I follow the "leave nothing but footprints take nothing but photos" rule of state/national parks yeah because conservation. But also because when I was 11 i read a short story about a girl who went to a museum and stole a bandage flake off a mummy on display with the mentality of "im just one person one piece won't be missed" then at night she was visited by the mummy and it plucked a single hair from her head and then the next night a different mummy took another hair and she realized that there were only so many pieces to her before there would be nothing left and that story was forever wedged in my brain. Anyways leave cool rocks where you find them or the mummies will get you
Lyric prompts you say? Popia, please. "Now there is nothing between us, from now our merge is eternal". Gender neutral reader perhaps? Thanks ❤️
ALL OF MY RULES WENT OUT THE WINDOW FOR THIS ONE, THANK YOU FOR THE PROMPT FRIEND! I hope it was worth the wait <3.
Thanks @cenotaphghuleh for helping me get this finished and @thevoidinyourstomach for helping me talk through my ideas :)
18+ MDNI. Popia x reader (gender neutral and no specific terms used, but may be inferred/read as P in V sex, hope this is okay) Ritual sex, blood, idiots to lovers ft. Satan as wingman. ~3.3k words
Standing before him, both of you lit by the surrounding candlelight, the butterflies in your stomach knock you slightly nauseous. Being his oldest friend only adds to the honour it is to be asked to take part in his first official ritual as Papa. You understand why he would ask you - very few people had known him as long as you have. But there was also a reason he was slightly hesitant to ask, the same reason which informed your apprehension.
To bless his ascension with a carnal offering should be straightforward; it is a rite that all Papas before him have indulged in and it's not as if you haven't had entanglements before. But, his insistence that this was simply a task, as if it were nothing more than red tape, and that it did not mean anything beyond his duty and your devotion to Him prickled you in a way you hadn't expected.
You did not share with him that you had lost sleep over those words. Maybe if you could find the words to explain why, you might have. Then again, each time he joked about the upcoming formality, the urge to question it would shrink. You tried to push down the memories of those entanglements almost becoming something else, developing into something more, and decided that his flippancy toward the matter solidified your relationship as nothing more than friends and occasional bed mates.
But he sees it now. The way your eyes dart to avoid his and the way you fidget with your oversized robe, almost wishing you could disappear inside it. He finds your hand under the fabric, taking it gently and asks a silent question. He gives you one last chance to change your mind, with his soft, patient eyes and, even as you nod, a quirk of his brow asks if you are sure.
Your smile assures him and he turns to the altar to light the last of the candles. Along with the ones circling you both, there is a small cluster of them next to the bowl on the altar. In contrast to the black ones littered around the room, these are thicker in size and more colourful - a mix of pinks and reds and lilacs bound with ribbon arranged in an arc. You don't think it looks particularly satanic, but you were never the greatest student and suppose you should put your faith in the expert, even if he is struggling not to burn his own fingers and reading from what looks like a hastily scribbled list of instructions.
After a deep, steadying breath, he turns back to you with the dagger in hand. He unwraps the piece of silk from its hilt to tie it around his wrist, and then around yours. You step together, your free hands reaching behind the other's neck to unclasp your robes. The weight easily pulls yours from your frame. It thumps to the floor and almost pulls you down with it, but Copia catches you, not without a lingering look over your now naked body.
While it is nice to know he still appreciates it, you clear your throat and he ignores the knowing look you give him and instead turns his attention back to the altar. He grabs the bowl and gathers the robes beneath you, guiding you to kneel on them rather than the rough stone floor.
You don't understand the Latin he begins to recite; he had explained it briefly and in vague terms of gratitude and devotion but had left out most of the details, other than to prepare you for what was required of you. Your own offering of blood and its mixing with his had raised some questions, but you had found yourself agreeing to it regardless. And so, as he brings the blade to your palm, you barely flinch. He makes a quick, clean cut and does the same to his own hand, holding them above the bowl to collect each drop you give.
As his voice grows stronger, calling out earnestly to whoever may be listening, he tightens the silk around your wrist and hand until you are firmly bound together. You grimace as your wound stings against his, but Copia continues completely unfazed. The sound of his voice is steady, comforting in its confidence. You can't help but be drawn in by it and, by the time he finishes his oath, your lips are already touching.
With a final 'nema', he closes the gap to capture your waiting mouth. You gasp in surprise and relief as the tension breaks and your bodies finally meet. His embrace is painfully easy to fall into. The frigid air seems to dissipate immediately, replaced by a sticky humidity as you race to explore and rediscover each other. Both eager to reacquaint yourselves, he helps you climb on to his lap and instinct takes over. You grind down as he rolls his hips and, despite the unfamiliar surroundings, your body remembers how to fit with his.
