#( syke now its two ()

[wrongplacerighttime]

fratboy!harry x you

hi hi! its been awhile. finally finished this after 3834273 weeks it feels like. its also my first reader fic so....hope you like it HAHAHA.... :)

the one where your friends introduce you to Harry, you go on a trip and things get interesting. featuring a lake house, hiking, and a cherry sucker.

wc: 5.8k

tw: smut 18+, spanking, choking, light dom!harry dynamic, brief clit slapping, brief face slapping, lil bit of cum play, size kink, breeding kink if you squint. idk if i missed anything but as always let me know if i did :)

cherry sucker

Finding solace in the chirping birds and chattering on the street that could be heard from your open window, you stood in front of your closet, clad in a little white tank and baby blue undies, preparing your bag for a camping trip you and your friends had planned. Spring semester has concluded and this trip will commemorate the start of summer vacation. You daydream about the sun glistening off the ripples of the lake water, the smell of the grass wafting in the wind as the sun warms the earth while you pack your bag. 

While you were excited for summer, you wanted to get a head start on your reading for fall semester. You had a textbook or two in the bottom of your bag—poli sci books, because you had heard the professor was relentless with his lesson plan and you wanted to go in with no surprises. You hear the faintest footsteps down stairs, growing louder the closer they drew up the stairs. Your door swings open and Faye strides through, red hair flowing behind her at the pace she was walking. She comes up behind you, smacking your ass making you yelp. 

“Faye!” You squeal, clutching the cheek that was now turning red with your best friend's hand print. 

“I’m so envious of your ass, I just had to.” She falls backwards on your bed, arms sprawling beside her. “It’s just so tempting.” She giggles and you turn back to your closet.

“I’m so glad we actually have time to see each other now that classes are over. School’s been so busy I feel like all I’ve done is sleep and go to class.” 

“Is that why you have a fucking textbook in your bag?” Faye raises her eyebrow at your duffle and picks one up. “Russian socioeconomic structure? What even is this?” 

“It’s for Professor Sykes. I’ve heard he's brutal and I want to be prepared.” 

“You are not bringing this. You have a whole summer ahead of you to study.” Faye scoffs, pausing for a moment. “If you bring this book on this trip I’ll throw it in the lake myself.” 

“Then you’ll owe me $200. Besides, what if I get bored?” You cross your arms over your chest and Faye looks at you like you’ve grown another head. 

“There’s a lake! A lake!” She throws her hands up in the air, laughing at your determination. You bend down, opening your drawer and pulling out a skimpy yellow bikini to throw in your bag. “By the way, Josh is bringing a friend. His name’s Harry…Styles I think. Do you know him?” You shake your head. 

“Know of him, don’t know him though.” 

“Oh. Well he’s single…and kind of hot.” Faye giggles and you shake her head again.

“No thanks. I’m not really into the dating scene right now.” 

“No one said anything about dating. Just maybe for a little…fun.” This time, it’s your turn to look at Faye like she’s the one who’s grown another head. “Fine. If you don’t want to…maybe he’ll be our third.” She wiggles her eyebrows and you widen your eyes in horror at her suggestion of asking Harry to join her and her boyfriend in their sexual endeavors. 

Before you can get another thought in, heavy footsteps clamber up the stairs and it’s Josh, Harry in tow with a backpack slung over his shoulder and suddenly your room feels very small. Josh flicks his eyes to you, smiling and sitting next to Faye on your bed. 

“Pauly and Alex are on their way. We’re putting all the shit in their car and you guys are gonna ride with us.” He says, gesturing his finger between the two of you and you nod. The window open brings a warm breeze into the room, blowing your sketchbook pages until it lands on one with a drawing of a man. 

Not just any man…it was your ex. Your eyes flick to everyone and you rush over to shut it before anyone can catch it. It was an old drawing, and a hobby you hadn’t picked back up since things ended and you really didn’t feel like rehashing the breakup with Faye. Faye wasn’t the biggest fan of him, and for good reason after he cheated on you with the TA in one of his classes last semester. 

Harry stands in the doorway, chewing gum between his molars, his jaw flexing and glances around your room—the bedroom of a girl whom he’d never met, and it felt very personal…like he was getting a peak into who you were as a person. An overflowing bookshelf, handmade drawings stuck to a corkboard on the wall over the desk. Faye and Josh were talking in hushed whispers and he tilted his head to the side as he had the perfect view of your ass as you were turned around and facing your desk. He smirks at the red hand mark left there, and he could feel his cock twitching in his pants at the thoughts running through his head. He drops his gaze as you turn back around to walk towards your closet again. His eyes meet yours and you smile, a greeting showing you were just being nice, and he wonders if you always walk around half dressed in front of strangers. He clears his throat.

“Sykes next semester?” He asks, voice with a hint of an accent you weren’t expecting and you nod. 

“How’d you know?” He gestures his elbow towards your bag, the textbook on top of your clothes and your mouth forms and “O” and you nod.

“He teaches that entire fucking book every year. It’s such a snooze fest.” He pauses. “Do you like Russian literature?” You nod again, gesturing to your bookshelf filled with classics and fantasy and romance. You had a few authors on the shelf, but not as many as you would like. He brings his backpack around to his side, unzipping and reaching in. He pulls out a tattered book, crinkles in the cover and the corners turning up, all characteristics of a well loved piece and hands it to you. “Read this instead. A lot more interesting.” He smirks and your gaze drops to the words on the cover. A collection of poems by Anna Akhmatova. In the short conversation you were having you didn’t realize that you had been left alone with him. He smiles, a sly grin spreading on his lips almost like he knew he was about to be a menace. 

“By the way, blue looks good on you.” He flicks his gaze down before meeting your eyes again. You feel your cheeks burning instantly as he walks out the door laughing to himself as he stumbles his way down the stairs, leaving you to finish packing alone.

The car ride to the cabin had everyone buzzing with anticipation. Faye had called shotgun, and you and Harry shared a look when she did. He smirked and you looked away and quickly climbed into the backseat. The entire ride you were consumed with a nervous energy that you couldn’t quite place. Harry had his hand splayed out on the seat beside you and when he leaned forward to talk to Josh, the tip of his pinky barely brushed your skin and you tried not to think about it too hard for the rest of the ride over.

It took no time for you to clamber out of the car and claim your room inside for the weekend. Tossing your bag onto the floor by the door, you flopped down on the fluffy mattress holding the book Harry lent you to your chest. You were fiddling with the cover when Faye waltzed in and leaned against the foot of the bed. 

“Get up. We’re going on a hike.” She said giddy with excitement and you cocked your eyebrow at her. 

“Think I’ll pass.” 

“Not an option. Everyone else is going.” She crosses her arms and leans on the doorframe. 

“I didn’t bring shoes for a hike.” You half laugh at her with a shake of your head and she narrows her eyes. 

“You can wear a pair of mine. Let’s go.” Faye gestures and you groan, tossing the book back onto the bed with a soft thud against the duvet. You pad down the hallway after her, slumped over feigning protest like a toddler and she hands you a pair of her sneakers once you reach her room. Slipping them on, you plait your hair behind your head quickly and messily as you find your way to the foyer where everyone is gathered and waiting to leave. None of them look thrilled either as they follow Faye out the door to the path behind the house.

The June sun was high in the sky and the only reprieve you were able to get from the heat was the occasional shade of the trees along the path. You and Harry had fallen behind, the rest of the group up ahead and through heavy breaths you would sneak glances from the corner of your eye as the sun glistened off the light sheen of sweat coating his shoulders and his chest. He had popped a cherry sucker in his mouth not long ago and you watched as he moved it from one cheek to the other with his tongue and caught your mind wandering to what his tongue might feel like running along the expanse of your skin. You walk in silence, hands brushing slightly from the uneven terrain and you want to apologize for repeatedly bumping him but you don’t. 

“Does she always make you do shit like this?” He huffs from behind you, stepping over a fallen limb.

“Unfortunately.” You grumble back, trying not to roll your ankle stepping over rocks bigger than the palm of your hand. 

Even though this hike was the last thing Harry wanted to be doing, he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed your company, though little conversation had been exchanged since the moment in your room. His eyes trailed over your body, noticing the bead of sweat rolling down your chest and his tongue darts out over his lips, wanting nothing more than to trail his tongue down the same path. He watched the way your thighs flexed as you stepped over limbs and branches and he thought about them wrapped around his waist, driving into you over and over while your fingers leave marks over his torso. He pulls his shirt over his head, unable to take the heat of the afternoon any longer and he tucks it into the waistband of his shorts. He’s noticed you watching him too, stealing glances out of the corner of your eye and biting your teeth into the pillowy flesh of your bottom lip. He’s convinced that he could do anything and you’d melt into the palm of his hand, so desperate to please him and be good for him. He smirks to himself as you divert your eyes ahead, away from his now bare torso and towards the ground. 

He looks at you briefly before his eyes flick ahead, and you don’t know that he’s judging how long it would take for your friends to notice if he pulled you out of sight for a moment.  He decides it’s worth the risk, lightly grabbing your arm and pulling you behind a nearby tree. You feel the bark against your back as he cages your head between his arms and you look up at him with wide eyes. All you can hear is the pounding of your heart against your ribcage at his close proximity. 

So close you can smell the cherry on his breath, hear the faint sound as the confection clatters against his teeth. Your eyes focus on the white stick poking from between his lips and he watches you. His hands dig into the roughness of the oak and his chest pressed against yours. Suddenly the heat of the afternoon feels suffocating. He brings his own hand to his mouth, plucking the stick from between his teeth and the sticky residue touches your lips. Upon instinct, your tongue darts out to collect, catching the sweetness and savoring it for a moment. 

“Open.” His voice is low and gravelly, and for some reason you find yourself obeying his command before you can even think too hard about it. Your lips part and you stick out your tongue in anticipation, a smirk playing on his lips as he watches you and he hums. “Can y’hold this for me, puppy?” 

A heat swirls in your core, and without noticing your thighs clench together and a whine escapes your throat as you nod. Harry places the sweet candy on your tongue and your lips wrap around the stick slick from his own salivation. “Good girl.” He mutters, stepping away and creating space between the two of you. You snap out of the trance you seemingly had fallen into and scurry away, catching up to your friends and leaving him laughing behind you. 

Nightfall comes before you have a chance to think about it. You had taken a quick nap after you returned from the hike and it was much needed, considering your mind was going haywire and you just needed a break from your thoughts drifting to Harry. It was quiet out here, you and Harry the only ones left sitting next to the fire Josh and Pauly had started a couple of hours ago. You were huddled up under a blanket, the air blowing off the lake making it feel colder than it actually was. Frogs were humming by the water and the crickets were chirping in the grass, the sounds of nature around you made you feel calm. You had the book Harry had loaned you resting against your thigh as you read the prose on the weathered pages. Harry had his head leaned back, fingers weaved together on his chest with his eyes closed. Occasionally you would peek over at him and he seemed tranquil. You weren’t sure why he was still here with you, but maybe he was just enjoying the fire like you were. You had purposely avoided him after the incident on the hike, the memory still causing an arousal to pool beneath the denim of your shorts and you tried like hell to push it from your mind.

“Let’s swim.” He states, pulling you from your thoughts. You raised your brow at him, a quizzical look. 

“I’ll pass.” You blow out a laugh and he turns his head towards you then. 

“Why? Faye and Josh are off somewhere, probably fucking, and Pauly and Alex are doing bong rips inside. Not really a fan of that…they're incessantly annoying when they’re high. So let’s go swim.” He says nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders as if it was the most sound choice of activity for this time of night.

“It’s cold, and I’m actually enjoying this book of poems you lent me.” You tell him, and because you’re not looking at him at that second you don’t see the way the corner of his mouth twitches into a half smile. 

“Anna Akhmatova is interesting. But you have all weekend to read it.” He turns to face you then, you catch the movement out of your peripheral.

“I also have all weekend to swim.” You tease him. He’s silent for a moment and you turn the page to read the next poem. He shifts in his seat. 

“Alright. I didn’t want it to have to come to this…” He says, sighing. He stands, making his way over to you. Before you can process what he’s doing, he snatches the book and throws it onto a neighboring chair. In one swift movement, he picks you up, throwing you over his shoulder as he walks towards the dock. You thrash and kick but it’s no use, not when he’s stronger than you’ll ever be. 

“Harry! Put me down!” You exclaim, laughing in the process and you feel his chest against your thighs. He doesn’t respond. “Okay! I surrender. I’ll swim with you. Please just don’t throw me in.” You try to reason with him and he stops, pausing his movements and taking in your words. He plants your feet on the weathered wood, and you look up at him with narrowed eyes as he smiles down at you, a crooked grin that had your knees feeling weak. “That wasn’t funny. I don’t have a swim suit on either.” 

“I guess that gives us a perfect excuse to go skinny dipping then.” He states as if there’s nothing wrong with that scenario. 

“Respectfully, no. I’ll swim in my clothes.” You counter back.

“Sweet girl, it’s nothing you or I haven’t seen before. Be mature.” He teases and you want to laugh, but you cross your arms over your chest, instinctively making yourself smaller. He hooks his fingers in the waistband of his shorts before looking back at you, noticing your hesitation and he stops. “We really don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He puts his hands on your arms, and you shake your head, looking out at the ripples on the surface lit by the moon. 

“No it’s—I’m not—it’s fine. I want to. I just haven’t really taken my clothes off in front of a guy in—since…” You pause, collecting your thoughts before looking up at him. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I’m being this way. I think I’m just nervous.” 

“You don’t have to feel that way around me. Promise.” He smiles and turns back around, pushing his shorts down so you have a view of his bare ass. Your cheeks redden as you avert your gaze elsewhere, and he jumps into the water with a splash. You can’t see him, not until he pokes his head back up and shakes the water from his hair. “It feels great.” He covers his eyes with his hands. “I won’t look if you don’t want me to. Not until you’re in the water.” He says and you nod, and then realizing he can’t see you clear your throat. 

“Okay.” Your voice feels small. Hesitantly you unbutton your shorts, sliding them down along with your underwear and pulling the sweatshirt over your head leaving you bare and exposed, and you hoped and prayed that Alex and Pauly weren’t watching out the window. You drop it to the dock, your clothes and his making separate piles, taking a step towards the edge and looking down into the water. Here goes nothing, you say to yourself and leap in. And he was right, it really did feel great. It envelopes around you as you swim upwards and breach the surface, wiping your eyes and opening them. He’s there in front of you, a smile plastered on his face. 

“See, s’not so bad, right?” He asks and you shake your head again as you tread the water. And you both stay like that for a while, swimming and floating. He floats on his back and you try a little too hard to not let your gaze travel south, focusing on his face and how content he looks with his eyes closed. You’re too busy staring at the tattoos littering his torso when he says something you don’t quite catch.  

“Hm?” Your gaze flits back to his face and he’s smiling. 

“I said,"Do you like what you see?” He laughs and you can feel your cheeks redden because he caught you staring at him. 

“I’m sorry.” You apologize sheepishly and he swims over to you, closing the distance and you bite back a grin at the close proximity. 

“Don’t need to apologize, sweet girl.” He says, his voice low and he brings his hand up to thumb over your lips, parting them before his thumb runs over your cheek. “Be lying if I said I haven’t been staring at you all night.” He confesses and you think if you were nervous before, then you’re not sure what you’re feeling right now. It feels like a stampede of elephants is running through your belly as he runs the backs of his fingers across your cheek. You decide to just rip the bandaid off and go for it. Your hands find his face and you crash your lips to his, and he’s taken off guard but the next second his hands dip under the water and he pulls you into him, the warmth of your bodies melding together underneath the surface. Upon instinct, your legs wrap around his waist as you push your chest into him, causing him to tighten his grip on your waist, dimpling the skin beneath his fingertips. 

It was almost like neither of you needed to speak, once the kiss had broken you both swam fervently towards the dock. He hoists you up by your waist, quickly dressing just to go inside and get undressed again. He pulls you by your hand towards the cabin, and you say a silent prayer that your friends who were in here made their way outside. 

By the grace of some higher power, the house was empty and the air inside was cold and smelled of the aftershocks of bong rips and a half smoked joint. Harry pulled you down the hall, into his room, and shut the door behind him with a click of the lock. 

He smirks and he pushes you down into the bed, hair wet and sticking to the skin of your neck. He crawls over you after pulling your shorts off and throwing them somewhere across the room, slotting a knee between your thighs and instinctively you grind against him, gripping onto his biceps. He hooks a finger in the waistband of your panties and slides them down your thighs in one swift move, and you kick them the rest of the way off in anticipation.

“Been thinking about taking those off since I saw you prancing around your room in them this morning.” His voice drops an octave as he ghosts the tip of his nose along your cheek , tracing the outline of your jaw as you desperately move your hips seeking for any friction it would give you.  He pulls back, looking over your features and you can see his pupils blown from his own pleasure. 

“Look at you.” He coos, clicking his tongue behind his teeth. “Taking before I can even give anything to you, so selfish.” He purrs, and somehow the tone of it makes you stop, halting the movement of your hips. 

“No. Go ahead, angel. Wanna watch you get yourself off just from riding my thigh. Need it so bad, can’t even help yourself.” He coos, but his tone is condescending and you almost question him. He raises a brow, running a thumb over your cheek delicately. The harsh tone of his voice and the softness of his touch playing mind games with you. “Do it. Be a good girl.” He encourages you, and you feel like it’s a trap. 

“N-no. Want whatever you wanna give me. I’m sorry. Won’t happen again.” You pout your lower lip out and he thumbs over it, pulling it down before it bounces back into place. You like that he takes initiative, being dominant over you like it comes so easily for him. He can see the wheels in your mind turning and he cocks his head to the side. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. Just never done this before. Never had someone be…” You trail off, but he nods like he already knew what you were going to say. 

“I see. Sweet girl’s never had someone take control over her?” You shake your head. He rolls his lip between his teeth, eyes flittering around your face. “But you crave it, don’t you? Just wanna be a cock-drunk little slut? Wanna have someone filling you, telling you what to do?” His words penetrate your brain and your eyes flutter closed. “Answer me. Is that what you want?” He demands and you nod, faster than you ever have and he flashes his pretty smile at you. 

“Yes. Please.” Finding your voice, begging him. He shifts, pressing his thigh into your center and a whimper falls from your lips, the heat growing between your thighs. 

“Go.” He leans down, pressing his lips to your pulse point and trailing kisses down your collar bone. Slowly, your hips begin to move and you’re almost embarrassed at your arousal coating his skin, glistening in the soft glow of the lamp. You push the thoughts away, focusing on your pleasure as you feel his hardening length against your thigh, pressing into you. You reach down, palming him through the material before he grabs your wrist and pins it above your head. “Didn’t tell you you could touch.” He mumbles against your skin and you whine in protest. Your hips move faster now, and you’re so close. Just as you’re about to tip over the edge, he pulls away and your lungs deflate, a breath being taken away from you. He stands over you, pushing his shorts down and your eyes widen at the sight of him. You want to reach out and grab him, pump his cock with your hand but you refrain. He leans over you again, planting kisses down your chest and dipping in the valley between your tits, his nose ghosting over your skin. 

“Want you to tell me red if you wanna stop, okay? Green if you wanna keep going. Got it?” He asks and you nod. He peeks up at you through his lashes and cocks his brow. “Words, puppy. Can’t hear a nod or a shake.”

