#artificial grass for dogs long island | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

charliemwrites · 6 months ago

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Part 1

Finally finished this! I think I put way too much pressure on myself to get this just right and it gave me some major writer's block. Anyway, please enjoy!

Content: Wet dreams, Somnophilia (sort of), Identity Porn, Safe/Sane/Consensual Intimacy (through dreams), Uncomfortable Situation, Pushy/Predatory behavior (brief)

“Bad dreams again?”

Drowsy and sluggish, you blink at your aunt. She’s as sleek and coiffed as always, pressed business attire and shiny hair. Shoulders back, spine straight. A woman people respect and heed without question.

Your mother’s voice whispers in your ear, that lovingly patronizing tone. See how professional she looks, dear? Isn’t that nice?

It’s not Aunt Katie’s fault though. She does look professional, and it is nice. It suits her.

You unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth. “They’re not bad, really. Just… intense.”

She hums, elegant fingers tracing the edge of your borrowed desk. “They can’t be very good if they’re keeping you up.”

You’re tired enough that you almost correct her a second time. The problem is that the dreams are too good. You wake up panting, sweating, halfway to – well. You’re not about to discuss the finer points of a kinky wet dream with your CIA aunt. Besides, it’s silly to get so defensive of something that affects you seemingly negatively.

“Maybe,” you reply, rubbing at your heavy eyes. It feels like you’re trying to look through clear jelly.

“Why don’t you take a break?” Aunt Kate suggests.

You frown, a pang of guilt striking your empty tummy. “No… no, I’m okay. It’s not even lunch yet.”

She smiles at you. The same fond smile she’s always graced you with, on holidays and birthdays, whenever she could escape the secretive walls and red tape to be with family.

“You’re already ahead on paperwork. You’re not a bad employee for getting a little sun.”

Your eyes flick longingly to the door.

Apparently, the government doesn’t believe in things like windows or sunlight. Your little desk is at the very end of a long, half-empty hallway in the middle of a concrete cube and drowning in awful blue fluorescence. You can’t even bring yourself to drag a plant to this crappy little island because you’d feel too guilty putting it through this.

“Okay… maybe just for a few minutes,” you allow.

Her smile widens as she nods for you to follow. “C’mon, I’ll walk you out. I think the dogs will be free for some enrichment.”

Well, that certainly gets you out of your squeaky office chair.

Honey sunlight drizzles over your neck and shoulders, dripping syrupy-slow down your spine. It diffuses through your chest, chasing away the artificial chill of the office. The sleepy haze retreats like frost melting from glass.

You sigh into the fresh air, ignoring the tang of gunpowder lingering on the breeze, and turn your face to the sun. Summer is coming to an end, the heat broken into mellower warmth. There won’t be many days like this left before autumn bites down and shakes the leaves from the trees. A shame you’ll likely waste most of them in your administrative prison.

The dogs stretch out in the grass around you, tongues lolling and eyes bright, keeping you company. A furry bouquet of black and tan in the manicured grass, their ears and tails like stalks to strange plants.

You bury your fingers in Zeus’s coat and get a fuzzy white tummy for your efforts. He’s a young and handsome thing, the newest addition to the K-9 unit, still a bit fluffy around the ears. You try not to think of how that will fade and harden, just like the older dogs in the unit, just like his human counterparts. Just scratch at that itchy spot by his ribs and smile when his hindleg kicks.

Friga stands and stretches on your right side, leaning her shoulder into yours. Then picks her way around the others to sniff at Zeus. Offended by her interruption, he flails onto his stomach and nips at her, one big forepaw thumping the ground.

She goads him into playtime, and you watch with the older pack members as they begin to romp. They tumble and grumble around you, heedless of bumping into any of the others. You laugh, bright and loud—

The back of your neck tingles.

You glance around, not even sure why. Until you see a figure across the field. He’s standing by the track where about two dozen men are jogging. Recruits, you guess. But he’s not observing them or barking orders. No, he’s clearly turned to face you. It’s too far to make out any features, apart from what seems to be an unusual haircut.

You quickly glance away, surreptitiously trying to determine if the man’s attention was on something else that happened to be in your direction. But there’s little else but you and the dogs in this field, the kennels noticeably off to the left.

Then again, someone sitting in the grass with half the K-9 unit is a bit unusual. He’s probably trying to decide if it’s something that needs investigation. You hope it’s not.

Still, you can’t shake the discomfiting sense that he’s looking at you.

You ignore him until it’s time for the dogs to go back - but that prickly feeling of being watched never subsides.

That night, in the guest room of your aunts’ house, the dreams take on new life.

It starts as it always does. A dark room. A lush bed. Silky sheets. Moonlight seeping through blinds like smoke. And him.

He’s behind you. A broad body so solid you’d think he was a wall if not for the heat. It’s so intense this time, like a wildfire raging out of control, crawling from his skin beneath yours. You sense more than feel the big hand around your jaw. Rough fingers clutch at the plush of your thigh. Hot breath fans across the back of your neck, rippling shivers down your spine.

There’s a voice in your ear. No words you can discern, just a thunder-deep rumble with smoky edges. Stubble scrapes the delicate skin of your neck and catches in your hair.

A thick, heavy cock is buried deep inside you, kissing the entrance to your womb. Your pussy twinges a sweet-sharp ache with each deliberate grind of his hips. He’s spreading you open to get as deep as he can, throbbing balls pressed up tight to your sopping entrance.

Your own hands are all but useless. One twists desperately in the sheets, the other clutches at the meaty swell of his ass. Pleasure upends anything like sense or thought, even hazy dream logic. There is just this man fucking you like he owns you, two of his fingers in your drooling mouth, petting your tongue. A ring clicks against your teeth.

“Found you,” he whispers.

