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dresshistorynerd · 2 years

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How did cotton win over linen anyway?

In short, colonialism, slavery and the industrial revolution. In length:

Cotton doesn't grow in Europe so before the Modern Era, cotton was rare and used in small quantities for specific purposes (lining doublets for example). The thing with cotton is, that's it can be printed with dye very easily. The colors are bright and they don't fade easily. With wool and silk fabrics, which were the more traditional fabrics for outer wear in Europe (silk for upper classes of course), patterns usually needed to be embroidered or woven to the cloth to last, which was very expensive. Wool is extremely hard to print to anything detailed that would stay even with modern technology. Silk can be printed easily today with screen printing, but before late 18th century the technique wasn't known in western world (it was invented in China a millenium ago) and the available methods didn't yeld good results.

So when in the late 17th century European trading companies were establishing trading posts in India, a huge producer of cotton fabrics, suddenly cotton was much more available in Europe. Indian calico cotton, which was sturdy and cheap and was painted or printed with colorful and intricate floral patters, chintz, especially caught on and became very fashionable. The popular Orientalism of the time also contributed to it becoming fasionable, chintz was seen as "exotic" and therefore appealing.

Here's a typical calico jacket from late 18th century. The ones in European markets often had white background, but red background was also fairly common.

The problem with this was that this was not great for the business of the European fabric producers, especially silk producers in France and wool producers in England, who before were dominating the European textile market and didn't like that they now had competition. So European countries imposed trade restrictions for Indian cotton, England banning cotton almost fully in 1721. Since the introduction of Indian cottons, there had been attempts to recreate it in Europe with little success. They didn't have nearly advanced enough fabric printing and cotton weaving techniques to match the level of Indian calico. Cotton trade with India didn't end though. The European trading companies would export Indian cottons to West African market to fund the trans-Atlantic slave trade that was growing quickly. European cottons were also imported to Africa. At first they didn't have great demand as they were so lacking compared to Indian cotton, but by the mid 1700s quality of English cotton had improved enough to be competitive.

Inventions in industrial textile machinery, specifically spinning jenny in 1780s and water frame in 1770s, would finally give England the advantages they needed to conquer the cotton market. These inventions allowed producing very cheap but good quality cotton and fabric printing, which would finally produce decent imitations of Indian calico in large quantities. Around the same time in mid 1700s, The East Indian Company had taken over Bengal and soon following most of the Indian sub-continent, effectively putting it under British colonial rule (but with a corporate rule dystopian twist). So when industrialized English cotton took over the market, The East India Company would suppress Indian textile industry to utilize Indian raw cotton production for English textile industry and then import cotton textiles back to India. In 1750s India's exports were mainly fine cotton and silk, but during the next century Indian export would become mostly raw materials. They effectively de-industrialized India to industrialize England further.

India, most notably Bengal area, had been an international textile hub for millennia, producing the finest cottons and silks with extremely advance techniques. Loosing cotton textile industry devastated Indian local economies and eradicated many traditional textile craft skills. Perhaps the most glaring example is that of Dhaka muslin. Named after the city in Bengal it was produced in, it was extremely fine and thin cotton requiring very complicated and time consuming spinning process, painstakingly meticulous hand-weaving process and a very specific breed of cotton. It was basically transparent as seen depicted in this Mughal painting from early 17th century.

It was used by e.g. the ancient Greeks, Mughal emperors and, while the methods and it's production was systematically being destroyed by the British to squash competition, it became super fashionable in Europe. It was extremely expensive, even more so than silk, which is probably why it became so popular among the rich. In 1780s Marie Antoinette famously and scandalously wore chemise a la reine made from multiple layers of Dhaka muslin. In 1790s, when the empire silhouette took over, it became even more popular, continuing to the very early 1800s, till Dhaka muslin production fully collapsed and the knowledge and skill to produce it were lost. But earlier this year, after years lasting research to revive the Dhaka muslin funded by Bangladeshi government, they actually recreated it after finding the right right cotton plant and gathering spinners and weavers skilled in traditional craft to train with it. (It's super cool and I'm making a whole post about it (it has been in the making for months now) so I won't extend this post more.)

Marie Antoinette in the famous painting with wearing Dhaka muslin in 1783, and empress Joséphine Bonaparte in 1801 also wearing Dhaka muslin.

While the trans-Atlantic slave trade was partly funded by the cotton trade and industrial English cotton, the slave trade would also be used to bolster the emerging English cotton industry by forcing African slaves to work in the cotton plantations of Southern US. This produced even more (and cheaper (again slave labor)) raw material, which allowed the quick upward scaling of the cotton factories in Britain. Cotton was what really kicked off the industrial revolution, and it started in England, because they colonized their biggest competitor India and therefore were able to take hold of the whole cotton market and fund rapid industrialization.

Eventually the availability of cotton, increase in ready-made clothing and the luxurious reputation of cotton lead to cotton underwear replacing linen underwear (and eventually sheets) (the far superior option for the reasons I talked about here) in early Victorian Era. Before Victorian era underwear was very practical, just simple rectangles and triangles sewn together. It was just meant to protect the outer clothing and the skin, and it wasn't seen anyway, so why put the relatively scarce resources into making it pretty? Well, by the mid 1800s England was basically fully industrialized and resource were not scarce anymore. Middle class was increasing during the Victorian Era and, after the hard won battles of the workers movement, the conditions of workers was improving a bit. That combined with decrease in prices of clothing, most people were able to partake in fashion. This of course led to the upper classes finding new ways to separate themselves from lower classes. One of these things was getting fancy underwear. Fine cotton kept the fancy reputation it had gained first as an exotic new commodity in late 17th century and then in Regency Era as the extremely expensive fabric of queens and empresses. Cotton also is softer than linen, and therefore was seen as more luxurious against skin. So cotton shifts became the fancier shifts. At the same time cotton drawers were becoming common additional underwear for women.

It wouldn't stay as an upper class thing, because as said cotton was cheap and available. Ready-made clothing also helped spread the fancier cotton underwear, as then you could buy fairly cheaply pretty underwear and you didn't even have to put extra effort into it's decoration. At the same time cotton industry was massive and powerful and very much eager to promote cotton underwear as it would make a very steady and long lasting demand for cotton.

In conclusion, cotton has a dark and bloody history and it didn't become the standard underwear fabric for very good reasons.

Here's couple of excellent sources regarding the history of cotton industry:

The European Response to Indian Cottons, Prasannan Parthasarathi

INDIAN COTTON MILLS AND THE BRITISH ECONOMIC POLICY, 1854-1894, Rajib Lochan Sahoo

#i have fixed the wording in the beginning so it doesn't sound like i'm saying cotton in general dyed better than wool or silk #answers #fashion history #historical fashion #history #textile history #dress history #historical clothing #indian history #colonial history #indian textiles #cotton #slavery

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teasdays · 2 months

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Hi hello I'm your friendly neighbourhood ghost, can I pretty please have the context about Wilbur abuse??? If you are ok with it of course , And thank you, I hope you are having a great day

hi hello ghost! Yeah no worries, I bet it's... difficult to wade through everything that's been going on

So last week, Shubble (streamer, she/they) hosted a stream about their experiences with an unnamed abuser. You can watch it here (if you prefer to read, turn on CC & read the transcript). It's a pretty hard-hitting video, and people pretty immediately guessed that it was, in fact, Wilbur Soot. He's since confirmed it himself in a statement/kind of apology (?) which u can find on his twitter... Shubble has, understandably, rejected it.

That's the short answer!

Uh for a longer one lol, there's more info here: this is an EXCELLENT conversation Shubble had (before W*lbur was officially named) with her friend lexiemariex. They both talk about the abuse and misogyny they've faced as women dating within the streaming community. Neither of them named anyone at this point either, and I actually haven't had time to watch the whole thing yet !! But about 45 minutes in so far they have both shared a lot of really important perspectives on domestic abuse, their experiences as victims (in their words) during & in recovery from those relationships, and about the really harmful norms within streaming.

Just to add a couple comments of my own: if a community is MAINLY dominated by white cis men, that's usually NOT a coincidence; it's usually (at least partly) because the environment is hostile to diversity. Several other people have also come forward about negative experiences with Shubble's ex in particular, but I REALLY think--personally--that it is a mistake to focus just on him. He is, for better or worse, Just Some Guy: it REALLY sounds like his behaviours reflect a deeply harmful culture within streaming. We can't and should not try to cancel all streamers, obviously! But... if we REALLY want to centre survivors? We need to hold the whole community accountable for the CULTURE they've gotten comfortable with.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that all white men in streaming are malicious people, who only want to hurt/abuse/have power over the weak & helpless women in their sphere. But there's been writing on the wall for a long time: there's a lot of casual misogyny that we HAVE seen streamers ignore, even if they wouldn't (necessarily...) make those jokes themselves. I do NOT have receipts on hand lol, but that's been my observation over the years. So I think it's... too simplistic to say that Shubble's ex, and lexie's, were just outliers. A couple of bad eggs.

We can cancel them, and exile them from streaming, sure--fine. We certainly don't owe anyone a platform. But we also NEED to look beyond the individual people & understand that every single one of them is a product of their culture and community.

tl;dr Shubble's ex is shitty, for sure, but he's not the whole problem! He's a symptom.

oh omg last thing actually: as people navigate how to respond to unfeminist/antifeminist content creators, I'd like to recommend Roxane Gay's perspective in Bad Feminist (excerpt here). As people who consume media, we have to understand that our consumption will always be imperfect, because (again) the problems are deeply embedded in like. the whole culture . We can & will continue to work for a better future, but in the meantime we've gotta forgive ourselves & our comrades for being imperfect <3

#sdjhkgjd sorry this is so long!!#answered #shubble

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crissiebaby · 8 months

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The Padded Palace Act III: Chapter 19

DISCLAIMER: This story contains diaper usage, crossdressing, inappropriate language, humiliation, masturbation/diaper sex, and other ABDL themes. Be sure to check out the link in the description if you need to start all the way back from the first chapter in Act I! I hope you enjoy!

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*SPLOOOOOOOOORRRRRRT!!!*

Arching his back as far as Ellie’s body weight would allow him, Connor’s already loaded diaper expanded outward, its white fluffy rapidly taking on darker shades of brown with each passing second. This, of course, stimulated his prostate something fierce as his seemingly never-ending mush bomb continued to detonate, awakening his senses to the gross, yet undeniably pleasurable reality that messing a diaper came with. With his eyes squeezed shut, his sense of touch became electric, feeling every ounce of muck that entered his diaper. His sense of smell became heightened, inviting the putrid stench into his nostrils. His sense of hearing was as though someone cranked a stereo speaker up to eleven, ensuring every squish and gurgle was fully processed by his perfect ears. Heck, even his sense of taste got a boost, amplifying the stale taste of dried spit and odorous breath.

