#WE HAVE VELVET ANTS??????

[mismimis]

THERE WAS A BABY JUMPING SPIDER ON MY BED😭😭

[fixated-cookies]

Ok hear me out again how about this time Y/N is trying to be the flirty one to shadow milk cookie and pure vanilla cookie while they are busy and out of nowhere Y/N just starts to act flirty just wanted to see how they would react

Good luck dear ;)

Trying to fluster them while they are busy? oh, that's adorable. I'm just thinking how it would be, perhaps them sitting in a shared office? ahaha just thinking about it hilarious, shadow milk cookie and pure vanilla existing in a shared space peacefully? it'll have to do.

At first, they'll hardly acknowledge you. Shadow Milk is sprawled across a velvet lounge, flipping through one of his many scripts—plans, schemes, things that will no doubt cause someone (you) grief later. Pure Vanilla, on the other hand, sits at his desk, peacefully writing letters, lost in quiet thought.

At first, you keep it subtle—a lingering touch on Pure Vanilla’s sleeve, fingertips grazing the fine embroidery of his robes. A small sigh near Shadow Milk’s side, heavy with longing. Normally, he’d react instantly, latching onto any excuse to tease you, but instead, he merely turns a page, utterly unbothered.

You lean over Pure Vanilla’s desk, chin resting on your hands, batting your lashes at him. “You work so hard, you know… It’s kind of cute.”

His quill pauses for just a second—but he hums, unbothered, and continues writing. “That’s very sweet, dear. But I do need to finish this.”

Oh, so that’s how it is?

Undeterred, you shift over to Shadow Milk, draping yourself onto the arm of his chair with a dramatic little huff. “And you, always scheming… Can’t you spare a moment for little old me?”

For a moment, nothing. Then, slowly, he glances at you from the corner of his eye, a smirk curling at the edges of his lips.

There it is.

But instead of indulging you, he only grins and flicks your forehead. “Pft, needy today, are we? You’ll live, sugarplum. Go entertain yourself.” His tone is dismissive, patronizing, and worst of all? He goes right back to his script as if you’re nothing more than a passing thought.

Fine you'll just have to up the ante.

You start with Pure Vanilla. If sweet, subtle teasing won’t work, then you’ll have to be bolder. With a soft hum, you slip around his desk and settle yourself onto his lap, arms draping loosely around his neck. He stills beneath you, but he doesn’t push you away. Encouraging.

Leaning in, your lips just barely graze the shell of his ear as you sigh, voice dripping with honeyed mischief. “Oh, Vanilla, won’t you let me take care of you for once?”

His grip on the quill tightens, knuckles paling, and oh, that reaction is delicious. You feel him exhale, slow and measured, as if trying to maintain his composure. Shadow Milk watches from his lounge, barely containing his glee as Pure Vanilla, in all his gentle righteousness, levels you with a soft but pointed scolding. “You shouldn’t tease unless you’re prepared for the consequences, love.”

Ooh, how prim and proper. How very Pure Vanilla. It’s enough to make Shadow Milk chuckle under his breath, shaking his head in amusement.

“Pft—oh, that’s rich.” He mutters, barely audible, like he’s talking to himself rather than him His lips curl, eyes dancing with unspoken laughter, savoring the sight of Pure Vanilla trying to keep his composure as you toy with him.

But then… something shifts.

You’re still focused on Pure Vanilla, still leaning into him, batting those lashes so sweetly. Your hands are lingering on his robes, your words soft, playful, meant only for him. And Shadow Milk isn’t included in the fun anymore. That’s when the amusement fades just a little, that grin twitching at the edges. You haven’t even looked at him in the past minute or so.

What—suddenly he’s not interesting enough for you?

His fingers tap against the armrest, slow, deliberate. His head tilts as he watches, that glint in his mismatched eyes sharpening into something… calculating. His lips part, but he doesn’t say anything yet—no, he’s waiting, watching, like a cat stalking prey. But then he sees a glance thrown at him from the corner of your eye.

oh?

Shadow Milk’s realization dawns slowly, but once it hits, oh, he doesn’t like being second place—not to anyone. His fingers twitch against the armrest, his grin stretches a little wider, but something sharper gleams behind it.

You don’t even notice at first, too caught up in draping yourself over Pure Vanilla’s shoulders, your fingers ghosting along the delicate embroidery of his robes. Vanilla sighs, ever patient, but his hand gently presses against your wrist in a silent reprimand.

“Darling,” he murmurs, warm as ever but with that slight chiding tone. “You’re being quite bold today.”

“Oh, but do you mind?” you purr, tilting your head with a teasing smile.

And then—

Yank.

The world tilts for a second as hands suddenly grab you—one hooked under your arm, the other slinking around your waist. You let out a startled sound as you’re lifted clean off of Pure Vanilla, unceremoniously plucked from his lap like a misbehaving kitten.

“What the—?!”

“Alright, that’s enough of that,” Shadow Milk drawls, amusement thick in his voice as he swings you away effortlessly. Before you can even process what’s happening, he drops himself onto a chair right beside Pure Vanilla’s desk, pulling you onto his lap in one fluid motion. His arms cage around you, loose yet possessive, mismatched eyes flashing with smug satisfaction.

“Stealing all the attention today, huh?” His lips brush the shell of your ear as he leans in, grinning. “Tsk, tsk. Selfish little thing.”

Pure Vanilla, ever composed, merely sighs, but there’s something knowing in the way he watches the two of you now.

Shadow Milk chuckles, chin propped against your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin. “Go on, flirt all you want, dear. You have our attention now.”

--

why did this take so long for me to complete? I ended up taking a fat nap in the middle of writing it, this had to have taken me 4 hours altogether. whew. Also, what do you guys think of me creating a master list? I was thinking of it but I don't know because I don't create long fics and these are all spur-of-the-moment writings.

[howi99]

A Knight second chance 8.5

Velvet: *smirking* So? How did it go?

Russel: *smiling* Oh she loved the idea! I didn't know there was an insectarium in Vale! She really liked the exhibition on the Hymenoptera order. Did you know that bees, wasps and ants are all closely related? Oh and- *Picking up a bag of fried cricket* -they even sell food made of insects! It tastes like chips!

Velvet: *giggling* Well, i'm happy you both seemed to like the place. I went there with my team. *Grinning* My leader was terrified!

___________________________________________

Cinder: ... Excuse me what?

Mercury: *shrug* Roman bailed on us. Said something about not wanting to work with a "Bitch of a Grimm witch". No idea what he meant by that though.

Cinder: *blinking* How did he- What the- But we aren't even at half the dust we need! And he just left!?

Mercury: Well, he did say he wouldn't help with Beacon destruction since that wasn't the original plan. He thought we were going to sell the stuff to the black market. That, he doesn't care for.

Cinder: *groan, thinking about all the logistical problems that are now presenting themselves* Guess we'll have to BUY the explosive then. We won't be able to destroy the Amity colosseum, but that was just a secondary objective.

___________________________________________

Ruby: And so i said "Now that's a katana" And-

Jaune: *looking inside RWBY dorms* Oh? Blake, you still haven't removed your false bow?

Blake: *surprised* W-what!?

Jaune: *frown* Wait, you still haven't done that discussion? Oh and by the way, you do know your parents are expected to come to the tournament, right?

Blake: *panicking* H-how did you-

Jaune: Belladonna. Really, how did no one connect the dots? *Looking at Weiss* Especially you! They are the leader of Menagerie for heaven's sake!

Weiss: *realisation striking her* Oh my god, you are Kali and Ghira's daughter.

Blake: JAUNE!?!

Jaune: Oh and by the way, you are a literal breathing stereotype. And your bow twitches every time you are reading smut. *Smile* Anyway, good luck! *Close the door*

Yang: ... So does that mean i should call you a princess or?

Weiss: *reconsidering everything she knows* H-how did i not see it? They literally MADE the White Fang! Then again, they are pacifists...

Blake: *angry* JAUNE, YOU SON OF A BI-

___________________________________________

Penny: *tilting her head* Why did you do that, friend Jaune?

Jaune: *shrug* Eh, she needs to be pushed out of her comfort zone. Anyway, it's still a lot better than what should have happened. At least she didn't scream at her team that she was a terrorist.

Penny: Oh yeah, she did do that, uh? The memories are a bit vague on that part.

Jaune: I wasn't there. So i didn't have much more to share.

[ratcandy]

Ok. Look at this for a second ok?

wasps

zasp

general ultimax/fuff

wayde

voi

reeves

bees

crisbee

ants

n/a

What’s all this? Well let me Tell You: this is a (possibly non-comprehensive) list of all the bugs (hymenopterans specifically) in bug fables who go by he/him pronouns yet have stingers .

For those who do not know, Stingers are modified ovipositors. IRL, bugs born male generally Do Not have stingers, seeing as ovipositors are an egg-laying organ. notice: there are 5 total wasps, 1 bee, and no ants (the only ant who goes by he/him in the game is Monsieur Scarlet, and he does not have a stinger - but this isn't really noteworthy because None of the ants in-game are drawn with stingers).

so like. My question is . What's going on with the wasps. I mean I’m pretty sure literally all wasps we see with he/him pronouns have stingers. Is it just because drone wasps are born less often or Do you guys think wasps are more predispositioned to be trans/transmasc specifically. I would chalk this up to the devs just not knowing if they hadn’t shown at least a Little understanding of bug biology already . Maybe they don’t know about the stinger thing but STILL.

I want to talk about the lore implications .Can we talk about it can someone worldbuild this with me can someone hold my hand and frolic with me. Does anyone want to live in this beautiful world with me

(for anyone wondering - no i have not been able to find any transfem characters thru the same means... nor through the means of Wings (male ants will typically have wings)... unless you want to count Bumble and Rebelle, who as velvet ants should absolutely have Very Large stingers, but seeing as neither have wings and velvet ant stingers don’t Jut Out as other wasps’ do anyway… mmmmwho knows) (that is unless you want to argue all the ants in the game EXCEPT Monsieur Scarlet are trans because none of them are drawn with stingers) (which would be incredibly funny . all things considered)

ok That’s my trans bugs post. If I missed anyone pleas tell me I’d love to update my list. And if you want to talk about how wasps are more likely to be trans u should talk to me about that too

CORRECTIONS / ADDITIONS (edited due to replies):

Removed Ritchee from the list since Ritchee's pronouns are confirmed she/her in the artbook

Rebelle and Bumble are shown in concept art to have wings, so HEY, we might Actually have Two transfem characters ,

Carmina is another velvet ant in a similar situation as those two (no wings nor stinger, so ?) who I Forgor about

[hatsukeii]

I think I'll be singing Velvet Ring on a microphone beaded with 'ex lovers' stickers and 'longing looks' beads. I've heard that Ushijima likes my music quite a bit~

too easy. the band you’ve joined is…

exes in my phone book / timeskip!ushijima wakatoshi x reader

genre(s): ex lovers to something?? something i guess?? pining, reminiscing, nostalgia fic tbh but ANGST ANGSTY ANGST WOO interpret the ending as you like because i kept it open for a reason

warning(s): slightly dysfunctional relationship dynamics kinda, lowkey suggestive at points, ushiwaka and reader were just young and stupid and in love but they couldn't seem to navigate it yknow, everything is also like somewhat/pretty ambiguous until the end but that's just how i like it

wc: ~1.7k

your first gig is… at a concert with your ex?!?!

setlist:

🎵velvet rings, big thief

🎵mayonaise, the smashing pumpkins

🎵black star, radiohead

There is a girl on a stage, who strums a pick through the strings of her acoustic guitar. A girl, whose lips hover just above the microphone that sits in a bracket, sighing into the cool metal for a final song. The people beside you have settled down, cheers and jumps reduced to swaying and mumbling.

You've been waiting for this song, haven't you?

The song strikes the ears first. The girl on stage, illuminated by a cone of light from above, sings of a night, thicker than a smoky fume. You mouth along to the lyrics, and your mind wanders to a place where your lungs are bloated, too full to carry anything more. A night beneath a buzzing streetlight, gravel that rolls and scrapes under the sweeping wind, ants that crawl onto the toecaps, under the soles, along the platforms of your unmoving shoes. A night of final breaths, and final words, and final sorrows. You're looking at the ground, your shadow muddied with the figure of another. You don't think he stares back at you. The ants keep crawling. They don't stop, even as you pivot away and leave your heart buried in the ground. The streetlight doesn't reach it again, but maybe it reaches his, still.

