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papercorgiworld · 3 months

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How would YOU feel if I banged you on the table?

Mattheo Riddle and Tom Riddle

Nervously tapping your pen against the table has serious consequences when your study partner is a Riddle.

This was a 100% inspired by this post! So go check it out.

Warning: smut, zero plot

I have a lot of other stuff to write, but just couldn’t resist writing this! The ones that follow me should’ve seen this one coming… Anyways, back to writing more!

Mattheo Riddle

You and Mattheo had been friends for a while and as of last exam period, also study buddies. It worked. You were organized and pretty to look at when he got bored of studying. He reminded you about walks, healthy snacks etc. However, at the moment Mattheo was seriously considering walking out of your room and to go study somewhere else, because you kept on hitting your pen on the table at a ridiculous rate. He stared at your hand, clearly your nerves were reaching a breaking point as your eyes scanned the words of your summary, oblivious to the annoying sound you were making. Mattheo stared at the pen being hit against the table at ritmic pace for a minute, before snapping.

Mattheo: Stop that. How would YOU feel if I banged you on the table?

You stopped and looked up at him in shock, to then look at your pen. “I-” You close your mouth and look back at Mattheo. “I don’t know the correct answer to that question.” You blur out. Clearly you had been studying for too long. For several seconds Mattheo is absolutely stunned by your answer, but before things get awkward he regains his composure. “Well, I could always fuck all your stress away, like the good study budy I am.” The smugness on his face was unbelievable. You shake your head softly, but no words of protest leave your lips as you can’t help but seriously consider his words. When Mattheo notices that a part of you would actually be open to the idea a wide smirk makes its way to his face. “Could really help the both of us out of this little study dip.” He suggests still flirty, but less playful. Your eyes lock and there’s an eager, non-verbal ‘yes, let’s do this’ in your eyes.

You both get up from your seats and for a moment you two seem stuck just standing there, but when the hormones finally kick in properly your hands reach for his shoulders and his hands grab your hips lifting you up on the table. Your legs instinctively open up so Mattheo can stand in between them as your mouths hungrily move into a lustful kiss. “Salazar, finally I can get this ugly thing off of you.” Mattheo grunts, pulling your comfy sweater over your head. “It’s my study sweater.” You whine in protest to him calling it ugly, but Mattheo isn’t listening anymore as his eyes and mind are now focussed on your boobs. “You weren’t wearing a bra.” He breathes, the last bit of self control leaves him and his dick is now begging to be released from his pants. She just sat across from me studying and she wasn’t even wearing a bra. Godss.

“My eyes are up here, Mattheo.” You chuckle. “Whatever.” Mattheo groans while his hand reaches and squeezes your right breast. “I’ve seen your eyes before, love, but this-this is new material that needs to be studied.” His free hand snakes around you pulling you closer and you can now feel his hard member between your legs. If he gets to fondle my breasts I might as well occupy my hands too. You make quick work of his pants and sneak your hand in his boxers to stroke his thick veiny cock. Now Mattheo finally looks away from your breast to kiss you. You moan against his lips as he gives your nipples a soft squeeze, before moving his hands down to your thighs. “Up.” He commands and you lift your ass so he can take off your comfy pants. You let go of him so he can lower your pants, but Mattheo is in a hurry so he simultaneously slips down your panties as well.

Shamelessly he takes your hand and places it back on his rock hard cock, while he stares at your entrance with his hands digging in the flesh of your thigh keeping your legs spread as wide as he wishes. His dominance and lusty eyes alone make your core thob in need of him. “Matty, please.” You whine when you start to feel more vulnerable and desperate. “Of course.” Mattheo whispers with a comforting tone. “I’m gonna take care of you.” His lips move over your cheek as he whispers and kisses you passionately. With his lips on yours he slips a finger through your folds. You instantly reward him with a whiny moan, making him smirk, before quickly repeating his action and going further. Fully digging in a finger, earning filthy desperate moans from you. Meanwhile you are trying to keep focus pumping his dick, wanting to show him as much love as he was giving you. You arch your back and Mattheo inserts another finger as he growls softly at the sight in front of him.

You let your head fall on his shoulder as you try your best to work his dick and Mattheo just watches his fingers move inside your cunt, forcefully circling your clit. Your moans get more and more unsteady and you feel your high approaching. “Matt- I-“ You fail to form a coherent sentence, but Mattheo shushes you in an endearing way. “It’s okay love, just come for me.” At his words your moans turn into cries for more. As your orgasm hits you, you wrap your arm tightly around Mattheo’s neck and soak his fingers. He gives you a sweet kiss on the lips like it’s a reward for your excellent behavior.

With your mouth still hanging open and softly panting, Mattheo watches you while jerking himself. “Turn around for me.” A whimper leaves your lips at his husky words and all you can do is nod, before turning on your feeble legs. Mattheo is quick to have a hand on your hips, helping you keep steady as his other hand pushes you down and lifts your ass. You bite your lips as you feel your core get desperate to be filled by him. He moves his dick gently, teasing your folds before entering and settling deep inside you. Your mouth hangs agape as your body adjusts to his size fully inside of you. Mattheo closes his eyes for a moment enjoying your walls clenching around him. “You might be more than just the perfect study buddy for me. With a pussy as sweet as yours.. fuck.” You whimper as he starts thrusting into, no longer being able to control himself.

He ruts into you, hitting your sweet spot until tears start to fill your eyes. You whimper and cry his name as your body goes numb with sensations. As you’re both closing in on your orgasm Mattheo pulls your back closer to his chest. “Look at how pretty you are.” He whispers in your ear and it’s then that you notice him looking at you from the mirror in your room. His arms wrapped tightly around your body as he fucks into you, with lustful eyes on you. Your walls desperately clench around him demanding him to cum, which does, still holding you close to him and watching you in the mirror. “So beautiful.” Your arm reaches behind you to pull his head into the crook of his neck, where he starts kissing you. You continue to whimper and whine as you come down from your high, feeling his cum and his dick still inside you. Merlin, I’ll never have an orgasm like this. This man is something else.

Tom Riddle

It was late at night and the library was empty except for you and Tom. You still didn’t know how, but for some reason he had privileges to stay in the library for as long as he wished. Normally you would’ve complained about how professors always seemed to let him have his way, but tonight as you were both working on a potions project you were happy that you could stay there this late.

While Tom was writing some important things down you were focused on a specific paragraph, reading it over and over again. However, without being aware of it Tom had stopped writing and was now furiously boring his eyes into your hand that was repeatedly hitting your pen onto the table. He clenches his jaw in an attempt to be cool about it and make you aware of it in a polite way.

Tom: Stop that. How would YOU feel if I banged you on the table?

Not that polite after all. He instantly curses himself for lashing out, but you aren’t offended at all. You just stare at him blankly, before blushing. “I-” Tom watches you attentively as you get more flustered. “I don’t know the correct answer to that question.” You try to joke, but there’s something nervous about your voice. Slowly Tom tilts his head and licks his lips. “You know… we are alone… and a break wouldn��t do any harm.” Gods, yes! Your insides scream, but on the outside you stay quiet. “No need to be shy.” He whispers seductively, turning his chair towards you and gently tugging your hand urging you to leave your chair.

You can feel your whole body heat up as you get up to let him pull you onto him. With your legs on either side of him, he slowly snakes his hands from your sides to your hips and ass. Your hand rests on his chest as you lean in to kiss him. When he judges your kiss a bit too short his hand moves to your head pulling you into a hungry kiss that has you moaning in a matter of seconds. He smirks, satisfied with the reaction he’s getting and rocks your hips into his, rolling your cunt over his bulge. When your breaths get unsteady and he knows how much pleasure he’s giving you he gets more demanding. “Take off your shirt.” When you nod he bites his lips and as a reward he moves your hips even harder over his still clothed member. You quickly work the buttons of your shirt and as soon as it’s removed Tom tugs the strap of your bra down and starts sucking and nibbling your breast while his hand unclasps your bra, so he can now work with both boobs.

The way he was playing with your nipples rather roughly encouraged you to continue riding his bulge, allowing yourself to selfishly enjoy this man. You arch your back and snake a hand behind his neck, making him lean back to enjoy the sight for a moment. You can’t help but soak your panties even more as you watch the arrogant smile on his face. “You are so ready to be taken.” Tom says with a low and husky voice, warning you that he’s hungry for you. With those words he squeezes your ass, making you instinctively move up and giving him the chance to slap your ass, marking what’s definitely his. He smiles smugly at the soft cry that leaves your lips, before pulling you in for a dominant kiss. While his mouth moves to your neck to continue marking you, his fingers slide over your thighs making their way to your panties. Tom quickly pushes the soaked fabric aside to insert two fingers, immediately stretching you and circling your clit. Your loud and desperate cries fill the library as pleasure rushes through your body, making your walls clench in need of more. “So wet.” He whispers in your ear, teeth grazing the skin of your cheek.

As quickly as he had forced his fingers inside of you, they left again. You whine. “Please don’t, play games Tom, I need you.” Your voice is needy and pathetic, causing Tom’s dick to twitch in his pants. “Don’t be inpatient.” He says calmly, but you can hear something animalistic in his voice. His large hands grab your thighs, keeping you in place as he gets up and pushes you against the table. You watch with your legs wide as he unzips his pants, revealing his precum covered size and pumping it. A moan leaves your lips at the view.

Slowly he removes your panties and pushes your skirt up so he can watch your soaking cunt take his cock. “So tight.” He groans as he stretches you carefully. When he’s finally deep inside of you he looks away from your pussy to grab your chin and kiss you. While you sloppily kiss each other he starts rutting inside of you at a merciless pace. He rests his head against yours and grabs your hips to keep you steady. “You take me so well, you might be more than just a good potions partner.” He pants, his eyes on yours, watching how they get watery as you reach a high you’ve never felt before. You nod, your mind hazy and very willing to be more than just his potions partner. Your mouth falls open and your moans get louder as your orgasm makes your whole body tense up. Tom pulls you closer and slows his pace to give you a moment to come down from your high. “Will you do something for me?” He whispers in your ear with a hypnotic voice and you meet his eyes with your shiny once. You would do anything for him and it was obvious, but surprisingly he doesn’t gloat about it and just gives you a soft peck on your temple. He pulls his hard throbbing dick out of you, making you whimper at the emptiness. “Get on your knees.” He says while jerking himself.

With obedient eyes you sink to your knees and without thinking about it you open your mouth. This does make him smirk and he strokes your hair, while guiding his cock inside your mouth. He groans and grits his teeth to keep himself from moaning at the sight of you, half naked and on your knees struggling but eager to take his whole size. It’s this sight that makes his eyes darken and grab your hair, warning you he’s going to fuck your mouth. Which he does harshly, but not for too long as he soon spills his seed deep into your mouth. He holds onto your hair until he’s sure you’ve swallowed. When he lets go you fall to your hands to keep steady.

He zips his pants back up watching you, satisfied with how quickly he had turned you into this mess. However, someone so pretty who took him so well deserved to be taken care of. So he grabs your shirt and wraps it around you. “Come on, I’m taking you to my room.” His voice is soft and he takes your arms, placing them around his shoulders before picking you up. You hide your face in the crook of his neck. Did I just get upgraded from potions partner, to fuck buddy, to …

#slytherin #slytherin boys #mattheo riddle #mattheo riddle imagine #mattheo riddle x reader #tom riddle #tom riddle imagine #tom riddle x reader #papercorgiworldwritings

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lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers · 1 year

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Now that the dust has settled a little bit on the arrests around the coronation, I want to talk a little bit about what this means for the future of protest and policing in England and Wales.

Firstly, I want to caveat this by saying the police have always hated protests. Getting arrested at a protest has always been a risk. Getting beaten up by the police as they try to provoke violence has always been a risk. At a recent anti-fascist counter protest I attended, two arrests were made. One of these later turned out to be “mistaken identity” (neither person was charged), but this is what we’ve always been dealing with.

However, I do think this idea of arrest for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance is dangerous. It’s essentially a thought crime. We think you might do something criminal, therefore we are going to arrest you. It has the power to significantly disrupt all sorts of actions, and we do need to be wary of it. The fact you can be arrested whilst walking to a protest, carrying a sign or a megaphone, and that this arrest *may* be legal (I hope some of those involved today try to sue for wrongful arrest, but we will see) means potentially some actions will never get started, and that is not good for the future of protest in this country.

I would never blame someone for their arrest- their arrest is the fault of the police and the police alone. That said, we know Republic were talking to cops about their plans. This did not protect them, and may have made it easier for the police to locate and arrest them. I think, on here, we all know talking to cops is a bad idea, but let’s say it again, louder for those at the back “DON’T TALK TO COPS”.

Now, the police say that the coronation is a once in a lifetime event, hence their response- blah blah- the police hate protest. If they get away with this, they will do it again, they will push things as far as they can to try and shut down protest they don’t agree with. This means we do need to be careful around OpSec etc. I also know people who don’t understand why e.g. antifa groups conceal their identity. But this is yet another good reason to do so. Black bloc, grey bloc, staying anonymous online, secure communications all of this is increasingly important- whilst also obviously trying to ensure good turn outs.

If the police are going to arrest you for walking to a protest with a megaphone, then what’s stopping us from being more violent/aggressive in our protest? I know some people are ideologically wedded to peaceful protest, but these actions are now potentially illegal too. So what’s stopping us? What is actually holding us back? If holding a sign is too much for them, if that’s on the level of smashing a window now, then what’s to stop us smashing windows?

Finally, I want to talk to the organisers of peaceful protests about police monitoring and post arrest support. In the past, many groups have felt this wasn’t needed. But now, it could be. If you’re organizing a protest of any kind, I strongly encourage you to get in touch with the Green and Black Cross for advice, and to arrange legal observers. Print out bust cards and distribute them. I’d also strongly encourage you to set up some post arrest support. It’s far better to have it, and not need it, than need it and not have it. If you’re concerned about police behaviour, you could also contact NetPol for advice.

Green and Black Cross: https://greenandblackcross.org/

NetPol: https://netpol.org/

#uk politics #coronation #protest #right to protest #fuck the police #fuck the king #not my king #pcsc bill #kill the bill #peaceful protest

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whataperfectwasteoftime · 9 months

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Spilled Ink

Pairing: Tattoo Artist Marcus Pike x f!reader

Word Count: 7.5k

Summary: Uhhh Marcus Pike as the world's softest tattoo artist that's it that's the fic.

