#(while surely creating other issues)

[rooksunday]

okay but there is something disquieting about this urge to cast fan writers as altruists. they give us all this for free!! well, no.

they’re sharing

it’s a key difference in perception. fic isn’t given. it’s shared. it’s part of a fandom community— in which readers are also an integral part.

it’s probably inevitable mission creep from the increasingly transactional nature of the internet and fandom-as-consumerism, which was always gonna happen after corps worked out how much bank there is to make from those weirdo fan people

but like. fandom is sharing. i think we’ve lost that somewhere.

[foolishlyzephyrus]

i’m going to be so real, i don’t understand the people who don’t like thirteen’s era but like rtd2. cause like all those episodes are about the same quality in my opinion, they’re fine. there’s nothing too remarkable about either, but i still enjoy them don’t get me wrong.

[arcade-confetti]

Theyre going to think I like canon and purely canon if I keep going on like this

[complainblogforthevoid]

I've finally figured out an argument that convinces coding tech-bros that AI art is bad.

Got into a discussion today (actually a discussion, we were both very reasonable and calm even through I felt like committing violence) with a tech-bro-coded lady who claimed that people use AI in coding all the time so she didn't see why it mattered if people used AI in art.

Obviously I repressed the surge of violence because that would accomplish nothing. Plus, this lady is very articulate, the type who makes claims and you sit there thinking no that's wrong it must be but she said it so well you're kind of just waffling going but, no, wait-- so I knew I had to get this right if I was gonna come out of this unscathed.

The usual arguments about it being about the soul of it and creation fell flat, in fact she was adamant that anyone who believed that was in fact looking down at coding as an art form as she insisted it is. Which, sure, you can totally express yourself through coding. There's a lot more nuance as to the differences but clearly I was not going to win this one.

The other people I was with (literally 8 people anti-ai against her, but you can't change the mind of someone who doesn't want to listen and she just kept accusing us of devaluing coding as an art) took over for I kid you not 15 minutes while I tried desperately to come up with a clear and articulate way to explain the difference to her. They tried so many reasonable arguments, coding being for a function ("what, art doesn't serve a function?") coding being many discrete building blocks that you put together differently, and the AI simply provides the blocks and you put it together yourself ("isn't that what prompt building is") that it's bad for the environment ("but not if it's used for capitalism, hm?" "Yeah literally that's how capitalism works it doesn't care about the environment" she didn't like that response)

But I finally got it.

And the answer is: It's not about what you do, it's about what you claim to be.

Imagine that someone asks an AI to write a code and, by some miracle, it works perfectly without them having to tweak it---which is great because they couldn't tell you what a single solitary thing in that code means.

Now imagine this person, with their code that they don't know how it works, goes and applies to be a coder somewhere, presenting this AI code as proof that they're qualified.

Should they be hired?

She was horrified, of course. Of course they shouldn't be. They're not qualified. They can't actually code, and even if by some miracle they did have an AI successfully write a flawless code for every issue they came across that wouldn't be their code, you could hire any shmuck on the street to do that, no reason to pay someone like they're creating something.

When actual engineers use AI what they do is get some kind of base, which they then go though and check for problems and then if they find any they fix them, and add on to the base code with their own knowledge instead of just trying different prompt after prompt until they randomly come across one that works.

People who generate code like this don't usually call themselves engineers. They're people who needed a bit of code and didn't have the knowledge to generate it, and so used a resource.

And there you go. There are people who have none of the skills of artists, they don't practice, they don't create for themselves. When they feed the prompt to the AI they then don't just use the resulting image as a reference point for their own personal masterpiece, and if they don't like it they don't have the skills to change it---they simply try another prompt, and do that until they get something they like.

These people are calling themselves artists.

Not only that, these people are bringing the AI generated thing to interviews, and they are getting hired, leaving people who slave over their craft out of the job.

And that is the difference, for the tech bros who think AI art isn't a big deal.

[just-a-little-unionoid]

prev I hope you don't mind me if I use your tags

great exemple of morality as an understanding between instinct and reflexion, and between what you wish and what you want

as far as I'm concerned the craving for violence is normal, we're animals and we feel anger. anger is the emotion of injustice and want. when we feel it it means that we feel like something is unfair, wrong, that we need for it to change, and anger usually makes us violent because that's like, the easiest way to "fix" a problem quickly. except that as humans with an ability for abstract thinking, we can and need to understand that an "easy fix" is rarely the better option on the long term. and so we need, when we feel anger (especially towards someone) to recognise what exactly is the problem and how to really fix it, ideally without creating useless suffering and other issues

so I guess prev congrats for using you human ability to think (unironically, like that's something a lot of people seems reluctant to do which was op's point) and thanks for providing me an opportunity to expose my thoughts on a subject I'm passionate about

Tumblr really is full to bursting of the fascinating category of people who will shout ACAB at the top of their lungs and despise the American prison system with dramatic displays of vitriol but when confronted with someone who did something they actually think is a serious moral transgression cannot conceive of 'justice' meaning anything except the offender suffering, preferably in dramatic and humiliating ways.

You see how the median opinion on prison rape remains shrugging and considering it part of the sentence, really.

[you-were-burned]

I can't stop thinking about you,

about us

and the spaces inbetween

your fingers and mine

bodies colliding,

breathing in each other's spirit,

inhaling,

breathing, in the spaces inbetween

The bus ride back from the school trip

shared learning,

it snowed a lot that night

you sat beside me on the way back

our fingers intertwined,

hidden

hands sandwiched between your leg and mine,

we hid our selves from the others.

we talked about everything

your dad, my parents

therapy

the concert

that concert, when I saw you

I'd swore to myself I was over you

That you didn't own me anymore

But one look and I crumbled

I needed you, at least, I think I did,

I wanted to need you, to want you

Does that make sense?

I'm in love with being in love

In love with feeling like I need you

In love with being needed, being wanted

I need to be needed,

need to be there with you,

Not in this inbetween, this space

breathing into the silence

I'm in love with the spaces inbetween

The spaces between your face and mine

At that concert, with our bodies squashed together

I really wanted to kiss you, then

I count the space inbetween

breathing in the inbetween

You always smelled nice

I dreamed about kissing you

Running my hand through your soft hair

Slowly counting down the spaces inbetween

Breathing them in, breathing in you

bodies colliding, morphing, merging

becoming one

I miss you

And the spaces inbetween

you don't answer my texts anymore

I hate it

I hate that I need you, or feel like I do

That I'm stuck here, discarded

In the space inbetween

The silence consumes everything

My thoughts echoing

far too loud for someone so quiet.

I get that a lot, actually

I'm quiet, usually

I'm too loud with you

You overwhelm me

And I think I overcomplicate

overcompensate

overthink

For example;

If I text you first, do I come across as too clingy? What constitutes being clingy, and how tolerant are you of me and my possible clinginess? If I use an exclamation mark, am I too forward, too excitable, too childish? If I use undercaps will I come across as noncommittal, nonchalant, uninterested? Will all-caps make you uncomfortable, as though I am yelling? What greeting should I use, and what are the implications of each- 'hey', 'hello', 'hi', 'heya', 'yo', 'wassup', 'sup'; the list goes on endlessly. Should I elongate the greeting, adding extra "i's" into "hi" to draw it out, or is that to childish, does it seem like I'm looking for attention?

On the other hand, if I leave the decision to you, if I wait for you to text first, what will happen? Of course, I will constantly check my phone even when my vibrate is on, looking for the notification that doesn't come, waiting for you to initiate contact so I can close the spaces inbetween us, or suppose you are going through the same thought process as I, and we come to the same conclusion, both waiting for the other to message.

And so it continues, so much consideration put into a singular text, one that I probably won't send, one that I might tap out.

I don't think you actually love me, or ever did,

I guess that's okay

In truth, I probably don't love you either

It's more likely to be the infatuation with the idea of love

I have a chronic addiction to romance

idealising, imagining, dreaming

Stupid fantasies gradually turning into expectations

High standards and expectations

I expected too much of you

Romanticising romance, thinking it would be perfect

I projected that onto you, my idea of a relationship

I think you projected onto me, too

Both of us falling not for each other but for what we perceived as the other person, which was really just a reflection of our insecurities and wishes

falling for ourselves, projected onto others

Twisted self-love for self-hatred

a sickening conundrum

it's almost laughable, don't you think?

Loving to hate ourselves

Hating to love ourselves

I think, somewhere, we got life mixed up with death

Romanticising our flaws which we saw as belonging to someone else

It's stupid, really

They're called flaws for a reason

I think I should let you know, you know

That someone who loves your flaws isn't really someone who loves you

You need someone who loves you despite them

Who sticks with you even when your flaws kick and lash out at them

I can't be that person for you anymore

I'm leaving us

and the spaces inbetween

of course, you've already left

haven't spoken in months

I just stand here in the space inbetween

a coward with too many thoughts and too little courage

All these words rolling around inside of me

I'll let them out eventually

Out into the inbetween, as I start to breathe again, not for you,

for me.

poem title: "Breathing inbetween". written 17 June 2020

[fierykitten2]

A few headcanons about Snacksworth’s treats:

The Proto Beasts and Neo Swords love their respective modern-day counterparts’ treats (Blueberry and Cherry just coming up to me and mugging me for the Suicune and Virizion treats I used to catch Scarlet and Violet respectively)

Glastrier treats have Iceroot Carrots and Spectrier treats have Shaderoot Carrots

Disappointingly I can’t think of anything else right now also both of those felt very obvious

[conkreetmonkey]

Red Dead Redemption 2 was so real for creating the most in-depth, realistic clothing system I've ever seen in any game, and exclusively using it on burly, unhygienic men.

You choose every layer, every accessory, with dozens to hundreds of each to choose from. You can go in and fine-tune minute details like whether or not to roll up the shirt sleeves, or button the collar, or whether to wear your pants under your boots. These clothes get dirty in real time depending on what you do in the game. Mud, dust and blood linger unless washed off. Every garment has a warmth rating based on its material, and the game calculates what temperatures an outfit is suitable for based on the combined total. Dressing too cold or warm for the weather causes health debuffs.

You can choose which way he parts his hair, and whether he gels it. If you eat too much he gets bulkier and gains a double chin, and if you eat too little he can go underweight and get all bony and sallow. Both of these states come with stat changes. His hair and beard grow in real game time, and you need to routinely style and shave his facial hair if you want any style other than a full Santa. You need to bathe him regularly or people will start commenting on his BO, and he'll start visibly appearing filthy long before that. He sunburns in the sun, and in the heat he becomes slick and glossy with sweat.

This shit is IN DEPTH. It blows the customization systems of actual fashion-centric games like tf2, Monster Hunter and Splatoon out of the water in every regard. They honestly look basic in comparison. It's a paradigm shift for sure once you experience RDR2's level of customization. Everything else starts to feel smaller.

The player character all this customization is applied to, and I simply cannot stress this enough, is a 36 year old, 6'3" smoker weighing well over 200 pounds, with facial hair thicker than a sheepdogs, forearms like gnarled tree trunks and a dark, dense forest of body hair covering every reasonable surface. His skin is pocked and marred with scars from a rugged, nomadic lifestyle, and his teeth are the colour of cornbread. He has a thick southern accent, is a known mean drunk and knows how to skin pretty much any North American animal. He has never worn deodorant, flossed or moisturized. He eats canned beans, fruit and the like by simply pouring them into his mouth and gulping, often while walking or riding a horse at full gallop.

I can think of NO better use case for such customization. Not some fresh-faced little twink, not some busty anime babe. Just a gross, hairy, unwashed homeless dude with crippling self esteem issues and a chest broader than a barrel laid lengthwise. A non fashion-centric game, certainly a non-fashion centric character, but for some reason the best clothing and customization system ever concieved, bar none. What the fuck.

[readwritealldayallnight]

Part 4 of Bird Watching aka hot construction worker Simon Riley x single mom reader

It’s almost comical, when you allow yourself the rare moment of quiet to sit and reflect, just how different life is now compared to less than a year ago

Last year, the mental check list you went through every time you ventured out of your flat was much shorter, simpler, the bare essentials one might say

Wallet? Check

Phone? Check

Keys? Check

Out the door you went

Nowadays, the check list was only the teensiest bit longer, thanks to the teensiest addition to your flat

Wallet? Check

Phone? Check

Keys? Check

Diaper bag? Check

Enough diapers and wipes? Got it

Extra sets of clothes in case she has a blow out? Already packed in the bag

Her little beanie in case it gets chilly? You swore you had shoved it to the bottom of the diaper bag last time you took a walk…

Enough blankies for her to be comfortable in the pram? Most are in the hamper where you left them…

Her pacifier if she gets fussy? Can’t find a single one, though you swore you owned a dozen…

The baby sling if she becomes tired of the pram and wants to be held? Has to be somewhere around here…

Getting out the door recently proved to be a more complicated affair than you were used to, as did every other aspect of new motherhood that no one could suitably prepare you for, though as the weeks went on, you were slowly but surely getting the hang of things

Not that you had much of a choice in the matter, did you?

Your family and friends overseas were supportive, they checked in with you regularly, always gushed over each and every baby photo you sent their way, had even gone and sent you care packages not long after your delivery, helping to contribute to all the baby gear and supplies you would need to embark on this new chapter of your life… but at the end of the day, you were still going through all this by yourself

It was you who was navigating the late night cluster feedings, it was you who had to learn how to soothe a colicky infant who never wanted to be put down, you who still had to cook the meals you needed to eat, you who still washed the dishes that piled up, you who still had to do the laundry that needed washing, you who had to pay the bills which weighed heavy on your mind each time you watched your bank account diminish, all of this while running on such little sleep you oftentimes felt more like the undead than someone who’d just created new life

And yet… you managed

This hadn’t been how you’d originally envisioned your life going, but now that she was here, now that the tiny speck of life you’d spent months growing inside you was more than just a blurry mass on an ultrasound screen, now that she was a real tangible person whose birth certificate bore your name and yours alone, you couldn’t picture a world without her

The only issue was, you couldn’t picture how much longer you’d be able to keep this up - money was the one thing you couldn’t offer her in abundance

You were a smart girl, you’d been saving up ever since you started working as a teenager, you rented a flat that wasn’t out of your budget, you sold the car when it became evident that it was a luxury you couldn’t afford to keep any longer - but no one could have prepared you for how utterly and devastatingly expensive babies were

Your only choice was to go back to work, as heartbreaking as the thought of leaving your new baby in the care of strangers was, and as much as your body protested the idea, you really were running out of options unfortunately

The stark lack of childcare available was only just the cherry on top of it all, wasn’t it?

You’d reached out to in-home nurseries, local daycares, nanny agencies, larger company centres, and every time the answer was the same: there’s a wait list

As much as you valued your independence, your ability to stay positive in the face of problems no matter how big or small, and as much as you despised asking for help, you had been inching closer to a breaking point when you overheard a conversation between two mums in the paediatricians waiting room, something about the bothersome construction site around the corner being worth it in the end if it turned out to be a new nursery after all

Swallowing down your pride and putting on what you hoped came across as a brave face, you’d ventured over to that very construction site, determined to find out if this might be your needle in the haystack, if this truly could be somewhere you had a fighting chance of enrolling Rosie before the money ran out, even if that meant asking for help for once

What you hadn’t realized at the time, was just how much help you’d end up getting

Part of you still wakes up some mornings, wondering if Simon was a perfect dream you had, the answer to your prayers you’d never spoken aloud, the solution to your problems handed to you on a silver platter

Because what kind of man does all of this for a stranger? Who goes through all this trouble just to be kind? Did he feel bad for you? Did he pity you? There had to be some sort of ulterior motive to this, right?

