#apollo you put that dodgeball away

[agentkirin]

I did not expect the Starbound Xbox port to actually be a thing.

Kinda neat to see a lil spark of activity (in a "dead thing twitching when you poke its brain" kinda way), although idc as long as they don't update the PC version and break all the mods.

[the-raven-lady]

Closer

[Masterlist] [My Ko-Fi]

Pairing: Cato Sicarius x Reader [Fem]

Song Inspiration: Closer - Nine Inch Nails [Youtube] [Spotify]

“You let me violate you / you let me desecrate you /

You let me penetrate you / you let me complicate you /

I broke apart my insides / I’ve got no soul to tell /

The only thing that works for me / Help me get away from myself.”

Warnings: SMUT. Degradation and praise, possessiveness, partial asphyxiation, hair pulling, breeding kink, right into the rough and nasty. 

Word Count: 1.3k

Author’s Note: Raven Lady’s ovulating and it’s bad. I have no excuse. This hit me while I was rocking on the floor like Apollo with the dodgeball and I let the hormones win. Not edited in the slightest.

Tag List: @egrets-not-regrets @sleepyfan-blog @kit-williams @bleedingichorhearts @bispecsual

@lemon-russ @moodymisty

The rough prickling of his beard rubs against your shoulder, scratching against it uncomfortably, but you cannot bring yourself to care. Obediently you tilt your head to the side to grant Cato more access, which he greedily takes. The captain tangles one of his massive hands into your hair and yanks your head to the side. His lips attack the side of your neck, teeth scraping the sensitive skin between rough bites and sucks. You know you’re going to have hickies to cover tomorrow and for the next few weeks, if he’ll allow it. 

The day had started off so innocently with you helping the noblewomen tire out their young ones, the little tykes running about the streets without a care in the world. The sight of the young ones brought a simple joy to your primarch, Guilliman having mentioned that it reminded him of the home he used to remember. Cato had passed by with several of his company on their way to training, and you had made an offhand comment about wondering what it would be to guide your own little one about the grand fortress.

Either the thought of putting one in you or the idea of you growing round and full with his child had completely plagued Sicarius’s mind for the rest of the day, as the next moment you two were well and truly alone, you clothes hadn’t lasted more than a few short seconds. They still lie in tatters on the tiled floor, occasionally getting caught under foot.

“You’re no better than a common– fucking– slut,” Cato pants, punctuating each word with the slam of his hips against yours. 

He has your sore body roughly pinned down to the covers, not allowing you an inch of breathing room as he fucks into you. The wet squelch of him penetrating your tight cunt echoes off of the metal walls of your room, his balls stimulating your clit with each thrust. Cum drips sloppily from between your thighs and down onto linen sheets. Mind clouded and lungs burning from the lack of oxygen, you mewl underneath him for more, more, more.

You cry out as his teeth sink into your neck, adding to the masterwork he’s so carefully crafted. You were his, and until your belly had swelled enough to display it for all to see, Cato swore he would continue to fuck you to exhaustion each day.

Oh, but could he bring himself to stop then with how gorgeous you sounded caged beneath him? Begging and keening beneath him like the good little whore you were? Or would he fall headfirst into his desires, enraptured by the glow of your gravid body as it grew?

He certainly couldn’t fuck you as he was now, shoving your chest down into the bed and forcing you to present so prettily. Cato leans back, pulling you up by the hair with him to arch your back just the way he likes.

“Good girl,” he growls, using the new angle to draw more sounds out of your aching throat and abused cunt, “Taking it like the vile whore you are.” 

The way you clench around his cock has him delirious with pleasure, as if he hadn’t already just flooded your womb twice before. You must be one of Slaanesh’s finest beneath the skin with how your lecherous body always draws him in for more. The sheen of sweat on your skin makes you glitter in the low light like a treasure.

“Can you even hear me in that dumb little head of yours? So stupid, so pretty. Just a hole to be used.” Cato’s free hand snakes around your waist and up to paw at your breasts, tweaking a nipple and pulling a yipe from you. “Would you spread your legs for any common Ultramarine if he promised to put a baby in you?”

You nod your head, cockdrunk and wild, and Cato snarls. He snaps his hips up hard into you, stilling and grinding his cock against your cervix enough to send pleasure and pain alike up your spine. A whimper catches in your throat from the treatment, the pressure almost too much to bear.

“Of course you would. So eager to have your pussy filled.” The hand at your breasts fondles them. “But you won’t. You won’t—” he withdraws almost completely, cockhead nestled just at your pussylips, “—because you’re mine.” The grip in your hair tightens, and Cato yanks you back to meet him as he drives forward, ripping a loud moan from your chest. The brutal pace from before resumes, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the room.

You will yourself to speak through hiccuped breaths, voice low and breathy. “Are you going to– ah!– put a baby in me, Sicarius?”

The side of your face ungracefully meets the bed again as Cato pushes you back down. A growl rumbles within him.

“Brainless harlot. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Bred so full your abdomen distends?” As if to accentuate his point, the hand at your breast slides down to rest above your abdomen. “Waddling around the Fortress of Hera carrying the child of someone so high above your standing?” 

Despite the venom of his degrading words, the breathiness of his voice betrays how much the idea affects him. He clutches at you in a manner that is all too tender. Protective.

Cato’s steady thrusts begin to falter, and he slows his hips to a steady roll to feel out every inch of himself in you. A satisfied breath puffs against your ear as he leans  back over you, skilled fingers finding your neglected clit and rolling it in tight circles.

“Come for me,” he pleads, fucking that spot inside of you that has you seeing stars. The spring within you draws tighter, tighter, making you feel afloat as every little sensation coils it further. 

The gentle press of Cato’s lips against your jawline makes you shudder, the affectionate gesture enough to snap the tension within your belly. With a loud cry, you spasm and clamp down around the Ultramarine’s cock, digging your nails into the sheets of the bed. Your legs shake from the intensity, giving out from under you.

The feeling of your pussy like a vice around him causes Cato to moan, low and desperate as he chases his own orgasm. With a final harsh thrust, he stills, moan breaking into throaty stutters. His balls draw tight against you, cock throbbing inside of you as he pumps your cunt full of his seed for the third and final time. Muscular arms wrap around you firmly, holding you to Cato’s chest as he gently cants his hips against yours to milk the last of his cum into your waiting womb.

The both of you pant as you wind down, barely able to get a full breath as the astartes’ much larger form rests on top of yours. Slick with sweat, you turn your head to the side to look at his handsome face. His eyes crack open to meet yours, and he grants you a rare smile, white teeth peeking out from behind his lips. You reciprocate.

“How do we tell Guilliman if anything does happen?” you ask, resting your head on your arms.

Cato immediately grimaces, looking away with a roll of his eyes. “Can we discuss my genefather when I’m not still inside of you?”

Chuckling, you lean over to press a kiss to his nose. He huffs, but his breath hitches when you clench down around him. Instantly, he freezes, and his eyes are back on yours, darkening and boring into you. The muscles of his jaw tighten.

You meet him with a challenge, purring out, “We might as well make it certain that he’ll have something to worry about.” In invitation, you wiggle your hips.

Fingertips dig harshly into the swell of your ass to hold them steady. “Insatiable woman,” Cato chides, gripping your jaw and pulling you once more into a bruising kiss.

[alipeeps]

Episode 40 (aka Hold me, I am not ready for this!! 😭)

Gods I think I love Xue Li almost as much as Xiao Heng.

And that dude loves her a LOT.

LOOK at how he looks at her. LOOK!!

"Kill Xiao Heng and we'll live happily ever after"... dude, you have completely lost touch of reality. How can you believe for even a fraction of a second that she'd do that, that she'd choose you over him? She just told you a moment ago that she'd rather die with him that be with you.

YES XUE LI!!! Put the next one through his eye please!

Actually no, don't kill him. Let him live and suffer and regret.

"Killing you would dirty my hands." You tell him girl. He's nothing. He's not worth the blood on your hands.

I reckon 75% chance he's gonna throw himself off the battlements anyway. Coward.

Ahahahaaaa he's standing on the edge! Am I right? Am I?

CALLED IT!! 😂😂

Last thing he saw was her walking away. Love that for him.