Warnings: Lots of tattoo talk, obviously, which includes needles, tattoo guns, pain, mention of bleeding, etc.; reader is explicitly coded as neurodivergent because I said so; yearning; lots of kissing; Marcus Pike being a goddamn menace and he fucking knows it

A/N: @kedsandtubesocks made a post about Tattoo Artist Marcus Pike (original post HERE) and then I wrote 7.5k words in 12 hours, as one does. All credit for the idea goes to the amazing Erika who entrusted me with this idea and THANK GOD SHE DID because I don't think I could have gotten it out of my stupid brain otherwise. Header pics credit go to Erin @perotovar, who made these with Tattoo Artist Marcus Pike in mind and I'm just WOOFWOOFBARKBARKBARKBARKHOWL. Thanks also to @littlebirdsbookshelf who suffers through HOURS of me sending screenshots every time I write anything. Love you <3

Additional Note on Canon: I am pretending that we never got to see Marcus Pike in short sleeves in the show despite it happening twice. He has full sleeves on both his arms in this fic that he covered up during his time working at the FBI. Because sleeves are hot and I said so.

Masterlist

It’s not unusual, these days, to wander down the sidewalk staring at your phone. Some people are texting. Some people are reading the news–because hey, this is D.C. Others, like you on this brisk morning, are watching the little blue dot on a tiny representation of the city streets, trying to find the address you had typed into the search bar.

A text box pops up, informing you of your arrival, and you finally look up.

No wonder it took you so long to find the place–it’s hardly what you expected at all. You always picture tacky neon signs, bars on the windows, undesirables milling about on the street, smoking cigarettes.

Okay, so you admittedly don’t actually know much about tattoos.

All you know is that you want one–a fact you confessed to a friend over lunch the other week: a conversation that led you here.

“Okay, so get one,” she had said bluntly.

“It’s not all that simple,” you had protested.

“Why?”

“It’s just… it seems like a lot. Mentally. Physically. I’m not sure I have what it takes.”

“They don’t hurt that bad,” your friend had insisted.

“I’m not just talking about that, I’m talking about… y’know, just everything. The noise. New people. Strangers touching me. It just doesn’t seem like something I’ll be able to do.”

“Oh. Ohhh. Because of the… yep. Actually I might have something for you,” she said, taking out her phone and scrolling through that app that drives you crazy–it’s overstimulation in a convenient package–full of noise, chaos, and flashing lights.

She must have seen you pull a face, because she held out her hand placatingly.

“Just finding the name of the place, hang on. It’s a shop right here in DC that went ‘viral’ for this video of a guy with autism who wanted a tattoo to commemorate his dad, but he was only comfortable lying on the floor–so the tattoo artist just… got on the floor with him! It was really cute, and anyway I guess he caters to all sorts of people, so… I dunno. Check it out.”

And here you are. Checking it out.

The words “Government-Issued Ink” are spelled out on large windows, and the punny name–apt for its location not far from the Capitol–makes you snort.

The shop is bright, warm, and inviting–tearing down your outdated preconceptions that tattoo places must always be run-down, dark, and dingy. It’s also empty this early in the morning, save for a lone figure in the back, seated at a well-worn desk, his head pitched forward over his work.

He’s so enveloped in whatever he’s sketching that he must not have heard the light ringing of the bell as you had entered. You watch him for a few moments–taking in the graceful movements of his hand and the way his fingers grasp the pen. He’s dressed in a plain blue button-down dress shirt, which also doesn’t fit your assumed archetype of ‘Tattoo Artist.’ You can’t see his face; his head is leaning forward too much and a few short locks of dark brown hair obscure your view.

Suddenly wondering if you’re being incredibly rude, staring at someone without announcing your presence, you open your mouth to introduce yourself.

“Um.”

While not exactly eloquent, it serves its purpose. The man startles and looks up in surprise.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, jumping to his feet and letting the pen clatter carelessly to the desk. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“That’s okay,” you shake your head rapidly. “I was, um…” You blink a few times, your nerves getting the better of you as the man comes around his desk to approach the front of the store.

“Interested in a walk-in consultation?” he offers, holding out his hands in a gesture that could either be an open invitation or a shrug.

“I don’t know,” you confess quietly. “I was thinking about getting, uh, a tattoo, and I was told this shop was… good. With tattoos. And other stuff.”

“Other stuff?” he chuckles, smiling warmly.

“You know… with people who… might not be good at getting tattoos.”

“What makes you think you aren’t ‘good at getting tattoos?’”

“A hunch,” you shrug, expelling a little huff of laughter through your nose. “I was told to ask for a Marcus Pike?”

The man’s smile widens. “You’re looking at him.”

Oh. You aren’t sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this. Marcus Pike is well-dressed and clean-cut, almost startlingly so. You scan up and down, looking for any sign that this man could possibly be a tattoo artist, but the only evidence you can find is a small black target inked between his thumb and forefinger on his right hand. Don’t… tattoo artists usually have more ink? Of course, with him almost completely covered from head to toe, you obviously can’t create a full picture of Marcus’s skin, but the fact that he wouldn’t look out of place in one of the nearby government buildings still takes you by surprise.

You realize you haven’t said anything in response, but Marcus doesn’t seem to be bothered by your deer-in-headlights stare. Instead, he grins again and steps sideways, extending his arm in a silent invitation to come deeper into the shop.

“Come on in. If you’d like, go ahead and sit wherever you want, and we can talk about it. No pressure,” he promises. “I’m not here to push ink on you like a used car salesman; I’m here to collaborate with you. Figure out what you really want. And, if what you want ends up being ‘nothing,’ I totally support that, too.”

There’s something innate and intrinsic about Marcus Pike that sets you completely at-ease. You cast your eyes around, taking in the eclectic seating in the shop–all mismatched, all different colors, styles, and shapes, but all looking incredibly comfortable and inviting. You settle on a giant turquoise beanbag that seems to swallow you whole when you sink down into it, and Marcus grins and sits down in the bright yellow saucer chair beside it.

“So at the very least, you’re thinking about a tattoo,” Marcus leads. “Can you tell me about that?”

You nod, feeling encouraged by his openness. “Yeah, so… my mom, she passed away a couple of years ago, and it just seemed like I should… memorialize her in some way. Like, in a way that leaves its mark on me like she left a mark on me, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of getting some kind of permanent art that commemorates her.”

“That’s a great idea,” Marcus says softly. “Lots of people choose to do that after losing a loved one.”

“Yeah, the only problem is that I’m not good with um… noise, or people touching me, or… pain, really,” you confess. “I’m like, the worst candidate for getting a tattoo that exists.”

Marcus chuckles softly and shakes his head. “Personally, I don’t believe that. I think anyone can get a tattoo done if they want it, provided they get it done in a way that feels safe and comfortable.”

“My friend, she uh, recommended your shop because apparently you’ve done some stuff for people with autism and it went viral on TikTok…” you ramble, “and I thought maybe that meant you’d be a good fit for… for me.”

Understanding flickers in Marcus’s expression, and he nods, a small smile spreading across his face. “I hope so,” he says with quiet earnesty.

A beat passes–just a few seconds of silence–but something small and soft and warm settles down between the two of you, and the comforting feeling sinks down into the pit of your stomach and stays there, latent and waiting.

“So, let’s talk design,” Marcus announces. “Do you have anything in mind? Any images or ideas, however vague? I can do anything from replicating designs to building something completely from scratch for you.”

“I like the idea of it being a unique piece,” you tell him.

“I prefer original designs too,” he says. “Not to sound incredibly cheesy, but there’s no one like you, you know? In–In the general sense, of course.” He chuckles sheepishly, looking down at his hands. “I like knowing each person that comes in here leaves with something unique. Something all their own—I’m rambling,” he says quickly, the tips of his ears turning slightly pink. “One thing about me is that I talk too much. Anyway–did you have any ideas you can share with me about what you’d like?”

“I don’t have a good image in my mind,” you confess anxiously. After all, how can he build a design based on the swirling, disjointed images in your brain? “I think I want it to be colorful, like she was. And… I keep getting thoughts about, I dunno, the cyclical nature of life, something corny like that.”

Marcus laughs. “Sometimes the corny stuff is what sticks with us. So, colorful and commenting on the cyclical nature of life,” he lists off on his fingers, still grinning. “Anything else?”

“I’ve looked through your galleries online,” you tell him. “You have a few that look like watercolor paintings, and I really love how they look.”

He nods thoughtfully. “I’m gonna throw out an idea—Feel free to tell me ‘no,’ because I’m just brainstorming here, but I keep thinking about a tree of life. The leaves could easily be done in watercolor and could be any combination of colors you want.” His right hand twitches–as if reaching for a phantom pen–as he speaks, and his gaze seems to be fixed on a spot on the wall, his eyes glimmering with enthusiasm as he starts to speak faster.

“You could have the leaves and the roots connecting on the sides, making a circle, maybe even having her birth date and death date embedded in the roots…” He blinks rapidly a few times, as if dispelling the image from his head. “Anyway. That’s a possibility.”

“I think that’s amazing,” you say softly, watching Marcus with something like amazement in your expression. “Actually… I really like that idea. It sounds… perfect.”

“Oh,” he intones softly, looking at you in surprise as a bright, toothy smile breaks across his face. “Oh. Well then, let’s do it, huh? One final question: where do you envision getting it?”

“I was thinking on my shoulder. Here,” you indicate, pressing your hand to the skin of your upper arm. “That way it’s visible when I want it to be, but easily hidden if for some reason it needs to be.”

“That’s perfect,” Marcus says. “Plus, the circular design will go really well there. Okay. Great. Um, some things to know about the process. We’ll exchange emails, and you can contact me at any time with any questions, concerns, ideas, changes, anything. In the meantime, I’ll get started on a design for you, and I’ll share initial sketches that you can give feedback on before I move to the final stages of the design. It’ll take a couple of weeks, maximum, depending on any changes you ask for. My only request is that you’re always honest with your feedback–don’t tell me you like something when you don’t. I promise, it won’t hurt my feelings.” He grins widely. “After that, you book an appointment on a day that works best for you. I almost always book the whole day for the appointment to factor in time for copious breaks and making sure you feel comfortable. Does that work for you?”

You nod eagerly.

“Last question,” Marcus says. “Is it okay if I get a close-up picture of your upper arm? That way I can make sure it fits the curvature of your arm, it’s the right size, stuff like that.”

“Mhmm,” you nod again, pressing your lips together and trying not to look nervous. Thank god you wore a sleeveless top under your sweater.

“Only if you’re comfortable,” he insists.

“No, no, it’s fine,” you say quickly, removing just the one arm from your outer layer and pulling it aside.

You watch as Marcus grabs a little ‘point-and-shoot’ digital camera from his desk and comes back to your side.

“This is just used for design purposes,” he promises. “I delete them after the design is done.”

“I trust you.”

His resulting expression could light an entire room. “Thank you,” he answers quietly. “Okay. Super close-up, just your arm. Cool?”

“Cool,” you confirm, and you hear the camera click several times.

“Actually,” Marcus says, still staring thoughtfully at your bare shoulder. “Would it be okay if I made a couple of little marks–washable marker, of course–to make sure the dimensions are how you want them?”

Oh. You normally don’t like it when people touch you. You knew it was going to happen eventually, obviously, because how else was he going to get the design onto your skin? But it was something you had planned on working yourself up to, not something you had to do today. On the other hand, something about Marcus’s entire bearing makes you inexplicably ache to be touched by him.

“‘No’ is an acceptable response,” he interrupts your dithering with a quiet reassurance.

And actually, that works to seal the deal for you, and your decision is made in an instant.

“Yes. You can. That’s fine.” And, to your surprise, you mean it.

Marcus seems just as surprised at your answer–his eyebrows shoot upward almost comically at your response.

“Okay,” he says softly. “That’s perfect. Hang on.” He jumps up again to retrieve a black marker–from what was clearly a children’s set of washable markers. He meets your eyes, and again you take in that sincere, earnest, patient look that endeared you to this man from the moment you entered the little shop.

“Is it okay if I touch your arm?” he asks quietly, still watching you carefully as you nod.

“Tell me if that changes,” he murmurs, dropping his gaze to your shoulder again. His touch, when you feel it, is just as warm as you’d imagined. He’s gentle, cautious, and when he speaks again, his voice remains at that same, soft volume and tone. “I’m envisioning being from about here–” he makes a little black dot, “–to here. What do you think?”

You nod. It’s the perfect size–large enough to cover your shoulder but stopping just above the point where the sleeve of a regular t-shirt would hit.

“That’s perfect.”

“Okay, so that’s–” he tsks softly, measuring the distance with his finger, “–about four inches, so that same distance across, and–” he makes two more marks on either side of your shoulder. “About like that. Is that okay?”

“Yes,” you answer, smiling with enthusiasm.

“Great! Let me just…” Marcus draws a few short lines denoting the proposed boundary of your design, and you can’t help the soft giggle that escapes you at the cool tip of the marker on your skin.

“Sorry,” he chuckles. “One more picture?”

At your nod, the camera clicks one last time.

“Like I said, that’ll wash off with soap, no problem,” he promises with a smile. “Thanks for that, makes it easier to scale.” He grabs two business cards off his desk and hands them to you. “Can you write your email on this one for me? And you can keep the other one. Like I said, anything you need, just email me. And uh, barring that, you’ll be hearing from me in a week or so with a rough sketch. Okay?”

You scribble down your email and hand the card back to Marcus before pulling your sweater back over your bare arm. You slip the other card into your purse and rise to your feet. “Thanks,” you say, nodding to him.

“Hey, no–thank you,” Marcus returns. “Thanks for entrusting me with this. I mean it.”

Surprising yourself, you extend your hand toward him, and, when he takes it, you feel enveloped with warmth again.

“Thanks,” repeat, a little bit more breathlessly this time, before turning and hurrying out of the shop before you can embarrass yourself any further.

Your shoulder still tingles from his touch hours later.

Rather than it being a week before you hear from him, you receive an email from Marcus Pike just three days later.

Subject: Initial Sketch

Hello,

Please see attached. It’s just pencil for now, but I made a note of the general blocks of color I was thinking for the leaves. You’ll see what I mean when you open the file. Sorry, I know it’s a pretty rough sketch, I was just excited to get this to you. I look forward to your feedback!

Best regards,

Marcus :)

Eagerly, you open the attachment. First of all, there’s nothing “rough” about the sketch other than the fact that it’s just penciled in. The details are already so intricate, and you find yourself smiling in amazement as you take in the design.

It’s beautiful.

Brackets, each labeled with a different color in Marcus’s neat, tidy handwriting, surround the top of the tree. Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Violet.

At the bottom of the image is another handwritten note: *All the colors will blend together and the result should look like a rainbow.

Tears spring, unbidden, to your eyes, as you feverishly type out your response.

Subject: Re: Initial Sketch

Marcus,

I really don’t know what to say other than it’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect. Made me tear up. Look forward to seeing it in color.

Thanks again!

Not even five minutes go by before your phone vibrates with another email.

Subject: Re: Re: Initial Sketch

I’m sorry if I made you cry! Obviously wasn’t my intention but I’m glad the design evokes emotion :) I’ll move forward with the design as-is and you should hear from me soon with a full-color image.

