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cumironi · 12 days ago

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GOJO’S D$CK. g.s

feat. gojo satoru

sum. what’s the best sex position ever? loud and clear you said missionary. the result? got called slut by shoko and dared by geto to fuck the stupidest man in the group, gojo satoru. and you, also the stupidest take the bait just to prove a point only to get the best missionary you’ve ever had. which, also got called slut by your friend.

wn. college au, all characters are adults (early 20s), depictions of alcohol and weed consumption, explicit sexual content including graphic foreplay and intercourse, strong language, sexual humor, slut-shaming jokes between friends, emotionally charged intimacy, consensual rough play (e.g. scratching, hickeys), praise-kink, bit dirty talk,

gojo’s basement was a whole ecosystem of indulgence, an architectural fuck-you to minimalism. the moment you stepped off the last step, it was like descending into a pleasure den disguised as a frat boy’s fever dream and a luxury showroom had a threesome with a tokyo nightlife bar and decided to never leave.

soft, dark lighting glowed along the edges of the ceiling, hiding in strips of LED that shifted color every few minutes—right now it was a moody wine red that made everyone look flushed and half-possessed. a speaker system was embedded into the walls, not blasting but thumping low enough to feel in your molars, something beat-heavy and spacey, rhythmic enough to keep your hips rocking even if you were only sitting. the walls were textured concrete, but with art—huge framed prints, some classical, some hentai, because gojo was a pretentious bitch and also a walking disaster.

it was sectioned in loose, chaotic zones. one end had a full bar, real wood counters, glass shelves, and an overhead mirror with LED backlight that made the various alcohol bottles sparkle like gemstones. there were no mixers—just hard liquor and gojo’s “personal stash” of imported shit that tasted like burnt syrup and regret. behind the bar, nanami stood like a reluctant bartender, sleeves rolled up, jaw tight, stirring something too elegant for this crowd. he’d lost rock-paper-scissors and now he was stuck mixing drinks with military precision, ignoring everyone yelling that they just wanted a whiskey coke with extra whiskey and no coke.

a few steps away, there was a billiards table, dark green felt, cue sticks leaned against the wall, and haibara trying to make a shot with his head resting on the cue, eyes squinting like a sniper but swaying like a drunk tree. geto and shoko were stretched on the oversized couch that curved around a low table cluttered with empty shot glasses, an open pizza box with one lonely crust, and the remnants of three joints passed back and forth. gojo had dragged over a bean bag chair and was currently lounging in it like royalty, shirt half unbuttoned, pale collarbones peeking out, sunglasses still on indoors, of course, because he said the lighting was “too aggressive.”

you were on the rug, thighs warm from the alcohol, back against the couch, in the exact perfect spot to feel everyone’s presence all at once—geto’s knee brushing yours every time he shifted, shoko’s lazy hand resting in your hair because she liked to play with it when she was high, gojo’s long leg stretched out so his bare foot kept nudging your ankle. the rug smelled like old perfume and weed and a little bit like someone spilled gin and didn’t clean it up, and honestly? it was perfect.

“i think,” gojo announced, gesturing with his drink, something neon blue in a martini glass, “we should all officially drop out.”

“again?” geto asked, one eyebrow raised as he exhaled smoke and passed you the blunt. “you say that every thursday,” you added, grinning as you took it, the burn sweet and sharp on your tongue.

“yeah but this time i mean it,” gojo said, rolling over onto his stomach like a bored cat, chin resting on his arms. “what’s even the point of college? knowledge? community? shared trauma?”

“you only show up to class to cheat off nanami,” shoko pointed out. “he has such neat handwriting,” gojo said with a dreamy sigh. nanami rolled his eyes. “because i don’t get high the night before a midterm and forget how pens work.”

“that was one time,” you mumbled through a cough, handing the joint off to utahime who looked scandalized but still took it.

“you cried,” geto added helpfully.

“it was a stressful exam,” you defended, but the laughter already drowned you out. even nanami cracked a tired smirk. “okay but like—” haibara missed his shot and collapsed dramatically over the pool table, face pressed into the felt “—real talk. if we all dropped out, what would we do? jobs don’t exist. go.”

“porn,” you said immediately.

gojo made a high-pitched noise like a choking dolphin. “you can’t just say that, baby.”

“i said it,” you grinned, shrugging. “onlyfans. but we make it elite. like art-house, black-and-white stuff.”

“you want to direct?” shoko asked, voice slow, eyes heavy-lidded. “or star?”

“both,” you said. “duh.”

“visionary,” geto murmured, passing you a new joint, already lit. you took it without question. “okay okay okay,” haibara said, still face-down, voice muffled into the table. “but if you had to teach one sex position. like, for beginners. what’s lesson one?”

“doggy,” nanami answered without blinking.

“perv,” gojo coughed.

“efficient,” nanami corrected.

“missionary,” geto said, tapping his ash into a tray. “eye contact, full penetration, kiss access. versatile. emotionally devastating.”

“you’re so romantic,” you teased.

he smirked. “always.”

“cowgirl,” shoko added, licking salt off her hand. “control. visuals. core workout.”

“you’re all cowards,” gojo said, sitting up now, eyes glinting. “nobody said reverse cowgirl.”

“that’s because you’re the only one who wants to get kneed in the stomach,” utahime muttered, taking another sip. “worth it,” gojo sighed, pressing his hand over his chest like he’d been touched by god. and then—he turned, sharp and sudden, and pointed directly at you, mouth curling in a smirk that was all teeth and trouble.

“what about you, pretty girl?”

your throat went dry. his voice was soft now, low, sliding under your skin like warm syrup. everyone else fell quiet. not waiting in judgment—just watching. geto leaned back. shoko raised one eyebrow. even nanami tilted his head like your answer might end a war.

“hmm,” you hummed, tilting your head, pretending to think even as your lips curled. “honestly? missionary. but only if you’re trying to ruin my life,” you add, casually, sipping whatever tragic cocktail you’d ended up with—mostly rum, mostly sugar, entirely chaos—and immediately regretted it, because the second the words left your mouth, the basement erupted. broke in a howl of laughter. shoko nearly dropped her drink. geto choked on his exhale. haibara clapped the table.

“LAME!” haibara shrieked like you’d just confessed to listening to elevator music during sex. “liar,” geto said flatly, but the smile tugging at his mouth made it impossible to take seriously.

“no fucking way,” shoko barked, already leaning over the armrest like she needed to look you directly in the soul. “no. you? miss i make eye contact while ordering food like it’s a come-on?”

you groaned, trying to disappear into your shirt. “shut uuuuup.”

“there is no way your favorite position is missionary,” she said, flicking your forehead with sharp precision. “get the fuck out of here. you’re not fooling anyone.”

“maybe i’m romantic,” you offered weakly, already bracing as the room devolved into shrieks again. gojo wheezed, flopping onto his back and kicking a throw pillow off the couch. “romantic she says. oh my god. oh my fucking god.”

“missionary my ass,” utahime added, kicking your shin lightly with her socked foot. “that’s like saying your favorite food is plain rice.”

“with butter!” you shouted defensively.

“shut the fuck up!” everyone howled in unison.

“full nelson,” shoko said immediately, stabbing her finger at you. “you’re into some demon shit. like tied up, folded in half, legs behind your ears—"

“—that’s not even anatomically possible for most people—” nanami muttered in the background, but no one was listening. “you give power bottom with a penchant for suffering,” geto added smoothly, crossing his legs and resting his chin in his hand like he was about to psychoanalyze your soul.

“stop profiling me,” you groaned, dragging your hands down your face. “what if i just want soft sex? with love? with candles and eye contact and maybe a backhand to the cheek, but mostly like… romance.”

utahime gagged so hard it sounded real. “you’re disgusting.”

“i am romantic,” you insisted, chin raised, eyes defiant. “i want to be held. i want love.” shoko tossed a grape at your head. “you want to be held in a chokehold with your face pressed to the mattress.” you caught it in your mouth and chewed, flipping her off with flair. “maybe. but gently.”

gojo rolled back upright like a cartoon character, elbows resting on his knees, eyes gleaming under the dim lights. “i can do gently,” he said, voice low and syrup-sweet.

“no,” utahime said flatly.

“you don’t get to volunteer,” nanami said, not even looking up from whatever he was mixing now. gojo grinned and tilted his head toward you, his hand slowly sliding into the pocket of your hoodie, the one you were wearing. “but i wanna,” he said, and his voice dipped just enough to warm the pit of your stomach.

you elbowed him. “we’re still talking about metaphors.”

he smiled wider. “are we?”

shoko groaned. “i’m gonna throw something at both of you.”

geto passed her a half-empty beer can like a gentleman. “use this.”

“missionary,” shoko repeated again, like she couldn’t let it go, couldn’t accept it, couldn’t believe it even existed in your vocabulary as anything more than a punchline. she said it like a curse, her voice thick with smoke and judgment. “missionary. you absolute fucking liar.”

“i’m not lying!” you whined, but it came out with a stupid grin stretching your mouth because you knew—you knew—they were right to doubt you. “nah, you’re lying,” geto said, not even looking up from his delicate task of ash-flicking with the grace of a noble concubine. “you’re lying and you know it and we all know it. missionary. yeah right.”

gojo, who had been half-lying across your lap like a loyal, slutty dog, perked up at the confirmation. “she is lying,” he said, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. “i’m hurt. betrayed. flabbergasted.”

utahime barked a laugh from the bean bag she’d stolen from nanami when he went to refill his drink. “missionary only if he’s choking you out and whispering dirty things about your future kids.”

“WHICH IS STILL VERY ROMANTIC,” you argued, throwing your hands up in pathetic defense. “not when it includes the words ‘breed you dumb,’” nanami said calmly from the bar. “YOU DON’T KNOW MY LIFE,” you screamed across the basement, as if that would help.

haibara was bent over wheezing, red in the face and tears in his eyes. “you—missionary—you’re the same bitch who moaned watching that fight scene in that one show—”

“he had his veins out and a chain around his neck, i was provoked!”

shoko pointed directly at you like she was driving a stake into your coffin. “you want missionary the same way a raccoon wants tap water. not cause it’s good, cause it’s easy access before you crawl into the sewer.”

“i am not a raccoon!”

“you are the racooniest,” geto said. “fucked-up little hands and all.”

gojo, smug and now fully reclined into your lap with his arms crossed over his chest and his legs kicking up a little in rhythm with the music, looked up at you upside down with that shit-eating grin. “no shame in liking missionary,” he said sweetly. “as long as it’s not the only thing you like.”

“oh no no no,” geto said, sitting up straighter now, attention focused, looking deadly and delighted. “you don’t get to backpedal now. no retreat. you committed.”

“i did not commit—”

“you’re committed. one hundred percent. missionary ride or die. all in.”

“you’re making it sound like a cult.”

“IT IS,” shoko yelled, throwing a handful of popcorn at your head that she’d stolen from god knows where. “missionary only when the moon is waxing, the candles are teal, and your playlist is all sad acoustic covers of 2000s bangers.”

“that sounds fucking dreamy actually,” you said, offended but also taking mental notes.

geto leaned over, narrowing his eyes, voice dipping low and daring, that teasing menace blooming in the corners of his mouth like sin: “then do it. with satoru. go full missionary. full eye contact. no jokes. no choking. no freaky shit. vanilla as fuck. and afterward—then tell us if it’s still your favorite.”

the room fell silent.

gojo sat up.

utahime choked on her drink.

shoko slapped her knee and screamed, “YES. YESSSS. YOU WON’T. DO IT. I DARE YOU. PUT YOUR LOVE WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS.”

“THAT IS NOT THE PHRASE,” you cried.

“IT IS NOW,” haibara shouted, fist in the air.

gojo was looking at you like you just became his favorite episode of a fucked-up reality show. slowly, slowly, he leaned in, blinking those pale lashes in mock innocence, like a predator trying to play sweet. “do you want me to hold your hand, princess?” he cooed, voice dragging over each syllable like it was rolling in honey and filth. “whisper how pretty you look while you say missionary is your favorite?”

you flailed, completely red, pressing your palm to his face and pushing him back with a groan. “shut uuuuuup, i hate you—”

“you love me,” he sang.

“you’ll love him more with his dick in you like an afterschool special,” shoko muttered, and you almost died.

“this is not how peer support groups work,” you whined.

“this is how our support group works,” geto corrected, cool as ice, brushing ash off his sleeve. “we support you… into making the worst decisions imaginable.”

“i hate this friend group.”

“you started it!” utahime yelled. “you could’ve said cowgirl and we would’ve moved on!”

“i wanted to be authentic!”

“authentic my ass,” nanami mumbled. “your idea of authentic includes handcuffs and a soundtrack.”

“THAT WAS ONE TIME.”

gojo grinned wider, tongue tucked behind his teeth, eyes narrow with mischief. “baby, you say one time, but your eyes are saying again.” you groaned, staring up at the string lights twinkling on the ceiling like they were your last remaining allies. “i hope you all choke on your weed.”

“romantic choking,” geto said.

“god is dead,” you muttered.

“he died in missionary,” shoko declared.

and the room screamed again.

the yelling hadn’t died down. it had evolved—evolved into a full-blown, unholy ritual, like you’d summoned something cursed just by saying “missionary” in this den of godless chaos. the music still thumped in the background—some bass-heavy beat vibrating low enough to shake the pool cues on the wall—but it was drowned beneath the choir of filthy voices rallying around your damnation.

“come onnnn,” haibara practically whined, dragging himself across the floor like a tragic little beast of pressure and peer influence. “just do it once. like, clinical trial shit. for science.”

“for data,” geto added solemnly, passing the joint back to you with all the pomp of a ceremonial dagger. “you know he’s down,” utahime said, gesturing lazily with her drink toward gojo. “he’s always down. satoru would do it with a smile on his face and his dick already out.”

