#core set 2019

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Dragon's Hoard

Artist: Adam Paquette TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[mtg-art-daily]

Supreme Phantom

A king's knowledge does not vanish when the heart stops beating.

Artist: Robbie Trevino

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Isareth the Awakener by Jason Rainville

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[imbecominggayer]

How To Scare Your Readers

tw: mentions of murder and other horror media, its not specific or gorey but I just wanted to mention it

Today is one my hardest asks as it is a highly individual process to freaking out your audience with @differentnighttale asking: "How do you write horror, and how do you write it good nail biting and very unsettling type of horror."

Specifically, we are focusing on supernatural horror and dark fantasy. Due to the fact that there are numerous ways of scaring an audience, I'm going to focus on more diverse and interesting ways to freak out the readers. There are obvious tricks like "focus on the tactile senses" and stuff like that but let's cover something not as cliche!

Again, there are many ways to instill horror.

One: Combine Beauty And The Macabre

While this is a common trick seen in visual horror such as the works of Junji Ito or Midsommar, it's also an important and useful element in other beloved horror media.

This can be useful for a myriad of reasons.

The ability to combine the fantastical beauty of the scenery with death or the lovingly detailed imagery of a victimized body might be just the thing to elevate the scenery and visuals.

It also works to surprise your readers. If you are reading horror, you expect the murder and terror to appear in dark hospitals and obviously disgusting places. But what if the horror was in a cherry blossom field? In the church? In the character's childhood bedroom during the sunset?

It follows the perversion of the familiar. Most people internalize certain environments are seperated from society which might assist you if you are going for that specific type of horror. BUT! If you have horror in the supermarket, in the coziest little cottage, in the beauty.

TWO: Focus On A Specific Brand Of Horror

This is especially important for horror that is based off of pop culture spooks such as ghosts, ghouls, witches, zombies, and werewolfs.

Doing some research into why these monsters have survived in the public mind and what exactly is frightening abou them can influence your settings, characters, and horror.

There is horror about isolation.

There is horror about losing yourself.

There is horror about the female body.

There is horror about puberty.

There is horror about gender dysphoria.

There is horror about everything.

Decide what is the core fear you are proding at.

THREE: Be Ambiguous

Readers are comforted by linear stories with a beginning, clearly laid out morality, and a clear cut ending which provides either a happy ending or a sad ending.

Messing up any one of these things can lead to your story haunting the minds of your audience for a long time.

Midsommar is constantly debated about over if the ending is happy or sad.

Joker(2019), a thriller but not a horror, is infamous for it's amazing usage of hallucination and delusion to tell a non-linear story with a confusing ending.

Leaving the ending, villain, characters, or plot ambiguous and not clearly detailed might elevate your horror :)

FOUR: Use Your Own Fears

When you write about what scares you, that natural fear tends to radiate into your writing more naturally :)

This fear can be a lot of things from the specific phobia of bugs to the fear of being mistreated by a loved one.

Conclusion:

I hope I gave you some interesting advice that you haven't heard before @differentnighttale

p.s: at what point does something become "Mature"? I did mention "murder" throughout my post somewhat frequently but I never went into specific detail so I can't tell if it's "Mature" or not?

If it is mature and I mislabeled it then I can edit it to be "Mature"

[rovingotter]

Heavy spoilers for Joker: Folie à Deux beneath the cut.

Joker 2019 is a movie that is often misunderstood, and one that means a lot to me.  It doesn’t quite manage to nudge out some of my childhood animated favorites like The Last Unicorn and Watership Down, but Joker is definitely in my top three favorite live action movies.  It got me back into writing fanfic after a long dry spell.

I didn’t think it needed a sequel.  Most people didn’t.  The first movie told the story it needed to tell.  I was wary going into this.  After hearing that it was a musical (and with Gaga as Harley?), I didn’t know what to expect but I thought that even if it was bad, even if it completely misfired, it would at least be an entertaining and funny trainwreck. 

Turns out, it’s not funny at all.  This movie gutted me.

I wish it didn’t exist.  The experience of watching it was…I’m still processing it, but I think I can say at this point that it was an unpleasant experience, but also a captivating one.  I hate it but I also weirdly have a higher opinion of it than most people seem to.  I feel like it was tonally true to the first movie.  I think Phoenix and Gaga both breathed life into their roles.  The musical numbers didn’t seem strictly necessary but they also didn’t detract from the experience for me. Music was an important element of the first movie as well.

I also think the central premise is an interesting one.  Arthur, incarcerated in Arkham, is facing the possibility that he’ll be sentenced to death for the murders he committed in the first movie.  His lawyer is aiming for an insanity defense and tries to convince the jury that the Joker is a separate personality—that Joker, not Arthur, killed those people.  In order to save his own life, Arthur needs to convince the jury that he’s not Joker…or he can take a different path. He can say "fuck it," fully embrace the Joker persona and live whatever time is left laughing and watching everything burn.  This is what Harley "Lee" Quinzel, who admires Joker and the chaos he represents, wants him to do.

In the end, he does neither.

After being forced to sit in silence for days and listen to a defense that both infantilizes and dehumanizes him, reducing him to a set of symptoms, stripping him bare and putting all his pain and humiliation on display, Arthur can’t take it anymore.  He fires his lawyer (who represents his best hope of survival) and elects to represent himself.  Initially he tries to represent himself as Joker, to lean into that persona, but he’s not feeling it anymore…especially after the confrontation with Gary Puddles, the guy who was probably his only true friend before he became Joker.  In the first movie, Arthur spared Gary’s life but left him deeply traumatized after he witnessed the death of Randall, the coworker who bullied Arthur.  This conversation with Gary was one of the most riveting parts of the movie for me.  There is a nakedness and rawness to it. Arthur tries to say "fuck it," but ultimately, he can't. Not in the face of Gary's pleading and pain.