“Yes. I’m—yes. Got it” You’re breathless with your answer. He peppers small kisses over your navel, gripping your hips between his fingers as his head dips lower, kissing the insides of both thighs, trailing his tongue over your skin and purposely skipping over your weeping hole just to make you squirm under his grip. He parts you open then, collecting your arousal on his tongue and the wicked sensation makes your back arch from the bed, pushing your core closer to him and he forces you back down. 

“Uh-uh. Stay still or I’ll stop.” He mumbles, and a whine bubbles in your throat. He laps lazily st your core, circling and flattening his tongue over your clit as you try your hardest to keep your hips still. His fingers dimple your skin, digging into the muscle underneath. He knew he was gripping hard enough to leave small bruises in the shape of his fingertips, and he wanted to. Wanted you to remember his head between your thighs as you shattered just from the flick of his tongue against your sensitive bud. You’re a mess of moans and panting his name over and over. He pulls your clit between his teeth and your hips jolt upwards and he pushes you back down to the mattress. He pulls away, and your chest heaves at the loss of contact but a cry escapes your throat when he lands a light smack to your center, and the pain morphes into pleasure as tears well up in your eyes at the sting.

“Told you to stay still. Can’t follow simple directions, angel?” 

“M’s—sorry.” You gasp and he glances up at you, noticing your wet lashes and he props himself up on his elbows. 

“What's your color, sweet girl?” His tone is gentle, planting a soft kiss to the top of your thigh and peeking up at you from under his lashes.

“Green.” You answer eagerly and he smiles against your skin, crawling back up to level with your eyes. His lips find yours and you open, allowing him to push his tongue into your mouth against your own, the room around you melting away. It’s slow, sensual and full of desire. He doesn’t pull away as he lines himself up with you, the tip of his cock teasing your aching hole and you move your hips trying like hell to get him further inside. 

“So needy.” He mumbles against your lips and pulls your bottom one between his teeth, nipping gently. He pushes into you slowly, your mouth dropping open as he lays his forehead against your collarbone. “So tight, sweet girl. I don’t think m’gonna fit.” He pushes into you further, teeth marking your skin as he groans against your skin and you whine at the sting of him stretching you. 

“Fuck, Harry.” You whimper, he cages your head between his hands, holding himself up as his biceps flex and extend, the sinewy tissue underneath his skin prominent. He looks down between your bodies, where he's halfway sheathed inside your pussy and he chuckles, a breathy laugh that morphs into a sigh. 

“Pretty little pussy looks so pitiful like this. Can’t do it, puppy.” He pants, and you know somewhere in the back of your mind that he’s just playing a part, but it doesn’t stop the cry that escape from your throat as you beg him to fuck you. 

“Please, Harry. Need you. Want you so much. Can take it, promise. Please.” You look up at him with wide eyes and he admires you for a moment, taking in the pout playing on your pretty mouth that he just wants to kiss away, the tears welling in your eyes that he’ll wipe away if they fall. The need in your voice letting him know you’d do anything he asks of you in this moment. 

“Alright, I’ll give it to you. Gonna go slow til you’re all stretched out f’me.” He palms your thighs, hiking them around his waist and continues to fill you, your head lulling to the side as your eyes flutter closed and your jaw falls slack when he reaches to the hilt, balls resting against your ass as his head falls back. “So fucking good, angel. Look at me, wanna see those pretty eyes.” 

So you listen, do the best you can to force your eyes open as he starts to rock his hips into you, pulling out to the tip before filling you up again and again. He hikes your leg over his shoulder, kissing down your calf as he sets his rhythm, going deeper from this angle. His eyes never leave yours as he groans and nibbles on your skin, peppering small bites and then soothing with his tongue. He hits the right spot every time, and when your eyes finally betray you and fall closed, you feel a smack land on your cheek. Not hard, but just enough to sting and you whimper. 

“Thought you were a good girl.” He says through gritted teeth and he drives into you harder. 

“I-I am. Want to be good for you.” He grunts at your response, he pulls out and flips you over before pulling your ass up in the air so you sit on your knees with your face down in the mattress. He palms your ass, landing a smack to your cheek. He rubs over the spot gently, soothing as you push closer into his touch and he's climbing behind you, lining up and pushing back in and it feels even better from this angle. Hitting every spot just right and you swear you see stars. He reaches around you, pushing on your tummy just under your navel and wraps his other hand around your throat lightly, pulling you up. 

Your back is flush with his chest, skin sticking together from the light sheen of sweat coating both your bodies. One hand squeezing the sides of your neck and the other pressing still on your belly and he nips at your ear.

“Can feel me all the way in your tummy, can’t you? This is what you like right? Nobody’s ever had you like this have they?” He whispers and you shake your head. His hand finds yours and he brings it back to the spot just below your belly button. “Feel that? Feel me so deep in this pretty pussy. Gonna get you all full of me, fill you with my babies.” He grits and squeezes your neck a little harder, the corners of your vision darkening before he lets go and you take in a full breath, feeling high on him…and he’s all you know. His words, his hands roaming your body and his cock stretching you. 

“Harry, I’m so close.” You breathe out and he grunts, lips ghosting over your shoulder blade. 

“I know…can feel you squeezing my cock so tight angel. C’mon. Cum for me.” He encourages you and you shatter around him, pussy pulsing around him bringing him to his own release as he paints inside you. He wastes no time pulling out and you topple over from your legs feeling weak and he dips down behind you. You feel him dripping out of your hole, and his fingers spread you open. Pushing one inside with no warning, he fucks his cum back inside of you with his fingers and you hum, unable to make any other noise and he chuckles behind you.

“Like being filled like this? Look so pretty full of me, dripping out of you. Never gonna forget it.” He mutters, planting a kiss on the small of your back before standing. Finding the energy to roll over, he offers his fingers to you and you take them between your lips and taste the mix of both of you on his fingers. He curses under his breath at the sight of you, feeling his cock twitching back to life and he pulls them away to stop himself thinking about fucking you again and again.

You slept in his bed that night.

The weekend ended all too quickly, and you were half asleep in the back seat of Josh’s car with your head resting on the window, holding Harry’s book on your thighs and fiddling wither cover, something you had become accustomed to as you read the prose on the pages or when you closed in while engaging in conversation. Truthfully, you didn’t know if you’d see him in that capacity again after this weekend and didn’t know if you wanted to go back to being strangers that passed each other in the economics building on campus. 

Josh pulled up to the house you and Faye shared, and Harry follows you out of the car. He retrieves your bag from Pauly’s car for you, carrying it up to your room and putting it down on your bed. You almost felt like you were having deja vu, the scene similar to one from Thursday afternoon, except this time you weren’t half naked in front of him and he wasn’t just a stranger in your room anymore. You look around, then to the floor before meeting his eyes and he smirks as he leans against your doorframe. 

“Here.” You hand him the book but he puts his hands up, shaking his head.

“Keep it.” He says, and you almost refuse but accept it anyway. He bites the inside of his cheek, shifting his weight and shoving his hands in his pockets. He steps closer, brushing your hair behind your ear as you look up at him. “Don’t be a stranger, angel.” 

“I won’t be.”

He leaves you there, standing in the middle of the room with his book clutched to your chest with a cheesy grin plastered on your face.

And you knew it wouldn't be the last time you saw Harry Styles.

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[phoenixyfriend]

Can you explain the Iran-Israel situation please?

Alright, let's get to it. Please note that I'm writing this on mobile during my lunch break, so I can't include reference/source links as much as I'd like. Thankfully, most of what I'm going to be telling you should be easily located by searching for an article on one of the following: APNews, Reuters, BBC Global News Podcast, Democracy Now!, NPR, or The New York Times. Long-term background is probably best found in videos by the YouTube channels Real Life Lore or tldr global news, or on Wikipedia if you prefer text.

The short version: Israel attacked Iran's consulate in Syria to get at some of the military commanders that were there, which is legally equivalent to attacking Iran itself. Iran responded by sending about 300 bombs at Israel, most of which were shot down in transit. Given that they still called it a success, even though it seems only one person was even hurt, my understanding is that it's very likely that they only intended the rockets to be a show of force, rather than an actual escalation, because Iran can't afford a war right now.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.

The long version:

Okay, let's start with some background on Israel, then Iran. This is... a lot, so if you already know the broad strokes skip down to 2023.

Israel was established following WWII by the English and French, following borders the two countries had secretly drawn up decades earlier in the Sykes-Picot agreement. The intent was to give the Jewish people a place to go... or, depending on who you ask, a place to send them. Their ancestral homeland was viewed as the best choice, sort of like a deportation millennia after a diaspora. Given that WWII had just ended by the time Sykes-Picot was actually put into effect, 'getting out of Europe' was something a lot of Jews were given to agree with.

The Arab world was not happy, as that land had belonged to the Ottomans for centuries, and had long since 'naturalized' to being Arab. I'm not going to pretend to know the nuances to when people do or do not consider Palestine to have been its own nation; it was an Ottoman state until WWI, at which point it came under British control for just under three decades, and that period is known as the British Mandate of Palestine; it ended after WWII, with the creation of Israel. Palestine's land and people have sort of just been punted around from one colonizer to another for centuries.

Iran is the current form of what was once Persia. They were an empire for a very long time, and were a unitary monarchy up until the early 20th century; in 1925, Iran elected a Prime Minister who was then declared the monarch. The following several decades had Iran's monarchy slowly weakened, and occasionally beset by foreign interventions, including a covert coup by the US and UK in 1953. The country also became more corrupt throughout the 1970s due to economic policy failing to control inflation in the face of rising oil prices.

In 1979, there was a revolution that overthrew the monarchy and the elected government, replacing the system with a theocracy and declaring Iran to be an Islamic Republic, with the head of state being a religious authority, rather than an elected one. This was not popular with... most countries. 1980 saw the closure of all universities (reopened in 1983 with government-approved curriculums), as well as the taking of over fifty American hostages from the US Embassy in Iran. You may have heard about that in the context of Ronald Reagan encouraging Iran to keep the hostages until the end of Carter's term in order to force the election.

So, the West didn't like having an Islamic state because it claims to like democracy, and also because the Islamic state was explicitly anti-American and this has some Bad Effects on oil prices. The Soviets didn't like having an Islamic State because a theocracy goes directly against a lot of communist values (or at least the values they claim to have), and weakened any influence their supposedly secular union could have on Iran and the wider middle east. The other countries in the Arab world, many of them still monarchies, didn't like the Islamic republic because if the revolution spread, then it was possible their monarchies would be overthrown as well.

(Except Oman, which is not worried, but that's the exception, not the rule.)

This is not a baseless worry, because Iran has stated that this is its goal for the Arab world. Overthrow the monarchies, overthrow the elected governments, Islamic Rule for everyone. That is the purpose of its proxies, like Hezbollah (Lebanon), the Houthis (Yemen), and Hamas (Palestine), along with less well-known groups like the Salafi Jihadists in Mali, who are formally under the umbrella of al-Quaeda, which Iran denies having any relation to but is suspected of funding. In areas where these proxy groups have gained power, they are liable to enact hard Shari'a law such as has happened in Northern Mali and other parts of the Sahel region.

While other conflicts have occurred in these countries, I think the above is most relevant.

Israel has repeatedly attacked, or been attacked by, other nations in the middle east, as they are viewed as having taken over land that is not theirs, and as being a puppet of the US government. The biggest conflicts have been 1947-1948, 1968/1973, and 2014.

And then, of course, 2023.

Now, Iran, more than any other nation in the Middle East, hates Israel. They have for a very long time, viewing them as an affront to the goal of spreading Islam across the whole of the middle east, and as being a front and a staging ground for the United States and other Western powers. Two common refrains in the slogans of Iran and its proxies are "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

Due to Iran's military power and virulence towards Israel, the United States has been funneling money to Israel for decades. It has more generally been to defend itself against the Arab world at large, but it has narrowed over the decades to being about Iran and its proxies as relations have normalized with other nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Cue October 7th, 2023. Hamas invades Israeli towns, kills some people, and takes others as hostage. Israel retaliates, and the conflict ramps up into what is by now tens of thousands of dead, some half of which are children.

In this time, Hamas's allies are, by definition, Iran and the other proxy forces. Hezbollah, being in Lebanon, share a border with Israel's north. They have been trading rocket fire across the border in waves for most of the past six months. The Houthis, down in Yemen, claim to be attacking the passing cargo ships in order to support Palestine. Given that the attacks often seem indiscriminate, and that the Houthi's control over their portion of Yemen is waning in the face of their poor governance, this is... debatable. It's their official reason, but given that "let's attack passing ships, claiming that we only attack Israeli or American ships and that it is to support Palestine" is rallying support domestically for their regime, it does seem to be more of a political move to garner support at home than about supporting Palestine.

Iran, however, has not attacked Israel. They've spoken out about it, yes, but they haven't done anything because nobody wants a regional war. Nobody can afford it right now. Iran is dealing with a domestic crisis due to oil subsidies bleeding the states' coffers dry, and the aging Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of Iran, refusing to pick a successor. They are looking at both an economic crisis and succession crisis, and a regional war would fuck up both situations further. Iran funds most of its proxies, and they can't do that, and fight a war on top of it, while their economy is in its current state. Pure self preservation says they don't want a war, especially with the ongoing unrest that's been going on for... well, basically since the revolution, but especially since the death of Mahsa Amini.

Meanwhile, in Israel, Netanyahu has been looking at corruption charges and legal issues since before the Hamas attack. It's generally agreed that if Israel were to hold new elections right now, he would lose and be replaced, and also immediately taken to court. Netanyahu wants to stay in power, and as long as the war on Hamas lasts, he is unlikely to get voted out. A change in leadership in the middle of a war is rarely a good idea for any country, and he's banking on that.

However, the war on Hamas rests on the shoulders of American money and supplies. Without that military support, Israel cannot fight this war, and America... is losing patience.

Officially, America and most of the western world have been telling Israel to not fucking escalate for the majority of the war.

There have been implied threats, more or less since Schumer's big speech about how Israel needs a new election, of American legislators putting conditions on any future aid. There have even been rumblings of aid being retracted entirely if Israel follows through on invading Raffah.

So...

American aid to Israel has, for a very long time, been given in the name of defending Israel against Iran and its proxies.

Israel has been fighting this war against Hamas for six months, killing what is by now innumerable civilians, on the power of US military aid.

Netanyahu benefits from the continued war due to domestic troubles.

Iran does not want a regional war, or really any big war, due to its own domestic troubles.

The US is, in theory, losing patience with Israel and threatening to pull the plug on unconditional support. It's very "we gave you this to fight Iran. Stop attacking civilians. If you keep attacking civilians, then you're going to have to rely on what we already gave you to fight off Iran so that you won't keep wasting it on civilians."

Israel... attacks Iran, prompting a response, and is now talking about escalating with Iran.

I am not explicitly saying that it looks to me like Israel, which is already fighting a war on two physical fronts and even more political/economic ones, has picked a fight with Iran so that America feels less like it is able to withdraw support.

I just... am finding it hard to understand why Israel, which is in fact fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would attack the Iranian consulate in Syria otherwise. They can't actually afford to fight this war, escalating to a full regional conflict, on a third front.

Not without pressuring American into keeping the faucet of military funding open at full blast.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.

#phoenix politics #current events #iran #israel #hamas #houthis #hezbollah #syria #politics #united states #military funding #military aid

[sinkingteethinwhitenoise]

Good For You

Pairing: Noah Sebastian x Oli Sykes

Warnings: SMUT/NSFW 18+ ONLY MDNI, praise kink, spit kink, spit as lube, oral, anal (unprotected)

Word Count: 1.4k

When Noah first found out that he would be performing alongside Oli Sykes, his nerves kicked into high gear. Oli was a fucking icon. A metalcore legend. Whatever he did, he did it well. Always. People had been comparing the two of them for a while. And now, Noah was getting to perform with him. The perfectionist in him took over; he couldn’t fuck this up. He would never live it down if he failed to match Oli’s energy. He would never let himself live it down. The pressure was on.

What surprised Noah however, was how natural it all felt when the time finally came. He felt comfortable. The two of them interacted on that stage like they’d been doing it for lifetimes. Noah had left that stage feeling proud and in awe… as well as a bit flustered. 

Once the show ended, Noah found himself alone with Oli as they reflected on their performances from that night. Oli was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, as he spoke to Noah, who was seated in a chair not too far from where he was standing. Noah hung onto every word Oli said, staring intently with a faint flush on his face. The familiar warmth of arousal spread through Noah’s body as he took in the power of Oli’s stance, his tattoos, his sweat-dampened hair. It was almost overwhelming. “You did good, pretty boy,” Oli said, fixing his gaze on Noah. 

Noah instantly felt his cheeks begin to burn as his breath hitched and he shifted in his seat. Oli picked up on it immediately, looking Noah up and down with a smirk. “Oh,” he chuckled under his breath. He straightened his stance slightly. “C’mere, pretty boy.” 

Noah’s eyes went wide and his heart rate quickened. Who was he to disobey? He pushed himself out of the chair and stood in front of Oli, unable to look him in the eyes. 

Oli lifted his hand to Noah’s face, gently gripping his chin and turning his head. “Look at me,” he murmured, an amused lilt to his soft voice. “What’s got you so flustered, hm?” Noah’s mouth opened to speak, but no words came out. His heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of his chest. He exhaled, his breath trembling as he stared, speechless. Oli’s long, tattooed fingers caressed Noah’s jaw with a feather light touch. “C’mon now,” he cooed. “Why don’t you use your words like the good boy I know you are?”

Noah’s eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head and he couldn’t stop the quiet whimper from escaping his parted lips. “You do,” he whispered, voice shaking.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, now was it, love?” Oli smirked. Noah shook his head, his face on fire. “I got a pretty thing like you all flustered?” Oli teased, thumb stroking Noah’s cheek. Noah whimpered in response, nodding slightly. Oli tilted his head as his other hand grabbed Noah’s hip and pulled him flush against him. “Well, we should do something about that then, yeah?” 

“Yes, please,” Noah breathed, melting into Oli’s touch. “Mmm, good boy,” Oli hummed, leaning in. “So polite.” He pressed his lips to Noah’s. 

Noah whined as he kissed back, hands moving to rest on Oli’s shoulders. It started out slow, lips gently gliding along each other while Oli continued to gently caress Noah’s face. When Noah felt Oli’s tongue slide against his bottom lip, he groaned, allowing Oli to slip his tongue into Noah’s mouth. The hand on Noah’s hip moved to his ass, gripping harshly through his pants to push him impossibly closer as the kiss deepened. Noah couldn’t help but grind into Oli as his tongue explored his mouth. 

Oli pulled away and began to kiss down Noah’s neck. He was careful to not leave any marks, despite how much he wanted to. He moved his other hand onto Noah’s ass and began to knead the flesh as Noah continued to grind into him, desperate pants leaving his lips. “Oh, sweet boy,” Oli murmured against Noah’s skin. “You’re so needy, aren’t you?” 

“Y-Yes sir,” Noah whined. “Please,” his voice broke slightly. He was even completely sure what he was begging for; he was already so far gone. 

“Please what, love?” Oli teased, trailing his tongue up Noah's neck to his pulse point. “Use your words.”

A whine sounded from Noah’s throat. “Need you,” his breath hitched. “Need you to take care of me.” 

