#I have many screenshots of gray btw

[smooshi-graysimp]

I love Grays new animation

Some silly gray moments

SHOW ME YOUR WAR FACE

YESSSSSSSSSSSS

[cj-ghostemoji-destielpie]

⚠️⚠️⚠️PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS IN THE ABOVE SCREENSHOT BEFORE CONTINUING!!! ⚠️⚠️⚠️

This is my fic btw 💖 it'll only get worse. Chapter two will be posted soon and it's... F-d up.

Royal Tastes, by Dragonborn_Eldenlord on AO3.

Chapter 1: The Young King, The Cannibal Knight, The Dead Knight:

Sir Hannibal Lecter. A knight, ruthless and merciless in his quests. Or hunts, as he calls them.

Hannibal was infamous among many kingdoms as the Cannibal Knight, or Hannibal the Cannibal, that ate his enemies as a show of strength; not a popular habit. Most Knights hated or reluctantly accepted their jobs, but he reveled in the bloodshed. The scars, the agony, the screams, the light fading in his victims eyes, blood gurgling from their mouths or dripping from shallow wounds til they slowly bleed out… He saw beauty in it all.

Hannibal was visiting a kingdom he hadn't visited in a good twenty years or more; the Ophiuchus Kingdom, named after the serpent constellation due to the multiple snakes that infest the forests. Ophiuchus was infamous. The past rulers were known for their vicious and violent tactics, for their greed and gluttony. The only reason Hannibal was coming here in the first place was to and get in the good graces of the new ruler, as they had recently had their coronation if rumors were to be believed.

Walking into the throne room, Hannibal noticed the grandiosity of the palace. The new King is obviously doing some remodeling since there's multiple portraits stacked in a corner, many of which are torn. Hanging on the walls in their place are tapestries, animal hides, and furs, making the throne room have more of an animalistic, wild, and feral vibe.

Hannibal noticed the lack of the King as the throne was momentarily empty but he knelt anyway, the dark gray metal of his armor scraping against the expensive tiled floor; dark inky black tile with gold outlines and occasional intricate designs. He kept his head hung low, and soon he heard the footsteps of who he presumed to be the new King.

“Sir Hannibal Lecter, at your service, my Lord,” He greeted, head still positioned towards the dark ground.

"My apologies, Sir Lecter, but I'm not exactly... Educated on the proper etiquette of societal expectations for how I'm supposed to act and talk so I hope you'll be patient with me. Stand. I'm Lokka La’Rose, new King, blah blah blah. Killed the last King because he was a dick, so on and so forth," Lokka says casually as he perches on the arm of the fancy throne, not even looking at Hannibal as the Knight stands, instead he's briefly frowning in distaste at the gawdy throne before finally looking back at Hannibal with curiosity, golden eyes slowly taking in Hannibal's armor clad body and handsome face.

Hannibal stood, looking at the new King now fully. He seemed young. At least, younger than most rulers. If he's an adult it's just barely. His outfit—well, it lacked any form of royalty. Wearing something like that in court would make him the laughing stock of all the nobles. He's dressed in simple hunter-like garbs; a simple dagger on his hip, faded animal hide trousers and shirt. His curly hair is messy but pulled back in a low ponytail to keep it out of his face.

There's an old ugly scar running across his face that somehow danced between both eyes without harming them. And his eyes are peculiar as well; unnatural gold, reflecting all light, and feline-like with slit pupils.

"No worries, there's nothing wrong with not knowing etiquette. You’ll learn, it’ll feel like second nature in no time at all, Your Highness,” Hannibal studies the scars on the young King's face, "May I ask how you got those?”

"The scar? I was eight years old, a starving orphan, tried stealing from some noble man and he actually noticed and decided to teach me a lesson. Left me with a scar so I'd be reminded of the consequences of theft. Instead it just reminded me of the power imbalance in the Kingdom and the greed of the rich.”

Hannibal stayed silent for a moment, his eyes locked onto the other man. He studied the scar again, as it ran across his face in a jagged line. It had clearly scarred over years ago, but it still looked quite prominent. He knew the old King, and he was a greedy man, for sure. He thought the entire Kingdom was a piece of him to flaunt around. And many of his nobles had the same mentality.

"I see. You didn’t deserve that, child," He said the word in a somewhat condescending tone, though his facial expressions didn’t change from their almost emotionless state.

A small quiet huff of amusement escapes the King, “So, what are you here for? You requested an audience with the King. I know I'm not probably who you expected but I suppose I can still hear your piece and possibly assist.”

Hannibal smirked at his slight amusement, finding the King somewhat amusing. He began to circle around the throne, eyeing the golden details. He then came back to the front of the throne, locking eyes with the young King who'd allowed the Knight to pace and circle around him, looking entirely unthreatened.

"I didn't expect y ou , no," He paused for a moment, "Though I heard that you killed the last King. Tell me, was it worth it?”

Lokka tilts his head in thought, ".... worth it for the people....perhaps not for me though. I didn't want to be King. I just wanted there to be change. But no one else had the power to do it.”

Hannibal nodded slightly, silently admiring his slight vulnerability. He seemed to have thought about it a lot. He crossed his arms behind his back, shifting his weight to one foot. He seemed to look him up and down again before speaking again.

"You did this for the people, not yourself. That’s very admirable, Lord La’Rose.”

"Thank you, but please, just call me Lokka. I'm still not used to that title… and you're interesting enough to keep around and befriend.”

"Very well, Lokka ."

The way Hannibal says the King’s name makes the young King shiver and his cat-like pupils dilate.

Hannibal tilted his head downwards slightly, his arms behind his back casually and nonthreatening but somehow still imposing. The boy seemed somewhat shy, but somewhat confident, at least for speaking to a Knight that was feared by many for his bloodthirsty killing. He took a few steps closer to the throne.

"How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?”

“17,” The young King states simply.

Hannibal nodded as an indication of acknowledgement, slightly impressed that he had managed to kill a man—let alone a King—at that age. There was clearly a lot of determination and courage, perhaps some foolish bravery as well. He took another few steps, now being a few feet away from the throne.

"Ah. Young and full of life," He teases.

Lokka gives a small playful smirk, "I've heard of you, Sir Lecter. Hannibal the Cannibal . The Cannibal Knight . Are you here to add another man to your diet or are you after something else? I'm not easy to kill so I'd think twice if I were you,” His tone isn't threatening, just playful but with a hint of promise.

Hannibal chuckled dryly at Lokka’s comment, his hands still behind his back. Hannibal seemed amused by Lokka, intrigued even. Lokka was a curious thing.

" You're smarter than you look, kid ," He paused for a moment, looking into his odd eyes, before continuing, "And you seem a tad bit cocky for a young Lord.”

“Fake it til you make it," He says with a simple shrug, a hint of insecurity in his strange eyes.

Hannibal chuckled, noting a hint of vulnerability in his eyes. He tilted his head to the side, studying him a little closer.

"You're not confident, are you?" He teased him, finding a way to get under the new king’s skin.

Lokka shrugs, unperturbed, “No, I'm not. But I'm stubborn and spiteful so I'm planning on sticking around as King for a long time. At least until I find a suitable heir."

Hannibal hummed in acknowledgement, somewhat impressed by Lokka's determination and stubbornness. He seemed like a boy filled with ambition and power…and yet so vulnerable. So…breakable.

He'll be fun to break . Hannibal thinks to himself with a secret smile.

" And when you find that suitable heir, will you simply pass the throne over to them without a fight?" Hannibal asked, taking a small jab at him.

"I'll train them, have them educated on the life of the nobles and the poor, make sure they have decent morals and a support system, and then I'll peacefully step down, give them the throne when they're ready, and perhaps stick around as an advisor or something if needed.”

Hannibal’s eyebrows raised slightly, impressed by his thought-out plan. He had clearly thought it through for a while, which he respected.

"So you already have a plan in mind, that's quite…ingenious." He paused for a moment, "And you're sure they’ll be fit enough to rule your kingdom?”

"I've no idea. Haven't met a suitable heir yet. Enough about that though. What is it you wished to accomplish with your audience with the King, Sir Lecter?”

Hannibal chuckled at him, slightly amused. Lokka was clearly done talking about the subject for now, which Hannibal was willing to respect. Sometimes you have to play the long game when playing with a new toy you wish to enjoy breaking.

"Ah. Straight to the point. I like you, Lokka." He commented, now towering over the shorter man, "I simply came to offer my services to you—to the kingdom, I mean.”

Lokka gives Hannibal a small playful smile, not bothered at all with Hannibal towering over him- most Kings would've had Hannibal thrown out for the attempt at appearing imposing or threatening, instead Lokka just peers up at Hannibal in amused interest, "You wish to be my knight?" He basically purrs sweetly.

Hannibal found Lokka's lack of fear for him amusing, almost down right hilarious. Most rulers would be intimidated by a man like him, but the boy didn’t even seem slightly bothered by it. Hannibal found it quite interesting.

"Yes, of course," He said, somewhat amused. "I am the best in my field. You’d be unwise to decline my services, kid.”

Lokka chuckles, "Most would be practically begging or at least respectful when offering their services to a King, even a young and naive King enjoys respect instead of being called a kid," Lokka says with a playful smile, casually crossing his legs as he remains perched on the arm of the throne.

Lokka studies Hannibal for a long few moments, golden cat-eyes piercing and intelligent as he takes Hannibal in, like a wild cat studying its prey. Slowly he returns his gaze to Hannibal’s.

"Ask again." He says, a small smirk tugging his lip, “maybe with a pretty please ?" He asks, basically taunting Hannibal.

Hannibal was taken somewhat aback by his request, his eyes widening a slight bit. He had expected him to be polite and shy in his response, not demanding and confident. Hannibal’s smug expression soon faded away, the slight teasing look still in his eyes.

"My apologies," He began, his expression almost blank by now, "I'll be respectful , like you'd like."

He took a deep breath, knowing he was going to hate it.

"May I please be your Knight, Your Majesty, Lokka ?”

Lokka giggles in honest amusement, golden eyes lighting up with joy before he schools his expression.

"hm...no," He says before smiling again. "I'm not going to waste your services as a common Knight. If you'd like to work for me, I'd rather you be my main security. Top knight, Housecarl, or whatever the fancy noble terminology is. I've heard of your skills and I'd love to see them in person. I've had multiple attempts on my life within just a week so I imagine you'll get a chance to prove yourself interesting . If you grow bored of being a bodyguard, then I suppose I can send you out to play with the other Knights. Does that sound appealing enough to you, Sir Hannibal Lecter ?”

Hannibal’s eyebrows shot up at Lokka's words, surprised. He was expecting to be a regular Knight of the castle, which was just fine. But security for the King? That was unexpected, but he was very much intrigued by the offer. And it would make it easier to toy with the King and slowly break him.

"That sounds very appealing," He commented, his smirk returning once again, "I agree to those terms.”

"Good. Splendid. Hope you don't mind explaining the seemingly stupid noble jargon the people here keep expecting me to understand. Do you understand the purpose of so many forks for one meal?" He asks, tone switching from the teasing playful to genuinely open and curious

He chuckled at his question, amused by the King’s clear lack of knowledge of the social rules.

"Of course. And I know the noble jargon.” He explained. "And it’s stupid, honestly. There’s so many rules for a simple meal. A commoner would eat an entire turkey with their hands, while Kings and Queens have to use specific forks and spoons for specific items of a meal. And don’t even dare to use your hands; you’ll be chastised by the etiquette police.”

The King sighs dramatically as he lays across the throne, "Everything has so many ridiculous rules and yet the commoners are more concerned with surviving, which is more understandable. Why so many forks when hands work just fine? It's stupid…”

"I think I'm going to like you, Sir Lecter." The young King says, rolling his head where he lays across the throne to look up at Hannibal.

"Perhaps I may say the same," Hannibal replied, an amused smile tugging at his lips. He studied him for a moment, admiring his confidence, especially for a young king like him.

“ Goddesses ! I need to get rid of this throne !" He jumps off of it dramatically, a good three feet in the air before landing on his feet in a squat like a feral cat before slowly standing like a normal human, "that thing is so ridiculously uncomfortable. And such an eyesore . Like, we get it! This is a throne! But if you're going to show off wealth you may as well use it for something comfortable . Especially if you're expected to sit in the evil thing for days on end and play nice with other nobility.”

Hannibal was surprised by Lokka's sudden outburst and unexpected agility as he jumped from his throne, not expecting him to be nearly as physically adept as he was for a King or a human. He let out a dry chuckle as he stood next to him.

"Most nobles and royalty don’t care about what’s comfortable. They just care about what looks good and makes them look better than everyone else," Hannibal replied dryly.

Lokka huffs and crosses his arms, glaring at the throne like a petulant child who was just told that he has to eat his veggies before dessert, “Well I'm not most kings. If I could have that replaced with a recliner I would... I suppose I'll just settle for having this fancy throne melted down to coins and donated to the commoners, maybe the orphanage. Then I'll just feckin' carve a nice throne from some cherry wood perhaps and get some nice comfy- but I suppose fancy fabric- cushions to line it with."

Hannibal chuckled at Lokka's…rant, finding his determination for a more comfortable throne quite amusing. He tilted his head to the side, studying the younger man.

"A cherry wood chair," He repeated, a single brow quirked, "With plush velvet cushions," He added dryly with a slight tone of mockery. He was clearly holding back his laughter.

The King huffs and throws his hands in the air with dramatic exasperation "Ye have better design ideas, Sir Lecter?”

Hannibal let out a few dry chuckles at his dramatic actions before replying with a smirk.

"Maybe. I was thinking something a little more… aesthetic ," He said, thinking over the design in his mind, "Dark oak. Gold or a dark material for the trimmings. Soft light fur as a cushioning.”

"....I might actually be able to work with that...I'll sketch something up and have you look it over,” the King says after actually seeming to seriously be pondering over Hannibal's words.

Hannibal hummed, finding him quite amusing. Who would’ve thought a newly crowned King would ask for his input on a throne design of all things? Hannibal had to hold back his smirk at Lokka's eagerness.

“Of course. I’ll look it over once you have it sketched up, Lokka.”

"....so," Lokka clasps his hands and rocks slightly in place, "I'm supposed to play nice and be all Kingly for a few more hours today. One of the servants told me that there were a couple different knights and messengers from different kingdoms coming today- aside from you. I was even warned that at least one messenger is going to try and get me to marry some King's daughter from a neighboring kingdom," he says, looking disgusted but hides it mostly, "Are you ready to play advisor/bodyguard today or do you wish to have a servant show you to your new quarters and start tomorrow?”

Hannibal could sense Lokka's disgust in his voice and almost chuckled but contained himself. It seemed he disliked the prospect of having to listen to someone ask him to marry someone’s daughter for political purposes. He smirked, crossing his arms over his chest once again.

"I’m quite ready. And if any messenger does decide to try to convince you to marry an ugly daughter, I’ll be your bodyguard and advisor.”

"I'm not concerned with their looks , I'm just opposed to marrying some girl I don't know nor wish to know ," He says simply, reluctantly sitting back on the throne, though properly this time. He glances at the grand fancy clock across the throne room, "The next person should be here soon. Don't remember if it's a knight or some noble, or a messenger though.”

Hannibal watched as Lokka sat back down on the throne, this time properly. He still found the throne to be a little gaudy looking, no amount of proper sitting would change that. He took a few steps closer to the throne, positioning himself on the right side of him.

"Well, whoever this next person may be, I’ll be right here," He replied, referring to his position beside Lokka.

Lokka gives Hannibal a small smile, "Good boy," He says playfully, but praising, and before Hannibal can snark or react, a servant enters and announces the arrival of another visitor; another Knight.

Hannibal’s smirk quickly faded in surprise with Lokka's playful praise, his cheeks taking on a slight red hue. He was not expecting him to say that, but he quickly shook it off. He refocused his attention back towards the entrance to the throne room as the servant announced the arrival of another Knight. His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the Knight carefully for his mannerisms.

The Knight was mature in age, probably around Hannibal’s age. His armor was shiny and well-polished; he's probably rather stuffy and hasn't actually seen many battles. He entered the room rather arrogantly—like most Knights were—and began to speak in an overly cocky tone.

“Your majesty, I am Sir Charles,” The Knight said, standing in the middle of the room, not bothering to take a knee or bow or show any respect, making Hannibal curl his lip in distaste.

Lokka tilts his head, studying the man, "Sir Charles... I'm Lord La'Rose. What have you come here to ask of the new King of Ophiuchus?" Lokka asks, all previous playful energy gone, in his place is now a serious calm intelligent King.

