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raccoon-eyed-rebel · 2 days

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Part 24

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Part 23 🟣 Part 25

A reverse harem vampire AU ft. Mikey, Marshall, August and Sherlock

Series summary: Somehow, you've managed to live with your boyfriend and his roommates for months before finding out they're vampires, but the real shock first comes when they find out you have a special quality. A quality the guys would love to make use of...

Warnings: Fluff, ongoing vampire shenanigans, mentions of drug abuse, addiction, tragic backstory, August's completely unwarranted hatred of jellybeans.

Word count: 2.7k

A/N: Family trip!!!

@geralts-yenn @deandoesthingstome @ellethespaceunicorn @summersong69 @mis-lil-red

@sillyrabbit81 @livisss @itsrubberbisquit @ktficworld @proud-aroace-beastie

@plaidcat4815 @wa-ni @lovemusicpart2

“Tell me something,” you whispered to Mike, who was sitting in the way too comfortable chair next to you, reclining the seat — probably without feeling any guilt towards Marshall and Sherlock, who were sitting behind him. They had plenty of leg room left. “How are we flying first class right now?”

“August refuses to fly coach,” Marshall answered that question for Mike. The answer didn't surprise you. Like, at all.

“It’s not like we can't afford it,” August snapped from the seat in front of you. The one next to him was empty.

“Charles would be proud of you,” Mike taunted. You didn't see the smack that followed, but you heard Mike's pained grunt all too clearly.

“Please don't break him,” you laughed. Mike snuggled into your side, glaring at the seat in front of him and kicking it for good measure. “And you can stop this tantrum right now, or sit next to August.” It was a good thing he was so damn cute.

“He's not wrong, though,” Sherlock pointed out, a hint of amusement to his voice. “Charles is the only other member of our family with the same insistence on certain levels of luxury.”

“Do I count as a member of your family?” you chuckled. All of your guys looked at you as if you'd gone crazy. And it was a silly question; of course you were a member of the family. “Because I think I might just be learning to appreciate those standards.”

“And exactly how expensive are dates going to get now?” Mike asked with a smile. “Because… Just because they are all fucking loaded, doesn't mean I have unlimited access to those funds…”

“Mostly because an ungodly amount would be spent on Jelly Beans, and an even more ridiculous amount would be spent on videogames,” August sneered. Mike just shrugged — he could hardly deny it; the fact that your arrangement meant Mike didn't need his mountains of Jelly Beans anymore, hadn't exactly meant he wasn't still eating plenty of them, much to August's chagrin.

“August, just because you live a boring, joyless, Jelly Beanless life, doesn't mean I have to,” Mike sighed.

“How long has this been going on?” You asked Marshall and Sherlock.

“I'd say since the invention of the Jelly Bean,” Sherlock said, “but Mike wasn't around back then. I believe that happened somewhere in the late eighteen hundreds…”

“As long as Mike has been around, then?” you asked, not wanting to ask them too many invasive questions such as ‘how in the hell do you know when the Jelly Bean was invented?’

“At least for as long as they've known each other,” Marshall answered, explaining that that hadn't happened until about thirty years ago. Still, that was a long time to have a whole feud over candy, you pointed out.

“It's a long time to be addicted to candy,” August growled.

“Eh, I guess an “addiction" to Jelly Beans beats all of those other addictions I had,” Mike shrugged. “Oh…” His cheeks flushed when he saw the troubled look on your face. “I guess I never told you…”

“Much of anything, Mike,” you said softly.

“It's not the best story.” He tried to shrug it off, but you could tell something was bothering him. “It's, eh… It's not exactly a version of me I want you to know about, either.” He looked at you, the sadness in his eyes becoming more and more pronounced as time went by, and it took some serious effort to convince him you loved him for the man he was now, not who he was forty years ago.

“Alright, fine,” he sighed. “What do you know? So I know where to start…”

“That Marshall ran into you in the eighties and that you were hanging out with a bunch of goths and goth-adjacent figures,” you summed up quickly, eager to get to the rest of the story.

“Alright, well… What’s important is that you know we're talking about Berlin in the eighties. My dad got a job there, so we moved from here to Berlin when I was six or something. That went well for a few years, and then my dad died when I was fourteen. I didn't think much of it at the time, but over the years… Something about it doesn't check out, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if my mom killed him because he had an affair with his secretary, but whatever. Water under the bridge, I guess.”

“Mike! The fuck?” He said it so casually…

“Sweetcheeks, it doesn't matter, okay? Dad was gone, mom worked all the time to keep a roof over our heads, and I became completely unbearable—”

“And that never went away,” August said. You could tell he was smiling.

“Hey, thanks!” Mike replied, rolling his eyes. “Anyway. I'm a completely unmanageable teen at this point, and Berlin in the eighties was not the place for that. Like, it goes wrong shockingly quickly. I think I was sixteen when it really started going south. Like I said; Berlin in the eighties was something else.”

“There were two things the government couldn't exactly get a handle on,” Marshall interjected. “One was vampirism, the other heroin. The two went hand in hand, more or less.” He looked down at his hands, clearly not at ease.

You had just decided not to press the matter when Sherlock offered an explanation. “Junkies were… not simply easy targets, although it would be hard to deny that they were.” It actually took you a while to notice that Sherlock and Mike had switched place, and that while you were looking straight at Sherlock, who was now sitting next to you. “Back in the day, addicts and vampires were connected by the mutual illegitimacy of their existences — although the vampires naturally had several advantages over humans from marginalized communities—”

“Anyway,” Mike cleared his throat and appeared next to you again. “The thing about a junkie is that they'll do pretty much anything for a fix. Including volunteering to feed vampires in exchange for some cash. Now, those were not the people you've heard us talking about up until now…”

Apparently, the goths you'd heard about had been the ones who took Mike in, the ones who tried to get him clean. “And they succeeded,” Mike said with an apologetic grin on his face. “Several times, even. My mom had stopped caring at that point, and then when I was nineteen — a few weeks before Julia, my ex, ran into Marshall — mom died, too…”

“He found out what I was not much later,” Marshall said.

“How?”

“I walked in on them, after Julia and I broke up, except I didn't walk in on what I at first expected to be walking in on, if you catch my drift.”

“Went about as well as you'd expect from the guy who's pretty much okay with everything,” Marshall laughed. “We did really well for a few years.”

“We'll spare you the lengthy, boring part with all the domestic bliss,” Mike swooped in before Marshall could elaborate. “When I was… twenty-two? Fairly sure I was twenty-two, yeah… Anyway, I met a girl—”

“Of course you did,” you blurted out before you could help it, immediately looking up at Mike with what must have been the guiltiest look of your entire life so far on your face.

“I don't blame you for that. Anyway… She was in trouble — the kind of trouble I'd been out of for years, at that point, and I thought I could be to her what Julia and Iris had been for me, but—”

“You relapsed?” you tried. Right on the money.

“Yep… Even years later, Hedwig — that was her name — pulled me right back under. Wasn't her fault, of course. It's not like she put a gun to my head and forced me to stick a needle in my arm or anything. Can't even say it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't met her. Anyway, the point is; it happened… Not a great time. I—” He nervously fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. “I’m happy to tell you the rest, but… later?”

You took his skittish look at the other passengers to mean he’d prefer a more private setting. Deal.

