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13as07 · 1 month

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Spitting Image Prequel

(Gaara Sabaku Smut)

[Artwork is not mine! Credit to Bev-Nap]

Requested by: Myself

Word Count: 4,240

Warnings and/or Pre-Notes:

Alcohol drinking/Drunk sex

Soft boi virgin Gaara

Praising/“Good Boy”

Hickeys/Scratch Marks

Mommy kink (you can’t convince me that Gaara doesn’t have a mommy kink)

Pleasure kink

Begging

Oral (female receiving)

Creampie

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The neon lights of the bar cut through the darkness, pulling me towards it like a moth. This day has sucked, this week has sucked, this month has sucked. Plus, the promise of cheap margaritas is almost impossible to deny. I'm a sucker for a cheap alcohol-induced night.

"Welcome in! Margaritas are two hundred yen a glass tonight!" The short-haired bartender calls out, a toothy grin on her face.

"Start me off with a strawberry margarita," I order, sliding into an empty barstool at the counter. "Then slide me a lime one once it's done."

"So start your second one as soon as I'm done with your first?" She asks a laugh following her words.

"Ya, pretty much," I giggle out too, slapping my ID onto the counter before laying six hundred yen on top. "Keep the extra as a tip, love."

"Damn, already sweet talking me. One strawberry and one lime marg coming up," the bartender says, snatching up my ID and the cash. She glances at my ID, checking my age before sliding it into the tab box alongside another twenty or thirty others.

It doesn’t take long for my drinks to come. As promised, I down the first one before taking my time with the second. As I’m sipping on the lime drink, the taste of it justifying the price, a voice rings out. “Sorry ma’am, but is this seat taken?”

I turn my head towards the voice, a shorter man with a head of shaggy red hair at the end of the sound. His hair interests me, it’s a dark red instead of the normal pale-red gingers tend to be. I wonder if it’s a dye job. “No, it’s not taking, sunshine.”

“O…oh,” the man stutters, slowly sliding into the stool next to me. “Thank you, for the seat,” he mumbles, a hand running through his hair. When his hair flips up because of the movement, a tattooed red mark is exposed on his forehead, only interesting me even more.

“Of course. No lady likes to drink alone,” I answer, the buzz of my margs setting in. “No girl likes to buy her drinks either.”

The man’s eyes blink slowly, exposing the black circles around his eyes. How cute, a hot ginger that’s good at eyeliner. “Would… would you like me to buy you a drink? Is that what you’re asking?”

I let out a deep laugh as a smile cracks across my face. “You don’t get hit on often do you?”

Another round of slow blinking before a soft “no” peeps out.

“Yes, I’m asking you to buy me a drink.”

The man’s face scrunches, nonexistent eyebrows smashed together. The red is totally a dye job. “What would you like to drink?”

“A mango margarita, please, sunshine.”

Mr Sunshine stumbles over his words as he orders a drink for himself and me. His eyes are wide and stuck on me as we wait for our drinks, the intenseness of his stare poking at my nerves. “So… I haven’t seen you around the village before. Are you from the Leaf or just passing through?”

“I am from the Village Hidden in the Sand.”

“Oh, that’s… cool. Whatcha doing here then?”

“I was meeting with your village’s Hokage,” he mutters, eyes flickering down to our drinks being set on the countertop.

“Oh, so you’re a Shinobi then?” I ask, my interest sparked even more. I’ll be the first one to admit I’m a bit of a band chaser. I don’t know what it is, but Shinobis just do it for me. Besides, they’re the best for one-night stands. There’s a million of them and they’re usually too busy for anything more than a rang and bang.

“Um… I guess so.”

“You guess so?” I ask, downing my drink quicker than I probably should. “Well, if I ask if your hair is naturally red are you going to say you guess so?” I add, shifting closer to the man.

“I… um… yes, I’m… I’m naturally a redhead,” the man stutters, his cheeks quickly growing the same shade as his hair. “And you… you’re really close to my face.”

I let out a hum, slowly backing away from the shinobi. “Sorry, I’m coming off a little strong,” I mutter, waving down the bartender, who goes into action starting another drink. What’s that? Number four? Maybe I should slow down. Mr Shinobi is still nursing drink number one. “Not much of a drinker are you?”

“No, I am not. I’m only here because my brother wants to ‘get blasted’ before his wedding,” the man says, the words ‘get blasted’ falling out of his mouth like it left a nasty taste behind. “I am just here because he said I have to be.”

“What is it that you don’t like about drinking?” I ask, trying to push the conversation forward.

“I do not like my senses being unbeneficial. Besides, most alcohol does not taste good.”

“Well duh, you ordered a double shot of whiskey. If you want something that tastes good you need to get something fruity, like my margaritas. Want to try?” I push my untouched glass towards him, encouraging him to try something different.

“My sister says margaritas are girly drinks.”

“So? Who cares what your sister thinks?”

The man’s eyes settle on me again, his eyes round and full of confusion. “Why are you talking to me?”

“Because I’m a little more than buzzed and you’re a little more than hot,” I answer honestly, shifting closer to him. I rest a hand on his knee, resting my head against his so I can whisper in his ear. “Besides, I love the sight of a ginger on his knees.”

“You wish to have sex?” The man asks, his eyes widened again and hands fluttering up and down my arms. “You… you wish for me…. To…?”

I let out a few giggles, pressing a kiss to his cheek before I settle in my seat again. “Yes, but not until I slow down or until you catch up a bit, Sunshine.”

The Shinobi blinks a couple of times before his focus shifts to the drink I pushed toward him. He picks it up, downing it in a few gulps before setting the glass back down. “I do not like mangoes.”

I laugh again, sliding my nails over the inside of his thigh as I do so. “We could have ordered you a different flavor you know. What fruits do you like?”

“Apples.”

“Then let’s get you an apple margarita, ya?”

“Okay,” he mumbles, leaning closer as his eyes glare into mine. The closeness and intensity spook me a bit. “You are a strange person.”

“Why do you say that?”

“People usually don’t enjoy my… company.”

“You’re pretty, I don’t know who wouldn’t enjoy your company. But enough about your looks, you got any hobbies?”

The boy seems even more confused like he’s never given his looks any thought. “Plants,” he races out, eyes glancing at the apple-mixed drink that the bartender has left on the counter.

“Oh ya? I love plants. Willow trees are my favorite though,” I say, going on a ramble about the planet. The man nods along with my rant, his eyes locked on me the whole time. They’re pretty, slit, and a soft opal color. Dear Lord, all I can imagine is those pretty eyes looking up at me as he sits on his knees. “What’s your favorite plant, sunshine?”

“Barrel cactus!” He races out, blinking at me on repeat again. I get the feeling the man has never talked about himself before. “I… I mean, barrel cactus,” he says in a softer tone this time.

“Ya? Why’s that?”

————————————

The Sand Shinobi clung to me is as red as his hair, cheeks heated as his head presses into my neck. “You are pretty,” he murmurs against my throat, his body weight pressed into me.

“You are hot,” I compliment back, swaying a bit because of the man’s weight and the alcohol flowing through my system.

“No, you are like really pretty and nice and your skin is so soft, and oh my that sounds murderous,” the redhead mumbles on and on, his hands sliding over my bare arms as he nuzzles his nose against me. “You are so nice. Did I tell you that? You have been really nice to me. I want you to feel nice. Let me make you feel nice. Please?”

The high-ranked shinobi’s ‘please’ comes out whiney, turning my gears even more as I unlock my front door. “Ya? You want to make me feel nice?” I mumble, throwing my things onto the table next to the front door.

“Please? I want you to feel nice, so bad. Let me make you feel nice,” the redhead begs, his hands wandering up and down my shirt, gripping the material like he might fall over without me.

While we were at the bar we talked about what he does for work. I don’t know what any of the things he said meant but he kept talking about the Kage palace so he must be some kind of high rank ninja. Having such a highly regarded shinobi begging to go down on me only turns me on more.

“You want to make me feel nice, sunshine?” I ask, shifting in his hold so we’re face-to-face. His head shakes like crazy, and his eyes are soft for the first time tonight but still locked on me like I’m the core of the Earth. “Be a good boy and kneel for me, okay?”

“Okay,” he breathes out, sinking to his knees, his hands sliding down to grip my hips as he moves.

“Dear lord,” I mutter, the sight of the shinobi looking up at me rushing arousal down my body. His head is lead against me, chin gently pressed against the waistband of my pants, eyes locked on me, and hands gripping my love handles. “You look so hot right now.”

“You are beautiful. You are the moon. You are the stars hung in the sky,” he mutters, eyes intensely on my face as he looks up at me. “But I do not know what I’m doing.”

“What?” I ask, toying with the ends of his hair. “Have you never gone down on a girl before?”

“I have never done… anything with… anyone,” he mutters, cheeks heating up again as his eyes flicker around. “But I do wish to make you feel nice. Tell me how to make you feel nice. Please?”

“Ah… are you sure?” I ask, tugging his arms off of me. “We’re both drunk. This isn’t how you want to lose your virginity,” I continue to ramble, walking away from the man kneeling on my floor.

“No, please. Pretty please?” The man begs, crawling across the floor after me. “You’ve made me feel good all night. Let me make you feel nice,” he begs, wrapping his arms around my hips again and burying his head into my stomach. “Please?”

I let out a sigh, toying with his hair again as he nuzzles my stomach. “Alright, sunshine. Let’s go into the bedroom though, okay?”

The Sand Shinobi lights up at my agreement, his hands sliding up, picking me off my feet as he stands up again. He’s a bit wobbly as he adjusts to his drunken balance and my added weight. He’s still a bit unbalanced as he tries the doors, opening the spare room packed full of storage before he opens the door to my room. “You’re really pretty,” he tells me again, settling me on the bed.

I lock my legs around his waist, keeping him stuck on top of me. “You’re really hot,” I echo, shoving my hands into his hair as I tug his face down.

I crash my lips against his, rubbing myself on his growing bulge. “Oh my… you’re… we’re…” the redhead mutters into my mouth, his hands crawling up and down my sides. I let out a giggle, using my hold on his hair to shift his head to the side. “You, you, you… you’re…” The words stumble out of him as I brush my lips across his neck, softly sucking on his skin every couple of kisses.

“Do you want me to stop?” I mumble, working a hand out of his hair to toy with the hem of his shirt.

“No! Please, no. Please keep going,” he gushes out, hands clinging to my hips, pressing me down against him as he takes over our humping. “I want… I want to make you feel good. Tell me… tell me how to make you feel good.”

“Slow down a bit, sunshine,” I hum, tugging his shirt up. My eyes flicker a bit, rolling over the outline of his stomach muscles. “Take your shirt off for me, okay?”

The man moves quickly, sliding his shirt off and tossing it to the ground before settling back in his spot. “Now what do I do?” He asks opal-eyes stuck on me as he waits for his directions.

“Keep moving your hips,” I order, the man going straight to rubbing against me again. I let out steady breaths, trying to keep my mind straight to work our way through this. “That’s it, you’re being such a good boy,” I mumble, tugging my shirt off too.

“I’m… I’m what?” He asks, soft eyes blinking like crazy as his pace picks up. His eyes flicker between my face and my chest, mouth almost watering as he looks at my boobs.

“You’re being a good boy,” I repeat, gripping his hair to tug his face toward my chest. “Keep being a good boy. Kiss and suck on my chest as you hump me, okay?”

“Yes… yes, ma’am,” he whispers, lips brushing against my chest, occasionally testing different ways of sucking on my skin. “It’s… there’s marks,” he whines, nose nuzzling me before he litters my boobs in more kisses. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave marks.”

“I like marks,” I coo, raking my fingers through his hair. “You can leave as many marks as you wish.”

“I… I want… take it off,” the Shinobi husks out, a hand sliding under the wire of my bra. “Please take it off. Pretty please? I want… I want to suck on… please?”

A smile slides onto my lips from the sound of the redhead’s desperation. I give into his wants, sliding my hands behind my back to unclasp my bra. An audible whimper spills from the hardass shinobi when my boobs tumble out, his eyes blown out and entangled in my chest. His eyes flicker up to mine, his question stuck on his lips. “Go ahead, sunshine.”

With the permission voiced, his head dips down, his tongue sliding out to cup my nipple before he sucks it into his mouth. My hand searches for his, gripping it and tugging it up to my free boob. “Fuck, sunshine,” I whimper, working my hips against his as he toys with my chest.