Hannibal noticed that Lokka even used his title this time, instead of being casual like Lokka had been with him. The change was sudden. Happened as soon as Sir Charles entered, only a brief moment of Lokka sniffing the air prerequisites his personality shift when Sir Charles entered.

Sir Charles was taken aback by Lokka's sudden and unexpected shift into a completely different person. From a giddy, happy, young King to a stoic, serious individual in a matter of seconds. He paused for a moment, almost intimidated by the change, but eventually responded.

"Well, your majesty, I have come to… congratulate you.” He replied, the word ‘congratulate’ sounding almost bitter coming from his lips.

"hmmm... Is that so? You could've just sent some gift like most of the others singing my praises lately," Lokka doesn't sound cocky despite his words, he actually seems uncomfortable with the thought of being praised for what he'd done, "So, what else is it you wanted from me, Sir Charles, aside from wasting my time?”

Sir Charles was once again taken aback, clearly not expecting the King to brush off his praise and assume he was just there to waste his time. He stood silently for a few moments, almost shocked, before speaking up again.

“I wasn’t just here to give my congratulations, your majesty.” He replied, his tone somewhat snarky and somewhat irritated now. “I also came to request something.”

"speak, no need to dawdle.” Lokka says when Sir Charles doesn't get straight to the point, making Hannibal fight a proud smirk.

Sir Charles let out a snort, crossing his arms over his chest and taking a few steps closer to the King.

“If you’d be so kind, Your Majesty, I was hoping you’d send a few of your troops to help us in a little battle we’re having.” He explained, the tone in his voice still demanding.

"A little battle?" Lokka asks, a single brow raised, "Why? Plead your case, Sir Charles.”

Sir Charles let out another snort, his arrogance seemingly taking control as he spoke again.

“My kingdom has been at war for over a year now. We just lost a significant amount of soldiers and are requesting backup.” He said, as if the reason was obvious and simple. “It would be immensely appreciated if you would send whatever soldiers you can spare.”

"...you have yet to explain why you're even at war or why I should be inclined to help. Perhaps I'd rather help your enemies, hm? What say ye to that?"

Sir Charles stood silent, shocked, for a few moments. The arrogance on his face now faded into disbelief. Obviously, he hadn’t expected the King to be so indifferent and ask for a reason to send soldiers to help.

“The reason for our war…” He repeated, “Why- the reason is…”

He paused for another moment, trying to come up with a reasonable response on why they were at war and why they needed his help. A good reason. One that wasn't seeped in greed.

Lokka chuckles, darkly, in amusement, before speaking with a light disturbingly kind tone despite his words, "Give me a good reason, Sir Charles, before I send you back to your King without a head.”

Sir Charles almost staggered backward in shock, horrified by the King's response. His dark amusement and the threat of beheading him if he can’t come up with a good reason was enough to nearly make Sir Charles piss in his armor, but he managed to stay composed. Mostly. He swallowed thickly before replying again.

“We’ve been at war with our neighboring kingdom for years now. A war we can’t win without you. If you do not help, Your Majesty…” He paused once again, his voice wavering slightly, “We will be overtaken and lost.”

"Still," Lokka says, casually standing from his throne, and slowly walking down the steps of the platform to the main part of the throne room, gesturing with one hand casually for Hannibal to stay, back for now, "You've yet to explain why you're at war. Just that you are and that you're losing." Lokka's tone softens to an almost teasing seductive tone as he nears Sir Charles and raises a hand to gently caress the taller older man's cheek and tilts his gaze to meet his eyes, "so... Explain to me, Sir," Lokka practically purrs, "why," he traces his fingers over the Knight's pulse point, "you need me?”

Sir Charles froze as the King suddenly approached him, his hand gently caressing his cheek and moving his head to face him. The sudden shift in his tone and attitude to something more seductive and playful shocked him, his heart almost stopping as he felt his slender fingers tracing over his pulse point.

He inhaled deeply, unable to find the words to respond. His words got caught in his throat, but he eventually began speaking despite the dryness in his throat.

“I- We…” He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"ooh, has a cat got your tongue?”

Sir Charles tensed his shoulders, his cheeks turning a slight pink at his words. It didn’t help that Lokka was so close to him, his slender but firm and calloused fingers still gently caressing his pulse point. Sir Charles swallowed again, his words stuck in his throat like a frog for a few moments.

“N-no.” He managed to stutter out, cursing himself for stuttering like a boy with a middle school crush.

The King chuckles playfully, dancing around behind the large Knight and draping his arms over the man's shoulders from behind, wrapping his arms around the man's neck and resting his hands teasingly on the man's chest armor.

"hmmm..." Lokka hums in thought, glancing over to Hannibal, "Sir Hannibal, what do you know of Sir Charles and his Kingdom?”

Sir Charles tensed more as the King began to dance around him, jumping slightly as he suddenly draped his arms over his shoulders. He immediately tried to look at whatever Hannibal’s reaction was to the King’s action, his stomach twisting into knots at the King’s forward and almost…flirtatious behavior.

Hannibal’s eyes remained fixated on the pair, his head tilted to the side observing the King’s behavior, and Sir Charles’ reaction. He noted his tension and how he seemed almost afraid of the small young King.

The boy continues to surprise me…

"Don't tell me a cat's got your tongue too now, Sir Hannibal," the young King calls out playfully to his Advisor and Knight, "Do you know of Sir Charles or his Kingdom? Feel free to speak your mind, Sir Hannibal.”

Hannibal’s eyes flicked over to the King as soon as he spoke up, his eyes narrowing for a moment before his normal, calm demeanor returned to him. He raised an eyebrow, a little surprised with the King’s almost childish behavior. He took no issue with it, it was almost…endearing…

Hannibal glanced back at Charles for a moment, observing his behavior further, before speaking up in his usual polite but crisp and composed tone.

“I know of his kingdom and his cause. I also know of his king.”

"Hmm," Lokka hums, teasingly nuzzling his face into Sir Charles' neck from behind, though from where Hannibal stands, Hannibal can see the way Lokka curls his nose in disgust at whatever he smells, or just disgust for the Knight Sir Charles in general.

“Continue to speak your thoughts, Sir Hannibal. What's your opinion? Since you know of him and his King. Should we help them? Why are they in a war?”

Hannibal noticed the way the King’s nose curled in disgust as he nuzzled into the Knight’s neck. That was interesting. Clearly, there was more going on than a simple plea for help. Hannibal kept that thought in the back of his mind for now as he continued to speak up.

“They’re at war with their neighboring kingdom because of a fight over land.” He explained, “Their King wants to expand his kingdom and is willing to take it by any means necessary, even if it means going to war.”

"Hmm...." Lokka hums, tracing his hands teasingly in a sexual manner over Sir Charles chest armor from behind as he continues to nose Sir Charles' neck, "pathetic," he hisses out before suddenly biting down and tearing into Sir Charles' neck, tearing out a large chunk of his flesh and causing blood to gush from his artery.

Sir Charles drops dead to the ground, a few brief gurgling noises before he dies. Lokka is now covered in Sir Charles' blood but looks unbothered. More annoyed with the blood on the beautiful tile throne room floor than anything else.

Lokka whistles out a sharp note and a servant enters.

"Maria, darling,” Lokka says sweetly, almost apologetic, and it seems genuine, “Can you have the gardener get rid of this one like they did with the King? You and the servants may sell or keep whatever he has on him. I'll need someone to clean this blood out of the floor. Again."

Hannibal’s eyes widened in utter shock the moment the young King suddenly bit the Knight’s neck. He stood speechless for a few moments, unable to speak or form any words or coherent thought. Everything about this moment was so…unexpected..

And strangely attractive.

Hannibal watched as the King called in a servant named Maria, almost stunned as he listened to what the pair said. He was still trying to process what just happened, and it almost felt like he was dreaming.

Maria nods and quickly fetches a few other servants. Soon the dead Knight is gone- a handsome but awkward looking man, the gardener presumably, fetching the body and carrying it out- and there's a servant cleaning the blood up. Lokka walks slowly back up to the throne and stops a few feet in front of you.

"Do you still want this job?" Lokka asks, unknowingly licking the blood on his lips.

Lokka's mouth, jaw, neck, and the front of his shirt is soaked in blood from Sir Charles.

"I promise to play nice and let you leave without harm if your answer is no. Though I will be sad if you do choose to leave.”

Hannibal’s eyes remained fixated on the bloody, almost gorey scene before him, unable to tear his eyes away from the blood on the floor.

He stayed silent for a few moments as he finally registered his question to him, his eyes snapping up to meet his gaze. His usual stoic features were now replaced with slight shock and awe. He wasn’t sure how to feel about any of this, it was all so…unexpected…

“I…I do still want the job, Your Majesty.” Hannibal says with a small stutter, surprising even himself. It's not fear though that makes him stutter. Something about the way Lokka looks with blood dripping from his chin is just… delicious. Maddeningly so.

"hmm... Very well then," Lokka turns and looks back at the servant currently cleaning the floor, "Maria? Sir Hannibal and I will be gone for a few minutes. If any guest comes, please apologize for the wait and have them guided to... I don't know where, just somewhere nice and keep them entertained and fed til I return. Understood, doll?”

Maria, a young, brown-haired, and freckled servant, looked up as the King addressed her. She paused for half a second before nodding her head. She didn't seem afraid of him despite the gore and violence.

“Understood, Your Majesty. Will do.” she says simply.

"Good." Lokka says with a soft smile to the girl, though the blood on him ruins the attempt at a kind image.

He turns and gestures for Hannibal to follow as he leaves the throne room and heads for his private chambers.

They're not the original King's Chambers- far too casual and not as overly decorated. There's still nice furniture and a sitting area but it's also decorated with multiple books filled with notes and scribbles in the margins, animal hides and leathers tossed everywhere, half finished crochet and wood carvings and leatherworking projects everywhere.

Lokka leads Hannibal in and practically ignores his presence as he goes to his wardrobe and pulls out a nicer but still not exactly Kingly clothes; simple black pants and a long sleeve black shirt. He changes and washes the blood from his face at the water basin before finally turning to look at Hannibal, not caring that he'd stripped down to his boxers and undershirt in front of the other man since the boxers and undershirt hid the parts of himself he likes to keep hidden from everyone who doesn't need to know his secret.

"So, any opinions or questions as to why I killed that Knight? You're allowed to speak freely. I won't give you the same side of me I gave him.”

Hannibal took the invitation to speak his mind, taking a moment to properly organize his thoughts before beginning to speak.

“You’ve clearly got a distaste for people who you see as weak, a person like the late Knight.” He began, keeping his voice and tone calm, and his words precise and careful to avoid sounding disrespectful. “Perhaps the Knight said something, or you simply got…fed up with him.”

The King chuckles softly, "hm, good theory but not quite, Sir Hannibal," He says as he sits on one of the couches in the sitting area of his private chambers, "I was going to kill him the moment I smelled him- I'm not a normal human if you haven't noticed yet."

Hannibal tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing for a moment as he fully assessed the king now, taking in his unnaturally keen sense of smell. This kid was far more than he seemed. He slowly walked over to the same couch and sat down a few feet away, keeping his usual polite composure still.

“You’re a werecat.”

Hannibal stated, not asking but saying it like it was factual.

“Precisely," the King says with a chuckle.

This was a very interesting development, to say the least. Werecats were relatively rare. Hannibal noted that Lokka's eyes resembled that of a cat. Sharp, unwavering, and almost predatory in a way.

“I assume you could smell that he was a coward…” Hannibal mused out loud, pausing for a moment as he noted more differences about the King.

“I did not kill him for his cowardice. But rather what I smelled on him- what he'd done- before he'd dirtied my Kingdom with his presence."

Hannibal raised an eyebrow, intrigued to know what he smelled on him. He never would’ve expected such a young king to be so…violent. The death was so vicious and sudden, and not to mention messy. And it was all over a particular scent.

But God, was it beautiful…

“What did you smell on him?” Hannibal questioned, his curiosity getting the better of him.

A murderous snarl tugs Lokka's lip, but not at Hannibal, rather the Knight he'd killed, "He smelled of children, suffering children, at least two. Two whose scents were far too different from his to have been his offspring. And scents that reeked of fear and pain. He'd harmed them. I dare not dwell in what ways."

Hannibal’s eyes momentarily darkened as he listened to the kid’s reply. Child abuse, a particular weakness of his. His hatred for it was almost as strong as his cannibalism.

For a split second, Hannibal suddenly felt a pang of…admiration. The kid had a sense of justice, in a way. A strange moral sense of delivering justice but still. He wasn’t a normal royal, that’s for sure.

“Is that why you killed him the way you did?” He questioned, masking his previous internal admiration and remaining composed and polite.

"Yes.”

Hannibal didn’t know how to feel about the King being so…unapologetic and straightforward about his violence, yet he found it almost refreshing and…charming. Usually, nobles danced and tiptoed around the subject and acted disgusted or horrified when acts like this were brought up.

“A brutal, yet justified death.” Hannibal muttered under his breath, speaking his thoughts out loud by accident.

"I'm glad you think so," Lokka says softly, head tilted slightly as he looks up at Hannibal.

Hannibal noticed his head tilt, taking in the small action further. He couldn’t help but find it…cute. The little King was clearly not an ordinary King, especially for his age. He was young, wild, and violent, and yet there was an almost endearing quality to him. Almost like that of a small, feral creature.

Hannibal's eyes drifted to the King's lips.

Soft and stained a faint red from the blood that he'd just washed off.

Lips that had parted to kill a man.

Lethal but beautiful lips that Hannibal wants to-

------

The gif of Hannibal covered in blood belongs to @bloodydancy ☮️💖

[roselightfairy]

@thevillainsmustache​ and I have normal conversations

...

(image description: a screenshot of texts on a phone screen

green text: How many backup robes do you think every Jedi is issued for when they inevitably lose them by dropping them dramatically before a fight?

green text: Literally the only point of those dumb robes is to drop them on the floor

green text: I’m out of class btw

gray text: Clearly you had some very academic thoughts during class)

[chengfagshi]

https://www.tumblr.com/ah-gan/746668027058225152/

same!! we dont deserve this! we have the right to cosplay any character we want!! like if i want to cosplay a random npc from the hazbin pilot ill do it! and its Indeed concerning. i love villains i loooove morally gray characters, it would be a shame to stop cosplaying them cuz some kids think ure the character lmao

oh ok! yeah I saw that the tweet had its little success! i will never understand why some people want to ruin con though. were supposed to have fun NOT harass people! there are plenty of characters that i dont like and even hate lol but that doesnt give me the right to go see them and say mean things to them. rule number 1 kids, never tell people things u wouldnt want them to say to u!!

i second that. if for u(general btw!) cosplaying a character is being the character, dont go to any fcking cons! not if u plan to harass cosplayers who havent done anything to you!

i want to go back to 2012 that time was good lool

Yeah I wanna go back to old fandom. Where people shipped things like Sebaciel or the twins from OHSHC proudly without having the fear of being doxxed. Or the 30 year old congoers with Madoka Magica body pillows. Like no one cared back then because we knew it's all fictional anime girls. Nowadays you see people holding up signs like "Lolicons are pedophiles" (ok I personally see this at a con but I did see a video a few years back that was making the rounds where a woman was holding up a sign similar at a convention). Like there was once someone cosplaying a loli. The cosplayer (who was of age) drank alcohol and people threw the biggest fucking tantrums because "You're cosplaying a 5 year old. Why are you drinking?" Bitch??? Someone cosplaying a loli does not make them a loli?? Like what? I've seen 30 year olds with thick beards cosplay Misaka Mikoto from Railgun or Anya from Spy x Family. Like it literally is not that deep. We're all just here to have fun and forget about our troubles for a bit. It's so toxic that people resort to harassing cosplayers. I even saw a take today that was like kind of defending(???) the person that harassed Val cosplayer. I'll post the screenshots below because I don't remember exactly what they said.

Like??? Like this is victim blaming at its finest. "You cosplayed a rapist when there are so many cooler characters to cosplay." So it's the...cosplayer's fault they were harassed? It sounds exactly like people who say "Well what were they wearing when they were raped?"

[science-lings]

After a stupidly arduous journey of taking about a hundred screenshots, I have completed it. Please send me characters you’d like to see and the color scheme I should use! If you use it yourself please give me credit for the palettes. 

my favorite screenshots used for this under the cut!

I would recommend everyone spend a blood moon on top of Mount Lanayru, the colors are so good

For Hateno I used a lot of the dye colors, otherwise it would’ve just been the red stone roof tiles and the same color wood that every place uses and the pale stucco. The dye shop is the most unique thing about the place lol.

