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holden-caulfield · 3 years

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What If I Don't Want You To?

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REQUESTED: "Hii! I saw that you wanted people to leave kaz requests in your asks so here I am! Could you do a ff in wich the reader is a part of the crows and she's really sarcastic and flirty (similar to jesper) and she constantly flirts with kaz, (he acts like it doesn't affect him but he secretly loves it) and one day she does something especially bold that makes him blush madly and they finally admit their feelings for each other (also a lot of teasing of the crows to kaz pls) thank you so much!"

SUMMARY: reader loves to tease kaz but is scared once she realizes she might have gone too far.

WARNINGS: a mention of blood but nothing graphic

WORD COUNT: 1422

Kaz was the most closed-off person you knew. He never revealed anything, wether it was his feelings or the details of a new plan, and it enraged you. That's why you took it upon yourself to see just how far you could push him.

Flirting with Kaz Brekker wasn't an easy task, nor was it rewarding but it sure was fun. The crows loved to see which new technique you would have used and what effect it would have had on Kaz. It was usually a simple glare; a snarky comment when you were lucky. Bets were made on his reactions and you soon became a part of it.

"What are we thinking today, Y/n?" started Jesper while walking you down to the club, "I'm betting on a smirk."

"A smirk?!" you asked surprised, "I'm not even sure Kaz can smile..."

"He can, i've seen him once. I thought i was dreaming but when i pointed it out, he glared at me. I knew it was real when he whacked me with his cane." stated Jesper, shivering at the memory. You couldn't help but laugh at his theatrics. "Why do you do it, by the way?"

You took a moment to answer, suddenly serious again.

Truth was that all the innocent flirty comments you made −comments that started out as nothing more than a pastime− soon changed something in you. They were becoming truthful, and seeing Kaz answer with nothing but a dismissive comment was not easy. Trying to evoke feelings in him, inadvertently awoke feelings in you. Feelings for your boss that you shouldn't have had.

"Do i need a reason? It's fun, why do you talk to yourself in the mirror when you think no one's watching?" you retorted, raising eyebrows in genuine question.

"First of all, you shouldn't have seen that. Second of all, you should try it, you'd feel much better afterwards." he said simply and you tried restraining the smile that inevitably made its way on your face.

You entered the club which was, as always, in full swing. Several people were already ordering at the bar all kinds of alcohol while many others were betting all their possessions at the tables. Only the dregs knew that the real bets were being placed under the tables.

"Ten that he doesn't say anything." you heard someone whispering.

You were the newest of the dregs and of the crows, but you had already earned yourself a reputation.

"Twenty that he finally kicks her out." another voice from somewhere in the club.

That one made you shiver. Would he really reach a point where he would fire you? You were a useful member, you wouldn't have made it into the crows if you weren't, but were you too much? Would he eventually get tired of you?

You walked over to your usual table with Jesper to meet Inej. Kaz wasn't there yet and you were really thinking of ending it there, no more flirting, no more jokes. This was your job, nothing else.

"What do you have for us, boss?" asked Jesper as he saw Kaz approaching.

He looked as he always does: black refined clothes clinging to him in an assortment of sharp edges, making him look even more direful to new merchants. He looked dashing the way a raging sea at night is; frightening, yet enticing. And that was wrong, you reminded yourself.

"It was a dead end." he said, sitting down.

He was in a gloomy mood, certainly for the news, and even though you knew you would have let down the whole club, you couldn't help but think of the comment you had heard moments ago.

"Twenty that he finally kicks her out."

You loved working and simply being with the crows and the possibility of being kicked out was positively frightening.

But you couldn't simply stop. Everyone would have noticed something was off, he would have noticed. And then what? He would have known you liked him.

You had to do something big, something he couldn't simply ignore. You might have been out of the dregs for good, or maybe not.

Jesper kicked your shin under the table, making you focus back on the real word and motioning at all the dregs in the club, looking expectantly at you.

Kaz and Inej were now talking about something you weren't quite getting, their voices seemed distant as you tried to forget about everyone's eyes on you. You had made it a thousand times already, you could do it once more.

"So, what are we going to do now?" asked Jesper and Kaz leaned back in his chair.

"I have some other leads we can try, but we'll have to split up." he started, the prospect of new kruge in his pockets making him incredibly more cheerful, "Jesper, Inej heard something about a particularly pricey painting in east stave, she'll bring you there and you'll learn more about it. And Y/n," he began and you perked up.

It was your moment to say something and get it over with.

"We'll go to west stave, i need your help with a lead there."

"Oh, you need me?" you said, your tone excessively teasing.

"That's what i said, but i can ask Inej." he replied drily.

You hesitated but you were not one to back down, especially not in front of one of Kaz's passive aggressive comments.

"But then you wouldn't get to stare at me longingly while i work, would you?" you said, pouting slightly.

You could have expected a retort, a glare, a not-so-nice hand gesture, but not him storming out of the club.

The entirety of the dregs was dumbfounded, Jesper and Inej, who never participated in the bets but still knew about them, were agape. You were mortified.

"Maybe," began Inej, "You should go talk to him."

"And meet my demise?" you asked.

"There must be a reason why he stormed out-"

"Yes, that he would have liked to kill me but blood stains are tough to remove." Jesper laughed but you were quite serious.

You got up either way, you had to explain yourself to him, you owed him at least that, and got out.

You found him not so far from the club's entrance, leaning on the railing over the river. You approached him unsurely.

"Kaz." he didn't turn around, so you got closer to the railing and noticed that his face, even in the night with the palest light of the street lamps, was scarlet. "I'm- i'm sorry, i will stop."

He remained silent.

"That is if you still want me in the crows, if not i'll leave tonight obviously." he turned to you, usually-perfect hair now slightly tousled, face still red and unreadable.

"Why wouldn't i?" he asked.

"I'm always teasing you and i figured you hated that. I will stop."

"What if i don't want you to?" your head perked up and he turned back towards the horizon, but a smirk crept up on his face. He didn't bother hiding it.

"So you can smile?" he rolled his eyes.

"I don't like it when people point out things i obviously do, you should have noticed back there."

Heat rushed to your face and the smile he had plastered onto his face turned into a complacent one.

"It was real? You stare at me longingly?" you asked bewildered.

He looked at you once before turning to the horizon once more, "Obviously not."

But you could sense he was lying.

"Told you he could smile, Y/n!" shouted Jesper from behind you.

You both turned around to find Jesper and Inej surrounded by the dregs and a couple of other clients too, all jostling to get a better look of the scene.

"It'll be hard for him not to, i'm afraid." joined in Inej and you bit your lip to refrain the laughter. Kaz's annoyed expression didn't help you maintaining a straight face.

"I'm not paying you to stand here doing nothing, get back inside." he ordered.

Everyone turned back inside but Jesper and Inej.

"Boss, if Y/n now gets double, just know i'm great at flirting too." stated Jesper as Kaz made his way back to the club, you in tow.

He ignored him and whacked him with his cane. Again. Jesper had now yet another lovely cane story to add to his collection.

"You'll never let him forget it, won't you?" you whispered. Jesper looked at you like a child who had just entered candy land.

"Never."

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#kaz brekker x you #kaz brekker x y/n #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker #kaz x y/n #kaz x you #kaz x reader #grishaverse #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff #shadow and bone #six of crows #kazzle dazzle

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paperanddice · 3 years

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Death scarab swarms are created to guard some of the most cursed places in the desert. No good or noble tomb houses death scarabs, only places of evil. The scarabs sit in a sort of stasis, sometimes burying themselves under a few inches of sand in tomb entrances, other times in false gemstones studding walls or statues. When a living creature appears, the scarabs wake up and begin trying to feast, swarming over the victim and burrowing into their skin to rip them apart from the inside. The individual scarabs in the swarm are around 1.5 inches long, and have dull carapaces stuffed full of rotting meat devoured from their last meal. Hundreds will strip the flesh from a creature's bones at nearly impossible speed, the excess meat overflowing the scarab's bodies to leave a rancid, blood mess.

Originally from Sandstorm. Almost every desert story will have its scarab inspired features, and this one in particular steals elements from the scarabs in The Mummy. Placing them guarding the eternal resting place of a cursed person seems entirely reasonable. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as a spot on the Paper and Dice Discord server, consider backing me there!

5th Edition

Death Scarab Swarm Medium swarm of tiny undead, unaligned Armor Class 14 Hit Points 65 (10d8 + 20) Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft. Str 3 (-4) Dex18 (+4) Con 14 (+2) Int 6 (-2) Wis 13 (+1) Cha 15 (+2) Skills Stealth +6 Damage Immunities necrotic, poison Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, slashing Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained, stunned Senses darkvision 60 ft. passive Perception 11 Languages - Challenge 6 (2300 XP) Distraction. Each creature that starts its turn within 5 feet of the death scarab swarm must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned until the start of its next turn. While poisoned in this way, the creature can't use actions, bonus actions, or reactions. On a successful saving throw, the creature is immune to the swarm's Distraction for 24 hours. Swarm. The swarm can occupy another creature's space and vice versa, and the swarm can move through any opening large enough for a Tiny insect. The swarm can't regain hit points or gain temporary hit points. Actions Bites. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 0 ft., each creature in the swarm's space. Hit: 20 (8d4) piercing damage plus 10 (4d4) necrotic damage, or 10 (4d4) piercing damage plus 5 (2d4) necrotic damage if the swarm has half of its hit points or fewer. Consume. The death scarab swarm targets a creature that's been poisoned by its Distraction trait. The target must succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw or the swarm burrows into the creature's body. The has total cover against attacks and other effects outside the target, and the target takes 21 (6d6) slashing damage plus 21 (6d6) necrotic damage at the start of each of the swarm's turns. If this damage reduces the target to 0 hp or fewer, the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or instantly die, and its body is destroyed. The swarm can't take any action except to exit the target's body as an action.

If the target receives any magical healing, the swarm must succeed on a Constitution saving throw with a DC equal to 13 or the caster's spell save DC, whichever is higher, or be expelled from the target's body. Lesser restoration, remove curse, and similar magic force the swarm to exit the target as well. When the swarm exits the target, it appears in the target's space.

13th Age

Death Scarab Swarm 4th level wrecker [undead] Initiative: +9 Vulnerability: Holy Burrowing Bites +10 vs. PD - 12 damage Natural 14+: The target also takes 5 ongoing negative energy damage. Natural 18+: The swarm burrows into the target’s body (hard save ends, 16+). Until the target saves, the swarm can’t be targeted by any attacks and any ongoing negative damage the target is taking increases by 5 each time it fails a save against this effect at the end of its turns. Whenever the target heals at least 5 hp, it can make a free saving throw with a +5 bonus (ongoing damage doesn’t increase if this save fails). Resist Weapon Damage 14+. AC 18 PD 17 MD 15 HP 56

#D&D #DnD #dungeons and dragons #5th edition #13th age #homebrew #my homebrew #monster #undead #long post

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reading-while-queer · 3 years

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Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

Rating: Mixed Review Genre: Fantasy, Mystery, Dark Academia Representation: -Bi/pan protagonist -Jewish protagonist -Latina mixed race protagonist Trigger warnings: Sexual assault (in scene), rape (in scene), CSA (in scene), graphic violence, murder, drug use, drug abuse, drugging of another person, overdose, domestic abuse, medical abuse, violence by dogs Note: Not YA

Why is it that every time I read Leigh Bardugo, I love the book with a passion...except for one thing that makes me want to tear my hair out?

Here’s what seriously impressed me about Ninth House, Bardugo’s entry into New Adult. The pacing was phenomenal. The measured, perfectly timed revelations of information had me finding excuses to listen to the audiobook - taking extra neighborhood walks, doing extra loads of laundry - because I was so hooked. Then, there’s the worldbuilding. Bardugo managed to walk a delicate line, successfully suspending disbelief while still asserting that eight Yale secret societies do secret magic rituals to the benefit of the oligarchical capitalist machine (we all kind of suspected this was the case, right?). But the best part of the book, the part that had me recommending Ninth House in more than one group chat, was, of all things, the point-of-view jumps.

Rarely are point-of-view switches the star of the show, but I was so excited to see a genuinely original, intrinsic-to-the-heart-of-the-whole-novel use of that technical tool. The point of view jumps crank the volume up on the theme of the whole book. We start with the main character, Galaxy “Alex” Stern; she is the point-of-view character for the present semester during which the principal action of the novel takes place. Her upperclassman and mentor Daniel Arlington (or “Darlington”) is the point-of-view character for the semester before - all because something happened to Darlington. Alex is telling people he’s doing a “semester in Spain,” and all the reader knows is that her explanation isn’t strictly true. The point-of-view jumps being so strict (there is never an Alex perspective chapter during last semester, and never a Darlington perspective in the present) serves to separate the two characters from each other with a really incredible emotional effectiveness. The heart of the novel, for me as a reader, was yearning for these two to be reunited - and all because Bardugo holds the two character points-of-view separate across an unbreachable temporal divide. It’s a powerfully effective technique.

But let’s backtrack. Alex is a 20-year-old high school dropout from the west coast. As the story progresses, we learn that Alex can see ghosts, which is why, despite never finishing high school or getting her GED - or even applying - Alex is a freshman at Yale - contingent on her joining the secret society called “Lethe House” as apprentice (“Dante”) to the current leader of the society, Darlington (the “Virgil”). Lethe House is the governing body of the eight Yale secret societies that practice the magic that keeps the elite in power. These secret societies make books sell, make T.V. anchors charming and compelling, and open portals to other parts of the world - when they aren’t throwing over the top Halloween parties with magic designed to alter one’s perception of reality.

Darlington, by contrast to Alex, seems to belong at Yale. He’s from an old family, and he’s preppy and well-read. Most of all, he loves Lethe House and its history of keeping the secret societies from harming people in their pursuit of magic and power. That is, until he disappears just in time for Alex, only half-trained, to investigate the murder of a girl on campus.

The first three quarters of the novel are fantastic for the reasons stated above. Bardugo’s approach to mystery writing is effective. We have half a dozen suspects, most of whom, as elite ivy league magicians, are at least guilty of some misdeed. Having all your red herrings end up somewhat culpable anyway is a good way to keep your mystery difficult to solve until the end. We were off to a good start.

Unfortunately, in the end, Bardugo made the all-too-common choice to value “surprise” over the most compelling, satisfying solution. So while the reader doesn’t see the ending coming, that is at the steep cost of the ending not being justified by the rest of the book. Bardugo even has to invent new rules of magic off the cuff to justify the ending. When the rest of the book so painstakingly developed the rules of magic in a way that made sense and never felt overly expository, undoing all that effort feels like a monumental waste. And for what did Bardugo undermine all her hard work? A mystery that the reader won’t have all the clues to solve? It’s really okay - in fact, good - if the reader can puzzle out your story. It means your story has symmetry, internal logic, or perhaps, some sort of message.

This is what had me tearing my hair out. I know exactly how I would have written the ending of Ninth House to be the perfect conclusion to a stunning book. I know exactly what the message should have been. Is it somewhat ridiculous to say that Bardugo misinterpreted the message of her own book? Perhaps. But given the out-of-left-field-ending, the theme of the book ends up being a rather cheaply bought “No matter how traumatized you are, you can be a girlboss” instead of the message that the very structure of the novel itself was pointing to since page one: one of companionship, trust, and restoration (frankly, a better message for a novel with a main character who suffers so much loss and trauma. But, sure, “girl power” is a theme...I guess...)

Here’s what I mean by the structure of the novel itself pointing to a different theme. (Spoiler warning for the rest of this paragraph). Because the point-of-view switches in the first two thirds of the novel were used by Bardugo like two magnets being held apart, the only way to create a feeling of resolution was, so to speak, putting the magnets back together: getting Darlington back into the “present.” The degree of disconnect between reader expectations and the reality of the book is comparable to picking up a romance novel only to have the two leads decide to just be friends at the end. Bardugo set expectations - akin to genre expectations - but unfortunately Bardugo kneecapped her first book in the service of the sequel.

And then there’s the trauma. Alex’s backstory wouldn’t be the same without some level of trauma; it’s an important part of her character arc. Even the explicit presence of sexual assault on the page was justified in the case of Alex’s backstory - and I think that is rarely true. But when it came to a side character’s explicit in-scene rape, which was used as a clue in the broader murder mystery rather than treated as a crime in its own right, that tipped me over into feeling the trauma in Ninth House was more excessive than necessary for character development. The resolution to that side character’s rape is oddly cartoonish - like an over-the-top prank rather than justice - and again, the only reason the rape happens to the character is to give Alex more information she needs to solve the plot. Maybe that wouldn’t bother some readers, but for me, a book has to bend over backwards to justify showing me a character being raped. Bardugo does well earlier in the book when depicting Alex’s assault; the assault is the explanation for why Alex doesn’t view magic with the same childish excitement as the rest of Yale, and it’s part of what holds her apart from the entitled secret societies. It needed to be in the book. Everything else was gratuitous.

That said, there’s one thing still to address in this roller coaster of a review, and that is: wait, is this a queer book? I had gone into it assuming that it would be, mostly because all my queer friends were reading it. And the answer is….kind of? Knowing Bardugo’s history with putting queer characters in her books, I’m going to assume she wasn’t baiting when she had Alex claim to have loved a girl in her backstory. Which, in the context of the rest of the novel, would make Alex bi or pan. As a book that a lot of queer fans of Bardugo’s YA have read, or will read, it feels appropriate to review it here.

This was a mixed review from start to finish, but to finish up: if you are thinking about reading Ninth House, go for it! There is so much to like about this book. Take to heart that if you read and liked Bardugo’s handling of sexual assault in her YA titles, you should be prepared to be surprised by Ninth House. It is not the same. I would not have called her handling of sexual assault in Six of Crows, for instance, restrained - but compared to Ninth House, it absolutely is. Despite my strongly worded feelings about the ending, Bardugo left room to redeem herself in the sequel (which, if you ask me, is why the ending was so bad in the first place...). I for one will definitely be reading the sequel the second it comes out.

#leigh bardugo #ninth house #fantasy #mystery #dark academia #not ya #mixed review #bi #reviews only #protagonist of color #jewish protagonist

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toysoldiers-rwby · 3 years

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[CS] 9. Team APCX

Cutting Strings

Characters: Aurora Glade, Penny Polendina, Ciel Soliel, Ashley Xanthic, Winter Schnee, May Marigold Word Count: 4k

Apex. The edge or outcrop of a vein. The highest point of interest, excitement; the climax. The highest point; peak; vertex. The pinnacle of an achievement. The predator surprasing all others, without equal.

Team APCX. Specialization: Search and Destroy.

Read on Ao3

PREV - NEXT

Combat Performance at 78%

The training today was a little different. Or At least it felt a little different. For one, Ciel and Aro was early. Second, May and Fiona was sparing Aro and Xanthic, instead of the usual one on one with their unofficial mentors.

“Will you Happy fucking Huntresses stop giggling!?” Xanthic yelled. Winter and Penny briefly glanced at the doubles fight. Fiona only laughed harder, her Deep Pockets swallowed every hard-light knife Xanthic would create and throw. As an excessive display of skill Fiona even summoned the push knives, throwing it back and colliding with another aimed at her head. “Aaagh! Are you serious Thyme?!”

