#Why Personal Websites Matter Now More Than Ever | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

notinmyvocab · 1 year ago

Text

Conference Call

Summary: It's VECNA week: the Vermont Educational Conference for the Northeast Area, and Larissa is bored and lonely. A few clicks online and she hires a... friend for a few hours.

Warnings: Smut, smut, smut g!p, dirty talk, mommy kink, teacher/student roleplaying, swearing, unedited

Author's Note: Ummm so this kind of got away from me. Sorry not sorry.

P.S: Caiohme is an Irish name pronounced "Kwee-va"

It was that time of year again: VECNA week: the Vermont Educational Conference for the Northeast Area. If it weren’t for the fact that she was out of town at the most boring conference ever, she never would have considered even looking up the company. But the Vermont Educational Conference for the Northeast Area didn’t exactly inspire.

It had been a week, and she was homesick, and lonely, and sad, and perhaps a bit drunker than she’d care to admit.

And this hadn’t been the first time she considered doing something like this. It was just the first time she actually went through with it. And it made her feel sick, if she were being perfectly honest. Technically it was legal, but Larissa couldn’t help but let shame weigh down on her shoulders. Was she really so undesirable that she needed to buy someone else’s company?

That was all it was, she assured herself as she sipped her cocktail of Jim Beam and diet Coke. She was paying someone to come and be her friend for a night because no one at this conference was worth her time. And no one seemed particularly interested in interacting with an Outcast from Nevermore Academy. At least this way, she was guaranteeing conversation; guaranteeing companionship, if for only an evening.

Larissa sat on the edge of the hotel bed, which she had remade, and then remade again so that the corners were tighter and the sheets appeared crisper. Not that it mattered. It was a hotel, not her home. And this person was probably not going to be judging her bed. Still, Larissa had a reputation she liked to uphold, even with strangers.

She was starting to grow anxious as the minutes ticked by. She already put through her credit card information, so surely there would be no issue? Unless it was a scam. Oh dear, had she fallen for a ploy?

There came a sharp knock at her hotel door, the sound so sudden that Larissa nearly jumped out of her skin. Was that…? Larissa took another sip of her cocktail and set aside the glass before standing up and smoothing out the skirt of her dress. Her heart thudded uneasily in her chest. Maybe if she pretended she wasn’t there, then she could forget about the whole thing?

Larissa went over the door and opened it.

Before her stood a young woman with hair that she clearly attempted to straightened, but still tried resisting, certain sections insisting on creating a wave. It was a slightly imperfect detail that actually made Larissa relax. The woman in the doorway wasn’t perfect. She was a dream, but she wasn’t perfect, and that helped put Larissa at ease.

It wasn’t until she met the woman’s eyes that Larissa realized she probably should’ve shifted her appearance; kept this more anonymous. But it was too late now.

“Larissa?”

A fake name also might’ve been a better choice.

“Yes. Um, come in.” Larissa stepped aside and watched the young woman marvel at the hotel room as if she had never seen anything so nice. It had to be part of an act. Someone who did this line of work surely saw a lot of hotel rooms in her lifetime.

“So um, how has your day been?” Larissa asked, immediately cursing herself for sounding like an idiot.

The woman turned and smiled at Larissa, apparently finding her endearing. “Long. VECNA tends to get busy for me.”

“Is that so? Why?”

The woman raised her eyebrows, wondering if Larissa really wanted her to answer that. She gave the nicer. vague answer. “Lot of lonely teachers in an unfamiliar place.”

“And um… what shall I call you?” The website Larissa found didn’t actually give names, just pictures.

“What do you want to call me?” the young woman implored, and it suddenly became clear why the website didn’t have names. She saw Larissa’s uneasiness and gave a warm smile. “I answer to a lot of things. But tonight you can call me Kitty.”

“Kitty…” Larissa said slowly, tasting the name; testing the name. “Is that your real name?”

“Is Larissa yours?” Touche. It was, but Larissa did not do anything to confirm this. Kitty went on, “It’s short for Caiomhe.”

Larissa frowned faintly, not following the explanation. “I don’t quite see how Kitty is short for Caiomhe.”

Kitty grinned, giving a soft, embarrassed laugh. “It’s not. But you can’t go through middle school with the name Caiomhe.”

“Of course. Students can be cruel.” Larissa certainly knew about that. She also didn’t doubt that customers liked such a soft sounding name. “Would you like something to drink?” Words came a little easier to her now; knowing Kitty’s name certainly helped to soothe the nerves.

“No, thank you. I don’t drink on the job.”

Job. Right. Because that was what this was. She needed to remember that.

Kitty sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs. She was so simple in her plain black cocktail dress, yet exuded elegance.

“So, what did you want to do tonight?” Kitty asked, her eyes imploring yet mischievous, head tilted to the side.

“Oh, I’m… I’m not really sure,” Larissa replied sheepishly. That was a lie. She knew exactly what she wanted to do, but now, suddenly faced with the question, she couldn’t bring herself to answer. How could she possibly voice to this stranger what she wanted?

Kitty saw the struggle in Larissa’s eyes, and gave a small, sympathetic smile. “Most people just want to talk,” she said.

“Really?”

“I mean sure, I get some people who want to take me out to dinner; pretend I’m their girlfriend. But most just… want someone to listen.” That was what made it legal. If sex happened, then it happened. But as far as the records were concerned, she was paid to hang out.

Kitty narrowed her eyes slightly as she studied Larissa, trying to guess what her mental roadblocks were. The woman just seemed so tense. “What brings you to VECNA?” she asked. Maybe conversation was the key.

“I’m a principal,” Larissa answered. “I run a boarding school… for Outcasts.”

Kitty perked up in recognition. “Nevermore?”

“So you’ve heard of it.”

“I used to be obsessed with it when I was younger,” Kitty confessed. “A boarding school for the strange and unusual; I wanted to go so badly.”

Larissa blushed, pleased and flattered that someone actually said a kind word about her dear academy. She sat on the bed next to Kitty, one hand holding her drink and the other hand resting on the bed.

“Okay, so you’re the headmistress of an elite boarding school…”

“Principal,” Larissa corrected.

“I think, tonight, you should be Headmistress.”

And like magic, Larissa’s shoulders relaxed. She downed the rest of her drink and set the now empty glass aside. She stood up and smoothed out her skirt. “And do you know why you’ve been sent to my office?”

Kitty immediately fell into her role. She sat on her hands, knees together. “Because I got caught touching myself in class.”

“Because you can’t help being a little slut, isn’t that so?” Larissa folded her arms across her chest.

She didn’t think she would slip into the fantasy so easily. She thought she would be trembling with unsteady nerves. Instead, Larissa slipped into the role as if she were slipping on her favorite heels.

Kitty pouted. “I’m sorry Headmistress. I couldn’t help it!”

“You never can. Tell me: did you slip your fingers in and out? Taste yourself when the teacher wasn’t looking?” When Kitty nodded, playing along, Larissa gave a wolfish grin. “And who were you thinking about when you were toying with your sweet little pussy?”

Kitty looked down, as if ashamed though Larissa saw no blush upon her cheeks. In fact, the corners of her mouth were curled upward; she was enjoying the game. Good.

Larissa tucked a finger under Kitty’s chin and forced her to look up. “Be a good girl, and tell me: who’s tongue were you imagining?”

“Yours, Headmistress.”

“Oh? Well, I suppose that puts us in a bit of a conundrum.” Larissa dropped her hand and stepped away from Kitty. She folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head to the side, as if she hadn’t already decided her next move. “See, you ought to be punished. Yet…”

“Yet?”

“I find myself at a crossroads. You should be bent over my desk; you should get a lashing for being so crude. But I think spanking you would just turn you on even more. Is that true?” Larissa leaned down over Kitty, hands planted on either side of the woman. “Maybe you’d like it a little too much.”

Kitty’s perfume was hypnotizing; she smelled like an azalea. Kitty could smell the Jim Beam on Larissa’s breath and she couldn’t help herself; she leaned forward and gently pressed her lips against Larissa’s. It wasn’t like she never kissed clients, but it was the first time she actually enjoyed it.

Larissa broke character, stunned by the small, affectionate gesture. She stared at Kitty, lips parted as if to ask why. Instead, she placed her hand on the back of Kitty’s head and pulled her in for a languid kiss, every movement of her tongue deliberate and precise.

And oh how Kitty relished in the attention. The kissing became hungry as Kitty craved more, needed more. She had never felt so… wanted.

Other clients pretended to want her. She knew the drill and it never bothered her. This was her life, and it paid damn well. But when they kissed her, if they kissed her, she could tell that they were imagining someone else, or just glad to have a warm body. It had never been about her.

This was about her. Larissa was kissing her.

Kitty pulled back from Larissa, and whispered, “Let me take care of you.”

“No,” Larissa said. For a brief moment, Kitty’s brow furrowed and she looked confused and even partially worried. Larissa pressed a kiss against the younger woman’s forehead, soothing her worries. “I’m going to take care of you.”

She put a hand against Kitty’s chest, guiding her to lay down on the bed. She wasted no time in getting on her knees.

Kitty’s heart fluttered, both with anticipation and adoration. She gasped softly when she felt Larissa press a kiss against her bare calf, then her knee, then her inner thigh. God it took so much strength for Larissa to go even this speed.

Larissa tucked her fingers into the waistband of Kitty’s black thong, taking a second to admire them.

“Adore Me,” Kitty said, propping herself up on her forearms.

“Pardon?”

“The panties. I get my lingerie from Adore Me. They have like a monthly subscription where they send you stuff. That’s probably my absolute favorite thing I got from them. Though I gotta say, I like it a lot better in your hands.”

“Is that so? Because I think it looks best on the floor.” Larissa tossed aside the thong and placed her hands on Kitty’s thighs, digging her nails in slightly. “Tell me what you like.”

“I’ll like whatever you do to me.”

That answer apparently wasn’t good enough. Kitty jolted as she felt a sudden, sharp slap against her cunt though she was immediately soothed by long strokes of skilled fingers. “Be a good girl, and tell me what you like.”

“That,” Kitty gasped. “I like… I like it when you call me a good girl.”

“I see. That’s unfortunate because you haven’t been a very good girl, have you? Touching yourself in class isn’t something good girls do.” Larissa slipped back into the roleplay, finding she did quite enjoy it and while she did ask Kitty what she wanted, Larissa was the one paying for the night. Give and take.

“I’m sorry, Headmistress,” Kitty whined. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“Because you’re a little slut.”

“Because I’m your little slut,” Kitty corrected, daring to hold Larissa’s gaze. “I just kept imagining your fingers inside of me, making me so, so wet.”

“Oh darling, you don’t need my help making you wet.” Larissa lowered herself back down between Kitty’s legs. She inhaled deeply, basking in the woman’s arousal. She couldn’t stand it any longer. Larissa dragged her tongue along the woman’s glistening slit, tasting Kitty’s desire.

Kitty gasped at the contact, swallowing her moan. She didn’t want to admit how good Larissa made her feel with only one swipe of her tongue; she wasn’t used to this. Some clients were clumsy. Some were terribly sweet and affection. But Larissa was something else entirely.

Larissa nipped at Kitty’s clit, making the younger woman yelp. “Don’t you dare keep quiet.” She returned to devouring Kitty’s pussy, and Kitty certainly did not hold back. She let herself moan and whine and beg for more.

“Please, god… fuck, it feels so good.” The feeling of Larissa lapping at her clit was divine; Kitty wrapped her legs around Larissa, holding her close, needing more. “F-fingers. Please, fingers.”

At Kitty’s request, Larissa pulled away, chin glistening. “Do you think you deserve my fingers?”

Kitty only managed a whine. God she needed Larissa so badly. Her lack of words earned her another sharp slap on her pussy, and a commanding, “Answer me,” from Larissa. “N-no,” she choked out. “No, I don’t. But I need them. I need you. Please.”

Larissa paused, pursing her lips.

Immediately sensing Larissa’s hesitancy, Kitty sat up. “Is everything okay?”

“Can we… do you mind if we try something?”

Normally she was uneasy when a client said something like that. But Larissa was… different. Even though it sounded corny as fuck, Larissa was special. So Kitty said, “Anything you want. Name it.” For a moment, Kitty worried that she sounded too overeager. That fear was allayed when she saw Larissa relax a little.

“I’m… I’m a shapeshifter. It’s what makes me an Outcast.” That obviously wasn’t what Larissa was worried about. Kitty could see in her blue, blue eyes that there was something more; something deeper. “And… well, I’ve never actually tried it before. But I… I find myself wanting to have you be my first. If you’ll have me.”

Kitty tilted her head to the side, not quite following what Larissa meant. Her first? The woman was clearly no stranger to sex; what was there possibly to take?

Then she added it all up, and when the sum made itself apparent, Kitty inhaled sharply. Not in disgust, or even shock, but in pure desire. She nodded, eyes practically glowing in excitement.

Larissa stepped away from the bed and turned her back to Kitty. She breathed deeply as her fingers fumbled with her dress, feeling Kitty’s eyes on her.

The moments passed agonizingly slow; Kitty had sat up at this point, rubbing her thighs together to feel some sweet friction without pushing herself over the edge. And as much of a cliche as it was, her jaw did indeed drop when Larissa turned around.

Every inch of her was perfect: the swell of her breast, the curve of her waist, the place where her thighs met. And right there among it all…

Larissa stepped closer, her cock hard with desire. Kitty didn’t even hesitate to get off the bed and down onto her knees. She took hold of the throbbing member, her touch curious yet gentle. She lips ghosted along the shaft, and Larissa swallowed a moan, the sensation more intense than she ever imagined.

“Can I?” Kitty whispered against Larissa’s tip, and when she saw Larissa nod, she immediately took the cock into her mouth.

And oh god what a sensation it was. Larissa immediately threaded her fingers through Kitty’s hair, making sure she kept her pace slow and steady. This was completely new to her and it was almost overwhelming. She already wanted to cum, wanted to see thick rivulets of white spill down the side of Kitty’s perfect hot mouth. Just imagining such a sight nearly sent her over the edge, but Larissa held back.

Then Kitty dared to take Larissa’s cock all the way down her throat and made a gagging noise. Was it real or just part of the show? Larissa didn’t care, she loved it all the same.

“Good girl,” she cooed. “Take all of me; choke on Mummy’s cock.”

