#I don't know where to go there are so many new sites coming up all the time

[nipuni]

Does anyone happen to have a spare Bluesky invite code? 😥

[ktempestbradford]

I have been on a Willy Wonkified journey today and I need y'all to come with me

It started so innocently. Scrolling Google News I come across this article on Ars Technica:

At first glance I thought what happened was parents saw AI-generated images of an event their kids were at and became concerned, then realized it was fake. The reality? Oh so much better.

On Saturday, event organizers shut down a Glasgow-based "Willy's Chocolate Experience" after customers complained that the unofficial Wonka-inspired event, which took place in a sparsely decorated venue, did not match the lush AI-generated images listed on its official website.... According to Sky News, police were called to the event, and "advice was given."

Thing is, the people who paid to go were obviously not expecting exactly this:

But I can see how they'd be a bit pissed upon arriving to this:

It gets worse.

"Tempest, how could it possibly--"

source of this video that also includes this charming description:

Made up a villain called The Unknown — 'an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls'

There is already a meme.

Oh yes, the Wish.com Oompa Loompa:

Who has already done an interview!

As bad (and hilarious) as this all is, I got curious about the company that put on this event. Did they somehow overreach? Did the actors they hired back out at the last minute? (Or after they saw the script...) Oddly enough, it doesn't seem so!

Given what I found when poking around I'm legit surprised there was an event at all. Cuz this outfit seems to be 100% a scam.

The website for this specific event is here and it has many AI generated images on it, as stated. I don't think anyone who bought tickets looked very closely at these images, otherwise they might have been concerned about how much Catgacating their children would be exposed to.

Yes, Catgacating. You know, CATgacating!

I personally don't think anyone should serve exarserdray flavored lollipops in public spaces given how many people are allergic to it. And the sweet teats might not have been age appropriate.

Though the Twilight Tunnel looks pretty cool:

I'm not sure that Dim Tight Twdrding is safe. I've also been warned that Vivue Sounds are in that weird frequency range that makes you poop your pants upon hearing them.

Yes, Virginia, these folks used an AI image generator for everything on the website and used Chat GPT for some of the text! From the FAQ:

Q: I cannot go on the available days. Will you have more dates in the future? A: Should there be capacity when you arrive, then you will be able to enter without any problems. In the event that this is not the case, we may ask you to wait a bit.

Fear not, for this question is asked again a few lines down and the answer makes more sense.

Curious about the events company behind this disaster, I took myself over to the homepage of House of Illuminati and I was not disappointed.

I would 100% trust these people to plan my wedding.

This abomination of a website is a badly edited WordPress blog filled with AI art and just enough blog posts to make the casual viewer think that it's a legit business for about 0.0004 seconds.

Their attention to detail is stunning, from how they left up the default first post every WP blog gets to how they didn't bother changing the name on several images, thus revealing where they came from. Like this one:

With the lovely and compact filename "DALL·E-2024-01-30-09.50.54-Imagine-a-scene-where-fantasy-and-reality-merge-seamlessly.-In-the-foreground-a-grand-interactive-gala-is-taking-place-filled-with-elegant-guests-i.png"

"Concept.png" came from the same AI generator that gets text almost, but not quiiiiiite right:

There are a suspicious number of .webp images in the uploads, which makes me think they either stole them from other sites where AI "art" was uploaded or they didn't want to pay for the hi-res versions of some and just grabbed the preview image.

The real fun came when I noticed this filename: Before-and-After-Eventologists-Transformation-Edgbaston-Cricket-Ground-1024x1024-1.jpg and decided to do a Google image search. Friends, you will be shocked to hear that the image in question, found on this post touting how they can transform a boring warehouse into a fun event space, was stolen from this actual event planner.

Even better, this weirdly grainy image?

From a post that claims to be about the preparations for a "Willy Wonka" experience (we'll get to this in a minute), is not only NOT an actual image of anyone preparing anything for Illuminati's event, it is stolen from a YouTube thumbnail that's been chopped to remove the name of the company that actually made this. Here's the video.

If you actually read the blog posts they're all copypasta or some AI generated crap. To the point where this seems like not a real business at all. There's very specific business information at the bottom, but nothing else seems real.

As I said, I'm kinda surprised they put on an event at all. This has, "And then they ran off with all our money!" written all over it. I'm perplexed.

And also wondering when the copyright lawyers are gonna start calling, because...

This post explicitly says they're putting together a "Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Experience" complete with golden tickets.

Somewhere along the line someone must have wised up, because the actual event was called "Willys Chocolate Experience" (note the lack of apostrophe) and the script they handed to the actors about 10 minutes before they were supposed to "perform" was about a "Willy McDuff" and his chocolate factory.

As I was going through this madness with friends in a chat, one pointed out that it took very little prompting to get the free Chat GPT to spit out an event description and such very similar to all this while avoiding copyrighted phrases. But he couldn't figure out where the McDuff came from since it wasn't the type of thing GPT would usually spit out...

Until he altered the prompt to include it would be happening in Glasgow, Scotland.

You cannot make this stuff up.

But truly, honestly, I do not even understand why they didn't take the money and run. Clearly this was all set up to be a scam. A lazy, AI generated scam.

Everything from the website to the event images to the copy to the "script" to the names of things was either stolen or AI generated (aka stolen). Hell, I'd be looking for some poor Japanese visitor wandering the streets of Glasgow, confused, after being jacked for his mascot costume.

HE LIVES IN THE WALLS, Y'ALL.

[ms-demeanor]

Friends, I think we need to talk about Covid.

I want to get a few caveats out there before I start:

I am aware that there are people who need to exercise extreme caution about Covid; I live with someone who has two solid organ transplants and who is at the most immune compromised level of immune compromised. *I* have to be extremely cautious about covid.

Masking does prevent a certain level of transmission, and people who think they may have covid should mask and people who are concerned that they may be at high risk for covid should mask.

You should be vaccinated and boosted with the most recent vaccines that are available to you; covid is highly transmissible and very serious, you do not want to get covid and if you do get covid you don't want it to be severe and if you do get covid you don't want to give someone else covid and up-to-date vaccinations are the best way to reduce transmission and help to prevent severe cases of Covid.

We should be testing before going to any gatherings, and informing people if we test positive after gatherings, and testing if we suspect we have been exposed.

It is bullshit that there aren't good protections for workers who have covid; you should not be expected to go to work when you are testing positive

It is bullshit that people who are testing positive are not isolating for other reasons; if you have Covid you should not be going out and exposing other people to it even if you are experiencing mild symptoms or no symptoms.

We do need better ventilation systems for many kinds of spaces. Schools need better ventilation, restaurants need better ventilation, doctor's offices and hospitals and office buildings need better ventilation and better ventilation can reduce covid transmission.

I want to make it clear that Covid is real and there are real steps that individuals and systems can take to prevent transmission, and that there are systems that are exerting pressures that needlessly expose people to covid (the fact that you can lose your job if you don't come in when you're testing positive, mainly; also the fact that covid rapid tests should be ubiquitous and cheap/free and are not).

All of that being said: I'm seeing some posts circulating about how we're at an extremely high level of transmission and the REAL pandemic is being hidden from us and, friends, I'm pretty sure that is just incorrect and we're spreading misinformation.

I'm thinking of this video in particular, in which the claim is made that "your mystery illness is covid" in spite of negative tests. The guy in the video says that there's nothing else that millions of people could be getting a day, and that he predicted this because a wastewater spike in December meant that there was a huge spike in cases.

I've also seen people saying that deaths are where they were in 2021-2022, and that we're still at "a 9/11 a week" of excess deaths and friends, I'm not seeing great evidence for any of these claims.

I know that we (in the US, which is where the numbers I'm going to be citing are from) feel abandoned by the CDC and the fact that tracking cut off in May of 2023. But that only cut off for the federal tracking.

I live in LA county and LA county sure as shit is still tracking Covid.

If you want a clearer picture, you can see the daily case count over time compared to the daily death count:

Okay, you might say, but that's just LA.

Alright, so here's Detroit:

Right, but maybe that's CDC data and you don't trust the CDC at this point.

Okay, here's fatalities in New York tracked through New York's state data collection:

It's harder to toggle around the site for South Dakota, but you can compare their cases and hospitalizations and deaths for early 2022

To cases and hospitalizations and deaths from early 2024

And see that there's really no comparison.

Okay, you might say, but people are testing less. If they're testing less of course we're not seeing spikes, and they're testing less because fewer tests are available.

Alright, people are definitely testing less than they were in 2021 and 2022. Hospitalization for Covid is probably the most clear metric because you know those people have covid for sure, the couldn't not test for it.

Here are hospitalizations over time for LA:

Here are hospitalizations over time for New York:

As vaccination rates have gone up, cases, deaths, and hospitalizations have gone down. It IS clear that there are case spikes in the winter, when it is cold and people are indoors in poorly ventilated spaces and people are more susceptible to respiratory infections as a result of cold air weakening the protection offered by our mucous membranes, and that is something that we will have to take precautions about for the forseeable future, just as we should have always been taking similar precautions during flu season.

So I want to go point-by-point through some of the arguments made in that video because I'm seeing a bunch of people talking about how "THEY" don't want you to know about the virus surge and buds that is just straight up conspiracism.

So okay, first off, most of what that video is based on is spikes in wastewater data, not spikes in cases. This is because people don't trust CDC data on cases, but I'd say to maybe check out your regional data on cases. I don't actually trust the CDC that much, but I know people who do tracking of hospitalizations in LA county, I trust them a lot more. Wastewater data does correlate with increases in cases, but this "second largest spike of the entire pandemic" thing is misleading; wastewater reporting is pretty highly variable and you can't just accept that a large spike in covid in wastewater means that we're in just as bad a place in the pandemic as we were in 2022. We simply have not seen the surge of hospitalizations and deaths that we would expect to see in the weeks following that spike in wastewater data if wastewater data was reflective of community transmission.

The next claim is that "there is nothing else that is infecting millions of people a day" and covid isn't doing that either. The highest daily case rates were in January of 2021 and they were in the 865k a day range, which is ridiculously high but isn't millions of cases a day.

But what we can see is that when people are tested by their doctors for Covid, RSV, and the Flu, more tests are coming back positive for the Flu. Covid causes more hospitalizations than the other two illnesses, but to be honest what the people in the video are describing - lightheadedness, dizziness, exhaustion - just sound like pretty standard symptoms of everything from covid to the cold to allergies. There are lots of things your mystery illness could be.

The video goes on to talk about the fact that people aren't testing, and why their tests may be coming back negative and I'd like to point out that the same things are all true of Flu or RSV tests. People might be getting tested too early or too late; getting a negative test for the flu isn't a good reason to assume you've got covid, getting a negative test for covid isn't a good reason to assume you've got the flu, and testing for viruses as a whole is imperfect. There are hundreds of viruses that could be the common cold; there are multiple viruses that can cause bronchitis; there are multiple viruses that can cause pneumonia, and you're not going to test for all of these things the moment you start feeling sick.

He then recommends testing for multiple days if you have symptoms and haven't had a positive test (fine) and talks about the location of the tests (less fine). Don't use your rapid tests to swab your throat or cheek unless it specifically says that they are designed to do so. Test based on the instructions in the packet.

He points out that the tests probably still pick up on the virus because they're not testing for the spike protein, they're testing for the RNA (good info!)

The video then discusses something that I think is really key to this paranoia about the "mystery illnesses" - he talks about how covid changes and weakens your immune system (a statement that should come with many caveats about severity and vulnerability and that we are still researching that) and then says that it makes you more susceptible to strep or mono and that "things that used to clear in a day or two now hit you really hard."

And that's where I think this anxiety is coming from.

Strep throat lasts anywhere from three days to a week. A cold takes about a week to clear. The flu lasts about a week and can knock you on your ass with exhaustion for weeks depending on how bad you get it. Did you get a cough with your cold? Expect that to take anywhere from three to eight weeks to clear up.

I think that people are thinking "i got a bad virus and felt really sick for a week and haven't gotten my energy back" but that just sounds like a bad cold. That sounds like a potent allergy attack. That doesn't even sound like a bad flu (I got a bad flu in 2009 and thought i was going to straight-up die I had a fever of 103+ for three days and felt like shit for three days on either side of that and took six weeks to feel more like myself again).

Getting sick sucks. It really, really sucks. But if you're getting sick and you're testing for covid and it's coming back negative after you tested a few times, it's almost certainly not covid.

The video then says "until someone provides evidence that it's not covid, it should be assumed to be covid because we have record levels of covid it's that simple" but that's not simple. We don't have record levels of covid and he hasn't proved it. We have record high levels of wastewater reports of covid, which correlates with covid cases but the spike in wastewater noted in december didn't see a spike with a corresponding magnitude of cases in terms of either hospitalizations or deaths, which is what we'd have seen if we had actual record numbers of covid.

He says that if you want to ignore this, you'll get sick with covid, and that about 30-40% of the US just got sick with covid in the last four months (which is a RIDICULOUSLY unevidenced claim).

He says that we need to create a new normal that takes covid into account, which means masking more often and testing more often and making choices about risk-avoidant behaviors.

Now, I don't disagree with that last statement, but he prefaces the statement with "it doesn't necessarily mean lockdown" and that's where I think the alarmism and paranoia is really visible here. We are so, so far away from "lockdown" type levels that it's absurd to discuss lockdown here.

What I'm seeing right now is people who are chronically ill, people who are immune compromised, and people who are experiencing long covid (which may not be distinct from other post-viral syndromes from severe cases of flu, etc, but which may be more severe or more notable because of the prevalence of covid) are talking about feeling abandoned and attacked and left behind by society because covid is still out there, and still at extremely high levels.

I am seeing people who feel abandoned and attacked because the lgbtq+ events they are attending don't require masking. I am seeing people who are claiming that it is eugenicist that their schools don't have a negative test policy anymore.

And this comes together into two really disconcerting trends that I've been observing online for a while.

The claim that the pandemic is still as bad as it's ever been and in fact may be worse but we can't know that because "they" (the CDC, the government, capitalist institutions that want you back in the office, the university industrial complex that wants your dorm room dollars) are covering up the numbers and

Significant grievance at the fact that people are acting like number one is not true and are putting you at risk either out of thoughtlessness (because they don't realize they're putting you at risk) or malice (because they don't care if the sick die).

And those things are a recipe for disaster.

I think I've pretty robustly addressed point one; I don't think that there's good evidence that there's a secretly awful surge of covid that nobody is talking about. I think that there are some people who are being alarmist about covid who are basing all of their concern on wastewater numbers that have not held up as the harbinger of a massive wave of infections.

So let's talk about point number two and JK Rowling.

Barnes and Noble is not attacking you when it puts up a Hogwarts Castle display in the lobby. Your favorite youtuber isn't trying to hurt you when they offhandedly mention Harry Potter.

If you let every mention of Harry Potter or every person who enjoys that media franchise wound you, you are going to spend a lot of your time wounded.

People are not liking Harry Potter at you.

Okay.

People are also not not wearing masks at you.

You may be part of a minority group that experiences the potential for outsized harm as a result of majority groups engaging in perfectly reasonable behaviors.

