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bucknastysbabe · 2 years

Text

Walk your talk

Rating: Explicit

Synopsis: Bucky survives and settles down back in New York. His wife discovers at SSR Bucky has been ahem- exaggerating around the lunch table. Punishment ensues. A good boy should know to keep his mouth shut. Right?

Tags: Period typical sexism, Bucky pretends to be tuff™️ but is the biggest sub in the universe, SSR gang reunited and by that I only mean Peg n Sousa are allowed, men wearing panties, chubby!subby!bucky, dom!reader, pnv!sex, orgasm denial, SO MUCH TEASING, subspace, Bucky just wants to be the best boy to ever, kinda fluffy, aftercare

A/N: This was already in the bullpen hahaha BTTOH is about 75% done. Writing full ass chapters confuddles me but it’s about GROWTH. Also I love sub chub buck

1952

Bucky worked at the Strategic Scientific Reserve. He was a top dog— the heroic best friend of the dear Captain America and famed Howling Commando. He’d been working there since he lost his arm in the war. Howard Stark had since designed him a new one with some plans he said ‘certainly were not smuggled from a Nazi bunker’. He was happily married and recovering day by day.

Bucky’s pretty little wife was perfect. She never complained, and made his lunch for him every day. His coworkers would jab about Bucky having her under his thumb— how he probably gave it to her good. He’d laugh and go along with the talk, shrugging off their questions. Peggy would hound him about defending her honor and he figured he should before it got out of hand. He didn’t really prioritize that…being on a new case and all.

To Bucky’s consternation, it got out of hand as predicted. He was at a company cocktail party on Stark’s fancy pool property. He warmly smiled at his best girl, a big hand resting on the small of her back. She nuzzled his shoulder and cooed, “C’mon big guy, when are you going to let me meet some of these men? I’ve had an earful every night.” He shook his head with a laugh, calling over Johnson and Krzeminski. The pair of men were tipsy and goofily strode over.

Bucky introduced her, “Hey boys this is the wife!She’s interested in putting a face to the two who get on my damn nerves.” He pointed at the tall blonde, “That arrogant bastard is Johnson, and the lerch there is Krzeminski.” She airily laughed, a beautiful noise to Bucky. The woman teased, “Oh hush, I’m sure you two are perfectly ordinary!”

Krzeminski guffawed before slurring, “Ah Barnes I see why you kept her hidden. You’re a gem!”

Bucky narrowed his eyes as she blushed and laughed it off.

Ray continued as he elbowed Johnson, “Yeah, Barnes has told us all about you. I wish my wife took obeying so seriously, lemme’ get her over my knee for once.” The blonde chuckled lowly, eyeing the confused lady. Bucky intervened, “Alright. Thanks boys, we’re going to get something to drink now. Maybe some water for you Ray.” He clutched the man’s shoulder in a facsimile of warmth but gripped roughly, causing Krzeminski to wince in pain.

Bucky led his other half away internally cringing at his coworkers words. He should’ve nipped this in the bud earlier. She looked up at him, a sharp brow lifting up in question. Bucky stuttered to respond but she held up a hand. She asked, “What was that all about dear? What did you tell them?”

Bucky ran a hand over his brow and replied, “Y’know how guys get— just talk.”

“Just talk about our sex life? I guess you didn’t tell them the truth.”

Her painted lips turned into a frown, sending his heart to cracking. Bucky mumbled, “They worship the ground I walk on and I just got carried away— m’sorry sweetheart.” She rolled her eyes and looked up at his sorrowful blues. Her manicured hand reached up to thumb at his reddened cheeks.

“I understand. Maybe shut any future talk down baby,” her soft gaze hardened, “I doubt they want to know what happens when you misbehave. Who really gets taken over the knee, hm?” Bucky’s mouth gaped like a fish, his full cheeks flushing further at his baby’s words. He gulped, “N-no sweetheart, m’so sorry.” Bucky’s skin crawled as shame licked up his spine. He shifted in place, looking away from his wife’s piercing stare. He was in the dog house now.

“I think we need to head home Bucky-bear. Obviously you need a punishment for behavior like this.” A strangled noise leapt out of Bucky’s throat at her words. He didn’t need to be punished— Bucky just wanted to be her good boy but was doing poorly at that. She cooed, “Poor baby. You’ll be fine. Now go say your goodbyes.”

Bucky frowned and stalked off, saying sullen goodbyes to the partygoers. He waved off Sousa and Peggy asking about his mood, scurrying to the car instead. His wife waited in the passenger side, idly checking her nails. Bucky got in the two-door, avoiding her pointed gaze. She spoke softly, “I’m really disappointed in you sweetheart. I wouldn’t even speak, much less lie about our sex life to coworkers.” The brunette’s throat bobbed with emotion.

“It was messed up, I shouldn’t do that. M’sorry.”

Her voice cut him like a blade when she responded, “Sorry isn’t cutting it tonight. When I get out of my shower at home I expect you on the bed wearing your pretty things. Bad boy.”

Bucky whimpered.

“‘M not a bad boy,” he weakly protested. His face was red from embarrassment with hot tears welling up. His metal hand creaked against the steering wheel. She patted his thigh, giving it a squeeze as she teased, “You haven’t been acting like my best boy Buck. Don’t worry, I’ll get you sorted out.” He whined lowly, his dick traitorously jumping at her mean words and soft touch.

The rest of the drive she maddeningly stroked and gripped at his thigh. Bucky felt an oncoming haze at the edges of his mind— blurring and scrambling his thoughts. His cock was full to bursting, stuffed uncomfortably in his slacks. Bucky whined through his nose at the pain. She cooed, hand traveling up his thigh to brush against his need. He swallowed down a mewl.

“You’re something else. Getting hard when you’re being punished. Such a bad boy.”

Bucky frowned again then shot her a pitiful look. He wasn’t a bad boy, atleast he wasn’t trying to be! Bucky blinked dumbly at the road. His wife’s voice came through the haze, “C’mon Buck don’t go dumb on me yet. Parking is on the left.” On autopilot, he managed to park the car and escort his lady out.

She stepped in front of him, shouldering off the offered hand. Bucky moaned in distress and followed behind her like a lovesick puppy. He whined, “Don’t leave me behind!” The woman turned around with a smirk, eyes roving across his form. She replied, “Quit being needy baby— I’m not going anywhere.” Bucky softened slightly at the pet name but his cock stirred again.

He dug the heel of his palm into the swollen flesh, biting his lip to stifle noise. Bucky’s wife tutted and slapped at his hand, then turned to open the door to their brownstone. She kicked off her heels and walked to their room. Bucky did the same, calling her name as he followed her along. He watched hungrily as she unzipped her dress, smiling softly.

“Go change your clothes, puppy. I’m having my shower and you better be ready when I’m out.”

She moved away towards the bathroom, slamming the door shut. Bucky winced and his heart fell when he heard the lock. He pouted now, sullenly going to the ‘special drawer’. He rifled through the lingerie, settling on a baby blue set he knew she liked. “Brings out your eyes,” he remembered her whispering. He flushed and shivered at the memory.

Bucky stripped off his coat and yanked down his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt with frantic fingers, doing the same to his pants. Bucky moaned helplessly when he pushed down his underwear, brushing against his sensitive cock. The swollen member hit his belly when he uncovered it. Taking a deep breath Bucky collected and folded the clothes. He trembled with anticipation, heart thudding rapidly.

He slipped on the soft stockings first, shuddering at the feeling. Next came the garter, which Bucky shimmied on, his face flushing deeper in hot shame. He pulled at it, the material cutting into his softened waist and belly. He frowned down at the poorly fitting garter. His pretty baby was going to tease him to tears. Grabbing the last article of clothing, Bucky gazed at the skimpy panties. He had no clue where his wife even ordered them but he slipped on the silk clothing.

The soft material felt nice against his sensitive skin, Bucky’s lashes fluttering in response. When he pulled them up over his hips he mewled softly. The tight panties were snug against his leaking cock and achy balls. His left hand whirred as it twitched towards his crotch. He groaned, restraining himself or he’d be an even worse boy.

Bucky gingerly walked to the big bed and sat on the edge, tucking his arms behind his back. He whimpered in need, clenching his eyes closed to blot out the bright light. Bucky chewed on his lip as he waited, listened, and waited. He vaguely heard her humming and a couple of objects moving around. The fog began to collect around the edge of the brunette’s thoughts again, swaddling his racing mind. The humiliation of the lingerie and perching himself like a needy whore was fueling Bucky’s heady desire.

“Buck?,” came a soft voice. His missus voice. Bucky whined lowly, keeping his head down. He heard her bare feet padding across the floor. The light clicked off and a candle was lit. She instructed him to look up. He could see the outline of her until she got closer, his baby coming into view. Her eyes were soft but her face was locked into a predatory expression.

Bucky’s lips trembled as she caressed his jaw. She breathed, “Oh Bucky- you look so sweet. Like a good boy.” Oh please, Bucky thought. All he wanted to be was her good boy.

She crawled onto his thick thighs, seating herself flush to her husband. Bucky whimpered thinly, twitching.

“Lay back now,” she whispered into the shell of his ear. Following orders Bucky dropped back, no usual finesse on his part. Everything sounded dull and his muscles were lax. But he was keyed up to a 10. Bucky tried to speak but ended up whining and slurring nonsense; to which she pressed a finger against his lips. Her wide eyes sparkled when she murmured, “Shh bear. I’ve got you. This won’t be long- I know you’re sorry.”

“S’sorry,” Bucky cried lowly.

She stroked a tiny hand down his chest, soothingly stroking at the built muscle. She laid featherlight kisses onto his jaw and neck. Bucky preened, moaning at the soft touches. He faintly jerked when his wife’s fingertips swirled around his peaked nipple. Her lips split into a wide grin as she pinched at the sensitive nub. She teased, “So responsive, easy little thing.” Bucky was reeling when his girl combined the pinches with a roll of her hips.

“F-fuck!,” he cried.

Her hands moved down to the garter, rubbing at the flesh rolling out around it. Bucky’s wife taunted, “Oh, s’gotten a little tight hm? Maybe instead of yammering about our relationship around the lunch table you should get back to boxing?” Bucky gasped in mortification, his dick spurting out pre at the same time. She continued, “My plump little housewife at home— y’think they’d suspect it?“ She groped meanly at the fluff on Bucky’s belly, him squirming and whining in response.

“S-stop,” he begged, blue eyes watery and wide.

Bucky liked the humiliation so much, but he wouldn’t— couldn’t admit it out loud. His cock could clearly show you how much he was into it. It currently was staining the front of the silk panties. The woman tilted her head as she replied, “Oh sorry baby, was that mean? I don’t care.” Bucky sniveled at her response, tears rolling down his full cheeks.

Her hand finally, finally reached the hem of the underwear. The woman pulled down the blue silk to reveal Bucky’s cock. He hissed at the cold air hitting his hot skin. She marveled at his swollen member, flushed almost purple and profusely leaking. She moaned lowly, “Oh baby, that looks like it hurts. Want me to play with it?” Bucky nodded viciously, little whiny ‘yesses’ falling from his plump lips.

His wife rudely spat into her palm then wrapped her lithe hand around him. Bucky yelped like he’d been burned, twitching underneath her. Bucky hoped he was being good enough for her because she was still so angry. She ruthlessly jacked his cock, scolding Bucky about how bad he’d been. The brunette moaned non-stop, drooling pathetically. He was close already, his balls drawing up painfully.

He cried out his baby’s name, feeling his orgasm begin and followed by absolutely nothing. Bucky blanched at the loss, registering the denial seconds too late. He let out a confused sob, shaking intensely. Bucky mewled, “Nnno please baby— oh m’sorry sorry m’so sorry. Fuck it hurts s’bad, oh god!” He squirmed at his balls aching, the sensitive flesh swelling up even more. She pecked him on the lips, circling her thumbs on his plush sides patiently.

“That’s a good boy, shush, be still, taking your punishment so well. So proud of you sweet, handsome thing.”

‘Yes, yes,’ Bucky thought earnestly. He could deal with the pain if he got his miss to praise him like that. His stomach flipped excitedly at the prospect of her forgiving him. A delirious smile flicked onto Bucky’s face. She pressed a kiss to his delicate nose, her hand speeding up again. Bucky fluctuated between whiny cries and deep moans as she worked his cock.

“That’s so good, my pretty. My Bucky being such a good boy for me.”

“‘M your good boy?,” Bucky echoed in a frantic voice.

“Mhm,” she sighed.

Her thumb swirled around his sensitive tip relentlessly, not stopping until Bucky’s legs were shaky and he was sniffling. He whined, “Oh doll, miss, Jesus Christ, oh!” When he approached the jumping off point she pulled back again. His face crumpled and he sobbed hoarsely, gripping his hands so hard in the sheets she heard them ripping. Bucky’s brain was fried at this point as he wept. His wife stroked his sweaty hair, scratching her nails into his scalp.

“S’okay Buck, you’re okay,” she soothed.

His chest wrenched with another sob, throwing his head back. His angelic demon of a partner asked, “D’ya wanna come bear?” Bucky could only let out a string of incoherent whimpers, his eyes fluttering and nose running. Bucky knew he looked like a mess— but she gazed at him like he hung the moon. She pressed herself on top of him, breasts against his wide chest. She grasped his chin and thumbed the drool away.

Bucky’s sobbing had died down to breathless pants as he watched her. “Color?,” she inquired. Batting the heavy cotton out of his brain Bucky managed a weak ‘green ma’am’. He sniffled again at the ache between his thighs, pounding and heady. She whispered, “Kiss me then?” The brunette puckered his lips and she closed the gap.

Bucky thinly moaned her name, desperately seeking her approval. He couldn’t move his lips as confidently as he usually did. She picked up the slack, kissing Bucky even more senseless. Her tongue roved around his mouth and massaged his own softly. He rutted up against her wet sex out of instinct.

His baby laughed into his mouth meanly and pulled back. Bucky chased her lips only to receive a tut. He whined in frustration, tears threatening to well up again. She grinned as she spoke, “Hush now— you’ve been doing so good. Crybaby.” Bucky pouted and clenched his fists up. He knew he’d been a weepy thing but didn’t need a reminder.

“I’m just teasing! I know you’re hurting bad. Think you can handle my pussy now? Not gonna blow your load immediately like a needy slut are you?”

Bucky shook his head vigorously. He was going to prove himself but he couldn’t find the words for it. She laughed again and reached down between them to guide his cock into her. Her composure broke at the stretch, the woman’s lips falling open in a moan. Bucky painfully groaned and shut his eyes, afraid he’d blow from seeing how pretty his wife looked above him.

She stayed still and gave him some time. Bucky was reeling from the feeling of her snug, wet heat around his achy cock. He cried, “Ah- ah— fuck!” Her legs wrapped around his hips as she rolled them over, Bucky now on top. He blinked at her and braced his hands to keep his full weight from bearing down.

“C’mon and show me how it’s done, slut. Punish me big man, like ya’ tell your friends,” she taunted and slapped his ass.

Bucky whined, dimly pondering if that was the only noise he could articulate now. He pulled out slowly and thrust back in with a slap. She arched her back, face smugly looking up. Bucky trembled and tried to fight his body screaming at him to release. He knew his wife would have to give permission first. Again he drew back and jerked into her.

“That’s the best you can do? I said fuck me James.”

Bucky’s cheeks were wet with tears again. He had to be a good boy even if it was going to be the last thing he did. He’d always been told he was stubborn. With a shaky exhale he started an easy pace into her lax body. He bit down on his lower lip, grunting and whining like he was hurt. She gasped and gripped onto his broad shoulders. Pretty legs wrapped around his soft waist, goading him on.

Bucky felt the initial insistent heat in his loins die down, thrusting into his girl harder. “Yeah, yeah that’s it puppy,” she chanted. Bucky latched his swollen lips onto her breasts: biting, sucking, and licking. The woman’s cunt leaked more at the roughening thrusts, wet noises filling the air. She whined his name when Bucky suckled at her nipple.

Bucky keened and moved a hand down to her sensitive bundle of nerves. He had to make his angel come. The sargeant slurred, “M’your good boy.” She moaned in excitement and gripped at his dark hair. The woman cried out, “You are- fuck don’t stop!” Bucky swirled his thumb around her clit harder, feeling her cunt draw tight around him. She yanked at his hair as she throatily rasped, “The best boy, come with me Buck c’mon sweetheart. Love you.”

Bucky’s heart leaped, his wife had granted him permission. Needy kisses were laid on Bucky’s sensitive throat. One hand gripped his hair, the other lovingly rubbing at his back. “Love you,” Bucky weeped. She dug her heels in as she writhed, moaning Bucky’s name like a prayer.

Bucky was frantically rutting into her now. He couldn’t stop— chasing their orgasm like a mad man.

Sweat dripped down Bucky’s neck and chest. He gathered his baby’s lips into a kiss, crying out between lip locks. He whimpered, “Mh! Gonna come baby gonna f’you up, ah sorry can’t stop!” He repeated his needy apologies as he took from her. She yelped in ecstasy and tightened around Bucky’s cock. Her moans pitched up as she rocketed into a peak.

She pulled his hair one last time and threw her head back, exposing the column of her throat. Bucky wailed when he emptied into her tight pussy. He slammed his hips into hers, milking himself one last time. The pulse of her hot cunt felt like a gut punch. Bucky needily babbled on as his balls emptied. He trembled down to his toes and tucked his face into her neck.

He shook through the orgasm, feeling like hours had passed before the pleasure was less intense. She cooed and praised Bucky throughout the whole ordeal, gently replying to his slurred nonsense with a smile on her pretty face. She tapped his cheek and Bucky groggily raised his head to look. His wife chuckled, “Oh Buck you’re so cute. Did so well baby boy.”

Bucky rasped, “Thank you s’much.” He wasn’t sure if he was responding to the compliment or the magical sex. She rolled Bucky to his side, him sliding out in the process with a whimper. His wife cuddled closer and hugged him tightly— exactly how he liked after a punishment. Bucky blinked away some welling tears. His mind was clear enough that he murmured, “I’ll straighten everything out at work, I promise. I didn’t mean to shame you.”

“I know bear, I know. Just relax now. We’re alright. I love you, I’m here, you’re my good boy, I’m not going anywhere.”

#sub!bucky #chubby!bucky #50’s au #Bucky survives the war #bucky barnes smut #Bucky barnes x reader #dom reader

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chronically-ghosted · 9 months

Text

Second Base.

rating: 18+

pairing: max phillips x f!reader

word count: 3712

summary: you try out second base; hand stuff only, but it changes things between you two, as much as you don't want it to.

warnings/tags: cute little outfits designed to drive max nuts, hand jobs (m and f receiving), more blood, fangs, one emotionally unavailable vampire

a/n: this contains one of my favorite lines i've ever written!

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Second base.

Because you aren’t actual sadists or masochists, after the first bite, your sex life with Max went back to normal. Well, as normal as sex with an immortal creature of the night ever was in the first place. Okay – as normal as sex with an immortal creature of the night who is Max Phillips ever was in the first place. Which is to say, often, hard, and loud. It had been weeks since you’d seen that worried look of consternation, that sweet vulnerability he expressed, as if feeding on you might be the thing that kills you and not being railed against your couch for the better part of an entire day. Sometimes you wished he had much respect for your ability to walk upright as he did your jugular vein.

On some level, you were aware that his recent overexuberance was in part due to that vulnerability. As if you might lift the curtain and find that the man behind it all might leave you wanting. Truly a frat boy at heart, Max struggled to express anything that couldn’t be summed up with the three “ings” – licking, sucking, and fucking, obviously – but now, he had been exposed as someone capable of those deeper feelings, as if he had been the one to split open a vein for you. And despite the heavenly glow you indulged in after the first bite, you really weren’t quite sure how you felt about it all. You hadn’t started dating Max with any illusions about who exactly he is. In fact, you might have started fucking him in the first place because it seemed wildly out of character that he or you would get attached at all – to anyone or anything. The dating thing just sort of happened, when you both came to the same conclusion at roughly the same time: no one else was really doing it for you, so why not? So what if you only directly referred to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend in the privacy of your own apartment, or his? So what if half of the office was entirely clueless about your relationship and the other half was actively placing “secret” bets about how long you two had been fucking? Annoyingly, Tim had been the one to be almost right: “six months ago, I’m telling you, man. That’s when he stopped eating secretaries and she got so much nicer.”

Technically, he stopped eating secretaries about a month into your relationship, and what Tim accidentally overheard was not him “eating” a “secretary”, but you weren’t about to correct him. But Max found it all hilarious: “he’s right, you’re so much nicer when that pussy has been taken care of. But I like it when you’re mean.”

You actively choose not to think about what he meant by a “deep emotional connection” last time.

Fine, Phillips, I’ll show you how mean I can be.

“Nope, no, uh uh.”

You put your hand just over the frilly blue lace on your hip. “I’m sorry, I don’t see the problem.”

It had been about a month since first base and while Max had gotten notably more relaxed around you seeing him eat – he now occasionally walked around your apartment with his food in an opaque smoothie tumbler with a straw – he was still very strict about moving onto second base.

Which, if left up to him, meant you’d be wearing a straight jacket and thick flannel pajamas.

“Max, if we’re ever going to do this thing for real, you’re going to have to get used to seeing me naked. I’m not letting you fuck me and bite me while I’m in riot gear.”

“Okay, but, baby,” he whines and he can’t help himself from rubbing the satin bow above your crotch between his fingers. “You look like a birthday cake.”

