#my power grows exponentially during pride month

[biologust]

#my power grows exponentially during pride month #pride #top

[diamond-coral]

Play by the Rules

Steve x Reader, Tony x Reader, Implied Steve x Reader x Tony

Summary: Working for the powerful CEO, Tony Stark, was a nightmare. Especially when you have to deal with his new, and equally as powerful, partner; the CEO of S.H.I.E.L.D. Inc., Steve Rogers. You have a plan to leave it all behind, but Tony has his own plans for you.

This is my first writing for @ darkficsyouneveraskedfor and @ harper-emory-writes Dark Bingo challenge: crossing off the squares Blackmail and CEO AU. I’m nowhere near a bingo but I’m super excited that I’ve started !!

Warnings: 18+ only! NON-CON/DUB-CON(ORAL (M RECEIVING), INTERCOURSE, MENTION OF ANAL), BLACKMAIL, VOYEURISM, sexism in the workplace, swearing.

 “We’ll review the new contract with S.H.I.E.L.D. today during the meeting. I’ll need two printed copies of it as well as a printed copy of our current one with Asgard Corp.” Tony snaps his fingers in front of your face. “Y/n, are you even listening to me?”

You look up from your notepad. “Of course, Mr. Stark. Just taking notes.”

Tony scoffs. “Wasn’t half the reason I hired you your ability to retain information without wasting time by writing things down?Since when did you start taking notes?”

Since I became willing to do anything to not have to look at you and remember that you were balls deep in me just last week.

“I’d just like everything to go smoothly for this meeting. I understand it’s a big deal for the company and for you, sir.”

Tony studies your face. “Well in the spirit of dedication, I’ll need you to stay a couple hours extra.”

You try to avoid scrunching up your features at that. Although you had been looking forward to curling up on your couch when you got home, you would never dare counter your employer, so you just nod.

“Rogers will be here in an hour,” he continues. “I’m expecting you to greet him, so I’ll have an intern go out and get you an outfit.” 

“With all due respect, Mr. Stark, I believe the attire I’m currently wearing is satisfactory, is it not?”

Tony eyes your black blazer and pants paired with flats. “It’s not,” he states as he gets up from his chair across from you at your desk and fixes his tie. After pausing to consider your confused look, he elaborates. “You gotta show some more skin, sweetheart. It’s the only way a woman like you will be able to make it out here.”

Your mouth falls open as he turns and leaves you to process his offensive comment.

“Bastard,” you mumble.

You could run Stark Industries in your sleep. In fact, Tony had already appointed you head of three separate divisions as well as let you bring a few of your own original projects and ideas to life in the years you had been here. You saw your own potential and Tony had been generous enough to help you expand and experiment with it. A couple more years and you could leave Stark Industries behind to start your own company with the connections you’d already made.

Which is why you remained compliant with Tony’s every demand. No matter how much it hurt your pride (especially when a drunk hookup with him practically destroyed your pride), nothing would compare to the sweet victory of running Tony’s company into the dirt when you started your own. You did your own projections. Tony wasn’t short of enemies, and with their help and your own skill set, you’d make double the profits Tony did in half the time.

So you put up with the touches, grabs, and comments from Tony. He had such a large company to run that he barely noticed that the three divisions he absentmindedly handed to you were the most successful. You’d giggle and bat your eyelashes as long as Tony didn’t notice you practically undermining his company.

Play by the rules,

But be ferocious.

_________________________

Twenty minutes later you’re interrupted from your pile of paperwork by a soft knock.

“Come in!” you call out.

A boy with short brown hair lets himself in. You’d seen him around as Tony’s shadow.  

‘What was his name again? Patrick? Pietro? Pierre?’

“Oh, Peter! How can I help you”

“Hey, Ms. L/n, Tony asked me to bring this up to you.”

Peter holds up the clear dry-cleaning bag, and it takes all your effort not to grimace at the short black pencil skirt inside. Instead, you give him a tight-lipped smile.

“You can just leave it on that chair, thank you,” you say.

As Peter leaves you get up to inspect the clothing Tony so graciously provided for you, and you notice a note attached.

leave a couple buttons undone ;)  -TS

Scoffing, you throw the note in the trash as you pick up the clothes and lock your door.

You’d begrudgingly play a little eye candy knowing you’d get your revenge in a couple years.

But how much could this escalate in a couple of years? 

“Stop it,” you mutter to yourself while pulling on the black blazer.

Once you're finished changing, you receive an alert that Steve Rogers had checked into the building. 15 minutes early.

You hadn’t even met the fucker and you already hated him.

________________________________

“Mr. Rogers!” you greet the blonde in a painfully cheery voice. “You’re early!”

“Well, this is an important meeting, sweetheart,” he replies, and you cringe at the pet name, handing him a clipboard and pen.

“This is just a quick confidentiality contract, Mr. Stark would like you to sign,” you inform. “Basically just saying you agree not to share any contents of the meeting or contract to any outside parties until you and Mr Stark have solidified and confirmed all aspects of your partnership.”

“Ah so Stark is already confident he’ll get a partnership with my company?” Steve muses and scribbles his signature. He looks up, handing the clipboard and pen back to you, and you motion for him to follow you down the hall.

“So what’s your role here exactly?” Steve asks, following behind you. “Are you an intern, receptionist...maybe a call-girl?”

You don’t bother turning at his teasing remark, instead answering calmly. “I run the three most successful divisions here, Mr. Rogers.”

“Impressive,” he remarks, but it sounds more of a mock from him. “And Stark still keeps you as an assistant.”

Your brows furrow at that comment. “How do you know I’m an assistant? And why would you ask what I did here if you already knew?”

“Women like you are just so fun to rile up. Stark and I had a meeting earlier in the month, and he talked of you very fondly.”

Well that didn’t sit right with you. You coordinated all of Tony’s meetings and practically created his everyday work schedule. “Mr. Stark didn’t mention meeting you already.”

“We decided to go over all possibilities of this transaction. It wasn’t much.” Steve brushes your comment off as he enters the elevator with you.

The doors close and you feel trapped. Through the short conversation you’ve had with this man, you can already tell how calculating he is. Every word, every movement, has been intricately steered by him for his benefit. And you couldn’t even begin to explain how belittled his stature made you feel; sheer power barely contained by an expensive three piece suit. The dark blue made his blue eyes more piercing in comparison. Everything about him radiated dominance. And for a woman like you who was practically clawing her way up the corporate ladder, that was a problem.

“You coming?” Steve’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. He stood by the open elevator doors, arm gesturing out for you to lead. “Time is money.”

“Well then you have plenty of it, don’t rush me,” you snap.

“Feisty,” he muses, lips turning upwards.

Steve follows behind you, and you can feel his gaze burning on your ass. You’re more than grateful when you reach Tony’s door, having to refrain from frantically knocking, trying to escape the stare of the man behind you.

“Enter,” a voice calls from behind the doors.

You push open the large door and stand to the side, allowing Steve to enter the room before you.

“Mr. Stark,” Steve greets, crossing the room to give Tony a firm handshake.

“Rogers.”

The men begin to talk business and you take that as your cue to leave, turning back towards the door.

“Y/n, have a seat,” Tony calls out to you. You glance back at him and beckons you over with two fingers.

“Um, Mr. Stark, there are no other chairs,” you stammer.

“Don’t worry, doll, I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t offer a lady a place to sit,” Steve declares. You expect him to get up, but he just spreads his legs a little wider and gestures to his lap.

Eyes flitting to Tony in panic, your employer just nods and gives you look of warning as if saying ‘don’t mess this up’.

You let out a breath and hesitantly make your way to Steve.

‘How much could this escalate?’

The words from earlier rang in your head, but you brush them away and tentatively place yourself on one of his muscular thighs, angling yourself inward. You can’t hide how your face twists into a look of disdain as Steve’s arm snakes around, pulling you further up his leg so you’re back right up against his torso.

“Mr. Rogers I-” Your voice is nothing but a squeak before Tony interrupts you.

“As I was saying,” Tony interjected. “Your profits will grow exponentially if you add Stark Tech to your security services. Which is why I get 60%. I’m already doing you a favor by growing your profits.”

“I want 50/50. Stark Industries will gain consumers from S.H.I.E.L.D. We both get more buyers from the partnership, so I say it should be an even split.”

“Well we both know you’re not just getting the consumers, Rogers,” Tony spat. 

That has your attention fully invested in the conversation. What could Rogers possibly get from the company that Tony would be so mad about parting from? You look down at the contract on the desk in front of you and your heart stops cold.

“Mr. Stark, why is my name on this contract?” It was there. Under ‘assets acquired’, it was the last thing, as if added as a last moment bargain.

Tony just ignores you. “Steve, you’re taking the head of Stark-Touch Smartphones, my most profitable branch, you can’t just expect things to run as efficiently when she’s gone.”

“I’m taking her twice a week, I highly doubt that’ll make much of a dent in your operations,” Steve scoffs, and you tense up. “How about this. I get her for two weeks- straight- a month, and I’ll split it 45-55.”

“Mr. Stark, what’s going on?” Your voice quivers.

“Your boss here just agreed to sell you to me, as my...assistant,” he explains, hot breath fanning your ear. His free hand that’s not on your waist moves to grip your bare thigh up your skirt. “Two weeks a month, for every month, for as long as you work for him.”

“No!” you suddenly shout, wrenching your body from his grip to stand up. “I will take the comments, I will take the stares and the touches, but I will not be whored out like this. Mr. Stark, I quit.”

Stark just tsks and rises from his chair to stand in front of you. While shorter than Steve, it still feels like he towers over you with the demeanor he holds. “That’s just it, y/n...you see, you’re not gonna be quitting to start that new company of yours.”

Your eyes practically bulge out of your head as he mentions your future plans.

“Yeah, I know, you’re not as good at hiding as you thought. At least from Peter that is. Kid’s a whiz at the computer. Had him plant a bug on your home laptop and do a little sweep of your personal account. And I gotta hand it to you, the numbers you ran? Almost perfect. Every single projection and hypothesis you had would’ve gone through. You factored in almost everything. Almost. But you forgot one thing, sweetheart.” Tony’s hand flies up to grip your jaw and uses the momentum to throw you into the wall a few feet behind you. He’s back on you in an instant, seething, as the grip on your chin is bruising. “You forgot me, bitch. You forgot what would happen if you cross Tony fucking Stark. I’m the most powerful man in America. I can ruin your life with a snap of my fingers.”  Just as quickly as he was on you, Tony’s anger switches to calm, and in the blink of an eye, he’s off of you, casually smoothing his suit down. “Well more of a push of a button.”

Smirking, Tony reaches into his pocket to pull out his phone while you remain frozen in fear, glancing at Steve who just looks amused at the show in front of him. At the sound of Tony coughing to get your attention, you look back in front of you at the phone he’s now holding out. Black and white security footage is displayed on the screen, and the moment Tony presses play, you know what it is.

Your voice rings through the speaker, the moans, expletives, and begging coming out of your throat are clear as day as Tony fucks you over your desk.

“Harder, daddy!”

“Please, please, let me cum!”

Your eyes water. “Stop it,” you murmur, but the video keeps playing. “I said stop it! Please!”

Tony chuckles. “So now you understand what’s at stake here? One push of a button, one phone call to Peter, and this video will be up all over Time Square. Forget starting a company, you’ll be blackballed all over America from even being a receptionist.”

You’re defeated, your entire future crumbling before your eyes.

 “What do you want from me.”

“Well I think leaving me or the company is now obviously out of the picture, so for now, I want you to give Steve here a little trial of what he just bought from me.”

“Please...please no,” you croak, but Tony just holds up his phone and raises an eyebrow.

As you start to make your way toward the other man, Tony grabs your jaw once more. “Don’t half-ass it,” he grows in your ear before shoving you to Steve.

Eyes lowered, you stand in front of Steve and shrug your blazer off. “What would you like me to do...sir?”