There are kind, well-meaning, sensible people who go out every day and do something that may cause you harm and it's not because they want to hurt you or they don't care about whether you live or die, it is because they are making their own risk assessments based on their own lives and making the very reasonable assumption that people who are more concerned about covid than they are will take precautions to keep themselves safe.

We are not at a place in the pandemic where it is sensible to expect people with no symptoms of illness to mask in public as a matter of course or to present evidence of a recent negative test when entering a public building in their day-to-day life.

I think now is a really good time to sit down and ask yourself how you expect things to be with covid as an endemic part of our viral ecosystem. I think now is a good time to ask yourself what risk realistically looks like for you and for people who are unlike you. I think now is a good time to consider what would feel "safe" for you and how you could accomplish feeling safe as you navigate the world.

I'm probably going to continue masking in most indoor spaces for years. Maybe forever. There are accommodations that SHOULD be afforded to people who have to take more precautions than others (remote learning, remote visits, remote work, etc.), and we should demand those kinds of accommodations.

But it is going to poison you from the inside out if you are perpetually angry that people who don't have the same medical limitations as you are happy that they get to go shopping with their faces uncovered.

So now I want to talk to you about my father in law.

My father in law had a bone marrow transplant in 2015. That's the most immune compromised you can get without having your organs swapped out.

The care sheet for him after the transplant was a little overwhelming. The list of foods he couldn't eat was intimidating and the limitations on where he could go was depressing. It cautioned against going to large events, it recommended outdoor gatherings where possible but only if he could avoid sunlight and was somewhere with no history of valley fever. It said that he should wear masks indoors any time he was someplace with poor ventilation and that he should avoid contact with anyone who had an illness of any kind, taking special note to avoid children and anyone recently vaccinated for measles.

It was, in short, pretty much what someone immune compromised would need to do to try to avoid a viral infection. Sensible. Reasonable. Wash your hands and social distance; wear masks in sensitive contexts and don't spend time in enclosed places with people who have a communicable illness.

This is what life was always going to be like for people who are severely immune compromised, and it was always going to be incumbent upon the person with the illness to figure out how to operate in a society that is not built with them in mind.

It is not the job of every parent I encounter to tell me whether their child has been vaccinated against measles or chicken pox in the last three months. That isn't something that people need to do as part of their everyday life. However it IS my responsibility to check with the parents I'm hanging out with whether their children have been vaccinated against measles or chicken pox in the last three months so I know if it's safe for my immune compromised spouse to be around them.

If you want an environment in which you feel safe from covid, at this point in the pandemic (when the virus is endemic and not spreading rapidly as far as we can see from case counts) it is your responsibility to take the steps necessary to make you feel safe. Some of those steps will involve advocating for safety improvements in public spaces (again, indoor ventilation needs to be better and I'm personally pretty extreme about vaccination requirements; these are things we should be discussing in our school board meetings and at our workplaces), some of those steps will involve advocating for worker protections, guaranteed sick time, and the right to healthcare. But some of the things you're going to need to do to feel safe are going to come down to you.

If you are concerned about communicable diseases you have to be realistic about the fact that our society doesn't go out of its way to prevent communicable diseases - norovirus among food service workers pre-pandemic is pretty clear evidence of that. You are going to have to be proactive about your safety rather than expecting the world to act like Covid is at 2021-2022 levels when it is measurably not.

[1cafezinho]

Hello everyone,

Brazil is underwater, and we come here asking you for your help.

As some of you may know, the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS) has been getting torrential rains since last Monday (29/04/24).

In four days, it has rained 436,2 millimeters (17,2 inches), which’s triple the normal amount in a month, which is 140 millimeters (5,5 inches) 

More than two great rivers in our region had their volume duplicated, or sometimes, triplicated in size.

This means all the cities that are close to these rivers ended up completely underwater

There were more than 110 towns flooded and the estimate is that more than half a million people have been affected by this climate disaster. There are also thousands of people who are arriving in my city (the state capital, Porto Alegre) as climate refugees, coming from communities displaced by the floods.

Through this unprecedented tragedy we have been really happy to see entire communities mobilizing to help others. Still, there are people who have lost everything, especially those in marginalized communities living in precarious, unsafe and unsanitary housing.

That’s where you come in. We need money. Money to buy food, clothes, medicine, basic hygiene products, mattresses so that refugees have a place to sleep, basically everything.

Right now, the biggest demand is drinkable water: my city is almost completely out of water, because the water treatment stations have been flooded. 

We understand that you may be able to give very little, but also what is little to you means A Lot more to us. Just a dollar is enough to buy 5 liters of fresh water. 

Here are the links for international donations: 

(these donations are managed by people I know and trust. if you can, donate to them and not the government, but I’ll include that below as well. we don't trust the government to do anything right now, basically) 

This is another option:

Government donations:

And here is some international news coverage of what’s happening:

PLEASE share and donate anything you can. Everything is greatly appreciated. 

[freezerbnuuy]

The Simblr Cycle

Paid creator acts up for the 19348th time, site-wide outrage

Everyone pissed off about paid creator

Vague appreciation posts for free CC creators (but they still get fuck-all in terms of reblogs or exposure)

Everyone points out the fact there are places to get this paid CC for free

Paid creator releases new set, gets thousands of reblogs and everyone is putting it on their sims and in their houses and on their Simblrs and basically doing free advertising

Free CC creators go back to getting fuck-all in terms of interaction

The rest is under the cut.

For a site full of people obsessed with the ideal of a person who does no wrong, y’all are sure as shit in love with the people who cannot do anything right whilst the good folk get bugger-all!

When do people stop paying shitty creators and when do these same people stop freely advertising for them as well? 💀 And when it comes to when they fuck up, you know what they say about there being no such thing as bad pubilicity. There’s no way these people will actually be booted from the community because of the price tag making it look more special and desirable, and because people refuse to check out places like Rebels and DHM where you can get all this shit for free.

They can do whatever the fuck they like at this point because the callouts will only summon their white-knights and the rightful reblogged callouts and warnings will only get them more advertising - because most people only care about pretty desirable things and for whatever reason will gladly tolerate shitty business practices from these people.

So many decent folk and passionate folk in this community get nothing except empty vague mass reblogged messages about how much people love their creations whilst the scamming cunts get all the constant attention and advertisement. And all free creators get is pitiful exposure, none of the excited ‘look at this cool CC so and so made!’ and all they get is taken advantage of by paid creators. Don’t be surprised if even more free creators like myself leave the community because they’re tired of it. Scammers in the Simblr or wider CC community and thieves have fucked this up for everybody. Paid content has ruined the TS4 community, but at the same time the whole community almost revolves around it despite it.

Everyone talks about how people making stuff for free or just doing stories and challenges are the backbone of this community and then it entirely becomes about the paid creators. Again. And again and again and again, and it’s never-ending.

EDIT: Please stop following my account since I am a retired creator who doesn’t upload anymore. I appreciate it but I am no longer posting Sims content to my blog. You are welcome and encouraged to reblog my Gaza / Sudan fundraisers reblogs however.

The funny part is, I got more notes on this one rant post in 3 days than I did across most of my actual Sims content for months, with the exception of 1 or 2 semi-popular pose packs, lmao. Like I said, paid creators run the place at this point. This entire community revolves around paid creators and awful business practice and behaviour now, and with TS5 cancelled they’re here to stay for a much longer time than we’d hoped for. Good luck to all of the gameplayers, storytellers and free creators. You’re going to need it.

Since this post is getting so much traction, let's be outraged about something more important for the New Year - the ongoing genocide, war and famine that a lot of people have conveniently forgotten about. Don't turn your back just because it isn't happening in your country / to people like you / to people you know or can relate to / because you're too busy pointing out others not doing enough when you yourself are doing nothing.

Donate to a fundraiser for someone in the middle of war, genocide, or famine.

There is a whole list here to choose from for donations to Gaza.

There is also a gathering of fundraisers for the people of Sudan and Friends of the Congo.

You can also search the relevant Tumblr tags to find other fundraisers.

If you cannot donate, reblog some individual fundraiser posts or posts focusing on a fundraising organisation.

[jenomi]

selfless

this is totally something jaemin would do… play on words from his narcissism exhibition

✧･ﾟ: *✧*:･ﾟ✧

"where are we going?" you ask for the millionth time. your boyfriend jaemin had told you to be ready to leave in an hour and to dress in something cute, but he wouldn't reveal anything else.

"just get in the car" he says with a hint of a smile on his face as he opens the car door for you. you side-eye him as you get into the car.

you felt antsy as jaemin drives to the secret location. you wouldn't say you're one for surprises, but jaemin has always been so good at them. you're genuinely surprised when jaemin turns the corner to his exhibition site.

"what are we doing here?" "i need to check something really quick."

you both get out of the car and jaemin holds open the door for you. you walk deeper into the building you're all too familiar with. you came with jaemin to watch his Narcissism exhibition come to life and helped him with the set up and detailing while he was abroad.

as you walk deeper into the building, you come across a different sign than the one you saw every time before.

SELFLESS my love for you is endless

you stop in your tracks as jaemin whispers, "surprise" as he kisses the side of your head.

"what's this?" you look up at your boyfriend who smiles at you as he hands you an exhibition handset. he grabs your hand as he guides you further into the new exhibition.

you gasp in shock and adoration as you see the room filled with pictures of you through jaemins eyes. there's pictures of everything, the small and big moments from your relationship.

"i- i don't know what to say. this is…amazing" you gesture towards the room as you slowly take in the room. he shyly smiles in return as he gently guides you towards the photos for a closer look.

the first photo you approach is a photo of you working on the couch with lucy, luke, and luna cuddled up against you in multiple positions.

you enter the number of the photo and press play on the exhibition handset:

all my babies in one photo. as much as i love the lululu cuddles for myself, i love that they want to cuddle with you more because that means they love you as much as i do. you are also working so hard in this photo, one of the many things i love about you. thank you for being the best mother to our babies - but please don't forget to give me cuddles too

you laugh lightly as you move on to the next. it was a photo from one of your many picnic dates next to han river. your hair is caught in the wind and you're laughing at something jaemin said as you reach for the camera.

every time i look at this picture, i fall in love with you all over again. i am the luckiest man in the world to be able to call myself your boyfriend. i love when you laugh, it brightens all my days. i'm so happy to have captured this photo of you, showing your carefree spirit and smile forever

you can hear the sincerity in jaemin's voice in the audio, making you tear up. you squeeze his hand as you walk hand-in-hand to the next photo.

it immediately makes you laugh. it's a photo from your first meeting with jisung, jeno, and donghyuck and you're trying to teach jisung how to cook. jisung is obviously stressed as the other members are laughing in the background, but you have a supportive hand on jisung's shoulder as you walk him through the recipe.

i don't know why we tried to save our helpless son jisung, but thank you for being so kind and loving towards all my members. as i watched you try to help jisung at his greatest weakness, it was the first time i realized how much i loved you and how i could never let you go. do you remember when i first told you i love you?

"yes" you answer aloud to jaemin standing next to you, "i'll never forget it"

jaemin smiles as he pulls you closer to his side, "i love you"

you walk hip to hip towards the next photo. it's a photo of you and jaemin in japan at night. you and jaemin are the only clear things in the photo as everything around you is a blur of heads and lights. you're looking at each other with eyes full of love, and a small hint of a smile on both of your lips.

this photo is exactly how i see the world with you by my side. nothing else matters, as long as you're with me and happy. this photo was hard to edit, but i'm proud of the way it turned out. it will always just be you and me, when things come between us, i'll fight through them to get back to you.

you tear up again as you wrap your arms around jaemin's waist. if you could fuse yourself to your boyfriend, you would so you would never have to leave his side.

as you look at each photo and listen to jaemins recording explaining each photo, he would just watch you. watch your eyes as you examine a photo and notice the details he worked so hard to highlight and incorporate. watch you as you listen to his heartfelt words recalling his memories with you. watch you as you smile and/or cry at each photo and word he says. you were his living, breathing exhibition that he could marvel at everyday. luckily, he does.

and with each photo you look at, your heart grows fuller and fuller with your love for jaemin. it becomes so overwhelming, that you can't help but let a few tears drop. there's so many photos, photos of you asleep peacefully in bed, more photos of you with his members doing various things, a photo of you and his mom, and more pictures of you and jaemin.

in the center of the room, there's a stand with a black cloth draped over it. jaemin told you it was the grand finale of the exhibit. you lift the cloth to find a small note in jaemin's handwriting: "for you, i become selfless"

you turn around to share your love and appreciation for jaemin, but as soon as you do, you watch him drop to one knee as he opens a small felt box.

"y/n, i love you with all my heart, it hurts. i want to love you for the rest of my life and make more memories with you and capture them with my camera. i want this to be the first exhibition of many. will you make me the happiest man on earth and marry me?"

"yes" you exclaim quickly. you were never going to say no. you loved jaemin with your whole heart, and this exhibition and the amount of time and effort he must've put into this made you love him more. how could you not?

jaemin puts the ring on your finger (it fits perfectly because, of course, jaemin measured all your favorite rings) before picking you up and spinning you around as you laugh and cry. when he sets you down, you give him a long kiss.

the moment was perfect. you and jaemin in the middle of a room, happy and in love surrounded by photos of your love for each other. this would be an image you'd keep in your heart for the rest of your life. 🤍

(also you leave the exhibition with a photo book, similar to the merch sold at narcissism, but it’s just photos related to you and jaemin)

[flamingbluepanda]

How to Camp for Beginners

Hello! Tis I, your local boy scout/girl scout/avid gay camper, here to give some top notch Advice™️ about camping! The season is nearly upon us and the woods are a callin' so let's get out there and be safe kiddos!

Before you Go!

Make sure you find a campsite you like and that fits your comfort level! There's ZERO shame in picking a place with cabins, public restrooms, showers, heated pools, hot tubs- whatever your looking for!

Once you pick your campsite, make sure you know the area around it- especially if camping somewhere your unfamiliar with! Example questions to make sure you know: Where's the local hospital? Where's the closest grocery store? Gas station? Are there rangers at your campsite and how do you get in contact with them? Does your campsite provide anything at all as a courtesy?

Also make sure you know the wilderness around you and prep accordingly -- if your camping in a site with bears during their non hibernating months, make sure you bring bear safe trash recepitecals if your campsite doesny provide them

Bring people with you. People you know and trust. Seriously, the buddy system saves lives. Do NOT camp alone unless you are an EXPERT and know the area EXCRUCIATINGLY well. This is also not the place to go with your new romantic partner/friend/friend or partners family -- some people are very good at pretending to be safe and getting you alone in the woods is when they stop pretending.

Pack layers. Make sure you bring at least one set of sweatpants and hoodie, bonus points if their insulated. It gets very cold at night in most wilderness locations, even in the summer.!

Bring at least one set of waterproof clothes, including rain boots and a waterproof coat.

Pack however many sets of underwear and socks you think you need to bring, then pack more. Bring an overwhelming number of socks

Bring good sneakers that are broken in but not worn out

Flashlight with extra batteries and a portable battery cube, fully charged

Make sure you have sunscreen and bugspray, your skin will thank yoi

While packing food, make sure you bring things that will last the trip in an insulated bag or cooler. Don't buy your ice until your close to your camp. Some campsites will even offer bags of ice at the ranger station!