I just thought it was cool to catch Dinraal in the distance, this one was used for ‘Waking Flames’

It’s unfair how pretty the world gets when you’re on top of the castle, I also love the framing that the archways provide. 

rocks are pretty, thats my whole thought process with this one

the big pillars surrounding the castle have the best views, it sucks that they’re so hard to get to. 

i love the blue rocks

just going to any super high up place is worth it. btw I was being attacked in this image. that bow belonged to a stal bokoblin. he was an asshole 

I died on purpose to get mipha feet pics

this is the magic tent thing, when you’re under it the whole screen gets a little pinker. it’s kinda trippy

the fire glowy effect in the snow is one of my favorite visual parts of the game. I love glowy things so much

idk the color contrast of the gray water and the red rock is so cool to me

For all the village palettes I wanted to focus on the buildings and decorations rather than the environment itself, I loved the burnt orange flags in lurelin and the stalls in Gerudo Town

all the places that are populated are just so colorful that it was hard to choose what colors to include in the color schemes. Many times, different shops are color coded and it makes it difficult to limit the colors to just the ones I chose, this world is just so colorful! 

[mfpeace]

@justbeingedgy @weird-colombian-gurl You asked me to elaborate on the "Ches already has a kid" theory in the notes of that one mf analysis post (which I really liked, go check it out!!), so that's why I'm making this one, cuz notes are a bit too restricting for what I want to talk about!

Though next time think twice before asking me to talk about something I'm interested in, because you never know when you're gonna wake up lovecraftian horrors!! :DDD you'll see what i mean when you press read more :))

So, I'll say it right now - this post is largely inspired by the second story highlight of this Instagram user (sorry, I don't know their name, only that their Instagram handle is dee_girl_metalfamilyfan), it's in Russian though, so keep that in mind

Alright, so I'll break this theory into two parts: the first one will be all about Ches, and the second will be about his potential child (spoiler: you might've seen her!)

Without any further ado, let's get to the Ches part:

1. The creators said that they're gonna explore Ches' character in the second season. Obviously, it doesn't mean anything on it's own, but just wait.

Dima: Let's talk about the second season a little. Of course, the seconds season will show development of the old characters, as well as new ones. That's in short. As you see, Ches looks a bit different here.

Alina: Yeah, we'll show a bit more about Ches at the ages of 18 to 20. His past. We'll reveal a bit more about his complex character, as much as it's possible.

(The source of the translation) Also I think they also said at one point that adult Ches will get some character development too? But that's probably a given, considering that we wouldn't see his youth if it wouldn't have affected him in the present, flashbacks without any relevance to the overall story don't sound so good

2. Not sure about this one (we don't know how much in character it was) but I can't not mention it.

Alina: Actually there was this one fanfic that I really liked. I don’t remember what it was called, but it was about Ches having a daughter, which is a cool topic. It was relatively in character and truly interesting. It’s great when people focus not just on sexual relationships of the characters, but also try to look at their development. That was a really interesting one. That’s it.

(UnityCon '19)

3. This one's a pretty big one, in my opinion. So, this is what they said on ArtWave '19:

Dima: Ches also has flaws.

Alina: [to Dima] Don’t spoil stuff.

Dima: His flaw is that he's very... irresponsible, let’s say.

So, maybe, just maybe, Ches does have a child but he, you know... left them? As the Instagram highlight from the beginning say: "he might be irresponsible enough to leave his child, and he's probably irresponsible enough not to use any contraception" (rephrased, not the exact quote)

4. Alright, so, the only mention of this one I can think of right now is the aforementioned Instagram highlight. The Metalfamilyfan says:

I contacted Korg/Корж, (admin of @ metal_yama [and I believe one of the organizers of the Metal Family Meetup in Moscow]) and she asked Alina on one of the meetups: "if Ches were to be a father, what kind of father would he be?"

And she said: "The kind of that would say "kid, look at that birdie over there!" an then he would run away"

Someone's words are not the perfect source, but they did tag Metal Yama and from what I know they didn't disagree with what the author of the page said. if anyone has anything to say about this (disprove or definitely prove what I said) feel free to do so in a reblog, notes, DMs, send me an anonymous ask, or in any other way you feel comfortable with

5. Ches has literally been through the same thing, and we know how important the theme of the cycle of abuse is in Metal Family (or, in this case, the cycle of neglect? Abandonment? Idk)

You managed to hide your PREGNANCY from me! AND you've been hiding the child from me for a whole year!

YES, because you would've insisted on aborting him!

AND NOW I'M INSISTING ON PUTTING HIM UP FOR ADOPTION! OR I'LL LEAVE RIGHT NOW!

6. Here we can see Ches with a blonde girl. Nothing too special, probably just a one time hook up. He doesn't seem to be interested in her, and she seems to be annoyed with him.

But wait...

What is this?

Like, it doesn't even matter if there's actually a punk/rock/whatever band named MOM or not, I just think it's pretty weird to put it in this particular drawing of Ches and this random woman who is implied to have slept with him. It's not integral to Ches' character as, for example, Korol i Shut is. It's just... there. For some reason.

------------

Alright, now, finally let's get to the second part of the theory: who is, exactly, his child?

The short answer is, according to this theory, her:

First, let me list every single instance of her appearing in canon (and by canon I mean everything made by the creators. Even with this definition of canon it's not much, I promise): The screenshot you can see above on the left (it's a screenshot from the second season and it appeared here), an instagram story posted by Alina (above, right), and two drawing with a lot of characters where you can spot the girl which I'm gonna call her PinkHair or PH for short, I'll mention them later I feel like I should mention this, comparing the sources of the images and the dates when they were posted, it's safe to assume that the screenshot in the classroom has the latest and final version of her design. The red hair most likely doesn't mean anything

1. Alright. So. we've seen Dee and PinkHair in a classroom together, so they're most likely related in some way, or at least they know each other. Their exact relationship doesn't matter here, because all that matters here is that they're related story-wise

Let's look at the first image. This is the banner of the main Metal Family channel. Ches is near Heavy (they get along quite well and I'm sure Heavy aspires to be like Ches in many ways), Dee (we can see his classmates/friends near him, they're all about his age), and we can see people related to Glam on the left side of the image (including Ches!), and Vicky's - on the right side (notice how the hell sign is also there)

Now, I'm not absolutely sure about this one, but it's still kind of weird - look at the image on the right (it's from ArtWave 2021 btw) - wouldn't it make more sense to put PinkHair near Dee? Also, Curiously enough, not only is she not close to Dee on this image, but she's also standing next to Ches.

Though this whole thing could be explained by art theory (too many small things in one corner of your drawing isn't great composition wise lol sorry PH) but I still can't quite skip this point

2. Remember the "MOM" lady? Fun fact, she has the exact same pearl earring that PinkHair has on the screenshot.

3. I'll put all similarities with her supposed parents in this point: Mother: * She's also pretty uh.. glam? for the lack of a better word? Or feminine in a traditional sense, yeah I think that's a better way to put it. Like colors they prefer to wear for example, and jewelry. Characters like that aren't common in Metal Family * She's gotta be a blonde. I can't imagine her being anything but blonde. If she manages to maintain that hair color as a brunette I'm just straight up assuming her character arc is gonna be killing God because these kind of people are capable of anything. I fear them with every fiber of my being. * I can't say for sure because of the shading, but it seems like they both have gray eyes, and she also has darker skin compared to most MF characters. Though, it's likely that Mom just applied a lot of fake tan Ches: * We know that Ches for sure has darker skin * AND grey eyes * There's also some possible personality similarities but I'm not sure if you can compare a child to a parent they've never really known in this way

That's about it, I suppose, I hope there isn't that many grammar mistakes and logically unfinished parts and whatnot in this post I forgot to edit lol x) I'm not sure how to end this post other than to remind you guys that almost all the points in this posts are inspired by the "тупая теория" highlight on the dee_girl_metalfamilyfan's Instagram page, so go check them out and subscribe, they post Dee x The Quest Girl fanart and and always credit the artists. Without them this post would be much, much shorter.

Thanks for reading this post, please feel free to let me know your thoughts on this post <3

[yuraimi-lee-bunny]

I've been taking many screenshots for my Gray analysis, and over several days, I have realized that Gray bites the lips many times as he speaks. I didn't joke!

I think that very funny and something peculiar in him. And it only shows if you have paused his dialogs in certain times but not in motion. If you try, tell me if they also noticed it.

BTW, tomorrow it will be ready the second part of Gray's analysis! I'm very excited because I think the time I took was more than worth it!

[eradicatetehnormal]

In The Case Of Shipping. Queer Ships and Straight Ships

A topic I will never shut up about. Before I start I will admit, I am on the queer side of fandom a lot more often than I am on the straight side and I will be speaking from that perspective. If you have another perspective to share with me, please do so respectfully.

Shipping will always be something that gray to me. I like shipping culture and enjoy certain communities around certain ships, but people getting way too defensive about it will always be something to drags me emotionally. It makes me sad especially when it's people who are like me. Fellow queer shippers trying to explain why certain things between two characters can be seen as queer coding and then being called delusional by people who are either willfully ignorant or simply don't understand the point of queer coding. That's not to say queer shippers are without fault, however. We do have a really terrible tendency of calling people who don't like our ship homophobic and ignoring characters from other media that ARE actually written to be queer, in favor of continuing to argue that there are next to no queer characters in the content they like. While they are scarce they are not non-existent. Not to mention, a decent amount of character portrayals do tend to be very extremely sexual and can be found in places that they do not belong.

That being said straight shippers aren't without their faults either. For starters, I don't really see this being brought up, but they also like to portray characters in very sexual ways as well. Particularly, male characters, with a popular means of sexualization being centered around predatorial behavior towards one of the female characters, or being a C H A D. Again, I personally don't have a particular issue with this, but just like queer sexual content, it does not belong where anyone can see it. Straight shippers also have a bad habit of calling queer shippers p*dos and perverts, even for the most inoffensive gay fan content imaginable.

With so much tension heating up between two groups, any interaction can come off as an attack even if that wasn't the intention. We queer shippers tend to get sensitive when someone has the opinion that our ship isn't real. Now sometimes we are justified in getting annoyed with these people as some of them will go out of their way to find joke posts and innocent fan art of a same-sex ship and pull that line, even though that wasn't really the point of the original post. However, even in people's own spaces when they aren't going out of their way to attack us, we still get offended. What gives? So let's take a tweet that's similar to what I'm describing:

(obviously, this is a fake image, I'm just using it to get my point across)

Now on its own, there's nothing wrong with this tweet. In general, there's nothing with this tweet. It's just showing frustration with people making every relationship a romance even if two characters only interacted for a few minutes. That's true. Shippers do enjoy pairing two people together, particularly men, who don't really interact with each other. Here's the thing though. This is an argument that's very popular and one that's been used by some not-so-well-meaning people.

Alright, it's sad people hours now, sorry sis. So for a good amount of queer people who are online or are big fans of fiction, fandom has been a big part of their lives. Shipping, in particular, holds a special place in many queer fans' hearts as, even though it's pathetic, ships were a lot of people's first exposure to genuinely queer content focused around queer characters. It would be through this shipping that a lot of people would find friends who were into the same media and fan content. Some of these people would grow up together and eventually find out that the other was queer. Some of these people would go on to have romantic relationships with each other, and because they meant because of a ship, would go on to continuously celebrate it as if it were real because part of the reason their romance is real is because of that ship. Sometimes people will hold certain ships dear to their heart because they were able to use them to not only find other people like them but explore their own sexual and romantic orientation via fan fiction and fan art.

The attachment to fictional, non-canon relationships would be met with consequences, however. A lot of people would become TOO immersed in their ship and would start to get into debates with straight shippers. Many of which were, unfortunately, homophobic or queerphobic in some way. A lot of the arguments these people would use were a lot of the arguments used today. "Said ship isn't real, you're delusional", "That wasn't the writer's intention", "Stop forcing your ship onto other people", "Two people can't be friends anymore".

It's when you look at it through this lens:

That the fake tweet above starts to look like it was trying to say something a bit different:

Now is this what the tweet is actually saying? Probably not. TityMaster69 might be someone who has faced harrasment from shippers innocently trying to vent out their feelings, but because many people with malicous intentions have said the exact same things and used it as an excuse to speak ill of queer people in fandom, it FEELS a lot more mean-spirited than it might actually be. To add to that, many malicious people have used the reactions of queer shippers as a means of giving a pass to genuine queerphobia inside fandom outside of shipping:

The screenshot ARE real this time and in are relation to this btw:

https://twitter.com/samelCamelCase/status/1382846776806412290

Now to be fair StarVolt358 did apologize to the person who retweeted the post, but the fact that they even brought it up at such an inappropriate time does still prove my point because, in a way, they did bring it up to draw less attention to the queerphobia in the KH fandom.

Stuff like this has led to queer shippers being berated and attacked by straight shippers in the community, even though in some cases they can do more damage than the people they're calling out. Let's not forget when Reylo fans doxxed and harrassed the actors because they didn't like whatever happened in the Rise of Skywalker, or when Sokai fans harrassed the voice actor SpuukyLIVE on Twitter for joking that the scene in kh2 when Sora sees Riku again was gay.

As I do not have a lot of energy, there are a lot of nuances I've missed, like many people who like queer m/m ships being straight teen girls and not actual queer people or queer people who like straight ships. This was, however, just a post to get my full thots out there. I'll shut up now.

[louiserandom]

Play Games with Me

Pairing: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara | Rating: E

A/N: Commission for the amazing @rookie-d​💙💗 thank you so much! *hugs* 

Read on AO3 or continue under the cut :3 Ko-fi and fic commission info in the header!

Tobirama SenJERK has never had sex in his life, Madara types, as always brimming with spite when it comes to his least favorite person in town. Maybe on the planet.

Rereading the comment and satisfied that there aren’t any typos or any hint whatsoever at some kind of hidden affection (which isn’t there, never was and never will be, Madara reminds himself firmly), he hits ‘Comment.’

“Take that, you dumbass,” Madara mutters under his breath, and really, this could be classified as childish, were he not completely in the right to take vicious revenge upon the fucking asshole who dared refer to Madara as ‘so idiotic it’s pitifully adorable’ on his last stream. Hah! Like Tobirama isn’t the less intelligent one of the two of them; Madara has watched enough of his Uncharted 4 gameplay to note that Tobirama took twelve seconds longer than him to figure out arguably the most difficult puzzle in the game. And although Madara’s sub count doesn’t quite reflect his superior intellect compared to Senju’sーnot that he’s checked in a whileーit’s likely a testament to the viewers’ total lack of taste, if anything else.

(Two thousand, nine hundred and thirty four viewer’s, to be precise, according to this morning’s stats and minus the handful of Madara’s fake accounts that he created just in case to keep up with his chief competitor. Admittedly, it might be a tad annoying.)

A notification pipes up.

Hm, I wonder how you’d know that, MaddyGamerboy? Are you stalking me? I must admit, I’m flattered.

Madara sputters at the reply. At yet another butchering of his perfectly adequate nickname. The fucking nerve of the guyーand people fucking wonder why Madara hates his guts?

(Madara knows it doesn’t really help his case that he’s touched himself to fantasies of the younger Senju more times than he’d care to count, but hate-fucking a thing isn’t it? Hate-masturbation must be too, he supposes. Not the healthiest outlet for negative feelings, but it makes him feel good enough.)

(Heavenly, to be precise.)

I AM NOT, YOU SELF-OBSESSED DUMBASS, Madara types, simultaneously taking care of the half-a-dozen typos that appear of their own accord.

No.

Deep breath. Stop fingers from shaking. Think about something witty to say.

Pff, he writes, for lack of any better word to express his indignant huff, like I give a shit about you. You’re dumb.

It did sound much better in his head, but Madara has spent over a minute writing the comment already, and he doesn’t want to appear as if he’s thinking too hard on it.

He posts his answer, not dwelling too match on the number of likes on Tobirama’s comment far outnumbering the hundred Madara’s garnered. Again, Tobirama’s audience is clearly not the best judge of character.

“FUCK. YOU. SIDEWAYS, SENJU!” Madara shouts at the reply that follows, consisting only of the words:

Thanks for the sub btw.

“You fucking piece of shit,” Madara hisses. “Like eight fucking fake accounts do anything to boost your stats, I don’t even like all your videos from each one of them, you ass!”

I DID NOT SUB DONT BELIEVE HIM

I’m happy to have another loyal fan ;)

HE IS FUCKING LYEING!!!

With seemingly every single person in the comments raving about how it’s about time MadGamer69 and admitted he admires FlyingThunderGod’s skill, Madara has to consciously restrain himself from smashing his laptop against the wall.

“You can just tell him you like him, you know.”