Larissa’s voice faded as Kitty continued to take all of her, slurping and slobbering. Finally, right when Larissa was certain she would lose control, Kitty pulled away, spit dribbling down her chin. She planted one more kiss against Larissa’s cock before getting up and bending over the bed.

For just a moment, Larissa relished in the sight of this young woman spread and dripping for her.

She slid her cock into Kitty’s wet pussy and both women groaned in pleasure.

“Fuck,” Kitty hissed as Larissa started moving in and out. She reached down between her own legs to rub her clit as Larissa kept thrusting. “Fuck, Mommy, your cock is s-so good.”

Larissa thrust harder, feeling bliss in a way she had never felt before. She could barely hear Kitty’s whines, so consumed with her own pleasure. “That’s it, take Mummy’s cock,” she growled, hand finding Kitty’s hair and pulling.

She wasn’t going to last long like this. The dirty talk thrilled her, and Kitty too.

“Please make me cum, Mommy,” Kitty begged as Larissa’s thrusting picked up speed and she kept furiously rubbing at her clit. Her legs were shaking as an orgasm unexpectedly rocked through her body.

The sight of Kitty’s quivering form and the feeling of her orgasm tearing through her sent Larissa over the edge. She gave one final thrust and held herself inside of Kitty, filling her up.

Both women breathed heavily as they slowly came down from their high. With great reluctance, Larissa pulled out of Kitty and cum dripped out of Kitty’s sopping cunt, trickling down her inner thigh.

Unable to resist, Larissa lowered herself and dragged her tongue along Kitty’s slit, tasting their mingled cum. It was divine.

Neither of them said a word for a few minutes, hearts hammering too loudly to hear one another.

Larissa lay down on the bed, feeling her lower half shift back to her usual form. She watched Kitty slip into the bathroom to clean up. She closed her eyes, her mind completely blank for once. No worries, no cares, just darkness. How wonderful.

The sound of a lock grabbed her attention and she sat up to see Kitty about to slip out the door.

“Wait,” Larissa said without thinking. But then she remembered what this all was: a business transaction. The fantasy melted away.

But to her surprise, Kitty did indeed hesitate at the door. The young woman turned. She’d been booked for the night, and sleeping over wasn’t part of the deal. But maybe… maybe an exception could be made. Just this once.

“Will you stay?” Larissa asked softly.

“If you’ll have me.”

Larissa nodded, and Kitty relocked the door. She shed her dress and slipped into the bed beside Larissa. And as Larissa pressed a kiss to her temple, Kitty wondered if she had allowed herself to cross over into forbidden territory: falling in love with a client.

-----------

@winterfireblond @zillahofviolets-bayolet @scream-queenlover @kaymariesworld @barbarasstar @yourlocaldisneyvillain @finnja555 @milfsloverblog @opheliauniverse @lvinhs @h-doodles @lilfartbox1

#my writing #larissa weems #fanfiction #wednesday #gwendoline christie

409 notes · View notes

corviddusk · 1 month ago

Note

hey, as someone who does believe in transandrophobia i think your point of view is interesting and nuanced, unlike some other people on this website who just use the discourse as an excuse to harass and make fun of transmascs. (which is why the term “transandrobro” personally makes me uncomfortable but that’s neither here nor there)

what i wanted to say is i think there’s a common misconception by people who don’t think the term should be used or that it is flawed. specifically, the term “transandrophobia” validating misandry as an axis of oppression. i don’t think anybody’s ever really claimed this, aside from a few outliers? most of us know that men aren’t oppressed on the basis of being men. trans men, however, have way different experiences from cis men, and i would agree that they have slightly more privilege than trans women because of how society values masculinity. however, that doesn’t mean they aren’t subjected to their own specific form of oppression. in short: transmascs are uniquely oppressed for being transmascs, which isn’t the same as claiming they’re oppressed for being men.

i think another sentiment a lot of them share that’s causing a lot of friction is the idea that man-hating is harmful to trans movements. in my view, it’s more so the idea that men are more capable of evil, SOLELY BY THE VIRTUE OF BEING MEN, than women, without claiming that the reason for that is actually due to being socialized within a rigid patriarchal culture. it’s a facet of bioessentialism that regressive radical feminist movements have tried to push for a long time, and it IS inherently harmful to all trans people- not just trans men.

it seems to target transmascs and transfems differently, the latter being mostly affected by the way TERFs use it as a transphobic battering ram against them. for transmascs, it affects their ability to be heard in any space, contributing to their invisibility. in transphobic spaces, they’re seen as women, and told to shut up (a result of misogyny as well), and if they’re clocked as trans, facing transphobia. in (SOME) lgbt spaces, they’re rightly seen as men, and then silenced because some people wrongly believe that they share the same privileges as cis men now. no matter how well a trans man passes, that just isn’t true. overall, i don’t think being wary or distrustful of men due to patriarchy and oppression is a bad thing at all. automatically assuming that someone is bad because of their agab or gender they identify with, though, does absolutely nothing but get our true allies caught in the crossfire. once again, that’s not the same thing as saying misandry is a systemic form of oppression, but that overall, unconditional man-hating is bad praxis.

you can skip over this if you want, but i just wanted to share my views as a genderfluid person. i’d love to hear your thoughts! once again i appreciate that you’re being respectful about this discussion and not just automatically dismissing arguments for transandrophobia or harassing people. i don’t claim to be an expert so if i get anything wrong please let me know!

tl;dr i think transandrophobia is valid because it focuses on transmasc-specific oppression, which is valid, and not trying to claim misandry as a legitimate form of oppression.

“transandrophobia” validating misandry as an axis of oppression. i don’t think anybody’s ever really claimed this, aside from a few outliers?

Unfortunately, you are misinformed this is a well-known factor of Transandrophobia as a theory and has been confirmed by St. Dionysus the person who made Transandrophobia as a term. In fact the entire concept starts by claiming the oppression comes from hatred (implied) and fear of men. Thus it by definition is a claim of misandry.

All of these experiences are claimed to be due to fear of men existing. You know what the claim that one is oppressed for their maleness is called? Misandry.

This also is something that is reaffirmed in the Carrd by Genderkoolaid

This was from under the section entitled "sexism", this is a direct claim that this is misandry. Sexism against men is called misandry. I am sorry but you are genuinely misinformed on this theory. It's core is the idea transmascs and men are oppressed for their MANHOOD first and foremost.

however, that doesn’t mean they aren’t subjected to their own specific form of oppression. in short: transmascs are uniquely oppressed for being transmascs, which isn’t the same as claiming they’re oppressed for being men.

Transmascs absolutely are oppressed in a unique manner. This is in the form of transemasculation/anti-transmasculinity. Where in they are regendered as "confused dumb women" and when transitioning to a point they're seen as unable to return to cissexist womanhood standards they're degendered as "mutilated abominations" that need to be purged. It's a deeply violent form of oppression and it stems from anger that trans men prove the cissexist patriarchal class of man is just as socially constructed as ever other one.

some people wrongly believe that they share the same privileges as cis men now. no matter how well a trans man passes, that just isn’t true.

This is another point where I'm just lost. Yes they can't get the exact same 1:1 privileges as cis men but they do have massive privileges over trans women. Trans men who are out make more than trans women who are out, though they both suffer with less income than cis people. (Source)

Trans men can contribute to conversations where they uphold the patriarchy. They, especially those who are stealth, can be in mens spaces where the patriarchy and sexism is upheld and anything that is short of purposefully pushing back is a form of contributing to it and contributing to the system. Stealth men get paid the same as cis men (it's conditional of course) but stealth women get paid the same as cis women... which is still less. They are still treated worse due to sexism.

You are capable of accessing higher levels of privilege if you are a man. It's not a surprising or groundbreaking idea to say women are oppressed more than men. You will experience less sexism the second you pass. I know because in the past when I did identify as a man (I'm transfem now, my case is weird as I'm intersex. You can read about my experiences here) and I when passing stopped getting assualted and harassed nearly as often, I stopped getting catcalled, I got treated better literally everywhere.

It's not the same as being cis, but you do gain privileges for being a man.

#transgender #transsexual #transandrophobia #anti transmasculintiy #transemasculation #there are still aspects of transandrophobia as a theory that I like but the problem is people think they're oppressed due to their maleness #they're oppressed due to being trans and their very existence proving the patriarchal cissexist standards as false not due to manhood #it's just wrong to claim transandrophobia is not a claim of “misandry” when the coiner has said that its oppression due to fear of men

27 notes · View notes

see-arcane · 1 year ago

Text

Was Frankenstein Not the Monster? PILOT

A fire of too many colors swallows a manor in the countryside and descends into a pit.

An occult detective's prying leads to revelations far more volatile than the mere aftermath of a nightmare.

Men and monsters circle at the edge of a legend that should have died in the cold almost 100 years ago.

And in the dark beyond that edge, strange Creatures watch and work and wait.

…Such is the stage set for a new piece under the working title of Was Frankenstein Not the Monster? I make no promises—certainly none the size of Barking Harker—but at the moment, this project has been eating up much of the time I’ve spent while juggling the publication of The Vampyres. As it stands, I think I might be making another book.

If you’re interested, the preview is below the cut, but also available here and through a link in my website, here.

Was Frankenstein Not the Monster?

C.R. Kane

Every muscle palpitates, every nerve goes tense—then the body rises from the ground, not slowly, limb by limb, but thrown straight up from the earth all at once. He did not yet look alive, but like someone who was now dying. Still pale and stiff, he stands dumbstruck at being thrust back into the world. But no sound comes from his closed mouth; his voice and tongue are only allowed to answer.

—Scene of a necromantic conjuring by Erichtho, as depicted in Lucan’s Pharsalia.

“I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon the subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery.”

—Victor Frankenstein, as penned by Capt. Robert Walton, edited and distributed by M. Wulstan, in the epistolatory document referred to alternately as The Legend of Frankenstein, ‘The Walton Letters,’ or, ‘Lament of the Modern Prometheus.’

THE MODERN PROMETHEUS! THE MANMADE WRETCH!

WHO IS THE MONSTER?

THE HORROR, THE HUBRIS, THE HAVOC!

ALL COME TO ELECTRIFYING LIFE IN…

THE NIGHTMARE OF DR. FRANKENSTEIN!

Based on the lauded literary terror penned by the late Robert Walton and brought to public light by M. Wulfstan, The Legend of Frankenstein.

The Apollo Crest Opera House presents the most harrowing take on the mad doctor and his marvel of creation to date.

Featuring up-to-date theatrical effects and the most stunning visuals ever seen on the stage, this is a show to whiten the locks and deliver endless shocks.

Come to GASP, to WEEP, to SWOON, and above all, ladies and gentlemen, to PONDER the century-old query beneath the fear in this tale of a creature crafted from the dead and the proud madman who dragged it into the world!

When the passerby corrects you, claiming the scientist is Frankenstein rather than the monster, remember to ask in turn:

WAS FRANKENSTEIN NOT THE MONSTER?

The Inferno of Erichtho

While Dyson’s was one of many heads turned by the events surrounding the housefire of Dr. Richard Geber, he was one of few interested parties who arranged a stay in Surrey’s countryside to ogle the site in person. The other who rode with him was, stunningly, Ambrose, one of his oldest friends and the staunchest recluse he had ever known. Dyson had suggested they try to wheedle Cotgrave, Phillips, and Salisbury all together for a full holiday, if only half in jest.

But where eager Cotgrave was anchored by familial obligations, Phillips and Salisbury were merely hesitant in matters of the uncanny. In truth, the latter pair had positively gawped at him. Their eyes asked wordlessly if the stamp of inhuman horror had magically been blotted out of his memory or if he’d simply abandoned sense altogether. Dyson laughed at the looks, especially Salisbury’s. He of the straight-lined life and the wincing insistence that Dyson keep all answers to himself when it came to the mystery of Dr. Black and the query of Q, only to come slinking curiously back with questions upon seeing Dyson’s haggard mien post-discovery.

As if reading the memory in him, Salisbury’s face flamed and turned away while Dyson continued, “My friends, I would no sooner part with the haunting of those experiences than a writer of penny horrors would relinquish the muse of his nightmares. Ambrose here will rightly call it perverse with you—he is the adept where I am the amateur—but he knows the worth of retaining the proofs of what he calls ‘sin’ and we politely deem merely the ‘weird’ or the ‘supernatural.’ Cotgrave, dear fellow, you at least have an open mind on the subject. If we can manage it, would you appreciate a souvenir of the strange ash for your desk?”

“Cotgrave,” Phillips had cut in with an aridity to dry the ocean, “has not been put into contact with anything more harrowing than some poor child’s grotesque diary. He and I,” he’d nodded to Salisbury who was muffling himself with the wineglass, “had the dubious fortune to play witness to the far end of your direct jabbing at the unknown, neither of which bore anything but blighted fruit. The sight of that miserable treasure hunter’s golden relic was more than enough for me. Salisbury, for his trouble, had enough poisonous proof poured in his ear as thirdhand storytelling to make him rightly uneasy, followed by wondering whether you had been struck by some ailment after prying too far.” He’d turned fully to Salisbury. “Has Dyson ever breathed a word of what it was that shocked that new white up his temple after chasing the scrap of a cipher and Dr. Black’s work?”

It was Dyson’s turn to look away. He had not told Salisbury about Travers’ shop. Certainly not about the opal and what it held. Nor would he ever. He knew even the most sublime prose would fail to do the spectacle or its horror justice. Salisbury would suffer for it, as most of his friends would, and so he burned his tongue with holding the story in. For the most part.

He’d broken enough to recite the event to Ambrose in tragically plain terms. Ambrose had nodded, recorded his statement in one of many journals kept for the purpose of notes and scrapbooking, and shelved it away with the rest of the flotsam that clogged the bookcases which stood in for his walls. The recluse gave his oath not to breathe a word of the case’s final act to another.

“At least not until you are too dead to speak on your own behalf,” Ambrose had added. Dyson found the terms satisfactory.

Yet the fact of his having an encounter so disturbing he’d not even shared it with his most sober of friends still managed to work against his invitation to the strange scene in Surrey. Even Cotgrave shook his head.

“No need of the ash, my friend. I will settle for a description of whatever you dredge up in those hills.” Dyson noted the sickish pallor that washed over him as he pronounced the last word. Phillips shifted uncomfortably in his own seat. Salisbury ran out of wine to nurse and set his glass aside.

