#Feathers in Bulk

[filohazard]

This was a very silly idea that took a Lot of time.

[komal09]

[badmintonstorefan]

Plastic vs. Feather Shuttlecock: Which is Best Shuttle for Indians?

For Indians, badminton is happiness! It is a cherished pastime that brings people together. From parks to professional badminton courts, badminton is one sport that is enjoyed by young and old. It is one of the most popular sports in India in addition to cricket, kabaddi, hockey, wrestling, and football.

One crucial aspect of this beloved sport is selecting the right shuttlecock. A shuttlecock's cost may be minuscule compared to badminton rackets or shoes. However, it is the focal point of the sport.

A good quality shuttlecock will exhibit predictable flight patterns and trajectory, thus, leading to accurate shot placement. If you choose a premium shuttlecock, you can control its speed and direction by adjusting your technique.

Feather Birdies: The Obvious Choice for Badminton Professionals

Badminton shuttlecocks are crucial for rallies, strategic play, and winning points. So, badminton professionals, advanced players, and beginners training to be pro players focus on the quality of shuttlecocks. They choose premium feather birdies such as Aerosensa 50 or the GE92 shuttlecocks. But what about recreational players who play the game casually?

Plastic vs. Feather Shuttlecocks: Options Galore

Like gully cricket, badminton is also a recreational pastime for many Indians. They play the game in public parks, grounds, and housing societies. Additionally, you will find several renowned badminton academies in the Southern part of India. So, shuttlecock manufacturers are keen on targeting the nation’s market. From tournament-level badminton shuttlecocks to training feather birdies and durable plastic shuttles, there are ample choices for a casual badminton player.

Let’s understand how Indians can choose between feather and plastic shuttlecocks because it's anything but a casual decision.

1. Where do you Play: Park or Professional Courts?

If you are a casual player, you may be playing at a local badminton club or a sports centre near you. In a professional setup, you may be required to use feather shuttlecocks because it is often the tradition of sports clubs.

However, if you choose to play the game in public parks or your society, the choice is entirely yours. You may not comply with the traditions and standards of any. So, the choice of your shuttlecock will depend on your playing venue.

For example, you can opt for an affordable plastic shuttlecock if you need something to play over the weekend picnic. They are an excellent choice for someone who is playing casually and still learning the skills of the game.

2. How often do you Play: Daily, Weekly, or During Vacations?

Badminton is not just a favourite pastime of Indians. It is also a way of getting healthier. Many Indians prefer to play the game as a fun way to improve their cardiovascular health. It is a much more affordable option than yearly gym memberships. It is also a better choice than running or jogging for some people because badminton also allows bonding with others. So, your choice of the shuttlecock will depend on your goals and playing frequency.

You can choose Yonex Aeroclub TR feather shuttlecocks if you train daily and require a higher flight trajectory. On the other hand, someone who likes to play the game only during their summer vacations may opt for a plastic shuttlecock. Their goal is to buy an item they will use for a limited time only. So, it all depends on how often you play the game and how you want to play it.

3. Whether Weather Plays a Role?

India's diverse climate is a crucial factor in the shuttlecock selection process. The subcontinent experiences extreme weather conditions, from sweltering summers to intense rains and chilly winters. These variations severely impact the performance of shuttlecocks.

For example, you may prefer feather shuttlecocks for their natural feel and flight trajectory. However, they may be sensitive to humidity and temperature during Bengaluru monsoons and become heavy and lead to inaccurate shot placement. If you are playing in the dry conditions of Gujarat or Rajasthan, you may find the feather shuttles too dry and brittle.

On the other hand, plastic shuttlecocks such as Yonex Mavis 350 are more resilient to changing weather conditions. They are not sensitive to humidity and temperature fluctuations, making them a practical choice for year-round play. This durability makes plastic shuttlecocks a preferred option in places where the weather can be unpredictable.

4. The Big Question of Budget

Indian consumers are known for their value-conscious shopping habits. The cost-effectiveness of a product often influences their choices. The fact is no different when it comes to shuttlecocks.

Feather shuttlecocks are relatively more expensive in comparison to their plastic counterparts due to the cost of sourcing and processing natural feathers. Many enthusiasts consider them an investment for serious play or professional training.

In addition to the cost of the feather shuttles, you need to invest in a humidifier to ensure that the feather birdies stay in good shape. Alternatively, plastic shuttlecocks do not need any steaming process to maintain their shape. You can store them easily without any additional preparations.

Plastic shuttlecocks, being more affordable, are often preferred for casual play and beginners. They offer a cost-effective way for aspiring players to practice their skills without breaking the bank.

As Indians, we are cost-conscious and value money over other things. But, do not decide on the basis of the cost alone. Instead of going for cheaper, generic plastic shuttlecocks, choose quality and affordable plastic shuttles such as Yonex Mavis 10 and Li-Ning Swift X100 plastic shuttlecocks.

5. Preference over Everything!

Indians, whether they play for fun or competitively, want their shuttlecocks to last. Durability is a significant factor in the selection process. And, if you look at feather shuttlecocks, they are relatively more fragile than plastic shuttles. And, so, we need to handle them with care.

Plastic shuttlecocks are known for their durability. They can withstand the rigors of intense gameplay, making them a smart choice for regular training sessions and extended playtime.

However, in the end, it all depends on your preference. Even if you play recreational badminton games over the weekend, you can buy feather birdies if you enjoy their feel and playing experience. There are no rules to buying shuttlecocks, only suggestions and preferences.

The decision between feather birdies and plastic shuttlecocks is a thoughtful one, especially for Indian badminton enthusiasts. Weather conditions, buying habits, playing style, budget, and preferences play a crucial role in making this decision. Whether you play casually or take up the sport professionally, choose badminton shuttlecocks to elevate your game and make it fun!

[sexysilverstrider]

my flying team is 50/50 sometimes they cant do jack shit other times they demolish everything in sight

[montereybayaquarium]

🐧Waddle we have here? It's a Gerry update!

🪶It’s o-fish-ally time for Gerry’s first annual adult molt. Instead of a feather here and there, African penguins do an all-at-once feather swap in just a few weeks. Talk about a glow-up!

💪Before a molt, African penguins bulk up their fat reserves. Without an intact, waterproof coat of feathers, they can’t get into the chilly ocean to hunt for their food!

🐟Penguins face significant threats from habitat loss and overfishing. Conservation efforts are crucial to ensuring their survival and protecting their natural habitats. 

💙Let's waddle together to make a difference!

[scarletriddles]

Lost in the fire ˚༄ | S.R

↳ in which the team’s newest case puts your life in jeopardy, at your own accord.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader

genre: angst, sprinkle of fluff

warnings: general cm gore/case discussion, fire/arson, injuries related to fire, swearing, references to religion + greek mythology, friends to…? (they’re in la-la-la-love, your honour), some possible inaccuracies (sorry!), small jemily mention because lesbian rights, hopeful ending, use of she/her pronouns, no use of y/n, second person narrative.

word count: 4.3k

a/n: my first ever fic i’m very nervy🫣i’m not expecting this to gain any sort of traction, but lmk how you find it, i suppose!

“Haley Bradstone, aged twenty-five, and Laura Kilmey, aged twenty-seven, are the most recent victims in a series of murders in Detroit, Michigan. Both victims were discovered four days apart, and only five miles away from each other, their bodies disposed of in black FIBC bulk bags that were left in trash-sites.” JJ pauses, her gaze flickering between the team, almost hesitant as her thumb circles the silver remote. But, with a clearing of her throat, she continues. “Cause of death for both victims has been ruled asphyxiation…by smoke inhalation.”

You abruptly halt toying with the frayed edges of the case file, your eyebrows shooting up and head lifting to look at her, and then also at the rest of the team - who look just as bewildered.

“Sorry, did you just say smoke inhalation?” You ask, genuine confusion weighing down your tone.

JJ nods, her expression dismayed as she eyes the two beaming faces displayed on the board. “Yes, as laid out in the case files, high levels of carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulphide were found in both victim’s lungs. The coroner also noted soot around the victim’s faces, and TBSA burns, all of which are synonymous with death via smoke inhalation.”

“Carbon monoxide poisoning is actually the leading cause of death in smoke inhalation - causing approximately 2,100 deaths in the U.S each year.” Spencer adds, followed by his familiar flat smile, which he usually does when he doesn’t know what to do with his face - which happens to be always.

You blink, with a slight quirk to your lips, despite the circumstances. Trust your good doctor to know just about everything.

“Were there reports of any fires around the general area?” Hotch pipes up, his face set in his usual stony expression, though his eyes betray his pensiveness.

JJ shakes her head, adjusting her stance. “No, which is what makes this stranger. The DPD reported no calls about any sort of fire on the days our victims were killed.”

“What? So our unsub just…lit a bunch of fires in plain sight?” Derek questions, with a flick of his brow, his gaze alternating between the board and the manilla folder in his grasp.

You huff, turning to face him with a slight smile, musing. “Must be one hell of a magician.”

Derek smirks in general bemusement, his dark eyes swirled with mirth, his tone light as a feather as he shifts in his scratchy office chair. “Looks like it, lil mama.”

Ever the smooth talker.

“Or, he could be using a secondary location.” Emily chimes in, her narrow-eyed gaze set firm on the file in front of her, her slender fingers fiddling with a bullet-point pen, and her lips contorted into a reflective pout.

“That’s plausible, but you’d think at least someone would notice.” Rossi adds, with a slight huff of incredulity, his calculating gaze sweeping across the entire room before him.

The two smiling faces are quickly joined by two more, both just as radiant, both just as nausea-inducing. Those poor girls.

“We don’t know for sure. But, the most recent victims join twenty-eight year old Sarah Holloway, and twenty-two year old Jessica Bailey. Who, similarly, were found four days apart, five miles away from each other and dumped in black FIBC bags, also ruled dead via asphyxiation. However, Sarah and Jessica’s dumpsites were around 14 miles away from Haley and Laura’s.” JJ purses her lips faintly, eyes still fixated on the crime scene photographs of four similar looking women who didn’t even live properly yet, robbed of the chance to, just like Poseidon robbed Medusa of her autonomy, on the marble steps of her deity’s temple. The thought alone just worsens the crease between her brows.

“four victims…why are they only just asking for our help, now?” Spencer ponders, features frozen in contemplativeness. His fingers sweep up to push his black-rimmed frames back to their previous position on the bridge of his nose.

God, you love his glasses.

JJ’s face morphs into a faint grimace, as she replies in a reluctant tone. “Unfortunately, the media managed to connect the dots on this one, they’re dubbing our unsub ‘the smoke-killer.’ But, the DPD really needs our help with this.”

You sigh, eyes trained on the gruesome imagery displayed on the silver screen. No matter how long you’ve been with the BAU, the violence never quite gets bearable for you, though you can’t bring yourself to look away - like witnessing a car-crash. You understand the psychology behind it, shock rooting the human body in place as the brain tries to comprehend that what it’s processing is real.

But, guilt still flows around in your system like the Noachian flood. Maybe, if you thought about it hard enough, you’d feel the ark bashing against your innards as it tries to navigate the brutal waves.

You suppose the violence doesn’t get easier for the team, either. Perhaps that’s what keeps you all tethered to each other, bonded. After all, the Greeks did beat the Trojans in unity - and disguised as a large, ligneous horse, but you digress.

Hotch nods, solemnly. “Alright, we can discuss further on the jet. Wheels up in 20.” And with that, he abruptly stands up, striding out of the room with a sureness in his step that only he could possess, effectively putting an end to the briefing.

The screen then goes dark, the car-crash finally being attended to. The sounds of chairs scraping across the frizzled navy carpeted floor and paper rustling bounces around the small space, as everyone heads out and into the bullpen, all but the exception of spencer, who remains seated, brooding over his manilla file as though he’s a modern day Thomas Aquinas. always thinking. You muse to yourself, though your eyebrow still raises in question nonetheless.