Penny couldn’t help but to giggle behind her hand. May’s experience and history with Aro put the mechanic at a sever disadvantage. Fiona was already able to cloud Xanthic’s high cognitive functions with both verbal and nonverbal taunts. The pair was hopeless out matched on nearly all levels but awareness, thanks to their cybernetics, and Dust manipulation.

“Aaagh!” Aro’s feet slammed the ground, the immediate area glowing bright with purple Dust. May and Fiona floated off a few feet before vanishing. Arrows lodged out of the ground floating several feet above her. Then it pulsed, arrows shooting down with so much weight it either snapped or logged deep into the metal tiles.

They didn’t hear the sound of flesh and bones slamming onto the floor. Xanthic fired and threw knives into the Field. It disappeared and reappeared to hit the wall. Sometimes there would be a surprised gasp or a taunt, “Oh! That was close.” Fiona would sing. The geniuses was separated and had no intentions of regrouping. In fact… perhaps Xanthic was trying to distance herself from Aro?

“Marigold!!” Aro roared, “I promise I won’t burn ya’ too bad, doll!” Penny’s processors nearly caught on fire as she tried to analyze the sound. It had a deep distorted rumble and an echo. Where did it come from? According to her databanks, feline Faunus could roar but Aurora Glade was a goat.

Aro spun around, embers of smoke and fire slipping past her lips. Penny leaned in, but was held back by Winter. Focus completely engulfed Aro’s eyes. They glowed a bright blue, the pupils a devouring white. There was also a red glow on her face. From the Dust infused jewelry that pierced the bridge of her nose.

May was suddenly behind her. She glanced at Winter then at Penny. Her grin grew larger. Hands reached for those golden cybernetic horns. She winked. Then pulled. Aro gasped, head jerked back and back crashing to the floor. A cloud of fire plumed out of her lips, harmless against May’s Aura. The Huntress laughed. She pinned Aro with a boot to the mechanic’s sternum. The bayonet and notched arrow of her crossbow pointed at Aro.

"You lose, doll." May drawled back. With no signs of exhaustion.

Aro took several deep breaths, embers fluttering from her lips. She eventually relaxed, hands held up in surrender. Focus fluttered off. The glow from the Dust jewelry faded but Aro’s face was still very rosy and red. Without her semblance, Aro didn’t trust the words on her tongue. Penny could see the mechanic work her jaw but it eventually slipped out, “I… disagree…”

“Of course you would,” May grinned. She offered a hand and effortlessly pulled her up- “Duck!” Just to shove her back down.

Across the room Xanthic and Fiona was still fighting. A hard-light arcing off a saber and soaring further into the training room. Penny gasped hands up and Aura bolstering. Instead she was swept off her feet and tackled to the ground, Winter pressing her body tight to the floor.

The arc of hard-light energy was larger than anticipated, that or it was growing as it moved. The wind it dragged behind it nearly lifted Winter off her, but Penny wrapped her arms around the Specialist until it passed.

Winter got to her feet, “Marrow! Ciel!”

The arc of light was definitely growing. By now it was nearly a tidal wave or a wall.

“Shit!” Marrow growled.

“Slow!” Ciel’s Clockwork hit the hard-light attack. It nearly paused in the air, moving inch by inch instead of yards. Without movement it seemed to slowly fade and flicker out, as if a fire was burning through its oxygen. Ciel groaned, Clockwork collapsing just as the hard-light wave completely flickered out.

“Sorry! Sorry about that!” Fiona yelled.

Everyone grumbled and Winter stood. Her hand offered to Penny. She didn’t need the help but showed appreciation for the gesture with a smile. It was a little tricky to control how much weight Winter pulled. When they looked back at the duo Xanthic was a little dazed on the floor with Fiona sitting on her abdomen.

During all the panic, the Aura buzzer went off. Xanthic was at five percent while Aro’s technically good enough to continue with her Aura at fifteen percent. Fiona and May helped their defeated opponents out of the training room.

Winter cleared her throat. She was now a few paces away, sword pointed at Penny with her free hand behind her back. Penny frowned at it. She knew from pre-installed recordings and live observation that the second blade only came out when Winter was challenged. The Specialist had yet to wield the second blade at Penny.

“Shall we continue? Or would you like to forfeit, Ms. Polendina?” Winter taunted. Her smirk wasn’t as guarded.

"I’d prefer it if we continued, Opponent Winter," Penny said. Behind her Floating Array flourished all fourteen components.

Every sparing match with Winter was frustrating and intense but it was the little things that made this different. Winter moved more like Aro, fluid and loose. Almost like water but still not completely free of the stiffness the military had beaten into her. She smiled, taunted, sneered and goateed Penny into several mistakes. The Specialist always commentating on the opening but never actually taking the chance to strike.

Penny huffed, synthetic voice trying to restrain a noise of frustration but only vibrated in her chest. The elite graduates were toying with them. No matter what variable Penny adjusted, her calculations and assessments about Winter and her summons were wrong.

She couldn’t calculate how many creatures Winter could summon. They ranged from a tiny flock of Nevermores to the current pack of towering Alpha Beowolves. They lunged straight forward. All five pierced straight with one sword each in its skull. Five more appearing above her. Penny was forced to doge backwards, her visual sensors barely catching a glimpse of white as Winter entered striking distance.

Her processors were nearly overheating. Multiple swords and guns yet she could not find an opening to strike Winter directly. With simple gestures, summoning Glyphs appeared around Penny. Sometimes close enough that a claw would emerge first, a solid hit chipping away at her Aura levels.

“Stop reacting and force me on the defensive!” Winter yelled.

Penny paused and frowned at Winter. Whatever expression she had stunned the women and her Beowolves for a moment. Theoretically P.E.N.N.Y could take initiative but without any kind of input to create a solution or to even analysis a problem-

“Penny? Penny!” Several voices yelled for her.

Her vision went black for a moment. Under her eyelids Penny could see lines of code and a list of errors. For a moment Penny thought she overheated, forgetting to breath and exhale all the hot air her power unit and Aura generated. The errors did list some heating problem in her processors but the main source of the errors the logical contradiction.

Penny took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Her head still felt hot, and the light seemed too much for her systems so she shut them again and waited a few moments. She did sit up, which was effortless, much to the relief of Winter.

“What happen? You’re Aura level was fine then…” the Specialist paused. She didn’t mutter or mumble, but the soft tone was definitely close to it.

“Cutie dot exe stopped working,” Aro blurted out. Penny frowned, squinting open her eyes to glare at the mechanic. She blushed, ears flickering around in embarrassment. Aro tried to hide behind Focus but that just caused her eyes to flicker. It reminded Penny of the little robotic goat she was still working on, how it processed knew information with blinking lights and tilting it head.

“Please stop being adorable so I can stay made at your for that horrible comment,” Penny grumbled. That had the opposite effect. Aro scoffed, trying to rebuff the statement by crossing her arms and straightening out. The act wasn’t complete due to her red cheeks and nervous twitch of her ears. Thing she couldn’t hide without Focus.

Winter and May sneered and chuckled. Winter handed Penny some water and she gulped it down. Her systems instantly improved, transferring the liquid to her cooling systems and lowering the temperatures in her head.

Fiona and Xanthic didn’t pay them much attention. They were too busy watching the last bout. Marrow and Ciel were tied with both their Aura levels around 50 percent. The Ace Oprative looked nervous and surprised. During all these practices… they haven’t sceen Ciel fight.

Ciel’s weapon of choice was Dust infused chakrams which would let out a powerful explosion on contact with about a minute charge between. Penny’s data was inconclusive. Penny was sure Clockwork was effecting the charging rates and force of the explosion as they rewind through the air to return to her hands.

“Stay!” Marrow’s voice rang out. His semblance stopped one chakram in midair. He turned quickly throwing Fetch to counter the second. Too close. Marrow grunted as the explosion nearly threw him off his feet. He reach out as Fetch made its return to his hands-

“Fast forward” Ciel yelled. Fetch’s speed suddenly increased to a near blur! Penny’s software correctly updated, predating Ciel the winner. Marrow gasped, taking a solid hit to his chest. With his concentration broken the first chakram collided with his back.

Marrow’s aura level was finally below Ciel’s.

One more hit-

“Slow!” Clockwork hit Marrow. The chakram that was deflected by Fetch was in her hands, charging bright with red and yellow Dust. Marrow tried to turn, to face her or to dodge but his speed was nearly halved. He didn’t even see the circular blade collide into his back. Clockwork turned off, sending Marrow flying to the ground.

The buzzer rang with Marrow’s Aura levels at 2 percent.

“Congratulations!” Penny yelled to her teammate. May and Fiona cheered with her. Winter wouldn’t but there were still two more voices missing. Penny frowned and looked at her teammates. Both genius look put out and unhappy for APCX’s only victory.

Xanthic let out an annoyed sigh. “Out of all of us… It was her that won against the graduates,” She grumbled, lightly glaring as Marrow and Ciel walked towards them.

“Perseverance triumphs natural talent,” Winter said. Eyes paused on Aro who signed something at her, "And no effort." Her eyes shifted to Xanthic who did a universal insult gesture with her fist.

Aro sighed, handing Ciel a water bottle. “Congrats…” Aro said. Ciel sneered before taking small sips between heavy breaths.

“I’d like to think she had a good teacher!” Marrow mumbled. His arms were crossed and jaw jutted out in a pout.

“You were brilliant,” May said patting his shoulder. The praise felt more like condolences even to Penny. Marrow only grumbled a little more. “But we got good news for APCX!”

“Oh?” Penny asked tilting her head. It must have been really good if it kept slipping past Winter’s stoic professionalism.

“We might be able to start Team APCX as second or even third years on the Accelerated Program.” Winter said.

“How exactly?” Ciel asked.

“A field test!” May said with a grin. She looked at Aro who was already smiling, “Seems like I finally dragged you on a mission.”

“Only took five years,” Aro rolled her sea-green eyes. “When? My remaining customers are Atlas students so I might be able to hold it off.”

“I’m free.” Ciel said with a shrug. There was a long expectant pause from everyone but Xanthic who nearly seemed amused. Ciel glared at the younger Spymaster, even elbowing her. Xanthic’s broken blue Aura flared cross her body. “You didn’t tell them?”

“Ow! It’s public information!” The hacker said, “Not my fault if the military over looks shit.”

Ciel sighed, rubbing her temples. “I graduated yesterday.”

An awkward silence fell over the graduates. They looked immensely guilty though Penny failed to reason why. Ciel hadn’t requested any special accommodations, just a reasonable request not to be disturbed during class. Aro tapped her chin a little in confusion as well.

“Congratulations? We don’t really have formal schooling in Menagrie.”

“I graduated when I was 14.”

“I think my education would be similar to homeschooling,” Penny finished.

Ciel scowled at her teammates, “And I was the only one that won, so stop showing off.”

Despite May’s reasoning, Ciel refused to celebrate and insisted on continuing to the field test. Upon hearing it was immediate, Xanthic tried persuading Ciel into a small celebration or even small lunch out. With a wicked smirk Ciel refused. Winter and May took some pity and took Team APCX around to buy clothes appropriate for combat outside of the protective walls and heating grid. Fiona and Marrow didn’t accompany them but left for other errands. Ciel didn’t look happy that Winter payed for it but relaxed a little seeing the Atlas Military logo on the credit card.

Xanthic continued to stall, arguing with Aro and Winter about who’s transport to take. Xanthic’s was airship may be the fastest but it was also not equiped for combat. Winter’s was the most durable in the odd chance they ran into flying Grimm but not suited for sustained nights out. Aro was a non-military but due to business trips was equipped with defensive turrets and comfortable living space.

"Tsunami has made it out of several fights with the White Fang, Bandits, and Grimm," Aro argued. “Besides we have two of the best huntresses in Atlas!” Penny tuned the elite’s arguing and antic for while now.

Instead enjoying a calm conversation with May and Ciel.

“Honestly I’m just lucky it was Marrow,” Ciel admitted softly. “He’s a rookie and underestimated me. I think Aro and Xan have it the hardest. You and Fiona was just playing mind games the entire time.”

May huffed playfully, arms crossed over a her chest, “They deserve it!”

“I still think you could have won if you didn’t feint,” Ciel said looking at Penny. Penny heated up, and played with her hands. She was confident in that assessment but so far the statistics were proving her wrong. “You and Winter don’t have years of history, she’s just better and smarter than Marrow.” Penny nodded but couldn’t particularly voice anything.

“Winter right though,” May said. “You need to stop waiting for the first move.”

“It’s difficult,” Penny protested weakly. If there was a pattern Penny could easily plan ahead but Winter had to many variables. And that was without adding the Glyphs.

“You have good instincts,” May ruffled her hair. “List to 'em.” Penny grumbled and pouted.

The arguing trio finally settled for Aro’s airship. The AI was advance enough auto-pilot a course and take off so even Aro could be present during the mission debrief. Though when Penny glanced over to her she wasn’t really paying attention. She frowned, elbowing the mechanic to focus.

Their mission was a simple Search and Destroy. There was a few packs of Sabyrs and Nevermore wandering closer to Mantle and growing in numbers. Team APCX would be clearing them out.

The first Sabyr pack was killed before they had a chance to leave the transport. While May was trying to convince the newly graduated Police Officer to jump out of an airship, hundreds of feet off ground and into a pack of Grimm, Xanthic had created a hard-light sniper canon. Practically a cannon or a railgun. Each shot was powerful enough too jerked the transport a little.

One shot split into three and within a few minutes the pack of Sabyrs fell.

By the end of it Penny’s audio system was on a horrible feedback loop. Her processors frying until she had to reset them. She could only imagine the physical pain everyone else must be in. With the exception of Deaf Aro who was laughing. She weakly seperated May and Xanthic, her head tucked into May’s shoulder as the Huntress made grabs for Xan’s neck.

The hacker grin’s smug grin briefly disappeared and reappeared as she signed, expressions melding into shock that was still sarcastic without words. May tried shouting back but it was garbled and crackling to Penny’s ears. She restarted her audio systems again as May shoved Aro to the side, hands furiously signing insults and other comments. By the time Penny’s hearing was functioning, Winter had walked back into the main cabin.

“Enough,” She sighed. Winter looked slightly in pain. Penny wasn’t sure if the cockpit would have amplified the gunfire or not. “Can you two please play along?” She asked Aro and Xanthic.

“Fight to the best of your abilities but somehow limit yourself so we can conveniently judge you into arbitrary categories!” Xanthic said. Her lively sarcasm and faux cheerful tone making everyone chuckle or giggle. Even Winter.

“I’m trying my best to appease both parties,” Winter explained rubbing her temples again.

“Fine,” Xanthic drawled. “I’ll pretend to be a hopeless damsel.”

The next pack of Sabyr wasn’t much of a challenge. The hardest part was getting Ciel out of the transport.

“Just land near me!” Aro yelled up as she fell.

Penny stood at the edge of the airship, grinning at Ciel’s unease expression. “Aro has masterful control over gravity Dust and your Aura should protect you from further damage.” She said before stepping off. Ciel could soften her landing with her Clockwork, though that would be better tested in a nonlethal scenario.

Far below Aro’s cybernetic legs fired a powerful burst of fire. It cleared the area of Grimm, the Sabyr directly under her now faded into ash. Penny unfolded Floating Array from her pack. She charged it at her leisure, the cold of Solitas allowing for increased power without overheating. All fourteen guns fired at the ground, softening her landing until she angled them forward. Penny intercepted a Sabyr lunging for Aro’s back, two blades slicing it open with a flick of her wrist. Aro hummed. Or purred? Penny would probably need to have a hand on her chest to feel if it vibrated or not.

“I’ll be sure to return the favor, doll.” Her glowing blue eyes winked at her. Above them, Ciel’s scream was increasing in volume while Xanthic’s laugh was much fainter. “Xan probably had to push her out… or May.”

“Or Winter,” Penny mused beside her. Penny sent her blades out again, piercing two creeping Sabyrs and causing the rest to hesitate. Aro stomped on the ground, her metal legs humming loudly as a pulse of gravity Dust engulfed the area. Ciel’s fall slowed when she finally entered the gravity field. She took deep breath’s clutching her chest and flailing to get her feet under her.

Penny helped the official officer land. Then the field shut off and Xanthic slammed deep into the snowy ground, “Ow…” Penny stared at her a little skeptical. It was still at a mildly unsafe height but snow is supposedly soft.

“See! It wasn’t so bad.” Penny smiled at Ciel.

“Yeah, no one of important social value got hurt,” Aro with a Xanthic-eque bored tone. Ciel sneered, it turned into chuckling when Aro lightly kicked the hacker. “Come on. The faster you quit dragging your feet the sooner we can go back to the stuffy kingdom and the nice warm smog and shitty walls.”

“Ugh. Fine.” Xanthic huffed. The hacker finally got to her feet and brushed the snow off her new thick coat. “You’re paying for Ciel’s celebration dinner.”

“We are not celebrating.”

They naturally drifted into pairs of twos. Penny and Aro naturally dashed into the growing horde of Grimm. Penny was the only person able to keep up with Aro and had the close range abilities to defend them both. With hard-light blades being propelled at explosive force, the Sabyrs fell in one hit. Any that tried flanking was pierced, sliced, or shot down by Penny.

Ciel and Xanthic almost seemed bored, taking care of the Grimm from a distance. Whenever Penny was jumped high in the air she could see an undisturbed radius of snow around the pair. Even without Xanthic’s ridiculously overpowered sniper rifle, Team APCX finished the pack faster than expected. Winter landed the airship looking a little flustered and frustrated. May laughed trying to rub her shoulders to calm the women down.

“Maybe we should just drop you on a pack of Sphinx and Manticores,” Winter said under her breath.

“Let’s start with the Nevermores,” May suggested.

The Nevermores was much more challenging. Penny and Xanthic were the only ones with weapons able to reach them. The cold of Solitas made their hides thicker than the average Grimm. If one managed to through the thick layer of ice. Every time Penny would charge Floating Array or Xanthic would fire up Alter Ego, feathers tripled their size would sail at them, interrupting their focus and causing the ground to shake a little at the impact.

“Rewind!” Ciel tried firing those feather back but only managed one hit. The bone of the feather pierced into its wing, crippling its altitude. It screeched loud, causing everyone but Aro to wince.

The mechanic launched herself into the air. Several explosions pushing closer and closer until the injured Nevermore beat its good wing. The gust of air sent Aro flying back towards them but the gravity manipulator righted herself and skid to a stop.

The second Nevermore cried out louder, it’s attacks growing more frantic. A hail of razer sharp and incredibly dense feathers was shot at them. Penny frowned. It had created a clear divide from Aro and her team. Penny tried closing the gap as much as possible. Then the uninjured Nevermore started it’s dive. The snow made it a little difficult, even with it melting against her heated body it was still up to her thighs.

Aro’s passive gravity didn’t cause her to sink into the snow. She stood atop of it, lowering herself to a crouch. Aro flashed a few signs at Penny without glancing in her direction. Then she suddenly moved, jumping onto the talons.

