#and the breast implant stories are CRAZY

[haechvn]

I’m watching this show botched and this older guys spent over $100k+ to look like justin bieber and he failed so bad😭😭

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Help. Pls seal a competent doctor in an envelope and send them to me.

OK. I'm in danger. Ha. Still fighting to stay alive with what I have, but... uh... Two out of three doctors are confirmed incompetent and the third hasn't acquitted himself too well, but I'm not positive he's lacking information I need to live and resistant to learn it. The other two are definitely like that, and that's not good for the ol' complicated health problems. I'm not easy to treat and BOY DO THEY ALL HATE THAT!

Today was the gynecologist. I hate that. I hate having one of those. I hate having to navigate all this gendered shit that's phrased like people like me don't exist. Forget "nonbinary," I have to keep saying "total hysterectomy" over and over and OVER. I hate that this person sees me as NOTHING BUT my gendered body parts and she's REAPEATEDLY refused to engage with anything going on in the rest of my body. I go to this person's office and I become tits and a vagina. Mainly the vagina. With people intermittently forgetting I don't have the other standard equipment.

I didn't know how to prepare for today. I had a week. I made a phone appointment in order to beg for an in-person appointment to lay out all my complicated shit, and she tried to take care of it over the phone anyway. I had not prepared for that. I mentioned that my hair was falling out, as a persistent menopause symptom that was not being addressed, and she focused on that, interrupted me, and went off on how she could not regrow my hair. And, OK. But that wasn't what I meant and she didn't give me room to explain what I DID mean. I did manage to be annoying enough to get the in-person appointment. And then I didn't know what I ought to take with me.

I spent all week going in circles, wondering what she needed to know, and how to say it so she'd understand. I do have the neurodivergent inclination to, you know, explain things when I'm not understood. And I don't know how else to make a doctor understand the type of healthcare I need! Shouldn't they listen to me? I have ample evidence that they don't, but I don't know how they expect to treat me otherwise.

Over the phone, she hit me out of left field with the fact that she's been dragging her feet on my estrogen dose because I had a bad reaction to ONE MEDICATION, ONE TIME. I don't even know if it was the estrogen, it could've been a binding agent or some shit. She decided that for me, she also decided my breast pain was from too much estrogen (even though my dose is at post-menopausal levels) and she's been prescribing me medicine based on that story she told herself.

I told her my experience is that I've never had more breast pain with a higher hormone dose, it's always gotten better... and I'm pretty sure she doesn't believe me. Like, I said that, and she reiterated later that more estrogen causes breast pain. I reiterated, that wasn't my experience and I do have anecdotal evidence at least of women who have breast pain from low estrogen too. She basically went, "OK, here's some higher estrogen. Whatever."

Then I said I was also willing to use the injectable kind, or an implant. Oral estrogen hurt my liver earlier, so I agree with her that something other than that would be safer. I thought she would know about these other methods. I did not research their existence. I mean, estrogen injections? I'm active in trans circles, that's just... That's shit's not special. That's just Tuesday.

She said, "What is that? I've never heard of that." She didn't even know enough about it to think, for a second, "Hmm, maybe I should know about that. Maybe I shouldn't admit I don't know that." Nope. I'm asking for weird medication and the burden is on me to explain this craziness.

What I wanted to say was, "Don't you know even one transwoman? Aren't you in women's health??" But I didn't know what the hell that was gonna get me. I sputtered for a bit and finally managed, "That's... pretty basic gender clinic stuff..."

She said, "Do you want me to refer you to a gender clinic?" right away. Fuck, I should've just said, "YES! I WANT THAT SO MUCH! LET ME GO!" But I was so baffled and confused at that point that I was shaking.

The spouse found a name of an injectable estrogen brand and offered it to her. She had a look at his phone and said, "I don't know what that is and I'm not going to prescribe it if I don't know what it is." She offered a referral to another doctor that does, "Off-label stuff, the crazy stuff the rest of us don't want to deal with." Ha-ha, okay. Cool. Yeah. That's me!

So I have a new patch with more estrogen in it and GOD HELP ME if I have a bad reaction to it. I've never been on this particular type of estradiol before, but I wasn't getting any traction when I asserted there are different kinds of estrogen that I may tolerate better or not as well. No acknowledgement. No engagement. More irrelevant information from the special snowflake who looks things up on the internet and thinks they're smarter than a doctor. Fucking hell, BUT I KNOW WHAT ESTROGEN INJECTIONS ARE.

Oh, and because we waited over an hour past our appointment time to get in, the garage where we parked our car closed before we could get out. We had to beg to be let in. While I was melting down and feeling like I was gonna pass out.

I got a soda and some nuggets, I'm fine. I lived. I got home and looked up injectable estrogen + Canada, because, deep down, I do doubt myself and wonder if I'm insane. Maybe Canadian transwoman suck their hormones out of the mighty moose, fuck if I know. But, uh, no. It's a thing. Yeah. Pretty basic thing. Once weekly injections. No public option for it, though. Trans folks pay extra to be who they are!

Here's the kicker, while we were waiting for the nuggets and soda, the spouse said, "While she was saying that she didn't know what it was, the poster behind her, with the birth control options? Estrogen injection is the third one on there."

"God, why didn't you just point to it?"

"I didn't know what she'd do."

That's... Probably pretty wise, yeah. I don't think she would've done anything GOOD.

I'm not being allowed to participate in my own healthcare as an equal partner. People are just... making decisions for me and never telling me. And they fight me when I say it's not helping and I try to give them some reasons why. They want me to take what they give me and shut up. But that'll KILL me. It HAS BEEN KILLING ME.

The family doctor is at the root of this, he's in charge of everything. I can't get rid of him. I'm trying, but it's not set up so I can get rid of him. There isn't another doctor available who I can switch to. Clinics are filling the gaps, but I can't shitcan my actual doctor to get care on random from a clinic. They won't let me. I'm not familiar with this system. I know someone who knows it better and they're willing to help. We're going to have to get back in touch with them, and I hope they know what to do.

At the moment... I'm not safe. I'm not getting good care. I'm getting bullying, gaslighting and apathy. So much that I worry about posting this stuff on the internet. Like all y'all aren't going to believe me either. Surely, I must be exaggerating. This is... This reads like warmed-over Kafka, or Catch-22. This is my life. For now. While I'm able to fight for it.

[boxlunches]

Tiger King was a fucking experience to say the least and I binged it all today, and like everyone else I was darkly, absurdly entertained in my shock. But holy shit I absolutely regret checking social media’s thoughts on it before going to bed. I hadn’t been in on the memes and discussions prior to watching. I gotta vent y’all.

Whiiiile it’s certainly fun to get swept up together in a story that is just so batshit crazy in a surreal time when all of us are gripped by fear, the grand takeaway that so many people got from this documentary is disturbing honestly.

I feel distressed that I have to explain that the conversation surrounding Carole Baskin is dripping with violent misogyny. There’s a way to hate on someone awful without making disgusting remarks about their sex. Carole Baskin is unlikeable, sketchy, and probably terrible - and yeah, QUITE POSSIBLY a murderer. Do not trust her at all myself, especially after hearing from her late husband’s family about her bullshit.

