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#and all that on top of the xenophobia
comparativelyinternal · 9 months
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Thinking about how the day I was told, by someone with a doctorate in linguistics no less, that if any of us wanted to have a career in linguistics we needed to learn computer programming and at least two programming languages, was probably one of the first steps towards me feeling alienated from my degree programme
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thebookworm0001 · 5 months
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everyone is wildly primed to have their anger and fear used against them right now, so while you are advocating and protesting, make sure you’re not falling into shit that is going to cause more harm
The genocide in Gaza is horrific. And it is a genocide. The words coming directly from the mouths of those in charge of Israel’s government are those that demonstrate an intent to utterly erase any Palestinian from Gaza, whether through displacement or death.
Do not let people convince you that this is the fault of Jews. Do not let yourself be swayed into conspiracies that Jews control Hollywood, or the government, or are otherwise collectively conspiring to do harm. It’s bullshit. It causes real, measurable harm and fear. It continues to make rising antisemitism worse. And not only does that antisemitism lead to death, it rightfully increases the fear of more horrors happening.
The attack on Oct 7 was also horrific. As is the rising antisemitism around the world. And the fact that there has been almost no space to honor those dead is a tragedy.
Do not be convinced that the only way to protect the Jewish people is to build a State where only one religious or ethnic group is allowed to live freely. Do not be convinced that safety is dependent upon protecting that State at all costs. When one State is allowed to defend itself by any means necessary, any means will be used and any action will be excused. And do not be convinced that all Arabs or Muslims are responsible for those atrocities. Islamophobia is also on the rise and is also causing real, measurable harm and fear.
Your anger and fear will be used to excuse horrors if you let it.
Don’t let it.
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neonsbian · 8 months
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every gifset of ten in a baggy jeans stage makes me wanna kill myself...he should be promoting a solo in that outfit
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lgbtally4ever · 1 year
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Only Republican politicians seem to think being #AntiTransgender & #AntiLGBTQIA in THIS day and age, is their GREATEST priority!
So, destroying minority peoples’ lives is their priority! It’s not ONLY transgender or lgbtq—but, all people of color, immigrants (except white Europeans), the homeless, the poor!—any group of people, who aren’t EXACTLY like THEM!
Remember THAT!
And VOTE in EVERY ELECTION, no matter how difficult Republicans are making it for everyone to do so! It’s the only weapon we can wield against them—our VOTE!
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KILL THEM ALL: A VERY SERIOUS GAME ABOUT THE RADICAL CONCEPT THAT GENOCIDE AND XENOPHOBIA ARE BAD
Download Game: Link
All Stu the Bleeble wanted was to live his life in his swamp. But when his home gets invaded by those stupid Stoppydoppies, he sets out on an adventure to rescue his home! Along the way, he’ll learn things he didn’t know he didn’t know, and how maybe people a little different than you aren’t all that bad.
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writingwithcolor · 5 months
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Not all Second-Language Speakers are Made Equal.
@waltzshouldbewriting asked:
Hello! I’m writing a story that features a character who’s first language is not English. He’s East African, specifically from Nairobi, Kenya, and is pretty fluent in English but it’s not his primary language, and he grew up speaking Swahili first. I’m struggling to figure out if it’s appropriate or in character to show him forgetting English words or grammar. From what I’ve researched, English is commonly spoken in Nairobi, but it wouldn’t be what was most spoken in his home. For context, this is an action/superhero type story, so he (and other characters) are often getting tired, stressed, and emotional. He also speaks more than two languages, so it makes sense to me that it would be easier to get confused, especially in a language that wasn’t his first. But I’m worried about ending up into stereotypes or tropes. For additional context: I’m monolingual, I’ve tried to learn a second language and it’s hard. A lot of how I’m approaching this comes from my own challenges correctly speaking my own, first and only language.
Diversity in Second-Language English
You seem to have an underlying assumption that second language acquisition happens the same for everyone. 
The way your character speaks English depends on so many unknown factors: 
Where does your story take place? You mention other characters; are they also Kenyan, or are they all from different countries?
Assuming the setting is not Kenya, is English the dominant language of your setting? 
How long has your character lived in Kenya vs. where he is now? 
What are his parents’ occupations? 
What level of schooling did he reach in Nairobi before emigrating? 
What type of school(s) did he go to, public or private? Private is more likely than you think. 
Did his schooling follow the national curriculum structure or a British one? Depends on school type and time period. 
Does he have familiarity with Kenyan English, or only the British English taught in school? 
Is this a contemporary setting with internet and social media?
I bring up this list not with the expectation that you should have had all of this in your ask, but to show you that second language acquisition of English, postcolonial global English acquisition in particular, is complex. 
My wording is also intentional: the way your character speaks English. To me, exploring how his background affects what his English specifically looks like is far more culturally interesting to me than deciding whether it makes him Good or Bad at the language. 
L2 Acquisition and Fluency
But let’s talk about fluency anyway: how expressive the individual is in this language, and adherence to fundamental structural rules of the language.
Fun fact: Japanese is my first language. The language I’m more fluent in today? English. Don’t assume that an ESL individual will be less fluent in English compared to their L1 counterparts on the basis that 1) it’s their second language, or 2) they don’t speak English at home. 
There’s even a word for this—circumstantial bilingualism, where a second language is acquired by necessity due to an individual’s environment. The mechanisms of learning and outcomes are completely different. 
You said you tried learning a second language and it was hard. You cannot compare circumstantial bilingualism to a monolingual speaker’s attempts to electively learn a second language. 
Motivations?
I understand that your motivation for giving this character difficulties with English is your own personal experience. However, there are completely different social factors at play.
The judgments made towards a native speaker forgetting words or using grammar differently are rooted in ableism and classism (that the speaker must be poor, uneducated, or unintelligent). That alone is a hefty subject to cover. And I trust you to be able to cover that!
But on top of that, for a second language speaker, it’s racism and xenophobia, which often lend themselves to their own ableist or classist assumptions (that those of the speaker’s race/ethnicity must be collectively unintelligent, that they are uneducated or low class due to the occupations where they could find work, or conversely that they are snobby and isolationist and can't be bothered to learn a new language). Intersections, intersections.
If you want to explore your experiences in your writing, give a monolingual English speaker in your cast a learning disability or some other difficulty learning language, whatever you most relate with. And sure, multilingual folks can occasionally forget words like anyone else does, or think of a word in one language and take a second to come up with it in the other language. But do not assume that multilinguals, immigrants, or multiethnic individuals inherently struggle with English or with multiple languages just because you do.
~ Rina
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chronically-ghosted · 21 days
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rating: explicit 18+ pairing: pero tovar x f!reader word count: 6.9K summary: Sana sana culito de rana. Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana. But there would be no tomorrow. No future, no light of dawn – not without –  Her. He’d never heal because tomorrow would never come.  OR Pero falls hard for a princess and doesn’t know what to do with himself on your wedding night. warnings: angst, brief classism/xenophobia two very stubborn people, pero experiences one Human Emotion and cannot fully process it, arranged marriage, yearning, smut LIKE WOW, soft!pero that i broke my own heart with a/n: Thank you so much to @perotovar for this request: "congrats on your milestone, my love! so happy for you <33 i'm sending a little astrology 💫 + pero & #6 on the fluffy list OR #1 on the smutty list (whichever is speaking to you), because i wanna see your take on him 👀” – of course I chose the slutty one, just for you 😉 I’m actually pretty proud of this one - please consider reblogging if you like it too!
*the image in the header is for aesthetic purposes only and does not reflect the appearance of the reader*
🤍Masterlist 🤍Pero Tovar Masterlist
💜come see what else we've done to celebrate 1K followers
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Sana sana culito de rana. Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana. 
Sometimes before battle, the clatter inside Pero’s head goes silent. It listens. It waits. 
Other times, it roars. Memories of family, of dead amigos, of mujeres he fucked – they all buck and scratch for a chance to blaze across his mind like a dust storm kicked up by an unbroken mustang. 
He doesn’t know which one he prefers or which one will win out. They both have their uses, necessary states of mind to survive whatever is barreling towards him – an ax, a monster out of legend, some other drunken mercenary he intentionally pissed off. It’s an unconscious decision, yet one that has served him well so far. He wouldn’t be alive today if some deep, primal part of him knew what he needed to live through another battle. 
And yet, his own trunk knocking against his hips as he climbed the sickly ostentatious stone steps to the top of the parapet, the handles starting to pinch his fingers, the barest – nearly invisible – tremor in his knees, he cannot fathom, for the life of him, why that singular phrase from his abuela played in his head like water swirling around and around a cenote. 
Sana sana culito de rana. Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana. 
Sana sana culito de rana. Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana. 
His inner voice, taking on a myriad of forms, of sounds and voices, never quite standing still, the one companion he could always rely on. 
Maybe it was warning him. Dust yourself off, boy, you know exactly how this was going to end. 
Sana sana culito de rana. Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana. 
But there would be no tomorrow. No future, no light of dawn – not without –
Her.
He’d never heal because tomorrow would never come.
He feels sweat escape from the nape of curls at his neck, his cheeks warm and chest hot. Two more flights, he can manage two more flights. 
His abuela also liked to tell him something else: if hell doesn’t get him, his pride certainly will. 
It’s certainly what got him into this ridiculous farce in the first place. Because he can’t alchemize whatever is in his gut into vocalized syllables, he instead has to climb a truly incalculable amount of stairs, while carrying a ragged, torn trunk that weighs as much as his armor. 
Because he can’t form the right words, any words, about what he carries lodged beneath his breastbone for her. What draws him up and up and up and up because it’s lighter than hope, makes him lighter than air, and yet it clogs him up, chokes him out all the same. His pride, his vanity, cuts through it, through her – enough to keep him tongueless and dry but not enough to offer this lightness in his chest to her, for her. He can’t take the light out of him or else he fears what he will truly become.
So, he walks, he goes around and around on unforgiving stone steps until finally there is a door. He thinks about waiting, to catch his breath, but he knows he will just as easily turn around and go back the way he came, trunk still heavy and knocking against his hips, and that pride will be the death of him. So he keeps going, opens the handle, and makes abrupt eye contact with the two guards outside her door. They seem uninterested and unamused in his sweaty, stilted breathing, but by his less-than-royal attire, they easily clock him as one of their own; a man who fights to make his way in the world. The one on the left nods jerkily at him. 
What they see him as, what he will always be, is nearly the reason he kicks that fucking trunk all the way back down. Instead, he nods back, shoulders rounded, eyes down. 
“The princesa - the princess - is requesting the last of her things, to be b-brought up from the stables –,” he clears his throat, “drop this off for her and –,”
“Can’t let you in. King’s orders.” The one on the right sees him as something else – a foreigner first and foremost, their similar stations in life irrelevant. His bright blue eyes rove over Pero’s dark skin, dark hair, jagged scar, distaste and disgust smearing his already ugly features. But he had been dealing with men like these all his life.
“Bueno, you can explain to the King himself why his daughter’s belongings were lost and disregarded. I hear she’s very fond of the Italian prints at the bottom of this . . .”
The guards glance at each other, calculating way above their paygrade. Pero jostles the trunk as if to show he is not above throwing it out the window. 
“Fine.” The second one snaps. “Drop it inside and come back immediately.”
He drops his head, a good little foreign boy. “Gracias, señor.” 
The heavy wooden door opens beneath the iron lock and the instant he is through, he bolts it behind him. Waits to see if the guards notice. They don’t. Perfectamente – all the time in the world. 
All in the time in the world – for what? 
To fail? Again?
He stows the trunk in front of the door, extra time, a few seconds maybe – as if she wouldn’t just tell him to get out the instant she laid eyes on him. Only time will tell. 
Out of the atrium, another door, this one set deep into the wall. A last line of defense. He knocks, once, then twice, then waits. El orgullo chokes him again but fuck it, he’s come this far. He knocks again, knocks something in his chest free and, with it, spill the words:
“Princesa? It’s me. I –,” it throttles him, “princesa, can you open the door?” 
Silence. His heart sits, buried in that trunk. Then –
“It’s unlocked, Pero.” 
His heart in his throat, he opens the door to presumably what will be your marriage bed. And yet, by the state of things, you could have been moving out of it. Trunks and bags stack high against the far wall – those fucking trunks he made such a scene over because the unnecessary weight would slow them all down remain untouched, arranged as they had been when they had been first brought in. He didn’t quite know what to make of that, his thumb absently pressing into the callus of his other hand as he glanced around. It is a beautiful room – tall windows, etched in scarlet drapes, to match the scarlet curtains around the bed. With gold thread and impossibly detailed paintings of the countryside, it is fit for a princess, a some-day queen. This is where someone with royal blood deserved to be, not in the back of a hot carriage for weeks on end, surrounded by dirty, loud, rough men. 
And yet, with your hair down, expansive gown from the ball tonight replaced with a simple cotton dress, you could not have been more out of place. Pero’s heart lurches briefly, moisture seeping from his mouth, as he realizes this is the same dress he bought you when the two of you had been accidentally separated by the caravan and your previous dress had been ruined in the mud. He had no idea you still kept it, much less wore it ever again. 
But if anyone asked him, you look more beautiful in this than any silk or velvet. 