Bring PLENTY of water. My brother always packs ten nalgenes full of water, others bring a big pack of water bottles. Stay hydrated!

If you're bringing a furry friend, make sure they are fully up to date on their rabies and Lyme shots

Pack In!

Make sure you have a full tank of gas when you arrive at your campsite

I personally like to leave my phone in my car while I camp. Bring books/art supplies/journals or whatever you do for fun -- if that's your phone and you have service, great!

Having said that, if you ARE having a technology free camping trip, pick one person in your group with the best phone and declare them the emergency phone person

Best doesn't mean newest -- your friend who hates capitalism and has a Nokia that can survive nuclear fallout should be picked over your friend with the brand new super fragile iphone

Make sure the emergency phone remains fully charged and comes with you when you leave the campsite. Most emergency calls will work without cell service, but a dead phone can't make calls

Make sure you get the rangers number! Rangers are your friends, they want you to have a safe trip and are there for all your questions!

Also make sure to respect the rules of whatever campsite you're at -- if you're on boy scout property for example, you absolutely CANNOT bring alcohol. If you're having a fun adult camping trip, make sure you know the weed laws in that state before your puff and pass.

While setting up your campsite, try to find somewhere dry, that's not located near the bottom of a hill or next to a river.

Try to find places that don't have a ton of loose rocks or dirt, but where the ground is soft enough to nail in stakes for tents/canopies

Most campsites will have an assigned area with a fire pit, but if yours doesn't, make sure you collect enough rocks to build a fire circle before roasting any s'mores!

If your campsite doesn't let you bring cars past a certain point, make sure you know the fastest and safest route to the parking lot

I cannot stress how important it is to make sure you know the emergency numbers -- if theres a medical emergency, you may not be able to get someone to the car. Rangers will have ATVs and paramedics will have the skills to get people out of situations

Make sure your first aid kit is well packed with plenty of bandaids antiseptic and gauze- triangle bandages are also a versitle tool that can help with sprains splints and holding bandages in place. Preferably bring someone who knows at least basic first aid or CPR -- if you can't find a friend with that knowledge, make sure to be extra nice to the rangers

Bring an extra large bottle of your preferred over the counter painkillers -- dehydration and too much time in the sun can cause headaches! Also nifty for twisted ankles or sore backs from sleeping on the ground.

If you forgot your tent stakes, that's okay, put a spare cooler/bag/something heavy in the center of your tent to weigh it down in case of high winds.

If you forgot your rain canopy, a ripped trashbag will work in a pinch, but be warned: it's gonna get hot as HELL in that tent

During your Trip

Sunscreen and bugspray every day- even cloudy days have high UV rays, melanoma kills

Whether cooking on portable grill or campfire make sure your meat is fully cooked.

Chopping your produce and meat and cooking them in two separate packets of tin foil makes delicious meals, plus it's easy to check how done it is

Speaking of fires, make sure you have fireproof gloves and tongs if cooking over a campfire

Zip tents if rain is predicted but believe me, tents are like fucking hot boxes, so try to get as much air movement as you can.

If your campsite doesn't have latrines/portapotties/bathrooms (and you didn't bring one) be a good friend and make sure your camp's designated potty site is down wind of your camp. Also, human droppings can attract animals, so make sure it's a good distance away

(seriously though consider bringing a porta potty they make ones for campers)

CHECK FOR TICKS!!!! CHECK FOR TICKS EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU CAN!!!

Ticks like warm, dark places, so make sure you check behind your knees, under your arms, the back of your neck, in your socks and your privates! Ladies- that includes under the boobies. Wearing long pants, high socks, or long sleeves can be a simple and efficient tick deterrent, especially in marshy areas or tall grass. Don't forget to check your pets if they came with you!

If you find a tick, get some tweezers, grasp as close to the skin as you can, and slowly but firmly pull down on the tick- remember, you want the head out. You can also use a credit card or any other dull edge to help push downward.

Wet feet cause blisters, so always wear socks and change them often. If you get a blister, DONT POP IT, cover it with a bandaid or surround it with moleskin

Hydrate hydrate hydrate hydrate, drunk water every fifteen minutes even if your not thirsty

Remember to respect the nature around you- don't go pulling leaves off trees or disturbing animal dens, stay away from pretty much any animal- yes, even deer, bucks can and will gore you If frightened enough, deer can tramble you and even the cutest little Birdy can carry rabies and other diseases.

Poison Ivy has three leaves, poison oak looks like a strangling vine, and poison sumac has berries. Make sure you know what grows in your camping area.

If you brought a pet, don't let them eat any plants!

Make sure to use the buddy system especially if someone starts feeling ill- a lot of really dangerous illnesses start out looking a lot like colds and flu

Make sure to have a bucket of water next to your campfire, and every night make sure to completely douse your fire before turning it. Splash water on instead of dumping and make sure every ember is out- remember, only you can prevent wildfires

If you brought a gas powered generator for your campsite, make sure it's as far away as possible from the fire pit. Also, they're quite loud, so maybe don't put it near your tent. Put it on the outskirts of the campsite and don't leave it running when you're not there

Pack out!

LEAVE NO TRACE!!! make sure you clean up ALL your litter, all of it, every single one. Check and triple check your entire camp site.

Make sure everyones tent poles and stakes end up with the correct tent- you'd be surprised how brand specific stuff like that is.

Especially don't leave any food items -- there's likely going to be another person filling that campsite soon, they don't need moldy food attracting critters!

If there's a sign out sheet, don't forget to sign out at the ranger station! If they had to evacuate the campsite for whatever reason, they'll need to know you're gone!

Do a final tick/other bug check- you don't need to be bringing bugs home with you! Also check that there are no critters are in your supplies -- this sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised where snakes and mice can end up.

Give your pets an extra good bath when you get home. You don't know what could've gotten stuck in their fur!

Tick/spider bites tend to look like bullseyes. If you develop bullseye shaped rashes after you get home, seek medical attention.

Most of all, have fun and be safe!!!

[ihavethedreamies]

Easy | Felix | Easy to Expert (1)

Lee Yongbok (Felix - Stray Kιds)

Rating: M (18+) MDNI

Word Count: ~5k

Pairing: Felix x AFAB!Reader

Genre: Reader-Insert, Smut, Fluff, Friends to Lovers

!!This is smut…if that much isn't clear you should probably leave now!! MDNI!

Warnings: She/Her Pronouns used, Swearing, Kissing, Oral (F! Receiving), Fingering, Biting, One Singular Spank, He Gets a Bit Rough, Unprotected Sex (Use a condom! Don't do what they do.)

Summary: In which you can't normally get off and Felix doesn't like this one bit.

Author's Note: Imagine trying to write something like this with a straight face because you are at your uncle's house in the living room with everyone else there and you can't go anywhere else...

Also your friend's name is Yuna here and she's not a reference to any idol or anything, this was just the name that came to mind.

-> Series Hub <-

-> Part 2 <-

I am cross-posting this on Archive and Wattpad. Please reblog! If you know anyone that would like this or future fics but they aren't on here my name and icon are exactly the same on the other sites. Happy reading!

"He had the stamina of a work horse; I thought I was going to die."

"Really?" You weren't convinced.

"No, seriously. I had never came that many times in one session." Your friend shook her head and you blinked. You watched her take a swig of beer and you took another bite of chicken.

"You started without us?" Someone whined behind you, and you turned to see Jisung and Minho coming up to your table. The younger man pouted as he sat down in the empty chair next to you while Minho sat on his other side.

"You guys are half an hour late." Yuna sneered at them, waving a drumstick aggressively.

"Where's everyone else?" you asked.

"Seungmin can't make it, Jeongin is sick. Chan and Changbin are on their way from the studio. Felix and Hyunjin just left campus after dance practice." Minho listed off, waving his hand up to get the auntie's attention to get beer.

"Is Jinnie going to shower first? Poor thing looks like he fell in a pond after dance practice." Yuna bounced a bit as she talked since the waitress brought over the order of Tteokbokki you had ordered.

"That's why they're late." Jisung spoke around a mouthful.

"Anyway, he ended up breaking up with me because I apparently wasn't enough for his libido." Yuna continued her story despite the fact two of the boys had arrived and Chan and Changbin were arriving.

"Woah, what?" Chan laughed setting his bag down next to her and the other man sat across from Minho.

"Is this the same guy who said he wished he had two dicks to fuck twice as much?" Changbin asked as you watched his shirt tighten over his chest as he took his jacket off. Everything he wore was so tight…You were taken out of your zone-out when he scoffed, "My eyes are up here (Y/N)." Everyone laughed at you and your face tingled a bit, you took a sip of beer not meeting his eyes.

"Wait, what?" Chan asked again and Yuna rolled her eyes.

"Yeah. I think he was possessed by a sex demon or something, geez."

"Who are we talking about?" The oldest man asked. Yuna then recapped everything she had told you to Chan who stared blankly at her the whole time.

"Okay, way more than I ever needed to know." He shook his head and grabbed his chopsticks.

"You don't even know the half of it." Changbin huffed and the other girl gasped dramatically.

"You asked me to tell you most of it!"

"Not everything! I really didn't care about who you did everything with first, that was a long ass list."

"A list of asses?" Minho seemed to tune in at a very specific time.

"Do I want to know?" A new voice groaned as Hyunjin sat at the end of the table. Felix came around to the other end near you and took a seat.

"Yuna is sharing WAY too much again." Jisung's eyes got big to emphasize his point.

"Well, this started because (Y/N)-"

"NO!" You almost leaped across the table to shut her up. That unfortunately made the boys all the more curious and it was getting steadily louder as they urged you to share. If not but to spare the rest of the patrons and workers, you finally relented.

"I just told her that I didn't see too much point in rushing into sex in a relationship because I don't get much out of it." You didn't look at anyone, just cast a glare at Yuna, then back at your beer bottle.

"Well, you need to find someone else then." Minho told you matter-of-factly.

"It doesn’t matter, and it's not like partners haven't tried…I just can't…I-I can't finish…" You mumbled the last part, and it went deathly silent. You could feel the eyes on you but for some reason, the ones to your left were burning. Glancing up to meet Felix's stare, you're startled by his expression. He looked…intense. You shifted under his gaze. He knew you liked him, and you knew he liked you, but not much had come of it. You two kissed briefly a few weeks ago but it was interrupted, and it hadn’t happened since.

"Wait, seriously? Have you ever?" Chan asked, he had stopped eating. This was serious to him.

"Yeah, but it took forever. I had to do it myself and it wasn't easy." You shrugged. Because of this fact you hadn't had very many sexual encounters or partners. It’s just frustrating when nothing ever came of it.

"So that's when I told her that my last boyfriend might be able to do it since he got me off like six times at once." Yuna explained as she shoved more food in her mouth.

"Did you ex ever do it?" Jisung asked and you nodded.

"Once." That wasn't why you had broken up; he had moved away for work and long distance didn't work too well so you drifted apart.

"Have I ever told you guys about my college roommate's girlfriend?" Hyunjin cut in and quickly everyone was diverted over to his story of the fact that this girl was not loyal by any means. And neither was her boyfriend. Unfortunately for Hyunjin, he was both of their type and he ended up having to switch rooms. The night continued and as more food was eaten, more alcohol was consumed. The rowdiness became too much, and you were more or less kicked out. Yuna was drunk and Changbin promised to get her home in one piece, so he left with her on his back. Chan, Jisung, and Hyunjin followed suit since they all were going to the same place, and you were left with Minho and Felix.

"I'll walk her home. Go check on Jeongin, he might be asleep already but he's not texting back." Felix told the older man who nodded and said goodbye so you two were left alone. You had only one beer that night and Felix didn't even finish his, so you were not even tipsy.

"I-I can get home okay, I didn't drink much." You tried to wave him off.

"It’s okay. Just because you're sober doesn't mean I should let you go alone." He smiled softly and you internally gushed over how pretty he was.

"Thanks." Beginning to head in the opposite direction of everyone else, you two walked in silence for most of the time, but it was companionable. In your head you just kept replaying the small kiss from a few weeks before, not really sure why you were looping on it. When you got to your building, you expected him to leave you at the door, but he opened the door for you and led you toward the elevator.

"D-Do you want to come in? I have some cheesecake left that I can't finish on my own…" You couldn't meet his gaze as you waited for the elevator.

"Sure, thanks." His deep voice was so warming, and you wondered what it would sound like whispering in your ear. You shook your head to clear the thought and got in the lift to get to your floor. Keying in your pin code, the door chimed, and you let him into your apartment. You lived alone and so your place had some clutter about. You hung your coat and bag up, changed to slippers, then moved to clear the papers and pens off the couch. After moving the stuff into a more organized pile on the coffee table, you stood and turned to go to the kitchen, but instead ran into Felix's chest. He was wearing a grey turtleneck that was way tighter than you though it would be on him. His sleeves were already rolled up to his elbows and his hand moved to steady you when you stumbled in surprise at his proximity. Compared to other men, he wasn't very tall, but he was still quite a bit taller than you. When the hands that steadied you moved from your arms to your waist, you were pulled to him even closer. Your breath hitched and your hands instinctually gripped the fabric of his shirt at his shoulders. When your eyes met, he leaned in and as his lips hovered over yours, his deep voice rumbled through you.

"Can I?"

"Y-yes." Your hands moved to rest closer to his neck and he kissed you. This one was different than before. Last time was chaste and soft, but this was growing heated fast. Felix tilted his head more and licked at your bottom lip prompting you to open your mouth. You moaned softly as his tongue invaded your mouth and when he groaned back it was like thunder shook you. Reluctantly, you let him pull away so you both could take a breather.

"Was what you said true? You really can't cum?"

"M-most of the time." It was embarrassing to talk about it in front of everyone, but for some reason it seemed like Felix took it personally.

"Hm. If you let me, I might be able to help." He leaned down some to say this right into your ear, then he sucked on your ear lobe. You shuddered and tilted your head to let him get better access to your neck. He laid searing kisses along your skin, and you swallowed hard.

"O-okay." You were a bit reluctant since it hadn't worked well before. At the same time, he was turning you on way faster than anyone or anything else before. You were not blind, or deaf, he was incredibly attractive, and you would be stupid to say no. Felix's lips pulled into a smile against your throat and he sucked on that spot hard, his teeth digging in slightly. You moaned louder than you meant to, and he could feel your throat vibrate as you did. Not realizing he could pull you closer, when he did you felt him hard against your stomach. His lips moved from your neck, which now had at least three bruises on it, back to your mouth and he dominated the kiss, taking complete control. Finally, to gain more oxygen, he pulled away from you and your head was swimming. He could sense that you were dazed, so he wrapped his arms around you and picked you up, carrying you to your room. Setting you down at the end of your bed, he kneeled before you, the look on his face shocked you. You were expecting a fire there, lust, but it was so warm and soft, and you weren't sure how to react.

"I'm doing this because I like you so much. I hate that no one's made you feel good like you deserve. But at the same time…" The hand on your waist dug into your flesh and his expression sharpened, "I want to be able to say I'm the only one that can say he did. Easy." His confession made your walls clench around nothing.

"Will you let me?" Felix asked.