He groans as he struggles to break the kiss, reluctantly pulling back from you even as you chase his mouth. He lifts the dagger again.
"We need. One more," he huffs, struggling for breath. "Another, uh, connection point."
You guide his wrist and, lifting up slightly, press the blade to the top of his thigh. He completes the action, slicing his own flesh with quick cut. You then guide him to the underside of your thigh where he does the same. As you sink back down on top of him, this wound seems to hurt worse, now agitated by sweat and more movement as Copia wastes no time in starting to move again.
The dagger clatters on the stone floor, Copia discarding it carelessly to hold on to you instead, snaking his arm around your waist as he kisses you deeply. He grunts into your mouth with each thrust he attempts, so close and so desperate to be inside you but at the mercy of how you move. The burning of your wound has you hissing between quiet hums and gasps, and soon blood is coating Copia's thigh, dripping into the soft robes you sit on, only adding to mess between your legs.
It's so easy for him to slide inside you that it takes him by surprise when, as you feel his tip catch, you sink further down and take him fully in one fluid motion. You mouth slides down his jaw to find his neck, allowing him to sigh loudly at the sensation. You suck over his pulse which earns a hard jerk of his hips, and you quickly fall into this cycle of pleasure he had always made so easy to find.
Every sound from him echoes around you, each moan and mewl amplified and encouraging your own as much as the feeling of him bucking up into you does. But it is gentle touch that is your undoing. Reverent, as if you are sacred and may shatter in his grasp. His hand travels slowly to all of the places he knows you want them, all of your most sensitive spots committed to memory, while the one tied to yours can only squeeze and squirm. His mouth knows where to ghost over and where to suck and nip, only breaking away to moan into the taste of you when he cannot keep it in any longer.
Overwhelmed by its precision, you drag his mouth back to yours but his tongue flicking playfully over yours only brings you closer to falling apart entirely. You had always had fun, on late nights and the rare lazy weekend, and moments that hinted at something more but this was something else entirely. It's a brutal intimacy; you feel completely bare and the intense burning in your chest feels like something latching on to your soul. And when he looks at you, his fingers tipping your chin so he can take all of you in, you can only look back terrified. Scared but still pleading for more.
His other hand is then planted on the small of your back, encouraging you to rock faster and roll harder. His mouth falls open in a silent cry and you know he is close; a tug of his hair or the right kind of whisper into his ear would get him there but you also know he is trying desperately to wait for you. As you realise it, you feel a crushing wave of pressure and almost immediate release. Your body stutters, taken by surprise at the force of warmth and pleasure and relief and a similarly shattering realisation that you're looking at each other with something more than fondness, or even lust.
Every sensation seems to double in intensity in a split second. His cock sliding inside you and your body trying to take him deeper, impossibly wet and hot, sends a scorching need through every nerve. Your lips feel bruised by his kisses that only become more clumsy and desperate but the dread that fills you when they leave you makes you whine. And when he looks at you, it's crushing to see your own awe and admiration reflected back at you. You know you have never looked at anyone else like that.
You love him.
You hear the cold breeze before you feel it, whistling through the old stone in the room and extinguishing the candles around you. All of them, except the cluster at the altar. In an instant, you clench around Copia as your inside spasm, he spills inside you with a strained grunt and the flames from the still-lit wicks flicker and burst higher in a violently red hue. Neither of you having control over your limbs quite yet, you can only let it blind you.
The shock and confusion steals the rest of your high. The flash fades and the room clears mostly, only slightly hazy with wisps of disappearing smoke. When your eyes adjust, they search for Copia, hoping his expression will bring answers but, on finding him, he looks dumbfounded.
"C?" Your voice startles him. "Is that… good?"
"It's…" His voice cracks. "That is…. unexpected. I, uh, I don't…"
His panic spreads through you and is not eased when he unceremoniously lifts you off him with a half muttered apology, and scrambles to the corner of the room. He grabs a book, stashed beneath his clothes, and brings it to the altar and begins furiously flipping through its pages. You fidget nervously, toying with the edge of the silk still wrapped around your wrist in an effort to remain patient.
"That's not right," he mutters to himself, more angry now. "Doesn't make sense. How did—"
The dead silence is even less comforting than his frantic rambling. A little more confident that your legs are no longer shaking, you move towards him slowly. Your hand on his arm makes him jump.
"Talk to me, please? You're scaring me."
He sighs, exasperated. It prepares you that you may not like the explanation, if he has one at all.