Instead of unpacking, settling into your new home and eventual role as wife, you sit hunched over at the intricately carved mahogany desk, eagle feather quill scratching against parchment. You finish with a flourish and look over your shoulder at him, your eyes annoyingly unreadable. 
“Yes?”
A stupid brute some may call him, but he wasn’t entirely without awareness. Observation of your customs and what you considered inappropriate only encouraged him: if you really didn’t want him here, you would never have let him see you in this state.
But it’s hard to remember that under your icy stare. 
“Y-your things, Princesa. The last from the caravan.”
Your eyes slide over him, to the trunk in the shadows of the atrium. He can tell from a single glance that you know as well as he that trunk is not yours, that no one told him to come here with it, and yet he did it all the same. Something flashes over your eyes but it’s gone by the time you meet his gaze again. 
“Thank you. I am, as always, indebted to you.” 
He hates your words, but warmth spreads in his gut at the way you say it. That’s how it’s always been between you and him – saying one thing but meaning another. He’d never appreciated a sharp mind like yours until he realized you wield it as he wields a sharp sword. 
There are many things he’d never even dreamed of before he met you.
“Then, this means you’re leaving, I suppose.” You draw your sword against him. The metal flashes in your eyes as you stand, one hand against the curved tip of your chair. A bronze halo rims your outline, the fire behind you burning bright and hot. He knows if he touched your shoulder, your neck, your skin would be wonderfully warm. 
He wets his lips. “Si. Our contract with your father is done.” 
You drop his gaze, your lips tightening for a minute, your fingers running through the carvings of wood on the chair. “Even with William in his state? Would it not be better for him to stay and recover? The journey home is –,” you pause, as though someone had thrown a hand over your mouth, “– the journey back east is long.” 
All the longer without you.
“William, he is not an idle man. Two days of bedrest is often all he can take.” 
You grin, in spite of this thing circling you both. “Unless he finds the nun attending to him beautiful.
“He finds them all beautiful.” 
Your smile expands wide across your bright face when you find him smiling at you too. 
This – if this is to be his last memory of you (his heart wrenches at the thought) – this is the you he wants imprinted on his soul: smiling and glowing by firelight. 
But as quickly as it came, that grin that warms him down to his bones, fades. In an instant, your eyes grow soft, your mouth twisted, jaw tight.
“Where will you go?” you ask, in the quietest voice you’d ever addressed him with. 
It pains him, physically aches within him, to hear the distress in your voice. He hasn’t even thought about the next contract, the next royal cabrón who intends to yank him all across God’s green earth to perform a task he can’t be fucked to take on himself. How can he possibly answer you? Nowhere, without you. To rot in a dark hole in the ground? Off a cliff? What answer would provide you or him any sort of satisfaction?
“Wherever the coin goes,” he says and the words scrape his tongue like bile. That ache in his chest spiraling rapidly, deep into his gut – like a poisoned limb he cannot amputate – he does the same thing he always does when he’s hurt: he makes others hurt until they leave him alone. “You do not have to worry, princesa, your new husband will keep you in such comfort you will never wonder where the coin comes from.”
He must be a truly sick man, for the knife-sharp glare you throw at him only knots arousal around the base of his spine. It tugs on something attached directly to his groin which, in turn, yanks the next words out of his mouth.
“He looked especially happy with you in his arms on the dance floor tonight.”
The icy shards in your eyes go brittle and crack. His heart races; he’s overplayed his hand. 
“You watched me dance?”
“All guardsmen were required to –,”
You shake your head, eyes bright and searing through him. “No. It was only the King’s Knights there in attendance.” 
Your hand trailing off the edge of the chair, you take a step forward and he feels his weight shift back onto his heels. But he remains firm. 
Sana, sana.
“Pero, why did you come here tonight?”
“To return the last of your things, princesa. What else is there?”
You flinch, as if he had raised his voice to you. What else is there indeed?
“Not even to . . .  say goodbye? Sixteen weeks on the road is an awfully long time to be around someone, only for them to . . . leave so soon.”
He locks his knees to keep them from shaking. “Do you wish for me to tell you goodbye, princesa?” 
There’s something painfully sad about the way you smile at him. “I wish for whatever would make you happiest.” 
Anger roars within him, hungry and hot, like a burn from a white flame. Why can’t you just admit it? Why do you avoid it time and time again? He knows he hasn’t misread anything you’ve sent his way, so why? Why are you so vested in torturing him this way? 
“Coin makes me happy and, now that I have it, there’s nothing to keep me here.”
There, that hurts you too, just as he meant it.
“Then leave.” They could make ice fortresses out of the strength of your bone-cold stare. “If you have nothing else to say, then take your goddamn trunk and get out of my sight.” 
The flame scorches him, ripping him apart and in his anger, making him cruel.
He bows to you.
“I imagine you will be very happy with your new husband, ranita.”
The term slips from his lips before he can stop it, but his throat and cheeks blister so badly, he physically can’t open his mouth to correct his mistake. Instead, he turns and strides towards the door.
He thinks he hears a gasp from behind him, a sharp sound like breaking glass – small, tinkling, tragic. It spears him through his chest, pierces his heart. 
He gets to the door and pauses.
If you have nothing else to say . . .
Of course he has something to say – words in English and Spanish and broken dialects gathered like poisonous lichen all churning in the boiling cauldron of his mind, but nothing will suffice – nothing reflects or compares to the grief he is already feeling, the despair, the anguish that has settled into all the fleshy joints in his body. Not his pride, but this, saying goodbye to you, this is what actually will kill him.
Every word imaginable crawls up his throat and rages in his mouth, presses up against his teeth, begging for something, anything to be let out, to be free, to tell you that he cannot fucking live without you–
Nothing comes through, but one single word.
“Don’t.” 
The fire crackles in the silence, a wicked god pleased at the display of carnage.
“What did you say?”
A dull thud echoes from where he drops his forehead against the wood of the door, all anger flooding out of his system. Do you have any idea the power you hold over him? One request, one tremor in your voice and his knees all but buckle at your altar. 
Fuck it. 
He always thought he’d go out in a blaze of bloody glory, but he’d never expected to be so exposed, so flayed like this.
“Don’t,” he repeats, his throat as dry as sand. “Do not . . . marry him. Please.” 
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The vision of your great warrior slumped against the door frame, his neck bent, shoulders curled up to his ears has your already pounding heart leaping forward into a gallop. He is defeated, laid low. You watch his guts all but pool out on your hearth. 
He looks about as hopeless and anguished as you feel. 
Your soldier, your man of iron and charcoal, goes blurry in your eyes.
“And what would you have me do, Pero?” Your plea is damp, malleable at the edges. You press your hand flat against your chest, near your throat, as if you could pull the grief lodged there with your fingers. “I have been engaged to this man before I was even born. How can I stop this?” 
“Fight.” The word snarls against his bare teeth. He turns, his eyes liquid ink, and suddenly he has you by the shoulders. His thumbs nervously skitter around the curve of your shoulder, gaze just as unsteady and unfocused as it wavers between your hands, your earlobe, your neck. "Where is my brave girl who fights for what she wants, hm? Fight – for me, please.”
Fight, he asks – but in spite of him or because of him?
You lay your hands on the silver shine of his breastplate, watch as they rise and fall with his steady flow of breath. How many nights had you woken up against that shine, in the crook of his arm for warmth, or protection? You didn’t cherish it at the time because you never knew when it would be your last. 
“Why won’t you fight, princesa?” His voice is low, strained, the groan of a wagon wheel before it breaks. You meet his gaze and the exposed look on his face, softening every line on his mouth and around his eyes, nearly sends you into hysterics. You swallow the tears, swallow the hook in your throat as your fingers curl around the clasps of his cape. 
"Because if I don't fight then I can't lose.” His fingers slip from your shoulders, to your elbows, to your waist. You inhale and the scents of warm leather, oil, and ash flood your mouth. The tip of your nose is inches from the scruff of beard against his cheek, the ruddy brown of his sun-drenched skin. He has curled you into him and this, you do not fight either. His massive palms map your back, against your skin, but without any urgency or control. “If I can’t lose, that means I don’t lose you. You'll just be . . . gone."
That last word is a lie. It hangs in the air like a sweltering humid rain and you both know you’re lying. He has you wrapped up in his arms, you didn’t stop him even for a second, and you are all too aware that it would take some great, insidious alchemy to ever truly tear him out of you. 
You stare at his silver collar, defiant against the waves you had managed to shackle down until this very moment: a wave of hopeless crashes into you, a wave of heartbreak, a wave of helpless that fills your eyes to the point of spilling with that very same salt water.
He touches your cheek delicately, fingers rough with callouses, and the floodgates break open with a sob. 
“Preciosa,” he rumbles softly against your hairline, “hush. You break my heart with your tears.” 
“Do not mock me, Tovar. Not now.” you sniff, trying to turn your face but his wide hands catch you around the cheeks.
“You are beyond mocking. I’d show you my heavy heart but I do not wish that weight on anyone.” The snag of his rough thumbs against your cheek draws your watery gaze to him. His mouth is a flat line, barred against whatever climbs his throat, but his eyes move like mercury across your nose, your eyelashes, the arch of your cheek. Your fingers wrap themselves around his wrists, a grounding agent against the waves that threaten to pull you under. 
“Pero, I –,”
“I have fought you, tooth and nail, for days without end. Every favor, every breath, you have forced them from me. I fight my own mind when I sleep at night. Sueños, always of the same woman.” He smears away the tears with his thumbs, gently, sweetly, before pressing his lips to your wet flesh by his knuckle. He inhales deeply, eyes closed, mouth hovering stationary above the skin of your cheek. “You fight me every step of the way . . . and I am so tired of fighting.” 
For all your struggling, for all your tearing and clawing and snarling against the blooming in your chest, nothing is as easy as it is to turn your head and press your lips to his. 
The brush of his bristled mustache against your upper lip. His warm, rough palms holding you steady. His lips soft and hot. You are overwhelmed by the scent of him.
There is nothing like, and nothing will ever be like, finally kissing Pero Tovar. 
All it takes is the movement of his hands from your cheeks to your lower back, the light trace of his tongue against your lips, and the yearning you’d been smothering for weeks now roars to life. His hands squeeze your hips and you can suddenly barely breathe. 
“Pero–,” the noise in the shape of his name that escapes you is near a whine, begging. He nips at your lips, hand firmly at the cup of your jaw, mouth now rough and insistent, and your fingers claw up his neck, wrapping themselves in his dark curls. You tug, nails scratching his scalp, and he groans into your mouth as if you’d just kneed him in the gut.
A thread-bare gasp of your name from his lips splits you from him, then his hand on your hip and the back of your neck pushing you backwards gives you enough air to breathe – to think.
"Your husband will know you're not a virgin,” Pero warns, breathing hard and fast, his eyes like black flints, “if we go on." 
You curl your fingers around his neck, dragging your mouth near his jaw, the soft skin at the edge of his ear.
"Then he will also know my heart is not his either.” You ask everything of him with this. His armor blocks his warm body from you – you want to sink inside his hard shell. “If you’ll have it.”
He is not himself, half-human with an inhuman want, with the snarl that leaves him. 
“Don’t make such promises, dulzura –,” A threat, a dog forced to expose its underbelly, fear radiating like the pain from a broken bone. Your fingers dig into the buckles of his cape, steadying you against a sudden terrible awareness that bloomed, purple-bruised. 
“Unless you don’t want –,” 
The desk rattles when your hips break against it, the force of his kiss enough to topple over your inkwell, spill rolls of parchment to the floor. The wood groans under your weight when he gathers the thick swell of your thighs in his hands, heaves you onto the flat surface, and spreads your knees around his waist. He is as hard as the iron on his chest. 
“Can you feel how much I want you?”
A frantic sigh of relief, a groan shared between two pairs of lips, seeking skin and warmth and other hungry places. 
He drags you onto his chest, your skirt bunched up around your hips, the rings of his armor digging into the soft flesh of your thighs, his mouth covering yours in wet pulls, and he stands up right, as though you weighed less than his sword. 
A stumble, and he spreads you out on the velvet covers of your marriage bed, his hands imprinting on your hips, your knees, the supple meat of your calves. The touch of him on your bare skin feels like the licks of flames, the smoke of arousal blurring your awareness and dragging your eyelids half-closed. On his heels at the edge of the bed, the flint shards of his eyes drift over the bones of your ankles, the bend of your knee, your heaving chest, hair in snarls around your neck and caught behind your back, and finally to your cunt, hidden by the folds of your dress. 
Velvet hums as you slide your ankles to the curve of your ass, widening your legs, parting your knees. His lips part open, dark want etching every line of his face. You feel the wet linen of your dress cling to your achy cunt. He swallows, unbuckling his cape one latch at a time, his eyes nowhere else. The metal clatters as it falls to the floor.
Piece by piece, the chinks in his armor fall away. Piece by piece, he is revealed to you. Your hands rise up, up your thighs to your knees, your thumbs rubbing soft circles. He watches, never tears his gaze away from your sticky hole, his nimble fingers working away the buckles and knots with practiced precision. You can see it in his eyes – memories of bedrolls by firelight, of such a deep painful, yearning ache, separated only by thin tarp, they are a physical weight beside you in this marriage bed. 
