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azurillturtle · 8 months ago

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someone had the bad taste to praise the martian where i could see it, and no one actually pays attention to me here and i'm free to be as unhinged as i want, so HERE WE GO: the no-holds-barred explanation of why i hate andy weir with a burning passion and why he's representative of greater problems in the scifi industry.

full disclosure, my only experience with him was reading 1/3 of artemis, which was more than enough for me to declare i'm never touching his works again. it was more than a year ago now, though, so i can't remember everything that upset me.

disliking andy weir is not an unpopular opinion! as far as writing craft goes, you'll generally hear people say that he's not a very good writer. this is partially about that and partially about other stuff specific to me that i didn't like.

as far as i can know, the martian was about a guy stranded on mars having to survive on his own. first person, snarky narrator. very popular. the narrator, whose name escapes me, was very well liked. because it was his first real story, and because there was really only one character on his own, i think a lot of the problems in his writing weren't immediately obvious.

unfortunately for me, the one we tried to read was artemis, widely regarded as the weakest of his books, probably because it shows off exactly how bad he is. and from artemis, this is what i concluded:

andy weir is a scifi writer for people who don't read much and want to feel like they're smart.

there, i said it.

unfortunately i am very much not that target audience. i read enough scifi/fantasy to have a good idea of what goes into a book that i like or dislike; i read enough to drop books that i think are terrible because i've developed standards. i'm also a science major who doesn't usually read hard scifi because i know enough to spot inaccuracies that drive me out of my mind, or at the very least, break immersion. ("that does not work that way.")

weir, for all his "experience," has enough inaccuracies in his writing to earn sideways looks from me. so that's part of it: his "problem solving" isn't realistic enough to be engaging. if it's enjoyable, that may be because you don't immediately spot the flaws in his reasoning.

weir is also a terrible writer. the first thing i said to my coworkers about artemis after i gave it up was that i don't think he's ever spoken to a woman in his life. this is a common criticism. i hear there are only two women in project hail mary, and only for like two seconds, presumably because someone pointed this out to him. they have the same problem.

quite unfortunately, artemis is told from the perspective of a woman. a... twenty-seven year old woman. who i legitimately thought was sixteen based on her maturity and behavior. this is part of a larger problem, which is (from what i've heard), that weir can only write one character voice, which is the protagonist of the martian, which is weir himself. so all the characters cracking snarky sex jokes in artemis were the same person. like, no wonder i was creeped out by the dude making sex jokes to artemis's protagonist in front of his legitimately teenage daughter.

yeah, so, okay--the protagonist of artemis is Mark Anthony or whatever his name was cosplaying as a twenty-something woman. along with not knowing what a woman is, weir's attempts at characterization are atrocious. jazz is always going on about how smart she is, and everyone's always calling her smart, as if we're supposed to believe their words over her own actions. i'm sorry, no. you can have everyone praise your character for being "smart," but if the entire book is a series of her poor life choices, then she's not reading as "smart" to me.

the third point i'd like to make about his writing is that his plot, at least for artemis, is paper-thin. i'm going to spoil the plot, since i sincerely hope no one is going to read it after this post. as part of a get rich quick scheme, said Skeevy Rich Dude hires jazz to sabotage some idk machines mining the moon's surface??, because then the owners will have no choice but to turn to him and he can become rich.

because, you know, if all of your equipment explodes, surely no suspicion will fall on the person who stands to benefit the most from this.

surely.

but no one ever questions the wisdom of this. it's never brought up. i feel like an actual sixteen-year-old could have pointed out the problem here. alas, in this book, major plot points and the reality of how people will act aren't even thought out.

another part of why artemis is generally regarded as weak--and this is extremely hilarious to me--is that weir doesn't know how to write dialogue. at all. every conversation was stilted and full of sex jokes, like that was the fallback when nothing else could be said. this is something that was not immediately evident in the martian, probably because mark anthony (...watney?) was alone and had no one to show off weir's absolutely horrid dialogue writing.

as an example of why there's also like... quite a bit that just read as weird or gross? partly again that weir has never seen a woman in his life, partly that he doesn't know what a real person is. anyway, jazz is a Strong Independent Woman, which in weir's world means she has a lot of sex. this leads to as scene where she asks a Weird Guy Acquaintance for a favor and he says, sure, but in return, can you test something for me? i'm working on a reusable condom, so i want you to try it the next time you sleep with someone.

because you know. this is a conversation that is Totally Normal to have with someone.

what the hell, weir.

unfortunately i did not stop reading there.

i quit when andy weir made it clear he does not know how and why laws should exist, and (by wider extension) the underpinnings of a functional society and how to worldbuild.

this will lead into my last point, but to briefly summarize what infuriated me so much: jazz says offhandedly that there are no statutory rape laws in their moon society. the age of majority is different for every culture, you see, so rather than come to a consensus, they decided it was easiest to go without. if anyone does anything creepy to a girl, weir says, that girl's brothers and father will come beat up the guy, and the problem solves itself.

that was the time i threw the (digital) book in the (metaphorical) trash can, because this is one of those passages that speaks volumes about the author himself.

i shouldn't have to say this, not when there's so much recent discussion about age of consent and child marriage laws, but oh my god no that's not how it works. set aside the vigilantism for a second here, that's not what i'm focused on. laws like that exist to protect the vulnerable. not everyone will have family they trust to come to their defense. not everyone can tell such things to their family. by having no laws, you are saying that it doesn't matter what happens to them, because "it's too hard to come to an agreement between different cultures."

laws are not about convenience. laws are about guarding the safety of the population.

on the one hand, it's another example of weir not thinking through the repercussions of his plot and worldbuilding. on the other, it read so much like something written by a privileged white man, not the Muslim woman protagonist, that to me it says something about andy weir himself.

and that leads into my last point, which is disliking andy weir not because of whom he is, but because of an underlying problem in the writing and publishing industry. it's a known fact that white men have a distinct advantage in publishing, especially in SFF. heinlein held strong for a long time. GRRM waxed poetic about the good ol days at a fairly recent disastrous WorldCon. it was still fairly recent that the Hugos started to see a more diverse group of nominated authors.

and then there's andy weir, who had publishing deals based on the strength of his first novel. andy weir, whose second and third books were optioned for movies iirc before they even came out. andy weir, who is not good at plotting, and not good at worldbuilding, and not good at inventing more than one character, and not good at writing women, and not even always accurate about the science.

why does andy weir of all people get those movie deals?

and would he, if his name was something other than andy weir?

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divinegrey · 3 years ago

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NEON LIGHTS / jinx x fem!reader

THE VANISHER SERIES, part 3

third part is finally here! hope you guys like it. i’ll be following the canon storyline in arcane until the last episode, but this takes places somewhere in between episode 4 and 5. here’s the link to the masterlist if you need to catch up!

prompt: jinx being jinx tries fiddling with things she doesn’t know. the vanisher is there for her.

words: 1858

warnings: PTSD, traumatic events, references to bodily harm, references to abuse

The Last Drop is ripe with people from all over the Undercity coming for their nightly inhale of Shimmer smoke or their drinks. You, however, err on the side of caution, what with your mask protecting you from the fumes. Shimmer is not a drug you’d ever like to touch, regardless of you having a place in the trade as the Vanisher who makes people go away if they fuck with the shipments.

You do it for the money. That is all.

However, there’s a difference to the vibe tonight. You notice it with an overwhelming clarity as Sevika practically stomps out of the room and down the stairs with heavy footsteps. It’s annoying, frankly, because she’s making a ruckus, and you’re there trying to enjoy the music.

(Not really. The music is piss-poor and the drinks are worse. If you wanted quality booze, you wouldn’t go to the Last Drop. You’d go into your own stockpile you’ve been hoarding for years.)

You shuffle the deck of cards you’ve been playing with for the past hour. As you move through the kings and queens, you spot all of the neon specks of paint that have ended up on the cards as a product of playing with Jinx.

Jinx, who always seems to figure out a way to bend the rules so she can win. Or, she’ll make new ones. While usually you like to stick to the rulebook, there’s something to be said about the excitement that Jinx brings to the table. It can be both a headache and unpredictable, but you can’t deny that it isn’t fun.

Which is why you’re curious about Sevika’s mood. Nothing puts the woman off-kilter more than Jinx. If it has anything to do with the explosion caused during the Progress Day party in Piltover, then it was definitely the blue-haired engineer. Jinx used her bombs. Again. Which isn’t a bad thing. Just… loud. Louder than you’d prefer.

Wordlessly, you gather your paint-dappled cards in hand, slide them back into the metal case, and stand up. If Sevika’s that mad… you’ll have to do some damage control, off the record, no payment necessary. Prompt investigations will be required to see what loose ends need to be tied up.

Let’s get one thing clear; you aren’t a fan of Silco. In fact, you aren’t a fan of Shimmer and drugs in general. You’ve only been working with Silco for a short time, maybe less than two years, but you’ve never touched Shimmer. Ever. You already went through enough brainwashing as it is. Your mentor never made it easy on you.

But before you start making things easier on Silco as a favor, you walk past Sevika and towards the back of the Last Drop. Like anyone, Jinx has her own secret place. You followed her one dull afternoon to figure out where it was— you remained completely out of sight the entire time— and it shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise that she chose an abandoned wind generator silo to be her hideout. What says Jinx more than creaking fan blades and the persistent threat of danger?

Sevika grunts at you when you walk past her. Whatever got shoved up her ass, you don’t want to know.

Going to Jinx’s hideout takes less than a few minutes. You tend to walk fast, plus you know all of the routes in Zaun like the back of your hand. Alleyways and rooftops are your best friend when it comes to traversing and parkouring. You pull yourself through one of many hatches that leads into Jinx’s hideout.

This is your first time here— the decor is all too Jinx, with neon paint splattered everywhere. I know where it came from now, you think, remembering your equally paint-splattered playing cards. There are tinkering tools spread out at the center of the fan blades on a desk, and then Jinx herself hunched over something you can’t see from this angle.

You take a moment to analyze what exactly it is that she’s working on, but your answer is soon delivered when a blast of blue electric light comes from a device.

Hextech?

You barely have enough time to brace yourself on the hatch when the surge of light grows, and a thunderous force pushes you away. On the fan blade, you see Jinx blown back; when the dust settles, Jinx is still on her knees, hands over her head. You hear faint sobs.

Fuck.

You leap down, not sparing a single thought to how loud you’re being as you sprint across the creaky fan blades.

“Jinx?” You stop a few feet from her. You become keenly aware that emotions aren’t your strong suit; you can pick people apart with their facial expressions to determine their thoughts and feelings, sure, but when it comes to actually needing to do something about them? Like helping? That is where you fall extremely short.

However, you know Jinx well enough to guess that what she needs right now is grounding. Gently, you lower yourself to a knee.

“You’re in your hideout,” you say firmly, but not so loudly that it scares her. She twitches, clutching her head harder. “We’re on one of the giant fan blades. I’m on your right, about a foot away from you.”

Jinx curls in on herself and starts saying something, repeating it, and it’s not until the third or fourth time that you manage to make out what she’s saying; “I only wanted to help, don’t leave me, please.”

A flashback? Traumatic memory? You spare a glance to the alcove, where two dummies of people sit on a couch. Related to them? Has to be.

“I’m going to touch you now on your back, is that okay?” You ask, your voice warm and gentle. When she doesn’t respond, you inch closer, remove your glove, and lay your palm flat on her back, just barely touching one of her cloud tattoos on the base of her spine.

Her head snaps up. She looks at you, and in her eyes, you see someone else. Someone smaller, buried away. Jinx launches herself into your lap, arms wrapping around your shoulders. You’ve come to expect this, the way she hugs so aggressively. She tries to make herself small, curling up into a ball.

You’ve never helped her through a trauma episode. You’re not sure if you’re doing it right in the first place. Regardless, you do what you feel is right and rock her back and forth, letting her get out the worst of it. Her fingers are clutching the hood of your poncho, so you rub your bare hand up and down her back.

What could’ve triggered such an event?

You focus on your breathing, making it long and slow for her to pick up on. Replicating the pattern takes some time, but eventually, Jinx is breathing in time with you. Her grip has lessened, and you feel her shaking less in your lap. Through it all, you remain consistent in your touch, having removed both gloves now for her to feel the warmth. You pray she doesn’t notice the heavy scarring around your fingers and hands. But knowing Jinx, she already has.

“I can’t do it,” Jinx whispers, her ear pressed over your chest, listening to the slow thumping of your heart. She shakes her head, blinking back the tears that threaten to come out. “Every time I try I just— I see them and I can’t do that again, I can’t do it, Van, I can’t.”

“Grief and pain never go away,” you begin, crossing your legs and moving her to sit more comfortably. You exhale, putting a hand on her face so you can look her in the eye. “You learn to grow around it so you become bigger. The grief will always be the same.”

“I don’t want it,” Jinx mutters.

“I know,” you reply. You brush her bang out of her face. “But all we can do is understand what we went through. What changed us. What made us this way.”