You jolt, eyes flying open. The powder blue ceiling of your borrowed room greets you. You’ve kicked the cotton sheets into a tangled mess around your ankles, tiny shirt ridden up your chest. Your panties are soaked.

The taste of metal lingers behind your incisors.

It’s a busy day. For once, you’re free from the confines of your sad little nook. Aunt Kate must have taken pity on your sorry state the day before and has procured busy work. Files that need hand delivery, or physical reports for you to gather. You don’t care if it’s just something to get you out of the office, you relish the stolen moments outside between buildings.

If there’s a downside, it’s the glances you attract. Everything about you projects civilian, despite the access card prominently pinned to the lapel of your blazer. It draws curious once-overs at best and suspicious scans at worst – or speculative appreciation at the very worst. Every time a fresh-faced recruit or overly decorated middle-aged man lingers as you pass, you hear your mother’s voice again.

Don’t you know what those military men are like? Practically animals. I couldn’t possibly let you be exposed to them.

It’s long ingrained to keep your eyes forward, head level, and try to keep your hips from swaying as much as possible. You’re grateful for whatever bit of paperwork you can clutch to your chest, just to hide your figure and have something to do with your hands.

You’re picking up some personnel files from the infirmary, smile brightly at the receptionist as she passes them over. Mallory is only a couple years older than you, and she’s been working here a year already.

“Lunch in the mess today?” she asks, spinning a pen between her fingers.

“As if you even need to ask,” you tease. “Noon?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

She blows you a kiss as you leave, counting the number of files to be sure you have them all. Your eyes skim over one of the names, a white label on the folder fin. “MacTavish, J.” in blocky typewriter font. You shuffle them back into a neat stack and pivot for Aunt Kate’s office.

You’re not in the moonlit bedroom this time. A half-moon grins down from a starry sky, wearing smoky nebulas for lipstick. Beneath you lays cool grass and soft earth, rich and loamy in your heaving lungs. Petals blooming in the dark kiss your overheated skin, little relief for the burn in your veins.

The change in scenery is almost as dizzying as the man between your thighs. Almost.

But it’s not the dew-saturated breeze that muddles your bewildered thoughts. It’s the hot, wet, clever tongue lavishing your drenched pussy. He licks in broad stripes from your aching hole to your throbbing clit, only ever pausing to indulge a slow suck to the bundle of nerves, before resuming that hypnotic circuit.

One thigh is hooked over a wide shoulder, your heel dug into the flexing muscles of a broad back. The other is spread by a big, calloused hand, giving him unfettered access to the softest, neediest parts of you.

You mewl desperately, hand darting down to his bobbing head. Your nails scrape shorn stubble, eliciting a gravelly groan that sends electricity up your tingling spine. It’s nothing compared to the growl you earn when your fingers twist into the longer, soft strands at the top.

For the first time, you’re able to voice more than helpless moans and wanton whimpers.

“Please,” you sob softly, “please.”

You feel him smirking, a wicked curl against your fluttering cunt. Then he focuses the tip of that awful, dexterous tongue on your clit, flicking in purposeful little strokes.

M-A-

“S-so close,” you whine, hips twitching. He pins you flat, pace never faltering.

V-I-

You shudder as your pussy clenches and spasms, finally, finally—

You wake with a sharp sound, head spinning. Your orgasm washes away like the tide, leaving disappointment and exhaustion behind. You nearly scream into your pillow as you press your thighs together. Still half asleep, it even feels like you have beard-burn.

You’re in line at the mess with Mallory, listening to her complain about some rude colonel that just had to share his opinion about her acrylics. She does the best impressions, and you’re grinning and laughing as the two of you shuffle through the options. You’re reaching for a scoop of rice when the conversation behind you catches your attention.

“—came in a couple days ago.”

“The whole squad?”

“With Braveheart himself.”

A snort. “You better not let MacTavish hear you say that. He’ll—”

“Helloooo?” You blink at Mallory, who arches her brows and waves a bagel at you. “Want one?”

“Oh, uh… sure, why not,” you answer.

“Atta girl!” she cheers, tossing it in the toaster. “Carbs for days.”

You giggle but can’t help glancing behind you. The two men have already moved on though. Not that it was any of your business – or anything interesting. You’re not sure why that caught your attention. Men are just loud, you suppose, snatching a couple to-go packets of cream cheese.

As you’re leaving the mess, you happen to glance over your shoulder. A pair of sharp blue eyes catch yours from one of the tables. A group of men, just about to sit. Mallory tugs your shirt to keep you from clipping the doorjamb and you hurry after her.

There’s heat at your back. Not from a body this time, but a fire burning low and hot in a hearth. No, the body is in front of you this time, filling up your watery field of vision. Peachy skin and coarse dark hair, an old scar slashing across a sharp hip, miles of lean muscle.

Not that you have much opportunity to ogle with tears blurring your sight. The fat cock bullying the back of your throat makes it hard to do anything but choke. You dig your nails into a thick thigh and pull back, writhing your tongue along a puffy vein as you go. The leaking head rests on your drenched tongue as you catch your breath. Smoke and leather and musk saturate your lungs, cloud your empty head.

He smells so good; you don’t even like cigars.

A rough thumb caresses your cheek, a silent request for you to continue. You can practically feel the lust-drunk moans vibrating in his chest – so deep, they’re barely audible over the crackling fire.

You hiccup as deep a breath as you can manage and swallow him down again. He’s silky on your tongue, you sigh softly through your nose as the blunt head flirts with your gag reflex. You slacken your jaw despite the ache already crawling into the joint. Even then, your teeth scrape the base a bit, but that only makes him twitch against your soft palate.

“Look here, love.”