“Yeah?” he cooed. “I’ll take good care of you, baby. But first, how about you put that pretty mouth on my cock? Make it nice and wet?”

Before Noah could even process that his body was moving, he was dropping to his knees. His trembling hands struggled to get Oli’s pants down. Oli looked down at Noah with a smirk as he quickly unfastened his own pants and took out his cock to help. Noah was nearly drooling as he took Oli’s cock into his eager mouth. Oli groaned at the feeling of his warm, wet mouth as he watched him take more and more. He threw his head back as Noah hollowed his cheeks around his length and traced his tongue around the underside of his cock. “Fuck,” he grunted. “Such a perfect mouth, pretty boy.” Noah moaned around his cock at the praise, causing vibrations to shoot through Oli. His hips bucked involuntarily and he heard Noah gag. Noah didn’t let it stop him, in fact, it motivated him more. Oli knew that if Noah kept this up, he’d be coming much sooner than he’d like to. 

Oli eased Noah’s mouth off of his cock before he could make him cum. “Stand up,” he demanded. Noah didn’t hesitate. Oli made quick work of getting Noah’s pants off. “Bend over and put your hands on the wall, love.” Again, Noah didn’t hesitate. He made sure to arch his back and push his ass out, eager to please and be taken care of. 

Oli groaned as he pulled Noah’s cheeks apart to see his fluttering, pink hole. He tapped the head of his spit soaked cock on Noah’s hole, reveling in the needy whimpers coming from him. He then began to rub the head along the puckering muscle, “Are you ready?” 

“Please,” Noah whined. “Need it. Fuck. Need you.” 

With that, Oli slowly began to push into Noah. He let out a long groan at the tightness around his cock, forcing himself to go slow so as to not hurt Noah, who was already trembling with his head dropped between his shoulders. Once Oli was fully inside, he stayed still for a moment, rubbing the soft skin of Noah’s ass. “You’re doing such a good job for me, sweet boy,” he breathed. “Let me know when you’re ready for me to move, yeah?”

Noah’s breathing was heavy and shaky as he whimpered out an incoherent response. About a minute passed before Noah started to beg. “P-Please, Oli. Please move.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled out almost completely before slamming back in, holding Noah’s hips with a death grip. Noah let out a series of high pitched, whiny moans as Oli fucked into him like it was the last thing he would ever do. “Taking me so well,” Oli grunted, punctuating each word with a deep thrust that had Noah trembling. Noah’s moans got increasingly loud and high, his hole was clenching and fluttering uncontrollably around Oli’s cock. “You gettin’ close, love?” Oli grunted. 

“Mhm,” Noah whined, nearly sobbing. “S’close.” 

“Stroke that pretty cock for me, love,” Oli instructed, not letting up on his pace. 

Noah took one hand off the wall and grabbed his weeping cock, shuddering as he began to jerk himself off. Not even a minute later, Noah was exploding into his hand, tears streaming down his face as he moaned. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you,” he sobbed, spurt after spurt of hot cum spilled onto his hand, the floor, and the wall. 

Noah’s orgasm immediately triggered Oli’s. He buried himself deep into Noah as he came with a grunt. He slowly pulled out once he came down from his high and helped Noah to stand. “You did such a good job, pretty boy,” Oli cooed, stroking Noah’s hair as he leaned into him. “Let’s go clean you up, yeah?” 

Noah nodded sleepily and allowed Oli to help him clean up. A small satisfied smile spread across Noah lips; the night went better than he could’ve ever hoped for.

#bad omens #bad omens smut #bring me the horizon #bring me the horizon smut #noah sebastian #noah sebastian smut #oli sykes #oli sykes smut #i kinda hate myself after this #and i will not promise y'all that this is any good #sinkingteethinwhitenoise #mdni

[slashingdisneypasta]

Spotify Wrapped Prompts !

Sorry it took me a week!! 😅 But here they are, for those of you who requested in the comments section ^^ (Those of you who requested in the ask box, I will answer you individually cuz its just easier ^^ )

Some are much longer then others. Some are just sentences. Its just whatever came to mind regarding to song! And no, I'm not giving you the song XD Just a line or two. If you wanna do sleuthing that's your prerogative but its mostly country and I know that's not everyone's cuppa tea 😅😅😅 Without further ado- here we go!

Included down below; Professor Ratigan (3), Judge Claude Frollo (6+7), Bill Sykes (13), Percival C McLeach (14), Wheezy Weasel (39), Hades (66) and Jafar (77).

3. Professor Ratigan Prompt 🎶'If you go down, I'm goin' down too'🎶

"You are my husband. If you go down, I go down with you. There are no if's and's or but's about it."

"My dear... That's not going to happen."

"I know- I know." Do you? You should, because he's so smart and you trust him, but still there's a nagging itch in the back of your mind telling you that one of these days one of these things is gonna fail. Taking a deep breath, you squeeze his hands in yours. "I just... want you to know."

With one of those dark and sinister smirks on his face, Ratigan gives you a kiss on the forehead; speaking lowly only to you. "Then we'll go down together, hmm? Two burial plots side-by-side~ "

6. Judge Claude Frollo Prompt (Fem Reader) 🎶'Jezebel, you're bound for Hell.'🎶

You're a woman who murdered her father's lover (You couldn't bear for your mothers heart to be broken) and find yourself under the judgment of one Judge Claude Frollo.

Will he send you to the gallows for your crime? Maybe not, if you keep flirting with him from across the courtroom.

Bat your eyelashes, Smirk those pretty lips, Make sure he gets a good look at your legs when you shift in your chair, do all these things in order to survive. Maybe you're only doing it to survive, maybe you actually like it. The way he looks at you.

7. Judge Claude Frollo Prompt 🎶 'Don't lie, I know you think about it in the back of your mind' 🎶

You're just a secretary in the office and the judge has made it quite clear what he wants from you. You refused him steadfast, of course, because you have dignity. And you're saving yourself.

But you cant stop thinking about it. What it might be like to say yes.

You know perfectly well that you shouldn't but with every day that goes by, your resolve grows thinner and thinner.

13. Bill Sykes Prompt 🎶'Thirty-one, waiting tables. She has They have a voice of an angel. Out of money and power. She only sings in the shower'🎶

You were working a dead-end job, living a dead-end unloved life until Bill Sykes walked into the diner you wait at. He walked in at the stroke of 4 in the afternoon, when you were supposed to leave- so, you weren't happy about it that day but had to go help him.

It was a curse at the time but now he has you singing at beautiful clubs and you have a penthouse and you don't have to wait anymore. People love you.

And yes he scares you sometimes- but the terrible man can be undone by your voice.

14. Percival C McLeach Prompt 🎶'I like em unavailable; guess that's just me.'🎶

You have a long history of going for the Wrong Guy. They're wrong because they're always taken already, a fact you only discover after the fact.

Now here's this guy- a rugged Australian guy from the middle of the outback. He's older and kindof uneducated and kind of brash but he always takes his hat off when he talks to you and opens doors for you, and... you're developing feelings for him.

He's completely not your type- you don't think he's ever dated before, and he definitely wouldn't have the sense of subtlety to pull off cheating. He wants you to be his one and only.

He thinks you're amazing. He thinks you're smart, funny, interesting, and beautiful. You feel kind of... greedy... finally having someone who just wants you.

But you're gonna make the jump. Whatever happens, happens. But at least this one truly wants you.

39. Wheezy Weasel Prompt 🎶'It's genius It's gonna be awfully rough on those children'🎶 This one's a little different! You got a Newsies Song, The Bottom Line (My favourite) so I- obviously- had to do something sticking with that theme XD

NewsiesAU!

Imagine you're in the position of Joseph Pulitzer's secretary (Hannah's character). You only got this job to be a help to the Toon Patrol (Wheezy, especially ^^). In this position you could easily sway the writing in the papers in the patrols favour, striking out any bad press. Yes, they would still get a bad reputation via word of mouth but it would be unofficial. Good notoriety in the papers would at least offer them some mystique.

This is hard enough on you. You hate deceiving people. You hate what the Toon Patrol do! But you love Wheezy, and you have to help him.

When Joseph bumps up the price of the papers, making life so so much more difficult for the newsies- the poor children, - to do their jobs and earn enough money to even feed themselves- you go home overwhelmed and in tears.

Wheezy's there to gather you in his arms and glare at Smartass when he sighs at you (How silly you are (Its just business)). He never wanted you to do this job! He never wanted you to be apart of this crap.

And now here you are sobbing because you're so stressed out and so sad- and- he's gotta get you out of this. He will get you out of this.

66. Hades Prompt 🎶'Dressed to kill'🎶

Imagine being a indebted servant to Hades along with Meg except you don't do a whole lot of the... communications work, that Meg does. So you don't have to look as nice all the time. You're often in the underworld with Hades helping him strategize and doing paperwork-type stuffs. You're closer with Hades then Meg is but it has never been a flirty thing, with you two. Just friendly. He's grown to actually like you- he's happy when you're around- you can calm him down when he's starting to lose his temper.

And honestly you like him, too. Despite the indenture. Somehow.

One day by some miracle Hades is in such a good mood, he lets you and Meg go for the day. You can do whatever you like but be back by sunset or he'll be pissed.

So you take the opportunity to wear something prettier then usual! Why not??

... When Hades sees you both leaving, that's when the penny finally drops.

He loves you.

How the hell did this happen!??-

77. Jafar Prompt (Fem Reader) 🎶'He don't know it 'cause I sure don't show it. When I kiss him goodbye and I wish him good luck'🎶

You try so hard to hide it; pretend like you're the perfect wife and you have no secrets. When you kiss your husband goodbye before you separate for the day, him going to the kitchens to work and you to laundry rooms, you look like the perfect young couple.

No one expects a thing.

Except you're truly being courted by a tall, dark, devastatingly handsome man you cant tell a soul about. And your husband, likewise, has a gentleman of his own to hide.

At night Jafar will meet you in the gardens where no one but the princess and the Sultan are allowed to roam, except they're asleep when you slip by. You're all his then and, truly, you're all his all the other hours in a day.

And he's all yours ^^

-But you cant tell a soul.

These are all Free to Use if you want ^^ Please tag me if you do use them! I so so wanna read them! ^^

Thank you so much for participating! ^^

#Spotify Wrapped Prompt Event #Spotify Wrapped x Reader #Spotify Wrapped x Fanfiction #Jafar x reader #Disney Jafar x reader #Hades x reader #Disney Hades x reader #Wheezy Weasel x reader #Percival C McLeach x reader #Bill Sykes x reader #Sykes x reader #Judge Claude Frollo x reader #Frollo x readeer #Professor Ratigan x reader

[octochick]

i think its time for me to come back to my origins:

shitty spiderbit villain isekai au

Cw suicide idealization? Kinda? Nothing too realistic or explicit but there is a little bit

First, there's Cellbit, the 'villain'

-Was tricked by Mike into watching shitty fantasy harem anime #1413 (Mike doesn't like this type of anime, but he does like to see Cellbit suffering)

-And suffer he did, he was almost pulling his hair out when the first episode ended, and really did it when the opening spoiled the little mystery there was in the show

-He went to sleep balding mad and woke up in the body of 5 years old Farael, the prince of Embersland Kingdom, brother of Bagriela whom he is fighting for the crown

-There's also this voice in his head telling him that he needs to follow the plot and shit and he's just like- what the fuck do you even mean by this, I wanna out, get me the fuck outta here

-'Follow the plot and it may be considered to send you back', it says, and Cellbit obviously argues with it because 'Don't fuck with me like that, get me out of here right now' and 'No sorry can't do', 'What I have to do to go back? Send me back right now' and it's this back and forth until the system is tired enough to just say 'Die by the hero's blade and we'll send you back' and Cellbit's like 'Ok fine'

-It's not really fine because it will take at least two decades before he will be able to be killed by the hero, but it's something more concrete than a simple possibility so he will take it

-So he starts preparing to be a villain, quite successfully if you may allow him. And the worst part is that he really ends up as a 'good' villain, winning the crown from Bagi, organizing an army, making evil plans full of twists and turns, neglecting the people, all in all he is a decent villain for a bellow average harem anime

-(Btw, there are some reason why a 'normal' person from the real world ends up being so good at being evil, that includes: he's already something of a freak, he thinks this is just a shitty harem anime, he never had any contact with other people that aren't nobility or servants except for a single instance. He really wants to go back, he thinks nothing in this world matters, and it's part of his bucket list so...)

And then there's Roier, the 'hero'

-He's just a peasant boy living in a frontier town, abandoned by his father, mother died during childbirth, raised by his old abuelo

-He does odd jobs around town and helps in the adventurers guild, going in a small quest here and there, nothing too big despite him being quite good with a sword

-That is, until Bagis busts into the guild asking for help to defeat her brother before he does even worse than he already did, of course for a handsome reward

-But everyone there knows how much of a tyrant King Farael is, and how they'll end up with their salted heads hung in the public square if they do anything against him so no one accepts it

-Roier comes in late, and Bagi begs for him to help her... he really doesn't want to, but money's tight and he really needs it because abuelo has been getting worse recently and there's not a lot else he can do (Saving the kingdom is just a bonus for him)

-And so they go out on this quest, they recruit some other people during the way (In the original anime they're all woman and part of his 'harem') and plan how to end King Farael's reign of terror once and for all

-Syke! Cellbit kidnaps Roier when they're near the capital and brings him to a 'dinner' to monologue to him about his evil plans (It's to motivate Roier to really kill him, he can't be imprisoned or exiled, he has to be killed)

-Anyways they get a little frisky and end up in a knife fight where Roier cuts Cellbit's mask in half and oh shit! This guy, tyrant King Farael is Roier's first crush! He knows he is, his blue eyes are the same as he remembers!

-The rescue party arrives at the castle and saves Roier, while he is slightly confused about the villain

-It's not even about the puppy crush he had on him, even if it did help him think about the situation from a slightly different angle, it's more like how his evil plan now sounds like a very elaborated suicide attempt

-Well, if this is what the villain wants, then he won't let him have it!

-Meanwhile Cellbit is surprised Roier remembers him, but is otherwise happy because he thinks now Roier has even more reasons to kill him

... and that's all I have until now

#qsmp #spiderbit #guapoduo #shirowritezs #im not one to beg but if you liked it please reblog it? or at the very least like it?

[makethatelevenrings]

I mean this with ZERO disrespect, I'm simply trying to educate myself on this matter because it impacts us all.

All I can find about the Israel-Palestine conflicts is the fighting. What I want to know is why.

Whats the backstory? Why are they fighting? Why is everyone persecuting one another and who in the government is responsible?

I heard Hamas bombed Gaza and has taken hostages. What brought on this violence? Do all the Palestinians agree with this?

(More personal opinion questions, you don't need to answer these)

Do you agree with Hamas? Do you think that violence was a last resort to free Palestine? Do you think it's justified?

One thing I do hate is people saying "I hate *this group of people*, they are bad." They can't all be bad. So I don't like the titles of Anti-Israel/Anti-Palestine because you're assuming everyone there is on the same side.

In conclusion, people are stupid. The government is messed up. Citizens and families want to live so why won't the government let them?

I’m genuinely grateful that you’re asking because educating ourselves is one of the greatest tools we have. I’ll break it up into sections.

1. What’s the backstory?

In 1918, the Ottoman Empire conceded land they controlled to Britain (this is still an ongoing problem regarding many, many things because the Ottoman Empire controlled many nations that weren’t theirs to control if you catch my drift. Look up the Elgin marbles for a fun wormhole of WTF Britain). The Arab Revolt was backed by France and Britain with the promise that if the Arab fighters could force the Ottomans out of the area of the Levant, they would be granted independence (McMahon-Hussein Correspondence) but, plot twist, France and the UK instead split the region (Sykes-Picot Agreement). The Balfour Declaration of 1917 expressed Britain’s support of the creation of Israel. After they gained control of the region, they established Israel and systematically began to take the land of Palestinians.

Note: Zionism began as a belief in the mid-18th century. Many, MANY Jewish people do not subscribe, encourage, or promote the idea of a Jewish state. I do not view Israel = Jewish because it is antisemitic to imply that the Jewish diaspora all exist under the state of Israel. Especially when many Jewish people disagree with Israel.

Note note: Zionism was created as a response to the numerous pogroms and other antisemitic hate crimes affecting Jewish people. the Holocaust was fucking awful. No ifs ands or buts. Genocide doesn’t justify genocide, however.

Continuing on. So, clearly, the Palestinians are pissed. They were promised independence and instead now have their land taken by a global superpower who has historically fucked over hundreds of countries (another wormhole for you: India under British rule, Ireland and literally all of its history with England, the transatlantic slave trade under Britain, Africa under British rule, Australia and the treatment of Aboriginals under British rule, America and the British, it goes on). Palestinians revolted from 1936-1939 because, again, their home and promise of independence was being stolen. They lost against the British army but then 1939 was a bit of an important year for everyone and they world was sucked into another world war.

With WWII saw the birth of the United Nations, an organization that might sound important but has the moral backbone with the equivalence of a chocolate eclair. The UN said “hey, why don’t we split Palestine and Israel into two different states so maybe they’ll stop fighting” (United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine) and, as a result, the 1948 Palestine-Israel war began. Hundreds died. 700k+ people were forced from Palestine and spread across the world in what is called the Nakba. Israeli colonizers quite literally moved into homes that had been occupied by Palestinians only days before. In 1918, the Jewish population of the region was 8.1%. In 1948, when Israel was recognized as a nation by the UN, the Jewish population of the region was 82.1%.

2. There’s plenty of infographics and videos explaining the next few decades but I’m already writing an essay basically so the gist is: Palestinians keep losing their homes and Israel keeps taking them. Israel forces the Palestinians into smaller and smaller parcels of land until the control virtually everything but a small strip of land (Gaza) and the West Bank. That brings us to 2006.

Hamas was elected in 2006 over rivaling Fatah, gaining majority amount of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council under the promise that they would help end the corruption many Palestinians were frustrated with. Instead they took military control over Gaza and established an autocratic state over millions of people who were already suffering under barbaric policies and practices from Israel. Politicians.

This is where things get a little…messy morally. Do I agree with Hamas? Fuck no. I couldn’t care less about Hamas because they don’t care about Palestinians. Do all Palestinians agree with Hamas? Firstly, you will rarely find a group of people where all agree with some. Secondly, I don’t think they appreciate being bombed by Israel while Hamas leaders chill somewhere else. The people of Palestine are the victims of Hamas and Israel.

Did some Palestinians celebrate Hamas’ actions? Yes. Do I think violence is a last resort? Yes and no. Do I think it’s justified? Yes and no.

Lemme expand on those last two points. I want to be an international human rights attorney someday. The loss of innocent life is always a fucking tragedy that I hope to help prevent or to bring justice for them. I understand violence. I understand why people are so angry. I understand the rage and grief Palestinians feel. 75 years of having their rights stripped away, their homes quite literally occupied, their land and culture chipped away piece by piece, and their children bombed and shot at.

“But how on earth can you think violence is justified if people get hurt!” The American Revolution was an act of violence that got numerous people killed yet you will rarely find someone who won’t justify it. Ukraine defending themselves against Russia wanting their land with no regard to how many Ukrainians they kill is considered justified.