After this, some horrible things happen to Arthur in Arkham.  The guards beat him and brutally assault him.  They kill his fellow inmate who tries to offer him support, because the system is still ruthless and still failing vulnerable people.  Arthur is left broken, helpless. Again. Some people have interpreted this scene as the reason he ultimately sheds his Joker persona, but I think it would have shaken out differently if not for that earlier conversation with Gary.  Because Gary is possibly the only person who truly cared about Arthur, when he was only Arthur—a fellow outcast, and the only guy who never made fun of him. 

Joker makes fun of Gary, because Joker makes fun of everything.  And Arthur realizes that he’s not—doesn’t want to be Joker. At his core, he's sick of pain and violence, both his own and other people's. He wants to try to break the cycle.

In the end, Arthur stands before everyone not as Joker but as Arthur Fleck—he stands alone and naked, shattered, traumatized, with no remaining allies, and he takes responsibility.  He says that he did those things.  He did them because he was having a mental breakdown, yes, because he was wounded and wronged by an unjust world, but he regrets it, now.  He hurt some bad people, but he also hurt some people who didn’t deserve it.  He’s tired of being the clown.  He just wants to live.  That was all he ever wanted, really.  Just a little bit of kindness and respect.

This is his truth:  Joker is a part of him, but a part that was born out of pain.  His deepest self is Arthur. In admitting that, he lays it all on the line, in that moment. And this is, in my opinion, the bravest thing he could have done.  I had my hand over my heart for this whole scene. 

And for this small, fragile act of courage, he is utterly forsaken by the world.  Lee—the one person who he has a connection with—is in love with Joker, not Arthur.  She walks out of the courtroom.  She abandons him in his moment of greatest need—not out of malice, but out of weakness. Because she wants to live in a fantasy world and she can't handle the reality of who he is:  not an embodiment of chaos and power, not a symbol, but a man, a vulnerable man who is full of regrets but who is trying, in his own confused way, to be better.

The first movie was bleak but it offered a glimpse of a twisted kind of hope at the end with Arthur finding inner peace even as he’s condemned to a life in psychiatric incarceration for his actions.  This movie takes that bit of hope and grinds it into the dust.  It’s a tragedy, through and through.

Arthur’s random, pointless death at the end feels almost redundant because it’s made clear by that point that his spirit has already been slain.  His connection with Lee was all he had, and when it’s revealed to be an illusion, that’s it.  He can no longer exist as the Joker but he can’t exist as Arthur, either.  He tried his best and was rejected for it.  It didn’t work.  He’s done. 

There are a lot of takes about how this movie should have gone, and honestly, most of them sound terrible to me.  I think this is the only way a sequel could have gone while remaining honest, which is why I didn’t want a sequel.

You can’t hear me, Arthur, but I love you, and I’m proud of you for standing before the world as yourself, and you didn’t deserve to die the way you did. 

This world is fucking cruel.

[vintagerpg]

Acid Death Fantasy (2019) is a setting book for Troika by Luke Gearing and illustrated entirely by the aggravatingly talented David Hoskins.

The Troika rulebook strongly implies its chaotic core setting through its myriad character backgrounds, which nest nicely in the dream/nightmare of Fronds of Benevolence. Together, they demonstrate a specific sort of play. But what if you don’t want to play Troika that way? How do you do the same basic thing, but with a different flavor? Gearing shows you.

ADF consists of a brief introduction that lays out the barest frame for the setting — desert, a plastic sea, a thousand petty sultanates, a fallen high-tech civilization. At the end of the book are three tables for sketching out a sultanate and some adventure seeds. The rest of the book is split between character backgrounds and enemies. Reading through them, a handful of Gearing’s inspirations quickly becomes clear: Dune, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Fallout, Gorilla City, Arik Roper’s Dopesmoker cover, a smattering of real-world cultures and historical eras. There’s also plenty of original weird stuff too, though it is a bit more regimented by the setting themes.

By peppering the setting with stuff I recognize, even if those things are subverted or otherwise tinkered with, it provides hand holds I can work with to run a game here, perhaps with greater ease than core Troika (sometimes there is something to be said for having constraints!). Not only that, but seeing the familiar interact with the new and weird also teaches me how to make my own setting, should I desire.

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Epic Buddie Fic Rec | February 24th-March 2nd 2025

IT'S SEASON 8B WEEK EVERYONE!!! OUR WEEWOO SHOW IS FINALLY BACK!!! 🥹🥹🥹

Complete

and I love you to the core by disasterbuck/ @disasterbuck (Getting Together | 1K | General):

Idly watching the news during some downtime on a shift, Buck gets a surprise when he sees Eddie appear on screen talking to a reporter. About him. - "So the two of you are best friends?" Frowning slightly, Eddie glanced at the camera before fixing his gaze back on the reporter. "Yeah, but, look… What Buck and I have goes beyond friendship and I love him to the core."

You're My Home, And I'm Happy Here by giselleslash/ @gigi-gigi (Established Buddie, Moving In | 2K | General):

Chim teases Buck about moving too quickly with Eddie and it brings out all of his doubts. Fortunately Eddie has no doubts about them. Not a single one.

Homophobia in the Build-A-Bear by paleredheadinascifi (Getting Together | 3K | Teen):

“Maybe we should bring them to the firehouse,” Buck jokes. “Like mascots.” “I, uh, I don’t know if I’m ready for that just yet,” Eddie blushes. “Oh, yeah,” he nods, going along with the bit. “You want to like… give them time to settle in?” “More so I don’t really want to come out to all of A Shift with a gay Build-A-Bear,” Eddie clarifies. Or, Eddie builds a very gay Build-A-Bear. Unless you ask Buck. Then it's just a very rainbow ally bear.