Your lashes flutter as you try to focus your gaze, scrolling your eyes up his body. Most of the details are lost either in the haze of desire or the vagary of dreams, but the blue eyes that greet you are sharper than real life.

You jolt back to consciousness with a dry cough, the scent of him still haunting your senses. You stumble to the restroom for water. Don’t even realize that you’re glancing in the mirror over your shoulder, expecting someone to be there, until you realize you’re alone.

Oddly bereft, you trudge back to bed and try to focus on the clean soap smell of your aunts’ detergent.

In moments like this, it’s hard not to blame yourself.

Not because you’ve done anything wrong, or even feel like you have. It’s because the situation is so frustratingly out of your control that it’s almost easier to tell yourself that one decision or another would have avoided this outcome. A sharper response, a frown instead of a smile, a different walking route.

(There’s also your mother’s voice, always. Saying to be smart, to pay attention, to not “put yourself” in a vulnerable position. You silence that voice viciously this time.)

Still, the fact of the matter is, there’s no personal choice you could have made to keep Corporal Callahan from cornering you in this supply closet. You just wanted a box of tissues.

“Look, I know you’re Agent Laswell’s niece, but I don’t see why we can’t go out because of it,” he reasons. As if that’s the reason you’ve been trying to gently dissuade his attempts.

“It’s not that—” you begin, shifting. He’s standing too close, but you refuse to back yourself any deeper into this tiny space. The doorway is right there, he’s just taking up all of it.

“Then just say yes,” he chuckles. His tone is all smooth and easy, meant to be charming maybe? “Just one date, that’s all I’m asking.”

Except you’re not asking, you think with helpless frustration. The sharp words get trapped behind your teeth, cutting up the roof of your mouth. Your heart is beating so hard and loud you can barely hear his “romantic” overtures.

“I’m not really…” You’re not even sure what to say this time; you’ve already told him you’re not looking to date. He’d said some vaguely predatory line about changing your mind.

In the absence of a finished statement, Callahan takes the opportunity to continue cajoling.

“C’mon,” he sing-songs, “I’m not letting you out of there until you say yes.”

You pry your jaw open, about to agree to it just for the sake of getting free. Deal with the fallout later.

There’s a rush of air and suddenly the doorway is empty. You briefly see Callahan against the opposite wall, face blank in unpleasant surprise. Then a big body blocks your view of him. Broad, bunched shoulders and thick thighs. A shock of brunet hair shaved close at the sides and long at the top. Your entire body locks up.

“You come near her again, they won’ stop findin’ pieces of ya, aye?” A growl, low and rough, Scottish accent thick. You shiver.

Callahan stutters something, a few garbled syllables through a strained and winded voice. You think you might hear “captain” in there somewhere. The bigger man shifts, you hear a muffled thump – Callahan hitting the wall again, you think. Then, with seemingly no effort, your savior tosses Callahan to the side like trash. He stumbles, catches himself.

“Away ‘n bile yer heid.”

Callahan flicks one last frightened glance your way then hurries off, proverbial tail tucked between his scrawny legs. You don’t even watch him go, eyes glued to the stranger’s muscular back. He rolls his wide shoulders, cracks his neck, and finally turns.

Familiar blue eyes pin you in place as he steps closer. The scent of cigar smoke and leather teases your nose.

A voice you’ve known for months rumbles in his chest. “Found you.”

Previous | TBC...

Masterlist

#cod #my writing #fanfiction #reader fic #hades and persephone inspired #soulmates #john soap mactavish #captain john mactavish #kate laswell

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homelawncare · 5 months ago

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Let’s unravel why artificial turf might be an excellent solution for Long Island’s blistering summer temperatures and the heat-reflecting properties it brings along.

#artificial grass for pets

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dragonsandwolvesohmy · 2 years ago

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So... I'm having thoughts about a previous post of mine, regarding a Gotham Zoo au. (Gotham Zoo AU)

I see this going two ways; Zoo au happens despite of Batman. (aka, Batman's origins still happen, but doesn't go through with becoming Batman.) or Zoo au happens instead of Batman. (Aka, Bruce never considered being Batman, Zoo happens, no superheroes in this universe kinda thing.)

Let's go with Despite Batman first of all. (Be warned, this is along. So friggin' long. As in 3k +)

Bruce finds out about Damian before Dick's parents fall. There's this small child he's created with Talia, who struggles even more than his father in connecting with people. (perhaps Talia handed him over because Damian is on the spectrum?) He's broody, moody, resentful of being treated like a child, and a bit entitled. and he's not even double digits yet. Bruce, in short, has not one clue what to do with his son.

(Alfred help.)

Bruce finds out Damian likes animals when his grumpy little shadow abandons his side for the first time during a gala, because one of the heiresses brought her new, expensive, pure-bred cat.

It's perhaps the only time Bruce has seen his young son show childish interest in anything. Because cat fluffy.

He brings home a tuxedo cat the next day, freshly adopted from the shelter. This prompts a 'teaching moment, master Bruce' from Alfred, where Bruce tries to explain to Damian why adopting is better than buying from a breeder. In the end, he loads a tablet with a bunch of documentaries and docuseries about animals, habitats, endangered species- what that means, and consequently why and what causes these species to be dispearing- and why 'adopt don't shop' is a good thing. There is also a sorta kinda age-appropriate explanation for inbreeding of dogs and cats, and why Damian's new mixed breed, unknown origin cat might have better health, and live longer.

(The first time Bruce sees Damian cry, it's because of a Sarah Mclachlan commercial. Bruce full-on panics. This is how they adopt Titus from the shelter.)

Bruce is making an effort to Bond with His Child. Volunteering at the shelter sees a surefire way to end up with more adopted animals in his house. Alfred would not forgive him for turning the place into a zoo. Hence they go to the actual zoo.