You see them because they’re there for you too. You see them because you've been here a dozen times, on your back, legs spread wide, your hands circling but never dipping, waiting. Wanting. For him. 
His bare chest is warm, the wings of his ribs expanding around short, half-drawn breaths, as he crawls up into your pliant mouth. The kisses are slow, like before, with a crackle of heat just beyond them, his hips slipping into the cradle of your thighs, the wet warmth of you separated by the thin linen of your dress. He sucks the tendon below your ear, a whine slipping out of your mouth, fingers spreading over the harsh planes of his back, and his cock bobs against your thigh. 
Pero is bare and warm and entirely yours. All man beneath the sweltering armor. 
“Amorcita,” he drips into your ear, kisses smeared against your collarbone, your mouth, your earlobe, “amorcita, amorcita . . . ranita, let me take you.” 
He starts to use teeth, a harder nip behind his kisses, when he dips down to your chest. A wide palm with stocky fingers grasps at your breast and it’s a startling sensation for you both. 
“Soft,” he moans before licking up under the supple curve of your breast, mouthing at what his tongue missed. He slips your erect nipple into his mouth and twists it between his teeth. “Sweet,” he murmurs with your nipple firmly between his lips. 
This is unlike anything you’ve felt before. You deliriously thank the gods that he hadn’t touched you like this on the road; you would have kept him, your own wild animal, in bed without rest for days on end.
Pero plucks just as aggressively at your other breast, the spit-wet nipple that preoccupied his mouth verging on purple and aching. He cups you from the outside this time, squeezing and massaging, ringing your nipple with his tongue until your back bows and you let out a whine that has his eyes flickering up to you, the scent of wounded prey filling his nostrils. 
That whine of pleasure elongates into a whimper: “please.”
“Tranquila, ranita.” His touch is softer around your bruised tits, but he keeps one hand bagging the weight of your breast while the other slips beneath your skirt.
The pads of his fingers brush your creamy cunt and with a yelp, you grab him by the wrist, your eyes open with a familiar emotion he draws out of you: rage.
“Pero Tovar, if you value your life you will take me under the covers and put your —,”
He chuckles, his cheek against yours, nose rimming the velvet hairs on the ridges of your ear. The vibrations liquify the tension in your bones, loosening your grip. Your eyes flutter, slick obviously running down his fingers. “Ranita, I don’t think you know how you want to end that sentence..”
His words roll like honey over the heat of your skin. It makes your skin tremble. Your grip tightens on his wrist and you roll your hips, your swollen clit finally relieved by the pressure of his palm. 
“Oh, oh, Pero—,” 
With a grunt, he shuffled closer, elbow by your shoulder and he cups your entire wet cunt in his hand, pushing the heel of his palm flatter against you. You cry out, a sparkling kind of pleasure radiating out from where his hand rests. You buck your hips faster, complete release flickering through your outstretched hand. 
“Can you come like this?” You nod, eyes squeezed shut as you barrel towards escape, and you feel him shudder next to you. You are intimately aware that he’s rubbing his cock on the crease of your hip bone but that only drags you faster towards the light. “Then come, ranita, come and I’ll fuck you.” 
The wet, curling heat growing between your legs descends, then in a bright snap, explodes across your body. 
“Fuck!” You tear open your eyes to find them damp, Pero’s massive hand cupping your cheek towards him, his stallion eyes dark as his fingers drag on the soaked material of your dress, your hips slowing. 
“Amorcita, breathe.” The words are torn from his chest, all cock-suredness gone from his frantic gaze. You gulp in air, the weight of his body over yours grounding and smothering you all at once. He pulls his hand away from you, rides it up your thigh to your waist, looking for something to hold onto. He strokes his thumb once against your overheated skin and you’re wriggling up out of your dress. 
“Help,” you hiss and his fingers nearly tear the fabric off you.
With a few undone buttons, you shiver out of your dress, the slick-drenched spots catching on your warm skin. He flings it behind him, near the fireplace. 
He takes you barely beneath the thick covers before you welcome him back to the heat of your open legs. 
But instead of reeling back and plunging his aching cock into you, he takes the time to kiss you. To praise you in all the ways he fears his mouth will end up short. He kisses you, grateful, reverent – wonderful to be swallowed by but also a distraction.
When he lifts your knees by his waist, your hips automatically tilt towards him and for the first time, you feel his red, sore cock between your tacky lips. The dual sensation nearly drags you over the rack of delectably delicious pleasure, as does his worn, broken groan in your ear. 
“More, please, don’t stop.” You cry against the bristles of his beard, his hand dropping between your sweat-slick bodies, finding yours already there to guide him. The press of him spreads you open, filling you one sinking notch at a time. The sensation of your pink, dripping walls moving to take more of him in has you arching up into his chest, nails dragging into his back. His dry lips stifle the moans escaping from your mouth. 
Pero takes both of your hands in his, dragging them above your head, his fingers locking your palms together as his hips roll forward. “Cálmate, amorcita, cálmate,” he murmurs between distracted presses of his mouth against your chin, your cheek, his breathing heavy and stunted. You writhe, pinned open by his hips and his hands, his cock filling you all too slowly and not fast enough. 
With the last few inches, you take him completely, your cunt throbbing, heart pounding, intoxicated by the sensation of being so maddeningly full. Pero drapes over you, his head tucked into your neck, forearms straining with the tension of gripping your hands tightly. 
“Santa madre . . .” He is not a warrior right now. He is but a man, cunt-drunk and heaving. 
His name is pushed out of the bottom of your lungs with the first swing of his hips. You cling to him, knees at his ribs, unwilling to let even an inch of space between your bodies. But this becomes increasingly difficult as his thrusts gain speed. His flushed lips stain a sticky line against your jaw, down to your throat, and he releases your hands, the oak of the bed creaking beneath the force of him drilling down into you, he props himself up on his palms, his shoulders bent and curled over you, biceps straining, hairline damp, eyelids fluttering. The scar on his cheek is flushed pink.
“Look, amorcita, look how well you take me.”
His words tear you from your nebulous high, the grit of them forcing your head down to the obscene squelch beneath the sheets. The thatch of rough curls over his groin is drenched in slick, his thick cock soaked to the point of shine as it drives into you again and again. The heavy draft of breath the sight steals from him, the tap of his cock against a place so deep you didn’t know your body possessed, draws the spooling bliss as tight as a wire. 
Your trembling thighs squeeze him tighter, that hot pressure rendering you speechless, except for the most pathetic whine. Please, Pero, please, you think, you mutter, you whisper, your body rocking damp against the sheets. 
With a sudden snarl, he takes the chunk of your hair at the base of your head flat in his fists and tugs. A shoot of bright pain sparks bliss down to your tight and bruised nipples, and you cry out again. 
“Stop fighting, puedo sentir cuanto la quieres. Let me have it.” It is the following word that splits you open like lighting carving apart a tree. “Please.”
The wail that you release is the rush of gooseflesh over your skin alchemized into audible sound. Heat radiates through you, sucking the air from your lungs, your vision going blurry, then black as you clamp your eyes shut against the rush, the final release, that curls you into his arms. His warm, flushed arms, shaking with strain. A final wobbly thrust or two and his elbows are buckling, sweat-drenched chest pressing into your own.
Distantly, you are aware of the warm, slick drip down your thighs, his cock pulsing the last drops into your cum-flecked cunt, and the dangers this sort of intimacy poses. You can’t gather enough breath, enough sense to settle the spinning room, to worry or even care. 
Your his, and he is yours. That is all that will ever matter. 
The crackle of wood burning is the only other sound than your ragged breaths, the silent roll of sweat from sticky hot skins into the bedsheets. The stone walls of the castle’s room entomb you together for a brief stretch of infinity.
Pero moves and you think he’s going to back out of you, but instead, he merely adjusts, his head fully on your chest, thick fingers clutching your bruised waist, the shift of his cock pushing more of his release out of your oversensitive cunt. But you’ll take overstimulation over his absence every time. You run your fingers through his damp curls and he hums. 
“I’m sorry,” he huffs into your humid skin. “I’m sorry I let my pride keep us apart for so long.” 
You grin lazily to the ceiling, your breath settling as affection takes its place in your chest. 
“You were not the only one blinded by vanity.” 
“But I’m not blind. Not anymore.” He lifts his head, eyes as dark as your spilled inkwell. “I am never letting you go.” 
You smile at him, fingers soft against the back of his neck. “I don’t plan on wandering away.” 
His oil-black gaze drops to your lips and he leans forward to take your mouth against his. Gentle, but with the promise of more. 
“Mi ranita,” he purrs to break the kiss. 
“You call me that all the time, Pero. What does it mean?”
At that, a nearly shy expression crosses his face. He shakes his head, shifting onto his elbows to lift off you. “I can’t tell you. It will ruin your good mood.” 
You gasp, offended, and you grab him by the ear and twist. He chuckles through a grimace. “You will tell me what that means, Pero Tovar, if you value your appendages.” 
“Órale, princesa, retract your claws and I will tell you.” 
You release your grip and settle against your pillow. Grinning bashfully, he kisses your neck briefly.
“Remember that I love you after I tell you this.” 
Your heart nearly stops, the absence of a steady beat nearly drawing tears to your eyes but you hold firm. You breathe deeply against the fluttering in your stomach and pin him with your glare. Of course, this is how he would profess his love to you – when he’s trying to get out of trouble. 
“Tell me, Tovar!”
He chuckles again and preemptively picks up your hands. He kisses the inside of your palms, settling himself between your thighs. 
“It means little frog.” Your mouth falls open in a gasp and you struggle to yank your hands back from him, hissing like a tea kettle, but he uses his weight to press down on you. He nips at your nose. “I call you that because when you’re upset with me, much like you are now, you puff up like a bullfrog, your cheeks like this–,”
He rounds his cheeks full of air, crossing his eyes, and you simply cannot take the slight anymore. You push roughly against his gut, the breath trapped in his mouth escaping in a hot puff, and you twist him onto his back. He lets you, of course, his bold, full laughter rendering him defenseless. His body shakes beneath you, his beautiful eyes squeezed shut, his mouth open wide as he laughs and laughs and laughs. You take him by the wrists and push his limp hands over his head, pinning him as he had you. You pinch his chin with your teeth, your messy cunt over his stomach, as his laughter subsides. 
“Have you had your fun yet?” 
“Barely,” he chuckles, turning his big nose against your cheek and inhaling. He hums.
“Is that all I am to you? A joke?”
Pero opens his eyes, sober as death rattle. He takes you in, not in a hungry, all-consuming way, but in a look that speaks of awe and rapture.
“You are everything to me.”
You sigh, releasing his hands and curling into his chest. He kisses the top of your head, your eyes on the roaring fire. His thumbs rub your shoulder blades, trace the lines of your spine.
“You’re so very lucky I love you too.” 
His wandering against the expanse of your back stills, just for a moment, before his fingers slide into your hair, around the nape of your neck, holding you to him with the intention of keeping you there forever.
“I know, ranita, I know.” 
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He watches you sleep as the sky lightens beyond the tall windows on the opposite side of the bedroom. The dying fire traces your edges in gold, settling heat in the curve of your lips. 
His heart lurches with the wanting of you.
There’s more terrible things to come, he knows that. The plan the two of you concocted in the early morning hours will be dangerous, deadly even. But dying together instead of living apart would be much more tolerable, you told him earlier that night, your hand on his chest. 
He would kill if you asked. He would kill, even if you didn’t, to keep you safe and by his side. You’ve proven yourself capable of living a life away from this spectacular opulence, but it pains him to know he will never be able to give you anything nearly as lovely as the velvet dresses in the closet, the gold jewelry in your trunks. 
Instead, all he has to offer is himself. His strength, his hands, his heart. It’s his own fear that tells him that’s not enough, because you remind him again and again that’s more than you ever wanted. 
He traces the curve of your cheek with the hovering pad of his finger, brushing your hair away from your face. How he ended up so lucky with your love, he’ll never know, but he will spend the rest of his days proving that he’s earned it. 
You stir in your sleep, sensing him above you, and he hates to steal even a few minutes of blissful sleep from you, knowing the endless nights that are coming. When he steals you away from all that you’ve ever known. 
The sleepy grumble in your throat resembles his name as he curls around you, but your eyes remain gently closed. He pulls you against him, the air that leaves your mouth and sits between your chest and his something he covets with his whole heart. 
I love you and I’m disgustingly lucky and I love you. 
He is a man made of dust, serving men made of silver. He is a man of dust, loving a woman made of gold.
El orgullo? No, Abuela, his ranita will get him first, last, and every time.
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Translations:
Sana sana culito de rana. Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana. - This rhyme is typically said to children when they have just hurt themselves. The parent (or grandparent) usually rubs the part that is sore and sings this little tune. Literally translates to: "heal, heal, little frog’s tail. If you don’t heal today, you will heal tomorrow."
el orgullo - pride
dulzura - sweetness, romantic connotation
amorcita - little love, romantic connotation
Tranquila - quiet, as in "be quiet" or "relax"
Cálmate - take it easy, or take it slow
puedo sentir cuanto la quieres - I can feel how much you want it/love it
Órale - okay, or an exclamation expressing approval or encouragement.
ranita - little frog, but you knew that already ;)
the rest are cognates (or familiar words) which you can probably guess the meaning of, but feel free to message me if you don't know!