"Of…of course. I like you too-" He cut you off with another devouring kiss and his hands wandered under your sweater and helped you take it off. If you had known this was going to happen, you wouldn't have worn such a plain set of underwear. As the make-out session continued he also removed your socks and pants and he finally pulled back to take his own clothes off. You watched with rapt attention as his turtleneck came off, and…damn. Felix was way more ripped than you thought he would be. Not quite to the level of Chan or Changbin…You were even more enthralled as he took his belt off and undid his jeans to let them fall. His hard cock was straining against the black fabric of his tight briefs, but he left them on as he kneeled before you again. He stood as high as he could on his knees, making him eye level with you.

"Can I?" He reached around your back, and you nodded so he could unhook your plain nude bra. As he took it off, he gently bumped his forehead against yours and flashed a smile.

"You're so pretty." He cooed and you huffed, looking away in embarrassment.

"That's the pot calling the kettle black." You mumbled and he giggled. Felix laid a soft kiss on your lips then began to move down. To your neck, collarbone, sternum, then down your right breast where he latched his mouth around your nipple. You exhaled and let him do what he wanted. He didn't garner much of a reaction, but it felt better than it normally did. He hummed in thought and then he laved his tongue around the peak of your breast, then his teeth slightly dug in, and you gasped. The corners of his mouth pulled into a smile, and he sucked hard on your nipple again and your skin tingled. Goosebumps rose on your arms, and he pulled away with a pop and moved to do the same to the other side. Your breathing was getting a bit heavier and as he pulled away from your chest, he pressed his hand on your sternum, telling you to lay back. You did so and as you did; he straight up bit your left breast on the swell of the flesh. This pulled a surprised moan from you, and he smirked, pulling back.

"You left a mark!" You scoffed and he laughed, "You're going to end up with a lot more, love." You gaped at him and before you could answer, his mouth was back on you, kissing over your ribs. You sighed and he moved down to your belly button, then licked a path up to under your breasts. His actions heated your skin, and he moved back down to the waistband of your panties.

"You okay with this?" His fingers had slipped under the fabric to run along your butt, his face close to your covered pussy. He could smell your arousal already and couldn't wait to bury his tongue inside you.

"Yes. How about I tell you if I'm not and you just do whatever you want." You finally told him. You loved that he asked and made sure, but you just wanted him to keep going.

"Whatever I want?" He whispered to himself, and his intense gaze met yours.

"Are you sure, love?"

"Y-yes." You felt like a small furry creature about to be devoured by a tiger.

"Hm." He smirked and his fingers dug into the flesh of your ass, dragging you to the end of the bed. Felix pressed his face into your covered cunt and licked at your clit through the fabric. You twitched a bit, but not enough for his liking. He clicked his tongue and instead of pulling your panties off, he tore them off. The side hem was fraying a bit and it allowed him to rip the fabric and he tossed the remnant away. You would have complained if it was a nicer pair. The display of strength was incredibly attractive. Once again, Felix's hands gripped your ass, hauling you closer and immediately shoved his tongue into your cunt. You exhaled harshly, laying back. It was if he was a man lost in the desert and you an oasis. He was practically drinking from you, devouring you. His nose bumped your clit as his tongue reached as deep as he could get it. You grunted slightly, surprised at how good it felt. He noticed that every time the tip of his nose hit your button that you flinched very slightly. Removing his face from between your legs for a moment, he took his thumbs and spread you open, and you squealed. It was embarrassing, but you didn't say anything, so he kept going, smirking as you covered your face. Licking another stripe from your core to your clit, he sealed his lips around the little bud and sucked as hard as he could. Your hips jumped slightly, and your breathing picked up, but it wasn't enough yet. Furrowing his brow, he pulled back again, tipping his head. If he wasn't doing what he was it would have been rather cute. He had one more trick up his sleeve. He took his thumb once again and rubbed a circle over your clit to see how you reacted. Glancing up he pushed harder against it to fully expose it, then he leaned forward to suck again. It was a stronger feeling than before and it made your hips jump again but then he did something unexpected, he placed your clit between his teeth and bit down a bit.

"Fuck!" You twitched hard, he wrapped his arm around your hips to hold them down, then he sucked again and gave another little nibble.

"F-Felix-" You gasped, and you were getting close. It was a different feeling than even the few times before. As he abused your poor little clit, he quickly inserted two fingers in your rapidly wetting cunt. This made you gasp again, and he could feel how tight you would be, but he was figuring out you needed a little bit of pain. Once more, he nibbled down, and at the same time he crooked his fingers up hard against your sweet spot and you fell apart. You saw white, you had never felt anything to that extent before. You had slammed your hand over your mouth, but he could still hear you nearly scream out a moan and he smiled cockily; your pussy walls clenched hard around his fingers and cum spurted out of your cunt. He held your hips down, feeling the muscles twitch and spasm. It seemed like it lasted forever and when you finally came down, you were panting hard. He kneeled straighter, pulling his fingers out of you, and noted that you had draped your arm over your eyes, and he couldn't tell if there were tears or sweat flowing down your cheeks. As he stood, Felix licked his fingers clean, and he kneeled over you some and pried your arm from your face. You looked dazed, and he still couldn't tell if it was sweat or tears.

"You did so good, love." He stroked the hairs back that were stuck to your forehead.

"How the actual fuck did you do that?" You gaped and he guffawed.

"It seems you like it to hurt a bit?"

"Hurt? It didn’t?" You seemed genuinely confused. Were you really that insensitive? With how tight your cunt was around his fingers he thought for sure it would have stung a bit. Most of the time getting bit somewhere that tender would hurt some even if it felt good.

"Interesting…" He thought for a second then looked back down at you.

"Do you wanna keep going?" Felix brushed a drop of the moisture from your cheek and you glanced at him.

"Why wouldn't I?" He huffed at that.

"You look like you just ran a marathon."

"Felix, if you can make me come, I'm going to let you do it as many times as possible." You deadpanned and his shocked expression softened, and he hummed. He bent over and kissed your forehead gently. His hand grabbed yours and he brought your knuckles to his lips so he could press another kiss there.

"(Y/N), I just want you to know, that I really like you, and I want to just hold you and love you all night." He admitted and your heart began to thud.

"But I think what you need is to be fucked senseless." His voice deepened even further, and his gaze sharpened. Your heart raced even more, and it seemed he was waiting for permission.

"Oh, god, please." You said quickly and he chuckled.

"Scoot up." He kissed your hand once more then let go and he got off the bed, letting you do as he requested. He went and turned your lamp on and shut the big overhead light off. He came over as you pulled your nightstand drawer open to make sure you did have condoms and that they weren't expired.

"What's this?" He had stopped next to you as you grabbed the box and his hand reached in a grabbed something else.

"Oh, uh-" Before you could answer he opened the box. He knew what it was before he asked. Inside there was a series of sex toys and it seemed none of them could do the trick. Bullet vibrator, one looked like a rose with suction, there was a rabbit vibrator, but the one that shocked him the most was the butt plug. It vibrated too and the plastic still hadn't been taken off of the box.

"Woah." He teased, pulling it out and you groaned.

"Haven't tried it?"

"I…Nothing else worked so I figured it was worth a try but I got nervous…"

"Hmm." He was thinking something, and you weren't sure you liked the look on his face.

"Another time." He shook his head and dropped it back in the box and put it in the drawer again and took the condom box from you.

"Hm." He hummed again and you shot him a look.

"What?"

"Have you tried anything with like ribbing or whatever?"

"Yes…didn't do jack. Even did the ones with like warming lube and stuff."

"…I have an idea but only if you're okay with it?"

"What?"

"I know it’s good to be double sure, but you're on the pill, yeah?"

"Yes."

"It seems you have trouble feeling stuff there, you would probably feel more without this." He rattled the box. He had a point, the only reason you used both was for security.

"We can get the morning after thing if you want-"

"That's fine." He seemed to know what he was doing, and you weren't overly worried about it.

"You sure?"

"Yes, Felix." You assured and he nodded, dropping the box back into the drawer, "They're the wrong size anyway." He muttered that to himself, but you caught it. Closing the drawer, he crawled back onto the bed and kneeled at your feet, then cast you a look. You nodded and he pulled your knees apart and for some reason it was still embarrassing even though his tongue had literally been inside you. You were neither a virgin nor a prude, but for some reason, since it was Felix, it felt different.

"Relax, love." He smiled, pressing his lips to yours again and his tongue slipped into your mouth. You whined when he pulled back and he chuckled, then maneuvered and removed his underwear and threw them somewhere.

"Fuck." You whined and you wanted him in your mouth.

"This is about you, love, not me." He pinched your nose, able to tell what you were thinking from the expression on your face.

"Fine." You pouted and his fingers went back to your cunt and gathered the wetness there and you watched as he stroked himself to get ready. What the fuck was he fed that despite his small size his cock was that big? Whatever it was also probably made his voice as deep as it was as well.

"Ready? I'm going to be rough with you." He warned, his sharp gaze rehardened, the softness still there underneath.

"Please." You let him just grab you, he spread your legs open wide, a slight burn in your hamstrings. There was very little time between the head of his cock meeting your cunt and him burying all the way to the hilt. It took your breath away and he grunted at how tight your hot core felt around him. He had honestly never had sex without a condom before either. After being inside your wet heat with no barrier, he didn't think he could ever do anything but, especially since he planned on being with you longer than he consciously realized. You were shivering at the sensation, his hot flesh searing through you, spreading you open so much so instantly. It stung some but it felt better than any other time and you weren't sure if it was because he was fucking you raw or that he was that big. You didn't even want to know how much bigger Chan supposedly was. He contemplated letting you get used to him, but Felix was losing control fast, and it seemed like you liked it rough. His hands on your thighs spreading them open gripped the flesh, easily swinging your legs up so he folded you in half, your knees at your ears.

"Hold on, love." Using his dancing skills, he snapped his hips as hard as he could, and your next orgasm hit you. If you whited out before, you practically blacked out that time. It was like water rushed over your head, your rapid pulse thudding in your ears, your blood audibly racing. He grunted and you could barely hear it through the ringing in your ears and he dug his fingers hard into the flesh of your thighs to hold back his own orgasm. Your walls were hugging his cock so tight, and you were practically gushing around him. He hoped that he had pulled some kind of seal off of you, and that he could get you to fall apart over and over and over. He wanted to be the one that could say he fucked you stupid and that no one could ever finish you simply because they weren't him. His ego shot through the roof, and he wanted to ruin you. When he first thought of going through with this, the plan was to show you how much he loved you, what you meant to him. But he had no idea what you liked and what would finally get you off. If you needed rough, he would do it. Looping his thoughts to keep distracted from the vice of your cunt, he finally felt you relax, and you nearly went boneless, your legs in his grip losing all strength. You were heaving for air again, not sure which way was up or down, how old you were, or even your own name. All you could think of was Felix.

"No!" You yiped as he pulled out, but he rolled you over onto your stomach, hauled your hips up, your face buried in the pillow and he buried his cock back into your needy pussy, making you white knuckled the sheets. He began a truly relentless pace, and it was the best thing anyone had ever done to you.

"You like my cock, love?"

"Fuck, yes!" You managed to get out, each thrust made you silently scream, forming words became nearly impossible. Maybe the fact that he got you to orgasm allowed you to be more sensitive; then maybe because you had tried for so hard for so long with no success, your body could finally let go. Felix had the key to not only your heart, it seemed, but your cunt as well.

Leaning forward, he gripped the frame of your bed for leverage and kept his thrusts just as hard but extremely shallow. The fat head of his cock beat against your back walls so hard that you were sure they would forever be molded to only him. You felt another climax rising and your own hands scrambled to grip the wooden rods of your bed frame as well.

"F-Felix!" You managed to get out and you watched one of his hands leave the frame above you, and he smacked your right ass cheek and upper thigh hard, and you fell over the edge again. This time, he couldn't hold back either, and he fucked as deep into you as he could and filled your womb with his cum. That sensation made your climax flare to max again even though it had begun to dissipate, and your fluttering canal helped him ride out his own orgasm. You thanked the Lord birth control existed because you never wanted him to cum anywhere but inside after that. As you both caught your breath, he slowly pulled out of you and the adrenaline left you and now you were sore. Your clit, your pussy, where he had smacked you, everything. You didn't think you would be able to walk tomorrow. When he had fully withdrew, your hips slumped down and you flopped flat onto the bed, not able to move.

"Hold on, love." He leaned over you and kissed your hot cheek, covered in tears from the intensity of what he just reeked on you. You felt him wipe your used cunt off with a towel and you whined when he moved you to pull the blanket out from under you. He made a note to remove the comforter before fucking you on the bed again, because he sure was planning on doing it again.

"You're fine, pretty girl." He chuckled and crawled into bed with you. He shut the lamp off and the room was cast in shadow before your eyes got used to the dull light of the streetlights behind the curtain. Getting settled, he saw you had laid on your side already, the only way you could fall asleep. Smiling he curled around you, wiggling his arm under your head and wrapped his other around your middle. He rested his hand on your tummy, holding you close. He had to be careful, your cute little butt pressed against his now-covered groin was enough on its own to get him riled back up. The arm under your head bent so his hand could rest on your forehead, and he kissed the back of your head.

"Goodnight, love." Felix hugged you as close as possible, loving being your big spoon.

"I won’t be able to walk tomorrow." You mumbled and buried his nose in your hair and smiled smugly.

"If you can I won’t have done my job right."

"Thank you, 'Lix."

"Of course, sweet." Another kiss to your head.

"Go to sleep. I'll take care of you tomorrow. And every day after that you'll have me." His deep but quiet voice rumbled next to your ear, and you linked your fingers with his on the hand on your stomach.

"I'll have you always, Felix."

"Good, because you're stuck with me now."

-> Series Hub <-

Master-Master List

Stray Kids Master List

[budgebuttons]

There's a lot of reasonably frustrated but ultimately misdirected psa-style posting about how viewers NEED to start reblogging things rather than just liking them because that is the primary mode of post circulation on this site. The modern manifestation of this sentiment seems to miss the fact that, if you've been here for ~15 years, were here prior to, during, and after the exodus to the bird app, you already know that likes have always been more common than reblogs, that many people simply don't want to put your art on their blog, and that guilting end-users into using a microblogging site A Specific Way absolutely does not work. If it did, the trend would have shifted a decade ago. Because this conversation really is that old. Regardless, the modern discourse of how difficult it is to be Seen specifically on Tumblr isn't productive because I think it ultimately misses the reason being an artist online feels so Bad, now.

The social media era has funneled Looking At Stuff on the Internet into an economy of engagement that encourages end-users to treat everything we/they see as quick, cheap, and disposable. This is just another fun and flirty way that capitalism devalues art. It's nothing new. Trying to force masses of users to behave in a way that is healthier for the circulation of art isn't going to do anything to solve the discontent we all feel when we hurl something into the void and it is ultimately ignored. I swear up and down: A higher notes number won't feel better, either. Popularity is just as demoralizing as radio silence, but it manifests differently. Instead of 4 likes and maybe 1 reblog from Old Faithful Mutual, you get a horde of people who treat you like a content machine. You keep hoping for an impossibly Bigger Number. The notifs on the first Big Number Post haven't even settled, and people are already asking when the follow-up is coming. You get anons, but most of them are trying to passively convince you to give them More Content.