“Reid, you coming?” You probe gently, standing in the doorway with a faint grin. Your eyes flickering like fairy-lights all around his hunched-over frame.

Spencer startles slightly, craning his head up from the file and over to you - a rosy hue creeping up the nape of his neck from the sight of you alone. He swallows, standing up suddenly, and pushing his chair out with his hip, as he breathes out. “Uh, yea-yeah i’m…i’m coming.” He collects his things quickly, scrunching up his case file as he slings his satchel over his shoulder. Though, it doesn’t really matter, he’s already memorised it from start to finish. Eidetic memory and all.

He flashes you his signature flat smile once again, as his muddy hues rake over your appearance. You look pretty today, well he thinks you always look pretty, but today especially. Your hair swishes around your face in wisps like cotton-candy, your frame adorned in your usual grey fitted slacks, paired with a pink striped puff sleeved button down and black leather boots.

He believes you’re the personification of an angel, and with the way the abnormally-harsh office lighting is dancing around your hair in a nimbus-like manner, he’s probably right.

“C’mon then doctor genius, we have an hour long flight to catch.” Your voice rolling out with a teasing lilt, a subtle smile curled around the edges of your glossed lips.

Spencer usually loathes being referred to as a genius, namely because it’s said with such obvious sneer and condescension, like he’s an abnormal form, like he’s still that twelve-year-old high schooler. But, you never say it with thinly-veiled disgust, no, you say it with such reverence- like it’s something to be admired.

Yeah, angel.

He mirrors your smile, eyes soft and starry eyed as he follows you out of the room. “one-hour, 19 minutes and 45 seconds.” He corrects softly, always keen for specifics, his satchel smashing against his upper-thigh periodically as he walks beside you.

You huff in amusement, rolling your eyes in jest. “Right. My bad, one-hour, 19 minutes and 45 second long flight.” Your head tilts up slightly to look up at him, your irises dipped in unsubtle gaiety,

Spencer lets out a huffy laugh of his own, shaking his head in amusement. He loved when you teased him, though he’d never admit that. At least, not to you anyway.

“Oh, forgive me for being specific.” He sounds out, airily, like a dish-soap bubble crafted by small exploring hands, as he places his own ridiculously large palm on his chest in mock-offence.

“more like particular.” You reply, just as you reach your desk, in faux-annoyance, the curl of your lips betraying that fact.

Spencer puffs out another slight laugh in response, as he leans against the edge of your desk, watching you comb through it. His gaze doesn’t settle, darting around the array of trinkets and just general stuff aligning the glossy oak, including the multiple pots of bright pens - some looking vaguely like the ones he’s seen scattered around Penelope’s ‘bat-cave’ - and even a stick-figure drawing of him scribbled onto a canary yellow sticky-note, featuring overly large glasses and converse, which are more akin to clown shoes, alongside an equally as dramatised stick-figure version of Morgan, complete with a badly scrawled out six pack and huge biceps.

He feels a warmth blossom in his chest as looks over the cluttered space. It’s just so irrevocably you.

“particular or not, i still believe everything-“ He begins.

“-everything should be accurate, wherever possible” You mock affectionately, with a barely hidden smirk, still rooting through your things like a squirrel digging for an acorn.

A slight pout forms on his face, bordering on more petulant than anything. “How’d you even know I was going to say that?”

A faint effervescent giggle slips past your lips, your head still firmly pulled down, as your hands continue their wandering through your desk drawers. “ ‘Cause you’ve said that line at least a dozen times now, doc.” You drawl out, still grinning to yourself.

He wants that sound to be his morning alarm.

He rolls his eyes, only half-seriously, a smile lighting the corners of his mouth up like a vegas ‘welcome’ sign. “I have not said that a dozen times!” He huffs out, with a shake of his head at the injustice of it all, his dark curls springing with the movement.

You just smile, continuing to rifle through your desk before you locate what you were looking for, quickly straightening up and collecting the rest of your things before turning to him.

“Well, I’m all set doctor, lead the way.”

“Is that just so you don’t get lost again?” he replies, with an overt teasing twinkle.

You groan, blowing out like a whistle “that was one time! i was still new, and the hallways are confusing!”

He just bellows out a laugh, pushing up off the edge of your desk and beginning to walk - more like stride - his way to the elevators. You in tow, but just barely. His legs are way too long.

“I can put a sign on my back that says, ‘follow me’, if needs be.” He throws behind his shoulder.

“Oh, shut up!” You bark out, not really with any bite. Never with him.

It had been about three days since you landed in Detroit, Michigan. Most of that time being spent cramped up in the tiny makeshift office curated for the team, downing copious amounts of coffee, reading files until the backs of your eyes burned and dodging the borderline leering looks from the mid 40-year-old, beer gut endowed cops.

In other words, it was hell.

The team had made some progress, though. Narrowing down the profile to a white male in his early to mid thirties, who works a menial job, of average height and build, and who clearly dislikes women. Obviously, that didn’t narrow down the ‘Where’s Waldo’ search by much. But still, you really just couldn’t shake the obvious question…

Why go through all the trouble of burning these women, but not completely, just to dump their bodies?

And it seemed that question floated around the backs of everyone else’s mind, too. It was bizarre, to say the least.

Currently, the team is all stuffed in said aforementioned makeshift office space, like sardines in a can, no less. Emily and JJ sat at the table together, as usual, Derek propped up against the wall, Hotch and Rossi stood brooding in the corner of the room, quietly discussing something between themselves, leaving you and Spencer situated in front of the board, where the geographical profile is mapped out.

“He’s operating within a 20 mile radius, dumping the bodies within an area he’s comfortable in. He’s either going to strike here.” Spencer points to a spot on the map with his finger, tapping against it slightly before dragging it across and towards another spot, “or here.” His features were swamped in pondering thought, his honeyed gaze encompassing the sight in front of him.

“Yeah, but i still don’t understand why he’d go through all the trouble of burning them till they die from smoke inhalation, and then discarding the bodies. jus’ seems a lil’ pointless t’ me” Morgan drawls out, his stance wide and his arms folded, one of his hands resting on his chin.

“well ain’t that the million dollar question.” You reply, with a sigh lathered in perplexity, your arms folded in a similar manner, but with one of your hands rubbing up the side of your arm, in a absentminded fashion.

“Morgan’s right, it doesn’t make any sense.” Hotch pauses slightly, contemplating - like everybody else in the room. His dark eyebrows stitched together, and his lips set in a taut frown.

“None of it makes sense, i mean, even the dumping method, why bulk bags and not just plain ol’ trash bags?” Emily questions, sitting back in her seat with an exhale, her legs crossed with her boot-clad foot tapping against one of the legs of the rickety table.

You blink, a thought coming to you at her question. “Theres a Hardware store in the middle of town, right?” You throw out, hands stuffed into the pockets of your black slacks.

Hotch’s brows furrow, as he regards you. “Yes, why?” He says simply, almost curiously.

You shrug, “so then he’d probably be getting the bulk bags from there, since it’s easily accessible.”

Everyone goes silent at your question, seemingly mulling it over, before Morgan responds.

“If so, why wouldn’t he just buy trash bags?” He says, with a cock of his brow.

“Because he wants the victims to be found.” Spencer states, plainly, piling onto your train of thought and rocking back and forth on his heels, as his tongue darts out, swiping his slightly dry bottom lip.

“Think about it, a bulk bag is much more conspicuous than a simple trash bag, he wants his handiwork to be seen - maybe not right away, but he knows at least one person would find the presence of a large plastic bag near a dumpster to be…alarming, whereas no one would bat an eye at seeing a trash bag. Same goes for his M.O, he most likely has some sort of access to an incinerator, perhaps due to his job, which allows him to discreetly ‘burn’ his victims, before dumping them in a way which derives notice.”

His hands flail around wildly as he talks, an endearing habit that makes it seem like he’s so excited to talk about what he’s discussing that, at the minimum, one part of his body has to move with the speed of his mouth.

You smile - more of a secret thing, really, just for yourself - you love listening to that man talk. It’s the eighth wonder of the world, to you.

Everyone nods, the notion seemingly settling into their psyche without much problem, as logically, it did make sense.

“If thats the case, then we have a problem.” Rossi scratches the side of his jaw lightly, his head tilted and his bronze hues directed at the table.

Emily raises her brow, in clear need of clarification. “What problem?” She murmurs out, her head cocked to the side, questioningly.

“We have an unsub who wants attention, and will stop at nothing to get it.” Hotch adds on, sharing a brief glance with Rossi, his expression more grave than usual, before he fishes out his phone, dialling a number and setting the onyx Nokia down onto the table. “Garcia, you’re on speaker.”

“Hello, my favourite crime-fighters! To what do i owe the pleasure?” The shrill cheery voice of Penelope Garcia rings out, immediately bringing a small smile to your face. She really was like bathing in sunshine.

“We were wondering if you could take a look at a hardware store’s sales within the last month, more specifically of FIBEC bulk bags.” Hotch drags out, his arms still folded and his face betraying nothing but his usual stoicism.

“Oh, that i can do upside down with my hands tied, sir! just…one…second.” Penelope’s voice hauls out, followed by the rapid clinking of keyboard keys. “What’s the name of the store?” She asks, her tone focused.

“Sally’s Shack” Hotch replies, his tone equally levelled.

After a few moments, and a lot more keyboard clicking, Penelope finally pipes up again. “Ah-hah! so, it appears that our shack in question has sold six FIBEC bulk bags within the last month, all to the same buyer - well, at least the same credit card was used, ending in 4678.”

Hotch looks visibly taken aback slightly, before he asks “Can you get a name, Garcia?”

“Already on it, sir.” Penelope replies, with her usual peachy tone.

A tense silence follows, only sporadically broken by the clickity-clack of Penelope’s rainbow pastel keyboard. Then, she pipes up again.

“Okay…looks like the card belongs to a 33-year-old, Mr. Eugene Humphrey, who currently works at…” Her words trail off, obvious hesitance behind them “…burns funeral home and crematory, and owns a residence just in the middle of town.”

Everybody seems to pause, then. He matches the profile - Mid thirties, works a menial job which would give him access to a ‘discreet’ burning method and just so happened to purchase the same material used by the unsub, whilst also owning his own property not too far away from the hardware store in which the material was purchased…yeah that can’t be a simple coincidence.

“Pen, does he have a criminal record of any kind?” Your voice floats out, drifting through the confined space like Thumbelina on her shamrock lily-pad.

“I will have a looksie for you now, my sweet sugar muffin, just hang on one second-“ Penelope cuts herself off as her fingers begin their ministrations again, the keyboard rumbling with every tap, a smile edging on your face at the absurd term of endearment.

“Alright…looks like our guy spent six months in juvenile detention when he was sixteen for lighting his girlfriend’s car on fire, claimed he caught her cheating on him with his best friend, youch!”

You can practically see the cogs turning in your teammates heads, looks like you got your guy.

“Okay, thats good garcia, could you-“

“-send his information over? already done, sir.” promptly interrupting the low voice of your unit chief, in a way that is so Penelope, that he can’t really object.

“Thank you Garcia, We appreciate it” Hotch replies in his typical authoritative tone.

“You’re welcome, my gorgeous gods and goddesses, now go and save lives.” Penelope chirps out, swinging on her swanky desk chair, her hands now preoccupied with a bright pink fluffy pen.

“You’re the best, babygirl.” Morgan calls out, his tone suave and a smirk illuminating his features.

Penelope lets out a giggle, replying in her token-teasing articulation. “Only for you, my chocolate thunder, now ta-ta!” Her sing-songy voice sounds out with finality, before the line drops, indicating that she ended the call.

“Alright, everyone, looks like we’re scoping a funeral home. I’ll go inform the captain, and i need all of you to gear up, as a cautionary, is that clear?” Hotch demands, his gaze expectant.

resounding murmurs of “yes” fill out the area, to which the dark-haired agent replies to with a curt nod, before swiftly exiting the room.