The faces around you hum along to a sequence, sway with the velvety strums of the girl's guitar, hold others tight against themselves. You stand alone amongst the crowd. You move when the rest of them will you to, only ever mouth to the lyrics, hold your hands close to your chest. You fear that your voice will give out if you try anything more.

"She's a beautiful performer, isn't she?"

The crowd does not shift their attention from the girl on the stage, so neither do you. She sings in gentle syllables of love, her heart pours out of her mouth. She longs for some fictitious persona, Ben, as her fingers play at the guitar like tugging the strings of a puppet. When you open your mouth, your heart is not there.

"She is. She really is." You respond to nothing but a sultry voice that finds its way into your ear canals.

The girl sings of a smoking gun, smoke that fizzles out from the barrel into night air, a bullet that falters at the end of its path to nothing in particular, a love that, for many nights before this, has begun to run dry. It's agonising, taunting, hopeful. It dies out in unanswered phone calls, drafted emails, text messages left unsent, collecting dust in a note-taking application. Words that ask a million questions.

Could we keep this going?

Is this really for the better?

Can't we try?

Why won't you just let me try?

"Why aren't you singing? It's the last song." The voice is anomalous amongst the crowd's united silence, his question stands out from those unsaid. He is too curious, yet for some selfish, twisted reason, you wish to indulge yourself. Wallow in sorrow. Take somebody else's beating heart to replace your own, that you buried beneath asphalt on a winter night of unasked questions turned two years of unspoken longing.

"For the same reason that you aren't, I'd assume." You silently hope he asks you for more.

The person huffs out a sigh, a short sigh that one lets out when they smile in defeat and surrender. He's close, his arm touching your own when he moves side to side with the crowd. His movement wills you to sway along. The girl on the stage sings of a gentle love, thick like a velvet ring. All encompassing, all powerful.

“Well, I once knew a person who loved this song.” He goes on. You stay silent, ears trained onto the words that paint golden silk and shimmering mist into the concert hall. A portrait of love that you have prayed to see once again, just out of grasp, but real enough to graze your fingers over. It sinks into your fingertips, takes you to a place where your hands could draw lines into tanned skin, hold onto a pair of strong arms, clasp together behind his broad shoulders. Beneath your feet, it travels to your ankles, wraps around your thighs, envelops you in a shroud of warmth. It comes in the form of his head laid in your lap after a long day, I love you mumbled into the flesh of your stomach in shaky sighs, calluses that roam every spot of skin on your body.

"Love really is a gentle thing, isn't it?" The lyrics are spoken out of your mouth naturally, like water running downstream in a creek. The person stays silent, you do the same. The girl's singing pierces through your ears to your throat, clawing at it as if to break it open and rescue something. He speaks before something can escape you.

"I haven't spoken to them since I left. Love is anything but gentle."

You wince, the girl's singing finally ripping through your windpipe. It doesn't stop there, to your surprise. It drills through to its final destination, and you grab the fabric of your shirt around your heart. You don't fully know the answer to your own question, but you believe in his despair. If love truly is gentle, it would have exited your chest when you screamed your throat hoarse for him to stay. It would have eased the pain, somehow. It would have sent your heart out to him even as he stood amongst giants, leagues greater than you. It would have sewn together your words, strung them into poems beautiful enough for him to say yes, I'll stay. I'll stay if you want, and I'll go if you want. Instead, you watch him on television every night, highlight reels, live volleyball matches. He left. You did not want him to.

"I haven't spoken to him since either. But I still think love is gentle. The painful kind."

The final chords of the song round off the set. The girl bows, and exits stage left. The crowd begins to loosen, yet the person's arm remains beside yours.

"Do you ever miss it?"

His number is still in your contacts. You struggle every night to hold off on pressing it. Your heart aches, and lights come on. You stare at an empty stage, and you envision yourself on it. Thousands of eyes watch you sing the song, yet you search the crowd for one pair only. You sing the words that you had once shown your love, a love that found you despite his duties, regardless of his glory, amidst his passion. You sing like you are begging for him to see you through the television, and turn around so the name Ushijima bares his face to you instead of his back. You cry out a story of a dying love, hanging onto frayed strings of memories and fear. The singing contorts into screaming at an empty crowd, as if your resolve could make Ushijima Wakatoshi find you again. You pretend to be his hands, hold yourself in your sleep. You hear his voice in your bed, on the streets, in front of you, behind you, beside you, even right here. You will never learn the lips of anyone else, not after his have taken you for himself. They feel like poison now, sinking into your veins from every part of your body that you inhibit. A poison that forces him into every corner of your life, and you are a fool enough to almost see him there.

"I want it gone, and I miss it all the same." You're crying now, and even your tears remind you of the love that taught you of its cruelty. You imagine a day when you wear another's ring on your finger, only to look up and see a blank face. There is no other.

"I think you should give him a call."

"I can't. I'd just hold him back."

"That's not true." His voice cracks, and his rebuttal is desperate, almost apologetic.

You turn to bid him farewell.

Ushijima is almost no different from how he was two years ago. But he's a little older now, a little taller too. His hair is the same olive green that used to run smooth between the webs of your hands. His voice is deep, rounder than it once was when he used to nip your earlobe and mutter professions of his love into your ear. You stare, but you don't know that he has been staring since halfway through the concert. You aren't seeing him through a television, he is no longer clad in a Schweiden Adlers jersey, his last name bears no weight here, in the space between the two of you. The days, and months, and years spent together come rushing into your head. A kiss on the forehead before separation, two pairs of feet running in wet sand that crumbles beneath their weight, sharing lunches in the silence of school rooftops, lips roaming every inch of each other on nights of longing. You, and Ushijima, and the pleads that lose their bodies when they fall back from your mouths and into your chests.

"Please, give me a call. Or a text. Or an email, I don't care. Just anything. I'm sorry."

"Goodbye, Ushijima."

You turn to leave, but you pull your phone out of your pocket to stare at his name in your contacts.

Ushijima watches your shrinking figure, all of his love trailing behind you, fading into smoke.

Your finger hovers above the red button that could end it all.

He can't seem to move, rooted into the ground of the now mostly empty concert hall. You are slipping away again, and he has learned from his mistake. He questions whether he's learned it a bit too late.

You turn off your phone, and shove it back into your pocket. He receives a text.

"I just want to take you home again."

author's note:

my sister gave me this idea a while ago and i just knew i had to make it so angsty sorry LOL she wanted a fluff ending but im the one with the document open so i can do what i WANT!! no i am actually very proud of this piece though and idk if this will get ANY exposure or interactions but just know that i really really loved writing this one

i also fear i lowkey forgot about longing looks and just went straight for longing…

also! song lyric references! if you catch them i'll give you a big fat kiss i love my music so much

anyways tags!!

@staraxiaa @catsoupki @chuuya-brainrot @hiraethwa @fiannee @bailey-reeds @4ngelfries @akaakeis @wyrcan @kuroppiii @zzwon

interested in joining a band? come on over to the build-a-band 900 !!

[lovebugism]

YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN, KID | the beginning.

summary: a year after the end of the world, you and steve share one cigarette and two confessions. (6k)

listen to: "as the world falls down" by david bowie

tags: f!reader, roadtrip fic, friends to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, angst & comfort, post st4, selective canon divergence (some things happen, some things don't), reader goes by the nickname "scout" TW panic attacks, conversations about grief, steve harrington smokes but he's still hot, outfit inspo (not indicative of what r's body type/skin color/etc.)

a/n: kinda surreal that i'm posting this because it's something i've been working on/thinking about for Months. i put so much time and effort and tears into this series so pleasepleaseplease enjoy it! as always, let me know what you think! let's watch these two (sort of) friends run away and fall in love with each other, shall we? <3

JOURNALS | MASTERLIST | SPOTIFY

★。＼ ｜ ／。★

The beginning of the rest of your life starts in the murky alleyway outside The Velvet Lounge.

It’s pretty fitting, actually. You feel like you’re close to dying anyway.

The lightning strike of a panic attack comes first as a cold hand around your throat. The clawed talon of a long-gone monster strangles you — sucks all the air out of your lungs and leaves you gasping for a breath you know won’t come. 

A second later and the light-up dance floor beneath your feet begins to sway. You blink, and it becomes the desiccated terrain of the Upside Down — again, and the glowing rainbow tiles return. Eventually, it becomes impossible to discern the real from the imaginary.

You feel a bit like the world’s caving in on itself as you stumble through the bustling crowd. The thumping of the heady bass strums throughout your body as you squeeze between a mob of sweatier ones. The merciless pounding makes you forget that your heart’s no longer beating.

The heavy breeze of a summer night smacks you in the face. There is no fresh air outside the buzzing nightclub, just more emptiness. 

You lean against the brick wall, clutching desperately onto your chest as you stumble from the exit. The world around you starts to spin on its side, going blurry like you’re being pulled underwater.

You’re drowning, but none’s coming to save you.

To everyone else, you’re just a girl that’s had too many. The girl that’s lost too much.

You duck into the dark alley with the intention of withering away there.

A warm hand brings you back to life.

“Shit, Scout,” Steve Harrington curses behind you. “Are you— Are you okay?”

You’ve never heard the nickname leave his mouth so gently. You don’t think he’s ever touched you so softly, either. It’s all so foreignly tender compared to the war raging inside your skull — you think it would’ve made you weep if you were capable of catching your breath.

His presence is only startling in the sense that you hadn’t expected to find him there.

It was pretty much the reason you’d slinked through the dimly lit passageway in the first place — to die completely and utterly alone. The flickering orange lamplight and damp brick made this place more adequate for puking college kids, canoodling couples, and conniving Ted Bundy’s of the world. Not pretty Steve and his pretty clothes and his pretty hair.

You’re more humiliated at having been caught than you are alarmed by it.

You figure you really shouldn’t be. He’s already seen you at your worst. On your deathbed, crying so hard you puke, so far gone from the world that you’re practically a ghost — that kind of worst. 

But for some reason, his wide palm on your shoulder makes you feel fragile. Small. He stands fathoms above you and you’re nothing but an ant under his sneaker — a little delicate thing he could crush completely if he wanted.

Instead, Steve holds you.

His long fingers cradle your trembling shoulder in a steady embrace. A warm reminder that you’re not alone in this gloomy alleyway that still thrums with life. That, in some ways, you’ve never really been alone at all.

“Yeah,” you answer finally, nodding but not looking over at him. You swallow through a tightening throat. “I just… I just need to, uh… to catch my breath.”

Steve eyes you with a gaze swimming with apprehension.

Your shoulder presses into the rough brick while your other hand clings desperately to your chest. Your fingers dig into the soft cotton of your shirt like you’re reaching for your thundering heart. Each of your breaths is ragged, forced, worked for. You grunt your way through every impossible inhale.

Facing away from him under the dim amber streetlight, he can barely make out your profile. He only gets glimpses of your scrunched face and the tear that glimmers gold on your cheek. But with his hand on your arm, he can feel the rapid up-and-down motion of your heavy breaths. Panic sizzles off of you and onto him like static shock.

“Yeah, it was getting kinda crazy in there, huh?” he says within a halfhearted laugh. “I didn’t know people like Duran Duran so much.”

It’s nothing more than a feeble attempt to get you to laugh. 

And it works. Sort of.

You’d lost sight of Steve somewhere around the time “Girls on Film” came on. Nancy’s drunken hand pulled you to the dance floor, and every other tipsy woman followed right behind you. He hadn’t seemed to care much about dancing, though. He just sat in the corner booth with Robin until Vickie came by and stole her away. The last you saw him, he was sitting alone at the bar with a basket of chicken wings before disappearing entirely.

But he hadn’t disappeared, you figured. He was just here, in this eerily empty alleyway, trying to get away from it all just as much as you were.

Steve sees the corners of your mouth quirk upward in a grimacing sort of smile. A scoff sounds from your throat a moment later. He thinks that might be the sort of laugh you get from a girl who doesn’t have much to find humor in anymore.

Your newfound relief is his own.

“You okay now?” he asks once you’ve caught your breath.

You nod and settle back against the brick. The fabric of your shirt sticks to the prickly clay. “Yeah,” you repeat, more truthfully this time. “Thanks— Thank you.”

You’re forced to mourn the warmth of the broad hand on your shoulder when he pulls away from you. 

He doesn’t stray far, though. He remains at your side with his back to the brick —  his frame much taller than your own, broader too. His woody cologne swirls with the purer scent of a summer night and the distant smell of beer. He holds within him an air that can only be described as all-consuming. He’s exactly the feeling of everything warm despite the several inches that separate you. 

