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pandoraslxna · 1 year

Note

Alright but what if your an artist of the clan! But you have like a secret stash of naughty drawings and one of the guys (can be anyone honestly) found it and was either like these are good or they’re like ohh so would you be down to try this position? AHHH ITS 5AM AND I NEED TO SEE THIS IDEA OUT

Work of art

adult Neteyam x female omatikaya reader

Words: 2.5k

Warnings: explicit smut, minors dni, thigh riding, praise kink, p in v, creampie

Notes: you guys are literally so creative omg thanks for this request I loved that idea!! Also I hope it’s fine that I’ve picked Neteyam for this? ☺️

The omatikaya had many forms of art. Your clan had good singers, skillful weavers and wonderful dancers. And you were an artist, a painter. One of the rarest forms of art that the omatikaya practiced. The human scientists had introduced you to something they called pen and paper a few years ago and you couldn’t stop drawing ever since. Your favorite thing to draw were people, may it be humans or Na‘vi. You practiced drawing the human anatomy as often as possible, occasionally you even stole some of Norms biology books to do so.

But your favorite art reference when it came to drawing your own people, was Neteyam. The olo’eyktan’s oldest son and one of your closest friends. And the greatest work of art you knew. You had this little, secret crush on him, but in order not to put your friendship at risk, you never acted upon it. All you had were your little daydreams and fantasies and the drawings you made of him– they were obviously only meant to help you get better at anatomy and nothing else!

Neteyam often spent time with you when you were drawing. Most of the time, he was just laying beside you, taking a quick nap between his chores and duties. Sometimes he would just silently watch you, mesmerized by your talent. On other days, you could barely focus on drawing because the both of you were just too lost in a deep conversation about whatever topic you landed on today.

Today was no different.

"Tey, could you hand me another piece of paper please?" Not even glancing up from your current drawing, you point to the shoulder bag that was laying against a tree.

"Sure", Neteyam smiles, placing your legs, that were lazily swung over his own, to the ground before he raises to his feet and walks over to where you had pointed. Your bag was, as usual, full of non-essential stuff that made it hard to find literally anything in it. Neteyam rolls his eyes as he skips through several books, that you had once again only "borrowed" from the humans (without them knowing, of course), a few colored pencils and a handful of notebooks in various sizes. He glances over his shoulder to get a glimpse of the paper size that you would probably need and grabs the first notebook that was similar in size. It had a small heart craved into the front of its leather cover and given that he had never seen this one before, he only guessed that it must be a new one.

Knowing that most most of your notebooks were already full, he flips it open and searches for a blank page. Of course this one was filled to the brim with drawings, but these were… different kind of drawings, compared to the ones you usually made. Neteyam raises a brow as he examines them carefully, one in particular, before he turns back to you.

"Thats an… odd position. Did you learn that from the humans?" Neteyam flips the notebook for you to see and immediately, all color drains from your face.

The drawing he was showing you was one of your favorites and it was more than just obvious, that what you drew on those pages was supposed to be you and him….

"N-Neteyam!", you squeak and immediately stumble to your feet, "You weren’t supposed to see that, oh great mother—" You attempt to pry the notebook from his hands, but Neteyam only chuckles. He’s holding it over his head, too far for you to reach even as you stand on your very tip toes.

"It’s uhm, I uh– I just used it for anatomy practice, you know, it’s easier if you have a reference and you, uhm, you just happen to be there all the time so it was easier for me to draw you and, and—"

Neteyam grins as you struggle to explain yourself, all flustered and face bright red while he still holds the drawing out of your reach. He secretly enjoys the feeling of your soft hands clawing to his arms and how you unintentionally press yourself against him, because you try with all your might to get that damn book back.

"So you’re not up to try it?", he tilts his head, catching you off guard and you freeze.

"E-Excuse me?" You blink at him, internally questioning if you had heard him right. Finally, he lowers his arm, but all intentions to get your notebook back had left your mind completely.

"I said…", Neteyam bends forward, until his face is just inches from yours, "do you want to try that with me?"

You swallow thickly, your eyes narrowing as if trying to read him, to see if he was just joking. There was a smile spreading on his lips, almost innocently, as if he didn’t just suggest something so filthy that it made your belly tingle.

"I figured it could help you with your art, you know, if you didn’t have to use your imagination anymore", he explains nonchalant. You had to swallow down the next stupid thing that crossed your mind, ready to be spoken out, which was something along the lines of 'please fuck my brains out right now.' But instead, all that really came out was some sort of whimper, an almost pathetic and painfully embarrassing sound that even you weren’t sure how to describe.

Instead of answering him, you just sort of stood there. Staring up at him with wide eyes. Hands clenching into weak fists on your sides, because you really wanted to move them, touch him, respond in any way that didn’t embarrass you further because yes, you absolutely wanted to do that— but you just didn't have the brain capacity to tell him. Neteyam must have caught on on that, because you saw the little curl of a smirk pull at the corner of his lip and then he chuckled, "You’re so adorable."

For a moment, you think that he was actually just joking. That he had successfully managed to make a fool out of you, but then his hand finds the back of your head and he pulls you into a kiss. His tongue shot out immediately, loving the way you opened up for him and you let your eyes flutter closed.

"Okay, let’s see…", Neteyam murmurs once he breaks the kiss and then he sets the book down for both of you to see. For a moment, he pretends to study your drawing, pretends to think about what the first step to lead to this might be as if it wasn’t so obvious already and it makes you squirm in embarrassment. "I think we need to get you all nice and wet first", his voice is low and hot in your ear. You can’t help the very audible gulp that comes out of you when your eyes met his again, dark with want and mischief, almost as if he'd been planning to do this.

Neteyam leans over to dispense wet kisses up your exposed shoulder, until he reaches your throat. He covers your skin in dark, purple marks as he sucks and kisses and bites down softly, making you whimper. His hands slowly travel south, getting hold of your delicate wrists on his way and then he guides them to your loincloth. "Undress yourself for me", Neteyam tells you and your quick to obey, untying the piece of clothing and discarding it to somewhere on the ground. "Good girl", he praises and then wedges one of his thick thighs right in between yours, his hands now holding your hips.

His grip on you was firm, solidly guiding. You could feel the strength of his hands against your flesh, not really rough, but not exactly gentle either. He positioned you to settle on his thigh before he rocks your hips back and forth. You gasp as your core makes contact with his warm skin, the muscles of thigh creating enough friction against your clit to make you moan.

You whimper softly, the tips of your ears burning with an intense heat as you stare up at him through lidded eyes. You can feel the heat pooling rapidly in the pit of your stomach, heart beating hard against your ribs and pounding loudly in your ears as your breaths come out in short, rough pants.

Neteyam experiments with different paces and pressures, trying to figure out the best way to make you feel good and it doesn’t take very long to find out what works best for you. Your hips are rocking against his thigh, and he breaks the kiss he had just captured you in, with a muted gasp and a thin, glistening strand of saliva that connects your lips.

You were growing wetter by the second, so much so that a wet patch was beginning to form on his skin.

"You're dripping all over my thigh,” Neteyam notes amused and you shamefully try to hide your face in the space where his neck meets his shoulder. Every rock of your hips was bringing you a jolt of pleasure. It felt so euphoric that you find yourself never wanting it to end. Everything‘s being stimulated with each buck of your hips and small shivers shot up your spine every time you brush your clit against his muscles.

"Hmm, I think you’re wet enough now", Neteyam hums softly as he brings your hips to an abrupt halt, causing a whine to erupt from you. He takes another glance to the piece of paper laying right next to you both, as if he was reading an instruction. Then he swiftly turns you around so your back is flush with his chest, slightly arched and with your ass pressing into his crotch. You could feel his hard erection already pressing against your bottom and it made you wonder if you were really already so far gone, that you hadn’t even realized that he had pulled his own loincloth off too.

One of his hands snakes up your front and closes itself briefly around your throat, mirroring the position of your drawing. "This what you had in mind, pretty girl?", he whispers against the shell of your ear, right before he pushes the thick head of his cock between your folds. His free hand sets on your hip, holding you in place when his tip finally catches on your entrance and he pushes himself inside. "Fuck, yes", you breathe out and nod, earning a chuckle from him. You can feel the muscles in his arms tense, groaning when his pelvis was flush with your soft bottom and he was fully settled inside the tight heat of your cunt. You let out a long, uninterrupted moan at the full feeling of how deep he was.

Your hands reach back to steady yourself on his hips, but he’s quick to snatch them. He bends your arms to let them rest in the arch of your back, holding them together with his big hand. Now it was truly like the most detailed copy of the drawing that you made. The position you were in, it was straight out of your imagination, out of every wet dream that you ever had about this moment and then bought to paper by you, not long ago.

Neteyams pace is slow at first. Somewhat in a teasing way, but mostly to let you adjust to him. You were tight, your walls were heavenly, warm and constricting him and getting even tighter when he increased his pace. In no time, you were all but melting in his hold, moaning out nonsense that was music to his ears.

"Just as tight as I imagined. Oh, great mother– I won’t last if you keep squeezing me like that." Neteyam was moving even faster now and you were moaning, hot and loud, with your head rolled back in the crook of his neck.

It was the perfect position for him to let his tongue dart out and lick at the corner of your lips, to which you quickly turned your head and let him capture your mouth in yet another heated kiss.

He pounded into you then, using your arms as leverage as he thrusts his hips up and into you, the head of his cock rapidly hitting your g-spot in the process. Your jaw dropped and your fists clenched, but oh, that wasn't all that was clenching. Your breathing turned needy and higher pitched, struggling to keep steady as he was driving you over the edge faster than you could probably even process it.

"Tey", you whined the sweet nickname that was reserved for you and only you to use, "Tey, I‘m— I‘m gonna cum!"

"Be a good girl and squeeze my cock when you do, yeah? I want to– fuck, I want to feel you cum around me", he groans, sweating from his own exertion as he pushed right into your sweet spot. And who were you to deny him? You did as you were told, flexing your lower abdomen to squeeze the cock that was roughly thrusting in and out of your fluttering walls.

Neteyams head fell back at the sweet, savory feeling of your tightness, so wet that there was hardly any resistance at all as you finally reach your high. "That’s it, you look so pretty when you cum. Such a good girl for me", he breathes as you choke on a moan.

You keep flexing your inner walls as best as you can, until you feel him tremble with the change. Neteyam moans and it’s the most erotic sound you’ve ever heard and then his movements become jerky and you know he’s about to come. You try your best to keep your eyes open, turning your head slightly to not miss the look on his face when he does. His mouth is slightly agape, eyes half lidded as they land on yours and with one last thrust he stills inside you. His cum is hot and sticky and you can feel it fill you.

Neteyams hands finally leave your arms and they’re aching from the weird position they were in the whole time, but you’re quick to ignore the pain when his lips land on yours again. Your familiar with his kisses by now, relishing in the way he still kisses you so hot and open mouthed and wet, even after he just came.

Your panting heavily when you break the kiss to breathe and immediately, Neteyam lowers his head to continue with his very own work of art, that he had left on your throat earlier. Small love bites and hickeys were already turning purple on your pretty blue skin, making you especially sensitive there and a small gasp escapes your lips.

"Was that the reference you needed, my sweet girl?" He asks against your throat before placing another kiss there.

"Hmh yes", you hum, a small smile appearing on your lips as you let out a little chuckle.

"Good. Now show me what else you got in that little notebook. I’ve got plenty of time today."

#avatar #avatar the way of water #avatar 2 #avatar way of water #neteyam sully #awow #neteyam #neteyam x reader #neteyam x female reader #neteyam x omaticaya!reader #neteyam x you #neteyam x na'vi!reader #avatar neteyam #neteyam x reader smut #neteyam x female reader smut

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kaziwi · 9 months

Note

one piece boys reaction to a f!reader who cries whenever she is angry (include whoever you want, but put Law, Zoro and Sanji please)

agagagaga i love requests like these <3 sorry it’s a bit long but i hope you enjoy!!

Character(s): Law, Zoro, Sanji

WC: 1,460

Reader Who Cries When Angry

Law

It was just a simple misunderstanding...why did you get so frustrated???

No. It wasn't your fault...it was HIS

Your boyfriend, Law, had asked that you accompany him on exploring the newest island, YOU, like only and specifically you

Of COURSE you thought this was a date kinda thing because it had been like 100000 years since Law had taken you out and omgomgomg you were so excited

You had put on a little bit extra makeup and did your hair nicer as you met Law on the docks

"You look nice," he commented. You screamed and did a little dance in your head but put on a calm smile for him

It seemed Law had made up his mind on where you two were going because instead of heading to town, you were both trudging up a hill in the middle of the woods

Maybe he was bringing you to a flower field....OR maybe he was going to give you a big old kiss under a cherry blossom tree

Ok maybe you were a bit ahead of yourself...but you couldn't help but wonder???

Then Law abruptly stopped in front of you and crouched down over a bush. You decided to repeat his actions to find out what he was staring at. There were small berries in the bush, all with different colors and sizes.

He opened his bag and pulled out a notebook and pen and handed it to you.

"Write as I talk," he commanded, and who were you to disobey your captain.

Law went on for what seemed like forever about these berries and described them all in detail. You wrote down as much as you could till your hand started to cramp, but thank god by then he was basically over.

He mumbled a small thank you as he took the notebook back, quickly revised the notes you had taken, and stood back up.

"Alright lets head back"

What...did he mean...head back...

WHERE WERE THE FLOWERS AND THE KISSES?????

"Law...." you asked calmly, "what are we doing out here?"

Law looked at you a little funny and said, "Well I read that these berries are only found on this island. I read about their different properties and wanted to see them for myself."

"And why did you choose me of all people to come out here with you..?"

"Well you have the neatest handwriting."

That had done it.

You wanted to scream and yell and make angry hand gestures at him....but all you could do was cry

It was like a dam broke and you just couldn't stop

Law looked more confused than he had ever looked in his life...then rushed over to you like the good boyfriend he SHOULD HAVE BEEN

Law continued to ask what was wrong...but all you could do was cry

When you FINALLY calmed down...you explained to him that you thought this was a date...and were ANGRY at him for not making it one

Lets just say this story ends with Law buying you icecream and giving you a million kisses mwah mwah

Zoro

In his defense he had no clue you were gonna start crying

He just wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine

You always LOVED to prank him along with Luffy and Usopp

None of those pranks were CRAZY...just little silly tricks like banana peals on the floor to slip on or throwing water balloons at him...but either way they annoyed him

SOMEHOW he thought of the genius idea to prank you back...

Though Zoro's definition of a prank IS NOT what you'd think it was.....

The crew had just arrived on a new island and everyone went their separate ways to explore

Zoro had insisted that you and him take a walk in the woods, and even though you were against it since he ALWAYS gets lost…you reluctantly followed along…

Zoro had the perfect plan in his head….he was going to walk ahead…hide behind some some trees..and then SCARE YOU (he’s not the most creative with these things)

He had suddenly ran ahead..saying that he spotted something and leaving you alone

He SWORE he only ran only a minute or two ahead, just enough where he could wait and hide…

But that was an hour ago…and Zoro was waiting FOREVER..till he heard you..

SOMEHOW in running 2 minutes ahead he got himself lost

So there you were frantically calling his name while the sun quickly set

You really REALLY didn’t wanna be out here in the dark looking for him… and the creepy forest sounds did not help

A small rustle caught you attention..so you walked closer to the sound…till ZORO in all his glory jumped out of the tree and yelled boo

You were so startled that you fell back and hit the forest floor..while Zoro started CACKLING

You were tired…scared…hungry…and PISSED

As much as you wanted to scream your head off at him and punch him 10000 times…all you could do was start to cry

He stopped laughing as soon as he heard your sobs and felt frozen when he saw you crying

He never cried when you pulled tricks on him..SO WHY WERE YOU??????

“WHY ARE YOU CRYING,” he yelled, meaning it to come off more comforting

“CAUSE YOU SCARED ME,” you yelled back while still crying

After some back and fourth yelling..Zoro admitted he was wrong..but SWORE he didn’t get lost..you did

And you were so gonna prank him back for this one

Sanji

Now Sanji RARELY ever made you mad

You always laughed when you heard people complaining about their partners because your boyfriend was just perfect

Though one thing did kinda piss you off….his flirting

Now don’t get it confused you LOVED when he flirted with you…but it was the flirting with every woman he saw that bugged you

Usually you brushed it off and reminded yourself that he loved you more…but this time was different

You were helping him pick supplies at an island you stopped at, a usual job between the two of you

Though your palette wasn't as refined as Sanji's, you still were good at picking what food was best for the crew

Sanji had spotted a stand in the market with fruits native to the island, which were apparently very rare

He looked like a kid in a candy store while talking to you about the fruits, and all was well UNTIL the shop vendor came over

Now this girl was GEORGOUS like looked like Boa Hancock your jaw dropped when you saw her....and so did Sanji's...

Immediately he showered her with compliments and praises, just the usual....but instead of turning him down like the usual girls do...she flirted back...

Whatever...who cares...I mean it was bound to happen soon...but surely Sanji wouldn't take it too far...

You honestly didn't care too much...only a little jealous...TILL SHE INVITED HIM TO HER HOUSE

The vendor basically had said that she would show Sanji some of her new recipes that she made with the fruit and would love to talk about technique....IN HER HOUSE

Why couldn't they just do that here??? and even better why don't they just end the conversation now!!

Deep down you BELIEVED in your boyfriend and knew he wouldn't accept the invitation....until he did

A quick kiss on your forehead and a quick goodbye he left with the vendor and started to walk to her house...

What. Just. Happened.

So first he leaves you to hangout with this RANDOM lady...AND THEN LEAVES YOU TO FINISH THE SHOPPPING

It was later in the evening when he came back to the Sunny...a new recipe book in tow

He was excited to show it off to you, and was happy to hear that you finished the shopping for him!!

Sanji found you in the kitchen, putting away the food in the pantry

"Y/N!! Look at this amazing new recipe book I got from that vendor, you'd love this one-"

He looked up from his rant to notice that you were crying...

Sanji dropped the book and ran to you, begging you to tell him what was wrong

You wanted to stay silent and angry at him, but the tears kept pouring out and you just wanted him to hold you

You told him how upset his flirting made you and how him leaving with the other woman made you furious

He immediately apologized and honestly didn't stop for the rest of the night

He swore to you that he would tune down the flirting and that he would bring all his attention to you

And he kept that promise well, minimalizing the complements towards other women, even dialing it down around Nami and Robin

He truly was sorry and vowed to himself to never make you cry again

1K notes · View notes

allywthsr · 6 months

Text

WISHLISTS | (l.norris)

summary: Lando and you check your kids‘ wishlists

wordcount: 1.7k words

pairing: landonorris x fem!reader

warnings: kids

notes: I think it’s cute, what do you think?? Also Lando is older in this than he is right now :)

advent calendar

”Are they both asleep?“

”Yes, we should look at their wishlists now, and see what we can order or not.“

It was later than normal in the evening, but both kids were little troublemakers and did not want to sleep today, both of them were buzzing with excitement over Christmas. They spent the day at nana and Pop's house, and Lando’s parents made a wishlist for Santa with them today.

Louis was about to turn six years old and little Sofia was three and a half years old.

Both of them were opinionated and knew exactly what they wanted. So when Lando’s parents brought up the idea of making a wishlist with the kids, how could you say no? Normally that was a thing that Lando and you did with your kids, but you hadn’t had the time yet, so you were thankful Cisca and Adam did it for you. This year, Louis was old enough to try and write it himself, it almost made you cry looking at his scribble that had been corrected by Cisca or Adam many times, but still, it was the cutest. He was growing up too fast, when you looked at Lando and saw the little pout on his lips when you showed him the paper, you knew he was thinking the same.

Sofia‘s list was written by Cisca, and Sofia had decorated it with stickers and random streaks of colorful pens. The ’Santa‘ on top of the paper was written by Sofia, the wonky letters were different sizes and the second ’a‘ was the other way around, but you were proud of your little girl.

Lando and you sat on the couch, you were in your fuzzy socks and sweats, relaxing with your favorite hot drink, while Lando was drinking some water and was also dressed in sweats and a hoodie. It was almost Christmas and you barely had presents for your kids, a few you both picked up on some errand runs, but nothing specific.

You cuddled up to Lando and held the wishlist of your eldest in your hand.

”I‘m ready to see what an almost six-year-old wants for Christmas. I can’t believe he‘s six, we are old, Lando.“

”Probably a car like mine, yesterday he said: ’Daddy, I want to race with you every weekend‘, so I guess we need to get him in F1, and talk to McLaren about it.“

He let out a high-pitched giggle. Lando said he wanted to wait for kids after he retired, but Louis happened because you weren’t careful enough, and when you broke the news to him, he wanted nothing more than to raise this baby with you. He was only twenty-three years old when you got pregnant, and not ready to retire yet, so he gave it a year to try it out, in the end, the three of you managed it well and he didn’t need to retire. Sofia was planned, you wanted to give Louis a sibling and now he was the best big brother you could imagine for your girl. Both of your kids were totally daddy orientated, whether they were crying and needed cuddles, or they wanted to play with someone when daddy was around, he was their first choice. But when daddy said no, which barely happened, they ran to mummy and asked you, and if you said yes, you were the favorite for the rest of the day.

With your head on Lando’s shoulder, you started to read out loud.

”Alright, dear Santa, I am a good boy and have a few wishes. A new big boy bike without extra wheels, a kart like daddy had when he was younger, the new cars racetrack, a cars lunchbox, new cars, construction trucks, a real bunny, a camera like daddy, my own helmet. Thank you, Santa. That are some wishes.“

”He certainly knows what he wants, but I like most of them, we can work with that. I also love his spelling, cars with a z or boy with an i.“

You pressed a kiss to Lando’s cheek, ”he‘s all grown up, he wants a big boy bike and a kart. I don’t think I can endure another Norris in a kart.“

”Don’t worry baby, I‘ll be with him.“

You talked about putting Louis in a kart when he shows interest, but so far he only loved cars and watching daddy drive around, for a week he wasn’t able to stop talking about driving himself. Lando loved that, he started around the same age and couldn’t wait to put Louis in a kart, especially since he had his own karting team.

”I think the bike thing is something we can give your parents, we can get him the cars things, do you think he wants the lunchbox with lightning McQueen or someone else?“

”He loves this Ryan car, he’s orange and ’looks like your daddy‘, maybe we should see if we can find one with him on it.“

You hummed in agreement, ”What about the construction trucks?“

”Sure, there's probably a set with different cars inside, that would be nice.“

Again you nodded your head, ”I don’t like the bunny idea, animals shouldn’t be something that’s gifted for Christmas. We can talk about that with him next year, but not for Christmas. I want him to understand that a pet is not just a cute thing that you can pet all day long, it’s work and commitment.“

”Yeah, I agree, we’re also away a lot, we can’t take a bunny with us to the tracks, and taking care of two hyperactive kids is a chore.“

You two chuckled, ”Well, they clearly have that from you, you’re always hyperactive, Lando.“

”And I‘m proud of it, we can’t deny that they’re mine.“

”We definitely can’t. What do think about the camera? I saw on Amazon a few days ago, that there are kids cameras, not expensive and does the job.“

”I like that. And I want to make a helmet for him.“

”Do you have his measurements?“

”No, but I‘ll say Santa needs his head size if he wants to make a helmet.“

”That’s sweet. And we also have that new swing play set outside for both of them, that should be enough presents from us, right? He’s going to be spoiled from the rest of our family anyway.“

He hummed quietly and kissed your forehead.