"The ritual, it's not… either the candles stay lit, or they go out. Honestly, I was expecting nothing at all, a mere formality. Tradition, a symbolic… I don't know. But that, ah… you felt it, yes? That was something. Something here. A connection."
"Yes," you reply. There was no denying it.
"A true presence. He… in that way, the ritual was successful, I suppose. I felt Him, here." Oh.
"But… but I don't understand what it means. Whether that was a-a-a blessing, or, well, the opposite. It didn't feel like a bad thing. It wasn't, was it?"
You try to speak but no words come out. Maybe that is for the best, you think. Part of you wants to tell him: of course not. It was beautiful and world-shifting and perhaps the most intense emotion you had ever felt. How could that be bad?
There is more rifling through pages and shuffling of handwritten notes and before long they are scattered across the whole altar. Copia stares as if willing the answer to jump off the paper and slap him. Your fingers sliding into his gives him a brief respite and causes a hint of a gracious smile, followed by a haggard sigh. He breaks contact far quicker than you would like to go back to his papers.
Two pages seem to suddenly catch his attention. He lifts them, squinting a little in the dark, and his eyes dart between them and the book.
"Ah."
The noise he makes is frustrating non-committal.
"I, ah— oh. Oh that's. Right."
You liked non-committal much better than that.
"What is it?"
"So, a lot of these old books are ah… a lot of the writing is illegible. And some rituals have been updated or, or, have evolved over the years. So, we have notes, additions… instructions like these kept in the book. Slotted into the relevant pages. Or, they are supposed to be."
He flips between two sections of the book, scanning it and then the handwritten pages again.
"So, what you're saying is… you read the wrong page? But, C, you can read Latin. I know you can. You would have noticed it was for something else."
There is a pause as his mouth and his brain try to get in sync. "Well, yes I can read it. Pretty well, mostly. And it did sound correct! You know, giving myself to Satan, binding—" He almost chokes. "Binding myself to Him."
"But if it was wrong… something happened. What did you— we do?"
He skims the pages yet again, flicking back and forth a few more times for good measure. Searching for an explanation. Maybe a conclusion different to the one he has arrived at. But then something else catches his eye. His gaze remains fixed as some of the tension drops from his shoulders. But not all of it.
It is his turn to startle you. He turns, snapping on his heels to look at you. His hands cradle your face for a fraction of a second before they awkwardly retreat. He looks strange. Troubled, you would guess. Relieved but not completely. His eyes sparkle like he is smiling but the rest of his face resists.
He clears his throat and all of it fades.
"I should have known. The binding of our wrists, the mixing of blood… I have been so busy and tired and it made me careless."
"Are we… did you accidentally marry us?"
As soon as you've asked the question, you realise how juvenile it sounds. When you awkwardly giggle, he really does smile.
"No! Um, I don't think so." He takes your hands in his. "Not really. Like I said, the wording of it was, uh, very similar to the other rite. It is about asking for His blessing in a way. It can be performed for many reasons. A blessing, or a question, or a test, or—"
"Copia."
"Sorry." His brow furrows for a moment as he reins in his need to explain every detail. "We, um, offered ourselves to Him in, ah union. And presented ourselves, bound together. He then passed judgement."
"Judgement?"
"Yes. Well, maybe that is too harsh a word. It is said, allegedly, that He will see if you are… compatible. It says here, in the book, I see it now… 'He looks into your souls to see if they move as one'. To see if… feelings are true. Mutual." He looks down at the book and plucks another quote. "'If your mind, heart and soul are truly aligned.'"
You release a shaky breath you hadn't noticed you were holding. "And is this binding… well, binding? If you present yourself and He sees that you are, um, aligned?"
"I don't think so, no. No. It is more of a way to commune with Him. Ask a question. I think. I'm pretty sure. I am not familiar with it but I will do some more research. If that would make you feel better."
You nod slowly, still trying to wrap your head around it all. "So what did He say about us? Does it say in the book?"
He takes a long pause. "Like I said, I will need to do some more research. I'm not sure I know what we asked him."
He was never any good at lying, but you give him the benefit of the doubt this time. He probably wants to make sure he does not get anything else wrong. You can see the guilt he feels for breaking your trust, even accidentally.
"May I ask," he says, almost too quietly to hear him, "when the candles blew out, what were you thinking? What were you feeling?"
"We were fucking, you know exactly what I was feeling," you deflect with a smirk.
He huffs appreciatively at the sentiment and thankfully does not push you further, instead picking up a robe to hand to you while he collects your clothes. You both get dressed in near silence, preoccupied by the evening's events and concerned about how you both proceed from here. As he collects his notes and slots the loose pages back into the book, you can't help but push him for something, anything else that might ease your mind.
