#lessons in corruption

[bekah-reading]

92

3/5 (3.5)

Lessons in Corruption is about Cressida, who is separated from her husband and ends up meeting King. King turns out to be her student at the school she works for- he also is the heir to the Fallen Men MC.

King is 18, thankfully, so their isn’t any kind of underage stuff. I hate student/teacher relationships (a lot of the speculative or horror or thriller stuff I like is about it but in a commentary way). In a romance, it just feels weird.

She’s 26/27, and King is 18- so the age gap isn’t all that bad either. My parents were 10 years apart and they met after my mom divorced her first husband so 10 years depending on age and story ain’t bad for me.

I liked the writing, I liked King. I didn’t mind Cressida much, but it’s first person and it’s from her POV the whole time. I found her a bit annoying at times. Spice was good. The problem is that is very much a first book, and it’s very much clunky and a bit unpolished.

I did find it to be a bit of a SOA rip-off so if you like Sons of Anarchy you might want to read this series. The chapters are bit spatially challenged by the fact it seems and is time jumpy in between. So it just seems clunky and all over the place. I feel like this is a forgettable book. Good run, time to move on.

I heard each book in this series is a stand alone but I have to read the books in order. It’s just how I am. I am excited however for the second book. I’m glad I read it, and I enjoyed it for the most part.

[icedcoffeeandsleepdeprivation]

[reality-detective]

Remember this? (1999)

“Paula Jones is paid a $850,000 check from President Clinton, bringing an official end to the four-year saga spurred by her allegations of sexual harassment.”

When does the trial for Bill Clinton begin? 🤔

[vipermenace]

Had a dream the other night of Ario 100 years later

It was such a clear image I had to doodle him

[eldritch-araneae]

Bumblebee Week Day 4 - Secret

I've been here waiting for the longest time I can't believe it's real You lose the battles that you never fight Can't hide from what you feel (Come on!) No more compromise This is do or die And now you've crossed the line You'll wake the beast inside No more compromise This is do or die I'll warn you one last time You'll wake the beast inside!

Song: Sonic Frontiers OST - Break Through It All

[mikodrawnnarratives]

god i want to like them but over the course of all three of the books I'm pretty sure ALL of the OG team were shown to make just. The SHITTIEST choices. Captain Chromium is making me so mad while i relisten to Supernova istg

I want to like the dads. I really do. They have a bunch of likable moments. But CHAPTER 26?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! URGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[jadeinfused]

Pluto is direct in Capricorn until November 19th, after being there since 2008. Do you feel the culminating energy of endings and change in some area of your life?

Pluto in Capricorn: Final Chapter Article

[iamjucie]

A History in Lessons

Chapter 8: "Your Most Prized Spawn" pt. 6

“A-Astarion!” You run up to him and he stares at you. Shock is visible on his face, his eyes scanning you up and down and his mouth agape.

He stands up from his seat, force pushing the chair he was sitting in backward. “Tav, what in the hells happened to you?!”

Words don’t seem to want to leave your throat, you only choke on them. The tightness in your chest is so profound you can only cry. You scream and sob, babbling nonsense. Fuchsia walks up next to Zarovich, she must have followed you through the crowd.

You frantically find Astarion to tell him what happened, but you can't seem to get the words out. You can't seem to think straight at all.

If you skipped the previous chapter here is context that will be needed: +Tav was assaulted sexually and physically by the vampire lord that was compelling her +He fed from her and when he finished, he was able to see a faint image of himself in the mirror, because of the nature of Tav's blood. +The chapter ended when she fell unconscious due to blood loss.

CW: Detailed description of a panic attack, Domestic Abuse, Mind Control, Unwanted compulsion Word Count: 1.6k AO3 Link

photo credit: @astarionposting

You’re still unable to move. Mind clouded and vision blotched with black spots, darkness slowly fills your eyesight. You stare at the mirror that was just so profound for the monster. You close your eyes, succumbing to the heaviness of your eyelids. You feel nothing.

-----

“Vincere est vivere!”

Your eyes open and your lungs fill with a gasp. The blood in your veins regenerates unnaturally fast, filling you with a newfound vigor. You shoot up and  scurry off the bed. On the opposing edge of the mattress, a figure stands hovering. You take a defensive position, your vision not fully adjusted to your newfound consciousness. 

You stand panting frantically, fists raised ready to fight the monster that attacked you. Only when your focus increases, you see Fuchsia holding a spell book in one hand and a healing potion in the other. 

Suddenly you realize you are safe and a wave of relief washes over you. You collapse onto the bed and sob, trying to comprehend what just happened. Fuchsia walks over to where you lay, leans down and rubs your back in an attempt to console you. You sit up and look into her eyes, tears cascading your cheeks. You crash yourself into her, sobbing into her shoulder. She wraps her arms around you.

“You poor child…” Fuchsia mumbles quietly into your hair. 

It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. You’re no longer being compelled and yet you still feel so absent from your body. You feel so cold and despite being in the arms of Fuchsia, you feel so alone.

You pull back from the embrace and stare absently at the ground, sniffling.

“I need to find Astarion. I-” You frantically gather your shoes from the ground and turn to leave the bedroom. “We need to go home.” 