“Or, I don’t know? Did it ever occur to you that maybe he likes you?” You roll your eyes as you picture the exact expression on your best friend’s face as she tells you this over the phone. You’d told her everything, keen on getting someone else’s opinion on the situation

“He doesn’t even know me yet.” You reply, phone cradled against your ear and shoulder as you double check you’ve packed everything in Rosie’s diaper bag

“Exactly, not yet. He obviously wants to.” She answers easily, never one to be phased by your talent to shut things down prematurely. “Don’t go ruining a good thing before it even happens.”

“I don’t know. It’s not just me I have to make these decisions for anymore, you know? I’ve got Rosie to think about too.” You say, glancing over at her in her crib, entirely entranced by the mobile spinning above her

“Yeah, and look at how he’s already trying to provide for the two of you! The guy literally found you a nursery spot within days! You’ve been telling me it’s impossible for weeks and dude did it in the blink of an eye. For you.” She tries to rationalize to you. “I know it was different while you were pregnant, you didn’t want to date, and I get that. But she’s here now, and you can’t keep yourself closed off ‘til she’s eighteen.”

“When did I say I was keeping myself closed off?”

“Sweetie, I know you, okay? You tried finding him, we all did. But he’s not just going to appear.” You can’t help but cringe slightly as her words, knowing exactly who she’s referring to. “You are not the first woman in the world to get pregnant from a one night stand, and you won’t be the last.”

“I don’t-”

“No I’m serious, listen to me.” She interrupts you before you can protest properly. “You never even got his name, babe. I love you, and I know you always want to do the right thing, but you can’t keep holding out hope you’ll find him again. If this Simon guy wants to step up and take you out for a date, then let him. Who knows, you might even have fun. You remember that word right? Fun? Something people are supposed to try and do.”

“Maybe I should take back the godmother idea, after all.” You joke, knowing deep down that your friend is right

“Too late. I’ve already got it embroidered on my jacket. I’m gonna get her a matching one when she’s bigger.”

You go to tease her instantly, knowing that her embroidery skills will have the jacket looking like Rosie decorated it herself, when a knock at the door interrupts your thoughts

“I’ve got to go, I think he’s here already.”

“Just try to give this a chance, will you? Please?” Your friend asks, the sincerity in her tone giving you pause as you refrain from automatically rolling your eyes again

“I’ll keep you posted.”

“You better.”

Hanging up the phone, you scoop Rosie up to cradle her against your chest as you make your way towards the door, steadying yourself with a deep breath, a quick glance in the hallway mirror letting you know you don’t look half as bad as you could, before you’re opening the door for Simon

The first thing you’re caught off guard by is the same as every other time your eyes have landed on him, which is just how ruggedly handsome he is, his impressive stature and evident muscle tone aside, the thin scars and pock marks littered across his pale skin cannot hide the strong face beneath, dirty blonde hair with a days worth of stubble to match, a nose that looks as though it’s been broken and reset one too many times, it’s his eyes that really captivate you, his eyes that tell you there’s a story to be uncovered here

Your gaze doesn’t linger long however, when you spot the bright yellow bouquet clutched in his hands

He wonders if it really is this easy, to keep a pretty bird happy

If he knew how elated you’d be at the sight of some bright flowers from the shop nearby, then he should have figured the new infant car seat securely installed in his truck would have you practically bursting as the seams

You tried insisting to him that you’d pay him back for the car seat, that he really hadn’t needed to make such a purchase for you, but he wasn’t having any of that

In truth, Simon never even bothered to look at the price tag or the receipt at any point, the cost was the furthest thing from his mind, not when he considered your happiness to be pricelesss

And while he could readily admit to himself that he didn’t know how to do this, didn’t quite understand how to go about this ‘the right way’, didn’t know how to come off as anything other than intense and insistent, he could equally confess that he was just following what felt right

He figured that pretty birds liked it when men bought them things, showered them in grand gestures, but they probably liked it even more when it was things they paid attention to, things that made them feel seen, like flowers in your favourite colour, or a car seat to keep your baby bird safe, or opening the door for you when your hands were full, or offering to carry the absurdly large diaper bag while you juggled the baby

Of course, it wasn’t like he’d had much of an example growing up to follow off of, someone’s footsteps to trace and replicate. Simon can’t help but to think for a fleeting moment as he watches you buckle Rosie in, ‘would it have been that hard?’ for his own father to have paid attention? To have made his mum feel seen? To have tried? Was it really so difficult to be a good man?

He can recall a time when his old man was far too pissed on the drink to notice that Simon had been skipping school, sat in front of the telly and yelling about how the news stories that day were rubbish, his speech too slurred to be fully comprehensible, but he’ll never forget when the old man turned to him, looked at him for the first time in a long time and saw him rather than saw through him, empty beer bottle pointed in his direction and eyes glazed over, telling him ‘When I see wha’ I wan’- no- when I see wha’s mine, I take it! Y’hear me boy? You see wha’s yours, an’ you take it.’

Never in his life had Simon ever wanted to take the man’s advice, determined to never turn out as he had, but this was one such occasion where he could agree with the low life’s sentiment

Because when he looks at you, sat contently next to him in his passenger seat with a smile on your face, a glance in the rear view mirror showing a strapped in baby lulled to sleep on the drive, he knows he can’t let this slip through his fingers, not when his heart kept repeating one thing to him

Mine mine mine mine mine

What was one more lie to make sure this was his? He’d never claimed to be a perfect man, not even a good a man, but if one more innocent fib helped him get one step closer to calling something his own for the first time in a very long time, helped him prove he could be the right man for you, then where was the harm in that?

“You might-” he clears his throat awkwardly when you glance over at him, averting his gaze quickly and readjusting his grip on the steering wheel. “You might hear ‘em call me a weird nickname, dependin’ who’s workin’, by the way.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” You ask him with immediate curiosity, angling yourself more towards him now, with an elbow against the centre console while you balance your chin on your fist, attention solely on his words

The two of you had been making idle chit chat throughout the drive, mostly your endless thanks and his insistence that you were no bother, but this is the first thing he’s mentioned that’s really caught your attention

“We’ve been workin’ on this site for a while, the nursery. I’ve put in quite a few hours on it myself. I like to see things through properly, end up workin’ later than some o’ the other blokes most days.” He starts off, peeking at you quickly as he weaves through traffic, seeing that you’re still listening intently. “Anyway, someone made the joke one day tha’ I treat the job almost like it’s my kid or somethin’, that I’m sort of the ‘dad’ on site.”

“Really?” You scoff, not in an unkind way, but more like you believe what he’s saying, believe that some younger lads on the crew would totally take a jab at him and start referring to him as the dad

“Really. After that, the name just sort o’ stuck. So if you hear anyone call me dad, tha’s all they’re talkin’ ‘bout.” He shrugs, trying to come across as casual as he can, nonchalant in the way someone telling a real anecdote would be

“Even folk outside your work crew call you that?”

“Done enough jobs for this company that somehow they got wind o’ the name. Haven’t been able to shake it yet.” He playfully rolls his eyes and looks at you in a ‘what can you do about it’ kind of way, hoping that this is one of the last tales he has to weave into the web of lies he’s unintentionally begun to spin around you

He knew it was a bit of a stretch, that the odds of avoiding the truth and pretending to be your husband, to be Rosie’s father, were stacked against him, and piling higher and higher the more he opened his mouth, but Simon knows that this isn’t a sprint to the finish line, this is more akin to a marathon, and while he’s stretched and rearing to go, if he can play his cards right, you’ll be waiting for him with open arms on the other end of the ribbon, ready to crown him with those same titles he’s pretending are already his to claim

He wasn’t sure if the ‘dad’ lie was going to be entirely necessary today, though he’d wanted to cover his bases as much as possible before the meeting, hoping to avoid interfering too much and raising suspicions

He’s ultimately glad for the fib however, when he holds the door open for you and Rosie, and the three of you are greeted with the sight of a flustered assistant director sat behind the desk

“Oh, hi! Apologies if I seem rushed, our director had something come up last minute, and she won’t be able to make it in time. Flat tire, it seems.” The young woman explains as she attempts to straighten some scattered documents, Simon nodding along in understanding when you voice your own sympathy at the situation, feigning ignorance as though he hadn’t been the one to prick the woman’s wheel earlier that morning

“She’s asked me to speak with you in the meantime.” She goes on to say, coming around to desk and approaching Simon first with an extended hand. “You must be the dad she was mentioning to me then.”

“Aye, nice to meet you.” He agrees politely, offering the woman a quick shake of the hand before dropping his gaze over to you, the two of you sharing a look that says ‘wow, they really do call you that, huh?’

“And then you must be Mom, of course.” She turns towards you, offering you the same professional handshake and smile she likely gives everyone who walks through these doors

“That’d be me. Though, just Rosie’s mom. I could never handle all those sites and jobs like he does, the baby’s enough for me.” You joke, believing that you’re all referencing how Simon is ‘dad’ to his construction jobs, while you’re mom to the little girl that’s brought you all here today

Lucky for Simon, this woman apparently doesn’t get paid enough to dissect people’s statements

“Agreed, we’ll leave that to him.” She laughs along with you before turning her attention towards the squirming bundle in the pram. “And who have we here then?”

Just like that, the attention’s off of him, off of your relationship to one another, diverted instead towards enrolment details, paperwork that needs to be filled out, information you need to know as a parent and information they need as a childcare provider

Before he knows it, more than an hour’s gone by, the t’s have been crossed and the i’s have been dotted, and you’re told that as soon as the open sign switches on at the new location, Rosie’s got a spot in their infant program

“I should probably feed her quickly, just before we get going again.” You tell Simon, bouncing an increasingly upset Rosie against your shoulder as you stand up from your chair

“Oh. Yeah, ‘course. You have a, uh, a bottle for ‘er, or-” he trails off, not yet prepared to name the alternative

“I wish. No, she hasn’t taken to a bottle quite yet. Still prefers it straight from the tap.” You explain easily, not catching the way the mental image you’ve just painted for him has his heart jump starting in his chest, breath catching in his throat, and heat rushing up his neck

“We do have a breastfeeding space, just past our staff room around the corner here. You’re welcome to use it.” The assistant director informs you, pointing you in the right direction as she opens her office door back up

“Perfect. And thank you again so much. I can’t even begin to tell you how much this means to us.” You tell her, sincere gratitude painted across your features

“You go on ‘head, love. I’ll wait out ‘ere for ya.” Simon says, watching you turn around the corner out of earshot

“You’ve got a lovely family, Mr. Riley.” The woman tells him offhandedly, beginning to gather all the paperwork you’ve just filled out by hand for them

“I do. I’m very lucky.” He agrees easily, taking a step closer to her desk. “Though the poor missus has been exhausted lately, late nights with the baby an’ all tha’. Hope everything was filled out alrigh’.” He adds, throwing a baited line out into the water, waiting to see if he’ll get a bite

“Ugh, don’t we know it. She looks like she’s handling things well though, and everything here looks to be in order as far as I can- oh. Actually,” the woman says, fingers stopping halfway through the sheet she was quickly glancing over, making sure no spots were left empty now that Simon had mentioned it. “It looks like she only filled out the emergency contacts halfway. She’s only put herself.”

“S’alrigh’, I can add my information quickly. I know she’s real tired, poor girl.” Simon doesn’t give the woman the chance to blink before he’s snatched a loose pen up and is scribbling his name and phone number under the second emergency contact, marking himself under as ‘dad’

After all, it’s only a matter of time until the words he’s put on paper are as real as the ink drying on paper declare them to be

It’s midafternoon by the time he’s driven you and Rosie back to your flat, insisting that he help you carry the diaper bag and pram back inside as you cradled a sleeping babe against chest, hopeful that you could lay her back down in her crib without waking her

“You can make yourself a cup of tea if you’d like, while you wait. I’ll hopefully just be a minute or two. Mugs are in the cabinet by the sink, tea bags by the kettle.” You tell him before slipping down the hall towards her room

Simon takes his time glancing around your space this time, now that his attention isn’t solely enraptured by your presence, and thinks he can hear his heart beating through his ears, when he catches sight of his own chicken scratch penmanship in your kitchen, on the fridge amongst the postcards and takeaway menus and old seasons greetings cards, is the phone number he’d written for you when you first met, a mirrored version of his own fridge at home bearing only your writing

He takes your advice and prepares not just one but two cups of tea, puts your new flowers into a vase and fills it with water before setting it on your table, the sound of your approaching footsteps masked by the hissing of the kettle, though when he turns and makes eye contact with you, the energy in the room is different from before, a tension that wasn’t present the last time you both stood here

“How’d you take your tea?” He asks, jutting his chin towards the chairs at the table, his way of telling you to sit and let him take care of you, his own way of unofficially saying his job isn’t over yet, he’s not done here yet. Rosie’s daycare spot might be filled, he might have driven you home, helped you inside, but won’t you let him prepare your tea? Won’t you indulge him just a little longer?

To his elation, you do. You tell him how you like your tea, you watch him gather his ingredients and prepare both your drinks, watch him as he slides your cup across the table and lowers himself into the seat next to you, rather than across from you like last time, feeling more daring than before

“Simon, I know you keep telling me this is all okay, that it’s no big deal, not a problem,” you start, fingers fidgeting with the handle of your mug as he takes his own sip, pretending as though he isn’t desperately hanging onto your every word, hoping that the gears turning in your head have landed on a conclusion in his favour. “But I just- I don’t know how to thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me. Truly.” His reply is instantaneous, honest, one he’s given you each time you try to act as though you owe him anything for his kindness, as though he isn’t the one getting more out of this than you are

“How’s this possible?” You ask with a flustered laugh, the smallest crack in your usually cool and collected facade beginning to show, a glimmer of a flummoxed, confused, disbelieving girl peaking through for a split second

“What’d you mean, love?” Simon inquires, pushing his mug to the side and offering you his undivided attention now

“I just- you’ve been nothing but kind, and helpful, and outrageously generous since the literal minute I’ve met you Simon. And I’m so beyond appreciative and thankful- but I- I mean- how- what are you getting out of this?” You finally ask, a visible weight being lifted off your shoulders as you ask the question that’s clearly been plaguing you

Part of him aches as you essentially admit to him that you have a hard time believing someone could be so kind without expecting anything in return, that you feel you owe him anything because of his help, but he also lives in this same world as you, has seen just how dark and cruel and greedy people can be, agrees with the sentiment that you can’t willingly trust just anyone

But he doesn’t want to be just anyone to you, and so he decides to try some honesty for a change

“I like you.”

“You think you like me. You hardly know me.” You reply, as though his answer was one you were expecting, though the determination on your face cannot hide the faint blush that appeared on the apples of your cheeks soon as his words were in the open

“I’d like to get to know you. Feel a bit like I already do.” At this, Simon eases your mug out of your grasp, slipping his own calloused palms into your much softer, smaller hands, knowing already that he’ll be feigning for your next touch before he’s even let go of you yet. “I look at you, love, you and Rosie, the two o’ you, and I see…”

What he doesn’t dare say aloud is that you remind him of something achingly familiar, that he looks at you and sees someone alone, someone in need of help, too fiercely proud to admit so, you remind him of him, you remind him of home, in the most fucked up yet equally incredible way

But for now, he settles instead on telling you a little less

“Hope.” Your eyes widen at his words, mouth falling open in the slightest ‘o’ as you take in his words. “You- y’give me hope.”

