#so much as books that for a given moment in time

[honestlyanowl]

gamer!jinx X plussizedcurvy!reader where jinx has reader cockwarming her strap while she's playing a game plsplspls 🙏🙏🙏

heyy, it's been a while since I've posted a proper smut blurb like this, so I thought I'd make some time today :)

i've been on a trip for about 1-2 months back and fourth, so it's been hard for me to find time or motivation for writing, sorry for the wait. <3 (REQUESTS OPEN)

Content: nsfw - gamer!jinx, plussizedcurvy!reader, cockwarming, strap usage, silent sex, modern au?

Jinx hadn't been paying much attention to you this week, her schedule seemed to always be booked with twitch streams, that lately had seemed to be her priority.

It's not that she didn't see or talk to you throughout the day, you lived in the same apartment after all, but it was only really when you'd bring her food, water, or snacks in between add breaks that you could get a word in.

You were happy she found a career she could enjoy, but you wanted some time with her too. ***

Today however, was slightly different.

How? You may ask, well... most was as pure usual— Jinx had her headphones on, her hands working with practiced ease over the controller she held; eyes focussed on her monitor.

Except it wasn't usual, not with the way you straddled her hips, knees pressing uncomfortably into the arms of her gaming chair, muffling your soft breaths into her neck every time the blue-to-pink gradient strap would slightly nudge more inside of you with every annoyed twitch Jinx's hips would make, usually whenever she'd die in game.

It was both heaven and hell at the same time.

You were more than happy that she was finally allowing you to get close to her, feeling the warmth radiating from her skin, and how your body greedily absorbed it.

However, it was also torture being unable to move, the strap was so deep inside of you, and yet there was so little stimulation...

The best you got were occasional shivers that would climb up your spine whenever the toy massaged that gummy spot inside of you as you shifted on her hips. But it wasn't enough, barely anything compared to what she'd given you a week or so prior. You felt deprived.

You pawed almost pathetically at the freckled skin of her arm, pouting up at her and batting your lashes in hope for something more.

Jinx's gaze flickered down to meet yours for a moment, smiling a little to herself and rolling her eyes back to the screen, her face illuminated by the soft light.

How could she just deny you like that? You deserved it after all the weeks she'd delayed this!

You nudged her again, harder this time. which she obviously didn't like, shooting you a glare, giving your thigh a firm slap, before returning it back to the controller, the fast paced clicking sounds returning to haunt your ears— This was a game to her.

You spent at least thirty strained minutes trying to be pliant, grumbling every time she'd squeeze or grope your stomach to calm herself down. Sometimes going as far as dipping her head down to knowingly nibble at the chub of your cheeks... before continuing her gameplay like nothing.

Maybe she'd whisper sweet nothings by the shell of your ear, or peck your forehead to distract you from the ache inside of you.

You had given up a while ago, slacked into her chest, face nuzzled into the crook of her neck, thriving off the soft lifts of her hips whenever she felt bad, driving the strap slowly in and out, then sinking back into the chair.

"Hey chat, give me like... five minutes? I'm going to go fetch a snack."

You swore as those words left her lips you just about saw heaven, knowing goddamn well she had one or two full packets of chips beside her out of frame.

She placed her controller down, hands reaching down to settle on her hips, nuzzling your face almost apologetically as she helped you get into a higher position, so she could have a nicer angle. Sliding the colourful length in and out of your pretty pussy with long languid strokes. (while also getting a jaw-dropping view.)

Your eyes crossed, it almost hurt how good it felt, how badly you'd been craving this sensation for what felt like hours.

In fact it, you were so deep inside your head now, that you completely forgot about Jinx, who's eyes were staring harmless daggers into your frame. drinking in the sight of you.

her hands kneaded at your chest, dragged down to your stomach and pawed at the fat of your abdomen, dipping lower to grope at the flesh of your thighs.

You groaned, voice crackling as you focussed your gaze, peeking down to watch her, lip bitten between your teeth as you made eye contact.

"Jinx- hng- fuck..!" You almost cried, embarrassed at how little time it took to make you come.

"Wha- already?" Jinx's voice was thick, mocking. And yet all so amused at the same time.

pulling you back down into her chest and sheathing the strap fully into your warmth to run your high out.

Usually you'd rush to pay her back, to make her reach the same peak you did. But not today, definitely not today... you were already curled up against her, dazed out and lulled into Jinx's touch.

Her hands ran over your hips, not bothering to pull out as she rolled small circles into your sides.

"My pretty trinket."

(NOT PROOF READ) - Owl

[markantonys]

3x05 thoughts! (book spoilers)

i loved all the character & relationship moments in this episode! it was nice to take a breather and just spend time with the characters and get to see how much they mean to each other. wotshow continuing its trend of doing a great job balancing character work vs. action across the 8 episodes!

against all odds, randgwene clung on by a thread for yet another week lmao but the breakup is 100% coming next week, and surely it has to be just about the first thing to happen in the episode given the cliffhanger. i'm reaaaaally curious (and anxious) about how they'll frame it, because right from day 1 after the first trailer etc i said "i really hope they make it clear that randgwene's breakup is mutual because they just aren't right for each other, and don't frame it as the only reason they broke up is because rand is ~cheating~ with lanfear and egwene feels betrayed". it was my biggest point of worry with the whole rand-egwene-lanfear situation, and it seems like it might be coming true! but we haven't actually gotten to hear rand talk about the whole lanfear situation and his feelings on it, so hashing it out with egwene might give him a good opportunity to do that and maybe whatever he says will make it clear to the audience and egwene that he's been manipulated and it will help ease things a bit. i just really hope rand and egwene will be able to end everything on decent footing with each other; i know there has to be big tension between them at the end of the series, but imo that would be cheaper and more emotionally shallow if it's leftover tension from a bad breakup rather than the more platonic tension between two conflicting world leaders who used to have a close personal relationship and grew up together but now must both put their greater duties first. not to mention that we HAVE to get egwene's signoff on avirandlayne if we want the audience to accept that relationship, so she has to end the season in a decent place with rand!

as of now, we're obviously on the verge of high drama, but i have faith that maybe rand & egwene's conversation will end up going in a good direction that allows them to go "look, lanfear might be the catalyst for forcing us to talk about it, but we've both known for a long time that we just aren't right for each other and THAT is the real reason we need to end things" (plus, surely egwene will tell rand that lanfear's been behind her dream torture and rand will be horrified and take her side and turn firmly against lanfear, right? right??). it's also interesting to consider how much control rand had over his dream; in the past rand-lanfear dream convos, he's always seemed "conscious" (though asleep of course) and fully in control and aware of what he's doing, but in this sequence, egwene is entering the other friends' dreams and it's clear that it's just their subconscious minds coming up with scenarios and they aren't doing anything on purpose. is rand fully in control of himself in this dream? or is it a somewhat subconscious dream on his part with lanfear consciously influencing the direction? it IS interesting that the new location could, maybe, imply that this is rand's own natural dream, at least to start, vs. past randfear scenes that seemed like lanfear pulling rand somewhere to talk to him. but we really can't judge anything for sure until we've heard what rand has to say about it next week.

