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glossgojo · 2 months

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farleigh start oxford bf brainrot is real

18+ under the cut! (manhandling, hand kink idk i’m sorry, afab reader, fingering, dirty talk, service top far)

or in which farleigh distracts his stressed girlfriend the way he knows best

you were in your room at oxford working on your laptop, deep in the throes of your thesis paper. you were so focused that you didn’t even hear the door unlock nor your boyfriend huffing at the sight of your narrowed eyes. he always thought you looked so hot in your glasses, he wished you wore them more often. he knew you had been stewing away, your responses sporadic over the phone and with it being near the end of term you were rushing to perfect your work.

he could tell you that it was already perfect and you didn’t need to reread it for the sixth time. farleigh, despite his academic record, was incredibly smart. he just never applied himself, until you slightly forced him to. you had goaded him into caring about his studies the only way you knew would work, by making it a competition.

“hey baby,” you jumped in the spot where you sat on your bed. your back was leaning against the bedframe and it hardly looked comfortable as you craned your neck to look at your laptop. your glasses slightly slipped down your nose from your jerking and farleigh cooed at the sight, pushing them back in place as he climbed onto the bed. your cheeks were warming from his attention already and your lips pouted at the scare he’d given you, you looked fucking delectable.

due to the state of accommodations at oxford, your bed was never big enough to fit both of you comfortably and you let him move you to his lap as he did dozens of times before. your back rested against his chest while your legs lay over his own, outstretched with your laptop on your lap.

“hey far, i’m almost done just reading it again.” you pressed a kiss to his cheek as you turned to look at him, he nodded at your words, hand splayed on your hips as he looked over your head at the words on your screen.

“read it out to me.” he could easily read the words but you didn’t bother questioning him, you’d read to him before and he liked hearing your voice. you began from the beginning of the section hoping that would be enough context for him to understand. you didn’t know that farleigh had practically memorized your paper and could see the words flashing in his head before you even said them. yet you kept reading.

his legs slowly spread, taking yours with him and you stuttered in your reading as you felt the laptop slip off your lap, you picked it up quickly so you could still read. you didn’t let farleigh’s motions distract you, he was just getting comfortable and you clasped your legs together again. farleigh regrettably realized you had no idea what his intentions were, he’d have to be clearer. you were still reading constantly, the words all familiar to him as he pressed a open mouthed kiss to your neck, drawing a gasp from you. and then he bit at your neck, curling his head around the side of it to leave a mark where others could see. you stuttered again and farleigh could see your grip tighten on the laptop.

“far you’re not listening.” it was a whisper, a departure from your reading and he hummed at your words, one hand snaking down your front to part your thighs. you shuddered in his hold as his cold signet ring grazed your bare skin, his fingers splayed on your thigh looking gigantic. you willed away images of all the times he’d put those large hands to use on you.

“i am, your voice is enough to drive me crazy baby.” you scoffed at his words, he was always so needy for you, you imagined if you wore a cardboard box and ski mask he’d have popped a boner from your eyes alone. you weren’t looking especially sexy in your oversized hoodie and loose shorts.

“you’re sick.” he huffed a laugh at your words, you both knew this was the least unsavory turn-on both of you had expressed. he hadn’t missed how you stiffened as his hands roamed your body.

“just let me make you feel good, keep reading it helps to spot errors.” he knew you wouldn’t find any, but it served his purpose. if he could hear you stutter and gasp while reading in that stern academic voice he might just see god.

“o-okay.” you conceded, and he deftly stripped you of the shorts you’d likely stole from his closet. he groaned at the sight of your pussy, he’d have to steal his shorts back if he knew you were wearing them without underwear. you hissed as cool air hit your sensitivity, goosebumps rising on your skin.

“so pretty, always so pretty.” he murmured and the vibrations rumbled your chest, you barely had time to continue reading before he was licking his own fingers and spreading the saliva on your folds. your legs were spread wide and his own were caging them. you started reading again, long fingers sliding saliva and cool air making it feel all the more sharp. you hissed as his thumb found your clit, grinding slowly as a finger teased your hole.

you knuckles were turning white as you continued to read, a gasp breaking your vocation as the thick finger pressed into you. his thumb combined with the feeling of his now hard cock pressed against you, made you get slick easily. his finger slid into your wet heat, curling up to where he knew you wanted him.

“one must wonder if Kant-fuck Farleigh!” you moaned as he fucked into you fast and hard, the obscene sound of your pussy filled the room, you clenched around his finger sucking him in. farleigh was losing his mind on how tight you were just around one of his fingers, you could take him to the knuckle, but your warm walls hugged his finger tightly. he slipped another into you, earning another moan from you.

“so fucking tight, you can’t even take my fingers how will you ever take my cock?” he punctuated his question with another harsh thrust, you were grinding down on his knuckles as your slick slipped down his hands. you whined at his words, one hand gripping his hand now as the other continued to hold your laptop for dear life. you steeled yourself as best as you could and kept reading, the background noise of your wetness making your cheeks burn. you were so wet farleigh was fighting every urge to flip you around and devour you. if you ever put down your laptop maybe he would’ve.

his fingers curled against the front of your walls, his thumb resumed his ministrations and fucked you deep and intentional. you were sure you had never been so fucked out from just his fingers and you were now stuttering through every sentence.

“oh shut the fuck up.” farleigh had had enough, prying the laptop from your hold quite easily with his free hand sticking his fingers into your mouth. you groaned at the intrusion of three large indexes pressing against your tongue, you began to grind against his hand as a third finger teased your entrance. it was your last straw finally giving in and you sucked on his fingers like it was his dick, sloppy and desperate. farleigh twitched against your back at feeling of you grabbing his hand with both of yours and forcing him further down your throat.

his stupid large fingers bullied your cervix as his thumb rubbed vicious circles along your clit, your mind was numb as his third finger slipped inside and stretched you deliciously. you would definitely have to change your sheets after this, a steady stream of slick had been dripping down your ass. the overstimulation became too much, you were so close and farleigh knew it he was keeping you on the edge as he moved away from the spot you needed him most.

your legs threatened to clamp and he slipped his hand from your hold, to pin one of your thighs open. you had properly drenched them and it made his hold a little difficult but he managed. “stupid girl, so eager to come. i thought you wanted to work?” he muttered harshly into your ear and you groaned, you could tell he was enjoying this from how rock solid he felt against your back. your drool had fallen out of your lips and the emptiness made your tears prick so you craned your neck to kiss him. he gave you what you wanted instantly, letting you suck his tongue and you bounced fervently on his fingers.

finally when he could feel your tears wetting his own cheek, he hammered against the fleshy spot against your sopping walls and a string snapped inside of you. you jolted in his hold, gasping against his mouth as you jerked away and you squirted onto the sheets in front of you. the sheets definitely would be changed now. you had never done it before and it felt like a pressure lifted off your shoulders as heat flooded your system. you squirmed as he continued to fuck you through it, pulling as much as he could from you until a puddle formed on your sheets. you were twitching and whining for him to stop. releasing his grasp on your legs and removing his fingers he let you curl in on yourself.

“that was so fucking hot, we’re doing it again.” he licked his fingers clean, humming at the sweet taste of you and you stiffened at the sound. farleigh might as well have been sucking a lollipop if you didn’t know any better.

“farleigh i have to-“you started to pick up your laptop, it had fallen to off the bed and he pulled you back into his lap as if you’d tried to walk out the door.

“i love you baby but you are going to lose your mind if you try to improve upon perfection.” he cut you off, tapping yourcheek to draw your gaze to him and you could smell your ichor on him. you found his eyes were sincere and it only added to your confusion. he could see the cogs turning in your head, his eyes flashed in amusement from how unaware you were. you were the smartest person he’d ever met and you had no idea. “you were about to cite Foucault right? i know your paper as well as i know her,” he patted your pussy making you wince, “trust me when i say no amount of time will make you find a flaw. let me distract you.” your eyes glazed over from his compliments, it was rare for him to so genuinely praise your intelligence since you were always competing.

“you mean it?” you let him pull you over him by your waist, his warm hands eased your hoodie off your frame as you looked into his eyes from above. you were lying on top of him, naked save for your bra and still talking about your paper. you would be the death of him.

“i’m serious baby, you’re overthinking it.” one of his hands cupped your cheek, swirling patterns of comfort into your skin as you found adoration in his warm brown eyes. you loved when he called you that, when he called you his in any way really. you both loved each other endlessly but farleigh was still so private and enigmatic you wondered if you would ever know him like he knew you. you could feel him against you, painfully hard and fully clothed. you were again overthinking, a new victim for your mind.

“i love you, please distract me” you resigned, resting your forehead against his as he unclasped your bra and finally gave in to the desire burning through him all day.

#farleigh start #farleigh catton #farleigh saltburn #farleigh x reader #farleigh x you #farleigh start x reader #farleigh start x you #farleigh start smut #farleigh start imagine

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metalheadsforblacklivesmatter · 1 year

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Why not make this because I'm just a filthy commie.

My thoughts on Disability (getting paid because you can't hold down a job due to your disability).

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

It should at least be minimum wage. (And minimum wage should cover average cost of living in that region.)

Housing, electricity, and plumbing should just be covered. Also accessible transportation.

Medical costs should be covered. 100%

It should supplement food (and restrictions shouldn't be so limiting to the point where people with food allergies can't eat)

You should not lose any amount of your disability just because you make a little income (if you can't make enough to live off of or hold down a full time job due to your disability, you should qualify)

Marriage should have zero impact on your disability.

You should be allowed to own a home (why the fuck can't you own a home? That's dumb shit.)

It should cover any changes that you need to make to your home to make it accessible.

If you rent a place and you suddenly get a short term disability (like cancer). Your apartment should be covered until you recover.

If you rent a place and you suddenly get hit with a long term disability (like long covid or certain types of cancer) and you have to be moved (like if you're renting a condo for $1million a month. It's a bit of an exaggeration but it gets the point across for its reasonable to not expect the government to cover that). Then moving costs should be covered.

Before the capitalists (derogatory) come in my comments "You're just mad because you're too dumb to work so you want free shit." (Because they always do when I post a commie take).

I am disabled, and I have a full time job that pays me quite well (and is very accommodating to my disability). I just don't think people whose disability are more limiting than mine should suffer. Especially because every single disabled person knows that stress exacerbates symptoms.

Like the stress of being forced to live off what is the equivalent $2/hr for full time work, being forced to find a living space that covers that, and trying to find food you're allowed to eat on supplemented income with dietary restrictions (because most disabled people have to eat what most people consider "unhealthy" to manage our disability).

Before capitalists (derogatory) say "Your disability doesn't make you eat unhealthy food". You just want an excuse to eat junk food. People with cystic fibrosis often require calorie counts similar to Olympic athletes because they can't digest food right. People with POTS often require ridiculous sodium intakes to help manage the symptoms of low blood pressure. And people with migraines often need high carb "junk foods" to help manage the low blood flow that comes with a migraine flare-up.

The disabled body is fucking WEIRD and what's healthy to most people isn't necessarily healthy to us, and we've found our ridiculous ways of eating through trial and error to find out what best helps us function. If you don't live in our body, you can't tell us what's good for us.

-fae

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loliwrites · 5 months

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The One You Need | three

🎶 I spent most my life thinkin’ love was out of reach, so maybe just this once, you could be the one I need, if you let me be the one you need🎶

pairing: neighbor!joel miller x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni summary: when you move into town hellbent on keeping everyone at an arm’s length, your neighbor Joel finds his way into your life. warnings/tags: au, neighbor joel, age gap [reader is late 20s/early 30s, Joel is late 40s], hyper-independent reader, a bit of a misandrist mindset, men vs boys, dubcon [tagging to be safe] [slight alcohol consumption but neither is drunk], verbal consent received, SMUT, fingering, unprotected p in v sex [wrap it before you tap it, folks], praise kink, slow love, aftercare, vasectomy mention, terms of endearment [sweetheart], female reader, no physical description, protective!joel, soft!joel, dare i say ei!joel, no use of y/n. word count: 5.5k joel miller masterlist | part two a/n: i hope y’all are liking this :) next part may not be out for awhile. gonna figure out what the heck i’m doing with this. tagging @hausofobsession, cuz luv.

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“Please tell me you’re not drunk,” he mumbled against your skin. So tight that it distorted his words and had you humming for instant clarification. He lifted his head and looked back down at you, as if his eyes alone would be able to figure out the answer. “Drunk?”

You ran your hands up to his chest, “on two and a half beers?”

“That’s not an answer,” he let out a breath and drifted his hand from your neck, down to your chest where he gave one of your breasts a squeeze. You noticed at the same moment, he reached around to your ass but avoided it to simply adjust himself in his jeans.

“I’d have to be drunk to want to sleep with you?”

“I reckon it’d help,” he grinned boyishly and bent in again for another tongue-led kiss as though he couldn’t help himself.

You grabbed either side of his face in your hands and curled your fingers into his beard. “Not drunk, just want you,” there was a lack of movement on his end and you weren’t sure if he was short-circuiting or trying to figure out if someone your size could indeed get drunk on two and a half beers. Either way, you tapped his ribs, “now, if possible.”

Like a spurred horse, he got to it. Scooped you up and held you against him with both arms hooked beneath your thighs. He let out a labored breath when he lifted you up and stood from the couch, as if he wasn’t sure he’d make it fully upright. The noise emitted from him made you doubt that as well.

“Heavy?” You asked, burying your own lips to his neck, this time to avoid his answer. There was a delay in his response, which you only noted because when he spoke again, he’d managed to rise completely.

