#A blatant foreigner no less

[saturnniidae]

Wow, I sure do love being a black, jewish fan of a TV series that's only un-reedeemed villains are a greedy, hook-nosed merchant that travels the world and a foreign black man.

#ventish kind of #idk ive just finished my rtte rewatch and with a refreshed memory of the series i have. feelings #httyd #race to the edge #httyd rtte #racism #rtte krogan #trader johann #httyd racism #also drago was only in rtte for like less than a minute or smth #but the fact hes intentionally designed to be as ethnically ambiguous as possible to look foreign compared to our white nordic heros #while simultaneously being like the s*avage angry domineering and evil black man sure is. something #also to clairify: i love httyd and rtte with all my heart its my special interest but #that doesnt mean i dont get to be pissed abt blatant 'non white features = bad' stereotyping #its likely not done with malicious intent but. implicit bias so #shrugs #i migjt makr another post going more in depth idk its 4am im sleepy and have school in a few hours #moth.txt

[anarchywoofwoof]

the funny thing is that i don't think younger people - and i mean those under the age of 40 - really have a grasp on how many of today's issues can be tied back to a disastrous reagan policy:

war on drugs: reagan's aggressive escalation of the war on drugs was a catastrophic policy, primarily targeting minority communities and fueling mass incarceration. the crusade against drugs was more about controlling the Black, Latino and Native communities than addressing the actual problems of drug abuse, leading to a legacy of broken families and systemic racism within the criminal justice system.

deregulation and economic policies: reaganomics was an absolute disaster for the working class. reagan's policies of aggressive tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and slashing social programs were nothing less than class warfare, deepening income inequality and entrenching corporate greed. these types of policies were a clear message that reagan's america was only for the wealthy elite and a loud "fuck you" to working americans.

environmental policies: despite his reputation being whitewashed thanks to the recovery of the ozone layer, reagan's environmental record was an unmitigated disaster. his administration gutted critical environmental protections and institutions like the EPA, turning a blind eye to pollution and corporate exploitation of natural resources. this blatant disregard for the planet was a clear sign of prioritizing short-term corporate profits over the future of the environment.

AIDS crisis: reagan's gross neglect of the aids crisis was nothing short of criminal and this doesn't even begin to touch on his wife's involvement. his administration's indifference to the plight of the lgbtq+ community during this devastating epidemic revealed a deep-seated bigotry and a complete failure of moral leadership.

mental health: reagan's dismantling of mental health institutions under the guise of 'reform' led directly to a surge in homelessness and a lack of support for those with mental health issues. his policies were cruel and inhumane and showed a personality-defining callous disregard for the most vulnerable in society.

labor and unions: reagan's attack on labor unions, exemplified by his handling of the patco strike, was a blatant assault on workers' rights. his actions emboldened corporations to suppress union activities, leading to a significant erosion of workers' power and rights in the workplace. he was colloquially known as "Ronnie the Union Buster Reagan"

foreign policy and military interventions: reagan's foreign policy, particularly in latin america, was imperialist and ruthless. his administration's support for dictatorships and right-wing death squads under the guise of fighting "communism" showed a complete disregard for human rights and self-determination of other nations.

public health: yes, reagan's agricultural policies actually facilitated the rise of high fructose corn syrup, once again prioritizing corporate profits over public health. this shift in the food industry has had lasting negative impacts on health, contributing to the obesity epidemic and other health issues.

privatization: reagan's push for privatization was a systematic dismantling of public services, transferring wealth and power to private corporations and further eroding the public's access to essential services.

education policies: his approach to education was more of an attack on public education than anything else, gutting funding and promoting policies that undermined equal access to quality education. this was, again, part of a broader agenda to maintain a status quo where the privileged remain in power.

this is just what i could come up with in a relatively short time and i did not even live under this man's presidency. the level at which ronald reagan has broken the united states truly can't be overstated.

#twitter #fuck ronald reagan #fuck conservatives

[aweina]

Could I request the reverse of your ‘when you catch them staring’ headcannons? And with a lot of teasing from the reader too?

୨୧. heart eyes — mortal kombat one. kameos : sub-zero. scorpion. smoke + johnny cage & raiden

when you catch them staring at you.

bi-han tries to make his staring unnoticeable. with his silver mask blocking away any emotions that he could display, his eyes have become naturally expressive over time. they gleam whenever you pass by him, a foreign softness to them. the permanent scowl is less intense when he takes a moment to memorize details of your face. your eyes captivated him the most — a whirl of emotions so deep set into your irises. he could stare at them for hours on end.

it’s when you asked bi-han to revise tomorrow’s training module, his staring is much more obvious in such a closer proximity. his dull brown eyes look restful, more hazy with warmth that contrasted his deadly cold nature — yet he still looks terrifying, but it could never be helped when it came bi-han, it was his resting face. when you quickly look up for a reply, he realizes all too late that he’s caught, yet his stubbornness tells him not to falter under your gaze as he mentally cursing at himself for his blatant act of staring.

“are you angry at me or is there something on my face?” you quirked an amused brow with a smile, tilting your head cutely.

bi-han just grunted in response, snatching the scroll off your hands and raising it against his face to avoid your teasing gaze — thankful his mask hid his redden cheeks. the grandmaster would have to die of old age before he admits that he admires you from afar. but for now he’ll deal with your relentless teasing.

kuai liang loves to admire beauty whenever he encounters it. the vibrant, pink blossoms grown in wu shi academy always made him smile. the fresh greenery and exotic plants that he cared for always brightened his day. but all those things were incomparable to your beauty and intellect. he loves to watch you fight — even looking past the sweat and messy hair after intense training. he watches you with adoration when you converse with the younger trainees — resilient and beautiful — he thinks.

you tended to him after he comes back from a mission, offering herbal tea and a scenery of his garden under the moonlight. you converse with him, although it’s one sided. kuai liang stares at your lips, soft and pretty — curling into a sweet smile. you notice that his soften eyes were directed on your lips. a rush of heat flowed through your body, how long had he done this for?

“what is so interesting about my lips kuai liang?” you muster the courage to ask, mentally thanking madam bo for gifting you tinted lip balm.

his reaction seemed halted before he realizes he was indeed caught. he chuckled nervously as he propped himself up to turn towards the luminance of the moon. kuai liang was flustered, but when he felt your balmy lips on his cheek, all the shame in his body vanished.

tomas isn’t subtle. at all. he’s very much aware of that, even his brothers and the young trainees tease him for being so smitten at plain sight. even so, he still cannot help but continue to stare at you with a loving daze — nervously fiddling his fingers behind his back. through his daily admiring, tomas came to the conclusion that he loved everything about you. his eyes tend to dart to your bright eyes, soft lips, pretty hair, and silky skin.

when you’re accompanying him with his training, cheering and playfully applauding at the younger ninjas dueling in an tense battle. the action playing before tomas was lost in time. it was blurry, silent, unmoving but all he could see is you — manipulating this time stop in his mind with your raw radiance. then his eyes widen when you met his gaze and suddenly he’s panicking. with trained speed, he’s now looking down at his feet, whistling a broken tune.

“this is the third time i’ve caught you staring, you know that right?” you mused, uncontrollably giggling when tomas nods in flustered acknowledgment.

tomas looks up from his feet and sighs in defeat. even caught another time, he’ll still take the opportunity to look at the scene before him — your cheerful grin and gleaming eyes. if his staring problem can make you this happy, he doesn’t see why he should ever stop.

johnny cage is a shameless man. he loves to flirt and proudly embrace his failed attempts at flirting. eye contact is key, he believes. a very effective technique to swoon others and an act of intimacy without touching. johnny loves to stare at you, in hopes of meeting your eye and share a perfectly cliche romantic movie experience. but with your oblivious nature, he hasn’t been successful just yet. although he learned that he loved your smile — instead of his usual attraction to anything below the face.

mindlessly wondering around the fire temple, johnny finds you sitting on the stairs while reading a rather thick looking book. he immediately joins your side, flashing a white smile as he enthusiastically boast about his acting career. even if your eyes aren’t on him, to much to his disappointment, you acknowledged every word and responded in interest. then he gradually stops talking until he’s mute and you grow concerned.

“johnny, did you fall asleep?” your brows furrowed as you turned to him, his head resting on his knee.

with his frosty blue lens, you couldn’t tell if he’s awake or asleep. slowly, you took the frames off his face and flinch in shock. his eyes were wide open, staring at yours with unfamiliar intensity for a moment. then you smile and turn away flustered. finally! he made eye contact and was rewarded with your beautiful smile. johnny’s hollywood charm works … most of the time.

raiden is clueless when it comes to his staring problem. he doesn’t mean to stare half the time, it was a force of habit — automatic admiration. you were simply bewitching, even in simple attire that was paired with a stained apron. his eyes are big and soft when he looks at you, even so when he talks about you. it could take kung lao screaming in his ear for raiden to snap out of his enchanted state. he promises himself to be more subtle, and so he did.

you’re pacing around the tea house, serving refreshments with impressive finesse while warmly conversing with the local villagers. under his straw hat, raiden watches you intently — noticing the loose stands fall on your face as it tickles your neck. your soft hair frames your face perfectly, dancing through the air like silk in the wind — one of your most beautiful features. under a smitten daze, he doesn’t notice how your body is much closer and how your voice was much clearer, soothing his ears.

“it’s okay to call me over for a chat raiden, i don’t bite.” you jested as you tilted his hat back with a finger, meeting his eager gaze.

he’s blushing now, beet red. a nervous laugh escaped his lips as his eyes averted to the side — caught in the act. you only adoringly smile at him, leaving the check on his table as you tend to another customer. another friendly interaction, raiden thinks. but when he looks at the check, a small heart and the time you’re off work was written on the parchment. his cheeks suddenly hurt from smiling too hard, he couldn’t wait. but for now, he’ll kill time by watching you from afar.

© aweina : please do not copy, repost, or modify any of my content.

#.୨୧ ina writes #smoke x reader #subzero x reader #scorpion x reader #tomas vrbada x reader #kuai liang x reader #bi han x reader #johnny cage x reader #raiden x reader #mk1 x reader #mortal kombat x reader #mortal kombat 1 x reader #mk x reader

[lovelykhaleesiii]

hi there! would you be up to writing smut

Dark!Aemond? something for example with age difference, daddy kink, corruption kink, degradation and breeding? If you are comfortable then Reader could be a Targaryen what would be great but if you aren't comfortable then Stark is perfect too

Twisted, Beautiful Minds.

PAIRING: Dark!Aemond Targaryen x fem!Niece!Reader

WORDS: 2,677.

WARNINGS: mentions of warfare/murder, mentions of death-threats, swearing, degradation kink, choking, Daddy kink, corruption kink, breeding kink, manipulation, narcissistic tendencies, male oral receiving [cock sucking], mentions of p in v sexual intercourse.

A/N - you know I'm always down for some dark!Aemond... I want to also dedicate this piece, as a small bday gift to my wonderful friend Mar @aemondsmoon you have been an absolute light for me on this hellsite, and one of my dearest friends... thank you for always being there for me, and thank you for being you. you are an absolute gem, don't ever change. ilysm! 🤍

The turmoil and toils of war had finally come to an end, when Aegon the Elder, your Uncle, had commanded Sunfyre to set your beloved mother, Rhaenyra, and younger brother, Aegon III, to death by dragonfire. Your heart shattered, and mind numb, you were certain your own death was imminent in the moments after: at the very least, your Uncle would punish you with a dragonrider's death... Yet that would not be the case at all.

It seemed other plans had been set in stone. Chained and escorted by the Kingsguard to return to King's Landing once more, where you had only days previous, fled in fear, were you welcomed by the cold stares of the "Green" Council. Your chains removed, as neither the King nor his Mother, had seen you as a threat, you felt no purpose to resist nor to fight back... Your family dead, your will had died along with them.

"Fetch for Aemond. Tell my younger brother that his betrothed has returned."

His stern words felt incomprehensible in your thoughtless mind, lagging to understand the notion. You felt a cool, chill course through your weak body, rigid as though you had turned to stone, and yet, you were still breathing, still ever so present. No one had consulted you on such plans or schemes. And you were certain that Aemond himself would definitively refuse to marry the daughter of a traitor [as you presumed he would justify]. Your Uncle, Aemond, was a formidable man, fought against your late father, and had emerged the victor... And as the war, and the recent imprisoned days had taken its toll on you, your eyes darkened with the lack of sleep, unable to eat a crumb of bread, you did not look as you once had in your frivolous court, as he had once remembered you.

Although, as he sauntered into the room with such poise and stature, a certain charisma of that of a victor oozing about him, with not a single word exchanged, other than a devious smirk supplanted across his once serious face...It seemed there was more to the union than meets the eye.

Since your captive return to King's Landing, a place in which you had once considered your home, felt nothing more foreign. The stone sand walls that you had walked and run through as a child, now looked strange, the unfamiliar symbols of the Seven proudly hung around every available wall and space, gave an ominous feel. The halls seemed less brighter, even during the break of day, with the sunlight blatant in the sky, you instinctively felt as though a shadow lurked around every corner, attentive to your every move.

Dragonless, and defenceless, you were less of a threat than the younger Princess, Jahaera. The King and his Council had deemed you stable enough to roam the castle grounds freely, with a close knight in pursuit, only to ensure your own "protection" [as Aegon would admit that Aemond insisted], although you saw it more as means to deter you from being tempted to run away.