“Hey,” I hiss after a couple of minutes, tugging his mouth off of me.

“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry,” he rambles, his desperation soaking out from his eyes, quickly coating his face.

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down,” I soothe, gently pushing his head down my body. “You just sucked a little too long, it’s no biggie.”

More sorrys tumble out of him as he kisses down my stomach, both hands on my chest now, squeezing my boobs as his mouth coats my torso. “I… what do…?” A whine falls from him, his inexperience getting to him.

“Sunshine, please calm down. You’re working yourself up. I’ll walk you through it,” I tell him, my fingers sliding under my waistband to tug my pants off. The ginger’s fingers wrap around the band too, quickly tugging my pants down my legs.

Once he’s back between my legs, my hands fall on his hair, slowly shifting his head down. “Can… I want… please?”

“Do whatever you want, sunshine,” I coo, twirling his hair around my fingertips. He jumps right in, coating my thighs in kisses and soft suckles as his hands grip my legs. His fingers dig into my flesh, sifting my legs open and closed around his head.

“I…” he mutters, tapping his nose against my underwear. “I want…”

“What do you want, sunshine?” I ask, toying with him as I grind myself against him. “Use your words like a good boy.”

“I want to go down on you. I want to taste you. I want you to feel good. Please? Mommy please?” I snap his head away from me, the bedroom name ringing in my head. “I’m sorry,” he races out, his opal eyes shiny and wide as he looks at me. “I didn’t… I don’t know why I said that. It won’t happen again.”

“It’s… fine. It just called me off guard is all,” I mumble, shifting his head back into please. I let out a few deep breaths before letting my hands go gentle in his hair again. “You still want to make Mommy feel good?”

“Yes,” he races out, littering kisses across my panties. “Please?”

“Ya… ya, make… make me feel good, baby.”

Another whimper falls from the man between my legs, his lip hungrily kissing my thighs as he tugs my underwear off. “What do I do?” He asks, eyes scanning my exposition before jumping to my face. “I just… lick at you, right?”

“Kind of, ya. You can move your tongue in and out of me too, or if you can find my clit you can suck and lick at that.”

“And your clit does what?” He asks, bending back down to bury his head in my pussy before his tongue starts sliding between my folds.

“My clit is a bundle of nerves that make me feel really good - and that’s it,” I moan out the second half, clinging to the roots of his hair. “Right… right there, baby.”

The Shinobi’s eyes jump up, locking in my face as his tongue swirls around my clit, running over it again and again. After a couple of licks, he changes direction, sucking on the bundle as his eyes scan my face. “Fucking… lord, baby,” I moan out, my back arching as my climax crawls forward. “Don’t, don’t, don’t change anything, you hear me? Keep doing that?” I order, my breath picking up as the edge moves closer.

He does as told, continuing to suck and swirl his tongue around in the way I’m enjoying. “Fuck. God damn it. Baby,” I whine, shoving his head further into me as the band in my stomach snaps.

Once I settle down from my high, the shinobi pops up from between my legs, eyes sparkling, and face covered in my mess. “Did I do good? I did good, right? Mommy, right?”

“Right,” I mumble, trying to steady my breathing. “Come here,” I call, leading him up my body. “You did so good. You’re such a good boy,” I coo, littering his face in kisses. A smile small crosses his face, eyes soft but still intense as he looks at me. What a weird little sandman.

“What do I do now?” He asks, head decking down to cover my chest in kisses. “Can I do it again, Mommy? Can I go down on you again? Please? Mommy please?”

“Not right now, sunshine. I want you to fuck me, okay?”

“Really?” He asks, his breath airy as he asks the question. “Can I? Can I really?”

“Ya. Let me grab a condom first,” I answer, leaning over to snap open my side table drawer. I dig around the drawer, searching for a rubber. “Um… do you have a condom?” I ask, shifting around the drawer some more.

“No, do you not have one?”

I let out a sigh, snapping the drawer closed. “No, I don’t, I’m sorry. Maybe if you’re in the village tomorrow - ”

“No,” he whines, burying his head in my chest, nuzzling my boobs as he whimpers. “I have to leave tomorrow. Please? It’ll be fine, right? One time won’t do anything.”

“You do know that sex leads to - ”

“I know how kids are made. Come on! Please? Pretty please?”

“Alright, okay. Just… don’t finish in me,” I give in, hands dropping down to work him out of his pants. My cheeks heat up as my fingers slide over his length, the soft virgin boy being bigger than I thought he would be. “Lord,” I mutter, working his pants the rest of the way down. Well, he definitely is a natural ginger.

“What? What’s wrong?” The Shinobi starts to panic, his eyes jumping around my body. “What did I do?”

“Hey, calm down. You work yourself up too much. You’re just… bigger than I thought you were going to be,” I mumble, settling my hands on his waist to shift him around.

“Is that a bad thing?” He asks, the opal of his eyes pooling into my view. The shinobi stumbles a bit, finding his balance above me. His hands settle on the sides of my head, nose pressed against mine as he looks down at me.

“No,” I breathe out, slowly using my hold on him to push his penis into me. “It’s… it’s a good thing, baby. A really good thing.” His chest pumps as he slides into me, his eyes fluttering as he looks down at me. “Okay, okay, um… do you think that you can move yourself in and out?” He nods his head quickly, mouth hung open as he sucks in oxygen. “Use your words, baby.”

“Yes, Mommy. Yes, I can. I can… I can move myself,” he mutters, his hips moving back and forth, tugging his dick in and out of me. “Mommy,” he whines, head barring into my neck.

“Sunshine, move a little faster,” I ask, my nails digging into his waist. “Please, baby.”

“Yes, ya, whatever you want,” he races out, his pace picking up. I’m shifted up the bed because of his thrusts, the tip of his dick bullying its way into me. My nails race across his sides, tearing into his skin as I’m forced up the bed, the promise of scratch marks left behind. “Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy,” he whines, his thrusts getting sloppy.

“Hey,” I call out, digging my nails into him harder. “You should probably…” a moan cuts off my next order, fingers digging deep enough that I can feel his blood trickling onto my fingertips.

“Damn it,” he whines, burying himself into me, his movements stalling as his hands jump down to cling to my sides. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry,” the redhead whines, head dipped onto my shoulder as he bottoms out in me. “I’m really sorry,” he whines again, the warmth of his cum filling me up.

————————————

My heart pounds as I push open the door to the convenience store. It's been a month... or two since I've had my period. I'm sure it's nothing, that the stress of life is just getting to me... but you can never be too sure.

The sound of my blood rushing rings in my ears as I stroll around the store, eyes flickering around for the aisle I need. It doesn't take long for me to find the family planning aisle, only increasing my heartbeat.

I feel like I'm going to throw up as I settle in front of the wall of pregnancy tests, quickly scanning over the pink boxes. I grab the cheapest one, figuring it’ll work just as well as the rest.

The sound of the test moving as I walk only makes my nausea worse. I’m sure I’m not pregnant, I’m sure it’s just stress. The test will come out negative. It’s just me crossing all my Ts and dotting all my Is.

“Hello! Did you find everything alright?” The cashier asks, an empty smile on her face.

“Ya, I did,” I mutter, placing the box on the counter.

The cashier’s eyes flicker between the box and me for a second before she scans it. “Would you like a bag?” She asks already placing it into one of the propped-up paper bags. “Your total is twenty-three hundred yen.”

I place the money on the counter, snatching the bag and the recite from the lady before turning on my heels. Panic and blood rush through me as I head toward the store bathroom. It’s going to be negative, this is just a precaution.

The lights of the bathroom are so bright that it almost blinds me, only adding to my stress. It’s just to check, it’s not going to be positive, it’s just to cross it off the possibility list.

I repeat the empty promises to myself as I take the test. My anxiety claws at my chest more and more as I wait for the test to process. How could I be so stupid? How could I let a one-night stand not use a condom? I always make them use one and then a hot sand shinobi shows up and all of a sudden my senses go out the window? What the hell? I can’t be a single mom. I can’t do this alone. But it’s fine because I’m not pregnant.

I shake the stick for a second, slowly opening my eyes to look down at it. “Well, shit.”

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#naruto shippuden #naruto shippuden oneshot #naruto shippuden x reader #naruto shippuden smut #gaara sabaku x reader #gaara x reader #gaara oneshot #gaara sabaku #gaara sabaku oneshot #gaara smut #gaara sabaku smut

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allieinarden · 3 months

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Been thinking on how Maggie would technically still be a brand new member of the Simpson family if the timeline wasn't however many seasons long. Don't know what to do with those thoughts but I have been having them.

I’m so glad you brought this up because it happens to be something I think about continuously. I need everybody to embrace my theory of The Simpsons where the family having an unexpected brand-new member is fundamental to all of the characters as we’re currently (constantly) perceiving them:

Marge’s difficulties with her, up to this point, uneventful marriage (tempted to have an affair a few episodes in!) are the result of all her hormones still resettling combined with the stress of the pregnancy itself where Homer struggled to come to terms with the fact that he had to go back to his old job, and wasn’t very emotionally supportive as a result. As her older two children grow up, she’s gaining a sense of her identity outside of motherhood, while the new baby is simultaneously tying her more closely to the heart of her home than ever. She’s both more rooted and more unsettled than she’s ever been before and that conflict is reflected in her episodes.

In the episode “Lisa the Simpson” we’re told that Bart was a good student when he was in Lisa’s year, before his grades took a rapid dive from which they never recovered. The episode attributes this to a “Simpson gene” which makes all the male members of the Simpson family lose their intelligence at the age of eight. I have not lost my intelligence and think it’s very obvious that Bart is still trying to recover from all the aforementioned sources of stress that would have occurred right around that exact point in time. He faced some upheaval shortly before we met him and the Bart we know now is still trying to get his head above water.

Lisa tends to feel neglected and overlooked, identifies herself with her intelligence to the point where she has an identity crisis any time she’s not the smartest person in the room, and is constantly embarking on socially disruptive moral crusades. All of the above are clearly the actions of a child who was the baby of the family for most of her life and is now actively engaged in determining her value beyond that designation.

And finally, Homer’s contribution to his family up to this point has been completely based on his role as the provider, having spent the better part of the past decade since he and his high school sweetheart had that accidental pregnancy paying off the family’s debts and looking forward to the time when he had definitively done right by them and could transition to a lower-paying job without worry. Instead, the presence of yet another unexpected baby and his transition to the role of safety inspector have forced him to an awareness of the fact that his responsibility is ongoing, that his other two children—at ages eight and ten—aren’t babies anymore, that it’s no longer going to be enough to clock in every day to provide for them and then clock out and nurse a well-earned beer, that they now need him in a way they didn’t before and that leaving all the parenting to Marge is no longer going to be enough. I think that this reflects a reality of life for many working parents whose primary duty hasn’t been at home, until suddenly their home starts to demand them. That’s why The Simpsons doesn’t take place in 1989 or 2024 or any year in between, it takes place in the year that Homer Simpson becomes a father.

#The Simpsons #awesomebutunpractical #TLDR Maggie is the catalyst for the entire series as we know it and everything that happens in it and all the characters being who they are #She’s the reason we’re looking at them at THIS point in their lives and not at any other

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musingsofahistorymajor · 3 months

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Okay I watched episode 1 and 2 of Masters of the Air and I loved them! And since I have a special interest in women in WWII, I'd like to look deeper at the show to see how historically accurate it is for people who may be into the show but might not know much of the history

So let's talk about the women!!

Put under a read more because I got way to into it and it got long

First up let's look at the civilian women we see. There's a lot of background women and they all look fantastic. Their dresses, the cardigans, the patterns on the blouses, skirts, and dresses, the hairstyles, the jewelry are all so good. I love that you see a variety of updos and longer hairstyles yet they've all got the curls correct. I see rolls and pin curls and even milkmaid braids. Fantastic!

But for some reason, Marge and her friend? Not so much. Marge is obviously a major character being the love interest of Gale Cleven. Their dresses are both fine. It's their hair that bothers me. It's like they tried a wet set curl but forgot to use setting lotion so the curls fell halfway through filming.