sticking to the waste plot, the avirand scene!! 10/10 no notes! rand learns about polyamory, avi tries to feel out whether wetlanders are down for it, and they bicker <3 and rand playing with the little girl, my HEART let him be a stay-at-home dad!!!!

as i suspected, rhuarc-bair-lian is yet another balanced triad where everybody is equally married to each other with no mention of any sibling-spouses. alanna-maksim-ihvon was the same, so it does really feel like they're setting up for the Main Character Polyship to be a balanced triad where everybody is equally romantically involved and there are no metamours, aka avirandlayne only and min not involved at all. further to this point, there was no particular min-elayne interaction in this episode beyond sharing a group conversation and they didn't react in a noteworthy way to each other, but i'll keep an eye on further developments there in the remaining episodes! if no focus is given to the min-elayne individual dynamic in tanchico, i'd say that's the final nail in the coffin for min being involved in the polycule because at that point they would have blown past MULTIPLE opportunities to tie her together with elayne or rand.

continuing on with polycule thoughts, i was glad to see an acknowledgment of avilayne in elayne's dream! one of my problems with the way it was done so far is that it was so extremely casual as to have no impact on either character outside of 3x01 itself, but i'd suspected that might change later in the season with some kind of Reminder That This Happened, and sure enough, we did get that here. this kind of small but notable acknowledgement is striking just the right balance for me: it's making sure to keep avilayne in the audience's thoughts and signaling to them that there's more to come here, but without emphasizing it as a monogamous romance so much that people will be blindsided or upset when rand joins in the future. we can see that elayne is still thinking about avi, but she's not pining and yearning for her every waking moment of the day (if she was doing that and then if avi started falling for rand more clearly before elayne rejoins them, the audience would feel indignant on elayne's behalf, so it's good that they're not going TOO hard on elayne's feelings for avi just yet; especially with avi's line this episode derisively saying "that's too much to ask of one person" implying that she doesn't have monogamous expectations with elayne, it's good that elayne doesn't strongly have those expectations either, so they're both more or less on the same page as of now).

my wishful thinking was that it would've been nice to have rand crop up in elayne's dream too sort of the way faile did in perrin's, nothing overtly romantic but a sign that he's lingering in her thoughts just like aviendha is. but of course, that couldn't happen in this context because egwene might feel weird or betrayed about seeing rand pop up in her BFF's dream because randgwene are still together. man, i don't want to be a hater but the extended randgwene is 100% to blame for the dynamics i DO want to see getting repeatedly punted off and put on the backburner! gawene didn't get to even meet, and the avirand stuff we've gotten has been perfect but it still kinda feels like they're being shafted in THEIR OWN ARC; this is the biggest time they spend alone together in the whole series but we can't even treat it as a notable focus of the season because we have to keep the focus on randgwene (and randfear) and don't want to risk tainting avirand with cheating implications by drawing the audience's attention to them too much before randgwene has broken up. and i don't know how likely it'll be for avirand to get a little moment during the cold rocks hold attack next week as i'd hoped they might, because the breakup has been dragged out yet another week so they'll be too busy giving the emotional focus to the randgwene fallout and it might STILL be too soon to let rand share any kind of little moment with avi (and in that BTS shot of sammael, he was alone with rand and egwene in a potential cold rocks hold-y set, so i wonder if rand will be sticking with egwene during the battle and avi will just have separate fight scenes).

but all i can do is wait and see how it goes down! it's obvious that avirandlayne IS coming, so i have to trust that rafe has a plan even if i can't quite see it yet haha my fear is that randgwene lasting so long in s3 will mean avirand & randlayne couldn't get as strong setup as they might have otherwise will mean them coming together in s4 will end up feeling rushed (and then gawene too which i've been looking forward to almost as much as avirandlayne, god knows what might even happen there since they are now so SO far past the date of their book meeting). why the show is choosing to fastburn the getting-togethers of endgame romances but slowburn the breakups of non-endgame ones is beyond me, but i will trust that rafe has a plan and that it will all make sense once i'm able to see the forest instead of just the trees!

returning to the dreams, i loved this sequence of egwene visiting her friends' dreams SO MUCH probably one of my favorites of the season so far!! she got so much joy out of seeing her friends happy 🥺🥺🥺 and it was such a beautiful way to show us a little bit of each friend's inner life; nynaeve's lost daughter is still weighing on her and she still dreams about a happy life with her, elayne takes such joy and wonder in learning new things and dreams of a carefree life following her heart outside the confines of duty, perrin's happy place is being at home with his forge and hopper (my heart!!) and he's starting to take faile into his heart too, and MAT!!!! mat's dream killed me dead!!! he has often been played for comic relief this season, so i was really thrilled to get this beautiful reminder of his layers and depth and the good, selfless heart he has underneath the bravado, and particularly glad to get this scene for donal!mat who hasn't had much chance to get the family stuff that barney!mat had so much of in s1 - it really helps keep up the consistency between the two versions and connect our present mat back to s1 mat. all he wants is to give his sisters a good life and hear his mom tell him she's proud of him!! which is such a gutpunch after her death in this episode!

can somebody PLEASE tell mat he's a good boy and they're proud of him!!! my Show!Mat Has A Praise Kink agenda grows stronger every day. man, between mat's dream and rand being so happy playing with the child, my s1 show-only observation that rand and mat would be each other's ideal partner in domestic family life remains spot-on. let them be dads!!

anyway, mat's mom! i was SO not expecting her to die, what a shock! and a good decision, it adds some stakes to the two rivers plotline and gives perrin even more of a reason to want to fight back instead of giving himself up and giving into the whitecloaks. and it seems we're getting the book arc of bode being able to channel! since the girls are twins in the show, i wonder if they can both channel or only one. and i also wonder how big or small of a plot point this might end up being; it's pretty small in the books, but the show has placed more emphasis on mat's family, so maybe they might do a little bit more with it? his sisters are still definitely tertiary characters, though, so i don't know. my biggest wish would be for a full wonderboy reunion in s4 so that perrin can tell mat about his mom and we can see mat react to her death (and i can get a cauthor hurt/comfort fic scenario out of it, priorities priorities haha), and ideally bode & eldrin traveled with perrin and mat can reunite with them at least for a moment. because we know that, if the books are followed, perrin and the cauthon girls will cross paths with rand soon after the two rivers arc (so likely s4), so if they can just get mat back in rand's plotline for s4 to do his TFOH dragon's general plotline, then we could get mat coming into contact with perrin and the girls as well. but as i've speculated before, this might depend on how many total seasons they anticipate getting and whether they have time to send mat back across the continent for a season or whether they need to jump into his west coast seanchan plotline immediately in s4.