A left turn and the change from smooth asphalt to crunching gravel beneath the tires of the car startled you enough to let out a loud, disapproving hum and lift your head. You hadn’t been asleep, per se, but definitely dozing off a little, your head resting comfortably on Marshall’s shoulder. Mike’s hand was on your thigh, eerily — vampirically — still ever since you’d asked him for the third time if he could stop moving it because it tickled. He enjoyed tickling you, you were not a fan.

“We’re here, princess,” August said from the front seat, and you leaned over to look out the window, seeing nothing but forest, forest and more forest.

“We’re where?” you asked, surprised at the absence of the house you’d expected to see.

“The estate,” Marshall noted calmly. And exactly how big was this estate? “Big enough.”

“Charles likes his privacy,” Mike noted. His fingers were tapping a gentle rhythm on your knee now, and his legs restlessly bounced up and down with excitement. “You’ll love this place!”

The car finally pulled into something that actually looked like a driveway — that is to say, it was the same gravel, the same road, but you could finally see that there was a house attached to it. Mansion. Villa. Actually it was closer to something resembling a small castle, but this wasn’t Europe, so…

“Charles also likes extravagance,” August snarled his answer to your unasked question.

“I can see that,” you muttered breathlessly as you followed Mike out of the car when it came to a halt in front of the stairs that led to a pretty grand front door. “Where is Sherlock?”

“Right here, darling,” he called from the top of the steps, where August was also already standing — holding both of your suitcases and your backpack.

“Wait, how did the three of you travel so… light?” And how had it not occurred to you to ask that question before now?

“We have everything we need here,” August explained. “Mike, get her up here!”

One of the heavy wooden doors opened the second Mike put you down, and a small woman stumbled through it. She was a little older than you, with long, black hair down to her waist, and she looked absolutely exhausted.

“Priya!” Sherlock said, grasping her elbow to steady her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Holmes,” she replied before turning to you and reaching out her hand. “Hi, I’m Priya. I’m—”

“Dinner.” Oh, for the love of god, why did you have to snap at her? You didn’t even know the woman, but the thought of her feeding your vampires was entirely too much. “Sorry! I—”

“I get it,” she chuckled. “My sister, Nalini, has your… talent. She’s protective of her family as well. And you’re not wrong, just a bit impolite.” You deserved that.

“I don’t know what came over me,” you said. “I’m so sorry.” Not to mention how rude you would have been if you had been wrong… What if this woman hadn’t even had any idea she was visiting vampires?

“Are you sure you’re okay, Priya?” Mike asked, his brow furrowed, and his voice concerned.

“I’m alright, guys,” she laughed — but it took a lot of effort to do so. “I’ve been sick before, I always survived.” With the back of her hand, she wiped the sheen of sweat from her brow, and you noticed an intricate reddish design on her palms. She caught you as you tried to get a better look. “From my eldest sister’s wedding,” she said. “I can show you pictures later this week, but I really have to go. The sooner I get home, the sooner I can start sleeping off this cold, or whatever it is.”

“Please let us know when you get home,” Sherlock said as he walked her to the cab you’d just stepped out of.

“That was unnecessarily rude, princess,” August snapped when the car drove off.

“I said I was sorry,” you muttered quietly, not daring to look August in the eye. “I… You’ve all known her for a while, haven’t you?”

“She’s been coming here for years. About a year before Sherlock and Mike moved away,” Marshall explained. “Now, what’s really bothering you about this?”

“I thought you’d never been in this kind of… arrangement before,” you muttered, also avoiding Walter’s eyes.

“And we haven’t. You heard her; she’s not like you.” Marshall ushered you into the hallway, where the others were already waiting. The sound of the door falling shut behind you made you jump. “Charles was willing to pay a small fortune to drive her out here. Once a month, just as usual. And all the rules of the Bank still applied, just as usual. So, if you’re worried for so much as a second that you’re not special to us, you can stop that now.”

“Did she say she would be back later this week?” you asked softly. Part of you hated the thought of anyone but you feeding your vampires — even the ones you hadn’t met yet…

“She’s a friend of the family, not just… dinner.” The unfamiliar voice behind you startled you more than the closing door had, and you spun around as quickly as you could — but not quicker than the owner of the voice, who had apparently already walked around you, and was now standing behind you. “Would you stand still and let me do the moving, please?”

Two hands descended on your shoulders and gently turned you around, so that you were now face to face with the ‘new’ vampire. He was handsome, his face all angles and edges, with kind eyes and a charming smile. Judging from the sour look on August’s face, this had to be Charles.

“Charles Brandon, pleasure to meet you,” he said softly as he took your hand in his and shook it briefly. Perhaps too briefly? The charm of his smile almost made you overlook the sadness behind those kind blue eyes. Almost.

Next to you, Mike was swaying back and forth on his feet, waiting for introductions to come to an end so he could— Before Charles had even fully let go of your hand, Mike lunged forward to hug the man. “Alright, kid,” Charles laughed, “you’re home. It’s okay.”

“Where’s…” Mike asked as he let go so the others could subject Charles to similar treatment of warm ‘glad to be back’-hugs. Of course, the one between August and Charles was short and tense, but other than that, it was a perfect display of warm familiarity.

“Right behind you,” another unfamiliar voice spoke. This time, you didn’t bother to turn around — a wise call, as a split second later, another man appeared before you.

“Melot,” he said as he reached for your hand, raising it to his lips and pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles. For some reason, it made your heart skip a beat. Melot looked much younger than Charles, or any of the others — younger than Mike, even — and you were fairly sure it didn’t have much to do with the dark, shoulder-length curls that framed his face. “I’m glad you’re finally here.”

“He’d ask you how your trip was, but… he already knows,” Charles noted, adding to your confusion. “I see she hasn’t been told much about him? Does the same apply to me?”

“She knows enough,” August growled, followed by a grunt as Marshall kicked him in the shins.

“August, that’s enough, go to your room!” Sherlock snapped. It was absolutely hilarious to hear those words from him, but what really had you in stitches was the fact that he actually walked away — presumably to the aforementioned room.

You only stopped laughing when Mike gently nudged your side with his elbow, at which point you looked at the others in the hallway, who were all looking at Sherlock in bewilderment. After a strange, tense silence that lasted far too long, August joined you again.

“Would someone fucking explain to me why he got to do that, here?” he sneered.

Melot chuckled softly. “It would seem that our hierarchy changed with the coming of our queen.”

#mike hellraiser fic #mike hellraiser #mike (hellraiser)#hellraiser mike #mike hellraiser fanfiction #henrycavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill #henry cavill characters #walter marshall #hc sherlock #henry cavill sherlock holmes #sherlock holmes #august walker #august walker fanfiction #natural fic #naturalfic

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quitealotofsodapop · 2 days

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Imagine if, in post jttw egg au, they'd already gone through the whole "Guanyin is the reincarnation of my mom" bit back when MK was still a cub himself. Like, Guanyin has Wukong and newborn Xiaotian checked out, and Lao Tzu realizes something is weirdly familiar about the newborn cub and Wukong's dao. A few checks later and a trip to Diyu, and suddenly, it's an open secret that Wukong is, somehow, a long, lost imperial prince. Wukong proceeds to give his newly discovered maternal grandfather and grandmother the most hateful and burning glare he can muster when still fresh from the delivery room and makes it clear he and his family want NOTHING to do with the Jade Court or it's crown after all the shit they put him through. And, all things considered, they respect that... mostly. They still send him invites to almost every event (most of whichhe burns), and his newly discovered cousins/already kind of sort of sibling figures the Peach Maidens, Erlang, and Nez Ha take every opportunity to visit

Link to the main Stone Matriarch post.

ohohoho, I love the idea of just post-Jttw (perhaps even immediately after the Samadhi Fire ritual) Wukong ends up in 24-hour care up in Heaven almost like the Century Stone Egg au. Dangerously zapped of his life energy/dao with his mate and friends at his side, the major difference being the timeframe/fallout.