“i’d do it with flowers,” gojo offered sweetly, chin in hand, smiling like the most deranged boy in a dating sim. “i’d put a little post-it on her hip that says you’re doing amazing, sweetie.”

“you are a menace,” you groaned, tossing the joint in the ashtray, flopping your head against the back of the couch. “okay, but for real,” shoko cut in, snapping her fingers like a sitcom villain. “we have to settle this. you can’t keep saying that’s your favorite and then not test it with the absolute worst candidate.”

gojo lit up. “i’m honored.”

“he’s dumb as shit,” nanami added, calmly wiping the bar down with a cocktail napkin like he wasn’t verbally assassinating his friend. “there’s no way he can make it romantic. not even ironically.”

“he’d come while trying to say something nice and end up crying,” shoko muttered, lighting a cigarette like the world’s most beautiful disappointment. “he doesn’t even know how to look romantic,” geto chimed in, now entirely leaned back and smoking like he was watching live theater. “that man sends memes after sexting.”

“he once tried to dirty talk me by saying i looked like i had good knees,” utahime added. the room died.

“they were good knees,” gojo whined.

“SEE?” shoko shrieked, pointing wildly. “this is what we’re dealing with! that’s who she wants missionary with! that’s what she calls romance!”

you covered your face, weakly laughing into your hands. “you’re all insane.”

“and yet,” nanami said smoothly, pouring himself another drink, “you’ve fucked most of us.”

your head snapped up. “WHAT—”

“you have,” shoko agreed, nodding casually like she was reading a wine label. “it’s canon now.”

“absolutely,” geto said, exhaling smoke like a sexy devil. “you’ve whored your way through 70% of this friend group. missionary with gojo would be the least slutty thing you’ve done.”

“don’t slut-shame me while calling me a slut,” you groaned, laughing despite yourself. “slut is not derogatory here,” shoko said, patting your thigh. “it’s like saying you’re talented. you’re our slut. community slut. the people’s princess.”

“i’m gonna cry.”

“oh, so now you wanna act innocent?” nanami’s voice was ice in a cocktail glass. “not when you were drunk texting me ‘wanna ruin my future?’ at 2am last weekend.”

“i was having a moment!”

“you were also wearing gojo’s hoodie with no pants and humping a pillow,” geto said, eyes glittering like he kept this memory polished for personal use. you slapped your palms over your face again. “can’t a girl be romantic in peace?”

“not in this house,” utahime deadpanned. “but like,” gojo piped up, head now resting on your thigh again, completely unbothered, probably hard, absolutely thrilled, “they’ve got a point.”

you looked down at him, exhausted. “i swear to god, satoru—”

“no no, hear me out,” he said, holding up both hands like he was offering a legal defense. “i’ve seen you horny for nanami just cause he tied his tie right. i’ve seen you get wet over geto saying the word ‘problematic.’ you let shoko suck a bruise into your thigh because she was bored.”

“and that was her fault,” you pointed to shoko. “i was drunk and passive.”

“uh huh,” she hummed, mouth twitching.

“all i’m saying is,” gojo said, sitting up now, hands on your knees, looking up at you like a dog who just learned to beg, “if you’re gonna be a slut, be an honest slut. missionary with me. prove them wrong. show them you’re a woman of taste and tragedy.”

you stared at him, mouth parted, blinking.

“this is sexual peer pressure,” you mumbled.

“this is justice,” geto corrected.

“this is foreplay,” gojo whispered with a wink.

“i hate you all,” you grumbled, cheeks hot, lips twitching despite yourself.

“but you’ll do it?” haibara asked, eyes wide and dumb and so hopeful.

“maybe.”

“HA!” gojo shouted, launching a throw pillow at shoko. “that’s a yes!”

“that’s not a yes—”

“you heard her!” geto called, standing up to stretch like a smug, half-naked giraffe. “she agreed! and now we shall bear witness to the least romantic, most catastrophic missionary session ever.”

“you’re gonna be pinned to the mattress like a frog in biology class,” shoko said, wheezing. “gojo’s gonna forget to take off his socks,” utahime muttered, disgusted. “you know i have those toe socks,” he said proudly.

you groaned again, but deep down your stomach fluttered with heat and laughter, and your thighs pressed together, and despite the chaos—despite all of it—you were already thinking about how it’d feel to have him above you, stupid, naked, sweet, mean, sloppy, and whispering something that almost sounded like love.

and stupidly, in the end, you look behind you as you walk toward the hallway with gojo—your hand clutched in his like a fucking idiot—with the bedroom door at the end blinking at you like it knew exactly how many sins were about to unfold inside it. he’s practically bouncing beside you, grinning with his arm slung around your waist like he won a prize at a fair and it was you, half-drunk, giggling, humiliated, and undeniably curious about how the stupidest fucking person in your friends group was about to missionary the everloving shit out of you.

you glance back once, just once, and of course—of course—the entire couch crew is watching, each one of them grinning like hyenas on bath salts.

shoko, drink in one hand, tongue out like she’s in a punk band photo shoot, flips you off and mouths, “TAKE THE D.”

nanami lifts his glass, deadpan as ever, and mouths, “condoms are in the drawer.”

haibara is full-on doubled over, clapping like you’re being sent off to war.

geto gives you the filthiest two-thumbs-up you’ve ever seen, followed by a pantomimed gesture that can only be described as “jackhammer pelvic annihilation.”

utahime just shrugs like “you brought this on yourself.”

you don’t know if you want to laugh or scream or combust.

you’re all stupid fucks.

and you’re the stupidest one of all.

gojo drags you through the door with a dramatic flourish, like you’re being ushered into a honeymoon suite, except it’s the spare bedroom in his overdesigned basement—dark walls, plush mattress, fairy lights clinging to the corners, a single massive bed that has held too many sleepovers, too many hangovers, too many half-naked bodies tangled under that navy comforter.

he slams the door shut behind him with an unnecessary thud and then locks it.

locks it with intent.

you look at him, raising an eyebrow.

he grins, all bright eyes and too much teeth, and says, “we don’t want anyone walking in on your emotional awakening.” you shove him in the chest, laughing despite the heat pooling low in your belly, but his arms snake around your waist and he pulls you flush against him, the giddiness gone softer now, warmer.

“you really want this?” he asks, murmuring it against the corner of your mouth, lips ghosting, fingers rubbing slow lazy circles against your spine. “you wanna prove ‘em all wrong?”

you tilt your head back, a little buzzed, a little high, heart thumping in your ears from the absurdity and anticipation and just… him—this dumb beautiful man who you’ve known since freshman year, who once drank a bottle of cooking wine on a dare, who calls you names that make your skin warm, who sends you memes at 2am and confesses his feelings with a smirk like it’s not real.

and now he’s asking like it’s the first time he’s ever taken anything seriously. you hum, smirk lazy, fingers toying with the hem of his shirt. “go on, missionary me, satoru.”

he laughs—not loud, not sharp, just this sweet, stupid, delighted sound that vibrates into your chest before he grabs your jaw, kisses you once, hard and messy and full of promise, and then gently backs you toward the bed like he’s actually going to try to make this romantic.

“i’m gonna missionary you so hard you’ll cry,” he says, completely deadpan.

“you’re such a fucking idiot,” you murmur.

“yours,” he whispers, pushing you down onto the mattress like prayer, like penance, like romance—but only if romance came with a hickey and a headboard slam.

gojo doesn’t even rush you, which is fucking weird. normally he rushes everything—his speeches, his shots, his half-baked plans that end with haibara covered in glitter and someone’s laptop in the bathtub. but now, now that you’ve willingly walked into this basement bedroom with him like some horny lamb in a thrifted hoodie, he moves slow. suspiciously slow. like he’s savoring it. like the thought of doing missionary—actual missionary, not his usual chaotic acrobatic nonsense—has turned into something sacred.

his hands are on your hips first, thumbs dipping just beneath the waistband of your shorts as he leans over you, not yet pushing you down but crowding you close enough that you feel the press of his grin against your skin.

“you sure you don’t want something more… you?” he murmurs, voice like a low vibration against your neck, smug and teasing, but softer than usual.

you blink up at him, lying back slightly on your elbows atop the bed, the fairy lights in the corners of the ceiling casting soft gold against his white hair, making him look like the dumbest, prettiest boy the devil ever handcrafted in a rush. his shirt is wrinkled, half unbuttoned from earlier when he got dramatic during your defense trial in the living room, and you can see the curve of his collarbones, the start of his chest. he’s flushed, high, and still smiling like he’s on a game show and he’s about to spin the wheel of “ruin your life.”

you smirk back. “you saying i’m not a romantic?”

he kisses your shoulder, open-mouthed and slow. “i’m saying you’re a slut with a dream.”

you groan. “fuck off.”

“i will,” he murmurs, mouthing just below your collarbone, “right after i make you fall in love with me like a virgin on prom night.”

you burst out laughing, shoving his shoulder, but your fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt and you don’t push him far. his hands slide up your sides, dragging your shirt with them, slow and deliberate, knuckles brushing bare skin. you can feel him watching your face, that infuriating way he always does, like he’s daring you to show how much you want him, how much you feel him even in these dumb, tender moments.

you let your head fall back on the mattress with a sigh, staring at the ceiling, arms up to let him pull your shirt the rest of the way off. the lights glow amber above you. the room smells like weed and gojo and leftover cologne and heat. you’re suddenly aware of how warm you are, how warm he is—kneeling one knee between your thighs now, eyes slow and greedy as they rake over your torso.

he runs his fingers up your stomach, watching the way your skin jumps under the touch. “see?” he says, voice soft but smug. “missionary’s good already. look how romantic this is. i haven’t even said the dumb shit yet.”

“say it,” you challenge, breath catching when he leans down again, kisses trailing over the swell of your breast, hands still warm and splayed along your ribs.

his mouth brushes your sternum. “you feel so pretty under my hands.”

your thighs twitch. “that’s not even a sentence.”

“shh,” he says, nuzzling the underside of your breast. “i’m practicing.”

his tongue flicks out, barely tasting your skin, not even on your nipple, just everywhere else—stupid, teasing little licks and kisses that feel more intimate than any fast-grab hookup ever did. one hand slides down to your hip, the other dragging along your arm, fingers lacing with yours, like he’s doing this half slow to spite everyone outside the door. look at us, he seems to say with every breath. look how fucking tender missionary can be.

“i swear to god if you light a candle—”

“i’m going to whisper how much i admire your work ethic.”

“satoru.”

he kisses the inside of your elbow.

“i’m gonna say i love your playlists.”

“oh my god.”

he climbs up, mouth ghosting over your jaw now, weight sinking into the mattress as he settles between your legs fully, both your hands pinned above your head with his, gaze locking onto yours with that glint—equal parts mockery and reverence. his breath is warm, lips millimeters from yours, teasing.

“i’m gonna make you come while telling you how smart you are.”

you stare, blinking, lips parting like you’re gonna come up with a good retort—and then moan when he shifts his hips, not even grinding, just pressing, enough friction to spark heat through the fabric.

he smirks.

“told you,” he whispers. “romantic’s just foreplay with better lighting.”

you blink up at him, heat crawling up your neck like it’s trying to reach your brain and set fire to what little reason you have left. he’s too close. he’s too warm, too gojo, too smug, and the worst part is—he’s not even being his usual chaotic self. this is worse. this is soft. this is slow, deliberate, dragged-out torture disguised as affection, and it’s working way too fucking well.

your arms are stretched above you, wrists pinned by one of his big, veiny hands—so unnecessarily hot—while his other trails down your side again, fingers curling like he’s mapping you out by touch, like every new inch of bare skin is a piece of his personal love letter.

“you’re so warm,” he says, voice quiet now. a little surprised. “you always run hot?”

you groan, cheeks hot as hell. “satoru.”

“i like it,” he adds, his thumb rubbing slow circles into your wrist. “feels like you’re already worked up for me.”

you glare. “this is supposed to be romantic.”

“it is,” he grins, leaning down just enough to drag his nose along your jaw. “i’m romancing you right now. you’re being romanced. fully seduced. by my incredible personality and outstanding emotional depth.”

you burst out laughing, face turning toward the pillow to muffle the sound, and he takes the opportunity to mouth along your neck, pressing an open kiss just below your ear. not biting, not sucking, just soft and slow, his lips dragging along your pulse point like he’s trying to memorize your heartbeat.

his hand leaves your wrist, and you instinctively move to touch him, fingers threading into his hair as he kisses lower, over your collarbone, across your shoulder, moving down with maddening patience. he pulls at your waistband gently, eyes flicking up to meet yours like he’s asking without words, and you nod, breath catching in your throat.

he slides your shorts down, dragging the fabric slowly past your thighs, kissing his way along your hipbone as he goes. nothing rushed. no bravado. just him and the stupid heat of his mouth on your skin, the gentle press of his hands as he settles between your thighs.

he exhales against your inner thigh like a sigh, like he’s been waiting his whole dumb life for this exact moment, and you shiver. “still think this isn’t romantic?” he asks, glancing up with a crooked smile, his breath ghosting over where you’re already embarrassingly wet.

you tug at his hair lightly. “you’re an idiot.”

“a romantic idiot,” he corrects, pressing a kiss just above your knee. “the best kind.” he kisses higher now, slow and trailing, hands rubbing soft patterns into your thighs as he settles deeper between them, anchoring you there like he’s making himself a new home.