Steve offers you the lit cigarette in his left hand, and for a reason you can’t name, his kindness takes you by surprise. You’ve fought a monster with the guy, but he still feels like a total stranger to you sometimes.

He sees you hesitate and thinks that this might be the first time either of you have been alone together. You don’t have anything in common except for the party. Without one of the members to accompany you, the fact becomes a heavier weight to bear.

It’s sort of like a peace offering — this half-gone cigarette. A ‘hey, I know we aren’t really friends, but maybe we could be.’

You take it. “Thanks…”

Steve watches you puff from the stick. You hold the thing between your thumb and forefinger, pinching it as you bring it up to your mouth. The huff you take isn’t a deep one, probably the fault of your still staggering breaths, but your eyes flutter shut on the exhale like you’re grateful for the nicotine fix.

He realizes then that he’s never looked at you before. Like, really looked.

Like a ghost, you tend to blend easily into the background, floating around in the shadows without ever being seen. You’re only out tonight because Robin and Nancy forced your hand, but in your darkened outfit — cropped tee, plain skirt, worn boots, all varying shades of black — you threaten to blend in with the night. You do it all with the finesse of a girl who’s all but disconnected herself from the world.

You catch him staring when you hand the cigarette back.

You don’t look weirded out by his prying gaze — quite the opposite, really. You cower under the attention, chin tilting toward your chest and a sheepish smile hinting at your lips. Embarrassed without any actual reason to be.

“Wanna tell me the real reason you came out here?” Steve asks you, covering the serious inquiry with a joking lilt.

Your brows furrow as you watch him bring the cigarette to his own mouth. He’s got this look on his face — raised brows, wide eyes, and quirked lips — almost like he’s teasing you.

You breathe out an awkward laugh.

“What do you mean? I just told you.” You try to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. It looks more like you’re wincing as you shift your weight on your feet. “I just needed to—”

“To catch your breath,” Steve finishes for you, smoke billowing from his pink lips. The grey lingers between you for a moment before disappearing entirely. He nods with a lopsided grin before handing you back the cigarette. “Yeah. I heard you. I just don’t believe you.”

Your eyes go wide. He can’t tell if you’re shocked by his bluntness or if you’re embarrassed at having been caught so quickly. Maybe a healthy mixture of both.

Your throat tightens all over again. You swallow thickly as you turn away from him and it feels like you’re forcing down a too big pill. The back of your eyes burn with unshed tears, so many stinging needles that you force yourself to blink away.

And even though you’re just trying not to cry at the reality of the situation you’ve spent a year hiding from, to Steve it looks like you’re searching for a way out. Your gaze snaps to the opening of the alley where nicely dressed people bustle on the other side, their conversations far away and muffled.

He hadn’t meant to make you uncomfortable. He just thought you could use a friend, considering you were only just recovering from the windswept panic spell.

“Look. You— You tell me why you’re out here, and I’ll tell you why I am,” he offers, partly to make you feel better.

The other half of it, which he finds it startling to admit, is that he doesn’t want you to leave.

He’d spent fifteen minutes by himself in the dark — half comforted by it, half frightened. Despite his distant unfamiliarity with you, he’s weirdly comforted by your presence. Steve’s seen enough people walk away from him to know he doesn’t want you to join them.

You look at him again, more glassy-eyed than you’d been before. Your sniffle is nearly inaudible. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “You know… A you-show-me-yours, I’ll-show-you-mine kinda thing.”

It sounds a lot weirder coming out of his mouth than he expected it to. It makes you laugh, though, so it feels sort of worth it.

“That sounds really pervy,” you tease with a more sincere smile.

“Yeah. Sorry. Just— Maybe just ignore that last part, yeah?” he stammers stiffly, laughing softly at himself shortly after.

You finally take a hit from the cig between your fingers. Your gaze falls to your boots.

They were a gift from someone you knew a long time ago — someone you don’t know anymore because they’re gone.

It was a well-loved anniversary present you’ve worn every day since you got them. They’re a bit tattered now, obviously worn on the platformed bottoms. You don’t know how many times you’ve glued the soles back together now — or how many times you’ve tried to wash away the faded bloodstain by the laces that refuses to come out.

It’s as stuck there as the memories in your head are.

And even though you’ve never talked about it out loud, you think you could write a million words about how looking at the stain makes you feel — about all the thoughts that swirl within you at the sight of it and why you can’t throw them out despite it all. You’d write about the boy who bought them for you, whose name it’s still so hard to say — the boy who you loved who was gone.

It was just easier to shove it all down.

You kept your grief horribly discreet, like a poorly stitched-together wound.

If you couldn’t even burden yourself with it, why should you expect anyone else to?

But here Steve goes, offering to let that raging wound breathe. 

Something about the ultimatum makes it more comforting. It’s a lot easier to tell a kept secret when you know another hidden confession is coming right after it. You don’t know if you’ll ever get this chance again — to shield your grief with someone else’s. 

“Okay,” you answer suddenly before exhaling the gray from your lungs. You outstretch your hand to give him the cigarette back. You try to smile. “You first, though.”

Steve puffs from the stick before he answers you. For a moment, it’s nothing but muffled conversations and a stifled bass that rattles the brick. The quiet is noticeably less suffocating than all the quiets you’ve known before — less lonely now that you’ve got someone to share them with.

“I hate parties,” he summarizes with a shrug.

“Yeah, I’m gonna need a little more than that,” you joke.

He flicks the end of the cigarette to dispel the ash. Grey specks fall to the damp concrete. When he hands it off to you again, your fingers brush his own. Your skin is much cooler than the humid summer air surrounding you.

“I mean, I used to like parties. I think,” Steve explains, still rather vague, gesturing with wild hands like you’re used to. “Really, I just liked to drink, you know? ‘Cause everyone liked me when I was drunk. I was the popular guy — Mr. Funny, Mr. Cool. But, uh… I guess somewhere down the line, I forgot how to have fun like that.”

“Forgot how to have fun?” you repeat with a sad sort of laugh. Your brows scrunch and your swim with sympathy. The streetlamp casts sharp shadows on his chiseled features, but he still looks at you so soft — eyes sweet with the tenderness he holds there and smiling just the same.

It’s hard to believe that the King of Hawkins High could’ve ever felt anything other than total elation when he had a whole ocean outside his front door on Fairview Lane.

“I think they have a name for that these days, Harrington.”

He laughs and turns to press his shoulder into the brick. He’s facing you now, and it feels much more like he’s looming over you. 

You remain against the wall, still a bit overwhelmed by the presence of a boy who never would’ve looked your way a year or more ago. It takes everything in you not to duck away from him completely.

“Well, I was only having fun because I was drunk, right?” he elaborates, brown eyes a golden amber beneath the flickering light. They twinkle looking down at you.

“Sure…” you shrug to humor him.

“And, like, I can deal with the hangovers and everything no problem, you know, but the… The waking up the next morning. The remembering, I guess. Remembering everything I was trying to forget when I was drinking. That’s… That’s the worst part.”

You don’t realize how intently you’re looking at him at first. Every quirk of his rosy mouth, every twitch of his bushy brow, every glint of his chocolate eyes as he divulges a deeply held secret doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Behind all the pretty hair and expensive clothes is a boy much sadder than you could’ve imagined. 

Something bigger had done a number on him. Something more than the end of the world.

His upturned gaze returns to you and you realize you haven’t blinked once.

You do a rather shit job of pretending you weren’t just staring. You haphazardly turn away again, handing him the cigarette despite not having put your mouth to it.

“Yeah, I— I get what you mean…”

Your words seem to surprise him. His brows pinch like he was more prepared to be made fun of than empathized. He takes the cig from you with an absentminded hand. It goes quickly forgotten.

“You do?”

“Well, not so much with drinking, but… It happens to me in the morning sometimes,” you shrug, feigning nonchalance, and trying not to seem like it’s a phenomenon you’ve experienced every day for a year and a half. “It’s, like, that split second of bliss right before the grief comes back, right?”

Steve blinks owlishly. Then nods.

“That half a moment where nothing bad’s ever happened to you, and it’s just the sun shining on you before the… the bad shit comes back again. Like it never even left.”

And Steve, who’s never met another person who could so easily understand him and that otherwise indescribable feeling so perfectly, is stunned into silence.

Maybe it’s his fault for keeping it all to himself, like a love letter he can’t bring himself to unfold. It’s entirely likely that he could find a million people in the world who’ve felt all the same feelings he’s garnered over the past couple of years. It still wouldn’t hold the same weight as being understood now — being understood by someone who’s been through the end of the world with him.

Being understood without all the empty words.

“Yeah,” he nods finally, clearing his throat. His cheeks glow red when he realizes he’d forgotten to speak because he was too busy looking at you. “Yeah, exactly— Shit!”

The sides of his fingers sting with a sharp ache. The cig in his hand drops to the ground, half the size of his pinky. There isn’t much left of it now, and that’s why it burns him so. It hits the concrete, more ash than stick. The skin of Steve’s finger blackens as it blazes.

“Oh— Are you okay?” you grimace.

Steve snuffs out the burning cigarette with the toe of his sneaker.

“Yeah, I— I just wasn’t paying attention,” he dismisses with the shake of his head, more so at himself than anything else. It’s the first time he’s had an actual conversation with you, and he’s already embarrassed himself twice. He’ll count himself lucky if you care enough to talk to him again.

“Your go, Scout,” he offers suddenly in a measly attempt to get the attention off of him and his blunder. He wipes the ash from his pointer and middle finger on his jeans. “See if you can out-miserable me.”

You roll your eyes at him, still smiling. “What is this? The trauma olympics?”

“C’mon. I’m kidding,” he assures with a lilt. He reaches out to nudge your arm with his knuckles and, like before, his touch is almost too soft for you to feel it. The act of platonic intimacy takes you momentarily by surprise.

His smile is crooked. His eyes glimmer with honey. “I was kidding,” he repeats.

“It was just that, um— that song,” you answer. It comes out more choked than you expected it to. “They started playing that song.”

Steve’s brows furrow. “What song?” he asks. Not pressing. Only curious.

“That one that… that Eddie played when I…”

“Oh.”

“I used to love that stupid song— I mean, obviously. It sorta saved me from what should’ve been an unavoidable death, so…” You manage to laugh at yourself as you ramble.

Steve can’t find it in himself to do the same.

He’d been terrified when it happened to Max — when the kid he was involuntarily babysitting started to float in midair, nearly succumbing to the curse of a monster that should’ve been make-believe. He was relieved when she fell back down again, but you? He was certain you were a goner. 

You were too high up and Eddie’s guitar was too far away. The beginning notes of I Was Made For Lovin’ You were too grim and Vecna’s claws were in too deep. You were too distant, too banished.

For several agonizing seconds, you were destined to remain a stranger to him.

But here you are now, sharing cigarettes and secrets.

Your eyes squeeze shut as you shake your head at yourself. “But, um, anyway. Yeah. It’s just… Sometimes things will happen, you know? Like I’ll— I’ll hear a song or… I’ll see something that reminds me of him— of Eddie. And it’s just like…”

“…Like you’re in the Upside Down again?” Steve finishes gently for you when he sees that you can’t.

You nod, wordlessly for a moment, until the words catch up with you.

“Like nightmares, but when I’m awake,” you force through a closing throat. “And they’re so real. Like… I can— I can hear him. I can hear him talking to me, and I’m— I’m holding him, and I can feel him breathing, you know? He’s still breathing, but—”

You take a staggering breath in. For a moment, Steve’s scared you’re tumbling headfirst into another panic attack.

His attentive eyes flit between your scrunched up face and the trembling hands you hold out in front of you. You’re cradling something that isn’t there anymore. You look down at your palms with a horror that tells him you understand that, too — that the person you used to hold isn’t able to be held anymore.

“I can feel the… the blood. And it’s just… It’s all over me. And I’m losing him. I’m losing him all over again—”

You hiccup a measly sob when your lungs force you to take a breath you didn’t know you were holding. It puts an end to your rambling. You’re grateful enough for it. You’d already said more than you were planning to — more than you thought you’d say in a lifetime. 

You think you must sound deranged, talking about a corpse like it’s still a warm body you hold every night.

In some ways, it is.

You sniffle and blink back burning tears. Your smile edges on sincerity. “So, what do you think, Harrington? Did I out-miserable you?”

Steve scoffs in the place of a real laugh. “I didn’t have a dog in that fight, did I? What you went through… I mean, I shouldn’t even be complaining.”