But guys. You just watched a seven hour documentary about a foul-mouthed, racist, predatory, violent man who could not relinquish his murderous obsession to the point that on his frequent internet show he was abusing a blow-up doll and calling it Carole, posting memes about her genitals, and making very colorful public death threats.

And you want to parrot that guy’s words, “that bitch Carole Baskin,” essentially continuing his violent misogynist legacy, because lol the memes you guys the meeeeemes. And he’s gay so it’s fine and she’s a bitch so whatever! Except after the first couple of times it stops being some meta commentary about Joe Exotic’s ridiculous paranoia and instead circles right back around to straight up misogyny, because all people are getting is that she’s “that bitch.”

Which is to say nothing of the people who *genuinely* believe that she was the worst person among all the crime lords on Tiger King. When Joe Exotic wasn’t being a gun-happy prick around his employees and blowing shit up (which I’m sure was a delight to the stressed out and abused animals on his property), he was snatching baby tigers away from their moms seconds after birth, shooting at least five other tigers in the head, and OH, busy preying on young men fresh out of high school and keeping them drugged and confined on his land.

Incoming Tangent: The predatory, grooming, cult shit going on with Joe and his meth-addicted “husbands” is stomach-churning. Travis’s story fucked me up and I’m still reeling over the fact that Netflix showed real security footage of a person reacting to his suicide/or accidental death without any warning. There’s a few major things like that that make me question how responsible this documentary’s handling was. Honestly the creators of the documentary seem a little gross too.

And there’s just so much more, I can’t go over all the fucked up people in this show, it’s a shock a minute lol (although special honorable mention to absolute human shitstain Doc Antle who keeps a harem of young women and coerces them into getting breast implants and fucking him for promotions). BUT THE POINT I’M TRYING TO MAKE IS

Look, I get it. It’s pretty obvious that people are latching on to the Carole thing because it’s easier and safer to riff on some absurd crime we don’t know was technically committed. For a lot of people dunking on Carole is just adopting the absurd costume of Joe Exotic for a minute and having cynical fun while the world spirals out of control. And that’s fine. Make your memes about her slathering her piece of shit first husband in salmon oil and feeding him to a tiger, question her sketch business practices and shitty priorities, fine cool whatever. I know people also target her because of all the villains in a show of villains, she seems to not get any comeuppance at all, and we all want to know what’s happening there. That’s why she was the first name I looked up, after all.

But a bunch of other people? Genuinely they just watched a show overflowing with despicable behavior, and instead of shaking their heads at the whole lot of them, they felt inclined to believe every bit of shit that came out of Joe Exotic’s mouth about Carole and her business. Even after they watched Joe threaten to shoot a tiger between the eyes for acting like a wild animal. Even after they watched Joe prey on a high school graduate and then talk at length about his genitals to his grieving family at his funeral. Even after all else, because our society’s misogyny runs so fucking deep, those viewers felt compelled to take up Joe’s lunatic crusade to put the head of “that bitch Carole Baskin” in a jar.

Instead of giving any kind of shit about tigers.

[maximumninjavoid]

the new fic part the fourth

you know, the one that won’t tell me what it’s name is. Well I still keep bashing away at it. but I think I have a better idea of where it’s going and that sort of thing.

A fresh start. Well, practically. I mean, with that much money, and the additional layer of Rudenko insulation, I could do or be anything. First I have to figure out how not to give the government EIGHTY ONE MILLION DOLLARS. That's thirty seven percent. Right off the top? Are you kidding? Oh, I was going to need some deductions. How much would I have to give to Durell to get to meet their ambassador personally? The wheels started to spin. For the moment, I had to make lists, do my research and hope that the early vaccine didn't make zombies. That's what film taught me. When you rush producing a vaccine, you get zombies. I hoped they were slow and shambling. I stood no chance against fast ones. I kept my head down and went to work, kept my mouth shut, and let Ms. Rudenko do her job. She is a Rock star. No one pestered me, and every week, I'd get a hilarious email about who was looking for me and for what. " So far you have fourteen marriage proposals this week. The photos have been scanned to the secure cloud drive. All of this week's candidates do not make the cut. Two failed the English usage and grammar test, five are younger than your daughter, which you did set as a hard limit. Three have felony convictions, two are cat fishes and of the remaining two, I believe one you've already been married to previously. If that is in fact your third ex husband, do let me know, we'll take care of that. You've been solicited for twenty three bad business ventures, sixteen loans, four long lost relatives on whom we are awaiting DNA confirmation, and two really creative blackmail attempts, also scanned to the cloud for your entertainment. What makes this funny to me is that they assume you're male. " I made a note to go look at the cloud and chuckled. At least the vaccine showed promise. By summer I took a leave of absence from work and took a private plane to Thailand. I told my job I needed to recharge, that as an extrovert, quarantine had been really hard on me and I was suffering from compassion fatigue. Really, I went to have a little work done. I had my teeth fixed, I had my arms done, I had my boobs picked back up a bit, and did a bit of fat removal on my belly and love handles. Nothing crazy, but just a bit more streamlined. I'm always going to be thick. I just contoured it a bit better. And frankly? Less expensive. And laid my ass on a beach to recover. When I got back, I'd look fit and rested, not overhauled. And I didn't want nipples that didn't have sensation. So implants that involves taking off my areola was right out. Nope. In through the armpit and under the existing breast tissue. I have to say, I looked pretty good. I'd say I rolled almost twenty years off the odometer. I was impressed. I had measurements done and three days later they came back with muslins and fabrics and the custom wardrobe was under way. Tailored shirts, that fit my curves and didn't gap at the buttons. French cuffs. Pants tailored precisely for me; jackets, with functional pockets. Classic stuff, things that I'd wear over and over that would never go out of style, and some really fun avant garde pieces reminiscent of the 80's. Everything mixed and matched, I had day dresses, blouses,and the best part? They had my measurements, and would ship me whatever I required. You know, I could get used to that. I didn't have a dress up job, and if I dressed too well, it made my clients uneasy. But I definitely did a closet edit, and elevated my style for non work hours. The other thing I  did while recuperation did its thing was write. I wrote a great deal. I wrote the story of my biological family and the twisted tales surrounding my adoption, how I found my sisters, or really how they found me. I wrote about the contradictory facets of my biological father, of being biracial and raised as white, I just poured all of that out and on to paper. Editing would be a larger project, and a bit more perspective. I took a few runs at the dramedy I always wanted to write about the clinic. It was timely as hell, and the streaming services producing content would take risks and do things networks could never do. And I could afford to buy my way into a meeting with someone, or at least schmooze my way to getting someone interested in one of my projects. Membership has its privileges. I rested up, and when the doctors cleared me I went to Bangkok. The night market was the stuff of which  my dreams are made. A billion little tents, covered cubbies in all the colors of the rainbow, food stalls, trinkets, baubles, beverages, touristy souvenirs, and I didn't speak one word of the language. I made myself understood, ate what looked interesting and figured the worst thing that might happen is gastro intestinal distress. The people watching was fantastic, and each food stall had A thing. Like, this one woman had this barbecued meat on a stick. People were queued up for it, and I got in line. That was the only thing she sold. It melted in my mouth, and was like nothing I had ever tasted. So, that, I decided was my strategy. If the locals were lined up, I would too. I have never had a more amazing progressive dinner. I have no idea what I ate.   @fishcustardandclintbarton @indigosaurus @tinareher

[celenatriestowriteagain]

Quick Book Reviews

Before the coffee gets cold

It's about this cafe that lets people travel to a point in time in the past, and they can stay there until the coffee that they are served gets cold.

