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violentdelightsandviolentends · 6 months

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Honey Girl. Chapter Six.

Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four. Chapter Five. Chapter Seven. Chapter Eight. Chapter Nine. Series Masterlist. The Playlist.

Chapter Synopsis - You finally start to appreciate the happiness that having a soulmate brings.

Pairing - Dad'sBestFriend!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader - soulmate au

Warnings - smut. cursing. alcohol consumption. so much fluff.

Age Rating - 18+

Word Count - 5k

Author's Note - the sixth installment!! thank you to everyone who voted in my poll - I listened, and decided to make this chapter as sweet as pie, because I think we all need it. it's nice to have a little break from the angst. just a liiiiittle break though. a tiny one. as always, thank you for all of your love and support and enthusiasm and patience and kindness towards this story. so much love for every one of you. <3

as always, reblogs, comments and feedback (even anonymous feedback) are immensely appreciated!! your reblogs are the only way to circulate my fics, which keeps me going <3

Masterlist. Inbox.

"Are you happy?"

You stretch your feet further into the sand and sit up, wiggling to get comfortable on the picnic blanket.

"That's a big question to start with."

Stella laughs and closes her notebook, deciding to take a different route than originally planned.

"I just mean... be honest with me. I'm not gonna be offended if you say no."

"Do you think I'm gonna say no?"

"Do you always have to answer my questions with questions?"

You tilt your head and watch her, smiling softly.

"I thought this was supposed to be an employee performance review."

"You're not my employee and you know it."

Both of you laugh, the sound whipped away by the sea breeze.

"Then what am I, Stella?" you chuckle.

"You're basically my partner. Come on, we've done all of this together. You helped me build this business from the ground up - I couldn't have done it without you."

You go to protest, so she continues.

"I think you should be. My partner, that is. Obviously there's logistics to work out, but it'd be fifty fifty. You and I, co-owners. It doesn't feel right to me that you're my 'employee'. I'm not your boss. We're equals."

Your mind is running a mile a minute, trying to process what Stella's asking of you. Being her business partner is an opportunity you know is rare and incredibly special - and it could potentially set you up for life - but you can't help but think about the fact it's a big commitment. About home. About Bucky.

"You don't have to answer me right now - I just want you to think about it. We always talked about opening up businesses of our own. I should have asked you to be my partner at the beginning, but honestly... I didn't know if you were gonna stick around. It kinda felt like you had one foot out the door when we started."

You take a deep breath, nodding.

"Yeah. I, uh - I think I did. Don't get me wrong, I was super excited, but the idea of moving away when I felt like I'd just got home was a lot to process. I'd just settled back there, and then I was gonna be packing up all of my stuff again and shipping myself across the country. "

"I didn't realise it was so tough for you, you know. I just assumed you wouldn't mind moving. I mean, you were always up for it, back at school."

"Things changed, after I graduated. I got home, and a couple of things happened and I guess it just... turned everything upside down. Home is different now. In a good way, I think."

"You're different now, too."

You look at her carefully, half attempting to read her mind.

"How do you mean?"

"You're... more grounded. More careful. You think through everything way more than you ever did. Almost like you've realised you're not invincible anymore."

There's a feeling, when you're young, that you're indestructible. Unharmable. Broken bones mend, cuts and bruises heal, hearts and minds forget about their aches if you give them long enough.

Then one day, that feeling is gone. And you realise that you're mortal - made of flesh and blood and bones that will one day be returned to the Earth, whether you like it or not.

Meeting your soulmate is like having that realisation again, but bigger. Again, and again, and again. You don't live for yourself, anymore. You live for them. The pain they'd feel if they lost you is unfathomable, completely unimaginable.

So you become more careful. Less reckless. You drive a little slower, take things a little easier, quit your dangerous hobbies and unhealthy habits. You need to be alive for as long as possible. And you know your soulmate will do the same.

That's how you can tell a Tethered person from an Untethered one. Ask two people to go skydiving with you, and the Tethered one will tell you no. They can't risk it. It's not worth it.

Stella's right. You have realised you're not invincible anymore. You're a little more cautious when you climb ladders, you don't balance precariously on the kitchen counters anymore. You look twice when you cross the street, and don't risk it if there's a car coming and you could maybe get across.

You're also painfully aware that Bucky's older than you. He'll be turning forty in less than two years. Sure, he's not ancient, but it does mean you'll have less time together than Lacie will with Cameron, for example. And that hard truth makes you live a little less recklessly, every single day.

"I guess I just... grew up."

You're honestly not sure why you don't just tell Stella about Bucky. You know she'd understand. But there's a part of you that feels protective over what you have - territorial, even. Your Tethering is sacred, almost, and you feel the primal urge to guard it with your life. To lock it in a box and keep it away from anything that could harm it. The less people that know, the less damage that can be done. Maybe.

"I did too. The world is kinda scary now we're not in that little culinary school bubble, huh?"

"Yeah," you laugh. "We thought that was hard. Little did we know."

"Take your time, thinking about my offer. But just know that I really, really appreciate the fact that you're here. That you believed in me enough to move across the country. It means a lot."

"Of course," you say, reaching across to grab her hand. "I always believed in you, Stella. I always knew you'd do something great."

"We'd."

"Hmm?"

"We'd do something great. The two of us. Together."

"I always knew that we'd do something great," you correct.

You're starting to believe that, as time goes on. You were born to do this. You deserve to live your dreams.

Let the happiness seep through, you'd told yourself.

It finally feels like it is.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

"There's a guy here to see you."

Isabel pops her head around the door, grinning at you like she knows something you don't.

"Again?"

She nods, giggling.

"Let me guess... he's hot, tall, brown hair?"

"Bingo."

"Thanks, Isa. I'll be right out. Is it busy out there?"

"It's quieter than it was. There was a pastry rush this morning, but we're good now."

You laugh and hang up your apron, washing your hands quickly before making your way to the café.

You feel like you're having déjà vu, this situation oddly familiar.

Just like Isa said, he's stood waiting with his back to you, broad shoulders filling out his powder blue short sleeve button up.

You're excited to see Rafael again. You've been trying a new cookie recipe for his sister, and you're eager to get him to try it. You're mentally making a note to buy a nice box to put them in when you feel it.

The lights get a little brighter, the colours a little more vibrant. The tightness in your chest eases, allowing you to take a full, deep breath. You can suddenly hear the birds outside singing, melodies drifting through the open doors like a summer breeze.

The man turns around, and it's not Rafael.

It's Bucky.

You're moving before you can even process it, running and jumping into his arms. You inhale, revelling in his familiar scent. He's here. Your happiness has arrived.

"Surprise," he laughs quietly into your ear. "Miss me, honey girl?"

You beam a grin at him, pulling away to look at his handsome face.

"More than you'll ever know."

"Oh, I know. I feel it."

He places a hand over his heart gently, looking at you with pure adoration.

"What are you doing here?"

"It's been a month since your Mom's birthday. A month since I've seen your pretty face. A month too long."

You roll your eyes jokingly, so he continues.

"You don't mind that I'm here, do you? Because I'll go, if it's too much for you. I know me showing up unannounced is a lot to process."

"Don't go," you reply quickly, grabbing his hand. "I want you here, Buck. More than anything."

He leans in and presses his lips to yours, cradling your face in his warm hands. The background of the café melts away, the man in front of you the only thing that matters.

You pull away and smile at him, pressing your forehead into his gently.

"Come back to the kitchen with me. Let's get away from all the noise."

You grab his hand and pull him with you, ignoring the excited giggling from Isabel behind the counter.

Bucky perches against a counter, leaning back to allow you to stand in between his legs. You wrap your arms around his neck and peck his lips, stealing kisses in between giddy smiles.

"I hope you weren't expecting a day full of super exciting adventures. I've got a list full of stuff I've got to get finished by closing."

"Honey, I'm more than content to stay here and watch you work. There's nothing I love more than watching you bake."

You run your fingertips over his face carefully, gently tracing his features as you look at him.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I don't care what we do, as long as we're together."

You wrap your arms around his middle, holding him as tightly as you can.

"I feel like I hit the soulmate jackpot," you whisper.

"No one's as lucky as I am," he whispers back. "Now, come on. Let me see you work your magic."

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

Bucky, it turns out, makes a damn good assistant.

Instead of just watching, he volunteers to help in whatever way he can. You set him onto weighing your ingredients, so you can focus on making and decorating. He takes his job very seriously, measuring down to the precise gram each time. You can't help but grin as you watch him concentrate, determined to get it right.

At lunch time, Isabel brings you both coffee and sandwiches, entering just as you're teaching Bucky how to properly fold in ingredients.

"Sorry, I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"You could never. Isa, this is Bucky. Buck, this is Isabel. Our best waitress."

He holds out his floury hand for her to shake.

"It's nice to meet you, Isabel. I've heard a lot about you."

"You have?"

Her eyes light up as she looks at you, fighting the smile off her face.

"My honey talks about you all the time."

Isabel glances between the two of you, clearly trying to figure things out.

"And you two are..."

"Soulmates," you say at the same time as Bucky does.

Her jaw drops for a moment, before she laughs.

"Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, actually."

You roll your eyes at her lovingly before Stella's voice calls her name from out front.

"I better go. But me and you are gonna talk about this later."

"Fine," you laugh.

"Nice to meet you!" Bucky shouts after her, pressing a kiss to your temple. "I like that we're just telling people now."

"Yeah, me too, actually. I thought it'd be scary, but... it feels right."

He slings an arm around your middle, pulling you into his side.

"We've still got the two most important people left to tell."

Your muscles tense and Bucky feels it instantly, running his thumb in patterns over your hip gently.

"I've been thinking about it a lot. I'm almost ready, Buck. We can't avoid it forever. Next time I'm home, I think we should do it. We should tell them."

Bucky hooks two fingers under your chin, forcing you to look at him.

"Are you sure? Once we tell them, we can't undo it. We'll only do it if you're one hundred percent sure."

"I'll be ready when the time comes. It'll be a huge weight off of both of our shoulders, which I think we both need."

"Okay then," he says, kissing your forehead. "Next time you're home."

Isabel clears her throat from the doorway, smiling sheepishly.

"I can't believe I'm saying this again, but... there's a guy here to see you."

You laugh, untangling yourself from Bucky with a kiss to his cheek.

"Send him through. Thanks, Isa."

The man you were originally expecting to see this morning walks into the kitchen, envelopes in his hand.

"Hey!"

"Hey, Rafael."

He gives you a quick hug, before waving at Bucky.

"Hey, man. You've gotta be the soulmate, right?"

Bucky chuckles, coming over to shake Raf's hand.

"Yeah, that's me. How'd you know?"

"Are you kidding? You can feel it the minute you walk into the room. There's like, electricity in here."

You laugh, hiking yourself up to sit on the counter. Bucky stands next to you, arms crossed over his broad chest.

"Here," Rafael says, handing you an envelope. "We're having a gala next month, for the charity that has supported my sister. We'd love it if you could come - and bring your date too, of course."

"I'd love to," you say as you read the invitation. "Do you need me to bring anything? You know I'll happily make something, if you guys need it."

"You would?"

"Absolutely! I could bring a cake, if you like? I haven't done a proper, three tiered cake in forever. I'd love to."

"That'd be... amazing. Seriously. We just want to raise as much money as possible."

"Of course. Thanks for these, Raf. How is she?"

"She's okay. She's getting a tiny bit stronger every day, and that's all we can really ask for."

You reach a hand out to squeeze his in support.

"You know where I am if you need anything."

"Of course. Thank you, so much. I've gotta run - I've got like a hundred of these invites to deliver. But I'll see you at the weekend?"

"For sure. See you, Raf!"

"Nice to meet you, Bucky."

"You too, man. Take care."

Isa shows Rafael out of the door, winking at you on her way out.

"Damn, he's handsome," Bucky laughs.