This is bad. Especially Marge's hair. This is a modern slightly wavy hairstyle and nothing like a 1940s hairstyle should be. They should have gone more like this. 1940s, especially early 1940s, was all about the curls. Wet sets and victory rolls. Updos were the go to for evening but if you wanted to wear your hair long it'd be more like this:

Why can't tv dress main characters as well as the background women? I don't get it.

Next up is the Women's Land Army. We only see them in the background but there's enough there for me to say that they look absolutely fantastic. I'm so happy.

First off, let's talk about what they're wearing.

We see the corduroy trousers, khaki dungarees, green headscarf, and black wellies that are a part of the WLA uniform. Several of them are wearing the tan shirt sleeve uniform shirt as well and I see at least two wearing the green jumper. The rest are wearing civilian sweaters and blouses which was allowed. The hair styles are perfect too. Love seeing the scarves, gibson rolls, and turbans.

For an even closer look we can take a look at the behind the scenes photos shared by Danni Philips. You can see the Women's Land Army pin on their uniform which pleases me so much you have no idea. And you can further see that the forest green sweater they're wearing is utter perfection.

Some original WLA photos:

Now what about the work they're doing? We can see the women driving cattle and harvesting what I believe is wheat but crops are not my specialty so I might be wrong there but both of which are two jobs done by much of the Land Army. Here's some side by side examples of the show vs original photos:

So good!!

Okay now let's talk about the Red Cross women we see. The first time we see them is this scene after the bomber crews get back from a flying mission. These ladies are a part of a Red Cross Clubmobile which you can get a quick glimpse of the Clubmobile here:

We see them handing out donuts and coffee to the men as they come in for interrogation which ABSOLUTELY was something the Red Cross did!! They established aeroclubs and had Clubmobiles stationed on air bases to provide relaxation and coffee and donuts for the base. Here's an example of them giving coffee and donuts to returning airmen on their way to interrogation which so closely resembles the show I nearly lost it.

One of my favorite details is the jacket that one Red Cross woman on the left wears. She's got a whole bunch of patches sewn on the sleeve of her jacket which is something a lot of women did when they served overseas. I've seen a bathrobe with dozens of patches sewn on and a large piece of fabric one WAC hung in her tent.

Now how about the uniforms they wear? The ladies above are wearing the uniform of the American Red Cross Clubmobile Service. Those who served in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) were provided with special uniforms consisting of a battledress-styled jacket with trousers and a matching visored ARC cap. The Clubmobile uniform was made of RAF blue-gray wool.

We get a good look at their service uniforms during the dance. They wear the American Red Cross Military Welfare Corps winter service uniform with the specific Clubmobile service patch in their sleeve. It's an oxford gray wool winter suit with a specially designed overseas cap.

Here are some Red Cross Clubmobile pictures for comparison:

And finally, my specialty, during the narrated montages we see two members of the WAC (Women's Army Corps) stationed with the 8th Air Force Headquarters. It looks like the same woman playing both WACs but they've put her in an officer's uniform for one scene and an enlisted uniform for the other.

One is WAC officer working at a teletype machine. She wears the officers service jacket with the officers lapel pins which are two US above two Pallas Athene pins. I can also see her 8th Air Force service patch on her left sleeve and Lieutenant bars on her shoulders. I can't quite tell if they silver or gold though so I'm not sure if she's a 1st or 2nd Lt. She's working as a teletype operator.

Next we see an enlisted WAC preparing for the debriefs the men will receive. She's a T3 or Technician 3rd Grade. You can see the rank patched on her shirt which has 3 chevrons and a T. There's also the 8th Air Force patch on her left sleeve. She's doing the work of a plotter. Placing the models of the planes into the locations of the formations that will be formed in the next mission.

Both WACs have perfect hair. Perfect. WACs were required to keep their hair neat and off their collar. If your hair was longer than your shoulders then you needed to put it up and the back gibson roll was the most popular way to do it. They've also kept their top rolls more to the side and smaller than usual victory rolls to accommodate their caps should they need to wear them (WACs were not required to wear their caps indoors)

In summary: I'm so damn impressed with the women in this show!!!! Overall the uniforms and costumes and hairstyles are SO GOOD! They clearly did their research when including the women and I'm so grateful for it. I'm fairly certain we'll be seeing the ATS in a future episode if the on set photos I've seen are any indication so if that happens I'll totally add that in a reblog. As well as any other glimpses of the women we get. I'm excited to see more of them!!

#wwii #period dramas #women in wwii #women's army corps #wac #masters of the air #hbo war #land army #red cross #red cross donut dollies #mod post #wwii history #women's history #women's land army #red cross clubmobile #the women of masters of the air

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apoemaday · 2 years

Text

For the Young Who Want to

by Marge Piercy

Talent is what they say you have after the novel is published and favorably reviewed. Beforehand what you have is a tedious delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done after the play is produced and the audience claps. Before that friends keep asking when you are planning to go out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you had after the third volume of remarkable poems. Earlier they accuse you of withdrawing, ask why you don’t have a baby, call you a bum.

The reason people want MFAs, take workshops with fancy names when all you can really learn is a few techniques, typing instructions and some- body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks a license to hang on the wall like your optician, your vet proving you may be a clumsy sadist whose fillings fall into the stew but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

#poetry #Marge Piercy #for the young who want to

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 9 months

Note

aita for being mad at my best friend/roommate for repeatedly disregarding our plans to do other things?

sorry this is long, i have no concept of how much detail to add to things. so myself (21f) and my roommate (22f) have been best friends for almost a decade and have lived together for a year. it’s been hard for us both (i think) as i’m pretty codependent and get jealous when she has other friends or guys she’s talking to (it’s something i’m trying to get better with but that’s also a reason i’m seeking to see if i’m the asshole or if i’m just being clingy).

She is very into talking with guys/casually dating, and every instance of her changing or bowing out of plans we have is due to a guy she’s seeing or talking to. the first time this has happened (out of 4 that i can remember from the past ~6m) we had made—what i believed to be—concrete plans to go out on her birthday, as she’d agreed the night before this and i’d mentioned buying her drinks. around 8-9pm she gets a call from the guy she’s currently talking to and he asks her if she wants to go do something, which she immediately agrees to. i was really upset about this one but knew i didn’t have a right to be as it was her birthday and i wanted her to enjoy herself, even if it wasn’t with me. so i told her that, that i was upset but it wasn’t an issue with her and that i wanted her to have fun.

the second time, with a different guy, was when we’d planned to go out for drinks to celebrate my grad school graduation after a concert. she was going to be taking a guy to the concert with her and told me we couldn’t go out after as she didn’t want to just make him leave after the concert. i didn’t see the big deal as the guy had to work in the morning and it would already be late for him, but agreed, despite knowing that meant we would never celebrate that (and still haven’t)

third time was fourth of july when i’d asked her repeatedly if she was still going to be coming with me and my family (who she loves) to watch fireworks. i was excited because i’d never gotten to go with a friend to see fireworks. the day of, morning of, she tells me the guy she was talking to invited her to fireworks so she of course was going to go to those instead.

this is a lot of backstory to the reason i’m really asking aita. for the last three years i have worked a job with a 3am start time, meaning i always went to bed early, like 9pm early. meaning we could never do anything if i worked. yesterday was my last day and so i didn’t have to go to bed early last night. because of that, we had talked for a few days about going out to get margs to celebrate me finally leaving. she got home from work excited about margs, but her new boyfriend was having a slight crisis, nothing pressing or worrying, just a hiccup with his band. she told me she’d asked him if he wanted to call like 20 minutes beforehand, and then laid in my room for about half an hour waiting for him to call (so 50 minutes after the initial text). i asked if she still wanted to go out or if she would rather just call him and deal with that (which i would’ve understood, at this point, hence why i asked) and she said she still wanted to go out. i said we should just leave and if he called we could leave the bar. she agreed and i had started getting dressed, when he called around 9pm. she’d said it would be like a 45 minute phone call and i told her i wanted to try to leave by 10 at the latest. so i’m just hanging out, killing time, and at 10:05 go to check if she’s done, and she’s changed into her PJs. she’d decided she cared more about chatting to her boyfriend than she did about our premade plans to go get drinks and celebrate me leaving a job that made me miserable.

i’m currently not talking to her, i haven’t had much opportunity to so i’m not like actively avoiding her, and this morning i did tell her i was upset. i know i’m allowed to be upset at the situation but i don’t want to be mad at her if i’m just overreacting, as I do have an issue with last minute plan changes or not knowing exactly how something will go. i know we do live together but going out is our ‘catch up’ time because we’ve had pretty opposite work schedules for a while. not to mention it makes it seem as though she views our plans as optional, as if they’re just placeholders until something better comes along. i really don’t know how to feel as i never let myself actually be mad at her since i’m always convinced i’m overreacting. i’ll probably talk with her but i need strangers on the internet to tell me if i should just be upset about the situations or if i have a reason to be mad at my friend herself.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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mynameismckenziemae · 5 months

Text

Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone-Chapter X

Robert ‘Bob’ Floyd x Female Reader (no use of y/n)

A step forward together.

(previous chapter here)

6 weeks later

Your heart is still pounding as the adrenaline works out of your system as you step out of work.

Bob picks up on the first ring. “Hey! How’d it go?”

Today was your first solo flight (minus the physician and pilot of course) and you’d hardly slept the night before due to the excitement and nerves.

“I was on call with Dr. Kennedy. We got the patient transported in one piece and stable so that’s a win in our field.”

“That’s great! I’m so proud of you. All that worrying for nothing,” he replies.

“Yeah yeah, I know” you laugh, “Hey, Rowan’s calling, I’ll see you later?”

“Sounds good, love you”.

“Love you too.”

You hang up and accept Rowan.

“Hello?”

“Sunny, hey! I got the job!” She squeals.

“I knew you’d get it! Congratulations! When do you start?”

“Ha, so they want me to start in 3 weeks. I put my 2 weeks in earlier today and started looking online at apartments but I haven’t had much luck yet, do you know of anyone that’s renting or even looking to sublet?”

An idea pops into your mind.

“Actually, I might. Let me do some checking and I’ll get back to you. I’m so excited you’ll be living here, and for you to meet Bob”.

“I can’t wait either. Let me know what you find out?”

“Will do! Talk to you soon!”

________________________________________

“What would you think of me moving in now?” You ask as you’re running your fingers through Bob's hair, his head in your lap.

“You know I’d love it. I thought you wanted to wait until Penny found someone to talk the apartment though?” He asks, looking up at you.

“Well, Rowan got the job and they want her to start in 3 weeks, hardly enough time to find a place on her own. I was thinking about offering her the apartment.”

“Oh, that’s great! I’m sure Penny would rather rent to someone she knows than a stranger too.” He lifts his hand to grasp your chin. “I also would like nothing more than to wake up to your sweet face every day.”

You smile and place a kiss to his hand. You call Penny and she is happy to rent it out to Rowan, whom she’d met when you’d visited with her in college one spring break.

Next, you call Rowan back and offer her the apartment, which she accepted only after you assured her she wasn’t kicking you out.

“Sunny, you’re a fucking lifesaver. You have no idea how much of a headache you saved me. I owe you a night of margs” she laughs. “The 23rd work for ya?”

“I’ve got Jake and Natasha’s engagement party that night at the Hard Deck-Penny’s bar. Will you come?”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You wouldn’t be! Natasha has been dying to meet you and it’s very low-key. There’s always a bunch of cute guys in uniforms there too” You smile as Bob narrows his eyes at you before laughing himself.

“Well, I’ll think about it then. Got any pictures of these cute guys in uniforms?”

________________________________________

You slowly start bringing a box or two every time you go over to Bob’s. It doesn’t take long before you have most of it moved. You leave a lot of the furniture since Rowan’s coming from a furnished apartment herself and Bob has everything already.

2 days before Rowan’s arrival, you take Penny to dinner. You know you’ll still see her often, but the time living so close was special. You’re both close to tears as you thank her for everything she’s done for you.

________________________________________

On the morning of the 23rd, you get a text from Rowan.

Rowan: Hey, I’m ahead of schedule. I couldn’t sleep last night so I drove straight through. I should be at Penny’s by 11. Do you want any help setting up for the party?

Sunny: Sure! Bob and I are planning to get to the Hard Deck by 4. Penny should be home to let you in, otherwise, the keys are under the grill cover.

Rowan: Great! Thank you again, can’t wait to see you!

