#power play tw

[heirbane]

grandpa's first sunday. you know what that means.

Gaius, having grown up in the military and being under the wing of many superiors, is no stranger to the status quo between man and boy - senior and junior. He went untouched until he was sixteen summers, curls creeping between his thighs and sprinkling his chest and underarms. His platoon was full of those going through puberty and the pains of becoming an adult by body, even if Garlemald had deemed them adults years ago, by virtue of their enlistment.

His first bedfellow was a man a handful of years his senior, still lanky and ill-proportioned, a Roegadyn in birthright but not wholly in statue yet. The man had been gifted a new title, no longer on par with Gaius but his superior in all ways that mattered, and he used his new name to bend the teen at the waist and find his own pleasure.

(Several weeks later, Gaius had tried his own hand - to use his status and title as male birds did their showy plumage. It was all the same, this show of dominance, of power: the most decorated bird was the one to find a partner, and the higher the title, the wider the pool he had to choose from. He went to bed with a girl a summer or two older than him but with a title beneath his, and was so uncertain of how to give instead of receive that he was unable to keep himself afloat, drowning in teenage uncertainty and embarrassment. She got herself off, got dressed, and left - and, to his benefit, he never saw her again, but he knew in his gut that she laughed at him amongst friends.)

By the age of twenty and two, on the cusp of another promotion, Gaius had spent time in plenty of bedrolls, in plenty of company: with another, with multiple others, with further Roe and conscripted Miqo'te, with other Garleans. As he grew into his confidence and became comfortable with what he wanted -and what he needed to find a release among others - the encounters that required him to be receptive became fewer.

By the time Gaius is a quarter of a century old, half his life already paid to the military, he has ceased being dug into bedrolls or led to his knees. Part of it is status: he had already been gifted his tol title, leaving only a handful of soldiers above his rank who could have him submit in such a way. Most of it was personal preference and his silver tongue.

Gaius had not been taught that sex could be for love, for intimacy, or for much else besides stress relief and procreation. (Unsurprisingly, such a mindset is being fed to recruits thirty years his junior - the last few classes of Garlemald's military academy before it's fall still struggle to relate the act to anything beyond that.) Knowing that, it isn't a surprise that he treats it just so: bedding peers and juniors to remove his mind from his duties and to prepare for the battlefield.

Thankfully, by the time he is twenty and five, the softness that came with inexperience was no more. He knew what he desired, and his recurring partners knew much the same: his bedfellows were to take command, to behave, and do as told, lest he discipline their insubordination. He is not a lover but a dictator; he does not appear kind, although their limits and expectations are fully understood and tapping out taken seriously.

For his partner to end up like he did at the beginning - face in the bedroll, his fist in their hair, a pace so ruthless it punched gasps from their lungs - was not uncommon. Gaius was not known to take his time.

His haphazard foreplay and brutal pace thereafter slowed with age, as did the amount of partners that graced his bedroll - or his mattress, once the man could afford an apartment and amenities. As he matured, so did his tastes.

Gaius, at twenty and five, was known to devour his meal as if a man starved - a youth still feeling out his appetite and how much he needed to feel sated. Gaius, at fifty and five, had learned how to play with his food.

(While he still quite enjoyed the view of his partner's arched back and the sounds they made when he bent them over, he enjoyed their anticipation even more, the languid chase that came before he devoured them. He was in no rush. Death had come for him more times than he could count, and sex was a luxury he scarcely afforded himself as a man: he would relish in it, even if it meant listening to his partner beg.)

[fidanmev]

he bribes her with gum or something later and she becomes an ally guys dw

[roxirinart]

"Yes! Show me the power of the Red Crown! I have missed it so..."

[chumbyy]

the sky is a swirling vortex of color 💙🧡💜💚

[pushing500]

Drama in the colony! What in the world could be causing problems for the Jones "twins"?

I'm not sure how Mechi would feel about being called Kwahu's duplicate, but that's beside the point. It looks like there really are consequences for everything that happens on the rim!

Mechi only just met his new "twin", and now we have to choose one to die so one can live?

Haha, sike. Randy can try all he wants, but the joke's on him. We won't be saying goodbye to either of the Jones boys for as long as we can manage. Melissa, the creepjoiner from a while back, will finally get the chance to put her mystical healing powers to good use...