"Isn't he?" you giggle. "Nothing on my soulmate though, I'm afraid."

"Shut up," he blushes, leaning in to capture your lips. "You wanna get dinner when you're done here?"

"Yes, please. I'll show you around my new apartment too."

"Can't wait."

There's not an ounce of tension in your muscles as you finish up your bakes for the day, gliding around the kitchen while Bucky stands and watches your every move.

If you could pause time, this would be when you'd do it. You'd be content to live in this moment forever.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

The minute Bucky walks through your front door, he inhales deeply. The entire place smells like you, cosy and golden.

"You like it?"

"It's gorgeous, baby. I love the windows."

He makes his way over to your kitchen, where the glass panes run from floor to ceiling. Sitting on the bench pressed against it, he takes in the view, savouring the feeling of the sun on his face.

You sit down on his lap, draping your legs over him and wrapping your arms around his neck. Nuzzling your face into his jaw, you press a kiss to the stubble, resisting the urge to lick the salt off of his skin.

"Come on," you murmur. "Let me show you my bedroom. The sun sets in that direction, so it's always beautiful in there."

You grab his hand and walk him across the apartment, swinging open the door to your room and pushing him inside.

He takes in the space for a moment before turning in your direction, striding over to smash his lips to yours. You tangle your fingers into his shirt and pull him closer, letting him slip his tongue into your mouth with ease.

Bucky leans in to trail kisses down your neck as he slips your shirt over your head, making quick work of unclasping your bra with skilled fingers. He grasps your chest in both hands, massaging gently as he nips at your throat.

"So fucking pretty," he murmurs. "Haven't stopped thinking about you since you left me."

You whine and unbutton his shirt, shrugging it off his shoulders. You're desperate to see more, desperate to feel his skin on yours, desperate to bare every inch of him.

Your fingers make deft work of his belt, sliding it from its loops and throwing it to the ground. You unpop his button and slide down the zipper, pulling his jeans off his legs in no time. You shimmy out of your skirt, leaving you both in your underwear.

The evening sun seeps through the window panes, illuminating the room in hues of orange and gold. The light hits Bucky's skin, making him glow in a halo of love and adoration.

He walks you backwards, wrapping an arm around your back to throw you onto the white sheets of your bed. Crawling over you, he settles in between your legs, pressing gentle kisses from your ankles to your inner thighs.

"The way you look when you come has been burned in my mind," he whispers. "Need to see it again. It's been too long."

He slides your underwear down your legs and wastes no time, diving into you like a man starved. He devours you, tongue never ceasing it's movements. His hands pry your thighs apart, one arm thrown over your stomach to keep you still. When your muscles start to shake, Bucky doubles down on his efforts, lapping and sucking at you like you're his lifesource.

"Oh, Buck, I'm-"

You see stars as you come, white and silver shapes flying through your vision. Bucky never stops, prolonging your release for as long as he can. When you go boneless, he ceases, pressing kisses to the inside of your knee.

"You okay?" he murmurs, moving so his body smothers yours.

"I'm good," you smile, leaning up to kiss him. You groan when you taste yourself, wrapping your legs around his waist.

"Need you, baby. Please, Buck."

"You sure?"

You smile at him, cradling his face in your hands.

"Couldn't be surer."

He dips down to lick into your mouth once more, shucking his boxers off and throwing them across the room. Slipping a condom on, he lines himself up, eyes meeting yours.

"I need you more than I need air to breathe," he murmurs. "You know that, don't you?"

"Buck," you breathe. "I've been going crazy here without you."

He goes to speak, but stops himself, instead leaning down to kiss your forehead.

"I know," you whisper. "I know."

Bucky slides home in one smooth thrust, both of you gasping. One of his hands finds your hip, the other resting against your throat as an anchor. You wrap your legs around his waist, arms snaking around his shoulders.

"Fuck me, please."

"Fuck," he groans. "I'll be replaying that in my head forever."

You chuckle breathlessly, gasping when he draws his hips back and forward again. He sets an even pace - not too fast, not too slow. He has you right where he wants you, both of your bodies in perfect synchronisity. It feels like the stars have aligned. Everything's fallen into place.

Bucky dances his fingers from your hip to your clit, rubbing firm circles. He plays you like a violin, your muscles tensing as you get closer.

"That's it, pretty girl. Fuck, you're so good for me. You close, honey? Gonna come for me again?"

You nod frantically as he picks up his pace, hips colliding with yours. He groans as you tighten around him, head dropping to rest against yours.

"Come for me, honey girl," he whispers. "Please."

Your back arches as you find your release, nails scratching at the skin of Bucky's back. The pain tips him over the edge, spilling inside of you with a deep groan. He collapses on top of you, both of your chests heaving.

"I think we're naturals at that," you chuckle hoarsely.

"You think it's the soulmate thing, or are we just that good?"

"I think we're just that good," you laugh, pushing him off your body so he lands next to you. You link your fingers with his, resting your head on his chest.

"I need a drink."

"I was just thinking that, actually. You wanna go out? Know anywhere?"

"There's a cute little bar that looks out over the cove - it has good food and good cocktails. You wanna go there?"

"I'd go anywhere with you," he affirms, pressing a kiss into your hair.

"I'd kill for a pineapple margarita right now."

Bucky sits up suddenly, bringing you with him, arms wrapped around you.

"Then let's go get my girl a pineapple margarita."

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

The golden lights adorn the beams of wood above your head, the deck illuminated in the gentle glow. The ocean waves break the shore in a comfortingly repetitive motion, a calming soundtrack to the evening. You sit across from Bucky at your table for two, the sunset casting orange hues across the horizon.

"It's beautiful out here."

"Yeah," you agree, smiling. "The view is pretty good."

Your eyes haven't left his, lost in the sea blue of his irises. He chuckles, running his thumb over the back of your hand where it rests atop the table.

"This is our first date, you know."

"Really?"

"I mean, we've been 'dating' this whole time - but we've never gone out and had dinner like this. Held hands and all."

"You're right. Our first date of many, huh?"

"Our first of countless," he grins, brushing his lips over your knuckles in a gentle kiss.

"Where do my parents think you are?"

"Visiting a cousin in Nevada."

You laugh, and the sound makes Bucky light up, electricity running through his veins.

"You're a scarily good liar."

"To everyone but you."

"I used to think I was a good liar. Until I met you, that is."

Just as he's about to respond, your waitress appears, two pineapple margaritas in hand. She takes your orders and leaves, smiling at you.

"Oh, shit. She forgot to give us straws. I'm gonna grab some - be right back."

You chase her inside, tapping her shoulder gently.

"Excuse me - could I get a couple of straws, please?"

"Of course. Sorry!" she apologises, handing them to you.

"Thank you! Your shirt is so cute, by the way."

"Thanks - it's thrifted! You're gorgeous, girl. And your boyfriend is stupidly hot too. You're a pretty couple."

You thank her and laugh, returning to Bucky with a grin on your face.

"What's got you smiling?"

"The waitress called you my boyfriend."

"Huh. As much as I love the commitment... boyfriend kinda sounds like we're in ninth grade, doesn't it?"

You throw your head back, laughing with your entire being.

"That's what I thought. There's gotta be a better word. Partner? No, that makes us sound forty."

"I am almost forty."

"Oops."

Bucky rolls his eyes, but he can't wipe the blinding grin from his face. He takes out his phone and snaps a quick picture of you, admiring the way the breeze caresses your face as the setting sun beats down.

"Sneaky," you tease. "Let me see?"

He hands you the phone, letting you look through. You swipe right one too many times, and accidentally land on a picture of a blueprint laid out across a kitchen counter. His kitchen counter.

"Babe... what's this?"

You don't miss the way Bucky's cheeks heat up, blush creeping across his chest that's exposed by the V neckline of his blue button up. He stutters for a moment, before finding his footing.

"They're blueprints. Plans for a house."

"A house?"

"I want to build a house."

When you keep looking at him softly, he doubles down.

"I want to build a house for us."

Your breath hitches in your chest, the world going silent momentarily.

"You... you do?"

"My Dad worked in construction my entire childhood. I watched him build houses, apartment buildings, bungalows... everything. I've always wanted to do it, but never had reason to. Until now."

You squeeze his hand, urging him to continue.

"I've been planning it for upwards of ten years. But I'm taking it more seriously, now. Those blueprints are the final ones. It's all mapped out, down to the square inch. I've made some modifications for you, obviously."

He zooms in on the picture, pointing out areas on the plans.

"I've added a big island in the kitchen with a tonne of storage in it, for all of your supplies. I know you have that huge mixer, so I've made sure there's enough space for it to fit underneath with the doors closed."

You take a deep breath, lump in your throat forming unwillingly.

"Up here, there's a window at the top of the stairs. I've added a sketch of a bench which I'll upholster, so you can sit and read in the sunlight."

Tangling your legs with his under the table, you urge him to continue.

"I've also made sure there's a balcony off the master bedroom that overlooks the garden. I know how much you love sitting on yours in your apartment at home. There's probably like a hundred more little modifications for you, but those are just a few."

Tears are running down your cheeks freely, emotion escaping you like a flash flood.

"Bucky..."

"If it's too much too soon, please tell me. I won't be offended, baby. I know it's a lot."

"It's perfect."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

You jump up from your seat and around the table, throwing yourself into his lap to kiss him happily.

"I can't wait to build a house with you, Buck."

He grins at you, joy radiating off him in waves.

"Buck?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

He blinks back tears for a second, processing the words he's been waiting to hear for what feels like an eternity.

"I love you too, honey girl. My pretty baby."

He leans in to kiss you tenderly, the rest of the world melting away. It feels like it's just the two of you, floating on cloud nine.

Suddenly, you get it. You understand why people say this is the greatest thing that'll ever happen.

It is. They were right all along.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

After several pineapple flavoured cocktails and a taco or four, you and Bucky take a slow stroll home, hand in hand along the sidewalk.

"You wanna have a sleepover tonight?" you ask, digging your heels into the ground to stop yourself from skipping with glee.

"Can't think of anything I want more," he chuckles.

You walk a little while longer, content to bask in the comfortable silence.

"Guess what happened a few days ago."

"What, honey?"

"Stella asked me to be her business partner."

He stops where he is, turning to face you but never letting go of your hand.

"Wait, really?"

"Mhmmm."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"I was unsure, at first. But I'm going to do it. I've been thinking about this for a while, actually. We had to take a business class in culinary school, and I actually learned a lot. I've had a business plan for the future of the café drafted up for months. Numbers, locations, investors, everything. I'm really serious about this, you know."

He's gazing at you like you hung the moon, eyes bright and adoring.

You sit down on a bench, looking out over the coastal path. Bucky joins you, arm heavy over your shoulders.

"I can't stay here."

His head whips around.

"Baby..."

"I mean it, Buck. I like this city, I do, but I just can't settle. It feels like a placeholder until I can go home. And it's not fair to Stella, if it feels like I'm half in half out."

He goes to speak, but you're on a roll.

"I'm suggesting that we franchise the business. It's the logical next step anyway, it was just a matter of choosing the right location. I'm proposing somewhere a hell of a lot closer to home. To you. To my parents. And that means we'll have one branch on the east coast, and one on the west. We can start filling the middle, in the future."

"Are you... are you sure?"

"I've never been surer of anything, James Buchanan Barnes. I wanna start my life with you. Telling my parents, building a house, furthering my career. I'm ready, now."

Bucky grabs your face in his warm hands, kissing you with more passion than you ever thought possible. It's all the answer you need.

"I want you to read over my plan, when we get back to my place. But it's tight, Buck. I've been perfecting it for months. There's no way Stella can say no - I've made it so she won't want to. Besides, she just wants me to be happy. And this... this will make me happy. Happy beyond words."

Bucky stands up, wrapping his arms around your middle to bring you with him. He spins you around, laughing when you squeal in surprise.