Wukong and Macaque, and the Pilgrims learn of Wukong's connection to Guanyin, and the Celestial royal family as a whole, and they immediately laugh out loud before going back to the mortal world. They have zero interest in involving themselves nor their little hatched Egg in that nonsense. The wounds (physical and emotional) of Wukong's burning, and of the Mountain, are far too fresh for Wukong to stand the celestials right now. He'll make sure to keep his cub far away from them.

And the slap to the face it is to the Emperor and Queen Mother is Immense.

They just discovered that one of their greatest annoyances is their legal/celestial grandson, a piece of their first lost daughter, and he's just graced them with a great-grandchild - only to look at these facts and decide "Nah" and leave for the world of the mortals.

The Entire Jade Court keeps quiet about this open secret out of fear of the royals anger.

Erlang, Nezha, and the Orchard Maidens visit FFM frequently. Little Xiaotian and his siblings grow up with many family members from "the other side" that they see at almost every birthday or holiday, but wonders why they can never visit them directly in the Celestial Realm. The cubs, Mei, and Red Son grow up assuming its the celestials prejudice against demonkind and bad history between their families.

Unfortunately the bad blood that boils leads to DBK's imprisonment about 500 years before the main story. The exact details of his rampage left unclear.

Xiaotian and the cubs grow up with the truth of The Stone Matriarch Shíhuā being their maternal grandmother, and her Consort their maternal grandfather. Guanyin had long since gifted Wukong with visits from his mother's spirit, and the cubs see the goddess as a bonus grandparent-figure. The Eclipse twins found Yē Lín's cavern on complete accident when messing with their newly discovered shadow powers, subsequently leading to the discovery of Wukong's unhatched little brother Luzhen. Honestly Xiaotian doesn't think his family history could get any weirder.

At least until the events of S3/4 leads Xiaotian to the Emperor's throne room where he meets a his spirtual great-grandparents for the first time...

#post jttw stone egged #jttw stone egged #stone matriarch au #sun wukong #liu er mihou #qi xiaotian #lmk mk #six eared macaque #lmk guanyin #lmk xiwangmu #lmk queen mother of the west #shadowpeach #shadowpeach as parents #lmk aus #lmk #lego monkie kid

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wavytam · 2 days

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This is the most primitive question ever but isn't Nami's tatoo a windmill and a tangerine but it's obviously an S? Can you make a post about Luffy's POV regarding SaNami? I wonder how people ship him with Nami when he's fully aware about Sanji's affection to Nami they make him look like a heartless douche

Hello, anon! I don't know how long this ask has been here, so I apologize if it took so long to answer! I didn't see this message before!

Anyway, about what you said.

First, about the tattoo: sorry, but I think it's just coincidental that it has an S shape. I think Oda could still use the drawing of the tattoo for something related to Sanji, though... maybe a pattern in something he wears. Idk. But I don't think Oda made Nami's tattoo with Sanji in mind. Maybe... I can't read his mind lol. It would be really nice if it was the case heh

About how Luffy sees Sanji and Nami: first, I'm not going to say that LN is impossible to happen, honestly.

In my opinion, the interactions Luffy and Nami had feel more like that of a brother and sister than that of a couple, but we never know when it comes to how Oda writes romance. So... Yeah. I still don't see it happening, though, for a series of reasons.

First, like you said, I'm pretty sure that Luffy, in his own way, is aware that Sanji has feelings for Nami. Not only did he witness key moments where Sanji expressed how important Nami is to him, but Luffy also incentives Sanji to help Nami.

Even without caring about romance, Luffy saw Sanji:

volunteer to help Luffy carry Nami up a mountain to find a cure,

almost die in an avalanche to prevent Nami from getting hurt

get so angry over Nami being kidnapped that he lit himself on fire

talk about how Nami is important to him during Whole Cake

So it's safe to say Luffy knows there's something there. And I think that he even incentivates Sanji to help Nami when it's needed.

You came up with an interesting point: considering the way Oda wrote things, specially how Sanji is so enamoured with Nami (again, more than any other woman) it would be weird to make Luffy end up with Nami, with him knowing about Sanji's feelings. I'm saying this in a writing perspective.

To add more fuel to the fire I remember how Oda clearly stated he doesn't care who Luffy is interested in - which is a question he gets frequently, apparently. And just like Oda doesn't care, Luffy also doesn't care about his own love life. His purpose was always to inspire people to seek freedom. I do think he might end up with someone at the end, but I don't think Oda is actively looking for opportunities to give Luffy romantic scenes in the manga.

Sanji's developement, on the other hand, always had to do with love and emotions. So the idea that Oda always planned a romantic stoyline for him is not farfetched, and the person he likes to write Sanji pursuing the most is Nami.

Again, I really don't know what is in that guy's mind, so maybe at the end he still pulls a uno reverse card and makes LN Canon and Sanji doesn't even care lol But I think it would be a really weird choice, considering the things you have pointed out and other moments we have in the manga.

Most of the LN moments can be interpreted as more of siblings growing a bond - rather than a couple having feelings. For SaNami, especially because of Sanji's side, we can't call what he does as sibling-ish at all, even if Oda calls the Strawhat a "family" and says their dynamic should be interpret as such, he was also the one who chose to make Sanji infatuated with Nami. There's also Robin, ofc, but Nami seems to be a lot more in Sanji's mind.

Once again, it all depends on Nami and how Oda writes her reacting to Sanji's pursuits or how she acts towards Luffy.

We have favorable and unfavorable moments, and every time, it was mostly because of how Oda wrote Nami. So let's wait and see.

#SaNami #MyTheories #sanjixnami

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pcktknife · 1 year

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Back on that damn zoroark wiki page

#sigh. anways #h!zoros are said to have come back to life after death from a harsh environment which for some👏🏾reason👏🏾 i didnt register as a #u!zoro dying and coming back different (probably bc time n history why would the ancestor derive from the descendant) but its not an #ancestor its just a zoroark thats fucked up bc the region its in #additionally i didnt understand why it hated people AND pokemon (and still didnt rlly understand the ppl thing fully) but its cause they #were banished to the icelands by ppl and the pokemon there did not make it any easier so they died and came back from being so fucking Mad #and thats fucked up bc they are chill dogs!!!! so i get it id b mad too displaced by ppl u actively try to avoid and then u die in the only #place ur kinda allowed to be Plus the animals there are being jerks also ?? baneful fox is right #i feel like zoros still have a stigma abt them so i bet under the right conditions a modern zoro w the typing and nature of a hisuian one #is possible and i also wonder where the hisuian ones went cause i assume that ghost types dont die 2x and something w so much anger towards #everything its given the title of spiteful and baneful wouldnt just....go away that is a restless spirit lmao i cant imagine theyd just #move on so i like to think they r maybe just fuckin around in the mountains mostly unseen away from everything and maybe they r killin #things as just an unseen force idk i dont live in the sinnohan mountains #exhale Thats All!!!! known/common knowledge and assumed information but idc cause i wanted to talk anyways!!!#kae.txt