Marcus :)

You can’t wait. The next week and a half stretches out excruciatingly, but finally, on a Wednesday evening, you receive another email.

Subject: Final Design

Hey there!

Hope you’ve been doing well. Thought you might like to see the final design of your tattoo ;) See attached and let me know if anything needs to be changed. Be critical! Don’t hold anything back! Once we agree on a final piece, we’ll get you on the calendar.

Best regards,

Marcus :)

Your mind skims over the fact that Marcus used a winking-face emoji in your email, because you honestly aren’t equipped to process that right now, and open the attachment instead. This time, you start crying in earnest. It’s perfect. The colors are so vibrant, and they make the tree look as though it’s in a constant state of movement. Your mom’s birth and death dates are entwined seamlessly into the roots themselves, in a way that makes them not readily apparent at first glance, but seeming to just appear out of nowhere upon further inspection.

Subject: Re: Final Design

Marcus,

If I had any critical feedback, I would share it, I promise. But I have nothing. This is everything I’d imagined and more, and it means the world to me.

Thank you so much.

After a few more messages back and forth, you settle on a date one month out.

You can’t wait.

As excited as you’ve been for the past month, when you step foot back into Marcus’s little tattoo parlor, the air of finality makes your body thrum with anxiety.

You’re really doing this.

Marcus is at the back of the shop, busying himself with setting up his workspace when you enter. Today, he’s wearing a dark green henley that looks just as soft as he is, and seems to complement his features even more. As soon as he hears the chimes, his head snaps up, and he grins widely.

“Hey!” he calls out excitedly. “Just getting everything ready. Do you want something to drink before we get started? I’ve got water, juice, soda…” he trails off, waving his hand in the direction of a mini-fridge in the corner.

“I’m okay for now.”

“Sounds good, but when we take a break, you should have some juice or something else with a bit of sugar in it, okay?” You nod, and he continues. “Okay! Where do you want to sit?”

“Don’t I have to sit in the chair over there?” you ask, gesturing to the traditional chair and bench near Marcus’s work table.

“Not at all,” he protests. “The table is mobile, I bring it to wherever you feel comfortable.”

“Oh,” you say dumbly. “I’ll go ahead and sit in the chair, though.” Of all the options, it looks like the easiest–you aren’t entirely sure how Marcus would be able to comfortably tattoo you whilst sitting on a bean bag chair.

“Your choice,” he insists, spreading his hands out in an open and unguarded stance.

You settle in the chair and he sits down on a rolling stool beside you.

“Okay, so I’ve got a stencil of your design here,” Marcus says, holding up a paper with an outline of the tree for you to see. “It’ll transfer onto your skin exactly how you want it to go, and I’ll just trace it. Make sense?”

“Yep,” you nod.

“Before I do that, though, I have to make sure nothing interferes with the design, including tiny little hairs.” He holds up a pink safety razor. “Are you comfortable with me doing this for you?”

At your tentative nod of consent, Marcus leans forward and gently swipes the razor up and down your shoulder until he’s satisfied. His eyes dart between your skin and your face the entire time–making sure you’re still with him. After he’s done, he talks you through the stencil–confirming its location, gently applying it to your shoulder, and then holding up a mirror for you to approve.

“It’s great,” you whisper excitedly.

Marcus returns your smile and begins to absentmindedly roll up his sleeves in preparation to start working–-and the question about tattoos that you’d asked yourself upon first seeing the man is suddenly and unexpectedly answered.

You can’t help the soft sound of surprise that escapes from you when you catch the colorful patchwork of designs on both of his forearms, disappearing under the pushed-up henley and suggesting that they go all the way up.

Marcus catches you staring and grins, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

“I didn’t know,” you say softly. “You keep them covered up.”

“Force of habit,” Marcus shrugs. “I had a desk job for a long time.”

“Doing what?” you ask, curiously. You can’t see the man doing anything but this.

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” he jokes, winking in your direction.

Ignoring how the wink makes your heart stutter in your chest, you bark out a laugh at his answer. “What? Were you like a secret agent or something?” you tease.

“Special Agent,” he corrects, grinning.

“Get out,” you deadpan. “I can’t imagine you as a Fed.”

Marcus shrugs, giving you another one of his boyish, crooked smiles. “Would’ve been fifteen years this year had I not finally seen the writing on the wall and run for the hills a couple of years ago.”

“What made you leave?”

He laughs softly, shaking his head. “That’s a long story. How sensitive are you to noise?” he asks, abruptly changing the subject.

“Uh, I dunno. Kind of depends on the day and the situation,” you shrug.

“Fair. Well, I usually let newcomers listen to what the gun actually sounds like, so there are no surprises. If it’s too loud, I do have noise canceling headphones.”

And miss out on hearing Marcus’s soft-spoken reassurances? No matter how loud the tattoo gun is, you’d rather endure it just to be able to hear him talk.

Marcus turns the instrument on, and the room is filled with a mild buzzing sound. On your worst days, admittedly, it would probably grate upon your nerves, but you’re feeling relaxed, comfortable, and excited about your new tattoo.

“It’s not bad,” you tell him truthfully.

“Perfect,” he grins. “Are you all set to get started?”

Heart rate increasing with pleasant anticipation, you nod giddily.

“I’m obviously gonna be touching your arm a lot,” Marcus says, “so let me know if you need a break from that, the noise, the needle, anything.” Seeing your solemn nod, he continues. “I’m gonna do a little dot right here to let you see how it feels, okay?” He gently touches his index finger to your skin to indicate where.

“Okay.”

The gun turns on again, and Marcus presses it lightly against your skin for just a second before pulling back.

“...That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“I thought it would hurt more,” you confess.

Marcus laughs. “Well, the same feeling over and over again in a small area can start to be pretty uncomfortable. I’ll check in regularly to make sure you’re still doing fine. Good?”

You smile widely. “I’m really excited.”

His smile softens, his gaze becoming warmer and more tender. “I’m glad.”

His other hand gently cradles your arm as Marcus leans in, a look of intense concentration settling over his features as he begins the design. Engrossed in his work, you take the time to study his forearms. They’re a hodgepodge of designs, clearly done at different times and by different artists, but you can see themes throughout. He likes classic styles, you can tell, and in between some of the more traditional works you can see beautiful references to an assortment of famous paintings. A Dali melting clock here. A sunflower clearly inspired by Van Gogh there. On his opposite bicep, you can just barely make out the side of one design that looks like it might be of a Greek statue. Tilting your head, you realize it’s Nike alighting on the bow of a warship, and you inhale sharply. That’s one of your favorite sculptures.

“Still okay?” Marcus asks, glancing up at you with concern in his eyes.

“Sorry.” You shake your head quickly.

“Just checking,” he says softly. “Try to be just a little more still, okay?”

“Sorry,” you repeat, laughing sheepishly.

“Don’t be, you’re doing great.”

You try to fight the way your entire body seems to grow warm at Marcus’s praise, but you can’t stop the way the feeling stampedes through you. You’re being ridiculous, you chastise yourself. He’s doing his job, and you’re getting all moony-eyed.

In order to distract yourself, you continue playing ‘Spot the Famous Artwork’ on Marcus’s sleeves–although, as distractions go, it’s not your best work. You can’t help but focus in on the way his forearm cords with muscle as he holds the tattoo gun, controlling each movement so delicately and precisely, creating a beautiful, intricate design on your shoulder.

After finding a bit of yellow patchwork that's clearly a reference to Gustav Klimt's The Kiss near his right elbow, you break your silence.

“You like art, huh?”

It seems like a stupid thing to say to a fucking tattoo artist of all people, and you immediately kick yourself internally for saying something so obvious.

Marcus glances up, and, seeing how your eyes are focused on his own ink, smiles. “Always have,” he murmurs, returning his gaze to your shoulder. “Some of those are years-old.”

“Is that how you got into being a tattoo artist?” you ask.

“Sort of,” he answers, brow pinched in concentration as he continues working. “I uh, apprenticed for a shop in college to pay the bills before going to Quantico for training.”

“You’re really talented,” you tell him. “I was surprised to find out you haven’t been doing this your whole life.”

Marcus hums his appreciation as he carefully fills in a root.

“Can I ask what made you join the FBI instead of opening your own place after college?”

He huffs a little laugh through his nose. “Parents would have killed me, going to college and then doing nothing with it.”

“Running a small business isn’t exactly doing nothing,” you point out.

“Well, public opinion on tattoos wasn’t what it is now,” Marcus says. “They were scandalized by my apprenticeship, but it paid the bills, so they couldn’t complain too loudly.”

“Was it them who wanted you to join the FBI?”

“Mm, not so much,” he murmurs. “It was more like ‘whatever you want to do, so long as you can make a lucrative career out of it.’ Being an artist wasn’t one of those things, so in lieu of becoming one myself, I decided I wanted to protect them instead.”

You scrunch up your nose. “Protect them how?”

Marcus grins up at you and waggles his eyebrows playfully. “Art crimes,” he answers. “Being an art detective was kind of in the limelight in the early ‘nineties after the famous Gardner Museum theft, and I got swept up in the craze.”

“So you spent the last fifteen-ish years recovering stolen art,” you fill in for him.

“Stolen, forged, looted, illegally traded or smuggled…” Marcus offers, not breaking his concentration again. He wasn’t wrong–the repeated drag of the needle across what felt like the same square centimeter of your skin was starting to wear on you.

“Uh-huh,” you say, forcing the discomfort out of your tone.

Noticing the tightness in your voice immediately, Marcus’s movements stop. “Feeling okay?”

You shrug.

The gun switches off.

“You gotta be honest about how you’re feeling,” he reminds you. “I might be able to create designs based off of customers’ vague descriptions, but that doesn’t make me a mind-reader.”

“It’s a little uncomfortable, but I can endure it,” you insist.

“There’s no need to endure something that’s painful,” Marcus argues with an amused smile. “Even if it involves choosing to repeatedly jamming a needle into your skin.”

You can’t help but laugh, and your heart swells when he joins you.

“C’mere,” he says. “Let me show you something.”

You let him lead you to the other side of the shop, where he stops in front of a large storage cabinet that you'd assumed held various supplies. When he opens it, however, you find that isn’t the case at all.

No, the entire cabinet is filled to the brim with a collection of stuffed animals just as eclectic and varied as the furniture. There's also a couple of shoeboxes filled with every manner of fidget toy you could ever imagine.

"You can grab one, if you want. I know it might feel kind of goofy, but I promise they help with the pain."

"Okay," you breathe. Your gaze lingers first on the IKEA shark, then on a very soft-looking cactus with an adorable grumpy expression, but when your gaze lands on the largest and arguably oddest toy in the collection, your hands can't help but move toward it.

"The big guy, huh?" Marcus laughs, taking the giant squid off of the shelf and placing it in your arms. You have to laugh at how large and ungainly it is; its massive black eyes stare vacantly back at you, but the effect is dopey, rather than menacing.

"Where do you get all of these?" you ask in amazement.

"Most of them are gifts from past clients, including that one," Marcus says, indicating the squid. "But I think he originally came from the Smithsonian. I was told his name is 'Cthulhu, Lord of the Deep.'"

"Thank you," you say in a small, appreciative voice.

"'S'fine," Marcus shrugs. "Feel up to continuing?"

You nod, looking down at your partially-inked shoulder. "Guess you didn't get very far before I had to stop," you remark, somewhat self-deprecatingly.

"It's not a race," your artist says earnestly. "We've got the whole day, and we go at your pace. You're paying me, after all." Another wink in your direction.

"Yeah," you nod, confidence growing again. "Yeah, okay." You plop down in your seat, with Cthulhu in your lap, and Marcus takes his place beside you.

“Gonna turn this back on again,” he announces as the now-familiar buzz fills the room, “and I’m gonna touch your arm–” his fingers wrap warmly and gently around your skin, “–annnd here we go.”

The needle scratches insistently against your skin, but it isn’t so bad–not really, not with the hilarious giant squid on your lap and Marcus’s gentle, soothing voice in your ear. He talks while he works, sometimes asking you questions about your own life–to which he listens intently and always seems to have follow-up questions–and sometimes telling you stories of his own. You discuss art, obviously, but also music, books, movies, and baseball of all things.

You find yourself wondering if he has this type of easy rapport with everyone who comes in, but you assume he must. He might be the most disarming person you’ve ever met, and it’s hardly a stretch to believe he’s like this with everyone. Still, there’s an ugly, jealous part of you that wishes the connection between you was unique, special. That he’s only this warm with you.

Marcus was right–squeezing the stuffed toy on your lap is a perfect distraction from the discomfort of the needle, and before long, the sensation fades into the background. As the time drags on, though, the persistent drone of the tattoo gun causes an ache to creep in and settle between your eyes. You take in a deep breath through your nose, count to three, and exhale slowly through your mouth.

Marcus glances up, watching you for a split-second before cutting power to the gun and stretching his back with a satisfied sigh.

“Break time,” he announces. “Hand’s getting a bit sore.” He shoots you a knowing glance and another one of those crooked smiles. “And you should probably have a little something to drink, maybe a snack.”

“Yeah, thanks,” you say gratefully as he walks over to the little fridge.

“Apple juice?” he asks, holding up a little juice box that looks slightly comical in his large hands. When you nod enthusiastically, he hands it to you.

His fingers brush yours.

If it were anyone else, you’d recoil, but it’s him. It might just be the forced proximity, but…

You’re developing quite the crush on Marcus Pike.

Shoving the thought aside for the moment, you stab the straw into the little hole and take a long sip. Marcus settles down beside you with his own choice–a little can of vegetable juice–and holds it up in a silent ‘cheers.’

Feeling emboldened, you ask the question that’s been burning in your mind since you started.

“So what made you leave the whole ‘helping other artists’ thing behind and start a tattoo business instead?”

Marcus presses his lips together, and for a moment, you fear you’ve crossed a boundary. Just before you’re about to apologize profusely, though, he speaks.

“Have you ever just… woken up one morning, and realized that everything you were working toward, everything you thought you wanted in life… was a lie?”

“I… I don’t know,” you confess quietly, surprised at the emotion behind his words.

“Happened to me,” he laughs softly. “I had moved to DC for what I thought was my dream job, with who I thought was–” he shakes his head, as though dispelling an unpleasant thought. “I had spent my entire life checking boxes: College degree? Check. Well-paying job? Check. House? Check. Check, check check. I spent so much time trying to get ahead, like life was some kind of game to be won. If I said all the right things, did all the right things, if I did everything right… I’d have the life I wanted.”

“What was the life you wanted?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper.

“It was bullshit, is what it was. Saw one too many rom-coms as a kid, I suppose. I thought I was after the picket fence, the dog, the wife and two-point-five kids, that sort of thing. And one morning I woke up, realized that… that relentless pursuit of something I couldn’t even hold–it was all bullshit.”

“So you just… quit?”