“Hey, c’mon,” you scold gently. “We both went through shit. It was all bad, no matter how you look at it. Just because we didn’t go through the same stuff doesn’t mean what happened to you is any less important.”

You just barely catch his cinnamon eyes going glassy before he turns away from you entirely. His stubbled cheeks blotch with varying shades of pink, glowing with an emotion he can’t keep hidden. He looks down at his dirty sneakers because he can’t bare to look at you now.

Understanding, that’s what this is. Understanding without all the empty words.

It’s still hard for him to believe them, though.

In the grand scheme of things, what happened to him wasn’t so terrible. 

He wasn’t under any sort of curse. No one he cared about was irrevocably hurt, either. And he didn’t have to hold someone he loved in his arms while they bled to death — doesn’t have to feel like he’s still holding onto them a year after it all.

Despite the marred scars on his mind and body, Steve convinces himself that he has no reason to be sad — even though that’s not really how sadness works. Grief isn’t the kind of thing you can just will away, but he beats himself up when he can’t — when the heartache wins.

It’s a never-ending cycle. A loop he’s been stuck in since he was seventeen. A portal he was terrified would never close. 

Now, at least, it feels sort of possible.

“You shouldn’t talk like that, Scout,” he jokes after the urge to weep has passed. He tilts his head to his shoulder and smiles a crooked grin. “I’m gonna start to think you like me.”

Without missing a beat, you retort: “Please, never ever think that. That would completely shatter my reputation.”

You both laugh with the knowing that it’s all just a joke.

You never had much of a reputation because you spent your whole life being invisible. You liked it best that way because never being seen meant nothing was ever expected of you. You’ll happily take someone you went to school with your entire life never knowing your name than any bogus Hawkins High royalty status any day.

Steve, better known by his title of King, wishes now that he’d taken a page out of your book. He learned the power of invisibility far too late.

“Who woulda thought, huh?” the boy sighs, chocolate eyes turned up to the velvet blue sky. “You and me… being friends.”

You arch a brow at him. “Oh, is that what we are now?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve scoffs like it’s obvious. “They didn’t tell you? You fight monsters together, and you’re bonded for life.”

“Is that so?”

“Absolutely. I mean, why do you think me and Henderson are so close?”

“So you’re saying you would’ve never been friends if it wasn’t for the end of the world?” you reiterate with a challenging squint.

“That’s almost exactly what I’m saying. Yeah,” he nods with his pink lips jutted softly out. “If none of that shit ever happened, I’d still be that raging douchebag I used to be. My life would be… so much different.”

“Worse?” you press.

He thinks for a moment.

Without the whole end-of-the-world thing, he never would’ve met Dustin. He never would’ve gotten closer to Robin. Nancy never would’ve had a reason to break up with him, and he figures he’d have long settled down with her by now. They’d be that miserable couple that somehow manages to make it.

He’d probably still be friends with Tommy Hagan, too, getting drunk at parties he’s too old to be at. He’d still be the King Steve everyone loved and hating every second of it.

Fighting monster after monster changed him for the better. Even with its horror, how could he ever take that back?

He winces at the realization. “Yeah…”

“So you’d do it all over again?” you ask, dumbfounded.

“I think so, yeah.” Steve’s smile is shy as he ducks his gaze, peering at you through his lashes. “I’m a total idiot, right?”

Your brows pinch together as you shake your head. “No. I don’t think so… Actually, I think the end of the world looks pretty good on you, Harrington.”

He knows you don’t mean it how it sounds. He gets the feeling you’re talking less about his appearance and more about why he’s standing out here in the first place — talking to a girl he’s halfway known all his life whose name he didn’t know until she almost died.

For the same reason — the one that’s brought you to him and this alley — he jokes back: “It looks good on you, too, Scout.”

Again, you laugh with the understanding that you’re joking. For the most part, at least. 

You’re both so weathered with grief, looking much older than your years, forced to wear your woe all over. For whatever transformation the trauma might’ve done internally, it hadn’t done anything on the outside than leave scars that won’t fade.

When the laughter subsides, a silence roars to life. 

Not a total one. You can still hear the pounding bass from inside The Velvet Lounge and the muddled chatter of people coming in and out of it. It’s not a totally uncomfortable one either, which is far more than you thought you could ever say about talking to Steve The Hair Harrington. 

But it’s still sort of heavy in its way. Likely with the idea of what the both of you know and of everything you’ve confessed out loud.

Now that it’s all out in the open, Steve’s got no idea how to move on. How is he supposed to joke around now? How does he say anything but sorry to the girl who holds all her grief in her eyes?

“Hey, Scout?” he calls quietly.

Your leftover grin hasn’t yet faded. “Hm?”

“I’m… I’m really sorry.”

The smile ebbs entirely.

“Why are you apologizing?” you ask with the shake of your head, almost flinching at the sudden condolence. “You didn’t… You’re not the one that killed Eddie.”

“I know. I just… I feel like I should— like I should say it, you know?”

“That’s the worst part about all of this, I think. Like… you lose someone, and no one knows how to talk to you anymore,” you confess, a sad smile hinting at the very corners of your lips — so soft it’s barely there. Your gaze falls to your boots again. “Everyone just feels so sorry for you all the time. All anyone ever wants to do is talk about what happened like I don’t have to think about it enough, you know? It just… It makes it impossible to move on.”

Steve winces. He can’t ever say the right thing. “I’m sorry—”

“Stop apologizing,” you tell him, laughing. “I’m not saying that— I’m just… I’m just saying. I think it’d be easier if I didn’t have to stay here. You know, where everything happened. If I could… Like, if I could just go, I think that maybe I could get better.”

“You could,” Steve affirms with a nod.

Your brows furrow. “Get better?”

“Well, yeah,” he shrugs, amber gaze flitting between your glittering eyes and his dirty sneakers. “And… And leave. You know, if you wanted to.” 

The thought alone makes you laugh. “By myself? With no car? Barely any money?”

“You wouldn’t have to go alone,” he promises.

“Yeah?” you scoff, still grinning like it’s all a joke to you. “And who would want to run away with a girl with a broken heart?”

He answers without thinking and with a lopsided smile. “The boy with nothing to lose.”

Your smile fades with the heavy weight of his offer.

It isn’t just about running away. It’s about running away together — two people with nothing in common besides a mutual hatred for a dark wizard from the underworld, ditching a town that hasn’t done shit for them, and pretending like nothing’s ever hurt them.

And at first, you’re shocked. Who wouldn’t be with such an offer thrown at their feet? But then, and more than anything else, you’re confused. Why would Steve want to run away? you think to yourself. Why would he want to run away with you? 

When the bolt blue finally dissipates, you’re left with a simmering feeling of disbelief.

Steve shouldn’t want this, and he shouldn’t want it with you.

“You’re drunk,” you conclude, smiling because it’s a joke again.

“Yeah. Maybe,” Steve shrugs with his gaze pointed to the sky. The stars are hidden beneath layers of light and pollution. They’re out there somewhere, but he can’t see them — not from where he is now. He looks back to you, a sheepish smile playing on his pink mouth. “But… I’m not.”

“Would you seriously want to leave?” you squint. With me, you keep to yourself, unsaid.

“I’ve, uh— I’ve been wanting to for a while, actually. Even before all of… this,” he confesses, waving his hand out into the ether. He grins in reminiscence, but not the fond kind. “My dad— he’s just been dogging me about work and college and everything, you know? I think he wants me to be the same big shot business douchebag that he is, and I get it, but…”

You lean closer to him, brows furrowed. “But what?” you press.

Steve exhales a sad laugh. “I really don’t wanna end up like my dad,” he admits — a thought he kept like a thorn in his side finally said out loud. “And I’m scared that, if I stay here, I will.”

“So you’ve just been looking for a way out. All this time?” you wonder aloud. While I thought you were on top of the world, you were wanting out of it.

Steve shrugs, then nods.

“And a girl with nothing to lose?” you joke.

“Yeah,” he chuckles softly to himself. “That, too.”

You turn away from him again, deep in thought. Steve mourns your gaze — its attentiveness more than anything, the way you look at him and seem to understand him without saying a goddamn word. He didn’t think that was possible before now.

You think to yourself for a moment. Mostly because it’s something you know you should think about before you do it.

How will you pay your way? Where will you go? What will you do when you get there? 

What will your parents say when they notice you’re gone? How long will it take before they do? 

Who’ll feed the stray cats outside the trailer park? 

Who’ll leave flowers at Eddie’s grave once a month and clean it when it’s ultimately vandalized by assholes who still think he was a mass murderer sent from Hell to do Satan’s bidding?

There’s a lot of questions you don’t have answers for.

What little you do know, though, you’re certain of.

You know there’s nothing left for you in Hawkins.

You don’t have much family — especially not since Eddie — and your friends aren’t really your friends. Sure, Nancy invites you out from time to time, but she’d never call you to dish about secrets and shared trauma in this way. Sometimes you think they only include you because your boyfriend died, and they all saw what it did to you.

And you also know that there’s nothing holding you back but grief. To absolve yourself from it all, to finally move the fuck on, you’re going to have to leave it all behind. It’s not like you’d be missing much anyway. 

You’re still a ghost because you live in a soul-sucking town full of people who only want to talk to you when it’s to remind you that the only person you’ve ever loved is dead.

Nothing has brought you back to life quite like this boy and his secrets and offer to run away.

You think you’d been an idiot to walk away from it. From him.

“Fuck it.”

Steve almost flinches at how feverishly you turn to face him again. 

His brows raise to his hairline, honey eyes going wide at the abrupt nature of your sudden reply. “…Fuck it?” he echoes, not nearly as confident as you’d said it — just grateful that you’d said it at all.

For a boy who always expects rejection, your innate acceptance of him and his previously kept secrets makes his chest swell with so much warmth that it’s started to burn him. He can feel his ribcage turning to ash and his heart melting as he speaks.

“Fuck it,” you nod, more serious than he’s ever seen you.

You turn to face him fully, something you’d been too timid to do just minutes ago. You’re more sure now — of him, of this. The proximity between your bodies forces you to tilt your head up to look at him. Similarly, his chin falls to his chest to peer at you.

Tucked away in this alley, you’re made of shadows and shades of gold. The lamplight still flickers over your heads. The brick still shakes with the drumming, muffled bass. You don’t realize until now that you can feel your heart beating again.

“Let’s do it,” you shrug with a blast of hopeful anticipation swelling in your chest, more optimistic than you’ve been in a year. “Nothing to lose, right?”

Steve grins.

“Nothing to lose,” he repeats, reminding himself of the fact when reality starts to set in on him. Even if he fails, even if it all goes wrong and he’s waking up in his childhood bed a week from now, he can’t get any lower than rock bottom. Besides, now he’s got you to fall back on, right?

“Fuck it.”

★。／ ｜ ＼。★

[shadowonwater]

Every Instance I can find of Wild Kratt Bros Being Affected by Animal Instincts

I love it when they show animal instincts so here's a collection. If there's something I missed, let me know!

Season 1:

Bass Class (Martin as a bass kept getting attracted by fishing lures)

Tazzy Chris (This is THE instinct episode. Chris gets a suit malfunction that turns him into a T-Devil without a power disc. He's still himself but he keeps trying to eat rotten meat and growling)

The Blue and the Gray (squirrel Chris burying acorns)

Falcon City (Chris as a pigeon, trying to eat a random fry on the ground, preening his feathers, using the power of homing to get back, Martin as well also seemed to be briefly affected when first transforming and ate Jimmy's pizza. They were both also cooing like pigeons)

Cheetah Racer (Chris eating grass as a gazelle)

Flight of the Pollinators (when Martin was wearing that Bee Antenna Headband he was strongly attracted to the smell of flowers)

A Bat in the Brownies (when Chris and Martin entered the dead tree where the bats were they felt safe and secure and fell right asleep alongside the bats)

Maybe?:

Voyage of the Butterflier XT (this is a maybe. It's just I have no idea how they managed to hibernate with the butterflies they weren't even using power suits though)

Octopus Wildkratticus (not the bros but the octopus. I think it was being effected by animal instincts of the other animals)

The Food Chain Game (Chris tried eating grass as a gazelle again but found it gross, I think Aviva might have patched the gazelle disc after the last time)

Little Howler (all the howling, but considering the amount the brothers will howl while not transformed tells me that this is more just enjoying howling. Tell me none of y'all have howled like a wolf before)

Season 2:

Groundhog Wakeup Call (Aviva eating a bunch of grass and dandelions and then hibernating)

maybe?:

Termites Vs Tongues (Chris joining in with the termites defending themselves, could be seen as just helping out the creatures he's with)

Happy Turkey Day (the frequent gobbling like a turkey while transformed)

Rainforest Stew (not sure if the slowness of the sloth suit is instinct or if Chris physically can't move quickly in that)

Season 3:

The Hermit Crab Shell Exchange (the bros being scared as hermit crabs when they don't have shells, being extremely focused on finding a shell)

Opossum in my Pocket (Martin fainting aka "playing possum" when we was scared of Gourmand)

Chameleons on Target (blending in with background when scared, walking in the slow way that chameleons walk after first transforming, since they were able to control the tongues with concentration suggests that maybe it's not a malfunction but rather instinct?)