Regardless, Aemond had not spoken a word to you since hearing of the betrothal. He attended dinners with you in sight, although you rarely spoke yourself, mostly pleading and bickering with Alicent to remain in the desolate confines of your chambers. She was incessant about you joining the family, as the union was to be set in a moon's turn.

He dared not even to sit beside you: constantly at opposing ends. Although, there were rare occasions you had caught the younger Prince, brazenly staring at you with his one good eye. Unapologetically, his full attention spanned towards you, even if he had noticed you had become aware, he did not cease gawking.

Something about his looming gaze made you feel uneasy, very much on edge: a dark tinge to his violet eye, his pupils darkened as they seemed dilated. It inevitably made your stomach churn, only forcing you to resign in defeat, often excusing yourself to bed.

And often you were left undisturbed to recluse in your chambers... Although tonight, it seemed you were not alone in your ventures.

Retracing the exact steps you would take most nights, often on your lonesome return to your quarters: this time there was an accompanying sound in the distance, echoing down the hallway behind you. Heavy footsteps that caught your immediate attention. Slowly panning around, the shimmer of his lengthy, silver hair against the pale moonlight that peaked through the open crescents of the corridor, was alluring to your eye. Halting in your tracks, your breath hitched against your throat, all in trepidation, as Aemond effortlessly caught up with you in a few short strides. This was the closest he had ever truly come up to you, his towering height against you, made him even more daunting face to face.

"Running off to bed again, I see. And why is that?"

The sudden eruption of his deep, low voice breaking the stillness of the castle passage, startled you uneasily. You had exchanged many words and conversations with your elder Uncle before, during an ancient time long before the Dance had spurred. Although, the dynamics had inevitably changed, blood had been shed viciously and cruel words spat. Despite the same Valyrian blood coursing through your veins as of your betrothed, you felt solitary in their surrounding presence.

"I-I lost my appetite, U-Uncle. I wish to retire for the night," You aimlessly stutter, too weak to hold eye contact with Aemond, whose gaze remained fixated on you. His vibrant lilac orb luring over every inch of your timid body.

"Do you think it wise to roam the castle your lonesome self? Has the war not taught you otherwise? Is my niece still that same stupid, little whore I have known?"

His harsh remarks shadowed by that familiar, sly grin struck across his slim face, was plenty to furnace an incoming reaction from you, your blood boiling beneath your tender skin.

"Ah- tongue tied now, princess? Have I struck a chord with you, hmm? Mayhaps you are as weak as your father was... Now, how would he feel knowing you are to marry me? That I'll fuck his little girl, like the common whores he saw."

Your mind had no correlation to your hand, and yet the simmering rage that blistered through your body sent your mind to abyss. The small palm of your hand, strikingly latched across Aemond's face furiously. And yet, although a sharp stinging sensation poured across your hand, Aemond remained unfazed and sturdy. It seemed you had smacked the grin across his face, and in its stead, that familiar, unnerving dark tinge in his eyes scorned across at you.

Before you knew it, Aemond gripped your sides firmly, forcing your body forward, as he harshly shoved you against the cold, stone wall.

"You think that wise, whore? After the mercy I fucking showed you. I could have your fucking hand for that, or worse your head. My pretty wife's head on a spike, I'll have it right outside my window."

The cruelty that oozed from his precise lips was relentless. You wanted to burst into tears or more, burst into flames there and then...

"Do you know how long I have waited to have you under my very touch? All the sacrifices I made, the arguments I fought against my own Council to keep you alive? Ungrateful fucking bitch. Did your Daddy not teach you to be a good, obedient girl?"

One of Aemond's calloused, rough hands reached up hastily, his long fingers wrapping just so lightly around your throat, as his thumb gently stroked at your lips. His viable eye ogling tentatively over your mouth, smacking his lips innately.

"I'm your fucking Daddy now. Teach you how to be a proper lady, and a good fucking wife. I'm going to fuck that pretty pussy of yours, till you are dripping of me. I'll have you begging like a pathetic, stupid whore. I'll fuck you till I have heirs of my own, till I see fit that you have disgraced your extinct, traitorous bloodline."

"A-Aem, U-Uncle-" You breathlessly whimper in fear: freshly, swelled tears glaze your vision, as they begin to clear with each shedding streak.

"What did I just fucking say? I'm not your Uncle anymore, bitch. I'm your fucking Daddy. You would be helpless without me. Probably dead without my doing. You fucking owe me."

"Y-Yes-" Another breathless whimper, although Aemond's grip loosened, his other hand began to slowly move its way over towards your breast. His uninjured eye moving in motion with his hand, eagerly wandering over your bust. That same, very hand, began to keenly grope at your plush side, kneading at your breast tenderly, it felt foreign and sensitive under his strange touch.

"All fucking mine... Finally. Did you really think, I would let some insolent lord have you to himself? I'd start a war for you, I won the war for you. And now you're going to repay me, just so-"

A mindless moan flew out of your wet lips, catching you abruptly by surprise, and by the looks of it Aemond, as his blackened pupil dilated with a ravenous hunger, his ears pricking and leaning forward in delight.

"I'll have you moaning for more, precious. Now on your fucking knees-"

Even with the hatred that roared deep within your belly, you felt reluctant to retaliate, as you knew Aemond would effortlessly overpower you. As he had in your youth, when you were caught in a brawl with him, often ending with him wrestling you to the ground. And after his detailed spill of such vile threats, you dared not to risk the second chance of life, you had been granted.

Your knees hit the concrete floor with some brutality, although you regained from the ache. As you steadied your propped position, your hands gripping tightly at Aemond's slim waist, he began to undo his grey, washed out trousers.

The sheer sight of his cock, was intense enough to have you questioning whether you could even take him. Although slim in girth, his length was extraordinary. A reddened tip just oozing lusciously with a white, clear film glistening over the crown.

"Suck Daddy real good, bitch. Show me that, that mouth has other good uses than for talking back."

Your attention lurking from below, dropping from Aemond's face to his cock and back up once more to his face: the sudden change in his mood shifting was palpable. The momentary, light-hearted look of ecstasy dismantled as a cold, unsettling gaze resumed across his handsome face, lingering over your kneeled state.

"Make me fucking repeat myself one more time, whore and I'll treat you worse than a whore. I'll have you forget that you are a Targaryen princess."

Aemond's large hands found their way at the base of your skull, teasingly stroking your loose strands away from your face, within a few seconds the sudden shove towards him, left you physically speechless. Your mouth slightly agape, was enough for Aemond's stiffened, pulsating tip to propel its way into your tight mouth. The friction of his hard cock against your silky, warm flesh inside, was enough to set Aemond's breathing into a speedy pace. Lean chest heaving, the mindless groaning on his behalf was somewhat alluring. You had never seen nor heard such sounds or vulnerability in Aemond before.

"F-Fuck, that feels so fucking good- Just as I prayed to the Gods. I'm going to make your mouth so numb, so fucking filthy of me, you'll be tasting me still in the months to come."

No coherent words exchanged from below his waist, only muffled moans and breath hitches, as you sulked with crave. As much as it infuriated you, pained you to admit, the feeling of Aemond's rigid, throbbing cock in your mouth, was elevating. You had to admit, in your youth, previous to the blood that had been shed, you had a childhood feverish crush on your elder Uncle, although thought it unlikely that anything would flourish from it.

"Seven Hells. Such a pretty whore, with a pretty mouth. J-Just the p-prettiest whore in the Seven Kingdoms."

With each plunge, rhythmically bobbing backwards and forwards, the raw taste of Aemond's cum, tastefully filling your mouth to capacity, as a mixture of his reside and your own saliva oozed from your crevices. The dreading thought of being caught in such a contentiously vulnerable position, especially before being wedded, was disturbing enough, for you were not yet widely favoured by the Council...

"Ughh- Swallow and get up, whore."

Self-disgust stirred nauseatingly in the pit of your gut, as you reluctantly devoured small mouthfuls of Aemond's load, almost convincing yourself you would retch it all up in a matter of seconds. Much to your relief, you remained poised, meekly wiping away the mess across your lips, shying away from Aemond's unmoving regard. As you regained your normal pace of breathing, Aemond lent a hand over, grasping your undivided attention. With such ease, Aemond aided you, lifting you up to stand, before confining you closely between the wall and his heated body once more, closing whatever space was made between.

"Now let's see what that cunt has to offer."

His skilful hands hiking your layered gown up, making way for his arms to snake around your bare thighs, lifting you idly off the ground.

"Can't wait till the wedding to tarnish you, I've waited long enough."

A sudden bolt of lightening pain shot from within your inner thighs, as your tight walls stretched out ceaselessly to accommodate, as Aemond shoved his rigid cock inside. Your back flattened against the sandstone wall, its texture rough against the delicate silk of your gown. Burying his length deeper and deeper with each harsh thrust, his heavy balls collided with your silky folds as he vigorously pumped himself back and forth. His pace, although rough, remained steady. His raw, sensitive tip pummelling at your cervix, felt scorching inside your lower belly.

"And if I fuck you so good, that you begin to swell with my child... What would your dead family think of their precious daughter then, huh? These tits belong to me now, and the mother's milk that comes with it. Your entire being belongs to me now. That babe in your belly will be all because of me, and you'll fucking love every bit of it."

"I-I owe you my l-life, D-Daddy-"

The words mindlessly slipped from you lips, and yet it felt instinctual to say. As Aemond's mouth lapped at the sensitive crook of your neck, you felt the smirk of his grin against your skin, his sharp teeth faintly biting at your soft flesh.

"That's right, baby. That's so right my needy, little slut. You have a Daddy now that can really take care of you, protect you... Love you."

The epitome of his words, the calm depth in his voice, had reached its glorifying peak, as Aemond's hot load shot up directly into you, reverently coating your insides. Like some royal orchestra in unison to his final thrust, did a growling moan escape his lips, followed by an whisper of a swear. Leaning his exhausted, heavier mass over you, as he safely guided your legs back down to the surface, his breath densely hot against your ear, his outstretched palms cladded against the wall for support.

"Clean yourself up, Y/N... Wouldn't want anyone else to see you as the whore that you are, and get any ideas-"

His heavy breathing made his voice less formidable and more husky. Eyeing over your form, as you once more scoured and polished up the mess he made between your thighs, with the inner layer of your gown. You simply nodded in response to his demand, before hastily attempting to rush back to the confines of your quarters.

Yet, a firm pull tugged at your elbow, causing you to halt in your tracks, unavoidably.

"I will seek you out again tonight... Be ready for me."

general taglist - @chompchompluke @fan-goddess @malfoytargaryen @hightowhxre @bibli0thecary @m1ndbrand @connorsui @elegantsplendour @randomdragonfires @sylasthegrim @arcielee @s-we-e-t-t-ea @sahvlren @aemondtargaryensrider @watercolorskyy @hypnos-daughter-certified @urmomsgirlfriend1 @backyardfolklore @snowprincesa1 @aegonslawyer

Aemond taglist - @megatardisbaby @harrypotteranna23-blog

credit for divider - @/itbmojojoejo

#aemond targaryen #ewan mitchell #aegon ii targaryen #tom glynn carney #hotd #house of the dragon #aemond targaryen imagines #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen angst #dark!aemond targaryen #dark!aemond #yandere!aemond #aemond x fem!reader #aemond x niece!reader #aemond x y/n #hotd imagines #hotd imagine #hotd fanfic #hotd fanfiction #aemond smut #aemond angst

[lieutenantfloyd]

How they react to you suddenly kissing them — Dune preference

Characters: Gurney Halleck, Feyd-Rautha, Duncan Idaho, Stilgar, Count Rabban.

Warnings: Fluff, insecurity, brief mentions of biting and hair pulling.

Authors Note: I used to write preferences like this years ago, but I wanted to try writing some for my current fandoms :)

Gurney: When you close the gap between you and place your lips on his, he loses himself in the kiss before quickly coming back to his senses. He'd step away from you slightly, a part of him fearing that your affection is some kind of joke, or worse, that he's somehow taking advantage of you by accepting your advances. Once you've given him the proper reassurance, gurney will put his initial reservations aside and happily make up for your awkward first kiss.

Feyd-Rautha: When you close the gap between you and place your lips to his, Feyd-Rautha instantly takes hold of your hair and sinks his teeth into your lip. It's impossible to catch such a confident man off guard, especially one as psychotic and unpredictable as him. He relishes the kiss and the metallic taste that blooms in his mouth. Now that you've made your interest known, Feyd-Rautha has a twisted mind full of plans for the two of you, none of which include letting you go anytime soon.

Duncan: When you close the gap between you and place your lips on his, you can feel Duncan smirk before deepening the kiss almost instantly. He wastes no time pulling you closer and bringing a hand to rest on the nape of your neck. What feels like forever passes before you pull away, nearly gasping for breath. Duncan, being the man he is, goes back to his previous task as if he didn't just turn your world completely upside down. Though the small smile and glint in his eyes tell you he's waiting for his next chance to recreate the moment.

Stilgar: When you close the gap between you and place your lips on his, Stilgar's body stiffens against yours and his blood runs cold. His mind immediately starts racing, thinking about all the now-blatant signs of interest you'd shown him and how he should react now that you're in his arms. Unfortunately, his lack of reactions leads you to pull away. You only barely move before Stilgar's recaptures your lips, giving you a searing kiss in return.