Ooooh she's gonna cut her own throat on the sword....

Shiiit where's that tumblr image of apollo's dodgeball? I'm getting too good at this.

There goes your last leverage, shithead.

Aaaaand there goes your ability to breathe anything other than blood.

Yeah baby, get your revenge.

Ey up, the wind machine's back.

Hahahaa fucking hell grandpa Xiao making Xiao Heng serve him drinks on the excuse that he was injured saving Xue Li?! I'm pretty sure Xiao Heng was actually *more* injured - he took at least 3 sword slashes in the battle with Lord Cheng!

Okay but now I am really intruiged/worried cos the rebellion is over and there's like 30-odd minutes (and the much giffed scene of Xiao Heng in his armour with the pendant in his teeth) left to go so... wtf is gonna happen now?

Oooh Xiao Heng's going north to protect the border...

Bros 4eva!

Daddy Xue's back? For reals?

"She's got a husband now, how can she go back with us?" 😂

Awww and she's got daddy's approval for this one too! 😁

What do you think she means, Su Guogong, you dumbass? You gotta make that place fit for a wife! 😁

Hahaha Xiao Heng has bluescreened again!

It's kinda disturbing how rare it is in a cdrama for the main couple to get together, both survive and get to happily marry. HOWEVER... there's still 20 minutes and that scene to go!! 😭😭

Also am i the only one that keeps getting very nervous about the combination of wind machine, billowing drapes, and naked flame candles... 😬

Is she gonna admit to pappa Jiang that she's not Jiang Li? I'm pretty sure he already knows...

Yeeeeeah that's a nice lie Xue Li but it's a lie nonetheless. She did suffer and she was in pain. But okay...

I want this to be between you and me - and all the servants that just overheard our conversation.

Shit I thought for a second there he'd stroked out and died on the spot! 😂

This feels like she's saying goodbye to the Jiang family for good. She's married into the Xiao family now and the Jiang family are leaving the capital... and she's not really related to them, she's got no real reason to see them again...

Shijie is just too goddamn good and precious.

Ooft one thing that bugs me about the subs in this is that they don't properly translate titles/honorifics, they translate everything to the person's name. So the significance of her calling him ge is entirely lost to anyone who doesn't understand at least a little bit of Chinese.

(Also they do this with single syllable names which is even more egregious. They translate didi as Zhao, they don't even have the fucking courtesy to make it A-Zhao)

Awww I am sad that the haircombing scene was just her imagination... and I'm also worried that it's some kind of portent... 😭

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THEY KILLED LU JI!!!! 😭😭😭😭

I don't deserve this. After 40 episodes i do not deserve this how could you do this to me

Okay but Wen Ji I feel you fam I really do but Xiao Heng needs help!!

YOU BASTARDS!!

WHYYYYYYYYY??!! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO THIS TO ME?!! Why could they not just have a happy ending? What plot purpose does this even serve at this point?

Oh thank fuck I genuinely thought it was gonna end with it implying he was about to die on the battlefield.

I am dead. RIP me.

This was a fucking RIDE and I LOVED IT.

(Apart from them killing Lu Ji and Wen Ji for no reason 😭😭😭)

[extasiswings]

I have been noticing things, and I don't know what to make of them, so I am bringing them to you, because you have been blessed/cursed by Apollo's dodgeball and are also great at connecting dots. I apologise.

I am worried about Buck's lungs. His sats dropped when he was in a coma, to the point of needing ECMO, but during his recovery we only saw him see a cardiologist, no respiratory rehab was mentioned. Now his PT scores are down. The show has also been weirdly pointed about focusing on sats monitors being put on people's fingers during calls. They've done it on at least 3 of the calls since Buck's been back, and at no point have the people's sats been mentioned - even the woman face down in dough, who was started on oxygen. That in itself isn't a big deal - they're a quick way of getting a heartrate, and its standard practice to put one on. But why keep showing them? Then this week, Maddie had the call with the kid where she had to remind him how to breathe.

So, what do you think? Is there anything there, or am I projecting because I'm having to have respiratory physio after covid?

Just when I thought I couldn't get any more unhinged! No, there is DEFINITELY something there and I'm not gonna be normal about it. There are a couple of different places my mind went to (because it's not just Buck, Eddie's in this too) so apologies if this is scattered:

Buck + Death is the big overarching theme looming over Buck's healing journey. Buck's life has been about Death since before he was even born, when he was conceived to be a savior baby...and was a match...but Daniel still died anyway. And Buck has been running towards Death ever since, seeking it out, courting it like a lover without even realizing why, never knowing that Daniel's ghost was haunting him. He has internalized so completely this idea that his value is entirely dependent on what he can do for others, on how much he can sacrifice, can give, up to and including his own life. The fact that the problem was Buck's lungs in the episode where he was reckoning with Daniel for the first time while trapped in his subconscious mind was inspired and a huge callback to Buck Begins, after Buck first learned about Daniel, with Buck in the warehouse fire taking off his mask and telling the guy he was trying to save that he would just hold his breath. And Buck's been holding his breath in a sense ever since. Spiraling. Stagnating. Regressing. He quit therapy. He trapped himself for a year in a soulless relationship because he was already depressed but then the shooting happened and Eddie basically told him he wasn't allowed to keep trying to kill himself, taking away one of his main self-harming coping mechanisms (passive suicidality brushed off by telling himself he's actually helping people), all of that.

There are also the crush injuries surrounding him (which I wrote about in 6A as being super sus). Thomas and Mitchell and a car accident crush injury, the first call where Buck begins explicitly associating romantic love with death. Buck being crushed under the ladder truck, which ultimately led to the blood clots and a pulmonary embolism because he wouldn't let himself rest and recover, wouldn't let himself heal or slow down, because he was too focused on getting back to work where he could (in his mind) be useful, be worth something, could save lives. And he admitted then that he didn't know what/who he was without the job, and ironically almost torched all of his relationships with the people who love him regardless in order to get back to it. And then of course there's also Lev. Lev trying to find the secrets to happiness but instead being crushed to death by a walkway that collapsed because the hotel identified the problem but never made the repairs. And it was through him that Buck started thinking that he could find all the answers he's been looking for in death.

But...Buck died. Actually died. And despite his joke about his math powers and being the guy with the answers, he doesn't have them all.

At the end of 6x11, he took a breath. He took a step. He allowed himself a little bit of self-awareness, of self-reflection, he dipped his toe into the water of the root trauma that has led him to all the others. But he's awake now, and what has he done? By all accounts it looks like exactly what he's done every other time/like he's falling back into the same bad habits. He let his mom steamroll him into getting him a couch that he didn't want. He threw himself back into work as soon as he could and keeps trying to brush off the fact that he went through a serious trauma (physical/mental/emotional) to the point that the people who love him have to keep reminding him that he literally died. He has the tools he needs to heal, but isn't actually taking the steps to get there. And, as you point out, they're potentially foreshadowing that there are still problems with his lungs that may still get worse.

Because Buck is, at heart, one big crush injury. He has been suffocating under the weight of trauma after trauma since he was born, conceived in grief and then discarded. He has been suffocating under the weight of hiding his true feelings from others (up to and including hiding them from himself) and leaving so many necessary things unsaid. But it also makes me think about Eddie and Home Invasion and the call at Marisol's and everything that I've been saying about insulation as protection but too much protection stifling you so much that you can't breathe. Buck being "the settler" in romantic relationships because he can't get hurt (at least not as badly) if he's not actually attached to the relationship, never going after/asking for what he really wants. Eddie being his own variation on "the fugitive" always running from the things that he's most afraid of. Both of them trying desperately to protect their hearts from getting broken and instead ending up in a place where they are both always dying...

Idk, there's something about Buck + Death and Eddie + Fear and Buck constantly suffocating vs. Eddie drowning, and Buck starting the season not wanting to make the same mistakes but also possibly "misunderstanding the assignment" with this death doula, and water finding its level...yeah...yeah...

[blodgmonster]

Crown of Midnight reread thoughts and commentary.

-- we give Chaol a lot of shit (and rightly so) for being so shocked that Celeana, a famed assassin, assassinates people. But Dorian is doing it too. Get it together, lads.

-- oh, hey, Mort!