Mixed together, all of this should’ve been the biggest turn-off of Connor’s life…and yet…it wasn’t, evident by the tent in his diaper that only a true diaper lover could sport. That’s what he was now, wasn’t it? He could no longer sit in the rocking chair and pretend to be above everything the girls did. Worst of all, he couldn’t even nail down exactly what aspect of ABDL was getting him so excited. Was it the humiliation? The feeling of being dominated and forced? The physical sensations? The scenario itself? So many questions swirled around in his head; questions for which he had zero answer for.

By the time the pressure in his gut subsided, Connor could only imagine how full his noxious nappy was. He’d changed some rotten diapers since starting at the Palace but there wasn’t a single instance he could recall where any of the girls messed for as long as he did. Or did it only feel long? It was hard to tell. Regardless, he was now highly suspicious that someone, namely Stacy, spiked his food or drink with laxatives, unable to fathom that everything contained within his diaper was the product of his own dietary habits and poor decision-making. After all, gorging on half a large pizza plus snacks before getting taped into a diaper was never a wise strategy, at least if he was hoping to avoid a fateful messing.

“Holy shiiii…” said Ellie with her jaw as slack as it would go, stopping herself just short of saying a naughty word, even if it was appropriate in more ways than one. As far as introductory diaper messings went, Connor had shot the moon. To say his diaper was distended would be an understatement. The thing was sagging nearly an additional foot and he wasn’t even standing yet, “Where the heck did you keep all that?!”

Snickering maniacally as she loomed around Connor’s head, Stacy patted the newly christened sissy baby on his cheeks condescendingly as if pretending to be proud. “I know, right? What a good little pamper packer you were?” she cooed through her faux caregiver persona, serving up as much embarrassment for Connor as possible, “If you ask me, it’s almost as if he’d been holding all that in for longer than just one night. Maybe this little cutie had been hoping for something like this to happen the whole time.”

“Hehehe, yeah! I fink dis ish wuh Connow wanted da whowe time-OOF!” said Ellie, her sentence obfuscated by a sudden attack on her left side. With no time to react, she found herself falling to Connor’s side, rolling off his body in the process.

Standing over Ellie with fury in her eyes, Riri felt betrayed for her regressed caregiver. “Connor, are you okay?!” she said, her voice deepening to a serious tone as she kneeled down next to him and waved a hand in front of your eyes, only to grit her teeth when his blissed-out pupils didn’t react. After failing to get a response from Connor, she turned her attention aggressively back to her so-called friends, “Well, you got what you fucking wanted. I hope you’re both fucking happy with yourselves.”

Fixing her eyes on the floor, Ellie could feel the ache of guilt creeping up on her. She just wanted Connor to have fun. Why was Riri being so mean when Connor wasn’t even saying no? She didn’t understand and that confusion quickly turned her mood sour.

Stacy, on the other hand, was far less remorseful. “Oh, I’d say I’m quite happy. Not as happy as Connor is though, clearly!” she said, gesturing to the constant throbbing that noisily rustled his crinkly diaper front every few seconds. Faking a pout, she leaned in close to Connor’s head and tilted it so that both herself and Connor’s blank, euphoric expression were facing Riri, “I mean, just look at that face! You can’t sit there and say he didn’t bring this all on himself. What? Are you sad that his first time wasn’t more special? Grow up. This, right here, is who he’s been this whole time. A horny, diaper filler who gets off on you, me, and everything that goes on in here. Shit, I’m starting to doubt this is even his first messing.”

Fluttering his eyes as his hearing faded in and out, Connor wanted to protest each word that came out of Stacy’s mouth based on what he could make out. But how could he? Stacy had him read to rights, no matter what the truth actually was. He could literally be caught with his hand in a cookie jar and it would look less guilty than this. He’d let Stacy…no…he’d let his own arousal drive him off a cliff. And now, all that was left to do was wait for the wreckage to clear.

*THUMP!*

Suddenly, Connor was startled as something small was tossed onto the carpet next to him. He strained his peripheral vision to see what had been lobbed his way, only for a chill to move throughout his spine as he gazed upon the same egg vibrator that Ellie had threatened him with earlier.

“Why don we quit fightin an put Stacy’s theowy to da tes? Afta aww, no horny sissy baby cood wesist gettin buzzy afta a BIG messin,” said Ellie, defiantly attempting to stay in Little Space in spite of the ongoing conflict. In her eyes, there was no better way to settle things, “I mean, if Connow’s stiww havin fun, why nuh let him have some mo?”

Panting as he stared longingly into the tantalizing toy, it finally dawned on Connor what this evening had turned into. Back during his first session with Latasha, he’d given her control over everything that happened, completely removing the pressure of having to make humiliating decisions and instead allowing him to enjoy the far softer and more pleasurable humiliation that came from getting off in diapers. Tonight couldn’t be further removed from that concept. Stacy was right. Every embarrassing action he took, no matter how involuntary it may seem, came from his own hand; a fact he could no longer deny. He deserved this. He deserved this. He deserved this.

Operating with shaky but determined arms, Connor picked up the vibrator with the ferocity of a sex-crazed demon and immediately clicked it on before mashing it into the base of his mooshy, bloated diaper. It was immoral, depraved, and disgusting inherently but it was also soft, passionate, and erotic. Two halves that should’ve canceled each other out but for some reason, was a combination that he couldn’t get enough of. Feeling the semi-soft mush shifted throughout the front and back of his diaper, he let out a high-pitched moan unlike any sound he’d ever made in his life as the underside of his cock was coated in fecal matter.

“Would you like to keep arguing?” said Stacy plainly and rhetorically, knowing there was no need to continue her dialogue with Riri at this point. Not with Connor proving every preconceived notion that she ever had about The Padded Palace’s freshman caretaker. Now all that was left to do was break him just like she had with his predecessor, “Ellie, grab his arms.”

Doing as she was told, Ellie rounded Connor’s body until she was stationed behind his head before latching her hands around both of Connor’s wrists. He tried to fight her off momentarily so he could keep rubbing but his trembling appendages were in too weak of a state to fend her off properly. He whimpered as the egg vibrator fell from his fingertips.

“Aww, don’t worry, Connor. It’s only for a moment. Trust me, you’re gonna be thanking me in a few seconds. Just try to relax for now,” said Stacy, allowing Connor to catch his breath as she picked up the tiny, buzzing egg and tossed it back and forth in her hands. All the while, she observed his ceaseless squirming, forced to bite her lift to stave off her own encroaching arousal. Once his body’s convulsing began to slow, she knew it was time to strike. With no warning, she returned the vibrator to the center of his squishy prison while clamping her fingers down over his rock-hard member to ensure his stiffy was properly smushed. And based on his eye-popping reaction, she appeared to be doing one heck of a job.

Backing away as Stacy and Ellie firmly dug their claws into Connor’s sex drive, Riri was at a loss for what to do. She’d done all that she could but the powers that be refused to let her keep order in the nursery. For what power did she truly have? She wasn’t bossy like Stacy, nor was she anywhere as demanding as Ellie. When it came to the guests of the Padded Palace, she was the only one well and truly powerless. And for some ungoddessly reason, that thought along with the obscene display that Connor was putting on, turned her on to no end, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. Giving into her own sexual desires, she reached down to caress her sopping diaper as the feelings of shame and ecstasy fueled her swollen sex.

Impussiant to the point where he couldn’t so much as rotate his head anymore, much less lift it, it wasn’t even a full minute before Connor felt himself drift past the point of no return. After so much build-up, that was perhaps the least shocking thing to happen all night. However, unlike his average orgasm, this one was somehow duller, longer, and yet somehow twice as extreme. It was the kind of pleasure that made you want to tear out strands of your own hair to achieve some form of reprieve. Shivers danced throughout his entire nervous system, practically turning his entire body into the tip of a penis.

Somehow, though, even after being pushed to his wit’s end, there was still a faction of Connor’s brain that fought to stay intact. That lone stronghold would finally fall as well when instead of his orgasm petering off like normal, the sharp, pleasurable feeling that came with climaxing returned, this time twice as strong. All air evacuated his lungs as he came to the realization with the final ounce of brain power he had left that he was on a crash course for the first double orgasm in his life. For as long as he could remember, he’d always had a secret jealousy that girls could reach their peak over and over again in one session. And now, as he lay on the floor in an ultra-frilly dress, he too was about to experience the joys of repetitive orgasms. Tragically, he was not in the headspace to acknowledge such a heavy dose of irony. Instead, the only thought his brain could focus on was the question of whether or not he would ever stop cumming again. A question that would not be receiving an answer anytime soon as his body geared up for orgasm number three.

TO BE CONTINUED…

« PREVIOUS l FIRST l NEXT »

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Heyyo! Can't wait until next week for more Padded Palace!? Subscribe to my Patreon, where you can get early access to main series chapters like this one, as well as exclusive content you won't find anywhere else! Join my dollhouse at patreon.com/crissiebaby!

Edited by AllySmolShork

#diaper art #diaper stories #crissiebaby #little space #ab/dl #ab/dl stories #ab/dl art #ab/dl sissy #diaper sissy #sissybaby #diaper humiliation #md/lg #dirty diaper #diaper messy #wetting diaper #crissbabydiaperco #the padded palace #thepaddedpalace

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submissivegayfrenchboy · 1 year

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07 / 02 / 2023

🇨🇵 FRANÇAIS / FRENCH 🇨🇵

COUPLE GAY DU JOUR #4

🏳️‍🌈 - SIMON VENDEMME & SNAKE - 🏳️‍🌈

Cela fait longtemps que je n'ai pas écrit sur un couple gay. Aujourd'hui je voulais parler non pas d'un couple gay de fiction mais d'un couple gay qui existe dans la vraie vie et que je trouve très érotique, mignon et tendre. Il s'agit du chanteur français Simon Vendemme et de son amoureux Snake. Simon Vendemme est un garçon blanc gay légèrement efféminé même s'il est grand et musclé et a un caractère dominant. Son amoureux Snake est un très bel homme noir.

Ce que j'aime dans ce couple c'est sa complicité. Ils sont touchants tous les deux. Ensemble, ils ont été l'égérie de la marque Gillette qui commercialise des produits de rasage pour hommes, ce qui a questionné la masculinité : montrer un couple gay interracial a été une raison suffisante pour certains d'abandonner la marque Gillette. En ce qui me concerne, je sais que la marque a eu l'effet escompté car oui la masculinité c'est aussi un couple gay interracial.