“i’m gonna take my time with you,” he whispers, dragging his lips up toward the place you’re aching for. “gonna make you feel so fucking good… and the whole time, i’ll be looking at you like we’re married and i just made you breakfast.”

you snort. “is that your fantasy? missionary and eggs benedict?”

he hums against your skin, lips curving. “yeah, but you’re the eggs. i’m gonna ruin you.” you squeak, shoving at his head, but your legs don’t move. they can’t, not when he’s got them opened like this, not when his mouth is that close, not when your whole body’s vibrating from anticipation.

he chuckles again, smug and soft, and presses one more kiss just shy of where you want him, before leaning back up and dragging his body over yours, forearm bracing beside your head.

his mouth finds yours again, slow and coaxing, like he’s drinking from you, like every sound you make is holy. he kisses you like he’s got forever. like tonight’s the only night that matters. and even though it’s still teasing, still laced with filth and humor and all the usual gojo mess—you feel the care in it. the attention. the goddamn sweetness.

his nose brushes yours as he pulls back just enough to speak.

“missionary’s lookin’ pretty good right now, huh?”

you can’t speak. you just nod.

“that’s what i fuckin’ thought,” he murmurs, and kisses you again, deeper now, hungrier.

and somehow—stupidly, undeniably—it is romantic.

his kiss deepens and it changes something—slips out of that playful, teasing rhythm and sinks into a weightier kind of heat, slow and intentional. like he’s not just kissing you because he wants to, but because he needs to, like there’s something about your mouth he’s been thinking about every night he lay awake jerking off with his phone on silent and your face stuck in his memory.

gojo presses closer, one arm sliding beneath your back to lift you into him, like even now, he can’t stand a sliver of distance. your thighs fall open around his hips without resistance, your body pliant, high and fuzzy and ready, even as your brain’s still catching up, trying to convince you this is actually happening.

and still—still he doesn’t go for your panties yet. he’s grinding against them through his jeans, slow, careful, more like he’s testing pressure than chasing friction. he doesn’t need to rush, not with you already sighing into his mouth, your nails dragging light patterns over the back of his neck, legs wrapping around him like a question you don’t know how to ask.

he hums against your lips, low and pleased. his voice sounds deeper now, like it’s sitting low in his chest, like lust’s finally dragging it down out of his usual chirpy register and into something that sounds like intent.

“fuck,” he murmurs, breath hot against your cheek, “you feel so fuckin’ good already and i’m not even inside you.” his nose nuzzles yours as his hand ghosts down your side again, over your waist, over the soft of your hip, sliding slow between your thighs—warm and steady, pressing the heel of his palm against your center, not touching anything properly yet, just there, enough to make you buck a little without thinking.

he pulls back to watch you, eyes blown out, grin lazy and eyes focused in a way that’s almost too much—like he’s trying to memorize the way your face changes with each drag of his hand. “don’t hide your face,” he whispers, brushing hair from your forehead. “i wanna see everything. this is the romantic part, remember?”

you glare at him weakly, lip caught between your teeth. “you’re such a dick.”

he beams. “a romantic dick.”

his fingers hook into your waistband slowly, dragging your panties down your thighs, and even then he doesn’t move too fast. he stops just to kiss the crease of your thigh, to mouth the soft skin above your knee like he’s got nowhere else to be. he keeps talking under his breath, too—his filthy little monologue of worship and teasing:

“so pretty. so soft. you always smell this good? i shoulda done this years ago. god, the way you’re lookin’ at me right now—fuck. fuck. this is better than porn.”

you groan, hiding your face again. he just laughs and pulls your hands away, pinning them gently beside your head. “you’re not allowed to be shy now, babe,” he murmurs. “not after all that talk.” then, he grinds again—slow, hips rolling forward against your now-bare heat, his cock thick and hot through his jeans before he slowly push it off his legs, dragging perfectly along your slick folds, not in, not yet, just enough to make you whimper, thighs tightening around his hips.

you say his name and it breaks on your tongue, half a moan, half a warning. his mouth finds yours again, and it’s gentler this time, breathier, softer, like the kind of kiss you give someone after an argument, or a goodbye, or a promise. “this,” he whispers, between slow rolls of his hips, “is what they don’t get about missionary. it’s not boring.”

he kisses your cheek. your jaw. your throat.

“it’s close.”

he cups your breast with one hand, thumb brushing over your nipple until your back arches. “it’s eye contact.” he pushes the tip of his cock just barely against your entrance, just a tease, not even enough to press in, just the heat and pressure and promise, and it’s maddening. “it’s feelin’ every twitch you make.” his other hand cradles your face now, thumb brushing over your cheek, his eyes locked on yours.

“and when i finally fuck you—”

you tremble beneath him, fingers gripping his shoulders like you’re drowning.

“—you’re not gonna be able to look away.”

your breath catches. your lips part. your thighs shake.

and he’s still smiling, so slow, so patient, hips rocking against yours in a way that’s somehow sweeter than anything you’ve done with him before. “see?” he whispers, forehead pressed to yours. “romance. just with more lube.”

his cockhead slides slick and hot along your folds—slow, teasing passes up and down the length of your pussy like he’s learning you by feel, like he’s savoring every tremble you can’t suppress. he doesn’t push in yet, just drags the tip lazily, catching your clit on the upstroke, smearing your slick over the flushed head with every patient, maddening grind. it’s warm and messy and obscene, his hips rolling slow, the weight of him heavy between your thighs, arms braced on either side of your head, body coiled but unhurried.

you’re breathing through your mouth now, lips parted, chest rising fast. his forehead’s still resting against yours, breath hot, both of you in this sticky, perfect moment suspended just before the fall. you lift one hand, threading your fingers into his hair—so soft, even now—and the other slips to the buttons of his shirt.

“i need—” you start, but don’t finish. he just nods.

you work the buttons open one by one, trembling fingers moving slow at first, then faster, frantic for skin. every button undone reveals more of him—long lines of lean muscle under smooth skin, flushed now, glowing in the golden halo of the fairy lights. his collarbones, his sternum, the subtle dip down the center of his chest, the way he moves above you with every breath—it’s fucking perfect. stupidly, unreasonably perfect.

your palms flatten against his chest, dragging down over the flex of his abs, feeling him shudder under your touch. he’s warm, a little sticky with sweat, skin like silk over steel. your nails graze his ribs and he gasps into your neck.

“fuck, you’re gonna kill me,” he mutters.

“shut up and fuck me,” you breathe back, and it’s not even desperate—it’s reverent. his cock nudges against your entrance, hips rolling forward, and then he pushes. slow. impossibly slow. inch by inch, your pussy stretching around him, swallowing him, your breath caught in your throat as the fullness builds, thick and unbearable and perfect.

his forehead presses back to yours. his mouth drops open, eyes squeezed shut, groaning soft and hoarse like the pleasure hurts. you wrap your legs around his waist, pull him in deeper, your hands sliding up his back. your nails dig in—deep—carving red lines into the flex of his shoulder blades and down along his spine. he hisses against your lips, a sound that’s more pleasure than pain, hips stuttering.

“shit—baby—fuck—”

he bottoms out with a shaky grind of his hips, buried so deep inside you that you feel like you’ve been marked from the inside out. every twitch of him against your walls sends sparks up your spine. and he just stays there for a moment, not moving, breathing you in.

“you feel—” he tries, but then laughs breathlessly, shaking his head. “—i don’t have the words. you feel like heaven and punishment and fucking home.” your hands curl tighter into his back, your lips brushing his cheek as you whisper back, “i told you i was romantic.”

“you’re a fucking dream,” he whispers.

then his hips start to move.

his hips begin to move with the kind of slow, reverent rhythm that makes your throat tighten. like every inch he draws back is a silent apology, and every inch he pushes back in is a promise he’ll never leave. it’s not just sex—it's the ache of something bigger pressing down on both of you, thick in the air like incense, like heat, like the way his mouth brushes yours with every shallow thrust, not always kissing, just there, sharing breath, the smallest space between you charged and crackling.

you’re wrapped around him fully now—legs looped over his waist, hands tangled in the open cotton of his shirt that’s slipped halfway off his shoulders, your nails still painting invisible trails down his back. you can feel the burn where you scratched him raw, and he’s still groaning every time your nails dig a little deeper, like it feeds him, like he likes the proof of you on his body.

but it’s slow. fucking unbearably slow.

he’s not slamming into you like some desperate teenage fantasy. no—gojo is making love to you with the body of a sinner and the mouth of a man who knows every joke will hit harder with your cunt squeezing around his cock.

“you’re so fucking tight,” he murmurs against your lips, grinning through a groan, forehead still pressed to yours. “like—fuck, like you’re trying to keep me forever.” you whimper softly, one hand sliding into his hair, tugging at the roots just to feel him react. and he does, hips hitching slightly deeper, eyes fluttering shut as he pants against your cheek.

“that what this is?” he breathes. “romance as entrapment? mm—baby, if that’s what you’re after, you’ve got me.” he pulls out almost to the tip, dragging the ridge of his cockhead against your soaked entrance, then sinks back in slowly—too slowly—and you arch into him, breath catching with a soft, gasping moan.

“fuck,” he whispers, voice cracked. “listen to you.”

his hand slips between you now, palm flat against your stomach first, then lower, his fingers finding your clit like second nature, rubbing soft circles that match the slow grind of his hips. the pressure makes your thighs tighten around him, your hips canting upward, breath stuttering.

“so good,” you gasp, eyes fluttering. “satoru—fuck—don’t stop.”

“never,” he promises, eyes locked on yours now, wide and bright and open, not cocky this time, not laughing—just full of that stupid, terrifying sincerity he hides under every joke. “fuck, you feel so good. so soft. warm. like your pussy’s in love with me even if your mouth won’t say it yet.”

you let out a broken laugh, hands clutching his shoulders, your body moving with his now, rolling into every thrust, every tender rub of his fingers over your clit. “i hate you,” you whisper, dazed, overwhelmed, completely gone.

he grins, mouth brushing yours again. “no, you don’t.”

“i really do—”

“then why’s your cunt fluttering every time i say something romantic?”

you choke on a laugh that dissolves into a moan, and he kisses it off your lips, his thrusts picking up just barely—still slow, still deep, but with a heat that builds under your skin, spreading outward like a wave you know you won’t survive. “missionary,” he breathes, like he’s blessing you with the word. “best position in the world.”

“fuck you—”

“you are,” he laughs, cock twitching inside you. “you’re so fucking mine right now.”

you grab his face, pull him down into another kiss—sloppy, wet, real, all tongue and teeth and heat. he’s moaning into your mouth now, every roll of his hips drawing a whine out of your throat, every filthy little circle of his fingers making your stomach twist tight. “you’re not allowed to be good at this,” you manage to gasp between kisses. “oh, baby,” he pants, forehead pressed back to yours, cock grinding deeper, his voice dropping low and filthy. “you haven’t even seen me try yet.”

his hips drag deep and slow like he’s sculpting the inside of you with his cock, and you’re shaking beneath him—sweat-damp skin sliding against his, toes curled, fingers sunk into his back so hard you know you’ll leave scratches he’s going to brag about for weeks. gojo’s face is buried against your throat, his breath coming out in broken little groans, every sound pitched high and wrecked like he’s unraveling with you, held together by nothing but the rhythm of his thrusts and the heat blooming in your core.

you’re soaked around him, clenching every time he rolls his hips into you with that slow, relentless grind that drags the thick head of his cock across your sweetest spot just right, again and again. the slick sound of him fucking you fills the room, obscene and wet, echoing off the walls like music behind the ragged whimpering of your breath and his deep, shuddering groans.

your thighs twitch around his waist, your head thrown back against the pillows, mouth open, voice cracking as you moan, “fuck—fuck—satoru—i’m gonna—i can’t—fuck—”

“yes, baby,” he pants, voice completely shot, wrecked and desperate, every word punctuated by a thrust that goes just a little harder, a little deeper. “come on, i feel you—shit, you’re squeezing me so—fuck, come for me, baby, come on me, i wanna feel you break—”

your back arches and you scream—loud, raw, real—hands flying to his hair, tugging hard as your orgasm slams through you like a tidal wave, pussy fluttering around him, tight and hot and soaked. your entire body locks up, toes curling, thighs shaking violently as pleasure rips through you in sharp, electric pulses that have you gasping his name again and again—“satoru—satoru—fuckfuckfuck—oh my god—”

he’s losing it above you, losing his fucking mind, his cock twitching hard inside you as your walls milk him with every spasm. his forehead’s pressed to yours, mouth hanging open, breath coming in short, wrecked little moans—“f-fuck—oh fuck, baby, oh my god—your pussy’s choking me—gonna—gonna—i’m gonna—”

he slams into you one last time, hips jerking as he moans so loud right in your ear, deep and guttural and shaking with how hard he comes, cock throbbing as he spills inside you, filling you up, his whole body shuddering as he gasps, "oh fuck, yes—yesyesyes—oh my fucking god—yes."

you’re both panting, legs wrapped tight around his waist, arms pulling him down, needing him close even as your bodies tremble against each other. his cock is still twitching inside you, your walls still fluttering with aftershocks, and he’s breathing your name like he’s worshipping it, forehead pressed to yours as he whispers, “that was—fuck—baby—i felt everything. you—you killed me.”

you laugh, hoarse and fucked-out, body buzzing like live wire. “missionary?” he pants, lips brushing yours. “best fucking position,” you gasp, still clenching around him, making him groan all over again.

he smiles. “god, i love being right.”

his body is still trembling against yours, muscles twitching under your hands as he slowly, reluctantly, starts to move again—like he’s not ready to let go of the feeling, like being buried in you with your legs locked around his waist is something he’d live inside if the world would just let him.

he’s panting into your neck, soft little exhales against your damp skin, and you can feel the shape of every breath, the way his chest stutters against yours like he’s still trying to come back to earth. and inside you, he’s still thick, still sensitive, every subtle squeeze of your cunt making him whimper.

you grin, dazed, half-dead, fully fucked out, dragging your nails up his back with gentle pressure now, tracing along the red welts you carved earlier like a painter admiring their masterpiece. “you’re leaking inside me,” you murmur, voice rough and slurred, hips shifting just enough to feel the warm, wet spill of him dripping down your thighs.

he groans, long and low, and lifts his head to look at you. his bangs are plastered to his forehead, eyes glassy and blown wide, lips swollen and parted as he breathes. there’s sweat at his temple, a flush high in his cheeks, and the expression on his face is somewhere between holy shit and i could marry you right now and cry doing it.