I Might Change Your Contact (To "Don't Leave Me Alone") by fangirling-feels (fangirlingfeels)/ @nibblyssacrifice (PWP, Post-S8A, Eddie Moves to Texas, Phone Sex | 2K | Explicit):

Or; Buck finds one of the shirts that Eddie left behind on accident, and proceeds to react very normally about it.

i know you can see we're more than a secret by DeadAndDying (PWP, FWB, Getting Together| 3K | Explicit):

It’s fine that in the last week, Buck is the first thing he sees when he wakes up and the last before he falls asleep. Everything is Buck, Buck, Buck.

crawling careless out of the sea by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (S3/S8, Getting Together | 3K | Mature):

In 2019, after getting injured in a fight, Eddie shows up at Buck's in the middle of the night. In 2025, after breaking his own heart, Buck stumbles home to find someone waiting for him.

don't go barking my heart by simplyylupin (Post-S8A, Buck Gets a Dog | 4K | Teen):

“Do you remember Callie?” He frowns, wracking his brain. “Sure,” he says. Now that he’s thought about it, he can vaguely remember Buck talking to one of the staff members – a pretty brunette girl who’d laughed at something he’d said and had a tattoo etched on her upper arm. Callie. “Well,” Buck continues, his head ducked, “I’m thinking of taking her home.” The words come out in a rush. Eddie chokes on his toast. 

could you be mine? by Tizniz/ @tizniz (Werewolf Eddie, Established Buddie | 4K | Teen):

Eddie loves Buck, though. He knows he does. It’s just…he can’t have Buck be his mate. He can’t. OR: An innocent question from Buck sends Eddie spiraling.

This Is A Set (Do Not Separate!) by bellabrady (Engaged Buddie, Bachelor party | 4K | Not Rated):

“I’m showing people Buck!” Eddie explains excitedly, turning his phone screen towards Chimney to show him a picture of Buck smiling at the camera. But after a moment, the joyful expression fades from Eddie’s face, replaced by something more somber. “I miss him,” he says, his eyes downcast. “Shit, is he dead?” the stranger slurs. “I’m sorry, man.” “He is not dead,” Chimney hurries to clarify. “They’re just codependent. Don’t worry about it.” — Or: Buck and Eddie are engaged and have separate bachelor parties. Unfortunately, all either of them can think about is the other's absence.

do you believe in magic? by Tizniz/ @tizniz (Witch Buck, Getting Together | 5K | General):

Buck’s magic has been infatuated with Eddie since the moment Buck laid eyes on the man. It didn’t matter that Buck himself had less than pleasant feelings towards Eddie, his magic decided that Eddie was the love of its life and it was going to do anything it could to be near him. This went against Buck’s own feelings because of the whole not liking Eddie for exactly two days and also because Buck has always been told to keep his magic a secret.

i'll only know in the moment by earthtolovers/ @earthtolovers (Post-S8A, Love Confessions | 5K | Teen):

Naturally, Buck and Eddie have the worst timing.

okay, fair play, here we go by earthtolovers/ @earthtolovers (Jealous Buck, PWP | 6K | Explicit):

He narrows his eyes at the sight of Eddie having a rather friendly conversation with someone. He was talking to a firefighter from the 133. The firefighter was a guy. A male firefighter, by the way. Or: Eddie has a new old friend. Buck loses his cool. Likely thing to happen.

trying hard not to act a fool by arcanaphora (Didn't Know They Were Dating | 9K | Teen):

“Bet this isn’t what they had in mind for their first kiss as a married couple,” Buck winces in sympathy. “Tell me about it. Here’s hoping ours goes a little more smoothly, huh?” Buck huffs out a laugh, nodding in agreement. Then the words register. Or: 5 times Eddie jokes to Buck about marrying him + 1 time where Buck doesn't think it's very funny anymore

everything is wrong, but it's alright by earthtolovers/ @earthtolovers (Near Death Experience, Love Confession | 9K | Teen):

Buck & Eddie get stuck. They have a lot of feelings about it.

fueling the fire until we combust by bandshirts (S8A, Possessive Eddie, Getting Together | 10K | Explicit):

But lying here, loose and relaxed, with a warm flush spreading over his skin and a lazy sense of pleasure singing in his veins, he’s a little too gone to care. Buck’s voice is dripping in starlight, hot and familiar in his ear, and with his eyes shut he can almost pretend that he’s here, beside him. He can almost pretend it’s Buck’s fingers that are making him feel this good; can almost pretend that Buck’s eyes are on him, dark and wanting as he watches Eddie lose himself. Or, the one where Eddie has lots of very homosexual gay as fuck thoughts about men. And about Buck. Mainly Buck.

i want to feel you from the inside by xylodemon/ @xylodemon (PWP, Post-S8E8, Getting Together | 11K | Explicit):

He realizes, as Eddie's asking a Texas realtor about bathroom accessibility, that he's in love with Eddie. That he's probably been in love with Eddie. And there's nothing he can do about it. Eddie has to leave.

hope I make it through the night by arcanaphora (First Date | 12K | Teen):

To: Buck Hey. To: Buck So I was thinking. People get hungry, right? To: Buck I mean, I know I get hungry. :laughing: To: Buck How about you? Do you think you’ll be hungry on Thursday? Around 7? To: Buck I mean. We could be hungry together. And go eat. Somewhere nice? To: Buck Let me know :thumbs-up:  Or: Eddie and Buck go on an awkward first date.

🔥 i'm not obsessed (far worse, i'm fine) by DeadAndDying (Love Confessions, PWP | 13K | Explicit):

Looking at Eddie right now is equal parts a flood of relief and nearly unbearable. Buck tries to grapple with the opposing emotions as Eddie stands before him looking a little worse for wear. This time it was not helplessly digging through mud or a desperate crawl; it was a routine save. They’d done this countless times before. Buck just wishes it hadn’t been Eddie that needed saving. or Eddie doesn't get hurt at all and Buck manages to be totally and completely normal

🔥 tailspinning by doitgently/ @doitbuckley (Post-S8A, Eddie Leaving for Texas | 15K | Explicit):

Or, Eddie tells Buck he’s moving to Texas. In response—as the world’s most supportive, caring and well-adjusted best friend—these are three things Buck absolutely does not do: 1. Keep tabs on Eddie, his calendar activity and his iPhone location so that he can spend as much time with Eddie as humanly possible before he leaves. 2. Almost violate California Penal Code 646.9. 3. Lose his entire fucking mind.