Is the baby blue lingerie with a strapless bra that catches around your biceps with white lace a bit overboard? Yes. But last time was ridiculous.

Max frowns, his visible pout morphing into something subtly dangerous as he realizes he can unpeel your bra with a string in the back. “Can’t I just fuck you normally in this and then we’ll try again later?”

You swat his hand away as it sneaks across your ribs.

“No.”

“You know, if I wasn’t already dead, I’d think you’re trying to kill me.” Smirking, he drops his hands down to your waist and, not so subtly, curves them around the mold of your ass. Distractedly, he slips one finger under the seam of your panties. You press your hands against his chest and blink up at him coyly.

“Whatever gave you that impression.”

He shakes his head, squeezing your ass once. “And I’m supposed to be the soulless demon with a heart of darkness.”

“So you’ll do this?”

With a sigh and his eyebrow jumping, he nods. “Yeah. Fine. Go get on the bed.”

Trying desperately not to squeal, you tear away from his arms and all but run and leap on top of the white towel. Max slips out of his shoes, and starts unbuttoning his shirt. You bite your lip, nerves humming in anticipation, as you sit up on your knees to watch him. To your enormous dismay, no matter how hard you worked, no matter how much spit or cum you used, you could not make him purr again. You’d had wet dreams on the idea alone of putting your head against his chest as he vibrated but he swore it was involuntary. “And,” he added as a way to soothe your ego, “I’m pretty sure it can only happen when I’m feeding.”

“Does it happen every time? Like with blood bags or back when you hunted people?”

“No,” was all he said about that.

Max slips his shirt off over his shoulders and goes to work unbuttoning his pants. When they slide off his hips, you frown.

“The boxers with the hole in the waist? Ooh, baby, I’m so turned on when you make such an effort.”

He rolls his eyes as he climbs in next to you. “Look, I didn’t think you’d be seeing my underwear and I need to do laundry.”

“You didn’t think I’d see your underwear in a situation where we’re going to specifically jerk each other off?”

Attempting some version of contrite, Max’s gaze falls from your face to your throat, to your clavicle, to your tits, pillowed up for him beneath the blue lace. He leans in as if pulled by magnets.

“I’m sorry if I thought we’d both be a little more preoccupied.”

His broad palm smooths across your thigh, around your hips, to just above your tailbone, his nose drawing indistinct lines from your shoulder to your ear. You sort of hate how quickly he can make you not irritated with him. You shift to take him into the cradle of your thighs, when he winds your panties up in his fingers and tugs. The gossamer material tightens just over the seam of your pussy, teasing your clit, you choke. That heated, teasing Max Phillips smirk spreads like hot butter across his lips.

“What are the rules again?”

“Max,” you whine as you drag your nails over his chest and up his shoulders. But he hesitates, his hand knotting your underwear in his fist. One move and it’ll rub against you again.

“I’ll stop,” he murmurs in a half-sing-song voice. You huff.

“Silver. Bad touch, on your skin. Lightheaded or dizzy, I use the safeword. And,” you sigh. He’s so painfully handsome sometimes it hurts. He’d set out candles again, as if he needed any help in his seduction of you and he just sort of glows. You don’t know if it’s your anticipation or some vampire illusion, but every line on him is blurred. Soft, as if he doesn’t have your pleasure literally in his hands. There it comes again, that small bit of light in his eyes, the emergence of the early morning sun over the horizon. The way he looks at you makes your chest heavy. “And . . . only hand stuff,” you grumble.

He chuckles, pouting at you in faux-sympathy as he reaches out, other hand wrapping around the back of your neck. “Only hand stuff, she’s so sad about it,” he whimpers into your cheek with a high, mocking voice.

Your fingers dig into the skin on his chest, daring to hold him away as he goes for your mouth. “I swear to god, Max –,”

In one single fluid motion, he pushes on your tailbone, and swings your hips forward as he tackles your mouth with his own, effectively yanking you under him. You huff in surprise, before pulling away to find menace and glee in his eyes. Grins again as he nips with flat teeth on the curve of your neck.

He plants wet, hot kisses across your chest, heat blooms against your ribs and tunnels down between your legs, as he tongues the softer places along the hollow of your throat, then up the other side of your throat, teasing your earlobe.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, “that was mean. What can I do to make it up to you?”

Pressing your chest up against his, knowing he can feel the squish of your tits, you wrap your legs around his waist and pull him towards you. His hard cock rubs up against your seam and he lets loose with a muffled groan into your mouth. You roll your hips once with him between you and he turns his head to your jaw, as you both pant at the sensation.

“You know exactly what I want.”

His teeth graze you gently. This is an exercise in restraint for you as much as it is him. Given any other night, you’d have his pants off by now, on his back, or behind you, but you refrain. You can’t squeeze him like you want to and that only frustrates you more, makes you heated and ruffled, makes you want more of his skin on you, around you, as if he could smother you. You want to merge your bodies. Your knees dig into his ribs.

He whispers something, too low and fast for you to catch it, but it ends broken and uneasy as if you’re touching something delicate within him. Bending back with one hand, Max reaches between your legs and cups you, one finger barely pressing the wet material back inside you.

“Was this waiting for me under all those layers?” You nod as he pushes deeper, your mouth dropping open. He kisses your chin, before tucking his head under your jaw again. “No wonder you were burning up.”

He inhales as if his face was pressed right up against your cunt, two fingers rubbing up and down over that sodden material. It scraps against your clit and it burns. “I could eat you. Just like this.”

“Max, c’mon–,”

“I know, baby, I know.”

Smearing that pink little bow with the smell of you, he dips his hand under the line of your underwear, past your damp curls, and soothes your overheated sex by filling it with two thick fingers. You arch, brow furrowing, mouth open, fingers clamping down around his shoulders, arousal crawling up your spine, higher and higher the deeper he goes. Max likes the build up, the tease, it’s why his thumb only hovers above your clit, the heat doing half the work for him, as he pumps his fingers in and out of you, the wet squelching almost embarrassing. Behind his hand, his hips swing in time. He groans, deep, into your ear, breathless.

“Could come like this, baby, could come right like this.”

The bend of his cock bumps the back of his hand as he thrusts against nothing. You hitch your pelvis up, opening wider, pussy easier within reach, and you forgo any teasing for him, hand sliding right past his boxers, molding your grip around him. He’s hot and leaking all over your fingers.

“‘Ngh . . . shit, baby.” The arm holding him up shakes. You want to lick the salty precum but there has to be a rule about that, right? If you aren’t so desperate for that final fuck, you would have been a bit more careless. His fingers inside you press up into the places only he knows can send you into oblivion, as if grateful for tearing him apart. His wrist flicks quicker, faster into you, fingers plunging deeper, up to the knuckles, bouncing you as if you were on his cock. You match his speed with your own hand and Max hums, a dark sound verging on distressed.

You bite your bottom lip, eyes drooping, the rocking motion scraping against your pleasure again and again, like a match scratching against the box one stroke at a time. “Maaax –,” He adds a third finger and you keen, high-pitched and desperate, the width stretching you out for a cock he won’t let you have. You grind against his fingers, the bounce knocking loose every sane thought in your head.

Opening your eyes, you realize he’s been staring at your tits this whole time. His chest warm and glowing with sweat, his eyes track every bounce and jiggle, the cups of your bra putting them more on display than if you held them up yourself.

“Where do you want it, darling?” His voice is strained, softer than it should be with your cunt sucking up his fingers.

Max Phillips doesn’t do cutesy nicknames. Not during sex, not ever. Your his slut. His monsterfucker. Not –

Your already unspooling mind struggles to grasp at darling before it slips away.

His cock is throbbing against the palm of your hand. If you could see it, it would be flushed red, the vein at the base protruding. You pump him faster and his hips stutter. He’s so close and so are you.

But he’s not talking about that.

“On my tit, Max. Bite me on my tit.”

With a groan that is all growl, all tension and feral hunger, his arm collapses and he sinks his weight against you. He manages to get his hand out, but yours is still trapped there, pinned between your tender cunt and his painfully hard cock. You writhe. “Max–,”

His kiss against your lips is a starving sort of one, one that steals the breath from your lungs, wiping any lingering ache temporarily from your body. He licks the inside of your mouth, swallowing the moan that races from your throat into his. It’s all need, desire, a blistering familiarity that you didn’t realize existed between you two. He’s trying to say something with this kiss.

He doesn’t give you long to read into it, as he pulls back, sinking more into his knees as he mouths the skin under your neck, above your clavicle bone, and in between the valley of your tits. His weight shifts off you, enough to pull your hand out. You arch, pushing your chest deeper into his mouth, using the back of his neck to pull you higher, he groans and licks, and you yank the tie of your bra behind your back.

“Max, you can –,”

His hand claws at your cups, mouth consuming yours again, the ropes almost stinging your back as they are ripped so fast across your heated skin. Before you lie flat, his hand cups under you, fingers pressing into where the threads burned and forcing you to maintain that bend in your spine.

The moment is coming. You can feel it. It’s different from a rising orgasm, or the first time he ever sucked your nipple into his mouth. Your lizard brain is sending off warning flares, but you ignore it once again. Those flares arc and bend, your arousal now fire hot.

His tongue pressed flat, Max draws a long stripe of spit from under your breast, over the weight of it, and up your nipple, where he swirls it between his teeth. Whether Max Phillips was an ass or tits man depended on the day of the week, or whatever was blowing in the air, but he laved attention onto yours like they were the first pair he’d ever seen in his life. The skin on your other breast shines from where his fingers mold around it, smearing your wet juices all over your pebbled skin. He switches over and laps up that smell off you.

He’s wavering, caught between drawing it out and doing it so instantaneously he might black out and miss the whole thing. Your heart racing, skin almost too sensitive, you feel like you might shudder apart.

“Max, please –,”

He chooses the second approach.

Without warning, his fangs spring out and he latches onto the skin near the valley of your chest on your right breast.

You yelp in surprise, pain and pleasure zigzagging like rough scissors from his bite out through the rest of your body.

Okay, that hurts.

You gasp, bucking, yanking on his hair. “Baby, baby, gentler, be gentle–,”

He swallows and the ache lessens. Hot blood pools out of the spot where his fangs punctured you. It runs warm then cold, teasing like a feather, as it rolls down your stomach. It’s not a lot, but it's more than last time. It stains his chest too.

Slowly, that same sort of miraculous fog sinks down into your bones. The grip on his hair eases, softens, and soon you are petting him against you.

You swear you feel his fangs scrape your heart.

“That’s good, Max, that’s so good.” Your eyes roll lazily in your head and you nuzzle his hair. “God, how does this feel so good?”

As though determined to remind you he is more than just fangs, his hand pulls away from the mattress and slides back between your legs. You feel only one finger brush against your folds through your underwear – you’re almost disappointed, go back to using three, Max –

His finger plunges deep, deep inside of you, and you gasp, feet scrambling against the towel, as a swell of pleasure almost smothers you in an overwhelming wave. You nearly choke from the force of it. You were so overly sensitive but the gooey haze didn’t let you realize it until it was too late. You come hard, harder than you thought possible, seeing eons of galaxies and stars behind your eyes, with just one of his fingers inside you and his thumb distractedly circling your clit.

He feels you gush around his hand, wetting his wrist, and with a moan you can feel in your ribs, he spills in his boxers, the spend running down his thigh and smearing on yours.

Your entire body goes slack, as if someone had made all your bones disappear. His hips jerk slightly as if his orgasm is still trying to wring him dry before he stills and plucks his head from your chest, unplugging his fangs from the holes he made.

Blood immediately bubbles up from the wound and without his fangs there, it spills freely and violently over your tits, your ribs. The whiplash between your orgasmic high and a full-body weakness sends hot nausea swooping into your stomach and the room spins.

“M-m-ax,” you murmur, barely opening your mouth, your voice weak and thick as if stuffed with cotton balls.

“Fuck, sorry –,” you can’t quite see him clearly as he moves and suddenly there’s a warmth over your chest, comforting and heavy. The blood trickles to a stop and you breathe deeply. The darkness of the room stabilizes as you fully open your eyes. The room spins but this time pleasantly.

“Hmm, whoo, wow, ah, okay . . .”

You don’t realize he’s gotten off the bed until the mattress sags again and he’s cleaning you up with cold cotton balls.

“So, I’m going to take that mindless babbling as a good thing.” He smiles gently, but he’s holding something back. He keeps his head low like he doesn’t want you to see his face.

You wiggle your shoulders, as he delicately wipes you down. “What, you don’t wanna clean me up with your tongue? And why do you even use disinfectant – there’s no open wound.” You poke him in the shoulder with your toe. “And you didn’t even purr that time! I demand a refund!”

“Next time, okay?”

You frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just let me–,”

You sit up, the dried blood pinching your skin, and he pulls away. “Max, what is it?”

He pulls away so much, he’s on his feet by the dresser before you can touch him, the back of his arm tearing at his mouth to wipe it clean. Max is a lot of things but cold when you need aftercare is not one of them.

“It’s nothing.” The line of his shoulders is taught, tense. But he cracks his neck and takes the Gatorade from the dresser. He finally sits back down on the bed in front of you, offering the bottle to you. You take it, unease mounting, your fingers brush his, but this time he doesn’t retreat. Instead, gently, his fingertips ghost over your wrist, down the fine hairs on your arm, drop from your elbow and settle delicately on the blue material covering the crease of your hip. Where your blood had pooled, wet, and stained the blue to a deep magenta.

“I ruined your pretty underwear,” he says softly, forlorn.

You move closer to him, your knee touching his hip, but you refrain from seeking out the warmth of his hands.

“Max, I can get new ones, I don’t care about that. Please, talk to me. Did I do something wrong? Did I push you too far?”

His fingers flex around the towel, now also appropriately ruined. He shakes his head, more firmly this time. He snags his shirt off the floor, over his head, then moves towards the bedroom door.

“I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m sticky. I’m gonna take a shower. You wanna come?”

The invitation, it’s something, an encouragement you genuinely feared he might not give. Maybe it’s not you he wants to part from.

You didn’t enter into this for the emotional connection and neither did he. You have to remember that.

“Y-yeah. Of course.”

He invited you. He still wants you around.

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#max phillips x you #max phillips smut #max phillips fanfiction #max phillips x reader #max phillips #max phillips x f!reader #blood sucking bastards

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houseofbrat · 1 year

Photo

From FOUR MONTHS AGO:

So here's what I got along the lines of Meghan's new PR. As we know, she no longer has Sunshine Sachs. Meghan and Harry have left SS a couple of times and come back, but I heard that this time SS broke up with THEM, making it unlikely that they reunite again. Never say never, especially when it comes to Meghan Markle, but I think they are truly done now. Sunshine Sachs allegedly ditched them for a couple of reasons more than because Meghan put off paying a $2 million PR bill for 6+ months. Once she paid, they were dropped because A) they know she'll end up unable to pay bills again-- it's just a matter of time, B) she apparently (unsurprisingly) wouldn't listen to advice, C, she insisted on being oversaturated in the media resulting in enough puff pieces to build the giant Stay-Puff marshmellow man of Ghostbusters fame, C) apparently when they tried to limit the amount of bilge being pushed out about her, she went behind their backs and did it herself, D) as a result of B and C, she got dropped because she herself was bad PR for Sunshine Sachs. She made them look incompetent. And finally E) she is rumored to be a controlling nightmare to work with. So that's done.

The thing is, I have been asking around, and I cannot find out who is handling Harry and Meghan's PR now. This makes me think Meghan is doing it. Usually SS will push out positive stuff of no consequence like Meghan's beauty routine, or what she wore to something, or how she makes time for Merchie and Lilibucks while still being a working mom, that kind of shit.

The shit we're hearing now doesn't have the ring of an insurgence of positive puff pieces designed to neutralize her in the people's minds. Instead the article inundation right now seems to be about how Meghan and Harry and the kids were so hard done by during the funeral. My gut feeling is that if an article is glorifying Meghan by throwing shade at the RF, Meghan is the source of the article. Meghan is the one who routinely villifies the family. So my feeling is that Meghan is handling all her PR right now and she's rallied every asskisser in her arsenal to push out articles claiming she and Harry were treated poorly, etc. If I can find out that she's using a new PR company, I'll be sure to share, but for now, I think it's mostly her.

[AND]

Oh! That was the other thing that was pretty interesting that I learned today. Basically all Harry knows about the PR they are using is that he doesn't like them and wants new representation. I'm told Harry has often complained about their ineffective PR and how he can't understand why they have so much media presence and why so much of it is negative. This is why they've gone back and forth between PR from Sunshine Sachs and crisis reversal PR agencies but the problem remains, to Harry's consternation. Meghan just tells him this is how popular they are and how racist/misogynistic the media is and there is nothing to be done . And the funny thing is that Harry doesn't know that the reason why their PR is so ubiquitous/negative is because she is always pushing stuff out behind their PR's back through Omid Scobie and one or two other magazine contacts she has on her own. As we know, she's incapable of making a good impression with her press releases and bad press multiplies like hydras heads. One outlet comments off another, comments on another, comments on another....

And so Harry is just always scratching his head over why they never seem to have gold PR. He knows it exists because he had the best of the best when he got remade as hero Harry, but Meghan tells him he doesn't understand anything and on the PR nightmare goes, with Harry still wondering where they went wrong.

#reddit #duchess of I NEED PRESS #duchess of I WILL NOT BE IGNORED BRF!!!#Harry's Wife's Public Reputation Management #Prince Harry

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cdyssey · 2 years

Note

Prompt. Barbara finds it hot that Melissa has a tattoo

ANON, IOSFHOI. So I was working on this prompt before the latest ep. came out, and what do ya know—Barbara's storyline was all about tattoos!! I worked in some stuff from the episode where I could.

AO3 Link

CW: Emotional Infidelity

—

“Zach wants us to get tattoos of each other’s names,” Jacob announces to the teacher’s lounge one lunch period, and Melissa is the first to vehemently protest, “Hell to the no.”

She even sets her fork down—even though it’d already been halfway to her mouth with a bite of homemade ziti—to give the kid her full and undivided attention.

This is how serious she is about him not getting the dumbest fucking tattoo on planet Earth.

“Absolutely not, Mr. Hill,” Barbara—who is sitting next to her in her usual chair—agrees with a vigorous nod, regarding the junior teacher with the same concerned look one might give a cartoon construction worker before they walk into an uncovered manhole. Melissa can see it in her eyes—how much consternation the idea is already giving the older woman.

Between Jacob and that one kid’s mom, it hasn’t been a good week for Barbara and tattoos.

Personally, Melissa thinks they’re fucking hot for the most part.

There’s only one exception, and Jacob is unironically proposing it.

“Aw… I actually think it’s a sweet idea,” Janine smiles at him encouragingly, to which Melissa and Barbara both turn to her sternly.

“Stay out of this one, Janine,” Melissa shakes her head.

Quite kindly.

“Please leave the advising to the adults,” Barbara says at the exact same time.

Quite warmly.

And Gregory jerks a casual thumb in their direction. “Yeah, I’m with them. That’s weird.”

“What?” Jacob pouts, offended by the synchronized disapproval. He crosses his stick-like arms over his chest and glances at each member of his four-person audience with wounded puppy eyes. “You didn’t even hear about our design ideas! I’d have a left shoe tattooed on my forearm, and he’d—“

But Melissa mercilessly cuts across him. “Stop right there. Ya ain’t doing that and hear me out as to why.”

“If it’s because you think we might break up—“ The young teacher starts loudly, indignation in every syllable.

“It’s not that,” she talks over him even more loudly. “Jesus, don’t get your boxers in a twist.

“I don’t wear boxers, thank you very much! I wear specialized underwear that was sourced from recycled materials at a local dump.”

“Damn,“ Gregory mutters as even Janine cringes. “Why would you even admit that aloud?”

“I think he’s proud of the fact,” Janine sighs knowingly, rubbing one of her brows.

“The point isn’t the underwear,” Melissa says hurriedly as Jacob opens his mouth again, presumably to preach about the rainforest-saving wonders of recycled trash underwear to them all. “The point is that you shouldn’t get a tattoo like that when you’re as young as you are.”

“I’m nearly thirty!” Jacob protests, and Barbara laughs richly, smirking around the rim of her coffee tumbler.

“You say that like it means something, sweetheart,” she hums coyly, offering Melissa a wink.

At sixty-five and fifty-nine respectively, the two women can both happily scoff at the idea that thirty is even remotely old. What they’d both kill to have thirty-year old bodies again! So much energy and zeal, all of their joints still working as God intended…

“Life changes and its people do too,” Melissa grins at her friend rather impishly before turning to Jacob again. “And while I think you and Zach are great, both of ya could be forty, fifty, sixty, and suddenly want to die from embarrassment ‘cause ya’ve got each other’s names stamped on each other in permanent ink.”

“And you could also break up,” Barbara, somewhat of a perpetual realist, offers neutrally.

“Yeah, that too,” Melissa shrugs one of her shoulders.

It’s harsh but true.

“Cynics, both of you,” he laments in the dramatic tone of someone who is already half-convinced, peering back and forth between each of their disapproving faces like a pendulum. “So what if it’s a mistake? Shouldn’t it be my mistake to make and eventually learn from?”

But Melissa only shakes her head again, her readers slightly rattling where they’re loosely perched on top of her hair.

“Take this from someone who’s already learned that mistake so you don’t have to,” she says in an almost casual voice, drawing the widened eyes and lenses of every person and camera in the room. She takes a careful bite of her ziti and pretends to be unbothered by the excessive attention.