En l'occurrence ces deux hommes sont grands et musclés mais assument leur féminité dans le choix de leurs coiffures, bijoux,.... Je les trouve très beaux ensemble, et en garçon blanc manipulé par la propagande interraciale, je suis obligé de les trouver excitant.

Oui, excitant car j'aime le contraste de leurs corps, le fait que Snake soit encore plus grand et musclé que Simon qui pourtant l'est déjà.

Chacun des deux est beau, mais ensemble ils le sont encore plus car ils se complètent. J'aime les voir s'embrasser et bien évidemment je suis jaloux de Simon Vendemme pour avoir un amoureux noir. J'aime la façon qu'a Snake de montrer son côté dominateur et protecteur en posant son long bras musclé sur les épaules de Simon !

En plus, ils ne sont pas juste très excitants, ils sont aussi drôles, complices et protecteurs l'un envers l'autre.

Bref, j'adore ce couple ! 💕

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

🇺🇸🇬🇧 ENGLISH / ANGLAIS 🇺🇸🇬🇧

GAY COUPLE OF THE DAY #4

🏳️‍🌈 - SIMON VENDEMME & SNAKE - 🏳️‍🌈

It's been a long time since I've written about a gay couple. Today I wanted to talk not about a fictional gay couple but about a gay couple that exists in real life and that I find very erotic, cute and tender. This is the French singer Simon Vendemme and his lover Snake. Simon Vendemme is a slightly effeminate gay white boy even though he is tall and muscular and has a dominant character. Her lover Snake is a very handsome black man. What I love about this couple is their bond. They are both touching.

Together, they were the face of the Gillette brand which markets shaving products for men, which questioned masculinity: showing an interracial gay couple was reason enough for some to abandon the Gillette brand. As far as I'm concerned, I know that the brand had the desired effect because yes, masculinity is also an interracial gay couple. In this case these two men are tall and muscular but assume their femininity in the choice of their hairstyles, jewelry,...

I find them very beautiful together, and as a white boy brainwashed by interracial propaganda, I have to find exciting. Yes, exciting because I like the contrast of their bodies, the fact that Snake is even taller and more muscular than Simon who already is. I love how Snake touches his white boyfriend with his large muscled arm on his shoulders, to make him feel safe and show him he love him and that he is dominant too. It's hot! 😍

Each of the two is beautiful, but together they are even more so because they complement each other. I like to see them kissing and of course I'm jealous of Simon Vendemme for having a black lover. Plus, they're not just very exciting, they're also funny, complicit and protective of each other.

In short, I love this couple 😍!

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

The only video of Simon Vendemme's YouTube account where Snake appears

youtube

@gayhopefullove @interracial-attractions @intergaycial @interracialgaydating-blog @interracialgaycouple @ir-4-life @interracialprincess1

@leftprogrammingroadtripdean @lovefanfiction01 @rainykpoptravelcreator @tidodore2 @emerldarchr @innerpiratefun @bat-woodfeet-us @gayloveislove

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scribe-of-maat · 1 year

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Iron Widow & Zachary Ying

I read both back to back.

Xiran Jay Zhao is my new favorite author.

They’re, so so real.

On Iron Widow:

It’s not hard for me to put into words how much I knew I was going to like Iron Widow early on into it. I’m not exaggerating when I said I’ve never read something like it, and I doubt I ever will again. The moment I knew this was going to be good was when the protagonist was revealed to be disabled.

I didn’t know anything about Wu Zetian or that era of Chinese history before going into this (I didn’t realize they hadn’t made those names up until I read Zachary Ying, for instance) but the world they build is so interesting and it’s obvious they’re pulling from real injustices.

But they don’t gloss over the EMOTION that comes with being a minority trapped in an unjust system. My favorite thing about Wu Zetian is the implacable rage she feels at the patriarchal monsters lording their power over her. She hates the system that took away Ruyi, her older sister, and she hates the men profiting in that system at the expense of any girl unlucky enough to be born into it.

To not belabor the point, I wish I could read that climactic scene where the Sages try to use her family against her for the first time again. Her parents capacity familial love being what ultimately dooms them, since it proves they could always have chosen to be better, and never did. It’s an odd feeling to cheer as the protagonist murders their family, but good god you love to see it.

She kills seven named characters over the course of the book - Yang Guang, An Lushan, Ma Xiuying and her husband, and her parents and brother - and I’ve never felt so satisfied. I’ve never read a woman exacting sweet, sweet vengeance and on her oppressors and coming out both alive and more heroic for having done so (in the eyes of the reader).

I knew going in that the love triangle ends in a poly relationship. This was also extremely avant-garde, especially for a YA novel. I realized I didn’t know if they were all in a relationship with each other at the same time or if they had separate but just as intense 1-on-1 relationships with each other, but either way, more power to ‘em.

The power system was also very interesting, especially with how they tie into the explorations of gender. It wasn’t lost on me that Zetian’s most dominant qi was Metal, the one seated at the dead center of the yin-yang spectrum, after she’d talked about not really feeling female or male. Fun fact, when it was revealed Li Shimin had feminine products in his bunker and wasn’t the rapist Zetian thought he was, I thought it was going to be revealed he was actually a woman, to further tie into the gender themes.

But Xiran excellently captures the feeling of being a space and being so angry about the fact that everyone around you has an undeserved power over you, systematically stolen and enforced on pain of death. I’m the opposite of a tiny East Asian woman but I absolutely understood wanting to tear that down and end anyone profiting off it.

On Zachary Ying:

I though I would like Iron Widow much more, but this ended being about as enjoyable, and is what solidified the fact that Xiran is a YA writer who will absolutely wear her progressive politics on her sleeve much more openly than your white fave (R*** R******).

Her tale of female empowerment isn’t written for the Male Gaze and her tale of the hero’s journey isn’t written for the White Gaze. Zachary Ying is a gay Hui-Chinese Muslim and absolutely the ONLY YA hero of his kind. I’d go on to say he’s the only protagonist of his kind in literally any kind of media without researching that one bit.

The early parts of the books go to great pains to establish that the Chinese government and its people are separate entities, that yeah, there’s injustice there but it’s not like it’s any different anywhere else. When Qin Shi Huang specifically calls out how American heroes like George Washington were enslavers, this had my total buy-in.

Okay, well, that’s not really true. But it just became more total. I’ve never experienced it, but I know from online reading that a lot of immigrant children to the US who are subjected to the perpetual foreigner stereotype get made fun of for their food, and when the book opens with him experiencing this (and Xiran making it obvious he has a crush on his male bully) THAT’S where I was bought-in.

I think what I enjoyed most about this was the explanations of all the Chinese culture, like Di Renjie being Chinese Sherlock Holmes or the lengthy conversation about how Chinese dynasties like the Tang were incredibly diverse. The first hint of Qin Shi Huang not being above his ultimate sacrifice is that he saw himself in Zachary, chose someone like him who a lot people, definitely not just Chinese, wouldn’t.

It feels like a YA novel that takes place in the 2020s as well, written by someone who actually knows what it’s like to be a young person. Zack references a ton of contemporary media and multiple times talks about his powers as waterbending. The game he plays is pretty much Pokemon GO, to boot.

But like I said earlier, it ain’t written for the White Gaze. Just like in Iron Widow, there are extended scenes of characters espousing super duper left leaning ideologies and it dawned on me that I’d never seen politics I agreed with being stated so plainly in a fantasy series.

Oh sure, Rick’ll do things like have TJ and Mallory get into it over he killing thralls, but Magnus walks away before anything concrete has to be stated. Six of The Seven round on Jason for Roman demigods fighting for the Confederacy in the American Civil War, but Percy and Annabeth are never given any guff whatsoever about Greek demigods who did the same. Carter has like one instance of kind of alluding to the fact that police are racist but he sweeps past it.

Because those books are ultimately beholden to the White Gaze. They can’t be anything else, by virtue of being written by a white guy who’ll always, on some level, prioritize his comfort and the comfort of the audience he knows he has to court.

But not here. They call out a bunch of Yellow Peril nonsense in the book and contrast it with how horrible Western rulers like Nero are remarked upon in detached reverence while Qin Shi Huang is demonized. Zack gets to see that Muslims, at least in the East of China, aren’t being slaughtered wholesale or anything.

If you haven’t already, you seriously need to read these masterpieces. I love these books.

#iron widow #wu zetian #li shimin #gao yizhi #zachary ying #zachary ying and the dragon emperor #pjo #pjato #the kane chronicles #magnus chase and the gods of asgard #mcatgoa #magnus chase #percy jackson #carter kane

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epilogue-and-prologue · 9 months

Text

A Heavy Bargain (Say My Name)

Fandom: North and South (BBC Series)

Ship: Modern!Thornton x F!Reader

Trope: (Business)Enemies to lovers - Angst with a fluffy ending.

Word counts: 5 921

Note: @sorisooyaa I did it again x).

Warnings: Betrayal, SMUT, insults and bad words, incorrect mentions of what being an architect means.

Tag-list: @heilith @asgardianhobbit98 @middleearthpixie @glassgulls @evenstaredits @fizzyxcustard @sotwk

Getting the almighty holier than though Mister Thornton all riled up was fun.

His face was becoming a stern, emotionless mask when he was seeing his opponent beat him at his own game. In which case, you were the opponent. And you were crushing his hopes with a devilish grin.

“As you can see, once the factory is restored, the margins will increase by twenty per cent. And of course, it is without counting the profit made from the museum which will be added at the same time, as well as the branded products we will sell there.”

This project was yours, it was given at this point. Victory tasted awfully good when winning against him. After working for the same firm together for the past six years, the friendly competition you had entertained in the beginning had swiftly turned into a full-blown rivalry. If you were honest with yourself, it had turned you on more than once, seeing him do his absolute best to get the upper hand. Especially, when you knew the cards to be in your favour.

“Thank you for your time, that will be all for now.”

Architecture was a male-dominated field and being the only woman in the office was a feat, day in and day out. Every day you had to fight for a seat at the table and he did not make it easy on you. Not that you’d want him to.

After the meeting, Thornton approached you, ever so leisurely, to give himself a sense of control. It suited him. The confidence radiating from him. A pristine shirt he had to have bought a size too small, his three-piece suit a work of art along the lines of his shoulders, his pants taunt against his thighs. And that was just the front.

“Good work today.”

You stopped gathering your computer and portfolios. Was he joking ? You arched a brow, your arms instinctively crossed over your chest.