🔥 Upward Over the Mountain by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Established Buddie, Dad Buck | 27K | Teen):

Early into their relationship, Eddie helps Buck through an unexpected and rocky journey to fatherhood. A journey that brings up more insecurities than Eddie predicted.

🔥 homesick by earthtolovers/ @earthtolovers (Post-S8E8: Wannabes, Getting Together | 34K | Explicit):

He sat on the couch, with his tongue between his teeth, literally biting his tongue. Because well, every part of Buck—down to the molecular level—wanted to convince him to stay. Beg, or bargain. Ask Eddie to take Buck with him. Hide in his suitcase. Cry, maybe, or throw the tablet at the wall, break every other electronic in the house. But that would be selfish. And really weird. Or: Eddie goes to El Paso. Buck moves into his house. He'll come back, right?

🔥 there is no road by littleghost/ @ghostlandtoo (Post-S8A, Eddie moves to Texas | 99K | Explicit): Years ago, almost a full decade, Shannon had asked him to move and Eddie refused because he was trying to build a life for himself again. Eddie knows if he asks Buck, he’ll get that same refusal. Worse, Buck could say yes and Eddie would be uprooting Buck from the very life he built for himself. He doesn’t ask, and Buck doesn’t offer, and they pack up Eddie Diaz’s life in Los Angeles into cardboard boxes. Or: Eddie moves to Texas. Buck buys his house. There’s a love story somewhere in here.

WIP

🔥 Gentle On My Mind by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon Divergent, Shannon Lives, Buck/Eddie/Shannon | 18/? | 104K | Explicit):

In which Shannon lives, tells a lie, and sends hers, Eddie's, and Buck's lives down a very different path

Podfic

[Podfic] I'm still standing in the same place where you left me standing by Anonymous_911version // fic by trysetmeonfire/ @try-set-me-on-fire (POV Bobby, Hurt Eddie, Getting Together | 30-45 min | Teen):

“It’s alright,” Bobby says, another useless lie. Eddie’s eyes open, look straight into his, and his next words are remarkably clear. “I love him, Bobby.” “No,” he shakes his head, a strange and frantic panic bubbling up inside him. “You can’t tell me this- you can’t tell me this-“ a hundred smiles shift slightly to the left in Bobby’s memory. It’s barely a surprise, really, he picked Eddie out for Buck himself, years and years ago. He thought they’d make a fine pair. “You have to- we’re getting out of here and you’re telling him yourself, you can’t-“ -- Bobby deals with the ramifications of a misplaced confession

[elodieunderglass]

Re: your tags on the fungus and petrochemicals:

Excuse me, bramble wine? That sounds absolutely divine, how lucky you are! I hope you enjoyed it (and that I get to make/taste this one day)

(In reference to this post: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/757191605386084352/oh-heavens-im-sorry-i-dont-remember-this-at I had to apologise for not being especially coherent in my response to an extraordinarily kind and friendly person as I was several days into a group camping, and had touched too much grass to be coherent, setting aside the bramble wine.)

The camping expedition consisted of seven+ families with children who all know each other extremely well and are growing up in a feral pack together that averages about 30 members. The pack forms at the conjunction of any five children, and therefore often exists in multiple places at once; a mini version can be assembled from as few as two of the core families, but when you have seven of the core, the pack becomes its own entity. For example, exhibiting a fascinating reflection of the hunting behavior of ancestral humans, ten of them together once managed to stalk, hunt and bring down a dragon costume performer at a local festival and sit on it in a few seconds when the adults weren’t looking. They had the light of the hunt in their eyes and they were GOING to have that dragon. Anyway this is not conducive to clear and accurate science communication at the best of times, especially since the usual reason that the pack manages to slip the leash is because the grownups are ordering pints.

For this camping expedition there was one family I didn’t know, but they live on a boat and we could vibe. They were the ones who brought the bramble wine. They were the people who sometimes evolve into Whiskey Hamishes. The bramble wine was made from foraged blackberries, and had been stored in a box on the roof of the boat (so essentially: outside) since 2019. The bottles were covered in rotten leaves and spiderwebs. This is not how you usually treat wine. Even home-brew. Even hedgerow. This is a recipe for converting free materials into as much alcohol as possible without interference.

The wine itself was similar to dark port, very heavy and thick, headachy around the edges. The alcohol percentage was estimated in the double digits. It is hard to explain but the dark black-purple color had no red in it. It was like ink.

Then, after coming into your campsite and kicking most of the party around lightly, it kissed you on the mouth one last time with a mouthful of blackberries and wandered off.

I’ve never had a hangover (hobbit liver) but I didn’t spend much time in dalliance with it. a lot of dads were pretty flat the next morning, but, to be completely fair to them, they DID rouse themselves to take the kids swimming in the river, where they (the dads) laid around recovering like beautiful crocodiles. Thus, all they had to do was lie in the cool mud while children rolled over them like puppies.

Bramble wine!

[artbyblastweave]

Was the Boys (2019) take on Captain Marvel about Carol or Billy?

Carol- there are a lot of deliberate parallels between her and Stormfront.

Stormfront gets added to the roster of The Seven for basically the same reason that Marvel aggressively promoted Carol during phase 3- they want to counter the perceived gender imbalance of their premiere roster. Their powers are loosely similar, and they both have an enticing take-no-crap girls-get-it-done break-the-glass-ceiling presentation that's layered over an uncomfortable authoritarian core. Captain Marvel (the film) is pretty directly propaganda about how girls can join the air force too, and even in the comics her "role model" elements have always been in uncomfortable tension with her established tendency to defer to authority and break in authoritarian directions due to her military background; to my recollection, Kamala Khan's hero worship of her was an eventual casualty of this tendency during the (sigh) second Civil War event. Stormfront exaggerates this by being an out-and-out Neo-Nazi who's using her "blunt and earnest" persona as a strong woman in a male-dominated field to launder and propagate her grotesque views. (Tellingly, she's stationed in Portland- a stereotypically-progressive city in a state that's historically inimical to nonwhite people.) Both characters are predicated on having been active agents in the setting for a long time prior to their introduction; Captain Marvel wasn't present in previous installments because she's supposedly spent the last 30 years flying around the universe solving people's problems, but Stormfront wasn't present in previous installments because Stormfront is a rebrand identity that she's switched to in order to escape consequences for decades of unaccountable black-bag spook shit and brutally racist violence. As an added cherry on top, the scene in the season two finale where the other female supes dogpile her and kick the shit out of her is a direct parody of the Scene in Endgame where Carol rallies all the female heroes at once.