Gotham Zoo... isn't great. There's a tiger who paces around an island of grass surrounded by cement, a few monkeys in artificial trees behind barred glass, some tropical birds, hyenas, a few tarantulae, some stick bugs, and a large pond of koi as a centerpiece to the zoo. It's small, run-down, the animals are healthy, but clearly not happy.

Damian is dismayed. Bruce is... tired and sad and wondering when the little things like the zoo he remembered so much better with rosy childhood memories became so run down.

Bruce buys the zoo.

Alfred is exasperated.

Damian is delighted. He spends more time with Bruce than ever, childhood joy and excitement and energy at the forefront as he shows Bruce all the bits and pieces he's picked up from documentaries, shows, and reading- all too happy to share his special interest with his father, knowing his ideas would be considered if not used.

That's how it starts.

Animal Welfare, and the zoo, become synonymous with the Wayne name by the time Haly's Cirus rolls into town. Bruce takes Damian to see the circus animals, the way they're trained, and the relationship with their caretakers and trainers. As well as assure Damian they're treated okay, and if they aren't, they'll do something.

(The moment he hears the snap of the rope, he's tucking Damian half under his curled body, covering his ears, desperately wishing he could be doing the same to the boy who seemed larger than life when he was flying through the air just moments ago. now he seems so very small.)

When Bruce adopts Dick, he buys Zitka the elephant from Haly's Circus. It means shipping an elephant across multiple states by the time he tracks down the circus, as well as having a proper habitat built in the slowly improving zoo, and hunting down some good and proper caretakers.

(Damian tries to bond with Dick by showing him his ever-growing collection of animal-related media on his tablet, but the older, grieving boy wants nothing to do with them.)

The first time Bruce takes Dick to the zoo, he's withdrawn the whole time, a little resentful over the 'bonding activity. then Bruce takes him to see the new elephant exhibit.

Dick cries when he sees Zitka, hugging her trunk.

They don't leave for hours.

(Dick hugs Damian when they do return to the manor. He asks about elephant documentaries. Damian is very pleased (smug) to say he has multiple he's willing to share.)

Going to the zoo is an everyday thing after that. Dick teaches the keepers there everything he knows about his beloved elephant, from favorite treats (she loves apples) to tricks he knows how to perform with her. Damian likes watching Dick play with Zitka like Damian plays with Titus.

Bruce ends up taking on more management items from the zoo purely because he's there so often. It's when he's staying late, glaring at the paperwork trying to strongarm him into giving up his tiger despite the old cat no longer being in his prime for breeding, that someone breaks in.

(It's Jason.)

Dick is sleeping in a hammock on the 'safe' (trainers) side of Zitka's enclosure, and he's pretty sure Damian is still religiously taking notes about the dusk activities of their python. Yet... there is a child. A child wearing a too-big red hoodie with tiger ears on the top. It's a hoodie sold in the gift shop downstairs, but this one is worn, old stains and frayed cuffs.

(It was his mothers. She took him to the zoo during one of her better moments, when she was sober, when the Waynes showed their completely redone tiger exhibit. it was no longer grass and cement and a feeding ball. It's trees and rocks and shaded areas of viewing glass, a modest sides piece of a tiger's natural habitat for their boy. He's been so much more lively, happier with space and enrichment and good care, drawing the eye of annoying management wanting to breed a tiger passed his prime because he acts like a kitten now.)

Jason broke in because he remembers there being a display of food by the cashier, and he's more likely to get away with stealing food from a closed zoo than any proper store.

Bruce gives him a packaged sandwich, and a bottle of milk, from the little fridge by the cash register. Then find a tiger-themed backpack among the dusty boxes of merchandise in the back rooms, fills it with water bottles, beef jerky, applesauce squeeze pouches, and 'granola bars' that are more like slightly healthier candy bars. He sneaks a board book called 'The Very Brave Little Lion' and a stuffed tiger in the bottom, despite the kid being older than Damian who 'was well passed the age for such simple things, father'.

It lasts Jason a few days on the streets, but he comes back every day for free kids admission to the zoo. It's safer than wandering the streets, and no one looks twice at the kid reading a library book on the bench. (If it's a board book sometimes, well. That's Jason's business.)

He falls asleep, tucked up against the viewing glass of the tiger enclosure, to be woken by Bruce making the nighttime rounds to see the animals before taking Damian home to go to bed. He takes three sons back to the manor that night.

(Bruce calls Jason his little tiger unironically. Jason allows this with token protests. Tigers led him to his new family, after all. Privately, he thinks it might've been his mom looking down on him. making sure he knew where to go when she was gone.)

Barbara comes to the Waynes by way of a protest. She's protesting zoos; animals shouldn't be entertainment, they should be in their natural habitat, outrage at the treatment of animals, at humanity abusing them for their own gain.

Bruce takes her around the zoo. Shows her the enrichment, the detailed meal plans for each and every animal. The habitats meant to be a piece of natural habitat in the city. The safety measures for both animals and humans. Their conservation efforts, their efforts to raise awareness of habitat loss, climate change, poaching, and more. The way their elephant herd may only be three large, but it's because there's a mother-daughter pair living with Zitka, and elephants grow their herds via family; when the mother or Zitka has babies, the herd will grow. Ideally, they'll have eight or more elephants, but they don't want to cause any upheaval with the current matriarch- no need to stress her or cause fighting with another, mature female wanting to lead the herd- or try to merge more families. If an orphaned elephant needs a home, but can't live in one of the sanctuaries meant to raise, then release orphaned elephants back in the wild, Gotham zoo will gladly take them, assuming the existing herd of three takes to them. Their other animals are solitary by nature. Other than the elephants, they haven't taken in any animals- from the wild, from confiscation with illegal pet trade, from other zoos- instead focusing on making the animals already there has the best life they could. Be it better food, habitats, enrichment, etc. these animals can't be released, so they do the best they can for them.