”Onto the next one“, you mumbled, grabbing the page that lay next to you.

”Dear Santa, I am the best girl, I want for Christmas: a new Barbie doll, a new Barbie doll, a new Barbie doll, a new Barbie doll, a bunny, a pretty pink purse like mamas, a bunny stuffie, pets for my Barbie’s, the dogs from paw patrol, new hair clips, a T-shirt from uncle Carlos. Thank you, Santa.“

”A T-shirt from Uncle Carlos? What is wrong with her?“, Lando was confused.

”I think Carlos told her multiple times over Facetime a few days ago, that she should wish for a T-shirt from him.“

”I have to call him tomorrow. But why has she listed the Barbie doll four times?“

”We should call your mum and ask.“

He pulled out his phone from his pocket and clicked on FaceTiming his mum. You two greeted her with waves and ’hellos‘ when she picked up.

”We went through the wishlists and why did Sofia list the Barbie doll four times?“

”I have no clue, darlings, when I told her, I’ve already written it down, she kept on repeating I need to write Barbie doll multiple times, or else Santa won’t get her point.“

”She‘s truly Lando’s child.“

”Oh yes, I can remember Lando also did something similar when he was young.“

”Are you calling me old, mum?“

”No, my darling.“

”Cisca, we thought you and Adam could get him the bike? Or do you have something else?“

”We only have small things yet, we would love to gift him the bike. He said he wants a black one with orange and bright yellow stripes, like daddy’s helmet.“

”That’s fine, I don’t know if you want to buy it with him or without him, should he be with you while picking it out?“

”Maybe that’s better, we can say Santa told us to buy it with him, so he gets the one he wants.“

You two nodded, ”And with Sofia, we need to check first, what dolls she has and which she does not have, we don’t want to gift her some she already has.“

”Sure my darling, let us know if you have any ideas for her from her wishlist.“

All of you said your goodbyes and Lando and you went back to discussing Sofias list.

”We have to check her Barbies tomorrow when she‘s at daycare, as well as the pets she has for them, I like the hair clips and the stuffie, does she want the paw patrol dogs as stuffies or normal toys? The bunny is obviously a no.“

”Yeah, bunny’s a no, but maybe as stuffies? You know how much she loves stuffed animals, she can also play with them as if they’re normal toys. What about the purse?“

”I don’t know yet, maybe we find a kids purse somewhere?“

She may love her daddy more, but she was imitating you, all the time, playing dress up with your bags and shoes whenever she was bored.

Lando hummed to the purse idea and sighed.

”She‘s three and already wants a handbag, and I thought you would be the only one for a while.“

”She‘s a true girl, next year she‘ll ask for makeup.“

”I won’t allow her that, she can do that when she‘s eighteen.“

”Lando, when she‘s fifteen she‘ll be doing her makeup, like it or not. If she already wants a handbag, that’s the next step, soon she’ll have a boyfriend.“

”No, she doesn’t need a boyfriend, she has me and Louis, she doesn’t need different men in her life.“

”So you don’t want to have grandchildren?“

”Louis can make them.“

You decided to drop that topic, you wouldn’t be able to change his mind today.

”And what about the Carlos T-shirt?“

”I‘m not even going to give you an answer on this.“

#lando norris #lando norris imagine #formula 1 #lando norris x you #lando norris x reader #lando norris fluff #lando norris x y/n #lando x reader #lando norris one shot #lando imagine #dad!lando norris #christmas

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gtsdreamer2 · 7 months

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You were deep in the Amazon rainforest. A recent graduate with your mycology doctorate, you were researching a special species of mushroom that only was said to grow deep in the jungle and only during the twenty four hours of the full moon during the autumn months. According to ancient texts found in the indigenous people's temples, the mushroom was used in fertility rituals and to signify a bountiful harvest during these months before the cold winter. You were curious about the cultural significance as well as the medicinal properties of this rare shroom. You didn't know what it looked like, only that it wasn't foraged for by the locals anymore and that it should look like a mushroom that you don't know.

Hours of searching later, you begin to grow tired and wonder if you should give up and wait until the next full moon. The sun is starting to set when you finally spot something different. It's a mushroom you've never seen before, which is remarkable seeing as how you've seen them all. The cap is a pinky flesh color with an even pinker button on top. You giggle to yourself as you remark that it looks like a tit with a firm nipple poking out of it.

Kneeling down, you take out your notebook and a pencil and begin to sketch it. 'I'm just drawing a boob.' You think to yourself. You stare in awe at this shroom as the sun continues to set. Taking your pencil, you poke the nipple-esque protrusion. Immediately this mushroom expells a giant cloud of spores right in your face. You gasp in surprise, sucking into your lungs an ample amount of the potent plume.

You hack and cough, but its way too late for that, they're already lodged deep within you and entering your blood stream. Your eyes dialate and your body grows hot. You stand and lean against a tree, trying to catch your breath. You can feel your heatbeat in every nerve. Your cells are responding in a way they never have to the new foreign agent that has begun to take over you. Your heatbeat concentrates in your breasts as you feel your nipples grow almost painfully erect. Then you feel your breasts start to press against your soft white cotton top. You can feel the belts on your corset tighten to try and contain whatever is happening to you. Suddenly you shoot up four inches in height.

Your sudden growth spurt elicits an a forced maon from your mouth. "Mmmph!" You cry out as a second wave hits you. The belts on your corset snap and suddenly you're six foot five with the seams of your jeans splitting. You feel your feet break free from your hiking boots as your toes sink into the damp rainforest earth.

'This is starting to feel really good.' You think to yourself as you start to regain a semblance of your normal senses. Doing a body check, you can tell that you've grown. Your breasts have at least doubled in size and are now very hot and sensitive to the touch. You can feel a hunger deep in your womb as if ovulating on steroids.

You attempt to sit down on the cool jungle floor, your now massive ass shredding the back of your jeans as you squat down. You pick up your pad and pen and continue to make notes about the shroom.

'It is clear that this is how the Amazon women in the lore of this land gained their stature, and I can clearly feel why this particular fungus was revered for its fertility-inducing properties. I feel so full of life, yet I also feel the need to be bred full of babies.' Looking back at your notes, you are in shock that you actually wrote that down.

You wonder to yourself how potent the flesh of the shroom might be, considering what just inhaling some of the spores had done to you. As the sun began to set, you walk back over to the shroom and delicately pluck it out of the ground before greedily shoving the whole thing into your mouth, quickly swallowing it without so much as trying to find out what it tastes like. Again the euphoria strikes your body. You feel its effects ten fold as you quickly gain four feet in height and explode out of your inadequate top. Sitting back down on the remainder of your ruined clothes, you bask in the feeling of your massive body and heightened strength and senses. You close your eyes and listen to the jungle around you, lamenting that you ate the only specimen that you had found on your journey, and now the only evidence was what it had done to you. When you open your eyes, the realize that the moon has peaked through the canopy. Your dialated eyes can see the jungle floor quite clearly now, and shimmering all across the damp dense expanse before you, you can see dozens more of the mushroom glowing against the moon, as if drinking in its power. 'It would have been so much easier to find at night.' You chastise yourself as you stand up again. You leave your ruined clothes behind as you pick up your foraging Satchel and start to delicately pick as many of the shrooms as you can carry, trying your best to put them in containers without them expelling more spores. 'This will be so great for my research.' You think to yourself. 'And it'll make a great snack for the walk back'. You giggle to yourself as you pop another three into your mouth.

#gts #giantess #size kink #sizetumblr #growth #gts story

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elsaellaelys · 10 months

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Calvin Klein boxers

summary: Y/N is a simp for JJ's underwear.

580 words

pairing: boyfriend!JJ Maybank x girlfriend!fem!reader

a/n: Really short, but I just wanted to take it out of my mind.

--★--

Y/N discovered her fixation for JJ's boxers early when they met, with his low waist shorts, the first time she saw him shirtless, cargo shorts loose on the hips, she almost lost balance and she's sure, since JJ kissed her, her knees are not strong as before.

When they first slept together he was using Calvin Klein boxers, Y/N could even feel the smell of new cloth, it made her heart ache, cause he was so attentive, and it made she clench her thights together cause he looked so freaking hot. She always loved the way it fitted in his hips, loved to feel the soft cotton and the curves of his ass, love to take them off of him.

One day, though, she noticed he wasn't using them anymore, just navy blue Jockeys and red Reebok, that she liked of course, - how he could ever look bad? - she couldn't help, but realize the Calvin Klein boxers kink she had and how much of a man he looked in them.

"Where are your Calvin Klein boxers?" she asked trying to sound as casual as possible, it was morning, Y/N was brushing her hair, JJ was getting dressed.

"I was in sitting in the dock and got up fast, my shorts and boxers got stuck in a nail, they ripped real good." he laughed. "And that's a fuck, y'know? They were expensive."

It got she wondering about it more and more, and should she feel embarassed for being attracted to her boyfriend's boxers? That's what got she measuring his underwear secretly, spending hours in the internet looking for the right color, the right fabric, the right size, the right prize - cause she was a pogue after all.

It took about a month for the package to arrive - drawbacks of living in an island - when it came she dropped everything and headed to the Chateau, JJ was lazily throwed on the couch with a beer in his hand. She stormed in. "JJ! I have something for you!"

Only after the words she looked around to find Pope and John B.. JJ smirked, he felt almost haughty, his pretty girlfriend standing there with tight capri pants, halter top, small box in her arms, and his friends were there looking curious for something that were for him. He patted the spot beside him on the sofa. "Come here, show me."

She discreetly eyed the guys across the room and refused, shooking her head, she reached for his hand bringing him to the guestroom.

"Okay, I bought this for you because, I have to admit, I think you look so hot with them." she gabbled, looking through the drawers for a scissors. "Shit." Without patience she grabbed a pen and pierced the tape, opening it fastly and carelessly.

"Alright then." JJ laughed. When she pulled off the Calvin Klein bag he furrowed his eyebrows, she gave him and he took it. "Can't believe you did this..."

"Oh please, cut the bullshit." "No, you didn't have to spend your money on me."

"Take it as a early birthday gift. I really wanted you to have it." He forced his lips against hers, in a strong peck, she smiled even more widely.

"Go try it on, you silly."

"You really want to see me in underwear, don't you?" he joked, unbuttoning his shorts, her cunt heated just with the sound of his zippers.

"Actually I'm thinking more about taking them off after that."

#jj maybank #obx fanfiction #jj maybank fanfiction #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank smut #jj mayback imagine #jj maybank x you #jj maybank in CK underwear!

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etherealising · 10 months

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interlude zero | dear carmy

↢ previous chapter | next chapter ↣ | masterlist

pairing: carmen berzatto x self-sabotage | carmen berzatto x fem!reader

summary: a look into carmy's life and thought process in the aftermath of the berzatto family christmas.

wc: 4.6k

thank you for all the love and support, please enjoy this first special chapter dedicated to all of you! 💜

January 2019

Carmy sat on the fire escape of his New York apartment, cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, the sun slowly setting behind all the high-rise buildings. It wasn’t the best view but it allowed him to take advantage of the somewhat fresh air New York had to offer. He had been out there for quite a bit now on his second cigarette in 15 minutes.

His thoughts were racing as they usually did, never being spared a quiet moment from his thoughts. His head raced with ideas he’d thought about trying in the kitchen, thoughts about a new tattoo he was hoping to get, wondering when Mikey would finally see how far he’d come. His mind pushed forth anything and everything he could think of, all so the slideshow in his head kept what happened a month ago between the two of you in the dark recesses of his mind.

Carmy told himself that if he didn’t think about the things he wasn’t ready to resolve, then there was no way that they could hurt him, no way that they could force their way out and get him to admit that they indeed were a part of his reality. Accountability wasn’t Carmy’s strong suit, and over the years when it came to the two of you, he felt it best to sweep things under the rug, no point in prodding at old wounds if the friendship between the two of you was well past saving.

He sat there as the sky transitioned colors; blue bleeding into orange, a sunset he knew you would’ve appreciated. Cigarette already burned out, the poison coating his lungs helping to warm his body from the chill that was settling in the air. There was a knock on his apartment door, the unit was so small that even sitting on the fire escape made him feel like he was right next to the door. He ignored it, no one ever stopped by his place, it’s not like he was inviting coworkers back to his place or anything, if it was important they’d come back tomorrow. The knock sounded again, and again Carmy ignored it, his knee bouncing up and down as he hoped whatever nuisance at his door took the hint to leave.

Carmen Berzatto was never lucky enough to get what he wanted. An incessant knocking began on the front door with no indication that the strings of knocks would be stopping soon. Hands running down his face Carmy aggressively stood up from his chair, if he wanted to be bothered at home he would’ve put a fucking welcome mat outside of his door. He reached the door twisting the knob and yanking it open, he frowned at the sight of legs, face covered by the package in their hands.

“Package here for a uh, Carmen Burzetto.” The mispronunciation of his last name caused Carmy to cringe. He nodded at the delivery person wanting to end this interaction as quickly as possible, he was presented with a package slip and pen quickly signing his name without paying attention. The package was handed off to Camry, tucking it under his arm he closed the door not giving the delivery person another second.

Walking to his kitchen Carmy set the box on his countertop confused at what it could be. He never ordered shit so he knew this wasn’t of his own volition, he found the packing sticker, the return address of his family home jumping out at him. He grabbed his only knife, cutting the box open. He could only assume that the package was from his mom, and what she felt the need to send him he had no clue.

Setting the knife to the side he quickly removed the medium-sized box covered in bubble wrap. Tearing at the protective wrap, he stopped as he realized exactly what he was looking at. Sitting on his counter staring back at him was a matte black box with a matching bow and envelope addressed to him; a box he had purposely left behind a month ago, the same night he had left you.

He checked the bottom of the now empty box the gift arrived in, hoping to find some sort of return slip, only to come up short. His gaze fell back on the present, hands moving up to tug at his hair. He couldn’t open it, didn’t think he deserved to. Not after having left you to wake up in a lonely bed the day after Christmas, no apology or excuse just you and a confused Richie wondering how he had suddenly been roped into dropping you off at the airport. Not with all the disappointment he had caused, he wasn’t worthy of the kindness you had shown him time and time again.

Carmy paced around his tiny kitchen, he could always ask Sugar or Mikey for your address. Returning the present he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he accepted. You were a great gift giver, so great in fact he had your gifts in a designated box that traveled with him everywhere he went the last couple of years; even Copenhagen a box of memories taking up space in the small boat house. Memories from the person who had held his heart long before he realized it for himself.

He stopped in front of the box, hands resting on his hips debating the pros and cons of opening the gift. In a way he owed it to you to open the box, sending it back would’ve just made him an even bigger asshole than he probably already was in your book. His hands reached out pausing on the edge of the countertop to calm the shaking. When he deemed himself stable enough he reached up to untie the velvet bow, the softness that caressed his fingers reminding him of what it had felt like to hold your neck in his hand as he thumbed the ink stain behind your ear.

How his breath hitched as you shamelessly told him the small letter permanently inked into your skin could have represented his last name if he wanted it to. Losing himself to memories, he wondered what would have ensued had he taken up your offer to let the brand on your skin represent a part of him. He had wanted to give in, wanted to paint your skin with more than a letter that he knew, in reality, had nothing to do with him. It confused him all the same though, hearing those words leave your lips felt like a cruel joke to him. He was just a grown-up version of the little boy that had been your best friend, was sure you were just in need of a distraction, and Carmy had laid the perfect opportunity in your lap by inviting you to spend the night with him.

He broke from his reverie dropping the loosened bow from his grasp, eyes landing on your pretty cursive that painted the black envelope with his name. His fingers traced over the letters, the closest thing he had to touching you at this moment. Holding the envelope in his hand Carmy’s gaze burned into it before setting it off to the side. He was already opening your present, he didn’t think he had the guts to find out what was hidden inside the ominous black envelope.

Carmy took one more deep breath before removing the top of the box from its joined position with the bottom part. Carefully unfolding the tissue paper to not rip it, he uncovered two decent-sized velvet bags with the logo reading ‘Made in’ in gold foil. Carmy carefully removed the two bags from the box, pushing the empty box off the countertop to make room. He opened the first bag confused at what was in his hands for a moment before something clicked and he sat the block upright. Grabbing the second bag he took out the heavy roll laying it down before quickly unrolling it, the unblemished metal reflecting the kitchen light onto his face.

He sat his hands on the counter, head dropping between his shoulders as he let out a deep sigh. He knew this had to have cost you a pretty penny, he could tell just by looking at the knife set. Unable to help himself he pulled the Chef Knife out, testing the weight of it in his hands, he carefully looked over the tool, appreciating the wood-like finish of the handle. Before he could return the knife to its rightful place his eyes caught sight of an engraving on the handle. Holding the knife up to his eyes he felt his breath hitch as he took in the letters, fingers ghosting of the initials ‘C.B.’ that had been a personal touch. One by one he removed the other three knives only to find that they had all indeed been engraved with his initials.

Carmy threw his head back, eyes staring at the ceiling as a sorrowful laugh escaped his lips. He felt a tightness in his chest as he tried to come to terms with what you had gifted him. The thoughtfulness and the care that you put into this gift proved to him that you had always been a better friend than he had ever been to you. The fact that you had gone out of your way to get his initials engraved into the set, something he knew definitely cost extra, squeezed at his chest. He wasn’t good at this shit and he hated it because you were, it came easy to you, the caring, the friendship, everything.

Carmy came back to earth choosing a spot to showcase his new knife set and block. Just because he didn’t have any guests over didn’t mean Carmy himself didn’t want to be able to marvel at the gift every time he came home. Unconsciously positioning them so they were the first thing his eyes landed on as soon as he stepped through the door. He stood there for some time just admiring the set, envelope lying forgotten on the countertop as he mentally berated himself for all the mistakes he made with you.

April 2019

Carmy had just returned home after a particularly rough shift. His chef coat was stained with whatever concoction his co-worker had spilt on him. Carmy felt like everything that could go wrong in the kitchen during his shift, did. He felt like he was off his game, constantly striving to be the best in the kitchen, working his ass off to show how much he belonged, how much he deserved to be there. The praise he desired was nowhere to be found instead being told he was “a worthless fucking idiot not even McDonald’s would hire.”

Not even the knife set he had set up three months ago could raise his spirits. He had half a mind to knock the fucking thing over, the metal mocking him the longer he stared in its direction. He threw his soiled chef coat on the cheap dining table chair he had acquired making his way to the fire escape, a much-needed smoke on his mind.

Sometimes he wondered what would happen if he just decided to give it all up one day. He never would, he knew that, but sometimes he just needed a few ‘what ifs’ to help calm him down. He would regret it, that’s what would happen and he’d probably be more miserable without it in his life than he was with it. He sat on the fire escape for a while burning through three cigarettes in all with the stress he was feeling.

Moving back into the apartment he made his way to the kitchenette hoping to make himself a quick PB&J and call it a night. He removed a cup from his dish drain running it under the faucet to refresh himself. He drank a quarter of the cup before moving to set it down on the countertop, hand missing by an inch as he practically slammed the glass into the countertop, the cup breaking on impact as his mail fell victim to the flood.

Carmy let out a sharp curse, the feeling of being cut racing through his palm as he dropped the remaining glass from his grasp. For a moment he just watched as his mail soaked up the water, before grabbing the closest dish towel and doing his best to clean up the mess. He dried the mail as best he could snatching it up to sit atop the little dining table where the air from the open window could hit it. Carmy glanced down at his palm, the cut was not deep enough to warrant any stitches, he used the damp dish towel as a makeshift bandage and wrapped his hand.

A black water-stained envelope caught his eye stopping him momentarily before he rushed to grab it, the lettering on the front already smeared and unreadable, “Fuck!” The loud curse reverberated off of his apartment walls as he ran to quickly flick on his stovetop, hoping the heat would help to dry out the contents. He stood over the stove envelope dangling over the burner careful to not let it get close enough to catch fire. If there was ever a day to finally face what he had been avoiding and open this damn envelope, today seemed like as good a day as any.

Zoning out Carmy stood there racking his brain for what the envelope could contain. A traditional Christmas card would have been the easiest thing to find in there, but he knew you didn’t do easy. That’s why he allowed the envelope to age on his countertop, whatever you had sealed into the sleek black pocket would be a tough pill for him to swallow.

The singe of his thumb brought him back to reality, the heat of the burner licking at his fingers burning his forefinger and thumb as he unconsciously dropped the envelope right onto the stovetop. “Shit! Fuck me!” The expletives left his lips as he forcefully plucked the envelope from its position and played hot potato with it before he was able to get it to the countertop. He brought his fingers to his lips aiming to soothe the throbbing in them.

Carmy stood with his hands on his hips, angry breaths leaving his nostrils as he tried to keep the slim thread of his calmness in check. Snatching the singed envelope from the countertop he made sure he still had a pack of cigarettes in his jean pocket before making his way out to his normal spot on the fire escape. The cheap lawn chair he had sat out there was a welcoming sight.

Plopping down in the chair Carmy lit a much-needed cigarette before stilling his shaking hands and delicately opening the envelope, not wanting to ruin something that had once been in your hands. He was right, things with you were never easy, because what he was hoping to be some cheesy Christmas card, was instead a folded letter with your pretty cursive dancing across the pages.

Head tilting towards the sky as Carmy tried to find strength in the cosmos, the weight of the letter settled into his lap where he had placed it to gain his bearings before diving straight in. Focusing back on the pages he carefully straightened them out; slight water damage had seeped through them but not enough to ruin them. Taking one last deep breath Carmy began reading the letter.

𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒚,

𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒚 𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒓𝒚. 𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅, 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝑰 𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎𝒔 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒆. 𝑲𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒊𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒄 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰’𝒎 𝒂 𝒋𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒂 𝒇𝒆𝒘 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒂 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅. 𝑫𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚, 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒚? 𝑨𝒕 𝒎𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝑰 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆, 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒂 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒎𝒆, 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆, 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒆.

𝑺𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒚, 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅𝒏’𝒕 𝒃𝒆 𝒂 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒐𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒂𝒊𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒐 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇. 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒔𝒐 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒊𝒇 𝑰 𝒑𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒆 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏 𝒊𝒔 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝑰 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒅𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇. 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚’𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒃𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆.

𝑰 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒊𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒔𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝑰’𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒅𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏’𝒕 𝒅𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒖𝒔 𝒇𝒂𝒓. 𝑺𝒐 𝒘𝒉𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒚 𝒇𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕?

𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒎𝒆, 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒚. 𝑰 𝒃𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒐𝒇𝒇 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒆-𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒔𝒚 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒚, 𝑰 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒅.