good stuff in the two rivers plotline this episode! i loved perrin and faile's battle couple moment <3 and the perrin-dain face-to-face reunion was just as messy and delicious as i'd hoped! "i thought you were a good man" "i was, before you" okay okay

my one complaint about this plotline is, i have to embarrassedly put on my bookcloak hat, but i am really feeling the "alanna and her warders are getting too much time" complaints this season haha i didn't mind in the first 2 seasons, but now they're overstaying their welcome for me. it might not actually be true, but it feels like we've spent more time on alanna and maksim's relationship than perrin and faile's this season! however, i am almost certain that maksim will die in the two rivers battle, especially now that he and alanna had a mini arc of working out their problems and realizing that they're stronger when they stick together - surely that's GOT to mean maksim has to die in order for alanna to lose it enough that she does what she does in LOC next season. and if that happens, then i'll be fine with them getting so much time this season to build up to that death and make us understand why alanna loses it so badly. another thing where i'll have to reserve final judgment until i've seen the forest instead of only the trees!

speaking of people who may or may not be on Death Watch, moiraine and siuan! i really loved their scene together and thought it was so beautiful. as for predictions, i'm split 50/50 on whether them getting to mend fences and share a happy moment and a bittersweet goodbye means this is the final curtain call for their relationship and one or both of them will be dead-dead by the end of the season, or whether the "i'll find you in every lifetime" "and i'll wait for you every time" is foreshadowing of siuan going to find moiraine in finnworld at the end of the show. i just don't know!

i loved the lan and moiraine scene of them sharing a drink. perfect!

tower plotline: it was fine, got the job done

tanchico crew: bringing the comedy as always! i loved the opening scene with bickering matlayne and seasick nynaeve, absolutely impeccable vibes, and then min officially joins the gang (i loved the "raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by liandrin" moment between the four of them lmao). as somebody who's been starting to feel oversaturated with the mat-min dynamic, i was disappointed that he left elayne and nynaeve's scene so quickly to wind up hanging out alone with min yet again, but we did get some great stuff between the trio and the quartet nonetheless! still, at this point it's kinda feeling like mat was lifted out of the waste storyline purely to hang out with min for the second season in a row (and arguably to act as a support piece in HER storyline about learning how to find agency in her visions, more so than having his own storyline get focused on), but i'm sure in ep6 that will change and mat will get more time to shine and more chances to interact with non-min characters since tanchico is slated to be the A plot. i'm very excited to see this plotline lead an episode, it's been a long time coming!

we did finally get a reference to the s2 rand viewing and we learn that mat's takeaway is that min's viewings aren't even accurate because she said he would kill rand and he didn't. and then in the ep6 preview it showed mat trying to pump some tanchico citizens for info about the male a'dam collar, so i just might get a little cauthor crumb next week with mat being worried about rand getting collared and wanting to help protect him!

i think that's everything off the top of my head for this episode!

[melwsnt]

────── ⋆⋅☆ QUIET NIGHTS, S&D.WINCHESTER

summary. quiet nights with Sam and Dean at the bunker.

pairing. sam winchester x gn!reader, dean winchester x gn!reader, found family.

word count. 473

this is so short I apologize! Had to post something so wrote this super quickly hopefully you like it! Please interact:)

──────────୨ৎ──────────

Quiet nights at the bunker are your favorite time of the day. The silence fills the room, maybe some tv in the background if Dean decides he’s had enough of research.

Most of the time, it’s you and Sam sitting at the table, the only sound you can hear is you writing and him flipping through the pages of whatever book he’s reading and some typing on the computer.

Sometimes, you’ll hear Dean laugh, because what he’s watching must be really hilarious. Occasionally, Sam will give you a look and roll his eyes, which makes you laugh.

On some nights, the only sound you can hear is slow music while you or Sam cook.

It’s just the sound of the radio, low volume, Dean and Sam keeping you company.

A lot of nights, you don’t talk. You take the time to rest even though you’re working. The boys know it, you know it, it’s exhausting.

You could be sitting at the table, reading something other than a book on whatever demon or entity you’re after, it would be just you, your coffee, tea or hot chocolate, feet up the table, enjoying the quiet.

The boys watch you, they know how much you enjoy that quiet time, so they make sure not to bother you, but they love it too, so it’s a win-win situation.

If you do happen to talk, it’s not for research. You do that too much already. No- usually it’s just small talk about your day, although you all had the same. It’s questions about whether or not you’re doing okay, because the last case was a rough one, and maybe that’s why you need the quiet time. Or sometimes you need to talk. Doesn’t matter if it’s to Sam, Dean or both. You need to let it out.

Sam will let you cry on his shoulder from time to time, and he won’t ask a single question. Dean will let you cry, but his protectiveness will make it so that he wants to know how to help you, though sometimes you tell him that holding you is just what you need, nothing more.

They listen. They’ll never question you. They trust you, you trust them. It’s a relationship based on trust, like a family. There’s rough patches, and moments where you want to rip their heads off their shoulders. Sometimes you’re not sure you want to stay, and if you did happen to want to leave someday, they’d support you, even though they would hate for you to leave.

it’s just you three, enjoying the time you have together because tomorrow is not promised, and you wouldn’t change that for the world, neither would they.

You’re a family. A pretty messed up one, that’s a given. But you’d burn the world down for them, and them for you.

[somanyquestions-featuringanxiety]

Thanks for the tag!!

Three ships I like: Jily (marauders/harry potter), Spuffy (BTVS), Anderperry (DPS)

First ship ever: honestly idk, but Hicstrid is coming to mind, I’ve always been a massive HTTYD fan since I was little

Last song I listened to: Brand New City by Mitski (no I’m not ok why do you ask???)

Fav childhood book: I mean, younger childhood it was probably Harry Potter or the HTTYD books (I loved both the books and the movies) but when I was older it was nevermoor, which is still my fav!!

Currently reading: The Wicked King (sooooo good but I’m not reading much at the moment so it’s taking me forever) and also rereading nevermoor for the third time in preparation for Silverborn! (I’ve given up on watching the read along videos because I don’t have time 😭)

Currently watching: Angel the Series (I was an Angel hater before watching this but Jesus Christ he’s so much better in this than in Buffy) and also rewatching my fav episodes of Buffy (comfort show ❤️)

Currently craving: biscoff hot cross bun (they’re the best things ever omfg)

Currently consuming: the album lush by Mitski (what’s up fellow sad gays)

Pets: two dogs, two cats and chickens!