Then, Bruce takes Barbara to the office. He offers her a job. 'Be our moral compass, you can change the zoo from the inside. Do what's best for the animals. If that means a zoo is the only way that animal will survive, can you handle that?'

She can. She takes the job. She runs that office like she was born to. She likes digging dirt on any animal-related person she comes across. How do other zoos treat their animals? sanctuaries? Is conservation happening or is it breeding for public entertainment? Who's doing what's best for animals, and who needs the full force of animal welfare brought down on them? Turns out having the Gotham Zoo backing you makes animal activism more easily heard.

Barbara wants what's best for animals, no matter what. Sometimes that means human care. Sometimes that means release into the wild. She refuses to give up her values; in the ideal world, all animals would be wild, there would be no more zoos, no more captivity, except for the animals who wouldn't survive in the wild, and even then, it'd be more of a national park/haven situation for animals. That's the ideal- they aren't there yet, but Barbara will do what she can to make this zoo one less problem. One step closer to the idea.

Tim comes on a school field trip and just... never stops. He takes pictures of the animals, of their habitats, of every little detail he could get. The increased security for animal safety- no public getting into enclosures, little chance of someone 'dropping' something in. The plants found all around the world, and the different terrane carefully mimicked to make an animal's space as close to natural habitat as possible. Animals playing, sleeping, exploring, interacting. All of it.

(Poison Ivy keeps growing plans in their zoo, and Bruce has to pay for a lot of corporate clean-up before he gets a meeting with her to ensure she only grows safe plants for their animals, and only ones found in their natural habitats, please. she agrees, but only because the zoo if taking good care of the animal habitat plants, and has a whole program related to turning animal waste into fertilizer, which then goes back into green spaces in Gotham, including the plants at the zoo. They try to grow food for their animals, after all, instead of buying it where they can.)

Tim inadvertently gets photos of Harley Quinn stealing the hyena pair and takes them immediately to Bruce. Bruce gets the hyenas back. The Drakes do not get their son back. The little photographer is theirs, and his photos of the zoo if their number one advertisement strategy. Especially for the Scarlet Macaw flock- two paired birds and their eight collective offspring- which are Tim's favorite animals in the zoo. He loves the bright red of the bird's feathers.

He loves even more when the head keeper of the birds starts training him to train the birds. Dick, by now a full-grown elephant handler/keeper/trainer, is delighted by this kid who starts training brightly colored birds to do tricks for enrichment. Babs is less than pleased. Macaws, despite being kept as pets, are not domesticated animals. However, Tim approaches it more like falconry- these 'tricks' he's teaching aren't meant to be 'cool', they're meant to engage natural, wild behavior, in a safe, regulated way. Babs allows it, but keeps a close eye.

Cas is brought to the Waynes by the Justice League. Bruce has been lowkey funding them since they busted some black market animal trade going on, and arrested a bunch of poachers and people with 'exotic pets'. In turn, sometimes the league calls upon Bruce to find them various animal/habitat/climate experts to help them with something they've encountered. In this case, they encounter an alarming amount of various venomous snakes, being cared for by a mute, terrifyingly lethal girl. Cas gets to fly Air Superman to the zoo, because the league doesn't know what to do with all these snakes other than taking them to the only zoo they know well, and silently instructs reptile keepers on all the snakes. at least until they're put into zoos better equipped for them, or dubbed releasable into the wild by experts.

Cas never leaves, unlike most the snakes. She stays with the Waynes. So does a blind Black Mamba.

Cas is worryingly close to the snake. this never changes, but she reluctantly shifts to protective contact to ensure it's less likely she- or anyone else- will be bit by one of the most venomous snakes in the world.

(Steph walks into the Waynes life one day and never leaves. No one's really sure where she came from, but she's there, and they love her, so they don't care. She works more on the domestic animal side of things, which gets the whole family into ensuring Gotham's animal shelters are up to par with their standard for animal care. She's the Barbara of cats, dogs, ferrets, and other domestic pets. except more likely to bully people into better treatment rather than Babs shaming, throwing the law into their faces to get them shut down, to steadily ruining them in any number of ways.)

Duke comes on as a Veterinarian, intending to work with domestics, but there's an internship at the zoo and he takes it because how could he not? He works with the emperor tamarin monkeys there, and the funky mustache-wearing monkeys convince him to stay with the zoo even after he finished his degree.

Duke is also the one to convince Bruce to expand the zoo. He asks if they can look into expanding their primates via rescues; just keep an eye out to take any in, as the zoo hasn't taken in any animals except the elephants since Bruce bought it.

Bruce says he'll think about it. No chimps, though. Chimps are vicious, Bruce doesn't like them. Too violent, too triggering for him.

Bruce presents him with a family unit of golden lion tamarin rescued from a fire, deemed unreleasable due to various injuries and disabilities. Dick loves the bright golden orange monkeys.

Dick stays with his elephants, but he also gets to start working with rhinos. He loves a rhino named Exxy, who was rescued after poachers almost killed her for her horn. She lived, barely, but her snout is mutilated where her horn used to be. Dick thinks she's beautiful.

His favorite animal will forever be Zitka, however, closely followed by Zitka's baby with an elephant Superman brought to the zoo. Rescued from inhumane treatment in the south, in a privately owned theme park. He's a good bull, a gentle soul to Zitka's brightness, and their baby is precious. Dick stayed in the keeper's side of the elephant habitat most of Zitka's pregnancy and was the first to meet the baby after having been there when they were born. Dick loves them dearly.