People just seem to focus on the “violence is bad” aspect of things once POC are involved. Yeah, I said it. Americans tired of taxation, of British rule, and of not having their independence causes property damage, argues with soldiers in the streets, and starts a war is okay but when Palestinians do it, it’s a problem? When Black Americans ask to stop being brutalized by the police, it’s a problem? When Black South Africans ask to end an apartheid state, it’s a problem? When Central Americans ask for western nations to stop causing coups that destabilizes their nations, it’s a problem? I could go on.

Yeah, violence is bad. Violence is also the way that a lot of countries are where they are today. Violence is sometimes the only reason why things changed. Violence is enacted on the oppressed everyday yet people only seem to really care once the oppressed fight back.

3. I’m anti-Israel because I don’t agree with the government and the state of Israel. I don’t agree with their 75 years of violent oppression of Palestinians. I don’t agree with their current or past actions. I’m anti-Hamas. I think they’re a vacuous organization that is more focused on getting what they want than considering the consequences of innocent Palestinians.

I’m also really fucking furious at Joe Biden’s insistence that we send aid to Israel. We have given Israel $260 BILLION since 1948. BILLION. And yet we have people dying because they can’t afford healthcare. Students leaving school because they can’t afford tuition. We have 8 year olds in debt because they can’t afford school lunches. The unhoused population is growing rapidly due to the housing crisis. I can sense the unemployment rate creeping higher. I know many people who have lost their jobs this past month alone. We’re days away from another government shutdown and they can’t vote on a speaker.

American politicians would rather send Israel billions more to bomb innocent people than to feed their own citizens. That, in my opinion, is a sort of violence that can never be justified.

#honey.txt #sorry for the essay #but really not sorry #I took a whole class on the global south during the Cold War and it really opened my eyes #granted my specialization is Central America but plot twist #America has been at the center of fucking stuff up there too

[captainpoopweinersoldier]

Devil’s in the Details | Morpheus x POC!Reader

Summary: To avoid the clutches of criminal prosecution, you accept a security job at the Burgess mansion, thinking it will be an easy way to lay low for a while. That is, until you find out just what it is you're meant to be guarding.

Warnings: Enslavement; Gun violence; Blood/Injury

Words: 4.7K

Link to AO3

Tagging: @ursulaismymiddlename​ for CREATURE reasons and of course the title 💕 @salt-is-a-terrible-currency​

The grounds are as expansive as your employer suggested, if not more so as you take in the multiple acres of luscious greenery, if possible nearly shrouding the towering mansion that lies within. But its reputation precedes it, most notably what’s contained inside, and though you’ve heard rumors and speculations, that part still remains a mystery and is what had your interest piqued for the job offer to begin with. 

“Not your average climate?” Your tour guide asks as you admire the foyer. Mister Sykes is as expired as Roderick Burgess himself now. Instead, it's the head housekeeper that shows you about the manor. There’s noted staff who mill to and fro about the building, offering nothing but fleeting glances as you pass, never maintaining eye contact. 

You give the guide a pointed look with a tilt of your head, wondering just how much your employer has told them about you.

“City life was growing a little too hot,” you offer vaguely with a grin. 

“Yes,” the housekeeper agrees. “Yes, that’s precisely why we were fond of your referral. Seems a countryside retreat is most suitable.”

The response is equally vague, to which you have some appreciation. There were some several names for how you made a living, none of which substantial or clean enough to put on an actual resume. The skillset, however, was valuable to certain benefactors, one in particular who was ill inclined to let your talents go to waste in lockup. Instead, you were referred to the Burgess Estate. A security detail from what little information you were given, with housing and a substantial salary, was the perfect position for you to lie low for a while.

“A mutually benefiting relationship,” you say amicably. 

“One that requires the utmost discretion, I can assure you.”

“About that…” You prod carefully. Pleasantries aside, you are genuinely all too curious now. It was presumptuous enough to already provide you uniform, show you lodging, on top of the grand tour. But the subject itself has been carefully avoided, teetered around, and you still have no idea what it is you’re actually meant to be guarding. 

“If I may - what exactly is the product?” 

The housekeeper straightens, expression turning rigid, lips pursed. They fold their hands behind their back and give a single nod. 

“If you will -” And with a gesture down the hall, you quietly follow suit. Suddenly unable to ignore the ominous sense of foreboding that elicits static in your nerves.

~

You’re soon led down into the depths of the basement; a mildewy descent of masoned steps that at a moments’ glance - dank darkness, the stairwell itself gated - appears to seem nothing short of an actual dungeon.

The housekeeper fumbles with a handful of keys, the action off-putting when there are clear signs of life amid the torchlight landing. 

“Your partner is already on duty,” your guide mentions as if that’s the only cause for question. The gates open and they gesture to the left, where a workspace of desktop computers, haphazard magazines and takeaway coffee cups sprawl across a modern desk. “He goes by Hochler; we don’t encourage the use of real names, however we do insist on two monitors per shift.”

The words barely reach your ears. Sound itself dulled to a numbed muffle as you take in the sight before you. 

In perhaps the boldest choice of super-villainy you’ve ever witnessed with your own two eyes, there is an actual moat that sections apart the large domed room. At the very center, there’s an intricate circle drawn in patterns of gold and black symbols or runes. Above that, a massive glass orb is upraised, such craftsmanship you’d never seen before, but all these details mean absolutely nothing as you conceive the being caged within.

On display as he is, you can’t help but notice at once he is naked. A thin, muscular creature sat amid a tangle of his own limbs that can’t possibly be comfortable but his lithe figure is unmoving, perfectly still, with a head of black hair bowed over his lap, and skin so pale it practically absorbs all light with an angelic glow.

Your expression is noticed before you can school your features.

“Don’t be fooled, that is no man,” the housekeeper says sternly. Hochler - who you hadn’t even spared a glance toward yet - rises from his station, clad in an identical uniform, and adjusts his belt in greeting. 

“So it’s true,” you say, attempting desperately to appear nonchalant - unbothered by what you’re seeing. “I’d heard rumors about the Devil himself trapped in the Magus’ basement.” 

“No rumor,” Hochler pipes up, clearing his throat. “Take our eye off that thing for more than a moment, it could kill us all.”

While you flinch at the use of ‘thing’ and ‘it’, the supposed Devil in question doesn’t seem to acknowledge such talk of him. The way his body is twisted obscures his face, hiding any reaction he may or may not have had. 

“You understand what’s at stake now.”

“Yes.” Yet all you can dwell on is the pang of empathy that strikes at once inside your chest. The panicked mantra of what the fuck what the fuck that blares in your mind like a siren.

“And what action might be taken should you not fulfill your duties.”

Only then do you drag your gaze from the ethereal not-man, and fix your guide with a cold stare, knowing full well what they mean by the veiled threat.

“Yes.”

“Good. Your shift starts now.”

~

Under the guise of small talk, you attempted to gain some insight to the details surrounding this mystery figure. Hochler’s last partner - a man using the name ‘Bob’ - disappeared just a week and a half prior under mysterious circumstances. Hochler admitted to some of the house staff having claimed he ran off after robbing the Estate, others that he simply got tired of the country. 

And perhaps divulging too much, Hochler also added that there were those too spooked to speak on the matter at all. 

“You don’t think he tried to help hi- it. Do you?” 

Hochler scoffs and cracks open another energy drink. It’s been precisely one hour into your first shift.

“Na,” he gruffs. “Far as I know, no one’s ever dared. Not much to conspire with anyhow, that thing hasn’t ever spoken a word.”

“Never?”

“Never. Just sits with that blank stare day after day. Gives me the creeps if I’m being honest.” He leans back in his seat, makes busy work of clicking through the computer monitors displaying the camera feeds stationed throughout the manor and across the grounds. “Probably why no one’s tried it either. Too scared of what it might do.”

Your eyes drift toward him, still set in the very same position he was in upon your arrival. Regardless of physical form, it was clear he was no human; these conditions were so precisely inhumane that not one could survive them. But.. frightening? No. Even if he had powers beyond your imagination, there was not an ounce of fear you felt while looking at him. 

Only pity. And the urge to free him.

“Do you really think that he- it’s the-”

“Helpful hint,” Hochler interrupts. “They don’t take kindly to too many questions around here.” 

You watch him carefully, inspecting for signs of suspicion. But against the light of the computer monitors, his expression comes across as sincere, as if he does mean to be helpful. Though in this short time, you’ve just about deduced he’s more a monster in his complacency than the man in the globe could ever be. 

“Of course,” you reply. After a beat, you raise a brow and lean in close like you’re going to offer up a secret. “But I mean - aren’t you just curious?” You lower your voice to appear discreet. “My gran used to tell me they ran seances out of here. Charged a pretty coin per head just to witness all sorts of - incantations.. enchantments.”

“Eh, I don’t believe in all that fluff.” Hochler waves a dismissive hand, but you only press further.

“What’s that all about then?” You ask, gesturing at the enigma before you. “Don’t you want to know what it might do?” 

There is a weighted pause as Hochler stares back, and having no specific intention in mind you hope he considers doing something - taking any action that might suggest he’s not like the apparently fucking batshit insane generations of slavers both before him and at present.  

Instead, he laughs outright. An abrupt guffaw that startles you.

“Green as grass, you are.” He continues to laugh and pats you on the shoulder, much to your displeasure. “Tell you what. That thing takes one step out of that there cage -”

You nearly jump out of your seat this time as he suddenly wields a firearm. Inwardly, you curse at your own lack of observation; suppose that could have been a useful bit of information during the welcoming tour. Perhaps you were too new yet to be issued a weapon. 

“We’ll see how far it makes against this.” 

He reholsters the gun as you slump back in defeat. That’s one plan to toss in the bins; Hochler - whatever his real name - certainly offered no potential for collusion.

~

As the hours pass, you resort to the magazines in the airs of keeping occupied. While flipping the pages you inspect the area as minutely as you can. Of course the smart thing to do would be to scope out the estate for a few days, pin down the routines of staff, the security hired to man the opposite shifts. But each moment that passes makes your skin crawl the further, and you can’t imagine even a single nights’ sleep knowing what’s trapped down here. 

No. You’re not leaving without making at least a single attempt at escape. 

Hochler is little help. He barely leaves his spot; there’s even a mini fridge and a Keurig behind the desk area to keep from too many breaks. The only time he’s actually excused himself has been for the bathroom, so you commit to refilling his tea or setting another can of energy drink in front of him as soon as he tosses one out. 

You use your own bathroom break as an opportunity to see the layout upstairs once more. Estimate how much time you would need to make it up and out the front door. Wonder if the rest of the housekeeping staff was armed as well.

It would be helpful to know what this ‘Devil’ was capable of. Would he be too weak to run? Could he use his legs? Human or no, surely there’d be some sort of disability if he was stuck in there for as long as they claimed… 

“Christ, these are running right through me.” Hochler says suddenly. You peer over casually to see him shake his head at his cup of tea. “Think I need to ease up. Need the loo - stay put.”

You say nothing as he gets up and exits through the gate at the bottom of the stairs, unlocking, then locking the deadbolt. It’s never left unlocked, but that is the least of all obstacles for you.

The moment he’s retreated up the stairs, you sit upright and reach for the computer keyboard. Hochler is older - it’s no safe assumption that he’s not tech savvy, but the options are limited and this was the first thing you could think of that can grant a wider window of time than a trip to the bathroom.

Hitting a few keys and opening the device manager, you freeze the playback of the security cameras. 

“How fast can you get out of that thing once I break the binding circle?” 

If the encased figure has heard you, he makes no notion of it.

“Hey!” you hiss quietly, knowing your voice would echo among the stone pillars if you shout. Still, he doesn’t move, and it’s a sickening realization that the creature has likely been so tortured and resolved to such distrust that he’s stopped acknowledging humans altogether.

You rise from the chair and hurry to just around the desk - keeping close enough that you can hear if Hochler is to return - and call out to him again.

“Are you able to defend yourself?” You ask instead. “That one’s armed, I’m not - I’m not sure how much help I can be beyond the circle.” 

Silence. 

Before you can say anything else, the sound of footsteps scuffling down the stairwell signals you to hurry back to your chair behind the desk. A rush of adrenaline has your heart racing, but you ground yourself to remain steady and pull a magazine back onto your lap. 

“Getting dark out there already,” Hochler remarks as he assumes his seat next to you. You hum noncommittally in acknowledgement. 

“Did they go over meals with you on the tour? Housekeeping is quite good about the cooking. They’ll have supper made soon, but you can always bring your own food and they’ll heat it up for you. The wife sends me with mine, keep it in the fridge -”

The prattling has ebbed into white noise. 

Perhaps Hochler is so used to the lack of motion to take notice or be sensitive to any subtle change, but the encaged man has moved with the slightest turn of his head. You struggle not to react as the breath leaves your body and dark eyes meet yours. No - not dark. Pools of infinite black fixed with pupils of starlight.

You stare back transfixed, the weight of his gaze so dizzyingly heady it feels as if he reads your very thoughts. Each sharp angle of his face comes into full display, and you part your lips to say he’s beautiful -

Hochler snaps his fingers in your face as he calls your alias. “Hello - you all right?” 

Luckily he hasn’t noticed your train of sight or what has caused the fixation. You shake yourself with a forced laugh and rub the heels of your palms into your eye sockets. It won’t be helpful to either of you to sit there hypnotized. “Sorry, yeah I guess I am getting hungry. Haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

But it’s Hochler’s turn to be distracted. The fingers he snapped now dumbly flick at the computer screen. “What’s that about, eh?” 

“Hm?”

“It’s frozen, I think.” He taps the monitor again but the images from the camera feed obviously remain the same. “You lot are good with these things, aren’t you?”

You disguise your relieved sigh with an exasperated one; turns out that gamble resulted in your favor. You lean over him and press a few keys and move the mouse. Make it clear that it is strictly the camera feeds that are jammed as opposed to the computer itself by clicking through basic troubleshooting steps. 

“It’s the cameras,” you declare with a shake of your head. “The uh - there’s probably a modem or a router -”

“Got the wee ones to deal with that sort of stuff back home.”

Another assumption you made. You begin to sweat with anticipation. “Well it would likely be wherever they keep the cable box. Might be nothing, you could just try to reset it.” Hochler gives you a helpless look. “What?”

“Couldn’t you just…?”

“Green as grass, remember?” you sass with a grin. But when he pouts you sigh again, raising your palms to the ceiling. “Look, I barely know my way around here yet. As you said, they don’t like questions. I don’t want to be the new one poking about upstairs, that might send the wrong message.”

“Right.”

“It’ll just be a little black box, if there’s not a reset button there will be a little hole you can slip a pin into -”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll figure it out,” Hochler dismisses, scooting his chair back before coming to stand. “Just stay put, okay?”

“You got it. Give a shout if you need help.”

You doubt he’ll do that. At this point, he clearly doesn’t want to appear incompetent, but it’s also evident he’s such a stickler for rules that the thought of leaving this chamber unmanned is the last scenario he’ll let happen.

With a resounding clang of the gate shutting behind him, he’s gone.

“Okay, that’ll give us some time,” you say out loud, well aware the man is listening now.

You would risk your safety for me?

The rich, velvety voice reverberates in your mind in such a way that is equal parts disturbingly unnatural yet divine, and you can’t help but gasp at the oddly pleasant intrusion, stumbling as you climb to your feet.

He is at full alert now, you come to find. Perched on his haunches, both hands pressed to the glass before him as he watches you.

“I can’t do nothing,” you reply out loud; now is no time to sort out his abilities. You tear off the jacket of your uniform, dump your ID badge and security clearance. If you do make it off this property alive, there can be nothing to identify you at a glance from passerby, no indication as to where you’ve been. 

You snatch the keyboard again. It’s a bold move now, overriding the cameras with a manual shut off when the footage could help spot Hochler’s return. But there can be no recordings left behind  - no evidence of who or what this man is and how he’s been allowed to flee.

They will kill you.

“Yeah, well,” you let that hang in the hair unanswered for the moment. It’s not the first time your life has been in danger, and though fear most assuredly thrums in your veins now, it isn’t enough to keep from seeing this through. 

“If you haven’t noticed,” you spare another glance at him - nearly curse the distraction that is the mere alluring sight of him - then delete all footage of this day and uninstall the software. “My complexion sort of goes against whatever the fuck this is.”

There is no response to that and at this point it doesn’t matter. You’re moving too fast to dwell. 

Magic wasn’t a trade you’d list among your assets, but you’d seen plenty amid your shady exploits to understand the basics, and ironically the wicked moat would come in handy. You practically cross the floor in a sprint with an empty takeaway cup and fill it with the murky water that lies below.

Perhaps I could do worse to you than that.

For a second, you pause. Now on your knees, just on the outer rim of the circle with the cupful of water teetering in your trembling grasp. 

That was what everyone before you thought, wasn’t it? Or, more realistically, that’s how they rationalized this abomination. That this being captured in this opulent globe could cause nothing but death and destruction. 

And what if that were true?

You lift your gaze; he stands tall before you now. A sight so stunning to behold, that surely, they’d attempt to convince you it was just another method of his devilry.

You shrug off his test.

“I’d rather take my chances with you.”

A voice unlike the one in your mind - one that comes from behind in a shout of your alias cuts across the room as you dump the water on the circle. There’s a clanging - a sound of exploding metal followed by what feels akin to a bee sting in your shoulder that makes you wince and shudder.

“Hope you can move fast,” you tell your handsome spectre. A second sting hits closer to the lung this time, you can tell from the way it instantly feels harder to breathe. Blood spatters from the exit wound, spills into the water on the binding circle and with what strength you have left, you lather with both palms until clean stone all but glistens.

A third gunshot and the orb explodes; the shards practically sparkle like stardust in a cloud before your eyes, but you’re acutely aware you are collapsing and there is little else you can do to prevent it.

With one last fleeting glance up, you notice something other than the glitter of shattered glass. Something more soluble, that glints almost gold as consciousness slips away. It shimmers and swirls like a whirlwind, envelopes you wholly and soft before your body can strike with a thud against the stone. 

The final thing you see - or perhaps rapid blood loss is to blame - is the Devil free at last.

~

It’s nearly dawn when you wake up. Through thinly draped cottage windows you can see the faintest hint of the rising sun just barely peeking through the brush of treetops.

You made it out.

With a start, you sit upright atop an unfamiliar bed and pat your hands across your chest and shoulders. Most curiously, somehow you are completely unscathed. Though you vividly recall the gunshots, can still feel the pain and the warmth of blood -

You rise from the bed and scan your undershirt. At face value it is the very same you wore, but shouldn’t it be stained with blood? Torn from the shots themselves? You peek at the skin beneath and sure enough the flesh is clean and completely smooth, not a blemish left behind of the life threatening injuries you suffered.

“That’s impossible…” you murmur to yourself, then take a look about the bedroom. There’s little in it to identify exactly where you are; an empty wardrobe, a plain desk. The decor itself is rustic, homey even, with paisley decals on the wallpaper. But as you turn back around, you are faced with an alarming sight. 

Atop the bed lies your body still. An exact mirror image of yourself that in a moment of panic makes you glance down to make sure your limbs are still in fact there.

“Shit,” you snap, raising a shaky hand to your lips. “I died. I’m fucking de-”

“No,” a familiar voice says, and you nearly scream at the surprise only to find the mystery figure from the Burgess dungeon.

It is a palpable relief that pours through you at the sight of him, standing to full height outside of that damned orb, and you even manage to smile at seeing him clothed, even if he does seem out of place against the backdrop of paisley.