-- Archer is the most beautiful man Celeana has ever seen, with green eyes, a sensual mouth, and a dazzling smile, and he's strong and ruggedly handsome. You know who that sounds like to me?

-- Celaena to Dorian: "So don't expect ME to care when you find yourself nothing more than a puppet. If you aren't one already." Apollo just smashing Celaena in the face with the prophecy dodgeball.

-- What's Hollin's deal? Is he part Valg by birth?? Or just an asshole?

-- Archer: They want to put Aelin Galathynius back the throne! They say she's raising an army!

Celaena:

-- What's with SJM and slightly creepy libraries? We've got the castle library here with a secret door leading to a secret staircase that leads to an iron door where expirements are kept. Then we've got the library in the House of the Wind where Byraxis lives. Then we've got the library in the Torre Cesme, which has those baller cats but is also the site of a dreadful murder. Then we have Jesiba's library which is the Great Library of Parthos and is the site of a vicious attack on Bryce, Shryinx, and Lehabah.

-- "So Dorian closed his eyes, and took another long breath. And when he opened his eyes, he let her go." Tamlin could use some tips from Dorian.

-- the singer listing her beloved dead as the axe falls. CHILLS.

-- YASSS witches!!!

-- there's a guard named Dannan. Similar to Danaan. Interesting. First the Rhunn mountains and now this.

-- "His soul was bound to hers by some unbreakable chain." Buddy, you guys have been fucking for like a week. Calm down. And that chain is about to SNAP.

-oh no oh no oh no no no no no why did I think this happened toward the end of the book? Oh Nehemia. You deserved SO MUCH BETTER.

-- "YOU WILL ALWAYS BE MY ENEMY." Oh, Celaena, my love...oh hon.

-- Kaltain and Celaena bonding in their cells. Two young women who have been terribly abused by Adarlan. It's oddly sweet.

-- the slave rebellion in Calaculla. "Silently, she began to recite the names of her dead. And then as the overseer raised his whip, she added her name to the end of that list and swung his ax into his gut." Oh GOD.

-- her lament at Nehemia's grave. Ouch my heart.

-- Dorian's tower room sounds AMAZING.

-- I saw a theory on Tumblr that the creature that emerges from the portal is a kelpie like the one from ACOSF. And fam, IT FUCKING IS. The descriptions are freakishly similar. Which means the portal opens on the Bog of Oorid in Pyrthian. And that's why she's able to shift into her Fae form. Because she's in a world with magic and Fae. Oh my GOD.

-- "Celaena was Fae." HELL YEAH SHE WAS, BABY!!!!!! With blue fire like my girl, Azula.

-- " 'I knew you were a good woman.'...

'No I'm not....but Nehmia was.'" FUCK HIM UP, BABY GIRL.

-- "One of us has to start leading, Dorian." Shut UP, Chaol, you punk ass bitch.

-- "I'll always pick you." No, you woooooon't.

-- And now I can start saying Aelin, which is easier to spell lol

-- and thus the world gets broader, the plot thickens, and we take a step away from the simple plot and on to the meaty stuff.

-- oh! Oh! I just remembered I wanted to talk about this book in particular vs. the ACOTAR series. In this one, a pretty main character dies. And she dies for good. And she's just the first one to die. And as much as we the readers hate character deaths, there's something so much better about TOG for not shying away from killing off characters. In ACOTAR, death is meaningless. Feyre dies and is resurrected. Rhys dies and is resurrected. Amren gives up her life to save everything, and she's miraculously brought back by the Cauldron. Az and Cassian suffer pretty gnarly wounds and are fine. Aside from Papa Archeron and Clare, everyone else is covered in plot armor. You never really fear for them because, for some reason, SJM just won't kill anyone in that series. It isn't like that in TOG. And it feels more genuine.

[shastafirecracker]

Hello!!! I am so curious if you have any spare Trillium and Ivy lore that you’d like to share? Any backstories, character playlists, cut scenes, whatever you’d like! It’s definitely become one of my comfort fics, and it’s so well written and funny! Have a great day! 🤞🏻

Hell yeah! I just opened my original note/outline document to look through it, so here's some concepts that never made it into the final version (but could still be true!):

-[re:meryl and milly] one of the couple is trans. everyone assumes it is 6-foot deadlift-a-tree Milly, but it is of course 5'4" blow-away-in-a-stiff-wind Meryl

-Hoppered, or Hop, liaises with the May homeless population and still spends a huge amount of time on the streets, but has been a staple at the shelter for so long that the people who run the place started insisting on paying him to help them with outreach. He is usually around somewhere in his wheelchair with his backpack of supplies for specific recipients - like he takes people their prescriptions, makes sure the people with allergies get special groceries, knows exactly where to put up notices about shower and bed and job opportunities. One of the people at the shelter is the blind woman from the manga

-actual part of my notes: "livio's just like didja bang yet. didja bang yet. hey hey, nick. you fuckin. hey. and nick is like I Will Push You Out Of This Moving Car I Swear To God. but privately also thinking like, i can never admit how much ive been jerking it recently, could vash STOP carrying heavy bags of mulch around the parking lot all day, please vash i am going to die"

-Another long chunk of the notes, detailing the Saverem family dynamic: "vash explains he grew up on a farm with some ex-commune hippie parents who adopted he and knives and tried to get away from a lot of the groupthink of the commune while still imparting their ideals onto the twins. which meant homeschooling and a lot of camping, backpacking, learning to live off the land kinda stuff. alex died when the twins were really young but rem was a good single mom. but the twins always were competitive and when knives caused the accident it tore the family apart. vash was in the hospital for a really long time and ended up never going to college because of it, and knives started college but dropped out to join the group he ran with for several years. rem couldn't quite empty-nest because vash had to be home a lot for recovery and went through a long period of depression during which he slowly went back and got his GED, learned to cope with prosthetics and chronic pain, relearned loving the land, and turned from big farming projects to smaller garden projects. then rem was diagnosed with ovarian cancer which is cruel because she and alex never could conceive - why they adopted - and rem and vash had a really strong period of bonding while he healed and she died, during which she apologized for accidentally teaching the twins that productivity and purpose was everything, because really purpose isn't everything. just existing is a good in the world. existing and being kind to yourself and others. and plants that didn't "do" anything were just as precious as ones that made food or other "useful" stuff. Vash grows flowers for rem. she loved red flowers, especially geraniums. rem dies."

AGAIN I JUST WANT TO SAY, I was fuckign writing this before Stampede even got announced, so that damn apollo dodgeball of prophecy got me even with the idea of "plants that don't do anything."

-the original outline for the final showdown with Legato involved Livio, Zazie, Meryl & Milly ALL also going to the warehouse (later turned into the abandoned nightclub). It was batshit and I realized how untenable it was pretty early, and dumped everyone from the scene except the vital players (V, W, K, Legato). I also had this incredibly complicated way to justify why Legato getting arrested wouldn't just immediately get Knives also arrested? and then I realized that, duh, by far the easiest way to sidestep the issue was to just kill Legato. He dies in every canon anyway. Like why was I trying to keep him alive, lol.

-midvalley was going to be an FBI guy? ok sure

OTHER LITTLE SCENES I meant to write for the follow-up of mini-fics:

-Nick is from somewhere cold, and underestimates heat. He speaks at a burial in the summer (full suit, no tent) and ends up having heat exhaustion. doesn't know why he's so sick until Vash gets the details of his day out of him and Vash is like, good god man, here is water, go lie down, did you not grow up with constant PSAs about how not to get heat stroke? and nick's like NO you dipshit!

-Vash is from somewhere hot, and underestimates cold! An ice storm that is unreasonably strong for the area (thanks climate change!) passes through and Vash is just excited for snow like a kid at Christmas. meanwhile Nick is going feral trying to winterize a house that was never built for/intended to be winterized. Vash's joy at the snow helps remind him to see the beauty of it for a while, and that's nice, but then their power stays out for like a week and it becomes "huddle for warmth in a snowed in cabin" trope except more depressingly realistic bc it's your own damn home and you can barely live in it. :C (drawn from personal experience, ahaha... ugh)

-at some point I had meant to write them going on a trip to the beach with the girls, and/or a trip to December so Vash could meet Melanie and Nick could visit St. Michaels

anyway that's all I can think of for now! thank you so much for being a fan of my silly story! <3 <3 <3 I loved writing it and I love how much love it's gotten over time since I posted it.