It's a collection of loosely connected stories - someone regrets breaking up with the love of their life, someone wants to see her sister who suddenly passed away in a car accident, someone who was alzheimer's wants to warn his wife, but the last story was the most gut-wrenching. A mother who died in childbirth travels to the future (it's only revealed in the end that you can travel to the future too) to meet her daughter.

It was alright, not too crazy about it. The rules of the cafe was mentioned multiple times that it got annoying.

Parakeet

This is a book about a bride-to-be in the verge of having a full blown mental breakdown. She is visited by her deceased grandmother in the form of a bird, asking her to get in touch with her brother. Turns out her brother is now a transwoman, and they try to resolve their past issues.

Again not too crazy about this book. It's very bleak. Started off really strong then it sort of just petered off?

The Midnight Library

Now this is one of the books that I actually devoured in a couple of days. I couldn't put it down. It's about this lady who tried to kill herself, but instead of dying she ended up in like a purgatory wherein she can live out different versions of her life based on decisions that she could've made differently.

She tried marrying her fiancé and starting a pub (terrible, he cheated on her and they are having money problems)

pursuing swimming and being an Olympian (again terrible because she can't eat what she wants, she's too busy, her dad is alive but cheated on her mom, her mom died and they probably weren't close in that life, her brother/manager became an alcoholic killed himself)

she tried staying in the animal orphanage (it was alright, but her boyfriend was like the human version of a golden retriever, and their place smelled like dog piss)

she tried pursuing some scientific career that led her to study ice in Antartica (terrible, she had an encounter with a wild bear)

she tried going to Australia with her bestfriend (terrible, she ended up sharing a dingy apartment with a stoner, her bestfriend died in a car accident)

she tried having a child (this was the best one in her opinion, but she found out that the child that she was teaching piano in her original life had become a delinquent)

In the end she returned to her original life, comforted in the knowledge that her decisions had some positive effects on others, even though she didn't know it. She got in touch with her brother, her bestfriend, both who are still alive, and she started teaching piano again.

I really liked it. Very depressing in the beginning, but it all paid off. It made me realize I don't really have any big regrets in this life (so far), so that's nice.

Breasts and Eggs

This is another bleak book for me. The first chapter is about the main character (Natsuko?), her sister Makiko, and her sister's daughter Midoriko. Midorika had some journal entries in the first part, she is struggling with puberty and getting her period. She has chosen to not speak to her mother and only write in a notebook because she's angsty, mad for being born, and angry because her mother is obsessed with getting breast implants.

The second part is a few years into the future, it's unknown whether Makiko ever got her implants, Natsuko is a fairly successful writer, Midoriko is now well-adjusted, in college and she has a boyfriend. Natsuko is obsessed with the idea of having a child, but she doesn't have a boyfriend or a husband, and she doesn't like having sex so she's researching artificial insemination procedures. In the end she uses sperm from this guy she got closer with, who is also conceived via artifical insemination.

It was alright too. The last part was the most engaging section.

[purplesurveys]

896

Would you ever try Fear Factor for one million dollars? Why or why not? Yes. It would make for hilarious stories for get-togethers and I think that winning a million dollars that I could use up for the rest of my life doing some dumb dares for a few hours would be worth it. If you have a camera, when do you use flash? Only if it’s dim. I don’t like the effect that flash gives. What would you do with eighty-three crazy straws? Find an aunt or uncle with a kid who’s having a birthday party soon so they can use the straws as giveaways or something. If you use hair spray, what brand do you use the most? I don’t.  Is Catcher in the Rye in your library by any chance? It’s probably in another college’s library, most likely our college for the arts and letters. There’s no reason for it to be in a mass communication library.

What if there was no such thing as the word 'one'? Then that would imply that we have/have to have plurals of everything, which just sounds a bit bizarre to me.

What do you have automatic sympathy for? The 11,000 employees of the country’s biggest broadcasting network that was recently officially shut down by our – surprise surprise – government. These are people who weren’t even involved in the network’s franchise renewal status (which was/is the main issue), people who have families, people who relied on these jobs to get by during a worldwide pandemic, people who loved their jobs, people who found family in these jobs, It’s absolutely crazy how people can defend their stance against the network and justify the loss of 11,000 jobs. What is a cool disposable object? I don’t know who looks at disposable objects and thinks they’re ‘cool,’ but the first thing I thought of was my vape pen of choice, which are disposable. It has enough puffs to last several months with me so it’s more convenient for me to keep buying them than spending a large amount on a refillable one. Hilary Duff or Lindsay Lohan? Why? Hilary Duff as Lizzie McGuire is more nostalgic to me; I used to watch it nearly everyday. I never watched Lindsay’s movies other than Herbie. What do you think of the actor Michael Cera? No opinion but I remember the time when he was often used on 9Gag memes. Simpler times lol. Anyway, I haven’t seen any of his movies. What is the best thing about a Barbie doll? I think it’s really fun how they’ve come up with a bazillion outfits for Barbies and Kens. And different versions too – as far as I know there’s been a Filipino Barbie for a while :) What is something you'd say in your will? If I passed any time soon I’d like to include some things about my dogs and how they’re supposed to be taken care of. If we’re talking about what I’m putting in my will if I ever reach like 80, I just wanna make sure every person who’s been in my life and stayed for a bit is mentioned and thanked and I wanna make the list as expansive as I possibly can at that age. Idk, I’ve always been sentimental. Any thoughts on fake abortion clinics? What??? I don’t know what those are and what they do, but they sound awful. What was a username you'd thought wouldn't be taken but was taken? I’ve tried using my full name as a username in a few websites and seen them being taken. My first and last names don’t make a common pair, so I’ve always found it surprising. Cherry or peanut ice cream? Peanut. Not gonna lie, it’s an unusual flavor – but Asians kinda put peanuts on everything heh. What is your dream cellphone? Why? Whatever new phone Apple puts out because unfortunately I buy into toxic consumerist shit like that lol Would you rather be watching The Bachelor or The Bachelorette? Neither. From one to ten, how big of a movie buff are you? I’d give myself an 8. I’ve seen my fair share of movies and I can honestly say that my favorite films are not cliche picks, but I’ve also yet to see a bunch of classics that other ~movie buffs~ hail as being excellent movies like Taxi Driver, Silence of the Lambs, Rocky, American Psycho, etc. I also haven’t been watching movies as much as I used to, which takes down another point for me. Who is a celebrity you think will never get into trouble? The Irwin kids. I wouldn’t call them celebrities per se though; they’re in the spotlight for the most wholesome reasons. I’ve seen every segment Robert Irwin has had on Jimmy Fallon and it’s amazingly precious. What is an important holiday to you? Why? Probably the EDSA Anniversary because without it we’d still be under a dictatorship. Name a catty girl you really dislike. I wouldn’t call anyone I know that. What is a museum you would like to go to? The top 3 museums that I would love to visit are the Anne Frank House, the Met, and the Art Institute of Chicago. And wherever Monet’s paintings are, because he’s my favorite artist. Personally, do you look better with short hair or long hair? Short. Long, frizzy hair does not look good on me and on anyone else. What was the reason why you last blocked a person from your IM? He was a stranger who hit on me. I added him back only because we had a considerable amount of mutual friends and I thought that maybe he used to be a classmate or something, but he messaged me some shit that he had probably copy-pasted to 700 other girls saying like ‘hey do you mind if you and I talk? I find you really pretty’ like six seconds after adding him back. It was so fucking creepy and I never blocked someone so quickly. I was already in a foul mood that night so I also showed the brief interaction to Gab and I gave her freedom to curse the shit out of the guy if she wanted to. What is a cliche thing that happens a lot in anime? I don’t like anime and have never watched it. What are your views on the cartoon show Invader Zim? I’ve never seen that either. If you have some, what is tonight's homework about? I don’t have homework anymore. If you have one, what is your favorite sushi flavour? Cream cheese salmon rolls from a local place called Torch. What is the first thing you think of when I say 'Jack'? Rose. Do you understand JavaScript coding? A teeny bit, thanks to the theme customizations I used to do on Tumblr when I was 14. What would you do if you found a gun in your best friend's bedroom? Confront them, and maybe even scold them. I definitely would be angry. Not even just because it could mean they’re suicidal, but because I don’t believe in guns. What do you call your grandparents? I call both sets Lolo and Lola. When I say 'Go', you say: I just remember the song Green Light by Beyoncé because the chorus on that is her screaming ‘Go.’ What colour do you usually paint your nails? I never paint them. They’re pretty, but I never saw them as a necessity. What would be a cool earring design? People come up with cool designs all the time now though. I’m completely sure there are a million versions of this now but I would love sriracha sauce earrings haha. What do you think of raccoons? No opinion as I’ve never encountered them. Any thoughts on the actor Paul Rudd? NEVER AGES Who is the better liar: your mother or your best friend? Mom. Gab will lie to me sometimes but I can always tell. Are breast implants something you'd consider? Why or why not? I considered it when I was a teenager because people used to pick on me for being flat-chested, as if I had a choice as to what size my body would end up being. Also, flat chests were the butt of so many jokes in the early 2010s so it made me insecure for a very long time. Nowadays the environment is a lot nicer and I’m seeing many flat-chest positivity posts (if that’s even a thing) so I’ve changed my mind about implants.  Besides nightmares, what is the scariest thing about sleeping? Sleep paralysis. You can wake up from nightmares. Do you find the phrase 'nom nom nom' annoying? Not as much as ‘rawr’ annoys me. Do you look better with red lipstick or black lipstick? I look good in neither but I would go with red. When was the last time you had chocolate milk? Oooooh it’s been a while :( I feel like that’s something people have to start selling more, honestly. I don’t see chocolate milk being sold other than at the grocery or convenience stores and ugh, I just want more restaurants to add it on their menus lol. That being said, the last time I had it was in January, during a journalism workshop that we hosted in a school in Marikina. The teachers offered us that and a Fudgee Bar as thank-you snacks :)