Maybe?:

Where the Bison Roam (Martin taking a bite out of a dirt and grass cake as a buffalo)

Season 4:

Stars of the Tides (Chris as a hermit crab getting nervous when he loses his shell)

Maybe?:

Panda Power Up! (Martin being very tired and hungry as a panda)

Season 5:

Maybe?:

Elephant Brains! (Chris being extra empathetic towards the elephants after transforming)

Season 6:

Deer Buckaroo (Martin trying to get the velvet off his antlers)

The Real Ant Farm (when first transforming into the different roles, Aviva, Chris, and Martin all mention feeling like doing the role of that specific ant)

Uh-Oh Ostrich (baby ostrich Chris following the mom ostrich)

Cats and Dogs (Martin doing the African Wild Dog warning call, he looks noticeably surprised when he first makes that sound)

Maybe?:

Adapto the Coyote (similar to Little Howler, the coyote howling may be less instinct and more humans having fun making animal noises)

[fayes-fics]

A Job Well Done

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x fem!reader, Modern AU

Summary: Quickie, office sex after being reunited.

Warnings: 18+ smut, minors DNI, quickie vaginal sex, office sex, semi-public sex, workplace sex, exhibitionism.

Word Count: 1.5k

Authors Note: Request fill for Anon (ask HERE) who wanted quickie office sex with Benedict. This is lighthearted, almost crack in places tbh. Unbetaed. Thanks to my discord peeps for help with some ideas for this one. Enjoy <3

You barely make it through the door into the fancy corner office before clothing is wrenched open, both so desperate. You’ve been away on a business trip for two weeks, but it feels like two months. 

“Fuck, I missed you,” his words hiss on your lips as your kisses land wet and hot, open mouths just taking from each other.

“I missed you too,” you can barely gasp, fighting off your knickers under your skirt.

“Shouldn’t we wait until we can go to one of our places after work?” he checks.

“No, here,” you insist and back yourself against the wall, pulling him by the open fly right into you, moaning at the crush of his chest against yours.

“Really?” he sounds disbelieving, even as you roughly yank down the front of his underwear and shimmy it down his hips along with his trousers.

“Yes, really. Just make it quick,” you confirm, wiggling your skirt up around your waist, revelling in his groan as you grab his cock and pump it in your hand, standing on tiptoe to line him up with your aching pussy. 

He splutters the most adorable noise as his hot tip slides inside you, and you groan loudly in his ear.

“Say you are going to fuck me til I can't walk straight,” you command through gritted teeth.

“Okay… that,” he stumbles, still slightly stunned by the speed and ferocity this is happening at.

“Say it!” you demand.

“You already did!”

You grab his face and make him look into your eyes. “Ben. I need you to say the filthiest things to me. I'm so horny, please; don't be embarrassed.”

“We are at work! Isn't it enough we are doing this in full view of London and its recently arrived visitors!?” his voice slightly incredulous, gesturing vaguely at the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the crowds pouring out of St Pancras International a couple of storeys below.

“The glass is mostly reflective; they can probably barely see us,” you dismiss, hands grabbing his bottom and sinking fully onto his cock. “Fuck yesssss!” you hiss, eyes rolling back at the sheer delight of being so filled again.

“Is this revenge?” he exhales raggedly, a hand heavy on your hip as he adjusts to your heated cling. “Fucking in Ant’s office? Cos your PA told you he fucked Kate in yours?”

“Maybe,” you look askance, feeling called out but still pushing up onto tiptoes and sinking back down again as he groans with you.

His face morphs into a crooked grin, and his tone changes. “Well, why didn't you say before?” his voice turning into a velvet rumble. 

You gasp as he grabs one of your legs, hooks it over his arm and proceeds to take control just as you wanted. You moan your appreciation as he immediately starts to slam into you. You make a quick mental note that family oneupmanship is apparently an excellent motivator for him before you lose all capacity for thought.

If HR ever finds out about this, an executive fucking a junior colleague, there will probably be trouble—so it's a good thing HR reports to you. You co-founded this business with Viscount Anthony Bridgerton and have run it successfully together for the last five years. Three months ago, Anthony brought his younger brother into the firm in a decidedly nepotistic hire of in-house graphic designer after his art business stalled. You fought Anthony about the optics of it until about three seconds after you clapped eyes on one Benedict Bridgerton. And then, well, you agreed your company definitely needs someone to design PowerPoint templates or whatever he does. You resisted flirting with him for precisely two weeks, just enjoying his arse walking up and down the corridors every day doing fuck knows what.

But then it was the work party, and honestly, who can be held responsible when Anthony manages to score a whisky sponsorship? You'd be a lousy co-founder if you didn't indulge, frankly. And so you did. And you proceeded to flirt outrageously until Benedict took you up to the roof terrace and had you screaming at the London skyline. Since then, well, you've been together at every opportunity. It's especially thrilling that Anthony doesn't have a damn clue about it, either.

“I'm going to fuck you til you can't walk straight,” he growls, just as you wanted, slamming into you so hard your bra strap catches on the textured wall through your shirt.

“Oh fuck yes,” you mewl your appreciation, tipping forward to bite his neck, not entirely gently, until he hisses and moves faster.

Then, as if he can read your mind, still buried inside you, he suddenly picks you up, spins around, and almost throws you down onto Ant’s glass desk, never leaving your body.

“Oh, you fucking genius,” you compliment, grabbing his shirt greedily and pulling him on top of you, uncaring that you are sending Ant’s stationery and fancy tchotchkes flying. Your mouths meet in an artless, hot-breathed kiss, and then he starts to move again, wrapping your legs around his hips and standing up to drive into you hard.

You start to yell his name and all the praise you can think of, knowing Ant’s office is soundproofed like yours. His cock drags all the places inside that turn off your brain, not capable of anything but chasing more and now and more again. 

“Not so sure the glass is particularly reflective, by the way,” he states almost casually as he keeps pounding into you. “Pretty sure we are drawing a crowd.”

“Then fuck me really good,” is your only breathy response, unwilling to tip your head back and look down at the people below. At least at this angle, they shouldn’t be able to see his cock ploughing into you. And everything else is covered by clothing… mostly. You could just be having a very vigorous wrestling match. Kind of.

“Exhibitionist, hmm?” he hums, leaning over you and kissing down your neck.

“You’re the one who took me on the roof terrace our first time,” you point out, closing your eyes and enjoying the slide of his warm lips on your skin as he thrusts so deep you swear you’ll still feel it tomorrow.

“Guilty as charged,” he murmurs, bemused, a little out of breath now, his tongue lathing hot on your throat.

Then, there’s no talking for a while as you skate closer to your peaks. Desperate hands grab bodies and table edges, growling and moans, hot wet kisses, the sturdy glass desk withstanding his harsh strokes even as your whole body rolls on the surface. 

Then, with a dangerous smirk, he winds a hand between your bodies and flicks his thumb against your clit, and you scream. It’s the little extra sensation you need to break, calling his name, your nails scratching down his clothes, biceps clinging to him as your pussy clenches hard around him, floating somewhere on a blissful cloud, eyes screwed shut, as he growls at your vice-like grip on his cock. A few artless thrusts, and then he is stilling, groaning loudly in your ear and collapsing on top of you as he spills inside.

After a few panted moments, you feel yourself returning to the room, the power of speech returning.

“Oh god, that was just what I needed,” you huff, sated, a fuzzy, languid, bone-deep satisfaction only he can seem to provide. 

“You are welcome, boss,” he sasses with a playful smirk.

“You don’t report to me,” you point out, swatting his arm gently.

“Shame… I think I’d get an excellent review and a hefty raise if I did,” he gloats a little, dropping a quick kiss on your lips.

“I will neither confirm nor deny,” you volley back, pushing him off your body and standing up, shuffling your skirt back down your legs. 

You feel a little unsteady in your gait as you dip down to collect your underwear from the floor.

“There are, however, two things you can do for me?” you smile as he rezips.

“Anything…” 

“Tidy your brother's desk,” you nod towards the mess. He rolls his eyes, accepting his fate, seeing as it was his decision to throw you upon it.

“And?” He prompts you for the second thing as you make final adjustments to your appearance.

“Be naked in my bed by the time I get home,” you breeze as you reach for the office door handle. “Feel free to tie yourself spread eagle to the bedposts if you’re feeling adventurous,” you end with a wink.

“How exactly am I supposed to do that with only one set of hands?” you hear him call after you as the door closes behind you.

With a huge grin, you saunter down the corridor, phone in hand, already texting him a reply.

Y/N: You’ll figure it out. You’re the artist, after all.

BB: I’m a landscape painting artist, not an escape artist.

Y/N: potayto, potatoh…

BB: I’m getting a round of applause from what looks like a stag do outside, by the way…

Y/N: See? There’s your glowing performance review. 

BB: … 🤷‍♂️

Y/N: 😘

Benedict taglist: @makaylan @foreverlonginguniverse @iboopedyournose @colettebronte @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @margofiore @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry @ambitionspassionscoffee @chaoticcalzoneranchsports @nikaprincessofkattegat @baebee35 @crowleysqueenofhell @bridgertontess @fiction-is-life @lilacbeesworld @angels17324 @broooookiecrisp @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @eleanor-bradstreet @divaanya @musicismyoxygen84 @benedictspaintbrush @miindfucked @sorryallonsy @lilithseve @cayt0123 @hottytoddyhistory @truly-dionysus @fictionalmenloversblog @zinzysstuff @malpalgalz @panhoeofmanyfandoms @kinokomoonshine @causeimissu @delehosies @m-rae23 @last-sheep @kmc1989 @desert-fern @starkeylover @corpseoftrees-queen @magical-spit @bunnyweasley23 @how-many-stars-in-the-sky @amygdtjhddzvb

[newtonsheffield]

The conversation about Anthony being just friends with Kate broke my heart. And then, as I was doing some chores and listening to music, I've heard Ariana Grande's we can't be friends. Let me tell you I am not ok. 🥺

Anthony really does cherish the friendship they have and he knows it’s important to Kate as well. He loves feeling the kind of closeness that comes with getting to know someone slowly over a decade. She’s the person that knows him best. Out of everyone, the woman who he nearly trampled to catch a frisbee is his best friend. As impossible as that seems.

He went with her to pick out a puppy from the litter, and he was the one who helped her pick out a new sofa and she helped him decorate his office when he bought this house. Even though his mum and Daphne had both offered Kate was the one he asked. He didn’t want to admit it to himself but part of him wanted to make sure that his home was somewhere Kate was comfortable.

“This guy thinks we’re an engaged couple.” Anthony murmured when the sales associate stepped away to check on the availability of the velvet sofa Kate had convinced him to settle on.

Kate chuckled, “There’s no way he does.”

“He does. He gave me a thumbs up when you wandered away before and said we were a sweet couple.”

Kate’s teeth bit into her lip for a moment before she shrugged, “Ham it up a little then, Ant. We might get you a discount.”

It should feel worse. But it’s hard for Anthony to feel sorry for himself when it feels so good being loved by her. Even like this

[preposterousprophetess]

Hi guys! This is my finalized version of a creative nonfiction essay I wrote about my relationship with my “home.” I hope you enjoy! ~ Liv

The Walls Are Watching

The second yellow house on Conner Court is a castle. These thick walls protect me from swooshing, swaying winds that storm through the shadowy valley my family calls home. The bright purple door welcomes visitors to our front porch once they’ve passed the moat of garden beds, vibrant with fresh strawberries and rhubarb. A canvas teepee sits in the forest clearing west of the castle, and the imaginary aroma from its unlit cobblestone campfire floats through the backyard. This wild yard—brimming with insect life, budding native flowers, and tiny rodents—is where I wander. Searching for treasure, magic weapons, the antidote to my poisons. In the wintertime, the top layer of the snow melts and refreezes strong enough to hold me up, and I dance in the backyard with the lightness of a fairy.