You let out a breath, turning to the rest of the team with a faintly reluctant expression. “Let’s get this show on the road then, guys.”

Morgan flashes an easy smile, coming up behind Spencer and clapping him on the shoulder, his smooth voice infused with teasing. “You heard her, pretty boy, let’s get moving.”

Spencer has to resist an eye-roll, his cheeks immediately flushing raspberry red, whereas you just let out a small confused laugh - clearly not in on whatever inside joke that seems to be playing out - turning on your heel and prancing out of the room, leaving the two of them to squabble like 10-year-old brothers.

Though, on your way out, you swear you saw Emily squeeze JJ’s hand underneath the table…

Something went wrong. Terribly wrong.

You don’t know how - hell, nobody on the team knows how, but Humphrey somehow found out you were coming. He might’ve gotten some frustratingly accurate in-tell, or maybe he just… knew. After all, bad news attracts bad news, right? And being arrested for the murders of four women sure seems like pretty bad news. Or maybe he was a paranoid fuck. Either thought seems plausible, but currently pointless.

Ironically, Burn’s Funeral Home and Crematory, was well…burning. The two-story high foundation, which you’re guessing was once a depressing waxen colour, is now engulfed in orange. Bright, blazing orange, and for a moment, you almost believe the sun crash-landed onto earth.

The ignited shades dance across your features , making you look like you’re almost glowing. You hear Morgan let out a few curses, and Emily mutter something eerily close to “Oh my God” under her breath. But, the rest of you remain silent, devoid of speech, heads lifted up and staring at the fiery wreckage. Drawn in, entranced.

You can’t pull your eyes away, Not even when Hotch snaps out of his own silent gazing and begins to talk around you, shooting out instructions like darts to your co-workers. Well, until you hear a fire-man trudge past you, in full PPE and carrying a winding anaconda-like hose, writhing along the gravelled floor with each step he takes, similar orders being barked out of his mouth to his team-mates. But, that isn’t what grabs your attention, it’s the information coming from his radio.

A mother and her child are stuck in there, apparently looking for a casket for her husband before the building went up in flames, and they aren’t even going to attempt to save them - something about the fire being “too large, too risky.”

A mother and her child. Her 8-year-old little girl who just lost her father, and now is going to lose her own life, trapped in a scorching maze.

Not on your watch.

You will not, cannot, let this sick bastard take another girl’s life.

Your legs move before your brain even has time to catch-up, darting straight past multiple fire personnel who all try to stop you, but you dodge each one. Not even the sounds of the team shouting your name halts you, your figure retreating straight into the raging inferno.

What’s that saying? Moth to a flame?

Well, consider the molten-structure your flame. Because you won’t stop, will not stop, not until the mother and her daughter are out. Safe.

Either way, God appeared before Moses in the form of a fiery bramble. And maybe, he was doing it again, instead for their freedom, not yours or a 120-year-old man’s. You were getting them out of this desert, even if there were no miles of grainy-sand and the occasional tumbleweed, but instead hot, piercing, smouldering heat.

Spencer’s astute brain doesn’t take long to register what the hell you are doing. And, he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so panicked. He practically screeches your name, moving to go after you, but with no such luck as Morgan and Hotch hold him back. But he fights, and he fights harder than he’s ever had in his life, because this is you.

“Let me go! she’s in there! you can’t just let her go in there!” He shrieks, every word sharpened with utter desperation.

Neither Morgan’s nor Hotch’s replies to his incessant wailing actually penetrates his mind. He feels like he’s underwater, succumbing to the depths of the Mariana Trench, fading black and blue.

The water freezes over the longer you’re in there. Trapped in that dismal, enflamed formation. He feels sick, but he knows spilling his stomach content won’t provide any relief, it’s a sickness that’s lodged itself into his bones, into his very being. He wonders if this is what the Woolly Mammoths felt like during the first coming of the glacial-period, just observing as they, one-by-one, all perished to the frost.

He can’t have lost you. Not before he-

…Not before he could tell you that you’re his first thought when he wakes up, and his last before he surrenders himself to the dark abyss of unconsciousness.

No, this can’t be it. He refuses, he downright rejects the thought.

He just stares, and stares at the lit up property, his whole entity screaming for you to just make it. His mind and mouth spinning prayers to god’s he doesn’t even believe in because if there was any chance of that turning the cards in your favour, then he’s taking it and holding on tight.

The seconds feel like minutes, the minutes like hours. Time is a fickle thing, always stretching and compressing back together again depending on someone’s emotions. But, that philosophy does nothing to distract him from the ache. Because a life without you in it, he grasps, isn’t a life at all. Not one that he wants to live, anyway.

Two soot-covered frames emerge from the fiery entrance, immediately being swept away by fire-personnel for medical treatment. And his heart stops, until he realises you aren’t either of those coughing figures.

Where are you? Why aren’t you coming out?

Time seems to stretch again, expanding like a black-hole over his fitful, beating heart. Ready to consume, ravage. But, maybe, that would be an act of mercy, anything would be an act of mercy compared to the waiting. Agonising, hoping and waiting.

Then…a third figure finally bursts out of the flames. He’s seen that mop of hair before, he knows that hair. Even at a fair distance, hunched over and simultaneously gasping for air and hacking your lungs up, tousled, with skin embedded in ash, You’re beautiful and you’re alive.

You’re alive.

He pushes his body forward and he runs, he sprints and goes to you. And this time, Hotch and Morgan let him.

[toyherb]

wedding with Ford is gonna be year 2 fall 24th :>

[dduane]

Invictus

In the dimness he woke and knew it was too late. Morning never came so late unless the world was ending.

Fortunately, he knew what to do about that.

He blinked and ruffled his feathers, looking around. This was his place. Surrounding a patch of grass were two holly trees, a pine, a cypress whose branches all went the wrong way, and much shrubbery, mostly beech and thorn. The shelter was good here, even on nights like last night. And in the holly, food appeared hung up: good food that tasted of fat and meat. It was all his. Later, when it was time for sex, there would be someone else who’d get some of it. But right now, he owned it.

This cold white stuff on the ground did complicate matters. It came and went without warning, and here it was again. Now, others who might have spent the morning scratching around the ground instead of stuffing themselves full up here would be turning up in his territory, eating his food. His feathers ruffled up again, this time with rage at the thought. Bastards. Bastards. Kill them all.

He hopped up onto the branch that had the best view across the patch of grass and into the bushes, and sang. Bastards! Who wants a piece of me? Come and get it! Because this was when it had to be said, no matter how much you might have preferred to sit quiet with your feathers fluffed up, conserving your heat. The dim sky was already paling toward that too-cold blue. It would be a bad day, cold, everybody and his family would turn up here trying to get at the tree food, which was what you needed this time of year if you meant to stay alive until dusk –

And suddenly he heard the harsh dark cawing coming from across the hardened path, across the wall, in the wood full of tall starved pines. He shivered. Not so early, he thought, what are you doing up at this hour? But he knew. That one wanted the tree-food too. It had come for it before. Now, in the silence before the morning wind, he heard the flapping of the wings.

Hastily he turned to the food cage, ate a few mouthfuls, felt the fat melt down his throat like blood, like life. Almost before he finished, the darkness had landed with a noisy thrash of leaves and branches up in the holly. A huge expressionless black eye gazed down at him.

He sang. It was almost all he could do. It’s mine! Stay away, or I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! But the outcome was hardly so simple. The black-headed, white-backed shape with the axe-like beak bounced down another branch, and another, its eye on that tree food, that meat. It liked meat too. He’d once seen it zoom down onto the pond and simply pick up a baby duck and fly off with it. I’ll kill you if you get any closer! Don’t push me! I will!

It came closer. It was winter, it was death, the shape now only one branch of holly away. He sang as if life depended on it: because it did. If he had enough to eat, the sun came up. If the sun came up, the world was safe. It was as simple as that. Go away! I have to eat the food or the world will end! I’ll kill you to keep that from happening! Monster, go away, don’t make me rip you up — ! He fluttered at the monstrous gaping head, enraged, desperate.

A clacketing, rattling noise from behind. The black eye went wide, the death-pale bulk roused its wings and flapped clumsily out of the holly tree. Desperate with relief, he flung himself at the food-cage again, and ate with frantic speed as the sky paled brighter, toward day-blue: and between mouthfuls, he sang at the top of his lungs, shuddering with relief and triumph. Bastard! I warned you not to mess with me! Victory! Victory!

The sun peered up over the far hill. The shadows fled. He gorged himself as the black bird flew off, and stopped, and shouted again, Victory!

…She stood there with her mug in one hand, looking out across the back yard snow at the dot of red breast deep in among the holly branches, pecking furiously at the suet in its little cage. “Boy,” she said to the husband, back in the kitchen, “listen to that guy. You’d think he’d just won World War Three.”

“Yeah. Where’s the milk?”

The door closed. On the snow, the sun of the shortest day shone.

Victory!

[arc-misadventures]

Can we get team RWBY's reaction to Jaune helping Whitley get a date and actually start to bulk up

Do You Even Lift, Bro?!

: GrrRRrrrRRR?! RAAHHHH?!!

(Thud!)

: Ha haa haaa...

: H-How did I do...?

: Congratulations, you've managed to do half of a push up.

: I'm making progress!

: Yeah...

Jaune Arc, Huntsmen, Atlasian Specialist, and stuck between a love triangle of imaginable possibilities, both good, and bad. He was stuck on what was slowly becoming an impossible task: Training the twig of a human being, Whitely Schnee to bulk up, more so for his personal imagine, than anything else. His crush would probably like it if he bulked up a bit, but, Fiona didn't strike him as the type who was into muscles.

Jaune: Granted not being able to do a pushup, to being able to do half of a push up is an improvement. All be it an insignificant one...

Jaune: Okay, get up, we'll move on to weights...

Jaune offered, Whitely a hand who took it. Jaune effortlessly lifted him up, even getting some air in the process. Jaune was starting to think he needed to see a doctor, the boy was so light, he was starting to fear he was underweight, or something else.

Jaune: Okay, there's like... no strength in your arms, so we'll work on some dumbbells. Let's start with... five pounds. Okay?

Whitely: Okay!

Jaune handed over one five pound dumbbell, and when he grabbed it what happened, Jaune had expected to happen.

Whitely: Wa-Ahh?!

(Thud!)

Jaune: ...

Jaune watched as, Whitely effortlessly, and helplessly dropped the dumbbell, because it weighed too much, and the kid couldn't hold it in the air for one second.

Jaune: Haa... Okay... We'll start with a, two pound dumbbell...

Whitely: Okay...

Jaune handed, Whitely a two pound dumbbell, and while he was struggling to hold it, he didn't drop it at least.

Jaune: This is going to be harder than I expected...

Weiss: Jaune? Jaune is that you? What are you doing hereeeeeeeee...?

Jaune turned to see, Weiss staring at him with a faint blush across her face. Jaune was dressed in shorts, and a tight tee-shirt showing off his definitive muscles he gained from his life as a huntsmen.

Yang: Ahh, Weiss here you are what are you...?

Blake: Is something going on... Oh..

Ruby: Damn...

Jaune: Girls, can I help you?

Weiss: Ahh... y-yeah... What are you doing here... in the families home gym... and, since when did we have one?

Jaune: Oh, I'm just helping, Whit start his exercise routine.

Blake: Whit?

Jaune moved to the side to see, Whitely Schnee lifting a dumbbell. At least trying to that is.

Weiss: Whitely?!

Whitely: Hmm...? Oh, hi, Weiss!

Weiss: W-What are you doing here?

Whitely: Oh... I'm bulking up!

Weiss: Why?

Whitely: Well... Okay... Can you guys guess my age?

Ruby: Uhh... thirteen?

Blake: I'd say thirteen.