@niamhings @amy-harper @n3rdchi1d @yourlocalchronicdaydreamer @yourlocalwhovian @nidoole @nonbinary-potatoes @willyoubemydarling @hawthorne-swift-enthusiasttt @nevermoorfan6789 + anyone who wants to!

Get to know the blogger

Thanks for the tag @faggylittleleatherboy

1. Three ships I like: jegulus (marauders), anderperry (dead poets society), narlie (heartstopper)

2. First ship ever: idk, probably Rapunzel and Flynn Rider

3. Last song you listened to: Kill For You - Gigi Perez

4. Fav childhood book: The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton

5. Currently reading: The King's Men - Nora Sakavic

6. Currently watching: Greys Anatomy

7. Currently craving: Dominoes pizza

8. Currently consuming: just had some water

9. Pets: I'm not allowed pets where I live, but I have a cat back home

npt @zsrntyouil @mairon-goth-minion @mushroom-enby @wishiwereheather13 @overthemoons7 @equippedtolove @andytheoverthinker @woefulstar @cbartonscoffee + anyone else

[mariacallous]

Everyone, including me, has a podcast now—so it’s hard to begrudge Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, for indulging his God-given right to produce audio content. “This Is Gavin Newsom” is five episodes into its run and, outside of a four-minute emergency update on the Menendez brothers’ trial and a lengthy conversation with Governor Tim Walz, each episode has featured Newsom interviewing right-wing figures, namely Charlie Kirk, Michael Savage, and Steve Bannon. The point of all this, Newsom explains in an introductory segment, is “tackling tough questions, engaging with people who don’t always agree with me, debating without demeaning.” Newsom seems to believe that regular Americans have grown tired of polarization and want to see ideological enemies find common ground.

I’ll be blunt: Up until the Walz episode (more about that in a moment), “This Is Gavin Newsom” was the strangest political podcast I had ever heard. And not in a good way. In the first four episodes, Newsom seems incapable of interrogating any right-wing position—whether on tariffs, book bans, trans women in sports, wokeness, or the mess at the border. It feels like a stretch to even describe these episodes as interviews, because Newsom sounds fairly uninterested in what his guests are saying. Bannon, for example, says more than once to Newsom that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. And, though Bannon acknowledges in passing that Newsom disagrees with him about the election-fraud claim, Newsom offers zero pushback to the idea and acts almost as if he didn’t hear it.

What the episodes really offer is an opportunity for Newsom to say that he agrees with various conservative talking points, including the unfairness of trans women competing in sports, and the weakness of Kamala Harris’s campaign, and the unnecessary vilification of the white male. These may be electoral soft spots for liberals, and might warrant some debate or even a shift in messaging. But Newsom doesn’t offer his own thoughts on these topics so much as nod along with his guests. He makes a few meek objections about marriage equality and tax policy, and says something brief about having compassion for the trans athletes whom he believes should not be allowed to compete. But the impression that the podcast has left so far is that the Democratic governor of a deep-blue state mostly agrees with everything Kirk and Bannon think about this country. Throughout the episodes, he claims to “appreciate” this or that point his guests are making—so much so that Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, later said, on his own podcast, that he thought Newsom had been “overly effusive.” When Newsom offered the occasional rebuttal, he kept saying that he wanted to “stress-test” a claim that Kirk had made, as if Newsom, the fifty-seven-year-old governor of the most populous state in the country, were a McKinsey consultant giving cautious advice to a powerful client who didn’t want to hear any real criticism.

It would have been more interesting to hear your standard-issue Fox News host interview Kirk, Savage, and Bannon, because at least that host might have spots of internal disagreement within the right and might have pushed back from time to time. In tennis terms, what “This Is Gavin Newsom” has mostly provided is not spirited, five-set matches, but the spectacle of one player jogging behind every ball, serving underhand, and calling his own shots out, even the ones that are three feet in.

In his defense, I imagine Newsom didn’t start a podcast in the hope that it would be good. Rather, this is a soft launch for a Presidential run in 2028, like the mostly tepid memoirs published by myriad candidates in the past. With his eyes presumably on that prize, Newsom is distancing himself as much as possible from the progressive wing of his party, and from any unpopular positions that his political allies might have adopted in the past decade. This attempt at reinvention has, so far, failed: the show has been panned by local and national media; Capitol Weekly, a news outlet that mostly covers Sacramento, conducted a poll showing a ten-point negative swing in opinions of Newsom among voters who listened to the podcast. Republicans said he was “pandering,” while many liberals were disgusted that Newsom would bend the knee to someone such as Kirk, particularly with such shameless enthusiasm.

A single opinion survey should, of course, be taken with a grain of salt; it’s at least theoretically possible that swing voters will like Newsom’s pandering, or that Democrats will abandon their beliefs and vote for a Republican apologist in the primary. But it’s unlikely. And it may even reinforce what I believe is still Newsom’s most glaring weakness: not liberalism but the perception that he is slick and hypocritical, an image that was famously solidified when Newsom attended a fancy dinner party at the French Laundry during the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Newsom, in his conversation with Kirk, said that dinner was the “dumbest bonehead move of my life,” which may be true. (It helped to fuel a recall election, which he managed to weather.) But I do not think there is any way for him to live that down. People know who Gavin Newsom is: a San Francisco liberal who went to a lobbyist’s birthday party while most of his constituents stayed inside, ordered food delivered by essential workers, feared their neighbors, got sick, and died.

Newsom’s gambit, though ill-fated and embarrassing in practice, does come out of a coherent school of liberal thought, one that I find much more interesting than his Presidential chances. This school of thought seems to take it as a given that Democrats need to actively distance themselves from a whole host of positions that are now associated with the Party. Where does a politics of pure disavowal lead? In a few years’ time, will Newsom get up on a stage in Iowa and offer up a mantra of land-acknowledgment-like apologies? I can picture it: “I, Gavin Newsom, acknowledge and apologize for my party’s past support for trans athletes, open borders, defunding the police, school closures during a pandemic, the word ‘Latinx,’ and the Presidential campaign of Kamala Harris.” Would anyone like that?

Newsom’s governor-to-governor chat with Walz provides a little more insight into why Newsom wants to be a Democrat at all—even if, as with the previous four agreement-fests, he mostly just concurs with what his guest is saying (in this case, about the need for better governance and helping working people). What Newsom offers to Walz is the suggestion that Democrats need to go on the “offensive,” to fight back against right-wing demonization of women, minorities, and L.G.B.T.Q. people. Still, he fails to explain what that offense would look like, and he quickly moves on to more chitchat about reaching across the aisle. The takeaway from the conversation is that Walz—who talks frankly about the Party’s problems in attracting young men, the ways in which it has failed in governance, and its inability to take credit for the things its members do well—should probably be the one who runs for President. Walz notes that the Democratic Party is “unified in being pissed off at the Democratic Party.” The person who can harness that anger is not someone who kowtows to Kirk and Bannon.