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elbiotipo · 9 months
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Many Usamericans still concieve imperialism as individual relationships and privilege instead of systems that encompass entire countries and the global economy.
When we talk about imperialism, at least as I understand it, we talk about the interactions between entire countries and peoples, which might (and do) have priviliged and oppressed people within them, but those people are part of bigger systems, much bigger; we are talking about centuries (if not millenia) of history and social, political and economic struggles that encompass the entire planet. An individual Usamerican isn't an oppressor. The United States, meanwhile, is an imperial power. Meanwhile, Third World countries can and do have privileged people and oppressed peoples, but in the global scale, they are all defined by their unequal relationships to imperial powers.
Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, all sorts of prejudices and hatred are done and perpetuated by individuals, many of them not even aware of where they come from (if they are even aware they are prejudiced) but overall, those attitudes are tools (or trash) of imperial and capitalist systems, they are part of a wider system that supports certain people at the top and others at the bottom.
Even those oppressed, anywher can and do participate in those systems, and this isn't because they want to or they're evil, it's because those systems encompass mostly every aspect of society. The idea should be identifying those systems and work towards their replacement, not trying to rank who's the most oppressed.
This isn't so hard to understand, I think?
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laney-rockin · 10 months
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"These Old Scientists" was a gem of an episode and an instant top 10 of my all-time favourite episodes.
I also do have a few thoughts about it!!
So in the SNW era, red/maroon is usually for red shirts/security officers, notoriously known for dying faster than carnival goldfish. In the LWD era red shirts are for the command division, meaning that Pike the entire time probably thought that Mariner and Boimler were just red shirts.
Which is so funny to think about, these two capable command division ensigns getting mistaken for being in the worst career path of Starfleet at the time.
What also was quite fun was the constant making fun of Mariner and Boimler's constant casual and very specific references in their conversation. And Boimler's failings in keeping future events to himself through these references.
My favourite part however was when Boimler basically insinuated that comphet Spock was just a fad and that Spock and Chapel are doomed to fail. I love Ethan Peck and Jess Bush but I cannot stand Spock and Chapel together it just feels weird and wrong.
Mariner being obsessed with Nyota Uhura was also so valid, Uhura is so cool and one of my favourite characters I too would only care about her.
OOH- and the fact that Boimler called the Enterprise out on their xenophobia when talking about the Orions was so iconic. Defending his friends and their backgrounds/cultures is such a Boimler thing to do.
All in all- 10/10 episode. I have been waiting for this episode ever since it was first announced and this episode was the only reason I started to watch SNW. I was not disappointed!!
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cinnamostar · 5 months
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02: home
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part one.
pairing : minho x gn!reader
summary : “I have known you for thousands of lifetimes, and I don’t regret meeting you in a single one.”
wc : 7.3k
cw : childhood friends, arguing, angst, sadness, mentions of bullying + racism/xenophobia, best friends to lovers, fluff, sappiness, its so doooomed
a/n : pls read part one before this! i was in so much pain as i wrote this, so im sorry in advance, my dear reader. please let me know what you think! likes and reblogs appreciated
tags: @im-on-a-hellavator , @httpswilloww @atinyniki (its not letting me tag so i hope this works ;w;)
。゚•┈୨♡୧┈• 。゚
Maybe that was a little too harsh, Minho thought to himself as he remembered your glassy eyes and the guilt that painted your face a depressing blue, the bashful glowing smile of yours he adored nowhere to be found. Oh, how his heart soared to the heavens when he saw you back at the pond you both once called home years later, the same vibrance you carried as a child seemed to have never left you even after so many years. How he missed seeing you smile so timidly, yet lovingly, at the tadpoles who swam underneath the pond's surface, how he missed seeing how breathtakingly beautiful you looked as the wind bellowed through your locks, and how he missed you. 
It didn’t matter how many times the earth had rotated around the sun, it didn’t matter how long it had been, his heart could never let you go. 
The instant he saw someone standing at the pond, his body and soul knew it was you, there was no way he’d ever mistake that nostalgic, comforting presence of yours as anyone else’s. The way the soft rays of the sun highlighted your features nearly made his heart skip out his chest, as if he just saw an angel standing before him; the cherub he once knew as a child had grown up.
How he hoped you’d finally come back home to him, how he desperately wished for years to relive the sweetest moments of his childhood, how he wished you were there for each and every milestone in life, and how he wished you two could finally make up for lost time. And while his heart yearned for you, the abandonment he felt in his childhood festered inside him, as if he had taken a swig of poison that sought to destroy the love and adoration he had for you in a bitter, resentful, rage. He couldn’t help it, the pain and misery he felt growing up had never truly left and your presence reawakened those wounds he never learned to heal. His heart stretched painfully in this twisted game of tug-of-war, unsure on whether he should feel thankful for your return or relent to the enmity that had rotted within him for god knows how long.
Yet, it was so easy to submit to the indignation he was feeling as it overpowered any sense of gratefulness, choosing to ignore the miracle of you being back as his mouth soured over the taste of resentment. 
Had his prayers finally been answered? Has he finally wished you back into his life? I’m an idiot, he cringed as he began to regret his behavior. Maybe his anger wasn’t justified, maybe he should’ve met you with more grace. After all, you weren’t wrong, you were just a kid who knew no better. It wasn’t fair to him, but neither was his treatment to you after the fact. Ah. The guilt you must’ve felt over the years could not have been easy to manage on top of the stress of living in an entirely foreign country, as your tearful eyes showed him how much you had been agonizing over this. For so long, he had convinced himself you had forgotten him entirely, no longer cared for him as he mourned over you as if you had died, yet the years of the youth you both shared came rushing in like a tsunami the minute you both made eye contact. The overwhelming emotions of nostalgia and regret was a feeling only you two could ever understand, and my, was it complicated to choose how to feel with thousands of nameless emotions competing with one another.
The love Minho had for you never left, almost as if it laid dormant for years as it hoped for the day you two would meet again, the familiar butterflies of his childhood crush blossoming once again at the sight of you. Somehow, everything and nothing about you changed, it was something Minho didn’t have words to explain or couldn’t quite wrap his mind around. You were the Y/N he knew and doted on as a child, but you had grown into an astonishingly beautiful adult version of yourself and he found himself falling in love the instant his soul recognized you. 
For so many years, Minho had tried his best to erase any memory of you, but his heart couldn’t deny the love it had for you and no matter how hard he tried, it was always you. Through the trials and tribulations of life, you were his safe haven, the very thought of you bringing a sense of peace and tranquility no other could, and during the lowest points of his life, his body always instinctually took him to the same pond as a refuge. He coveted you and your presence, yet the pond was the closest he could get to you and the feelings he had longed for. 
Just maybe Minho was being unfair to you, he thought. After all, you both were just kids.
。゚•┈୨♡୧┈• 。゚
Since your run in with Minho, you had been suffering with an overwhelming amount of guilt, carrying the weight of shame on your shoulders as you came face to face with him for the first time in years. Having to finally confront the pained and saddened expression he wore was something you could have never prepared for, and the very memory of it was enough to make you break down in tears. 
You knew what you had done to Minho was extremely hurtful, and you couldn’t imagine what that must’ve felt like, no matter how hard you try. But knowing and witnessing it were two completely different things, and after seeing Minho’s watery eyes, you weren’t sure if you could ever forgive yourself. He was right, though. Maybe you shouldn’t have come back, maybe coming back was only reopening old wounds you both didn’t need to be dealing with all because of your selfish need to reconnect with your culture. 
Though, after spending most of your life overseas, you were starting to feel like you didn’t belong in your home country anymore. You had lost touch with cultural traditions, basic etiquette, and even struggled to speak your native tongue as well. You still spoke like the eight year old that had moved away long ago, and it was becoming increasingly embarrassing as you compared yourself to everyone around you. You stuck out like a sore thumb and for the first time in your life, you began to realize you didn’t fit in anywhere. Not here, not in the states. You were too much of your ethnicity to be considered a proper American, and you were too American to be considered a true citizen of your country, despite spending the first eight years of your life here. Coming back home didn’t reaffirm your identity, but only left you more confused and questioning who you even were. 
Minho was right, this was a mistake.
You so desperately craved a sense of belonging, and you became certain you weren't finding it here anymore, but you had to make it through the rest of your trip at the very least. You were just going to try to continue business as usual though, hoping you would not run into Minho again and would simply forgo the pond entirely. It should be simple enough, you thought. No one needed to know about your accidental meeting with Minho and you were sure he’d avoid you like the plague. It should be fine.
Well, that quickly changed as soon as your mom told you Minho’s mother invited your family to dinner at their house. The color from your face immediately drained as a cold sweat formed all over your body, your mother seemingly ecstatic at the news, “Oh, it will be just like old times! And you can finally see Minho after so long, isn’t that great, sweetheart?” she beamed, your father also nodding alongside her. 
You cleared your throat as you forced a fake smile, “Yeah, that does sound great, mom. When are we going over?”
“Tonight! So make sure to be ready to walk over by seven, okay?”
Tonight? Oh, god, no, that was far too soon when you had just barely recovered from seeing Minho yesterday, and now tonight? Breathe, Y/N. Just one night, then you’ll never see him again,  you ressaured yourself, trying to find a way to make this news manageable. You honestly should have seen this coming, your mom was also best friends with Minho’s mom, but for some reason that detail had escaped you.
Just one evening, just one dinner, then it would be all over, right?
。゚•┈୨♡୧┈• 。゚
Dinner was going as well as it could have. Minho’s mother spent a great deal of effort preparing a feast for your family and she showered you with compliments as soon as you walked through the door, commenting how you had grown into such a lovely young adult. 
Minho and you only exchanged an awkward hello, which didn’t raise any alarms in either of your parents as they somewhat expected this, especially considering how your friendship ended as children. Nonetheless, it did not stop the onslaught of questions each set of parents asked in attempts to catch up, nor did it stop them trying to force a conversation between you two.
“So, Y/N, how was university in the states? Did you like it there?” curiously inquired Minho’s father.
“Oh, it was great! Definitely got to meet some life long friends there and had lots of fun,” you politely responded, “I didn’t exactly live the typical all-american college experience, but it was still nice. Excited to start my new job once I get back though! I got a really good offer and the position I wanted.”
Minho’s mother gasped as she congratulated you, “That’s amazing! I remember your mother telling me how stressed you were about those interviews, but I’m glad you got it,” she then turned her head to Minho while giving him a slight nudge, “Minho also graduated, he got a job offer as well. Tell them about it, Minho.”
Minho awkwardly cleared his throat, “Uhm, yeah, I just got an offer with a bank here as an analyst, but I’m waiting to hear back from another company before negotiating.”
You nodded as he spoke, looking anywhere, but him as your parents also commended him, you weakly congratulating him as well. Wow, this felt painfully awkward, but somehow neither of your parents seemed to care too much about the tension between you two.
“How about a special someone, Y/N?” Minho’s dad asked, the question catching you by surprise. Your eyes landed on the boy who sat across from you, who looked just as surprised, but fully interested in your response.
“Ah, no, not right now… Kinda focused on myself for now,” you respond, a stiff smile on your face, feeling nervous under the sudden intensity of Minho’s gaze.
Your mother let out a chortle, finding your embarrassment endearing, “What about you, Minho? Any girlfriends?” she teased, wiggling her eyebrows as everyone else joined in laughing.
“Minho does have a girlfriend! It’s such a shame she couldn’t make it tonight, she was a lovely girl,” his mom piped, “Reminded me a bit of you, Y/N, if I’m being honest.”
You didn’t know why, but something inside you sank, an indescribable wave of disappointment washed over you at the words girlfriend. Of course he had one, he’s, well, an attractive, smart, man. Of course, but why were you so bothered by it? You haven’t spoken to him in years, you virtually had no relationship with him and only had remnants of the past to hold onto, yet your stomach began to twist and turn inside you, almost as if you were jealous? Ah, no, this is weird, this isn’t right. Maybe the food just isn’t sitting with you well, maybe you caught a stomach bug that just so happened to show its symptoms just in this moment.
The boy coughed, “We, uh… We broke up, that’s why she isn’t coming.”
Everyone stood in silence, not expecting that kind of news over dinner, both sets of parents shooting him an apologetic look, but for some reason, you felt relieved to hear that. The pit that was forming in your stomach suddenly vanished, as if Minho’s words just cured you of your ailment.
“What, you never told us!” Minho’s mother exclaimed.
“It was a few weeks ago, it happens. I’m fine, really.” 
Maybe that explains the tired look in Minho’s eyes when you first saw him yesterday, maybe that explains the somber look he carried that day, and perhaps he went to the pond for a moment of peace, just as you did, except your very presence ruined it. There returned the familiar hand of guilt that rested its heavy hand on your shoulders, never giving you the chance to take a deep breath.
Beside that, dinner did move on relatively well as everyone took turns to catch up or reminisce on the olden days, all while gossiping about who was up to what. As dinner came to a close, both sets of parents decided it was best for you two to be left with washing the dishes alone in the house, as they moved to the patio area to chat amongst themselves.