“I will be curious of whatever account you bring back,” came his intonation, “if only to know whether you are treading on more tangible toes than some unseen wraith’s.” Salisbury had canted his gaze sharply at Dyson. “No, you have not told me what it was you did upon following the trail of breadcrumbs I mistakenly revealed to you. But I would be a fool not to assume you went and did something unwise regarding the business of those strangers in the note. Q and friends and whoever else. They are real people. Just as Dr. Steven Black was. Just as Phillips and the whole of London recalls the late Sir Thomas Vivian being quite real, and more immediately dangerous than any bogeyman lurking beyond our respective brushes with the so-called supernatural.”

“Sinful,” Ambrose corrected over the rim of his own glass.

“Indeed,” Salisbury sighed. Dyson did feel a trifle apologetic toward the man. He seemed to have aged a decade since he’d stepped back into his life. “But be they supernatural or sinful or just plain mad, human monsters are the more prolific villain of the world, and far easier to cross paths with. Dr. Richard Geber was a man of considerable notoriety with, I would wager, any number of watchful vultures in the branches of the family tree and as many serpents playing patron to his less savory works at the roots.” He’d leaned in, regarding Dyson and Ambrose in the same plea. “Do your sightseeing if you must, but be wary of what prying you do whilst playing occult detectives. A man seeing a nuisance is far more likely to take action against it than any monster.”

Dyson sadly lost his opportunity to assure Salisbury and the rest of his planned caution, as Salisbury had used the word ‘occult’ and set off a fresh avalanche from Ambrose. Talk plunged into proper distinctions of the extraordinary and the eerie, somehow managing to trip into a round of storytelling that marched through the suicide epidemic of certain well-off young men who he theorized had each encountered the same unearthly stimulus whose knowledge could not be lived with, around to an ugly room in a rented country house with a habit of seeding a mirrored insanity in wives and daughters who spent too long in the sight of its irregular damask walls, and all the way to the facts in the case of the pseudonymous M. Valdemar, that mesmeric scandal that might not have been half so sensationalized as cynics might declare…

Salisbury had put his head in his hands while Dyson, Cotgrave, and Phillips settled in for the monologue, feeding the orator only what flints of dialogue were needed to roll him further on. Were he onstage, Ambrose would have deserved a lozenge, a bouquet, and ten minutes’ applause.

That was then.

In the now, Dyson and Ambrose sat in their car, preemptively swaddled against the first drifting motes of snow. November seemed only to have warmth enough left with which to give Geber’s estate its theatrical sendoff with its roiling thunderheads and dancing lightning. With that performance done, the sky handed its reins off to winter’s sedate styling. The train drew itself along under a ceiling of gauze and into the broad country whose rumpled hills and evergreen treetops were already hiding themselves in caps of cold white. Not that such seasonal flurries would have been any more help to the roasted manor than the downpour of the incendiary night had been.

Dyson riffled out the sections of newsprint he had brought along for the trip.

Headlines bellowed across the earliest of them:

STORM-STRUCK IN SURREY!

SPARKS FLY OVER GEBER’S BLAZE!

BLINDING FIRE DEVOURS MANOR OVERNIGHT!

And so forth.

The sum of these pieces was a remarkable series of witness reports from the staff who’d escaped the building before they could burn with it. Miraculously, every member of staff had made it out with barely a scorch mark between them. Even the horses, hens, and hounds of the estate were unscathed. It was only Dr. Geber and, the staff declared, a number of colleagues who had remained inside. Corroboration from the nearest towns confirmed that Geber was indeed housing several ‘learned gentlemen’ under his expansive roof for the purpose of some private experiment being undertaken in his home laboratory.

All that saved the staff from especially sharp scrutiny was the likewise-confirmed evidence of just where that laboratory was located.

“Geber had it all built underground,” claimed more than one servant. “He up and abandoned the one he kept at the top of the house half a decade back. Had a whole little nest of catacombs hollowed out lower than the cellar, moved in all sorts of equipment and chemicals and such. We saw it all go through the big double doors he had set in the back of the house. Figured him and his fellows would come up by that way or the little stairwell indoors. Whoever wasn’t eaten up by the blast, at least.”

The blast which had not come from the heavens by way of the frantic lightning that night, but from right under the floorboards. One poor girl, Elsa Godwin, had gone down to fetch a jar of preserves and been the first to hear a series of what sounded like detonations rattling up from the ground. A distant crackle, a hair-prickling hum, a string of boom-boom-boom, all muffled by earth and concrete. That, and men screaming. There was barely time to hear as much before she also got to play first witness to the memorable fire; a blaze that begun at once to eat holes through the floor and western wall of the cellar.

“I thought I was dreaming at first,” to quote Miss Godwin. “It all felt too impossible to be happening while I was awake. The fire only made it seem less real. Real fire isn’t supposed to work that way, you see? Real fire, it meets a solid wall of dirt or rock and that’s as far as it goes. Singes it, maybe, but it can’t just go burning through everything like it’s a paper dollhouse. But that was just what it did. While it was eating its way up the stairs to the doctors’ laboratory, it punched on through to the cellar. And even that I may have accepted as real enough, but for the look of it.”

The look of that fire was described by her, by her coworkers, by those who rode up to gawk in person or make a feeble attempt at playing fire brigade, and even by a number of technical witnesses who could see the glimmer of it from their far-off windows, all in varying states of poetry or dumbstruck curtness.

The fire had not been orange.

The fire had been black. And white. And yellow. And red. All of these at once, every flame throwing its improbable light as if it fell through some nebulous crystal. Its palette might have been more enchanting if it weren’t for the fact that it was, as Miss Godwin and many more would claim, a fantastically voracious thing. So much so that Miss Godwin had scarcely made it back up the steps to shout the alarm before tongues of fire were poking up through the floor.

It truly was a miracle that everyone aboveground had fled in time. The second miracle had come from the fact that, even lightning-struck as the roof was, it remained mercifully solid while the multihued fire ate up the lower floors. So solid that Fate kindly used it as the hand to snuff the monstrous blaze. The walls turned out to be so quickly enfeebled by their change to ash that they could no longer support the heavy slants and shingles. So the roof had crushed the creeping flames under its lid, dousing the fire with sheer speed, weight, and luck. It was as unlikely a thing as a man crushing a viper’s head flat with his fist before it could bite.

Another bittersweet bout of good fortune came from the positioning of the laboratory itself. Whatever state the subterranean workings had been in post-explosion, they apparently made for an efficient ashpit. When the roof slammed down, it compacted everything below directly into the waiting pocket of hollowed earth. What could have been a conflagration was tucked tidily away almost as soon as the proverbial match was struck. Though it had doubtlessly come at the cause and cost of the very men who had sparked the fire with some experiment gone awry.

“Some manner of chemical flame, a catastrophic bungling of electrical tinkering, or both,” professed numerous experts hunted down in their own labs and campuses. Dyson imagined they were perhaps a bit put out that Geber had done them the simultaneous mercy and unspoken insult of not inviting them to join whatever it was he and his colleagues had been dabbling with. An experiment of such secrecy and apparent potency that the man had not only tunneled out a buried laboratory for it, not only erected new stone walls and double-locked iron gates around his home, not only scoured fields across the scientific spectrum to people its undertaking—for chemists, engineers, technologists, surgeons, and sundry in-betweens were numbered among the missing and/or immolated dead—but even hired on a number of ‘attendants’ that the surviving staff recalled as having staggering guardsman physiques.

All this to keep the experiment hermetically sealed and shielded.

All this, only for a number of ears at the nearest pubs and markets to catch wind of the thing’s name anyway: Project Erichtho.

A secret experiment named for the necromancing witch of legend could only be yet another spur to the public imagination, turning a noteworthy housefire into a potential hellish horror story. Requisite headlines included:

FRANKENSTEIN’S ACOLYTE, ERICHTHO’S ECHO—DR. GEBER’S UNHOLY HEROES!

PROJECT ERICHTHO’S PARANORMAL PYRE!

SORDID SECRETS AND A DOCTOR’S DEADLY DESIGN: THE KINDLING FOR THE INFERNO OF ERICHTHO?

“It could be he’s gone on to join his heroes in a sordid afterlife,” some would say in tones that alternately scorned or cooed. “Faustus and Frankenstein may have a place waiting for him in a deeper inferno. It’s the sort of thing one gets from prying too far into Nature’s business, after all.”

So on and so on. Dyson had clipped everything of interest and strung the whole thing into a sort of haphazard file in contrast to Ambrose’s tidier pasting. Ambrose was even polite enough to feign renewed interest in the piecemeal newsprint despite the information being doubtlessly memorized already.

“Not memorized,” Ambrose said over a headline declaring Geber had conjured the Devil in his cellar. He opened his coat as if displaying illicit wares, flashing the holster where he kept a waiting notepad and pen. His was an especially tailored overcoat with a number of buttoned and hidden pockets for all his necessities. One might think he hardly needed his luggage but for a change of clothes. “My cheats are simply copied out and kept close like a good pupil’s before an exam.” He patted the lapel back in place. “I am not a man made to leave his cave often, Dyson. Therefore I must wrap myself as much in my mobile cave as I can.”

“Would that not make it your shell?”

“I suppose it would. It is a difficult thing for a snail or tortoise to be robbed of his home. Unless the thief is some errant bird after the homeowner, of course. But for all that I have my faiths and proofs in the uncanny, your Salisbury was right. Men are the most common threat to a man. They rob one of goods and life at a moment’s notice far more than any aberration.”

“Ah, that begs a question I’ve meant to ask.” Dyson waved his helping of papers as a baton. “You know the reality of seemingly unreal things. What you call your sinful, wrong, not-meant-to-be sort of phenomena and entities. Were you to find yourself cornered in the proverbial dark alley with an ordinary mortal cutthroat at one end and an unearthly bogeyman at the other, which villain would you risk?”

Ambrose offered a sliver of a smile and turned his attention back to the snow flitting by the window. He passed his helping of newsprint back blindly.

“You have only listened to my rambles with half an ear,” he said. “It’s true that what you would dub the supernatural I would call sinful, but I have yet to declare such things innately villainous. Otherworldly, yes. Eldritch is a decent term. Unwelcome too, at least in what we deem sane and right by the laws of Nature or our manmade structures. Or, to satisfy the macabre itch, yes, I would deem the whole breadth of it horrific. And yet, for all that we have assembled a fair collection of events that ended in death or worse as a result of crossing bizarre influences—indeed, enough to condemn many in, say, the demoniac terms of evil—the fact remains that even a living horror is not guaranteed to be villainous. To that end, let us look at your scenario. If I knew for a fact the ordinary man at one end of my alley intended absolutely to kill me, knife ready for my throat whether or not I handed over my money, whereas the horror at the other end was a complete enigma? I would simply have no choice but to remain still.”

Dyson lost himself to a laugh and crowed, “That is no answer! The scenario was a choice. Who do you risk pushing past? The common murderer or the uncommon enigma?”

“The threat,” Ambrose pronounced carefully, “of a horror is in the uncertainty of what it is and what such a thing is capable of. The cutthroat means to kill me, yes. But the horror? It may mean to end me as well, but in a far more hideous way. In fact, it may intend to inflict something far more unthinkable than the mercy of mere execution, such that the cutthroat would be a blessing of euthanasia by comparison.”

“Ah,” Dyson jabbed his paper baton again, “so you would take the cutthroat for the certainty of him.”

“No. I would remain still.”

“Ambrose—,”

But Ambrose held up his hand.

“I would remain still until one or the other proved himself the lesser evil. For the horror at the other end of the alley may have no ill design whatsoever. Being frightening does not immediately qualify the monster in question as a villain. After all, how many legendary monsters of old have we revealed as mere animals? How many unfortunate souls are there in the world, born with off-putting ailments or disfigured by circumstance, who possess the purest of Good Samaritan character? By the same measure, how many are there with the faces of Venus and Adonis who scatter only petty cruelties in their wake? Even creatures as humble as the common spider will terrorize some of the hardiest men as much or more than their wives. Yet the spider is there to help, tidying flying pests from the home just as the pretty housecat unsheathes her teeth and claws only to bloody her keeper’s hand.

“In short, a horror will horrify, naturally. A horror is capable of far worse things than any human effort. But a horror is not inherently a villain. I am happy to keep things in the hypothetical until I am faced with the awful choice in person, but should I choose to wait, to remain still and force one or the other to make his move, I am certain the motives of the inhuman party would be made clear. It would strike, or retreat, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or it would do as the first horrors of Creation did and be as an angel. Fallen or otherwise.” The topic clipped there as the station came into view.

Fighting the frost and the numb-faced arrival at their rented lodgings sponged up the rest of the day’s energy between the two of them. A hasty dusk and a heavy supper knocked both men back in their chairs and soon the ruddy comforts of the inn dragged them down into an early night.

Ambrose, Dyson was unsurprised to see, had turned into an insomniac so far from his preferred den. He was at the window puffing at the little ember in the clay bowl and staring out at the dark when Dyson finally surrendered to his bed midnight. Come morning, Dyson found he remained at his perch, puffing still.

“I did sleep,” Ambrose assured before the other could speak. “On and off. My dry eyes played traitor and made me lose watch for a few hours at a time.”

Dyson stilled in the effort of lacing his boots. He saw that the faint pouches that had been under his friend’s eyes last night had only deepened. The ashtray set on the windowsill was full.

“Geber’s housefire notwithstanding, I can’t imagine there’s anything worth spying on in these parts. Especially not on a moonless night.”

“It wasn’t moonless,” Ambrose said as he rubbed crust from either eye. His head gradually creaked away from the window to face Dyson. “I saw it come out in cracked clouds here and there. It helped somewhat, but I could still make out a little of the show either way.”

“What show was that?”

“I’m not certain. Some kind of domestic dispute? It involved either a very mad or a very sad individual on a rooftop.”

“What?”

“He got down alright. A giant came to gather him up and bring him indoors.”

“…How much did you have to drink after I went to bed?”