"I'm so proud of you, honey baby. I love you so much."

"I love you," you grin. "More than I ever thought possible."

Bucky practically carries you home, both of you giddy on excitement and hope.

You wake up tangled in his arms, sunlight beaming down onto your skin through the open window. Happiness, you think. It's finally here.

Happiness. It's finally here.

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1K notes · View notes

mitoad · 1 month

Text

i know that everyone says this but the mw3 rm soap death was shit awful . looking back at it, logistically , it shouldn’t have happened .

so the first injury in this was soap being shot in the right shoulder (most likely in joint tendon region) . pretty painful , and if did hit in the area i believe it did , would hinder mobility in the upper right region of the body (neck, arm, some torso muscles .

HOWEVER !! soap has proven to be shot in similar or worse regions in other missions and has been able to carry through and complete objective alive .

what you are seeing is a move that should have killed makarov instantly . this is a stab performed to the external jugular vein (and due to soaps experience , possibly a carotid artery . i was taught this attack in weapons studies , my friends in the military were also taught that this region is one of the quickest ways to krill . (not giving murder advice just trying to prove a point please don’t ban me) not to mention this is immensely painful . realistically , mans should have dropped then and there . not to mention there were sas soldiers who should have opened fire the second they saw him anyways ??

now THIS is the part that pisses me off the most. see makarov’s lock ? that actively engages the trapezius and scalene muscles , which would be DIRECTLY affected from the stab would . combined with the fact that soap is (estimated) 80-90 kgs , he would not have been able to perform that lock let alone hold it .

and with soap being part of the fucking MILITARY , he should have been able to get out of that by a) breaking the locked arm and using the other hand to either disarm / kill makarov (which he should have been able to handle , especially judging by the fucking alone mission) or b) hitting the back of makarovs knee to send them both to the ground, slip under him to not break his arm and hit em w the buck+trap+flip to get a vantage, and then continue the fight from there, which should be very short anyways considering that makarov’s bleeding out faster than a fucking SNAKE STRIKE . and somehow with the majestic force of activision giving less than 2 fucks about all the characters and medical theory there , makarov manages to get a straight aim and shoot soap straight through the ear ??!! and then bolt past a fuck ton of bullets that should have BEEN FIRED ON HIM EARLIER and then hurl himself INTO A TRAIN . if you wanted to kill of one of the leads in the modern warfare series , do it in a way that is well written and thought out and accurate .

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stevebabey · 1 year

Text

no one asked but this is the post that inspired this! thank u immensely for the luv <3 number 1 comment was wondering what steve’s bids were & from his pov, so without further ado...enjoy — part one here!

—

Begrudgingly, Eddie has to admit that Robin might be right.

It’s impossible not to be looking for the bids since he brought them up to her. Even though Eddie was fully expecting to tell Robin to suck it, maybe even wager what little money he had against this working out, Eddie can’t help but watch for them in every interaction. And fuck, she’s right.

They’re little, but they’re there.

The first one Eddie would’ve missed if he wasn’t looking for it. Actually, that’s a lie; Eddie does miss it, until Robin points it out, the nosy bitch. It’s minuscule and honestly, it just seems like Steve asking his opinion — which friends do all the time! It’s why Eddie brushes right over it.

“Okay, be honest,“ Steve had said, walking and talking as he entered the living room where Robin and Eddie were sprawled across the couches. They were both waiting on him, the three of them set on heading out to the drive-in to catch a film.

Eddie can’t fathom why Steve felt the need to change his outfit for it, but when he returns, he gets it. It’s not quite the usual polo Eddie had grown to like on Steve, this one hanging a little looser, the colour a bit darker than Steve’s usual choice, the sleeves a little shorter — almost midway to a muscle tee.

Steve’s fingers fiddle with the distressed collar of the shirt, smoothing invisible wrinkles and fussing over nothing. He swishes back his floppy hair with a flick of his head. “It’s a new shirt, I know it’s a little different - but what do we think?”

He says we but he’s looking at Eddie.

Eddie, who has taken to trying to reel in his gawp because what the fuck Steve? It’s like he’s well aware of what drives Eddie insane and has specifically leaned into it. Some evil goblin in Eddie’s brain whispers think how good he’d look in your shirt and he squashes it, giving a visible twitch to shut down that train of thought.

From the other couch, Robin clears her throat loudly and smiles sweetly at her best friend. “It looks great, Steve.”

It’s sincere and Steve’s mouth tugs up, nearly a smile but his gaze fast-tracks back to Eddie. Eddie nods in agreement, a bit sluggish from his distracting thoughts and god dammit, the extra exposed skin of Steve’s arms are so not helping. “Yeah, looks... looks good, man.”

Steve smiles, lips pressed together but his shoulders curl in just a bit, deflating just a tad. From where Steve can’t see her, Robin waves her hands wildly and catches Eddie’s attention. He watches as she gestures wildly and it takes a moment to realise what’s she mouthing — ‘A bid! That’s a bid, you idiot!’

Oh fuck, Eddie thinks. Cos it totally was; the question, the focus on Eddie. He doesn’t even think about the logistics of it, of the fact Robin was right, just jumps right into picking up the bid.

“You trying a new style?” Eddie asks and then thanks whatever god invented the whole fake-it-to-you-make-it schtick because he’s feeling so far from casual or confident. “Going metal on me, big boy?”

Eddie just manages to catch the grin that breaks across Steve’s face as he turns away, giving a scoff — it comes out too soft though, giving away his complete lack of annoyance. He pulls that usual Steve Harrington pose, hands sliding onto his hips, and screws his face into some melted smiley-grimace. “Shut up, Munson.”

Eddie grins and goads on the blush that’s beginning on Steve’s neck, a glorious tinged pink colour. “If this shirt is any indication, you’d pull it off just fine.”

Eddie watches the blush climb higher as Steve ignores the comment, his smile still giving him away. He grabs his coat and pats down his jeans — ridiculous tight acid wash jeans that Eddie hates he’s somehow become attracted to — ensuring he has his keys and wallet. Once assured, he looks up at his two friends again, brows raised, and says, “Ready to rock and roll?”

That comment alone has Eddie seriously reconsidering his type in men.

There’s only a brief moment to talk about it when Eddie and Robin cajole Steve into going and getting them both popcorn to get a moment alone. Steve had scoffed, face twitching in the way it did whenever he tried to hold back a bitchy comment, but he still stomped off in the direction of the snack stand.

The moment he’s out of earshot, both voices explode in the back of Eddie’s van.

“What did I say—”

“Jesus H Christ, you were right—”

“Literally how many times do I have—”

“Oh my god, you were right—”

“ —before you realise I’m always—”

“Robin.” He cuts her off, hands landing on her shoulders. Robin eyes them warily, lips still parted from how her rant had been cut off. “Robin, I’m gonna kill you.”

“What?” Robin’s nose scrunches up. “What the hell are you—”

“Oh Christ, I can’t believe- how long have you noticed those bids?” Eddie’s aware he sounds a bit estranged, eyes probably wide and it doesn’t help when he softly shakes Robin back and forth. She lets herself be shaken, hair flying back in forth. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! You are such a bad gay friend!”

Robin smacks his hands off her shoulders with a frown, her freckly face perturbed at Eddie’s outburst. “Dude, it’s not my fault! May I remind you that until very very recently you were seeing someone else? What difference would it have made?”

Eddie waves his hand, disregarding the point with a shake of his head. His unkempt curls cover his face and Eddie sweeps them back in one motion, “What difference would it have made? Oh my, Jesus—“

Whatever long-winded sentence Eddie was about to spit out is lost by the sound of Steve’s approaching footsteps, effectively shutting both of them up.

Eddie flings himself to the other side of the van, putting an unusual amount of distance between Robin and him like they were being caught doing something they shouldn’t.

Robin frowns at him and gestures wildly with her hands in a way that means what the fuck man? Eddie gestures back, though he’s not entirely sure what his fast hand motions are supposed to mean when Steve rounds the door.

He’s got two buckets of popcorn tucked under each arm and Eddie quickly crosses his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits like his stupid hand motions will somehow give him away.

Steve looks up, stopping just a way from the edge of the van, and looks at the pair of them. His eyes track from Robin still sitting on one of the old cushions and looking two seconds from burying her face in her hands, across to Eddie. He huffs a laugh and kneels on the edge of the van.

“I know he’s gross Robin,” He begins, tone light, as he holds out one of the buckets for Robin to take. “But c’mon, is the distance really necessary?”

Robin snickers as Eddie makes an appalled noise, both of which make Steve smirk. He holds out the other for Eddie to take and Eddie snatches it, glaring at him over the buttery rim for his comment. Then takes a handful and shovels it in because he can’t think of a witty comment to retaliate. Steve crawls into the van and plops himself between them with a content sigh.

“See? Gross.” He teases, shoving his hand into Eddie’s popcorn bucket to grab a handful. Eddie scowls and chews a little faster when the flavour on his tongue seems to register in his brain.

His eyes stare at the popcorn bucket as he chews, then swallows — up the front of the van, the radio that’s tuned into the correct frequency begins playing the opening credits song as the screen changes. Silence sweeps across the drive-in but despite the sudden hush, Eddie has no qualms about breaking it.

“Sweet n’ salty flavour?” He asks Steve, only half attempting a whisper. Robin shushes him instantly, her focus already on the movie that’s beginning. Steve smiles, looking a bit sheepish beneath the glow of the drive-in screen, but he nods.

“I know you like it.” He whispers with a small shrug of his shoulders. Like it wasn’t a big deal. Fuck, Eddie thinks again and hastily feeds himself another handful of popcorn before he says anything majorly stupid in response to that, like: Oh, amazing- have you noticed the big fat crush I have on you as well?

He doesn’t even need to look at Robin to know she’s smiling, smug as ever.

—

Steve, God bless his oblivious little heart, doesn’t even realise he’s doing it.

Steve likes Eddie. Eddie is— god, Eddie is different but he’s good.

He’s this strange amalgamation of traits that Steve can’t comprehend how they fit together in one body or how Eddie manages to pull it all off completely charmingly.

He’s loud, he says rude things, he’s fucking dorky, and far too sweet on the kids — he likes to tease Steve, and yet somehow, when Eddie calls him ‘pretty boy’, Steve knows he’s not actually making fun of him.

Steve likes Eddie, likes his boyishly endearing charm, likes his touchiness towards Steve that no other boy his age is like, likes his messy curls and his ‘holier than thou’ attitude about metal music even though Steve doesn’t get it, like at all. And fuck, Steve really wants Eddie to like him.

It reminds him faintly of when he first started working alongside Robin at Scoops. That thought tickles in the back of his mind, something along the lines of how he had wanted Robin to like him for other reasons, but he doesn’t delve into it.

To Steve, it’s simple: he just wants Eddie to like him.

After the night at the drive-in, between Eddie acting strangely skittish and Robin giving more amused snorts than usual, Steve knows something is up.

He knows they must have discussed something when they sent him on popcorn duty, the bastards. He tries his best to not feel left out; god knows Robin and he have more than a dozen secrets they’ve sworn not to tell anyone but each other.

Besides, Steve trusts Robin to come and tell him if he really needs to know, even if it does worry him a bit. He bites down his anxious thoughts, even trying for a moment to see if there’s a pattern he’s been missing.

That train of thought gets derailed when Steve recalls instead Eddie’s delightful reaction to his new shirt — that Steve definitely hadn’t bought for that specific reason.

Even though Robin had given him that look when he’d first shown it to her — her bright eyes had narrowed, her smile turning a little more coy, and Steve had felt his ears get a little hotter. She hadn’t said anything though, just suggested that he should wear it tomorrow night when they were going out with Eddie.

God, he was glad she suggested it.