He’s donned in black from head to toe now. His pale, almost delicate figure somehow brims with an unknowable force within an elegant cloak of midnight. And his eyes, they’ve changed… No longer an infinite well, instead a piercing, humanly blue.

“I can assure you, you are still very much alive.” 

“Then how…?”

“This is just a dream.” 

It’s a small comfort further to actually hear him speak aloud, watch his lips move and part for that deep voice, still reverberant after the years of disuse. But the simple explanation does little to make sense of this predicament. 

“But I was shot. Twice at least by my count, and there’s not a mark on me.”

“Yes,” he concurs, and his expression turns into something that might be just as perplexed as your own. His brow furrows and he crosses the room, striding toward you in such a formidable manner that you could stumble back were it not for the way your feet are glued to the spot.

“I was confined to that cage for over a century and not a single mortal attempted what you did.” His gaze inspects you, drifting over your face and body. “Why? What makes you so special?”

“It’s like I said,” you tell him without skipping a beat, even if the one in your chest pounds heavy. “I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. No matter the cost.”

The haze in his eyes gives away his distrust, and for that you are truly sorry. 

“I am in your debt,” he says eventually, but you shake your head at once.

“No. No, you weren’t subjected to that just to owe me a favor.” 

If anything, he seems amused by this. “Well.. I did heal you.”

You light up at the admission. “Then please -” 

Without thinking, you close the distance between you and take his hand by way of thanks. The small gesture jars him. His head tilts back, and if it’s possible for a being such as himself, he appears startled, his gaze heavy on your conjoined hands, and it saddens you once more to think on how long it’s been since he last felt touch.

“Consider us even.”

“Very well.” 

He allows you to hold onto his hand a moment longer underneath his inspection. Then his thumb drifts across your knuckles before he bares your palm face up. Traces a line there before setting your hand down gently.

“I must take my leave of you. Time wasn’t the only thing that was stolen from me.”

“So this… this isn’t over for you yet then.” It’s barely a question and what little he gives away in his expression is answer enough. A certain darkness overcomes him, the shadows in your peripherals become more defined, and though his face has hovered a hair's breadth away from yours, it seems now that you must crane your neck to look up at him. 

But a thought does occur to you. 

“What about the people back there? The staff? And Hochler, that pri-”

“Unlike you, they are no longer among the living.”

You don’t blame him. You simply can’t after what he endured. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop the chill that quakes you. 

“And what of Alex Burgess?”

“He is sentenced to a fate far worse than that.”

You stare at him, mystified. “Who are you?”

The darkness begins to ebb, and this time you can’t be certain if it’s because of him or if the room gives in to morning light. He doesn’t smile, not outright. But you’d like to think the way he looks at you is with some version of just that.

“May we meet again.”

~

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream

Make him the cutest that I've ever seen

Give him two lips like roses and clover

You wake to reality and instinctually do as you did in the dream - frantically sit up and search for the signs of your injuries. But even still, what should have been a blood stained shirt, what should have been torn and gaping flesh remain unharmed, proof that you had in fact been truly healed.

Glancing about the room, you see it's unchanged as well. Down to the paisley patterned walls, chiffon curtains and bare furniture. All signs indicating that you’re in some sort of inn or bed and breakfast, somewhere likely located in the next village over from the Burgess grounds. The only apparent difference from the dream is this damned blaring radio - 

Don't have nobody to call my own

Please turn on your magic beam

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream

You shuffle across the bed to turn it off, giving pause at how the thing appears strangely out of place. A legitimate antique amid this modernized rusticity, down to the lacquered wood exterior and clunky dials. 

The silence is heavy once you’ve guessed the right knob to turn to switch it off, but it’s of the much needed kind. The estate may feel like days since passed, but it’s not been twenty four hours. There might be carnage left behind, and there was the small detail that you were meant to be lying low to begin with; corpses tend to send a very opposite message.

Unless, of course, the newly freed man has taken care of that as well. His capabilities were beyond your comprehension. And while now it’s clear his safety no longer needs to pose as your priority, you feel bound to him still, whether it be by circumstance or dreams or -

You stop, eyes slowly drifting back toward the radio. 

It could only be by pure chance that you wound up here at this exact moment, left in this very room by the spectre who healed you, who bid farewell in your dreams. You, a person with just a mere fraction of knowledge on the occult, but enough to now feel an itch in your brain that desperately needed scratching. Dumb luck, to be certain. And yet…

With a turn of a dial, you switch the radio back on.

So please turn on your magic beam

Mr. Sandman, bring us, please, please, please

Mr. Sandman, bring us a dream

#morpheus x reader #dream x reader #the sandman #tom sturridge #dream of the endless #my fic

[lady-october]

Pairing : Oli Sykes x Female Assistant

Genre : Romance, Smut (18+ Only)

Previous Chapters : One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve

Content : 18+, Smut, Angst, Choking, Power dynamics, Sadism/Masochism, Dom/Sub, Degradation, Praise kink, Risky locations, Themes of addiction & self harm.

Summary :

“Don’t you see what a dangerous game you’re playing? Why did you have to look so fucking delicious tonight, I couldn’t stop undressing you in my mind, thinking of all the twisted things I want to do to you.” She had only worked on the touring team for three weeks, but her mind had been hijacked by dirty thoughts of a man she barely even talked to. Sure, he was very attractive, but were there other reasons she was so uncontrollably drawn to him? This is a filthy story of pain, self discovery, and love.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 13:

Everything is so fucked

Chapter title is lyrics from "Teardrops"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If there was ever a time for the ground to open up beneath my feet and put me out of my misery, it would be now.

Suddenly it was like the band members were taking turns trying to charm me, coming up with any excuse to get my attention, with Mat – the drummer of the group – coming on the strongest by a longshot, having effectively gotten me alone within a couple of hours after getting back on the bus.

We were both down on our knees, rummaging through some luggage next to his bunk as the bus gently swayed from driving along the straight desert motorway. He proclaimed he’d lost his best pair of earplugs that was necessary for the night due to Lee’s obnoxious snoring, which in turn had resulted in a heated argument about who snores the most. Once that settled down he’d casually yelled after me to help him look for them as he was already stalking up the stairs.

I really wasn’t used to this type of attention from men. Besides Oli, I’d only been approached maybe a handful of times – and that includes the creep at last night's party. I always just assumed men didn’t find me too attractive, but now I’m starting to think that maybe it had more to do with how I presented myself to the world. Being as chronically shy as I am, I mostly tried to hide myself, attempting to get as little attention as possible with my wardrobe choices. But since joining the tour – since everything that happened with my ex, and since trying to get out of my shell a bit more, I’ve essentially worn less and less each week, revealing more of my body than I had ever done before.

I knew it had successfully gotten Oli’s attention, but it turns out the others had apparently enjoyed the view as well. And while I was actually quite flattered, I was having enough of a hard time juggling Oli and all the confusing things he was making me feel. The last thing I needed right now was Mat having me go on a wild goose chase for some earplugs I wasn’t sure were missing in the first place.

After a couple minutes looking through the luggage with him, I fished out the second pair of earplugs I’d found, “What about these?”

His eyes lit up, and the warmest smile I’d ever seen on him emerged on his face.

“Bloody brilliant, love. We’d be lost without you.” He said in a low voice, his eyes meeting mine as he took them off of me. I noticed the lust lingering there, despite it being very subdued. Much like Oli, it turns out Mat was also a charmer, just a completely different flavour. Where Oli was passionate and deep, like an ocean and its all-consuming and unpredictable waves, Mat carried an earthy warmth to him. He seemed solid, reliable, in a way that made you feel like you’d known him your whole life.

I gave him a bashful smile before I started packing his luggage back up, but the bus swayed unexpectedly and I fell straight into his lap with a yelp, knocking him into the bunk opposite us from the impact. I held onto him, trying to prevent us from sliding further down the walkway, but he immediately grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me off of him.

“Bloody hell, you alright?” He asked, looking genuinely worried while helping us both back onto our knees – as if falling on him could have somehow injured me, then removed his hands from me completely.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? I just knocked you over.” I said with a laugh.

He laughed, “I don’t want to be too forward with you, love.”

Realisation hit; he thought being so physically close to me, having touched me or accidentally felt my body against his, might have been inappropriate in some way – despite it not even having been his fault.

It was both endearing and ironic, considering he’d just made up losing his earplugs to get me alone. I couldn’t help but laugh as well.

“Not too forward? You’ve worked awfully hard to get me alone you know.”

My words slipped out of me before I had a chance to think about what I was saying – or how I was saying it. The flirtatious mood I’d just been in while texting Oli had clearly not worn off yet, and in combination with how relaxed I felt in Mat’s down to earth presence, I had let my guard down entirely, causing me to speak without my usual filter; causing me to sound incredibly flirty.

Panic set in as I saw Mat’s face shift to reveal more of the subdued lust that was emitting off of him, “That obvious, huh?”

Kicking myself mentally, I fumbled for words, not sure how to get myself out of the situation I had so foolishly put myself in. When I failed to produce a response, Mat pulled himself up, holding onto the top bunk as the bus continued to sway gently, then offered me a helping hand. Stunned, I simply took it and let him help me up. 

But to my surprise he didn’t let go of my hand once I was standing.

I swallowed, my panic growing further, having me contemplate awkwardly making a run for the stairs, but Mat spoke before my brain had a chance to get itself out of the stunlock.

“You like Meg Myers, right?”

Another wave of shock washed over me; my first day on the tour Mat had asked me what music I was into, I’d blurted out Meg Myers in a rush as I was busy attempting to check off everything on Liam’s tasklist. 

I couldn’t believe he remembered.

“Y-yes.” I answered, as it was the only response I could find while my fingers still rested in Mat’s warm and calloused hand.

“Well I know tomorrow’s schedule is unusually chaotic, but we’ve planned to spend some time with the opening bands after the gig. Just backstage of course, so about as informal as it gets,” He started, his sunny smile reappearing on his lips, this time laced with a suggestiveness that made me feel a blush creep up my face, “Would be lovely to spend some time with you then… Cause I gave Meg Myers a listen and I have to say I’m really enjoying what I’ve heard so far, both lyrically and musically she’s pretty impressive. Maybe we could talk about other music you like, or just get to know each other a little better in general.”

As he watched me with questioning eyes, having essentially just asked me out on a date, I was struggling to not visibly hyperventilate. Not only was I the reason he didn’t know what was going on between me and Oli, but I had also just unintentionally led him on by very obviously flirting with him.

It felt incredibly cruel to turn him down now, but I knew I had to.

I opened my mouth to speak, to let him down as gently as I possibly could, but he brought my hand up to his lips and gave it a chaste kiss, “I’ll save a seat next to me, love.”

Throwing me one last smile, he let go of my hand and began taking strides towards the stairs. I wanted to tell him to stop, to let him know I wasn’t up for anything he was suggesting, but he had disappeared before my tangled mind had sorted itself out.

Shit.

I was left standing in front of Mat’s open luggage, wondering how today had turned itself so completely upside down, so very quickly.

Trying not to cry out of frustration, I put away Mat’s luggage in a rush and started descending the stairs. 

I couldn’t even make eye contact with Oli as I made a bee-line for the front of the bus; I decided that it was best if I spent the rest of the evening up front with Liam, where, hopefully, no one else would attempt to ask me out on a date.

As soon as I collapsed into the seat next to him he flooded me with apologies,

“Listen, Alice. I’m so sorry for asking about the nap thing at the diner, I had no clue it would spark such questions, but it was entirely too risky of me regardless.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault – they apparently already knew.” I said, feeling a nearly hysterical laughter trying to push its way up my throat.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Oh and Mat just asked me on a date.”

“What!?” Liam’s eyes went wide as saucers.

As I filled him in on all the details I was struck with such an overwhelming sense of dread that for a short moment I considered simply quitting this job and flying back home to England on the next available flight. The thought of spiralling down into suicidal misery and rotting in bed all day somehow felt more appealing than the prospect of these lies and broken hearts.

But as soon as I finished talking, Liam said something that snapped me out of it enough to at least consider my options further before throwing in the towel on the mess I’d created.

“Fucking hell, Alice... At least your life isn’t boring.”

While he had said it with pity in his heart, I couldn’t help but feel some hope. Because while my life was a complete disaster at the moment, I had, at the very least, managed to break free from the zombie-like state I’d been trapped in for the past 11 years.

When Liam parked up for the night I waited up front until everyone had gone upstairs. It wasn’t until the noises died down that I readied myself for bed and gingerly made my way up the steps to the second floor.

As soon as I pulled the privacy curtain on my bunk shut, I picked up my phone, knowing I had to fill Oli in on the events.

“Alice: Mat asked me to hangout with him tomorrow after the concert.”

I cringed as I had intentionally avoided the word ‘date’, but I knew the same point still came across. 

His response came quickly.

“Oli: What did you say?”

“Alice: He didn’t give me a chance to respond.”

“Oli: Are you interested in him?”

Another quick response, followed up by an immediate reminder of the deal we struck earlier.

“Oli: Remember, no lying.”

His question made me feel uneasy, because the truth is someone like Mat used to be the exact type of guy I would find attractive. I would easily get crushes on guys that were charming in similar ways, or came across as laid back and down to earth. It didn’t help that he was the spitting image of a guy I used to have a work crush a couple of years ago. 

It also didn’t help that he reminded me a fair bit of my ex. Or at least who he was in the beginning of our relationship, before things started to go down hill – before he changed. So I can’t help but feel like I could have enjoyed spending time with Mat, if it wasn’t for a certain someone who had taken me by storm, making me question what my type is at all anymore.

I took a deep breath, trying to think of a way to respond while both being honest, and trying to cause as little unnecessary jealousy as possible.

“Alice: I’m not sure he’s my type anymore.”

There was a longer pause between responses this time, causing me to tense up.

“Oli: Is your type by any chance a 3.8, singer from Sheffield?”

The tension left my body. Despite the knot in my stomach feeling like I was leading him on, some light-hearted flirting was a nice change of pace to our previously serious conversation. Plus it was hard to fight the urge to flirt with him, it just came so naturally.

“Alice: You know you’re a 10.”

“Oli: Is that so? We should go together perfectly then.”

I internally kicked myself as I felt the panic starting to grow again. It was just light-hearted flirting after all – something I had welcomed with open arms, and so willingly joined in on just a second ago. Yet the overwhelming sense of pressure I felt at his words was undeniable.

I knew I had to take some time to search within myself, to at least attempt to organise the chaos inside me and figure out what I need to do going forward with Oli. So I shoved the phone under my pillow, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.

Some time passed as I tried to centre myself, and the sounds of soft snoring could be heard all around me alongside the wind from the outside. 

As I laid there trying to imagine different outcomes with Oli, and how they all made me feel, I continuously felt myself reaching for the mark on my wrist that he had so lovely kissed earlier today. The more times it happened, the more pressure was building inside me. I could feel a lump grow in my throat filled with trapped emotions that I didn’t know how to draw out without falling apart.

A vibration sounded from beneath my pillow.

“Oli: Night, love.”

It was such a short message, nothing special at all really, yet the emotions that rushed through my body at the sight of it left me with an intense urge to have him here with me in my bunk, holding me as I slept.

I have feelings for him.

My heart began to race at the thought. I didn’t want to allow myself to slip back into panic and run away from my emotions again, instead I gently touched the idea, allowing myself to warm up to the thought, knowing I don’t have time to run away anymore.

But all I could feel was deep, deep discomfort.

Sure, I was terrified, but it was more than that. Something a lot larger and complicated that yanked me in so many different directions I thought my limbs would be torn straight off. 

Oli had stirred up so much in me, made me question things about myself, but there was one thing he had instilled in me with complete certainty; there are islands of undiscovered territory within my mind, soul, and heart – I feel incomplete, floating somewhere in the void, not quite tangible or actualized.

Should I really be with anyone at all when I understand this little about myself?

The thought of pursuing something – anything beyond what we were currently doing, made me feel a similar dread to the notion of never talking to him again. So what do you even do with that knowledge? How am I supposed to do anything but suspend myself in this state forever, to simply let myself enjoy him as long as I could before reaching whatever breaking point that was necessary to push me out of it.

I felt the sting of unshed tears behind my eyes.

I have feelings for him.

The shaking took hold of me as the floodgates opened involuntarily, sobbing as quietly as I could, hoping the sounds around me would drown me out as I wept, and I wouldn’t wake anyone.

Another vibration.

“Oli: Do you want me to come lay with you?”

I couldn’t help it, the tears came stronger at his thoughtful message, causing more shaking, and more subtle sounds to escape me. 

I guess I hadn’t been as quiet as I’d hoped.

Suddenly I could hear the rustle of fabrics, and the subtle sounds of footsteps coming towards me. Then the curtain of my bunk was silently, ever so gently, pulled back to reveal the silhouette of a kneeling man, the man I apparently had feelings for, only the moonlight spilling in from the skylight letting me see hints of his sympathetic features. Wordlessly he leaned in, reaching out to wipe away some of my tears, caressing my cheek with such tenderness it threatened to unleash the restraints I had put on my crying, and made the lump in my throat grow infinitely more painful as I had to work overtime to push it down. Regardless of the pain, I couldn’t help but lean into his caress, the gesture filling me with such comfort despite coming from the reason I was crying in the first place.

My acceptance of his touch was all it took, he gestured for me to move over so he could slip in next to me. As soon as I did he carefully nestled me into his chest, holding me tight as I silently wept into his t-shirt in the cramped space of the bunk.

The longer I bathed in his scent, in his warmth, and the comforting sound of his steady heartbeat beneath my head, the more consumed with guilt I became.

I felt horrible for accepting his comfort. It wasn’t right, not with the realisations I just had.

One of the hands that had been holding onto me, let go in order to pull the curtain shut, making it seem like he intended to stay.

“You shouldn’t sleep here.” I whispered as softly as I could.

“I won’t. I’ll leave in a bit.” He replied, the whisper barely audible, his breath tickling the hair on top of my head.

The tears continued to stream from my eyes, soaking his shirt. I should tell him to leave now, I shouldn’t allow myself to steal this moment. But my heart wanted him to stay so desperately I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of him.

All I could do was apologise.

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond, he just held me tighter, causing me to feel both infinitely better and worse all at once. I was so fed up with crying, I’d been crying more the past week than I had in years.

Some time passed and my tears finally came to a stop. I was so worn out from all the emotions, from all the guilt, that I just let myself relish the sensation of his hands on me, caressing me slowly, holding me close. How his body so effortlessly, so perfectly moulded to mine... I didn’t want the night to end.

But all things come to an end.

I must have nodded off, because before I knew it I was startled awake by the source of my comfort moving; Oli had opened the curtain and was attempting to untangle himself from me.

Without thinking I grabbed for him, not wanting him to leave, not wanting the emptiness to replace him.

My vision must have adjusted to the darkness because I could make out his features so much clearer now. He wore a similar expression to the one that had caused me to run away in fear in the storage room that night in the arena; filled to the brim with deep sadness and longing – an expression that clearly only surfaced when shrouded in darkness.

But I felt no fear this time.

“Stay.” I mouthed against my better judgement.

The confusion on him was obvious.

He studied my face for a long, thoughtful moment, then shook his head. I was hit with a pang of disappointment, but I wasn’t about to push him, especially when I didn’t know his reasons for wanting to leave. He gave my forehead a soft kiss, then slipped away.