“Not a drop. The whole of it took place with that little house out toward the east there. You see?” Dyson followed where Ambrose pointed. There were numerous petite houses sprinkled along the crest of a far cluster of hills. He was about to point out the issue when his gaze caught on one that stood out from its siblings. Ambrose defined it at the same time, “It has its fresh cap of snow all ruined by their footprints. The man’s little pinpricks and the giant’s awl marks, so to speak. It happened that as I was woolgathering, a yellow light came on in the upper window. The shape of a man blotted it for a moment before the window swung open and the fellow climbed out.

“It wasn’t a pleasant sight even at a distance. He didn’t move like any climber I ever saw. More like,” Ambrose made a face, “I don’t know. An animal? An insect? Something like that. Whatever he was, he made it up there. So I assumed by how the darkness erased him when he skittered up. The first crack in the clouds helped me here, for it dropped a yellow beam on the house and showed the man standing on the very top of the roof. This he did while wearing no more than a pair of trousers and a coat that hung on him like drapes. A lone stick figure balanced on the ridge. Then a moment later, the giant came.”

“Not bounding over the hills, I take it?”

“No. He blocked the entirety of the lit window before he contorted himself out and climbed up after the man. His motion was a far more fluid thing, if likewise strange in how he placed his limbs. Were my eyes a little poorer, I might have mistaken him for some massive panther scaling a mountainside. But he was human enough seen from my seat. Just outlandish in his size and proportions. A hulking figure, yet corded and angled in a way you seldom see with men we might take for a contemporary Goliath.”

“I see. And what happened when he reached David?”

“The moon ducked out of sight for the first moment. It took a minute before it peeked through again to offer a silhouette of the meeting. Man and giant were facing each other with the giant seeming the most animated of the two. He gesticulated first with frantic violence, then as if he were beckoning the man like a stray from a gutter, and ultimately coaxed his frailer counterpart to extend a twig of an arm. The giant clamped onto it and seemed prepared to yank the man from his perch. But the man pointed with his free hand at the moon. This made the giant pause. The boulder of a head turned up. They stared together at the great ivory ball. But sense eventually overruled wonder and the giant maneuvered them both back in the window. The curtains were drawn. I figured that was the end of it.”

Dyson had by now fully dressed and packed for the day. He paused to raise a brow.

“Was it not?”

“No. Some while later, a light glowed in a lower window. David and Goliath walked outside. At least I assume it was David with Goliath. The spindly figure was erased in a massive clot of coats and blankets, it seemed, and so almost passed for a full-bodied individual. The giant shadowed him and forced a cup on him that I imagined must be steaming as it rose and fell from the man’s face. The moon was polite enough to show itself a few more times through the filmier clouds. Even the stars made some appearances. By dawn much of the clouds had broken up so that they skimmed across a half-clean sky. I saw the Morning Star hover in the horizon. The man pointed to this or the molten sunrise. The giant nodded and looked with him, patient as anything. Then David was herded back inside and I saw no more.”

Dyson hummed at all this and eyed the little house again. It really was a fair space away.

“Are you certain you saw a man and a giant? At this distance could it not have been some fevered child and his father?”

“If I were using my eyes alone, I might concede the possibility. Except.” Dyson watched him dig in his coat and produce a collapsed spyglass. “I have brought the full accoutrement of the hermit along, my friend. Its details were few, but far crisper than our sight alone.” A specter of mingled thrill and discomfort twitched along his lips. The former won just enough to pin the mouth up at one corner. “Though I wonder if that was a mistake.”

“Afraid they spied your spying? The threadbare David sounds like a stargazer. Perhaps he swung his lens around to find you in the dark.” Dyson spoke only to rib him. Instead he seemed to strike Ambrose like a lead weight. A greyish tinge passed in and out of his face as his gaze flicked back to the window. “Come now, there was no light on in here. Even if the pair had an astronomer’s lens between them, they’d never know you’d spotted their nocturnal theatre.”

“They had no lens at all,” Ambrose said. His lips still held in the unhappy upward curl. “Yet they did turn to look at this window. David first. Then Goliath. I cannot say whether they saw me, but…” Ambrose rolled the spyglass in his hand before replacing it in its pocket. “I saw a hint of their faces. Just the eyes. I may have imagined it. Some illusion of moonlight or sunrise. But the illusion was very crisp.”

“The illusion being what?”

“They were yellow, Dyson,” he almost chuckled. “Like the stare of animals caught in firelight. Bright as the lamps. And they did not turn from their staring in this direction until after I set the spyglass down.” Ambrose looked up at him. The whites of the man’s own eyes had gone rose-pink. “We’ve not yet set foot on Geber’s ash pile and already I have something for my notes.”

“Perhaps,” Dyson nodded carefully. “Perhaps you do. Or else a late night played on your conscience and sharpened your subjects into things that could chide you at a distance for spying. I have no such conscience on that subject and so might have missed their flashing eyes. Still, it is something for the diary. But only after breakfast.”

Dead, Buried

Breakfast came, breakfast went. Ambrose’s state barely loosened from its troubled knot. By the time they set out to poke around the week-old ruin under a dusting of snow, Dyson noted only a half-return to the man’s usual ease. He thought to remind him of the unhappy adventure involving the cruelly departed Agnes Black, to commiserate over the difference between the aftermath of the strange compared to meeting eyes with it, but swallowed it all down. Such talk would only rip up the scab, not plaster it.

In this mood, they took their way to the housefire’s wreckage with thin conversation. It only thickened again as the coach let them out at the site’s gates. They had been locked over again by the authorities and yesterday’s powder had made the surprisingly tidy mound and its rooftop cap into an anonymous lump of debris. Hardly worth the trip. But the sight of the ruin was only a fraction of their purpose there.

Dyson instructed the coachman to return in an hour to the same spot to retrieve them. The coachman eyed the two warily. He’d no doubt seen more than his fair helping of journalists and policemen in the past seven days than any soul ought to deal with. But pay was pay and he seemed content to reappear in roughly an hour’s time, sirs, give or take another customer’s route. Dyson and Ambrose waited until the horse-drawn speck was almost out of sight before they began their march around the the high stone wall that passed for the ex-manor’s fence. Their breath trailed after them in white streams.

“He really had the place made up like a fortress, didn’t he?” Dyson observed. “Look here. Even the ornaments along the top are like spires. No one could go hopping in or out without undoing the seams of his skin in the attempt.”

“Project Erichtho was a thing to covet as much as conjure.” Ambrose dug again in his coat, this time bringing out his notepad. He thumbed to one close-scribbled page. “Do you know, this manor was his for less than a decade? He took the place seven years ago and left behind a far more metropolitan estate. A handsome spot, but not half so private or titanic as this.” Ambrose knocked his knuckles against the stonework.

Dyson knocked his shoulder in turn, “I see you go a-haunting places other than your home while our backs are turned. You are a fraud of a recluse.”

“On special occasions, yes.”

“And the timeline of Geber’s road to the freakish blaze meets your standards.”

“Very much so. You see, he had his career in the city, for all its lauded highs and scandalous lows. And his one trip out of that area was also his first and last trip out of the country. I was told he took a holiday up to Switzerland.”

“Told by who?”

“Former staff. All the ones in the manor were local hands. The original workers say he returned home from his holiday with a wild new passion—,” Ambrose paused to catch Dyson’s eye, “—and a souvenir. One that they never saw removed from its massive box. The nearest guess anyone could make was that it must be one of those majestic Swiss clocks or perhaps some statue bought on a whim. None would it put it past him to purchase a likeness of his spiritual muse, or maybe a rendering of the latter’s infamous creation. But no one ever saw the contents in person. He had this thing moved into his upstairs laboratory, locked the door, and neither butler nor maid was permitted to set foot in the room for the rest of the year.”

“Mysterious enough,” Dyson agreed while shaking a snow clump off his boot. “Though I can hardly picture Switzerland as possessing any equivalent to Pandora’s Box.”

“Nor could the staff. But they never did wring an answer from Geber. No more than they ever confirmed what all his latest experiments were in that locked room. Whatever they were, the staff thought there must have been some noise to muffle. Geber started playing his phonograph whenever he set foot inside, letting the opera warble over whatever din went on in his work.” Ambrose tucked the notepad away and tugged at his glove. “When it came time for his sudden exodus to the far-off manor, the movers discovered the box was nailed shut again, offering no one even a parting peek at the treasure.”

“And what is the import of this crate, exactly?” Dyson asked, even as he guessed. It was hard to avoid, keeping his steps aligned with Ambrose’s as they circled to the rear of the estate. The trees loomed with their snowy crowns sawing against the blue-white sky. They were close to where the acreage sloped into woodlands.

“None of the new staff mentioned its arrival or its being toted down with the rest of Project Erichtho’s flotsam. In fairness, the interviewed parties likely had far more on their minds than the exact nature of their employer’s bric-a-brac. Especially when the project appears to have begun in earnest four years ago.”

“But,” Dyson intercepted, “the staff in the city dwelling remembered his fixation with the thing seven years prior. And if the manor’s fresher workers could remember that his other scientific oddments were loaded underground, surely they’d recall him fussing about the box.”

“Such is my guess,” nodded Ambrose. He stopped them both short as the exact back end of the stone wall came into view. “Geber likely would’ve clung like a shadow to the movers whether they brought it by the inner stairs or through the back entry. Yet there was no mention of it in their accounts. Almost as if he couldn’t bear to have more eyes upon it than absolutely necessary. And, naturally, there is the issue no other paper or ponderer has mentioned regarding the novelty of a subterranean workplace.” Here, at last, Ambrose began to grin. “One that even the miner or a digger of catacombs needn’t bother themselves over.”

“Because the men in the mines and catacombs don’t have to work within a hermetic seal,” Dyson concluded, beaming back. “They have a way constantly open to the air. The staff claim that the entryways into the laboratory were always shut and guarded by a boredly vigilant set of guards. A tricky area to provide ventilation for with no opening. Unless there was a third threshold somewhere that Geber neglected to mention to the house staff. Say,” he waved a glove at the waiting woods, “hidden in some convenient cover of wilderness.”

“It’s where I would hide a second backdoor in his position,” Ambrose agreed as he ogled the rear of the stone wall and the adjacent trees. “If the back of the manor was here,” he marched with measured steps to the back gate, likewise locked, and regarded the ashes beyond the iron, “then the broader outdoor entrance was likely slotted there with it. A tunnel connected to the underground work area would not be situated far off. So…” He turned and traced an invisible line from the ashes to the woods and away to the west. “A straight route from here on is likely to bear fruit.”

“Would it not be simpler to circle around?” Dyson asked this of the waiting trees as much as his friend. “If Geber’s precious crate was also moved in by this hidden corridor, surely it would be someplace near the edge of this tangled patch. It’s no narrow copse, but I’d rather amble around it rather than risk the trudge inside.”

“Normally I would agree. However.” Ambrose stomped purposefully along the slope, leaving clear tracks as he went. “If we want better odds against our own amateur detective work being spied on, we must take advantage of what little cover we can. Salisbury would tell you so.”

“Salisbury would be down with a skull-cracking headache over the prospect from any angle,” Dyson countered. But they went through the woods just the same. The snow had come in lightly through the coniferous canopy and it traded their softer snow-plush tracks for a brittle thudding along frozen earth. A quarter of an hour’s search and a number of brambles later they came upon a clearing cluttered with large stones. Dyson felt Ambrose bristle at his side. Not from the cold.

He had read the precious and painful little green book Ambrose regarded as one of his truest treasures. The book that contained the child-ramblings of a lost girl, of strange white figures, of stones carved and twisting with ancient unholy influence. Mercifully, the mystique was soon spoiled.

The clearing had let in a little more of the snow through the gap in the canopy and when the powder was brushed aside it revealed nothing but moss and bird droppings on every rock. Another glance showed a number of stunted logs also strewn about. A makeshift sitting area. Ambrose took a spot on one of the logs and set to picking burrs from his trousers. Dyson thought he looked a little ruddier for having seen the rocks were plain.

“Well, convenience dictates that a secret entrance would be around here.” He pointed to what would be a few minutes’ walk to where the open light of a meadow waited. “Any closer to the edge and it wouldn’t be hidden at all.”

“True, true,” Ambrose nodded, removing his hat to shake off the frost and pine needles. “But even if we were on top of the thing, there’d be the second trouble of spotting it while it’s disguised. There was likely one or more guards on duty. On the off-chance that some wanderer came by they’d need to have some way to mask the opening.”

Dyson thought as much too and had been scrutinizing the ground. He’d found a good stick to claw up the dirt with. So far, no convenient trapdoor presented itself. As he prodded, he caught himself mulling over the hypothetical guards themselves. Surely they couldn’t have been caught in the blaze. Even if they’d been struck by a heroic urge, there wouldn’t have been time to rush to the manor and attempt a rescue. Yet he recalled no interview with any such person in the aftermath of the pyre, only those domestic staff who minded the house itself. So where had they gone?

The answer was hidden under a rock.

Specifically, the largest of the rocks in the clearing. Dyson’s stick came to a stop in its shadow as the branch suddenly dipped an inch into the ground where he’d dragged it. The snowfall masked it, but not well enough.

“Ambrose.” He patted the broad rock. “This stone isn’t supposed to be here.”

“What?”

“Look here.” He dragged his stick back and forth over the hidden groove beneath the powder. “It was moved out of place.”

Dyson and Ambrose eyed this only a moment before taking position on the stone’s opposite side. Together, after many a shove and as many curses, the rock budged. Not all at once, but in bursts. Between lurches they agreed that it had to have been put in place by far stouter strongmen than themselves. Their thoughts broke away at the same time when their next push dropped a leg from each of them down into the earth. There was much floundering and flopping aside to save themselves from slipping entirely into the hollow. When they’d recovered themselves, they peered down into the new opening. A wisp of daylight revealed hints of the interior. Shards of wood. The angles of a short staircase. And there, laying at the foot of the steps—

“Oh,” Dyson breathed. “Oh, God.”

“I fear He isn’t involved here,” Ambrose murmured back.

They lurched the stone the rest of the way, moving with caution until the entire hole was revealed. A square of earth had been cut away for the tunnel’s mouth. A set of heavy mangled hinges showed where a crude but sturdy door had been bolted into place. The door itself was the source of the wood shards, the largest of them showing they’d had a covering of dirt, leaves, twigs, and pebbles all pasted on to mask it. To judge by the frame, the door was meant to be pulled up rather than pushed in. As the stone was flat on the bottom, it could only be surmised that someone had smashed the timber in rather than bother with the lock.