Something about that seems to resonate within you, has you blinking at him as though you’ve been only seeing a silhouette through thick fog thus far, able to make out the silhouette of a man but unable to define his edges, unsure whether you’re seeing a friend or foe, but now, it’s as though the high beams have finally turned on, as though you’re seeing him in perfect, unfiltered light

Simon can only hope you don’t hate what you see

He thinks it’s safe to presume not, when your hand lets go of his, reaching up instead to pull him in by his shirt collar until your lips meet, eyelids closing with visions of yellows flowers in the corner of your eyes

Next chapter

Tag list: @dawnnightshade666 @topaz125 @ilovetaquitosmmmm @th3on3and0nly1r1s @sirbonesly @biscgutz @cmbghost @glossy01 @slowlyshycomputer @barcelonaaababe @astrxsee @sweetpeakarolinaaa @aqua-nina @wizzdot @beautifuleaglealpaca @peachy-satan00 @drewsuncrustables @pato-spoiler-27 @lem-hhn @dravenskye @juullllssss @mxsatorisimp @merkitty49 @monssan99-blog @notkyleelol @tessakate @sahvlren @danika1994 @viennakarma @pastel-devil-06 @asoulsreverie @puppydollgstar @strawberrygato @heletsmelovehim @404creep @just-lilita @desiretolive @marigold-morelli @robinfeldt98 @sleep101 @scaleniusrm

[gyudons]

despicable

updates as of 22 oct

Travis Dermott knew that he would draw attention with his actions in the Coyotes’ home opener against the Anaheim Ducks at Mullett Arena on Saturday. The Arizona defenseman just hoped that the spotlight might shine on the issue that he was addressing, not on him.

“You don’t really want to go against rules that are put in place by your employer, but there’s some people who took some positive things from it,” Dermott said. “That’s kind of what I’m looking to impact.

“You want to have everyone feel included and that’s something that I have felt passionate about for a long time in my career. It’s not like I just just jumped on this train. It’s something that I’ve felt has been lacking in the hockey community for a while. I feel like we need supporters of a movement like this; to have everyone feel included and really to beat home the idea that hockey is for everyone.”

“I won’t lie,” said Dermott, who is playing on a one-year, two-way contract. “From the outside, it’s easy to see that I’m putting my career on the line for something. I definitely went through some emotional ups and downs that night, not regretting anything by any means, but I’d love to have maybe done a couple of steps a little different by making sure that everyone was aware of what was going on before I did it.

“I don’t want to put my teammates or my coaches or my GMs or the equipment managers in any kind of bad light when it’s their job to kind of look out for something like this happening. It was definitely something that I did just by myself and was prepared to kind of deal with whatever repercussions the league decides to push towards that. I’m not going to back off and say that this battle is won, but we’re going to find better ways to do it.”

As Dermott noted, LGBTQ+ inclusion is an issue that he has supported for a long time. Without getting into specifics, Dermott said the issue is personal for him because it impacts people close to him.

“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t shed tears about this on multiple occasions,” he said. “So yeah, it’s something I’m definitely very passionate about.

“I’ve met a lot of people that from the outside, it looks like they have everything going right in their life and they have a smile on their face every time they talk to you. But sometimes when we get closer to people and get comfortable enough for them to open up to you, you can see that there’s some pretty dark stuff happening to some good people. It doesn’t take too many times encountering something like that for it to really change someone.

“I’ve been blessed to have some of those opportunities put in front of me to really change my view of what being a good person means; what being a good father and a good example and role model means going forward. You really see how people are hurting and it’s because of a system that maybe no one’s intentionally trying to be malicious about, but until you’ve really had that first-person experience seeing people hurting from it right in front of you, it’s tough to kind of take steps.”

It would be a surprise if the league handed down any sort of punishment. The optics alone would add to the public relations damage that the original ban created. Even so, Dermott reiterated his desire to bring the entire franchise into the fold before he takes similar actions in the future, but he also made it clear that he will not be silenced on the topic.

“It’s not like I’m shutting up and going away,” he said. “I know more questions are going to be coming. We’re just going to be as prepared as we can be to just spread love. That’s the thing. It’s gay pride that we’re talking about, but it could be men’s health. It could be any war. It’s just wanting world peace. Everyone’s got to love each other a little bit more.

“Like my parents said growing up, ‘How awesome would it be to be the guy that people look up to?’ That’s what really hit home when I was a kid, especially from my mom. You want to grow up and be that guy. You want to be the guy that’s having the impact on kids like NHL players had on you. If they had been racist or bigoted, that’s going to have an effect on you.

“With how many eyes are on us, especially with the young kids coming up in the new generation, you want to put as much positive love into their brain as you can. You want them to see that it’s not just being taught or coming from maybe their parents at home. They need to see it in the public eye for it to really make an effect.”

[lovebugism]

✶ ┄ HOUNDS OF LOVE !

part one | part two

summary: you and marcus live lightyears apart within the city walls when emperor geta takes a greater liking to you than expected. you start to find a strange sense of understanding within the crazed emperor, while general acacius plots your escape. (11k)

pairing: marcus acacius / f!reader, emperor geta / f!reader

contents: established relationships, angst, hurt/comfort, cw for mentions of war, mentions of sex work, brief mentions of emotional abuse (geta has anger issues he's working on), swearing, smut 18+ (dubcon, unprotected sex, exhibitionism & voyeurism) (this is another dark fic!! please heed the warnings!!)

“Meet me in the garden,” you pant against the General’s mouth as you kiss him with a desperate sort of fervor. It’s all wet and hungry and unforgiving, like biting into an apple. “At sunset, on the morrow. Say you’ll meet me there.”

Despite your delicate touch, you cradle Marcus in a most violent hold. You keep him impossibly close with one hand wrapped around his neck, tanned and taut with the strain of war. Your other twists in his hair, dancing through the greying curls of fine silk. You embrace the General within the candlelit crypt where, before now, only death seemed to roam.

Marcus stands as still as the statues of ghosts surrounding you. You lick into his mouth like you plan to breathe life back into his lungs, even while he withers into nothingness at your feet. A thin layer of your spit coats the scruff of his chin. He balls his calloused hands into fists at his sides and pretends a part of you isn’t glittering upon him. He holds onto plausible deniability like a shield.

“It is not safe,” Marcus murmurs in a gruff whisper when you pull back to take a breath. His lidded eyes dart over your kissed face — gaze heavied, lips swollen. Beautiful devil, fallen angel. “You know this.”

Not anymore, he wants to say. Not while you belong to Them.

“Why not?” you challenge, always so girlishly gentle in your stubbornness. “Everyone will be at the feast, Marcus— No one will see us, I’m sure of it.”

Your eyes flit between his kissed mouth and dark-eyed gaze. Universes shine in your irises despite the shadows of the labyrinthine tomb. Marcus feels a white-hot knife twisting in his chest as he resists the urge to hold you.

“It’s the world we live in now, petal. There is little use in questioning it.”

“But why?” you question, anyway. “Why must we live in this world, hm? The war is over— We could make our own, somewhere far away from the city. Somewhere no one could ever find us—”

You create heavens with your naivety.

Marcus burns them down with words.

“The Emperors would not stand for losing their general. For them, the war is never finished,” the General interjects in a sorrowful deadpan, aching when your face twists with grief. “And if they misplaced you? They… They would burn cities to the ground in their hunt… They would set the world aflame before they stopped searching for you.”

Marcus knows this because he knows himself — every star in the sky would burn out before he stopped looking for you. He knows this, too, because he knows the Emperors. Perhaps better than anyone else in the entire world. 

Geta and Caracalla were born with the belief that they possessed ownership over everything they touched. Anyone stealing from their Empire would meet a swift and tortuous demise. They were merciless gods who dangled life and death on their fingertips. Only those who kissed the ring would make it out of their rule alive.

And you knew it, too. 

That was the worst part of it all: you knew it.

Tomorrow comes and passes like rolling summer clouds, slow and heavy and suffocating. You watch from the royal garden as the sky turns from a glittering sapphire to milky shades of peach and lavender. Another day gone by that you’ve spent grieving on your own. 

Though time marches mercilessly on, threatening to untie unbreakable bonds, it changes little of how much you and Marcus have grown together. Like cherry trees kissed with the promise of spring, with your roots tangled gracelessly together. It’s a knot that cannot be undone, not even by the promise of death. 

And for that, you figure you must be grateful.

Because as you sit on the stone steps of an artificial lake, twirling your fingers in the warm water of the koi pond, you wonder how dreadful it must be for the multi-colored carp. To swim in circles your whole life, to think the world is only as big as the bricks holding you hostage. 

At least you know what it means to grow up in the rolling green of an infinite countryside. At least now you have gardens to roam in the greatest city in the world. At least now you get to live.

A breeze sweeps suddenly through the garden, rippling the crystalline water and rustling the bright green leaves over your head. It carries the soft sound of footsteps scraping the stone trail. Your ears perk, your heart stops, and your head whips over your shoulder. You hope to see Marcus standing at the steps below you.

Your chest tightens and deflates all at once at the sight of Emperor Geta.

He’s adorned in his white-gold cloak, with his laurels sat atop his strawberry-blonde curls, and carrying a jeweled ring on each finger. The sunlight paints the man in flaxen rays of light. The rainbow-colored flowers seem to bloom with every one of his steps. All you can think is how beautiful he is — much too pretty to be so cruel.

“I did not mean to frighten you,” the Emperor concedes, eyes wide and palms splayed in surrender. His sandals scuff the cobbles with each hesitant stride.

“No, of course not,” you blurt with a rapid shake of your head, a quickness sure to give away your choked-back terror. “I just… I only thought you’d be at the dining hall with the rest of the court.”

“I was. Until the handmaidens notified me of your absence.”

You meet his wide-eyed expression with a narrowed gaze, lips curling into an unsure smile. “How can I be absent from a place I do not belong, Your Majesty?” you quip, though your voice threatens to shake.

Geta’s brows furrow. His ringed fingers twitch at his sides. “Belong?” he echoes.

“The feast is for nobility, and I grew up in a brothel,” you answer, giggling quietly under your breath. “I am certainly the farthest thing from royalty.”

You flash him a gentle smile and playful gaze, but the Emperor only frowns. 

He can hardly stomach the thought of it — of his most precious thing living in the countryside, surrounded by filth, touched by unworthy hands. He’s glad you’re now, where only he can touch you. Where he can make you clean.

“There is a place for you there, nonetheless,” Geta tells you and takes another step closer. He stands at the bottom of the stone steps and tilts his chin to his chest. His chocolate eyes harden as he presses more firmly, “And I will see that you attend.”

His sudden glacial disposition makes your stomach wrench. You’ve grown so used to him now, learned all the ways to keep him satisfied, that you’ve forgotten how quickly angered he can be. You don’t want to remember his wrath. 

You nod at the invitation with a wavering smile, knowing you aren’t at liberty to turn him down, and rise from your spot by the pool.

You hold your gown in both hands as you descend the stairs, flinching slightly when Geta rushes to help you. Sometimes, you think he can sense your worry, or that he regrets snapping at you the way he does. Either way, his efforts to pivot the situation are apparent to you — like he never learned how to apologize, so he’s forced to improvise in the matter.

His warm, petaled hand engulfs you to ease you down the tricky cobbles. 

“I only mean that… it is strange. Being without there… Or anywhere, really,” he admits, talking slowly like each word is foreign to him. His gaze darts from yours to the vacant path ahead. “I find that I am looking for you in places I knew you could not be. It’s foolish, I know.”

His gentleness is perhaps more striking than his rage.

“It isn’t foolish, Your Majesty,” you insist as you reach the bottom of the staircase. You peer at him through your lashes and fake another smile. “I just didn’t know you were such a poet.”

Geta doesn’t understand your meaning. Where was the poetry in his words? How did such burdensome feelings of tenderness make him a poet? 

“Neither did I,” he muses, guiding you out of the garden with his hand in yours.

Though still riddled with feelings of uncertainty, Geta is strangely moved by how you’re looking at him now — with the sun sparkling in your softened gaze, more gentle than anyone deserves to be looked at. So he figures he can be a poet for you, if he must.

You bathe again in the rosehip oil Geta always insists you wear, and dress yourself in the fine silk gown you know he prefers. The pale blue fabric drapes off your shoulders and flows to your ankles, cinched at the waist with a jewel-encrusted belt of gold. Your skin and body are adorned, in this moment alone, with perhaps more money than you’ve ever seen in your life. 

The thought makes your head swim as you amble to the dining hall. 

The silent guards at your side make no effort to rush you for fear of the Emperors’ wrath. Still, though, the notion that they are commissioned to ensure your attendance is not lost on you. Any attempt to flee will surely be met with force — if not from the knights, then from Geta himself.

The feasting is long done by the time you arrive. Mingling bodies flit around the crowded manor in a blur. Live music swells distantly as rose petals fall from thin air to decorate the marble floor. You wring your hands nervously together as you weave through the bustling court, gravitating to the large open window at the back of the hall — where you know the Emperors rest on their plush, velvet chaises.

Caracalla notices you first.

The boy rises from his lounged position — laurels crooked on his blonde head and robe shifting up his pale thighs — and smiles at you with all his crooked teeth. His lone golden tooth glints in the sunlight. 

“You showed,” he announces to no one in particular, just before his wild head swivels to his brother on the other side of the couch. “See, brother? I told you there was naught to worry about. Did I not?”

Geta does not appear happy to see you. His features remain in an emotionless scowl while his smokey eyes rake over your form. “You did,” he responds distantly, if only to appease his younger brother.

Caracalla doesn’t seem to notice the tension caging him on both sides as he flashes you another toothy grin. “He threatened to send the Praetorians after you,” he lilts like it’s some kind of silly secret. 

The Emperors’ bodyguards line the wall behind them, as well as all the entrances and nearly every window. They were like your Marcus — military veterans, strong and sharp and ruthless — though you imagine the only soft side you’ll ever see of them is a fist. They are certainly not the kind of people you want sent after you.

“Well, you were right, Your Majesty,” you grin. “There was naught to worry about. I was simply making myself presentable for the court.”

Caracalla holds his ringed hand out for you as you near him. You bend at the waist to kiss the emerald on his ring finger. The motion is muscle memory to you now. “You look beautiful,” he slurs like a child. “Like a fairy, almost.” 

“You flatter me, Your Majesty,” you nod politely and rise to full height again. 

You feel his ocean eyes on your body as you pass him by, glassy and sparkling with a boyish sort of wonder. A stark contrast to the way his brother glares daggers at you. 

“You certainly took your time,” Geta monotones in place of a greeting.

You stand obediently at his side and twist your clammy hands into knots. “I was only getting dressed, Your Majesty. I wanted to look pretty for you—”

“Nonsense,” the Emperor spits and turns away. You’re always pretty, he’d say if he could get the words out. Instead, he softens his suddenly hardened edges and flashes you a gentler glance. “I thought you’d defied me,” he confesses, as though in lieu of an apology for his fleeting hysterics.

“I couldn’t,” you murmur with a quiet smile.

Not wouldn’t, he notices. Not shouldn’t.

But couldn’t. Like your body was fated to listen to his command.

A funny feeling sparkles like gold in his chest. It makes him fidget uncomfortably on the couch. “Sit down,” he instructs with a wave of his ringed hand before slouching back in his seat, pale arms splayed along the edge of it. His brows pinch when you descend onto the empty spot beside him. “Not there.”

You freeze in place. Your eyes widen and dart to his thighs, spread out and hidden beneath the skirt of his robe. You look to Geta once more and cower beneath his expectant look. You sink hesitantly onto his lap, feeling like your heart’s in your throat as you lean into his chest. 

Your unsure hands curl around his shoulders. His curls brush your cheek. He smells overwhelmingly of musk and wine and cinnamon. Something about it makes you dizzy.