“I quit. I wanted to create things again. I wanted to feel inspired. After a bit of uh… frantic soul-searching before I ran out of money entirely, I sold my stupid, too-big condo that I hated and bought this shop instead.”

“Did it work?”

“Well, I’m not bankrupt yet,” Marcus says dryly.

“No, I mean… did you feel inspired again?”

“I did. I do. So very much so,” he says, his voice soft and gentle. His eyes flick up to meet yours, and that comfortable warmth that had settled in between you the first time you had met him… grows. Mutates. Until the warm, tingling feeling feels a lot more like electricity.

An unspoken moment seems to pass through you, but then Marcus clears his throat roughly, setting the empty can aside and standing again, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Wanna keep going?”

Breathlessly, you nod.

In no time at all, you’re settled back in the chair with one of Marcus’s warm, strong, large hands cradling your arm as the other gently wields the tattoo gun. As he starts to fill in and blend the colors, the pain starts to increase, and you worry one of the fuzzy tentacles back and forth in your hand as you grit your teeth.

“I know, I know,” Marcus soothes quietly. “The color’s the worst part, but you’re being so good for me.”

It helps you to watch him work, so you do. He’s blending in the colors now, and you watch with interest as it starts to take shape. It’s so mesmerizing that you hardly even notice the buzz of the gun or the light sting of the needle anymore.

“And you said you ‘weren’t good at tattoos,’” he teases gently, noticing your obvious interest.

“Did I say that?” you laugh, teasing back.

“I believe your words were, ‘I’m like the worst candidate for getting a tattoo that exists.’” he reminds you. “And look at you now, huh?”

You duck your head at his praise, unable to withstand the intensity and honesty in his gaze.

“Doing okay after all, I guess,” you say with a sheepish smile.

“You’re doing amazing,” Marcus corrects, smiling warmly. “The type of client any artist dreams of.”

You don’t know how to respond to the things this man says to you. Stunned and at a loss for words, you stare awkwardly at your hand where it still wraps around Cthulhu, Lord of the Deep.

“I’m sorry.” The words are soft, concerned. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just meant that your enthusiasm and your curiosity is the stuff that makes me want to be an artist in the first place.”

“Are you saying I inspire you?” you try to tease, but it falls flat.

Just audibly, over the hum of the tattoo gun, you hear his whispered response.

“Yes.”

As Marcus wipes away the last of the stray ink on the purple bit of tree, the tattoo gun suddenly switches off. The silence is almost shocking, and you blink rapidly in confusion.

“Break time?” you ask.

Marcus chuckles, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement. “It’s all done.”

“It is?” you ask, although you can see the answer for yourself in the large mirrored wall to your right.

“How’s it feel?” he asks.

“My arm kind of aches,” you confess, “but oh my God, Marcus… it’s beautiful.”

It’s his turn to preen under your praise, the tips of his ears blushing pink as he grins back at you.

“I’m glad you like it,” he says softly. “Here, let me give you a little something for the pain.”

He squeezes a glob of light-green cooling gel and coats the angry skin with the barest of touches. “Still okay?” he asks, glancing up at you for confirmation.

After the harshness of the needle, the soft press of his fingers is more soothing than ever, and you have to resist the urge to sigh and melt into his touch.

“Yes,” you whisper.

“You’re going to want to keep this covered for a couple of hours, up to overnight,” Marcus says as he carefully applies a dressing to your shoulder–still softly, but more businesslike than before as he walks you through all of the instructions for care. “Once you take this off tomorrow, you’ll probably see some fluid leaking from it–that’s totally normal. It’s blood, plasma, and extra ink, and it should stop after a few days before it starts to scab over.

“You’ll want to keep it from drying out; I’d recommend scent-free, dye-free lotion if you don’t already have some,” he continues. “Wash it twice a day and put lotion on after. When it starts to scab, I can’t stress this enough: don’t pick the scabs.” He gives you a serious look. “Repeat that back to me.”

“Don’t pick the scabs.”

“If you do, you could cause it to scar, or even pull out the ink. One more time for me,” he prompts, and you get the feeling that this is always the sticking point in his speech.

“Don’t pick the scabs,” you repeat.

“It’ll take three to four months for the lower layers of skin to completely heal,” Marcus tells you. “During that time, keep it out of the sun, keep it hydrated, and you’re in the clear.”

“And don’t pick the scabs,” you say teasingly.

Marcus winks at you. “Exactly. Any other questions for me?”

“No, just… thank you. It’s amazing,” you tell him. “You did such an incredible job.”

“Hard not to, when I have such a beautiful canvas.”

Your eyes dart up, expecting to see a teasing glint in his eyes, but all you can see is heartfelt sincerity. You swallow thickly, and he tracks the movement, his eyes dropping down, then back up to meet your eyes. Is it… not just you? Does he feel it, too? Realization slams through you and threatens to overload all of your systems. Marcus’s lips are parted slightly, and the look in his eyes… it’s desire.

“Marcus…”

“Wait,” he says urgently. “Hang on. Come… come over here for a minute, let me–” he dashes awkwardly over to the till on the counter and gives you your total. Frowning in confusion–he wants to do this now? Interrupting that electric moment that had passed between you?–you dutifully swipe your card and numbly take the receipt.

“Now you’re no longer my client,” Marcus explains softly. “I–sorry–I was about to throw caution to the wind and kiss you, and I didn’t… I didn’t want to be unethical, I–”

“Yes,” you say simply, giving your response to his un-asked question.

It’s all he needs to stride forward, gently take your face in his warm palms, and, seeing no hesitation in your eyes even as he searches your face desperately—presses his lips to yours.

The kiss is as soft and as tender as the man himself, which hardly surprises you. Your eyes slip closed as his lips move against you with aching caution. He’s careful in all things, including this–taking your cues, giving you the lead, letting you feel everything he’s giving you.

All too quickly, he pulls back–but his eyes only sweep your face again, a growing smile on his lips as he sees nothing but want reflected back at him.

When he lowers his lips to yours again, he’s less gentle. One large hand leaves your face too hook around your waist, pulling you closer, closer–and when the proximity causes you to gasp softly, Marcus is ready. His tongue gently slips between your parted lips and you practically melt into him. When your knees buckle, his strong arms are what keep you standing upright, and still–

He can’t seem to stop kissing you.

You break before he does–pulling back to suck in a few shaky, heaving breaths, and he smiles through his own labored breathing.

“I wanted–I–” he begins, before hastily pressing another kiss to the corner of your mouth as if he can’t help but do so.

“I’ve thought of you,” he tries again. “I thought of you like this for the last month,” the confession finally spills out. “I wanted to–wanted to kiss you so badly all day, but I couldn’t. Couldn’t let myself.” He kisses you again. “But now,” he promises, whispering the words against your mouth. “Now I’m gonna get my fill.”

To punctuate his statement with one of your own, you slant your head and deepen the kiss, wrapping one hand around Marcus’s neck and pulling him closer still. He makes a soft noise in his throat, and the grip on your waist tightens. You lose yourself completely to the feel of his tongue sliding slowly against yours, until he suddenly pulls back.

“I’m doing this all wrong,” he whispers–although he’s still smiling. “I wanted to ask you out to dinner, first.”

“So ask me,” you say with a giggle.

“Come have dinner with me,” Marcus murmurs, shaking his head in quiet amusement as he steals another gentle kiss. “Right now. Tonight.”

“You might have to open all the doors,” you tease. “My arm hurts.”

Another kiss.

“I’m wounded that you think I wouldn’t open every door regardless.”

“Are you always such a gentleman?” you remark with a wry smile.

Another.

“Well,” Marcus grins wolfishly. He places on last, lingering kiss on your lips and then makes a show of offering his arm. “Not always.”

#marcus pike #marcus pike x you #marcus pike x reader #marcus pike x f!reader #marcus pike fanfiction #the mentalist #pedro pascal

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wongyuseokie · 9 months

Text

Bake a Wish | c.s.c

Summary: Seungcheol knows it’s silly. Getting this mad that you forget his birthday, but it only happens once a year. He’s too prideful to let it go so quickly, and you’re too determined to continue letting your boyfriend sulk.

☆ 18+ minors dni |☀︎fluff | ☁︎ angst | ♕ smut | ♥ completed works

Word Count: 3651 words

Pairings: Choi Seungcheol x Female Reader

Genre/Trope(s)/AUs: Fluff, Smut & Angst, Idol! AU, but like it’s not that important. It just sets the tone, I guess? Like why he stays in a dorm etc.

Content Warnings: Smut, fluff, angst

Smut Warnings: Unprotected sex (don’t do this irl), daddy kink, only for a few seconds tho, oral sex (f receiving), pussy fingering, overstimulation, cum licking (off fingers), ear biting (nibbling, it’s sexy), squirting. Nicknames, kitten because, at this point, it’s my favourite nickname to use.

Authors Note: Thank you so much @here4kpopfics, @lovelyhan, @seokgyuu @sluttywoozi and @seungkwansphd, for hearing me go on and about this fic and helping me out 💕also tagging my lovely @duhnova because I know you yell about Cheol a lot 😗😗

Authors Note 2: Happy Birthday Cheol!! 🥳 here's a smutty little sorta plot-filled smut fic 💕💕 I posted it at 12 (Korea time) woo hoo.

“Cheol?”

No response.

“Seungcheolie?”

“Baby, I know I forgot. Work was just crazy and everything. I won’t make excuses. Please don’t be mad,” you pleaded, and your boyfriend sighed.

“I’m not mad. You were the one who wanted to do something, so for you to forget,” Seungcheol trailed off, sighing as he ran his hand through his hair.

“Forget it. I’m a grown man. I shouldn’t sulk over a birthday,” Seunghcheol said, defeated, as he started to get up from the couch.

“Cheol, I just lost track of the days and forgot. I’m so sorry,” you apologised, getting up and going after him.

“See, that’s what bothers me. You forgot. I’ve had friends forget, family forget, but you? I guess that puts things into perspective for me. I don’t know, maybe it’s my fault for putting you, my girlfriend, on a higher pedestal, but I thought you would remember,” Seungcheol spoke, each word breaking your heart even more.

“I can make it up to you. Why don’t we do something this weekend?” You offered hurriedly, and Seungcheol shook his head.

“I have plans with the guys and can’t back out. They initially wanted to celebrate on my actual birthday, but I told them that tonight, well, it would have just been for us,” Seungcheol explained with a sad smile.

“But,” Seungcheol said, breaking the tension slightly. “You said there’d be an amazing chocolate cake waiting for me at home?” Seungcheol asked hopefully, only for it to shatter the second he saw your face fall.

“Ah, right, you forgot,” Seungcheol deduced and shook his head.

“Look, we can order something and get a bottle of wine, and I can spend all night showing you how sorry I am?” You offered, placing a hand on Seungcheol’s shoulder, making him look at you.

“Sex isn’t going to fix this,” Seungcheol mumbled.

“There’s nothing to fix. I just need to stop making birthdays such a big deal,” Seungcheol added, and you shook your head at his words.

“No, Cheol,” you started to say, and he held up a hand to stop you.

“Look, you’ll say something, and then I’ll say something, and it’ll snowball. I don’t want to risk an argument, not on my birthday or with you,” Seungcheol said. He was tired, and he wanted to sleep.

“Okay, yeah, you’re right. What if I draw you up a nice bubble bath, and we can just sleep? You can even hog all the blankets,” you added with a hopeful smile.

“Actually. I was planning to sleep at the dorms tonight,” Seungcheol admitted.

“Oh, but Cheol, since we’ve been together, we always spend birthdays together,” you protested, and Seungcheol shrugged.

“Well, I guess tonight’s just full of firsts?” Seungcheol muttered.

“I don’t want to lose you over this,” you admitted, and Seungcheol smiled softly at you.

“You won’t, not over this. It’s not a fight. I’m just upset and want some space, but I don’t want to get into anything tonight because I know it’ll end in a fight, and I don’t want that,” Seungcheol clarified.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, and he shrugged.

“We’ll be okay. I just need some space,” Seungcheol added, and you nodded.

You had messed up so badly, and usually, when either of you messed up this bad, you’d argue and be fine in a few hours, but tonight was different. You hurt your boyfriend so badly that he was beyond the point of being angry, he was disappointed, and he felt defeated.

“When can I see you?” You asked impatiently, and Seungcheol shrugged.

“Let me be the one to reach out?” Seungcheol suggested, and you nodded slowly as you watched your heartbroken boyfriend put on his dress shoes and coat, things you told him to wear because you made a reservation at the best restaurant in town. Seungcheol got dressed up and excited for tonight, only for you to stand him up at the restaurant and forget his birthday together.

As you watched your boyfriend dejectedly leave your apartment tonight, you had a plan, and you were determined. You’d do everything possible to ensure he never felt this shitty again and to redo tonight. No matter what, he’d still have a fantastic birthday this year.

“Oof, she forgot?” Jeonghan asked Seungcheol when he saw his friend sulking about the dorm that evening.

“Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t care,” Seungcheol started to say, earning a scoff from Jeonghan.

“You are the sulkiest in general, but more so about your birthday, but continue,” Jeonghan interrupted.

“Anyways,” Seungcheol said with a glare.

“She planned everything, told me to get ready and clear my schedule, and she doesn’t show up? Then she told me a cake was at home, which she had forgotten. I don’t know, and it felt like she forgot everything,” Seungcheol mumbled, pouting.

“Here,” Jeonghan said as he handed Seungcheol a black box with a bow.

“Jeonghan, I’m taken,” Seungcheol joked, making Jeonghan roll his eyes.

“Shut up. It's a little something for your birthday, it won’t compare to what Y/N got you, but I hope you like it,” Jeonghan added, and Seungcheol’s face fell.

“She forgot to get me a present,” Seungcheol muttered.

“Maybe something else is going on in her life? Something that requires her full attention, and she just got overwhelmed?” Jeonghan offered.

“But she didn’t tell me?” Seungcheol questioned.

“You’re a busy man, and I’m sure it’s nothing she can’t handle and didn’t want to bother you,” Jeonghan suggested.

“She’s my girlfriend. She couldn’t ever bother me,” Seungcheol said softly, and Jeonghan patted Seungcheol’s shoulder to comfort the sulking man.

“We’re still on for tomorrow. We’re planning to go out and get shit-faced. You can invite Y/N if you want,” Jeonghan suggested.

“No, I think space would do us good,” Seungcheol responded, and Jeonghan hesitated and decided not to respond. He knew that Seungcheol needed his time to be petty, and he just had to let him be angry.

“Alright, well, do you want any of us to keep you company tonight?” Jeonghan asked, and Seungcheol shook his head.

“Nah, I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”

You were tossing and turning in bed that night. Even when Seungcheol was on tour, you would always text each other good night. You hadn’t tonight; you wanted to give him his space, but you were worried that more space would result in more distance between you two, and that couldn’t happen.