“What?!” Janine and Jacob yelp together.

“Melissa Ann Schemmenti,” Barbara begins in a hushed voice—always deathly serious when she uses the second grade teacher’s full name. Her dark eyes are comically stretched open, her mouth rounded in a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. “You don’t mean to tell me that you have Joseph’s name tattooed somewhere on your body, do you?“

Joseph.

Only Barbara has ever called her ex-husband by his Christian name—usually to indicate her dislike of something he had just done.

And it’s fair enough, of course, because the kindergarten teacher is the one who saw the writing on the wall when their marriage started to fall apart in the first place.

Who was the loudest person to tell Melissa that she deserved better.

And who had been the only one willing to identify Joe’s flaws and name them for what they actually were when all the rest of her family kept preachin’ about how divorce was a sin and they just needed counseling from Father Zogby and blah, blah, crushing Catholic guilt, blah.

And Melissa had loathed Barbara for all of that initially—for her meddling and her cloying concern, for her righteous, stinkin’ judgments—but then, when Barbara showed up to her house with a homemade poppyseed chicken casserole the very evening she got served papers, she had never loved the woman more.

Loved her in a schmaltzy, dramatic, I’d-kill-for-you-goddammit kind of way.

Loved her in the same way she knew all the carefully organized spices in her cabinet.

Intimately and perhaps entirely too well.

In hindsight, that casserole had probably been the beginning of the end for her.

The moment when her friendship with Barbara Howard first became complicated.

“Did,” Melissa corrects pointedly to which Barbara coughs into her napkin—suddenly averting her eyes—and she immediately feels more insecure than she did even two minutes ago when everyone started looking at her all funny. Unwanted attention, she can take. Hell, if push comes to shove, she can solve it with the application of Rocky and Balboa—the names of her well-timed fists.

But Barbara’s disapproval and Barbara’s censure?

Barbara’s politely phrased criticisms?

Barbara’s scandalized coughing?

And Barbara’s passive aggressive smile?

These multiple condemnations have always gotten under her skin, even from the beginning of her time at Abbott when she just thought of Mrs. Barbara Howard as the snooty kindergarten teacher down the hall who looked and sounded like she had a Bible shoved up her fine ass.

“Got it lasered to hell with the money I won from that scratch-off last year and then paid my girl Ronnie a whole paycheck to get somethin’ else in its place,” she continues, forcing herself to grin smugly. This revelation settles just as well on the faces of everyone in the room as the first.

Incredulously.

“Melissa,” Barbara breathes next to her. “Oh, my Lord.”

She ignores this invocation, isn’t sure that she likes the tone.

Largely because she can’t tell whether she’s receiving the other's marked disapproval or not.

“What of?” Gregory asks, perhaps the only unaffected one of the bunch. Bless him, he even looks a little bored by the topic of conversation.

Good kid.

She needs to bake him a pie sometime.

“A bunch of roses,” she shrugs, a little red in the face, feeling the weight of Barbara’s intense gaze raking her over from the side—not even or just barely three feet away. The way they sit these days, their knees are nearly knocking beneath the table. “All different colors ‘cause I like ‘em. They’re my favorite flowers.”

“Where?” Jacob inquires nervously, gesturing vaguely to her body. “I’ve never seen a tattoo on you before.”

“That’s because it’s a tramp stamp,” she arches a brow, incredibly amused by how he immediately blanches at the bluntly articulated phrase. “I don’t reckon you’re looking at my ass, are ya, buddy?”

“No, ma’am,” he squeaks hastily, his voice at least an octave higher than usual. “Absolutely not.” And then, seemingly realizing that he may have gone overboard on the rebuttal, he quickly adds, “Um, not that you don’t have an ass worth looking at! I’m sure your ass is top of the line.”

Barbara makes an indistinct noise in the back of her throat that goes unmentioned as Jacob rambles on, but Melissa, perpetually attuned to the woman sitting next to her—sensitive to every microscopic movement and word—is briefly undone by the fragmentary sound. (What does it mean? What is Barbara thinking? Is she still staring at her? Does she disapprove of the tattoo in the same way that she does PG-13 movies? Or is it more so the fact that it had once been Joe’s name etched into her skin, carved there like an oath?)

Jacob is still talking when she forces herself back into the moment. “More than top of the line, really. I bet people of all genders are very appreciative of it. It’s just, you know”—he points frantically at himself instead of finishing the thought—“but anyway, thanks, Melissa. I’ve changed my mind. You’re right. I’m not getting the tattoo.”

She hadn’t expected a litany of praises for her ass to come from Jacob Hill of all people today.

Huh.

The world continues to surprise her all the time.

“Good,” she chuckles deeply and goes to shovel another bite of her rapidly cooling ziti into her mouth—still resisting the urge to the left, still trying to be distant and intriguing and tough in front of her colleagues and all the ubiquitous cameras besides. Still a little distracted, her mind full of Barbara. “Then my work here is done.”

“Why?” Janine finally pipes up, cocking her head curiously.

“Why what?” Melissa shrugs, placing her ziti fork down again. “Ya gotta be more specific than that, kid.”

“Why, uh, get something else there when you were able to get the first one removed?”

She can’t lie—it’s a very good question—smart, logical, incisive.

But it’s one that she doesn’t particularly feel like answering because the plainest and most intolerable truth is that she didn’t want to live with that ghost on her body. Even when the tattoo was gone, annihilated into atoms and nothingness, she still knew it was there, the memory of it pressed into her backside like a blade. She and Joe were both young and fucking stupid when they got them, barely out of high school and unaware that nearly three decades later, they’d both be screaming that they hated each other across their shared room.

But that’s hard to admit to herself—much less to a room full of people—so she comes up with a much more palatable lie.

“Tattoos are sexy,” she smirks straight into the closest camera, hamming it up. “Isn’t that right, Barbs?”

She finally feels brave enough to glance to her side again, where the older teacher is now looking anywhere but her, seemingly engrossed by something on the ceiling, her cheeks dark with blush.

“You know how I feel about tattoos,” she murmurs in her lilting church voice, the kind she only uses when she wants to imprint a moral lesson. “The body is a temple for the Lord.”

Even though she’d been expecting the answer, it still stings a little.

It still hurts.

Barbara's most deeply held convictions often do.

“Yes,” she replies stiffly. “And I decorated mine with flowers.”

It’s an icy end to their conversation.

Barbara only stares at her, disc-eyed and speechless, as Melissa angles her body away, violently spearing her ziti like it’s done something to her.

—

Barbara’s mouth tastes rather awful…

... because her foot has been stuck in it all blessed week—starting with offending Tamika’s mother and apparently continuing with hurting Melissa’s feelings as well.

She had been shell-shocked—simply appalled!—to learn that Joseph Lombardo’s name had once been tattooed above her friend’s… top of the line ass as Mr. Hill had so colorfully called it.

And she had been, well, she doesn’t know what exactly happened to her body when Melissa explained that she’d gotten the tattoo removed and replaced. As heat had clambered up her throat and settled somewhere in her cheeks, she had thought that maybe she was experiencing a hot flash of sorts.

Yes, that was it.

A mere hot flash that was incidentally coinciding with Melissa talking about her floral tattoo. And as she determinedly looked at Melissa and then away from her—for completely unrelated reasons, of course—she recited Bible verses in her head and asked for the Lord God Almighty to help her.

With the hot flashes.

Obviously.

Hours later, when her kids are napping and the lights are out and her door is firmly closed, Barbara impulsively Googles roses for no reason at all, scrolling through the plethora of flowers and idly wondering about the vivid colors that are stained across Melissa’s canvas of a skin.

Red would go perfectly with her long, wavy hair, but blue would be a striking option for contrast.

Magenta is Barbara’s favorite color.

Black is stately and beautiful and melancholic all at once.

She scrolls and scrolls and feels abjectly guilty and she scrolls, occasionally replaying the scenes from lunch in her mind’s eye alongside fantastical imaginings of a smooth and continuous back, going on and on forever, with a spray of varicolored roses climbing down the trellis of a spine. She’ll apologize to her friend later—sincerely, humbly, and emphatically. She will beg her forgiveness and contemplate whether she even deserves it—always and forever her worst critic, the first to discipline herself when she realizes the error of her mortal ways and the last to let herself off the hook for them.

She hurt Melissa’s feelings.

How careless of her and how cruel.

But school doesn’t end for another hour, and there’s nothing she can do with her guilt until then except live with it and scroll, scroll, scroll.

She daydreams of petals blooming across a pale apricot sky, scarlet and utterly beautiful.

—

“Goddammit, Ava,” Melissa exhales bitterly as she bends over for the third time. Her back is even starting to ache from the repeated exertion; she’ll have to lounge on her heating pad all evening just to work out all the newly formed kinks. “Are you gonna help me with these boxes or what?”

The second grade teacher and principal are in the front foyer, where the UPS guy had just unceremoniously dumped ten fresh cases of copy paper in front of the double doors. Mr. Johnson’s already gone home for the day, which means that someone’s gotta get all of this shit out of the hallway before tomorrow morning.

Melissa had grudgingly volunteered and dragged Ava along with her, mostly because she still doesn’t feel like talking to Barbara yet.

In hindsight, this wasn’t the best choice in the world because Ava is currently alternating between taking selfies and simply laughing at her struggles.

“And miss this view?” She smirks suggestively, gesturing at Melissa’s backside with a flourish of her well-manicured hand. “It’s like if I got front row seats to Beyoncé and decided I wanted to go home before she’s thrown it back even once.”

“What’s up with people talkin’ about my ass today?” Melissa huffs, finally lifting the box and dropping it onto the nearby cart with a dramatic thud. She leans on its handle for a minute to catch her breath and tenderly massage her lower back, lifting the tail of her shirt a little to work the tips of her fingers against the skin there.

“It’s something to celebrate,” Ava laughs, now back to taking selfies, professionally adjusting her head to capture an assortment of angles. “If I had your ample endowment, I’d be backin’ that baby up against every Sally, Dick, and Harry in the club. Ya feel?”

And she thrusts her hip outwards just for emphasis and a little oomph, clearly amused with her own cleverness and innuendo.

“Why do I even talk to you?” Melissa shakes her head wearily, currently wondering why she didn’t just ask one of the three twerps or even her own (dubiously helpful) aide. Annoying as they all occasionally are, at least they won’t openly objectify her on school grounds.

“‘Cause I’m Oprah and you’re Gayle, and besties gotta ho each other up.”

“Don’t you mean hype?” She asks skeptically, though her mouth vaguely twitches at the corner.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Ava replies, not really paying attention anymore, and so Melissa, snorting once despite herself, leans over again to grab the next box, conveniently looking away when the telltale and familiar clicking of heels arrives…

—

Oh, sweet baby Jesus and the grown one too.

Barbara is staring at Melissa Schemmenti’s ass.

More specifically, she’s staring at the sliver of white skin that’s visible between the bottom of her hiked up blouse and the waistband of her tight black jeans, where she can just see an explosion of autumnal color.

Ruby and violet and peach and gold.

The delicate black outlines of petals, the ink stark against her creamy complexion.

Barbara had come to apologize, to make things right between them, but the second grade teacher is bent over in a very specific way, and her wretched body is coincidentally trying to act out again at the exact same time. Her mouth is rapidly drying—her face inexplicably heating up—and her knees suddenly feel liable to give way beneath her in an entirely undignified manner.

My, my, these hot flashes, she thinks.

She should call her gynecologist soon and get them seen about.

“See?” Ava points at her, cackling mischievously. “Even our straight-laced, Jesus-lovin’ Barbara’s turned on by you. Look at her all flustered!”

Melissa turns around instantly, her hair whirling behind her like fire, and straightens upwards into the air in a not entirely graceful movement, stumbling a little and clutching her lower back like it’s hurting her.

She doesn’t admit to it, though.

Never admits to any of her hurts unless forced to a knifepoint.

“She isn’t turned on,” Melissa scoffs readily, rolling her darkly framed eyes. “She’s just here to preach at me again.”

“Damn,” Ava curls a fist over her red mouth, bitting her centermost knuckle. “That’s a read.”

“Wrong. Both of you,” Barbara shakes her head slowly, merely annoyed by Ava’s crass accusation and simply undone by Melissa’s.

(Is that what she thinks of me?)

(Is my moral judgment the one thing she has learned to expect?)

(Have I preached at her enough to teach her to do so?)

“I came to apologize,” she pleads, very quietly, wishing Ava wasn’t here watching the whole affair like it's one of her favorite shows, wishing that the cameras weren’t in their faces, silent and omnipresent voyeurs. “I’m sorry, Melissa.”

A pause as she catches her breath and assesses the other’s expression: Melissa is simply staring at her, caustic and always so damn wary. She doesn’t sleep with a baseball bat beneath her pillow as far as Barbara knows, but she might as well for the way she carries herself in the world—as though there is a threat on every corner.

“I’m so sorry,” she goes on, impulsively reaching out to cover Melissa’s hand where it’s resting on the handle of the loading cart, squeezing once and squeezing tight. The other teacher's skin feels cold against her own. “I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings… and I hope you forgive me for doing so. I’m sure your tattoo is gorgeous, a Paradise unto its own.”

Wild and magical and elegant all at once.

A garden of prismatic delights.

Like you, she could say, but she’s deeply conscientious that this could be construed as proving Ava’s teasing point. She’s not turned on, Principal Coleman—not consumed by the mere thought of Melissa, not breathless at her overwhelming presence, not knotted with the unbearable tension of her absence.

She is simply having hot flashes.

There's a perfectly medical explanation for the chemical reactions turning her body into a whirling merry-go-round.

Melissa softens almost immediately, melts like ice cream beneath the sun, gentleness in her eyes.

Love.

Unfailingly quick to forgive her.

Maybe a little too much so sometimes.

“Forget it,” she shrugs, working her thumb from beneath Barbara’s palm and staying it against the side of her hand. She shivers at even this slightest touch, feels its impact and its echo reverberate down the length of her entire arm. “Water under the bridge and shit.”

They lock eyes over their clasped hands, the air taut between them, like a power line humming with electricity.

After a few seconds, though—a few heartbeats that Barbara feels all the way up in the column of her constricted throat—Melissa withdraws her hand and pulls it to her hip, tenderly rubbing at an apparent sore spot.

The moment passes just as quickly as it had come, and Barbara lets out a breath that she even didn’t know that she had been holding.

“Let me help you with these, sweetheart,” she offers gently, tilting her head to the still unloaded boxes. “You’re going to throw your back out if you keep it up.”

“Don’t you have a bad back too?” Melissa squints at her suspiciously and quite correctly.

Barbara does indeed have a less than stellar back, but that’s never stopped her from lugging boxes of classroom supplies to and from her car every week. (In fact, this particular exercise probably started her troubles in the first place some decade or two ago.)

“We’ll have bad backs together,” she says firmly, making quick and fluid work of rolling her sleeves up to show she's serious.

And Melissa Schemmenti just smiles at her radiantly, the shade of her lips like a sunset.

Like a rose.

“Booooooring,” Ava groans, peeling herself off of the wall she had been leaning against. “This is boring now. Bye.”

“See ya,” Melissa laughs as the principal heels away.

“Wouldn’t want to be ya,” Barbara completes the sentence and wraps an arm around her friend’s shoulder, fluttering again when their hips accidentally brush.

—

Fifteen minutes later, all the boxes have been loaded on to the cart and wheeled into the office next to the supply closet. Twenty minutes after that, both women are still on the office floor, sitting side-by-side against the wall, groaning and moaning and bitching about their mutually aching backs.

“Now why—in the Lord’s precious name—did we decide to sit down again?” Barbara clucks, wincing painfully as she slowly and laboriously pulls her knees up to her chest.

“‘Cause we’re dumb fucks and thought that resting would help,” Melissa answers grimly, even finding it difficult to angle her head to the right to glance at her friend.

“Yes, well, that will do the trick every time.”

“Guess we’re floor dwellers now,” she snorts despite the seriousness of the situation, always a quipper, even in the pits. “I ain’t gettin’ up ‘til I can get a muscle relaxer in my system.”

“That’s hardly the spirit,” Barbara shakes her head reprovingly. “We just need to think creatively. Do you have your phone on you? I left mine in my classroom.”

“Yeah. It’s in my back pocket.”

“Lean forward then, honey,” the other teacher instructs in her familiar teacherly tone, “and I’ll grab it. We can call Janine to come help us up.”

It’s as good of a plan as any, and it’s one they should have probably come up with sooner, but they’d been having fun on the floor up until this point, cackling about Jacob’s tattoo idea again, complaining about Ava, and just talking about their day.

Domesticity.

The two women wear it well.

Melissa, screwing her face up tightly against the persistent ache in her hip, manages to slowly pushes herself away from the wall nonetheless—enough, at least, so that Barbara, who has more mobility in her torso, can reach behind her. But even after she’s slipped the phone from her pocket, the kindergarten teacher doesn’t immediately withdraw her hand, the warmth of her lined palm conspicuous against Melissa’s cool skin.

“Ya okay back there?” She asks, swallowing hard. She inexplicably thinks of what Ava had said about Barbara being turned on by her tattoo.

It was ludicrous, of course.

Utterly stupid.

Barbara hates tattoos, and she’s happily married, and she doesn’t get turned on by women.

None of which frankly applies to Melissa.

“Oh, um, yes,” Barbara says quickly. “Just ensuring that you don’t have a knot on your back… and you don’t, thank Jesus.”

“How’s the view?” She teases, unable to pass up on the opportunity to flirt with her friend. It’s overall harmless, and she’ll take what she can get.

Microgestures and moments.

Little snatches of an intimacy that they could have possibly shared in a different life.

(A quiet fantasy of Melissa's, an awful delusion.)

“Top of the line,” Barbara murmurs, unexpectedly playing along, her voice almost convincingly affected, a low rasp where it is usually honey smooth.

“Simply stunning...”

It is almost pathetic how quickly that Melissa's breath hitches.

How easily she forgets herself—where she's at, who she is, and dear God, what she's sworn to never, ever do.

And that is to desire her married friend.

That is, to openly and unrepentantly love her.

But in those couple of elapsed moments—in those infinitesimal, fleeting seconds—her wildest dreams are suddenly as tangible as the slender fingers arched against her back, surely touching rose petals. And she is thinking about her lips against Barbara's own, mixing the shades of their lipsticks into vibrant, new colors. And she is lost in the depths of the other woman's dark and soulful eyes. And maybe she'd twist her hands into the collar of Barbara's immaculately pressed shirt, gathering the fabric in her palms. And maybe she'd finally brush her thumb against that sharp and beautifully hewn jaw. And perhaps she would not feel guilty about doing so because, in her quiet fantasy—in her awful, awful delusions—there wouldn't be any more barriers between them to feel guilty about.

There would be no vending machine boyfriends and good, devoted husbands.

No unrequited feelings.

No deep and total shame.

But there is, there is—there always is—and she finally comes back to herself when a door audibly close somewhere in the distance, and the world rights itself on its overturned axis again; her entire nervous system recalculates and reboots, and logic reappears to her like a sudden slap in the face.

Barbara Howard hates tattoos.

And she’s happily married.

And she doesn’t get turned on by women.

So Melissa laughs a little too loudly.

Pushes Barbara on the arm a little too hard.

And the other teacher finally withdraws her hand, clutching the phone tightly between her fingertips.

“Oh, can it, ya old softie," she laughs hoarsely as Barbara's cheeks slightly darken, perhaps with embarrassment, perhaps with mortification. Hell, she doesn't know, and she's too frazzled to want to ever find out. "Flattery isn’t gonna get us off this floor."

"Well, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try," Barbara muses, clearly joking.

Because it's all just a joke to her after all.

And it's a very good joke—Melissa has to admit—gut bustlingly hilarious.

A real goddamn hoot.

Barbara ever flirting back and meaning it.

#barbara howard #melissa schemmenti #work wives #abbott elementary #s: abbott elementary #reginianwrites #janine teagues #jacob hill #gregory eddie #ava coleman

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housedeaubemarle · 1 month

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A House Call: Epilogue du Oudine

Follows after the events of 'A House Call'.

~*~

On the same day that two servants of House Aubemarle delivered their employer’s messages in the morning, two highborn Ishgardians sit down to afternoon tea in the Viscount’s personal study. The Dowager is having her afternoon repose, so there is no danger of being interrupted.

Which is why there is no hesitancy in one of them speaking in a rather disbelieving tone, “Let me see if I have this right. As penance for this social transgression, you dropped right into their laps: invitations to events where you undoubtedly will introduce them personally to your inner circles, access to two extremely popular entertainment venues to increase their chances of being noticed and spoken to, new custom designs by one of our foremost fashion houses and free, efficient transportation. And you even included treats.”

Oudine breathes in the sweet fragrance of her mulled tea, tinged with spices she couldn’t name. Ishgardian tea was all well and good, but the stronger taste of Ul’dah’s beverage is a better comfort in times of consternation.

“Yes. Though Etoile is already acquainted with them by happenstance, and I'm not entirely sure what such experienced traders and travellers who’ve seen the ravages of a Garlean occupation would need with mere Chocobos, so perhaps those don't count.”

“Oudine de Aubemarle, you’ve basically handed them the key to the city.”