Sunny: Me either!

________________________________________

Later, you hear the bathroom door open while you’re lathering your hair.

“Can I join you?”

“Of course,” you reply, sliding the door open, “what time is it? I told Row we’d be there by 4-ohh” you sigh

Bob comes up behind you, hands coming around to cup your breasts, erection poking your back. “A little after 3.”

“I don’t know if we have time baby,” you moan as he rolls your nipples.

“Should’ve thought of that before you walked around all morning in that little thong and my shirt” he kisses your neck.

“I wasn’t—“ you start to argue but he interrupts you.

“And then you left said thong on my pillow,” he bites your neck, “you knew exactly what you were doing, don’t even start.”

You smile as you tilt your head, allowing him access. Busted.

“Dirty girl” he bites where your shoulder meets your neck, ��what am I gonna do with you?”

A sharp slap to your ass makes you gasp and then moan ass he rubs the sting away.

“Why don’t you start by getting on your knees and show me how sorry you are?” He says, turning you in his arms before guiding you to kneel.

________________________________________

An hour and a half later you walk inside the Hard Deck on wobbly legs, Bob’s cum seeping down your thighs since he told you ‘Dirty girls don’t get to wear panties’. You fail to suppress your shiver.

You had sent a text to Rowan, apologizing for being late and that you were on your way, but she hadn’t replied. Maybe she’d fallen asleep.

________________________________________

“Sunny!” You hear 20 minutes later as she wraps you in a hug.

“Row! Sorry I was late, I was uh-preoccupied?” You chuckle, a little embarrassed. “Hey, this is Bob, my boyfriend.” You say as you release her.

“Nice to meet you finally, I’m Rowan,” she says, shaking his hand, which he returns with a smile. You notice she’s a little out of breath and flustered.

“Are you feeling okay? You look a little flushed.” You ask.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just a little nervous is all.”

That’s not like her at all. Weird. “Don’t be! Everyone’s gonna love you. Oh, there’s Bradley now. I’ll introduce you.”

Bradley’s cheeks are ruddy and his hair is a little messy as he nods when you catch his eye. His eyes widen when he sees Rowan behind you.

“Bradley, this is my good friend Rowan from college. She’s the engineer moving here from Colorado, staying in Pen’s apartment,” you turn to Row, “and this is Bradley, my childhood friend. Our dads flew together in the Navy”.

“Rowan. That’s a pretty name. What does it mean?” Bradley asks, giving her heart eyes. You have to bite your lip from smiling.

“Little redhead. I bet you can figure out why my parents chose it” she smirks, holding out her hand. “Great to meet you, Bradley.”

He takes her hand. “Likewise” he murmurs, looking at her lips, which turn up into a seductive smile.

Oh, she’s going to eat him alive.

________________________________________

The end (for now!). It’s been so fun! I’m going to start on Bradley and Rowan’s story soon, I’ll be posting their mood board too I think.

Taglist:

@blindedbythelightt

@sweetwhispersofchaos

@getmyprettynameoutofyourmouth

@lexixstewart

@phoenix-rising-starbird-one

@mrsrobertfloyd

@charmedkim

@k-k0129

#top gun maverick #bradley bradshaw x you #robert bob floyd #bradley rooster bradshaw #bob floyd #bob floyd x reader #bradley bradshaw #aint no sunshine when she’s gone

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whinlatter · 1 year

Note

Hello Elizabeth, I’ve loved all your metas so far, and you do a great job of pointing things out that we as readers may have overlooked. You honestly made me want to read the HP series again because I feel like I missed out on so much. Apologies if you’ve already done a meta on this before and I missed it, but how abused do you think Harry was by the Dursleys? We know the basics: malnutrition, neglect, and emotional abuse for the majority of his life, but I remember reading the book as a child and getting this uneasy feeling that he was being physically abused. If you read between the lines and pay attention to his interactions with the Dursleys in the beginning of each book, I think it's indirectly mentioned... but maybe I've been reading it wrong all these years? What is your take on this?

TW: generalised non-specific discussions of child abuse and neglect

Thank you so much for the question and for reading all my jumbled thoughts! Totally relate - I re-read the books for the first time in the better part of two decades last summer and was like, sorry all this stuff was there the whole time and I missed it? I learn so much for other writers' close readings revisiting these texts (@ashesandhackles's re-reads spring to mind, but there are many others) and love to be a part of these ongoing conversations.

On the Dursleys and child abuse... I haven't written anything on this before, and the short answer is: yes, I think it's clear that Harry experienced some level of physical abuse at the hands of the Dursleys, at the hands of both Vernon, Petunia, Marge and, to a lesser extent, Dudley.

That said, I do have some caveats. One is that I think fandom speculation over the extent of the physical abuse can sometimes risk overstating the canonical scale of the physical abuse (any abuse, including psychological abuse, is awful enough, and some fics claiming canon-compliancy can sometimes risk gratuitous depictions of really horrific abuse in problematic ways). Two, I think sometimes fanfic depictions of Harry at the Dursleys' can risk overstating how canonically Harry perceives his treatment at the Dursleys, in ways that risks predetermining how child victims of abuse ought to feel about their experiences rather than how they describe them themselves. Three, and the one that's particularly interesting to me as a historian, is how Harry's treatment at the Dursleys shines this fascinating light onto changing audience tastes and attitudes towards depictions of harm to children in mass-market children's and YA literature between the time of HP's initial publication and the present day.

I've done a longer little lunch-break discussion of some of this below the cut. Yes this quickly became a long-winded discussion of the character of the abused orphan/child in the publishing market for late twentieth century children and YA literature and Thatcher's Britain. I am sorry about that, and know that I apparently simply cannot be stopped.

It's undeniable that what happened to Harry at the Dursley's was child abuse and neglect, for all the reasons you rightly cite. Both Harry and the loving adult caregivers he finds in the Wizarding World recognise that he is abused and neglected at the hands of the Dursleys. This includes physical abuse, with examples readers rightly cite off the bat: Harry being held tightly around the throat by Vernon and later citing 'a need to duck' around his uncle (OotP), Petunia trying to hit twelve-year-old Harry with a frying pan (CoS), Marge hitting Harry with her walking stick (PoS), and repeated instances of the Dursleys withholding food and confining Harry to small physical spaces. I hope it goes without saying that these instances are plainly incidents of physical violence against children. Each is horrific on their own terms, and likely part of a pattern of repeated physical roughness and low-level violence towards a child (I say low-level only because the strangling incident takes place after Dudley appears to have been harmed in OotP, and Harry's response to Vernon holding him by the throat suggests this violent incident is particularly extreme even for Vernon).

It's also clear, though, that while Harry bitterly hates the Dursleys for all of the harm they have done to him, he does seem to see this physical abuse as part of a broader set of failings they committed as his caregivers, and doesn't single-out physical abuse as uniquely traumatising. Confinement, being shouted at, and failing to protect him from bullying by other children are all crimes the Dursleys commit against him that he clearly views as just as harmful as the physical abuse he endures at their hands. We don't know how Harry the character would come to think about his experiences with the Dursleys in adulthood, of course, and it's reasonable to speculate that he may come to acknowledge himself as a child abuse victim and have either suppressed memories of traumatic incidents he endured as a child. With that said, I personally feel a certain level of discomfort with fan speculation about further or escalated incidents of child endangerment against Harry at Privet Drive beyond what we see either in the text or is implied within patterns of the Dursleys' behaviour. What the Dursleys do to him in canon is bad enough as it is, and exaggerated depictions of the Dursleys' treatment can get dangerously close to implicitly suggesting child abuse has to be a certain level of physically egregious to be sympathetic to the reader that the canonical text doesn't achieve, which I think is intensely problematic.

One thing I will say, though, is that I think the example of the Dursleys' treatment of Harry is a fascinating case study in HP's reception history and the cultural acceptability of depicting and using child abuse as a plot device. The topic is such a good a litmus test for the gulf between how the series was read and consumed when first published and how it is increasingly thought about and revisited by audiences. Changing attitudes about Harry's experiences with the Dursleys reflect how HP as a piece of literature which was written, edited, published and marketed to a consumer audience with certain expectations about depictions of harm to children, but which now continues to be closely re-read/revisited through the films and consumed by a market audience with increasingly different comfort levels and expectations about child welfare.

Children's and YA literature in the mid-to-late twentieth century had certain certain norms and conventions. Often, this took the form of the orphan child as either the protagonist or as a key sympathetic hero. Lots of media used the abused child both as an immediately sympathetic character for audiences to empathise with, and also used the absence of things like family, safety and love as central motivators for these characters, which then sets up the plot of the media at hand to resolve. The literature that for most UK school-children became canonical between 1980 and 1997, so in Thatcher/John Major's Britain, often centred characters who were usually orphaned or bereaved and who experience child abuse, neglect or mistreatment, often depicted in a slapstick and almost pantomime-esque way. This includes predecessors to HP like Roald Dahl's Matilda (1988), Michelle Magorian's Goodnight Mister Tom (1981) and Jacqueline Wilson's various books but especially Tracy Beaker (1991). This period also saw enduringly popular older works of literature experience a resurgence as older English-language TV or film adaptations made in the UK or Hollywood became even more commercially successful and entered 'classic' status - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Roald Dahl wrote the Child-Catcher into the 1968 film - he's not in the book!), Ken Loach's Kes (1968), Peter Pan (including Hook (1991), the Spielberg version), or mid-nineteenth century works of literature that became commercially successful popular musicals after 1950, like Oliver Twist or Cosette in Les Mis. Even in media where children appear in dysfunctional but fundamentally loving homes - Billy Elliot (2000) - or face physical violence at the hands of adult villains - Home Alone (1990) - we can see from both critical reception and popular audiences responses that the consuming publicly were on the whole less likely to be disturbed by either violence or the threat of violence against children than audiences, especially young audiences, three or four decades later, who typically find such depictions, even in their slapstick form, abhorrent.

In this period of writing (and particularly publishing and/or market media production beyond print fiction), there was far greater flippancy about depicting violence or the threat of violence against children as an empathy device for readers, especially young readers. I think this is for reasons that I think relate to changing ideas (and legislation) around children's agency, child welfare, endangerment, protection and the boundaries of the state and family life in late twentieth century Britain and elsewhere (a mammoth topic for another day). These were increasingly pressing political issues into the 1990s, especially the late Thatcherite/Major period into the Blair years. The violence that was depicted in literature during this transitional period almost always had a slightly farcical, or even slapstick or comic dynamic to it that I think is true also of the Dursleys around Harry in those early books - the frying pan being a classic example. We're supposed to think of the Dursleys as ridiculous, a parody of Thatcherite Home Counties surburban culture. While authorial intent is to show a character defined by the absence of familial love at the hands of clear villains, the Dursleys aren't intended to be read as vicious child abusers inflicting irreparable psychological and physical harm on a pre-teen child. They're supposed to be within this genre convention of cruel but ridiculous adults who behave badly and embarrass themselves and who the reader is supposed to immediately root against.

My point, really, is that we as readers can certainly revisit these books decades later having absorbed this greater popular literacy about child trauma responses and PTSD and see these characters differently, but we should keep in mind that this is a lot about the changing sets of ideas and expectations we have as a reading audience than it does about how the author and the text's editors intended these characters to be received. If we are reading the Dursleys' treatment of Harry and thinking - how is Harry remarkably fine after all of this? How could Dumbledore leave him with these people? - we're asking questions that the aspects of HP as an artefact of literature fulfiling certain genre conventions was never set up to be able to answer. I just think is something that fandom discussions and fanfiction authors (particularly those drawn to canon-compliancy) need take into consideration when trying to reconcile their horror at the Dursleys' treatment of Harry and interest in how this abuse would shape him as a character, with an interest in remaining true to the canonical text.

(I absolutely don't mean to be overly relativist about this, and want to make clear I'm talking about depictions of children's abuse in literature. In reality, children who have experienced violence and harm at the hands of adult caregivers have always felt some level of pain and distress. My point here is less about the lived experience of abuse and neglect, and more about changing cultural norms, attitudes and tastes about fictional depictions about abuse and neglect.)