"Copia? You really don't know what it means? No idea at all? The flames, they were red. Is red bad?"
His instincts take over as soon as he sees and hears the worry shaking you. Given his mistake, he owes you honesty at the very least.
"Red is… good, in this case. I will check. Double, triple check but the candles at the altar staying lit. The cluster of colour remaining would suggest we were a-aligned."
"And what exactly does that mean?"
"Well it could mean a number of things but… whatever we asked, or presented, or thought, it was enough. We felt the same, and it was strong enough, and it was worthy of His blessing. It is more likely than not that, uhh…" He gulps. "He approves. Of us. That if we were to…"
Your mouth opens and his face goes blank. Copia, sensing he has somehow made things worse, scrambles to find something to say to ease your mind. But he struggles to look you in the eye anymore.
"But that would mean…" Your mind whirs, questions and unease clouding any rational thought. Until, one question settles. "You asked me what I was thinking."
"Yes. To try to understand how this happened."
"But you said we would have to be thinking the same. Feeling the same. About each other. For it to have this result. So surely you shouldn't need to ask?"
His eyes snap to you, shining and wide, all pretence gone as he finally begins to accept reality. "No, I suppose not. I did not think… I dared not believe it."
"I don't think I realised. Not until tonight."
"Me either. Or, I did not let myself."
The admission, the removal of all doubt, should calm the air between you but Copia still looks terrified. You step towards him and hold his hand.
"When you said this wasn't binding," you say, stroking over his knuckles. "Is that because you don't want it to be? You do not want to feel that way about me?"
"What?" He exclaims, jolted out of his nervousness. "No! I mean, maybe I was a little unsure, but no! I just did not imagine— I did not want this, for you to feel tricked into telli—"
You interrupt him with your mouth on his and, now with both hands at his disposal, he latches on to you like he never wants to let go. You hope he understands - and if not you will make him - that with or without Satan, you had always been bound to him.
Suddenly struck with a need to explain to you how boat pronouns work (I work in the marine industry).
When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".
When the boat is still being built, your say "it".
When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".
When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".
When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.
If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").
If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")
If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").
If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.
If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.
I hope this has cleared things up so that you may not be in danger of misgendering floating objects.
You know, there's this cliché that teenage boys always eat massive amounts, but teenage girls really aren't that different if they're not suppressed by diet culture and body shaming. Like, I was a teenage girl who frankly just stopped bothering to fit into mainstream beauty ideals at some point, and I would regularly make myself just one big massive pot of pasta and devour it completely. This wasn't even stress eating or anything, I just genuinely needed the energy because you know, I was a teenager and my body was developing. I feel like so many teenage girls think they need to eat as little as possible to be petite and pretty, but the truth is that your body is developing just as intensely as teenage boys' bodies. Eat more, please, your body needs it.
dear fellow autistic people: if you consistently come out of doctor’s appointments feeling emotionally (and sometimes physically) hurt, but you feel bad for feeling hurt because “the doctors were being nice”, the doctors were not being nice.
this is something I had to learn the hard way. doctors often dress up their words all pretty so you can’t sue them. I, for a long time, mistook this as genuine kindness. It’s not. It’s just being professional. even if they didn’t call you a slur or anything that doesn’t mean they weren’t ignoring your needs.
trust what your body and emotions tell you. if you are feeling hurt, there is a reason, and you need to listen to it. please listen to it.
Images of Cardinal Copia and plague doctors from a 2019 photoshoot in a cemetery in Sitges, Spain, a coastal town near Barcelona. Photo: Mikael Eriksson
The way people are so surprised and defensive to hear that Islamophobia is institutionalized in america..the same nation/colony that literally has a whole policing body, TSA, that is known to specifically profile muslims. The same nation that created watchlists and no fly lists of mostly muslims..the same nation that wiretapped, entrapped, imprisoned thousands of muslims post 9/11. The same nation that encouraged banks around the world to adopt algorithms that will randomly blacklist bank users with arabic names, the same nation that has warred and bombed countries with majority muslim demographics? This is surprising to some people. Okay
in a I've-explained-this-20-times-already-why-don't-you-understand tone voice: "can't you see that you're lost?? can't you see that you're lost without me???"
you have to consciously unlearn racism and continue to watch for it because it will come out without realizing. because so much of society is structured around it. shrugging and going "i dont care" or "i dont know how else to say it" means you are okay with being racist and hurting other people with how much you dont give a shit about them.
silly, goofy, slutty @rogues-r-we - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