Of course, the thing is that in the comics, Stormfront was still a Nazi.... but he was a male Nazi, and a visual hybridization of both Thor and (drumroll please).... Shazam, the original Captain Marvel. So, in a roundabout way, she's pulling double duty for both of them.

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Spit Flame

Artist: Chris Rahn TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[mtg-art-daily]

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma

You don't want to know how she got that name.

Artist: Svetlin Velinov

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Lena, Selfless Champion by Lucas Graciano

[probablyasocialecologist]

Harris stretched her coalition into incoherence. Inhumanly—as well as fruitlessly—she attempted to score points from the right on immigration, accusing Trump of insufficient dedication to building the wall. Her cack-handed performances of sympathy with Palestinians accompanied an evident commitment to follow Benjamin Netanyahu into a regional war. The Harris campaign featured a grab bag of policies, some good, some bad, but sharing no clear thematic unity or vision. She almost always offered evasive answers to challenging questions. And she adopted a generally aristocratic rather than demotic manner, which placed the candidate and her elite friends and allies at the center rather than the people they sought to represent. In these ways, Harris repeated not only Hillary Clinton’s errors but many of the same ones that she herself had made in her ill-starred 2019 presidential campaign, which opportunistically tacked left rather than right, but with equal insincerity and incoherence. Who remembers that campaign’s biggest moment, when she attacked Biden for his opposition to busing and what it would have implied for a younger version of herself, only to reveal when questioned that she also opposed busing? Or when she endorsed Medicare for All, raising her hand in a debate for the idea of private insurance abolition, only to later claim she hadn’t understood the question? Voters, then as now, found her vacuous and unintelligible, a politician of pure artifice seemingly without ideological depths she could draw from and externalize. She often gave the sense of a student caught without having done her homework, trying to work out what she was supposed to say rather than expressing any underlying, decided position. Even abortion rights, her strongest issue, felt at times like a rhetorical prop, given her own and her party’s inaction in the years prior to Dobbs. How many times before had Democrats promised to institutionalize and expand the protections of Roe, only to drop the matter after November?

[...]

The Democrats, in other words, comprehensively failed to set the terms of ideological debate in any respect. Their defensiveness and hypocrisy served only to give encouragement to Trump while demobilizing their own voters, whom they will no doubt now blame—as though millions of disaggregated, disorganized individuals can constitute a culpable agent in the same way a political party’s leadership can. But the party’s leaders are to blame, not that many in the center have cared or even seemed willing to reflect on a decade of catastrophe. Has anyone who complained that the 2020 George Floyd rebellion would cost Democrats votes due to the extremism of its associated demands reckoned with the empirical finding that the opposite proved true? That the narrow victory of Biden in 2020 was likely attributable to noisy protests that liberals wished would be quieter and calmer? Has anyone acknowledged the unique popularity of Sanders with Latinx voters, a once-core constituency that the Democrats are now on the verge of losing outright? The pathologies of the Democrats, though, are in a sense not the result of errors. It is the structural role and composition of the party that produces its duplicitous and incoherent orientation. It is the mainstream party of globalized neoliberal capitalism, and at the same time, by tradition anyway, the party of the working class. As the organized power of the latter has been washed away, the commitment has become somewhat more aspirational: Harris notably cleaned up with the richest income bracket of voters. The only issues on which Harris hinted of a break with Biden concerned more favorable treatment of the billionaires who surrounded her, and her closest advisers included figures like David Plouffe, former senior vice president of Uber, and Harris’s brother-in-law Tony West, formerly the chief legal officer of Uber, who successfully urged her to drop Biden-era populism and cultivate relations with corporate allies.

8 November 2024

[riofann]

1. tempestuous

Authors Note: I am trying something new. I like this story line please give me your feedback. Only reposts and likes please don't steal my work. XOXO Rose

Tempestuous: characterized by strong and turbulent or conflicting emotion.

Sunday March 3, 2019 

This wasn't just some little miss understanding, this was sabotage at its core. It's why you found yourself in a random warehouse strapped to the chair bruised and bloody.

Rio was convinced you had been under cutting him for months, that the money you were washing for him was short for the past 4 months. He claimed you had been purposefully giving him fake money mixed with real money, which ended up with him having Mick point a gun to the back of your head as soon as you walked in your home. 

Any attempts to have him show proof that you were not were thwarted by Nick egging Rio on, unbeknownst to you.

You had mentally prepared for death mentally prayed that your mother and father, sisters would heal from this pain along with the rest of your family. You hear footsteps approaching your heart begins to race. You had memorized his gait along with Mick's, this was it. Your death day was here.

There's nothing said but you feel your legs being untied along with your hands, he made sure to leave the head covering on. 

“Get up!” Mick says grabbing your arm

You're too scared to move but a strong grip on your arm forcefully drags you forward.

You’re uneasy as you walk because you didn't know where you were going,  you couldn't see anything. Mick helps you step in the van. The drive is quiet, you sit with your hands on your lap, body shaking at any given moment you could be dead. All the thoughts rush through your mind, your bar, your family, your house, your future, it's giving you a migraine. When the van stops, your mouth dries up you could be on a bridge over water or a remote land with a shallow grave.  

When you step out Mick removes the head cover and your eyes take time to adjust. 