Yang: I agree, I'd guess your thirteen years old.

Whitely: Oh gods...

Weiss: What?! He's seventeen?!

Ruby: What?!

Yang: Seventeen...? This baby faced twig...?!

Blake: Bullshit.

Jaune: Yeah... I thought he was fourteen too. I recommended he change his diet, and bulk up so people don't think he's a kid. That, and he needs to put on some weight, this kid is as light a feather... See?

Whitely: Wha...? No, not again!

Jaune once again effortlessly picked up, Whitely by the scruff of his shirt, and held him in the air.

RWBY: ...

Yang: Ouch...

Weiss: How much do you weigh?!

Jaune: Hmmm...?

Weiss: Whoa...? Hey?!

Jaune grabbed, Weiss by her shirt, and held her in the air like he did with, Whitely. Jaune shook the pair up, and down for a moment.

Jaune: A little less then what, Weiss does.

Yang: Okay...

Blake: He didn't even have to try...?

Weiss: Put me down you brute?!

Jaune: Whoops. Sorry.

Jaune then let the to go, with, Weiss landing gracefully on her feet, while, Whitely fell flat on his ass.

Whitely: Ow!

Jaune: Oh, sorry, Whit.

Whitely: It's okay. I should have been prepared for the drop.

Blake: Why are you calling him, Whit?

Jaune: It's just a nickname I gave him. And, also a cover for when he goes down to, Mantle again.

Weiss: You've been to, Mantle?!

Whitely: Hasn't everyone?

Weiss: It's a dangerous place with lots of people that would harm you!

Whitely: I know that. Do you think I go dressed as in my suit when I go down there, no, I looked like some skater kid when I'm down there. No one recognizes me. You didn't recognize me when I 'bumped' into you.

Weiss: You bumped into me when we're were in, Mantle?

Ruby: Were you the guy that almost made, Weiss trip?

Whitely: Yep! That was me~!

Weiss: You...?! I almost fell into a pool of dirty water, because of you?!

Whitely: Really? I hadn't notice that.

Weiss: Grr! Why you little twerp?!

Jaune: You nearly did that? Maybe you should bulk up too, Weiss.

Weiss: Excuse me?!

Jaune: Now then, is there something we can help you with? Otherwise, Whitely needs to continue his exercises. Get back to it, Whit!

Whitely: Okay.

Blake: No, we were just here because we heard you voice, and we were curious about what you were doing here.

Jaune: Okay.

Whitely: How many of these should I do?

Jaune: When it starts to hurt, count to twenty.

Whitely: But, it already hurts!

Jaune: Then start counting!

Whitely: Grrr...

Ruby: Well, we're going to some shoppes in, Atlas... do you... do you want to come with us...?

Jaune: No thank you, I don't need anything.

Ruby: Oh... o-okay...

Yang, Blake, and Weiss shared a look before making a silent agreement that they needed to end this, and leave before anything happened.

Blake: We better get going...

Weiss: Yeah, don't want to miss the next airship.

Yang: Well, good luck, Whitely!

Whitely: Thank you!

Yang: And, Jaune, keep on looking fine, and hoooooowwWWW?!

: He's looking like what, Yang?

Weiss: W-Winter?

The members of team, RWBY turned to see, Winter Schnee. Smiling a warmthless smile as she was crushing, Yang shoulder.

Yang: H-He's looking...?! Looking...?! Owowowowowo! Please let me go!

Winter: Looking like what, Yang~?

Yang: H-He's looking like a strong, and dependable senior helping out his young disciple?!

Winter: That's right~!

Winter smiled as she walked past, Yang letting go of her shoulder in the process.

Yang: Ahhh?! Ha haaa...?!

Blake: Are you okay?

Yang: Woman's got a grip like a mechanical vice?!

Winter: Now then, why don't you run along girls. I will help, Jaune here with, Whitely's training.

Ruby: A-Are you sure you don't want our help...?!

Winter then turned bending down as she placed her hands on, Ruby's shoulder. Introducing her to her mechanical vice like grip as she stared daggers at, Ruby.

Winter: Listen here you little pipsqueak! I understand you want to make amends with, Jaune. But, my shows about to begin, and I don't want some little brat interrupting me, and my himbo hunk of a white knight! So kindly turn around, and get the fuck out of here! Okay~?

Ruby: O-O-O-Okay?!

Winter: Wonderful~!

With that, Team RWBY made a swift escape, unless they deal with the wrath of a woman in love.

Winter: Ahh~! Say, Jaune?

Jaune: Yeah?

Winter: I can help set up a proper training regium for, Whitely. Why don't you get some exercise yourself; Might I recommend the barbell?

Jaune: Sure, that wouldn't hurt.

Jaune walked over to the barbell, put it on his shoulders, and started doing some lifts. White, Jaune was doing this, Winter stared on, biting her lips as she watched his muscles bulge as he exerted them.

Winter: Mmmm~! Mama likey~!

Whitely: Sister, can you not do that in front of me?

Winter: Let me salivate over my man, or I'll tell, Weiss about your date with, Fiona.

Whitely: Very good, have a nice day, Winter.