Jinx reaches up and takes your hand. For the first time in a while, you feel fingers ghosting over the marks marring your skin. It’s curious— you know she’s wondering what happened, what caused these scars, but there’s a glimmer of respect in her eyes. As well as recognition. She understands that you understand.

“Whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve, I have faith in you, Jinx,” you continue. “You’re more than capable of doing anything you set your mind to. Including that.” You gesture to the device with a nod of your head. “You alone can do it. You don’t need my help. Or Silco’s for that matter.”

Jinx’s eyes widen. You fear you may have said something wrong, done something to offend her. You understand that Silco is the reason she’s alive… but is she aware that he isn’t the be-all and end-all? That her validation shouldn’t be based on his approval? No, you think. No, she isn’t aware. If Silco was the only person there for her, then that’s an awful role model. Even I can see that.

“But…” Jinx trails off.

“Listen to me.” You hold her hand. You press your forehead to hers and you don’t fail to notice the hitch in her breath. “What you do for other people does not decide your worth. You are in control of that narrative. Do you understand?”

You look past Jinx briefly to see the mirage of a woman staring at you, arms folded over her chest. Strapped to her forearms is the same technology you wear. When you blink, she disappears. You turn back.

“But why?” says Jinx, and you can feel your heart cracking in your chest. Underneath it all is anger. You know Silco has gone too far. You know he’s enabled Jinx’s worst behaviors, the angriest parts of herself that come to the surface. But can you really blame him when your mentor did the same? When your mentor took advantage of you and molded you into the person she wanted you to be?

You weren’t always a killer. Once, you were merely the forgotten child of a large family who never cared for you.

“I know it’s hard,” you whisper to her. “I know. But believe me, no matter how much of a jinx you think you are, you’re more than that. I’m more than the Vanisher, you’re more than Jinx.”

What she says next catches you off guard. “What’s your name?”

When you try and think of it, all that comes up is fuzzy white noise that causes a dull pain in the back of your head. You put a hand to your temple, rubbing the spot to try and get it away. Jinx follows, placing her hand over yours.

“I don’t remember,” you admit.

Jinx swallows, her throat bobbing. “Mine was Powder before…”

“Hey,” you say. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I understand.”