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modpoppy · 2 months

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doodled these in class to feel better about getting like a 60% on an exam so i dont think im gonna tag em

i feel like toki WANTS to be just a wittle kitty (he is not) (he is fucking terrifying)

#this was mostly just bc the idea of toki looking like a tiny fluffy cat but its actually just pure muscle underneath #and also bc i completely forgot how to draw humans and tokis the only one i could remember wtf his facial hair was like #i think if i drew him as a furry id opt for more something like a lab or one of those mountain dogs bc theyre fucking terrifying #but anyway kitty toki has a heart marking bc he 🩷s and a crown marking bc he has Problems when given authority #WAIT AFTER DRAFTING THIS POST I SAW THE TOKI CUBE THING NOOOOOO #believe me if i still had the same artistic skill i used to. id draw this fucker so frightening #toki 🤝 doppio ; WAY more terrifying than people give them credit for and also my favorites #F ; Dethklok #p ; mirages bringing naught but joy #d ; princeps cretaceus #there was also an unfinished sketch of him jumping at a bicentennial coin wait did they never explain that

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cave-monkey · 3 months

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Favorite thing from the books that I bring up anytime I get the opportunity:

The mountain the Buddha dropped on Sun Wukong wasn't enough to actually contain him. The seal had to be added later because Sun Wukong was clawing his way out.

#jttw personal #also it's only because Sun Wukong managed to dig himself partly free that his head and hands were exposed at all #he was originally (apparently) crushed under the mountain in his entirety and that's how they were going to leave him #like at least this way he had air and light and could kind of see things #gah #always reminded of this during events like that story later with the gold and silver horn brothers where they keep desperately throwing #MULTIPLE mountains at him trying to stop him and he just shoulders them and keeps coming #it took like...four or something? to finally put him down temporarily #five phases mountain was a very SPECIAL mountain sure #but it was still only (mostly only) one mountain #look everyone had a reason to be shitfaced terrified of the guy is all I'm saying #even the Buddha THOUGHT it was enough (he was even about to just leave entirely) but thankfully for Heaven he was convinced to stay for a-#'ahahaha how are we nOT DEAD-' party of the kind where everyone talks mad shit like they're not still vibrating with adrenaline #and in the middle of this some poor Minister comes sprinting in (I like to imagine Professor Quirrell with the troll) all #“The Great Sage!!! His head is sticking out!”#and once again the Buddha is the only one keeping chill and drawing up his seal while everyone promptly forgets to be cool and freaks out #and when THAT'S wrapped up he then decides to throw in the 'molten copper and iron pellets' thing on his way out the door #which I'm taking as him being super annoyed #I guess that's still better than 500 years crushed immobile in the airless dark but like #I don't know that's definitely a toughie in the 'would you rather' game #entirely appropriate this is the first post here I literally never shut up about this #this isn't even all of it

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kokumbabushka · 6 months

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I love my dreams since getting a debit card/learning how to use them; before I was stressed about not having cash but now I just assume I have money/buy a lot in small-one at a time purchases. Problem is that since staying on campus most shopping is timed and almost every dream I’m like 15 minutes late

#I got scared one dream because a lot of the time the stores in my dreams are just different versions of the current ones I know #and after a few years I was able to memorize the general area of where the nice/cool things are #anyways what scared me is in a recent dream they got rid of the cool stuff and replaced it with like boring gardening stuff and appliances #but no- it is mostly normal again:))#the only thing I will ever steal in my dreams is calico critters; for some reason they’re never in boxes + they just have old random one in #baskets #I also like finding the monster high dolls; they never look like the actual characters but still manage to be cool most of the time #last night I dreamt about finding what I thought was a brokeback mountain recipe cook but it mostly just had drawings of jack/ennis and some #mountains + other country involved things #ANOTHER thing I like about dreams is the fake ass movies I see in them lmao

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buckaroosboogara · 3 months

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Hi! Just wanna raise some awareness here because South America is on fucking fire and I need to see more people talking about this.

Source: RSOE EDIS x

Im just going to talk about the ones i'm closest to, but if you know about these fires, feel free to add in the reblogs!

Chile

In Chile there's (up to Feb 5) 160 wild fires, of which 40 are still trying to be controlled by authorities. The president, Gabriel Boric, has declared State of Emergency in the whole country, and theres a Red Alert Code in most part of the country.

Isla de Chiloé, Southern Chile (900 km away from Santiago de Chile)

This is a (recently controlled) fire that lasted a week, but many neighborhoods were burnt to the ground.

The whole South is in red alert for constant sudden fires that spread quickly due to the lack of rain and the elevated temperatues in the zone. Just today, two fires had to be controlled in the main land next to this island, and more are being reported in the Los Lagos region. This is added to the "controlled" intentional fires that farmers make to clean their fields of old crops along the Central-South parts of the country, mostly surrunding the main route, Ruta 5, that connects the whole country, thus making it hard to see and breathe because of the smoke. (flashnews, most of them get out of control quickly.)

Valparaiso/Viña del Mar, Central Chile (100 km away from Santiago de Chile)

A fire that started on Friday 2nd and grew exponentially because of the wind and the dry, hot climate. More than 100 people are dead, with 70 unrecognized bodies and other 400 that have dissapeared. At least 30000 people that have lost everything to the fire.

There's massive evacuations from this and the neighboring city, Viña Del Mar.

This is said to be the second most deadly fire in the century, surpased by Australia in 2009.

45000+ hectares that include land and neighborhoods have been burnt down.

I could go on about this one, so more info here and here

Argentina

Parque Los Alerces (Esquel), Chubut

The fire strarted on the 25th January, and the climate has made it hard to contain. 3000 hectares of native forest have been burnt to teh ground. It is now growing in the direction of the nearest city, Esquel. Theres been evacuations between yesterday and today (4 and 5th Febuary)

Parque Nahuel Huapi (Bariloche), Río Negro

The reason why im writing this. The city woke up today covered in smoke after a wildfire developed yesterday during the night. The reason? A fireplace that was not turned off in a place where people cannot disembark and can only be reached via boats.

As of now, there's not much information about the fire but hopefully the firefighters will be able to contain it before it reaches Tronador Mountain, where an ancient glaciar is.

...which leads me to the other point i wanted to talk about.

Firefighters

They volunteer to do this job.

In Argentina and Chile, firefighting is not rewarded with a salary, and most of the times they dont even have full firehouses to stay in. These people are at their houses, ready to jump into action and run to the station the second the alarm goes off.

They are neighbors, people that risk their lives and run into danger willingly, just because they want to help the community.

I felt the need to give a shout-out to these people and say:

Don't be a fucking dick, don't start fires in the woods unless it's an approved place, and if you do, TURN IT OFF.

Pour abundant water on it, and do not stop when you don't see any more flames.

Keep pouring water until the ashes don't burn/feel like room temperature in your hand if you put it 10 cm away from it, and even then, pour some more just to be sure.

No heat and no smoke mean a safely extinguished fire.