Winter: Mmmm~! Eat your heart out, Robyn~! He's all mine for today~!

~~~

Fiona: What's wrong with blue balloons?

Robyn: My colours are red, and green, also some browns, but red, and green balloons are what's needed for my victory celebration, not...?!

Fiona: ...

Fiona: R-Robyn? Is something wrong?

Robyn: I can feel it!

Fiona: Feel what...?

Robyn: That bitch is trying to steal my man!

Fiona: ...

Fiona: Okay.

[globalrebrand]

When you Deny Them Staff Edition: Crowley and Crewel

Warnings: Light not sfw

Crowley

It's inelegant to say the least. Crowley likes his feathers ruffled at least thrice a week during the school year and even more on vacation. He's never had a problem getting you into his bed before. Whether you've been together 10 years or 100 years nothing has stopped this regular pattern of intimacy except for grave emergencies.

There are several key ways you and Crowley like to like to initiate your sessions. Usually a mutual coming together at the end of a long day, or when you walk into his private office in your shared home and he turns around with a wide smile to greet you patting his lap affectionately. A kiss or two quickly ends up with the two of you tangled in each other in the bed, on his office sofa, or even on the desk.

So imagine his surprise when all of the usual warmth and affection he's used to receiving from you becomes only chaste pecks and stoic caresses. He loses it. Breaks down instantly, but he tries to keep a brave front but he can't stomach not having your full affection.

His first impulse is to consult his teaching staff. Trein advises that this is a matter entirely inappropriate to discuss with the school's teachers, but as a veteran of marriage suggests that Crowley try to engage in affection with you where sex isn't the exclusive result. Just some cuddling or snuggling without pressure for more. Trein also advises Crowley to just talk to you about the changes in your intimacy levels but Crowley in all of his infinite wisdom thinks that would come off as a bit desperate. "As if you didn't reek of desperation already, Dire" (Trein's words not mine.)

Crowley sees the sense in that but would prefer faster results so he goes to Crewel who plainly tells him that he dresses like an Edgar Allen Poe inspired 19th century brothel owner and suggests that he dress a bit more modern and less garish. (admittedly this is rich coming from Crewel) This Crowley does try, he walks in one day after work in a beautifully tailored midnight colored suit and like a moth to a flame you come over and press your hands to his chest and lapels, telling him how handsome he looks, but then if you end up liking it too much his feelings are hurt and he reverts back to his old sense of dress. You liked it before! (cockblocks himself)

Vargas tells him that he needs to bulk up. He's too spindly and that you're probably creeped out by his spider like physique. Crowley considers building some muscle, but when Vargas says it will probably take about 3 months to see any meaningful gains Crowley doesn't even let him finish talking before moving on.

Naturally Sam suggests gifts and this really resonates with Crowley, so soon you'll wake up to a cadre of silver and gold glittering gifts on your vanity in the morning and a cheesy grin from your husband encouraging you to try things on. You like the presents well enough but are incredibly offended by the assumption that because of these gifts you should want to immediately jump his bones as repayment. He understands the optics look bad but that's not what he meant!

If none of these questionably implemented strategies work it takes maybe a month of cold interactions and failed seduction attempts before he's coming to you in your shared bed, already sniffling as he tries to get to the bottom of the situation.

"Please tell me what's the matter my love. I know you wouldn't withhold yourself from me for anything less than being in complete and utter despair. As your husband it is my job to shoulder these burdens with you."

Crowley is absolutely shocked when you say nothing is the matter and that you're just not in the mood. Insists you need to get to the doctor, because obviously something is medically wrong even if you feel fine. If you insist you're ok, he starts full on sobbing asks if there's someone else. He promises he'll forgive you just tell him the fucker's name.

The good news is that as long as you're honest and open with him there's really no reason for there to be an extended period of abstinence. Crowley is using all of the creative problem solving skills he doesn't use at his job to solve the problem of why you don't want to rail him anymore.

If you want to try something new, he'll do whatever you ask. If you're tired and stressed he's trying to figure out how to take things off your plate. This silly little birdman will do anything for you. He can't tolerate even 10% less of his normal daily dose of intimacy and affection from you. Now with that understanding out of the way, go to him. He needs you desperately.

"Darling there's no need to let anything come between us. I will always do my best to please you, there is no one for me but you. Now, spread your legs."

Crewel

Indignant, but demure. He's really not used to you saying no to him. Of course he respects your right to say no, to him, but you really seldom do. Crewel honestly doesn't know how to react when he draws his hand up your thigh and you stop him in his tracks and tell him not right now. What do you mean? Are you going somewhere? Doing something? If you're not busy and not sick, what gives? The occasional no is tolerable if a smidgen disappointing, but a habit of rejection however, that won't do at all.

Of course Crewel doesn't externalize those thoughts he just respects your wishes, but he's not exaggerating when he estimates that you both have sex nearly everyday. You both might tell the another not now, but more certainly there will be a later. Normally you and Crewel can't keep your hands off of each other. You both thought it was a honeymoon phase, but its been years at this point and you two just don't...stop... going at it.

Your relationship isn't only physical of course. Crewel loves you body and mind, so he's more than willing to adhere to your boundaries. He promised to love you in sickness and health, through thick and thin.

Early into the change he'll ask you if anything is wrong, and if there's anything he can do to help, make you feel more comfortable or reengage with you physically. If you open up to him and have a discussion about what's bothering you so much that you're withdrawing from him then you two can quickly get to the bottom of things together and resume intimacy with little issue, however, if you wave off his concerns all he'll say is that you're a "stubborn pet," but that he's there for you no matter what.

But he does actively try to seduce you in the mean time, and admittedly he gets really into the task. He's really unused to rejection so the opportunity to prove himself is a welcome challenge, to deliberately attract your gaze and demand your attention kinda turns him on. It's been years since you've played hard to get with him and he's more than up to the task or turning your head. He's too proud to beg so simple seduction is just what it is.

Crewel starts off simple, he walks around the house shirtless, maybe unbuttons the top few buttons of his dress shirts after he's home from school. He'll make sure to wear the clothes and sleepwear you find him the most irresistible in. But then he ups the ante by cooking you meals whenever he gets a chance.

Imagine Crewel in your kitchen, you sitting at the island, both of you splitting a bottle of wine while he works over the stove, his shirt a bit unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to expose strong forearms and an apron tied at his waist. Then he comes to you cradling spoonful of sumptuous sauce and putting it to your lips asking you to tell him how it tastes. Now I personally would just have to give him head right then and there but if you're still not swayed he has a few more tricks up his sleeves.

(It's important to note while he tries his hand at seduction, Crewel has no expectations. He's just doing his best to make you want him and he's an alchemy expert so he's very good at trusting the process and not rushing results, even if his instincts his brain's internal nonstop directive to jump your bones and make you submit are telling him otherwise.)

Now maybe Crewel perceives that the reason you're not connecting with him physically is because your burdened with either your job or housework. Managing the latter is no problem, either he hires a maid or sets up some magical systems that help to tidy the house. Sure it's tedious but absolutely worth it when you ask him about how everything go so spotless and he tells you that he's handled it. The look of gratitude and awe on your features is so alluring to him. Oh he just wants you so bad! He's impatient to have your again but tries to remember good things come to those who wait.

He finds other activities to fill up your time together, maybe you start going to the gym, or reading together just things to make sure that if you aren't having sex, at least there's other form of connection and intimacy happening. And of course he looks insanely hot in gym clothes, which doesn't fail to make you blush and seeing other people eye him makes you want to stake your claim. And coincidentally, the books Crewel wants to read with you are all vaguely or intensely erotic in nature which has certainly gotten you hot and bothered on occasion.

And you'll honestly be so surprised as his willingness to give you space sexually that it's likely you who comes up to him about the missing intimacy in your relationship.

Honestly your knowledge of his playboy past has you thinking he might have found someone else. You see how often he gets hit on by perfect strangers when you're literally right next to him. It wouldn't be hard in the slightest for him to find someone else to meet his needs. But then you realize that he's hardly away from you, if anything the two of you are continuing to connect with each other.

When you apologize to him about not being more in the mood and not initiating sex he's genuinely taken aback. It hasn't been more than a few weeks. He'll tell you that you have nothing to apologize for, though he appreciates your awareness. He understands that everyday is a bit much but is happy to work with you to find middle ground.

"Oh puppy its my fault for tiring you out. Nearly everyday for years...perhaps we were due for a reset. How about you tell me how you'd like things to go from here on out? Speak now or forever hold your peace pet. You know I'm seldom willing to make changes, but for you and this beautiful body, I do just about anything."

[1800titz]

HI BESTIES. Trivia!Harry x Shy!Reader part 1 ((based on THIS post))

The one where Harry hosts trivia at a small town bar every Thursday and you just can’t seem to shut up.

WC: 3.7K

This is part one of a patreon exclusive series — the rest will only be accessible through my patreon. You can already find part 2 up on my patreon (✿◠‿◠)

You take a long drink. It tastes like kismet and carbonated nothingness.

(Retrospect will tell you that it's meant to be— tiny town, diminutive ambitions, hulking potential. But now, the twinge of an uncomfortable fever crawls up from your collar and makes you want to squirm in your seat.)

“Alright, alright, alright.”

And the smooth baritone against the head of a microphone makes your insides squeeze. Close. Real close— his mouth is pink, hovering millimeters, and that brass is the kind that seeps over your nape, under your skin. Molasses-heavy, slinking the gaps in the meshed grill caging. You blink up at the portable four-by-eight platform.

It's the kind of squeeze along your guts, the heat simmering in your face the longer you stare, that'll taunt you in the ridges of the night. Boxed into this— tonight, under a parapet— comfort zone hovering beyond your periphery, in the nook of the living room you left behind to wrack your head and stare at sin-in-bulk on a mobile stage.

The lively chatter dulls as heads turn, and then swells in eager increments. 

“Alright,” he says, a set of green eyes flickering from the monitor he’s settled over a rejigged high top, bounding sharply to whoever’s just given an overly enthusiastic cry of yes from the horde.

A peal of sparse, scattered laughter blooms in the throng. His mouth quirks.

“Very enthusiastic. How are you?” 

His cresting gaze climbs from the glowy screen, casting light and carving shadow over the sultry features of his visage; an evenly straight slope of a nose, cheekbones feathered by long lashes, a bit of curl that traipses over his forehead. 

His chin swivels to his left, somewhere closer to the platform where a woman leans over the table— her designated team. The corners of his lips curl in response to whatever she’s said. He smiles. Nods. He tips his chin. Makes a creased face like something playful. Says something else, laughs softly, and turns back, shaking his head. 

You tuck the straw into your mouth and take another, long slow sip.  

In the heft of his hand, the stem of the mic nearly resembles a toy. A maquette between the thick of his fingers.

“Hope everyone’s having a lovely Thursday. M’Harry, I’ll be leading the trivia— as I do— so if you’re sitting there going, who is this obnoxious cock, talking into the mic the whole night? Hi, Hello. That’s me— I do trivia.”

You get it now. The infamous cynosure is fit. 

At first, you had been dubious to desert your romcom reruns and your cross-stitch project mid-way (despite the fact that your thumb now resembles a pin cushion) when your friends had swept you off into their regularly scheduled, mysteriously niche Thursday night schemes. Now, you get it. 

The destination— The Black Horse— is a fuggy little space that smells like spilt Michelob and fusty, weathered oak. There’s a no smoking sign pasted in a spare crevice of the backbar, but someone in the far right corner exhales a plume of vapor like they’ve hit their elfbar in the most nonchalantly covert manner imaginable. Shamelessly. It’s a small town— an islet in the heart of an archipelago— and you think you can make out your seventh grade swim team rival perched somewhere off in the front row. 

The Black Horse is nothing special. It sells cheap draughts by the pitcher and parallels a barbershop in the crux of the town, two blocks off the boardwalk, which is arguably the chiseled, shiny musgravite of Treah’s core— a roaring green sea that eats away at the borders of the isle, shrouding vibrantly hued cays, glimmering under the beam of the sun. The majority of the holm’s economy is dependent on tourism (a simultaneous bane— said tourists enjoy uprooting foliage, building infrastructures, and partaking in chunks of housing buyouts), but you can tell that The Black Horse has been …preserved to say the least. It’s four stone walls sewn into a plaza with three other natively owned businesses and looks like something straight out of a cinematic piece set in a rural village, planted into Treah long before you had her first wiggly tooth. 

The Black Horse isn’t what makes attendance worth it. It’s him—

“We’ve got a crowd tonight. If you haven’t played trivia with me here at The Black Horse before, welcome. S’a little different than your typical trivia, though, because it’s…”

The crowd hollers back, as if scripted, “Dirty trivia!” 

“Dirty Trivia,” Harry echoes, and when the edges of his lips crook, dimples burrow beside the corners, “Right, Dirty Trivia. This one’s rated R, so if you’re not old enough to be here, I dunno how you got here, but this is going to be your cue to head out. Any— any children in here tonight? …No? Wonderful.” 

He huffs into the mic, shaking his head and jostling his halo of curls. A jaundiced, warm beam catches on them. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but m’not even joking— a couple of weeks ago someone was sitting in here with, like, a little kid.” 

