#I had to use industrial tools and equipment to work with that shit

[fbfh]

Imagine topping Leo in a chair?

LITERALLY love you for this. riding Leo in a chair is in like your top 5 favorite ways to ride Leo. your faces are so close together and he can feel every intimate rockwing bouncing squeeze of your tight juicy little hole gripping his throbbing cock like a vise. his eyes are so wide and his grip on your soft hips is nearly enough to leave pretty little fingertip bruises polkadotting your thighs (which he's obsessed with) and your hips (which he's also obsessed with) and your ass (are you sensing a pattern here????) and god everything you do drives him crazy but CHRIST the way you hold his face so sweetly in your pretty hands, so innocent and tender while simultaneously milking his cock for all he's got. and he'll give it to you. Leo will let you ride him in that chair that he can't look at after that without going half mast. he'll let you ride him until he's shooting blanks, until both of your cum drips on the floor, mixing in messy creamy beautiful puddles. Leo will throw his head back in pleasure, panting, chest heaving and giving you the best view of his perfect neck that's just begging to be covered in hickeys and bites. Leo will let you ride him in a chair until he passes out. can't walk. pounding down gatorade and liquid iv to try and rehydrate. and he'll thank you for it.

[kookie-doughs]

Maybe Hero

Hawks / Keigo Takami X Reader

-Y/N L/N a UA’s 1st year Department of Support was mistaken by the No. 2 hero as a hero.

Chapter 2: Ms. Newbie

Patrol.

The number of times you've been mistaken as a newbie hero was a lot. Considering you have no plans of being a hero.

You're just walking around in your new suit to advertise.

After Izuku had finished classes, he rushed to the lab to test on your suit. When it worked with a resounding success, you only need market. Making the suit would be impossible for Mei with rhe number of micro properties that needs to be perfected and no tools needed so you are needed in making. You both are also lacking in materials with just the materials racking around 70 million yen, thanks to those other equipments you've sold you got the money.

Now, this extremely expensive suit needs to be sold. What better way to get the attention other than to showcase it.

You fly relatively high to see a bigger area, but low enough to catch people's attention. Scouring for trouble, no hero was deployed in the area to scout so it shouldn't be a hard time finding a villain.

Not that you were manifesting or glad, but you managed to find one after an explosion occurred. You were excited to show off your new robot... until you saw the number of people going down one after the other.

Ah right. You were still a 15 year old with no heroic experiences, you had completely forgotten.

It wasn't a huge threat but a threat nonetheless. Maybe would require a help of 2 heroes of low rank or 1 mid ranked hero.

You were scared.

But your fear was overpowered. When you saw a familiar face.

"Holy shit is that the vice of Honkai Industries?!" The smell of investment.

When the villain was running to attack the man, you swoop in and grabbed him.

"Who are you?!" The man was scared. You settle him down to an open area.

"Your next business partner."

You pull out your sword from your side and ignited it.

The villain was a transformation type. His limbs extended and stretched as if it was from a cartoon.

He uses no equipment you can mess with.

You charged forward, swinging your sword in a calculated arc. The man swiftly dodged and weaved, his body contorting and stretching to evade each precise strike. With a fierce grin on his face, he retaliated, launching himself into the air and delivering a barrage of rapid punches, his fists slamming into the robot's metallic exterior. You raise your arms to prevent the attack on your exposed head...

Undeterred, you countered with a sweep of a sword. The man, stretched his limbs, propelling himself out of harm's way just in time. As he landed, a spark of determination flickered in his eyes and a sickening smirk.

"You're pathetically weak for a hero."

You flinched. "ITS BECAUSE IM NOT A HERO I'VE NEVER RECEIVED ANY TRAINING I DONT WANT TO BE A HERO!" You scream in your mind.

He lunged forward, delivering a series of lightning-fast attacks, each blow connecting with precision. You try your best to keep up with his attacks. Upon successfully keeping up with it due to the material used for the robot, you endured the onslaught, your sword swining blindly trying to land a hit on him.

But in a climatic moment the man's fist grew larger, one could compare the size to a giant's. You can't escape that...

As the fist slowly descended. Hawks swiftly intervened, swooping in to save you from possibly dying. With his wings spread wide, Hawks shielded you from the man's attack, effectively redirecting the course of the battle.

"That was close. Help the civilians, I'll handle the rest!" Hawks ordered.

But you were still shaken from the fact you almost died.

"Miss!" He shakes you, snapping you back. You looked at him fearfully. He sighs knowing you are incapacitated for now. "Can you stay somewhere safe hmm?"

With tears pooling, you reluctantly nodded. He gave you a smile and you got away from his hold.

The vice from Honkai Industries had long left the scene, and you checked to see if there were any civilians you come across whilst running.

Getting somewhere you think was safe enough you got off your suit. There were numerous of damages, it didn't seem like so as you were in contact. The material used was totally worth it as it kept you safe. You activate your quirk restoring the suit.

The number of damages it took was quite a lot as you never really dodged any attacks so you sat next to your suit as it repaired itself.

Luckily your sword had no damages.

You curled yourself, tucking your knees in as you softly cry alone. You never wanted to be a hero. What were you thinking.

"I could've died." You sobbed quietly.

Shaking in fear, fighting really wasn't your strong suit. Kendo classes as a kid being the only source of your knowledge.

Your pity party was interrupted when you gelt something tickle you. You raise your head, your snot, tear and sweat covered face, to see the hero who had saved you kneeling in front of you. You bite your lip to prevent your sobs.

"You did great you know..." He pulls you in, rubbing soothing circles on your back. "You held out and kept the civilians safe. And you're safe too. All is well."

You cling on his coat taking deep ragged breaths to calm yourself down.

"Ms. Newbie, you can't let every fight break you down. You're a hero, you have to stand your ground. Are you going to cry like this everytime you fight a villain?"

You composing yourself raised your head once again. He gave you a smile that was infectious.

"Ahh, look at what you did, you made a mess on my coat. SMH."

You laughed, "Did you seriously just say SMH?"

"Maybe..."

Your gaze swept over the hero's features, you couldn't help but be captivated by his unique charm. His piercing, keen eyes drawing her in with their intensity. The slight curve of his lips, hinting at a playful yet confident demeanor, caused a flutter in your heart.

You flushed realizing you've been staring. The hero clears his throat, and takes his coat off.

"You know, you made a mess out of that its only fair you get it cleaned. Maybe give it back on i don't know, whenever neither of us have patrol? Over coffee or lunch?"

Your heart skipped at the suggestion. Holy shit was he really asking you on a date. You looked at him in shock.

Your eyes traced the lines of his face, noting the subtle imperfections that only added to his allure. The rugged edges of his jawline, held a magnetic appeal. And the way his wind-tousled hair framed his face, sparked a growing fascination within. You wondered if this will get you anywhere.

"So? Ms. Newbie, are you free?"

"I-" You couldn't bring yourself to correct him about something that is probably important. You know the moment you do, you'll lose his attention. "I-I'm free next weekend..."

The hero smirked, "So can I get your name and number?" He hands you his phone.

You couldn't give him your name. What if he looks you up?

"W-well I dont know yours. I dont think it's fair for only one of us to know..." You laughed nervously as you input your number.

"Well you, cutie, can call me Hawks." He smiled. "I on the other hand, have nothing to call you."

Your suit dinged indicating that the repair was done. You got up to get on.

"Y-You can just call me uhm... whatever you want." you flushed.

He chuckled, "A woman secrets. Not even a hero name?"

"I'm not known for a reason."

"Robot Samurai."

"What-?"

"I'm trying to think of a hero name. Robo Kenshi? Optimus Prime?"

"Optimus Prime?" You giggled.

"He has a sword." He shrugged. "What about Cyberblade? I like Cyberblade."

You shake your head, "Call me whatever. Its not like I'll use it."

"WOW, That is so rude. I'm using all my amazing naming skills."

"You named yourself Hawks, because you're a bird."

"Robot Samurai wins then?"

"I'll see you next weekend." You smile to yourself and fly away.

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@gayer-than-the-gayest-gay @applepie-macaroon @nykie-love-anime @qardasngan

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2023-03-20

Spinning around and doing very little

Listening: Completely missed the new 100 gecs album because I was travelling over the weekend. I'll get to that. In the meantime I've had the closing track from The Will to Live by Titus Andronicus stuck in my head, that's 69 Stones.

The will to live can be an awful curse Upon an Earth that's just a lot of dirt Whenever it is that you're getting hurt That's just the will to live doing its work

The Will to Live is probably the second best Titus Andronicus album, and a solid return to form for the band, it's the album that's the most like The Monitor imo. It's literally got a song called "We're Coming Back"

There's a live performance of this that isn't that good as your first encounter, very "end of a long show" live performance that's no doubt great in person, but just. When did Patrick Stickles start looking like that. The man is absolutely fucking shredded, it's kind of concerning.

yeah. I am looking.

Reading: Someone put up this article on the intricacies of tofu in China and I'm now even more upset about the utter dearth of good tofu options in stores around here. Every time I want to make a tofu thing it's basically impossible to find anything other than the softest shittiest silken tofu that is useless for anything structural and now I learn that they have shit like alkaline tofu? So mad.

Watching: Travellers, when I get a chance. It's fine, decent sci-fi really, but I'm not paying attention to TV shows the way I would like to for reasons.

Chef Wang Gang is an extremely good professional Chinese chef who runs a good YouTube channel if you're interested in Chinese food. Most of his stuff is kind of impractical to make without a very wok-centric kitchen but you can make some of it work.

Far more interesting to me is that he runs a line of prepared food canteen style things and is trying to bring out a commercial store shelf food line, and he does occasional tours of his factory. It's really cool to see the inside of a modern high-end food factory, it's a fascinating mix of laboratory and kitchen. All these videos have good English subtitles.

You can see them doing things like trialing expiry dates and best before dates for the packaged food options, the full cold chain for frozen ingredients, and the complexities of the packaging process, which is so neat. You've got all this equipment for mass-producing food but also a complete scientific kitchen for designing those recipes. Industrial environments are so cool.

Playing: Picking idly at things here and there. Too busy most nights for competitive Valorant with my usual squad.

Making: Plenty of quilt sewing, the decision to go away to see family over the weekend means that's still not quite done. About ⅕ left to go.

Tools and Equipment: You may think that butterfly knives are mostly showy bullshit, and you'd be right, but they're also remarkably effective if you need a knife you can open and close safely with only one hand. Arguably they're as good as Axis-lock knives for that, once you have the basic open down they're perfectly safe and very controllable. I mostly use mine as a prying and scraping tool because I blunted it for training and never bothered to sharpen it again, but it's very useful for those tasks.

[samsaraandbeyond]

OC Introduction: Allo

Art drawn by Zenon

He's full of hot air.

Design

Allo's First Design, Art drawn by Teh-Ray  

What if...balloon...and dragon...

Allo ended up getting fishy features added to his design because rubbery things and bodies of water go hand in hand.

Abilities / Traits

The Sentient Balloon

A creature brought to life with magic, his body of rubber comes with unique upsides and unique downsides.

Scrapes and burns on his rubber skin heal as a body of flesh would, except faster and without the scars and scabbing.

Can deflate, inflate, and EXPLODE at will.

Can contain or be inflated with magic that Allo can cast at will or use to detonate himself.

Can tolerate a bit more pain than average. (Will still squeal or complain to indicate that something hurt or could hurt, even if just a little.)

Allo can control how affected he is by gravity, which enables him to float, fall, or resist being blown away if he wants. He's still on the light side though.

If destroyed completely, he will emerge as a spirit until his body fully regenerates. Although he can endure punishment in this form that his rubber body couldn't take, if he is destroyed as spirit, it's game over.

"It's Allo! Everyone's clumsy, lovable friend!"

Intermediate Support Magic Mastery

Disgaea 7

I mean, he was the mascot for a bandage brand...

Allo is experienced in the magic arts of healing allies and enhancing their abilities. Allo occasionally uses these on himself to prevent easy punctures.

"Don't be a baby! This is nothing." - Allo

First Aid Specialist

Healing magic off the table? He can work with what he has.

Allo is educated in the ways of the organic body. He has knowledge of various diseases, poisons, their symptoms, knows the proper procedures for tending to a variety of injuries and conditions, and can improvise solutions should proper tools not be available.

"Told you those plants were poisonous. Here, let me take care of it." - Allo

Personality

Allo loves being the center of attention and adores doing things that help him get it. He flip-flops on whether he hates himself or loves himself based on if he's receiving attention for his actions or if his form, appearance, or skills are hindering him from receiving it. This can cause him to appear as both a narcissistic showboater and a self-deprecating mopey sad sack on the same day.

While he ultimately does like himself, his tendency for being over-dramatic and emotional when distressed causes others to think he has severe self-confidence issues when its really him throwing a pity party.

He is also mostly self-serving. While he will stick his neck out for close friends, helping strangers is more of an afterthought and something he does if its "along the way" of something he's already doing currently, or if he seeks the spotlights being shined on him for a bit.

“How do you not know who I am? I was a well-known star!" - Allo

Backstory

Detta was a brand of bandages and medical supplies endorsed by Hentsworth Industries. Despite this massive endorsement, they didn't have much of a budget to advertise their product or have Hentsworth's interest to fund it, resulting in low sales. In an effort to combat this, they scraped together funds with the intention to produce commercials, ones that could be cheaply made. The only assistance Hentsworth gave them was finding an artist he wasn't intending to pay and tasking them with designing a mascot.

The team debated on how useful a mascot would be. It'd need to show up in the commercials, right? They had no workers experienced with CGI nor the equipment to produce it, they had no mages that could conjure up illusions in its place (that would require them to pay someone). They kept all of this in mind while designing their future face of the brand. Something simple, something cheap.

Kids get hurt a lot, don't they? That was the question asked at the round table. They added that the mascot should appeal to the little shits of the world if they want to hit it big.

After many revisions, they had their mascot. Allo. It wasn't difficult to slap a drawing of him onto the packaging.

Now how to use him...

More internal debates regarding the advertising ensued. Should Allo jump to the rescue with Detta bandages in hand to take care of an injured child? No, that'd require hiring a child actor. They hate children as it is, why pay one?

They'd keep it simple. Allo would be the one getting injured and he would apply the bandages to himself. That way, if possible, he would be the only one that needed to be onscreen. Good start.

They still needed a way to get Allo onscreen.

With hesitance, they commissioned a hobbyist tailoring store to create a wearable Allo costume. That way anyone could wear the costume and do whatever was required without needing a dedicated actor.

First commercial, they bring their cameras to an empty playground. Allo falls off a slide and scrapes his elbow (the costume is drawn on with a red marker). He applies a bandage, poof, he's all better now. Good enough, add in a shot of someone placing the product on a table and they were good.

They uploaded it and were quickly and relentlessly made fun of online. Various memes circulated of Allo's slide falling adventures.

Detta thought they flopped, that they were going out of business, that it was so over. But no. They had a tremendous boost in sales. The commercial had "charm" according to the public. Allo's design was a hit with the children.

They suddenly had money. They had a legitimate budget.

Overwhelmed by the sudden success, they wanted lightning to strike the same place twice. They wanted the commercials they produce next to be cheap; they wanted the "charm". Despite having access to higher quality production tools, they wanted to keep it easy on the funds. A few more commercials were shot with the Allo costume before they came to the realization it was beginning to show damage that couldn't be repaired on set.

They debated on having a new costume put together but ultimately decided it was time to retire the old thing. It'd be an excuse to innovate anyway. Talking amongst themselves at the round table, an employee brought in a fan made, size-accurate balloon replica of Allo, grabbing its arm to make it wave hi.

The team thought it looked cute despite being cheaply made. Really cute. Cute enough to use in their commercials.

Cute equals sales. Cheap equals charm.

They had the money to hire someone for assistance. Enlisting the help of a mage skilled in the arts of bringing life to the inanimate, they found themselves with several Allos ready to take orders. The Allos weren't the brightest, not being able to communicate, handle more than one task, or retain any memory past two minutes, but they served their purpose. If one was destroyed, it'd be easily replaced.

This plan was an immediate success. One commercial with the new look and the brand exploded even more in popularity, reaching monumental levels of success. Allo's balloon design became the defining one.

Allos were mass produced and sent to various businesses for advertising. Detta brand bandages were a hit.

All was well. The team started slacking. They got tired of creating new Allos every time one was destroyed so they decided to hire yet another individual to create a permanent solution to that problem. An Allo that could fix itself, that could simply come back when destroyed. Paying an immense sum of money to a mage that had mastered the arts of creating life...

It was made.

The "immortal" Allo became the only one they would ever use for commercial shoots. Its durability made it an easy pick for fan meet-ups and more risky advertising stunts. What was unexpected, however, was that this Allo became more intelligent as time went on. It was retaining its memories. It, or he, developed a personality.

And wants. Like being paid.

And needs. Like being treated as a person rather than a disposable object.