[promiseiwillwrite]

Dodgeball with Apollo

Some aspects of my mental illness ARE in line with Narcissism.

I am very self obsessed. It took me a long time to understand that I was not uniquely traumatized or miserable. Yes, my pain is important, but it is not of an unknowable or unspeakable magnitude.

I have decided that my favorite human experience is when other people genuinely engage with me, and want to know about me. When their focus is on me. I have experienced this what seems to me, in my own mind, like a bare handful of times. But that is because I have often failed to account for circumstances Less focused on me. I have failed to understand and parse moments of connectedness that I have experienced where the focus has been elsewhere, on shared interests or the other person, because I have not had that spine tingling feeling of being alive that I get once in a blue moon when I think someone really wants to know me.

At the same time, I have a Very hard time believing that other people want to know me. It takes years of interactions. It takes very specific emotional circumstances. It is Incredibly fragile, too. If I have a belonging experience with someone, and then later experience any real or perceived dismissal, rejection or negative emotional experience with that human afterward, I tend to interpret that as the End of that part of the relationship. Nothing to repair, and I tend to just go away after that. And Inevitable. Because no human relationship is 100% positive at all times. So it is constant mourning. It is constant loss of people and relationships I thought might have been. Relationships that I Wanted to have that I most likely STILL want, but that I KNOW are not fair to the other person. That I know are Bad for the other person. That I can't understand, for the most part, why they still sometimes persist after I have fucked them up.

I think, at the root of all this, is that I don't think other people see me as a person.

I feel like other people see me as a Non Player Character in a Video Game. Like window dressing in their lives. I might have some lines, or a quest for them, but I am not interesting enough to remember after that.

And for the most part, I they are right. I can't honestly say that I think I am a whole person. I think I have been too obsessed with myself, and too withdrawn for too long.

One of the many downsides of thinking this way is that there isn't much else to you. You are right. You run around and around inside your own head because you assume these people who probably actually do care about you don't want to be bothered by you, and don't have time for you in their lives, so you sit and stare at the wall and think about all this, and how there IS nothing more to you than these thoughts, and how the other people are right for not engaging. Because there is nothing new about any of this. It's just around and around the same spiral.

When I am strong, I feel like I can focus more on who I am and what I want. But I keep stumbling over these things. I have taught all the people who care about me that I have to have all this space, because I think I am bothering them, and I legitimately feel selfish for taking their time, their energy, because I know it is emotional labor to constantly reassure me. And I don't want other people to suffer because they are around me. So I Isolate, Especially when this shit is Loud in my head. The time when I probably most need support and touch and conversation.

God, I want to be a real Boy.

But I can see the strings, still. I know Every time I put on the mask, and every time I censor myself, and every time I think "God, don't fuck this up" and "Don't say that, for fuck's sake" that I am not fit for real relationships with real humans. Sometimes Hundreds of times a day.

Even knowing and accepting that no one is perfect... I still think I am toxic to others. That it is actively Harmful of me to be myself around other people, and that it is intrinsically wrong of me to want that because I know it is hurtful.

I don't even have tears left for it. This is my fucking rock that I keep rolling up this fucking hill. It's what I keep coming back to. It's what I really am.

And it's what I focus so much of my mental and emotional energy on... and then I have nothing left to turn outward, to be curious about others, and actually build and work on other relationships.

I DO want to know other people. I love knowing about my friends and loved ones. I love seeing how they grow and change over time... But asking about it is still bothering them. Hurting them, somehow. Wasting their time that they could be spending doing something, anything besides interacting with a soul-sucking pit of a human like me.

And even when I am at my best... This is always under the surface. This always infects me. This uncharitable, gracelessness that makes me go back under the rock, that I DO Definitely ascribe to other people on more than rare occasion. I DO Definitely misinterpret words and signals constantly, and decide that my bad faith takes on interaction are more evidence that others don't want me around, and I rationalize it as though I Agree with them (lol, myself). It is for their own good, I decide, because I do not trust them to make an informed autonomous decision about what they don't actually know, and never thought in the first place. Fucking irrational. And Fucking as Real as 50 pounds of iron.

And when I withdraw, it legitimately hurts people, whether I intend that or not. And It is my fault, prophesy fulfilled. Constantly playing Dodgeball with Apollo. Stung So Many Times... Right in the Face.

[ace-and-ink]

[intro]

at what point does it become acceptable to start questioning the love left in your relationship?

forgive me if that is too strong of a start. i wrote this part of the poem last and i didn’t know how to kick it off. i always write the entire body of a poem first, but i never know how to make them start.

i’ve never tried to write a poem like this before, either. where you write a bunch of random, unrelated parts and then try to string them together in a way that makes sense. whether or not i succeeded in making it make sense is not something i say with certainty. whether or not it works, consider it a glimpse into the inner machinations of my mind every day.

but this is where, my dear audience, i call on you to become my judge. not just to judge my ability to write poetry, but to deem me either innocent or guilty of the subject of which i am about to confess to you.

i ask for your time, for your honest ears, your honest instincts, your honest logic; i politely ask for you to indulge the ramblings of this dishonest heart of mine.

[prophecy]

i’m half convinced i’m some sort of prophet, or maybe some prophet of old grew attached to me.

i can’t tell you all the times i’ve written about something, being scared it’s gonna happen, and then it does

or the dream i had as a child about being struck by lightning through the house, or the dream from even earlier about a vague feeling of someone in my family dying

and, well, here i am.

every time i put my pen to paper, i fear i’m fending off those stupid dodgeballs

and every time they come to fruition, i can only feel that this is some sort of game to Apollo, that he gets a kick out of letting this happen.

i’ve written at least one poem since i’ve been with her about relationships that’ve fallen through. i don’t know if they’re about her or if they’re about them or if they’re just concepts floating in my mind.

i suppose the prophet will show me soon enough.

[hours]

“never trust what you think about your life after 9 pm.”

well, i started writing this at 2 AM, but the thoughts have bled into my daylight hours, so do they still count?

does that make this poem null and void, or is it fine as long as i post it during the day?

technically, anything can be after 9 pm if you overthink it enough. when do the late am hours become the early am hours? when is 4 or 5 AM not considered being up late and instead being up early?

[no right]

i have no right to think about them like i do.

not while i cling to her arm so obediently.

but i’m like a dog. i don’t want to sit still in the doghouse. not when i know the humans are warm inside, having fun. if i can’t join them, i want to find my own. wander the neighborhood. meet other dogs. it’d be fine if i came back before they looked for me. but i know with my luck, they’d look out the window as soon as i slink away and they’d chain me up to make sure i don’t leave again. so i sit. i don’t want to be chained, but with the way i behave for them i might as well be.

[bleach]

we recently deep-cleaned all the tile in our house. and almost all of our hard flooring on the bottom floor is tile.

i came home from school one day and was greeted at the door with the powerful-almost-to-the-point-of-painful smell of bleach coming from the kitchen, which is on the other side of the house.

it didn’t leave for a few days. i was smelling it even upstairs. it wouldn’t let me relax; as soon as i tried it was like it would suddenly begin to smell again. sometimes, i swear i still smell it, like it’s waiting behind a corner for me to let down my guard, then it attacks again.

but our kitchen’s clean, and our bathrooms. i may have lost a few nose hairs and probably fried a few olfaction receptors in the process, but it’s done, and it’s clean.

imagine the metaphors you could make with cleaning with bleach.

[horoscope]

you can tell when i’m in love because that’s the only time i check my horoscope so thoroughly.

i let it tell me what i want to hear. or maybe the stars really are aligning for me then. or maybe i’m interpreting it to mean what i want.

i don’t believe in fate or destiny, except when i’m love struck, then i believe that this is the only truth for me, that my life was already written out, that this is how things are meant to be, that i can’t change anything.

you’d think i’d kneel down and pray, like i was raised to do. believe that god has written my life, not whatever constellation was visible when i was born or the phase of the moon over my hometown.

some things are just easier for me to find faith in than others.