Rabban: When you close the gap between you and place your lips in his, his instincts have him shoving you away roughly. While he doesn't want to reject you—and much less hurt you—the sudden contact triggers his warrior instincts. He gets worked up, yelling questions about what you were thinking and why you'd want to kiss him in particular. His demeanor turns uncharacteristically shy and bashful as he listens to your reasoning, and he doesn't object to a redo. This time he lets you take the lead, bending down slightly to give you better access to his lips and touch starved body. Any and all forms of kindness are completely foreign to him, but if your kiss is anything to go by, he's dying to learn more.

#dune fanfiction #dune part two #dune part 2 #dune #dune x reader #duncan idaho #duncan idaho x reader #gurney halleck x reader #gurney x reader #feyd x reader #feyd rautha x reader #feyd rautha #feyd x you #stilgar #stilgar x reader #stilgar ben fifrawi #glossu rabban #rabban harkonnen x reader #rabban x reader #rabban

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Scenes from the burned bodies of a Palestinian family after an attack by the Zionist occupation army, killing the father and six other family members and severely burning the mother and her four children, the sickening result of an American-made bomb being dropped on their family home.

📈 The current death toll in "Israel's" Special Genocide Operation in Gaza has now reached 33'137 killed and another 75'815 injuries.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏠💥🚑 🚨

MURDERS SLOW BUT DON'T STOP ON 183RD DAY OF "ISRAEL'S" SPECIAL GENOCIDE OPERATION IN GAZA

On the 183rd day of "Israel's" Special Genocide Operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 4 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 46 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 65 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

A number of victims of Israeli bombings remain buried under the rubble of their homes and shelters, while corpses still line many streets as the occupation army continues to block ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching the sites of Israeli attacks.

In a report today, published in the American newspaper the Wall Street Journal, the news outlet said that the Biden administration is pushing the Zionist entity to accept one of the sticking points in negotiations with the Hamas resistance movement, the return of Palestinians to the northern Gaza Strip who've been displaced by the Israeli aggression.

This has been one of the main demands from Hamas in the negotiations, with the others being the withdrawal of Zionist forces from Gaza and the free flow of Humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.

According to the report, the Biden administration asked that the Israeli entity's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, allow a limited number of women and children to return to the north of Gaza, while continuing to block men between the ages of 18-50 from returning.

The newspaper said this would "allay American fears of an Israeli attack on the southern city of Rafah," essentially permitting a planned Israeli ground offensive in the area. More than 1.4 million displaced Palestinians have crowded into Rafah, a city of only 171'000 prior to October 7th, 2023, stretching the city's resources thin and helping to spread disease while under starvation conditions.

According to Arab negotiators mediating the talks, the Israeli entity has said it could accept the return of civilians to northern Gaza at a rate of just 2'000 people per day, as long as those returning are women and children, and with a cap of no more than 60'000 Palestinians allowed back to their utterly destroyed homes.

However, with the continued blocking of basic materials like concrete, and no men allowed to return, where the 60'000 Palestinian civilians would live seems an open question.

Hamas, for its part, according to a CNN report, rejected the idea of only allowing 60'000 women and children to return to the north. An unnamed diplomat involved in the negotiations told CNN that "They rejected (the proposal) and considered that it ignored their demands,” adding that the Israeli proposal "did not include anything new," and therefore the movement does not "see any need to change its proposal."

Meanwhile, the Zionist bombing and shelling campaign responsible for so many tens of thousands of civilian casualties over the previous six months has slowed since the recent massacre of 7 foreign aid workers in a series of targeted drone strikes back-to-back with a second atrocity, and a blatant war crime, when Zionist forces bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Syrian capital, but has yet to stop despite heavy international pressure, including some limited pressure put on the Netanyahu regime by the Americans.

In a recent letter sent to the American President, signed onto by the House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, dozens of Congressional Democrats urged U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinkin to withhold arms transfers to the Israeli regime until a full investigation can be held and completed into the slaughter of the 7 foreign aid workers.

The letter was issued by U.S. Congressmembers Mark Pocan, Jim McGovern and Jan Schakowski and signed by 40 other lawmakers, including Pelosi, many of whom are considered staunch supporters of the Israeli entity.

According to a report about the letter, frustration has been mounting among House Democrats for months as the Netanyahu regime prosecuted its deadly Special Genocide Operation in Gaza, slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians, including over 14'000 children who've been killed since the start of the war.

However, Tuesday's deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen (WCK) personnel as they finished unloading many tons of humanitarian aid into a distribution warehouse in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, and bombed as they were leaving the city, has shook many lawmakers and their aides, many of whom believe the attack to be a turning point in U.S. support for the Israeli regime's genocide campaign.

Even some lawmakers who've refrained from criticizing "Israel" until now have since begun to call for a ceasefire, and some even signed onto the letter issued to the Biden administration, such as U.S. Congressmember Chris Coons, who came out on Thursday in favor of placing restrictions and conditions on American military aid to "Israel".

Meanwhile, the bombing and shelling in Gaza continued, albeit at a slower rate than before Tuesday's attacks on the WCK convoy, the Israeli occupation artillery forces shelled Al-Sika Street in the southeast of Gaza City, and also shelled Beit Hanoun, both in the northern Gaza Strip.

Zionist forces also fired artillery and live bullets at high intensity towards residential neighborhoods in southwestern Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

At the same time, the occupation army targeted several residential homes in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, along with the Al-Sabra neighborhood in central Gaza City, and also the Tal al-Hawa and Sheikh Ajlin neighborhoods southwest of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of three Palestinian civilians, and wounding at least 10 others. Many of whom were transferred to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

Similarly, Zionist occupation forces fired artillery shells towards neighborhoods in the southwest of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, while occupation forces also shelled the the central and western areas of the city as well.

IOF warplanes bombed several residential homes and buildings in the Al-Amal neighborhood west of Khan Yunis, while at the same time, live bullets fired by a Zionist sniper stationed on the border fence east of Al-Fukhari, located east of Khan Yunis, critically wounded one female Palestinian civilian.

The Zionist aggression continued when Israeli occupation soldiers detonated multiple residential homes in the northern areas of Al-Mughraqa, north of Al-Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, while Paramedic crews recovered the corpses two martyrs in the same city while under the continuous artillery shelling of the occupation army.

In another Israeli war crime, Zionist warplanes bombed the Al-Sharafa family home, located in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding three displaced Palestinians sheltering in the building at the time.

Simultaneously, Zionist gunboats "intermittently" shelled the shores of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, where children and families often gather to enjoy the beach, even as the Israeli genocide has unfolded.

In yet another violation of International humanitarian law, occupation soldiers fired live bullets at Palestinian civilians gathered at the Al-Kuwaiti roundabout, south of Gaza City, at the intersection of Salah al-Din Street and Street 10, wounding at least 7 civilians who were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Zionist forces also bombarded a residential home belonging to the Mansour family in Jabalia al-Balad, in the north of Gaza, killing a number of Palestinian civilians, while occupation artillery fire also concentrated on the east of the Jabalia area.

As a result of "Israel's" Special Genocide Operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among Palestinians has now risen in excess of 33'137 citizens killed, over 14'350 of which being children, while another 75'815 Palestinians have been wounded, and yet another 7'000 remain missing under the rubble of their homes since the start of the Zionist aggression on Gaza beginning on October 7th, 2023.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

#gaza #gaza strip #gaza news #gaza genocide #genocide in gaza #war in gaza #genocide #genocide of palestinians #israeli genocide #israeli war crimes #war crimes #crimes against humanity #occupation #israeli crimes against humanity #israel #israel news #palestine #palestine news #palestinians #free palestine #israel palestine conflict #war #politics #news #geopolitics #world news #global news #international news #breaking news #current events

[acotarfrustrations]

Acomaf feyre is turning into something that acotar feyre would absolutely despise and honestly it's so sad the way sjm sniped what SHOULD have been the main character of the series (bcus we all know rhys is the real mc). Like her mind raping tarquin to steal something that she could just ask for when he literally thinks they're friends.

The thing about amren making a meal of any guards that see them steal the book particularly bothers me because this should be the main book where we should see emotional consequences of feyre's actions utm and with andras. Killing an innocent fae for a stupid reason should be SOMETHING SHES VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED TO. ITS WHAT HER WHOLE ACOTAR ARC WAS BASED ON AND HAVING TO GO AGAINST THOSE MORALS DESTROYED HER MIND

NOw all of a sudden it's just another tuesday. Not to mention the things they're doing? WARS HAVE BEEN STARTED FOR LESS. Coming under the guise of diplomacy to a foreign nation to steal their precious artifacts, steal their jewels, and possibly kill their citizens if they see what you're doing??? Why didn't tarquin just kill them?? Those are blatant acts of war

It's so stupid because even Feyre acknowledges that what they're doing is dumb and makes no sense and asks why they can't just ask tarquin for the book. RHYS DOESNT EVEN GIVE AN ANSWER. He's just like "oh well Cresseida told me tarquin is ambitious so, uh, yeah we have to steal the book"

ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID????

It literally feels like rhys only wants to steal it because he's jealous and thinks tarquin wants to fuck feyre so he wants to steal it to not only prove a point but ruin any potential allies that feyre could have outside of IC. Anything to get Feyre dependent on him am I right?

And I feel like this would distress acotar feyre so much because she's not blinded by the rose tinted glasses of rhys' penis and she would be able to clearly see what was going on.

Rhys intentionally waited until feyre was in a very vulnerable state, forced her to come to his house, gave her things he knew she wanted and would benefit him, and uses his mind powers to cater to her every whim and give her what she wants so she can be on his side. Not because he loves her or she's his mate, because it's strategic and there's the added bonus of pissing tamlin off in the beginning. When shit hits the fan for feyre and tamlin, he immediately takes that opportunity to get her to work with him and induct her into the rhys circle jerk cult and now she's thinking like him.

He's so deep in her head that the reader is literally watching sjm change parts of a character's core values to mold her around her love interest and call it empowering feminism, using her trauma and her "darkness" as a justification.

And this "he's not 'dark' enough to be with me" thing particularly bothers me because it's actually a common mindset for traumatized people when it comes to relationships. Thinking that your trauma has ruined you for a healthy relationship and that it's something that you don't deserve so you should actually date evil people because they're the only ones who understand your trauma responses so you won't feel like a burden is a very real mindset and feyre is displaying it to a tee. And Sjm is romanticizing it.

Like yeah rhys might understand her dark side or whatever but that is because he is more evil than her. He sends her to the weaver in what feels like a cruel prank just to go get a ring, he uses her as bait, he shuts her ideas down for no reason, he only tells her what he wants her to know, he grooms her into being a tool for him instead of letting her explore her own personality, and he only shows her around velaris. The only time he takes her somewhere else, he and amren decided to be complete assholes to the summer court and pull a completely unneccesary heist to make feyre feel pressured to join in their schemes and cement this "it's the NC against the world" mentality to isolate her and prevent her from making friends

Like I just imagine book 1 feyre feeling horrified and disgusted at what she becomes and it's honestly so sad. At this point, I honestly only feel sorry for feyre but I think acowar is going to be the breaking point that actually pushes me into hating her. Like at that point, I think she actually becomes one of the IC, mentality actions and all, and idk I just feel so bad.

#anti sarah j maas #anti acotar #anti rhysand #anti sjm #anti ic #anti acomaf #anti feysand #pro feyre

[venomous-ragno]

Writing advice...

... About military things from a soldier

Pt. 2 / ?: Women and relationships in the military

You wanna write a story with a militaristic setting, like CoD or R6S? You wanna create a female OC, self insert or character, but you don't know where to start, if women are even allowed in the military?

Well, lucky for you or not I know what that feels like and I've also got the combat / real life experience to help ya out!

Feel free to hop in my askbox or dm's and ask questions. I'll gladly elaborate and do my best to answer in full and plenty.

Disclaimer: My experiences and knowledge are mostly based on the German military, the Bundeswehr. They may differ from those of other countries.

Happy writing y'all! :)

Are women allowed in the military?

The answer seems obvious: Yes. Most militaries around the world do allow women to enlist. Some, however, do not allow women to join the special forces, such as the SAS, for example.

Certain branches report a higher number of female soldiers than others. The US army air force and sanitation in the German military are two examples I can think of.

Some countries do allow women to enlist but forbid them from partaking in "action", such as North Korea, Sweden, Norway, Bolivia and some more.

What about misogyny by male soldiers?

In my six years of active duty I've learnt that sexism rarely occurs, but when it does, it's straight forward and nasty. Most men don't care about your gender. They treat you like you're one of them, and oftentimes even forget about the fact that you're a woman. The few times I was talked down to for my gender was blatant and hateful though; but even then, some of these opinions didn't come from within the military, but from civilians. (Cue the old granpa who saw me travelling back home in uniform and just had to tell me that women belong in the kitchen, how in the good old days women were still women yadda yadda. Yeah, I had the same look about on my face like you now.)

Appearance is important!

As is in any military. I can't speak for them though, but in my experience, light and natural make up is allowed. Nail polish and lipstick are a hard no though, albeit the latter may be allowed for special occassions. If there's one thing my comrades have taught me it's that most men in the military got no clue about make up, so you'll probs get away with more than you'd think.