Worried, you grabbed your phone from your bedside table and called instead of texting. You couldn’t help it. You knew you weren’t being fair, he asked for space, but you couldn’t help yourself.

Seungcheol picked up after four rings, and his sleepy voice immediately made you feel terrible for waking him up.

“Baby?” Seungcheol spoke sleepily, and you felt your heart swell and ache because of one word. You hurt him so badly, yet he was calling you baby here.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” you mumbled.

“It’s okay. Did you need something?” Seungcheol asked.

“I just wanted to say goodnight,” you admitted sheepishly, and Seungcheol sighed.

“You couldn’t text it?” Seungcheol asked.

“I’m sorry, I messed up. I shouldn’t have woken you up,” you apologised.

“Well, you did wake me up, so why don’t you tell me what’s up?” Seungcheol asked.

“I miss you,” you hated how pathetic you sounded. It was his birthday that you missed, and here you were being miserable, and he shouldn’t have to deal with it. You heard Seungcheol sigh softly.

“I miss you too. Do you need me to come over, or will you be okay tonight?” Seungcheol asked and smiled sadly, even though you knew he couldn't see you.

“No, I shouldn’t. You said you wanted space. I should give it to you,” you mumbled, and Seungcheol groaned softly.

“So you just woke me up for no reason?” Seungcheol quipped.

“Cheol,” you started to say, only to be interrupted.

“I need sleep. The guys planned something for my birthday, so I want to be rested and fresh tomorrow,” Seungcheol remarked sassily, and you frowned even though he couldn’t see.

Seungcheol felt terrible for being so snippy, but he was just tired and wanted space and sleep.

“Goodnight, Cheol. I love you,” you mumbled into the call. You heard Seungcheol take a breath and then hum into the call before hanging up.

Seungcheol knew it was a dick move on his part not to say I love you, he knew that it would mess with you and make you overthink, but he couldn’t take it back. He could only hope that you understood that it occurred due to a moment of frustration.

You tried your hardest not to cry your eyes out after the phone call, Seungcheol sounded so defeated and tired, but you were determined not to wallow and make it about you. You would make up for all this, and it’d be okay.

“Cheol, you ready?” Jeonghan asked later that morning as Seungcheol was checking his phone. You hadn’t texted or called, he understood that he asked for space, but he selfishly hoped for none.

“Dude, no, no phones today. No wallowing,” Jeonghan scolded lightly as he took Seungcheol’s phone out of his hand.

“What if she calls?” Seungcheol whined.

“Then I’ll tell her that you’re happily celebrating and you don’t wish to be disturbed,” Jeonghan teased, earning a scowl from Seungcheol.

“You will say no such thing to her. You will not upset her further,” Seungcheol warned, and Jeonghan sighed.

“I wouldn’t. Just for 24 hours, can you forget this argument and have fun? We don’t like seeing you upset,” Jeonghan pleaded, his voice softer, and Seungcheol nodded.

“Yeah. I can. Let's get drunk?” Seungcheol suggested with a weak smile, and Jeonghan nodded excitedly.

“Yeah!”

You weren’t sure what exactly you were doing here. You weren’t even meant to know where Seungcheol’s birthday plans were, but Soonyoung couldn’t keep anything to himself and posted videos and pictures of Seungcheol’s celebration. Your heart thought quicker than your brain, and you were now in the restaurant's car park where Seungcheol was celebrating his birthday.

You knew it was clingy and overbearing, and everything you were doing right now went against Seungcheol asking for space, but you couldn’t help it. The guilt was eating you alive, and you hated being the reason that Seungcheol was upset.

You figured that if you showed up with a big cake and showed that you went through the trouble of getting the cake and finding out where he was, then he’d forgive you. Or at least stop sulking at you, and hear you out.

You checked your phone one more time before getting out of the car, and you wished you hadn’t opened up Soonyoung’s Instagram story on his private account, and what you saw made your heart hurt and eyes water. Seungcheol was hanging around other girls, posing and hugging one of them.

You knew Seungcheol was loyal, he’d never cheat, but it still hurt, watching him spend his birthday with other girls, and while you know you were at fault for this since you forgot his birthday. It almost felt like he was just rubbing it in your face.

You heard a muffled voice and saw Seungcheol tapping on your car window. You turned to face him, smiling at him, your vision blurring vision as you smiled at him through your tears. You unlocked the door and motioned for him to get in.

“Why are you here?” Seungcheol asked, and you frowned at his question, hoping he’d be happy to see you. Seungcheol noticed how your face fell, and he noticed your teary eyes, but he didn’t want to comment on it, at least not yet.

“I just, uh,” you fumbled, looking away from him and at the backseat.

“I wanted to give you that,” you mumbled, pointing to the cake in the backseat.

“Is this the cake you promised?” Seungcheol asked hopefully with a smile.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” you apologised, as you kept your stare on the cake box in the backseat.

“I think you’ve apologised enough,” Seungcheol said softly as he took your hand, making you look at him.

“I’m sorry if I sounded rude earlier, but I’m genuinely wondering why you’re here, but I’m not upset to see you,” Seungcheol explained.

“I wanted to bring the cake as a surprise. I know you said to give you space and that you’d reach out, but I guess I can’t, not when I know I upset you,” you rambled.

“So why didn’t you come? You just started crying in the car?” Seungcheol asked.

“I cried because of Soonyoung’s Instagram story,” you mumbled, feeling ashamed that all it got was a temporary wave of insecurity to make you cry, despite knowing how loyal Seungcheol was.

“What was on it?” Seungcheol asked, and you meekly pulled out your phone and showed Seungcheol the story.

“Wait, so you thought I was cheating?” Seungcheol accused, and you shook your head.

“No, of course not. Seeing my boyfriend hugging another woman and celebrating his birthday with other girls does suck,” you spat.

“Do you want this to be something we fight about?” Seungcheol asked, and you shook your head.

“No, I don’t. I know you wouldn’t. I just was being silly,” you mumbled.

“Your feelings are valid, don’t dismiss it, but I know that’s not what upset you,” Seungcheol said, holding your hand tighter, interlacing his fingers with yours.

“I just wanted to be the one you celebrated your birthday with, Cheol, and I guess seeing you celebrate with other girls made an ugly green monster awaken in me,” you admitted.

“That’s fair, but I promised the guys I would celebrate my birthday with them,” Seungcheol said.

“What about tomorrow?” Seungcheol offered.

“I’ll be done at the studio around 8. We can meet for dinner. It’ll have to be quick because I have a meeting at 10:30.”

“You’re only free for like 2 hours?” You asked.

“I was free for longer on my actual birthday,” Seungcheol retorted, making you frown.

“Okay, 2 hours. I’ll make it the best 2 hours possible, okay?” You said, leaning over to place on Seungcheol’s cheek.

Choi “Husband” Seungcheol [9:00 am]: Morning love, I’m heading to the studio now. I’ll give you a ring once I leave. Looking forward to seeing you tonight. 🥰🥰

You grinned as you saw Seungcheol’s message the following morning and smiled as you typed out a response.

You [9:01 am]: See you later, handsome 🥰

You put your phone away. You had a lot to prepare tonight, you were a couple of days late, but you were determined to make this the best birthday ever.

“Ow!” Seungcheol yelped when he felt another balled-up piece of paper hit his head. He wasn’t entirely sure why Jeonghan kept throwing scraps of paper at his head.

“What is your problem?” Seungcheol asked.

“We’ve been trying to get your attention for. I don’t know, ten minutes?” Jeonghan responded.

“Oh.“

“I’ve just been distracted.”

“Yeah, no shit, can you just go and make it up with Y/N? You look like a sad husky,” Jeonghan muttered.

“Husky because I’m so handsome?” Seungcheol asked with a grin.

“No, husky, because you sulk and whine as much,” Jeonghan sassed, making Seungcheol glare at him.

“Look, she forgot, yes, but shit happens. Do you want to whine and let this cause a problem in your relationship? No, you don’t. What about when you forgot she was allergic to lilies and got her a bouquet?” Jeonghan asked.

“Oh god, my baby was sneezing all night long,” Seungcheol groaned, recalling the night he accidentally gave you flowers you were allergic to.

“Exactly, look, she didn’t mean it, and I bet she’s overthinking and overplanning just to make things right, and more importantly, just because she forgot your birthday does not mean she doesn’t love you,” Jeonghan added.

“I overreacted, didn’t I?” Seungcheol asked.

“No, not that night, but dragging it out? That might be unnecessary,” Jeonghan clarified.

“I’ll apologise tonight. I’ll see her tonight,” Seungcheol said, determined.

“No, go now. We can pick this up tomorrow,” Jeonghan insisted.

“Sure?”

“Yes, and Cheol?”

“Yes?”

“Use protection!”

“Baby?” Seungcheol called out as he entered your apartment. As soon as he entered your apartment, he was greeted with the aroma of baked goods and saw the apartment decorated with balloons, candles and confetti.

“Cheol?“ You exclaimed as you wandered out of the kitchen.

“Baby!” Suengcheol greeted you as he ran to embrace you, and you giggled as he pulled you into a tight embrace.

“You’re home so early. I’m not done preparing,” you whined.

“I don’t care. I’ve been a big baby. What matters is that you love me, and I love you, not some birthday,” Seungcheol declared, making you giggle.

“I love you, but Cheol, but the dinner won’t be ready for another couple of hours,” you whined.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry for being such a baby,” Seungcheol apologised.

“I’m sorry for forgetting,” you added.

“We’re a pretty sorry couple, aren’t we?” Seungcheol joked, making you smile.

“Come,” you said, pulling away from Seungcheol’s embrace slightly to take his hand in yours.

“Where?”

“Bedroom, since dinner won’t be ready for some time, I figured I’ll give you one of your presents a little earlier,” you said with a teasing grin.

“Lead the way, kitten.“

“Cheol!” You giggled as Seungcheol hoisted you up, causing you to wrap around his waist. Seungcheol wasted no time the second the bedroom door closed and pulled you into a passionate kiss, deepening the kiss by slipping his tongue into your mouth, making you moan as he started sucking on your bottom lip; his plush lips always worked wonders no matter what part of your body they were on.

“Can you strip for me, baby?” Seungcheol asked as he placed you down on the bed, and you nodded as you quickly peeled off your clothes and laid back on the bed, hissing softly as the cool sheets touched your naked form.

“Baby, it’s meant to be about you,” you whined, making Seungcheol grin.

“I’m meant to give you the present,” you mumbled.

“You naked and dripping for me is enough of a present,” Seungcheol said, making you let out a soft moan. “Then I’m all yours, Daddy,” you added.

“No, Daddy, tonight, baby. Just Cheol, okay?” Seungcheol said as he climbed onto the bed and pulled you into his lap.

“I’m sorry for being a big sulky baby, and while sex isn't the answer, it can’t hurt, but I promise I will, and I-” Seungcheol tried to apologise, and you shut him up with a kiss.

“Cheol, please. Just fuck me,” you begged, rubbing your exposed cunt on his jeans, the friction making you moan.

“Gladly,” Seungcheol complied, standing up to quickly rid himself of his clothing and positioning himself at your wet cunt.

He started by placing kisses along your calves and up to your thighs, never fully touching you. It felt different like he was going to take his time. He gently parted your legs, giving him access to your glistening cunt, placing your legs onto his toned back and wrapping his arms around your waist.

Seungcheol placed soft kisses along your folds, his lips gently enveloping your clit. You let out a sigh of approval, tangling your fingers in his hair. He knew your body well, and his lips were a god's gift to your cunt.

He started sucking on your clit, while his tongue jutted out and started flicking the sensitive bundle of nerves. The grip you had in his hair tightened while he removed one arm from your waist and slipped two fingers inside you. Never once did he remove his lips from your clit as he kept fingering you at such a delicious speed. He was thorough yet delicate with his movements, he wanted you to feel complete and utter bliss.

“Cheol, I’m close,” you moaned out, your words failing you as Seungcheol’s ministrations had you close to your first orgasm of the night. He said nothing. Instead just continued as you fell apart on his tongue, letting you ride your orgasm out against his face and fingers.

“Always so sweet for me, baby,” Seungcheol praised as he licked his fingers clean of your release. You moaned at the sight. You tried to get up in an attempt to take him into your mouth, but Seungcheol gently pushed you down.

“Not tonight; I need to feel you,” he said softly.

Seungcheol laid down next to you, tilting you so that you were curled up into his chest. He pulled your leg to the side and pushed it back so that it wrapped around his muscular thighs, allowing him access to push inside you. He had one hand rubbing on your clit, and one on your nipple. He kept thrusting inside you, neither of his hands ceasing their actions. You moaned at the feeling.

You suddenly stilled and fell apart around his cock. Seungcheol moaned and gently bit into your shoulder at the feeling of you clenching around him. He didn't stop; he continued pounding himself into you, picking up his pace as he was desperate to reach his release. He fell apart not long after he furiously rubbed at your clit, making you cum so hard that you shook violently against him. He gently pulled out of you, making you whimper at the empty feeling.

“It's been a while since I made you squirt,” Seungcheol said with a proud grin while you were still basking in the afterglow of your orgasm.

“Hmm?” You moaned into his chest.

“You squirted, baby, all over my cock,” he whispered, gently nibbling your ear, making you giggle as you into his toned chest.

“Cheol?”

“Hm?”

“Happy Birthday, my love.”

#seventeen #seungcheol #seventeen smut #seungcheol smut #svthub #kvanity #indigo writes: scoups

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h0bg0blin-meat · 2 months

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Idk who needs to hear this but removing Mughal history from history textbooks completely to the point that the future generations wouldn't even KNOW who the Mughals were, is not the way to go.

You can't just distort history and remove a chunk of it. That's a very biased way of viewing something that actually happened not even 500 years ago. History is not fiction. You can't remove the existence of real people.

When you remove Mughal history, you also remove the good and bad they did. You remove the reason behind the beautiful blend of Indo-Islamic architecture, culture and art we see today, few of the things that have implied towards a sense of harmony amidst the religious chaos that reeked back in the day. But with that, you ALSO remove the massive destruction and looting of thousands of temples, the inhumane measures, laws and punishments they put up against non-Muslims, the struggles and sacrifices of the Hindus and other oppressed groups who protested against these atrocities oh-so-courageously. You remove their cries, their brave stories. You remove the valiant fights Shivaji, Maharana Pratap and their likes put up against these people. You remove the martyrs of the several genocides these guys (especially Babur) caused. You remove them all, because once there's no Mughals, who did these brave souls fight against?

Also why only Mughals? What about the Khaljis, Mamluks, Tughlaqs, Ghaznis and others? They committed way worse atrocities than the Mughals did tbh. So with that logic all of their histories should be wiped out? But that's almost like a 700-800-year-history-wipeout we're talking about (the dates might not be accurate). And that's not how it works.