“What do you want Thornton? Snarl at me, like you usually do?”

He chuckled, leaning his hips against the table, looking at you intently. You could see him eying you from head to toe, ranking up your legs, stopping at your hips, then your chest - accentuated cleavage in your fitted white shirt, before meeting your eyes.

“No. I want to invite you to dinner. -Pardon? -You heard me.”

What game was he playing? That man always had a motive.

“I fear our little games have to come to an end. Only fitting to have a dinner to celebrate. I have been offered a promotion. Associate.”

You felt your mouth open, but no words came to you. You bit the inside of your cheek. Of course, he had come to gloat and run that tongue of his. What you wanted to do to that man could not be expressed in enough words. He was good at his job, yes, but not good enough to earn the promotion you had been fighting for, for months. Of course, the goddamn CEO’s son had to have it.

“So that’s why you were not trying to jeopardize my presentation today? Fuck, I should have known… You’re never that kind to anyone. Have a good dinner on your own, Thornton. And above all, go fuck yourself.”

His wide hand grabbed your wrist before you could leave. Your breath itched in your throat.

“You did not hear me. I have been offered a promotion. In another firm. -What do you mean?”

He let go of your arm, feeling as if you were less likely to leave now that he had your attention. Thornton’s lips perked in what could be treated as a smile.

“I mean that I am leaving. My sister and I are creating a new firm.”

Oh. Oh. His firm. This situation was taking unexpected turns.

“And what that has to do with me?”

He inhaled slowly, calming down his nerves.

“My sister, Fanny, thought it good to have you with us.”

Your laugh echoed in the empty office. He could not be serious.

“Are you joking? -I wish I were. She can be… very convincing at times.”

Saying those words, he recalled the week Fanny had called him asking about the prodigy he was working with. Not that he would tell you that. Your rivalry was the only thing keeping you in his life. And, even if he would never admit it aloud, the challenge you presented him with was exhilarating. He felt stimulated and pushed to always be on his best game with you around. Probably why Fanny wanted you in the first place. You kept him and his ego in check.

“Listen, you don’t have to make a decision now. Come to dinner with me, we’ll talk about the details then.”

Narrowing your eyes, you shook his extended hand.

“No promises. And give my thanks to your sister. She seems to be a brave woman to handle you every day.”

You smiled at your joke before leaving. In a fleeting dazed thought he wondered what else you could do with that mouth. Shaking his head, he went ahead and called his sister to tell her the news.

- After arranging a place and a date, the worst part of the ordeal was waiting. Wait for the week to be over. Wait for the evening to come. Wait for you to arrive. You had agreed it would be better for you to meet in a neutral place, where people would not recognize you. Sharks were everywhere and if they caught wind of you and him leaving the firm, it would stir more shit than you could handle. The French restaurant he had picked was on a side street, hidden from view by a beautifully decorated garden. You presented yourself and were guided to a table in a corner. He was already waiting for you, even going as far as pulling the chair out for you. You did not know how but this suit was even more enticing than the one he had on a few days before. He was wearing a dark shirt, sleeves rolled at his elbows, and no tie. He almost seemed relaxed, if not for the way his forearms were flexing against the cloth of his clothes.

“Wine?”

You nodded, the waiter pouring a glass for him and then for you. The menu was already on the table. As usual, yours did not have the prices written on them.

“Thornton? -Yes? -Could you pass me your menu, please?”

You reached for it before he could answer. To your surprise, he chuckled at your behaviour.

“What? -Nothing. You… You have a habit of taking what you want. I like that.”

The darkness surrounding you did little to cool the flush of your cheeks. He smiled wider. Then, the waiter came back. After having ordered, you put your credit card on the table, telling him you were the one to pay for tonight’s dinner and that next time his managers should do a better job at hiding their misogyny. The whole time, Thornton did not say anything, looking at you intently, focused like you thought you had never seen him before.

“Now that this is settled, first question: why is your sister not here with us? Second question: what makes you think I’ll join your firm after the hell on earth you put me through? -Simple. My sister is on vacation with her sons. You do know it’s Easter this week?”

He could not give a price to the face you made at that. “And I seem to recall, you gave me the same treatment.” He sipped on his wine, moving carefully, hoping you would not run. It was always the same dance with you. Him chasing you, in the hopes you would give him the light of day. Not always successful, but always worth it.

“Despite what you may think, I value your intellect and your sense of business. You are one of the only architects I know who makes a point of following the project from conception to finish, including regarding the contracts for the workers and the conditions in which they work. Going as far as talking with the unions and siding with them if need be. -Uh, duh? That’s my job. If the workers are unhappy the work is badly done and we lose money, that’s pretty simple math. -I know.”

He leaned over to you, pouring himself some water, spreading the smell of his cologne in your space. The wine must have been a tad too much because you clenched your thighs when he did. Deep into the night, you talked about the future of the firm, what projects you were willing to work on, what percentage you would be getting and who you would be working with. You wanted your work to be as ethical as possible, even in a world where you could lose it all in a heartbeat. The gentleman in him flared when you hailed a cab. He insisted on driving you home. You couldn’t say no to those eyes, pleading with you, an amused “I won’t bite. Unless you ask nicely.” Escaping him, making him blush just as much as you did. Upon arriving, he opened the door for you, walking you up to the door of your building.

“Well, Thornton, for someone who always had a thing against me, you do know how to wine and dine a girl alright.”

He chuckled.

“I do hope it worked at least.”

You stared at him through hooded eyelids. Maybe it was the alcohol in your system, the soft buzz leaving you to fend for yourself against your instincts. Or maybe it was him. The cologne in the air, his fingers brushing against your thigh in the car, the comfortable silence and quick wits exchanged during dinner. You did not know. And, honestly, you did not care.

“It worked like a charm.”

You leaned up, bravery overcoming you, and kissed his cheek. His breath hitched as he gritted his teeth, fighting against himself. Your hand had settled on his shoulder, and he did not stop himself from putting his on your waist. He sensed the shift in the air then. You pulled away before opening the door behind you. In a last attempt at seeing him break - the effect you had on him was visible, rendering his pants, even more, taunt against his ass (it was a sight to see) - you asked:

“So… You are coming or what?”

He followed you in without hesitation.

When you entered your apartment, you barely had the time to take off your coat and light up the room the door behind you was slammed shut and his hands were on you. Your back against his chest, his palms over your breasts, toying with your nipples through your top, no other place on Earth could compete with the one you were in now.

“Do you know what you’re doing to me?” he grunted in your ear, biting down softly on your earlobe, “those dresses stretched over your ass I could barely hide the hard-on under the table… Would have to touch myself in the bathroom thinking of you…”

Breathless, you whimpered “As if your suits were not a size too small just to turn me on… Buttons-up ready to burst…” You could hear the pride in his smirk, his hands pulling your jacket off, pulling your shirt off as well as his own. When he finally turned you around, underwear was the only thing left between you. You lunged forward, meeting him halfway in a hungry embrace, never quite kissing but leaving a trail down his throat of hickeys he’d have a hard time hiding. Once on your knees, he tried stopping you.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for so long, I…”

Your mouth watered at the sight of his cock, once freed of his boxers. Without so much as an afterthought, your mouth was at the tip, then deeper down your mouth, taking more and more of him with each back and forth, the salty taste of precum rapidly coating your tongue, your hands finding a steady place to rest on his hips. His whimpers were sinful. Reaching your ears and eliciting a wetness you never knew yourself capable of before that moment. Your fingers found their way down, between your thighs, toying with yourself. In a desperate attempt not to come, he pulled away from you before forcing you up. You frowned, visibly disappointed.

“Why…”

He stopped you, slipping a finger in your mouth for you to suck on. His eyes had gone dark, he seemed animated by lust only. Not that you would mind. When you complied, he inhaled sharply through his nose, smirking again.

“Bend.”

The order was simple. And you were not one to say no. You found yourself bending over on the table, ass up in the air, waiting for him to move. The warmth of his hands on your hips spread through you like wildfire, a desperate moan cutting through the silence. His fingers were impatient with your underwear, tearing the seams as if they were nothing. Without another moment of hesitation, he pulled a condom out of his discarded coat, put it on and… nothing came. Well, more accurately, you could feel the tip of his cock against your clit, moving in slow motion. In other words: torture. You went to get back up, pissed, when his hand blocked you down, the palm over the expanse of your back, firm, not even straining in his strength.

“Oh, growing impatient are we?”

The smug bastard. He was pushing in you excruciatingly slow until he was completely up in you. Losing control, you clenched around him, your whole body a string ready to snap, your back arching, as you were mouthing a silent plea for him to move. He stayed there, pulling mewls out of you, while he pulled you to him, your back against his chest, leaving breathless mouth-opened kisses down the side of your throat, caressing your shoulders and your back in sinful patience. You were a mess, almost in tears, the temptation too strong when he put you back down, slamming into you with such force, his hips were to leave bruises. Where his cries of pleasure had been enticing, yours were only driving him insane, your warm tongue on him still on his mind. His thrusts quickly became erratic, and his end was met before yours, grunting into your ear. The emptiness he left behind made you whine. He left to drop the condom in your bin. He was heaving and was flushed. You pulled yourself up, coming back to your senses. He looked at the commotion, clearly not done with you. Not even nearly. His hands stopped you, their familiar heat on your hips. Face to face, you could see his eyes on you, ready to devour every parcel of your body. He sucked at the tender skin of your throat, earning a gasp, your hands going around his shoulders. Soon, his hands slipped under your ass, hoisting you up against him.

“Good girl.”

The sweetness in his tone erased every thought out of you. Your hands were pulling on his hair, his nose against your pulse as you stumbled into your bedroom. No words were exchanged as he all but threw you on the bed, knocking the air out of your lungs. He smirked, the effect he had on you glistening down your thighs. He was enjoying seeing you this willing to give him control, all of it for the mere pleasure of having him. It boosted his ego. And you enjoyed greatly as he kept his eyes on you, before kneeling between your thighs, his breath fanning over you, a heated reminder of where his mouth could be. Again, he took his time, pressing his mouth, tongue and teeth against your inner thighs, leaving bruises and deep-coloured stains under your skin.

“You really want this, don’t you?”

The words were hanging in the air between the two of you. He licked his lips, diving in. He went feral. All you could do was helplessly try not to be too loud, but it was damn near impossible. Thornton’s hands were not only good at keeping you down but also at keeping you open and pleased, teasing you in ways only he knew. The knot in your abdomen was gradually coming to a rupture point when he stopped altogether. A deep whine echoed through your chest, fist clenching into the bedding. He climbed his way back up your body, leaving marks on his way there. He murmured against your jaw, leaving traces there too.