The exact rules however depend on your unit and what you do. Back when I was in sanitation I'd be working a pretty standard 9 to 5. Worked in the medbay and treated patients, kept the medical archive in order, pretty normal stuff. My superior allowed us to wear small ear studs. When I got deployed to another base I was almost lynched for wearing them. Really depends on the ones in charge.

As for hairstyles: Most units are fine with anything as long as your hair is up and out of your face. Now, we didn't have to use gel to keep stray hairs at bay. It wasn't that strict. Just don't use any flashy hair accessories and hair ties that match your hair colour. Oh, and your hair must be a) one colour and b) a naturally occuring one. The length doesn't matter as long as you're not Rapunzel. If your hairstyle is anything other than a pixie cut, you will have to wear a hair net under your combat helmet.

Do men and women stay in seperate dorms?

Seperate rooms? Yeah. Seperate dorms? Nope.

Sometimes you'd have couples who shared a dorm room. It's a whole process that your superior has to give his ok to, but I honestly wouldn't recommend it. Dorm rooms aren't exactly big. You need privacy? Well, that's too bad.

If you're lucky enough you get to have a room for yourself. Depending on what branch / base you're in, the rooms will be more or less furnished. Back when I worked at the ministry of foreign affairs, my room was pretty luxurious for milutary standards: TV, fridge, sofa, bed, desk w chair, a closet and a bathroom next door. That's definitely not the standard though. We usually had to buy and bring our own stuff, like blankets, fridge, decorations, whatever you'd need to make that cold room somewhat comfy. (Wifi is also not a given. Gotta get your own connection running.)

Flings, relationships, cheating spouses... How common is it really?

They do happen, though not as often as you'd think.

It's more common to hear rumors about who has smth going with who and these rumors can get BAD. As in reputation and career ruining bad. At that point there's gonna be an order from higher up to stop talking about these rumors and punishment can be quite strict. (Speaking of rumors...Hate to say it, but the more women a unit had, the worse talking behind others backs was.)

One thing that I always found particularly disgusting were relationships between higher ups and recruits. Yes, they happen. No, they're not allowed. These things are like open secrets. If found out and proven to exist, the superiors will be held accountable by military law. Outside of basic training it may be frowned upon if a superior were to enter any kind of relation with someone of lower rank, thought not outright punishable.

As for cheating... Well, I haven't enountered any cheating myself, nor heard of it (yet). Not saying that it doesn't happen, but at least over here in Germany it's rare. It's highly frowned upon and will open you up to rumors and... Not so nice treatment by comrades. Cheating on a spouse is punishable by military law. A soldier found guilty may be demoted in rank, suffer financial losses or even get dishonourably discharged.

#call of duty #call of duty fanfic #mod talks #call of duty headcanons #cod mw2 imagine #call of duty x you #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #call of duty könig #call of duty soap

[comeonamericawakeup]

"Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries?" asked David Graham.

No, not Joe Biden- his predecessor, Donald Trump. Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry based on their suspicion that Biden shared in the payments his son, Hunter, got from Ukrainian and Chinese companies, even though they can't find any evidence. But the GOP couldn't care less about the proof Democrats released last week that while president, Trump received at least $7.8 million from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and 17 other countries. While in office, Trump created blatant conflicts of interest by taking millions from foreign governments seeking to influence him by spending lavishly at his hotels, golf courses, and condos. The Constitution's emoluments clause prohibits public officials from taking such foreign payments- but Trump simply ignored it. This would be a huge scandal for any other officeholder, but GOP "patsies" like House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer rationalize the corruption away by saying Trump "has legitimate businesses," unlike Hunter Biden. If Trump is re-elected, the GOP has given him carte blanche to fill his pockets with more foreign money.

THE WEEK January 19, 2024

#vote blue #us politics #lock him up!

[qqueenofhades]

A different question, but I've been talking with people about a bill, and there's apparently rumors going around that a Senate majority filibuster proof bill would somehow be able to go through the house on the same day, but that doesn't sound right to me.

I was under the impression that both Senate and House have their own separate processes for a bill to be able to be passed, and that even if one passes in the Senate with a filibuster proof majority, that it'd still have to go through those processes in the House before it can reach the President's desk.

Is there any validity to the rumor, or is it just scaremongering?

...er, what? No. No, a bill that is passed by a large majority in the Senate (such as the last foreign aid bill, which was passed 70-29) does not get automatically passed in the House. That is not a thing. If it was, we wouldn't be trying so hard to get sorely needed Ukraine aid up for a vote while Moscow Mike Johnson, who has achieved the dubious feat of taking over from Qevin McClowncar as the worst House Speaker of all time, takes off for 2-week vacations to visit Trump and run theocratic prayer conferences (and has already refused to bring it to a vote because as we now know beyond a doubt, the entire Republican Party are Russian agents). Things that are passed in the House are not auto-passed in the Senate. Things that are passed in the Senate are not auto-passed in the House. In both cases, the other chamber needs to consider it, deliberate it, and vote on it, and this always takes time and usually several extended and complicated procedures.

I don't know who is trying to claim this, but once again: can people who don’t know shit about the American government stop making up completely insane things on the Internet for idk, clout? If you're concerned about things you're hearing, you can always hop along to Wikipedia and brush up on the basics of the legislative process. That way you'll be more informed about how it works overall, and less anxious about blatant disinformation.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[goodqueenaly]

I’m rereading F&B and find myself very confused about Jaehaerys’s proposed marriage candidates? They either seem self serving (which, understandable) or utterly nonsensical to the point of harming J’s future rule Rogar’s choice: Archon of Tyrosh’s daughter (unnamed) to forge alliances across the narrow sea Maester Benifer: a daughter of a neutral great house Daemon Velaryon: Elinor costayne (show Maegor’s supporters were forgiven) and adopt her sons (?wut even?) I kind of understand Benifer’s idea, but the other ones seem doomed from the jump.

I don’t know why Tumblr ate this ask but anyway here we go.

I think there are some logical explanations, at least on a surface level, to a few of the mooted nuptial matches. Alyssa’s proposal to have Jaehaerys marry into one of “the houses who had risen in support of Aegon the Uncrowned in the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye” follows her stated desire at the opening of Jaehaerys’ reign for violent vengeance against Maegor’s supporters; if Alyssa truly believed that “[Maegor’s] entire reign was unlawful and those who had supported him were guilty of treason and must needs be put to death”, then the clearest expression of that belief was to reward the supporters of Aegon the Uncrowned with the greatest possible royal marriage. By contrast, Benifer’s idea to appeal to one of the recently neutral Houses underlined his desire to have the regime move on from the factionalism and civil war of Maegor’s reign - particularly understandable on Benifer’s part, considering he himself had served and then abandoned Maegor before being recalled to court by Jaehaerys. Rogar’s choice doesn’t seem particularly related to his, Rogar’s, goals otherwise - we don’t really see him trying to forge alliances with the Tyrosh or any other Free Cities, or understand why he might have wanted to build ties with Tyrosh - though I took this match as something of an authorial wink to both Dany and our Aegon. Alyssa’s point that “[t]he smallfolk of Westeros would never accept a foreign girl with dyed tresses as their queen” recalls the dyed hair our Aegon adopts to disguise his identity (ostensibly, indeed, to honor his supposed Tyroshi mother), which he wished to have rinsed out ahead of his meeting with Golden Company (that is, when he revealed himself to be, allegedly, a Targaryen prince); too, Alyssa’s allusion to the “delightful” Tyroshi accent of the Archon’s daughter may echo Dany’s own apparently Tyroshi accent (and, of course, her ambition to be a queen in Westeros, despite a lifetime spent almost completely in Essos). (This dispute may also be a hint to the xenophobia and alienation experienced by Larra Rogare during the Lysene Spring and her marriage to Prince Viserys.)

Now, yes, some of the matches are less explainable, except (to a limited extent, anyway) outside of blatant personal ambition. Indeed, given that the Tullys and Celtigars barley hid their motives for pushing their familial relations as potential brides for young Jaehaerys, I am more surprised that no other families attempted to shove their pretty daughters in front of the king and/or Rogar. Yet these potential brides pale in comparison to Elinor Costayne, who was for my money the strangest choice. The oddity of her candidacy is heightened by the fact that her sponsor was Daemon Velaryon, a man who did not appear to gain anything by her potential elevation as Jaehaerys’ queen. While the argument that “Queen Elinor’s proven fertility was another point in her favor” might have carried some weight (considering King Jaehaerys, the only male-line male Targaryen left, would presumably needed to father an heir sooner rather than later), and the suggestion that Jaehaerys adopt Elinor's sons by Theo Bolling mirrors Sharra Arryn’s offer to Aegon the Conqueror during the Targaryen Conquest - another king with no offspring or obvious male heir - I am still baffled as to why Lord Daemon, of all people, would have supported the choice of a woman so publicly associated with Maegor’s tyrannical reign for his nephew’s royal bride. Perhaps this was just par for the course with Daemon, considering he had previously suggested that Maegor marry his own niece: just as Daemon had argued that by marrying Rhaena, Maegor would “unite their claims, prevent any fresh rebellions from gathering around her, and acquire a hostage against any plots … [Alyssa Velaryon] might foment”, maybe Daemon believed that a marriage between Elinor and Jaehaerys would link Jaehaerys to the claim of Elinor’s late (second) husband and his own official predecessor, and/or prevent any remaining pro-Maegor factions from rallying around his (unmarried) widowed queen. Still, it’s largely a bizarre notion acceptable only in the brevity with which it is presented; the story barely lingers on it, so neither should we.

The real point, of course, is to present a bunch of equally unpalatable (to Jaehaerys personally, at least) options in order to contrast them with the young king’s “true love”, Alysanne (heavy air quotes here). Since GRRM could not specifically duplicate The Accursed Kings here with the Jaehaerys and Alysanne story (as he does otherwise with Alysanne) - only copying the supposed love match, not the political advantage the marriage brought to the boy’s mother or the revolution against a tyrant king - he instead goes full romance, the sort of love versus duty that the author so enjoys portraying. As any number of his descendants will later - Princess Baela, the future King Aegon V, and indeed his own namesake, the future King Jaehaerys II, among others - the young Jaehaerys I rejects a potential diplomatic or otherwise dutiful marriage arranged by another (or multiple others) in order to wed according to the dictates of his heart.

#asoiaf meta #fire and blood volume 1 #jaehaerys i targaryen #marriage making

[gretavanlace]

Baby Doll

Jake Kiszka x reader

18+ only! Minors do not interact!

Warnings: graphic sexual content, language, alcohol consumption, dirty talk, praise, choking, degradation, use of derogatory terms, masturbation, penetration with a foreign object, etc...idk, this one won’t be for everyone

* Sending a little wink to these lovely anons who planted this filthy seed *wink* *wink* ❤️💋

“Please?” you beg, lending a sultry edge to your tone as your fists wrap around his jacket so tightly the sequins dig into your palms. “We can be quick. You look so good…this fucking jacket is just…” you trail off, at a lost for words. He is such a stunning specimen, dripping sex and confidence.

“No, baby doll…” he shakes his head and gently unfurls your grip on him. “Last gig I was so late they had to unload everything without us, remember? Josh is still bitching,”

“Josh is always bitching.” you counter, pressing your body flush against his.

His fingertips drag up the outside of your thigh, but stop just short of dipping under your tiny robe. “Is my poor little girl feeling neglected?”

You nod and throw him your best ‘fuck me’ eyes.

“The same little girl that I had bent over the kitchen counter stretched pretty and pink around my dick less than an hour ago?” His hand inches higher, teasing tender pinches into your flesh…voice placid and relaxed, as if he’s floating in a hammock, basking in the afternoon sun.

Again, you merely nod as your hands find his jacket once more. He looks so mouth-watering in the cropped, glittering shrug found in a thrift shop, undoubtedly donated after the death of an eccentric great aunt. How?

“Greedy...” he breathes, the word falling warm against your neck. “and spoiled. Fucking greedy and spoiled.”

“Yes…” it’s barely a word, hardley a response at all…more of a broken wisp of a moan.

“Well,” his lips are now pressed just below your ear as he sings a soft melody to you. “You can’t always get what you want.”

“Jacob.” you huff in mild annoyance. He’s toying with you and you have little patience for it. “The Beatles are better than the Stones anyway. Shows what you know.”

With a crack on your ass, he points you in the direction of the en suite, a silent order to go get ready. “I won’t listen to such blatant musical blasphemy. I want a divorce.”

“We aren’t even married.” you call over your shoulder with a subtle sway of your hips that you hope might lure him in.

“Okay, I want to marry you, just so I can divorce you.” he’s wandering out of the room, having won this round. “And the shower massager stays in its cradle while you’re in there, baby. We don’t have time for your antics.”

~

“Well look who decided to grace us with a timely arrival for once.” Josh nudges Danny with his elbow, arms struggling around a box overflowing with tangled wires.

Jake skirts around him and hauls out a mic stand. “Shut up, Josh. It was one time, alright? Let it go.”

