#now the site is just a huge piece of shit like he is

[tianhai03]

ngl ive been thinking abt moving back here and being primarily active here again. the bot followers on twitter are starting to piss me off real bad

[kiefbowl]

I was reading an opinion piece on Kate Middleton's cancer diagnosis on CNN by Jamal Baig about the increasing rates of cancer in patients under 50. As far as 5 minutes of googling and JSTORing can lend me to believe, there's nothing illegitimate about Dr. Baig. However, I found this bit in his opinion interesting:

Now, I'm always dubious when reading anything that attributes a very broad generalized idea that changes in diets have caused an increased in cancer, because more often than not it's not pointing to an exploration of, say, increased pesticide use, but the author's personal bias against the quote unquote "unhealthy", especially those who are deemed "fat" by the medical industry.

That being said, I was curious what source he linked, half expecting it to lead to just another op-ed from some other doctor from who knows when, but I was pleasantly surprised! Written by a man named Michael Donaldson, it was an evidentiary review published in a scientific journal called "Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet."

Now I wasn't going to give the whole thing a read, but I stopped in each section, gave a quick skim to get a general vibe, moved on to the next section, etc. I was immediately suspicious that the very first line in the abstract was "It has been estimated that 30–40 percent of all cancers can be prevented by lifestyle and dietary measures alone" as that seems to be a bananas statistic to just posit, but it still had the air of scientific integrity, so I did my skim.

The first handful of sections had things that gave me some moments of pause, that this article was in fact another doctor simply cherry picking data to confirm his own biases, but nothing so egregious as to do a spit take. That comes in a few minutes. The first section that made really go hold the phone was when we got to his Flax Seed section.

Compare how he writes about Red Meat...:

(that's all he wrote, btw)

...with how he starts writing about Flax Seed:

Did I just enter a Flax Seed commercial? Does this guy work for BIG FLAX SEED? on and on he writes about Flax Seed, and I start getting a sense that perhaps this man has a Flax Seed Agenda. In any case, he eventually moves on and I quickly skim to get to the end (because it's boring among other things).

So, who exactly is Michael Donaldson?

Girl are you kidding me

The Hallelujah Acres Foundation is a FOR PROFIT company that sells a """biblical""" based diet program called the hallelujah diet and also sells supplements on said site.

Now, in case you forgot where I started with this, this was the link provided as a "source" to a legitimate doctor's claim in an op-ed about cancer that "at least part of the answer" of why cancer is increasing in under 50 patients are the "changes to nutrition and lifestyle that took hold in middle of the last century." Dr. Baig did not read this article, or if he did was not concerned that it was written by the employee of a company that profits from unscientific research it uses to sell supplements and diets. Which is worse, I don't know.

The point I'm making is that you absolutely need to be vigilant all the time. You need to understand that doctors can not only have biases, but agendas. Researchers can have biases and agendas. Scientists can have biases and agendas. And that magical thinking about real health issues that can affect your future can permeate the scientific community because weirdos write convincing enough evidence that support their already determined world view.

This kind of shit is the reason why women go into doctor offices complaining about pain in their abdomen and get told to go lose weight and come back in 6 months. This is why ideas like moralizing eating have huge effects on women's health and influence medical misogyny, and why it's a feminist issue.

[milkmissiles]

Mha boys when you have a stomach ache

(Because I am currently in excruciating pain lol)

Fluff. Literally just comfort and fluff. A little bit of implied spice.

Character index: denki, bakugou, shouto, kirishima x GN reader

Denki

This bitch would be so dramatic.

He would ask you all the questions.. like for someone who isn't book smart at all he sure does know a shit ton of symptoms.

Please humor him though he just wants to make sure your not dying.

I mean waking up in the middle of the night to see you curled up in a ball, tears rolling down your face, and your entire body tense and shaking is definitely a terrifying site for this poor boy..

But once you convince him you actually are not on deaths door, he will calm down a bit. He's still freaked the fuck out and absolutely has no idea what he's supposed to do but he will try his best.

He will hold you close all night, rubbing small circles into your stomach to distract you, if it's really bad he might give you some little shocks to distract you more.

In the morning, he'll run you a hot bath, helping you get in. But he won't leave you to your bath without saying something like, "Aren't you gonna be lonely in there without me? Y'know I could totally join you~"

He really likes to test his luck...

But once you shoot him a bit of a glare, indicating you are definitely not in the mood with the pain and all. He will leave you to it.

Although you have to admit baths are a lot more boring without him around...

Bakugou

He would somehow find a way to get mad at you?

Like bakugou wakes up to see you like dying on the floor, trying to find a comfortable position, and his first thought is to scold the absolute shit out of you...

"What the hell's up with you? Why are you curled up like that on the floor? You're gonna give yourself a headache if you sleep without head support idiot! Get back on the bed right now you stupid fuck!!"

He literally drags you back into bed by you collar before storming out of the room. He comes back with an advil, a glass of water and a snack and pretty much stuffs your face with them.

"You have a stomach ache, huh? Well, maybe you shouldn't have eaten that piece of toast you dropped on the floor!! I swear if you didn't have me you'd be dead! How stupid do you have to be to get yourself sick like this huh?? Huh?!"

He would say all this while stuffing a pain killer down your throat and force feeding you a granola bar...

"C'mon eat. You can't take advil on an empty stomach dumbass! Get it together you should know this!"

Once he's done scolding you, he'll huff, laying back down on the bed. Positioning himself so he's spooning you. One of his hands on your stomach, the other in-between your thighs. Turning himself into your own personal heat pack.

He'll make sure you get to sleep before he let's himself fall back asleep.

In the morning, he'll make you breakfast, your favorite breakfast in fact. The whole time grumbling about how its your fault he got no sleep last night. Shoving a plate of beautifully cooked food infront of you...

As pissed as he makes you think he is, he really was worried about you.

Shouto

As cold as the people who don't know him think he is. You know him well enough to know he's a huge softy.

He would immediately ask of your ok. Rubbing your back gently. He doesn't even skip a beat when he sees you curled up in child's pose on your shared bed, your breath sharp and unsteady.

Asks you if you need need anything, and when you respond with a sad sounding "sleep," He smiles softly at you. Thinking you look kinda cute like this..

After he gives himself a moment to figure out what you need, he'll go to your medicine cabinet and get you a painkiller. He'll pour you a glass of water and light a sented candle for extra relaxation. He is determined to get you some sleep.

He will pet your hair softly, speaking to you with the gentlest tone.

"Hey, y/n... can you sit up for me, please? I got you a painkiller, but you need to sit up to take it...*

He would help you up, giving you the pill and the water. He would help you lay back down. Cuddling you up to his left side and heating it up a bit to help your muscles relax. And if you start getting too hot, he'll place his right hand on the back of your neck. Cooling you off.

He would keep you at the perfect temperature to sleep. And you would sleep. Surprisingly enough, one of the best sleeps of your entire life.

Kirishima

This poor boy is absolutely lost.

He has zero idea how to help you and is instead left trying to calm you down as you sob into the bed sheets...

(Please, he's so freaked out)

I can see him patting your back like an awkward dad y'know?

He tries to talk you out of it too. Trying to act like he's not scared out of his mind that you're dying or some shit..

"Hey.. hey. You're ok.. you're ok, right? You're fine. Im here. You don't have to cry.. please don't cry.. are you okay??"

He's trying so hard but is so confused. Your talking is almost unintelligible through your tears, but eventually, he hears a soft, "advil..." Through the sobs.

He will fetch you some immediately. It takes him less than a minute before he's back. Advil in hand. A very determined look on his face.

Within like 30 minutes your passed out on his chest again. Sleeping oh so peacefully. He can finally breath, thanking the gods your ok. He was so worried you have no idea. Or I guess you probably do considering how he was fumbling over his words and desperately trying to help you. Now he just runs his hands through your hair, falling asleep in the quiet bliss of your breathing.

He will research the fuck out of this in the morning and make sure he is well prepared for the next incident. After all it is so not manly to not know how to care for your significant other..

[mykneeshurt]

So happy your requests are open! Would love to see your take on Alex Keller. Smut of course. Dealers' choice, I'd only ask no noncon or dubcon.

😘🥰

Here you go my little pickle ❤️

Protector/bodyguard - established relationship

Alex Keller x F!reader

Warnings - minors DNI, 18+, explicit smut

A/N - I know nothing about computers, coding or hacking lmao

Protection

You weren’t sure wether work could get anymore boring on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, but here you were. Proved wrong. Again. Price had left a mountain of work for you to do, intel he wanted double checking, maps he wanted upgrading, a new location for a safe house. If you were being honest he was being a bit of a prick.

Needing to stretch your legs you wandered to the kitchen for coffee. Shitty ass office coffee. The kettle boiled and you went to fetch milk from the fridge. Lo and behold there was none. Slamming the fridge shut you stormed back to your office. Could today get any worse?

Evidently. It could.

There was a pop up on your screen that you’d not seen before. Investigating further you found that a piece of code you’d been working on, to find a terrorist group, had worked. You’d broken their code. ‘Price! Get in here! Now!’ You yelled at the top of your lungs. ‘Why? Haven’t I given you enough work?!’

‘You’re gonna wanna see this!’

His footsteps echoed down the hallway as he ran towards your office. ‘What’s up love?’

Spinning in your chair you had a huge grin on your face, looking rather proud. ‘Well, you know that group in Al Mazrah? Moving weapons. That you’ve been struggling to find for months? This is their co-ordinates.’ Smug wouldn’t even begin to describe how you looked.

Price planted both hands on your shoulders, congratulating you. ‘Well I never. Well done love. I’ll let the boys know!’ He fired off a few texts and began looking at the screen with you. As you both tried to locate it on the map suddenly the cursor began to move on its own. ‘What the fuck?’ You whispered squinting at the screen, ‘someone’s taken control of the computer?’

Price looked over your shoulder just as confused. Until it dawned on you. ‘Oh fuck!’ You yelled, jumping up from your chair. Hand over your mouth your chest heaved. ‘What? What’s wrong?!’ Price half spoke, half shouted. ‘It’s them! They’ve hacked me back! Oh fuck oh fuck!’

Without thinking you yanked the plug out from the socket, the computer shutting down. Screen now black. ‘Shit. I’ll let Laswell know-.’ You cut him off before he could continue. ‘I don’t know what they’ve seen John! They could have taken anything from my computer! My name? My address? This place?!’

Panic swelled inside you, chest tight, walls closing in as your heart thumped in your chest. You felt dizzy. ‘Hey hey hey! Sh sh sh’ he cooed, pulling you into a tight hug. ‘I’ll get Laswell on this. Go home, grab the essentials. I’ll have someone waiting for you there, they’ll take you to a safe house. Let’s keep you locked down till we know what’s happened.’

———

After grabbing some essentials; toothbrush, toothpaste, clean pants, comfy clothes, meds and of course wine you ran back downstairs. A black 4x4 was already say outside, just like Price had said.

As you locked your door a familiar voice chirped up behind you. ‘How’d I know it was you causing trouble?’ Spinning round you caught site of an old friend. Alex Keller. ‘Oh my god! Alex!’ You jumped into his arms, giving him a warm hug. ‘So you’re the one Price sent to look after me eh?’

‘Unfortunately’ he chuckled, ‘come on get in, we need to move.’

You spent the car ride catching up with your old friend, exchanging war stories, joking, laughing. It was easy to forget they may be a target on your head.

The safe house was a small flat on the second floor of a run down complex. You pulled a face when you saw it, making Alex chuckle. ‘It’s been a long time since I stayed in one of these. Jesus’ you sighed. Clapping you on the back Alex took your bag and led the way.

The flat wasn’t too bad, it was clean, even if the wall paper was hanging on for dear life. The floor was worn, blackout blinds on every window and the distinct musty smell that only a safe house would have. ‘How long you keeping me here?’ You asked as you wandered around, learning the layout. ‘Couple days tops. Laswell’s on it, should know soon enough if they got any info on you.’

Rolling your eyes you couldn’t help but laugh, ‘it would be me wouldn’t it.’ Alex smiled as he removed his bulletproof vest and hoodie. You had missed him. ‘Loving the whiskers’ you chuckled as you swiped your thumb over his facial hair. ‘Im gonna go shower, need to wash as much of this day off me as possible.’

After your shower you felt slightly more relaxed, comfortable clothes and the smell of food coming from the kitchen. Alex had microwaved two meals, a spaghetti carbonara for you, and a bolognaise for him. Giggling you ran back to fetch the wine from your bag, a merlot, one of your favourites.

Setting it down Alex looked at you in disbelief, ‘really?’ You nodded enthusiastically ‘Price told me to pack essentials. Soooo …’ you shrugged gesturing to the wine.

You both enjoyed dinner, Alex cleaned up while your settled on the sofa, wine in hand. ‘You gonna have a glass with me?’ You asked, hopeful. He shook his head ‘can’t while I’m protecting your ass can I?’ Pouting you tried your best to flash him your most innocent and sad puppy dog eyes. ‘Pretty please?’ He rolled his eyes while he bit his lip, ‘I guess I can have one. For you.’

‘Well, lucky you there’s only enough left for one. I may be on my third glass’ you grimaced.

He settled down on the sofa and sipped the wine, you weren’t sure if you were more tipsy than you gave yourself credit for. But Alex looked … handsome. You watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed the wine, how his tongue left a trail of saliva on his lips. His splayed hips, taught muscles under his t-shirt.

Jesus what were you thinking.

You felt a heat pooling in your stomach as you studied him, a want, a need. His face lit up as he scrolled on his phone, completely oblivious to your growing need for him. ‘So, fill me in are you seeing anyone?’ You asked, as you finished the last of your wine. ‘Nah. I was seeing someone for a bit but she couldn’t cope with me being away for months on end’ he shrugged, ‘what about you?’

‘Same, the dating pool seems pretty thin. It gets pretty … lonely’ you bit your lip, averting your gaze from him.

Putting his phone away he placed all his attention on you. ‘Bullshit. How are you single? Or at least not even dating. If I remember rightly on our nights out you’d have a pick of the bunch.’

‘Getting old now Alex’ you winked.

‘Shut up. You could have anyone you wanted.’

‘Anyone?’ You asked, narrowing your gaze at him. He swallowed, hard. ‘You’re drunk.’

‘And you’re handsome’ you whispered as leant over to stroke his thigh.

Sensing no hesitation from him you slipped onto his lap, thighs spread wide as you gulped the last of his wine. You played with his dog tags between your fingers. The metal warm from resting on his skin. ‘Do you want me to stop Alex?’ You asked as you held his gaze, you felt him try to readjust his hips as you sank yourself lower. He shook his head. ‘Words handsome.’

‘N-no’ he stammered.

Pressing your torso against his you rolled your hips, his cock hard beneath you. Hovering your lips just above his you whispered ‘what do you want me to do to you?’ His breath visibly caught in his chest at your words. ‘God … anything you want.’

‘Mmm good boy’ you hummed.

You pushed your lips to his, pulling him into the kiss. The fire in your pussy raged as he trailed his hands down your ribs and onto your waist, holding you there. Throwing your arms around his neck you wound your fingers in his hair. He coaxed your mouth open to deepen the kiss, his tongue slipped over yours as he encouraged you to grind on his hips. The pressure danced along your clit as he moved your hips back and forth.

‘Fuck’ you breathed as you broke the kiss ‘you feel so big.’ He whined at your praise as he lent in to kiss you again. But you stopped him, instead climbing off him and nuzzling yourself in between his thighs. Undoing his belt you smiled up at him greedily, pulling his boxers down just enough to free his cock. Your mouth watered at the sight.

You kissed the top of his cock, causing him to whimper under his breath. With a swipe of your tongue you licked from the base to top, tantalisingly slow. Eyes locked on his the entire time. He gripped onto the sofa, bucking his hips. Placing gentle kisses along his shaft you watched as he tried to keep still, veins protruding from his hands. ‘Fuck … please’ he muttered, voice cracking.

You hummed against his cock, smiling at how quickly he’d become a whimpering pathetic mess. Taking him into your mouth you bobbed your head, allowing saliva to overflow from your lips. His breathing became shallow, fast, desperate. He placed his hands at the back of your head, gently pressing you down as far as your mouth would allow you. Gagging you dug your nails into his thighs, tears pricked the corner of your eyes as he tested your gag reflex.

He writhed beneath you, whispered moans, strangled whimpers as you swallowed his cock. The salty taste of precum danced on your tongue, signalling it was time to stop. Pulling back saliva dripped from your mouth, drawing in a large breath you looked up at him. His pupils blown wide, his eyes now appeared black. ‘Fuck’ he murmured.

You climbed onto his lap, but not before removing your trousers and panties. Holding his cock you ran it along your cunt, coating it with your arousal. ‘You gonna fuck me Alex? You gonna make me cum?’

‘God … yes, you’re so wet’ he said as he gripped your bare thighs.

Sinking down his cock stretched you open, filling you perfectly. You both moaned, placing your foreheads against one another. He moved you again, making you grind on him, his pubic bone added the right amount of pressure to your clit. Taking back control you began to bounce, he held your ass as you took his cock. The sound of skin slapping filled the tiny flat as you both became breathless.

Alex pulled you into a kiss, making you grind once more ‘need to feel you cum baby’ he purred. ‘So close … fuck’ you panted. You took his hand and placed it on your clit, he moved his fingers in small circles as he felt your pussy tighten around him. ‘Don’t fucking stop’ you ordered burying your face in his neck.