“No, sweetheart, it’s not you. I got a fucked up back,”

You pulled back and looked at him with a smirk as he began to walk, “old man.”

He managed to side step his t-shirt so as to not trip over it, and started down the hallway. “Yeah. But I don’t think you’re gonna be disappointed,”

Your cheeks got hot, partially by his words and partially by his display of strength. You’d never felt more secure being in a man’s hands. That he had you. Steady. Safe. “I need to get you that horn to toot,”

Joel only smiled, adjusting his hold on you to keep you upright with his forearm as his other hand moved to turn the doorknob and give you both access to his bedroom. The silence gave way to more kissing. He cupped his hand around your jaw and kept you at an angle that accommodated his tongue pressing its way back into your mouth. Slowly, you were being lowered and your backside hit the mattress which prompted you to open your eyes. But that did you in and sent a white hot flash between your legs. Joel stood over you, chest rising and falling gently as he became laser-focused. He brushed the pad of his thumb over your bottom lip and suppressed a smile when it made you part them. But instead of lingering there, he moved his hand to the back of your head and gently took a handful of your hair, close to the scalp, and eased your head back as far as it would go. You whimpered and pressed your thighs together to try and stave off the arousal you knew was pooling in your panties.

“Y’wanna get naked for me?” He asked, his voice low and gravelly.

That also didn’t help the situation between your legs. You nodded, but then remembered he preferred to hear it, “yeah.”

His eyes drifted to your lips quickly and then shot back up to yours. With a quick peck, “go on, then.”

He took a step back and dropped a hand back down to the front of his jeans, palming himself. With the hesitation on your end, he clicked his tongue against his teeth to get your attention again. Your eyes focused on him, then started the plight of removing your clothes from yourself while trying not to get too far in your head about it while he just stared – ogled – at you. Your shirt was the easiest hurdle to get over so you pulled it over your head and set it beside you on the bed. Joel’s eyes seemed to light up at your now exposed chest. The bra was nothing special, and upon realizing that, a new spark of embarrassment ignited in you. Not having planned this, the bra was less than “sexy” and you knew your underwear was even less so. And they didn’t match. Not nearly. That was the reason you rid yourself of your bra so quickly. Maybe he’d forget what it looked like by the time you were down to your underwear.

Joel groaned once your chest was completely free from its constraints. His shoulders seemed to hunch forward and his hand pressed harder against his crotch. Even as your fingers went to your pants to nimbly undo the button and zipper, he closed the gap between you and wrapped one large hand around the front of your neck. Again, he used no pressure to it, more of just an anchor so he could kiss you and nibble on your lip.

You reached down, trying to remain in place to allow his kisses to continue, while also trying to rid yourself of your pants. He caught on to the jerkiness of your actions, and helped you out of your tight jeans until he managed to get them past your feet and completely off. Now as he stood in front of you, your hands went for his belt, shakily undoing the buckle until you could finally yank it out of the loops.

He watched your progress as you went for the button, “don’t have a condom, but I could just go dow–”

“I’m on birth control,” you said off-hand, not even bothering to look up at him. Button undone and making short work of the zipper, you nudged his jeans down past his hips and the curve of his ass.

Joel grabbed your wrist when you reached back to rub the outline of his member in his boxer briefs. “Not for that. I’m snipped,”

Your eyes shot up to him.

He pressed a grin, “only way you’re getting a baby from me is if you’re the virgin Mary. I don’t have anything, but…”

“Me either, let’s get to it.” You scooted further back on to the bed, laying against the pillows. But he didn’t follow you right away and seeing his questioning look, you jumped the gun. “Unless you’re lying and I actually need to get you a full STD panel,”

That seemed to rile him enough to crawl on the bed to you. “I’m not lyin’ to you,” he hooked his fingers in the waistband of your panties and tugged them down. Instead of keeping his gaze on you, he glanced down at his progress and the damp spot on the cotton fabric that sold you out. He smiled up at you, obviously proud of himself.

The urge to smack that smile off his face was strong. You thought about doing it, and like he could read your mind, he rested his weight on top of you, hips and legs spreading you apart, and grabbed hold of your wrists, tugging them up above your head. He gave you a look, and convinced you’d leave your hands where they were, he loosened his grip and began kissing down your body. First your lips, paying them the sort of attention that made you think he wouldn’t get to any other part. Then his tongue trailed down to your neck, and he sucked on your soft skin there, seemingly dissatisfied until he felt he’d done enough to leave a bruise. A mark that when you’d look in the mirror later, would remind you of what was to come. To remember the way his lips migrated further, to your chest, kissing and circling his tongue around your nipple while his fingers toyed with the other. Only to switch and do the same to the other. You moaned and rut your hips up into him, vying for any friction or anything that would spur him into hurrying. But he was slow with his movements. Each one calculated and deliberate. So that by the time you even realized he was kissing your lower stomach and hip bone, your body tensed up and you lowered one hand, curling gentle fingers around his ear.

“Joel,” you hummed, though his ministrations didn’t stop, and you couldn’t help but understand that your utterance of his name did sound eerily similar to a moan to continue. He kissed just a touch lower and dragged his tongue over the skin where the elastic of your panties had left a mark. “Joel, you don’t have to,”

He let your words sink in for just a second before he kissed your hip once more and lifted his head, “I want to…” he glanced down at your legs as you shifted beneath him, trying to close them. Grasping your hesitancy – or discomfort – with that, he relented and looked back up at you, “maybe next time.”

You nodded and silently thanked the heavens above that he let it go at that and made a quick line of kisses back up your stomach, past the center of your chest and then back to your lips. “Fingers?” He whispered into your neck, resting on his side next to you. His hands continued their dance over your skin.

“Just fuck me,” you pleaded and turned your body into him, slinging a leg over his hip to give him access again.

He smiled and leaned up on his forearm, looking down over you, making you feel smaller than you already were compared to him. “This is not me tooting my own horn, but I don’t want to hurt you,”

“Joel,” you whined and rubbed yourself along the outline of his shaft, knowing he’d feel the wetness through his underwear that you’d left behind.

He pouted at you as if jokingly agreeing with your heady whine. “Thing is sweetheart,” he said and kept his gaze on your face even as his fingers drifted lower. He could tell you were hyper-aware of it though you also kept your focus on his eyes. “Two and a half years is a good bit of time,” he ran his middle finger through your slit, biting back a moan of his own, as a silent one seemed to leave your slackened mouth. After circling your entrance but putting no pressure on it, he brought his finger back up to your clit and suppressed another grin when your legs flinched, “and I don’t think the boys you’ve been with ever did a good job.” He kissed you gently and circled his fingers over your bundle of nerves. This time that earned him a new response in the form of your entire body shuddering. Catching your reaction, he lowered his forehead against yours, “your pleasure’s my only priority right now, so we’re gonna make it good.” Joel lifted his head and looked down at his hand and the way your hips lifted to meet it. “Look at you all wet for me. Barely had to do anything and I’ve got you drippin’.”

You rolled forward and buried your face in his chest, sparing yourself from the eye contact he searched for. A laugh rumbled through his chest, and all you could do to keep from falling apart was roll your hips into his hand harder.

“How about one?” he looked at you despite only being able to see the side of your head, and notched his finger at your entrance. He felt you nod against his chest, but that reaction had him moving his finger away and opting to cup your sex. “Can I see your eyes,”

You turned your head and looked up at him, “you’re killing me.”

“Well, if ya’ listened to me like a good girl, we’d be on our way. But you’re bein’ stubborn, and I’m not out to hurt you,” he made sure you read him loud and clear. “Now can I put my fingers in you or not,”

But this was what you expected from guys. To gear up for a fight. So your body kicked it into overdrive and you pushed on his chest. “If you listened we’d be on our way because I’ve already said yes three–”

In one fell swoop, he took his place back on top of you and slung one of your legs over his forearm as it rested on the bed by your hip. The move kept you open for him, and left you speechless. If you hadn’t been turned on before, that had surely done it.

“We were having such a good time, and now you’re being a brat,” he smirked knowing he had the upper hand, and laid his fingers back at your entrance. “Can I put my fingers inside you or not,”

“Yes!”

This time there was no delay between your answer and the feeling of him sliding his middle finger into you, going relentlessly until he’d gotten it all the way down to the last knuckle. Your jaw fell slack again and your eyebrows furrowed together, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “Like that?” He asked when he curled his finger inside you, against your front wall.

“Yes,” you cried out, elongating the end of the word and writhing beneath him. Only a few quick thrusts of that finger alone before he pulled it out and set forth with his ring finger included. Your eyes were locked on to his, though his gaze alternated between your face and your core.

Fingers hard at work, when he looked back into your eyes, he saw them glazing over. Your mouth was open, letting out silent moans, and from that he realized the steady rise and fall of your chest had paused. He smiled to himself and lowered his head, planting a wet kiss to your sternum. “Breathe, sweetheart,”

You gulped in a breath of air, hearing an animalistic growl come from Joel’s throat when your inhale resulted in your anatomy squeezing around his fingers which had yet to cease their constant thrusts in and out of you. “Please, Joel, I can’t…” your breath caught in your throat when he curled both of his fingers inside you. “I need you,” your claws came toward his chest and scratched down his skin, trying to get him as physically on you as possible.

His fingers slowed, “you’ll tell me to stop if it hurts?”

In chasing a high, with blurred vision and your pulse pounding in your ears, and brain fog that overwhelmed you, you shook your head no.

Joel laughed softly and slowly eased his fingers out of you, shushing you when you whined. “That wasn’t the right answer,”

“Please, please. You’re killing me,” you repeated.

“You’ll stop me if it’s not good,” he reiterated.

“You’ll be the among the first to know,”

He kissed you once. Twice. And on the third, sat back on his knees just to lower and pull off his underwear. With it also discarded off the side of the bed, he slotted himself back between your spread legs. You only had a moment to catch a glance of his member, and it instantly set in a whole new batch of nerves. He’d be the biggest you’d ever taken, perhaps exceeding in length and girth than any other boy in your repertoire. And the thought of what that would do to your body was equally anxiety-inducing and thrilling.

Out of the corner of your eye, you thought you noticed him evaluating your expression, but not catching your direct eye contact, he reached between your bodies and lined himself up with you. Notched his head against your entrance, “good?”

“Yeah,” you murmured and immediately took your lower lip between your teeth, bearing down for what was to come. Joel couldn’t help but think that was you preparing for an unpleasant, and perhaps, downright painful experience. He took a beat to steady himself before he slowly pressed forward, urging himself in.

He felt the first hint of resistance at the same moment your mouth twisted into a wince. Joel pulled his hand out from between you and set it at your hip for leverage while the other went to your neck. His fingertips pressed to the back of it and lifted your head just enough for him to kiss your lips with urgency. Hips dipping into you a little more until about half his length was sheathed inside you, he pulled back to look down when your jaw dropped open and out came the squeakiest of whimpers.

“Y’alright?” Joel stilled his hips, waiting for the go-ahead.

You squinted your eyes shut, feeling them burn with tears. “Yeah,” you gasped out, “you’re big,”

“I know, I’m sorry,” he lowered his head and licked at your neck. “You’re so tight,” he pulled his hips back before slowly thrusting back into you, still only getting halfway of his length in. “But you feel so good,”

“More. Deeper,”

Joel studied your face as he obeyed your command, pushing further until he’d sunk all the way into you, bottoming out. And the way your muscles spasmed around him almost ended him. He bowed his head forward against your shoulder and took a deep breath in through his nose.

“Joel, move,” you pleaded, still pulsing around his length.

He nodded, not lifting his forehead off your shoulder, “I will, just give me a second.”

You reached around his torso and dragged your hands down his back to his ass, “something wrong?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna come,” he admitted, sucking in another deep breath. “Don’t even start. Just… say something about football,”

“I don’t know anything about football,”

That got him to lift his head. And suppressed whatever urge was rising in him enough so that he could pull his hips back and snap them into you again. His speed picked up, sending you upward on the bed. You both pressed a hand to the headboard in the effort of keeping you from hitting it, but even with the abundance of caution, his thrusts got more forceful. It felt like he was splitting you in two, swearing you felt him up in your stomach. And with each particularly deep thrust, the head of his cock pressed against your cervix.

It had you moaning and whimpering in an endless stream, and just when you didn’t think you could take more of it, he lowered his mouth to your ear and started whispering to you. “Takin’ me so well. ‘Atta girl. Wrap your legs around me,” he waited until you did so. Ankles hooked together behind him and you let out a deep, guttural moan. “So fuckin’ tight, aren’t you?”

You nodded breathlessly, very quickly losing control of your senses and body.

You fluttered around him and he growled. “This pussy’s so good,” that earned him another round of clenching from your needy center. “I feel you squeezin’ me, sweetheart,” he emphasized that with another hard thrust. “I’m gonna make you come, but I need you to do me a favor,” his kissed just below your ear.

“Anything,” you moaned. “Anything you want,”

Well if that wasn’t just music to his ears. He moved one hand beneath your hips and lifted them just slightly off the bed to enter into you at a different angle, and placed his other at the back of your head, grabbing onto a fistful of your hair. “Touch yourself for me,”

Eyes blinking open while you simultaneously nodded, you thought you’d just come undone then and there. The way Joel was looking at you became even more overwhelming when you lifted your hand to your mouth and licked your fingers, before lowering them to your waist. Joel moaned and for the first time his hips faltered. You knew he was as close as you were. With the first touch of your fingers on your clit, your legs squeezed around his hips tighter and refused to let him go. Why no boy before had enlisted you to help along with your pleasure, you didn’t know. If anything, they had been offended you needed to. But not Joel. Not this man.