“you keep squeezing me like that, baby,” he says, voice shredded, “and i’ll give you another load without even moving.”

you laugh breathlessly, biting your lip, and he kisses you—messy, slow, full of tongue and heat and that unbearable sweetness that he only ever shows you in quiet moments like this. his hips roll forward just a little, and even though you’re both sensitive, you both moan, gasping against each other’s mouths.

“fuck,” you breathe, nails digging gently into his shoulder blades again. “you came so much, satoru.”

“‘course i did,” he pants, pulling back just enough to look down at where your bodies are still joined. he moves his hips in the slightest circle, still buried inside you, cock twitching, and watches your cunt flutter around him like it’s still begging for more.

“how could i not?” he continues, eyes wide, voice soft with shock. “you—you milked me. i didn’t even get to fuck you hard. you came and just took it from me. you robbed me. you’re a criminal.” you giggle, wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him back down into your chest. “you liked it.”

“i loved it,” he groans, pressing kisses to your collarbone, mouthing against your skin like he can’t stop. “missionary’s never gonna be the same. i’m gonna be useless. this pussy’s got emotional consequences.”

you snort, and he keeps talking like he’s possessed, rambling sweet and filthy things against your skin. “gonna write about this in my journal. not even a sex diary. just regular journal. ‘dear diary, the love of my life fucked me dumb in my own basement. i cried a little.’”

“you didn’t cry,” you say, even as you’re laughing again.

“not yet.”

you’re still full of him, and he’s still twitching inside you like he’s thinking about round two, and honestly—you are too. the room’s still glowing soft with the fairy lights. your bodies are stuck together with sweat and come and the kind of heat that doesn’t cool easy. your thighs are sticky around his hips. his fingers haven’t stopped stroking your side. you can hear your friends still laughing distantly from the living room, and none of it matters.

he presses his forehead to yours again, noses brushing. “you wanna go again?” he asks, voice soft now, full of a wicked little smile. “slow this time. slower than this.”

you blink at him.

“that was slow.”

he grins. “i can go slower.”

your breath catches, your body already aching in the best way.

“what, you gonna put on music and cry while you fuck me?”

“only if you want me to,” he whispers, and then kisses you again, tender and deep.

and god help you—you might.

after a few moments of so-called dramatic silence—it’s not, because gojo’s incapable of shutting up even post-orgasm—you finally sigh, drop your head back with a groan, and sit up on the edge of the bed, still dazed, still soaked, still trying to remember how to be a functioning human being. your thighs stick together when you shift. the air is thick with sex and sweat and that particular smugness that only gojo satoru can radiate like body heat.

meanwhile, he’s half-dressed and strutting around like a peacock that just won a dance battle. his jeans are back on—sloppily buttoned, zipper half-down, belt missing—and his shirt is absolutely not on because it’s somewhere across the room where he tossed it like a used napkin. he’s humming to himself as he pokes through the wreckage of the bed’s surroundings, eyes sparkling like he just found religion.

“where the hell did your bra go?” he mutters, pulling a sock off the lampshade and examining it like it might transform. “jesus, did i eat it?—oh, nope. got it. it was under my back.”

you groan again, arms folded across your chest, hair a tangled halo around your face, watching him with your chin tucked against your knees. “can you just—bring me my shirt before you go on another satoru soliloquy?”

“no can do, miss missionary evangelist,” he says, holding your crumpled shirt in one hand and dramatically placing your bra over his shoulder like a sash. “not until you publicly acknowledge that you were wrong and i, gojo satoru, bringer of orgasmic truth, proved—beyond reasonable doubt—that missionary is the best position known to mankind.”

you throw a pillow at him.

it hits his face, bounces off, and he keeps smiling.

“fine,” you mutter, reaching out as he steps in close. “yes. missionary with you, the stupidest man in our group, was good. amazing. disgustingly good.”

“romantic,” he corrects, kneeling in front of you now, the shirt falling from his hand onto your lap, the bra dangling from two fingers as he smirks up at you. “romantically stupid,” you clarify, grinning despite the embarrassment curling under your skin.

“they’re gonna die when they hear you let me make love to you like a Jane Austen adaptation,” he says, gently nudging your thighs apart so he can help you step into your underwear. “haibara’s gonna combust. shoko’s gonna stage an intervention.”

“shoko’s gonna accuse me of spiritual regression,” you say, lifting your hips so he can slide the fabric back over them. “and i’m gonna prove her wrong. i’m gonna look her in the eyes and tell her: ‘even doing missionary with the dumbest man i know, it was still the best.’ and you know what? i’m gonna mean it.”

gojo grins like the devil with a heart of gold.

“now that’s the kinda testimonial i wanna hear in a courtroom,” he says, fingers dragging slowly up your thighs, hooking your shorts next. “tell the jury, sweetheart. tell ‘em what it felt like.” you swat his shoulder, cheeks flushing again. “just help me put my bra on, casanova.”

he does—surprisingly gently, fingers cool against your back, hooking the clasp with practiced ease before pulling your shirt down over your head, smoothing the fabric over your hips like he’s dressing a doll he won in a fucked-up carnival game. and when he stands up again, you reach for his bicep, eyes catching on the faint red lines blooming just under the curve of his muscle.

your fingers trace one—long, angry, scabbed slightly already. the mark from your nails. from when you came so hard you clawed him like you were drowning in him. your breath catches a little.

“does that hurt?” you ask, voice low, thumb brushing it softer now.

he looks down at your hand. then at you.

and grins.

“hurt? no, baby. it’s proof.”

“proof of what? that i mauled you like a cat in heat?”

“proof that missionary ruins lives.” you choke on a laugh, and he throws his arms out dramatically, flexing the arm with the red lines like a trophy. “i’m gonna show everyone,” he says proudly. “i’m gonna walk out there and tell them: this? this was earned through slow, passionate, eye-contact-heavy fucking.”

you blink. “you’re gonna brag about being scratched during tender sex?”

“hell yes i am. this is a scarlet letter and i’m wearing it with pride.”

you bury your face in your hands.

“i’m gonna have to move cities.”

he leans down, kisses your hair, still giddy.

“no you’re not. you’re gonna go out there, sit on that couch, and smile smugly while they cry about how you got the good shit.”

“what, missionary?”

he winks. “romantic missionary.”

you shake your head, grabbing his hand to stand up with a sigh. your legs still tremble slightly, and he catches you with an arm around your waist. “we tell them,” he whispers in your ear, “but we don’t tell them everything.”

“deal.”

you walk out first, mostly because gojo insisted on dramatically opening the door for you like some fucked-up victorian husband escorting his blushing bride after the most sacred consummation of their union—which is rich, considering there was nothing sacred about what just happened unless you count the part where you saw god for a few seconds while pinned beneath the dumbest man in your life.

the moment the door creaks open, the silence is immediate and vicious. like the eye of a hurricane. the group sprawled across the living room snaps their heads toward the hallway in unison like a pack of wild animals smelling the aftermath of debauchery—and the look on their faces?

oh yeah. they know.

you’re glowing. not figuratively. literally. your skin’s flushed and gleaming with sweat, your shirt slightly off the shoulder, your lips swollen, your hair a disaster that no dry shampoo or dignity could save. a fresh constellation of hickeys blooms across your neck like you had a one-night stand with the concept of poor decision-making. you’ve got that post-sex daze in your eyes—the kind that says your soul left your body for twenty-seven minutes and came back softer.

and gojo?

gojo looks worse. or better, depending on how deranged your standards are.

shirtless. completely unbothered. jeans slung low like gravity’s trying to preserve the last shreds of your dignity and failing. his hair’s a wild mess, fluffed and chaotic, the way it always gets when you’ve pulled it hard—and oh, you did. his face is pink and flushed, lips bitten, pupils blown, and he’s got this grin, this absolutely illegal, felony-level smug grin, like he just won a championship no one else knew they were playing.

his back and arms are fucking wrecked. scratch marks everywhere. some long and shallow, others deep and angry, crisscrossing like tally marks on a prison wall. his biceps? ruined. shoulders? decorated. lower back? absolutely mauled. he’s walking like a man who survived the trenches and wants everyone to know it. he’s not even pretending to be humble.

you both step into the room and immediately—

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—” haibara lets out a guttural scream like he’s witnessing a murder. he drops the pool cue he wasn’t even holding right and clutches his face. “you look—he looks—i didn’t even know backs could bruise like that,” utahime says, pointing, voice somewhere between horrified and hysterical.

shoko slowly sits up straighter, blinking at your neck, her eyes narrowing as she catalogues the damage. “that’s… impressive. Disgusting, but impressive.” geto whistles low, lounging on the couch with his legs crossed like he’s the judge in a porno talent show. “is that a bite on your collarbone? did you actually leave teeth marks?”

gojo throws an arm around your shoulder like a victorious war hero returning home, full of glory and sin and not a shred of guilt. “ladies,” he says, voice hoarse and soaked in self-satisfaction, “gentlemen. sluts of all genders. i am here to confirm that romantic missionary is not dead.”

you smack his chest but don’t move away.

you’re already laughing, breathless, flushed, and shameless. “even with him,” you announce to the room, lifting your chin, “missionary is still the best position. maybe the best I’ve ever had.”

dead silence.

and then the couch erupts.

haibara throws a pillow at you so hard it ricochets and hits nanami in the face. utahime screams. shoko collapses backward, legs kicking, full-body laughing like a woman betrayed. geto claps slow and dramatic, head shaking. “you’ve broken her,” shoko howls, “she’s gone, she’s converted. next she’ll say handholding’s hot!”

“it is,” gojo says, absolutely delighted. “you’re a slut,” utahime says, pointing at you, but her voice is grinning. “every position is the best for you. you could get railed in a dentist chair and you’d moan about how it’s your new favorite.”

“i’m versatile,” you say proudly, flicking your hair like it isn’t a crime scene. “you’re deranged,” nanami mutters, finally lifting his head just to sip something dangerously amber. “no, no, wait,” haibara gasps, pointing at gojo. “he still doesn’t have a shirt on. why doesn’t he have a shirt on? is that blood? IS THAT BLOOD?”

“scratches, sweetheart,” gojo coos, turning around like a model showing off his back to the judges. “proof of passion. her nails did all this. i am but a humble canvas.”

“he moaned when i did it,” you add, deadpan.

shoko screams into a cushion.

“i need bleach for my eyes,” utahime mutters. geto nods solemnly. “i knew missionary would be the one to take you down. i didn’t think it would actually work.”

gojo slumps dramatically into the couch, dragging you with him, arms still around your waist like he can’t let go now that he’s ruined you emotionally and spiritually. he kisses your temple with obnoxious affection, legs spread wide like a man proud of the ruin he left behind.

“this,” he says, motioning to his face, “is the face of a man who made love and won.” you lean back against his chest, sighing like a satisfied villain. “and this is the face of a woman who has no regrets.”

utahime flings her slipper across the room.

“take your slutty love story and get the fuck out.” and all you can do is laugh, tangled with the man who made missionary feel like a religious experience, glowing like a filthy miracle, while your friends spiral in the wake of your post-sex enlightenment.

the scene that follows is nothing short of a cinematic meltdown, a group mental collapse broadcast in full color under the low glow of gojo’s cursed mood lighting. the basement already reeked of weed and spilled cheap whiskey, but now it’s thick with the stench of defeat. your victory. his absolute, unapologetic, shirtless triumph.

gojo leans back into the couch like he owns the fucking place—well, he does, technically, but now it’s like he owns the narrative, the mythos. his arms spread over the back of the cushions, one dangling casually behind your shoulders, the other resting across your thigh like a hand claiming territory. he’s not even pretending to put his shirt back on anymore. it lies somewhere in the corner, forgotten, like decency itself. his chest gleams with sweat and scratches. his hair looks like a bird tried nesting in it during the act. and he smiles.

that dumb, cocky, post-sex smile like he just unlocked a new religion and you’re the first disciple.

you’re still glowing. cheeks flushed, lips kiss-bitten, shirt stretched from being pulled halfway over your head at one point and now just barely covering the constellation of hickeys painted from your neck to your collarbone. you look like you just committed a crime and are so proud of the mugshot.

“it wasn’t just good,” you declare, fingers lazily adjusting your hair with all the grace of a slutty war general. “it was enlightenment. i saw god and she winked at me.”

“was she into missionary too?” geto asks, eyes squinting as he exhales smoke through his nose.

“she invented it,” you say solemnly.

shoko’s lost in the corner of the couch, one sock off, one sock on, a throw blanket over her head as she moans, “i am going to exorcise this entire night from my memory. i am going to bleach my soul.” utahime looks at you, then gojo, then you again, pointing a trembling finger as she says, “the worst part is you’re not even ashamed. you’re not even pretending.”

“what is there to be ashamed of?” gojo grins, tilting his head and stretching his legs out like a lounge chair with a heartbeat. “i made her come with eye contact and emotional intimacy. you’re welcome.”

“you did not make me cry,” you say through your teeth, blushing all over again.

he just hums and presses a kiss to your temple.

“you wanted to cry.”

“you literally told me you’d fall in love with me if i kept clenching.”

“and did you?” he raises an eyebrow.

you flick his nipple. he gasps like a scandalized housewife.