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒘𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒖𝒏𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒗𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒍. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝒎𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝒖𝒑 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒇𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒖𝒅𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒌𝒔 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒔 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒂 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒗𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒐 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒓𝒚.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒄 𝒃𝒍𝒖𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒆𝒚𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒇𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒚 𝒈𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒑𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒅𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒆, 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘, 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒓𝒆 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅-𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝑰 𝒏𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘.

𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘, 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒆, 𝑰 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒑𝒊𝒅 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍 𝒃𝒆𝒈𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓. 𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒚 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒑𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝒘𝒉𝒐’𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒍𝒆𝒇𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇?

𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒇𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒌𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝑰 𝒂𝒎 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒅𝒊𝒐𝒕 𝒗𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒅𝒐𝒛𝒆𝒏𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒔 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝑾𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒚 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒍𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝑰’𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆.

𝑰 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒚, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕𝒔. 𝑰𝒕 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑰 𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒘𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝑰𝒕 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑴𝒊𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑵𝒂𝒕, 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝑹𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒆 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒖𝒑 𝒊𝒏 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒄𝒍𝒖𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒖𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚’𝒓𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕. 𝑰𝒕 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝑰 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒑𝒊𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒂𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕. 𝑰𝒕 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒇𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑱𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝑩𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝑨𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑹𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓 𝑪𝒉𝒆𝒇. 𝑰 𝒃𝒆𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏’𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒏𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒑𝒖𝒔𝒉 𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒉𝒂𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒏, 𝑰 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕. 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔. 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒊𝒏 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑰 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒈𝒐 𝒐𝒏. 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒐 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒂𝒚. 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑰 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑰 𝒈𝒐 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒖𝒑 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒖𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏. 𝑰 𝒈𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒆'𝒔 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒂 𝒎𝒚 𝒇𝒂𝒖𝒍𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕 𝒖𝒑. 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒚 𝒆𝒇𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒐𝒏, 𝒎𝒚 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒈𝒐.

𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒌𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒏 𝑩𝒆𝒓𝒛𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒐. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑰’𝒅 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒐 𝒊𝒕 𝒂 𝒉𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒊𝒕 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆. 𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒔 𝒎𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒇𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒖𝒎𝒃, 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔𝒏’𝒕 𝒊𝒕?

𝑾𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒂 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒂 𝒋𝒐𝒌𝒆? 𝑨𝒔 𝑰’𝒎 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝒄𝒊𝒈𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒔𝒐 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒄 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒏 𝑩𝒆𝒓𝒛𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒐.

𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒊𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒕? 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒎𝒚 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒊𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕 𝒕��.

𝑵𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒎𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝑪𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒉𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒏 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒔, 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒚, 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆. 𝑩𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑰 𝒈𝒐 𝑰 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖.

𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒅𝒊𝒇𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒓𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚.

𝑼𝒍𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒚, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒂 𝒓𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒇𝒆𝒘 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒍𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒚 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒈𝒆𝒕.

𝑴𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝑰’𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒎𝒚 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒎𝒚 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓. 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒏𝒐𝒘, 𝒆𝒏𝒋𝒐𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝑰’𝒗𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆. 𝑨𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒇𝒖𝒄𝒌 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝒔𝒐 𝒂𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒈𝒊𝒇𝒕, 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆?

𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒏𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒚, 𝑰’𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍.

𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔 𝑨𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔,

Carmy let out a slight chuckle about your lack of knowledge in the culinary arts. He traced your closing signature fingers taking extra care when tracing over the longtime nickname in your sign-off. He allowed himself to let what he’d just read sink in, he was going to have to look for that article you mentioned. The tightness in his chest was ever present as he devoured every word you had written for him. He should’ve opened the letter sooner, he knew that now. He distracted himself from your words by digging through the discarded envelope fingers hoping to latch onto the pictures you mentioned.

He brought forth two aged Polaroid pictures. The first is a group photo of the five of you - Mikey, Richie, Sugar, You, and Carmy - all squished together in the photo. The date on Mikey’s hat reminded him exactly what the occasion was. The five of you were all huddled around The Beef’s booth, Mikey and Richie on the far left side, arms thrown over the other, big smiles directed at the camera. Sugar stood smiling in the middle hands placed on the cheap fold-out table in front of them. Carmy’s eyes drifted to the last two figures in the photo, the two of you taking up the right portion of the Polaroid.

There Carmy was sitting at the table relegated to manning the cash box because Mikey wouldn’t let him help with cooking. You were behind him, bending over to be at the same level as him, and your head sat comfortably next to his. Your arms were thrown around his shoulders, hanging off of him like a koala, your bright smile mesmerizing as it was directed at the camera. While you were looking at the camera, he was looking at you, head slightly turned in your direction, a small shy smile directed your way as he focused on you.

Carmy’s thumb came up to gently caress the 15-year-old versions of the two of you trapped in the Polaroid, the same small smile gracing his features as he remembered that day. He sat the picture in his lap before moving on to the next.

The second Polaroid was just the two of you. Dressed in your finest garments for senior prom, standing on the porch of the Berzatto home. He remembered that night, the night he took Claire to the prom and realized that no girl he took an interest in would compare to the way he felt for you. He focused on the old photo in his hand trying to ignore the lavish corsage your date had bought you.

The more he looked down at the photo, the more he decided it was his favorite of the two of you together. You and Carmy stood side by side, neither of you paying any attention to the camera, your body turned slightly into his as your right hand rested right where his heart was. His arm settled around your waist, both of you staring at each other, the picture capturing the moment Carmy knew he wanted more than a friendship with you. Right before the picture had been taken Carmy had whispered about how beautiful he thought you looked, he remembered the look in your eyes as his compliment caught you off guard, the way your eyes quickly flashed to his lips as he gave you his small shy smile.

Carmy patted his pockets before pulling out his wallet and slipping the photo into the clear partition. He collected the other photo and the letter you had sent him entering through the fire escape and heading to his kitchen. He found the random magnet that had been on his fridge since moving in and placed the group photo on his freezer.

He quickly maneuvered his way out of the kitchen, making his way to the closest in his bedroom. He rummaged through the mess looking for your designated box in his closet. Eyes finding the wrapped present he had meant to send you three months ago, even though it was April he was hoping you wouldn’t be too miffed about the lateness of your gift. He had tried to convince Mikey to send it for him but was called a “fucking idiot” before Mikey promptly hung up on him, and when he tried to ask Sugar for your address she told Carmy to ask you himself.

On top of not bringing you a present when he returned home for Christmas, it had taken a month to find a reputable seller for the specific vintage camera he was looking for. And another month on top of that to bargain with them and actually buy the camera, so Carmy thought he was doing a pretty good job for himself.

Making his way back into the kitchen Carmy sat the present on the countertop. He paced around the enclosed space, hyping himself up to make the call and ask for your address, and if he was lucky, maybe even invite you out to New York if you had any vacation days. He couldn’t help himself, although your letter to him was less than heart-warming, it ignited hope in him regarding you that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Leaning against the countertop, Carmy slipped his phone from his pocket. Opening up his contact list he scrolled down to your name, he clicked on it momentarily checking the time. It was 10 pm where you were, he knew you wouldn’t have been asleep yet. Carmy took one last deep breath before pressing the call button.

Camry listened to the phone ring as he placed it against his ear, foot tapping rhythmically against the linoleum. Eyes focused on your present sitting in his kitchen.

The tightness in Carmy’s chest intensified tenfold as he listened to the automated voice streaming through his ear.

“We’re sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.”

a/n: tag yourself, i’m carmy x self-sabotage : ) i almost changed carmy’s gift because i forgot his knife (the one he gave tina) already has his initials, but then i realized baby wouldn’t even know that and since carmy seems like the type to not spoil himself baby will lol. i promise carmy won’t be an asshole forever he’s just stupid atm. also i don’t know shit about culinary tools and i got caught up looking at pretty knives so i just picked my favorite 😭

let me know if there are any questions regarding the timeline and i’ll make a post about it or something!!

taglist: @hawkins-2000 @elliesbabygirl @allbark-no-bite @anakinswh0re3005 @rexorangecouny @thecraziestcrayon @fruitcupsworld @nishinoyahhh @lilylovelyxo @ridingthehotmessexpress @noas-ark @jadeittic @hellokittyever @luvr-bunnyy @sxgees @fandomhopped @is-this-a-febreze-commercial @kravitzwhore @chanluuvr @readingwiththereids @chims-kookies @ladygrey03 @ferida-kahlo @wanderlustnightwanderer @how2besalty @armydrcamers @jointherebellion215 @jackierose902109 @blkbxrbie-esther @ajordan2020 @head-slut-in-charge @magnet-girl @thebookwormlife @yeehawbitchs @khena @kailyn-05 @ovaqma @fire-treasure-iii @frequentnosebleeder @gcidvrsh @awatt31 @cauliflowerpatch

#carmen berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto angst #carmen berzatto x you #the bear x reader #the bear fic #all i ever knew only you ₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊#[aiekoy] interlude 0 #[aiekoy]

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xjustakay · 5 months

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✺ (1/8) ✺ @jegulus-microfic prompt: converse — 1,130 words (jegulus dads ft. harry; going through harry’s baby things)

“Oh no.” There’s a dramatic level of pain in James’ voice —there has been all afternoon since they started this project— and Regulus sighs quietly, lips twitching at the corners. “Reg, look at these.”

Regulus finishes folding the quilt that Pandora made for Harry to leave the hospital in, sets it in its new box marked ‘keep,’ then turns to his husband.

This has been a common occurrence as they’ve undertaken this task; going through Harry’s baby things to see what they truly need to hold onto and what can be donated has been an emotional journey. Admittedly, Regulus is having a progressively difficult time keeping it together the more that they find, but he’s let James be the one to express the feelings they’re both experiencing. Loudly and repetitively.

Balanced on James’ wide palm is a pair of infant-sized Converse, so tiny it’s hard to believe they ever belonged to a person, much less that that person was the five year old that’s currently coloring at a folding table in the corner of their garage. The little shoes are red, matching a pair that James has kept consistently replaced and in his wardrobe for years.

“I can’t believe he was ever this small,” James muses, stroking one finger over the laces of one.

“I know,” Regulus sighs, bottom lip jutting out in a faint pout. Okay, it’s getting to him now. They’ve been at this for hours, they’re near done. He told himself he wasn’t going to get in his feelings about this, at least not until they’d finished, but… “I think I miss it.”

“Me too.” James reaches for his hand, tows him close to his side to curl his arm around him, both their gazes remaining fixed on the baby shoes. “Should we have another one?”

Regulus lets out a surprised sounding laugh, swinging a backhanded swat gently into James’ stomach. “We have Luna in the picture, too.”

“Also no longer a baby,” James points out. “We could definitely do it.”

“You’re forgetting an important detail.”

“What’s that?”

Regulus half-turns in the curl of James’ arm to look toward their son where Harry sits. A marker clutched just a smidge too tight in one hand, tongue poking out between his teeth in concentration. There’s smudges of different marker colors on his hands, a few pens uncapped and drying out scattered on the table top. Harry doesn’t look up until Regulus calls his name.

“Yes, papa?” He nudges his glasses up and blinks wide green eyes over at him, curious.

“How do you feel about having a baby brother or sister?” Regulus asks.

Harry’s brow furrows deeply. “I already have a sister.”

Regulus gestures toward the little boy as if his point has just been made.

“Another one, then. Wouldn’t that be fun, mate?” James suggests.

Scrunching his face up further in thought, Harry tilts his head, taps the marker in his hand against his chin. Regulus huffs a quiet laugh when the pause extends for several seconds, serious thought clearly being given to this question. In the end, Harry shrugs his shoulders dramatically, keeping them held up toward his ears.

“Well, I don’t know,” He says. “Would I have to share my toys?”

“You already have to share your toys, because that’s the nice thing to do,” Regulus reminds him.

“But a baby can’t play with all of my toys. Because they’re a baby and I’m not a baby.”

“Solid logic on that, mate,” James chuckles. He moves to set the red Converse on the table between the keep and donate boxes, undecided on where they belong. “We’ll think about it, eh? Put a pin in it?”

Harry looks at them both for a long moment before nodding his head once, poking his open marker into the air like he’s physically putting a pin in the thought. Instead of returning to coloring, he drops the marker onto the table —Regulus makes a mental note to replace this pack again when it’s the fifth one left to dry out. Wiggling off his chair, Harry comes over to them, picking up the shoes James sat down.

“Were these mine?” He asks, giggling when he stuffs his fingers into one and wears it like an odd glove. “They’re so small.”

“Yeah, so were you,” Regulus hums.

“But I’m tall now. Taller than Luna and Draco, too.” Harry puts the other shoe on his opposite hand, smacking the small soles together in semblance of a clap.

“You used to match daddy when you wore those shoes as a baby, you know,” Regulus tells him, pointing at his hidden hands.

“Used to put you in them all the time when we’d go out together,” James adds, smiling fondly.

Harry looks down at the shoes, silly with his hands in them, then back up at the two of them with an unexpected frown. “How come we don’t anymore?”

Regulus turns his head, looking at James in playful accusation. “An excellent question.”

“Hey, now, don’t act like this is my fault. You were the one that encouraged him making all his own choices. He never picked the Converse himself,” James argues.

“Well, I could get some now, daddy,” Harry stresses like this is the most obvious answer. He holds up his hands, shoes on display. “‘Cause these ones are too small.”

“Should we save them for the baby, you think?” James asks him.

“So we can all match.” Harry nods at first but then cuts himself short, eyes landing on Regulus. “But papa doesn’t have any.”

“Red isn’t papa’s color,” Regulus says.

“Beg to differ.” James’ mumble earns him an elbow in the ribs, a laugh punching out of him. “We’ll get some for papa, too, just for fun.”

“And then these ones are for the baby,” Harry confirms, setting the Converse back on the table.

“Well. We’ve circled back to this very quickly,” Regulus comments, amused, shaking his head slowly.

James hums in acknowledgment, grinning triumphantly when Regulus looks at him. He leans in and leaves a kiss against his forehead, lips still pressed against the spot, breath breezing through black curls, when he tells Harry to drop the shoes into the keep box for them. Regulus watches him examine each box, fondness blooming warmth in his chest as Harry sounds out letters he recognizes to figure out which box is the right one.

They’ve all done such a good job with this perfect little boy of theirs, doing it all over again with a new baby might just make life impossibly more wonderful.

We’ll put a pin in it, Regulus thinks again.

He’ll have to wait and see when it’s truly circled back to in seriousness. He keeps it to himself that he wouldn’t mind if it was sooner rather than later.

#jegulus #starchaser #sunseeker #jegulus microfic #baby harry #except he’s a big ol five year old #i missed them #got jeggy dad feels today so here have this cute fun little time #gonna curl up into a ball over them actually i’m emo #i love them so much #kay’s writing #kay’s microfics #jeggy dads series

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ackermanbloodline · 10 months

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Paperwork (Part I) - Levi Ackerman x Female Reader

Summary: As a high-ranking officer, part of your responsibilities is ensuring that the tedious amount of paperwork following every mission gets done. But when your team goes out on an expedition and all get slaughtered, you find yourself absolutely drowning in it. A giant pile of papers at your desk is now under a strict deadline by Commander Erwin for the next morning. How will you get it done in time?

Word Count: 4k

* * *

You glance over tiredly at the stack of papers that still need to be completed with your head resting on your hand. It has been only a few hours since you began this giant mound of paperwork. Unsurprisingly but still tragically, you lost most of your team in the struggle for Trost. And whenever there is death, a torturous amount of paperwork always follows.

Commander Erwin demanded that it be done by sunrise. Much to your dismay, he has ordered you to stay behind in order to meet this deadline while everyone else attends Eren’s military tribunal in front of Dhalis Zachary. Being a captain, you have spent your recent days incessantly scouting with your team. As a result, you haven’t had much time for the mind-numbing paperwork that comes with your title. If you are being truthful, this is the part of your job you hated the most.

Yes, even more than facing the titans.

Rays of sun brightly beam down onto the papers in front of you. It’s midday and there isn’t a single single cloud in the sky: the most perfect day to scout if there ever was one. And there you are. Stuck inside doing fucking paperwork. A heavy sigh heaves from your chest as you crack your knuckles and stretch your joints. You readjust yourself in your office chair, pick up your pen, and get back to work. You eventually tune out the painful cramping in your hand.

It seems endless. Paper after paper is the same, yet the details aren’t. Each new document requires a different medium of attention and recollection. It isn’t until the sky glows with pinks and yellows and purples that you take another break to bring yourself back from the brink of insanity. The saturated colors reflect throughout the walls of your office.

You turn around to look out the group of windows behind you and it’s breathtaking. The dimming sun sits just on the outer wall as warm pigments fill the air. Dark blue creeps in from above, slowly consuming the sky as the day dwindles away. You push your hair back and stand up. Your muscles slightly ache due to the lack of activity they’ve had today, making you wince slightly. Your hands reached down to your thighs and squeeze, giving them a quick massage.

With the observance of sundown, you look across the room and squint at the giant grandfather clock. Your mouth drops open slightly when you realize that you have been going at it for over twelve hours now without any real breaks.

I’ll finish up fifteen more and then go for a walk, even if it’s down the hall, you thought to yourself.

Those fifteen forms end up taking nearly two hours. You cover the tip of your pen with the cap and throw it on your desk, rubbing your eyes tiredly and groaning with exhaustion. You can practically feel the shadows darkening underneath your eyes. The good news is that the stack of papers was about half the size it was earlier.

You carefully place the candle holder in your hand, lit with a candle, and make your way to the bathroom. You gaze at the person in the mirror, who was almost unrecognizable. Dark circles riddle your bloodshot eyes, your skin color is abnormally pale, and your lips are chapped from lack of fluids. To say that you look like shit is a gross understatement.

You shake your head before turning on the tap and splashing your face a few times. The chiliness of the water slightly wakes you up and your face tingles. You turn it off and grip the sides of the sink in frustration. Your stomach groans and grumbles excruciatingly. Your palm lands on your abdomen, clutching it with pain.

It took me all day just to get halfway done with that pile. Fuck. But I have to get this done tonight. How can I even be in the Survey Corps at all if I can’t even complete this? God, Erwin will think I’m a joke. But I have to get some food in me.

Your hands search for a towel to pat your face and hands dry. You look at yourself again and straightened your clothes out, tucking away stray hairs back behind your ear. Once you found yourself to be somewhat presentable, you retrieve the candle from the sink and exit the bathroom.

You pull the office doors open to reveal dark and quiet hallways. You can probably hear a pin drop. You must’ve been so focused on your paperwork that you didn’t hear all the soldiers come in after today’s excursions. Everyone’s doors were shut. It must be almost midnight, at least.

As you near the kitchen, your stomach continues to send hunger pangs through your body. You grab it in annoyance again as you round the corner to the kitchen. You pad over to the cabinet and open it to find the usual leftovers: bread, soup, and potatoes. Your mouth floods.

You opt for bread and heat up some sort of meat soup. Once everything is ready, you sit down on a chair in the dining area with your candle. You silently gave thanks for the meal before diving in. The steaming bread and the soup tastes better than usual, probably because of your extravagant appetite.

Your cherished moments are short-lived when you see someone enter the kitchen, also with a candle in their hand. You could recognize the person from anywhere. Shorter in height, raven hair with an undercut, and an infamous, near constant scowl written upon his countenance. The only and only Captain Levi: Humanity’s Strongest Soldier.

Although you two never interacted much, you’ve heard many stories about him, including how he single-handedly saved Eren, Mikasa, and Armin from a titan shortly after Eren successfully completed his task of filling the breach in Wall Maria. Commander Erwin also recently had a meeting with distinguished military figures to plot and strategize for the next counterattack. He only spoke a few times and when he did, his thoughts were organized and clear.

Regardless of his presence, you continue to eat while he heated up tea. When your spoon scrapes against the side of your soup bowl, he turns his attention towards you. As quiet as a ghost, strolls over and stands next to you just a few inches away.

“Captain,” you regard him, breaking the silence.

“Hello,” his voice replies lowly. “Having a late-night snack, are we?”

“Something like that.”

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” you smiled up at him sarcastically. “Just what anyone loves to hear after a long day.”

“Mhm. Speaking of, how’s that paperwork coming along?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Erwin.”

You sigh, “If you must know, I’m halfway done.”

“What? Have you been fucking around all day? You should be further than that by now.”

You sighed with exasperation, “With all due respect, Captain Levi—”

“Statements that start off like that rarely come across that way.”

“Regardless. Are you going to let me finish my meal in peace so I can get back to it or are you going to continue to hassle me?”

Levi goes quiet for a moment before responding.

“You were allotted a deadline, correct?”

“Yes, sunrise.”

“I can help you complete the remaining work.”

You almost spit out your tea mid-swig as it goes down the wrong pipe at his words, causing you to cough and look up at him with confusion. You’re met with a condescending, disgusted stare. A broken chuckle escapes your lips. He’s got to be kidding.

“This an offer or an order? Captain Levi, may I remind you that we’re both captains. Not to mention you know—” you stop for a moment and your eyes drop. “—knew—virtually nothing about my squad.”

“Both,” he turns away, looking over his shoulder. “And may I remind you that I have been here longer and I’m older. But if you want to push your body and mind past the point of exhaustion and still fail to meet Commander Erwin’s expectations, knock yourself out.”

Your hands retract into balled fists in frustration at the situation, nails biting into your palms in deep crescents. I guess I have no choice, do I?

“Alright.”

“Meet me in my office in ten minutes. And don’t be late.”

Captain Levi grabs a cup from the cabinet, poures himself the tea, and leaves. You are left staring ahead, dumbfounded. You snapp out of it quickly as his voice echoes in your mind. You scarfed down the remainder of your meal and wash up before walking back to your office in solitude.

You stroll over to your desk and sort out what needs to come with you. You pack it neatly in a briefcase and lock it. With a candle in your left hand and the briefcase in your right, you head towards Captain Levi’s office with a racing heart.

You approach the doors, which are much bigger, wider, and darker than yours. You lift your hand to knock and find yourself hesitating, your knuckles hovering just beside the sturdy wood. You take a deep breath to stabilize yourself and knock three times. For a moment, you hear nothing. Not even footsteps. You jump back slightly when the door suddenly opens and Captain Levi stands there with a stoic expression.

The cravat he usually wore is no longer tucked into his shirt. He isn’t even wearing a suit jacket. The first few buttons of his white shirt were somehow neatly undone, revealing a hint of his toned skin on his upper torso. Warm light shines from behind him—

“Are you going to just stand there and gawk or are you going to come in?”

Without realizing it, he had stepped to the side, allowing the door to open wider for you to enter.

You nod at him, composure remaining, “Thank you.”

Once you step through, you struggle to keep your jaw from dropping. His study is, dare you say it, beautiful. Numerous, tiny candles glowed warmly on the walls. Many bookshelves adorn the room as well as fine decor in dark frames. The shelves aren’t cluttered, quite the opposite. The contents on them are organized and minimal. The tall white ceiling has some type of flowery, elegant design on it. A large, intricate woven rug with dark greens, reds, grays, and black cushion your feet from the hardwood floor.

If you could summarize it, Captain Levi’s palette is dark and was accented with earthy colors. Even his large desk and accompanying chair are made out of a dark, glossy wood. Your eyebrows furrow with bewilderment when you both avert your directions opposite of the secretary.