“So fuckin’ beautiful,” he whispered, staring right at you. It gave you nowhere else to look but back into his eyes. “Good girl,” he hummed, both very aware of the way you throbbed around his shaft with the praise. “You wanna come for me?”

You nodded immediately, feeling heat pooling between your legs and in your stomach.

“Want you to soak me,” he bit your jaw softly, “come all over my cock.”

“Joel,” you whimpered. The muscles in your legs and stomach flexed and released in steady procession. You could barely hear him over the pounding in your ears. It was also nearly impossible to focus on anything other than the weight of him on you and in you that accentuated the building pressure inside you. “Joel, please,” you managed to choke out.

His hold on the back of your head grew gentler and he lifted your head toward him. “You can let go, I got you,”

“Joel,” you cried out again.

“I promise. I got you. C’mon, come for me,”

His thrust paired with your slick fingers over your clit was your undoing. You buried your face in his neck, entire body stuttering beneath him. His hips slowed but they never stilled completely while you rode out your orgasm; the first given to you by a man, and one that seemed to take blissfully forever to subside. Your body twitched and your breathing hitched for a while longer until it finally went limp beneath him. You sucked wind to get your breath back.

Joel bit back a moan, “can I keep going? I’m close,”

“Yes, please, don’t stop.” You managed to pull yourself together enough to realize that he’d talked you through your climax, and now it was your turn to do the same for him. “You feel so fucking good inside me. So big, stuffing me full,”

His gaze caught yours as if he hadn't expected you to pick up like this. But you just smiled, leaned in, and licked a broad stripe up his neck. With your orgasm behind you, you unhooked your ankles behind him and let your legs fall wide down to the bed. His thrusts got less rhythmic as he chased his own high.

“Give it to me,” you whispered again, “gimme everything you got.”

“Where?” He groaned when his abs flexed involuntarily.

“Anywhere you want,”

He groaned and sat back on his knees, pumping into you in earnest. You reached for your breasts and squeezed them, your body bouncing and writhing beneath Joel; which he had a full, unobstructed view of now. It didn’t take long, just a few extra sloppy thrusts from him until he unsheathed himself from you and stroked his hand up and down his length in quick procession. Keeping your eyes on his, as he held eye contact, you chewed into your bottom lip when he let out a deep, hearty groan and moments later felt his spend decorating your stomach and waist. His gaze had left your face and shifted down to your body. A few ragged breaths filled his lungs before he leaned back over you with hands planted on the bed on either side of you.

His kisses were slow now. A stark contrast to how frantic they’d been at the start. And with far less tongue. Though it did still search for entrance back into your mouth.

You smiled against his lips and scritched your fingers through his hair, “good?”

“Fuckin’ fantastic,” his eyes opened when you giggled. He kissed you once more, then rolled over onto his back beside you and turned his head, “good for you?”

With an enthusiastic nod, “definitely.”

He smiled breathlessly and looked back up at the ceiling inhaling a couple deep breaths to steady himself. But just as you opened your mouth to say something, to congratulate him on being the first man to get you to finish, he groaned and pushed himself out of bed. After pulling a new t-shirt from his dresser and a quick search for his underwear, which he pulled back up his legs and settled around his waist, he wordlessly went for the bedroom door and left you in the room alone. He was out before you had gathered your senses enough to question him.

Even the worst of your lovers had stuck around for more than a couple minutes afterward. Certainly didn’t remove themselves from the room. Sure they hadn’t gotten you off, but the one that had, just left you with a feeling of being used and a growing soreness between your legs. You took and held a deep breath, blinking rapidly to keep any frustrated tears from falling. Great. The guy you decided to let in is a runner.

After a minute and feeling that your legs wouldn’t completely give out from under you, you carefully pushed yourself out of bed as to keep the aftermath of his orgasm off the furniture. Though you weren’t sure why you cared so much. He clearly didn’t. The search for your bra and underwear turned out to be harder than expected, until you’d found them tossed to his side of the bed. The only focus was to get out of there as quickly and quietly as possible. Pretend it’s nothing and get out of there.

“You’re leaving?”

Your head snapped up upon hearing Joel’s voice, and you found him in the doorway with a glass of water in his hands.

You snatched up your pants, “yeah, I’m gonna go home.”

“Why?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“You left and I feel a little in the way so…”

You picked up your shirt, the last item you needed. Joel looked dumbfounded, and it wasn’t until you neared him to exit, that he pressed his free hand against your stomach gently. “I went to get you some water. And pull some things out for you in the bathroom,”

Your eyebrows furrowed as you tried to make sense of his words, then noting that the glass of water he had was meant for you. “You left so I though you wanted–”

“I thought you might feel more comfortable getting cleaned up and going to the bathroom first.” He removed his hand from your stomach and reached to take the pile of clothes out of your arms. “Come back to me, okay? I don’t want you to go,”

“You sure?”

He nodded, “I know you’re probably good, but I need to cuddle after sex or I start to feel like a piece of meat.” He caught your hands as you tried to swat at him, and he stepped aside, patting your ass, “I’ll be waitin’ for you.”

Nodding and carrying on into the bathroom down the hall, you nearly burst into tears when you saw just what he’d been up to. You’d taken his leaving as a sign that he was no better than any other guy you’d slept with, but was once again shown that he wasn’t like the others. The shirt he’d taken from his dresser was there, waiting for you to claim. A warm, wet washcloth had been placed beside the sink for you, along with a pack of unscented wipes. Your cheeks got hot at the thought – Joel Miller cared about your delicate pH balance.

You went about your business, wiping his spend away with the washcloth, cleaning yourself up, and each moment growing more restless to be back in bed with him. The more you thought about it, the more dangerous you felt it’d become. What if you couldn’t keep your hands off him?

Coming back down the hall and re-entering his bedroom in nothing but his t-shirt, you were blessed with the image of Joel laid back in bed in his boxer briefs. He was staring absently at his hands in his lap, but when he noticed you’d returned, a wide grin crossed his face. He held his arm out to the side as if creating the spot you’d so nicely fit into. And you did. Crawled up the length of the bed and tucked yourself into his side, head resting on his chest. You wrapped an arm around his torso, giving it a squeeze for good measure to keep him close. Once you were situated, he lowered his arm around you, settling it over your ass. There was comfortable silence for a couple minutes. Nothing but the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and the softness of his breath. He punctuated the end of the silence with a kiss to the top of your head.

“I really enjoyed that,” he mentioned.

“Me too,”

“Is that going to be the only time I get to enjoy it or do you think it’s something we might get to do again?”

But this time, all you did was shrug and it didn’t necessarily put his heart at ease. And despite knowing that wasn’t the answer he hoped he was going to get off the bat, he didn’t press for a definitive answer.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Not getting the sense it had anything to do with pressing his previous case, you tilted your head back and looked up at him.

He smiled softly and dragged his fingertip down the bridge of your nose, “is there a reason you didn’t want me to go down on you?”

“Yes,”

“Okay,” he nodded and squeezed your ass softly; a sign that that was all he wanted to know. The reason didn’t necessarily matter.

But he was being gentle and soft, and in the afterglow of sex, you didn’t quite care if he knew the reason. “It requires more intimacy,”

He smiled, “more than me being inside you?”

You nodded and Joel gathered you were entirely serious. “It’s easy for me to disconnect myself from my body when it’s just… penetration,” you mumbled, thinking he’d laugh at the term like a teenager. But instead, his expression remained even. “It’s harder for me to do that with oral so it feels more vulnerable,”

Joel shook his head. Silent reassurance that you didn’t need to convince him of anything. “I understand,” he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “And I know faking orgasms is in the women’s handbook of physical intimacy, and I’m not disillusioned enough to believe a woman’s never faked it with me, but… I hope you didn’t,”

Your heart beat heavy in your chest, threatening to break out of your ribcage. You stretched upward until he was close enough to kiss, and then you did so, curling your fingers in his beard. Only when you pulled away, “I didn’t.”

He grinned and pulled your leg over his waist. “You wanna stay tonight?”

And you knew it was going to be another answer he didn’t want to hear. You knew you were going to break his heart. And yet you said it anyway, “no I should go home in a little bit,”

He did his best to hide his disappointment, and you hardly saw any of it before he nodded in acceptance.

Fifteen minutes later after thinking maybe you’d change your mind, you and Joel were dressed again – you still in his t-shirt – as he walked you back to your house. Though he had reached for your hand, you dodged it in fear that nosy neighbors would see you. It was bad enough they could see him walk you back to your place at this hour.

At your door, Joel silently watched you unlock it and nudge it open. He pressed a smile in your direction once you turned back to him.

“Thank you,” you whispered, “for tonight. And for fixing my fridge,”

“‘S’nothing,” he insisted and leaned into you. His hand found a spot behind your head as he backed you up against the door jamb, being saved by the back of his hand rather than knocking into the wood.

The kiss he gave you felt different than all the other ones had felt tonight. Yes, it was slow. But previously, the slow ones had felt like the unhurried motions of a doting lover. This one felt like he was making it last for as long as he could for he might never get another. You placed a hand on his stomach, feeling your legs turn wobbly. By the end of the kiss, you swore you would’ve fallen over if it weren’t for his steadying hands.

Once parted, you backed into your house and gave him one last smile before you shut and locked the door. But hidden inside, you ran to the living room to spy on him and found that he had remained in place by your door; one hand propped up against the jamb. He breathed a couple quiet breaths before turning and descending your porch steps and slowly returning to his home.

#joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #tlou fic #au #neighbor!joel #joel miller au #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst

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antianakin · 5 months

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I'd love more exploration of Rex perhaps feeling like he got kind-of the short end of the stick in terms of Jedi. He LIKES Ahsoka, for sure, she's got a spirit he admires and she's tenacious and it's hard not to care for her. And Anakin is, well, powerful for sure and friendly enough, so for a while Rex thinks he came out pretty well with his Jedi.

But then he starts meeting other Jedi or working alongside other Jedi and he realizes how much more competent other Jedi often are, especially the more experienced ones. And while Anakin is friendly enough, he's seen a lot of the other clones have MUCH closer relationships to their Jedi and certainly none of THEM ask their captains or commanders to lie to superior officers about secret relationships or unsanctioned missions. He's a little surprised once when he notices pretty much every other Jedi remembers that the clones can't always keep up with the Jedi and will unhesitatingly adjust their battle strategy to accommodate it. He sees the way other young Padawans are being taught to do something similar, to really consider the lives of the clones when they're in battle as the higher priority rather than the success of the mission.

And Rex starts wondering what his life might be like if he had ended up with a different Jedi. He loves his men, he's proud of the work they do most of the time, and he doesn't DISLIKE the Jedi he ended up with, but sometimes he's kind-of jealous of some of his brothers and wishes he'd gotten their Jedi instead.

#star wars #captain rex #anti anakin #anti anakin skywalker #anakin critical #anakin skywalker critical #and then he meets kanan and ezra in rebels and realizes he finally got exactly what he always had secretly wished for #he's got a real jedi now #he's got one of the GOOD jedi now #as much as kanan doesn't really trust rex yet he still came back to save the clones from the empire #and that one moment tells rex more than anything else kanan says or does #anakin never would've done that #he never would've come back to save someone he didn't trust and didn't like #not without an ulterior motive anyway #anakin would've considered their deaths an unfortunate tragedy probably #but that it was more important to get his own people to safety #kanan chose to turn around and put his life on the line instead #and so teaches his padawan to do the same #because all life is precious. even if you don't understand it or don't like it. ESPECIALLY if you don't understand it or like it.#so rex chooses to follow kanan #because he didn't get to choose his jedi before this #he wouldn't have chosen anakin if he'd HAD a choice probably #but he gets to choose now #and he didn't WANT to be a soldier again #but kanan came in and inspired him and reminded him of that long ago wish he once had to follow a jedi he truly respected #and so he chooses kanan now the way he never chose anakin

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raraeavesmoriendi · 10 days

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Okay but watcher originally wasn’t going to leave the old videos up. Like that is something that they backtracked on and are trying to gaslight people about. They did an interview with Variety where they told them that they were going to slowly remove their content from YouTube.

I’m trying to figure out if you’re footstamping at me or what, but babe it’s not worth it.

they’re going to do with their videos what they deem they need to bc they’re not actually our weird friends and we don’t know them like that, they’re guys who make video series who are trying to figure out how to keep a studio afloat in a landscape currently dominated by media conglomerates owned by people like jeff bezos. that is the cut and dry of it. yeah, they probably changed their minds and reversed their earlier decision, but if anything the way people are frothing at the mouth about losing their ~comfort content~ (which. yikes don’t get me started), one would think that would be a relief.

look, I had a whole essay here but I have shit to do so, short version: watcher could have strategized and rolled this whole thing out differently, and who knows, maybe more things will change. maybe they’ll change their content output schedule for their own channel. maybe they’ll add shows or cut , or re-scale for international viewer accommodation. I’d hate to be their PR person right now. but it is what it is. if you can’t pay them, don’t. do not subscribe. literally no one is forcing you. if you wanna see their stuff that badly, find someone who can and password share. they literally said it was fine.

cards on the table, I don’t even know if I’ll be getting a sub until October, or at all, bc I’m a grad student and I have bills. but I’m not about to sit here and act betrayed and hope they fail a. because I’m an adult who understands that no matter the size of the staff, providing employee benefits and insurance costs money, as does making any kind of for-fun content in our current hellscape, and b. it’s kind of shitty to watch people turn around and act like a media company is their friends personally stabbing them in the back and betraying some grand marxist ethos when it’s literally just people who don’t have things like mousecorp and netflix behind them trying to make their shit on their own terms. I’m not going to sit here and pretend they’re some rich greedy corpos trying to wring money out of us poor broke smol beans out of malice when they’re not even in the same ballpark. they’re allowed to ask to be paid for their time and their labor. if people can’t pay them, then they can’t pay them, end of. some things we just have to go without and that’s just how it shakes out; there are worse and more critical things I could be missing out on that I will be paying that money for instead.

but I’m not about to insist their stuff be free forever because ~I want it~. because that’s not what it comes down to, in the system that we currently operate and exist under. I’m not entitled to their shit like that and frankly no one is.

watching people openly hope they crash and burn bc it won’t be free anymore just makes me chalk it up to one more shitty example of how consumer culture has just made people not think about how stuff is made as long as they can get that instant gratification, but like. water is wet, news at 11.