(Dick names the baby 'Nightwing')

Jason prepares to beg for Bruce to take in a lion from New York. The male can't stay with the current pride there, having grown to the point he's competing with the pride leader for unrelated females in the pride, and they don't currently have the resources to keep him. Not when it means a new exhibit, plus finding him his own females to form a pride. Jason's tiger was passed his prime before Jason started getting his degree in animal sciences, and eventually, he had to be put down from age-related issues. He's been working with various animals in the park, but he misses working with big cats.

Bruce redoes the whole habitat previously housing Jason's beloved tiger, and soon Gotham Zoo is home to a lion named Rizu. (it means brave. Jason reads him the board book he's kept all this time on the ride from New York to Gotham.)

Tim slowly moves on from only training only red macaws, into raptors, then vultures. He still takes pictures, which are plastered all over the zoo, their advertisements, and sometimes travels to other approved zoos to take photos for them too. He likes his bird, however. They challenge him to challenge them. sometimes they're too smart for their own good. (Yes, he means the crows he's started training to pick up litter in exchange for treats. Don't tell Babs or Steph. They'll murder him.)

Cas gets some snakes back. Black Mama (her blind black mamba) is still her favorite, but she's loving the little group of pancake tortoises Bruce got her. (Green Arrow brought the Gotham zoo a chimp one of his 'not villains' had. Bruce refused to keep the chimp. He reached out to everyone on the approved list to find another place for the chimp- any place- and the only one that would take it would only do so if they took a group of pancake tortoises seized from illegal ownership. Bruce snapped the deal up quickly. No Chimps.)

In other news, completely unrelated, Green Arrow is not allowed in Gotham Zoo.

On the other hand, Black Canary and Wonder Woman are absolutely allowed at the zoo. Why? Because they brought Cass' Rosie to the zoo. Who's Rosie? A 132-pound (60kg) freshwater crocodile.

Rosie is Cas' baby.

Steph deals with all their acquisitions, ensuring their rescues, and works with Babs to get animals released. She still works mostly with domestic animals to ensure they're treated well, but she really likes busting black market, illegal pet trade/animal poaching, and making sure the animals find safe, healthy homes.

She finds Tim a toucan.

Tim loves his toucan. His name is Reed. He don't take no shit from crows and seems to be coordinating their efforts to keep the zoo litter free. (to the alarm of everyone else.)

As for Damian? For now, he's bouncing around working with any animal who needs him that day. He's looking into starting up a petting zoo with Steph, especially wanting to show alpacas and their story of domestication and treatment for wool. While waiting for everything to fall in place, he's working on the education part of the zoo. He's the driving force behind the department; from signage, to field trips, to fundraisers, to research. He wants everyone to know about animals, how they're threatened and could do their part to save them.

(He butts heads with Babs about zoos. He believes zoos, when done right, are great for animals. Babs is of the opinion all wild animals should be wild, no zoos, only sanctuaries when needed. Damian thinks that's unrealistic. They argue this many, many times. They never come to an agreement, nor budge their opinions, just go in circles until they're distracted from fighting.)

Eventually, he'll take over the zoo. Until then, he likes educating people.

...Where's Alfred, you ask? Exasperated his family spends more time in a zoo than at home. When he said the manor was turning into a zoo, he did not mean, go buy a zoo to spend more time in than at home. However, he loves his family, he loves what they're trying to achieve to better animal lives, and better the planet for animal habitats. He's proud of them. (And look, Master Bruce, all the children went to College. and finished. look at that.)

(He dearly loves the little group of penguins Bruce shyly got because they reminded him of Alfred.)

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feralgreenman · 3 years ago

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[This fic was motivated by serendipitous-posts ' Hermitfold AU. When I read their posts about it, it motivated me to start a fic where Dream gets yeeted into Hermitcraft instead. I hope you enjoy the fic!]

As Dream saw the flashing colour vortex around him, he realized that explaining Technoblade how the "revival" book worked was a big mistake (the book was more of a reality bending book with a connection to death, anyway).

He knew what went wrong: Technoblade didn't listen properly as Dream pointed to different parts of the book and explained what they did, he followed the instructions of the wrong passage, and instead of summoning DreamXD to get another wish granted, he casually created a server rift where Dream was standing.

A server rift was a crack in reality that manipulated the world and the void to open a portal to a different server. The void in which the different servers exist wasn't exactly linear, but certain worlds are closer to each other than others. A server rift would either lead to the server currently closest to the server the rift was opened in or it would lead to the closest server with the nearest opened rift. Those rifts were usually pretty unstable unless proper measures were taken to keep them open, so Dream didn't expect an easy way back to his SMP.

The nearest server with stable rifts were the MCC server or the MCC practice server, neither of which were currently available, so he really had no idea where the vortex would take him.

After falling for what felt like an hour or two, the feeling of him hitting the ground was unexpected and extremely painful. The power of the landing forced all the air out of his lungs.

Dream gasped for air as he curled up in pain and misery. Deafening thunder filled his ears as he tried to stabilize his breathing.

In pain he looked up and saw that the patch of grass he was on was not, in fact, in a normal plains biome, or on the ground for that matter. It was held up by a giant spider-like machine that had apparently scooped up a giant part of grass land.

After, he saw the small, sparkling crack that he probably came through, disappear.

Fuck, so much for his last slither of hope for a way back.

Screw it, what the FUCK was going on?

Turning on his stomach, he saw a creeper-like figure flying on a joint of one of the spiders' legs. "Sam-?" Dream started to wonder out loud but no, this wasn't Sam. While both Sam and the other creeper were humanoid looking, this hybrid had half of his face and an arm missing and replaced with metal prosthetics. The man didn't seem to notice Dream, too distracted by the onslaught of thunder that seemed to be originating from the top of the machine and-

Hold on, the creeper-cyborg-man-thing was FLYING?! How did fuck he-? The creeper man looked like he made a few comments to himself while looking to the top of the spider-robot-machine before turning around and flying down again. This time, Dream saw that the wings on the mans back were actually an artificial pair of wings which were capable of holding players in the air. They weren't grown into his back at all. Dream had never seen such a piece of gear before.