It’s Harry, with the divots burrowing into his cheeks, the croon into the mic, lighting the crowd alive on an introduction. Incandescent (speckled in stars, spelled out— you don't get that bit, yet.)

You cross your legs. Your friend raises her eyebrows from across the teak table top and says it with her eyes. Told you so; Trivia Man is a cream dream. 

“Yeah,” Harry confirms over the dispersed, appalled eruption of laughter, nodding down at someone seated at a table closer to the stage, “I was, like, …shit,” he blinks back up and motions out, a slow sweep with his free hand, “Friendly reminder, this is not a form of sex ed.” 

Pausing, (lips twitchy over the sown mirth), he brings the microphone back with a newfound seriousness and tacks on, nodding slowly, “…That kid won it for the whole team.” 

He smiles. It's a lopsided spall of a ruddy seam that shows teeth, and that's when you recognize the heinous, gurgling froth of a new addiction. Incipient, blooming along your shimmery, star-struck eyes.

“No, m’joking,” he clears his throat. “M’gonna pass out a sheet and some little note pads for your answers. You’re gonna use one of those little notes to jot down a clever team name, do the same in that team name spot of the sheet, and then pass the note up to me.”

Pussy Posse. A pre-established moniker you have had no jurisdiction over, merely perched as an addition to a settled cadre. Still, you gnaw into your cheek when you watch a friend beside you scribble in the title with a ballpoint. 

“I’ll be coming around between questions to pick those answers up, have a chat, whatever. We’re all here to have fun, yes?” 

You swear he sweeps you with his eyes, like a passing tide gliding the sea. Probably just the way the green in his sockets meets everyone else in the throng, but the moment it happens your molars chew in harder.

“On the topic of fun, let’s keep it nice and fair, yeah? Phones put away— no cheating— you’ll have plenty of time to check those when we have our break midway.”

It feels ignoble to eye-fuck him from behind the sheathes of your empty irises as he paces the stage— after all, this is just a wholesomely clad, virtuously upstanding guy leading trivia, but. The gears behind your skull are mottled with the amalgam of a fawning affliction— cerebrospinal fluid and sticky tar. It leaves you in a goop of thoughtless ogling that renders your head empty. Even when he makes his way to the bar-height table your team curls around, when his eyes linger on you— “A new face.”— you just...

Mindlessly stare. 

Dirty trivia, you learn, is dirty.

It hits you when Harry quips (dare you note, mischievously), “Hoo-hoo-hoo. Starting off strong with the first one.” 

He states, talc flickering from the LED display ahead to the bevy of trivia-players, “What country,” and pauses for emphasis, “has—“ pits grub at the smooth of his cheeks, beside the grin that splinters to show ivory teeth, “the highest average, in the world, for penis size?” 

There’s no source of entertainment like that of trivia held, on a Thursday, on a remote islet, in a poky bar that smells like stale beer and dust-coated, chipping leather. Evidently. 

“I actually don’t know this one,” Harry chimes, raising a wry shoulder, “So it’s trivia for me, as well.” 

“England,” Marina stamps a blow that the teak hasn’t warranted, whisper-shouting over the staggering peals of guffaw and chatter, “He’s hung, I bet you.”

“He’s not going to fuck you for writing in England,” Beth’s chortles clash with your scorned, “Marina.”

“That’s not even an answer,” Bee waves towards the flatscreen framed over the man’s head.

Senegal, Haiti, Ecuador, and Gambia. 

“Where the fuck is Gambia—”

You settle on Gambia. 

You watch Beth scribble it in and dot the i with an open sphere. The edges don’t meet. When Harry winds the rows of tables, plucking answer cards and making small-talk, you cast your inkpools into your glass, pyrexia across the bridge of your nose, brain-rotted with the insinuation of him being …hung.

“Lots of Haiti, lots of Senegal,” Harry states, once he’s smoothed the cards out with his colossal, ringed paws, and looked them over. 

You stare at the bob of his throat as he swallows, directing the mic back to his lips.

“Big reveal?” He pauses, as if for cataclysmic emphasis, riling the crowd enough for you to note restive shoulders and juddering feet. 

“Patience,” Harry says softly into the microphone, raising his eyebrows. It's a muted word that clicks in the speaker with a thump. Throbs between your ribs, under your cold hands.

With paltry warning, he reveals, “Ecuador! At,” squinting at the blue-toned LED, “—a whopping 6-point-nine-three. Solid for the average. Do we have any Ecuadorian men in the audience tonight? Anybody who’s added to that average? Congratulations. You beat us. You beat everyone.” 

There’s a dissonant slurry of responses, some ripostes flung along tables, some bouts of clapping, hollering over the rows, sloshing mugs raised in triumph. 

Harry’s deltoids climb in a shrug, and his head wags from side to side, “Some valiant contenders, those Ecuadorians.” 

“I told you it wasn’t Gambia—“

You ogles the way Harry tilts over the platform towards a table, brows kinked as if trying to pick up something audible he’d missed. In your periphery, Marina prods into Beth’s direction with a palmful of something claret in a pellucid martini glass. 

“What was that?” Harry coaxes into the microphone. 

The corners of his mouth have caved up, and by the time the majority of the trivia-players sink into a piqued lull, he’s slanted over toward the table. A brunette with long, shiny hair arches up out of her seat into her directions, braced to the teak high-top with planted, elbow-locked arms. 

“Where do you fall?” is undeniable the second time. 

Harry blinks. His mouth paints over with a smile. 

“Where do I fall?”

He blatantly bridles a sputter when he winds toward the laptop he’s set up, culls his glass of a golden, pale straw beer that’s lost its layer of foam, and takes a long drink. Clears his throat. “Wouldn’t you like to know. Very forward. Take me out to dinner first.” 

You discover that, despite the ubiquitously crude sexualizing, Harry is sort of like a bird. An Indian Peafowl, preening with its neatly arranged plume— he likes it. The flattery. His tongue peeks out and swipes along as he stares down at the screen. Little dimples pit when it tucks back in— ones he blatantly can’t contain. 

He chuckles and states into the microphone, “…Below. Don’t worry about it.” 

Somehow, you doubt it.  -

-

-

-

You plait yourself into the Thursday Fawn Sessions as a regular attendee, curling up at the same high top to ogle the same man pace a platform with a microphone. Watch him make jesting comments and ask things like, “Axillism is the act of using what strange body part during sex?” 

You find yourself learning a thing or two from each session, and you find that the emeralds seated in his sockets linger on you, sometimes— this absolute clam shell taking up a spot in the bar and chugging fizzy water (ogling his frame in lull every time he approaches your table), too. Pussy Posse is no good at the trivia, more often than not wheedling in second-to-last, but you find yourself much too entertained to mind. 

Franks is a self-explanatory hot dog cart. It stands midway on the boardwalk and operates through sunny mizzles and borderline hurricane cloudbursts, when the green salt chuck is choppy. High tiding. Those are the days you stand out in your jaundiced poncho, salty rain spittle beating at your cheeks, and watch the waves eat at the ipe in a nasty, wet hunger, no customers in sight. 

Midsummer afternoons, though, are good. Busy. When Treah morphs industrious and bustling — tourists like Franks on the boardwalk. 

It’s a slow coda for June. The sea is planate, swaying over steel supports mantled by barnacles. Gulls chortle, gliding low in the ether— it oozes yellow, something balmy like the goo of an egg yolk. You've sold two hot dogs, tallied three joggers (one eager speedwalker), and noted one couple pushing a baby in a stroller, who offered tight-lipped smiles and veganism. You don't entirely mind a slow day, because setting shop on the boardwalk means spending the day on the boardwalk. Breathing the sea until your lungs are full of salt and your eardrums reverberate the crash of the water behind your skull. You taste it at the back of your throat— something like home as home could get.  

There’s another jogger loping— a moving blip of skin color in chiaroscuro against wood paneling. In the distance. Drawing closer. You imagine him passing the cart, the soles of his trainers padding over the row of planks until he’s just another form of lines and shading, faced away. You check your phone. 

The jogger is still a good bit away. You swipe open Wordle. You're on your third attempt of elucidating something that goes blank, I, blank, E, blank (with a P that doesn’t quite fit where you've slotted it)—

“Hi.”

Your eyes crest. 

Treah is a really small town. Not in a prudishly, bible-bashing form of a pastoral village, sheathed in a bosky, wooded moat of thicket and then plains of nothingness for hundreds of miles. But it is an island enveloped by the sea from all sides, sequestered without a boat or a little plane, whose wheels bumpily kiss the asphalt of anearly comically small airport. Even the tourists lodging up in their summer homes, all the same months like annual clockwork, make reappearances. The faces are, nearly always, the same, and you see the same faces often. It was only a (limited) matter of time before you'd coalesced beyond the borders skirting The Black Horse.

In hindsight, you didn’t envisage that you'd be wearing a baseball cap emblematized with a weenie when it happened. Or that his tits would be out and about. 

“Have you got water?”

He’s panting. Casually slippery; coated in sweat that glimmers in the sun and carves the well-toned sinews of his torso, with sunglasses tucked up over his curls like a makeshift headband. He ogles expectantly with a set of jade that puts the hues of the lapping, green sea behind him to shame. A parted mouth, sculpted and cushiony, sucks in breaths from the liminal space divvying their atoms while your own become clogged, somewhere midway an esophageal prison, in limbo toward your lungs. A shaded lepidoptera scored over his tummy flutters, batting its wings in the swell and sink of his diaphragm expanding. 

His shorts are teeny. Tiny, little things. Cobalt. Mirroring laurels carving alongside his V-line peek from the waistband, and a happy trail climbs to kiss his navel. 

You blink. “Yes. Yeah. We do. Yes. …Is bottled okay?” 

“Bottled is perfect.”

He sticks a hand into his pocket, eyes flickering to your face, away, back. Slow-like. You trace the wisps in the sky with your eyes, heat searing up your neck and pooling in the flesh of your face. It’s a sudden, unforeseen stuffiness sweltering for such a beautiful day. You recognize your horrid blunder in his next words. 

“Do I know you from somewhere?” 

You should have ducked your chin, tucked the visor lower, and hoped for the best. Instead, now, you blink, dazed and wide-eyed like a Red brocket saturated by blinding headlights.  

“Oh. I’m not sure. Um. Small …town— maybe?” 

“You come to, uh—“ a nudge with his chin in your direction as you arduously regulate the stuttery pace of your respiration. The jitter in your fingers, like a lovesick school girl. You cache them behind the cart and let them judder. “—trivia nights. At The Black Horse, yeah? I couldn’t forget a face like yours.” 

Harry grins, the way he does. Lopsided, so the left corner turns up a little higher— dimpled with a long flash of teeth. Except now, he’s slippery and half-naked. 

Folie. Miscalculated gaffe in a weenie cap. Your smile is tight.

“Oh—“ again, “…Yeah.” 

“Right,” Harry nods. Smiley. Lingering, looking you over. He buries an enormous hand back into his pocket then, brows creasing like he’s remembered something, and pulls out a little rectangle in cardboard paper. “Hey, actually. I’ve got this coupon here. S’what I do all the other days of the week, ah—“

He extends it out. 

Harve-y a free drink, on us! 

“M’a bartender over at Harvey’s. S’close to The Black Horse, if you’re in that area. Monday and Saturday mornings. Wednesday and Friday nights. If you come by, I’ll fix you up with a drink.” 

It feels impolite to leave him hanging, so you swipe out at the offering, cradling it with slow fingertips. 

“We can do some one on one trivia. Train you up,” Harry tacks on.

You swallow. Harry is an attractive man. His allure is apodictic— a sort of conventional, objective quality that leaves your throat parched when it becomes paired with his unfaltering eye contact. You're not a virgin, and you're an adept swimmer, but his presence feels like viridian saltwater that’s waiting to swallow her whole. The nerves that bubble, a fizz of chagrin, remind you why exactly you enjoy fawning from a distance. Because he makes you feel nervous, and when you're nervous, the dialogue spumes like miasmic word vomit. 

He’s got a thin sheathe of sweat that glimmers in the seat of his cupid’s bow, but it’s not in a gross way. In fact, it reminds you that the rest of him, his denuded skin, is slick, because he’s been jogging along the boardwalk. It reminds you how hard it is not to openly ogle the tattoos he’s got on show. You should have called out from your weenie gig, and you should have refilled her alprazolam prescription weeks ago. 

“Oh,” you tell him, slowly, face creasing, “I don’t— I don’t drink.”

Harry blinks. It’s a weird confession, considering you're a Thursday night regular at a bar that’s really only good for anything that has enough alcohol to shroud the stale taste perfuming the air. Still, nothing beyond open expectancy erupts along his features, and that’s worse. You feel them crawling up your throat, clambering up the back of your tongue like the words have knobby joints. They meet the backs of your teeth, waiting to spew. 

“—Not because I’m a recovering alcoholic or anything, I just don’t like the way it makes me feel. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Or drinking. I actually think it’s so admirable. You know? Like, to be brave… and… and a lot of times those people will attend support groups—“

Harry blinks again. 

“—And they talk about it. I can’t imagine sharing something like that— not that there’s anything wrong with it! But. Um. I always get virgin cocktails at The Black Horse. Or club soda. Or juice.”

Her lips seal over. You entrap the rest behind your traitorous teeth — a drawbridge that never should’ve sunk open. Despite your overly candid, overstated explanation, you don't stick the coupon back out in his direction. You harbor it in your hand, blinking slowly and gnawing into your cheek. 

“…S���okay. We do orange juice, too,” Harry tells her, entirely casual despite your discomfited speech, raising his brows. 

There’s the curbed efforts of a bemusedly mirthy grin at the corners of his mouth, and his nonchalant bearing only makes your face hotter. You feels like you're broiling under the shade of the awning. 

“And club soda.” 

“…Cool,” You settle on, tightly. 

“Sick.”

“…It’s, uh… two dollars,” you tell him when the reticence starts to suffocate you. 

You're going to go home and ram your head through a window. 

“Oh,” Harry casts his gaze to the water (it has the average, entirely typical proportions of a water bottle, but in his hand, it’s nearly miniature), as if he’s forgotten the chilly source of condensation coating his palm. That he’s in arrears. He sticks his free hand into the same pocket where the coupon was stuffed, “Right. I think I’ve got two dollars in here, somewhere.” 

Instead, when he stretches a bill out towards you, it’s worth ten. You avoid eye contact. You reach for the cash box tucked below, and you pry the lid up to delegate his change. 

“Oh,” Harry echoes, raising his enormous hand in effort of halting you, “S’alright. S’yours.”  

“Oh. I… can’t take tips. It’s, like. Against the code of conduct.” 

“Code of conduct at a …hot dog stand?” 