Sammy appears out of nowhere, as he so often does, looking like he just stretched his way out of a cat nap, slender fingers wrapped around a sweating White Claw. “Yeah, but you didn’t even help!” he jumps in straight away, siding with Josh. “We had to drag everything in – that place had stairs, by the way, and…”

“Samuel,” Danny interjects, dropping a kiss hello upon your cheek before turning to his friend. “You did fuck all besides stand around and complain about the heat.”

“Lies!” Sam shakes his head vehemently and waves off the accusation. “I also got that girl's number.”

“Ah, yes…” Josh nods. “That was very helpful to the rest of us. Thank you, little brother.”

“Welcome.” Sammy shrugs, gracefully dragging the case that bolsters his bass out of the back of the van, before vanishing through the bar’s backdoor.

“Here, let me help.” you reach forward, searching for a box or case in need of carrying, determined to make yourself useful, but Jake puts a quick stop to it.

“My girl isn’t a roadie.” he wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you in for a chaste kiss.

“You’re right.” you agree, leaning in to kiss him back. “You guys don’t have those.”

“Someday.” he smiles. “You know what we do have though? Perks.”

“Oooh,” you sigh as if the very idea has caused a swoon. “Perks?”

“That’s right, baby. One free drink for each member of the band…and I’m gonna let you have mine.”

A feigned shiver of delight quickly turns very real when he nuzzles your neck. “A free drink?”

“That’s right.” his teeth nip into your earlobe, then he whispers in your ear, like pillow talk, “Bottom shelf only.”

He punctuates himself by wiggling his fingers into your hips, laughing when you giggle and shove him off.

Moving to grab you back in, he’s foiled by the brash sound of his twin brother’s voice barking out at him. “Get a goddamn room. Preferably after you help carry this shit in!”

You watch him tug a large black case effortlessly into his grip with one hand, while pushing Josh’s shoulder to knock him off balance with the other, and then head into the bar to round up that free drink.

~

Now you’re pissed.

Through the first half of the set, you chalked it up to the state you’ve been in all day. You wanted him. Needed him. So of course, everything he did…every minute detail, caught and held your attention. You’re aching for him, so he couldn’t be held responsible for the state he had you in, right?

Wrong. Because as he struts closer to the edge of the tiny stage, and thrusts his hips forward into his guitar, cocking his head to the side as his fingers fly across the frets so rapidly they blur…you know. When his beautiful brown eyes flutter and then flash to yours with a wolfish grin, you long to duck and cover. Whatever he’s cooking up in that devious mind of his won’t be helpful to your current situation.

His eyes never leave yours, and his fingers remain toying with the neck of his Gibson, coaxing pulsing whines and screams out of his amp, as he reaches for the Guiness he’s almost killed. He brings it to his lips, drains the dredges, and then…like the sadistic son of a bitch you know him to be…he drags the bottle slowly down his strings, creating a mournful cry.

Your thighs slam together as a silent moan sounds off inside your head.

Fuck this guy. You think. Haughty, and annoyed, and just so damn hungry for him. Fuck. This. Guy.

The smirk that he tries to hide breaks through and you want to smack him square in his pretty face. You want to fuck yourself on his pretty cock. You want to smack his pretty face while you fuck his pretty cock.

You catch him staring down at your clenched thighs, looking highly pleased with himself. He enjoys the game far too much, but you like to play too. So, in the spirit of sportsmanship, you part those thighs of yours that he’s so smugly inspecting. Just enough that if someone looked closely, they might catch a flash of your panties up your skirt.

Narrowing his stare, his expression burns hot as his jaw flexes firmly to ensure his demand is heeded. Close your fucking legs.

Well, look who can’t take the heat but won’t get his ass out of the kitchen.

Not to be rushed by a man who is clearly attempting to take you apart in the middle of a dive bar, you slowly cross your legs but still manage to show far too much thigh. Oops.

~

“You know, they say that’s a sign of sexual frustration?” Sammy points down to where you’re picking away at the label of your beer.

The set is long over, and the five of you are now scattered around a pool table as Josh and Jake battle it out, albeit poorly, with sticks in their hands.

You’ve never heard that before. Not surprising, though…Sam is a veritable forest of mostly useless information.

The inventor of Pringles is actually buried in a Pringles can. Rainbows were once called bows of promise. People used to answer the phone “Ahoy” instead of “Hello”.

These facts of his almost always sound made up, but they always check out, and you’ve long since stopped googling to double check him.

“Really?”

“Really.” he confirms grimly before turning his attention to his brother. “Is someone not doing his job, Jacob?”

“I do my job just fine.” Jake’s patience is very obviously wearing thin as he misses the shot he’s been lining up.

“That true, shortcake?” Sammy prods, offering you a conspiratorial wink that Jake can’t see. Let’s stir him up a little, shall we? It seems to say. He also knows his innocent pet name for you, chosen because you’re shorter than even the twins by at least a head, makes you blush.

“Usually.” you sigh, holding Jake’s stare when it catches yours.

“Usually.” Josh laughs infectiously, dragging you right along with him until Jake’s face sets into concrete irritation that seems like it may never dissipate.

Your laughter dies down as he shoves his pool stick into the rack on the wall and stalks toward you. “Your shot.” he points out to his twin, clipped and venomous, eyes still fixed on yours.

His mouth, warm and soft, finds your cheek and then sweeps up languidly. To anyone else, it would look like a sweet, intimate moment between two lovers in the darkness of a hole in the wall pub. In reality…

“Watch yourself, babydoll.” he warns, low and slow against the shell of your ear.

“You watch yourself.” you snap back quietly. “Fuck you and your beer bottle slide. I know what you were doing, whore.”

His head jerks back so his stunned eyes can assess yours. “Did you just…did you really just call me a whore?”

Your spine straightens defiantly with a terse nod. “Yes, I did. Because that’s what you are. Up there on stage trying to make me wet for you. Probably not even just me, probably trying to make everyone in here desperate for this.” Your hand cups his cock through his skin tight jeans, your actions hidden by his body and the corner you happen to be seated in.

“You want that?” he rasps, pressing into your palm.

“I always do.” your continued touch is a challenge, a game of chicken, who will be the first to veer off the road? “Are you gonna give it to me? Or does someone else get it tonight?”

He grabs your chin and guides your line of sight around the sad little bar, filled with no more than a handful of equally sad men staring down into their beers as if reading tea leaves. “See this crowd?” he jerks your face around with mindful authority until you nod.

“This bar could be bursting at the seams with gorgeous, fuckable, women, and you’re still the only one I’d see.” he dips his thumb into your mouth and allows you to suck it, like his favorite little baby, for just a moment before pulling away with a wet pop.

You lean forward slightly, searching…he takes great satisfaction in this. “Look at you, baby doll. Is that sweet mouth lonely?”

A hum through a bite of your bottom lip is your only reply, but he seems to like that just fine. “Maybe I’ll see if I can find you a lollipop.”

“Jakey…” you beg him with your eyes.

“Calm your pretty self down, yeah?” he grins, backing away. “We’ve got all night.”

You hate him. You love him. You love to hate him. In these moments, fuck how you love to hate him.

~

You’ve spent the remainder of the night digging yourself into a hole, nice and deep.

Smarting off to him, flirting with his brothers, spurning his touch one moment…seeking it out the next. You’ve perched yourself on his lap, moving far more often than necessary, swatting him away when he attempts to hold you still, swatting him away some more when he attempts to make you rock against him.

His cock is throbbing beneath you when the others drift off to put a pinball challenge Danny has set forth into play.

“You feel nice, baby.” you purr, spinning the stir straw in your vodka tonic, which is now mostly ice. “So hard and warm…will you take me into the bathroom and let me feel it, hard and warm, inside?”

You’re staring down at the table, facing away from him, so you aren’t privy to his expression, but you hear the sharp intake of his breath. Then you almost feel the split second decision ripple through him. He isn’t ready to give you your way. Not yet.

“No…” his palms splay out over your thighs. “And shouldn’t you be ashamed of yourself? This bar is filthy, and here you are asking me to take you into the bathroom. Fucking dirty.”

His mouth moves over the dip of your shoulder as he admonishes you. When you move to rise off of his lap, he pulls you back down firmly…a reminder of who is in charge. “You will sit here like a lady and wait patiently until I decide to take you home and ruin you with this cock you want so badly. Plan to wreck that snug little cunt, doll. Gonna fuck it wide open. When I’m good and ready.”

Fuck…

As much as you want to give in and obey him like a servant groveling at the feet of her king, there is a flame of defiance within you that he’s never been able to truly extinguish. Perhaps because he knows you would like it to remain lit. Perhaps because he would like it to remain lit.

Either way, that tiny blue blaze flickers strong in your belly, and you allow it to guide your disobedience.

“No, I will not sit like a lady and wait.” you bite back, sounding much stronger than you actually feel. You move to stand but his hands delve into your hips, dull nails digging into your flesh through your clothes.

“Red.” you speak the word with a delicate hint of sovereignty you don’t actually feel…but you’ll act the part anyway.

His hands rip away so quickly you might as well be on fire. “Sorry…” he murmurs, taking on that strangely formal, yet attractive, tone that only lends itself to his cadence during interviews. Usually. “Sorry, baby doll…fuck, m’sorry.” his mouth is now moving along your neck as his hands grip the table in front of you. He’s being mindful that you can see them.

“Don’t be.” you assure him lovingly. “Just remember your place.”

You watch his knuckles turn white as he clutches at the wood in a quiet frenzy. “Remember my place?” His voice is rumbling thunder, threatening a storm.

You rise off of his lap, immediately mourning the warmth and sturdiness of his body, and turn to kiss his cheek. “I’m going to the bathroom,” you murmur huskily into his ear. “To get off all by myself because you think it’s cute to tease.”

Without waiting for a response, you saunter off with the heat of his gaze lighting your path.

You expect him to follow, to be pressed up against you before you’ve even made it through the door…but you’re able to close and lock it all by your lonesome. You don’t really plan to do anything, you don’t want to take matters into your own hands, you want his hands.

All over you. Grabbing at you, drifting across your flesh, prying your legs apart, slipping inside, filling you, coaxing you closer and closer to that sweet, sweet end. You want to feel the kiss of his rings against you, his hand wrapped around your neck while the other fucks into you until you’ve soaked him, until you’re rolling down his wrist and shivering each time he tucks into that blissful spot inside.

Leaning against the wall, you survey the dingy, cramped little room that smells of cheap air freshener and stale liquor. It’s poorly lit, but, with an annoyed sigh, you lean forward and inspect your makeup in the blurry, smudged mirror. You expected him to come after you, you really did…and the rejection would sting if you didn’t understand that he is every bit as stubborn as you are.

You’re straightening your skirt, preparing to head back out, when a swift knock sounds against the door.

“Just a second.” you call out, feeling inexplicably embarrassed.

Jake’s voice, stern and commanding, responds “Unlock this fucking door.”

You swing it open with a satisfied smirk. He’s hunted you after all. “Hey, Jakey…can I help you?”

In a blink, he has pushed his way into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. Sealing you both into a grimy tomb that is filled with the muffled thumps of a jukebox and sexual tension.

“What makes you think you can misbehave this way?” he asks, walking you backward until you meet the sink. “What could have ever given you the impression that I’d take your bullshit with a smile on my face? Hmm?”

Stunned into silence by his tone, you watch as he swigs at his bottle of beer, downing the last of it before swiping the back of his hand across his plush, pink mouth.

“Asked you a question, baby doll.” He raises your face to meet his own with the neck of his lager hooked beneath your chin. “Answer it.”

“I’m sorry, Jakey.” you pant, airy and full of want. When he gets this way, it’s infatuating. “I didn’t mean to misbehave. I only wanted you to fuck me.” Your hand grazes the fly of his jeans with a soft moan. “Just missed your pretty cock. That’s all.”

His finger finds your lips in a silent ‘shh’ “You most certainly did mean to misbehave, troublemaker. Spreading your legs in a bar full of old men who probably haven’t seen a cunt as tight and pink as yours in years. Sitting on my lap, making me hard…” he switches to a high pitched voice that mocks you. “Red.” Now his fingers are wrapped around your throat. “Don’t you ever fucking safeword again unless you mean it. Am I clear?”

You swallow hard against his grasp and nod slowly. “Yes.”

He nods back, just as slowly. “Nice to see you’re listening again. I’d call you a good girl, but we both know that isn’t true tonight, don’t we? So what’s that make you, baby doll? Tell me.”

Eyes burning into his, you answer without hesitation. “That makes me a bad girl. I’m a bad girl, and I’m sorry for it.”

“Yes you are…” his knee knocks your thighs apart. “And do bad girls get what they want?”

“No.” you sigh, tense under his stare…he is radiating lust– hot, fierce desire.

He tilts his head as if he doesn’t already know “And what is it that you want?”

“Your cock.” your tongue slips out, searching for his mouth. You can’t reach, but he takes pity on you and pulls you into a deep, aching kiss before wrenching you back.

“So what won’t you be getting?” He leads, condescendingly.

“Your cock.” you repeat, sounding despondent. Your pulse is pounding in your clit, panties soaked and clinging to you, hips rocking into nothing, seeking friction that isn’t there.

“Well look at that. She may be a troublemaker, but she isn’t stupid.” his fingers drag up your thigh until he meets the dripping silk hiding your cunt away.

When your hips jerk from the counter and into his touch, he pulls back. “Eager, aren’t we, doll? And for what? Already told you that you won’t be getting any cock. So why are you so excited?”