“Aro!” Penny fired Floating Array quickly closing the distance. Aurora held out her hand and just managed to pull Penny onto the Grimm’s feet before it took off into the air again. The metal women took a deep breath, venting all the heat her Aura was generating.

“Sorry, I forgot you don’t know sign language,” Aro said with a guilty smile. They briefly glanced down. The injured Nevermore was grounded, the large feather that Ciel shot back at it made it impossible to fly but it’s ridiculous size made it hard to approach or even damage. “Plans?”

Penny watched the Nevermore screeched, mouth wide open. “Insides are always soft and unarmored.”

“And… red,” Aro said with a blanch. Red was commonly associated with blood. Was Fiona and Robyn’s story about her hemophobia accurate? Penny shelved the question for later.

They made their way to the top of the Grimm. Aro simply ran up it’s curved body, the gravity core in her legs roaring over the hard winds and heavy wingbeats. Penny slowly pulled herself to the head with Floating Array and the near invisible strings.

Once it noticed the two huntress-in-training, the Nevermore screeched and thrashed in the air. It had little to no effect on Aro. Holding onto a Grimm the size of a building was the easiest accomplishment Penny had in months. The mechanic continued up until it reached is jaw. She stomped one foot into the hinge of its jaw and looked at Penny.

“Ready? This might blow me off!” She yelled and signed over the wind.

“Combat Ready!” Penny yelled back.

She heard the cartridge in Aro’s legs change. Then a loud explosion. Penny could even feel the heat from the shoulders of the Grimm. Once the bright flash had died Aro was nowhere to be seem and the mouth was hanging open. Penny winced, happy that Grimm were mysterious creatures void of proper biological functions. The blood would have been horrific. The Grimm screeched and thrashed much more. Instead of charging all fourteen guns of Floating Array she kept four embedded into the bone like-texture, keeping her grounded as the rest of the guns charged.

This blast completely pierced the Nevermore. The sudden silence confused her audio sensors. It fell from the sky and Penny rode the disintegrating corpse down as long as possible. She regrouped with her team, easy to find with a cloud of steam rising from Aro’s heated augments. Ciel and Xanthic had easily finished off the downed Nevermore and seemed to be helping Aro cool off by burying her legs in the snow.

Combat Performance at 95%

#Penny Polendina #fic #cutting strings #pre-fall of beacon #aurora glade #ciel soleil #ashley xanthic #APCX #qued

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piecesarefalling · 3 years

Text

Shipping Thoughts

I have very strong opinions about ships, and can (sometimes) back them up with arguments (sometimes I just like or don’t like things for no particular reason), but ultimately, ships have a right to exist whether I or anyone else likes them or not. It’s totally fine to not like a ship, but it seems really excessive to toss accusations of immorality at a ship or a person. I disagree with the notion that bad relationships should be censored out of existence, and their creators harassed, because they’re bad. Maybe the creator is working through abuse they’ve experienced. Maybe they’re trying to find an outlet for their intrusive thoughts. Maybe they had an idea that they just thought would make a good story.

However, while I mostly agree with the sentiment of “don’t harass people because of what they like or ship,” I do disagree with the notion that fiction has no effect on reality, or that people should always be expected and assumed to keep the two separate. This sentiment does a great disservice to the real-world power of fiction. Popular culture is what spreads ideas to the people, and if problematic relationships are normalized, then this bleeds into the real world - it can cause people who are being abused to assume they’re fine, or cause people with bad thoughts or tendencies to think it’s okay to act on them.

So what am I advocating for, exactly? Well, tagging and content warnings - and in the absence of them, one certainly has every right to criticize and call out the creator. Let me explain.

I have a somewhat smaller range of what I think is problematic in a relationship than some - after all, what is and isn’t unhealthy is often determined by how the relationship is portrayed. For example, I don’t believe relationships with significant age differences, relationships with power differences, or even some incestuous relationships are inherently unhealthy - it is very dependent on how the relationship is written, structured, or drawn. Yes, some relationships with age differences have an older character grooming a younger one, or a younger one acting essentially as an uncaring gold digger. But it’s certainly not always the case. Yes, some relationships with power differences involve the person with power using it to manipulate the person without it, or even if they are unaware of the power they hold, its existence makes the person without power feel as if they are somehow trapped or restrained from being as open as they’d like to be. But once again, if handled carefully, this is not always the case. You can find real-life examples of both of these situations, potentially even people you know.

And even with incestuous relationships, unless the actual relationship is abusive, I don’t really see a moral argument against incest (beyond the fact that the vast majority of people are, uh, not going to be falling for their family members, whether adoptive or blood-related) unless the couple plans to have biological children, which can raise the risk of genetic diseases. My reason for disliking fandom ships with incest is less because of a notion of immorality, and much more because the world has enough problems with misinterpreting how and why people show affection without you trying to interpret *every* show of love among family members as romantic and sexual love. If it’s part of an original story’s plot line? Not my favorite, but bearable. But I find fandom incest (again, adoptive or blood-related) unbearable due to what often feels like a deliberate erasure of the complexities of familial fondness.

So really, when I say “problematic relationships,” what I mean is “relationships that are abusive, manipulative, or otherwise unhealthy” and “relationships that inherently lack consent” (i.e. non-con situations, minor-with-adult - unless the age difference is small and the relationship is non-sexual, and zoophilia/bestiality).

If, however, they are tagged as such, or otherwise described as such, then that serves as a warning - a full admission that the author knows this is problematic, but just needed or wanted to write it for whatever reason. It’s the principle behind “dead dove, do not eat.” While you may dislike them - as I often do - relationships such as these are only deserving of moral criticism if they are not acknowledged as bad, and are thus normalized. But through rating systems, and content/trigger warnings, the author is taking time to acknowledge that these story elements aren’t an ideal to bring into reality, and making sure that their unhealthiness is made known. There can be benefits to this, as well - for example, writing an abusive relationship and saying “yeah, this is abusive” can make it so real-world people realize they’re being abused or taken advantage of when they hadn’t before. This is why I actually wish all mediums had content warnings put in by the creators, as I think that would be immensely useful to everyone in the public sphere.

Basically, the way I see it, everybody’s entitled to their opinions, likes, and dislikes, but don’t go criticizing the inherent morality of a person creating content for a relationship unless you think you can back up why it’s bad in a way that the author did not show that they intended. (And going on the immediate attack, while emotionally satisfying, is never a good way to have an actual discussion.)

#pieces yells into the void #ship #shipping #content warnings #trigger warnings #pro ship #pro shipping #not really pro ship but since I do discuss it #considering how few of my ships are considered questionable by popular debate I'm surprisingly passionate about this but #people shouldn't be treated as bad people if they aren't #and I firmly believe that morality is determined by your actions #not your thoughts and desires

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hardskz · 5 years

Text

indulge.

pairing — hwang hyunjin x genderneutral! reader

genre — smut; dirty talk, masturbation, choking, praise kink, master kink, hand kink, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, hard dom!hyunjin

synopsis — after avoiding hyunjin for weeks because you got off whilst imagining his face, he’s making it clear that you haven’t been the most subtle one when staring at him. alternatively, 5.5k words of hyunjin being a cocky little fucker.

note — today marks the one month anniversary of this tragedy of a blog, so here’s my gift to you all thank you for supporting me <3 please enjoy this pwp monster! i tried to make the reader genderneutral since the original request used they/them pronouns and fuck it was a challenge and idk if it’ll ever do that again. (writing porn without using the words dick or clit or good boy/girl when referring to the reader is hard i dare you and i cringed writing this out kms) in any case, the reader is a bottom in this fic!

Having a crush on your friend’s bandmate is one thing. Being attracted to said bandmate to the point where your underwear grows damp just by looking at him (in real life and on the internet) is something entirely worse.

It’s in the middle of the night when you wake up with your heart pounding against your chest and sweat trickling down your back beneath the loose t-shirt. Your wet dreams have been appearing a fuck times too often and feature the same person over and over again to your dismay. You’re lucky you’re the only one in the house over the weekend because you don’t necessarily want your moaning at 3 AM to be the main topic during breakfast.

Hoping to cool down while recalling the many times Minho has complained about one of his cats pissing on the couch isn’t working this time. In retrospect, thinking about Minho’s weird cat antics in an attempt to get out of the mood has never been completely effective for the past three months. Sure, picturing your best friend ranting with his mouth full of half-chewed Cheetos and getting some crumbs on your lap is a definite turn-off, but the needy wish of getting dicked by a particular bandmate of his still lingers.

It’s been three months since you realized that the horny part of your brain has stopped projecting different guys out of your mental archive of masturbation-material faces. Instead, it casts one incredibly handsome — he’s so handsome he should be illegal at this point, you decide — person in your mind. Every. Fucking. Time.

You’ve been trying to erase him out of your head, but perhaps it wasn’t your brightest idea when you tried searching for a new figure to replace him with a clear vision in mind. It took you approximately two weeks to realize that you were looking for someone with long and nimble fingers and plump lips and just everything that Hwang Hyunjin is.

Because of knowing that fucker named Hyunjin in person, you haven’t had any sexual release for the past three months. Again, it’s one thing to have a crush on your friend’s bandmate, but it’s a completely different thing when you get off on said bandmate and then have to face him every week and pretend like nothing’s wrong. You’re bound to see him at least once a week because Minho always forces you to be the judge of the group’s new choreography because it’s, quote Minho, “crucial to getting the opinion from an outsider.” And that although he knows you’re far from a dancer. (You’ve taken one single dance class because he hauled your ass to his studio before he became a trainee and ever since, you haven’t stepped a foot into the dance studio.)

You see Hyunjin more often than compared to the remaining members of the group. Because of fucking course, he’s part of the dance line and also contributes into making the choreography, so it shouldn’t be so surprising that he’s started to act comfortably around you. To your horror, him acting comfortably also includes being touchy. That being said, he’s developed a habit of throwing an arm around your shoulder or pinching your cheeks to spite you alongside Minho. It’s only a matter of time until you have no other choice but to give in because Hyunjin is getting more casual by the day. Then again, you’re holding off because you don’t want to have a bad conscience and—

Fuck it.

You hesitantly bunch your blanket to the side and slip a hand underneath the waistband of your underwear, shuddering at the slightest pressure and opening your mouth to let out a silent gasp. Fucking hell, three months of no touching has made you so sensitive. You try to take it slow, carefully ghosting around your weak spots as you graze your other hand over the inside of your thighs, a mewl leaving your mouth.

A wet patch has formed in your underwear and you’re leaking so much that it’s enough to coat two fingers in slick. By then, your body has switched to autopilot and before you can process it, a finger prods at your entrance and that’s when you realize there’s no use in beginning slowly but surely.

You pump your finger in and out of you at a slower pace and your body’s reacting to it astoundingly sensitive to your ministrations. Your hips buck up into the air in the hopes of more friction and muffled curses fly out of your mouth without intervention. All sense of reason flies out the window when you curl your finger and graze your sweet spot. At this point, you’re already imagining it’s Hyunjin’s finger teasing you, Hyunjin watching your squirming form with hungry eyes and knowing that you’re at the brink of begging him to hit your spot.

Once you’re fixated on Hyunjin, you don’t hold back any longer. You get rid of your underwear completely and then slip a second finger in, whimpering at the stretch. It’s been so long, way too long of having last felt this way and when you start scissoring your fingers, you can’t help but bring “Hyunjin, f-fuck,” past your lips. Why the fuck did you sentence yourself to a masturbating-to-Hyunjn prohibition in the first place? It feels so much better now that Hyunjin’s name spills out of your mouth like a prayer.

With every passing second, your movements grow more frantic. The sound of skin slapping and slick squelching in you and your ragged breath resound within your four walls. The bed starts to creak a little, the blanket has somehow found its way to the cold floor and all you can think about is an imaginary Hyunjin fingering you in a moderate tempo and reminding you how wet you are for him and how well you’re doing.

Your imagination is running wild to the point of no return. You’re imagining Hyunjin’s forehead covered in sweat as he fucks you over with his hands, imagining his bangs falling above his eyes, imagining his tongue hungrily running over his plump, pink lips as he stares down at you. He’d smile amusedly at your whines, would coo about how much he loves hearing you so vocal and then mark you up in purple bruises. As much as he’d want to let everyone see the hickeys he planted on you, he’d know better and settle for your thighs, forcing you to keep them spread out for him. And even then, you wouldn’t be allowed to cum unless he gives you the green light.

“P-please, Hyunjin—” you whimper as you sense your high approaching and your fingers speed up. The sensation is becoming too much to handle, the idea of Hyunjin looking down at your with a coy smile and mumbling profanities as he rams his long, slender fingers into you and abuses your spot without a break. You’re not entirely sure what he’d say, but you’re sure that whatever it is, it’s downright filthy and sexy and affecting you more than he’d initially expect.

“Please, Hyunjin, I’m gonna… f-fu-u-uuck… I’m gonna—”

Hyunjin is a cocky little fucker who thrives on control, so he’d pull out and grin at you wickedly, continuing to leave marks on your thighs and restraining your hands from touching yourself. Your cry comes out louder than intended as you do so and you keep your legs spread apart, breath hitching as the cool air hits you bare.

Hyunjin is a kinky piece of shit who loves power. He’s also pretty damn aware of how nice and big his hands are, and you can’t help but want the feeling of his hand wrapped around your neck and his fingers in your mouth. He’d be so fucking smug, waiting for you to get teary-eyed and thrash around pathetically before he lets you indulge.

“I’ll be good for you, just— please—” your voice cracks towards the end and you turn your head to the side to bury your face into the pillow, muffling out your moans when you slowly finger yourself again, trembling legs still spread apart. “Fuck, Hyunjin, please let me cum!”

“Mmh, cum for me,” you imagine him rasping between low groans, a smug smirk etched on his face. “Since you’ve been so good for me.”

You pick up your pace, fingers drilling into you in an abusing manner and your body jolts up. You’re too far gone to control your voice, high-pitched moans and sobs and broken cries of his name bounce off the not-so soundproof walls, but holy fuck, you needed this so badly. Although Hyunjin would bathe in your sounds, his superiority kink would be fed even more once he shoves down his free fingers in your mouth and burns your tear-stained face in the back of his mind. That’s definitely something he’d do, so you shove three fingers into your mouth, imagining they were his. You whine at the thought of him tapping your tongue, a silent order to suck.

When you cum, it’s with a broken sob and Hyunjin’s satisfied grin in mind. Your body is trembling from the wave of pleasure flooding over you, mind hazy from the excessive stimulation. Three months of sexual frustration, you’re riding out three months worth of sexual frustration, so you don’t give a fuck about the drool running down your chin, tears staining your cheeks or the fact that your bedding is now sticky in cum and sweat. As you slowly come down from your high, you wipe off your hand on your shirt and try to catch your breath, eyes staring at the ceiling.

Well, you’re fucked. You finally committed the sin of masturbating to Hyunjin. You’re still basking in your moment of bliss and thus, you don’t care about the aftermath for now. But tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow you’ll regret what you just did. You just hope the regret won’t follow you strongly for the rest of your life.

Four weeks later and you’re still regretting it.

Nothing has changed so far; Minho still spams your inbox when you’re not yet in the practice room to review a choreography even though you still have ten minutes to get there, and Hyunjin still casually throws an arm around your shoulder and buries his face into the crook of your neck when he’s exhausted and not too sweaty.

Nothing has changed so far except that so much has changed.

Obviously, you can’t avoid Hyunjin like the plague — even though that idea sounds fucking genius — but you’re trying to keep a distance from him. You’ve started avoiding his gaze, giving curt answers when he asks you if anything is wrong (“Why should it be? Everything’s peachy!” God Gracious, who the fuck uses the word peachy?) and always find an excuse to run away when you sense that he’s about to start a longer conversation (“Did you hear that? I should go help Felix!”).

You arrive at the practice room ten minutes later than usual due to the traffic jam and immediately slip out of your new shoes once the door slams shut. Fucking hell, you really should’ve worn those out first. “Minho, don’t even dare to bitch around, my feet hurt and it’s currently rush hour and the last thing I need is you breathing down my…” your voice trails off when you look up and only see Hyunjin raising a brow at you.

Oh. Fuck.

“Where are Minho and Felix?” you ask, realizing that you two are the only ones in the room. You try not to stare too much at his defined arms or plump lips or just the fact that he’s dressed in loose pants and a sleeveless shirt.

“Hello to you too,” Hyunjin scowls and walks towards your direction to put his half-empty water bottle back on the table. “Chan is treating them to hotpot. Well, he invited all of us but I really need to perfect this move, so I passed.”

“So that’s why Minho didn’t send me twenty voicemails today for being late, huh. And I can’t believe you passed on free food. Anyway—” you attempt to quickly slip your feet back into your uncomfortable sneakers. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, I’ll get going then—”

Before you know it, Hyunjin grips your wrist forcefully and cuts you off with a pout. “I still need someone to review my dance, though. Don’t you wanna keep me company?”

You ignore the shiver that runs down your spine and blink slowly. “Uh, you do know that I have no fucking clue about dancing.”

“(y/n), that’s not an answer to my question. Am I really that unbearable?”

“What? Of course not! I just don’t see how much of a help I can be here.”

His pout morphs into a smug smile. It’s as if he knows, but you can’t quite decipher what exactly. The grip on your wrist tightens to the point where you should be worried about your blood circulation but instead, you’re enjoying the long, calloused fingers on your skin.

“Then let me ask you something else. Do I ever cross your mind?” Hyunjin’s tone is light and melodic, but the underlying catch is hard to miss. You gulp, suddenly wanting Minho to appear out of nowhere and begin his speech about why the fuck cats deserve rights and are superior to the human race. The sudden mood shift grows insufferable as you slowly try to pull away. However, Hyunjin is persistent and never lets go and invades your personal bubble. That’s when you find your voice again. It’s small and shaky but it’s something.

“Hyunjin, you’re not making any sense—”

“Do you think about me? Dream about me?” you pale at the accusation. He knows. The smile on his face widens in victory. “Bingo.”

And just like that, he pushes you against the door before letting go of you. Now, you could run out of the room, the door handle is just a few inches away, but Hyunjin is strong and fast and there’s no way that you’d succeed in escaping. Not knowing what else to do without feeling as if you want the ground to swallow you whole, you just stand stiffly. Hyunjin laughs through his nose and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“C’mon, we both saw this coming.”

“Really?” you squeak, trembling at his presence. If only he leaned into you a little more, you’d feel his breath prickling your skin. “I-I mean, uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really,” he sighs and then slams a hand against the door, right next to your face, the impact so loud that your body jolts. “Then please explain why you’ve been avoiding me as if I were carrying a contagious disease but then proceed to eye-fuck me when I turn my back to you. I’ve noticed the way you’ve been staring at me and honestly, it’s so cute but also so, so naive of you to think that I’m blind. You do know that this room is full of mirrors, right?”

Your eyes widen in fear. “W-what are you trying to say?”

“What I’m trying to say is that I’m intrigued by you. No, scrap that — I want you. I want to tear you apart. I want you to scream my name. I want you crying as you take my cock up to the hilt. I want a lot of things, so much more than you can imagine, but that’s not the point. Remember, I asked you a question: do I ever cross your mind?”