You survey the room from your position in Geta’s lap. Most people aren’t looking, you find, too busy talking and flirting and dancing together. A few noblemen across the way leer incredulously at you, though, like they’re trying to gauge if they know you from somewhere. You presume you likely slept with one or more of their sons during the war, most of which are likely dead now.

A few women crowd behind the chaise — all dressed in muted shades of silk, all dripped in jewels and gold. They’re pretty, effortlessly so, as they talk into their goblets full of wine. Some looked relieved to have the Emperors’ attention off of them. Others sneer at you for it, having no idea you’d switch places with them in a heartbeat if you could.

Your eyes dart across the dining hall, almost instinctually so. They lock immediately with Marcus the moment he enters the room. 

The General wears his black-gold armor and a faraway look in his eye as he leads a group of foreign gladiators into the manor. A hush lulls over the crowd, which parts for him without thinking. Marcus navigates through it with an absentminded sternness, like every step is muscle memory. 

He softens only when his gaze meets yours. 

His puffed-out chest deflates with a wavering exhale at the sight of you, a lamb on the lap of a man who holds a knife to your throat. He blames himself for it most of all, knowing he’s the one that brought you to slaughter. 

“Finally!” Caracalla shouts into the silence, voice ringing through the hushed court. “Where have you all been— In the showers together?” 

A bout of laughter rolls over the crowd as the blonde boy leans over to you. You try not to grimace at the bitter smell of wine on his breath. “Who nearly missed the games, little dove,” he croons too close to your ear. 

The nickname makes you tense. You muster a smile, anyway, and remind yourself to breathe. “What a shame that would’ve been,” you lilt in response.

“The armor is tricky, Your Majesty,” Acacius confesses, voice deep like a cathedral organ. “Especially for those who have not donned it before. Such as yourself.”

There is a bite to his words despite their monotoned delivery. Caracalla pays it no mind as he lounges back on the couch, wine sloshing in the chalice he holds in a limp hand. “Get it out with it, then,” he slurs.

Each gladiator faces the other. One is tall and sturdy, like an oak tree. The other is shorter and lankier, much too young and far too pretty to fight in such gruesome battles. As Marcus’ voice booms throughout the quiet dining hall to introduce them — The Barbarian versus The Might Vincenzo — Geta presses his mouth to your ear. 

“Which one shall we bet on, little dove?” he whispers to you as his hand curls tighter around your waist. His other idles over your skirt, pale and jeweled and warm, though his long fingers threaten to dip between your thighs.

You blink hard to keep your head from swimming. “Hm?”

“Which one of these imbeciles do you think will win?” Geta repeats.

“Oh, um, I— I don’t know, Your Majesty,” you stammer in response. It’s hard to think about anything other than how close Marcus is to you now. How pretty and wartorn he looks. How desperately you wish to hold him.

“Just guess,” the Emperor presses, squeezing softly at your hip. “It’s only for entertainment, anyway.”

How could certain death possibly entertain you? your mind races as your mouth blurts, “The little one, then.”

“Really?” Geta hums in amusement. His dark eyes, smudged with brown liner, squint softly at your glossy profile. They flit across your features like he’s seeing you for the very first time, though you aren’t looking back at him to notice. “Hm. I would’ve picked the oaf.”

“Well, it is the most obvious choice, Your Majesty. Though, I find it’s often the smaller ones that surprise you—” 

You turn your head to look at him. Your breath catches audibly in your throat when you find the Emperor much closer than expected. He’s so close your eyes nearly cross to meet his gaze. So close, that the tip of his large nose threatens to brush the bridge of yours. So close, you get drunk on the alcohol tainting his breath.

Geta’s wine-stained mouth curls upwards in a cynical smile. “They do, indeed,” he croons quietly, raspberry breath fanning warm over your jaw. 

Chills pebble along your skin accordingly. It takes great strength from you to break his magnetic chocolate gaze. You turn away from the Emperor and focus instead on the gladiators circling one another. Vincenzo moves in seemingly practiced motions, unfazed by the brutality of such duels. The nameless Barbarian houses a great sadness in his young eyes — a hardened look of regret, perhaps, for what he knows he must do. 

“Let’s not entertain them for our amusement, brother,” the Barbarian mutters lowly to his opponent, blade hanging limp at his side.

The larger man charges like a rhino. A deep roar sounds in his throat as he thrusts his knife towards the younger boy’s neck. The Barbarian dodges the swing with ease, possessing all the swiftness of a snake as he ducks past his opponent and slices his muscular bicep with one fell swoop.

The crowd gasps in a mixture of horror and amusement as Vincenzo’s blood drips onto the floor like deep red wine. It stains the marble in fat droplets, blending with the rose petals littered at the gladiators’ feet.

You flinch at the sight. Your breath hitches as you turn away — eyes squeezed shut, brows tightly furrowed. Geta chuckles with merriment. You feel it rumbling in his chest as he murmurs, “Don’t be frightened, little dove. It’s only a game.”

Something in you aches when the Emperor reaches for the jeweled goblet at his side. Your fearful eyes remain fixed on his face while the hall erupts in a symphony of violence — of battle cries and laughter, of dropped blades and dull smacks. 

“Here,” Geta offers with the wine in hand. “Drink. It will calm your nerves.”

He presses the rim of the chalice to your mouth. His gaze never waves from your lips as they part to welcome the bittersweet raspberry. The wine pools like blood on your tongue. It tastes like guilt going down.

Dusk falls over the city like a wounded swan. The velvet darkness outside your window makes shadows of everything it touches, only partially diminished by blinking stars and waning silver moonlight. The crescent shape of the bright white orb would fit just perfectly beneath Marcus’ jaw, you think to yourself. 

The thought alone sends a warm, melancholic feeling down your spine — with such an intensity only the tenderness of twilight could elicit.

You slide from the crimson satin of your mattress with a tight chest. You migrate towards the entrance — bare feet padding faintly along the floor, thin cotton nightgown trailing behind you. You stand before your bedroom door and rap your knuckles rhythmically against the wood. 

Twice, once, three times. 

And then you wait.

“It’s me,” you hear Marcus murmur from the other side.

Your heart swells like sunshine in your throat. You smile wide despite yourself, with no one else around to see it. “It’s been Romulus for nearly a fortnight,” you tell him, panting slightly from where you’d held your breath in anticipation. “I was starting to think you’d been banished from your post here forever.”

“You know the Emperor likes to torture me,” he quips, though his usual monotone never wavers. 

It might’ve been easier on you both, if Geta had shipped him off to lead another meaningless campaign. At least then Marcus could miss you from leagues away. Instead, he has to guard your bedroom door and miss you from the other side of it. Torture is an understatement.

“Well, I quite like it when you’re here,” you confess quietly, tracing shapes onto the doorframe with an absentminded hand. “Makes me feel safe.”

You wait patiently for a response.

“Good,” is all the General can think to reply.

Your face pinches with concern. Your chest does, too. “Are you angry with me?”

“Why should I be angry with you?”

“I don’t know… Our conversations together have grown so short— I worry you do not wish to speak with me at all.”

Though you cannot see him, Marcus flinches at your words. He stands like a statue outside your door, in the middle of the dim corridor, and glares over his shoulder into nothingness. “It isn’t true,”  he insists, voice low but honeyed still. “I wish to speak with you always.”

“Then why do you not?”

“Because it isn’t safe,” he repeats, though you never seem to hear him.

“Will it ever be?”

Marcus goes silent as he ponders for a moment. Quiet engulfs the bedroom all over again, filled only by crackling candles. “No,” he answers after a few long moments. “Not for a long while.”

You feel like he’s stabbed you with a freshly sharpened blade, right between your ribcage and into your bleeding heart. It would hurt less, anyway.  “Why?” you wonder aloud in a pained whimper, knowing the answer will do nothing more than twist the knife.

The answer sits ready on Marcus’ tongue, as though the question of why has plagued him long before you asked it.

“Because I… I ruined you. By bringing you here.”

“You saved me,” you correct.

“I destroyed you,” he retorts, voice heavy with choked-back emotion.

“I would be dead if it weren’t for you,” you remind him of the blatant reality, which threatens to consume you every time you see his face. You wish you were holding it now, cradling Marcus’ bearded cheeks in your supple palms, so that he might understand the weight of your words. “I would’ve lost everything if you hadn’t taken me with you. I would’ve been tortured, probably killed. But now I get to—”

The word gets caught in your throat. You swallow hard and fake a smile at nothingness. The pretending comes naturally to you now.

“Now I get to live. Both of us do.”

There is a brief moment of knowing silence. This isn’t what living is supposed to feel like — fleeting touches in dark crypts and whispered conversations through bedroom doors. Both of you know it, but it’s a truth too brutal to admit out loud.

“Marcus?”

“Yes?”

“You know… We aren’t unspectacular things, Marcus,” you speak slowly and with a strangled intention. “We’ve already come so far. We’ve survived so much— We can survive a little more, can’t we? Until it’s safe again?”

“I don’t presume we have any other choice.”

“We don’t,” you sigh. “Because I love you.”

“I know,”  Marcus nods, with an air of surrender in his words. “Because I love you, too.”

You fall into the heavy wooden door as though it were your lover’s body. You did not need to see him to feel held by him. He hadn’t touched you, and he didn’t need to. His presence alone affects you in such a way that it feels like he has been caressing you for a long, long time.

Marcus’ heavy armor clunks faintly on the other side of the door as he stands up straighter. Emperor Geta enters his line of sight, a shadow slinking down the candlelight corridor. He clears his throat. “Your Majesty—” the General announces, for you and you alone.

He hears your feet pad against the floor as you scurry from the entrance.

“Dog,”the Emperor greets in a cynical deadpan. 

His sandals scuff the cobbles when he stands before the taller man. The torches hanging on the walls bathe Geta’s face in flickering amber hues, highlighting his tired features where the makeup had worn throughout the day. He seems weighed down by a certain kind of grief. The kind that makes Acacius feel ten feet tall.

“Have you been guarding my Empress like a good little hound?”

Marcus nods politely, though the term of endearment catches him momentarily off guard. To be the Emperor’s whore was one thing, but it was entirely another to be referred to in such high regard. The General tries to contemplate what that must mean as he answers, “Of course, Your Majesty.”

Geta grins despite his visible fatigue. “Good boy.”

You’re already back in bed by the time the door swings open. You lounge along the expensive satin sheets and pretend you’ve done nothing but wait obediently for the Emperor, while simultaneously swallowing down any remaining feelings of longing and heartache.

Geta enters the room like a rolling storm cloud. He wears all the chaos of the day in his mussed blonde curls, smudged makeup, and wrinkled garb — a palpable sort of disarray. You scramble on the mattress to greet him, like you often do, until he dismisses you with a wave of his hand.

“No. Don’t,” he commands. “Stay there. Don’t get up.”

You obey, freezing partially upright, with your elbows holding most of your weight. Your face swirls with concern at his look of annoyance. Your heart drops to your stomach in fear.

“Are you alright?” you ask him, though the Emperor pays you little mind as he migrates to the table by the window. 

He pours himself a chalice of wine. The glugging flagon fills the heavy silence. You swallow hard and stare timidly at the back of him. “Are you angry with me?” you repeat once more — a question that seems to accompany womanhood, especially when bound by the innate violence of man.

“I couldn’t be,” Geta answers like it’s obvious, sparing you a fleeting glance over his shoulder. He turns away to down the full goblet in three lengthy gulps, then wipes his stained mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s only my brother,” he confesses through labored breaths. 

Your worry lessens, but only slightly.

“Is he alright?”

“He’s acting like a child,” Geta spits, angered all over again, as he pours himself another cup. “More so than usual.”

“Has something happened?” 

“Nothing that should concern you.”

“Well, it’s certainly bothering you, Your Majesty,” you coo in slow and calculated measures as you rise from the many cushioned pillows. “So, forgive me, but it cannot help but concern me as well.”

Geta is unaccustomed to such tenderness. He tenses beneath it, glances hesitantly over his shoulder like he plans to find a ghost sitting in your place — as though he’d only heard the words in the wind and not from your mouth. A foreign feeling swirls again in his hollow chest, like a blizzard of snow or a flurry of rose petals.

“He’s jealous of me. Just as he always has been,” the Emperor tells you as he stalks toward the bed. He gestures mindlessly with his hands, and the wine sloshes over the rim of the gold chalice until it hits the stone floor. He raises it to his mouth, tips his head back, and down the bittersweet pomegranate.

His neck is long and milky white. His protruding adam’s apple bobs with each languid swallow. A drop of deep red trails from his mouth and down his chin once he’s finished. He rubs it away with a fist. You forget to stop staring.

“Lay down,” he commands, chest heaving. 

Your body obeys without a second thought. You lie back on the velvet cushions, docile and willing, in a way that comes naturally to you now. You’ve been Geta’s thing for so long that a part of you has grown used to it. Needy for it. 

The mattress dips beneath the Emperor’s wait as he kneels beside you. Your mind starts to reel. 

Your brain seemingly anticipates an inevitable pleasure, which comes to you like clockwork most nights. It makes your mouth water like a drooling hound that knows when it’s feeding time. A funny feeling stirs in the pit of your belly and pools like honey in your undergarments. Your thighs clench together when a subtle throbbing begins to pound between them.

You should be grateful when Geta crawls beneath the sheets only to rest his head on your chest.

You’re shocked, most of all, by such a foreign act of tenderness.

Your breath catches when his cheek presses to your breast. He nods gently to rub his burning skin over the smooth cotton. A deep exhale fans from his nose as he rests his body weight against you. 

You cradle him with hesitant hands and remind yourself to breathe. Your fingers scratch lightly over his clothed shoulder while your others comb through his strawberry-blonde locks. It’s a warmth so foreign to the two of you that it threatens to bring you both to tears.

“He says he wants someone like you— my brother,” Geta admits after a few moments of long silence.

“A whore?”

“A paramour,” the Emperor corrects, face twisted in irritation at your use of the term. He focuses on the muffled sound of your heartbeat when anger threatens to consume him. A heavy sigh deflates his chest. His anxious fingers twist in your nightgown. “I told him he could have his pick— Between us, we have plenty of women to go around, but… He insists his mind is stuck on you.”

Your bated breaths come to you in trembling inhale-exhales. You hope he doesn’t sense how frightful his words have made you. 

Geta is cruel, yes, but he is at most times predictable. Though Caracalla may be kind, he is most of all volatile. And there is nothing more dangerous than an erratic, easily excitable ruler.

“And what did you tell him?” you wonder with a feigned sense of curiosity.

“That you were mine, of course,” Geta blurts like it’s obvious. “He offered to share, to which I told him that he should be grateful that I’m sharing the throne alone with him… And now he’s off with his monkey, crying like a child…”

You feel strangely comforted by his words. You breathe a sigh of relief through your nose and rake your fingers through his blonde-brunette curls. “Your brother is a fragile thing, Your Majesty,” you advise in gentle murmurs. “You must be gentle with him.”

“I don’t know how to be gentle with anything,” Geta confesses, half-muffled into your chest. “Least of all, with someone like him.”

“Shall I speak with him? Perhaps I can calm him— make him understand?”

“It’s my burden alone.”

“It is mine as well, Your Majesty. So that mustn’t be true.”

Geta turns slowly to face you, with all the hesitance of someone unused to such kindness. His chin rests on your clothed sternum and bobs with each word. “You shouldn’t have to carry it,” he whispers into the honeyed silence of the candlelit bedroom.

You muster a small smile. “I know. But I will, anyway,” you shrug. “When you care for someone, your brain has little say in the matter.”