The team wasn't quite liking their demanding mascot now. They had hatched several plans to get him to pop permanently through placing him in increasingly dangerous "commercials" only to find out just how resilient he was. They eventually stopped because it was starting to look inhumane by the press.

They couldn't destroy him, they couldn't shove him somewhere and forget he existed. He was "the" Allo. People knew who he was and how he acted. There was only one solution they could think of.

A redesign of sorts.

Allo entered the company building to find another Allo(?) in his place. Aside from a few alterations, it looked just like him. When he asked around for an explanation, he was greeted by security seizing him and tossing him out the front door. His manager met him there and informed him of the brand changes.

"Allo" is gone and no longer needed. "Baloo" is here to stay.

In short, piss off.

It didn't take long for Allo to see just how fast he was erased from the brand. It only took a few days to see his face removed from the packaging and be replaced by his lookalike. He couldn't even use his previous popularity to coast by; he was the "old" design. As far as the public was concerned, Baloo was the Allo they know and love, with a new coat of paint. Allo himself was now outdated merchandise.

It tore him apart.

Allo sulked. Sulked and walked. Kept walking until he didn't want to anymore. Then he sat down to sulk more. He didn't know where he ended up and he didn't care. Life sucked.

Then this snakeleon showed up.

Rath thought the balloon inanimate, seeing as it was sitting motionless at a playground. Allo was too busy pouting to really be aware of his surroundings; plus, as a balloon, people would leave him alone naturally. Rath thought Allo was cute and thought aloud about taking him home to take care of. Something as adorable as this didn't deserve to be discarded out here.

Imagine his shock when Allo answered "Really? You'd take care of me?"

The balloon being alive scared the hell out of Rath and made him feel incredibly awkward knowing he said all of that to a person. Wanting a way out of the embarrassment, he came up with several excuses as to why he couldn't take Allo home and that he really needed to leave. None of them worked. Allo scolded him, saying "You're gonna make me feel good about myself then ditch me like that!? No! You're taking me home and treating me like you said!"

Rath sighed. He was too deep into this now. Kicking himself mentally despite the lack of legs, he relented, deciding to take Allo back with him as he said. In the back of his mind, he was feeling a bit lonely anyway, and this surprise guest might be just what he needed.

"Good. Because if you said no, I'd follow you anyway! By the way, you do recognize me, right? ...No? Oh come on!" - Allo

[bylightofdawn]

Today was a rough day at work and I've sadly realized that like most people in the American workforce I am underpaid, under-supported and underappreciated. We got forced to train to do business but they aren't giving us any additional pay which is bullshit. On top of it, they aren't supporting us like they should so the job is SUPER STRESSFUL. Today I cried in frustration because of the stupid bullshit that happened with this customer I could not fix it and I'm so stupidly empathetic that I cried afterward. Which is on me but it's also on my job because they won't give us the support and tools I need to do my job.

And yet the cost of living pretty much gone up 30% to 50% in my area and is just going to go up and I am definitely feeling it in my wallet. So I went onto Indeed today, and saw a local call center in my town offering literally the same job I am doing, same hours (is probably subcontracting for the same fucking company that my job has contracts with) and they were paying 2 dollars more an hour.

And I keep scrolling and the average call center job for my state for experienced call center reps is pretty much universally at least 2 dollars more an hour. Yes, there are the shitty ones that churn through barely out of high school age, they are only going to be there for six months so we'll pay them shit pay of like 12 dollars an hour sorta places. It's literal pay people to be a body in a seat sorta call center which sucks and I am beyond that life.

So I know my current job is seriously underpaying me. Not even accounting for the other horseshit I've been dealing with by them forcing business accounts on my shoulders with no additional pay. Business agents back when we were in the call center got like a .50 cent or something pay differential. It was peanuts but even that's gone away. Which is why I never wanted to do business accounts.

I could bitch about bullshit red-tape too, anyone who has worked in a call center knows what I'm talking about. But it was still a kick in the balls to know just how underpaid I am. I mean, I've been there for almost five years at this point. I have seen exactly one major raise in that time where I think they moved us from like 14 to 15 dollars an hour. Then COVID hit, they shut down my local center and moved all us agents to WFM and moved to a different state where I KNOW they are paying less than what they were paying us. But I ate shit and accepted it because I love my job, I love the mental stimulation of what I do, and getting to feel like a mini detective. Without going into too much detail I work in the fraud prevention industry. It's an interesting job and I don't feel like I'm just a zombie asking people if they have unplugged their equipment and restarted their computer tech support job.

So now I'm putting out apps and applying and I fucking HATE job hunting. I am at an age that I want to find a job and just stick with it for the next 20 years. But that's a fucking pipedream and I know it because that's now how real life works anymore. I want the stability of having my routine, doing a job I enjoy, and one that I'm good at. I don't want to hop from one place to another. And I think I'm a pretty fucking good employee. Every supervisor I have had says I'm a model employee who does excellent work, I'm good with customers etc. I had like a 100% schedule adherence last year with zero points for like being late clocking in/out etc. Fucks sake I work in a job where I tell people no all the time, and deny them services and my customer rating scores are like 90%. Comments on my calls from customers are always glowing so I'm a fucking rockstar as far as call center employees go. I deserve to be respected and supported by my job and should be underpaid and underappreciated.

But fuck I hate job hunting. I hate changing jobs, having to learn the ropes of a new place, meeting new people and having to adjust to the atmosphere of a new place. I hate having to make bullshit smalltalk and having to find bland, safe topics to chat up the cubicle mates and desperately try and find some common ground. All the while praying to sweet baby jesus that person isn't some batshit right-wing casual racist/misogynist/generally unpleasant to be around a person or someone who is just plain crazy or a casual thief who will go through your shit when you're not there.

Like, call centers attract an interesting variety of people. Sadly work from home jobs are drying up which stinks cause I love WFM mostly. But fuck it, I'm willing to go back into the office if I need to. I just hate job hunting. I hate everything about it.

[issabangtanfic]

[Jungkook] The Windmill House (Chapter 11)

Synopsis: When your stereotypical Christian Grey meets his not so stereotypical Anna

Pairing: Jungkook x OC

A/N: Feel free to submit a cover! Tell me what you think in my inbox! Enjoy!

-

It's been years since I’ve been left with that much energy after a day at work. I have minimal oiliness on my face by the time I check my mirror in my car. I actually feel like I could run a mental marathon, which is good considering my next stop. Tonight, I’m seeing the flirtatious Mr.Jeon so he can finally give me the brief for the windmill house. I have to admit, I’ve kind of been looking forward to it, not only because the house is amazing, but also because I find some fun in declining his straightforward yet quite funny advances. I drive my Mini out of London, to the secluded green space where Mr.Jeon’s house is. I stifle a smile walking up the crackled stairs. I almost fell on it the first time I came here. I remember almost losing my shit when he caught me. I don’t think I’d be that phased if it were to happen today. I’ve had him way closer to me since then, and that has been something too.

I park my car at the end of the dirt road at the bottom of the hill, and hike up the stairs that lead to the house. When I get there, I notice a black wooden door with mouldings has been installed. It's better than the sad plank that was there before, and it actually kind of fits the architecture. I knock on the door, and a few moments later, Mr Jeon opens it.

“Miss Fair.” He greets, smiling at me, all grey suit and white shirt, his tie gone, three of his buttons undone. I stop my eyes from moving further down, not wanting to check him out too obviously.

“Good Evening, Mr.Jeon.” I murmur, returning the smile. He always looks so yummy.

“Good evening.” He replies, stepping aside to let me in. “Please, come in.”

Step into the house, the floorboards creaking under my heels as I make my way in, and he closes the door behind me. 

“How was your day?” He asks as I walk into the living room, myeyes immediately going to the immense, 3 to 4 meter high bookshelf  I saw last time. The house is as pretty as I remember it. 

“Busy.” I reply evasively, my eyes wandering up to the ceiling, and the dome where the roof opens up onto the sky.

“Have you eaten yet?” He asks, pulling my attention back to him. I turn to him, and he's leaning against the kitchen counter, hands shoved in his pockets. I narrow my eyes at him.

“Are you going to try and turn this into a date?” I ask warily. Of course he's trying to make this a dinner date. He chuckles ,taking a few steps towards me.

“I’m worried about your blood sugar.” He counters, and I roll my eyes to the heavens. My blood pressure is what is really worrying. 

“I am fine, thank you.” I decline politely. This is a business meeting, Maya. I turn back around, venturing further in the living space. The couches are still covered by white sheets, except for one old brown leather armchair that I will one hundred percent stay in the house.

“Where should we start?” He prompts as I set my bag down onto the pretty arm chair.

“We can go from room to room and you tell me whatever you want to be done." I explain, sliding my coat off of my shoulders. I set it down on the back rest of the chair and start gathering my equipment. "I can also give you my ideas. I’ll snap a few pictures so I can remember how everything looks.” I say, pulling my tablet, camera and notepad out of my bag. 

“Then, I’ll draw sketches and I’ll come back to you for your approval.”  I conclude.

“Okay.”

“I'll also need the blueprints of the house.” I add before I forget.

“I’ll send them to you.” 

“Okay.” I turn around , glancing at the stairs that lead up to the star-azing platform..

“I really want to start up there.” I informed him. I have been thinking about this part of the house ever sincethe first time I came here. The sun has set, and I'm not sure what I'll be able to see but I'm curious.

“Sure.” He concedes, walking me up to the stairs. He lets me go first while he stays down under the staircase to turn the crank that lifts the blinds from the roof.

On the platform there is what I'm guessing is a telescope covered by a white sheet pointed at the ceiling.

After he gets to work the panels slowly go up, unveiling a dark sky with a few sparkles, and an almost full moon clearly visible.

“Oh, wow.” I whisper. This isn't the starriest sky I've seen in my life, but it's pretty bright for something just 45 minutes away from London. I guess the light pollution doesn't hit as much here.

A few seconds later, Mr.Jeon climbs the stairs and comes up behind me. This  space has so much potential. It's so unique, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before. 

“So your grandfather designed this?” I ask him, unable to detach my eyes from the spectacle in front of me.

“Yes. I’d like to keep it like this of course, but I want this space to have seats.” He explains, pulling my attention back to the platform I'm standing on. The stairs and floor are metal, which gives it a very industrial feel, but doesn't match the warmth we're trying to give the house. Imagine laying on a comfy fatboy and just staring up at the sky for hours.

“Like a star-gazing station?” I ask him.

“Exactly.” He concurs. “I think it’d be nice if you were able to lay down too.”

“I agree.” I nod. 

"I think," Mr.Jeon trails off, stepping in front of me and reading the calendar stuck on the wall right next to the covered telescope. "Venus should be visible tonight." He says as he checks the time on his watch. Venus?

"Really?" My eyes widen in excitement as he uncovers the telescope. It's dark green and kind of rusty, defenitely an old piece of equipement. I bet this belonged to his gandfather. It's not dusty though, meaning he probably uses it frequently. 

"I mean it is visible during the day too, it's one of the brightest objects in the sky." He explains, unscewing the lense cover and the eye piece. Oh, I'm about to see a planet for the first time! I'm still surprised a man like him has this kind of interest. It's really not common.

"But it might be too low now." He muses, and I watch as he twists and turns the telescope that is almost his height, following an integrated compass with coordnates. He looks into the telescope in silence, and I'm fascinated by how easy he makes it look. This businessman has hobbies that don't consist in golf. 

"There she is." He says once he's found his target, and steps back from the telescope. "Take a look." He invites me. I take his place and look  through the lense, to see white bright disc in the center of my vision.

"It's so bright." I observe. I'm only seeing a bright disc of light, I wonder what it would look from up close.

"It's atmosphere is mainly thick clouds which makes it really reflective." I hear him explain behind me. 

"You sound so nerdy." I remark, turning around to look at him. He crosses his arms.

"I wouldn't be building rockets if I wasn't a nerd." He retorts. True. I take another look at the planet thoufh the telescope. It's amazing to see, but I'm really curious about how it would look if I were on the surface. It's kinda sad that I'll probably never know. 

"This is a really cool place to have in a house." I muse, looking back at him. He has his very own small scale observatory. "I've never seen anything quite like this."

"It's pretty nice." He agrees. I pull out my camera and snap a few picturs of the space, and we move on with the rest of the tour. After coming back down into the livingroom, we both agree to keep the massive bookshelf. That was a given; this is another huge piece of the house that never in a million years I would have considered removing even if he asked me to.

He tells me his grandfather has read evey single one of the books in there, and has even written some of them. He throws some ideas for the arrangement of the space ,and I snap e few more pictures. Then we tour the rest of the house; the dinning room, the two bedrooms upstairs, the bathroom, and the backyard. It takes us almost an hour to complete, and we're back in the living room, where I put down all my tools and start to pack up.

“Wine?"

I turn around to find him behind the kitchen ocunter, holding an expensive-looking bottle of red wine. He's trying to make me drink again!  I give him a dissaproving stare.

“I bought this bottle for the occasion.” He tells me. 

“What occasion?”

"Any day I get to see you is worth celebrating to me.” He coos. Oh please!  “Considering how you’re always avoiding me.” He adds. Oh, I know where this is going. 

“I am not going to sleep with you tonight.” I articulate, trying to sound convinving despite my amused tone.

“I’m just offering you a drink.” 

“You’re trying to get me drunk.”

“Maya, you’re way smarter than this.” He tilts his head to the side.

“Excuse me?” I mimick him, crossing my arms under my chest.

“You wouldn’t be here if you really thought I was going to try to take advantage of you like that.” He points out. True. But still. 

“It’s Italian wine.” He adds when I don't answer. “I think you’ll love it.”

How does he know what I like already?! 

“Just one glass.” I give in. One tiny glass. I'm driving anyways so I'm not about to go crazy tonight.

“Okay.” He agrees before pulling two wine glasses from under the counter. He pours me half a glass, before serving himself.

I thim and we clink our glasses before taking a sip each. An boy this man knows his wine. I love sweet reds. Before I can even comment on the taste, there's a loud knock on the front door.

"Just in time." He comments, droping his class and walking over to the door. Who is he expecting? I hear the door open.

"Thank you Jimin." Mr Jeon says. Jimin? Isn't that his assistant? I remember his name from the time I went to the purple mansion. The door closes and Mr.Jeon reappears.

“I hope you like sushi." He announces, holding two plastic bags in his hands. Sushi?

"You ordered food?" I gasp, my face a mix of confusion and glee. "I figured you wouldn't have had time to eat." He answers, walking over to me. I watch, mesmerised as he drops the food on the counter. My eyes follow as he pulls out one, then a second, then a third plate of colorful sushi. There’s makis too, salmon, tuna, sea breaam sushi- a lot f very good stuff. I’m salivating, my eyes hugging the food close. "Hungry?" I look up and see him smirking at me. I love sushi, and I don’t know if I can refuse this offer. This is better than sex. "Well, I wouldn't want to waste." I shrug a shoulder, making him chuckle. He then pulls out the sauces, disposable chopsticks and napkins.  Little white makis catch my attention. "What are these?" I ask, pointing at my first preys. "Cheese makis.” "Cheese?" I repeat. Has there been a kind I haven’t tried yet? It’s time to update the sushi-pedia. "Have bite.” Mr.Jeon proposes, splitting a pair of chopsticks. He picks one of the cheese sushi and brings it over to my face. At this moment, I don’t even feel like pointing out how inappropriate it is, this man just won’t stop. I bite the sushi off, surprised by the creaminess of the cheese. I hum appreciatively. Sushi can never go wrong, even with cheese in it. This is amazing. "Right?" He concurs, smiling softly. "It's good." I agree once I’ve swallowed. Mr. Jeon hands me another pair of chopsticks, and I dive into the colorful maki rolls. "I'm going to be honest," I trail off after the first two bites. "You have found my weak spot." I mumble. "Sushi?" He says, amused. I nod vigorously. I would have declined any other type of food he would have proposed, but not sushi. He was spot on, and I'm not ashamed for giving in. "Any physical weak spot you want to tell me about?" When I look back at him, he’s turned his body so he’s facing me. Elbow propped onto the counter, he’s giving me all his attention. Oh you wish, Mr.Hotbuttocks. "I'll let you in on a secret." I announce, twisting so I’m facing him as well. "I'm all ears."  He murmurs. Feeling brave, I lean closer to him, prompting him to bend his neck and quite literally give me his ear. A distant, unused and forbidden part of my brain wants to bite his earlobe just to see his reaction. But I refrain. "I'm not having sex with you." I whisper, making him chuckle. He pulls back, shaking his head at me. I catch another sushi. "There was a time when you wouldn't say that." He says to me, eyes playful. "I was drunk." I retort. "Just tipsy." He counters. Ha! "There's not much difference." I mumble. "Let me put it another way.” He prompts, and I don’t like the smirk he’s giving me. I narrow my eyes at him. "Are you attracted to me?" He asks, but I’m not sure it’s a question. He’s looking at me dead in the eyes, probably watching my pupils dilate. I don’t think I can ever say no to that question, now that Iiterally have drunk-dialed him asking for sex. But I’m not going to admit it either. "Does it really matter?" Is the best I come up with, and he laughs at me in a short snort. I know he knows that was a lame attempt, but he ignores it. "Well, you know the feeling is mutual." He murmurs, and it makes my insides fuzzy. Such a handsome man being attracted to me physically is a confidence booster, but I also know the fact that I don’t take shit from him also plays a role in it. He likes that I'm not giving in. "You're only attracted to me because I resist you." I reply. He raises an eyebrow. "Is that why you're resisting me? So you can have me chasing you?” He asks, leaning closer to me and propping his chin on his fist. I am more phased by his words than his proximity. Am I enjoying the chase? I mean the only reason I’m not throwing myself at him is because I know when he finally gets me it’ll be over. Is that what's stopping me? Knowing there probably won't be a second time? Or is it the fact that I'll just be another rebelious woman he'd managed to tame?