“Suck me off.”

You’re barely able to breathe, sinking down to your nears, as tears begin to flow freely from your eyes.

“You’re so pretty when you cry doll,” Steve murmurs under his breath.

There is no dignity left in you as you unbuckle his belt and open his fly. The soft zip is deafening to your ears, and you reach in and pull out his hardening cock.

Shit. He wasn’t even fully hard and he was big. You’d be lying if you said that didn’t send a pang down to your core.

Giving him a few shy strokes, you then place your mouth over him, hollowing your cheeks as you lightly suckle at the tip. You pull back and take a deep breath. 

‘Don’t half-ass it’

You dive back in with renewed vigor, taking as much of him as you can and running your tongue across the underside of him. He’s hot and heavy in your mouth, and you find yourself pretending you were somewhere else with someone else, enjoying it. You let out a moan at his taste and Steve responds with his own groan, hand caressing your hair as you slightly speed up. His hand winds itself into your hair, and he begins thrusting his hips up into your mouth, extracting a whimper from you. Each buck of his hips turns harsher as his hand pushes down on your head to force his entire length down your throat, and at this point, you’re drooling onto his expensive slacks. He’s about to cum and you feel it; his thrusts becoming erratic and his entire body tensing, but before you can speed up and get this nightmare over with, he wrenches you off his dick and pulls you into a heated kiss, hands coming up to grope you all over.

You let out a startled squeal as both hands grasp your blouse and rip it down the middle, buttons flying everywhere, before he proceeds to do the same to the black lacy bra you're wearing.

“Ride me,” he commands.

All shame has left you at this point as you proceed to straddle him, your skirt now bunched up at your waist, and sink down on his length. The mewl that comes out of you is from how his girth is stretching you, and after what seems like eternity, you’re bottomed out and unable to move.

“Move,” he orders.

“I can’t,” you whine. “It-it’s too much.”

“Move.”

You let out another whimper as you slowly raise yourself a couple inches and sink back down, feeling every single vein on his cock brush against your walls. A few more attempts later, Steve grows impatient. A low growl is torn from his lips while he grabs your hips tight and slams you back down on his impossibly hard length.

You can barely hear the string of strangled screams and moans as he brutally thrusts into you, moving your body up and down and using you for his own pleasure. Every punishing plunge into your cunt punches the air from your lungs, and Steve’s groans are animalistic.

You glance over to the side to see Tony fisting his own dick, and the only thing that tears you away from staring at him is a particularly hard thrust from the man in the chair below you.

“Fuck, doll, your gripping me so tight,” Steve grunts.

The sound of skin slapping and the squelching of your now wet pussy is so overwhelming you don’t even register another set of hands on your waist.

“Bend her over more, Rogers. I wanna fuck her ass.”

#dark!tony stark #dark!tony x reader #dark!steve rogers #dark!steve x reader

[mikasplay-blog]

Meet petunia!

☆.｡.:*☽ .｡. ☾.｡.:*☆

M’yongi is my self insert oc for Tomura Shigaraki!

*Her quirk is the exact opposite as Tomura’s, conveniently so.*

QUIRK: GROWTH

Petunia can create cells from the palm of her hand or by touching any surface. This includes reforming dead skin cells, creating organisms, and small bacteria. Penchi’s quirk allows her to create any living form, but due to her inexperience with her own quirk, she’s very inept when it comes to stitching together a larger life form. With her current knowledge, she can create plant cellular structures easily without tiring herself out or overusing her power. She is good with repairing damaged skin cells, or sealing up wounds.

Although her quirk comes in handy as a healer, M’yongi has the potential to grow with her quirk usage exponentially. She could begin creating smaller life forms, such as mice, rats, and other animals with similar cell composition. If trained well enough, Petunia may even be able to create defensive animals such as wolves/bears. However, she may never get to that strength in her lifetime. Ever.

DOWNSIDE

Since M’yongi’s quirk is primarily used for healing and lacks quirk training, Petunia is often defenseless. There aren’t many ways for her to defend herself if she’s in a fight, even though she can heal any bruises or cuts that may scratch her body. This would be where her quirk comes in handy as a hero. If she chose that path. She can create plant or insect structures easily within 60 seconds. However, healing human cells or animals can drain her energy and make her sluggish due to her lack of stamina and training. If someone is fatally injured, she will be able to restructure their cells, but it will take time and energy from her own body to do so.

BACKSTORY

Penchi grew up in San’ya, Tokyo with only her father. Petunia inherited her Mother’s quirk, with a few altercations. Jinya M’yongi’s quirk could heal damaged cells, instead of create new ones. Her father, Ochanjo M’yongi, possessed a more imposing quirk. His ability allowed him to posses shadows of any living creature and use it against it’s owner. Sort of like a puppet on a string.

Jinya unfortunately died when Penchi was only three years old, leaving her husband to raise their daughter in one of the poorest areas of Tokyo. They didn’t have a lot of money to save Jinya, and without the manifestation of Penchi’s quirk, the three year old couldn’t save her mother either. Her mother’s side of the family was fairly middle class, and her cousin (known as the petal hero, rose bud) went on to pursue hero life in the spotlight. However, with her poor background, Penchi didn’t have the money to attend a hero school or quirk training classes.

While Penchi scraped by in the lower class schools of Japan, her father used his societally-deemed villainous quirk for gang activity. Without a stable job, Ochanjo took it upon himself to care for his only daughter by selling drugs and dealing with small Yakuza groups. Petunia was often exposed to criminal activity at a young age. Always seeing guns or elaborate weapons around the house, or mysterious bags of a liquid or mineral she never dared to touch.

As she grew older, her father’s health worsened, and Petunia could only do so much with her limited quirk abilities. After his unfortunate passing at his daughter’s age of 17, Penchi finished high school alone, and forced herself to grow her quirk. Even with her bitter childhood and loss of family, she forced herself to stay positive.

PRESENT DAY

M’yongi now lives in a small precinct of Tokyo in the cheapest apartment her shitty telemarketing job could afford. When she’s not studying her quirk or college courses, Penchi trains her body for self defense maneuvers. There have been many times where shes walking home from her local grocery run, or on her bike, when she encounters a thug or two.

⛓ TW MENTIONS OF ASSAULT ⛓

Unfortunately, the government isn’t much of her friend. Hero’s aren’t either. With her father being involved in past criminal activity, Penchi has been put on a watchlist. More than once, the 20 year old has been assaulted physically for the small amount of change she carries on her person. The scars on her hips tell the story of multiple sexual assault encounters, leaving her isolating herself in her room for days on end. To both process her trauma and avoid the outside world. Unfortunately, no matter how strong you try to be, there’s always someone to overpower you.

LEAVE OF VILLAINS

Penchi knows she isn’t the most pyscially strong opponent. It’s her mind and her healing quirk that come in handy. She’s smart. Smart enough to talk the best con man out of a scam. It’s also the one reason she was able to get into community college for free.

That’s where she currently finds herself, sneaking through alleyways with her monthly grocery run in her half painting finger nails. She’s heard of the league before, everyone has. Living in such a shitty precinct means you have to be aware of the villains on the rise that the government won’t inform you about. So as she mutters curses about the slop ruining her best pair of sneakers, it takes her a moment to process the group of villains staring straight at her.

She only blinks in reply as they stare her down. She knows them by name. She’s heard the rumors about them, seen what they’ve done on her small apartment television. There’s Dabi leaning against the washed out brick wall of the alleyway, Spinner looking bored out of his mind aside him, and Twice bouncing eagerly on the balls of his feet. In the middle of the little group stands their leader, Tomura Shigaraki. He’s as tall and imposing as he was on the T.V that night when Penchi first saw him. His face, covered, as usual. His arms are blanketed by a long black coat with hands lining scattered parts of his gangly limbs.

M’yongi just stares, too surprised to say anything. And before she can even blink again, Tomura is on her in an instant, his ungloved hands wrapping around her forearm in a light grip. They had been discussing something important, no doubt. Penchi stands there dumbly and looks down to the hand on her arm. She expected a bit more fanfare, not the silent rush of limbs to cower over her in an attempt to dissolve her to dust.

THE LEAGUE’S HEALER

It doesn’t take long after that for Petunia to be ushered to the halfassed LOV hideout. The building is dusty as all get out, and it smells faintly of moss and rainwater. It’s not the best, but it’s what they have for now.

Never in her life did M’yongi think that she’d work with villains. Sure, her dad was a scumbag drug dealer but she was never personally involved in his business. Her dad was a good man, and made sure of that. But here she is, offering to help the league.

Months pass and the more time Penchi spends at the LOV hideout, the more comfortable she is with them. She offers her quirk abilities to the league in exhange for physical protection. It’s a good trade, really. And she gets to practice her quirk while she’s at it. It’s not like the most wanted villains can just rush into the nearest hospital after all.

PETUNIA AND TOGA

She mothers the life out of Toga by offering to feed her, paint her nails, or take her on mini shopping sprees with her crappy paychecks. They have little girls nights with Magne, and sometimes Twice joins in for a romcom or two. Toga accidentally calls her mom ONCE, and the name never leaves after that. Yongi-San, Penchi-San, and Ma’m are three of her favroite nicknames the young girl had given her. She worries about her! She’s always wanted a little sister or brother, and she’s only met her cousin a few times. She offers her blood to Toga as a disguise when the girl has to go to a public place alone. She can’t have her little sister in trouble when she’s not there to protect her.

PETUNIA AND KUROGIRI

Her and Kurogiri INSTANTLY kick it off. No one ever looks out for the quiet bartnender, and Petunia takes it upon herself to do that. They often drink tea together when the rest of the group is out on a mission, or gossip about the latest hero news. Petunia had to grow up cooking most of the family meals herself, so she takes great pride in sharing recipes with Kurogiri or talking about new cuisine to try.

PETUNIA AND TWICE

Like Toga, Twice and Petunia love to spend time goofing off together. They’re both easily outgoing and bubbly (well, half of Twice is at least), and love to gossip. Twice often joins Petunia in watching comedies, or Korean dramas. They just CAN’T get enough of them! Twice had taken it upon himself to get the latest movie copies for the two of them to critique together. And oh boy do they not shut up during the movie. The two of them yell at the screen during the frustratingly obvious scenes on dramas or suspense thrillers.

PETUNIA AND DABI

Petunia doesn’t take Dabi’s shitty attitude. Dabi knows better than to mess with the mom of the LOV, even though she’s just a measly twenty years old standing at 165cm. She often yells at him for smoking around Toga, or leaving his bottles everywhere for Kurogiri to always clean up. Although he won’t admit it, Petunia’s soft side reminds him of his mother, and he would do anything to keep her safe. The two often banter, but Petunia is a stubborn little woman and doesn’t back down to the fire in Dabi’s hands. When he’s being nice to her, she’ll leave little plates of food or lotion outside his door urging that he makes sure to take care of himself. Because boy is he shit at it.

PETUNIA AND SHIGARAKI

Penchi had taken a liking to Shigaraki immediately. After learning more in depth about his quirk, Petunia makes it her job to take care of him. That isn’t because she has feelings for him, she just likes to make sure all of the LOV members are cared for. Yeah....That’s it. She offers to make him food, or play Minecraft with him. She even introduces him to animal crossing or her favorite handheld console games like Pokémon or Breath of the Wild. Once Shigaraki is more comfortable around her, he lets her play his favorite RPGs or MMO’s with him, and Penchi is instantly hooked. She LOVES playing CSGO or World of Warcraft with him, and she forces him to play Overwatch with her. He doesn’t admit that it’s one of his new favorite games now. Petunia loves to tease him, all in good fun of course. She loves to cling to him because he outwardly acts annoyed with the display of affection. But he never snaps at her or tells her to back off, he loves the attention from his Petunia too much.