What Newsom and the disavowers out there should remember is that there are still a lot of liberals in America, and that pandering to an aggrieved, mostly imagined group of voters—the sort of people who would supposedly want to vote for a liberal Steve Bannon in linen pants—is not only silly from an electoral standpoint but humiliating on a personal level. A CNN poll published last weekend found that the majority of Democrats and Democrat-aligned independents want their elected officials to “stop the Republican agenda” and to stop working with the G.O.P. That same poll—which was conducted before Senate Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, decided to pass the G.O.P. budget, to a howl of dissent from their colleagues in the House—found a record-low favorability rating of twenty-nine per cent for the Democratic Party. The G.O.P. whips everyone into line and enforces ideological uniformity with insults like “RINO.” Democrats in the mold of Newsom, meanwhile, take their base for granted and endlessly triangulate and focus-group their positions until they stand for nothing.

When you’re so concerned with trying to convey that you’re not like the other liberals, you won’t really have the time—even in an hour-long podcast—to explain what you believe in. Listening to Newsom get steamrolled by his right-wing guests for three hours, I wondered where his pride had gone. Why couldn’t he tell Bannon that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election? Why couldn’t he say to Kirk that the Republicans’ effort to turn trans athletes into a national wedge issue was, in fact, an opportunistic attack on an entire group of people? Does he believe in the principles of his party? Could he even name them? Any Democratic politician who’s considering a strategy like Newsom’s might ask themselves these same questions. Because the public is not stupid. Even those who might want “moderation” don’t want it in the form of endless capitulation and cowardice. ♦

[mangionebabymama]

What do think luigi will do when he walks free?

Imo he’ll stay out of the public eye for long time possibly leave the USA. Although i could see him writing a book eventually or maybe even start a non profit organisation for something related to his experience.

I know many people have asked other blogs about this over the past few months, and many have shared their own thoughts. While I’m open-minded about their predictions, as he could do anything when he walks free, I honestly have no idea what he’ll do.

That said, I definitely think he'll stay out of the public eye for a long time—especially after being in federal custody since December (which I'm sure will continue for as long as he remains there). The media has been all over him these past months, they've literally had cameras up his ass with following his every move and dissecting nearly every aspect of his personal and private life. Maybe he would write a book; however, it might be too painful for him to go back and rethink everything and relive all of the experiences he lived through because there's so much he's seen that we have no awareness about. There's probably so much that he's witnessed that he doesn't ever want to think about again, no less, for people to imagine and put themselves in their shoes. I mean, I don’t know. I can’t speak on what he plans to do when I have no idea what he wants—or when he could change his mind at any moment. I’m sure he just wants to live again, and whatever that means for him, I hope he’s able to achieve it when he walks free and he's able to leave all of this behind—because he deserves all of that. Right now, given his circumstances, simply existing doesn’t mean he’s truly living or experiencing life the way he wants to.

[dark-elf-writes]

Question, would the peak lords know fellow immortal cultivator Baoshan Sanren?

(Also Wei Wuxian begging to go to the Cloud Recess lectures bc Lan Zhan will be there and he was invited and it’ll totally help him learn. Yes he knows there pretty much nothing he can’t learn here but it’s about the environment! Learning about the outside world!)

I me a they probably know of her, and could maybe get a message to her but with how she cut herself off from the outside world it would take something Big for them to try and break her seclusion. (Then again if Wei Wuxian gets so lost not even Luo Binghe can find him all bets are off the table for how far everyone will go to find him)

NEBDBSBD

“Isn’t the whole point to learn about the people and not so much the cultivation?” A-Ying whines where he is sprawled over Shen Qingqiu’s legs, pouting as he has been for the last twenty minutes. “How am I supposed to understand how to work with other sects if I never meet them? It would be damaging to inter sect relations in the long run!”

It would be a good argument if Shen Qingqiu didn’t know his son. Wei Ying had long since picked up his baba’s talent for manipulation, though he preferred a method more reliant on childish pouting and whining than Binghe’s tears. Not that he wouldn’t let those silver eyes get a bit too bright if it meant getting what he wanted, but that was typically a last resort.

And one that made Shen Qingqiu fold like wet paper every time.

Now however he merely sighed as he set aside the book he was reading and nudged at A-Ying until his son was sitting up again, reaching for a nearby comb to fix the mess he had made of his hair from all his rolling and pouting.

“And Lan Wangji will be there,” He said, hiding his smile in A-Ying’s hair as his son let out a strangled yell.

“A-die!” A-Ying whined, rocking his head back into his hands far enough that Shen Qingqiu can catch his pout. “You’re supposed to be the nice one that doesn’t tease me.”

“You and I both know that is a lie, Ying-er.”

His son’s pout broke into a bright smile. “Yeah. It is.”

Shen Qingqiu swatted at him until he looked straight again and set about fixing his ponytail. “GusuLan has… complicated relations with demons.”

A hum, low and thoughtful. “Everywhere has complicated relations with demons, A-die. But that won’t change unless they’re given something that challenges what they think they know.”

Too smart for his own good. Too like Binghe.

Too like Shen Yuan, if he was being totally honest.

“And your Lan Wangji will be there,” He couldn’t help but tease again, tugging at a lock of hair as he gathered it into place. He could see a blush creeping down his son’s neck.

“I don’t want him to forget me, a-die.”

A huff of laughter spilled from his lips even as he tied A-Ying’s ponytail. He tipped his son’s head back to press a kiss to the top of his head. “That, at least, I can promise will never happen. The two of you did trash a stall if I remember correctly.”

Wei Wuxian pressed back into him like a cat, even as a pout formed on his lips again. “He started it. I was trying to be friendly. It’s not my fault that he’s fun to mess with.”

Ah young love.

“I will let you go to gusu. If,” he stressed before A-Ying could rush off, “you convince your baba to agree as well.”

Wei Ying beamed at him, already knowing, as Shen Qingqiu did, that Binghe would never refuse when he had already given his permission. “You’re the best, a-die!” He was gone a moment later in a flash of black and red and a bright laugh that hung in the air long after he was gone.

Shen Qingqiu hid a smile behind his sleeve and began planning the protection charms he could put on the fan he would gift his son before he left.

[mochinomnoms]

It's currently 1 am. where I live, and I can't sleep (insomnia is kicking my ass). So I decided to write this just for fun and send it to you. I'm not a writer, so it's probably not perfect nor good, but here you go.

Shit, shit, shit, your feet tapped on the concrete, and you were puffing softly, considering that you were running late to class. You stayed up all night working on assignments and group projects, which is why you made the honest mistake of oversleeping again. Group projects are more difficult to complete in college than they were in high school. To be honest, all you wanted was some alone time and to write fanfiction.