Perhaps that was why the guards had died. They hadn’t been quick enough to offer a key.

Two men of powerful build were left crumpled at the bottom of the steps like ragdolls. One had his head wrenched entirely around on his shoulders. The other had his head crushed in like an eggshell. Whoever had done the work, they’d also seen fit to strip the broken-necked man of all but his underclothes, even down to his shoes. The man with the pulped skull had lost only a coat.

“I believe this is where our investigative ghost story hits a snag,” Dyson said, if only because someone needed to speak. The words did little to settle the chill now twining up his back. “We need to have the police up here.”

“We will,” Ambrose said, digging in his coat. Out came his matches. “But first.” He struck a light. “Recall that we are not here in search of ghosts. Ghosts are vapor. Their only weight is given to them by the storytelling.” He flicked the match into the tunnel so that it soared over the corpses. Dyson followed its glow with wide eyes. “Whereas the party responsible here exists with or without fireside theatre.” Dyson was already inclined to believe him. The sight revealed by the match merely forged faith into knowledge.

On the night of the fire there had been a positive torrent to go with the thunder and lightning. Once the guards and door were brutalized out of commission and left broken on the tunnel steps, a river of mud had dribbled in after the intruder. In the carpet of now-dried muck were smeared remnants of footprints. Most were colossal and led two ways, going forward and back. Whoever had made them was large enough to dwarf the dead men. A second set of footprints tramped back with these first massive soles, the barefoot steps looking far closer to human dimensions.

Beyond these smeared prints and just out of reach of the match’s light was the outline of a wide cart.

“Spare another?” Ambrose passed Dyson the matches. Dyson descended and made a rush to the cart. A match struck and showed the contents was discarded linen tarps all mottled with stains dark as rust. In the very center of the rumpled sheets, pointing to him, was a single rotten human finger.

The match went out.

Dyson raced back up to the daylit earth and rattled off the find to Ambrose.

“It does line up. An experiment named after Erichtho could hardly earn the title without doing something unwholesome with corpses.” Ambrose inclined his head at the tunnel. “It’s certainly not the kind of material Geber would want the house staff spying on its way down to the lab.”

“I wonder about that.” Dyson righted himself and squinted up at the sun behind a veil of new clouds. “Who’s to say that the finger was already rotten when it lost its owner? Surely the towns would have something in the news about graverobbers pillaging their cemeteries for convenient goods.”

“True.” The word was small. Dyson looked to Ambrose as the man paused in jotting something in his notes. His gaze was suddenly very far, hooked on some unknown point in the trees. “Quite true. After all,” he slowly closed the notepad and tucked it away with gloves that trembled, “it’s only worthy of newsprint if the dead go missing. The living disappear every day.” Dyson watch his throat work strangely behind his scarf. His breath came in very brisk puffs. “Such is hardly worth a blink these days. What’s the time, Dyson?” Dyson checked his watch. They’d eaten up most of an hour and he said so. “Then we’d best head down to meet our coach. Now.”

“Should we replace the stone? What if some animal gets in and—,”

Ambrose seized his shoulder. His head still hadn’t turned away from the trees. His voice came out so low there was almost no breath to whiten.

“Dyson. Now. Quick, but—but do not run.” His Adam’s apple seemed about to leap up through his mouth. “Now.” Dyson tried to follow Ambrose’s line of sight, but his friend was already dragging him like an errant sheep. Rather than take their original route, Ambrose shepherded them towards the nearest edge of the woodlands, out to the open snow.

“What happened to discretion?” Dyson asked in his own low pitch. Ambrose shook his head without fully taking his gaze away from the abruptly-fascinating patch of trees.

“We’ll be bringing authorities around here anyway. It hardly matters. Go. Just go. Once we get out in the open, we should—,” Behind them, a heavy branch snapped. To Dyson’s ears it sounded loud as breaking bone. Ambrose’s clutching hand became a vise. “Run.”

They did.

The gloom behind them snapped and rustled in a straight line after their heels. More, the ground itself twitched with the bounding of some unthinkable weight. Dyson thought ludicrously of bears or lions somehow migrating their way to this mild crumb of Surrey’s landscape. Yet he heard no animal snarl. Only the unimpeded breaking of the trees’ quiet as something titanic loped after its quarries.

Ambrose and Dyson broke out into the open meadow after a minute that felt like half an hour. They raced across the slope and around toward the fenced-in ruin of the manor at a frantic pace. Relief barely flickered in them as they saw the coach trotting up to the front gates. Their own tread was too wild to register if their pursuer was still galloping after them, but Dyson now felt the presence of eyes on him as surely as he’d feel the trundling of beetles along his neck.

The dead men flashed in his mind. Twisted and mashed and tossed in a pit. There was plenty of room to spare down there. New tenants welcome. And the coachman was so far, so far—

He stepped on one of his own bootlaces and went sprawling. When he moved to catch himself on his hands, his palm landed on something slicker than the snow, fumbling him so that he landed with elbow and cheek in the frost. It really was a pitiful layer of powder, he noted as his arm and face throbbed against the stiff ground. Ambrose skidded to a halt with him, almost falling as he scrambled on the frost. He might have shouted Dyson’s name. Dyson couldn’t be sure as he was peeling up the thing his hand had slid with. A leatherbound book with its cover lacquered in congealed mud.

“Dyson,” he heard Ambrose puff again. His breath was labored, but no longer a shout. “Dyson, can you stand?” Dyson looked up to see Ambrose’s attention was split between him and the trees. Nothing else was behind them. Dyson fixed his laces and regained his feet without releasing the book. “I think we can go at an easier pace now.”

“Yes. Possibly.”

Their new gait was not a sprint, but still a fair way ahead of anything leisurely. The driver looked at them oddly as they jogged over, at least until they gave him pay and directions for a trip to the nearest police station. Then his caterpillar brows shot up.

“Come across some trouble up there?”

“The human trouble has been and gone,” Dyson told him. “But they may want hunting rifles at hand for whatever creatures are roaming around in there.” The driver snorted at that.

“What creatures are those? Worst we’ve got in these parts are the damned foxes and a few snakes. Biggest thing I’ve seen was a buck that ran around last year. Had antlers two men wide.”

“It was no deer,” Ambrose assured him even as he craned his head again to face the trees. Dyson saw him fondling the part of his coat that held the spyglass. “In any case, it is a matter that would be helped by having a marksman ready.” The driver got no more from them as Dyson and Ambrose bundled themselves inside the coach. Ambrose hastily fumbled out the spyglass and watched the woods through his window until the treetops were out of sight.

“Not a deer, you say,” Dyson spoke as much to his mud-crusted souvenir as to the back of Ambrose’s head. “What then? I had no time to catch a glimpse.” Ambrose let out a breath as he collapsed the spyglass, fidgeting with the cylinder rather than tucking it away.

“Speaking frankly, I didn’t either. All I could spot in the gloom was the flash of bright eyes.” His throat twitched. “A gleam of yellow.” Dyson paused in his picking at the shell of hardened mud.

“Last night’s Goliath?”

“I don’t know. I cannot say with certainty whether the eyes belonged to a human shape or a creature on its haunches. Only that it was still as a statue in the gloom back there. Staring at us.” Ambrose shivered either from memory or cold and tucked the spyglass away in favor of his notes. He sketched rather than wrote. Scrawled across a clean page was the impression of two huge coins floating in a scribbled ink-shadow. The eyes featured pupils of a distinctly non-human make. “I am no artist, but this is roughly the look I caught watching us. They turned in the dark when we started for the trees’ edge. Then the eyes came forward.” He clapped the notes shut. “I found I was far more eager to be out of reach than to wait and see the eyes’ owner.” Ambrose gave him a tired smile. “I feel I’m halfway to a hypocrite after this. True, there was no alley and no waiting cutthroat, but I did run from the unknown when it came running.”

“Nonsense,” Dyson huffed. “Those eyes no doubt belonged to some exotic beast that escaped its pen in a zoo or some fool’s private menagerie. Nice open country like this is just the place you’ll find people with deep coffers and shallow sense hoarding pretty predators as though they were collecting pedigree hounds and cats. You wait, we’ll see something in the papers about somebody’s missing leopard or tiger prowling around the hills. Now, if that beast had cleared its throat in the dark and shouted at us in plain English to get out of its woods, there might be grounds to point and go a-ha! But as it had nothing to say and neither of us was polite enough to stand still and get mauled, the matter remains unsettled. Say, have you got a handkerchief you don’t mind ruining?”

Ambrose handed him one, his face finally regaining some tint as he puzzled over Dyson’s prize.

“It would be an opportune thing to be in a ghost story,” he sighed while Dyson scraped at the mud. “If we are, that will turn out to be a conveniently abandoned diary illustrating every move Geber made leading up to the fire, replete with his devilish experiments and all the lost spirits it conjured up. At the very least it will contain the chemical formula that led to such a unique blaze.”

Dyson scoured away most of the muck and frowned.

“Not a diary. Not even a tome of unholy scripture.”

“No?”

Dyson held the book up for him to see. Ambrose frowned back at him.

“No.”

The book was a leatherbound copy of The Legend of Frankenstein. What had been a luxurious volume had apparently been mangled by elements, animals, or else someone with a distinct loathing of the tale. Dyson had wondered at the lightness of the book and found that much of the pages were either shredded or torn out entirely. The inner cover alone had been spared attack, though it still boasted a minor bit of vandalism within:

There are not words enough to voice proper gratitude to the Muse, the Master, the Miracle. For lifetimes to come, even the finest poets of the world shall struggle to meet the task. Here and now, the most that can be said is thank you. Thank you for all that you have done, all that you are, all that is yet to come. A toast to the teachings of Prometheus, to Prima Materia, to the Magnum Opus realized!

—R.G.

Below this, a single line:

Mortui vivos docent.

“The dead teach the living. Interesting choice of postscript.”

“That isn’t all of it.” Ambrose took back the handkerchief and chipped further at a smear of muck still gripping the cover. It crumbled away to show words that had been stained into the board with a different pen. Almost carved.

Prometheus had nothing to teach. He stole the lightning for Man’s fire. The only worthwhile lesson of his myth was taught by the Eagle.

Erichtho might have had teachings to spare. The gods were wise enough to harken to her and know to quail. Yet mortal men care only for the dead’s secrets and the boons they might grant. These you will have. May the knowledge serve you as well as it has me.

No initial or signature was jotted with it, though some rough symbol was gouged below. A thing that curved and went straight at once, vaguely serpentine and somehow unpleasant in both its shape and the depth of its coarse engraving. As though the artist had been both incapable of finesse and insistent on carving the image regardless. Dyson and Ambrose each had a good squint at it and decided it was something related to a caduceus, the sign of medicine.

“The alchemic variant seems just as likely, if we’re to chase Geber’s words to their logical end,” Ambrose said in a tone that heartened as much as frustrated Dyson to hear. It meant the man’s nerves were settling, but also that his mind was now wandering down avenues several leagues away from the present, no doubt combing an internal library of references. Dyson flattered himself to know that he too had some scraps of intel to turn over. He recognized the Magnum Opus as referring to a ‘Great Work’ just as prima materia was a term for a sort of primal matter from which life and the universe was meant to be concocted. But no more than that. He’d need to dust off some old books or wait for Ambrose’s own ramble before he could scrounge up any deeper details.

As it turned out, Ambrose had sealed himself up in his head for the moment.

A moment which lasted long enough to get within talking distance of the police. They described the tunnel and what was in it. There was scarcely time to stretch their legs before they were riding along with the uniformed men, each thankfully armed. Sunset was almost racing them to the horizon by the time they trudged back to the clearing with lanterns in hand. Both men froze upon discovering it. When asked why:

“We didn’t leave it like this,” Dyson heard himself croak.

“How so?”

“The stone. We left it pushed aside when we left. The tunnel was still uncovered.”

Now the boulder was planted right back where it had been.

A hasty examination was made for tell-tale shoe prints, to little avail. New snow was fluttering down and filling things in with an accomplice’s speed. Giving it up, the group of them carefully shouldered the rock aside. Their caution’s reward was a column of acrid smoke that wafted up and plugged every unfortunate nose in reach. The last embers of a fire were dying down inside the tunnel.

The two corpses were roasted. The cart was a cinder. The tunnel’s floor had been glazed with oil and set alight until the whole bottom of the chute was a long black stream at least halfway to the underground entry point of the manor. Investigation to that farthest end revealed a pair of melted metal doors with burst windows. Beyond them there was only packed-in ash.

Dyson made no more mention of his hypothetical escaped animal.

Ambrose was not only silent about the Goliath seen from the window, but went so far as to draw his curtains before bed.

#Was Frankenstein Not the Monster?#frankenstein #mary shelley #arthur machen #the inmost light #the red hand #my writing #horror #hope you guys dig it #my art

179 notes · View notes

jacobsbigmelons · 2 years ago

Note

Inspired by your username... Can I request one where Jacob's bf is obsessed with his pecs and like playing with them, maybe a first time blowjob too?

you don’t understand how much i love this

i am trying so hard not to self insert myself here because i’m a whole tiddy guy for men ESPECIALLY JACOBMYGODILLDOANYTHINGJUSTFORASQUEEZE

“They are pecs, not ‘tiddies’.”

Jacob Custos x male reader

nsfw, pec play, blowjobs, slightly public, muscle worship

“Anyone see Jacob? Y/N? They’ve just kinda been missing ever since we finished packing” Abi said, the sun beaming off of her colored hair. “Y/N always goes off on his own little trips, but Jacob? He probably got himself lost and trapped in a ditch somewhere knowing him” Kaitlyn spoke, her arms crossed over one another. “Or maybe they’re grabbing some last minute things?” Ryan shrugged as his suggestion floated in the air for a little bit “i think last minute was around 15 minutes ago, y’know…when the packing finished up?” “Touché” Ryan nodded.

“Hey don’t splash me!” Jacob complained as the cold water hit his body “Youre already wet stop being a baby!” You hollered before giving him another splash of lake water, which he returned just as quick. “Babe babe babe babe…babe! Watch this.” Jacob said as he swam towards the doc and pulled himself up as he wrapped his leg around the dock piling like a stripper pole, and began to rub his body from top to bottom before looking directly back to you. “You should be the next AdamandEve spokesperson” you yelled out, Jacob kept the pose, though with a confused look. “what’s that?” he said as he now wrapped his hand around the piling.