Jinx exhales shakily. You hold her tighter. In the neon lights of her alcove, you hum a song you haven’t heard in years into her ear.

~~~~~

A/N: very slowly dropping some lore about our very own vanisher. hope you folks enjoyed the soft moments, our girl jinx deserves them. likes and reblogs are appreciated <3

#jinx x reader #jinx x fem reader #arcane jinx x reader #arcane #arcane netflix #arcane imagines #jinx imagines #arcane jinx imagines #arcane jinx #the vanisher series

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mypoisonedvine · 4 years ago

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The Wrong Idea | Lee Bodecker x reader

summary: you weren’t exactly a rebel in the eyes of the law, but that didn’t mean you cared for the corrupt, alcoholic town sheriff. and that certainly didn’t mean you would care at all for him marrying your mother. if only you’d known how much worse it could get...

word count: 4.5k

warnings: smut!! (heavy dubcon/noncon), age gap (reader is 19), stepcest, loss of virginity, pain kink, creampie kink, infidelity, degradation, oral (m and f receiving), spanking, choking, slapping, daddy kink, authority kink, subtle ddlg themes?, reader’s mom being toxic af

You’d never cared for the Sheriff. Even you, being generally a well-behaved young woman, thought he was a little too intense and a little too corrupt. Up until now, you’d assumed your mother agreed with you on that, because she never protested to your complaints about Sheriff Bodecker and his ‘fascist reign of terror’ as you called it. Apparently that was a poor assumption, though.

“You… what?!”

“I never told you we were seein’ each other because I knew you had your childish rebellion against him and his police force,” your mother explained with a demeaning eyeroll. “But now that we’re engaged, I can’t hide it anymore.”

“How long has this been going on?” you asked quietly, still in shock at what you were hearing— and unable to take your eyes off of the sparkling diamond wrapped around her finger.

“Oh, I’d say… about two months now,” she decided.

“Two—” you stopped and started over, so bewildered that you couldn’t finish your original sentence. “You’re engaged after two months?”

“Don’t make that face at me, you look so ugly when you scowl like that,” she frowned. Of course, she could never miss an opportunity to nag you. “He’s a respectable man, and he treats me well. The wedding is in three weeks— and he’s generous enough to let you live with us after that. Says there’s a spare bedroom for you in his house.”

“His… his house…” you slurred, suddenly feeling light-headed. “I’m… we’re moving…?”

“Yes, honey, and with your work ethic it’ll take you the whole three weeks to pack up, so you should start now,” she informed you with that cruel, fake smile of hers.

She walked away as you sat down on the couch, staring off into space, trying to comprehend what you just heard. It’s not like you thought your mother was flawless or anything, or that you and her had a perfect relationship, but you thought she would’ve been a little more… gentle about all this. She could do better than him anyways! But she didn’t care about that, only money and status. You could almost laugh at her small-mindedness to think the Sheriff of a nothing-town like Knockemstiff was actually plentiful in either of those things, but right now you couldn’t laugh. You couldn’t even cry as you packed your things and said goodbye to the home you’d known your whole life. You were just numb.

You couldn’t look him in the eye when you arrived at his house, duffel bags in hand and shoes stained with the dry red dirt of summer. It was nicer than your old place, and if it were anyone else’s you’d say it had charm, but everything was tainted because you knew it was his. You could sort of tell that this had been his bachelor pad for a while, but it had a half-assed attempt at hominess with the rug in the living room and a centerpiece on the kitchen table. He even had a TV, presumably funded by bribes and all his other nefarious dealings— meaning you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to watch it.

“Nice to meet ya, properly,” Lee greeted, though his monotone didn’t come across as particularly impassioned.

“Thank you, Sheriff,” you mumbled quickly, hoping to get this conversation over with.

“You don’t have to call me Sheriff anymore, you know. Not in the house, at least.”

You nodded but said nothing, following him as he motioned for you and moved into the hallway. You trailed behind him, noticing the eerie lack of any personal effects on the walls (no family photos, apparently, and not much of a family to photograph in the first place from what you’d heard), and stopped when he reached the door at the end.

“This is your room,” Lee informed you stiffly. Opening the door, you were horrified by the assault on your eyes of pink. Pink everything: pink wallpaper, a pink fuzzy quilt, pink bedframe. There were even assorted stuffed animals on the bed, disturbingly enough.

“When my mother told you she had a daughter, did she not mention that I was grown?”

“You may be nineteen, honey, but you’re nowhere near grown,” he scowled. “She didn’t tell me she had a daughter until two days before the weddin’. This is what I managed to... improvise, since then.”

You almost had sympathy for him, just in that you two were both victims of your mother’s eccentricity. Almost.

“Must’ve inherited your expensive taste from your ma,” he frowned. “Sorry, princess—” the nickname made his lips curl like the word itself tasted sour— “but this’ll have to do.”

“Oh, I’m nothing like her,” you sneered back, “cause I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole.”

“What are you two chatting about?” your mother’s voice called from the kitchen.

Both of you answered at the same time: “Nothing!”

With a grimace, you dragged your bag into the room and shut the door in his face. It was those little acts of rebellion that had to tide you over. You weren’t audacious enough to do anything actually cruel, or illegal, but you weren’t going to make this any easier for him.

At first it was just refusing to leave your room. That worked for a week, until you realized you were going to starve to death. So then the only times you saw him were at the dinner table, which you made into a protest by pretending he didn’t exist and refusing to answer his questions. You occasionally relented when he asked you to pass something from your side of the table, but you never looked at him while you did it.

He didn’t seem angry or sad about your determination to avoid him, if anything it seemed like he was happy to pretend you weren’t there either. And that should’ve made it easier, but for some reason it bothered you even more. You realized that maybe his attention did matter to you, even though it was negative attention that you were hoping to inspire, but you knew that was ridiculous and you tried to fight it. Still, for all your plans to never see him, you sure did think about him a lot. You thought about where he might be, so you could be somewhere else. You thought about what he must be doing at work, and how he was probably continuing to be a nasty mean drunk as frequently as possible. You wondered if he and your mother were making love just across the house, although you were lucky enough to never hear anything. Just knowing that could be happening made you feel sick, even though you realized it was none of your business.

You sometimes found yourself listening for it at night, just in case.

Your mother had decided to spend her new husband’s money on a trip, but the man himself couldn’t tag along— too much work to do, apparently. The prospect of being left alone with him was nightmare fuel, but you didn’t even try to ask her to stay… you knew she wouldn’t listen. She’d been totally absorbed in her own world since the wedding, seeming to be very fulfilled by the social role of ‘Sheriff’s wife’ to the point that she had lost all interest in her former position as ‘your mom’.

There was a balance to the silence with her gone, though. You avoided him, he avoided you; it was a tense truce, but a survivable one. At least without her, nobody was going to try to make you two get along. Friday night was different, though. This time when he came home from work, you knew you were stuck with him until Monday morning. That thought made you realize that you needed to get out and you didn’t care if you weren’t dressed for it. It was hot, and it was just a walk so nobody was going to see you in this miniskirt anyway, right?

Too bad Lee was sitting on the couch, still in his uniform, not giving you any mind but likely to harass you before you could make it outside. You figured if you just walked casually enough, he wouldn’t even notice, so you made your way towards the door.

“You’re not going out like that,” he announced suddenly, seemingly without even looking up from his newspaper.

“Says who?” you deflected quickly with a raised brow. It wasn’t that you wanted to pick a fight, but you just couldn’t understand why he would even care what you were wearing.

“Says the guy who doesn’t want you to give all the neighborhood boys the wrong idea.”

“What idea?!” you asked, crossing your arms. He shot you a look, quickly raking in your body and outfit which made you feel more observed than you cared for.

“The idea that you’re a slut,” he explained coldly.

You gulped at his words but tried to keep a poker face. You didn’t let it get this far just to give up. You were so sick of his shit; what made him think he could boss you around when he’d never even tried to get to know you?

“What makes you assume that’s the wrong idea?” you shot back, fighting the nervousness in your voice.

You hadn’t expected him to stand up instantly, the coffee table wobbling a bit when his knee bumped into it.

“The fuck did you say?” he hissed.

With his teeth bared at you he looked like a predator, and you felt like small, helpless prey. You tried to muster some of your former confidence, but everything came out shaky and weak. “I— I said that maybe it’s not the wrong ide—”

He pounced, crossing the room and slamming you back against the wall, a hand at each shoulder; you instantly cowered, shrinking back and turning your face away from him as far as you could. You never thought he’d put his hands on you like this. Your heart was pounding so loudly that you were surprised you could hear his hoarse whisper.

“Watch your tone with me. I’m not kidding around.”

“I’m an adult,” you weakly fought back, “I can do what I want.”

“Not in my fuckin’ house you can’t!” he bellowed.

For some reason, it all hit you at once. All the emotions you’d been suppressing since your mother had gotten engaged— all the anger and fear and betrayal and indignation, they came bubbling up before you could stop them.

“I don’t even want to be in your ugly fucking house!” you cried in response. “I don’t wanna be anywhere near you! You’re a fascist and a tyrant and a pig!”

You expected him to get more aggressive but he suddenly stilled. It was the scariest anger, that outwardly-calm type that made your blood go cold.

“Go to your room.”

You didn’t question it, turning to walk away (any excuse to get away from him, right?), but you didn’t expect him to follow you in and shut the door behind the both of you.

You were paralyzed with fear as he stepped past you and sat on your bed. It was sort of strange as you realized you’d never seen him in your room before. He stood out against the somewhat childish decorations, but you were in no mood to appreciate the humor of the situation as he patted his knee.

“Lay across my lap. Don’t make me tell you twice.”

He couldn’t possibly be doing what I think he’s doing, could he? you wondered to yourself, but did as he asked. You realized you’d never been so close to him before, the warmth of his body radiating through his clothes. He smelled like cologne and booze, although you didn’t think he’d actually had much to drink yet today— at least compared to his normal habits. It was almost worse to think that he wasn’t acting on drunkenness now.

“It’s prob’ly too late for it, but you are in serious need of discipline, young lady.”

You had no idea what he was talking about, but your body reacted to it differently than you expected.

His fingers slipped between the top of your skirt and your skin, having to pull pretty hard to get it down due to how tight it was. You bit your lip and hoped he wouldn’t notice your arousal, but as your pussy was exposed, you could feel the breeze from the ceiling fan and you knew you were undeniably wet. You didn’t know why, but you were.

“Count them for me,” he instructed coldly and before you could ask what you were counting, he brought his hand down firmly. You felt his wedding ring in the slap and it made you feel a little sick.

“O-one,” you stammered.

He delivered four more, alternating cheeks, and you tried not to react with visible pain. But as the intensity increased, you realized that not reacting might’ve actually been making it worse. Either way, you couldn’t stop yourself from crying out when the eighth made your whole body lurch forward from the force.

“Eight!” you squealed, but both of you noticed the way you pushed your hips forward. Unintentional as it may have been, you were trying to rub yourself on his thigh, desperate to be touched where it felt like all the energy of your body had focused. You were sure you’d never been so horny before, and now your clit was nearly throbbing. What the fuck is wrong with me?!

He quickly delivered the final two slaps before grabbing your neck, hoisting you up until you were on your knees before him. He examined your face closely and you tried to keep your lip from shaking.

“You’re worse than I thought,” he hissed. “You are in dire need of a punishment. You should thank me for going so easy on you so far.”

You realized when his grip on your jaw tightened that he was being literal. “Thank you, for going easy on me…”

“Where’d that fire go, huh? Guess you’re all talk,” he laughed.

He roughly shoved his fingers into your mouth, moaning lowly as your tongue rubbed against the pads of his fingers. “This fuckin’ mouth. You just don’t know when to keep it shut, do you? Come on baby, open up. I’ve got a better use for it than your fuckin’ disrespectful attitude.”

He used his free hand to work on his belt right in front of your face, and your eyes went wide.

“Don’t act so surprised sweetheart,” he said with a hint of irritation, “this is exactly what you’re asking for.”

You gasped a bit when his cock was freed from his trousers, springing up and already red at the tip. You’d never seen one this close before and it was intimidating in every way.

“Like what you see? You’re so wet for it,” he purred. You tried to speak but words abandoned you.

It was all a blur as he held your mouth open and shoved his cock inside— it tasted like skin and salt, and the size made your chapped lips crack until you worried they would bleed. His moans were deep and gravelly, making your skin break out into goosebumps as he pumped smoothly into your pliant mouth. He slapped your face a few times, not quite hard but plenty strong enough to make it sting. You winced with each impact, the tears which had welled from your gagging finally falling down and dripping from your chin.

“Suck on it, princess, like a popsicle… fuck yeah, like that,” he groaned, and your mind resisted obeying him but your body was completely at his mercy. “Aw baby, ya look so good chokin’ on my cock. Is that what you were gonna go do in this slutty little outfit you’ve got on?”

You tried to shake your head but he was holding you down, not even giving you a chance to breathe. His protruding stomach rubbed against your forehead when his cock was this deep in your throat, and the disgust and fear somehow made your arousal stronger.

He let you go, finally, and you pulled back with a gasp and a cough. You weren’t given much reprieve, though, as he started to tug at your blouse as well.

“No, wait,” you whimpered, weakly trying to bat his hands away.

“Wait? I think I’ve been waiting long enough,” he growled. “Your ma’s a fuckin’ tease, hasn’t touched me since I got her that ugly fuckin’ ring. Let’s hope you learn from her mistakes.”

Your blouse was torn open and tossed aside, leaving you only in the pulled-up skirt and your bra. Reaching up to cover yourself, you were discouraged by the shockingly-gentle brush of his hands.

“Don’t cover yourself, sweetheart, you’re gorgeous,” he murmured. His gaze made you feel hot all over, and it wasn’t just because of the summer weather outside. “Nobody ever looked at ya before?”

You shook your head, looking down at the floor. A finger under your chin guided you to look up at him.

“Nobody ever touched ya before?” he pressed, his stare boring into you. You shook your head again. “Fuck,” he whispered, but then he started to smile proudly. “Knew you were a good girl, princess, you just didn’t wanna act like one for some reason. You gonna be good for me now?”

You nodded weakly, swallowing as you tried to comprehend what was happening.

“Then I’ll be good to you, too,” he promised darkly, a shimmer in his eyes that made you throb between your thighs. “Come get on the bed, pretty girl.”

You almost resisted, but it was your need driving you now, not your mind. You had been waiting too long to let a boy touch you, and now that a man had touched you, you felt all kinds of wrong and yet craved more. Before you had even finished sitting down beside him, he was slipping off your bra and pushing you back onto the quilt.

“Sheriff!” you yelped instinctively, a little disoriented as he started to climb on top of you.

He chuckled, clearly amused by your unexpected appeal to authority. “Wanna know a secret, sweetheart? Wanna know the real reason I said you didn’t have to call me that anymore?” He leaned down, his breath hot and moist against your neck when he spoke: “Because it made me so fuckin’ hard when you said it.”

He pressed his cock, still wet with your spit, against your thigh; maybe just for emphasis, a reminder that he was still hard and wasn’t anywhere near done with you.

“What are you gonna do to me…?” you asked weakly, your voice so wavering and broken that you cringed just hearing it.

“Just gonna make you feel good, princess,” he smiled, and before you could ask what that would entail, he was groping your tits in his large, calloused hands. A low groan echoed in his chest, and you tried not to squirm as he teased your nipples between his fingers. They were already hardening from the moment he’d touched you, but somehow it was getting even worse when he played with them, watching your face and surely seeing the shame you wore there.