#rae grumbles #look I’m sorry if I’m terse here #but as someone with family who’s trying really hard to make it in the industry: this shit is way more expensive than people think it is #if this is what it takes to break even then I’m going to be like ‘okay that’s cool I can go without’#not like. curse their bloodline and act like they ran over my cat #you know what #watcher #to that one weirdo who’s keeping track of the ratio on the announcement video: babe go outside. please. take a walk. get some air.

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aaabsinthe · 11 months

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Hi!! Can I request crushing and relationship headcanons for Junkerqueen with a fem s/o? Like how would she realize she likes them? thank you! :)

Junker Queen x Female Reader Relationship Headcanons

A/N: It's been a while y'all - boy am I glad to be back. Literally right after I posted my note about all of the stuff I'm working on, I got slammed with the biggest assessment I've had in my course so far (17 documents total once I'd finally finished it) and caught scarlet fever of all thing so it's taken a good while for me to finally feel well enough and have spare time to write - but here we are!

I'm so excited to write for my favourite built queen - this gif alone is makin me feel things. I'm going to format all of these the same way from now on with SFW and NSFW headcanons from now on. Ofc there will be warning for the NSFW section :)

I hope you enjoy anon despite the wait!

-Nat

SFW Headcanons

Odessa is the kind of gal that isn't really impressed by appearances.

Sure, she has her preferences and finds certain things attractive, but that isn't what piques her interest.

For Dez, it's all about personality, especially if you're the kind of person who is merciful and gentle with others.

This doesn't mean you have to be a doormat, in fact if you stand up for yourself (physically or verbally) when you feel as if you are being treated unfairly or others are being treated unfairly, that's possibly the hottest thing you could ever do in her eyes.

It's just something about the Peter Pan types that really captivates her. Not just in stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, but in being self aware of your strengths and using them to do right by those who are not in the same position of privilege.

This is how she figures out that her little crush on you was not just a little crush anymore.

She overheard you and another agent talking about life before the crisis, and found out that you used to do volunteer work every weekend delivering essentials to the homeless in your city and how much you missed your community outreach.

That and she watched you sock a guy in the face after he attempted to grope your friend at a bar.

It's healing for her and her inner child and she finds herself looking up to you as a role model - she's aware she's no angel and has done many questionable things to survive out there in the wasteland.

However she hopes that now as a part of Overwatch, she can be better and similarly to you, that she can use her position to help others less fortunate.

Dez is fine with casual or short term relationships and has had plenty in her time, she doesn't necessarily need to know someone to be attracted to them - but when she built that emotional connection with you, that's when she knew she was in for the long run.

The best part about dating Dez is that she isn't embarrassed easily - she's very open from the beginning which means conversation flows naturally with her. The downside of this is that for the first few months of being together, getting to sleep was nearly impossible, three am deep conversations just hit different.

This also means if you ever need anything, she is more than happy to accommodate.

Sick? She keeps note of the medication you need and when you need to take it so she can make sure you take it (and bring you water in your comfort water bottle to boot). That time of the month? If somehow the stash of your preferred products are out, she knows what you use - she will get you more without you even needing to ask (she will however check if you crave anything in particular on the way out).

Expect to be doing the same for her when she gets sick - she becomes the biggest needy baby when she's not feeling well.

She's stuck in bed? Yep. So are you.

Not even by choice either, she cages you with her arms and well that's that. There's no fighting this goliath of a woman.

Loves her cuddles - all positions.

Her favourite is being the little spoon though. It's not often that she gets to feel protected and cocooned (can you really blame her).

Loves PDA - particularly keeping an arm around your waist or you attached to her arm at all times, though she's known to do a casual steamy kiss in public when she's feeling particularly jealous.

If you're not one for PDA, she respects that boundary... However she will pout at you with those big red puppy dog eyes.

Absolutely hopeless at cooking and baking though not for lack of trying. Wakes you up regularly cursing about burning her toast.

Of course it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

Speaking of waking you up, Dez has nightmares somewhat regularly.

She's always so thankful to have you there to vent to if she needs it and cuddle with until she's calm enough to fall back asleep.

NSFW CONTENT WARNING

NSFW Headcanons (18+)

Sex to Odessa is powerplay, a safe space to be strong and vulnerable all in one.

Hard dom top - that control means everything to her.

This woman loves a good scrap (duh), if you choose to be a bratty sub, she eats that shit up.

Go ahead, try and buck her off of you, she's not even using half her strength. She can hold you down much harder.

Expect to be begging for mercy.

The two of you develop a safe word very early on in your relationship, Odessa would never forgive herself if she pushed you past your limit.

Definitely has and regularly uses an appropriately sized strap (ouch).

Dez has her kinks. Sex between the two of you is rarely vanilla unless other feelings are involved. She's entuned to what you need and your emotions, she knows when you need the gentler and less complicated sex or when you honestly just need someone to hold you.

That being said, she has a reasonably high sex drive. She can manage on her own if you can't or don't feel like it, but say the words and honestly she's ready when you are.

Though she really would prefer you called her Dez, Odessa, babe - really anything other than her title outside of the bedroom, call her your queen between the sheets - she'll go berserk.

Dabbles in pain play, something of an every now and then addition to the bedroom, it's not something she needs and the both of you really have to be in the mood for the more intensive side of sex. She does however love to see you take Gracie's hilt in every hole.

Unless you'd consider overstimulation a form of pain play. There is nothing she loves more than watching you struggle and beg with tears leaking from your eyes, completely at her mercy.

Light bondage when she doesn't feel like physically restraining you herself.

Claims your face as her throne whenever the mood strikes.

Speaking of claiming, your neck, collarbone and tits are never safe from her demanding mouth.

There aren't really many kinks that Dez would feel uncomfortable with, she would try pretty much anything before she knocks it.

Definite no though - I feel like she'd laugh at ironically calling her 'mommy'/'mummy', especially if you have a different accent, but considering her complicated family past, it just hits a little too close to home to take it seriously especially during sex.

Obviously amazing at foreplay, she knows what she likes which makes it so much easier from the start (not to mention her cheekily buying vibrating piercings just to mess with you) but honestly the best part is that she's enjoying herself just as much as you.

It's all give and take with Dez, you give as much as you get.

#overwatch #overwatch headcanon #overwatch x reader #overwatch imagines #Junker Queen #Junker Queen x Reader #Junker Queen x reader smut #smut #overwatch x reader smut

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ndispropertyaustralia · 1 year

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wen-kexing-apologist · 8 months

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Only Friends, Boston, and Queer Culture

I wanted to talk a little bit about an observation that I made about Boston and how he acquires sex partners (i.e. who he picks up, how he picks them up, where he picks them up, and where he chooses to have sex). Now, again, we are only two episodes in so I will not presume to make a pattern of anything quite yet, and I am looking forward to seeing how my current observations shift in light of any new information coming out of future episodes. But, it was notable to me that the only times Boston has been seen actively pursuing a second sexual encounter with someone is either in public spaces or after he has had sex with them in public.

Because Boston is very sexual, we actually have a lot of data points on him already, (and will likely get many more, seeing as Boston has been in 5 out of 7 of the heavy makeout/sex scenes in the show so far). What we have seen so far is a one night stand with Drake’s character after Boston is picked up at a bar and brought back to unnamed-Drake-character’s apartment; Boston returning for a second and third sexual encounter with Nick after he and Nick fuck for the first time in the cellphone repair shop; and Boston openly flirting with and trying to tempt Top in to sex in exclusively public spaces.

Cruising

What is Cruising and Why is it Important?

Photograph by Steven Barker

I realize that there are many people here who may be unfamiliar with the term/concept of ‘cruising’. As a self-defined “baby gay” there are many terms that came out of the past decades’ queer culture that I was and am personally unfamiliar with. As such, I wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with the terminology. “Cruising” is a code-word/gay slang that refers to an individual or individuals ‘walking or driving around a locality, called a cruising ground, in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one time variety’ (Wikipedia).

In her essay Respectable promiscuity: Digital cruising in an era of queer liberalism, Jody Ahlm (then PhD candidate, now Dr.) states the following: “Cruising traditionally occurs in bars, clubs, or public spaces such as parks and public restrooms where men generally signal sexual interest in another man through established non-verbal signals (Be ́rube ́, 1996; Delany, 1999; Humphreys and Rainwater, 1975; Tewksbury, 2002).”

For the sake of simplicity, cruising is a term applied to the action of (usually, but not exclusively) gay men seeking out casual sex in public spaces.

Cruising is and was an important aspect of queer culture, for a number of different reasons. “Tearooms” or private public spaces that were adapted to accommodate gay sex (public bathrooms, for example). While a benefit of tearooms was instantaneous sex, a much more important and notable aspect of tearooms was who in the queer community was frequenting these cruising locations

Of the bar crowd in gay (homosexual) society, only a small percentage would be found in park restrooms. But this more overt, gay bar clientele constitutes a minor part of those in any American city who follow a predominantly homosexual pattern. The so-called closet queens and other types of covert deviants make up the vast majority of those who engage in homosexual acts- and these are the persons most attracted to tearoom encounters…It may be more surprising for the outside to discover that most of these [tearoom participants] are married. Indeed, 54 percent of my research subjects are married and living with their wives. (Tearoom Trade, Laud Humphreys, 1970)

In short, cruising and cruising locations are important to ensuring that men who have sex with men (MSM) who are closeted, married, or do not frequent bars, have an opportunity to engage in sex with other men. (Tradition of sex cruising at Aquatic Park to end. John Geluardi, 2001)

How Cruising has Changed Over Time

Overall, cruising is a lot less popular now than it was in the 1960s and 1980s, in part due to the AIDs epidemic and concerns of HIV transmission (Ahlm, 2017). Ahlm’s essay argues that the AIDS epidemic “initiated a trend toward monogamy among gay men” and that apps like Grindr have shifted the landscape of sexual interest and politics towards a “contested cultural space where publicness and privateness co-exist, creating tensions for self-presentation that are structured by contemporary sexual politics.”

Sociologists have identified a shifting in cruising culture from public, in-person spaces to private, online spaces. In her research, Ahlm noted that none of her subjects who used Grinder reported engaging in public or semi-public sex or being asked to engage in public or semi-public sex by another person. So we are seeing the landscape of where and how gay men engage in sex shift ever increasingly towards private spaces. We can ask ourselves why that may be:

Dalton (black/mixed,5 28) says,”People like to maintain a certain image of themselves, and everybody wants to appear chaste but desirable at the same time, and whatever. People will say ‘‘Oh you’re going on there and you’re trying to do that [find sex], I just talk to people and I never do anything.’’ I’m like ‘‘Sure, right’’ [sarcastic tone].” The multiplicity of intentions on Grindr allows for plausible denial of promiscuity, while the app’s reputation requires constant management of the stigma in order for that denial to be plausible. Like the majority of users, Dalton’s profile says he is on the app for ‘‘Friends, Chat, Networking.’’ However, sexual interaction is the goal of his in-person meetings, and he only chats with people he finds attractive and would potentially like to have sex with. This contradiction between stated intentions and actual use is not unique to Dalton’s Grindr use, it is the rule rather than the exception (Ahlm, 2017)

While privacy can be a valued aspect of people’s personal life experiences, shifting cruising culture to major online spaces designed specifically for gay people, and having sex with people who connect across mobile apps, is contributing to respectability politics:

Shifting cruising to private spaces—both actual sex acts and the practices associated with finding a sexual partner in a public space, furthers the sanitation of gay physical spaces. Users can meet sexual partners without ever leaving home, and public gay spaces become sites for platonic socializing. Gay men go to the bars with their friends to hang out, not to cruise…The performance of cruising is desexualized by the plausible deniability of using a phone app and the plausible deniability of Grindr itself, as discussed earlier. It is not just public sex that is disappearing, so too is the public pursuit of sex. This is not to say that gay bars have been completely desexualized…However, as Orne (2016) shows in his ethnography of Chicago’s Boystown, they are the cultural markers that make the neighborhood a popular place for bachelorette parties ‘‘on safari’’. They are not the same as a visible collective practice of searching for and choosing a sexual partner for the night, regardless of where the sex occurs later. (Ahlm, 2017)

TL;DR: The act of looking for sex partners and engaging in public or semi-public sex as a result (“cruising”) has been steadily phasing out as a practice in gay culture, heading towards more private sexual encounters with sex partners who meet on mobile apps, ultimately resulting in a sanitized image and partial desexualization of gay spaces/bars.