Hopefully, there are no consequences from that. I'm sure there won't be. The void giving us two events with consequences? That would be ridiculous.

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Also, for what it's worth, Mechi and Kwahu aren't sharing a bed. I just forgot to put a bedside table in between while I was drawing. Accidentally made it look like my misanthropic mechanitor was way too comfortable sleeping side-by-side with his equally misanthropic clone lmao.

Aren't Mechi's "cube" sculptures adorable? I feel like a proud parent watching a child make horrendous macaroni and fingerprint art.

[rubbish78]

Dougie Poynter is an English musician and the bassist of the pop rock band McFly

[xx-romantic-pup-xx]

Im not usually into this specific font of pain stuff but lately ive been really needing someone to hit me really hard and maybe punch me in the face. Havent been craving in a particularly horny way but i think it would work well in that sense and be a much healthier way to channel it than getting myself randomly beat up lol.

[official-darkforest]

things are happening in my pages documents i tell you what

[heirbane]

Citizens of Garlemald reached adulthood when they first showed signs of puberty, or upon their acceptance into the military, whichever came sooner. They believed that if one was able to serve their country, they deserved the rights and responsibilities of adults.

If a child could choose to wield a weapon, they were old enough to dictate their own fates.

Gaius was barely thirteen when he enrolled into the military. His voice had yet to crack and he had nary a hair on his face to speak for his newfound "adulthood". He, like many and more to come, looked up to those who were well and truly adults, being whisked under their wings to be mentored into being a man and a soldier.

In a society where men and women spent more time in barracks and not in a cot in their family's home, it was common - and nearly required - for children in the military to be fostered and cared for by an older soldier. They would be raised and cared for, taught how to be a man and a machine, and then they would retire. The military relied on its recruits upholding the status quo in this manner.

Gaius was taught how to shave. He was taught how to tie a tie, and how to behave around girls his own age. And he was taught one very important thing by his mentor, a man who was born decades before the empire had even begun:

One did not sleep with their charge.

It was not a factor of age or experience, but of status. A Legatus shouldn't sleep with the boy he trained as a son. A Tribanus shouldn't keep a bed with the same woman they had taught how to kill. Garlemald and it's military held status among men in high regard. Men were to teach the boys of today, so that they could teach the boys of tomorrow, a fine and delicate act of commanding and listening.

But there was a line in the snow. Not all listened, nor heeded the advice, but it was one Gaius held true all the same. The boys he taught respect to were not ones he would share a bedroll with. His recruits were not his bedfellows, and he treated them much the same as he would his own children in due time.

Gaius, no matter how pressed, never slept with Livia. The girl was a daughter and not one he shared sheets with. Children oft had crushes and obsessions with adults they held in high regard, and Livia was no different... except that she struggled to outgrow her fixation. His love for her, as a brother to a baby sister, as a mentor to a mentee, was not enough for her.

He shared no bed with those in his Legion. He shared no bed with those he raised from childhood. And he shared no bed with those too young to choose their own fates... an age that is summers beyond what his fatherland decrees.

Men and women of different station and legions were more than welcome. They had not been his to care for or command: he had not seen them rise from prepubescent boys and girls into soldiers. Their status mattered not, nor their race.

Gaius rarely spent time in his own home in Garlemald, and he was not one to have the bed to himself and his thoughts. A good meal and a better fuck served to rid him of his night terrors and contemplations, if only for one evening... and if the Legati or Tribanus of the soldiers he bedded took offense to his acts, few had it in them to speak it into existence.

(He was a child killer, after all, the bane of those who dared seek the throne. If he could slaughter babes and women alike, who would dare speak against him?)

[yelena-bellova]

You had the audacity to pretend to be a feminist and care about Pamela Anderson, yet you can't recognize a powerful male abuser like Depp playing by the oldest rules in the book and utilizing DARVO. We are so fucked.

You’re right. The true feminists are you guys.

- Telling Rihanna to go choke and d*e because she put JD in the Fenty show.

- Telling Britney Spears her conservatorship should be reinstated for posting a JD quote on IG and that she deserves to have all her rights taken away.