Geta falters at your admission. A foreign emotion swims in his chocolate button eyes. He’d rather blame it on the flickering flames strewn around the room. “Is that what this is?” he mutters, almost to himself, when he finds the breath to say the words.

Your fingers in his hair slow to a stop. “What do you mean, Your Majesty?”

��This… This tenderness,”  the Emperor answers, spitting the word like it’s the first time he’s ever tasted it. His face scrunches distantly, as if it were sour on his tongue. “Sometimes it overwhelms to the point of tears. It’s a… a blinding radiance, like… a knife— lodged somewhere deep in the body…”

You cup Geta’s freshly shaven face between two, gentle hands. He swears he sees the sun.

“Why do you speak of love like it hurts you, Your Majesty?”

He swallows hard. “Because it does,” he confesses before rising from your body. 

You mourn his warmth as he swings his legs over the side of the mattress. He sits with his back facing you. His dove white robe hangs off one pale shoulder when he bows his head.

“I never believed in it as a child— the permanence of it all, of… love. And yet, I… I find myself longing for it anyway. Like a fool.”

You rise on one elbow and resist the urge to touch him. “Wanting to be understood by someone doesn’t make you a fool, Your Majesty.”

“I know that I… That I haven’t been the most gentle with you at times. But I am… I am sorry for it,” Geta tells you in near inaudible murmurs, flashing you a sheepish glance over his freckled shoulder. “I understand it must be difficult for you.”

“What, Your Majesty?”

“To be caught between all that was. And all that must be.”

Your stomach wrenches at his words. Your chest tightens beneath the weight of them until you have to fight for every wavering breath. You take a trembling inhale and rise so you’re sitting at his side, taking careful calculation in the following words you speak.

“We cannot… We cannot choose who we love, Your Majesty. We can fight ceaselessly against it, perhaps, but it doesn’t change fate.” 

You reach out for him with one tremoring hand. You rake a rogue curl behind his ear and hope he doesn’t know Marcus’ face is the one stained permanently behind your eyelids. 

“We love who we love, Your Majesty. And the rest stay ghosts.”

Geta’s eyes glitter with an emotion you’ve not seen from him before. His dark eyes flit between both of yours, as though searching for something in your gaze — sincerity, perhaps, or maybe an equal sense of longing. 

You blink, and his mouth is on yours. Geta kisses you back onto the velvet-satin and settles over you once more. It’s wet. Hungry. Unforgiving.

You kiss him back with a similar intensity, clutching his robe in both hands, desperate to understand him.

Marcus remains on the other side of your door — an invisible ghost, an unwilling witness. He hears all of it, as clearly as he would if he were seeing it with his own eyes. A hollow feeling of yearning and hunger gnaws at the pit of his stomach as he tries to imagine your pleasured form. The painting behind his eyelids is blurred and distorted with time.

He wishes he could see you now, even with Emperor Geta fucking you into the mattress.  He could pretend that he was the one fucking you, at least, and let the image alone bring his withered form back to life. 

You’re together in his head, entwined still, with your mouths bruised in a relentless kiss.

Marcus hopes you’re still together in yours, too.

General Acacius spends most of his nights in the crypt, which he feels is rather fitting for a half-dead thing like him. When he is not surveilling your bedroom door, or being otherwise taunted by Emperor Geta, he finds a strange sanctuary in the dreary tombs. It is perhaps the only place where he is left alone. 

Caracalla is petrified by thoughts of ghosts, and Geta detests history, so neither is likely to show their face in such an ancient mausoleum. Which is ideal for someone plotting an insurrection.

You find him there in the wee small hours of the late, late night. He wears a deep red cloak over his white robe, perhaps to conceal himself, as he shuffles around the room to snuff out flickering candles. You wonder who he lit them for because you know he does not need them. He’s grown too used to navigating in the shadows.

Your sandals scuff suddenly against the damp cobbles. Marcus does not seem startled by the intrusion. He knew you were there by the sweet scent of your perfumed body alone. There is nothing about you he would not immediately notice.

“What are you doing here?” he wonders with his back facing you, voice low with a timbre that bounces off the tomb walls.

“I wanted to see you,” you answer sheepishly.

Marcus says nothing in response.

You wring your hands into knots and shift your weight on your feet. He extinguishes the torch on the far wall, and shadows engulf the windowless crypt — save for one lone candle flickering atop Emperor Commodus’ cracking tomb. Your eyes flit from the flame to Marcus’ silhouette, gaze swimming with uncertainty.

“May I ask you a question?”

“I don’t see why not,” he monotones and flits across the room like a ghost.

“What do you do down here?” you ask. When your voice inevitably trembles with distant alarm, you quip, “I only mean it mustn’t be healthy— Spending so much time in the dark.”

“It’s none of your concern,” Marcus insists with a venom that makes you flinch. He hooks his pointer finger around the hook of the candle holder, and the dancing flame paints his statuesque features in shades of amber. He softens immediately at the sight of you.

“I just do not wish to incriminate you,” the wartorn man confesses.

Your chest aches with an immediate concern. “What does that mean? Please do not tell me that you’re doing something perilous—”

“No,” Marcus interjects firmly, then amends. “Not yet, at least.”

“Explain it to me, then. Help me understand.”

“It’s best you do not know, petal. It’s safer that way.”

The word alone makes you cross. You wish he’d stop using it.

“But I will tell you when the time is right, I swear,” he assures you, though his voice threatens to tremble with wavering strength. His dark eyes flit between both of yours, heavy with an emotion you cannot place. “I will keep you safe no matter what, you know that—”

“It’s not me I’m worried about, Acacius,” you murmur with a stern glint in your eye, clutching the downy fabric of his robe in your fists.

“There is naught to worry about, petal. I assure you.”

Marcus takes a step closer to you despite the voice of reason in his head telling him otherwise. He lifts his free hand and swipes a callused palm over your cheek, soft and warm with sleep. You lean into his touch like a cat. A funny feeling blossoms in his chest.

“I’ve been thinking… About what you said some days ago… Making a new world for ourselves…” He talks slowly and deeply and nearly to himself. You nod against his palm to egg him onward. “You were right. We deserve better than this— Why should we have to live like dogs?”

Marcus swipes his thumb over your jaw and takes another daring step closer. You feel the heat from the candle he holds in his free hand, though your eyes remain on his face. You couldn’t look away from him if you tried. A part of you is hesitant to blink even, for fear that you might miss him for a millisecond too long.

He angles your gently head upward with his weathered palm. You can smell the musk on his tanned skin from here, as well as the ale and mint leaves on his breath. It’s dizzying. The ground seems to sway under your feet at the dwindling proximity between you.

“We love each other, don’t we?” he murmurs in a honeyed voice.

You nod without a second thought. Your mouth waters with the hopes of tasting him.

He nods with you. “So fuck the war.”

Marcus ducks down to press his mouth to yours. His lips swallow your own in a kiss, lingering and languid and deep enough to drown in. 

You melt into his touch with a heavy sigh exhaled through your nose. The warm breath fans across his unshaven cupid’s bow while your hands migrate to his hair. You twist the greying tendrils in your fingers, keeping him impossibly close against you. 

When Marcus goes to grip the fabric of your nightgown in both his hands, the candle holder tumbles to the ground. The gold clatters audibly across the cobbles. The wax light falls on his side, and the flame begins to dwindle on the murky stone floor. 

You wonder, briefly, if it will take fire — if the smoke will give you away, or if the tomb and all its history will burst into flames, or if the inferno will take you and Marcus with it.

Though it snuffs quickly out, bathing the two of you in a navy blue darkness, you figure you wouldn’t care if it did burn you to ash. Not as long as Marcus was there to kiss you into embers.

Marcus’ face consumes your dreams. 

The details are blurred with the haze of sleep, but he was there — touching your face, asking to try again. You merged into one another like ghosts. Like drops of melted honey. Like lovers of Pompeii turned to ash. Every day, you tell yourself that it is unsafe to love him more than you do now. And yet he haunts your dreams, and yet you find more love in you for him.

And yet…

A violent hand pulls you from your gentle slumber. It jerks mercilessly at your arm, snatching you from your peaceful dreams and waking you into a nightmare.

“Wake up!” a strident and familiar voice bellows into the quiet bedroom, lit only by the faint blue of an early morning. The words are punctuated by another rough tug at your wrist. You awake to the sharp aching in your fingers.

“Wha—” you slur, trying to blink away the bleary mist as you lift your heavy head from the pillows. “What’s going on? What’s happened?”

“Up!”

You’re urged from the mattress by the unforgiving fingers digging bruises on your arm. You squint through the sleep and ebbing darkness to find Geta looming over you — blonde curls mussed on his head, swollen eyes wide and wild, velvet robe askew on his shoulder to reveal his pale chest. His skin there is flushed red with anger. You don’t know what you did to deserve his wrath.

“Geta?” you gasp through a faint whimper in your throat, trying to pull your wrist from his grip. He only holds you tighter. “What are you doing— You’re hurting me.”

“Liar!” is all he shouts in response, like he doesn’t even hear you.

The crazed Emperor drags you out of bed just to drop you to the cobbles. The thin sleeves of your nightgown slip off your shoulder; the skirt of it bunches at your thighs. You make yourself as small as possible as you shrink away from the man towering above you. 

“I don’t understand,” you squeak through the heart in your throat.

“Liar!” he shouts again.

His voice rings through the shadowed bedroom. You cower in response. He sobers at the fear twisting your features, but only slightly. His heart pounds hard against his ribcage, beating red-hot rage through his veins. He can hardly hear you through the rushing in his ears.

“What have I done?” you whisper, voice trembling.

“You have made…” Geta trails off, swallowing the emotion threatening to strangle him. He blinks away burning tears and spits, “A mockery of me.”

Fear ebbs into confusion. “I have not—”

“You lie!”

“I do not!” The volume of your voice startles even you. You blink up at him with wide, pleading eyes, searching for any ounce of mercy within him. 

You find none. 

Just a man made of towering orange flames, threatening to set you ablaze. 

“I have given up everything to be here,” you whimper. “To be at your side. To understand you—” 

“Make no mistake… Your lies no longer have an effect on me, little dove,” Geta interjects through a bout of cynical laughter. He shakes his head and grins despite the tears glittering in his eyes. “You think you are so clever. That you were brought here, to my Empire, to be cherished...”

The Emperor takes slow, daunting steps towards you. You shrink away from him and choke back a sob bubbling in your throat. Tears fall from your lashes in fat droplets down your burning cheeks. 

Geta grins like it pleases him.

“Let me be clear, so there is no longer any misunderstanding…” he tells you, speaking in slow, deep murmurs as he crouches before you. You can see the flecks of gold glimmering in his deep brown eyes from here. You can see the fire swimming within them, too, as he assures you, “You were created merely for me to destroy you.”

The throne room is absent of its usual bright red roses and ornate gold decoration. The chandelier overhead has not yet been lit. Instead, the spacious room is illuminated by an ever-rising sun — which basks everything it touches in shades of melancholy blue. 

The servants light torches along the wall while you and Marcus stand together before the scowling Emperor. Something about it strikes a feeling of nostalgia in your chest, though these circumstances are much different than the ones you were brought here under. Geta no longer looks at you with lust in his dark eyes. He looks at you, instead, with betrayal.

“Thanks to the civic virtue of some good men…” the eldest Emperor quavers into the silent room. “…Your insurrection has been revealed.” 

Your stomach twists at his words. Your mouth falls softly agape with shock. Of any explanation you could’ve been given upon your sudden imprisonment, you couldn’t have expected this one. You thought, perhaps, that he had somehow found out about your meetings in the crypt with Marcus. You would’ve been able to stomach that, at least. Your love for Acacius is something you’d be willing to die by.

But not this.

Not something you were completely unconscious of.

Geta continues tearily. “The honor… The dignitas that Rome has bestowed upon you— All this, you have forfeited by your treachery.”

“Emperor Geta, please,” Marcus sighs. His deep voice echoes through the empty throne room like a heavenly, sorrowful instrument. He bows his head and swallows hard, knowing now that he must beg for mercy. Not for himself. But for you. 

“Torture me, if you wish, but let her go. She had no part in this—”

“Forgive me,” Geta spits emotionlessly. “But I have no cause to believe you, General.”

Marcus turns to you then, tired eyes wide and pleading. “Tell him. Go on, it’s alright,” he urges gently, though your silence makes his chest ache. “Petal, tell him— Tell him you were unaware.”

You say nothing.

“Tell him!”he repeats in a shout that rings through the quiet throne room. His trained apathy splinters for the first time in front of Geta. He is perhaps more fearful now than he has ever been before. No war was nearly as frightening as the thought of losing you.

“What does it matter?” you mutter in response, voice fragile like glass. “He made up his mind the moment he found out.”

“Then take me if that’s what you want,” Marcus says, pleads to the merciless Emperor. His sandals scuff the stone floor as he takes a step closer in surrender.  “Put me in the Colosseum— Crucify me on the royal steps, if you must— But please, do not make her suffer for something I brought upon her. Do not punish her for my sins.”

“You are the Great General Acacius…” Geta croons bitterly. “What could one more splash of blood possibly mean to you?”

“Everything,” Marcus answers without a second thought, voice heavy with a predestined grief. “It would mean everything.”

Something in Geta shifts. You see it flickering in his dark, teary eyes. A surge of power, almost, like a stroke of bright white lightning. The corner of his pink mouth twitches as he tilts his chin upward. “Step back ten paces,” he commands suddenly.

Marcus’ brows pinch first in confusion, then relax a moment later when he inevitably obeys. His feet sound along the cobbles as he takes ten slow steps backward. He mourns the distance it puts between the two of you.

“Turn around,” Geta’s voice echoes through the vacant throne room.

You hear Marcus take a wavering breath in. He spins on the heel of his leather sandal until his back is facing you. His heavy eyes flutter shut as his chin falls to his chest. He searches for an ounce of hope within himself, knowing he’d lost all of it some time ago now.

The Emperor smirks. “Good dog.”

Acacius seethes.

Geta’s dark eyes, rimmed red with emotion, flit back to you. Something heavy settles in the pit of your stomach — dread, perhaps, or maybe acceptance for what’s surely to come. 

“Was it a lie?” 

“What?” you ask with bated breath.

Geta shrugs, then readjusts his robe when it falls from his shoulder. “Any of it.”

“No.”

“Tell the truth.”

“I am.”

Geta snarls at your subdued emotion. “I am the Emperor of Rome. I could have my pick of whores— You being here is a privilege. Do you understand?”

You nod once. “Yes.”

“You came from filth— to the greatest city in the world,” Geta spits the words like so many drops of venom. He waves his hands up and down your form, pale fingers now void of their usual gold rings. “You were just… some whore without a face before I made you better. I did this!” 

He gestures wildly around the darkened manor, voice breaking at the volume of his shouting. His robe falls askew to reveal more of his bare chest as spit coats his bitten lips. You remain in place while the Emperor inches closer. The fear has left you, as well as any instinct to cry — your grief is too violent for that now.

“I brought you here,” Geta convinces himself. His saliva splatters on your cheek in faint droplets. Tears glitter on his cheeks like stained glass windows. A fire flickers in the deep brown of his eyes. 

“I willed this— I cared for you with every bit of conscience as I was born with.” He takes a deep breath and steps back, shaking his head in disgust. “And yet…”

He turns away. 

You’re able to take in a deep breath for the first time in several minutes when he parts from you. The leadened weight on your chest remains.

“If you do not wish to be here, I certainly will not make you,” Geta rambles in teary blubbers. “One whore is as good as any other— Perhaps I can find one who is capable of pretending she cares.”