“anyway,” you sigh dramatically, like you didn’t just have your soul rearranged missionary style by a man who can’t name five vegetables, “i stand by it. even with gojo. especially with gojo. missionary is the best position ever.”

haibara’s curled up in the fetal position on the beanbag, face buried in a throw pillow, groaning loud enough to qualify as a siren. “i hate this timeline. i hate this dimension.”

“you’re all just mad it wasn’t you,” gojo chirps.

“no one wants to do missionary with you!” utahime shouts.

“she did,” he says smugly, nudging you with his knee.

“she’s a slut!” shoko yells from beneath the blanket. “every position is the best for her! she’d say reverse piledriver is romantic if you called her ‘sweetheart’ while doing it!”

you shrug unapologetically. “what can i say? i value connection.”

“you value getting railed while someone holds your hand,” nanami deadpans, not even looking up from the book he inexplicably pulled out sometime during this hellish conversation.

“yes, and?”

“honestly?” geto exhales smoke, eyes thoughtful. “it’s kind of poetic.”

“oh don’t you start,” utahime groans.

gojo tucks his chin over your shoulder now, holding you close, his voice a warm hum in your ear. “i’m gonna write a manifesto. ‘missionary for the modern man: an erotic treatise.’ subtitle: with love, and balls-deep penetration.”

you start laughing so hard you nearly fall off the couch.

“you’re insane,” you say, wheezing.

“i’m revolutionary,” he murmurs, planting a kiss just behind your ear. “i’m a pioneer. i’m the christopher columbus of tender fucking.”

“he committed genocide,” you say.

“okay,” gojo says, thoughtful, “then i’m the neil armstrong of romantic nut.”

“you didn’t discover the moon, satoru,” nanami says flatly.

“maybe she’s my moon,” gojo murmurs, dramatically clutching his chest, “and i left my footprints all over her surface.”

you grab a throw pillow and smack him in the face.

he catches it, kisses it, throws it back.

your friends are all either screaming, sobbing, or plotting your deaths.

but you?

you’re smiling.

and glowing.

and still a little sore in the best fucking way.

#jjk smut #gojo x reader #gojo x y/n #gojo x you #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen imagine #gojo smut #gojo satoru smut #jjk x reader smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #satoru smut #gojo satoru imagine #gojo satoru x reader #anime smut #gojo fluff #jjk fic

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reality-detective · 1 month ago

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BOOM!!! TRUMP’S CHEMTRAIL STRIKE BEGINS — FIRST GEOENGINEERING ARREST IN U.S. HISTORY

The sky war has officially gone HOT.

President Trump’s Chemtrails Task Force has launched its first coordinated strike — resulting in the first-ever arrest tied to illegal atmospheric geoengineering. The Deep State’s aerial warfare program is crumbling.

They called us crazy. They mocked the chemtrail warnings. They silenced truth. But now? THEY’RE BEING ARRESTED.

For decades, patriots were told it was all “condensation.” That the skies weren’t being tampered with. But those streaks weren’t water vapor — they were the exhaust trails of Deep State environmental warfare.

Now, under Trump’s direct command, a classified multi-agency task force involving Space Force, loyal Air Force units, and DOJ insiders has begun rounding up the traitors.

TARGETS IDENTIFIED. FINANCIAL NETWORKS FROZEN. OPERATIVES IN CUSTODY.

A senior EPA official tied to unauthorized spraying ops has been detained. Private contractors linked to aerial dispersal tech are next. These weren’t just rogue experiments — this was organized ecological sabotage.

Follow the money: Billions routed through fake green initiatives and climate tech shells. These “eco” elites were getting paid to poison crops, shift weather patterns, and destroy food supply chains.

Shadow departments inside federal agencies are being dismantled. These weren’t fringe operations. They were embedded in the system — funded by OUR tax dollars to destroy OUR skies.

And the media? TOTAL BLACKOUT.

No headlines. No press releases. No experts on CNN. Because they’re complicit. Owned by the same cartels behind the chemical sky war.

This silence IS the proof.

The arrests are only the beginning. Thousands of sealed indictments are prepped. CEOs. Scientists. Politicians. Military traitors. Everyone who touched this agenda will fall.

TRUMP IS UNLEASHING FULL DISCLOSURE.

Weather modification. Drought creation. Biochemical cloud seeding. These aren’t theories anymore — they’re EVIDENCE. And the American people are about to witness a STORM like no other.

PATRIOTS WERE RIGHT.

THE BATTLE FOR THE SKIES HAS BEGUN.

AND THIS TIME — WE TAKE THEM BACK. 🤔

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weemietime · 8 months ago

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i am asking this in good faith

If the Bosnian Genocide is has been ruled a genocide and the death count was 33,071 people, how is what is happening in Gaza not a genocide when the number has been surpassed

Because genocide is not about the number of people being killed. Genocide is a specific legal term, and it has to have two components: 1) obviously people have to be murdered -- but this must be done systemically, as a policy (either written or unwritten) of the belligerent party. AND 2) there has to be genocidal intention to murder said people. Genocidal intention means that Party A (Israel) murders Party B (Palestinians) specifically because those people belong to Party B (Palestinians). There is no evidence that Israel has a genocidal intention. In fact, the October 7th massacre was actually a genocidal act on behalf of Hamas - Hamas committed the genocidal action and has been committing genocidal actions for over 20 years, because they specifically want to murder Jews for being Jewish. They also meet the first criteria because this is a systemic policy that is present in the Hamas Charter.

This is very important to distinguish because whilst genocide is a war crime, not all war crimes are genocide. Israel has committed war crimes, including murdering civilians, and even intentionally allowing civilians to be killed (such as bombing a house with a Hamas member in it and killing his family members). But this is not sufficient to rise to the criteria of genocide. We could make the argument that there is ethnic cleansing, because the vast majority of the people being evacuated are of a single ethnicity, Palestinian. However, again, ethnic cleansing alone is not sufficient to rise to the definition of genocide.

Crucially, the ICJ has not ruled that there is a genocide ongoing. They have ruled prima facie that 1) South Africa has the right to accuse Israel of genocide, and 2) that the ICJ itself is fit to hear and rule on the accusation. They have also ordered Hamas to release the civilian hostages, so if Hamas is saying they want to abide by the ICJ, they have already disregarded the ICJ ruling.

Genocide is not based on vibes. It's not based on bad feelings. It's not based on videos and images of dead kids, or destroyed rubble. Genocide is a specific legal term that can only be applied to the above scenario, and it cheapens our language when we levy it in circumstances where it does not apply. It especially cheapens our language when we engage in Holocaust inversion by claiming Israel is doing to Palestine what Germany did to the Jews, which is categorically false.

Beyond this, it belittles the groups that are involved in this conflict, particularly Hamas, to treat them like they are innocent civilians when they are in fact a very well-outfitted military brigade and the official armed forces of the Gazan government with over 40,000 fighters strong, who repeatedly and loudly say "death to Israel, we want to annihilate Israel, we will commit October 7th again and again until Israel is destroyed." They are being funded by the IRGC, they are being used as a proxy for Iran, and innocent Palestinian civilians are suffering as a result. Hamas has openly said that the "blood of martyrs fuels our resistance," they have openly said they hope Palestinian civilians die in droves while they steal aid and resell it at absurd mark-ups, while they flee to Egypt and Qatar so that they don't have to get their hands dirty. They recruit and brainwash young children to fight their "holy war" to murder as many Jews as possible.

And in terms of the death toll, you have to understand that this war is being fought in an urban environment where the belligerents are embedded purposely in the civilian population, in tunnels all throughout the civilian infrastructure. Violating the Geneva Conventions by using hospitals and schools as military bases, refusing to wear uniforms, and intentionally shooting their own people and blaming Israel.

These people even play tapes pretending to be hostages shouting in Hebrew "don't shoot," which is one of the reasons why a hostage was accidentally killed by the IDF, which is then turned around to show how evil the IDF is without understanding the context that these events happen in. In normal urban warfare the ratio of civilian to combatant death is around 9:1. In Gaza, the ratio is, according to Hamas's own numbers, 4:1. Literally twice as low as the average. So, yeah. War crimes are happening. Yes. Absolutely. Genocide is not happening, at least, it's not happening to the Palestinians.

#weemie #israel #palestine #genocide #gaza genocide #hamas #ask #i/p #i/p conflict #i/p war #jumblr

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saratalksaboutdesign · 3 months ago

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Edelgard is possibly one of the best character designs that the Fire Emblem franchise has to offer. Particularly her War arc design.

The cape gives her a silhouette that makes her appear much greater in size despite being one of the shortest characters in the game. The white inside layer of the cape helps accentuate her figure in a way that makes her appear more mature, and when combined with the regal golden accents spread throughout, plus the black high heel boots. It makes her a truly intimidating figure to witness, fitting of her military prowess and political status as the emperor of her nation.

The bright red, which in her original academy uniform was used as a secondary color, has expanded to her entire outfit. Originally, I liked interpreting this as a metaphorical embrace of the blood stains she would be covered by, both in the battlefield and in the public's eye as the one who started the war. But politically speaking, red is a very charged color. It's the color of socialism, the left, and more importantly, it's the color of revolution. Once again, very fitting for the character that wants to tear down the current class system.

The golden horns are a detail that, along with the red, visually tie her to the devil. A sensible design choice to give to the enemy of the church and one that also helps further de-humanize her in the eyes of the player who is playing any other route besides hers.

All in all, a solid 10/10 design. But the real cherry on top that elevates this design into one of the greatest of all time is one small final detail that the player can't even see in game, but is revealed in the art book.

A heart-shaped hole in the back of her dress, concealed under her imperial cape.

In spite of her duty as the heir to the throne, her revolutionary beliefs, and this persona of a heartless, monstrous villainess she has adopted... Underneath it all, there is still a beating heart, one that she has tried her very hardest to keep hidden from the world, as to avoid the temptation to ever turn her back on anyone who could betray her, as to not show weakness in a world full of hardships and social injustice.

I would have loved to see this part of her design somehow included in any scene within the game, but at the same time, I find it deeply meaningful and tragic that you never actually see Edelgard's exposed heart while playing the game, precisely, because she never takes off that royal cape —a literal heavy weight on her shoulders with the symbol of her country embeded on top of the exact same spot where her dress opens— and instead, you can only really observe this detail once it's put outside the context of the story.

Truly, an amazing piece of storytelling through character design.

#saraanalyzes #edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard fire emblem #fe3h #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem heroes #character design

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dr-litcrit · 5 days ago

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The Betrayal of Nick Blaine: How The Handmaid’s Tale Undermined Its Own Storytelling

As a university professor with a PhD in literature, I’ve dedicated my career to analyzing narrative structure, character arcs, and thematic coherence. And I can say this with full confidence: what the writers did to Nick Blaine in Season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale was not bold, subversive, or daring — it was a narrative betrayal.

And just to be clear: I’m not a shipper. I didn’t love Nick because of his romance with June. I appreciated him as a deeply layered character — one whose quiet resistance stood in stark contrast to the more performative defiance of others. Not every act of heroism is loud. Nick’s resistance began long before June entered his life, and for several seasons, the writers honored that. Until they didn’t.

Nick represented something rare on television: a portrayal of a man caught inside a brutal system, not loud or showy, but quietly working to survive while retaining his humanity and fighting back in the ways available to him. His arc was thoughtful, subtle, and realistic — and it offered a necessary counterpoint to the broader, more visible forms of rebellion in the series. That narrative was coherent, moving, and consistent — until Season 6 shattered it for the sake of shock value.

A HISTORY OF RESISTANCE — CAREFULLY BUILT

Nick’s arc was never centered on power. In fact, he resisted it. He smuggled contraband to Jezebels, joined the Eyes in order to report predatory Commanders (after Waterford’s first Handmaid died by suicide), and helped take down Commander Guthrie, one of the architects of the Handmaid system. These weren’t incidental moments — they were intentional signs of internal rebellion that the show carefully planted over multiple seasons.

After meeting June, Nick continued to act strategically. He was the one who secretly smuggled the Jezebels letters out of Gilead and delivered them to Luke in Canada — an act that directly led to Canada refusing to sign a diplomatic agreement with Gilead. And crucially, Nick did this without June asking him to or even knowing about it. At the time, June was in a terrible mental state, so desperate that she tried to burn the letters in the sink. Nick hid the Jezebels letters in his apartment before Eden moved in — making it all the more risky once she arrived and began snooping through his things.

His promotions weren’t rewards but consequences. Serena arranged his marriage to Eden out of jealousy. His rise to Commander wasn’t a reward for loyalty — it was a consequence of his decision to pull a gun on Fred to help June and Nicole escape, as even Joseph Fiennes has confirmed in interviews. Even his marriage to Rose served a clear purpose: to get closer to Hannah’s captors, the Mackenzies, and position himself in a place where he could act.

Importantly, the Marthas in Season 4 speak to Nick like an equal, not like someone they fear. One even asks him, “Is this business as usual?” — a small but significant clue that Nick had been working with the Martha network for a long time. This wasn’t a sudden shift. His ties to the resistance were consistent and deliberate. Even other Commanders call him a “boy scout” in Season 6 — a nickname that reflects his perceived moral rigidity and difference from the men around him.

THE HINTS THE WRITERS LEFT — THEN ABANDONED

Throughout the first five seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, the writers laid down clear and deliberate hints that Nick was meant to function as a quiet resistor embedded within Gilead’s system. His actions were not accidental or incidental — they were purposeful choices, woven into the narrative to build a coherent, morally complex character.

Another major hint came in a cut scene from Season 3 — one that never made it to the screen but is preserved in the official scripts. In that scene, Nick is shown at the front during Gilead’s military campaigns, standing alongside Commander Mackenzie. This wasn’t designed to show him as complicit — quite the opposite. It placed him close to Hannah’s captors, setting up his position to act as an inside link, a person who might eventually help June find and rescue her daughter. This scene reinforced what the show had been quietly building all along: Nick was where he needed to be, playing the long game.