You follow him and a large dining table with numerous chairs comes into your vision, seemingly with the same material his desk is made out of with the same glossy finish. An elegant, dark candelabra is lit up at the center of the table. A fire crackles in the fireplace and reflects off the table. Above the fireplace is a shelf for books and, above it, a giant piece of expensive-looking artwork.

It’s a bit unusual that he wants to work at the same place he eats, especially given his rumored cleaning habits, but you don’t say anything.

“Your office is nice,” you compliment, filling the quiet void as you pull out a chair and set the briefcase down on it. He nods and watches as your fingers fiddled with the metal clasps to get it open. You take out the contents and lay them down neatly on the dining table with two pens.

“I suppose it could be worse,” he says as he looks down at the stacks of papers, reaching a hand out towards them. He gauges the amount of work by using his index finger to flip the corners up. His dark hair falls in front of his eyes as he grabbed a stack. “Grab a pile and get to work.”

You roll your eyes at his abrasive command but grab a pile anyway. He brings the pen to his cravat and wipes it off with the slightest twinge of disgust on his face.

I guess the rumors of him being a clean freak were actually true.

You both sit at opposite ends of the table and throughout the process, he questions you about your squad, their respective positions and responsibilities, and the nature of their deaths. Apart from that, it’s quiet. Almost deathly quiet. That is, until the subtle sounds of pitter patter of rain plummets onto the windows of his office. It isn’t long before the boom of thunder and the streaks of lightning echoes in the sky. The pouring of the sound against the roof reverberates around the room, emitting a calming hum.

An hour or two pass by and you find yourself sometimes looking up through your eyelashes at the captain across the table, noting how many papers he has completed as the night goes on. His eyebrows are furrowed together yet somehow he maintains a blank expression, his eyes always lowered. His pen strokes are sharp and assertive, the flicking of his wrist being evidence of that fact.

You feel more and more pathetic with each paper he completed on your behalf.

“How you doin’ over there?” you break the silence between you and Captain Levi. His gaze met yours and he nodded in your direction.

“Getting there,” he says quietly. “Your pile looks the same as we first started. Move it. We don’t have all night.”

“I take my time when doing my paperwork to make sure it’s completed thoroughly.”

“Are you implying that I don’t do the same?”

“I am implying, captain, that you’ve been here longer than I have and you’re older. Isn’t that the sentiment you expressed earlier?”

Captain Levi scoffs.

“I suggest you learn quicker if you are to make it in the Survey Corps.”

“Thank you, but I’ve made it this far. I’m doing pretty well.”

Something flashes in Captain Levi’s features at that moment. His facial expression quickly became stoic again as he looked back down and resumed filling out the papers in front of him. You smile with victory. Nobody has had the courage to quip back at the captain like that.

Some time later, something clangs onto the table beside you, causing you to jump back. It’s a wine glass full of red liquid, presumably wine. Your gaze locks on it in bewilderment for a moment before looking up at the retreating hand, your eyes following up the wrist, arm, shoulder, neck, then face. Captain Levi has his gaze fixed on yours with another wine glass in his hand.

“Uh… thank you…?” you follow his figure as he sat back down in his seat across the table. He takes a drink from the wine. “I didn’t take you as a drinker.”

“You’d be correct.”

You pick up the wine and bring it to your lips, “So… why the wine, then? Are you trying to poison me?”

“Your sense of humor certainly doesn’t do any favors,” he says, setting his glass on the table with a muted clang. “You look like something crawled up your ass. I’ve seen you more relaxed outside the outer wall than right now.”

You stay quiet, waiting on him to elaborate.

“You’re overthinking it. You’re grazing over every miniscule detail in your mind, replaying them so you can reiterate word-for-word what happened to your comrades during their last breaths. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.”

Your hand clenches around the glass, tight. You make a conscious effort for your voice to remain stern but natural as you respond to him.

“I appreciate your candor. But my goal is to bring solace and peace to those we’ve lost and their families. They made the ultimate sacrifice.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeats again, this time with an edge to his voice. “They’re still just as dead. Let it go and do your job.”

Shit. As much as you don’t want to admit it, he is right. For the entire day, you’ve been reliving your squad’s screams and seeing their blood splatter on the stone below as their skulls are crushed in between rows of giant teeth. You didn’t realize it, but you had been torturing yourself, even contemplating what you could’ve done to save them. Did the families really need to know the way that their loved ones went out in such a vile way in a play-by-play?

You close your eyes and take a sip of the wine. The flavor is delicious and fruity on your tongue. You’ve tasted a myriad of different wines before, but none you ever truly liked. This was sweet but also tart at the same time. It tastes more like grape juice than actual alcohol.

* * *

Done. I’m finally fucking done.

You set your pen calmly on the table, your hand actually shaking and the writer's callus on your finger completely decompressed. A heavy sigh escapes your lips as you lean back with exhaustion. The room slightly spins and you swallow harshly to fight the feeling of nausea uncomfortably brewing in the pit of your stomach.

You note how the wine bottle in the middle of the table sits, completely empty. You both had the same amount of wine, only two or three glasses, but it seems like he is handling it much better than you are. Not to mention there is an distinguishable ache deep between the apex of your thighs.

Captain Levi had got done with his section of the paperwork about a half hour ago. He has been going back and reviewing his work, but you could feel his eyes meeting yours like a parent scolding a misbehaving child.

“Let this be a lesson to not let this much paperwork get away from you.”

You nod, “Yeah, that’s good advice. Thank you, Captain.”

You stand up and make your way over to him, pushing the papers into the soft pocket of the briefcase. Once everything is inside, you lock it up and sit it back down on the chair. You lean forward onto the table, your hair falling in strands around your face as you avert your gaze downward onto the immaculate wood floor. Everything is spinning. It’s too much.

A hand suddenly but softly plants itself along the small of your back and Captain Levi’s mouth drops to your ear, brushing along the shell of it. A series of shivers involuntarily runs along your spine. Your mind begins racing a mile a minute as the ache between your thighs grows stronger.

What is this? I… huh? Maybe it’s the wine.

“If you’re going to vomit, I strongly suggest you use the washroom.”

A hearty laugh escapes your mouth but quickly fades away as you realize the amount of work he did on your behalf. He completed at least a quarter of it. Feelings of embarrassment and incapableness flood your mind like a tsunami. Now, you truly do feel like you are going to be sick.

“Why did you help me?” you sigh, facing him and folding your arms over your chest. Your cheeks feel hot. Whether it’s from the alcohol or the turbulence of emotions you are feeling, you aren’t sure. “You didn’t have to. We barely even know each other.”

“You had been filling out paperwork for hours on end. It was pathetic to see you moping in the kitchen so late at night.”

“Always met with some condescending answer. Wish you’d, for once, have some empathy in your responses, Captain.”

“Alright,” he quips back immediately. “How’s this… you actually have drive, dedication, and valuable intel that could benefit us in turning the tide of this 100-year titan reign. And I know you know this because you’re not a spineless coward whenever I speak to you like everyone else.”

Your mouth goes dry at his statement. You rock back and forth on your feet, not knowing how to respond. Instead, you walk over to the fireplace and look up at the artwork that hangs above it. It’s a picture of the most infamous fallen angel in history, his dark eyes boring into the viewer’s like a knife: Lucifer.

Your hesitant gaze meet the captain’s again and you’re surprised at what you see. He looks intrigued for once, his eyes slightly alight with interest.

“I have to ask… why did you join the Survey Corps?”

“Is this question a result of curiosity or the wine?”

“I’d say both.”

“To put it simply, it was never a plan. Erwin found me during a dark place in my life and insisted I join. That’s all that matters.”

A silence fills the air aside from the occasional crackling and popping of the firewood. Something about it also feels heavy. You’re so exhausted and you don’t know what to say to anything he responds with.

You feel tired. So, so tired. It’s time to go home and sleep for the next five days.

“Thank you for your assistance,” you turn toward him and say with sincerity, looking towards the door. “I never would’ve gotten the paperwork done in time if it wasn’t for you. I’ll show myself out.”

He asks suddenly as you reach for the briefcase handle, “I deflect the same question onto you: what made you want to join the Scouts?”

“Uh, I guess I’ve always wanted to help people,” you answer honestly, nervously playing with your fingers and looking towards the window. “I… wanted to make a difference in the world. I know, every single soldier who has joined the Survey Corps has said that. It’s a broke fucking record at this point. But I actually mean it. My household life wasn’t the greatest growing up. I wanted to get away from it and the Survey Corps was my way out. When I was training, I studied and worked harder, longer, faster than everybody else to land in the top ten of the class. Not because I wanted the freedom to choose my own branch, but because I wanted to prove to myself that I could be an asset to humanity by joining the regiment. That I’m worth something.”

Your eyes widen at your own words, realizing that you had definitely overshared. You haven’t told anybody that before. Not anybody. Ever. You internally kick yourself in the ass. Captain Levi has more important matters to tend to rather than hearing your pathetic backstory.

That goddamn wine.

Your heart thumps in your chest at the thought of looking at him. You swallow your saliva, which was almost unbearably thick with nervousness, and muster up the gumption to do so anyway.

He strolls over to you with a stern look across his face and your stomach drops. It feels as if your heart is skipping beats now. He stops and stands a few inches away. You swore you could feel Captain Levi’s body heat radiating onto you.

“That wine has really gotten to you,” he mutters. His voice, when he’s this close, causes a vibration to stir within you. A blood blush creeps up onto your cheeks and the tingling and feeling between your legs almost makes your eyes close with pleasure. “Tell me something…”

You blink slowly, “Hm?”

“Did it spark your libido?”

Your breath hitches involuntarily. In the most confident tone you could muster, you clear your throat and speak.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain.”

“Your body shuttered when I placed a palm on your back. You kept crossing your legs underneath the dining table and looking up at me. Your face is heating up as we speak. It’s evident that my theory is true.”

Your voice seemingly vanishes as when you try to respond, nothing comes out. Instead, your eyelashes flutter in response and a throb echoes throughout your body. He attempts to close the gap between you but you step back. Still, he follows. You back up and he keeps walking. The back of your legs eventually encounters something soft, probably the couch, causing you to fall back. Before you could though, Captain Levi wrapped an arm around your waist and holds you below his gaze, his other hand squeezing at your waist. Your hands land on his lean shoulders instinctively.

His eyes bore into yours in a way that makes you want to shrivel up.

“What are you doing?” you whisper, almost in horror.

“Something I’ve always wanted to do.”

* * *

Read Part II

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cyberwhumper · 1 month

Text

Soft metal clinking against metal. The distant voices of people talking. The sun, oppressively bright, staring straight into half-lidded eyes. Cold air wafts into the room through the AC ducts, making body hairs stand on end. Machines whirr to life at precise intervals, undercut by the beeping of monitors. Cables of all sizes connect the animal to the instruments responsible for performing its basic functions, if only temporarily.

It seems the surgery had been a success despite the complications.

The brand-new optics sway slowly from side to side. Scanning the room. They can see on their screens exactly what the animal is seeing, big blurs of color amidst blinding white. Not unusual for the brain to take a bit to sync up and adapt to the new input. Even less so considering the damage it took and the amount of sedation the mutt is currently on. Chapped lips mouth at the tubes with not a coherent thought to express. It doesn't even make any noise.

The prototype arm lays on the table, partially disassembled. All sorts of cables connect to its ports as if they are bundles of artificial nerves and muscle tissue, responsible for making sure the signals from the brain get properly interpreted and responded to. All dutifully relayed from their corresponding origin points into the surgically implanted joint. The wound may not be properly healed yet, but considering the setbacks they've already had because of the complications, it seems unwise to wait even longer.

Well. Nothing that can't be fixed by upping the dosage of drugs on the animal's IVs, right?

Mal presses a finger to its skin. Watches as the hazy eyes flutter closed, then open again towards his general direction, unable to focus on anything. More pressure. Not much more of a response.

He sighs. Pulls a pen out of his pocket. Stabs it fast and quick into the restrained wrist. The pale fingers twitch in response. Move as though the animal was trying its best to reach for whatever hurt it through the fog of its brain.

And so do the fingers on the mechanical arm.

[OC INDEX]

Tag list: @whumpsday // @demondamage // @squidlife-crisis // @whumpedydump // @cyborg0109 // @whumpfish // @astrowhump // @the-scrapegoat // @whatwhumpcomments // @dustbunnywhump // @why-not-ask-me-a-better-question // @dokidokisadness // @moss-tombstone // @lambofmine // @maracujatangerine // @pinkraindropsfell // @writereleaserepeat // @blood-and-regrets // @littlespacecastle // @snakebites-and-ink // @unforgiven235 // @lonesome--hunter // @atomicsandwichprince // @writereleaserepeat // @whatamidoingherehelpme // @skittles-the-whumpee // @the-blind-one-speaks // @i-eat-worlds // @devourerofcheesecake // @theauthorintraining // @otterfrost // @mommymarichatfurever // @whumpifi // @catnykit // @bitchaknso // @softmutt444 // @yet-another-heathen // @blackbirdsinatrenchcoat // @burnticedlatte // @violent-ultraviolet // @limitlesstrash17 // @inspiral-rl // @coyotehusk // @mis-graves //

If you’re interested in being added to the tag list, please let me know!

#whump #whump art #amputation #whumpee #lab whump #medical torture #needles #blood #bruises #whumpblr #art #original character #original story #non consensual body modification #tokimeki art #oc #Mal #Dog #in other news: Dog was always fucking massive

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rallentando1011 · 5 months

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Somnambulant Soulmates (rise Donnie x gn reader)

(continuation of this drabble)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Word Count: 3730

The late night bled into early morning, yielding a desperately deprived turtle the next day.

It was already well into the afternoon when he finally stirred following what could hardly be considered a restful night.

He did it to himself; he was aware of that. Still didn’t stop him from scrolling ceaselessly all night long. The only thing that prevented him from getting back on his phone this morning was the fact that he neglected to plug any of his technology in last night.

Groggily, he leaned over to the side of his bed to place his phone on its port.

Regardless of his disoriented mind and the sleepiness in his eyes that couldn’t seem to go away by rubbing them, Donnie recognized that he should probably get out of bed.

Any time now.

Donnie blinked, waiting for any response from his limbs to the orders from his mind. After a few more moments, his legs lugged themselves over the side of his mattress, his arms willed themselves to push him up to sit on his silky purple sheets.

The softshell rested his elbows on his knees as he sat on the edge of his bed, his head drooped to the perfect level for his radial fingers to once again try to instill some alertness in his system by rubbing his eyes. It was, once again, to no avail, so he settled on just getting otherwise prepared for the day.

Donnie pushed himself up from his bed uneasily, taking tentative steps toward his desk. The terrapin latched onto the side of it as soon as it was within reach, relying on it to hold himself upright. Alright, getting out of bed proved successful. His attention landed on his next task: prepping his tech.

A three-digited hand glided over the desk to snag the purple fabric mask he wore on the daily. Donnie squinted at it to inspect the crispness of the drawn-on eyebrows on the mask and, upon finding them to be satisfactory, fastened the cloth around his head. His fingers moved adeptly and swiftly, used to the type of knot he needed to produce the signature triangular mask tails at the base of his neck.

After the mask came his goggles, mystically enhanced and forged by his own hand. Though uneven in size and color, the left side being slender, taller, with a blue lens, the other stout and red, their receptors picked up on mystic energy, had night vision, among other tactical, practical things, due to the mystic gems he’d integrated into them. He gently scooped his goggles up, mindlessly sliding them right into place.

Next on the agenda was his battle shell. Similar in hue to his mask and also made by the resident genius himself, the tech served many a function. It provided additional, albeit metallic, hands for working and fighting, it housed a plethora of complex and futuristic weaponry, and it executed its primary function: providing protection for his vulnerable softshell.

He slid the addition onto his back, relishing the satisfying click as it moved right into place.

No sooner than it was on, Donnie almost jumped straight out of it.

A screeching noise sounded loudly from beside his bed.

The turtle practically leapt into the air, unceremoniously landing halfway on his desk and sending a flurry of empty aluminum cans and pens to the ground.

Hand to his chest like a septuagenarian clutching their pearls, he pinpointed the noise to the nightstand beside his bed. His phone must have charged.

It didn’t sound like his normal alarm, or the one that went off when some unimaginable mystic horror was attacking New York.

No, it was an alarm that meant something far worse.

His face sunk as he leapt back over to his phone, hoping not to confirm what he already knew was true.

It was the unfortunate alarm that meant only one thing: it was someone’s birthday

Lo and behold, as soon as he turned on his phone’s screen, it revealed the name and picture of the one and only April O’Neil.

April, his best friend/sister with a track record of terrible birthdays which he was probably making worse by not having already messaged her warm regards this late in the day.

Yeah, that April.

For the love of Sørenson, he was in some deep water.

No, no, need to panic yet. Maybe the sentiment behind his gift for her would keep her from becoming irate with him.

He glanced back to the aforementioned present, currently sitting on his desk beside a dozing S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.

Surely the (possibly) sentient toaster he made for her that made the perfect toast (and definitely would not turn destructive or downright evil) would soothe any qualms she had with him!

…

He needed to message her ASAP.

Donnie opened his phone only to be subject to even more terrors.

19 missed calls from April. Even more from his brothers. Flurries of texts and voicemails and oh Galileo was he screwed.

The plethora of frantic messages led to him checking what time April’s party began, and checking the time led to a deeper panic to sink in. It started in negative thirty minutes.

A.K.A. thirty minutes ago.

Donnie froze.

Then he bolted, paying no mind to trying to message anyone back, instead haphazardly slapping on some clothes, snagging April’s gift, and getting the heck to her party.

He could fabricate an excuse/apology on the way there.

Probably something about how it took time to look this good.

Or, the more likely ladder, begging April for forgiveness. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You had also had a late start to the day.

A late-night business venture had led you to messaging all night and boy, were you tired.

Still, you’d managed to get yourself up with about a metric tonne of coffee and a birthday party as incentive.

The birthday party, of course, belonged to none other than THE April O’Neil.

You had met her at a retail job, a fairly mundane one that had subpar pay and even more bland shifts.

Your shifts, however, were quickly livened up by April’s presence. She always had a joke to crack, or got into some wacky, zany shenanigan that led to you two laughing up a storm and/or getting in trouble with your superiors.

April quickly moved on from the job, resigning after she missed too many days and it became too boring for her adrenaline junkie side. It wasn’t that it was an infrequent occurrence for her to quit. That girl had worked just about every career in the city, an impressive feat in the Big Apple.

Despite how she bounced around from job to job from week to week, your bond remained sturdy, the two of you still frequenting coffee shops and sending each other dumb memes.

Hence you found yourself awaking much earlier than you preferred, throwing on a cozy, yet nice enough sweater and jeans, and making your way to April’s apartment.

That led you to where you currently sat on her couch. In one hand sat your nigh empty solo cup, sloshing lightly with each flick of your wrist, in the other was a stack of seven appropriately foul cards for the ongoing game of Cards Against Humanity at the party.

The living room, where the congregation was gathered, was abuzz with light conversation and warm, glowy lights. The birthday girl herself sat beside you on the couch, one knee tucked over the other.

You knew some of the guests, having been acquainted with them from prior meetings: Sunita, a previous birthday of April’s, and Casey, a few movie nights with her and April. The former was also on the couch, wearing a silky magenta dress, nestled between the armrest and April. The latter sat on the ground, wearing ripped black jeans and a muscle shirt adorned with numerous skulls and crossbows. Some of those in attendance, however, were newly introduced to you.

Namely, the bale of turtle brothers that you met today.

April had frequently talked of her brothers and some of the ridiculous situations she got into with them, like leaping over rooftops, exploring sewers, and had mentioned that they weren’t the most normal of company. You hadn’t realized how much so she meant that.

As soon as you’d arrived, nearly an hour ago, the youngest had introduced himself in a very bubbly manner, with an enthusiastic handshake and brilliant smile to boot. The turtle was dressed in a snug, orange turtleneck (of all things), a mask that matched the color of the shirt, and deep brown pants. He mentioned his name was Mikey as he continued shaking your hand, much to your amusement and confusion.

A taller turtle, clad in blue with a major lack of clothing, save for his mask, gloves, spats, and a fanny pack, had gently shoved his younger brother away, saying something along the lines of “let’s not dismember the first new person we’ve met in a while.”

That one introduced himself as Leo, or, as he added, “the coolest one.” You were fairly certain you’d just call him by his name.

Next, you were greeted by an approximately six-foot-tall turtle mutant. Though he seemed intimidating, he offered a rather demure hello, only telling you his name, Raph, when April nudged him with her elbow.

The entire time you’d stood just in the doorway, trying to process the whole situation. You were quickly brought out of your stupor by your friend snapping in front of your face, at which point you offered up your own name.

With the greetings out of the way, you barely had time to set down the gift you brought with the other ones on a side table in the small, comely kitchen and get a drink before April dragged you into the living room to join the festivities, along with Sunita and Casey, who were busy imbibing and chatting.

Each guest helped comprise the good-natured atmosphere and the gaggle of silly geese that was partaking in Cards Against Humanity.

Speaking of the game, it had been getting out of hand.

A white card about a snapping turtle biting an appendage in an unsavory manner had made the tallest turtle, Raph, grow fairly embarrassed, his face about as red as his mask while Casey and Leo razzed him.

Many a vulgar word was jokingly thrown out about certain celebrities.

Even more out of pocket things were exchanged through round after consecutive round.

Once you passed a card to the correct player, you mindlessly brought your cup to your lips, tilting it back and waiting for your sweet refreshment to grace your tongue. However, the endeavor proved unsuccessful, and as you scrutinized it, you noticed a severe lack of drink.

Well, you figured that in between rounds was the best time to leave the living room and the game to get something else to imbibe.

You leant up from where you’d been burrowed in the crevice of the couch, the sudden shift and lack of warmth drawing your proximate companion’s attention.

“You all good?” April inquired politely as you stood up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just getting a refill,” you rattled your cup, as if proving it bereft of beverage, and exchanged smiles with your pal.

As you stepped around other various cups along the ground, the blue one- er, Leo started to read through the cards he’d been given. “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s the amount of baby carrots-”

His voice trailed out of range as you dipped into the kitchen, mostly grateful for having avoided the rest of that sentence that made laughter burst out from the other room.

You merely shook your head with lighthearted amusement and crossed the room to two-liter drinks sitting on the counter. You rested one elbow on the countertop while your other hand generously poured yourself another glass.

Suddenly, the sound of three heavy raps at the front door drew your attention, your hand almost spilling the drink as you startled.

You set the bottle down, crossing back over by the door. With the ruckus coming from the living room entrance to your left, you assumed, likely correctly, that no one else had heard it. Welp, duty called.

So, you peered through the peephole to view who had knocked, only to see a hooded figure. Under their arm, an ornate metal box that you could only imagine to be a present was tucked.

Though you couldn’t exactly discern who was there, the gift and overall relaxed demeanor of the person was enough to convince you to open the door.

The figure before you sighed loudly, almost out of breath. They then seemed to draw in a large breath, as if preparing to start a speech of some sort, but stopped themself.