His hands trailed lower, rubbing your waist, your thighs… you found yourself anticipating that he’d remove your panties, so much so that when he did, you quickly lifted your hips to help him slide them off. You couldn’t believe how easily you were letting him do this to you.

“I can tell how much you want it,” he taunted lowly as the fabric slid down your legs and was tossed to the floor. “I can smell how much you want it.” He growled a little before diving in, licking a thick stripe through your folds and taking a moment right at the end to tickle your clit with his tongue. “So fuckin’ sweet, princess; I knew you would be,” he praised. You were forced to wonder how long he’d been thinking about this.

The noises were beyond obscene and you felt your face burning— but there was a burning in your gut, too, and shooting down your legs. You’d never felt like this before (being a very good girl who never even touched herself), but you knew that if he didn’t stop, you would come. And you really, really wanted to come.

Everytime he put pressure on your clit, your leg quivered involuntarily. It was nearly too much, the sensation so powerful it almost hurt, but he pushed you right to the edge without knocking you off.

“Please,” you found yourself begging before you could stop it, “please, Sheriff—”

“I’m not your Sheriff anymore, sweetheart,” he informed you gruffly, popping up from between your legs with the entire bottom half of his face covered in your arousal, “I’m your daddy now. Go on and beg your daddy to fuck you.”

Eyes shot wide open, you stared back at him in bewilderment. Rage flashed in his eyes, and he snarled as his hand suddenly wrapped around your neck, tightening and choking you.

“You heard me,” he groaned through his teeth. “Beg me. To fuck you.”

“Daddy,” you stammered, hoarsely fighting to speak through the pressure on your throat, “fuck me, please.”

He slammed his cock into you and you nearly screamed. It burned and you instinctively tried to crawl away but, of course, his weight on top of you made it impossible.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he groaned. He laid down on top of you entirely then, slipping his arms under your torso and holding you tightly.

Each thrust made you feel like you had reached your limits, as if you couldn’t be stretched further which was probably true. And yet, in spite of it (or worse, because of it), you found yourself moaning and writhing under him, even arching your back to make his movements smoother. He laughed a little as he bit at the shell of your ear.

“You love it, baby,” he moaned, “you love my cock.”

You couldn’t respond, just sob as you clutched at the shirt still on his back, your jaw tight as you tried to bear the pain.

“It’s not always gonna hurt like this,” he promised between heavy breaths, “s’gonna feel good soon. Gonna make you feel so fuckin’ good, pretty girl.”

Truthfully, you weren’t sure if that meant that this would happen again or not. At the moment, you were incapable of thinking that far ahead, too focused on the way the sting of the stretch was melting away and morphing into such powerful pleasure that you couldn’t even see straight.

He kissed you, and only then did the weight of it hit you. Who he was, what he was doing, what you were doing… it had been distant and vague before, but something about his tongue inside your mouth made you remember that the metal digging into your back was his ring; that the lips on yours were sworn to somebody else— and at that, the one exact person that made this so fundamentally wrong.

Tears welled in your eyes, gentle sobs shaking your chest.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he whispered, pulling back and kissing your tears away, “feels good, don’t it? Feels good when daddy fucks you?”

You knew speaking would only make you cry more, so you only nodded your head shamefully.

“That’s my good girl,” he moaned as he fucked you deeper, harder, rougher. Your fingers held onto the back of his neck, running through his hair and pulling him closer. He kept mumbling praises but they fell on deaf ears, pleasure clouding your mind and making every hair on your body stand upright. He didn’t stop as he reached down between your bodies and laid his hand over your stomach, growling with satisfaction at what he found there.

“I can feel me inside ya,” he grinned. “Feel that, sweetheart? Feel how deep I am in your wet little cunt?”

When you didn’t answer, you got a quick slap to the face. “Yes,” you replied quickly, “yes, I— I feel it.”

He buried his face into the crook of your neck, biting you there until you nearly screamed. You couldn’t figure out why something so objectively painful only pushed you closer to your peak, making every spot inside you more sensitive, but somehow it did.

“Gonna come, pretty girl? Want daddy to fill you up?” he groaned against your ear, pushing down on your stomach even harder.

“Yes, daddy!” you sobbed. “Please!”

“Fuck, you’re squeezin’ me,” he hissed, “don’t fuckin’ stop. Keep milkin’ my cock and m’gonna fill ya up so good, princess…”

You couldn’t stop even if you tried— your orgasm hit you in powerful waves, your head falling back as your walls clenched involuntarily (as did your fingers and toes, so hard that your nail tore the sheets a little bit, which you wouldn’t notice until the next day). He grunted as he came, pumping into you with each thrust until you felt more full than you ever had before, in a way you could never describe.

The two of you stayed like that for a moment, him catching his breath and you losing yours as his weight threatened to crush you. “Fuck,” he groaned as he sat up and pulled out. He grabbed your legs and held them up for you, staring at your abused pussy and making you feel uncomfortably observed.

“Push it out for me, wanna see my come leak outta ya,” he purred, moaning a little when you did as he asked. It felt even hotter as it gushed out of you, and you mindlessly bit your lip. He tucked his softening cock back into his trousers, rezipping them and buckling his belt. “We’d better get ya cleaned up, huh princess?”

The bathroom wasn’t far, so he carried you, setting you down to stand on your own as he started to draw a bath. You watched him, although you weren’t really watching him so much as staring into the void of space that happened to be in his general direction. You were so out of it that you didn’t even register when he turned around and smiled at you with an air of pride.

“You look so good like this.”

It pulled you out of your trance, though you had to ask him to repeat himself with a mumbled “huh?”

“I said you look good like this,” he explained, stepping closer. “Fucked out, braindead, just my empty-headed fucktoy.”

“I… I don’t…” you began to disagree.

He used your jaw to turn your face to the mirror, and you gasped when you saw yourself: your hair was a mess; your whole face was red, especially your eyes and nose from crying, but plenty on your cheeks where he’d slapped you; your lips were swollen and slick; bruises were already forming on your arms where he’d grabbed you, and along your neck and shoulders where he had bitten you.

His form dwarfed yours as he stood behind you, looking at your reflection with a smile.

“Look at us,” he announced wistfully, “one big happy family, huh?”

#lee bodecker x reader #dark!lee bodecker x reader #lee bodecker smut #lee bodecker x you #lee bodecker x y/n #dark fic

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forestlingincorporated · 4 years ago

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I wanna talk about Janet Drake

I’m not against exaggeratedly evil versions of Tim’s parents, tbh. It’s fanfiction, if we can depict an Exaggeratedly Good version of Bruce (which we can, and I do, and I love) then we can depict the Drakes as Exaggeratedly Bad. As someone who personally identifies with Tim, and his brand of complicated parental abuse in particular, I find it cathartic to uncomplicate that abuse and rescue him from the Obviously Evil Bad People.

That said, since much of comics lore is passed down word of mouth, the oral tradition surrounding Tim has developed this idea of Janet as The Worse Parent between her and Jack that was never really present in the comics. We see much LESS of Janet, and we have 20 years worth of comics depicting Jack as a neglectful hotheaded idiot who ultimate does love his son. More importantly, Jack isn’t very much LIKE Tim, so there is a habit to attribute Tim’s traits to his mother... and, as someone who really really identifies with Tim, Tim has... some negative traits. Tim can be a bitch sometimes. He’s fiercely intelligent and sweet and kind, with a strong sense of justice, but he can be cold and judgmental and unthinking - he fights those traits, but he does have them.

And it is perfectly fine to depict Janet that way. I’ve enjoyed depictions of Cold Calculating Janet Drake, but it’s not the ONLY option, and I want to challenge fans to consider different avenues. Tim could pick up these traits from anywhere: a nanny, Mrs. Mc Ilvaine (”Mrs. Mac”), a teacher, tv, Sherlock Holmes novels, Bruce Wayne himself. Tim is capable of not being like EITHER parent.

So, what do we KNOW about Janet? (I’ll also touch on Jack, but only in scenes he appears with Janet.)

When Janet was first introduced she was depicted as a gentle but “modern” woman. This was written in 1989, told by a 13 year old Tim, so this theoretically was meant to take place in 1979. I’m not here to give a lecture on the history of sex discrimination in the united states, but much of the legislation protecting women in the workforce or surrounding women’s bodily autonomy would have been very very new in this initial depiction.

Here, Janet is shown to be encouraging, emotional, maternal, and projects her own feelings onto Tim. Jack is shown to be slightly sexist, possibly discouraging, but not overbearing. And the artist is shown not to know how to draw children.

To insert some speculation, I think it’s important to note all the Drakes witnessed a terrible murder/accident that day. I point this out, because this is the last time Jack and Janet are depicted this way. It’s possible they changed as a result of this event specifically.

However, this is also a story being told by Tim. It’s also possible these events aren’t really “real” at all, and Tim is misremembering what his parents were like as a three-year-old, possibly projecting a more palatable version of his parents into the narrative. This is entirely up to personal interpretation.

In fact, the Drakes are shown in Legend of the Dark Knight attending Haly’s Circus, and the artist knows what a toddler looks like and they’re depicted as already having a slightly strained relationship. Jack is clearly on the defensive, and Janet seems to be passive-aggressive, though she could just be attempting to explain the situation to her toddler honestly. The intended tone isn’t especially clear.

I do want to point out, in this depiction, Tim isn’t being carried like he was in the previous one. He’s walking ahead of his parents, which isn’t a terrible horrible crime, but could be dangerous in a crowded place like the circus. Might be a subtle hint to his parents overall neglect.

Back to A Lonely Place of Dying, in Tim’s memories of the night he discovered Robin and Dick Grayson were the same person at nine-years-old, his parents are home, and watching TV together while Tim played... trucks, idk, in the living room with them. (This is semi-interesting, because you could say “oh, Tim liked vehicle toys as a kid” or you could extrapolate that this is another subtle indication of Jack’s sexism, providing Tim with appropriately “boy toys.” Either interpretation is valid. If Tim was assigned female at birth, would they have been given “girl toys,” or allowed to play with whatever they wanted?)

This is, to my knowledge, the only panel of the Drakes when Tim is between ages 3 and 13. They’re all together, which might indicate that the Drakes were home more often when Tim was 9, only later going on business trips when Tim was “old enough” but...

This is Tim’s boarding school when he’s 13. While most boarding schools in the US are for grades 9-12, Tim is clearly not a freshman at age 13; look how much younger the other kids in this panel are. In the US, the youngest you can attend most boarding schools is 7.

That means Tim could have begun going to boarding school anytime between 7 and 13. He most likely spent all of middle school in boarding school, at least. There are an almost infinite number of possible ways the Drakes handled having a business that required lots of international travel, an archeology hobby, AND a very young child. Janet staying home until Tim was 7, 11, 13, is equally possible as the Drakes having a nanny until 7, 11, 13. Tim just doesn’t talk about that period of his life very much.

(”What about Mrs. Mac?” - it is unclear when Mrs. Mac begins working for the Drakes. We only see her when Jack comes out of his coma. She could either be a long standing staff member, or a recent hire.)

Note: I’ve seen it said that it’s canon that “According to Tim, when his parents were home, they made a point to try and include him in their activities, bringing him along to events that were normally adults only.” I have never seen this panel, or I don’t remember it, so I cannot confirm, but I also cannot debunk this because... comics.

By the time Tim is 13, Jack and Janet are away on business trips a lot, with limited communication, and no firm return date. If I’m feeling generous, I’d say it was harder to communicate internationally in 1990 than it is today. If I’m not feeling generous, I’d say the Drakes are extremely wealthy, and international communication was easier than ever before in the 80s and 90s. They’re not even going home to see Tim in a week or two, they’re going home and calling Tim at boarding school in a week or two.

Even Bruce thinks its weird, though he doesn’t say so to Tim’s face. It’s written almost as if Tim’s parents’ neglect was meant to be a plot point that just got forgotten about.

Tim’s parents are fighting at this point (their poor assistant), but Janet still goes with Jack on these business trips. And she’s clearly involved in the business, somehow, but the comics never SAY what Janet’s JOB is. We’re told Jack is the exec, but Janet is ONLY ever referred to as Jack’s wife, though they’re later described as the “heads” of the company, plural.

Just to be clear, this is Jack’s business. There’s a perception that Jack is a bad business man because he and Janet fight over company decisions, and Jack looses the business after Janet dies, but Jack looses the company YEARS after Janet dies, and maintains it for about a year after No Man’s Land at that. We’re not told how Jack looses the business, but he’s got to be doing something right. Janet isn’t necessarily the “real brains” of Drake Industries.

And I’m not... gonna... touch the... exploitation and racism because... I’m not qualified to do that. But, here’s the panel. The Drakes sure seem exploitative and racist in their business decisions. Someone else can... analyze that with more nuance.

Regardless how how long they’ve been fighting, when their lives are in danger, the Drakes fall back into a loving husband and wife. Their marriage may be falling apart, but they do care about each other.

I want to show these panels because it shows that Tim and Jack do have things in common. They’re both level headed in a crisis and can be somewhat cold in their practicality. Janet meanwhile and silent. Jack is later willing rant and rave at their captors, but Janet remains silent.

That is, until they’re alone, and she finally lets herself fall apart.

God, Jack can be obnoxious. Janet just looks miserable and resigned. I actually think Tim takes after his parents in this respect in equal measure. Tim can have a temper, but he can also be fairly melancholy and defeatist.

Jack keeps reminding Janet to be strong and in control, which could be period typical sexism? But Jack seems so practiced and ready with the words of encouragement, and with Tim’s history with depression, I wonder if Janet has an inclination towards it as well.

As the end approaches, when Jack brings up Tim, Janet seems to have a lot of regret. She talks about “wasting” the good things, and I don’t think it’s too big of a stretch to assume she’s talking about time spent with her only child.

From this point on, Janet is at times spoken of, but not seen. Like here, when Jack says Janet wouldn’t approve of him and Tim being so “far apart.” He says this after he tells him he takes back his threat to send him back to boarding school, which might imply Janet was against the idea of boarding school? Though she obviously lost that argument when she was alive.

Jack will of course renege on this later, but that’s Jack Drake for you.

Or here in Tim’s illness induced dream, where he gets everything he wants. Though, since this is a fantasy of Tim’s, where his father and girlfriend are both more accepting and understanding than they are in real life, I would take this depiction of Janet with a grain of salt.

After loosing Drake Industries, Jack thinks about Janet (though, they call her Catherine/Cathy for some fucking reason) during his depressive episode. And... uh...

Hallucinates a Valkyrie???? Is this symbolic of suicidal thoughts, or is she... real? Or is he seriously hallucinating?

Anyway, we’re not here to discuss Jack’s mental state, the fact that he forgot Tim’s birthday, or that concerning “I was going to knock some sense into you but you’re still bigger than me” statement from Tim, we’re here to talk about Janet. And even though this entire arc is about Jack mourning his first wife, they don’t SAY anything about Janet herself at all. I mean, they don’t even get her name right, so I guess what was I expecting.

Then there’s Origins and Omens, which also doesn’t say anything about Janet, except that Tim’s memory of her is faulty - Janet was poisoned, her assistant Jeremy’s throat was slit on television, but Tim seems to have conflated the death he did see with the death he didn’t.

The only piece of canon to suggest that Janet might be cold, is Tim compares her to Thalia. And even then, he’s really just saying Janet was protective of him. It’s kind of a scary look to make at your kid, but Bruce does the same thing, so.