Madara startles, almost stumbling to the floor when Hashirama returns with their drinks and quickly put-together snacks, always the one to rummage through Madara’s kitchen because Madara hardly cares what edible and inedible things existed there or what to do with themーthat’s Izuna’s job.

“I do not,” Madara snarls, as Hashirama flops next to him on the couch, “like that stupid clusterfuck you call a brother!”

“Madara!” Hashirama whines, with that ever-present pout on his face. “Be civil.”

“Yeah, when he returns the favor,” Madara glowers, grabbing a milkshake from Hashirama’s hand. “Did you forget that he fucking started it? Do I need to quote his “pitifully adorable how so much stupidity can fit in such a short man” again?” Madara can’t help flailing his arms a little, though far too conscious of this habit now since the Tobirama has started pointing it out. He makes up for it with what he hopes is a deadly enough glare. “Did no one in your family bother to teach him manners? Did you?”

Hashirama only sighs. “And did you forget,” he asks, “how before that you abused my invitation over to our place to hide his Golden Youtube Gamer Tablet?”

Madara groans. “It’s called a Gold Play Button. Idiot.”

“Now you’re insulting me,” Hashirama grumbles, “and who cares? The point is, you’d be upset too if he hid yours.”

“Youtubers care,” Madara says, “and also, that’s irrelevant, that was revenge for him making fun of my perfectly adequate gameplay.”

“To be fair, you were dying quite a lot in that playthrough...”

“He took twelve seconds longer to figure out that puzzle in the game!” Madara growls.

Hashirama rolls his eyes. “Well, of course, because that Yellow Flash guy was flirting and distracting him in the chat.”

Madara blanches. "That good-for-nothing pipsqueak was what?”

“See,” Hashirama drawls, “you are jealous. Why would you be jealous?”

“I-I’m not!”

“Madara, you are so far in denial, that as your best friend,” Hashirama says firmly, slapping a hand over Madara’s mouth before he can muster another protest, “I cannot stand by and watch you suffer. Anymore, that is, because this has reached a breaking point. So, please, for me, I am begging you, just try politely asking if maybe Tobirama would like to accompany you for coffee somewhere tomorrow? Maybe brunch? I mean, come on, I know you guys don’t hate each other anymore. Seriously, you guys seem like you enjoy arguments, and hey, who am I to judge how people express affection?”

“Affection?!” Madara shrieks, shoving Hashirama’s hand away.

“And please stop pretending you don’t have printed out screenshots of my brother’s videos hidden under your mattress because Izunaー”

“Is a fucking snooping rat!” Madara hisses.

Hashirama sighs. “If it helps you feel better, maybe Tobirama might possibly not feel extreme dislike towards you but actually the opposite,” he says, smiling nervously as Madara blanches.

Because... what?

He blinks, running Hashirama’s words through his mind again.

“And how would you know that?” he asks, suspicious. “I swear if you dared tell him anything about my possibly nonexistent feelingsー”

“Possibly?” Excitement starts bubbling in Hashirama’s eyes. “That’s progress!”

“Definitely nonexistent feelings, dammit!”

Hashirama, the asshole Madara calls best friend for some reason, giggles. “Don’t worry, I didn’t. I promise, stop glaring or I will start pouting,” he threatens, and Madara schools his expression back into a light scowl to avoid the infamous Senju pout.

Like a curse, memories of said pout curling Tobirama’s lips spring to mind, and Madara has to physically shake his head to banish those thoughts.

“Listen, the fact that we’re not as... aggressive as we used to be,” Madara says, “doesn’t mean we suddenly like each other.”

“Madara, you insist on coming along every time we hang out,” Hashirama points out.

“I like hanging out with you.”

“Yet every time we do,” Hashirama presses on, “you’re hyperfocused on bickering with Tobirama instead of talking about wholesome stuff with me. Did you even notice that I brought Mito with me the past few times and it was literally a double date?”

“Was not!” Madara shoves at Hashirama with his shoulder and stands up to pace, because there goes the tell-tale sweating of his hands, the fluttering in his chest and stomach and the memoriesーof him and Tobirama secretly filming the other on camera when they do stupid shit, their almost daily Best Playground Insult Contest that’s been memed half to death on Twitter, the one time they got separated from Hashirama and Izuna in Disneyland because they’d got caught in their arguments so much it devolved into discussing their favorite games and an actual conversation that had Madara’s insides tingling.

No.

No, no, no. If anything, they were just gradually becoming something not unlike friends. And Madara’s occasional fantasies behind closed doors were nothing but a means to a pleasant end.

Not. Feelings.

No matter how much he’s grown attached to the site of messy, white-gray hair that he knows is soft to the touch from all the times he’s tugged on it to irritate him. No matter how piercing Tobirama’s unique red eyes may look. No matter how objectively hot his recent workout routine video wasーand Madara knows he’d only watched it so many times because he wants to improve his own routine, right?

Right?

Madara groans. “Why are emotions so fucking confusing!” He slumps onto the floor and wraps his arms around his knees, hitting his head over and over again on his kneecaps because, “I don’t even know what I want from him, okay?”

There’s a brief silence before Hashirama joins him and keeps him from abusing his head further. “How about,” Hashirama suggests, rubbing a comforting hand on his back, “you just ask? Listen, he’s my brother. And you’re my best friend. You two fighting less and at least making an effort to get to know each other better?” Hashirama brings out the puppy dog eyes. “That would mean the world for me.”

Madara glances at him before looking away again, focusing on a random photo of the wall. One featuring Tobirama right after his university graduation with a wide smile on his face. Quite the adorable face, too, and the unprompted thought makes Madara want to descend into oblivion. Preferably forever.

“That’s difficult,” he says lamely.

“But not impossible,” Hashirama says, “and hey, it’s better than waiting for the Yellow Flash guy to actually make a move on Tobi and start occupying all of his time. He’s a really big fan.”

“Fuck Minato,” Madara scoffs, “the guy just showed up and is just shamelessly emulating Tobirama’s style. That’s dumb.”

“Dumber than you claim Tobi is?” Hashirama prompts.

Madara thinks about it. “You know what? Yes.”

“As I saidーprogress!”

Madara can never go through with his impulses to punch his well-meaning best friend, and so grabs the nearest pillow from the couch and smashes it into Hashirama’s face to shut him up.

Tobirama returns home only to find Hashirama and Madara standing by the front door, frowning as they watched something that sounded like a tsunami of some kind.

“Listen, it’s gotta be one of those black holes or something twisting that vortex. Look how stuff disappears right into it!” is his brother talking, and Tobirama is already heaving a frustrated sigh.

Please don’t tell me you think there’s a black hole on Earth.

“There’s no black holes on Earth, idiot! The nearest one is way off, like near Pluto or something,” Madara says.

Ah. Even better. Tobirama chuckles under his breath, crosses his arms and leans against the wall, observing the two idiots he knows and loves.

He mentally kicks himself.

Well, one of them, he loves. Of course he loves his brother.

The other is... complicated.

“And besides, that could just be the Loch Ness monster or a cthulhu or something. See how dark the water is?”

“Or maybe,” Tobirama says, making them both jump, “it’s a natural phenomenon that’s a tad too difficult for both your brain cells to comprehend? I’m happy to explain though.”

“I’m happy to see you fuck yourself,” Madara greets him his usual way, scowling despite the exceptionally conspicuous blush painting his cheeks.

The contrast never fails to make Tobirama’s heart beat faster. He hates himself for it.

“Mm, Madara,” Tobirama teases, “not in front of my brother.”

As expected, Madara starts spluttering, and Tobirama is left wondering again how he avoids making a total fool of himself in each and every one of his videos. It seems Madara saves most of his flailing for the comment section.

“You,” Madara snarls, pointing Tobirama’s way, “are an asshole, Senju, but spending time with the better part of society might do you some good. So see you at brunch tomorrow and do not be late.”

And with that, Madara gives Hashirama a cursory wave and stalks off, leaving Tobirama frozen on the spot.

Did Madara just?..

Tobirama blinks, swallowing heavily as he feels his throat running dry and his heart rate pick up.

No fucking way.

He must have imagined it. Through his stupor of trying to figure out what the hell just took place, Tobirama vaguely registers Hashirama’s facepalm.

“Sorry for that,” Tobirama hears his brother speak through the rush in his ears. “He meant, uh, will you please join him for brunch? Tomorrow at 11 am, Eggspectation?”

Tobirama blinks harder.

“I,” he starts, “I don’t... Did you blackmail Madara into asking me out?”

Hashirama looks scandalized. “What? No!”

“Did Madara just ask me out?”

“Well, yes, Tobi.” Hashirama chuckles nervously. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

Tobirama glares. “The idiot’s wake up text to me today was literally a collection of trashy limerick poems about how much I suck. Sorry if I’m a little skeptical.”

“You,” Hashirama says, wincing as a long-suffering expression settles on his face, “you guys send wake up texts to each other?”

A moment of awkward silence hangs in the air.

“Sometimes,” Tobirama says, defensive, although the damage is already done.

“And you’re still not going out? Tobirama, you do realize he’s in love with you, right?”

“Don’t say things like that, Anija!” Tobirama snaps, hoping the dim lighting in the corridor conceals the blush he can feel heating up his cheeks. Fuck. Now he’s turning Madara. “Yet, I mean.”

“I’ll save the celebrations until after your date then!” Hashirama sing-songs like the idiot he is.

Tobirama resigns to his fate. “I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You’ll thank me for this.”

“If it goes well,” Tobirama glowers though it’s ineffective, really, against his brother’s bubbling positivity, and the sheer awe still coursing through him from Madara asking him out on a fucking date is actually enough to make Tobirama want to hug him. He refrains. "Now, thanks, Anija, but I have work things to attend to.”

“Sure! Just don’t forget, 11ー”

“Eleven eggs and uh, no expectations, got it.”

“Wait, Tobi, noー”

With no time to waste, naturally, Tobirama bolts into their apartment and straight to his room to choose an appropriate outfit. And to mentally prepare himself for something he’s almost given up hoping for.

Tobirama cannotーwill notーmess this up.

Tobirama makes sure to arrive about ten minutes early. Not because he’s worried or nervous, of course; maybe just a little, but mostly just to get his bearings beforeーfinallyーa date with Madara goddamn Uchiha.

Madara, who’s been Tobirama’s stupid crush since high school, and just as in love with gaming as he is, only that didn’t turn out to be such a great bonding point between them, as Tobirama had hopedーbefore he actually got to know his Anija’s best friend.

Madara, who seemed to dislike Tobirama at first sight and only grew to hate him more over the years as they both found more joy in arguing than they did in talking.

Madara, who, despite this, blushes every rare time Tobirama genuinely smiles at him or drops a suggestive joke, who has an arguably unhealthy obsession with Tobirama’s ass which he always ogles when he thinks no one is looking.

Madara, whose plastered ass Tobirama had to drag home the other week, amid drunken speeches about capitalist injustice, some wacky conspiracy behind the disappearance of the dodo bird and... something quite interesting.

 “Listen, Senju,” Madara was slurring against Tobirama’s shoulder, as the latter cursed every single nonexistent god that Hashirama had chosen that fucking day to go on a road trip with Mito, Toka and Izuna, leaving Tobirama in charge of this walking trash fire of a man. “Listen. Tobira... Tobi. Tobirama. You’re so hot.”

The words almost made Tobirama stumble.

“What, Uchiha?”

“And cute... So pretty, too, I wish you could see that...” Madara went on babbling. “I think you do. But still. Wish you could see me like I do. I mean see you. Like I do...”

“Tobira, you’re just, you’re unfair...”

“I hate you and I like you then I love you and I hate you again, why you’reー” A hiccup. “How do you exist...”

“I just want to hold hands and just... walk and talk and be together and...”

Tobirama watched in ever mounting confusion as Madara leaned completely into him, humming as he hugged Tobirama tightly and said,

“Is that too fucking much to ask...”

Tobirama stood, shell-shocked, with Madara whispering impossible nonsense in his arms, wondering if he was in a dream.

 The next day saw Madara returning to his usual self insulting Tobirama at every goddamn opportunity, which left Tobirama... confused.

Confused, and conflicted, and sleepless for the rest of the night, thoughts held captive by the utter idiot whose ultimate goal seems to be to ruin Tobirama’s life.

It’s maddening.

Of course, he’d suspected that Madara’s flailing and constant blushing interspersed with screams and insults (the most creative ones, reserved only for Tobirama, it seemed) were signs of not so much dislike, as the complete opposite. Of course, Tobirama had tried flirting with Madara, just bordering right there on the edge of suggestive, only for his advances to be seen as patronizing or condescending. And hearing Madara speak to him this way, in a drunken stupor no less, when he’d probably have no causeーor abilityーto lie is...

Maddening. Annoying. Exhilarating. A tantalizing opportunity. Maybe a glimmer of hope.

And of course, Tobirama told his brother; they never really had any secrets between them. And of fucking course Hashirama had a hand in convincing Madara to change his usual behavior, which is nice and all, but doesn’t help the nerves wracking through Tobirama’s body, nor the crippling fear that he’s going to somehow screw this up.

But no. Deep breath. Exhale. And remember Anija’s advice.

Tobirama takes the last turn before he’s faced with their meeting place, surprised to find Madara already there.

Even though he’s usually always late. Sitting inside by the window, looking out onto the street with a slight frown, Madara keeps worrying his bottom lip and, apparently, trying to break a spoon.

It paints an endearing picture. Tobirama sighs, feeling a smile tugging at his lips.

This man...

Tobirama comes in, approaching him slowly, allowing himself a few moments to watch Madara needlessly fix his wild mane of hair, appraise his reflection in the spoon, try out several fake-looking smiles before settling on a scowl and going back to his nervous tics again. With another sigh, Tobirama takes the few steps left to his date, repeating Hashirama’s advice over and over in his head.

Just be yourselfーand have fun!

Just a few minutes into their date, it becomes obvious that Madara didn’t get the same advice from Hashirama.

Or just didn’t get the advice, period.

With their orders made and beverages served, they’re left to wallow in a less than comfortable silence, broken only by Madara’s... uncharacteristic attempts at conversation.

“Are you enjoying the tea?” Madara asks Tobirama with all of the softness of a brick wall.

Tobirama isn’t used to the man being eloquent, much less polite, and he has yet to have at least one conversation with Madara that doesn’t devolve into a pissing contest. So theoretically, Tobirama should be enjoying this.

But it only seems wrong. Annoying. Not them.

He tries to recall if, maybe, their first meeting was an adequate exchange? Tobirama thinks to the day Hashirama first introduced them. Only flashes of spilled milkshakes and jibes at intelligence run through his mind, and of course that was the very first time he’d called Madara an idiot pipsqueak, receiving quite the lame ‘stuck-up dandelion’ in turn.

Unsurprising.

“Yes,” Tobirama says, taking another sip as he eyes Madara struggling on the other side of the table. Struggling to do what is the question: either sit straight, or assume a more relaxed posture, or reach towards his own drink, or avoid eye contact, even though he keeps glancing his way when he thinks Tobirama won’t notice. Tobirama does, every time, and that just makes the whole ordeal more awkward. “Nice weather,” Tobirama says, with about as much enthusiasm.

If Madara wants to play this stupid game, Tobirama will indulge. Just to see how long it takes for Madara to break and return to his blustering status quo.

“Yeah...” Madara clears his throat, eye twitching as he manages to hold Tobirama’s gaze for a commendable three seconds this time. “Hate the sun. I meanーI mean I love the sun. Ugh. It just, uh. Burns.”

It’s both saddening and funny to see Madara visibly deflate.

“Skin too sensitive, huh?” Tobirama starts small. “Just like your ego?”

Madara’s jaw clenches and his nervous look shifts into a glare before he looks away again, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to calm himself down before he flashes an unnaturally cheery smile.

“Heh, nice,” Madara grits through his teeth, “nice joke, Senju.”

Tobirama raises his eyebrow as Madara flinches at his own words.

“I’m glad you appreciate my sense of humor,” Tobirama says, barely reining in a smirk.

“Sure! You’reーyou’re funny.”

“And?”

“And what?” Madara frowns, confused.

“And what else am I?” Tobirama demands, feigning thoughtfulness. “A recent assessment of yours was that I look and act like a self-obsessed dumbass, I think.”

“No-no,” Madara blurts out, looking much a cornered animal, “I think you... you are... you look not at all so terrible today?” he finishes with a nervous chuckle, running a hand through his hair.

Tobirama wants to scream from the agony.

No. This won’t do, otherwise he might as well leave.

“Can you just call me a stuck-up asshole like you always do or recite one of those horrible limerick disses?” he demands.