A purple hoodie hung cozily off his torso, the lavender tint only slightly lighter than that of his mask, but not off enough for them to not work cohesively. Gray cargo pants, intricately adorned with zippers and pockets, complemented the other apparel, and matched the shade of a jewel hanging off of a delicate chain loosely around his neck.

You took in more of his features as your eyes roved over his character.

Amber eyes. Warm enough. Almost inviting if not for the subtle distaste, possibly sleepiness, written in the creases of his lower lids. His eyes, however, were not the most obvious quality about him.

No, that distinction just about had to belong to the fact that he was a turtle.

Yeah, that seemed about right. April had been ranting to the three other turtle mutants about the lack of their brother, who you guessed to be the man right in front of you.

A jade, three-phalanged hand raised, offered a slight twitch of its wrist. His hand. A wave.

You stirred yourself from your thoughts, hoping you hadn’t come across as rude for ruminating a moment, and returned a polite wave of your own.

“Hey!” you greeted nicely, taking a step back to give him room and passage into the apartment. “I’m presuming you’re Donatello?”

For a second, you thought you’d heard the name wrong, based on how he uncomfortably sucked in a deep breath through his teeth. Before you could correct yourself, he spoke up.

“Bold of you to presume, but I can’t say you’re not correct,” Donatello shrugged as he let himself inside. You shut the door behind him. He cleared his throat. “Sticking with the theme of presumptions, and the fact that you called me by my government name, I’d say April’s ticked?”

Despite how you tried to hide your caution, your eyes still widened, and you gave a weary smile. “I think that the card games have calmed her down a bit, but I’d still tread lightly.” The conversation paused, neither of you knowing where to continue it before you thought of something he said. “Do you go by another name?”

He blinked quickly, pondering what you meant before catching on. “Donnie,” he mumbled.

You nodded, sharing your own name. You continued on, not wanting to go back to the awkward atmosphere of about twenty seconds prior. “Well, presents are over there,” you tilted your head toward the table where a few other gift bags were sitting, “and there are drinks on the counter.” You gestured behind you with a point of your thumb. “Everyone’s in the living room playi-”

“Well, look who finally decided to show up,” a familiar voice sounded from the living space entryway. April. She did not sound pleased.

Unsurprisingly, as you pivoted toward her, you noticed she didn’t look pleased either. Hands on her hips, lips in a pout. This Donnie fellow was in some deep trouble.

The terrapin froze from where he was setting down his metallic box, raising his hands. “Ah, April! Happy birthday?”

O’Neil was not having it.

“D, show up to my birthday on time, and then you get to wish me happy birthday” April bit back before heading to the counter and grabbing your drink for you. “Sorry about that,” she smiled pleasantly at you and, having seen April get peeved before, you knew to just smile and thank her.

Quip exchanged and turtle thoroughly perturbed, you followed April back into the cozy living space. You glanced back over your shoulder to see if he had even moved yet, but he still looked flabbergasted and left trying to formulate a response as he left your view.

You reclaimed your spot on the couch, easing back into the game. After only a few moments, the purple one emerged from the kitchen, drink in hand and dourness on his face. He lackadaisically glanced at the empty spot beside you on the couch and, once you scooted over slightly, plopped down next to you with a soft thud.

All of the other partygoers seemed very amused at his air, especially Leo, who grinned wickedly. “Look who showed-”

“‘Nardo, just don’t and deal me in.” If Donnie’s tone didn’t cut the joke down quickly, the glance he shot his brother certainly did.

“Yeesh, alright.” His brother relented and thumbed out seven cards.

The turtle beside you physically recoiled upon seeing the name of the game. While the game kicked back up with Sunita’s turn to read a black card, you gave him a puzzled look. He elaborated on his reaction, saying “This is garbage tier entertainment. Practically the card game equivalent of pineapples on pizza.”

Your lips parted slightly, and you squinted, trying to grasp that analogy. However, it was absurd enough that you let out a small chuckle.

As the rounds pressed on, you kept sipping at your drink and exchanging the occasional remark with April or Donnie.

Once, Mikey had said a combination of words that was especially rank. Based on his scrunched-up face, you assumed the small turtle had no idea what he was talking about, but it was bad either way.

“I can hardly believe we’re partaking in something so crass,” Donnie whispered beside you and placed the back of his hand on his forehead theatrically in a tone that rested in a valley between sarcastic and sanctimonious. You homed in on the former.

“Yeah, yeah, absolutely revolting,” you agreed jokingly, not so subtly tucking the four black cards you had earned under the hand resting on your lap.

You two made eye contact long enough for small, guilty smiles to form on your faces. The two of you hardly stifled your rye chuckles enough to turn your attention back to the game at hand.

Despite his supposed disposition against the game and his late start, he ended up making it to five cards first and taking the game, much to everyone else’s shock and dismay.

“Huh. Crass, eh?” you snickered, earning a playful scowl from Donnie and an encouraging nudge from April’s elbow.

The good humor of the group followed you all as you moved into the kitchen for opening presents and cake.

The confection came first, the credit for baking it being attributed to the bubbliest turtle of the bunch, Mikey. He offered a bashful grin when April thanked him for it. Before anyone could get into the heavenly smelling sweet, Casey excitedly reminded you all that a rendition of happy birthday was due, slinging her arm tightly around April’s shoulders.

Raph counted you all off, everyone’s voices taking a gradual crescendo into singing.

Sure, the chorus of voices was probably singing in a different key each, but, overall, it wasn’t the worst execution of the song that you’d ever heard. Plus, the sentiment behind it was nice.

Following the song came the cutting and distribution of the cake, which was a spiced sponge with a light cream cheese frosting to pair. You practically melted at the flavor, passing your compliments along with the entire group to the baker.

Next came presents. April delighted in the soft throw blankets and candies and plushies she received, giving each stuffed toy aggressive hugs and names. An outlier from these cute gifts was a mace that April handled warily. Casey’s present. Speaking of Jones herself, she was waiting with bated breath to see April’s reaction. Upon receiving an uncertain thumbs up, Casey loudly cheered, poking Raph in the face and bragging the superiority of her present.

Another present that didn’t quite match the others was that metallic box you saw Donnie bring in earlier. When April opened it, it revealed a toaster-like piece of technology, filled to the brim with dials, levers, bells, whistles, the whole assortment.

It seemed very… technologically advanced.

April was… appreciative, albeit apprehensive, with pursed lips in a cautious smile. It made you wonder if something like this had been gifted and possibly backfired before.

You hadn’t much time to dwell on the thought, seeing as Donnie jumped immediately into a spiel on the workings of the toaster, which button did what, its functions, etc.

April listened for all of two minutes before moving onto the last present. Yours. You watched as she made her way through the cute sticker sheet of random objects on the top, the candy in the middle, her favorite kind, and finally to the pièce de résistance.

April went slack-jawed as she held it up: a customized hoodie with Warren Stone inside of a heart-shaped locket, the text reading “Warren, my beloved.” Her affinity for the news reporter was evident in the sheer number of times she brought him up, so her appreciation of the man became a running gag between you two. However, you couldn’t have imagined a better reaction as she squealed and gave you a big hug.

Thank you’s and you’re welcome’s were shared between April and everyone there, and by that point, it was time to call it a day. Not before a huge group chat was formed with everyone in attendance and contact information was exchanged.

Once you grabbed all of your things and made it to the door, you once again wished April a happy birthday, exchanged another hug with her, before you were on your way.

High on your enjoyable time with friends old and new, you happily skipped home. Your new companions certainly intrigued you, especially the one you’d exchanged many a quip and joke with.

You wouldn’t mind seeing him again soon.

Continued here

(I’m working on adding plot in here so this a fairly short addition, but now I've gotten the introductions through with! I hope you enjoy!)

Taglist~

@rottmntsimp

#rottmnt #save rottmnt #save rise of the tmnt #rise of the tmnt #unpause rottmnt #rise season 3 #rise donnie x reader #rottmnt x reader #rise donatello x reader #soulmates #part 1 #my writing #100

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ryanyflags · 8 months

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Flag Making Tutorial

This will be a more technical step-by-step tutorial on how I make my flags (also a long post because I wanted to be thorough, plus I love flags lol).

The program I use is Inkscape, a free vector (.svg) editor program for pc.

I have templates set up, so the actual flag making process is pretty easy/quick.

Hotkeys/Locations/Other Reference

I'll be mentioning these options, so I thought to put them here all in one list. (They list the keyboard shortcuts first)

Snapping: magnet symbol (top right of screen), or under the adjacent arrow ◀️ symbol.

Document properties: shift+ctrl+D, or under the file menu (top left corner of screen). Display (1st tab) Guides (2nd tab) Grids (3rd tab)

Fill and Stroke: shift+ctrl+F, or under object (top of screen).

Layers and Objects: ctrl+shift+L, or under object (top of screen).

Align and Distribute: ctrl+shift+A, or under object (top of screen).

Import (Images): ctrl+i, under the file menu, or by dragging into the Inkscape window.

Save As: ctrl+shift+S, or under the file menu.

Export: shift+ctrl+E, or under the file menu.

Selector Tool: S, or cursor symbol (left side of screen). Click, or click and drag around the objects, to select them.

Locking a selection: lock symbol between the width and height boxes at the top of the screen.

Transform Selections: the width/height and x y position can be changed by typing in the X,Y,W,H boxes (near top middle of screen), or by dragging the corners/edges (resize) and inside the object (move).

Duplicate: ctrl+D.

Delete: delete key, or right click on the object.

Node Tool: N, or below the selector tool (left side of screen).

Rectangle Tool: R, or square symbol (left side of screen).

Pen Tool: B, or pen symbol (left side of screen).

Gradient Tool: G, gradient square symbol (left side of screen).

Mesh Tool: swirly square symbol (left side of screen).

Dropper Tool: D, or dropper symbol (left side of screen).

Undo: ctrl+Z.

Redo: ctrl+Y.

Creating the Template

Download Inkscape and open it, under the Time to Draw tab, click New Document.

First, snapping needs to be enabled, and under advanced mode enable grids and guide lines snapping. (This is crucial for making the stripes equally sized, spaced, and the overall flag in the right ratio.)

I'll be making a template with a 2:3 flag ratio.

Open document properties. (I like to move these types of windows to the right side.)

Under display, set the width to 42px and height to 28px.

Under guides, just click create guides around the current page.

Under grids, make sure rectangular grid is selected, and click new. (Grid units should be in px.) For the major grid line every option, change it to 2. (I also prefer to change the minor grid line color to be transparent.)

That's pretty much it, your template is done :D ! Just save it wherever you want. I like putting it in an easy-to-access flag folder, as it is needed to open it every time to make new flags.

You can use a different width / height / grid size / flag ratio if you want, these are just the numbers I'm comfortable with / used to.

Also, since this is a vector, the image can be infinitely big or small without any quality loss, so the small dimensions above don't actually translate to a low res image.

Creating the Flag

(I'll be using the rainbow flag to demonstrate.)

Start by having the template open.

You can import images (like .png/.jpg files) to color pick / reference if you want. Said images can be transformed (resized/moved) by selecting and transforming them using the options mentioned in reference. (This is optional, they should just be off to the side so they don't get in the way.)

To create the stripes, use the rectangle tool. Click and drag from one grid corner, to a lower grid corner.

While the rectangle is selected, use the dropper tool to pick a color from a imported image. You can also use the fill and stroke (shown on right) tab to create your own colors / edit colors / etc.

You can make these stripes however you want, they just need to all be equally sized. (They don't have to all have the same height, if you intentionally want that (like the demisexual flag for example).)

Then select all the stripes and transform them so that they fit the page.

All that's left is to save/export it.

To export it, use the export tab, under single file, page, adjust the width and height (in px) to however high res you want your image to be. (I usually do 3000 by 2000.)

Type in the desired file name in the box next to the folder symbol, use the folder symbol to choose its export location (which can also be used to determine the file name and save/export it), the adjacent drop-down-menu to select what to save it as (,png, .jpg, .svg, etc.), and the gear symbol to adjust other settings (I leave it as default, with antialias turned off (set to 0)).

And done, you've made a flag :D 🏳️‍🌈

Extra Notes

Layers and Objects: a menu that can be used to manage objects. Like their layering position (whether they are above or below another object), and other options can also be done here instead of with keyboard shortcuts.

Vertically striped flags: it's very similar to above. You would just make the rectangles taller rather than wider.

Wavy stripes: first use the pen tool to create zigzags. (The pen tool works like a outline, so just click along the grid corners, and join the line at the end. The fill and stroke menu can be used to make it a solid colored shape, and remove/add outlines). The steepness/frequency of the zigzags is up to personal preference, they just need to extend off the page a bit. To create equally sized wavy stripes, have the all side lengths (highlighted in red) be equal except (depending on how you draw your zigzags) the first or last wave, which should have half the side length of the others.

Select everything, and with the node tool, select all the zigzag nodes (the corners don't need to be selected), and click make selected nodes smooth (half circle with point in middle symbol, at top of screen). (It'll likely look like it has weird lines in-between the waves, see glitch section at the end for how to fix that.)

Then resize it all to the height of the canvas. And done :)

This can of course be vertical too.

Gradients: You can use the fill and stroke dialogue, gradient tool, or mesh tool to do this.

To create the gradient, select the object, click the linear gradient symbol (gradient box) under fill and stroke. Or dragging / double clicking with the gradient/mesh tools. (The mesh tool is what I used to create the square gradient.)

To change the colors, click on the arrows or circles under fill and stroke, or by clicking the points on the shape, to select the nodes. Then use fill and stroke to change the colors.

To create new colors/stops, click on the plus+ symbol under stops (under fill and stroke), or double click on the gradient. Edit the new colors in fill and stroke again.

To change the location of stops, use stop offset under fill and stroke, or drag the nodes on the gradient. You can also move the end points on the object to make the gradient slanted or vertical.

Symbols: I make my own when I can (like the demi- triangle can be drawn with the pen tool, and resized to the correct proportions). When the symbol is too complicated, I import a .svg of it. Wikimedia commons is a great resource, and the popular twemoji comes in .svg format too. You could also edit it on over the .png in a rastor program if need be.

The align and distribute tab can be used to center symbols (or any other selected object). Select page for the relative to option, and use the symbols underneath to center/align it however you want. (You can also use different relative to options, like last selected, if you want to align it to an object instead.)

Deleting imported reference images: you can do this before saving it as a .svg, if you don't want to keep them / want to clean up the .svg file.

Antialiasing: an option that blurs things basically. A image with antialiasing off will be sharp pixels, while a image with antialiasing on will have transition colors between the main colors.

Below is an example. The left side is without antialiasing, and the right side is with antialiasing.

I can see why it might be preferable to have it on (like for diagonal shapes), but antialiasing can make recoloring .png (not .svg) files hard. The extra different colors messes with fill tools. I also think it looks cleaner without, so I prefer it off.

Exporting glitch: sometimes an exported image will have a thin line between the stripes, despite the fact the stripes are perfectly next to each other. (This seems to not just be a problem with Inkscape, but with vectors in general.)

Below is a zoomed in example of what it'd look like. The left side shows the stripes are all next to each other, but the right image has a transparent line in-between the stripes.

This can be fixed a number of ways.

You could select all the objects, and duplicate them twice.

Or overlap them. The stripes will still be the same size when overlapped, but they will technically be behind each other, so there will be no gap.

With all the different stuff mentioned, you can basically think of them as building blocks with the grid as reference. They can all be mixed and matched together.

I didn't mention all the options, just because there's that many different things you can do in Inkscape. I'd encourage you to play around with all the different options/tools yourself.

There's also some great Inkscape guides on YouTube, it's where I learned how to do a lot of this from (even if they're not for flags specifically, the concepts in those videos can be applied to flags).

Here's an overly elaborate flag I made, just to demonstrate some (but not all) of the things that can be done.

Anyways what a long post haha. But maybe this will be helpful for anyone interested in making (pride) flags.

#ryanyflags #flag making tutorial #pride flag #tutorial #vexillology #flags are fun!

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see-arcane · 5 months

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Was Frankenstein Not the Monster? PREVIEW

A fire of too many colors swallows a manor in the countryside and descends into a pit.

An occult detective's prying leads to revelations far more volatile than the mere aftermath of a nightmare.

Men and monsters circle at the edge of a legend that should have died in the cold almost 100 years ago.

And in the dark beyond that edge, strange Creatures watch and work and wait.

…Such is the stage set for a new piece under the working title of Was Frankenstein Not the Monster? I make no promises—certainly none the size of Barking Harker—but at the moment, this project has been eating up much of the time I’ve spent while juggling the publication of The Vampyres. As it stands, I think I might be making another book.

If you’re interested, the preview is below the cut, but also available here and through a link in my website, here.

Was Frankenstein Not the Monster?

C.R. Kane

Every muscle palpitates, every nerve goes tense—then the body rises from the ground, not slowly, limb by limb, but thrown straight up from the earth all at once. He did not yet look alive, but like someone who was now dying. Still pale and stiff, he stands dumbstruck at being thrust back into the world. But no sound comes from his closed mouth; his voice and tongue are only allowed to answer.

—Scene of a necromantic conjuring by Erichtho, as depicted in Lucan’s Pharsalia.

“I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon the subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery.”

—Victor Frankenstein, as penned by Capt. Robert Walton, edited and distributed by M. Wulstan, in the epistolatory document referred to alternately as The Legend of Frankenstein, ‘The Walton Letters,’ or, ‘Lament of the Modern Prometheus.’

THE MODERN PROMETHEUS! THE MANMADE WRETCH!

WHO IS THE MONSTER?

THE HORROR, THE HUBRIS, THE HAVOC!

ALL COME TO ELECTRIFYING LIFE IN…

THE NIGHTMARE OF DR. FRANKENSTEIN!

Based on the lauded literary terror penned by the late Robert Walton and brought to public light by M. Wulfstan, The Legend of Frankenstein.

The Apollo Crest Opera House presents the most harrowing take on the mad doctor and his marvel of creation to date.

Featuring up-to-date theatrical effects and the most stunning visuals ever seen on the stage, this is a show to whiten the locks and deliver endless shocks.

Come to GASP, to WEEP, to SWOON, and above all, ladies and gentlemen, to PONDER the century-old query beneath the fear in this tale of a creature crafted from the dead and the proud madman who dragged it into the world!

When the passerby corrects you, claiming the scientist is Frankenstein rather than the monster, remember to ask in turn:

WAS FRANKENSTEIN NOT THE MONSTER?

The Inferno of Erichtho

While Dyson’s was one of many heads turned by the events surrounding the housefire of Dr. Richard Geber, he was one of few interested parties who arranged a stay in Surrey’s countryside to ogle the site in person. The other who rode with him was, stunningly, Ambrose, one of his oldest friends and the staunchest recluse he had ever known. Dyson had suggested they try to wheedle Cotgrave, Phillips, and Salisbury all together for a full holiday, if only half in jest.

But where eager Cotgrave was anchored by familial obligations, Phillips and Salisbury were merely hesitant in matters of the uncanny. In truth, the latter pair had positively gawped at him. Their eyes asked wordlessly if the stamp of inhuman horror had magically been blotted out of his memory or if he’d simply abandoned sense altogether. Dyson laughed at the looks, especially Salisbury’s. He of the straight-lined life and the wincing insistence that Dyson keep all answers to himself when it came to the mystery of Dr. Black and the query of Q, only to come slinking curiously back with questions upon seeing Dyson’s haggard mien post-discovery.

As if reading the memory in him, Salisbury’s face flamed and turned away while Dyson continued, “My friends, I would no sooner part with the haunting of those experiences than a writer of penny horrors would relinquish the muse of his nightmares. Ambrose here will rightly call it perverse with you—he is the adept where I am the amateur—but he knows the worth of retaining the proofs of what he calls ‘sin’ and we politely deem merely the ‘weird’ or the ‘supernatural.’ Cotgrave, dear fellow, you at least have an open mind on the subject. If we can manage it, would you appreciate a souvenir of the strange ash for your desk?”

“Cotgrave,” Phillips had cut in with an aridity to dry the ocean, “has not been put into contact with anything more harrowing than some poor child’s grotesque diary. He and I,” he’d nodded to Salisbury who was muffling himself with the wineglass, “had the dubious fortune to play witness to the far end of your direct jabbing at the unknown, neither of which bore anything but blighted fruit. The sight of that miserable treasure hunter’s golden relic was more than enough for me. Salisbury, for his trouble, had enough poisonous proof poured in his ear as thirdhand storytelling to make him rightly uneasy, followed by wondering whether you had been struck by some ailment after prying too far.” He’d turned fully to Salisbury. “Has Dyson ever breathed a word of what it was that shocked that new white up his temple after chasing the scrap of a cipher and Dr. Black’s work?”

It was Dyson’s turn to look away. He had not told Salisbury about Travers’ shop. Certainly not about the opal and what it held. Nor would he ever. He knew even the most sublime prose would fail to do the spectacle or its horror justice. Salisbury would suffer for it, as most of his friends would, and so he burned his tongue with holding the story in. For the most part.

He’d broken enough to recite the event to Ambrose in tragically plain terms. Ambrose had nodded, recorded his statement in one of many journals kept for the purpose of notes and scrapbooking, and shelved it away with the rest of the flotsam that clogged the bookcases which stood in for his walls. The recluse gave his oath not to breathe a word of the case’s final act to another.

“At least not until you are too dead to speak on your own behalf,” Ambrose had added. Dyson found the terms satisfactory.

Yet the fact of his having an encounter so disturbing he’d not even shared it with his most sober of friends still managed to work against his invitation to the strange scene in Surrey. Even Cotgrave shook his head.

“No need of the ash, my friend. I will settle for a description of whatever you dredge up in those hills.” Dyson noted the sickish pallor that washed over him as he pronounced the last word. Phillips shifted uncomfortably in his own seat. Salisbury ran out of wine to nurse and set his glass aside.

“I will be curious of whatever account you bring back,” came his intonation, “if only to know whether you are treading on more tangible toes than some unseen wraith’s.” Salisbury had canted his gaze sharply at Dyson. “No, you have not told me what it was you did upon following the trail of breadcrumbs I mistakenly revealed to you. But I would be a fool not to assume you went and did something unwise regarding the business of those strangers in the note. Q and friends and whoever else. They are real people. Just as Dr. Steven Black was. Just as Phillips and the whole of London recalls the late Sir Thomas Vivian being quite real, and more immediately dangerous than any bogeyman lurking beyond our respective brushes with the so-called supernatural.”

“Sinful,” Ambrose corrected over the rim of his own glass.

“Indeed,” Salisbury sighed. Dyson did feel a trifle apologetic toward the man. He seemed to have aged a decade since he’d stepped back into his life. “But be they supernatural or sinful or just plain mad, human monsters are the more prolific villain of the world, and far easier to cross paths with. Dr. Richard Geber was a man of considerable notoriety with, I would wager, any number of watchful vultures in the branches of the family tree and as many serpents playing patron to his less savory works at the roots.” He’d leaned in, regarding Dyson and Ambrose in the same plea. “Do your sightseeing if you must, but be wary of what prying you do whilst playing occult detectives. A man seeing a nuisance is far more likely to take action against it than any monster.”