*PETUNIA AND SHIGGY SKETCHES*

☆.｡.:*☽ .｡. ☾.｡.:*☆

I’ll be writing with Petunia more! She’s a character I’ve thought about quite a lot. And although her quirk is sorta basic, I have a lot of ideas for her. Left pose referenced from DoRuby (it’s a foreign website so I can’t read it). However this IS my art! You can find more of my art on Instagram

@Boondicoon and @Onishmeat

#shigaraki tomura #my hero academy fanfiction #my hero acadamy #boku no hero fanfic #boku no academia #tenko shimura #shigaraki x oc #oc x canon #ocs #original character #tomura x you #tomura shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x reader #my artwork #bnha #mha

[winedwords]

AJ| Beware |Styles

Title; Beware

Words;~2700

Pairing; AJ Styles/Reader

Summary; Someone told me to stay away from things that aren’t yours. But is he yours if he wanted me so bad?

Warnings; NSFW. Adultery, cheating, older married man/younger woman, oral sex, no happy endings.

A/N: repost from the old blog

“I can’t resist you. I wait for you. I want you. I would do anything for you.”

Another night, another hotel room.

After years of being in this business, they all looked the same.

Especially when you’re wrapped around the love of your life.

It was the same over bleached sheets, the same scratchy comforter, the same too soft mattress, but none of that mattered. The titles, the work drama, the constant travel, the loneliness, it all melted away while we were here, in the sanctuary that the hotel room provided. These walls would never tell what we were doing.

Countless nights had been spent like this, feverishly undressing each other and flinging our clothes to the ether, with no cares in the world within the privacy of the hotel room. Each caress of revealed flesh was calculated and practiced, enough to leave us panting and burning for more.

Tonight though… Tonight had so much more urgency to it, the air heavy with tension and need. This was going to be the last time and I needed to commit everything about him to memory. The way he smelled, the way he felt, the way he tasted; I wanted it all seared into my memory. I wanted what we did tonight to echo in my flesh for years, so that when it all came crashing down, I would at least have this to keep me warm.

Since I couldn’t have him, not fully.

He wasn’t perturbed by how aggressively I pushed him to the mattress, giving a groan as I settled between his thick thighs and licked a stripe across his pubic bone. His breath hitched and his hips gave a stuttered thrust when I wrapped my lips around the thick head of his cock. I glanced up to those bright blue eyes that had darkened exponentially, my cheeks hollowed out and tongue tracing the underside of his cock. His long hair was tousled, mouth gaped open, broad chest heaving, the very image of him had me wet and aching. A large hand grabbed a tight fistful of hair at the nape of my neck and I needed no further encouragement. With a deep breath in and eyes closed in concentration, I surged my head forward, not stopping till my nose touched the soft skin of his belly.

“Fuckin’ shit, (Y/N)…”

I looked back up to make eye contact and gave as much of a smile as a girl can with a mouthful of cock. He’d looked like he wanted to say something else, but only a grunt came out as I withdrew, my tongue working wickedly along the length of him. Every gasp, groan, and murmured praise urged me on, to increase my pace, to make every bob of my head, each twist of my wrist, and swirl of my tongue count that much more.

There is nothing like the power of being able to reduce a man to a writhing and moaning mess with just your mouth and your hands. It was intoxicating to watch him shudder and gasp at the sensations I was able to elicit from his body. I reached between my legs with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his cock to tease the sensitive bundle of nerves with my fingers. The first touch against myself made me moan, the vibrations had his hips thrusting his cock up into my mouth.

“Darlin’, I love your mouth, but I want to be in that sweet pussy of yours.”

I slowly released his cock from my mouth, but making sure to increase the suction towards the head. He gave a full body shudder before I let him out of my mouth with a pop and a coy smirk on my face. The brunette man reached over to the small end table and produced a small rectangle of foil. I was quick to swipe it from his hands and tear it open with my teeth. It was with a waggle of my eyebrows that I placed the condom at the tip of his cock and used my mouth to push the rubber down the length of his cock. I had to fight back my gag reflect at the taste of the latex and the press of his cock to the back of my throat until my face was pressed up against the soft skin of his lower abdomen.

Once the rubber was secured, I settled over him and positioned the head of his cock at the apex of my thighs and I paused, drinking in the image of his prone form beneath my thighs. My gaze lingered too long, because his face became concerned. Before he could get a word out edge wise, I snapped my hips downwards, enveloping his entire cock in one fell swoop.

I hissed at the burning stretch of his cock as he groaned when he bottomed out within me. I left no time for either of us to recover, setting a demanding pace. Each crash of my hips against his sent him deeper inside of me, my bouncing tits and punishing tempo left him breathless, pain and pleasure sparking into all of my nerve endings. Both of his hands moved to grip my hips, guiding my almost desperate bucking.

“What’s the rush, darlin’, we got all night.”

My bouncing and rocking became more erratic at his growled words, the tension coiling in my abdomen reaching critical mass.

“Please fuck me harder and don’t be nice. Please, oh fuck.”

His eyes widened in shock for just a moment, before his features turned predatory at my words.

The next thing I knew, I was on my back with both legs over his shoulders as he repeatedly impaled me with himself. It took but a couple moments before I was screaming my release to heavens, my body clenching down on his intruding cock. He cursed, but kept his brutal rhythm, fucking me right through my orgasm.

My body was shuddering under his intimate assault, his mouth and beard leaving angry marks across my neck and my chest. The torment that he was inflicting was a pleasurable pain and my over sensitive flesh was already gearing up for another release.

His thrusts were becoming erratic and we both shouted again, my vision growing fuzzy.

“Can we just stay like this forever? Just the two of us?”

I knew that this was a bad decision, a decision that would haunt me for possibly the rest of my life. I knew how I felt, how this started, everything was wrong.

He had been married for almost as long as I had been alive. He had four children, was sixteen years my senior, and was the face that ran the place. He had a lot of pull in this company, both among the roster and with management. He was widely acknowledged to be the best damn performer in the business, had been for years. He was nowhere near ever being mine, I never had a chance.

If we were found out, I would never work in this business again. I would be ruined and all the work I had put into making my childhood dream a reality would be for naught.

If we were found out, he’d be given a slap on the wrist and life for him would continue on.

When we had met, I was a vivacious twenty one year old upstart in developmental. William Regal kept saying that I was his favorite headache, and I took a strange amount of pride in that. I was brash and fearless, the world was my oyster and I had everything at my fingertips. Anything I wanted, I went after and failure was never an option.

He wasn’t any different.

He was the forbidden fruit. He was a hazard to me and my sanity. He was everything I wasn’t supposed to chase.

He’d walked into the performance center as a guest trainer and all eyes were on him. How couldn’t they be? He was a living legend. He’d done pretty much everything  there was to do in this business and been all over the world. It was one look in those brilliant blue eyes and I was done for.

We had resisted of course, trying to sate the feelings of lust and desire and want with just heated stares and the innocent brushing of hands at crowded work functions or when he was in the ring teaching. Each encounter seemed to end with the both of us needing to use the bathrooms to furiously rub out an orgasm with clenched teeth biting back moans or ice cold showers.

The tension was thick between us, even if we had barely spoken a word to each other privately. It took the Suplex Incident for him to start avoiding being in the ring one on one with me during training, always suggesting that I be paired with another coach. That had irritated me to no end and I went out of my way to earn his attention and praise. I had worked harder and longer than my peers just to feel his eyes on me. I lived for the kind words and encouragement when he spared them for me.

Our paths crossed rarely and sporadically, given the different touring schedules of NXT and the main roster. If I saw him in passing once a month, let alone him being at the Performance Center for an extended period of time, I could almost immediately feel my pulse race and an uncomfortable throbbing begin between my thighs.

Nothing happened until after I came to the Smackdown main roster.

“I love you, darlin’. I just can’t leave her yet, it would make things too hard at work and for us.”

I wasn’t prepared for her to slide into the booth across from me.  I had looked up from my phone and I could feel all of the blood rush out of my face.

I wasn’t ready for her. I wasn’t ready to face the real consequences of my decisions. I wasn’t ready for a public confrontation with the wife of the man I was involved in an affair with.

“You’re beautiful. I now understand why he talks about you in his sleep. Do you just like ruining lives?”

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut, all the breath rushing from my body. I felt like I was suffocating.  I knew when this all started that there was a chance of being found out by her. It was part of the adrenaline rush I got in his presence, part of the thrill. I don’t know why it was a shock to me that being confronted by her felt like the world was falling away from underneath me.

“I’m going to take your silence as you knowing who I am.” Her smile was wry, her eyes suspiciously bright. “This has been the hardest decision of my life, wondering if I should face you. ”

I opened my mouth, to say something, to deny the truth, but she cut me off.

“You had to have known he was married. We’ve been together for over twenty years.  He’s got four kids with me. How could you do this to us?”

Her words were passionate, but her volume was low, as to not attract attention.

I knew he was married, there was no mistaking the gold band on his left ring finger. I knew about his children and I kept my mouth and hands far, far away from the tattoos on his right side. The woman across from me and the children were his lock screen background on his phone and I had been in the room for more than one phone call from his wife.

“I don’t know why you wanted him, a married man. I don’t want to know why. Did you at least use a condom with him? Because we are intimate when he’s home and I need to know if I need to go get tested.”

The barbed words hit exactly where they were meant to. I flinched away, my face ashen, and nodded. My tongue was made of lead and none of the thoughts that were whirring around my brain were forming into words.

“Well that’s this only silver lining in this mess,” Her laugh was self deprecating and almost cruel. The laugh died in the air, and there was just an uncomfortable silence between us. She was looking down, playing with her wedding band. I opened my mouth to apologize, to say something, anything, but she cut me off, her eyes still on her wedding ring.

“I am begging you. Please stop this. Don’t take him from us. You could have your choice of men, but I don’t think I could ever get over him. He’s my everything. He’s the only one for me.” She had looked up imploringly at me, during her speech, her face honest and distraught.

By this time, both our eyes were bright with unshed tears, chins quivering. I opened my mouth again to promise that I would end this, that I wouldn’t be the source of her heartbreak anymore, but nothing came out. My hands were trembling and I blinked rapidly to wick away the gathering tears. She stood with a shaky breath, her hands gripping her purse so tightly her knuckles were white.

“My family and their happiness depends on you and whatever you decide to do.”

Just as quick as she had appeared, she was gone.

I had tried to continue my meal, but the muffin just tasted like ashes in my mouth and my coffee provided me no comfort.

“Stolen moments in hotel rooms isn’t love, it isn’t a life.”

I waited until his breathing slowed and evened out to gingerly slide out of his grip. He’d always been able to read me so well and I knew that if he was awake I wouldn’t be able to do this. That I’d lose all resolve and back out.

I dressed slowly, the echoes of our actions screaming between my thighs. My limbs felt heavy and the air in my lungs thickened. This was it. With every article of clothing I had tracked down and placed back on my body, despair was bubbling within me and I had to catch the sobs before they could escape.

I left a note, on the nightstand. He was fast asleep, a thin sheet and blanket shielding his nude body from my watery eyes.

This was it. This was the last time I would see this man this way. The last time I would be able to see the love of my life, with the soft glow of the city lights outside on catching the peaks and planes of his features. I stared for a long moment, trying to commit that face that broke my heart to memory. This would be the last time I saw him so raw and unguarded. This would likely be the last time I was alone with him. Any interactions, if any in such a large company, would be limited to shared pay per view events.

This was a man who taught me so many things, so many positions that I wouldn’t be able to forget. He’d taught me how to love, how to want, and now, he taught me heartbreak. Sometimes you have to burn everything down to get some distance from what hurts you the most.

My transfer to RAW was effective at midnight tonight.

That walk out of that hotel room was the hardest thing I had ever done. I had checked the hallway, just to be sure that there were no prying eyes in the area during the twilight hours. I had made it into the elevator and down to my room before I had burst into sobs.