[eyes]

i think i would be so much prettier if i didn’t pick at my eyebrows.

i can’t help it anymore. it started as a subconscious habit when i was like 8, and now my hands fly to my face as soon as i need the stimulation. i’ve plucked away almost half of each. i’ve picked up various fidget toys, but i can’t exactly whip them out during a test, nor are they quiet enough to cram in my hoodie pocket.

i fell in love with her without even seeing the bottom half of her face. i looked at her once and i knew she was gonna give my heart trouble as soon as she opened her mouth.

it was something in her eyes, i think. in the way they squint when she smiles and laughs. some glint that catches the light and makes their light colors even prettier.

[bodies]

i think i would be easier to love if i had less of a stomach.

over four years of tough, dedicated, rigorous practice with my team, and it’s never budged. i’ve tried eating good, i’ve tried not eating; the latter becomes more and more enticing every time i glance in the mirror before a shower. i settle for baggy clothes, for hoodies every day, for sweatshirts and jeans at every family gathering, for shirts way too big for me at night. if i don’t see it, i don’t think about it, it doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t exist. i’ve no object permanence.

their whole body is beautiful. from their dark hair to their light eyes to their thin limbs; i think they move gracefully, though perhaps that is just because of their flowy clothes and how quick they move. i think of their body often; how it moves, the way it must feel, their thin frame pressed against my stocky build, whether their hands feel as delicate as they look as they explore. perhaps i should’ve paid more attention when my friend was describing it.

[pleading]

i got all my crystals out, all gathered on my mess of a desk. the first i’ve had since this first one started. the other two i’ve only had since i realized something didn’t feel right.

love. they’re all supposed to help with love. i still can’t say i understand how or why, but it’s something for me to believe in.

i have them laid before me. and i actually fold my hands. i actually bow my head. and i talk.

i do not know if i’m talking to the same God i used to beg to when i was eleven, and i think that was the last time i begged like this.

i beg to the crystals. i beg to the stars. i beg to whatever higher being listens, if there are any at all.

i am begging. i am pleading. i am doing something that is almost praying.

i beg for clarity. i beg for guidance. i beg for help in making the right choices if it comes down to it. i beg for the strength to get through them. i beg for the mercy that if it has to happen, it happens soon, while the fear is fresh.

— needs a title

[trash-slvt]

Wow, this blew up. This was a silly post i made before i'd had my coffee or meds but its a sentiment i've been thinking about a lot recently. ive been reading through the notes and theres way too many to reply to. but they mostly fall into these categories: apollo dodgeball / if you knock on enough doors asking for the devil: I think thats actually a big part of why i made this. Youtube (or any corporation) will do everything it can to make more money. they would implement this in a second if it were both technologically feasible and socially acceptable (or at least, acceptable enough to not cause too much of a backlash). a decade ago, this concept met neither criteria. now its dangerously close to meeting both.

The web was built on a model where the website sends you content and a suggestion of how to render it - to give users the freedom to interact with it however they choose. Since then, there's been a battle between corporations and this principle as they use every trick they can come up with to force you to render the content the way they want you to.

The most effective way that corporations have achieved this is with apps. Paraphrasing Cory Doctorow[1], an app is just a website that its illegal to mess with. So many of the notes are people saying "i wish i could block youtube ads on my phone/smart tv/game console". this is a problem, and a bad sign of what to come.

another thing that makes this concept technologically feasible and socially acceptable in my opinion is face id. Having a camera scan your face automatically before letting you progress has become normal. Its common to put tape over your webcam, but nobody puts tape over their phone camera. Somehow, we've been trained to view it differently. more broadly, I dont think the web is meant to be profitable. The old internet was full of small forums run at a loss fueled by the passion of their creators. When corporations moved in down the road with enough money to drive the forums away and take over, those corporations still didnt turn a profit. and they havent for a decade. Now they're getting desperate and they're going to extract as much as they can from their users to try and recoup those costs. Your outrage over the concept of this is important. Visible backlash to hostile practices works. its important that we all say Fuck That loudly and often. Youtube is adding a five second delay for firefox users: I read about this immediately after making the original post. this is such a brazen move by google. I hope they get in some serious shit for leveraging one monopoly to bolster another but im not familiar enough with international law to know if thats likely.

Regardless, google has been showing their hand lately with so many hostile decisions. Their only leverage is their user base. Don't help them. Switch to firefox. if you need to, you can make firefox pretend to be chrome for specific websites Ads are getting worse / loud ads in asmr videos / pragerU and other evil ads: Ad blocking still works! please use an ad block! install ublock origin! Youtube is working hard break ad blockers but the ublock devs are working harder to keep them working. you just need to update the filter lists every now and then. here's a guide I still want to support creators: Find a way to support them directly! youtube is a notoriously unreliable income source. Check how the creator you want to support would prefer you support them. Chucking them a few bucks once will go a lot further than watching ads.

Piss kink references: Thank you tumblr for being tumblr. A lot of the replies have been pretty heavy so these silly responses have been surprisingly refreshing.

----

I highly recommend Cory doctorow's defcon talk about the state of the web and how we can fix it. it put words to things i'd been feeling for a long time and introduced me to new ways of thinking about some of this stuff. Its linked at the bottom.

Its been wild having this post break containment like this. Tumblr is my place for shouting into the void and im used to most of my original posts not getting much traction (which is fine, or maybe even the point). the concept of over thirty thousand people reading something i wrote is hard to even conceptualize. I wasn't at all prepared for this but its touching that so many people resonated with my anger and frustration.

Okay, i'm going to go outside and remind myself that there is still so much good in the world. Fighting corporations is important but don't forget to also marvel at a cool bug or something to balance it out [1] - DEF CON 31 - An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification - Cory Doctorow [Invidious link] [yt]

[powdermelonkeg]

I’ve seen a lot of lists for “hey, if you’re here from Twitter, here’s what you need to know,” so here's a bit of my own advice.

You’ll learn the culture 100x faster if you follow a few hundred blogs, reblog from them without tacking on anything, and just read what shows up on your dash. Guidelines are great and all, but having to remember a checklist is hard. So, some simple step-by-step instructions:

Personalize your blog Get some picture besides the default as your icon. Doesn’t matter what it is, maybe a meme or something, it just can’t be a geometric shape with a few dots. Also worth noting, you technically CAN use a selfie for your icon, but people will give you weird looks. We more or less don’t do that here (99.99% of the blogs that do this are porn bots). If you can’t decide on an icon/header, etc, then at least put “New here, haven’t figured out the site yet” or something to that effect in your bio. We block blank blogs here, because they’re usually bots.

Pick a fandom and go on a following spree This is the easiest way to fill up your dashboard. Search whatever fandom you want, find artists in that fandom, and follow them. Rinse and repeat as many times as necessary, and your dashboard will be full of things you enjoy. If you’re like me and are constantly refreshing looking for new content at 4am, you’ll need to follow 1000+ blogs. If you’re more interested in searching things than having your dash bring you content, keep it around 100 to 300.

Reblog things without commentary Tumblr is a VERY different culture to Twitter, and if you’ve been on Twitter a long while, you’ll have habits around how you interact with people. The two generally do NOT mix well. I’m sure you’ve seen by now the posts like “reblogs are good, likes are worthless” or “don’t censor things in your tags” or “don’t tag like Twitter.” Genuinely, the best way to speedrun getting used to this place is to reblog things you like without adding onto them, and learning the culture by reading the posts on your dash. Once you’re confident that you know how we do things here, go ahead and sprinkle in some tag rambles or Tumblr memes, but that adjustment time is going to be different for everybody.

Scroll through your dash No, really. If you’re bored, take a tour through the recent posts of the people you’ve followed. You’ll find good artwork, cool stories, funny moments, and everything in between, but most importantly, you’ll start building those habits we regulars on Tumblr learned awhile ago, like which memes are a genuine response (Apollo’s dodgeball and red for color theory, currently) and how people tag things here.