Boston’s Cruising Habits

When I was reading that Ahlm piece, I could not help but think about our very first introduction to the characters of Only Friends in Episode 1. The show opens at a gay bar, we go around listening to Mew’s descriptions of what archetypes his friends fit in to, at which point we learn that everyone in attendance at the bar that particular evening are wearing wristbands indicating their availability to be hit on. Which is making me feel like Jojo and co. (Ninew, Den, the rest of the writing crew) are placing their characters in a past gay culture, giving them an opportunity to return to roots of public cruising. Not every character will engage in such activities, but we know for a fact that Boston and Top are cruising in some capacity from the outset of the show (Boston trying to talk his way into a threesome with Bar Stranger #1, Boston getting picked up by Bar Stranger #2 [aka unnamed-Drake-character], Top striking up conversation with Mew after Mew bumps into him), and with the direct references Jojo and co. are making to Queer As Folk (UK) (1999) if the goal of Only Friends is to highlight queer culture, I would not be surprised.

While we are only two episodes in at the time I am writing this, it was intriguing to me that Boston appears to be one of the few characters engaging in more traditional cruising culture. It is clear that most of the main characters frequent Yo’s bar, though it appears the friend group uses the space more as a place to hang out with one another, rather than a space to cruise. All except for “The Hunter”, Boston, who is seen constantly attempting to pick up, or being picked up by other queer men in a bar setting. We know that Top also frequents the bar, and we have not as of yet seen him with any other friends, so we can presume that Top spends his time at Yo’s bar cruising as well (based on the fact that he has slept with Boston and he did hit on Mew at the bar, but we don’t have any definitive evidence of that yet because we don’t know how Top and Boston met, and Top has only actively been pursuing Mew thus far).

A trend I saw in the first two episodes when it comes to Boston that I find particularly noteworthy (aka, is a trend I want to track as the show progresses to see if that trend continues), is that Boston is only ever repeating sex with people who engaged in public sex with him in the first place. From flashbacks we see Top and Boston making out in a photobooth, an implication there that Top and Boston then fucked in the photobooth since “once was enough” for Top and Boston. The first time that Boston and Nick fuck, they do so in the aisle of the cellphone repair shop. Nick may turn off the lights, but that does not negate the fact that there is a chance that Boston and Nick may be walked in on and caught by an unassuming customer. When Boston hits on Top, it is in a public space: the bathrooms of Yo’s bar, when Boston attempts to initiate a second sexual encounter with Top, it again is in a public space: the locker room/showers at the wakeboarding place.

Public Sex, Photography, and Brewing Thoughts about Boston

Image by @nongnaopat

While I was reading up on cruising, I came across a couple articles with quotes and observations that immediately made me think of Boston, and a question started brewing in my mind:

Is Boston a physical manifestation of the queer hookup cultures 60s-80s?

Boston’s Personality v. Public Sex

Again, we have only seen two episodes of Only Friends so I am not yet secure in my own interpretations of Boston. However, I was thinking about the conversations that occurred the other day about how Boston must exert control over others (@respectthepetty), and how he is ready and willing to meddle in Mew’s life by trying to seduce Top, but that there is noticeable fear and slight panic at the thought that Mew might catch him and Top together in the shower (@stuffnonsenseandotherthings).

There was something that just spoke to me so strongly about Boston’s character archetypes in relation to the conversations brought up in Chapter 6: Tearoom Trade: Tales of Public Sex of the book Marginal People in Deviant Places: Ethnography, Difference, and the Challenge to Scientific Racism by Janice M. Irvine.

In this chapter, Irvine discusses the essay Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Spaces written by Laud Humphreys. Within this chapter, Irvine states “Humphreys argued that tearoom participants varied in vulnerability to risk of exposure. He noted that married men and men who did not have career autonomy were highly vulnerable to negative consequences if discovered in the tearooms.” (Note: my understanding of “tearooms” from this reading is that they are public restrooms that have been transformed to better support instant sex, i.e. a broken window for a lookout, glory holes, walls removed between stalls, etc.) While an assumption could be made that vulnerable men would not engage in public sex, that assumption does not carry through to reality. Humphreys further claims that highly vulnerable men did still engage in public sex via tearoom visits, but they employed protective strategies to mitigate any suspicion of their queerness, often a hypermoral one.

I know “hypermoral” is not a term that anyone who has observed Boston for more than twenty seconds would really attribute to his character, but what did speak to me is what Humphreys says about the strategies employed by the highly vulnerable:

The secret offender may well believe he is more righteous than the next man—hence his shock and outrage, his disbelieving indignation, when he is discovered and discredited…Subjected to harsh social condemnation and legal penalties, the tearoom participant was likely to turn his anger and hatred on himself or others in his group. “Worse yet,” Humphreys argued, “he may justify himself by degrading others, displacing his hostility onto outgroups in the manner of the authoritarian personality.” (Irvine, 2022)

Now which Only Friend character are we thinking of based on the quote above?

“Hence his shock…when he is discovered…”

“The tearoom participant was likely to turn his anger and hatred on himself or others in his group”

“He may justify himself by degrading others”

One thing we do know about Boston is that he currently does not have career autonomy. He wants to be a photographer, but he is studying business because he may have to take over his father’s company (YouTube: Only Friends, Episode 2, Part 2/4, timestamp: 2:27). How much that pressure is really on him and how highly vulnerable Boston may be if caught engaging in gay, public sex remains to be seen, but to me it is worth noting. A research question to be asked: Why does Boston act the way he does? Is he vulnerable in some way and trying to compensate for it, or is just genuinely an asshole? Not sure, but I look forward to finding out.

An additional similarity that immediately came to mind in my readings and their relation to Boston was a reference to Rechy and his writings about male hustlers:

Rechy wrote about how male hustlers selling sex navigated the toilets. He cited the norms of the sexual marketplace with sociological precision: “Stand at the urinal long after youre [sic] through pissing. At the slightest indication of interest from someone in one of the cubicles, go up to him quickly before he gets any free ideas and say: ‘I’ll make it with you for twenty.’ (Irvine, 2022)

Boston is not a sex worker, he is not asking to be paid for his time, but the way he approaches Top in the bar bathroom to try to prompt a second sexual encounter does allude to the hustler culture. Top is standing at the urinal when Boston approaches

He strikes up conversation with Top who only really seems to be partially engaged, Top walks away from the urinal to wash his hands, Boston follows, placing his hands around Top’s, trying to proposition sex, appealing to their supposedly similar approaches to sex.

This is not a direct comparison to be sure, but I just wanted to mention it because it felt similar enough to be a reference. This reminded me too of the nod Jojo and Ninew had to gay male sexual culture in The Warp Effect when Alex has his shoulders massaged by a random patron propositioning sex at Jedi’s bar while he is standing at the urinals. Or to the more direct reference to cruising that Jojo and Aof put in to the character of Arm in Gay OK Bangkok, or Army in The Warp Effect (two pieces which I will continue to say are required viewings before [or at this point in conjunction with] Only Friends).

Boston’s Interest in Photography v. Public Sex Debates

Another aspect of Boston’s character that feels relevant to previous queer culture is his interest in photography itself, because photography has its own ties to tearooms and public sex.

In 1964, The Florida Legislative Investigative Committee “published a pamphlet that featured an explicit photograph of a man engaged in a sex act in a public restroom. The report, dubbed “the purple pamphlet,” was intended to shock readers and mobilize antigay repression.” (Irvine, 2022).

As a warning I am about to cite a pretty big chunk of text, but it is important information:

Photography became one of several technologies police and moral entrepreneurs used to observe and produce evidence of sexual deviance. Yet photographic surveillance could also be subverted. After the tearoom photograph was published in the 1964 Homosexuality and Citizenship brochure, conservatives attacked it as pornographic. The committee quickly removed it from the report, but the photograph was reprinted and vigorously marketed by Guild Press, a publisher of homoerotic materials. Gay pulp publishing was growing by 1964, and Guild Press, established in 1962, was no doubt gleeful to find and market this photograph. The Guild advertisement pointed out that this was the only “action photo” of a glory hole scene that had ever been in print, and as historian Thomas Waugh noted, “the glory hole photo became famous.”23 The “purple pamphlet” and its widespread dissemination was an early case of how social and religious conservatives played a significant role in making visible the sexual representation that they condemned. (Irvine, 2022)

Thinking about Boston and his interest in photography, we can notice another potential link to queer culture. Going in to Boston’s darkroom, we see a number of photographs on his wall of hot men in various stages of undress. With the preceding scene of Boston taking a photo of Nick after they fuck establishing some context, we can make some quick assumptions about who those men are to Boston and what was occurring prior to the photo being taken.

Even within two episodes of Only Friends the camera has almost served as an additional character, bringing us in to the private-public spaces we aren’t supposed to witness. In a conversation I was having with @waitmyturtles, she made the absolutely brilliant point: “the camera of the show is messing around with what we perceive as privacy”.

Sure Boston is making sexual advances on Top in the showers of a public locker room, but no one is supposed to know that, at least no one who could be actually, emotionally impacted by catching Top and Boston together. We see it, but we aren’t supposed to.

But I want to move beyond the show’s actual camera to briefly touch upon the other cameras we have seen alluded to on screen so far. Kudos to whoever it was on tumblr that took the screen shots of the hook up between Neo and Drake and pointed out the web camera that was sitting at the top of the computer monitor. Now, we have absolutely no idea if that is relevant at all to future plot lines, if the web cam was on, or if any part of that sexual encounter will come back to haunt Boston. But I think it is worth mentioning the very real and easy possibility that the web cam could have been recording the room (whether it actually was or not). In this way, Boston is playing with fire around what aspects of himself and his sexuality are captured on a screen.

When Boston and Nick hook up for the first time in the cellphone repair shop, Boston stops the make out session long enough to look around. No, not around, up. Up to the ceilings as if he is scanning the room for possible cameras. Again, we don’t know for sure if a) there are cameras there, b) if that is relevant at all to future plot lines or c) if that really was what Boston was doing. But either way, Nick catches on to Boston’s scanning of the room, and turns off the light so that they can’t be seen.

In both of these cases, whether the cameras exist, are on, recording, or saving any information is not fully the point. The point I am trying to make here is that there are constantly opportunities to have gay sex be captured, and whether or not it is comes down sometimes to shit dumb luck.

Conclusion

gif by @maxescheibechlinichacheli

I am so fascinated by Boston’s character, just thinking about the ways he does and does not fit in to the archetypes of a highly vulnerable tearoom participant: in his interest being in photography, capturing the images of queer men post-coitus, in the way he approaches Top at the urinal trying to entice him in to sex, in the ways he engages with and thinks of other people, and I am very much looking forward to seeing if this trend continues or diverges. For instance, will we see a drastically different side of Boston if we see more of how he interacts with professors in school considering that the one time that he was really quiet and reserved was during the presentation in front of the entire class? Will Boston fall in to the “public saint/private sinner” dynamic that would root him firmly in behaviors of a highly vulnerable queer man engaging in public sex? Or will he drift away from that alignment?

Disclaimer: I want to acknowledge that I am a Westerner and I am engaging and interpreting this show and the gay culture in this show through my own Western lens as well as the Western Gay Culture lens. However, I feel comfortable using these lenses to discuss, analyze, and identify threads of interest to follow throughout the show because:

In 1984, the ‘Boston Bar Study’ conducted by Men of All Colors Together Boston (MACTB) cited numerous examples of widespread discrimination at gay bars in Boston against black men. Similar types of discrimination have also been cited in Los Angeles and New York (Wat, 2002). Even more troubling is that this type of behavior seems to be international as well*anywhere that gay white men come into contact with gay men of color (Ridge, Hee & Minichiello, 1999). One can only imagine how many others never make it into the new stories. Rather than isolated events attributable to racist owners of single bars, the attempt to patrol the borders of whiteness in gay-owned business establishments seems to be a systematic practice (They Don’t Want to Cruise Your Type: Gay Men of Color and Racial Politics of Exclusion, Chong-suk Han, 2007).

In short, cruising, and discriminatory cruising practices are seen worldwide, and therefore I argue that gay culture in Thailand, while likely not identical, is similar enough to Western gay culture to apply similar frameworks, especially considering the aspects of gay culture Jojo and his co-creators have placed in their past works.

Sources

Ahlm, Jody (2017) Respectable promiscuity: Digital cruising in an era of queer liberalism, Sexualities, DOI: 10.1177/1363460716665783

Chong-suk Han (2007) They Don't Want To Cruise Your Type: Gay

Men of Color and the Racial Politics of Exclusion, Social Identities, 13:1, 51-67, DOI:

10.1080/13504630601163379

Humphreys, Laud (1970) Tearoom Trade.

Irvine, Janice M. (2022) Tearoom Trade: Tales of Public Sex, Marginal People in Deviant Places, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.11519906.11

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank @bengiyo, @lurkingshan, @neuroticbookworm, @so-much-yet-to-learn, @waitmyturtles for their thought partnership, edits, and suggestions!

#only friends #only friends the series #ofts #neo trai #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #boston #boston x nick #boston x top #neomark #forceneo #wka long post #kicking off the (possible- not guaranteed) WKA Academic Papers on Sex in Only Friends Essay series #only friends meta #only friends analysis #only friends the series meta #only friends the series analysis #ofts meta

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painted-bees · 6 months

Text

part i

Hitting a cafe during rush hour wasn’t Raf’s definition of a fun idea, and he was well practised in the art of saying ‘no’. Yet, for some reason or another, that skill failed to find him when the wide-eyed little Portasound busker insisted on treating him to a coffee.