[tessatechaitea]

The Invisibles #2

This cover isn't as catchy as the pop hand grenade.

It's probably appropriate that I'm reading a comic book about a rebellious group throwing as many wrenches as they can into the machinery of the status quo right now. Also I would have said spanners instead of wrenches but I don't want to confuse the people who don't watch thousands of hours of British panel shows on YouTube. For no one particular reason but maybe a whole lot of them, I have an anecdote about the Santa Clara police. I've already told the story in my review of Batgirl #10 from July 2012 but I'll reprint it exactly as I did then because it's pertinent to understanding that cops are violent jerks. "About fifteen years ago [twenty-three years ago now!], my friends Paul and Tony were coming home from a club. As Paul was dropping Tony off at his house, they noticed some kids breaking into Tony's car. Tony called the police and Paul gave chase tackling one of the kids. They were probably around fourteen or fifteen. Paul didn't do anything but hold the kid until the cops showed up. When the police did show, they told Paul that they'll take the kid in but guaranteed almost nothing would come of this. They even suggested that if Paul had roughed him up a bit, it might not have been so bad. So yeah, Batgirl. You're doing the work the police would love to do but can't because they'd lose their jobs. Rough up the car thieves, put them in the hospital, and they might decide crime has too high a price to pay. I'm not saying I agree with the violence that the cops are willing to overlook. But I am saying you're a tool of the system." When I told it back in 2012, I got one small detail wrong: the hilarious assumption that the cops would lose their jobs if they did the violence themselves. Oh, I was so naive eight years ago! I mean, I still knew it was bullshit that the cops were suggesting one citizen do violence to another one! And I was also pretty facetious in my take because I was speaking directly to Batgirl for some reason! But I was encouraging her not to be violent like the cops! Don't do their immoral dirty work for them and also probably for that bastard Batman! Imagine that the job description most commonly associated with your job is "to serve and protect" and you think it's okay to tell an adult male to beat up some kids? Just fucking imagine what kind of an asshole you'd have to be. Now imagine that you weren't the only asshole; everybody you worked with felt the same way. Or, at the extremely very least, felt like they couldn't reprimand you or disagree with your methods because it would be a risk to their lives. Here's another thing to imagine! Imagine having a job and believing without a fucking doubt that everybody who has the same job as you should never be criticized for not simply doing a bad job but for murdering people while on the job. Just fucking imagine. Here's one last thing to imagine: imagine purchasing my cribbage-based RPG. I know it's only available on Amazon but try to ignore that they're capitalist monsters this one time and support my first uneasy footsteps into the world of publishing. I promise I'll figure out a better way at some point. It's just I hate all the marketing and distribution and graphic design and business bullshit; I just want to write the fucking thing and somehow get it in the hands of people who might enjoy it.

Remember the good old days before Fox News when we thought mind control propaganda would have to be subliminal?!

Obviously the guy speaking is schizophrenic. His description of anxious, terrifying thoughts having to come from another source rather than your own mind is pure schizophrenia. It's why they're always obsessed with mind shielding or satellites on the moon or neighbors beaming microwaves into their living rooms. I can't imagine how terrifying it must be to be detached from your own thoughts, unable to recognize that it's your own internal monologue whispering terrible insults to you on a constant basis. At least when I hear a voice in my head say, "You're fat," I know it's my own mind reaching the conclusion that maybe I shouldn't have eaten the whole pint of Ben & Jerry's. Having escaped from the young dystopian novel of a school system last issue, Dane McGowan is now living on the streets with herpes. It isn't long before he teams up with Mad Tom 'o Bedlam, an old homeless man who acts crazy and maybe is crazy but not as crazy as he acts, if you get what I'm saying. Do you? I sometimes don't get what I'm saying at all. But I keep saying things because sometimes I'll say something that makes me think, "Hey! You're not as stupid as your mother screamed you were every single day!"

Remember the good old days when the protagonist of a story could have multiple flaws and be really unlikeable without immediately calling into question the beliefs of the author?