- Cheering online when a female JD supporter succumbed to a long illness.

- Harassing numerous women online and telling them (anonymously) that they deserve to be SA’d and to k*ll themselves.

- Sending threats to Camille Vasquez, a young woman of color succeeding in a predominantly male profession.

Wow. The girl power is overwhelming.

[harukakitous]

Kousei Amano as Grodie Leucochloridium

"I love the dead so much, but they just seem to hate me instead. Such a sad story, right?"

[happybird16]

Unreasonably hot Daddy

God just the way it feels like the edge of his blade is so close to your neck. It's as if you're on your knees and he's just looking at you out of the corner of his eye, casually holding the blade daringly close to your skin. Why is this so sexy?!?

[kiki-strike]

i think the fire nation would have fireball. mostly because it’s funny to imagine zhao and zuko sitting down to Important Psychological Warfare Talk on zhao’s fancy ass admiral ship quarters and he pours them fucking fireball.

[cookie-nom-nom]

[“But I’m not even human.” 

Miles shrugged. “Human is as human does.” He forced himself to reach out and touch her damp cheek. “Animals don’t weep, Nine.”

She jerked, as if from electric shock. “Animals don’t lie. Humans do. All the time.”

“Not all the time.”

“Prove it.” She tilted her head as she sat cross-legged, her pale gold eyes were suddenly burning. Speculative. 

“Uh, sure. How?”

“Take off your clothes.”

“Wot.”

“Take off your clothes and lay with me as humans do, men and women.” Her hand reached out to touch his throat. The pressing claws made little wells in his flesh.

“Urp?” choked Miles. His eyes felt wide as saucers. A little more pressure and those wells would spring out red fountains. I’m about to die. 

She stared into his face with a strange, frightening, bottomless hunger. Then, abruptly, she released him. He sprang up and cracked his head on the low ceiling and dropped back down, the stars in his eyes unrelated to love at first sight. Her lips wrinkled back on a fanged groan of despair. “Ugly,” she wailed, her clawed nails raked across her cheeks, leaving furrows. “Too ugly. Animal. You don’t think I’m human.” She seemed to swell with some destructive resolve. 

“No no no!” Gibbered Miles, lurching to his knees and grabbing her hands and pulling them down. “It’s not that, it’s just— how old are you, anyway?” 

“Sixteen.”]

——

Miles instantly recoiled, cracking his head on the ceiling again because those who didn’t learn history were doomed to repeat it, as Commodore Tung was fond of reminding him. Immediately her eyes narrowed, a snarl creeping over her sharp teeth. “You don’t think I’m human enough,” she accused, voice still husky from disuse. “I knew it.” Her claws slipped back up to the scratches on her damp face, and he jolted forward, batting them down again in a reckless manner. 

“No, it’s not that,” Miles insisted, eyeing the way her claws were curling into fists about the same size as his entire face. “You’re a child! I can’t do that.”

“My life expectancy was barely a few years. The rest of the projects have been long dead.”

“Well, it’s still wrong in human years, which is the point. There’s plenty of other tests for humanity, anyways.” Sex was by no means the epitome of human existence. “What about Socrates? Human choice motivated by the desire for happiness? Or, oh, what was that test for AI centuries ago? The Tuning Test? That would work too.” He didn’t remember what it actually entailed. “There’s many tests. You yourself said only humans lie. By your own logic, lie, ergo, human. Human is as human does.” That’s what he’d meant it to be applied to, anyway. 

Her eyes narrowed. “None of those prove your belief to me. I still like my test.” Well, naturally. [Sixteen. God. He remembered sixteen. Sex obsessed and dying every minute.] 

[“Aren’t you a little young for this?” he tried hopefully.] She started a protest, but he continued. “It’s illegal. There. I applied human laws to you.” Probably a first for Jackson’s Hole. “I also just offered you a job, and regulations ban interrank romantic interactions.” No matter how much he might want to with one particular Eli Quinn...

The power dynamic was entirely wrong, between his age and rank and the fact he was beginning to suspect he was about to rescue this girl. Or, hell, look at it the other way, at the underlying threat that he must prove he believed her human or die. It was a messed up power imbalance from nearly every angle. 