Madara actually yelps. “What? No! I mean, wait.” He narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re acting weird.”

“We’re on a date, if you were too stupーpreoccupied to get my invitation, Senju,” Madara says, jaw still clenched as he doubtless refrains from swearing, “and I’m being civil!”

That’s the advice he must have gotten from Anija, Tobirama thinks.

What a tragedy.

“Madara,” Tobirama implores, leaning his eyebrows on the table and meeting Uchiha’s gaze, “have you considered thatーI prefer it when you aren’t?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, thank fuck!” Madara slams his hands on the table, heaving a massive sigh as Tobirama laughs in relief. “I was ready to fucking die, you piece of shit! How does your brother stay so fucking kind all the time, it’s fucking torture!”

Tobirama rolls his eyes. “It’s a talent, naturally. Just like your talent at embarrassing yourself and mine at being awesome.”

“You’ve got it a little backwards, Senju,” Madara sneers, “but it’s excusable, given your level of intellect.”

“Twice as high as yours?” Tobirama parries.

“Twice as little.”

“That’s more like it,” Tobirama says, grinning despite himself, “I thought you were a decoy or something. You’ve told me to fuck off every single day since we first met and this was getting worrisome.”

Madara’s laugh is sudden, melodic, sending those irritating tingling sensations through Tobirama’s body. He makes an effort to appear outwardly calm.

“Maybe because you managed to piss me the fuck off every day that I’ve known you,” Madara scoffs, “but you’re all right sometimes. I guess.” He shrugs, feigning nonchalance even as he keeps nervously fixing and running his fingers through his hair.

A stupid, tantalizing habit. Tobirama imagines carding his own hands through the messy locks, tugging Madara’s head back toー

He forcefully aborts the thought process before he’s faced with a problem of the harder kind. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll try to strangle each other when we game together.”

“We’re playing today?” Madara asks.

Tobirama tilts his head to the side.

“You haven’t planned one gaming session after our date?”

“Um,” Madara says, blinking rapidly, “why should I be the one with the plan?”

“Because you’re the one who invited me,” Tobirama deadpans. And anyway, Madara is always the one to egg Tobirama on to gaming, which would usually only ever lead to semi-playful brawls and their fighting making Hashirama cry.

And without Anija there to assault them with his antics, Tobirama wonders what their play-fighting might lead to... and promptly shuts off those thoughts again. Control, dammit.

Madara opens his mouth, then closes it, sighs explosively and says, “All right, fair enough. But you’re the strategy pro here. And my thing is RPGs.” He smirks. “I can improvise.”

And Madara does, in fact, improvise, leading Tobirama on what he hopes is a satisfying daylong adventure. It’s strange, walking by themselves around Konoha without anyone else with them (not that they’ve taken to ignoring Hashirama and Mito anyway on their most recent group outings), free to talk about and do anything they want. Strange and perfect, the way Tobirama switches between poorly concealed bashfulness and his usual confidence, as their jokes and jibes at each other, every little prank they pull never fails to make them both laugh.

It’s perfect.

Just like Tobirama’s smile is, directed at him without any pretenses as they set off to explore the lush, gigantic forest surrounding the city, rumored to be home to mythical, many-tailed creatures. And that’s followed by their forays into an abandoned chemistry lab; the scares they get in the woods from intermittent growls coming from the shadows are nothing compared to the horror Madara feels when Tobirama insists on touching broken vials and experimental equipment, and going through doors with dilapidated ‘DANGER. CHEMICAL HAZARD’ signs.

“If we’re infected by some deadly and insidious poison,” Madara whispers as they explore the lab’s tunnels, “I’m going to fucking kill you before it does. Painfully.”

“It’s for science,” Tobirama says. “And trust me. We’re safe. I got a degree in this.”

“Youtube is practically your full-time job at this point. What the fuck else do you need?”

“The satisfaction of discovering something cool?”

“And deadly.”

"Unlikely.”

Madara groans, cursing his life, as well as his inability to say no to hisーapparentlyーnew boyfriend.

The boyfriend who’s just discovered another hidden pathway to a deeper level and has scurried off towards it like an excited five-year-old. Despite himself, despite his intent to keep complaining, Madara can’t hold back the grin tugging at his lips.

Still perfect.

Just like their lunch date which turns into a picnic by the Naka river, where Madara remembers meeting Hashirama way back when. Just like the first time Tobirama grasps his hand, fingers gently massaging it as he laughs at Madara stuttering to a stop from whatever rant he’d been on, heart in his throat and mind suddenly focused on whether his palms are too sweaty or not.

His mind goes blank. Eyes focus only on the man in front of him, whom he yearns to strangle just as often as he craves to tackle him onto any surface and ruin him completely. And it should feel wrong, it should be, only Madara hasn’t quite felt so right about anything in a long time, and with every minute they spend with their familiar bickering, just with a layer of something more behind it this time, it becomes harder and harder to deny how good being near Tobirama makes him feel. Happy. Complete.

Madara winces. Oh, gods. He’s waxing poetic now.

All worries about that fly out the window when Tobirama, without so much as a word of warning, leans in and draws Madara by his collar into a kiss.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t spring up to awaken alone in his bed like he always does, after dreams like these.

And, unsurprisingly, it turns out to be Madara’s best kiss to date.

Maybe he’s exaggerating, if just because he’s been craving this so damn much. Tobirama’s lips are hot, gentle, and welcoming against his, a curious tongue darting out to coax Madara’s lips open and deepen the kiss. The delightful drag of his tongue, his hands, rough and demanding on Madara’s chest, waist, thighsーit’s not long before he’s dizzy with it, barely holding back moans of pleasure for fear of sounding too desperate.

“Fuck,” Madara gasps as they pull away for breath, lips still touching as their eyes stay locked and he’s treated to Tobirama’s downright ravenous gaze. “That wasー”

Tobirama cuts him off with another kiss, then another, and it’s not long before they find themselves tangled in a mess of limbs and loose clothing. The hard ground presses against Madara’s back as Tobirama settles on top of him, ravaging Madara’s mouth with a passion that soon has his pants feeling too tight.

Fuck.

He groans, hips thrusting of their own accord and feeling Tobirama's own erection through the fabric.

Madara makes an immense effort to pull away, stifling a whine at the loss of contact.

“Bed,” he says, mortified at his own crudeness far too late after the word comes out. “Fuck, I meantー”

“Yes,” Tobirama growls, capturing Madara’s lips in another open-mouthed kiss before he hauls him up to start gathering their things. “Your place or mine?”

“Yours? Izuna,” Madara rasps, head too clouded to explain more in-depth, but Tobirama seems to understand.

“Anija shouldn’t be back for a while,” Tobirama says, a devastating grin on his face, “lots of time for us to play.”

Gods.

Madara scrambles to his feet fast enough to stumble, and for once, Tobirama has nothing to say about his clumsiness.

They all but crash through the front door, not even bothering to lock it as they rush through a cursory check to make sure Hashirama is out like he said he’d be.

“Fuck, thank the gods,” Tobirama sighs in relief before dragging Madara back into liplock.

Madara can’t hold back a moan this time, heat ratcheting up between them as he wraps his hands around Tobirama’s neck, pulling him closer as they stumble to the couch. Madara ends up straddling him just so that their cocks brush through too-rough clothing, kiss growing urgent and sloppy, as wandering hands touching every inch of uncovered skin.

Clothes fall away, leaving them both shirtless, and Madara needs a few moments to take in the miles of pale skin, so soft to the touch, toned muscles rippling as Tobirama squirms under him, gasps and groans escaping his lips in answer to every one of Madara’s touches. He leans in to mouth Tobirama’s neck, sucking bruising kisses onto the soft skin there pleasure flaring at the base of his stomach each time Tobirama moans and arches against him.

“You’re so sensitive,” Madara whispers, with a hint of incredulity. “That’s... fuck.”

“Yeah,” Tobirama rasps, eyes unfocused, “because... just get on with it.”

“If I knew this is what it took to finally get you to shut up,” Madara chuckles, “I would have tried this a long time ago.”

If he weren’t so sure Tobirama genuinely despised him. Butー

“I fucking wished you would!” Tobirama snaps, though the irritation rings hollow with the breathless tone.

Madara blinks in shock.

“You did?” Madara asks, moving lower to lap at Tobirama’s nipple, sucking the hardened nub into his mouth and eliciting another delicious whimper. “You thought about this? About my hands on you, touching you?”

“Yes!” The desperation in his tone only adds to Madara’s mounting confidence, one that he so rarely ever feels in Tobirama’s presence.

“My mouth on your cock,” he continues, heart hammering against his ribs as he trails kisses lower and lower, “would you like that? While I finger you, getting you ready to take me?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Tobirama’s hips jerk, making them both moan at the friction.

“Off,” Madara grunts, tugging at Tobirama’s pants with one hand as the other works the belt off his own. They scramble, a bit awkwardly, until they’re both naked and sprawled on top of each other, and Madara all but drools at the sight of Tobirama’s cock, hard and straining, beads of precum already leaking from the tip.

Perfect.

It’s tempting to just let go but Madara decides to take his time. Strokes Tobirama’s sides and chest, fingers his nipples, kisses every inch of skin he can reach, sucking bruises and biting slightly. He marvels at every little keen and groan he wrings from Tobirama, relishing how needy he grows with each second, how he moans Madara’s name, curses him and urges Madara to touch him, sliding his dick against his and huffing when Madara doesn’t do anything about it, before finally devolving into pleading.

Just what Madara’s been waiting for.

“Madara, please,” Tobirama’s whines, a soft, desperate sound that makes Madara groan in turn.

“Please what?” he asks, knowing he’s being a tease and enjoying the hell out of it.

Tobirama musters a pretty non-intimidating glare. “Just... fuck.”

“Tell me.”

“Fuck you.”

“Is that what you want?” Madara raises an eyebrow, making sure to wet his lips, letting his tongue gently graze the head of Tobirama’s cock. “I can bottom. I don’t mind.”

“Fuck!” Tobirama squeezes his eyes shut, heavy breathing interspersed with desperate whines. “Just... suck me off. Please. Now.”

“That’s it, Tobirama,” Madara drags out the syllables of his name, a smirk tugging at his lips, “when you ask so nicely, how can I refuse?”

He wraps his lipsーfinallyーaround the head, licking at the salty fluid gathered there, ears ringing from the heady feel of Tobirama’s cock against his mouth, his hands tangling in Madara’s hair, the sounds slipping from Tobirama’s lips that are borderline fucking obscene. Madara takes a breath to brace himself and takes Tobirama a few inches deeper. His length is hot, stiff, and heavy in his mouth as Madara presses the flat of his tongue against the underside, sucking hard, wringing another delectable whimper. Tobirama’s thrusts up, cock hitting the back of his throat, and Madara chokes for a moment, his own dick jerking at the sensation.

“Madara,” Tobirama breathes, “Madara, gods, you feel amazing.”

The words send another rush of pleasure through him, and Madara takes himself in hand to release some of the unbearable tension, stroking himself slowly as he relaxes his throat and sinks down to take Tobirama to the base.

Tobirama’s moan is a sweet, drawn-out melody. One that Madara enjoys making louder and louder as he starts moving, setting a fast-paced rhythm, uncaring for how debauched he may look, drool leaking out of his mouth and coating Tobirama’s cock, throat constricting around it as he takes him deep, lets him stay there, tongue gliding along his shaft. Tobirama soon devolves into barely coherent pleading, until ‘please’, and ‘more’, and Madara’s name are the only words coming out of his mouth.

It’s intoxicating. Overwhelming, far too much. Madara gives up stroking himself, the pleasure ramping up far too quickly, too soon, though Tobirama isn’t doing much better. Madara draws his lips up along his length, lapping up more precum gathered at the head, even as Tobirama’s hips jerk again and the hand in Madara’s hair tightens, urging him back down.

“Madara, please,” Tobirama keens, “I need...”

Madara has a pretty good idea of what he needs. He swirls his tongue over the head, descending again until his nose is pressed against Tobirama’s stomach. Madara swallows around him once, twice, a third time before he feels Tobirama nudging at his shoulder in a warning he doesn’t pay heed to, starting to bob his head again, wrapping his fingers around the base of Tobirama’s cock, using both his mouth and hand to bring him to completion.

“Fuck, Madara, Iー”

Madara lets out a muffled groan once he feels cum spilling against his tongue, swallowing rapidly as Tobirama’s cock pulses, again and again, through an orgasm that has him writhing and and trembling underneath him, hands tightening in Madara’s hair enough to hurt with the kind of tantalizing pain that only adds to the pleasure.

“You feel so fucking good,” Tobirama pants, watching Madara through white lashes, eyes dark and hazy as another shudder runs through him, “fuckーI want...”

Madara releases him with a wet pop. “Want what, Tobirama?” he whispers, voice too hoarse for him to speak properly.

Tobirama grips his shoulders in lieu of an answer, directing Madara to turn around so his back is pressed against his chest.

Then Tobirama’s hand wraps around his cock andーoh.

Madara has pretty much forgotten about his own pleasure, too focused on not coming too soon and making sure Tobirama was enjoying himself.

“My turn,” Tobirama murmurs against his ear, tone still breathless but with a commanding edge to it now that makes Madara shiver, “and lemmeーlet me hear you, Madara.”

Gods. He groans just from the sound of Tobirama’s voice. The feel of his teeth nibbling at his earlobe, his hand setting a quick, harsh rhythm that builds up the pleasure to impossible degrees. Tobirama’s heated skin pressed against his back, his thighs, the fingers of his other hand carding through his hair with a gentleness that contrasts with his harshness before.

It’s too much.

“Go on, Madara.”

Tobirama’s fingers swiping at the precome gathering at the head of Madara’s cock, smearing it over his shaft. His voice, a muffled whisper coaxing Madara to let go, to come for him, to say Tobirama’s nameー

“Just like that, Madara,” Tobirama grunts, “louder for me, come on.”

Madara thrusts into his grip, all but fucking into Tobirama’s fist at this point, moans his name as the heat grows unbearable the closer he gets to release.

“To-bi-rama...” He comes with a broken groan slipping from his lips as cum spills all over his stomach and Tobirama’s hand, each pulse coming stronger than the last, leaving him dizzy and boneless in Tobirama’s arms for however long it takes for his orgasm to abate.

Feels like forever. Probably a lot less. Time does seem to slow down, though, both of them collapsing against each other onto the cushions, breathing raggedly and curling into each other as Madara turns to bury his head in the crook of Tobirama’s neck.

It still seems unreal. Too perfect. So right.

They lie there for a minutes, coming down from the high, limbs tangled and lazy kisses exchanged here and there. Tobirama looks so peaceful, like Madara’s never seen him before: eyes half-lidded, hair messier than ever, sticking in every direction, skin still flushed and marked, all over, with hickeys and teeth marks, the mere sight of which has Madara’s dick stirring in interest, recent orgasm or no.

“You know,” Madara says, hands running over Tobirama’s chest, barely grazing his still sensitive nipples and making him shiver, “if this is the game you want to play, I’m really not against binging it. The rest of the dayーweekend, if you want.” Madara presses a kiss to Tobirama’s neck. “Make the playthrough as thorough as possible.” To his collarbone. “Unlock all achievements and, uh,” Madara trails his hand along Tobirama’s chest to his groin, past his length and to his ass, "explore every location.”

“If that was some thinly veiled euphemism,” Tobirama says, barely holding in laughter, “for you wanting to fuck me sideways...” Madara holds Tobirama’s gaze as his fingers hover just over Tobirama’s hole. “Then Madara, for fuck’s sake, stop trying to be subtle and get to work.”

Madara barks out a laugh.

“Whatever you say, Tobirama.”

Madara dips his voice low and deep, like he’s noticed Tobirama loves, and relishes the whimper it earns him. Relishes the way Tobirama arches against him, looking for friction, how delectable he looks, ready and responsive, so eager for Madara’s touch.

He knows then and there that if it’s up to him, Madara will do anything to make this last.

