!” Your advisor spoke up and approached the two of you. But Namor didn’t move an inch, his eyes trained on you. You felt your shoulders and your cheeks heat up at the intensity of his stare. 

“Envíalos náach. Chéen ts'íiboltik dirigir in te'ex. (Send them away. I wish to speak to you only.)” He said. 

“Why?” You whispered. 

“Much in reina, ma' meentik le ba'ala' talamil. (Please my queen, do not make this difficult.)” His gaze continued to be intense and you turned to your advisor. 

“I wish to be alone.” 

Your advisor looked at you baffled, “Y-Your grace!” 

“Please.” 

Your advisor glared at Namor, “If you harm a single hair on her majesty’s head, you will suffer the wrath!” 

“You heard your queen.” Namor glared back at them. The advisor huffed and left the area leaving you two alone. 

“Namor...My advisor speaks the truth, I will not fight this war.” You said softly. 

Namor stepped closer to you, he was now inches from your face. You could feel his cool breath and your eyes met his. “What do you want from me, my queen? I can give you anything for your alliance.” 

You blushed more and shook your head, “There is nothing you can offer me.” 

“Everyone wants something.” He said softly lightly brushing his knuckles along your arm. He leaned in closer to your face, lips brushing against yours. You let out a soft gasp and he captured your lips in a slow and tender kiss. You closed your eyes at the kiss and he rested a hand on your hip and the other cupped your chin. You pulled back from the kiss, looking at him softly. 

“Tell me, my queen, how long has it been since you have had company? Since you have been touched? Since you have been held by the arms of a lover? Your beauty and wisdom is spoken about all over the seas, yet no word on a lover.” He whispered. 

“That is not anyone’s business.” 

“It is if I wish to make you mine.” 

“Having me does not mean I will fight.” 

“Shhh, no more speak of war...I wish to please you.” Namor cupped the back of your head and kissed you hungrily. You let out a soft moan at his lips and cupped his cheek as you kissed him back with equal passion. Namor pulled back with a grin, “It appears you are eager for this too, hm my queen?” 

“Are you going to taunt me or fuck me?” You nipped his bottom lip. Namor smirked and picked you up by your thighs. He carried you to a cave with a large and shallow pool of water. He stepped into the water still carrying you and pinned you against the wall. 

Namor wrapped your legs around his waist and removed his shorts. His hands moved up your thighs and pulled down your panties. The water splashed against the rocky edge when he thrusted his cock deep into you. You threw your head back and raked your nails down his back. 

“In reina... (My Queen)” He grunted and began at a slow pace. You looked at him as he thrusted and kissed him roughly. He clashed his tongue against yours and increased his pace. He pulled back from the kiss admiring your body reacting so well to him. Your breasts bounced against his chest and your mouth hung open at the sheer force of his hips. 

“Tell me, my queen, how do you think your advisor would react seeing you this way? Seeing how you beg for my cock and cry out in pleasure?” He purred along your neck. You couldn’t respond, his cock was ramming inside of you and you had never felt such ecstasy before. Sure you had previous lovers or consorts but none of them compared to this moment. “Does the great and wise queen have nothing to say? No rebuttal?” He taunted and nipped your ear. 

“N-Namor...” You muttered trying to move your hips. 

“What is it, in pixamech? (my angel)” The king grunted. 

“H-Harder...” You pleaded and kissed him fervently. He kissed you back and obeyed your request, thrusting deeper and harder. “I’m going to cum...” You panted against his lips. 

“Give it to me, my queen, give it all.” He cooed. His words sent you over the edge and you came on his cock. He continued his thrusts and gazed at you like a lover would. “Where do you want me?” 

“Inside...Please my king...” Namor gripped the edge of the pool and pounded his cock into your pussy. You cried out his name when he came inside of you. He grunted your name and kissed you passionately. You dug your fingers in his hair and returned his kiss. He carried you out of the water and gently rested you on the sandy shore. 

He stayed on top of you, panting. You caught your breath and brushed his hair back. He looked into your eyes and pressed his lips against your head. “I hope I was to your liking~” He teased and wrapped his arms around your torso. 

“I suppose.” You teased back and kissed his lips. 

Namor should’ve left the moment he was done with you but like a siren you kept calling him back. He was under your spell the moment his lips touched yours. He kissed you back slowly and pulled back. “I will continue to come for you until you join me. And I will continue to make you cum whenever I visit you~” He smirked. 

“I eagerly await.” You bit your lip and pulled him in for another kiss. 

Dividers By: @animatedglittergraphics-n-more and @firefly-graphics

[kleiner-detektiv]

Volume 6 was so goood!