I do want to say... it’s not 100% clear if Tim is even talking about Janet. He could be talking about Dana. Dana was observably protective of Tim, though I don’t think he’s ever called her mom. He PROBABLY means Janet.

And finally we have Tim visiting his mother’s grave (in a duel Christian/Jewish cemetery, make of that what you will), where Tim says she was “a little religious.”

And that’s it! That is all we know about Janet Drake in New Earth. Hardly the Mom From Hell, but she isn’t perfect. I’d be interested in seeing some alternate depictions of her within the fandom.

I’m still gonna eat up Terrible Parents From Hell like a starving puppy dog, though. Just some food for creative thought.

#Tim Drake #janet drake #jack drake #robin #Red Robin #character analysis

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safarigirlsp · 2 years ago

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I absolutely love this!!! Practical Magic is one of my favorites, and you know Flip is too! PM even has my second favorite tall, dark, and handsome guy. No one else could combine two of my favorites so magically, pun intended! You write Flip so well, and I always love how you write him, and our other favorites too, as manly and masculine! And omg I love the smoking porn! That really needs to be in everything.

Your writing throughout is wonderful and it's always inspiring to me to read how you can so easily set the tone of your story with your writing. My favorite is dark and sexy and romantic all at once, and of course you kill it every time!

Right from the intro, you nail him!

It’s not the circumstances of Flip's past that drive him. The only answer he has is so abominably simple that he doesn’t bother offering it. He likes figuring things out. That never seems to suffice, though. Flip could never understand why. Artists do art because they like it. Cooks like to cook. Cobblers like to cobble, presumably. So why isn’t the same courtesy afforded him? He does his job because he’s good at it. And you’re welcome, by the way. The creeps he’s put behind bars aren’t out to bother decent folk. But if he ever says that, he gets strange looks. It must be that Hey, I just like murder cases doesn’t have the same ring as Interior design just gets my blood pumping, y’know?

This is such a good insight into humans and so well put. I deal with this every day, and I wouldn't have thought to put it so eloquently! And the writing in general is top notch!

He knows there’s always a reason why. And it nags at him until he can ferret it out. The why of it all. Why most of us can tamp down the worst of our impulses when it comes right down to it. Why we won’t jaywalk when there’s a perfectly fine crossing right there. Why we won’t push someone annoying into traffic, even though they really deserve it in that moment. Steal a defenseless old lady’s purse, even though it’s easy, free money. Tie a woman up in her room and rape her. And worse than that.

What is that wrong turn; the wrong word said at the wrong time; the weapon in the wrong hand; the wrong woman who kisses you just right. Money, love, or fury—those are the causes for most everything, in isolation or in some heady cocktail. Flip can arrive at the truth if he has enough time to think, to put himself in that place and time.

This is such a great phrase!

A bad seed from the start who’s relied on people’s decency the way others rely on herd immunity.

Flip and his poor bony ass! 🤣 I love it!

He’s sitting on a metal chair with his jacket folded under him to make it easier on his bony ass

The smoking porn is so on point! Plus paired with hair porn! Win win!

He fishes out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes out of his pants and bites one between his teeth carefully, pulling it out. He tosses his head back to get his hair out of the way. The flame on his lighter tends to shoot up and singe his mustache or hair if he’s not careful.

I love the she's a redhead! We need to corner the market on them! 🔥

It makes her wild red hair look like it’s on fire.

This is such a beautiful line!

He knows her voice already and she hasn’t even spoken yet.

I love this, too, and it's so true for Flip!

She would never be safer than in his presence and there is no easy way of saying that.

The description of their eyes when they meet is gorgeous and so vivid! That whole scene was written so well it was like watching a movie, which is extra hard with the quasi-fantasy element of it. It was really well done and beautiful!

I love this touch!

He had heard that if you look into a woman’s eyes and see yourself in them, upside down, then that woman was a witch,

This is probably my favorite part of writing just because I can picture Flip feeling it, thinking it, and being like 'oh, sonofabitch.' Also, who doesn't want to be looked at like that?

He'd heard about this sort of thing happening to other men. They're going about their business one minute, and suddenly there's no hope for them. They fall in love so hard they never again get up off their knees.

I love this analogy! Right up my alley!

But it’s a way back in and, like an overeager vampire, he’ll do anything for an invitation over the threshold.

@in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather

Flip Zimmerman Practical Magic AU

I’m back on my bs! The first wave of whimsigoth has hit me in the year of our lord 2023 and I had the urge to write something with Flip. This is an odd little mix of the movie, book and my own nonsense, and all I can say is I hope it’s not terrible so far :)

CW: strong language, strained family relationships, murder/death, assault, allusions to sexual harassment, but it’s all so devastatingly romantic xD

WC: ~6.5k

Flip is working on a preliminary inquiry begun by the attorney general's office. James Hawkins, a local ne'er-do-well, had struck again over the summer.

He lounges on the couch at the precinct. It’s an old thing, it dips in the middle and smells like stale smoke. It’s painted in autumnal tones, the color of vomit and dust. He stretches out his long legs and lays his crossed ankles on the armrest, one arm curled under his head and the other holding up the file. He was going to go home, but then for some reason, it felt more restful to crash on the awful couch than to drive all the way back and sleep. His eyes move steadily across the crawl of letters, only his stomach rising and falling softly; the rest of him is still and focused.

People have long guessed at the source of Flip’s indefatigable drive. Could it be the mysterious failed marriage just out of high school? Does it have something to do with that Star of David necklace that peeks out of his shirt once in a blue moon? Some dark family secret, like a sibling that died too young or a beloved adult that was gunned down and no one ever answered for it? Theories abound and once or twice a year, when someone’s had a few too many, they’ll venture a question. Flip has ways of avoiding it. Sometimes he just stares the asshole down until the question evaporates on the air along with the man’s bravado. Other times, he quips a pithy response and orders another round for the table.

He’s been aware of this loser for a good while. Hawkins has been selling drugs in Colorado Springs for going on twenty years. A bad seed from the start who’s relied on people’s decency the way others rely on herd immunity. Enough people respect the law to the point of reflex, that someone like Hawkins begins to feel they are unstoppable because they keep driving when the sign says stop, they keep drinking when the bartender says last call, they take the wallet or the ring that doesn’t belong to them, and they take a life through sheer negligence. And no one decisively puts an end to their bullshit until it’s too late. Flip, along with other cops and investigators, had to sit on his hands and unlock the cell to let this slinky parasite back out too many times because he had hurt people in a way that still left room for some sort of recovery. Until now. The moment had finally come that it was officially too late to protect people from him and it was only now that Flip was being released like a greyhound onto a racing track to hunt down a rabbit that was very much dead from the start.

Hawkins had hooked up with some bad types from Arizona and taken to selling rattlesnake seeds and jimsonweed to stupid college kids. They’ll buy anything, especially kids who had never had so much as a whiff of the desert. They don’t know how wary they need to be of something gnarly enough to grow where things go to die. One seed of rattlesnake makes you feel euphoric. It's like LSD growing free and, best of all, it’s totally unregulated. Problem is, two seeds can, and usually do, cause your death. Now that’s an interesting gamble. Made more interesting still by the fact that contributing factors can also make a single seed lethal. Four college kids took that gamble this past summer and it came up snake eyes for one of them. A history major from Philadelphia who had just turned nineteen. Flip was called in early by his friend in homicide, and he saw the kid. On the floor of his dorm room, the whole side of his face black and blue, battered into a misshapen, swollen mess from the violent convulsions he went into before he died. The two investigators concurred that it wouldn’t be considered tampering with the evidence if someone put some makeup on the kid before his parents arrived.

Identifying the bastard was easy. James ‘Jimmy’ Hawkins made sure anyone who met him once remembered him. He walked around in his alligator cowboy boots and a shirt with too many buttons undone, like a saloon wench. His inky hair was arrow-straight and fell into his shimmering green eyes. A certain type of woman couldn’t resist that look to save her life. There was a perpetual smirk etched on his face and he always wore his snake ring. He liked to use it to split lips and gouge eyes in bar fights he started. The man never picked a fair fight. It should have been a simple matter of knocking on his door or sweeping his drunken form off some floor and tossing him in the slammer.

Except no one can find Hawkins. His live-in girlfriend, Maddy, is gone too. They've checked the bars Hawkins frequented and questioned his supposed friends. No one's seen him since late June, when the university let out, and all this rattlesnake seed business happened.

It’s futile and Flip has no expectations of finding Hawkins so easily, but he has to start at the beginning. So he sits on the front patio of the last house Hawkins and Maddy rented, still scanning his rap sheet. He’s sitting on a metal chair with his jacket folded under him to make it easier on his bony ass and doesn’t look up as a figure approaches. It drops a letter into his lap and only then does Flip take notice of the mailman. He informs him the stamp had fallen off somewhere along the way and demands postage due. Flip’s fingers are long, but thick, and he struggles as he fishes for coins in the front pocket of his jeans. The mailman stands there with his hand outstretched and looks on with unimpressed disdain.

His eyebrows shoot up into his hair when he reads the names. A letter to Madeleine Hallewell, from Prescilla Hallewell. There’s some heft to it. He rubs the letter between it his fingers – it’s all paper. Several sheets and the unread words already feel heavy. It has the feeling of a scolding from mom, even before he decides he’ll open it. The letter is crumpled and torn in one corner, and the flap already hangs open. Were it not practically spilling out as it is, Flip might have taken it to the office and let it be. But the words are all but spilt across his lap anyway and he opens the envelope with his thumb and index finger and peers in. He’ll savor this. He needs a break after the barrage of awful misdeeds Hawkins has left in his wake.

He leans back in the chair, rests his legs on the fence, and wriggles until he finds a comfortable spot. He fishes out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes out of his pants and bites one between his teeth carefully, pulling it out. He tosses his head back to get his hair out of the way. The flame on his lighter tends to shoot up and singe his mustache or hair if he’s not careful. He takes a long drag, watching the tip burn orange, receding deeper, and he inhales until he’s sure the cigarette is lit. He holds the breath in his lungs as he stuffs the cigarettes and lighter back into his pants, and then grunts the smoke out. He relaxes in his whole body, slumping into the chair and pinching the cigarette between two fingers.

Prescilla is writing her heart out to Maddy, and he feels his cheeks burn a few times as he reads. She is honest in that awful, naked way that you only allow yourself to be when you know no one will see; when you’ll only do it once. When you’re breaking up with someone who’s been breaking your heart, or when you’re watching them lower a box with someone you love into the ground. Or when you’re letting your sister know exactly how much she’s been eating you alive your whole life.

Someone had broken into the Hallewell home a few nights before Prescilla sat down to write to her sister. Flip estimates it was late spring, but there was no knowing for sure how long the letter had been floating around stampless. Jimmy had apparently written some bad checks in Maddy’s name and someone tracked down the address in Salem as her place of residence, and came to collect. They caught Prescilla on the stairs, as she came down to inspect the noise. She saw strangers ransacking the place and tried to retreat, but they spotted her and dragged her by the hair to the den. There, they choked her and threatened to make her swallow scorpions coated in oil. Even had the arachnids ready at hand, milling hideously around in jars full of amber liquid, in case she gave them any trouble. She described it all so vividly that Flip felt like he was there, clutching the letter harder in his hand, body thrumming with the need to stop the words he was reading. His stomach twisted as he came to the end of the harrowing tale and he felt several sheets of paper under his fingers remaining. He expected Prescilla to tell her no good sister she never wanted to see her face again. That should only take a few lines to convey.

Instead, Prescilla wrote heartfelt pleas for Maddy to see sense, leave Hawkins, and come home. He balked at the words. You have me, Maddy, no matter what. It doesn’t matter how deep you feel you are. I promise you, you are not stuck, you are not too far gone. I will get you out, no matter what. The last three words were triple underlined. Flip frowns. He believes her, and he dearly wishes he didn’t. It would have been better for her that way.

More pages still were filled with insights into the two sisters; the levelheaded one who offered a hand no matter how much she hated the younger one in that moment, and the hellraiser, who burnt bridges and asked questions never. His heart went out to Prescilla. He recognized the same dogged determination in her that he felt about the people he needed to protect. It was something neither of them could help, regardless of what it did to them. In her own words – no matter what, triple underlined.

He feels Prescilla as if she’s sitting with him, shoulder to shoulder as he reads her words, and he’s sure he’s so engrossed in her letter he’s not breathing. When he’s done, he flips right back to the first page and reads it again, like a movie with a twist ending that feels different the second time around you watch it.

Flip folds the letter carefully and puts it not in the case file, but the inside pocket of his jacket. He goes home then and packs his bag. He calls Ron to let him know he’s found a great lead and is going after Hawkins' girlfriend. There’s enough of truth there to appease him. He reads the letter twice before falling asleep and three more times in the air, shielding it jealously from any prying eyes.

There is a unique freshness to New England. Where Colorado feels crisp and clear, the freshness in Salem is like a saline solution, clearing his head like a strong cup of coffee after a bad hangover.

Prescilla Hallewell is out in the garden when Flip parks his rented car. She bares her teeth as she pulls at some weeds, backlit by the setting sun. It makes her wild red hair look like it’s on fire. She looks to Flip like she could do anything. She’s cut up a whole bucket full of crimson red roses and they’re stuffed in there every which way, as if they’re garbage she intends to get rid of. Flip only tears his eyes away from her as he circles the car in the driveway, gets a good look at the Oldsmobile parked in front, and matches its Colorado license plate number to the one in his files. She’s up on her feet and wiping at her forehead by the time he’s taking a steadying breath and entering her garden.

She looks up at him and neither speaks for a moment. Her eyes are gorgeous and dark, and he wants to study her expression. The wild locks of red hair that spill from her clip, the slight dew of sweat on her skin, her lips parted in exertion and surprise – they fit perfectly with the words he’s read and memorized. He knows her voice already and she hasn’t even spoken yet.

She takes him in and what he feared triggering happens. She retreats, like a battered woman, wincing away from this tall large man, dark and strange, appearing out of thin air in her garden. It’s smart; he wants to commend her instincts, but more than that, he wants to override them. She would never be safer than in his presence and there is no easy way of saying that.

She blinks and her expression turns more guarded. Flip looks close, he wants to look at her eyes some more, but all he sees is himself, upside down. Refracting, kaleidoscopic, melting, breaking into pieces and assembling again. He’s chasing the swirls in her eyes, the depth he glimpses as it leaps away from him into corners and shadows - the truth he intuits somewhere behind his own image projected there.

He had heard that if you look into a woman’s eyes and see yourself in them, upside down, then that woman was a witch, and it stuck vaguely with him. The way you learned the answers to trolls’ bridge questions and the Sphinx’s riddle, just in case you ever came upon one. Remember that fairies sometimes steal children from their beds and be on your guard, trolls turn into stone at daybreak, so stall them until then, and a woman who tries to lure you in with your own reflection was surely a witch and she was working her charms to ensnare you. The only thing to do then, the story went, was turn the other way and run, and don’t judge yourself a coward either. Witches are canny folk and you never know what they could be after.