Minho and you silently stood next to each other as he washed the dishes, handing them to you for them to dry with a rag, much as you two did while growing up. Although you two were much older, there was a comforting air that hung around you two that allowed you to relax the tension your body had been carrying over the dinner, humming a quiet tune as you dried each plate.
“You still hum while doing the dishes?” Minho asked, a small amused smile taking over his features.
You froze in place, not expecting him to willingly speak to you, much less take the time to ask you a question. “I guess I still do,” you replied lightly, afraid that the mere sound of your voice would somehow upset him. 
A quiet lull returned after your response, neither of you knowing what to do or even say around another as guilt nibbled away at each of you, but for your own different reasons. 
“I’m sorry.”
 “I’m sorry”
You both turned to each other, eyes widened in surprise as you both rushed mumbled apologies to each other at the same exact time. Neither of you knew what to do in this unexpected situation, awkwardness filling both your eyes as you both struggled to stammer out a response.
“I… I’m sorry for never telling you I was leaving, I should’ve known bet-”
“No, no, we were both kids. Neither of us knew better. I’m sorry for being so… rude. I don’t know what got into me. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay,” you whispered anxiously, continuing to dry the glass cup in your hand, “It’s a lot to handle all at once. I don’t blame you one bit.”
“It really isn’t okay. We were both hurting in our own ways, I think we both did the best we could at the time,” he smiled reassuringly at you, the same one he had flashed you the first day he dragged you out to the forest to find the pond, a smile you had come to miss. 
“Oh, and sorry about… your ex? Break ups suck…”
“It’s fine, I actually am glad we broke up… she was, well… it wasn’t great for either of us,” he mumbled, not willing to divulge any further, “Break ups suck? Sounds like you’ve had your fair share.”
You laugh lightly, “Unfortunately. Mine weren’t as peaceful as yours. You sound a lot happier than I was.”
“Well, you’ve always been a crybaby. Guess not much has changed about you, huh?” he mused, a teasing smirk forming on his face.
You rolled your eyes as you snorted, playfully nudging him with your hip, “Shut up. You’re still as annoying as I remember too.”
“I bet you missed it.”
“I did. A lot. Moving sucked.”
He handed you the last of the dishes to dry, deep in thought as he leaned his back against the kitchen counter, “Was it hard?”
You sighed as you put the last dish away, turning to him as you swallowed thickly, “I think I cried nearly every day for two years straight,” your gaze was stuck looking down at the floor as you fiddled with your fingers, “It was really hard. I didn’t have friends for a long time. No one understood me when I tried speaking English, and I didn’t understand the other kids a lot of the time, but I always knew they were laughing at me.”
Minho’s heart ached hearing how your voice slightly quivered as you recalled the memory, he could tell it was your first time ever saying any of it out loud. There was an icy sadness surrounding you as you spoke, yet no tears were to be found. Maybe you were good at hiding them, or maybe you had grown too tired to cry for your younger self at this point, but it didn’t take away from the scars the loneliness had left on your heart. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I should’ve been there for you.”
You shook your head, an exasperated laugh left you as a resigned smile took over your face, “It’s okay, it was years ago. I’ve learned to deal with it. Besides, I did end up making friends and I ended up learning how to speak English.”
Minho was amazed at your ability to force a cheerful expression while discussing something so traumatic, something he would have never expected you to be able to do. He couldn’t help but wonder what you had endured all these years on your own, wondering where the sensitive and delicate version of you he had once knew had gone, feeling angry that you had been hurt so much that your tenderness was forced to become a callous exterior. 
The child he had once known was so fragile, he had to wear gloves when handling your porcelain heart, nervous his very own touch or breath could crack it if he wasn’t careful. Minho hated seeing you cry. He would defend you, fighting tooth and nail, like his life depended on it if anyone ever upset you, even going as far as angrily huffing and puffing at your parents if they ever raised their voice at you. And every time, he would comfort you right after in a gentle embrace until you calmed down, making sure to glare at anyone who tried to disturb your peace. How much did your little heart break over the years? Who was there to pick up the pieces and comfort you through those moments? Had you really dealt with it all by yourself? The thought alone made Minho’s heart writhe in despair, aching as he mourned this realization.
You reached out to grab Minho’s arm as you saw the downcast expression on his face, “Hey, it’s not your fault. I learned how to defend myself and I think I turned out pretty okay at the end of it,” you reassured before laughing, “Unless you think I’m lame now.”
Your laugh was enough to bring Minho out his incessant thoughts, a mischievous grin returning, “I never thought you were cool in the first place.”
“Minho!”
“Kidding, kidding. I’m just glad to have you back. I missed you lots.”
“I missed you too.”
。゚•┈୨♡୧┈• 。゚
Over the past few days, you and Minho had become inseparable, spending nearly every minute of the day with one another, much like how you two did when you were children. For the first time in years, you finally felt that you belonged somewhere, no longer feeling out of place like you have since the day you moved away. It didn’t matter where you were, but as long as Minho was there, you felt like you were at home. He knew this too, he noticed the change from the first day he found you at the pond again to now. You were much more relaxed, as if all the worries in the world disappeared while you both were together, giggling over whatever stupid joke was made. You weren’t on edge as you were before, and the walls you had surrounded your heart with slowly crumbled away through his affections. 
And even though over a decade has since passed since you two last spoke, it was as if time had paused since the moment you left, and only resumed from the day you both made up. Nothing has changed, except everything about the two of you changed. Your childhood friendship continued like it was nothing, playing like a song that had been paused, waiting to sing its tune, except you two were much older, more matured, and had experienced so much of life. Whatever you each went through shaped you into the adults you were today, yet the kids you each knew hid behind locked doors that only the two of you had accessed.
Yet, there was a more complicated matter that you had to address before it snowballed out of control. Your feelings. Love was never a word you and Minho shied away from, as you often told each other ‘I love you’ while growing up, it seemed natural during that time of childlike innocence. You knew you loved Minho, and you knew he loved you, but saying it as adults had an entirely implication and your feelings were indicating something much deeper than platonic love. 
It was no secret that your childhood best friend had grown into a rather handsome man, and the childhood crush you once had on him was flourishing into something greater than just a crush. The smallest of gestures would send a frenzy of butterflies and warmth rushing throughout your veins, hoping to god Minho had not noticed just how much of an effect he was having on you.
If you two were walking through a crowded area, he’d grab your hand without hesitation as he led you through the swarms of people. If you had food stuck on the corner of your lips, he’d grab a napkin and wipe it off. If you saw a small trinket at the shopping mall you wanted, the very next day he’d come back with the item in hand, saying he bought it so you could remember to text or call him when you went back to the states. It was moments like those that felt so incredibly intimate to you, but part of you wasn’t sure if it could all be explained away by how comfortable you two were with one another. 
And here you were again, sitting on the couch of Minho’s living room after he had begged you to watch a new scary movie with him, insisting this was to make up for the pre-teen years you both missed out on and that he would’ve forced you to watch one then. You tried to protest, saying that you guys weren’t kids anymore and there was no need for these ‘tests of bravery,’ yet you couldn’t resist the way he would pout and whine, begging you to do so for him just like he would as a child. 
You were barely watching the movie, just peeking out from behind a blanket as Minho’s secure arm wrapped around your shoulders, your head laying on his chest as you cowered in fear over the pure suspense of the movie. Each time you’d flinch, you could feel a soft rumble come from Minho’s chest, doing his best to stifle a laugh and hide the fact that he was enjoying every moment of this. 
“I fucking hate you,” you scowled, still recovering from the last jumpscare.
Minho giggled at your face, finding your attempt to look upset absolutely adorable, “No, you don’t,” reaching his other arm over you as he squeezed you into an affectionate embrace, “It’s not my fault you’re still a giant baby after all these years.”
You grumbled while doing your best to shove Minho off you, but there was no way you’d be able to overpower him. You’ve hugged Minho so many times throughout your life, but this time, it sent your heart racing so loud that you could hear it drumming in your own ears, silently praying that he couldn’t hear it too. Something about this hug felt different, especially when he kept you close in his arms, refusing to let you go as he snuggled into you. This trip was going to be the death of you.
Without fail, every time you jolted in your seat, Minho was quick to chuckle at each of your reactions and tighten his grip on you gently, not skipping a beat to plant a chaste kiss on your forehead while whispering to you that it was just a movie. If you were two kids, this would be something normal and innocent, but right now, it left you feeling like a flustered mess who was melting under the heat of his affection.
You were slowly feeling yourself short-circuit, your body starting to sweat from the heat of embarrassment that was washing over you. Surely, Minho would feel the amount of warmth emanating from you at this point, yet he seemed completely unbothered as his eyes were trained on the movie ahead of you. You were relieved that he seemed aloof to the distress you were experiencing, but also mildly insecure that he seemed so… relaxed despite the proximity you two shared. Maybe he had only seen this under the same childhood innocence and nothing more, maybe it was only you making a big fuss over this.
It was becoming too much for you to bear as you started to shift uncomfortably, slowly getting up while excusing yourself to the bathroom. Minho’s eyebrows furrowed with concern, “Are you okay?” 
You nodded your head hastily as you made your way to the bathroom, “Uhm, yeah! Just not feeling well suddenly, not sure why. Just gonna splash some water on my face.”
He didn’t seem too convinced, he could sense there was something more to it, but decided to let it go. You raced to the bathroom, shutting the door behind you to finally catch a breath, shaking your hands as if you were trying to remove all the nervous energy out of you. Your face was hot to the touch, thankful for the cold water from the faucet as you splashed it onto your warm cheeks. You weren’t sure how much time had passed, but it was long enough for Minho to come knocking at the door, “Y/N? Is everything okay?”
You swung the door instantly, startling Minho as he backed up from the door, his eyebrows raised at your change in behavior, “What’s wrong? Don’t lie to me, I can tell something’s up.”
Minho’s eyes narrowed as he looked into yours, trying to search your eyes for an answer as you bit the inside of your cheek, your eyes entirely avoiding him, “It’s nothing, I’ll be fine-”
“Y/N.”
“I promise, I’m probably just overreacting, Minho. I’ll be fine.”
He stared down at you with his arms crossed, pursuing his lips as he watched the corners of your lips twitch, a telltale sign that you were lying, “Am I making you uncomfortable? Was the movie too much for you? You know you can tell me anything.”
You shook your head panickedly, “No, no, it’s nothing like that, I swear! Don’t worry about it.”
“Y/N.”
You gulped, you knew there was no way out of this. Minho knew you better than anyone else, he knew you weren’t randomly feeling ill over nothing, he knew it had nothing to do with the movie. 
“I really don’t wanna talk about it, Minho. It’s okay.”
“Okay, we don’t have to talk about it, but can you at least tell me if it has anything to do with me?”
The stubbornness you found charming as a child was definitely an absolute pain in the ass as the adult man in front of you analyzed every microscopic detail you, trying his best to get to the bottom of what had you acting strangely. You couldn’t lie to him, no, he would know as soon as you opened your mouth it was a lie. Sure, you could tell him he was the cause of your unsettledness, but would that even go well? There were too many factors to consider, too much to think about and your long pause told Minho everything he needed to know.
He sighed, taking a step back as he started to make his way back to the living room, “It’s fine, I can tell. If this is too much, we can stop here. We can talk about it tomorrow morning.”
“N-no!” 
The words flew out your mouth before you had the chance to even think. Oh, you were mentally cursing at yourself as Minho turned to you again, his face furrowed with confusion, “No?”
“I just… I mean, it’s just a lot, but it isn’t at the same time?” you sounded so unsure as you said it, which only caused Minho to tilt his head to the side as he tried to understand you.
“It’s too much, but it isn’t…” he mumbled to himself, his mind straining to figure out the riddles you were speaking, “I know I said we don’t have to talk about it, but you do realize you’re not making any sense, right?”
You forced a tight-lipped smile, inhaling sharply, “Uhm, yeah… It doesn’t make sense to me either.”
“You’re lying. You know exactly what you mean, you just don’t want to tell me.”
You winced at his bluntness, not really surprised at how direct he was being with you, “Do you not trust me anymore?”
His eyes glossed over with insecurity and worry as he asked that question, your heart dropping immediately, wanting nothing more than shoo those feelings away, “What? Of course I still trust you.”
“Then why can’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s complicated?”
“But why?”
“Why can’t you just drop it?” you raised your voice in frustration at his insistence, not willing to budge as he tried to pry his way into your mind.
“Well,” he hesitated, “The last time you hid something from me, you left. So forgive me for being a little scared.”
Your mouth dropped open at Minho’s statement, not expecting him to be so vulnerable with you out of nowhere, “I… Minho, I’m sorry,” you whispered tearfully, your stomach flipping onto itself as it digested the grief Minho had just voiced. You stepped towards him, reaching for his hands as you clasped them between yours, “I’m sorry, it’s just… I don’t really know if I should be saying this.”
“Trust me this time, please? I don’t want to be left in the dark again,” he pleaded, his mind reminding him of the day he waited for you as the amber sunset turned into the night sky.