You stood at the park near your home. There's nothing said, you look behind you as Mick gets in the van and drives away. You take in the scene, you can't think of how happy you are to hear children laugh in the distance or the sound of people talking. 

It's all still a shock to you. You look around and find a bench. Slowly you walk towards it. You sit at the most remote corner, no shower for a week, you’re positive you looked like you were unhoused. 

Moments pass before you let the tears flow. The deep wound of betrayal that you felt wouldn't be healed by a simple apology hell you hadn't even received one.

After a while as the sun begins to set you stand up slowly. The walk to your house would normally be 20 minutes but since you are weak it will take longer,  and staying out at night wasn't your plan. 

With unsure steps you begin to walk home. You’re happy to not see any familiar faces at the park. You couldn’t handle any one asking you what happened or you would have implicated Rio. 

When you get home you type in the key code to  enter and find your home in disarray. You deduced that Rio was looking for the money he claimed you were shorting him on. 

You search for your phone and find it in the rubble dead. Your house doesn't feel safe, it feels surreal, like at any moment Rio could be sitting on the corner chair waiting for you with a gun in hand and Mick lurking right around the corner, ready to shoot.

After a little more searching you find the charger and plug it in.

When it turns on you see the many calls missed your workers, your mom, your dad, your sister, your cousin, unknown numbers 

You make the first call “Hello! Y/N?!” You hear your mom scream through the phone

“Hey mom” you greet

“Where the hell have you been?! We've been calling you for the past week and you just ignore us?! We were worried about you!” 

It's all too much you begin to cry she didn't know,  no one knew about what you were doing but Rio and his crew

You gather yourself “I'm sorry mommy”  you cut her off

She pauses, “What's wrong?” 

You take in a deep breath “I'm sorry I disappeared mom I won't do it again” 

“Do I need to come over?” she lived a few states away in Ohio

You panic “NO!...” you take a deep breath again “No! I just I needed time to myself I got stressed I won't do that again I promise” you master up a calm tone

She sighs “okay, but what happened? Did you get hurt?” 

“You know the bar and life I just got overwhelmed” you lie 

“Honey I'm your mother you call me when things get tough you don't just disappear!” we called the police!" She lectures. “I couldn't sleep! Y/N it felt like something wrong happened!” your stomach drops she wasn’t wrong 

“I'm sorry mom I really am I won't do it again” 

“Well I'm coming to see you next week”  

“Mom you don't...”

She cuts you off “Nope I'm coming, something is wrong I know my child!” 

You sniffed “okay” you looked at your shaking hands 

“Okay well let me call you back I gotta get in touch with the police and everyone else let them know you’re alright” 

“Okay mom”

“When I call you better pick up and don't go missing again”

“I promise I won't!” 

“I love you” 

“I love you too” 

You hung up and go through similar conversation with your sister and the manager of the bar 

When it all ends you drag yourself to the shower and take one of the longest showers you’ve ever taken, you couldn't help but sob the entire time. You scrubbed so hard a week with no shower in a dingy warehouse you felt so dirty. 

All trust had been destroyed so much for this “partnership”

You hope to be able to sleep but you can't. Your body is riddled with anxiety, with every sound you hear your  heartbeat spiked. You couldn’t even bring yourself to drink water or eat anything that's in the fridge. You just want to disappear, move to a small town in the middle of nowhere and figure things out. 

You received a text in the middle of the night 

Rio: Business as usual 

You had stared at it for hours 

Business as usual as if all that happened meant nothing. 

How could you get out of this? What could you do to free yourself from this and him? Maybe offer up the bar? But this is something you worked hard on, this bar was one of the top bars in Detroit you weren’t willing to give it up to him. You had to think about what life would look like outside of the bar and what did you want out of life? 

Slowly over the course of the week you clean up the house, you eat something here and there and you drink water when you remember. You’re not sure how you managed to clean up the house in the state it was left in, must have been adrenaline.  Even after your mother insisted something was wrong when she came to visit you, that Friday you  faked the funk. How could you tell her that you were deeply entrenched with a man who has a whole cartel like of criminals on his side? All the questions that would come from that. You would have to explain how Rio essentially twisted your arm to agree and how you stupidly didn't go to the police.

When you finally show up at the bar the following Monday  everyone teases about your disappearance and you play along but you have things to do, books to manipulate money to wash. You lock yourself in the office while you gather the money. You count over 10 times making sure it's right each time. You don’t trust the machine as it counts you run it through verify by hand run it through again verify it then set it aside. You added extra just for good measure because you didn’t trust yourself either. 

Wednesday March 13, 2019 

As you wait for him to show up at your usual pick up spot, you feel sick to your stomach, no more sitting down and waiting for him. All sense of security between you two had crumbled. A car pulls up and you grip the bag tightly. 

It's a strange face

Your phone pings 

Rio: Got busy, you’ll be dealing with Jamal moving forward

The man walks up to you with a smile on his face. “You must be Y/N” You nod, he hands you a yellow envelope you hand him the bag with shaky hands “Good doing business with you” he comments before turning to leave 

“Can you make sure it's all there?” you blurt out 

He laughs at your ridiculous comment “can’t do that out here in public lady, I’ll let Rio know” 

You nod again and watch as he drives away. 

This is your routine now, Rio never confirmed instead he would just add the extra back into your cut. You adjust to this new norm of life. 

You don’t see or hear from him for months, maybe it was for the best after all, you were angry with him you had every right to be. Well things don’t last forever and nothing is written in stone. 

Tuesday June 4, 2019 

Your stomach drops when you walk into your house that night, you feel the day you were kidnapped replaying itself. There was Rio on the corner chair with Mick lurking around the corner. 