Here's a better idea. Just... show their good and their bad, and just don't glorify them and their tyranny. We keep the struggles and the sour lives the suppressed groups lived under the rule of these dynasties, and maybe glorify the brave souls who fought selflessly against them. We show how they plundered any place of worship that wasn't a mosque (or Islamic in general), and treated the idols of these religions post-destruction. We can also include the non-Islamic kingdoms and kingdoms that stood still and strong despite the invasions, like the many Hindu kingdoms in the south, then the Ahom dynasty and a few other small kingdoms in the northeast, etc. We can bring lesser-known and highly underrated non-Islamic kingdoms into light too in this process, and how they dealt with these invaders. (Half of these points are already depicted in the existing textbooks, or... atleast the textbooks *I* studied back in school, but I think they get kinda overshadowed by the subtle glorification of these invaders)

These are the solutions I'd provide. If anyone has anything to add, please do, or if yall have better solutions, pls lmk. But removing a huge chunk of history just out of pure hate and revenge like this is NOT the way to go about in the field of history LMFAO. It's the same as how that one biased historian recently claimed that no Hindu temples were destroyed by the Islamic invaders.

#keep the conversation civil btw cuz i dont wanna fight with anyone #mughal empire #ncert #cbse #cbseboard #hindublr #mughal invasion #mughal dynasty #desiblr #desiposting #desi tumblr #desi tag #islamic invaders #islamic invasion

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takeme-totheworld · 4 months

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Aziraphale and Forgiveness, Pt. 2: The Source of Salvation

This series is now complete! Here's where you can find the other parts.

Part 1 here. Part 3 here. Part 4 here.

(This post ended up being way longer than I intended, oopsie! And no fun GIFs to break it up this time. Hope you like reading lots of words!)

So why would Aziraphale, an angel who has not fallen despite bending/breaking the rules many times, have so much emotional baggage around the topic of forgiveness?

Some disclaimers:

Disclaimer 1: I've seen enough of tumblr already to know that "does Aziraphale really have religious trauma?/how much does it motivate his actions?" is the subject of Discourse around these parts. I don't want to have that argument here. Aziraphale's experience with Heaven has strong parallels to my personal religious history, and those specific parallels are what I'm here to talk about.

Disclaimer 2: I am not a bible scholar or religious historian, if I mention specific church doctrines or bible verses it's only to illustrate the experience of growing up in my church. My actual biblical/theological accuracy may be sloppy.

Disclaimer 3: I haven't read Good Omens the book. I know there are differences, but I'm not addressing them. All my thoughts are about show!Aziraphale and show!Heaven only.

Okay. Here goes.

The next point I want to make is that Aziraphale has spent his life inside a system that has weaponized the concept of forgiveness. Because Heaven, in the Good Omens universe, operates a lot like a particular flavor of toxic Christianity that I happen to be very familiar with.

In the version of Christianity I was raised with:

Your only purpose is to serve God's will. Our own needs, wants, goals, etc, were all understood to be secondary to that purpose.

The specter of eternal punishment is always present. Like any self-respecting Evangelical church, we believed that if you weren't "saved" before you died, you would go to Hell and be punished forever. How do you make sure you're saved? Well...

The rules are not clear or consistent, so you're always left guessing. We were a Protestant denomination, so a foundational doctrine was "sola scriptura." (We weren't fancy enough for the Latin, though, we just called ourselves "bible-based.") The basic idea is that the bible is the word of God, it's infallible, and it's the only authority we need to follow. But the bible is a cobbling-together of texts written thousands of years ago, that have been translated multiple times. It's not self-evident to a modern reader what any given passage means. It contains internal contradictions all over the place. So...the bible is the only authority we need to follow, but it's confusing and needs interpretation. Enter pastors and other church leaders to help us interpret. Only...they each have their own pre-existing biases and preferred scholarly interpretations, so even within the same church, different pastors might have different ideas about things.

So, to summarize: Follow what the bible says! Don't understand what it's telling you? Ask your pastor! Different pastors give different answers? Ugh, you're thinking about this too hard. Go pray about it or something. Just figure it out.

New ideas and experiences are, at best, begrudgingly tolerated. Because doing God's will is your only purpose, remember? And the Bible (and your pastor) are the source of the only wisdom you need to fulfill the only purpose you have. So really, you don't need anything outside what the church has to offer you and it's all a distraction anyway. (...okay, if you really must, here's a watered-down, church-approved version of the thing, now shut up.)

This isn't just the church being a buzzkill. It keeps you dependent on them and ignorant of the outside world to whatever extent they monitor and censor outside influences. My church was not even that extreme about this, relatively speaking, but it was still enough to profoundly impact me and leave me confused and floundering in the larger world after I left.

No matter how hard you try to measure up, you're ultimately at God's mercy. So you spend your life trying to follow a bunch of confusing, opaque rules in the hopes that you can be "saved" and avoid eternal punishment. But here's kicker: none of it truly matters anyway, because we were also taught that everyone falls short in the end and that the only real salvation comes from God forgiving you for your sins. All you really have to do to be saved is accept his free gift of forgiveness...by...believing the right things in the right way and praying the right prayers about it. And then spending the rest of your life still trying to follow all the convoluted rules, because doing so is proof that you were sincere...in your acceptance of God's forgiveness...which you accepted by following even more instructions regarding what to believe and how to pray to ensure that you were accepting it correctly.

How do you know if you've done any of this right? You never can, truly, until you die and find out. Because God's not actually talking to anyone. So in the end, no matter what you do, you end up in the same place: at the mercy of God, who decides whether you're forgiven or not.

If you're thinking that sounds like an incredibly confusing and exhausting way to grow up, you are correct! It also has a lot of parallels in Good Omens.

If you are an angel working for Heaven in the world of Good Omens:

Your only purpose is to serve God's will. This one is obvious. If you're an angel, it's literally the only thing you were created for.

The specter of eternal punishment is always present. The eternal punishment that can happen to an angel is falling. We know it's a punishment, because we know Crowley's fall was painful and because we can see that Hell is a miserable environment for the demons. This isn't The Good Place, where demons gleefully sit around eating snacks in conference rooms and brainstorming new fun ways to torture humans. Hell in Good Omens sucks for everyone there. And we can assume falling is meant to be permanent, because if it wasn't Crowley and Aziraphale wouldn't have been so gobsmacked by the Metatron's offer to restore Crowley to angelic status. Because there's no precedent for that. Crowley himself says that being a demon has automatically rendered him unforgivable. As far as anyone in this universe knows, "fallen" is a permanent state.

So how does an angel avoid eternal punishment? How do angels make sure they don't fall? Well...

The rules are not clear or consistent, so you're always left guessing. Was falling a one-and-done mass exile of everyone who rebelled, right after the war? The way both Heaven and Hell talk about the fall and the "casting out" of the demons would seem to suggest so. But fear of falling is obviously ever-present among the angels, so they clearly don't know for sure one way or the other. And what would cause an angel who wasn't part of the original rebellion to fall? Aziraphale thought he would fall for lying about Job's children. The archangels threatened Aziraphale with falling for "consorting" with Crowley in S1. Gabriel expected to fall for saying no to Armageddon the Sequel in S2. But none of those falls actually happened. Clearly even the angels in the highest positions of authority don't know exactly what the rules are about falling. And who decides who falls? Gabriel says the demons were "cast out" after the war, but who did the casting out? Did God handle that directly? Was it the Metatron? Did the transformation just sort of...happen, leaving everyone unsure about the details? And what about present day? The Metatron said that Gabriel would have his memory wiped instead of falling, but does that mean the Metatron gets to decide if an angel falls, or was he covering for the fact that he doesn't know how it works either?

We, the viewers, don't know the answers to any of these questions. But it's fairly clear that the angels also don't know.

New ideas and experiences are, at best, begrudgingly tolerated. The angels know little to nothing about the world or humanity and are disdainful or outright suspicious of earthly experiences. In the case of the ones who have never been sent to Earth, this makes sense, although it begs the question of why there are so many angels who have never once been sent to Earth, the planet that is supposed to be central to the Great Plan.

It's obviously, at its core, about control and keeping the angels ignorant of anything that would broaden their perspective. But listen to how the angels themselves talk about it. When Gabriel sees Aziraphale eating sushi, he asks, "Why do you consume that? You're an angel." (Subtext: You don't need to eat, so what's the purpose of indulging in this experience?) When Aziraphale suggests he try the food himself, Gabriel starts talking about sullying the temple of his body or whatever. (Subtext: It's not technically forbidden but it would be a deviation from my function as an angel so I'm suspicious of it.) And look at Aziraphale himself. He lives on Earth for many hundreds of years before he can be persuaded to even try human food, and Crowley has to work at convincing him it's okay. He seems to know it's not forbidden but he's deeply distrustful of it anyway. (I have a theory that a holdover of this mindset is why he's so set in his ways, behind the times, and still more ignorant of humans that you'd expect in the present day, but this post is already too long.) The attitude cultivated among the angels is These things are not meant for us, we don't need them, and they are a distraction from our higher purpose, so it's better if we don't.

No matter how hard you try to measure up, you're ultimately at God's mercy. So, if you're an angel, you're meant to be doing God's will, and if you fail badly enough you can be punished forever by falling. But the rules are unclear, the way falling works is unclear, in most cases you're kept ignorant of everything but the bare minimum you need to know to do your job, God isn't talking to anyone, and the (seemingly) officially appointed Voice of God is also pretty remote and mysterious most of the time.

So the only time you'll ever know for certain that you've crossed the line is once you've already crossed it, when it's too late to do anything about it. At that point, the only thing that could save you from falling would be if God just...decided to be merciful, to grant you a pardon (i.e. to forgive you) and not do the casting out thing.

Believe it or not, I had to work really hard to keep this as short as it is. If you've read this far, I salute you. Now, what's the point?

Aziraphale and the other angels are part of a system where they understand very little, they have no real power, the stakes are eternal, and their only hope of escaping endless punishment if they fail is the possibility that God will decide to show mercy and forgive them.

Yes, in the real world this is all just bullshit spread by religious leaders to scare and confuse and manipulate people into compliance and in the world of Good Omens it's actually real. But the emotional impact of feeling that confused and powerless and at the mercy of a higher authority is going to be the same. Of course Aziraphale has some Big Feelings about the subject of forgiveness. Of course it's one of his favorite things. It's not just a nice thing you do for people. It's powerful enough to rescue someone from eternal punishment when nothing else can. Powerful enough to wield as a devastating weapon by withholding it. It's a tool of control in Heaven, but it's also the source of salvation.

I was going to segue from here into what I think the specifics of Aziraphale's mindset are, but it took me so many more words than I expected just to lay out the parallels between GO Heaven and (my experience of) real-world toxic Christianity so I'm gonna stop here. Next time I'm going to dig into what I think is happening in Aziraphale's head when he forgives Crowley, and also when he does things like shelter Jimbriel (a very forgiving action, even if the words "I forgive you" don't accompany it).

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens 2 spoilers #character analysis #aziraphale #religious indoctrination #religious trauma #forgiveness #i forgive you #i'm very normal about this #this post is so long i apologize

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sacredthethreadgvf · 3 months

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Limelight |Jake Kiszka x Reader | Prologue

A/N: Hey everyone! I'm back at it..you know me, ideas pop into my head out of the blue and occasionally we go on a journey together. Please note that while this follows the band and Jake closely this is a fictional story. I currently do not have a posting schedule or a plan on how many parts this will be so bare with me !! As always, I appreciate alllll the feedback and love chatting about stories with you all ! I cannot wait to see where yet another enemies to lovers trope takes us! A very special shout out to @joshym for hyping me up over this story and being a beta reader for this upcoming series (I appreciate you so so much!!). This is just a little prologue to start us off on our journey. MINORS DNI this series !!! This will contain smut at one point!

Summary: Jake Kiszka is a pain in the ass to put it in simple terms. But you loved your job, you actually needed this job more than anything. However, shining shoes, refilling water, folding towels, applying eyeliner, etc. was not exactly on your agenda. Neither was falling in love with the type of man you usually steered far, far away from but yet here we are. Being Jake Kiszka's personal assistant has brought trials and tribulations beyond belief but maybe, just maybe, they were worth it all in the end.

Prologue Warnings: None. Unless you want to count swearing?

Limelight.

Between both aspiring artists and fans alike, the chase and the thrill of the limelight could not be beat.

You craved the limelight personally, more than the average fan of music. You wanted a taste of it for yourself ever since you were young but being the center of public attention? Well, scared the hell out of you. So you settled for a different type of “Limelight”. The type of limelight that brought along all of the green rooms, the thrills, the music so loud and close you wouldn’t be able to hear for days following the concert. You craved to just be close to your favorite musicians without having to pay a pretty penny. You craved the backstage limelight.

You had applied at ReverbPR for a simple assistant job to navigate your way through the music industry to make a name for yourself. You went to college to be a producer of music but found it hard as a young girl fresh out of college with little to no experience to have anyone take you seriously in Nashville. So you settled to be an executive assistant for frontmen, guitar and bass players and drummers alike in hopes to market yourself to these artists to then eventually work with them one on one with their new albums.

You were working away at your profile on LinkedIn in a little coffee shop early on a Monday morning when you got the call from your boss Brian.

“Pack your bags, I found a new client for you.”

Your heart raced from excitement. Things with your previous client did not work out well for you. You had been paired up with an up and coming rock band who’s misogynistic ways both on stage and off made it a very uncomfortable work situation for yourself that was taking a toll on you mentally. You had called Brian after a month and begged him to pair you with someone else. To your surprise he agreed and sent your replacement to the band and thankfully, that was the last you heard of them.

So when you heard from Brian you were now paired yet again with an up and coming rock band of young men, your heart sank and your blood pulsed in your ears. But Brian had assured you that this band was different and you wouldn’t be working with all of the band members, just one this time.

Higher following on social media and a good reputation.

So you agreed but had a mind to keep your guard up just in case.

That night, following a few glasses of wine, you lifted your roommate's cat off of your lap. You ignored the soft protests that sweet little Isabel made and reached out for your laptop sitting on the coffee table. You typed ‘GRETA VAN FLEET’ into your browser and fell into a deep dive on the quartet from Michigan and their rise to fame.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away from you, a young guitarist was preparing for a night of revelry.

“Why do you always have to be such a dick dude?!” Jake exasperated, shooting a glare across the room to his better half. Actually, lesser half in the eyes of Jake at this given moment.

Jake's arms were crossed against his chest and he was leaning against a table. His hands were preoccupied with a cup of wine and a little black eyeliner pencil that was about to go to waste.

“Because brother Jake,” Josh paused and closed his eyes as his assistant, Rose, spread silver glitter across his eyelids. “Beauty like mine takes time! My rhinestones aren’t even done yet.”

He closed his eyes again, avoiding the sharp glare from Jake.