There is magic within these walls, the warm and fuzzy kind that permeates every corner of the house. It shows itself when I sink into the cushiony velvet of my parent’s living room couch, where sleep pulls me under, and I wake to the smell of warm bread fresh from the oven. It shows itself when my skin sticks to the pleather of the large red bean bag in the bay window, bathing myself in the summer sun whilst snuggling in a blanket. It shows itself in the high-pitched squeaks of our guinea pigs—from their large cage that took up a quarter of our living room—when my mom opened our veggie drawer. In the crisp, fresh well water. In the howling winds of the valley wispings through our window screens and rustling leaves on birch trees outside.

✤ ✤ ✤

The second yellow house on Conner Court is a sanctuary, a temple to the Christian god my parents bow down to. They adorn these halls with crosses and bible quotes, paintings and commandments. Every meal is served with the appetizer of grace, which must always be consumed before the entree. Each slumber is preceded by a family gathering, a nightly ritual to meditate on whatever is taking up our thoughts, praying for a better day. My parents enforce a strict adherence to the rules set out by their god, although they strangely don’t follow some because “that’s the OLD testament,” whatever that means. No swearing, no using god’s name in vain (yes, that includes “omg” and “jeez”), no words that imply cursing (frick, darn, shoot), no cropped clothing or low necklines. There are a lot of rules they ensure we follow, many of which they don’t even follow themselves. Funny how that works. I thought the saying was “lead by example,” not “do as I say, not as I do.”

It isn’t all rules and prayer, though. Every Sunday we spend hours upon hours playing four-square in the church parking lot, waiting on dad to finish up his counseling and advising. I like Sunday because that means donuts, Kathy always brings donuts to share. Wednesday night bible study is my favorite—we sometimes get to have a Papa John’s potluck, and mom drives us to McDonald’s for ice cream cones before heading home. I like memorizing verses and showing off my recitation of the ten commandments to my parents. I like being the know-it-all in Sunday school. I like being the pastor’s daughter. I felt like someone important.

My brother is caught stealing from the tithe box. I’m banned from babysitting the kindergarteners after telling the kids that god created everything, except for Ants—I created those. My sister refuses to come to church. My dad refuses her refusal. We act normal at church. We sing the songs before heading across the parking lot to Sunday school. We show up and play our part. We say the lines. We memorize the verses. We shake the hands we’re supposed to. He smiles. We’re putting up a perfect performance for them.

✤ ✤ ✤

The second yellow house on Conner Court is a fortress, its walls standing tall and firm, to both confine those within and bar those without. The walls watch as my siblings and I carefully tip-toe around the house, closing doors ever so gently, making sure our music doesn’t raise to a volume that is noticeable. They watch as my father berates his eldest daughter. How dare she get a snack late at night? How dare she take a shower? How dare she like a boy? How dare she turn into the spitting image of her father during his youth, quick to anger and slow to understand. The walls watch on as his words slowly break her down, as she wilts and rebels, as he spats bible quotes in her face as an excuse for his wrath. They watch as I turn the lock of my bedroom door, hoping it isn’t my room he comes to first when he gets home from work, hoping I don’t have to deal with the poison he spits.

I often wonder what the walls think about my father; what would they whisper to a listening ear? Would they remember the turn of events as I do? Would they be confused that I still love him? That I continue to visit despite everything he’s done? I want them to tell me his cherry, fat-and-happy old man demeanor is actually genuine. Perhaps that’s just how he interacts with people he doesn’t live with. Perhaps it would be different behind closed doors, like it was before. I want them to tell me if he’s actually changed, even if the answer isn’t what I need.

✤ ✤ ✤

The second yellow house on Conner Court is now as familiar as it is alien to me. On the hot August day, I packed my parents’ Expedition up with all the belongings I thought might be considered mine; I sensed a small hollow forming in my heart; an abrasion that wounded the safety I felt in familiarity. The wound has since scabbed over, but there are still days I long to be back behind those walls.

Despite my previous eagerness to run as far away as possible from them, I find myself being called back. When I visit, however, it is not the same. Of course, it is the same house it has always been, the same orange vinyl wooden floors in the kitchen and downstairs, the same sad-beige mid-2000s carpet that has been stained from all kinds of paint, the same glossy black fridge that hasn’t had a working ice/water dispenser in over a decade, the same eggplant purple front door. In many of the ways that matter, though, it’s not. The walls I was raised in now wear unfamiliar paintings and decor, their eyes boring holes through me as if I’m intruding into their carefully crafted space. The large, retro brown couches have been replaced by angular, modern grey sofas; the TV is as thin as paper and as large as an at-home movie theater; the dishes I grew up with have all broken by now. I no longer know where they keep the kitchen trash can or which closet houses extra towels. The items I forgot to pack when I left for college sit in boxes with my name scrawled in black Sharpie. The landline we used to share has been disconnected for years. I fall through the snow now. My fairy wings have withered. The magic I once knew sputtered out. The walls no longer recognize me.

[insecquidae]

ITS FUN BUG FRIDAY!

WELCOME (BACK) TO FUN BUG FRIDAY! WHERE WE LOOK AT A FUN BUG EVERY FRIDAY! TODAYS FUN BUUUUG IIIIISSSSSSSSSS

THE RED VELVET ANT, AKA THE COWKILLER!

use caution when petting, sting hurts like a buttcheek on a stick times a thousand :3

THIS IS A FEMALE! MALES HAVE WINGS :3

[mantisgodsart]

Did you know? You have to post art for people to see it. Wild, we know. Anyways, we finally drew our Bau's swords, and we're going to make you decipher their extremely thick (designated south Appalachian from our American Accent Experts) accent. Also comes with bonus notes under the cut.

"Y'see, the thing with weapons is that if y'ain't careful wit'em y'can really tear up a man. Throwin' metal aroun' th'place doesn' come without consequences. It c'n take a lotta work ta master any weapon't all, an' even more work t' keep from hurtin' anyone y'wouldn't want to." "Take m'swords, for example. These're cuttin' blades, n' they're hooked't th'tip. Y'see this sorta thing fer sport, usually, but they're a bit useless fer actual fightin' cuz they don't cut shell. Y'need t'have some dexterity t'put 'em to work, 'cuz hitting shell with 'em's worse'n useless. Dulls yer blades, 'n such. Y'need ta hit b'tween th'shell, or't does nothin', 'n any actual hit'll be real likely t'kill 'r maim." "Mine've got swordbreakers in'm, cuz I don' really use'm t'cut. Bit narrow t'really club with, but I like'm narrow cuz I like t'get inta guards. Th'hook's made ta get inta joints, but't works just's well t'grab shit outta bags'r hands, n' th'extra grabbin' bits make't a bit easier t'nab that." "'f I miss, worse't happens is't some bug gets'r shell sliced, 'n tha' doesn't mean much, y'know? No major hit, 'll scab over'n a few hours'n be fine. 'f I used a crushin' weapon, though, 't might actually hurt 'em." "'n a pinch, they'll work jus' fine fer th' original purpose. Fit th' hook 'nto a limb, give'a shallow cut, 'n most people'll back off once they know y'could've ripped a limb off. Makes't harder for'm t'wield a weapon, too. If's somethin' real fussy like a velvet ant- they don' clot like other bugs, so y'can't really draw blood from'm- then'm usually stronger'n em, so disarmin' works jus' fine, 'n I can hold onto 'em if'ey still wanna pick a fight." "…'sides, carryin' aroun' two'a these makes me look real cool, don'tcha think? All fancy'n such."

Bau's specific accent for the in-universe setup rather than the "translating things" is, like. Distinctly "cricket or grasshopper who has not really made an effort to, like, get around the fact that their mouthparts aren't super made for the sorts of sounds used in bugnish" which is perceived as a Hick Accent because a lot of crickets Do tend to work around similar, like, Perceived As Hick Industries Done By Mostly Uneducated People. It takes Effort to sort of train yourself to speak in a way that will read to other bugs as More Educated, and Bau has just sort of… never bothered? Best they've got is enunciating it a bit more clearly, chief. They're not relearning how to speak a whole language to be seen as Slightly More Educated.

In terms of actual in-universe sounds that are Not translated to English they'll just sound a lot chirpier. You could probably interpret some of the words in there as adjacent to the sort of shit you hear out of birds. Might be able to unintentionally set off the fight-or-flight of bugs who used to be heavily preyed upon by small songbirds if cussing violently enough. Sometimes you accent sounds with actually making the standard cricket-chirp sound if you're trying to be sexy.

Sometimes you also do this when you are pissed off at people, This is because crickets are Like This and a lot of them will fucking fight each other for the approval of a potential mate.

Anyways, the fun part of Bau's weapons is that they are deliberately built for being showy and impressive and letting them do flashy sleight-of-hand with their opponent's belongings while also being hideously inefficient enough as actual weapons that bringing them onto the battlefield in the first place actively seems like a terrible strategic decision.

[bestworstcase]

talking to myself ->

heart determination:

The Horned-Axe bears two blades; permits passage when passage is to be permitted; waits at the threshold. The Horned-Axe, who forbids contradiction, is the oldest Hour. Other Hours might seem older. They are not older.

made with heart, provides heart and knock aspect.

why heart.

liminal memory:

'We each of us have a memory of a moment when things changed forever, though at the time we never knew it. Perhaps the world also has those memories.'

the horned-axe looks both ways at the threshold. she was an edge-hour but is no longer (and while it "is not wise" to imply she may still have a trace of edge, it's evidently possible to ascend—or partly ascend—as half an edge-long dyad under the horned-axe).

before the gods-from-blood, vak was a name of the horned-axe.

eva dewulf claims that the great hooded princes ascended under the mother of ants but now revere the horned-axe—which would seem to be corroborated by conversations between arun and coquille.

twin-serpent tantra:

The Tantra describes the Great Hooded Princes - a dynasty of unclear origin - engaging in prayers, sacrifices and poetry in honour of the Key-Serpent, the Crossroads-Twins and the Mirror-Queen. 'Nagi encircles; Nagi arises from wounds; Nagi spares those who are already harmed.'

mysteries of opening:

The Mother of Ants is the child of two rivers. The Horned-Axe is the last god-from-Stone. The Meniscate was born in the Moon from Light. The Wound and the Threshold and the Revelation are all the Gate's aspects, and here is their secret doctrine…

the key-serpent undoubtedly refers to the mother of ants—those are her enactments—and the mirror-queen is probably the meniscate. who are the crossroads-twins? not the sister-and-witch: they're neither knock-hours nor associated with the great hooded princes.

the horned axe is honored by the princes and identified explicitly as an aspect of the serpent gate alongside the mother of ants and the meniscate. ergo, the crossroad-twins must refer to her.

except for she isn't a twin

except for she used to be an edge-hour but isn't anymore.

spins around.

the horned-axe is the oldest hour. other hours might seem older. they are not older. the horned-axe distinguishes. she separates. she differentiates. yes?

ok. the giribrago – who contains, who brings gifts, who does not destroy – is identified with the god ilah al-jabal. aside from the lesson of many facets being named lesson.giribrago in the game files, he's attested by this name twice. the emperor elagabalus is, evidently, one of his names. or a name-emanation. he is also (per the weather factory catalogue entry) called the wound, an epithet he shares with 1. the mother of ants and 2. the wolf-divided (as "the wound of the sun's division").

giribrago seems to be intended to mean something like "rising bull" or possibly "rising bull of the mountain" from its etymological roots (the wf catalogue entry provides proto-indo-european as a hint).

xenodice half-face, name of the horned-axe:

One of the more enigmatic aspects of the Horned-Axe: Xenodice Half-Faced, who welcomes or slays strangers at the threshold. Xenodice is sister sometimes to owl and cat, sometimes to bull and butterfly, sometimes to dove and serpent...

owl and cat -> both animals sacred to the horned-axe; owls are otherwise associated with the striges, and cats with the velvet.

dove and serpent -> lol.

bull and butterfly -> butterfly may refer to the moth, but there are five lepidoptery displays in hush house (grail, heart, scale, winter, & moth). of these, winter ("excetridae") are apparently related to either the seven-coil or serpents (excetra being a latin term for the lernean hydra and meaning "snake" in the figurative sense) and heart ("trigintidae") apparently related to the monarch-at-the-crossroads (triginta being the latin word for "thirty," as in "thirty birds"/the thritige-kind). the horned-axe being a god-from-stone contemporary with the seven-coil and the monarch, my inclination is to assume the "butterfly" of xenodice's relation is either the seven-coil, the serpent, or the monarch. probably the monarch, given the jeweler's tale.

bull may refer to the giribrago. which is interesting, because

'The Foundation of the Sun' 'Long ago in this country, one did not build a church without first sacrificing a white bull to the Sun-in-Rags…' Solomon Husher brought this tapestry with him from - well, wherever it was that Solomon came from.

and

Chaima asks Yvette to interpret a dream - of a white waste west of the world where pale mutes redden the snow with the blood of a bull… [Lesson: Snow Stories]

and

'Supplication' The Sun-in Rags, but reversed, that is, blood is dripping down into the sun and being absorbed. Signed 'Nina Lagasse.'