You step towards his retreating form. “Geta—”

“Go!” he shouts, looking back at you with a crazed look in his sleep-worn eyes. He wipes spit from his chin and quietens, strangled by an unavoidable emotion. “Now. Walk through those doors, and I promise no harm will come to you. Just do not stand before me and patronize me in this way, I will not stand for it.”

His promise makes your chest swell with hope. You remain frozen even still, stuck at an unnavigable crossroads. Such assurances of safety mean little to you when Marcus

has a sword to his throat. 

You look at the man over your shoulder. He has not moved from his spot some feet behind you. His back still faces you, though you notice his hands are balled into trembling fists.

Even if it were true — even if Geta really planned to let you go without a knight slitting your throat — it would mean little without Marcus. You would not know where to go without him. You would not be able to live with yourself if you left him here, not knowing what Geta planned for him. You would be away from the city, yes, but it would not be freedom.

Your instinctual will for survival is replaced by the primal need to keep Marcus alive.

To do that, you must reach for the bloodied hand of death.

You turn away from your lover — away from the opened cage door and the promise of freedom — and rush to the heartbroken Emperor. You clutch his cotton robe in your fists and tug at the gold trim to pull him closer. You meet him in the middle, entwining your mouth with his.

You kiss him. Hard. With enough ardor to snatch the breath from his lungs. His pink lips part for yours, almost instinctually so, and you swipe your tongue over the rough pad of his own. He tastes of sleep and honey and very distantly of wine. He gets heavy against you as he falls into your kiss. His hands cling to the skirt of your nightgown until his fists start to shake.

You pull away only when he’s melted for you all over again, when the red-hot anger has ebbed from his milky white body. A thin string of saliva keeps you connected until it splits against your chins.

“I know… I know you are hurt, Your Majesty,” you speak in slow murmurs, and through uneven breaths. Your fearful eyes dart over his face and find him utterly kissbitten — mouth swollen, eyes heavy, cheeks flushed. “And I know that it is difficult to forget pain. But I’ve found it’s harder to remember happiness. Glory.”

Each word from your mouth is stamped with intention. 

You speak of glory only with the hopes that he might remember his many useless wars, all of which Marcus has won for him without complaint. There would be no Empire to rule without the Great General Acacius, who dares not to sneak a glance at the two of you over his shoulder. He, instead, keeps his heavied gaze on the torch hanging by the door. The flame sears his vision until he can see you dancing within it.

“We have no scar to show from sweetness, do we?” you quaver with a forced smile, cupping Geta’s burning cheeks between both your hands. You swipe your thumb over a fat tear clinging to his cheekbone. “How can we allow ourselves to be blinded by anger when there is still so much love?” 

Geta snivels and rests his forehead against yours. His long lashes flutter against his glowing cheeks.

“I wept for you,” the Emperor confesses quietly, words weighed down by tears. “I had come to believe that… If I wanted something badly enough, the sheer strength of my desire would make it mine. I see now that it was foolish—”

“Perhaps it is true,” you whisper to him, breaths entwining and kissing both your cheeks. If he notices your voice shaking, you hope he confuses it with desire and not with fear. “Perhaps that is why I’m standing here now. Because I am yours…”

A moment of silence lulls over the blue hour. The quiet feels deafening in the large throne room, quelled only by the sound of heavy breathing. Yours hitches in your throat when Geta parts wordlessly from you. He sniffles once, then exhales hard through his mouth. 

Your gaze remains fixed on his face in an unwavering stare as you try to gauge his reaction. His features are emotionless, but his heavy-lidded eyes flit back and forth between yours — as though he, too, were trying to measure your sincerity. 

Your fate, in that split second, teeters on a knife’s edge. You hold your breath and wait for him to raise his hand. Not to hit you, maybe, but to sic his guards upon you like dogs — either to drag you into a cell or to be kind enough to kill you on the spot.

Geta lifts his palms only to cradle your jaw between them. His long fingers wrap around your neck like he intends to choke you there. He drags your mouth back to his instead. Your noses smush together with the intensity of his touch. It’s all teeth and tongue and spit. Desire and anger and grief. A billion things he licks into your mouth.

The weight of his hunger smothers you. Consumes you. He could kill you this way, if he wanted. There is little difference, you’ve found, between a bite and a kiss. It only matters how deep he buries his teeth into you.

Your chin shines with his spit when he parts from you. Geta’s chest heaves with labored breaths, flushed and swelling with proud. He hasn’t yet let go of your neck. You wonder if he can feel your thrumming pulse against his fingers.

“Show me, then,” he pants. “That you’re mine… Prove it to me.”

The Emperor goes to step back from you. Your hands dart for his wrists, holding him there when he threatens to pull them away. Geta’s eyes widen in shock.

“Don’t make him watch,” you plead in a delicate whisper.

His wide, chocolate eyes flit over your shoulder. He seems to forget about Marcus’ presence until that very moment. He looks back to you, at the plea swimming in your eyes, and nods once in response. 

“Take him,” he calls to the knights lurking in the darkness.

Their heavy armor clinks together as they comply without complaint. They lead Marcus to the door with their hands on the hilts of their swords. You watch him leave from over your shoulder, in the very corner of your eye. You hope he understands, but you wouldn’t blame him if you didn’t. You find it hard to forgive yourself even now.

Marcus always said that people find out who they truly are during times of war. Maybe this is who you are. Maybe you cannot kiss the devil without taking some of his sin.

The door closes with a heavy thud across the room. 

The weight of being alone with the Emperor washes heavily over you. Like drops of ice-cold rain. Like warm, melted honey.

Geta peers at you with a similar uncertainty. Head bowed slightly, wide eyes glittering from beneath his lashes. You do what you have always done — take care of this man the way he’s asked you to, placate his anger with your body. Giving yourself away is as natural as breathing most days.

“Sit down, Your Majesty,” you urge in a gentle whisper.

The Emperor listens as obediently as his knights. 

The sound of his sandals padding along the cobbles fills the suffocating quiet. He descends upon his throne like he was made for it, spreading his legs before him and propping his arms along the golden rests. He looks like a painting upon his seat of power, bathed in the deep blue of an early morning. An angel dragged to hell.

Geta watches you with an unwavering stare as you take slow steps toward him. His brown-eyed gaze goes glassy at the sight of you, an angelic thing all dressed in white. His thighs part to welcome you between them. He tenses under your palms when they smooth over his milky white chest, past the sparse chestnut hair littered there and down to the tie of his robe.

His stomach rises and falls in heavy, uneven pants under your touch. You unknot the string with bated breath, then brush the golden trimming to his sides. He’s bare underneath it, likely from where he’d been brutally roused from his slumber. His cock is on immediate display — resting on his fuzzy thighs, half-hard and glowing red at the tip.

You descend to your knees to take care of him on instinct. His hands dart to your shoulders to stop you. “Ride me,” he commands, though it sounds more like a plea as it spills his swollen mouth.

Wordlessly, you straddle his thighs. The cotton fabric of your nightgown bunches at your hips. You spit into your palm and reach between your bodies for his cock in a single practiced motion. He feels like velvet in your fist. 

Geta’s nostrils flare with a heavy exhale when your hand drags up the length of his cock. His head tips back onto his throne when your fist falls back down again. Your lips find the expanse of his long, white neck like a deep-seated compulsion. You kiss his pulse as though it were his mouth. He cradles the crown of your head and brings his lips to your ear.

“You love me,” he sighs within a moan when your thumb brushes the head of his drooling cock.

You can’t tell if it’s a command to repeat the words back to him, or an affirmation he repeats only for himself. Either way, you nod in response and line his stiff cock at your entrance. Geta’s mouth parts in a silent moan at the feeling of your silky cunt. 

“I do,” you whisper just before you mount him. 

There is a dull ache in your belly when he pierces you, though you’ve grown accustomed to his length with time. Your satin folds split to welcome every inch of him accordingly. Your hips rock back and forth over his supple thighs and your velvety walls pulse around him, swallowing him further inside.

Your breathy moans entwine and fill the air. You keep a white-knuckled grip on the back of the golden throne as you ride him, without break and without mercy — in spite of the burning sensation in your thighs. You tell yourself it’s to finish him quickly, though a primal part of you chases after your own pleasure.

Geta’s breaths leave his parted mouth in huffed exhales as you bounce on top of him. He mourns the sight of him disappearing in and out of your glistening pussy but fights to keep his eyes open to watch the rest of you. Your fucked-out face swirls in a mixture of concentration and pleasure as Geta lifts his hand for the collar of your gown.

He unties the dainty knot at your sternum and tugs the fabric down your chest, baring your breasts for him. His mouth waters at sight of your plush skin, moving in time with your rhythmic grinds over his lap. 

A strangled moan sounds in your throat when he takes your left nipple in his mouth. You caress the back of his head, twisting your fingers in his honey hair in an effort to keep him close. He runs the rough pad of his tongue over your sensitive tit and smiles when he hears you whimpering. 

“You love this,” he mutters against your chest. “You love when I fuck you. ”

You nod until the words catch up with you. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“God—” he grunts through gritted teeth, tipping his head back when one particular grind makes him twitch inside you. His hands grip your thighs over your skirt. His fingers threaten to sear bruises onto your skin. “Your pussy was made for my cock, wasn’t it?”

You nod again.

His right hand parts from you only to come down a moment later. The dull smack of his palm against your clothed hip echoes through the throne room. “I don’t think I heard you.”

“Yes,” you squeak with your face scrunched, trembling when your clit drags across the thatch of pubic hair at the base of Geta’s cock.

“Who’s cunt is this?”

“Yours—”

His hand lifts again. You hear the impact of his palm against your ass before you feel it, a subtle stinging you find a strange comfort in. Geta laughs in maniacal, breathy chuckles when you keen for him. 

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yours!” you exclaim in a feeble gasp, clutching the Emperor to your chest. You shudder on top of him when an orgasm rakes suddenly through your body. It flows quickly and without mercy, but never quite ebbs. You’re left a whimpering, weeping mess while the aftershocks of your pleasure consume you. 

“It’s yours,” you squeak in nearly inaudible blubbers, pressing your kissed mouth to the shell of Geta’s ear, repeating the phrase like it’s the only one you remember. “’S your pussy… It’s yours…”

The words alone are enough to make Geta burst inside of you. 

He tenses all over. His dull nails press crescent shapes into the skin of your thighs. His rosy mouth parts to exhale a guttural moan. You feel his cock jerk with your drooling confines right before he spits several loads of cum inside you. Your cunt pulses around him, instinctually milking him for every drop of liquid pleasure, and a whimper sounds in Geta’s throat.

You feel it bloom in the pit of your belly like a flower — something soft and warm and seeping. As the two of you relax against one another with wavering exhales, you feel his cum leaking out of you like drops of summer rain. It pools on his lap and drips down to the throne underneath him, tainting the gold with a mixture of your sin.

It proves a point. Marks a territory.

Geta swells with pride.

Your back slouches as you melt into his body. You hide your burning face in his neck as his feverish grip on you loosens. Geta twitches beneath you when your cunt pulsates around his softening cock. “Mm…” you hear him hum, mixed with a laugh you feel rumbling in his chest. His head tilts back as a lopsided smile tugs deliriously at his mouth.

He runs a gentle hand up and down your spine, a reminder of his being there despite your feeble efforts to dissociate your brain from your body. You can’t ignore the warmth of his touch on your tingling skin, or the way your hearts press together and beat to the same rhythm.

A distant feeling of acceptance pools in the pit of your belly along with the Emperor’s cum. Your grief is a much more discreet thing, however, and you miss Marcus like an unstitched wound that won’t stop bleeding. Like a knife lodged somewhere deep in the body.

“I think… I think I’ve found an adequate punishment for the General,” Geta pants, the crooked grin audible in his words. “Perhaps he will learn his lesson when I’ve fucked a child into you—”

You tense when the Emperor’s palm splays over your stomach.

“—Perhaps then he’ll understand that you’re mine.”

[thetreetopinn]

Sources for Somerton's Plagiarism from Hbomberguy's Video (as much as I could get)

I went back through Harry's video, focused entirely on the sources James Somerton pulled from in the hopes of creating as much of a comprehensive list as I could--though my Google-Fu is not very strong. I did however find something I thought was forever lost and that made me very happy--specifically the magazine Midlands Zone containing the column by Steven Spinks that Harry poignantly used as an illustration of gay erasure... while Somerton uses it to sound like HE is waxing remorseful about the very subject.

This is not a complete list, I'm sure. For one thing, I was only able to attempt to pull sources that Harry himself mentioned in the video. Surely there's so very much more out there. I expect there to be a great deal more internet archeology to unearth just how much writing and culture Somerton has stolen like he's the British Museum of Natural History but for gay people.

- - - - -

Harry's list of mentioned youtubers:

Alexander Avila - https://www.youtube.com/@alexander_avila Matt Baume - https://www.youtube.com/@MattBaume Khadija Mbowe - https://www.youtube.com/@KhadijaMbowe Lady Emily - https://www.youtube.com/@LadyEmilyPresents Shanspeare - https://www.youtube.com/@Shanspeare RickiHirsch - https://www.youtube.com/@RickiHirsch VerilyBitchie - https://www.youtube.com/@verilybitchie

Harry created a convenient playlist of videos by these and other people he wants to bring to everyone's attention.

Please give them your support.

- - - - -

Midlands Zone Magazine - Column by Steven Spinks

After a great deal of searching, I found an archive of the "Midlands Zone" magazine, where you can read through past issues dating all the way back to February 2014. I have also found the issue from which Somerton took Spinks' poignant discussion of gay erasure: Overall archive Specific Issue - Pages 16-17

It will not allow you to download it, but you can read it exactly as it appeared in print form.

- - - - -

My best effort to find the exact book or article Somerton lifted from to be able to get attention to the original writers

Tinker Bells and Evil Queens By Sean Griffin

The Celluloid Closet By Vito Russo Wikipedia article about the book Wikipedia article about the documentary My weak google-fu could not find where you can access the book or documentary. Check your local municipal or university library for book or documentary, or if you know a good source for one or both, please reblog with it added

Camp and the Gay Sensibility By Jack Babuscio

The Groundbreaking Queerness of Disney's Mulan By Jes Tom Personal site with links to social media accounts

Why Rebel Without a Cause was a milestone for gay rights By Peter Howell

Why "The Craft" is still the best Halloween coming out movie By Andrew Park

Opinion: From facehuggers to phallic tails, is 'Alien' one of the queerest films ever? By Dani Leever

Women and Queerness in Horror: Jennifer's Body By Zoe Fortier

[Pride 2019] We Have Such Sights to Show You: Hellraiser and the Spectrum of Queerness By Alejandra Gonzalez

Revealing the Hellbound Heart of Clive Barker's 'Hellraiser' By Colin Arason

Queering James Cameron's Aliens (1986) By Bart Bishop

Demeter and Persephone in space: transformation, femininity, and myth in the 'Alien' films By David Greven

Fears of a millennial masculinity: Scream's queer killers By David Greven (Scholarly site, unable to access original work, offers a way to request a full copy of the text in PDF)

Queer Subtext in Stephen King's It - Part 1: 'Reddie' Character Analysis By Rachel Brands Rachel is the very unfortunate lady who found out she was being stolen from because she supported Somerton through Patreon and saw one of his videos early with her writing--lacking any form of citation or credit

How 'It: Chapter Two' Leaves Richie Tozier Behind By Joelle Monique

When Horror Becomes Strength: Queer Armor in Stephen King's 'IT' By Alex London

Why Queer People Love Witchcraft By Amanda Kohr

'The Favourite' Queers The Past And The Present By Giorgi Plys-Garzotto

(Wuko) Crush (Mako x Wu) By MoonFlower on YouTube

5 Terrible Movies With Awesome Hidden Meanings By J.F. Sargent

The Radicalization of Sexuality: The Queer Casae of Jeffrey Dahmer By Ian Barnard

Netflix's 'Dahmer' backlash highlights ethical issues in the platform's obsession with true crime By Shivani Dubey

The Possible Disturbing Dissonance Between Hajime Isayama's Beliefs and Attack on Titan's Themes Original Article by "Seldom Musings" (Author has made all posts not related to Attack On Titan private and has retired from the blog)

Everyone Loves Attack on Titan. So Why Does Everyone Hate Attack on Titan? By Gita Jackson

- - - - -

The following people are otherwise named in the video. There are no direct citations of articles or books by them in said video. I am unable to guarantee that I have identified the correct individual.