“No.” I shake my head after thinking about it for too long. I mimic him, resting my head on the palm of my hand, my elbow right next to his. “Well, I’m not attracted to you because you resist me." He murmurs, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Sure.” “Let me get to my point." He prompts. Oh, whatever. 

"You're submissive, right?" He asks out of the blue, taking me by surprise. Excuse me? Rude!

 I immediately feel exposed, because I know he knows the answer to that question. I feel my face heat up. Where is he going with this? "Maybe." I reply, trying my hardest not to betray my panic. But I can’t bring myself to lie looking into his eyes, so I look away, earning another heartfelt chuckle. "Maybe, alright." He repeats. He sees right through me .To be fair, I am not putting the best act. I'm too easily read. I blush, I frown, I fidget, I play with my hair - I have the most telling body language and it hasn't helped me once in life. “What is your point, Mr.Jeon?” I ask, wanting to end the torture. "So when you find someone attractive, you tend to let them take control and bring you pleasure." He trails off. I nod in agreement, still unsure where this is going.  "But it doesn't mean you're weak or dependent. You chose to be in that position because that's what brings you the most pleasure. In fact outside the bedroom you're a very opinionated woman and you get your way quite often." He adds. I'm still following at this point, but I know he's trying to get me somewhere I don't want to be. I repeat his words in my head a second time. I feel like I’m about to get tricked. "True." I agree reluctantly, knowing I probably shouldn't.  “See, you think I'm all about the challenge and keeping women who challenge me submissive and obedient, but I work differently." He explains. Oh, I’m sure he does. "Just like you being submissive doesn't mean you're dependent and passive, me wanting to pin you against a wall and do things to you has nothing to do with my respect for you or women in general." He murmurs. Pin me against a wall and do things to me?! I take a discreet but deep breath, watching as the corner of his mouth turns into a smirk when he realises I’m already imagining things. "What I'm trying to say is," He trails off, and I think I catch his pupils dilating as our eyes meet. "When I find someone attractive, I tend to hold down..." He says, his tone lower, his voice so seductive it sounds like a purr. "And bite..." He adds, bringing the tip of his index finger just under my ear. "And kiss..." I hold his gaze while he slowly runs it down the side of my neck, barely brushing my skin but letting me feel plenty. "And lick..." He stops at the  spot where my neck and shoulder connect, my hairs standing alert in the wake of his touch. His eyes don’t leave mine, intense and blazing. My libido is through the roof. I want him to do that again. Biting and kissing and licking... I’m not learning anything new here. I’ve always known this man was dominant and kinky. I’m not surprised, but he’s just so sexy. He oozes sex, he smells like sex, he looks like sex, it’s intoxicating. "Because that's what gives me the most pleasure." He adds, his voice feeling like butter. "But I also always have my partner's pleasure in mind. Sometimes more than my own." He says, barely hiding the promise in his words. He leans back as if to mark the ending of his monologue, and that’s when I realise I had stopped breathing. 

I feel dizzy and my cheeks are burning. "Well,”I sigh, reaching for my wine. “Your next conquest should consider herself lucky." I say, raising my glass in his honor, before throwing the entire thing back. I feel thirsty, and hot and bothered. "Yeah, you should." He retorts, making me splutter and almost choke on my wine. He laughs at me, his laugh loud and boyish, while I try not to spit wine all over myself. “You have no shame.” I say in wonder, shaking my head at his mirth. "What should I be ashamed of? Being attracted to you?" He retorts. "Being inappropriate." I reply, narrowing my eyes at him. What a tease. "You're smiling." He counters.  "It's better than you running from me." He murmurs, his words heavier than what he wants me to think. I don't think I'm running away as much as I used to. I went to dinner with him, and I'm here today. I'm still aware of the majo red flags he waved at me when we first met though. "You give me reasons to run." I argue. This man smells like trouble, and I'm hovering over a dangerous line but I'm confident in my capacity to protect myself. His gaze turns to playful to a little bit more serious. He looks pensive. "I was hoping it wasn't the case anymore." He says quietly, and he almost sounds disappointed by my answer. "I wouldn't be here if it was." I say to reassure him a little bit. "I'm glad to hear that." He smiles softly. Part of me doesn't want to make him too happy, but I guess I'll give him that.

"There's something I wanted to talk to you about." He prompts, and I feel him getting even more serious than before.  

"We've never really talked about what happened with my brother." He trails off. Oh... 

Way to kill the mood. I feel myself stiffen instantly as the few memories I have of that night flash back to me.

"And again, I'm sorry for what happened." He says to me. He has told me before that his brother got the "wrong impression". And I would like, in order to start contemplating the idea of forgiving me, to know how in the hell he got that wrong impression. Because to me it is unjustifiable. Was it my dress? Nope. No matter how short it could have been, and it wasn't even short. My body language? Nah. The mere fact that we were drinking? Hell to the no.

"I have always wondered how he could possibly have thought I was going to have sex with him. That still doesn't sit right with me." I tell him honestly, because if he's asking me to forgive him for thinking anything I did led him on, I'll be gone before he even finishes his sentence. 

"He could tell I was attracted to you, and he knows I usually don't mind sharing." He explains to me. He doesn't mind sharing? Sharing women with his brother?!

 "And he was drunk." He adds while I try to precess this information. My face is a knot of confusion. He had threesomes with his brother? Why do I feel like there's something very incestuous about it? I'm effectively grossed out.

"You share your sexual partners with him?" I utter, unable to hide the judgment in my voice. He doesn't seem fazed by the horror on my face."If they both want each other I usually don't have a problem with it." He shurgs a shoulder. How is he so cool about this? Is it normal nowadays? Am I weird for finding it weird. I mean; obviously him and Eliott aren't blood brothers, and I don't think they have sex together per say, but they both participate in a sexual act at the same time! 

"So you-"

"Not threesomes, no." He cuts me off. Oh thank god! 

"Huh." I exhale.

Okay, so he just doesn't mind sleeping with the same woman as his brother. 

"So, hypothetically," I traill off. "If we were to sleep together- which we won't- you wouldn't -"

"I would be extremely possessive of you." He cuts me off, looking into my eyes with intent.

"Why?" I frown. He mimicks me, scrunching his eyebrows togetehr in a pensive manner. He's actually thinking about it.

"I'm not sure." He murmurs.  "I guess I just don't like the thought of anyone else bringing you pleasure." 

Okay? 

After processing this, a tiny part of my brain thinks this means something? That maybe I'm different? I shouldn't believe him that easily though, but if that's true, then I'm confused.

"Interesting..." I muse. I don't feel like elaborating on that. The implications are way too heavy for what I want this whole thing to be.

"But okay, let's say he thought you and I were having sex." I prompt, because his explaination isn't very satisfying yet. "What made him think I'd have sex with him?"

Mr.Jeon inhales deeply, visibly a little bit embarassed to speak. 

"His dumb ass thought bringing you over was what I meant by cheering him up after his breakup." He explains, and it dawns on me.

"He thought I was a bloody hooker." I conclude. He makes a face.

"Not quite. He did drink a lot before you came over too." He counters. Okay, his drunk ass thought I was a bloody hooker.

"Anyways. I hope you'll be able to forgive him one day. He's not a bad guy, just really dumb." He finishes. 

"Okay." I nod. I've heard him, but I don't knwo about forgiving his brother. Not because I'm still mad or anything, but because I can't this of an istance where I'll ever have too see him again. It's not liek he was about to become my brother-in-law.

"Thank you for explaining." I say before glancing at my wtach. I have been here for nearly two hours.

"But I do have to go now, Mr.Jeon." I declare. It's getting really late. “Oh, what a shame.” I hear him complain as I slide off my stool. "Thank you for the sushi." I murmur, looking up at him. "You're most welcome, Miss Fair." He replies, standing up I as well. I gather my stuff, putting my camera and sketchbook back in my bag and throwing my coat on. "I will make plans and sketches and get back to you to schedule another meeting." I explain to him once I'm ready to leave. "How long will that take?" "I think I'll be done in a week or two." "That's a long time without seeing each other." He mutters, scratching his chin in a pensive manner. I raise a curious eyebrow. "Now I'm thinking we're only doing this so you can talk me into sleeping with you." I reply, crossing my arms over my chest. "Miss Fair, I would never." He gasps dramatically. Yes you would. I narrow my eyes at him. "No, seriously. This house means a lot to me, and I don't share this part of my life with that many people." He says more seriously, but I still think he could be doing this to get his dick wet. "Would you mind if I made you sign a contract, then?" I propose. He's all about NDA's and shit, right? "A contract?" "Yes." I concur. "So I'm guaranteed to get my fifteen percent." I explain. I don't want to dive into this and then leave the project like last time. If he ever fucks up to the point where I don't want to see him, we can still do everything via e-mail. Hott buttocks aside, this project is really exciting. He frowns down at me for a second, but is quick to shrug a shoulder. "As you wish." He concedes. "I should make you sign it before I actually start putting in the work." I muse. "I'll be out of town for a few days, I leave on Wednesday." He warns. "I'll e-mail it to you." "Or we could meet up and read it through together." He proposes. Of course he'd want that. "You're funny." I chuckle. "I'm not signing anything via e-mail." He declares. "Why?" I frown. "Don't know how that technology works." He shrugs. Now he's playing the age card? "How old are you?" I ask, realizing I still don't know how old he is. "I'm 21." He says. He keeps adding a year every time I ask him!  "But you build rockets." I deadpan. He smirks- fucking smirks at me. He's so handsome it's angering. "Then I'm not designing anything for you." I retort. "Is seeing me that much of a torture?" He asks with feigned disappointment. I take a moment to think. "Not anymore." I reply. "Not anymore?" He repeats, eyebrows meeting his hairline. "But still." "But still?" He frowns, looking offended. I giggle at his reaction. "I can throw food in the mix, we can meet during our lunch break." He proposes. "Our offices are very close." Oh, god. "I'll see what I'll do tomorrow." I concede, feeling like a straight no would be too mean of me. And I actually don't know I want to say no or not. I enjoy his company. "Just remember you have the power to make a man's day by saying yes." He murmurs, stepping closer to me, hands in his pockets. He looks yummy. "I'll keep that in mind." I murmur, looking up at him. "Good." He says quietly, holding my gaze. The hairs on the back of my neck rise in alert. Why am I still wearing clothes again? "Let me walk you back." He proposes after a beat. I accept, and Mr. Jeon escorts me out of the house. "We'll have to fix these stairs as well." I mumble, looking out for any rogue piece of rock about to make me fall. "You have carte blanche for the outside. I trust you." He replies. I don't think the outside -or at least the pathway, needs a lot of work. Just some brand new steps and green grass.

"Can't wait to get to it." I reply. He walks me down the stairs and back to my car.

"Thank you for your time, Ms Fair." He says as I stand next to my Mini, ready to unlock it.

"It was a pleasure." I reply, smiling at him. I open my door and slide into my seat.

"I'll be waiting for your text." He says, leaning down to my window, eyes small and playful. I giggle.

"I'm sure you will." I tease. "Goodbye, Mr. Jeon." 

"Goodbye, Miss.Fair."

[satanickpanick]

this is technically late HOWEVER i had way too much fun and it got way too out of hand not to post for @tmanostalgiaweek day five: shenanigans! a very happy all fools’ day from me and everyone in the archives :)

“You got the goods?”

Martin nodded seriously. He reached into his jacket and, one by one, produced the instruments of chaos necessary to the events of the day.

Sasha grinned widely, and it only grew wider as she took inventory. Zip ties, fine glitter, styrofoam plates and cups, silly string, and several rolls of duct tape, all check, and more on the way according to the text she’d got from Tim. Martin seemed to be almost vibrating in excitement, eyes alight with mischief. She took out her notebook and they started to review the plan.

“-and if we time it exactly right, with Hannah to keep watch, of course, it’ll get him right in the-“

“Happy All Fools’!” came the shout, heralding Tim with a joyous laugh and a heavy tote bag. He set it down on the table with a satisfying thunk and let himself be swept up in one of Martin’s great bear hugs.

“You’re late,” Martin accused laughingly.

“Have you considered that you two might just be early?”

“Forget that, let’s see what you’ve got!”

Tim’s smile grew as he reached into the tote. “We have here my finest equipment, my greatest collection, the tools of a master’s trade-“ Martin swatted at him- “All right, okay…” He flourished each item as he listed it off. “Half a dozen whoopee cushions. Several bags of balloons. One industrial-size ball of twine. A packet of plastic spiders. Four handshake zappers. One rubber rat. And the centerpiece, my Magnus opus, if you will… one hundred wallet-size portraits of Jimmy Magma himself.”

“Holy shit, Tim, you came through,” Sasha breathed. “This is gonna be absolutely brilliant.”

“Ah, good morning, Tim,” came Jon’s voice from the doors to the breakroom. “Delighted you decided to show.” The three assistants froze. He raised an eyebrow. “What’s all this, then?”

“It’s April Fool’s day?” Martin squeaked out before anybody could think up a good story. Dammit, Sasha knew they’d missed something planning.

“I see.” Jon offered in a tone that said they very much did not. “I take it you were banking on my being shut up in the office all day?” Their collective silence was answer enough. “Right.” He made a valiant attempt to look indifferent. “Carry on, then, I won’t interfere, but I won’t be held responsible.” Jon turned to go.

“Wait,” Tim said, surprising, it seemed, even himself. “D’you want in on it?”

“Tim-!” Sasha hissed. He waved her off- but she knew that look now she saw it. A plan was forming.

“We could use your help, y’know- most of this is pretty standard stuff, we’re gonna put up glitter bombs in the doors and take the-“ He cut off abruptly as Jon held up a hand.

They tried for a beleaguered sigh, failed, and instead broke into a small, amused smile. “What do you want me to do?”

Martin shared a wide-eyed look with Sasha as Tim eagerly explained the climax of their plan. Jon nodded along, their smile growing more and more genuine- and more and more dastardly.

Finally, he turned to go. “I think I can manage that. Just give me… an hour, to finish up the box I’m on.” Tim nodded, giving a mock salute, and with that their boss- their boss, holy shit- was gone.

“Tim, what were you thinking?” Martin whisper-yelled the moment the door clicked shut. “He said he didn’t want to be involved.”

“They said they didn’t want to be held responsible,” Tim countered. “Besides, he’s the perfect one for this- he’s got legitimate reasons to be in Douchard’s office.”

“And we don’t?”

“I’m with Tim,” Sasha interjected. “Jon deserves to have a little fun once in a while. And besides, his being part of it guarantees he won’t rat us out.”

Martin sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” A beat. “Well, let’s get going, shall we? This place isn’t gonna booby-trap itself.”

And get going they did. With plastic wrap over tea left out, spiders in desk drawers, silly string rigged up on sinks, and other harmless little tricks, today had been months in the making. Sasha remembered well the day Martin had sat them down and told them about a tradition from when he was a kid- on he, for reasons yet undiscovered, wanted to start up with them. The tradition in question?

Total carnage she hadn’t thought the nervous, tea-brewing mass of jumper 5$-) was Martin’s face value capable of.

But all too soon it was done, and the three of them had very carefully navigated the network of traps back down to the breakroom. Sasha was animatedly recounting a close call in artefact storage with a tripwire and a nosy researcher when Jon entered, narrowly missing the confetti popper tied to the doorknob. He looked tired, moreso than before, but surprisingly eager.

“Okay, Jon,” Martin told him. “Rosie says he’s on the phone with some donor, but he’ll be leaving for lunch in… ten minutes and be gone til around 1130.”

“Which gives me… er… fifty minutes…? to get in, put them up, and get back out.”

“Yep.” Sasha held up a plain manila folder. “They’re in here, so’s a card of sticky tack.”

“Now, you know Rosie’s already agreed to help us, but that doesn’t go for the rest of the floor. You have to look like you have business.” Tim pushed his shoulders back and made a face like he’d smelled something sour. “Y’know-“ he put on an overly posh accent- “I’m the Archivist, I’ll zap you with my lazer eyes if you perceive me, I ha- ow!” He gripped his shoulder dramatically where Sasha had smacked him. “You get the idea.”