The emptiness that followed was as hollow and cold as I’d expected it to be, leaving my night full of broken sleep and anxious thoughts of tomorrow.

... Subscribe to the story on Ao3 for future updates

#oli sykes fic #oli sykes smut #oli sykes #bring me the horizon #oliver sykes #oli sykes fan fiction #smut #oli sykes x reader

[mando-abs]

Okay, so my sibling and I were watching videos and came across one asking “what is the craziest, most out of pocket cameo you’ve seen in a movie?” I gave it some thought and I must tell you of one of the greatest throwaway jokes you’ve never heard of.

And it’s in the 1999 Inspector Gadget movie.

Inspector fucking Gadget

After the movie’s villain Dr. Claw is arrested, his henchman Sykes tries to make an identity for himself outside of being henchman. To heal from his trauma, he joins a Minion Recovery Group. And who is Skyes giving a speech to?

Former henchmen

Now there are only two legit celebrity cameos here. One being Mr. T (front second from the left, known from the A*TEAM) and Richard Keil (front third from the left, known from James Bond as Jaws). But!!!! There are 6 more minion character cameos in frame.

(This is observed left to right from our POV.) Oddjob from James Bond (front far left), Tattoo from Fantasy Island (front far right), Kato from The Green Hornet (middle far left), Igor from Frankenstein (dead middle), edit: Cato from The Pink Panther (middle right), and Tonto from The Lone Ranger (middle far right). Granted, I don’t know all of these medias nor how they hold up over the test of time. But ask your parents and grandparents about them

But that’s not even the kicker. Nooooo no no.

This scene was a 15 second end credit scene.

All of this set up and two celebrity cameos…for 15 seconds…in the credits….Crazy. And I’m not even mentioning the other end credit cameo. What’s arguably even funnier is how they were credited (sorry for its blurriness but granted it’s a bit older)

So just remember when you’re watching Marvel’s famous (or infamous depending on who you ask) end credits scenes, Inspector Gadget not only did it first but also did it better.

Oh yeah, and Inspector Gadget was the first movie to have All Star by Smash Mouth among its soundtrack, not Shrek……OK BYEEEEEEE

#Shrek did solidify and memeify the song tho #and it made more sense in shrek than this movie #but that’s the kind of chaotic stupid weirdness this movie has #and I loved it for that #also I’m not saying inspector gadget did end credits scenes first in general #just before marvel #who popularized end credit scenes #inspector gadget

[mandareeboo]

Velma Review, Episode 1: "Pilot"

Frustrated by a lack of proper, unbiased review, I thought I'd give it a whirl. I want to start this off with my mission statement with this show: Velma isn't a good show. I'd say it's rather mid. But I want to treat this as its own beast- I'm tired of people who would rather compare this show to other Scooby Doo shows and movies. Each is unique, and each should be judged individually.

As such, I wanna give this the proper review status, with things like a Synopsis, Character Introduction, Fun Tidbits, and a final review out of ten points. Basically, this bitch is gonna be long, so get ready.

SYNOPSIS

We open on a monologue by Velma (voiced by Mindy Kaling) explaining that this series is telling the story of how she recruited the mystery solving gang while getting ready for school. It's implied that she wants to tell said tale because she's tired of people assuming it was Fred who began the group.

"Yeah, it was me! Not Fred and his weird sex van. This is my story, told my way. And it starts with a murder, bitch."

Cutting to the school locker room, we see Daphne (voiced by Constance Wu) and some other girls getting ready to shower. The team casually discuss how pilot episodes tend to have more nudity and sex than the rest of the series and how they don't like it. One of the girls, Krista, disagrees and causes an argument with Daphne, claiming that Daphne's favorite part of the Riverdale pilot was Betty and Veronica kissing. Daphne claims that it was "because it was immediately called out as tired in the scene!"

Velma enters with a hoodie and a cane, knocking Daphne out of the showers. She demands to know her opinions on race-point casting in a creepy, distorted voice (callout to Mystery Incorporated?). Daphne gives a very complicated but overall positive response that seems to impress Velma, who pulls off her mask.

"Velma! What the hell, you almost killed me!" "Guess I didn't try hard enough." "See? Now, if this was a show, it'd be super hot if you two kissed." "Krista, if this was a show, you'd be killed off for being horny."

Velma opens her locker to reveal Brenda, the first victim of the serial killer. Though at first assumed to be a prank, Brenda falls out of the locker. Her head opens up to reveal her brain has been removed.

It being her locker, and Velma being pretty damn suspect as it is, she's quickly carted off to questioning. Velma begins to hallucinate as a withered hand digs into her shoulder, demanding to know who killed Brenda. She's shocked out of it by Donna and Linda (voiced by Jane Lynch and Wanda Sykes, respectively) who are the town's local police officers as well as Daphne's mothers.

We soon find out two things. 1.) Donna and Linda, while nice people, are shit detectives, and 2.) Velma's mother, Diya, has been missing for two years.

Donna and Linda lament that they miss seeing Velma around their home, despite Velma's bitter attitude and rudeness. Velma blames Daphne for their friendship falling apart, stating that, "Daphne got hot and ditched me."

The detectives ask Velma for help, stating that they're fully aware that they aren't the best at this. Velma refuses. Donna and Linda tell her that she's likely to go to prison if she doesn't, then leave after telling her they miss having her around and to say hi to her father and mother- who, again, is missing.

"I could kill them all!... Okay, I see how this looks bad."

Velma runs into Fred (voiced by Glenn Howerton) and Daphne outside of the police station. Daphne is breaking the news of Brenda's death to him, and very clearly states she believes Velma committed the murder.

Velma tries to argue her innocence, but falls into another hallucination.

Returning home, Velma complains about her predicament to her father, Aman (voiced by Russell Peters), who is quick to point out that her suspicious behavior at school is likely why she's to blame.

Aman is a lawyer, and has recently started up a relationship with Sophie, the owner of a local malt shop. He's done this despite still technically being married to Diya, which has caused a lot of contention in the family. It doesn't help matters that Sophie is pregnant.

"Well, I have to go prepare myself for prison. Not that you care."

Sophie's gotten Velma a job at her malt shop, seemingly out of the kindness of her heart, as she shows no upset when Velma is visibly repulsed and storms out.

Brenda's friends hold a sort of eulogy at the malt shop. While it's unclear what Brenda was like outside of school, we're given the vibe that she was a kind person who was well-liked among her peers. "My Pony" by Ginuwine is sung in her honor.

Daphne once again blames Velma for the murder, waving around the evidence folder Donna and Linda had brought to the interrogation. Velma leaves in a huff.

Starting to hallucinate once again, Velma bangs on the door, only to be interrupted by Fred. Fred explains that he's trying to "man up" to gain the respect of his abusive father, and he'd fled his home to cry alone. Velma, emboldened by his honesty, begins to tell the tale of her own mother.

Diya Dinkley, according to Velma, was a mystery writer. She would give Velma little mysteries to solve in order to keep her out of her hair. We soon begin to realize that Diya was likely not as wholesome as Velma seems to recall, as her "mysteries" were things like Velma finding her smoking or bringing her more whiskey.

After finding her Christmas presents early, Diya supposedly went to the store to grab her something fresh to unwrap. She never returned. Her car was later found with her glasses and a gift inside. Velma blames herself for her mother's disappearance, and has begun having hallucinations out of what she has diagnosed as guilt rather than unchecked mental illness. (Yes, I know, we'll get to that later)

Shaggy (voiced by Sam Richardson) appears, causing Fred to flee out of social pressure. He claims to know who the killer is. Then, once they're together, he admits he doesn't, but he knows how they can figure it out.

Norville runs the school paper. He explains that he'd been running a little investigation into the malt shop Sophie owns, as he felt it might be a drug front. He assigned Brenda to the job. Brenda stated she caught something strange on camera, but never extrapolated as to what. Now she's dead, and the camera- an expensive piece of equipment, as Norville keeps insisting- has gone missing. Velma suddenly recalls that Sophie just got a new camera.

"If I find your camera on Sophie, I'd solve Brenda's murder and send Sophie to jail. It's a win-win!"

"Or, maybe we could find the camera... together?"

The camera, of course, is a dud. Aman admits that Sophie takes pictures of other peoples' babies for extra cash, hence the new camera. It's a work item.

As Velma tries to ask deeper into things, the hallucinations start up again, worse than ever before. She ends up convulsing on the ground and is implied to have almost died. Aman is more worried about the camera. Sophie, recognizing her distress, pounds on her chest and manages to bring her out of it.

Aman apologizes, implying that he'd never believed her about said hallucinations before- an ongoing problem for two years now, completely unchecked. He also tries to remind Velma that Diya didn't disappear. She left them.

We then see the same flashbacks, but from a wildly different perspective. She found Diya smoking and accidentally sent the cigarette into her eye. She brought the whiskey but, curious, had some, leading her to break the laptop and the bottle. Her drawings were across important pages of her newest book. Velma throws out her unwrapped present and goes inside.

This tells us exactly one thing: Velma's perceptions of the past cannot be trusted in any circumstance, even now.

Velma tries to push away lingering suspicion by coming into school the next day looking "free of any guilt". It goes well at first, but she's eventually called out and pelted with various foods and insults.

Fred, inspired by her backstory, steps forward and commands the popular kids to chill the fuck out. He makes a piss-poor speech about how, even though Velma is a bit odd, she's not someone capable of murder. Everyone eventually agrees, bolstered by Fred.

Daphne corners Velma in the bathroom, accusing her of trying to steal Fred's attention. Velma denies this, though admits she wouldn't pass on a nude of him.

"Fred? Naked? Hilarious. We've been dating for a year and he still won't take his pants off."

"A year?... Is he gay?"

"I've haven't heard that rumor."

After being told Fred kicks everyone out of the bathroom at the malt shop to pee, Velma drags Shaggy off to visit his house. Shaggy questions the validity of Fred murdering Brenda for something as small as an accidental dick pic, but Velma shrugs it off.

Velma breaks into Fred's house and starts to hallucinate, something she assumed would stop now that her guilt about Diya's vanishing has gone down. Shaggy is on the phone with her as she struggles not to have a heart attack.

Shaggy reveals he has romantic feelings towards Velma after she claims no one likes her. Velma assumes this is a joke.

"What? No you don't. You're like a brother to me. That's hilarious."

The humor keeps her mind off things long enough to have the hallucinations die down a little, and she gets to work. She quickly locates Brenda's camera but finds nothing but various teens hooking up.

Fred appears from the shower, explaining that Brenda also photographed his legs.

Fred explains that he has yet to go through puberty. It's a deep embarrassment to his family, and they've gone to great lengths to hide such a thing. Brenda having a photo showing said lack of growth could very well have made him the laughingstock.

"It's okay! I'm just gonna do to you what I did to Brenda."

Fred reaches into his robe, but before he can finish his thought he's shot in both legs by Donna and Linda. They'd popped by when they saw Norville's car parked outside and heard everything.

They arrest Fred, who seems to be baffled. He seems genuinely hurt that Velma assumed he was going to kill her. He'd been pulling out a pocket book- to pay her off.

Shaggy and Velma talk on the walk home. Norville asks why she's still hallucinating if she no longer feels any guilt, and Velma replies that she does, deep down. She doesn't believe Diya would just leave her, no matter how frustrating she was a child.

Spotting roaches crawling on a recycling bin, Norville opens the lid to find Krista's corpse. She's also lacking a brain. The episode ends.

CHARACTER INTRODUCTIONS

We meet a whole slew of characters this episode. As such, it feels important to make a little blurb on each of them. This will be long, but it shouldn't ever be this long again. Swings and Roundabouts.

Velma Dinkley is around 14-18. It's not been made clear exactly how old she is. She's moody, judgmental, and suffering from unchecked mental illness.

Velma's mental illness is both an important context to the show, but also a strangely gaping problem. No one believed Velma about her hallucinations until recently (except for Norville and Sophie). Her own father dismissed them for two years and shows no signs of trying to get her help when he finally does believe her.

They almost kill her twice in one episode and yet no one around her seems to think it wise to call a doctor or see about avoidance strategies. Her lack of assistance has led to an inflated lone wolf complex, where she honestly thinks she has to do this herself and no one can help her.

Velma has psychosis. She's at the right age to start seeing mental issues crop up in her life, and this is around the time when people start noticing signs of this issue. Yet no one has even considered getting her mental help, or a therapist, or- I dunno, at least looking up ways to help her through the delusions? She's been left to rot with hands crawling under her skin.

Daphne Blake, same age as Velma. Intelligent, meticulous, and a bit petty. Her spite with Velma runs deep, and it causes her to lash out at the girl quite often. That said, it seems she misses Velma more than she lets on- her constant badgering of Velma never seems to cross the line, and their back and forth is honestly the best joke in the episode.

Shaggy Rodgers. Going by his birth name in this show, Norville is a reporter, an anti-drug activist, and potential long-time friend of Velma with a crush. Though a bit clingy, it comes across more as just general ditziness than anything malicious. Their friendship is mostly one-sided, with Velma using him for rides or math homework, and Norville seems to realize that, though he never sticks up for himself.

Fred Jones. Rich, entitled, and a literal man-child, Fred is both surprisingly kind and EXTREMELY rude mixed into one package. It's clear that his family's abuse has run deep in him, and they've allowed him to basically be a giant baby. No one's ever given him a slap on the face to wake him up. But once he gets to know Velma, he goes out of his way to defend her, and seems more surprised than angry when Velma assumes him guilty of the murder.

I do see some form of arc coming with Fred. It's clear he wants to be better, be "the man" his father wants, and I think eventually it will culminate into... something. I'm not saying the arc will be well-written, but I am expecting something from the hints they've dropped.

Aman and Sophie. Sophie feels younger than Aman to me? Not by, like, a lot, but her mishandled hashtags and wine shirts give me "out of touch 30s-40s" vibes, and Aman reads as like. Late 40s, early 50s?

Regardless, it's clear that Sophie (though a bit ditzy and sometimes even insulting to Velma) is the one doing the heavy lifting in the parenting department. She tries to get Velma a job but doesn't have a fit when she quits. She recognizes her hallucinations and is quick to act. She's not upset when Velma coughs on her while regaining her breath. It feels less like her trying to be a mom and more like a weird, somewhat supportive older sister dynamic.

Aman, meanwhile, is focused on his work. As a lawyer, he has long hours and a lot of shit on his plate. He's basically ignored Velma entirely, giving her no assistance when the cops threaten her with jail time. When Diya left that night to get gifts, he "reminds" her to get him something too.

Donna and Linda seem like cool wine aunts to Velma, and though they're terrible police officers it's clear they're good mothers. Not much to say on them, really, besides the fact they shoot Fred in his legs which was some level of brutality when Fred was weak enough for a tackle or taser.

Diya is both a character in this episode and not, but she's important to the plot. Velma's memories of her are clearly skewed- at the beginning it's glorification, then it's demonization, then it wraps around into some form of both.

I want to be clear that the show itself is clearly implying that Diya DID vanish. If she was leaving Aman than why the found car? Why leave her glasses behind? It wouldn't be difficult to crash on a friend's couch and start the divorce paperwork. For all of Aman's iffy traits, there's nothing implying abusive tendencies that would make her feel the need to flee. Something did happen to Diya.

But, while I agree with Velma's perspective on the case, I want to remind that Velma's perceptions are clearly VERY flawed. We really don't know Diya Dinkley. Psychosis has a habit of affecting memory and the process of new information, and it's very likely that those two combined has altered her ability to explain her mother's character to us, the audience.

Here's what we actually know about Diya: she was a mystery novelist. She drank and smoked. She left an unopened gift box and her glasses in the car. The car was stashed in some bushes.

Something did happen to Diya, but her character, her reasons, and her nature are completely null and void to us as an audience. We can't trust Diya as a person. We can't trust much of anything told to us about her from Velma or Aman, as he clearly is living in denial. It's hard to say where that will lead us from here.

FUN TIDBITS

We have no active proof that the popular girls have ever bullied Velma. The only photos we saw are of Velma spilling ice cream and people laughing about it. They said nothing during the bathroom scene, and none of them mock Velma when she gives her input.

One of the books on Velma's shelf is "SCUBA: Do's and Don't's"- maybe she dives on weekends?

Crystal Cove is the name of the town, originally from Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated.

Velma was labelled "Most Revengey" in the school yearbook.

Also, since the glasses were originally Diya's, has she been wearing a prescription she doesn't need for two years?

That damn gift still hasn't been opened and it feels like it should've been taken as evidence by now

FINAL REVIEW

Velma's pilot is... bumpy. Rough. Kind of a dumpster fire, honestly. But if you can ignore the self-referential humor, it's actually not as bad as other stuff I've watched. The animation is solid- especially the hallucinations- so shoutout to the team for doing good work with an iffy script. The voice acting is really good minus a few hiccups, but usually only on phrases that I can't imagine saying with a straight face either. The plot isn't exactly inspired, but I am curious to see where they're going to take it, and who will be unmasked as the serial killer. Also, to find out what the fuck they're doing with those brains. Trophies? Gross.

Score: 4/10, not the best but could be WAAAAAAYYY worse.

#Velma #Velma 2023 #Velma Spoilers #(does anyone care about spoilers for this show? Likely not) #Velma Dinkley #Daphne Blake #Fred Jones #Shaggy Rodgers #Manda Reviews #Wow that's a new tag for me #Anyway thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[phoenixyfriend]

the state of israel MUST be dismantled for a free palestine. jews existed and lived in ME before the existence of Israel, and jews will continue to live in ME but Israel as a state has to go. israel didnt bring the jews to ME.

See... the whole "Jews will continue to live" thing is what I'm not so sure of.

I understand where people are coming from when they talk about how Israel as a nation-state must be dismantled. It was established by outside forces, maintained by those outside forces, and has in past decades engaged in some truly heinous behavior.

However, that behavior was enacted by the government, which is not all of Israel, nor even all of the Jews in Israel. That government's behavior also reflects on those people of Israel, and any revenge against the government--which is likely if dismantled--is likely to land on the shoulders of the people of Israel who may not have anything to do with it.

There are pacifists and children in Israel, just as there are in Palestine. There are people protesting the conflict in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Over half of the Jews in Palestine are of a Mizrahi background, and either came to Israel from Arab countries that wanted them gone, or are the descendants of the people who did so. The establishment of Israel by the Sykes-Picot agreement resulted in many countries having a place to send their unwanted Jewish population to, and those countries now had the option of driving out, or at least 'encouraging,' those populations to leave. Operation Magic Carpet wasn't driven solely by the Imam of Yemen; Israel played its own role in it, as did the US and UK, but the result was a mass exodus of Jews. In 2022, there were a total of six Jews in Yemen. Now, there is only one.

Those Mizrahi Jews are also by and large not part of the Israeli government.

Many of the others in Israel are holocaust survivors, or the descendants of such.

It is not a stretch to say that Israel is, statistically, a country of refugees and their children.

Many of the powers most vocal about dismantling Israel are also the most vocally antisemitic. The most obvious example is the Yemeni Houthis, who have "death to all Jews" as a slogan. Hamas is aligned with them, and both are aligned with Iran, and Hezbollah. None of these specific groups want Jews in the ME, period. Some have made it very clear they don't want Jews to live at all, anywhere. It's not 'Jews who support the Israeli state' that they object to, it's Jewish people, period.