With one more circular motion you came around his cock, you whined into his skin as you rocked your hips back and forth. ‘Shit Alex!’ His breath became ragged as he tip toed on the verge of his own orgasm. Feeling him tense beneath you, you moved yourself up and down coaxing him to finish. ‘Fill me Alex, cum in my pussy’ you said as you nipped his ear.

He slammed your hips down on his cock, hard, once, twice, three times. On the final thrust he came, his eyes screwed shut, mouth agape as he struggled for air. He wrapped his arms around you as his cock pulsed inside you. You felt full, satiated. Grinning you bit your lip, ‘that was amazing.’

He nodded in agreement, ‘fuck, if you ever need protecting again lemme know.’

[ramp-it-up]

TEACH ME + R U SHY?

Pairing: Lloyd Hansen x Reader

Word Count:  1.7 K

Warnings: 18+ As always, MINORS DNI, Not Beta’d. All mistakes my own. Employer/employee power imablance, seeming age gap, virgin reader, manipulation, seeming sort of dub con maybe but not really, use of the d word, nipple play, virgin kink, thigh riding, woman on top, size kink, pain with sex, the old trickeroo, use of paralytic, agent reader. Twisted porn with plot for Valentine's Day, my Loves.

A/N:  Based on this askl. Based on my Candy Hearts Valentine Prompt List found Here. Hope you like it @flordeamatista​ 💕

I no longer operate a taglist. Follow @rampitupandread to be notified when I post.        

I Do NOT consent to my work being reposted, translated or presented on any other blog or site other than by myself.

Three days of wearing your maid’s uniform tight against your braless tits and bare ass was all it took before Lloyd spoke to you, beckoning you back after you’d scurried out of the room when he entered.

He sucked on his lollipop and you let your gaze linger on his watermelon red lips. Then you licked yours.

“Want some candy, little girl?”

You smiled slightly at his joke and looked down at the open bag of sugary candy on the table.

“Go on. Take one. Any one.”

You reached out for a piece, and then drew your hand back. Then you looked at him, eyes wide.

Lloyd cocked his head at you and bent down, watermelon breath in your face.

“Aw. Are you dumb or something?”

You shook your head and cast your eyes down, biting your lip.

Lloyd tsked and then moved closer to you, reaching into the bag and searching, then taking your hand and placing the selected piece into your palm. It was chalky and white with pink writing.

R U SHY?

You looked up at him with huge doe eyes and nodded, biting your lip.

“Fuccckkkk.”

Lloyd whispered, putting his hand on your shoulder and rubbing it while looking into your eyes. You were sure you looked mesmerized.

“Little Miss Innocent. Bet you’ve never had a man touch you in your personal places before. Have you Sweetie?”

You just continued to stare up at him.

Lloyd palmed the back of your head and brought you in for a forehead kiss. You whimpered a bit.

His hands ran over your hair as you trembled at his proximity.

“These fucking little girl space buns have been driving me crazy. Along with your tits and ass.”

Lloyds eyes ran down your body.

“No underwear, Sweetie?”

“I… only have one set. And I wear those to church on Sunday.”

Lloyd’s eyes rolled.

“You’re killing me here, Sweetie. How old are you?”

“19.”

The lie rolled off your tongue smoothly.

“Shit.”

Lloyd took his lollipop and pushed it between your lips, pulling it in and out, making you fellate the candy. You gagged a little bit.

“Fuck. Are you…” He moved close to your ear. “Are you a virgin?”

You blushed and nodded, looking down at your shoes. Lloyd’s eyes lit up like he’d found buried treasure. He leaned close again.

“Do you think I’m…attractive?”

You gasped and he nodded and continued to whisper.

“I’ve seen you looking at me. You wanna know a secret?”

You nodded.

“I think you’re cute. I’ve been wanting to…”

Lloyds eyes raked down your body in the most obscene way. You shivered and the glint in his eyes told you that he caught it.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you something Sweetie. Can I… can I… kiss you?”

Lloyd had been moving closer so that his mouth was now just inches from yours.

You closed the distance like your lips were made of magnets. You moaned as Lloyd turned the innocent kiss into a lewd demonstration of his new found possession of you.

“Mmmmm. So sweet. I’d love to kiss those lips again. And so much more. I’d love to show you a lot more.”

He had you in his arms now and you were like a pliable doll under his spell.

“Would you like that?”

You reached for the bag of candy and quickly found what you wanted. You handed him the magic piece: TEACH ME.

20 minutes later, you were riding Lloyd’s right thigh, the weave in his linen pants making your clit vibrate.

Your hands desperately clutched his shirt as he had his way with you, sucking your tits, his greedy mouth and huge cock pounding next your leg as he ravaged your soul. He was very skilled.

He leaned over to whisper in your ear, but instead of sweet nothings, he growled, “You’re already ruining my pants, don’t you dare wrinkle this shirt.”

You unclenched your hands and placed them on his broad shoulders, feeling the strong bones and muscle there.

“So fucking tight. I can feel you through my pants.”

Lloyd’s hands pushed and pulled your pelvis, dragging your clit against the heavenly material of his pants and the corded muscles of his thigh.

“Get off, Sweetie. It will loosen you up when I tear you apart.”

You shuddered from his words and the cool air of the room. Your maid’s uniform was bunched around your hips and unbuttoned down to your navel; it might as well have been off. As if reading your mind, Lloyd tore it off you, sending buttons flying every which way.

“You’ll clean that up. Right?

You nodded quickly, although your muscles ached, and yet you’d trained for this moment.

You focused on your breathing, and the goals of the mission. The fact that you were enjoying this, immensely, too much, was the one thought that you put out of your mind and you were reacting as any human in this situation would: Spill your bodily fluids all over Lloyd’s impeccable white pants.

Lloyd’s sinful lips and that titty tickler mustache of his was working overtime to push you over the edge.

“I’ve wanted to taste these beauties ever since I laid eyes on them.”

Lloyd leaned down and sucked your right nipple, pulling off of it with a pop. Then leaned over to the left and bit it.

You jolted, but it did no good as Lloyd held you fast to his leg, granting you no mercy from your impending orgasm.

“I know you’re so sticky and sweet. Just like candy, yeah?”

“Want me to suck your clit like I’m sucking these titties? Yeah?”

“Want to cum for me? Get that greedy little virgin hole of yours all wet for me so I can split you open? Yeah?

Lloyd was taunting you with rhetorical questions. Of course you wanted it all.

You moaned like you’d never heard yourself before, and came, shaking and crying into Lloyd’s shoulder.

“Oh, there, there, Sweetie.”

Lloyd patted your ass as you came down.

“Suck it up and get the fuck up so that I can have that cherry of yours.”

You obeyed him on wobbly legs, watching as he disrobed and lay down on the bed.

“Now I’m gonna be nice and let your tight little pussy slide down my monster pole.”

You looked at him and silently agreed.

It was a monster’s cock.

“Get that ass over here.”

You tentatively walked toward the edge of the bed and climbed on, your legs spread to accommodate his thick thighs.

“C’mon!”

Lloyd motioned for you to move by waving his fingers. You scooted up over his bobbing cock as he started tuning your clit again.

“Go ahead Sweetie, sit on my cock. Go ahead and bite the bullet. It’s about time.”

You nodded again and took a deep breath.

Lloyd continued to finger your clit as you carefully lowered yourself onto him. You bit your lip as he entered you, and tears rolled down your face. You stopped avert about two of his nine inches breached you.

“Damn, you’re tight, Sweetie. Keep going.”

You nodded and winced as you slowly slid down his huge cock, grimacing as if in pain. A tear or two rolled down your cheeks.

The look on Lloyd’s face changed. There seemed to be a shift in his demeanor. He was hooked.

“Oh shit, Sweetie. Is my big nasty dick hurting you. Fuck, that’s so fucking sexy.”

You reached the root of his cock, you looked at him, eyes wide.

“Damn Sweetie. I love to see you ruined. Now move and give me all of that cherry.”

Lloyd grabbed your bottom and worked it as you scream- moaned into his mouth. He swallowed your emotions as he worked you until you got just a tad looser and wetter.

“Thaaaat’s it Sweetheart. Feels good, doesn’t it? Now bounce for me.”

Lloyd lay back with his hands behind his head, his biceps popping. You had to admit his body was banging.

You used it as inspiration as you bounced up and down on his thickness.

Lloyd moved his hands down to your legs, rubbing upwards..

“Looka these thighs. Like a thoroughbred. And looks these tits. Make those beauties bounce.”

He took hold of your nipples and twisted them, causing you to move more erraticly.

“They are the perfect size. I’m

Obsessed with them. Obsessed.”

Lloyd rolled his eyes and repeated the act. He looked down to see your cream seeping out around his cock,

“You like it when I touch you, yeah?”

Lloyd looked up at you from under those sinfully long eyelashes

You nodded and threw you head back as his thumbs reached the apex of your thighs, you were really feeling it now.

As you started trembling, Lloyd’s fingers worked overtime.

“Need to see you cum for me again, Sweets. Gimme.”

Greedy Lloyd got his way, and then shot off inside you, moaning and whimpering as he looked at you with those blue eyes.

You leaned down and kissed him, grabbing the cloth from the pocket of your uniform on the floor.

Lloyd’s eyes were closed so he didn’t see it coming, and you had enough chemical on it so that it made him paralyzed almost instantly.

“What, not whining like a little bitch now, Hunh, Lloyd?”

He tried to lift his hand in vain as you climbed off him. All that moved was his finger. You watched him, impressed.

“You are such a stupid asshole, Lloyd. But then again, you weren’t thinking with your brain.”

You collected the the fluids from between your legs.

You held up the vial.

“Now we have your DNA, yeah?”

Lloyds eyes glinted as you mocked him.

“So, so not smart, Lloyd, banging the 19 year old virgin maid?”

You leaned down to speak to him as drool ram out of his mouth.

“Not 19. 26, but I was a virgin. I sacrificed that arbitrary designation to get what we wanted.”

You walked to his closet and pulled out your bag, getting dressed.

“And you can call me Nine.”

You cocked your head at him.

“Too bad I’ll be far away when you can move again. Would love to give it another go.”

You looked wistfully at his body.

“Maybe some other time.”

You walked out of the door.

“Happy Valentine’s Day Lloyd.”

The salutation drifted toward Lloyd’s immobile body.

A tear of rage slid down his cheek.

[see-arcane]

one video game site describing the game's premise:

"In the trailer, Harker was perceived as a much more efficient and courageous vampire hunter, as opposed to the classic portrayal of Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker’s books and films, including Dracula."

sir... sir... he literally killed dracula in the book...

You know.

I think this broke me just a little more. My camel back was already broken under so many straws, but I think this one made me collapse back in on myself.

So.

There's a lot to be said about the inspirational power of great works of media. Stories and masterpieces that spur wonder, love, and awe. The ones that give you a goal to aspire to in your own creative endeavors. The strive to match up to something great can do a lot.

But I'll tell you, friend. There is nothing quite as empowering as pure, unbridled spite. Just full-on loathing for every piece of half-assed, fan fictionified, self insert-riddled, character-botching, absolute shrug of a creative work that tries to hide under the disguise of a public domain title to cover for its inadequacies, and not only getting away with it because so much of the audience hasn't read the book, not only profiting off of it, but leaving a nigh irremovable stain on the entire pop cultural mind that is so hugely, categorically, monstrously Wrong, that the 'understanding' of the book and its characters is treated as offhand. Because 'everyone knows' it.

"Sure! Everyone knows Jonathan Harker doesn't have any real vampire hunting experience! That's all Van Helsing's shtick, what with him being the very definite for-real nemesis of Dracula, ha ha! Nice of these video game people to give the little guy a shot, eh?"

Just. Wow.

I am ready to make so, so much Jonathan Harker shit. Barking Harker? Sure. Absolutely. Doc's open right now. But maybe I'll do more. Love is my kindling, but bile is the fuel on the fire.

I can do Jonathan Harker as the Superior Dracula, complete with ripping Coppola's reincarnation love interest gimmick out his asshole and doing the Romantic Dracula Trope real justice. Why? BECAUSE IT'S ACTUALLY JONATHAN AND JONATHAN CAN PULL OFF THE WHITE-HAIRED PINING UNDEAD ROLE BETTER. How about that?

How about I make a whole ass script and screenplay for a Dracula series actually in line with the book? No creative license! No Dracula-wolf sex scenes or cheating fiancees or jealous suitors or dodging the el gee bee tee edges or turning Van Helsing into an anime man who saves the day! Just actual events that actually happened in the 125-year-old book that every modern adaptation is too cis-straight-scared to do! How about that?

How about I eat the heart out of every single Van Helsing-centric Monster Hunter series and anime and make it all about the Harkers, their friends, and/or their descendants? How about that?

How about the Harkers getting an eternal vampiric honeymoon after the Transylvanian trip goes bloodily south and they just go about their undead business forever and Dracula is nothing but a footnote in their story which he always was anyway? How about that?

HOW ABOUT I FLOOD THE WORLD WITH DRACULA CONTENT WHERE DRACULA IS NO MORE OR LESS THAN THE SADISTIC VILLAIN HE'S ALWAYS BEEN AND GETS HIS ASS KICKED AND HEAD CHOPPED LIKE THE LOSER BASTARD DESERVES???

HOW ABOUT THAT????

I WILL LIVE TO SEE A WORLD THAT REGISTERS EXACTLY HOW BADASS JONATHAN HARKER AND ALL OF THE HUMAN CAST IS, A WORLD THAT SEES DRACULA FOR THE UNDEAD UNDERWEAR STAIN HE ALWAYS WAS,

FOR I WILL CRAFT THAT WORLD MYSELF UPON THE BONES AND BLOOD OF THE INFINITE BASTARDIZATIONS THAT CAME BEFORE THEM!

I SHALL NOT SUFFER THESE ICE-COLD 'lol no I never touched the book but I kinda remember the wiki for the Coppola movie' TAKES FOR ALL ETERNITY. I WILL REWRITE THE PUBLIC OSMOSIS UNTIL ALL THEY KNOW OF DRACULA IS THAT JONATHAN HARKER KILLED HIM IN HIS DIRT BOX.

Anyway.

To all my Dracula Dailiers out there. I say again. Join me. While our little book club did wonders, the fact is, not a ton of people are going to ever bother with the dusty old novel. Spinoffs and sequels? Sure. But not (what they assume is) a dry old classic. Which leaves audiences and filmmakers caught in a perpetual profit and expectation-based loop.

People assume Dracula is Sexy-Suave Count Fuckula and that Mina hooks up with him while Van Helsing and [INSERT HUMAN NOBODIES HERE] are pushed to the sidelines. So that's what directors will keep churning out. Ditto for makers of books, comics, shows, and video games. It will just keep going in the same rut.

Unless we put some new blood out there. There are so many possibilities. So much that can be made to finally drag the spotlight away from the Count and give it back to the characters who deserve it.

So please. Please. Make that Dracula-derived thing you're unsure about. Even at its most indulgent and outlandish, you have read the book. And you know more about what you're doing than literally any so-called professional who's churned out their tired knockoffs of knockoffs. (Or the folks who take their opinions from the same.)

[yamatossideboob]

ONE PIECE 1129 Spoilers!

This week's bullseyes

YEAH GO TAMA!!! DATTEBAYO!!!

Huh. So everyone and their gran who called this being a huge roleplaying thing were right :y

I actually really appreciate Luffy not wanting to wreck Not Sun God's Lego room, that shit would've taken ages to get just right.

tbf a cat WOULD help tiny enemies escape from your rp dungeon, the little hellions 🐈

hmmm... so Not Sun God seems to be aware of Wano speak... Crackpot theory time: what if NSG is a Luffy fanboy a lá Bartolomeo? Since Bart is fresh in our memories, it would make sense that Oda brought him back so that we would have #stanluffy in mind for introducing such a character. Maybe this giant is a pirate otaku? or even a Sun God otaku who knows about Luffy having the Nika fruit? This is all so intriguing!

Oda's getting a little meta here

I honestly forgot who 'Hajrudin' referred to until we see him next page lol. Is he still around Elbaf?

Not Sun God: SO WHAT IS YOUR MOVE?!! Usopp:

"Part of the world is despair and hopelessness!!! And part of history is defeat and disappointment!!!" so this brings to mind too things: 1) Oda meta again 2) broad statements, but I bet NSG is referring to the world following the defeat of Joyboy and the Void Century... if he is a Joyboy/Nika/Luffy stan, he might well know about All Of That, which may be why he follows Luffy's exploits as the inheritor to Joyboy?

The fact that NSG knows their bloody names as well is a big reason why I think this too.

Another quality Nami face

I'm not posting Sanji's face right after bc that's just unnecessary. no good dog.

And so Not Sun God's face is. rather anticlimactically revealed. He looks like a huge dork at least. And yes it's confirmed he's one of the New Giant Pirates, albeit stuck at home. However my stan notion still stands since he calls Nami "oshi" (vomits), which is a term otaku use to describe/objectify women idol performers.

yeesh talk about a Sun God complex...

man I wish more woman botherers got blasted with the wrath of the gods like this

"Take that, giant perv" OH IS THE BLACK LEG POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK NOW?? I hope Sanji gets bolted next ffs

AND WHAT WILL WE SEE TRUE BELIEVERS?!