Jon chuckled darkly. “Do I really act like that?” Martin shrugged apologetically. “Well-“

“He’s gone!” said Sasha, thrusting the folder of tiny Jonahs into their hands. “Go, go!”

“Go, Jon!”

“Remember the safe route!”

The three cheered laughingly as Jon straightened up to his full tiny meter and a half and headed out the breakroom and up.

A tense ten minutes passed. Twenty. Martin left to take care of something trivial and returned. Thirty. The silence was broken only by the occasional giggle, quickly hushed by the other two. Forty minutes. They were getting quite down to the wire.

Pop! The party cracker at the door went off, making everybody jump. Jon had yelped and thrown the folder still in their hands, and now stood in the doorway, hair full of paper bits and sputtering laughingly.

“The deed is done,” they proclaimed dramatically through laughter, all but collapsing into an open folding chair. “That was- so much worse than I could’ve imagined. They were all- they were all staring at me.”

Sasha joined him first in laughter, the others soon to follow. Nobody could really understand what anybody was saying-

“…can you imagine?”

“Your face-“

“All of those eyes-“

“This is the greatest plan you've had since-“

Eventually, though, the energy died down. Jon stood, visibly reassuming the role of “boss”. “Well, that was certainly amusing. But we should all get back to work.”

“Come on, admit it, you had fun,” Sasha goaded.

“…all right, I did,” they admitted, “Doesn’t mean you lot’re getting out of anything, though.”

With a last conspiratorial look, the four separated Sasha liked to imagine she could hear Elias’s shout of confused frustration m as he returns to find his office plastered in tiny, smirking Jonah Magnuses.

She didn’t have to imagine Jon’s as he opened his own door and was showered in a cupful of neon pink glitter.

-

the joe mogus featured here, by the wonderful @fox-guardian:

[ohwereusingourmadeupnames]

Wine

do the thing - send in all the prompts.

So! I spent way too much time listening to songs about wine to grab some inspiration. Here you have an old country song meeting total canon divergence - I hope you enjoy <3

The fall in New York was always Peter’s favorite. The mugginess that sat over the city during the summer started to dissipate – the last dredges of it clinging, but just barely. A sharp temperature change swooped in overnight and brought chilly mornings – the actual need for a hoodie something Peter came to love over the years. Though there weren’t a lot of trees in his neighborhood, the subway ride to get to Central Park wasn’t too bad; he could see the leaves change and watch as nature prepared for a jump into the colder months.

Luckily, Peter graduated from high school with a pretty impressive resume that secured him an internship at Stark Industries – so he got to stay in the city and enjoy the changing of the seasons there for at least another four years. NYU orientation excited Peter more than he thought and the idea of starting in the coveted SI labs made his skin prickle with anticipation. 

He walked over to Stark Tower earlier in the week to get his credentials and access badge – the sight of it making his mouth water. Ever since, he’d been dreaming about what kind of opportunities awaited him there.

On his first official day, Peter wandered into one of the elevators and hit the button for his floor. The elevator car was a little bit crowded and his smaller stature got him pushed to the back of it. He watched for the first few floors, the doors opening and closing – people moving into and out of the elevator; all of it lulling him into a sense of comfortability. He exited the elevator on his floor with a swift smile on his face.

Turning the corner, Peter let out a loud huff when he ran straight into something that felt solid and immovable, but pliable all the same. A soft grunt had him looking up, his cheeks starting to flare with heat when he realized the person he just tried to tackle was none other than Tony Stark himself. Peter was too afraid to move any further, so he froze - his chest flush against Tony’s. 

In this proximity, Peter could feel the arc reactor on the older man’s chest, the hum of it alive, tangible – his solid core and legs were warm where they pressed against his own. Widening his eyes, Peter suddenly realized just how close they were and took a step back.

“Oh shit, Mr. Stark – I mean – “ Peter babbled for a second, his brain pinging off the side of his head like a pinball from the combination of too much stimulus and the delectable smell of cedar wood, mint, and the slightest undertone of musk. He looked at him then, Peter noticing for the first time that Tony’s face was pulling into a smile, the deep crinkles by his eyes way more flattering than they had any right to be.

Peter’s right shoulder was surrounded by long fingers and a palm that radiated heat – Mr. Stark’s grip moderate, the idea of it there without being all that threatening. “No worries, kid. I was talking to Jarvis and wasn’t paying attention.” 

The most important person in this entire building was looking at him with a mixture of amusement and hilarity. Peter was still stuck on the warm hand engulfing his upper arm, the touch distracting – making it so hard to pay attention.

“Jarvis, sir? The AI that runs most of this building and the battle tactics in your suit?” Peter blurted a moment later, his face red as a beet. He went from not being able to keep up with the conversation to rushing forward, his head down and brain to mouth filter on obvious holiday. “I got to come to the big scholar’s dinner you threw in May. I was valedictorian at Midtown Science and Tech, so I got to see the interactivity of your penthouse. Very, very, very impressive, Mr. Stark – sir.”

Tony tilted his head and quirked an eyebrow at him – the man’s eyes hard to decipher behind the blue-tinted glasses. Peter wondered if that’s why they became his trademark – if no one could see his eyes, they probably couldn’t guess what he was going to do next, either. Slipping his tongue out to wet his suddenly dry lips, Peter flashed him a smile – the fact that the man hadn’t run off to wherever he was going surprising.

And if he were honest with himself, satisfying. He would have chopped off his own foot to get face time with Tony Stark – now he had the man’s attention, enough so that the hand on Peter’s shoulder hadn’t dropped. “Midtown, huh? Must have a good head on your shoulders, then. What department did they stick you in - ” The hand on his shoulder shifted until those fingers were playing with his credential instead. “Peter Parker.”

Just hearing his name on the other’s lips sent a shiver down his spine. The magazines and TV broadcasts did not do the man justice – he was gorgeous, charming, and had the sexiest voice. They didn’t let this guy talk nearly enough. His eyes roamed over Tony’s face, down the length of his body, then back up until their gazes were locked. “I’m in Testing, sir. I applied for R&D, but they didn’t have any spots left.”

White teeth bit into a plump bottom lip, Peter watching avidly as they did. He could feel the heat radiating from his face and neck – the blush completely overtaking him now. Oh, how he wanted to be those teeth, that lip looked like something that needed to be worshipped – explored with his own lips and tongue, enjoyed for its thickness and the rush of color that would come to it after a few nibbles and several hundred kisses.

“Cool – leaves you free to come work with me, then. I could use an assistant. And stop with sir shit, okay? I’m Tony. I’ll have Jarvis change the security clearances you have. The labs on 103 – I’ll be up there in about an hour. Go familiarize yourself,” Tony said, his words demanding – the man probably not even thinking about how monumental the things he just said were.

Peter looked at him dumbfounded for a second, mouth open at the jaw like a broken hinge. The other merely smiled at him, the eyes behind his sunglasses moving over him for a second. “Jarvis, have Peter Parker’s clearance changed to include my office and lab.” He looked Peter dead in the eye while he spoke, the words leaving no room for Peter to doubt any longer.

At first, it felt weird being in the lab that was twice the size of his own apartment. There were millions of dollars’ worth of equipment spread out all over the room and the coveted Iron Man armor was in parts and pieces on one of the longer lab tables. Peter walked over without a thought and looked at each of the pieces – his fingers skimming just barely over the surface of the metal on the face mask. It felt cool to the touch and sent tingles down his spine. Not wanting to fuck anything up, he took a few steps back and settled behind one of the emptier tables. Seeing some schematics for suit updates, Peter pulled them to him and started to read.

Tony found him there a little while later, the man looking at him curiously when Peter finally noticed his presence. “I gave you free reign in here and that’s what you settled on?” The man loosened the knot in his tie while he spoke, the expensive piece of fabric soaring across the room a moment later. “What do you think? I’m trying to put a better stabilizer in the glove – but it gets bigger the more energy I want to yield from it.”

After looking at the plans for a while, he’d come up with a number of things that could be tweaked here and there. With that specific question in mind, Peter opened up to a page towards the back and pointed out one of the equations. “I think if you change this coefficient, you’ll be able to get rid of the size and still have the same amount of energy you’re looking for.”

They spent the rest of the day reworking some of the math – the begrudging grin on Tony’s face more than enough to know that he’d done good; that whatever test Tony was giving him, he passed with flying colors.

The weeks flew by after that – Peter enjoyed every second in the lab, even when they spent 14 hours within the confines of it. There weren’t a lot of things calling Peter away, so he allowed himself to get swept up in it – the excitement of working with Tony on the Iron Man suits, the knowledge and technique he was learning, and the developing crush that would not go away, no matter what he did.

Close to the end of the year, both men were exhaustedly working on solving the palladium problem of Tony’s arc reactor – they’d been going for 45 hours straight, neither leaving the lab for anything other than bathroom breaks and to answer the door for takeout. It was wearing on them; Peter could tell by the sluggish conversation and the snippiness of the older man. In his time working in the lab, Peter knew the further away they were from an answer, the more on edge Tony got.

Finally, after 50 hours of doing nothing but staring at the multidimensional schematic in front of them, Tony finally found the answer. It happened suddenly, Peter was talking through an idea, his hands moving the diagram around until Tony stopped him, his eyes flashing. 

“Pete, I’ve got it.” 

Tony quickly started to prattle off his findings, his hands moving a mile a minute while he described the process and the tools they’d need. Without much thought, Peter jumped into Tony’s arms, his fatigue and excitement getting the best of him.

“Thank God,” Peter mumbled into the skin of Tony’s neck – after 20 hours of sleep and a few rushed orders, they’d finally be that much closer to figuring out how to save Tony from the poison slowly trickling through his veins. Tony’s presence was solid and warm, the feeling of his body not any different than that first encounter – except it was – completely different.

Now, Peter knew how much those legs carried to keep so many things in the air at once. He understood that his core kept his shoulders upright, shoulders that were constantly trying to lift and remove the burden of the world. A shuddering breath left his mouth, his thoughts not anywhere near appropriate for the moment they were currently in.

The sudden space between them almost drew a moan from his lips, Peter so absorbed in the feel of Tony against him that he missed it instantly. Hands framed his cheeks a half a second later – Peter’s chin tilting up to suss out the purpose, to see what exactly Tony had on his mind in that moment. What he found there stopped him dead in his tracks – heat, arousal, confusion, anticipation – all the things Peter figured were reflected in his own eyes.

“You know I’m an old guy, right? Twice your age – could be your dad kind of old,” Tony mumbled, his face pressing in to close the gap between them. With mere inches separating them, he stopped – amber eyes looking into his, waiting for the answer – for him to fill in the last bit of empty space.

Peter let his actions answer for him – the swift press of their lips together more than enough to shock him to the core. The rightness of it couldn’t be denied, despite the glaringly obvious details that might say otherwise.

The soft caress of their lips lingered until the need for breath arose, Peter pulling back first to see the serene look of Tony with his eyes closed and a full-face smile. Tucking his lower lip between his teeth, Peter shook his head, fondness painted into his expression. “You know what they say about fine wine, Tony.” He brushed his nose against the older man’s, the words stuck in the heavy air between them.

In the brief seconds before they kissed again, he whispered “it just gets sweeter with time.” He felt the smile on Tony’s lips in their kiss, the softness of it divine, the taste sweet – like promise and love.

[nevermindirah]

How salty would YOU be if some assholes condemned you to 500 years of constant drowning? Yeah. Buckle up, bitches.

Or, 5 ways Quynh didn't bust out of her ocean prison and one way she did

Those witch-burning jackasses are so fucking dramatic. They had to go and forge an exaggerated frowny face through which I could scream bloody murder at them as they tore me from Andromache and locked me away at the bottom of the sea. You know what can fit through that frown-shaped hole though? A small adult human’s hand, maybe two. Y'all know you're putting me in this box because I can't die, right? You played yourselves you fucking pieces of shit.

I don't know what memes are yet, but who has two thumbs and will use them to get the fuck out of here? This furious bitch.

My hands and feet were shackled but I can probably break those apart after some time slamming them against the sides of this shitty metal box, leaving me free to reach through this dumbass rictus face and gather some tools.

Ok, so. How am I gonna get out of here? Brainstorm time.

1. Collect plastic bags and those 6-pack loops that kill sea turtles and shit and braid them together into a rope. Tie a hook or something to the end and reverse-fish for a passing ship that can drag me to shore. Scare the shit out of whoever disembarks but in a way that'll get them to open the damn box and get me out of here. Sure, I don't know what plastic is yet, but once it starts raining down from the ocean's surface I'll have died a few million times and won't care that I don't know the name for this weird indestructible but flexible thing that people love to throw away, I'll just know there's a fuck ton of it and braiding this rope makes me think of all the nooses I'm gonna make when I finally get out of here.

2. Meet a nice mermaid and/or shark who will rescue me. Or better yet, locate some radioactive material and grow gills and sharp teeth and become my own rescuing shark mermaid. I bet I'd look even sexier with gills.

2b. Anything radioactive enough to turn me into a shark mermaid will probably also eat through whatever metal this box is made of, so I won't even have to bite through it with my new shark mermaid teeth, that would be cool. I'll have to regrow a bunch of skin and probably a few organs from the chemical burns, but what the fuck else is new.

3. Fashion a chainsaw out of the teeth of dead sharks. The chains on these shackles ought to be useful for something, goddamnit. And I can wear it as a necklace while I'm working on collecting enough teeth to start sawing away in earnest. Not that Andy fucking cares how fashionable I am while I'm fucking drowning, shouldn't she have escaped and come to rescue me by now?? I'm gonna have an ex to get revenge on by the time I get the fuck out of here, aren't I.

4. Wait for two competing industrial fishing ships to anchor nearby at the same time. Attach one side of the box to one anchor and the other side of the box to the other anchor, so when the ships try to pull up their anchors and sail away from each other the box will be ripped apart by their ship drama. This makes me a party to someone else's enemies to lovers story, which I think is pretty goddamn cool because it adds some nice dramatic irony to my lovers to enemies story. And maybe there'll be a shipwreck! I could do with seeing someone other than myself die for fucking once.

5. Get the box eaten by a whale that in turn gets captured by Sea World, get spat out in the wasteland that is Orlando fucking Florida, and proceed to do A Lot of explaining to various underpaid members of Sea World’s PR and legal teams. I don't know this yet but PR flacks and lawyers are a lot like the witch-burning lackeys, some of them are in it because they like to watch people suffer, but some of them just do it so their bosses don't tie them to the stake next, and it's fun to antagonize them until they turn on each other.

Honorable mention before I get to the real story: Lately I've started dreaming about this kid named Nile who looks at this thing called Tumblr sometimes, and it's got a post going around about a ship full of hot lady ocean scientists who heroically rescue me and nurse me back to health. I usually don't have time to masturbate in between drownings so I'm pretty hard up. Though that time those tourists dropped a bunch of SCUBA equipment and I got to breathe for a whole 12 hours was pretty great, I hadn't had an orgasm like that in a millennium.

+1, here's how I actually get the fuck out of here.

Aforementioned witch-burning jackasses didn't tell me what metal they made this shitty-ass box out of, but I was already down here drowning every 5 minutes for about 200 years by the time stainless steel gets invented, so this shit is probably iron, cast iron, or steel, all of which will become 100% rust if submerged in water for long enough. No need for shitty people to dump toxic sludge into the goddamn ocean in order to eat through this shitty-ass bullshit frowny-face drowning box forged in the asshole of Satan I don't even believe in. Plain ol’ water will do if you can wait a while.

I've been waiting five fucking hundred god-for-fucking-saken drowning-in-fish-shit years. I bet I can break this shit open with one punch.

[kn1feinthec0ffee]

in too deep (part 2) - jules

jules x reader

warnings: drug use, very very slight violence, that’s pretty much it

notes: this is LOOOONNNGG probably the longest thing i’ve written,, ever and i apologize!! there was nowhere satisfying to stop in between the markers i’ve set in my mind for these chapters without creating two unsatisfyingly short chapters instead of one satisfying long one

***********

“fuckin’ score!” you squealed as jules let you down from the garage window. “now we just gotta get in there.”

you walked along the path towards the front door, rolling your eyes at the stereotypical garden gnomes with their happy painted faces.

jules held the crowbar towards you. “need this?”

“babe, please. we’re not barbarians,” you pulled out a paper clip from your jacket pocket, unfolding it and maneuvering it into the lock. you heard a familiar metallic tapping noise, prompting you to scold your girlfriend. “jules, please stop fucking with that, it’s gonna wreck your enamel.”

she mumbled an apology and you heard the lock click successfully. “yes! yes, i fucking got it!”

“you did it baby! you’re so fucking good!” jules kisses all over your cheek and jaw, pulling you in for a smooch on the lips. you wanted to lose yourself in her touch, but you remembered time was of the essence if you wanted to get the fuck out of here.

you yanked on the handle, but to your surprise, the door remained shut. “what the- it’s fucking dead bolted. who the fuck deadbolts their door? this is a great neighborhood!”