“Don't exaggerate, Vliaisse; House Losstarot is still related to all four High Houses of Ishgard. This is just-”

“Just? What is ‘just’ about these favours they have received? This isn't even counting how often and how much you've mentioned ‘my lords Joshua and Isillud Losstarot’ in such glowing terms as to directly contradict the rumours of their false claims to the title. I was right there when you told Lord Hugenot himself you had had the pleasure of their visit, hoping to further their acquaintance, a fresh addition to the usual faces in Ishgard etcetera etcetera!”

Oudine has to smile. “Your memory is truly a marvel, my dear.”

“For Fury’s sake, debutantes would have sold a kidney for a box at the theatre, their soul for the invitation to the Maintigny ball - I hear that Valentione and Lanencourt are already answered for. There're rumours speculating which of the Fortemps themselves will be there - not just if they'll go, look you. Then there's your mother's concert. Your aunt de Hellyes always attends with Lord Domin himself, and let me guess: your aunt Vaillant and her progeny have said they will come.” When Oudine nods, Vliaisse throws up one hand in exasperation. “That puts everything in place then, from Aubemarle to Vaillant to Durendaire if they know what they're about. And from what you've told me, at least one of them knows how to do this little highborn cotillion of ours. They'll go from heretical outcasts to belles of the ball in a month!”

“I doubt a month will be enough.”

“Three months then, after the child lord attains majority,” says Vliaisse dismissively. “Are they cognisant of the honours given them? Have you considered what will happen if your efforts are for nothing? If they squander all the apologies you thought necessary?”

Oudine sighs. “I have. It still ought to have been done, even if they give me the cut direct in future.”

Vliaisse raises an eyebrow. “Good gods, darling, you didn't murder the man in your home. Was it really so bad as that? Your mother, respectfully, is famous for her uncongeniality. If they are as highborn as they claim, and have intention to make headway in your circles, they ought to have been more prepared. You just said the Losstarots are kin to all the High Houses - why then begin with Aubemarle?”

Oudine doesn’t answer, merely looking coolly at her friend. A pair of sharp eyes, blue as the waters of the Rhotano Sea, return a steady gaze.

She breathes out, setting her cup down. “I can only suppose they heard of the Viscount de Aubemarle’s naivete.”

Vliaisse tsks disapprovingly. “Come now, self-pity is not the thing. You are a grown woman of twenty seven, not a child.”

“If you persist in cutting up my good offices and casting shadows over the pieces, then I shall indulge in as much sulking as I like.”

The other Elezen frowns a little more at her before relenting. “Very well. Still, let us have the full account. I’ll not make a peep till you are done.” Her hand reaches across to pat Oudine’s soothingly.

Mollified, the Viscount narrates the short but eventful morning call that day, her mother’s testing of the new head of House Losstarot, the mystifying perspicaciousness of Lord Isillud and the unintentioned offence which had been committed.

Vliaisse does as she promised, listening patiently and keenly. For Oudine’s sake, she holds back a laugh at the part about the eclair, then frowns towards the ending.

“So, Vliaisse? Did the error merit such apologies?”

The darker skinned woman shakes her head slowly. “Well… if I were in your shoes, an invitation to the concert and Mr Ofanleitasyn's pastries would honestly have answered. But,” she says quickly when Oudine looks distressed. “We all know of your usual generosity in normal circumstances. Now that you are the one who has erred, I understand better.”

There is a short pause before Vliaisse continues, carefully. “You must realise that in the grand, crude, scheme of things, they have won. If they don’t act accordingly…” it will be the fault of House Aubemarle for pushing their reintroduction.

Oudine twists her lips in a grimace. “Yes, if one must put it that way. But I would rather be a gracious loser.” The memory of Joshua's eager curiosity and Isillud's soothing reassurance cannot but surface.

“I want to believe in them, Vliaisse. When men return from the dead, I would rather not bury them back in the earth. Besides, sins of the father should not be inherited by the sons.”

Vliaisse notes the faraway look in Oudine's eyes. She and Remont had always been close, and closer still after their father's death; to have her brother necessarily faraway created a space within Oudine that no one else really filled. And for one who exerted herself so much in public, those she could be at ease with behind closed doors were fewer than Vliaisse thought was healthy.

She sighs. “I suppose the hammer that accidentally strikes fingers instead of the nail still produces bruises, in spite of its intentions. And for someone as composed as Lord Isillud, it must have been a particularly large one.”

“Yes. And if I think of someone bruising me in relation to my own mother…” Oudine makes a low dissatisfied grunt.

“...the Dowager does not deserve you.”

Oudine has to smile at that familiar phrase. “Don’t be too hard on her. More than half of those apologies were through her sole arrangements.”

“What, even Cant and Candour?”

“Even that. She promised her patronage for one future production in exchange. Not,” she lifts her hand to forestall Vliaisse's next comment. “Aubemarle money. Her own.”

Vliaisse closes her mouth. “Hmm.” There’s a moment’s pause, then she leans in, whispering theatrically, “I don’t suppose she’s lost a marble or two?”

“Vliaisse!” but Oudine is laughing now, and at least the air is some degrees lighter. They resume sipping their teas in a comfortable quiet.

Vliaisse stirs her cup contemplatively. “Still, at the end of the day, one has to wonder why such a story set him off. I see no harm in learning what one’s mother was like before one’s birth.”

Oudine shakes her head. “I meant what I said in my letter: sacred ground. ‘Tis not for you nor I nor Mamma to touch.” She takes a swig of her warm tea, pauses and says, “Mamma said Lord Isillud needs more armour if he is to stay here. I wonder if he has not already too much armour in some other way - the kind that makes his eyes glow so… preternaturally green.”

“...Oudine, you’re related.”

The Viscount instantly swats her friend’s hand. “I was not going in that direction, and you know it. Ridiculous to even suggest it.”

“Yes, since you don’t specialise in eclairs-”

“Vliaisse Vilauclaire!”

Vliaisse giggles. “Whatever Lord Isillud de Losstarot is or is not, he had best be ready. Even without your involvement, his appearance alone has stirred up the hornet's nest, as has Lord Joshua’s youth, to say nothing of the unspeakable reason they vanished from Ishgard five years ago. The gossips will have much material to work with in the coming months. To think I only anticipated explosions from the Fiouront affair. What, have you not heard the latest? Seems the heir has…”

Oudine props her cheek up with one hand, letting her friend draw her into the familiar but ever-roiling rhythm of other highborn scandals. Her own brush with it has taught her she has more stomach for being a spectator.

I have done my part, Losstarots, and so has Mamma. It shall not be the fault of Aubemarle if you do not regain your footing.

End.

#ffxiv oc #ffxiv rp #ffxiv oc lore #oudine de aubemarle #vliaisse vilauclaire #isillud losstarot #joshua losstarot

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spiderdreamer-blog · 11 months

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My Adventures With Superman: “Adventures of a Normal Man, Pts. 1 and 2″ Review

Since the end of Superman: The Animated Series, Superman has not had an animated series solely dedicated to himself as an adult in the intervening 23 years. He’s certainly been part of team shows like Justice League/Unlimited or Legion of Superheroes (albeit as a teenaged Superboy) that had his character as a key component. And there have been no shortage of movies, live action or animated, that starred him either. But it feels like something’s been lost, especially on the live action end, where interesting ideas by Zack Snyder and Henry Cavill largely failed to coalesce into a compelling character (and also were a major contributing factor in the current disaster zone that is Warner Bros. Discovery, so, that doesn’t help). But we finally have a new series starring him in My Adventures With Superman, and its two-part premiere has finally surfaced. How do things shake out for the Man of Steel?

Rather than start with the standard origin, the series picks up with Clark Kent (Jack Quaid, The Boys, Star Trek: Lower Decks) arriving in Metropolis to start work at the Daily Planet as an intern alongside his roommate Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid, Cousins for Life). They quickly meet Lois Lane (Alice Lee, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist), a fellow intern who dreams of bigger things, but is currently stymied by the Planet’s gruff editor-in-chief Perry White (Darrell Brown, Gabby’s Dollhouse). Lois drags Jimmy and Clark along on a story about military tech stolen by mercenary Leslie “Livewire” Willis (Zehra Fazal, Voltron Legendary Defender, Amphibia, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), which pretty quickly spirals out of control. Clark quickly leaps in to save the day, and now the question of who or what this “Superman” is becomes THE question.

The first, most striking thing about My Adventures With Superman is its look and tone. Aided by the ever-capable Studio Mir, the character designs are bright, expressive, and far more rounded than the stripped-down, angular DCAU look of old. Clark in particular has an appealing sweet softness to his farmboy frame, Jimmy being black has been done before but never quite this excitable, and Lois is now a full-on tomboy with short hair and dark skin, much to the consternation of idiot YouTube grifter screamy men everywhere. This spreads downward to the tone, where producers Jake Wyatt (DuckTales), Brendan Clogher (Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and Josie Campbell (She-Ra) basically position the proceedings as a shoujo/josei romantic comedy that happens to have superhero action scenes.

Nothing against them, of course, they’re very well done (and fix a core problem I had with She-Ra in that the action scenes were, number one with a bullet, the weakest part due to jank). But just as much attention is paid to loving close-ups of Lois and Clark blushing as they realize they might LIKE like each other. Needless to say, I find it incredibly charming, especially after years of SnyderBros breathlessly insisting that Cavill’s dour, contemplative lonely god Superman who SNAPS PEOPLE’S NECKS is the best version of the character instead of some pussy who, I don’t know, saves kittens from trees.

(Full disclosure: Cavill is a fine actor in other projects and I have a great deal of admiration for Zack Snyder as a filmmaker, just...not them together for the most part)

In particular, a Clark who’s unsure of himself gives things a bit more of a mysterious tone than usual, particularly in the most intriguing plot hook so far: the Kryptonian ship that he came in contains the usual hologram of Jor-El, but he speaks in garbled Kryptonian that Clark can’t understand and is frightened by as a child. This, the ship creating The Costume (though Martha adds a humanizing touch with a belt and shorts), and a flash of a space battle when he unhooks a piece of damaged tech from Livewire’s back hint that it may be harder than usual to reconcile his Kryptonian and Earth selves. Which I’m not opposed to. While, as said in my STAS review, I don’t generally like the idea that Krypton was some cold unfeeling society with no value to Clark, this could be going a different, more interesting direction.

The awkwardness also adds great dividends to his interplay with Lois, who he generally has to keep up with anyway. Jimmy is also boosted in terms of already having an interest in extraterrestrial stuff, and he feels like a genuine part of the ensemble instead of a third wheel. The supporting cast is also going in some interesting directions, with a wearier Perry White than usual as a solid semi-antagonistic force, Livewire standing out as a smart, canny villain even before she busts out the Electro powers, and an excellent read on the Kents, with Jonathan and Martha warm and supportive, but fretting about losing Clark to this new persona. (Hey, Snyder? That’s how you make the Kents conflicted about Clark being Superman, not “idk, maybe you should let kids die rather than reveal your secret”)

All of this is aided by an incredibly strong voice cast. Quaid is my favorite Clark voice in a long time, affecting a soft dorkiness rather than going for a slightly formal patrician vibe. His comic timing is also great, such as in an early scene where he first meets Lois and is quickly embarrassed. Lee matches him well by switching out Lois’ usual businesswoman vibes for “overcaffeinated”, as well as self-aware enough to admit her mistakes, though not enough to cop to her immediately becoming smitten with Clark. Sahid is a funny, excitable Jimmy, taking the edge off what could have been an eye-rolling “CONSPIRACY THEORIST” gag, and his interplay with Quaid and Lee is often a highlight of the show. On the supporting end, Brown wisely dials down to be a straight man, Fazal is credibly tough and intelligent as usual, Kari Wahlgren gets those aforementioned great beats as Martha, and Azuri Hardy-Jones is immediately endearing as Flip Johnson, a gender-flipped version of the leader of Jack Kirby’s Newsboy Legion (now the NewsKIDS Legion, given some other gender-swaps in the group); she’s very much a believable scrappy kid, worrying at one point if they should call the President or “my mom”.

(Sidebar: the funniest, most unusual casting here is Chris Parnell as an anime twunk-ified Slade Wilson/Deathstroke, who appears as an ominous figure that tries to get intel out of Livewire, fights her, then captures and interrogates her with Amanda Waller and seemingly Sam Lane in attendance after Superman de-escalates the situation. Now, Parnell is an excellent voice actor with a long resume at this point, but his stock in trade is usually characters like Cyril Figgis on Archer or Jerry on Rick & Morty, who are most charitably described as weak-willed sexual obsessives. It’s a head-trip to hear him take on a role previously essayed by deep-voiced gravel pit legends like Ron Perlman, Will Arnett, Mark Rolston, and the late Miguel Ferrer. Though perhaps wisely, he doesn’t try to imitate those guys and leans into his own tones, just more of a smarmy asshole variant. His delivery of “We’re the good guys” at the end of the premiere is wonderfully insincere.)

Overall, My Adventures With Superman is immensely promising and I hope it has a decently long, unimpeded-by-Discovery-fuckery run. By going off-book but also appealing to the fundamentals of the character, it’s a fresh take that I am keenly interested in seeing develop and grow. Also, it’s just really dang cute, sue me.

#my adventures with superman #maws #reviews #media analysis

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phoeebsbuffay · 2 years

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Imagine “Star Wars” especial edition: crossovers.

Designs of Blood. [2/?]

Imagine: you are the daughter of a powerful king whose realm is located in a not so far away galaxy. You have an older brother who died, and thus you are the king’s only heir. The council is obliged to acknowledge your inheritance, but upon the king’s death, you are found usurped by your half-brother—the king’s son by his second married. You need to fight back, but you also need more allies. Hence, you contact Anakin Skywalker, your old friend from the days where you almost became Jedi yourself. However, when he comes to you, he finds you a very different person… Will your friendship remain in these turbulent days? What will be of you?

Warnings 1: this is based on “House of the Dragon”s plot. For those who might not be aware with the upcoming “Game of Thrones”’s spin-off, it’s about the dispute of the iron throne between Rhaenyra Targaryen and her half brother, Aegon II. Some names are changedand some other details are different too, but the story is basically the same (hence the crossover).

Warnings 2: contains A LOT of angst and drama,smut and violence. Do not read this if you are either sensitive to the themes or a minor. Of course there’ll be fluffy ending because of reasons.

Anakin’s POV.

When he went back from his mission with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin’s thoughts drove him to you, the silver-haired princess of lilac eyes.

“I still don’t understand why she can’t be afford a mission, Master”, Anakin complained to Obi-Wan since he’d promised you he’d advocate for you. Even though he didn’t appreciate that, was there anything he would refuse you?

“The whole objective of her staying with us is to learn how to orchestrate the Jedi arts. But we have a feeling she might not staying with us for long”, he said, sounding distracted.

He didn’t like what he heard. His heart pounded against his chest and maybe Obi-Wan detected a disturbance in you.

“What? Did you really think she was going to stay with us for good?”, so he said upon the look of perplexity in his Padawan’s face. “For the Maker, Anakin. There’s so much for you to learn yet. She is like a Senator, except there will be other purposes for a lady of her position in the realm where she came from. Hence why she was sent here. Do not get yourself too attached.”

Anakin did not respond him, deep in thoughts he was. He remembered how both of you overcame the initial difficulties and became close. He followed you wherever you went, he loved to listen to stories of your ancestors, he was there to watch you weep for the first—and so far only time.

He comforted you as much as you comforted him in the nightmares the Padawan had for long nights about his mother. And this bounded the two of you even more—you understood each other even if your realities were strikingly opposed to the other.

So Anakin was looking for you. It’s been months since you last saw each other because he had to fly to another planet in a deadly pursuit against Count Dooku—which resulted in nothing, much to his consternation.

And there you were. Meditating. Anakin was amazed by your sight. Concentrated, eyes closed, legs crossed. You still didn’t abandon the attachment to your house, though, because the colors of your robes were red and black. Your hair had grown in his absence, but you had braided on the fashion of your realm. Anakin’s heart raced.

Bad sign.

Bad sign indeed.

To worse all, his eyes scanned your neck and down your curves. You were no longer a little girl, having grown to a fine woman. The two of you were maturing together, even though time had only helped flourish your beauty, highlighting every aspect of your Valyrian inheritance.

It was when you noticed his presence, often so quiet—an almost disrupting contrast to his open, warm, rebel-like manners. When your eyes opened, Anakin’s blue eyes were transfixed in your lilac ones. He was trapped, more so when you stood and walked to his direction, always graciously.

“Ani, it’s good to see you”, you greeted him warmly and pressed a kiss on his cheek. Your hands sought for his and he didn’t take long to hold them. “What took you so long?”

“Y/nickname”, Anakin gave you a crooked grin; his heart melting when you blushed. “I missed you too. I was occupied fighting away those bastards, but bloody hell Dooku is difficult to find!”

You dwelt onto his eyes, mesmerized by his handsome features. Anakin could read your thoughts and perhaps you were aware of such abilities, because you did not mind at all he did. He knew you were fond of him. Perhaps more than just fondness. His heart skipped a beat.

“I’m sorry about that, but were there any accomplishments?” You inquired him, taking his arm as you drive him to a spot that was often sacred to you.

Anakin sighed, but when looking at you, his features softened. He didn’t say nothing for a moment, especially when he knew you expected him to. Yet he waited until the two of you were completely alone, hidden behind great walls of trees, surrounded by flowers and promenades.

There he took your hand to his and said, after noticing a shadow eclipsed your good mood from earlier:

“I was afraid to tell you how I feel for some reasons. The first was that you are socially superior to me.” And when the hurt broke in your eyes, Anakin’s heart pained too. But the truth should be spoken. “Nonetheless, you are not to stay with us forever, an illusion I fed.”

You cupped his face with your hands, gently stroking his cheeks.

“There is little use to think of the future, Ani. What we have matters more than time, it flows beyond it.” You said softly, with whatever confident you had in you.

Moved by your words, Anakin needed not to think twice. He pulled you for a kiss, a kiss you eagerly responded to. It was all he thought about it and more. His hands slided to your sides before he pulled you against a tree nearby. You gasped against his lips and Anakin sensed the desire he woke in you, which made him smirk.

However, when he parted the kiss to contemplate you, to behold your beauty and the sentiments you woke in him, he knew that was not the time to consume the fire it was in both of you.

“I love you, my princess of silver locks and lilac eyes.” He took your hands to his and pressed each a kiss, smiling as he watched a deep shade of pink coloring your porcelain cheeks.

“And I, you, my knight in shining armor”, you said, leaning forward to peck his lips.

You leant into each other as the sunset colored the skies in different shades of orange. Back then, both of you thought this was a perfect scenario for the love of each other. Yet… how little you knew what was to come.

***

Your POV.

You knew it was risky. You knew you were incurring in danger of being expelled if you were caught or, worse, if you had your reputation damaged. Certainly what was in your mind would incurr in scandal.

But because every day the fear in you about not seeing him again grew in your chest, you decided that it was worth the risk.

So there you were, in your white nightgown and your hair completely loose, moving barefoot to Anakin’s quarters. He must probably be sleeping, but you paid no mind to that. The idea brought a side unknown to you.

You knew his door was usually unlocked—even before you formed your relationship, you visited him innocently and he never let the door locked for you. It didn’t take much of your time before you slipped in his bedchambers. Even in the dark, you saw him shirtless—the sight of his muscles well built were enough to drive you crazy.

Anakin sensed a presence in his bedroom, but before he panicked, in his heart he knew it was you.

“Y/N?”

You responded him with a kiss. There was little time to react. He pulled you onto his lap before turning you to his side in bed. There was no need to question your motives: he felt them. So he pursued your lips ferociously.

“Are you sure?” He asked you though when your hands began undoing his pants. A gasp left his lips when you, so eager, cupped his manhood right into your hands.

You were fire, and he knew it. As a dragon yourself, you were made by it, being the bride of flames that for years were under control. However, as your attachment to Anakin developed in such a depth throughout these years, feeling he completed you as much as you completed him, you have never been so sure of what you’d want.

“Yes, my love.” You moaned as you felt it pulsing continuously in response to your caring, but not so much coherent moves. Anakin chuckled at your inexperience, him too not different, but helped you with it before he parted the kiss to explore your neck and remove your gown. “Please, Ani!” You begged as he began bitting your neck before going down to your breasts all the while he placed his fingers inside you.

There was an unknown urge in how you discovered each other’s bodies in the process. You pulled him over you, contemplating those blue eyes and reading hesitation in them.

“I’m yours.” You whispered.

“As I am, princess. But”, and here was as if he sensed something might come from this reckless move the two of you took part in, “are you sure about this?”

You spread your legs in order to give him space, all the while your hands moved up and down his back. As you kissed him fiercely, he got the answer he wanted.

That night, the two of you made a very passionately love. But neither could regret. Especially when that was the last night the two of you spent together.

Two days later, you were found in Anakin’s company when Obi-Wan came to you, accompanied by Master Yoda. Judging by the looks on the faces of them, you knew bad news were coming. So you stood, followed by your lover, who sensed too.

“Lady Y/N Targaryen, learned a lot with us you have”, said Yoda. “But to an end every cycle comes. Known it is.”

“We have received a letter from Master Paul”, said Obi-Wan. His eyes were expressive as he said. “Your presence is required at home. It’s time to go back to Westeros.”

You paled and your heart weighted. Admittedly you forgot about your home. You embraced the Jedi Order even if you were not meant to become one. And then… there was Anakin, of course.

“Is…Is there a reason for this?”, you asked because you sensed there was more. Anakin saw that you were avoiding to look him in the eye and he wished he could comfort you.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Your brother, the heir to the throne, unfortunately died. A plague took his life”, you were told. “Although your father remarried, he asks you to be there. Because…”

Your heart trembled and your knees were weak. The weight was on your shoulders.