Alas that must wait til the next chapter, which is in a week's time according to the Viz site! What a scrumptious harvest fall as brought us nakama! Until next time then! 💪✖️

[meet-me-in-the-pouringrain]

The Phoenix And The Rocket

Chapter 2

Chapter 1 Here.

Thank you all for the love on the first chapter <3 makes me excited to write. Hoping for weekly updates as I finish 2nd year Uni off but we’ll see. Atm I think there is roughly 8 chapters so very short and sweet but I have a habit of extending things so we’ll see!

Emily Prentiss, at the insistent of her therapist, signs up for a trauma ‘dumping’ site. She never expected that her Dump would connect her back to her old boss and the man she’s been in love with for over ten years.

Also the man she’s absolutely furious at for leaving.

As always : Credit goes to @lonelychicagos for the prompt :)

Edit : Since publishing I have been made aware that the term ‘Trauma Bonding’ is actually an abuse tactic and doesn’t mean ‘bonding over shared trauma’. Would like to make it clear that was a very strong mistake on my part and I apologise deeply for any offence.

Chapter 2

It was week and a case later that Emily realised her laptop had a notification sitting on it, a reply lie in waiting 20 minutes after her initial contact. Feeling guilty but overpowered by intrigue, the woman settled down on the jet, the laptop balancing on her knee and excitement in her chest.

Her seat partner, the insufferable David Rossi, eyes her with sneaky, glinting eyes. "Something you wanna share with the class, Prentiss?" He goades, smirking.

Emily glances up, scowling, as the rest of the team all turned attention onto her. "Excuse me?" She frowns.

"Oh she avoided the question" Tara pipes up.

"Now she's rolling her eyes" Spencer joins in. "That implies that she's hiding something"

Memories of Spencer and herself teasing Morgan a lifetime ago took Emily by surprise. Her jaw clenched and her laptop shut.

"I want everyone's paperwork on my desk on Thursday" She snaps, irritated to high heaven. Her eyes rolled again at the sound of Luke's childish indignation and JJ's proclamation of "I'm innocent!." Briefly, she wondered how the hell Hotch coped. Her irritation flared up at the thought of that man. Her anger at his abandonment still ever present.

Logically,  She knew she had no right to be pissed especially after two years. There was an argument for the fact that she had abandoned this team twice. And she has a habit of walking away when she doesn't get her way, a fact that both Strauss and Barnes had to find out the hard way.

But she was so angry. She had a comfortable life in London, a boyfriend that was nice enough and a job she enjoyed and that paid well, yet she packed it all up in a moments notice for him.

And she didn't even get a fucking thank you.

No, he just thrust all this responsibility on her shoulders and left, expecting her to pick up the pieces.

He expected her to soothe Penelope's anguish at losing another family member, be Dave's drinking buddy again, be Spencer's parental figure that no one addresses, be JJ's sister, and control two practical strangers in Tara and Luke.

God, he was a bastard.

Emily muses over that all on the drive home, fingers tight on the steering wheel, from the jet. Thankfully, the case drew to a close on a Friday giving her leeway to leave. She's still seething as she enters her apartment and re-boots her laptop.

'Meow'

"Hey Serg" Emily mumbles, pouring a generous glass of red wine.

The feline trots out of his hiding spot, happily. Emily and Penelope share custody of the pet now, He had recognised her during a girls night at Penelope's and threw a hissy fit as much as a cat could and had refused to leave her side. She physically melted and her friend gave her permission to take her cat back.

As it turns out, her little shit was a huge shit for other people.

But Emily couldn't do that to her so now they trade off whenever there's a case and she has to leave town.

"Pen drop you off, buddy?" She smirks, stroking his head. The cat purrs happily at her attention, making her laugh. He jumps to her lap before she can place the laptop on her so she awkwardly types with one hand. She loads up her conversation, cringing at the date left below RocketRacoon's sentences, and sighs. The poor man was probably waiting on her reply for ages before giving up.

Sergio suddenly freaks and hisses at the laptop, batting the screen angrily.

"Woah!" She exclaims, moving him away. He hisses again, eyes narrow, before hauling off with a feral screech. She stares after him as he bounces up on his scratching post. "Freak" Emily states at him, confused. She shakes her head and takes a gulp of liquid courage before typing again.

On the other side of the country, in Lakewood, Colorado, Aaron Hotchner slams down a cardboard box. His forehead was slick with sweat and his chest heaves with heavy breathes.

"You know, You could help" He mutters absentmindedly to his son. Jack sat playing video games in the living room tv.

"I could" Jack nodded. "I don't wanna though."

"Max"

"...."

"Max!"

"....."

"JACK"

"Yes dad?"

Jack turns, an expression on his face that mirrors his fathers. Since they got the word that Scratch was gone, Jack had reverted back from Max Hortenal. He refused to answer to his false name from his father, only reluctantly accepting it from school and friends. It was hard on Aaron to accept this change, habitually calling him Max.

Aaron glares at his son, jaw clenched. "Go and get the bait from the truck please." He orders authoritatively.

They'd just come back from a fishing expedition. In his retirement, Aaron had picked up Golfing, Running and Fishing as hobbies.

He loves the mundanity but sometimes he finds himself imagining he's chasing after an UNSUB while running. Or fishing out evidence to help a case rather than a sea bass he lets go after a picture.

The golfing is just fun.

Jack comes back in, gingerly gripping the bucket of worms in his hands. "Here." He snaps, holding it out. With an eyeroll, his father takes the bait and deposits it in the garage. "By the way, your laptop just pinged." Jack tells him, closing down his game. "I'm gonna go shower."

Aaron nods, wishes him a goodnight because he knows Jack will conk out straight afterwards, and heads towards the device. He figured after two days of no reply from Phoenix that he wasn't going to get one, chalking it up to intimidation and so he was confused as to what notification he had received. He grabs his glasses from his pocket, resenting that time certainly wasn’t on his side, and settles them on his face as he squints at the screen.

Surely by now his trauma dump would have been buried by others; He even saw Katie Jacob’s at one point when he checked for Phoenix’s question. He wished the girl well before blocking her so she didn’t question him anymore.

So imagine his surprise when the message was indeed Phoenix, apologising for the late reply.

PhoenixPren : So sorry! I didn’t see this reply, I travel a lot for work and was out of town!

Aaron breaths out a sigh, raising his eyebrows in acknowledgement.

RocketRacoon: I’ve been there, it’s okay.

Emily smiles and quirks an eyebrow of her own at the fast reply. With a purse of her lips, she types again.

PhoenixPren : You travel for work too?

RocketRacoon : Used too, Retired now.

PhoenixPren : Ah. Lucky. I gotta pay the bills somehow.

Aaron lets out a tiny laugh while Emily cringes at herself.

PhoenixPren : Anyway, you said you’re up for questions? Is that still on the table or have I ruined my chances?

“Fucks sake Emily, you’re not flirting with him.” Emily scolds herself, putting down her wine. Sergio mewls angrily at her as she speaks, still pissed at the laptop for some reason. “Weirdo” She insults her cat, swinging her legs to rest on her couch.

Aaron thinks about it for a moment, casting his mind to the day he’s had. He pulled Jack out of school, his son having a bad day the day before, and whisked him off to go fishing. At first, Jack seemed to hate life because he was forced out on a canoe in the lake but soon found himself laughing and enjoying time with his dad. He had forgotten about the day before entirely as he watched Aaron fight with a Bass and nearly go overboard. Aaron enjoyed it too, getting his son out without the worry that there was a serial killer lurking around the corner, ready to finish was Foyet started all those years ago.

He shrugs as he types.

RocketRacoon : Sure, Why not? What would you like to know?

Emily grins in excitement before it fades and she swallows, typing out what she wanted the answer to for weeks.

PhoenixPren : I guess there’s just one question really. How do you do it?

Aaron breathes out again, pulling back from his computer. He frowns and clicks on her profile, finding no story to tell. The only information he can see is that the person he was speaking to was a woman in her early 50’s. She had actually wrote ‘fuck off’ in the age section but then imputed in the ‘fun fact’ section that she went and saw Siouxie and The Banshees for her 18th birthday in 1987, placing her in her early 50s.

Phoenix had a story, one that she wasn’t willing to share. If he had to profile her (and boy was he almost giddy at the opportunity) he’d guess she was coerced into the website like himself, and searching for courage to write her own story.

RocketRacoon : One day at a Time. There’s high points and low points, you’ll have Good days and Bad days.

Emily blinked as the advice came through.

“You’re gonna go weeks, months even” Hotch tells her softly as she sits across from him on the plane. It was only those two, he duped her into entering early. Just to check on her. “Feeling fine and then you’re going to have a bad day. “ He stared at her with such intensity that she almost finds herself being pulled in. “Just let me know when you do.”

Shaking her head out of that memory, Emily blinks back water and sighs.

It takes her a while to type out the response, so long in fact that Aaron begins to exit the conversation, deciding that he’s in a good enough mood to read a few tales of the site. Phoenix catches him last second though.

PhoenixPren : Thank you.

He sighs again, reading the little two words over a few times.

RocketRacoon : You seem like you need more than advice

Emily tilts her head now, scrunching her face up.

PhoenixPren: Excuse me.

RocketRacoon : Sorry for the bluntness. Most people are on this site as a form of therapy- to share stories and make connections. I checked out your profile, What’s your story?

He didn’t know where that boldness comes from but something in his gut told him to keep that conversation going. Should Spencer be here, he’d probably rattle off a factoid about natural instincts. He grew nervous when Phoenix didn’t reply, or the little typing bubble didn’t pop up and was about to apologise again when she simply sent a shrugging emote.

PhoenixPren: Too much to tell, sorry Rocky.

RocketRacoon : RockET and mine wasn’t? I’m always here to talk if you need, Phoenix.

Emily licks her lips and picks up her wine again.

PhoenixPren : Does this mean we are TraumaBuddies now?

Aaron smirks, shrugging as if Phoenix could see him.

RocketRacoon : If you would like that. I’m very intrigued by you.

Emily swigs the last of her wine.

PhoenixPren : Buckle Up, Rocky. You’re in for a ride.

Word count :1834

Tag list : @lonelychicagos @84hotpockets @serqueljisbon @loriprentiss @velvetblackness

If you would like to be added or removed from the tag list just shoot me a dm!

[cielhunternorwood]

Life Sucks, Imma Talk About It

Not sure how many people actually follow after me on whatever sites at this point, but I feel like I need to get something out of my system. Firstly, about the lack of overall content lately. Outside of the Average Player videos, which are minimal at best, I've been stuck without much creative energy due to a lot of stress factors related to work.

From around December until mid- to late-March, I had a lot more work to handle at my job due to a lot of incompetent upper management over-stressing the mid-management who were working double time while the store manager was on leave from a medical procedure.

While I was bouncing between two stores to help out at first, I had to cut down to the original store due to just how excessive a lot of the demands were and how much I was basically the only reliable back-up for getting stuff done. While the plus side was that it gave me a lot of extra hours (which allowed me to buy a new, beefy desktop PC), it left me mentally exhausted and unable to really focus on anything creative.

Once the store manager began popping back in at reduced hours, though, the hours I worked went back to being absolute shit. This is, of course, bad for a lot of reasons I won't detail. However, it also put me into a realization that I'm being singled out by the store manager for whatever reason. You know that feeling of how you're treated like shit so you quit instead of get fired? It's like that.

Well, all that came to a head when the manager of the other store, someone I knew very well from my last job and helped me get the job here in the first place, flat-out quit last week. While I'm happy he chose to leave, given how much hell they put him through, it does cut off an easy means of getting more hours by helping out at the other store.

Adding on that previous plans of moving to another state to be with someone were canned thanks to the heavy hours of working giving me little prep time, I've not been in a very pleasant position overall mentally.

Most of all, the laptop I have been using up until now has been such a piece of shit in doing anything marginally laborious, which is doubly infuriating with the fact that I was "forced" to use it for gaming due to the Windows 10-only thing for a bunch of games that would run just fine on my old desktop.

And last, but not least, is that the forced necessity of living with my mentally-unstable and deranged mother has gotten worse in that she retired in December, leaving me with basically no time to be alone and free in the house.

This has all culminated in a huge dogpile of stress that has made it difficult to focus on anything remotely creative for some time now. The fact that I spent over $2k on a new PC, while necessary for what I want to do in the future, is still pretty stressful due to an uncertain money situation.

My hope has been, though, that being able to have a devoted gaming PC again will let me revert laptop usage to its original intent: creative shit. So far, it's kind of worked out, though I've basically had to give myself time to mentally relax beyond just playing video games.

The reason I decided to bring all this up now is that, well, a huge storm rolled through and knocked out power for long enough that I had to slow myself down and not expect to do anything for well over a day. The morning after it happened, I ended up setting a chair on the back porch and began reading.

That moment of quiet peace and reading turned into a much larger slowdown than I thought, and it kind of gave me time to think about what the hell's been going on in my life, while I've been rushing about trying so hard to get things done.

So, hopefully I can get my shit together soon, now that I've kicked myself out of the big rush I forced myself into the past few months. I wouldn't expect much in the writing department, since I have a lot of background stuff to work out, but I also want to find a decent hosting site for this stuff. I left Inkitt before they went AI-crazy, and I'm not sure about posting anything on Wattpad in the event I want to publish.

Expect some more shitposting in the meantime, to get some creativity flowing. I do really miss photoshopping silly things together, even if only a few people seem to enjoy them.

[therehavebeenstranger]

Okay! @stankhead just tagged me in their brand new tag game about our top artistic influences. I really really love this and am honestly very grateful to grem for giving me a little opportunity to be reflective about this right now; for context, i am about two weeks out from graduating with an MFA in creative writing (fiction track) from [redacted prominent midwestern university w decently-renowned 40 yr old mfa which has been attacked in recent years by humanities-hating admin, there you go, now everybody who follows the chronicle of higher ed can probably dox my ass] and so it’s nice, at this transition moment, to take a step back and think about the influences that have shaped my writing on a global level. I think it’s super useful and i’m typing this in a word doc so i can hang onto it for later. Okay enough chit chat. I’m gunna try to limit this to no more than like 4 or 5

Carmen Maria Machado—CMM is one of my biggest, most direct, and most obvious influences. She came to my college campus to lead a workshop and give a reading in the months leading up to the publication of her body and other parties. I was a sophomore (or maybe this was late freshman year?????) and encountering her work totally and completely shifted what i write and how i write. Complete reframe on what speculative fiction was and what it could do. HBaOP went on to have a big impact on me (esp. formally weird stories like Especially Heinous) but at the moment i was obsessed with her stories the husband stitch and my body, herself

Peak Cracked Dot Com—but especially everything DOB touched when he was there! I was a regular cracked reader from the age of 11 to the exact day that all those layoffs happened, and by regular i mean that every day i had access to the internet i read/watched/listened every piece of new content they published, whether or not i gave a shit about the subject matter. Cracked’s influence on me is less easy to tangibly track than CMM, but i literally boiled my forming brain in that site and i think the style permeates me work. Cracked had this strand of pedantry that necessitated dwelling with strange research and subject matter and letting things sort of spiral and cook and letting the obsession change the voice. (also, subject matter—this article inspired an obsession w Dorothy Arnold which became a story that will be published later this year.) It had a huge impact on my sense of humor and the way i approach dialogue, even when i’m not conscious of that. For dialogue i am especially thinking of video content like after hours and agents of cracked (the way the “swaim proving that that guy fu-u-u-cks goats” monologue hits in this ep *changed me forever). In general, i think my approach to narrative voice was really impacted by the fact that i spend my adolescence reading DOB’s old “my brief time as (blank)” articles and shit like “yer gramma was built like a brick shit-house in her day”

*if you click that link fair warning that the video is from like 2010 and def has some stuff that makes me uncomfortable in hindsight, including at least one use of the r word

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy—man. This is one of the great novels of all time, isn’t it???? i was assigned it in ib english senior year of high school and i’ve tried to read it at least once a year since. Pieces of the language regularly float back to me—“a viable, dieable age” “a sariflapping” “the time was ten to two” “the history woman in the history house.” Roy does things with language that i didn’t know you could do—makes paragraphs which are so thick and lush that they feel humid and green. Sticks words together to make new and better ones. Talks frankly about the story being told by the story. Like, that’s one of the things that’s so brilliant, right? From go, you know that sophie mol and velutha will die. The question is not what will happen in the story but how the story will be told and how it will mean to us. The language bears that out. It has totally suffused in my brain, it’s a lens through which i read everything. Also i think it’s about time for my annual reread of this book, ha.

What the moon brought by Sadie rose weilerstein—see, this is why i love this tag. I would not have pegged this book as an influence before being tasked w this reflexive task, but it looms large in my mind!!! My copy of this book—a collection of stories about sisters Ruth and Debbie as they go through their jewish year in the american suburbs, living their lives and observing jewish holy days—was ancient, falling apart; it had been purchased for my mother and her siblings in the early 60s. i was obsessed with it. it was the first book i read which treated Judaism as a fact of american life, if that made sense? Or the first book where i was conscious of Judaism as a force shaping story, time, etc. i mean it’s literally about what the moon brought; a recognition of the lunar jewish calendar. A different kind of time keeping. It told me that jewish stories were and are interesting, singular, rich, and worth pursuing. including a picture of the cover bc i love the cover :)

The fourth state of matter by jo ann beard—this essay is amazing, not that i am the first to say so. It’s worth reading, though i’ll warn that its content (it’s about a shooting that happened on a college campus) can obviously be tough to deal with. This has a very direct impact in my mind. My first creative writing prof ever used this essay to teach us about psychic distance, and learning about psychic distance was like—not like getting a new tool in my little writer’s toolkit, but like having the key that unlocked the kit in the first place.