Do I need to tell you I read it all in one session again? How am I supposed to wait for volume 7?

I did some research - you can read each chapter for free as webnovel (in Japanese) and those are put into printed books later.

The chapters of volume 6 were published (online) between September 2022 and Januar 2024 and therefore took the most writing time of all volumes so far.

The updates still are only several days or weeks apart, so it's regularly within one volume.

Thanks to bonus stories the time between the volumes aren't that long - if there even is some time inbetween. Amekawa really is diligent❣️

The last update (bonus story) was in march. It's not the first time an update takes longer than 2 months, so there is nothing to worry about.

I wouldn't expect her to post some new information until july and I hope she takes this break to have some refreshing and well deserved vacations.

[mochademic]

100 Days of Productivity [Day: 85] || 100 Jours de Productivité [Jour: 85]

the beginning of may has been a struggle for me over the last few years. I lost my dad at the end of April in 2021 & my husband one year later. I find myself isolating from everyone around me & overloading my day with tasks beyond what I would usually have the energy for. especially now since I can't seem to kick the homesickness & access my sense of peace. one day, this time of year will be easier to carry. but that is not today. & that's okay i have a penny for my thoughts, but thankfully I don't need a quarter to call home [iykyk].

academic work:

-finish unit 2.0 [including spoken portion] -re-write notes -start on imperfect & future conjugations list [ask coworker if they can take a look at it when done]

freelance work:

-finish binding second book for the week [canvas fabric] -start sewing project

office work:

-fix issues with remote access to the main computer [half done...will finish tomorrow... >:[ ] [ i need to be put in the rage cage about this!!!] -set up new accounts/issue NDA's

currently listening // Middle of Nowhere by Macabre Plaza

Le début du mois de mai a été une période difficile pour moi ces dernières années. J'ai perdu mon père à la fin du mois d'avril 2021 et mon mari un an plus tard. Je me retrouve à m'isoler de tous ceux qui m'entourent et à surcharger ma journée avec des tâches qui dépassent ce pour quoi j'aurais normalement de l'énergie. surtout maintenant que je n'arrive pas à me débarrasser du mal du pays et à accéder à mon sentiment de paix. un jour, cette période de l'année sera plus facile à supporter. mais ce n'est pas aujourd'hui. et ce n'est pas grave, j'ai un penny pour mes pensées, mais heureusement je n'ai pas besoin d'une pièce pour appeler chez moi [si vous savez, vous savez…].

travail académique :

-finir l'unité 2.0 [y compris la partie orale] -réécrire les notes -commencer la liste des conjugaisons de l'imparfait et du futur [demander à un collègue s'il peut y jeter un coup d'oeil quand il aura fini].

travail en freelance :

terminer la reliure du deuxième livre de la semaine [tissu de toile] -commencer un projet de couture -commencer un projet de couture

travail de bureau :

-résoudre les problèmes d'accès à distance à l'ordinateur principal [à moitié fait…finira demain… > :[ ] [ j'ai besoin d'être mis dans la cage de rage à ce sujet !!!] -créer de nouveaux comptes/émettre des NDA's

chanson // Middle of Nowhere par Macabra Plaza

[utilitycaster]

no d20 spoilers here since i know you know the gist of the drama but the fact that both kipperlilly (and the ratgrinders as a whole) and laudna are sending the their respective fandoms into meltdowns is FASCINATING to me!!! Especially happening at roughly the same time

I am now officially caught up and. not to brag but, called it re: the Rat Grinders, huh, except it's even more stupid. Like. The "but they're literally minors?" argument sort of falls apart given that they're the same age as the Bad Kids, and are actively trying to kill them, the "but redemption" argument doesn't mean shit since at no point did they make any forays towards redemption and indeed sicced a bunch of dragons on the Bad Kids, and so we're left with nothing but an impotent desire to not have a sick-ass battle in the finale of a D20 Campaign. And, perhaps, an uncomfortable realization that they are not unlike the Rat Grinders and the narrative said "lmao yeah you suck".

Laudna's shit? not that different actually. Like there's a lot of reasons why the arguments defending her are bullshit but the biggest one is that the "Laudna has never done anything wrong ever in her life and Imogen is her tether" crowd have painted themselves into a delightfully tiny little corner and they can't hide it anymore. Like, okay, so, is Laudna in control of her actions? Because if so she just attacked Orym in the middle of the night. Is she not? Because if so why hasn't she made the efforts that Chetney and FCG and Imogen (at least sometimes) did to address that? If the issue is trauma why is hers more valid than that of others? If it's abuse tell me how you feel about Caleb, Fjord, Beau, and Percy? Why is Orym shutting down the conversation when he says the Vanguard killed his family but Laudna's not doing the same when she tells Ashton not to speak to her of loneliness and Chetney not to speak to her of loss when she doesn't have a monopoly on either?