“How much do you want this?”

You did not want to give him the satisfaction, yet, the ghost of his fingertips was hovering over your clit, sensitive and ready. He pressed on, his thumb running lazy circles around it now. You bit your lip.

“Please… -Please who? -Please, John, I’ll…”

He grabbed your chin, a frown settling on his face. You had never called him by his name. Well, his last name, all the time and the occasional insult but never his first name. Gradually, he lowered his mouth to yours, stealing your breath away yet again. This felt more sinful and intimate than what you were doing so far. He deepened the kiss, your hands meeting in his hair, nails against his scalp. A deep grunt resonated through you, while he looked at you with marvel in his eyes. He pulled you with him to the side, one of your legs above his hip, the tip of his cock against your entrance, teasing even in these moments. It felt right, being there with him. As if something had been fulfilled inside of you. You felt the stretch of him, his hips meeting yours, while his hand was drawing you in, your lips finding yet again the soft spot beneath his ear. He rocked against you in slow motion, taking his time. The moment you let out his name felt pivotal, a shift had occurred in him when you did and you wanted to know why. The first instants were harsh and to the point. This was tender and careful, almost loving. When his fingers found your clit again, you were at his mercy, nestled against him. He was cradling your face, kissing you still. You never wanted this to stop. Never wanted to stop the fullness he provided you, the care, the utter devotion. The coil in your belly was growing stronger with each passing moment until you could not bear it anymore, your orgasm washing through you like a tidal wave. He pulled out right after, spilling himself over your stomach, his forehead against your collarbone. You pulled the covers over the both of you, silence all-encompassing, neither of you moving basking in the embrace the other was providing.

When you woke up, he was gone. It wasn’t late. Yet, he was gone. Nothing left behind. No note. No text. Nothing. While you showered, doubts started plaguing you. With good reason, you thought. The man was ruthless in business. Here you thought you had the upper hand, knowing him for so long. What if you had been wrong? Was he going to use this night against you? Was the deal he offered you even real? It was a low blow, but you would not put it past him. His intentions were never clear, especially not with you. The pain in your chest would not decline, still. The betrayal you felt was real and you could do nothing about it. Work would have to do as a distraction. The television was playing orchestral music in front of you, while you were lounging on your sofa. It helped soothe your mind. You were studying yet another case of wrongful termination by one of your contractors. It was the fifth this year. The man was starting to get a reputation for not honouring his contracts. Somehow, he was one of the most preeminent manufacturers your firm worked with. It felt odd to keep employing him when he was discharging his employees just because he wanted to and despite your firm’s demands. You were so engrossed in your computer screen, scanning numbers, and taking notes that the door softly opening and closing behind you went unnoticed. Not even the soft chuckle or the coat being hung up startled you. Thornton’s palms on your shoulders, on the other hand, elicited a scream. He laughed. The bastard laughed at you. You turned around in your seat. He was wearing different clothes. Professional ones this time. Not that you’d pay any mind whether he was wearing clothes or not.

“What are you doing here?”

The sharpness in your voice startled him. He gestured to a bag on your kitchen aisle.

“I brought breakfast.”

Oh. Fuck. Realization dawned on him. You bit your lip, anxiety unraveling in you.

“You thought… -Yes. I thought you had left. For good.”

John sighed. Even in your mind, it felt strange to call him that. His jaw clenched, as he exhaled sharply. He joined you on the sofa, sitting next to you.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what conclusion to come to, you left without a word, nothing… -I did. -No, you didn’t.”

He pointed at your fridge. A small piece of blue paper tucked under one of the magnets with his handwriting on it.

“Oh.”

He could not stay mad at you when you were looking like this. Nothing out of the ordinary. There laid the issue though. Fluid pants, meant to be worn at home, no bra that he could see and a cotton shirt clinging to your skin. Embarrassment making you bite your lip. He could not bring himself to be angry with you. Really, he had no good reason to. Thornton knew of his reputation. He knew you knew about it too. The math would have been the same if he had been in your shoes. He went to get the groceries he had brought with him. Your eyes went back to your screen, his mocking smirk still on your mind. There was no real hurt, but your ego did not like it. You closed your computer before turning towards him. He had started cooking something, pulling his sleeves up his arms the jacket of his suit laid behind you. Your eyes wandered. Down his shoulder to the tip of his fingers. Up his back and to his shoulder blades. His ass, but that was a given. You were losing yourself in him. It scared you and enticed you all the same.

“Are you going to stare or are you going to help?”

Malice appeared in his eyes, a smile playing on his lips. God, you had never seen him smile so much. Not in all the years you had known him, not in the last months you had known him even. It was a sight, the dimples in his cheeks prominent, eyes shining with something new, the crinkles there lined up perfectly. You were indeed losing yourself in him. He chuckled, startling you into getting up. For once, you were the one without words. You, who always had something to say, opinionated and strong-headed. He saw your hands shaking while peeling apples, trying not to meet his gaze and breathing through your nose to keep a straight face. He found you endearing to no end. He had for a long time. You were a skilled liar and an even better architect, yet he could see, sometimes, the mask crack. Especially when it was him taking a jab at it. He never did it to anger you, per se. He did it because he adored seeing this other side of you. Your commanding posture was one he was used to, what he wanted to chase. What he wanted to stay for though, was this. Your natural state of affairs, no lies put up to hide behind. While he was cooking the eggs and pancakes, he could feel your eyes burning, tracing his shape all over. Once done, he turned around to find that you were still peeling the same apple you had been ten minutes before. You felt his hand pull the fruit away from your palms. They were sticky with the apple’s water and sugar. He opened your hand, prying the knife away from you before bringing your fingers to his mouth. Slowly sucking on your fingers drawing each into his mouth, one after the other, moaning around your skin. The bastard. That handsome bastard. Your thighs clenched, while you were trying to stay upward. It proved very difficult. You whimpered, before stepping out of his reach completely as he was sucking on his fingertips, never leaving you out of sight. The look in his eyes was nothing short of sinful.

“No. No, no, no, no. I need to get work done…”

His arms pulled you up, settling you on the counter, eyes boring into yours, his hands toying with the hem of your shirt, slipping under it. God, he was driving you insane. Your hands found their way against his chest, in a motion that could have been treated as resistance, had you not been so weak in the attempt to stop him. He smiled, studying your face. You found yourself smiling too. The rational part of your brain was going to burst. You still had several calls to make and plans to discuss with him - preferably with his clothes on, even more so if his sister was present. Your body was hearing none of it.

“John, please…” you pleaded.

That was a mistake. As soon as his name left your mouth, he made you look at him with a firm hand on your jaw.

“Say it again.”

His lips were right there. Just suspended in front of you, like a forbidden fruit. He was good at this. So, so, so, good.

“I really have to… -Say it again.”

Your hooded eyelids and heavy breathing were only bringing him closer and closer to you, incapable of resisting the pull you had on him. It felt right, to stand between your open thighs, morning light barely shining through the windows, as you were there, breathless and needy at his mercy.

“John…”

Greedily, he claimed your lips for himself, as if to taste them around the letters of his name. He felt the warmth of your hands slip around his neck, burying themselves in the depth of his hair. Your hips were trying to meet his, arching your back more and more into him. He pulled away for some needed air, his forehead resting against yours. Your fingers were digging into his shirt by now, praying to tear it apart.

“What was that for?”

Your breath was soft against his cheekbone, your voice somewhat proud and cheeky.

“No reason. -Come on, John.”

The insistence on his name murmured against the shell of his ear…You knew. You knew and you were doing it on purpose. That new knowledge ingrained itself in his brain and it took everything in him not to ravish you, here and there.

“My name… in your mouth… It sounds like…It sounds like I am yours”

The cheekiness was gone, replaced by a spreading wildfire inside of you. The warmth of it all taking you over by pure force. You pulled away from him, in awe. A few hours prior you could have sworn he was going to leave you hanging, and now he was telling you these sinful things in such a serious tone. He was going to wreck you. And you were going to let him. Your core clenched, empty, waiting to be filled by him. You pulled your shirt over your head, breasts bare before him. Soon after, his lips found their way to them, the nipples getting teased between his lips, warm hands heating your body up. What an exquisite way to start the day.

Somehow, the tension between you had not vaporized. It had gotten thicker. You could not keep your hands off of each other, often working in between intimate encounters rather than keeping said encounters in between hours of work. Although, you did manage to visit new offices, meet his sister - she was a riot of outlandish manners and quick wits - and keep your newly developing relationship a secret from the firm’s employees. After a few weeks and then months like this, you felt that you were getting into a stall. Your relationship was not new anymore, yet whenever you mentioned going public he’d recoil and diverge onto an another subject of conversation. At first, it had been fun. Now, it was getting tiresome. Yet, you could not bring yourself to break it to him. The frustration in you was growing restless.

“Good evening. -Good evening… Oh, you brought food! Thank God, I’m starving! -I figured.”

He rose a brow and smirked knowingly as he passed through your door. You heard the lock click and he joined you in the kitchen, while you were setting the table. Slowly his usual business posture fell. He now had a strange look on his face. Not quite worried. Just so serious. It had you stopping in your tracks.

“John, what’s wrong?”

His breath was altered, and you watched him slowly take off his jacket and put it away. His eyes were driven to look at the floor, finding patterns in the wood more interesting than your face maybe. A dullness settled on your heart, muffling its cries. Something was off, you could see it.

“I have something to tell you.”

Before he could say anything, you sat down preparing yourself for the worst. He did not move.

“Remember when you told me about that contractor who was firing employees and giving bad results for the firm? -Yes, but… -I know who it is. I’ve known the entire time.”

You almost laughed.

“I’ve told you the name of the company, of course you know who the chief is… -No. I mean, I know who signed off on those deals each time. -What? I’ve been tracking that information… -For months, I know…”

You felt him approach and stop in his tracks, his hand settling on the table next to you, fearing he might make you even more angry than you already were. In truth, you were not even angry at him. Disappointed, frustrated, sad because of him? Yes. Angry? That was for yourself. You should have known he was hiding something. Of course, you had been blinded by the sweet words and soft touches and tender times.

“Who?”

The sharpness there was unmistakably strangled. Tears on the verge of collapse. John inhaled slowly, lips pinched.

“My father.”

Finally, you met his gaze. You didn’t even know his father still worked for the firm and wasn’t on a Bahamas coast with luxurious size debts. This was news to you.