There’s more, of course there’s more, but this is a thousand words so i’ll call it here. again, thank u gremlin for coming up with this tag it’s lovely and so useful. i'll tag @pintobordeaux and @januariat but i really genuinely encourage anybody who sees this post to do this kind of accounting. it's really useful and illuminating :)

[merlinband-archive]

Heavy Makeup: Interview with Alan Love

Date: August 5, 2019

Source: Excerpt from HEAVY MAKEUP: A Book about Camp that Rocks! The 80's Volume One

Text and screenshots are preserved below in case the site goes dead.

HEAVY MAKEUP: What or who got you into performing?

Allan Love: Okay, this could be quite long. It was 1965, I was nineteen and living with my wife and two-year-old son, (together with the rats) in a run-down, 1-bedroom tenement slum in the "Worlds End" Chelsea, (this was before it became fashionable). The whole area was full of salt of the earth people but the area had been earmarked for demolition. In hindsight, I think the local council just wanted to break the hearts of the community, who knows? Anyway, we were the last ones living there waiting to be re-housed. The Worlds End had a very colorful community, infamous for villains, larger than life characters and a whole bunch of very successful but seriously dodgy, thieves. These people relished life and went about their daily routines, mostly in the pubs, getting pissed, before going off to rob jewelers and the wealthy people's houses. Come on, it wasn't such a bad life, lots of spare time on your hands and plenty of money. So, here was me, nineteen, very impressionable and thought I might join this merry band of geezers and go thieving. How else was I supposed to make my way in the world? That was before my then, father in law, Stan, got me to join the local boxing gym where he was the head trainer and saved me from a rather iffy career path. This was the start of my boxing career (or so liked to call it. LOL!) I was an amateur and boxed for the then famous, Chelsea Boys Club. I used to sing while I trained driving everyone mad, whilst the other guys were huffing and puffing and generally being macho. I was the little songbird, (more like a puffin) and going about my daily grind, warbling, until one day my personal trainer, a stocky black guy named, Sammy, (a contender for the lightweight championship of England) said I'd make a better singer than a boxer. Oh, did I mention, this was after he'd picked me off the floor after three rounds of sparring with a "know nothing" professional that knocked ten kinds of shit outa me. LOL! This was when I decided that I was never going to be a pro boxer, more like Popeye in shorts that were ten sizes too big for me and tattered boxing boots. Anyway, onwards and upwards; I had some friends from the Worlds End that told me that there was an amateur theatrics' company that was looking for boys to be in the chorus of a musical they were performing. An Ivan Novelo piece called "Perchance to Dream". It was a singing part, so I went for an audition and the director asked me to join the company. He was gay, I think he fancied me but what the hell, that's another story. So, after the show had performed in public, I decided that I enjoyed the experience so much that I'd needed to sing for a living. This was the start of the incredible journey. Have I bored you yet?? LOL!

HEAVY MAKEUP: Allan Love boring...never!

Allan Love: I found a manager, the now deceased, Derek Chicksand, a guy who knew a bit about show biz and together we created the band, "Opal Butterfly". I think you know the history of that band so I won't go into the saga.

HEAVY MAKEUP: You started in the psychedelic band Opal Butterfly and the glam band Merlin before having a solo career. Did you ever feel unsure of the direction you wanted to take your music in?

Allan Love: Yeah, I was a victim of my looks, image, and personality. Everyone in the industry saw me as a huge star, "Allan is like, this person or that person, we can mold him, get some writers and producers and let's make a major star." All bullshit really, but I fell for it. I got locked into various record companies without too much success, because no one knew what to do with me and I was just so grateful to be there, I didn't complain. In the early days, I didn't write much, didn't have a lot of confidence in myself as a writer so I never really pushed. It was only in later years thatI got serious about writing and by then it was a little too late for my personal performing career.

[seashellsoldier]

Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal & Grindcore by Albert Mudrian (2016)

I just spent two delirious weeks off the grid on the Big Island and Choosing Death was my beach book. This is a phenomenal read chronicling what I would call, in fine art terms, the post-modern zenith of metal as those predominantly teenage souls back in the mid and late 80s pushed metal to it’s outermost limits, bringing it to the very cusp of pure chaotic noise, then burning itself out just as quickly, mutating, convulsing, and morphing into so many other veins stretching out from the heart-muscle of Metal. This is a book about the fringe of the Fringe, and I’m not sure why so many readers are giving it mid-to-low ratings. What else is there to compare it to? Mudrian is a gifted writer who went out of his way to interview 150+ folks who were actually in the trenches during this time period, and he goes beyond the late 80s and early 90s to show how metal music has continued to burn brightly across the spectrum. 

My death metal indoctrination was around 1990, when—living in the far suburbs of Chicago—Columbia House Music had a one-page Death Metal supplement. I loved the names and the brief descriptions someone wrote, so I ordered three albums, on cassette tape: Coroner’s “No More Color”, Bolt Thrower’s “War Master”, and Napalm Death’s “Harmony Corruption”. At that time I was listening to mainstream metal (Judas Priest, Megadeth, Metallica, Overkill, WASP, etc.) and really got into outliers (for me) like Nuclear Assault, Powermad, and Suicidal Tendencies. The death metal albums were awful; I hated them all, thinking how could such rabid noise be considered music, and I actually tossed the tapes away. Now, over 30 years later, my “ear” has developed WAY beyond those days and I can truly appreciate what these bands were doing in the context of the times, and I am a huge fan of heavy bands like these and so many more now. The metal scene nowadays is phenomenal, and we will always be the Fringe. 

I actually have an essay I’ve been working on, which I hoped to get published on some site some day, but after reading two similar pieces last year (2018) . . .

- https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/09/this-feels-like-never-ending/

https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-politics-of-heavy-metal-87999

 . . . I’ve decided to just crap this out and deposit it here, for any chance of posterity, even though Amazon will most likely shit-can Goodreads because it is unprofitable and goes against the Amazon-customer-fed reviews on its web-devouring site. This essay is not finished, but it’s good enough; so, awaaaaay we go . . . 

I’m thinking that the objective of this is part-memoir, part-philosophical exegesis of a genre, and part-wild-eyed, fist-shaking testament to what, for many of us, is the nature of our abstract lives psychologically, spiritually, and emotionally. I sense that I am not alone, because our genre is strong and invincible, but I feel completely alone, and this essay might be both my natal and fatal swan songs. While posting anything to the web is an exercise in futility from the Beasts of Mindless Criticism, just know that this is coming from my mind’s heart, my damaged soul, and that empathy is an extremely rare but potently beautiful thing. In essence, I am asking for empathy, but to each their own. My middle finger is just as straight and defiant as yours, but that is in essence what we are as metalheads: middle fingers extended to the skies. 

I guess this is as good as a place as any to articulate the diversity of what it means to be a “metalhead” and maybe flesh out some terminology early on, so the muddle in my head is more precisely what you see in this confessional. Metalheads come from all corners of a society, and crawl out from just about every crack and crevice of the human herd, but we are almost exclusively the Outsiders. We have always been outsiders, and we will always be outsiders. While fads now favor ink and beards and looking tough and being dickheads, we had that first, and it will always be ours. In the mesmeric words of Tyler Durden, “Self-improvement is masturbation; now self-destruction. . . ?” I have no doubt that many of you have been unflinchingly faithful to your spouses, and have tried damn hard to raise your children as best you can. You read to understand the inner workings of the world, and you can enjoy a glass of wine as much as a shot of rotgut. I also have no doubt that some of you are racists, misogynists, and xenophobes who never read books and probably shoved firecrackers up frogs’ butts just to watch them explode. Some have burned churches down, many have served time for various crimes, others start fights to feel strong and be brutal upon weaker folks. I’m not casting judgement here, just using such polar examples to hopefully illustrate that even among us Outsiders, we have a spectrum of diversity that is not easy to summarize simply. No group of people ever are, and Metal clearly—to me—is a genre of diversity, critical perspectives, and alternative outlooks. You might wave a flag and pray to some grey-bearded god, or you might burn flags and worship horned devils. It doesn’t matter here; that’s YOUR thing. We are nerds and bullies, brainiacs and artists, accountants and mechanics, and a whole slew of other labels you get to pick and choose all on your own to define who you think you are, and how you wish to be seen as. 

What matters for me in this essay is that we are all bound together in some elemental way. Even in concerts, you have the writhing, sweaty masses of the mosh like wild animals in a pen, and you have those clinging to the outer walls bearing witness to the spectacle and feeling the thrumming sonic waves reverberate through their bones like being adrift at sea surrounded by sharks. While there are probably spoiled rich kids who crank up Fit For An Autopsy just to piss off their parents, I’d like to think most of us came from the lowest classes, had awful childhoods, and probably a shitbag parent or two. We embraced metal because, like a drill bit, it just dug deep into our psyches and resonated at the core of our young souls flailing in the maelstrom of early life. We are the flotsam of the social order; we didn’t fit in with the popular cliques; we were shunned and ridiculed and mocked, and that identity began—most probably for each and every one of us—in junior high/middle school, or high school—some maybe earlier, but very few later in life. 

Black is our color. It goes back through the ages. When Bruegel’s “The Misanthrope” is analyzed, Joseph Leo Koerner writes that the main figure is “dressed in black to indicate his rejection of the world.” YES! Minus those who are colorblind, we are a species with vibrant color detection and expression, and metal wholeheartedly embraces the antithesis of that palette to favor the inky-rich darkness of Oblivion. Even for those who are colorblind, black is the sinkhole of all grays and the yang to that yiny white. It is our color. From Darth Vader to all those cowboy villains of ancient television, black is the absorption of all other colors—or the utter absence of colors—in the electromagnetic spectrum. It is deep space and Hell holes; it is the crucible of monsters that keeps many kids pissing themselves in the midnight hours. 

As a Spotify analytics review showed a few years ago (https://insights.spotify.com/us/2015/04/02/loyalest-music-fans-by-genre/), we metalheads are the most loyal genre listeners on planet Earth. I’m proud of that, and I think that’s because metal rooted itself deep into our being early on, and while our ranks see attrition happen to many because they “grow up” and decide to favor more tame and lame styles of music, for some of us, metal never lets go. It never can. It doesn’t matter what era you grew up in because we each had that “cutting edge” sound to suck us into the event horizon. This isn’t about Radio Rock, for all its good and bad over the past few decades, and we must acknowledge that there is a HUGE grey zone between radio rock and radio metal that can—in some cases—be tough to parse (looking at you Metallica, post-Black album). What I aim to focus on here is Metal—true, disturbing, frenetic metal. The music that you blare from your vehicles and people turn and cringe, thinking you’re a violent prick with an AR-15 in the trunk, some black and blood-red D&D dice rolling across the floorboards, and a headless animal corpse nestled into the back seat. While some may pigeon-hole themselves into a certain sliver of the vast spectrum that is metal music, people like me embrace the large swaths of the spectrum and mix it beautifully in the cauldron of our playlists. That’s OK. We are as tribalistic as any other music listeners, but the confederation of metalheads is what makes us unique in comparison to the pop-pap masses twisting and twerking their way through life. You see a dude/chick wearing a black tee with a goat skull and some nearly indecipherable font declaring the band’s name like ancient runes and you know s/he is kin on some abstract, epigenetic level. You know there is a rare soul who has even heard of that band, let alone seeks it out having seen the shirt. We are, by and large, fed by curiosity for more loud, savage sound, and there is SO much of it out there, struggling in shithole bars and on https://bandcamp.com/, trying to hack out a living immersed with the extreme fringe of worldly music, doing exactly what they love most, and we are their faithful flock trying to find them, to spread the Word, and get them upon the Altar of Greatness, just like us kids were back in the 1980s with tape-trading, and our Iron Maiden and Napalm Death patches on our crappy leather jackets with the stupid Road Warrior studs in them. 

I won’t bother to give a history of metal as a genre and its evolution (just look to Ian Christie’s The Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal and you’ll be in expert hands), but I will say that growing up in suburbia in the 80s had me as a direct—albeit minuscule—participant in that evolution, and it was all of us individual microbes that kept the host alive and gave it the strength and momentum to thrive. I saw Judas Priest and Megadeth twice at the Rosemont Horizon, and drove through Chicago in an ’81 J10 pickup to the Milwaukee Metal Fest of 1989 to see, above all else, Nuclear Assault, who I was apeshit for at that time. FM radio couldn’t control what we true Outsiders craved, and in Valparaiso, Indiana, some brave soul at the local university radio station played an hour of the most raucous, obtuse, and offensive music he could find late every Saturday night. I had to drive all the way to Merriville just to track down the tapes at a local mom & pop store called Hegwisch. Any way, it was out there, percolating across the thinest of airwaves, shared by kindred spirits across the country, and around the world, and we were united under that great mystery that was Metal music. 

My toe was dipped into the ocean of metal in junior high, where Van Halen’s “1984” and Chicago’s channel 50 on the UFH dial gave me Twisted Sister’s video for “We’re Not Gonna Take It”. I rode my bike to the Kmart and bought my first compilation cassette titled “Heavy Metal Thunder”, which had Twisted Sister, Judas Priest, Dio, Accept, W.A.S.P., the Scorpions and a few others on it. This blew the doors off my mind and pulled me into the world of metal thereafter as the “big hair” bands of the late-80s monopolized FM-radio rock stations, seemingly to pinnacle with Guns ’N Roses, before the “grunge” gold rush (https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/01/12/577063077/the-grunge-gold-rush) became the norm. I slammed upon air drums, wailed the air guitar and worked that whammy bar, screamed silently into an invisible mic . . . because it was ALL I HAD to barely keep control within the chaos of my childhood. 

I was born and raised in the long shadow of Chicago, to an alcoholic Vietnam vet and an emotionally stoic Russian mom. Childhood PTSD, a dash of OCD, historic anger issues, marriage to the Tank-Girl Queen of my Dreams and her Selfishness, divorce and self-medicated alcoholism-as-salve, a tour in Iraq in 2004 and the carnage of experiences there, marriage to a beautifully devilish Betrayer, the nuclear fallout of divorce and the entrenchment of suicidal ideation, and now the creeping doom of the obsolescent, dirt-wisdom sense of middle-age as the sand sifts and the second-hand ticks and the half-circle cycle from the womb to the tomb descends towards the Other Side that awaits with its maw agape. 

A future of Metalocalypse is wonderful in its phantasm, but that’s the whole point. Our Elysian Fields are an open-air concert filled with black tees, with each one of us paired to the perfect Other, lost in the music of our mortal existence, hand in hand, with the rest of the world set on fire to burn in their collective myopia, and here’s the prime point I wish to make: metal is the most topical music in existence. Nowhere else, since the late-60s folk scene, has music tackled consistently, dissentingly, and poignantly the very nature of humankind, and all the candy-wrapped hypocrisies of Us, and done so from the first chords of Black Sabbath in 1970. This is why Metal matters most to me. 

I’m too lazy to do the research and site the sources, because all such info is out there already, but let’s start this thematic thread with Sabbath’s “War Pigs” of 1970—hold on, let me click it back one notch. I think it’s fair to say, abstractly, that Sabbath was influenced by the Stones and the Stones were influenced by Delta Blues, and Delta Blues were direct kin to the slave songs of the Deep South, harkening back to true Outsiders in the horrendous era of racial exploitation and institutionalized slavery. Now, making this linkage is in no way trying to compare anvils with apples. What I mean is that there could be seen—on some primeval level of the subconscious—a relation with feeling on the fringe of Society. In 1970, the Vietnam war had already ripped huge rifts in the societal fabric of the U.S. (nevermind the abhorrent carnage of war in southeast Asia [disclosure: my father was with the 1st ID there in ’71]), and this was palpable on the world stage. Britain wanted nothing to do with the effort, while nuclear annihilation was a monstrous shadow hanging over the Earth, and Sabbath cued in on that faraway view with a new sound and a poetically direct polemic to all those responsible for waging such senseless warmongering. Sure, Sabbath gave other musicians plenty of freedom to spread out into new branches from this sapling, from which all Metal originates; however, it is this finger on the pulse of humanity that hits me hardest as a fan. All in one song are the titanic themes of war, geopolitics, avarice, religion, power over the mindless sheep, mortality, and the End of Days encapsulated into a potent black anthem. 

From this sonic dirge, innumerable others over the decades have carried the banners forward, and they continue to do so, now more than ever as the proliferation of Metal expands like brushfires across the globe, and as the turmoil of the world reaches new heights and levels of complexity. More often than not, a Metal band will address some facet of this malicious gem, and do so poignantly. Think of all those “A Farewell to Arms”s by Machine Head, the “Go Forth and Multiply”s by Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition, and the gorgeously precise “Fuck You Donald Trump”s by Sharptooth. Anger is our primary weapon, and through it we scream at the injustices of humanity, the ignorance of overwhelming issues, the hypocrisies of history and idiocies of religion, and the philosophical wonderings of spirituality, mortality, and the primal nature of the human soul. I have the bulk of two playlists, some 1,500 individual songs and constantly growing, that tackle these subjects head-on. To list them would be laborious, but if you’re a true metalhead, you should already be aware on some level, and the more aware the better, in my book. 