Curate your dash Everyone’s pretty much been screaming it from the top of their lungs, but there is no algorithm here. The dash you have is the one you make from the people you follow. This means that you’re responsible for the company you keep. If you see a post you dislike, unfollow them. If someone’s going on a fandom spree that annoys you, unfollow. Point of view you don’t agree with? Unfollow. You can block for the same reasons, and block liberally. On top of this, you can filter out terms and tags in your settings. This is a link to it on desktop; scroll down and you’ll see an entire section titled “Content you see.” On mobile, you can find it by clicking the little person icon in the bottom right, then the settings wheel in the corner of your blog. From there it’s “General settings,” then scroll down a bit to “Content you see” and click it.

And that’s the easiest way to cozy up in this place.

If you’re worried about things not to do, everyone will give you a different list, but here are a few universal faux pas:

Sending hate Sending hate in the ask box is, unfortunately, something this site is known for, but doing so here tells everyone that can see it that you’re an obsessed child. If you do it on anon, you look even worse, even if you can technically “get away with it.” A mature Tumblr user doesn’t send hate no matter what; they block the user they dislike and move on. If you get hate, block them. Yes, even if they’re on anon. It blocks their IP address from sending you anything on anon, forcing them to use their real username if they actually want anything to get through.

Negative commentary Things along the lines of “I don’t even like this show, but-” are not compliments. They’re very discouraging to artists, and using them makes you look insensitive at best. If you want to convey “I don’t watch this show, but I like this art,” you can start it with “I don’t even go here, but-” instead. And if you want to criticize—don't. Genuinely, do not. It's the easiest way to get people not to like you here; if you don't have something nice to say about an art piece or fanfic, then just don't interact with it.

Censoring sensitive words The “content you see” feature on this site does its job and it does it well! If I, a Tumblr user, dislike the mention of “cleaning supplies,” I will block it. This means any post that contains “cleaning supplies” will be filtered from my dash. What this also means is that if you write it to get around this—for example, “clean*ng suppl*es,” “clea/ning sup/plies,” “cle@n!ng $uppl!es,” and so on, it will not be filtered, and I will have cleaning supplies on my dash despite my precautions. The only time you'll see someone doing this is if they don't want a specific user or term searched: squ/id-ink-per/sonal won't show up if I search my username, ze/lda won't show up in the "zelda" tag for that audience to see, etc. People on this site do not get terminated/shadowbanned for specific words. The closest we have ever gotten to that was when Apple tried to block sensitive content and made it so things like #girl wouldn’t show up on Apple devices. Which was a bug that was then fixed. Believe it or not, our moderation team is actually human, so if you’re terminated, it’s not because of some search-and-destroy program built into the site.

Now, before I go, here are some quality-of-life things to help you more easily use Tumblr’s features.

Only the first five tags on a post are indexed If I tag something #zelda, #loz, #fave mutuals, #ask bee, #worldbuilding, #you have no idea how long i spent on this, #i’m going to bed now then only the bolded tags are going to show up in the search results. Someone searching #i’m going to bed now won’t find my post, because it’s not in those first five tags.

You can change the color scheme of the site You’ll have to do it once on desktop and once on mobile, because the two platforms have different color schemes. On desktop, click the little person icon in the top right, then “Change Palette.” On mobile, tap the person in the bottom right, then settings wheel, “General settings,” “Color palette.” We have a lot more than dark and light mode!

You can insert links without interrupting your text Find whatever link you want to insert first, then highlight the word you want to turn into that link, press the “insert link” button, and paste it in. On desktop, it looks like a little infinity symbol. On mobile, it’s a little chain link icon. It lets you do cool things like this whenever you want.

Text can be colored! On mobile, it’s really, really easy to color text—just highlight what you want and the colors will pop up automatically. On desktop, it’s trickier to do, but we have a lot more options here: In the corner of your post, there’s a little settings wheel. Click that, then change “Rich Text” to “HTML.” Your page is going to look like weird code. This is normal. I recommend coloring text as the LAST thing you do because of this. Go here, type the text you want to color, and pick your colors out, then copy the HTML code at the bottom. Then go here, paste that in the box, and replace the “;” with nothing (I’m serious, nothing; not a blank space, just leave the “with this” box empty). Copy the semicolon-less code, go to the Tumblr post, and paste it in. It’s that easy! Fun fact, you can also do this in your desktop blog description, if you want; that little box is fully HTML-configurable.

And those are my starting tips! Have fun out there!

[thessalian]

Thess vs the Gift of Prophesy

So this morning I wake up to:

Boris Johnson is facing down another fine for breaking lockdown rules. They’re only about £50 a pop where people who broke lockdown rules before were fined hundreds or even thousands of pounds while it was still going on so yeah, fuck that whole mess but at least it’s more proof he broke the law.

Boris Johnson is trying to distract from all this by talking about the idea of refugees and asylum-seekers being sent to fucking Rwanda. Citing “Brexit freedoms” as a reason for them being able to do this and bitching about France being unwilling to ‘take back’ any refugees who came across the Channel in tiny boats. Which means we’re looking at the old punishment system of ‘transportation’, frankly - which is funny because he says both “this is a very considerable deterrent” and “this is a humanitarian solution” in basically the same sentence. Also calling the UK a “beacon of openness and generosity��� despite the government basically doing anything it can to frustrate the asylum process. As I recall, you can claim asylum upon arriving in a country, but Johnson - or Patel, honestly - wants the asylum-seeking process done in some other country and to frustrate the asylum application process so badly that no one will want to come here. Hence “effective deterrent���. I’m not sure where “putting people in the process of claiming asylum on a one-way flight to Rwanda” comes in as “humanitarian”, but...

Oh, yeah, and the government says that “other countries will almost certainly follow suit” with this bullshit. Because apparently we’re “world-beating”. At bullshit, maybe. We’re better on inane, gaslighting bullshit than Trump was at his worst at this point, and we’re a joke on the international stage because of the fucking clown we have in office.

And Elon Musk is making his move on Twitter. From a majority ownership, he’s talking about buying it entirely, saying it “needs to be a private company” and “I will unlock Twitter’s potential”. I barely use my Twitter anyway but if this goes down, I’m deleting my account. Facebook’s bad enough. And, see, I had a feeling this would happen. I seem to recall that he’s not actually the founder of Tesla but just bought the rights to call himself that; and I did joke about him doing that with Twitter. I seem to have been beaned about the head by Apollo on that one.

Another thing where I got beaned by Apollo, which came up more last night honestly, is Wizards of the Coast merging with D&D Beyond. Which effectively means a buy-out. See, I figured that WotC would want to get in on the virtual tabletop model and it’s way better - and cheaper - to start with an already constructed foundation framework. D&D Beyond has everything Wizards of the Coast needs to start - character sheets, dice rollers, paywalled sourcebooks... And for everybody saying that maybe WotC will start giving digital codes with purchase of hard copy sourcebooks the way Pathfinder does? Do not hold your breath; yeah, it would be following in the footsteps of its competitors but when’s the last time WotC did that? They can get away with making people buy the books twice because of their sheer popularity, especially now. And there’s legitimate reasons to have both - hard copy for collectors, digital for convenience - so they’re going to milk everything they can out of it. I predict they’re going to announce a competitor to Roll20 at some point in the not too distant future. Mostly because now that Roll20 has finally finished construction of its much-vaunted dynamic lighting thing, it’s actually got time to fix all the rest of the bullshit wrong with it, so they’re going to want to get in on that before the “Oh, it’s actually good now!” effect kicks off.

Anyway, that’s enough news for right now. I don’t need more dodgeballs upside the head from Apollo. I need the rest of my coffee and the rest of the Korcari Wilds, not necessarily in that order.