His abrupt marriage to Rose further aligned with this arc. It wasn’t a romantic choice or a reward — it was another calculated move to get close to the Mackenzie family. The fact that we saw him and Rose at dinners with them in Season 5 wasn’t coincidence — it was strategy. Nick was positioning himself exactly where he could observe, influence, and perhaps, one day, act.

And here’s something telling: in his apartment above the garage, we see Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. That’s not just a random prop. It’s a novel about enduring love and resistance in the face of cruelty and loss. The writers deliberately placed that book in his apartment. It was a clear, intentional signal: Nick was written as someone with inner depth, quiet resistance, and a poetic soul. Bruce Miller says in The Art and Making of The Handmaid’s Tale:

“We were very careful about what books he reads, what books he has, and where we got them.” (p. 34)

And yet, all of these threads were dropped in Season 6. The Mackenzies vanished from the story. The careful groundwork that had been laid for Nick’s internal resistance arc was erased, discarded in favor of a last-minute, illogical narrative pivot that portrayed him as complicit without reckoning with everything the show had previously told us about him.

What’s worse, both the show’s own deleted material and the actual scenes up until Season 6 make it clear that Nick was never meant to be the villain they later tried to paint him as.The official scripts and cut scenes show him as a man horrified by the violence of Gilead’s rise, caught in it but never fully part of it. These clues weren’t just abandoned — they were actively contradicted in a way that undermined both the character and the larger themes of the series.

WHAT THE CREATORS & ACTOR SAY

Before Season 6, both the creators of The Handmaid’s Tale and actor Max Minghella consistently described Nick as a fundamentally decent man — a character carefully constructed to be morally complex, but not complicit in Gilead’s ideology.

Max Minghella, who portrayed Nick, made his view of the character clear as early as 2018:

“I trust Nick. I stand by him … at the root of Nick, he’s a good person. Whether he always does the right thing is a different question.” (Glamour, 2018)

Minghella recognized Nick as morally conflicted but ultimately decent — a man navigating impossible choices in an impossible world. His performance was built on the understanding that Nick was not a villain, but a man trapped by circumstances beyond his control, revealing himself through small gestures and quiet decisions.

In 2022, at the end of Season 5, showrunner Bruce Miller reinforced this characterization:

“I know what we’re setting up for Nick, which is exactly what you think it is. He’s the guy who we think he is. And even if he tries not to be the guy he thinks he is, it’s either going to be very uncomfortable for him like he is with Rose, or it’s going to fail and he’s going to end up not being able to stop himself from punching Lawrence. I think the nice thing is he follows his heart, and the scary thing is he follows his heart.” (Deadline, June 2022)

This statement from Miller is especially revealing in light of what ultimately unfolded in Season 6. His words confirm that as of the end of Season 5, Nick was intended to remain exactly as the audience understood him: a man driven by emotion, not ideology; someone uncomfortable when forced to conform; someone who couldn’t suppress his decency even when doing so put him at risk.

However, after Season 6, Miller’s commentary took on a different tone, attempting to reframe Nick’s arc:

“Nick isn’t choosing Gilead as a sudden endorsement of its beliefs and practices, but rather a belief that there’s no beating this regime; it’s better to protect yourself by moving with it rather than against it.” “Nick was trying to stay out of trouble … thinking about how to keep himself safe for his family.” (TV Insider, 2025)

These post-finale remarks sought to justify Nick’s sudden portrayal as complicit in Gilead’s horrors, but they stand in stark contrast to Miller’s earlier statements. What happened in Season 6 was not the culmination of a long-planned character journey; it was a last-minute pivot that abandoned Nick’s carefully built arc. His proximity to Gilead’s power structures had always been framed as about survival, not ideology — a distinction that Season 6 discarded.

Even Minghella was surprised by the shift in Nick’s moral framing, as he revealed in an interview with ELLE in 2025:

“Transparently, I was surprised … I thought it was a really bold and interesting choice to bring that story into this more nihilistic viewpoint.” “Maybe I hadn’t been playing this character correctly the whole time … there was probably a darker side to him that I didn’t realize was there.”

When even the actor playing Nick for six seasons no longer recognizes the character he’s portraying, it highlights how drastic and jarring the shift in writing was. Nick’s final arc wasn’t the result of a gradual, coherent evolution — it was a sudden, dissonant rewrite that undermined everything the audience, and even the show’s own team, had come to understand about him.

Where once the creators framed Nick as a survivor and quiet resistor, they later attempted to retroactively paint him as complicit. This contradiction is not just a failure of internal consistency — it’s a betrayal of the character they themselves had worked so carefully to build.

A SHIFT BEHIND THE SCENES — AND ONSCREEN

The betrayal of Nick’s arc didn’t happen in a vacuum. It was the result of major shifts behind the scenes that dramatically altered the show’s direction and tone, particularly in Season 6.

After Season 4, there were significant changes in the writers’ room, and after Season 5, Bruce Miller — who had been the showrunner and primary architect of the series’ complex moral landscape — stepped down as showrunner to focus on developing The Testaments adaptation. What followed was a tonal and narrative shift that was most starkly reflected in the treatment of Nick’s character.

In Season 5, the writers appeared to be setting up Commander Lawrence as the morally compromised figure whose choices would catch up with him. Lawrence, after all, had designed Gilead. He was one of its architects — a man who wielded enormous power and made decisions that cost thousands of lives, including the bombing of Chicago and the systemic torture of women. He was unwilling to help June find Hannah, even when she begged him, and he stood by as Gilead shot down American planes attempting to raid Hannah’s school. He didn’t intervene to stop this act of brutality, just as he never truly opposed the suggestions of other Commanders to have June killed when she became too much of a threat. But reportedly, Bradley Whitford — who plays Lawrence — pushed back against having his character face the full consequences of those choices.

So what did the writers do instead? They redirected that arc onto Nick. Rather than grappling with the moral failings of Gilead’s true architects, the show chose to scapegoat the one male character who had consistently resisted, quietly and at great personal risk, from the inside.

The result was a jarring pivot in Season 6, where Nick was denied the nuance and complexity afforded to characters like Serena, Lydia, Lawrence, and even Naomi Putnam. Naomi, a character who had benefitted enormously from Gilead’s brutal hierarchy and who had always relished her privileged position, was suddenly handed a redemption arc without narrative justification. Her decision to give Charlotte to Janine came out of nowhere, contradicting everything we had seen of her character before.

Meanwhile, Nick — who had quietly resisted for years, who had risked his life for June, Nicole, and the resistance — was given no such grace. His entire arc was collapsed into a simplistic and inconsistent portrayal of complicity, as if all his sacrifices and small acts of rebellion had never happened.

The complexity that had once made The Handmaid’s Tale so compelling was flattened in favor of a reductive, black-and-white view of its characters — one that betrayed both Nick and the show’s own core themes.

THE GASLIGHTING OF FANS

To make matters worse, in the wake of justified fan backlash over the abrupt and illogical rewriting of Nick’s character, the public statements from the show’s creators, writers, directors, and even lead actor felt like gaslighting. Rather than acknowledging the inconsistency or taking responsibility for the narrative pivot, they shifted blame onto the audience — particularly the female fans who had thoughtfully engaged with Nick’s arc for years.

The writers claimed that viewers misunderstood Nick because “we don’t see 95% of the things Nick does in Gilead.” This was offered as an explanation for why fans were supposedly confused — suggesting that any contradictions in Nick’s character came not from inconsistent storytelling, but from unseen off-screen actions. The writers also implied that fans had misjudged Nick because they saw him primarily through June’s eyes, and that her love for him clouded both her perception and, by extension, that of the audience. This framing felt deeply patronizing. It reduced thoughtful, critical engagement with the character to the idea that fans (especially women) were simply too emotionally attached to see the truth. The creative team further argued that Nick had plenty of chances to leave Gilead but chose not to, reinforcing their revisionist narrative. What makes this claim especially disingenuous is that the show itself repeatedly demonstrated how difficult, if not impossible, it was to leave Gilead. Even Lawrence — a man with immense power — tried to leave in Season 3 and couldn’t. To suggest that Nick could have simply walked away contradicts the very world-building the writers established.

And then Eric Tuchman went on to claim:

“Even though Nick is a wonderful savior and protector for June and Max Minghella is an incredibly charismatic actor with wonderful chemistry with Elisabeth Moss, Nick has a life beyond June in Gilead. We’ve known since Season 1 he was an Eye, as well as a driver. The Swiss didn’t want to talk to Nick because he was a war criminal and couldn’t be trusted. Serena told June, ‘Didn’t Nick tell you what he did? To help create Gilead?’ — and it was something ominous. June chose not to ask any further questions. We know that he bombed Chicago and a lot of innocent people were killed — June and Janine were there. Yes, he was following orders, but Nick has always been a fully willing participant in Gilead. He’s always embraced Gilead. The only times he ever helped the resistance were because of his connection to June. She has been his beacon to do the right thing. Nick’s betrayal was proof he wasn’t really part of the resistance.” (Cast Q&A, @handmaidsonhulu on Threads, 2025)

But these statements are deeply misleading. They ignore what the actual canon of the show established and contradict the very material the writers originally produced. The Swiss refused to talk to Nick not because of war crimes, but because of optics and politics — as shown in official deleted scenes and the scripts archived at the Writers Guild. In those cut scenes, Nick is portrayed during the rise of Gilead not as a war criminal, but as a minor guard, visibly horrified, described as “looking sick” at the violence unfolding around him. When a comrade is killed, Nick fires back “out of instinct” — hardly the mark of a man shaping or embracing the regime.

Another scene — one that did air — shows Nick returning a salute from Gilead troops. In the official script, this moment is described with a crucial note: Nick is “hating all the choices that led him here.” His internal conflict is explicitly spelled out, revealing that even in this small gesture of outward compliance, he is burdened by regret and trapped by circumstances. This wasn’t a man embracing Gilead’s ideology. It was a man caught in a web he couldn’t easily escape, trying to survive while carrying the weight of every decision that brought him to that point.

Bruce Miller himself confirmed that Serena’s ominous comment to June about Nick’s role in creating Gilead was a lie, meant to hurt her emotionally. And we know from canon that Nick objected to bombing Chicago, but didn’t have the power to stop it.

Director Daina Reid added fuel to the fire, directly targeting women in the fandom. In her Eyes on Gilead podcast interview, she said she “doesn’t understand these women who still defend Nick.” She went even further, claiming that viewers “invent scenes” to justify Nick’s actions — as if fans who had paid close attention to his arc were simply imagining things to excuse him. In doing so, she dismissed female fans specifically — implying that their continued support for Nick was irrational or misguided, and reducing thoughtful engagement with the character to naive emotionalism. This wasn’t just dismissive; it was a troubling attack on a loyal, thoughtful fanbase that had engaged deeply with the show’s themes of resistance, complicity, and survival.

Even Elisabeth Moss, who plays June, contributed to this gaslighting. In interviews, she misremembered key parts of the story — for instance, forgetting that Eden suspected Nick’s lack of sexual interest in her and feared he might be a gender traitor. This was a significant part of Eden’s arc, yet Moss appeared unaware of it, undermining her credibility when discussing Nick and June’s relationship. Moss also insisted in interviews that June “absolutely did not want Nick to die,” while simultaneously suggesting that June could never forgive Nick for his so-called betrayal — despite the fact that if Nick hadn’t made that difficult choice in the moment, he would have died on the spot. The logic simply doesn’t hold: how can June not want him dead but also not forgive him for the very act that saved his life?

If we’re now expected to view Nick as a villain based on things we never saw, it’s not the audience inventing scenes — it’s the creators retroactively rewriting them. That’s not a failure of interpretation on the part of the fans; it’s a failure of storytelling on the part of the writers.

Adding to the irony, Elisabeth Moss recently explained in interviews that in respecting the book, they wanted to preserve a sense of open-endedness — to “keep a lot of loose ends” as the novel itself ends on a cliffhanger. Yet in doing so, they chose to alter one of the most crucial threads from the book: Nick’s arc. Adding to this contradiction, Bruce Miller himself asserted:

“I think the series has been good in large part because I chose to follow the story and tonal spirit of the novel as much as possible.” (Deadline, 2025)

If preserving the spirit of the book was truly the goal, they would have honored Nick’s role as Atwood envisioned it: a symbol of survival, moral conflict, and quiet rebellion.

What’s most telling is how drastically the messaging from the creative team has shifted. The Nick who was once described by Bruce Miller as a man of survival instincts, not ideology — a man navigating impossible circumstances while trying to protect his family — was suddenly reframed post-Season 6 as a willing and eager participant in Gilead’s horrors. This contradiction not only betrayed Nick’s character but also undermined the integrity of the show’s moral universe.

ATWOOD’S VISION, THE BOOKS, AND THE DANGER OF THIS REWRITE

Resistance from within is a hallmark of dystopian literature. From 1984 to The Hunger Games, these narratives often explore how individuals embedded in oppressive systems work quietly, strategically, and at great personal risk to undermine them. These characters are complex, morally ambiguous, and realistic — because real-world resistance is rarely loud or simple. The Handmaid’s Tale, as originally written by Margaret Atwood, understood this nuance, and Nick Blaine was designed to embody it.

Atwood herself envisioned Nick as a figure of internal dissent — a man trapped by circumstances, but capable of moral clarity and quiet rebellion. In The Testaments, set fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, Nick is still alive, still inside Gilead, and still working as part of the underground resistance. We see him reunite with Nicole, the daughter he risked everything to save, and we see that his arc was meant to reflect the endurance of hope and the power of resistance that survives even in the darkest places.