He reaches for your chin with his free hand, forcing you to meet his eyes. Albeit firm, his grip isn’t too harsh so that you can nod in response.

“Obviously,” he says casually, “I wanna know more though. Give me the gory details.”

You inhale sharply. Fucking hell. No. No. No. It’s already embarrassing enough that Hyunjin has noticed you mentally undressing him the entire time and you’re not going down the rabbit hole of “telling him all of the kinky shit you’ve imagined him do to you and potentially making your fantasies come true”.

Hyunjin makes a sad face, but his voice just drips in shameless glee. “I guess I’ll have to force you then. Didn’t peg you as a brat, but I can work with that too.”

“I’m not a—”

Before you finish wording out your complete thought, Hyunjin grabs you by the collar and pulls you in for a kiss. It’s sloppy and devoid of care or emotion, but it leaves you boiling hot and dizzy. Hyunjin knows no boundaries and slings one arm around your waist to draw you closer to him, the other hand resting at the back of your neck. He’s kissing you feverishly like a man starved, forces his tongue into your mouth and doesn’t give you any chance to pull away and breathe. Meanwhile, your hands find their way to his head and tug on strands of pitch-black hair. It’s a weak attempt to break off the kiss, but it just elicits a groan out of the back of his throat.

When you finally pull away, his eyes are hooded and his lips are red and swollen. Catching your breath, you somehow manage to stumble all the way to the back of the room. Hyunjin pushes you onto the semi-comfortable couch before he starts to kiss you again, breaking it off once to discard his shirt. At the sight of his defined abs (you’re finally seeing them in person and not in shitty LQ pictures that a fan took during a concert, thank you God), you suppress the need to run your hands over them.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the show,” he rasps with a grin before he latches for another uncoordinated liplock. Saliva is dripping down from the corner of your lips, but neither of you seems to care.

Eventually, his hands start to roam your body, undoing the buttons of your shirt before sliding it off your shoulders and throwing it into a corner. He detaches his lips from you and before you can complain, he leans down to suck on the patch of skin below your collarbone. A shaky moan escapes your mouth and you throw your head back, whimpering when he begins to bite. Perhaps you got that partially right. Hyunjin loves to mark, just in dangerous areas to your dismay. One slip up and people are going to see the bruises.

His hands begin to wander lower and lower. They’re halfway undoing the zipper when you sob at the faintest amount of pressure and weep, “Stop stop, Hyunjin— stop!”

He stops in his tracks and looks up at you, clearly impatient. “What?”

“I’m, u-uh, I’m really sensitive, okay?” you feel the blood rush to your cheeks when you say it out loud. “I haven’t got dicked in a while and also haven’t been, uh, touching myself, so uh…”

“Why the fuck not?”

“B-because the last time I touched myself, I’ve been thinking about you!”

“So you got off on… me?”

Hyunjin looks so fucking smug, so satisfied, and you’re pretty damn sure it’s not a trick of the light and his eyes really turned a shade darker. Yeah, that superiority kink? You were right on that, he definitely loves to bask in power.

“Yes, I did. Happy? As I was saying, I’m really fucking sensitive right now, especially my thighs, so don’t—” Hyunjin quickly zips down the rest, applying pressure in all the right places and when he strips off the jeans, he makes sure that his knuckles graze your inner thighs, “d-don’t do shit like this— oh f-fuck, Hyunjin!”

“Yeah, I don’t fucking care.” he shrugs and your pants to God knows where. “By the way, I cut you off before. What did you want to say? You’re not a…?”

“I’m not a brat.”

“You sure do act like one,” he says and adds after a moment of contemplation, “Tell you this. You tell me exactly what you imagined me to do when you touched yourself and I’ll see for myself if you’re really not a brat.”

“What?”

“I wanna know what you want me to do to you. You wanna be good for me, don’t you? Then tell me.”

“You were… I— wait, someone might come in—”

“The practice room is booked for us for another hour. Now go on, I’m listening.”

You squirm when his fingers ghost over the inside of your thighs. Any attempts to move away prove themselves futile as Hyunjin plants you onto the couch with his free hand on your hip. “You had— hhhh. o-oh fuck— your fingers in my mouth, told me to suck and— a-aaa-ah— fingered me then…”

He hums appreciatively before releasing the grip on your hip and violently shoving three fingers into your mouth. His fingers are longer than you expected and you close your eyes in bliss as you earnestly suck on them. Eventually, he starts thrusting them in and out of you, tempo getting faster with every movement and you almost gag when he reaches further into your mouth than you ever could with your own. “Baby, you should see yourself. You look so pretty like this.”

When you moan around his fingers, he snickers. “Do you like it when I praise you? We haven’t even started and you’re already doing so well.”

The disappointment you feel when he pulls out is quickly replaced by even greater pleasure when he presses his thumb directly over the wet patch on your underwear. Hyunjin’s not even applying a lot of pressure, but you’re already at the brink of screaming. “So sensitive for me. Fuck, that’s so hot. So sensitive for me and only me,” he hisses while pulling your panties down.

The direct contact of his spit-covered finger just grazing your entrance sends you into overdrive. Even you yourself didn’t expect to be this hypersensitive to everything he does. You’re growing more vocal by the second and slap an arm in front of your mouth to muffle your sounds. However, he’s not having it and chastises, “Stop that. I want to hear your voice. Don’t hold back.”

You shiver at the authority in his tone and before your brain fully processed it, both of your hands are gripping the armrest as if it were your lifeline, the moans coming out of your mouth unfiltered. Hyunjin smirks. “That’s it, baby. Moan louder for me so that everyone in this building could hear you if the walls weren’t fucking soundproof.”

“Hyunjin, don’t tease me, please!” you shake violently, craving more than what he’s currently giving you. His little touches are too much yet not enough at the same time. Partly frustrated and partly needy, your sobs grow more uncontrolled and tears are already forming in your glassy eyes.

But no, Hyunjin is a cocky little shit who loves the sight of you struggling.

“Hm? But I like seeing you squirm like this. How long is it going to take until you start crying properly?”

“I knew it! I knew you’d be like this!” you cry accusingly, “I can’t, I can’t.”

“Why don’t you do anything against it, then? You’re holding back, it’s cute.”

“Because I— fuck, fu-u-uuck, s-stop it— wanna be good for you. I won’t misbehave, please master, allow me to cum—”

“What did you just call me?” Hyunjin is suddenly tense, stops with his ministrations and stares at you wide-eyed. You mirror his movements, just as perplexed by your words. You didn’t even mean it intentionally, it just slipped out. Sure, you knew that he had that superiority domination kink going on, but did he really enjoy being addressed as— “Say it again.”

You lick your lips and watch him closely. “Let me come, master.”

Hyunjin shudders visibly and the groan that escapes his mouth is raspy and deep and liquid sin. “Since you’re so good for me…” you yelp when he suddenly inserts two fingers into you, and fingers you in a rapid speed. It takes him roughly five thrusts until he finds your weak spot before he repeatedly pumps in and out in the same angle, emitting a sob from your side. “Is there anything else you imagined master doing to you?”

“Hands around… a-aa-ah shit— around my…” Hyunjin raises a brow when you reach out for his free hand and sloppily guide him to your throat. Stars fill your vision as he understands and wraps his fingers around your neck, the missing feeling of air making you light-headed. You weep out a silent cry when he moves his fingers even faster and applies slightly more pressure on your throat.

“Fuck, you look so good with my hand around your neck. What’s next? You want me to gag you with my fingers? Pull your hair when I’m fucking your mouth? Run my hands all over your body as you get yourself off on my thigh? You seem to be really fixated on my hands.”

Hyunjin’s words send you jolts of pleasure throughout your entire body. You don’t even register the intent behind what he says, too focused on all the other sensations. At this point you’re too far gone to keep holding onto any thread of rationality; the tears are gradually streaming down, your thighs are trembling and it hurts yet it doesn’t, and your orgasm hits you so hard you don’t even process it until your body starts to sting.

While you’re recovering from your high, Hyunjin picks up your cum on his fingers and licks it off thoughtfully, his eyes raking up and down your fingers. And then he asks in a manner way too casual for the situation, “How often can you cum, hm?”

You’re already fucked out by his fingers alone, and if he keeps it up, the answer is not a lot of times. Hell, you’re pretty sure your limit is two, but you answer tiredly with, “As many times as master wants me to.”

Hyunjin seems satisfied with the reply and then he gets up on his feet. Cluelessly, you send him mental question marks until he motions you to get up too. “What are you waiting for? Take my pants off.”

You don’t need to be told twice. You just notice now how constrained Hyunjin is underneath the jeans that hung on his hips. Wanting to free him out of his misery as fast as possible, you quickly unbuckle his belt and work on his zipper with the lightest amount of pressure you can muster. From there on, it doesn’t take long until you’ve pulled the fabric down alongside his boxers, revealing his hard length.

At the sight of his size, the precum pooling around his tip and the girth of his length, your mouth waters. “Can I suck you off?”

“I’d love that, but not today.” Hyunjin chuckles when your face drops and grabs your chin, his voice suddenly sultrier and a few intervals lower when he says, “Don’t look so disappointed. I know you’d do a great job. If I fucked your mouth without warning, you’d still take it, right? You wouldn’t deny an inch of my dick, would you? Even if you started to gag, you wouldn’t complain because you want to be good for master.”

He drops himself on the couch and the corners of his mouth crook upwards. “I just thought of something better. I bet you look so pretty bouncing on my cock.”

“Holy fuck,” you whisper. He’s right, that’s so much better than having his pulsing dick in your mouth. Fuck, you’ve been fantasizing about this for the past months after all. And just like that, he’s serving it all on a silver platter.

“C’mon, make me feel good,” he mumbles impatiently as he guides you onto his lap and pulls you in for a kiss. You melt into the kiss, let him abuse your lips up until they bleed if he fucking insists, before smearing precum all over his throbbing dick. Once he’s all slicked up, you raise yourself and sink on him, hissing uncontrollably once his head prods at your entrance.

Despite having him loosening you up a little before with his fingers, the stretch is so intense that you break the kiss and bury your face in the crook of his neck. You’re not the only one who’s affected this badly, as Hyunjin lets a particularly loud groan. “Fuck, you’re so tight. It’s like you were made for me. Be good for master and take me to the hilt, yeah?”

With that, he grips your hips so tightly that they form bruises, and slams you onto the rest of his dick. You stutter out a cry and more tears stream down your face. Hyunjin doesn’t give you time to adjust and lifts you up until only his head is still buried in you, only to push you down again immediately.

“God, you’re taking me in so well. Tell me, who’s making you feel this good?” he demands whilst continuing to manhandle you in this ruthless pace.

“You, master— a-aaa-ah, f-fuck— you’re making me feel this good, master!” you choke out, indulging the rough treatment. “You’re the only one who makes me feel so full!”

Hyunjin groans against you and begins to thrust his hips up into you like a madman. “You’re right, baby, only me huh—” he tugs on your hair with his one hand and kisses you in between your hiccups.

It’s hot, way too hot in here. The sound of skin slapping rings in your ears, as well as Hyunjin’s countless muffled praises. You’re both on edge, orgasm washing over you very soon. It’s prominent in the way Hyunjin’s movements grow more frantically, the way you cling onto him as if he were your saving grace, the way he rasps profanities in your ear.

“Cum for me, baby,” he pants, and it’s the one thrust that he delivers where he’s in you balls-deep and in the right angle that makes you come undone with a loud sob. Hyunjin helps you ride out your high before he pulls out of you completely and his release coats your stomach.

The next few moments are spent in silence, save for the harsh breathing. And then Hyunjin stands up to get a box of tissues next to the speakers and wipes off the cum on his abdomen before cleaning you up. You welcome his actions wholeheartedly, still basking in your post-orgasm bliss. Frankly, every inch of your body hurts and you’re damn sure you won’t be able to feel your legs until the end of the month.

“I’m pretty positive I won’t be able to walk tomorrow,” you say once he’s done cleaning you up as much as he can with simple tissues and is now retrieving all the clothes on the floor.

“It’s what you deserve after putting yourself through your weird sex-deprivation thing,” he jokes and falls on the couch beside you, handing you your clothes and offering his water bottle. “Want some?”

You silently take the bottle and take three generous gulps out of it. “Not today. You said not today when I wanted you to suck you off.”

“I mean, if you’re up for a next time, that is. If yes, then cool. If not, that’s also fine by me.” The way he replies is so casual as if he didn’t get hard from being called master. “Anyway, let me help you get back to your clothes.”

“No cuddles? You are the worst in aftercare.”

“I was thinking of cuddling once we both look a tad more presentable, but go off,” he snorts. Nonetheless, he’s extremely gentle and careful when he helps you slip into your button-up. No words are exchanged all the while except for his soft apologies when you wince in pain because fuck, even lifting your legs hurts.

Hyunjin keeps his word. After fixing your hair to the best extent, he wraps an arm around your waist and you rest your head on his chest, hearing his steady heartbeat.

“I can’t believe we just fucked in the practice room,” he chuckles weakly. “If this becomes a regular thing, please let’s not do it in the practice room ever again. I work here.”

Of course you want this to be a regular thing. Fucking hell. But you don’t say that just yet. Instead, you opt for: “Well, if this becomes a regular thing, the dorms seem like a pretty sweet—”

“Absolutely not.”

You laugh quietly, but deep down inside you know he really wants to do that but doesn’t want to admit it out loud because Hyunjin’s a kinky little shit. “Whatever you say.”

Still, it’s a lot to process, everything that just happened. It’s so much that it drains you more than it should. Your eyes are starting to feel heavy and you sense yourself falling into a slumber. However, you still catch Hyunjin’s half exasperated, half panicked “don’t you dare fall asleep on me now, at least stay awake until we’re in my car!”

You’re not entirely certain if this is just your mind playing games on you or actual reality, but you like to believe that shortly after his outburst, Hyunjin kisses you fondly on the forehead and softly mumbles, “Whatever. Sleep tight, baby.”

#lulu end a story properly challenge failed i'm bad at this im so sorry idek #stray kids smut #skz smut #hwang hyunjin smut #hyunjin smut #dom!hyunjin #sub!reader #smut.mine #hwang.txt #stray kids dark hours

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ifthereisnowind · 3 years

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capitalism

context: why does it make me cringe? why does sales make me cringe?

why did I feel for a while that I don’t want to get caught up in the career ladder?

why do I judge people who chase money or fame?

what should truly motivate us at work

In a perfect world, when it came to choosing an occupation, we would have only two priorities in mind:

– to find a job that we enjoyed

– to find a job that paid us enough to cover reasonable material needs

But in order to think so freely, we would have to be emotionally balanced in a way that few of us are. In reality, when it comes to choosing an occupation, we tend to be haunted by three additional priorities. We need:

– to find a job that will pay not just enough to cover reasonable material expenses but a lot more besides, enough to impress other people – even other people we don’t like very much.

– we crave to find a job that will allow us not to be at the mercy of other people, whom we may deep down fear and distrust.

– and we hope for a job that will make us well known, esteemed, honoured and perhaps famous, so that we will never again have to feel small or neglected.

reforming capitalism

The system we know as Capitalism is both wondrously productive and hugely problematic. On the downside, capitalism promotes excessive inequality; it valorises immediate returns over long-term benefits; it addicts us to unnecessary products and it encourages excessive consumption of the world’s resources with potentially disastrous consequences – and that’s just a start. We are now deeply familiar with what can go wrong with Capitalism. But that is no reason to stop dreaming about some of the ways in which Capitalism could one day operate in a Utopian future.

What we want to see is the rise of other – equally important – figures that report on a regular basis on elements of psychological and sociological life and which could form part of the consciousness of thoughtful and serious people. When we measure things – and give the figures a regular public airing – we start the long process of collectively doing something about them.

The man is indeed employed, but in truth, he belongs to a large subsection of those in work we might term the ‘misemployed’. His labour is generating capital, but it is making no contribution to human welfare and flourishing. He is joined in the misemployment ranks by people who make cigarettes, addictive but sterile television shows, badly designed condos, ill-fitting and shoddy clothes, deceptive advertisements, artery-clogging biscuits and highly-sugared drinks (however delicious).

We intuitively recognise it when we think of work as ‘just a job’; when we sense that far too much of our time, effort and intelligence is spent on meetings that resolve little, on chivying people to sign up for products that – in our heart of hearts we don’t admire.

Fortunately, there are real solutions to bringing down the rate of misemployment. The trick isn’t just to stimulate demand per se, the trick is to stimulate the right demand: to excite people to buy the constituents of true satisfaction, and therefore to give individuals and businesses a chance to direct their labour, and make profits, in meaningful areas of the economy.

This is precisely what needs to be changed – and urgently. Society should do a systematic deal with capitalists: it should give them the honour and love they so badly crave in exchange for treating their workers as human beings, not abusing customers and properly looking after the planet. A standard test should be drawn up to measure the societal good generated by companies (many such schemes already exist in nascent form), on the basis of which capitalists should then be given extraordinarily prestigious titles by their nations in ceremonies with the grandeur and thrill of film premieres or sporting finales.

There’s no shortage: we need help in forming cohesive, interesting communities. We need help in bringing up children. We need help in calming down at key moments (the cost of our high anxiety and rage is appalling in aggregate). We require immense assistance in discovering our real talents in the workplace and understanding where we can best deploy them (a service in this area would matter a great deal more to us than pizza delivery). We have unfulfilled aesthetic desires. Elegant town centres, charming high streets and sweet villages are in desperately short supply and are therefore absurdly expensive – just as, prior to Henry Ford, cars existed but were very rare and only for the very rich.

But we know the direction we need to head to: we need the drive and inventiveness of Capitalism to tackle the higher, deeper problems of life. This will offer an exit from the failings and misery that attend Capitalism today. In a nutshell, the problem is that we waste resources on unimportant things. And we are wasteful, ultimately, because we lack self-knowledge, because we are using consumption merely to divert or quieten anxieties or in a vain search for status and belonging.

If we could just address our deeper needs more directly, our materialism would be refined and restrained, our work would be more meaningful and our profits would be more honourable. That’s the ideal future of Capitalism.

In the Utopia, businesses would of course have to be profitable. But the success of a business would primarily be assessed in terms of its contribution to the collective good.

On changing the world

the only way to bring about real change is to act through competing institutions. Revolutions in consciousness cannot be made lasting and effective until legions of people start to work together in concert for a common aim and, rather than relying on the intermittent pronouncements of mountain-top prophets, begin the unglamorous and deeply boring task of wrestling with issues of law, money, long-term mass communication, advocacy and administration.

Our collective ideal of the free thinker is that of someone living beyond the confines of any system, disdainful of ‘boring things’, cut off from practical affairs and privately perhaps rather proud of being unable even to read a balance sheet. It’s a fatally romantic recipe for keeping the status quo unchanged.

We have to make what we already know very well more effective out there. The urgent question is how to ally the very many good ideas which currently slumber in the recesses of intellectual life with proper organisational tools that actually stand a chance of giving them real impact in the world. From a completely secular starting point, it can be worth studying religions to learn how to alter behaviour.