[capnsoapy]

#put down the goddamn dodgeball #apollo avert your eyes #if apollo comes for you op i'll be on his heels #apollo better look away with this one #red playground ball pls #apollo #you're trying to summon apollo? #apollo don't look #may apollo avert his gaze #Apollo babes check this one out #my guy you’re in danger of being dodgeballed #Let's see if u got dodge balled #don't get dodge balled #apollo is readying his dodgeball for this one #at least when apollo throws the dodgeball it'll be funny #i really hope apollo doesnt see this one #apollo really winding up the dodgeball for this one #someone get the dodgeball #apollo please dont #op stop doing prophecies we all know how this is apollo's special little website #Can someone have a spray cannister ready in case Apollo shows up? #do not tempt Apollo #Please apollo #no dodgeballs today #apollo is reading this and taking notes #...haven’t seen apollo around lately #im gonna have to beat apollo away with a stick arent i #good lord op watch out for all those dodgeballs #apollo please don't #apollo DONT #.....Apollo… #dodgeball of apollo....please don't.... #please apollo leave this one alone #this is a DODGEBALL FREE ZONE. #apollo etc etc #hope apollo misses with the dodgeball #I better not see a red ball anywhere #I hear that Apollo is taking aim at OP in this very moment #apollo you shut your damn mouth #dear apollo please stay your dodgeball throwing hand #appollo don’t you fucking dare #apollo predict post #op if this became a literal apollo vision… #well lets see if apollo takes a liking to this one #do you WANT Apollo to hit your ass?! #Apollo is looking at this one #apollo don't you dare #i’m so scared of the dodgeball finding this post #apollo about to whack op with a basketball #put that fucking dodgeball down right now #i hope appollo will not look at this post

I think if you want to call something a "———— heritage post" then it needs to be from like, a bygone era of [tumblr]. it can't be a heritage post if it's from a year ago

[space-dog-from-space]

6/12

The Doctor, the Hag, and the AU, or, Bones and the Hallmark Christmas Movie Curse

Every year in December, the Enterprise's senior staff gather to watch 21st century Hallmark Christmas movies. Unfortunately for Bones, he hates Hallmark Christmas movies more than he hates the idea of being spaced. And this year, he is grumpier than usual. Luckily, the Christmas Hag appears and sends Bones on an isekai Hallmark adventure (against his will) to discover the true meaning of Christmas: Spirk.

Chapter 6 - Apollo's Dodgeball

Bones makes up some rumours. Spock gets suspicious. Everything in this universe has a stupid name.

Bones walked down the street, hands stuffed in his pockets, grumbling about the large flakes of snow that were falling - seemingly on purpose - down the back of his jacket.  He had sat around doing nothing all morning and was unhappy about the waste of time, but he didn't want to risk losing track of Spock.  Finally, after hours of waiting, his quarry emerged from his motel room, and Bones tailed him at a distance through the snowy town.  

Not only was it cold and snowy, and not only did he waste precious time that he couldn't afford to lose, but he also had no idea what his plan was.  He was following Spock, but now what?  He hoped he would come up with something soon.

Half a block up the street, oblivious of his follower, Spock stepped into one of the shops.  Bones kept walking, noting that it was the coffee shop, which was aptly named 'The Coffee Shop.'  He walked past and only stopped when he reached the street corner, where he stood casually against the brick siding of the building, watching the door to The Coffee Shop from the corner of his eye.  

He wasn't sure whether Spock would be staying inside for any amount of time, but if he was, Bones didn't want to show up too soon.  He meant to wait twenty minutes before following Spock into the store, but after five minutes he decided that it was too cold to just stand around, and if Spock was just stopping in for a moment he would have been out by now.  

A row of jingle bells jostled when Bones opened the door to The Coffee Shop.  He started to wonder if every business in this town had a make-shift alert system, but instead he changed tactics and wondered if every business in this town was run by his friends, because the aproned barista behind the counter was none other than Uhura.  A quick glance around the room was all it took to locate Spock, who was sitting alone at a small table along the wall, engrossed in some archaic, folding computer.  Bones decided to order a coffee.  It would keep suspicion away from him, and also he was tired as all hell and could use some caffeine.

Uhura turned her attention from cleaning some kind of machine and raised a hand in greeting when he approached the counter.  "Hey there," she said with a friendly smile.  "What can I get for you?"  

"Just a black coffee, thank you," Bones said, deciding that it would probably not be appropriate to get a little extra something added to it when it was only noon.

"Sure thing," Uhura said.  As she rang him up she added, "Haven't seen you around town before.  Passing through?"

Bones nodded.  "Something like that," he answered with a shrug.

She smiled knowingly and gave him a nod.  "Stay or to go?"

"Stay, please."

She passed him a ceramic mug of dark coffee.  "Enjoy," she said.

"Thank you," Bones nodded to her, and chose a spot where he could keep an eye on Spock.  He snagged the daily paper from the modest pile on the magazine rack and sat down, opening it but only pretending to read.  He put it down once in a while to sip at his coffee - damn good coffee, it turned out - and used the opportunity to glance over at Spock and run his eyes over the rest of the room.  He noticed that Spock showed no signs of moving anytime soon.  He also noticed a pair of ancient looking computers at a counter in the corner under a sign that read 'internet.'  Interesting.

He returned to pretend-reading the newspaper, wracking his brain for a course of action.  He knew that time was of the essence, and nothing was more frustrating than not having any semblance of a plan.  With a quiet sigh, he shoved a hand into his pocket to anxiously check the time on the cell phone.  A piece of paper fluttered out of his pocket as he withdrew his hand, and he leaned down to pick it up, flipping it over and seeing that it was the scrap of paper with Jim's phone number written on it.  Suddenly, he had an idea.

"'Scuse me," he asked, approaching Uhura at the counter.  "Could I use one of your computers for a moment?"

"Of course," Uhura said.  "First ten minutes of internet is free."

"Great, thank you."  He gave her a nod before heading to the computers, choosing one and hoping he could figure out how to operate it.

He had a plan, and this time it didn't even involve attempts at vehicular manslaughter.  But he did have to come up with a convincing lie, and that required a little bit of research.  When he finally figured out how to bring up an internet browser, he searched for country clubs in the Smalltown area, hoping that he would be able to deduce which one Jim was supposed to be driving to.  As it turned out, it was easy, since there was only one country club even remotely close to the town.  It was called Big Country Country Club.

"Is nothing named properly in this godforsaken universe?"  Bones muttered under his breath.  He spent a few more minutes clicking links and skimming pages, but didn't find anything that would help enforce his lie, and decided that he just had to hope that Spock would jump on a chance to investigate a random rumour.  He took his chances and left the computers, crossing the shop and sitting in the seat across from Spock without asking if he minded.

Spock's eyes flicked up from his laptop in irritation, and he blinked slowly in recognition.  "Can I help you?"  He asked, not unkindly but clearly unimpressed with the intrusion.

"You'd rather be investigating something important than write a fluff piece about a small-town ice sculpture competition, right?"  He asked, cutting straight to the chase.

"Yes?"  Spock answered hesitantly.

"Have you heard the rumours about the country club just out of town?  The Big Country Country Club?"

"I have not," Spock said, slowly closing his laptop.  "But I'm listening."

"Good, because you're going to want to check this out," Bones said, lowering his voice.  "Apparently, the very wealthy owners of the club are in negotiations to bring a big box store to Smalltown.  You know, the kind that puts small businesses six feet under."

Spock raised an eyebrow.  "Smalltown is nothing without its small businesses.  A store like that would destroy the town as we know it."

"Exactly!"  Bones said, thumping a fist on the table for emphasis, but not too enthusiastically.  He didn't want to draw attention.

Spock's brow furrowed in thought.  "But if it were true, why haven't the townspeople been vocal about their concerns?"  He asked.  "I doubt that they would just stand by and watch their livelihoods be destroyed by some corporate conglomerate."

Bones nodded.  "Well that's another thing.  The negotiations have been under tight wraps, so most people haven't heard a thing about it.  And frankly, the rumours that have gotten out are so lacking for evidence that almost everyone who has heard about it thinks it's a hoax."

Spock hummed.  "So you want me to investigate baseless rumours that, for all I know, you may have made up yourself minutes ago?"  He asked flatly.

Bones struggled to keep his composure.  "I don't want you to do anything," he declared calmly, raising his palms.  "I'm just the messenger."

"Messenger of what, exactly?"

"That there might be something far more interesting going on around here than a stupid ice sculpture competition," Bones said impatiently, rolling his eyes.  "Take it or leave it, I just thought you might want to know."

Spock's jaw tightened as he thought about it for a moment, and Bones could tell by the look on his face that he had been convincing enough.  Spock was never one to pass up a challenge, especially from him.  But then Spock narrowed his eyes at Bones and asked, "Are you the one who tried to set up a meeting with me early this morning on Ingal's street?"