“It's not going to take long to do two little black lines under my eyelids.” Jake threw a hand in the air.

He could tell Josh was getting irritated quickly as Jake was interfering with his “Quiet Time” pre stage ritual bullshit. “Exactly. You can do it yourself.”

“Josh,'' Rose protested softly. “It really won’t take me that long.” Josh’s eyes popped open in a warning his sweet assistant Rose then back to Jake as if to say ‘Get the fuck out of my dressing room’.

Jake rolled his eyes. “What fucking ever. I’ll get my own damn assistant then and you won’t be able to steal them.”

As he walked back to his own dressing room clad in his silver stage suit, the faint sounds of fans chanting “GRETA! GRETA! GRETA!” filled his ears. His senses were heightened. No matter how many times he’s been on stage. No matter how many pep talks he has given himself before, he will never shake the butterflies.

Now to add to the butterflies was pure rage. A sense of frustration with his twin and he didn’t even have time to do his goddamn eyeliner.

He made a plan in his head to talk to his manager about it tomorrow. It was time he had his own damn help around here.

#jake kiszka #jake kiszka enemies to lovers #jake gvf #jake kiszka fluff #jake kiszka smut #limelight

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thebrightestwitchofherage · 3 months

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Extremist chants and signs in pro- Palestinian rallies vs the double standards Jews face

I’ve explained in previous posts why “from the river to sea “ is actually a genocidal call for the eradication of all Jews from Israel. I’m not going to go into that in this post, but you’re welcome to read it and further research the phrase.

Unfortunately, every day anti- Zionists provide me with more slurs and problematic protests chants: Please read the attached post. These are all examples from pro - Palestinian protests held in the last few weeks.

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Murder is not “resistance”. Neither is raping or kidnapping civilians. I can’t believe some twisted people believe this is ok.

Nothing justifies what happened in October 7th. Not even the “occupation”.

If you’re going to say “well on 1948 Jews occupied Palestine”- the conflict has started before then, and Jews have been there wayyy before that’s .

How long before 1948?

Here’s Yet another example to how long Jews have been in Israel :

I’ll use the Arabic word used last slide as an example, when you know, the protester literally said “all Jews belong in hell”:

The Arabic word for hell is derived from Hebrew:

Hebrew for Valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, is mentioned in the bible as Gie Ben Hinom -> Gehinnom/ Gehenna-> the Arabic word for hell “ganaham”.

What’s actually important- The Double Standard and underlying antisemitic rhetoric:

More importantly than linguistics and semantics-Imagine the backlash against an Israeli/ Jewish protestor if they said all Muslims / Palestinians belong in hell.

Jews are looked under a microscope for every single word said in protest, interviews , etc while this is completely allowed .

Only last month during the Haag trial, out of context and mistranslated quotes of extremist government members were used to prove how Israel’s guilty of “genocide”.

-on the other ,while chants and signs like these are completely fine. Calling for the death of all Jews is fine, Jews can’t speak out without being called a genocidal murderer or a slew of other antisemitic slurs.

-I’ve been personally called all of these things simply for identifying online as a Jewish Israeli woman, or for saying “Israelis shouldn’t die” and “release the hostages”. The bar for being cussed and harassed is that low.

Tldr- These dangerous chants , slurs and death threats have been increasing since October 7th, and it feels like it was just an excuse .

The double standard is astounding. Don’t be a dick to Jews, and educate yourself about what you’re saying.

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rainbowsky · 2 months

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GG and DD and queer representation

As some of you might be aware, Greece has finally legalized same sex marriage. This was very exciting news!

I had an ask related to the Greek marriage equality debate and had begun drafting a response but ended up getting sidetracked, and by the time I got back to this post marriage equality had already won.

I figured I'd finish this response because it covers some ground that newer turtles might find useful (and because I hate leaving things like this unfinished).

@rozanthi asked: Πιστεύετε πως οι χελώνες βοηθούν η δυσκολεύουν τους ggdd στην σημερινή πραγματικότητα;

Hi rozanthi!

Here's the rest of the ask(s) rozanthi sent.

rozanthi asked: Sorry l put my question in English and not in Greek by mistake. Do you thing that turtles benefit or harm ggdd in today's sircumstansies, reality. I apologize if in someway l offended you with my question about turtles and ggdd. Maybe that is the reason why you didn't answer. But you see, in my country(Greece) these few last months, a debate is going on in our parliament about voting to make political marriage between people of the same gentre legal. There has been a lot of fight and tension from our church and people with no manners or Shane minds. I asked you that question because l support ggdd as a couple in a relationship as barriors of a message as pioneers of something important for China to accept. And l wanted to know how much public support in the form of turtles help them along or make it more difficult. Here as more we support homo. homosexuality we bring thanter and more hate. In February we will know if we made a baby's step in out parliament. Support your ggdd in any way you see tat you really help them and not making it worse on them. They need support Ln the most gentle delicate way. Thank you for baring me.

First of all, it's OK to send me an ask in another language. Don't apologize for feeling better able to express yourself in your first language. I can always machine translate and ask for clarification when I feel I'm missing something (and the asker can clarify if I get anything wrong). Although I think you've done an adequate job of communicating your question here in English.

Second, as I've said many times, people should never read anything into whether I answer their ask or not. It's almost always just a result of me picking easier/quicker questions to answer.

Now, to address the ask.

Your question reflects some misconceptions/misunderstandings about GGDD's situation and about what turtles represent. Some of the topics you're discussing here are not directly related, and I'm going to try to break them down into their component parts for you.

The first and most important thing I can say to you is (and this is really, really key to understanding GGDD and understanding what turtles are in China):

GG and DD are not representatives of the queer community, and turtles are not a political movement.

Quite the contrary. I think it's fair and accurate to say that GG and DD, and by extension turtles, actively take steps to avoid being seen as part of a political movement, queer movement, protest movement or human rights movement.

(In fact, unfortunately many turtles are actually not particularly LGBTQ-friendly, don't support queer rights or gay marriage, and don't even consider GG and DD to be gay/queer. Many believe GG and DD are only 'gay' for each other, which is homophobic and a reflection of poor sex education).

It's essential for their own safety that GG and DD are not seen as political movement in China, or as figureheads of the queer rights movement. The Chinese government and even a sizable percentage of the public at large tend to take a very dim view of anyone who tries to organize and rally around subversive political causes.

Especially the current government, which is very repressive and has been rolling back LGBTQ rights and freedoms and cracking down on queer orgs, shutting down LGBTQ outreach organizations, etc. Pride events and large public gatherings are treated as disruptive protest movements, and have been banned.

There are queer male turtles in China who actively avoid openly identifying as turtles in order to protect the fandom from being seen as a queer rights movement.

Turtles are a fandom and are categorized and treated that way both by turtles and by passersby. Just a fandom of 'cute young girls' clowning over some handsome boys they ship together.

It's important that it stays that way. GG and DD cannot be seen as leading a movement, they cannot take on the role of leading a movement, and many turtles would likely not even support such a movement.

That's not because GGDD are queer, by the way - although under the current government queerness is becoming in some ways more restricted and frowned upon at least from an official perspective - it's because political movements are frowned upon*.

*That's not to say that Chinese people don't organize or protest around certain causes, but those causes tend to be more municipal or limited in scope. Broader political movements - especially ones that appear to stand against the policies of the current regime - are generally very quickly quashed.

That's also not to say that GG and DD aren't hugely inspiring to queer people all over the world, because they are.

GG and DD do not even present themselves as queer.

This is important to keep in mind. GG and DD are closeted, and are assumed by the public at large to be straight single men. 'Eligible bachelors'. This is a double-edged sword, but ultimately it protects them and protects their careers. Top stars are a lot more marketable if there's a perception of romantic availability, and relationships - even relationship rumors - can have a massively negative impact on a star's career.

Even straight married stars hide their relationship status and present themselves as single for this same reason, and straight married celebrity couples - even ones who are out as being married - who attend industry events will often pretend not to know each other in public (sound familiar?).

Coming out as (or being outed as) married or in a relationship is viewed as career suicide, and a star's numbers, opportunities and popularity will plummet. Not always, but usually. Producers and backers know what sells, and married stars just don't sell as much as hot singles do. Fans will pursue stars that appear to be single, and drop them when they marry or come out with a relationship.

Heteronormativity means the vast majority of people in China will assume GG and DD are straight, and GG and DD will not 'correct' them on that. Quite the opposite, they go along with and even at times might say or do things that help feed the perception that they're straight.

There are almost no LGBTQ public figures in China, and those who are out are not top stars.

As international fans, what we do and think doesn't matter much.

Things that happen in the international fandom are largely irrelevant to people in China, and are almost never going to have any impact whatsoever on GG and DD. What we think about them and what they represent to us is of little consequence to their careers.

For example, the ongoing i-fan debate about colored light banners is a bit of a wank because nobody in the international fandom is ever likely to be at an event where we would have to make decisions about what color of light banner to bring. Our thoughts about colored light banners are utterly irrelevant to the fandom in China.

It's really easy to lose sight of that as an international fan, and get so caught up in and wrapped up in our own ideas and arguments and debates that we forget that nothing we say do or think really has any relevance to GGDD's lives.

Our support for their projects and merchandise and brands, our subscriptions to platforms to view their dramas, our movie tickets, our fan support when they travel internationally... these things do have an impact on them and do matter, but the opinions and political ideas that we might discuss and debate here on Tumblr or even on Twitter are highly unlikely to ever reach their circle or directly impact them, whether positive or negative.

There are some notable exceptions to this. Making candy out of nationalistic posts - particularly posts about events of national mourning or major political significance - is unwise and could potentially backlash on them. More about that in this series of posts from Pie.

I talked about some of the other harmful things we should be avoiding in this post.

But the idea that anything international fans might do or say as turtles might negatively impact GG and DD is - for the most part - not a reflection of reality.

There are valid reasons to believe GG and DD value turtles and take strength from our support.

This fandom has been around for 6 years, and in all that time GG and DD have never sought to shut it down. Other dating rumors, CP, etc. have been shut down over the years, but turtles continue to be the top CP in China and the fandom is constantly growing.

GG and DD have been caught on camera many times reacting positively to turtle light banners.

LRLG rumors - which many turtles believe hold a lot of credibility - have repeatedly depicted GG and DD as enjoying our support, and have at times directly expressed GG and DD's appreciation and gratitude to turtles for our support.

Despite the fact that this fandom is hugely controversial among GG and DD's solo fans and even among some passersby, GG and DD and some of their associates continue to regularly feed us candy. This is something that simply would not happen if we didn't have GG and DD's support.

If we believe BJYXSZD, then it only follows that turtles would mean a lot to GG and DD.

There is a fine balancing act between GGDD and turtles, where we show our support and they feed us, and we all try to keep things light and fly somewhat under the radar.

But turtles aren't 'under the radar at all'. Turtles are an incredibly active, vibrant, loud fandom in China, with big events and public charity work and fan activities and banners and billboards, etc. etc. However, they manage to fly under the radar because they're 'just fans'. They're not a political movement and they're not troublemakers. They're just a bunch of fans having fun together.

They also fly under the radar by being seen as a crazy fringe group, a bunch of deluded clowns. They are underestimated and dismissed because of this, which protects GG and DD.

A lot of turtles wear that proudly because they know that they're acting as a shield for GG and DD. Turtles make it possible for GG and DD to get public support for their relationship without having their relationship outed. Turtles take all the hate and ridicule that's piled on them, so that they can show GG and DD they're loved and supported.

This is one of the things about turtles that is most beautiful and powerful. Turtles stick their necks out every day to support and protect GG and DD.

I talked about that in more detail in this post.

I hope this helps give some context about queer issues as they relate to GG and DD, and to the turtle fandom as a whole. While many people inside and outside China support GGDD and are inspired by them and view them as queer icons, the way they are framed and discussed will differ wildly between the Chinese and international fandoms, and what is said outside of China won't have much of an impact on GGDD. That's for the best.

For my thoughts on the politics of all this, please see this post.

#bjyx #yizhan #ggdd in the public eye #bxg perspectives #bxg ggdd #lgbtpride

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reasonsforhope · 3 months

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Upcoming Blog Thing

So I'm currently in the process of making a sideblog-for-a-sideblog for Reasons for Hope.

The idea is to use it to post mostly links/info on direct action (how to's, petitions, official government calls for comment on proposed policies, protests, info about cool things other activists are doing, etc. etc.) that doesn't fit on a good news blog. Plus informational/awareness posts, and my own activism and thoughts and takes about things that sometimes really, really do not belong on a good news blog. Or that half belong on a good news blog and half really don't, and the like.

The idea is also to create an official "format" for submissions so that people can send in posts without me having to take the time/spoons to make new posts out of ppl's asks and dms (this takes sooo much time sometimes). Then, if successful, do a similar thing for submissions on Reasons for Hope, bc I do want to make posts about lots of things ppl send me, but it would be way too much to do myself all the time.

I'd still be verifying everything and applying editorial standards, in both cases. I actually already wrote up most of an editorial standards policy for the new sideblog, too. It would include verifying and listing the sources and dates for everything, at a minimum.

I've been thinking about going ahead and doing this for quite a while now, but I finally decided I needed to go for it because uh. I just found out about something absolutely, completely fucked up that happened to my grandparents (and a lot of other people). And while I am planning to get involved in organizing about it in real life around the relevant issues (or at least flyer the shit out of relevant neighborhoods), I really need to be able to use what platform I have to talk about this - along with other issues - so I have somewhere to channel my rage and grief into activism

(You will hear more about what happened when the sideblog goes up, if you want to see know. For now, let's just say that it's been a really intense 48 hours.)

Also you know I actually have a small-to-moderate platform here and that's a hell of a lot more ability to reach people than I tend to have in person, esp with ~life~ and ~working~ and my disability shit

So yeah, heads up you have that to look forward to (if you want to engage). And there will be unique tags to filter for people who want to see the links to actions and organizing info without seeing the info about fucked up stuff.

Because I am firmly of the opinion that people can and should be able to engage with that kind of content only where and when they feel up for it, if they want, and especially if they're really struggling with spiraling over the state of things.

Anyway, let me know in the notes if there's anything you would particularly like to see from the upcoming sideblog. (I make no promises but would value information on this!) And if you have any thoughts on what I should call it because I haven't been able to figure out something satisfying yet.

#not news #me #direct action #activism

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wishingmyhairred · 1 year

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Loockwood Fandom: PLAN OF ATTACK!!!

I have been a part of 2 major campaigns to save my favorite shows plus contribute to some minor ones. It took years for us to save the shows which was only possible because they were animated. Everything we are doing now was also done back then. But Lockwood is live action with aging actors/actresses; it has to be save sooner. We won our battle back then but this one will be harder. However, we have one golden opportunity that other campaigns did not have.