This is what religions have, for their part, excelled at doing. They’ve realised that if you put down an important idea on paper in somewhat pedestrian prose, it won’t have any lasting or mass impact. They’ve therefore, over their history, engaged the most skilled artists to wrap their ideas in the coating of beauty. They have asked Bach and Mozart to put the ideas to music, they have asked Titian and Botticelli to give the ideas a visual form, they’ve asked the best fashion designers to make nice looking clothes and they’ve asked the best architects to design the most impressive and moving buildings to give the ideas heft and permanence.

We should use the history of religion to inform us about the role of repetition, ritual and beauty in the name of changing how things are.

There is a great deal of large-scale ambition in the world, but all the largest corporate entities are focused on servicing basic needs: the mechanics of communication, inexpensive things to eat, energy so we can move about. While our higher needs – for love, beauty, wisdom – have no comparable provision. The drive to grandeur is missing just where we need it most.

Good business

So, inevitably, businesses will evolve to profit from their wishes. Capitalism has not traditionally been interested in whether these are sensible, admirable or worthy desires. Its aim is neutral: to make money from supplying whatever people happen to be willing to pay for.

Philosophy, by contrast, has long recognised a crucial distinction between desires and needs:

A desire is whatever you feel you want at the moment.

A need is for something that serves your long-term well being.

And it’s our needs that are required for a satisfying, fulfilled life (which Plato, Aristotle and others call a life marked by eudaimonia).

Capitalism goes wrong when it exploits this cognitive flaw: large numbers of businesses sell us stuff that we desire but which (in all honesty) we don’t need. On longer, calmer reflection we’d realise those things don’t actually help us to live well.

Sadly, it’s easier to generate profits from desires than from needs. You can make much more money selling bad ice cream than by marketing Plato’s dialogues.

In a utopia, good businesses should be defined not simply by whether they are profitable or not; but by what they make their profit from. Only businesses that satisfy true needs are moral.

Good capitalism requires that we address two, core educational needs. Getting us to focus on what we really need, what the real challenges in our lives are. And getting us to focus on the value of particular goods in relation to our needs: that is, how do these particular purchases help with eudaimonia?

So, in search of a better economy, we should direct our attention not simply to shopping centres and financial institutions, but to schools and universities and the media. The shape that an economy has ultimately reflects the educated insights of its consumers. When people say they hate consumerism, what they often mean is that they are dismayed at peoples’ preferences. The fault, then, lies not so much with consumption as with the preferences. Education transforms preferences not by making us do what someone else tells us. But by giving us the capacities and skills to understand more clearly what we genuinely do want and what sort of goods and services will best help us.

tbc

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breebeelee · 3 years

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Jewels, a Simple Question of Vanity?

The records of jewelry throughout Jewellery Design Competition time is not so much an account of human arrogance than a mirrored image of the evolution of human societies and the urge of human beings to create symbols and beauty.

Jewels across time

There are signs and symptoms that humans had been sporting jewels from very early times on as private adornment. Originally, these were made of materials easily to be had in nature which include shells, animal bones or enamel. With time humans learnt to paintings with exceptional stones and metals, such as gold and gem stones that had been particularly valued in rings. Our ancestors had been highly talented jewelers and the splendor and beauty of the antique jewels nevertheless fascinates us as simply confirmed by way of the interest proven for jewel shows in museums or for itinerary exhibitions on as an example the Gold of the Incas or the treasures from Egyptians tombs.

With the use of valuable metals like gold or gem stones like diamonds, jewels became tangible signs and symptoms of wealth, energy and societal order. At extraordinary instances, like within the Middle Age, legal guidelines were surpassed as to who was allowed to wear jewels, which in itself illustrates the social significance connected to jewels.

The idea of crown jewels was created within the Renaissance duration where the French King, Francois 1st declared eight excellent pieces to be inalienable heirlooms of French kings.Similar law in other countries soon laid the ground for the treasures of the European Royal families.

19th and 20th century, a turning factor

The use and significance of jewels changed substantially inside the 19th century due to social, technological and cultural elements.

A new social code - Until then men wear just as sumptuous jewels as ladies did. Likewise they had valuable stones, pearls, gold and silver threads sawed into their garments. However, around the 19th century the social code required a greater sober dress code for guys. Furthermore, across the equal length, a miles sharper differentiation become delivered between day and night jewels, the most sumptuous being reserved for evenings and galas.

A new generation - The commercial revolution made it viable to mass produce jewels of excessive- as well as low-exceptional, hence putting rings inside the economic draw close of a far larger phase of the population. This in flip caused a extra relaxed relation to jewels acquired at a lower cost and effortlessly changed via new collections for a speedy converting fashion.

The modern way of life - The Art Nouveau movement and the 1900 World Exhibition marked a brand new era wherein layout and creativity are prized above material price, as a consequence shifting the emphasis of the jeweler's art from the setting of stones to the artistic layout. This marked the beginning of what's now known as artwork earrings as opposed to standard jewelry.

During the Art Deco duration Coco Chanel substantially popularized costume jewelry as ornamentation to supplement a selected elegant gown or garment. Those dress jewels frequently product of non precious material and mass-produced marked the start of an technology of disposable jewels that are fashionable for a quick time frame and fast previous through a new fashion style.

One cannot point out layout without citing the Danish Design. This revolutionary motion is characterized by way of quite awesome sober round traces of remarkable esthetic high-quality and a predilection for silver. Georg Jensen is the maximum emblematic determine, however simply now not the simplest renowned name. Danish Design had a huge have an effect on inside the rest of Europe and inside the US and laid the ground for plenty experimental jewels in the Sixties an Seventies.

Jewel design did now not only experimented with new forms and new fabric - including cheap substances like aluminum, plastic, paper, nylon, however haute-couture designers consisting of Coco Chanel, as cited above, and renowned artists like Salvador Dali, Picasso or Max Ernst made a giant contribution to innovation in that subject. This paintings challenged constricting conventions and truly blurred the limits between jewelry, style and first-rate arts.

Jewels these days and the next day

Jewels are simply appealing these days as they were inside the past. It is not feasible at this point to assume what the 21st century will bring as novelty. However, looking at what's taking place these days may give us a touch as to dispositions.

Art jewels

One of the symptoms of the ongoing monetary and cultural significance of jewels in current society is the once a year Copenhagen Jewellery Fair that is Scandinavian biggest earrings and watch fair. This yr, the royal safety of the fair, Princess Marie, delivered the prize to the winder of the "Bella Nordic Jewellery Award", that may be taken into consideration as that Nordic competition for jewelers.

Though, faraway from that glamour, you may discover many small jewel designers' ateliers scattered throughout Denmark. There, you may locate beautiful unique jewels created by way of gifted humans with a ardour for his or her craft and presenting a extraordinary diversity of design and recognition.

Home-made jewels

The high fee of best jewels has paved the manner for a "do it yourself" movement. There is pretty a good sized quantity of physical or virtual shops had been private customers should buy jewels components that they could then assembled to make jewels for themselves or others. Those stores had been till now be a profitable business, but there are actually signal that the marked is coming to saturation and opposition is becoming harder.

Jewels, consumption society and recycling

As mentioned earlier, jewels are a mirrored image of societal trends. On one facet mass manufacturing with cheap substances has intended a huge provide of jewels that everybody can find the money for. Those jewels have emerge as normal objects of intake for use and discarded without a second notion

As a response to this "waste society" recycling has emerge as a sturdy societal movement. Waste cloth, even trash, is used to new creations, consisting of jewels. Those are in keeping with definition particular pieces popping out of the designer's creativeness and bought at prices substantially fluctuating with the popularity of the dressmaker.

Jewels for guys

While there seems to be no restrict of length, shade and composition in ladies's jewels, the provide and use of men's jewelry is comparatively pretty restrained. It is hard to say whether or not that is because of men themselves, to societal norms on what a person can put on or due to the lack of interest and creativity at the a part of the designers. It is though increasingly prevalent for men to wear earrings, which might be a signal that conventions and taste are changing.

Jewelry - an eternal love story

Jewels have observed people at some stage in a while and feature had a social and cultural position that has developed hand in hand with societies. In our complex modern society jewels, in a single shape or every other, are low priced to all layers of society and are used as alerts on attitudes, lifestyles and belonging. The cultural importance of jewels is tough to determine in view of the brilliant offer and diversity of jewels from the cheap mass-produced to the greatest specific pieces. As Clare Phillips1 states "What remains real now, as for the duration of the a while, is that rings at its greatest has the strength to fascinate and inspire - that is the top function of artwork at its quality in any of its many manifestations." It can then be conclude with none doubt that, yes, jewels are an awful lot more than an expression of human conceitedness.

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jinruihokankeikaku · 4 years

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im not sure if requests r open but can u do an analysis for bard of blood?

Alright!! (I realize this wwas a feww days ago, 8ut requests are open!! just evver so slightly 8ehind schedule) I think this is the first 8ard wwe’vve fully analysed here – chaos is all-but-inevita8le…

Title: Bard of Blood

Title Breakdown: One who passively destroys, or passively destroys through [causes to decay, plays havoc on, manipulates erratically, invites others to destroy/destroy with] Blood [relationships, promises, the physical body, bonds/chains/tethers]

Role in the Session: Bards cause chaos. We know this based on both the actions of the only Bard who gets much screen time (Gamzee Makara) and on Calliope’s reference to Bards as the “wild card” in Act 6. However, the (often destructive) chaos wrought by Bards isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it represents a necessary withering away of the past in order to make way for the future. Decay, of societies and bodies and chemicals and one day maybe protons is entirely part of nature; the more cynical among us might even argue that decay is the only natural constant. The Bard of Blood will play their role eventually, but they’ll probably have to go through the same motions as any other Bard, beginning with a state of avoidance / complacency. During this period, the Bard will ghost Breath (Blood’s opposed Aspect) by behaving in an aloof, apathetic manner – viewing themselves as “above it all” and neither concerned with nor invested in their relationships. They might be greatly afraid of commitment, or unreliable when it comes to meeting obligations or keeping promises, much like an unhealthy Breath player might be. However, they aren’t truly Breath-bound, and they will eventually face a crisis that will force them to confront their relationship with Blood, which confrontation may be explosive.

The crisis the Bard of Blood faces will take the form of them realizing that their ghosting Breath is avoidant, and that they need to have bonds in order to sustain themselves. While this may sound like a good thing on the face of it, and it is a healthy realization in the long-term, the immediate consequences may be rather unfortunate. I could see a Bard of Blood in crisis entering into a criminal conspiracy, possibly even a conspiracy against their own teammates, or perhaps ending up in a codependent and mutually unhealthy relationship with a member of their team (or someone else). They might make one or more promises that will be incredibly difficult to make, or commit themselves to a mission that will all-but-assuredly lead to their death and/or the deaths of others. In order to complete their Planet’s Quest and move forward as a person and a player, the Bard will have to move past this transitional phase of over-embracing and acknowledge the destructive power Blood can have. Once they’ve realized the damage that can be done like this, they can better leverage that damage to their benefit and the benefit of the team. They could well experience some lingering physical or emotional trauma in the wake of this transformation, which will be another challenge for them to work through. I could see a Bard of Blood collaborating with a Witch of Mind to wreak absolute havoc in a large-scale battle – the Witch telepathically altering the thoughts and actions of everyone near them, and the Bard sowing dissension, disloyalty, and aggravated violence among opposed forces. A Seer or Sylph of Light could greatly assist the Bard, for better or worse, by improving their awareness and understanding (and thereby improving their control over their powers.

Opposite Role: The Maid of Breath, one who “creates freedom, independence, weather, and adventure” for themselves, is likely to develop into a unique, dynamic personality with a tendency to buck trends and defy expectations. They might get along well with the pre-crisis Bard, although the Maid is likely to be somewhat more ambitious and well-adjusted. However, when the Bard undergoes the transformation from a repressed/avoidant (quasi-)Breath player to an over-embracing Blood player, it may well put a whole lot of distance between the two, and because of the Maid’s aggression towards the idea of being chained down and the Bard’s causing destructive bonds to form, a conflict between these two is likely to culminate in a dramatic way.

God Tier Powers

Blood is the Cyclical-Associative Aspect, and its domains include the physical body and blood, relationships, promises, and grounding/binding; the Bard is the Passive Destruction class, often destined to cause chaos and problematize their session by inviting both decay of their Aspect, and destruction through their Aspect. Their powers will likely draw on biology and social/societal ties, and be directed towards a process of gradual cleansing through destruction. Here are a few examples…

Bloodborne: The Bard causes passive decay of the physical body, making those nearby weaker and impeding their ability to move or fight. If they focus and amplify this ability, they can totally enervate those around them, leaving them debilitated for some time, and possibly even killing them if they were already in bad shape. In a way, this ability is both inviting the destruction of Blood (through the degradation of the physical form) and inviting destruction through Blood (by binding/slowing enemies and reducing their potential means of evading destruction.

Confusion in the Ranks: The Bard sows discord wherever they go. Allies turn against each other, old wounds (literal and metaphorical) re-open, promises get broken as they pass. When the Bard is engaged in combat, their enemies will lash out at each other for no apparent reason, which can lead to a domino effect of decaying loyalty that could, should cooler heads pre-fail (A/N: that one wwas 8ad im sorry), turn a battle with clearly drawn lines into a free-for-all melee.

Breaker of Chains: One of the advantages of the Bard archetype is that you’re really quite difficult to keep down, bein as you are a cl-

Anyways, this applies twofold to Bards of Blood, who will “invite the destruction of bonds”. This includes symbols of bondage such as chains and ropes, which will rust or rot away swiftly should a Bard’s foe be foolish enough to attempt to restrain them with it. It could also apply to more metaphorical issues, such as physical or psychological blockages/repressions holding the Bard back.

Personality: Bards start off cowardly and grow to become brazen and always explosive personalities. The Bard of Blood will begin as an excessively distant or asocial person, not because they’re introverted, but because they’re completely mistrustful of any kind of relationship or commitment that goes beyond the casual or transient. Perhaps this is due to a bad experience, or perhaps it’s due to a lack of experience, but whatever the case, they’ll mask the underling angst with a (thin) veneer of aloofness, in an attempt to persuade others that they’re just distant and would rather no one come close. They might also present a free-spirited, adventurous image to cover up insecurities that their behavior is out-of-control or that those close to them might not be as close as they hope slash expect them to be. When their Bardic Crisis presents itself, it’ll likely be in a situation where the Bard desperately needs help, and they’re too far isolated for their friends to come to their aid. The person or people or entity or entities capable of helping them may well be of an unsavory kind, but the Bard will rely on their help nonetheless, forming a bond that could prove… troublesome, further down the line. A healthy Bard of Blood will use the knowledge acquired through their (numerous) interpersonal mistakes and mishaps to leverage the chaos they carry with them for the benefit of those they care about, inviting their friends and comrades to break such bonds as hold them back and strengthen those that hold them together.

Songs: Let’s see, how a8out…

Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush (the Place8o covver is hella too)

Lucifer Rising by the Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice

That’s an interesting class, alright!! Certainly not someone you’d want on the other side; but perhaps also not someone you’d want to be. Still, 8ein a 8ard isn’t all 8ad – they alwways havve a major part to play, and no-one can really tell howw their story wwill end.

~ P L U R ~

#Bard #Blood #Bard of Blood #Classpect #classpect analysis #Homestuck #bi-meenah #class #aspect #ask

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skeletorific · 5 years

Text

CLASSPECTING TIME

You have no idea how fucking long this took. Also I’m willing to like hear ideas about this but as these are my personal headcanons don’t be like….weird about it ahfdksafd classes are FAKE AF and we are all just guessing bitches out here.

Ardata Carmia: Maid of Doom. A Maid is typically understood as “one who creates [aspect]/creates though [aspect]” for the benefit of others. The Doom aspect represents death, suffering, misery and destruction, something Ardata quite literally serves up on a silver platter for her subscribers. She creates (relatively) low stakes of misery for her subscribers to watch and enjoy, as well as to feed her lusus’ hunger for blood. Despite the apparent selfish motivations, its clear that Ardata doesn’t really enjoy what she does. At least, not for its own sake. Its a means to fulfill the role she believes society demands of her, even if filling it makes her actively miserable and very, very lonely.

Diemen Xicasi: Page of Hope. A page is typically understood as one who “provides [aspect]/provides through [aspect]” for themselves. While his meal of choice may be some savory meat products, Diemen’s real bread and butter is his unwavering optimism. Not to say he’s always looking on the bright side, merely that he allows the miserable realities of being a homeless rustblood on Alternia to wash off his back. Like other pages that have proceeded him (Tavros Nitram and Jake English), Diemen has been noted to have an effect on people that makes them want to help him, without any apparent psiionic tricks to force it out of them. Furthermore, when he really wishes for something (and its usually hot dogs), well, things have a way of working out in his favor, no matter the twists and turns it takes to get there.

Amisia Erdehn: Heir of Mind. I’m gonna be honest, Amisia was tricky. Mind doesn’t on first glance seem like a natural fit for her. However, while there’s a variety of definitions for what an Heir does, I prefer the description of the Heir as someone who strives (or succeeds) to wholly embody their aspect. As such, Amisia is the pure embodiment of both Mind’s decisive problem solving and single-minded logical framework. Need paints? Well, blood is multicolored. Actual creation is difficult, yes, but when it comes to getting the right materials, well, there’s no one more driven and no one less deterred by mere sentiment. This isn’t to say she’s emotionless, merely that emotions are often an obstruction to her true potential, rather than an aid.

Cirava Hermod: Prince of Hope. Awful dark class for such a chill motherfucker, but like most things about Cirava, it makes far, far more sense in context. Hope is about convictions, about right and wrong, about doing what your internal code compels you towards. And, there was a time when Cirava felt like this. They would constantly get into fights on Chittr with highbloods, despite knowing it was risky, because they felt it was wrong to take credit for their work. However, the Prince is ultimately one who bring about destruction through/destruction of their aspect. Cirava certainly brings about destruction in a physical sense: they destroy their eye in order to prevent injustice. Likewise, they take the time to try and destroy their own connections to the hopeful aspect, attempting to kill off their morals and content themselves with keeping their head down and quietly streaming.

Skylla Koriga: Knight of Time. While Time is perhaps the aspect most bound up in the mechanics of Sburb/Sgrub, its ultimately defined by a determination to triumph despite the odds. In Skylla’s case, like Dave Strider, that desire is tempered by a sense that what she does should be for the sake of others. Skylla is one of the most selfless trolls we encounter, expressing generosity and kindness to a stranger even at her own personal costs and even expressing confusion when others (like Konyyl) are not so kind. Skylla, while she may slip into despair when the situation is pulled beyond her control, ultimately refuses to take anything lying down that she can fight against.

Bronya Ursama: Sylph of Breath. The typical verb applied to a Sylph is “one who heals through/heals their aspect” for the sake of others. In general, I prefer the verb “restores”, as it has a broader application. However, in Bronya’s case, that healing is for the most part literal. Breath is the aspect of freedom and individuality, which seems an odd choice for the rules-oriented Bronya. However, by looking at the people in her life it begins to snap into greater clarity. Bronya may restrain herself, but her presence provides freedom to so many characters: she gives the reject wrigglers a chance at new life even when the culling system would condemn them to death. The other jades are allowed the freedom to explore themselves and the world around them because, on some level, they know Bronya will protect them from consequences as much as she can. Bronya does not serve freedom or necessarily provide it wholecloth, but she restores it to others who would have it taken from them otherwise.