My hesitation about the argument to dismantle Israel is that I haven't seen anyone yet talk about how to go about doing it without a risk that there is another mass exodus or mass murder.

Un-fucking-fortunately, that possible result is also what Israel's government is using as their justification for war against their neighbors, and what it has been using for the better part of eighty years.

I am not defending Israel's actions. I do not condone what they are doing in Gaza. I do not condone what they are claiming about Gaza, and I have heard some truly horrifying propaganda that is getting fed to Zionists to keep the fervor up. I do not think that what they are doing in the Occupied West Bank is ethical. I do not think the Israeli government has a leg to stand on in terms of morality and ethics.

I also think that people who say "Israel should be dismantled" are looking at the past and turnabout as fair play without actually asking 'what will happen to the people who live there if a group like Hamas or the Houthi rebels or Hezbollah uses a weak transition period or sudden collapse as a chance to enact that revenge.

I don't know what the correct solution is. Rebuilding a government with both Israeli and Palestine officials in a joint system, unifying the two regions with the UN enforcing a fair and equal election and representation system? The two-nations solution that people have been talking about for ages, booting Israel from the Occupied West Bank and Gaza, and demanding they pay reparations to the people of Palestine? I don't think withdrawing all international interest and support to let them work it out among themselves is the right call. I don't think having Israel take over completely, or Palestine take over completely, is going to end well for whichever community ends up Not In Charge.

I don't know what can be done. I just know that the short, sweet, pithy 'dismantle Israel' and 'Zionism is bad' statements only sound good until you ask 'but where will the Jews, hated by most of the ME for what their government has been doing, and hated for millennia before that for existing, go?'

Which sucks, because Israel's government sure as hell didn't ask where the people of Palestine would go when they started pushing them out.

It's not fair! It's not fair to Palestine that this all is happening. It is not fair that the founded but unrealized risk to Israeli lives is being weighed against the fully realized and ongoing threat to theirs. It is not fair that thousands of children are dying of air strikes and hunger.

Palestine is undergoing a massacre at the hands of the Israeli government.

It is entirely possible that Israel will undergo that same massacre at the hands of Hamas and its allies if the 'dismantling' happens without safeguards.

Israel needs to stop. People are dying in the tens of thousands in Gaza because of their completely disproportionate response. A ceasefire is unquestionably needed and the ongoing refusal of the US government to help enforce one by pulling support from the IDF is a failure.

(No, not the Houthi strikes. That is a related, but distinct situation.)

But 'dismantle Israel' tends to come with few ideas on how to do so without risking the same situation as now, but in the other direction, and with the same or larger possibility of escalating into a wider regional conflict.

I don't know. I don't fucking know. But please understand that I am coming at this from a place of attempted compassion and concern. I am not trying to be dismissive of people's claims. I do not support Israel's actions. I don't even necessarily think Israel, as it is and as it was founded and as it acts, deserves to remain the power and government that it currently is. Restructuring, renaming, integrating, all these things are options, maybe even necessary ones.

I just don't think 'deserve' is the only consideration when the past seventy-odd years have been spent sowing the seeds of hate and revenge, and so many military groups in their area have expressed a desire to see all of them dead.

If you know of a 'dismantle Israel' plan by Palestinians, rather than some random Western Leftist, that includes plans on how to integrate the people that have in some cases been there for decades, and in some cases ended up there because they were driven or 'encouraged' out of neighboring Arab states...

Let me know.

But please recognize that I am trying my best to base my opinions on compassion and ethics and morality and awareness, not just parroting the news without thought, or my echo chamber, or whatever the first take to come to mind is. I am not trying to be malicious. I am not trying to be ignorant. I am not trying to 'stan America' or whatever people have been saying in my ask box.

They bombed me, too.

#Anonymous #I didn't start talking about the conflict in my own words until I felt I had a strong enough grasp on the facts and propaganda #to know what I was even saying. #phoenix answers asks #politics #current events #palestine #israel #gaza #death tw #antisemitism #islamophobia #death mention #genocide mention #ethnic cleansing

[eulcgizeme]

eulcgizeme's new soundtrack for plots aka its 1989 release day and blondie popped off

I tried to do all of the songs, but then I wasn't getting bored so these are plots I really wanna do that can be brand new, or a new AU/Thread for existing pairings. They're also a plug for plots I've been talking about all week, lol. Give this a like and I'll come to you. All of these could end in burning flames or paradise. Anything with a link I will actually get on my knees for. I have some suggested characters in there for a couple of them.

WELCOME TO NEW YORK : Someone's small town best friend or long distance partner finally moves to the Big Apple to live together. It's all shiny and new but they do blind them. It turns out that they were never meant for a small town, and the one who was desperate to get out who's suddenly losing their place to them.

BLANK SPACE : A matchmaker gets paired with a Fortune 500's heir to clean up their act. The thing is they've got a roster for ex-lovers and reckless behavior. They learn about each other's victories and scars, and the matchmaker falls for them. This is most definitely for my muse, Acelin Reids (Barry Keoghan FC).

STYLE : The classic corruption trope, but twist it. Bonnie and Clyde aren't lovers, but instead two people at the wrong place at the wrong time. They escape together and have to figure out how to survive it. In an attempt to blend in and put the money that nearly cost them their lives worth it, their newfound company might not be so bad.

OUT OF THE WOODS : Holiday season comes in full swing for a couple that had slowly broken up. It's time to come home for the holidays, and its becomes apparent that they've broken up but they haven't told anyone. They decide to go home and pretend they're still together, only to fall for each other all over again. The trouble is that in their hometown they become different people, but they can't tell if they've been faking it the entire winter break or faking it ever since they moved away to fit in.

SHAKE IT OFF : Muse A is famous and getting ripped apart by the media, and their number one offender is Muse B. A scandal leaves Muse A's reputation in the hands of the other, and Muse B reveals that the only reason they've been able to rip them apart is because they're far from authentic. An enemy becomes a teacher on how to be fearless.

I WISH YOU WOULD : An old flame reunites when they crash into each other on a trip in Europe, and they become each other's company on what was suppose to be a solo trip. A summer fling turns cruel real' quick, and one begs them to do everything they promised they wouldn't to just be able to keep them around long enough to have the greatest love of their life even if it breaks them. Muse A can't commit and can't submit, and Muse B falls head over heels and tells them to treat them the way they're so scared to if it means they can have real love just once even if it's short.

BAD BLOOD : A couple divorced in their youth, and they find themselves years later at a gala as the hottest divorcee of two neighboring towns. Turns out infidelity wasn't just a one time offense. Yet, their former love is now clearly defined with their boundaries. One night can't hurt.. and then neither can another... and what if we got married again?

HOW YOU GET THE GIRL : Standing at her door at 3 AM in the pouring rain, shivering, after a six month break that should ended things... just to say "It's been a while" and give her the grand gesture she said would make or break your relationship.

THIS LOVE : This love came back from the grave when a former lover was resurrected. Muse A has to set limits on Muse B to help them live the life they took from them as they played a hand in their death, but they can't tell them they're just a ghost. They have to tell them, but will they come back to them? This is definitely a plug for Dorian Sykes (DOB FC).

NEW ROMANTICS : Enemies to lovers, but make it fun when they have to pretend to be a couple head over heels for the other for the sake of one shared goal. The only problem? When Muse A leans close and pressed their knee between their legs, they can't seem to pay attention anymore. When Muse B moves their hair that way, they can't help but look at the way their shirt lifts up and their collar bones are suddenly on display. Hate turns to lust, and it burns bright.

SAY DON'T GO : Set the scene when Muse A doesn't say "don't go"— and Muse B complies, staying away but they keep running into each other at their old haunts. Muse B belongs to them, but Muse A isn't theirs as Muse B already moved on even if it's serious. Hands brush in the dark in clubs, shoulders bump into each other in the same apartment hallway and they sometimes meet up only for one to leave in the middle of the night. Finally, Muse B tells them to say it and damns them for making them want so bad but gives them nothing at all in return.

NOW THAT WE DON'T TALK : Give me the bitter aftermath of platonic love. One pays the price of what they lost, and Muse A tells them that they can't be friends anymore.

SUBURBAN LEGENDS : And Muse A kissed in a way that was gonna screw Muse B up forever, and it does. They're trying to not think much about it but they're falling for them hard and they can't pretend like it's nothing, The girls and the guys can't be friends because Muse A puts the stars in the sky, and they won't go beyond kissing in a crowded room where everyone else laughs and Muse B dies a little inside. They decide to spare them the pain of it meaning nothing, they ruin the relationship all together so they're not even friends. It's only at the thought of losing Muse B, that Muse A realizes they can't live without them, can they?

IS IT OVER NOW? : The platonic couple breaks up, but they didn't really talk about it. Some how, they ended up on the other side the room every time they were together— alone or with friends. On a boat with their rich friends on Rhode Island, they don't stay in the same cabin. Someone's taking off her blue blouse, and someone lies in her couch and he doesn't lie in the bed. They run into each other in the hallway and they can't help but think if the other did it even if they have no leg to stand on if they did or not. They have to ask, is it over?

IS IT OVER NOW? PART TWO: Two best friends who were almost something more get torn apart by a friend group that splits them apart, pulling them out of their comfort zone with each other and pushing them back. She stands on a table to get his attention at a party, but it does nothing. He doesn't take in her hips and thighs like all she is, so she jumps off a very-tall-something vintage table so he catches her. Literally. Let's say they have some champagne problems

#btw these literally include some of my muses so pls dont reblog it even tho its set up like an 1989 plot inspo post lol #i was just using aesthetics #WANTED. #AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA #wanted plots.

[saywhat-politics]

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has cited Thursday, January 19, 2023 as the day the United States is likely to reach its debt limit, although she has also said that she can keep the federal government open through June by resorting to “extraordinary measures.” Yellen has stressed that the sooner Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Republicans can reach some type of agreement on the debt ceiling, the better. But the two major parties appear to be at a stalemate in the House, where Freedom Caucus and Tea Party Republicans are demanding major spending cuts and Democrats are maintaining that vital programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid should not be on the chopping block.

Meanwhile, countless economists are warning that if the U.S. defaults on its debt obligations, the results would be disastrous economically and trigger a painful recession. Liberal economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column, has warned that House Republicans are happy to risk a financial calamity in the hope of butchering Social Security and Medicare. And Never Trump conservative Charlie Sykes has argued that House Republicans aren’t being “fiscally conservative” when they play “chicken” with the U.S. economy and risk a default on the United States’ debt obligations — they’re being reckless and irresponsible.

Journalist Ben Beckett, an American journalist presently living in Vienna, Austria, calls House Republicans out in a biting article published by the democratic socialist Jacobin on January 18. House Republicans, Beckett warns, are using the debt ceiling debate as an excuse to try to butcher the United States’ social safety net.

READ MORE: Paul Krugman: House Republicans will risk a 'financial crisis' to 'slash Social Security and Medicare'

“There’s little technical reason for the debt ceiling to exist at all — a view shared, among others, by Yellen herself,” Beckett explains. “Despite support from even moderate figures like Yellen, Democrats refused to eliminate the debt ceiling when they controlled both houses of Congress. Instead, they handed Republicans a loaded gun. With the debt ceiling, as with counting votes or certifying an election, the right hopes to seize on this otherwise drab government function as a point of leverage to thrust unpopular ideas onto the country.”

Beckett continues, “A faction of the incoming House Republican majority all but forced Kevin McCarthy to commit to shutting down the government before they would support his run for speaker of the House. To be fair, McCarthy hardly needed to be strong-armed; he already said last fall that he planned to play chicken with Democrats over a government shutdown in order to force cuts to Social Security and other government programs.”

The 2022 midterms found Republicans flipping the House, where they now outnumber Democrats but only by single digits. Nonetheless, Beckett laments that the debt ceiling fight “favors the right” in the House.

“Republicans are only too happy for most of the government to close down, meaning they have far less to lose in sticking to a hard line in negotiations,” Beckett observes. “That leaves (President Joe) Biden and Democrats with two unacceptable outcomes: a nonfunctioning government, or draconian cuts to the federal budget, including potentially to Social Security and Medicare. The most likely course of events is after several weeks of needless pain, representatives of economic sectors that depend to a greater extent on steady credit and government regulation will put enough pressure on McCarthy to go back on his promises to the far-right members of his caucus.”

READ MORE: 'Defaulting' on America's debt isn’t 'conservatism' — it’s recklessly 'irresponsible': conservative

Beckett continues, “He’ll eventually force through a stopgap measure that gets Democrats to agree to inflict significant pain on the American people for no good reason — if not as much as Republicans want — and then, the far right of the party will depose him as speaker. Some other equally masochistic empty suit will take his place, we’ll all forget about it for six months, nothing will change, and then, it will be time for the country to take another stupid ride on the same merry-go-round, our pockets a little emptier for it. Doesn’t it always seem to turn out that way somehow?”

#debt ceiling

[riddlerosehearts]

okay so, long list of fall out boy concert thoughts mostly for myself and also for anyone who cares:

-i've been pretty excited about getting to see bring me the horizon open for them, and they were soooooo fucking good and got me so hyped. oli got off the stage and walked through the crowd at one point which was pretty cool. wish he had come close to me.

-love from the other side is SO hype and so amazing to see live.

-songs like uma thurman and save rock and roll that aren't normally favorites of mine are also hype just because of everyone singing and dancing and having fun and all the awesome fun stage effects! i was in the vip box area and had a great view of said stage effects. i hadn't watched many tourdust videos before so most of them were a surprise to me. loved the underwater background and bubbles some songs had and the spooky forest looking background, loved all the colorful fireworks, fucking loved when they had a giant doberman and it lip sycned during this ain't a scene it's an arms race and pete made it look like he was putting his head in its mouth. wish i got a photo of that.

-i got chicago is so two years ago in the TTTYG slot and i'm happy with that!

-i am still reeling from getting to hear calm before the storm and disloyal order of water buffaloes. it's 2023 and those two songs are permanent fixtures on the setlist. what the fuck.

-have to be honest that i got disappointed for a second when the opening chords to bang the doldrums played for the IOH slot just because like i don't get to go to multiple shows in one tour and don't know when i'll ever get to go to another show where i have a chance to hear hum hallelujah. so yeah i wanted to hear it because it's probably my favorite FOB song.

-BUT after that second of disappointment i was still fucking hyped and dancing and singing wholeheartedly to bang the doldrums because it's a banger, it's something they only started playing live on this very tour, and it's the one that was almost a shrek song, so can i really complain?

-got headfirst slide in the folie slot, it would've been super cool if they switched it for 27 again but i love headfirst slide too so no complaints there!!

-PATRICK PLAYED I'VE GOT ALL THIS RINGING IN MY EARS AND NONE ON MY FINGERS FOR HIS PIANO SOLO?? thank you patrick i love you i owe you my life

-i'm so glad we got one of the best MANIA songs for the tour, last of the real ones was so fun.

-umm okay so oli sykes may not have walked close to me but FUCKING. PETE WENTZ. GOT OFF THE STAGE DURING DANCE DANCE AND WALKED RIGHT BEHIND MY SEAT!?!?! i think my brain broke and i like almost died for a minute. i did not think to record a video of him walking by 😭 i panicked and snapped a blurry photo.

-AND THEN AFTER I GOT DONE SINGING ALONG TO HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE!!! THEY SUBJECTED ME TO FROM NOW ON WE ARE ENEMIES AS THE 8 BALL SONG!!

-look, the only reason i didn't put from now on we are enemies on my 8 ball wishlist was i didn't think they would even consider it. i thought it was just too delusional of a pick. i recorded a video of it and i'm pretty sure it starts with me shouting "HOLY SHIT" right at the opening chords and continues with patrick being inaudible because i'm screaming the lyrics

-made me sad that not many people seemed to know the song though :( like i GET IT because a song that was only ever released NOT EVEN as a b-side but on their 2009 greatest hits album and then never ever played live is a pretty big deep cut. but i wish there had been more energy for it. it does help that pete said "that went better than i expected!" afterward, and hey, i bet some people at that show heard it for the first time ever and loved it.

-the flame effects during my songs know what you did in the dark were sooo cool and fun and so were the big sparkly fireworks during thnks fr the mmrs and the confetti everywhere at the end.

-i saw someone say they should take saturday off the setlist. that is the most wrong opinion i've ever heard. fall out boy shows closing with saturday is a 20-year tradition still going strong and i'm so glad i finally got to experience it.

#i should've done a post like this for my mcr show too but for some reason i wasn't in the mood then #even though i was even MORE insane about that concert than this one #anyway the show was great. wish they had played hum hallelujah for me though #fall out boy

[blackswaneuroparedux]

At times they are good and quiet company, the dead; they will not interrupt your musings, but when they speak, whether they be Jews or Turks or heathens, they will speak in a tongue all can understand. there are even countries where the moving, breathing people are less intelligible, dwell in a world further apart form you, than that silent population under the earth.

- Gertrude Bell, Persian Pictures (1894)

They buried her in Baghdad. This is the short sentence ending the biography of one of the most important women in recent Middle Eastern history. Gertrude Bell, "Queen of the Desert", as the film by Werner Herzog called her. Or "Mother of Iraq", as the inhabitants of the region between the Euphrates and the Tigris describe the woman who brought them both a blessing and a curse.

The search for her grave in the Iraqi capital is something akin to a small-scale odyssey. She is not buried at the British memorial cemetery in the heart of Baghdad in Bab al-Muadam. In this cemetry lie soldiers of his majesty, King George V of Great Britain. Most fell in 1917. A small mausoleum has been erected on the extensive site for Sir Frederick Stanley Maude. The General made a name for himself in the campaign on the Mesopotamian front during the First World War, as conqueror of Baghdad. Following the invasion of Iraq by British and American troops in 2003, the British named their headquarters in Baghdad's Green Zone "Maude House".

She’s not even buried in the Christian Armenian cemetery. When the woman that created Iraq died, on 12 July 1926 in her adoptive city of Baghdad in circumstances still unexplained to this day, she had already lost considerable influence.

A secret agreement between the governments of Britain and France had already decided on the allocation of the Ottoman spoils of war. But it would be another two years before the final demise of the Turkish Empire. Nevertheless, the new Middle Eastern order was a done deal and would from that moment bear the signature of Gertrude Bell.

Initially an unofficial employee of the British secret service, and later as a political liaison officer ranked as a major and 'oriental secretary', she played a decisive role in the foundation of modern Iraq and was a close confidante of the Iraqi King Faisal I, who initially became King of Syria. When the French hounded him out, the British installed him in Baghdad on Bell's insistence.

Thereafter, the Hashemite King no longer needed Bell and the English also distanced themselves from a woman who was highly unusual for her time. This explains why she did not find her final resting place at the British memorial cemetery.

There was intense animosity between Gertrude Bell and Mark Sykes, one of the two leaders in the  negotiations to reach the secret agreement. He called her a "flat-chested, man-woman, globe-trotting, rump-wagging, blathering ass." She, meanwhile, accused him of huge incompetence.