Darren Elliott-Smith Michaela Barton David Church Claire Sisco King Amanda Howell Jessica Roy

- - - - -

Telos announced and cancelled a film likely based on this book: The Final Girl Support Group - By Grady Hendrix

- - - - -

I refrained from including certain sources.

First off only focusing on Somerton's work.

Secondly not including anything that might be visible enough to not require amplifying their voice (I cannot speak for all of those I have found links to, but journalism is frequently a thankless job).

Thirdly any source that is of a nature that is antithetical to the very existence of the queer community, such as the right-leaning source that didn't make it into Somerton's video, but Harry was able to identify as a source he had considered using.

If you feel I have missed a mentioned source--or you know of a source from material that was not covered in Harry's video--please do not hesitate to reblog with added details.

- - - - -

Please share this information far and wide, and please add to it if you find more material that can be positively identified and linked to the creator/writer.

[moonwoodhollow]

Grand Hotel Nordhaven - a boutique hotel lot by moonwoodhollow (cc-free)

I suffered through this, but it was all worth it in the end! While we still don't have hotels in-game (yet), I thought it was a fun idea to create a little boutique hotel... and while the fun didn't last that long into furnishing, I ended up with a build I love very much! I hope you'll enjoy your stay in one of the gorgeous rooms at the Grand Hotel Nordhaven!

More screenshots, info + download link under the cut!

So what do you get?

Grand Hotel Nordhaven��is a 20x20 lot best placed in Nordhaven in the Gammelvik neighbourhood on the Rouge Note lot. The lot is currently set as a residential lot. It also works as a bar, but you'll either have to remove the stairs upstairs or place an item in front of the stairs to prevent your sims from going upstairs, lounging in the hotel rooms watching TV instead of having a drink at the bar. I also added almost all items for a restaurant, but you'll need to add the host station to the lot for it to be functional as a restaurant. Just a heads up: I haven't playtested it as a restaurant!

The lot is—as the title says—a hotel, which is—of course—not functional, but a fun little deco or maybe even residential lot for your sims to take some screenies at or live in. Lots of possibilities!

The ground floor has a functional bar, a hotel lobby, and a restaurant kitchen. The other three floors consist solely of hotel rooms. There are four 'basic' double-bed rooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors, and a more spacious suite on the 3rd floor. The Imperial Suite comprises the whole 4th floor. All hotel rooms have their own bathrooms.

Each room has a unique design - be sure to tell me your (sims') favourite!

Uses items from the following packs: looks best with almost all packs. But a tip: take a look at the build in the gallery and click on the packs to see the items I used from a specific pack, it might also look good with fewer packs.

Download: google drive | simfileshare | and up on the gallery: aeromantica 

TOU: Please don’t claim as your own or put behind paywalls etc. If you find any issues please let me know + tag me if you’ll use the building, I’d love to see it in your games.

If you like what I do and want to show your appreciation, I have a ko-fi!

[searchingforserendipity25]

it's a good thing conclave didn't waste any time on making the stories about catholic orders and their in-fighting. and probably i shouldn't either because i am not informed enough about it to go on at length. pls take all of this w a grain of salt.

but i know in my heart of hearts that aldo bellini is a progressive liberal jesuit, the holy father's specialest most progressive liberal italian-american jesuit.

look at him. look at his glasses. those are the glasses of a man who did his dissertation on reinterpreting loyola through a contemporary reformist lens. academic wunderkid. has sooo much beef w the editors of american jesuit weekly. possibly the events of conclave are occurring in a better more beautiful world where aldo bellini is the editor of american jesuit weekly.

the late holy father for sure was a progressive jesuit also. vr pope francis coded. and low-key set him up as a successor. for a while, that seemed nearly a sure thing in some circles.

but there is the fact. well. the fact that everyone is tired, done and tired of jesuits, progressive or otherwise.

this among other factors meant he couldn't consider him the best option, besides whatever character judgement and uncanny machievallien prediction he came up with.

adeyemi has that benedictine swag which makes his potential election particularly seem like a breath of fresh air + reliable + lots of influence. tremblay is giving dominican drip and dominican corruption. and dominican flop. his nespresso machine? it's giving dominican also.

tedesco has to be an italian-founded order member. most hypocrital salesian of all times maybe?? this is unrelated to the fact that i was nearly enrolled in a salesian primary school and the weirdly panopticon-ish playground didn't pass the vibe check. and also because: consider tedesco rising in the ranks of an order created to help migrant workers...someone kick him in the head for me pls.

who even knows about benítez. i want to say franciscan but that might be just too on the nose. cistercian?? honestly it would work well if he is also without affiliation.

this lens does make lawrence's homily being interpreted as a campaign speech more understandable (and particularly funny).

because, as far as anyone can tell, he's fully running as an independent candidate. zero platform besides - if i fuck up i'll apologize and do better and be held accountable, which is more than any of you probably would.

and because he stands alone, he can be held accountable. he can belong to all, and not one faction only. as far as anyone can tell, he's burning bridges with bellini and rocking the status quo.

he is speaking to/from a place of frustration with institutional inertia and factionalism, he is using his position as dean to bravely promote a platform for internal change in the curia, he is offering doubt as an alternative to certainty, he is pulling an absolute wildcard move.

pity he didn't mean it.

pity the the only order lawrence is interested in joining is the most hardcore discalced carmelite experience possible.

you know how some people look into luxurious real estate listings like it's porn? that's lawrence w tiny monasteries. the sort of minuscule organization with not enough people for management to be necessary. too small for politics. as close to erasure as you can get in this world: no need to be useful.

serving god by existing only to meditate on him. a narrow slant of a life, at that. barely taking up space, barely casting a shadow.

his favorite is a decrepit wreck of a place in the middle of southern spain, nowhere. no wifi no speaking aloud no possessions. no shoes no food. no nothing, only prayer. and a big big sky overhead.

maybe that will fix his issues with reaching god. if that doesn't work he'll probably just wander into the tabernas desert and become an hermit. works for some people, supposedly; plenty of order founders seem to believe so, anyway.

[pittrabbit]

warning: angst, fluff, resolution of feelings yay, kissing, a lot of smut, p in v sex, not proofread!!!!, age gap (think 28 and 49), horribly incorrect medical terminology, made up lore about jack's former wife.

summary: after finally snapping at jack, he does something he'd never done before: he grovels. finally allowing himself to let someone in, he chases after you in hopes of doing things right this time around.

word count: 4.3k

part 1

only a few days passed after that last, unfortunate, encounter with you before another harsh day made its way to the ER.

jack couldnt help but worry about you on the harder days at the job. you'd gotten to know each other well enough for you to know each other's coping mechanisms. you knew about his therapy, about his habit of coming in to work when sleep couldn't find him. and in turn, he knew of your loneliness, of your inability to decompartmentalize your emotions after a particularly difficult shift.

this worried him as soon as a massive casualty hit the ER. it had been a car crash. a blunder involving a drunk driver and a truck packed with a family of six. only one survivor — a six year old little girl. it had taken the entire day, with tireless attempts at saving the family, at saving the drunk driver and his passenger, but it was all futile.

you worked along each other, ignoring any issues between you as you attempted to save a young 12 year old boy with head trauma. it was grueling, an impossible case to deal with. and it all proved useless, resulting in the outcome jack saw coming within an hour of working the case. but he continued upon your insistence, realizing you were crashing out and wanting to be there to catch you.

after it was all said and done, he trailed after you, watching from afar just in case. he wanted to ensure you were fine, even if it was from a distance.

it was a selfish need, but he seemingly couldn't help his selfishness when it came to you.

it was surprising to him when you accepted princess' invitation to join the crew in some after-work drinks at the park. it meant he no longer had to keep his distance. it meant he could at least save himself from worrying about your mental state as you went home alone, that he could make sure you could decompress before heading home.

and so now he sat there, beer in hand as he actively avoided looking your way.

he didn't want to be obvious, didn't want to make you uncomfortable or like he kept you under close watch. he had already been scared that you'd leave as soon as you realized he was tagging along. so he wanted to keep his distance, or to at least make you think that he was.

one by one, people began leaving, all while you stood there, mostly quietly nodding along to people's jokes and commentary about the hard day.

in the end, it was only you, jack, robby, and collins left. the more people that left, the harder it was for jack to not zero in on you, to not want to go up to you and grovel, to take the chance that you were finally in his vicinity to make things up with you.

robby — a smart man — and collins — an even smarter woman — took his silent pleas into consideration, eyeing each other before getting up from the bench they were sharing with jack. collins went to give you a quick hug as a goodbye, insisting you take her seat on the bench. knowing you'd hesitate, she guided you despite your lighthearted objections.

robby was the last to say goodbye, offering his friend a subtle nod in encouragement before leaving you on your own.

the silence was heavy, creating warmth in the otherwise chilly atmosphere of the park.

jack remained silent for a few moments, still facing forward as he sipped at his beer.

"kid," he broke the silence, giving you space to speak.

"can we ... can we not talk? i just, i don't know if i can handle talking to you right now," your voice was broken as you said it.

it made jack's heart clench, in pain at the fact that today's events weren't the only reason why you were hurting. it was because of him too.

his body turned to yours on the bench, finding you shelled off, shrinking into yourself as your legs pressed together and you looked down at your lap. it took him a moment to realize you were crying, small sniffles leaving you before a sob escaped your lips.

"fuck, kid ... c'mere," he grabbed his leg off the bench, scooting to your side and wrapping his arm around you.

surprisingly to him, you leaned in, allowing yourself to nuzzle into his chest while he pressed kisses against your hair, humming in a comforting manner as he remained pressed into your hair.

"i- i don't-"

"you don't gotta say anything. just stay here," he reassured, "i'm here, kid. i'm always here."

you stayed silent for a beat or two, "are you, jack? because it really hasn't felt like it lately," you pulled away just enough to look up into his eyes, finding them glassy just like yours.

his gaze averted, swallowing as he attempted not to let the shame show in his features. thing was, you had a point. jack was very well aware of how hot and cold he'd been with you, how little explanation he'd given you for it.

and though he'd been trying to make up for it, he had felt too ashamed to even try and be assertive about it all. communication, something he valued incredibly (specially after all those visits to his therapist), had failed him any time he tried to let himself get closer to you. he felt like a hypocrite telling robby all about therapy and letting himself be vulnerable, all while he did anything but.

truth was, it had been a very long time since he'd felt like this. it had been twelve years since the passing of his wife, an event that had altered his life beyond belief. it had only been a year since he'd stopped wearing the ring to work, advice given with some hesitation by both his therapist and robby. something about needing to move on, to stop being stuck in the past.

it didn't prove useful for a while. it certainly opened up doors for women flirting with him any time he found himself at a bar or outing with his coworkers, but he never really engaged with it, not feeling quite ready for it.

but then he met you.

the effect of meeting you had been almost immediate, he just hadn't realized it until later. and it was this realization that led to him ruining everything.

he cared about you far too much far too quickly. when he finally came to realize it, he knew he was in too deep and completely unprepared for his feelings. attempting to bring it up during therapy had been futile, as he had already made up his mind to let you go, to keep you at an arm's length even if it ended up hurting you both in the process.

you were too young, too new, too polished — and that was completely ignoring the fact that you were his subordinate. being with him would mean dirtying you up with all his issues, forcing all of his trauma on you, showing you the ugly parts of himself that had not seen the surface since his wife had passed. and even then, he'd only gotten worse with time, even more closed off. even his wife wouldnt have been able to handle the dark cloud constantly hanging over his head.

he kept it hidden. he told jokes, encouraged students, was there for his friends, but beneath the surface was too much for him to unravel in front of you.

but pushing you away clearly hadn't been the solution.

because now he found himself even more miserable than before. and even worse, he found you destroyed by his actions, crying as he held on to you late at night on a public park.

"i'm here, kid. i'm always here, you know that," he finally answered your question, pulling you even closer, perhaps more for his own sanity than yours.

you continued looking at him, a knot in your brows and a pouty lip sticking out, giving him the look of a petulant child.

"you can't do this, jack," you shook your head, correcting yourself, "i mean, doctor abbot. sorry, force of habit."

he shook his head slowly in return, lifting up a hand to your cheek and making you turn to him, "hey, it's jack to you, okay? none of that formality bullshit."

you scoffed, "how- how am i supposed to read you, jack? how do i know when you're doctor abbot to me or when you're jack? i'm ... i'm so tired of this. i don't think i can do this anymore," you paused, scooting back slightly so you could look at him better. you swallowed and looked away for a brief moment, as if you needed to build up the courage for what you were going to say next, "i applied at a hospital next town over to continue my rotation there. they, uhm, they called me yesterday. i just need to sign the papers and then-"

"what?"

he turned serious, harshly grabbing his prosthetic off the floor and putting it on before standing up with conviction. chuckling with bitterness, he ran his hand down his face, turning to you as he paced in front of the bench you'd been sitting on.

"you're, what, you're leaving? its- it's that easy for you?"

then you turned serious, anger invading your features before you got up and stood in front of him, chin tilted upwards as you spoke.

"easy? you think this shit is easy for me? i've been here for almost a year. i love everyone here, but you- god, you're driving me fucking insane. what do you even want from me?," you ranted, hands flying up and down as you spoke with conviction, "first you teach me, you take me under your wing, you treat me as your favorite, and you- you make me think that maybe you might even like me" you paused, looking away for a second with insecurity behind your eyes, "but you were too much of a coward to admit it to yourself and decide to shun me instead? you push me away, refuse to teach me, fuck, you acted like you hated me — no, but here's the kicker! when i do the same in return, that's when you decide to switch it back up on me? what am i supposed to do with that, jack? i can't deal with this anymore, i can't-"

jack had heard enough. truly, he had heard enough five seconds into your rant, but he'd never seen you speak with such emotion. he knew you needed this, to get all your anger for him out of your system so you could complete the cycle of emotions you were going through because of him.

it was just that he needed to get something out of his system too.

taking two determined steps towards you, his hands went up to your cheeks, engulfing almost the entirety of your face in between them before pulling you towards him.

kissing you had been the most decisive thing he'd done since meeting you. no overthinking, no faltering, just doing what he'd been too ashamed of even picturing for the past months in which he'd known you.

the kiss turned intense almost immediately, invading his every sense as he coaxed your lips open with his tongue before slipping it inside. you sighed, finally allowing him to feel your hands on him when you brought them up tot he back of his head, toying and pulling at his hair any time he'd suck on your tongue.

the sounds you released against his lips had him breathing in deep, almost as if buffering at the effect you had on him. his hands came down to your lower back, pulling you against his body, ensuring no space would be left between you.

admittedly, jack was not expecting you to pull away within mere moments of what he would've called a life-changing kiss. his lips chased yours for a few seconds before realizing what was happening, opening his eyes to find your eyes on his.