Seriously though, this kid is a fucking cock. He's all bluster and anti-establishment and violent and homophobic and all because his mother withholds love and his dad is absent. He's trying so hard to be above the status quo and be this unique anarchic individual who does what he pleases and yet he's simply another lousy stereotype. Tom and Dane see a young woman chased through the streets of London by some guys blowing trumpets and dressed as if they're on a fox hunt. Tom grabs Dane and they make a run for it because Tom knows all about the secret hazards of the hidden side of London. The huntsmen capture the young woman and presumably kill her since one of them also says to cut her breasts off. That's some of that old ultra-violence that we knew would have to show up in this book. It's sort of a cultural call back to the works that probably helped inspire this story. Tom and Dane wind up in the secret catacombs of old London where they scrape some blue mold off of a wall and smoke it. Tom also gives some of that history you expect from Morrison, like how he made sure Gotham was understood to be the "Village of Goats." Man, that was the best thing he ever did for Batman continuity. Dane believes he hallucinates a word on the wall — Barbelith — and some aliens coming for him. He passes out and regains consciousness above the streets back in London. But now he has a scar on the back of his head and he sees airships in the sky that weren't there before. Being that I spent my formative years watching The X-Files, I understand when somebody has been abducted and implanted with a chip that allows them to see the secret strings turning reality into some Other thing's puppet theater. Tom shows Dane a few more magic tricks and Dane finally realizes the man is nuts in a way that makes a lot of sense to him. So he finally agrees to be an Invisible. That's when he wakes up with the Fox Hunters ready to give chase. But that's for next issue. The Invisibles #2 Rating: A. This issue was better than the last issue which was already a good issue. You might have realized that because I gave last issue a "B" and this one an "A". That's sort of how the grades work. I don't really care about grading or rating the comic books I read. I just want a history of my thoughts on them so that when I'm 80, I have some way to entertain myself (assuming the Internet and electricity and leisure time are still extant things). And it's not like this is a review that would help sell this comic book anyway! Who's going to rush out and find old copies of The Invisibles just because I said I liked them? The most disappointing part of this whole project is that I don't have every issue of this series. I'm so fucking annoyed with 23 year old me right now.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

How about Claire having a dream or a fantasy of how Jamie or them as couple would be in her own time

I wondered if Jamiewould have a briefcase if he lived in my time.

In my fantasy hedid.  

A chestnut brown onewith a black handle.  And in thatbriefcase, he carried papers for his job.  It was some nondescript job; the type of job that did not mean I had to worry about him.  Something like a lawyer or an accountant.  A patently boring position with lots of paper and close, detailed work that would dull his eyesight.

I shifted in our bed,the very tip of my finger running along his collarbone.  He was still, passive as I touched him. I tracedfrom the dip at the base of his throat, over the slight arch of a collarbone, up and over the peninsularedge of a healed break, and then down to the end of the bone where it ended sharply at his shoulder.

This was 1746 and battlewas waiting –– the air was thick with the anticipation of it.

No briefcase in sight.

His job was not about paper.  

It was about:

Gun powder (raw, dizzying, and thick when unspent; acridand biting when burnt), the metallic scrape of sharpening blades (an edge to impale someone, to cut and bleedan enemy).

Chattering boys who onlyvaguely understood what they were being asked to fight for (young, stupid stuff about virginity andfarming and girls).

Bonny Prince Charlie (idiotic, entitled, idealistic, self-aggrandizing).

Our nights were never quiet with the drunken frivolity of those boys who just didn’t know better and the whip of the canvasroof over our heads as we attempted to sleep. 

(It felt like this was the end of the line for us –– the last place where we would be able to curl againsteach other in exhaustion and touch each other before war cleaved us apartsomehow.)

When he made love to mein that tent –– oh, my love, myeverything –– we acted in desperation.  A need to catalogue every sound, whisper, andtouch before it all disappeared. Before wedisappeared. 

Together we chased a moment that we both knew would never come: the end of wanting each other.

No.This tent was not where my mind needed to be –– that smell, those young voices, the burn of gun powder that was ever-present in the air.

I needed respite.

I needed:

A chestnut brownbriefcase with a black handle.  A greyflannel suit for work and a peacock-colored one for play.  A hat with a narrow brim.  A habit of picking up flowers on the way homeon a Friday.  A sneaking domesticity thatburned only for Jamie.

I wondered about these things, making up hypothetical worlds. Even if the exercise had a cost –– the sacrifice of a small piece ofme. For some reason it seemed that the small piece that made up a large part of me.

When Jamie would make loveto me in that time (my time, a hypothetical world with a briefcase), itwould be a slow thing. He would tuck the chestnut briefcase with the blackhandle away in the front hall closet for a weekend. My hands would work over his body –– one thatwas maybe a little scarred. 

He was safe in that time. I would never need to worry about whatnew mark or contusion I would find.  

In my dreams he was notunblemished.  After all, we had our ownwars even then. The second of the ones I lived through had implanted memoriesand a sinking dread in me.  I knew what was in store for him, for these boys. 

In our perfectly constructed world, my hands wouldknow intimately the marks that were on him and never seek out more.

Jamie stirred onlyslightly as I ran my finger down the snaking vein of his bicep and pressed into the soft, sweat-slicked flesh at the crease of his elbow.  I knew what he would taste like there –– sun and perspiration.

I sucked in a sharpbreath.  A new bruise was staining him there, hot and swollen beneath my fingers.

“How in god’s name did you manage that?” I whispered, craning my neck in an attempt to catch enough light tosee.

Culloden was the inevitable bookend to the series of stories we had written together. Our years had passed quickly, piling and piling up until here we were in this bloody tent. 

My dread was a broiling stone in my belly, searing through flesh at the thought.

Cinching my eyes shut, Itried to picture the life in my fantasy.  

A chestnut briefcasewith a black handle at the front door.  

Yellow curtains in akitchen.  

A patterned dress thathe could lift up, hands searching andfinding.

Pre-fab countertops witha bowl of fresh fruit, tasting heavy and bright and sunny like whateverMediterranean country they were shipped in from.

In that life Jamie wouldlift me onto that countertop, work me free of the dress, and carry me to our bedroom.

A quiet, safe place witha duvet soft and warm from a department store, a tabletop fan in the corner whirring,and a roof that kept out rain and did not slap violently in the wind.

His day’s work withpaper (maybe a calculator, reports and spreadsheets) would be forgotten themoment he crossed the threshold.  

Instead of scrubbinglike hell to remove blood from his clothes, I would use tips from ladies’magazines to find creative solutions to get blue ink pen from the cuffs of hisshirts.

I knew I wasromanticizing it – that I would never be the type to sit at home waiting for myJell-O mold to cure into a gelatinous, quivering, primary-colored thing. 

It was obvious to me that Jamiewould go crazy in such a life –– without sunshine and air or the bone-deep acheof a day of hard work.

But the grass is always greener…

Would I even be able tolove him in such a life? After all, partof what I loved about him was that dogged, salt of the earth spirit about him.

I indulged the fantasy alittle more, allowing it to draw the fear out of my heartl. Thesearing weight of the stone in my belly slowly morphed into a pull between mythighs, a tightening of my belly, and a flutter under my breastbone.

After divesting me of my dress, Jamie would sink knees first into our bed. We would share a mattress that he complained was maybe a little too soft. I would respondby sinking my fingers into the slightly dimpled half-Windsor knot of hisnecktie, wilted from humidity. 