Dyson sadly lost his opportunity to assure Salisbury and the rest of his planned caution, as Salisbury had used the word ‘occult’ and set off a fresh avalanche from Ambrose. Talk plunged into proper distinctions of the extraordinary and the eerie, somehow managing to trip into a round of storytelling that marched through the suicide epidemic of certain well-off young men who he theorized had each encountered the same unearthly stimulus whose knowledge could not be lived with, around to an ugly room in a rented country house with a habit of seeding a mirrored insanity in wives and daughters who spent too long in the sight of its irregular damask walls, and all the way to the facts in the case of the pseudonymous M. Valdemar, that mesmeric scandal that might not have been half so sensationalized as cynics might declare…

Salisbury had put his head in his hands while Dyson, Cotgrave, and Phillips settled in for the monologue, feeding the orator only what flints of dialogue were needed to roll him further on. Were he onstage, Ambrose would have deserved a lozenge, a bouquet, and ten minutes’ applause.

That was then.

In the now, Dyson and Ambrose sat in their car, preemptively swaddled against the first drifting motes of snow. November seemed only to have warmth enough left with which to give Geber’s estate its theatrical sendoff with its roiling thunderheads and dancing lightning. With that performance done, the sky handed its reins off to winter’s sedate styling. The train drew itself along under a ceiling of gauze and into the broad country whose rumpled hills and evergreen treetops were already hiding themselves in caps of cold white. Not that such seasonal flurries would have been any more help to the roasted manor than the downpour of the incendiary night had been.

Dyson riffled out the sections of newsprint he had brought along for the trip.

Headlines bellowed across the earliest of them:

STORM-STRUCK IN SURREY!

SPARKS FLY OVER GEBER’S BLAZE!

BLINDING FIRE DEVOURS MANOR OVERNIGHT!

And so forth.

The sum of these pieces was a remarkable series of witness reports from the staff who’d escaped the building before they could burn with it. Miraculously, every member of staff had made it out with barely a scorch mark between them. Even the horses, hens, and hounds of the estate were unscathed. It was only Dr. Geber and, the staff declared, a number of colleagues who had remained inside. Corroboration from the nearest towns confirmed that Geber was indeed housing several ‘learned gentlemen’ under his expansive roof for the purpose of some private experiment being undertaken in his home laboratory.

All that saved the staff from especially sharp scrutiny was the likewise-confirmed evidence of just where that laboratory was located.

“Geber had it all built underground,” claimed more than one servant. “He up and abandoned the one he kept at the top of the house half a decade back. Had a whole little nest of catacombs hollowed out lower than the cellar, moved in all sorts of equipment and chemicals and such. We saw it all go through the big double doors he had set in the back of the house. Figured him and his fellows would come up by that way or the little stairwell indoors. Whoever wasn’t eaten up by the blast, at least.”

The blast which had not come from the heavens by way of the frantic lightning that night, but from right under the floorboards. One poor girl, Elsa Godwin, had gone down to fetch a jar of preserves and been the first to hear a series of what sounded like detonations rattling up from the ground. A distant crackle, a hair-prickling hum, a string of boom-boom-boom, all muffled by earth and concrete. That, and men screaming. There was barely time to hear as much before she also got to play first witness to the memorable fire; a blaze that begun at once to eat holes through the floor and western wall of the cellar.

“I thought I was dreaming at first,” to quote Miss Godwin. “It all felt too impossible to be happening while I was awake. The fire only made it seem less real. Real fire isn’t supposed to work that way, you see? Real fire, it meets a solid wall of dirt or rock and that’s as far as it goes. Singes it, maybe, but it can’t just go burning through everything like it’s a paper dollhouse. But that was just what it did. While it was eating its way up the stairs to the doctors’ laboratory, it punched on through to the cellar. And even that I may have accepted as real enough, but for the look of it.”

The look of that fire was described by her, by her coworkers, by those who rode up to gawk in person or make a feeble attempt at playing fire brigade, and even by a number of technical witnesses who could see the glimmer of it from their far-off windows, all in varying states of poetry or dumbstruck curtness.

The fire had not been orange.

The fire had been black. And white. And yellow. And red. All of these at once, every flame throwing its improbable light as if it fell through some nebulous crystal. Its palette might have been more enchanting if it weren’t for the fact that it was, as Miss Godwin and many more would claim, a fantastically voracious thing. So much so that Miss Godwin had scarcely made it back up the steps to shout the alarm before tongues of fire were poking up through the floor.

It truly was a miracle that everyone aboveground had fled in time. The second miracle had come from the fact that, even lightning-struck as the roof was, it remained mercifully solid while the multihued fire ate up the lower floors. So solid that Fate kindly used it as the hand to snuff the monstrous blaze. The walls turned out to be so quickly enfeebled by their change to ash that they could no longer support the heavy slants and shingles. So the roof had crushed the creeping flames under its lid, dousing the fire with sheer speed, weight, and luck. It was as unlikely a thing as a man crushing a viper’s head flat with his fist before it could bite.

Another bittersweet bout of good fortune came from the positioning of the laboratory itself. Whatever state the subterranean workings had been in post-explosion, they apparently made for an efficient ashpit. When the roof slammed down, it compacted everything below directly into the waiting pocket of hollowed earth. What could have been a conflagration was tucked tidily away almost as soon as the proverbial match was struck. Though it had doubtlessly come at the cause and cost of the very men who had sparked the fire with some experiment gone awry.

“Some manner of chemical flame, a catastrophic bungling of electrical tinkering, or both,” professed numerous experts hunted down in their own labs and campuses. Dyson imagined they were perhaps a bit put out that Geber had done them the simultaneous mercy and unspoken insult of not inviting them to join whatever it was he and his colleagues had been dabbling with. An experiment of such secrecy and apparent potency that the man had not only tunneled out a buried laboratory for it, not only erected new stone walls and double-locked iron gates around his home, not only scoured fields across the scientific spectrum to people its undertaking—for chemists, engineers, technologists, surgeons, and sundry in-betweens were numbered among the missing and/or immolated dead—but even hired on a number of ‘attendants’ that the surviving staff recalled as having staggering guardsman physiques.

All this to keep the experiment hermetically sealed and shielded.

All this, only for a number of ears at the nearest pubs and markets to catch wind of the thing’s name anyway: Project Erichtho.

A secret experiment named for the necromancing witch of legend could only be yet another spur to the public imagination, turning a noteworthy housefire into a potential hellish horror story. Requisite headlines included:

FRANKENSTEIN’S ACOLYTE, ERICHTHO’S ECHO—DR. GEBER’S UNHOLY HEROES!

PROJECT ERICHTHO’S PARANORMAL PYRE!

SORDID SECRETS AND A DOCTOR’S DEADLY DESIGN: THE KINDLING FOR THE INFERNO OF ERICHTHO?

“It could be he’s gone on to join his heroes in a sordid afterlife,” some would say in tones that alternately scorned or cooed. “Faustus and Frankenstein may have a place waiting for him in a deeper inferno. It’s the sort of thing one gets from prying too far into Nature’s business, after all.”

So on and so on. Dyson had clipped everything of interest and strung the whole thing into a sort of haphazard file in contrast to Ambrose’s tidier pasting. Ambrose was even polite enough to feign renewed interest in the piecemeal newsprint despite the information being doubtlessly memorized already.

“Not memorized,” Ambrose said over a headline declaring Geber had conjured the Devil in his cellar. He opened his coat as if displaying illicit wares, flashing the holster where he kept a waiting notepad and pen. His was an especially tailored overcoat with a number of buttoned and hidden pockets for all his necessities. One might think he hardly needed his luggage but for a change of clothes. “My cheats are simply copied out and kept close like a good pupil’s before an exam.” He patted the lapel back in place. “I am not a man made to leave his cave often, Dyson. Therefore I must wrap myself as much in my mobile cave as I can.”

“Would that not make it your shell?”

“I suppose it would. It is a difficult thing for a snail or tortoise to be robbed of his home. Unless the thief is some errant bird after the homeowner, of course. But for all that I have my faiths and proofs in the uncanny, your Salisbury was right. Men are the most common threat to a man. They rob one of goods and life at a moment’s notice far more than any aberration.”

“Ah, that begs a question I’ve meant to ask.” Dyson waved his helping of papers as a baton. “You know the reality of seemingly unreal things. What you call your sinful, wrong, not-meant-to-be sort of phenomena and entities. Were you to find yourself cornered in the proverbial dark alley with an ordinary mortal cutthroat at one end and an unearthly bogeyman at the other, which villain would you risk?”

Ambrose offered a sliver of a smile and turned his attention back to the snow flitting by the window. He passed his helping of newsprint back blindly.

“You have only listened to my rambles with half an ear,” he said. “It’s true that what you would dub the supernatural I would call sinful, but I have yet to declare such things innately villainous. Otherworldly, yes. Eldritch is a decent term. Unwelcome too, at least in what we deem sane and right by the laws of Nature or our manmade structures. Or, to satisfy the macabre itch, yes, I would deem the whole breadth of it horrific. And yet, for all that we have assembled a fair collection of events that ended in death or worse as a result of crossing bizarre influences—indeed, enough to condemn many in, say, the demoniac terms of evil—the fact remains that even a living horror is not guaranteed to be villainous. To that end, let us look at your scenario. If I knew for a fact the ordinary man at one end of my alley intended absolutely to kill me, knife ready for my throat whether or not I handed over my money, whereas the horror at the other end was a complete enigma? I would simply have no choice but to remain still.”

Dyson lost himself to a laugh and crowed, “That is no answer! The scenario was a choice. Who do you risk pushing past? The common murderer or the uncommon enigma?”

“The threat,” Ambrose pronounced carefully, “of a horror is in the uncertainty of what it is and what such a thing is capable of. The cutthroat means to kill me, yes. But the horror? It may mean to end me as well, but in a far more hideous way. In fact, it may intend to inflict something far more unthinkable than the mercy of mere execution, such that the cutthroat would be a blessing of euthanasia by comparison.”

“Ah,” Dyson jabbed his paper baton again, “so you would take the cutthroat for the certainty of him.”

“No. I would remain still.”

“Ambrose—,”

But Ambrose held up his hand.

“I would remain still until one or the other proved himself the lesser evil. For the horror at the other end of the alley may have no ill design whatsoever. Being frightening does not immediately qualify the monster in question as a villain. After all, how many legendary monsters of old have we revealed as mere animals? How many unfortunate souls are there in the world, born with off-putting ailments or disfigured by circumstance, who possess the purest of Good Samaritan character? By the same measure, how many are there with the faces of Venus and Adonis who scatter only petty cruelties in their wake? Even creatures as humble as the common spider will terrorize some of the hardiest men as much or more than their wives. Yet the spider is there to help, tidying flying pests from the home just as the pretty housecat unsheathes her teeth and claws only to bloody her keeper’s hand.

“In short, a horror will horrify, naturally. A horror is capable of far worse things than any human effort. But a horror is not inherently a villain. I am happy to keep things in the hypothetical until I am faced with the awful choice in person, but should I choose to wait, to remain still and force one or the other to make his move, I am certain the motives of the inhuman party would be made clear. It would strike, or retreat, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or it would do as the first horrors of Creation did and be as an angel. Fallen or otherwise.” The topic clipped there as the station came into view.

Fighting the frost and the numb-faced arrival at their rented lodgings sponged up the rest of the day’s energy between the two of them. A hasty dusk and a heavy supper knocked both men back in their chairs and soon the ruddy comforts of the inn dragged them down into an early night.

Ambrose, Dyson was unsurprised to see, had turned into an insomniac so far from his preferred den. He was at the window puffing at the little ember in the clay bowl and staring out at the dark when Dyson finally surrendered to his bed midnight. Come morning, Dyson found he remained at his perch, puffing still.

“I did sleep,” Ambrose assured before the other could speak. “On and off. My dry eyes played traitor and made me lose watch for a few hours at a time.”

Dyson stilled in the effort of lacing his boots. He saw that the faint pouches that had been under his friend’s eyes last night had only deepened. The ashtray set on the windowsill was full.

“Geber’s housefire notwithstanding, I can’t imagine there’s anything worth spying on in these parts. Especially not on a moonless night.”

“It wasn’t moonless,” Ambrose said as he rubbed crust from either eye. His head gradually creaked away from the window to face Dyson. “I saw it come out in cracked clouds here and there. It helped somewhat, but I could still make out a little of the show either way.”

“What show was that?”

“I’m not certain. Some kind of domestic dispute? It involved either a very mad or a very sad individual on a rooftop.”

“What?”

“He got down alright. A giant came to gather him up and bring him indoors.”

“…How much did you have to drink after I went to bed?”

“Not a drop. The whole of it took place with that little house out toward the east there. You see?” Dyson followed where Ambrose pointed. There were numerous petite houses sprinkled along the crest of a far cluster of hills. He was about to point out the issue when his gaze caught on one that stood out from its siblings. Ambrose defined it at the same time, “It has its fresh cap of snow all ruined by their footprints. The man’s little pinpricks and the giant’s awl marks, so to speak. It happened that as I was woolgathering, a yellow light came on in the upper window. The shape of a man blotted it for a moment before the window swung open and the fellow climbed out.

“It wasn’t a pleasant sight even at a distance. He didn’t move like any climber I ever saw. More like,” Ambrose made a face, “I don’t know. An animal? An insect? Something like that. Whatever he was, he made it up there. So I assumed by how the darkness erased him when he skittered up. The first crack in the clouds helped me here, for it dropped a yellow beam on the house and showed the man standing on the very top of the roof. This he did while wearing no more than a pair of trousers and a coat that hung on him like drapes. A lone stick figure balanced on the ridge. Then a moment later, the giant came.”

“Not bounding over the hills, I take it?”

“No. He blocked the entirety of the lit window before he contorted himself out and climbed up after the man. His motion was a far more fluid thing, if likewise strange in how he placed his limbs. Were my eyes a little poorer, I might have mistaken him for some massive panther scaling a mountainside. But he was human enough seen from my seat. Just outlandish in his size and proportions. A hulking figure, yet corded and angled in a way you seldom see with men we might take for a contemporary Goliath.”

“I see. And what happened when he reached David?”

“The moon ducked out of sight for the first moment. It took a minute before it peeked through again to offer a silhouette of the meeting. Man and giant were facing each other with the giant seeming the most animated of the two. He gesticulated first with frantic violence, then as if he were beckoning the man like a stray from a gutter, and ultimately coaxed his frailer counterpart to extend a twig of an arm. The giant clamped onto it and seemed prepared to yank the man from his perch. But the man pointed with his free hand at the moon. This made the giant pause. The boulder of a head turned up. They stared together at the great ivory ball. But sense eventually overruled wonder and the giant maneuvered them both back in the window. The curtains were drawn. I figured that was the end of it.”

Dyson had by now fully dressed and packed for the day. He paused to raise a brow.

“Was it not?”

“No. Some while later, a light glowed in a lower window. David and Goliath walked outside. At least I assume it was David with Goliath. The spindly figure was erased in a massive clot of coats and blankets, it seemed, and so almost passed for a full-bodied individual. The giant shadowed him and forced a cup on him that I imagined must be steaming as it rose and fell from the man’s face. The moon was polite enough to show itself a few more times through the filmier clouds. Even the stars made some appearances. By dawn much of the clouds had broken up so that they skimmed across a half-clean sky. I saw the Morning Star hover in the horizon. The man pointed to this or the molten sunrise. The giant nodded and looked with him, patient as anything. Then David was herded back inside and I saw no more.”

Dyson hummed at all this and eyed the little house again. It really was a fair space away.

“Are you certain you saw a man and a giant? At this distance could it not have been some fevered child and his father?”

“If I were using my eyes alone, I might concede the possibility. Except.” Dyson watched him dig in his coat and produce a collapsed spyglass. “I have brought the full accoutrement of the hermit along, my friend. Its details were few, but far crisper than our sight alone.” A specter of mingled thrill and discomfort twitched along his lips. The former won just enough to pin the mouth up at one corner. “Though I wonder if that was a mistake.”

“Afraid they spied your spying? The threadbare David sounds like a stargazer. Perhaps he swung his lens around to find you in the dark.” Dyson spoke only to rib him. Instead he seemed to strike Ambrose like a lead weight. A greyish tinge passed in and out of his face as his gaze flicked back to the window. “Come now, there was no light on in here. Even if the pair had an astronomer’s lens between them, they’d never know you’d spotted their nocturnal theatre.”

“They had no lens at all,” Ambrose said. His lips still held in the unhappy upward curl. “Yet they did turn to look at this window. David first. Then Goliath. I cannot say whether they saw me, but…” Ambrose rolled the spyglass in his hand before replacing it in its pocket. “I saw a hint of their faces. Just the eyes. I may have imagined it. Some illusion of moonlight or sunrise. But the illusion was very crisp.”

“The illusion being what?”

“They were yellow, Dyson,” he almost chuckled. “Like the stare of animals caught in firelight. Bright as the lamps. And they did not turn from their staring in this direction until after I set the spyglass down.” Ambrose looked up at him. The whites of the man’s own eyes had gone rose-pink. “We’ve not yet set foot on Geber’s ash pile and already I have something for my notes.”

“Perhaps,” Dyson nodded carefully. “Perhaps you do. Or else a late night played on your conscience and sharpened your subjects into things that could chide you at a distance for spying. I have no such conscience on that subject and so might have missed their flashing eyes. Still, it is something for the diary. But only after breakfast.”

Dead, Buried

Breakfast came, breakfast went. Ambrose’s state barely loosened from its troubled knot. By the time they set out to poke around the week-old ruin under a dusting of snow, Dyson noted only a half-return to the man’s usual ease. He thought to remind him of the unhappy adventure involving the cruelly departed Agnes Black, to commiserate over the difference between the aftermath of the strange compared to meeting eyes with it, but swallowed it all down. Such talk would only rip up the scab, not plaster it.

In this mood, they took their way to the housefire’s wreckage with thin conversation. It only thickened again as the coach let them out at the site’s gates. They had been locked over again by the authorities and yesterday’s powder had made the surprisingly tidy mound and its rooftop cap into an anonymous lump of debris. Hardly worth the trip. But the sight of the ruin was only a fraction of their purpose there.

Dyson instructed the coachman to return in an hour to the same spot to retrieve them. The coachman eyed the two warily. He’d no doubt seen more than his fair helping of journalists and policemen in the past seven days than any soul ought to deal with. But pay was pay and he seemed content to reappear in roughly an hour’s time, sirs, give or take another customer’s route. Dyson and Ambrose waited until the horse-drawn speck was almost out of sight before they began their march around the the high stone wall that passed for the ex-manor’s fence. Their breath trailed after them in white streams.

“He really had the place made up like a fortress, didn’t he?” Dyson observed. “Look here. Even the ornaments along the top are like spires. No one could go hopping in or out without undoing the seams of his skin in the attempt.”

“Project Erichtho was a thing to covet as much as conjure.” Ambrose dug again in his coat, this time bringing out his notepad. He thumbed to one close-scribbled page. “Do you know, this manor was his for less than a decade? He took the place seven years ago and left behind a far more metropolitan estate. A handsome spot, but not half so private or titanic as this.” Ambrose knocked his knuckles against the stonework.

Dyson knocked his shoulder in turn, “I see you go a-haunting places other than your home while our backs are turned. You are a fraud of a recluse.”

“On special occasions, yes.”

“And the timeline of Geber’s road to the freakish blaze meets your standards.”

“Very much so. You see, he had his career in the city, for all its lauded highs and scandalous lows. And his one trip out of that area was also his first and last trip out of the country. I was told he took a holiday up to Switzerland.”

“Told by who?”

“Former staff. All the ones in the manor were local hands. The original workers say he returned home from his holiday with a wild new passion—,” Ambrose paused to catch Dyson’s eye, “—and a souvenir. One that they never saw removed from its massive box. The nearest guess anyone could make was that it must be one of those majestic Swiss clocks or perhaps some statue bought on a whim. None would it put it past him to purchase a likeness of his spiritual muse, or maybe a rendering of the latter’s infamous creation. But no one ever saw the contents in person. He had this thing moved into his upstairs laboratory, locked the door, and neither butler nor maid was permitted to set foot in the room for the rest of the year.”

“Mysterious enough,” Dyson agreed while shaking a snow clump off his boot. “Though I can hardly picture Switzerland as possessing any equivalent to Pandora’s Box.”

“Nor could the staff. But they never did wring an answer from Geber. No more than they ever confirmed what all his latest experiments were in that locked room. Whatever they were, the staff thought there must have been some noise to muffle. Geber started playing his phonograph whenever he set foot inside, letting the opera warble over whatever din went on in his work.” Ambrose tucked the notepad away and tugged at his glove. “When it came time for his sudden exodus to the far-off manor, the movers discovered the box was nailed shut again, offering no one even a parting peek at the treasure.”

“And what is the import of this crate, exactly?” Dyson asked, even as he guessed. It was hard to avoid, keeping his steps aligned with Ambrose’s as they circled to the rear of the estate. The trees loomed with their snowy crowns sawing against the blue-white sky. They were close to where the acreage sloped into woodlands.

“None of the new staff mentioned its arrival or its being toted down with the rest of Project Erichtho’s flotsam. In fairness, the interviewed parties likely had far more on their minds than the exact nature of their employer’s bric-a-brac. Especially when the project appears to have begun in earnest four years ago.”

“But,” Dyson intercepted, “the staff in the city dwelling remembered his fixation with the thing seven years prior. And if the manor’s fresher workers could remember that his other scientific oddments were loaded underground, surely they’d recall him fussing about the box.”

“Such is my guess,” nodded Ambrose. He stopped them both short as the exact back end of the stone wall came into view. “Geber likely would’ve clung like a shadow to the movers whether they brought it by the inner stairs or through the back entry. Yet there was no mention of it in their accounts. Almost as if he couldn’t bear to have more eyes upon it than absolutely necessary. And, naturally, there is the issue no other paper or ponderer has mentioned regarding the novelty of a subterranean workplace.” Here, at last, Ambrose began to grin. “One that even the miner or a digger of catacombs needn’t bother themselves over.”

“Because the men in the mines and catacombs don’t have to work within a hermetic seal,” Dyson concluded, beaming back. “They have a way constantly open to the air. The staff claim that the entryways into the laboratory were always shut and guarded by a boredly vigilant set of guards. A tricky area to provide ventilation for with no opening. Unless there was a third threshold somewhere that Geber neglected to mention to the house staff. Say,” he waved a glove at the waiting woods, “hidden in some convenient cover of wilderness.”

“It’s where I would hide a second backdoor in his position,” Ambrose agreed as he ogled the rear of the stone wall and the adjacent trees. “If the back of the manor was here,” he marched with measured steps to the back gate, likewise locked, and regarded the ashes beyond the iron, “then the broader outdoor entrance was likely slotted there with it. A tunnel connected to the underground work area would not be situated far off. So…” He turned and traced an invisible line from the ashes to the woods and away to the west. “A straight route from here on is likely to bear fruit.”