Rewinding over Eddie’s parted lips, the way his brown eyes had drank in the details as they trailed up his body and lingered on his arms— Steve had the sudden thought to flex the muscle, just to elicit some reaction, but it had gone out the window at Eddie’s original dismal reaction.

‘Yeah, looks... looks good, man’. Said all aloof, like he hadn’t really thought it. It was like bursting a balloon hidden behind Steve’s ribs, one he wasn’t even aware was there until it was deflating pathetically, making his shoulders sag.

Then— ‘You trying a new style? Going metal on me, big boy?’ And dammit, it’s like Eddie had clocked exactly what calling him ‘big boy’ had done the first time in the Winnebago.

Eddie had then grinned, done another once over of the new shirt, even as Steve pretended to search for his keys and wallet while saying something snarky to try to cover up the heat crawling up his neck. Yet, Steve found himself smiling too because, fuck yes, Eddie liked it too.

But, apparently, whatever Eddie and Robin had discussed wasn’t considered important enough because Robin never brought it up.

The thought and worry about it melt away in Steve’s mind until the memory of that night is about Eddie’s compliment, about his cat-like grin over the popcorn bucket, and how he had leaned over to whisper every bad joke into Steve’s ear all through the movie.

Some of them had been down-right filthy jokes which Eddie only seemed to enjoy more when Steve screwed his face up and nudged Eddie in the ribs, yet unable to hide his smile.

After the third vulgar joke and subsequent nudge, Steve had chided ‘dude’ with a poorly hidden grin. Eddie, smile all cheeky, had nudged him back with a ‘dude’ of his own.

Which, of course, ensued a nudge competition til Robin had given a shush that librarians all over the world would be jealous of. But Steve didn’t even care because he and Eddie were arm to arm, pressed close together and Eddie…didn’t move. Stayed close, like he wanted the closeness the same way Steve did.

Steve only remembers the strange drive-in moment when Robin brings it up finally, on one interesting Saturday night.

It’s not the usual routine; it’s not very often that the whole group gets together to share drinks and get rowdy.

But it was for Robin’s birthday and she’d been persuasive enough to get even the introverts, like Jonathan, to come along. Though, she was aware he’d probably spend the night on a pool lounger, stoned to high heaven. Whatever floats your boat, she’d said, happy for the company in any form.

There’s enough of them there that it almost resembles some sort of party— and makes Steve try not to think about the last small party he threw here. He can tell Nancy notices it too, eyeing the pool a bit too long in a way he’s very familiar with, then taking a swig of beer.

So, Steve heckles them inside — doing a fantastic mothering impression as he waves the group indoors with a promise of pizza, and that has both Jonathan and Argyle perking up and beginning a fast discussion on the best pizza toppings.

Eddie makes a fuss, because of course he does, and moans terribly when Steve tries to roll him off the pool lounger he’s on. He’s had a bit of a joint and some beer, and Steve’s learned that he gets adorably stubborn after some substances.

“Stevie, this is mean,” he had pouted, gripping the edges of the lounger and staring up at Steve with those big brown eyes. “You telling me I did all that bonding with you for nothing? Can’t even lounge by the pool! I’ve got a couch at homeeeee.”

Steve had sent him an amused look of disbelief, hands on his hips after his first round of flicks against Eddie’s arm were apparently fruitless to get him to move. “Really? Didn’t peg you for a gold-digger, Eds.”

Eddie had snorted at that, one hand coming to slap over his mouth. Steve couldn’t quite hear what he had said but the words pegging and anytime slipped through and Steve thinks he could get the gist of that.

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Steve muttered, feeling the tips of his ears turn warm. He didn’t know how Eddie could be such a menace— or why he enjoyed it so much when he was. Steve waved a hand in the direction of the doors, ignoring Eddie’s delighted snickering. “If you go inside now, you can be on music, alright?”

And that had finally got them all indoors, Eddie whooping and skedaddling through the doors in an instant, with a call of ‘no take backsies!’ echoing behind him.

Inside was much cozier, the whole group a little more connected when squished up on the couches together. Eddie had taken Steve’s word and was jamming a cassette into one of the speakers when Steve made it back inside after scouting around the pool for leftover cans and butts to throw out.

He’s just been thinking about what playful jab he could make at Eddie’s music, like Eddie always did to him when Robin hollered at him from the kitchen.

“Steve!” She’d yelled excitedly and he come to find her quick, brows raised as he entered the kitchen. She was grinning, already a bit jumpy as she got when she had a bit of liquor — but apparently not enough because when Steve saw what she’d called him in for, she’d announced, “Tequila shots!”

Which lead to now. A hazy combination of beer, tequila, and a bit of weed, and Steve is feeling good. Robin had managed to hijack the music not too long ago, with a hiccup of ‘it’s my birthday’ that had Eddie surrendering with a pout.

She’d since put on a bit of everything: some Blondie for Nance, Talking Heads for Jonathan, and some Bowie, just so she and Steve could dance along to ‘Magic Dance’ and she could do all the silly little goblin voices that made them both cackle.

Steve realised at some point that Robin was playing their mixtape, the one she’d made for driving in the morning, and nearly tripped stumbling over to her in his excitement. He grabbed her shoulders, not too hard, and squeezed.

“Is it- is this our mixtape?” Steve asked, words slurring only a bit. Robin gleamed, hair bouncing with her excited nod.

“Yes!” She was already dancing, even though the tape was between songs — because she knew what song was coming. “It’s Springsteen time, Steve!”

Right as the drums to Born to Run filtered out the speaker.

And oh, Steve loves Robin so much. He loves having a best friend that knows his favourite song and gets jittery and excited because she knows it’s about to play— that she put it on this mix for him.

“You’re my best friend!” Steve says, the words bursting out like he can’t control them. He doesn’t even feel embarrassed, just happy, just drunk, and overwhelming happy to be able to have this.

And even though Robin knows this, she still beams, feet dancing along and just begins to sing along with the song, “In the days, we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream…”

It’s a brazen drunken performance from the both of them. Steve’s chest is heaving after just one chorus that he’s pretty sure he put his whole soul into and he’s so fucking happy —and it feels like pure instinct to seek out Eddie, his eyes scouring the room for him.

Eddie’s leaned up against the wall, hiding his smile behind a can and Steve doesn’t think twice about it— doesn’t think about why he’s so drawn to Eddie, why he wants to include him in this happiness — just extends his hand out and grins.

Eddie sees the bid coming this time.

Part Three.

—

yes i saw all ur lovely tags and MAYBE cried about it. but thats none of ur business.

@orangeandthefairroadkill @swimmingbirdrunningrock @sadcanadianwinter @phantypurple @omg-elledubs-things @henderdads @farfaras @mixsethaddams @prismandblue @kerlypride @bushbees @legitcookie @temporalcoffin @callmesirkay @beautifully-useless @millyditty @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @ninjapirateunicorns @darkwitchoferie @vi-the-best-you-can @psychosnowfox @desert-fern @scarletzgo @cr0w-culture @softpink-candlelight @livingforfictionalcharacters @makewavesandwar @kozuuji @rhapsodyinalto @eddiethesexy @cassaloopa @lightwoodbanethings @qu33rcommunist @moonlitkilljoy @starkdusk @theysherobinbuckley @sanguineterrain @loganwright @sillysparrow @hotcocoaharrington @eddie-munson-is-my-wife @she-is-tim @steddiehearts @sideblogofthcentury @sidebarre @corrodedcoughin @stevieclaus

#OBLIVIOUS STEVE IS MY FAVOURITE!!!!#idiots in love #they're so important to me ur honour #on god am i gonna make them KISS #but steve's gotta figure it out first lol #ruby writes steddie #steddie #steddie ficlet #i think i can call it a fic now lol each part is 3k+ i think #steddie fic #IF U WANTED TO BE TAGGED AND I DIDNT IM SORRY #lest i come off terribly egotistical i need direct instructions to tag lmao #even then i tagged sum people that just said 'can't wait for part 2!' which? isn't?#I DUNNO #i went off vibes someone said they were vibrating so i was like get over here the next part is here #one of these tags is just a steddie blog i love.... and they reblogged part 1 #corrodedcoughin <3 i love u hehe #the stobin bestie love SHINES in this #i love them so much they are BEST FRIENDS!!!#if u have any ideas... i do love reading the tags and seeing what people want to see next ! im fuckin making it up as i go lol

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fatehbaz · 11 months

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When you tag things “#abolition”, what are you referring to? Abolishing what?

Prisons, generally. Though not just physical walls of formal prisons, but also captivity, carcerality, and carceral thinking. Including migrant detention; national border fences; indentured servitude; inability to move due to, and labor coerced through, debt; de facto imprisonment or isolation of the disabled or medically pathologized; privatization and enclosure of land; categories of “criminality"; etc.

In favor of other, better lives and futures.

Specifically, I am grateful to have learned from the work of these people:

Ruth Wilson Gilmore on “abolition geography”.

Katherine McKittrick on "imaginative geographies"; emotional engagement with place/landscape; legacy of imperialism/slavery in conceptions of physical space and in devaluation of other-than-human lifeforms; escaping enclosure; plantation “afterlives” and how plantation logics continue to thrive in contemporary structures/institutions like cities, prisons, etc.; a “range of rebellions” through collaborative acts, refusal of the dominant order, and subversion through joy and autonomy.

Macarena Gomez-Barris on landscapes as “sacrifice zones”; people condemned to live in resource extraction colonies deemed as acceptable losses; place-making and ecological consciousness; and how “the enclosure, the plantation, the ship, and the prison” are analogous spaces of captivity.

Liat Ben-Moshe on disability; informal institutionalization and incarceration of disabled people through physical limitation, social ostracization, denial of aid, and institutional disavowal; and "letting go of hegemonic knowledge of crime”.

Achille Mbembe on co-existence and care; respect for other-than-human lifeforms; "necropolitics" and bare life/death; African cosmologies; historical evolution of chattel slavery into contemporary institutions through control over food, space, and definitions of life/land; the “explicit kinship between plantation slavery, colonial predation, and contemporary resource extraction” and modern institutions.

Robin Maynard on "generative refusal"; solidarity; shared experiences among homeless, incarcerated, disabled, Indigenous, Black communities; to "build community with" those who you are told to disregard in order "to re-imagine" worlds; envisioning, imagining, and then manifesting those alternative futures which are "already" here and alive.

Leniqueca Welcome on Caribbean world-making; "the apocalyptic temporality" of environmental disasters and the colonial denial of possible "revolutionary futures"; limits of reformism; "infrastructures of liberation at the end of the world."; "abolition is a practice oriented toward the full realization of decolonization, postnationalism, decarceration, and environmental sustainability."

Stefano Harney and Fred Moten on “the undercommons”; fugitivity; dis-order in academia and institutions; and sharing of knowledge.

AM Kanngieser on "deep listening"; “refusal as pedagogy”; and “attunement and attentiveness” in the face of “incomprehensible” and immense “loss of people and ecologies to capitalist brutalities”.

Lisa Lowe on "the intimacies of four continents" and how British politicians and planters feared that official legal abolition of chattel slavery would endanger Caribbean plantation profits, so they devised ways to import South Asian and East Asian laborers.

Ariella Aisha Azoulay on “rehearsals with others’.

Phil Neel on p0lice departments purposely targeting the poor as a way to raise municipal funds; the "suburbanization of poverty" especially in the Great Lakes region; the rise of lucrative "logistics empires" (warehousing, online order delivery, tech industries) at the edges of major urban agglomerations in "progressive" cities like Seattle dependent on "archipelagos" of poverty; and the relationship between job loss, homelessness, gentrification, and these logistics cities.

Alison Mountz on migrant detention; "carceral archipelagoes"; and the “death of asylum”.

Pedro Neves Marques on “one planet with many worlds inside it”; “parallel futures” of Indigenous, Black, disenfranchised communities/cosmologies; and how imperial/nationalist institutions try to foreclose or prevent other possible futures by purposely obscuring or destroying histories, cosmologies, etc.