We should certainly go back to the forefathers, those tenebristic pinpricks of elucidation cast in harsh light and grim darkness, clanging the bellwethers on so many existential issues. The “Beyond the Realms of Death”s by Judas Priest; the “Orgasmatron”s by Motorhead; all those literary “For Whom the Bell Tolls”s by Metallica; the “The Last in Line”s from Dio; the “Peace Sells . . . But Who’s Buying”s from Megadeth; the “The Headless Children”s by W.A.S.P.; the “How Can I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today”s by Suicidal Tendencies, all weave their ways through the minds and souls across generations, and attempt to pry deep into the psyches of we soldiers of Life, because Life is hard for many of us. We lose comrades every single day to Loneliness and Apathy and Addiction and Hate. Life is our battlefield as much as our Enemy, strewn with bodies and craters, razor wire and shell casings. During the day the sun oppresses us, yet at night the tapestry of stars shimmers with Hope, and gives us a reason to trudge onward. It is the blackness between the stars that comforts and empowers us. We feed from it. 

Looking at Metal now, I am wonderstruck by the diversity and depth we are blessed with, thanks to the “freedom” of the internet, despite the painful paradigm it has caused the music industry and bands as a whole. There is such a wealth of constantly new music to discover, as much as there is an ease in finding lost bands that never got their fair shake with MTV or FM radio of yesteryear (thinking of you, Sacrilege). Kids today have no idea how tough it was to find new music back then. Now, in this Paradox-of-Choice Age, we can be supersaturated with awesome new discoveries. Internationally, it seems metal scenes are flourishing too, from Brujeria to Au Champ Des Morts to Sepultura to Alien Weaponry to Coffins to the juggernaut Wacken Festival—the largest Metal Fest in the world, and the community is growing. We are multicultural; we are multiethnic; we are global. This is phenomenal, and I encourage you all to spread your leathery wings and constantly discover the new and different and wild and raucous. It is out there, waiting for you with vampiric thirst. 

My hope is that in time, streaming services will force paying customers to embrace their allegiance and reliance on the music they love with higher monthly fees, so the bands we support get the capital they need to live and thrive and keep the dark dreams alive. I couldn’t give two shits about billionaire pop stars whining about their lost pennies. I am focused here on our Metal Militia, the rank and file of devoted disciples across the grim and gorgeous globe. I was at the Slayer show in Sacramento this past May (2018), watching the gyres of humanity swirl and the whale-spouts of weed blow in the chill wind as the pyrotechnics from the stage were hungry for human flesh. Nothing spiked my adrenaline more fantastically than being apart of some 10,000 fans screaming “GOD HATES US ALL!” over and over, defiantly to the deaf and dead-eyed heavens. 

Metal survives and thrives because we give the artists and all their support the means to do so. It takes money to make any artistic endeavor persevere. Of course, not every band makes it. I’d guess the overall attrition rate is pretty high, never mind the premature deaths, but the fact that Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden are still making music lets us all know that longstanding careers can be forged in the Crucible of Metal. If you believe in it, give alms to your idols. 

Thanks for reading. 

[imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl]

All Of Me {Part 05 of 13}

Pairing: Robby Keene X Reader

Chapter word count: 1.9 K

Summary: Being the new girl in the Valley wasn't as bad as you expected, and you were finding your place when the dynamite you were living into exploded. You were kicked out of your house by your stepfather with nothing but a backpack with a few pieces of clothing. There was nowhere to go, and you were preparing yourself to spend the night in the streets when a guy finds you. After being invited to crash at his place, you didn't know the war you were walking into. A war you became determined to end.

<- Previous part (04)

Next Part (06) ->

{Cobra Kai Masterlist}

One of Us

“Alright!” Hawk grunts, sitting down next to you on the bench. Waves of students walk by, going to their cars, or joining smaller groups of people. “Good thing you're still here. I need the perfect place to take Moon on Valentine's day.”

“You got lucky. Robby just called telling me to wait for him.” You say, already leaning to take a look at his phone. “What places do you have in mind?”

“Three. I took screenshots. Check it out.” He hands you over the phone, and you go through the pictures of the restaurants. “The school will have the annual prom, but most of the people just drop by early evening and then move on with their dates.”

“Okay.” You knew about the prom. People are obsessing over it a little. A guy even invited you, but you had to decline. “First of all, what's your budget? This second place looks expensive.”

“I've been saving up for a while.”

“There's a website where you can check the average price of restaurants. Let's check there.” Quickly, you open the browser and type in the site. As you thought, that restaurant is way overpriced, and after some more research, the first one she showed you seem to be the best.

“Great. Now I'll just call and make a reservation already.”

“Oh, you better do. These places are always completely booked during holidays like that.”

“I'll do it as soon as I get home.” He says, and you nod. Then, he opens this new mobile game he downloaded and starts teaching you how to play. You know this one, half the school is playing it. It's a sniper game, where you have to kill the bad guys. You might download it later. “This mission is the worse. We have fifteen men escaping prison and we're supposed to put them all down.” He says as you try to shoot them one by one, killing only two.

“Shit. How many tries do I have?”

“(Y/N),” Robby calls and you immediately turn around, smiling to see him. He furrows his eyebrows at Hawk, from who the eye roll is so strong you can feel it.

“Hey.” Getting up, you pick up your bag and give Hawk a half hug before walking over to Robby. “Did something happen? Why did you want me to wait?”

His lips break into a smile. “I bought something and I wanted to show you. C'mon.” He tilts his head and starts to walk, and you follow him.

“What is it?”

“You'll see.”

Rolling your eyes at all the mystery, you decide to take the surprise instead of insisting on it. “Fine, fine. Should I close my eyes?”

“No need. Over here.” His voice comes from behind you, so you stop and turn around, ready so ask why he stopped when you see it. “What do you think?” He asks, standing next to a motorcycle.

Furrowing your eyebrows, you chuckle. “Wait... You don't mean...” You gesture at the black and yellow thing. Huge, probably heavy as hell.

“I wanted a ride, but cars are expensive, and since it was only me... Only us.” He adds, and of course, your cheeks start burning. “A bike is enough to get us around.”

“That's really amazing.” You tell him, biting your lip as you walk over to him. What Robby just said is still echoing through your head... The way he so naturally included you in his plans... Clearing your throat, you look up at him again. “So freaking badass. Half the girls are looking at you.” Chuckling, you give a quick look around, finding many pairs of eyes on him.

“Let them look.” He says, shrugging his shoulders. “It's not new, of course, but it had been fixed.” He walks around it, grabbing the handlebars. “It's a Kawasaki Ninja 500. And it's fast.”

“Well, you'll have to show me.” You say, smiling.

Robby's face lights up, and his eyes are set on yours. “That's exactly what I wanted to hear, princess.” With that, he gets on the bike and turns it on, the loud, powerful noise drawing even more attention. “Hop on.”

All you can say is that you try. You try very hard not to let this feeling wash over you. But to be fair, you never thought this silly, girlie fantasy would happen to you. A good-looking guy picking you up at school in his badass motorcycle. So you let it take over, enjoying the sensation just a little bit as you climb on the bike - which is a bit too high for you, but you use Robby's body to help pull yourself up -. “Step on it.”

“Hold on, alright? We have no helmets yet.”

“If we die it'll be your fault, you're the one driving.” You tell him, raising your voice a little above the engine noise.

He laughs, and then takes one of your arms, pulling it around his waist. “How fast can I go?”

Taking his lead, you wrap your arms around his midsection, moving your body closer to his until you're pressed against his back. “You're Cobra Kai. You better not disappoint me.”

Another laugh, and then, you're moving.

Inside the school's parking lot, he moves rather slowly. But when you hit the road, Robby takes your breath away. It's kinda scary at first, but when you see he's having fun, you let yourself relax, and enjoy how wild this is. The wind is savage, messing with your hair, whipping at your face. This is dangerous, way more dangerous than riding in a car. But you love it, it takes little time for you to love it. At some point, you let go of him, throwing your hands up for a few seconds.

When you get to the dojo, you're a laughing mess. Robby leaves the bike by the door, saying that nobody would steal from a Cabra Kai, not with the most angry-looking Senseis.

You're holding his arm when you walk in, and some students are already there, stretching or trying some moves. They all look at you.

“It's past time I officially introduce you to the dojo,” Robby whispers in your ear as you cross the tatami, moving into the apartment in the back. “Kyler is throwing a party at his place next week and I want you to come. And I won't take that old excuse anymore.”

Taking a deep breath, you throw your backpack on the couch. “Even if I get to know them a little, it still won't-”

“I really want you to come to the party with me.”

It's the way he says it, the tone of his voice, and the way he comes to stand before you, that makes you nod almost immediately. “Alright then. I'll go. Happy now?”

“Very much.” Again, he leans down to place a kiss on your cheek. “Let's shower. I'll introduce you to them before the class starts.”

“First!” You shout, bolting through the small place and locking yourself in the bathroom.

“Not fair! You went first yesterday!” He yells from the living room.

“Don't be a bad loser!” He replies something silly to that, but then you're left to shower.

Thirty minutes later, you're following Robby back to the dojo. You fall back on purpose because you felt it in their eyes earlier. They've seen you hanging around with the guys from Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang in school. Robby doesn't seem worried about that, and when you pass the office, Kreese nods and you wave at him.

It looks like everyone is here, and you stand near the office door as Robby moves to the wall with the Cobra Kai words. Immediately, everyone gets up and stands to before him.

“Sensei Kreese will be leading the class today, but I just wanted to introduce someone new to you.” He starts, and you're kinda impressed at his... Teacher's voice? Robby looks at you, and you take a deep breath before walking to stand next to him. “This is (Y/N). Sensei Kreese and Sensei Silver allowed her to live here in the dojo with me for as long as she needs. So, since she's using the dependencies of the dojo, I thought it would be right to formally present her to you.”

At the moment it's clear he won't say anything else, the questions start.

“You're living together?”

“In that tiny apartment?”

“Will she join the dojo?”

And many more. But one came louder, from a tall guy in the back. “I saw her with the Miyagi!” He exclaims, and several others nod. “She can't play on both teams. You're either one of us, or you're the enemy.”

“If you've seen her in school, you also know she's new here.” Robby tries to speak up for you.

“Doesn't matter.” A girl on the second line says. Tori. “Mike is right. When you're a Cobra Kai, you can't hang around with the losers.”

Robby is about to say something, but you step forward. “I get the hype. I get this competition among the dojos but I don't think it should reach our personal lives.”

“Cobra Kai is part of our lives,” Kyler says, hands behind his back.

You nod, shrugging. “I understand. It's kinda part of my life now too, but there's a huge difference between wanting to destroy the Miyagi-Do in the Tournament and wanting to destroy them in real life. Or what? Would any of you here be capable of murdering them? Go as far as killing their students? Because that's as far as it goes.” Making a pause, you glance at Robby. He nods, his eyes already set on you. “And honestly... I think it's so much more fun to kick your friends' ass than your enemies'. Seriously, like... I'd love to punch Hawk in the guts so bad.” You chuckle, imagining the scene. “Well, that's only my point of view. You don't have to change yours, but I won't change mine either.”

“About time.” Sensei Kreese's voice comes from the back of the class, and everyone turns to look at him. “I've been keeping this for quite a while now.” He shows you a small package, wrapped in black paper. Kreese comes to where you and Robby are and gives it to you. “Open.”

Without saying anything, you find where the paper was glued and rip it open. Inside, there's a sleeveless, back and yellow gi. The Cobra Kai gi, just like the one everyone is wearing. “Oh my gosh... That's so cool. Thanks.”

“Sensei Kreese, why did you-”

“(Y/N) is free to join this dojo if she likes.” He cuts off Mike, glancing at the class. “She has already been taking private lessons from Robby.” Then, he glances at both of you. You didn't know he knew. “And when she's ready, I know she'll be happy to put this on and be officially part of this dojo. But now... Let's start.”

With that, you walk to the back again, standing there and watching the class.

It takes three days until you finally join them in class. Kreese puts you against some of the new students at first, and they hit you, you manage to hit them right back . But as you remember the tips Robby gave you, it doesn't take much until you're winning most of the fights.

So now, you're Cobra Kai. But your friendship with the Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang students hasn't changed. And it won't.

@eddiemunsonsbattoo

[gyusfavlibra]

THIS IS MY WORK! PLEASE DO NOT COPY OR REPOST ON OTHER SITES/APPS!!!!

Warnings: +18, smut, fingering, hand job, sex in bathroom, language, jealousy, fighting, arguing.

Y/n and Sarah sat quietly on Kie's bed as they waited for Kiara to stop degrading the lavender dress she wore while standing in her large mirror. Mrs. Carrera coming through the door to make sure the girls were all dressed. "This is disgusting."

"I know it's just horrible."

"I'm asking you guys to just relax and go to a fun party."

"I look like a bourgeoisie pig."

"I think you look beautiful," y/n said while shrugging at Kie. She just gave a smile back to her, still hating the look no matter what compliments were given.

"Will you please not worry about socioeconomic injustice for one night?"

"Mom, people not three miles from her have no power, no running water, and we're going to Midsummers."

"That's so tone deaf."

"Y/n," the mother scolded at her niece. "Do you know how hard we had to work to get into the Island club?"

"Yeah, mom. How could I forget? You had to grovel for, like, ten years--"

"Twelve years, and we also had to cough up a huge chunk of dough-"

"To keep up with the Joneses-"

"No, so you had the same experiences that I had as a child."

"But weren't parents as teens out, like partying, getting drunk, making out in the backseats of their cars at drive in movies," the cousin listed while putting her things in its bag. "Getting pregnant."

"That doesn't sound fun," Sarah added.

"Do you girls even know what the Island club is?"

"A factory farm."

"For debutantes," Y/n raised her eyebrows.

"It's a nice place, with nice people where you can do fun stuff."

"With out-of-touch rich people, while the island sinks slowly into the ocean."

"Water filling the poor's destructive lungs while the wealthy ones get away on million dollar boats."

Sarah sat quietly laughing on the comfy blanketed mattress. Mr. Cerrera sighed, saying one last thing before walking out. "Okay, I want you to put on your party face, girls, if you want to live."

"Did your mom just threaten to kill us?"

"Maybe. I think so," she nods as she turned around to the duo, fixing the flower crown that sat on her cousin's head. "You nervous to see Rafe."

"Why did you have to bring that up?"

"I was curious. I know it's only been two days, but-"

"Hey, he broke up with me. So if he wants to talk, that's in his duty. Not mine. I did nothing wrong."

Sarah got off the bed, swinging on it's pole. "Except flirt with JJ, or so he says."

"I was not...flirting with JJ. He has a crush on Kiara. I'd never."

"But Rafe doesn't know that."

°°°°

*flashback*

"What if she doesn't like it?"

"She'll love it. She's hippie."

Y/n and JJ sat on John B's porch, smoking a blunt. The girl was trying to help him do something nice for Kiara so JJ could ask her out without feeling weird. He's liked her for the longest and he was finally ready to tell her how she feels.

"Alright, now practice what you're gonna say."

Just as Y/n finished saying the statement, her own boyfriend, Rafe Cameron showed up. Standing behind them listening in.

"Okay, uh, hey I have to tell you something...uh important," the blonde began speaking, using hand gestures because of his nerves. "I really really like you. Like not like friends like, but I have feelings, uhm, strong feelings for you. Because you're like super hot, andnyou're like a really cool chick. So I was wondering if maybe you'd wanna...go out with me."

"Yes, t-"

"What the hell!"

The manly unknown voice shocked them both, their figures jumping at the sound because they thought they were alone.

"Rafe, what're you doing here?"

Y/n asked confusedly as she stood from the steps. The Kook just scoffed and walked back out. Ignoring her question. She shared a glance with JJ before going to follow after him.

"Hey! Where you going? What's wrong?"

"A pogue!? Y/n, seriously?!"

"What're you talking about?"

"You're cheating on me with a pogue?" He shouted. Y/n scrunched her eyebrows, looking at the unnecessary upset individual.

"What do you mean cheating? I'm not cheating on you. We were just talking."

"Bullshit. That's bullshit! I heard it all."

"Rafe, it's not like that. Jj was just-"

"I should've known better. I should've known," he fumed. His right foot swung to kick the dirt near his truck that he was so very close to getting into.

"Known what?"

"I should've never trusted a pogue. I knew something like this was gonna happen. You were just gonna throw me away like Sarah did, Topper. Right? Huh?"

"You sound ridiculous. I was never throwing you away. I was helping him out."

"Yeah, while you're at it. Might as well help sleep with him too."

Y/n scoffed, taking a step back from the angered boy who's brain had just functioned what he said. Part of him regretted it very much. But the other part thought you deserved it because of his cheating accusation.

He opened his vehicle door. Stepping one foot inside. "We're done."

The girl just laughed with held tears reaching for the openess. She turned around to head back inside as Rafe just drove off.