A crumpled look crossed her wolfish features. Miles tried to console her. One for it being the Vorish, gentlemanly thing to do, and two because while he thought it unlikely she’d kill him at this point, he still didn’t want to increase his chances. “I’m probably the first nice face you’ve seen in a while. Don’t settle for me simply since I got here first. There are plenty of suitable partners once you get out of this basement. Which, reminder, we’re in a hostile environment surrounded by enemies. We still need to escape.” 

Moroseness slumped her features. “It’s impossible. I stopped trying years ago. And…” a shudder ran down her strong back, ears flattening. “...they don’t like it when you try,” she said lowly. “They wouldn’t do this to me if I was human.”

“Eh, actually they would. I mean, I’m human, and I’m down here, aren’t I? I’ve been deemed subhuman before. It hurts when they think it’d be a mercy to ‘put you out of your misery’.” He was going to strangle that scientist.

She gave him an odd look, scrutinizing him more thoroughly. “You don’t look like Jacksonian work. And you said you’re human. Why isn’t that enough for them?” 

Miles spread his hands wide, a wry expression crossing his features. “Ah, but I’m a mutant. A weakling. A curse from God upon my father’s house for every sin they can think to lay at his feet. They will find anything and everything they can to hold against you, Nine, no matter what it is that makes you different. Eight feet tall or four foot nine, unmatched strength or bones of glass; they will despise you either way. Well damn their notion of being born wrong because I intend to be ten times the man they ever could be.”

“Then it’s hopeless.” 

“If you want it to be handed to you, yes. You can’t rely on someone else to give you your humanity, because that implies they can revoke it at any time. It’s a value you have to find within yourself.” It sounded like some pithy Betan advice he would’ve picked up from his mother. “With your test, you wanted your body to feel human. But what about your soul, Nine?” He paused. “No, we need a name for you. I can’t be calling you a number like some type of lab rat.” Something strong and pretty, like her. He fell into that well of old earth philosophy he had initially fallen back on. Socrates, the Greeks, the like. When he finally found the name, it seemed perfect for the girl called a monster and trapped deep in the heart of a labyrinth of labs. Wasn’t Miles intended to be some blood sacrifice to her as well? And hadn’t the minotaur been a child when he was imprisoned for life? Punished for the crime of being born, just like them. “Taura,” he breathed. “I think I shall call you Taura.”

She went still, enraptured. “A name.” Tears welled in her golden eyes. “No one has ever given me a name.” 

“I’m not giving it to you. I’m letting you take it, to seize it, to make it your own. As much as I’d like to, I can’t give you your humanity either. That’s all up to you. Break free of every cruel moniker hurled at you. Monster, mutant– who cares what any of them think!? Prove them all wrong and never look back. That’s what I did. So here: I may reject your test, but I offer my own. I believe you’re ‘human enough’ because I believe you’re worthy of freedom, of a future, of a name. I certainly can’t give any of that to you, but I sure can help you try.” Something sparked in her gilded gaze, the tantalizing offer she’d likely never been given before. It was a hope doused quickly, but it had been there at all. Miles had a chance of relighting it, of fanning the flames. 

“You really think so?” Uncertain, her fangs twisted into a guarded frown. 

Miles batted aside a twinge of guilt. It wasn’t just because she was his only shot of escape, and it certainly wasn’t for a particular scientist whose neck he wanted to wring. This was because Taura didn’t deserve to be trapped in a basement eating rats for the rest of her tenuous life. He might have needed her, but she needed him, too, if only for a little while. 

“I don’t make offers I don’t intend to provide. So, care to escape with me?” He held out an arm, almost ridiculously formal, and she took it, choosing to trust him if only hesitantly, if only for that little spark of hope still in here somewhere.

[rubbish78]

McFly doing their 'Star Girl' kicks at Halifax Piece Hall 10/08/24 (x)

[newtafterdark]

♫ So why care for these petty obsessions? Your designer heart still beats with common blood! And what if you could have genetic perfection? Would you change who you are if you could? ♪

Behold my "Vampire: The Masquerade" OC Theodore (an independent surgeon with a knack for bones) in all of his Tzimisce glory - both in his casual form & his Zulo shape.