[beaniegara]

11 Questions

tagged both by @yaboybergara​ and @ricky-goldsworth​ which is great because that gives me 22 questions mwahhahaha thank you folks!! <3 

RULES

1. always post the rules

2. answer the questions given by the person who tagged you

3. write 11 questions of your own

4. tag 11 people you want to get to know better (or however many you want)

now, see, I don’t know what to ask........ so I’m gonna be a little shit and tag folks to pick 11 of these 22 questions and answer them too. nini and gray pls don’t sue me for reusing your questions, thank fdgkfndgfdsk I’m tagging @kaylotta, @queerunsolved, @haunted-gays, @thatmademadej, and @i-am-ghost-proof-baby <3 if yall wanna do it, of course. no pressure.

this is incredibly long (and uncomfortably honest). let’s go lesbians let’s go

first, nini’s questions:

1. How many pets have you had in your life?

one. I’ve always wanted them but my mom and I have always lived in tiny apartments and had no way to care for a pet so it wasn’t until I was 17 that we adopted a kitten!! his name was merlin and he was the laziest, moodiest lil ball of fluff I’ve ever met. I.. had to give him away a year later because we moved to a place even smaller that wouldn’t allow pets so long story short I’m scarred for life and don’t think I can ever take any more pets without feeling guilty to my bone 

this is merlin btw I love him with all my heart and he now lives in a farm. as far as I know anyway.. :(

2. Do you believe in destiny? Why?

mmm interesting question. weird, metaphysical theories aside, I don’t believe anything is set in stone per se, but I do believe that some things are just... meant to be? in a way? for example, you can’t tell me ryan and shane weren’t meant to be friends and find each other in such an unlikely place as they did. one of my mottos, completely stripped from context because it’s from a rather pretentious tv show, is “the universe is rarely so lazy”. meaning that good things happen for a reason, and that you trailed that path for that to happen. yknow what I’m saying? I can’t really explain this without writing a 10 page essay because that’s just how my gemini ass thinks 

3. If you could chose one person on the great beyond, would you take the chance to talk to them? 

you mean someone who has passed away? oh yeah, I would talk to my grandmother. she was raising me and died when she was 4 and that changed not only my entirely life but our whole extended family dynamic... so many questions.

4. From all your hobbies, which one would you love to make a living of?

oh man, writing. I’ve been dreaming of being a writer ever since I was 9 or something. never panned out but that would certainly be the dream. if I could work with videos, subtitling, tv shows, cinema etc that would also be dope as hell!

5. What’s your favorite color palette to wear?

fkgjfsdgiusfdksd I have no fashion sense whatsoever, idk? I do like to wear dark clothes (because weight..) and reds (because pale).

6. What’s your opinion on queerbaiting?

I don’t have the time for it. for starters, it’s something that usually comes from people with very poor writing skills that can’t come up with plots interesting enough to keep viewers/readers hooked in. that already says something. no offense to anyone who is a fan of shows like these, but when it’s mostly written by white men I just don’t have any high hopes for it. you can ask flavs what my reaction was like when I realized the character I had headcanon’ed as wlw in hannibal was actually a wlw. I couldn’t believe it, because what???? since when does that happen, especially in a show run by a white man??? kjdfghsjgd 

I think this is part of a bigger conversation but my point is, don’t fall for it. I know it’s all part of the fight for representation, asking big names to produce big shows with lgbtq+ characters in it and so on, but for the love of god, watch something else too!!!! let GOT rot and die!!!!!!!!! look up different, smaller, cheaper shows, that’s where you find lgbtq+ content creators!!!!!! there’s so many wlw webseries out there, you wouldn’t believe it. you have a choice. don’t give any more of your time and love and word-of-mouth to shows/movies that clearly have no interest in being more diverse. they don’t deserve you. 

and that’s not to say any of it is on us. quite on the contrary, they’re using us. but aside from calling out their bullshit, we do have a chance to boost lgbtq+ content creators. don’t let them fool you into thinking they’re doing you any favors, or that they’re our last chance so we should be paying attention to what they’re doing/saying. fuck them!!!! you can’t queerbait me because I don’t trust you or give you the chance to do it. and you can shove your very straight, very white shows where the sun doesn’t shine, @ hollywood.  

7. Is there a language you would love to speak?

french and korean, mostly. I can understand a little bit of both, but I really wish I was fluent :( oh, will to live and learn, where art thou...

8. Do you have, like, a dream so wild you think it’s impossible?

kjgnsfdkjhjjs having enough money to support myself and my mother??? I don’t have any big, wild dreams, I think. just.......... living comfortably would be a+  

9. How many AUs of your own life do you have in your head?

oh man. I keep thinking about living somewhere in idk iceland or scotland just like... tending goats or something. that’s the most comfortable version of myself I can think of.

I also like to imagine if I could handle being a film director, because that sounds like fun. maybe a screenwriter? anything creative in films, really. 

there’s also the unattainable dream of having a wife and idk maybe adopting a kid? and we’d just. support each other. and love each other. and that’s just. I. [cries]

I like to think how things would be if I were actually hot and not socially awkward.. I’d be someone completely different, basically lol 

10. If you were to meet your younger self, do you think they would think you cool or not?

oh god, younger me would hate present me D: I had such high hopes for myself, I had lots of dreams lol never in a million years did I think I’d be where I am today...

11. Not a question, but please add something postive about yourself, something that you love about you.

IDJFSSIODUGSDFKGDSJ IT’S LIKE YOU KNEW I’D BE A NEGATIVE FUCK, NINI. I................................ I like that I have an easy time with languages? or with classes in general. I like to learn from people, I’m just really unmotivated to leave the house lol 

now onto gray’s q’s:

1. What’s your favourite music video of all time?

straight-up impossible questions right out of the gate huh I SEE YOU, GRAY. I SEE YOU kjdfgjfsdhgkdsjfs

I’ll have to go with a few,

“prototype” by viktoria modesta is just GORGEOUS. I can’t get over this video & song and it’s been years.

“jackpot” by block b looks creepy as shit but the context makes it such a clever yet fun video. take into account that these guys were screwed over by the kpop company that created the group, and that the lyrics talk about hitting jackpot in an industry that’s savage to say the least. to me this video is a visual representation of what a dangerous trap entertainment companies are in the kpop industry, and it also ties in with the groups’ story of being made into dolls by a company and then telling them to fuck off in the end lol 

“treat me like your mother” by the dead weather. I don’t know why I just love it. (cw: gun violence)

“emperor’s new clothes” by panic! at the disco. I MEAN, LOOK AT IT.

“manyo maash” by puer kim. I just love the aesthetic?

honorable mention: “tick tick boom” by the hives because that’s a banger. ba dum tssss.

2. What’s a favourite memory of yours?

I have plenty of good memories, thank god. I think one of my favorites is just hanging out with my friends in 2008-9; one of their older brothers was driving us around town, we were listening to the white stripes at full volume, singing along, all sitting pressed up close together in his shitty car. man, my teenage years would’ve been fantastic if I had stayed there with them!! 

3. Do you play video games? If so, which one’s your favourite?

I DO!!! I mean, not as much as I’d like because a) no money to spare on games/consoles, and b) I suck at basically everything. but I’m obsessed with paladins these days, and I’m also a big fan of LOTRO. I like horror games--mostly the resident evil and silent hill type--and fps. I grew up playing some tomb raider, medal of honor, resident evil... oh, those were the days. 

4. How did you first get into [your fandom of choice]?

with bfu it was that kind of thing where I’d see a meme or two cross my dash and it was always this ridiculous screenshot, or those “that’s it, that’s the show” kinda things with dozens of thousands of notes... until one day I was incredibly anxious, and I needed to watch something or I’d never finish the assignments I had for college. so I just thought “oh hey I should check out that unsolved thing people like so much, it’s buzzfeed so it’s probably good bg noise to work with” lol and it did work, and I did finish my assignments, and that means that I first watched the show barely paying any attention to it because I was busy doing something else. but ryan’s and shane’s voices helped me relax and to this day they still help a lot with my anxiety, to the point that I need to keep coming back every minute or so during episodes because I get distracted just listening to their voices and not absorbing a word lol

5. How did you first get into fandom in general?

uhh.. well, I was a big “pottermaniac” (that’s how I called it) since I was 9, but that was before I realized fandom was a Thing on the internet too. I remember when I was maybe 10 or 11, I entered a chatroom (god, those were wild) just in time to see someone saying in all caps HARRY POTTER IS GREAT AND YOU’RE ALL DUMB FOR NOT SEEING IT or something fkdsjgfdugfsdk and it was this girl using the nickname fawkes. she was older than me, I think that 15 or something, and we exchanged addresses (!!! how am I alive!!!) and were pen pals for a while. but it took me so fucking long to actually find the fandom online that I think my first brush with it was with the arctic monkeys forum I found online in 2008, where I mistakenly said I liked “the muse” and people laughed at me so I never went back to it lol then in 2010 I found out about kpop and that’s when I really dived head-first into fandom life. took me long enough (tbf I was very against the notion of being a “fan” because I was an idiot).

6. What’s at the top of your bucket list?

great fucking question. no idea. I guess.. traveling overseas? if we’re talking wild, distant things. but closer to my reality, getting a job that pays me at least the minimum wage disjgdfgkfsdk #fuckinternships

7. What’s something not many people know about you?

I love dancing and miss it like hell.

8. What’s your favourite medium for storytelling - movie, book, television, musical, comic, internet video, video game, something else? Why that medium?

ohhhhhhh this is an interesting question. as much as I love writing, and think that’s one of the best things we humans have ever come up with, I do love.. musicals? not necessarily theater--although that’s great and I’d sell my soul to see chicago live--but I love the idea of telling stories through music. I really wish we could bring back the custom of telling stories orally, and through music, and that we could as society agree that collective singing is beautiful and should be reintroduced in our day-to-day lives. sure listening to (1) artist singing is great but hAVE YOU TRIED SINGING ALONG DURING A CONCERT WHERE EVERYONE ELSE IS SINGING TOO? best fucking feeling in the world. 

we had two bands in brazil, in different periods of time, that were so incredibly famous they’re still cornerstones in our music history. one was legião urbana, some folk-ey rock band that had a couple of songs telling these really long stories that I LOVE with all my heart. faroeste caboclo is our bohemian rhapsody, most people my age or older know the lyrics to it. and mamonas assassinas was this comical (?) rock band that sang dumb, fun songs that usually told stories too and that was the best. I miss that kinda thing. 

9. What’s your favourite food?

red meat, mainly churrasco. but I also can’t live without chocolate milk AND the whopper. capitalism has me by the stomach.

10. Do you have a joke to share?

fjgfsdgskfdgfsk I don’t.. it’s been so long since I last tried telling a joke, I don’t think I know any?

11. What song/artist helped you through your struggles?

pitty has been a big part of my life for some 14-odd years now. “be ok” by ingrid michaelson and “starlight” by muse were my anthems when depression hit hard during my teenage years. the white stripes has also been a constant, with gems like “blue orchid” and “a martyr for my love for you” turning into sort of theme songs for certain parts of my life. choi sam helped me through college. and even though they were a huge disappointment to the point that I stopped listening to them altogether, block b gave me a good 4 or 5 years of distraction from life.

[queenmephala]

Hello again! It’s pretty early where I am so sorry if is for you too lol, but you’ve been so kind to listen to us talk about our OC’s (all seem super cool btw), could you give us some random facts about your OC’s, perhaps like their signs or random interests. Thank you!!

hey dear ! 💖 oh no you're good! i wasn't able to see this message until now, so it isn't too early at all. unfortunately i haven't been able to play some of my ocs lately to take screenshots, but i typically do better planning out a character before playing them (if that makes sense!)here's the list of the ones i haven't played yet:Hjul Fierce-Arm (Nord, male): birthsign is the warrior; which strength was great for being raised on his parents farm outside Windhelm. His father died before Hjul was born in the Great War, and his mother tried to raise him & his five younger siblings on the farm. His interests lie mostly in hunting, and travelling after he left his farm. Definite Stormcloak, but after travelling around Skyrim, and meeting Ulfric- the man he looked up to- he changed his mind. His politics are complicated (he was never educated properly to further his beliefs), so he sticks to what he does know: hunting, Talos, protecting what he cares about, and adventuring- he has to have a thrill. I'm working on his aesthetic (God know how long that'll take), but colors i associate with him; sunset orange, sunflower yellow, gold, and a brilliant red. Persphone (Breton, female): birthsign is the Lady (13th September). Daughter of Mephala and one of her devotees. Despite growing up with the constant influence of Mephala (though not directly, Mephala herself actually had very little to do with her child), Persphone's divine of choice is Mara. VERY politically active; a fighter for justice and equality (as one would expect as Mara for a matron). Easily angered by injustices. Restoration magick is her go to, and she always has to have a cause. Colors I associate with her: royal purple, sea blue, silver, and snowy white. the ones i have played:dragonborn azrael (dunmer, female): birthsign is the atronach. She's always been great with magick, particularly destruction and enchanting. Raised by her necromancing grandmother in Solstheim; losing both her parents to a mining accident. Interests are learning as much as she can about magick (she has a leather bound journal she writes EVERYTHING new down). Loves plants and animals, and is as stubborn of a dunmer as they come. Vengeful. Not an Imperial, but not a Stormcloak; she feels whomever is in charge are going to make the same greedy choices for their people, so she doesn't rather waste time on authority; she never obeys laws anyway. Colors I associate: crimson, velvet, ebony, and ashen gray.dragonborn elrina springwood (bosmer, female); birthsign is the Shadow, and she always benefitted from this by how well she could hide from prey and predators alike. Her family's tree-home was ransacked by Thalmor agents- being a particularly noble family. She lost most of her family that day, and takes it as a personal vendetta to slaughter as many thalmor as she possibly can. While she hates the imperials for their indifference during her home being attacked, she still feels safer in the ranks of the Imperial Legion. Colors: green, brown, lavender, and pink.HoK arethusa (nibenese, female): birthsign is the Lover. Raised by her grandfather on a farm outside of Bravil; her father was a Blade who lost his life under suspicious conditions, and her mother gave arethusa up, before succumbing to her grief months later. Her grandfather was a thieves guild member, so to give her a trade, he taught her to be a good thief. Unfortunately not too well as she got caught trying to pickpocket some noble man in the imperial city. Absolutely in love with Martin, but hasn't seen him in days. She feels too close, and it frightens her. Interests mostly lie in becoming a better thief, and right now saving Tamriel from Mehrunes Dagon. colors i associate with her: pastels- pink, blue and red- and green! (i can't upload the screenshots for some reason, but i'll definitely add them when i can! also i'm sorry this came out so long!)thank you so much for asking !!! 💖✨💖✨

[theashemarie]

A Concerned Citizen

A Few Concerns:

I’m in the middle of Hurricane Harvey recovery (30 inches of rain in three days—whoo boy), so I’m going to try to keep this as succinct and brief as I can. (Also, I recently fell and knocked myself on the head so I apologize if this isn’t worded particularly well but I’m trying. I’m a very concerned citizen about this.)

I need to preface this by saying that I in no way support @encaged-au. In fact, it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, and I’ve written about this before, and I think that we absolutely need to work to make the fandom a safe place for minors. But, I also have major concerns about this @sonicsafetysquad blog.

I have never been a fan of fandom’s (and tumblr’s) penchant for callout posts and blogs. It is incredibly easy to cherry pick examples to defame someone or something, and the witch hunts that result are ugly because many people don’t and won’t think critically about things. The fact that a person (or group of people) can simply decide to make a callout blog/post, thereby declaring themselves the moral authority in a fandom/cause/issue, is downright worrying, to say the least. The holy righteousness that comes out of these people is terrifying, and they quickly accrue blind followers who want to be on the “right side” of the issue.

I’m here to tell you that there’s always an ugly side and a nice side to every storm, but it’s still just that—a storm. Those of us in the center of it are often caught up by it, but this time I have the peace of mind to see the problems as they unfold.

So yes, Encaged needs to be addressed, but the way that this callout blog went about it is absolutely the worst possible way. First of all, and most troubling, they went into a private Discord server, basically in raid formation, stirred up trouble, took screenshots without permission from the server owner, the mods, or the members, did not make any effort to conceal the identities of the minors that they claim to want to protect, and used them in their callout post. That right there immediately makes me suspicious. (They also claim to not have raided/invaded the server, but it says plain as day here that they got an invite from a concerned person, not a mod or admin (thereby the server was closed to the public), and went in and immediately started harassing the people in there.)

Once again, I’m going to emphasize, I am deliberately saying, that I do not support Encaged and my group of friends and I have been very concerned about the AU for a while. But, I am also a human being capable of critical thinking and I can immediately see that this holy crusade can only go downhill fast. My criticism of sonicsafetysquad in no way means that I support Encaged. (Gotta put this here because some people are black and white thinkers.)