°°°°

"Hey, no tearing up today. Go to this stupid thing and show him that his little cheating accusation act didn't hurt you at all. You're stronger than that."

"Thanks, Kie."

The girls finished up their last minute touches. That includes sweeping their dresses with roller for no hair, any makeup redos, or hair finishes. The ride to the country club was quiet. Well, y/n was quiet.

This would be her first time seeing Rafe since their break up a three days ago. They've been doing everything in their mighty to avoid each other. And it definitely worked. But like her friend told her, she wasn't gonna get worked up. Letting Rafe see her weak was like telling him he was right about everything. But he wasn't.

"Jesus, Kook land."

"I forgot how packed this thing is every year."

"Well, let's go. I gotta walk out with my family."

The Cameron family walked out with their heads high and the Kook crowd cheered for each one. Y/n kept her eyes gazed to Kiara since they were in the middle of a conversation. Not caring if that family came in or not. That excludes Sarah.

Rafe watched from his spot by his dad, as they exited to outside. Breath hitched when he saw Y/n and her dress. It was a dark toned red, had tulle, and a revealing  chest opening.

A red flower crown on her head, complimenting her beautiful down hair. She looked amazing and hot to Rafe. He had to clear his throat before excusing himself.

"Hey," the red dresses girl heard from beside her as a hand landed on her lower back. She removed it before her eyes retracted to theirs. Kie just pursed her lips before leaving to hangout with Sarah. Y/n internally screaming that she left her there.

"What do you want?"

"Uh, you look nice."

"Okay. Thanks. You don't too. What do you want?"

"Nothing. Just saying hi."

"Bye."

"Wait, wait, wait. Why are you mad at me? Shouldn't I be the mad one here?"

"Why?"

"Because of what you did," he said with furrowed eyebrows. Y/n shrugged.

"I didn't do anything."

"Do- do you not remember what happened on the cut three days ago? The fight."

"You slut shaming me and accusing me of cheating with JJ. That? Yeah, I remember that."

"Accused? I heard you."

"Heard what exactly?"

"JJ, was telling you he liked you and thought you were a cool hippie chick, which you are not. You're not hippie. And then he asked you out and you said yes. As soon as I walked in."

Y/n stared at him blankly. Before bursting out laughing. A few guests behind them staring with a look that showed they weren't used to loud talkers or laugher. "Oh my god. You thought? Jesus that's absolutely hilarious."

"What is?"

"That you think- you think that JJ was confessing feelings to me. Whew that's rich."

"I heard it, Y/n."

"He wasn't confessing anything to me you shit head. He was practicing for when he asked out Kiara."

Rafe was confused. Majorly. Inside and out. "But she-"

"He likes Kiara. And she's my cousin. You think I'd really hurt anyone like that? How low of me do you think? Have fun at this party."

Y/n walked off to go look for her disappeared friends. Not wanting to spend another second in a spot with someone who was so rude over something he knew nothing about. Just assumed. Never asked.

As she walked down the corridors of the porch that many people stood on drinking, a hand grabbed her shoulder, turning her around. Her eyes fixated on the blonde in a black tux and a bow tie.

"Holy shit, JJ. You scared me. What're you doing here?" She asked as she hugged him.

"Well, Sarah somehow convinced her dad to let me in tonight to hangout with Kie."

"Have you seen her?"

"I was just looking for her myself. C'mon. She's probably inside."

She grabbed his hand. Pulling him inside. They found Kie just minutes later with Pope. He was working the grill with his dad. Sarah was getting raided by Topper about their own stupid shit. Y/n decided to go get herself a drink and maybe find someone to dance with.

The straw rested on her lips as she stood against the porch railing. Gazing over all the people who say around laughing, probably bragging about their money, summer vacations, their older kids getting into a good college. Typical kook things.

Her eyes focused on a specific couple talking off to the side. Her eyes burning a whole in the back of Rafe's head as he tried to flirt up a storm with some Kook she didn't know whatsoever.

Her body was fuming. Was Rafe really gonna sit in front of her and flirt with a whole other girl that isn't her. Just a few days after their breakup. It's like he's trying to play victim. And she's had it.

"Hey, Sancho. Lassie."

The brunette Rafe was talking up a storm to laughed. "I'm sorry who are you?"

"Oh, you gonna introduce me to your side piece here?"

"Would you stop? We're just talking."

"Talking? Yeah, okay," Y/n laughed. The girl just looked at her dazed. "Hi, I'm his girlfriend. Y/n. And you, yeah you're excused."

Rafe was truly enjoying this scene. Internally rooting for Y/n. He wasn't gonna object to that fact that she called herself his girlfriend. Because now that he knew the truth, it changed his perspective.

"Who do you think you are?"

"I already told you. Wh- can you not hear correctly?"

"He said he was single so, why-"

"He lied. So, you can go away now- Rafe. Let's go. We need to talk."

"What're you his mother now?" The rando questioned. Y/n turned to her and gripped her face.

"If you wanna keep these teeth, then I suggest you stop talking. Go find somebody else's boyfriend to mack on."

She dragged Rafe by his hand into the upstairs private bathroom. Locking the door behind her. "What're you doing?"

"Just having a friendly conversation. There a problem?"

"You were flirting, Rafe. That was flirting," she paced. Hand against her for head.

"Like you're any better. You lied to me."

"I've never lied about anything."

"You said JJ liked Kiara."

"Yeah. He does."

"Then why is he holding your hand, hugging you, and leaving inside with you instead of the girl he supposedly likes," Rafe argued. Gripping onto the large counter.

"Rafe, I grabbed his hand and brought him inside to find Kiara. And I hugged him because I was happy for my friend. God, Rafe how many times do I have to tell you that I am not cheating on you."

"It's kind of hard to believe that shit when I keep seeing things with my own eyes."

"Then stop assuming and come ask me. Jesus, do you not trust me or something. Because I trust you. Anytime I hear that you're at a party doing lines with hot blonde's next to you, I brush it off because I know you'd never. Why can't you just do that for me."

Rafe stood from his seat. Pinching the bridge of nose. The guilty conscience grazed through his mind as he listened to her words. He had issues with trust and with others, but he knew it wasn't a reason to take it out on the only person who's loved him for him.

"I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. You're right. I should trust you. Just like you trust me. I'll work on it. I promise."

"Don't promise me that. Just show me that you love me just as much."

The words clicked. He did love her. And he cared about her. More than anyone in this world. And he wanted to show her. In the most physical way possible.

"C'mere."

"Why?"

"Just c'mere," he repeated as he grabbed her by her waist, pulling her closer to him. She stumbled, but Rafe's grip kept her in place. He moved his face closer to hers, lips almost touching as they grazed against each other.

He used the hand placed on her waist to grip the fabric of her dress. Pulling it upwards. Her breath hitched as he hand snaked under the red tulle and right onto her now soaking core. His pointy finger swept across the waistband of her panties.

Y/n wasn't expecting this as the outcome from their miniature argument but she wasn't complaining. And neither was Rafe.

He pushed her underwear down as much as he could from their position, before going back to her walls and making circular motions. Rafe finally closer the space, kissing her lips practically roughly as he continued rubbing her.

He kept a firm hand on her waist to make sure she had a gripping support if he legs gave out, which they indeed will. The motions stopped as Y/n pulled her lips away from his. Rafe stared at her daring eyes, questioning if she wanted his to continue.

"Put them inside me," she whispered. The Cameron smirked before obliging to her demand. He stuck to fingers into her wet cunt. A soft moan escaped her lips as he did so. Pumping them in and out of her. Y/n rubbed her hand against the erection in his dress pants.

"You like that, yeah?"

She nodded as the locked her lips. Not being able to speak because knowing if she did, she let out a loud moan and even at this club would hear.

She unbuckled his pants, putting her handninside to grip his penis and pump it as he slipped his tongue into her mouth. The hand he held to her waist was now gripped on her neck, gently. Y/n clenched around his fingers. Feeling her high come close. "Dont stop."

Rafe began pumping faster just as Y/n did so. The teens were so horny that they were both already reaching their extent. Rafe's shaft twitched in her hand. "I'm cumming."

"Do it for me."

That's all it took for Y/n to finish. And Rafe too. His liquids filling her hands as they both let out moans due to their intense actions. In one swift motion, Rafe snaked a hand around Y/n's waist turning then so she was against the counter. Her pulled the straps of her dress of her shoulders, leaving kisses as he did so before connecting his lips to hers.

Her pulled his tuxedo jacket off him. Snapping the bowtie off as well. Y/n moaned at the tluchnof his hands on her breast. Massaging them in his hands over the fabric of her strapless bra.

Y/n unbuttoned the spots on his shirt before pulling it off his shoulders and onto the floor. Rafe stop his gripping motions and pulled down his pants and boxers. He sat her up on the counter. Her bare ass connecting to the coldness of the marble designed setting.

Rafe rubbed his tip against her fold once or twice before pushing himself into her. Not giving a warning, but Y/n loved the suddeness. Y/n let a moan into his next as he began thrusting his hips. The girl gripping her black painted nails into his back.

Rafe's eyes rolled to the back of his head. Enjoying the feelings of Y/n's cunt wrapped around him.

"You like that?"

"Yes, god yes."

Y/n sat up, wrapping her arms around his neck. Each moan and huff she exposed in his earn make his whole body shiver. Rafe let out a grunt before answering. She clenched her walls around his dick. The dirty blonde groaned slamming into her body. "Do it again."

She did so. Clenching around around the boy as he slammed into her again. This time, hitting the spot that made her whole body go insane. "Tell me I'm yours."

"You're mine."

A moan escaped her lips after he said what she had wanted. Her hand smacked down onto the edge of the sinks counter. Grilling onto it for dear life. "Tell me it again."

The feeling of her finishing was fastly approaching. As well as for Rafe. The moans she let out made his go over the edge as he fucked her hard. "Tell me, Rafe."

"You're fucking mine, ah-"

Each of them let out a loud moan as they finished. Covering each others mouths. There shouldn't be anyone upstairs but for precautions they covered either way.

Rafe's head fell forward onto her chest. Taking large breaths as y/n did too. "Shit, y/n."

The Cameron pulled out of her. Helping her get redressed and cleaned just after he did himself.

"You're still on the pill right?" He asked as he zipped his pants.

"Yeah. It's fine," she smiled up at his 6'4 figure. Rafe reached down to kiss her passionately.

"I love you, Y/n."

"I love you, too."

[kristinakyidyl]

s1e9 Trailer

So, in my ongoing quest to get better at guessing things and also for fun, the e9 trailer!

As per usual, this WILL CONTAIN BOOK SPOILERS. At the end of e8, Viserys died (I got that right! Even the bit about seeing Aemma, although not in the way I thought.). The next episode is called "The Green Council". In the book, when Viserys is discovered dead, Alicent hides it and gathers the small council. During this council they decide to crown Aegon the Elder, creating him Aegon II Targaryen. And, yes, he's just as much of a piece of shit in the books.

We start with a dark, empty, cold throne room. A huge contrast to how it was warm and lit up for the welcome feast for Rhaenyra's wedding - although likely still as violent. However, this scene is lit in a way that feels cold and empty. Just as when Aemma died, so too does Viserys's death bleed life out of the Red Keep.

Next, we have the three usurping assholes. As I mentioned, when Viserys dies, the Greens keep this information to themselves. They don't even allow the Silent Sisters to tend to the body (this is probably the purpose of showing them this week - so we can see the immediacy and purpose of their work.) and it begins to rot...well, you know, more than when he was alive. :P Instead, they call together the small council, and that's what we're seeing here. They've been dragged out of bed and into the room, and the balls are on the plates, and so it's in session, and the small council is being informed of the King's death.

Look at Alicent. She looks horrible. She looks so unhappy to be there whilst Otto and Crispin look unbothered. Her grief here appears to be genuine. It appears that she's feeling the weight of everything...her husband's death, what she thinks is going to happen, the decision she has to make...all of it.

Next shot is a Kingsgard cleaning his sword. I'm assuming it's Criston, but it's meant to symbolize the upcoming war in the trailer. I think what it actually shows is swords being cleaned before another shot we see later on that is from Aegon's coronation.

Alicent saying "he told me he wanted Aegon to be king" to someone, presumably her dad. She's crying here, so it's likely this is right after Viserys is found. I'm not sure how seriously I think she's going to take Viserys's last words, but it looks like it's her turn to make some really bad decisions. Whether she does that because of his last words, her father's influence, her own ambition, or a combination of those is more what I think we'll find out.

These next two shots are likely of the same scene, and I've circled what was pretty much the only hint as to what they're looking at. It's a Kingsgard. This is clearly after the scenes in the actual green council, because those happen at night and this is a daytime scene. My guess here for these two is that it's Aegon's coronation, although it seems like the crowd here is moving quickly and is either upset or scared about something. Maybe they're excited. I think possibly upset though because in the book it says that the dragon pit was chosen as the coronation site d/t the strong, defensible doors. Maybe the city riots when Aegon usurps Rhaenyra.

Next we have another pair of scenes, and this shows some people kneeling and bowing to Otto and others standing. I am assuming this is part of the event where Otto rounds up all the Black supporters and either jails them or beheads them. So those who remain standing are unwilling to swear to Otto and Aegon. Lord Caswell will be among them. I'm sure someone better at identifying actors can do better than I can with telling who these characters are. Like I know I've seen that guy on the bottom, but I can't remember who he is.

Now we go back to that meeting of the Green Council right after Viserys's death, and we have Otto saying "This door remains shut until we finish our business". We'll come back to this in a second, because there's more shots from this scene.

This is a shot of Aegon - crown on his head - in the foreground, Aemond in the background, and Crispin's arm to the right. The voiceover are the last two words of the previous sentence, implying that "our business" is crowning Aegon. A side note, that I'll get into at the end - Aegon isn't crowned with Viserys's crown, he's crowned using Aegon the Conqueror's crown, as it hadn't yet been lost in Dorne at this point. The reason I know that's Crispin's arm is that it's Crispin that physically crowns Aegon at the coronation, which is another reason why book readers can't stand the guy.

Now, this is where the trailer starts to get interesting. This is Otto saying "no one can known who you are or what you seek", to a man whose identity I don't know (But my best guess is Arryk Cargyll.). However, given his previous shady dealings with Mysaria, I think that that storyline is going to bear fruit. What is he seeking, you might ask? I think it's one of Aegon's bastards (he's known to have had several.). More on that later when we get some images of a tow-headed child. It also could be when Otto tells the Kingsguard to summon the Small Council. Seems like "seek" is odd phrasing for the small council tho.

This is the next scene, presumably the same man leaving Otto's chambers. I'd thought maybe it was Crispin, but he doesn't have a moustache. Arryk does, though. So if that is a member of the Kingsguard, it's probably him. For clarity: Arryk and Erryk Cargyll are twins on the Kingsguard. Arryk stays with the Greens, and Erryk goes to the Blacks.

As I was writing this blurb for the next one I think I figured out what was going on. I'm think this is Rhaenys (I know it could be Rhaenyra, but she has Rhaenys's fairly distinctive hairstyle.) trying to get into Viserys's room to say goodbye to her cousin the morning after her vigil over Vaemond's body. When she can't get in, she is immediately sus. There's always been some confusion over how Viserys's crown is smuggled out, and so I think maybe Rhaenys finds the door locked, asked someone why it's locked, and figures out about the green council. She then finds someone - I think Harrold Westerling - and they leave KL.

The next two images are from different parts of the trailer but they should be taken together. The first is Talya accompanying some scared looking royal nurses (IE, the kind we're constantly seeing around the kids.) and an equally scared looking tow-headed child to the black cells. The second is said child in the black cells. Now, initially I was confused by this. I *thought* he might be one of Aegon's bastards, but I was kinda confused as to what he was doing this early on, and this kid is too old to be Gaemon IMO. However, since I'm a little late on this week, I saw on Twitter that he is Gaemon Palehair. He's a minor character towards the end during the Targaryen pretenders before the Hour of the Wolf that is put forward by whores in Flea Bottom. He ends up being spared on account of being very young (like...6?), and becomes food taster for Aegon III (Rhaenyra's Aegon.). He...really has no purpose in the larger war, and dies later on when someone tries to poison Aegon III. So I still think it's weird that he's being rounded up and put in the black cells or even present this early on, but I'm less confused as to his identity now.

In any event, I think Otto sends Arryk out to get him, and finds him via the connection to Mysaria. IDK why Otto wants him or cares, but I guess we'll find out. Maybe a stand-in for Jaehaerys during Blood and Cheese?

This is a well-dressed woman in one of the black cells, with a guard walking past her door, and what looks like fire outside? Could just be the light. Anyway, due to the cutout in the dress on her arm and the hair over the shoulder, I think it's Talya. Probably in the cell with Gaemon. So it's fairly likely that Aegon finds out that she's been spying for Mysaria, or possibly that Mysaria gives her up because Mysaria has been loyal to Daemon all along. In any event, it seems like she is locked in the black cells when Otto cleans house of the Black loyalists.

Alicent rubbing her temples and saying "what of Rhaenyra?" during the green council, so it seems she might not be as set on her course as is otherwise implied. Or she at least has enough remaining care that maybe she doesn't think they should be hiding Viserys's death from her. Maybe she just wants to know how they'll handle her, idk.