“Please, say something. -I… I don’t know what to say… What do you want me to say, huh?… What do you expect me to say? You’ve been protecting your father all this time and I cannot find it in myself to blame you for it… That doesn’t mean that I’m forgiving you for lying to me… Here I thought we were…”

You struggled for a minute, trying to keep the tears at bay, feeling your emotion well up and ready to implode.

“-We were partners. -We were ? -Yes. We were. -Can you not understand why I did this? -Why? You kept the truth from me. His actions could have cost us both our careers, without mentioning the damages he’s done to the workers and the staff on site. How could you keep allowing this to happen?”

His jaw clenched, keeping himself from saying things he did not want to mean but was feeling deeply right now.

“Keep allowing? You really think I would have left my own father to sign those contracts if I had been aware he was still making them? You really think me this careless? -I don’t know.”

The hurt on his face was discreet. The effects limited to his eyes. Steeled and broken.

“What does that even mean?”

Your heart was breaking. You should have known not to trust him. Nor to have faith in him. He had been so dodgy before why stop now that you were fucking, right? A little voice in your head told you it wasn’t true. You didn’t listen.

“It means that even beyond the fact that you did not tell me you father was still working for the company or that he had a soft spot for an idiot without morals, I don’t know what kind of choice you’d make about the people you do care about. I would not know because you do not make them. Or you don’t tell me about them. -What are you talking about? -Why do you not want to share what we are to one another? You keep avoiding the question or diverting my attention to something else. Why do you not want to say that we are together, in a relationship, in a couple, John! Are you that ashamed of me? Or do you care so much about what other people have to say that you won’t be seen with me?”

This time, he did not stop himself from reaching you, his whole body shaping itself around you. You could not stop the tears anymore as he wrapped his arms around you, not a breath separating you two.

“ I am sorry. I have been nothing but a fool. I was scared you would not want me to. I was scared that you were the one who would be ashamed of me. -How could you think that?”

You met his eyes, watery pupils and all.

“I’m in love with you, John. I could never, ever, be ashamed of you.”

A deep smile crept its way onto his face, illuminating an otherwise gloomy evening. He cradled your face in his hands, almost drowning you in his presence with the gesture.

“I love you, too. Please forgive me. -I already did.”

You felt his lips smooth down a path from your temple to your lips, pressing feathered kisses along the way. You both stayed there then, foreheads together, swaying in each other’s arms, to a melody neither of you knew.

“Why did you tell me about your father?”

Without interrupting the moment, he sighed deeply.

“I had him fired today. For malpractice. -What? -He was not very pleased with me.”

The attempt at lightening up the mood went to waste. You put your palm against his cheek, your thumb moving in slow circles against his skin, trying to calm him down.

“You did the right thing. For what it’s worth, I am very sorry that you had to do it. Also, I am glad you did. You would not be yourself without that righteous streak of yours.”

A chuckle passed his lips, finally. He pressed a kiss to your lips, growing stronger with each of your hearts beating. Once thoroughly breathless, he let you go. That night, you agreed never to keep a secret from each other again. Or to hide things from one another. Both parties involved made sacrifices regarding their futures together. As usual, John drove a heavy bargain, with brand new negotiations skills, bribes and promises. You met him at every turn. And he let you, for he had surrendered to you that day and all the days after, wholeheartedly.

#john thornton #north and south bbc #north and south #thornton x reader #modern!au #thornton x f!reader

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mermaidsirennikita · 11 months

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Yeah this needs to be talked about more, the amount of articles, podcasts, youtube/tiktok videos or just online comments that I saw after season 1 came out that just assume the Bton books were diverse because the show is? And the fact the new marketing push around the books is not disabusing people about that notion, mainly through the new covers (both regular and the show tie-in ones).

It's a really complicated, thorny issue in some ways and very simple in others. If I look at Just Romance Novels (which is obviously a niche, just zeroing in a genre for the sake of discussion) the genre is still dominated by product from white authors, largely with characters written as white. While it's diversifying (far more slowly than it should be) a lot of the older "proven success" books are written by white people, about white people. I don't think it's wrong to cast diversely if you're adapting those books--and on a practical, "people putting food on the table" level, I want actors of color to have as many solid, well-paying opportunities as possible.

At the same time, there are still so many authors of color neglected. Not all of whom wrote people of color on the page, of course, especially in historical romance--Sherry Thomas and Stacy Reid are two historical romance novelists who write about white characters, and it's no surprise that the potential adaptation of Stacy's works would be cast more diversely. There's a level of tracking how expectations have changed when you look at how Sinful Wallflowers was presented as a book series, and how it could be presented as a show.

And like, I'll allow that we're in the midst of a sort of "boom" (who knows how long it'll last) of period pieces cast more diversely than they would've been even 15 years ago. The approaches are often different and individualized. The Great has people of color playing characters who'd be literal white Russians "in real life", and it's literally never commented on, which I think many would prefer for a show like Bton. BUT, most of the lead characters are white, with Orlo (who I think did not get the strongest writing from jump, though Sascha wanting to leave after s1 didn't help) and Arkady (who I think is hilarious and finally got more screentime in s3, but he could've gotten more from the beginning... so much Velementov screentime should be Arkady screentime) being two of the only truly prominent people of color onscreen.

Then you have something like Sanditon, where Georgiana gets better writing than many people on Bton, but the show obviously never knew how to really confront her background, made the racist old lady the peak comic relief, and never prioritized Georgiana the way her white counterpart Charlotte was prioritized. Georgiana got an afterthought of an ending after being humiliated by the narrative several times.

One of the shows that handled this best was Tom Jones--Sophia is treated as this gem of a girl whose grandfather and aunt love her, but clearly aren't fully sure about how to solidify her safety as a Black woman of means in England. There's a very tender scene where she discusses her father enslaving her and her mother with Tom, and the show doesn't shy away from Sophia's mixed feelings on the entire thing. There's a heavy implication re: her being made to perform whiteness with face powder, etc, but nonetheless this is not dominating Sophia's storyline. She gets to be the swooning girl who falls head over heels and is desired by a good man and upheld as his ideal in every way. She confronts conflict, but she does not SUFFER, and she is not MINIMIZED in favor of white women in the story--Sophia is really pretty explicitly like, The Woman of that piece. Presented as the most beautiful, as not flawless but good and deserving of love, as a true classical heroine whose personal narrative is actively expanded to match Tom's. The only thing I find prominently weird (after one viewing) is that she and Tom never had like, a sweet wedding night scene, as we saw Tom have sex with three different white women onscreen, of of which was like.... the core villain. I would've liked to have seen Sophia get the full physical adoration there, onscreen, and it did stand out a bit that she didn't.

So those are adaptations with growing pains, not getting everything right, but some being better than others (and Bton being the bottom of the barrel, there).

Then there are things that are unequivocally wrong, and not a part of growing pains as adaptations navigate between what sells and what diversifies and what works, and one of those unequivocally wrong things is selling the Bton books as diverse reads. Those books are some of the most conventional Regency romances out there; you don't even get a lot of economic or class diversity, let alone any racial diversity. Almost everyone in that series is upper class. Even Sophie is the daughter of a nobleman. And I'm not saying it's wrong to write about those people, but for the books to now be sold as something they're not, when the author didn't even think people of color could get HEAs in her Historically Accurate World... is the worst kind of capitalism.

That's part of the extra ugliness (on top of all the obvious ugliness) here. Julia Quinn was against what she's now profiting from. It's not just picking a white author's works to be emblematic of diversity they don't represent; it's THAT author's works. And I think that making Queen Charlotte from all this, putting Julia's name on the cover (I am.... 90% sure that book was ghostwritten, with input from Julia and Shonda, but go off) just adds to all of it.

#romance novel blogging #this turned into a lot of musing but basically: agree!#there are things like w tom jones where i'm like you missed an opportunity re: sophia not getting a love scene w tom #and then there are things where actively wrong decisions are being made loudly and proudly #to basically wrench as much money from poc as possible through misleading

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alice-angel12x · 1 year

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Take To The Sky

Summary: The Celestial Atlas, the high blue heavens above the earth. For the longest time, only the birds could claim the sky. Until one day, some humans and beastmen grew winds and fell to the sky, becoming the Avian People. But as Time went on they soon built a society with them on the top and everyone else as dirt. Yet, Y/n refuses to remain chained to the ground and oppressed.

______________________________

Want to read the previous chapter or the rest of the chapter. Check out my A03.

Ch. 2

Day-to-day life as a servant at NRC is terrible, most of the students were arrogant a-holes who called on us for almost everything. If they forgot their textbook, they would order someone to run to their dorm to look for it. And if we can't find it, it would be somehow our fault.

Pomfiore is one of the worst dorms to serve. They are so prideful and demanding, that those who are permanently stationed at that dorm practically follow the students around. As those Pomfiore students squawked out orders and demands. I remembered the times I would be temporarily stationed at Pomfiore, and it was rough.

I was often assigned to an Avian named Vil Schoenheit, who by all accounts comes from some pretty well-known parents. Both are famous actors, and even if the father was a human, he is a very treasured talent. And his mother was said to be the most Beautiful Avian. So as expected he was difficult.

Of course, each dorm had its issues, some more than others. Those stationed toSavanaclaw, a dorm mostly filled with beastman, always come back with a bruise or two. The only saving grace there is the Dorm leader Leona king scholar if he’s around and you happen to be female, harassment will not fly here. Sadly the same can’t be said if you were a guy.

Heartslabyul is very strict, at least depending on the current Dorm head. But all servants are required to follow all the crazy and strict rules of the dorm, from painting the roses to wearing pink while feeding the flamingos, On days that hedgehog sneezes, all card soldiers & servants must sing a song together, or even have the rose white and red when throwing a party for a new friend. Though Trey is in that dorm, and his friend Cater is nice enough if not a bit flirty.

Octavinelle is interesting, A dorm mostly dominated by merpeople. You are either working in the Octavinelle cafe or performing the cleaning chores in the back. Most of the servants are just kept out of sight unless they are there waiting on tables.

Scarabia is a dorm in a desert, so that is hard. The Scaribian Dorm much like Pomfiore was very demanding. While they don’t spend their day fussing over makeup and beauty products. The Scarabia students would always demand to have everything served to them from bringing their food, to entertaining them.

Diasomnia was something else, a Dorm mostly with Fea students. It was usually dark and gloomy and even though they weren't brutes like savanaclaw, they were certainly vocal about how they thought most beastman and humans were lesser beings. But they would practically kiss the ground Prince malleus steps upon. As for the prince himself, most were too scared to approach him, and he seemed to only want to be in the company of a few. So I never really bothered him much.