Peter Redfield on the early twentieth-century French penal colony in tropical Guiana/Guyana; the prison's invocation of racist civilization/savagery mythologies; and its effects on locals.

Iain Chambers on racism of borders; obscured and/or forgotten lives of migrants; and disrupting modernity.

Paulo Tavares on colonial architecture; nationalist myth-making; and erasure of histories of Indigenous dispossession.

Elizabeth Povinelli on "geontopower"; imperial control over "life and death"; how imperial/nationalist formalization of private landownership and commodities relies on rigid definitions of dynamic ecosystems.

Kodwo Eshun on African cosmologies and futures; “the colonial present”; and imperialist/nationalist use of “preemptive” and “predictive” power to control the official storytelling/narrative of history and to destroy alternatives.

Tim Edensor on urban "ghosts" and “industrial ruins”; searching for the “gaps” and “silences” in the official narratives of nations/institutions, to pay attention to the histories, voices, lives obscured in formal accounts.

Megan Ybarra on place-making; "site fights"; solidarity and defiance of migrant detention; and geography of abolition/incarceration.

Sophie Sapp Moore on resistance, marronage, and "forms of counterplantation life"; "plantation worlds" which continue to live in contemporary industrial resource extraction and dispossession.

Deborah Cowen on “infrastructures of empire and resistance”; imperial/nationalist control of place/space; spaces of criminality and "making a life at the edge" of the law; “fugitive infrastructures”.

Elizabeth DeLoughrey on indentured labor; the role of plants, food, and botany in enslaved and fugitive communities; the nineteenth-century British Empire's labor in the South Pacific and Caribbean; the twentieth-century United States mistreatment of the South Pacific; and the role of tropical islands as "laboratories" and isolated open-air prisons for Britain and the US.

Dixa Ramirez D’Oleo on “remaining open to the gifts of the nonhuman” ecosystems; hinterlands and peripheries of empires; attentiveness to hidden landscapes/histories; defying surveillance; and building a world of mutually-flourishing companions.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on reciprocity; Indigenous pedagogy; abolitionism in Canada; camaraderie; solidarity; and “life-affirming” environmental relationships.

Anand Yang on "forgotten histories of Indian convicts in colonial Southeast Asia" and how the British Empire deported South Asian political prisoners to the region to simultaneously separate activists from their communities while forcing them into labor.

Sylvia Wynter on the “plot”; resisting the plantation; "plantation archipelagos"; and the “revolutionary demand for happiness”.

Pelin Tan on “exiled foods”; food sovereignty; building affirmative care networks in the face of detention, forced migration, and exile; connections between military rule, surveillance, industrial monocrop agriculture, and resource extraction; the “entanglement of solidarity” and ethics of feeding each other.

Avery Gordon on haunting; spectrality; the “death sentence” of being deemed “social waste” and being considered someone “without future”; "refusing" to participate; "escaping hell" and “living apart” by striking, squatting, resisting; cultivating "the many-headed hydra of the revolutionary Black Atlantic"; alternative, utopian, subjugated worldviews; despite attempts to destroy these futures, manifesting these better worlds, imagining them as "already here, alive, present."

Jasbir Puar on disability; debilitation; how the control of fences, borders, movement, and time management constitute conditions of de facto imprisonment; institutional control of illness/health as a weapon to "debilitate" people; how debt and chronic illness doom us to a “slow death”.

Kanwal Hameed and Katie Natanel on "liberation pedagogy"; sharing of knowledge, education, subversion of colonial legacy in universities; "anticolonial feminisms"; and “spaces of solidarity, revolt, retreat, and release”.

#abolition

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tanadrin · 1 month

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RE "revolutionary leftists are revolutionary because they know they can't win electorally."

It astounds me a little that there are leftists who think that a communist revolution is more likely to work than, like, fifty years of community-building and electoral politics. Sewer socialism, union activism, and other boring activities have brought much more success in the U.S. than agitation for a revolution.

What I mean is, setting aside the moral concerns (violence is bad, even when it's necessary, and if there are practical alternatives then we should pursue them), I am not a revolutionary leftist because I think we would lose a revolution. For one thing, there is a considerable right-wing element in the country that is much better prepared for this kind of thing, and I think that the majority of the institutions in the U.S. would pick fascism over communism if they had to choose, but also, prolonged violent action is ripe for breeding authoritarianism.

Goatse is concerned that "the party" might "abandon or neglect its primary ends," but what is leftism if it is not, at bottom, an attempt to improve the living conditions of all people, et cetera et cetera? To the extent that social democratic parties successfully pursue this end to some degree, they're better than than an ostensible communist party that talks the talk but commits human rights abuses. And, more than the fact that U.S. leftism has some pretty fierce opposition that would probably fare better if The Revolution happened tomorrow, I think that, even in winning, we would lose, because what came out the other end would look a lot more like Stalinism.

I think one thing the hardcore revolutionaries in OECD countries don't realize is that the reason they can't marshal support for their revolutions is that the socialists won most of the issues that were salient in the early 20th century--workers got more rights, better pay, unions were legalized, etc., etc. But it didn't take restructuring the whole political economy to do it, which is immensely frustrating if you believe that any society without your ideal political economy is inherently immoral and impure, so in order to justify an explicitly communist platform you have to rhetorically isolate it from the filthy libs and feckless demsocs who it turns out have been pretty effective within the arena of electoral politics in which supposedly nothing can ever get done, and treat them as of a piece with the out-and-out fascists and royalist autocrats of the 1920s and 30s.

Which, you know. Is not persuasive to most people! Most people understand intuitively the vast gulf between the SPD and the Nazis; they see that, milquetoast and compromising though they may be, the center-left can deliver substantive policy improvements without the upheaval of a civil war or political purges, and this is attractive to people who are not of a millenarian or left-authoritarian personality.

Which isn't to say that communists don't often make important points! It sucks having to fight a constant rearguard action against the interests of capital rolling back the social improvements of the 20th century, and it sucks that liberal governments in Europe and North America have historically been quite happy to bankroll and logistically support fascists and tyrants in the third world against communist movements (which invariably only exist as communist movements because these same fascists and tyrants have crushed more compromising movements and only the most militant organizations have managed to survive).

But I agree with you: communists also talk a big game about how liberalism is the real fascism (what's that line from Disco Elysium I see quoted everywhere about how everybody is secretly a fascist except the other communists, who are liberals?), while also being awful at democracy. Suppressing dissent because your small clique of political elites is the only legitimate expression of the people's will (which you know, because you have declared it to be so) really is some rank bullshit. A system with competitive elections is still, well, a system with competitive elections, even if those elections are structurally biased in certain ways; all the bloviating that attempts to justify communist authoritarianism cannot really obscure the fact that authoritarian systems are cruel and brittle, regardless of the ideology being served.

#world's worst leftist #i'm not a huge fan of capitalism #but i am a huge fan of democracy #liberalism rules actually #and its highest expression is probably democratic socialism

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literary-illuminati · 3 months

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An Arbitrary Collection of Book Recommendations

(put together for a friend out of SFF I've read over the last couple of years)

Cli-Fi

Tusks of Extinction and/or The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. They’re pretty different books in a lot of ways – one is a novel about discovering a certain species of squid in the Pacific might have developed symbolic language and writing, the other a novella about a de-extinction initiative to restore mammoths to the Siberian taiga – but they share a pretty huge overlap in setting, tone and themes. Specifically, a deep and passionate preoccupation with animal conservation (and a rather despairing perspective on it), as well as a fascination with transhumanism and how technology can affect the nature of consciousness. Mountain is his first work, and far more substantial, but I’d call it a bit of a noble failure in achieving what it tries for. Tusks is much more limited and contained, but manages what it’s going for.

A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys. In a post-post-apocalyptic world that’s just about figured out how to rebuild itself from the climate disasters of the 21st century (but that’s still very much a work in progress), aliens descend from the sky and make First Contact. They’re a symbiotic civilization, and they’re overjoyed at the chance to welcome a third species into their little interstellar community – and consider it a mission of mercy besides, since every other species they’ve ever encountered destroyed themselves and their planet before escaping it. Awkwardly, our heroine and her whole society are actually pretty invested in Earth and the restoration thereof – and worried that a) the alien’s rescue effort might not care about their opinions and b) that other interest groups on earth might be more willing to give the hyper-advanced space-dwelling aliens the answers they want to hear. Basically 100% sociological worldbuilding and political intrigue, so take that as you will.

Throwback Sci Fi

Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky is possibly the only thing I’ve read published in decades to take the old cliche of ‘this generic-seeming fantasy world is actually the wreckage of a ruined space age civilization, and ‘magic’ and ‘monsters’ are the remnants of the technology’ and play it entirely straight. Specifically, it’s a two-POV novella, where half the story is told from the perspective of a runaway princess beseeching the ancient wizard who helped found her dynasty for help against a magical threat, and half is from the perspective form the last surviving member of a xeno-anthropology mission woken out of stasis by the consequences of the last time he broke the Prime Directive knocking on his ship tower door and asking for help. Generally just incredible fun.

Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh is, I think, the only thing on this list written before the turn of the millennium. It’s proper space opera, about a habitat orbiting an immensely valuable living world that’s the lynchpin of logistics for the functionally rogue Earth Fleet’s attempt to hold off or defeat rebelling and somewhat alien colonies further out. The plot is honestly hard to summarize, except that it captures the feel of being history better than very nearly any other spec fic I’ve ever read – a massive cast, none of them with a clear idea of what’s going on, clashing and contradictory agendas, random chance and communications delays playing key roles, lots of messy ending, not a single world-shaking heroes or satanic masterminds deforming the shape of things with their narrative gravity to be seen. Somewhat dated, but it all very impressively well done.

Pulpy Gay Urban Fantasy Period Piece Detective Stories Where Angels Play a Prominent Role

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark stars Fatma el-Sha’arawi, the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities in Cairo, a couple of decades after magic returned to the world and entirely derailed the course of Victorian imperialism. There’s djinn and angels and crocodile gods, and also an impossible murder that needs solving! The mystery isn’t exactly intellectually taxing, but this is a very fun tropey whodunnit whose finale involves a giant robot.

Even Though I Knew The End by C. L. Polk is significantly more restrained and grounded in its urban fantasy. It’s early 20th century Chicago, and a PI is doing one last job to top off the nest egg she’s leaving her girlfriend before the debt on her deal with the devil comes due. By what may or may not be coincidence, she stumbles across a particularly gruesome crime scene – and is offered a deal to earn back her soul by solving the mystery behind it. Very noir detective, with a setting that just oozes care and research and a satisfyingly tight plot.

High Concept Stuff That Loves Playing around With Format and the Idea of Narratives

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente is a story about a famous documentarian vanishing on shoot amid mysterious and suspicious circumstances, as told by the recovered scraps of the footage she was filming, and different drafts of her (famous director) father’s attempt to dramatize the events as a memorial to her. It’s set in a solar system where every planet is habitable and most were colonized in the 19th century, and culturally humanity coasts on in an eternal Belle Epoque and (more importantly) Golden Age of Hollywood. Something like half the book is written as scripts and transcripts. This description should by now either have sold you or put you off entirely.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez is the only classic-style epic fantasy on this list, I believe? The emperor and his three demigod sons hold subjugated in terror, but things are changing. The emperor, terrified of death, has ordered a great fleet assembled to carry him across the sea in pursuit of immortality. The day before he sets out on his grand pilgrimage to the coast, a guilt-ridden guard helps the goddess of the moon escape her binding beneath the palace. From there, things spiral rapidly out of anyone’s control. The story’s told through two or three (depending( different layers of narrative framing devices, and has immense amounts of fun playing with perspective and format and ideas about storytelling and legacy.