You were so engrossed in your thoughts that you were unable to hear another student's footsteps approaching as you turned a sharp corner. Before you knew it, your face made first contact with something warm and soft, and all of your books and papers fell out of your hands (thanks to grim burning your bag to crisp this morning after checking for more tuna in your bag). Two solid gloved hands reached out and grabbed your shoulders to save you from falling before you could land on your butt.

"Ara ara," whispered a soft yet polite voice, and you knew who was standing in front of you. Jade Leech is the Vice Housewarden of Octavinelle and Floyd's twin sister. You were frozen at first since you hadn't expected to run into anyone, particularly Jade, this early. You two didn't communicate much, but you've accidently traded notebooks before, run into one other in unusual circumstances, and she even invited you to join her on a walk. You must have been staring because Jade grinned, and her eyes dilated.

"Take caution, dear Prefect-san; you are fortunate that I chanced upon you. Consider it a gift, with no expectations for recompense." She released you and reached down to assist you in retrieving your papers and books. You withdrew as though you were scorched as her gloved hand unintentionally touched yours. You sneaked a peek at her and couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was—her fair complexion, her long teal hair, the dark grey streak that framed her left side, and the dangling earring. Jade stood, giving you a smile that seemed more sincere than usual after assisting you in gathering your books. "Pray tell, how do you propose to pass this day? I shall accompany you, whithersoever you may venture." The bell rang just as you were about to answer, and you forgot why you were running late in the first place. After giving her a brief thank you, you hurried to your class down the corridor.

Jade let out a long sigh as she watched your fate from a distance. Trying to stop her heart from beating, she clutched her chest. You captured her attention, and she couldn't help but find you fascinating, especially for a human. She wasn't sure when it happened. She was so impacted by you that she felt compelled to claim you as her own. Even her twin sister Floyd finds it strange that she gets happy and flushed when she thinks about you. Her feelings are so jumbled; she had never felt this way for someone before and was accustomed to keeping her true feelings to herself. Is this how the mermaid princess must have felt upon seeing her prince? Jade wondered at that very moment. Despite coming from separate worlds, they ended up together. Would you also wish for a happy ending?

An absurd query Sincerely, her left yellow eye began to light, and she smiled once more, flashing her pointed teeth. Naturally, you two would end up together since she always gets what she wants, and you are what she wants. She won't let anyone else take you away from her given that her mother didn't teach her to be a quitter. Yes, even if it meant eliminating some competition, she would make sure of that. She laughed as she walked to class, her long hair flying in the early breeze. "Soon, my beloved, soon."

Fem Jade, yeeeeaaaahhh 🩵

I hope my writing is grammatical correctly. I'm so tired. Goodnight ��

WOWOWOWOWOWOW THANK YOU aaaaaa Jade my beloved...I love you in any universe...

i like that a bunch of us have collectively agreed that any and all form of Jades are just a little obsessive and possessive in their love and I just think that's neat!

[eggiesins]

"(Maybe later we can get into a whole thing about whiteness being the standard for beauty in My Time games & how that's informed by contemporary attitudes)"

ur right and u should say it

Hoooooo buddy, let's get into it. This is probably gonna be a bit rambling but go off ig.

DISCLAIMER: Obviously, I love the My Time games and Pathea as well, but that doesn't mean that we can't also have meaningful, critical discourse surrounding those games. (I'm literally halfway through a massive Logan fic right now) Engaging with the media we love critically helps us to understand ourselves and the world around us better.

I'm focusing mostly on Sandrock here, as it's been a hot minute since I played Portia, but I will reference it here and there. Rambling below the cut :)

So when I say whiteness is the standard for beauty in My Time games and that it's informed by contemporary attitudes, what does that really mean? Well, consider for a moment all the different books and magazines you've read, music you've listened to, movies and tv shows you've watched. How many times have you seen blonde hair and blue eyes shoved to the forefront of the narrative, or highlighted as especially attractive? Now compare that to how many times you've ever heard anyone romanticize brown eyes. This is a small example, but once you start to notice it, you can't really un-notice it anymore.

We as a culture, have a tendency to value "white traits" as the standard for what we consider beautiful. Blue eyes, light or blonde colored hair, small noses, thin yet plump lips, and of course, pale complexions. If you want a more in-depth analysis on how colonialism has influenced beauty standards around the world, check out this thesis.

Obviously, since these games are set in a solarpunk, post-apocalyptic world, we can't go through and identify the ethnicities and races of characters with 100% certainty, so I'm not even going to try. What I'm looking at is the physical features alone, as well as which romance characters are given the most attention by Pathea, and then of course which are given the most attention by fans. It should be fairly well-established by this point that Pathea does take a lot of fan feedback into account & will actively shape their games around fan preferences, as we've seen so far with Evershine's development. So there's a lot of interaction between the global fanbase for the games and the creative minds actually behind them, meaning that I'm not here to point blame at any single party, or to really point blame at all. Ultimately, these games are just that: games, and while it's good exercise and practice to engage with them critically, if you find yourself upset by this, I'd recommend spending your time worrying about real-world action instead.

But onto the My Time games! Which characters tend to hold the most prominence here? The romanceables, of course. So let's break it down. In My Time at Portia, there is a total of 28 characters the player could possibly marry. 28!! Comparatively, Sandrock has 21. Of the 28 characters in Portia, we see a few discernible ethnic traits with the septuplets, Lucy, Mint, Petra, Sonia, Aadit, Remington, and Xiu. Of these more diverse characters, the darkest skin-tone we find is Petra's. Now, out of all these characters, which ones tend to get the most screentime and the most love from fans? Over the years, lots of names will pop up, but far and away the most popular candidates are Arlo, Gust, Aadit, and Mint.

Now let's look at Sandrock. I will say, Sandrock does a much better job with diversity, both in skin tone and facial feature variations. However, consider who gets the most romance content and screentime in the game: Logan and Fang for sure, followed by Unsuur and Nia, to the point where at times, it feels like the game is trying to tell you that either Logan, Fang, or Nia are the "canon" options. Which makes sense, but I also find it pretty wild that characters like Heidi and Justice - who, because of their roles, have arguably, just as strong claims to being "canon" but are not treated as such.

Consider the two architects we get to interact with across the games: Heidi and Gust. Of the two, Gust is the wildly more popular option with his blonde hair, blue eyes, and mean disposition. In contrast, Heidi is heavily involved in the Sandrock storyline, and without her, the town would never have been able to recover the way it does in-game. It would make sense, then, that Heidi and the Builder would share a much more profound bond simply based on the relationship inherent to their roles. In Portia, if Gust and Albert were not present, it stands to reason the town could probably still get on fine with just their builder. Not so for Sandrock. It's a similar concept with Justice. Without him as Sheriff, Sandrock doesn't survive. But if Arlo weren't in Portia, again, the Builder can fill in that gap decently enough.