If you want my opinion, Ignyhide is the best dorm. The residents there are primarily independent and shy and they hardly ask anything of the servants. And usually, the servants just gather in the lounge and chat while the students mind their own business. But it was also their I meet Idia Shroud.

_____________________________

Inspired by @tallyanimatez "Twisted wonderland Feather AU". Check out their stories about our winged NRC boys.

#twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #feathers au #twisted wonderland x yuu #twisted wonderland x mc #wing au #Twst wing Au #trey clover x reader

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neutralgray · 8 months

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9/11 and Spider-Man: A brief Retroactive Revisit

The year was 2001. I was seven years old and just started second grade. I don't remember a lot of the details but I remember enough. People were frightened. Teachers tried explaining to us what was going on in regards to the attacks on the world trade centers. We held school plays to honor the armed forces. Patriotic songs dominated the air waves. People were bound to one another by shared fear and patriotism. Of course these feelings were felt by us children, too. We were young and emulating our parents. If they were scared, then we certainly were. If they were proud and angry, so were many of us. For a little kid caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, it was so easy to feel American.

Say what you can and will about American imperialism potentially leading into the events of the 9/11 attack, but the overarching timeline of "why" 9/11 happened didn't matter much to the average person just trying to live their life. The American government was responsible for a great many sins, often fueled by joint corporate/government interests and looked over due to American exceptionalism... but on a wholly individual level, little of the "why" or "how" mattered to us. We were attacked and guilty of no greater crime than having been born where we lived.

It was a very frightening and unsure time that is difficult to explain for those who simply did not live it.

As with many great tragedies, it affected the storytelling of that age. That fervent patriotism and fear and loss were the brushes that colored many stories. Even in the colorful and larger-than-life stories of superhero comics, this event could not simply be ignored. The pain was weighing directly on virtually every citizen, including those writers and artists.

Then in December, 2001, Spider-Man issue #36 was published. The front cover was simply black with the title overlaying it in stark white. Good comic covers usually tease the fun adventure the 22 pages will contain, but here there was nothing. The cover felt like a breath caught dead in one's throat.

The issue depicted the events of 9/11, as told in the world of Marvel. It was the same great tragedy it was in our world but now serving along first responders were the likes of Thor and Captain America. The comic tried to respectfully depict the great scope of the real world horror, and I personally think it did a good job considering it had to depict such an event co-existing next to colorful superheroes in spandex.

Spider-Man struggles to answer when a crying New Yorker demands to know how he let this happen-- where was he? He tries to console a child whose firefighter father ran into the wreckage only to lose grip of the boy when the he runs off screaming after seeing his father pulled out of the wreckage by other firefighters. The comic depicts our beloved superheroes helping but goes out of its way to ensure the reader that the real heroes in this scenario are the first responders-- the firefighters, police, and simple volunteers who were there to help. It shines a light on them all at the end, noticeably sweeping the colorful superheroes behind the lines of regular everyday heroes.

It was a product of its time and captures a lot of the raw emotions I remember from that period. It could be argued that any depiction of such an event so soon would be distasteful, let alone when you add in superheroes. I would not begrudge anyone who reads it and detests this story for its maybe tone-deaf approach. In the book's defense, though, I do genuinely believe that J Michael Straczynski was attempting to tell a very respectful and solemn story.

Since its release it's been a polarizing issue and while some of these criticisms may be fair, I wanted to address an issue I don't think is a fair criticism. Or rather, it's a criticism that I think misses the cultural context and the reason we tell ourselves stories.

Above is a controversial panel-- arguably the most talked about single panel in the comic. At ground zero for the terrorist attacks, characters such as Doctor Doom, Kingpin, and Magneto are present and assisting. It highlights their shared humanity with the heroes and superheroes. The story even depicts Doctor Doom, one of the most iconic and capable Marvel supervillains, weeping behind his mask at the tragic loss of innocent life. It's a depiction of everyone coming together under their umbrella of shared pain.

A lot has been made of this panel. The biggest criticism is the in-universe absurdity of someone like Doctor Doom crying at such an event. In the world of Marvel Comics, the entire world has been threatened with planet eaters, inter-dimensional dragons, omnicidal maniacs, hostile aliens, and forces beyond our dimension. In universe, the tragedy of 9/11 would be contextually really small compared to so many of the constant dangers the superheroes have faced time and time again. This also means that the tragedies caused by Doctor Doom and his ilk have certainly caused more actual damage in the world of Marvel than the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This criticism demands consistency--logical reasoning in the universe. Why would Doctor Doom cry for the loss of innocent life if he's done worse himself?

I can only speak for myself, but I strongly feel this criticism misses the point of story telling. Stories do not exist in a vacuum-- they don't merely come into being for us to absorb, interpret, and put away. Stories are ideas. They're ideas organized into a narrative that allows for us to share moral lessons, thoughts, and adventures with others. Stories have been used across millennia to explain everything from natural phenomenon to the nature of good and evil. To quote a friend of mine, sometimes it's the UN-REALITY of stories that allows their themes and emotional weights to really flourish. It's reductive to look at a story like this and claim it makes no sense because it's logically inconsistent in-universe. It may pain the nerd in all of us to say it, but that universe depicted on those pages in Spider-Man is not real. It's never been real. Ours is.

This was a story written by real people affected by a real tragedy. It wasn't written to humanize Doctor Doom or provide some new dynamic depth to a silly colorful supervillain. It was written to comfort real readers who were scared and angry and navigating many of these feelings through their unity as a country of people. It reminded the reader they were not alone in grappling these difficult emotions. For a kid who grew up in a post-9/11 world, I can personally attest that seeing my favorite superhero so scared and lost but still trying to do the right thing in the face of real world stakes helped me navigate those feelings, too.

My ultimate point in making this post is to stress that some stories (such as this one) need to be read with the meta-knowledge that it is a story. We may love and cherish our darlings in fiction but their stories are told for our sake, not theirs. A story doesn't have to make sense to them. It just has to make sense to us.

Those stories are the ones that bring us together.

#9/11 #Spider-Man #Marvel Comics #Marvel #Doctor Doom #Comics #Grey's Thoughts #Essay

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autolenaphilia · 1 year

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I'm not American, but I'm interested in how American history and politics. And I'm of course not unaffected by US politics either, it's a superpower. And I do have friends living there.

And one thing I find fascinating and horrifying is how the constitution and supreme court in the US works. Basically the USA runs on one of the oldest constitutions in the world still in use. My country Sweden by comparison got its current constitution in 1974 (and the 1809 constitution it replaced was also at the time one of the oldest constitutions still in use in the world at the time).

The US constitution was written by rich 18th century cishet white men, and naturally is intended to protect their interests. It doesn't protect women and literally allowed for slavery. It's a product of 18th century "classical" liberalism.

And as those groups in the US excluded by it started demanding their rights, in ways that couldn't be ignored by the system, it had to be changed, amended and reinterpreted. The reconstruction amendments are the most obvious of these, to account for black people being more than slaves. It was basically expanding the definition of liberalism, to account for democracy, to make the definition of freedom for the individual also apply to women and people of colour and queer people.

There was also reinterpretation of what the constitution means. It's a very old document, so in order to apply it to modern conditions, a lot of judicial interpretation is needed. This is how a lot of progressive supreme court decisions were made, like Roe vs Wade and Lawrence vs Texas. What the judges behind those decisions did was decide that the language protecting the freedom and rights of the individual in the US constitution also applied to women and gay people. That they were people just as heterosexual men are, and thus deserving of rights and freedom. So the constitution was reinterpreted to mean bodily autonomy for women and their right to have an abortion, and the right for gay people to not be arrested for having gay sex.

This viewpoint among American judges is called the living constitution. Even if the original makers of the constitution intended that the people guaranteed rights were cishet white men, it should be reinterpreted according to a more modern liberal definition of who are people guaranteed rights.

It's still liberalism, of course, all caught up in the liberal idea of the capitalist state guaranteeing rights. It's an expansion of liberalism, rather than a rejection of it. It's easy for socialists to be cynical about such things. But they also meant real improvements in the lives of women, people of colour and queer people. It's how the US as a nation has not remained stuck in the 18th century, despite having a constitution that old. Liberal democracy ought to be replaced by a socialist democracy, but it's an improvement compared to the systems it replaced in the west.

That's why the legal reasoning of conservative judges is scary in how it barely hides what it intends to do. It's called "originalism" and it openly says that the constitution should only be interpreted according to the intentions of its creators. And that intention is that only cishet white rich men deserve those rights and freedoms the constitution guarantees. They aren't entirely open about that, but that's the only realistic way to interpret originalism.

So when the conservative originalist dominated Supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade, that is basically the reasoning they went with. Abortion is not protected by any part of the constitution, because the relevant parts of the constitution defending individual rights could not have been intended by their creators to encompass women and their right to abortion. The right to have an abortion is not "deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition." as they put it.

Of course this is a violent denial of women's bodily autonomy, and that's the point. Their reasoning is that the creators of US constitution did not view women as people, deserving of rights, and thus women can have no constitutional rights today, in the modern US.

So yeah, that's the horror of the Supreme court. It basically decided women were not people with a right to bodily autonomy. And it's probably going to keep on deciding that people who are not cishet white men are by definition not people deserving rights according to the US constitution. They are probably going to overturn marriage equality and Obergefell vs Hodges. Maybe Lawrence too.

I'm not American, so I can mostly look on as horrified outsider. I guess the lesson here is: If you try to run a modern liberal democracy with rights for marginalized people on a constitution from the 18th century that was never intended for such a society, you are always going to have compatibility problems like this.

A constitution from the 18th century is always going to need radical interpretation to apply to 21st century problems, which means a lot of power is given to unelected constitutional courts. The judiciary are meant to be civil servants, following the laws laid down by elected politicians, but when the practical application of basic constitutional laws are in doubt, they have a lot of leeway to interpret it as they will, and thus power. Liberal democracy is again not my preferred political system, but it's better than a lot of the more reactionary alternatives and this is not a good way to run it.

It's interesting how the US constitution has survived this long, but it's dangerous anachronism rather than quaint. It's like trying to use an early 80s IBM computer running DOS as your primary computer in 2022.