It's really, really hard to make people care about art. If there was a silver bullet for making the average person appreciate the enormity of human effort behind every beautiful thing they encounter, we would have found it centuries ago.

The best thing creatives can do for their lives online is to be friendly, or at least kind, with other creators. "Big" artists don't form in-groups because they're snobs. They find each other because they casually showed each other support, and their mutual appreciation for that Thing that wound them up in the same tag becomes a foundation for connection, and in many cases, the ever-illusive Bigger Audience as they introduce themselves to each others' circles. We get more eyes on our work by building community with each other.

Where does that leave people who are just here to look at things, not post them? I think the answer is almost identical: COMMENT!! Please, comment! The first step to engaging with art on a more meaningful level is to point out something you particularly enjoy about a given work. It can go in the replies, it can go in the tags, doesn't matter!! If you notice some symbolism or make some connection, there is all likelihood that OP put it there because they desperately wanted somebody to notice it. Let them know why you like it!

Reaching for the nebulous, impossible goal of better post circulation isn't going to make being a creator online in 2023 suck less. Meaningfully connecting with each other can, will, and does. You can make someone's day just by passingly letting them know that their effort is worth more than a number.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Hi! Could you tell us more about the hoopoe sighting, specifically from the human / social side? Are these bird watchers or regular folk? How did the word spread around? Are people coming in from further (definition pending) away or are these walking distance neighbours? Etc etc etc

Basically, this situation sounds fascinating but I feel like I'm missing as to how this is happening and what social rules have emerged. It doesn't look like there's press coverage or wildlife protection or the threat of a wild animal killing you like with the [sea lion? Seal? That one pinniped] incident. So, how is this all playing out?

ALSO, I'm writing a story in which a non-native bird arrives one day and that manages to bring together some of the neighbours, so this event is personally fascinating to me. Thank you so so much for your reporting.

Sure! So, first off for context, a hoopoe sighting in the UK is not unheard of, but super super rare. It's something that happens like... once every few years, maybe? But normally on the south east coast of England, it is super super super rare to get one in Wales.

Now, whenever you get rare sightings like this, it's mostly bird watchers who care, and who spread the news. Last year a golden oriole turned up in a scrap of woodland on the Gower - much like the hoopoe, just passing through - and within hours of someone spotting it and putting it on a bird forum, the twitchers descended, lol. As luck would have it I was leading a field trip in that woodland on that day, so I got to see about two dozen people turn up, singly or in small groups, over the course of about four or five hours, all armed with proper cameras and also good binoculars. I never saw it in the end, which was a shame, but I know where it was, because I saw the birders gather in a small, hushed crowd at one end as we were getting back on the bus.

In the case of this hoopoe, things are a bit more relaxed. Unlike that golden oriole, it was first spotted earlier this week, and has hung out every day along the beach at roughly the same spot. You can see how unbothered it is by humans, too, look:

So close! Look how close it came in the photos! And the path it's on is a cycle path; bikes going past merely made it raise its crest momentarily and then carry on feeding. This means it's been a more relaxed affair, because if you want to see it, it's bizarrely easy to find. The first two days had slightly bigger crowds, but by now the QUICKLY GO AND SEE BEFORE IT LEAVES fervour has gone.

With that said, it's still mostly birders and other environmentalists going to see it. I don't think local news has even covered it, funnily enough. A quick search for 'Swansea hoopoe' gets me bird watching websites, birding soc med groups, a YouTube video, and a news article from last year when a hoopoe turned up in an Aberystwyth garden, of all places. The Evening Post really should have mentioned it for local interest, actually, but nothing. Although, of course, that's probably helped keep crowds down.

But environmentalists are definitely sharing the news with each other lol, so there's that (especially on the local scene). WE are all very excited. Of the little crowd of about 10 people there today, most had proper cameras. Several were discussing RSPB sites. Many had English accents, which suggests they travelled in to see it (although of course that's not definite). So, it's mostly a specialist crowd, interspersed with locals who stop to see what everyone is staring at.

The difference with the walrus, though, is I think partly the level of exoticism (most people don't know what a hoopoe is, but have seen birds; by contrast, they do know what a walrus is, and most haven't even seen a seal), and partly impact. Wally was exciting regardless, but he also kept squatting on slipways and capsizing boats, leading to funny photos of lifeboat volunteers trying to shoo him away with a broom.

And even funnier photos of him sinking the boats of rich toffs as they watched helplessly on and underwent the five stages of grief.

And, actually, he came visiting in lockdown, when people couldn't travel far and couldn't gather indoors, but you could go to Tenby and stand on a cliff, and I do think that played a part. But, as I say, most non environmentalists just don't know the hoopoe is even there to get excited.

Anyway, I hope that is at all useful! Good luck with your story.

[spiders-around]

YOU MUST MAKE A WEBSITE

Oh wow, look at that! YET ANOTHER post urging you to make a webbed site! What a completely new thing that people haven't made a thousand masterposts for already!!

• Making a website might look scary. It is Not.

At first, I too thought making a website was too much work. It really isn't! It turns out that all you need is

an HTML file,

a web hosting service and

w3schools tutorials,

and that's about it!

This post will point you towards these resources, and others I found useful while figuring out how to make a website.

• VERY QUICK EXPLANATIONS:

What's HTML and CSS?

HTML is the content of your webpage, the skeleton of it. What shows up in a webpage is what's written in the HTML file!

CSS is the way the HTML is styled; the colour of the background and the letters, the size of elements, the font, all that!

Do I absolutely NEED JavaScript for a website?

Not at all! You don't need to worry about learning it before getting started.

• What do I make a website for? What do I put in there?

ANYTHING AND ALMOST EVERYTHING. Here's some ideas for pages from a post of mine were I was very normal about websites:

You can make a page that's only pictures of your pets.

You can make an interactive adventure.

You can make your own academic blog full of your own essays or articles.

You can just post a ton of art or make a full music page.

You can make a blog and infodump eternally, give book reccs and reviews. You can host a thousand virtual pets and nothing else.

Upload entire books in a single html file. Make a wikipedia for your ocs. Make a fake site for a random fictional place (restaurant, hotel, whatever). You can make a thousand fanpages/shrines about your favorite media. You can upload your own webcomic and make it all like a fancy website and shit.

I could keep going but, for the sake of "brevity", I won't.

• WEBSITE EXAMPLES!

If I started listing the websites I know, this post would be bottomless. Here's only seven:

https://publictransit.neocities.org/ - A webbed site, for sure

https://ribo.zone/ - A personal site

https://leusyth.neocities.org/ - An art archive

https://solaria.neocities.org/ - Personal website with A Lot of stuff (it'll come up in a bit, because it offers web making resources)

https://hog.neocities.org/ - The Hogsite

https://thegardenofmadeline.neocities.org/ - Another personal site! It also has a web resources page and has made another masterpost like this one (but better)

https://spiders.neocities.org/ - My own website, which must be weird to see in mobile . sorry

• You've convinced me. I want a webbed site. Where do I start?

https://neocities.org/

FIRST OF ALL: Neocities. It is a free web hosting service, and it's the one I and the sites I linked use!

When I first started, my website was a black page with red letters and a drawing, and nothing else! It was like that for a month, till i started picking up on how to do things.

Here's what helped me get an idea of how to make things work:

https://sadgrl.online/learn/articles/beginners-guide-neocities

An absolute beginners guide to neocities -- while when you make an account there you get a tutorial page from the site, this one's extra support for that.

https://www.w3schools.com/

Learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript and MANY other coding things for free. All the tutorial/reference pages have live testing windows for you to mess with!! helped me a LOT while figuring this stuff out!

https://htmlcheatsheet.com/

https://htmlcheatsheet.com/css/

Cheatsheets for HTML and CSS, respectively. It includes a JavaScript one too!

https://sadgrl.online/webmastery/

Sadgrl's webmastery resources! Also includes the next resource listed here:

https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/

Sadgrl's layout builder; not a lot of customization at a first glance, but I've seen wildly different websites all using it as a base, plus it works using CSS Flexbox, so it generates a responsive layout!

(basically, a responsive layout is one that translates well in different sized screens)

https://www.tumblr.com/fysa/728086939730919424/wikitable-code?source=share

Tumblr user fysa made this layout imitating a wiki page!

https://brackets.io/

At some point, you might want to do things outside the Neocities code editor and get one outside the site. I recommend Brackets, because my old as fuck computer can run that and absolutely nothing else apparently, and it works wonderfully! Though I recommend either turning off the code autocomplete or using it after a good while of already using the Neocities code editor, so you get used to coding on your own.

http://www.unit-conversion.info/texttools/text-to-html/

Turn your text into HTML code! i use this kind of pages for my lengthy blog entries that I don't feel like formatting myself.

https://imagecompressor.com/

COMPRESS YOUR IMAGES.

The heavier an image is, the more your site weighs and the more time your page will spend loading. You don't want that, specially if your site is heavy on graphics. This might help!

https://solaria.neocities.org/guides

Some CSS, JavaScript and Accessibility guides! Worth checking out!

https://eloquentjavascript.net/

This is a free, interactive book for learning JavaScript! NOTE: It is very intuitive, but JavaScript is HARD!! I still haven't learned much of it, and my website does fine without so don't worry if you end up not doing much with it. It's still useful + the exercises are fun.

And now, accessories!

• Silly stuff for your page :]

https://gifypet.neocities.org/

Make a virtual pet, copy the code and paste it in your HTML file! You'll get a little guy in your webbed site :]

https://www.wikplayer.com/

Music player for your website!

http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/

JavaScript silly effects for your site :]

https://blinkies.neocities.org/geoblinkies

Blinkie search engine!

https://www.cbox.ws/

Add a chatbox to your site!!

https://momg.neocities.org/

Infinite gallery of gifs. i've spent hours in there looking at moving pictures and out of them all, the ONLY gif i actually ended up using on my site was a rotating tomato slice. it is still there. trapped.

https://wrender.neocities.org/tarotinstructions

A widget that gives you a random tarot card!

https://www.websudoku.com/widget.php

Sudoku widget!

That's about it for now! I don't know how to end this!!! Remember to have fun and google everything you don't know :]

[vickytaa]

𝕯𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖉𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖙𝖔 𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖆𝖗𝖐𝖓𝖊𝖘𝖘?

𝔰𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔢𝔯𝔶: A new video in collaboration with Sam and Colby, where the group enters an abandoned church full of mysteries. What starts as an exciting adventure quickly turns into a nightmare. Y/n will have terrifying nightmares and must fight her fears after entering the darkness.

"Welcome back, everyone! It's Sam and Colby. Today we brought some special guests to help us on this great adventure of the abandoned church." Colby explained.

It was the first time I was going to participate in an adventure that was related to the paranormal world. My grandmother used to work in dealing with those from beyond; she used to warn me that it was something very dangerous, but not to be afraid, but to respect them, 'you don't know what can happen if you dishonor them' she used to tell me.

So that's what I did, all my life I tried to keep a certain distance, but with a great curiosity, which I believed more and more inside me. And that's why today I decided to come here, accompanied by my boyfriend and my best friends, ready to face the unknown.

Sam introduced us to the camera and quickly began to explain what we would do today. "Well, for those who don't know, this is the St. Bernadette Church. Built in 1740, in terrible conditions; thousands of workers died on the site, but few know why. There were many moments where paranormal activity exceeded normal levels. The first few years were simple movements of objects, almost imperceptible, but quickly turned into sudden knocks, people levitating and there was even an attempted arson." Sam explained. A shiver ran down my spine.

I gently squeezed Matt's hand, who was next to me, a little nervous but just as curious as me, to let him know that I was a little scared of what was going to happen.

He moved his hand, wrapping his arm around my waist and giving me a small kiss on the head, trying to calm my nerves.

Sam finished explaining what we were going to do and we headed inside the church. We were all amazed by the sheer size of the place, the stained-glass windows on the walls, through which the moonlight shone. The place was huge, full of endless doors.

Near the altar was the man who was going to share his story of the place and help us explore the church. His face was pale, a long black robe wrapped around his body, and despite the distance, you could see that his hands looked...burned.

How strange...

Matt seemed to read my mind, our eyes meeting as his grip on my waist tightened, trying to keep me as close as possible.

My heart raced as a cold breeze swept through the room, making me shiver momentarily. My hands were colder than before, my eyes darting around, trying to memorize as much of the place as I could, in case I got lost, so I would know where the exit was.

Before we started any communication method, we all decided to explore, but since the place was too big to explore all together, we agreed to split up. Everyone went their own way with a different camera.

"Are you sure?" Matt asked me, noticing my panicked expression. I was terrified of the idea of being alone in a church where there were supposedly ghosts, but I decided to be brave and nodded to Matt. "See you in an hour," Chris said. We all separated, each choosing their own path.

With one hand, I held the camera, pointing it at the door, while with the other I opened it. My heart was pounding in my chest, and the air I breathed was so cold it hurt to inhale.

I gripped the doorknob and slowly turned it to open it. Darkness enveloped the room, I could barely see anything, and what I could see was thanks to the camera's flashlight.

"Here we go..." I said softly, trying to sound calm, but my trembling voice betrayed me.

With each step, the old floorboards creaked under my feet, amplifying the deathly silence. Fear coursed through my veins, and the desperation of not being able to see anything began to set in.

After walking a few steps, I could no longer see the door due to the lack of light. As I approached a wall, I began to see portraits of people and some drawings of angels. A shiver ran down my spine, not from the cold, but from an inexplicable feeling of being watched. The camera light traveled across the walls and the faces of people, their eyes seemed to reflect a weariness and a void that I couldn't describe in words.

The dampness and musty smell enveloped me, intensifying the atmosphere of mystery. The crunch of broken glass under my foot made me jump, "Ah!" I screamed at the unexpected noise, which shattered the tense silence.

Slowly, I looked away from the paintings and down at my foot, where the noise had originated. I slowly brought the camera closer to see more clearly. The air caught in my throat as I realized what it was. A portrait, just like the others, only this one wasn't of a person... it was of the devil. For a moment, I thought I heard a faint laugh, like a whisper lost in the shadows.

The church felt alive, or rather, inhabited by something else. Something that wasn't of this world. With every corner I explored, my fear grew more and more.

Shivers ran down my spine, 'I must be imagining things,' I thought. I continued to stare at the portrait on the floor, as if hypnotized by its detail, despite how terrifying the image was. Suddenly, I saw something else besides my reflection in the glass that protected the portrait. It looked like a nun kneeling, as if she were praying or crying...

I slowly turned my head,

nothing.

The room seemed to shrink, even though I couldn't see well. The darkness was growing, my heart pounding a mile a minute, almost as if it were going to burst out of my chest. My breathing also quickened, the urgent thought of wanting to leave grew impatiently. I had to get out of there.

"Fuck this," I said, venturing back into the darkness to find the exit. I couldn't see anything but the old wooden floorboards beneath my feet. My hands began to tremble, it felt like I was walking in circles, finding no way out.

It started to get very cold, strangely, because it was the middle of summer. My breath began to tremble, now more from the cold I was feeling. And suddenly, a chilling, deep voice echoed from afar, "You dared to enter the darkness?" I froze. Small tears of fear rolled down my cheeks. What was going to happen to me? What was I going to do?