“Not here to hurt you mama” he comments lifting his hands up to show that he wasn't there with malicious intent

You hadn’t left the door, in fact you were slowly inching away

“I wouldn’t do that”

“What do you want?” You ask in a shaky voice

“We need to talk” “You can text it” 

“I can’t” 

You sigh and close the door 

“I need your help” he reveals as you enter the living room. You don’t respond

“All that money I gave you, I need it, I’ll pay you back” 

You place your purse down “Why don’t you go get it I’m sure you know where it is”

He smirks because that was true  “don’t be like that mama” he tries to win you over 

“Don’t be like..” you pause “FUCK YOU RIO!” You scream “YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST SHOW UP AND ASK FOR MY MONEY, THE MONEY I WORKED HARD FOR?! WITHOUT AN APOLOGY WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF WHAT YOU DID TO ME!?” 

He rolls his shoulders back “It's just business” “BUSINESS?!” You stomp towards him Mick goes to interfere but Rio stops him. You glare at Mick “WHAT? YOU DON’T THINK YOUR BOSS CAN HANDLE HIMSELF, HE'S THAT MUCH OF A BITCH?!” When you turn to face Rio a blank stare replaces his expression no longer amused by your anger, guess that insult wasn’t taken lightly “I’VE BEEN YOUR PARTNER FOR 2 FUCKING YEARS! 2 YEARS! AND NEVER DID I EVER SHORT YOU. I ALWAYS MADE SURE THAT THE AMOUNT I GAVE YOU WAS RIGHT! AND YOU WHAT? YOUR FUCKING COUSIN” he shifts uncomfortable that you know the details behind the scenes “YEA I FOUND OUT, THE MOTHERFUCKER YOU CLAIM TO BE UNTRUST WORTHY YOU ALL OF A SUDDEN TRUST HIM?!” 

He says nothing “YEA JUST BUSINESS THIS IS WHO YOU ARE AS A PARTNER HUH? YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT LOYALTY AND PRINCIPAL, FUCK EVERYONE ELSE SO LONG AS YOU GOT YOUR MONEY RIGHT?” You pause looking at him waiting to see any sort of remorse, regret, something, anything! However he says nothing, his face is stoic like you were complaining about nothing important. As the tears stream down your face, you accept that this was pointless, he was never going to admit fault and you were never going to be able to step away from this life unless you were dead or in prison.  You take a deep breath, defeated you say  “You know where the money is go get it” you step away and motion towards the direction. He gives Mick a nod. He says nothing else, and you watch as they both leave. As soon as the door closes a loud scream leaves your body as soon as they walk out. How were you going to get out of this? Maybe fake your death or  leave the country to start over in a small village in the middle of nowhere!

Nothing changes after that day, still dealing with Jamal and still trying to find a way out of things. You receive an invitation from Nick to some sort of  masquerade ball in the city to “raise” funds for local charities. Mayor "duties". You assume not attending wasn’t an option.

Saturday July 13, 2019

The day of the ball arrives, you booked a town car for the night. No point in driving yourself and as far as you were concerned if anyone wanted to hurt you they could because you had no safety net after all. 

You step into the space you have to admit Nick went all out planning this event because it looked like a scene from a movie. You find your table and take a seat. You know no one who sits at your table you take a look around and spot Rio. It was easy,  anyone could spot his tattoo from a distance. A few speeches, the auction, then dinner is served proceeding with the party next. You look down at your watch, you had spent enough time at the event and you were hungry. 

If there was anything you learned from Rio and Nick never trust them so the most you did was nibble on your dinner plate and take small sips of your drink. 

“This seat taken?” you hear from behind you making look

You smile “No”

“Great!” he pulls out the chair 

“Hi I’m Alejandro”  he extends his hand to greet you 

You shake his hand  “Y/N Nice to meet you” 

He bows his head “Mucho gusto cariño (nice to meet you dear)”

“So do you work with Rio?” He takes a sip of his drink 

Not again it felt like you were being set up “Why do you want to know?” you finally take him in a man the same age as Rio and Nick rocking a gold canine tooth with many necklaces and rings on his finger. Gold to be exact. He had a thick accent, you assume somewhere from Central America or Spanish speaking country. 

He waves his hand around his head “Rumors go flying around” You nod still unsure of the purpose of this conversation “And Majority of the women here are plus one to their boyfriends or husband wasn’t hard to find you, that dress you came in all alone, heads were turning” he shamelessly looks you over biting his lip

“What do you want?” this conversation needed to end quickly 

He smiles, it makes you uneasy “Oh I don't want anything....” he pauses “It's a shame that they put you through that” you shift uncomfortably “But now you know who they are, the Serraño family. This is how they operate, they are vicious, they don’t care how many lives they destroy, they don’t operate with any principals...” 

You cut him off “I have come to that conclusion” 

He stops and chuckles lightly “Anyway I’m a much better option, I honor my principals and partnerships. I will have people reach out to you next week. Maybe I can take you out to lunch and we can talk.  You don’t have to stick with them” 

You nod but look past him to see Rio staring at both of you. Even the women trying to engage with him were failing due to how his gaze was dead set on you and Alejandro.

Alejandro looked back following your gaze as an additional ‘fuck you’ to Rio he raises his glass as a toast before turning back to face you “Ooop! I’ve been caught” with that he quickly stands up “Talk to you later cariño” 

You decide that this is your cue to leave and make your way out of the building. 

Authors Note: Please leave your feedback, again please don't steal. Only repost, like, or give credit.

Oh I can also start a tag list just let me know.

XOXO Rose

[unfgvien]

celebrating a win [dean Ambrose]

pairing - dean Ambrose x reader

summary - After Wrestlemania 40, Y/N reflects on her triumph and the return of her lover, Jonathan Good. Their emotional reunion, despite the chaos, highlights their enduring bond.

word count - 1.2k

-> i've used his real name for this but we all know him as dean Ambrose

The locker room was a cacophony of sounds—the slap of towels against skin, the hiss of showers, and the muted cheers of the crowd still echoing from the arena. Y/N stood in the center of it all, her body gleaming with sweat and victory. Wrestlemania 40 had been hers, and the weight of her triumph was still settling over her like a second skin. But amidst the euphoria, there was an ache, a hollow space where someone should have been. Jonathan Good, she thought, her lips curling into a bittersweet smile. He’d been gone for years, defecting to AEW in 2019, but his absence still felt like a bruise.