“Please…” you’re whining and grabbing at him without shame.

“Please, what?” he’s taunting you, torturing you, dragging this out.

“Fuck me.” your fingers are latched around his necklaces. “Please…I just…fuck…”

He pets at your hair sweetly. “You just what?”

A tiny sob escapes you…he’s just all around you. Consuming you. The way he sounds, and smells…the way he makes you feel. The way he makes you want. “I need to feel full. Please, Jakey. I’m your baby doll, aren’t I? Don’t you want to make your baby feel good?”

“Jesus…” he shudders, faltering for just a moment, before kissing your cheek. “Yeah, you’re my baby doll, but I meant what I said…you can’t have this.” he digs his hot, hard, cock into your thigh. “You haven’t earned it.”

“Fingers?” you question hopefully, struggling to articulate thoughts, you want him so badly. “Your mouth?”

He hesitates, searching your face, turning something over in his mind, until he reaches behind you and snatches up the empty beer bottle he discarded on the counter behind you. Eyes on yours, he holds it up between your faces silently.

An embarrassing, animalistic, sound bursts out of your chest and he shakes his head in disbelief. “Panties down. Now.”

They are stretched around your thighs in a breath as he purses his lips to suppress a smile.

“Your cunt is slutty, you know that?” he whispers, nudging the lip of the bottle into your thigh. “You’re slutty. We’re in a goddamn bar bathroom…it’s disgusting in here, and any minute some drunk, dirty old man is gonna knock on the door and you don’t even care. You don’t care,” he shrugs, to illustrate his point, and eases the bottle upward. “You’ve got your legs spread for me, trembling all sweet and pretty, waiting for me to fuck you with a beer bottle. What the fuck is wrong with you, baby? You’re sick. Fucking twisted.”

“What’s wrong with you?” you gasp when the glass sweeps over your clit at last.

There’s a devilish gleam in his eyes when he answers. “Plenty. There’s fucking plenty wrong with me.”

“Show me.” you beg, rocking your hips up in an attempt to force the bottle inside you.

“Say please like a good girl. Ask nicely.” the amber glass skates across your overheated center, cold and shocking. “Where’s my proper little girl with all those finishing school manners?”

“Please…” the word shakes out of you as if your body is set to spin cycle. “Jake, fuck, please…”

In reply, he lifts the bottle to your lips “Suck.”

Your mouth descends down around the neck as if it were his beautiful cock, and he pushes it in further, until you’re gagging around it.

“Oh, that’s nice, doll…sounds pretty, pretty, pretty. I can’t even feel it, and you’re still working so hard to please me. Gag, baby…that’s it. So beautiful.”

He slips it in deeply, until you're retching around it while still trying to swallow it down further. “You want it inside?” he breathes against the curve of your neck as you suck away at it.

You nod urgently, allowing a groan of desire to shudder out of your tightened chest.

The bottle dips down, dragging a lazy trail until it's circling your soaked entrance. Your hips rock and thrust forward, trying to force his hand.

“Look at you…” he sounds smugly pleased. “Chasing it like a whore. Is that what you are? Is my baby nothing but a whore? All innocent eyes and a soaked pussy?”

“For you…” you whine, thighs quivering as your body vibrates with unbridled desperation. You reach down and grab at the bottle “I know I don’t deserve anything, I was mouthy, and I teased you…but please, Jakey. Please?”

“Begging…” he scoffs. “For a beer bottle in her cunt. Who’s my fuck whore? Hmm? Who’s my darling little slut?”

“I am…” you preen, spreading wider, inviting whatever he is willing to bestow upon you. “I’m your whore. You want to give your whore what she needs, don’t you, baby?”

Again, his body shakes at your wanton display, but he doesn’t own his vulnerability for long. Instead, he’s nudging the bottle inside you tenderly. Your thighs part as best they can with your panties caged around them. “Thatta girl, baby…take it. Just fucking take it.”

Your head should be heavy with shame…you should be telling him to stop, pushing him away, rejecting the complete obscenity of it all. Instead, your fingernails dig into the back of his neck for leverage as you begin to ride the smooth, cool glass.

“Look at you,” he twists his wrist. “All up on your tiptoes…that’s fucking adorable. How’s that feel, sweetheart? You like that?”

A frenzied nod, followed by a choking sob echoes into the room, but he doesn’t bother to hush you. “Harder, Jake…” you whine, tugging at his hair.

“No.” he slides two fingers into your mouth, pressing down on the cradle of your tongue when your lips part with a tiny wail. “Gotta be careful, baby doll. I don’t want to hurt you with it.”

“I don’t care.” you argue around his skin, licking and biting at him as he presses his digits deeper.

“Well, I do.” his pace remains cautious, but he tilts the bottle into your sweet spot, earning a gasping sob. “Yeah, see? Just shut your mouth, baby. I’ll get you there…you know I will.”

Your hand drops down, fingers frantically circling your slick, swollen clit.

“That’s my girl.” he coos into your ear, licking through his words. “Gonna help me take care of this filthy little cunt of yours? You’re a naughty, disgusting fucking slut and I fucking love it. I fucking love you. Maybe I’ll put it in your ass when I get you home, since you’re so in love with my cock…I bet you’d let me put it anywhere I wanted, huh? Bet you’d let me fuck your pretty ass and then slide down your throat, wouldn’t you?”

You’ve lost the ability to think, so you simply suck on his fingers and allow your eyes to roll back in your head.

“Can’t even answer me?” he teases, shoving into your mouth until you gag and tears pool in your eyes. “Cock drunk and stupid on a beer bottle. What’s everyone out there gonna think when you stumble out looking like a sloppy, fucked-out whore?”

“Mmmmjake…” muffles out of your mouth. You’re so close your entire body feels feverish…burning up from the inside out.

“C’mon, baby doll…” he whispers, twisting the neck of the bottle inside you. “Give it to me…cum for me. I want it, baby…fuck, I want it so bad.”

He suddenly sounds even more desperate than you feel and the need in his voice grabs hold of the white hot band coiling tighter and tighter in your stomach and rips it apart.

Your teeth sink into his knuckles until he hisses in pain as your vision blurs, your body writhing and fighting the unimaginable pleasure. Until something breaks, and rather than fighting it, you allow it to happen, you relax into it and crumple in his arms, safe and sure in his embrace.

“Fuck…” the curse drags out of him slow and rasping. He sounds transfixed, but you aren’t sure why until the fog clears a bit.

You’re soaked…thighs and panties covered, as is his hand and the arm of his jacket.

“Look what you did.” His loving scolding sounds winded, like he’s never loved anything more in his entire life. He eases the bottle out of you and brings it to his lips, lapping his tongue in a slow stripe along the side, tasting you…savoring you with heavy lidded eyes.

“Take me home.” you breathe, watching his tongue lick along the glass.

“No.” he answers off-handedly. “Oh, look at that, baby.” he holds it up, shimmying it around to draw attention to the liquid now gathered at the bottom of the beer bottle. “Caught some.”

In stunned, mute, lust-drenched awe, you watch as he tilts his head back and swallows it down before tossing it into the overflowing trash can in the corner.

He adjusts his very obviously swollen cock in his jeans and then turns you to face the sink. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Can’t have anyone suspecting what you just let me do to you in here, now can we?”

Taglist: @gretasintrees @gardenofgreta @greta-van-chaos @theweightofstardust @celestialfauna @s0livagant @groggyvanfleet @kiszkathecook @paintmyhouse @dvrkblooms @brokenbellz @llightmyllovee @doodle417 @kdarling1 @seventieswhore @jake-kiszkas-smirk @gretasmokerising @tripthelight-fanfic @mckenna4 @tripthelightfandomtastic @sarakay-gvf @theweightofjake @dakotadovato @joshsmama @sammysvanfeet @joshkiszkas @avagvf @rhythm-of-space @tripthelightjaketastic @jakeslovehandles @loofypoofy @70sgroupielovr @heatmyfleet @age-of-nyahh @sammiboo162 @spicedandicedtea @gretavanflowerpower @jakekiszkasleftnutsack @saoirsemaeve @mywickeddivinity @calumspretty @weightofdreams-gvf @greta-flanveet-admin @alisonwonderland29 @agirlwithmanytastes @gretavanfleas @gretavangroove @sparrowofthedawn @tbagggvf @obetrolncocktails

#greta van fleet #greta van fleet smut #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet fan fiction #fanfic #greta van fic #greta van smut #jake gvf #jake kiskza #jake kiszka fanfic #jake kiszka smut #jake kiszka imagine #gvf one shot #gvf fic #gvf smut #gvf fanfiction #gvf imagine

[anghraine]

I always love reading your thoughts and essays on Pride and Prejudice.

I've been reading a lot of P&P fic lately, and one thing I'm struck by is how widespread Darcy being called William or Will is.

What are your thoughts? Why do you think this is so common?

Thank you very much, anon!

You've chanced across one of my oldest and strongest pet peeves, tbh. My uncharitable opinion is that it is so extremely pervasive because fandom—at least Western media fandom—are, well, cowards about long names. People are always having characters use shortened nicknames even when there's zero evidence for them doing so and even when the original names aren't that long. The mere possibility of people not shortening their names seems almost a foreign concept.

I think it's compounded with Darcy because Fitzwilliam Darcy is such a specifically upper-class rich person sort of name. A lot of the fandom simply doesn't like it and can't/won't imagine anyone actually using it in full, though Darcy is probably the last person who would mind such a name or be inclined to abbreviate it to one of the most common names in the English language. Especially, IMO, given that (in-story) it was clearly given to honor his now-dead mother and her aristocratic family.

On a more meta level, I also think Georgiana and Fitzwilliam (esp given the association of the in-story Fitzwilliams with a literal Fitzwilliam earl) for the Darcy siblings aren't just suitably snooty names for their background but in context, pretty blatant references to some very famous figures in Whig politics. The political subtext is completely erased by converting Darcy's name to William, esp in period-set fic, but most people don't care and just want a less "weird" name.

#anon replies #respuestas #austen blogging #austen fanwank #lady anne blogging #anghraine rants #general fanwank #long post #(ish) #nice things people say to me

[genderkoolaid]

was thinking about why marginalized people often use slurs in describing oppression. like in the phrase "magical negro", or using the term "cripple" or "tranny" when talking about how people see us. its not reclamation, it's more about specifically forcing the dominant group to face their bias.

bc when it comes to overt forms of bigotry, there isn't really the need to do this. the bigot will very directly tell you why they hate you- because you are a [slur], a stand-in for everything the believe about the group they hate (being unnatural, criminals, dirty, sinful, ugly, a drain on society, etc).

but generally those kinds of overt bigotry are harder to have in polite society, especially when the marginalized group in question has enough visibility and has been loud enough about their treatment that people have to acknowledge it. now, saying you hate black people or trans people or immigrants is a social faux pas, and people acknowledge that hating those groups is Bad.

but anything less than hatred is still looked over, because critically examining how our actions contribute to social patterns is Hard and requires abstract thinking, and it's much easier to just get rid of the most blatant forms of bigotry and wipe your hands of the whole nasty "systemic oppression" issue. overt bigots are bad, ostensibly because of their bigotry, but largely because they just are so gauche about it, you know? it's easy for Good Liberals in the US north to mock the gun-obsessed fat Southern man caricature who doesn't believe in climate change and says slurs, but they often get quiet and awkward if someone brings up the liberal white woman from New York who quickly locks her door when a Black man walks by her car on the sidewalk. She doesn't hate black people, so she can't be racist- there's a world of difference (in her mind) between herself and the Racist. even if, whether it's through gun violence on private property or calling the cops because she feels scared, a Black man gets killed because a white person's racist bias.

getting back to the original point about slurs: using them in this context forces people to recognize that all of that bias is the same. your racism, transphobia, ableism, isn't different just because you use nice words. dominant groups get uncomfortable when marginalized groups use slurs to point out their bigotry (i.e "you want me to be a good tranny") because it draws a direct connection between the blatant, socially unacceptable bigotry and the socially acceptable, low-key bigotry. a lot of times, society reacts to oppressed groups fighting for liberation by addressing the most obvious elements while allowing and encouraging the subtle elements, so that way they calm down and stop causing problems, but society doesn't have to meaningfully change. drawing that connection pulls the cover off of society. no more "but I don't hate immigrants so I'm not xenophobic!", because xenophobia isn't just ICE officers keeping kids in cages, it's also getting annoyed with people who have strong accents because why can't they just learn to speak English better and making every movie set in Eastern Europe have a blue filter so you know it's Foreign and Sad.

basically, slurs are used as a weapon to remind marginalized groups of every stereotype about them, and "put them in their place". but they can also be used to force polite bigots to face their own bigotry, blowing away the smokescreen of "only violent oppression is real oppression". There's a power to be found in bringing your issues into the light when the world would really rather you sit pretty and smile and thank it for doing the bare minimum while still making your life hell.