“take this,” jules thrusted the crowbar into your hands, watching as you pried the thing open, the wood splintering to the ground.

the both of you entered the home cautiously, peeking around corners as you held the gun up in self defense. jules headed into the kitchen, searching for a likely spot for some car keys. you surveyed the dining room, finding that nothing particularly stuck out to you during your search. 

  “find anything?” you asked your girlfriend. she shook her head no, eyeing around suspiciously before casting her gaze on the bowl of fruit perched perfectly on the countertop. 

  “it’s fake.” she stated seriously. you fought the urge to smile at her goofiness, choosing to nod affirmingly before heading upstairs. you rifled through countless dresser drawers, hoping to come across a set of goddamn keys. you came across an old video camera that appeared to be from 2004, but upon further inspection, the battery seemed to be dead. you tossed it over your shoulder, hearing the equipment land with a thud on the carpeting behind you. 

you unceremoniously plopped down on the couch next to jules, leaning back with a heavy sigh. “nothing?”

  “yo tengo nada.” she mumbled before stuffing a heaping spoonful of cereal into her mouth. you glanced down at her sour expression. 

  “stale?” you queried. “stale.” she affirmed, spitting the sugary wheat back into the bowl and tossing it over her shoulder. 

  “okay, time to think. no keys, so we gotta come up with something else.” you suggested, slinging an arm over her shoulders. 

  “it might help if we have a creative boost, you know?” she smirked, placing the bag onto your lap. a devilish grin made its way onto your face as you kissed the corner of her mouth.

  “mmm, i like the way you think, babygirl,” you took out a vial of coke and a credit card, dividing the substance up into lines on the back of some travel guide on the coffee table that looked like it was from the 70s. jules ripped a page out of another magazine and rolled it up into a tube. she went first and you followed, snorting a line as an idea popped into your head. 

  “gas! we’ll siphon the gas!” you shouted, turning towards your girlfriend to see what she thought. 

  “what? oh, that’s great, baby!” she leaned in for another kiss, but you were already up and pacing the living room floor. 

  “yeah, yeah, that’ll work. we just need, like, a gas can or something to put it in, and then we can put it back in the car!” you grinned, looking to jules for some input. 

  “yes! we don’t even need that much, we can just- fuck, you’re so fuckin’ smart, baby!” she slammed you into the wall, furiously smashing her lips to yours as she reached into your back pocket to grope your ass. 

  “mmmph! wait, baby- wai- we c-can’t do this now,” you managed between moans.

“what, you don’t want it?” she pouted, pulling away from you.

“no! fuck no! you know i want it, you know i fuckin’ wanna fuck all over this place, but we have to get back to the car before it gets towed or something.” you reasoned, pulling her hands back into yours.

“you’re right, i’m so sorry, baby.” she averted her gaze towards the ground, picking at her nails nervously.

“don’t ever apologize for that shit. that’s love.” you smiled, cheeks turning pink when she smiled back at you. you pressed your lips to hers, savoring her taste as you kissed her slowly.

you decided to head into the basement to find a hose and, after a debate over who should go down first, jules bravely headed down into the darkness. the two of you split up, figuring you could cover more ground separately. she crept up behind you, groaning when you jolted and shifted the beam of your flashlight into her eyes.

“there’s nothing down here. come on, babe,” she moved from your field of vision, the flashlight suddenly casting on a little girl chained to a pipe, her sudden presence making you scream.

“what?” jules turned around, practically jumping out of her skin when she saw the child.

“w-what the fuck?” you exclaimed. “what the fuck?” you asked her if she was alright, but she stayed silent, looking at the two of you as if she’d just seen you flush her pet fish down the toilet.

“y/n, we have to get her out of here,” jules stated firmly. “look at the lock, can you pick it?”

“can i pick it? baby, that fucker’s industrial. not gonna happen.” you crossed your arms. “and besides, we don’t know where her parents are, or why she’s chained up in the fucking basement! that’s a huge fucking red flag, julie! i mean, this- this is practically a red flag factory!”

“baby, i love you, but there’s no fucking way i’m leaving if that little girl isn’t coming with us. can you figure out some way to get the chain off her? pretty please?” she begged.

you tapped your foot anxiously, eyes darting around the open space in the basement. you sighed, looking back at her pleading expression. “fuck you, and fuck those goddamn puppy eyes of yours.”

her face brightened, clinging to your side and pressing kisses to your cheeks lovingly.

“okay, the chain is connected to the pipe, so we don’t have to pick the lock, we can just cut the pipe. we just need a saw of some kind.” you looked over to her.

  “that’s my girl,” she grinned widely. “it doesn’t really look like there’s any tools down here. maybe a knife would work?”

you headed up to the kitchen, rifling through drawers and drawers of utensils. you quickly grew frustrated with the lack of anything sharp in this seemingly childproof home. “butter knives! just fucking butter knives! what, do these people not eat steak?” you growled in irritation. you looked over to jules who had a shocked expression on her face as she stared at something behind you. you spun around to see a couple standing there, a baby in the woman’s arms. 

you grabbed the nearest object, which turned out to be a meat tenderizer and held it threateningly towards the intruders. the man took a step forwards, triggering your protective instinct as you aimed the gun at him. 

he held his hands up in defense, backing away from you. “alright, easy now. we don’t want any trouble. take what you want; money, jewelry, whatever you’re looking for just take and go on your way.”

  “we don’t want your money.” you stepped towards them, standing in front of jules and trying to assert your dominance. 

  “you can have the mallet if you’re keen on it.” the man assured. you shook your head, tossing it to the floor with a metallic clang. “is this your house?” the man nodded. “you live here full time? this isn’t a rental situation?”

  “no it is not. what exactly is going on here?” he asked curiously. against her better judgement, jules stepped out from behind me, her brows furrowed. 

  “okay then. we wanna know why the fuck you have a little girl chained up in your basement, that’s what we wanna know.” she shouted, crossing her arms aggressively. “tell em’, babe.”

  “y-yeah, what the fuck?” you gestured towards them with the gun in confusion. you wanted to look over to your girlfriend, but you didn’t want to take your eyes off the suspicious couple. 

  “oh lord, and here i thought you were gonna rob us,” the man laughed in relief. “that’s just sweetiepie. she’s been acting out at school, that’s just what we do to discipline he-”

  “chaining a child to the floor is no way of disciplining her! we’re getting her the fuck out of here and taking her somewhere safe!” jules cut in, fiery with passion. 

the man’s wife joined the conversation, shouting something about coming in uninvited and kidnapping her daughter before her husband calmed her down. “no! don’t you dare take her away from us! i won’t have that poor girl subjected to your sinful lifestyle!”

“watch your fuckin’ mouth, lady!” jules pointed at her angrily.

you and george pulled your partners away from each other, calming them down before continuing to speak. “listen, we have a second car in the garage. and if for one reason or another, that second car were to go missing, we might not report that incident for some time. but if you were to take my daughter with you, you’d be forcing my hand to call the police in a much more timely manner.”

your shoulders sagged, looking over to jules as she stood strong. you admired her for her ability to never take shit from anyone. 

  “you can’t stand here and tell me you don’t wish you never went down those stairs.” he was right and he knew it. you were stuck between a rock and a hard place, so you decided to do what you did best: break the tension.

  “i just realized nobody knows each other’s names here. i’ll start. i’m y/n, and this beautiful thing is my girl jules.” you exhaled through your nose. you turned to see jules looking pissed off, whether at you for opening your mouth or the situation. 

  “i’m sorry, i can’t believe we haven’t introduced ourselves! i’m george, and this here’s my wife, gloria.” george proudly announced, tossing an arm over gloria’s shoulder. 

  “nice to meet you, george and gloria. now that we all know each other, let me tell you something.” your face fell serious. “we’re taking that girl and you’re not saying shit to the police. you wanna know why you won’t say shit? because you’re fucking psychopaths with a little girl chained up in your basement! and there’s no way you can call the police without risking them finding out about the fact that you’re fucking psychopaths with a little girl chained up in their basement!”

you watched as they shifted uncomfortably, feeling pride in your words against them. you spared a glance towards jules, grinning inside when you saw the proud look on her face. 

  “get the fucking keys, george.”

you found yourselves in the basement, watching george’s every move as he unlocked the girl. jules stood a few feet behind you, pinning gloria’s arms to her back.

  “you’re free, come here!” she didn’t move. “chains are off dude, let’s get the fuck outta here!” 

the girl clung to george’s leg in fear, causing a prideful grin to appear on the man’s face. 

  “you can come with us now! we’ll have fun, we can find you a great family. hey, we could even get burgers and ice cream, how does that sound? have you ever even had a burger?” you joked. 

you placed a hand on her shoulder but she turned and bit it, making you squeal and jump back from her. george took this opportunity to slam his head into yours with such brute force that you blacked out on impact as you fell to the ground, the gun clattering out of your grasp. 

jules’ muffled voice frantically screaming your name was the last thing you heard before you fell completely unconscious. 

**************

i had to make a few changes, some for creative purposes, some just bc i felt like it

and yES i CUT OUT THE SCENE WHERE THEY READ EACH OTHER IM SORRY IT WAS GETTING LONGER AND LONGER AND STRESSING ME TF OUT

also i don’t like how long this is writing things this long stresses me out and as i’m typing this at 7:24 i realize this was supposed to be out 8 hours ago

also also for my taglist, i’m adding people who either liked or reblogged, but feel free to message me if you do/don’t want to be tagged!!

tags: @emmyrosee @bill-skarsgard-owns-my-ass @flowers-in-your-hayr​ @willyourecognisemee​

[imma-new-soul]

From the ground up

Summary: Bucky x Reader Odinson (Thors Daughter). After Asgard was destroyed you and your surviving Asgardians travel to Earth to start new lives. With help from Stark Industries and some Avengers your able to build a new home and also new relationships.

Warning: probably bad spelling

Not in the mood to proof read so enjoy the shit show of my horrible English skills

Words: 2.5k

It's been hard for you and your people, ruling over a broken kindom, when you were the most broken of them all. You were a princess with no kingdom, nor castle and half of your people dead and gone. After Asgard was destroyed and your father Thor left you to lead the remaineding Asgardians to Earth, life has been hard.

Trying to pick up the pieces and rising from the ashes felt like something only talked about in old wivestales and wildly exaggerated for motivational speeches. You found a empty field and thought it would be good change for them. The fields were you and your people settled was beautiful and had plenty of resources but it didn't feel like home, not to you, and not to anyone else.

Luckily your not alone and after the beautiful quite fields started to fill with small town houses and little stores you got word that Tony Stark would send some of his best men to help improve New Asgard and build bigger and better homes.

As soon as the sun rose you where up to greet Tony and his employees as his huge aircraft lands, his roaring engines sweeping wind across the whole town. The doors to the large craft open, slamming on the soft green grass. from the entrance you can see three silhouettes walk towards you and into the sunlight.

Tony stood infront of you Steve Roger's and Bucky Barnes standing beside him. You fling your arms around Tony thanking him profusely for offering to help you. Looking up from his shoulder you nob and smile at the two men you were very familiar with. In that moment the aircraft empyed and out poured atleast a hundred Stark employees with tools and large metals for building.

The rest of the day consisted of the workers moving the equipment and building materials off of the aircraft and setting up stations to start their projects for the morning. Days at New Asgard were beautiful the sun shined bright and hot while cool breezes ran through it mixing with the fresh ocean air. But the mornings are a bit colder and dew formed on the windows of the homes and on the grass in the fields blanketing the place with small drops.

It was 6am and Starks employees were already up working on the construction of the town. Tony, Bucky, and Steve agreed on staying and helping you rebuild your house. You were woken up by the sound of hammering and welding going on in what use to be your livingroom. You sprung out of your bed and headed to your bathroom. After putting on your clothes you walked towards the kitchen to make a few cups of coffee for your guests.

Yes Asgard was known for having the best beer in all of the galaxy but what you enjoyed most about Asgard was its coffee. It was the finest coffee you have ever tasted. The smell of the beans as they crush brang joy and so many happy memories to you. You didn't bring much from your old home but you knew you needed to bring plenty of bags of your rich luscious coffee beans.

You brewed four cups, you and Steve liked your coffees with cream and sugar, Tony and Bucky liked theirs plain and black. Placing the cups on a tray you head to your friends, handing Tony his cup and then Steve as they thanked you. You look around but cant find Bucky anywhere. Standing with the tray that still had cups that's steam rolled off of the hot liquid you asked.

"Wheres Bucky?" confused and disappointed from not spotting him right away. (Since you meet Bucky you've had the biggest crush on him. You loved his sparkly blue eyes and how his dark black hair fell perfectly in place and never needed tending to.)

" Hes outside, He started earlier then we did so hes taking a break in the back" Steve says while pointing to theback door.

You smile at Steve and head outside seeing Bucky right away. He was sitting at the edge of the cliff that your house sat upon, staring at the waves crash on the rocks below. You cleared your throat making sure not to sneak up on him and startle him. Not that you could startle him I mean he was genetically engineered super Assassin but you made yourself known anyway. He turned his head and a small smile formed on his soft lips. You placed the tray with the two cups beside him as you joined him on the edge of the cliff.

You hadn't known Bucky as long as you've known Steve and Tony but you'd like to consider him a close friend more then an acquaintance for sure, but you wanted to be more then friends much more then friends with this handsome man you sat inches away from. You two watched the waves in silence for a few seconds.

"Its beautiful" you say, turning your head to look at Bucky

"Its like nothing I've ever seen before. I like it better then the old Asgard" He says still looking out to the clear blue water.

You cant help but think of the stunning city you once called home. You spent your childhood in your beautiful castle that towered above the rest of the houses. You missed it so much it hurt, you shook your head and changed the subject

" I made you coffee i think you should drink it before it gets cold, Asgardian coffee is best when it's still hot". You say while handing him the cup.

He turns his body to face you breaking the trance he was in, nods and grabs the warm cup by its handle. He looked up, eyes shooting through you as he smiled again, this time your heart sunk to your stomach as his hand grazed your for a second while he reached for the coffee. You were stuck and couldn't move for some reason he had a hold on you that you couldn't break. It was those beautiful eyes you got lost in, they were like deep pools pulling you in and all you could do was stare. You snapped out of it when you felt a cool breeze brush against your cheek.

You and Bucky finished your coffee after a few minutes of small talk. He loved how nice and easy it was to talk to you, it was almost effortless. He was telling you about the ride over here and how excited he was to see you after not needing able to visit you for months. Your cheeks were hurting for smiling so much and you didn't want the conversation to end. But reality creeped in and Bucky stood up placing his empty cup back on its tray.

"Well I better get back to helping the guys, Stark made a schedule for us and unfortunately I have to go give Steve a break. Thank you so much for the coffee y/n I really enjoyed talking to you".

"You're welcome" you say as he walks in your house already picking up some tools that laid on the table amongst the mess that was your livingroom.

Construction went on for weeks and everyday you'd have the same routine to bring coffee to everyone working on your house. You and Bucky grew closer, having small and meaningful talks that got longer and longer day by day. He enjoyed spending time with you and the talks and You were starting to fall hard for Bucky.

This morning Bucky was already awake and in the kitchen cooking breakfast. Filling the house with the delicious smell of banana pancakes and warm maple syrup. You walk in the kitchen fresh out of your slumber the smell of the delico]us breakfast drawing you to the kitchen. You look around to see only you and Bucky in your house.

"Hey Bucky, Where is everyone" you say as you walked lazily through the kitchen.

"They left on a mission later last night, I told them I'd stay and keep you some company, I doubt they need me for this one". Bucky explained and you bite down on your cheek trying to contain the smile that was forming on your lips.

What Bucky didn't tell you was that he'd suggested to Steve and Tony earlier that they should go back to New York to pick up some more materials for building up the rest of the town. They both knew that he just wanted to be alone with you because construction in town was nearly finished but they didn't protest and did as he said leaving promptly last night.

"Well well well looks like your stuck with me". You joke grinning and nudging him with your hip.

He let's out the cutest laugh you've ever heard and your heart swells just by the sound of his pure happiness. The two of you eat your pancakes outside since it's such a beautiful warm day and you don't want to be stuck inside all morning.

"So what do you want to do today Bucky Boi?" You say. his brows scrunch together forming a confused look.

"I.. I didn't have anything planned, I was just gonna hang with you since most of Starks employees have gone back to New York with Tony and Steve". Bucky says

"Well it's your day off that means we have to do something fun, I have a great idea I'll clean the dishes from breakfast while you go change into some shorts you say". You shout in excitement ready for the fun and (romantic) day you had planned for the two of you.

Without questioning Bucky jumped to his feet and went inside to change into his shorts while you finished up the dishes and changed into a cute black sun dress with sleeves that sat off your shoulders and sunflowers all over. You packed a bag full of nessesatys and headed out the door were Bucky waited for you in a plain black t-shirt, white shorts (that made his butt look fantastic btw) and some all black sneakers. You couldn't stop but to stare at him from behind before he turned around. You two smiled at each other unaware that both of your hearts were thumping hard in your chests from the sight that was infront of you.