“Would it not be simpler to circle around?” Dyson asked this of the waiting trees as much as his friend. “If Geber’s precious crate was also moved in by this hidden corridor, surely it would be someplace near the edge of this tangled patch. It’s no narrow copse, but I’d rather amble around it rather than risk the trudge inside.”

“Normally I would agree. However.” Ambrose stomped purposefully along the slope, leaving clear tracks as he went. “If we want better odds against our own amateur detective work being spied on, we must take advantage of what little cover we can. Salisbury would tell you so.”

“Salisbury would be down with a skull-cracking headache over the prospect from any angle,” Dyson countered. But they went through the woods just the same. The snow had come in lightly through the coniferous canopy and it traded their softer snow-plush tracks for a brittle thudding along frozen earth. A quarter of an hour’s search and a number of brambles later they came upon a clearing cluttered with large stones. Dyson felt Ambrose bristle at his side. Not from the cold.

He had read the precious and painful little green book Ambrose regarded as one of his truest treasures. The book that contained the child-ramblings of a lost girl, of strange white figures, of stones carved and twisting with ancient unholy influence. Mercifully, the mystique was soon spoiled.

The clearing had let in a little more of the snow through the gap in the canopy and when the powder was brushed aside it revealed nothing but moss and bird droppings on every rock. Another glance showed a number of stunted logs also strewn about. A makeshift sitting area. Ambrose took a spot on one of the logs and set to picking burrs from his trousers. Dyson thought he looked a little ruddier for having seen the rocks were plain.

“Well, convenience dictates that a secret entrance would be around here.” He pointed to what would be a few minutes’ walk to where the open light of a meadow waited. “Any closer to the edge and it wouldn’t be hidden at all.”

“True, true,” Ambrose nodded, removing his hat to shake off the frost and pine needles. “But even if we were on top of the thing, there’d be the second trouble of spotting it while it’s disguised. There was likely one or more guards on duty. On the off-chance that some wanderer came by they’d need to have some way to mask the opening.”

Dyson thought as much too and had been scrutinizing the ground. He’d found a good stick to claw up the dirt with. So far, no convenient trapdoor presented itself. As he prodded, he caught himself mulling over the hypothetical guards themselves. Surely they couldn’t have been caught in the blaze. Even if they’d been struck by a heroic urge, there wouldn’t have been time to rush to the manor and attempt a rescue. Yet he recalled no interview with any such person in the aftermath of the pyre, only those domestic staff who minded the house itself. So where had they gone?

The answer was hidden under a rock.

Specifically, the largest of the rocks in the clearing. Dyson’s stick came to a stop in its shadow as the branch suddenly dipped an inch into the ground where he’d dragged it. The snowfall masked it, but not well enough.

“Ambrose.” He patted the broad rock. “This stone isn’t supposed to be here.”

“What?”

“Look here.” He dragged his stick back and forth over the hidden groove beneath the powder. “It was moved out of place.”

Dyson and Ambrose eyed this only a moment before taking position on the stone’s opposite side. Together, after many a shove and as many curses, the rock budged. Not all at once, but in bursts. Between lurches they agreed that it had to have been put in place by far stouter strongmen than themselves. Their thoughts broke away at the same time when their next push dropped a leg from each of them down into the earth. There was much floundering and flopping aside to save themselves from slipping entirely into the hollow. When they’d recovered themselves, they peered down into the new opening. A wisp of daylight revealed hints of the interior. Shards of wood. The angles of a short staircase. And there, laying at the foot of the steps—

“Oh,” Dyson breathed. “Oh, God.”

“I fear He isn’t involved here,” Ambrose murmured back.

They lurched the stone the rest of the way, moving with caution until the entire hole was revealed. A square of earth had been cut away for the tunnel’s mouth. A set of heavy mangled hinges showed where a crude but sturdy door had been bolted into place. The door itself was the source of the wood shards, the largest of them showing they’d had a covering of dirt, leaves, twigs, and pebbles all pasted on to mask it. To judge by the frame, the door was meant to be pulled up rather than pushed in. As the stone was flat on the bottom, it could only be surmised that someone had smashed the timber in rather than bother with the lock.

Perhaps that was why the guards had died. They hadn’t been quick enough to offer a key.

Two men of powerful build were left crumpled at the bottom of the steps like ragdolls. One had his head wrenched entirely around on his shoulders. The other had his head crushed in like an eggshell. Whoever had done the work, they’d also seen fit to strip the broken-necked man of all but his underclothes, even down to his shoes. The man with the pulped skull had lost only a coat.

“I believe this is where our investigative ghost story hits a snag,” Dyson said, if only because someone needed to speak. The words did little to settle the chill now twining up his back. “We need to have the police up here.”

“We will,” Ambrose said, digging in his coat. Out came his matches. “But first.” He struck a light. “Recall that we are not here in search of ghosts. Ghosts are vapor. Their only weight is given to them by the storytelling.” He flicked the match into the tunnel so that it soared over the corpses. Dyson followed its glow with wide eyes. “Whereas the party responsible here exists with or without fireside theatre.” Dyson was already inclined to believe him. The sight revealed by the match merely forged faith into knowledge.

On the night of the fire there had been a positive torrent to go with the thunder and lightning. Once the guards and door were brutalized out of commission and left broken on the tunnel steps, a river of mud had dribbled in after the intruder. In the carpet of now-dried muck were smeared remnants of footprints. Most were colossal and led two ways, going forward and back. Whoever had made them was large enough to dwarf the dead men. A second set of footprints tramped back with these first massive soles, the barefoot steps looking far closer to human dimensions.

Beyond these smeared prints and just out of reach of the match’s light was the outline of a wide cart.

“Spare another?” Ambrose passed Dyson the matches. Dyson descended and made a rush to the cart. A match struck and showed the contents was discarded linen tarps all mottled with stains dark as rust. In the very center of the rumpled sheets, pointing to him, was a single rotten human finger.

The match went out.

Dyson raced back up to the daylit earth and rattled off the find to Ambrose.

“It does line up. An experiment named after Erichtho could hardly earn the title without doing something unwholesome with corpses.” Ambrose inclined his head at the tunnel. “It’s certainly not the kind of material Geber would want the house staff spying on its way down to the lab.”

“I wonder about that.” Dyson righted himself and squinted up at the sun behind a veil of new clouds. “Who’s to say that the finger was already rotten when it lost its owner? Surely the towns would have something in the news about graverobbers pillaging their cemeteries for convenient goods.”

“True.” The word was small. Dyson looked to Ambrose as the man paused in jotting something in his notes. His gaze was suddenly very far, hooked on some unknown point in the trees. “Quite true. After all,” he slowly closed the notepad and tucked it away with gloves that trembled, “it’s only worthy of newsprint if the dead go missing. The living disappear every day.” Dyson watch his throat work strangely behind his scarf. His breath came in very brisk puffs. “Such is hardly worth a blink these days. What’s the time, Dyson?” Dyson checked his watch. They’d eaten up most of an hour and he said so. “Then we’d best head down to meet our coach. Now.”

“Should we replace the stone? What if some animal gets in and—,”

Ambrose seized his shoulder. His head still hadn’t turned away from the trees. His voice came out so low there was almost no breath to whiten.

“Dyson. Now. Quick, but—but do not run.” His Adam’s apple seemed about to leap up through his mouth. “Now.” Dyson tried to follow Ambrose’s line of sight, but his friend was already dragging him like an errant sheep. Rather than take their original route, Ambrose shepherded them towards the nearest edge of the woodlands, out to the open snow.

“What happened to discretion?” Dyson asked in his own low pitch. Ambrose shook his head without fully taking his gaze away from the abruptly-fascinating patch of trees.

“We’ll be bringing authorities around here anyway. It hardly matters. Go. Just go. Once we get out in the open, we should—,” Behind them, a heavy branch snapped. To Dyson’s ears it sounded loud as breaking bone. Ambrose’s clutching hand became a vise. “Run.”

They did.

The gloom behind them snapped and rustled in a straight line after their heels. More, the ground itself twitched with the bounding of some unthinkable weight. Dyson thought ludicrously of bears or lions somehow migrating their way to this mild crumb of Surrey’s landscape. Yet he heard no animal snarl. Only the unimpeded breaking of the trees’ quiet as something titanic loped after its quarries.

Ambrose and Dyson broke out into the open meadow after a minute that felt like half an hour. They raced across the slope and around toward the fenced-in ruin of the manor at a frantic pace. Relief barely flickered in them as they saw the coach trotting up to the front gates. Their own tread was too wild to register if their pursuer was still galloping after them, but Dyson now felt the presence of eyes on him as surely as he’d feel the trundling of beetles along his neck.

The dead men flashed in his mind. Twisted and mashed and tossed in a pit. There was plenty of room to spare down there. New tenants welcome. And the coachman was so far, so far—

He stepped on one of his own bootlaces and went sprawling. When he moved to catch himself on his hands, his palm landed on something slicker than the snow, fumbling him so that he landed with elbow and cheek in the frost. It really was a pitiful layer of powder, he noted as his arm and face throbbed against the stiff ground. Ambrose skidded to a halt with him, almost falling as he scrambled on the frost. He might have shouted Dyson’s name. Dyson couldn’t be sure as he was peeling up the thing his hand had slid with. A leatherbound book with its cover lacquered in congealed mud.

“Dyson,” he heard Ambrose puff again. His breath was labored, but no longer a shout. “Dyson, can you stand?” Dyson looked up to see Ambrose’s attention was split between him and the trees. Nothing else was behind them. Dyson fixed his laces and regained his feet without releasing the book. “I think we can go at an easier pace now.”

“Yes. Possibly.”

Their new gait was not a sprint, but still a fair way ahead of anything leisurely. The driver looked at them oddly as they jogged over, at least until they gave him pay and directions for a trip to the nearest police station. Then his caterpillar brows shot up.

“Come across some trouble up there?”

“The human trouble has been and gone,” Dyson told him. “But they may want hunting rifles at hand for whatever creatures are roaming around in there.” The driver snorted at that.

“What creatures are those? Worst we’ve got in these parts are the damned foxes and a few snakes. Biggest thing I’ve seen was a buck that ran around last year. Had antlers two men wide.”

“It was no deer,” Ambrose assured him even as he craned his head again to face the trees. Dyson saw him fondling the part of his coat that held the spyglass. “In any case, it is a matter that would be helped by having a marksman ready.” The driver got no more from them as Dyson and Ambrose bundled themselves inside the coach. Ambrose hastily fumbled out the spyglass and watched the woods through his window until the treetops were out of sight.

“Not a deer, you say,” Dyson spoke as much to his mud-crusted souvenir as to the back of Ambrose’s head. “What then? I had no time to catch a glimpse.” Ambrose let out a breath as he collapsed the spyglass, fidgeting with the cylinder rather than tucking it away.

“Speaking frankly, I didn’t either. All I could spot in the gloom was the flash of bright eyes.” His throat twitched. “A gleam of yellow.” Dyson paused in his picking at the shell of hardened mud.

“Last night’s Goliath?”

“I don’t know. I cannot say with certainty whether the eyes belonged to a human shape or a creature on its haunches. Only that it was still as a statue in the gloom back there. Staring at us.” Ambrose shivered either from memory or cold and tucked the spyglass away in favor of his notes. He sketched rather than wrote. Scrawled across a clean page was the impression of two huge coins floating in a scribbled ink-shadow. The eyes featured pupils of a distinctly non-human make. “I am no artist, but this is roughly the look I caught watching us. They turned in the dark when we started for the trees’ edge. Then the eyes came forward.” He clapped the notes shut. “I found I was far more eager to be out of reach than to wait and see the eyes’ owner.” Ambrose gave him a tired smile. “I feel I’m halfway to a hypocrite after this. True, there was no alley and no waiting cutthroat, but I did run from the unknown when it came running.”

“Nonsense,” Dyson huffed. “Those eyes no doubt belonged to some exotic beast that escaped its pen in a zoo or some fool’s private menagerie. Nice open country like this is just the place you’ll find people with deep coffers and shallow sense hoarding pretty predators as though they were collecting pedigree hounds and cats. You wait, we’ll see something in the papers about somebody’s missing leopard or tiger prowling around the hills. Now, if that beast had cleared its throat in the dark and shouted at us in plain English to get out of its woods, there might be grounds to point and go a-ha! But as it had nothing to say and neither of us was polite enough to stand still and get mauled, the matter remains unsettled. Say, have you got a handkerchief you don’t mind ruining?”

Ambrose handed him one, his face finally regaining some tint as he puzzled over Dyson’s prize.

“It would be an opportune thing to be in a ghost story,” he sighed while Dyson scraped at the mud. “If we are, that will turn out to be a conveniently abandoned diary illustrating every move Geber made leading up to the fire, replete with his devilish experiments and all the lost spirits it conjured up. At the very least it will contain the chemical formula that led to such a unique blaze.”

Dyson scoured away most of the muck and frowned.

“Not a diary. Not even a tome of unholy scripture.”

“No?”

Dyson held the book up for him to see. Ambrose frowned back at him.

“No.”

The book was a leatherbound copy of The Legend of Frankenstein. What had been a luxurious volume had apparently been mangled by elements, animals, or else someone with a distinct loathing of the tale. Dyson had wondered at the lightness of the book and found that much of the pages were either shredded or torn out entirely. The inner cover alone had been spared attack, though it still boasted a minor bit of vandalism within:

There are not words enough to voice proper gratitude to the Muse, the Master, the Miracle. For lifetimes to come, even the finest poets of the world shall struggle to meet the task. Here and now, the most that can be said is thank you. Thank you for all that you have done, all that you are, all that is yet to come. A toast to the teachings of Prometheus, to Prima Materia, to the Magnum Opus realized!

—R.G.

Below this, a single line:

Mortui vivos docent.

“The dead teach the living. Interesting choice of postscript.”

“That isn’t all of it.” Ambrose took back the handkerchief and chipped further at a smear of muck still gripping the cover. It crumbled away to show words that had been stained into the board with a different pen. Almost carved.

Prometheus had nothing to teach. He stole the lightning for Man’s fire. The only worthwhile lesson of his myth was taught by the Eagle.

Erichtho might have had teachings to spare. The gods were wise enough to harken to her and know to quail. Yet mortal men care only for the dead’s secrets and the boons they might grant. These you will have. May the knowledge serve you as well as it has me.

No initial or signature was jotted with it, though some rough symbol was gouged below. A thing that curved and went straight at once, vaguely serpentine and somehow unpleasant in both its shape and the depth of its coarse engraving. As though the artist had been both incapable of finesse and insistent on carving the image regardless. Dyson and Ambrose each had a good squint at it and decided it was something related to a caduceus, the sign of medicine.

“The alchemic variant seems just as likely, if we’re to chase Geber’s words to their logical end,” Ambrose said in a tone that heartened as much as frustrated Dyson to hear. It meant the man’s nerves were settling, but also that his mind was now wandering down avenues several leagues away from the present, no doubt combing an internal library of references. Dyson flattered himself to know that he too had some scraps of intel to turn over. He recognized the Magnum Opus as referring to a ‘Great Work’ just as prima materia was a term for a sort of primal matter from which life and the universe was meant to be concocted. But no more than that. He’d need to dust off some old books or wait for Ambrose’s own ramble before he could scrounge up any deeper details.

As it turned out, Ambrose had sealed himself up in his head for the moment.

A moment which lasted long enough to get within talking distance of the police. They described the tunnel and what was in it. There was scarcely time to stretch their legs before they were riding along with the uniformed men, each thankfully armed. Sunset was almost racing them to the horizon by the time they trudged back to the clearing with lanterns in hand. Both men froze upon discovering it. When asked why:

“We didn’t leave it like this,” Dyson heard himself croak.

“How so?”

“The stone. We left it pushed aside when we left. The tunnel was still uncovered.”

Now the boulder was planted right back where it had been.

A hasty examination was made for tell-tale shoe prints, to little avail. New snow was fluttering down and filling things in with an accomplice’s speed. Giving it up, the group of them carefully shouldered the rock aside. Their caution’s reward was a column of acrid smoke that wafted up and plugged every unfortunate nose in reach. The last embers of a fire were dying down inside the tunnel.

The two corpses were roasted. The cart was a cinder. The tunnel’s floor had been glazed with oil and set alight until the whole bottom of the chute was a long black stream at least halfway to the underground entry point of the manor. Investigation to that farthest end revealed a pair of melted metal doors with burst windows. Beyond them there was only packed-in ash.

Dyson made no more mention of his hypothetical escaped animal.

Ambrose was not only silent about the Goliath seen from the window, but went so far as to draw his curtains before bed.

#Was Frankenstein Not the Monster?#frankenstein #mary shelley #arthur machen #the inmost light #the red hand #my writing #horror #hope you guys dig it #my art

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factual-fantasy · 9 months

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I haaaasss 27 asks :}

Yes. Yes it does.

Thank you! :DD And yeah canon Gregory is just not my vibe man XD

(Traffic cone in question)

Thank you so much! :DD And yeah I try my best to get up and do something productive/different when I'm feeling down like that. My thought process is "well sitting here and sulking isn't making me feel any better so I should go and do something else" Which just so happened to be breaking out the old sewing kit and making a traffic cone?? XD Well to be fair I've made like 10 of those before but still an odd choice on my part-

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked my cars artwork! :DD

And yeah I would draw cars stuff more often but they're just so hard to draw :(

Idk why they decided to jump into a DLC before fixing the base game, but man I really wish they wouldn't have. 😔

I'll do my best! :D

@tallchest13-blog

Yes :} or at least I've been trying to-

Thank you so much! And I did use a pattern to make him. Credit for the patten goes to Tammy Hallam, heres her video on how to make your own too! :}

@montygatorshusband

AAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DDD

As for Glamrock Bonnie,, ehh, its a bit odd to me. Not a huge fan of the color pallet but its not the worst I've seen. I'd give it a 5.5 outa 10

ALSO! I believe Octonauts is streaming on Netflix, but I've also had some luck finding full episodes on YouTube :0

Thank you! And oh yeah, I feel you on the fandom part. XD That's why I'm still kind'a on the fence and haven't dove head first into my usual angsty stuff. I'm kind'a testing the waters with every post I make to see if I'll collide with the uh, other side of the fandom :x

Thank you! :DDD

Also Google is a search engine. :0 If you search for Octonauts fanart, its gonna do its job and search for fanart and likely find some of the stuff I made. Notice though that all of my artwork shown on Google links directly back to my blog. Its because Google isn't stealing it, its parting the branches of a bush and pointing "Look! Over there is some Octonauts fanart like you requested!" XD

@pinkbomb08

There isn't really anything Gregory can do for Bonnie..

Its hard to explain,, but I'll try. Bonnie is missing his leg from the middle of his shin down. So he cant stand up right like Foxy because- well duh, he's missing a whole foot.

So order to fix Bonnies leg so he can stand/walk like Foxy does, he would need an entire replacement foot with a working joint. This would also mean that the wires in Bonnies legs would have to be replaced and hooked up so that he can control said new foot.

Currently there are no spare parts around that fit Bonnies model.. and even if they did, Gregory wouldn't know how to properly re-wire an animatronic foot. He's smart but not THAT smart <XDD

The only thing Gregory could do is make Bonnie a weird peg leg that makes his current leg longer. Currently Bonnies half leg is shorter than his good leg. But in all honesty Bonnie doesn't really want that.

Having Gregory ducttape this weird goofy peg leg to him would be more embarrassing then what he already has. He'd probably want to salvage what ever dignity he has left and say "ah give it a rest. There's no point. My legs good enough for what its for." <:/

@taizarack

If I remember correctly... Sometime ago my tablet pen broke. And it took like 2-3 weeks for a new one to arrive. In the mean time I tried to make an art doll of sorts. That doll was Bibi!

I ended up making a lot of goofy posts with Bibi and I as I waited for my pen to arrive. Once it finally did and I went back to drawing comics, I ended making Bibi a reoccurring character. And he's been around ever since!

Now Jangles is a Halloween prop that I bought because I thought it was funny. I was practicing making quilts one time and I made a small blue one that just so happened to be the right size for him. So I put it on and then I thiiink I got the idea to add Jangles to my blog as a joke.? I gave Bibi a "new friend" to celebrate hitting 10,000 followers. The new friend was a cropped png of jangles XD

Eventually down the line I wanted to give Bibi an proper friend. So for Bibi's birthday I drew a comic where Jangles came to life and here we are XD

@pinkbomb08

Currently I am getting none of those things :x I have a cold so sleep and food is hard :( Thank you though! :D

@notsoliyah

:D AW!! Thank you! I'm so glad to hear how I've inspired you! :}}

@ur0neand0nly

XD Thank you so much! And don't worry, I'm pretty confident I'll draw him again someday

XD Thank you. To be honest I'm kind'a going back and fourth on this fandom. I don't really wanna be apart of the fandom, but the characters are the only thing I'm interested in drawing atm soo-

@ardent-38

Ooo these are interesting! Although absorbing power ups isn't about digesting them. Its something about being human specifically that allows them to absorb the powerups.. 👀👀👀

@maddiethehatter2192

My advice would be to use references religiously. That's what I did!

Also thank you! :DD

Barnaby for sure.

Well, my interpretation of him really-

@taizarack (Post in question)

@funky-frankie

No there's no SpongeBob comic, I just felt like drawing Mr. Krabs XD

Also THANK YOU!! :DD That means so much!! :}}}

@elegysonnet

<XD thank you. So far I have some pretty basic ones I imagine. Wally's house is alive and evil, Julie is actually a scary monster but has drastically altered her appearance to look less scary.. Sally is very celestial in nature because she's a real star, Eddie used to be a real human and bleeds and has a heart beat and what not.. uuuuuuh what elseeee,,, I liked to imagine that Sally and Julie came to the neighborhood when they were really young and Poppy kind'a adopted them?? Although I don't know how wide spread that idea is XD

Thank you! And yeah I'm not very fond of that portrayal either <XD As for your questions..

1: I'm sure there would be somethings that would push his anxiety to the surface. I'm not sure what they'd be but still- I imagine if Luigi was around to see it he would try to get Mario out of what ever situation he's in. If he's in a crowd he'd try to help him slip away unnoticed.

2: I'm not familiar with the giga bell, but if I did add it I'd imagine those would be the side effects yeah <XD Really sore and tired and cant really move for like 3 days :x

Remodeled or not, I wont be adding any of those animatronics to the Pizzaplex. I already wrote the entire past of this timeline, and those bots all already have a story in my AU. And with their given stories it wouldn't make sense for them to be added to the Pizzaplex.

Of course I cant spoil what those stories are, just know that I have my reasons-

Oh yeah I forgot to add the colored eye lids to Wally and Barnaby in that trampoline drawing <XD

And yeah! I wanted Wally to be much more expressive so I gave him eyebrows-

@cudlycorncornsworthcoberson

Aw, thank you so much!! Its so cool to hear that you've shared my name with your friends!! :DD

#my response #fnaf security breach dlc spoilers #fnaf security breach dlc #fnaf security breach #ocotnauts #bibi and jangles

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albloo · 7 days

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Commissions, Shop, and Ko-fi Promo!