“…he is acknowledging me as his heiress.” You did not know you were holding your breath until now. “Were you aware this day would come when you took me in?”

Yoda calmly responded you:

“To every event a reason to happen there is, younger one. Clouded your future to us remained. Learn your lessons, regardless, you had to.”

You nodded then, reasoning with him. You came to acknowledge a fact ever since your mother came to past away that you’d not stay there for good. Nonetheless, you felt hurt. As if the Gods betrayed you, used you to amuse them.

But that was not the time to revolt. There was a duty to your family that you had to perform.

“When am I expected to depart?”

“As soon as possible.”

You said then that you’d pack your things. Anakin followed your footsteps and you sensed the frustration you had within you.

“You can’t go, Y/N!”

“I have duties to perform, Ani”, you said, sounding distance to your ears. “I cannot refuse my family. You understand more than I do.”

He didn’t care if you were in public, he turned you to him so you could look at him. He was surprised when he saw tears in your eyes, since you were not the one prompted to weep.

“Y/nickname…” he realized he’d be selfish keeping you, so he embraced you instead as hard as it was to speak his mind.

But you wished he’d say it. You deep down wanted to be convinced to stay. However, as the two of you look right into another’s eyes, a question would remain unanswered: would duty be able to be replaced by love?

Your arrival at King’s Landing was celebrated with cheers by low born and high born alike even though you noticed that aristocrats were playing the role well.

What has changed here?

Almost everything. Your stepmother, king Viserys’s second wife, was a noblewoman close to your age and who happened to have been part of your retinue before you left to the Jedi Order.

Dressed richly in green silk gown and esmerald jewels, she came to you side by side with the children she’d not so long ago gave birth to: two boys and a girl. You’d greet each other politely, before your father came to you. You’ve noticed the king was rather under distress despite the cheerfulness upon which he received you.

“Your Grace, my father”, you dipped to a gracious curtsy.

“Please rise, my child. Come to me.” He embraced you and as he did so you’ve come to notice how long you missed him. “It’s been such a long time. How grown you are! So beautiful, just like your mother m!”

You smiled at him.

“Why thank you, papa, that is most kind of you. I’m sorry I haven’t been around when all of this happened.”

“No, no. You had duties to perform and what happened was beyond the reach of human hands”, said he. “But we should no remember tragedy when you are around. Come now, child. I’m giving you a feast in your honor.”

You gladly complied to him. As the royal family entered back at court again, you were delighted to meet your friends, especially the ladies who could not go with you to Coruscant.

However, even though you were happy to see familiar faces again, why would you feel a strange in the nest?

But you hoped to conceal your feelings in a Jedi way, so no one would read you easily. It was a trick that was to serve you well. After food was served and courtiers started to dance, your father turned to you.

“All reports that came from you or were written to Master Pyuk were very positive”, the king said proudly. “But as a princess of royal blood, you understand that was not your fate to stay there.”

You nodded your head, masking that strangeness that would not leave your heart since your arrival. Perhaps because you missed Anakin and the possibility of never seeing him again pained your heart and troubled your conscience.

“I understand, my father.” You said so, even though that you, in fact, did not. Your father’s wife gave him two male heirs. Why were you summoned? You may suspected the answer, which you were prompted to embrace, but something seemed so unfit…

“Always mindful of your duties like your mother”, he said, making you smile. “That is why, in order to respect the traditions of our ancestors, I agreed to marry you to prince Daemon.”

Oh. You looked at your father with eyebrows raised. There was a political purpose to that bold move, you could tell, but it would not be before within days this would be clear for you—and to everyone at court.

***

Anakin’s POV.

All the while you were dealing with the consequences of your depart, Anakin was forced to carry on with his life. There were missions that occupied his mind, distracting his heart from the grief of losing you.

He’d remember Obi-Wan admonishing him for the attachment bond the two of you formed.

“Perhaps it’s for your own good this didn’t give to any fruition.” But he softened when looking at the frustration stamped in his features. “I know how you feel, Anakin. I once harbored feelings for Duchess Satine. Feelings are normal, they come sometimes unwelcomingly so. However, it is what you do with these sentiments that matter. Besides, I don’t think Y/N would like to see you miserable.”

“I am not miserable, Master.”

To which Obi-Wan responded with eyebrows raised.

“You’ve been grumpy for two weeks and I sensed anger in you every time you battled the droids. Come now, Anakin. There’s no need to be unreasonable”, he said in a rather paternally voice. “Your destiny is here, hers is there. It is what it is.”

Anakin did not say anything. As he had wars to keep him busy, there was left little time to dwell on your depart. As the days turned into weeks, and these into months, however, the Jedi was tormented by nightmares again. And they were about you.

King’s Landing was on fire, a complete chaos. Civilians ran to their households, carrying their children in tears. There was despair and anger, as if this was a place commanded by the Sith. Anakin’s eyes searched immediately for you. To his surprise, you were nowhere to be found… until he heard the roar of dragons.

Reptile winged creatures whose scams were colored differently, made of rough material, flew on the skies. It was terror itself. Anakin himself felt frightened by such sight. His horror was replaced by astonishment when he saw you.

You were riding a beautiful female dragon with fierce eyes that matched yours. There was no sign of who you were to him, the joyful, mischievous princess who loved him with all the tenderness he once knew.

No. What he saw was an iron mask in your porcelain skin and the very sign of darkness in your eyes. There was anger in your lilac irises.

“You will not become the one thing we swore to destroy”, Anakin said in the dream.

But you weren’t listening to him. You commanded your dragon to burn the city. As it did. Anakin would not believe it. This wasn’t you. He tried to appeal to reason.

It was when he saw someone that looked so much like you. A silver haired prince mounted in another dragon came right to you. The two dragons danced. There was fight. Anakin could not believe in what he was seeing.

You used the power of Force to choke upon that prince. Anakin was anxious. What had become of you?

“Y/N! No! This is not the Jedi way!” He pledged to your deaf ears.

But even if you succeeded choking your rival, another came. Surprised by this other one, you were attacked. Your dragon was hurt. And you fell.

Amidst the fire and blood, which he knew to be the motto of your house, you fell. Anakin tried to hold onto you, but he was already late. You were gone. All he could do was hold you, lifeless, against him and cry. Until anger consumed him. Until he was no more himself. Until something snapped the desire for revenge in him.

It was when he woke up.

Desolated by what he dreamed, Anakin felt in his heart this was the prelude of something wicked that was to come. Yet he felt completely powerless before these designs of blood. There had no way to communicate with you despite remembering the letters you used to exchange with the family left on King’s Landing back home.

But writing a letter was not suffice to convince Anakin you were well. So he decided to talk to Obi-Wan about this nightmare which plagued him, as much as Anakin did not like to share to anyone what often weighed on his heart. Well except with you, because you were each other’s confidants.

“Master, what news do we have of…other realms?”

Obi-Wan was reading the news in his room when his Padawan stepped inside. Without looking at him, the ginger Jedi said:

“If you are looking for news of Y/N’s realm, you could have asked. So far nothing significant.” But he sensed a deep fear in Anakin, so he put the news on table and said: “What’s going on, Anakin? Is there something troubling you?”

But Anakin wasn’t so sure about telling his Master in regards of his nightmares. Obi-Wan stood and went to stand right before him. Very gently he pressed a hand over his shoulder:

“I just sensed she’s in danger, that is all”, he admitted, even though he was telling partially the truth.

Obi-Wan’s face softened.

“I know you care a great deal about her, Anakin. But believe in me, she’s safe and probably compromising herself with familial duties. Speaking of which, I have a new mission for you. I’m afraid you’ve been doing poor use of your…erm, how should I put it? Your constant agitation.”

Unwilling so, Anakin chuckled at the peculiar choice of words used by his Master.

“Well, if that’s how you think I am… it’s a better word than being seen as the wayward Jedi.”

“To which you are. One thing does not exclude the other”, said Obi-Wan. “Besides if everything goes well you might be assigned a Padawan yourself.”

Anakin arched his eyebrows.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Obi-Wan sighed.

“Don’t make me regret this decision, Anakin.”

Though Anakin was briefly distracted of his heartache, he knew he could not leave the Order. As much as he loved you, abandon Obi-Wan Kenobi was too much for him to consider. Conflicted thus, he decided to ignore the whole issue.

Time went on as a result. Anakin earned a Padawan named Ahsoka Tano and much to his own dismay, he grew attached to her. It was, as formerly said, a brief distraction.

Because his nightmares came back again.

You were dressed in black and red velvet gown, your silver hair braided in the fashion of your realm. Your ears and your neck were adorned with gold. Your countenance was serious and you stood before a number of men dressed in fancy robes.

Right behind you stood the Iron Throne, one Anakin only recognized because you told him about it. He assumed the seater to be your father. The next words Anakin heard came from him:

“All those present step forward to vow before me, before the Gods, your allegiance to my heir. By doing thus you are not only acknowledging her right to succeed me, but also pledging her loyalty as you once did to me.”

The first man that stepped before you was dark haired, eyes black as coal and grave semblance. He knelt before you and professed:

“I, Orlys of the House Baratheon, pledge my alliance and loyalty to Y/N of the House Targaryen.”

You offered his hand for him to kiss, your eyes seemed distant as if you wished to be elsewhere. Anakin suffered when looking at you like this.

Must be duty the death of love?

The scenario changed. It was another celebration, but most faces seemed clearly displeased by it. It took some time to Anakin realize that it was about a royal marriage. He was petrified when he saw it was about your marriage.

Anakin was enraged, but no matter how much he tried to yell at you, he was unheard, unseen… ignored. He wept.

But if he was careful to see better the details of the union, he’d detect unhappiness underneath the iron mask you began to make use. Anakin tried to awake, but for some strange reason he could not.

It was when the scenario changed again and he stood by your side in what Anakin assumed to be your private quarters. You glanced away at the view of different buildings architected in styles that the Jedi thought so different.

“They are not going to accept me on the throne”, he heard you speak. There was contempt in your speech. “I will be forced to fight for it. Are you prepared for this eventuality, Daemon?”

Jealousy came violently to shake Anakin’s personal despair. The man you were talking to was your husband. This prince Daemon looked at you as if you were a piece of meat even though all there was in his eyes were coldness.

“I’m prepared for it. I have a good army.”

You nodded, never looking at your husband as you conversed.

“But the question is, Y/N: there’ll be fire, there’ll be blood. Are you willing to burn and bleed?”

You turned abruptly at him. Anakin was hurt to see you were carrying the man’s child. However, a pleasant feeling washed away his subtle darkness when he came to realize that… maybe, there was a possibility you were carrying his child.

“Yes, I am.” This was the answer Anakin was most displeased to listen. “I am the daughter of the Dragon, Daemon. You too would well to remember that.”

He laughed a cold laughter.

“Naturally.”

Once again powerless before these visions Anakin held little control upon, he watched as he was taken to the moment you gave birth. He was appalled by your distress, ignoring that the king had been recently deceased and Aegon, your half brother and not you, was praised as the new king. All the while you were in labor, you had been usurped.

“It’s a son!” The midwives announced.

You embraced the baby, ignoring all the rise of darkness that even Anakin sensed was growing in you. But the sight of your son appealed your shadows. When he opened his eyes, Anakin knew that was his son, even though one iris had the same shade blue of his whilst the other iris was dark shade purple.

“My boy”, you wept when holding him against you. Anakin wished he could be there for you. He didn’t realize he too had been weeping, deprived of what should be a moment of happiness. “I sense the force in you, of course. Aegon will be your name, far more worthy of carrying it than the one who now uses it.”

You kissed him, proud for him being every inch a Targaryen even though Anakin sensed your fears about the boy.

After all, what if he was not born with the Targaryens traits so strong on him? What would be of you? Thankfully, not all was as bad as it might’ve been…

(To be continue)

#star wars #imagine Star Wars #Star Wars imagine #crossovers #house of the dragon #game of thrones #Anakin Skywalker #obi-wan Kenobi #Darth Vader #Anakin Skywalker x you #anakin skywalker x y/n #Anakin Skywalker smut #Anakin Skywalker x reader #Rhaenyra Targaryen #Daemon Targaryen #house targaryen

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kkglinka · 1 year

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The dojo devolved into entertaining chaos this week. On tuesday, we did the usual basics stuff in the first half, then the very first baby steps of randori for the beginners. It's possible I cackled and shouted the word randori, but you didn't actually hear me, so it doesn't count.

We broke into two groups of four, in which three partners took turns attacking the designated victim. (Well, ours switched into two simultaneous attackers partway through). Uke's new to this learned that it's actually kinda hard for more than one person to attack simultaneously without prior coordination, and nage learns to not panic; not target fixate; not worry about doing some perfect technique.

I was, yes, cheerfully shoving uke's in each others way, but I need to pause and explain. Sensei was in our group. I'm like, smol. He's like, 6'6" and 200lbs, but both of us know hard forms well suited to our respective size (tkd for him, escrima for me). But he's also figured out by now that my belt and my functional rank don't match at all. Specifically, I know both single and double bokken katas, and all the jo strikes, and the open handed jo counters. This is relevant because it means I know how to deal with tkd's high kicks (pretty much like jo strikes). Being lightweight and escrima footwork means I can lift my feet off the ground and allow a kick to carry me, if it does land. (Boo! Hiss! Cheating!)

So for three rounds in a row, sensei irimi'd on the wrong side, because he's unaccustomed to a martial art that has both forward and rear guard positions and mistook a covering jab for the main attack. Which left him with this springloaded boxer very much inside his guard, which meant both of us cackled as he slid back out of flurry attack range. The third time, I could see him doing a weight shift in preparation for a forward kick but he must have also seen the gleeful look in my eyes because he abruptly laughed and backed up again.

I really don't have any fear response. It's terrible. Gonna get me killed someday. *knocks on wood*

Thursday, he had the senior dan from my previous dojo teach a class and honestly, I've forgotten too much of the japanese. Shomen uchi, where you row back during the slip so uke overextends a bit, and then you snake up with the palm strike to the face. Except. not really, because you arc your palm to the outside to get control of the neck instead. Sometimes I forget that I'm not doing hapkido and someone shrieks at me until I remember my manners.

Then we started the basics of a simple hip throw and oh my goodness, allo's get so squeamish about this one lmao. Because the dan knew that I would also know it, he pulled me up as uke. Which was fine. He kinda forgot to modulate force though and I went airborne, spinning like a top before going splat into a breakfall. Almost off the mat entirely. Mere feet from one of the wall high windows. When I held up an arm to jeer, "Bad dancing! That's not how you spin a lady!", the dan scrunched up in consternation, and a fellow student commiserated, "you're not getting a second date after that."

Then I overheard that the jujutsu class after ours was doing boxing strikes that evening, so I stayed to watch. This practically required sitting on my hands, which reflexively went into fists, and ignoring that sensei's repeated requests I join practice. Especially after I trotted around the mat to show one pair of students the slip for a gut punch. But no punching for me without at least tkd gloves because I value my skin and fibro doesn't value my nervous system when it comes to repeat impacts.

#kkglinka does stuff #aikido #fibromyalgia

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hasufin · 2 years

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So, like, I don’t want to in any way endorse the racist, homophobic, and generally awful author of the work, but I was once again having some odd thoughts about Ender’s Game. And maybe these are ideas explored more in other books; I’ve not read anything after Children of the Mind, and frankly would not even endorse that far.

What I‘m thinking is, while we as readers know that Ender is Special and the protagonist and will Save the World, no one in the novel knows that for sure.

The purpose of the Battle School was not to train Ender, but rather to find a tactical genius who is perfect for this particular situation.

I’d like to emphasize two parts of that. First, Ender is not a strategic genius. He is not setting up supply lines, considering where to devote resources, determining which locations will have the strongest and weakest defenses, or anything else of that nature. No, he is simply being given a progression of battles, each of which simply has the resources he is given (that is, the fleets which Earth built, automated, and launched years ago.) It is on him then to win each battle with what he has been given: tactics, not strategy. Second, while he was demonstrably able to win every battle presented to him, that does not mean he is the Best Possible Tactician. It means that he was uniquely well-suited to the selected set of opponents presented to him: the other Battle School candidates, and then the Buggers themselves. He might easily be defeated by tactical philosophy which is unlike these.

But, anyway. The purpose of the Battle School was to find their Tactical Genius. Let’s roll that back a little bit. The Battle School was set up before Ender was even born. They did not design it for him. Rather, each and every child in the school was a candidate. Each one was selected with the apparent belief that they could end up being the ideal tactician. Some, it is implied, were selected as a matter of national pride, openly chosen for that purpose. Others seem to have been selected by other agencies because they seemed promising, much as Ender was.

The Battle School, then, was engaged in very advanced psychology, influenced by politics, to find and develop someone with a very particular mental landscape, who could be expected to perform in a very unique situation.

What follows is, while many of these candidates might have been selected in what we would consider relatively healthy ways - perhaps Chess prodigies, or determined from nationwide psychological screenings - others were clearly selected in the same way as Ender: looking for someone whose life experiences and actions predicted a useful result.

This suggests that Ender’s background - being the third child at a time and place when only two children were allowed, having an abusive elder brother, endless and violent bullying in school, and so on - might have been unique in the Battle School, it was likely not particularly special. The majority of the candidates were almost certainly the results of broken homes, abuse, bullying, and any of a host of other tragedies. These were children who needed therapy, not a hypercompetitive military environment.

Stepping back a bit further: let’s think about Mazer Rackham. Initially his nigh-suicidal attack on the Bugger fleet must have produced consternation and condemnation: basically, he Got Lucky, and military people don’t generally like that. Even into Ender’s Game, his claim that they were dealing with a singular mind was not considered certain, but it was the best model they had. From which followed, they needed to find that particular psyche which could understand and predict that mind. The only way they could know to do that would be to consider the one person who had shown an ability to perform that feat, and to the best of their abilities duplicating him. Which means that Mazer Rackham himself was doubtless bullied and abused as a child.

Ultimately, the story of Ender’s Game is one of tragedy: that a lifetime of abuse can then be exploited by the powerful for their own ends without the consent of their victims.

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tehuti88-art · 7 months

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10/20/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Drawtober: Ghostly Ballroom/Free Draw Friday." Drawlloween theme, Oct. 20: "Mutant Mart."

...

This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Lance Corporal Battleship Gray (BG) Rat. He's a radio operator and not a hugely important character, but maybe I'll find more use for him, as one of the original unit. He's rather unintentionally bigoted though harmless, and constantly wired up; I almost drew him with a cigarette as he's always smoking. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding his design, he's missing an incisor though it's hard to tell here. And usually to be found with a cigarette.

TUMBLR EDIT: This is how Battleship Gray, or BG, is described in the old character list for the circa-2000 reboot:

BATTLESHIP GRAY: LC; along with Doomsday, in charge of repairing things that are broken. While D-Day is more mentally oriented and experimental, "BG" (as everyone calls him) is more hands on and tends to get more done. Tends to smoke or chew on things when no cigarettes are available. Usually to be found with his hands all oily. Develops an attraction toward Hilda, to the consternation of the other Rats. Laid back and casual, rarely to be found raising his voice, but can be nervous sometimes. (Newer Trench Rat.) Current storyline

Firstly, BG is now actually one of the very first Trench Rats, being a member of the original unit that was trapped in Germany before the First Battalion arrived to rescue them. Secondly, eh, hell no is he "laid back and casual"; he's rather a loudmouth, especially when nervous, which is often. He's constantly wired like he's on caffeine, though chain smoking is his thing. He's a rather stereotypical Italian American with lots of Big Opinions and a passionate temper, and it's rather ironic that he's stereotypical, because he frequently stereotypes everyone else. The moment Jewish Trench Rat Drake drops into their ditch to bring them back to HQ, the cliches start. BG is almost never hostile or spiteful with his bigotry--for example, he never engages in the same sort of commentary as the Nazis when he talks to Drake--rather, he's the type to say something like, "I hear all you guys are great with money, yeah?" And he's not picky--he makes such comments about the Irish (Turquoise), mixed race (Copper), Blacks (Amaranth), French (Papillon), British (Bradford), women (Skye), Russians (Boris), Roma (Didrika), basically, if they're from some group he doesn't belong to, they're fair game for casual racism or misogyny.

There's ONE big, and rather odd, exception: BG despises Germany, Germans, and anything related. Can't stand them, and thinks nothing of letting the entire world know. This leads to a running gag regarding his interactions with Doomsday Rat, after D-Day is liberated from Nazi custody. When he first returns, D-Day no longer remembers English, speaking only German; he needs to be "deprogrammed" in a sense to remember how to be American. Even afterward, whenever he gets exceptionally frustrated, he'll lapse into ranting in German. Whenever this happens, despite the two of them being members of the same original unit, BG's frustration goes through the roof as well and he always ends up yelling, "Speak English! Like an American! SPEAK ENGLISH!!"

BG's attitude problem regarding Germans inevitably brings trouble whenever the Trench Rats have to interact with German allies and...sort-of allies. More than once they experience run-ins with Wehrmacht members Ratdog and Klemper; despite Ratdog's personally motivated mission to kill Trench Rats, he also has a sense of honor, and won't shoot anyone who's seriously injured, unarmed, or on a peace mission. Klemper, however, has a temper much similar to BG's, and can't speak English, and is frequently himself wired on meth, so of course he and BG usually end up with firearms aimed at each other, screaming expletives. Considering that both sides are often on the same mission (Ratdog and Klemper decide to start subtly undermining the Nazis' Final Solution efforts whenever they get the chance), this leads to all sorts of complications.