The show, for five seasons, respected this vision. Nick stayed in Gilead because that was his purpose — to help destroy it from within. His positioning near Hannah’s captors reinforced his role as an inside man. The writers kept him in Gilead because he was meant to be there, playing the long game. Until Tuchman and Chang decided they knew better than Atwood and discarded this crucial thread.

Atwood has been outspoken in her view that dystopian systems like Gilead harm everyone — men and women alike. As she has said:

“Patriarchy hurts men too. Totalitarianism hurts everyone — men and women alike.” (CBC, 2017)

And on feminism:

“Feminism is not about demonizing men. It’s about working with men so that everyone has the same rights.” (New York Times, 2018)

The show’s final season abandoned this fundamental ethos. Instead of portraying the complexities of complicity and resistance across genders, it simplified its moral world: all Commanders were framed as irredeemable, while even characters like Naomi Putnam — who had thrived under Gilead’s brutality — were suddenly offered redemption with no coherent justification. This flattening of moral nuance betrayed the depth and realism that had defined the show’s earlier seasons.

By erasing Nick’s internal resistance arc, the show not only disrespected Atwood’s source material but also weakened its own critique of authoritarianism. The danger of this rewrite isn’t just that it harmed a character — it’s that it undermined the very lessons dystopian literature is meant to teach us. It replaced complex truths about power, survival, and quiet resistance with simplistic, black-and-white moral judgments that serve neither feminism nor thoughtful storytelling.

Nick’s character was supposed to remind us that even those caught inside the machinery of oppression can still fight back in their own way. Erasing that lesson robbed the audience of hope — the most vital tool dystopian fiction can offer.

NICK’S ATTRACTIVENESS AND THE MISOGYNY BEHIND THE CRITICISM

One of the most troubling aspects of the backlash against Nick’s character — and against the fans who continue to care for him — is the way his physical attractiveness has been weaponized as a reason to dismiss thoughtful engagement with his arc. Critics, including members of the show’s creative team, have implied that fans (especially women) only care about Nick because of his looks — as if audiences are too shallow or simple to appreciate deeper qualities.

Disturbingly, this attitude wasn’t just reflected in off-screen commentary. It became embedded in the writing of the final season itself. After five seasons in which no character ever explicitly commented on Nick’s appearance, Season 6 abruptly shifted focus, framing his physical attractiveness as the defining reason June loved him. For the first time, June says that she would have noticed Nick even if he were bagging groceries or driving for Uber because he was very handsome. Moira joins in, comparing Nick’s looks to Rihanna’s and rating his hotness as if she were judging a celebrity. Even Lawrence remarks that June was “swept away” by Nick’s “smothering looks.”

This was no accident. The writers deliberately chose to center Nick’s attractiveness in a way they had never done before — as if to validate their own revisionist narrative that June’s love for Nick was shallow, and that fans’ attachment to him was based only on surface-level traits. In doing so, they reduced what had been a deeply layered, emotionally rich relationship to a matter of lust and superficiality — diminishing not only Nick’s character, but June’s as well.

As brilliantly articulated in the Above the Garage podcast’s cathartic essay on Nick:

“Nick’s physical attractiveness has nothing to do with the reason we love his character. Women are not as simple and shallow as you’re making them out to be. No matter how someone may try to shame you, it is not antifeminist to believe in, and care about, romantic love. Our protagonist herself has said, many times, that it is for love that she lives. Love is empowering, and we thought that was a message the show understood.”

What Nick represents is not some idealized, flawless hero. No one who values Nick as a character denies his flaws or excuses his moments of complicity. What Nick offers is a vision of the human capacity for joy, tenderness, and compassion in the bleakest circumstances. His quiet support of June, his ability to love and be loved amid horror, reflects the reality that even in war, oppression, and captivity, people have found ways to fall in love, to marry, to create art, to dream of a better world. Nick’s story was an opportunity to show how resistance can be sustained not just through defiance, but through humanity and connection.

The suggestion that shipping Nick and June, or simply caring about Nick as a character, is somehow naive or antifeminist, fundamentally misunderstands the complexity of these relationships. As the essay points out, the show could have leaned into Nick and June’s profound connection — a connection that empowered June, supported her agency, and could have stood as one of television’s greatest romances, without undermining the power of her friendships or her other relationships. Life is not either/or. Women can value deep friendships and romantic love. The audience can appreciate both without one diminishing the other.

Finally, it’s important to call out the hypocrisy in how romantic love is treated. As the essay puts it: “You know who else thought romantic love was naive and silly? Our old friend, Fred Waterford. May he rest in peace.”

Dismissing viewers who value love and connection as naive is not progressive — it echoes the mindset of the very villains the story sought to critique. It is not antifeminist to care about love, or to see beauty and strength in a character who represents its survival under tyranny. And it is certainly not a weakness or character flaw to find meaning in these narratives.

THE DANGEROUS MISLABELING: NICK AS A “NAZI”

One of the most disturbing narrative choices in Season 6 was the decision to have multiple characters — including June’s mother, Holly, and Luke — refer to Nick as a “Nazi.” This label was not used in earlier seasons, despite Nick’s long-standing position within Gilead’s structures. It was introduced only in Season 6, coinciding with the writers’ abrupt pivot toward framing Nick as complicit and irredeemable.

The comparison is not only morally and historically inaccurate — it is dangerous. Nick is not portrayed as an architect of genocide, nor as a willing enforcer of Gilead’s ideology. As the show itself spent five seasons establishing, Nick is a survivor — a man who joined the Eyes not to impose tyranny, but to report on and take down predatory Commanders after witnessing the suicide of Waterford’s first Handmaid. He smuggled contraband, helped the resistance, facilitated June’s and Nicole’s escape, and positioned himself near Hannah’s captors in hopes of aiding in her rescue. These are not the actions of a true believer in the system; they are the actions of a man trapped within it, trying to undermine it where he can.

Calling Nick a Nazi collapses the moral complexity that The Handmaid’s Tale once prided itself on. It flattens the nuances of complicity, survival, and resistance into simplistic, black-and-white thinking that does a disservice not only to Nick’s character but to the audience’s understanding of history. Gilead is a fictional regime meant to reflect elements of real-world authoritarianism, but equating every man in a uniform with a Nazi trivializes both the horrors of the Holocaust and the lived realities of people trapped within oppressive systems who did not have the power to change them, but found small, courageous ways to resist.

It’s also worth noting that the writers making these choices surely have not lived under totalitarian regimes themselves — which cannot be said about many of the show’s viewers. For those who have experienced or have family histories marked by real-world authoritarian rule, these labels are not just inaccurate; they are deeply offensive and reflect a dangerous misunderstanding of what life under such regimes actually entails.

June’s mother’s use of the term might be explained by her extremism and ideological rigidity — but when Luke adopts the same language, it becomes clear that the writers themselves wanted to frame Nick through this lens, erasing the character they had spent five seasons building. This lazy labeling serves neither history, feminism, nor good storytelling. It reduces complex questions about survival, complicity, and moral ambiguity to cheap, inflammatory rhetoric — the opposite of what dystopian fiction is meant to encourage us to grapple with

WHY THIS MATTERS

Nick didn’t need a heroic ending. But he deserved a consistent one. His arc represented a type of resistance that is rarely shown on screen: strategic, quiet, and deeply human. Nick’s story gave voice to the reality that not all acts of rebellion are loud, and not all heroes stand on podiums. His form of dissent — subtle, calculated, often invisible — was no less important than June’s louder, more visible defiance. In fact, it reflected the kind of resistance that most people caught inside authoritarian regimes actually engage in: the quiet, careful acts that chip away at power without drawing lethal attention.

More than that, Nick was the show’s most realistic character. He was an ordinary man swept up by the rise of Gilead — lured into the Sons of Jacob not out of malice or ideology, but because of the brutal socio-economic conditions that preceded Gilead’s rise. Like many who find themselves caught in the machinery of authoritarian systems, Nick became increasingly trapped as the years passed. But crucially, Nick almost immediately saw Gilead for what it was. He recognized the horror. And despite the danger, he chose to resist in the ways available to him — quietly, strategically, and at great personal cost.

We needed that Nick. His arc was supposed to remind us that even those inside the system, even those who have made mistakes, can choose to act with compassion, courage, and moral clarity. His story offered a rare and vital kind of hope: that decency can survive in the darkest of places, and that ordinary people can make extraordinary choices even when the odds are against them.

In the difficult times we live in, as extremism and authoritarianism rise in the real world, Nick’s story could have served as a reminder of the importance of quiet resistance — of the fact that the fight against oppression doesn’t always look like a revolution, but can begin with small, courageous acts.

By collapsing his arc into a simplistic tale of complicity, the writers not only betrayed Nick as a character but stripped the audience of that hope. What happened to him wasn’t just a sad ending. It was bad writing. And it was a missed opportunity — a failure to honor both the character they had built and the powerful tradition of resistance that dystopian fiction exists to celebrate.

#the handmaids tale #nick blaine #nick and june #osblaine #tv shows #margaret atwood #dystopian #feminism

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syrupsyche · 30 days ago

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Instead of working on anything substantial, I've crafted an elaborate family and backstory for modern/teacher AU Enjolras....I bestow him my greatest gift (complicated relationship with his parents ❤️)

Read more about his family below! Warning for long post:

Maximillien Enjolras + Kim Eun-ji (김은지)

= Eun-bin (은빈) Enjolras ((<- this is our Enjolras))

Korean mother, French father. They met in Korea when Enjolras Sr. was sent to work as a military diplomat, and they raised Enjolras there for a few years.

Mother was an activist who fought for women’s and workers’ rights. To this day, Enjolras is still confused how his radical, leftist mother fell in love with a government official. (Spoiler: they fought. A lot.)

During his doljabi ceremony, he grabbed a toy gavel, though really only to smack another baby’s head with it. Still, that excited his parents, who thinks he will be a great judge or police detective upholding justice one day (Spoiler: upholding justice, yes, but very clearly not on the side of the government)

Loved reading and being read to. The earliest memories Enjolras had of his father are of him reading Palmer’s Twelve Who Ruled to him. Not to be beat out, his mother read Hwang et. al.’s Gwangju Uprising to him. This is why Enjolras turned out the way he is.

Family immigrated when Enjolras was 4. Mother wanted to keep Enjolras’ Korean name on his documents, but his father kept trying to dissuade her, saying that it'll just make life harder for Enjolras. Tried to downplay his mother’s arguments that cultural names are important by saying “no one looks at these stupid papers anyways”, to which his mother promptly stole and set fire to half of his father’s papers before he could stop her.

When Enjolras asked how she never got into legal trouble, she snorted and said his father knew damn well he'd never be able to raise him as a single father, and so let the incident slide. Enjolras remains Eun-bin Enjolras on his official documents ‘til this day.

Father was barely home, so Enjolras latched onto his mother. She basically raised him as a mini version of her, and embedded in him much of the values and beliefs he still holds onto. He helped to prep mutual aid packages, seal letters written to their local ministers, take notes for his mother while she was on calls, etc.

However, Enjolras and his mother began to butt heads more often once he got older and gained an actual personality that wasn’t just his mother’s. His views on queer rights, immigration, the incarceration system, etc. deviated from her more conservative stances, and when two very similar and very stubborn people begin to fight��yeah, it caused quite a rift.

Father suddenly died when Enjolras was 17. Too busy with his final year of school and college applications and liaising with external clubs and societies, Enjolras never found the proper time to grieve. ‘Til today, Enjolras can't properly articulate how he feels about his father, and wonders if his father would even like him the way that he is now.

With his mother, their relationship continued to be fairly rocky through university and took quite a dive when he had to spend some time in jail right after university. After that, he moved out and began working as a teacher so that he can have his own finances and space (“his own space” like he isn’t quite literally living with his boss and his boss’ family)

Over time however, he and his mother began mending their relationship, the distance and time apart helping them both. He calls her every week, she learns a lot more about Enjolras’ world through her own research, and they fight a lot less often.

Enjolras finally brings Grantaire over during Seollal and his mother LOVES him; she thinks he will help temper Enjolras (HAH…). Grantaire’s a little afraid because uh oh, now there’s two incredibly intense and strong-willed Enjolrai in his life, and oh no, she’s already roping him into helping with her causes…😨

#in my head Enjolras Sr. looks like Sam Reid's Lestat #and Mme. Enjolras the most beautiful woman you can envision #wasian Enjolras ohhh we're really in it now 😔#I'll probably make more detailed posts like these if anyone else is interested 👀#my next targets are Fantine and Cosette 🥰#les mis #les mis fanart #enjolras #syrup art tag #syrup teacher au #syrup writing

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amrutmnm · 1 year ago

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The Military Embedded Systems Market was valued at $1,600 Million in 2022 and is estimated to grow from $1,700 Million in 2023 to $2,500 Million by 2027 at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 9.6%. The Military Embedded Systems Industry is driven by factors such increasing use of advanced navigation & communication systems in airborne & naval platforms, increasing use of electronic warfare systems, etc.

#Military Embedded Systems #Military Embedded Systems Market #Military Embedded Systems Industry #Global Military Embedded Systems Market

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crapeaucrapeau · 2 months ago

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Mass Effect 2

I'm trying to keep track of what every major or semi-major political player is trying to do about the Reapers in 2185 before, during or after Shepard waltzes in, pirouettes into them then fucks off, and it's kinda mind-boggling.

Major players with their own agendas include but are not limited to :

the Reapers, who may or may not have been already traveling to the galaxy at this point, and are using their pawns - the Collectors - to siphon many humans to their base to get going on the baby-making. Beside assassinating Shepard in 2183 to one-shot an anti-Reaper coalition in its infancy, the Collectors are presumably prepping Omega for collecting (see also : Mordin's recruitment mission) and have contacts with at least one non-Reaper operative (the Shadow Broker) to facilitate their plans.