By the time you read this, I’ll be far away. Whatever this was, it’s done. Make things right with your wife. Don’t write or speak a word to me. I won’t reply. Goodbye AJ.

Instead of love and trust and laughter What you get is happy never-after

#aj styles imagine #aj styles smut #aj styles fic #repost from the old blog

[marvelandponder]

Rainbow Power, Y’all

Happy (belated) Pride month, everybody! I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of how I wanted to talk about gay ponies. Mostly because I literally never shut up about it so writing a opinion-based Should MLP Have a Gay Couple? editorial would be kind of self-explanatory. Kind of really self-explanatory. 

Plus, we already have one. Lyra and Bon Bon might have to chant “best friends” a hundred times before they can make goo-goo eyes at each other, but that body language and even just the way they talk to each other in is pretty telling.

Damn, that’s pretty gay. 

Oh and also this happened last year on the official Facebook apparently:

God, I love this show. Taking into account the fact that the other two are married couples, this is a Valentines Day promotion, and that making someone’s heart “gallop” can’t really be misconstrued as platonic, I seriously love this.

So, I mean, I can’t exactly stop you from interpreting them as platonic, but I would consider them canon and I’m even glad for the subtlety. Not all depictions need to state the obvious, so long as it is obvious.

I think with these two the intention was to make it ambiguous enough for parents to decide if they want to explain the concept. Kids aren’t stupid, but I think the demographic won’t pick up on the context clues that this could be a romantic relationship when they’ve been primed with the words “best friends” a number of times.

So, at that point, it’s up to the parents who watch the show with their kids to decide (if they haven’t already) if this is how and when they’d like to explain the concept of a same-sex relationship, with this as a visual aide. If Lyra and Bon Bon end up being baby’s first gay relationship, so to speak, that’s awesome.

So, if I’m so satisfied with those two, why write this? Why push for more in an already accepting climate, especially when an effort has already been made? Isn’t that greedy? Or exploitative? Has my shipping brain finally lead me down the road to delusion?

I hear you answering yes to that last one, but I’m just gonna ignore that.

As to the question, it comes down to the word choice. I’m not asking if it should be done---it’s already been done. I’m not asking if Hasbro would allow it, because whether or not they’d show a lot of support, they have shown some.

I’m asking how it could be done with the intention of explaining why it would or wouldn’t add something of value. 

Because the landscape of children’s television is changing rapidly. From the time Friendship is Magic started in 2010 until good ol’ 2017, the number of kids’ shows that have incorporated LGBT+ characters and couples has only grown exponentially from before.

On top of that, I’m a little biased in my perception, but I’m not the only one whose noticed that this year’s pride month has been the most visibly celebrated yet. For better or worse, the amount of companies trying to support the LGBT+ community during pride has only grown. 

This year’s Amazon Pride float was Rainbow Dash and MLP themed in Dublin. Don’t know if Amazon got Hasbro’s permission to use their character in a parade, but they gave her a horn because unicorns apparently are gay (just as a rule) and now she’s an alicorn. 

By the way, they totally messed up those flags. If it had said My Little Pride, they could’ve been selling thousands of them. To me. Wasted potential, I tell you.

And again my bias showing: I can’t speak for other regions, but where I live all public schools, from elementary to universities and colleges, have rainbow pride flags flying.

All the schools I’ve gone to growing up are now flying pride flags for a full month.

That’s... I can’t tell you how heartwarming it is to see. And my elementary school services kindergarten kids all the way up to grade 8---some children as young as 5-6 years old are now growing up with that being a natural part of their environment throughout their entire childhood.

When we were growing up and I think in a lot of places around the world still, there was a question of when it should be taught to kids and whether the concept alone was age appropriate, but little by little, that’s just not the case anymore. 

From their shows and media to even some of their schools, more and more kids are learning about this in a natural way from a young age, to the point that it is just love and it is just who these people are to them. And for once I mean it when I say I think that’s beautiful.

But things evolve like this at different rates in different places, so we’re not perfect yet, and the push for more is out of a desire to see the progress continue and for more groups than the ones that are typically represented.

Would I be heartbroken if this was as gay as MLP ever got? Nah (besides, through the power of denial, all my ships are already canon!). But at this point the question is starting to become why not? instead of just why? so even if this remains a hypothetical discussion, I think it’s still an important one.

I’m going to forever cherish the subtlety of those Lyra and Bon Bon scenes, but it’s the first pride month that I’ve been out and I feel like celebrating. Let’s get gay.

Love in Friendship is Magic

Right off the bat, I think it’s important to establish that we’re not trying to change the show fundamentally. It’s about friendship, and while other relationships are shown to be deep and fulfilling as well (family and even romantic), the show’s focus on how meaningful friendship is great.

But here’s my thing with the “this show is about friendship!” argument. It’s not like we don’t already have other types of relationships. Several episodes have been dedicated to developing purely familial relationships.

And even beyond the platonic, Spike has (had?) a crush that factored into the plot of a few episodes, Big Mac now seems to have an on-going relationship, and there are a few prominent married couples. This stuff exists largely in the background, comparatively, but it’s not like romance doesn’t have a place in the show. It just doesn’t surpass the focus on friendship.

So, yeah, just because they have a romance doesn’t mean it has to take over the show, nor should it. 

If we were going to go the route of canonizing an LGBT+ couple, that would still be something to take into account.

It doesn’t mean that main characters can’t have a romance necessarily, just that they should work in a friendship lesson along with it.

If Starlight and Trixie were dating for instance (she said, as if it was a random example instead of her ship), a story would probably mostly center around their friends helping them through relationship troubles or preparing for adorable dates. Or, on the flip side, their friends learning the lesson of when not to interfere.

Or, now that Starlight’s cutie mark is on the map (indicating that other ponies can be called if necessary), perhaps a couple could be called to solve a friendship problem instead of two friends.

Basically, so long as there’s still some element of friendship, the writers can introduce a new kind of relationship and develop it in tandem with the friendships already present.

Or, as there is in The Perfect Pear (without giving spoilers beyond what the summary said, for those waiting for the US release), we could just have an episode with a bigger focus on a romance.

Notice how all these scenarios aren’t dependent on the idea that this romance be queer. I’m a bit torn on this issue, because I can see both sides, but I think I usually lean towards the idea that because there ideally doesn’t need to be a difference between straight romances and gay romances, there doesn’t need to be a story reason for them to be gay.

Like I said, I do see the appeal of stories that require the couple and/or characters to be queer, but there’s pros and cons to either side.

We don’t necessarily need to see a story dealing with homophobia in Equestria, in part because that contrasts so much with the Equestria we already know. It’s too loving. It took 4 seasons to address Scootaloo’s disability not because no one noticed, but because everyone accepted her for who she was (aside from DT and SS). It’s not like homophobia or hatred can’t exist in this world, but it’s just not widespread.

A really good reason to include romance in general and even “different kinds of love” so to speak is to give Cadence more screen-time and development.

I’d love to see the Princess of Love guiding her subjects! She could even help a character come out, which would be both a reason to have an LGBT+ character and/or romance in the show, but also make the concept relatable to young kids---a story about accepting who you are and what you love makes sense to them.

I think there’s definitely potential to take this in interesting places, develop pre-established characters and relationships, and all without stealing the focus from friendship too much. 

Who Wins the Dreaded Shipping Wars

On the right, Ashleigh Ball posting a fanmade picture of an AppleDash wedding for World Pride Day. On the left, IDW comic writer Jeremy Whitley arguing for FlutterDash... either way, I’m down for this.

Fan expectation is a funny thing.

We both crave for the show to address what we’ve long speculated on, and dread it.

In the case of the Apple family’s parents, there’s been countless emotional fan-theories, stories, and ideas, and yet The Perfect Pear remains one of the most anticipated episodes (for those who have yet to watch it).

With Slice of Life, we were surprised to find some headcanons confirmed and celebrated, but also some destroyed by canon.

I think when it comes to confirming LGBT+ characters and relationships, it’s really no different. We all have different ideas about who these characters are, and those of us who ship have ideas about who they might like.

So, yeah, even if we went down the road of confirming minor characters as LGBT+, if we already know them, it would likely step on a few toes. But honestly I’d rather step on those toes than introduce a new character for the sole purpose of them being gay. Sorta boils them down to just one purpose/one “trait.”

And in the end, as much as it sucks to have your ship sunk or your headcanons burst into flames, 1. If we never wanted the show to establish new things about these characters, why continue watching? and 2. My friends, I’ve been a shipper for a long time and I can say from experience: a ship doesn’t sink even when canon contradicts you. Denial and imagination are a fan’s most awesome tools. 

Oh and would you look at that, my transition is here.

Love in EQG

Just as a sidenote, because of what I ship, I’ve said before that I think the Equestria Girls franchise would actually be a perfect place to include LGBT+ relationships because the series already has a heavier focus on romance than the show.

If you’re going to have these high school drama romance subplots, which is a staple of the series now, might as well go ahead and make it gay! *Cough* Sciset still makes the most sense from a storytelling perspective *cough*

Queerer than Ever Before

I wanted to include a section like this because it’s something we’re still working on in animation as a whole: representing more than just gay and lesbian relationships.

I’m happy to report bisexuals and in and out of relationships are also now getting more love, but that’s about where the buck stops. Steven Universe has the closest thing to trans and bigender or androgynous representation, which is mostly not literal. As in, they have fusions of two different characters, and characters like Garnet who feel better in a different form, but as of yet there’s no straight up trans or non-cis-gendered characters.

BMO from Adventure Time could certainly count as gender-fluid, though, so it’s not all bad news bears.

Pansexuality and asexuality have yet to be represented in children’s animation (in adult animation, Rick Sanchez of Rick and Morty is canonically pansexual, though!) aside from Spongebob being confirmed to be asexual off-screen by the show’s creator “because he’s a sponge.”

We’re largely still figuring out how these people and more groups I haven’t even mentioned ideally should be represented, but trying is still the first step.

For example, Big Mac’s not trans, but while I reaaaally didn’t love that his cross-dressing was a joke in Brotherhooves Social, I can also appreciate the fact that everyone around him was aware he was originally a stallion but let him compete in the Sisterhooves Social anyway, a trans issue we’re still debating in reality.

So, the comedy of the episode is kinda transphobic (not because Big Mac is trans, he’s not in canon, but because the comedy comes from him being in drag), but once again Equestria itself proves to be a really accepting, tolerant place. 

And I think it can be hard to know how to represent these voices well (there’s also the fact that MLP theoretically could hire on a guest writer, as they do now every season, if they wanted to specifically have someone who’s non-cisgendered tackle a story of that nature), but hey, why not be the first to try? Wouldn’t it suit the show’s loving nature to be inclusive?

LGBT+ in Equestria

More and more these days it’s becoming the norm to include more ways to love others and oneself in kids cartoons. You could argue not every show needs to have LGBT+ inclusion, which I can agree with, but by the same token and especially for shows with an expansive world, no serialized ongoing plot to adhere to, and focus on love and acceptance already, the show doesn’t need to be entirely straight, either.

Ask why not, instead of just why.

There are ways to make romance relevant to the target audience without teaching them they need it to be happy, and there are ways of explaining these concepts to them without forcing a political stance. For kids, it’s simple. Love is love, and you are who you are. That’s really all there is to it.

I’d be over the moon if the show ever had the chance to represent more than they already have. In the same way I wanted to Applejack’s parents to be dead, I’d ideally want to see how MLP specifically would deal with this hard topic with its usual kindness, gentleness, and love. As in the former case, I think it has the potential to be something wonderful.

In the end, though, I of course can’t say if we will ever see more, or exactly would or should it would be handled. 

I suppose we can only hope to follow Lyra and Bon Bon’s example.

Other MLP stuff? Oh yeah, I’ve done that! I’ve got more editorials like this one over here, and episode reviews over here. But because plain old links aren’t pretty, have the last three things I’ve done with purty pictures:

Dr. Wolf Theory Reading, Parental Glidenace Review, and Celestia/Daybreaker Editorial

Year of the Pony

Visuals in this Post Wouldn’t Be Possible Without...