“Tav, wait.” Fuchsia follows you cautiously. “Let me help you… clean up first.”

You catch a glance of yourself in the vanity mirror. You’re covered in bruises, blood, saliva, and tears. Your hair is half undone from the updo it once held, knotted and matted from your struggle. 

You shake your head subtly. “No…” you whisper, looking yourself in the eyes before turning to leave. “No, he needs to see.”

You crash yourself through the door. As you stumble through the hall, the crying starts again. Gasps and sobs leave your mouth as you pick up speed. Your chest is tight and your vision is warping. Is it the blood loss? Adrenaline? Remnants of that cursed wine in your body?

You don’t care. You just need to find him and get the fuck out of here.

You push yourself through the middle of the ballroom. “Astarion?!” you scream between sobs. Pushing vampire lords with weak shoves from the arm holding your shoes to get through. 

“Astarion?!” You look around, the room is spinning. Your vision is glazed over. You scan the faces of the crowd. You sense they’re all staring at you with disgust, yet you can’t see them. You can only see through the tunnel forming in your vision as the room seems to cave in around you. 

You spin and catch a glance of him. He’s sitting at the far right end of the head table talking to Zarovich and other noble looking vampire lords.

“Astarion!” You sprint clumsily towards him. He is sitting casually with his legs crossed. One hand holding a goblet of the same style you drank from earlier and the other gesturing enthusiastically as he talks to the group of vampire lords surrounding him. They’re all so enamored by his charm.

“A-Astarion!” You run up to him and he stares at you. Shock is visible on his face, his eyes scanning you up and down and his mouth agape.

He stands up from his seat, force pushing the chair he was sitting in backward. “Tav, what in the hells happened to you?!”

Words don’t seem to want to leave your throat, you only choke on them. The tightness in your chest is so profound you can only cry. You scream and sob, babbling nonsense. Fuchsia walks up next to Zarovich, she must have followed you through the crowd. 

You turn and survey the crowd of people in Astarion’s audience. You see several vampire lords, two ladies, Zarovich, and him. That monster that did this to you. He stares at you with raised eyebrows, feigning ignorance. Acting as if he knows nothing of what happened to you. He leans to the man next to him and whispers some snide comment while looking you up and down.

You feel utterly ill. The room is spinning, and you can’t seem to breathe properly. Inhaling and exhaling at a rapid pace, you turn to Astarion still looking at you. He’s clearly trying to talk but your mind is so filled with panic that you can barely comprehend it.

You are just staring at him, hoping he can understand what you need. You need to get out of here.

Zarovich leaves his seat at the opposing head of the table and saunters over to casually stand next to Astarion. He places a hand on his shoulder and leans in to stare at you, like you are a specimen to study. A situation to be handled. You find yourself focusing on his words. 

“Lord Astarion, what ever will you do to handle this?” he gestures to you before turning to face Astarion. “You will handle it, won’t you? I mean, you are it’s master after all.” he leans into Astarion’s ear as if to share a secret, yet does not whisper quietly “Unless, it only calls you that in the bedroom.”

A shiver grows up your spine and you turn to Fuchsia who is standing arms length from Zarovich. She has her arms crossed at her chest and she bows her head down, avoiding eye contact with you. You can’t believe this… It was all a ruse. She was only fishing for dirt on Astarion for Zarovich the entire time. This woman who just held you and comforted you after being assaulted was a fucking spy. Your hyperventilating increases speed. 

Astarion whips his head back toward your hysterics. His face is void of color and he has a look on his face that you can’t quite interpret. Embarrassment? Anger? Pity? Whatever it is, he is feeling it toward you. 

You want to grab his hand and drag him to the carriage and get the hells out of this place, but your panic renders you useless. You sit on the ground and grab your hair in your fists. You’re so overwhelmed. Astarion’s face relaxes slightly and he flinches forward, like he instinctively wants to comfort you until glancing at Zarovich. You don’t see what Zarovich’s face does in response, but you know it gave a message to Astarion to stop because he only straightened his posture and squatted down in front of you.

He grabs your face covered in mucus and tears. Although he’s not doing anything particularly kind or romantic, his touch gives you a semblance of comfort. You melt into his hands, stifling sobs leaving your mouth. If only he would just pull you into an embrace and tell you it’s going to be okay, maybe this would stop. He moves his head to enter your view, establishing contact with your frantic eyes. You lock onto him. Your eyes plead to him to give you any semblance of comfort.

His eyes glow as his compulsion fills you.  

“Stand up, stop crying.” he commands quietly while looking into your eyes. 

What is this? That’s not what’s supposed to happen. Your legs straighten and you rise from the floor. Your sobs and hyperventilating come to a sudden halt. This isn’t what he was supposed to do. You still need to cry, the feeling burns in your chest and it needs to come out but it won’t. It can’t

“Astarion…” you whimper, pleading. 

He glances slightly around at the audience that cultivated around you, all staring at him judgmentally, expectantly. 

“Do not speak.” his nose turns up slightly, displaying a false sense of confidence. You know it's not real. Looking into his eyes they scream only weakness. He looks so pathetic putting on this act.