"n-no, jack! i can't do this, i can't just- i need something better than this. i deserve better," you reprimanded, but you didn't pull away. you stayed in his hold, with your hands now lying on his chest.

jack took a deep breath, giving himself a moment to enjoy the light breeze around you before zeroing in on your eyes. it was imperative to him to always look you in the eyes, to have his entire focus on you as he spoke to you.

"you're right. you deserve better," his hands went up and down your back in a comforting manner, "and i'll give you better. i'll give you anything you want."

"how am i supposed to believe that?"

you looked away, staring down at your feet due to the intensity of his gaze, but he wasn't having it. his hand went up to your chin, encompassing it between his thumb and his index finger as he lifted up your chin so you'd face him again.

"hey- hey, eyes on me. i- i cant explain what i feel for you, okay? i've been a fucking idiot, and i know i don't deserve another chance, but i do care about you. more than i can even understand," he began, not once leaving your eyes, "i did this all wrong. i didn't want you wasting your life with an old man like me, with someone who doesn't even know how to love anymore," his hand went up to trace your cheek with his thumb, "but i was wrong. and if you let me, i'll prove it all to you. what do you say, kid? will you give me another chance?", he practically pleaded, taking a deep breath before speaking again, "i love you, kid. i need you to at least know that."

you stayed silent for a few moments, scaring the fuck out of jack as you did so, but then you looked back up to him with a smile.

"you know, if we're gonna do this, maybe it's time you stop calling me kid, you old man," you nodded at him.

in disbelief, he laughed, shaking his head at you, "yeah? that's all you got out of this?," he laughed unlike he usually did, with jubilation that was unfamiliar to him, "hmm, how about 'baby,' then? huh? or 'honey'? 'sweetheart'? you gotta give me ideas here, kid. i don't know what the youth's saying nowadays."

laughing along with him, you nudged him in faux annoyance, "stop talking like that, you're not 70!"

he interrupted your teasing by burying his face in your neck, kissing it lightly a few times before reaching your lips, shutting up your laughter with his tongue in your mouth.

you fell into the kiss easily, moaning into his mouth when he deepened it and pulling him closer by twisting your fingers in his hair.

"hmm," you hummed when you pulled away, "i love you too, by the way. in case that wasn't completely obvious by now."

"i think i might need some proof, kid," he teased.

rolling your eyes, you scoffed, "again with the kid-"

but he interrupted you again with another kiss, this time heavier, this time more lustful. his hands traced your jaw, holding it in place so he could explore your mouth as he pleased.

your reaction to his touch, to his kiss, were nothing but euphoric to jack. you melted into him, humming and sighing at every swipe of his tongue against yours. jack pulled you closer by your hips, causing an incidental grace of your hips with one another. this pulled a groan from jack, who was already beginning to harden and knew he was a gone man upon the very first touch of lips.

"kid, i-"

"take me home, jack," you sighed, eyes closed and lips scraping by his own, not allowing him an answer before your tongue snuck out and licked at his top lip, sucking it lightly afterwards.

jack lost his sanity then, but he was fortunately well trained for such moments. he had a soldier's ability to remain stoic whenever necessary.

but the military didn't train him for how to deal with you.

so he caved.

"are you sure?", he tried to keep his composure, to think reasonably for the two of you.

your lips went south, reaching his jaw and then his neck as you kissed and sucked at it, moaning into his skin as if you were the receiver of the pleasure.

"please, jack," you reached his ear then, teeth scrapping his lobe, "i've been waiting for so long."

for the first time in more years than he could count, jack shuddered, a heavy exhale leaving him at your tongue suddenly licking at the shell of his ear. his hands gripped your hips, pushing you up against the hardness between you as he groaned.

"you want to kill me," he huffed, giving in.

"take me home so i can finish the job," you continued, relentless in ruining him.

he nodded, breathless, utilizing herculean effort to separate himself from you and grabbing your hand, leading you in the direction of his car parked a couple blocks away.

once in the car, you didn't want to keep your hands off him, pulling him in for another kiss before he could even fasten his seatbelt.

"you're going to make us end back at the ER, honey," he grumbled between kisses, hand on your wrist as you pulled his head towards you.

"fine, i'll calm down," you sighed dramatically as you pulled away (much to jack's hypocritical dismay)

౨ৎ

"you know, i always pegged you as someone a someone a little more shy," jack attempted to speak as you pushed him up against the wall of his apartment.

"yeah? you feel i'm taking advantage of you, doc?", you jested back, a cheshire cat smile on your slips as you had your way with him.

jack's hands remained on your waist, pulling you close while you peppered kisses down the length of his neck. they reached under your scrub top, feeling the warm skin at the dip of your back, groaning at the softness found there.

"take as much advantage as you want," he hummed after a few moments of silence, just taking in every touch you blessed him with.

your mouth creeped north reaching his ear, hands now under his shirt and tracing at the skin of his abdomen. breathing against his ear, you kissed it, whispering into it, "but what if i want you to take advantage of me?"

"fuck, kid ... you're going to kill me," but despite his words, his hands wrapped around you, nudging you up so you could wrap your legs around his waist.

it was a bit of a messy trek, but you made it to his bed in one piece, being settled down on it with gentleness. refusing to let jack get too far from you, your legs remained around him as he threw off his shirt, hastening in removing his prosthetic, shoes, pants, and leaving only his boxers on. he watched you intensely as he undressed, all while you made sex eyes at him, biting your lip and swallowing at every new sliver of skin uncovered.

"you look like you want to eat me," he chuckled, climbing the bed and kneeling on top of you, using his hands to lift himself up above you.

"there's a lot of things i want to do to you," you sighed back, lifting your head so you could steal a kiss, pulling him down by grabbing the back of his neck.

desperate for more, your legs fully wrapped around his back, pulling him down so your middles could connect. this earned a groan directly into your mouth along with a whine of your own. luckily jack took the hint, beginning to gyrate his hips against your own, giving you the desired friction despite your scrub pants and his boxers being in the way.

"oh, god, jack ..." you sighed, mouth open and allowing jack access to suck your tongue.

your hands became antsy, scratching at his back in anguish at the pressure you were craving in your stomach. meanwhile, his own hands slipped under your shirt once more, hesitant in pulling it up before you aided him in the act, lifting yourself up a bit in order to throw it off.

under it, he found a lacy bra, baby pink and contrasting against your skin perfectly. it was comfy, not too much, but it had a cute little bow in the middle, giving jack whiplash as he stared down at you dumbfounded.

"fuck, kid," he shook his head in disbelief, "i dont know if i can handle you," his lips lowered, kissing at your collarbones, dragging his kisses to your sternum and ending up at the top of your breasts.

"what, old man, you're gonna tell me you're out of practice?", you teased as you reached behind you to pull your bra off, making jack freeze against your chest for a second before allowing himself to look at your nude upper half.

"you're a fucking dream, kid," he huffed, voice in a complete state of incredulity. he then leaned down again, kissing at your breasts, licking and biting and sucking, taking in every moan that left your lips while his hips took on a slow and steady pace as they ground into yours, "don't even know where to start with you."

"just fuck me," you cried, pulling his head back up to your lips, "i want you so bad, jack."

he groaned at this, but even more so when he felt your hand reach down to his boxers, one hand slipping inside and gripping his dick while the other scratched at the hem, pulling down the fabric.

"you sure, baby?" he had to check one last time, though he knew he wouldnt be able to take it if you made him stop now. he had never felt this needy, like he'd die if he didnt get more of you.

you nodded with desperation, furrowed brows and pleading eyes staring up at him in a ruinous manner.

shuffling so you could remove your scrub pants and panties from under him, you finally ended up fully nude and ready, gasping when you felt his fingers run through the wetness between your legs.

jack grabbed at himself, positioning his dick right against your cunt and finally pushing in with a heavy grown.

dropping his head against your neck, he took a deep breath, groaning at the feeling of finally entering you.

"jack ... fuck, jack, you feel so good," you were delirious as you said it, nails already running down his back.

in the meantime, jack was in heaven. he hadnt felt so lightheaded in years. your mere touch already had his heart going a mile a minute and his brain turning off, but the feeling of you like this — warm, wet, welcoming — made every bit of misery in his life become worth it.

"fucking perfect ... that's it, baby, take it for me," he began moving, hips creating that slamming sound of skin that he'd grown so unfamiliar with.

the man above you lost himself in the pleasure, grunting in tandem with every thrust and wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you as close to him as possible, breathing in the natural scent of your skin.

and even though the pleasure was unimaginable, jack simply wanted more, wanted to have you louder, more broken for him. he'd always been a bit of an overachiever, after all.

softly, he pulled out, shushing you when you whined at the separation and getting you on your hands and knees. his hands massaged the skin of your hips, dipping your back lower so you'd arch it even more for him and groaning at the sight.

"look at you ..." he mumbled almost to himself.

then he entered you again, now deeper, heavier, adding more pressure to your belly and making you immediately wail at the feeling. that's when jack truly lost himself. completely drunk on the feeling, jack hammered into you, huffing and puffing at the overexertion of energy he was currently displaying.

"i'm gonna cum, jack, shit ..." you said with an uncharted desperation, only making jack speed up, knowing that the moment you came, he was gone.

and he'd been right. as soon as your climax took over you, you pulled him right down with you, forcing him to spill inside you without the ability to even warn you. you'd taken him by surprise as per usual.

there were, once more, complaints from you when he finally pulled out of you, leaving the warmth of your skin to clean himself up and wipe up any of his remains that spilled out of you. he just tutted at you, but still hurried himself up so he could finally lay down with you, have that intimacy he'd craved from you since day one.

side by side, jack felt offended by any amount of distance, pulling you as close as possible while his hands traced at the curve of your hips, grabbing your leg and throwing him over his waist so any distance would be eliminated. your hands played with his chest, fingers tracing figures at the expanse of it while you smiled shyly at him.

"how you feeling, gorgeous?"

you muffled a giggle by pressing your face into his chest, kissing the skin once, twice, before leaning up for a kiss on his lips.

"better than i've felt in a very long time. how about you, old man?", you hummed into his lips.

"never felt better."

"you just had to one-up me, didn't you?" you scowled falsely at him.

he tsk'd at you in fake annoyance, a very common display from him, "gotta keep you on your toes, kid."

note: did not know how to end it lol and its also not proofread but i hope you enjoy anyways!

[trans-axolotl]

also in regards to that last article about varied ways of thinking about psychosis/altered states that don't just align with medical model or carceral psychiatry---I always love sharing about Bethel House and their practices of peer support for schizophrenia that are founded on something called tojisha kenkyu, but I don't see it mentioned as often as things like HVN and Soteria House.

ID: [A colorful digital drawing of a group of people having a meeting inside a house while it snows outside.]

"What really set the stage for tōjisha-kenkyū were two social movements started by those with disabilities. In the 1950s, a new disability movement was burgeoning in Japan, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that those with physical disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, began to advocate for themselves more actively as tōjisha. For those in this movement, their disability is visible. They know where their discomfort comes from, why they are discriminated against, and in what ways they need society to change. Their movement had a clear sense of purpose: make society accommodate the needs of people with disabilities. Around the same time, during the 1970s, a second movement was started by those with mental health issues, such as addiction (particularly alcohol misuse) and schizophrenia. Their disabilities are not always visible. People in this second movement may not have always known they had a disability and, even after they identify their problems, they may remain uncertain about the nature of their disability. Unlike those with physical and visible disabilities, this second group of tōjisha were not always sure how to advocate for themselves as members of society. They didn’t know what they wanted and needed from society. This knowing required new kinds of self-knowledge.

As the story goes, tōjisha-kenkyū emerged in the Japanese fishing town of Urakawa in southern Hokkaido in the early 2000s. It began in the 1980s when locals who had been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders created a peer-support group in a run-down church, which was renamed ‘Bethel House’. The establishment of Bethel House (or just Bethel) was also aided by the maverick psychiatrist Toshiaki Kawamura and an innovative social worker named Ikuyoshi Mukaiyachi. From the start, Bethel embodied the experimental spirit that followed the ‘antipsychiatry’ movement in Japan, which proposed ideas for how psychiatry might be done differently, without relying only on diagnostic manuals and experts. But finding new methods was incredibly difficult and, in the early days of Bethel, both staff and members often struggled with a recurring problem: how is it possible to get beyond traditional psychiatric treatments when someone is still being tormented by their disabling symptoms? Tōjisha-kenkyū was born directly out of a desperate search for answers.

In the early 2000s, one of Bethel’s members with schizophrenia was struggling to understand who he was and why he acted the way he did. This struggle had become urgent after he had set his own home on fire in a fit of anger. In the aftermath, he was overwhelmed and desperate. At his wits’ end about how to help, Mukaiyachi asked him if perhaps he wanted to kenkyū (to ‘study’ or ‘research’) himself so he could understand his problems and find a better way to cope with his illness. Apparently, the term ‘kenkyū’ had an immediate appeal, and others at Bethel began to adopt it, too – especially those with serious mental health problems who were constantly urged to think about (and apologise) for who they were and how they behaved. Instead of being passive ‘patients’ who felt they needed to keep their heads down and be ashamed for acting differently, they could now become active ‘researchers’ of their own ailments. Tōjisha-kenkyū allowed these people to deny labels such as ‘victim’, ‘patient’ or ‘minority’, and to reclaim their agency.

Tōjisha-kenkyū is based on a simple idea. Humans have long shared their troubles so that others can empathise and offer wisdom about how to solve problems. Yet the experience of mental illness is often accompanied by an absence of collective sharing and problem-solving. Mental health issues are treated like shameful secrets that must be hidden, remain unspoken, and dealt with in private. This creates confused and lonely people, who can only be ‘saved’ by the top-down knowledge of expert psychiatrists. Tōjisha-kenkyū simply encourages people to ‘study’ their own problems, and to investigate patterns and solutions in the writing and testimonies of fellow tōjisha.

Self-reflection is at the heart of this practice. Tōjisha-kenkyū incorporates various forms of reflection developed in clinical methods, such as social skills training and cognitive behavioural therapy, but the reflections of a tōjisha don’t begin and end at the individual. Instead, self-reflection is always shared, becoming a form of knowledge that can be communally reflected upon and improved. At Bethel House, members found it liberating that they could define themselves as ‘producers’ of a new form of knowledge, just like the doctors and scientists who diagnosed and studied them in hospital wards. The experiential knowledge of Bethel members now forms the basis of an open and shared public domain of collective knowledge about mental health, one distributed through books, newspaper articles, documentaries and social media.

Tōjisha-kenkyū quickly caught on, making Bethel House a site of pilgrimage for those seeking alternatives to traditional psychiatry. Eventually, a café was opened, public lectures and events were held, and even merchandise (including T-shirts depicting members’ hallucinations) was sold to help support the project. Bethel won further fame when their ‘Hallucination and Delusion Grand Prix’ was aired on national television in Japan. At these events, people in Urakawa are invited to listen and laugh alongside Bethel members who share stories of their hallucinations and delusions. Afterwards, the audience votes to decide who should win first prize for the most hilarious or moving account. One previous winner told a story about a failed journey into the mountains to ride a UFO and ‘save the world’ (it failed because other Bethel members convinced him he needed a licence to ride a UFO, which he didn’t have). Another winner told a story about living in a public restroom at a train station for four days to respect the orders of an auditory hallucination. Tōjisha-kenkyū received further interest, in and outside Japan, when the American anthropologist Karen Nakamura wrote A Disability of the Soul: An Ethnography of Schizophrenia and Mental Illness in Contemporary Japan (2013), a detailed and moving account of life at Bethel House. "

-Japan's Radical Alternative to Psychiatric Diagnosis by Satsuki Ayaya and Junko Kitanaka