This is because the agreement forged by Sykes together with his French counterpart Francois Georges-Picot was controversial at the time of its signing. Picot was the far more experienced partner in the negotiations and knew how to secure much more for France than expected. The agreement also contained serious contradictions. Whereas previously, Britain had pledged it would support the Arabs in the event of a revolt against the Ottoman Empire, and the prospect of recognising a subsequent Arab independence had been set out, France and Britain were now dividing up huge areas of the Arab territory between them and creating nations like Syria and Iraq.

The Sykes-Picot agreement did however also contain, in the first paragraph, a reference that both France and Britain were willing to recognise and protect an independent Arab nation in the regions of the map marked with A and B. But within their spheres of influence, both countries retained privileges that would remain in place until the 1950s.

Gertrude Bell, who although employed in the service of the British, always lobbied for the interests of the Arabs, did not agree. Mark Sykes did not care. He was more interested in the fate of the Armenians, who had suffered under the pressure of the Ottoman Empire, than for the retention of the Arabs and the Kurds and threw his weight behind the emerging ambitions of the Jews for a territory in Palestine.

The development shows how bloody conflicts grew from these differing interests, and how these conflicts are now being exacerbated. The forcing together of the three ethnically and religiously diverse provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra brought misfortune to Iraq. The kingdom was always unstable, and was toppled in a military putsch in 1958. The socialist Ba'ath Party seized power in 1968, and Saddam Hussein established his dictatorship in 1979. He held the nation together with what can only be described as archaic brutality.

If you want to see the final resting place of Gertrude Bell you will have to find the small Anglican cemetery in the "Bab el-Sher Shi" neighbourhood on the eastern banks of the Tigris.

In the midst of mosques, churches, ministerial buildings, pot-holed streets and endless queues of cars, stands a stone sarcophagus with the inscription: Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell. A small bouquet of red and white plastic roses has been placed upon it.

Asked about the significance of the dead woman to his country, an Iraqi friend says diplomatically: "There are good and bad sides to everyone." The same applied to Miss Bell. On the one hand she was responsible for the unfortunate border demarcation and the entity that is Iraq, which did not exist previously. But on the other, she was a perpetual champion of the cultural heritage of the nation and founded the Iraqi national museum. "She spoke our language, knew our clans, our customs and traditions,"

What she didn't know, my friend suggested, were the differences between Sunnis, Shias, Arabs and Kurds. "If she had, much of this could have been avoided."

#bell #gertrude bell #quote #cemetery #first world war #iraq #british #femme #archaeologist #culture #society #politics #imperialism #icon

[lady-october]

Pairing : Oli Sykes x Female Assistant

Genre : Romance, Smut (18+ Only)

Previous Chapters : One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten

Content : 18+, Smut, Angst, Choking, Power dynamics, Sadism/Masochism, Dom/Sub, Degradation, Praise kink, Risky locations, Themes of addiction & self harm.

Summary :

“Don’t you see what a dangerous game you’re playing? Why did you have to look so fucking delicious tonight, I couldn’t stop undressing you in my mind, thinking of all the twisted things I want to do to you.” She had only worked on the touring team for three weeks, but her mind had been hijacked by dirty thoughts of a man she barely even talked to. Sure, he was very attractive, but were there other reasons she was so uncontrollably drawn to him? This is a filthy story of pain, self discovery, and love.

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Chapter 11:

Come shove me over the edge

Chapter title is lyrics from "Doomed"

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I was straddling him on the bus sofa with his hand shoved deep into my hair, holding me there as he kissed me with an unmatched desperation, simultaneously so tender and tentative, yet with the hunger of a starving man. 

His other hand crept under the back of my shirt, caressing upwards, then pushing back down to grind our hips together, causing me to moan into his mouth.

I wanted nothing more than to continue doing this, particularly to ease all the heartache and pain we’d just experienced, but something was wrong. I knew how he felt now, knew how much he was hurting, so I did the only thing my guilt would allow me to do; pull away.

His wet lips were parted, glazed and confused eyes meeting mine.

“Are you sure about this?” I couldn’t believe I was risking derailing this moment, but a part of me was proud for doing it.

“Let me just lose myself in you for a little while.” He said, clearly in pain, speaking the same words he spoke the first night we had sex. The ones that had resonated so deeply with me, confirming we were both doing this to ease our suffering. And suddenly all my concerns went out the window. 

So I let go, and dove right back into his embrace. 

He grabbed at me, held me and caressed me as if his life somehow depended on it. There was longing in every hip movement; in every moan; in every kiss, lick and bite.

My cravings grew deeper with each passing moment, and so did my need to express what I wanted. So I pulled away again to tell him.

“Don’t go easy on me.” I murmured against his lips.

He frowned, his breath fanning my face, “Then don’t fucking lie if I take it too far.” His voice came deep, clearly as far gone as I felt.

“I won't, I promise.” I responded, trying to convey my seriousness, but it was hard work considering how flustered I was.

At my words the violence came rushing back to his eyes, “Do you know how long they’ll be?” He asked, wanting to know about the guys at the diner.

“A while, Liam’s taking care of it.”

“Then get up.” He commanded, pushing me off of him.

“Strip.” Another command, coming right as I’d managed to scramble to my feet.

I took a quick glance around to make sure I was obscured. The few available windows were small and tinted for privacy, the only way to see in was through the windscreen, which was blocked by the interior cabinetry from this side of the bus, so I began pulling off my shoes.

He watched me through lidded eyes as he unbuttoned his jeans. 

Lifting my shirt over my head, I just managed to catch his cock spring free when he reappeared in my vision, causing me to rip off the rest of my garments in a rush.

As I was stepping out of my shorts, I could feel heat spread through my body in anticipation at the sight of him; a hand working its way through his hair, attempting to keep the unruly yet defined locks out of his face as his eyes raked over my body, swallowing me whole. His other hand lazily stroked his cock that was framed by his undone jeans, just out of the way enough for me to catch a glimpse of his balls shifting with the movement of his slow strokes.

“Come here.”

His words came low, resonating perfectly with the hum of my core.

So I straddled him again, this time his hand was holding the base of his cock, ready for me to take it. I positioned myself with every intent to do it slowly, knowing my brain would short circuit otherwise, but he pushed me down on him, causing him to moan as it slid in with ease, and myself to slump onto his shoulder with a whimper as the sensation travelled through my body like a shockwave. I grabbed at the fabric on his shoulders to steady myself, but his hand slipped into my hair again to pull me back into his view.

He appeared drunk with lust as he shook away the curls that had fallen back over his eyes.

Holding my gaze, a grin tugging on the corners of his parted lips. He used his other hand to guide me, to control how I moved on him. I followed his silent demands, willing my body to stay upright, watching his eyelids become heavier with each thrust. The fingers fell away from my hair, both hands grabbing at my hips, digging into them with the same passion his eyes were piercing me, worshipping me.

But I was growing increasingly uncomfortable, the length and intensity of his stare causing something in me to stir, so I leaned back in to resume kissing his neck, and thankfully he let me. His breath hitched as my lips closed over his decorated skin, a hand travelling up my back to hold me closer, the bare skin of my breasts crushed against his shirt, feeling his solid and warm body through the thin fabric.

The fingers still on my hips digging in deeper, demanding longer, slower thrusts.

I followed eagerly, as it also gave me more control over what I was doing to his neck. My hand slipped into his hair, letting it run through it, feel it, play with it. His breath came heavier and heavier as my wet lips travelled downwards, but I could feel myself becoming impatient, my appetites being specific, craving the violence he had wordlessly promised me earlier. 

So I decided to take things into my own hands.

Parting my lips, I let my teeth dig into the skin of his neck, as he had done to me so many times before. The most delightful sound escaped him, his fingers digging into me painfully, holding me closer still, encouraging me to continue. I felt a sense of glee as I pulled away slightly, moving upwards, sinking my teeth in again – harder this time.

Whimpering, his hips bucked into me, causing me to let go and fall onto his shoulder, moaning loudly – too loud for a parking lot. A hand shoved into my hair and yanked me back into his view, with more aggression this time.

There it was; the violence I saw earlier. His previously defined locks were tousled, dark and unleashed eyes meeting mine, glowing with hunger. I could feel a depraved smile appear on my features, enjoying the pain from getting my hair pulled so forcefully, so carelessly.

“My turn to play with you.” He said low and pained, before throwing me off of him, onto the sofa, my head rattling from the sudden impact, my insides aching from the emptiness, missing the thickness of his cock filling me up.

As I was laying there panting, staring at the warm glow painting the bus ceiling, I expected him to appear back into my view any moment now; to hover over me and push back into me. Instead I felt his arms wrap around my hips from an unexpected angle, followed by a mouth closing over my pussy. The shock of the sensation made my mouth fall open, my hands grab mindlessly for his hair, raking through it, pushing it out of his face. I looked down to see intense eyes locked on me, watching me, his hands pulling my hips closer in response. He made a rumbling noise low in his throat, which I felt more than heard.

He worked me with obvious intent, focusing only on the parts that would take me over the edge.

Realising he was trying to make me cum, I was almost filled with a sense of disappointment, because it wasn't the pleasure I wanted most of all right now; it was the pain, the torture, the testing of limits and teasing.

He pulled away, just for a second to speak against my most sensitive parts, sounding nearly possessed, “Tell me when you’re close, love.” 

Then one of his hands slipped away from my hip and I felt his fingers push into me, and all hope was lost; I was his puppet, and he knew exactly what strings to pull to get me where he wanted me. Especially after how long I’d been riding him, grinding on him, this wouldn’t take very long at all. 

I felt myself starting to shake, more sounds uncontrollably spilling from my lips, my hips moving with his tongue, his fingers inside me.

“I’m close…” I said shakily, almost a whisper.

Another beat passed, the edge right there, when he violently ripped himself away from me.

I gasped, desperately grabbing for him, my climax so painfully close I could taste it. Hands wrapped around my wrists, slamming them against the sofa above my head, pinning them in a cross formation in order to keep them in place with only one hand.

He must have known I’d be thrusting my hips, trying to find him, trying to move against anything just to get me over the edge, cause his other hand dug into the side of my hip, keeping me firmly in place.

“Please…” I whimpered, pleading, pained. It wasn’t until I spoke that my eyes started to focus again, seeing him hover over me, pure bliss in his eyes, barely visible through the unruly tufts of hair, a sinister laugh building, escaping wet lips.

Realisation hit me; this was his weapon of choice. Instead of the usual delights, he was instead intent on torturing me by withholding my orgasm.

I swallowed, not knowing how I felt about this.

He leaned forward, applying nearly unbearable pressure to my wrists, and pressed his lips to my ear, his cheek to my cheek, and whispered slowly in a tone as sweet as honey.

“Last night someone tried to force me to cum when I wasn’t ready…” 

When he continued his words were absolutely drenched with malice, all signs of the sugary sweet tone gone.

“...You’re a fucking fool if you thought I’d just let that go.”

The vengeful nature of his words; his tone; his actions, caused equal parts unease and arousal to stir inside me.

He pushed off of me, applying even more pressure to my already aching wrists, causing me to cry out in pain. But the agony was a welcome distraction, soothing something in me more than I cared to admit.

I closed my eyes, trying to stay there mentally, to hone in on the pain as it still lingered on my wrists despite his hands having left them, but I felt his tip at my entrance a split second before he pushed into me – hard and fast – overwhelming my senses so much I was ripped away from it, only pleasure remaining.

“Look at me.” He bit out, the same malice remaining in his voice.

My eyes snapped open at his demand. He was crouched over me, furious eyes meeting mine. But the anger quickly faded to mischief as his hand splayed over my pubic bone, and his thumb began rubbing circles over my saliva soaked clit.

Instantly my body responded. I moaned, closing my eyes without thinking, as soon as I did a sharp, searing pain caused my head to snap to the side, accompanied by a loud slap. Instinctively I reached for my cheek, but he was already grabbing my chin, making me face him.

“Keep looking at me.” He demanded through clenched teeth.

A type of euphoria rushed over me as the stinging caused ringing in my ears. 

This was it, this is what I was starving for; this is what would set me free. I felt laughter build in my throat as I pried my eyes back open, barely having heard what he said.

The violence turned to wonder and curiosity as he studied my face in his grip.

“You like it, don’t you? Being treated like the whore you are.” He asked playfully.

I nodded, feeling the desperation paint my features.

Wordlessly, he leaned back, slipping out of me. Grabbing at the hem of his shirt, he pulled it over his head, causing his hair to flow out of it with the grace of a waterfall as his head reappeared, and his art covered build to move and shift just as beautifully with the same motion; a sight for sore eyes, made infinitely better by his flushed, lust riddled expression, and his hard cock bobbing gently against his stomach.

“Give me your hands.” He demanded.

Providing him with my hands, he wrapped his shirt around my wrists, tightening the knots repeatedly as he watched me, until I made a pained noise.

I felt myself smile, a sense of peace settling in me at the sensation.

Tossing my hands carelessly over my head again, his eyes darkened, and he slowly pushed back into me.

“Keep your hands there like a good girl.”

He thrusted into me again, hard this time. A whimper escaping me at the motion.

“And if you cum without my permission, I’ll fucking choke you out.”

Another thrust, just as hard. This time his breath caught, and I could feel his dick tense inside me as he was buried to the hilt. An exquisite sensation, especially alongside my stinging cheek, and the pinched skin of my wrists.

I was in heaven, ready to do whatever he demanded of me.

“We clear, love?”

“We’re clear.” I responded through my euphoric fog, and the wicked smile bloomed on his face again.

“Good.”

He reached out towards my mouth, pushing his ink covered thumb into it. 

I let him in, not even mentally questioning why, sucking on it for him. When he pulled it out he went straight for my clit, circling it just as expertly as before, this time moving his hips as well.

I was lost to a trance-like state, the concoction of sensations so overwhelming I was struggling to keep my vision on him as he watched me. His eyes were as dark as I’d ever seen them, his expression shifting back and forth between pain and bliss, moans spilling from him. Every so often he’d reach out, grabbing my face, making sure I kept my eyes on him.

I felt myself begin to shake, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the sounds coming from me, and I wondered if he’d let me cum this time.

“Tell me…” He started, his breathing laboured, “...when you’re close.”

Despite his threats, I still considered not telling him and just letting it happen, wondering if it would be worth the risk of potentially being choked out.

But we’d made a deal.

“I’m… I’m close.” I said shakily, feeling my treacherous eyes drift away from him again as the climax was right around the corner.

This time he didn’t skip a beat, he pulled out immediately, quickly followed by another loud slap and more searing pain on my cheek – the opposite side this time – but all it did was bring me closer to the climax as my whole body tensed from the impact.

But it just wasn’t enough to get me over the edge, fading away regardless of how hard I tried to reach for it.

When I came back down I pried my eyes open to see him watching me with heaving breaths, working his dick as he waited for me. As soon as he saw I was coherent, he pushed back into me, the sensation more divine each time he denied me my orgasm.

“Keep your fucking eyes on me, love.” He murmured, lacking all previous aggression, clearly too far gone himself.

He was watching me closely through his wild locks as he kept thrusting into me, his shifting expressions turning more pained than blissful, his noises coming more desperate. Shaking the hair out of his vision once more, he continued his work on my clit, causing me to instantly be right there.

“Stop!” I exclaimed in a rush, knowing he didn’t want me to go over the edge yet. He immediately pulled out again, falling forwards, hovering over me. I was shaking as I looked up at him, I could see his cock tensing desperately in the lower part of my vision, our ragged breaths mixing. I tried to meet his eyes, but they were shut.

When they snapped back open they were intense, instantly locking with mine.

“Fuck it.” He muttered and grabbed my throat violently, painfully, completely restricting my breathing. In the same motion he pushed back into me, appearing more possessed with each passing second as he moved inside me with intent, holding me firmly in place with his vice grip on my neck. Each thrust coming just as hard, pounding exquisitely against my clit, causing my orgasm to continue building, and building…

My eyes rolled back.

I had never felt anything like it. The edging, the motion, the choking, the pain; all of which coexisting and mingling, causing the most explosive, overwhelming orgasm of my life. I would have been screaming at the top of my lungs if I could breathe.

As I was coming back down he let go of my throat, I inhaled sharply while my vision came swimming back to me. He wasn’t hovering over me anymore, instead he was sitting up, still moving in me, watching me through glazed, agonisingly desperate eyes right before his head fell back. His thrusts turned increasingly jerky, and I could feel the warm liquid starting to spill into me. Letting out an absolutely delectable moan, causing a shiver to run along my spine, his head came back up, dark eyes meeting mine before he fell forwards to hover over me again. He began kissing me deeply, passionately, still filling me up, moaning into my mouth with each movement.

Once the motions died down, he pulled away from my lips, only bliss left on his features.

He studied my face for a long moment as his laboured breathing settled, and I found myself doing the same thing with him. 

The thought struck me that this could be our last time doing this, and sadness came creeping back. I had a feeling he was thinking something similar in nature as his blissful expression turned more sombre.

He leaned in for another kiss, a gentle one this time. We both savoured it as he lingered there for a while, before pulling away again, sitting up this time, his dick still inside me. 

Wordlessly he gestured for my hands, and I provided him with them.

He made quick work of untying me and I felt the blood rush back into my hands, not realising how numb they’d turned. His gaze fell on my left wrist, on a red mark left there from being particularly pinched by the make-shift restraints. So he brought it to his lips, kissing it tenderly, causing something in my heart to tug and ache at the affectionate gesture.

Studying his mangled shirt, he huffed out a laugh – which I could also feel as a twinge from his cock still resting inside me.

“Guess I won’t be wearing this anymore.” He said before nestling it underneath us, between us, in order to pull out, letting the cum flow onto the shirt instead of the bus sofa.

He shot me a warm smile before disappearing into the toilet, leaving the door open.

Sitting up, watching the cum stained shirt below me, listening to the tap running as he got himself sorted, my heart couldn’t stop hurting.

The sex that usually helped me push these feelings aside, seemed to have had the opposite effect this time. 

I looked at the mark on my wrist that he had so lovingly just kissed, my thumb mindlessly caressing it, I realised I wanted more of that tenderness, stirring a whole new flavour of fear inside me, making me wonder if it was too late.

Making me wonder if I was already catching feelings for him.

The tap stopped and he reappeared in the doorway, causing me to push that thought so far down it may have been repressed entirely.

His hair was slightly wet, having tamed his curls again.

“I’m gonna go get changed. You clean up, then we eat, yeah?”

His words were so domestic, yet coming from a shirtless, flushed rockstar who just fucked me senseless on a tour bus, it had a different ring to it.

“Wait.” I said, balling up his shirt and clumsily made my way over to him, handing him it with a shy smile.

He frowned at me, reluctantly taking it off me before disappearing up the stairs.

With extra effort due to the new marks on me, I put myself back together, opened the bus door – and windows for good measure. 

Grimacing as I took a sip from my now cold coffee, I finally sat down next to him on the sofa where he lounged, casually sprawled, eating his pancakes.

He handed me a pancake before he spoke, sounding entirely too casual considering his chosen topic.

“No more lying, yeah?”

I threw him a suspicious glance as I took the cold pancake off of him.

“I’ll cut you a deal.” I retorted, taking a bite.

With a single cocked eyebrow, an intrigued expression looked back at me, “Will you now?”

“I won’t lie again, and you’ll stop ignoring me.”

It felt like a good deal considering how crazy today had driven me. I also had no intention of lying again so I saw no issue with his demand regardless.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.” A devil’s smile appeared on his face before he tossed the last remaining bite of his pancake into his mouth.

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