You hear his voice in your head, ringing like a thought. 

I’m sorry, we are going to leave now.

You could respond telepathically, but don’t. There's nothing to say to him. When he looks into your eyes, you can almost recognize him. But, as soon as he turns away, it’s like his face changes shape and you do not see your lover. You see only a stranger. A stranger who has complete control over you. 

You stand still, unable to move if you wanted to. Unable to speak if you wanted to. Any autonomy over your body has been stripped from you.

He clasps his hands together and faces Zarovich. “Well, it has been lovely. Truly a great party, but I must be seeing myself out.” His puppeteering of your body guides your feet to start to walk to the exit next to him. The feeling of moving without moving is disorienting. You feel like screaming.

“What? Leaving already? Surely you aren’t letting an unruly spawn ruin your entire evening.” Zarovich laughs. “Pity, we didn’t have time for our toast.” Zarovich’s voice is quieter, trying to emulate speaking under his breath, but still loud enough to be heard.

Astarion turns from the exit to face him. “A toast? For whom?”

“For you of course! The very first Vampire Ascendant.” He proclaims, voice projecting through the hall. There’s still a silence lingering in the crowd from the scene that just played out. There are some hums of approval amongst them, you cannot see them however. Astarion still has you facing the exit. 

Suddenly your heels turn, you are facing Astarion and Zarovich. Astarion looks from you back to Zarovich. 

“I suppose one more drink couldn’t hurt.”

To be continue...

[news4dzhozhar]

[girl4music]

You can interpret that the demon who gave Spike his soul back did it as a sort of punishment. It certainly wasn't a reward in his perspective. Spike didn't "win" his soul to him. He was burdened with it because, according to him, Spike is a "pathetic excuse for a demon". And it was a great insult to him that he came for his soul as a soulless vampire.

However - it is a reward to Spike because Spike specifically went there and fought in the demons trials to get his soul. So to him, it is a victory.

How this changes Spike now he has a soul depends on which perspective you're looking at the soul-having from. Good innocent people cursed Angelus with a soul. It was his punishment and Angelus never felt it as such at first because he was that evil as a demon. It took years for his guilt and regret to catch up to him. For his soul to "work" so to speak. Yes, he was miserable but he wasn't "changed".

Spike... well, no spoilers. But... baring in mind that he chose to get his soul back... he doesn't really change at all. And this can be quite odd to think about because it makes it seem like he doesn't really care about it either. But given who he was as human, it makes sense that there's barely any change at all.

I think it just depends on what perspective you go with and whether you believed soulless Spike was a demon possession. I never did. I don't believe any turned vampire in this show is a demon possession.

Not even the everyday Buffy's patrol kills. I believe it's a demon corruption but that's different. That's a whole other thing entirely to what possession is.

One thing you have to understand is though that just like when Angelus became Angel, he still wasn't Liam so it wasn't Liam's soul he got back. Spike is not William now he has a soul. He never will be William again. He didn't get William's soul back. He just got a soul. The only reason we say "back" is because we believe they're the same entity as they were when human. They are. But they're not the same identity. Their human identity is dead.

This Spike is not William.

It's Spike with a soul.

There is barely any change at all. He has a change of perspective in morality. That's about it. Don't let the noodle hair throw you off. You're not seeing anybody new. He just has to get used to his ensouled self.

[reality-detective]

American History You Were Never Taught! 🤔

[sporco-filth]

Love tthe new story! I'll admit that I'm more biased to female slobs, but I love the premise more :3 It always very entertaining seeing people essentially corrupt themselves into being a slob by accident.

I'm glad you like it because I'll probably finish it before any of the others Ii'm working on (if only bc I have a very clear idea of how the story will go)

and I'm sorry I focus so much on male slobs. I've got a few plans involving female slobs but this blog'll probably still be mostly male-focused.

but yeah this story... I wish I had more time to write but life is so busy........ also I seem to get my best story ideas lying in bed and then when I'm sitting up they are never as good. it's a shame it's so hard to type lying down all swaddled up in blankets... maybe a pencil and notepad would work better.

[gay-caesar-truther]

Because if his time in the Legion Shepherd has a major phobia and dogs, Coyotes in particular. He was a Fumentarii for most of his adult life, and despite the amnesia his body kept score. His phobia of Coyotes and his visceral emotional reaction to Vulpes at Nipton was what inspired him to look into his own past instead of just moving on and leaving it behind

[irregodless]

inside out 2 is interesting but it sure is the exact same plot as inside out 1 down to the emotions getting stranded outside hq as a core aspect of rileys isbeliminated and having to start from scratch while joy loses hope and cries while watching memories in a pile of memories that were deemed unimportant before being deus ex machinad by an imaginary cartoon

[thomasthetankengine]

"this found family in xyz media shouldnt have split up at the end" and then xyz medias whole message is hammered home by the found family going their separate ways. yeah the ending might be a gut punch but if its thematically consistent it should be praised more than if its good for your fanfics or whatever

[constantly-deactivated]

Short clip of Tucker again on the JFK files and CIA involvement and some reading afterwards 🤔

Music by👇

Enjoy the Show 🍿