Well, Flip sees all six feet and three inches of himself sprawled out upside down in Prescilla’s eyes, and he stares on and on, no intention of running. He was captured not by his own image, but what had slipped just behind him, the glimpse he could not fully read.

Prescilla feels her chest constrict. There’s a good sized spade embedded in the ground in the garden and she ponders whether she might reach it and swing, should it come to that. All she has in her hand is a small pair of garden shears. Her body turns cold and her eyes quiver dangerously in their sockets at the memory of those men breaking into her home a few months ago. She told herself she was over it, and it wouldn’t happen again. But it’s terribly clear now she’s more afraid than ever as she tries not to tremble before this stranger standing in her garden.

He’s markedly different from Jimmy’s desert buddies. Conspicuous absence of implements of torture aside, he exudes peace and calm, looking at her with oddly familiar, comforting eyes. They are soft melted honey in the golden light of sunset and his face looks serene, almost glowing.

“Can I help you?” she asks doubtfully and makes herself take a step forward, even as her knees wobble.

“I’m looking for James Hawkins,” Flip says. It’s hard to choose where to begin, and bringing up Jimmy is the easiest and hardest place to start.

Prescilla tries starting several sentences. He’s not here. Never heard of him. I don’t know where he is. All lies. Her voice won’t come out. “No James Hawkins lives here,” her throat finally unclogs as she offers something not unlike the truth. Jimmy isn’t alive to live anywhere anymore.

“I know that,” Flip smiles and gives her some small respite, tearing his eyes away and casting his gaze down for a moment. Prescilla gulps in a huge breath.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” she shifts her weight and one hip sticks out, curving her waist more and sending the long locks of hair behind her back swaying. Flip finds his mouth is bone dry.

“I’m Flip Zimmerman, with the Colorado Springs police department,” he flashes his badge and she looks at it closely, inspecting every letter and emblem. He half expects her to take it between her teeth and test the metal. He would only smile if she did.

“You’re a long way from home,” she says finally, taking off her muddy gloves and stuffing them into her back pocket.

“I just flew in this afternoon,” he doesn’t volunteer any further information about the case. A part of him hopes they can sit down for coffee and talk about anything else. “Got a room at the Hid-A-Way motel, rented a car and drove right here,” he follows as she makes her way into the greenhouse.

“You must have the wrong address then…” she frowns. She’s gentle and tenacious, and he might be in real trouble here because he can’t control how much he’s responding to her.

“Your letter arrived yesterday,” he goes down a different route. He speaks as though the letter was meant for him the entire time and she blinks in confusion. He produces the envelope from his jacket, worn from its long wandering. It was emptied and stuffed two dozen times in the last 24 hours. It shows all the wear and tear plainly. She knows it instantly. He knows what it cost her to write it.

“You read my letter?” she whispers, as calculations cascade inside her head. All the things she said. Everything she’d confessed in there. The attack. All the recriminations. Every syllable that must seem pathetic to an investigator. The incontrovertible evidence that she knows damn well who James Hawkins is. Her chest feels tighter than before and that can’t be good because her lungs and heart barely fit before.

“Yes, ma’am, I did,” he confesses easily. He’s almost proud to; it’s his intimate link to her.

“It was a very personal letter,” she croaks like something is lodged in her throat.

“Yes, ma’am, it was,” he nods.

She stares at him and massages her fingers into a spot on her chest. Right in the center, it aches and pangs, and she can’t breathe. “I…”she seems to want to start something and Flip takes an eager step forward.

“Yes?”

She just continues to take shallow breaths and only realizes she’s been rubbing at her heart when Flip looks down at her chest. Prescilla stops and swallows. “What are you doing here, officer?”

He deflates a little at her formal address. “I’m looking for your sister, Madeleine. I’m hoping she can help me.”

“I better go get her then,” she says to no one in particular as she resumes rubbing the achy spot in her chest and retreats out of the room.

“There’s a cop from Colorado looking for you!” Prescilla whisper-yells at Maddy, who has just finished some arts and crafts with Jet and is rubbing some errant glue out of her cuticles.

“What?” she whirls around and her big brown eyes are as large as dinner plates. “What does he want?” she growls and grabs roughly at Prescilla’s wrist, pulling her closer. The move reminds her uncomfortably of Jimmy and she releases on instinct. “How much does he know?” she demands, preferring the use the few short moments she had to confer with her sister on making a game plan rather than pretending there isn’t a dead body in their garden.

“Well, he seems to know a good godddamn deal since he’s here all the way from Colorado!” Prescilla manages to hiss hysterically as she whispers and is only slightly outraged when she realizes Maddy is putting on a fresh coat of black eyeliner on her waterline and mussing up her pixie haircut. Leave it to her to get gussied up for a murder inquiry.

“Pffft, what can he really know?” she tosses Prissy a look in the mirror and pushes her breasts up and her black crushed velvet dress down to reveal as much of her cleavage as possible. “All he knows for sure is Jimmy hasn’t been around since June. He could be anywhere,” she throws her arms in a circle around her, to indicate anywhere on the globe and makes sure to avoid pointing towards the window that looks onto the garden where they both know very well that his worthless remains are resting. “He hit me, I left him, we haven’t been in touch since.”

Prescilla nods, unconvinced. “And Jet?”

Maddy darkens. “Jet has nothing to do with him,” she narrows her painted eyes and Prescilla almost believes her. Bridget is a lovely child and it’s so easy to pretend that she simply grew on a tree and fell off the branch one day when she was ripe and ready, with no intervention by any man.

“Is he cute?” Maddy asks, leaning in. Before Prissy can find it in her to say anything, she goes on urgently. “Young or old?” If he’s young, she’ll titillate him. If he’s old, she’ll charm him or spin him a sob story. Maddy had a persona for any type of man she encountered. “Well?” she gives Prissy’s arm an impatient shake and the motion dislodges a few words.

“Young. Not too young,” she frowns. “Huh – erm - handsome.”

“Mh,” Maddy gives an impressed nod. It’s not often Prissy is complimentary of a man’s looks. She decides her cheeks could use a few pinches in that case, and rubs her lips together to distribute the remains of a gloss she put on recently.

“Mads,” Prissy follows after her before she can leave the room and she sounds like she’s crying. “He’s…” she can’t quite put it into words. He’s medial. He’s like Prescilla in so many ways that she recognizes instinctively, but couldn’t put into words if she had hours and years of leisure ahead of her. And Maddy isn’t someone who could appreciate it anyway. “There’s something about him I can’t get into now, but--”

“Yeah, yeah, he blows your skirt up, it’s fine,” Maddy comforts and turns to leave again.

“It’s not that,” she doesn’t bother denying anything, it’s insignificant now. “I can’t lie to him,” she announces mournfully and closes her eyes like she might start crying for real.

“Of course you can,” Maddy announces in a full bodied voice and it sounds tantamount to a roar after all the whispering. “Of course you fucking can! Prissy! For the love of god!” her whispers rise in pitch as she begins to panic. For reasons she can’t quite understand, she knows her sister is serious.

“You’ll have to do the talking,” Prescilla sighs and Maddy falters for the first time. Working together – lying together – the Hallewell sisters are Olympians. They can stick a salto-mortale-into-a-quadruple-axel no problem – if they have each other. Maddy bats her lashes and pouts, weaves her tales of woe in which she is habitually blameless while Prissy scans the details in real time and jumps in with life-saving hedges and caveats providing impeccable plausible deniability, swerving just before Maddy crashes headlong into fatal inconsistencies. It was crippling to be facing an investigator without her safety net, but she took a few steadying breaths, getting her own story straight while Prissy went into the greenhouse to announce her.

Prescilla leans slowly in behind the glass door. Like she’s playing hide and seek and has a chance at reaching home base before the investigator spots her. He is tall, but unobtrusive as he glides respectfully from one row of potted plants to the next.

“I’m in the process of moving them inside before winter,” Prescilla announces in a small voice, as if his very interest is an accusation of something. She is semi-satisfied when he winces in surprise and turns to her with unsure eyes. He nods to himself and approaches swiftly, but with care.

“I,” he begins slowly, confidentially, and she leans in before she can tell herself not to, “didn’t mean to frighten you just then. When I showed up.” It isn’t an apology, but he sounds as if his heart is breaking. Her heart immediately flutters and she’s profoundly embarrassed. It feels like he can see her, in her thinnest nightgown because the night was so unusually stuffy, torn and hiked up to her waist as she’s writhing under a strange man’s sweaty body while he squeezes at her neck and her eyes are watering. She’d almost wet herself with fear and as soon as she realized she wouldn’t die that night, that detail had made her feel mortified. And he knows all about it, sans the details she kept to herself, from that damn letter.

“There just isn’t a very good way to show up unannounced at someone’s home,” he continues in the same low voice, speaking only to her. He correctly presumes she never told Maddy about the attack, or if she did, it was only in the briefest of ways. Since the letter had never reached her, he was rather confident Prescilla would not have had the strength to go over everything again.

His joke is gentle and he’s letting her either dismiss the situation or say something snippy in response. He’d be fine with both.

“What did you say your name was?” she asks, having momentarily forgotten her own as well.

“Flip,” he extends a hand in the small pocket of space left between them and whispers his name, hoping she can forget all the other things attached to it, like detective or investigation. She takes it and the feel of her hand makes him calmer and more agitated at the same time.

“A little birdie told me we had a visitor,” Maddy coos as she rounds her way from the kitchen into the adjacent greenhouse and her extended hand precedes her.

Flip is forced to let go of Prescilla and he takes her sister’s hand only for the duration of one swift shake. He pulls out a notepad and Maddy sizes him up in an instant. Oh, boy. He was really handsome, in a way that left her flustered in the most inconvenient way. And he doesn’t seem easy to fool. He didn’t check her out, didn’t savor how soft her palm was, didn’t even reflexively straighten and stiffen the way men do without realizing when a knockout like her walks into a room.

Maddy weaved her tale, with just a dash of weariness thrown in now that she knows Prissy isn’t behind her, ensuring internal consistency. It’s simple enough – Jimmy got violent, she wouldn’t stand for it, packed her bags and drove herself right here to be with her sister. The fact that Jimmy was in the car and had died in the backseat somewhere around the state line of nightshade and belladonna poisoning was incidental. Flip nods at odd intervals and keeps his eyes off of her in the most calculated manner. He makes notes, but it’s gibberish, random words that come to him for no particular reason. Apple pie. Crimson. Sweetheart. He’s halfway through writing Prescilla’s name when he realizes he’s doing it and he blacks it out a pinch too vigorously, paranoid Maddy might have noticed.

Flip continues writing anything at all through Maddy’s fabrication because if he looks at her, she’ll know he isn’t buying a word of it. She wouldn't have had the nerve to take off with her boyfriend's car, and Hawkins wouldn't have let it go so easy. No way. Let her go, maybe. Not the Oldsmobile. He would have caught up with her before she reached the state line, and if not then, then soon enough after.

Maddy, unaccustomed to such a lack of attention, has to try her luck. “Do you mind if I…” she asks in her baby voice, hand traveling scandalously down from Flip’s chest to his crotch, ghosting over the rectangle deep in his pocket. She’s more surprised than he is because he doesn’t flinch at all, not even when the tips of her fingers brush something girthy stuffed in his jeans that definitely isn’t a pack of cigarettes. She wonders if he’ll like the slight blush that blooms in her cheeks as he fishes out his cigarettes and offers her one wordlessly. He has that stern, unreadable expression on his face that either means her panties are about to fly off and she’ll get a spanking, or she’s in actual trouble. She doesn’t blink or look away as he lights the cigarette for her.

Prescilla has her arms crossed under her chest, holding herself back against the door for the duration of the whole conversation. She had wanted to jump in at several points and cut her sister off before she added needless details, but this is the first time she needs to dig her nails into her forearms and physically hold herself back. As Maddy shamelessly flirts, the pain in her chest turns into fire and she wants to push in between them, the same way she wanted to do countless times when they were teens and Maddy invariably started up a conversation with the exact boy Prescilla liked, especially when she pointed out she had seen him first. In point of fact, she and Flip had chatted and had the kind of unspoken understanding one searches for for a lifetime. And now Maddy is looking up him from her freshly re-mascara’d lashes, from that classic blowjob angle, not blinking as she licks her lips and bites a protruding cigarette between her teeth. She inclines her head and lets her long swan neck curve elegantly, exposed by her bold pixie cut for just such purposes as these. Prescilla is almost shaking with the need to say something, anything at all, just to take some of his attention back.

She doesn’t get the chance because Flip gets tired of Maddy’s overtures and decides to use this moment, when she feels victorious and impossibly sexy, to break the news to her. He notifies her, in no uncertain terms and with little tact, that a kid died because of her boyfriend’s antics. Flip peppers in a few other unsavory stories that he is willing to bet she doesn’t know. A girl in Arizona that recently had his kid and had filed a restraining order after one of his attacks left her with a broken nose and a cut across the neck that required several dozen stitches. A ranch in Colorado where he shot every horse dead after the owner wouldn’t sell him his prized stallion. He watches as she realizes exactly who she’s been fucking and calling baby all that time. For all her readily apparent faults, Maddy isn’t heartless. Her eyes water, perhaps because she thinks it could have been her and she’s guiltily grateful it wasn’t. “I’m so sorry.”

"You don't have to make any excuses for who you love," Flip says, finally releasing some pressure. "Don't apologize."

Prescilla feels a tear slip down her cheek and soak into her shirt. Even though he can see straight through Maddy’s bullshit, he’s not cruel. She’s sure that before he introduced the idea that love was blameless, Maddy never once stopped to consider she might not be responsible for everything that went wrong with Jimmy. Shamefully, Prescilla realizes she hadn’t thought of it either.

Flip meets Prescilla’s dark eyes over Maddy’s shoulder and wishes he could be alone with her. Just for a little bit. Just to begin to understand what he’s feeling. He'd heard about this sort of thing happening to other men. They're going about their business one minute, and suddenly there's no hope for them. They fall in love so hard they never again get up off their knees.

He’s exhausted most of his casual questions and it’s time to leave. Prescilla can see it; the mood in the airy, white kitchen shifts and it feels like an evening is winding down - the coffee is drunk and the guests have their coats on their laps. Maddy thrums with excitement like a light bulb with too much electricity running through it, as though all she needs in this life is for Flip Zimmerman to turn, follow the cobbled road out of her sister’s garden, get in his car and leave, and nothing would ever go wrong for her again. Prescilla sees the same scenario unfold and it makes her bleed on the inside.

Flip senses it. He can feel how her veins throb and her throat scratches, dry and achy as she bites back words. And he feels like he knows what it’s like to kiss her already. Give her the breath she’s struggling for out of his own lungs, hold her up, be her bones when hers fail. A drama is unfolding in a stranger’s kitchen and he feels like a fool. He's not certain how far he would go to cover for someone. He'd never anticipated being in that position before and he doesn't like the feel of it. Yet here he is, dragging his feet and actually wondering if he could look the other way.

The silence has gone on far too long and Flip feels like he’s about to do the thing he never does, and start mindlessly blabbering. “I’ll need to have the car impounded,” he announces to Prescilla because he can’t stop looking at her. She nods and bites her lips between her teeth.

“Naturally,” Maddy is the one to respond and she makes her way towards the back door, herding her sister and the unwanted guest in the direction that leads to this encounter ending.