My face full of panic, I started running forward, not knowing what I might encounter. My mind was filled with millions of scenarios of what could happen at that moment.

My whole body was trembling, trying to escape this supernatural force. Running, I found the door I had opened, finally, I grabbed the handle and turned it to open it and...

it was closed.

"Help! Matt!" I screamed as I pounded on the door, crying out of desperation to get out. "Help, please!" My accelerated heartbeat sounded louder than my screams. I kept asking for help, pounding the door harder, screaming louder, doing everything I could to stay alive. I turned my head to look back into the room, where I still couldn't see, not a single window, not a bit of light. The darkness was my greatest fear, and now I was fighting against it.

"Help," I cried non-stop, my strength waning. Suddenly I felt the door open quickly, a sense of relief washed over me as I saw Matt and his brothers approaching me. "Y/n! What happened to you?" they asked worriedly. My ears were ringing, my mind was clouded, my breathing was returning to normal.

"Matt..." I managed to choke out, my sobs the only thing coming out. He hugged me tightly, trying to calm me down. "It's okay, love, I'm here, we're all here with you, okay? Calm down," Matt said in such a calm voice that made me forget everything that had happened.

After a few minutes, I felt strong enough to share what had happened to me. We were all in a circle, trying to be close to share a feeling of safety and tranquility.

"There was someone there," I said without warning. Everyone turned to look at me, even though I couldn't see them because my head was resting against Matt's chest. "Who?" Colby asked. Fear was still running through my veins, the image in my head of what had happened made me feel my chest tightens.

"A nun... I- I couldn't see her face but it looked like she was..." "Crying," Sam finished my sentence. With a surprised face, I slowly nodded. Sam and Colby looked at each other, they seemed scared, as if what had happened shouldn't have happened.

"How do you know she was going to say that?" Chris asked with a face full of fear. They both looked at each other again, seeking approval on whether or not to tell us.

"Searching..." Sam sighed lightly before continuing, as if he was frustrated. "Investigating the place, we realized there was a known story of a girl who had gone through the same thing, many years ago," Sam explained. We all remained with the same curiosity, wondering what happened to the girl, what it had to do with what had happened, thousands and thousands of unanswered questions.

"And what happened to her?" Nick asked, worried about something happening to me where he couldn't help. "She..." Sam hesitated to continue, knowing that if I knew what had happened to the girl, I wouldn't be able to sleep. "She....

Part 2.

𝐕 -

[brooklynisher]

Hey all, you ever hear of Jaunty?

[x]

Do you WANT to learn more about Jaunty?

Well I dug deep, and found some things I never thought I could find. I'm really excited to share what I've found with y'all. This post is sort of a little journey of how I found Jaunty.

There's a few sections to this.

Skip to But where does Jaunty come from? If you just want answers

Is Jaunty even a real character?

Jaunty, from what I originally found, is SUPPOSEDLY a Steam Powered Giraffe character. But where have we seen this character before? Was it the comic? Was it the timeline? Maybe in a song cover? Does the band ever talk about Jaunty?

And to answer all of your questions, no! At least not that I knew of. The only source of Jaunty’s existence is here.

The Steam Powered Giraffe Wiki

So that makes this whole thing pretty complicated right? The wiki has info, and it’s not too inaccurate most of the time, but some of the lesser known/more nuanced information tends to get scuffed.

It really doesn’t help knowing that David has mentioned before that the information on the wiki wasn't that accurate.

What I’m saying is, the only proof we have for the existence of this character is on what might be one of the more unreliable sources of SPG information.

But despite that, this page is special in the fact that SUPPOSEDLY it was uploaded by Steam Powered Giraffe themselves!

[x]

However, there isn’t really much of any information on this user at all. All we know is that they founded this wiki, added a few characters and a bit of information, and then became inactive. Really our biggest reasoning for believing that this was an actual SPG member is the fact that they are the founder and have been around for a very long time.

Okay, suspicions aside, let’s see what I found about this thing.

What the wiki tells us

One, this image was touched by the founder of this wiki twice, it was uploaded in 2011, and in 2014 they protected the page, which means only the administrators can edit the page.

[x]

Both are pretty major years for SPG being the year Upgrade left the band and the year Rabbit transitioned, but there’s not many connections you can make with that.

This user was first active in 2010 and last seen in 2015 [x]

Cool dates to have, but not a lot to work with. It mainly gives us a clear vision of what SPG was looking like at the time of the creation of this page. I can see this thing being used for a special, slightly themed show.

Of course, the information the wiki alone offers is very limited, but we know two things for sure. One, this character is a robot being under the category of robots, and two, these photos were taken by Cineria.

[x]

So, here's the problem, you'd think that by having the name of the photographer, we could get far with that, but unfortunately, it is such a vague name, that there is just no way we could figure out who Cineria actually is. It really doesn't help that they don't seem to be a professional photographer. The only page I could find that connects both the name Cineria and Steam Powered Giraffe is this one.

Useless information

I started searching for stuff by reverse searching it. It wasn't really successful, as I was expecting, but I did find one thing.

A different source.

This source doesn't go anywhere must you know. The ORIGINAL site, florist.buketbunga.com is still up an active serving as an Indonesian site for selling flowers, but this very specific link is broken, and the Wayback Machine doesn't know a thing about it.

The good news is, the link title alone gives us a ton of stuff to work with! Appropriately, the last part of this link translates to "Flower Bouquet Florist Shop Address Nearest 24 Hours Online", which makes sense.

What DOESN'T make sense is everything else coming before it. Specifically the Team Fortress 2 Wiki. This made me believe that someone used these sites to create a scam link, but it's weird because somehow, it's relevant?

Yandex was able to match these images of Jaunty to this site, and what's crazier, Jaunty is in the title of the link! But it's not just Jaunty, it's the Jaunty Explorer.

I did some searching, and discovered that the Jaunty Explorer originates from a TF2 livestream charity event called Tip of the Hats! Donations can earn you medals known as the Jaunty Explorer ($10 Donations), the Jaunty Ranger ($30 Donations), and the Jaunty Mountaineer ($100 Donations). They can come in many different color variations, but here are the main ones.

[x] [x] [x]

There are TWO connections between this and SPG. One, the shared name of Jaunty, and two, hats. Steam Powered Giraffe is pretty big on hats. But, bad news, these are completely unrelated. Main reasoning? The image of Jaunty was posted to the wiki back in 2011, while Tip of the Hats as an event started back in 2013. Can't even take the "SPG was inspired by TF2" route with that.

Okay, but what even IS it?

Now we get into the visual aspect of this!

I tried to see if there was at least any way to identify what this is, but that solely relies on observational skills. There are two images of this thing, but the image with the blue background is much easier to make out.

[x]

There's a lot that's going on with the design of Jaunty. Unfortunately, I'm not smart enough to identify what half of the doodads are. This machine, whether it's an actual machine or just a prop, is definitely a one of a kind as I couldn't find anything like this.

I talked with @boneinator about this, and he was able to read the text: "STAND CLEAR!" on the top of the doors of this machine which lead him to believe that it might be a time machine of sorts.

What we both managed to agree on when it came to the design of this thing however, was that it looks like a cabinet.

Now, like I said, this thing has a one of a kind design, so it's not going to look exactly like one thing or another, but it has similar features to other things such as to this cabinet

[x]

Two longer doors on the upper half, and two smaller doors/drawers on the bottom. Is that actually what it is? I didn't know, but there is a resemblance.

One thing that's REALLY interesting about this machine is the intense amount of steam it lets out.

[x]

So it's definitely a very active machine.

But where does Jaunty come from?

Something I've been wondering is how much of this is actually connected to SPG.

Is it theirs? Is this a part of a bigger thing? Is it just associated with them?

A bigger thing. There is one example of a big SPG show that comes to mind, and it was not just them.

During their 15 Year Anniversary Livestream, the band was asked about their favorite memories. Bunny mentions that one of her favorite memories was at a show called Clockwork Vaudeville. This was one of the band's first time having a massive audience. According to her, this was a time traveling show, and they performed alongside others.

I looked into it and found that the full name of this performance is called Clockwork Vaudeville Circus Cabaret. And there, I found a little advertisement for it as well!

The Kickstarter for this show started in late 2010

I did some more searching and realized there is a bunch of video from this show out there though all these clips are recorded at random intervals. Assuming that the uploader posted these clips close to the date of the actual show, we can see that this show took place in February of 2011!

About one month after this show, this page was added to the wiki.

I checked the clips, and guess what.

[x]

Right there in the corner, there was Jaunty.

But that's not all

Not only have a found a video that contained Jaunty, I found a video that contained Jaunty in action!

[x]

Unbelievably enough, it was a video of the band performing Honeybee alongside a pole dancer. And thanks to the title, we now know that this show took place February 19, 2011

Which all this confirms 100% that Jaunty IS a time machine.

Now with all things considered, Jaunty is not necessarily an "SPG character" as in they didn't create it. It's hard to say if Jaunty is even a character at all at this point! But it does exist in their world and they actively interact with it!

Who cheered? I cracked the code!

[kinjedl]

A new migrant's perspective on how Tumblr works

So, basically, how Tumblr works is this:

We are all, all of us, in a series of caves. Some of the inhabitants of the caves have dug little holes or access routes to the surface, where strange things like blue tweeting birds dwell. Some of us have fled here from a site the alien rules, and a few of us are splitting our time between their weirdly bright and shining domes and our comfy moss-covered holes.

From within your cave, you can dig tunnels. Some people choose to dig tunnels up to the top of other peoples' caves just to observe. Occasionally they might sneak down and steal a choice morsel to drag back to their own hoard, sometimes they just observe. Some tunnels don't lead to the caves owned by other individuals, but instead to dumping grounds where people shove copies of things that they think are related to a single topic. There's no actual rules to that, per-se, it's just a sortve rule by collective consensus about what kinds of things should go in that cave. Sometimes things get shoved in there which don't really belong, but that's fine too.

Some people cultivate their caves to reflect their own specific sets of interest - maybe their hoard has a theme, a motif, a genre. Some people just grab whatever looks shiny and show it off to whoever comes by to look.

When you find something that's interesting, you can - and should - grab it and run back to your cave and put it on display. As everyone knows, piracy isn't stealing, since it makes a copy, so the original is left untouched. That's how things spread down here. There's no real pacing to it, so sometimes someone will make a thing, show it off, and no one will notice that it's there until later, at which point it might take off running through the caves as everyone grabs a copy. Sometimes it does that in fits and starts. Sometimes it hits a particularly nutrient rich patch of the caves and grows way out of control, far beyond its original creator's intentions. Like a slime mold that hit a big ol batch of protozoa. The slime mold thing is probably more accurate than it should be.

The point isn't the spread, though. Tumblr works opposite of how most other big content sites like Facebook and Reddit and Twitter work. In all of those, the point is to yell at the top of your lungs and get as many people to hear you. If you can't get enough people to hear you, you might spend billions to buy the platform and try to buy more of an audience that way, because the audience is the point.

On Tumblr, instead, the audience is irrelevant. The treasures you can bring back to your cave are the point. The point is to hoard and collect and grow your shinies. It's nice to show them off (because who doesn't like it when their hoard is admired?) but it's the having and the getting, not the giving.

it's more work than reddit or facebook or twitter, because no one is out here trying to tell you what should go in your hoard. Everyone everywhere else has strong feelings on what kind of kitsch and treasures and knickknacks you should have. Here, you have to dig. You'll find a lot of trash in the process, but you have the choice of where your tunnels lead, and which garbage pi... other people's hoards you're sifting through, so it's a friendly sort of grubbing in the dirt that feels comfy once you're used to the muck.

I like it here.

[warping-realities]

Bed and Breakfast

"I can't believe you're going to make me stay in a place like that." Said the beautiful woman with an arrogant tone towards her companion. Without realizing that she was being heard by the owner of the small and cozy coastal inn.

"Babe, calm down, the place is really nice and seems to be very comfortable. And it's highly rated on travel sites. We'll be lucky if there's room for us here."

"We wouldn't have to go through this if you had booked a hotel in advance."

"Laura, love. You decided on a trip to a fashionable place at the last minute during high season, there was no vacancy and yet you insisted on coming."

"Of course, everyone important is here, what do you think my followers would say if I didn't come. An influencer has to be aware of all the trends, Jeremy and this is the place of the moment, only God knows why." Laura replied, making her boyfriend let out a sigh before being prevented from responding by a cheerful and jovial voice.

"Good night, I'm Cintia, owner of Cozy Cabin, welcome, how can I help you?"

"Good evening, ma'am. My name is Jeremy Grant, and this is my fiancée, Laura. We are looking for accommodation."

"Oh dear! I'm sorry, but we're all booked up, reservations have been closed for over two months, we've become a very popular place lately." The woman of indecipherable age responded, because at the same time that she showed signs of age, she had an aura of joy and youth around her, at that moment tainted by a genuine tone of sadness at not being able to help. Which turned into indignation and anger when the young, pretty blonde woman in front of him let out a dismissive giggle followed by a howl of reproach towards her fiancé. However, before Cintia could say anything, Jeremy quickly intervened.

"Isn't there really the slightest possibility Cintia? It would only be for one day so that Laura can take some photos and post them, she is a digital influencer."

"Really? I've never heard of you darling." Cintia said, taking advantage of the moment to repay the young woman's rudeness, who in turn couldn't stand to remain silent.

"I work with a young audience, it's understandable if someone your age doesn't know me." Laura replied, causing Jeremy to have a mortified expression and a dangerous glint to appear in Cintia's eyes.

"Ah, believe me, I know how to recognize an influencer with an impact, right now we are hosting Miguel Ramos, the famous fitness influencer, it is already the fifth year that he has visited us at this time. Which gives me a wonderful idea to solve the your problem. If you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll be back with news soon."

"Stupid rag" Laura commented bitterly as soon as Cintia left the room.

"Baby, you provoked..."

"Don't stand against me, Jeremy. How she dare, compare me to that fairy Miguel Ramos!"

"Laura, be careful what you say, I've heard a lot about Miguel Ramos, he was already a very respected Personal Trainer before becoming a popular fitness influencer and has a good follower base."

That was a huge understatement and they both knew it. While Laura's number of followers had not yet reached hundreds of thousands, Miguel's already surpassed the million barrier. And of course the vain woman didn't like being reminded of that and soon found a reason to tease her fiancé.

"Jeremy, that stubble of yours looks horrible, how many times have I told you to keep your face smooth! My followers prefer you to complement my look!"

Jeremy didn't know if that was true, Laura's followers really praised how much they complemented each other in appearance. But he couldn't help but occasionally wonder if the fact that Laura made him wear clothes in a similar style to hers, coupled with her insistence on keeping a smooth face and his blond hair in neat curls, resembled hers to the point where some people thinking that they were brothers and not a couple was a proof of a totally narcissistic nature as the class's detractors insisted on shouting. However, every time those thoughts arose, Jeremy quickly suppressed them, he had long ago accepted that he would be nobody without his girlfriend, to the point of giving up his career as a physical educator to follow her, ensuring all her wishes and canceling himself in every way. Because he was completely sure that he was not worthy of her love and that no one in the world would be able to love him like she did. It was precisely because he thought all of this that when he saw Cintia return with a look of satisfaction on her aged face, he responded calmly.