You came closer to him locking your door behind you and you both walk out into the fields and down the hills that stood between you and the rest of the town. After 20mins of walking you stop infront of a majestic crystal clear lake. Without even informing Bucky you ripped your dress off and tossed down your shoes leaving them in the hot grass.

You wore an all white bathing suit matching Buckys that wasn't to showy but you felt so good in it because it was your best one. Bucky stood frozen in shock watching you test the water with your foot and then dive right in. Your head came out of the water just in time to watch Bucky strip from his shirt and shoes just as you did early. You watched as his tight muscles pressed against his bare skin and how the water reflected in his eyes making them impossibly more blue.

Without hesitation Bucky jumped right in water slashing you in the face. The two of you swam around for hours, You were having the time of your life laughing uncontrollably. You had swimming contests and dunked each other, and even played a little Marco Polo.

It got dark pretty soon but you and Bucky were enjoying yourselves to much to care. You looked up at the sky and watched how it lit up with hundreds of little shinning stars making the scene even more beautiful and even more romantic. You look back at Bucky only to find him staring at you already. You didn't know if it was the moonlight or Buckys heat radiating off of him but your body felt like it was on fire.

You stared into each others eyes feeling like the moon was drawing you closer and closer to Bucky till you can feel his breath on your face and almost hear his heart beat. It was a perfect moment with the man you've loved for a while now. Your breath hitched as he places his hand on your cheek caressing your face with his thumb.

"I have to admit something princess" Bucky says softly

Your mind Is clouded with confusion, and lust

Bucky speaks again "I came here to help a friend but I think... NO! .. I know I've fallen for you, I'm completely and utterly in love with you".

Your heart went from pounding in your chest to completely stopping. Even though you hoped for it, You didn't think he felt the same about you. Without thinking you bring your arms up around his neck. One hand tangled in his hair and the other holding his neck pulling him closer so that your lips FINALLY meet. After weeks of imagining what it would be like the reality of kissing Bucky Barnes was way better then your expectations. He kissed you with passion and love, you felt it radiating out of his body. You stop to take a few deep breaths placing your forehead on his.

"I love you too James Buchanan Barnes" you said with a smirk and you two laughed ducking down for another long passionate kiss.

After that you and Bucky get out of the water drying off and headed back to your house. The night was filled with cuddling, joking, and Lots and LOTS of kissing.

.

.

After a few more weeks of construction during which Bucky had asked you to be his girlfriend and of course you said yes. The last day of renovations was tomorrow and soon Bucky, Steve, and Tony will be leaving back to New York and who know when you'll ever get to see Bucky again. So that night you held Bucky closer then usual never wanting to let go, you barely slept while Bucky snored lightly beside you. And with much dread morning came too soon.

You peeled from your bed noticing you were alone, you reached out and touched the spot where Bucky was laying and it was cold, meaning he woke much earlier then you have. Sadness weighed you down and you didn't even want to leave the bed but you did because you needed to find Bucky before he leaves and tell him goodbye.

You walk out to the front of your house to see most of everything already on the aircraft and see Bucky bringing the last of it In. Your heart is so heavy tears start to swell in your eyes knowing that this might be the end. After everything is all loaded up Tony, Steve, and Bucky walk up to you to say their goodbye. You couldn't help but sob, you hated goodbyes you hated it so much.

The two men walk away leaving only you and Bucky in the front of your doorway. Already crying hysterically you hug Bucky as tight as you can not noticing the aircraft's engines turning on and flying off. That same gust of wind flee through your clothes and you pushed off of Bucky in shock.

"They left, why aren't you on there with them?" You say in a panic

"Haha well well well looks like your stuck with me" bucky says

"What do you mean" you respond back

"I'm staying with you princess, I couldn't leave you" bucky says smiling from ear to ear

You continue crying this time tears of joy. You hold him tight and never let him go.

Hed make a fine king you thought to yourself

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2022-09-12

I have to find an apartment and I have to do it from 8500km away.

Listening: I have and will always be the kind of person who listens to Apocalyptica. They put out an arrangement of "Flight of the Bumblebee" from their new album on YouTube, LOVE some big cello, the best part of being in the youth orchestra was sitting right in front of the double bass during practice.

Reading: Finished The Diamond Age and Network Effect. I'd had a hard time with Network Effect so I put it down and picked up The Diamond Age. Once you get past about 60% of Network Effect it really picks up but the opening is slow and doesn't have as much of my favourite character-driven Murderbot stuff because it's a very small cast stuck on a spaceship.

Network Effect manages to even slip in a brief stint in horror at the end there, which is great, and also a really fun depiction of what it would feel like to be sentient malware.

Pre-ordered Nona the Ninth last night because it's out tomorrow and I may as well get the discount since I know I'm buying it anyway.

Watching: Back at it again with Umbrella Academy, thank you Gerard Way for whatever outfit you're doing on stage tonight but also this show. Superheroes who are mostly not doing superhero things because they Got Problems is so good.

Light and Magic, the documentary about the early days of Industrial Light and Magic. I have been interested in special effects since I was like eight and I love listening to stories from like, Adam Savage on Tested about how ILM works. This show is very well put together especially because all the old ILM employees were film nerds who have their own archival video and photos of them working around the shop.

Playing: Another really busy weekend, so nothing noteworthy, completely ate shit at Valorant again but I've actually started watching the VCT matches so hopefully I'll learn something. Unfortunately I think I'm just going to have to spend a lot of time staring around maps with flashcards or something.

Making: No free time for the quilt, but I did learn how to make Biryani and made for my extended family who were over on the weekend. Fresh cranberry beans go a long way towards improving some of the deficiencies of biryani, and I also made a cashew nuts chutney because my California Relatives brought a huge jar of California Cashews for us a while ago.

Tools and Equipment: I got one of those jet-flame lighters, they make up for their shocking fuel hunger and dangerous allure with a semi-wind-proof flame and much better versatility for heating things up, I used it to quickly desolder some parts I wanted but didn't want to set up my iron for and it took like five seconds. Because the flame is a jet you can heat things from the side much more easily than with a standard lighter, and it doesn't leave as much soot.

Unfortunately having a jet flame lighter also comes with the massive temptation to burninate things, larger than even normal lighters. So keep that in mind.

[talatomaz]

fresh start | team flash x fem!reader | part vi

a/n: this takes place between season 2 episode 5 and episode 6 and this story is mostly canon with a few things changed

warnings: none

word count: 2.9k

masterlist | request list | request rules

pt.i | pt.ii | pt.iii | pt.iv | pt.v | pt.vi | pt.vii | pt.viii | pt.ix

i do not give you permission to repost or translate my fics on any platform - likes/reblogs are okay and are much appreciated

“Are you sure?”

You waved your hand and the guns, that the robbers were currently about to use to shoot at you, flew towards you. With the men disarmed, Barry ran around them and cuffed them.

“Yeah, I’ve doing a lot of thinking and I think it’s the right decision for me.”

After handing the cuffed robbers to Joe and Patty, Barry ran you both back to S.T.A.R Labs.

“Really?”

“Yes, Barry, really.”

“But I’m gonna miss you,” Cisco said, pouting.

“Cisco, I’m not leaving you. I’m still working at S.T.A.R Labs, but I’m just also going to be a detective too.”

“Does my Dad know?” Iris asked, as Barry took off his mask whilst you did the same.

“Yeah, I spoke to him the other day and then when I spoke to Captain Singh, he vouched for me. Which he didn’t have to do because Singh decided to instantly rehire me but I thanked him anyway.”

“But I’m going to miss you.” Cisco repeated, making you all laugh.

After an in-depth discussion with the team about ARGUS, you came to the realisation that since some ARGUS agents were still morally ethical, you wanted to exemplify the work that they do by going back to being a detective. Except this time, you were going to become a field cop rather than someone who dealt with reports and information.

Though you initially had some reserves about going out in the field, the most notable being you changing the future in some way or someone recognising you, you realised that the future was going to change no matter what and you couldn’t stop that. But what you could do is help Barry and the others change it for the better.

And what better way to do that than by being a cop on Joe’s meta-human task force and a meta-human protecting the city?

“Cisco’s right, though, y/n. It’s going to be weird not having you here all the time.”

“Don’t worry, Cait. I’ll still be here more often than you think. I’ll just be wearing a badge most of the time. And I’m not going to let it interfere with the work that we do here. I mean, Barry disappears half of the time and it’s all good.”

“True, I can always just run us both back here and we both get dressed super quick anyways, so it’s not a hassle.”

“So, when do you start, y/n?”

“Today.”

You all turned to the entrance of the cortex where Joe stood.

“Hey, sweetie.” Joe kissed Iris’s forehead.

“Today?” Barry asked.

“Yeah, Singh can’t wait to have you back and quite frankly, neither can I. I’ve been saying for months that you’ve needed to come back.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

“So, you ready to go? Obviously after you take off all that,” Joe gestured to your Meson outfit.

You went into the med bay and not even five minutes later, you came out dressed in a black pantsuit, your wavy hair flowing just past your shoulders.

“Damn, y/n, looking good.” Iris commented as you smirked.

“Thanks, Iris.”

“That was quick, even by my standards.” Barry said.

“Guess you got competition then, Flash.” You said jokingly.

“You ready to go, y/n?” Joe asked.

“I think you mean Detective Davis, Joe.” Caitlin corrected.

You laughed, “I’ll see you guys later. Call if you need me.”

***

“Glad to have you back, Detective Davis.”

“Come on, Patty. We’ve gotten close these past few months, you can call me y/n.” You said, shaking her hand.

“Then, I’m glad to have you back, y/n.” She responded and you smiled.

“So, have the robbers from this morning been processed?” She looked at you confused. “Oh, Joe told me about them earlier.”

She nodded, convinced, “Yeah, they’ve just been transferred to Iron Heights.”

“Okay, so-“

You were interrupted by a breaking news alert on the TV screen and everyone turned their attention to the screen.

“It appears that a meta has broken into an abandoned industrial factory and has stolen some equipment…”

You turned from the TV to Patty and Joe.

“Let’s go,” Joe said, you and Patty followed him out of the police department.

***

“So I’ve just spoken to a couple of witnesses who all said that they saw a man, mid 20s, leaving the scene, driving a red pick-up, but they have no idea what he stole.” Patty said, walking up to you and Joe.

“Yeah, I mean, this factory only stores drills and other tools that you could easily get off any construction site.” You replied, confused.

“I spoke to a guy who used to work here and he told me that the place was officially shut down for unsafe conditions.”

“Unofficially?” You and Patty asked.

“Some guy was trying to manufacture some type of drill that was so high tech, that it could cut through almost anything. That could be quite valuable.”

“Did he say what type?”

“Uh,” Joe looked at his notes, “a 15. amp hammer drill.”

“Damn, that shit can cut through almost anything. And there’s also something that might indicate what the meta’s powers are.”

You showed Patty and Joe to the security system.

“Initially, it was thought that the meta hacked into the system to unlock all the doors, which, at first glance, makes sense. I’m running a check to see if the system was hacked.”

“But you don’t think it was?” Patty asked.

“No, I don’t. I know code, and there’s no record of a line of code anywhere. I’d have to check to be sure, but I think the electrics were manipulated.”

“Meaning what? A meta who can control electricity?”

“Not necessarily, Joe. Everything else was in intact. I think the meta can manipulate controls or at least override them. Basically he can turn things on and off. And lucky for us, his powers seem to be channelled through his hands.”

“You got a print?”

“Yeah, when I get back, I’m going to run it through AFIS and see if we have any hits.”

“Damn, y/n, I forgot how good you were.” Joe stated.

After collecting some more evidence, the three of you went back to the station and you handed some of the samples to Barry for him to analyse.

Then you went to your computer and ran the print through the data systems and whilst you waited, you were talking to Patty about her and Barry.

“So, is it going well between you two then?” You asked, leaning against your desk.

“Yeah, I think so. I mean, one of our first dates was quite memorable.”

“Oh, because he couldn’t see?”

She furrowed her brows.

“Oh, Barry told me when I was at S.T.A.R Labs last week.”

“What do you even do at S.T.A.R Labs? Barry is almost always there.”

��I help Cisco and Caitlin with a lot of tech that they have and we’re all good friends which is probably why Barry’s there a lot.”

She nodded, “So are you seeing anyone?”

You shook your head, “No, I’ve had a few flings here and there but I’m not with anyone right now. Besides-”

You stopped talking when your screen bleeped.

“Looks like we got a match.” You sat in your chair and showed Patty your screen. “Guy’s name is Oscar Cartwright.”

“Yeah, he was arrested for breaking and entering, robbery, and looks like he has a background in construction. Must be how he knew which tools to steal.” Patty suggested.

You printed off the file so you could show it to Joe, “Come on, let’s go.”

After you briefed Joe, he told you and Patty to check out his most recent address but when you got there, it was empty.

It looked as if it hadn’t been used in a while; the only indication that someone was staying there was the unmade bed and discarded clothes around the room. Then you both realised there was a basement and when you went down here, you found blueprints to a building.

As you were about to gain more intel by checking it out further, the laptop, containing the blueprints, began to overheat and exploded in front of the two of you.

“He must have known we were coming and used his powers to destroy any traces he left behind.” Patty said, coming back into the basement after calling CSU.

“Yeah, do you want to stay here whilst I try and figure out what was on the laptop?”

“Yeah, sure, just call if you find something.”

As you walked back up the stairs, you passed Joe,

“Hey, Joe. I’m gonna take this to S.T.A.R Labs to see if Cisco and I can recover what was on here since it looked important.”

“Okay, hopefully it can lead us to this Cartwright guy.”

***

“Getting anywhere?” Caitlin and Iris walked into the cortex and looked at you and Cisco.

“I think so. We’ll most likely be able to recover the data within the next hour.” You responded, as you continued typing.

“Hopefully.” Cisco interrupted. “This meta basically fried the mainframe and we had to reconstruct the circuitry which took ages.”

“We’re glad to have you back though, y/n.” Caitlin said, and you turned around and laughed.

“Cait, I’ve only been gone a day.”

“It feels like longer though.” She said.

“Well, I’ve missed you guys too.”

“So this meta, what exactly are his powers?” Iris asked.

“As best I can tell, he’s able to take control of systems by overcharging the system and-”

“OverCharge.” Cisco interrupted.

“What?” You, Caitlin and Iris looked at Cisco.

He turned around to face the three of you, “OverCharge.” He repeated, “That’s his name.”

You started laughing at the coincidence and it was Cisco’s turn to be confused. “OverCharge. OC. The meta’s name is Oscar Cartwright. I swear these names write themselves.”

You guys had a little mini catchup and after around an hour, you and Cisco were able to recover some of the data and in perfect timing, Barry walked in.

“Anything?”

“I’m just pulling up the blueprints now,” You continued typing and looked through the files, trying to find the right one.

Then you were interrupted by an alert on S.T.A.R Labs police scanner.

“Guys, there’s a runaway train.” Caitlin said so you and Cisco hacked into the subway’s mainframe.

“Shit, this isn’t an accident. I’m giving the command for the train to slow down, but nothing is responding.” You explained.

“It looks like there’s some sort of glitch somewhere that’s not allowing it to respond to commands.”

“Could it be the same meta?” Iris asked.

“Potentially, but Barry, we can’t stop the train from here so you gotta go.” Cisco said, so Barry suited up and ran off.

“I don’t know what OverCharge’s endgame is here. He steals a high tech drill, has blueprints and is now controlling a train? I don’t understand.”

“I think I do. I just managed to access some of the damaged data and he has blueprints to Central City Airport.” Cisco said, displaying the blueprints on the large screen so you could all get a better look.

“Dammit,” you pulled out your phone, called Joe and explained the situation.

“Joe, take Patty. Barry’s going to try and stop the train but I think it’s a distraction. Oscar’s breaking into Central City Airport. If I can, I’ll meet you there. Bye.”

You disconnected the call.

“What would he be stealing though?”

“I think I can answer that.”

Harry Wells walked into the cortex and on another screen, pulled up images of diamonds.

“This was being stored in their private security room.”

“Diamonds?” Cisco asked.

“Very valuable diamonds. Even back on my Earth, they were worth quite a lot. Like $57 million worth.”

You quickly messaged Joe the update so he knew where to look for OverCharge and then you diverted your attention back to the runaway train.

“Holy Shit. Barry, you cannot stop that train!”

“What? Why? I’m just in front of it.”

“Barry, y/n’s right. That train is 23 miles from approaching an unsustainable curve radius.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Barry said over the comms.

“We’ve got a major cant issue.”

“There’s no ‘can’t’ when it comes to the Flash.” Iris said.

“No, West, ‘cant’ is the name of the height difference between the outside and inside rails on a track curve.” Harry explained.

“The tilt creates a down-thrust to counter sideways force.” Cisco continued.