Your hands started to tremble in his, your nerves taking over as you unexpectedly found yourself about to confess your feelings to a man who lived thousands miles from you, a man you had only started talking to a few days ago, a man who had somehow known you your entire life, despite missing so many crucial years together. Your breath hitched as the butterflies in your stomach got caught in your throat, your nerves signaling off as the electrifying feeling of adrenaline took over, “I, uh… I am really happy we’ve made up, I’m really happy to have rekindled our friendship with one another, and I’ve loved all the time we have spent with each other over the last few days, but…”
Trepidation ran through you, biting your lip for a brief moment as you hesitated to continue your sentence, “Maybe I’ve come to love it a little too much?” At this point, you were looking for every way possible to avoid saying your actual feelings, hoping Minho would connect the dots for you, but his face told you he had no idea what you meant. “Okay, you don’t have to tell me I’m still not making sense, I can see it in your face,” you sighed. He nodded, urging you to continue with patient eyes.
“I… like you?”
It was quiet, so quiet you swore both Minho and you could hear your heart thumping, your hands clamming up as you held his, terrified eyes examining his face for his reactions. He stilled for a moment, as if he was processing your words before breaking out into a grin, a hearty laugh escaping him.
“I already knew that.”
You froze in place, disbelief painting your face as you stared at him incredulously, “What?”
“Don’t tell me you’re also still clueless after all these years,” yet he took your silence as confirmation, shaking his head as he giggled, “Do you really think I was being overly affectionate with you for no reason?”
Your mouth dried up from nerves, stuttering over your reply, “I… Yes? I thought you were just… I don’t know, I thought you were just treating me the same way you did as when we were kids.”
“And do you know why I treated you like that growing up?” he questioned with a candied smile.
You blinked slowly, your head shaking cautiously as you tried to decipher his words, “Because… I don’t know? We were best friends.”
“Sure, that was part of it, but it was more like me having a giant crush on you.”
“...”
“... That means I still like you, if that wasn’t clear enough for you.”
There was no way this was real, this all had to be a dream, you just couldn’t believe your ears. Your childhood crush, the man that caused our feelings to go absolutely haywired in a matter of a few days, felt the same exact way for you this whole time and you just somehow missed it? No, no, this was certainly a dream, why on earth would he be into someone like you, someone who-
“Y/N,” he removed his hands from yours, resting them on top of your shoulders as he leaned down to come face to face with you, effectively waking you up from your reverie, “Let’s make up for lost time,” he whispered, his breath fanning on your lips, “Can I kiss you?”
You stared back with doe eyes, all your vocabulary escaping you as you gulped, nodding your head perhaps a little too excitedly. Minho’s smile only widened at your reaction, his rough hands traveling to cup your face with half-lidded eyes, his head leaning forward as his chapped lips closed the gap. His lips melded against yours, your hands grasping at his t-shirt as you felt your knees buckle under him, clinging onto him as if your life depended on it. You felt yourself weaken under his touch, becoming prisoner to his affection as the world around you quieted, much like the moment of silence that existed between the end of a performance and explosive applause of the audience. Everything stalled, as if the expanse of the universe took a pause and the supernovas’ violent bursts slowed to witness feverish kiss between you two. You were becoming lightheaded, pulling away from the dizzying kiss as your chests heaved in an attempt to catch your breath. Minho’s cheeks and ears burned a bright scarlet, a sweet smile grazing his features as his eyes brimmed with love and affection, softly whispering:
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
。゚•┈୨♡୧┈• 。゚
Once again, the familiar, low, hum of mosquitos filled your ears as Minho’s firm hand led you down the same dirt trail you’ve traveled down hundreds of times, leaves brushing against the skin of your arms as you cautiously followed his grasp. Today, Minho told you he had one last surprise for you before you traveled back home, blindfolding you at the entrance of the forest as butterflies fluttered in your stomach, temporarily distracting you from the fact that this was your last day here before returning to the states, returning to your mundane life and leaving this mind numbing summer romance behind.
He slowed down his pace, signaling to you that you had arrived to your destination, his hands slipping out of yours as you felt his presence behind you, gently removing the blindfold as he softly whispered, “we’re here.”
As soon as the blindfold was off, your eyes blinked rapidly as they adjusted to the change of lighting, scanning the scene that stood ahead of them as Minho made his way into your vision, a saccharine smile beaming at you, “Do you like it?”
Like was an understatement as a grin broke out onto your face, your heart filling with an overwhelming amount of adoration as you took in the surprise Minho spent so long preparing for earlier this morning. There, beside the pond, laid a small plaid blanket with a picnic basket centered atop of it, a bouquet of your favorite flowers and a bottle of wine propped up against the basket. You gasped with delight as your heart softened, “Oh, Minho, I love it.”
His shoulders relaxed at your words, no longer feeling nervous as he grabbed your hand and guided you to the blanket, sitting down next to you as he gingerly laid out the food he prepared in front you. “I made you some of your favorites,” he added, gently opening the bottle of wine and pouring you a glass, “I hope its as good as it looks,” he laughed anxiously, handling you a small bento box with the a serving cutely prepared, the vegetables cut out into small hearts decorating the rice. You took a bite of the food as soon as you had the chance, a small moan escaping you due to how delicious it was, your eyes widening in surprise, not expecting it to be so flavorful, “Minho, this is so good, you made this?”
He proudly nodded, pride bubbling up within him as you complimented the meal he made for you, one where he spent an agonizing amount of time to make because it just had to be perfect for you, especially today of all days, a day he wanted to send you off with the happiest memories.
You both continued to enjoy the date Minho had put so much effort in, occasionally teasing one another or chuckling at whatever lame joke the other made, both of you trying to avoid the looming topic at hand, the inevitable ending of this summer love story that was doomed to last for only a few weeks.
“So…” Minho anxiously drawled, “You’re leaving tomorrow…”
You smiled weakly as you cleared your throat, “That I am.”
He pursed his lips, struggling to ask the question you both knew you needed to address, “So… what does it mean for us?”
A heavy sigh escaped you as the tension in the air thickened, both of you intently staring at one another, trying to decode what the other was thinking before speaking, “What do you want it to mean?”
“I asked you first,” he responded a little too fast for your liking, not willing to voice his thoughts without hearing yours first.
“Well, uhm…” you paused, debating with your mind and heart as you decided your next words, “I am going back to the states, back to my friends, back to my job, back to my life.”
“Right,” he mumbled with a crestfallen expression, “Your life is there, not here.”
“It is.”
“What about me?” he whispered in a quivered voice.
“Well, your life is here, my life is not here. I don’t really…” you took a deep breath, tears starting to prick your eyes, “I don’t know how we would work.”
He nodded tearfully, knowing he couldn’t deny the difficulty of managing a long distance relationship, especially one like this, “What if I moved with you? What if you moved back?”
You shook your head, your heart breaking at Minho’s attempts to find a solution, “Minho, you don’t even speak English, you wouldn’t be able to find a job there and use your degree-”
“I can learn! I promise, I’ll start studying-”
“Minho.” 
He stopped mid-sentence, his stubbornness refusing to let him accept the reality you two had found yourselves in, “Minho, you already have a job offer here, your friends and family are here. You wouldn’t be happy in the states, it’s so hard living there as a foreigner.”
“I’d be happy anywhere as long as I’m with you,” he begged, praying you’d at least try to see the glimmer of hope he was trying to conjure up, “I don’t care where, as long as I’m with you, I’d be happy.”
You bit your lip as you tried to suppress a sob, “You know that’s not true, you know your happiness can’t be dependent on me alone.”
“You don’t want to come back here?”
“I… can’t, Minho. My life isn’t here anymore, it hasn’t been in years.”
Crystal tears fell from Minho’s eyes, his eyes no longer being able to meet yours as the your words crushed his soul, the love he felt for you expelling into his tears as he began to mourn your loss once more, sobbing much like he did all those years ago. Through hiccups, he blubbered “Please, Y/N. Please don’t leave me again.”
You squeezed your eyes shut as you sniffled, no longer being able to watch the man you love completely fall apart in front of you, cursing yourself for your cruel words that stabbed over and over again in his bleeding heart. “I’m so sorry, Minho. I don’t want this either, but what choice do we have? You and I both know our lives would never cross paths, we would never be able to come together.”
“We can try-”
“For what? To only cry years later to have this same exact conversation again?” you snapped, your frustrated tears and guilty conscience no longer being able to handle his pleading, it only wounding you more. You’ve already spent the past few weeks trying to scour for a possibility, a fragment of hope that showed you a timeline in which you two would be happy together, but it simply didn’t exist in this life, no matter how many times you flipped and turned the story. This wasn’t a movie, this wasn’t some romance novel where love would triumph it all, this was the bitter and harsh realities of life, and you hated it with all your heart.
You let out a despondent sigh as you lamented over the situation, your hands gingerly reaching out for Minho’s chin, forcing his teary-eyed face to look at yours, “Minho, I’m sorry, baby.”
He sniffled, his nose reddening as hot drops cascaded down his cheeks, “I’m sorry too.”
“I love you with everything in me, Minho, and I always will no matter where life takes us,” you murmured heartbrokenly, “I have known you for thousands of lifetimes, and I don’t regret meeting you in a single one.”
His hands reached out to hold yours, removing them from his face as he grasped them tightly, as if he was fearing you’d fade away if he loosened his grip, “I just wish we worked in this one,” he trembled.
“Me too, but…” you heaved, “Maybe in the next one, right? You’ll find me again?”
He laughed melancholily, “Always. I’d chase you to the very end of the universe if I had to.”
“Kiss me one more time? So I don’t forget?”
He smiled with anguished eyes, not hesitating to tilt his head as his lips captured yours once more,  in one last, passionate kiss with all the devotion in the world, leaving the taste of your bittersweet love, one where only the two of you would know and understand. 
You were leaving him again, but at least he got to say goodbye this time.
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rottencherrypie · 2 months
Text
R-18+; The King's Whore (Thorin x Fem!Reader)
Summary - Before reclaiming Erebor, the king had propositioned you to become his personal whore, a proposition which was rather beneficial on both sides. However, it appears you have forgotten who owns you and now all of Erebor and its' visitors must know that you are the king's whore.
Warnings - Smut, afab reader, female reader, degradation, harassment, xenophobia (brief), possessiveness, teasing, slapping, choking, bodily fluids, unprotected sex, spanking (brief), kinda-dom!thorin(?),kinda-dom!reader(?), semi-public sex, being called a whore (an unhealthy amount of times), thorin whimpering, creampie, (brief) mention of a womb.
Pronouns & Pov - She/her, third-person-ish
Word Count - 4,100+
A/N - An old smut from my old Tumblr account, I honestly do not remember a single word I wrote back then...it's good to be back <3 (I swapped phones so I no longer have the collage I originally used with this, I will make a new one soon)
Read on AO3
«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»
It had been mere months since the painstakingly long journey to reclaim the kingdom of Erebor had come to fruition. The terrifying battle nearly took your lover and his beloved nephews from this realm but by the grace of the gods, you had managed to swoop in and save them one by one. The scars on your body, ranging from large to small were a reminder of how lucky all of you were to be breathing.
A soft smile graced your lips at the thought of each dwarf sleeping peacefully within the large stone walls, walls that shielded out everyone else except for you. You were the only exception when it came to humans, according to the company you had traveled with, all doubts had ceased to exist from their minds though you could not say the same for the rest of their people.
Some had shown you great hospitality, it often debated if it were for your association to the king or for your bravery on the battlefield, while others showed you relentless cruelty. Shared cruelty both you and a rather familiar she-elf had grown to endure, none thinking of how the pair of you had thrown your lives away for the safety of their people yet they were often quick to judge on how those who stood before you did nothing for those before them.
A sudden frown spread upon your lips at the sudden reminder of those awful words the pair of you were often called, many ranging from outrageous to simply hissing 'human' or 'elf' in your directions, though there was one supposed insult that always forced a knowing grin onto your soft lips. The king's whore.
Little had they known, you had earned this title far before you had stepped foot into Erebor. They would never know nor accept that it was the king's suggestion to aid him during his sleepless nights, to give him momentary relief up against a tree, or to share your tastes upon each other's tongue.
No, to them you corrupted their poor king the moment the battle was over for your selfish gain, many reminding you through a slum of insults they would never accept you and you would never be their queen. A title you did not care for and you could easily have cast away with a few words to your lover, as you had made clear to him and all of Erebor; the title of their queen was pathetic compared to being his whore.
Many believed being his queen would give them more power than some measly whore could ever gain yet here you were, sitting across some of the most powerful rules in middle earth as they sought out your opinion, a simple whore, to aid them for future conquests. On top of keeping the king's bed warm, you kept their kingdom and many other kingdoms safe yet no one would ever credit you with that.
"Is there anything you wish to add, Y/N?" The soft tone suddenly anchored you back to reality, a quiet hum escaping your lips as your eyes raised the rouge-colored fabric that hung loosely around your lap. The form-fitting outfit, one you had chosen to get a rise out of the dwarven king, a form of revenge for him leaving you craving his touch and taste all so he could go back to his pointless paperwork.
"If all is well with his highness, then I have nothing else to add." Your melodic words falling gracefully upon his ears, the corners of his slightly chapped lips turning upwards into a proud smile. "Then it is settled." The dwarven king announced, slamming his bare palm against the dark-oak table allowing the men to rise from their seats to commune with one another.