"Yes, love, that's the first thing I'll do as soon as we get to our room.”

"My dears, I found a solution, it's not perfect but it should help for today." Cintia began with a playful smile and that sparkle in her eyes. "We have a few rooms with extra beds that are not being occupied and two of our guests have kindly provided those beds to you for a couple of nights. In two days Mrs. Goldschmitt will return home and her room will be free if you wish." extend your stay."

"You mean you want us to stay in separate rooms?" Laura asked indignantly.

"It was the best I could do, dear. Of course, if it doesn't suit you, feel free to leave and look for accommodation elsewhere." Cintia replied with an icy smile.

"No, no, it's great, we accept!" Jeremy quickly interrupted, wanting to avoid more conflicts and the loss of the only stay they found.

"Great! Please follow me, then I'll ask one of the assistants to take your bags to your respective rooms." Cintia replied, looking genuinely pleased as she led them down a hallway and a flight of stairs to the first room and knocked on the door, which was promptly opened by a handsome Latino man in his thirties, with developed muscles detailed by a fitted white t-shirt and a friendly smile in his handsome bearded face.

"Goodnight." He said simply with a voice exuding masculinity.

"Miguel, dear. These are Jeremy and Lau..."

"You don't need to introduce me, I'm sure Miguel knows who I am." interrupted Laura while Miguel stared at her as if she were a creature that had jumped in front of him.”

"Laura... apparently she's a digital influencer." Cintia continued as if she had not been rudely interrupted. "Jeremy and Laura, this is Miguel Ramos who we talked about earlier and who kindly agreed to give Jeremy the extra bed in his room."

"Thank you for the lovely introduction Cintia and it's a pleasure to finally meet you in person Laura and you too Jer..." Miguel began, also being interrupted by Laura.

"I think our followers would love a collaboration from us."

"Um, sure, we can discuss this tomorrow, Laura. I believe you are both exhausted now and Cintia still has to take you to your room."

"Yes, yes, you're right, we'll arrange everything tomorrow. Shall we go then?" Laura ended talking to Cintia without even saying goodbye to Jeremy, who in turn approached his girlfriend and kissed her on the cheek.

"Good night love, sleep well!" - He said before entering the room and seeing his fiancée being taken by Cintia inside the building.

.....

"Welcome Jeremy, unfortunately you'll have to take the single bed."

"Thank you Miguel, you didn't need to do that or pretend to know Laura."

"Ahh, I'm sorry about that, but I thought it was better, I know how hurt some influencers can be by not being recognized, I've never particularly cared about that, but I've seen some uncomfortable situations to say the least. And as for the bed, It's just a bed, I'm not really using it and Cintia asked me for a favor, she's a great friend and was a lot of help when... anyway, you are welcome here.”

"Still, you didn't have to do any of that, thank you very much." Jeremy replied as he prepared to sleep, thinking about what Miguel had left to say. It was nothing new that his breakup with his long-time boyfriend, a famous film actor, had been very traumatic, so much so that he had remained out of the spotlight for several months until he was photographed on the beach close to where they were, which is why the interest in place had lit up. The only news there was knowing that he will not be staying in a luxurious hotel but in Cintia's small and cozy inn. Laura should be happy, Jeremy thought before falling asleep, she had gone to look for copper and apparently she had found gold.

Already lying in the single bed, Jeremy found the courage to say something else.

"Miguel, thank you really, I'm very grateful for your kindness... but... well... I apologize in advance if Laura expresses... um... any dissatisfaction with the accommodation arrangements... she's used to get what she wants and... well... there might be some kind of... jealousy... so..."

"She doesn't need to worry Jeremy, I'm not into man skinnier , smaller and younger than me." Miguel responded in a joking tone but causing Jeremy to immediately recoil.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't offend me Jeremy, I was just joking, you can rest assured, in fact feel free in the room, as far as I'm concerned the room is as much yours as mine. Have a good night.”

…..

The morning sun invaded the inn's bedroom, causing Jeremy to turn over in bed and wake up, rubbing his eyes, being treated to a stunning image, Miguel wearing only white underwear, with his sculpted body on display, staring intently at the bedroom wall as if he was lost in reminiscences. At that moment Jeremy felt something he had never imagined he would feel when seeing another man, a pang of desire, accompanied by a familiar sensation in his dick that he only associated with when he saw the image of Laura in her naked beauty. His surprise at that was so great that he moved abruptly, causing Miguel to wake up from his reverie.

"Good morning, I'm sorry if I woke you up, I forgot to close the curtains last night."

"No problem." Jeremy replied, hiding his erection with a pillow.

"Anyway, I'm already on my way out, going for my morning run before breakfast."

“Oh man, I miss doing that!” Commented Jeremy.

"Do you have this habit too?"

"Yes, I was a physical educator just like you, but since I started following Laura... she's not a morning person and gets upset when I wake her up early... anyway, I've been running on the treadmill while she makes the videos her at the gym."

"If you want to train with me..."

"Nah, man, thanks, but no. I'm going to rest a little longer" Jeremy replied, still hiding his erection.

"Then I'll see you later. Sweet dreams." Said an already fully dressed Miguel leaving the room and Jeremy alone with his disconcerting thoughts.

…….

To say that the trip had been a disppointment to Laura would be a huge understatement. First Jeremy hadn't been able to make a simple reservation and even had the nerve to blame her when he should have been able to foresee this kind of thing, then there was the beach itself, she had never liked sun and sea, and only Thinking about sand made her skin itch, but unfortunately, thanks to Miguel Ramos' stellar divorce and his apparent bad taste, that little beach was the star's hot spot for the summer. Ending up in the same inn as him could be a golden opportunity, but for that she had to put up with the arrogant old woman who owned the place, the fact that her fiancé was sleeping in the same room as that fagot and the annoying roommate she that she was sure it had been chosen by the old ghoul with the only intention of irritating her. And it was with a look that reflected her inner bitterness that she waited for her fiance to appear for breakfast, which made her even more indignant, as she was not used to wait and at the same time she refused to call him. After all he should know his place and his duties!

It was with that sour face that Miguel found her after taking a shower and getting dressed as quietly as possible to avoid waking the still sleeping Jeremy. Upon seeing that expression, he seriously thought about escaping from the breakfast room without being seen, especially since he hadn't had a good initial impression of Laura, which was confirmed when he saw the type of content she produced, with Jeremy appearing as more of an accessory to her outfit than as a real boyfriend, which raised the suspicion that perhaps the other man was trapped in the type of abusive relationship that he himself had lived in until recently. But before he had time to escape, their eyes met and a practiced smile appeared on her face without reaching her predatory eyes. Knowing that game very well, Miguel plastered a smile as fake as hers on his own face and approached her table.

"Good morning, Miguel, I hope Jeremy's snoring wasn't disturbing." Laura said, starting the conversation in the worst possible way and making the smile disappear on Miguel's face.

"On the contrary, it didn't bother me at all, Noah snored a lot more." He replied, making a look of irritation momentarily cross Laura's face due to the comparison with his ex-husband. Wasn't it enough that her boyfriend was sleeping in the same room as him?

"You're very kind, but it's my fiancé you're talking about, no one knows him like I do."

"Of course, and if you allow me to say, seeing your posts on social media is possible to see all your influence on him." Miguel replied, barely hiding the sarcasm in his voice.

"Thank you. It was hard work." Laura responded in turn without realizing the criticism embedded in his comment. "Speaking of work, when are we going to do our collaboration?" She concludes.

"We'll certainly find a way." He responded in turn, knowing that as far as he was concerned, that would never happen. "If you'll excuse me now I have an appointment. Maybe you should check on Jeremy, when I left the room he was sound asleep. It seemed to me like he hadn't slept so well in a long time." He concludes with a bright and genuine smile before leaving the room, turning his back on a fuming Laura.

Although Miguel's statement was intended to provoke Laura, that was not far from the truth. Jeremy had slept as well as ever and didn't even wake up when Miguel returned to the room and got ready for breakfast. If he had woken up he would have been mortified, because in his sleep he ended up ripping off his pajama shirt, and without realizing it, he reached for his erection that had returned along with Miguel's presence in the room, while his mind filled itself. one of the most different and vivid dreams he had ever had. In the dream he found himself lying completely naked on a beach not very different from the one where the inn was located, and with the sun bathing his body a beautiful blonde woman approached and began kissing his naked body, he couldn't tell if was it Laura or not, because each kiss given in the dream made him feel an immeasurable ecstasy, strong enough to cover up any sense other than pleasure, so much so that he only realized that the figure in the dream had changed, becoming a muscular man and bearded with his dark body shining with sweat in the morning sun a few seconds before he was awakened by the indignant voice of his fiancée.

"Jeremy, so this is what you were doing instead of meeting me for breakfast? Masturbating in that queer's room? How disgusting!"

Said an indignant Laura when she found her boyfriend in that position. Jeremy, taken by surprise in turn, responded without thinking

"Never use that kind of word in my presence again Laura, if there's anything disgusting it's those expressions!"

"Jeremy, how dare you correct me! Disguting yes, and even more disgusting are the habits of these fagots, but apparently you're already quite used to it, right, jacking off in one of their bedrooms. And you didn't even shave that disgusting beard. As if not If you just cut your hair without talking to me, I'm at my limit!" She barked back, causing all the layers of inhibition to return to a now more awake Jeremy.

"I'm sorry, babe, I shouldn't have talked to you like that. Give me a few minutes to get ready and we can have breakfast together." He said, returning to his servile habits as he struggled to understand what she meant about his beard and hair.

"Well, you can have your breakfast alone. And you don't even need to come with me to the beach, I'll take Kayla to help me. Make the most of your day without my presence!" She replied angrily, leaving the room and a confused and still sleepy Jeremy behind.

He in turn stood up and stretched, losing his balance a little as he felt the strange sensation that he seemed to be a good few inches taller, which he knew was nonsense, since no one grows overnight other than the fact that that he had had that height since the beginning of his adult life, which had helped him in many volleyball and basketball games when he was younger. Other activities that he missed but couldn't find time in his day to practice. He had never resented Laura for these things, but deep down he couldn't help but feel an irritation at having given up virtually all of his interests for hers. Shaking his head in an attempt to get those intrusive thoughts out of him, he went to the bathroom and took a long shower, knowing that there was no point in looking for his girlfriend while she was in that mood, that poor Kayla, whoever she was, who would have to put up with Laura for that morning, he thought with uncharacteristic sarcasm as he soaped the six blocks set on his abdomen, this time without trying to shake that thought away. After getting out of the shower he looked at himself in the mirror, for someone who could no longer follow a strict exercise routine he looked very good, he was slim but defined and his short beard accentuated the angles of his face, framed by golden curls in a medium lenght haircut.

Maybe it was time for Laura to learn to better appreciate the boyfriend she had, he thought, leaving the bathroom without shaving, before changing and getting ready to enjoy a morning of sun and sea without Laura's constant complaints and orders, which without a doubt it was the best thing that could have happened, said a new invasive thought that once again did not go away.

……..

Jeremy wandered along the seawall for several minutes, feeling the sand beneath his feet, the scent of the sea breeze filling his lungs and the sun's rays bathing his fair skin, even though he knew he risked getting burned, it was too good for him let it go. After wandering for a long time he sat down on the beach and simply let himself be invaded by it all, with a wave of peace and completeness filling him. Without realizing that the longer he stayed there, the less white his skin became, turning to a golden summer tone, at the same time that his muscles expanded slightly, leaving him with the appearance of someone who trained frequently and carefully.

And there he would have continued without noticing the changes if he hadn't been interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Hey, roomie, watch out for a burn on your skin!"

Opening his eyes Jeremy found himself staring at Miguel in all his glory, with a happy smile plastered on his face.

"I may not have your Latin genes, Miguel. But it's been a long time since I've been burned!" He replied, smiling, as that strange feeling invaded him again.

"Still, the sun around here is much stronger than what you're used to. Let me help you." Miguel replied, approaching with a tube of sunscreen in his hands. "That is, if you don't mind."

Jeremy did care, not because of any prejudice, but because of the fear of what that closeness would make him feel, not to mention the erection that threatened to return. But at the same time he couldn't resist that proposal.

"No problem, I think you're exaggerating, but Laura will be unbearable if I burn myself, she already doesn't like my skin being so tanned."

"What nonsense, your skin is beautiful, that tan contrasts very well with your blonde hair, it gives you a healthy look, especially with those defined muscles."

"Thanks man, it's nice to hear a compliment from... hummm”. He groaned when he felt the other man's strong hands massaging his back.

"Something wrong?" Miguel asked.

"No... no... it's just that the sunscreen was cold."

"Ah, I'm done. Just a little more down here." Miguel said with his hands approaching Jeremy's buttocks and making him contract all over.

"Okay, do you want me to apply it in your front?"

"No, you don't need to, I'll do it myself." Jeremy quickly responded, taking the cock from Miguel's hand without even wanting to think about those manly hands near his cock.

"And where is Laura? I thought you helped with her content production."

Thinking about his girlfriend brought an unexpected wave of irritation to Jeremy, as if a cloud was blocking out the morning sun.

"We had an argument in the morning... in fact she did what she always does, said what she wanted and left me alone, I guess in the hope that I would go after her... but not this time... she might to fend for herself with her new friend." He responded with a certain bitterness that didn't go unnoticed by Miguel.

"Relationships can be complicated."

"Ours isn't, but I'm starting to think it's just because I'm used to canceling myself out in front of her."

Miguel, who had already noticed that, preferred not to comment anything.

"Anyway, we should see each other later and resolve this, I still love her of course, but some things will have to change in our relationship."

"So how about we do that run now, a little return to your old ways?"

"Are you sure you'll be able to keep up with me, with all this extra size and already running before..."

"Boy, respect me, I'm not one of the best known personal trainers in the world for nothing."

"Then we'll see!" Jeremy replied, getting up and running away.

……

Laura walked with disgust on the beach sand. Her morning, like the rest of that trip, had been dark. Kayla was pleasant company as she shared the same interests as her, although she was in a lower category with only a few tens of thousands of followers. Still, she expected Laura to return the favors she did by asking her to take photos and record videos of her. Simply unbearable. And it was all Jeremy's fault, obviously. She still couldn't believe that her worthless boyfriend hadn't come looking for her and even worse for the second time that day it was she who was forced to look for him in the middle of that damned sand.

It was with this feeling that she watched two muscular men running from the edge of the beach towards the sea while laughing loudly and then diving. A ridiculous and childish behavior in her opinion. So what was her surprise when she saw that one of those men, the tanned blonde with a haircut made up of a pompadour and a side fade, accompanied by a full beard just as blonde, smile and approach her with his tanned muscular body still moist from the sea water shining in the midday sun.

"Hey babe, how was the morning?"

"Jeremy, how dare you leave me like that! And that beard, you said you were going to trim it! And your hair??? What nonsense is this?"

"No nonsense Laura. They look the way I like!"

"But not in the way my followers and I expected! You're almost bald! That tan and those excessive muscles weren't enough!"