Yes, by the way, I’ve seen this post, which paints a pretty ugly picture of the scenario. In their post, the sonicsafetysquad clearly cherry picked their examples, but the whole conversation is... Yeah. They raided Green Chill Zone, where Encaged was housed for a while, and their interactions were hostile from the beginning. You cannot, under any circumstances, go into someone else’s house, knock over their things, insult their family, make them uncomfortable, and then demand answers for some problematic behavior and expect them to give you what you want. That’s not how human behavior works, so the fact that they did just that and then accuse the Encaged creative team of not answering their questions? Yeah, it stinks in here. Of course they didn’t tell you their plot when you started insulting them, calling them awful things, and making their friends uncomfortable with what you called “harmless jokes.” I don’t care what holy mission from god you’re on; your behavior and handling of the situation is and was atrocious and I can’t trust any callout posts you make because of this terrible behavior. The ends do not justify these means.

Also to note, they raided the server early in the morning, when most of the mods, the owner, and the people they wanted to talk to were asleep. I don’t know if this was intentional, but by god with everything else going on, I wouldn’t be surprised.

(A sidenote: That post where they got an invite from a concerned person? And the callout post itself? (Which I didn’t want to link to but this is turning into a dumpster fire so here’s all the facts.) They seem to be claiming that this type of thing should not happen in a private server, but in this post (screenshot 16), Somberhog (mod president over on the callout blog) clearly says that they should keep it to the server. So, which is it? Should all adults who come into contact with children be policing their self-expression in a private server, or should adults only step in when things get public? When a concerned person who is in the server finds problem with it? It gets very messy very quickly, and if you want to be the police of the fandom, you sure as heck better be ready with a strong idea of what you want. Right now, they don’t have that.)

(Another sidenote: Posting PMs without permission to make a point? Really mcfreakin scummy my dudes. The micron of trust I had that they would handle this well is going going gone.) (And hand to god, everyone who knows me know that I’m not super fond of Shadzter. I can’t believe I have to defend him. Yes, he is not handling this situation well, btw, but neither is the sonicsafetysquad.)

Second, they neglected to mention that @kimmyko has received criticism for her response to concerns about Encaged, and she has handled it with grace and an open mind. (I would know, because I sent that anon in.) And the odds of them missing that ask are slim because it was posted a few hours after the first. The reason I bring this is up is that if they truly wanted to have a dialogue with kimmyko to air their grievances, they very well could have, but instead chose to put her on blast for the whole fandom to see. Once again, I’m hard pressed to trust these people to “protect” anyone if this is how they act.

Another thing to note here: the sonicsafetysquad has repeated a few times over in the past 24 hours that they have different mods with different opinions who will write different things, so accusing the whole blog of something isn’t valid and to keep this in mind. But, kids, I gotta tell you, when you start a group project like this, you are acting as a unit. If one of your members says something that gets you into trouble, you all are responsible. You should be checking each other’s work, their answers to asks, their tone, and the way they go about getting information. This is how group projects work in the real world. The whole company/project/nonprofit looks bad if one person screws up, and you can’t just point fingers like “mod so and so are entitled to their opinion!” You need to own up to the fact that one of your members threw around the word “pedophile” and it rightfully made a few people upset. That’s not an accusation you can level at someone lightly, and since you have placed yourselves in this position of power, you can’t be doing this. (They’re also playing semantics, which is the pettiest thing I’ve ever seen, but I’m not going to get into this.)

I know that this blog has good intentions, but their tone, the way they’re handling everything, and their blatant disregard for basic decency is mind-boggling to me. If you want to put yourself on the moral high ground, you can’t do this. We’re not talking about punching nazis here; this a fandom—a fandom for kids, as this blog keeps pointing out. If you’re so gung ho about protecting kids, you also need to set a good example for how to approach and handle these situations civilly, or else we’re just going to keep doing this and not getting anywhere. What are you teaching children by raiding a Discord server, pointing fingers, calling someone a pedophile, answering asks in a condescending manner, not opening yourself up to dialogue, and being so righteous that the ultimatum is that you either agree with the callout or you’re an abusive-loving stan? Every issue is on a gradient of grays. Stop acting like this is black and white.

In conclusion: this post is basically my stance on this whole thing. I can’t believe you made me do this, Sonic fandom. Now, I’m gonna go back to bailing water because there are actual emergencies going on in the world.

[newgeekcity]

New Geek City is Live Blogging MST3k The Return

Once a upon a time there was a bored kid. He just moved to a new place where he didn’t know anyone. Hair was coming in weird places. His face looked like it came from a rare Garbage Pail Kid card.

Other things were changing for the kid, namely his tastes. To him everything started to be so childlike. His books, Full House, even Saturday morning cartoons. There wasn’t anything that really appealed to him anymore.

Except for Batman the Animated Series, that was still awesome.

So one day while trying to avoid the Smurfs or some shit, the kid flipped on Comedy Central. Gamera was on. Everything sucked, but he wasn’t too big for Toho movie monsters. 

Just look at it...

And see those guys on the bottom? They were cracking jokes, making astute observations. Then they would do silly musical numbers. It was the best, and for years after, no matter what, the kid would tune in to see what crazy schlock the boys of MST3k would do next.

And yeah yeah, the boy was me. Twist ending, M. Night Shyamalan style. Blah blah.

Since MST3k came into my life so early, sometimes I wonder where it started and I begin in the soup of neurons and my memories. Am I sarcastic and love terrible movies because it brings me back to my safe space? Or am I drawn to MST3k because I am sarcastic and I love 1960s Godzilla movies.

I don’t think there’s a real answer to that question. However, after a long long departure. MST3k is back and on Netflix... so lets dive into the first episode which is called... episode 1? Seriously guys? Way to be descriptive.

We got movie sign after the jump

00:00 - Hold on I need more coffee. 

00:00 - Alright, back. Lets see what’s up. I’m really curious about the opening. If I remember right the opening song was sung by Mike Nelson. So lets see how this stacks up. 

I’m not looking for a perfect recreation, but something in the same spirit.

1:39 - People? There’s other people in this universe? I thought there was like 10 tops in the entire world in the original series. Then there’s Wil fucking Wheaton. I don’t mind the people, but I do mind Wil Wheaton, that fucking guy. The DIY effects and models are really great though.

In what looks like the Gizmonic mission control, the staff are puppets. I love that.

Wait I know that lady... She’s Erin Gray. Colonel Deering from Buck Rogers. When I was 5 I wasn’t sure if I was going to marry her or Princess Leia. 

Hey it could have happened, I was a cute kid.

But seriously, Fuck. Wil. Wheaton. 

2:00 - I have to admit, I’m sort of liking Jonah. He has the same affable quality as Joel and Mike. 

4:30 - Gypsy could talk? Like for reals? Weird.

I also did like the opening sequence, a lot. Its different. It feels like that’s what the sequence should have been for the movie. But I really liked it. Great work Joel. 

8:00 - Invention exchange is back. Patton Oswalt is perfect as TV’s son of TV’s Frank. Although I was doubting Felicia Day, I have to admit she is charming here. 

The movie doors are different, you could tell they used a computer for this one. Not sure if I like that, But whatevs its minor. 

The bots voices are actually pretty good too. Crow sounds like Crow. Tom sort of sounds like Tom. I do have to get used to Jonah though.

9:00 - Its not skin, its beef. Just saying.

Delicious ground beef.

10:30 - Tom can fly! He can fly!!

13:15 - We have Super Dragon reference! Also one of the best MST3k songs 

14:00 - “You know an aquarium is just a pet store that doesn’t sell anything.” Made me lol.

14:41 - Gypsy showed up and made a quip. I already forgot what it was. I wonder if it’ll be a thing.

16:35 - I’m hoping the movie picks up. I doubt it because its MST3k. But they did a “commercial break” just now. They repeated the name of the movie and showed I guess would be the Deep 13 House Band. 

I think a skit would have worked better. Its not like they have to fit in actual commercials. But they’re probably trying to keep as close to the original format as possible.

18:30 - Scientist 1: “I envy that young man.”

Scientist 2: “He will be busy now.”

Me: Yeah with your daughters, you Dane weirdo.

20:00 - Who just keeps an electric eel in a tank in a hallway? Nothing is gonna go wrong there. Nothing at all....ARRRRRGHG 

22:00 - I’m having a really hard time picking up who’s speaking. Particularly with Tom / Jonah. 

But Jonah’s Monster Mash / Reptilicus cover was definitely out of the Joel Robinson playbook. 

25:00 - Can someone tell me if that Dane blonde, scientist daughter has a single daughter along the R line? And that wound looks like pudding. Just saying it looks like delicious reptile pudding.

27:00 - Ok the skit break is this kaiju monster rap. The bots, particularly crow are more animated. He’s able to move his arms around now.

The song itself is way different from the original series. Which I’m giving it a thumbs up. It fits well into the original ethos. Its catchy, fun. Its a good update. Nice work modern MST3k writers.

32:00 - One thing I’ve noticed is the actual filmic quality of the movie. In the old MST3k’s you could still see the scratches and dust, and the warping. It looks like that this is a restored film. 

Its not awful or really a distraction. But its just something I noticed as a long time fan.

35:00 - Dickweed. It makes me laugh every time.

36:00 - Of course the goofus stuck his hand in the electric eel tank. You know comedy. It had to happen. Like the sun rising, and the rain falling in the amazon.

38:00 - I wish netflix would have some way that it counts up instead of down. It would make my life easier here.

Another “commercial break” I was wrong, in the new series its Moon 13 and Patton Oswalt gave a fun fact about the doors. The house band is playing at the same time. Its very Svengoolie.

39:00 - Xanadu reference. Not sure how many youngin’s would get it. I barely do because my dad had a bootleg VHS tape. 

It was awful.

41:00 - I was about to say a lot of the jokes are falling flat, but when that scientist “screamed” and one of the guys dubbed it with Opera, that was brilliant. 

43:00 - I get that MST3k was never really about plot when it came to the host and bots. But they seemed to jump into the riffing really quick. I was expecting some sort of intro for Jonah, like he’d ask questions about why he’s there throughout the movie and the bots would fill him in and he’d grow into the host role. 

I think it would have added some sort of dimension to it. But I would get why they would just jump right into it. 

45:00 - Also I’d expect the Mads would show up more by now. Maybe in the next skit sequence?

47:00 - No Mads, but the cloning of Tom Servo in the “genesis tank that’s conveniently off camera” was real classic MST3k. 

So far, Jonah I would say earned his spot. He nailed it. 

Crow, yup classic Crow. 

Tom, well. He’s not awful. He’s funny but I just can’t get past the voice. Kevin Murphy really owned the character. I hope its just matter of getting used to it. Like when Kevin originally took over in Season 2 (I think) of MST3k.

51:00 - Hold on I need a gif of that.. give me a few minutes.

Ok, I couldn’t get a gif. I’ll have to check into that. BUT I did grab a screenshot.

Single handedly this is my most favorite special effect ever.

54:30 - Although another stray observation, when the people are in frame, the film is alright. Like no scratches (for the most part) but when the monster is up it looks like someone went through it with sandpaper. 

Which lazy bastard only did half a restoration?

55:00 - It feels like Tom should have had that ability to fly all along. His bottom always reminded me of a hovercraft.

56:00 - Yup the commercial breaks definitely is reminiscent of Svengoolie, Paton Oswalt should just show up on that set one day as TV’s Son of TV’s Frank. 

It would be some great cross promotion.

BTW, go watch Svengoolie. Its not as funny as MST3k, but it’s really charming and fun.

Occasionally they show a good movie. Which I guess defeats the point, but whatever.

60:00 - We’re about at the halfway point. So far, I will admit the new MST3k is... I don’t want to say a worthy successor but Joel Hodgson really did something special. This definitely feels in place with the originals. Almost like it never went away. 

I do want more Mads for this episode. Where are they?

62:00 - How did they get letters? This is like the first episode in almost 20 years. How many 8 year olds could sit still long enough to watch reruns? Aren’t they making methlabs and sexting? 

63:00 - Just a note, I know nothing about modern children.

71:00 - Have you ever wondered why Kaiju are impervious to tank shells? Think about it, they’re designed to punch through concrete, steel plating, etc. I don’t think they’d have a problem with reptile skin, prehistoric or otherwise.

74:00 - Another thing I noticed is that the guy and the bots are more animated compared to the originals. They’ll move around, fly by, bring in barrels to interact with the screen. 

I know the originals did similar, but it seems to be more frequent here. Its not unwelcome. Its actually nice.

77:00 - Another commercial break. Its a TV seal of quality with the Moon 13 house band. I’m still liking them.

Patton talked about how Kinga established some TV group, probably to make profit. 

Its not so much how the joke was clever, I just liked how they used that to add some background of the world of MST3k. Because we really don’t know much about it, besides the SOL and Deep 13 and such. 

I never thought it was missing, but now that I’ve seen some glimpses into the surrounding world I am interested in learning more. Does the world know about the Forresters? Have they always run in secret? Or they make their intentions known and the government is powerless to stop them. Who is the government there anyway?

Are they considered brilliant or total fuck ups? Are they part of something bigger? Like SMERSH or the illuminati or something?

78:00 - They’re freaking out about getting a gallon of some sort of lizard knock out drug. Do Danes know how much a gallon is? It’s not that much, if it was like an oil drum’s worth then you got problems.

80:00 - The gallon is really just a beaker. So I guess Danes don’t get the imperial system after all.

83:00 - Seriously the guy playing Crow is really good. If I close my eyes I’d have a hard time telling the difference between him and Trace Beaulieu.

Although I noticed the mouth movement on Crow isn’t as pronounced as it was in the originals. Its a little detail, but it went a long way in figuring out who was talking.

85:00 - Monster’s dead, yay I guess.

86:00 - “Push the button Max” doesn’t have the same cachet as “Push the button Frank.” But I’m glad they brought that back.

87:00 - The end credit song sounds like it was made with a real orchestra. It gives it some gravitas. Its rather lovely. 

88:00 - They’re repeating the monster rap. Not bad, still cute. 

89:00 - Wait, in the end credits, They gave the proper name for the Moon 13 House Band, they’re called “The Skeleton Crew.”

I like Moon 13 house band better.

90:00 - Nice touch--

And of course--

The end tag. Its nice to see some old standbys come back.

Final Thoughts - 

I suppose if you really wanted to you could say its worse or better than the originals. I guess its like how you wanted to fight over Joel vs Mike. 

They’re different. They had their own styles, and they were very funny in their own way. 

MST3k The Return is a lot like that. There’s enough elements of the originals that it feels familiar, but stylistically its been updated. I personally think its a good thing. 

With the bigger budget, and more modern delivery I feel a lot of the fun, DIY, anarchic, lo-fi qualities that was so mind blowing about the original show is very much here. 

I like the new cast, except for Wil Wheaton (fuck you Wesley Crusher), and I think they’re as charming and clever as the previous casts. Just... different.

So if you loved the originals as much as I did, I definitely think its worth binging with your kids. Personally I plan to make this a Saturday morning thing like I did way back when.

One last last thing. From what I saw of the preview for the next episode it looks like Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy are visiting. Hopefully Mike shows up too.

I. Can’t. Wait.

[manuelclapid]

June 7, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter

This could be your first AsktheBuilder newsletter or it could be your 728th issue. If you’ve recently signed up, I welcome you. If you’re a subscriber in good standing, no matter how long you’ve been getting my missives, I’m glad you’re here too.

This is sort of a quirky issue. This week I’d like to share some random thoughts with you based on the requests for help I get at the Ask Tim page on AsktheBuilder.com.

But first, here’s this issue’s song. I love to listen to music while typing using the Dvorak method as I create this newsletter. CLICK or TAP HERE and enjoy this song with me. Get ready to Ooooo Ooooo Ooo Oooooo...

Treated Lumber Cracking

Two years ago, I started an experiment. I set out a short piece of treated 2x4 wood on a table on my deck. Over the past twenty-four months, it’s been in the direct sun and rain. It’s been covered with snow and ice, and scribbled on by my daughter while we played Yahtzee. BTW, if you want the dice to really jump around when you play Yahtzee, dump them in a clear 8x8 Pyrex glass pan that you might use for brownies. WOW, do the dice dance!

As part of the experiment, you should realize I didn’t seal this piece of treated wood. I wanted the wood to react to the elements so I could record an informative video that will save you lots of money and time.

CLICK or TAP HERE to watch this short video so you can PRESERVE your valuable treated lumber.

I’m willing to bet you three dark-chocolate Aglamesis pecandes that you discover something new about treated lumber and water that you didn’t know before. Are you willing to wager this sum? Will you make good on your debt if you lose?

The Fun Quiz!

Ask yourself what these things have in common:

wrestling

piece of lumber

special bow tie

vegetable

tuxedo trim

Probe your tiny gray cells and delight in discovering how intelligent you are, yet none of your friends but me give you credit! Rest assured that if you and I lived in the same house I’d duly note your intelligence but realize I’d also playfully rib you about your dopey mistakes. Yes, turnabout is fair play!