Save lives and forests.

#dont even get me started on the denial of climate change from my president #didnt wanna get political here #argentina #chile #argieposting #argieblr #soff speaks #wildfires

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marmorenshud · 9 months

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AAAAAAAH I TOUCHED THE MOLD I TOUCHED DIRECTLY ON THE MOLD NOOOOOO

#caw #CUT MY FINGER OFF #nooooo im so germaphobic i genuinely screamed out loud #i dont think anyone heard #those jermaphobe memes temporarily made me confused if i had spelled that correctly #my house my not look like it #its mostly when it comes to food and trash tho #not so much dust altho i still hate it #ahh it was directly on the mold too ;;_;;#washes my hands for a thousand years #why do peaches mold so quickly #i didnt eat peaches for like a year bc the first time i bought some (here in norway where you cant buy them in singles)#they molded immediately and i was like fuck that theyre so expensive #but i bought them recently and they were actually good for a while #ate like two thirds or three fourths? and then didnt eat for a couple days and they molded but thats fair #but i ONLY ATE ONE OF THESE BEFORE THEY MOLDER #THEY DIDNT EVEN RIPE YET #i hate norway so much get me out of this stupid ass country #the mountain view is NOT WORTH IT #dont move to norway #this is a psa #im sorry mr prisonhannibal

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whateveriwant · 5 months

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I just read your pregnant wife with 141 but that got me thinking. What about horny pregnant wife with 141

Feel free to ignore this if you feel uncomfortable writing it

-🍱 (if it’s not taken)

I haven't written smut in ages so forgive me if I'm a little rusty. 18+ only pls and thx (vaginal sex, cunnilingus)

Soap

Hooo boy! Alrighty, here we go

So for starters, that man is PENT UP. Like seriously, he's so backed up, he thinks he can feel it all the way to his esophagus

Since you first got pregnant, it's been nothing but morning sickness, aches and pains, and a total and utter lack of desire on your part

Trust him, he's tried taking care of himself in the meantime, but it's never really gotten the job done since it wasn't with you

But once you enter your second trimester and the desire has come back, it takes everything in him not to ravage you the moment you give him the green light

Why? Well, truth be told, he's scared about potentially hurting you or the baby

You know how he can get in the sack. What if he dents the wee bairn’s poor head? He's knocking (more like pounding) right on the little one’s door after all

You have to assure him that he's not going to hurt you or the baby (and please, never refer to your cervix as a door again)

So he'll start slow and gentle at first, not wanting to be too harsh, but it won't take much to get him back to fucking you hard and rough like you're used to

He's got your knees up by your chest (or, as close as they can get) while he’s drilling into you from above, snarling like an animal

When he finally finishes, it's loudddd, slamming the headboard against the wall, and he pushes his hips as far forward as they'll go while he empties four months worth of cum inside you

Ghost

I'm so sorry to have to be the one to inform you, but you're not getting that man's cock while you're pregnant

It's not because he's overly rough when you make love normally; it's just that he's not willing to take any chances when you're in such a delicate state

However, the man is inherently a giver, so with just enough whining and begging and pleading from you, he'll oblige you to some degree

He'll stick mostly to his fingers or his mouth, maybe a toy or two if you're really needy, but he's generally going to rely solely on his own skill to get you where you want to be

He'll have you recline against a mountain of pillows while he settles himself between your legs, his arms looping around your hips to hold you still for him while he works

But he doesn't just dive right in, oh no siree. The man loves to tease you – kissing your thighs, the inside of your knee, the bottom of your belly first

He'll turn you into a pathetic little thing squirming desperately for his touch, before finally granting you mercy by giving you his tongue

He'll make you cum so hard with just his mouth alone that you'll temporarily lose all thought of that gorgeous dick of his

But afterwards, if you want to return the favor, you certainly won't hear him complaining about it

Oh but trust that the moment the doctor gives the okay after you’ve given birth, he's gonna be all over you, making sure you walk funny the next morning (and the following week after that)

Gaz

Like the other two, Gaz is concerned with potentially putting you and the baby in a dangerous position

But the man is a sucker for your puppy dog eyes, so it doesn't take much convincing to get him to take you to bed

But he still wants to be safe about it, so he researches the best positions for couples to have sex while pregnant

That's how you find yourself in his lap, naked back to his chest, as he sits in one of the chairs he dragged in from the dining room

You're bouncing on his dick, hands braced on his thighs, ass smacking off the hard plane of his lower stomach as you lift up and down

His hands on your hips are more of a placeholder than a guide as he lets you set the pace, just sitting back while you take what you need from him

It doesn't even matter if he cums or not, that's honestly the farthest thing from his mind. All he cares about is making sure you're satisfied in the end

Need him to snake his hand forward, tracing the curve of your belly down, until he's circling your clit in fast, tight motions? Gladly, love.

Your thighs may burn and your eyes may water, but there's something about this position that makes him hit so deep that it leaves you gasping for more

Ultimately, your orgasm will trigger his own (nothing gets him there faster than the sound of you cumming), and afterwards he'll help you into the bath where he'll clean and massage your aching muscles better

Price

Unlike the other three men, Price is eager to fuck you the moment you show even the smallest inkling of want

What's that? His poor baby needs him to fuck her right now? Say no more, sweetheart. Hubby's come to the rescue

That man is dicking you down anytime, anywhere he can

Just got done shopping? He'll find a deserted road to pull over on. Just stepped into the shower? Might as well kills two birds with one stone

Really, it becomes a challenge to find where in your house he hasn't had you in these last few months. The kitchen, the garage, the back porch. You name it, he's done it (multiple times, in fact)

But his favorite – oh boy, his favorite without a shadow of a doubt – is when he takes you in front of your bedroom’s full length mirror

He'll hold you up from behind, standing you both on your feet, and just watch as he fucks you nice and slow

Seeing it in profile is fun when he wants to watch his dick slide in and out of you, but he's especially fond of having you directly face the mirror

There's just something about getting to watch you – that pretty face, those juicy tits, that fucking delectable rounded belly – that makes him blow his load faster than a damn rocket launch

With the number of times he's had you like this, you swear, that man of yours is trying to knock you up a second time (But shhhh. Quiet now. Don't go giving him any bright ideas, sweetheart.)

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justanotherbirdbrain-blog · 5 months

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Geology of Natural Disasters and How to write them into your fictional universe.

So, you want to write about a natural disaster to advance your plot and torture your players/characters even more? Let me tell you how, accurately.

I feel like unless it is a volcano, natural disasters are a pretty slept on plot drivers, and some of them are really cool and unique! Today, I will talk to you about land slides, earthquakes (And earthquake related disasters), and volcanoes.

Landslides: Probably one I see the least in stories, but one that would be incredibly interesting to write into a plot where they believe in curses. Landslides can happen along ocean bluffs, slightly hilly areas, and highly mountainous areas, this means it is something that can happen in most landscapes. But what can trigger a landslide? Mostly all you need to trigger a landslide could be just abnormally large amounts of rain, excessive deforestation (with a little bit of rain), or an earthquake. If you don't want to use deforestation or an earthquake as a catalyst, a really cool indicator that the land is slipping and may be prone to a collapse is J hooked trees.

This indicates that there is soil creeping slowly over time, and it may lead to a major landslide.