“Uh- website where you buy…y’know, stuff for late night bedroom stuff.” You said quieter as you also pulled yourself up onto the dock as you admired your boyfriends beautifully structured body. “I mean I could try but I don’t think they’d let me if it’s about sex and shit” Jacob said as he finally unraveled himself from the pole “and whys that? you got the body and you clearly know your way around a pole” You said as you pointed to him and the pole “Uh- Well i”m sure it wouldn’t matter but I uh…i’ve never been led to the bedroom, let’s say that.”

Jacobs statement drew a blank to you, you merely blinked at him for a few seconds before speaking “You never had sex?! Have you…ever had anything explicit with another person?” You we’re gonna speak more before Jacob intersected by putting his hand in front of him as a way to stop you from speaking. “Hey hey hey! I- I have actually thank you very much.” His tone trying not to waver nervously “mmmhm…lay with me” you demand with a small pat on the dock to let Jacob know to lay down as you shifted your body so your legs weren’t dangling off but instead laid on top of the dock.

Jacob walked the very few steps it took to get next to you as he crouched down before laying down fully, he put his arm behind his head as a way to support it. You moved in close to his chest as you rubbed your hand around his pecs and abs, the dripping water adding some shine to his physique. “Not saying i’m total eye candy but your more than welcome to admire” Jacob rubbed his other hand in-between your thighs.

“Yeah sure meathead” you teased as you sat up and straddled his lap as you looked down at him, his body definitely what Jacob labeled as ‘eye candy.’ You wrapped your hands on the sides of his chest before rubbing along it while playfully caressing the soft tissue in your hands. “You really like playing with my pecs huh?” Jacob stated, clearly not going to do anything to stop it though. “You got some hot tiddies what can I say.” You smiled before rubbing his chest again, Jacobs face now looking slightly offended.

“They are pecs…not tiddies, if you’re gonna play with ‘em at least show them some respect by calling them by what they’re called.” Jacob explained, of course he would get defensive over a muscle group. The hunk only knew brawn’s after all. “I’m so sorry your dear pectoral muscles got offended” you leaned down as you began to kiss your boyfriend, his underwear clearly not hiding how we was feeling anymore with the quite obvious poking you feel on your stomach.

The two of you made out until you decided to go lower down the body as you kissed around his neck, then his arms, biceps, back to his chest and nipples, abs, everything. The pleasurable sounds he made definitely let you know the effect you had on him then and there. “Your body is so fucking hot” your voice, slightly muffled as you spoke with your lips to his skin. At this point you already got to his dick, your hand rubbing against it as Jacob softly cursed.

“Can I suck you off?” You said sitting up straight once more as your hands were on the elastic parts of his underwear ready to take them off, his dick practically begging to be let out as it kept twitching. “Oh uh- Y-yeah! What uh…what should I do?” Jacob said slightly puzzled, trying to recollect every scene of porn he’s watched, yet it seemed like every little think he could try and think of wasn’t helping him decide what to do.

“Just lay there and look hot baby, let me do all the work for your first time” You confidently said, despite Jacob being slightly embarrassed at the fact that he has never been apart of explicit congress such as this, yet his confident personality hid a lot of that. You pulled off his last piece of clothing before moving it to the side, you leaned down as you licked the base of his penis while he led your hands back up to his chest, specifically to where his nipples were as if he wanted you to stimulate him up there while also doing it down there.

“Holy shit your fingers feel so good but your mouth is really doing a number down there” Jacob said in one breath, before you finally took his dick into your mouth. You went as far as you could and even just the tip going in was enough for Jacob to groan loudly. His hips began to move back and forth as you continued to rub and slightly pinch at his nipples. You grabbed his chest as a whole not long after as just grabbing his pecs and squishing them yourself was hot in its own way. “God this shouldn’t be so hot” Jacob quietly said with gaps in between as he was trying to not fumble his words from just how good he was feeling.

You were bobbing your head pretty quick, and it didn’t take long before Jacob eventually took a chunk of your hair in his hands and moved you up and down himself. “Take that big fucking dick in that tight fucking throat of yours.” He said as he began thrusting a lot faster, as well as his hips began to quiver a lot more. Only then was it when he stopped abruptly and cum began to leak from the small gaps of your mouth, that he finally let go of your hair.

“Oh my…fucking god, you gotta suck this dick a lot more babe jesus christ.” Jacob heaved as you took yourself off of his cock, cum making its way down your neck slightly. “We always got tonight, or if you want…you can be the one sucking this time.” You smirked while you used your arm to clean the mess that was made off of your body and Jacob was yet again lost in thought knowing the last night spent together at camp at least will be the most remembered for both him and you.

a/n: I finished this at like 3:20AM so if any of the last bits sound weird m so sorry ;-;

#jacob custos #the quarry #jacob custos my fucking beloved #jacob custos x male reader #jacob custos x reader #the quarry jacob #the quarry jacob custos #x male reader #x reader #x male reader smut

371 notes · View notes

bambamramfan · 1 month ago

Text

Infohazards and Cults

I had a conversation recently about exposing people to cult beliefs in any form. In particular, is it risky to tell someone about a cult if that may lead to them looking up the cult and its writings, become convinced by them, and join the cult.

I wanted to organize my thoughts on the matter more because I both believe a) free speech norms are broadly correct in that they produce consistent benefits, and the negatives of them don't have as much downside as opponents think they do, and b) I do think some speech just has mechanistic effectiveness at luring people, and should be banned in as much as society can. Which is to say "99% of the time free speech is the right answer, and that 1% of the time it's more about how the speech is delivered, than its substantive content."

For example, the Securities and Exchanges Commission bans just going out and telling people "give me your money and I'll get you 100% returns in a year, no risk" - unless that claim is verified (accountants and audits) and accountable (you can be sued if the claim doesn't come true.)

Why do they do this? In the marketplace of ideas for Homo rationalus" some people would get fooled, lose their money, but then everyone else would learn not to trust shady investors without a solid reputation.

Except we know from empirical experience, this doesn't happen. No what happens is a lot of people who cannot afford to lose money, give all their money away, and go bankrupt. This hits so many people that most cautious people become afraid to invest at all, and the productive part of the investing economy withers away and dies. This is broadly considered a bad thing.

So, despite worshipping the "marketplace of ideas", the SEC bans you from saying things like that. The exceptions are either: you prove your projects and a lot of other things about your sale by registering with the SEC, or an "accredited investor can invest, on their own risk, because they aren't going to lose ALL their money."

So, cults.

I find the way cults recruit people to be one of these hacks. It doesn't matter what the substance is, or if there are convincing arguments against it - the ways cult recruit sufficiently exploit our brains that I do not think it should be legal.

We all know the "hard", later stage methods. Sleep deprivation. Heavy physical activity followed by exhaustion. Repeating certain things over and over and over and over again. Rationally speaking, the fact that someone said a monotonous line to you a hundred times should not make you more likely to believe it, but unfortunately, actually it does. A central dictatorial leader with power over every aspect of your life. And the old favorite, cutting off the person from anyone outside the group.

But I oppose even the "soft", outreach methods. Love-bombing. Convincing someone you understand them in a way no one else ever has. Introducing someone to a totalizing ideology they consume like a fiend. Even "someone just being so charismatic that they overwhelm your defenses, and then they try to sell you something."

Now, obviously we can't outlaw the individual techniques I just listed. On their own they are some very common behaviors unrelated to cults. But together or in the context of a cult, they should be illegal (this is a fuzzy distinction, but we can understand that "lying is generally legal, but in the specific cases of raising money it is illegal" and treat this the same way.

So I don't really worry about the spread of the mere information, such as a cult's writings. People may have some bad experiences from having read a website -> waking up in a group house at the feet of Dear Leader while the blockade is being set up outside, but I don't find that a consistent result, the same way personal indoctrination is.

Other things I have similar concerns about: gambling, su*c*de coverage, contagion events like described here , and at the very edge, ragebait. I don't have good ideas HOW to effectively ban these, but if I did I would want to enact that without worries about my normal support of free speech norms*. *[To be clear, there are many things that can be legal but rude to say, like I call people how they want to be called, and lose respect for people who don't. But I do not think "even if we talk about this subject I disagree with (fascism, HBD, lab origination, sexual degeneracy, apologetics for people who did seriously bad things) it will enter our discourse and take over despite any defenses. That just does not seem true.]

15 notes · View notes

tgmsunmontue · 11 months ago

Text

Online & Anonymous 1/16

Hangster. Explicit. (2.5k chapter) Years before they meet in person Bradley and Jake strike up a friends-with-benefits relationship online. And then something more like an actual relationship.

A predominantly epistolary fic set in a world where papers were pulled and events of TGM will take place and DADT exists until it is repealed at the end of 2011.

The website they begin chatting on is called 'Jake', which was a site that existed back in the early 2000s. (It was too good an opportunity to miss).

Odd year = Bradely's POV and Even year = Jake's POV

>>Bradley chatting (bold and italics)

>>Jake chatting (italics)

Many thanks to @celandinebergerac, @phisworld14, @redfurrycat and @nevergettingoverit for being my sounding boards as I hashed this out.

2005 – Bradley

Bradley refuses to be grateful about his years at college. Going the ROTC route has meant he’s likely had a wider exposure to certain elements than if he’d gone to USNA but he still doesn’t understand why Pete pulled his papers, or why Tom let him, but they’re his past now. He has a new family, his fellow classmates and the online message boards he found when he was exploring. He’s got them in his corner no matter where he goes in the world now, his own private little cheering squad. Of course he’s been lonely in the holidays, but he’s made do. Usually working to earn money to see him through the next semester.

One thing he has saved and scrimped for is a laptop. A personal laptop that he can use to keep in touch with his friends he made online and at college. Yes he could of course use the communal computer labs, and he will need to do that to actually get closer to the WiFi signal, however he doesn’t have to use a communal machine, which makes him more comfortable considering what he often uses his machine for. He’s aware of what he says and does could be used against him, but he’s aware now that he could do something else with his life if he had to. Not that he wants to, but he will if he has to.

And it’s all been worth it. He’s made it, he’s at flight school, is a commissioned officer in the US Navy and now he just needs to be the best. He knows he’s good, flight school is highly competitive and the fact that he’s here is enough of a confidence boost that he’s actually good enough, no matter what Pete or Tom think. That it didn’t take anyone’s name to get him here. He settles into the orientation session, listening intently, taking notes, and looking around at the rest of the class. He recognizes a few faces, but most are simply a haze, although he knows that will change soon enough. A break comes and the woman beside him turns to him.

“Hi, Natasha Trace.”

“Bradley Bradshaw, nice to meet you.”

“Is that actually your name?”

“Yep,” Bradley sighs, resigned to going through the whole thing with another group of people.

“Ouch. My condolences.”

Bradley laughs, pretty sure he’s going to like her.

2006 – Jake

Jake stares at the name of the site and he’s pretty sure he could use Jake as his username, and no one would believe that it’s actually his name. And he’s not actually going to use his whole first name, he remembers a few details about staying safe online. He creates an account, his hands shaking a little because he’s not ever gone looking for anything like this before, not online. Not where he might get found out.

>>Okay, if that’s the year of your birth you need to change your username. That’s not a smart thing to put on here.

Jake stares at the message, then at his username. It needed to be eight characters or less and something he’d remember. Of course he’d gone with his initials and the year he was born. Of course that maybe wasn’t the smartest thing in the world in hindsight, but he’s new to this. What this PeteF14 thinks he knows isn’t much, because he’s fucking using a first name and the name of a fighter jet. It couldn’t be more obvious. Well, maybe he’s just a fan of fighter jets?

>>What’s wrong with JAS1986?

>>And you’re using your first name, that’s not smart either.

>>Pete is definitely not my first name. It’s not even part of my name. I hate the name Pete.

>>Oh my god, why did I use the name Pete?

>>I don’t know, you tell me.

>>Just someone from my past I’d rather forget. How about you call me Nick instead? Actually.

>>PeteF14 has changed their username to NickNick

>>Again not your name huh?

>>Nope. But it is a family name somewhere in the line of my ancestors.

Jake snorts, because that could be father, uncle, grandparents. Hell, it could even be part of a last name, which he guesses is actually pretty smart as names go, for it to be something so generic.

>>You need to make a new username though. There are some dodgy people online.

>>But not you right?

>>I can be plenty dodgy if the circumstances require it, but just doing my civic duty. Change your username kid.

Fucking fine. He doesn’t want to be kept calling kid by strangers on the internet. This isn’t why he signed up to this account.

>>JAS1986 has changed their username to JASTexas

>>No! Don’t put where you’re from. Or where you live. Fucking hell. Is this your first time or something?

>>Yes, if you must know.

>>What would you suggest? Considering your name was something you apparently hated and is now NickNick, which is ridiculous by the way, double-barrel names like that sound stupid.

>>This isn’t why I signed up to this site. And Texas is a fucking huge state, and even if I did still live there, it’s not where I live now.

>>Sorry. How about TJASX, or 00Austin, JASUSA maybe?

>>You suck at coming up with usernames.

>> JASTexas has changed their username to 00JASTYX

>>Hmm. Yeah. Better.

>>So glad to have your approval.

>>I can’t tell if you’re being a dick, or if you actually want my approval. Because I do like that you listened to me. If that’s something you’re into.

>>I don’t know what I’m into. First time remember?

>>First time online right?

>>No. Not just online.

He pushes the laptop away from himself, suddenly mortified that he’s admitted that to someone. Not that it matters, not that he just can’t outright lie about it, and he shouldn’t care so much, but… well. He does. He doesn’t like not knowing, not having that life experience. Not that he can just go out and get it, hence… this.

>>You ever slept with a guy?

>>Yep. I got the whole college experience under my belt.

>>I’m jealous. None of that where I went. And not really easy now either.

>>You ever had cybersex? I can tell you what to do to yourself. Might get you off.

Jake’s pretty sure there isn’t any might about it, is already getting hard just thinking about it, just having this tenuous connection with someone, anyone, that might in fact be like him. Fuck. He has no idea if this Pete-hating Nick guy is even a guy, or how old he is, or even where he is in the world. It’s all sorts of freeing actually, this level of anonymity that despite the fact that Nick knows he considers Texas home and is born in 1986 there is nothing else about him that can be used to identify him.