There are two other plot points I mentioned in the old character bio that still stand. BG is the Trench Rats' radio operator, in charge of keeping them in communication with others (especially the British), and as a result is often responsible for fixing broken electronics or at least jury-rigging things until they can be properly maintained. I imagine this could be another source of conflict with D-Day, who as the chief engineer is REALLY the one in charge of fixing things; he probably mutters quite a few Teutonic cuss words under his breath while fixing whatever BG temporarily patched up.

Then there is Hilda. I believe Hilda originally came about as a mere prop of an unfinished adult scene (I know it's weird, but this adult stuff has helped play a big role in character and plot development, including leading directly into this current reboot), but she probably still stands as a character, albeit a minor one who needs some development. I just looked up her character bio and it is COMPLETELY different from what I remember, likely does not still stand, but here it is:

HILDA: Big-boned, "matronly" woman rescued by the Trench Rats before her city is bombed. Ends up residing in the refugee compound, but storms her way into HQ a lot--no one is brave enough to take her on. Short tempered, explosive, and verbally abusive, but also helps care for the Rats after the influenza strikes. Object of Battleship Gray's affection; he seems to have a thing for larger women. Current storyline

Yeah, uh...I honestly don't remember all of that.

As things now stand she's just comic relief, and might remain so, though there's room for change. Hilda is (currently) a maid in someone's household, the stereotypical tall, broad, matronly, harsh-voiced German type; she easily intimidates the Trench Rats who first come in contact with her. Including BG. Yet BG also finds her weirdly appealing, and Hilda finds BG weirdly adorable. She's the one German who doesn't trigger his rage reflex and that's largely because he's terrified of her and that's what he finds attractive. Hilda, meanwhile, talks to him like he's a child and it's just a really weird, fetishy relationship but hey, it works out for them. *shrugs*

This is pretty much all I have about BG at the moment--nothing big or dramatic, no extensive plot importance just yet. This leaves plenty of potential to develop him (and Hilda?) to add more to the story...or maybe they could remain simple comic relief. I have yet to decide.

[Battleship Gray Rat 2023 [‎Friday, ‎October ‎20, ‎2023, ‏‎2:00:30 AM]]

[TUMBLR NOTE, I had to fudge the posting time on this one to 2:01AM due to Tumblr's dumb new entry format change. I have two entries from 2:00AM, I posted them in the proper order, but the one with the earlier entry number posted second...you figure it out, I'm tired of trying to figure out new Tumblr.]

#artists on tumblr #ibisPaint x #SketchDaily #original characters

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mannishboywrites · 8 months

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What the hell is going on?

The internet has been pissing me off lately. It seems like it's impossible to log into my Twitter account (fuck off, Elon, I'm not calling it X) to say "ratio+L+get gud" to a journalist without being shown some blue-check misogynist with a marble bust avatar telling me that I must save my sons from the degenerating forces of public school, Netflix, and indoor plumbing. I can't open Instagram without seeing a LinkedIn evangelist telling me that the only way to success is to start your day with a five mile run at 3am and block off two hours before lunch for something called "deep work" in between liquid meals that will run you $50/day. I just wanted to watch videos of some guy showing me how to play "Supernaut" by Black Sabbath on the bass. Instead of three hour video essays about one specific armor piece in Dark Souls 2, YouTube wants me to watch two guys with questionable hairlines sit in a studio and debate how high a woman's body count can be before she has been gone from NPC to refuse in their eyes.

It may sound like I'm complaining about The Almighty Algorithm, but I really hate the idea of being that boring. As someone who has a working understanding of Marxian social theory, I promise that I will be more annoying than dull. As such, what has really been fueling my consternation has been the feeling that nobody really knows why they're doing what they're doing, nobody knows where they are going, and everything feels like an artifice. Other people are not people in the way you are, they're obstacles, foils, marks, rungs on a ladder, predators, or prey. Seeing them as anything other than an object with a use value at least and ideally an exchange value is a sign of weakness best avoided.

If you've spent even a second on the internet, you've certainly seen the various hacks that people smarter, sexier, richer, and more skilled than you have to offer, all for the low price of a Patreon subscription. It's not a get rich quick scheme, it's an optimization method. It's not how to make friends and influence people, it's how to become an Influencer with a powerful Brand. You're not having a crisis of identity, you're just a Beta in need of some guidance on how to develop the Sigma grindset. You have so much to learn, and a bald man with HGH gut can probably teach you.

Until I forget or lose interest because I started another character in Elden Ring, I'll be exploring the various ailments of what Marx would call alienation and how they manifest on social media in the form of content (another concept I'll probably talk about because I hate it so much) designed to be consumed, regurgitated, and consumed again in a cycle that not only radicalizes the viewer, but the creator themselves. In post-industrial capitalist society within the Imperial core, people have lost the concept of class as a scientific term. We don't share spaces with people we don't already think we'll get along with, we don't bond over things that aren't commodities, and we don't have relationships that aren't transactions. When you've been steeped in that brew from birth (usually sometime in the Reagan administration or after), it's not hard to see why Andrew Tate isn't rejected as a psychopathic cancer to a civilized society or why Jordan Peterson's vapid, half-baked Jungianism can't be laughed off as the mumblings of a charlatan. The fact is, people are desperately looking for something that just isn't there, and when they aren't armed with a truly social set of ethics or basic media literacy, anybody with any confidence or semblance of authority will do as a surrogate role model.

I can't say this blog is going to be well-planned or even well-sourced all the time. Hell, I'm not even sure how long I'll keep up with it. Hopefully, I'll get some of you thinking about how dangerous it can be to distance yourself from your fellow people. At the very least, we'll get to gawk at some real freaks. That's what the internet should be for, I think.

#marxism #alienation #masculinity #hustle #grindset #influencers #social media #i dont know what else to tag

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dalleyan · 1 year

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Elfwine Chronicles (new LoTR stories, Artistic Design, ch 2 posted, 2-15-23)

Theomund makes a serendipitous decision with far-reaching repercussions. (Romance, Drama, Angst, Family)

Artistic Design, ch 2

Fele stumbled up the hill next to Theomund, not at all certain about this. Surely they could not just barge in on the queen’s dinner without invitation, even if he was her son. And for him to drag in a complete stranger would be unforgivably rude. She tried again to dissuade him. “My lord, truly we should wait and seek an audience with her majesty. I do not think it right for us to just suddenly put in appearance this way.”

He chuckled. “Fele, trust me! I know my family and Mother will not be at all alarmed by this ‘breach of etiquette’ you perceive. She is always delighted when I drop by for meals, even encouraging me to do so more often, and she always welcomes my friends. Now, please, be at ease.”

Friends? Surely he did not intend to have his mother think she was his friend in order to sway her favor… Before she could put forth further protest, they had reached the Golden Hall and Theomund led her assuredly to the small family dining chamber. As it happened, his mother was dining alone, and appeared quite pleased to see them.

Warmly she greeted her son with a hug and kiss, and then turned questioningly to the woman lurking behind him. Hazarding a guess, she inquired, “And might this be Fele?”

“It is,” Theomund acknowledged, his hand pressing on her back to urge her forward. “Fele, this is my mother, Queen Lothiriel.”

Nervously, Fele bobbed a curtsy, keeping her eyes on the ground. “It is a great honor to meet you, your majesty!”

She was startled a moment later when the queen’s hand stroked the side of her head, and in consternation she looked up to discover the woman smiling gently at her. “It is always a pleasure to meet my son’s friends, Fele. You are most welcome here.”

“But…my lady…I am not a friend, I am just a worker–” she stammered, but the queen cut her off with a laugh.

“Clearly you do not yet understand my son, Fele!” The queen moved to be seated and gestured for them to do likewise. “His fellow workers are his friends. It may seem odd to you, but that is the way he does things. If you work with him, you must tolerate his considering you a friend.”

Lothiriel offered the plate of bread to the other woman, who took it hesitantly and then passed it on to Theomund after she had served herself.

For several minutes, while they dished up their plates, the conversation turned to catching up on family matters, and Fele listened silently, hardly able to believe she was privy to such a thing. She sat nibbling at her meal, barely daring to look up at the other two.

Then, suddenly, the queen asked, “So, Theomund, what brings you to my door this day? I doubt very much it was a burning desire to dine with your mother!”

He chuckled, and Fele eyed him with concern. Was the queen upset that they might have an ulterior motive for their visit?

“I have told you that Fele designs wonderful jewels, Mother. At present, no one is paying much attention to them, so I am enlisting your aid in changing that. Once the nobility discover you like her work, they will flock to her as well.”

Lothiriel laughed. “True enough! They are like sheep, in that regard. Did you bring some pieces for me to see?”

Not looking the least bit apologetic, Theomund answered, “I fear we did not, but perhaps you could drop by the shop and see what she has done.”

The comment was appalling. She ought to be more helpful if the queen was going to do this great favor for her. Clearing her throat nervously, she offered, “If you would like, my lady, I will go and fetch some pieces for you to see. You do not need to trouble yourself by coming to the shop.”

Lothiriel and Theomund’s eyes met and they both laughed, though Fele was not clear what they found amusing about her words.

“I see you also do not understand my son’s shrewdness yet. You could bring the pieces here for me to see, but then I would have no reason to come to the shop, and be seen there – which would be a boon to business for the both of you! I assure you, Theomund did not ‘forget’ to bring the pieces along on this visit, dear. It was very well thought out on his part!”

Theomund shrugged as Fele stared at him in astonishment. Before either could say anything, Lothiriel added, “I am busy just after dinner, but I will come by this afternoon or tomorrow. I could use an excuse for a walk in the sunshine.”

continue reading on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44956990/chapters/113411728

#Eomer #Lothiriel #Lord of the Rings #Elfwine Chronicles #LOTR #Theomund son of Eomer #original Rohan characters #Elfwine

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screamingatanemptyroom · 3 years

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Please Fix the Story pt 24 - Sci Fi

The battle with the Hive, and the traveler! Moving onto the end game after this. (Still will take a few parts, but the end is in sight!)

Masterpost linked here.

Enjoy!

_____________________________

The atmosphere in the conference room was tense.

“The numbers don’t look good.” General Gladus stared at the display with a frustrated sigh. “We just have the few Mechs stationed in the Fifteenth Sector. The Hive have a full colony… thousands of drones, directed by a Queen. They have already landed on the nearest moon, destroying the defense base there, and will be within striking distance of the planet in..." He rechecked his numbers. "Eighteen hours.”

Pointing his finger at the hologram, the display zoomed in on the larger dot surrounded by countless other smaller red dots. “The Queen is the key. She controls all the drones. If we take her out, we can halt the invasion long enough for true reinforcements to arrive.”

I nodded, trying to follow along. “So if we don’t have the numbers to defend the planet, we go on the attack and try to strike the Queen?”

“It can take a whole squadron to take out a Queen. “ He quickly put a damper on my excitement, frowning. “A normal Hive drone is the size of a human. She’s larger than two Mechs put together, around six stories tall, with armor to match.”

I thought about the story, what I knew about what technology was available years ahead… Hadn’t Chris gotten a special Mech to fight Queens? “What about a bigger Mech? Big enough to take on the Queen?”

The general paused at that. “The military engineers at the academy have been working on some prototypes… but the bigger a Mech is, the harder it is to control. In a few years we might have one that a single Guardian could operate, but the ones we have now? No one would have the capability…”

“I do.” I interrupted, speaking with certainty. “Let Liam and I try it.”

“Honey, I know you’re a Grade S Guardian, but…”

“I’m more than that. You remember that I almost destabilized? It was because of a sudden increase of my power” Because I’m not really your daughter. “I’m much more powerful than a grade S… “ I reached out and grabbed Liam’s hand. “And that’s not even to mention our 100% resonance match.”

Liam grinned, squeezing my hand. “Trust us, General. Alaira and I can fly anything they can build!”

The General stared at us, obviously unnerved at the idea of sending his daughter into the worst of the fighting. I reached out and grabbed his hand. “Trust me, Dad. I’ll make you proud.”

“…” He let out a long sigh. “I’m already more proud than I could ever be…” He rubbed his forehead. “Fine. Let’s see if you can work the thing… but if you can’t move it perfectly, then the plan gets canceled. I’m not sending you out there to die.”

“Thank you!” Awkwardly hugging him, I felt a twinge of guilt as he patted my back gently.

I wish your daughter could be here to feel your love and pride in her.

“Don’t celebrate too soon… Even if you’re big enough to take on a Queen, we still have to get you to her.”

I stepped closer to the display, studying it. “She’s directly in the center of the army… hiding away on the moon in the ruins of the defense base. With their numbers versus ours… we just don’t have the firepower to get there.”

Warning! Mission Failure Imminent!

As the blue writing and loud warning appeared only to me, I felt no fear, no terror at my imminent doom. It was now more annoying than anything else.

If you're not going to suggest anything helpful, then shut up!

Warning!...

SHUT UP! I screamed in my head, feeling a thread of shadowy power emerge from around me, erasing the words from existence.

The warning fell silent.

What… what was that? Some sort of magic? How much about myself is still hidden in my lost memories?

Enjoying the new silence in my head, I looked over at Liam who was staring at me with a worried look.

“Are you okay? You weren’t responding.”

I reached out, smoothing out his forehead, which was wrinkled with concern. “Yes. It’s difficult to explain, though. What did you say?”

“If we don’t have the troops to blast our way to the Queen, then what about a diversion?” He pointed at the area of the diagram between us and the Hive. “We act like we’re staging a frontal assault, and when they’ve deployed enough forces to weaken the rear, you and I strike from behind!”

The General nodded slowly. “It would take quite an attack to make the Hive divert forces to the front… Even if we threw everything we had and left nothing to protect you two, it might not be enough.”

I grinned. “Don’t worry about protecting us.” Grabbing Liam’s hand I added. “You forget who I matched with. We can handle our own defense. All that’s left is to figure out how to make a big enough distraction to give us a way in.”

“DID SOMEONE CALL FOR A DISTRACTION?!”

Princess Ilene pushed past the guards at the door with the two other girls in her group at her sides. “Sounds like a job for the Harem!”

Liam raised his eyebrow. Harem? He mouthed silently at me. I shook my head, not wanting to get involved.

Alaira’s father did not look impressed. “Princess. I don’t recall you showing any interest in military matters previously.”

“That’s before the Hive kidnapped Chris!” Ilene cracked her knuckles. “Now I gotta go crush some space bugs.”

Who says Chris was kidnapped?

“YEAH!" "We're going to save him!” The other two girls struck dramatic poses on either side of Ilene.

“…” The room stared at them in silence.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing away my headache. “Princess, maybe this would work better if you explained to my father what skills you three brought to the table? “

“… I suppose.” She sniffed, gesturing at Wen grandly. “She has designed a Mech with the ability to tow 50 mini cannons.”

Wen grinned, explaining further. “The guns are strapped to a small engine, and will fly at evenly spaced intervals behind the controlling Mech. It’s still a work in progress… You can’t target, and you can’t control them individually… at least not yet.”

“But that’s still 50 extra shots for one Mech.” General Gladus looked much more interested. “How many have you made?”

“Just one, but if I add a small hologram projector to the guns, it will look like we have 50 fully operational Mechs with us! THAT should get the Hive’s attention.”

Ilene and Allie chimed in. “ We’ve already practiced piloting the Mech and can operate it smoothly.”

“… That… might just work…” He shrugged. “Strong work, Ladies…”

“We call ourselves the Harem… Alaira came up with the name!”

“Don’t credit me, please..”

The General glanced at my cringing expression and chuckled. “…Glad to have you aboard… I think.”

“All right!” The young engineer high-fived her companions, grinning proudly. “I was originally saving this invention for Chris, but now I’m going to use this to SAVE Chris!”

“YEAH!”

“…” The General was now staring at me with a look of consternation, to which I raised my hands helplessly. “…Sure.”

“So that’s the plan then.” I took a deep breath, calming the fast beating of my heart at the thought of the fight to come. “The Harem will distract the Hive, and Liam and I will take out the Queen.”

We’ll save the world.

We’ll complete my mission.

It will work… it has to.

“We’ll strike first thing in the morning.” General Gladus watched me with a worried gaze, but obviously held back from speaking further. “… Good luck.”

_____________________________

Liam and I tested out the massive Mech prototype called the “Queen Killer,” able to move it with an ease that shocked Alaira’s father and the engineers. After confirming the plan a final time, I returned back to my dorm to get some rest before the battle.

I found myself too keyed up to sleep, staring blankly at the ceiling. If we complete the mission, will I get all my memories back? Will I stay in this world or be forced to leave? Will Liam stay with me? My frantic thoughts were interrupted by a quiet knock on my door.

Wary, I checked the security system, quickly opening the door once I realized who it was.

“Liam, what are you doing here? It’s still a few hours before we’re supposed to meet for the mission.”

Liam wrung his hands together, staring at the floor quietly. “I… was hoping…”

“What is it?”

“Can you come with me?”

At my nod he grabbed my hand and pulled me along. I started to ask where he was taking me, but seeing the determination on his face, fell silent. I didn’t feel any wariness, despite my lack of knowledge of our direction.

_____________________________

“Aren’t you scared?” A voice asked, coming from high above me.

“No.”

“Why not?” The despair in the voice was heartbreaking. “Everyone else is.”

“Because it’s you.” I grinned. “Can’t be scared of you, Liam.”

_____________________________

I blinked, my gaze once again resting on our clasped hands.

I’ll keep trusting you Liam.

He took me to the upper deck of the academy, a large platform surrounded by multiple gardens. In the dead of night, the multicolored flowers and trees were barely visible. Rather than a clear sight, it was a combination of the senses: of impressions of movement, of gentle sounds of the wind swaying the branches and leaves, of brief flashes of colors in the light of the multiple candles that lit up the platform.

In the center of the platform stood a minister, the elderly man looking tired but still smiling gently. Off to the side were the Harem girls, watching silently, and Alaira’s father who stood by with a combination of tears and joy.

The King and Queen were nowhere to be seen.

“This.is…” My voice trailed off, filled with awe at the sheer amount of work it must have taken to move everything up here from the ballroom we had planned it in.

Liam knelt down, holding my hand with a solemn look.

“Alaira... I don’t know if we’re going to survive this battle, but I know one thing: If I’m going to die tomorrow, I want it to be as your husband.”

His hands were shaking with nervousness as they held my own.

“Please marry me.” His words were simple, but they struck my heart with a force that made me sway on my feet.

_____________________________

“Please marry me.” A trembling man held me close.

_____________________________

I smiled at the thought that I had answered this question before. “Yes.”

Liam let out a sigh of relief, standing up and hugging me gently. “Thank you…” He hesitated. “Bel.” The name was spoken only for me to hear, sounding like a prayer.

“You realize we had already planned to get married today?” I chuckled. “You didn’t have to re-propose.”

“I needed to hear it again.”

With a wide grin, he led me over to the center of the platform. There, in front of friends and family, the minister led us through the vows. As I spoke the words, holding Liam’s hands tightly, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had done this multiple times before.

How many lifetimes have I already spent with him? How many times have we been married?

Liam leaned in to kiss me, the gentle movement the barest touch on my lips, and then hugged me tightly against him.

“I love you.” He whispered in my ear.

My father stepped forward and clapped us both on the shoulder. “Alright, kids, that’s enough excitement pre-battle. Go get some sleep. I’ll throw you a combination victory party and wedding reception once we survive the Hive.”

Laughing, Liam and I left the party behind. We were unable to sleep, and simply laid in each other’s arms. My head rested against his chest, hearing his heartbeat and breaths. Closing my eyes, I prayed that we would make it though this battle safely.

And just maybe, if we survive this, I’ll figure out how to get our memories back.

I thought of the shadowy power I had displayed to shut the system warning down, an ability I had tried to repeat without success several times since. I don’t know who or what I am… but I do know one thing:

I won’t accept my fate.

_____________________________

Soon it was time for the battle.

Liam and I boarded the Queen Killer Mech and flew it around the battle site, staying out of range of the Hive’s sensors. We floated in Space watching the holographic display from the Mech's communication system as the Harem and the few soldiers Alaira’s father had brought with him advanced from the front. It looked as if there were over a hundred Mechs, an intimidating site, but we knew it was just an illusion, holograms attached to remote guns. Their actual numbers were quite pitiful compared to the army in front of them.

We could only hope the Hive would fall for the trick.

“Advance!” The General’s voice came over the intercom. I felt myself tremble with nervousness at his serious tone. I wasn’t really his daughter. Most of the time I felt like the worst fraud when I was with him. But I genuinely cared for this gruff, strange man. He loved his daughter, and wasn’t afraid to take on the world to protect her.

I hope he makes it. I felt a sharp pain in my stomach at the thought that he might not.

But if we don’t fight, none of us will.

The army of Mechs, both real and fake, moved forward. As the Hive flew to meet them, I got a close look at them through my headset. I had seen their appearance in Alaira’s memories, but somehow, seeing them with my own eyes was all the more horrifying.

Large insects, each the size of a human, with a black and red exoskeleton that coated everything, even the wings. Enormous pincers grew outwards on their heads, sharp enough to tear a Mech open, to cut a human in half. Their dark, multifaceted eyes took in the space emotionlessly. They were unstoppable, insatiable. The Hive’s only goal was to devour, to destroy. They numbered in the thousands; enough to make even seeing the moon the Queen was hiding on difficult.