Why is it Bells Hells' job to endlessly accomodate Laudna and why are so many people suddenly talking about Bells Hells as an abstract 7-headed entity that didn't deal with Laudna's problems when those same people (if they were around at the time of the gnarlrock airing, and many of them weren't) were like "NO THEY SHOULD MAKE UP AS FAST AS POSSIBLE AND IMOGEN IS A BITCH BECAUSE LAUDNA DIDN'T MEAN IT." Why wasn't it an issue for them when Laudna's ranting about her time in Issylra and how hard it was got shut down by Imogen kissing her because that's why it didn't stay in the spotlight. Why wasn't it an issue for them when Imogen said "if you need her, that's my answer"? Why is it Orym or "Bells Hells" in the abstract who never spent time on Laudna's trauma after months if not years of throwing a fit any time someone (often me) (not always though) pointed out how much Imogen and Laudna were shoving under the rug and not dealing with? What does it say that you can't even expect Laudna's partner to be the one supporting her through this- it has to be Orym? Why doesn't Laudna have any responsibility here? At minimum she could have spoken up about the sword at at least two if not three junctures and she didn't.

There's a lot of things I hold in contempt, and after the obvious things like bigotry, two I really detest are hypocrisy and dereliction of responsibility. It's been extremely telling with both the D20 and CR discourse that people do not like seeing the story and the fandom say "hey actually you need to take responsibility for your actions, you only get redemption if you work for it, and if you leave a room hoping someone will follow you without saying that's what you want? Don't be surprised if no one does." The reason everyone was preparing to stop Laudna was because she was, in every action and decision, showing herself to be a person in need of being stopped. Can you describe this perfect balance of gentleness in which she's never pushed too hard but she does talk about her trauma and work through it and in doing so leaves Delilah? Have you demanded any other member of Bells Hells be granted that same gentleness and patience and kindness or do you think Orym should get over his grief because it's inconvenient to your arguments.

Just as the Rat Grinders show the narrative saying "being an entitled, resentful, jealous person who hurts others from jealousy makes you an easy tool to be manipulated into cruelty and you need to deal with that," I think Laudna shows the narrative (and certainly the fandom) saying "you do have an obligation to deal with your trauma, especially if it causes you to hurt others, and you can ask for help but you can't just sit on your ass waiting for someone else to initiate the process for you" as well as "if you do hurt people because of your trauma they may be angry with you, this may shape how they see you, and they are justified in that because you hurt them" and I think people in both fandoms hate being told that because I think a lot of the people sparking the discourse really do think that you can shield yourself from criticism over your hurtful actions by claiming trauma or neurodivergence or mental illness or whatever and it's like, no, you do still suck, you just also had sucky things happen to you as well.

[sunwoowrites]

Just In The way.

fem!reader

angst, comfort

lee minho

Part 2

I've been having a really rough day. Three assignments due. Shitty professors at campus. People that bump into me, causing the hot coffee in hand to spill all over me. Yeah fuck you Le Shauna watch where you're going next time. The only thing I've been looking forward to was movie night with Minho.

Our monthly movie shesh. I have hardly spoken to him this week and I really miss him. I picked up my phone dialing his number. "Minn!! Hiiii" I said excitedly over the phone. "wassup." I smiled. "Did you already forget movie night?" I heard shuffling over the phone. "no I haven't I was on my way there actually." I laughed. "Okay see you soon then." He hummed. "I'll bring snacks on the way. See ya soon." I head a clang and frowned.

"Who was that?" I heard Jisungs voice over the phone. Minho's roommate. He is really funny. He has the most crackhead energy. Love him. "Y/n." I heard Minho sigh and groan. "Today was movie night." He didn't cut the call. Dumbass. I held in my laughter. So he did forget.

"Seriously?" Jisung shouted. "Again! Its always her. Bro at this point you're gunna be single for the rest of your life because she has no other friends." Minho groaned. "We planned this for every month. Its my fault I forgot." Jisung huffed. "Bro no. You could just tell her you have a date you know. She was so oblivious to your feelings, she shouldn't mind you going on a date now that you're over her."