#the us constitution #don't worry i'm probably going to write a rant about how sweden sucks soon

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ofwolfandmuses · 1 year

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Is that [ALEXANDER LUDWIG]? No, that’s [YRIC]. The [28] year old [OMEGA] [CIS-MALE] is a [HUNTER] in the [FENRIR] pack. If you ask their friends, they’re known to be [CONFIDENT] & [OUTGOING], but they urge you to be cautious, because they’re also known to be [BULL-HEADED] & [RESTLESS]. Their friends also say that they’re into [BODY WORSHIP, WRESTLING, PUBLIC SEX] but don’t even think about trying [SCAT, GORE] with them.

BASIC INFORMATION;

Name: Yric

Nicknames: Bastard, None - give him some?

Age: Twenty-Eight

Secondary Gender: Omega

Occupation: Hunter in the Fenrir pack

APPEARANCE;

Height: 6′2

Weight: 226 pounds

Build: Athletic, Muscular

Hair Color: Blond

Eye Color: Blue

Shaved/Trimmed/Natural: Light coating of hair on his chest

Wolf Color: Solid White

Wolf Size/Build: Average size, slim build

SEX;

Kinks: Body Worship, Wrestling, Public Sex, Flip-Fucking, Breeding, Musk/Sweat, Power Bottoming, Dominating, Submitting, Service Topping, Praise, Humiliation/Degradation (Light), Daddy-Play, Open To Others

Anti-Kinks: Vore, Gore, Age-Play, Feminization

BIOGRAPHY;

When Yric came into this world, crying out as a small infant, he was only given one name – no last name, as he was the product of an affair his dame had had on her mate. His father was a nobleman, one that managed to charm his way under his mother’s dress and squirted him into her belly, and her mate had been furious. How dare she cheat on him, how dare she ridicule the Radulfr name and humiliate him? While he doted on his eldest son, he treated the bastard with great disdain and just saw him as a stain on his family legacy. It didn’t help, either, that the boy had been a scrawny runt for most of his youth, making it all the more obvious that Yric wasn’t his – given that all of the Radulfr’s he had sired were thick, muscular, strong – but Yric took it in stride as his dame always told him that he was still worthy, no matter what his step-father said.

Still, though, he was always treated poorly by his step-father and given very little – often thrown the scraps of food and the hand-me-down clothes – but Yric never let it show that it got to him. Instead he looked up to his older brothers, never holding it against them that their father treated him like filth while he doted on them and raised them to be the best Radulfr wolf they could be. And Aurelio was the one he idolized the most, almost imagining being just like him when he got older so that one day, his step-father wouldn’t hate him as he did now.

But then Aurelio became an Omega, and the shame that came down on the family seemed to increase ten fold and while Aurelio was mistreated, any respect Yric had gotten from his step-father was gone in an instant and he was treated even worse than before. That he was a disgrace, a runt, an abomination that he should’ve killed the first chance he got – but because he couldn’t prove that he wasn’t his, he had to give him a roof over his head and food in his belly – and that the only reason he was allowed to live was because despite her being a whore, he still loved his dame.

The words were definitely hard to hear, but Yric knew that he could prove he was worthy. He knew that he was going to make his dame proud, and he’d do what he could to make his step-father proud too. Of course, when he presented as an Omega, too, that only added fuel to the fire but he was determined to prove that he was still capable of whatever it was he wanted. And because he was still small, at least in terms of build as he had shot up to over six feet tall in a manner of a year, he knew that it would only benefit his speed and make him an absolutely lethal hunting machine.

And it did. He quickly became known as a fierce hunter, and if any Alpha wanted to make a quip of his skills because he was an Omega? He was quick to fight them, using the fight training he learned from his step-father and brothers, and in time, they began to see that he wasn’t a pushover despite his scrawny stature. And when Aurelio took him under his wing, training him even further and pushing him harder than he ever had been pushed before? He started to build more and more muscle until he looked like he actually possessed the Radulfr name.

Of course, he didn’t, and though he looked more like a member of the man’s family, his step-father wanted nothing to do with him and he had set out to arrange a mating for him with a wolf from another pack. At first he had been a bit skeptical, given that the wolf in question was one that was hardly social and didn’t seem capable of cracking a smile – until one evening when he found himself in need of getting a wound from a buck cleaned and stitched together that he found himself seeing the softer side of the Alpha. That the wolf was someone that put a hundred and ten percent into his work, wanting everyone to be at their healthiest, and as the alpha began to spend more time with him, Yric began to think that maybe being mated to him wouldn’t be so bad.

Eventually the two of them did wind up mating, though Yric wouldn’t say he’s in love with the guy. Don’t get him wrong, he absolutely liked the guy and enjoyed being around him – when he wasn’t his sullen, standoffish self or pressuring him to have children – but the two of them still didn’t know one another that well because there were so many walls around the Alpha that it was taking longer than normal to reach his heart. It was nice, though, to live in a cabin with just one wolf instead of a whole pack of them, and the sex with the Alpha was great, but part of him wondered… was he going to be stuck in a loveless marriage?

And if so, would he grow to resent any children that his mate would have, just as his step-father did of him? Every time he looked at the pup that his mate was raising, after the untimely death of its dame and its sire rejecting it, he couldn’t help but wonder these things but he shoved it down because he knew there was no way he was going to ostracize a child that wasn’t his. At least… he hoped so.

#ahqintro

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starg1rl444 · 2 years

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uploading my obx ffs on here as well 🙈 wattpad: starg1rl666

(i wrote all of these about two years ago do they absolutely suck but i have no new material at the moment)

rafe cameron

„be right back!" sarah yelled, leaving the room to speak to her boyfriend on the phone. you smirked, knowing that was going to take long.

you started putting on your skincare products, massaging your face, relaxing. a long day was finally over, and for the first time in a long period you stayed at your best friend/ family friend sarah's house.

everything would have been perfect, if it wasn't for rafe. you two had hated each other since the sandpit days. growing older, that never changed. he would always stay a psychotic asshole, and you knew that.

the bathroom door opening harshly and without warning snapped you back out of your thoughts.

"what the fuck? theres this thing called privacy!" you yelled out, considering the fact that you were only wearing thin, short silk pajamas. out of instinct, you grabbed a towel from the wall and covered yourself as well as possible.

rafe chuckled loving the dominance over you. the fact, that he scared you.

"of course you're here. always in my fucking house at the worst time."

you scuffed and rolled your eyes. "yeah, sure. i'm here for you only. i just love upsetting you, because i have nothing better to do in my pathetic life." you threw the towel and your products by side and made your way to the door.

"where do you think you're going?" he stopped you with a smirk on his face and a raised eyebrow, blocking the door and not making an attempt to let you through.

"what is your problem? just let me through."

he exhaled harshly. "yeah, i don't think so. you've been annoying and disrespectful to me since the day i met you, no ones ever put you in your place."

you stared up at him, now being just a few inches away from him.

about to yell out for help, you inhaled, but he quickly slapped his hand on your mouth and manoeuvred you to the other side of the room in no time.

you couldn't even process what happened when your back hit the cold wall.

rafe stared you down with cold eyes, slowly removing his hand.

you started to realise how tall he actually was. at least 6'2, making him over a whole foot taller than you. you had to actually look up to see the expression in his eyes.

"you're staring." he noted, after a few moments of you two just standing there.

"no i'm not. you're absolutely full of yourself, you know that?"

he chuckled again. " and you're a bratty little bitch, do you know that?"

you were shocked. no one besides him spoke to you like this, and you catched yourself loving it secretly.

as if he read your mind. "i know you like it when i say these things, y/n. you're an undeniable whore."

you gasped at his cold ring brushing up against your leg. his hand wandered up further, reaching the hem of your white silk shorts, playing with the fabric, while gazing at your body hungrily.

his face leaned closer and closer. threatening, but you didn't do anything to stop him. your lips were inches away from touching, meanwhile both of his hands arrived at your waist, pulling up your top a little, the cold air hitting your ribs.

he noticed, grabbing the now naked parts, keeping your skin warm with his large hands while teasing your lip with his teeth.

you couldn't help but moan against him softly, making him smirk again.

"god, just kiss me"

he pulled you in closer, your soft chest against his muscular, wide one. you could literally feel his heart beating under his tight black shirt. his lips finally met yours almost violently.

the kiss was lustful, longing, and almost desperate.

you could feel your legs giving up, sinking fully into his arms.

he pulled away, breath hitching.

"slut."

you loved him calling you that. so much.

rafe grabbed your ass and lifted you against the wall.

still out of breath and obviously extremely hard, he whispered in your ear: "it's time someone gets a little control over you."

before you could react, he had aggressively ripped off your shorts with one hand.

he unbuckled his belt and started pressing his dick against your aching core, having you moan out loud due to the much needed stimulation.

before you knew it, he slammed into you hard without warning.

"god, fuck." he cursed out at how wet and tight you were.

you were literally speechless, gasping and breathing hard at him inside you.

"let me fuck some respect into you."

before letting you adjust to his size, he slammed into you hard and deep, fucking you against the wall. he was unbelievably fast, it was definitely going to leave a lot of bruises on your back.

"fuck, rafe. oh my god." you cried out as he hit your spot over and over again.

"you like the way im stretching you out, huh?"

you were unable to speak as he was somehow pounding into you even faster.

you screamed out in a mix of pain and pleasure, knowing you wouldn't be able to last long.

he started cupping your breast under your shirt, the overstimulation being too much.

before you could cum undone, he slipped out of you, having you whine loudly, and pushed you over to the sink, signaling you to jump on which you did.

never losing eye contact, he slowly lowered himself down to your twitching clit.

he went on his knees, spreading your legs with his elbow and licking along your wet and throbbing pussy.

you screamed out, his eyes darkening and full with lust.

he started eating you out relentlessly, you grabbing and pulling his hair, moaning out in ecstasy.

before you could moan again, he slammed two fingers inside, not stopping to please your clit.

"do you want to cum, slut?" he teased, going even faster. knowing how close you were.

"YES! please." you cried out.

"yeah, that's not gonna be enough for me to let you." he slowly stopped rubbing your clit and pulled his fingers out, you screaming in agony.

"PLEASE! for fucks sake please let me cum"

he smirked. "alright then."

from zero to hundred again in just a few seconds, he was fingering you so hard you couldn't even catch air, as you already felt your orgasm.

cumming all over his fingers, your eyes rolling back in extreme pleasure, your vision turning white.

you heard him laughing, as he slowly pulled his fingers out again.

"clean yourself up, you're filthy. "looking down on you in an almost degrading way. he made his way to the door, turning around to you, still catching your breath on the cold marble sink, a whole mess.

"we're not finished here, don't think i'm even close to being done with you."

with those words he shut the door behind him, leaving me breathless.

#obx2 #obx1 #rafe imagine #rafe outer banks #rafe smut #rafe cameron

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