Despite being so critical to the story and Sandrock's infrastructure, Heidi and Justice simply aren't given a proportional amount of screentime and romance content. Heidi is the architect who works with the Builder the most, and Justice is literally the Builder's Civil Corps superior and comrade. There's a lot of potential there for relationship-building and compelling dynamics. In short, they're not treated as viable candidates when compared to Logan, Fang, and Nia (also wild since Nia spends a majority of the game not in Sandrock). And it's not like they're not interesting characters either. Heidi, while friendly and fun at first, is also shown to be extremely competent and has a healthy temper (and the right hook to match, hoo mama). She's shown to be complex, trying to juggle her own sense of what is right with what her mentors have been telling her is right. Her story is about getting back to her roots and trusting her own instincts and judgements despite having better opportunities back in Atara.

Justice as well is an interesting character, struggling with his insecurities and trying to fill his old mentor's shoes while also trying to keep Sandrock safe on a shoestring budget. He's consistently shown to be incredibly resourceful and creative, with an incredibly strong sense of, well, justice. He even takes his own name upon joining the Civil Corps! (It used to be Maurice, thanks Viv). He's shown to have faults in his treatment of Unsuur as just some weird kid, and you as the Builder get to help him come to understand Unsuur better, which creates a really sweet moment in-game. (To all the fic writers who insist on putting Justice down to favor Unsuur, y'all can catch me outside)

But for all these qualities, Heidi and Justice just don't seem to resonate with fans, and it really begs the question: Would they be more popular if they were designed more like Logan, Nia, or Fang? If they had more "white" features, would they get more screentime from Pathea? Would they get more attention from fans? Of course, we can't say for certain if that would change anything, but judging by the way I've seen fans treat these characters (Justice especially in builder x unsuur fics) I'm inclined to think that yes, if they were whiter, they'd be more popular. Side note here: Yes I realize Fang comes from Seesai, the in-game analog to irl China so it's not like he's not ethnic, but look at his sperm donor. Blonde hair, blue eyes.

As we've established, there's a very reciprocal relationship between the fandom and Pathea. Fans got to vote for which characters will become core romanceables in Evershine, as well as which Sandrock characters would make cameos in the game. And which characters do we see absolutely blowing up across the Evershine socials? Avery, Ragnar, and to a degree, Stev. Hardly any news is coming out about Waylan, but until the game actually releases, there's only so much we can read into the romance options at this point.

My whole point with this essay is to show that, while characters in My Time games are becoming more diverse and well-fleshed out thanks to Pathea, we as the fans are also reinforcing a pattern of creation and storytelling that heavily favors whiteness as a standard of beauty. I think it's awesome to see Pathea taking so much fan feedback for the games, but as a creative myself, I think it wouldn't hurt them either to stand on business and make creative choices that favor a diverse, interesting cast of characters over which ones are the most fuckable according to horny people on the internet. (It's a similar phenomenon to what happened with Wyll's character in Baldur's Gate 3) We can all do better; we should all do better, and that begins with taking a critical look at the media we consume and the way we engage with that media.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. I'd love to hear y'all's opinions on this as well!

[hanzajesthanza]

the training montage in crossroads re-ignited a headcanon i had of geralt waking up and doing gymnastics, performing kickflips and mid-air spins around on a fencepost outside an hour before sunrise to ‘limber up,’ and bleary-eyed dandelion wrapping himself up in a blanket to be like "heyyy... what the hell are you doing 💖"

[mangofanarts]

Tallulah asking Bad if she could spend more time with him another day! Since she's going to bed

[spacesheeeeeep]

I think you might find the mother-daughter sexual abuse angle in Black Swan of interest if you haven't already delved into that

yesss

I was really taken aback by their relationship when I first watched the film because the incestuous subtext was pretty blatant and I hadn't seen any discussion around it beforehand. The idea of the abusive mother is still pretty hard to register for certain people, so when you add sexual abuse into the mix, plus inflicted on another woman, it mostly disappears from analysis.

[secret--history]

the whole 'there are not very many Great Causes worth fighting for these days' from Julian scanned as WAY more out of touch than the moon landing thing for me the first time i read tsh

[rosinasnoot]

"Some of us, October, will not leave you."

Spoilers up to book 6 (Ashes of Honor) below the cut.

It's such a simple statement, even said with great hesitation. But the second time through it still punches me in the gut, because this is the moment. Toby herself frequently comments on the complexity of her relationship (in the generic sense) with Tybalt, so by this point I had figured out that they were kind of into each other.

But this? This goes so far beyond being merely "into" Toby. He saw her soul, he understands the darkest parts of her, and he chose her. Tybalt is not merely attracted to her; he knows her on a fundamental level and he decided that he is going to keep her in his life. He chose her completely and he chose her forever, and he knows that that choice will cause him pain but he could never take it back; his heart doesn't have a return policy. He's so careful with it because when he gives it away, he gives all of it.

If he dies, he will come back. If and when they fight, he will do everything he can to make sure they reach the other side of it, alive and together. The alternative is unthinkable. He understands the promise he's making, how much it means to her for him to say that he will always come back. He doesn't make it lightly. He could swear on the oak and the ash and the rowan and the thorn, on Oberon's honor and Maeve's heart and Titania's pride, but he doesn't need to. Because this is more than a promise. It's a fact. He will not leave her.

[ulyuxe]

In the past fifty years, fantasy’s greatest sin might be its creation of a bland, invariant, faux-Medieval European backdrop. The problem isn’t that every fantasy novel is set in the same place: pick a given book, and it probably deviates somehow. The problem is that the texture of this place gets everywhere.

What’s texture, specifically? Exactly what Elliot says: material culture. Social space. The textiles people use, the jobs they perform, the crops they harvest, the seasons they expect, even the way they construct their names. Fantasy writing doesn’t usually care much about these details, because it doesn’t usually care much about the little people – laborers, full-time mothers, sharecroppers, so on. (The last two books of Earthsea represent LeGuin’s remarkable attack on this tendency in her own writing.) So the fantasy writer defaults – fills in the tough details with the easiest available solution, and moves back to the world-saving, vengeance-seeking, intrigue-knotting narrative. Availability heuristics kick in, and we get another world of feudal serfs hunting deer and eating grains, of Western name constructions and Western social assumptions. (Husband and wife is not the universal historical norm for family structure, for instance.)

Defaulting is the root of a great many evils. Defaulting happens when we don’t think too much about something we write – a character description, a gender dynamic, a textile on display, the weave of the rug. Absent much thought, automaticity, the brain’s subsconscious autopilot, invokes the easiest available prototype – in the case of a gender dynamic, dad will read the paper, and mom will cut the protagonist’s hair. Or, in the case of worldbuilding, we default to the bland fantasy backdrop we know, and thereby reinforce it. It’s not done out of malice, but it’s still done.