This imagined life was slow and sensual. It was not defined by the breakneckpace of our lives here preparing forbattle, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Claire?” Jamie asked,stirring slightly under my fingers.  The fantasy went sideways and melted like watercolor touched by water.  “Areye okay?”

I cupped his cheek withone hand and rested the other under the covers, over my belly. I was protectiveof the life that was inside of my too-thin body. 

Even though I had a suspicionthat he knew, he had not said anything. I had not told him. I imagined a life where we ate and ate and mybody would grow and swell.  

Where hewould develop a new appreciation of it, his fingers curving around my belly, hislips testing names and whispering Gaelic.  

Where I would have the privilege of complaining of weight gain and too heavy breasts.

“Yes,” I whispered,mostly telling the truth.

I reached for him then–– needing his fingers to twine into mine, his breath to merge into thedeepest places in my lungs. 

Knowing,he worked the shift up over my hips and brought me back.

It was only us now. Thatwas all. 

The slip of his body over mine and the reverence of his fingers in myhair, on my throat, down over my breasts made the tent fall away.  The chatter went silent with the curling of my toes, an uncomfortablealmost cramping feeling that I wanted to last forever. 

Pulsing and stilling.  Gripping and releasing.  Sliding and stilling. Again. Again. Forever. Promising and delivering.  Bending and breaking. 

“Mo nighean donn,” Jamie mumbled at the last, collapsing heavy against me. 

Drifting off to sleep, aheavy arm draped over my middle and even breath on the back of my throat, I didnot think of time or war, briefcases or sunny yellow curtains.

Okay.

Just days later, we rode together to the stones.  When he said goodbye, he touched me like he could feel our child. 

“Ye’ve promised.”

And I had.  With a final goodbye sour on my tongue, I was gone from him through time.

And the worst part of it all was the churn in my stomach in Boston where Frank stowed his briefcase in the front closet every weekend.

As I looked out my yellow curtains in my dress with the skirt that begged to be lifted, I wanted nothing more than the taste of gunpowder on my lips.

[dailytechnologynews]

Yesterday a series of stories ran in major news outlets describing "a miracle cure for cancer" that would be "available in one year's time". This is nonsense. Obviously. And it speaks to a failing of our science reporting system and is a disservice to patients and researchers alike.

Yesterday, the Jerusalem Post ran a story with the headline: A cure for cancer. Israeli scientists say they think they found one: “we believe we will offer in a year's time a complete cure for cancer.". The NY POST, FoxNews, Forbes, multiple Murdoch TV outlets and more ran similar articles. Even on reddit, the post was heavily upvoted in subreddits ranging from r/futurology to r/worldnews to r/the_donald.

Frankly, the ability of unpublished research from a no-name company to garner this type of attention stunned me. And really made me angry. I had two relatives reach out to me asking if I had heard the good news. Injecting this kind of hype into science is good for no one. It gives patients false expectations. It gives researchers perverse incentives to sensationalize their findings. It makes the already hard business of developing effective medicines more difficult than it needs to be.

I think, intuitively, many of us rejected the article as likely to be false. Claims of curing cancer in a year seem preposterous, to anyone with a bit of familiarity for how drug development works. And many of us have internalized the idea that 'cancer isn't one disease, it is a collection of related diseases' and were appropriately skeptical that one drug could cure them all.

That said, people have been asking for a more specific breakdown of the story. I am a bit loathe to give it more attention, but since it is already trending, it might be worth helping generate a discussion about the specifics of what is wrong with this story.

At its core, the basic premise of the research here is that:

sometimes tumors evolve resistance to drugs with single targets, so let's use our platform to develop drugs with multiple targets

On the face of it, it sounds good. Combination therapies have worked wonders in the viral and bacterial spaces. So why not cancer?

The truth is, we already do use combination therapies across all sorts of cancers. Chemo + targeted therapy (say, R-CHOP) has worked wonders for some blood cancers, for example. There are a myriad of other examples. Some are amazingly effective. Some are modestly better than the previous standard of care. Some combos involve chemo. Some don't.

But, we still haven't cured cancer. It's a tricky SOB.

Now let's try to dig a bit more into the specifics of the company's 'miracle cure' claims:

The research tools described in the article and on the company website give little to suggest that they will overcome the factors that have limited the success of other targeted approaches (toxicity, resistance, identifying good targets etc.). Essentially, it looks like they are using a fairly standard drug discovery phage display platform to find peptides that bind tumor cells. Their plan is then to link these peptides to a chemotoxin and thereby more specifically deliver toxic drugs to tumors.

A few things:

This basic technology already exists in the form of multiple FDA approved drugs (Adcetris for certain blood cancers; Kadcyla for breast cancer) with more under development. These are good drugs. But in neither case would anyone call them 'cures'.

The article highlights that the researchers use 'Nobel prize winning' phage display technology as if to connote that the research they are doing is particularly impactful. This is nonsense. The technology won the Nobel because it is so broadly used. Sometimes it yields amazing results. Sometimes it yields crap. The fact that the researchers are using phage display to generate peptides is close to meaningless.

The real challenge in this approach of using peptides/proteins to more specifically deliver toxins to tumor cells is finding targets that are adequately specific to the tumors of interest. The researchers gave no indication that they have made a breakthrough on this front. And I cannot imagine what a target that broadly marked all tumor types and no essential normal tissue would look like. That is a holy grail type target in the field.

A few things too about how the results are described that drove me crazy:

The article states they have "concluded its first exploratory mice experiment, which inhibited human cancer cell growth and had no effect at all on healthy mice cells". THIS MAKES PERFECT SENSE! Mice are not humans. Human-target-specific peptide will recognize human epitopes on the tumor xenograft cells, but possibly not the mouse epitopes. That's why lots of drugs look awesome in mouse models - highly specific binders to implanted human cells with low mouse off-targets of course minimizes target-related toxicity.

The article quotes: “Our results are consistent and repeatable.” Umm.. what? YOU JUST SAID THEY FINISHED THE FIRST EXPERIMENT!

The articles did a terrible job getting outside opinions to reality check these extraordinary claims. To me that is shoddy journalism.

Sorry for the rant - but this one really bothered me! Happy to take any more questions about this story/drug development!

[meshugana1]

Wonder woman gets hit on by an airhead at a bar and brushes her off, calling her a bimbo. This turns around on her, as Diana finds herself transformed into an incredibly fake looking bimbo with huge lips, and she's crazy dumb too

“Well, that was rude, if you ask little old me that is.” Diana heard the small voice proclaim as she sat on her barstool. She was adorned with her civilian garb, choosing now to be the simple Diana Prince. “ Who-?” She began. “Surprise! It’s me, Paprika! Your helpful wandering fairie!” The chipper sprite exclaimed. Diana eyed the creature and it’s small, but proportionally huge bust, warily. Her mother told her countless stories of untrustworthy fairies, and none of good virtue sprung to her mind.

“It may have been, but I told her nothing that wasn’t true. Now leave me to my spirits,” Diana said as she sipped her cocktail. It wasn’t often that she got an evening to herself, and she wasn’t about to let an insignificant fairy ruin her evening. “Oh don’t be like that lady, I can tell you aren’t totally human ya know. Are you a witch or something? With magic powers and such?” The inquisitive Imp said. “I am not a witch, Imp. I am nothing of concern to you, now I’ll ask you again, leave me be.” Diana said, but the airborn Imp just smiled. “That’s good, magic is just a bit trickier with witches. But since you’re not one, there shouldn’t be any problems!” Before Diana could brace, the fairie raised its hand and a bolt of powerful, pink magical energy shot forth and struck the Amazon princess in her forehead.