She peeled off her wrestling gear, her movements slow and deliberate, her mind drifting to the man who knew every inch of her, the man who could fuck her so hard she’d forget her own name. Dean Ambrose to the world, Jon Moxley to AEW, but Jonathan Good to her. The man who could make her beg, who could leave her trembling and breathless, her legs barely able to hold her up. She missed him. Missed the way he’d look at her like she was the only woman in the room, missed the way his hands would bruise her hips, missed the way he’d growl her name like a dirty promise.

She wrapped a towel around herself and headed toward the showers, her bare feet slapping against the cold tile floor. The locker room was emptying out, the other wrestlers dispersing to celebrate or recover. But as she turned the corner, she froze. There he was, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, his dark eyes locked on her. Jonathan. Her heart stuttered, then raced, her breath catching in her throat. He hadn’t changed much—still lean and dangerous, his hair a messy mop, his jaw sharp enough to cut. He smirked, that familiar, cocky smirk that always made her knees weak.

“Took you long enough,” he drawled, pushing off the wall and closing the distance between them in a few long strides. His voice was low, rough, like gravel and honey mixed together. “Thought you’d forget about me.”

“Never,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. She reached out, her fingers brushing his chest, feeling the solid warmth of him beneath her touch. “I missed you.”

“Yeah?” He grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer until their bodies were pressed together. His other hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back. “Prove it.”

His mouth crashed down on hers, hungry and demanding. She moaned, her arms wrapping around his neck, her towel slipping to the floor, forgotten. His kiss was ruthless, his tongue invading her mouth, tasting her, owning her. She melted against him, her body responding to his like it had been starved for him.

“Not here,” she gasped when he finally pulled away, his breath hot against her lips. “Someone could—”

“Fuck ‘em,” he growled, cutting her off. His hands slid down her back, gripping her ass, lifting her against him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her core aching, desperate for him. “You’re mine, Y/N. Always have been. Always will be.”

He carried her to the nearest bench, setting her down roughly. His eyes were dark, almost black, his desire raw and unfiltered. He shoved her back, pinning her to the bench with his body. His hands were everywhere, bruising her thighs, cupping her breasts, squeezing them hard enough to make her gasp.

“You’ve been a good girl, haven’t you?” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear. “Winning all those matches, making me proud.”

“Only for you,” she panted, her nails digging into his shoulders. “Only ever for you.”

He smirked, his hand sliding between her legs, his fingers finding her wet and eager. “Fuck, you’re already dripping for me. Missed my dick, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she whimpered, her head falling back as he slipped a finger inside her, then two, stretching her, filling her. “Please, Jonathan. I need you.”

“Impatient little thing, aren’t you?” He pulled his fingers out, sucking them clean, his eyes never leaving hers. “But I’m not gonna make it easy on you. You want it rough, remember? Just the way I like it.”

She nodded, her breath coming in short, desperate gasps. “Yes. Please. Fuck me hard.”

He didn’t waste another second. He shoved her legs apart, positioning himself between them, his thick, hard cock pressing against her core. She reached for him, but he slapped her hands away, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand.

“Not yet,” he growled, his voice thick with desire. “This is my show, baby. You just lie back and take it.”

He thrust into her in one brutal stroke, burying himself to the hilt. She cried out, her body arching off the bench, her muscles clenching around him. He held himself still for a moment, letting her adjust to his size, his eyes burning into hers.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he muttered, his voice strained. “Like you were made for me.”

Then he began to move, slow and deliberate at first, each thrust sending jolts of pleasure through her. But he quickly picked up the pace, pounding into her with a ferocity that left her breathless. The bench creaked beneath them, the sound of their bodies slapping together echoing in the empty locker room.

“Fuck, Jonathan,” she moaned, her voice hoarse. “Harder. Please.”

He obliged, his hips snapping against hers, his thrusts relentless. His free hand gripped her thigh, his nails digging into her skin, marking her as his. She loved it, loved the way he dominated her, loved the way he made her feel small and helpless beneath him.

“You like that, don’t you?” he snarled, his voice rough. “Like being fucked like the dirty little slut you are?”

“Yes,” she gasped, her head thrashing back and forth. “Yes, I do. Fuck me, Jonathan. Fuck me like you own me.”

He growled, his thrusts becoming even more brutal, his cock pounding into her with a force that bordered on pain. She was close, so close, her orgasm building like a storm on the horizon.

“Come for me, baby,” he commanded, his voice a low rumble. “Let me feel you fall apart around my dick.”

His words pushed her over the edge. She screamed his name, her body convulsing, her walls clenching around him as she came undone. He followed her, his own release crashing into him, his cock pulsing deep inside her as he filled her with his seed.

For a moment, they stayed like that, their bodies still tangled, their breaths ragged. Then he pulled out, his eyes softening as he looked down at her.

“Missed you, Y/N,” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Missed fucking you like this.”

She smiled, her body still trembling, her legs barely able to hold her up. “Missed you too. And that? That was exactly what I needed.”

He helped her up, his arms wrapping around her, holding her close. For a moment, they just stood there, the chaos of the locker room fading away, leaving only the two of them.

“You’re still mine, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice low, serious.

She nodded, pressing a kiss to his chest. “Always. No matter where we are, no matter what names we go by. I’m yours, Jonathan Good.”

He smirked, that familiar, cocky smirk that always made her heart race. “Good. Because I’m not done with you yet. Not even close.”

And as he pulled her toward the showers, his hand sliding down to grip her ass, she knew he was right. This was just the beginning.

DO NOT TRANSLATE, COPY PUBLISH OR EDIT MY WORKS, I DO NOT CONSENT TO MY WORKS BEING PUBLISHED ON ANY 3RD PARTY WEBSITE. © bunbun 2025 - 2027🖇️ ₊˚⊹ ᰔ