#ok lunch break's over i'll shut up now #i've talked a lot this week even i am sick of me #my ask box is full of interesting Qs i am v grateful for and desperate to answer #but don't want to spam everyone's feed so will be pausing/slowing down answering for a little while if that's ok!#the dursleys #meta #writing #fandom discourse #TW: child neglect

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lolahasmoxie · 2 years

Text

Bambi - EM x Reader

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Warning: sexy times, cursing, witty banter, fluff, drug use (18+)

Word Count: 0.9k

Notes:

So, I had some “me time” the other day and it was so good that I was walking like a baby gazelle. I knew i looked hilarious walking to my bathroom so I wondered what my current favorite obsession would say if he saw me.

Also, reader and Eddie are out of high school. Our boy made ‘86 his bitch. Both are in their early twenties.

The “ha ha you love me” interaction is from one of my favorite Simpsons episodes (Lisa’s Pony) and is one of my favorite Homer and Marge scenes.

Divider by @ichigoohinatsuma

:readmore:

The room was warm, filled with the sound of heavy breathing. Her skin felt electric as she came down, and it took a few minutes to register the touch of his fingers as they journeyed up and down her naked back. When she lifted her head, she couldn’t help but smile at the chocolate brown eyes staring back at her with complete love and adoration.

“Thought I’d lost you there for a moment.” She chuckled in response as she placed her head back on his chest. Her fingers idly traced the demon head on his left pectoral, feeling him practically purr under her touch.

“Almost. I’m thinking I should go out of town more often if this is the reception I’ll get when I come home.”

“Don’t you dare mention leaving again. Nope. Not gonna happen.” He wrapped his arms tighter around her as she felt his lips against her hair. “It was really good though.”

“At least you didn’t high-five me like when we came home from Steve’s Halloween party.” Eddie snorted at the memory. When she had shown up at his trailer in her sexy Red Riding Hood costume she could practically see his brain short-circuit in real time. They had only stayed at the party for 90 minutes before he dragged her back home. Once he got her through the front door the sex had been frantic, rough, and made her toes curl. In their shared post-sex haze, he had locked eyes with hers, and before she could say anything he lifted his hand and demanded that she slap him five for a job well done.

“Come on” he said when he noticed her eyes begin to droop. He gently patted her ass to get her moving. “You should go pee before you pass out on me.”

“Noooooooooo” she whined. “I’m comfy, there’s nothing you can say to me that will get me to move.”

“UTI, babe.” She groaned before nodding her head and placing her legs over the side of the bed. Eddie watched with fondness as she walked away, and that fondness turned into a snicker when her legs buckled and she had to grab onto the nightstand to keep from falling over. She turned and gave him a death glare and he did his best to keep a neutral face.

“Not a fucking word.” she said, trying to be intimidating while also completely naked.

“Didn’t say anything.” He smiled as he reclined back in the bed with his arms behind his head. He watched as she leaned on practically every piece of furniture in her path to the bathroom. He felt warm and fuzzy, side effects from the joint they had shared earlier and the afterglow of good sex. His eyes grew heavy, opening only when he heard her reenter the room. She was a little more stable this time, but he could also tell that she was trying harder than usual to stay steady.

“Come on Bambi, hop in.” he said as he patted the space next to him in the bed. She gave him a confused look as she paused at the foot of the bed. “Bambi, when you first got up you looked like Bambi when he kept falling on the ice.” He gave her a shit-eating grin, she replied with a dead-panned expression that would have wilted a weaker man.

“Ha ha, you’re fucking hilarious Munson.” She climbed into the bed and as soon as she was under the covers Eddie was pulling her back against his chest. He buried his face in her hair as he peppered kisses against the nape of her neck.

“You know, i can tell you’re annoyed but I know you still love me.”

“That’s debatable.” He responded by squeezing her and placing his lips right next to her ear.

“Ha ha, you love me.” She groaned his name as he manhandled her until she was turned and facing him. Callused fingers lifted her chin and when she opened her eyes she felt her heart flutter. Leave it to Eddie and his big dumb cow eyes to reduce her to a puddle of goo. He pressed his forehead to hers, his breath warm against her face.

“Say it, please.” His voice was quiet, not much above a whisper and her heart melted at his request. Only in the quiet of the trailer in the dark of night would he ask like this. Even though they’d been together for years he still needed assurance that she wasn’t going anywhere. She was only too happy to do just that.

She sighed before closing her eyes and pressing her lips to his. The kiss, despite its softness, made her toes curl as she cradled Eddie jaw in her hand. She pulled back, grinning at the dopey lovesick look on his face.

“i love you.”

“See, it wasn’t that hard.”

“I love you, even though you are a dumbass.” He chuckled before peppering her face with kisses. When he was satisfied, he squeezed her and rested his chin on the top of her head while she nestled hers against his chest.

“I love you too, Bambi.”

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfic

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ashesandhackles · 2 years

Text

Nearly Always Right: Remus and Harry

By @thecat-isblogging-blog , me, featuring inputs from @dragonlordette

I have talked about Harry and Remus' relationship before in Resurrection Stone meta, where Harry sees Remus as a mentor. A mentor who consistently equips him with tools - his favourite subject (DADA), his strongest spell (Patronus), a connection to his father and godfather. But there are themes in their conversations in POA that sets off seeds in Harry's arc. This conversation for example:

Harry sat stunned for a moment at the idea of someone having their soul sucked out through their mouth. But then he thought of Black.

"He deserves it," he said suddenly.

"You think so?" said Lupin lightly. "Do you really think anyone deserves that?"

From the beginning of Prisoner of Azkaban, the moral theme is "do bad people deserve bad things done to them". It starts with Uncle Vernon saying Sirius deserves the death penalty:

"When will they learn," said Uncle Vernon, pounding the table with his large purple fist, "that hanging's the only way to deal with these people?"

And, of course, the delightful Aunt Marge about Harry's case in "St. Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys":

"Do they use the cane at St Brutus' boy?" she barked across the table.

"Er-"

Uncle Vernon nodded curtly behind Aunt Marge's back.

"Yes," said Harry. Then, feeling he might as well do the thing properly, he added, "All the time."

"Excellent," said Aunt Marge. "I won't have this namby-pamby wishy-washy nonsense about not hitting people who deserve it. A good thrashing is what's needed in 99 cases out of hundred. Have you been beaten often?"

[ Quick note, because I can't resist pointing out more connections the book sets up between Harry and Sirius from the beginning, apart from them being in innocents in these instances:

"No need to tell us he's no good," snorted Uncle Vernon, staring over the top of his newspaper at the prisoner. "Look at the state of him, the filthy layabout! Look at his hair!"

He shot a nasty look sideways at Harry, whose untidy hair has been a source of great annoyance to Uncle Vernon]

Justice and Mercy

Harry completely rejects the Dursleys as caregivers in this book by running away and he gains a mentor figure and a godfather in this book. The mentor, asks him a moral question that sets up an arc: "Do you really believe anyone deserves that?"

The question sets up seeds of mercy that Harry grants not only Peter, but also makes him the deliverer of justice to innocents: Sirius and Buckbeak. He drives the Dementors away from Sirius with a powerful Patronus, a spell Remus taught him and frees Buckbeak, delivering the justice promised at the beginning of the book.

Another notable factor is that Remus didn't answer the question for Harry (although it's clear he has his own feelings about it, especially since he brought up the idea of Sirius getting the Dementors' Kiss unprompted - a first for him in a book). He is opening space for Harry to process what he is thinking and feeling by asking the right questions, and trusting that Harry will make the right decision.

In the Shrieking Shack scene, both Remus and Sirius defer to Harry's judgement on what must be done with Peter. Harry also similarly rejects Remus' stance in Deathly Hallows about using Expelliarmus on Stan Shunpike - "I won't blast people out of the way. That's Voldemort's job."

In the final book of the series, Harry will come to a position where he will grant mercy to many: Draco, Snape, and even Voldemort. Have a look at how he reacts to Voldemort's mutilated soul:

He was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want to approach it. Nevertheless, he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it.

And Harry does not believe that Voldemort deserves it, a mutilated soul, stuck helplessly in a limbo and unable to go on. He offers Voldemort a chance to heal his soul:

"But before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done... think, and try for some remorse, Riddle..."

"What is this?"

Of all the things Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. Harry saw his pupils contract to thin slits, saw the skin around his eyes whiten.

"It's your one last chance," said Harry, "it's all you've got left...I've seen what you'll be otherwise...be a man.. try...try for some remorse..."

[Another note: a soul is sacrosanct in the series. That specifically Voldemort's mutilated soul being stuck and unable to move on, and the question of whether Sirius "deserves" to be rendered soulless - it is a strong thread in the series, and as @artemisia-black pointed out to me, in keeping with ideas of annihilationism: "hell is not existing"]

The Idea of Shame

Another theme that comes up prominently in conversation between Remus and Harry are the ideas of shame (and self loathing).

"Why? Why do they affect me like that? Am I just-?"

"It has nothing to do with weakness," said Professor Lupin sharply, as though he had read Harry's mind. "The Dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don't have. (...) The worst that has happened to you Harry is enough to make anyone fall off their broom. You have nothing to feel ashamed of. " - POA

Remus picks up on Harry's feelings of embarrassment and insecurity and just like how Remus plants the seed of justice and mercy in Harry's mind, he also starts it with getting Harry to be kind to himself. Harry feels really vulnerable and insecure about "weakness", and Remus gets him to forgive himself for it before he even fully articulates that he shouldn't feel that way.

The roles reverse in Deathly Hallows, and Remus runs to Harry with his deep rooted shame and self-loathing:

"How can I forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my own condition to an innocent child? And if, by some miracle, it is not like me, then it will be better off, a hundred times so, without a father of whom it must always be ashamed!"

(...)

"If the new regime thinks Muggle-borns are bad," Harry said, "what will they do to a half-werewolf whose father's in the Order? My father died trying to protect my mother and me, and you reckon he'd tell you to abandon your kid to go an adventure with us?"

Harry, of course, can't solve Remus' problems or his own internalised shame and self-loathing due to the stigma he faces as a werewolf in the wizarding society. But Harry can remind him what's important - the feelings of the child that will be left behind ("Parents shouldn't leave their kids unless they've got to").

And Remus gets the message, and is grateful for it - and he names Harry godfather to Teddy in honour of it.

Like many mentor figures and fathers Harry surpasses in the series as part of his arc (James, Sirius, Dumbledore), Harry surpasses Remus as well and Remus chooses to display trust in Harry's moral compass and instincts:

"I'd tell him to follow his instincts, which are good and nearly always right," - Remus Lupin, Deathly Hallows

#harry james potter #remus lupin #hp meta #harry potter

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cordeliaflyte · 6 months

Text

For the young who want to

By Marge Piercy

Talent is what they say

you have after the novel

is published and favorably

reviewed. Beforehand what

you have is a tedious

delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done

after the play is produced

and the audience claps.

Before that friends keep asking

when you are planning to go

out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you

had after the third volume

of remarkable poems. Earlier

they accuse you of withdrawing,

ask why you don’t have a baby,

call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s,

take workshops with fancy names

when all you can really

learn is a few techniques,

typing instructions and some-

body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks

a license to hang on the wall

like your optician, your vet

proving you may be a clumsy sadist

whose fillings fall into the stew

but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one

who really writes. Talent

is an invention like phlogiston

after the fact of fire.

Work is its own cure. You have to

like it better than being loved.

#poetry

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bradshawsbitch · 1 year

Text

the maiden who turned linden;

previous chapter | masterlist | next chapter

chapter summary; a peculiar reminder of rhett's night spent under the starry skies causes the townsfolk to stir in their drowse. and what talk is there of a lingering prescence in the woods?

chapter warnings; spoilers for outer range. mentions of alcohol, mentions of getting disciplined by parent, family woes, whimsy.

word count; 3.5K

Whispers. Always the breathless whisper upon parted lips - those whispers carrying stories through ever nook and cranny of a town.

Whispers from woman’s lips to childs, a man’s to another man, and from a woman to another woman. Such has life always been. Stories. Told, heard and forgotten. Repeated until its meaning has undoubtedly been convoluted, and no truth can be held within its message. Some might call these stories hearsay, or within this time - gossip.

It is strange how words can hold such different meanings, given to them by the men and women who utter them. The meaning of a word - letting you know whether or not the trait is to be desired or not. Is she a story-teller, or is she a gossip?