Diana clutched at her skull. The surprise blast caused her no pain, but her mind, gifted with the wisdom of Athena, felt slow, like it was filled with…cotton candy? An unusual countenance came over the princess. It looked as though she had been caught mid fingering. Her lips held an O shape and her eyes were rolled back slightly. To those who were in a position to pay attention, they could see her delicate lips begin to soften and plump. Soon her open mouth had been nearly closed by her new lips flesh alone, but to the keen observer they seemed just a slight bit off. As though some of her lips had grown in faster than others. Her hair, dark as raven feathers, lightened into a very pale blonde as if it had been bleached every week for years. Her clothing, a modest leather jacket, and maroon turtleneck, coupled with simple jeans began to fade away. For a moment she sat naked, oblivious to her state, then a moment later new clothes appeared on her body. A hot pink tube-top, emblazoned with glittery words that spelled “BJ Bitch.” Her midriff was bare, her ass was covered by short shorts, also hot pink, baring the glittery message “Super Slut.”

Her face was still frozen in blank orgasmic bliss as her breasts and ass began to inflate. Inflation was the best word for the phenomenon happening to her. Her chest didn’t change, nor did heer frame. Her breasts simply grew like balloons, and they resembled them as to a degree as well. It appeared as though she had walked into an alley and paid for breast implants, and didn’t spend over twenty dollars. Her ass received similar treatment. Her thighs remained the same, plump though they were, and her cheeks simply jutted out, as if she were smuggling beachballs. Neither breast nor cheek was symmetrical, like she picked out her sizes at the mismatched bin. Her body was finished, and her mind was long since wiped away. Her face finally loosened and her will, weak as it was, was returned to her. “Like, what happened? Gasp! Are you, like, a fairy!? OMG! That’s so cool! Can you grant me like, a bunch of wishes and junk? I want a bunch of guys to screw me all night long for like, ever!”

“Hahaha! That can be arranged cutie!” The fairy snapped her fingers and suddenly every man in the bar had become monstrously erect, and their preferences had all been shifted to new criteria that a certain Amazon warrior met perfectly. “Hope you enjoy it, such a shame that it can’t last forever. This spell will wear off in about six months, but the best part is that once you’re you again, you’ll remember every single thing. Toodles!” the fairy said as she departed the bar, leaving the maiden of might to rub her sensitive, needy cunt as all the eyes in the bar fell on her preposterously fake curves.

Hope Y’all like it!

[ohimesama]

3.31.22 Thursday --Massacre!

6:50 am...

Still,having the windblow and thank God for today....Still,the same prayers to leave this fucking unfair hometown Cavite/ Philippines...

For the people who controlled my life, who interfere without respect I hope they will feel guilty....

9:12 am-- bbq stick stabbing on both eyes!

We have here oplan katok for policeman or operation madness, people who carry guns should have license and permit but some are fake people here in Cavite/ Philippines... Some planned to kill innocent people , an example of innocent people like us... Who is that main queen who planned to remove us?

There is a wicked witch in the Cavite/ Philippines who are making orders to remove people... Don't you think,it is easy for them to kill? That's the madness of policeman!

11:53 am -- Squeezing neck until out of breath!

Still,having the windblow... I feel bitter... I wanna leave this hometown... I'm trap for 15 years. I lost my pages... I lost my own story in life... I lost my love life... They made me abnormal... I can't progress... Unfair...

2:42 pm... Putting a lot of sleeping pills on the food.

Weird! Tita Teresa,just reminding her on the dog food... See, what I got?

See,all the money is on Uncle DD...

7:05 pm-- Hammering the kneecap

Done, doing night routine....My dinner with John... Awhile ago he went out around 5:30 in the afternoon just in our old,ugly lawn/garden, he played with Neko the rottweiler of Uncle DD. Still, Neko wins naturally... Her nature naturally comes out...

I can't imagine Neko will do that... Something scary... Click it...

I still hate Cavite, I can't give myself to them or else it is RAPE! Hating the windblow in Cavite/ Philippines...

I still wanna gain upper friends with pretty faces and kind-hearted to me hahaha

I don't know,I'm trap here upper friends with pretty faces...

7:22 pm-- Putting rope on neck!

I feel intimidated on Cavite women and I feel insecure they don't get it?

I want my breast implants and my teeth polisher it is money... I feel ugly and fat... I feel frustrated!

10:38 pm... Gas and Burn?

It is just really crazy when you talk to someone that you feel that they are switching. And me as well having mixed-up... I'm talking about Mike here, it is so cool when you talk to your adoptive son and you became close and you will realize you have a mixed-up inside you. Maturity is a process for a lifetime... Maturity is like a lesson that you need to keep on reviewing... But some case in life is unfair just like mine... Windblow made me immature... Be fair angels..

I'm small,I hope people will believe me that I'm gonna be 41 this year... My best girl friend during college who is a doctor now is also 41,I hope she can defend me here... She still looks 18... I think me as well but I feel fat and ugly...

I have many frustration in life... I really feel fat and ugly now...I really want someone who is older than me, praying... Older and mature, around 50 only... 10 years I can tolerate but more than 10 is too much coz I still feel like I need to be 18 again...But I really feel fat and ugly these days...

Still,having windblow and still, hating this hometown Cavite/Philippines... I wanna leave this place.

[ashaywalker-author]

Natural Instinct - Chapter 7 (Poe Dameron/Reader Fic)

SUMMARY: Reader and Poe take a night to rest before continuing their search for BB-8 in the morning.

WARNINGS: NSFW (foreplay), language

PAIRING: Poe Dameron/Reader

A/N: I've been sick, the Last Jedi destroyed me, and I wrote a chapter for all our thirsty asses. Go nuts. By the way, the comments and likes I've recieved in this story are absolutely amazing and I seriously ADORE all of you.

CHAPTER INDEX:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

7 – The Guestroom Above Ergel’s Bar

The sun was gone before Poe could finish the repairs on the speeder, and despite our need for haste, I was grateful for a respite. It had been nearly a week since I’d been able to sleep well, and Poe, despite worrying for the fate of his droid, was practically dead on his feet. We needed our rest, and Ergel was kind enough to offer us the guestroom above his bar for the night, where the bed was actually a bed and not a tied-up sheet stuffed with sand and bits of Thissermount mane. There were even two basins of lukewarm water provided for a sponge bath, and I went first while Poe waited outside the room, scrubbing away what I could. The water I wrung out into the basin was nearly black from a coat of sand, sweat, and whatever I had taken with me from the Finalizer. I didn’t want to have to put my putrid clothes back on, and so decided to scrub them off in the basin as well, determining that wet and semi-clean was better than dry clothes that smelt like Bantha fodder. Still stark naked, I heard a knock on the guestroom door that made me jump.

“(Y/N)?” It was Poe. “I have something for you. Ergel apparently ran down to your outpost while you bathed and brought back a set of clothes.”