As if you needed to be reminded that you're donning a silly cap with an animated frank, standing on a boardwalk that’s practically empty of prospective patrons. The chagrin churns in your stomach and surfaces in the set line of your mouth. 

“…Yes.” 

Harry pauses, brows kinked like he’s ruminating, and then he inhales and decides, “Well. It’s not a tip, yeah? It’s just… you break it up, put two in the box, and then put the rest in your pocket.” 

“Oh. No. You— you’ve already given me the coupon—“ you argue, frenziedly waving out a mismatched wad of cash.

He raises his hands and ambles in one suavely, lengthy step back. “I’m going now.” 

“No!” 

He’s three away that would fit five or six of your own gait when he declares, “Yes! I hope to see you for that orange juice. On the house. Have a good one.” 

This is a patreon exclusive series. If you'd like to read more, part 2 is already up on my patreon! <3

[frownyalfred]

All these posts about B needing to aggressively bulk constantly-

I get the feeling that he's really REALLY grateful that the first of his kids to join him in the life was Dick. In this case, specifically because the drastic difference in kid-Dick's combat style and Batman's thoroughly established that they don't need to copy Batman to be effective. Not so closely that they'd ever need to develop his own constant bulking, at least. Robin revolved around You Can't Touch This, primarily, which is Also Hella Effective and actively Does Not Want to be so huge, generally.

With young-Dick, they developed a whole new combat style for him around what he was already good at: aero- and acro-batics. Constant movement, showmanship that distracts the eye and messes with aiming, light as a feather barely touches down ever and can do so at all angles and heights, thus including people as viable landing targets and kickoff targets, etc..

So while all the kids have their own preferences and tendencies, they aren't trying to Be Batman. They start off learning Robin flavored combat because they keep starting young and smaller, but branch into whatever suits them. Thanks to the drastic contrast between The Bat and tiny baby new Robin!Dick, how well they made that work, it's never occurred to them that they should.

And so B is grateful for that, because his kids have learned how to make any skills Work For Them and have normalised that to themselves from the beginning, so much so that the idea of bulking like hell to be a Tank like B would never occur to them in the first place.

(They've all had times of Trying To Emulate The Bat, but its always in capabilities- investigation, cleverness, skill, stealth, logic and calm, learn-more-things. Not "Built Like A Tank And Hits Like One"-ness. They hit harder with cleverness-- tools and momentum from spins and gravity and skill. Not raw muscle mass.)

Exactly. And I’m pretty sure we’ve touched on it here before, but it makes it even worse when Dick has to take up the mantle when Bruce is dead. Because it also means putting on that weight and muscle, when he never thought he would have to. 

[comfortless]

syl im begging on my hands and knees pls pls pls expand on that idea of könig being a warrior rumored to eat womens hearts its like giving scheherazade and i NEED IT

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. vague time period/setting. fem(afab) reader. light descriptions of violence and gore, talk of cannibalism, non-con groping & cuddling, forced marriage.

There are endless tasks to be done and everything beneath a vast blue sky to explore, forgoing those things, the men about your village often prefer to gather for a duel. There are no rules for their game, only that you bring a weapon and thrust it toward the opponent in such a way that it brings you glory, pride, some scabbing mend to a crooked scar.

Except not you, never you. They wouldn’t so much as allow for the women to watch unless sparring for the hand of a weeping bride happened to be the gleaming prize waiting at the end of the night.

Your eyes had witnessed such before, a girl with hair the color of autumn straw that rolled down to the end of her back, whisked away by some man from the sea after he dug his blade into an old farmer’s belly. Her father. A sad thing, but you imagined her life must be much better now. Instead of tending to a mule or pricking her fingers on needles for sewing, she’s off collecting sea shells and has the ocean’s breeze eternally perfumed in her hair. Maybe she cradles a baby on her hip now, plump and cooing happily whilst they watch the waves roll and glitter beneath the sun.

A better life for only the cost of a swift death. It was something that you had always envisioned wanting for yourself, away from this village that reeks of blood, the very place where your options were limited to shoveling after the horses or to die a lonely hag.

That was until the behemoth began to show his face. Not quite his face at all, actually. It changed things for you. Instead of a longing for one of these strong men to carry you off into the night, there sat a creeping terror each and every time he crossed the threshold into the village.

He was rumored to be many things: an executioner from a foreign land, either a lost and wicked saint or a demon made flesh, and worst of them all… a cannibal from out in the untamed downs that crest the mountainside.

The women of the village were frightened by him, by the bulk and height that suggested he was not a man at all, but something far more terrifying beneath that black veil. They hid away when he first arrived, claiming he carried an organ in his hands, chewing away at a still-beating heart with blood running down his fingers. The men remained rigid, but their hands shook when they took up their weapons against him.

And there was no way of knowing then that this man was to be yours.

Time and time again, the giant would win, request a warm meal and a bed for the evening, and would be gone away come morning. He wouldn’t return for months, and the gossip would continue to fester until his return. Then, only then, would lips be pursed in silence and another fool would rush to death in an attempt to win some measure of pride. His opponent would be buried in the very field they would fight in, his bones serving for another layer upon the earthen stage once the worms and rats had picked him clean, and the giant would be back. He was always back.

The town is hushed to silence when his horse is led through the well-worn street. There are lingering observers: the broad stable hand that would not even dare to raise a whip or a dagger to this behemoth, the women of the brothel even shy away from him, and the children who whisper their rumors behind open palms.

He does not stop for any of them, only carries forward with that dark cloth concealing his head.

You peek out from your window, nursing tea with honey to calm the chill drifting through the air, feathering over your skin. It’s bitter on your tongue, even with the sweet coursing through it. Bitter, when his blue eyes flick in your direction and you feel every inch of your skin begin to prickle and tense.

He’s worse up close like this. The man doesn’t conceal his torso, never seemed to find a need to— no one ever gets close enough to wound him. Not any more, at least, judging by the pasty scars that mar his chest with the biggest being a healed, pinkish blemish that stretches from below his ribs down to a narrow hip. You find the most unsettling part about him is not those marks of violence, but the fact that you can not read his face.

Time slows to a halt as he just stares, takes you in with your cup of tea and the old dress stolen away from your mother’s own wardrobe. And you return it, warily looking him over from his veiled head down to the toes of his boots. After regarding you in the very same way a bored cat would observe an unaware, little bird, he moves along his path with a quiet huff of breath as his face is turned away from you.

There’s a heavy axe strapped to his back that you only notice then. Something new and shiny, glistening in the rays of golden sunlight above. Sharp and wicked, too cruel a weapon to be used in a bout for dinner and a lumpy mattress stuffed with decaying straw.

You could only hope he brought a cloth to clean it once this ordeal was over. Perhaps he truly does use his veil to do so, gets drunk on the scent of blood and gore clinging to it and pleasures himself to the violence as they claim. The macabre tales of this giant only go darker than that. But the tales he lives up to most of all are the ones about his skill in killing.

When night begins to scrape across the sky in dark, drab purple, fate comes crawling throughout the town as though it is nothing more than a famished ghoul.

Your mother storms toward you where you’re sat, preparing for bed. Her face is a mask of pure anguish when she pulls you into a tight embrace. She bawls into your hair, digs her nails into your back as though she would sooner die than let you go.

The men of the town follow behind her, wrenching her arms away from you and pulling you up by the front of your gown. The thin linen tears with the force of rough hands, rips a thick line down your chest that almost leaves you bared to them. Though the hands are eager, the eyes of these men do not shine with hunger, only with fear.

The shouts and cries from your lips are lost to them, to even your mother who wails in defeat someplace behind you.

“You’re plenty old enough to be a bride,” says one of the men, voice like a coiled snake spitting venom. It doesn’t take one of the well-educated people of the capital here to explain just what is to happen to you now.

The giant, the cannibal, saw something that he liked, and decided that you would be his prize. When you’re led to the field, kicking and flailing against the strong arms that hold you tightly in their grip, the sight is enough to tell you just how much that he enjoyed your silent, curious staring only hours before.

He stands upright, silent and daunting above a body that’s been split by the axe still held in one strong hand. The color of crimson cakes his knuckles, crests over his arm and the expanse of his chest, all from the headless corpse lying disposed at his feet.

The scene is what you expected, you’ve heard the words of your people about this beast of a man’s propensity for violence, but no amount of mental preparation could have truly readied you for seeing so much blood. The blood of a man you knew to be good and true, a hard-working blacksmith from the foothills. What a tragic way to go out: fighting for a pouch of coin when this horrible giant must have clearly lost his mind to rut and rage.

No hand comes to cover your mouth when you shriek, and the tight grips guiding you forward only loosen when your man or murderer stalks forward to take his prize. Through your tears, you still manage to make out the lines beneath his eyes, how they fold upward, and there’s no doubt that he’s smiling beneath that mask. A big, ugly grin at the thought of prying open your ribs and helping himself to a maiden’s heart.

He lifts it over his head in a swift motion, and drops it over your own instead, opposite to the hastily cut eye holes to block out all of the hazy, pale light of the moon and flickering yellow-red torches surrounding. Amidst the panic threatening to send your heart fleeing from your chest, the cold trickle of dread that finds itself curling in your belly, you feel two arms hoist you up and settle you over the back of his wretched steed.

“Gehen wir.”

Then, the darkness turns abyssal.

You only pray your body has truly died of fright when you first wake. There’s no darkness, no scent of blood when your eyelids pry apart to flutter. Water laps over your bare thighs, cold enough to force a shiver up from your feet to the blades of your shoulders. But behind you sits fire, a warmth so comforting you would think you’re rested against a stone bathed in summer sun, if not for the softness.

You take a moment to gather your thoughts, rationalize just what’s happening, until a hand clutching a scrap of cloth maneuvers up from your thigh to your tummy, lathers you in a soap that smells only of pine. It halts, cinches around your waist when you begin to tense, when he knows you’re truly awake. A pond to your front and a man of horror at your back.

There’s sunlight streaming down from above, painting the clouds in gold. There are birds happily singing from the surrounding trees, and other, unseen animals scurrying through fallen leaves. Serene, pretty, and almost comforting when the wind turns course and brings with it the scent of late-ripening fruit. If the reality of your situation were not so dire, perhaps you would have enjoyed it, being here with a man who killed instead of presented your family with a dowry or offered you some pleasant wedding to dine and drink your fill of berry wine at.

“Let me go.” Your voice is a feigned warning, the mocking growl of a mere pup. You imagine he must keep his weapons close, only offering himself the courtesy of cleaning you so your meat doesn’t taste of dirt or lavender oil when he sinks his teeth into it.

“Süss frau,” he mumbles behind you, presses his head into your hair and inhales deeply as your body only grows further rigid. There’s a pause, before he corrects himself. “Meine süss frau.”

It would help if you knew what he was saying, calm your nerves some, maybe, but each word spoken only sounds guttural and instills further fear. You twist in his grip, hissing small curses that would have left your mother in a rage, but he only laughs at your squirming. Then, he tightens his grip as the cloth is dropped into the pond’s glassy water.

“Take me back home,” you continue to urge, placing a trembling hand over the limb pressing your body further back against him. “Please.”

Your small attempt at pleading is met only with his head dropping to the nape of your neck, a kiss pressed against the flesh there. It warms for him, sends a heat spiking up to your cheeks in spite of the way you still suspect he wishes only to rip your throat open with teeth more akin to a devil’s fangs.

You turn your head, intent on spitting right in this monster’s face, but find only a man looking back at you.

There’s a shimmer in his eyes that almost seems playful, a grin so prevalent there it must cause the corners of his mouth to ache. No blood in his teeth, and though the silvery-blue of his eyes seems distant, they are not cold. The goliath who stole you away stinking of blood and innards isn’t present now, and that seems even less of a comfort. He’s even handsome in the strangest way, certainly not the look of nobility, but none of his features are cruel. There’s a boyish charm to him, perhaps he would have the look of a charismatic farmhand or an apprentice of sorts if not for the scarring.

“Won’t hurt you… too pretty,” he assures, burying his face against the side of your neck. But the bastard does, digs his teeth right in and suckles at your skin when you claw at his arm in surprise. It’s not enough to draw drops of blood, but it accentuates the point that he seems to see you as something of his, a possession of sorts.

There’s a messy patch of drool over bruising skin when he pulls away to laugh at the wounded expression upon your face. He apologizes in a huff of breath as he guides you up to stand at his side. His hands linger too long for comfort when they rest along your waist. Your sullen glare only seems to further endear him. Too much, judging by the way the pillar between his legs bounces thick and hard and proud, throbs when you tilt your chin up to meet his gaze and angrily hiss to him about how a man should treat his wife. Cannibal or not, the beast needed to learn some manners.

Fear still edges its way up your spine, but it diminishes more and more as the seconds pass.

He’s no gentleman when he splashes away the remnants of soap from your body, hands grazing over every inch of your bare skin he sees available to touch. Your breast first, weighed up in his palm with the nipple pinched between his index and middle. Emboldened by your hushed protests, he dares to slip his other between your legs, and only then do you force his hands away.