("wherever it was that solomon came from" the answer is kaunas)

historically the god elagabalus became syncretized with the roman sol, and thence sol invictus. secret histories allusions to "pre-solar" beliefs likely concern, similarly, the assimilation of giribragan traditions into worship of the sun-in-splendour.

so. on the one hand: the giribrago, a pre-solar solar hour known by various epithets (the wound, the shard, the leak, the remnant) suggestive of a violent end and whom the priest names when preaching with heart alongside the blackbone and snow as hours who were "cast down."

on the other: heart-lore tradition leads the librarian to make the determination that the horned-axe is the oldest hour. vak, "the only entrance into secret light," was once a name of the horned-axe.

speak to lt arthur moore about the sun's design, and he says:

'I cannot read this script, Librarian, but I have seen it before, and it was translated to me - by one I held very dear. Long ago, you see, I made my own pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Elagabalus... though in that country they still call him Ilah al-Gabal. May I examine the stone?' If Death's direction is down, and Eternity's is up, which directions do we assign to Life and to History? It is a frequent topic of discussion, at the Labyrinth. I wonder, sometimes, if my teachers have nothing better to do with all those years of learning… but in the Labyrinth, more than any other place I have been, even Emesa, Sun and Stone and Silence are the first constants.'

"Sun and Stone and Silence" are the first constants.

de bellis murorum:

The poem elliptically describes a war between beasts, weather phenomena, and arcane concepts. It's quite specific about their tactics. 'The Two-One joined, and the Horned distinguished. Consequently, blood.'

secret histories wiki proposes that "the two-one" is an epithet for the sister-and-witch (not unreasonable, as they're called "the two-who-are-one" in the geminiad). however.

de bellis murorum means, approximately, the war of the walls. the librarian learns a lesson in disciplines of the scar from this book:

To master boundaries through their determination. The Scar marks wisdom and regrets; one is often born from the other. The Scar The Mansus is the fortress of dream where the true Hours rule, and Nowhere is the scar beneath it where the Nowhere hours lair. Without the Hours above, that scar would be an open wound. So the Bright Arts teach us. The Crime The Mansus is the fortress in dream raised by the gods-who-were-stone. Nowhere is the inevitable scar beneath it. Monstrous, the gods-from-Nowhere; but cruel, the gods-who-were-stone.

and gets memory: contradiction ("something uncomfortable"). the heart determination suggests that the horned-axe is the oldest hour because she forbids contradiction; through separation, the hours become distinct from one another. de bellis murorum describes the first separation – the creation of the threshold. note:

We Come From Glory Our first sparks of self descended from the light above the world which we call the Glory. Without the Glory, we would be beasts in darkness, and the gifts of our past illuminate our future, which is Eternity. We Come From Nowhere The Thritige-kind of the Carapace Cross dreamed themselves out of black glass, to be their own Monarch. If we inherit the empty throne, we dream ourselves into every night to come.

and

A Tongue of Sky Cracktrack was a gift from the light above the world. When Glory touched the first life-motes with this language, they entered the waking world. They were Illuminated.

together with the narrative of 'the conference of the birds' and its relevance to the monarch-at-the-crossroads/thirty birds (namely: "what shadow is ever separated from its maker? do you see? the shadow and its maker are one and the same") – light was separated from darkness, the waters below were parted from the waters above, but Nowhere and the Glory are still in some sense the same.

but a thing cannot be darkness and light – that is a contradiction, which the horned-axe forbids. ok.

sun and stone and silence are the first constants.

blows a kiss to cygnifer.

aside from the sister-and-witch, there is one other entity which could conceivably be called "the two-one" – the lightning, which cygnifer identifies as "the joined serpent." the serpent whose mouth is a gate. like. the serpent gate, of which the horned-axe is an aspect.

hm!

the giribrago contains. he brings gifts. he does not destroy. his tarot is the world – completeness, above and below, harmony, union – with the lucid tarot specifically depicting an ouroborous. which, taps the "secret histories is explicitly jungian" sign again:

In the age-old image of the uroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The uroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e., of the shadow. This “feed-back” process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the uroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which, as a projection, unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious. [Collected Works, Vol 14, para. 513]

the first constants – sun and stone and silence – everything begins with cleaving the ouroboros apart. the horned-axe distinguishes.

the horned-axe divides the giribrago – separates Nowhere from the Glory – light from darkness, sun from silence – this precipitates the emergence of the monarch-at-the-crossroads and the 'as below' feminine hour of the sea/ys... i continue to go back and forth on whether i think the blackbone is this hour or an ascended name like the elegiast, but given... this...

Chaima outright asks Morgen whether she - and the other Ligeians - are names of the Twins. Morgen responds with theatrical shock; she makes allusions that suggest it is so; she makes other allusions that imply she's associated with the Grail, the Meniscate, or the Blackbone. [Lesson: Sky Stories]

(sky stories. girl.)

I Just Don't Know. Maybe. the other candidate is the rising spider, for reasons of 1. her alarming interest in yvette and 2. the excellency gnathobasis being her name, implying she's a knock-hour, and 3. the serpent gate / spider door situation.

in any case. the giribrago -> (monarch-and-sea) -> serpent –> (wolf-and-snow) –> chandler. the horned-axe is the separation of the monarch and sea-hour. "crossroads-twins" thus likely refers to either:

the horned-axe and the giribrago

the horned-axe and the monarch-at-the-crossroads

the horned-axe and the serpent

or possibly vak and henavek as specific aspects of these hours.

...and that's why ragged crossroads arts can be used to render nillycant from glassfinger toxin.

also the horned-axe is heart-aspected, in the way that surgeries & exsanguinations arts deal in the heart principle – the flow of blood. which, if committed to preservation:

The Golden In the times when nothing was forgotten, three flowers bloomed on the Watchman's Tree: Black, Red, and Gold. Red is the life that flows in the body's courses, but the blood of the Carapace Cross was golden. Preservation teaches what endures.

in the present, the three flowers of the watchman's tree are black (the velvet), white ([REDACTED]), red (the mare-in-the-tree). the velvet did not exist "in the times when nothing was forgotten" and the mare was merely a name-emanation of the wheel. Back Then – following the model of the four alchemical stages a la calyptra – i think:

black/nigredo – the sea (blackbone or rising spider)

[white/albedo – the horned axe]

gold/citrinas – the monarch-at-the-crossroads

red/rubedo – the serpent

which...tracks. black is the hour born from the sun's blood, white is the division of the sun, gold is the hour who arises before dawn, red is the sun-eyed forge-hour.

but why did she lose her edge? two possibilities:

the giribrago and the horned-axe were in contention, unity vs separation, and the horned-axe could not remain an edge hour after sundering the giribrago (interesting implications for the lionsmith if so, now the colonel is among the hours uncounted)

the horned-axe gave up her edge-nature as part of the pact she made with the malachite and the red grail, and became a heart-power instead (which might be why sickle & eclipse can be considered an art of preservation)

or both maybe. either way, i think it's more likely she's always been what we'd now consider a winter-hour and it was her edge aspect that grew into heart-and-knock: consider that heart is the principle which preserves and protects the skin of the world while knock is the wounding and unseaming of barriers. heart and knock together express the same contention we associate with edge.

bonus:

the "renegade knock-long" the exile meets at the fane of owls is fucking. arun peel

The eyes of the owls in the hawthorn tree glimmer pale gold. There's a flare of light, too, beneath the tree. A tall man in a snakeskin jacket has just lit a cigarette. In the match-light, his face is lean, dark, and familiar. 'Hello again,' he says. 'This is a surprise. I suppose the Double-Edged brought you here to make a point? She won't want any new Edge dyads in the world... do you have something to show me?'

<- snakeskin jacket.

if shown a pentiment:

The stranger nods, and stubs out his cigarette on the trunk of the tree. He begins to peel an orange instead. 'It's always too late, eventually,' he observes through a mouthful of orange, 'but until then, it's not. Alexandros thought that was important. The Lionsmith never did.' He passes me the remnant of his cigarette. 'Some things are better left unsaid,' he adds over his shoulder as he saunters off. 'It was nice to see you again.'

lol.

'Remember,' Arun tells Zachary, 'that it's always too late, eventually; but it never is until then.' Zachary lets out a long sigh. 'You always say that. It's less helpful than you think it is.'

if peel's secretary enigmatic with mission: revelation

'What was it I used to say? 'It's always too late, eventually? But until then it never is?' The servants of the Duties, shorn of the Calyptra's protection, scurrying about like ants without a queen; they're still trying to silence the dreamer and the dream… but it's too late; too late.'

lmao, even.

if he isn't shown a pentiment:

The stranger shrugs. 'Never mind. You might find this more useful, anyway.' He spits tidily into a glass vial and pinches the top closed. 'Don't tell anyone I did that,' he says conspiratorially. 'I'd get in trouble, again.' He passes me the vial. 'Always remember,' he adds over his shoulder as he saunters off, 'either it's someone's lion, or no-one's lion.'

he spits stenthic venom into a vial instead.

and he'd get in trouble, again.

'We all loved Vak, back home,' Arun sighs. Coquille nods, her eyes glowing. 'You remember the poems we wrote for her? In other languages, of course. Except me; I wrote a poem to her, in her. I got in a great deal of trouble for that. Again.' He recites a few verses, and Coquille claps her hands in delight. [Lesson: Vak]

he's a former great hooded prince who flayed himself to follow the thunderskin – who is affiliated with the horned-axe by way of the triple knot, and the great hooded princes all honor the horned-axe in any case. and this?

''Wisdom is the daughter of Regret, and regret the son of Wisdom.' It's more elegant than 'Look both ways quickly enough and you get a headache.' But the same principle: we can confuse the Hours long enough to win advantage. The Madrugad will take her due eventually, but I hope that with the great changes that are coming, that might be less important, now...'

is a horned-axe axiom.

the moth and the vagabond form an alliance with an unnamed third hour to move against calyptra; in every incident pertaining to that, peel takes their side. the third hour of the rival triad is the horned-axe.

and this is why the flayed tantra yields the lore it does; geminate invocation in cultsim (being a great hooded prince, peel invoked not the sister-and-witch but the horned-axe at the threshold, in her aspect as a crossroad-twin, as in the twin-serpent tantra); and maggephene mysteries in boh (which concerns the horned-axe's revenge and symbolic if not literal rebirth as a heart-knock hour through the pact with the triple knot, sealed by sacrifice of the thunderskin). and memory: storm, for the thunderskin.

[jupiterswasphouse]

WASP REVIEW - PARASITICA (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2012)

[Image ID: A screenshot from the 'Parasitica' episode of TMNT 2012, of the parasitic wasp, which is the focus of the episode, mid-flight /End ID.]

Now, for a change of pace, let's have a look at something that isn't from a video game for the first time in this review series! It tends to be harder to find wasps in TV in particular that are notable enough to properly review, which makes it all the more fortunate that I got this suggestion, as this mutant species of wasp is the entire focus of the episode!

Now, I've never been a TMNT enjoyer, I just didn't get into the franchise as a kid and have yet to look into it on a wider scale, however, I did enjoy this enjoy this episode. That's not to say it's without its inaccuracies, though, so let's get into it, starting with the wasp's general appearance!

Looking at it them, they have the shape and eyes of wasps of the family Vespidae, fairly standard fare for wasps in media, likely based on some black and yellow species of paper wasps, or otherwise yellowjackets. The latter would makes sense, given what appears to be an abundance of setae around the mesosoma especially, reminiscent of a fair number of yellowjackets, although of course the glowing lines across the wings, meso- and metasoma, and eyes aren't accurate, but they aren't meant to be. I have to say, props to the modeling crew for making a fairly detailed model with an appropriate amount of wings and legs.