Ergel. He was probably the one thing on this entire planet I would miss when I left. I would have to say goodbye in the morning before we left, although I still wasn’t sure how I would go about it. He had stood in as a bit of a surrogate father, without anyone asking him to, or any expectations of his own.

“Okay,” I said, tip-toeing to the door, my skin already springing up gooseflesh.

I hid on the other side of the door, opened it a crack, and motioned for Poe to hand me the articles. He wiggled them through the small opening, our fingers touched, and I quickly released the door. Did he know I was naked? Probably not. A small, devious part of me wanted to make a game of it, but I was too shy to follow through.

Gratefully, I slipped on dry, clean clothes, the only other pair I owned. And I felt marvelous.

“What about you?” I asked, after pulling the new shirt down my head and smoothing it across my stomach.

“Ergel is lending me something,” he said through the door. “I imagine they’ll be too big, but I’ll take it.”

We switched off, me leaning on the door, trying to keep myself from imagining what was happening on the other side. The customers downstairs were noisy, so I couldn’t hear anything. Probably a good thing; if I heard clothes dropping or water dripping, it woul land my mind in some places dirtier than my old bathwater. I played with my fingers, drumming them against one another, finding myself getting hot and bothered for no reason, other than that Poe Dameron was probably naked on the other side of a metal door and I truly wanted nothing more in that moment than to touch him. I’d been craving it since we laid together just the previous night, where I had woken up in the same spot, his arm wrapped around me, cradling me like I was something to hold onto. I hadn’t felt this needy even when I almost had sex with Dreckan, and that was with a crazy amount of alcohol in my system. If I were playing it safe, I ought to go back to my outpost now, before Poe and I were side by side with too much privacy and a bed beneath us. But I didn’t want to play it safe. I wanted to let whatever happened happen, even if it was nothing, because knowing that I could have run from something was an option far less desirable.

Wrapped up in my thoughts and the rowdiness happening below, I didn’t have time to react when Poe opened the door and I fell back without it. When I looked up, Poe was stooped above me, shirtless, the waistband of his pants hanging low so that the rigid space between his oblique muscles and hips showed.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine,” I pushed myself up, trying to breathe the flush out of my skin. “I didn’t hear you coming.”

I was bringing myself up off the floor when I felt Poe grab my hands in his and yank me upward. He gave such a tug that I stumbled into him, ripping my hands from his grasp to break my fall against his chest. My palms laid flat against him, feeling his skin, the leftover chill from the water, even the bounce of his heart which felt oddly close in quickness to mine.

“Sorry again,” he said, with a grin that spoke volumes of how unapologetic he was.

“Really?” I said, testing the waters. “I don’t think you are.”

“Yeah, true; I’m really not.”

He said those words so lowly that it made my whole mouth go dry. Whatever comeback I had was swallowed up when he kissed me. However needy I felt outside the door, Poe doubled it, tripled it in mere moments. His lips were a wildfire against mine, unapologetic. He gripped me tightly, but it wasn’t tight enough, not when I felt like I wanted to meld into him completely. Whatever fear had turned me off from Dreckan was abolished, and I was kissing Poe back, hard, sloppy, biting that lower lip of his that he loved to chew on himself. I made him moan, the sound like a sigh through his nose. The mere fact that I did that made my fever grow.

A moment later Poe had his hands on my butt and was yanking my thighs upward. I helped him, straddling those half-naked hips so that he could lead me to the bed and I could focus on lips, so smooth and rich under my tongue. My back flopped against the mattress, but I didn’t break the seal I had on him, yanking him down further, threading my fingers through his messy curls so that he had no choice but to press his face further into mine. He responded better than I ever could have hoped, the tugging on his hair egging him on even more.

“That feels so good,” he said, the words themselves just as addicting as his kisses. “You feel so good.”

When I melted, he took over, sucking on my tongue in a way that felt so dirty but so incredible at the same time. I wanted to dissolve into the sensations, the way his stubble stabbed at my chin and cheeks, the weight he put into my palms when he threaded our fingers together and pressed my hands into the mattress on either side of my head. I was panting freely when his lips left mine and he turned my head to the side, nibbling gently on my earlobe, kissing down my neck. I pressed up into him and he took the opportunity to slide and arm behind my back and hold me there, my clothed breasts perking up into his bare chest and the sensitive space between my collarbones bare for him to suck against.

“Have you ever been touched like this?” he asked, breathing the words against my skin.

I shook my head.

“Have you ever felt like this before?”

I shook my head again. “No.”

“You want to know something terrible?” he laid me flat on the bed again, taking a breather to look me in the eyes.

I looked back, unafraid. “What?”

“I’m glad.”

I nodded, telling him simply that I understood. “What about you?”

He smoothed the hair away from my face, letting his fingers dance across my cheek. “I’ve had sex, but even in the act it hasn’t held a candle to this.” His touched trailed down to where the collar of my shirt ended, my cleavage just an inch from his fingers. “I told you, baby. You’re special.”

Every word added that much more to my fire, to an intensity that left me so suddenly fearless, and with all my might I flipped him over until I was straddling his waist from above and he was lying beneath. I felt powerful, for the first time, and it was so. Fucking. Good.

I started at his throat, slowly, inching around, doing everything I could think of to get him to want me more. I brought a knee in between his legs and stroked at his groin with it, dragging the leg up and then down again, feeling just how hard he truly was.

“Dammit,” he whispered.

I continued to let my knee stroke him, pulling at his locks to further expose his neck. With every stroke I was becoming more and more daring, and a burst of inspiration had me licking his neck from adam’s apple to the tip of his chin, scraping my tongue against his stubble. When I was about to return to his lips he stopped me by pressing two fingers between our mouths. I pulled back, confused when his fingers stayed against my lips, nudging them apart. It took me a moment to catch on, but when I did, I drew them into my mouth.

“There’s a girl,” Poe said when I went up and down with my mouth, curling my tongue between the digits, sucking greedily on his skin. “You’re a natural.”

I was surprised how much hotter I felt just sucking on his fingers, relishing in the intimacy, the salt on his hands and the callouses that felt hard and ridged against my tongue. A shockingly loud moan blew out my mouth and around his fingers when he reached down to cup me between my legs, swirling his palm. My knees buckled, the one stroking him slipping down at a much faster pace, making him gasp.

“You don’t have birth control implants on this planet, do you?” he asked, pulling his fingers away. I pinched them between my teeth on the way out, and he closed his eyes, breath increasing in intensity.

“No,” I said, trying not to sound too disappointed.

“That’s fine,” he said. “We’ll take care of that when we get back to base. For now, we should get some rest.”

His words hit me like a brick. At first, I felt angry, then sad, then embarrassed at myself. I continued to sit on him as he propped himself up on his elbows, not breaking eye contact.

“Sweetheart,” he said, pressing his forehead against mine. “I would love nothing more than to continue, but I don’t think that’s what either of us really want. I want to feel all of you, and I want you to feel all of me.”

I sighed, leaning into his forehead. “I know. Me too.”

He pulled back so that I could see his eyes, see the uneven, fiendish smile on his face. “When we get back to the Resistance and we can do this properly, trust me; I’m going to make you feel everything. You’re going to scream and be sore for days, and I’m going to relish every last second of it.”

“You promise?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“I promise.”