He certainly bears no resemblance to a proper husband when he hoists you over one shoulder to carry you further into the woods and into his shack, either.

It’s barren and ugly, an unsightly wooden structure decorated only with a thin mattress, a table too small, and blades of many forms. The axe sits proudly below the window, astonishingly cleaned of the gore from the night prior. The veil rests above it on the sill, damp from a cleaning that never should have been. You stare at his belongings for a time when you’re placed on your feet, silently judging the array in search of anything to justify the gossip, only to come up short of anything.

He doesn’t even touch you past the bathing in the pond. You’re dressed in a tunic that fits like a dress upon your form: far too big, long and dull to be anything you would normally be seen in. But there are no tailors this far out in the wilderness, though there’s an apologetic promise whispered to you once he sees you in his clothes. He’ll buy you a new dress upon your first visit to town as his wife, several if it pleases you.

The man leaves for a spell, brings you rabbit to clean and prepare, then busies himself stoking up a fire for cooking. His speech is a little broken when he tells you of how long he’s waited to have someone like you here with him, how he never suspected a woman so pretty would be his wife. And you don’t eat when the meat is fully cooked and placed in front of you both. You insist that you only wish to return back home, to hug your mother and tell her that you’re still alive.

That, he takes insult to.

His brow is pinched when he forces you to sit in his lap. He brings the meat to your lips and presses into your cheeks with his free hand to force your mouth open. There’s nothing romantic or cute about it, about him, but you do glumly settle in his hold when the realization does dawn on you that, though his strength is extraordinary, he is only a man and the only harm coming to you would be between your legs.

You’re drug over to the mattress after dinner by a tight hold over your wrist. The fight hasn’t left you, not by a smidge, even when the loose tunic is lifted over your head with shouts of your displeasure and you’re pressed onto your back with the giant watching you curiously from above.

He pins you there, but doesn’t force his hands down to your sex again. He only sighs when he rests his weight next to you and curls in to lie his head over your breasts.

You’re body remains stiff and rigid as a bowstring. His nearness only sends that same swell of heat back from the pond, brings with it the scent of fire smoke and sweat emanating from him. His hair is long and soft, soft as the kisses he places on the plushness of your tit, long as the drag of a callused palm from your hip up to cup the other.

He offers you no warning when his teeth circle over your nipple, holds fast to you when your back arches and your fingers weave into his hair to jerk him away. The worst part about him seemed to be having a penchant for leaving a mark, and the smug grin that crosses his face when he meets the fury in your eyes with the lust-drunk look in his own.

“Was? You don’t like?,” he grumbles, tracing over the marks of his teeth with his thumb, pressing against and smearing his saliva until you feel your back begin to arch and your breathing grow heavy.

“It hurts.”

He stares at you in amazement for a moment, whether surprised you haven’t made an attempt to flee or startled by the lack of a strike to his jaw after such a thing, it mattered not. Your terrible, ignorant “husband” only seems satisfied with your response. He draws back to sit on his knees before you, sliding his hands along each curve and dip of your body until they rest at your ankles.

“Ja… hurts. I will make it better, meine süße.”

He’s no less brazen when he makes a dive toward your womanhood, lips parted in preparation to breathe you in. Or… taste you in full, whichever option was suited for men who were more beasts than men at all. Maybe that was his only feat of cannibalism: licking at women until they were wet and pliant for him to take entirely. You pry him away with a gasp and a quick shift onto your side, demanding that he not touch you any further.

Again, he laughs, curls behind you and shifts his hips to slot the girth of his cock between your thighs, buries his face into your neck once again. You can feel the grin that stretches over his lips against your skin. When the dark envelopes you both, the quiet crackle of the fire in its pit still showing signs of life, he seems content to just cuddle you close.

Exhaustion creeps its way through your limbs, steals the fight from your voice and leaves your eyelids heavy. You consider waiting it out, listening to his breathing deepen and slow to creep away, but his grip is firm around your middle, so strangely comforting that you do allow yourself to relax. Running could wait until the morning sun rose.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Could I maybe get a Hisuian!Reader who came to Paldea through a space time rift? They remember everything, they still have all their old Pokemon, they like to share stories of their adventures (anything from taking on Volo to "Oh yeah, I caught this alpha garchomp after a half-hour standoff, here's her gigaton ball lol."), they've got little scars here and there from accidentally standing too close to Pokemon attacks or taking fall damage, and they give descendants of their Hisuian Pokemon to their blueberry friends (BBE4, Carmine, and Kieran) during their trades. To make things even more interesting, I wonder what that reader would think about bloodmoon ursaluna, Perrin, and modern Sinnoh - seeing their dear friend Adaman in someone alive today and seeing just how much things have changed over the years

The PLA fixation is real so YESSSIR I finally got around to this one. I separated the headcanons by region and their respective characters

.............

Paldea (Arven, Penny, Nemona)

After finishing your mission in Hisui, you decided to confront Arceus, being satisfied with everything you've done for the Survey Corps and the good people of Jubilife Village.

You fully finished the pokedex, fulfilling Professor Laventon's dreams, and were ready to return home.

After some reluctance, Arceus agreed and ensured you wouldn't lose any of your memories, as you didn't want all your feats in Hisui become lost to history.

It warned you that you'll never get to see Rei/Akari, Professor Laventon, the Wardens...or anyone else ever again.

But you've said your goodbyes and were ready to go back.

One warp through a space-time rift later, you were dropped off in Paldea-

Right where Arven, Penny, and Nemona were discussing whether to call off the search for you or not.

As it turns out, you've been missing for months, not long after the Area Zero adventure, and so it's a rather tearful reunion when they realize the person in the old fashioned clothing was you.

You looked tired, scarred, battle-hardened...and yet you smiled as you joked about being "back from the past".

Since then, easing back into modern life was..trickier than you expected.

You still had the habit of crafting pokeballs and potions as you were taught, rather than spend money buying them in bulk (even though you had boatloads because of your champion status).

You tried getting the trio to follow your directions, but they kept fumbling with the tumblestones and didn't know where to attach the iron chunks that made up the clasps.

When you start talking about feather, wing, leaden, and gigaton pokeballs they stare at you in confusion until you realize "oh shit those are outdated".

Nemona is VERY curious about the gigaton ball, however, and so you show it to her--revealing your Alpha Garchomp branded with the "Former Alpha" mark. She got to keep her height.

"Oh yeah, she was a real feisty one. We had a half-hour standoff on a slippery ice mountain slope but I showed her who's boss haha." You laugh as you share the story of how you encountered and tamed her.

Your fellow champion now thinks you're 10x cooler for actually facing a Pokémon head-on....while poor Arven and Penny are shook(TM) and wondered how you made it back alive.

Especially when they discover your scars are from falling and vicious Pokemon attacks

Introducing your Hisuian starter to your Paldean starter was...a little awkward. One recently became a champion's Pokémon and the other faced Giratina itself.

But they eventually shake hands and become besties, becoming members of your party whenever you wanna battle Arven, Penny, or Nemona again.

You keep accidentally calling out agile/strong style in your commands (ie "Avalugg, make an Agile Avalanche!"), but your Pokémon like to pretend they still know them.

Kitakami (Perrin & Bloodmoon Ursaluna)

Returning to Kitakami felt most familiar..and quite comforting considering how traditional everything is.

Festival of the Masks came back around, and while you didn't get to spend it with Kieran nor Carmine this time...you did wind up spending it with somebody else...

Perrin, who you were drawn to after seeing her Hisuian Growlithe getting into trouble with an Arbok and trying to stand up for itself.

Reminds you of a certain late lord's son..

She expresses her thanks for rescuing her buddy, and mentions how you got there "right on time".

You just look into her eyes and see Adaman: the Diamond Clan leader, the kind man who gave you the celestica flute and came to your aid when you got exiled from the village.

He may be gone now, but time didn't allow him to be forgotten.

Because he lives on in somebody else.

Perrin gets concerned when she sees how emotional you're getting, but you just wipe your eyes and say she just reminds you of an "old friend".

When you show her your other Hisuian Pokémon, she's THRILLED and wants to take all of their pictures, delighted to have proof that these creatures existed.

That leads her to ask how you acquired them, and you start talking about your adventures in the very region she's been studying...including the fact you met her ancestor who used to worship Dialga and had an easygoing attitude like her.

Girl is taking notes fr.

Together you seek out the "Bloodmoon Beast", only to discover that it was an Ursaluna who travelled alllll the way to Kitakami from Hisui, the environment causing it to change appearances and abilities.

You were fascinated, wondering what Lord Ursaluna or Calaba would think of him, and made him a member of your team after quelling his rage.

While going on more casual photoshoots with Perrin, you ask her about what Sinnoh is like now or if anyone there knew about Hisui.

She mentions how the elderly folk talk of it, and how the subway battle system was being run by one conductor due to the other going missing...

You find yourself holding your breath---until she says "oh but apparently he came back like yesterday" and you were SO relieved.

'Ingo made it back home, too. Thank you Arceus.'

She plans to invite you to Sinnoh someday, seeing as you're so curious about what it all looks like now.

BB Academy (BBE4, Carmine, & Kieran)

When you got to study abroad at BB Academy, you...sorta forgot all the beef you had with Kieran until you saw him berating a student out in the terarium.

A year later, you're Paldea's champion AND the one who saved Hisui, but you couldn't exactly tell him the latter.

But now you understood why everyone back then calling you a "hero" made you a little uncomfortable.

Ogerpon (who was worried sick about where you've gone all this time), was SO happy to see you were back and got to meet your Hisuian Lilligant. Two plant gals just vibing together.

You find a Kleavor in the canyon biome and become a bit sentimental, happy to see a descendant of the Lord of the Woods had survived to this very day.

He must've known you were the one who helped his ancestor (albeit not without receiving some scars from flying wood chips), as he bowed and began walking alongside you, loyal to a tee.

Least to say, he became a valuable ally when you finally battled Kieran in the championship.

He sees that you've definitely changed a lot, too. You look tougher and he was concerned about where that scar across your eye came from....

But he's still obsessed with winning, and his attitude when talking about Terapagos afterwards reminds you of...well...Volo.

It's such an extreme comparison, and you hate how your brain immediately jumped to that considering that was a legitimate monster of a man who betrayed you.

Yet it feels like such a similar situation when Kieran pits the turtle against you in the Underdepths, obsessed with power and wanting nothing more than to be recognized as "worthy".

At least he wasn't planning on ending the world, just yours.

After you both reconcile, you spill the beans about where you've gone for the past year, expecting him to laugh or shun you again for keeping such a big secret from him.

Instead..he has this star-eyed look and wanted to know MORE.

So during your next visit to Kitakami, you tell him and Carmine some stories of your Hisuian adventures, showing off Kleavor and your Alpha Garchomp.

Seeing that you still liked to make authentic pokeballs and potions made Kieran appreciate you a lot more. Kitakami used to have a lot of those apricorns, tumblestones, and leeks before everything became mass-produced.

Like him, you really became out-of-touch with today's technology, so while he's learning it, you're re-learning it along with him.

Eventually you tell those same stories to the BB E4, who are all just as shocked, amazed, and bewildered as the twins were.

And when they all came to offer up a trade, you knew what to do:

For Drayton, you gave him a Goomy, insisting that he trains it fully, not wanting to spoil the "surprise".

As lazy as he is, he does so and is stunned when Sliggoo is revealed to be chilling in its own shell, and Goodra had its whole shell on its tail, capable of withdrawing into it anytime

Ngl it makes him wish he had his own shell to withdraw into just to escape situations.

For someone like Kieran who likes old-fashioned stuff, you figured a Hisuian Voltorb would suit him best.

Its appearance reminds you of the olden ways pokeballs were made, and he got the hang of crafting a few himself after a little trial and error!

He gets nervous about it exploding like Kantonian Voltorbs at the slightest touch, but is happy to find out it's super friendly and discharges just to spook humans.

As for Carmine, the sharpness in her golden eyes reminds you of a certain ghost type's...and thus you believed giving her a Hisuian Zorua was ideal. You had a feeling she'd love its evolved form.

When she does evolve it, she's stunned that it has reddish highlights like she does, jokingly asking if this is her in "another life".

Least to say, she loves it indeed.

While you were adamant about giving Amarys your Kleavor, you ended up trading her a Scyther and give her a black augurite afterwards, explaining how it's the secret to its other evolution.

She mentioned deposits of that mineral existing within the canyon biome, but it couldn't actually evolve the surrounding Scyther population due to being simulated.

But thanks to you, she gets to witness that in-action because you held onto an authentic piece of it, and she gives you her thanks.

As for Crispin, well, you believed a Hisuian Growlithe was perfect for him. It was energetic, loyal, and full of fire..just like him.

He got teary-eyed at the story you told of the late Lord Arcanine, his son, how you quelled his frenzy, etc..and feels inspired to train the pup you've given him into something incredible.

One thing Kantonian and Hisuian Arcanines have in common? They love spicy foods.

For Lacey, you trade her a Hisuian-born Petili, encouraging her to use the sun stone right away.

She does and is delighted to see Lilligant as such a graceful dancer..who really packs a punch when it counts!

She'll definitely doll her up and ensure she knew Charm (the only fairy move Hisuian Lilligant could know, alas).