>>No, but I am very open to new experiences. You want to tell me what to do huh?

>>No, I think this time I want to tell you what I want to do to you.

>>You can touch yourself however you like.

>>Trust me, you can just read. Multi-tasking takes a while to figure out.

Jake snorts, but Nick probably, no, definitely, has more experience than Jake in all things sex-related and if all he has to do is read words on his screen then he can manage that. Although he’s going to practice, wants to be able to jerk off and type at the same time, get good at doing it one-handed. Wants to be able to reciprocate in the future.

>>Your first time, I’d kiss you, slowly and softly to start with, and I’d hold your body close, because I want to feel it against mine, solid and warm. I’d slip a hand between our bodies, run my fingers up the length of your cock, feel how warm it is, how heavy…

>>God I love the feeling of a cock in my hand, knowing how much pleasure it can bring.

>>We’re still fully clothed, I want to enjoy undressing you. I’m not touching your cock to get you hard, more giving you a promise of what’s to come.

Jake’s mouth is dry, his entire body tingles at the images and ideas this is creating. These words are meant for him, and him alone and he runs his fingers down his body in a ghosting imitation of what it might feel like to finally have someone else’s hands on him. This is exactly what he was looking for when he made the account, something real but also not too risky. A little risky though, but it’s not heading out to the nearest gay bar.

>>I’m pulling your shirt out of your pants, getting my hands onto your skin, just touching for a little before I go back and undo the buttons and push your shirt off your shoulders.

Jake groans, part of him impressed that his guy has somehow picked exactly what kind of shirt Jake is wearing, and he pulls it off, along with his singlet top, lets his hand stroke over his skin and is a little surprised at the responding shiver his body makes. He likes this even more than he thought he would. He shoves off his pants, not wanting to wait until Nick tells him he’s taking them off.

>>You’re enjoying it, enjoying my hands on you, warm fingers just tracing over your skin, making you feel desirable. I’m still kissing you, still pretty softly, I don’t want to spook you, not this first time. I run my hand down your body again and I find your cock. It’s gotten harder, pressing against the front of your pants and I can feel how thick you are. I want a closer look. A taste.

>>I kiss down your neck, along your jaw, suck at your nipples a little until I’m on my knees in front of you.

Jake groans, imagines some guy wanting to do this with him, to him, for him. He reaches for his lube, glad he doesn’t have to try and type, squeezes a little out, he doesn’t like it too slick, grips his cock and strokes, tries to imagine what a hot mouth would feel like sucking him down.

>>I know it will be warm, I’ll inhale through my nose, learning what you smell like. I’ll exhale through my mouth, pressing it to your cock so you feel the warmth of my breath through your pants around your most sensitive skin.

>>I undo the button of your pants, carefully lower the zipper, and then pull them down, tugging your underwear down carefully as well. Then I can finally taste, get my tongue on you, let my fingers dig into the muscles of your thighs and bring you closer to me.

>>I am not in any type of rush, I love giving blowjobs, gets me off, having a guy trust me this much. Just let my face rest there and breathe for a few seconds before I lick up your length, one of my hands coming to fondle your balls. Some guys love having their balls sucked, I wonder whether you will?

Jake bites his lip, his hand stroking harder and faster, wonders when he’ll get to find out, god he wants to find out. If this is how good the written word is he really wants to find someone he can try these things with in-person. He might have to wait a couple of years still, but fuck it’ll be worth it. God it better be worth it.

>>I lick at the head of your cock, place a light kiss and then I lick and purse my lips, making a warm slippery heat for you to press into and then I suck you into my mouth and all you can feel is sudden tight heat around your cock. I’ve moved my hand to the bottom of the shaft, stroking you there but I’m sucking the head and top half of your cock with the sole intent that I want you to come in my mouth.

Jake whines, his hips jerking as he imagines coming in someone’s mouth, having someone wanting him to come in their mouth. For it to be sexy rather than dirty or forbidden. That idea, that he will one day get to be sexy, that he will have someone that is his, that wants to be with him, is what has him coming, his breath coming in rough pants, loud in the quiet of his room, all the tenseness in his muscles suddenly turning into hot liquid as he comes and he groans.

>>I reach for one of your hands, get you to run your hand through my hair, encourage you to pull a little as I suck you harder and faster. I want to make you noisy, want to hear your pleasure when you come. Want you to come.

Jake quickly wipes himself clean, the tissues by his head there pretty much there solely for this purpose and he wants to go and wash his hands before typing but he types one thing before sprinting to the little bathroom and washing his hands as quickly as possible before running back to his bed and laptop.

>>Wow.

>>Mmm. I’ll take that as a compliment.

>>I hope that was an okay first time.

>>You know where to find me if you want to.

Jake shivers, re-reads the words, because first time implies there will be more and he can only imagine the things he might get to share.

>>Thanks.

>>That was really something.

>>Was good. Amazing.

>>I enjoyed it.

>>A lot.

Oh god, he’s babbling through the internet and the guy is probably laughing at him.

>>Good. I’m glad. Can’t vouch for your first time in real life, but at least you can always hit me up if you find the real thing lacking.

>>Actually the real thing can take some practice and experience to get right, so don’t just go with the first guy who shows interest okay? Learn from my mistakes at least.

>>Your first time wasn’t good?

>>Nope. Got better of course. Eventually. But I had years at college to figure things out. Now I’m not at college, but I’m still figuring things out. Young yet though. Got time. Not as young as you though.

>>Haha. I’m legal.

>>Yeah well, I’ll have to take your word for that.

He signs off, feeling a little awkward and he wonders how awkward it would be if it was face-to-face. Yeah, he’s really not ready for that yet.

The awkwardness fades though, and he chats with Nick almost weekly. They definitely get better at the sex talk, and Jake becomes adept at one-handed typing. They also talk about other stuff, and Jake can feel like he can ask him anything, be open with his worries about his career, without going into detail about what that career is exactly. Nick is non-judgemental, answers all his sex questions and when he goes looking to verify some of the answers he finds that the information he’s getting is solid. Correct. It makes him trust him. Probably more than is wise, but he doesn’t share any further information that could identify him. The risks are too high and Nick hasn’t offered up anything either.

Then Nick says he’s going to be online less regularly, maybe not online at all, potentially for five to seven months and Jake is surprised at how disappointed he feels. Somehow, with the sex and the talking and the fact that he’s been able to be so open with Nick about being gay makes Nick feel like his best friend. He has other friends, but none of them know he’s gay. He’s far too scared to tell them.

Maybe one day.

2007 - Bradley - Chapter 2

#online and anonymous #Hangster #Sereshaw #hangman x rooster #Top Gun Maverick fanfic

56 notes · View notes

lucabyte · 5 months ago

Text

ppl saying they look to my comics for inspiration and pointers on how to format things is WILDDDD to me (and delightful don't get me wrong!! i am overjoyed) because like. none of you are privvy to the absolute WAHHH I DONT WANNNAAA bitchfits i was *CONSISTANTLY* throwing every time i forced myself to make a comic before i got into isat. like no joke. i considered comics such a fucking difficult medium they always drained my drawing energy so hard because they always felt like they took sooo long and had so many moving parts and were so much harder than storyboards (WHICH I ALREADY STRUGGLED WITH) because you had to account for panel shape and speech bubbles and-- like you get it. but genuinely for real. the sheer amount that i complained whenever i clawed my way through drawing a comic (which thus! was not very fucking much!!) compounded by the fact that i *genuinely have trouble reading comics*. as in, i really struggle to parse the flow of contiguous movement or action between panels (possibly connected to the fact ive got mad aphantasia?) of even really well done best-of-the-best professional comics...

... BUT. basically. what im trying to get at is. if you wanna learn to draw comics, evidently you super can?! I genuinely *didnt* draw comics before drawing isat fanart! I have no idea what it was about ISAT fanart that made it finally click for me? (I think it was... not having to think about colour? Removing a step from the process really helped. Plus, it being fanwork meant I could just start en-medias-res and not have to think about setup... Trying to cram too much explanation and setup into my oc stuff was always a big hurdle too...)

I find them fast to do now! and damn if i dont value speed in art (<- impatient little fucker). its still going slowly on my oc comics.. mostly due to the colour again, i think. but it's not extremely, ecruciatingly difficult anymore. is what im saying. and im genuinely baffled by it every time i put pen to page. its fucked up. did you guys know that practice makes things easier? . fucking perverted if you ask me.

As for looking at other people's things for inspiration. if you want to know where I was looking when I was piecing together the first couple fancomics I did for ISAT i want to specifically point at . well besides everything rebecca sugar has ever done (for hands and facial expressions *especially*), the main person i really dug into the work of was Leo Fox (Website link). I feel like i wanna point people to the source of a lot of the inspiration for my more off-kilter panel choices so you all can get the full experience rather than through my regurgitated mimesis. I'm now at the point where i can wing panel layout so i wasn't in there for longgg but. everyone go add it to your knowledge banks as for SUBJECT MATTER aka why i am i so deranged. those are squarely the 2019 postcanon homestuck golden era bleeding through my CLENCHED BITTEN DOWN JAW. A BULL TERRIER ON YOUR BRACHIAL ARTERY. namely that @/floralmarsupial and @/tomatograter's works (no i am not tagging them . im shy) are things i go back to frequently and floralmarsupials pure black/white inktober comics were *especially* an inspiration. if you've been following me a few months you may remember me reblogging a bunch of their stuff from 2019~2021 for seemingly no reason. this was why. The narratively divorced reality of jade strider & Liminal Space are big in my mind here. I balk to call myself anywhere near as good as these but these are what i'm aiming for, tonally and quality-ways with it. also detective pony but ive mentioned that already and thats farrrr too inside baseball for this post.

BUT YEAH TL;DR: I DIDNT DRAW LIKE ANY COMICS UNTIL UHHHH LIKE, WHAT, LIKE 8 MONTHS AGO? JESUS. ANYWAY. THIS MEANS YOU 🫵🫵🫵 CAN DO IT TOO. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. DATTEBAYO!!!!

#if you feel vagueblogged by this post: HI!!! sorry i dont mean to scare you i just . need to hand you and others some resources.#I CANNOT LET YOU LIVE OFF OF MY REGURGITATED COPIES OF THE ARTISTS IM INSPIRED BY?? I NEED YOU TO SEE THE SOURCE OK????#i also have read a lot of idw sonic over the last year or three and thats also informed my style but less so than the homestuck stuff #and ranchuppi is another tumblr user (and homestuck...) that was a major influence re: how i draw expressions. i am very very particular #about facial expressions. fuck everything else in a drawing. i just need to get the emotions right.#also if this post inspires you to read homestuck: GOOD. also i can hand you resources and pointers for that. don't read it on the website.#there's better ways. and DONT FUCKING TOUCH HOMESTUCK.NET that place is . ugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh <- bearer of the curse #im certainly not the worlds foremost expert on homestuck i just can't have another era of blonde white daves. theyre on my tumblr fyp #i dont want them there. why are they blonde. help me. help me god. its so dark in here #lucabytetalks #art advice #I GUESSSS????#long post

28 notes · View notes

fangirltothefullest · 1 year ago

Text

Thoughts on the welcome home update because YES. Spoilers below the cut.

That sleep aid pill is called remderem which is almost "remember" but the d would be backwards, and its also almost "murder me" while missing the u. Is this anything? I don't know. Im always looking for names of things in args.

We have seen through two puppets eyes. First it was Wally and his discomfort and/or dissociation, and now it's Eddie's discomfort and/or dissociation. Which is fun because we've heard that Eddie would do crafts for the show and you'd just see his hands so that was a fun touch.

First iteration of the website we had mail letters (Eddie) giving us clues. Second iteration had bugs (Frank?) and active drawings (Wally?) giving us clues. Now we have symbols giving us clues and they remind me of stickers a little bit so possibly a connection to Sally? Who else would give the tiny pictures? Questions questions.

At the end of that commercial before his existential crisis, they say Eddie has been invited and they did his job for him so he could rest. Eddie does not seem happy about them doing his job for him instead of letting him do it himself. I am reminded of how clumsy with the mail he seems to be sometimes and how much work they make him do in the other audio clips. I wonder if he is feeling extremely overwhelmed but also unappreciated and that they can do all this work to help and choose not to most days? Sally insists it was easy to do and Eddie does not sound pleased.

One thing i can't stop thinking about and i have to go back and really re-watch the commercials closely, is Poppy. When they invite Eddie to the party they say everyone is there but there's no Poppy in the picture? And earlier they poured gravy on an ornament that, to me, looked very oddly shaped and almost like meat, and we hear Poppy, but we don't see her. So... a pea on a plate..... "P" on a plate? My brain could be misconstruing but did they eat Poppy and is that what he's actually seeing and is that why it's all red? I'd he seeing the reality beyond the mask? Is it more than a pea?

Eddie says "where?" In his crisis as a response to Frank calling his name. People are talking about this as if he doesn't know where he is. I agree this is a likely idea but what if he's asking where Poppy is? Do we ever actually see her in any of the videos or do we just hear her?

Wally has feelings a lot which is good to confirm he has feelings! Eddie also said he would be happy with an apple every single day and my he is an innocentbautism creature wally agenda is flourishing.

The amount if commercials has me fascinated because people used to do that for TV shows (still do but those earlier type ones welcome home is referencing is spot on) commercials for basically everything is accurate and what is funny is the accuracy of what each person is selling. Howdy with the cigarette commercial- he takes every opportunity to sell you something no matter what even if it's not good for you. Sleepy looking Wally selling you sleeping pills happy with the thought of the dream.

Wally being nervous about getting the holiday correct. Is it because he's never done it or ia Home going to hurt him?

Did home hurt Eddie because he was upset during the party? It sure fucking looks like it with home watching him so intensely. Does the chair have something to do with it?

Eddie's scribbled writing reminds me of the people trying to decipher the code on the safe.

On the secret pages it's signed "-W." But it talks as if it's a human person who watched the show and is working either the WHRP team. It also talks too grown up to be wally. Who is this?? Is it the same person from the terrified scribbles of the hidden page previously? It seems maybe so because of referencing needing the cleanup.