“It, uh, should be picked up by Friday,” he adds even though nobody asked and Maddy nods happily, opening the door for him wide and standing next to it like an overeager valet. Her stomach drops as Prescilla inhales and Flip is rooted to the spot, turning to her hopefully.

She can’t stand the idea of not seeing him again, even if every moment he spends near them spells out danger. Maddy widens her hypnotic eyes at Prissy, screaming with her death glare to shut up and not dare invite him back. But Prescilla ignores her.

“If we can help you in any way, we would be happy to,” she says and s relieved to recognize the truth of it in her tone. “I don’t think either of us truly understood what kind of man Jimmy…” she barely manages to stomp on her mental breaks before her mouth forms the w in was. “I’m sure he’s done things Maddy never dreamed of.”

“Maybe you could fill in some gaps for me,” he jumps at the straw and turns to Maddy, who is forced into an obsequious smile and a solemn nod. She doesn’t wish to talk about Jimmy’s past or present whereabouts, anymore than Flip really wants to map out the finer points of Jimmy’s pathetic existence. But it’s a way back in and, like an overeager vampire, he’ll do anything for an invitation over the threshold.

“Tomorrow, after work?” Flip asks when he’s at the gate and the two sisters, different as can be, stand a few paces away from him.

“It’s a date, officer,” Maddy flashes him a grin and does a poor job of acting like she couldn’t care less that an investigator is standing right next to the car where Jimmy died that summer.

Prescilla has a hand warming over the spot in her chest that’s been killing her the entire time and follows his every motion as he gets in the car. Flip can feel with a pang when their eyes lock in the rearview mirror, across the whole garden and driveway, and he has the strangest urge to smile, despite it all.

@in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather @lumberjack00fantasies @safarigirlsp @queeniebee @house-of-cadwyn

#best #fic #halloween

27 notes · View notes

levworship · 4 years ago

Text

cw: dom!reader, fem reader, mommy kink, degrading, dirty talk, oral (fem rec), slight mind break, reader is a lil manipulative. just a bit. probably had errors

summary: you find out while on another blind date with one of mina’s friends that kirishima is just the man for you. he wants to be used, and you’re more than willing to use him.

word count: approx 2.9k

“fuckin’ mina. i’m gonna beat her ass.”

this wasn’t the first time your best friend has tried to set you up with one of her friends. and honestly, knowing her, it more than likely wouldn’t be the last time, either. “but he’s so nice” she’d promise, or “she’s just a little shy,” and perhaps the most common line of “you just have to be a little patient with them”

patient my ass.

your damn patience was beginning to run thinner and thinner the longer you sat waiting at the table for your date to arrive. you’re used to mina’s friends not being the most punctual, but to not show up at all? it was almost insulting. here you were, taking the time out of your busy day to spare some of your sweet time with some rando and—

“hey there, beautiful.” your eyes quickly tore away from the spot you’d been staring at for the past few minutes during your internal rant. part of you wished you hadn’t, because you damn near stopped breathing. typically, you’d never allow a man the satisfaction of hindering you speechless, but fuck. the man before you stood tall and strong, the white fabric of his dress shirt clinging onto his muscles in the most delicious way possible. his hair was slicked up in a style that you could only describe as goofy, and his smile? it was so contagious that you couldn’t help but to toss away the piping hot insults you’d been preparing to shoot his way.

“sorry i’m late. was searching all over town to find these for ya. i know mina said they were your favorite, and well—“ pulling his arms from behind his back, the red-haired man handed you a comically large bouquet of flowers. were they your favorite? no, not at all. but you couldn’t help but to be flattered anyway. “had to look all over town for them. turns out they’re actually pretty hard to find around here. can you believe that?” he chuckled to himself as he scratched at the back of his neck. an unfittingly cute gesture for a man of his build.

you grin sweetly as you grab the bouquet from his large hands, setting them down on the table in front of you and batting your lashes. “these are very beautiful! thank you so much, ...um?”

mina always purposely hid the names of her friends away before setting you up, mostly in fears that you’ll end up googling them and find some not so pretty things, just as you had that time when she tried to set you up with katsuki bakugou. (you noted to yourself that day, stay away from him at all costs.)

“ah- eijirou kirishima!” he filled in for you and held a hand out for you to shake. your eyebrows shot up in realization, leaning forward a bit on the table to shake his hand. you don’t miss the way his eyes shamelessly drift down to your cleavage when you do so. the sight made you laugh.

now you saw why he seemed so familiar at first glance. you’d heard mina talk to you about him on numerous occasions. big, handsome, and dumb. that’s how you’ve always perceived him from listening to her stories and descriptions. and if there was one thing you actually enjoyed about a man, it was how simple they could be. perfect for a woman with your desires.

you open your mouth to return his introduction, but he’s already cutting you off with perhaps a little too much eagerness. “and you’re y/n? did i say that right?” he quirks an eyebrow. “uh- i may have asked mina about you already. a lot.” he flashed you a sheepish smile.

talking to him felt like being a kid in a loaded candy shop. he’d be in the palm of your hand in no time.

the rest of dinner went on moderately better than your previous experiences with these stupid dates. kirishima was a bit of a talker, but you didn’t mind listening if it meant you got to watch the way those puppy dog eyes lit up a little more every time he’d begin telling you a story from his hero work (turns out you were just really behind on the latest hero news), only to quickly become side tracked by one details of his story and trail his way to another mini rant.

finally, you figure you’ve had enough of him rambling. it was time to cut to the point. “does it get lonely?” you asked him suddenly, trying your best to hold in a smile at the way he looked at you confusedly. “i mean- not really? i’m a hero so i’m with people all of the time-“ “that’s not what i meant, red.” hearing you refer to him by his hero name sent visible chills down his spine. just the effect you were wishing to have on him. something about your change in tone knocked him from a highly energetic and charismatic sweetheart, to a blushing and stuttering mess who suddenly couldn’t sit still in his seat. and from just one question, too?

he was almost too good to be true.

“no? i-i mean, yes but... i dunno. i’m busy a lot, a-and i don’t really have time for... yaknow.” “what kind of women do you like? in bed, i mean.” you managed to knock his brain around for a second time as he fumbled around his head for an answer.

“i-i guess it depends?” “hm? what do y’mean?” the way he continued to respond to your nasty questions had you licking your lips. you wanted him. badly. in the most selfish ways possible.

“depends on what the chick is into. i mean- they usually like when i’m on top. but..” you don’t respond this time. instead you look at him expectantly and wait for him to continue his previous statement. something about seeing such a grown man grow so embarrassed that quickly does something to you.

“i guess i wouldn’t mind... having someone take control for once?”

everything from that point felt like a blurred flash. you quickly abandoned the bouquet and called for the bill (which he so generously covered for the two of you) and were stumbling out of the door in no time, speedily walking all the way to your humble apartment. the door had just swung open when you were already shoving him inside.

kirishima spent nearly the entirety of the walk psyching himself up for this. did you know he wanted to experiment with this? had mina told you? how would mina even know? did he even really want this? because by the way he was struggling to catch his breath and connect dots in his mind, maybe he’d gotten too far ahead of himself.

but it was too late for that now. you’d already shoved him all the way down the hall, into your bedroom, and onto your bed before he knew it. you were fierce and impatient. and honestly? he found it quite intriguing.

“red...” you drew him back from falling into his thoughts once again, dragging your knuckles across the rough skin of his cheek. “i said, are you sure you want this?” and he swears he’s never nodded faster in his life, already grabbing onto your waist and hoisting you onto his lap. “yes! yes, i’m sure. please y/n?” and with that, a thread in you snapped.

you pushed him roughly until his head rested comfortably against the pillows, muttering a quick ‘stay’ as you began to fumble with his belt. you’d barely even touched him, yet he still lied staring at you with those same big adoring eyes. he was just too cute for his own good.

it made you want to wreck him.

you practically ripped away his pants and boxers before gently palming at his cock. you had expected him to be big, but not this big. he was long and thick, your hand barely managing to wrap completely around it. wordlessly you crouched down and pressed a gentle peck to his swollen tip, the precum that’d gathered there now sticking deliciously to your lips.

kirishima was getting so restless above you that you could’ve mistaken him for a virgin, hands fisting at your sheets with countless pleas tumbling from his lips. “so impatient, cutie. dont you want to be taken care of?” “i do! i do!” it seemed as if he was completely unashamed of how desperate he must’ve looked right now.

but rather than provide the sweet sweet release you knew he was craving, you tsked and backed away from his cock. much to his disappointment. “you know something, red? i didn’t take you for the selfish type. want me to make you feel good when you haven’t even touched me yet? and i thought you were a gentleman...”

kirishima thrashed below you, fingers digging hard into your hips. “i’m a gentleman! i’ll be a gentleman! i promise!” his lip wobbled cutely. you almost felt bad for having to deny such a pretty face.

almost.

he observed closely as you leaned back on your knees, sliding down the straps of your dress and tugging until your lacy bra was revealed to him. you were going to be the fucking death of him. you couldn’t help but giggle a bit at the way he eyed your chest. “i’ll tell you what.” you said as you reached out and pressed a finger under his chin, forcing him to meet your intense eyes.

“be a good boy for me and maybe, maybe, i’ll let you touch. deal?” and kirishima nodded giddily. truly an obedient little thing, he was.

you gave him a large smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes before patting him on the cheek, moving up to straddle his face and... shit. you weren’t wearing any panties under your dress. the smell of your arousal right in front of his face nearly made him overload, wanting nothing more but to bury his face between your legs until you’re heaving and begging for a break. but he had to be good for you. wanted you to rake your fingers through his hair and call him your good boy while he plays with your pretty tits.

“well? dont you want a tas—” you gasp when his mouth is suddenly on you, every sense of restraint abandoned as his tongue slid across and pressed against your poor clit. it was messy, no real technique behind his frantic movements, but he still had your eyes crossing and your thighs squeezing the sides of his head as ear muffs, his fingers squeezing and prodding at the flesh to keep himself grounded.

the sounds that came from your cunt and his mouth were embarrassingly lewd, the sound of his slurping making your entire body go hot. you were so close to losing your composure and letting him have you the way he wants, but you couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. not when you’ve been craving this for this long.

“kiri..” you couldnt tell if you were whispering or yelling at this point, brain all scrambled from the amount of pleasure you were receiving. you nearly doubled over from the vibrations of the small ‘hmm’ of acknowledgment he gave you. your fingers tangle themselves in his stiff red locks, holding his face still to allow you to grind yourself on his mouth just the way you wanted.

your breath hitched in your throat each time his nose bumped against your clit, his tongue buried deep in your hole as he was desperate to taste all of your juices. you could already feel your orgasm creeping up on you..

“oh, shit! just like that. good- fuck! such a good boy” the praise sends him into a frenzy, now using the pad of his thumb to rub viciously at your clit as his tongue fucked into you so nicely.

“‘m cumming, cumming, oh my god!” you’re hunched over now, eyes screwed shut when your orgasm suddenly rips through you. kirishima’s tongue continued its assault on your spasming pussy, the overstimulation becoming almost unbearable. you tried everything to get him off of you to make it stop. tugging his hair, lifting yourself up- but nothing seemed to be able to separate him from you until you literally shouted his name.

he released you in an instant and allowed you to back away to fully take in his form. everything about the sight was downright sinful. your juices covered the entire lower half of his face, and his hair remained matted with sweat against his forehead. and most delicious of all? he still looked hungry. you nearly said ‘fuck it’ and climbed back on top of him again...

but he needed to be punished.

and it seemed that he knew this too, because the moment your eyes met he was already begging for mercy. “‘m sorry! p-“ “i thought you promised you’d be a good boy? yaknow, i’m not exactly a big fan of liars, red. how could i let you have me when you can’t even follow simple instructions?” he’s silent at this point, eyes glued to the ground with an unreadable emotion splayed across his face.

you huffed as you climbed off of the bed, standing on wobbly legs with your back turned to him. you shook your head as you quickly slid your dress back into place. you originally planned on leaving it at this and sending him home, and perhaps you’d consider giving him a second shot if he begged you pretty enough. but kiri had other plans.

he wasn’t quite sure what came over him, but when he realized that you were planning on leaving him like that he couldn’t help but to jump up, gripping onto your waist once again. “kiri! what are you doing?” “please.” he whimpered into your ear, hard chest pressing into your back and his painfully hard cock rutting against your ass.

you probably would’ve collapsed right there if it weren’t for his tight grasp. “please don’t leave! ‘m so hard for you. want you so fucking bad. i’ll do anything, just- please let me cum. mommy.” the word rolled off of his tongue so sweetly, so heavenly, you couldn’t stop yourself from shoving him back onto the bed and tearing off his shirt.

you licked your lips when he was left completely bare to you finally, hand already working at pumping his cock. “suck a dirty boy. men like you are scum, you know that? getting so upset that you didn’t get your way after being so disobedient? i should tie you up and edge you for the rest of the night just for that” he began to mindlessly shake his head, muttering quiet a ‘no, no..’

“however,” you began to drag your fingernail across his chest, playing with the hairs that rested there, “think i’m gonna let it slide this time. well, only if you thank me properly..”

“thank you mommy!” the way there wasn’t even an ounce of hesitation or shame in his voice had you clenching around nothing. denying him any longer was beginning to be just as much torture to yourself as it was to him. biting down on your lip, you grabbed his cock and started pressing the tip to your entrance.

you began to feel as though you’ve managed to completely break him, watching as he continued to sputter out ‘thank you’s even as you struggled to take his cock in your dripping cunt. the stretch was nearly unbearable at first, but you were never one to back down from a challenge.

you weren’t going to stop until you knew you’ve completely broken him down into a blubbering mess for you. until you were the only thing he could think of. until you had him quivering and begging just for you. the thought of making him into your slave had you bouncing on his dick with energetic vigor.

kirishima was a sight to behold, too. eyes crossed and occasionally fluttering shut, panting like a dog as every bit of his stamina oozed out of him and he had to hold himself back from cumming too quickly.

at one point you caught his eyes glued on to the way your covered tits bounced while you rode him, still clad in your tight dress. you smirked devilishly before reaching behind your back and unclasping your bra, tugging it down with the dress once again and toying with your puffy nipples for his viewing pleasure.

that seemed to be the final straw for kiri, as he was now bucking up into you like a horny mutt. “gonna cum so hard, mommy. please let me cum in you. g’nna fill you up so good. wanna make you a mommy. i want it- i want it- i want it...” with all of his babbling you weren’t quite sure if he was aware of what he was saying right now, but the lewd words still had you spiraling closer and closer.

“cum in me, baby. be a good boy for mommy and give her your babies, okay?” you told him as you gripped his face in your hands.

and like the obedient little thing he is,, he did exactly that.

thirsts and requests for haikyuu and bnha are open.

#kirishima smut #bnha smut #mommy kink #boku no hero academia smut #mha smut #i’m so sleepy jesus #glad i’m finished doe #my hero academia smut #.chiyo’s works #.chiyo’s works bnha

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liquid-luck-00 · 3 years ago

Text

Where There Is Change

Last Name Wayne

@maribat-bdbwm

First *** Previous *** Next

Okay so I know I diverged from cannon, but I think you’ll all like this.