To help pay hard-hitting expenses from the past few months, I wish to promote all the means in which to support me! First, I will have open spots for fixed-priced commissions available through Ko-fi, including a special 4"x6" $50+ shipping category that will be available from now until the end of May 31st, EST. A 5"x7" $80+ category is also available.

I also still have stock of my two current art prints and wooden keychain still available on my Etsy shop, with plans to produce new ones in the near future!

And finally, my standard commissions will continue to be available via my website.

All critters commissions are small-scale and can be made into cut-outs upon request.

All general commissions can either be black or white or colored with washes (6x8" minimum). Base price will increase with requested size

For general inquiries, galleries, and other links to my socials, feel free to visit my website!

Thank you for taking the time to read this post - any support is greatly appreciated!

#artists on tumblr #commission #art commisions #taking commisions #art shop #shop promo #traditional art #ballpoint pen #watercolors

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msbigredmachine · 1 year

Text

M.K.A.M. (My Kinda Morning) - Roman Reigns/Plus Size OC)

Who says birthday sex has to end after the birthday? Roman/Plus Size OC

PAIRING: Tribal Chief!Roman Reigns x Plus Size OC

Warnings: SMUT all the way, lol

Word count: 4.6k

A/N: In honor of our Tribal Chief's 38th birthday and to celebrate his historic 1000-day title reign. Tumblr flagged my story so I had to upload it again🙄 Enjoy!

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Face Claim (Because Tumblr flagged it the last time)

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Birthdays occurred only once a year, so it was usually imperative that it was spent with the people you love. After nearly two months away from you, it was almost hard for Roman to believe that he was actually back in your arms and in your bed, and on his birthday no less. He wished he didn't have to leave you for such long periods of time, but you understood that it was the nature of the beast. You embraced this reality when you made the decision to start a relationship with not just a pro wrestler, but the champion and the face of the biggest wrestling company in the world. Still, he tried to compensate by putting pen to paper on a lighter travel schedule, as well as buying you a new dildo to keep you occupied in his absence. According to you, the dildo had gotten several workouts, and the daily, dirty text messages from him, outlining what he'd like to be doing to you, definitely helped too.

Yesterday was incredible. From the moment he called to inform you that his jet was en route to your city, you were completely beside yourself with the most erotic thoughts on exactly how you would celebrate his birthday. You weren't ashamed to admit that your hands had ventured between your thighs more than once during the day, barely paying attention to any of the meetings you were in, counting down the hours till you finally got to see him. When he showed up at your doorstep, you were naked and waiting. No surface in your loft was safe; the couch, the kitchen counter, your desk in your little office space, the stairs...you name it, Roman fucked you on top of it, only taking a break to eat some of the birthday cake you bought for him before carrying you up to your bedroom, where you spent the night licking buttercream frosting off your bodies and coaxing orgasm after orgasm out of each other.

It was just past six in the morning, meaning you still had some time before you had to get up for work. Through the white sheer curtains of your bedroom window, the beautiful red and orange sunrise kissed the rich melanin of your skin. As the Tribal Chief watched the colors adorn your sleeping face, he felt his heart swell with renewed love and lust for you. He lay behind you, with your body cocooned in his warm and solid frame. You fit together perfectly.

He rested his hand on your hip, admiring the streaks of wavy stretch marks there. His sexy little tiger. He definitely had you mewling and purring like one when he put it on you last night. Faint lines of cake frosting smudged your brown skin, and he swiped each one with his finger and put in his mouth. He then let his hand travel along your waist, awed by the mouthwatering curves that belonged to him. Then, he wrapped his arm around you, pulling you back into him with a sigh. You seemed to still be asleep, and he really wanted to wake you up.

So, he started rotating his hips, pressing his morning erection against your sumptuous backside, nestling the impressive length between your ass cheeks. His hand slid up to your breasts, cupping one gently. As his finger grazed your nipple, you finally stirred. Your body shifted, causing your backside to rub up on his dick, and he grinded against you more purposefully, closing his hand tighter around your breast as he kissed your neck.

"What are you doing?" you whispered, your voice throaty and scratchy from sleep.

Roman nuzzled your shoulder, pressing another kiss to your skin. "I've missed you so much, my love."

He had shown you just how much last night. For hours. Your Samoan stallion possessed the stamina of three stellar athletes and you loved it. But right now... "I've missed you too. But I need to be up for work soon," you reasoned. You rolled onto your belly, which put a bit of distance between you.

"Call in sick. It's still my birthday," he implored.

"You know I can't, babe," you murmured, resting your head atop your crossed forearms, facing him and shutting your eyes. Your thick, sumptuous butt curved enticingly in the air thanks to your new sleeping position, prompting Roman to reach out to massage one of your cheeks, groping and squeezing the supple flesh in his palm.

It didn't surprise you to feel your pussy immediately tingle from his caress. His hands on you never failed to set your pulse racing. But you needed your rest. He already had you up all damn night, rendering your throat hoarse and your limbs like spaghetti. In another attempt to deter him, you rolled onto your back, your breasts and your womanhood on display.

Big mistake.

The Tribal Chief's eyes lit up like Christmas trees. His big hand cupped your breast again, thumbing the puckered nipple, then doing the same with the other. His fingertips made a delicate trail down the plane of your stomach, which spasmed from his touch. His fingers skimmed over your sensitive pussy lips, which were still tender and puffy from last night. He started to stroke you and you tried to squeeze your legs together to stop him, but he wasn't having that shit.

"Open your legs," he growled.

"Babe, I'm sleepy," you whined with a frown on your face, "I won't get up on time if we do this."

"I told you to call in sick. I'll handle your boss. It's my birthday and I want my present. Now spread 'em."

Fuck, you couldn't resist when he got all bossy and domineering with you. Of course, you relented, your legs falling open like they always did. Why did he have to look at you like that? He was so damn fine and he knew that shit. All it took was one look into that smoldering gaze of his and you were putty in his hands.

Your breath caught as he rubbed you faster, his body shifting much closer to you, reoccupying your space. His big beautiful dick pressed your upper thigh, damn near pulsating against your skin. You couldn't help but stare at it. Long and thick, accompanied by a heavy set of balls that made you drool.

Hovering over you, Roman smirked at your famished expression, and moved his fingers in small circles, spreading your wetness all around your folds. Then, he slowly sank them into you, his groan harmonizing with yours. He could feel how swollen you were from the pounding you took, but you were so wet his fingers slid in effortlessly anyway, your slick, hot flesh enveloping the digits.

"Baby..." you gasped, arching into him.

Your little squirms of protest had dwindled, which was how he knew he was slowly breaking you down. He moved in for the kill.

"I can eat it if you want," he offered, intentionally licking his lips that were a hair's breadth away from yours, and suddenly you wanted that mouth on you more than anything in the world.

"Mmm, yes please."

Bullseye. Roman sat up and kneeled before you, spreading your legs far apart and inspecting you down there. "That's the definition of a pretty pussy right here. All beat up and swole. Did I pound you good last night, baby girl?" he asked.

God, his voice. Deep and dripping with arrogance and sex as he talked dirty to you. It made your knees weak and your pussy moisten. "Yes, Daddy, it was so good."

His thumb stroked your pussy lips, fascinated by how fat and wet they were. "Gotta taste this sweet cunt again before I give you this dick, right?"

Before you could open your mouth to reply, Roman descended on you, spreading his mouth over your core. You were wide awake now, your hand on the back of his head while he went to work. You still tasted like cake, making you that much sweeter for his palette. He drooled all over that pretty pussy, causing you to moan and whine for him. Roman slurped on you a little more before bringing his eyes up to meet yours with a lick of his lips. You were breathing deeply with your mouth parted and irises low and lustful.

"Roman..."

Ducking his head again, he feasted heartily on you, not stopping this time around. Delicious, wet ass pussy that belonged in his mouth day and night. His huge hands glided up your torso before cupping your breasts. His tweaking of your nipples caused a flood, making his mouth so watery that with each suck, his saliva made its way down to the crack of your ass. Roman's mouth was hard at work, tonguing you down and French-kissing your meaty outer lips.

You were grinding his face now, your hands grabbing everywhere, the sheets, his head, his shoulders. Your ass clenched and your hips bucked as pleasure lapped at you with the same devastating impact as his tongue.

"Unnnh fuck, I'm comin', Daddy I'm comin'!" you cried and moaned and writhed on the bed. This man was going to be the death of you. You stared at him wide-eyed before your eyes rolled back as something inside you unlocked. Your neighbors could probably hear your scream as you came in his mouth. You pushed at his head, your body craving relief but not getting it, his dark chuckle vibrating against your pussy as he refused to free you from his clutches.

Your moans and screams made his dick so hard. Roman shifted forwards to pin your thighs down to your chest, his tongue still moving like a hurricane. It wasn't the most comfortable position to be in, but for him, you would do anything. In your spare time you would practice contorting your legs for minutes on end because you wanted to please him, because you deemed him worthy enough to step out of your comfort zone and take a little pain for. Besides, the pleasure you received in return was out of this world, so it was definitely worth it.

A weak gasp rumbled in your heaving chest as he started sucking on your clit, aiming to make you come once again. All you could hear were the wet, gushy sounds his mouth was making while eating you out, and it was enough to trigger you again. With your fingers digging into his hair, you welcomed your second orgasm of the morning with a pleasured moan. He ate you out so good your eyes fluttered shut from exhaustion.

"Nah, keep your eyes open, sweetheart. I'm 'bout to tear this pussy up...again," he warned.

You could only watch, prone and helpless, as Roman crawled on top of you and made himself comfortable between your legs. He ensured to put all his body weight on top of you, and the feel of his muscles against your belly, chest, and thighs had your stomach doing flips. The softness of his full lips against your collar bone, with a generous helping of tongue, the scruff of his facial hair tickling you, made you exhale shakily. As he brought his kisses upwards, you angled your head to meet his lips. Your tongues twined around the other's for a couple of seconds before your mouths sealed together in sensual, intimate kisses.

Roman shifted his body above you, his hand slipping back down between your thighs, two long, thick fingers teasing your folds before breaching inside. He cupped your entire mound in his palm, massaging, working you until you were squirming and moaning his name. To further torture you, he ducked his head down, generously swirling his tongue around each of your nipples before sucking them one by one between his lips. The Tribal Chief found your titties irresistible. He loved them; couldn't stop touching and playing with them. Grabbing them with both hands, he flicked his tongue over them, getting them nice and wet, switching between sucking your nipples with his mouth and plucking them with his fingers. You could feel your pussy tense from the pleasure surging through your body. But you didn't want Daddy to feel left out, so you reached for his dick and started stroking him. His deep moan in reaction made you feel on top of the world.

"Mmm, that's it, make Daddy rock-hard," he whispered, watching the way you stroked and squeezed and teased him. You loved the weight and feel of him in your hand. A seep of precum made the head slick and elicited another surge of wetness between your legs. You strengthened your stroking motions along his shaft, biting your lip when he thrust briefly against your hand. With a harsh moan, he managed to break free from your intoxicating touch so he could focus on giving you the dick he promised.

Rolling you onto your belly, he maneuvered behind you, pressed your chest and shoulders into the bed, and raised your ass in the air, your knees spread wide with your feet close together and tucked under him. Perfect. He palmed each of your rounded cheeks, molding the flesh greedily in his hands. His cock strained against your pussy, and involuntarily, you moved your hips, desperate for contact. He took his dick and lined it along your slit, spreading your wetness around as he slowly worked the bell-shaped head inside you. Your bodies trembled seemingly as one as he filled you to the hilt, savoring the quivering of your pussy around his length.

"Daddy..." you moaned.

"Shhh, I gotchu," he hushed you with a low chuckle, caressing your body, making you feel good. His hands stopped at your hips and he started to move in and out of you, stretching your opening, holding back on you just a bit. He bent close to your ear, his lips ghosting along your jawline. "Talk to me, baby girl. Tell me you want it."

"I want it. Fuck me, Daddy."

"I know you do. Shit, you stay so damn tight. Good god, babe."

His breathing sped up and his grip tightened on your hips, letting out a deep, visceral groan as he thrust a little faster inside you. You fought the urge to scream as he went deep, burying himself in you. "Fuck, Daddy, yeah!"

With his fingers digging into the meat of your hips, he drilled your pussy, hard, his balls slapping against your clit. As much as you whimpered and moaned, you remained on your knees and took every inch like a champ. You could feel the head of his cock meet the bottom of your pussy with every thrust. It was a shock to your system, how deep he was in you, yet you could still feel him trying to go deeper, straining to be closer to you. Your pussy gripped him again and again and you had to bite into the pillow to contain your loud moans, your hands fisting the satin sheets. The mix of his spit with your cum caused your pussy to make the wettest, filthiest sounds as he fucked you. Eager to hear more, Roman circled his hips, pushing his dick right up against your g-spot, slapping your ass in time with his grinding strokes. Another groan escaped him at the sight of his glistening cock, covered in your juices, sending shivers down his spine. One last flick of his hips finished you off. It was an experience watching you release all over his cock, your pussy squeezing around him, your booty cheeks quivering from how hard you were coming.

"Shit." Your mouth fell open, your beautiful face twisted in blissful agony as you struggled to catch your breath.

Smiling proudly at his handiwork, the Tribal Chief squeezed and smacked your backside one last time before lying down on his back. "C'mere. Put that pretty mouth on my cock."

Managing to unravel your body from the position he twisted you in, you moved over to him and grabbed up his throbbing shaft, spreading the cream you left all over the intimidating length. You released a wad of spit on the tip of his cock and used it to lather him up nice and good. You licked along the side of his dick before taking him halfway into your mouth. Your man tasted so good, his flesh hard and smooth against the flat of your tongue.

"Mmmmm. Nasty ass mouth taking all that big dick. So hot. Suck that shit, baby, taste your pussy on it," he goaded.

You moaned at his words with your mouth full of his cock. Such a nasty shit talker, and it never failed to get your pussy Ieaking. Your hands rested on his thighs now, only working your neck and your wet, juicy lips up and down his length. You moaned on him again and it delivered a vibrating sensation to his dick, causing it to harden even more in your mouth. Easing up on him, you traced circles around his head with your tongue, drawing out pleasured gasps from him as he watched your every move with blown pupils. You took note of every little sound and moan of pleasure he made during sex...It meant you were doing him right, and you were learning to be even better to please both you and your sexy man.

"This my dick, Daddy?" you asked him.

"Yes, baby girl, it is, it's all yours." Roman hummed with satisfaction. You looked so fucking hot, slobbering all over his dick and giving it your undivided attention. His muscled hips bucked upwards to thrust in and out of your mouth. Pulling off your bonnet, he grabbed your hair and held you down on his cock, fucking your mouth over and over, at one point pushing himself so far down your throat that you made a startled sound of protest and popped him out of your mouth to glare at him.

"Hey! You tryna make me gag?" you warned.

Roman merely shrugged. "Damn right. I ain't apologizing, neither. Don't stop. Keep sucking me off."

"Asshole. You lucky I love you." You shifted your focus to his balls and used your lips to tug and pull each one while stroking his flesh pole at the same time. You could hear his gasps, feel him fidgeting, his fingers in your scalp, thanks to your ministrations. You were driving him crazy and you both knew it.

"Fuck, shit, your mouth feels so good on me, girl...you gon' make me come...Damn..."

Roman grunted deep and his big hand yanked you by your neck, shoving his dick back in your mouth where it belonged. With a firm push of your head, you swallowed him up again with a moan. Done with the games, your head bobbed up and down, dragging your lips along his cock in a tight seal, pumping him in your fist, working him into a frenzy.

"Baby, baby," Roman called for you, his balls growing tighter and tighter. Heat bloomed in his belly and his toes twisted. His fingers trembled in your hair as he erupted in your inviting mouth, emptying inside you for the umpteenth time in several hours. You caught every drop of his warm seed without making a mess. Releasing him, you opened your mouth to show him his morning nut.

"Damn, you got all of it," he moaned, taking your chin in his hand and inspecting your mouth. "Good girl. Swallow it and let Daddy see."

Obediently, you swallowed down his load, opening your empty mouth again as proof. Roman growled and crashed your lips together, savoring the tastes of you and him on your tongues. "My baby is such a good girl. Lay back down for me."

"Yes, Daddy." His dazed expression had you giggling while you moved around the bed for him, wiping the excess spit from your mouth. As soon as you were on your back, he pushed your legs up and out of the way. Grabbing the base of his dick, he wasted little time entering you again, holding himself up so that he could drop all this dick down in your pussy. You stared up at him, your lips parted almost in shock; he was so hard and so deep. You looked from his dick to his face again in a euphoric daze. He was rock-hard and digging into your wetness, the lewd sounds echoing around the bedroom. You went to rub your clit but he smacked your hand away.

"Uh-uh, hands off my pussy. I warned you last night about touching this pussy without my consent." As punishment, he picked up the pace.

"Oh my god," you gasped.

His grin was wicked as he watched you push at his abs to no avail. "Haha, I ain't going nowhere, baby. Take this dick like you took it last night. I ain't pulling out neither, you know Daddy don't like to pull out. Now hold your legs up for me."

Before you knew it, you found yourself clasping your calves and rearing your legs further back, allowing him to have his wicked way with you. You were trapped beneath him with nowhere to run, just how he liked it. He rocked that big ol' dick into you, grinding his hips in the most artful way, his body rolling, ebbing, flowing, plunging, making you feel every inch and making you fall in love with him all over again.

And to think, people called missionary boring. The man you were fucking made sure no position was boring. Not many women were as lucky as you were, to have a passionate, attentive partner who knew exactly how to please you.

"You fuck me so good, baby," you praised him, your voice a high-pitched, breathless mewl. “Fuck, you’re making me so wet.”

"Uh huh, you’re making a mess on my cock. I love it. You know I love taking care of my girl and my pussy," he answered, leaning down for a tender kiss.

"You always take good care of me, Daddy. I love you so much."

"I love you too, my sweet girl." Your affirmations seemed to turn him into an animal, as his thrusts became harder, deeper, rougher, the big bed rocking from his forceful movements. He could see your grip on your legs slipping so he grabbed them for you, pinning them down to the bed by the back of your knees. Your toes curled in the air as he kept up his electrifying strokes. The heat you felt creeping up was so strong that you shut your eyes tightly in anticipation. A flood of warm liquid gushed out of you and all over his already creamy dick, making you both moan out loud. When he slipped out of you, you shivered, and then just about fainted when he crept downwards and put his mouth back over you.

"Unnnhhh shiiiit..." you breathed, as he slowly worked his tongue in and around that sweet spot he had since mastered, slurping up your cum juice. You squirmed and squealed helplessly, tears springing to your eyes as another delicious climax built up inside you. Your head fell back onto the bed, incapable of doing any other thing except moan and cry. Too spent to scream, you could only make strangled sobs as another orgasm wracked your body yet again.

When he glided his dick back inside your now sensitive cunt, you couldn't bring yourself to look at him. Roman groaned as you tightened around him, your walls suckling him inch by inch. Bracing himself up with his powerful arms, he nudged your legs up onto his broad shoulders, giving you the perfect view of your pussy taking all his big dick. You turned your head every which way, your weakened body bouncing from the moderate pace of his thrusts. Roman chuckled in amusement at your reaction, his deep, raspy laugh almost taunting.

"Aww, you don't wanna look at me, beautiful? Can't handle how good this dick is?" he teased, kissing away the tears on your cheeks before swiveling his hips around and around, burying himself inside you. "Mmm, you like this, don’t ya? I can tell you like it. You're squeezin' the shit outta my dick. Bet you're feeling real good right now..."

More than good. You were as wet as a waterfall and floating high as a kite right now. Your head arched back into the pillows as he kept putting that dick in your stomach, your voice now hoarse from all your moans and cries. Roman brought his face closer and reacquainted his tongue with yours, absorbing your moan as you tasted yourself in his mouth. In turn, you threaded your fingers through his hair, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Through the haze of passion, you honed in on the sounds of pleasure he was making, the relentless steadiness of his strokes, driving into you with enough momentum to sink you into the sheets.

"God, your pussy is incredible, baby," he murmured under his breath between heated kisses. "Goddamn...I'm 'bout to fill that pussy up, put a damn baby in you."

The waves of searing pleasure rolled outward from where your bodies connected. Roman felt the pull as his balls tightened, inducing him to fuck you harder, faster. You could feel it too, and you reached behind him to rake your nails down his lower back, desperate to end this before you lost control of all your senses and capacities. That small slice of pain was enough to push the Tribal Chief over the edge, your name grinding past his lips as he spasmed inside you. He forced himself as deep as he could down your pussy, emptying his cum in you. Your muscles clenched around him, milking every drop, pulse after pulse of almost painful pleasure mixing with the roaring in his ears. The twitching of his dick ignited another shockwave through your whole body, making you tremble one last time in his arms in a spine-tingling, bone-melting orgasm of your own.

When it was all over, you crawled away from him, lying spread-eagled, gasping for air, your hair a mess. He lay sprawled beside you, gently tracing the love marks he left on your backside and hips. You were too tired to even turn your head, so you missed the victorious smile on his face as he surveyed the 'damage' he caused.

"You good, baby?" he asked you, his fingers massaging your waist in small soothing circles.

There was a faraway look in your eyes. You felt woozy, your body weak and sore from pleasure. You did not mince your words when delivering your assessment. "You a damn demon."

The twinkle in his eye was just as devilish. "And you love it," he replied with a confident smile, "Am I right, sweetheart?"

Fuck. This man was indeed going to be the death of you. "You know you are," you said softly. Craning your head to check the time on your phone charging on the nightstand, you kissed your teeth tiredly. "I'm gonna be so late."

"I thought I said you should call in sick. Here, let me do it for you." He picked up his phone and searched for a contact. You spied the name he was calling and had to fight back a smile.

"I should never have given you my boss' number," you griped, albeit good-naturedly.

"Come on. He loves ya boy," he chortled. He was right, your boss George was a huge wrestling fan and worshipped the ground Roman walked on. You half-listened to their conversation, holding back a giggle at the serious professional tone your man was using. Severe food poisoning, he said grimly, that it did not look good, and he was taking you to the hospital shortly. He put his phone away with aplomb. "See? Done. I told you Daddy always takes care of his baby girl," he said proudly. "Now we can stay in bed all day and eat more cake, among...other things."

He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and you would have laughed if you weren't so exhausted. Thank God you didn't have to get up anymore. You allowed him to wrap his big arms around you, and you snuggled into him, letting him envelop you in the loving protective way he always did. A happy sigh left your lips as you felt his own press against your temple, whispering words of love to you, permitting you to fade back to sleep, completely and utterly satisfied.

THE END

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Thoughts? The Bloodline may be falling apart but our smut will never die, lol.

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Banner made by me. Roman gif by @harmshake. Credit to owners of the other pics and gifs.

#roman reigns #roman reigns fanfiction #the tribal chief #tribal chief #daddy #roman reigns smut #roman reigns imagines #roman reigns imagine #happy birthday roman #the bloodline #roman reigns x plus size reader #roman reigns x black reader

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