The streets outside Granville Station were abuzz with traffic of all kinds. The wide sidewalks were, at least, accommodating to the amount of pedestrians that relied on them during the city’s busiest times of day. The same could not be said for the roads as cars rolled slowly forward, bumper to bumper. Still, the ambience was manageable despite all the bustle. Only the hissing, honking noises of transit bus breaks would coax the occasional wince out of him in their random, unpredictable intervals.

The little Portasound busker, ‘Magritte’, kept up beside him in lock step. She hadn’t stopped talking since they began their walk together and, in honesty, he preferred it that way. She was a disheveled little thing, more than a head shorter than he was. Her manner of dress was as sloppy as the thick bundle of curly, dark red hair that flopped loosely atop her head. Her grey sweater was several sizes too large, covering her to the knees. With sleeves that hung far past her hands if she didn’t scrunch them in her palms. Black leggings were tucked into knock-off ugg boots whose soles had eroded so severely on the outer edge, Raf was concerned she’d roll an ankle if he made her walk too briskly. She smiled so vehemently as she spoke, that her lips rarely closed around consonants, making it difficult to understand her at times.

“–so when my dad was like, ‘you can stay here and work, or you can move out and do your music stuff’, I moved out. That was like…oh–almost three years! I was eighteen. I just turned twenty-one today!” She accompanied that last sentence with a joyful little skip that caused Raf to turn his head and watch her.

“Well, happy birthday.” He exhaled a small laugh. “Vancouver’s an expensive place to live, but house hunting here probably already gave you the full story on that.”

“Rent’s insane,” Magritte echoed his small chuckle. “But the weather’s way more agreeable in the winter, which is what I’m after. And the music scene! I heard there were tons of musicians in Van, and look–I’ve already met two in the first few hours of being here!”

“Oh, you’ll meet more.” The way he said it made it sound more cautioning than he intended and he diffused it with a snort. “Guess the music stuff must have paid off after all, if you can afford a place in the city.”

There was silence between them and Magritte chewed the nail of her forefinger for a moment. “It actually hasn’t, I’m not a professional musician by any means. I’m just really good at finding a lot of short term work and stuff. Sometimes it’s music related, but not often enough to call it a living.”

“Mmh.” Raf glanced down at her. The bounce in her step had vanished and he watched her chew on her lip beneath a knitted brow. With a shrug he said, “You sounded good in the station, all things considered. You stopped, you listened, you came in at appropriate moments, you improvised really well. The pieces I played weren’t really…great for busking…and demanded a lot more than what your little keyboard could reasonably provide, but even your rests were composed and natural. You didn’t drop off abruptly any time the melody brought you past the range of your keys, you played into it.” He smirked. “I’m not gonna lie and say we did a great justice to Paganini today or anything, but I was very surprised by what you were able to pull off. I dunno, seemed like the chops of a professional to me.”

That brought the bounce back into her step, though she continued to chew on her lower lip. Raf was content to see her spirits buoyed at least somewhat by his sentiments. He hadn’t embedded a single white lie into his assessment.

They arrived at the cafe of his choosing; a popular spot, very near to the station, named Caffe Artigiano. The outside seating was full up with patrons, but Raf hoped the inside would be a quieter space to sit anyways. Opening the door, he followed Magritte in. It was busier than he would have liked, but he couldn’t have expected differently, considering the hour. Still, one thing he appreciated about the place was that it did not play music. Only the sound of numerous quiet conversations filled the air. Raf gravitated towards a freshly vacated table in a far corner, and Magritte followed him to it. Her gaze hung on the coffee menu that loomed above the counter.

He waited for Magritte to pick her seat before gently offloading his violin case onto the seat across from her. “I’ll go order. Was it a latte you said you wanted?”

“Actually…” She let out an indecisive little sigh. “A mocha, I think. I want…choco. Oh, but–!” She dropped her duffel bag onto the ground before unzipping a side pouch and pulling out the twenty dollar bill that had found its way into her upturned ball cap at the station. She held it out to him. “With this! Please?”

He hesitated before taking the bill from her. “Yes, ma’am.” There was no point in telling her that the twenty had been his before it became hers. The thought was what mattered.

The line at the counter wasn’t long, despite the busy patronage, and Raf soon returned to their table and evicted his violin case out of the seat across from Magritte. Finding an unused chair from a nearby table, he pulled it up next to him and sat his carrying case on it.

He reached over the table to hand Magritte the change, and she stared at it blankly for a moment before saying, “–Oh!” with a bit of a start. She turned her palm up to receive it.

Magritte stuffed the money back into the pocket of her duffel bag. “So, Question.” She sat back up and looked to Raf. “You say you’re not a professional, but you sound like...you know…Properly trained, or whatever.”

“Mmh.” It was a predictable topic, but not one he wanted to stay on. “Or whatever.” He laughed. “Yeah. Parents pushed it onto me a little too hard. I’ve got the training, but playing it is a chore and I kinda hate it.”

Magritte’s eyes grew wide and rueful and she shrank against the backrest of her chair. “Wait, really?” She covered her face with the sleeves of her sweater and threw her head back with a guilty little groan. “I’m sorry, I made you play so many songs!”

Raf patted the air in front of him in a placating gesture, “No, no. You didn’t make me do anything, relax.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I did that to myself. I meant it, though, when I said it was fun. It was the first time in a long while where I actually enjoyed myself once things got going.”

Magritte drew in a deep breath, recollecting herself before tentatively asking, “Enough that you’d wanna do it again sometime?”

A beleaguered laugh escaped him, “No.” He had given her much of his time and energy already, and being asked for more put a bitter taste in his mouth. The arrival of his iced americano and her hot mocha couldn’t have been better timed. As soon as it was placed in front of him, he brought the drink to his lips and took a long sip.

Magritte sheepishly turned her gaze down to admire the little white hearts in the foam of her coffee before she started to drink it. She placed the cup back down but kept both hands curled around it. “Did you enjoy it when you were younger?”

“Music?” Raf shrugged. “I don’t remember. It doesn’t really matter.” His gaze turned down towards her duffel bag as he grasped for a better topic. “Is your main instrument the piano?”

“Yeah! It’s what I had access to, growing up.”

“Who taught you?”

“Oh, I, uh…mostly just the internet and stuff. My parents didn’t wanna waste money on it, and my highschool didn’t have like…a music class or anything. Just choir. None of my friends played music.”

“...You learned online?”

“Well, like…on Myspace and LiveJournal. Lots of people share what they know there, and I made some really good online friends who tried to teach me things. We’d share music with each other and do weekly challenges and stuff. It was fun.”

“So, self-taught, more or less.”

“Mostly. Oh, except–!” Magritte ducked down to unzip the main pocket of her duffel bag and dove her hands into it. She rummaged around until she produced a small mp3 player and earbuds attached by a chord. “There was a year when I was living in Montreal, my girlfriend was a jazz pianist. And then we met other, um…friends who taught me more in that one year than I think I ever learned in my entire life. It was her and a whole lotta horns. They all let me use their instruments and taught me proper technique and stuff. I think they liked watching me stubbornly struggle with it. In the end, I was only able to record one song before I had to, um, move on. But I’m still kinda proud of it. I dunno if you wanna–it’s instrumental and kinda eclectic, but I loved making it.”

In response, Raf extended his hand, and Magritte spent a second scrolling through her library of mp3s before stuffing the little music device and earbuds into his open palm.

She performed an excited little wiggle in her seat as Raf wordlessly placed an earbud into his ear. “Just hit play, and it should be the right song.”

Raf wasn’t sure what he had expected to hear. He was, at least, perfectly comfortable with listening and offering his honest input. He didn’t believe in ‘bad’ music. There was skilled and unskilled music, there was music that fit his tastes and music that really didn’t. But none of it was bad. All music created deserved to be created and allowed to exist–if only for the satisfaction of the musician who produced it. He was prepared to tell her that the best music she could make is the music she enjoyed making, even if it didn’t resonate with his personal tastes. He pressed ‘play’.

What hit his ear was an uptempo half-time funk sound carried on a unison horn line; crystal clear, well mixed, high quality audio. Right from the jump, the sound had a quirky, catching character. He fitted the other earbud into his ear as a sustained note leapt into an energetic, off-beat ska groove. His brow furrowed deeply as he tried to discern the instrumentation. The drum fill might have been digital, but the winds sounded far too dynamic to be synthetic. And there were…three of them; the two horns he couldn’t quite specify, and then a baritone sax. The horns took centre stage, confident and playful, supported by a jaunty walking bassline and synthetic, bubbly organ accompaniment. Despite its G minor key signature, the character of the piece was lively and a little goofy, smart but playful; it was simply–fun. A smile lit across his face as the melody modulated G minor into G Phrygian for the bridge section. The effect was a jesting ooh gonna getcha vibe.

He listened to the end of the song before he began to comment on it. “Very cool. Your jazz friends weren’t sleeping on their music theory classes. I assume the organ is you?”

Magritte shifted nervously in her seat as her thumb smoothed over the handle of her coffee cup in small, repeated strokes. “I borrowed instruments for this one and recorded it in…um, my girlfriend’s parents' house. They had a music room where I was allowed to record things.”

“You borrowed–right. But the horns..?”

“Yeah.”

Raf levelled a measuring stare at her.

“I recorded each instrument separately,” she began explaining, “It’s uh, piano, trumpet, trombone, and–oh! The baritone sax was played by Sadie, one of my, um…jazz friends.” She let out a weak laugh. “And then, like…a bass, I also played. And a synthetic drum fill ‘cus…none of us knew how to actually play drums.”

“You played each instrument? Learned them and recorded this song within the span…of a year?”

“No, just the trumpet and trombone! I already knew piano and bass.” Confusion must have been apparent on Raf’s face, and she tried to address it by saying, “It’s all digitally processed, so it sounds a little more–”

“No, I–I know that.” Raf massaged an eyebrow with one hand. “You’re the songwriter too, I assume?” His tone was a little more sharp than he’d have liked it to be. It betrayed his incredulity.

Magritte picked up her cup and eyed him nervously over the rim as she sipped from it.

“No, I don’t know how.” She sounded embarrassed. “I can’t read or write music. I just sketched a bunch of it out digitally first, and then–”

“Fresh compositions? By ear?”

“Yeah. And then I recreated it with the correct instrumentation.” She chewed on the nail of her thumb. “It works, I think.”

“That’s still songwriting. It counts.” Raf sniffed and leaned back in his seat. “I gotta be honest, and don’t take this the wrong way but…it’s a little hard to believe.”

Magritte’s nervousness dissolved into a flattered grin. “Yeah?”

Raf’s brow twitched downward as he tried to read past her demeanour. He had expected a more sheepish response, if not a more defensive one. His doubt wasn’t intended as a compliment, but if she were being wholly honest with him, perhaps it made sense that she’d take it as one.

He drained the last of his americano. “So, you’re not pursuing this professionally, because..?”

“Oh, I am!” Magritte shrugged and turned her eyes to the upper right corner of the room. “It’s just been kinda…difficult.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” It was a stupid question he already knew the answer to. Music was more easy to find nowadays than ever before, but discoverability still relied on knowing how to promote the work and get the right ears onto it. And, across the entire spectrum of skill, this is what everyone tended to blame for the inability to live off their–

“Money.”

“M–!” The response was so sudden and matter-of-fact in tone, Raf couldn’t stop a bark of surprised laughter from escaping him. He’d have laughed the same way if someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.

Magritte slapped her palms down on the table and leaned forward with wide eyes to state her defence. “Instruments are expensive, lessons are expensive, computers are expensive, software and sound libraries are expensive! Everything’s so expensive!” She slumped back in her seat, turning her palms over in an exasperated gesture. “If I could afford to go to school and actually like–learn music, and if I could afford to rent instruments and recording equipment and stuff, I could make more songs! I could upload like…whole albums! I’ve got all these doodles with my shitty midi libraries and they might sound actually good if I could just record them properly! But it’s been like…four years since I left home, and the only properly produced track I have to show for it is that one.” She flopped her hand towards the mp3 player on the table. “So, I just make my little digital doodles, and I come up with tunes that suit the sounds I have access to. I like it. I’m happy I get to make any music at all, but it’s a bit niche, you know? And I have all these other ideas in my head that need like…better, less…synthetic sounds. There are libraries that sound pretty convincing, but all the best ones are…expensive. And vocals are hard to record with the stuff I’ve got.”

Raf held up his hands in effort to placate her. “No, I know, you’re right–money. I just–” It wasn’t a struggle he had ever faced, and he couldn’t help but feel like a bit of a heel over the fact that he hadn’t even considered it as an obstacle to the extent that she was describing it.

“On the other hand,” Magritte’s voice took on a capitulating tone, “With the right skill, I should be able to produce bangers with whatever I’ve got, yeah? And,” she took up her coffee cup in one hand, staring into its contents, “if I was better at saving money, I’d be able to afford those really good sample libraries just fine, probably. I just like my sweet foamy lattes too much.” She sighed a little laugh at herself.

Raf let out a low groan of disagreement, but didn’t elaborate on it. “I kinda…want to listen to those ‘digital doodles’ you mentioned.” If nothing else, it’d give him an idea of how much input her jazz friends had over the composition of the song he heard. If the obvious compositional prowess flexed in that fun-loving jazzy ska piece were completely absent in her little sketches, he wouldn’t chalk it up to being just a fluke.

Drawing in a deep breath and holding it, Margritte reached for the mp3 player and scrolled through its contents before handing it to Raf. “You can just skip through these as you like. It’s all a little–” She wrinkled her nose and let out a grunt in place of any real adjective.