I Couldn’t Think of Any Categories That Included More Than One of These

All The Names They Used For God by Anjali Sachdeva is a collection of short stories, and probably the most literary thing on this list? The stories range wildly across setting and genre, but are each more or less about the intrusion of the numinous or transcendent or divine into a world that cracks and breaks trying to contain it. It is very easily the most artistically coherent short story collection I’ve ever read, which I found pretty fascinating to read – but honestly I’m mostly just including this on the strength of Killer of Kings, a story about an angel sent down to be John Milton’s muse as he writes Paradise Lost which is probably one of the best things I read last year period.

Last Exit by Max Gladstone – the Three Parts Dead and How You Lose the Time War guy – could be described as a deconstruction of ‘a bunch of teenagers/college kids discover magic and quest to save the world!’ stories, but honestly I’d say that obscures more than it reveals. Still, the story is set with that having happened a decade in the past, and the kids in question have thoroughly fucked up. Zelda, the protagonist, is kept from suicide by survivor’s guilt as much as anything, and now travels across America working poverty jobs and sleeping in her car as she hunts the monsters leaking in through the edges of a country rotting at the seams. Then there’s a monster growing in the cracks of the liberty bell, an in putting it down she gets a vision of someone she thought was dead is just trapped – or maybe changed. So it’s time to get the gang together again and save the world! This one’s hard to rec without spoiling a lot, but the prose and characterization are all just sublime. Oddly in conversation with the whole Delta Green cosmic horror monster hunting subgenre for a story with nothing to do with Lovecraft.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh is a story about aliens destroying the earth, and growing up in the pseudo-fascist asteroid survivalist compound of the last bits of the human military that never surrendered. It stars a heroine whose genuinely indoctrinated for the first chunk of the book and just deeply endearing terrible and awful to interact with, and also has a plot that’s effectively impossible to describe without spoiling the big twist at the end of the first act. Possibly the only book I read last year which I actively wish was longer – which is both compliment and genuine complaint, for the record, the ending’s a bit messy. Still, genuinely meaty Big Ideas space opera with very well-done characterization and a plot that does hold together.

#meta #book recommendations #sff #sharing this mostly so I don't lose it next time my laptop dies #and also hey why not

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e1e4n0r5 · 5 months

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Twisted Love - Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Summary: You always expected to marry your twin brother, Daeron. However, when this does not come to be, you find comfort with your siblings. As only Targaryens could.

Okay, can't lie, I struggled with this chapter. I just wanted to bring Daeron back but logistically couldn't because of the necessary time jump. After all, it would have been very unlikely for Alicent & Otto to allow Daeron to come home the second Reader is no longer "available", so yes we have a time jump. Lovely family life for our foursome!

Warnings: oral sex, vaginal sex, pregnancy, descriptions of childbirth, lactation kink, talk of postpartum bodies

As it turned out, perhaps you were meant for Aemond all along. Over the two years previous, Aemond had proven himself to be an excellent lover, whilst still able to maintain the public façade of being simply a loving brother to his younger sister. But from the moment the two of you first walked arm-in-arm through the corridors of the Red Keep, he excelled as a husband. He thrived on it, basking in it. Born to fulfil that role. The validation and approval he felt when he saw the courtiers looking at your matching rings satisfied him immensely. He practically preened whenever someone addressed either of you as ‘husband’ or ‘wife’. Your husband was glowing with pride, and you loved that for him.

Growing up, the middle Targaryen-Hightower sibling often felt excluded from the five of you. There was Aegon and Helaena, and you and Daeron. Where did that leave Aemond, he wondered all his life. He didn’t know that you had never intended for your second brother to be excluded; you would have taken him as a second husband in the very same ceremony in which you would have married Daeron. The five of you would never have been separated. You would never have allowed that to happen. Never.

But now he felt secure in his place, with you officially by his side and he by yours. Before your marriage, the two of you would spend time together, of course, you were siblings after all. But now, it was like Aemond wanted you with him constantly. He could barely stand to be apart from you. He even moved his training time to the first thing in the morning, at the very crack of dawn, because he knew you slept until mid-morning, and he wanted to be there when you woke. He didn’t want to miss a second with you. After he broke fast with you, you bathed together – he had to clean after his training, and you weren’t about to pass up the opportunity to spend time with your handsome naked husband – then you would both spend time with family, typically Helaena and the children. You would ride your dragons together, walk through the gardens together, read in the library together. Every possible second he could spend by your side, Aemond did so.

But it didn’t madden you, because you understood the reason why: Aemond was happy.

At long last, Aemond Targaryen was finally happy.

After spending his entire childhood feeling isolated, being bullied by the Velaryon boys for not having a dragon, then having his eye carved out by Lucerys after claiming Vhagar, Aemond was finally happy with his life. He had a beautiful wife who loved him; two lovers in his other siblings; and finally approval from the courtiers – despite how much he might deny how important that last part was to him. You were well loved at court, and he was your husband; having an adored wife was always a bonus for a prince. After Rhaenyra’s long absences from court, her moniker had somehow been placed upon your head, and Aemond flourished in the knowledge that his wife was now the Realm’s Delight. It thrilled him.

So no-one was shocked when you announced your pregnancy within only a few months of being married. You lay with your husband almost every night and you never once drank Moon Tea. It was inevitable, and most welcome. Not entirely by your mother or grandsire. They both smiled for you and toasted your health, but you could tell they weren’t completely happy. Perhaps they had hoped that if no children occurred soon enough, that they could dissolve the marriage and use either you, Aemond, or both of you to secure alliances elsewhere in the Six Kingdoms. But your mother hugged you and wished you well, offering advice and support about pregnancy and what you could expect.

Helaena announced her pregnancy a fortnight after yours but told you when you were all together that night that she had conceived the same night as you – your wedding night. The four of you were all thrilled; you had everything you wanted. You were all together, and there were two babes on the way. Life was perfect.

But you did still miss Daeron. You were delightfully happy and content with your new life, but that didn't - couldn't – take away how much you still longed for your twin. When the midwife had confirmed your pregnancy and a kiss had been pressed to your cheek, a part of you had expected to turn your head and see Daeron beside you. You weren't disappointed that it was Aemond, but that part of you that had long desired to marry Daeron hadn't gone away.

And you knew Daeron felt the same. You wrote to your twin almost every day, even though ravens took almost a week to travel to Oldtown and another week to return. You and Daeron would just send your replies to each other paired with the original letter, that way you would always know which conversation you were replying to. But when you sent him your letter announcing your pregnancy, he didn't respond to it. He replied to others, with an undeniably stilted tone, but he never addressed your condition. He would ask if you were well and that he wished you good health, but he never directly acknowledged the babe in your belly. You knew it must have been hard for him, to hear of your marriage to another brother and know that you were carrying that other man's child, but it still hurt.

You could only hope that your mother and grandsire would finally allow Daeron to return home, now that they thought you weren't free to marry each other. Nothing to do, but wait for the final sibling to return home. It was just a question of how long that would take.

Aemond closed the door behind him as he returned from visiting Vhagar. He glanced around your rooms on his way inside.

“Abrazȳrys? (wife)” he called.

A sash suddenly came down over his head, pressing lightly against his throat. For a split second, Aemond panicked, but then he calmed as he assessed the situation. It was a silk sash, not a rope or chain. Whoever was behind him was significantly smaller than him, with breasts and a bumped stomach. An unlikely assassin. Then a familiar perfume filled his senses.

“You shouldn't play with fire, little one,” he purred. “We wouldn't want you getting burned,” he looked over his shoulder at you.

You smiled up at him, the ends of the sash in your hands. “I won't get burned, husband-”

“Then would you care to explain your actions? Sneaking up on a trained warrior, tying a rope around his neck... Something awful could have happened to you had I not recognised your delicious fragrance.” His voice was hard, reprimanding you.

You pouted. “I wanted to take charge tonight.”

That shocked Aemond. You had never once expressed a desire to be in charge in the bedroom, always so happy and willing to follow his lead in everything you did together. You didn’t even top with Aegon or Helaena – you were the most submissive sibling, always happy to submit to everyone. Aemond himself was the most dominant, never submitting to anyone. Aegon was mostly dominant, though he did enjoy certain submissive activities – he had even fully submitted to Aemond on several occasions. Helaena was flexible, though she was always dominant to you.

“What has provoked this new want of yours?”

You shrugged. “I don't know precisely. I just want to try it, see if I like it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I can fetch Aegon or Helaena-”

“No,” you protested. “I want it to be you.”

He turned slowly in your arms, the sash moving from his throat to the back of his neck. “I'm not suited to submission, Y/N.”

You frowned sadly. “You don't trust me.”

“I trust you with my very being, with all that I am.”

“…But?”

He pulled you close, pressing his hips to yours as best he could, given your lightly rounded pregnant belly. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I take over, darling? You always receive such pleasure with me, do you not? You know I can give you anything you desire,” he ran the tip of his nose up your neck, pressing soft kisses as he went.

Your eyes fluttered closed, sighing softly. But you stopped. “No! No, I know what tricks you’re playing,” you protested.

Aemond sighed through his nose. “You won't be swayed?”

You shook your head.

“There is nothing I can offer, or promise, or provide you that will change your mind?”

Again, you shook your head.

“Very well then.” He stood up straight, clasping his arms behind his back. “Do you want to begin now?”

You grinned widely, nodding. “Yes!”

“Then I am yours.”

Hours later

You took control hours ago, and you had only climaxed once, Aemond not at all. You had started the two of you off slowly, asking Aemond for a long massage of your entire body. Your pregnancy was starting to send aches through your body as you grew to accommodate your baby, and you were getting sore most days. It was certainly no hardship for Aemond to lie you down, supporting your body with soft pillows atop your bed, and slowly, sensually, and thoroughly rub his hands across your body. He made a note to himself to do it for you more often; going by the sounds you made, your body definitely needed it.

He had soothed your body for an hour, leaving you floppy and relaxed on the bed. Afterwards, you took control back and had him get on his knees at the end of the bed. Again, not exactly a hardship for him. But it had been for you; your desire to be in control had made you direct him too much – ‘up a bit, harder, suck gently, faster’ – and rendered you unable to truly relax and enjoy your husband’s attention. When Aemond politely suggested that you relax and let him please you his way, given how he knew your body and knew precisely how to give the most pleasure, you had reprimanded him, thinking he was trying to take back control.

It was a long hour for the both of you before your legs had finally started to shake and your orgasm eventually arrived, not as satisfying as usual. You then ordered your husband onto his back on the bed, climbing over his hips and started to ride. Something you had done many times and that you both always enjoyed. But it wasn't going well.

Aemond looks up at you, pity rising inside him as he watches you grip the headboard over his head and try to maintain your rhythm. You’re tiring, quickly. He can read your face perfectly after years of experience; your head tilted forward indicates your fatigue from riding; the tiniest crease between your brows shows your frustration at not climaxing for so long; and the subtle tremor of your jaw tells him you’re close to tears.

He squeezes your hips softly. “Y/N,” he purrs your name, “stop, sweetheart-”

“No!” you snap. “I can-” you pause to pant, “I can keep going! I’m doing it! I’m in charge!”

He shakes his head. “Y/N, do you trust me?”

His random question makes you stop, your quivering thighs giving way and dropping your hips onto his. “What?”

“Do you trust me?” he repeats calmly, rubbing his hand over your tense thighs. He’ll need to massage them again later.

Your shaking arms drop down from the headboard, falling limply at your sides. “Yes,” you concede.

He knows you’ve given up, and that you’re upset about it. He knows you feel like a failure. “Come here, darling,” he urges you to lie down against his chest, holding you tightly. He gives you a minute to catch your breath, kissing your forehead every few seconds. When your breathing has slowed, he tightens his hold on you, slowly and carefully rolling the two of you over. With your body under his, you visibly relax, your drained body sinking into the soft mattress with a relieved sigh.