Tagora Gorjek: Thief of Space. Space is hard. Like time, its an aspect very bound up in the mechanics of Sburb. How Kanaya describes it, as concerned with propagation, didn’t seem to have much to do with a guy who doesn’t seem concerned with much more than the propagation of his own wealth. This is part of why Thief felt natural for Tagora: “one who steals/steals through their aspect” for themselves. However, as we’ve seen from Meenah and Vriska, while the motives of a Thief may often be selfish, it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily harmful to the party. The Thief will take the most direct path to getting what they want, but if what they want is the good of the party, then they make powerful allies. Space heroes, like Tagora, are creative and very aware of the way they go through the world. Tagora is environmentally aware, which is part of what makes him an effective legislacerator (and an effective con artist).

Vikare Ratite: Mage of Mind. The Mage, like the Seer, is bound up in knowledge about their aspect. However, they are often cursed by either an excess of or severe shortage of their aspect. Vikare, arguably, suffers from both an excess AND a shortage of Mind. On the one hand, atmospheric flight a logical first step before interstellar flight, and the fact that Alternia didn’t take that step is in fact, pretty fucking wild if you consider it. Vikare suffers by being (apparently) the only one aware of this level of absurdity. However, in other respects, Vikare is cursed by a lack of Mind when it comes to decisive action. Rather than actively pursuing his desires, he hides them behind an apparent embrace of his true role, and eventually has to have flight “forced” on him for him to truly enjoy it.

Polypa Goezee: Rogue of Breath. Polypa here can be seen to be stealing her aspect in two regards. One, she is literally stealing “breath”, or life (not to be confused with Life GODS ASPECTS ARE HARD) from her targets. Two, she is in some sense stealing their movement and independence, in particular from highbloods, who are not used to the fear of death impeding their choices in the way it impedes the lowblood. However, unlike the Thief, Polypa steals for the sake of others, whether it be working as a hired killer, getting vengeance for her lost lusus, or protecting her friends from the uncomfortable truths that would force them to act against their true wishes (as with Tegiri).

Zebruh Codakk: Heir of Doom. One who invites misery and despair wherever they go. Definitely sounds like how it feels when Zebruh walks in a room. Jokes aside, Zebruh is drawn to situations of misery and destruction (e.g., his attraction towards lowbloods) out of some latent sense that he can exploit it. If the Heir is someone who reaps the benefits of their aspect, then Zebruh certainly fits the bill. Likewise, the world is affected when the Heir is finally allowed to “Become” their aspect. Easily one of the endings most literal about it being a “doomed” timeline is Marvus’ bad ending; notably, its also the only ending where Zebruh dies. When Zebruh finally fulfills the promise of doom, the entire timeline goes down with him. That is very possibly some powerful godtier commentary.

Elwurd: Witch of Hope. One who changes their aspect/changes through their aspect. Elwurd doesn’t believe in shit if she doesn’t want to, and if she wants to believe something then damn it if she won’t make it true. She commits herself consistently to relationships that she knows are a bad idea under the presumption that she can change them. You can’t ever properly convince her that she’s not hung up on her relationship with Bronya. In the end, the only one who can change Elwurd is Elwurd.

Kuprum Maxlol: Knight of Hope. optimistic Duelist has a good video already on the topic and while I disagree with their classpecting for Folkyl ultimately I don’t really feel the need to add much onto it. Suffice to say, Kuprum defies fate for another person. Rather than let voidrot run its course, Kuprum volunteers himself as a battery for his moirail. While its perhaps a short sighted plan, its one that stems wholly from Kuprum’s belief in his ability to make a difference, if not for society at large, at least for one person.

Folykl Darane: Seer of Void. One who is wholly in sync with their aspect, in full understanding of it. Folykl is entirely aligned with the nothingness and emptiness associated with Void, being quite literally denied vision, power, and even the ability to ambulate on her own. Likewise, though, she has a clarity of vision in the metaphorical sense. She accurately assesses both Kuprum’s feelings towards Trizza and Trizza’s worthiness of those feelings, emblematic of Void’s disdain for a comfortable lie. However, true to the passive nature of her class, while she often chastises Kuprum for his feelings she isn’t ultimately willing to do more than bicker about it.

Remele Namaaq: Page of Space. Initially I thought we might end up with two Thieves of Space, but what important to note is that whle Remele does steal artwork, theft isn’t necessarily her true nature. At her core, she’s an artist that has been forced to become cynical because of the society she lives in. Sburb roles aren’t just meant to embody you. Often they’re meant to challenge you. As such, her more derivative works can be seen less as the final fulfillment of her role and more the beta stage of her coming into her aspect. While it may not show in her artwork yet, Remele demonstrates a great potential for on the spot creative thinking that could potentially be bolstered into a powerful force in its own right. Likewise, like Diemen she demonstrates the Page’s intuitive ability to get people to aid her in her quest, regardless of whether or not its in their own best interests

Konyyl Okimaw: Prince of Light (because gendered classes are FAKE NEWS). One who destroys/destroys through their aspect. Light is associated with both fortune and knowledge, and Konyyl can be seen destroying (and destroying through) both. Her matesprit, Azdaja, is the Mind aspect: he supplies knowledge to Konyyl, who in turn uses that knowledge to destroy the lives of others. Likewise, she’s heavily resistant to doing the thinking for herself, seeming to intuitively sense its not her role. She’s also a bit on the unlucky side (I mean, what are the odds of an adult troll being there at that exact drop off point) but can destroy the luck of others. By killing them. Worst luck ever. Also she’d look cute in the puffy pants don’t tell me otherwise.

Tyzias Entykk: Page of Blood (damn there’s a lot of pages in here its almost like most of these characters have yet to come to their true potential or something). While its not always the case (Jake English being a notable exception, to my mind), Pages may often start the game with a deficit of their aspect. Tyzias has a deficit of friendships. She mentions she doesn’t have time for any quadrant but her matesprit, who is arguably the only troll on Alternia more overworked than she is. Beyond that, her social circle is restricted to people she meets in class. Despite this, Tyzias has a unique capacity to reach out to other people, which, once tapped into her, makes her a force to reckon with, especially so far as the empire is concerned.

Chixie Roixmr: Witch of Mind. GODS Chixie was so hard. However, what ultimately unlocked it for me was the rap battle. A witch is one who manipulates/manipulates through their aspect. Chixie, for as sweet as she is, is a pretty effective manipulator. She keeps Zebruh on the hook without getting forced into a quadrant with him, she manages to sway the crowd into her favor (despite the fact that no one in their right mind should be siding with a bronzeblood in a highblood owned club), she even manages to get the Reader to act in her favor on certain occasions. She does this through clear, decisive action, and through careful combinations of absorbed information, all of which come to a head in the rap battle. Despite potentially risking everything she’s worked to build, she forces herself onto that stage and, under pressure, synthesizes everything she knows about the band from social media and her own encounters with them into some pretty sick lyrics.

Azdaja Knelax: Thief of Mind. Azdaja, as previously mentioned, is the information half of Konyyl’s duo. Utilizing powerful psiionics, a quick grasp of strategy, and a willingness to do whatever it takes (all of which can be understood as part of the Mind aspect), Azdaja manipulates scenarios into ones that will directly benefit him. Often, he quite garners literal monetary gain, but equally as powerful for him is the added notoriety his actions gain him.

Chahut Maenad: Knight of Hope. No title more fitting for a defender of the faith. Chahut has strong convictions that run to the core of her being, something vital to a Hope player. However, while her convictions may render her single minded, they do not necessarily render her selfless. When the player does not antagonize her morals Chahut seems happy to benefit them (although most players would probably not view being a sacrifice as a benefit). She is happy to learn at the feet of people who have earned her respect, and defend those like Amisia who she considers worth protecting, all of which render her an apt candidate for the Knight category.

Zebede Tongva: Heir of Light. One who embodies their aspect, often perhaps to the point of excess. Zebede is many things, but he is certainly knowledgeable, in particular about his interests. At times, that interest can be cute, but at other times it can lead him towards creepy and possessive behavior. He knows everything about Cirava, to the point that he feels comfortable posting fanfiction about their life. Likewise, he displays frustration and anger when he is not allowed knowledge (or, in a meta sense, is denied union with his aspect), as in hs bad end when the Reader implies they are talking to other people while at Zebede’s house. Zebede, though his method of expression isn’t the healthiest, at his purest form is really just curious about the lives of the people he watches, and allows that curiosity to overcome him.

Tegiri Kalbur: Rogue of Void. If Tegiri embodies anything to me, its how much the temperament of a person affects their expression of their classpect. On first glance he and Roxy Lalonde have nothing in common. However, like Roxy, Tegiri has the ability to “steal” nothingness by replacing it with something else. He replaces it with order, imposing laws whether otherwise no sane troll would think to enforce them. By doing so, he’s not only stealing away the chaos associated with the Void, but also the sense of meaninglessness he might otherwise succumb to if he ceased to believe in Alternian law (much like a few other teals I could mention). Also like Roxy, Tegiri seems troubled by the sense that he may be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and becomes determined to impress his status as a hero of the blade upon us as quickly as possible.

Mallek Adalov: Witch of Time. Ok this one’s a little weird, but hear me out: a Witch, inherently, is about a refusal to accept your aspect as it is. Mallek demonstrates an understanding of the lacking nature of Time. With his Rites of Maturation perigrees away, he has a hard time coming to terms with how little time he has to do everything he wants to do. This might imply a Mage or a Seer, but what strikes me is not that Mallek wants to understand time, but that he is frustrated with his inability to do anything about it. We aren’t really told what he does after his conversation with the reader, but it can perhaps be assumed that, inspired by their words, he is doing what he has to to give himself the time he needed. Were an sgrub session to take place, he would be given the literal chance to do just that.

Lynera Skalbi: Maid of Rage. Again, whipping through an unusual class combo. The Maid is one who creates their aspect, for the benefit of others. Rage is not just about anger (although Lynera certainly has that in spades), but about convictions and truth. Lynera creates her truth and beliefs, and makes them in alignment to the people that matter to her. When she understands that keeping under the radar of Alternian society is important to Bronya, she becomes the bad cop needed to enforce those convictions. When she understands her making other friends is important to the Reader (and to Bronya), she immediately latches onto them as her nearest and dearest friendship. Ultimately we never see Lynera at a healthy place with her aspect, but she’s a dedicated soldier, ready to evangelize (or, create convictions) on behalf of the people in her life to matter to her.

Galekh Xigisi: Seer of Blood. The Seer is of course, associated with understanding. However, its important that unlike the Mage, one who already understands and suffers from it, the Seer is rather one who invites understanding. They may have a large knowledge base already as regards their aspect (a la Terezi with Mind) but are constantly on the hunt for more to the benefit of their party. Galekh, while he can be pompous and uptight, at his very core wants to understand people, and the people who matter to those he cares about especially. He is one of the few trolls to approach us with the explicit intent of forming a relationship (and deepening an existing one with Tagora). That wordiness and sense of self-righteousness likewise aligns him with our other known Seer of Blood, Kankri Vantas, although Galekh has arguably gotten more of a chance to mature than Kankri got.

Tirona Kasund: Thief of Heart. Tirona seeks to override the convictions, and by extension the “soul”, of others, whether by force or by persuasion. Her memeaganda is one branch of this, ingratiating the Heiress to people in a way that will make them forget the various ways in she has harmed her. Likewise, she goes rooting through the offices of their friends to dig up details about their personal opinions and politics in order to expose them for her own gain. Heart Players really can’t catch a break outside of Boldir huh. Speaking of…

Boldir Lamati: Muse of Heart. Unusual, I know, but then, she’s an unusual lady. Not much is known about the muse class, given that our only Muse is Calliope. Typically, the verb that I would assign to the Muse is “inspires” or “unifies”, as a contrast to the Lord’s “command” or “dominates”. Boldir’s strong unity of the self would likely explain how she demonstrates an uncanny awareness over the strange time activities. She is, arguably, on the verge of becoming her ultimate self. Likewise, simply by being around her the reader becomes deeply aware of their alternate selves. However, unlikely Dirk’s existential dread in the face of his splinters, Boldir inspires that peace and independence unique to the Muse class which allows her to transcend the division of self so often toxic to Heart Players.

Stelsa Sezyat: Knight of Blood. Together with Galekh, they’re two halves of a whole Signless kin. Knights defend their aspect and defend through their aspect. In the case of relationships, Stelsa does both. She is a loyal and caring friend, always on call for both the Reader and her matesprit Tyzias even when she disagrees with their actions. Likewise, Stelsa’s strongest asset, in addition to her boundless energy and organizational talent, is her capacity for networking. More so than perhaps any other troll, Stelsa understands that the key to victory sometimes isn’t what you can do, but who you know. In the event she goes godtier, though, the first thing she’s doing is ditching the hood. Not subjecting her hair to that, no sir.

Marsti Houtek: Heir of Void (side note, Inherit Nothing by phemieC may have been written for Equius but it is a jam and a half and kind of snaps this class into greater perspective for me). Like every troll on Alternia, Marsti has been forced most of her life to confront her limited options under the hemocaste system. True to her nature as a Void player, she seemed to have accepted her apparent irrelevance in the grand scheme of thing. As an heir, she embodies not only this irrelevance, but the enigma around it. We’re never truly given an insight into how Marsti actually would want her life to go. She seems resistant to any attempts to force her into some kind of emotional arc. Rather, she frames her actions in terms of simple “this is what I do” statements. Marsti is content with her own nothingness, and is frustrated by people who cannot accept that about her.

Karako Pierot: I uh…..really like the Lord of Mind theory. There are a lot of mind players in Hiveswap, but Karako, to me, embodies the karma aspect of Mind more clearly than any that proceed him. He either gets justice against his attackers, or, should he be killed, the reader feels compelled to enact that justice on others. Karako at once breaks the rules of his aspect (his illogical speaking patterns, his afterlife return to the Dark Carnival, the embodiment of whimsy and mystery) while commanding it through his will and the forces surrounding him.

Charun Krojib: Sylph of Rage. If Lynera embodies the part of Rage that deals with convictions, then Charun embodies the more anarchic, confusing parts of the Aspect. However, they do not seem to use it for destructive purposes, but deconstructive. Charun meets the player at a point when they are feeling low and burnt out and angry. However subtextually, Doc Scratch’s imposition over their narrative is starting to chafe at them a bit. Charun utilizes that anger and that confusion into a tool for healing via their art. They encourage the Reader to make something. Doesn’t matter what: if it turns out crap that it can just be stripped down and made again. And working with those nebulous guidelines, the Reader is able to process their frustration into art. Art that has no set meaning, but who’s lack of stakes and general confusion bring healing to the reader. Thus, Charun embodies the Sylph’s restorative role.

Wanshi Adyata: Seer of Doom. Seers are often seen as already understanding their aspect in some respect, but the role of Seer is one who is perpetually learning and understanding more about their aspect. Notably, Rose and Terezi are both still having revelations about the nature of their aspects and abilities even as late as Act 6, where most of the other players have broadly figured out their own as far as they need to. Wanshi has demonstrated a proclivity towards knowledge and understanding, being a voracious reader. However, we as the Reader are there with her as she takes her first steps into her aspect. Though no stranger to the suffering of Alternia, we see her experience death in the most direct way she has at that point in her life, and struggle to comprehend it. Depending on how Hiveswap goes, as she grows older she may be forced to reckon with this role, and part of her maturation will be whether she buckles under the negativity of doom, or successfully incorporates it into her worldview, allowing it to inform her without sinking her.

Fozzer Velyes: Bard of Heart. Man, heartbound derse players just canNOT catch a break….criminal. In any case, the heart has to do with the self, the soul, and the identity. The Bard is not someone who destroys, but someone who invites destruction of (or destruction through) their aspect. Notably, bards often demonstrate avoidant personalities, often refusing to directly confront the things that scare them (as Fozzer with the ghosts), and are prone to talking big game but falling victim to minor hitches in their plans (as the Reader notes contrasting his cowardly reactions with his revolutionary spiel). Fozzer’s self is in fact destroyed over the course of his route, and rewritten by forces beyond his control. Its possible he will continue to enact this role on others. If we’ve seen anything from homestuck, its that bards are the ones to watch out for.

Marvus Xoloto: Seer of Time. Alright, so like I said, I’m like 99% sure we’re do for some kind of twist with Marvus. However, the Caprist sign he’s been previously associated with is timebound, and based on his bad end especially I’d say that’s a good fit. The Seer is the role I chose because Marvus doesn’t really seem to exert any particular control over his aspect, nor does he feel bound to serve it (actively defying it, in fact). Rather, he demonstrates a more in-depth of the machinations of paradox space and “canon” than any character prior, arguably even more than Dirk. Marvus may not successfully wrest control of the narrative, but he provides further insight into the function of doomed timelines, as well as some possible hints as to how paradox space’s pull can be resisted by means other than the retcon juju.

Daraya Jonjet: Rogue of Hope. Something notable about rogues is that in their immature stages: a lot of them seem to initially covet their opposite aspect. Roxy, Rogue of Void, struggled with a desire for recognition from others (Light). Rufioh, Rogue of Breath, tries desperately to forge relationships that ultimately he isn’t ready to live out (Blood). Likewise, Daraya seems desperate to perform the anarchic and embittered Rage aspect. Her bad ending is her giving herself fully to these bitter teen “burn it all down” impulses. However, that’s not ultimately how she’s happiest. She is at her best when she learns to redistribute Hope to other people. Notably she’s the first person we make legitimate effort to connect with Tyzias’ revolutionary actions. Tyzias is a powerhouse in her own right, true, but she’s one person, and though her Blood aspect gives the the ability to connect to other people, as we’ve seen she’s not the best at rallying the troops (given that her attempts at a pep talk with Daraya fall flat with the Reader not there to help). Daraya, as she grows into her role and partners more with Tyzias, may be able to help with that, stealing the Hope so long denied alternian trolls and giving it back to the people with her rebellious actions. One things for sure: the two are stronger together than they are apart.

Nikhee Moolah: Knight of Rage. She weaponizes anger into her powerful arsenal, but arguably does do it for the benefit of others. In her good ending she strengthens the reader to their utmost, actually reaping muscular benefits as a result. Likewise, her fights are (arguably) a place of catharsis for Alternian trolls and may draw in more outsiders (given the only non-clown purple we have ever seen is….there PLEASE SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS NOT CLOWN TO ME WHAT’S THEIR STORY). That anger becomes just as powerful a tool turned against the Reader as it is for the Reader, but ultimately Nikhee seems to do what she does for the good of her audience.