With an affirming little snort of his own, Raf took the little music player and put the earbuds into his ears once more. He pressed play, and immediately understood what she meant. The synthetic instrumentation was wholly lacking in dynamics, and the musical ideas present in the melodies begged for more colourful phrasing. As he skipped from one song to the next, he grew more frustrated. The compositional writing was good. Consistent with the first song he had heard, Magritte seemed to really love playing with eccentric progressions and modulations that were unconventional for the mood or emotion that the song was attempting to capture. And ever present in each little composition was this boundless sense of joy. But god, the instrumentation (or rather, the lack thereof) really, really held it all back.

As he listened, his lips pressed into a thin line. Finally, with a low groan that betrayed his thoughts, he took out the earbuds and handed the music player back. “Yeah, that sucks.” The end of that statement stuck in his throat as he sputtered to clarify, “Not the music–”

“Yes, the music.” Magritte’s giggle was one of genuine affirmation as she tucked the mp3 player away into her duffle bag.

“No,” Raf argued, “your toolset. There’s a lot of skill here, but the cheap synthy sounds aren’t doing it any favours. You went absolutely ham on those horns in the first song, and I don’t hear any of that in these sketches because it’s just not possible. There’s a lot of energy that is just…missing. Even watching you play at the station, yeah your keyboard suffers the same limitations, but at least in person I noticed you’ll even make use of like…the percussion of your fingers hitting the keys, which, you know…is dynamic.”

As he spoke, Magritte retained a smile and provided small nods before asking, “You like it, then?”

Raf leaned back, folded his arms and chewed on the question for a second before replying, “Yeah. I do. A lot.”

A lot.

There was a corner of his mind that begged him to get back home to his apartment and try out the melodies with an instrument that could do it proper justice. Jesus Christ, this actually makes me want to play the violin.

The realisation made his lip curl with a feeling in his gut that he couldn’t quite identify. “You know…”

Magritte, taking the last remaining sips of her latte, turned her eyes up at him with a little “Hm?”

There was a pause while Raf wrestled with himself. “I, uh…work at a recording studio not too far from here. Just down on uh…Powell Street.” He felt his jaw clench. There was no good reason for him to tell strangers about where he worked. There was no possible good outcome in doing so. Mentioning it felt too much like an open invitation for her to pop in at any time, for no good reason at all except to make things uncomfortable. “It’s called Hi-Note, and it’s got like…a pretty standard assortment of instruments to rent out and such. It closes early.” He wasn’t looking at her. Brow furrowed, he stared at the ice melting in his otherwise empty glass. “Swing by tomorrow night, after eight, and maybe we can jam for like..half an hour or something before I head home.”

He didn’t glance up to see her expression, but her voice was slow to rise to his ears. “..Wait, really?”

No. “Yeah.” What the fuck? “Really.” Unable to unfurrow his brow, he managed to at least turn his gaze towards her. Her eyes were so large on that petite face of hers, and her lips parted slightly, muscles tense with the anticipation of some kind of catch or condition. Or, perhaps she had picked up on his apprehension and was waiting for him to revoke the offer. For some reason, the idea of doing so suddenly felt…unconscionable to him.

In a small voice, she said, “I’d really like that.” The restraint of her response was belied by the way she wiggled in her chair. Beneath the table, her leg wagged restlessly like an excited dog’s tail. “Eight o’clock?”

“Mmhm.” Raf felt some of the tension in his browline relax as a slight smile passed his lips. “Let's see if we can revisit some of those tunes you have. Just–for fun. No recording, nothing serious.”

It seemed that Magritte could never keep a smile off her face for long, and once again, that broad, delighted grin of hers painted her features. “Yeah, yeah! I’d like that a lot!”

“Alright then.” Raf knocked his knuckles twice on the table like a gavel, before standing up.

As he reached to retrieve his violin case off the chair next to him, Magritte pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Hi-Note, eight o’clock.”

Raf favoured her with a lopsided smirk. “Don’t forget.”

“I won’t. I’ll see you there!”

He provided her with an affirmative little wave, but by the time she had realised he was taking his leave, Raf was already halfway to the door.

He heard her call out to him, “Thank you for the–um–everything!”

Looking back to her, Raf returned the sentiment with an appreciative nod before pushing through the cafe doors; exiting onto the busy sidewalk outside.

He wanted to get home before sundown…

To play his violin.

#Hi-Note #I'm not a very good writer I don't paint very well with words haha but this is at least one way to get the scenes outta my head!#rafael #magritte

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baby-jaguar · 3 months

Text

Meeting Johnny

Western AU; Mail Order Spouse Trope

WC: 2,726 CW: None

AN: I'm alive! Sorry this is so short, this was a good stopping point and I need to work on my world-building for Soap before getting to the next part. Just know- I haven't given up on this AU (It's literally my firstborn, blood, and soul, but I will be a bit slow until my brain juices stay flowing. I hope ye enjoy <3

Please see the Introduction for the explanation and precursors to the scene.

Introduction, Biography

--------

Johnny’s proposal to you was quick in terms of a few letters exchanged; three letters in, he invited you to come out and sent you enough money to figure out accommodations to get to him. As soon as you read those words at the post office, you ran home high on endorphins and adrenaline began packing your bags without grandiose care in the world. The fire inside you licked at the bottom of your heart, anger at staying in this shithole for far too long and feeling a sense of belonging- the sense of feeling wanted to make you have an ulterior purpose in life as if a phoenix reborn and spreading its wings while nose-diving into the unknown. When your parents came home as you zipped your bags, you sincerely couldn’t give a flying fuck as you shoved past them and began berating your parents with a grand show of a public yelling match for the neighbors to hear.

Good for you!

You had already planned how to get to him after receiving his first letter back; First step, buying a train ticket that led you to Santa Fe, New Mexico. From there, you had to embark on the Gila Trail, before having to buy your horse and head out on the San Diego Crossings wagon road by yourself.

This trip was a long haul, and you prayed that Johnny would trust in your quickly established faith to wait out for you. The promise of a strong and loving man is all you could think about...

While in your adrenaline-filled escape, you hadn’t plucked the book in your room that hid his photo as a bookmark, but thankfully had grabbed the letter that gave you his directions. While you scavenge your mind to have a solid image of him, you think over his features and re-read the letters countless times.

Johnny has a background of all sorts, having grown up in a family that held their bond strong, especially after his father had passed in a mining cave-in, which rendered him the man of the house from a young age. Even in his brief telling of these events, you could tell he’s moved out to California to find a deeper meaning of himself, create the line in concrete for it to harden as he ages.

That isn’t to say that he has lost his sense of boyishness, not at all in fact. His stories that he wrote even contained small doodles along the borders to better depict what he was writing about, and it was half your mind to cut them out and keep them as little bookmarks or place them in your wallet as a keepsake. He was playful, writing jokes about the smallest things, even letting you in on some secrets about the people in his town before you got there.

While the sense of his flame burned hot in multiple directions, deep in his hearth was a passionate man. Just as he seemed so sweet, with a flick of his wrist the writing would turn into something hot enough to make you blush, averting your eyes as your mind ran wild with his thoughts. He seems to enjoy a bubble bath… but maybe only when you’re in it with him. Even writing about the future and him stating he wants a family by any means, you could only imagine a deep possessiveness inside of him to claim you as such. Even if you were able to have his biological children or not, he’d still make sure you felt like you did.

But back to your journey.

The course of the trains provided you an oversight of the new lands you had yet to ever see, as it was the beginning stages of territories turning into states. The rides were long, and adjusting to the set time zones was a large throw-off to your circadian rhythm. Having already traveled two states west, it was difficult to decide on which line would grant you the fastest access to Johnny. Luckily enough, a kind person in the Denver station helped point out that taking the route from northern Nevadah into California would grant you the fastest time, and ease your solo traveling.

The kind person stated that they were in a similar situation and now waiting for the train, having a bit of time to offer some advice while making it toward their end goal. Thanking them with bountiful wishes and good luck’s in their journey, you were on your way.

It took four more days to find yourself in Temecula, California. An astonishing change from the desert lands that reflected the sun so brightly now showed the capabilities of a plush environment of greenery and clouds. The train station was reached as the sunlight began pouring in over the mountains; being quick on your feet, and from the other settlers being far too tired, you found a deal on the last remaining horse available.

Traveling by horseback prompted challenges with reading Johnny's directions, and you did not want to admit that you were lost. The lack of directory and signage left you getting flustered already by noon and being left alone in such a rural area in between towns felt far more daunting than any part of this trip. Passing by stagecoaches who all seemed to know their way around, you filed in line through a secondary road filled with houses in the valley of the small mountains.

Three hours later and a small urge to cry while having given up on re-reading the letter, you accepted defeat when you saw someone sitting on their porch down a dirt road with his house being the only one there.

“Hi! Excuse me, sir?” The sound of your voice breaks through the stillness of the settling valley, enough to make the man look up from the table he is currently hunched over.

“Would you mind helping me out by giving me directions?” Willing yourself to not blush or shrink into your large coat, embarrassment running through your chest while in the new environment.

For a moment, the man doesn't seem to acknowledge you, having to do a double take before his eyes widen in surprise. The toothpick that was delicately hanging on his lip falls to the ground, less he even notices before he sits up straight readjusting his hat, and clears his throat.

“‘Course, my dear. How can I be of service.” His accent is rich, leading you to believe that he’s been raised in the West, and has a perfectly smooth twang to his speech as it leaves his side smile.

“I’m looking for the country store… There’s supposed to be an old Coke sign on it.” The words leave you in a higher pitch than you’d normally speak, having a handsome stranger stare at you with a wide-eyed stare as he watches your lips move. “And to be honest- I wouldn’t know if I’m in the right place to begin with.”

As if snapped back to reality again, eye contact cut short as he blinks before looking down the road and then back to you. “Ah, store’ way down yonder with a crossing sign. If yer’ headed west then a left will take you to the interstate,” A nod confirms his sense of confidence in his directions, explaining it plain and simple as the roads that his house lies on.

The smile that crosses your face lights your eyes, and it's the most relief you’ve gotten ever since getting on horseback. “Thank you, I really do appreciate it.” Your hands pull on the reigns of the horse, already turning around to try and beat sunset before it's too dark to ride alone.

Before you’re out of earshot, “When you’re in, you gotta stop and ask Ms. Bell for somma’ her sweet tea. But remember, take a right, and you’ll end up right back here to me.” The wink that leaves him makes you question if you’re seeing things in the late light of the day, but you’re sure he can see the blush that burns your cheeks.

A laugh leaves you before nodding in response, now clicking your horse into a quick trot while you’re high on the adrenaline from the interaction. Well… at least you have a backup plan in case your bachelor doesn't work out.

Arriving far too quickly than you’d expect, the store was only a few minutes down the road and concealed by a line of trees. Hitching your horse and walking into the store on stiff legs, you plan on following the stranger's advice to get some sweet tea.

The bell above the door jingles as you walk in, catching the attention of the older woman behind the counter. Here eyes take in your form, surprised such a fresh-faced person has arrived this late into the day. “How can I help you, sweetheart?” Her voice rings out a bit rough, someone who knows how to pull her weight if trouble would arrive.

“I’m actually looking to get to someone's home near town, but I was told to make my way from this store to not get lost.” A pause as your eyes take in the scenery of the rustic store; A layer of dust settled onto the wooden floors as shelves are stocked with an assortment of canned goods, spices, and a few refrigerators labeled as eggs and milk. “Met a stranger on the way and was told I should get some sweet tea here, too.”

Her eyes, still studying you as you speak and noting your accent, or lack thereof, bring a small quirk to her face. “Well, lemme get you some of my tea while you get yourself found.” Leaving her seat she makes her way to a wall in the back, pulling out two large mason jars with a light brown liquid.

“That stranger you met- was he small ways up north fr’mere?” The smile on her face grows as she walks back to her seat at the register as you walk forward to meet her.

“Yes… A lone house down a single road. Blue eyes, brown hair, and some stubble.” The answer is pulled from you automatically, reciting the mental image of him.

“Toothpick in his mouth?”

The question is almost absurd in how spot-on she is, but then again this is a very small town. “Yes.”

The answer makes her laugh, somewhat un-ladylike when compared to the women from your home, and the noise makes you startle in place for a second.

“That damn Johnny makes me work my ass off to keep this tea in stock. He’s been so stressed waiting for his person to come ‘nd has been drinking me straight out of this stuff.” She levels when calming down for a moment, now placing the jars in bags.

She has yet to look back up at you and fails to notice your limbs seemingly frozen in place as the air leaves your lungs. That was Johnny?

“I’m so sorry ma’am. Did you say that was Johnny? As in MacTavish?”

The rustle of the brown paper bags stops, her eyes darting up to find yours. “Well, I’ll be damned.” She murmurs lowly before a sly smile takes over her face. “You’re here, and you’re damned too good from what you made yourself out to be, sweetheart.”

Still frozen with your mind reeling, adrenaline begins to pump back into your bloodstream while a jolt alights your muscles. “Oh- I’m so sorry ma’am, I must get going its getting late and-”

The sliding of the jars on her counter interrupts your rambling, “Ah ah, its Ms. Bell dear, and you best be taking this with you to him. Don’t worry bout nothin’ but I’m happy to welcome you to the town.”

If you looked now, you could notice the tremor in your hands. Nodding and taking the bag, a rush of endless ‘thank you’s’ and an elated smile seats itself permanently before loading the bags on the saddle and turning back around to start galloping forward back towards where you once were.