2. Earthquakes: Probably one of the easiest things to write, earthquakes can happen anywhere, but they are most common in places that are tectonically active areas. There are about three types of environments you can expect earthquakes to be common. The first is just rugged mountains, if your landscape looks like this, you should write in earthquakes. Associated hazards could be landslides, avalanches, and large falling rocks.

The next landscape could be a thin mountain range, next to the ocean, very scenic, but very dangerous. Essentially, I am describing a subduction zone environment.

Earthquakes in these areas could equal a couple different associated disasters. Scenario one: A very large earthquake happens, and the ocean begins to recede. This is a tsunami, enough said. If you are writing a tsunami though, please, please, do not write it as a large wave, thank you. Also, a common way people are hurt by tsunami's are from them going into the ocean because they don't understand a tsunami is going to happen.

Scenario two: A large earthquake happens, your characters are in a valley and suddenly the ground begins to liquify as the ground shakes, once the shaking stops, the ground becomes solid like nothing ever happened, except everything has suddenly sunk into the now hard ground. This is called liquefaction and it typically happens in areas that have loose dirt or lots of saturated soil.

Scenario three: There are a lot of small earthquakes, they do not cause a lot of damage, but you begin to notice that one of the isolated mountains has a plume rising. Earthquakes can indicate lava moving underground and the filling of magma chambers.

The next environment that can host lots of earthquakes would be regions that have a lot of really deep valleys and small mountain ranges (not cone volcanoes), but overall seems pretty flat.

This indicates a transform fault like the San Andreas. If you want to hint at there being earthquakes in the area, you can show fence posts that are suddenly several feet out of line at a dilapidated farm or something similar.

(These earthquakes are different because they are cased from sideways movement, not an up-and-down movement this hint can only be used for this environment). Volcanoes would not be found here, but liquefaction and landslides could still occur here.

4. Volcanoes: If you thought earthquakes had a lot of information, volcanoes do too. First you have to ask yourself, what kind of volcano you want to have, what kind of eruption style? So lets break down the kind of eruptions you can have and what their landscapes look like. Hawaiian Shield volcano: This will produce a smooth fast lava, the landscape typically is pretty flat, but there will be small cones and the rocks can have a ropey or jagged texture and the rocks will be almost exclusively black to dark red.

Stratovolcanoes: These will be solitary mountains, typically, that look like perfect cones (Picture shown in earthquake section). These will have large ash cloud eruptions and pyroclastic flows, they may have some lava, but typically most damage is done from the pyroclastic flows (think Pompeii). Some hints of these, other than describing the cone features (which can be hidden by other mountains), would be to talk about petrified wood! Trees can get fossilized in the ash and I imagine it would be very strange to find this rock that clearly looks to be a piece of wood, but its a rock. Subcategory- Calderas: Used to be a large stratovolcano, but they erupt so explosively that the entire cone collapses and creates a basin.

There are a lot of kinds of volcanoes out there, so forgive me for just putting an infographic and then talking to you about these really rare types of eruptions that I feel like people should know about.

Okay lets talk about blue lava (kind of) and black lava

You will notice the lava is still red in the middle of this image, during the day these would look like a normal eruption, but at night the burning sulfur would make it appear blue. Some cool features other than this, would be that any water in the area would become very acidic and burn the skin due to sulfuric acid. This would again be really cool if you are trying to describe a 'cursed' land.

Black lava: This happens only in the east African rift I believe, but it is a carbonatite lava, but if you are writing in a rift valley (where the continent is tearing apart to form a new ocean) this might be a cool feature. The lava will cool white and will quickly erode, it makes for a very alien landscape!

Anyway as always, this is supposed to be an introductive guide for the basics of writing geology to create cool landscapes/features into dnd or fictional universes, if you are a geologist please understand my oversimplification of tectonics, I didn't want people to run away.

#geology #rocks #stem #dnd #dnd worldbuilding #worldbuilding stuff #fictional world #worldbuilding #fictional writing #writing resources #creative writing

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ujuro · 1 year

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Every time my mom tells me something she read on Instagram and I’m able to tell it’s not real I feel proud of myself lol it means that the internet hasn’t fully rotted my brain yet my bs detector is still functioning

#today it was ‘guy got his hands chopped off on space mountain and Disney is keeping the lights on now’#not real! written by a satire website and then reported as fact by others! I still got it!#words of mine #honestly though it’s mostly just ‘how has this big story not been reported anywhere else’ most of the time lol #if there’s only one source and the source doesn’t have any sources…not real!

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bluerosefox · 6 months

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Over Tea

A sudden chill sweeps through Gotham, almost like Mr. Freeze had just attacked only thing was the man was currently locked away in Arkham, and was felt by all. And talked by all via word of mouth and on social media as well.

The clouds and smog that covered their dark city shifted and swirled, a rumble beginning deep inside them as the weather turned from smoggy to rain and thunder with no real warning. The strangest thing was the green glow that could be seen when thunder rumbled inside the gray clouds.

Then like a candle being blown out, the rumbling stopped, the rain ended, and the clouds parted all over Gotham.

For the first time in a while Gotham had a clear sky and it felt... it felt like something heavy had been lifted off the city.

It was this sudden shift and the all felt chill that had set off alerts for Batman and his family. Since early morning since the first change and shift happened he was in front of the Batcomputer trying to narrow down where it started.

After hours of searching with the help of Red Robin, Oracle and strangely enough Red Hood, they managed to narrow down where the odd power had been coming from.

Was still coming from, only very low.

The old and abandoned observatory tower.

-x-x-

"More ecto-tea Lady Gotham?" Danny asked, his hand waving towards the steaming pot nearby.

The woman smiled lightly, her dark painted lips curling up to show her sharp fangs for a moment before saying "No but thank you Young Kingling though I would like more cookies if you don't mind. Now where were we?"

Danny nodded towards her and signaled towards a maid skeleton ghost who walked forward with a tray of cookies. The maid swiftly placed a few more cookies on the spirit embodiment of Gotham plate before bowing and stepping away.

"We were just about to discuss the sentience of the Court of Owls." Danny said as he lightly tapped the large almost mountain of paperwork on the table they were sitting at, floating high above the floor as shooting stars and planets drifted around them. Many ghosts floated around as well, servants that had sworn their loyalty to the Young King, and were preparing things like snacks and drinks for two powerful beings in the room as they discussed business. Nearby doors and windows though were ghostly knights that stood tall and alert, making sure no interlopers interrupted the meeting taking place and ready to defend not only Lady Gotham but their King.

"Ah yes them." Lady Gotham grimaced as she took a drink of her ecto-tea. "That will take some time for us to discuss, they've been running around unchecked for to long and even with my limited abilities to hinder them has been less than ideal."

"You, Lady G, were deeply cursed for many, many years and I just broke most of it." Danny cut in quickly, he was not about to let this wonderful and powerful city spirit blame herself for something out of her hands "Due to said curse you couldn't do much so please don't go blaming yourself. Its mostly broken now, so you can freely start healing yourself and your city self now that jerk demon that cursed you is in Walker's prison for his crimes."

Lady Gotham grew silent for a moment, her dark eyes staring deeply at the young King but then warmly smiled, well as warm as she could seeing how she was Gotham itself. "You reminded me of my Knight, Young King, treating me like this. Not afraid to point out the truth and facts."