“And at the current speed of the train, the ‘cant’ can’t work.” You said.

“The train will derail.” Caitlin finished.

“So what do I do?”

Barry shouted over the comms and you quickly ran into the med bay and got changed into your suit whilst Harry explained what the Flash should do.

“You have approximately 7 minutes before that train reaches the curve. You need to phase onto the train and gain access of the controls.”

“Scratch that.”

You ran out of the med bay and back to the centre of the cortex, now dressed in your Meson suit.

“Barry, run back to S.T.A.R Labs now!” You said as you grabbed your mask.

“Why?”

“We don’t have time. Just do it!”

In, well, a flash, Barry was beside you. You picked up your laptop and grabbed his arm.

“Take me to the train now.”

“But-”

“Now!”

He picked you up and ran you to the station where you could hear the incoming train.

“You have to phase us both on there, Barry. I’ll be able to connect my laptop to the controls and gain access and manually slow the train down before we reach the curve.”

“But, y/n-”

“Trust me, I got this.”

You heard the sounds of the train getting closer and with your arm wrapped around Barry’s, he phased you both onto the train. It was a weird feeling. It was like pins and needles all over your entire body.

The moment you both were on the train, the Flash began to calm people down and you ran to the front of the carriage and used your powers to open the locked door.

As expected, the control system was fried, so you plugged your laptop into the train’s software and after 2 minutes, you were able to regain control of the train and managed to slow the train down.

But, to your surprise, it ended up gaining even more speed due to the sudden change.

You ran out of the control room and hacked into the P.A system, “Guys, I want you all to remain calm. The Flash is going to get you all off of here so could you all try and activate your emergency doors by pulling the cable just above the door.”

Barry came up beside you. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to stop this train but just in case, I need you to get everyone off of here.”

“Meson, it’s not safe.”

“I know and that’s why I need you to do this, Flash.”

Then you shouted to the rest of the people in your carriage, “Guys, can you all move onto the next carriage, please?”

They all obeyed and you told Barry to follow them.

“The moment I disconnect this carriage, the rest of the train will come to a stop, allowing everyone to get to safety.”

“Meson, what about you?”

“I’ll have 3 minutes to stop this carriage.”

“What happens if you don’t?” He asked.

“I will. I promise. Go do your job, Flash.”

You quickly disconnected the carriages and ran back to the control room and began typing.

“Y/n, you’re 7 miles from the curve and you’re approaching fast.” Cisco shouted over the comms.

“You gotta hurry, y/n. You only have a few minutes.” Caitlin said, worry clearly in her voice.

“A few minutes is all I need.”

You continued hacking into the system and was able to override all the systems, except the one that led to the train gaining even more speed and you knew there was only one more option.

“Y/n, you have 30 seconds!” Iris shouted over comms.

You shut your laptop and as you heard the screech of the train tracks, you ran to the centre of the carriage.

“15 seconds!” Cisco warned.

With all your energy, you used your powers to channel through the tracks so you could slow it down. The train came to a halt, just mere metres from the curve radius. You exhaled a deep breath in relief.

“Y/N!” Everyone shouted over comms.

“MESON, YOU GOOD?!” Barry yelled.

“I’m good, guys. The train’s stopped.” You heard everyone let out a relieved sigh.

After stopping the train and helping everyone off the other carriages, Barry ran you back to S.T.A.R Labs where you both got changed and then met Patty and Joe at Central City Airport, just in time to catch Cartwright red-handed. Now OverCharge was sitting in the meta-human wing in Iron Heights amongst the other meta-human criminals.

***

The following morning, before going to CCPD, you went to S.T.A.R Labs to meet Caitlin, Cisco and everyone else.

“You were amazing yesterday, y/n.” Caitlin said when you walked into the cortex.

“She’s right. You killed it.” Cisco stated.

“And it looks like the rest of Central City feels the same way.” Barry walked in with Joe and Iris and switched on the news.

“Ever since the heroic save by Meson yesterday, there has been an outcry of support for her.”

The news cut to a few interviews from people who were on the train.

“She was amazing. She was so calm and was willing to sacrifice herself for all of us.”

“I think Meson is inspiring. I’m so glad we finally have a female superhero.”

“I love her. She’s definitely my role model.”

The screen then cut back to the news reporter.

“There you have it. Move over, Flash, looks like Central City has a new superhero.”

<- Previous Part Next Part ->

[tanadrin]

Reordberend

(part 21 of ?; first; previous; next)

(BTW, as of this update, Reordberend is, by my count, a little over 45k words long, putting it in the territory of a shortish novel. That also makes it one of the longest SF stories I’ve ever written. It’s not the most popular thing I’ve ever posted on Tumblr, but it has gotten a steady trickle of notes. Knowing there are people out there who enjoy your work, even if it’s fairly niche, is the best motivation there is to keep writing. Thank you for reading!)

Katherine Alice Green The Guest Room in the Village Hall The High Settlement McMurdo Dry Valleys ANTARCTICA

to Dr. Eunice Valerie Gordon Trinity College Dublin Dublin 2 IRELAND

Dear Dr. Gordon,

I am writing yet another letter I won’t be able to send, which, I realize might make me seem like kind of a crazy person. The only defense I can plead, I guess, is that the perpetual darkness of the winters here does funny things to you if you’re not used to it, and I’ve had a lot of down time lately that I need to do something productive with. I have already written to my parents, to a couple of friends, and to my cat, which leaves only you. And these letters seem to have a way of focusing my thoughts, so maybe it’s not an entirely useless exercise.

Where to begin? Well, first of all, I’m alive. That may come as a surprise. It occured to me not long after I was marooned here that perhaps nobody knows that. No one has come looking for me, and why would they? If any rescue parties did go looking for the Albatross, I doubt they’d come this far south. Not in winter. But I did in fact survive the ship going down. I don’t think anybody else did. The Dry Valleys People didn’t find anyone else on the shore, alive or dead. I try not to think about that too much, but, to be honest, it still has me kind of fucked up.

Oh, that’s the other things. I’ve made contact with the Dry Valleys People. I am, as the return address indicates, currently living with them. They have welcomed me, rather reluctantly, and I’ll be able to remain at least until the first sunrise of spring. This was not necessarily a widely popular decision, and I’ve come to learn that the political situation among the DVP is rather complicated. They have always guarded their isolation and their independence, and they’re keen to keep guarding it in the future, but there are some among them who worry how long that will really be possible. I think this is something Dr. Wright foresaw, and tried to warn them about in the letter he sent with me. But as you might expect, this is something a large part of their community doesn’t want to hear or even think about, and my presence here is definitely fraught.

As for my original mission… well, it’s an unqualified success, despite the difficulties. I’ve learned a lot. The language, to start with. You won’t believe this, but they speak Old English here. No, not thee and thou and maketh yon Old English. Not Chaucer, even. Older. From their books and what they’ve told me, their ancestors used the West Saxon dialect of Old English, as spoken about the year 1000 AD, as the basis for the language they taught their children. Dr. Wright knew this, of course. That’s how he was able to communicate them and win their trust; he showed an affinity for the same history and the same long-term perspective they cared about. If it seems weird that a bunch of people would move to Antarctica, forsake almost every modern convenience, and deliberately teach their kids a dead language that would be useless in the wider world, well, all I can say I guess is that humans have done a lot of weird shit for a lot of weird reasons throughout history. I think I am beginning to understand why the ancestors of the DVP did what they did. Some of them have tried to explain it to me, but there is a gap in our worldviews here that is difficult to bridge.

One of the DVP that I have befriended is a poet named Leofric. His sister, Leofe, taught me the language, but I’ve learned a lot more about their literature from him. It’s primarily an oral literature, although they do write some of it down. They like long, semi-narrative poetry that draws heavily on the imagery of the natural world, and I would say that it owes something to the ancient Anglo-Saxon poetry they keep in their books, except that, of course, the environment here is nothing like the environment of England one thousand years ago. But there are still some poetic traditions they have inherited from those earlier examples. For instance, their world is harsh, and unforgiving, and from a certain angle looks like a world in decline. The ancient English (so I am told) were surrounded by great Roman ruins they spoke of as being the work of metaphorical giants; here, they have the ruins of two hundred years of scientific and industrial exploration of the Antarctic coast. And their world, too, is enclosed by a vast cold sea, although this one has penguins in it at least.

Aside from the language, the founders of the DVP don’t seem to have intended to recreate medieval English society. There are no kings. There is a semi-formal system of village headship by seniority, but the social hierarchy is very flat. Marriage, inheritance, and choice of occupation all take place on fairly egalitarian terms, and their strictest taboos surround the sharing of labor and resources, not sexuality or religion. I wonder how much of their customs are the result of gradual cultural evolution, or some deliberate effort at creating a planned community. There are lots of funny Utopian experimental communities out there, but most tend to fail after a generation. In a way, this one couldn’t fail, because they had no way to leave Antarctica. They had to make it work. Is this what a real utopian project looks like after six or seven generations?

But honestly, one of the most fascinating aspects of the DVP is their material culture. As you might expect, their day-to-day existence is profoundly shaped by the environment they live in. Their houses are all heavy stone, designed to trap scarce heat, and arranged around the village halls as a windbreak against the dry katabatic gales that sweep the McMurdo Valleys clear of ice. Despite this being one of the driest locations on Earth, it’s still a better habitat for them than the glaciers of the Antarctic lowlands, or the rough, icy terrain of the mountains--here, you can actually build, and you don’t need skis and snowshoes to get around. But, as a consequence, much of their most important infrastructure is underground.

I don’t know if the ancestral DVP brought the right tools with them or if they scavenged them once here, but they have accumulated a small stockpile of laser borers, ultrasonic chisels, and crystalsteel digging equipment that they use to carve out underground chambers in the hills as meeting places and ritual sites. But they don’t do their agriculture there; that happens in networks of buried trenches just below the villages, where they grow cold-resistant mosses and lichens to supplement a meat-based diet, and what seems to be a form of genegineered fibergrass they use to weave their clothing and tapestries, and to make books.

Their art is very beautiful. Their coats, books, and tapestries--even their stone carvings--all depict elaborate lineate forms of plants and animals, inherited I suppose from ancestral memory, since none of the organisms in question are found in Antarctica. They also make images depicting the mountains, of course, and the sea, and the animals that live on the coast; even some of the coastal settlements, as seen from far off. They’re often abstracted, but these images are geographically grounded: they’re not just “generic mountains” or “generic coastline,” they’re specific mountains, specific coastlines, and they add up--if you are exposed to them every day of your life growing up--to something like a conceptual map of all of Victoria Land. It seems that if you dropped an average adult DVP individual anywhere from Oates Land to the Queen Elizabeth Range, they could probably find their way home, even during the dark months of winter.

(Oh! And the dark months! You’d think they’d be depressing, but I never imagined in my life I would see such a sight as the aurora australis, or even the clear polar stars! I can’t describe it to you. Maybe Leofric could, if I could do justice to his verse.)

They’re very communitarian, and great emphasis is placed on making sure no one goes without, but the price of that is, apparently, extremely elaborate dispute-resolution mechanisms; for a culture without courts, government, or attorneys, they are remarkably bureaucratic. Each physical object seems to have its own laws attached to it. Some may be shared by all objects of that type--for instance, if you need an electric firestarter, you always go to the house windward of yours to ask if they have one. If they don’t, you go to the next, and so on; firestarters pass from house to house, as needed, but only in one direction. Other objects may have completely unique rules. There is a knife with an elaborately carved handle meant to be used only by left-handed people. I don’t know why; nobody I asked knew, either. But that was the custom, and it was scrupulously obeyed. As a rule, the more elaborately decorated an object, the more particular the rules associated with it, but the elaboration of the object doesn’t seem to connote anything about the rules. It only marks it out as somehow special. The rules themselves are transmitted orally. All of these rules at bottom are about making sure that resources are evenly distributed--making sure nobody has to walk too far in bitterly cold weather to find a firestarter, for instance--and even the ones that don’t make sense now probably were created for good reason. For instance, the southpaw knife. Their knives for carving meat all have handles that curve in one way, to help separate flesh from bone, and I suspect that one is the result of a left-handed steelsmith getting fed up with with tools he couldn’t use very well. The blade is that of a carving-knife, though the handle attached to it is straight. The handle was probably later replaced when it broke, and somebody needed the knife for a different purpose--but the custom attached to it remained the same.

This system of sharing is, if anything, even more scrupulously observed when there’s a windfall. We went on a salvage expedition a month ago and brought back some much-needed supplies, and they spent days working out what would go where, first to each village and then, once we got back to the High Settlement, each house in each village--and even then, this was just what went to who first. Anything that’s not a finite supply, like food, will get passed from house to house. Leofric tells me that a few years ago, a whale--an entire blue whale, actually--beached itself to the north, and they had to have a weeklong assembly (on the beach, next to the whale, natch) to decide what do with every scrap of meat and bone. They still talk about the arguments that went down at the Whale Parliament sometimes (for which their word is hwaelthing, by the way. Literally it means exactly what it looks like: “whale-thing.”). Funny thing is, they also very carefully manage arguments in these discussions. That’s not normally the case--if two people have an argument and what to physically fight each other about it, that’s considered their business. But when it comes to disputes about food or metal or tools, everybody is very keen to show how Not Mad they are, even if they’re actually seething about it on the inside. And if voices get raised, people get hustled aside, and the whole matter is dropped completely until everybody has a chance to calm down. This looks like a system that was either deliberately designed to keep fights from breaking out and feelings getting permanently hurt, or one that sprung up after some nasty experiences of actual fights. I suspect the latter. It’s all very informal, but there’s a lot of social pressure that enforces it. The price for division and discord in an environment this hard to live in would be death, and I think all their social institutions are built around that reality.

I will admit, this has not been the easiest experience. I mean, there’s the almost dying part, and the part where all my cybernetics are broken, and I had a bad bout of something flulike a few weeks ago and almost died again, but I don’t actually mean the physical hardship. It is a more isolating experience than I thought it would be, being the lone outsider in such a close-knit community. Everyone knows everybody and everything, except me. They all have their own jokes and stories and long-running feuds, and they can communicate a great deal to one another with just a glance, and I’m left wondering what just happened when everybody laughs at something, or a fight breaks out. I have struggled sometimes to learn the language. I mean, I’ve had no other choice, and it’s amazing what you can learn when your survival depends on it, but even now I still sometimes find myself struggling to communicate ideas, or staying silent even when there is something I might want to say, just because I can’t find the words. It’s infuriating not being able to express yourself well, and maybe for good reason I sometimes think they all see me as this hapless idiot who almost got herself killed, who they have to put up with until the spring as a result.

Okay, I mean, I kind of am that. But I am also genuinely interested in their society, in the DVP as individuals, in their stories and their history. But I feel like the best I can hope for is being kind of a mascot. Or a well-meaning but dim-witted pet. A Labrador or something.

Not that I haven’t made friends. I would say Leofric is a friend. The salvagers--Eadwig and Andrac--they’re friends. And I seem to have won at least the grudging toleration of the ones like Aelfric who initially wanted to leave me to die. But sometimes I think I’ve made a connection, somehow bridged the unbridgeable gulf between my life experience and the world of the DVP, only to find out I’ve done no such thing. I thought Leofe was a friend; but now she’s not speaking to me, and she’s left the High Settlement for one of the other valleys. I don’t know why, and the others just shrug when I ask them.

Ugh. This is turning into whining. Now I know I’ll never send it. Sorry. It’s been a long day. It’s amazing how tired you can get when your muscles can’t rely on your augs to help them do shit.

But I need to find a way to bridge that gap. I mean really bridge it. Because I feel like I’m starting to understand something the DVP aren’t ready to hear. Their ancestors came to Antarctica at a time when the rest of the world wasn’t much interested in it. It was a wasteland, so sure, let’s treat it as an international, shared territory. Nobody goes there but scientists and the occasional tourist. And during the Collapse, not even that--Antarctica was truly empty for the first time in a hundred and fifty years when the ancestors of the DVP came to its shores. But it isn’t anymore. And it won’t ever be a real wasteland again. Every year the mining consortia move a little further down the Transantarctic Mountains. Every year a new outpost pops up on the coast, more ships come to Port Alexander, more icebreakers cut through the polar sea. Antarctica is warmer now that it’s been at any time in the past. Heck, without some global warming, I don’t think the Dry Valleys would be habitable. But that means more exposed rock, more open ground to build on, more people coming to the continent to work on the mining platforms or the offshore factories, and one day, I think, they’re going to come here.

What will the DVP do when that happens? This isn’t North Sentinel Island, which nobody ever goes to because there’s no reason. There’s gold in the hills here--the DVP make jewelry out of it--and maybe other precious metals, and you could build a geothermal station on Mount Erebus and power a small town, if you wanted to build some autofactories. The Antarctic Authority exists to promote “science and industry,” but with a big emphasis on industry. And by science they mostly mean, like, watching penguins bone and building telescopes at the South Pole. Not soft stuff like anthropology. And certainly not protecting three valleys full of cessionist oddballs whose parents had an unreasonable fondness for dead languages.