I felt a deep feeling of terror growing within me, fear and despair mixing, threatening to take away my reason.

It’s not my emotions.I tried to push down the feeling, but they continued to grow, trying to overwhelm me. It’s Alaira’s.

She had died there, next to that moon, surrounded by the Hive. Their pincers destroyed her Mech, pulled her out from the safety of the piloting sphere. She was overwhelmed, and even with the fracturing of her mind she knew she was doomed.

“Are you okay?” Liam’s voice in my ear calmed me down. “Your strong emotions are interfering with the Connection.” I took a deep breath, repeating silently.

You are not Alaira. You are not Alaira.

I knew exactly what it would feel like to die in battle with the Hive, though.

The Hive started swarming to the front, line. The Queen was directing them to defend her against the “larger” threat. There were only a few hundred left to guard the rear.

“It’s working!” General Gladus’ excited voice sounded out. “They’re falling for it.”

“Then we’ll get to work.”

“… Good luck, Alaira. I love you.”

I hesitated. “… I love you too… Father.”

It was time. I grabbed Liam’s hand, squeezing it tightly.

“Focus on your shield.”

He took a deep breath. “You know I can’t control it.”

“You can let me in, Liam. You are in control. Use it for its purpose: to protect yourself. To protect me.”

He closed his eyes, positioning himself behind me within the Connection chamber in the Mech. His hands were on my back, and through the physical touch I felt his nervousness. The air around the Mech seemed to shift, and I knew that I had to act quickly before the mental shield weakened.

I flew the Mech forward, quickly reaching the highest speed. At the noise of our passing one of the drones turned to face us. Soon they had swarmed around us, their pincers opened to attack.

FEAR.

Alaira’s emotions were running full force, but I pushed them down once more, going faster. I could feel Liam behind me, keeping the connection between me and the Mech easy despite its enormous size. We flew into the swarm, and the sturdy alien insects splattered against the mental shield, which held firm under the blows.

Liam and I sighed with relief.

“See? You CAN control it!”

“We still have the Queen to deal with.” Liam’s voice was worried, I could feel his concern though our connection. “She’s a little big to be squished by a shield.”

“Well that’s why we brought the big guns.” After a few more moments we broke through the Hive’s line of defense, and landed on the Moon, trying to locate the Queen.

“Where is she?” The scanners were starting to scramble, as if interrupted by an unknown signal. The Hive shouldn’t have that kind of technology, though.

“I don't see her on the Moon's surface. Has she left? First, let’s try the defense fort. It should be big enough to hide the Queen.” At Liam’s suggestion we flew forward, making our way to the building. The clear defense dome seemed intact, the computers opening an airlock, allowing us to pass forward after communicating with our Mech and confirming our identity.

“How would the Queen be here without destroying the dome?” I muttered, trying to scan the surroundings and noting that it was picking up several lifeforms, even if it was still too scrambled to give a clear location.

“ I don’t know, but I don’t think that hole was there before.” Liam tapped my back, and I looked towards the Hanger, the largest building in the complex. A six story hole had been torn out of the front wall. Wary, I moved the Mech closer, ducking down and entering the main area, which was fortunately tall enough to accommodate our oversized Mech.

The area was mostly lit up, a few of the florescent lights sparking and flickering from recent damage. The few Mechs that had remained had been torn to shreds and tossed in a pile. The space was wide-open, extending outwards into shadows.

“What the…?” My voice trailed off in shock as I stared at the unbelievable sight in front of me.

In the center of the hanger stood the Queen. She was bright white with red and black markings along the side of her rotund torso. She brandished hundreds of spiky claws like a millipede, with large bright red wings extended behind her. Towards the top she sported multiple large pincers, with a final one extending from her head. Her eyes glowed with a bright white light, staring at us with fury.

She was frozen into place, unable to make a single movement.

“What is going on?” I whispered to Liam.

“Bel, you actually made it this far!”

A cheerful voice rang out, causing both of us to groan with frustration. A Mech emerged from the shadows, we couldn’t see the pilot, but Liam and I knew who it was and spoke his name together.

“Chris.”

“I keep telling you, it’s not Chris.” The voice coming from the Mech seemed annoyed, the large robot swinging a sword back and forth. “As always, you two are wrong.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, clenching my fists at my side within the Connection Chamber of our Mech.

“Exactly what I told you, Bel: I’m ending this.” He lifted up his Mech’s free hand, and in it was a large bomb blinking with a bright red light. A single red button marked the trigger, and I tensed up as he caressed it lightly with a large metallic finger.

“That’s a uninite bomb.” Liam spoke up. “You’d destroy the moon with one that big! You'll kill us all with the Queen!”

“Exactly! I’m willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to save everyone. Not like you… monster.” He spit out the last word, his voice filled with hatred. “I’m the HERO. I’m the one who everyone cares about. I’m the one SHE SHOULD LOVE!”

“Oh, SHUT UP!” I activated the opening on our Mech, and slid down a cord to the ground, pulling off my helmet to reveal my face. The air inside the defense shield was slightly stale but breathable.

Liam was startled, jumping down to stand beside me. “Bel, wait!”

“It’s okay.” I grinned at him. “Trust me.” The Mech straightened up behind us, falling into a standby position. I looked up at the Mech controlled by the Pseudo-Chris.

“If you’re going to threaten me and insult my husband, then do it to my face.”

“Nice try. If I leave the Mech, I can’t control it. All you’ve managed to do is to give away your only advantage!” He laughed confidently. “I am in control, Bel. The Hive, the Queen… all of it! I’m the only one who can save your soul from destruction.”

“You brought the Hive here… you’re the one who advanced the story so quickly.” I paused, thinking it over. “How come you can go against the story? I always get warnings whenever we stray too far away from our characters.”

“You don’t understand. You never have. All that matters is that the roles are obeyed, that we follow our fate. I may have taken a… detour… but in the end I will fulfill my role as a hero, and save everyone, at the cost of my own life.”

“Why are you doing this?” Liam growled, standing close to me.

“He was hoping that I would give up.” I answered for him calmly, staring up at the Mech with a disgusted expression, “He made a seemingly impossible situation, hoping I would see accepting my fate as my only option.”

I thought of the system's warning that I had no chance of survival. They had tried to manipulate me. Tried to force me to do what they wanted.

But I hadn't.

“You see things so clearly sometimes, Bel.” Chris’ voice showed his approval. “And even though it didn’t work, I can still just end things here. I’ll destroy the Queen, which will complete your mission. The system can erase your memory again and we’ll start over.”

I felt a sense of fear at his words. How many times has this already happened?

“No matter how many times we have to do this, there will only be one outcome in the end: you will accept your fate.”

_____________________________

“You will accept your fate, Bel.” The young handsome man stared at me with disappointment. “You can’t keep hiding with this monster forever.”

“He's not a monster. Besides, you’re the one who sent me to Liam.” I grinned. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“It was temporary. You were supposed to be his prisoner.” He snapped. “Now, because of you, he’ll be the first to be destroyed. You can’t distort the higher realm. Everything depends on it.”

“It’s not right…”

“It’s the reality of our roles. Now enough stalling. What will you choose? Will you follow the rules, or will you let everything be destroyed to protect your precious independence?”

“No…”

“Even you can’t be that selfish.” He growled, reaching out to grab my arm painfully. “Accept your fate, Bel.

“NO!”

_____________________________

“NO!” I shook my head, clearing aside the memory. “No matter how many times you ask me. No matter how many worlds you drag me through. No matter how many times my memory is wiped. I WILL NOT ACCEPT IT!”

“Fine. Then it’s time to move to the next world…” His Mech raised its hand holding the bomb.

“You’re pathetic.” My words were quiet, but seemed to echo in the otherwise silent hanger. “Even when we were in the higher realm you were always trying to trick and scheme to get things to go the way you wanted. You thought by forcing me to Liam’s side as his ‘prisoner’ you could force me to accept my fate, but that backfired too, didn’t it?”

“… “ There was a long stunned silence.

“You… you remember?” The Mech’s head shook back and forth in a jerky movement. “No, your memories were wiped!”

I quickly thought through the few memories I had experienced over the last few weeks. “You wanted me to play my part… but I didn’t want to be in a romantic relationship with you. I would solve things my own way, which pissed you off.”

“YOU… NO! YOUR MEMORIES ARE GONE!” The whole Mech was shaking slightly.

“No matter the realm, no matter the roles we play, one thing remains constant: you’re a pathetic loser.” I smiled. “And I like Liam more than you.”

“HE’S A MONSTER! YOU CAN’T LOVE HIM! YOU HAVE TO LOVE ME!”

“Bel…” Liam whispered. “You realize you’re making the unstable man with the bomb angry, right?”

“Trust me, I have a plan… probably.”

“Oh, good.”

I looked up at the Mech, raising my voice. “I’ll never love you!”

“YOU HAVE TO!”

“Get used to disappointment, loser.”

The Mech was shaking more violently as he whispered hoarsely. “Y-you’re lying… you have to be. You don’t have your memories…”

I AM lying. “Too bad for you I’m telling the truth. I remember everything important.”

“…Then what’s my name?”

I spread my hands out helplessly. “Oh buddy, I just said I remembered everything IMPORTANT.” I leaned forward. “You were never important to me. You still aren’t.”

“SHUT UP! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!” The Mech was rocking back and forth with his screams and then suddenly became very still.

“Got him!” I pumped my fist in the air victoriously.

“What’s… what’s happening?! I can’t control my Mech!”

I chuckled at his panicked tone.

“You see, there’s a difference between you and me. You might be the hero, but I’m the one with greater than Level S Guardian abilities. In fact, you used that very trait of mine to try to force me to partner with you. It was a burden before I formed a Connection with Liam, but now?” I reached over and grabbed Liam’s hand. “It makes things really easy. One of the skills I’ve practiced was controlling Mechs from a distance.”

“That’s…”

“Impossible? Only if you’re weak. The distance makes things challenging but it’s still fairly simple for me.” I paused. “By the way, I WAS lying earlier. I needed you to have strong emotions to disrupt your Connection with your Mech so I could take it over.”

“…” Enjoying his stunned silence, I gestured, controlling the “Queen Killer” Mech to step forward.

“Now I could let you blow yourself up and kill the Queen to complete the mission, but unlike you, I don’t feel any satisfaction out of sacrificing myself or others needlessly. I’m also not going to let you die, because I have a feeling that could have negative effects on this world.”

The Queen started moving, whatever restraints the pseudo-Chris had placed on it obviously released. I could feel her anger at being obstructed in her mission. Her overwhelming need to consume life and move on drove her constantly, and even the briefest of pauses enraged her. Her hungry eyes focused on me, sensing a threat.

I released all my abilities to the limit, feeling a light throbbing headache at controlling two Mechs at once, and one of them being the large Queen Killer.

“It’s time for this story to end.” I whispered, feeling satisfaction as the giant robot pulled out a sword and brandished it.

“My mission will be completed.” The sword tore a huge rent in the Queen’s side, spilling green blood. The insect queen screamed in rage and pain, her pincers tearing off some of the armor on the Mech’s arm.

“The world will be saved.” A second strike hit, cutting off several claws. The Queen clamped onto the Mechs’ chest with her mandibles, trying to burrow into the center. I was glad I wasn’t in the suspension gel, feeling the pain of the attack.

“And it will all be done without you.” My Mech swung the sword downward, and the Queen’s head separated from its body. It still clamped onto the chest of the robot, its eyes’ light slowly fading away.

“NOOOO!” Pseudo Chris screamed out, but it was too late. The Queen was dead. Her army would become useless.

The world was safe.

A beautiful chime rang out, and bright blue words formed into the air.

Congratulations!

Mission 100% complete.

**** You have finished the mission! ****

Stay in this world?

YES/NO

“It doesn’t matter if you completed the mission or I did. I still have the next world, and the next and the next!” The Mech was still frozen into place, but it didn’t stop his angry words. “Time is on my side!”

I sighed. “No. It’s not.” As I had completed the mission, I felt a strange surge of power. A similar sensation to when I had stopped the system voice from speaking earlier. I focused carefully, and a shadowy power poured out in the world around me, much stronger than before.

“Bel?” At Liam’s worried question, I turned and smiled at him.

“Don’t worry, Liam. It’s just time to change the game.” He grabbed my hands and nodded silently at my words, supporting me.

I turned my attention to the System’s message.

“We will not stay in this world any longer.” The shadowy power around me increased.

…

WORLD TRANSFER FAILED. UNKNOWN INTERFERENCE.

“Oh, that’s just me. You see… this world’s victory was all I needed to finish piecing together my soul.”

…

“I really do remember everything now.”

And I did. Who I was. Why I had made the deal I had made.

“I fixed every world you sent me to. Without memories. Without my protected status as the heroine. Just a hated side character or villain. Admit it… I won.”

… NOT YET.

“You’re right. There’s still one last story to be fixed.” I grinned at Liam, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek. “The Higher Realm.”

Our world.

YOU MUST ACCEPT…

“I must do nothing.” The dark power that surrounded me erased the blue words in the air before they could form that hated sentence. “YOU must transfer us back. Back to the beginning.”

…

“Do it.” I gave no room for argument.

…

WORLD TRANSFER INITIATED. LOCATION: THE HIGHER REALM.

“I love you Liam.” I hugged him tightly. “Let’s get married one last time.”

“I love you too… But what do you…?”

TRANSFER COMPLETE.

#writing #please fix the story #writeblr #sci fi #violence #memory loss #the end is near

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kemetic-dreams · 3 years

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Let us be clear from the outset. The messages of Jesus and Paul were fundamentally different. Reconciliation of their messages cannot be done by harmonization. This is a fact we must accept. No one is helped by attempts to lessen the differences by declaring that the gospel is a salvation story for both Jesus and Paul. The differences remain. No benefit comes from theological gibberish that the gospel is the kingdom and the kingdom is the gospel. No light comes from attempts to show that Paul “betrayed” Jesus or “perverted” His message. No value comes from those who maintain Jesus and Paul contradicted or disagreed with one another. Such offerings of strange fire move us further from the text and sound theology. Instead, we must seek a biblical understanding of the Scriptures for reconciliation.

The Messages of Jesus and Paul The below chart identifies the chief differences in the ministries and message of Jesus and Paul. Each will be analyzed. Differences of the Ministries of Jesus and Paul Jesus:Paul: 1. Preached the gospel of the kingdom1. Preached the gospel of the grace of God 2. Defined the “kingdom of heaven” as Israel’s prophetic earthly kingdom2. Defined the “kingdom of heaven” as the heavenly position of the body of Christ 3. Presented Himself as the Messiah and King of the Jews (Israel)3. Presented Jesus as the risen Lord, Head of the Church, the body of Christ 4. Preached repentance, water baptism, keeping the Law, forgiving others, and faith in who He was as necessary for salvation4. Preached faith alone in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as necessary for salvation 5. Had Jews as His audience (a couple exceptions)5. Had Gentiles as his primary audience 6. Operated under the Mosaic Law6. Operated under grace 1. Jesus’ Gospel, Paul’s Gospel2

Jesus

John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Twelve preached the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 3.2, 4.17). This gospel was the long-anticipated and prophesied good news that the King of Israel had arrived. He would establish His kingdom on earth and rule the earth according to what Israel’s prophets foretold (Psalm 2.6, 8; Zechariah 14.9; Luke 1.31-33). Its focus was Jewish (Matthew 10.5-6) and Jesus instructed His disciples to pray for it (Matthew 6.10). During this kingdom reign, God would fulfill His covenant promises to Israel and through Israel’s acceptance of their Messiah Gentiles would be blessed. Apart from this kingdom and apart from this plan, God had revealed no provision to bless Gentiles. When God’s established His covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12.1-3) He decree all Gentile blessing had to come through Israel.

The prophets had proclaimed this Messianic kingdom in hundreds of passages. Every Jew knew about this kingdom and every God-fearing Jew longed for it. One need only read the passages surrounding the account of Jesus’ birth to recognize this fact. The reader is encouraged to read the accounts surrounding the Magi (Matthew 2.1-12), Zachariah (Luke 1.8-17, 67-79), Mary (Luke 1.26-38, 46-55), Simeon, and Anna (Luke 2.25-38). Their statements provide an excellent summary of Jewish expectations and theology.

The gospel of the kingdom proclaimed by John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Twelve required repentance (Mark 1.15), water baptism (Matthew 3.6; Acts 2.38, 8.34-38, 19.4), keeping of the Mosaic Law, and belief Jesus was the promised Messiah (Matthew 16.13-16; John 11.25-27). Believing in Jesus according to the gospel of the kingdom meant believing Who He was, i.e., believing in His name (cf. John 3.18; Acts 2.21, 38, 3.6, 16, 4.7, 10, 12, 17, 18, 30, 5.28, 40, 41, 8.12, 16, 9.14, 15, 21, 27, 10.43, 48). The gospel of the kingdom focused upon the identity of Christ.

Paul

Paul preached the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20.24; 1 Corinthians 15.1-4) and placed little emphasis on repentance or baptism in his evangelistic ministry. He only mentioned repentance in reference to unbelievers once in his letters (Romans 2.4) and with regard to water baptism, he declared, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Corinthians 1.14-17). Later, he wrote there was only one baptism (Ephesians 4.5). This one baptism that Paul declared was the baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12.13). Thus, we must conclude water baptism ceased during Paul’s ministry and has no Scriptural support as a Christian practice today.

The focus of belief in the ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Twelve was that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the Son of God (Matthew 16.13-16; John 11.25-27). Paul preached the gospel of the kingdom immediately following his conversion (Acts 9.19-22). However, shortly afterwards, the ascended, glorified, heavenly (as opposed to earthly His earthly ministry) Lord gave Paul a new gospel (Galatians 1.11-12). Paul’s gospel (Romans 2.16, 16.25), was different from the gospel of Jesus and the Twelve. Its focus was not upon the identity of Christ but upon the work of Christ. Paul’s gospel was that Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15.1-4). This gospel was not preached during Jesus’ earthly ministry or by the Twelve.

Paul referred to the gospel of the grace of God as “my gospel” (Romans 2.16, 16.25; 2 Timothy 2.8; Galatians 2.2). This designation indicated it was different from the gospel Jesus or the Twelve preached. Luke’s account of the Council of Jerusalem made it clear that the apostles did not agree with or understand Paul’s gospel (Acts 15) and Paul revealed his gospel was a “secret” (μυστήριον, cf. Romans 16.25; Ephesians 6.19). The Twelve had no understanding Jesus would die and rise from the dead (Luke 18.31-34; John 20.3-10). For them, Christ’s death was not good news. Even after Jesus’ resurrection, Christ’s death was not proclaimed as good news. The biblical record is that Peter proclaimed Christ’s death as bad news. Peter’s sermons show he regarded the death of Christ as a message of condemnation to Jews–a heinous act that demanded their repentance (Acts 2.22-42, 3.12-26). Peter proclaimed the fact of Jesus’ resurrection as good news but its significance was that Jesus was alive and could still bring about His kingdom on earth if the Jewish nation repented. What he did not preach was the death and resurrection of Christ for personal salvation.

For Paul, the preaching of the cross was salvation (1 Corinthians 1.18, 23, 15.1-4) and this was a glorious message (1 Timothy 1.11). But Paul’s gospel created so much consternation that the apostles in Jerusalem called a special council around 51 A.D. to consider it. The reader should understand Paul was probably saved around 34-37 A.D. So a range of time of 14-17 years had passed before the Council at Jerusalem met. That was a long time. At the Council, after considerable argument, Peter made an astonishing (from a Jewish perspective) statement. Prior to Peter’s statement, the message of the Twelve was that Gentiles could be saved only the way Jews were saved. But after great argument, Peter, under the power of the Holy Spirit, officially recognized (in light of Paul’s revelations and ministry) Jews now had to be saved as Gentiles (Acts 15.6-11). This was a watershed moment. After Peter made this declaration, Paul wrote the Galatians that anyone who proclaimed a gospel different from his was accursed (Galatians 1.8-9). Paul could not have written this prior to the Council of Jerusalem. Prior to Peter’s statement, the Twelve legitimately preached the gospel Christ had revealed to them in His earthly ministry. During this same period, Paul preached the gospel the heavenly Christ had revealed to him. Both were valid gospel messages. Both had been commanded by the Lord. However, after the Council of Jerusalem, only Paul’s gospel of grace was valid. The gospel of the kingdom preached by the Twelve was formally supplanted by Paul’s gospel. Paul’s gospel of grace focused upon the work of Christ, rather than upon the identity of Christ, which was the focus of the gospel of the kingdom.

2. The Kingdom for Jesus and Paul

Jesus

The message John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Twelve preached was that the King of Israel had arrived and that the kingdom of heaven was near (Matthew 3.1-2, 4.12-17, 9.35; Luke 3.2-17, 4.16-19). This kingdom was an earthly, political kingdom in which the Messiah would reign as King (Matthew 6.10; Zechariah 14.9). It was the kingdom proclaimed by the prophets in which Israel would be preeminent among the nations of the earth (Deuteronomy 28.1, 13) and for which the Magi (Matthew 2.1-12), Zacharias (Luke 1.8-17, 67-79), Mary (Luke 1.26-38, 46-55), Simeon and Anna (Luke 2.25-38) longed. In this kingdom, Israel would become a nation of priests as God had revealed to Moses (Exodus 19.6) which Peter wrote about to Jewish believers (1 Peter 2.9). To enjoy this kingdom required the Jewish nation to repent and accept Jesus as their King and Messiah. Once the nation repented, God would fulfill the promises He had made in His covenants to Israel. The primary beneficiaries of the “kingdom of heaven” were Jews, not Gentiles, since God’s covenant promises focused upon Jews (Ephesians 2.11-12).3 Ever since God had called Abraham, He had dealt exclusively with the nation of Israel. He had no direct dealings with Gentiles as He had before Abraham.