Lanque Bombyx: Thief of Life. Insert mandatory vampire joke here, but its not far off from how Lanque goes about his day to day. Life isn’t just about literally being alive, its also associated with growth, betterment, and positivity. We see Lanque take these things, especially from Lynera. While the amount of growth Lynera really demonstrated is VERY debatable, its hard to argue that Lanque immediately shut down the first attempt at reaching out to someone romantically that Lynera has done for anyone but Bronya, immediately turning it into an opportunity to put the moves on someone else. This may nudge him into the Prince class, but I think its more accurate to assert that Lanque isn’t destroying his aspect, necessarily, as he certainly seems to benefit from it. Instead, he’s simply ensuring that no one else gets it. Lanque is childish in temperament, and may assume that other people are as slow to mature as he is. Likewise he displays the Thief’s attitude that “I should get what I want if I’m smart enough and strong enough to take it” that we see with both Meenah and Vriska. Like both of those characters, he’s not necessarily doomed to evil behavior, merely that its more realistic to hope that he’ll start to see the good of the party as beneficial to him as well, rather than wish he’d just lose his self-interested ways (as Bronya does).

Barzum and Baizli Soleil: the fact that these two embody two different aspects (Breath and Doom respectively) seems to imply that there is at least some difference between the two twins, but whatever it is is hard to riddle out, given that they effectively switch personalities on a whim. As such, its possible to see Breath and Doom as merely two potentials towards which they could drift, either becoming more and more individuated as they embrace their Breath aspect or more and more singular as they embrace Doom. As such, I would probably assign them both the page role, as they are both untapped potential yet to mature enough to really embody anything but chaos.

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thesagedahlia · 4 years

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🐂 Taurus Season (Apr. 19-May. 19) ♉

🌍

When it comes to romance or emotional situations, there may be an imbalance due to having dealt with pain, trauma, or heartache before. There may have been a complete failure in love, & someone has been allowing unconventional relationship or ones that they don't want to commit to. What needs to be rebuilt is more value for the self, & finding equilibrium with the ones own receptive energy & the productive energy. There is a stubborn or excessively controlling nature that is wanting a passive affair with someone who is a match for them, yet they're overly confident or an energy that is doing too much, that has continued to block their faith or delay their process. There is lack of commitment or frustrated/scattered energy to being open to healing, or renewal of the heart space, yet such focus there is required in order to enjoy a true spiritual union. Don't try to create happiness by holding onto emotionally unavailable situations/people that is allowing you to give up on what you want in order to benefit others, or willing to accept less than you deserve. Clarity is coming about your stagnation, & it is going to bring swift change onto a new path. Some will need to take action in order to bring solutions or results relating to leaving behind vulnerability & weakness. Things will be illuminated for what they are, & there will be an opportunity to choose a growing path.

🐂

A limit has been reached regarding a female family member, or there is a need to withdraw or let go from family gratitude of others, that may be masking or disguising someone's emotional manipulation. It may be coming online about the situation you are exposed to & its effects on someone; it has decayed their innocence & they're realizing it may have been volitile & aggressive. It may be up to someone's intuition, that family environments has cause conflict that has ruined their happiness, or female family member has gained enjoyment from punishments in the past (& still engage in this today). There is a need for renewal in an effort to cure the detachment from your inner child, or a deeper loneliness is being brought up from a lonely childhood, & holding on to these traumas aren't beneficial to you. Warmth, exuberance, & vibrancy are within you, but it won't expand if you don't dig deep & find it.

👰🏾

There may be a social opportunity where you may be focused on public appearances, or what that community is focused on. This can cause disharmony with these people/communities & this can be directed at dysfunctional families, shattered families, or broken homes. Lack of growth for holding onto the past may be causing someone to feel trapped, or a need for caution when dealing with these people/communities is coming up for someone. The need for discretion will be high for someone as they move away from a dominant figure, & will need to build one's own independence. There may have been a lack of movement here due to dependency, & for some it is financial dependency. This feels like relief from a manipulative leader, & being guided away onto calmer waters. Some will receive guidance from their own intuitive ambition, or others may be very much in tune with their spiritual guides, weather with in the physical realm or removed.

🐐

Someone may be facing stagnation & it can be because of a masculine energy needing to make a transition, or someone needing to make a transition away from one. It may be a heavy decision, but it is also one that is inevitable & necessary. This can be regarding a trying relationship with a soulmate or spiritual ally, or a love entanglement with one that is an outcast or is inexperienced. Someone may need to get out of the negative focus or disillusion regarding this situation, or it has been a missed opportunity or refusing the offer of change & growth. It is an obvious choice to embark on a journey in discovering or searching for happiness, but the choice may be a stressful one. There may be a limit on someone's freedom & one's sense of adventure is decaying, or one may be scared to dream. These difficulties may be concerning a man that may be restrained, or it may be an obstacle to security or setting down roots, but a feminine energy may be clinging or insecure when it comes to any disharmony within a relationship.

🌬

Someone wants to break would progress & effort into a foundation (of a relationship) that has been lacking in stability. There's been a lack of commitment because of an amazing & fulfilling love life, & settling for a solid relationship wasn't something someone was looking for at the time. As time went on, someone realizes their mistake. There may have been a specific person that someone has deep emotion for, or this person was able to change someone's mind. There is a need for happiness after feeling pain or heartbreak from a healthy relationship that was either delayed, or a missed chance that was never acted on out of hesitation. Someone may have also let a foundation be ruined because of too much sexual gratification, & has caused heartache to their relationship or to those they've encountered. A masculine energy may have been self sabotaging when it came to committing to a feminine energy, & held back a lot out of fear & insecurity. There was an emotional component to his fear, & there was deception, betrayal, or lack of communication as he result of this major anxiety and panic. There is also extreme guilt felt here, as the feminine energy opted out of dealing with him because she has a stable, long term vision, & is someone who embraces growth. Someone has been holding on to this bond/connection despite the extremes that may have been taken, or lack of seriousness, & there is repression of this foundation being explored. There is communication wanting to come in, in regards to initiate a traditional relationship or establish a commitment. For some, this is a long distance relationship where the inability to commit only slowed things down, or someone who has fearful of a connection moving too fast or acting impulsively created lack of romance, or causing one to be waiting for clarity.

👭🏿

A dominant male figure, or male with authority (this can also be a masculine energetic woman, or a man), that has brought change within the institution or workplace that has become overpowering, or this person's leadership may be going through a transformation. There can also be some one having to deal with obstacles to bringing an end to the commitment to this masculine (or job). For some, this is an ending to a friendship or to loyalty to the stable foundation,that has come as a surprise. Family values may have held someone back, or family was a negative influence that they were loyal to. For others, a family feud, loss in family, or loneliness from family is the focus, as well as needing to put an end to the devotion or obedience to such causes. This transformation will be created through, or discussed through, conversation that may be in the form of a loving letter, or passionate communication.

⚖

Someone may be encountering flirtation in their communication with a man (masculine energy) with much energy, but may have an underlying suspicion about them. They may be the type to 'catch & release', if you will, & can set bad examples through impulsiveness. They engage in light communication in order to achieve a lucky chance/opportunity. This can be someone who refuses to commit, or likes to control the situation with manipulation, but this is a person who has inexperience with the traditional sense of public relations. They may act out the nervousness of their inexperience through ruthless or extreme behavior/means. There is confusion about their feelings, or there's a plain inability to express their emotions that are growing, & the person they're dealing with is needing to bring to this situation, since it's unhealthy & they're leaving themselves vulnerable to abuse.

🤖

There is an energy to want to balance out a situation with someone that makes you someone feel aligned & happy in her life. Someone is passionate about releasing from a situation that may be continuing to hold them back, or is causing paralysis in rushing toward a goal. There is a truth to someone's growth that will involve a major transition from hopelessness to a place of warmth, love, & positivity. It is something that really makes someone feel good, & for some it has become a sudden desire for someone. For others, there was an end to this ambition or enthusiasm due to destructive behaviors or deficiencies in fairness. There may be someone wanting to reconcile or wanting to build a bridge with a desire (can be a person/relationship) that may have ended suddenly in the past. There is a need to balance with the heart & the mind, because their direction is that of dealing with the burden/suffering of their sensuality head on.

🌊

The door to personal healing & happiness is a phenomenon that only few people can tap into, & for a lot of people, this concept is internal. In order to reach this place, there will be a need to have some emotional strength, or may need to be emotionally removed from situations that dont meet this vibrations. There's a higher frequency that can be reached, & emotional withdrawal & understanding is what is being asked of. This driving force for independence is fueling those experiencing this energy, & it is bound to pay off spiritual & abundantly. It will take some time to get through a mentally confusing & painful time where triggers may cause emotional that keeps someone trapped within themselves, & there is a suppression of this transition to come about. Being out of touch with self isn't allowing for some to be open or even to have a clear mind, & it was caused by concerning themselves with friendships/relationships that weren't what they portrayed to be. You could avoid the conflict or the clashing from any corruption happening in certain relationships, & these may be commitments that are unconventional or ones that someone is reluctant to fulfill. It may have carried on for this long because of ignoring the signs, but there is a need to take charge & embrace a new vitality & having individual successes away from people who are volatile & are only around to bring you trouble.

🦀

There may be some chaos in your vicinity, or you may be dealing with competitive or combative situations/relationships that may need to be reflected upon. Someone isn't able to let go of these situations or people that aren't beneficial, & repression of the toll it is taking on some people. Uncertainty of dealing with this conflict has been caused by suffering from it, & it has caused uncertainty in your spiritual journey. You have to be loyal to a transformation of a friendship, & needing to find happiness for yourself, & being stable in that. It may feel like a lack of security for someone who is trying to be stable in their emotions & their own happiness, & it may be a time for a renewal of their energy. For others, this is a time of awakening for people who need to learn forgiveness & self evaluation that has been struggling with the concept, as someone's boundaries have been overpowered.

🦂

Someone may be in a place where healing needs to be their main focus & there is a need for clarity & renewal after having to deal with feeling things are too good to be true. Whether this is related to decisions, illusions, or fantasies, someone's idealization or blocks to creativity is bringing inspiration through spiritual knowledge & hope. Someone may be in a whimsical mood that is probably up & down from being uncertain regarding a purpose some may be searching for. There's some aggression against one's (or someone else's) innocence but they really have the knowledge that can be used as a weapon, & for some it's spiritual knowledge. Ancestral entanglements may have been causing these creative blocks, & needing to understand lessons coming up that are from past life karmic cycles that have yet to be dealt with.

🐡

The past may be feeling like it is repeating itself for some people, or that bad memories of past events/situations are coming up & that is leading to dissatisfaction & feelings of lacking direction. For others, naivety is causing misalignment of values, & there is an energy of lacking discipline, carelessness, or distraction that may be causing irrationality. Some people are lacking the fun in their day to day, & are actually suffering from boredom. For some, friendships may be tested through gossip or someone may be a person that stops being a friend through difficult times. For others, this is a past issue within a friendship that is coming up again. There's pure facts about a journey that may be feeling like someone is underachieving, or someone may be devastated over knowledge about exploring ethics or morality within a friendship (or one's self), when someone may not have been operating in a loyal way.

🔥

Opportunities may have been missed or delayed that may have been regarding a spiritual love, or trusting/having hope for love with a feminine energy, & there may also conflict within the family about decisions & future planning. There is also worry & anxiety because of this, & it is causing overwhelm as well as distance from people either tying to control you, or causing you to place restrictions on yourself. A masculine energy may have found security in a commitment where there was hesitation or lack of initiative. This was blocked/ended because of confusion about what makes one happy when it comes to a feminine energy, & taking charge/protecting the connection may be something that someone is holding onto. Someone's suspicions may be subsiding & are thinking of communication to relieve loneliness. Someone is desiring happiness (for some, in another person), & this masculine is having conflict with finding depth, or emotional knowledge, & there may be weakness with expressing feelings. Immature desires of craving/addiction to sensuality will be values that were built on shaky foundation. There is an energy of the future being uncertain, & it causing a lot of burdens that could be avoid if there was clearing the mind of major stresses & anxieties. For some of you, there is a lack of connection to source or a higher power & needing to allow yourself to recieve the guidance that is trying to come in. There is also news of betrayal or message of deception regarding someone who is emotionally unstable within an emotional commitment, that others may need to be aware of.

🦁

Some of you are having a spiritual transition that may be causing deep seeded issues to come up in order to be explored, but some are being held back, or staying put so to speak, due to fear of change, fear of the unknown, or indecision brought up through doubt. On their path, there are some that are taking one's transition lightheartedly, & others may be prone to making changes that don't bring lasting change or a moral transformation. This can also be speaking to this involving a masculine energy specificically. There also seems to be worries about responsibilities or burdens, some of you may be hearing it come up a lot in conversation within gathering. Some are wanting to put an ending to a time of loneliness, & others can be letting go of grief from isolation. The direction that someone is taking is withdrawal from authority in sexual relationship, or are becoming introspective about their own moral authority.

🐎

There is fairness needed in a situation with a feminine energy that may be a domineering, aggressive, or demanding force, & is either selfishness toward a lonely child, or insecurity could be coming up due to detachment from inner child. For some, there could be a jealous or low confident person whose suspicion creates loneliness, or her distrust of others creates barriers. This person may be conflicting (or a bully) toward another who is unable to care for one's self, or are manipulative to a naive person (or child) & they are being tricked by someone. When it comes to conversations about finances, financial documents - bills, taxes-there is a lack of focus, scattered thoughts or lack of control for some, & for others there is a vicious attempt to have opportunities missed if there isn't truth or clarity. This can be a new discovery made about a friend, or needing to speak truthfully or opening up to a friend is that focus.

🐏

You're in the mode of working for what you want to achieve happiness in all areas of life, & self growth is progressive & slow moving. Some may be receiving some lucky news that is of financial importance, or they may be needing patience for hard work; they may also have luck in financial matters, or are feeling unburdened by finances. Others can be receiving messages regarding the value of compassion & love & having a lucky opportunity in love (some may even buying their love). Someone may have been guided by a spiritual leader to help progression toward enlightenment of what is really desired in their life, & a part of that desire is for spiritual growth, others can be straight up seduced by spirituality. For some, a compassionate friendship, or a loving friend, helped to show where undelivered promises has brought stagnant energy. Others may be bound by loyalty to a rational connection, or it could be bound by pride had dwindling compassion, dwindling love, or was an all around unhealthy love.

*this reading is intended for sun, moon, rising, & venus placements, & is intended for entertainment purposes only, energy is fluid not linear, roles are interchangeable, cross readers (reading for another person's sign) should pick their energy in the scenario, take what resonates, leave the rest*

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citrinekay · 4 years

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bill compliments holden and he’s lost for words. please and thank you 🙏🥺

Lucy, you are lucky I love you. This is quite possibility the sappiest thing I have ever written

With the amount of driving that they do on the job, Bill would have thought that spending their free time on the weekend together in a car would have been unremarkable, if not excessive; but there’s something about driving the winding back roads of Fredericksburg with Holden in the passenger’s seat beside him that feels safe. It’s something familiar, a space that he understands and is comfortable in, even while the rest of their relationship is shifting into deeper, more serious waters.

They started out this afternoon leaving the house to go to dinner, but once they left the restaurant, Holden hadn’t wanted to go home. He wanted to drive out to see the Rappahannock River. Bill has seen the river plenty of times as it cradles the city that he’s lived in for most of his life, and it’s a good half hour drive out of their way; but, it’s what Holden wants so Bill complies without complaint.

The drive is quiet except for the mellow strains of Fleetwood Mac bleeding from the radio. Holden’s hand creeps across the gearshift while the sun begins to set in front of them, painting the dusky blue of the sky with pink and purple. Bill takes his hand off the wheel to find Holden’s hand against his thigh. Their fingers touch, slowly at first, nudging up against one another in a tentative question of boundaries.

Bill cuts a glance across the car, but Holden’s gaze is fixed on the dazzling sunset deepening across the sky in front of them. The color is so low against the asphalt that it looks like they could dive into the blush of pink at any moment. The wash of light spills across Holden’s profile, illuminating the soft swell of his cheeks plumping in a smile, his lips squirming against the giddy expression.

Their fingers intertwine, and Bill draws in a steadying breath.

Holden chuckles softly.

“What?” Bill asks, trying not to sound defensive.

“You’re holding my hand.” Holden says, peeking across the car at him.

“I can see that.”

Holden keeps smiling, biting his lower lip. Bill sighs, but lets him have the moment. Lets himself have it, if he’s being honest. He can’t remember the last time he and Nancy held hands before everything went to shit. It’s one of those little things he didn’t realize he’d missed about being in a happy relationship.

When they reach the river, Bill finds a parking spot that’s secluded from the rest of the vehicles. Most people are headed for the walking trail along the side of the water, but Holden is content to stay in the car where the panoramic view of the sunset over the water lapses out in front of them.

Bill disentangles their fingers to slide his arm across the back of the seat, and around Holden’s shoulders.

“Well, here we are.” He says, “Happy?”

“Yes.” Holden murmurs, tucking himself under Bill’s shoulder, and snuggling down with a contented sigh. “It’s beautiful.”

“Mm.” Bill mutters, his gaze more focused on Holden’s blissful expression rather than the view.

He curls his fingers around Holden’s shoulder, and gradually moves his hand inward until his touch is brushing up against Holden’s neck, just below his ear.

Holden suppresses a quiet sound as the stroking intensifies, rubbing up along his hairline, and tracing the shell of his ear. He purses his lips, keeping his gaze stubbornly focused on the sunset.

Bill drops a soft kiss against his forehead.

He’s seen a hundred sunsets. He’s seen the river. He’s seen the sky from behind the wheel, when the road was before him, and the passenger’s seat was empty. He’s put his arm around someone else, and ached for it to feel this good. But it’s never felt this way. Not even close.

Slipping his fingers under Holden’s chin, he tilts his head back to press a slow kiss to Holden’s mouth.

Holden whimpers a quiet sound of surprise, but quickly melts into the caress. He slides his lips open, expelling a sweet, breathy moan into the wet pressure of Bill’s mouth coming down in gradual, yearning strokes. Clutching at the collar of Bill’s shirt, he kisses back for a moment before tearing his mouth away.

“You’re missing it.” He whispers, nodding at the final stages of the sunset turning the deepest pink.

“I’m not missing anything.” Bill says, stroking Holden’s chin so that it can’t turn away from him.

Holden pauses, his eyes blinking rapidly. Whatever levity had existed up until this moment saps away into silence, into the bob of his throat as he swallows back the flutter of anxiety making its way to his eyes.

He begins to blush, and Bill kisses him again like he can’t stop himself, like there’s some strong magnet hidden under the lush swell of Holden’s tongue. When he draws back, shuddering, his eyes slip open to glimpse the blue of Holden’s eyes, the pink pucker of his lips.

“Fuck.” Bill whispers, clutching Holden’s cheek. “God, you’re beautiful.”

Surprise registers in Holden’s eyes before they quickly dart away. He shifts uncomfortably in Bill’s embrace as the blush on his cheeks blossoms into deeper red.

“What?” He says, giving a strangled little laugh.

He swallows hard. Maybe they’re both surprised he said it. He hesitates a moment before realizing he meant it. “I said you’re beautiful.”

Holden’s brow furrows. His mouth moves wordlessly for a moment before he manages to stammer, “I-I don’t know about that-”

“You expect me to believe nobody has ever told you that before? Look at you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you look like someone who should know what kind of effect they have on people.”

“I have an effect on people?” Holden echoes, his frown deepening in disbelief.