#m. #I'm just rambling but it was interesting thinking abt the reasons we do this #bc polite bigotry is so fucking annoying #ive always hated the conflation of violence w bigotry #and how people will insist they CANT be bigoted because they aren't literally a neonazi #also a lot of times ppl will complaining about how ''everything is bigoted now!!'' because they don't understand how sociology works #but that's another issue #racism #homophobia #transphobia #ableism #eugenics #transandrophobia #antiblackness

[dcwnthercbbithcle]

DOE STRANGER THINGS VERSES

(they will be added to her carrd too, I just want a post of them on the blog)

OF AN IMPORTANT NOTE: WHILE I AM REFERRING TO DOE AS DOE, THROUGHOUT THIS, IT'S JUST BECAUSE DOE IS IDENTIFIABLE AS HER MAIN ALIAS. BECAUSE DOE HASN'T BECOME A JANE DOE IN THE VERSE AND IT TAKES PLACE SEPARATE TO HER DEATH, DOE GOES BY RACHEL OSHIMA (ALSO SPELT ŌSHIMA) NICKNAMES RIRA (SHE WON'T EXPLAIN ITS HER REAL NAME TO SAVE THE HEADACHE) AND SNOOPY,

PRE-AMBLE:

The year is 1982, and Doe SHOULD be happy, she knows it, but the feeling of joy at a change of scenery never comes, in fact, as the car treads on, the towering trees shifting from coniferous emerald giants to plumes of brightly coloured plumes of leaves. All that comes is that telltale tremble, shaking each breath and the sting of acid at the back of her throat: held-back cries turned cutting, she knows, but she won't admit, especially not to the foreign faces feigning smiles, what a pleasure it is to meet her again after so long, they've heard so many things. Oh, Doe BETS they have.

She doesn't want to know the stories; Doe'd argue she doesn't care, but that would be a blatant lie, as transparent as the brave face she's currently wearing. They're lies, all lies; they don't know her; they've NEVER known her. What her parents, the wardens, did know were the grades they took credit for and the incident they could have prevented. If they'd listened, for once, she had proof. But no, tighter leash, more restrictions, the guards, her brothers following her straight home and guiding HIS way the entire time. She begged them to listen, the car outside their house, getting closer and closer, the fox to the henhouse.

He WAS going to hurt her; he'd tried before, and she had marks from when he tried to grab her after school. She couldn't stay in that goddamn house, in her goddamn room, visible from the road. She needed to leave, and she BEGGED them, begged them to send her away before this, but no, what would the family think? That she was pregnant, the town bicycle? Failing classes? Expelled? No, no, no.

She had to STAY for them, but her life was worth more. She knew this; she had a bag packed and ready to go; she'd said goodbye to her friends and knew a shelter some towns over where she could be safe. She planned to tell them once she got away, but a link in the chain broke. A friend or two let the word slip to the guards, a plan foiled before she could even leave and oh, the fallout it wrought.

She'd been in trouble before; screaming matches were never hard to find and physical discipline less so, but the quietness scared her worse, the defeat; she didn't hear many of the words, but she knew the message loud and clear. They gave up on her; she'd be someone else's problem now.

First, the nightmares, then the anxiety, the incident with her job, the false reports to the police (they weren't lies) and now this? They didn't know what was wrong with her, where they went WRONG. But they couldn't keep trying to keep a lid on the situation she seemed determined to bring to a boil.

She wasn't their daughter; she was this... monster. That was the word they'd used, seared in like a branding iron, and she screamed it out through the night. When the Sato's finally arrived to bring her to her new home, her voice was gone, raw and fractured. Silent as she'd gotten what she'd wanted and needed, but in the method she worst feared.

Doe is sent away from her home following a failed runaway attempt 'for her own good,' in truth, her parents have sent her away more for their benefit than hers. The mounting stress of an incident where Doe (truthfully) claimed to have witnessed the abduction and murder of a woman has led them all to a breaking point. Doe, in terror for her own life and realizing the gravity of her situation, has taken impulsive action into her own hands. And her parents? Not understanding the problem or holding the trust in Doe to take her at her word, they have come to believe that this 'stalking' issue, like many of Doe's problems and the subject of her previous terror, resides solely within her head and that the madness of her paranoia and behaviour has gone on long enough. It is their hope, their will, that by moving in with her Mother's sister, Doe will be compelled to understand, to heed for once in her life and to rectify herself and through social pressure or a change of scenery, or some other means they haven't thought of.

MORE SPECIFIC VERSES FOR THE INDIVIDUAL SEASONS UNDER THE CUT

1983 / First-Half of Season 1

Doe has been adjusting very smoothly, though Hawkins is undoubtedly a change of pace from Vancouver; that's not to say it's a negative one. Small-town Americana suits Doe more than she'd like to admit, and the relief of finally being freed from her parents, brothers, and That Man has brought back years to her life. Doe feels excellent, better than incredible; the mask is NATURAL, without the pinpricks of pain that came with the lies and the isolation of being the black sheep not only in her family but the community as a whole, the unwanted youngest daughter. The Sato's, her aunt, and their family are not hers; they don't accept her; she can feel that distance as much, but the pointed daggers and weight of their perception are feather-light. She has gotten on track, or at least the track they've laid out for her; she has learned the tricks they want her to play, the songs to sing, and the image they want her to cultivate. They are proud of her and her transformation, but it's fake; it's all fake. The grief is there but silenced with the glee of freedom and phony acceptance. Hell, maybe someday it won't BE phony; maybe that pride of theirs will be built on truth and honest effort, and perhaps she'll deserve it when that day comes. It's a far-fetched dream, but this place makes her feel some empty hope. Maybe not today, but someday! Even still, amidst all this joy, the beast of anxiety rears itself and her dreams, they haven't known silence. By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes.

Doe is still in the growing pains of her time with the extended family, not a short leash to the same abusive extent as her time with parents, but she is still in the phase of earning trust. She is all smiles and nods. Respectable, but not demure, more so muted. A sense that there's a lot hiding behind a shell of polite manners and a desire to not overstay her welcome. Yes sir and no ma'ams, best behavior and really there's nothing to out of the ordinary, she's a pleasant, smart as a whip and affable. Why a girl like her would want to spend a learning abroad opportunity in Hawkins is anyone's guess, but her aunt chalks it up to an interest in programming and science. After all, Hawkins Lab is right there and surely they would be looking for upstarts from the surrounding community, right. It's a flimsy reason, all things considered and something isn't quite... right. There's no LOGICAL reason to doubt the Sato's or Doe. But there is an air of sadness about Doe, a kind of desolation about her, hidden beneath the surface of warm smiles. What truly brought you here, Doe?

An Old Familiar Ache / Second-Half of Season 1

You shouldn't have been so stupid; Doe's mind reels at the news of a second disappearance, but the hiss in her mind is unmistakable; you shouldn't have been so goddamn stupid. There's a bitter dread in her mind, of course, OF COURSE! Her home wasn't enough, her family, her LIFE, that wasn't enough. He made her an idiot. He made her WISH she had just let him take her that night, kill her, dump her, whatever it was that freaks like him do. It would've been KINDER, less humiliating than this, than the lies. But no, she thought she could win; she survived, fought, suffered, and lost EVERYTHING, EVERYONE. But it wasn't enough; Doe couldn't help the giggle that passed by her lips. God, she was a class-act idiot. It would NEVER be enough for people like him; what satisfaction can they get other than by ruining lives? It's stupid to think a cross-country road trip would save her. Hell, men like him probably run on the sadism alone. But she was done running; no, the fear and dread galvanized something stronger than she thought a person like herself could ever be. But she doesn't care. A wide, almost manic grin passes her lips with a hop in her step. No, she doesn't care if it's a lie like the rest of it. She was comfortable now; these people believed in her, it was all bullshit, but they believed her, they believed the American girl next door babysitter's club bullshit, and she was happy! She liked this, liked it better than Vancouver. She wasn't going to give this up, not without a fight. No, she'd be ready for him this time. His cockiness, going after that poor boy and girl, he'd PAY for that. She saw him coming. She'd be the hunter this time. Set a trap.

Despite Doe's set of beliefs, the work of Will and Barb's disappearance isn't the result of her killer coming around for the sequel. It's the result of a far greater reaching evil, the likes of which she can't even imagine but her nihilist mind wouldn't be too surprised about. However, the culture and sense of tension and fear about Hawkins is taking its toll. The mask is slipping as the trauma of the events that led her to Hawkins is resurfacing. Hypervigilance is the main component, as is the raising of her guard. Her warmth remains, but there's something strained about it, like her mind is constantly focused on one task and only being redirected to other interactions. Likewise, there's this shifting sense of almost mania as the growing elation at the idea of the madness ending and her catching her would-be killer to inflict even a fraction of the rage she feels for his gall creeps ever closer with the tightening rituals she undertakes in silence to ensure her and her new guardian's safety.

1984 / Season 2

She was wrong; it should be a relief. She should be laughing at herself. That mantra was right, 3,842 kilometres; no one would travel that far to kill her; it's stupid. It was stupid, she was… she didn't want to say the words, but she felt it in her gut. Sitting warm in the safety of her home or her Aunt's home. Coincidences happen; she's jumpy, that's all; she has every reason to be. The voice that interjects is kinder than her usual line of thought; she welcomes it. It's not hers, it's well. Her throat tightens.

She… she'd broken, she couldn't explain it after the boy had been found, and things returned to normalcy all around her, but she? She never did; the fear never waned. It boiled and festered. She couldn't settle the frustration; she felt like she'd regressed. She felt awful, miserable, back stepping on eggshells. He wasn't coming, he WASN'T coming, and she KNEW it so, so why? Why couldn't she drop it? Why wouldn't it STOP? She wanted it to stop; she didn't want to be alone. She… she told Ami, her cousin. Not about her theory, god no, in retrospect, it, with the paranoia past, was insane. How, how did she let herself spiral that hard down a rabbit hole of mole-sized mountains? No, she'd let THAT secret die a slow death inside her. She told Ami about the man, the crime, what she saw that night and what her parents, the cops, they wouldn't believe. The secret came out of her with all the grace of a person flying through a windshield, but Ami believed her.

It was vindicating; it BURNED. Shame and regret in waves, but god, the horror that washed over her face, she BELIEVED her. No one else did, but SHE did; she was scared and worried. She CARED; her hand burned when it reached out and touched her shoulder, but something crumpled, and she fell into her, and the cries came out in haggard howls. It doesn't matter, fuck them, fuck it, Doe. Doe, this is real to you! That's what matters. You went through something TERRIBLE. You didn't get help; obviously, obviously, this would happen. The rest of the conversation was a blur. Comforting actions. Hard breathing. Slow down. You're okay. Breath. You're safe. It doesn't feel like it yet, but you are. You've been through a lot; you've been running for a long time, but you don't need to run anymore. You can't beat the storm by running to the ends of the earth. Sometimes, you must stand, find your ground and brave the storm. You can do this.

Less on the actual meat and potatoes of this verse but it varies HEAVILY on who I write with! Typically I have a tandem canon with @mxlevolence between Doe, Danny/Sebastian & my other muse, Sally. It all begins with Doe having developed a routine of patrols to combat her paranoia. Rituals for control, to make herself feel safe nightly. Checking the doors, the yard. Only for these harmless, stupid, stupid rituals to bring her face to face with an inhuman horror. Driving her from the madness of her emotional recovery into an interdimensional conspiracy and missing person investigation which leaves her and this new and frankly unhinged found family fighting for its life against the confounding mystery gripping Hawkins and the monster presence that begins to infect it. HOWEVER I am open to writing around it, or hell, even involving it as the verse can be anything from a slow-burn hurt comfort to an action packed mystery, to even an angst mess with Doe sneaking around and lying about her situation and where the hell she is after Doe finding herself a target of the demo-dogs and once again feeling like she is out of her mind just after she's gotten more control over it.

1985 / Season 3

No little introduction blurb here, mainly because Doe, at least in a narrative sense sort of takes her exit and has a pause of character growth during this part of the narrative! During the arc of the tandem canon between my connected characters, Sally and Doe.

Sally ends up finding her missing patients, but the answer is everything other than what she hoped. Her patients, like her children, had been fodder this entire time. A cover up from a time before Eleven had escaped the facility, and Sally? Well, she was late, those not dead had been relocated for their safety and that knowledge lost or.... eaten during the fallout at the laboratory. It devastated Sally, more than the adventures already had, a further fracture in already broken woman. But like recognizes like, and through the adventures, Doe had begun to view Sally in a maternal role, more than her own Mother or Aunt had ever provided. So much so that after things conclude and Sally has prepared to move away, seeking distance from the tragedy and a career in the greater Indianapolis, far away from the last vestiges of her pain and more of a shell of herself than ever. Doe doesn't, can't entertain the idea of leaving Sally to the barbs and hooks of her own mind. Not like everyone had done to her. No, the idea of that alone pulls a chord directly to anger. She's a loyal woman when a person truly manages to breach all of her walls & she's just found a new family, she's not leaving it, not leaving her. Doe's tagging along, through a series of small lies, much to pride of her new guardians, who believe she is caring for the mother of a close-friend who had passed away.

As previously mentioned through, this comes at a cost. Her guardians are among the dead claimed by the Mind Flayer by the end of the season, a fate which it is believed she shared. When in reality, she had been living 8 miles away the entire time. None the wiser of what was occurring in her absence.

Doe can come and go in this verse and I'm not at all against her stopping back by and visiting people! After all, Danny/Sebastian still resides in the area and him and Sally have joint non-legal custody of her, likewise Reese & her gf bff Zoe (another important character for Doe in this verse) still reside in Hawkins, she has plenty of reason to visit, give the folks a check up, chat with Ami and then hit the road again!