There is a notion that gossiping is a female trait, and that there is something inherently feminine within the way the happenings of man travel like wildfire through towns. Those who share this notion forget that the monks of early England’s more important job was to keep record of the happenings in their parish.

They, and they almost alone, saved the entire English language from the influence of Normandy. French, and Latin feared to overtake the entirety of England. Is that not gossip? A telling of a story? A story you may not know entirely… a story that you’ve only witnessed - but have yet to live?

So, when the rowdy young son of Royal Abbott arrived after a hard day's work on the pastures with his father and brother, and his mother ushered them to bathe, stopping at Rhett’s side to inspect his cheek - it somehow made its way through the entirety of Wabang.

For upon the young man's cheek sat a strange mark. Not quite a scar, nor a smudge or a shadow, faint but still visible - stretching across his cheekbone, like small stars had burst forward on his tan skin.

It was the one time Rhett had found himself doted on by his mother in a long time - her wet finger smudging over his cheek over and over again, trying to get the mark off.

She swore up and down, grabbing rubbing alcohol, even threatening to get the methylated spirit from deep within the barn to get it off. Rhett just smiled softly, pushing her hands away when she’d worked herself into quite a frenzy.

“Ma, stop. S’nothin’. Just a little mark, s’all,” he grumbled as she stood closer to inspect it.

“Well, Rhett, maybe you ought to have doctor Schneider look at it come the morrow if it hasn’t gone down. Maybe wear your hat instead of the cap so it’s not in the sun too much,” Cecelia muttered as she patted her son's cheek before getting on with her cooking. Rhett only licked his lips and smiled a lopsided smile before he moved on.

Folks in town gave the youngest Abbott strange looks as he walked the streets in his Stetson, the mark upon his cheek decidedly darker than the day before. Rhett did not mind so much, he knew he wasn’t much to look at anyways - and what was another scar to a battered bull rider and cowboy anyways?

Glancing at his phone, he noticed he’d gotten his errands in town done sooner than he figured. Perhaps he could sneak a beer at the handsome gambler before going home today. Just the one.

Upon entering the dingy bar, he noticed the older townsfolk sat by the back. Closing his eyes, he damn near turned on his booted heel and left. But the call for a cool beverage on a hot day had him sitting down by the bar, hearing the loud speculations of some of the oldest folk in Wabang.

“You see that. That Abbott boy’s been marked,” said one of the men who must only be in his seventies. “Yeah, even Marge saw it,” the 87 year old cowboy retorted. Rhett rolled his eyes at their words; Marge, a woman who was older than sliced bread - 98 years of age to be precise, had a bit of a reputation of being Wabang’s most frequent gossip. Not only did she rave about the local lores - she seemed to have grown senile enough to believe most of them.

One time she had greeted Rhett as an old friend and exclaimed ‘Oh, James, I haven’t seen you in years! Does not Liv miss you awfully? It’s a shame the townsfolk drove her away–’ she had trailed off, looking off into the distance as Rhett blinked down at the frail woman. He had no notion as to who James was, nor did he know anyone in Wabang named Olivia that was nicknamed ‘Liv with that strange pronunciation.

“I’ll tell ya, Ma got awful up in her woes about it. Staff said she’d been up ‘till dawn ravin’ ‘bout it,” said her son with a sigh. “Don’t take that tone about your ma,” a man scolded him “Well what am I supposed to do, Brian?” the younger man (who was actually in his late fifties) defended himself.

“You listen to your mama, son. There’s always been strange goings on in Wabang, since before you were even thought of. Has your ma never told you ‘bout the wood wife?” a man spoke suddenly, effectively quieting the party of men. Rhett glanced over to see Marge’s son roll his eyes.

“I’ll tell ya son, the tale’s been told more times than any man can fathom. She’s said to be the oldest creature of earth, that wood wife. Some think she’s immortal, and hides well within the forests, streams and mountains of Wabang - but your ma has told me otherwise. According to Marge, she lives among us for a while, her face never the same. And she does live long, perhaps that’s why the towns folk believe her to have everlasting life,” the old man let out a nasty cough that had Rhett cringing over his beer.

“But no, the creature is said to live longer than any mortal man for sure - and she comes again after she has died. She can die like any mortal man. My ol’ man actually thinks he might’ve shot her in the woods once back in the day.” Rhett furrowed his brows at the way the man sounded almost proud of that fact. An indignant ember ached dully in his chest. Taking another sip, he wondered fleetingly why he cared about the fate of a fictional being.

“Marge said she’s seen her in two different iterations - at the very end of a life, and later at the beginning of another. She carries the same soul, and memories, but her vessel is different each time,” Marge’s son was about to cut in, probably to kindly tell the man his mother was old and her memory frail, but the man continued on.

“She is said to have the purpose of guarding the nature and all it holds, but she is lonely. It is said that at the dawns of time, she was granted a love. A love she lost. And she spends her lifetimes searching for him. Sometimes she finds him, and some lives she lives on her lonesome.” silence fell over the elderly men, and Rhett’s face held a skeptical look upon it, eyes rolling as he sipped on his beer, mind finally made up as the tale seemed to end. Sounded like a crock of shit to him.

“So? If my old ma’s stories are god forbid, true, what on God's green earth has that gotta do with the Abbott boy and some new fuckin’ birthmark?” Rhett had to give it to the man, he was trying to be respectful, but Rhett couldn’t resist smirking into his beer.

“I told ya, the wood wife is fickle. She marks what is rightfully hers.” the older man explained as if it was as easy as the fact that the sky was blue. Marge’s son muttered something that sounded an awful lot like ‘horse shit’, and Rhett could only chuckle softly under his breath before downing the rest of his drink.

Right before he ambled out of the bar, moving slow as to not let the men know he’d been listening in, he heard the eldest of them continue after a moment of silence;

“A long time ago, some said that men who bore that mark disappeared never to be seen again. We’re talkin’ way before Marge’s time. Would go in the woods, disappear into thin air. Jus’ like that.” Rhett stilled in his motion to pull his arms through his thin, worn jean jacket, brows furrowed a little, the marks upon his face tingling slightly. A flash of red appeared in his mind, and he had to blink rapidly to make the vision float away.

“I’ve heard she curses ‘em, wills ‘em to do her every bidding with that mark,” grumbled a man who had stayed silent through the conversation

“Nah, Miller, that’s a load of bull, my great gran told me that in her time if a man appeared marked he was hailed as the luckiest son of a bitch in Wabang, they used to–” at this, Rhett willed himself to leave, shaking his head as he pushed his hat down harshly on his head. Drawing in a shaky breath, he stepped out into the sun.

All this talk of mythical creatures and marking had apparently affected him somewhat as he put his arm out to help steady himself against the warm bricks of the building. His chest felt tight, and that restlessness that he always felt to some extent, came back sevenfold.

Licking his lips, his breaths came out in short bursts. His head was swimming slightly as he raised his hand up to his cheek. As his fingertips graced the high point of his cheek, his whole body felt like he’d been zapped. Like that time when Perry forgot to turn the electricity off when he'd been mending the electric fence - and the world around him disappeared.

“Up you get, boy,” the gruff voice of Royal Abbott rang out clear in the silent bar. Hoisting his son onto his legs as the younger man struggled to stand on shaky legs. “don’t know where the hell you get off drinkin’ like that when you know the day ain’t over by far. Y’were s’posed to help Perry brand the cattle.” Royal shook his head as he took in the form of his younger son.

“’m not fuckin’ drunk,” Rhett protested groggily and his father scoffed, shaking his head and leading the way out of the pub before his son could finish that sentence. Royal knew better. Did the kid think he was born yesterday?

“I don’t wanna hear about it,” Royal grumbled, steering his son to the passenger side of his truck, slamming the door shut after Rhett had jumped in. The ride home was silent, and Royal was waiting for an apology from his son, feeling he’s earned it for all the trouble his son caused him today.

“Listen, son, there’s a lot going on right now - I can’t have you stumbling around like a drunken fool passin’ out all over town.” Royal’s drawl was tired, and Rhett felt anger lick at his insides.

“Alright old man, so you’re sayin’ I can’t enjoy one beer but Perry can drink himself into a blackout and–” before he could finish his sentence he’d received a harsh smack to the back of his head. Royal had disciplined him and Perry when they were boys - which was probably why Perry acted out his anger physically sometimes, whilst Rhett made a point not to - but it had been some time since Rhett'd last felt that particular sting.

“I’m sayin’ you can’t act like a fucking vagabond at times like these, Rhett!” Royal boomed as his truck screeched to a halt in front of their home “Fuckin’ anythin’ that moves and drinkin’ yourself more stupid by the day!”. Rhett didn’t answer, and only hopped out of the truck, slamming the door shut and making his way into the stables.

“So you finally deemed it proper to show up huh, little brother?” Perry drawled, smirking as he stood leaned against the wall in the shadow, away from the heat of the sun's rays.

“You can fuck right off,” Rhett growled out as he hastily bridled his mare, ignoring her indignant stomps and whinnies at how unusually rushed he was. He needed to get away before his chest exploded with indignant anger, that uneasy and restless feeling still present. Just as he tightened the cinch under Sidda’s saddle, Royal appeared at the other end of the stable door, looking ready to continue his reprimanding.

Hauling himself up on the animal, Rhett urged Sidda into a raging canter, leaving only dust and the raining pebbles that kicked up from under the horses hooves as he urged his heels further into her sides. He knew where he needed to go, where he needed to be.

As he neared the entrance to the woods, Rhett sat back slightly, easing up the pressure around the animal’s warm sides, and he smiled at how Sidda came down to a trot. Nearing the forest, she came to a walk and Rhett barely had to steer her before she trodded on down the beaten path, as if this was something she did regularly.

Rhett had never taken Sidda to the lake. In the past he’d only ever taken his truck up to the path, or when he was younger he’d walk, or take his stubborn pony - Chuck. He’d never given much thought to how Chuck, a pony lazy and stubborn to a fault, had meandered into the forest so easily - when Rhett sometimes struggled to even get the damn thing to walk in a straight line for him. But now the thought nagged at a part of his brain that was seemingly held in the shadows.

As the sounds of the forest surrounded his senses, the anger and hurt seemed to slowly seep out of his very pores - and Rhett felt the need to take a deep, shaky breath as he gently rubbed at his sternum.

When had he ever reacted like that to getting smacked around by Royal? He usually gritted his teeth and went on as if nothing had happened at all. After all, it wasn’t so much the smackin’ that hurt, no that sharp sting went away after a few seconds. It was the words that continued to sting for hours after they were uttered. Sometimes days. Sometimes years.

Sliding down from his seat in the saddle, he relieved Sidda of her gear - letting her roam in the small clearing as she pleased. The animal clipped her ears, her eyes alert but soft as he rubbed at the space between her eyes. After a moment's silence, Sidda leisurely strolled up to the lake, nostrils flared as she hesitantly let her muzzle sink into the lake, drinking some before moving along the side of the lake.

Rhett opted to remove his boots, socks, and jeans - leaving him in only his hat, white t-shirt and black boxer shorts as he took in the surrounding area in the soft daylight. To his delight, a thick branch hung low over the lake, and with a determined glint in his eyes, he climbed out on it, settling with his back against the trunk, letting his feet dangle and get submerged in the water.

Heaving a sigh, he lowered his hat so it covered his eyes, before crossing his arms over his chest. The restlessness he felt before was all but gone now that he was there, and it felt as if muscles he didn’t even know he possessed were relaxing as he breathed in the scent of the forest around him.

For a fleeting moment he thought he might just move out here. Never go back to the ranch and leave Royal and Perry to run the damn thing by themselves if he was so much trouble. An infantile and petulant thought - but a thought nonetheless.

The silence engulfed him, save for birds and wildlife. A small smile settled on his lips and he felt utterly relaxed as he finally let himself feel the exhaustion from passing out outside the handsome gambler.

“Who lingers by my lake?”

Rhett felt his heart damn near jump out of his throat as he started, sitting up so fast his hat flew into the tall grass by the thick trunk of the tree. Trying to keep the balance he had disrupted proved fruitless, and his tall form fell unceremoniously into the dark waters below.

Breaking the surface, he sputtered slightly, his every nerve ending frazzled and alert. Cerulean eyes quickly scanned the clearing, stopping promptly at the vision before him.