Beginning with Abraham, God created a new program in dealing with the human race. This explains why Jesus commanded His disciples not to go to Gentiles (Matthew 10.5-6) and why He had personal contact with only two Gentiles (one by proxy) during His three-year ministry.4 The Old Testament prophesies had revealed Gentiles would be blessed through Israel (Isaiah 42.1-4, 49.5-6, 60.1-3; Zechariah 8.20-23). During the Messianic kingdom, Israel will become preeminent among the nations of the world with the Lord Himself reigning as David’s greater Son from Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 28.1-14; Luke 1.32; cf. Zechariah 14.9). Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) revealed what life would be like in this kingdom program. The Sermon on the Mount has nothing to do with the Church, the body of Christ. It has everything to do with Israel’s earthly kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount is the charter of Christ’s earthly kingdom and reveals what life will be like when Jesus reigns on earth as King (Zechariah 14.9).

Paul

Paul mentioned “kingdom” 14 times in his epistles. To a discerning reader, it is clear Paul meant something different than Jesus in His references to the kingdom. When Paul used the term, he meant God’s overall realm of rule (Romans 14.17; 1 Corinthians 4.20, 6.9-10; 15.24, 50; Galatians 5.21; Ephesians 5.5; Colossians 1.13, 4.11; 1 Thessalonians 2.12; 2 Thessalonians 1.5; 2 Timothy 4.1, 18). Thus, for Paul, the kingdom included both Israel’s earthly kingdom as well as the Church, the body of Christ’s reign as a heavenly people. Paul, as the apostle of the Gentiles (Romans 11.13), wrote to the body of Christ. His letters have nothing to say about the kingdom in respect to Israel’s covenants, Old Testament prophecy, or Jesus reigning as David’s Son.

Paul emphasized the Church, the body of Christ. This terminology was entirely absent from the teaching of Jesus and the Twelve for it was unknown until the ascended Lord revealed it to Paul. In other words, it was new. Peter, James, John, Jude, etc., did not teach it and knew nothing of it until they learned about it from Paul. Paul alone revealed and taught that the citizenship and position of believers in the body of Christ was heavenly (Ephesians 1.3, 2.6; Philippians 3.20; Colossians 1.5), not earthly. Paul’s last written words were, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Timothy 4.18). For Paul, God’s kingdom as related to the body of Christ was heavenly and wholly different from the earthly kingdom proclaimed by John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Twelve.

3. Presentation of Jesus as King and Head

Jesus

The gospels present Jesus as King of the Jews (Matthew 2.2, 27.11, 29, 37; John 18.39, 19.14; Luke 1.31-33, 67-73) and as Messiah or Christ (Matthew 1.1, 16, 18, 16.16, 20, 26.63, 27.17, 22; Mark 15.32; Luke 2.11, 26, 4.41, 23.2, 35; John 1.41, 4.25-26; 11.27, 17.3, 20.31). Jesus came to minister to Israel and fulfill the Old Testament promises (Romans 15.8).

Paul

For Paul, the Lord Jesus Christ was the ascended Lord, not the earthly Messiah. Paul wrote “though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more” (2 Corinthians 5.16). What Paul meant by “Christ after the flesh” was His earthly ministry to Israel. Those who are members of the Church, the body of Christ, know Jesus in His heavenly glory, not in His earthly humiliation. Paul did not call Jesus the King of the Church as He is presented in the Gospels. To Israel, Jesus is the King of Israel, the King of the Jews. He is not the King of the Church for the Church is His body, the body of Christ, not a kingdom. A king has subjects. Members of the Church, the body of Christ are heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ (Romans 8.17), not subjects. As such, the proper title of Christ for Christians is Head (Ephesians 1.22-23, 4.15, 5.23; Colossians 1.18) and Lord (Romans 1.4, 7, 5.11, 21, 14.9; Ephesians 1.17; Philippians 2.11, 3.8; 1 Thessalonians 3.11).

4. Repentance, Baptism, and Faith

Jesus

We have touched on these already. Jesus proclaimed repentance, baptism, and belief. These three were bound together in Jesus’ kingdom gospel. Repentance was the first step of kingdom salvation (Matthew 3.2, 4.17; Mark 1.4, 15, 6.12; Luke 3.3, 5.32, 13.3, 5, 24.47). Peter continued this message after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. He demanded all Jews repent, be baptized, and believe that Jesus was the Christ (Acts 2.38, 3.19). Water baptism was required for salvation according to the kingdom gospel (Mark 1.4, 16.16; Acts 2.38, 8.34-38, 22.16). Saving faith was belief Jesus was the promised Messiah, the Son of God (Matthew 16.15-16; John 11.26-27; Acts 8.36-37), not that He died for our sins and rose from the dead. Another way of stating this is that the message of salvation of Jesus’ earthly ministry and the message of the Twelve was based upon the identity of Christ. This was in contrast to Paul’s gospel of grace which focused upon the work of Christ–that He died for our sins and arose from the dead.

Notice also the content of what most know as the Lord’s Prayer regarding the Lord’s words about forgiveness of sins. In the gospels of Luke and Matthew, we have a record of this prayer. Luke recorded:

1 It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.” 2 And He said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. 3 ‘Give us each day our daily bread. 4 ‘And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation’” (Luke 11.1-4).

Matthew recorded:

7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. 9 “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. 10 ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread. 12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’] 14 For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions (Matthew 6.7-15).

In both accounts, Jesus taught God’s forgiveness depended upon one forgiving others. Paul’s teaching was entirely different.

Paul

Paul’s gospel is a gospel of faith alone: faith + 0. It is sola fide. Paul’s gospel is a grace gospel, not a kingdom gospel. Paul’s gospel of salvation is Christ died for our sins and rose again (1 Corinthians 15.1-4). Jesus’ gospel and the gospel of the Twelve was Jesus was the promised Messiah. No one today preaches one is saved by believing Jesus was the promised Messiah. Why not? Because the gospel of the kingdom is not the gospel of the grace of God. Our gospel is Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. That is what we must believe for salvation.

Contrast what the Lord taught in the Lord’s Prayer with what Paul taught regarding forgiveness. Paul wrote the Ephesians:

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you (Ephesians 4.32).

A similar passage is Colossians 3.12-13 where Paul wrote:

12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

These passages are vastly different from what the Lord taught the Twelve in His prayer. Paul exhorted believers to forgive one another–not as a condition for divine forgiveness–but as a result of divine forgiveness (Ephesians 1.7; Colossians 1.14). This is grace not Law (Romans 6.14) and is wholly different from what Jesus taught the Jews in His earthly ministry.

5. Audiences of Jesus and Paul

Jesus

Jesus came as Israel’s Messiah (Romans 15.8). His ministry was to Jews exclusively (Matthew 10.5-6). As noted above, He made two exceptions: the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15.21-28) and the Roman centurion (Matthew 8.1-13 cf. Luke 7.1-10). Because of the great faith of these individuals Jesus relented His Jew only policy to grant their requests.

Following Jesus’ resurrection and ascension Peter and the Twelve addressed the nation of Israel. Most people think the disciples ministered to Gentiles as well as Jews in light of the so-called “Great Commission” of Matthew 28.16-20. But the biblical record states otherwise. The Twelve continued to address Jews only. They recognized the Jewish priority of God’s kingdom program proclaimed by the prophets. They understood Gentiles were to be blessed through Israel. They knew their Bibles. Because of this, they could not go to Gentiles until the Jewish nation repented and believed Jesus was the promised Messiah. To have done so would have been to disobey God. Thus, even in the face of severe persecution, the Twelve, the leaders, refused to leave Jerusalem and go into Gentile territory (Acts 8.1). Even as late as Acts 11.19 (probably about 38 A.D.) the gospel preached from the Jerusalem believers was to Jews alone.

Paul

God saved Paul and commissioned him as “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 11.13). As we have seen, Jesus ministered exclusively to Jews and the Twelve were apostles to Israel, not to Gentiles. Jesus had promised them rulership over Israel, not over Gentiles (Matthew 19.28). The Old Testament kingdom program was in place during Jesus’ earthly ministry and would have been fulfilled had the nation repented. Paul explained this truth in his excursus on Israel in Romans 9-11. Paul wrote Israel will repent and God will fulfill His covenant promises to the nation (Romans 11.25-27). The next event on the prophetic timeline as revealed in the Old Testament was the Day of the Lord–a time of divine wrath. Peter expected it to occur soon and quoted Joel on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2.14-21). But God in His mercy interrupted the kingdom program to bless Gentiles in spite of Israel’s disobedience. In His matchless grace God delayed His wrath. He saved Paul to minister to Gentiles and began a whole new program with Paul as its head. Thus, Paul, a Jew, became the “Jewish agent” or “proxy” to bless Gentiles. He typified a reborn Israel. This was why he referred to himself as one “untimely born” (1 Corinthians 15.8). God revealed to Paul the Church, the body of Christ, and other secrets He had kept hidden from the prophets and the Twelve.5

6. Jesus Ministered Under Law, Paul Ministered Under Grace

Jesus

Jesus ministered under the Law of Moses throughout his earthly ministry (Matthew 5.17-18). He constantly referred to the Mosaic Law as the foundation of His ministry (Matthew 7.12, 8.4, 12.5, 12, 23.1-3; Mark 1.44; 10.3-4; Luke 10.25-29). Gentiles had nothing to do with the Mosaic Law. God gave it to the Jews, not Gentiles (Ephesians 2.11-13), and not to the Church, the body of Christ.

Paul

Paul was born under the Mosaic Law. He was a Pharisee who knew and rigorously enforced the Law (Philippians 3.5-6). But after his conversion, Paul taught that those who believed his gospel were not under the Law of Moses. He taught believers of his gospel were under the administration of grace rather than under the administration of the Mosaic Law (Romans 6.14-15; Galatians 5.1). He taught the believer of his gospel was free from the Law of Moses and that Law had no claim upon him due to the believer’s identification with Christ in his crucifixion and resurrection (Romans 7.1-12, 8.2, 10.4). Paul taught that only by becoming dead to the Law can one live the Christian life (Galatians 2.19, 4.21, 5.1, 18).6

Conclusion To reconcile Jesus and Paul we must be faithful to the text and recognize major differences exist between their ministries. The Scriptures do not contradict one another for God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14.33). We simply need to recognize that God had a program for Israel which He revealed to and through the prophets and that He revealed a new program to Paul for the Church, the body of Christ. Jesus and the Twelve ministered to Jews under the Mosaic Law and preached the gospel of the kingdom to fulfill the Old Testament prophesies of Israel’s earthly kingdom with the Messiah as King (Romans 15.8). Paul ministered to Gentiles (Romans 11.13) under grace, apart from the Law, and disclosed secrets the ascended and glorified Lord had revealed to him. Paul taught believers of his gospel, the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20.24; 1 Corinthians 15.1-4; Romans 2.16, 16.25), were members of the body of Christ with Christ as its Head, not its King. Finally, in addition to the differences noted above, were other “secrets” the risen Lord revealed unto Paul alone. These are the subject of the article Paul’s “Mystery.” What can we conclude with regard to reconciling Jesus and Paul? Saul of Tarsus did not become Paul the Apostle by human efforts (Romans 1.1-6; Galatians 1.1, 15-24). He became the apostle of the grace of God by the sovereign will of the glorified Christ. Just as God established His plan with Israel beginning with Abraham, He began a new plan with Paul. God laid the groundwork for His plan for Israel beginning with Abraham. God created the Church, the body of Christ, beginning with Paul. The risen Lord revealed His plan through Paul just as He revealed His plan through Abraham (the Abrahamic Covenant) and later, Moses (the Mosaic Covenant). These two programs are different but complementary. They are not contradictory for God cannot contradict God. The Lord Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, Israel and Church. God is sovereign over both His earthly people, Israel, and over His heavenly people, the Church, the body of Christ. We both have one Master. Each has its own glory and purpose before God. The glory of God is in heterogeneity and in homogeneity. Both Israel and the Church are citizens of the kingdom of God as Paul expressed it–the rule of God over all creation. We share different blessings and serve under different contexts but have the same Lord. Paul taught this reality in his great example of the olive tree7 in Romans 11. Summing up his revelation, he concluded by exclaiming: 33 O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord or who became his counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to Him again? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen (Romans 11.33-36). 1 The title, “Jesus vs. Paul” is not to be taken in a challenging sense as if Paul can compare with Jesus. No one would be more embarrassed by this title than Paul himself. The title was selected because this is the way the controversy about their teachings has been framed at the present time. Thus, “Jesus” serves as a vehicle to represent the Old Testament program God initiated with Abraham and the Abrahamic Covenant. When Jesus arrived on the scene, God’s kingdom program to Israel revived under the calling and ministry of John the Baptist. Israel had an opportunity to have its long-promised kingdom on earth if it repented (Matthew 6.10). The King was present. This program was entirely different from the program of the Church, body of Christ, which Paul received from the ascended, heavenly Lord. 2 Some bristle at the idea there has been more than one gospel. We have one gospel today: 1 Corinthians 15.1-4, the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20.24). However, the Scriptures clearly reveal that for a period of time two gospels were in effect: from Paul’s return from Arabia after his salvation until Acts 15.11. During this period, the Twelve proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and Paul proclaimed the gospel of the grace of God. According to Acts 15.1, 5 and many other passages, the gospel of the kingdom required works for salvation. Paul’s gospel, the gospel of the grace of God, was sola fide, faith alone. The gospel of the kingdom focused upon Christ’s identity, who He was, the Messiah, the Son of God. Paul’s gospel focused upon Christ’s work: He died for our sins and rose again. After Acts 15.11, only one gospel remained, Paul’s gospel. This explains Paul’s words of Galatians 1.6-9. 3 The phrase “kingdom of heaven” is unique to Matthew. The phrase is a genitive of source and means the source of this kingdom is from heaven. It is not a genitive of location meaning it is located in heaven. The kingdom of heaven is future and will be located on earth. Jesus told His disciples to pray for its establishment on the earth (Matthew 6.10). The chief beneficiaries will be Jews (Deuteronomy 28.1, 13) for God will fulfill His covenantal promises to them. Gentiles will be blessed in this kingdom through Israel (Isaiah 42.6, 49.6, 60.3; Zechariah 8.20-23) and Israel will be the premier nation among the nations (Deuteronomy 28.1, 13), a nation of priests (Exodus 19.5-6). The Church, the body of Christ, will be joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8.16-17). God has not revealed what this entails or what our role will be during His Millennial reign except that we will rule angels (1 Corinthians 6.3).

#kemetic dreams #jesus #saul #paul #mosiac law #bible #torah #talmud #paul vs jesus #jesus vs paul #church #church of god #israel #deuteronomy #matthew #son of god #jews

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randomingoftherandomness · 3 years

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Your writing is so much fun! If you feel like it, maybe some more Emperor/Empress? maybe some people want to put pressure on Emperor Zhou but forget that Empress Wen isn't a pampered noble who has never held a weapon in his life?

Hahaha... Thanks! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed reading my works thus far (❁´ω`❁)

I hope you’ll like this one too!

Note: Prince Xu here refers to Zishu (just in case anyone is confused)

There are some parts that will only make sense if you have read this chapter (AO3 only). Takes place after this chapter.

Each Minister, with temples streaked with greys and whites, eyes shrew and calculating, all looked at each other in turn; each men had grown up in the comfortable bosom of the capital, none had ever tasted a grain of sand or a moment of hardship in their route to power. All of them were born of the aristocracy so entrenched and deeply rooted in all sectors of society that they have never had a day of worry about their place or their families’ paths in life. It would be simpler to say that their forebears laid the foundation for this nation and their children will reap the fruits of it for generations to come if they are careful.

And this would have been the case, had it not been for the august personage currently occupying the golden seat.

Even before Prince Xu had reached his majority, he had been a pillar of strength to the South and by the time he was crowned a Prince of the First Rank, his military exploits could fill halls with their glory and there was no doubting that he will be a repelling force by mere presence alone. If he had any designs on the throne, it would have been easy for him to build his own faction to stake a claim for it.

But he had not done such a thing. If anything, he made sure to throw his support fully and utterly behind the Crown Prince and to only return to the capital for special occasions that merited his being there. When the old Emperor had died, that had been the longest period of time he had stayed in the capital. Going as far as to have a battalion of his men stationed within marching distance of the city gates as a deterrent to any dissent when the Crown Prince took the throne.

It’s a pity that Emperor’s reign was too short for him to have made a proper mark on the passage of time.

By the time Prince Xu had slicked the flagstones red with the blood of those traitorous scum in revenge for the death of his brother, there was no place for him to go but ascend into the highest position of prestige in the land.

Every single Minister can still remember the way Prince Xu looked as he had led his men right up to the throne room; stalking forth in his armour at the head of a hundred men, face streaked with glory and gore, carrying the sunlight on him as he climbs the last steps up to the throne room. If he had been mistaken as some primordial war god at that moment then, no one would have been surprised.

And then there was the Empress.

The Empress who had borne the Emperor a son and has just birthed another, thus securing the Dragon lineage. The Empress who was still the only official wife of the Emperor, and if the spies in the Inner Palace are to be believed, the only one the Emperor would even deign to look at and listen to - much to the consternation of the Ministers who had hoped to push at least one of their enterprising daughters and granddaughters into the Son of Heaven’s bed.

The Empress who was very much distinctly, a man.

Which makes what they’re doing something that borders on treason and necessity itself.

That man’s influence on the Emperor and the Court cannot continue and must not be allowed to. The gathered Ministers drink their tea in silence, watching the door for the messenger who will bring the report of their success.

They know they cannot lay a hand on either the Crown Prince or the newborn prince; the Emperor has them well-guarded and wrapped in the security of his most trusted guards who were beyond reproach and bribery. But it did not mean they could not get to the Empress. There were more than a few Palace maids and eunuchs who were still loyal to these deeply rooted families; people they have forged connections with that had spanned generations. These were the people they’ve tasked to attend to the Empress during his confinement.

It will be easy to dispatch of an eyesore who should have never been crowned in the first place.

Someone clears their throat and another sets his teacup down a little harder than it should be. Each one of these men looked peaceful on the surface, wrinkled face unmarred by any visible markers of stress. In fact, if anyone were to look into this group of men, they would have thought they were all bound for enlightenment at any moment. But the tension of waiting is punctuated by the changing of the hour and under the placid surface was nothing more than the seas in the middle of a storm.

They were about to call for an attendant to refill the teapots, when a long shadow colours the doorway. Their first instinct was that this was their moment of victory but that quickly sours into the cold realisation of who the person is.

“Your Highness...”

The Ministers rise in a flurry, going to their knees, bowing in flustered and fear tinged greeting.

The Empress smiles. His tall figure is hidden by a long black cloak which does little to downplay the sheer imposing nature of his presence as he crosses the threshold, calmly looking around the gathered members of the Court here. His long dark hard is pulled back in a simple undo, adorned with clasps of gold and turquoise. “Good evening, sirs,” He says, still wearing that smile. Someone bustles forth with a chair and the Empress sits. It is then that they realise that with him are ranking members of the Palace Guards who loom in their dark uniforms and the severe glints of their swords.

“If you’re looking for the Emperor, he isn’t here. He has been provided with a suitable diversion with our children,” The Empress says sunnily, accepting a proffered cup of steaming tea. Sighing as he takes a sip, he calmly regards them with a cheerful sensibility that was at odds with the way the troop of Palace Guards immediately take up all corners of the room.

This does not bode well.

“The way I see it, you have two options. One, you confess to an attempted assassination on this one’s life. In court. In front of all your peers, in front of my husband. Now, I’m sure you all know what he is capable of. What we are both capable of. Your crime will implicate not only you but your families as well,” The Empress says solemnly.

A cold silence descends. “Minister Jing, how is your new grandson, hm? Just celebrated his full moon, didn’t he? And how about your new concubine, Minister Tan? Pregnant, isn’t she? And at your age too.” The Empress huffs, passing the teacup back to the young maid next to her. “Ministers, I could go on.”

“And the second?” Someone quietly asks.

“The second is a warning. Not for you, but for everyone who comes after you.”

With a languid flick of his wrist, he calls forth General Han Ying who unlatches the cover of a plain box to reveal lengths of white cloths. The meaning is clear.

“Of course, it won’t be all at once and I am not so unimaginative that you all will... Leave the same way,” The Empress chuckles, closing an elegant hand over his lips. “Choose this path and we will arrange everything for you. From the second it begins to the moment it ends and to what comes after. You won’t have to worry about a single thing. No one else gets hurt.”

One of the elder Ministers shudders, lifting his head. “This is cruelty.”

“This is a blessing,” The Empress counters, all trace of geniality gone. All gathered cower lower to the ground.

How could they have forgotten? When this man was crowned, he’d been crowned with blood still rusting on his armour and dripping off the edge of his blade. This was the man their Emperor has chosen and for good reason.

With the quiet rustle of fabric, the Empress stands, apparently satisfied with the display of his magnanimity for the day. “You choose.”

#wenzhou #word of honor #wen kexing #zhou zishu #gab writes stuff #emperor & empress au

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