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons | Image IDs: Two screenshots of the episode, showing one wasp standing and three wasps flying above the Ninja Turtles respectively, followed by a real photo of a common wasp, a type of Yellowjacket, also known as Vespula vulgaris /End IDs.]

They're also notably large, roughly the size of a medium breed of dog, having grown significantly from their mutation. Funnily enough, just before the first appearance of the original wasp, after being asked by Michaelangelo how big the arthropods in a set of photos are Donatello makes a statement I feel the need to comment on, that being "Well, a bee is about four millimeters, and a wasp would be six", which is an odd statement. For one, which species does he mean in particular, he gives an oddly specific measurement when the wall displays images of multiple different types of wasp, including fairyflies (or Mymarids), which can be as small as 0.127 millimeters (Dicopomorpha echmepterygis), and Vespids which can reach up to 45 millimeters (Vespa mandarinia). The western honey bee (Apis mellifera), the most likely candidate for the bee that Donatello is referring to given how common and well loved the species is, itself is 10 millimeters at minimum among the average worker.

[Image ID: Another screenshot, showing the wall in question, which has 4 different papers pinned to it with multiple different species of wasp /End IDs.]

But anyway, with that side-tangent out of the way, let's get into the behavior of the wasps, starting with the first things we see. When the initial wasp appears, we hear vocalizations from it, which isn't necessarily unheard of, although these noises aren't quite the same as the vocalizations of some other types of animals, such as mammals or birds, as these aren't produced through complex vocal cords and structures, but they are created by vibrations in the wasp's body by stridulatory organs or other muscular structures. These are called stridulations, you may have heard of them in cicadas and Orthopterans, but they can also be observed in mud collecting and digging wasps such as potter wasps and Sphecids, as well as velvet ants, and sounds like a charming little squeak! The vocalizations in the wasps in this episode sound like processed sounds produced by birds like corvids or vultures, reminiscent of sounds associated with prehistoric dinosaurs in movies.

After this, we see the wasp start hunting the turtles. One could make the argument that the wasp is simy protecting its egg rather than hunting, but the events of this episode make it very clear that the wasp is hunting the turtles. While there are many social wasps that may forage for carrion or pieces of your barbeque dinner in order to feed their larvae, the specific targeting of a vertebrate species is highly unusual for a parasitic wasp, as they tend to only target other arthropods like their fellow insects or spiders. But it's likely that this particular behavior was onset by its implied genetic modification by Kraang, known enemy of the Ninja Turtles.

After a short chase around the room, the wasp stings Leonardo in the arm and promptly falls to the ground, dying immediately. This is most reminiscent of the worker honey bees, which have a barbed stinger that cannot be removed from a thick-skinned animal such as a mammal, thus taking parts of the abdomen and internal organs with it (including the still-pumping venom gland), killing the bee within minutes. It's a bit longer than the near instantaneous death we see in this wasp, but it is rather quick! The wasp in this episode appears to have a similarly barbed stinger, although it has only one barb, rather than the row of barbs honey bees have, being shaped almost like a fish hook. Other wasps, including parasitic wasps, have smooth stingers, and thus, can sting multiple times. Notably, worker honey bees are infertile females, as opposed to the stinging parasitic wasps, which are, of course, fertile, the stinger being a modified ovipositor in all wasps that have them (including bees and ants), only being found in females.

[Image Source: PBS, Rose-Lynn Fisher | Image IDs: A screenshot of Donatello holding the stinger of the mutated wasp, and an extremely close up, colorless photo of a worker honey bee stinger /End IDs.]

We know that this wasp is a female due to its possession of a stinger, as well as being fertile due to the egg we see just a moment later. The sting does not kill, nor paralyze Leonardo, despite the size of the wasp, instead having a different, immediate effect in that Leonardo becomes extremely protective of the egg. Over the course of the episode we see that Leonardo appears, in a way, brainwashed to protect the egg, the eventual intention being that the egg would hatch safely and he would be consumed by the young wasp inside.

Shockingly, this does have parallels in the real world, first, and in possibly the more well known example, a form of direct brain change is induced by the emerald cockroach wasp (Ampulex compressa). It first delivers a sting to a thoracic ganglion of a cockroach, causing temporary paralysis in the forelegs, allowing the wasp to deliver a second sting to the head ganglia, inducing a zombie-like state, inhibiting its escape response and allowing the wasp to lead the roach by its antennae back to the wasp's burrow, where it lays an egg upon the roach, allowing its larvae to feed.

[Image Source: iNaturalist, ravinaidu | Image ID: A photo of an emerald cockroach wasp leading a 'zombified' cockroach back to its burrow across dirt and rocks /End IDs.]

However, there's another genus of wasps that I believe is the one they took inspiration from here, that being Glyptapanteles, a genus of Braconid wasps that deposit their eggs directly into Lepidopteran hosts, specifically caterpillars. The eggs hatch, and the larvae of the wasps feed on the caterpillar's bodily fluids from the inside, specifically avoiding the vital organs as the caterpillar appears to continue to behave and grow normally despite the parasite inside them. Then, they emerge and pupate, spinning a silk cocoon for themselves, at which point the caterpillar stops moving much or feeding. It only moves then to add its own silk to the pile of pupal cocoons, and, should it be disturbed, thrash around in order to protect the pupae, serving as a bodyguard until it eventually starves to death.

[Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, José Lino-Neto, and ResearchGate | Image IDs: A photo of a brown Geometrid moth caterpillar looking over Glyptapanteles wasp papae, followed by an image containing several photos of a brown and black Glyptapanteles wasp adult /End IDs.]

There are a few differences, however, evident in the fact that the egg has already been oviposited externally a considerable amount of time before even having a host. This is, of course, understandable given the fact that, if they were to make it more accurate, then this episode would look less like a PG iteration of zombie media and more like an Alien film.

Speaking of the zombie media comparisons, while the change in behavior is down to a direct sting to the brain in the case of emerald cockroach wasps or a chemical concoction in the case of Glyptapanteles wasps, it's described in the episode as being a virus. This virus takes hold and darkens Leonardo's eyes, his mouth producing a viscous fluid, which is eventually spread to all of the other turtles via bite, until Michaelangelo creates an antidote by Donatello's instructions. Obviously, this part is not true of real parasitic wasps.

While Donatello and Michaelangelo are researching the wasp, looking at an article describing its non-mutated equivalent, several photos are shown, and it's here we start to see a couple more inconsistencies and inaccuracies. For one, Donatello refers to a single species as "The Parasitic Wasp", but in reality, there are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of different parasitic wasps, none specifically referred to as being the parasitic wasp. Secondly, at the start of the article, we see an adult of the species, which appears to resemble some form of black and yellow ichneumon wasp, much different from what we've seen thus far.

[Image Source: BugGuide.net, James Reben | Image IDs: A screenshot showing the image of the supposed species, followed by a photo of a real black and yellow species of ichneumon wasp /End IDs.]

After this, we see images of the species emerging from the egg, coming out as a full-fledged, winged adult, more like the wasps we've seen thus far, oddly skipping the larval and pupal stage entirely. This is especially odd considering the fact that adult wasps cannot eat meat, only the larvae, and, as mentioned, the wasps feed on their host after hatc

[Image IDs: Two screenshots of the aforementioned images, showing the wasp emerging and then crawling over its host caterpillar to consume it /End IDs.]

This is later confirmed to be the case in the mutated wasps, which not only emerge from their eggs as adults, but also emerge in a group of three. It is seemingly not unheard if that one single insect egg could produce multiple offspring, but it is exceedingly rare and hard to find information on. In any case, wasp eggs, more often than not, only hatch singular individuals.

[Image ID: A screenshot of the three hatchling wasps above the unconscious Leonardo and Donatello /End IDs.]

As a final note on these wasps, as they go straight for the Ninja Turtles before promptly being taken out by Michaelangelo (with a cannon no less), it seems as though these wasps are all females. It can be inferred from this that this egg was fertilized, as opposed to the males that would come from unfertilized eggs, implying that there was either already more than one of these flying around, or that the female had already mated before becoming mutated, potentially by Mutagen.

All in all, there are many inaccuracies throughout this episode, though I do have to give points for the interesting choice of inspiration! In terms of rating, the episode itself was entertaining and interesting, but it doesn't have much in the way of accuracy to any one specific wasp species.

-

Overall: 4 or 5/10

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This wasp review was suggested by @kernelbastard ! Leave your wasp review suggestion in the replies, tags, or askbox!

[fwuitbewwies]

score review time!

teams:

-now we knew that cyan was good, but holy shit what a lead, incredible

-I'm happy ant and red got to dodgebolt again! but its the second time they have been denied the pride win :(

-yellow did really good too! nice

-green ended up surprisingly low for having the hbomb krtzyy duo

indiv:

-JOJO FIRST ANT 2ND HANNAH 3RD LETS GOOOOO

-Mysty also popped off immensely for it being only their 2nd mcc!

-Krinios pop ayoo

-PEARL AND AIMSEY TOP 10!!!!

-Kara 13th, velvet 16th, gumi 18th!!!! Really nice scores. Also gumi got top 3 in a game!

-Wait sniff 19th too! letsgo

[moonagedaydreamsofrhiannon]

Marauders ships as The Magnetic Fields songs:

Wolfstar as Andrew in Drag:

“A pity she does not exist, a shame he’s not a fag, the only girl I ever loved was Andrew in drag… I’d sign away my trust fund, I would even sell the Jag, if I could spend my misspent youth with Andrew in drag.”

Prongsfoot as You’re My Only Home:

“I will stay if you let me stay, and I’ll go if you let go, but I won’t go far away, because you’re my only home.”

Jily as Time Enough for Rocking When We’re Old:

“There’ll be time enough for sleeping when we’re dead. You will have a velvet pillow for your head, but tonight I think I’d rather just go dancing.”

Dorlene as Queen of the Savages:

“My girl is the queen of the jungle folk. You should see the things we see when we smoke. We think all of life is just a funny joke.”

Marylene as The Night You Can’t Remember:

“You said ‘nobody loves me,’ and I said ‘wanna bet?’ The night you can’t remember; the night I can’t forget.”

Remadora as The One You Really Love:

“You’re dreamin’ of the one you really love. I made you mine, or so it seemed. Though he is dead, he haunts your dreams.”

Jily as Sweet-Lovin’ Man:

“Some have broken down and cried, some have turned to dust inside, but I’ll stay right here and hide in the arms of my sweet-lovin’ man.”

Prongstail as All My Little Words:

“I could make you rue the day, but I could never make you stay.”

Marylily as The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing:

“Well, I don’t know why, but I just feel like dancing. I can’t imagine why but I feel like dancing, and there is nothing in this world that I’d like better than a twirl across your rickety old floor.”

Jily as Abigail, Belle of Kilronan:

“I’m off to the war, but you can be sure, I will know you’re what I’m fighting for. When I come home—if I come home—you’ll be grown woman.”

Dorlene as Long-Forgotten Fairytale:

“You beat me once again, and I know what happens then; you raise the ante. And a long-forgotten fairytale is in your eyes again, and I’m caught inside a dream world where the colors are too intense, and nothing is making sense.”

Snily as Epitaph for My Heart:

“This is the epitaph for my heart, because it’s gone, gone, gone. And life goes on, and on, and on. And death goes on, and on, and on, world without end. And you’re not my friend.”

Lilylene as Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing:

“Dance with me, my old friend, once before we go. Let’s pretend this song won’t end, and we never have to go home, and we’ll dance among the chandeliers. And nothing matters when we’re dancing.”

Marylene as Strange Powers:

“Our hair in the air, our lips blue from cotton-candy—when we kiss, it feels like a flying saucer landing. And I can’t sleep, ‘cause you got strange powers; you’re in my dreams.”

Wolfstar as Deep Sea Diving Suit:

“I never thought you’d turn on me, ‘cause you’re my best friend.”

Dorlene as Two Characters in Search of a Country Song:

“You were just like me; you were one big bruise in the game of life, with your playing too loose. You were Jesse James, I was William Tell.”

Remadora as My Only Friend:

“Hey, Lady Day, can you save my life again? My only love has gone away. Will be my only friend?”

Marylily as The Saddest Story Ever Told:

“You say I can find someone else, but I just wish I was dead… Those days are gone. You and I were young those summer nights.”

Jily as The Book of Love:

“The book of love is long and boring, and written very long ago. It’s full of flowers, and heart-shaped boxes, and things we’re all too young to know. But I, I love it when you give me things, and you, you ought to give me wedding rings.”