Next we have a Kingsguard with a satchel over his shoulder and a smaller, slighter figure next to him. The guard has long, brown hair, so it's probably Erryk Cargyll with Viserys's crown, escorting Rhaenys to safety. She's grabbing his hand, probably telling him to run, so honestly either a riot breaks out in KL or they're rushing to the dragon pit for the coronation and these two are trying to disappear in the crowd. I'm not exactly sure, but there's a lot of shots from this scene in the trailer, including those ones I posted above of the KG on a horse and the rushing crowd. I'm leaning more and more towards riot.

This next one I genuinely have no idea and so I'm submitting it to you guys for guesses. It's small figure being blown backwards into a hole of some kind by fire and explosions, so I think dragonfire. I lightened it as much as I could without it becoming nothing but artefacts. I'll be honest, my brain immediately read the objects in the foreground as dragon eggs and this as the pit, but I don't think that's right. It doesn't match up at all. So what do you guys think? The cloak isn't helpful bc there's a few people wearing murder cloaks in this episode.

Larys saying to Alicent "I've found out something you should know". At the last two words, it switches to the shot of the child I posted above. Now, there were rumors in the books that some of the bastards, like Trystayne Truefyre, were by-blows of Viserys, even tho it's way more likely that they either weren't Targ bastards, or they were Aegon's and Daemon's. But maybe Larys is the source of those rumors, and he's deceiving Alicent here and telling her the kid in the cells is Viserys's. He might have nothing to do with the kid, but the cut implies that he does. Plus...he's the shady one, so, makes sense.

Ok, again, this one is a bit confusing to me. I am adding it in case you guys have suggestions. If this were any other show, I'd think this was two kids in a paid fight (followed by people are either winning or losing bets.). It's obviously someone small hitting the other person and making that blood, but I honestly have no idea. Maybe an atmospheric shot for something more important happening at this establishment? Someplace belonging to Mysaria? That person getting punched looks like they have targ hair, but who knows...

Aemond in a murder cloak he borrowed from his hero Daemon. IDK what he's doing here, but I have a feeling it's during the chaos seen earlier in the trailer. He might be out looking for the missing crown and the missing Kingsguard. And in shot 2, it seems that the person whose back is to us is, indeed, the missing Kingsguard. I don't think he's going to die here, because he shows up on Dragonstone with the crown later on in the trailer.

Crispykins threatening Harrold Westerling with the murdered Beesbury (who was Team Black and then murdered during the Green council for it.) slumped over behind him. Some people theorize that this is when Harrold dies, but I don't think so. He seems to be in that picture of the Black Council, so it's unlikely he does. I'm pretty sure he's in the background of Viserys's crown being presented to Rhaenyra in this shot from the weeks ahead trailer:

Turns out the only reason Crispy wasn't willing to be Alicent's thug last episode was the fact that Viserys was standing right there. This is gonna be the episode where show watchers find out why book readers hate this guy so much.

Beesbury, who is telling Alicent it's treason to put Aegon on the throne - which it is - and then being murdered for telling the truth. Pour one out for the only person in that room with ethics.

This is Aegon's coronation, hopefully in the dragonpit with Sunfyre nearby bc I want to see Sunfyre. Such a shame that one of the biggest shits in this story has one of the coolest dragons.

This one is another confusing one. Erryk and Arryk together, so this is before Erryk goes to the Blacks, and out of uniform. I think it might be wherever that fight takes place? So maybe I'm right, and that is a fighting ring added for atmosphere for whatever's taking place with the twins. I'm thinking maybe the sequence of events is Otto assigning them the task of retrieving this bastard right after the Green council but before informing anyone of the treason, they go to this fighting ring to get him, and then he's returned to the castle and put in the cells, then Erryk leaves. Although I have a feeling that their confrontation with Aemond happens on their way out of this place, and maybe instead of it just being Erryk in that scene, it's also Arryk, and it ends up being 2 v 1 and that's how they win.

This next one is one of the twins chasing down someone who is probably a really rough-looking Aegon inside the sept (the ring of candles that Rhaenyra and Alicent prayed around is in the next shot.). In the books he says he doesn't want to be king, and can only be convinced when Alicent tells him that Rhaenyra will kill him and his siblings (almost certainly untrue; Rhae lets *Alicent* live.), so this is probably him trying to outrun his responsibilities. Actually...now that I'm thinking about it, maybe Otto *wasn't* sending the twins out to get the bastard, maybe they're being sent to find *Aegon*, who is drunk in whatever tavern or hidey-hole that fight is happening in. I wonder if he makes more of a protest than I'd been thinking he would about taking the crown.

The conqueror's crown!!! It's missing the rubies tho. =(

So that's this week's trailer. TBH it's a lot of shots from a few scenes, so I get the feeling that tons happens in this ep. ^_^ Should be fun!

[sapph--ire]

Signals Lost - I

Photo Edits/Graphics/Page Breaks by me. Gifs as credited.

Signals Lost: Sy x Reader

Synopsis: Set at the start of the Iraq war, and the years that follow. Y/N (Reader) and Captain Syverson meet on base as he trains for a new role in the military. Warnings: 18+ Angst/Romance/Smut: (Update as I go) Slowburn, misogyny, swearing, drinking, smoking. A/N: I've been sitting on this one for a while, um'ing and ahh'ing over whether I should publish. My first series so please be kind, like, reblog etc. Feedback is always appreciated! I am but a wee Sy fan with big ideas for his character.

Do not steal, do not re-post to external sites or claim as own.

Disclaimer: Not Beta’d, all mistakes are my own. Details of military life from personal experience not fact. I do not own any rights to Captain Syverson/Sandcastle. Feedback and commentary are appreciated, enjoy BBZ. Saff x 🥸✌️

MINORS DNI! YOU WILL BE BLOCKED!!

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Signals Lost

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I - September 9th, 2002:

The droning of your strained car engine blends with the booming pop beat coming through the old blown-out speakers. Indicating right onto the quiet motorway, you wind the window down to alleviate the late summer heat. Allowing your hair to whip around your face you can feel the cool lick as the wind finds the sweat at your hairline. Switching into 4th and pulling into the stream of traffic you turn your indicator back up and settle in for the next 20 odd miles of countryside. The sun sags heavily, looming over the wide horizon blanketing the expanse of flat fields. In the distance, a huddled group of hangers and buildings reveal your destination, a town rising in a wispy haze of heat blooms.

Living in the middle of bumfuck nowhere has its benefits, a sense of happy isolation from the world - but desperately boring at times. You think of your friends you left school with, happily married with children, the continual drip of dull, domestic life. But you are happy, at least this summer had been a happy one. Since graduating from Uni you’d made an effort to be more sociable, taking this job was one check off that list, meeting new faces getting to know the locals. It wasn’t a well-paid job, but a family friend put you up to it on the assurance the Americans tipped well. Which they did of course, but on the rare occasion they didn’t, they more than made up for it with a story or two.

Now 6 weeks in you felt comfortable, and conversation was something you’d always excelled at - you’d be lying if you didn’t admit the best part of the job was being able to mingle with some of the best looking men you’d ever laid eyes on, but that was just a perk. They were different to the men here at home, alien. You’d never encountered so many tall, broad men, fatigues filled with muscles - and that’s ignoring just how respectful they were. Yes Ma’am this, No Sir that.

Overtaking a tractor heavily laden with beet, a wobble from under your accelerator reminds you to book the wheel alignment on your piece of shit car, you sigh as you make a mental note to call the garage as soon as you get to the bar, more expense to worry about. The sun still setting on the skyline you reach the first sign for the base, your reminder to turn off. Making the turn into the left lane you see litter left behind from a recent anti-war protest, fluorescent signs plastered with the CND symbol, angry slogans zip-tied to the chain-link fence, and one very offensive cartoon of Bush and Blair in some sort of 69 position. If only you could stop and steal that one, it was bloody hilarious, thinking about how you might pick it up on your way back later to avoid explaining it to the entry guards on your way in. Pulling up to the gates you fish your ID from your bag, wind down the rest of your window, and make sure to slow enough to appease the 4 huge men gripping tactical firearms. Just to quell your anxiety you pull forward cautiously until the one at the front holds his hand out gesturing a stop.

“Good Evening Ma’am” He twangs with a short smile “Identification?”

“Sure, I’m headed to The Stoke, I’m a barmaid there,” You say trying not to look at the huge rifle clipped to his jacket. “uhh Civvy” you add.

“Ok, you know where you’re headed Miss?” he hands back your ID with what seems like a wink.

“Yes thanks” you nod awkwardly, ignoring the subtle twinkle from his eye.

“Lemme just get your slip” he notes pointing to the hut, “what time are you finished?”

“Midnight, but can you make it one please?” he looks at you expectantly “oh sorry…I mean I’m locking up tonight so it will probably take a bit longer, you can check in with my manager if you need to, um Brian West”

“No it’s fine Ma’am just make sure you're off the base by one, or I’ll be in the shit” he smirks. After a short moment in the hut he comes back with a parking slip on a piece of receipt paper:

The barrier lifts and you wave your thanks as you make your way over the speed bumps. A handful of flag poles line the road, the ropes clinking against the metal posts in the late-afternoon breeze. Little roads meander from the hub of the base twisting to meet behind the administration building towards your right. Here the streets are named after states, to your right Iowa leads across to the rear of the admin block, and straight on California to the airfield. Making sure to stick to the 10mph speed limit you drive past clusters of airmen huddled at junctions, some guarding entrances to unmarked doors, others checking the array of parked cars with mirrors on sticks. The base has been on high alert ever since what happened last year, but even more now the anniversary was approaching.

The bar is found at the recreation plaza a little further back from the building you just passed, but still nowhere near the bulk of the small town here. In the distance, you can see the heavily guarded interior gates that block the operational base from the residential side. The airfield and hangers slowly fade into the dusk, and you can make out a dozen or so figures lumbering seats and benches to a roped-off area on the tarmac. To the east of that, there’s a huge middle school for the kids here on base, a complex of married quarters and row upon row of small houses lining what looks like the streets of a model village; as if someone tried to replicate an American suburb with very little space. Not nearly enough to house the 1500 strong population of families here on PCS. Bathed in the yellow floodlights you note the group of men jogging down the path toward the entry gates, and park your car around the back of the bar. You place the parking slip on your dashboard, grab your bag and slide out of your car. It’s not really a ‘plaza’, just a group of buildings huddled around a small fountain lined with more flags and an outdoor seating area. Directly opposite a bustling pizza shop serves a growing line of Friday night customers. Next door is a now-closed donut shop, that one gets real busy in the morning, and past that the gym specifically for relatives on the base. Checking your watch you note the time 17:19 and walk through the open double doors into the bar.

A cloud of cigarette smoke lingers above the mass of bodies at the entrance, practically squeezing through the huddle of men, you see all the tables are filled. Mostly groups of men drinking together after work, but some are families and couples. In the far corner past the pool table, you see what appears to be an unofficial creche of misplaced children playing cheerfully, several running and sliding on their knees to the noisy music. Hugging through the crowd you raise your hand and smile at Mary behind the bar, letting her know you’ve arrived. She barely notices you as she’s taking cash off a woman with one hand and pouring red wine with the other. Setting your things on the hook behind the kitchen entrance, you sign in to the clipboard on the back of the door and check your reflection in the mirror. A crumpled paper sign saying Smile hangs aside it from a small strip of not-so sticky tape. Before you’ve even got time to tie your apron around your waist Mary comes wobbling back to greet you, “Y/N so glad you’re here, I would ask how you are but I’m rushed off my feet, do you mind starting a bit earlier?”

“I’ll be right there Mar” quickly finger-combing your wind whipped hair, you check your mascara and apply a quick coat of lip gloss. Whilst practicing your best smile you unashamedly adjust your top to expose more of your chest than normal, extra tips you think. You scoot around the barrels of oil and kegs of beer in the hallway, and squeeze past Brian who is making his way back to the Kitchen holding an empty tray from the hotplate, “Brian!” you give him a friendly smile, “Busy tonight!” you quip. He grumbles under his breath and in his typical quick wit shouts back “for my sins!”, limping off to refill the fries.

The back of the bar is small, only room for two to pass, but pretty much covers the length of the room, “you take that end Y/N” Mary shouts, you can barely hear her over the band that’s playing on the small stage at the right of you, smiling at the sea of hands waiting for service, you move closer to Mary, “I said you take that end” she repeats into your ear, a waft of cheap perfume and cigarette ash lingering around her head. “I need to get another crate of bottles, you man the fort”, you nod in understanding.

“Can I do that for you, what about your back?” almost yelling into her face, it’s so bloody loud. Yet another night the band ‘forgets’ to soundcheck.

“Don’t mind me dear just get these people away from my bar” she shouts and turns before lifting her hand “don’t forget to take a card if you’re doing tabs, for the love of god Y/N” Mary smiles at you and slaps you on the back as she teeters off to the storeroom on her heels. Mary wasn’t elderly, but she was small and hunched. Clearly once a very beautiful woman, she was prideful in her appearance - always neat. She never wore flat shoes regardless of her back pain, always wore dresses, and styled her perm with what smelled like a full can of Elnette. Given her pack a day habit, it was a total surprise she didn’t self-combust. A never-ending bundle of energy despite her aging years, she and Brian had managed the bar here for well over 30 years, even before the Yanks descended. Turning back to the baying crowd at the bar you take a deep breath and start on orders, a pitcher of draught beer and 2 glasses, whiskey chasers, red wine, more beer, 3 bottles of Pepsi for the kids. Being a barmaid wasn’t hard but it was difficult getting around the expectations of the customers. We didn’t have those fancy cherries or all the brands of liquor they wanted, we didn’t even have an ice machine - but we did our best with a smile, no matter how forced.

About an hour after arriving, the crowd starts to quieten as the early birds make their way home before the evening drinkers pile in. The families and children, some carried sleeping by their parents, leave the bar; satisfied and ready for bed before the weekend ahead. You take advantage of the change in pace and move to the far end of the counter to count the cash and deposit it in the till, punching in the numbers to ensure it all totals at the end of the night. Don’t want a repeat of last week. A major fuck up on your part had the till declaring to be hundreds over what you actually had counted out back. An awkward conversation later everything was fixed, but you just didn’t want to go through that again.

“I’m back dearie” Mary appears from the back door clutching napkins in her neatly manicured hand, “want to take a break? Get some air?” she says while fiddling with the napkins and making little piles of paper umbrellas for the pots. The band has stopped for a quick break, their instruments resting on the stage - only the backup CD playing now, a slow country ballad. Looking across the dance floor you note the dirty tables full of glasses and a few couples slow dancing in the disco lights.

“I thought you’d never ask! Do you mind if I make a call from the phone?” you say wiping the sweat from your top lip.

Uninterested she waves her hand “yes dear that’s fine” she’s now measuring out bowls of bar nuts.

“Thanks Mar, I’ll just grab these dirties from the floor first”. Moving around the room you bring them up to the bar, noting the stack of glasses and pitchers left on the pool table. Tutting to yourself, you have no idea why they won’t get someone else to help. It’s going to be even more manic later. Remembering to make your call to the garage you have a sly smoke break out the back door and make your way to the toilets. It’s not even 7 pm and you’ve been so busy you didn’t even have time to piss. Reaching for the paper you feel an empty roll, typical! - thankfully you have a napkin in your apron, you wash your hands, and get started on checking the customer loos for the same problem.

It’s not long before the bar is filled again with heated bodies bustling towards the counter, cash in hand eager for service. Thankfully Brian has closed up the kitchen and is diligently working the floor, grabbing empties from tables and replacing the back of the bar with boiling glasses from the dishwasher. A group of airmen on your right side propping up the bar, are keenly keeping you busy in bottles of beer and tequila chasers. The band is back now, but instead of the previous crowd-pleasing country music, they’ve switched to some rock and roll. Mostly oldies but a few you recognise and love. A pretty decent cover of ZZ Tops – Gimme All Your Lovin blasts over the noisy PA system. Dancing along to the music you swiftly take orders and cash in return for booze including the odd kiss on the cheek. You’re raking in the tips tonight. In your head, you’re not just the barmaid, you feel as if you were Violet from Coyote Ugly, free pouring whiskey into the mouths of rabid men, spraying them with water when things get too wild. Taking a swig from your bottle of beer you lean across the bar to greet another nameless regular with a friendly face.

“Two beers babe” he shakes a 10 in your face, teasingly pulling away when you go to take it. Following his lead, you put the 10 in your cleavage, cheekily pocketing the change and hand him the bottles.

“Service with a smile” you grin. Have a nice day arsehole.

In the corner of your eye, you see Mary dancing with a young serviceman who’s found his way behind the bar, doing her best Tina Turner impression strutting in her wobbly heels. Brian simply raises his eyebrows to subtly acknowledge what is clearly a regular occurrence and carries on stacking cups. Whilst Tina’s getting her rocks off you try your best to move up and down the bar, pouring pitchers and pulling beer caps at the same time. It’s getting late, past 10 at least, and your back heaves, impatient with the mob.

The thumping bass line from the speakers hits your chest relentlessly as you hurry from punter to punter your shoes sticking to the mess of soda and spirits spattered on the linoleum. Taking short breaks you pull your cold bottle of beer to your cheeks to ease the burn of the humid room on your skin. Before you realise it the optics on the wall need changing and you shout to Brian to grab more whiskey and another bucket of ice.