I think Dr. Wright knew this. I think maybe he tried to warn the DVP when he was here, but back then the danger was even further away. And it’s hard to get people to pay attention to danger that seems far away, even if it might be an existential threat. And when dealing with that danger would require you to completely change the only life you’d ever known… well, that’s a hard sell. The DVP don’t really like change. I can’t blame them. But one day things are going to change here, and if they’re not prepared for it, it could get really ugly, really fast. It’s one thing to shut yourself away when the world is ignoring you. It’s another when the world comes knocking.

If I think I can persuade them, I’m going to talk to the elders here, Aelfric and Wulf. Some of the DVP have had very fleeting contact with outsiders before me. I think one of them should come with me in the spring, as a sort of emissary. I’m not sure who they should talk to, yet. Maybe the Authority. Maybe somebody in Port Alexander’s local government? Or maybe we should just try to tell their story directly to the world. That might bring the DVP more attention than they’d like, but better a little good attention now than a lot of bad attention later. I would have asked Leofe--she’s smart, she’s tough, she could handle the culture shock--but that’s not an option now. Something to think about, anyway.

Well. I hope this letter finds the imaginary version of you well, my love to the imaginary family &c, hope the undergrads aren’t giving you too much trouble this year. If for some reason you do find this letter--like I freeze to death on my way to the weather station in September and they find this document on my corpse--please forgive my stubbornness, my insistence on going on this stupid trip, and any worry I’ve caused you as a result. And if I really am dead, please tell everybody I died doing something badass, like, I dunno, fighting a polar bear. I guess those are extinct and they never lived in Antarctica anyway, but something along those lines. Make it good.

All the best,

Kate

[qqueenofhades]

Do you think society as a whole understands and values history? I don’t think they do. And I don’t understand why.

HoooooWEEEEEE, anon. What follows is a good old Hilary History Rant ™, but let me hasten to assure you that none of it is directed at you. It just means that this is a topic on which I have many feelings, and a lot of frustration, and it gets at the heart of many things which are wrong with our society, and the way in which I try to deal with this as an academic and a teacher. So…. yeah.

In short: you’re absolutely right. Society as a whole could give exactly dick about understanding and valuing history, especially right now. Though let me rephrase that: they could give exactly dick about understanding and valuing any history that does not reinforce and pander to their preferred worldview, belief system, or conception of reality. The human race has always had an amazing ability to not give a shit about huge problems as long as they won’t kill us right now (see: climate change) and in one sense, that has allowed us to survive and evolve and become an advanced species. You have to compartmentalize and solve one problem at a time rather than get stuck in abstracts, so in that way, it is a positive trait. However, we are faced with a 21st century where the planet is actively burning alive, late-stage capitalism has become so functionally embedded in every facet of our society that our public values, civic religion, and moral compass (or lack thereof) is structured around consumerism and who it benefits (the 1% of billionaire CEOs), and any comfortable myths of historical progress have been blown apart by the worldwide backslide into right-wing authoritarianism, xenophobia, nationalism, racism, and other such things. In a way, this was a reaction to 9/11, which changed the complacent late-20th century mindset of the West in ways that we really cannot fathom or overstate. But it’s also a clarion call that something is very, very wrong here, and the structural and systemic explanations that historians provide for these kinds of events are never what anyone wants to hear.

Think about it this way. The world is currently, objectively speaking, producing more material resources, wealth, food, etc than at any point before, thanks to the effects of globalism, the industrial and information revolutions, mass mechanizing, and so on. There really isn’t a “shortage” of things. Except for the fact that the distribution of these resources is so insanely unequal, and wildly disproportionate amounts of wealth have been concentrated in a few private hands, which then use the law (and the law is a tool of the powerful to protect power) to make sure that it’s never redistributed. This is why Reaganism and “supply-side”, aka “trickle-down” economics, is such bullshit: it presupposes that billionaires will, if you enable them to make as many billions as possible without regulation, altruistically sow that largess among the working class. This never happens, because obviously. (Sidenote: remember those extravagant pledges of billions of euros to repair Notre Dame from like 3 or 4 French billionaires? Apparently they have paid… exactly not one cent toward renovations, and the money has come instead from the Friends of Notre Dame funded by private individuals. Yep, not even for the goddamn cause célèbre of the “we don’t give a shit about history” architectural casualties could they actually pay up. Eat! The! Rich!…. anyway.)

However, the fact is that you need to produce narratives to justify this kind of exploitation and inequality, and make them convincing enough that the people who are being fucked over will actively repeat and promote these narratives and be fiercely vested in their protection. Think of the way white American working-class voters will happily blame minorities, immigrants, Non-Murkan People, etc for their struggles, rather than the fact of said rampant economic cronyism and oligarchy. These working-class voters will love the politicians who give them someone to blame (see: Trump), especially when that someone is an Other around whom collective systems of discrimination and oppression have historically operated. Women, people of color, religious minorities/non-Western religions, LGBT people, immigrants, etc, etc…. all these have historically not had such a great time in the capitalist Christian West, which is the predominant paradigm organizing society today. You can’t understand why society doesn’t value history until you realize that the people who benefit from this system aren’t keen on having its flaws pointed out. They don’t want the masses to have a historical education if that historical education is going to actually be used. They would rather teach them the simplistic rah-rah quasi-fictional narrative of the past that makes everyone feel good, and call it a day. 

The classic liberal belief has always been that if you can just teach someone that their facts are wrong, or supply them with better facts, they’ll change their mind. This is not how it works and never has, and that is why in an age with, again, more knowledge of science than ever before and the collected wisdom of humanity available via your smartphone, we have substantial portions of people who believe that vaccines are evil, the Earth is flat, and climate change (and 87 million other things) are fake and/or government conspiracies. As a medievalist, I get really tetchy when the idiocy of modern people is blamed on the stereotypical “Dark Ages!” medieval era (I have written many posts ranting about that, so we’ll keep it to a minimum here), or when everything bad, backward, or wrong is considered to be “medieval” in nature. Trust me, on several things, they were doing a lot better than we are. Other things are not nearly as wildly caricatured as they have been made out to be. Because once again, history is complicated and people are flawed in any era, do good and bad things, but that isn’t as useful as a narrative that flattens out into simplistic black and white.

Basically, people don’t want their identities, comfortable notions, and other ideas about the past challenged, especially since that is directly relevant to how they perceive themselves (and everyone else) in the present. The thing about history, obviously, is that it’s past, it’s done, and until we invent a time machine, which pray God we never fucking do, within a few generations, the entire population of the earth has been replaced. That means it’s awfully fragile as a concept. Before the modern era and the invention of technology and the countless mediums (book, TV, radio, newspaper, internet, etc etc) that serve as sources, it’s only available in a relatively limited corpus of documents. History does not speak for itself. That’s where you get into historiography, or writing history. Even if you have a book or document that serves as a primary source material, you have to do a shit-ton of things with it to turn it into recognizable scholarship. You have to learn the language it’s in. You have to understand the context in which it was produced. You have to figure out what it ignores, forgets, omits, or simply does not know as well as what it does, and recognize it as a limited text produced from a certain perspective or for a social reason that may or may not be explicitly articulated. The training of a historian is to teach you how to do this accurately and more or less fairly, but that is up to the personal ethic of the historian to ensure. When you’re reading a history book, you’re not reading an unmediated, Pure, This Was Definitely How Things Happened The End information download. You are reading something by someone who has made their best guess and has been equipped with the interpretive tools to be reasonably confident in their analysis, but sometimes just doesn’t know, sometimes has an agenda in pushing one opinion over another, or anything else.

History, in other words, is a system of flawed and self-serving collective memory, and power wants only the memory that ensures its survival and replication. You’ve heard of the “history is written by the winners” quote, which basically encapsulates the fact that what we learn and what we take as fact is largely or entirely structured by the narrative of those who can control it. If you’ve heard of the 1970s French philosopher Michel Foucault, his work is basically foundational in understanding how power produces knowledge in each era (what he calls epistemes) and the way in which historical “fact” is subject to the needs of these eras. Foucault has a lot of critics and his work particularly in the history of sexuality has now become dated (plus he can be a slog to read), but I do suggest familiarizing yourself with some of his ideas. 

This is also present in the constant refrain heard by anybody who has ever studied the arts and humanities: “oh, don’t do liberal arts, you’ll never get a job, study something worthwhile,” etc. It’s funny how the “worthwhile” subjects always seem to be science and engineering/software/anything that can support the capitalist military industrial complex, while science is otherwise completely useless to them. It’s also always funny how the humanities are relentlessly de- or under- funded. By labeling these subjects as “worthless,” when they often focus on deep investigation of varied topics, independent critical thought, complex analysis, and otherwise teaching you to think for yourself, we therefore decrease the amount of people who feel compelled to go into them. Since (see again, late-stage capitalism is a nightmare) most people are going to prefer some kind of paycheck to stringing it along on a miniscule arts budget, they will leave those fields and their inherent social criticism behind. Of course, we do have some people – academics, social scientists, artists, creatives, activists, etc – who do this kind of work and dedicate themselves to it, but we (and I include myself in this group) have not reached critical mass and do not have the power to effect actual drastic change on this unfair system. I can guarantee that they will ensure we never will, and the deliberate and chronic underfunding of the humanities is just one of the mechanisms by which late-stage capitalism replicates and protects itself.

I realize that I sound like an old man yelling at a cloud/going off on my paranoid rant, but…. this is just the way we’ve all gotten used to living, and it’s both amazing and horrifying. As long as the underclasses are all beholden to their own Ideas of History, and as long as most people are content to exist within the current ludicrous ideas that we have received down the ages as inherited wisdom and enforced on ourselves and others, there’s not much we can do about it. You are never going to reach agreement on some sweeping Platonic ideal of universal history, since my point throughout this whole screed has always been that history is particular, localized, conditioned by specific factors, and produced to suit the purposes of a very particular set of goals. History doesn’t repeat itself, per se (though it can be Very Fucking Close), but as long as access to a specific set of resources, i.e. power, money, sex, food, land, technology, jobs, etc are at stake, the inherent nature of human beings means that they will always be choosing from within a similar matrix of actions, producing the same kind of justifications for those actions, and transmitting it to the next generation in a way that relatively few people learn how to challenge. We have not figured out how to break that cycle yet. We are an advanced species beyond any doubt, but we’re also still hairless apes on a spinning blue ball on the outer arm of a rural galaxy, and oftentimes we act like it.

I don’t know. I think it’s obvious why society doesn’t understand and value history, because historians are so often the ones pointing out the previous pattern of mistakes and how well that went last time. Power does not want to be dismantled or criticized, and has no interest in empowering the citizens to consider the mechanisms by which they collaborate in its perpetuation. White supremacists don’t want to be educated into an “actual” version of history, even if their view of things is, objectively speaking, wildly inaccurate. They want the version of history which upholds their beliefs and their way of life. Even non-insane people tend to prefer history that validates what they think they already know, and especially in the West, a certain mindset and system of belief is already so well ingrained that it has become almost omniscient. Acquiring the tools to work with this is, as noted, blocked by social disapproval and financial shortfall. Plus it’s a lot of goddamn work. I’m 30 years old and just finished my PhD, representing 12 years of higher education, thousands of dollars, countless hours of work, and so on. This is also why they’ve jacked the price of college through the roof and made it so inaccessible for people who just cannot make that kind of commitment. I’ve worked my ass off, for sure, but I also had support systems that not everyone does. I can’t say I got here All On My Own ™, that enduring myth of pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps. I know I didn’t. I had a lot of help, and again, a lot of people don’t. The academy is weird and cliquish and underpaid as a career. Why would you do that?

I wish I had more overall answers for you about how to fix this. I think about this a lot. I’ll just have to go back to doing what I can, as should we all, since that is really all that is ultimately in our control.

[star-anise]

As a former farm child I laughingly flip the bird at the idea that running a small communal farm with all my friends is only the realm of the ignorant and naive, BUT, I think my daydreams for the small-communal-farm idea are a bit standard from the usual run.

So on MY small communal farm with all of my friends. Or, okay, this is not the “half a dozen people” version. This is the “I want to accommodate DOZENS of people, like, all my friends and all their families” version.

The word you actually want is “village”. Multiple houses, community infrastructure, everyone gets independence? It’s a village. Know what’s even easier than building a bunch of tiny houses on a plot of land with no electrical or sanitation grid?

Go find a dying hamlet in the middle of nowhere. The kind of place that used to be a farm town, but since the ag economy changed ~30 years ago, it’s had a steady population decline. The kind of place where the houses are cheap because nobody’s buying them when their old owners die off. Buy houses and live in them.

Bring a business to it. Farming is a wonderful way of life, but a shitty way to earn a living. You’re not going to be able to compete with Big Agribusiness for any of the easy-to-grow crops, and it’ll take a few years for you to get anything more profitable in place. You need a strong economic backbone other than farming.

More than that, you need a strong economic backbone over and above the individual wages earned by the adult members of your group. You don’t just need enough money for your wage-earners; you need enough money for children, disabled people, and elderly people. This means owning a business, soup to nuts; being the shareholders who receive the profits of it.

Owning a business means you also get to come up with your own employee benefits, which is basically a way to get all your friends decent health insurance.

So you need a profitable business, one that’s not intensely dependent on location. Usually this means having specialized skills and providing it to high-volume buyers--a software company that provides tech support remotely; a manufacturing company that sells goods to dealers; a business of tradespeople providing a useful service. Left to decide for myself, I’d focus on small motor repairs--sewing machines, chainsaws, lawnmowers, industrial equipment. Things that are just a bit too bulky to want to ship overseas for outsourced repair. Ideally, things that are found not infrequently within a day’s drive of my town, that have to be repaired on-site, but not so often that most places keep in-house professionals in it on staff.

The benefit to having that business? You also have people with USEFUL SKILLS

Seriously, the biggest hurdle for most communes is basic infrastructure and adhering to the fire code. There’s a REASON that building your own house has gone out of fashion. Your community benefits enormously from skilled tradespeople who know how to build and maintain shit. 

Speaking of public infrastructure, you want a say in municipal and county government, so show up to those meetings. Care about things like taxes and visioning plans and the sewer grid. Join the Rotary Club. Send someone to Chamber of Commerce events. Integrate into the community!

YES, join the local arts scene! Go to things! Be good neighbours! Give the very isolated local kids a good look at people who went “We don’t like ordinary life, we’re doing something better”

This means the local people will already know and like you when you file a deeply unusual development permit for your little village on the farm (since you will need local government approval for a lot of it)

SO WHAT ABOUT THE FARM, you ask me?

Farms take time! Farms take work! Farms also require economies of scale--like, it is more efficient for one farm to make 200 bushels of something, than for two farms to each make 100 bushels each. Sure everyone can get their own garden plot, but not everybody needs their own complete set of tools and equipment. So you want as much as possible to be communal--to share tractors and shovels and pasturage and storage facilities etc etc etc.

It also helps to have lots of skilled tradespeople around so you can do things like construct geothermal greenhouses and solar arrays and all that good stuff.

I advise buying homes in town and building on the farm, eventually perhaps moving out to it, because trying to live in a tent while building something as fast as possible is a MISERABLE experience, y’all

And hey WHY NOT get the municipality to allow you to put a corral on some empty land on town so you can just ride your horse out to the farm on nice days if you want, look it’s my pastoral fantasy and it’ll have ponies if I want to

If local farms have lots of temporary seasonal labour, you could also look into charming the municipality into adding a rural bus route to its public transit, to get all your communal farm people into/out of town at the beginning/end of the day, and also give people who feel stuck at the farm they work at greater mobility and freedom

Another benefit to lots of people around your farm? Dairy animals cannot go unmilked. If you have any animal that produces milk, you HAVE to milk them on a strict regular schedule, or else they’re full of milk they can’t get out and it’s very painful and leads to medical problems. This makes it VERY hard for dairy farmers to take vacations, because they have to trade off doing double shifts with other dairy farmers--for one week, Farm A milks their animals and then goes over to Farm B and does all THEIR milking, twice a day, because later on, Farm B will do the same for them so they can go on their own vacation. UNLESS! You have a surplus of people capable of doing your milking, so you can be away from those goats you make cheese from for more than six hours. (Seriously, this is why, unless I know I won’t have to be nice to those assholes down the road, I refuse to contemplate dairy animals)

Also, over and above all of this--observe legal niceties. Ideals are great, but when your core couples have an acrimonious divorce, you want to make sure they can’t pull the rug out from under you. Incorporate as a legal entity. Use lawyers to make sure your concepts of who owns what, and who gets what money, and how people buy out if they want to leave, are very very certain. You will have some people who are all in on everything, some people who are only hanging around because their friend/family member/spouse is into it, and some who just stop by your parties and thinks you’re all cool. Prepare for these different levels of engagement.

AND THEN IT WILL BE BEAUTIFUL