Coming towards him, from across her spot at the other side of the lake, was a woman. Or was it a woman? Her movements were slow but deliberate, moving with grace as she walked along the edge of the lake, never letting her eyes leave him. Her gaze was intense. Too intense. And yet, Rhett could not for the life of him force his eyes downwards as he wanted to.

“Who goes here?”

Her voice was soft as she came to a stop before him, crouching down so her long red hair almost touched the surface of the water. Rhett was barely aware that his jaw had slackened, lips slightly parted as his eyes took in her appearance up close.

Her long, fiery red hair was the first he had noticed when he first saw her from a distance. Next came that billowy, white dress he had seen in his dreams.

Up close however, his eyes lingered on hers - soulful brown, much like a doe. Freckles dotted her skin, and he blinked as he recognized several constellations he’d spotted in the sky on her skin. Brows furrowing slightly, he finally noticed the slightly pointed ends that softly peeked out from behind thick strands of hair, right where the tips of her ears should be rounded.

“What the f–” Rhett whispered, barely holding in the crude word he’d been about to utter. To his great surprise, the woman smiled - a demure sort of repressed smile. As if she knew something he did not.

Blinking rapidly, Rhett tried shaking his head, wet strands flying slightly as he tried to shake the vision of the woman out of his head. His brain was working a mile a minute as he took her in again, for she had yet to disappear into thin hair, as the hallucination he figured she was. He noticed her hair was slightly knotted here and there, not in a rowdy way, but more of a delicate, swirly way.

As if the woman could somehow anticipate his next move, she gently stood, making room for his tall form to climb out of the water. And he promptly did, muscles rippling under his wet t-shirt as he hauled his body out of the lake.

Standing in front of her now, t-shirt clinging to his upper body, hair dripping small droplets of water down his face, he noticed she was quite tall herself.

“Who are you?” his voice sounded gruff to his own ears, after hearing her soft, melodious voice. His manners were all but thrown out the damn window, yet another thing he knew Cecelia would grumble about.

“I have had many names.” the doe-eyed girl blinked slowly at him, tilting her head slightly as she analyzed his movements and reactions to her. And now Rhett felt he finally understood, realization washing over his face, his shoulders relaxing slightly as he scoffed.

“I get it. You’re with that Autumn girl? Didn’t know she had hippie friends,” he smirked “got lost did you? She’s back on the west pasture,” he nodded in the general direction of her camp.

The girl looked amused, raising an inquisitive brow, letting silence fall between the two for quite some time before she spoke again.

“No. I have not yet encountered Amy out on the pastures.”

That statement wiped the smirk right off Rhett’s face. This girl was obviously not of sound mind, Rhett thought bitterly to himself. Perhaps that’s the reason her feet were bare, and the sheer, flowy dress that looked out of fashion clad her form.

She had probably managed to sneak out of that behavioral institute over in Casper, Rhett figured. She should’ve been worse to wear than she was though if she’d hitchhiked or walked here. But her complexion was close to pristine, not a speck of dirt found on her form.

Rhett reached up to tuck a wet strand of hair behind his ear, a nervous habit he’d tried to rid himself of.

“Alright… if you’re not with Autumn, mind tellin’ me how you came to be here?” His voice was rough, nigh on accusatory. Technically, she was trespassing. The woman’s smile only widened considerably as he spoke, doe eyes wide, a peculiar emotion flickering in them.

“Oh... there you are…” her voice was no more than a whisper, barely audible. Her smile felt familiar, and the feelings it sparked deep within Rhett’s chest made him slightly uncomfortable. He watched as her eyes fluttered closed, lips still curved into a secretive smile as she hummed softly. Opening her eyes, she looked at him with a longing that nearly knocked the wind out of his lungs.

“Aurea.” she spoke finally “That is what I am to be called this time.”

“Rhett,” the words spilled from his lips before he could stop himself. Licking his lips, he drew in a shuddering breath, only now noticing the feeling of peace that had completely settled upon him as he’d come out of the depths of the water.

“Rhett.” she repeated, her melodic voice making his name sound as if it was not just the name of a ruddy cowboy, but the name of the highest of deities.

“I do so hope you will come back,” she smiled before turning on her heel, entering from whence she had come, leaving Rhett to wonder who, or what, on earth he’d just encountered.

next chapter

ahhh!!! alright, how're we feeling after that??? thoughts?? is this rubbish? should I even continue? idk man! let me know!

tagging some people who might like; @endofdays56 @lt-bradshaw @rhettabbotts @wkndwlff @briseisgone @up-thereinthesky @roleycoleyreccenter @stormsouls @milesmillergf

#rhett abbott x reader #rhett abbott x oc #rhett abbott fanfiction #outer range fanfiction #my writing

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cdyssey · 1 year

Text

Abbott 2.19 Thoughts:

Finally getting to sit down and watch Abbott. 😭 Lots of errands this morning. Alas.

Sad cold open with everyone either panicked or resigned to what’ll happen if Legendary Charters takes over. :(

“I’M GONNA BUTTER UP DELISHA SLOSS LIKE A HOT DINNER ROLL AND SEE WHAT SHE CAN DO FOR US ON THE SCHOOL BOARD LEVEL.” BARBARA HOWARD, MA’AM, MARRY ME SKWJDIWJWJSAJ.

The way Mel was looking at her during that sequence!! When she bit her lip!! LAW just makes the most sapphic looks, lmfao.

“People always open the door for me because they think I’m a lost child.” AKQKQNSJDIWIENDNS. Quips about Janine’s height are always my fave bc I’m literally Quinta’s height.

AVA DOES LOOK GREAT. THAT DOUBLE-BREASTED BLACK BLAZER. MA’AM?

Ava said I’mma show all the ladies of Abbott how hot I am and walk off. And she’s so right.

“Oh, hey, you’re the mom with the bi—“ KAKQJWJSDNS. Love that green eye shadow. So pretty.

“EXTRA PETITE BITCH.” AKQKQOWJDJSJ. I love her.

Obsessed with Barbara being obsessed with buttering up metaphors this episode.

JACOB SAYING SON OF A BITCH AND SLAMMING THE FRIDGE DOOR. OMFG.

“I’ll do it with you after school Janine.” / Barbara: “Oooooooh!” HELP WOQOQOWJDJSJIWWJDJ.

“I’ll get engaged with you.” KQQOQOJWWIIED. Goddammit, I love Gregory Eddie.

Melissa turning a random yt dude into “Jacob” when that angry parent confronted her, lmfao.

Erica!!!!! I’m so glad that Abbott has leaned into recurring characters this season. They really add to the life of the show.

Melissa: “I get it. I wouldn’t sign anything I handed me.” That line is actually really sad. What the fuck

Ava going for a job interview?! 😭

Ava listening in on her neighbors arguing is so fuckjng funny lmao.

Loving Jacob’s energy in this episode. Chris Perfetti is having a lot of fun playing angry and stressed.

Barbara slapping her wife when she makes a mean quip towards Allie, lmfao.

Ava knows tons of names. “Barbara, Melissa, Jason, Marge…” AKSNDNS.

Jacob getting ready to FIGHT Mr. Morton.

BARBARA HOWARD GOING “WE HAVE TO TRICK THEM.” HELP ME?! DID I JUST HEAR THAT OUT OF MY FAVORITE WOMAN OF GOD’S MOUTH?!

Melissa, agreeing immediately: “No, let’s trick them.” JAKQKWSJDJWJSJ. Mel and Ava have rubbed off on Barbara, and it’s just really glorious, huh? This is not the same Barb from “Ava vs. Superintendent” or “Fundraiser.”

“Why can’t you ever give me credit for a good idea?” / “Stop making everything about you, Janine.” PLEASE. I love Ava and Janine’s push-and-pull dynamic. I think it would be fun to have them in a bottle episode, where they’re like trapped in a closet or car or elevator together or something.

Ava’s face being on the A.V.A. banner. WNDJWNS.

“Barbara’s working on a motivational speech!” / “And to them I say, this is how you Abbott!” [To Ava] “I’m thinking about ending with a song.” / “We welcome your vocal acrobatics.” BARBAVA ENJOYERS, RISE.

It will be a genuine travesty if they done let SLR sing for real on the show sometime before it’s over.

Also, I’m loving Ava’s walk-and-talk with the camera. It’s such a pointed reminder of how much in the public eye this all is and how the characters are so aware of that.

Gregory is sooooo pressed that Janine suggests calling Tariq, lmao.

Jacob dropping his phone trying to look up Jazmine Sullivan, lolololol. Chris is killing the physical comedy in this ep.

MR. J PRETENDING A CURLING IRON IS A METAL DETECTOR HELP ME WMWJKEWJSJ.

“Guilty. Serving a life sentence as an educator.” ☠️

“Listen, lady. I’m just tryin’ to dunk a white dude.” AKQKWKDJWJSJSISJ

Ava lying about Jazmine S. bc Barb said to trick people. Omfg. Oh, how the tables have turned!!!

Hulu is showing me a Jennifer Coolidge commercial, and that makes me happy. She deserves the world.

TARIQ!!

Gregory: “Get on the stage.” AKQOQOOWOWJDIEOWIEIDJD

Barbara Howard’s mouth falling the fuck open when Tariq first starts rapping. I’m laughing so hard. I love Sheryl.

“Never have I ever been so happy to hear such explicit content.” AJSJWJW

DRAEMOND!

“Did y’all get a youth pastor to do standup during my set?” AKWNDNS, Draemond does look like a youth pastor, lmfao.

MELISSA GETTING READY TO THROW A BASEBALL AT BARB, WAITING FOR HER SIGNAL. WAIT, IT’S A CUPCAKE. EVEN BETTER.

“This man is playing the Powerball wit’ our kids!” QKQKQKQOOQOWRODOEJEJDS. I fucking love Tariq.

I’m going to have “Abbott on Abbott on Abbott” in my head all week, lmao.

“Bless your soul, Draemond.” THAT WAS A BARBARA HOWARD FUCK YOU!!!!!!!

“AND THIS ONE DECIDED TO BE A JACKASS.” HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME WOWOQOOQWNEOWOWOOWKSDJWJWJS.

BARBARA HOWARD, I LOVE YOU.

“What in the Immaculate Reception?” KQKQKQKWOWOQOEIFIEJWIDSJ

“JANINE, DON’T TRY AND FIX THAT.” AKQOQKWDNSN. SHERYL WAS ON IT THIS EPISODE.

Looks like the end stinger is setting up a Tariq return to Philly!

Biggest Laugh: Everything Sheryl Lee Ralph did in this goddamn episode, but specifically JACKASS.

Favorite Scene: All the teachers in the library. That scene was so chaotic, and we got Barbara Howard proposing chicanery!!

Final Thoughts: I’m really hoping that this isn’t the end of the charter drama even if it’s a temporary resolution! It’s such an interesting conflict, and it’d be fun to see it played with a little more. Loved the camaderie between the teachers in this episode—how they were all on the same page and working together for this cause and school that they believe in. This was a very feel good episode for our favorite work family. ☺️

#maggie blogs #abbott elementary spoilers #s: abbott elementary

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kagrena · 1 year

Text

(CW: direct references to in-universe slavery)

-------

From the diary of Knocks-on-Wood, Caravan Drover to Vyra Demnevanni: Midnight. 20th, First Seed. 1E 655. Trade Job: Seventy-Two. Route: Tel Enora -> Kemel-Ze. Progress: 34km. Wind: North-West, 309°. Weather: light ash. Lunch: Jellied nix-eels and mushroom assortment (Kemel-Ze style), with shalk egg. Progress Report: Conditions calm. No sickness. Decent spirits amongst the crew – all gotten paid on time. Caravan made good progress despite ash. Cargo all accounted for. Vyra did not yell at Drels, or any of the crew today. Ahead of schedule for once. [Scrawled in the margin: She's not as green as she was once. Almost competent now.] Miscellaneous Notes: Breakthrough. Finally, Vyra's talking again.

Had thought I'd fucked it thoroughly. Vyra, being Vyra, the former pride of Kemel-Ze, hadn’t even given me a sideways glance for weeks since she found out.

[Scrawled in the margin: Can't blame her much. What kind of fucked excuse for a father does she have, employing some schmuck to spy on his favourite bastard?]

Had expected I’d have to talk sense into her, but she approached me first. Sat with me at the start of the night watch. I'd told her to get some shut-eye. It would be her turn in four hours, she needed all the sleep she could get.