Cerberus, which has set up one operator cell to deal with the Collectors, and is completely reshuffling its structure to gear up for the incoming Reaperocalypse.

the Shadow Broker is aware of the incoming Reaperocalypse and is actively collaborating with the Collectors, though to what extent is unknown ; one thing we do know is that he uses an agent embedded in Cerberus (Wilson) to try to kill Shepard before they can be up and about. We also do not know how his manipulating of events behind the scenes is meant to benefit the Collectors/Reapers. Then the Shadow Broker gets replaced by Liara who leverages the exact same network and resources to do the exact opposite, preppin' the galaxy against the Reapers. EDIT : I should note that the yahg Shadow Broker planned to attack Cerberus in retaliation one year after Shepard's resurrection, and those plans included the assassination of the Illusive Man, the destruction of Cerberus as a whole, and, if possible, the recruitment of Miranda.

the Alliance itself is doing shit all to prepare against the Reapers because they don't believe it's a problem, but within the Alliance, Hackett is running an undisclosed number of operations to prepare them against the Reaperocalypse.

officially, the Citadel Council dismisses this "Reaperocalypse", but in reality they're very aware of that, presumably doing something about it off-screen, and not keeping some very important people in the loop, such as : Shepard, and seemingly Anderson and the Alliance as a whole.

Also not kept in the loop : the Turian Hierarchy, since they learn about the Reapers from Garrus' dad. Oops.

Actually in the loop : the STG, and presumably the Salarian Union as a whole, since Mordin has been authoring studies on indoctrination and the military has been developing stealth dreadnoughts.

The geth have quit their self-isolation and sent a unique platform past the Perseus Veil to ascertain what the hell is going on.

The geth heretics, meanwhile, have been losing the war against the Systems Alliance and reduced to sporadic offensives in three clusters, but they're preparing an indoctrination-like virus to take over the orthodox geth and add their numbers to their own to service the Reapers.

And these are just the players we know about. We have no idea what, if anything, the asari or the batarians are doing (or know) about the Reaperocalypse.

But that's just what everyone is doing about the Reapers. You've got massive political and strategic things gearing up on the side : we all know about the intense situation in the Migrant Fleet, but did you know the Blood Pack was setting up an invasion of Illium ?

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aerospace-and-defence · 2 years ago

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The Military Embedded Systems Market was valued at $1,600 Million in 2022 and is estimated to grow from $1,700 Million in 2023 to $2,500 Million by 2027 at a CAGR of 9.6%.

#Military Embedded Systems #Military Embedded Systems Market #Military Embedded Systems Industry #Military Embedded Systems Market Trends #Military Embedded Systems Market Report #Military Embedded Systems Market Value #Military Embedded Systems Market Forecast #Military Embedded Systems Market Growth

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auspicioustidings · 10 months ago

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Kinktober Day 0

This is the set-up for Kinktober which I'm doing as a linear narrative.

To be clear, there may be 3 or 4 chapters that don't actually have any kink and are just lil bits of fluff and we all agree to be chill about that.

Each chapter before the cut will have all info required on characters and kinks involved. If there is any non-con this will be in bright red but the instances of this will be few and brief as we are operating on a safe-word system and will have safety measures for if characters ignore safe-wording.

This must be what Will Smith’s character felt like at the start of Men In Black. What the hell were you doing here? There were a mix of genders in the room, but the one thing everyone seemed to have in common was confidence coming off of them in waves and that they didn’t look like you. They didn’t look like each other either, but they all looked more likely to have walked off of a modelling set than out of a military base.

You weren’t trained in psyops, but this seemed like it might be something in that department. Why else did so many of these candidates ooze beauty and authority? You shouldn’t bloody be here. The application had been secretive, a form slid over a desk from your superior officer who got it from his who got it from his in a chain with no obvious end. Someone had picked you out for this, and you were starting to think that wasn’t a good thing.

Were the people here higher up the chain than you or at the same level? You try to summon confidence, you’re not exactly some green private at their first training exercise. You’re special fucking forces. Yeah the monsters in the SAS or the SBS are out there slaughtering the bad guys, but they wouldn’t be doing shit without the Signal Regiment. You had to go through 25 weeks of hell to make it in. Just because you’re comms, doesn’t mean you didn’t have to prove conduct after capture or jump out of a damn aeroplane to pass training. And you had already served a year in infantry beforehand.

So you get over yourself and wait for further instructions. You have just as much right to be here as any of them.

The first tests go ahead. Fitness (you don’t fall last in the pack for performance, but you’re lower than the middle), gun handling (solidly middle of the pack), comms (you come first). It’s all suspiciously standard stuff. And then you are all put into an actual scenario.

You go into a room. It reeks of blood and sex and there are 3 people, one unconscious. The woman on the floor has a thick collar around her neck and is in scant lingerie that has very clearly been torn for access. There are bruises littering her body, rope marks embedded into her skin. The two conscious people are a man and a woman. She is screaming at the group to shoot him.

He’s told to get on his knees as the bulk of the group assess him as the bigger threat. You ignore them and go to gently check on the woman on the floor along with another candidate, trusting that the rest will subdue both current threats.

“These marks are pretty consistent with BSDM, not prolonged abuse. And the collar has an emergency quick release they’d be able to operate themselves if they had to” the other candidate says.

You immediately get your own gun trained to the other woman when you glance up and see her totally free from any restraint and in close range to one of the other candidates, a protest coming from one of the men who has went to comfort her.

“Put your gun down, you’re scaring her” he hisses.

“Until we have further information on what is happening here, all suspects should be treated as hostile and questioned.”

You don’t know if you got it right, but it seems wildly irresponsible to just decide that the big man must be the bad guy but she is definitely innocent. Mostly it’s just a strange scenario you’ve been put in, but in the field there can’t be trust for strangers. It’s not a courthouse, everyone is assumed hostile until there is proof to the contrary.

It isn’t resolved, you are all just told the exercise is over. One by one candidates are called into an office until it’s only you left. You’re absently wondering if you want to make ramen for dinner tonight when you are called in. The sinking feeling that you are in over your head hits you full force. You know one of the two people in this room.

Captain John Price, SAS. You’ve spoken with him before (well you’ve rattled off intel to him through a radio before) and you are well aware he is not to be fucked with.

“What did you think of the exercise then?” he asks, both him and the woman sitting behind the desk openly staring at you like predators with their eyes on a tasty morsel.

“I’m not sure what was being tested sir. I reacted as my training encouraged sir.”

“At ease, soldier. A real answer” the woman says and you squash back a reaction to the American accent.

Your shoulders loosen off. It’s not like you applied for whatever this is, so it isn’t any great loss if they’re about to kick you out. You’ve got ramen to get to, another quiet night at home alone to either enjoy or feel bitterly lonely about. It’s a toss up these days which mood will strike when the lack of warmth starts to bite.

“Most of your candidates need to be sent back to basic. They worked on baseless assumptions rather than taking control of the scene and figuring out what had happened once any danger was subdued. That woman could have killed two of them and taken a third hostage in seconds.”

“I agree” the woman says with a smug little smile, “British forces aren’t what they used to be.”

Price laughs.

“Your yanks would have done far worse. You made the right call. The woman on the floor was in a consensual relationship with the man, the marks were received willingly. But since there’d be no way of knowing, both of the threats needed to be removed. Questioning would have sorted out the truth.”

It was a weird fucking exercise to use. What were they testing with that kind of scenario? Implicit gender bias? But then why the kinky angle when they could have removed the casualty entirely and it served the same purpose? The whole thing was starting to make your skin itch as a folder was put on the table in front of you. You caught a nod from the woman and opened it, feeling like you were about to throw up.

“What is this?”

“Insurance. You break NDA and it’s not a court that’s going to crucify you” Price said, almost cheerily as you looked at photos of yourself.

One of them was taken of you sleeping in bed. The next the camera turned to have you in the background in bed while Price took a selfie barely inches from you, smiling for the camera as if he had any right to be there. More photos. Most of you, but some of loved ones. There is a flash of an image in your head, your last moment being the panic of waking up with a wire around your neck. You wouldn’t have broken NDA, but the overkill makes you unbearably curious. How bad is what they are recruiting for if they have to kill anyone who leaks it?

“I understand sir.”

The woman tilted her head as if you had said something interesting. Did the others react badly you wonder? The thing about being special forces signal regiment was that the lengths that the military would go to didn’t surprise you anymore. They created monsters to fight monsters and hid them away in the dark while they paraded out their nice, proper soldiers for the public. Good family men in uniform, advocates for mental health, veterans who were revered as heroes. The special forces were not those men. Captain John Price was certainly not one of those men.

Did you sometimes find it hard to sleep at night? Of course, you helped those monsters even when the line between good and evil was so thoroughly crossed that you wanted to scream at the world and never stop. But without them? Without them everybody would know exactly how cruel people could be because there would be nothing stopping them.

“This is the Kennel” the woman said as a screen behind her came to life.

The schematics were insane the more you drank them in. Underground bunker, recreational facilities and what seemed to be apartments. You would think it would be some rich person’s doomsday bunker if not for the layers of security. The apartments were locked down tight, there were guard posts and an ungodly amount of surveillance. Nobody was getting out of there if these people didn’t want them to.

You had seen plenty of prisons from high end to metal cages in caves. It was your job to get intel, to guide people through rescue missions or escapes. But this was something else.

“You want to build a luxury secure facility?” you asked, feeling the furrow in your brow and the incessant itching of your skin.

The woman clicked a button and the screen changed. Holy shit, they didn’t want to build it because it had already been built. Where the fuck was this? This was big and it must have costs billions, how on earth had you never heard of it? It wasn’t exactly some dingy black site.

“We need them, but this job twists people. Some of them can still keep it under control at home, some just need to stay immediately after a deployment to calm down. There are 6 full time residents right now. Got 5 part timers and 5 who visit when they need. Not all on our side of things.”

“There are tangos in there?”

“Officially nobody is in there, the Kennel doesn’t exist. Unofficially? It’s Switzerland. A rabid dog will bite whoever you point it to.”

You wanted to be outraged, but was this really so different from all the other foul things you knew happened in the background? A luxury blacksite holding the “good” guys and the “bad” guys alike who couldn’t be trusted out in public but who were needed to unleash upon the enemy. This was so fucked up but you imagined that the military did 5 equally as fucked up things before breakfast.

“What is this job exactly?”

Price crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels, staring you down and making you feel tiny in that chair.

“Sometimes the best place you can be to keep the world safe is on your back.”

“Excuse me?”

He was not implying what you thought he was surely. It was just unfortunate phrasing.

“Just an expression, I imagine only a few of them would want you on your back. Think at least half would enjoy you on your knees.”

You held his stare, determined to wait him out. He was fucking with you. This was some bizarre test and you had no idea how you were supposed to respond.

“He’s asking you to play bitch for his dogs soldier. They get out of hand when they can’t rut” the woman said as if that cleared things up.

“I didn’t figure out anything about the whole BDSM thing or whatever it was during that exercise. It was the other guy. I don’t do any of that stuff.”

They ignored you.

“It’s a month-long contract to see if it improves their behaviour. After that you are free to do whatever you want with a shiny promotion and enough money that you can retire to Hawaii with a glowing record and military honours if you’d prefer” the woman started.

“All you have to do is take whatever they want to give you. No safewords, you can’t stop it once you start” Price finished.

“No.”

“Not even going to consider the offer?” Price asked, almost eager.

“I’m not considering an offer that actively puts me in an unsafe situation with no way to get out.”

“Told you Kate.”

You wanted to be out of this fucking office already. You thought about what previous attempts might have looked like. Sex workers who were thrown in with monsters and torn to shreds. Maybe ones who begged to leave but got assassinated the moment they got home and started talking. Because this wasn’t sex work, it was a military operation. A civilian was never going to survive that situation, not with the kind of monsters you imagined the Kennel held.

“You know why the soldier who knew all about BDSM failed?” Price asked, closer than you remembered him being. “He said yes. Agreed to the terms. I’ve got no time for someone who can’t take care of themselves and is going to get eaten alive within the first 24 hours because they were too eager to please to say no. They try break you? You safeword and I come in and break them.”

There was something in the back of your mind somewhere that found the offer grotesquely appealing. You thought it unlikely they would take you once you told them you were a virgin. It just sort of happened, you didn’t know how to meet people and you were now at an age where the pressure felt insurmountable. Did you tell that to someone on a first date? Did you not tell them and they go too hard and hurt you? What if you couldn’t even do it properly?

This would be work. This would be a military operation that allowed assets to be used rather than put down if it was successful. You’d be getting used, but maybe you wouldn’t be lonely.

It was the negotiations that did you in. The warm hand of Price on your shoulder while he explained aftercare procedure. Some of them would do it themselves, but some they’d probably need to drag off of you and then Price himself would take over. If he wasn’t available for any reason, Kate would.

They framed it like it was a heroic pursuit. These people were broken, they needed someone to start patching up the cracks. Your virginity it transpired was an asset given that they knew just the person who would look after you for your first session. Someone in the Kennel had a sizable virginity kink and you were assured it was one of the part-timers who wasn’t prone to extreme violence the way the residents were. You’d get an info pack with details the day before.

The final nail in the coffin that had you signing the dotted line was Price (deliberately you realised quickly once you got a moment to breathe) mentioning Soap. You knew him. Not in person, but you had talked him through diffusing a bomb before. He had flirted up a storm and his warmth over that radio even when he was seconds from dying at any given point had stuck with you for weeks. It was only a month. You just had to do this for a month.

October 1st you would lose your virginity in a bunker that didn’t exist to a soldier you didn’t know, one who needed you to stop them from fully becoming a monster. Fuck.

#mhairiwrites #mhairi'skinktober

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