Please Pick Up The Phone / Second-Half of Season 3 (custom verse with @slateir)

In the quiet peace of the early morning, the shrill chime of a corded phone rings out. Once, then twice, drawing Doe from her slumber. A glance to the window shows the darkness, still jet black and thick enough to be cut with a knife. It couldn't have been any later than 4am, who calls this late? Standing on uneven feet, Doe pads to the kitchen, her footsteps muffled by plush carpet. A part of her expects to hear the hospital, staffing maybe. Looking for Sally, and a polite but firm 'no,' is on her lips when her heart stops and time itself seems to freeze around her. A quick and sharp, terrified sound. Reese, Reese. No, no, no. She nearly drops the phone, a quick curse leaving her lips as she white knuckles the plastic and desperately repeats Reese's name into the faint background noise. Once, twice, no reply. Then she hears her, hushed and desperate, as though afraid someone might hear. ' Sorry, Rira, sorry, I didn't mean to call you this late-- it's Zoe, and everything- just. Something is wrong, please come back,'

It's exactly what it says on the tin! After moving in with Sally, the bliss of a new beginning, a REAL new beginning, in a house that loved her. It's a difficult transition, especially at first. But after the transition, the pain it melted away into bliss, Doe felt better and in a way that didn't came with the acrid, acidic taste of lies. Sally had a way about her that made Doe feel safe and valued. Worth the trouble, the lies and the heartache, and even the late night jumpscares after turning a corner to find her in her eating out of the pantry like a raccoon. Maybe it was this, joy and the big city change of pace that made her mind slip away from her friends and Hawkins, or maybe it was her selfishness that came back to rear its head, after all, only an idiot would think a monster could change its nature. But one call, one chance call, caught by the skin of her through bleary eyes brought it all back. Hawkins, her friends, her Aunt, Ami, Zoe and most importantly Reese. Her younger sister in all but blood. She left her, she left her and now her selfishness had cost Reese her happiness, her safety and now she was in trouble. Doe knows it's not all her fault, but goddamnit, she won't leave her for a moment longer, she won't abandon Reese, not a second longer. Sally will forgive her for the missing supplies and borrowing the car. She needs to go home.

Of note, there are two endings for this verse that follows along with Doe, Reese & Zoe's story, the good ending and the bad one.

The Good Ending? Gay desperation wins out, Reese knew something was wrong the second Zoe came home late, and when the abnormal behavior began, the sweating, and the weird new people. She called Doe, she tried to hold Zoe back to treat her, loving rom-com style, but things got violent and between the jigs and the reels. Doe ended up dosing the Flayed!Zoe with enough Midazolam to take her down, and they both tied her down to a radiator, just until they could get her to return to her senses. Which, eventually, they achieved. Turns out Zoe was a new flayed and the slug was still in its infancy. Her insides were still a solid and through a mixture of dumb luck, sedatives, balmy bathroom heating, a radiator and the power of gay love and sisterly affection, they made the host uninhabitable. Causing Zoe to violently eject the otherworldly parasite, dragging out so much blood and a lot of Zoe's strength with it. Leaving her near death by the end but alive and not under thumb by any slug or goo monster, which a victory Doe will take. The Bad Ending? Zoe gets gooified after it becomes clear there is no wiggling free for the host body and the time is upon the flayer to move. Doe and Reese are left to watch as she goos in front of their eyes and goes down the drain. When word eventually touches ground that Doe's Aunt and her family are among the missing, Doe doesn't need to be told. She knows, she KNOWS that what happened to Zoe? It happened to them too.

1986 / Season 4

On a more serious note, like with season 3's verse, I don't have a specific set up for this verse because it's less an over-all character arc and a smaller track for the greater character growth that can be found in her university verses, that I can re-type, but I've already forced you all to TRUDGE through 4,000 words of my Doe brainrot. But suffice it to put, Doe is beginning college life, she'll make a joke about death being nothing but new beginnings given the whole living dead girl, papers printed before they could confirm the vitals thing. Don't take her jokes at face level though. Doe, she's saying she's okay, but she's not. Her brush with death, facing mortality and approaching her future. She's terrified, Sally tries & Danny, or rather Sebastian; he's always around, a phone call away to make her feel more sane, counter-intuitive as that may sound. But her entire life, she's been focused on momentary survival, one day to the next. Sitting at the brink of such massive, massive change she has never taken to consider as a possibility for herself. She truly feels like a ghost among the living. Haunting aimlessly in hope for a spark to return her life. She's around, physically, but mentally she's more of a shell, and it feels like it.

#🦌 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐄. || this time she never returned

[peachypizzicato]

The Five Of Cups: An Open Letter to Dorian

Hey everyone! Welcome back to my soapbox (or, if you see this and by some divine happenstance don’t know me: Hi! I’m Felix! Or Anemone. I go by many names.)

As you can tell by my Big Boy Letters, I’m comin’ to talk about kind of a serious subject. At least, it’s serious to me anyway. I wanted to talk a bit about the game The Arcana. You know the one. The definitely not at all divisive one. That Arcana. (/s)

(Warning: I will be touching on depictions of racism, misogyny, anti indigenity, antisemitism, and just general mistreatment of marginalized people!)

TLDR; The Arcana is full of harmful portrayals of marginalized people and the fandom at large ignores it at best and encourages it at worst. The best thing we as the community can do is make it abundantly clear to the company that this is not okay and should not continue.

To be completely upfront here, I’m not going to be going in-depth on every single problem with the devs or the distributors or anything. We’re all busy people and there’s not nearly enough time in the day. But what I am going to do is touch on a few things I’ve witnessed firsthand that I think are worth sharing with the wider community.

One of the behaviors I’ve noticed most often is what I can only think to call… Strange treatment of the love interests. Not by everyone, mind you, but on a startlingly normal basis. Now, what do I mean by “strange”? Well, it really depends on the character honestly.

With Asra, much of the portrayals feel significantly more sexualized than that of their peers. Drawn and portrayed as if their body exists to be ogled by someone else rather than lived in by themself, y’know what I mean? That, combined with blatant orientalist imagery baked into much of their designs, makes for a feeling of feast or famine when seeking out content. And this isn’t even to comment on the intense focus on them as defined by their relationships to others– namely Julian– and all of the mischaracterization that comes with that.

It’s not much different in regard to Nadia, if you can believe it. The image of “step-on-me-queen dominatrix” cultivated by the original writers persists in the community, with overwhelming focus put on her body and her sexuality over anything else. Anyone who’s known me since I discovered the game knows I actually really liked her at first, but it’s hard to have a genuine attachment to a character who seldom even gets to have a personality outside of basic traits and Having Tits.

Julian is, admittedly, a difficult one. I am not jewish myself, but I’ve heard testimony from jewish fans that his portrayal is less than ideal (to put it lightly). At the very base, his design itself is riddled with common antisemitic imagery and was based primarily on a real brown-skinned jewish man whose melanated skin they excluded, surely coincidentally (/s). but it goes even further than that (depicting a jewish man as a bloodsucking vampire, anyone?). I don’t claim to speak for any groups I do not belong to, but with the knowledge I do have it simply makes things uncomfortable to witness.

Muriel. Oh, Muriel. Again, if you’ve known me for any significant amount of time, you probably knew I was dreading this. But as much as I’d like to think nothing could ever be wrong when he’s around, there are definitely problems. Now, I could go into all the issues with the way the writers concocted his route, his story, his character as a whole (brown man with a ~foreign~ type of magic lives in solitude in the woods and is “in tune with nature” to the point of communication, very original /s), what I really want to touch on here is how this informed the way the community treats him. Listen, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this, a lot of Muriel fans are not subtle about their (most often white, but not always) savior complexes. More times than I care to remember I’ve seen him babied, treated like he’s incompetent, made at best into an animal to be tamed and at worst into an uncontrollable monster. I’ve seen pieces of fanfiction call him, a very blatantly indigenous-coded character, a real actual slur. Not to mention how watering down the trauma he faced has become something of commonplace. And this isn’t even an exhaustive list of ways he’s mistreated! For as much as it makes me angry, it’s also extremely saddening. The devs and writers made one of their most genuine kindhearted characters into a metaphorical punching bag, and the community has only continued swinging for years afterward.

But, I think I’ve made my point. Moving on.

Portia is a combination of problems I’ve already touched on. Conveniently, all of the stereotypical traits that Julian inherited happened to skip right over his little sister. What didn’t skip over, however, was the gene of being shamelessly and gratuitously oversexualizing of her. Take a look at any of her CGs; most if not all of them are centered on her chest or otherwise use color and design to draw the eye there. Every one of her sprite outfits are low cut to show varying levels of cleavage. And the few vocal fans she does have only serve to perpetuate this over and over again. To be completely clear, there’s nothing wrong with characters who embrace their sexuality. That goes without saying. However, for being the one “plus-size” love interest– which really in this case only means short and curvy– the emphasis on her body over anything else about her is startling and sad.

Finally, we find Lucio. Our one ethnically white male love interest. You may be wondering how a character like that could possibly receive “strange treatment”. Or maybe you’re not. I will elaborate anyway. The biggest problem with Lucio, with the fans and absolutely with the teams behind the game, is and has been for the longest time the complete and utter lack of awareness of his role in the world and the consistent retroactive rewriting of his character. What I mean by that is this: Lucio, originally and in every route but his own, is blatantly written to be an unforgivably cruel and immoral man. He seeks the best treatment he can get while cityfolk all but die in his streets, he takes advantage of the kindness and generosity of others and punishes their trust. There are many assumptions that can be made but we are shown explicitly that he can know Asra, a child (as an adult himself), and make sexual advances on them in adulthood with absolutely no guilt. He blackmailed Muriel into being and staying his slave and in turn forced him to perform brutal public massacres for an indeterminate amount of time: all we know is that it was long enough for a colloquial name to become well known and for his appearance to grow unkempt and haggard. All this plus more things that I don’t even have the time to list. And yet, he is arguably one of the most popular characters. Take two steps into the fandom at large and you’ll see countless postings about how his childhood was so tragic and how he’s so very sorry, he’s just a little oopsie whoopsie uwu soft boy! The few times I personally have seen his horrible actions even addressed by his fans was to underplay them, to insinuate that he has it worse than anyone he hurt. In spite of, or maybe even because of his extensive list of broadly observable crimes, he thrives in the community. The people love him. I don’t think I really have to explain why this in particular is so extremely chilling to me.

So, with all of these things laid out… What now? We’ve acknowledged the problems, there’s pages upon pages of other posts outlining ones I didn’t even cover here, so now what do we do? What’s the solution?

The answer to this isn’t quite cut and dry. There’s no simple solution to murky waters that run as deep as these do. But, for what it’s worth, I have a few suggestions I’d like to propose.

First off, I understand that all of the routes are finished. They had all completed well before the Dorian acquisition, I’m fully aware of that fact. However, in regard to said acquisition, I feel as though Dorian dropped the ball when transferring the property to their own app (and I’m not even talking about the writing of the tales, which is its own can of worms). Rather than simply copy-pasting the routes from the existing app, things could’ve been redone, remade better. Problems could have been solved now that the game had gained new life. This was much of the inspiration behind my own reworking of the concept, to address the problems and fix them. I don’t even believe that it’s too late for them yet; routes have only just begun being uploaded to the Dorian app, in theory there’s still room to reconsider things.

But that’s the problem. I don’t believe that the crew behind Dorian really cares. I don’t believe the original development team or Nix Hydra crew really cared. If the people involved really cared about these problems, there was ample time within the last nearly five years to fix things. They did nothing. They continue to do nothing. People like me shout endlessly into the void, hoping someone will hear and actually listen to the issues happening within their game. But they don’t care. They continue to make money, they continue to draw in players, why should they? If racism and misogyny and every other form of bigotry under the sun doesn’t hurt their bottom line, why change anything? Why care, why change if the community at large not only ignores it but actively encourages and supports it? Why listen to criticism if you can just block it and soak up praise from your unconditional fans? Why?

As I said, I don’t have a simple solution for any of this. But I’ve made personal choices in my own life to give less of my time and money to the company. If I want merchandise, I seek out independent artists. If I want to see or read something again, I can find screencaps. As much as I miss certain things, I don’t play the game anymore. I can’t help being attached to characters who have been important to me for as long as I’ve known them, but what I can do is make purposeful choices in response to the affection I feel. Maybe my singular actions won’t mean anything to them, but specifically and purposefully refusing to support the profits of a fundamentally flawed game that doesn’t even have the self awareness to be ashamed of itself means everything to me.

Thanks for listening. I hope anyone who happened to make it to this point can take something good from my impassioned ramblings.

#kinda ship related #hey thanks for reading if you happened to get to the end of this thing! #don’t blame you if you didn’t though lmao this shit LONG #i just have a lot of feelings and wanted to get them out #plus i saw some posts talking about putting messages out there that should get to the higher ups #and well. y’know. a peach can dream #if i got anything wrong in here PLEASE let me know im happy to be educated more #i just want as many people as possible to know about this kind of stuff #the arcana #the arcana game #asra alnazar #asra the arcana #nadia satrinava #nadia the arcana #julian devorak #julian the arcana #muriel of the kokhuri #muriel the arcana #portia devorak #portia the arcana #lucio morgasson #lucio the arcana #peachyrambles