“You did so well, darling,” he praises, dotting kisses all over your cheeks and neck.

You’re too exhausted to shake your head. “It was awful! I could have done-”

“It was your first attempt at domination, Y/N. You can always try again.”

“With Aegon or Helaena,” you giggle.

He smiles down at you. “That would be best. I’d be happy to instruct you, if that was what you wanted?”

You shake your head. “I actually didn’t enjoy it that much. It made my mind too busy; I couldn’t focus on enjoying myself. How do you do it? How do you make it seem like you’re focusing on me completely, and still be able to find your own pleasure?”

He slips his fingers into your hair, rubbing your scalp gently. Your eyes close as you release a low moan. “Because for me, receiving your submission and giving you pleasure is what gives me pleasure. Having you suck my cock is pleasurable, but it’s your submission in the act that is most satisfying for me. Your cunt is a joy to fuck, but it’s the trust you place in me as I do that fulfils me. Do you understand, darling?”

You nod. “I think so?”

He kisses your lips. “Good. Do you want to continue, or should we let you rest?”

“I want you to finish,” you answer, surprising him.

“Not yourself as well?”

You shrug. “I think I’m too tired.”

He smirks. “Well, that is a challenge if ever I knew one. Let’s see what we can do for you, shall we?”

And he did not disappoint. He started slow, letting your body adjust to him again through your fatigue. It was the most pleasure you’d experienced all evening. He held you close, kissing you deeply, knowing just what rhythm to keep by how you moved under him, the sounds you made, the way you begged him for more. It was well into the night when you finally used your safe word, tapping his shoulder three times with a mumbled 'bantazma' (long night), indicating to Aemond that perhaps eight orgasms was sufficient for the evening.

He made you do fifteen the following night.

Your pregnancy went perfectly, everyone said you handled it wonderfully. Like a true Princess, many courtiers had complimented. Helaena gave birth only a few days before you, to a beautiful healthy son. They had yet to announce a name for their third child, and you suspected she and Aegon were waiting for you to give birth yourself. Your sister had mentioned a few times that she thought it would be nice for your children to have similar names, given that they were conceived on the same night. If the Maesters and midwives were to be believed, your labours would begin any day.

And it was. You started having pains in the late hours, Aemond staying up all night to rub your back and tummy for you as you tried to get some rest. By day break, your waters had broken and your pains increased. The Maesters tried to make Aemond leave the room, but he just stared them down.

"The birthing room is not a fit place for a man, your Highness."

"And how do you plan on removing me from my wife as she births our child?" he snapped coldly, even as he rubbed your hips whilst you clung to him during a contraction.

"He stays," you insisted through gritted teeth. “If you take him from me, our dragons will feed well tomorrow.”

Helaena and your mother came in from time to time, giving Aemond brief respites, but he was never gone long. Aegon stayed with the children and nannies, keeping himself occupied and out the way. Whilst he did want to see you, it wasn't permitted – after all, to everyone else, he was merely your brother, nothing more. To have him, a man who wasn’t your husband or a Maester, in the room would have caused scandal and rumour. Aemond assured him whenever he left the room that you were doing well and the Maesters had absolutely no concerns about you or the child. They anticipated an easy birth for you both.

And they were correct. It was agony, but all went well. You insisted on pushing completely naked, standing in front of the window, looking out over the city. The sun was high in the sky and bathed your skin with its heat. It soothed your Targaryen blood, and you felt peace as you pushed, despite the pain. Aemond stood by your side, holding you upright as the midwife guided your efforts. With a long and low groan, your child was born just after midday. A son was placed in your arms, crying his lungs out until he rested his ear against your chest. Aemond held you tightly as you wept with joy, pressing a kiss to the top of your head as a tear slipped down his own cheek.

The midwives cleaned you up and got you back into bed, your mother the Queen waiting patiently outside to be let in. She, Aegon, and Helaena carrying her new-born son, all entered when you called them in, large smiles all around.

“Well done, my darling,” your mother praised, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “A healthy son?”

You smiled down at your sleeping babe. “He’s perfect.”

“Have you got a name?” Aegon asked, standing next to Aemond and giving him a congratulatory pat on the back.

Aemond looked at you, and you gave him a happy nod. He lifted his head proudly. “We've called him Maenor.”

Aegon raised his eyebrows. “There's never been a Maenor before.”

“First of His Name,” you agreed. You looked at Helaena and her baby. “Have you finally got a name for your son, sister?”

She came and sat next to you on the bed. “We waited for you. This is Maelor.”

Aemond looked at Aegon, “First of His Name?”

Aegon nodded proudly. “Great minds think alike, brother.”

“Maelor and Maenor?” Alicent blinked a few times but smiled at both her daughters. “They're both beautiful boys, with strong names. Though it may take some time to...Remember.”

You smiled at your obviously tense mother. “Just remember that both Helaena and Maelor have Ls in their names, and me and my son don't.”

She nodded. “Very helpful, daughter, thank you.”

Motherhood came naturally to you. Of course you had nannies and a wet nurse to care for your son during the nights, but you wouldn't be removed from him after you woke. You even followed in Helaena’s footsteps and shocked the court by feeding Maenor from your own breast. It was almost completely unheard of that a high-born lady would nurse their children – your own mother certainly hadn't – but you loved the bond it created between the two of you. It was hard at first, even painful at times, but it was worth it to you.

Your brothers and sister had no complaints either. After the Maester and midwife had cleared you and Helaena to resume ‘marital relations’, the four of you had almost fallen over each other to get back to Aegon’s and Helaena’s rooms. And the first thing the three of them did was strip you naked, lay you down and worship your breasts. You, Aegon, and Aemond had all sampled Helaena’s milk from having the twins; and now the three of them wanted to try yours.

Aemond had already had a taste when you nervously indulged his interest one night, so he settled his head between your legs whilst your siblings kissed and licked and sucked gently on your breasts. He had sorely missed this most intimate part of you since your birth, and he was aching to get reacquainted. He kissed and licked and sucked gently, bringing you to a soft and peaceful climax for your first time after having a baby, and you almost cried with your release.

Then it was Helaena’s turn, receiving the same treatment from the three of you; her husband between her legs and her siblings at her breasts. She had a few more lines on her tummy than you, and you made sure to kiss every single one.

Life had moved on with your growing family, now a family of four with a daughter following your son. Maenor was now four, and your beautiful, sweet Aena was nine moons. You didn’t know where the time had gone, life and time were odd concepts. Helaena hadn’t had another child after their son born only one week before Maenor, but she and Aegon had said she was going to stop taking Moon Tea soon. Knowing how easily she had fallen pregnant with the twins and their son Maelor, Helaena would be pregnant before her next moon’s blood.

The four of you were all passing an afternoon together, surrounded by your growing brood of children, when a page was let into the large sitting room. He headed for you as you were closest to the door, pouring yourself a cup of tea from the sideboard near the door. Helaena was sat on a sofa with Aena in her lap and her daughter Jaehaera at her side, showing the older child illustrations of insects from a book; Aena was asleep in her arms, still needing several naps a day. Aegon and Aemond were on the floor rough-housing with Jaehaerys, Maelor, and Maenor.

The page presented a scroll on a silver platter to you, a polite nod of his head with a quiet ‘princess’. You smiled and gave a thanks as you opened the scroll, your smile widening when you saw Daeron’s seal. You unfurled the scroll, your eyes moving left to right as you read the carefully penned words. Your eyes welled up.

Aemond saw you from his spot on the floor, even as he dangled Maenor over his shoulder whilst the little boy screeched with laughter. “What is it, issa jorrāelagon (my love)?”

You looked up at him, joyful tears trickling down your cheeks. “Daeron’s coming home.”

And Aemond’s heart sank.

Chapter 3

@watercolorskyy @shesjustanothergeek @aemondsdelight @thelittleswanao3 @misspascalpunk

#twisted love #aemond targaryen #reader #aemond x reader #aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen x reader #helaena targaryen #helaena x reader #helaena targaryen x reader #house of the dragon #hotd #daeron targaryen #daeron targaryen x reader

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betterbemeta · 2 months

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Non-Bullshit Self-Affirmation Exercise

I'm nobody's therapist and I shouldn't be. But the world we're in is mentally damaging. Any world would be to some extent, and I understand different people have different experiences of the world. But whoever you are I think we can agree most environments we're in don't promote a good relationship with 'the self.'

I can't say 'you should like who you are' or 'you should think you have all these great virtues.' That isn't up to me. But whether you already 'like yourself' or 'are building yourself' or 'want to like a future self more' you can't do that easily if 'who you currently are' is passively eroded without relief.

And this can happen a lot of ways I think. Our responsibilities (school, job, etc.) don't value our authentic experiences but instead our 'performance' within a system. Our bodily needs and logistical realities can frame the practical steps to our care like a burden for ourselves or for others. We are constantly assaulted with external appeals to desire that disrespect our own effort to navigate those desires ourselves. And so much stuff can feel 'more important than ourselves' like, why is it relevant you're a person when immense choices jeopardize the future and the lives of collective humanity???

A lot of talk about 'self-care' is bastardized into like... 'giving yourself special treats' which often can tie in to a highly consumerist culture or self-destructive habits. And 'special treats' may feel irresponsible or like a waste of time in the face of our practical human problems. But the important part is not actually the 'treat', but that the context of the treat is yours. This is YOUR unique treat, that represents you, showing up for you.

And looking at yourself can feel embarrassing. But it's not a coincidence that the 'least cringe' position, least vulnerable position, is to erase yourself. But you're not superficial. And stating 'yourself' is not egotistical. It's the foundation for everything else that matters, and could matter about you to another person.

So like. Some self-affirmations. Not the type that's like, "I'm brave, I'm smart, I'm good, I'm worthy, I'm flexible," etc. I mean:

My favorite color is...

My favorite food is...

I remember a time when I felt, 'wow'...

When I speak, I am [loud, soft, wordy, brief, etc.]...

I am interested in...

People who are [X] inspire me...

I wish I was more...

I wish I was less...

When people meet me, I want them to feel...

My favorite animal is...

I like to spend a free afternoon doing...

I like my spaces to be...

The smell of [x] reminds me of...

When I daydream, the story is usually this type...

I think about these on-purpose maybe once a week.

Affirmations like these may seem childish, basic, frivolous compared to building 'successful habits' and routines. And those are useful, but they can only keep you moving forward through a harsh environment; relying fully on 'discipline' to carry on will put you on paths where an external default is affirmed and your authenticity will be overwritten.

Whether you are trying to become more confident, or trying to work on your self awareness, trying to 'hang in there,' trying to reconcile who you have to be at different parts of your life, trying to unblock your creativity, or if you're entering a new part of your life... even if you think you have yourself all figured out, I believe purposefully sitting down to think about these things will help you.

#self care #self love #self help #stressful bad day? write a post about how you're better able to handle it than you would have been years ago #works for me #long post #self confidence #when people say 'kill the cringe cop inside you' this is actually the gun you need to use #yelling NO!!! at the self does not actually help free you or help heal you from a world that already screams NO!!!

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velvetures · 9 months

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Can we please have a cute gaz fic where they are pining on each other and everyone on base is naturally done with their shit ;))

Take It Easy

A/N: This isn't exactly... "spicy", because I used a trope that shot myself in the foot. Anyway, I hope you're happy with how this turned out. If not, let me know. I really love writing for Gaz, and I'd like to get more practice in and feel his character out to where it's more accurate. :) HE'S SO DAMN CUTE IN THIS PIC!!!

Summary: You've always had a thing for Gaz... and he's felt the same way. Everyone else knows it, but it takes a little shock for you both to figure it out.

T/W: injury description, some heat but no spice, suggestive content, Price being a mood-killer, not proofread.