Pinkie Pie Vector by MPNoir Flag Vector by JayBugJimmies Lyra and Bon Bon Poster by BronybyException

Art from talented artists, what could be better? Hit up those links and check out their awesome galleries!

The Real Agenda Here is My Shipping Agenda

#mlp #my little pony #friendship is magic #year of the pony #yearofthepony #flutterdash #rarijack #appledash #twidash #sunset sparkle #flutterpie #raripie #flutterjack #rarilight #twijack #caramac #spitdash #trixlight #startrix #mlp season 7 #mlp shipping #sciset #lyrabon #lyra heartstrings #bon bon #mlp articles #mlp editorials #animation #pride month #pride

[babydarkstar]

Dust to dust by The Civil Wars is such a Reylo song.

god yes it is. it totally is. i love the lyrics, they’re so beautiful.

and here’s a very small narrative i wrote for it that was sort of inspired by the song:

(warning: this got kind of dark. and maybe a little (very) violent. read at your own risk, my dudes.)

— Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light. —

“Don’t deny it,” he grunted, and she wanted to scream, wanted to bash his skull in. “Don’t deny the strength you feel from the Dark Side.”

Rey pushed further, harder into him, her filthy hands burying themselves into his chest as she labored to move him away from her.

They stood parallel to each other on the apex of a mountainous cliff, wind whipping and rain thrashing so violently she feared she would fall. Despite the chaos of it all, the sounds were muffled and her ears picked up nothing—nothing but the hum of their bond buzzing, sparking between them. It was a full body sensation, one that creeped to her toes and made her hair stand on end.

She hated it. She hated him for forming it.

(Even though she never dared to admit she was also at fault.)

She hated the closeness, especially thinking back to when, on those lonesome nights in the pitch black desert, she had prayed to the Maker for someone with whom to share herself with. This was not in the slightest what she had expected. To be chained to a monster, a downright beast with nothing but evil in his twisted soul.

“I will forever deny the darkness,” she seethed, her voice affected by the labored breaths she took.

On this horrific, Ahch-Toian cliff they stood—or rather, struggled. Their fight was lengthy, bloody, and violent. If she had found it difficult to battle him on Starkiller Base, this was absolutely impossible. He was stronger than he had been before, as no fresh injury pressed his beginning strength this time. They fought long and hard, hitting, jabbing, twisting, smashing, till blood splattered and tears fell. This deadly waltz they danced hid nothing, as they had screamed and grunted and vomited in any manner they deemed appropriate, their sweat mixing in a way they felt they never could. The Force kept them constant, providing them with the strength enough to fight for an eternity.

And long ago had they destroyed the objects most desirable to them at one point in their lives: their lightsabers, smashed to infinite pieces once the strength of their power mingled, the crackling, fiery proximity of their bond too much for the unstable kyber crystal of Ren’s, causing an explosion to ruin both. Nothing, not even the destruction of precious weapons, however, could stop them.

They grabbed with their hands, grabbed with the force, kicking, biting, yelling.

(Rey had bit him several times, piercing holes through the sleeves of his armored clothes as he pinned her to the muddy ground. How she did it, we may never know. But she drew blood, and upon its metallic tang spilling into her mouth, she unintentionally spit in his face like an animal. Needless to say, their spit swapping fest differed vastly from other couples who pinned each other to the ground.)

In this pulsing moment, Rey felt nothing but rage, a singeing twang that ripped through her chest at the immovable wall that was Kylo Ren. It took so much of her strength to pull her mental barriers up and keep them there, for he had steadfastly pushed on her mind for what felt like hours, slashing the dark tendrils of his mind against her titanium walls, harsh as a whip.

You’re scared, Scavenger, he shot across their bond, his tone smug yet cautious. Despite his smooth internal tone, he grunted roughly as they wobbled and struggled, each one yearning to defeat the other.

(Well, Rey wanted to defeat him. As for Ren? He wanted her to join him. Neither fought gently for their cause.)

His long, bruising fingers were wrapped around her arms, pressing into her flesh with enough force she thought for sure would crush her bones. She let out a yelp but kept steady, digging her feet into the soft ground and willing that he fall, or move, or do something to prove she wasn’t wasting her last reserve of energy on a hopeless case. The muscles in his chest tightened against her fingers as he pushed back. She snarled and wanted so badly to rip the bond from their minds as she felt his smugness.  

But she was spent, long past the brink of total exhaustion. She ran purely off of the Force by now, along with some deep-set, burning desire to crush himand his goddamned ego, her fuel the fiery spirit which kept her alive on Jakku.

Yet suddenly she felt the deepest dragging sensation in her body, as if gravity itself pulled her bones to the very core of the planet, begging her to stop before she killed herself.

But her pride, her soul—it resisted fatigue if only for the fact that she would not see him defeat her.

Rain dripped into her eyes and soaked her clothes, but she had long forgotten any other feeling except the vibration of the bond that seemed to wrap around her ribs and pull her closer, only growing stronger each time she pulled away.

I’m not afraid of you, she snapped, baring her teeth.

Then why are you hiding from me, little Rey?

It suddenly occurred to her to wonder what, exactly, it would be like if she released her mental walls and let him in. However remedial it was, she planned to open her gates for him and use that dumb knockout trick he used on her to turn him off like a light. Trying a new approach, though dangerous, could prove effective, if only for a few hours. So she abruptly released her tight hold on the mental barriers and welcomed whatever awaited her on the other side.

It was approximately half a second of relief from the mental strain before all hell broke loose.

Kylo Ren’s grip loosened on her arms as he was temporarily taken aback by the change of mental scenery. Dark, silken, and inky black, the tendrils of his mind rushed in all at once, like a beast pushing against a door, not believing that it would ever open and taken to residing on the outskirts until one day, it did. The mental impact affected her more than she had anticipated, causing her to stumble backward and fall on her rear. Her bones ached at the impact and her mind screamed in pain, blistered by the unwelcome guest that engulfed her head.

Get out, she screamed at him, but she could barely hear herself in her own damn head. He continued prodding and poking around, only having respect enough not to waltz his way into her memories as a child scavenger. Everything else he flew past, flipping and shifting and darting around as if he had never been there before.

(This was false. Kylo Ren had built himself a shoebox apartment inside of Rey’s mind, reserved only for him. He stayed there only at night of course, when they slept and every dream they had was consumed by the other. Some dreams were tolerable; others were violent and often involved an angry Rey. During the day, could find the box shoved into the middle area that connects them. He brought it back every night.)

“I said get out!” she shouted aloud, eyes screwed shut in anguish at his rough probing. She threw a hand towards him blindly, hoping that a force blast would be enough to get him out.

Thankfully, it not only stopped him but pushed him out entirely, the inky blackness of his mind withdrawing to his side in an attempt to get a grip on his balance.

Rey let out a sigh of relief, eyes still closed as her head throbbed. She assumed she had knocked him to the ground, but when she opened her eyes to prepare for his attack, he was no where to be found.

She looked around wildly, whipping her head over both shoulders to see if he had stealthily moved behind her, but she caught no glimpse of him. He couldn’t have disappeared into thin air in mere seconds; it was impossible.

But then she remembered where they were and felt the elastic tug on her chest pulling tighter and tighter with each passing second.

Cliffs kept no one safe.

“No,” she gasped as she scrambled to the edge of the overhang, squinting to see a minuscule splash just beginning to settle below.

“No, no.” Her heart slammed into her chest, the pit of her stomach dropping with the heavy feeling of dread. The only thing that kept her from screaming was the dull, melancholy thrum of Ren’s side of the bond beating in her chest like a second heartbeat, assuring her that he had not died.

It felt odd to compare poetic things to something so vile.

She couldn’t explain her feelings, or her panicked reaction. They just crashed into her like the tumultuous waves of the sea below. It barely registered that she began formulating a plan to rescue him, for it seemed like second nature.

(She wanted him gone; but not dead. Killing never seemed morally sound to her, thus why she couldn’t let him die at her hands.)

Frustrated with herself, Rey turned and rushed down the hill, scaling each boulder as she practically flew to the bottom of the mountainous island, paying no mind to the pull of fatigue. Instead, she focused on her fear. What scared her more than anything was not the risk of falling; it was the silence from Kylo Ren. Over the past six months they had nagged each other; Ren sending her lewd thoughts and violent imaginary visions of her friends getting brutally murdered; and Rey, shoving him away, sometimes accidentally leaving her thoughts to bleed onto his side, never engaging on purpose. It was quite obnoxious to share her mind with another, but the silence ringing in her head terrified her to no end.

And she cursed herself as she made it to the bottom, scanning the water frantically to find any sight of him. Dark waves sloshed against the rocks violently, a spray coming up and dusting her with salty drops; the sea was even rougher from the storm that crashed above her, which reduced her visibility exponentially.

A deep-set panic sunk into her. She would have to go in. She had to go in.

But she couldn’t swim.

But he was drowning. Nothing but a mere whisper of him came to her, something dull and dying fast, and it scared her that she felt no panic from him, no sign that he was still fighting. She tried tugging at their bond, just sending a ripple through, but nothing came back. The thought that he died on impact made her want to vomit.

There was no other choice but to find him. So, without preparation, she dived in.

Down, down, down.

Into the chaotic sea she fell, and it was nothing she had ever known before. The water felt like silk between her fingers, yet it stung her wounds, making her feel as if she were being cut with tiny knives. It moved with a current strong enough to slam her into the rocks nearby, and if not for the Force cushion she protected herself with, it would have snapped her neck. She thrashed about like a drowning kitten, trying to pull herself to the surface but the current was so strong, too powerful for her weakened frame. She was fearful of the water yet so determined to breathe, her lungs already screaming for air and her limbs begging her to stop, but she scanned the dark waters around her for any sign of him. What she couldn’t see she made up for with what she felt. Pushing aside her absolute terror, she focused on nothing but the Force, stretching her senses out in the rocky waters to find Kylo Ren’s Force signature.

She found him not far from where she had jumped in, but his energy was barely distinguishable from the other life forms that pulsed around her.

When she reached him, he looked almost unrecognizable through the watery filter separating them. But it was him, with his dark hair fanned out and his arms suspended above him, the dark fabric of his clothes tangled and drifting with the shift of the water.

Despite her lungs begging her for air, Rey awkwardly kicked her way to him with untrained legs. One of his steel toed boots was caught in between rocks, but once she pulled enough she managed to wiggle him out. The force of the release brought them up a few feet, but not enough. So she closed her eyes, felt the wavering conditions around her, and drew from the Force, using a swift jump in the water to propel them upward. When she reached the surface she coughed and spluttered, finding that her weight and Ren’s combined were too much for her to keep afloat so her head bobbed beneath the surface multiple times before she could get a grip on her surroundings. She wasn’t far from shore, but it felt like hours before she reached it. 

Her hair clung to her face as she dragged him to a nearby cave away from the danger of the water, the rocky ground causing her to slip and nearly fall multiple times before she got there.

She fell to her knees before his still figure, shaky hands searching for a pulse. When she found none, hot, angry tears brimmed her eyes and fell upon his cold, graying face as she furiously blinked them away. 

In a brash attempt to save him, Rey drew a rusted skill from a long lost memory and attempted to resuscitate him. 

(And how does she know CPR? Scavengers have to at least know the basics of lifesaving.)

“Come on, please don’t—Please,” she begged his seemingly lifeless form as she jammed her palms into his chest over and over, eventually resolving to mouth-to-mouth, her wet lips touching his as she attempted to breathe life back into him.

Seconds, minutes passed as she kept on, biting her lip to keep from sobbing aloud until a small voice inside of her told her he wasn’t coming back. The silence from his side of their bond overwhelmed her, and the place where they connected was dead and mangled. It was then that she withdrew from her attempts and rested her head over his chest, crossing her arms above her head in defeat. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to him through shaky breaths. She had often dreamed of the day she would get to fight Kylo Ren to end it once and for all. But she never intended for this to happen. “In another lifetime, we won’t have to fight.”