Danny gave a light laugh as he took a hold of one of the cookies on his plate and gave a bite "I'll take that as a compliment Lady Gotham. Now about those Court of Owls...."

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dp x dc #blue rambles #crossover #writing ideas #random idea #danny phantom dc #dpxdc #dcxdp #ghost king danny #Danny visited Gotham as part of his new kingly duties to discuss things #only to find the city spirit chained and cursed by a demon #he fought the demon and kicked its butt now that he's cleaning up Pariah Dark bad management #Lady Gotham been trying to save her city self for years but couldn't do much #Her Dark Knight and his bats and birds helped ease the pain #but the demon encouraged and influenced a lot of Batman's rogue's #The Joker is the one he's most proud of #Lady Gotham did her best to save her people from his influence #some listened others didn't #anyways Danny came to Gotham because he noticed a lot of papers for the city and well #again found the demon and fought him #it caused a huge shift in Gotham that couldn't be ignored #and we all know Batman wouldn't ignore it.#Honestly I just wanted Ghost King Danny and Lady Gotham discussing business and drinking tea as they float.#I like to think the Batfam do get to the Observatory and somehow sneak in even with all the guards.#what happens next I leave open for others to play with.#11 pm ideas and thoughts

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complete-clownery · 4 months

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Hahaha okay rant about this amazing fanfic (you probably heard of this one already but still)

So whenever it comes to explaining and writing under my posts I just get lazy but I need to push through this cuz I need to talk

So the fanarts were made for the lmk fanfiction sunbreak, that a lot of you (probably mostly shadowpeach shippers) had read, and it is amazing, I read trough it as fast as my brain let me and as you can see it has pleasantly scratched my brain so much so that I even (attempted) to make fanart for it

Ngl if I wasn't a major pussy I would try to illustrate the whole thing or make covers for each chapter but Im unable to work on something more than 2 hours and I would want those to look good, but good looking art (if I don't mess up) takes 6 hours ughh--- annoying much---

Anyways I'm not good with literature but man is this fix a masterpiece *chefs kiss* its everything its amazing, I was unable to put it down once I started it

Okay i dont think I have the brain capacity to explain how much I worship the writer of this masterpiece @ladygreenfrisbee , so i'm just going to talk about the drawings a tad

So first picture with Red Son and MK its sort of like an au in the fic where the whole lbd plot is somehow nonexistent and after Macaque gets to his sisters domain they settle down and raise the kids together without much of an issue aside from assassinations keep happening and trying not to get in trouble with the heavens

Id like to think that Gongzhu still wouldn't let the court tailors to put any form of red or gold on MKs outfits and only allowed the yellow after when MK was old enough to declare that yellow was his favorite color, but even now she would insist on some form of purple and shadow motives to let others know who the mother is

We also got baby MK and toddler Red Son and sassy LIF and Mac

Third pic with the lion: I don't know what it was or why but I just love general Song so much--- he's a major dickhead but sgvshshsevkdididhr (actually I kinda love all the original characters in this one, from the generals to the old lady in the beginning of the book, (gosh I also wanna draw some scenes from those chapters I loved how Mac and she interacted hshsjsj))

so chapter 34 was probably my favorite so far I re read it about two more times cuz it was amazing to see Macaque being the schemer he is and try to piss of Song lol

Last picture: its a sketch/a wip or whatever (probably not going to finish it but im still putting it there cuz its somewhat decent looking)

Its the part where Wukong remembered of Macaque finally finding him and asking for him to come back to flower fruit mountain.

I tried to make Macaque look more unhinged on this one but since I didn't finish it I dont think its that noticable so fuck that but I also gave him a halo like the saints to symbolise his suffering and what not (thought it looked cool and fitting think whatever you want about it lol)

And that all ((((hollly mother))))

If you read this trough, thank you and congrats👏👏

#clown does art #lego monkey kid #lmk sunbreak #sunbreak #shadowpeach #lmk macaque #six eared macaque #lmk mk #lmk red son #fanfiction #lmk #lmk pif #princess iron fan

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elodieunderglass · 1 year

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the first chapter of Moby Dick rewritten in tiresome modern idiom

CHAPTER 1. Loomings.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - it's none of your business how many - being mostly broke, and bored with the land part of the world, I thought I would sail around a little and look at the watery part of the world. I'm probably the most mentally healthy person you know. Whenever I feel my face getting grim; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself accidentally reading the ads in the window of funeral homes, and following funeral processions through traffic; and especially when I'm hangry, and only my extremely strong moral principles stop me from deliberately going out in public and methodically slapping people's earbuds out - then I know it's high time to get to sea, ASAP. This is my substitute for getting in fights. I'm too mentally healthy to kill myself; I quietly and considerately put myself on a ship and sail myself away instead. There is nothing surprising in this. Everyone feels exactly the same way, and if they don't, they're lying.

You think I'm lying? Exhibit A: a city. Go to your local coastal city. Everyone is looking at the water. They drive over from other neighborhoods just to come to the water. They make a day of it. They're not doing anything, they're just staring at the ocean. Why? Is it because they all work office jobs? No! Here come more of them! They cram themselves up to the edge of the water and stare at it. WHAT DO THEY WANT? WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT. Perhaps the ships themselves all packed together, each one with several compasses on it, creates some kind of critical mass - all of the small compass-magnets on all the ships in the harbor combining into one really big magnetic field - and the people get sucked into the field and trapped there. That's science.

Exhibit 2: the countryside with lakes in it. Every path you follow in the countryside brings you to some water, such as a stream. There is magic in it. If you take your standard fool with ADHD dissociating in the middle of a supermarket and put them outside and give them a shove, they'll automatically lead you to water (if there is any nearby) (try it). Another good experiment to try is to get lost in the great American desert in a caravan supplied with a metaphysical professor! Try it in the great American desert at home!

Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are a match made in heaven. Married forever. That's science.

Here's an artist who wants to paint you the dreamiest, most enchanting landscape. What does he put in it? Trees, meadow, cows, a cottage with smoke coming from the chimney, obviously. He will probably put a path in it and make lots of triangular mountains in rows and have them be different shades of blue (naturally.) But there's gotta be a stream in it. Go visit the prairies in June, and wade for forty miles through knee-deep through tiger lilies. What's missing from this picture? Water!

If Niagara Falls was made of sand instead of water, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why would a guy given a handful of cash have trouble deciding whether to buy a coat (which he needed) or go to the beach? Why are all the best, healthiest, sexiest and most mentally healthy people obsessed with the sea? (You get me.) When you were first on a boat, did you not succumb to VIBES? Consider ancient Persia. Consider ancient Greece. They understood about vibes, and also gods.

SURELY ALL OF THIS IS NOT WITHOUT MEANING.

And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all! You get me! You understand it now.

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I get weird, don't you dare imply that I buy a ticket and get on a boat. I have never had money in my life. How dare you. Anyway I don't go as a passenger - that's bougie, and something boring people do. Passengers never have a good time. And although my C.V. is incredible - I go to sea SO MUCH, you guys, I have lots of experience - I don't go as a boss, or a cook. That sounds like far too much work. Hard work. Disgusting, respectable, bougie, and far too responsible. I can literally only look after myself. Do not ask me to look after ships or shit. In fact, I have only a vague idea of what a ship is. There's so many different kinds of ships - don't get me started and DO NOT GET INVOLVED. Also, I'm allergic to glory.