He also saw the place not-Sam flew towards: A large group of other people at a beach, many of which also had the wing-contraptions on their back. They seemed rather startled by the thunder machine. "This thing isn't exactly normal on this server either. Thank the fucking void" Dream commented in his mind.

He didn't know where he was, who these people (that could undoubtedly catch him easily if they saw him running away) were or why they decided to open a server rift, but he decided that he wanted to get away from this spot before anyone saw him and quick.

Using the fact that the creeper man and some other cyborg guy with dog ears were, what looked like, explaining the situation to the many confused and slightly scared people, Dream shakily got on his feet, ran as fast as he could and leapt off the edge of the scooped up dirt island.

During the fall he did what he forgot to do before he jumped off the edge with full force: His initial intention was to check how many potatoes he still had to plan for the next day or two but his eyes wandered to his hearts instead. He had 5 hearts. Definitely not enough to survive a fall this far.

It felt like slow motion when he looked down to see the ground approach.

In a moment that felt both like forever and as fast as lightning, he crashed into said ground.

As the blackness and pain of death surrounded him, out of habit he entirely expected to hear a piston, feel the sensation of falling and be soaked in water before he barely registered the respawn in the first place.

Instead, he just felt a hard wooden floor on his back. When his eyes slowly fluttered open, he was inside of a round building made mostly of birch planks.

Before properly looking around or even standing up, Dream saw the chat in the corner of his eyes and after seeing it, his entire body went into panic mode

"↸∷ᒷᔑᒲ ⋮𝙹╎リᒷ↸ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ⊣ᔑᒲᒷ "

"Dream hit the ground too hard whilst trying to escape DreamXD"

The message in enchanting table language was odd but could probably be seen as a glitch on its own.

Message two was technically an ordinary chat message. Sure, it had been a very long time since Dream last died of anything aside from lava or fire, it had been an even longer time since Dream last died of fall damage, but back in the normal days, nothing would be odd about the message.

However, this weren't the normal days anymore. This wasn't even the world these normal days happened in.

This mostly ordinary death message just informed every single player on this very unfamiliar server of his presence.

Whilst in prison, Dream experienced more fear than ever before in his life. Before, that feeling peaked when Quackity first came to visit him and he didn't think anything would even come close to driving this much fear into his body.

Oh how wrong he was. He needed to hide as fast as possible.

(I'm not sure if I want to continue this or not. Please tell me if you want to see more chapters of this!)

#dream smp #dsmp #dreamwastaken #hermitcraft #dream smp x hermitcraft #fan fiction #dsmp fanfic #hermitcraft fanfic #crossover fic #mcyt #hermitcraft x dreamsmp

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punktrsh · 2 years ago

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bold: most frequent, definitely italics: conditional or private cross out: hell. no.

[ FASHION COLORS ] red. crimson. vermilion. tomato. burgundy. brown. tan. beige. ochre. sienna. orange. peach. tangerine. marigold. amber. yellow. citrine. mustard. butter. daffodil. green. lime. mint. emerald. olive. blue. royal blue. teal. navy. sky. purple. lilac. mauve. plum. amethyst. pink. coral. magenta. rose. blush. black. jet. ebony. licorice. bistre. white. ivory. snow. vanilla. champagne. grey. dove grey. charcoal grey. slate. ash. pastels. jewel tones.

[ ELEMENTS ] fire. ice. water. air. earth. rain. snow. wind. moon. stars. sun. heat. cold. steam. frost. lightning. sunlight. moonlight. dawn. dusk. twilight. midnight. sunrise. sunset. dewdrops. fog. wood.

[ BODY ] claws. long fingers. fangs. teeth. wings. tails. lips. bare feet. freckles. bruises. canines. scars. scratches. wounds. burns. spikes. fur. feathers. scales. webs. eyes. hands. sweat. tears. cheekbones. feline. pointed ears. chubby. curvy. short. tall. muscular. slender. trained. piercings. tattoos. strong. weak. struggling. athletic. lithe. curls. long hair.

[ WEAPONS ] fists. sword. dagger. spear. scythe. bow and arrow. hammer. shield. poison. guns. axes. words. throwing axes. whips. knives. throwing knives. pepper sprays. tasers. pistols. machine guns. slingshots. katana. maces. staff. wands. powers. magical items. magic. rocks. mud balls. peace. rifles. cannons. mind.

[ MATERIALS ] gold. silver. platinum. copper. bronze. iron. rust. steel. titanium. diamonds. pearls. rubies. sapphires. emeralds. amethyst. quartz. metals. glass. shell. bone. wood. porcelain. paper. wool. fur. lace. leather. silk. satin. velvet. denim. linen. cotton. charcoal. clay. stone. asphalt. brick. marble. ichor. dust. glitter. blood. dirt. mud. smoke. ash. shadow. carbonate. rubber. vinyl. carbon nanotubes. circuits. vibranium. adamantium.

[ NATURE ] grass. leaves. trees. bark. roses. daisies. tulips. lavender. petals. thorns. seeds. hay. sand. rocks. stream. roots. flowers. ocean. river. meadow. forest. desert. tundra. savanna. rainforest. caves. underwater. coral reef. beach. waves. space. clouds. mountains. woods. hills. highlands. islands.

[ ANIMALS ] lions. tigers. wolves. panthers. eagles. owls. falcons. hawks. vultures. swans. snakes. turtles. ducks. bugs. spiders. songbirds. monkeys. whales. dolphins. fish. sharks. horses. cats. deer. dogs. rabbits. mantises. crows. ravens. parrots. chickens/roosters. mice. jackals. lizards. werewolves. unicorns. pegasus. dragons. foxes. phoenixes. peacocks. coyote. bears.