“You’re on Sydras Demnevanni’s payroll,” she had said in response. First words to me in weeks.

Told her then, bluntly, that she wouldn’t like what she was going to hear.

“This isn’t about what I’d like, Knox—” [Scrawled up in the corner of the page: But she’d end up getting her way in the end, wouldn’t she?] “—You've been on Sydras' payroll. Since the beginning.”

“Vyra,” I’d told her. “Don’t.”

“Don’t you fucking ‘don’t’ me, Knox. You owe me some fucking answers.”

[Scrawled in the margin: Don’t owe her anything asides from what’s on the dotted line.]

“Demnevanni,” she continued. "Does he know about the Tel Mora shitshow from last year?”

Put my head in my hands. [She's like a battering ram when she gets riled up.]

“Answer the question, Knox. Does he know what really happened up en route from Tel Mora? What really happened with that job? Does he or doesn’t he?”

“Vyra, I'm his damned spy, you know the answer—”

“Don’t fuck with me. Does he know about that job? Does he know about Trade Job Fifty-Nine?”

[Should have lied. Should have just fucking lied.]

“No.” It came out so quiet. You could barely hear. “No, Vyra, he doesn’t.”

And she hadn’t expected that. She’d stepped backwards. She looked at me like I was something new.

“You didn't... so does he also know, then, that I now know—?”

“No, Vyra. He also doesn’t know that you now know about…”

“The fact you’re spying on me. That I know you have been spying on me for years. He truly doesn't know? I-- Why?”

Couldn’t bring myself to squeeze out a lie to that one. Couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Vyra might be a half-dwarf heretic who hadn't tried to even like the chimer she now lived among, having left her brass castle, and still, couldn't think of anyone except her damn self – [Scrawled in the margin: Who are you trying to kid, Knox?] – but she'd been wronged, well enough. And when you travel with someone for years, you also learn their tells. And Vyra – she saw straight through mine.

“So… what, Knox, you don't care? You don't fucking care?”

That, I just shrugged. What was left to say?

"I don't. I don't actually give a damn about Sydras Demnevanni."

And that was when she laughed – threw back her head and cackled. Laughed like the whole world had gone mad except her, echoed through the crags.

[Scrawled in the margin: Girl's fucked in the head.]

[Scrawled in the margin, directly underneath: No more than you, Knox.]

“Fuck me, Knox,” she’d told me. “I'd spent the past hundred days wondering if you were somehow loyal to him.”

“Loyal to Demnevanni?”

What had he ever done to deserve loyalty? That old wizard-lord wouldn't dare stand within five feet of a guar, not for his life.

[A note scrawled in the margin: He pays damn well. It’s the easiest damn coin you've made since you left the Marsh. You send a packet of coins home every month, don't you forget it.]

“Don't say it like it's fucking implausible," said Vyra. “I know he's a cunt, but—” Hist be damned, should have seen the grin on her then – Vyra was beaming. “Knox, you should have said. Would have made trusting you a damn sight easier.”

“Didn't know you trusted me one bit, Vee.”

Vyra huffed and crossed her arms.

“Knox, has it ever occurred to you that I have to trust you? The rest of the crew can go back singing up with the tones for all I care but this – this right here? Doesn't work without you. Besides—”

[Scrawled in the margin, somewhere: Think that was a compliment.]

[Scrawled in the margin, somewhere: She's called everyone but you incompetent. Keep your guar steady.]

"Besides what? Where's this going?"

"I want to do more jobs like Fifty-Nine again."

[Scrawled in the margin: Trade Job Fifty Fucking Nine]

“Vyra.”

“Which means I really have to trust you.”

“Vee.”

[Scrawled all along the margin, in rough strokes: Why, in the name of all the damned gods and beasts and things unholy, does Vyra, a bastard merchant who's never given a shit about tearing anyone else down to get what she wants, give a damn about what happens to Telvanni slaves? Is it guilt? Is it something personal? It couldn't be out of a sense of justice – she knows how this world works, she's too damn smart for that. Can't figure it out.]

“Knox, I've thought things through. I think we can minimise the risks—”

“There's no playing safe with that kind of cargo. Telvanni—”

“You think I don't know what the Telvanni do to them?”

[Scrawled, in larger and larger letters: Why does she care? Why does she care so much? What does this mean to you, Vyra?]

“Not so loud,” I snapped.

She dropped her voice to a fierce whisper.

“By all the fucking tones on this fucking plane of existence – Knox – Knox, please—”

“Please what?”

[Scrawled in the margin, somewhere: First or second time Vyra had ever said please in her life, I reckon.]

“Think about it. Just think about it. I – I can't just do the same-in same-out for another five years, pretending like nothing is wrong with this damn world. I'll actually kill someone.”

“Vyra, you can't—”

“Shut up. This will be more fucking important than anything we've ever fucking done in our sorry lives.”

I’d given her a hard look.

[Scrawled up in the corner of the page: What the in the four corners happened, Vyra? What happened in that little clan of yours, that raised you and fed you, where you never wanted for much, that you'd toss yourself out with the nix-hounds?]

[Scrawled up in the corner, directly underneath: Hate it when she's right]

Then I’d sighed.

“Shit, Vyra. You've really thought about the risks of taking on wanted folk as travellers?”

“I know the risks.”

“And when we get caught?”

“I know the risks.”

“And you’ve thought about the rest of us? What getting caught might mean for the likes of us? A Marsh exile, two Ashlander vagabonds, and a half-deaf sewer rat you've made out to be a stableboy—"

“Lyr isn't—”

“—I know she isn't – Let me finish.”

She halted.

“Jade's already got a price on his head out in Hammerfell. I can’t step foot in half the kingdoms of Argonia else they’ll have my head. You know what will happen to us?”

“I’ll take the fall—”

“But they’ll blame us. We're the leftover scraps, the dregs, the scum they've raked off the bottom—”

“You're not scum—”

“—But we're scum to them. And they're the ones that matter. They're the ones with the noose, Vee. Think about that.”

Vyra looked at me like she wanted to tear me apart. But didn't say anything.

Things got real quiet, after that. Didn't have much else to say. Vyra, reckon by the way her hands twitched, she started counting the stars. New moons, plenty of them out.

[Scrawled up in the corner: Know it's her favourite sky. Know she's sentimental for it, despite the fact that she pretends she couldn't give a damn. My theory's that she likes to count to keep it all in check. Always stock-keeping.]

It got comfortable after a while.

[Scrawled all along the margin: If I close my eyes, it’s not too far from the cornerclub days again. Trading stories about old jobs gone wrong and things gone sour like we could have been friends. Back when Demnevanni was still bank-rolling his favourite bastard daughter’s scheme to fleece all the other wizard-lords to Oblivion and back when we spent every coin of his dirty money after pay day on Flin and Wildgrass. We’d pour our hearts and guts out, then head out of town, gaze up at the stars, and smoke in a ditch somewhere. She’d count them, tell me shit about magnetic fields and constellations. Always surprised me that. On the worst days, I forget she’s anything other than a Caravan Master. The damn thing she refuses to call herself. Vyra, call me Vyra, she says— gets short with you otherwise. Like a Caravan Master might.]

She stood up suddenly. Held my gaze.

“I won't go ahead with it unless you’re on board, Knox."

"That's bullshit, Vee."

"No. No it's not." She looked me dead in the eye. “And you're not scum to me, Knox.”

Didn't say anything to that. [Scrawled at the bottom of the page: Hate it when she's right.]. Simply watched her walk off, shrinking from big to small as she moved up towards the horizon, up towards the smoke still billowing from the campfire. Still smouldering. Tried to look away. Looked up instead.

[Scrawled in the margin: Burnt silver, that colour – she'd say the tone, wouldn't she? – where she'd been looking, her patch of stars up in the sky. Pretty. But not much else to note.]

The rest of the watch was uneventful.

#vyra demnevanni #knocks-on-wood #morrowind #1st era #dwemereth

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

Text

BY MATT LEWIS

In case you missed her, Marjorie Taylor Greene is back. It didn’t take long either.

After backing establishment Republican Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become Speaker in January, she is now safely ensconced in the committees that her loyalty earned, which means the old MTG has returned with a vengeance—in all her QAnon-adjacent glory.

It started with the silly balloon stunt before the State of the Union, picked up when Rep. Greene wore a white fur-trim coat to the event and heckled President Joe Biden (whom she calls a “coward”), and continued Thursday in a classified briefing about the Chinese spy balloon.

It sounds like the hearing was off the hook. “When she got to ask questions,” one fellow member of Congress said, “she was yelling out saying ‘bullshit,’ and, you know, ‘I don’t believe you… Just screaming and yelling, irrational in my estimation,” the lawmaker continued.

“I chewed them out just like the American people would’ve,” Greene told The Hill. “I tore ’em to pieces.”

Look Marge, I wanted to shoot down the balloon sooner, too, but there’s such a thing as decorum. I mean, WTF, MTG?

But that’s not even the end of her return-to-crazy week. During an entirely different Oversight Committee hearing, Greene told former Twitter executives: “I’m so glad that you’re censored now, and I’m so glad you’ve lost your jobs.” A kinder, gentler, MTG, this was not.

I’ve always been skeptical that Greene’s support of McCarthy meant she was trying to do a heel-face turn from Tonya Harding to Nancy Kerrigan, but there was a reason to believe she might at least try. After all, Greene’s support for McCarthy coincided with a larger rebranding effort that included her explaining away her penchant for QAnon conspiracy theories as (absurdly) something in her very distant past.

The fantasy that she had matured wasn’t just an MTG creation; it was pushed by her more mainstream Republican colleagues in the House, too. “She realizes she’s got to go toward the McCarthy side to be successful—if she hangs out with the bomb-throwers all the time, she’s not going to be able to get much done,” said Rep. Kasey Carpenter of Georgia.

“I will tell you she has matured,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas said last month on ABC’s This Week. “I think she realizes she doesn’t know everything. And she wants to learn and become I think more of a team player.”

Today, those words sound even more absurd than when he first uttered them.

No, I don’t think that Greene, now sitting on prestigious committees, will embrace the awesome responsibility of leadership à la Thomas Becket. But it’s worth asking whether her support for McCarthy was always a strategic one-off, or whether she simply fell off the rebranding wagon.

I think it’s the former.

For one thing, Greene clearly believes in what she is doing right now.

You can hear it in her rhetoric—“I chewed them out just like the American people would’ve,” Greene said, referring to the administration officials who briefed her on the balloon.

She sees herself as the hero of her own story and as a Paraclete for the American public.

And why not? Everywhere she goes (from her very conservative Georgia district, to Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, to Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast), Greene hears MAGA Republicans praise her for voicing their concerns and saying the things that other people are afraid to say.

Yes, the spy balloon was eventually popped, but the conspiracy bubble in which Greene floats appears to be shatterproof.

It’s also possible that she is overcompensating in an attempt to get back in the far right’s good graces.

Remember when Rep. Andy Biggs accused her of “crossing the Rubicon,” and Nick Fuentes and Laura Loomer attacked her? She also reportedly had a bathroom fight with Rep. Lauren Boebert, and Rep. Matt Gaetz mocked her theory about “Jewish space lasers” starting wildfires.

If peer pressure isn’t enough to get her to return to the madness caucus, perhaps she fears losing some of her market share.

When infamous bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robs banks, legend has it that he responded, “Because that’s where the money is.” Likewise, Greene’s brand—her unique selling proposition—requires her to keep her fans (and small-dollar donors) happy.

If politics is about “dancing with the one who brung ya” to “climb the greasy pole,” then MTG is once again dancing her ass off on that pole.

Now, maybe she can afford to dip her toes into a leadership battle and occasionally side with the establishment. That not only earns her rewards, it also garners her attention and ups her eccentricity factor. But let’s be honest: MTG is a rock star, and rock stars do dumb things like throwing TVs out of hotel windows. If she starts behaving like, you know, a normal politician, her star value goes out the window, too.

MTG, in my mind, is a combination of a true believer who guzzles the Kool-Aid and a savvy political operator who realizes that going straight is going nowhere. Maybe someday it will be in her best interest to reinvent herself as a normie. But if that day ever comes, I’m not sure she could even stick to it.

You can take the girl out of Q, but you can’t take Q out of the girl.

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