~~~~~~~~~~

The moment that Damian agreed, they left.

She immediately placed their phones and electronics into storage, so this game would be a little more fun.

Mari "chose" the first place that they teleported to was Paris. The irony was not lost on her.

The place that kicked her out was the first place that would open up to her. But then again most of the city adored Marinette they loved Lady Scarlet even more, but that wasn't general knowledge.

She and Damian know it is a matter of time before B figures they left the country, but hey. They mostly stuck to going between super cities in the U.S. before. But right now, it mostly was her showing him around the city the museums and then getting really inspired by the scenery.

If she was prepared with several different sketch books and pencils for both of them it was an added bonus.

She knows she subconsciously picked Paris and after a few hours it might be smart to jump again. So, she let Damian decide on a place where he wanted to go. He did warn her that if they were spotted, they need to leave immediately, but she didn’t really see a problem with it.

Because granted they’re both Wayne's, and Wayne's if you know them well enough, they will be able to hand your ass back to you on a silver platter smiling as if it was the greatest thing in the world.

So, they jumped again.

This time it was her turn to be awed by what they saw.

They were in a small alcove completely hidden; in the cave they were in the face of it was covered by bushes. But looking out she saw the mountains in the far distance it appeared to be a lake no it was larger maybe it was the ocean. Right below her was a lush courtyard filled with plant she's only seen and one other place, but the heat here was tremendous, and the sea that she could see was in the wrong direction. Apart from being far, far, far too close to where she originally thought they were.

She was going to lean forward a bit and completely break through the bushes that were covering them when a hand pulled her back. She looks back and sees her little brother holding onto her.

"We have to stay hidden Nettie, are above the League of Assassins." He whispered so quiet she could barely hear him about ten inches away, so she’s not taking this lightly.

She nodded, and they stayed there, silent. The only sound was of graphite on paper.

Then everything changed.

On instinct Marinette shot out her arm, a wooden imperial yo-yo appeared in her hand, with a quick flick of her wrist she stopped the projectile, lodging it within the wood. A quick glance at her brother and she opened up portal behind him and pushed him through without a word, closing it behind him.

She knows that it’s more dangerous if they find him here than her, so she stayed behind.

She removed the projectile and examined it, a blow dart likely with poison, seeing as a liquid was seeping into the wood of the yo-yo. She created a replica of the dart and stored the poisonous one and her yo-yo back in storage.

She took a quick breath and punctured her arm where the dart should have originally landed. And fell to the ground, slumped down.

She kept her face relaxed her body limp and she felt three, four, five separate sickly deathly auras around her. She kept her breathing at minimum, light, almost as if she was asleep. They picked her up and moved her. She realized immediately that she was being taken down the mountain, taken deeper into the League of Assassins.

Five assassins she can take them. But the one thing repeatedly crossing her mind was one phrase.

'How dare these assholes mess with her family! Her little brother! They are going to pay!'

Because she is a Wayne, and Wayne’s protect their own.

She was eventually dropped in a large room, from what she can tell, if the echoes were any indication to what she was thinking the size of the room could be. There were three more auras in this room, aside from the ones she passed to get here. What surprised her was she recognized all three.

Still acting unconscious, she heard a woman’s voice, Talia Al Ghul, speak. "What business do you have to bring this child here?" It was phrased as a question but seemed more like a snarl or demand than anything else.

"She was captured on the grounds. She’s an unknown." Was what was reported by one of the people in who had dragged her down here.

Then she heard a chuckle.

"She’s awake." That voice, she recognizes that voice. Her entire previous plan was now completely out the window. So, she lazily pushes herself up, pulling out the dart once she was on her feet.

"Damn, I thought that would last a little longer." She finally looked up and saw Damian's clone, Heretic, Talia, and Al Ghul. But something was wrong, it was bothering her. Al Ghul, he, he… he wasn’t Demon, he wasn’t her Demon anymore. All she recognized now is his voice, at least that’s what she told herself, nothing else was the same as a person she once knew. The question now is why. "I really shouldn’t have introduced you to the Order, if the result would have been this?" A smirk on her lips and now standing cocky in the middle of a room full of assassins, she is stalling. He is acting like he knows her, but his aura is indecipherable, familiar, but not.

"You should not have, but then I wouldn’t be here today, to thank you, would I? After all you allowed our family to find these pits." ‘Our Family’ she dove into her memories, but now that she needed them, they were far away and fuzzy, God damn it.

"Hmmm, I suppose not. Right now, I really wish I had turned you into a cat permanently. I found the correct spell, so I actually can now." This elicited yet another chuckle from Al Ghul which had everyone else in the room on edge.

"Really now I love to see it, after all I wasn’t able to experience it before you vanished." She quirked an eyebrow at this response, but she didn’t care about his mind games, she was stalling, trying to find out what caused this change. All her mind supplied were the plants outside. Demon wasn’t good with plants, but he was with animals, so how.

"Really you don’t wanna know why am actually here?" She asked, looking so innocent, one might believe that she was there merely an accident or coincidence.

She then turned towards Heretic, death in her blue eyes was all anyone could see, but she didn’t kill him. No, she couldn't bring herself to kill him. He may have killed her baby brother, but he is

Damian’s clone, but that clone was nothing but a poor imitation of her brother. With a snap of her fingers, he transformed into a statue of a panther, mouth opening for a roar. In all accounts looking intimidating, but there’s no way to be scared of a statue.

"That was for killing my little brother." She crossed her arms now glaring daggers towards Talia.

"I wasn’t aware you had a little brother, Lady Cheng." Demon never called her Lady Cheng, no to him she was Malak (Angel), but…

That was when the pieces fell into place. That’s why the older Damian looks like a cross between Demon and Bruce. That’s why Damian turned into a panther cub. Damian is Amir’s reincarnation, the true soul of the black cat. That means, in front of her stood Ra’s, Amir’s older twin brother. That’s why he could read the journal, he is a miraculous soul. And only miraculous souls know the language of miracles, without decades of studying the script. It’s ingrained in them but only accessible after coming in contact with old magic, miraculous magic.

"One, the name is Wayne. Two that’s because at the time that I met the both of you 600 years ago, I didn’t even know I had siblings. So, get this through your head, I don’t care that he is your son or your grandson. He is my little brother. Nothing will stop me from making sure my family is safe." Her voice stayed level, emotion flitted in and out of it, in such a way that it almost seemed inhuman. For more reasons than one, she just sensed one of the Lazarus Pits.

"Scarlet." She heard gasped by the woman next to Ra’s.

"Correct." She glared at them walking closer as she said so. "My name is Marinette Wayne, and you best remember to never mess with creation. I would have thought you would remember that little Lǎohǔ (Tiger)."

By her walk over a sword had appeared in each hand, which she was now holding up to Lǎohǔ‘s neck, while the second was held right at the base of Talia's spine, almost daring her to move. The threat hung in the air, and both knew she was capable of following through.

"Well, I do believe it’s best to catch up over some tea." Lǎohǔ offered, many would have taken his offer. Because if the Demon’s head offers it, it would be your funeral if you refused, but she wasn’t just anyone. "After all we haven’t seen each other, in nearly 600 years, now have we, much must’ve happened to you."

"Hmmm... not really you’d be surprised. By what has become of my life been since meeting you." She decided to put away her blades, for the time being. Seeing as she couldn’t leave without destroying the Pits. The only surviving consequence of the Miraculous wish, cast ages ago. Now time to come up with a plan.

---

"Are you sure about this Pigtails?" Plagg spoke up.

"Ancient magic like this calls for a price." She sighed.

"We know, Marinette, but your little brother." Tikki voiced.

"I'll do everything I can to keep all of them safe." She spoke resolutely.

"But can you live with this?" Tikki asked.

"I have to be able to. Besides I'm pretty sure he is your true kitten, Plagg." She reassured.

Tikki and Plagg united their powers, and were able to destroy the pit, and every other one on Earth. Then disappeared. She opened a gate knowing what is coming.

---

Somewhere in the league of Assassins was the Demon's head and his daughter, looking royally pissed as they watch a timer tick down. Seeing as Marinette decided to freeze them with venom, so she could destroy the Lazarus Pits.

~~~~~~~~~~

Permanent Taglist: @itsmeevie01 @adrestar @miraculouspenta @vixen-uchiha @animegirlweeb @jumpingjoy82 @thedragonbug @astoriaandroses @icerosecrystal @t1dwarrior-of-earth @moon5606 @zalladane @midnightrosecrystal @myazael @prettylittlebutterflie @toodaloo-kangaroo @roseisred @galaxymoon @queenz-z

Story Taglist: @ladybug-182 @nerd-nowandforever @stelliones @trippingovermyfeet @thepaceperson @all-mights-asscheeks @another-cancer @alyssadeliv @mep-kittyjustkillme @ravennm84 @chocolatecatstheron @jayjayspixiepop @missanalysis @lost-in-the-world-of-maribat @aespades @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks @ritacrow-blog @frieddonutsweets @laurcad123 @ashbrea381writings @jjmjjktth

#mbdbwm2021 #maribat #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #bio!dad bruce #bio!dad bruce wayne #who was I alluding to again?#time to find out #dc x miraculous #miraculous x dc #mdcu marinette #mdcu damian wayne #mdcu ras al ghul #mdcu talia al ghul #oc twin!ra’s

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lightphieric · 3 years ago

Text

So Aoi and Eric are both orphans who suffered extreme trauma as children, including but not limited to witnessing the brutal murders of their younger siblings (the order of events varies between the two of them, of course). Both of them became rather obnoxious and unpleasant adults who have few qualms about traumatizing and/or killing others. The parallels seem pretty obvious to me, but while Aoi gets to be a cool antihero, Eric is just seen as some unlikable jerk.

Like I said earlier, the key difference here is that Aoi and his sister are espers, and Eric and his brother are not. Psychic powers are an incredible tool for digging yourself out of the lowest point in your life, as it turns out. Most of Eric’s problems come from loneliness or a sense of powerlessness, and there but for the grace of God goes Aoi.

First and most obviously, Aoi still has Akane. Eric was forced to dump Chris’s body and never saw him again, but through time travel hijinks, Akane was able to save herself and remain in Aoi’s life. This doesn’t change the fact that he saw her burnt corpse, but having someone by his side to process that trauma with has huge implications for his mental well-being. Meanwhile, Eric has nobody. He lost his mother, he lost his brother, and now even his father is gone, someone he hated but who was still the only family he had for a long time. He’s desperately lonely, which is why he attaches himself so strongly to the first woman who shows interest without noticing the red flags.

I also think it’s important to note Aoi and Eric's financial situations. Aoi talks about the struggle to scrape together enough money to buy Akane Christmas presents, and one of Eric’s X-Passes is literally the word POOR - which might be intended in a condescending, “Look at this poor pathetic idiot” kind of way, but I think it has a double meaning. The man lives alone on a food service salary, after all. There is nothing quite so stifling and limiting as poverty, but Aoi was able to rise above it and make enough money to put on the second Nonary Game by playing the stock market. And I strongly suspect that Akane’s ability to exchange information with her future self had something to do with this, because it’s not that easy to get rich from nothing off the stock market without the help of insider trading or psychic powers.

All of this is to say that having these powers can give you control over your own life to a certain extent, and that’s something Eric has none of. Whether it’s from being trapped in a death game or more generally, being unable to change his life for the better, he feels powerless and he lashes out because of it. It’s where his violent temper comes from (and while Aoi is a bit of a hothead, it’s unclear how much of that is an act.)

Look, I know how exceptionally weird it is that in a series about people with cool psychic powers, my favorite character is the one loser without them. But I think it’s largely because of that contrast that I like Eric so much. He’s the best audience surrogate Zero Escape has - like it or not, his reaction is probably the closest to how you would react both to being in a death game and learning about the existence of universe-hopping. And seeing him as a foil to Aoi makes him even more interesting. While the espers are burdened by the fate of humankind, the non-espers are burdened by themselves. And ultimately, which burden is worse?

#zero escape #eric ztd #aoi kurashiki #santa 999 #zero escape 999 #zero time dilemma #meta #this all felt a lot more coherent while i was thinking it up at work #long post

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blackwoolncrown · 4 years ago

Link

”This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

>>Copied here in case anyone gets paywalled when they click the above. The full article is...a lot.<<

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

not

fucking

talk

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

RESOURCES TO YES-AND WITH

Achele Mbembe — Necropolitics

Angela Y. Davis — Are Prisons Obsolete?

CriticalResistance.org — Abolition Toolkit

Joe Macaré, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price — Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore — COVID-19, Decarceration, Abolition [video]

#acab

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