“Well, I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but …”

“I’ve never thought of myself that way.” Holden murmurs, sounding bewildered. “I have an effect on you?”

“It’s a little late for that realization, don’t you think?” Bill asks, motioning to the scant space between them.

Holden laughs, softly. He tugs Bill down by the collar for another kiss, melding a whisper into the touch, “Yes it is.”

They don’t talk again for awhile while the kiss stretches on, a gradual, simmering stroke of lips and tongue that’s restrained only by the fact that the little bit of privacy they have is too fragile for anything else. Bill sinks into the hungry ache, feeling like a teenager again making out in his car, longing for the real thing. He can have anything he wants now, but he feels like he should savor this indeterminable feeling floating warmly in his chest.

When the light of the sunset bleeds away into darkness, Bill extricates his mouth from Holden’s. His mouth is humming with Holden’s taste, an aperitif before the rest of the night.

“Ready to go home?” He murmurs.

Holden nods. “Yes. Take me home.”

#citruslucy #mindhunter #bill x holden #my writing #where's that anon who wanted domestic fluff #this is the closest you're getting

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darlingpetao3 · 5 years

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The Honeymoon (Harry Wells x Reader)

Rating: M (Smut)

Summary: When Harry whisks you away to a romantic beach-side getaway, your honeymoon kicks off right away into some steamy festivities to celebrate your marriage.

A/N: Basically shameless no-plot smut under the guise of a honeymoon XD The idea(s) came to me during my holiday in a super nice hotel room, so I couldn’t not write them into a story. I hope you all enjoy this xx

3,895 words

You and Harry are all hands and giggles and freshly-married grins as you both attempt to make your way into your honeymoon suite.

Married! You’re married!

Mrs. Harrison Wells!

Man, it feels nice to finally say. After a real-life slow burn, you and he have finally tied the knot. And it’s not just you that feels the relief of having made it official - Team Flash had been waiting for this for ‘eons’ according to Cisco.

When you reach your suite’s door, Harry is already leaving open-mouthed kisses to your neck and it’s suddenly like you can’t even remember how to open a door.

“Are you going to attack me right in this hallway, Hare?”

“Mm, thinking about it,” he replies. It’s impossible to tell whether it’s a joke or not. You wouldn’t put it past the man (your husband!).

Upon first entry into the exclusive room, you spot your luggage already waiting by the door thanks to the hotel staff. The place is swanky beyond all belief and how on all the Earths had Harry pulled this off? You suppose being a rich, famous, and celebrated scientist has its perks.

The view outside the floor-to-ceiling window is to die for. Curling waves crash onto the private section of the golden beach below you and the sunset looks so incredible that you’d think it was fake if someone only showed you a photo of this.

But it’s difficult to even take it all in because Harry’s hands are securely on your waist, lips on yours with delightful greed after he catches up to you viewing the sunset at the window. Your hand reaches back to hold his head of perfectly coiffed hair, still in place from the ceremony and reception. Though, it won’t stay that way much longer if you have anything to do about it. Harry peppers more kisses down to your bare shoulder.

“You’re not going to enjoy the view?” you ask.

“Oh, I am.”

“But that sunset, Hare!”

“Nothing will pry my eyes away from my wife.”

You turn around, and when you do, the strap from your romper slides off your shoulder and down your arm. Even your clothes want to come off already at the way Harry so much as looks at you. His fingers tentatively move to the strap, keeping his eyes on you, as if to monitor how far he can go with this until you’re out of your clothing before him. You say nothing and let him undress you. Your one-piece article drops to the floor. In closing the slight gap between you, your lips turn up as you unbutton his crisp white shirt. Intensely, he watches your fingers dance while they work the buttons.

“Honey, I think you need to invest in some sort of one-piece article,” you mention casually then proceed to his belt, “you have too many layers.”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Harry chuckles. “Besides, it’s the best thing in the world to watch you undress me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You whip the belt out from the loops of his trousers like a professional. But a professional what? Porn star?

Harry lets out a playful growl-laugh at that and unzips his pants himself - now far too eager and needing to be in control of how quickly he can defile his new bride.

Romantically defile, though.

Okay, but with a dash of filth.

Marriage was going to be very magical.

Harry won’t stop smiling at you as he encroaches in on your space, essentially pinning yourself to the window. The coolness of the floor-length glass is very much welcome against your back, especially when your husband is making you so hot right now.

“You don’t think the bed would be more fitting?” you check, knowing in your mind the damn bed can wait its turn.

“We’ll get there, too, don’t you worry,” he assures you.

“Good answer.”

Harry plants a kiss on your wanting lips, restrained at first - as if wanting to savour the romantic bliss of spending these cherished honeymoon days and nights with you. But your kiss is like a poison to him; it always has been, turning your restrained and sensible man into this wild thing who wants nothing more than to please you and see and hear you being pleased.

Harry’s hand, which has been cupping your cheek, slides down the skin of your neck, over your practically-nothing-bra, to rest a moment at your hip. His fingers dance near the top of your panties (that you had picked out specifically for a moment like this for him to destroy). His mouth starts slow in its movements against yours again. He’s thinking.

“Harrison, you don’t need to think, remember?” you breathe against his parted lips. “But you do need to touch me or else I might have to ahhh-”

Your head tips back on the window at the feel of Harry’s perfect fingers between your legs. They explore and easily discover the intensity of your slick desire.

“You were saying?” Harry asks cheekily, leaning in to taste your skin just below your ear. You breathe out a laugh.

“Nothing, oh delicious husband.”

While one hand wraps around to clutch his rippled back, the other holds onto his equally impressive arm. And with one leg hooked around his, you suddenly wish you had more limbs to cling onto him with. God, his fingers… they’re so excessively coated with you now and they’ve found their perfect little plaything to swirl around. No amount of lip biting can save you from the whimpers Harry draws from you.

“I love it when you do that,” he whispers in your ear.

“Well, I love it when you do t-that, ugh…” Your eyelashes flutter at his attention to your begging clit. Reaching down with what mental capacity you still have, you reach into his pants to feel him. He’s hard and twitching and probably dying to delve inside you this instant. You take a second to shimmy out of your panties and pull his length (arguably yours now, in a sense) towards your throbbing centre where you coat him with your slickness. You watch in your task, but Harry continues to watch you instead.

“Ready?” you ask him.

“I like that you’re asking me that question.”

“Well, are you?”

“I’ve been ready for longer than you know.”

Just as you will never tire from hearing him bring you coffee in the mornings, say your name, or hold your hand, you will also never tire of the feeling of Harry entering you. Your body welcomes him in and holds on tight, never wanting him to leave.

Your moans effectively express the need in which your body wants more of Harry. It always wants more. It’s a good thing he’s yours now, ‘til death do you part.

“Harrison, God, yes…”

“(Y/N)...”

“More. More.”

“Hold on.”

He meant literally. Harry hoists you up so that you’re straddling him, back pressed to the window. You feel yourself sink further down onto his cock at this new angle. He fills you up wholly and easily slides repeatedly into you. Your hardly-covered breasts rub against Harry’s chest - nipples taut with the friction behind the scant white lace.

You moan at the ceiling, revealing your neck to him. Harry takes this as an invite and latches on, licking at your heated skin in between kisses to your collarbone. He sucks a fresh mark there, the first (of potentially many) honeymoon hickies.

It is also a good thing you both will likely not leave this room. You may get mistaken for a woman with a severe disease with how many love bites you’re expecting from this man given his and your bedroom history…

Harry’s driving you up the wall with each thrust you take eagerly and voicing it just as much. His heavy breathing fans down onto your chest, undoubtedly making you sweat all the more.

The coiling sensation flames within you almost too quickly, but luckily, thanks to those sounds Harry is making, he may not be able to hold off either.

“Almost…” you pant. “Almost…”

“Come for me, Mrs. Wells.”

You grin wildly as your eyes squeeze shut. “Give it to me, Harrison, yesss fuck-”

And oh, he does.

He strikes you inside perfectly and fully in his final few thrusts, all the while stimulating your clit at every motion in and out. Your legs tense around him and the heels of your feet dig harder into his lower back.

You choke out his name and bite his lip when you come, feeling yourself squeezing around his cock in a wordless, satiated beg for more even though he’s finishing inside you. His shaky sigh causes you to shiver. Good shivers.

After pulling out from you, you immediately cling to Harry again. He won’t let you touch the ground, and instead carries you over to the California King bed just a few steps away where you both topple onto the mattress, once more all giggles.

“That was…” he starts.

“It was…” you agree. Harry leans on his arm while resting his head in his hand and stares at you. “You’re doing it again.”

“Better get used to it, Mrs. Wells. You’re stuck with this now.”

“Thank God. There’s no one I’d rather be stuck with. Especially someone who’s fantastic in bed. Or… window, for that matter,” you joke.

Harry laughs and pulls you closer for a sweet kiss. He wipes his thumb gently over your bottom lip after.

“I love you,” he tells you, almost like he still can’t believe this is happening to him. Like he can’t believe he has found this happiness again. And you still can’t believe that he’s found it with you.

“And I love you.”

There’s a short pause - one where you are positive Harry is thinking again.

“You don’t think we should have, you know…?” He gestures to the bed. “Instead of…?” He motions to the window.

“Use your words, big boy,” you giggle.

“You know, the phrase you sometimes use.” It’s hard to tell if his cheeks are pink because of exertion or slight embarrassment.

You rack your brain for what that could mean.

“‘Make love’?” you offer, on the verge of laughter, but hold back because he really is so adorable. Even if he can’t utter that particular phrase. “God, you are the cutest man. Grumpy? Cute. Shy? Cute. But no, I’m quite content with what we did over there. Besides, we have all night to ‘make love,’ Harry.” You lean forward to press another kiss to his curling pink lips.

The two of you spend the next little while making out like crazed teenagers, though technically the term ‘newlyweds’ would suffice in this instance as well. At some point though, you do manage to pry yourself from your husband to unpack your bags a little. Harry watches as you do, eyes lingering on every inch of your nearly naked self. His face switches back and forth from awe to glee to aroused over the course of twenty minutes.

The toiletries were the last items to unpack, and you could practically sense the impatience diffusing from his pores. So with your man obviously raring to go again, you coo, “Oh, husband?” and drop the last of your lingerie to the bathroom floor in clear view of the open door for Harry to see. You hear his feet hit the floor and the sound of his pants hurrying to come off. Turning on the shower, you step in first to feel the spray of the water. Goodbye gross travel-sheen, hello cleanliness.

With a touch of dirtiness.

Harry gets under the showerhead with you, and you press your back against the tiles. He pushes his drenched curls back with his hand, and wow, yeah, okay, maybe he’s the sexy porn star in all of this. No, he’s better. He’s real.

And he’s all yours.

A fact that is always fun to remember.

You drag your teeth over your bottom lip. Slowly, you turn around to place your hands on the shower wall and turn your head to catch Harry’s eye. The man stands there, lips parted slightly. His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. You fix your footing and back your ass up against his groin to make little gyrations. Harry looks up to the ceiling with his eyes closed, lets out a small groan, and instinctively sets his hands on your waist.

He presses himself harder against your ass and you can feel him growing stiffer once more. You make a knowing chuckle at how you’re able to turn him on like no tomorrow. Harry’s hands start to roam upwards on your wet body, one resting on your rib cage while the other cups your breast.

As he massages you, you let out a breathy moan and continue to rub up on his body. In return, your husband takes your nipple in between his thumb and forefinger to knead it. Harry presses a kiss to the crook of your neck, to which you are already feeling yourself turning to mush at his every touch.

While he continues to caress you expertly, you reach around to take Harry in your hand, feeling him rock-hard now. You play with him a little - pumping his shaft until his own hand finds yours on him. He aids you in guiding him to your ready heat from behind. You helpfully sink onto him as he enters you - your heady voice muffled from the water in your ears, but it echoes around the four corners of the roomy shower. Your hands brace yourself against the wall as Harry gives you precisely what you need in terms of roughness and speed. He leans in close so you can hear his heavy panting and feel his breath on your neck. One of his hands gathers your hair and moves it to one side over your shoulder. The simple and considerate action is enough to keep you melting inside.

“Oh, Harry, please-” you cry when you feel yourself nearing the brink of your imminent and likely stellar shower-climax. Harry’s fingers dig into your hip, and at your plea, brings one hand down around between your legs to spark your fiery orgasm so much quicker.

He positively pulses inside your core and you can feel your walls beginning to increasingly constrict and release around his cock until the point where your pussy squeezes so tightly around him, that it’s even more difficult to continue his push deeper inside. With erratically jerking hips, Harry curses, followed by another moan made in perfect staccato. He’s hot when he spills into you - a deep, glorious groan of your name surrounds you in your whitened, starry vision.

“Damn…” you exhale, taking a moment before turning around to kiss your man under the continuous spray of the water.

“How very eloquent,” Harry teases, hearing in his voice on the brink of a chuckle.

“Shush, you.” You press another kiss to his perfect lips. His and yours both inch upwards into grins between pecks.

Naturally, the two of you stay in the shower until the water runs cold - a rude interruption from the magnificent shower kisses. But that just leads to stepping into the hotel’s lavish, fluffy white robes, and laying in bed together. And arguably, this is just as pleasant.

Room service is most definitely ordered, of course - an amazing spread accompanied by a red wine and chocolate-covered strawberries. Your dinner even comes with a little note wishing you both congratulations on your nuptials. Mr. and Mrs. Wells.

Nope, still not over it!

Harry offers you a strawberry, holding it up to your lips.

“Oh, so you’re feeding me now, are you?” you tease. “Not scared I’ll bite?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Wrapping your lips around the fruit, you take a bite and the sweetness bursts into your mouth like fireworks. You hum in delight. Harry’s eyes darken at your happy little sound as if on cue. His fingers still have a bit of the melted chocolate and berry juice on them, so you gently grab ahold of his wrist and pull his hand to you, taking his fingers in your mouth.

You don’t think he meant to let his mouth hang open like that.

You swirl your tongue around his fingers to lick off the rest of the lingering taste of the dessert until there’s nothing left. But it doesn’t matter. You keep it up anyway and start to gently suck at his fingers. Your eyes close and you smile.

His voice floats into your ears in a single word, “Bed.”

Standing up immediately, you take Harry’s hand, making him get up too, and lead him over to the bed. You undo his robe’s belt and shuck the hotel garment off of him. Harry, bless him, takes his time in disrobing you no matter how badly you know he wants to rip the damned thing off you. You know that look in his eyes.

He wants to take every nanosecond, he wants to be slow, and savour every part of this, and at this point - hell yeah, you want that, too. You want to get lost in your own little world of just you and Harry and let it last forever. Harry removes his glasses in one suave motion to the lounge chair beside the bed, eyes never once leaving you. They never do.

Crawling backwards on the bed, Harry follows you until he has you boxed in underneath him. You can practically feel his body radiate heat with how hot he is for you.

His mouth tastes your lips and takes his sweet time doing so. But it’s not just your lips - he tastes every part of your skin as he works his way downward, hands touching everywhere and burning little finger-sized holes into your skin. His hold on your thighs is gentle yet firm when he spreads your legs open for him. He bends down between them and plants a soft kiss to your sex.

And again.

Until they’re a little less chaste and slightly more ravenous. And definitely more focused on eliciting those whimpers he loves so much from you.

Harry’s open-mouthed kisses cause you to tremble - so tender, slow, and deliberately gentle. Your eyes flutter and you suck in a breath when he licks a stripe upwards. Your thighs may have clenched around his head for a moment there, but he looks up at you through those gorgeous thick lashes of his and damn if that isn’t an image you want to have photographed in your mind forever.

You bite your lip, and your husband dives back in for more to taste. You watch him enjoy eating you out thoroughly, or at least what you thought was thorough because just as he begins to circle his tongue around your clit, Harry expertly adds his fingers inside you as well. You toss your head back on the huge cloud-like pillow and let out a happy whine.

“Better than the strawberries?” you ask shakily, unable to hold back the tiny giggle after the question.

“Undoubtedly,” he answers, coming back up and making sure to kiss you to show you first hand. You hum into the kiss and roll Harry over so that you’re on top of him.

“Mm,” Harry hums back, “I don’t think so.”

“Hm-?” In return, he rolls you over onto your back again. You stare up at him with curious eyes. But he loves it when you’re on top…?

“I’m going to make this so good for you, (YN),” Harry promises. “This is about you tonight.”

“No,” you say, “This is about us.”

He steals a kiss from you so willingly given, and you feel him position himself at your entrance. You’d hold your breath if Harry hadn’t already stolen that from you too.

You accidentally bite his lip a little during the kiss as he pushes inside you. Harry lets out a surprised exhale.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” you apologize with what little air you have in you.

“Don’t be,” Harry tells you, in which he continues to kiss you like they do in the movies. Your fingers rake up his back, leaving invisible lines in their wake. “In fact,” he says roughly, “you can do that again if you like.”

You giggle again until your kiss is all smiles and teeth. He slides inside you and out at such a calculated speed, you feel yourself around every perpetually-impressive inch of him. Your hands snake up to hold his head closer to yours, burying themselves in his wildly sexy and curly dark hair. His own hand caresses your leg on its journey north, then hitches your thigh up.

His eyes are entrancing, but you’ve always known that - a strikingly clear blue - it was the first thing you noticed about Harrison Wells when you met him. His eyes. They captured you from that moment and they’ve never let go of you. They never will and you’re thrilled about it. The way he’s looking at you now… you’d be almost embarrassed to say you could get off to that alone. His look is unwavering - like he doesn’t want to miss a single moment of his new bride when she comes.

His thrusts inside you have noticeably increased in speed, no longer the sensual, taking-your-time kind of pace. You can feel it whirling around like a hurricane as your body starts to jerk up and meet his thrusts each time, feeling desperate to have him hit that sweet spot. You take his face in your hands so that your foreheads touch, your lips merely ghosting each other as you breathe one breath.

“I love you, God, I love you.”

“Harrison, Harrison, I love you, so, so, so much-”

Your shared confessions of love, gentle calls of each other’s name, and outcries of passion bring you together even closer than before. The previous times this evening were all fun and arguably dirty, but this was entirely different. This was the two of you finally coming together and taking the time to show and share the love so perfectly. You didn’t think you could love Harry any more than you already did, but every day, every moment you spend together proves you wrong. There’s always so much more to love about him.

Harry is looking at you again, the way he does, resting on his elbow facing you. He looks entirely too much like a sex-god for his own good. He doesn’t even need to try.

“What?” you ask.

“I just can’t believe how lucky I am,” your sweetie-pie, love-machine husband replies.

“You? No, I’m the lucky one, here,” you laugh. “I never thought I’d find love and then there you were, practically crashed right into me in the Cortex when you first showed up.”

“Well, I never thought I’d love again, and yet here I am- here we are.”

“You know? I think we’re both pretty damn lucky, my husband.”

“That we are, my wife.”

You rest your head on his chest, his steady breathing helping in making you drift off for the night. Harry never once lets go of your hand in his on his stomach.

And while you may have fallen asleep, he’s almost there himself but manages to give one last thanks to the Multiverse for making him indeed the luckiest man on all the Earths.

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