Predictably the serviceman who was dancing with Mary is now behind you playfully rocking his hips to the music against your back as you pass drinks across the counter. Refusing to rise to it, you try to push him away with an awkward laugh at the men in front of you. He drunkenly stumbles back against the wall of optics and comes back closer forcing you up against the bar, humping you insistently in time to the music, laughing as if it’s all some kind of big joke. Drinks spill over you as he pushes you further into the countertop. You look at the faces in front of you, some of them women cheering him on in howls, the others laughing at the display in front of them. A flush rises to your cheeks, embarrassed by the attention. You’re used to being teased by these types of guys, but right now you feel entirely humiliated, fucking pig. Pushing again you move your right elbow back as hard as it can to meet the side of his ribs.

“Get the fuck off me” you yell. “Arsehole!”. A chorus of boos erupt from the baying audience.

“You’re no fuckin’ fun” he spits in your face, before swiftly jumping back over the bar into the commiserating thumps of his friends, pulling off a strip of stars and stripes bunting with his boot as he goes. As hard as you try to shake it off a wave of guilt enters your mind, you worry you were too harsh, and take a deep breath. Moving the hair from your face you use a bar mat to mop up the spillage as best you can, chuck it in the corner of the floor, and turn to serve the airmen waiting on the right-hand side of the bar; holding back a burn of tears you summon your best fake smile.

“You ok?” The taller of them leans in and hollers to your ear, you step back and meet his heavy-lidded eyes, he’s probably just doing the gentlemanly thing. “Fucking trench monkey” he jibes whilst the 4 others beside him roar in agreement. “4 more shots!” he waves a note.

“I’ll be fine, typical Friday night” shrugging it off, you take his money and lay out the glasses pouring warm tequila to the brim. On decanting a 5th for yourself you snicker at the handsome face eagerly watching you, “emotional compensation” you add with a wink.

“Hell yeah baby!” he howls following your lead and in passing back the drinks to his buddies they chant and down them in unison.

“Free Bird! Free Bird!” an anonymous voice booms from the crowd toward the exhausted band. A smattering of claps and cheers punctuates the request as agreement. The band reluctantly continues for one last song as the ring of the bell signals it’s time to move on.

“Jesus!” you slump your tired arms against the counter, your hazy head falling on your hands.

“Another packed night” Mary pats you on the back in appreciation. Moving up and down the bar, cigarette in hand - unphased by the wild events before. “Good for business” she chirps, spraying the wood and polishing each section fervently.

“Yeah, about that Mar, any chance you can find someone else to help out?” you straighten and look toward her optimistically, the last of the rabble slowly rolling out of the open doors and crisp evening.

“It depends, you’re not planning on leaving us?” pointing at the grate above the hatch she pulls herself onto a small step stool to reach the top.

“No!” you laugh, “despite the over-friendly customers, I really enjoy it here…”

“1, 2, 3” and you both pull down on the metal together, closing the bar for the night. You fiddle with the lock on the grate and put the key in her small hand.

“I mean, the 3 pm shift not so much” you joke, “it gets kind of slow, you know?”

“Well,” she starts “I’ll speak to Brian, he’s the man with the money.” A smile forms at her mouth and she winks. “Speaking of, do you want to be paid now or Sunday?” from nowhere she has a mop in her hands and with her back turned she gets stuck into relieving the sticky mess from the floor. The lights buzz on from the left to right, and all that’s left is the loud ring of tinnitus and Brian shaking the hands of the weary band on the far side of the floor.

Sunday is planned to be a quiet day, the base has a full day of anniversary events lined up, the bar will probably host a few small groups – mainly the regular crowd before they head back to their homes. “Sunday is more than fine” you reply.

Shutting the back door ensuring it clicks, you turn the key in the lock and replace the key chain to your ID lanyard. All that’s left of the night is the navy blue of the star-dotted sky and a misty amber glow from the many floodlights dotted across the estate. Rummaging in your bag you quickly check the time - 12:25 am.

“Night Y/N” Mary waves out the passenger side of her car as Brian drives them back toward the entry gates along the vast airfield.

Still time for a quick smoke, you think, before you get back in your car and head home. Lifting the filter to your lips you pull a lighter from your pocket and drag the thick burning vapour to your lungs, a wash of peace falls over you and you flex your heavy shoulders. The base is practically silent, save for the whir of generators and vehicles on the breeze. It isn’t until you walk a little way to your car you suddenly hear a cacophony of raised voices - angry voices. Around the corner of the bar, a small gathering of people litter the plaza, refusing to give in to the call of their beds. Directly in front of the now locked doors, you see the airmen you served earlier, arguing with a couple of guys sitting on the wall. One of them seems to be spitting sick into a bush, hunched hands on knees into the raised flower bed. Lovely. Not wanting to be seen you slide back against the cool brick and continue to meditate on the evening gone. The burning embers of your cigarette light your face as you take a deep breath and sigh heavily.

Being on base always feels a little like trespassing into a place you’re not supposed to be, the last thing you want is to be caught in all this. The echo of retching and vomit hitting the pavement turns you around. You know you should really get going but he was kind to you earlier, checking in on you – and you really couldn’t forgive yourself if you didn’t try to help, fuck. Whilst crossing the cobbles you dig in your bag for tissues, maybe you could even grab him a water from the kitchen, it’s the least you could do. You flick the half spent cig to the side and squat down to face the Airman.

“Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for checking in on me ba…” you are quickly interrupted by a scoff on the other side of the pathway.

“That’s the fucking bitch”. In the low glow of the parking lot lights, you realise it’s your insistent dance partner from before. His mouth curled up in disgust. “Don’t flatter yourself” he jeers clearly hurt. Fucking fuck! “What’s your name?” You offer the tissues to the man at your side.

“It’s Y/N,” you say timidly. “Look, I didn’t mean any offe..”

“Well you’re a Cunt Y/N!” he spits on the floor at your foot punctuating the disgusting word from his mouth as you step back trying your best to avoid the inevitable confrontation.

“Hey that’s out of line buddy” a bystander points back.

“Go home, Bryant,” another says shaking his head.

Before you can process what the hell is happening or even bother to try and argue back, the nauseous airman is wobbling ahead of you. Squaring up to your aggressor, unstable fists raised for a fight, he lunges forward pushing him back into the bush. A symphony of groans and shouts erupt as his colleagues run to pull him back. The men grapple with each other for an uncomfortably long time, their arms pulled back in anger over and over again, battering whatever they could find. A sickening thud and snap echoes across the plaza, and the airman falls back on his bum clutching his nose.

I can’t believe this, FUCK. “Shit man, what the fuck is wrong with you?!” you groan as you push the wad of tissues under the airman’s nose, his warm blood emptying all over your hands.

Without warning a truck surges into the parking lot, brakes shrieking as you cover your eyes from the blinding white beams of the headlights. The stragglers hanging about the plaza quickly scatter and tramp back to their respective quarters, a sign that you should too. You get back on your feet, backing up between the entrance to the bar and the men in front.

If you had a chance to dash it, it’s definitely gone now. Two figures emerge from the cab, slamming their doors in time, resonating a loud bang off the circle of buildings. They’re looking in your direction, or at least at the group of exhausted men in front of you. The bigger of them is wearing smartly pressed fatigues with a green beret, he towers head and shoulders above the rest. His thick arms swing at his side as he advances. Considering you’ve been working on base for 6 weeks, you still have zero idea what any of the uniforms or patches mean - but just from the swagger of this hulking guy…you know someone’s in deep shit, and a deep ache in your stomach says you should leave before you find out who.

He lumbers up the curbside and you audibly gasp as you notice he has a handgun strapped tight across his thigh. What really takes your attention, however, is the flash of steel clipped to his belt. A tactical knife longer than your forearm sheathed in a crested leather scabbard. Apart from the guards patrolling on site, you’ve never seen any other weapons up close. The proximity alone raises your heartbeat, a mixture of fear and curiosity rushes over you as you wonder why this soldier, in particular, carries a handgun so close to their body.

Without a word the men jump to attention, swaying drunkenly from side to side. The smaller of the two approaches locking on to the airman, blood oozing from his nostrils.

“What in the ever-loving fuck is this!” He booms “Peterson, do I have to hose you down like a rabid dog”

“No Staff Sergeant” he burps, the pungent smell of vomit and alcohol wafting from the vapours of his mouth.

You feel your cheeks flush at his mere volume, trying not to jump with each staccato boom of his interrogation. Don’t panic, don’t panic you relay to yourself. Just explain what happened, you’re not in trouble. You haven’t done anything wrong. Squinting your eyes to adjust to the headlights you search for some sort of way out of this mortifying scenario.

“Are you inebriated Shitbird?” he yells a mist of spit dusting onto Peterson's face.

“Ineb…inebriat? Staff Sargeant” he stammers flicking his head to prevent the blood from his nose trickling down his top lip.

Now looming down onto Airman Peterson's head, eyes freakishly large behind his wide brimmed hat, he repeats “Are you so fucking wasted you don’t know what that means, shit head?”

“Sir, yes I am drunk Sir” Peterson announces to the smirks of his friends.

“Get the fuck out of my sight and back to bricks before I send you to the stockade” he yells “all of you!”. The crack in his voice at the end of ‘you’ is somehow so childishly hilarious at that moment that you let out involuntarily snort in a self-conscious chuckle. The silent taller man snaps his head in your direction, although just a silhouette you can feel the burn of his eyes as he scrutinises you. You bring your hand to your mouth wishing you could sink into the floor and disappear never to be seen again.

“Yes Sir” the four airmen bark in agreement and swiftly exit past the pizza shop in the direction of the inner gate. As they leave a series of awkward laughs disappear into the darkness with them. Now it’s just you, the officers, and your assaulter.

Feeling a chill you realise the novelty of the situation has long gone, what the eff do I say, think THINK!

The Staff Sergeant continues, “Can someone explain to me what in God’s name is going on here?”

In the heavy silence you take your chance to speak up, nervous waves sound as you try to excuse yourself. “Look, I am so sorry” Shit do I say, Sir? Sirs? You contemplate it for a second. “The Airman…um Peterson…was unwell, and I was just trying to make sure he got home alright” shut up, shut up, shut up ”S…Sir?”. Pulling your hands to your arms in comfort, you feel your goose-pricked skin tighten from the chill of the Sergeant’s inspecting glare. Is it fear or nerves? You know this is it, you’re going to get shouted at by at least one of the most terrifying men you’ve ever met. Remembering that time you got called to the Headmasters office for swearing at Ms. Dixon – and subsequent suspension, a worse thought crosses your mind. What if I lose my job! Oh god. If only I’d just gone home when I could.

The larger of the commanders pushes forward, “Not you” he drawls in disdain. Without even looking at you he points his finger, commanding you to shut up and stay put. You don’t know if it’s the gun on his thigh or some sort of mind trick, but you freeze in submission, chest tight, too scared to even breathe. He eclipses the light from the truck with his body as he advances on your aggressor. In the halo of white now lighting his face you can make out his features, a thick 5’o’clock shadow stubbled around a striking moustache, dark curls lay on his forehead. Something else catches your attention, something you can’t quite place at first. The early morning wind picks up, creating a vortex around the small plaza, gathering up leaves and litter as it rises. It’s the smell of his deodorant or cologne, a rich musk mixed with a lilt of whiskey. The fragrance lingers around you, distinctly masculine, a sudden twinge in your belly follows budding wetness in your knickers. Really? You chide your growing schoolgirl crush, a bloom of heat visibly rising to your face as you realise you’re turned on by his icy disregard.

“This is the second call I’ve gotten about you this evening Bryant”, he rumbles at the serviceman now shadowed by his superiors broad frame, “first for assaultin’ a barmaid and now for fightin’ in the God damn street?!” he doesn’t need to raise his voice, a disappointed grumble punctuates his words so perfectly you shift from side to side, feeling scolded in turn. He scrunches his face, bringing his hand to the bridge of his nose.

“Apologize to Staff Sergeant Holmes, Cadet” he orders, his deep voice gravely and fatigued. Something in his tone tells you this is not the first time Bryant has fucked up in his charge.

Bryant turns, ego bruised but still at full attention to the man beside him. “I am very sorry Staff Sergeant, Sir.”

“I am disappointed in your behaviour on my base Son. Hardly becoming of an Officer in training. Given the circumstances, I will let Captain Syverson decide how best to penalize you” Holmes starts, a smirk on his smug face. “But!” He cuts, chin to chin with the Cadet “If I see you as much as piss in my direction I will gladly PT you until you’re shitting blood for a week. Do you understand Son?”

“Yes, Sir!” Bryant jolts. Satisfied, the Staff Sergeant shares a confirmatory nod with the Captain and silently turns back toward the truck. A series of revs signal his departure, and the truck fades from view.

“You fuckin’ idiot Bryant” The captain throws his hands to his hips. You can’t help but notice how large they are, the pads of his thick fingers drum into the woven band of his belt as he contemplates what action to take. “Are you purposefully tryin’ to make us look bad?” He grimaces as Bryant bursts into raucous laughter. Am I bloody invisible?

“Come on Sy, that was fucking funny, you should have seen that guy's nose”. “Shut the fuck up Bryant. Apologize to…” he finally turns, taking you in with a pained inhale. “What’s your name darlin’?”

You step back at his sudden change, Darlin’? Who the fuck does this guy think he is? I am NOT your Darlin’ Grunt. The words you wished you could say, that is if you weren’t so scared of him. “It’s Y/N” you barely manage to get your words out. Searching the Captain's face you try to determine just how much trouble you are in. “Look I need to leave, my permit runs out in…”, you check your watch, “Fuck, I have to get off the base”.

“I’ll make sure you get back to the gate, OK?” he raises his finger again, a sign to stay while he deals with Bryant. He turns a frosty gaze toward the Cadet. His chest rises as he takes his beret in hand wringing it between enormous palms.

“Apologise to Y/N Cadet” he starts, louder than before. Bryant quickly reassumes his attention, clearly, the Captain is not playing buddy tonight.

Turning towards you he spits out his best non-apology, “Y/N I am so sorry you’re a CUNT” his words are full of spite, his eyebrows dance up and down in insult as he mocks you.

“Bryant!” The Captain smacks the cadet upside his shaved head, the slap reverberating in the still of the dark.

“Fuck! I am very SORRY” he virtually shouts, “I am sorry for bothering you” His eyes meet the floor, cracked like a scolded child”

“Right, now stop pettin’ the fuckin’ wildlife, are we clear Cadet?” The Captain orders back, his eyes boring a hole into Bryant’s drooping head. You shift uncomfortably on your feet, Just what exactly is that meant to mean?

“You’re lucky I don’t call the MP’s out this late.” He grumbles turning back to glance at you. You can’t control the shudder from your core as the cold of the night blankets your bare arms, or was it nerves still? “We are guests on this base and in this country” The Captain continues, “I’m takin’ your off base privileges for a month, you can spend your nights on CQ duty” He smirks content with his judgment as Bryant shakes his head to the floor, a whispered curse under his tongue. “FINE” he snarls, “0600 for write up, you can face the Wing Commander”.

“Yes Sir!” Bryant complies through gritted teeth.

“Right, now fuck off” he breaks his gaze from the dejected Cadet and steps forward to you. Placing his beret back on his head, he combs back the dark curls rebelling from the thick gel covering the rest. He presses his fatigues down with a flat hand searching for something in the velcro pockets.. “You said something about a permit?” he smiles, producing a pen from his chest pocket. You can feel the warmth of his breath as he closes in on you. The sheer proximity of his frame making your knees weak.

“Sure, it’s in my car.” You squeeze past the Captain, “it’s just here” you point to the dark at the back of the plaza and make your escape. “Look am I in trouble…becau…” you turn expecting him to be where you were just stood. “Fuck!” you jump, “you’re really quiet?!”. He simply chuckles, cocking his head at you. Laughing awkwardly you hope he doesn’t sense just how nervous he’s making you. Unlocking the passenger door with the key, you lean in to reach past the steering wheel. “I mean I’m just a barmaid…it’s not a big deal, we get arseholes like that most weekends” you ramble searching for the slip of paper in the dark.

“Vulgar Display of Power?” you hear him mutter behind you.

“Sorry?” you look from his pointed hand to the box of tapes spilling onto the footwell.

“You like metal?” he probes.

“Oh yeah I suppose. I like a lot of music, depends on how I feel that day”, You hear a soft ‘tsk’ behind you and glance back. He’s taking in the view of you, one knee on the passenger seat, bent at the waist, struggling forward.

“I mean there’s also a lot of shit I listen to in there, boy bands, Pop-y stuff” you remark, finally finding the paper that had slipped under the glass of the windscreen. “Shania Twain…”.

Pulling yourself back and tugging your jeans up – you cover what you assume was distracting him, the back of your thong. “Here” you stretch your hand to his and pass the piece of paper, he scribbles something on the back, turning to the light of the streetlamp to see better.

“All set Darlin’” he arrogantly pushes the paper back into your hand, the heat from his fingers brushing against your frozen knuckles.

“Thanks, for this”, you raise the paper between you and force a smile tucking the slip into your jeans pocket. “And for, you know, not kicking me off base”.

“Still time for that Doll’” he teases looking at his watch, “you have 9 minutes” stepping back and disappearing around the corner of the bar. His deep voice carries in the dark “Now get! Before I change my mind” he echoes from the shadow.

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