Many coming to his side to compliment him on retrieving his home, a compliment he often reflected onto you yet this time he didn't. As he glanced across the table, his calloused hand stretched out, prepared to introduce you in a way he often did, he noticed you were talking to another. Not just another dwarf, they knew better than to do so without his permission, but another man. This alone would be fine if you were not flirting with him!
The tips of your fingers softly kissing his lightly scar-tattered arms as your plump lips curved upwards into a smile, your jewel-colored eyes sparkling as you took in each boring word the man spoke. To the king's displeasure, you wrapped a soft palm around his upper arm and allowed a soft giggle to escape your lips, a similar action that had sparked his proposal for you to be his whore and only his.
"Excuse me." The muttered words barely caught his company's ears as he quickly rose, his limbs moving on their own towards your direction as the light behind his eyes quickly began to match the shade of your dress. "And that's when I-oh hello your highness," The male began, a knowing smile painted upon his lips. "I was just telling your whore about my latest journey." The words flying out of his mouth far too comfortably, the palm which loosely wrapped around his upper arm suddenly released whilst you backed away in disgust. How dare he call you that? Only your king could refer to you as such!
"I beg your pardon?" The words passing through the king's gritted teeth, though he was furious at you for flirting with another male, the rage he had felt when your title slipped through his lips was far more powerful. "Your whore, how much gold for a night with her?" A smug grin spread upon his grimy face, a grin he wished to wipe clean from his face with his sword. "My whore, is not for sale. She will not warm anyone else's bed other than my own." The low growl sending a sharp shiver down your spine, you could not deny the effect his possessiveness had upon you.
Your breath hitched in the back of your throat as the king inched closer to the lower-class male, eyes burning blazes far more powerful than Smaug's breath. "You shall refer to her as Y/N or her highness and only as such, the title of my whore is meant for myself and myself alone." His fingers tightly clung around his thumb, chest rising and falling quickly as his gaze burnt further holes into his competitor's skull. "If you wish to leave Erebor intact, I highly suggest you do so. Understood?" The opposite male quickly bobbed his head, face draining of all color the moment the king's harsh tone caught his ear.
"Good, now get out of my sight." And with those words, the male quickly scurried off leaving you with the fuming king. "Outside, now." Another low growl further dampened the undergarments that rested between your thighs. Without the chance to respond, he quickly dragged you out of the meeting halls without the notice nor the care of others around him.
"What did you think you were doing?" Hissing as he shoved you up against the cold stones, your words quickly catching in your throat as the glint in his eyes grew darker. "You know what, my whore? I simply do not care now, it appears someone has forgotten who she belongs to." The hot air on the nape of your bare neck forced you to swallow a mouthful of air, the burning fury within his ocean eyes furthering the lust you had towards him.
"No clever comment? Or are you too overwhelmed by your pathetic need to be full of cock already?" The sensation of his rough calloused hand inching up your thigh caused your breath to hitch in the back of your throat, your lust-filled eyes boring back into his enraged ones. "Thorin, we should stop. Someone could spot us-" "If they do let them watch, you are mine and all of middle earth will know it when I get done with you." The once silent halls filled with the sudden tearing of your panties, the damped fabric sprawled onto the murky ground beneath you.
A small pathetic gasp escaped your plump lips as his fingertips grazed your sensitive clit, excruciatingly sensitive due to his highness's neglect towards it in favor of his work. "Look at you, so responsive already. Such a good whore for me." A proud smile spread upon his lips as a singular thick finger traced a path down your drenched cunt, the very tip slowly delving inside of your soaked walls before slipping away.
An irritated sigh slipped through your lips as you attempted to lower yourself down upon it, your movements quickly stalled by his harsh grasp digging into your left hip. "Ah, ah, ah." He tutted pulling his finger further away from your soaked cunt. "Only good whores get pleasure, have you been a good whore?" "I always am-ah!" A harsh thwack against your clit forced your entire body to tremble. "Wrong answer." His cock stirring against the tight fabric he called trousers at your pathetic whines.
The continued thwacks against your sopping pussy echoed throughout the empty halls, soft whines and desperate pleads filled the king's ears amongst his torturous touches. "Oh please, your highness! I'll do anything you desire, please use me. I need it so badly." The pathetic excuse for words choked out of your swollen lips, each thwack digging your teeth further into the tip of your upper lip. "Anything?" A mischievous smirk spread upon his lips, your neediness was a sight, a rare one yet one he adored more than any treasure in all of middle earth.
The blur of your beautiful hair caught his eyes, he had trained you to be his perfect cock whore so well. "Face the wall, legs spread wide." His hot breath was suddenly removed from your neck as he backed away from you. "Now." His command jolted you up from the wall, legs trembling in an attempt to keep you steady as you quickly spun around.
"Such a good little whore." He hummed lowly while he kneaded your plump arse. "My good little whore." The soft tickle of his beard against your neck allowed a small giggle to slip between your lips. Finally, you were getting what you wanted. Arching your back downwards, you pressed your covered arse further into his calloused palms receiving an appreciative groan from him. "Needy today, aren't we?" Though you could not see it, you could feel the smile upon his lips due to the amusement dripping from his words.
"I am always needy for you, my king." A silent whine disrupting your words as the king's rough hands roamed beneath your skirts, a harsh thwack on your plump arse forced a choked moan out of your lips. "Must you tease me?" You whined slightly louder than desired, all care you had for getting caught slowly inching out of your mind as you thought of the inches between the king's legs.
"Patience, my dear whore." The king hummed lowly as his hands continued to further explore your desperate form, gliding over each curve and ounce of your body. Each bump and rough patch of skin received a momentary hover of the king's hands, some ounces in small circles, before gliding to the next mass of flesh, admiring and loving each scar and imperfection your body held.
Though it typically warmed your heart knowing how much his highness adored you and the things you have done for him, now was not the time you wanted him to be gentle with you nor receive any praises from him. You needed him badly, you needed him now.
Further pressing your plump arse into his large palm, you slowly began to roll your hips in a desperate attempt for him to gift you with any form of pleasure. "You know you want to." The words dripping with lust, your low sultry tone causing his aching cock to twitch against those damn restraints he called trousers.
"Is that so? What else do I want to do, if you are so clever?" As you opened your mouth to answer his inquiry you felt the sudden shift of your skirts going upwards. "Go on, whore. Speak." "I-oh fuck!" Your attempt to form words dying off on your tongue at the sudden pressure between your legs, the tip of his throbbing cock slowly pressing into your soaked cunt without fair warning.
A small gasp of pleasure escaping your lips as his throbbing cock continued to push further inside of you, the gentle stretch of your walls allowed your eyes to loop upwards into your skull. "Shit, Thorin." The pathetic little mewls from his pulsating cock deep within you sounded more heavenly than any instrument's tune before, a pleased grin spreading upon his lips as he bucked his hips upwards allowing his cock to further stretch out your soaking cunt.
"Such a good little whore, taking all of me so easily." The muttered words against your neck sending a shiver down your spine, the soft tickle of his beard against your bare neck was accompanied by gentle nips at the curve of your soft neck. The bucking of his hips stalled at a gentle pace allowing you time to adjust to the heavenly stretch inside of you, each fiber of his being burning as he restrained himself from further carving his cock inside of you.
The attempts to allow you to adjust quickly failed as you backed your hips against his, your soaking cunt squeezing around his throbbing cock with each movement. "Fuck." He groaned tilting his head backward, eyes closed at the heavenly sensation as his hands roamed up your body before resting snugly around your throat.
Your eyes widening at the gentle pressure that surrounded your neck, the warmth which radiated off of his palms soothing the faint bite marks given mere moments before. "Be a good whore and stay still." The roughness in his voice further drenching your aching cunt, a tone you had heard once before he pulled out of you and left you there, desperate and begging for the smallest touch from him.
The squelch of your drench cunt accompanied the sound of skin slapping against each other throughout the stone halls, your pleased moans ever so slightly muffled by the king's hands clenching around your throat. The pair tightening as his movements grew faster, his cock hitting the most sensitive spots deep within you with every stroke.
Though he was not mighty when it came to his height, his cock was far different, much larger and thicker than you had ever dreamt of. The faint sting of it stretching you out upon entrance far too heavenly for words to describe, a statement you had once told him only to be met by his mocking as you sobbed on his throbbing cock that very night at the intensive stretch he gave you.
"So fucking tight, so tight for me." He growled lowly into your ear as the thrusts of his hips became harder and quicker, your hands desperately clawing against the smooth walls as each rough thrust further carved his cock into your inner walls. "All for you, Thorin." The words choked out weakly as your eyes looped upwards within your skull, your mouth agape as each thrust allowed a moan to escape.
"Who's pussy is this? Fucking say it." Another low growl greeted your ease whilst he rammed his cock deeper in your depth, hitting the most sensitive part of your core with each powerful stroke. "It's your pussy, Thorin. It's all yours." You sobbed loudly, a familiar tingling spreading up from your toes throughout your entire body as a knot formed within the pit of your belly.
"What was that, whore? I couldn't hear you!" The pressure against your neck slightly eases before a harsh thwack fell upon your arse, your body jolting forwards at the sudden sensation as a whimper suddenly left your lips. "You own my pussy, Thorin!" You yelped out, your loud cries bouncing throughout the large halls. Any concern of your peers hearing your slutty cries melted out of your pleasure-filled mind, your only thoughts on how harshly the king was treating your pussy. The knot within your stomach tightening further, your cunt clenching around the massive cock buried within you.
"AH!" His rough thumb began toying with your throbbing bundle of nerves, his animalistic thrusts refusing to ease up on your beaten pussy as your body trembled before him. Sweaty palms gliding down the cold walls, back arched further towards him as his calloused hand clenched tighter around your throat. "Fuck, I can't." You choked out another whine as both of his movements became sloppier, soft grunts escaping his lips as your pussy began to pulsate around his swollen cock.
"Cum." He commanded lowly, his hips beginning to burn at the pace of his animalistic thrusts. Each thrust ramming his cock at the most sensitive spot in your body, his thumb perfectly circling the tense bundle of nerves between your legs. "I can't." He snarled at your pathetic whine, the circles from his thumb quickly removed by a harsh smack against your throbbing clit.
"I said fucking cum, whore! Do it, cum for me. Now!" A loud yell escaping your lips as your body trembled, the static sensation spreading upon your body as the knot within your belly finally burst. His sturdy hand moving from your clit to your chest to keep your trembling form steady whilst you gushed around his cock, a proud smile spread upon his lips as his thrusts began to slow. "That's a good whore, cumming for her king." He cooed softly, his hand moving from your neck to caress your cheek whilst your walls fluttered around him.
The cool air filled your lungs as your gasps returned to steady breaths, your tense shoulders slumping towards your sides as a blissful look spread across your face. "I've got you." His words came out as a soft chuckle as he pressed a gentle kiss upon your neck, a soft nod of the head signaling him you were prepared to go again.
"Are you sure, Y/N? You nearly collapsed there." The back of his rough hand gently caressing your cheek. "Please, Thorin. You need your release as well." A mischievous smile spreading upon your lips, without warning you began to move forwards before lowering yourself back down on his length allowing a bliss-filled moan to slip through both of your lips.
The temporarily silent halls quickly filled back with the sound of skin slapping against each other yet again, the much softer rhythm accompanied by the faint moans from the king. "Fuck, you feel so good." He moaned into your ear as you met his soft thrusts by pushing your ass further against him, the hands which once held your neck now squeezing one of yours and gripping the flesh on your hip.
Each throb and thrust allowed your body to tremble, the aftershock of your orgasm still rang fresh throughout your body. His thrusts slowed down in speed as he squeezed your palm tightly, eyes glued shut allowing him to further absorb the sensations of your squelching pussy.
"You fuck me so good, my king." You cooed, squeezing his palm back as you further bounced yourself on his cock knowing well he was not short from falling into the depths of his pleasure, the slow teasing circles your hips would trace whilst on the base of his cock sent a loud groan throughout the halls.
"Fuck, Y/N. If you keep that up I'll-" A soft whimper slipping through his lips as you released his hand from yours, both palms planted firmly on the wall as you continued to ram yourself back against his throbbing cock. "Do it, my king. Cum for me." The sight of your arse bouncing upon his cock and your encouraging words almost too much for the lust-stricken king.
His sturdy arms wrapping around your waist tightly as he held you steady, his pace gradually picking up as his whimpers rang throughout Erebor. "Fuck, I want to fill you up so badly." His whines in your ear were your favorite tune, much like your desperate moans and whimpers to him, it was one no instrument could compare to nor recreate.
"You want to fill up your whore's pussy? Would that make my king happy?" You hummed out softly between moans, the heavy slap of skin against each other speeding up as he bobbed his head against your neck. "Please." His pathetic little whines making your pussy flutter around him, a single hand trailing down back towards your cunt and greeting your bundle of nerves yet again.
"Then do it, your highness. Fill me up with your cum." The moment that heavenly tune left your lips he began to plow into you faster, sweat glistening upon his forehead as his thumb swirled around your sensitive bundle of nerves, desperate to get one more orgasm out of you during his own.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" The loud cries of the king ringing out throughout his kingdom as his grip around your waist tightened, his body slumping further into yours as his hips bucked roughly into yours, his thumb still twiddling around that sensitive bundle of nerves he adored so deeply bringing you to yet another blinding orgasm.