The only way to fight this is by thinking about the little stuff. So: I was quite wrong. You do need to worldbuild pretty hard. Worldbuild against the grain, and worldbuild to challenge. Think about the little stuff. You don’t need to position every rain shadow and align every tectonic plate before you start your short story. But you do need to build a base of historical information that disrupts and overturns your implicit assumptions about how societies ‘ordinarily’ work, what they ‘ordinarily’ eat, who they ‘ordinarily’ sleep with. Remember that your slice of life experience is deeply atypical and selective, filtered through a particular culture with particular norms. If you stick to your easy automatic tendencies, you’ll produce sexist, racist writing – because our culture still has sexist, racist tendencies, tendencies we internalize, tendencies we can now even measure and quantify in a laboratory. And you’ll produce narrow writing, writing that generalizes a particular historical moment, its flavors and tongues, to a fantasy world that should be much broader and more varied. Don’t assume that the world you see around you, its structures and systems, is inevitable.

We... need worldbuilding by Seth Dickinson

[readwritealldayallnight]

You had never seen him look so utterly human before

Laid up amongst the scratchy, thin sheets of the hospital bed, with only a plain surgical mask covering the bottom half of his face, everything else above Ghost’s shoulders exposed to your eyes for the first time, while his own eyes have been shut for nearly four days straight now

You had never seen your Lieutenant without the signature mask that haunts the dreams of even the deadliest foreign mercenaries, had never seen him look anything less than intimidating, commanding, powerful without so much as even trying to, his presence alone striking fear into those who’ve heard whispers of the fearsome Ghost

Now however, with an IV hooked up to his arm and a nurse that comes to check on his vitals periodically, it’s hard to picture him as such a gruesome soldier, rather than a simple man who bleeds like any other human

In spite of the evident vulnerable position he finds himself in, his pale skin appearing nearly translucent under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital, there was no denying that Ghost remained someone to be feared

A particularly nasty blow to the head during a field op gone wrong had knocked the burly soldier out cold, and though doctors were optimistic he would make a full recovery, they couldn’t exactly tell the extent of the damage done until he woke up

You and the men that made up the remainder of the 141 had been taking turns remaining by his side, not wanting for Ghost to wake up alone, whenever that would be exactly

You wonder how he would feel about this, the fact that you are currently the one on shift for the unofficial rotation of visitors who’ve stuck by his bedside throughout his injury

You’re well aware of the fact that the Lieutenant doesn’t like you, has never liked you, and probably never will, though you’ve never been able to get a straight answer as to why

From the moment you’d met him, he’d been cold to you, distant, making no effort to get to know you nor welcome you to the team, opposite to the way the Sergeants and Captain had welcomed you with open arms and hearts

No matter how much you poked and prodded at them for an answer, some sort of inclination as to what you could possible have done wrong to have Ghost dislike you so much, the men always bit their tongues

You saw the way they exchanged knowing glances and sly smirks, believing they were being more cunning than they really were, insisting to you with carefully chosen words that it wasn’t something you should worry about too much, that the LT had a different way of expressing his feelings than most

“So long as he doesn’t wake up and want to ‘express his feelings’ by punching me in the face for being the first thing he opens his eyes to.” You thought to yourself, glancing up from your book at his still sleeping form, shaking your head at your silly thought

No, he’d never been particularly kind to you, but he’d also never gone out of his way to be cruel to you either you supposed

Perhaps he found you to be more of a nuisance than anything else, a pest he couldn’t seem to swat away hard enough, an annoying pimple he couldn’t quite pop

Your eyes scanned over his face once more, cursing whatever Gods might be listening that the man hiding beneath that Ghost facade had to be so … intriguing

You could see old scars running across his face, some of them peeking out from under the surgical mask while others ran across his brow, his crooked nose evident even under the fabric of the mask

He was handsome in his own, rugged way, a fact you were displeased to learn when you first saw him laying here, switching off with Soap who’d been sat at his side earlier

Ghost may not care for you, not that he had given you many reasons or chances to care for him, but you cared about your remaining members of the task force, and knew how important Ghost was to them, and so for the 141, you’d do your duty and care for a Ghost who apparently wanted no such love and tenderness from you

You looked the large man over, brows furrowing when your eyes landed on his neck, noting that the pillow supporting his head was getting a little flat

You stood from your chair, setting your book down, and approched him carefully, almost as though any sudden movements would somehow wake the comatose man from his slumber

As gently as you could, you attempted to adjust the pillow behind him to hopefully be more comfortable, quickly realizing just how heavy he was when he was nothing more than dead weight

You slowly slipped your hands behind his shoulders, pulling him forward as best as you could until you were able to adjust the pillow one handed

Slipping your hands back down his shoulders to ease him back into the bed, your palms naturally ending up sliding onto the back of his neck, the tips of your fingers brushing against the hair at the base of his skull, an involuntary shiver running through you at what you realized too late was a bit of an intimate touch with a man who’d been touch starved for years

It was hard to say who was more stunned at first, with how quickly things transpired, when you suddenly felt a pair of strong hands reaching up to grip your wrists and hold them in place

You hadn’t even realized you had let out a gasp as your eyes flicked down and met none other than Ghost’s own wide open orbs only inches away from you, staring right at you as though he was seeing a ghost

Stunned into silence, worried that you truly were about to end up on the receiving end of Ghost’s anger for having invaded his space like that, you barely had enough time to process that he’d somehow woken from his coma when his grip on your wrists tightened further, and somehow, whether it was a trick of the light or you imagination, his gaze softened before his scratchy, out of use voice said:

“Love.”

Your ears were ringing, hardly taking notice of the way a flurry of alarms and bells had gone off as soon as Ghost had woken up, his heart rate soaring through the roof and alerting staff

Medical personnel rushed into the room before you could wrap your mind around any of what was happening, Ghost’s grip on your never loosening until the doctor finally approached you both, sensing the tension in the air

“Lieutenant Riley,” the man said, gently landing a hand in Ghost’s bicep to hopefully help him ease his strong grip on you. “Let her go.”

His grip on you disappeared instantly, as though your skin had suddenly burned him, but his eyes never wavered from your own, even as he began mumbling unintelligibly beneath his medical mask

“What was that?” The doctor asked, trying to bring calm back to the room and ease Ghost into a state where he could be properly examined

“My girl.” The Lieutenant’s gravelly voice echoed throughout the sterile room

“Pardon?”

“My girl.” Ghost repeated, never once breaking eye contact with your now widened eyes

“Do- do you know who this is, Lieutenant?” The doctor posed the question, slowly gesturing towards you with a confusion that was spreading amongst you all

“‘Course I do.” Ghost spoke with certainty. “That’s my love.”

Part two