When did she become this monster she feared? The universe often seemed mysterious and magical; but to Rey, all that ever happened was cruel. And now, it seemed, she met her maker, became what she feared most: a reaper of death and violence.

Kylo Ren fell at the hands of a girl who vowed to never incite hatred or death upon others, a girl who was just that: a girl; young and living a life in which fate dealt her a tricky hand, testing her, pushing her to her limit. She had reached her limit. 

And yet, as she reached the brink of her very will to live, a tiny, barely-there spark flew from Ren’s side of the bond, so minuscule that Rey thought she imagined it. But then it happened again, this time stronger.

She shot up and stared at his unmoving face, not daring to get her hopes up. 

But when he jerked his body and rolled to the side to loudly, painfully cough up a gallon of water, she couldn’t help the rush she felt. Her shaking hands flew to his face and she wiped away the stray hair that obstructed his eyes, brushing off the sheen of sweat that had formed on his cold face.

He stared up at her and blinked wildly, still coughing up a storm. Then he hoarsely spoke, “You dived into the water to save me. Did hell freeze over too?”

“I see through you,“ she panted, blinking the tears away from her eyes and disregarding his words, “I see through it all. I see through the stupid mask you wear. I feel it. I know you feel it, too, Ben.” She let the name of a dead man slip past her lips, and she knew not whether it was the habit she formed from hearing Luke call him that or something else, something desperate. The weight of their shock rippled through her, just enough to make her backtrack, but she decided to keep going.

"It is a cruel, cruel life we have lived, Ben Solo,” she said, her voice shaky and barely above a whisper, her lips trembling as she realized that the two of them weren’t so different after all. How tragic, that two creatures made of the same chemical makeup, neglected in the same way, could end up on opposite sides of a war in which they strove to kill each other for.

She wanted to sob at the revelation. Sure, she learned of Ben Solo and his adolescence, but never had she related his situation to hers because she had only focused on the details of his violence, overlooking what may have caused the problem and instead blaming him for everything.  

“I am tired of forcing myself to choose a side. I don’t want to. The light and the dark, they put me in a box I don’t belong in. I don’t know what I am and I’m tired of it,” she croaked, hating that she was confessing such a weakness to him. But it somehow felt right, so she couldn't—wouldn't—stop. “There has to be someway else. A place with no light and dark. Can we fix the universe somehow?”

“I’m nothing but broken. A cracked mess. You’ll have to fix me first, Scavenger.”

Exhausted, she allowed herself to drop down flat beside him. A feeling of mutual peace hummed between them, and she now found that the company in her mind was nothing of a nuisance. The moment she laid down, fatigue overcame her, and her eyes drooped. She felt her slowing pulse in every part of her body. There’s only so much a body can take. But she had no time for it.

“You won’t need fixed. Know what they say about things that are cracked?” she whispered to him drowsily with the tiniest smile that shined through her tears. Confusion flared from his side of the bond and so she said:

“They let the light in.”

Something new and unrecognizable flickered across their bond, a sensation that surprisingly emanated from both of them. Something not quite warm, yet not harsh and cold either. It felt neutral, grey.

Perhaps it was a shift in their opinion of each other. Or perhaps it’s just what they were, what they were always meant to be:

Balanced.

————————

sorry this took so long! i’ve been so busy with life but I did it. i hope you enjoyed!

xx anya

(send me an ask with a reylo prompt/reylo song/any song/theory/guilty pleasure & i’ll write something for it)

#reylo #reylo prompt request #reylo drabble #anya writes #kylo ren x rey #rey x kylo ren #reylo writing #writing #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #rey x ben #rey x ben solo #reylo prompts #reylo music #reylo songs #luminous beings are we; not this crude matter #tlj #tlj cliff scene

[csrgood]

Celebrating Earth Month During COVID-19

by Georgia Latham

As I strive to practice an attitude of gratitude through COVID-19, I find myself reflecting on the positive things to come from social isolation. It’s allowed me to spend more time with my family and home projects like working with my husband on our home and yard. For those of us in America, spring has arrived and it’s planting season. For myself in Arizona, my husband and I planted herb seeds and tomato seedlings in our garden early March, thanks to the abundance of sunshine. We use raised beds to avoid competing with critters for our dinner. And ergonomically, it’s safer than kneeling on the ground. Gardening gets us outside, keeps us active and provides a sense of productivity and accomplishment.

“Living in the desert is a constant reminder of the need to conserve water. This year, one of the measures I have introduced in my backyard is to re-use the water from rinsing my vegetables to also irrigate my vegetable plants.” - Jean Chong, vice president, ethics and corporate social responsibility

ON Semiconductor’s On-Going Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Efforts

Originally celebrated on April 22, 1970, Earth Day is celebrated worldwide in more than 192 countries signifying support for environmental protection. At ON Semiconductor, every day is earth day! We reuse, reduce and recycle wherever feasible, globally. For example, in Bucheon, Korea we reduced chemical usage and in Suzhou, China, we reduced energy usage by powering off idle machines, adjusting running quantity and loading rate and optimizing the parameter which resulted in a reduction of emissions. To reduce our carbon footprint, we recycle at all of our sites, globally. In 2019, over two million pounds of scrap material and precious metals, equivalent to the weight of approximately 167 African elephants, were shipped to our global reclamation center to be processed, sorted and sold for reuse.

“As corporate social responsibility further embeds itself into our culture, we will continue to encourage our employees to practice good corporate citizenship and set exceptionally high standards for ourselves, our products and our partners.” – Keith Jackson, CEO and president.

Earlier this year we were listed on Barron’s 100 Most Sustainable Companies for the third year in a row and were also recognized as one of Newsweek’s America’s Most Responsible Companies. In addition, we joined the United Nations (UNs) Global Compact in 2019 to assist in advancing the UNs Sustainable Development Goals. As a company, our core values are rooted in respect, integrity and initiative with a commitment to profitable growth, world-class operating results, benchmark quality and delivery of superior customer and shareholder value. 

How you can partake in celebrating Earth Day during COVID-19?

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and to celebrate and contribute to the health of the planet, my husband and I have been using our free time to expand and improve our garden. We have been organic, year-round gardeners for about nine years. We create our own mulch and compost, which is free from chemical fertilizers and insecticides. We use everything from eggshells and coffee grounds, to produce peelings and yard scraps. Doing so provides us the benefit of not only superior produce but also an amazing aroma of composted soil that smells like rain!

If you are interested in a small step you can take to benefit the earth for this year’s Earth Day, consider gardening! There are many ways you can do it depending on the size yard or available space you have. For those that live in townhomes or apartments with either limited yard space or just a porch, container gardening is a great option. The only thing needed is a container or pot with a hole at the bottom for water drainage. You can reduce trash, and reuse or recycle common household items with just a bit of imagination for your container garden.

Lana Hall from the CSR department at ON Semiconductor uses a local composting company that provides customers with equipment to collect compost that they pick up, process and then redistribute soil with customers and local gardens. Lana shares that, “Participating in this program has provided an easy way to reduce my family’s carbon footprint, as well as helping fellow gardeners and farmers.”

While starting vegetables early from seeds is very satisfying, and usually cheaper, it’s not always practical. Start your garden today by purchasing small plants from local home and garden stores, which should offer curbside service during this time, and let the sun and water take it from there. Not only does gardening provide great tasting food, exercise and a nice dose of vitamin D, but like any job well done, it gives us a feeling of pride and accomplishment of the final product. Earth Day may be celebrated differently this year, but you can still celebrate by taking a few simple steps and benefit the earth by setting up your own garden at home.

ON Semiconductor’s Technology Contributes to a Greener Planet

With sustainability at the forefront of our operations, we not only strive to be a responsible company in the actions we take such as reuse, reduce and recycle throughout our sites across the globe, but we also help make the world greener, safer and connected through our energy-efficient semiconductors. We are committed to a greener world and the following technologies are just a few examples of our contributions:

Smart Farming Technology: Our IoT portfolio includes solutions for energy harvesting platforms, which are battery-free solutions with advanced wireless connectivity. Our RSL10 Solar Cell Multi-Sensor Platform supports continuous Bluetooth® Low Energy transmission of sensor information without requiring any batteries. The use cases for this technology are exponential but a few examples include wide-range temperature sensing, combined digital humidity and pressure sensing, which can be controlled via our RSL10 sensor beacon mobile app. This technology is rapidly growing within the smart farming industry and is resulting in cleaner air, enhanced energy-efficiency, cost-savings and ease of maintenance.

Electric Vehicles: The de-carbonization of automobiles and other transportation is gaining rapid momentum as environmental and sustainability concerns grow in parallel with stricter clean air legislation. In order to provide energy-efficient technologies, ON Semiconductor’s super-junction MOSFETs, IGBTs, SiC devices and power integrated modules, along with the company’s gate drivers, sensing, control and peripheral power products provide a complete system solution for electric vehicle charging systems of all types and power levels.

Solar Power: Wide Bandgap technology is enabling a bright-solar powered future, contributing to a more energy-efficient planet, combating the effects of climate change. In 2019, we shipped enough power solutions to replace 70 coal-fired power plants. Learn more about solar inverter solutions, as well as how utilizing wide bandgap in solar and renewable energy applications can benefit your designs!

Embracing Change

“Fifty years ago Earth day was only celebrated and embraced by a few. It was relegated to be a day that was only celebrated and embraced by hippies (Mother Earth) and green advocates. Today it has become a mainstream holiday. With more and more people practicing sustainability within various aspects of their lives, we can have hope in a healthier, greener planet for future generations.” - Theresa Haywood-McCarley, senior director, corporate social responsibility

I’m proud to work at a company with high regard for CSR and is an ever-growing contributor of solutions to provide cleaner, energy-efficiency technologies. In a season of so many unknowns and chance, we must remember that we have the ability to take control and practice daily gratitude. Your Earth Day celebrations might look different this year due to the current circumstances of the world, but you can still take steps to promote a greener, healthier planet!

To learn more about ON Semiconductor’s commitment to CSR, please see our latest report.

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/45010-Celebrating-Earth-Month-During-COVID-19?tracking_source=rss

#CSR #corporate social responsibility #social good #philanthropy #employee engagement #workplace givi

[brandongundersonwritingsamp-blog]

Inequity and Privilege: A First-Hand Account of an American Institution

           What can be said about incarceration and mental illness that cannot be said about incarceration and race or socio-economic status?  In graduate school, I was privileged to meet Ian Haney Lopez, an incredibly prolific writer who occasionally touches upon subjects such as America’s penal system when writing of race and racism in America.  He visited our campus during my first few months as a master’s student, and I was fortunate enough to obtain a signed copy of his book.  In his treatise on the racial fears of hegemonic society in American politics, he briefly discusses the nature of mass incarceration in our country and estimates that on average one in every one-hundred people in America find themselves in prison for at least a year every day.  The weight of these statistics may come as a shock to some, but these realities faced in American cities have grown all too typical in certain economically and racially marginalized sectors of the country.  Sadly, in various communities throughout the U.S., it seems people have grown accustomed to these bleak conditions.

           Some of us become aware of our white privilege through education, while others have experienced the racial and socio-economic disparities of our country first hand.  Even though the room I was held in contained dozens of inmates, the LA County jail where I spent week in general population for trespassing contained merely two white people: myself, and another severely mentally ill man.  There is a racial disparity amongst inmate populations across these invisible lines and borders we call a country.

Many books are written on this issue as it pertains to American courts, and I can say, with deep remorse and shame, that I was granted leniency on behalf of the court arguably because of my race.  At the time, it was very difficult for me to maintain decorum before a judge when I was at the height of my psychosis.  Before delving too deeply into my own issues, however, there are a few other factors of Los Angeles and America’s prison industry I would like to shed a light to first.