Let me lay the field down for you. If you google Netflix cancellations you will see dozen of articles written over the years and you would basically be reading the same article over and over: Despite high viewership and reviews Netflix cancels another show, does not advertise/promote enough, does not want to pay residuals for shows past 3rd seasons, Fans/subscribers not happy, and criticism about Netflix playbook and questioning it’s wisdom. Not to mention that Damn quote “we have never cancelled a successful series”. You can also find articles of Fandoms efforts trying to save the show just like us. But it’s become the Same article over and over. We need something new to be reported on.

You know what is also being reported? The WGA strike. With the strike going in to it’s 3rd week most of the basic reporting is done and now it’s just repeat of picket lines. But we can change the narrative. We can give the news something new and different to report on.

There is a WGA strike fund you can donate to support the strikers but more importantly you can tribute your donation to someone. Someone named Lockwood & Co.

It doesn’t have to be a large donation. Let’s say we get 400 fans to donate $5 (+transaction fee) in tribute to Lockwood. That’s $2000 US and 400 tributes. Now let’s say those same fans do this 4 days in a row. That’s $8000 in funds plus 1600 tributes. This might gain attention by the WGA and strikers. They might feel compel to comment on it. They might want to say something about it as they stand protesting in front of Netflix. And there’s your new Headline.

Entertainment blogs will report how the growing frustration of Netflix cancellations has now lead to donations to WGA. The movement will hopefully gain traction and more news will be written. Other fandoms might join in for revenge of their cancellations. If we are successful a news broadcast is done showing the picket line but also showing clips of the show. That will get the show attention it’s never been given before. Attention that will hopefully get it back on the Top Ten. That would be another headline and even more attention.

You can click here to make the donation. But don’t forget to Tribute to Lockwood & Co.

Edit to add the lowest donation you can make is $5.

Make any size donation you want (don’t forget the transaction fee). Make a one time small donation. Make a large donation. Make multiple small donations.

It would really help if other people can blast this idea on other social media platforms. Make Memes, videos, TikTocks, Instagram posts, etc.

A lot of people are hurt by Netflix cancellations but Netflix has never cared no matter how many angry letters, comments and posts are made. It's the same old song and dance. But now We actually have a chance to hurt Netflix back in a way it never has been. Let the cancellation of Lockwood & Co be the straw that broke the camels back. Lets be reckless enough.

#save lockwood & co #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #lockwood and co fandom #lockwood netflix #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #george karim #locklyle #just reckless enough

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fahbee · 8 months

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Theory: Why did Aziraphale agree to the Arrangement?

There's two moments in Aziraphale's and Crowley's history together that we haven't seen yet, that I think have the potential to change the way we see them and their relationship to each other.

They are: The Fall and the Arrangement.

This post is about the latter.

[Slightly edited because I completely forgot the Good Omens book states that the Arrangement began "somewhere around 1020".]

Here's what we know about the Arrangement:

It started around 1020.

By the time of 1601 it had been in place long enough for them to have used it "dozens of times". I take this to mean at least 30 times, but probably closer to at least 50 times. I assume that the upper limit is likely under 200, else I would have expected Crowley to say "hundreds of times" rather than dozens.

The parameters of the Arrangement are that they "stay out of each other's way" and "lend a hand, when needed." It involves both of them performing blessings and temptings.

Crowley proposed the Arrangement under the justification of convenience. No sense for both of them to be uncomfortable in damp places only to cancel each other out, etc.

Aziraphale rejected the Arrangement because he didn't want to lie to Heaven. This was centuries after Aziraphale already lied to Heaven in order to save Job's children, so we know the problem isn't with the act of lying itself.

From this, we can deduce that Aziraphale is willing to lie to Heaven/other angels when he considers the matter important and/or righteous enough, and that sparing himself inconvenient travel and accommodation, etc does not rise to that standard.

By 1601, we know that Aziraphale no longer worries about lying to Heaven ("dozens of times now") but that Aziraphale does worry about the risk to Crowley if Hell were to find out what they're doing. "They would destroy you." Yet this protest seems more like a routine warning than a truly serious objection, and Crowley rolls over it easily. "Nobody ever has to know."

While it's possible that Aziraphale could have changed his mind about the Arrangement solely due to decades (centuries?) of Crowley asking him to reconsider every time they encountered each other while on the job, that would be a boring waste of an opportunity for character and relationship growth. IOW, I don't see Neil choosing to write that Aziraphale finally decided to go along with the Arrangement just because he got tired of Crowley asking.

No, the better, far more satisfying choice is for something to have happened that changed Aziraphale's mind. And it couldn't have been something to do with the actual work of the blessing and tempting. In 1601, the job involves a few minor blessings and tempting a clan leader to steal some livestock - nothing at all like the life-and-death, killing-children-to-win-a-bet circumstances which led Aziraphale to lie to Heaven for the first time.

There has to be some other reason then for why Aziraphale grows comfortable enough with lying to Heaven that it doesn't even warrant a mention as a token protest in 1601. But what does merit a mention? "If Hell finds out... they'll destroy you." Crowley's safety.

So what could possibly be so important, so righteous, as to justify not only lying to Heaven on the regular, but also risking Crowley's very existence? What could have possibly happened to make the Arrangement, with all its attendant deceit, risk, and danger, something that Aziraphale willingly participates in, over and over and over again, for centuries?

My theory? He does it for Crowley's happiness.

We know that as far back as 3000 BC at the flood/Noah's ark, Crowley had no stomach for the death of children. 500 years later he defines himself as a demon who goes along with Hell as far as he can and killing Job's kids (both human and goat lol) is going too far. He not only refuses to kill them, he performs miracles to save them and return them safely to their parents. And before Aziraphale figured out the trick with the goats, Crowley was clearly determined to keep his actions secret from both Heaven and Hell.

I think Aziraphale finally agreed to the Arrangement in order to give Crowley an excuse to do good. I think something happened in 1020 to make Aziraphale realize that Crowley sometimes needed to do good, but couldn't allow himself to do good unless he had an excuse for it.

The Arrangement is just another dance between them, another ritual they perform for seemingly plausible reasons but which actually has a much deeper meaning behind it. On the surface, the Arrangement allows them to cut down on redundant and/or unpleasant tasks. It's true purpose though, in my opinion, is to give Crowley the excuse he needs - even if it's just to himself - to balance out his demonic work with good deeds. Either Aziraphale does his tempting for him and he's spared from having to do evil deeds at all, or he does his own tempting but gets to cancel it out by doing blessings on Aziraphale's behalf.

Does Crowley realize it, though? I don't know. Prior to s2 I would have said of course he does. But we know now that Crowley has a huge blind spot when it comes to Aziraphale. He didn't even realize how clearly, obviously in love with Aziraphale he was until Nina bashed him over the head with it. Aziraphale's motivations and feelings, especially as regards Crowley himself, seem to be a complete mystery to Crowley. It would not surprise me to learn that Aziraphale made up some flimsy excuse for why he changed his mind about the Arrangement, and Crowley simply accepted it and never questioned it further.

In conclusion, I think Aziraphale entered into the Arrangement for Crowley's benefit whether Crowley realizes it or not.

#Good Omens #good omens meta #about 'the arrangement'#crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #aziracrow

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outivv · 1 year

Text

— Sneaking in —

Synopsis: sneaking into their dorms!! For… different reasons that barely correlate to actually sneaking in :’)

Warnings: Idia being sick lol, not proofread

Characters: Sebek, azul, jamil, rook, and Idia

Pronouns for reader: gender neutral/ not mentioned

A/n: hello!! I know I have a lot of requests to finish but I couldn’t focus with this idea in my head :’). So!! I’m quickly writing this then back to requests >:O. I’ve been posting a lot of twst recently, so I do apologize for the people who follow me strictly for genshin content, I do hope you’re hanging in there OAVEJEG anyway, hope you enjoy!! And take care of yourself!!

— Sebek —

You carefully snuck through the diasomnia form hallways, the creaking of the floorboards were the only thing that could give you away. That or the loud opening of sebeks door, and his head peaking out, with a large comical scowl, and frown on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but thought against it as Lilia’s room was right across from his own, and he didn’t want to wake Lilia of all people. So he grabbed your arm, and hurried you inside his room.

“You were so loud I could hear you open the front door.” Sebek said his hand sliding down your arm, to carefully grab intertwine his hand with your own. “Nuh uh!! I was super careful!!” You protested. He scowled even harder, but despite that he was somehow very… docile this evening. He caught himself before shouting, he’s very gentle with his hold on your hand, he even asked you to sneak into his dorm, even though the curfew is 10pm and it’s currently 11pm, which all give the vibe that he’s not quite his usual self tonight.

“Sebek? Are you ok?” You squeeze his hand, which is still holding your own. He hums in response, his demeanor very… shy, and even embarrassed. You laugh a little, at how your big, half fae crocodile, loud, boyfriend is acting all… shy. It’s cute, you wouldn’t tell him that, but you know… he’s cute!! “I know you didn’t ask me to sneak in here without a reason.” You say, grabbing his other hand. He mumbles something completely incoherent as a response. “What was that?” You tease, even if it was a genuine question.

“I said… I just missed you.” His pointy ears turn pink, as his eyes meet your own. Ahh, now this makes more sense. Of course with the overblotting, and events, and etc etc, Malleus has been busy, which by extension means Sebek has been busy. Barely has any time to see you even, and he hates that, even if he doesn’t want to admit it because while he isn’t with you, he’s doing his duty and protecting Malleus. But, he can’t help himself, he misses you. You sigh, “alright c’mere.” You say, dragging him over to his bed, and laying down with him, beginning to talk about mindless things like you usually do.

— Azul —

“Thank you jade.” You say politely, as jade closes, and locks the mostro lounge doors again. “Of course.” You look over the massive box you’re holding, to try and make your way towards azul’s office. Getting close to the doors you can hear Floyd doing his agreed upon job, and distracting Azul so he’d stay in his office longer than usual. You creak open the door, and neither Floyd nor Azul could see you over the again, very very large box you were carrying.

Floyd rushes over to help place said box on the coffee table in the middle of the office. “Delivery forrrrrr… the prettiest boy in the world!! A-k-a the birthday boy!!” You say with a cheeky smile, thankfully for Azul Floyd has already left the room, saving him from the embarrassment. Well… you can’t really save completely, his face already turning red, as he bites down on his lip to stop himself from smiling. “What are you doing? I thought we were going out for dinner.” Azul says as he walks over to where you’re standing by your box.

“Well, maybe that was a lie to get you to think we were doing that when in reality…” you proceed to open said box, lifting it up to reveal a beautifully decorated cake. “We’re having cake for dinner!!” Azul think over how… unhealthy that is, but before he can get worked up ok how own thoughts you’re already sitting him down and lighting his candles. “You really got jade and Floyd in on this to help you sneak in?” Azul questioned, intertwining his pinky with yours. “Of course, as long as I give them some cake”

— Jamil —

“What are you doing?” Jamil asks as he suddenly appears right behind you. You jump away from your spot peering around the corner, your hands find their way to grasp the over the shoulder bag you were carrying. They have very valuable goods in I’ll have you know!! “uhhhhhhhhhhhh sneaking… into… your dorm?” You say it like a question. Jamil quirks an eyebrow, “really?” “Yes really!! That’s what I was doing before… you caught me” your demeanor goes to shy, and embarrassed real fast, which jamil chickened at a bit.

“You know you could have just… used the front door.” Jamil comments. You sigh, resting your hand ok your hip, and tsk at his naivety, “now now jamil. You know it’s less fun that way. Plus I wanted to surprise you!!” He crosses his arms, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “oh? And why would that be?” Your face flushes as you suddenly remember why you came here.

“Well… I uh-“ you open up the bag you had with you, and carefully pull out a small bouquet you had with you “I actually wanted to give you this!!” You hold it out in front of you, a bright and almost innocent smile spreading on your face as you outstretched your arms. Jamil carefully holds the bouquet, looking at it confused, he’s never gotten such a thing from someone… what exactly does this mean? Do you feel the same way for him? Or is it a… friendly gesture amongst friendly friends for friends. He’s not sure. The more he stares at your gift the more your face reddens. “If… you don’t like it that’s fine, I know it’s not really a uh… what’s the word… hmm… practical? Gift?” Jamil now looks up from the flowers “No no it’s just… never mind, thank you. I appreciate it.”

— Rook —

You casually walked through the halls of Pomefiore, you were just gonna meet up with epel for some studying!! Nothing more!! And yet… “ah Mon cherie!! Were you trying to surprise me with your presence?” Rook said as he quickly revealed himself behind the corner, a sharp smile on his face. You step back and scream, obviously surprised by his appearance, rightfully so too!! “Holy sh- rook?!”

He tilts his head, and fully steps away from the corner, walking towards you, and taking your hand in his to kiss it tenderly. Your face bursts into a fit of blush, but also still shock from him startling you, “hey!! No flattery.” Rook looks at you, still with that same sharp close mouthed smile, “Hm, I do apologize for scaring you, but I just couldn’t help myself”

Rook leans against the wall next to him, “I thought you were sneaking up on me, oh how scary that would be” he fakes being dramatic, for a little added flair. “No, I’m just going to study with epel.” You tilt your head, clearly confused. “Oh now you’re even choosing epel over me, oh my!!” “What do you mean??” You respond, very clearly confused on how he keeps pulling random scenarios out of thin air “oh I can’t believe my beloved dear, is hanging out with someone other than me in my own dorm!!” You sigh and start walking to epel’s room, with rook still tailing behind you like a dramatic puppy. God this study session is gonna be obnoxious.

— Idia —

The ignihyde halls are usually very empty, as the echos of your footsteps are played over and over again. There’s not many students in ignihyde, and the ones that are here typically find themselves in their room, or on campus. Either way, meant you got to sneak into the dorms easily, well… after you notified ortho before hand (ortho is ignihyde equivalent of Cerberus prove me wrong).

Now, all you had to do was… not startle Idia, should be easy enough. You knocked on his door, and slowly opened it after hearing him groan. Upon entering you saw him huddled in a blanket, his face illuminated by the screen of his pc, and screen. “Hey.” You say, and you can hear a little squeak, and see him jump a bit in his chair. “What… are you doing here?” Idia says turning around, with a sniffle. You shrugs and say, “well I thought I should cheer you up.” You hold up a bag you were carrying, “I brought candy, that new game you’ve been wanting, and I even brought a copy for myself and my console. Oh and more tissues and medicine, cause you look all… drippy.

It’s funny how whenever Idia gets sick, it’s ortho who calls you for help. Idia was miserable this whole day so far, until you snuck in, and decided to take care of him. Idia, snuggles again, the tops of his hair turning a bright shade of pink, “thanks…” he mumbles, he is truly thankful for everything!! He just… god you make him so nervous, and so happy all at once. You walk over and hand him the box of tissues, “of course. Anytime.”

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