Shit.  "No?"  Bones said, sounding far less confident than he meant to.  

Spock glared at him for a while longer, and Bones thought that he was busted, but eventually Spock sighed.  "Does this town have a taxi service?  I suppose I have the time to do some investigating this afternoon."

Bingo.  "No taxis," Bones said, unsure if that was even correct.  "But I know a guy who's making a delivery there this afternoon," he took out the scrap of paper and slapped it down on the table, pushing it towards Spock with his fingertips.  "He'd be glad to give you a lift."

Spock examined the piece of paper, then regarded Bones with skepticism for a moment.  "Right.  Thank you for this," he said, tucking the paper into his coat.

"Not a problem," Bones said, taking out his cellphone and pretending to check the time.  "I gotta go," he lied, getting up.  "Good luck."

The door jingled again as Bones walked out into the cold air.  It was still snowing.  He walked down the street until he was out of view of the coffee shop window, then stopped to catch his breath and wait for his heartbeat to slow down, muttering grumpily to himself.  "I can't believe that pointy-eared bastard is on to me already."

[raijinhasverybigpecs]

smite high school au (part 1)

part 1 - agni to erlang shen

part 2 - fafnir to odin

part 3 - osiris to zhong kui

notes

the school is a fancy private school with the gods playing a major role as important students and teachers at the school

the gods are not the only employees/students - there are many other students and teachers at the school to fill in the gaps

uniform is like this, but in the emblem colours (i’m too lazy to search up another image, give me a break lmao)

gods have no divine power but keep certain skills, talents and traits that they had with their powers (raijin doesn’t have lightning powers but he’s still good at playing the drums for example)

gods are mostly in human forms and they actually look like people - no super wild claws or fur or any of that shit (aside from cama and baka i think)

just a general note: this isn’t final or anything, and i’d appreciate any feedback or if you wanna add something or change something then please tell me, i’d like everyone’s opinions to be considered :>

roster (part 1: agni - erlang shen)

(short descriptions/headcannons of gods below)

agni - business and science teacher

for the purposes of this au they’ll be twins :>

seen constantly bickering around the school - don’t approach them if they’re having a fight bc they’ll pull you into it

ah muzen cab - groundsman

not much to say, he good at bee i guess

ah puch - science and maths teacher

subject of lots of rumors around the school due to a lack of knowledge about his past

“if you bring raw meat into the 3rd stall in the boys toilets the seat will overflow with blood and that creepy science teacher will show up behind you and kill you”

“hey kids what’s up-”

“HOLY FUCK DON’T KILL ME-”

“i was just gonna say that you did really well on the last maths test and that you should keep up the effort. is there something wrong?”

“oh it’s nothing...... haha......”

wears a bunch of fancy surgeons masks everyday due to an accident that left his face disfigured

anubis, hades, isis, artio, osiris and awilix are the only ones to know about what actually happened

extremely calm all the time, creeps out everyone constantly

strangely close bond with awilix, no one knows why they get on but they do

awilix will have lunch with ah puch at least once per week

amaterasu - student

good at everything, better than you(tm)

student government president

captain of the volleyball team

plays the cello

mutual crush on bellona but the two are incapable of saying that they like each other

anhur - student

head of the debating team

always in control even when he’s not

plays chess with anubis, ganesha and thoth on fridays in the library, students and other teachers like to watch bc it always gets v intense

anubis - history and maths teacher

grumpy old man who won’t take your shit

if he puts you on the spot for doing something wrong you will feel nothing but shame for the rest of the day

runs the debating team

doesn’t understand modern technology, needs a student to help him

ao kuang - business and hpe teacher

always vaguely angry even though he doesn’t mean to come off that way

always angry at wukong, bad gay mess

“so now we’ll split into teams-”

wukong takes a break to drink some water nearby, ends up wetting his shirt as well and winks when he sees ao kuang watching

“sir are you okay”

“it’s too early for this bullshit i can’t”

needs coffee in the morning to run

throws dodgeballs at students who arrive late in his morning hpe classes

aphrodite - student

pretty much always the lead in the stage play with apollo

good at every single arts subject

popular but not in a bitchy way - knows everyone’s names and tries to talk with everyone

head cheerleader, also a good dancer

knows how to throw a hell of a party

apollo - student

theater hoe and band nerd rolled up in a bright orange cheeto package

always annoying

arachne - former teacher

rumours around the school say that athena was jealous of her so she got her fired through her connections with zeus (the principal)

neith is the only one who can talk to her anymore

ares - student

fuck boy

that’s it

nothing else to say

artemis - student

band nerd, and just a nerd in general

still good at sports tho

v good at maths

part of the moon girls club (awilix & chang’e)

artio - english and geography teacher

she’d be a teacher that would die for her students, really nice and patient but if you annoy her she’ll destroy you

has motivational posters on her desk of bears with bad pun captions on them

one of those teachers that is always part of every school event, literally never sick or away

athena – teacher

reliable and respected by teachers and students

teaches lots of different subjects but enjoys teaching her arts subjects the most

very strict but in a good way

hiding darker secrets (see arachne & medusa for more)

awilix – student

on every sporting team, always doing the most at every moment

always puts her hand up, the type to have organised study books with colour coding and everything

remembers everyone’s name, friends with everyone

part of the moon girls club (artemis & chang’e)

special relationship with ah puch

bacchus –  chef

always drunk but no one calls him out on it

helps with the guidance councillors at times

bakasura – spooky rumour

cryptid

rumours always conflict with each other, no one is too sure what’s true or not but everyone can claim that they saw him

bastet - student

dance buddies with bastet, tries to get chang’e to go out more with her and aphrodite

too goddamn flexible, also really good at sport

bellona - student

awkward everywhere but on the sports field

even more awkward when it comes to ama, is a terrible lovesick lesbian

aphrodite always tries to set the pair up but it never works out the way she plans it

teachers always yell at her, there’s a strange bond between her and her teachers

cabrakan – groundsman

him good at dig

camazotz – pet of ah puch

ah puch wanted to demonstrate how animal wings work with a real animal but cama ended up attacking students ah puch just likes having the company of cama so that’s why he brings him to school everyday

ah puch offers cama to those who wanna take him for the night but it never turns out well for those who take him

cerberus - security guards

set of brothers who work as security guards

no one knows what the relationship between hades and them is – are they cousins? friends? lovers??? what is goin on

cernunnos – geography and history teacher

supportive and patient teacher

won’t call you out on talking during class, he’ll just walk up to you and wait for you to be quiet then step away and continue with what he was doing earlier

is busy with everything, half of the time he can’t show up to class bc he’s going to other important education stuffs 

chaac – hpe teacher

the loudest person in the room, always yelling for no reason

makes fun of students at times but he wants them to succeed

chang’e – student

quiet overachiever, probably doing better than you in everything

obviously gets best marks in dance, has won awards and stuff

part of the moon girls club (artemis & awilix), otherwise only friends with bastet, aphro and erlang

chiron – teacher

mainly teaches history and english but often fills in for other teachers

always well dressed and groomed

strict but you’ll probably never get bored in his classes ever

chronos – teacher

just like chiron, teaches every subject aside from hpe and is strict but you won’t get bored in his classes

sarcastic but he cares (deep down somewhere)

cu chulainn - student

one of the popular kids, good at everything and an all around perfect student

everyone has a crush on him and on valentines day he constantly gets roses and chocolates

keeps trying to flirt with erlang but he keeps failing

tries to invite erlang to his wrestling matches but erlang keeps leaving bc he’s really embarassed by how hot cu is

cupid – student

chatterbox, knows all the gossip

oddly enough, good at keeping secrets

close friends with aphro

da ji – unknown

seen a few times around the school with nu wa or zeus, no one knows why

secretly zeus’ lover

discordia – student

good at science, chemistry to be exact

it’s the only thing keeping her in the school – without her skill in science she’d be kicked out

bit of a bitch, pulls pranks on everyone but not on nu wa or artio 

special relationship with nu wa and artio, they lobby for her to stay in the school because they see her potential

erlang shen – student

perfect boy, good at everything

pure, sweet, innocent child that never causes any trouble (he’s a giant nerd ew), friends with everyone

likes cu chulainn but doesn’t know how to say it