CLICK or TAP HERE NOW and be amazed!

Vickie’s Frustration

Just two days ago, Vickie stopped by the website. Here’s what she wrote:

“Hi, Tim,

We are researching adding a shed to our backyard in Columbus, Ohio. For the life of me, I can not find shed specifications - maximum size without a permit and how to site near property lines - set forth by the city. I've googled and googled and searched through city building and zoning code without luck. I've called and couldn't get anyone to answer. Any suggestions?”

I wonder how you’d answer this. Imagine Vickie building a shed something like this one near a rear property line:

My first reaction was that Vickie should be congratulated for trying her best to search out the information.

Here’s what she did right. She went online and tried to find the City of Columbus Zoning Code. I did too, and within twenty seconds I located the correct page that was the entry point to the zoning codes.

I then used the search feature and came back with some juicy results. I’m quite sure with a little digging, I’d come out with the needed information.

But where did Vickie go wrong? In my opinion, deciding to call the office in hopes of getting the needed information was a mistake.

My advice to her was to make an appointment and then get on a bus or drive down to the office and talk to a zoning official in person.

Why is it important to go in person to the zoning office? Riddle me this:

How much do you think your shed will weigh and how easy would it be to move? If you get incorrect verbal information and are challenged by a neighbor after your new shed is built, how are you going to move the shed to the correct location?

You get one chance to get it right. You don’t want to do it over.

I’d want to walk out of the office with copies showing in black and white exactly where the shed can go. Person-to-person contact can make all the difference.

Nina from South America

It’s always fun to get international requests for help. It happens more often than you might imagine.

Nina wrote to me:

“I live in a hot and humid country with a rainy season. Builders here do not flash windows, so when we built our house 5 years ago, our windows were not flashed. Our house was built with clay blocks and was then plastered with cement. The windows are single pane with an aluminum frame.

They were screwed into the concrete. When the rain falls, it goes from the windows down the walls. We’re not sure how to fix the problem

Most likely we would have to import any materials we would need, seeing how flashing of windows is not really done here. I am not a fan of liquid flashing, as all the liquid/silicone products (from reputed) brands I have used around the house do not hold up well in our climate (in merely a matter of months they start to peel, crack, ...).

What would our options be? Taking out the windows? And then?

Thank you in advance for your guidance!”

It just so happens that a few days before, I had put in a new outdoor hose bib here at my house.

I recorded a video of the process. The hose bib is mounted to a block that rests on the wall and the lap siding butts into it.

In many respects, it’s very much like a window.

I sent Nina to THIS PAGE and asked her to watch the video to get a handle on how I flashed the block. I don’t know that I’ve seen another video out there like this nor anyone else doing it this way.

Too many people rely on caulk as a remedy. That’s a huge mistake.

CLICK or TAP HERE and watch this video. I’m pretty convinced it will open your eyes to what you need to do or what you need to make sure your builder or remodeler does.

Pay CLOSE ATTENTION to the caption of the screenshot PHOTO that has two curved red arrows. Here it is so you recognize it once you are at the page:

As I was recording the video, I failed to notice a HUGE CLUE that I wish I would have talked about in the video!!! Look at what the red arrows point to. Engage your critical-thinking skills.

Epic Mudslide

My college major was geology and I graduated from the University of Cincinnati. You wouldn’t think that Cincinnati would be at the center of the geology vortex, but it is.

Two things are quite notable about Cincinnati:

It’s the world type section for Upper Ordovician stratigraphy and fossils. Geologists from across the world come to Cincinnati to study and collect fossils.

It has or used to have, the highest per-capita damage anywhere in the USA for landslides. California gets all the press from its dramatic mudslides, but the Kope and Lower Fairview formations in Cincinnati are far more destructive.

Would you like to see your house slide into the ocean or river? I didn’t think so.

Did you know you can AVOID buying a house that’s built in a danger zone? It’s not hard to do.

CLICK or TAP HERE and see what happened in Alta, Norway, a few days ago. It’s heart-sickening.

That’s enough for a Sunday, right?

Tim Carter Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com SOLD OUT BEST Cleaner! - www.StainSolver.com Talk With Strangers! - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. Tell me something. How would you make a RAPID repair of a BIG HOLE in drywall?

Would you do it this way? CLICK or TAP HERE.

The post June 7, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

from Home https://www.askthebuilder.com/june-7-2020-askthebuilder-newsletter/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[williamccreynolds]

June 7, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter

This could be your first AsktheBuilder newsletter or it could be your 728th issue. If you’ve recently signed up, I welcome you. If you’re a subscriber in good standing, no matter how long you’ve been getting my missives, I’m glad you’re here too.

This is sort of a quirky issue. This week I’d like to share some random thoughts with you based on the requests for help I get at the Ask Tim page on AsktheBuilder.com.

But first, here’s this issue’s song. I love to listen to music while typing using the Dvorak method as I create this newsletter. CLICK or TAP HERE and enjoy this song with me. Get ready to Ooooo Ooooo Ooo Oooooo...

Treated Lumber Cracking

Two years ago, I started an experiment. I set out a short piece of treated 2x4 wood on a table on my deck. Over the past twenty-four months, it’s been in the direct sun and rain. It’s been covered with snow and ice, and scribbled on by my daughter while we played Yahtzee. BTW, if you want the dice to really jump around when you play Yahtzee, dump them in a clear 8x8 Pyrex glass pan that you might use for brownies. WOW, do the dice dance!

As part of the experiment, you should realize I didn’t seal this piece of treated wood. I wanted the wood to react to the elements so I could record an informative video that will save you lots of money and time.

CLICK or TAP HERE to watch this short video so you can PRESERVE your valuable treated lumber.

I’m willing to bet you three dark-chocolate Aglamesis pecandes that you discover something new about treated lumber and water that you didn’t know before. Are you willing to wager this sum? Will you make good on your debt if you lose?

The Fun Quiz!

Ask yourself what these things have in common:

wrestling

piece of lumber

special bow tie

vegetable

tuxedo trim

Probe your tiny gray cells and delight in discovering how intelligent you are, yet none of your friends but me give you credit! Rest assured that if you and I lived in the same house I’d duly note your intelligence but realize I’d also playfully rib you about your dopey mistakes. Yes, turnabout is fair play!

CLICK or TAP HERE NOW and be amazed!

Vickie’s Frustration

Just two days ago, Vickie stopped by the website. Here’s what she wrote:

“Hi, Tim,

We are researching adding a shed to our backyard in Columbus, Ohio. For the life of me, I can not find shed specifications - maximum size without a permit and how to site near property lines - set forth by the city. I've googled and googled and searched through city building and zoning code without luck. I've called and couldn't get anyone to answer. Any suggestions?”

I wonder how you’d answer this. Imagine Vickie building a shed something like this one near a rear property line:

My first reaction was that Vickie should be congratulated for trying her best to search out the information.

Here’s what she did right. She went online and tried to find the City of Columbus Zoning Code. I did too, and within twenty seconds I located the correct page that was the entry point to the zoning codes.

I then used the search feature and came back with some juicy results. I’m quite sure with a little digging, I’d come out with the needed information.

But where did Vickie go wrong? In my opinion, deciding to call the office in hopes of getting the needed information was a mistake.

My advice to her was to make an appointment and then get on a bus or drive down to the office and talk to a zoning official in person.

Why is it important to go in person to the zoning office? Riddle me this:

How much do you think your shed will weigh and how easy would it be to move? If you get incorrect verbal information and are challenged by a neighbor after your new shed is built, how are you going to move the shed to the correct location?

You get one chance to get it right. You don’t want to do it over.

I’d want to walk out of the office with copies showing in black and white exactly where the shed can go. Person-to-person contact can make all the difference.

Nina from South America

It’s always fun to get international requests for help. It happens more often than you might imagine.

Nina wrote to me:

“I live in a hot and humid country with a rainy season. Builders here do not flash windows, so when we built our house 5 years ago, our windows were not flashed. Our house was built with clay blocks and was then plastered with cement. The windows are single pane with an aluminum frame.

They were screwed into the concrete. When the rain falls, it goes from the windows down the walls. We’re not sure how to fix the problem

Most likely we would have to import any materials we would need, seeing how flashing of windows is not really done here. I am not a fan of liquid flashing, as all the liquid/silicone products (from reputed) brands I have used around the house do not hold up well in our climate (in merely a matter of months they start to peel, crack, ...).

What would our options be? Taking out the windows? And then?

Thank you in advance for your guidance!”

It just so happens that a few days before, I had put in a new outdoor hose bib here at my house.

I recorded a video of the process. The hose bib is mounted to a block that rests on the wall and the lap siding butts into it.

In many respects, it’s very much like a window.

I sent Nina to THIS PAGE and asked her to watch the video to get a handle on how I flashed the block. I don’t know that I’ve seen another video out there like this nor anyone else doing it this way.

Too many people rely on caulk as a remedy. That’s a huge mistake.

CLICK or TAP HERE and watch this video. I’m pretty convinced it will open your eyes to what you need to do or what you need to make sure your builder or remodeler does.

Pay CLOSE ATTENTION to the caption of the screenshot PHOTO that has two curved red arrows. Here it is so you recognize it once you are at the page:

As I was recording the video, I failed to notice a HUGE CLUE that I wish I would have talked about in the video!!! Look at what the red arrows point to. Engage your critical-thinking skills.

Epic Mudslide

My college major was geology and I graduated from the University of Cincinnati. You wouldn’t think that Cincinnati would be at the center of the geology vortex, but it is.

Two things are quite notable about Cincinnati:

It’s the world type section for Upper Ordovician stratigraphy and fossils. Geologists from across the world come to Cincinnati to study and collect fossils.

It has or used to have, the highest per-capita damage anywhere in the USA for landslides. California gets all the press from its dramatic mudslides, but the Kope and Lower Fairview formations in Cincinnati are far more destructive.

Would you like to see your house slide into the ocean or river? I didn’t think so.

Did you know you can AVOID buying a house that’s built in a danger zone? It’s not hard to do.

CLICK or TAP HERE and see what happened in Alta, Norway, a few days ago. It’s heart-sickening.

That’s enough for a Sunday, right?

Tim Carter Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com SOLD OUT BEST Cleaner! - www.StainSolver.com Talk With Strangers! - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. Tell me something. How would you make a RAPID repair of a BIG HOLE in drywall?

Would you do it this way? CLICK or TAP HERE.

The post June 7, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

from Real Estate https://www.askthebuilder.com/june-7-2020-askthebuilder-newsletter/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[thegregorybruce]

June 7, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter

This could be your first AsktheBuilder newsletter or it could be your 728th issue. If you’ve recently signed up, I welcome you. If you’re a subscriber in good standing, no matter how long you’ve been getting my missives, I’m glad you’re here too.

This is sort of a quirky issue. This week I’d like to share some random thoughts with you based on the requests for help I get at the Ask Tim page on AsktheBuilder.com.

But first, here’s this issue’s song. I love to listen to music while typing using the Dvorak method as I create this newsletter. CLICK or TAP HERE and enjoy this song with me. Get ready to Ooooo Ooooo Ooo Oooooo...

Treated Lumber Cracking

Two years ago, I started an experiment. I set out a short piece of treated 2x4 wood on a table on my deck. Over the past twenty-four months, it’s been in the direct sun and rain. It’s been covered with snow and ice, and scribbled on by my daughter while we played Yahtzee. BTW, if you want the dice to really jump around when you play Yahtzee, dump them in a clear 8x8 Pyrex glass pan that you might use for brownies. WOW, do the dice dance!

As part of the experiment, you should realize I didn’t seal this piece of treated wood. I wanted the wood to react to the elements so I could record an informative video that will save you lots of money and time.

CLICK or TAP HERE to watch this short video so you can PRESERVE your valuable treated lumber.

I’m willing to bet you three dark-chocolate Aglamesis pecandes that you discover something new about treated lumber and water that you didn’t know before. Are you willing to wager this sum? Will you make good on your debt if you lose?

The Fun Quiz!

Ask yourself what these things have in common:

wrestling

piece of lumber

special bow tie

vegetable

tuxedo trim

Probe your tiny gray cells and delight in discovering how intelligent you are, yet none of your friends but me give you credit! Rest assured that if you and I lived in the same house I’d duly note your intelligence but realize I’d also playfully rib you about your dopey mistakes. Yes, turnabout is fair play!

CLICK or TAP HERE NOW and be amazed!

Vickie’s Frustration

Just two days ago, Vickie stopped by the website. Here’s what she wrote:

“Hi, Tim,

We are researching adding a shed to our backyard in Columbus, Ohio. For the life of me, I can not find shed specifications - maximum size without a permit and how to site near property lines - set forth by the city. I've googled and googled and searched through city building and zoning code without luck. I've called and couldn't get anyone to answer. Any suggestions?”

I wonder how you’d answer this. Imagine Vickie building a shed something like this one near a rear property line:

My first reaction was that Vickie should be congratulated for trying her best to search out the information.

Here’s what she did right. She went online and tried to find the City of Columbus Zoning Code. I did too, and within twenty seconds I located the correct page that was the entry point to the zoning codes.

I then used the search feature and came back with some juicy results. I’m quite sure with a little digging, I’d come out with the needed information.

But where did Vickie go wrong? In my opinion, deciding to call the office in hopes of getting the needed information was a mistake.

My advice to her was to make an appointment and then get on a bus or drive down to the office and talk to a zoning official in person.

Why is it important to go in person to the zoning office? Riddle me this:

How much do you think your shed will weigh and how easy would it be to move? If you get incorrect verbal information and are challenged by a neighbor after your new shed is built, how are you going to move the shed to the correct location?

You get one chance to get it right. You don’t want to do it over.

I’d want to walk out of the office with copies showing in black and white exactly where the shed can go. Person-to-person contact can make all the difference.

Nina from South America

It’s always fun to get international requests for help. It happens more often than you might imagine.

Nina wrote to me:

“I live in a hot and humid country with a rainy season. Builders here do not flash windows, so when we built our house 5 years ago, our windows were not flashed. Our house was built with clay blocks and was then plastered with cement. The windows are single pane with an aluminum frame.

They were screwed into the concrete. When the rain falls, it goes from the windows down the walls. We’re not sure how to fix the problem

Most likely we would have to import any materials we would need, seeing how flashing of windows is not really done here. I am not a fan of liquid flashing, as all the liquid/silicone products (from reputed) brands I have used around the house do not hold up well in our climate (in merely a matter of months they start to peel, crack, ...).

What would our options be? Taking out the windows? And then?

Thank you in advance for your guidance!”

It just so happens that a few days before, I had put in a new outdoor hose bib here at my house.

I recorded a video of the process. The hose bib is mounted to a block that rests on the wall and the lap siding butts into it.

In many respects, it’s very much like a window.

I sent Nina to THIS PAGE and asked her to watch the video to get a handle on how I flashed the block. I don’t know that I’ve seen another video out there like this nor anyone else doing it this way.

Too many people rely on caulk as a remedy. That’s a huge mistake.

CLICK or TAP HERE and watch this video. I’m pretty convinced it will open your eyes to what you need to do or what you need to make sure your builder or remodeler does.

Pay CLOSE ATTENTION to the caption of the screenshot PHOTO that has two curved red arrows. Here it is so you recognize it once you are at the page:

As I was recording the video, I failed to notice a HUGE CLUE that I wish I would have talked about in the video!!! Look at what the red arrows point to. Engage your critical-thinking skills.

Epic Mudslide

My college major was geology and I graduated from the University of Cincinnati. You wouldn’t think that Cincinnati would be at the center of the geology vortex, but it is.

Two things are quite notable about Cincinnati:

It’s the world type section for Upper Ordovician stratigraphy and fossils. Geologists from across the world come to Cincinnati to study and collect fossils.

It has or used to have, the highest per-capita damage anywhere in the USA for landslides. California gets all the press from its dramatic mudslides, but the Kope and Lower Fairview formations in Cincinnati are far more destructive.

Would you like to see your house slide into the ocean or river? I didn’t think so.

Did you know you can AVOID buying a house that’s built in a danger zone? It’s not hard to do.

CLICK or TAP HERE and see what happened in Alta, Norway, a few days ago. It’s heart-sickening.

That’s enough for a Sunday, right?

Tim Carter Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com SOLD OUT BEST Cleaner! - www.StainSolver.com Talk With Strangers! - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. Tell me something. How would you make a RAPID repair of a BIG HOLE in drywall?

Would you do it this way? CLICK or TAP HERE.

The post June 7, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

from Home https://www.askthebuilder.com/june-7-2020-askthebuilder-newsletter/ via http://www.rssmix.com/