#welcome home #welcome home spoilers

58 notes · View notes

daddyyy88 · 2 years ago

Text

Sensitive | Lo’ak x fem!omaticaya!reader

if you’d like you can reblog my original work, but please don’t post it without credit. if you take inspiration from my ideas please tag me, I’d like to see how someone else would write it

word count: 2.9k

warnings: readers very insecure and shy, reader was technically bullied as a kid, ?

summary: Y/n was always told she was overdramatic and sensitive growing up, so she kept quiet and didn’t tell anyone when something bothered her. Now, watching her mate potentially fall in love with another woman, she’s too worried about overreacting and refuses to say anything until eventually she can’t handle it anymore.

anything in bold like this in the middle of a sentence means it’s either Na’vi or meant to be in Na’vi but I don’t trust the translation websites so I just use the few words I know and make do with it💀

“It’s just a joke”

“You’re too sensitive”

“It doesn’t even matter”

“Why do you care so much?”

“You’re overreacting”

Your whole life, you’ve always been sensitive. It wasn’t hard to bring you down or upset you. You were always overthinking every little thing, analyzing every word a person said and the way they said it. You wished you were different, every single day you tried to stop caring so much but you couldn’t help it.

By the time you turned 18, you were quieter than a mouse. You only talked around your few friends, and even then you didn’t say too much in fear of seeming too sensitive. When something bothered you, you just stayed quiet and kept it to yourself.

Lo’ak thought you were just shy. You were really quiet all the time, but he was so attracted to you; he just had to get to know you. You really loved Lo’ak, more than anything on Pandora. He was so nice to you, and you trusted him and opened up to him a little, and he still accepted you fully.

You didn’t tell him everything though, you didn’t want to ruin something so good. You’d be heartbroken if Lo’ak left you so you made sure you were careful with what you said and how you reacted.

You mated before Eywa and it was a beautiful experience. You both took your time learning each other's bodies and making each other feel good. You were close to opening up all the way after that night, but you were still worried he wouldn’t accept you and all your flaws.

2 years later, you had to leave the forest and it terrfied you. You couldn’t help it then, you burst into tears and cried through it all. The forest was your home. This was where you felt safest. This was where you fell in love, where you were meant to be.

Lo’ak seemed to understand your worries though, and you were thankful. He held you as you cried, wiping your tears and helping you say goodbye to everyone. He felt bad when he could see tears flowing down your face as you rode your ikrans out of the forest.

You made it the Metkayina’s territory and naturally they got defensive and began to try and intimidate you, and the worst part was that it worked. Lo’ak could feel you shaking and he felt bad, wrapping his tail around your thigh and trying to comfort you as best he could.

You noticed Lo’ak look over at a young woman, but he quickly returned his attention to Olo’eyktan and Tsahík again. You looked over at her, ears turned down as you realized how much prettier she was than you.

You tried to ignore it, but when she was one of the Na’vi meant to tutor you guys, it made it hard to forget about it. You were worried Lo’ak would fall for her instead. She was very very pretty, and her voice was smooth and melodic, with the most gorgeous eyes ever too.

Lo’ak was attached to you at the hip the first few weeks. It helped reassure you that he was yours, always. He would always have an around wrapped around you or his fingers intertwined with yours, or at the very least have his tail caressing your back or wrapped around your leg or arms.

But he slowly started getting closer to Tsireya. He’d go sit next to her during lessons and you always sat next to him so you’d follow, and over time you could see the two of them giggling together whenever you took breaks, and she was so touchy in ways she wasn’t with everyone else. At least that’s how it seemed.

You were honestly a little heartbroken, you really hoped he wasn’t like that. You don’t know what you’d do if he asked for a second wife. It’d kill you. The worst part, she’s been trying to be friends with you.

You don’t want to be mean, so you indulge in whatever it is she wants. You’re actually quite close, you tell her lots of things and she actually helps you learn the way of the Metkayina quite a lot. It seems like she tries to talk about Lo’ak a lot, which sucks because it only convinces you more and more that they’re going to get involved any day now.

Lo’ak seems a little distant as time goes on. He’s not making love to you a lot, leaving you lying awake in the late hours of the night trying to ignore your arousal, even with your mate right next to you. He only really makes love to you when your in heat or when he is in rut, but it’s always rough and not as sweet because it’s the only way to relieve the pain.

He also sits with Tsireya a lot at dinner. Or he’ll tell her to come sit with you guys. You come close to snapping and telling him just how much it’s bothering you countless times but you don’t want to risk being seen as dramatic.

You find out you’re pregnant and initially you were overjoyed, excited to become a mother and forever grateful to Eywa for this gift. But then your heart sinks. How would Lo’ak react? You were worried about everything now. Would he still love you after all the changes your body was about to go through? Would he be even more distant?

When you told him he nearly screamed, picking you up and jumping around out of pure excitement. He threw you over his shoulder, making you scream as he ran out to the main gathering place for the clan and said “I’m going to be a father!”

The surrounding people laughed and congratulated you guys, and when his family came out, he ran to them and said “you’re going to be grandparents!” And instantly had Neytiri sobbing. He finally put you down and you groaned, nauseous from all the movement.

You were less worried realizing how excited he was, and it seemed like things got better after that. He was always taking you on dates, rubbing your bump and talking to the baby constantly, helping you through your morning sickness when he could, and he was always hunting and bringing you your favorite foods to keep you strong and healthy.

You concluded that maybe he was a bit distant the last few months, but you’d be okay now that you were about to become parents and he was so present now. Obviously he still spent time with Tsireya, which you didn’t mind, but every now and then you had your doubts.

He took you on a date night, preparing a sweet dish for you since all you wanted to eat were sweet things and took you swimming with Payakan, telling him how the baby was kicking now and showing off your bump. You rolled your eyes playfully at Lo’ak, he was convinced that your bump got bigger every single day.

Payakan let you guys rest on his back and watch the stars until you got tired and fell asleep cuddled in Lo’ak’s arms. He smiled softly, pressing a kiss to your cheek. He fell asleep not that long after, keeping his hand on your bump to hopefully soothe your very active baby and keep it from kicking you all night.

When he woke up, you were still sleeping peacefully, being spooned by him as you mumbled softly in your sleep. He smiled to himself, kissing your head and caressing your bump. He felt the little one move slightly and he couldn’t help it as he blushed a little.

He spent a few minutes with you before he got up and had payakan bring you closer to the island and told him to wake up at sunrise if he wasn’t already there. He got to the island and prepared all his things to hunt for your favorite things right now and spent about 2 hours hunting.

He came back with tons of food, enough to last you a few days and immediately woke up Tsireya to help him cook it the way you liked. He wanted to celebrate today, as it was your 3 year anniversary and you were already halfway through your pregnancy. He was so excited, he almost wanted to leave Tsireya to finish cooking so he could go spend time with you.

You woke up to Payakan moving wildly and you quickly walked over to where he could see you to calm him down. The sun was halfway up, and you realized Lo’ak wasn’t with you anymore. You frowned slightly and noticed Payakan bringing you close to the island so you assumed Lo’ak was already there.

You greeted Jake and Neytiri as you happened to walk past them on the way to your marui pod and of course had to let Tuk talk to the baby for a few minutes and let them feel the little one kick. Tuk was so so so excited for the baby to come, she was asking almost every day if the baby would be here soon.

You eventually continued your journey to your home and when you got closer you heard some laughter and giggling. You recognized Lo’aks laugh but there was someone else’s. You listened for a few more seconds and realized it was Tsireya.

Every insecurity came flooding back and tears filled your eyes. Was this his plan the whole time? To have you sleeping quite literally across the ocean so he could spend time with her in your home.

You opened the flap and she was next to him, holding his hands trying to show him how to grind up these herbs properly. You scoffed and said “Lo’ak…” He immediately looked up and his eyes widened.

He smiled and said “hi, baby! How are you feeling?” “W-Why is she here?” You asked quietly, tears in your eyes. He furrowed his eyebrows and said “she’s just helping me make you breakfast. I’m making all your favorites today, and she’s a better cook than I am so I needed her to help me”

You bit your lip and shook your head, you didn’t buy it. No way she was just here to cook and that was it. You turned around and left, going to the spot you and Lo’ak always go to to spend time together alone and uninterrupted.

Tsireya looked up and said “is everything okay?” “I- I-I don’t know. Do you think I should follow her?” He asked and Tsireya thought for a moment, nodding. He quickly thanked her and went out looking for you.

It took him a while to figure out where you’d gone, but once he did he was running as fast as he could. He got to your secret spot and found you crying, leaning against the rock you two always sat by.

“Baby…y/n, hey hey what’s wrong?” He said and you sniffled. You wiped your tears quickly and said “nothing. I’m fine, I’m just overreacting, it's nothing” “no, no honey. Hey, look at me. Talk to me,” he said and you looked up at him, eyes wet and nose tinted pink from crying.

“I just…y-you’ve gotten really close to Tsireya lately and I…I’m worried that- t- t-that uhm…” you said and stopped yourself shaking your head. He sighed and said “you’re worried I’m unfaithful?” You let out a small sob and said “I-it’s not that I don’t trust you- I-I just I can’t help it sometimes. I know it’s stupid! Just go away”

“Why do you think I’m cheating?” He asked, wiping your tears. You let out a shaky breath and said “well y-…you guys are just always really close. You used to always w-want to sit with her at dinner, a-and sometimes you used to choose to be with her instead of me. E-Everytime Tsireya and I talk she wants to know about you and our relationship”

“It’s not what you think, my love. I…I asked Tsireya to get close to you so she could tell me how you were feeling about our relationship and know what to work on to keep you happy. I- I-I know you’re very quiet and shy and I know if I ask you directly you’ll tell me everything is fine so I needed someone else’s help” he said and you gasped slightly, burying your head in your hands.

He pulled you into his arms, stroking your back and letting you cry. “It’s okay, babe. I know you were just worried about our relationship, and you had every right to be. I can understand that it might’ve looked a certain way from the outside” he said and you shook your head.

“I-I was being sensitive and overdramatic like always” you whimpered and he sighed. He kissed your head and said “why do you talk so poorly of yourself, my love? I don’t think that about you, no one does” “That’s not true…” you said and he furrowed his eyebrows yet again.

He pulled you from his chest to look in your eyes and said “who tells you these things?” “I…when I was a child, I-I used to be made fun of a lot. Even m-my parents would make comments. Everyone a-around me felt that way. I just stay quiet now, s-so no one gets upset at me anymore” you said and he shook his head.

He kissed you softly and said “let me see…please?” He grabbed his kuru and you looked up at him nervously. You nodded and grabbed yours, connecting them. You took a deep, shaky breath and he kissed your forehead, caressing your hand with his thumb. You let him see everything, every memory you had of it all.

“Oh sweetheart,” he said, tears in his eyes. “You didn’t deserve that. Honey, you aren’t overreacting, you have real concerns and worries and I want you to tell me all of them. Don’t ever shy away from talking to me and telling me how you feel. We are about to become parents, don’t you think we shouldn’t keep secrets?”

You nodded and he smiled sadly, kissing you softly. “Why uhm…w-why…” you said quietly and stopped yourself. He could hear your thoughts through tsaheylu, you were wondering why Tsireya was there making breakfast with him.

He shook his head and said “because today's our 3 year anniversary and you're halfway through growing our little princess” You smiled and sniffled. You chuckled and hugged him.

He rubbed your back and said “you’ll never have to worry about me hurting you. I never will. If I did, I promise you it was never intentional and I’ll apologize every single day for the rest of my life” “you’re a really good husband, you know” you said, sniffling softly.

“I try,” he chuckled. He kissed you a few times, nuzzling his nose against yours. You smiled and said “oel ngati kameie, ma muntxatan” “oel ngati kameie” he said and nuzzled his nose against yours once more.

You giggled and said “you know, the baby is realllly hungry” “is she?” He asked and you rolled your eyes.

“We do not know if it is a girl yet,” you said and he chuckled. He rubbed your bump and said “I just know it is. She’s my little princess. And you’re my queen” “what's uhm…what’s a queen again?” You asked and he chuckled.

You still forgot human concepts here and there which he found adorable. “Like an Earth Tsahík. But way less cool” he said and you nodded, giggling. He stood up and he held his hand out to help you up.

He brought you back to your pod and Tsireya looked up and noticed your slightly reddened nose and cheeks and your still slightly teary eyes. “Oh…oh my, are you okay? Is it the baby? Is something wrong? We should get you to my mother” she said and you shook your head.

“I’m okay, Reya. The baby’s okay too. See?” You said and placed her hand on your stomach where they were kicking softly. You hugged her and she gasped a little, looking at Lo’ak as she hugged you back.

Lo’ak waved his hand dismissively and then gave a thumbs up. She rubbed your back and said “here, have some breakfast. I hope you like it” “mmm, you guys better get some while you can because it’s not gonna be here for long” you said and chuckled to yourself.

Lo’ak smiled at you as you made yourself a place and said “she was just worried that I was unfaithful because of how much time we spend together” They both giggled quietly to each other.

“I should’ve known,” she said and sighed. He shook his head and said “no, no its okay. As much as I wish she didn’t feel that way for so long, some good things came out of it” “like what?” Tsireya asked. Lo’ak bit his lip in thought and said “it’s kind of between us,”

“Ah, I see. Well, take good care of her and write out instructions for lunch and dinner for you while you eat” she said and patted his shoulder, quickly leaving the pod. He smiled to himself and wrapped his arms around your waist, kissing your neck.

You hummed and held a piece of fruit behind you for him to eat. “Come on, let’s eat on the shore” he said and you brought your plate out with you as he dragged you out of the pod, forcing you to sit in between his legs as you both watched the sun fully rise and relaxed together.

Taglist: @laylasbunbunny @goddesslilithmoriarty

As of now l'm writing for

Eddie Munson

Lo’ak

Neteyam

So just comment the taglist you want to be added to and l'll add you :)

#avatar #avatar 2 movie #avatar imagine #avatar the way of water #lo’ak x omaticaya!reader #lo’ak sully #lo’ak oneshot #lo’ak x y/n #lo’ak x reader #lo’ak fic #lo’ak fanfiction #lo’ak te suli tsyeyk’itan #lo’ak imagine #lo’ak fluff #lo’ak x you #lo’ak sully x reader #lo’ak avatar #lo’ak x pregnant!reader

321 notes · View notes