"Sung, I know but I don't wanna tell her I forgot we had something planned and was going on a date dude." Jisung sighed. "You're just being overly considerate right now. She's just getting in the way of your happiness. You're so much more happy when she's not-" I cut the call. I don't wanna hear it. I'll just...I'll tell him something came up, or that my sisters coming over.

Minho

Hey min.

My sister is suddenly coming over so have to cancel. Sorryyyyy we can do it another time. You choose the date alright. Love ya! 💕

delivered

I tried to sound as normal as possible but all i felt was hurt. How could I have not noticed that he liked me. Damn I would have dated the life out of him. I have feelings for him too. But if he's gotten over me and I'm in the way of his happiness then I should take a step back. A big step back. I mean he's still my best friend. I don't want him to be unhappy because of me. A tear slipped down my cheek.

I put my phone down and leaned back against the couch. The two mugs of hot chocolate on the table in front of me and the movie waiting to be played. I choked out a sob, hiding my face in my palms before breaking down. Was he just faking his happiness all this time? was I just a heavy weight on his shoulders? I feel like such an idiot.

I switched the T.V off after letting out my emotions through snot and salty tears. I grabbed the two mugs and poured them down the drain before going to my bedroom. I pulled the warm comforter over me and sighed. Can't believe I'm losing my best friend just because I'm that stupid and blind.

[elficially-done-with-life]

You Are Important

Pairing: Boromir x shy/insecure!Reader

Summery: Reader is part of the fellowship and feels insecure. Luckily Boromir is there to help.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

It was the third day that you and the others from the Fellowship had been travelling and so far you had barely exchanged a word with them.

Not because you found them uninteresting or didn't want to interact with them. No, it was more that you had always found it difficult to befriend or talk with new people.

You were also sure that every one of them would quickly lose interest in you anyway. You were neither pretty nor interesting enough for any of them to want to get to know you or to waste their time on you.

That's why you were surprised when Boromir from Gondor sat down next to you on the evening of the third day and struck up a conversation.

You hadn't spoken to him personally until that moment, but he spoke to you openly as if you had known each other for a long time.

After that day, he never left your side. Every evening when you stopped to rest, he would sit next to you and engage you in conversation about this and that, and when you went to sleep, he would always lie down a little closer to you than to the others.

You appreciated his presence and attention very much, because no one had ever been so interested in you before, but you feared that he would soon lose interest in you and realise how boring and insignificant you were. Especially next to someone who shone as brightly as he did.

Most of the time you managed to banish these thoughts. Especially during the day, when you had to keep an eye out for danger or Boromir found a pretty wildflower in the forest and put it in your hair.

But at night, these thoughts always haunted you.

Sometimes you would lie awake for hours and stare up at the starry sky.

Then one evening you couldn't stand it any longer.

Boromir had already put up with you longer than anyone before him. He must have realised long ago how boring you were and just didn't want to be rude by telling you.

You moved away from the rest of the company. You were in a small wooded area and everyone was busy setting up camp for the night that nobody noticed when you took a few steps away.

No one except Boromir.

He came after you until the two of you were standing next to each other, looking quietly into the forest for a while.

"You've been very quiet these last hours," he said worriedly and his gaze wandered to you. Your gaze lowered. "If there's something on your mind, you can tell me."

You tried to gather your thoughts, but somehow you didn't really know what to say to him. You didn't want to lie to him. It just wouldn't have been fair. Not when he had always been so kind.

So you sighed. "Boromir, it's just- why? Why are you still- aren't you bored when you spend time with me?"

Boromir frowned. "Why would I be bored? You're great."

You could feel the heat rising in your cheeks. "That's hardly true. No one has ever spend so much- no one- I'm not," you paused and took a breath. "Is it because we're forced to spend time together? Then I can assure you that it's fine. I'm used to people ignoring me!"

Boromir looked at you with an expression that looked almost pained.

"Please don't talk about yourself like that. Like you're not important. Because you are important." He reached out a hand and gently grasped yours. His large hands were rough and radiated a pleasant warmth. You hadn't realised how cold your hands had become until you felt his warmth.

"I like spending time with you and will continue to do so," he continued gently as he took hold of your hand with both of his and massaged the back of it. "I would also spend time with you if our journey would be over already. If you want, I'll show you my home, Minas Tirith, after all that."

At these words, you finally looked up. "I would be very happy to come with you." you said quietly.

Boromir smiled. Then he leant forward and kissed you gently on the forehead. Your heart began to beat faster.

"Let's go back to the others," he suggested. You could still feel the warmth of his lips on your forehead. "Otherwise they'll eat without us."

Boromir took your hand and you walked back beside him. A smile spread across your face.