Kyle Garrick is well known as a man of few words, but immense power of action. He’s typically not going to have a handful of words on any topic at one time, and if he does, it’s definitely worth listening. Getting his point across isn’t hard though. Between his very expressive face and the far more interesting use of his hands and touch. Gaz very often employs the use of pats, nudges, hugs, and the occasional slap to ensure you’re on the same page with him.

The problem is, that it made your crush on Kyle that much harder to cope with. You spent so much time around him that it was almost impossible to go more than a couple of hours without touching him in some way or another. By it his knee up against yours sitting on a couch, a hand holding to the back of your parachute before a jump, or putting an arm around your waist to yank you out of harm's way. Rationalizing that he did it for nothing other than practical purposes helped take the edge off. Yet a small crack in your heart deepened when you had to remind yourself that he probably didn’t mean anything by it.

From the first week you met him, Gaz instantly had you wrapped around his finger without even trying. Just seeing him smile at one of Soap’s jokes or hearing him laugh practically melted you down into your boots. Even in his less-than-sweet moments, that little voice in the back of your head and the pulse between your thighs got heavier when you saw him coming out of a mission; dirty as fuck and panting, a hardened look in his eyes and sweat dripping off his face. Perfection, in your opinion, fell short when describing Kyle. Unbeknownst to you, there were plenty of reasons for him to be just as nervous around you.

Smart, skilled, and downright sexy… it was a total package for Gaz, and he always felt like attempting to make a hint or ask you out on a date just to see what your reaction would be. Talking wasn’t his best skill though, and when he was around you there wasn’t a single thought in his head that didn’t revolve around a subtle scream of frustration that he couldn’t just get you alone for more than a couple minutes. He loved how affectionate you could be after working in the same footsteps as himself and the other guys. Plenty of reasons and experiences to leave you jaded or downright pissed off with the world. Managing to keep himself from falling into that same trap got a lot easier after you came around. And maybe it was self-serving, but Kyle liked the idea of keeping you for himself so he’d never have to feel that way ever again. Admittedly, he thought about it a lot. Being a lot more than just a partner.

Through a few mistakes on paperwork and simple logistics, you’d been asked to stay behind for a mission. The 141 had not been expecting the loss of a teammate, but you’d been very quick to reassure them that before you’d come along, they managed just fine and this time would be no different. Besides, it wasn’t supposed to be more than a capture and kill of three terrorist organization leaders causing a bit too much trouble and making everyone nervous. All the intel was vetted multiple times, and you’d even been able to sit in on the briefings up until the last minute before they left. So it was a shock when they came back dirty as hell, half of them covered in blood -not their own- and Kyle hardly able to walk on his own two feet with a massive hole in his t-shirt soaked thoroughly in blood -of his own. You couldn’t have been out of your seat any faster, pushing right past Cap and Soap, shouldering Ghost’s massive body out of your way and staring up at Kyle with wide eyes and a worried look.

“What the hell happened to you, Gaz?” Instantly your hand was pressed softly against the hole in his shirt, feeling thick bandages taped up around the area just left of his abs and below his chest.

“Jesus... you got fucking shot?”

Your mind was already spinning, trying to figure out why he wasn’t in the hospital or at least in the medical wing of HQ getting professionally looked at, instead of standing here like a used gun range target. Kyle watched you with a bit of surprise, looking over your head to see the others staring with wide grins and Ghost shaking his head disappointedly. There was no denying that they all knew how he felt about her, but this was a lot more attention than he was used to getting. Not that he didn’t enjoy it. He huffed a little, putting his hand over yours and taking as deep of a breath as he could manage with bruised ribs and internals.

“Nothing awful, small round,” He attempted to soothe you, but apparently hearing what kind of round wasn’t what you wanted to hear. Your face twisted in anger and hurt, and you looked up at him like a kicked little puppy. It made his heart clench, and not because of his injury.

“Easy… my vest stopped the majority, okay?”

With that, he pulled up the hem of his shirt just enough for you to see that there was minimal blood soaking into the gauze and padded patch over him. It made your cheeks heat up, seeing him quite like that right in front of you. But you tried to swallow down your nervous energy and nod. Kyle just smiled, pulling you just a little closer to him with an arm wrapped around your shoulders, burying his face in the crown of your head with a stiff sigh. You were always so damn sweet… worrying about everyone but yourself. But this felt a little different than normal. He didn’t know why, but that feeling alone possessed him to press a soft kiss to the top of your head, lingering there just to make sure you knew exactly what he was doing before pulling back.

“No more missions without me,” You say quietly, hand fisting in his shirt. “I mean it, Kyle.”

You saying his name was new too.

You hardly ever called him that, and when you did there was a damn good reason for it. He’d always found it endearing realizing that you saved his actual name for occasions when a nickname didn’t feel personal or affectionate enough. Although you didn’t have a call sign like the rest of them, he just murmured your name back into your hair, rubbing one hand over your head softly. Gaz understood that even though he’d not meant to, him coming in without warning of what happened actually scared you quite a bit, and it made him feel really guilty for not thinking that it could affect you any more than it did him. Fuck. He was still alive, and walking… There wasn’t much else to be worried about in the grand scheme of things. Yet feeling you cling to his shirt helped him come to see that it might not only be him who had feelings deeper than two regular operators might share.

“I promise, love.” He squeezed you affectionately; Both of you knowing damn well he’d told a lie just to ease your upset. Yet that was exactly what you needed, and Kyle couldn’t think of anything more he wanted to give you. Well… maybe a couple of things crossed his mind. But that could wait for later. At least until he could actually sit down and stand up without his whole torso burning. He kissed the top of your head again, inhaling the sweet scent of your shampoo and feeling a touch of dampness like you’d not been out of the shower very long ago. It settled in his mind and bones, helping take the edge off of a long day and the remnants of adrenaline still rushing through his blood.

“Hate to interrupt the party,” The Captain’s dry and somewhat flat tone reminded the both of you that you weren’t in a private room. And that everything had been said under Price and Soap’s watchful eyes. Ghost was long gone, already knowing damn well what was going to happen. He’d already seen it long before either of you quite recognized it, and didn’t feel like staying for the re-run. “But if you don’t mind… finish that shit somewhere else. I’d like to drink my whiskey without all the extra… affection. If you don’t mind.”

Gaz stiffened, and you couldn’t help but blush. It’d been nothing short of instinct, seeing him visibly the worst off of the squad. And now that you were sure he was going to be okay, it had made a lot of little questions in the shape of missing pieces suddenly snap right into place. Unfortunately, it appeared everyone but you and Kyle were already more than finished with the topic and were honestly just hoping you’d figure it out. Price definitely didn’t think it would take Garrick getting shot for you two to stop running circles around each other, but now that was taken care of. So he didn’t have to be so subtle anymore. And neither did Soap, who gave a deep whistle and wink before shoving his hands in his pockets and disappearing down the hallways towards his own room.

“Come on,” Kyle nudged you gently. “Got a couple things I want to talk ya about.”

Walking sheepishly past Price, who’d already poured a few fingers of whiskey shot a somewhat dryly amused look in your direction before settling down in a chair with his feet propped up and a cigar pinched between two fingers. You expected Kyle to ease up a little once around the corner, but he was still hot on your heels with a hand lingering on your lower back, silently guiding you in the direction of his quarters. Patiently, he whispered the code to his door in your ear and waited for you to open it, holding it so he could go inside without having to put too much weight on his ribs or upper body.

He apparently, had different ideas though. The moment the door shut, you were up against it, and Kyle’s chest flush with yours.

“Question one,” His breath had gotten a little heavier, fanning against your mouth and a hand sliding down from your waist to the swell of your hip. “How long?” You couldn’t help the sensation of heat that wavered up through your body, knowing exactly what he wanted to know. It would be hard enough to lie and give a respectable answer, but telling the truth could be just as nerve-wracking to admit.

“Day Two,” You answered back quietly, looking up at him a little timid. “When you showed me around the base. Thought you were so damn hot… You were wearing that grey and white three-quarter-length t-shirt and jeans…” The image was fresh in your mind, and damn if you still didn’t get excited when he wore that same outfit. Gaz gave a breathy sigh of amusement, grunting a little when he leaned a little too hard against you.

“Fuck… wanted you since Somalia,” He panted, nose brushing against yours and his breathing getting a little more labored. “Couldn’t stand everyone staring at you walking down the street after the mission. Knew everything they were thinkin’… Cause I’d already thought it. Wanted to take you right then and there, show them you were mine.” His hand on your hip tightened, pulling you flush against him and the other arm putting a deep arch in your back. Needing every inch of your body against his despite the discomfort in his ribs rising. He tried lifting you, but quickly grunted lowly out of frustration, pausing your shared excitement as you held your hands against his sides protectively.

“I’m not going anywhere, Kyle…” You whisper, raising up on your toes to meet his height a little easier. “Let’s just take this slow… alright?”

You pressed your lips to his, smiling happily when he began trying to take over. Pushing, pulling, whining, and desperately wanting to handle you a bit more but is very restricted by his own injuries. It was hard balancing the desire you knew he had and keeping him from hurting himself even more than he already was. It was a tedious process, but one you utterly lavished in, and hoped would never end. He just felt like everything you’d dreamed of and more. Tasted like honey and brown sugar with a voice that got more whiney and soft with each kiss and gentle touch. You didn’t know how long you’d been wrapped up in his arms and exploring every inch of him you could when he finally pulled back with a raspy groan, pressing his thumb to your bottom lip with a rich chuckle and smile.

“M’not gonna be able to handle much more tonight, love,” He rolled from his uninjured side onto his back, pulling you along with him until tucked tightly against his side with your head resting on his shoulder. From this angle, you could see him staring up at the ceiling with a hardened, and somewhat embarrassed expression. No doubt upset that he couldn’t deliver at least a little bit more. But you couldn’t even begin to accept him pushing through any amount of pain for something that could wait even one more day. Carefully you rubbed your fingertips over his chest, tracing outlines of muscle and feeling little patches of hair on his chest and lower stomach. It felt like a fantasy, actually touching Kyle Garrick… You felt a little guilty for not paying more attention and limiting just how much you’d been physical. But for the most part, you’d been the more concerned with his pain tolerance while he just kept nonverbally complaining that everything he’d been wanting to do was being unfairly taken from him in a cruel stroke of bad timing and a lucky shot.

“I’m sorry…” You whisper, kissing his cheek and nuzzling the curve in his neck. “Should’ve stopped you sooner. I don’t want you hurting, Kyle. I care care about you too much.”

Kyle laughs, a little too hard for comfort, and holds his ribs with his free hand. “Love, you couldn’t have stopped me. I’ve waited too fucking long, and I don’t have much patience left. I just can’t even breathe hard… and nothing we could do wouldn’t make me… excited.”

Your cheeks went hot with embarrassment, hearing his voice lower at the thought. You hadn’t the slightest clue of exactly what he had in mind, but it was for sure that you wouldn’t be doing much of anything but getting your fill of Kyle Garrick anytime you could get your hands on him, and attempting to keep him from going back to the doctor again; having to explain how he re-injured himself. You giggled to yourself at the idea, and it caught his attention. His eyebrows raised in question and you bit your lip, trying to decide if it was worth telling him. You figured at this point, there was no use in not.

“I was just trying to imagine what you’d say if you needed to go back to the doctor… you know, if you hurt yourself with me.”

A devilish smirk plasters itself to his lips, and he shifts over just enough to have his lips brushing your ear. “You know I don’t talk much… I’ll let ‘em guess just what I was doing to you. I’m sure it’ll be more fun that way. Besides, you’ll have plenty of proof on you that I didn’t go easy.”

fuck i love gaz <3

Comments & Reblogs are Appreciated

#gaz #kyle gaz garrick #kyle garrick #cod mwii #cod #gaz x reader #kyle garrick x reader #velvetures #velvetures writes #velvetures answers #anon <3

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