White-hot ribbons painting the deepest depths within your womb, the overwhelming sensation of being filled to the brim made your nails puncture his toned arms. A soft hiss escaped his lips at the new puncture wounds, ones he would later claim he received during battle, and hoped the stirring of his cock would not give the truth away.
Trembling bodies clinging onto one another tightly, your nails still digging into his toned flesh while your lips curved up into a looped smile. "Thank you." He muttered softly, kissing the nook of your neck between pants for the cooling air. "Anytime, my king." You cooed happily, glazed-over eyes staring back at one another as your soft lips met his.
A tender moment erasing all images of the day before from both minds, simple orgasmic peace within you was all the new king needed in these silent moments, moments he wished he wasn't required to end. "Ready to return to our guests, my whore?" He hummed softly, pulling his softened cock out of your warm depths. A soft disappointed whimper escaped your lips at the sudden departure, wishing to have nothing more but a few more moments or hours with him.
"If it were up to me, my king, we wouldn't return till neither of us could walk." The soft mutter barely catching his ear, your attention now focused on fixing your disheveled appearance before facing the men in the other room. "After this, you will have me all to yourself until the next full moon." His lips gracing yours again for another few blissful seconds, the soft sensation easing all tension and worries from your body.
"I suppose I can bear with our guests for a few moments longer." A pleased smile creeping up onto your face causing the king to shake his head, both knowing well this would not be the first outburst towards him.
"Come along then." The sturdy thumps of his heavy boots ringing throughout the halls as you walked by his side, hands tightly wrapped around the other. "Oh, and before I forget." Pausing a few feet from the large metal doors in front of you, watching curiously as his opposite hand delved into his furs. "Remember, I own you, whore." Your body froze seeing your soaked panties in his clutches, a mischievous glint sparkling within his ocean orbs whilst he quickly tucked it away.
The soft clicks of his boots brought you out of your shocked daze alongside the sudden trickle of cum rolling down your inner thighs, a heavy heat quickly burning beneath your cheeks as you rushed after the mischievous king. "Thorin! Give those back to me this instant!" Your yells bouncing off the walls whilst you attempted to grab within his robes, his amused chuckles only fueling your desperate attempts to cover your bare cunt.
"You said it yourself, my lovely whore. I own your pussy and as the owner of it, I want it bare at all times." The smug grinning king pressed a soft kiss upon your cheek before waltzing into the meeting room ever so calmly as if him pounding into you mere moments ago was simply a figment of your imagination, you trailing close behind him with your gaze pointed towards the floor.
His hot cum further staining your inner thighs as you took your spot next to him, a calm smile spread upon your lips as you remembered his words. 'you will have me all to yourself until the next full moon.' How he would regret his actions at nightfall, if he wished to play dirty you could as well.
«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»
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fatphobiabusters · 4 months
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I have been forced to see so many Noom ads by YouTube, and each time I can't believe their audacity and how far they're willing to go. Off the top of my head, I can think of three specific Noom ads that astound me every time I have the displeasure of being reminded that Noom exists:
All of the ads that are just them showing footage of either extravagant or absolutely wild, no-one-has-ever-eaten-this food dishes with voice over saying "I couldn't figure out why I wasn't losing weight!" And the most recent iteration of this ad starts with footage of someone spraying whipped cream on a hot dog. Why? Who knows! But it's apparently related to why the paid voice actor wasn't losing weight I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was actually telling Mod Squirrel about this ad last night because the manipulative tactics of this one are so blatant and disgusting. The Noom ad starts with footage of puppies—I kid you not—and then says "Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired about your weight? We've got you!" I don't know what's more disgusting, the fact that they're using puppies (PUPPIES!!!!) to sell their fatphobic eating disorder app like some kind of cartoon villain, or the fact that they're pretending to come to the rescue of people who are tired of feeling ashamed of their fat bodies when companies like Noom are one of the direct causes of that internalized fatphobia in the first place. That would be like a canister of gasoline showing up to a house on fire and saying "Tired of me coming to your house ten minutes ago to set all of your belongings and memories ablaze? Don't worry, I've got you!" *starts a forest fire in the forest behind the house* "That'll be $100."
It's been a while since I've had to see this shitty Noom ad, and I hope it's because they received backlash for it since even people who don't care about fat liberation at least care about xenophobia. Does anyone remember that advertisement Noom made of (if I'm remembering correctly) a Latine grandmother showing her grandchildren love by cooking them homemade food that was part of their culture, and Noom called people like this Latine grandmother "food-pushers"? Literally coming after grandmothers making their grandchildren food from their cultural heritage????
Please let 2024 be the year that the Noom app dies. I am so tired of that fucking app.
-Mod Worthy
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amechyofsorts · 11 days
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The conversation around Toshiro sorta also makes it clear how people tend to keep expecting modern understanding of racism and xenophobia in a medival fantasy setting, one with fantasy races running around to further complicate things.
And like yeah, I doubt Kui was going for any manner of authenticity regarding medival race and national relations either, but it does feel weird to discuss how certain characters act through the lens modern racism and xenophobia, or at least only through that lense. "Microtransgressions" would not have been a concern to world travelers back then. One would very fast learn they would draw extreme curiosity or fear/discomfort from people, all of whom looked and acted entirely different from anyone you had ever seen before, and that almost no social standard from back home would work as you had learned it to all your life. There was no worldwide means of communication or information sharing that could properly prepare you for any of it.
Specifically what im trying to share here is that Toshiro was likely pretty used the kind of curiosity and social insensitivity Laios had displayed toward him, and wouldn't have thought too much of it, if not for his persistance and wanting to be his bff's as well. Laios isn't the racist white dude harassing a foreign student in college canteen about how weird and funny he looks and acts, despite living in the 21'st century and having all the means available to avoid that manner of behavior, he's a medival dude from bumfuck nowhere who was genuinely just extremely interested at the world being a bigger and more varied and interesting place then he was ever aware of, and also he's autistic as fuck on top of that.
But again, probably not the medival mindset what Kui specifically was shooting for, but even then, a fantasy world's understanding off all these matters would likely still be fairly different from ours anyway. Viewing, and judging the characters, strictly from the perspective of our modern day of understanding of these matters isn't likely very "productive" if you're trying to understand the characters.
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garden-bug · 2 months
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Thrawn nation this fanfic needs more attention because it’s mind-blowingly fucking brilliant.
Essentially, Thrawn gets picked up by the corrupt Palpatine-led Republic on a planet in the unknown regions, and says he’s a contemporary artist. The republic is divided by bigotry and xenophobia and corruption and Thrawn makes art and literally starts a revolution. He and Eli make movies too. They live in an apartment. There’s Twitter. They befriend Obi-Wan who is fucking hilarious and Hera is an activist and the OCs are wonderful and it’s just great ok. Thrawn’s history with the Ascendancy is complicated. Palpatine is a terrible guy. Thrawn thinks he can get the best of Palpatine alone and shuts out his friends and becomes the worst version of himself, there’s angst, but it’s done so well. Thrawn’s characterisation is also just amazing.
So yeah sometimes I’ll just be living my life and I’ll remember that someone came up with the best alternate universe fic I’ve ever read in my life.
For context I’m an English major and extremely snobby about writing quality but let me tell you this is insanely good.
Guys I’m just saying this fic is a masterpiece and you’re all sitting on it.
It’s rated E but explicit scenes can be skipped JUST GIVE IT A GO GUYS PLEASE it should literally be top on a03 in the Thrawn tag I don’t even care. Complex and well written AU fics like this never get the attention they deserve and I’m not having it. Pls rb if you’ve read it or just to support fanfic writers idc 💛
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“Their intentions aren’t exactly a secret. Government programs that attempt to redress decades of racist policies would be eliminated should Trump be elected to a second term. “As President Trump has said, all staff, offices, and initiatives connected to Biden’s un-American policy will be immediately terminated,” Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, told the news outlet.
A top Biden campaign official said Black voters needed to pay close attention to Trump’s plans.
Trump is “making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy, gutting programs that give communities of color economic opportunities and making the lives of Black and brown folks harder,” said former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), one of the co-chairs of the Biden campaign. “It’s up to us to stop him.”
The warning comes as polling shows Biden’s level of support from Black voters has slipped. Democratic strategists have some fear about GOP plans to target Black men in the coming election. And they have major fears Black voters could stay home or vote for third-party candidates. Highlighting Trump and Miller’s plans could raise the stakes of the election for Black voters.
Miller, who pushed white nationalism and xenophobia in leaked emails, is at the heart of the effort. America First Legal, the right-wing nonprofit group Miller founded, has filed over a hundred lawsuits against “woke” corporations — like Disney, Mattel and Nike — that it alleges discriminate against white men. These complaints — many of which cite the 1964 Civil Rights Act — are laying the legal framework for Trump’s Justice Department to eliminate programs designed to counter racism, Axios notes.
Jasmine Harris, director of Black media for the Biden-Harris campaign, said the report should worry Black Americans.
“This report, in addition to all of the recent examples of shameless racism by Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans, serves as a warning to Black America: Donald Trump is a selfish and vindictive man who doesn’t give a damn about Black people,” Harris told HuffPost. “He will make our lives worse by using the very laws that the pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement fought for, against us.”
Miller’s group is not alone in the effort to roll back DEI initiatives.
The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation crafted Project 2025, a sweeping playbook that lists policies and initiatives for the next conservative administration. The initiative is open about its goal to reshape the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. One of the mandates within the playbook is to “reorganize and refocus the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to serve as the vanguard for this return to lawfulness.”
Trump has affirmed to supporters that he aims make good on his promise to eliminate DEI. “We will terminate every diversity, equity and inclusion program across the entire federal government,” he told a crowd in Rochester, New Hampshire, in January.”
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snake-and-mouse · 4 months
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Regarding the issues surrounding the Kindergarten Mafia discord server, a large fandom server mostly dedicated to the kinnporsche fandom. It is an issue that encompasses multiple events and many other people have been hurt who I do not want to speak for, so this will not be the full picture, just a part of my part. If anyone reads this and has questions, they can reach out to me.
I am Will/Logan, also known as Sweet-William in fanfic circles, and I am not making this post because I have a vendetta, or to be malicious, as some of my previous actions have been called by the moderators of the server. I am making it because I have the right to speak on my experiences (as others I hope will speak up and share theirs, now that they know they are not alone), and because I want to warn people so what happened to me does not happen to them.
I am also making this post because @accal1a aka Hann the admin of the server has refused to delete content created by myself and many of my friends from the server, all of who left because they like me felt unsafe. The original request was sent by proxy as Hann has me blocked, and though they said they would unblock me so we could discuss it, they never did. As a writer I take it seriously when my work, and also details of my personal life, are taken. When I even offered to go through and delete it all myself if temporarily given access to the server, my messages were completely ignored.
The server is not a safe place for people of colour. It is not a place safe from racism, or xenophobia, and its leadership has historically been and continues to this day, to perpetuate racism in fandom spaces and shelter people who have hurt others with no real repercussions, accountability, or transparency.
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The original issue was the result of this conversation between myself and Rachael, one of the moderators. I earlier stepped into a conversation where several microaggressions occurred regarding native american culture. As a Native, it was my right to speak up.
After this conversation I was urged to bring the issue directly to Hann, and from there the issues spiralled out of control. Hann originally was very supportive, and we became what I thought to be close friends. They made many reassurances Rachael would be held accountable, and changes would be made to the server to make it a safer place for pocs.
Rachael was never actually held accountable. Even when it came to light she had messaged me to issue the warning while lying to the rest of the mod team that she had "checked in on me" to see if I was alright after the incident. This was not the only time she secretly issued warnings to people, usually to defend her friends.
She was "demoted" but in actuality, the entire mod team was restructured and she simply was not on the top rung. Over the next two months many things happened, most of which are not my story to tell, and then it came to light Rachael had even further lied and never issued any warning or otherwise spoke to the person originally being racist in a mod capacity, this person being her friend, and refused to show what messages she did actially send.
To avoid any punishment she tried to "step down" as a mod before a choice could be made. And this was allowed. She was allowed to step down and continue to be in the server with no one knowing the actual story or that she couldn't be trusted and had abused her position.
After an incredibly vague statement was posted by the mod team regarding Rachael no longer being a mod, I broke and posted the conversation publicly and laid out the actual events. This was met with an overwhelming negative backlash, where it became clear to me this was a community where I was not safe, and any poc speaking up and calling for accountability would be seen as malicious and rocking the boat unnecessarily, while the moderators just watched on in silence.
The few moderators who were advocating for the poc server members were promptly fired, and though at one point a timeline vaguely outlining the events was posted, it and all evidence of what happened to me has since been deleted. And while Rachael originally left saying I was obviously trying to run her off the server, she has already returned at the urging of Hann.
Protecting people of colour and standing up to racism and xenophobia was never a priority in the kingergarten mafia server. And now that Hann has escalated to stealing work from people of colour that they have absolutely no right to, I am speaking up.
Respect us, be an ally, or face the consequences of what your community looks like with us gone.
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