"Don't exaggerate Laura, and if I decide to shave all my hair I will. Your followers have nothing to do with how I decide to cut my hair or my beard."

"Of course it has to do with it, you're my boyfriend, you influence the way I'm perceived!"

"Apparently that's the only way I care about you, how I make others perceive you."

"And how would it be different, I make a living from this, I'm an influencer, and my boyfriend needs to agree with my branding."

"I'm not your accessory, Laura."

"Well, my dear, in the end it's as if you were!"

"So I don't know if I still want to continue this relationship." He replied, turning his back on an angry Laura.

"Jeremy! Don't you dare! Jeremyyyy....!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, but he didn't turn around and walked aimlessly towards the other side of the beach, followed by the watchful eye of Miguel Ramos.

…..

Jeremy wandered the beach for several minutes trying to calm the influx of thoughts. He was torn by the despair of losing the woman he believed he loved and the growing feeling of contempt for that same woman. How could he cancel himself out for so long, how could he not see who she was? And at the same time she had been his life for the last few years, how could he live without her? He certainly wouldn't be capable of that! Deciding to run back after her and humble himself by her forgiveness, he started running. Only stopping when he heard the voice did he start to associate that strange feeling, mixed with desire and comfort.

"Hey, Big Guy, what's the rush?" Asked a smiling Miguel sitting on a bench in a beach bar.

"Sorry Miguel, I need to find Laura!"

"And what would be the point of talking to her with a hot head, wait for you two to calm down."

"You do not understand!"

"Ah, I understand. I understand so much that I'm going to offer you the two things you need most right now, company and a few shots of Tequila!"

"I do not know dude..."

"Relax man and follow me." Miguel said, taking Jeremy by the arms and taking him to a table in the bar.

…..

"I shouldn't interfere in your relationship with your girlfriend. But I recently went through a complicated divorce. And the truth is that it took me a long time to realize that I was in an abusive relationship." - Miguel said to a saddened Jeremy.

"I'm not in a relationship like that, I love Laura." Jeremy replied, but with less conviction than he wanted to make it seem.

"And does she respond to this love? She loves you the same way you love her."

"It is clear..."

"Really? Be honest with yourself if you don't want to be honest with someone you barely know."

"I want to believe so, but..."

"But you have doubts. Let me propose a little game, I'm going to ask you some questions about relationships and for every positive answer from you and me we'll drink a shot of tequila, I bet you that we'll drain a bottle with ease.

"First question. Have you ever felt that you were giving much more of yourself to this relationship than your partner?"

The two took a shot and although neither of them noticed, the tan on Jeremy's skin deepened, reaching a caramel tone very close to Miguel's.

"Second question: Have you ever felt diminished by your partner?"

Another shot for both. And now Jeremy's height has increased making him several inches taller than Miguel.

"Third question: have you ever felt that you are nothing more than an accessory to your partner, that he doesn't even see you as a person but as an object?"

Another shot. Another change. Jeremy's muscles expanded, surpassing the size of Miguel's and reaching the proportions of an amateur bodybuilder. The bottle was already half full, but both men, who were not small, were already quite upset, as that level of drinking was not part of either of their habits.

"One more... one more..." A drunken Miguel said, looking extremely distorted in Jeremy's vision. "Have you ever felt like you're in this relationship out of fear... afraid that you're not good enough... that you can't be loved by someone else... and that your partner takes advantage of that to keep you stuck with them?

Another shot and Jeremy's already blurred vision began to swirl as a feeling of anxiety took over him for finally admitting those truths even while drunk. Miguel was spinning in front of him, and he felt an immense desire to get up and run away, but as he did so he fell to the ground.

"Jeremy, Jeremy..." He heard the voice in the distance, that voice, which awakened so many feelings in him. "Jeremy..." A voice that made him realize that he could still desire and be desired... "Jer...." The voice that made him excited just by hearing it. "Jav..." The voice of the man he was in love with but couldn't admit."

"Javier, get up, is everything okay?"

And Javier stood up amid laughter.

"It's all right Miguel, it was just bad form, it takes a lot more than a shot of tequila to take down a man my size." Replied a smiling Javier Garcia, sitting at the table again. At the same time he ran his hands through his long, glossy black beard.

"Let me ask the question now." Javier said, smiling wider. "Do you think you're ready to leave this relationship behind and move on to better opportunities?"

One more shot for both.

…..

Javier lay down on the cramped single bed in the room he shared with Miguel, feeling his head spinning. While the roommate spent non-productive time feeling the same thing sitting on the toilet. As he tried hard not to spill everything he had eaten that day, he felt his cell phone vibrate. When he looked at the screen he noticed that there were hundreds of messages and calls from an unknown number. Choosing to deal with it when he was in better condition, he closed his eyes again and thus did not see each of those messages and calls disappear from the records.

With his head still spinning he fell into a restless sleep filled with rapidly changing dreams, until again he dreamed of that thin, beautiful blonde woman. In the dream she lay down on him again and began kissing his naked body, but without provoking any reaction in him, nothing, no excitement, no pleasure, until once again the smooth woman's skin gave way to that rough sensation of a beard shaving the skin. his body and then it was Miguel who kissed him, rekindling the flame of desire within him. As he slept he moaned with excitement, with a powerful erection between his legs, until he finally woke up feeling Miguel's real mouth wrap around his engorged cock. Trapped in that feeling of pleasure, he pulled the other man closer to him, being invaded by the no longer strange sensation of real desire.

After hours of wild sex, Javier got up from the only bed in that room, a King Size bed reinforced to support the weight of two athletes. Stretching, he stopped to admire the muscular body of a professional bodybuilder in the bedroom mirror.

Every fiber of his body was worked with the utmost dedication and commitment, and soon he would be on stage to put all that work to the test. He ran his hand through his shaved hair and finished the movement with his long, soft beard. He knew he would have to shave it before the performance but he was reluctant because Miguel liked him too much that way. Speak of the devil, Miguel at that moment repositioned himself on the bed and watched Javier look at himself in the mirror.

"A penny for your thoughts." Said the smaller and younger man but who had still won the position of his coach along Javier's heart.

"It's no big deal, Mig, I was just looking in the mirror and thinking it's a shame to have to shave, you like it so much..."

"Javi, I want you with or without a beard, I don't care how you present yourself, I care about being with you."

"So you mean if I were smaller and thinner you'd still be with me?"

"Maybe you wouldn't have caught my attention at first sight, but like I said, I care about the person you are, the man I fell in love with and if he loses weight or gains weight that won't change."

"Thanks, babe. That's really good to hear." Javier replied, going to the bathroom.

"Where are you going, are you going to shave now?"

"I thought you didn't care about my beard."

"I don't mind, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it a little more and you a little of this" Miguel replied, lifting the covers and revealing his huge hardened cock and making a big smile spread across Javier's face.

……

The afternoon sun shone like never before, but even that didn't seem to light up Laura's life as she gossiped with Kayla in the bar by the sea, while they discreetly watched Miguel and Javier talk.

"Is this a good time? They seem to be arguing." Asked Kayla to her colleague.

"Just because they're serious doesn't mean they're fighting. If we take into account their social networks, they're living wonderfully." Laura replied.

"You know as well as I do how deceiving social media can be."

"Still, this is our chance to collaborate with them, it's not every day that we get to work together with two of the biggest fitness influencers in the world."

"Smile, they're looking this way!" Said Kayla, making both of them give identical fake smiles, returned by a nod from the fitness couple of the year, who then got up, put on their tank tops and headed towards the beach.

"There goes our chance." Laura grumbled.

"Don't worry my dear, people like you always get what they deserve." Said a smiling Cintia who was passing by before positioning herself at the bar counter and smiling.

A smile that widened when she saw Miguel and Javier together on the beach sharing a passionate kiss. If there was something she was proud of, it was a job well done and at her inn that meant much more than just bed and breakfast.

[motimatcha]

"nostromo"

PART 1. The Nostromo Killer.

parts: one | two | three | four | five

dbd Xenomorph (alien) x fem!reader. attention: not detailed murder, feeling of fear, chase. I'm a vicious child of the internet and I have nothing to be ashamed of! And so are you.

The World of the Essence is multifaceted and large, but even taking into account this knowledge, hardly anyone could imagine something like this. The knowledge of where you ended up naturally appears in your head: the Nostromo crash site is a location unknown to anyone, large and open, with a minimum number of bushes in which you could hide from the soulless eyes of the killer, but you were pleased with a large number of smooth, different-sized stones, behind which, theoretically, you can hide.

You found yourself alone. On one side there was an exit from the monster’s lair, on the other side there was a smoking and collapsing spaceship, which was ready to explode at any moment if a person stepped on board carelessly. Your gaze glances across the sky, and although you know that it is not real, you cannot help but be surprised by its beauty: a large satellite against the backdrop of billions of stars illuminates your path in the darkness.

However, there was not a second to lose if you wanted to at least escape from the Nostromo; the four of them could only hope and pray to the Entity to escape.

There is a generator behind you, two more stand out against the gray background inside the fallen ship - it is better to get rid of this triangle, first of all, without giving the killer an advantage. This was a new trend - a fashion - for the “triangle”, as other survivors called this phenomenon, and it must be said that it was very successful, since not many managed to break this vicious “circle” and escape, at least through the hatch.

Thinking about this and hoping that the new (really new?) killer won’t figure this out, you finish repairing the generator, when at the same second you hear a scream from one of your comrades. Very far away, the aura is barely visible, and you can only see a vague red dot between the opened outline of another generator and the two previous ones. A lump forms in your throat, and cold sweat runs down your temple. The thoughts in your head become chaotic: should you go to the rescue? Continue repairing generators? What if someone has already gone to help and you lose precious time?

You can't take risks in new terrain. You don't know where the windows and planks are to escape the killer, and the limited number of places to hide only makes matters worse. With heavy thoughts, your only solution is to continue repairing the generators and hope that someone will save the wounded man.

It's loud and scary on board the Nostromo. Jets of either hot or hungry steam emerge from all the cracks, sparks are heard from damaged equipment, and blood and its smell will forever remain on board. You walk around a couple of corpses of former crew members, trying not to even look at the cause of their death. Every step you take echoes through the empty corridors, but eventually you reach another generator in splendid isolation. The equipment turns out to be a little more than half wound up; Apparently, before being hung on a hook, someone was painstakingly fixing the local generator.

“Thanks for your hard work…” You close your eyes for a second to show your mental gratitude to the other survivor before getting to work. You're almost done with the generator before you make a ridiculously stupid mistake. Sparks, a loud explosion and nervously shaking hands. - “If only he didn’t come! If only he hadn’t come!” - you pray, frantically sorting through the wires in the generator, just to make up for the lost result.

Somewhere below there is a noise of muffled groans. Man, old man… apparently it's Bill! He was repairing the generator and was able to escape from the killer. A joyful thought crosses your mind, but immediately disappears when the seasoned veteran suddenly falls to the ground from the blow, an inhuman cry of victory is heard.

Heart beats faster, like a cornered animal. Thudum, thudum, thudum, thudum.

You walk away from the generator as if from a red-hot piece of iron, afraid to even look in its direction. There were seconds left before you could finish it to one hundred percent, but the fear for your own life was much stronger. Peering out of a hole in the spaceship's hull, you notice a new killer - a creature from outer space. Moving on four legs, having sharp claws as a weapon and a long tail similar to the edge of a knife, you understand that it is unlikely that anyone will be able to escape.

Bill was lucky, he was the first to suffer.

The creature, clad in a durable black shell, lifted the man in front of him to carry him to the nearest hook. Having seen a lot in his life, the old man did not resist, he himself understood that he could not escape the grip of the Entity under his ribs, and therefore did not delay the moment. With a wave passing through the earth, the Entity took the first survivor into its possession. At the same time, like a ray of hope, another generator was repaired. If you return to fixing your generator now, the three survivors will be able to escape.

That's what you thought. So you set to work with enthusiasm, and then one woman’s scream was heard, then another… and now you were left alone, on the Nostromo, next to the working generator. Going somewhere seemed risky, but you could try to save someone still hanging on the hook, while simultaneously praying that you wouldn’t get caught.

Climbing up the wall on trembling legs, you take a bold step forward. Then the second, third, and so on until you reach a fork: you can go straight to your first generator or turn left, going to the last generator from the triangle where your comrades are hanging. It was impossible to take a detour, if only because you would lose precious time and other survivors, by the time you came to the rescue, would sooner find themselves in the arms of the Entity. You had no options…

What had once been a meeting hall or a dining room was now a deplorable sight, because half of the spaceship was shamelessly destroyed and its fragments here and there were stuck deep into the ground. Having looked around the clearing under your feet and the crash site, you quickly find Claudette’s gaze and a girl unknown to you hanging a little behind.

“No! Get out of here!” Morel screams heart-rendingly before engaging in battle with the entity. “He's behind… behind you!” the last thing the girl manages to shout before the spider-like appendage of the Entity pierced her stomach and lifted her into the air. The stranger followed her.

It was scary to turn around. It seems that if you don’t look at the problem, it will disappear on its own, but in reality you feel and hear heavy footsteps behind you, the grinding of metal from the collision with the tail blade, and breathing. Hot, heavy, wet. The creature stands close behind you, with the skin of your back you can clearly feel the loaded plates and bones of the exoskeleton. Thick saliva drips onto your shoulder, viscous, like glue, and will be difficult to wash off your clothes.

“God, what are these thoughts in my head?” - a thought occurs to you before a nervous chuckle escapes your lips. This is from nerves, from the awareness of imminent death.

The creature hisses, its voice is surprisingly high and shrill, and then next to your head, almost centimeters away, there is an incomprehensible something. Everything is covered in saliva, it turns slightly at an angle, first one way, then the other, and the fangs (God, it has fangs!) seem to bite the air. Or maybe it sniffs like that?

There is no strength left to move. Not when there is a strange something dangerously close to your head, the owner of which is standing behind your back, one of whose arms can clasp your entire body and inadvertently break it. You don't want to check the latter. The creature speaks again, and then you understand – it’s time to run!

The energy accumulated over many seconds passes into the legs. You start from your place, as Meg taught you, and run straight along the stones and pieces of metal. The creature, slightly behind you, ran after you and tried to hook you with its sharp claws; slash across the back, and deep enough to leave scars. And although the latter will still disappear, they will be cured in the world of essence, the feeling of blood on the back, skin torn to the flesh and bones, is not pleasant. You turn sharply to the side, just at the moment when a huge paw whistles dangerously close behind you and rushes towards another, smaller, destroyed spaceship.

Perhaps out of fear, but you thought there was a hatch there.

Luck was on your side. Perhaps the offering in the form of a jar of Vigo worked, or maybe the entity itself decided to take pity on you, but you manage to get to the hatch. And before you fall into the fog, you sneak a second to look behind yourself.

The killer stands motionless in place. The killer is watching. And you understand

It is remembered It is developing.

this paragraph:

This work was written as part of the game dead by daylight, because, despite my familiarity with films, it is simply easier for me to write in the setting of this game. If you're not familiar with the game, but want to read how the Xenomorph does its dark work, you're welcome.

should have been at the beginning of the text. I decided to remove it, don’t ask why.