           While LA County takes pride in its diversity, anyone who has ever lived there is aware of the segregation of the various cities that comprise the Los Angeles landscape.  When I lived in LA before my first psychotic breakdown, I often took the train around the city.  Coming out onto the platform of LA’s metro system can feel like you’ve traveled to an entirely different part of the United States.  Low income communities in Los Angeles County can be vibrant and diverse, while a stop away on the metro seems entirely populated by affluent whites. A few miles travel through this urban sprawl can feel as though you’ve traversed vast stretches of land, a hop over the fence from Long Beach can place you within Compton, which, incidentally, is a community where several, if not most, of its long-term residents suffer post-traumatic stress disorder simply from living and growing up there.

That is not to say that people fail to transcend socio-economic and racial boundaries in our country, many do, but few seem to understand the difficulty of climbing the social ladder when you possess few resources to do so.  I am sure the school districts in the Hollywood Hills are far superior to those of East LA., which is one facet of a broader systemic problem our country faces in the twenty-first century.  However, I am merely writing today, to explore for myself and potential readers my experience with LA County’s judicial programs, which causes me to wonder, how one accounts for the racial disparities between white, African American, and Hispanic communities in LA County’s prison system?

It is not that white citizens are committing less crimes than their marginalized counterparts; it’s that racial profiling and random stop and searches are more prevalent amongst the racially oppressed sectors of our society.  According to Ian Haney-Lopez, white suburban, males consume more illegal drugs than any other American demographic.  This contrasted with the fact that one in three African American males can expect to go to prison at least once in their lifetime, while one in seventeen white males can expect to go to prison at least once in their lifetime, should startle many to some form of racial consciousness as it pertains to American institutions.  It would be a fallacy to state that people of a marginalized race commit more crimes than their white counterparts; this has been disproven again and again.  The real issue is the product of laws that oppress certain communities.

Racism and racial profiling, as it exists within the American Judicial system, is still contingent upon Jim Crow racial politics today. With the end of slavery in America came racial profiling, mass incarceration, and prison labor.  To protect the economic interests of the white hegemony in post-slavery America, prison labor became a new staple of America’s judicial system, and with cheap labor, came the privatization of America’s federal prisons, prisons controlled by corporate interests, subsidized by the state, and used to contract inmates for labor at a fraction of the federal minimum wage.  The unfortunate history of these practices is a direct product of American slavery. While few would care to admit this fact of American life, academics and writers concerned with the history of our judicial system cannot ignore the fact that with the end of slavery came another institutionalized, racially charged slave population, prison inmates.

I admit that I have never actually been to prison, but in LA County jail I was surrounded by people who, either by circumstance, race, or financial inequality, were fated to stand trial for federal crimes that carried prison sentences consisting of years upon years.  Several of the offences admitted by my fellow inmates were minor drug charges or probation violations.  It seems to be that the revolving door of the prison system for these men usually begins with minor marijuana conviction, followed by probation, and an inability on behalf of the convict to follow the orders of their probation officer.  Around the world countries make great strides to reform their inmate population, but once an individual in America faces probation, recidivism for the guilty party increases exponentially, which can cause a wayward teen with a minor drug possession charge to spend years in prison during his or her adult life.

Not only is there a racial disparity between convicts in our country, but apart from social stigma, a prison sentence carries with it other less known inequities of power and wealth.  Prison time typically suggests the offending party was convicted of a felony, which not only prevents a person from gaining government assistance, student loans, or meaningful participation in the democratic system.  But the accumulative loss in lifetime income for convicts in the U.S. ranges in somewhere around 300 billion dollars.  The cycle perpetuates itself at the end of the day, but from my experience, there were other less know factors involved with prison inmates, and that factor is mental illness.  Approximately twenty-five percent of federal inmates in this country are treated for psychiatric conditions consisting of varying levels of severity, which is why your debauched protagonist found himself within the walls of this cement palace; but enough of these pseudo-academic ramblings, come with me as I show a place of concrete and steel, a palace where surveillance and force are purported to be a means of correction.  It was a place I lived in for nearly a week, a place I didn’t care for but remains a remnant of my lost aspirations and woes one would wish to be forgotten.

I spent my first two days in LA County Jail in the special housing unit, or SHU as it is aptly called by those who’ve found themselves in custody. The SHU is solitary confinement for inmates too debauched to be trusted around other inmates.  Granted you have no human interaction besides a tray of food fed through a slot in the door three times a day, but when you’re young, psychotic, and experiencing the first throes of a criminalized mentally ill demographic, a stay in the SHU can feel safe.  Of course, the sounds on your cell block will haunt you for nearly a decade later: the shouts, the wallowing, moans, screams, and racial epithets of your neighbors give literal weight to the Christian doctrines of hell.  It is a dangerous place, full of dangerous people.

The first prominent loss you’ll experience in jail is the artificiality of time there.  Deeply embedded into layers upon layers of concrete, you’ll soon forget what the sunshine looks like, and the day is announced by the flicking of a light switch.  Florescent tubes light the halls and the cells, and you begin to long for a window, a visual escape from steel doors, electric lighting, rubber mattress, and a wool blanket.  At times, the situation seems so bleak, so dreary, so removed from color and human contact, you’ll begin to wonder if you’re losing your mind.  I had already lost my mind at this juncture, but extended periods of time in the SHU will increase the death drive so greatly your neighbor will begin to commit suicide by slamming his head against the concrete. The abrasive thud will knock ever so loudly, the sounds of a dying man stripped of his humanity will be heard until several police officers storm the cage, mace him, and inject him with what was most likely anti-psychotics, the result of which will send him into a docile swoon as Medics stitch him up and clean the blood from the wall.

Two days of isolation from other humans was two days too much for me.  The loss of time and human contact will cause you to begin singing aloud and having verbal conversations with yourself.  These things seem to be standard during intense isolation, but a resting point, an adjustment if you will, will leave you drained of all energy, tired of pacing back and forth on the same five-foot stretch of cement.  It is often argued that solitary is neither cruel nor inhumane, that it gives the arrestee time to reflect and think upon what they have done, but these platitudes are undeniably false.  Homicidal thoughts envelope everyone in the SHU; they are neither getting better nor reflecting but reduced to the core primal instincts of our ancestors, reduced to beasts in the absence of all humanity.  Wailing as if confronted by a bureaucrat’s sadism, the deprivation can cause unmitigated madness within even the sanest of men and women, which will induce empathy for even the hardest of criminals when you realize that there exists a class of convicts in high profile prisons who spend decades in solitary.  Even a goddamn psychopath deserves to look upon the eyes of another every so often. They can’t even see themselves, because the mirrors in American prisons are made of tarnished steel.

However, if you can dial back the insanity for long enough, they’ll place you in general population where you’ll experience a deeply moving camaraderie with people who never had a chance to begin with. Existing on the margins since before they were even born, they’ve been vilified by the center to such an extent that even literacy seems unobtainable for a select few of them.  What choices are these men to have when they were not in school long enough to be able to decipher a simple newspaper?  This is not every inmate you’ll encounter, but a high school diploma in LA County jail carries a certain prestige to some of these men.  I guess that finishing school is difficult when you’re hungry.  With that said, these men become brothers, enemies, and friends that you’ll sadly turn away from on the street should you see them again, but when everyone is stripped of their rights, there is no other footing with each other than on equal ground.

This I know to be certain.

General population is a lot of things to a lot of people. It can be a respite from the cruelty and pressure of the outside, a detox center, a hell, or even some transitional movement into the next phase of life.  General population in jail, especially as you await trail, seems like purgatory, and you’ll often wonder if you are to go to prison or take flight to better horizons, horizons with sunshine, cold beer, and privacy.  It will scare a few straight, and it will damn a few to hard labor in a colorless eternity devoid of love and human comfort. Some of the men are anxious and desperate, while others seem calm and acclimated to a weekend stay there.  Most of them, however, are constantly living in fear of the transposition to a new key in this operatic symphony we call life, the musical composition to each one of our stories.  Will it be a minor or a major key shift?  Will it uplift or drag down?  I guess, the judge is the conductor in this case and the jury the performers, but who or what force has written the score for the artistic creation we call our lives? Maybe no one.  Maybe it’s all just random chance with the probability ratio being one in seven hundred quintillion, a likely probability that we came to exist on a planet that can sustain and harbor life.

But oh, the purgatory of jail!  The endless waiting as one contemplates what is to become of themselves as they stare down a judge for the first time in their lives, a judge whose general wellbeing and happiness on that fateful day may be their saving grace or their downfall.  Maybe the judge will be going through a nasty divorce at the time, or maybe she’ll have had electric toe-curling orgasms the night before?  It seems a crime that your fate is in the hands of one soul’s psychic disposition, but enough of the idle speculations you’ll all mull over as you await trial. These things are beyond anyone’s control.  The trick is to find a way to stave off the nicotine cravings for a while, hunker down, and spend the least productive week of your life trying to not go insane.

Of course, it isn’t all idle speculation and socializing with people as dangerous as you are for a week in county.  On a fluke, your friends will catch wind that you’ve gone missing and track you down in this palace only to wonder at what has become of your brain as you calmly explain to them during visitor hours that you tried to flee the country.  They’ll probe you regarding the hundred-thousand-dollar bail, and you’ll tell them you aren’t sure why you were arrested in the first place.  Confusion seizes those around you when you first go insane, and you cannot blame them by being totally perplexed by your behaviors in the months prior.  It is rare that one catches a glimpse another’s brain misfire and deteriorate at such a young age.  It is a hard sight to make sense of for nonprofessionals and the unexperienced, but the madness, yes, the madness seethes within the mind first before rupturing into a thousand miscalculated gestures, mistakes, and behaviors.  By the time others see the physical manifestations of the hallucinatory screams within your head, it is a bit too late for an untrained eye to piece the splintered trail of your fragmented consciousness together for enough time to understand the warped rationality behind these deplorable, subhuman actions you’ve carried out again and again.

Well, the police have their theories, and they’ll even draft a confession you did not consent to where they want you to sign a two-page document in which they construct a story that has you admit to two high profile felonies, “but I was just wandering around drunk officer.  I have no recollection of doing either of those things.” As per your obstinacy, you’ll state your case several times until they draft a confession for you that you’ll gladly admit to, but what is to happen to the inmates who lack the capacity to read? Are they signing these fabricated stories written in legalese?  I certainly hope not, but deep within myself I know several of them do.  What fate for the prosecutor to win cases specifically to bolster up our local prison labor force.  What luck to fabricate a confession for someone who is more functional within capitalism as a prison slave laborer than on the outside.  God bless the nightmare of American inequity and systemic oppression!  God bless American institutions and the war against drugs!  God bless every crooked cop and judge with anger issues!

So yes, you’ll wait and wait and wait an uncertain future at the hands of disgruntled state employees, disgruntled in the sense that they spend much of their work hours being threatened and screamed at on the other end of a steal cage.  Not to mention the fact that they spend more of their lives within a prison or jail, subject to the same social reality, than even the roughest of criminals.  It comes as no surprise that the guards wanted to fuck each of us over, but the time will pass.  The TV will be turned on every so often, and you’ll do pushups and sit ups with your roommates for enough of the day to sleep soundly. You’ll network with people that can put you on a fast-track to becoming a poor man’s Pablo Escobar.   You’ll also wonder which block party to attended on the outside, because there’s nothing like getting drunk and high together after a week of soberly shitting in front of everyone and showering with these men.  After a few days of holding it in and smelling like the homeless man who sleeps above you, no one is bashful.  It creates a certain bond between the unlikeliest group of characters you’ll spend time with throughout your life.