—

The sound of horses and wagons isn’t a constant to Santa Ysabel during the night hours, usually only occurring after the dayshift ends. As Johnny sits on his porch, his mind muddled with confusion as he stews over his soon-to-be partner arrives, thoughts of the stranger asking for directions makes him confused.

Fresh toothpick in his mouth as he widdles away at a bar of tallow, working to pull off glycerine for work. Surely that wasn’t a coincidence, right? The picture you sent was muddled down with water stains, and he blamed it on the damn train that sent your envelopes out this way. It was beginning sunset, and though he couldn't make out most of your features because of the coat you concealed yourself in-

The bar of soap drops to the ground and he curses, now jumping out of his mind and into the present.

The sound of hooves beating and approaching make him look up.

There, Here, you’re back again and the whites of your teeth are illuminated by the fading sun to show your smile.

Slowing down your horse to a stop, breathing in a slight pant as compared to your horses, the smile never leaves you.

“Figure you need some more directions, sweetheart?” His drawl leaves him, standing to make his way towards you.

“Take off your hat.” The response is curt, and demanding in a way, but that glimmer of excitement makes it sound so sweet.

Johnny himself is befuddled for a moment, eyebrow cocked but complies anyway. Now raising the hat off of his head and holding it to his chest, his eyes answer for him. This what you wanted?

A small sound of excitement leaves you, nodding before your leg swings over your saddle, dismounting with a small jump and walking forward.

“Johnny, it's me.”

A swear leaves his mouth, accompanied by a rush of air before he drops his hat to the side and plucks hit toothpick out with it. The smile that coats his face makes him appear so young and boyish at heart as he moves forward with arms open to wrap around your hips with a low growl, “C’mere you,”

You could be embarrassed by the small squeal that leaves you, but you couldn’t give a rat's ass on anything right now. He spins you around for a quick moment, arms around your body as he lifts you easily with his strength.

Staring down into his eyes, you grab a shoulder while the other hand cups his jaw. “Didn’t know it was you until Ms. Bell said something.”

He laughs, head tilting back in bewilderment at the situation and excitement. “Talkin bout her sweet tea?” He asks while setting you down on your feet, hands never straying as he pulls you against him and traverses over your body.

“Yes, gave me some to bring home.”

The use of home sparks his heart with a bright thrum, butterflies encasing his stomach while he rumbles out a laugh. The texture of his hands is both soft and ruff, his thumbs rubbing over your cheekbones before one hand moves to brush over your hair, cupping the back of your neck.

“Well, in that case, welcome home, sweety.” The rumble sends a shiver down your spine, eyes darting over his face before settling on his lips. A breath settles before you look back into his sharp blue eyes, as he looks at you seemingly waiting for permission.

A small nod of your head and gently pulling him towards you, the band on the back of your head pulls you forward as he brings your lips together. The taste of him has a spice to it, the favor of cinnamon cotes his lips and brings a slow burn over yours while his body’s warmth brings another wave.

The stubble of his beard rubs your face- and it's a welcome feeling as compared to the winds of the valleys whipping past you. Something you’d gladly leave your skin bright red and raw from hours of the feeling.

Before growing too heated, you part with a small gasp and trail him slightly before blinking to find his smirk growing as a low rumble vibrates against you. “Let's get you settled in, then we can celebrate s’more.”

--------

[Who do you all think the reader met at the train station? If you get the song reference for their meeting you get two gold stars! I hope yall enjoy.]

#cod mw2 #task force 141 #call of duty #tf141 #call of duty modern warfare #captain john mactavish #john soap mctavish x reader #john soap mactavish #johnny soap mactavish #soap mactavish #soap mw2 #soap cod #tf141 x reader #john mactavish

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itsabouttimex2 · 1 month

Note

Hi! I hope you're having a nice evening today! ♡♡♡♡

May I request for a platonic Yandere Chang'e with a son or daughter reader? either by blood or bond I'm ok with it 👍 she's one of my favorites characters of LMK (☆▽☆) Thank you! And sorry if my english it's kinda bad 😅

Moon Rabbits

(Thank you for the request, and your English is just fine, friend!)

Many things have made their way to your mother’s home over the years, she says to you. Offered from thousands of varying sources and souls, a collection of offerings and letters and antiques.

“But you, my little bunny,” your mother says with a loving smile, “are the greatest of all my treasures.”

With practiced motions, she combs through your tangled mop of hair, humming an ancient lullaby whenever she’s not verbally doting on you. It’s an old ritual for the two of you, your mother happily talking about how she had found you years ago nestled on one of her lunar shrines, wrapped in a bundle of blue silk.

“I have no clue who sent you to me, my sweet lop, and I might never… but they have my eternal gratitude, forever shining softly upon them.”

As always, she’s perfectly gentle with you, her hands careful so as to not damage even a strand of your hair or fur. Chang’e sets down the ivory comb and takes up a sapphire-encrusted hairbrush, lifting it to the tips of your leporine ears. She brushes slowly from the top to the bottom, smoothing the soft fur into place and grooming out tangles. Occasionally she’ll pause to softly pull out a tiny bit of soil or foliage- that you no doubt acquired from playing in her bountiful garden.

Occasionally you’ll receive an instruction to turn your head this way or that, allowing the lunar goddess to more thoroughly arrange the pristine fluff of your ears. Aside from that, her words are spent solely on adoring you.

It’s a routine you’ve long grown used to, spending each evening in front of your mother's mirror as she tends to your appearance. Chang’e finishes each grooming session with a fistful of sparkly hair-clips, the polished metal studded with glittery beads. Some in the form of rabbits, some in crescents, some mimicking constellations. Each one is carefully clipped into your hair, in part to keep your appearance tidy, in part proof of her influence over you.

It’s only when she presses a kiss to your forehead (because she loves the human part of you) and both of your tall, fluffy ears (because she loves the rabbit part of you) that she allows you to stand up and leave.

Both sides of you, flesh and fur alike, are worthy of being loved, she always reminds you.

Her love is conveyed through more than just physical touch, of course.

Your nature as a half-rabbit being provides you with several impediments, in diet and behavior and clothing. Each of these issues Chang’e tirelessly works to resolve.

On account of your strong leporine ancestry, your stomach struggles with meat. You lack all the proteins needed to break it down properly, which means that eating any leads to having it sit around in your stomach until you throw it back up.

Chang’e keeps an incredibly varied kitchen that never seems to run dry of unique dishes- she accommodates for your dietary restrictions with ease. There’s no end to what she serves up, each meal designed to be both tasty and nutritious. Fruit and veggie platters for snacks, usually cut into the shape of rabbits and stars. (She does this no matter how old you get. Cooking is her personal love language, after all. She never wants you to think of eating as something trivial or unfun.)

In terms of clothing, the only real restrictions you have are with your scut and ears- mild, all thing considered. Most of your wardrobe consists of skirts and shorts to prevent any restriction, and your ears are barely an issue. It's not like you need to wear hats- you live on the moon. You're hardly at risk of getting sunburned.

It's your temperament that proves most infuriating. The rabbit aspects of you go far deeper than the skin- they bleed into your brain, even. You find yourself skittish and easily startled, jumping at the smallest of shadows. Even a mild creak has you bolting off to your mother, who's always ready with a warm hug and a mug of something hot and sweet with a hint of bitter that just barely comes through.

And you’re always so sleepy afterwards.

Waking up on your mother’s bed is a common occurrence, frequently awakening to find yourself bundled under a load of cozy blankets. There’s always a snack on the bedside table, usually a sweet variety of fruit cut into hearts, paired with a refreshing drink.

It’s all so very loving.

So much so that it’s hard to know that something’s wrong. You have no frame of reference for a truly healthy relationship, having lived on the moon for all your known life. It’s only you and your mother and her dozens of bunny drones, equipped with cameras to send constant streams of your current activities back to her phone.

Only you and your mother and her cooking show, you standing in the background and helping her chop veggies, sift flour, stir pots, and decorate cakes. It’s enriching enough that you don’t get bored. It’s fulfilling enough to create a sort of satisfaction.

Is it really so bad here that you’d think of leaving? From what you know, Earth is worse- war, famine, disease, poverty- none of that exists in your mother’s domain. There’s no suffering or pain in your life. You drift through peaceful days with good food and a loving mother.

Is it really so bad here?

#Platonic Yandere #Yandere Lego Monkie Kid #Yandere LMK #Yandere Chang’e #Chang’e #Yandere Mother

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headspace-hotel · 1 year

Note

3 questions:

1. How do you carry the heavy burden of having so many correct beliefs plus the rare combination of motivation and the right approach to making the world a better place? 2. Does your back hurt?

3. What do you think about David Pearce's utopian idea that a sufficiently technologically advanced future society could and should one day abolish (or at least minimize) suffering, partly by redesigning the biosphere and its inhabitants to be kinder and gentler to each other? IMO that could involve bioengineering predation out of existence.

Sorry if I already asked you about this. You seem very smart and seem to know a lot about ecology so I want to know your thoughts

1. Half the work is fighting very hard against starting to believe this very thing (that I have correcter beliefs than many other people). I hope my posts inspire y'all to read things that are not posts.

2. Not really.

3. The term you're looking for is "life on Earth goes extinct."

But, okay, I've seen this sentiment before, and it is—not that you are, just that the idea is— a naive and arrogant approach to ethics in nature

I don't think it's wrong to change the biosphere. That's what life DOES. It evolves.

But "ending suffering" is an impossible goal because we don't, and in some ways can't, understand suffering scientifically. Suffering is an internal state that is defined only by the perceiver's experience of it. We still do not know the ins and outs of how physical pain works in humans, let alone spicy, obscure emotions like Existential Angst.

People who are concerned with the problem of suffering in nature focus on predation and pain in the animal kingdom—understandable if you have thought about it for under five minutes, but hopelessly incomplete and arbitrary if you consider that a creature's ability to feel and perceive is not determined by how humanlike it is.

There is no reason to think a plant or a mushroom is less capable of "suffering" than a lobster is. Plants and fungi are different; they are not simpler or less advanced or less alive than animals.

The corollary to this is that being marginally more humanlike doesn't mean that a creature "suffers" in the way a human does. When you think about it, living things can perceive "negative" stimuli because the ability to do so helped their ancestors survive. A solitary creature, for instance, wouldn't experience loneliness because being with others of its species isn't really necessary or beneficial for it. It's very likely that a creature that can't change its behavior to accommodate for or help heal an injury, can't experience continuous pain like we can. Does that mean they don't "suffer" as severely as we do? I'm not sure. It's impossible to say. I'm sure we all experience the world profoundly—I'm sure the perception of light by a bryozoan colony and the subsequent growth toward the light and feasting on algae "feels" as potent and spiritual as any of my complicated chordate emotions.

Long story short, stimuli like pain were adapted as responses that help a creature survive by avoiding things that are injurious to its survival. To eliminate suffering, you'd have to invent creatures that don't want to be alive, which would die out and be replaced by creatures that do.

Inventing creatures that don't want to be alive somehow sounds way more fucked up than anything that already exists.

But, hi, we are social creatures. Our survival instincts are overwhelmingly oriented toward seeking safety with other humans. PTSD is a disorder of social misplacement; it develops when the communities we live in don't properly acknowledge and care for our hurt after a distressing experience. We evolved to be able to communicate pain and distress to other humans, which means being aware of our own suffering, and that others can suffer, which explains why we are having this conversation, because wanting to relieve other creatures' suffering is a quality of our species.

I get tags on my posts sometimes referencing how nature is a brutal suffering machine—often when I'm talking about plant cognition and awareness—and it's troubling because that's not the takeaway I want people to have at all.

Because first of all, a healthy ecosystem working "as intended" does a lot to minimize suffering. People see predation as this violent and brutal thing, but for a deer, death by festering injury or starvation or parasite overload related to overcrowding or even old age is a lot more nasty and painful.

A biosphere without predators is unavoidably worse. The buffer on prey populations that predators provide creates optimal conditions for prey, because otherwise, the animals just reproduce to the point where the population can't increase any more because the animals are too sick/starving.

Predation ensures a deer with a horribly mangled broken leg will get picked off instead of limping around for months in pain (something i actually witnessed!). It's not evil. It just is.

If you really wanted to eliminate suffering, you would have to eliminate being alive, and to be completely honest, that is probably not possible. We could not render the Earth completely empty of even single celled organisms if we dumped every toxic chemical into the atmosphere and bombed ourselves with every nuclear weapon. We would still have tough bastards like Deinococcus radiodurans around, and those guys would probably eventually evolve into organisms with the capability to experience pain all over again.

Abiogenesis may be a bitch but life, once it exists, is a Pandora's box that can't be unopened. The first thing to be alive also invented death, and there's no way around that. The monkey-typewriter-room of molecules that let you understand that you exist are going to write out "WOW, THIS FUCKING SUCKS" every once in a while.

When you think about it, the ecosystem as it naturally evolved probably is one of the most low-suffering possible ecosystems, assuming that things that can be considered "suffering" evolved as survival mechanisms, and unnecessary mechanisms for suffering would be eliminated over time due to the detriment they are to survival.

Living things develop survival mechanisms, and this means the ability to distinguish good and bad stimuli. Can't get around that.

Even with the existence of predation and parasitism as important modes of survival, such overtly ""antagonistic"" relationships in nature aren't even dominant. A staggering portion of the biosphere is engaged by necessity in mutualism—most plants form mycorrhizal symbioses and flowering plants are also symbiotically joined to pollinators, not to mention that plants need each other to thrive.

You can view this positively (plants have friends!) or negatively (plants can get lonely...)

#random #ecology #life #no suffering without joy and no joy without suffering

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