It's kind of attractive to go as a cook. I mean, I'm allergic to glory and there's some glory attached to the position of the ship's cook, but, like, you're not management-track and so it's still credible. But I don't really want to cook (say) roast chicken. I really fucking love to eat roast chicken. I'm one of the best at doing it actually. I really appreciate when people go out of their way to butter, season, baste and roast a chicken for me. Picture a roast chicken and I am Looking Respectfully at it. Maybe something more, maybe I'm worshipping it. Don't make this weird. If you want to get weird about my relationship with roasted chicken, why aren't you getting weird about the ancient Egyptians? They ate roasted hippos (look it up) and the pyramids were basically pizza ovens. So it's pretty hypocritical to think that I'm being weird about roasted chicken when I've never made mummies out of chickens or built a religious pizza oven dedicated to honoring them: check and mate, haters.

Anyway - I like to go to sea as a manual laborer. A simple sailor. Salt of the earth… er… sea. Yeah, true: as a job it sucks. They make you jump around, order you around, treat you like shit. They expect you to jump around the boat like a grasshopper. And yes, at first, this sucks. It's degrading, especially if you come from a middle-class family. Worse, it's awful if you've already had some kind of professional job before signing on to be the dirt on the boss's boots - like, if you went to college and worked as a teacher and actually got kids to pay attention to you, really feeling this connection to work/teaching/identity or some shit, and now you are just literally the scum on this captain's boots, in the lowest possible job in the world. It hurts! It hurts your dignity. But the hurt, and also the dignity, both wear off in time.

So what if some old bastard sea captain orders me - ME! - to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, compared to the shit in the Bible, compared to the shit in the news, compared to the shit everyone else has to take. Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. We're all just serfs under capitalism, right, so why not just be honest about it: I prefer the honesty. Anyway, however the old sea captains may order me about - slapping and punching of course - I have the satisfaction of knowing that it's the same experience everyone else on Earth has, but more honest. Everyone else in the world is being served the exact same way. Either in a physical or a metaphysical way - sometimes people get the shit beaten out of them in person, sometimes online, sometimes emotionally, it happens to you in EVERY JOB, you sign on to get pushed around and slapped in the teeth: so the point is that when you're a sailor, it's a clean and honest slap. All the workers of the world share the same universal slap to the face that gets passed round, one slap passed all 'round the chain, like paying it forward, but it's a slap; and we should all accept this Universal Slap as the price of living, and then offer each other healing back massages, brother to brother, and slap each other and then kissed the places we slapped, and be happy.

I could examine that but I'm not going to.

Anyway: I always go to sea as a sailor. I've said that already. You're welcome. BUT THE POINT IS, they pay you. If you're a passenger, they don't pay you, at least, not that I've ever heard of [citation needed] (do they pay passengers?? Is there a job I can get where I can be a passenger and get paid?? Look this up.) Yeah so passengers have to pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. (That's Adam and Eve. You get it.) But BEING PAID. GETTING PAID IS THE BEST. NOTHING COMPARES TO GETTING PAID. EVERYONE LOVES THAT SHIT. Which is surprising, since we also apparently believe that money is the root of all evil, and isn't there something in the bible about "no rich people can get into heaven," right? And yet it's universal, literally everyone loves payday. Ah! How cheerfully we send ourselves to hell.

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor (I've said this already) because it's FRESH AIR AND EXERCISE. Okay so think about ships. Normally, bosses stand on the "bridge" thing, and because we're sailing a boat, the nose is going into the wind and the butt part of the boat is at the back. That's how wind works. But if you think about it, winds usually go in one direction more than other directions (unless the men have been eating beans and farting: it's Pythagoras, look it up) SO if you're a boss standing on the boss-deck, the wind is blowing FROM the sailors TOWARDS you, and YOU ARE ACTUALLY BREATHING THE AIR THAT SAILORS ALREADY BREATHED. The boss THINKS he breathes it first, but he doesn't. He gets the air at the BACK of the boat and sailors get the air at the FRONT. So it's better to be at the front of the boat (sailor) for health reasons. This is a metaphor for life and work, etc.

But I have smelled the sea lots of times as a paid sailor and WHY I should decide to go on a whaling expedition - ok so you know how there's an invisible police officer of the Fates who has me under constant surveillance, who secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way? YOU get me. You know him. "The poor FBI agent tasked with reading my search engine history" YOU GET ME. Anyway, "Ishmael, why, after having a perfectly well-reasoned, and very smart of you, part-time job as a spontaneous random sailor, did you decide to escalate that to joining a WHALING EXPEDITION, which is worse in every way?" Well, ask my fucking secret FBI agent, he can answer better than anyone else. Including me. You get me. Also, obviously, this was predestined, part of the Universe's Grand Programme for its talent show, which was all scheduled way before our time. The concept of sending me on the whaling voyage comes in as a kind of interlude or solo between the main performances of the Universe's great talent show. I bet it was advertised llike,

"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF THE UNITED STATES EMBROILED IN ONGOING LEGAL DISPUTE.

Whaling voyage by some guy called Ishmael.

BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."

Like a commercial break in between the big acts. A filler episode. Lightens the load for everyone else. Though I can't explain why the stage managers - the Fates - chose such a shitty role for me, a WHALING VOYAGE of all things, when it feels like others were given magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces - it seems a little unreasonable at first. Why doth Ishmael get shat upon, etc. But then I think about all the circumstances, the plot points and motivations that were cunningly presented to me under various disguises - FBI agents, bouts of random hanger, gay awakenings, you get me - and you can see that actually, I was set up. And worse, between them all, these Fates and Circumstances conspired to make me believe it was all my own choice and good judgment. Is Free Will an illusion? Are my decisions bad? We will NEVER know because I, Ishmael, am just a little guy that the Universe plays head games with.

One of the ways the Universe tricked me into starring in this performance and then mocking me for it was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself (whaling expeditions usually contain whales.) Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then of course, if you have a whale, you have the wild and distant seas where the whale rolls around with his body-the-size-of-an-island; the dangers and nameless perils of the whale; whales are also found in interesting places I haven't seen; this all tipped me over the edge. Maybe normal people could've resisted, but I am tormented with an everlasting itch for obscurity. I hate everyone else's oceans. I want the forbidden seas.

You know The Horrors? Of course you do. You might be surprised that I, the most mentally healthy person you've ever met, a person who is self-aware enough to go to sea when they're at their fucking limits, a guy who likes fresh air and manual labor and normal things, is familiar with The Horrors. Well, you'd be surprised. I know what's good, I'm an extrovert. But I'm still quick to perceive The Horrors. And how I deal with the horrors is a very extroverted thing: I'm social with them, if they'll let me. It's smart to be on good terms with The Horrors. You should always be on good terms with your permanent neighbors. That's how extroverts deal with The Horrors, and I recommend it.

I think that's enough explanation for why I welcomed the whaling voyage. The great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild figments of imagination that pushed me into doing it, the whales came marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah. They marched into my innermost soul in endless processions and occupied it, you see, I was quite helpless under this occupation - I consented to the haunting and the whales marched in to haunt me - and amidst them all was one grand shrouded white phantom, like a snowy mountain in the air.

You get it.

You know how it is, with whales.

(read the actual first chapter of Moby Dick here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm)

#mody bick

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