Living in such close quarters with these glorious misfits, deemed wretches by some, will create an unusual intimacy between you and these men.  You’ll realize that despite their petty crimes they are brothers, sons, fathers, and employees.  They have a life on the outside waiting for them as they wait in jail.  Some will spend months if not years in this grey landscape, and some will smell the sweet scent of freedom the same day you will. Many will most likely lose their jobs, and become recidivists, spiraling in the downward gyre of mistakes that seem to be precipitated by one stint here.  What is one to do when life is completely disrupted like this?  What is to happen at the hour of your freedom after suffering this state repulsion and stigma?  With these thoughts in mind, you’ll harbor a strange affinity and fondness for these rebels.

However, the hour of your freedom will come, yes, it will come causing your heart to knock with anticipation, and your memory of these insufferable days will become a fevered dream and point of introspection throughout your life.  Yes, you will stand before a judge for the first time, and it is important to know your place.  It would also be beneficial if you received advice for your hour on the stage from people other than convicts, because despite feeling that an innocent plea is completely reasonable, you’ll soon forget that you are being punished.  Please do not upset your judge at such a critical moment in this escapade.  Try to remember that they’ll offer you a generous plea, a plea your friends in the cage will give head nods and thumbs up for you to accept.  As a mentally ill person you sometimes lack awareness of your surroundings, so it is important to keep your mouth shut and let the orchestra work their magic.  And they will do their best to free you from this palace.  So, yes, you will be granted a stunning opportunity to breathe fresh air again, to see the sun and the moon, and sleep comfortably, and on the off chance that your best friend growing up is an L.A. transplant, you’ll feel loved that he came to see the hour you suffer the stage only to take you in that night and buy you a train ticket home.

There is nothing like sipping on a six pack and watching the history of the 2008 presidential election unfold before your eyes the night you leave that colorless palace.  There’s nothing like a private shower with shampoo and a new tooth brush. Yes, you will feel loved, and, yes, you will feel free the night you escape.  Sleeping on a couch after a week in jail will feel better than any bed you’ve ever slept on throughout your twenty-one years, but after you’ve fled your family and have grown increasingly psychotic what life are you to have after this, what are you to do?

You are free, but you are broken and terrified of the one’s who raised you.  It is at this moment that you’ll make some decisive calls and take favors that were offered two years ago, because when your old boss offered you a place to stay before the madness took hold you will remember that he still has the space. Madness is often awkward, uncomfortable, and strenuous for both the sufferer and the witness.  Even though you’re free, you’re also homeless and without a car, so you’ll barge into an old friend’s life and sleep in a garage for a few months.  You’ll create another level of forced intimacy with a man you barely knew, because you’ve lost your sense of time, tact, reality, and social intelligence.

Your journey to stability will continue, but before that the visual hallucinations will become so real you’ll have conversations with them. Yakity-yakking day and night with these cosmic visions, will create a great strain on you and your relationship with the world around you, but it seems these things grow all too common in the psychologically dispossessed.  So, enjoy your respite from the cement and steal palace.  Relax and have a drink or two.  You’ll soon be thrown into the middle of another palace, another universe, an alternate reality, and this new palace, this universe, these alternating realities exist nowhere if not in your head.  Embrace the intricacy of the mind, because after the terror subsides you’ll marvel at the power, force, and ability of the brain to manipulate and rewrite the world around you.

[universeinform-blog]

Crawfish emancipation for Mobile? State Rep. Margie Wilcox cooking

New Post has been published on https://universeinform.com/2017/03/24/crawfish-emancipation-for-mobile-state-rep-margie-wilcox-cooking/

Crawfish emancipation for Mobile? State Rep. Margie Wilcox cooking

Is nation legislation the solution to Cell’s crawfish conundrum? country Rep. Margie Wilcox thinks so and is making plans to put up payments that could exempt sidewalk crawfish boils – and in all likelihood different conventional occasions – from fitness department oversight.

The cell has a free crawfish way of life under which a few bars have provided loose, freshly cooked crawfish to consumers in the course of the spring months. In 2016 and once more in 2017, the Cell County fitness department asserted that those occasions run contrary to fitness guidelines. Partial compromise in 2016 and similarly negotiation in 2017 have left many former participants either satisfied that they can not hold the boils anymore, or so harassed approximately the legalities that they’re afraid to proceed.

Wilcox has these days found out that she’s cooking up a few nation regulation that she hopes will smash the impasse. Currently, the payments exist “in draft form,” so the final variations she’ll present in April aren’t yet available. As advertised in well-known phrases, the concept is described this way: “Regarding Elegance 2 municipalities; to prohibit the country branch of Public fitness from regulating or requiring a permit for intermittent food provider institutions that in any other case do no longer put together, sell, or distribute meals in its everyday line of business whilst that meals carrier status quo prepares or distributes food in affiliation with a regional celebratory occasion or custom.”

Wilcox said she’s planning to publish one model that might follow most effective to Mobile County, and another that could observe statewide. She stated she knows the Mobile County fitness department’s function that it’s only looking to practice current kingdom law to the state of affairs, and stated she’s spoken with Cell County fitness Officer Dr. Bernard Eichold approximately his worries associated with the problem.

He was cute to talk to,” she stated.

Food protection is a real public challenge, Wilcox stated, even though crawfish boils haven’t been a supply of hassle. “We might want to put up a ‘buyer pay attention’ sign, that this is a gaggle of bartenders cooking meals,” she stated.

Emancipation Insults Womanhood

For, in lots of approaches lady is superior to a person. Emancipation, then again, lowers her reputation and makes it at component with a man. Emancipation has a “man” as its preferred. It’s miles a dirty phrase, for it does no longer don’t forget the potentials of a woman. girl’s well known and standing, each isn’t identified. She is made, as a substitute compelled to struggle to meet man’s preferred. The query is: What for? Why ought to a female warfare to satisfy such general? Doesn’t she have her own standard?

From a nonsecular point of view, “Men and women are Identical”. There the question of emancipation does not stand up. At that point, for that matter, requirements and standing are of no relevance too. They’re in reality irrelevant.emancipation from parents

Right here, we aren’t discussing spirit. Spirit is past all discussions and arguments. It has nothing to do with agreements and disagreements. It is. And, It’s miles Entire in Itself. No debate there, no not anything.

Right here, we are discussing depend on,

Which once more is nothing bu the spirit in its gross form. That grossness is what we are discussing Right here. Of their subtle bureaucracy, In their souls, women and men are nonetheless Same. They’re not distinct. but, Of their gross bureaucracy, They’re sincerely specific. It is the grossness that makes the distinction. And so, we should appearance sharply into this grossness.

I say, in many approaches girl is advanced to a man. In different words, I am also trying to mention that during sure areas guy is superior to the lady. There is areas wherein female is superior, and there are regions where man is advanced. Every is precise. Each has a few special qualities. That makes them like minded to Each-different. That makes woman and guy complement Every different.

So, initially allow us to drop this debate about superiority and inferiority.

Neither woman is inferior to the guy, neither is the guy not so good as a woman. each is equally superiors – In their personal approaches, and their own regions.

however, due to the fact, I am writing approximately female, so in this newsletter, I shall confine myself to the superiority of female and speak guy only when necessary.

For that, we have to come back to the problem of “grossness” and the way does it make woman superior to man in lots of methods….. let us check her mind first:

1. It is scientifical, to be extra particular, biologically verified now that the Pre-Frontal part of female’s brain is greater than man’s. In a girl, it also receives matured in advance than in guy. Curiously this component is related to one’s potential to workout

You can like to refer to the scriptures, Vedic

Taoist, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, and Islam, whatever – they all agree on being “The very best Virtue”. It’s far consequently unlucky and misconceived in addition to misperceived whilst one feels the same scriptures to show female’s inferiority and places her under guy’s sub ordinance. Such presumption would falsify the sooner commonplace and well-known announcement determined in all scriptures.

Mobile Apps Development – Changing the Business Scenario

Advertising and enterprise improvement aren’t what they were once in the earlier days. Mobile Utility improvement as an idea has absolutely transformed business scenarios and developments. These modifications were observed maximum prominently in the manner brands boom their visibility within the market and how organizations make themselves on hand to clients. Allow us to consider the numerous approaches wherein Mobile Utility improvement has improved and contributed to the enterprise world, generating diverse integral blessings for employee owners.boaters missing mobile

 Fee discount

Advertising and marketing and commercial enterprise visibility consume up to a primary part of the price range – a fact that constantly stems fear for commercial enterprise proprietors throughout industries and sectors. By way of getting a Cell Application advanced to sell a brand and reach out to customers, Marketing fees can be significantly introduced down even as growing visibility exponentially. An enterprise would not need to invest in SMSs, printed media, the media, etc for Advertising. This translates into savings.

Patron pride

With a development of Cellular programs, the want for clients having to attend to acquire offerings is eliminated. This facilitates to create patron loyalty and attracts extra target audience via tremendous feedback. Mobile Apps solid an instantaneous effect on sales and Purchaser retention Via at once enriching their enjoy. Many corporations are actually selecting to provide precedence provider to clients who select to apply their Mobile app to get in contact with them. This will be a notable concept to growth purchaser retention quotes and offer higher nice services and interest to customers.

 Useful resource optimization

The usage of Cellular apps will assist streamline the all-vital feature of customer support, providing new and advanced means for organizations is to talk with customers. This truth on my own will bring about augmenting productiveness and getting expanded successes in Purchaser dating control. programs assist organizations in saving expenses and producing revenue at the same time. With this shift within the cash go with the flow of an employer, it will become possible to optimize and reallocate present assets and gain performance in all spheres of operation.

Research suggest that the time spent By means of humans within the US on Cell Virtual Media is appreciably better (51%) in comparison to their usage of computers and laptops (forty-two%) for accessing statistics. In fact, four out of every five consumers use smartphones or tablets for purchasing. This tipping of scales has brought about almost all forms of agencies to shift toward this Digital platform for branding and Customer outreach.

Cell Utility development has simply changed the manner the business global moves and coordinate with the converting scenarios, firms are actually accepting it as a powerful device to reinforce growth.

Factors Affecting Microwave Recipes Cooking

Factors WHICH Affect COOKING

Numerous Factors which impact timing and outcomes in traditional cooking are exaggerated by means of microwave pace…

From traditional cooking, you’re acquainted with the concept that more meals take more time.

Two cups of water take longer to boil than one.

The length of meals is critical, too.

Split potatoes prepare dinner quicker than complete ones.

These differences are greater apparent in microwaving, in view that power penetrates and turns to warmness directly in the food.

Understanding what affects the velocity and evenness of cooking will help you enjoy all the benefits of microwaving.

Piece Length: In both conventional and microwave cook dinner-ing, small portions cook dinner quicker than huge ones. pieces that are similar in Length and form cook greater flippantly.

Beginning Temperature: Ingredients taken from the refrigerator take longer to cook dinner than Meals at room temperature. Timings in our recipes are based on the temperatures at which you generally save the Ingredients.

Density of food: In each traditional and microwave cooking, dense Meals, such as a potato, take longer to cook or warmth than light, porous Ingredients, such as a chunk of cake, bread or a roll.cooking channel

Quantity of food: In both kinds of cooking, small quantities normally take much less time than massive ones. This is maximum obvious in microwave cooking, where time is di-rectly associated with the wide variety of servings. shape of food: In each styles of cooking, thin areas cook quicker than thick ones. This will be controlled in micro-waving via placing thick pieces to the outdoor edge with thin pieces to the middle.

Height in Oven: In each styles of cooking, regions which can be closest to the supply of heat or power cook quicker. For even microwaving, turn over or guard vulnerable Meals that are better than 5 inches.

Boiling: Microwaves exaggerate boiling in milk-primarily based Meals.

A temperature probe turns off the oven earlier than Meals boil over. Use a lower strength placing and watch carefully whilst now not using a probe. Prick Ingredients to Release Pressure: Steam builds up Pressure in Foods which might be tightly blanketed by a skin or membrane. Prick potatoes (as you do conventionally), egg yolks and fowl livers to save you bursting.