[ FOODS/DRINKS ] sugar. salt. candy. water. wine. champagne. hard liquor. beer. coffee. tea. soda. spices. herbs. apple. citrus. raspberry. cherry. strawberry. watermelon. vegetables. gingerbread. fruits. meat. fish. pies. desserts. chocolate. cream. caramel. berries. nuts. cinnamon. stew. venison. rice. ambrosia. bread.

[ HOBBIES ] music. art. gardening. smithing. sculpting. painting. sketching. fighting. fencing. riding. writing. composing. cooking. sewing. training. dancing. acting. singing. martial arts. self-defense. technology. swimming. theater. libraries. magazines. piano. violin. cello. guitar. lute. mandolin. bass guitar. harmonica. harp. woodwinds. brass. trumpet. flute. drums. bells. playing cards. poker chips. chess. dice. eating. climbing. running. hiking. stargazing.

[ STYLE ] lingerie. armor. cape. dress. suit. tunic. vest. shirt. boots. barefoot. heels. leggings. trousers. khakis. jeans. skirt. shorts. earrings. necklace. collar. bracelet. ring. pendant. hat. crown. circlet. helmet. scarf. neck tie. brocade. cloaks. corsets. doublet. chest plate. bracers. belt. layers. bandana. sash. coat. jacket. hood. gloves. socks. masks. cowls. bracers. sweaters. watches. glasses. sunglasses. visors. eye contacts. makeup. implant. artificial parts. robes. t-shirts. henleys. athletic shirt. joggers. tennis shoes. cargo pants.

[ MISC ] balloons. bubbles. cityscape. landscape. light. dark. candles. war. peace. money. power. percussion. clocks. photos. mirrors. pets. diary. fairy lights. madness. sanity. sadness. happiness. fatigue. energetic. manipulation. faith. optimism. pessimism. realism. loneliness. family. friends. chronic pain. assistants. somnambulism. co-workers. enemies. loyalty. devotion. smoking. drugs. drinking. kindness. love. hugs. time. questions.

tagged by: @chromatiica tagging: honestly, steal it from me and tag me!!

#⌞ 💀 ⌝ MAIN VERSE ⟶ AESTHETIC ⌜ pints of whiskey cigarettes and outer space. ⌟

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build-a-buddy · 4 years ago

Note

For the lost words blurb- I'd love to hear about PC and Redamancy 💗 -gummibears' main

Redamancy: act of loving in return

@gummibears

TW: Guns, physical violence, swearing.

A/N: this was not actually a good prompt fill - ie relating to the prompt itself - but I’m too pleased with what I did get so I’m posting.

PC, still a little miffed about Moonshine’s disdain with him, gets out of the car, Espeon in his pocket. Alice looks up from where she sits on the island between the front seats.

“Be careful,” she says.

“I will,” says PC.

She nods at him, and he jogs around to the back of the truck, pulling the case haphazard in the truck bed toward him. He opens it, revealing the sword he welded during Operation Leviathan. He takes it out of the case, ignites it - the plasma warms up along the blade.

He shuts the truck bed and walks toward the house. They’re far away from the city now, at a farmhouse on the side of the road miles away from the Beholden’s apartment. The place looks abandoned, sagging grey walls with water damage, boarded up front windows, and a hole in the worn red roof of the barn a hundred yards from the home proper.

Espeon wriggles from PC’s pocket and hops at his side, barely clearing the tall dead grey beige grass with each bound. The grass crunches under his false feet, and he can hear a false heartbeat in his ears.

They reach the porch; Espeon pauses. “I don’t sense anyone in there,” she says after a moment, glow around her felt gem dying as quickly as it came.

“I’ll check here, you go check the barn and come back,” he says.

“Got it,” she says, and begins hopping toward the building in question.

PC finds there is no doorknob, so he pushes a hand against the rotting wooden door; it creaks open, dust swirling around him and shadowy figures of furniture tinted green from the light of the plasma sword as he steps into the dark foyer.

The living room is empty save a coffee table and a ratty couch, and the kitchen when he crosses the floor to stand in its doorway is in disarray, basin dusted and refrigerator missing. There is no sign of anyone living here for a long long time.

“What’s the point of sending us here, then?” he muses out loud as he returns to the living room.

Stairs rise up to a second floor on the left side, and as PC ascends, the flows of the plasma sword lights up the the mark of footsteps in the dust.

It also lights up the sight of blood.

The false heartbeat in him quickens, and he hurries the rest of the way. The blood is spotty, brown, but he still holds his breath as he clears the top step and turns into the hall.

The trail leads to a lone door at the end of the hall, and PC hesitates before reaching for the doorknob.

There’s more blood here, fresh enough that it’s still vaguely red in the green shine of the plasma sword, but not wet when he kneels to touch it. PC glances around, swallowing hard.

The room is empty. Bare white beige walls, wooden floor, spiderwebs in a corner. There’s a small length of rope on the floor near the blood; PC picks it up with his free hand, rubbing it between his fingers. There’s a window, too; he moves to it and stares out into the empty field. At the edge, forest begins.

“Really don’t get it,” he says out loud.

The door slams open behind him. PC spins in the direction of the sound, dropping the rope and bringing the sword up to chest level. He exhales as he sees it’s Espeon who’s rammed her way into the room. She looks as frustrated as he feels.

“Nothing?” he asks. She nods.

“I don’t understand,” he says. “Why make us come all this way...?”

“Could be a trap,” she says.

“Wouldn’t they have sprung it by now?”

She shrugs at him. “M—“

Whatever she was going to say is lost to him as the sound of a sniper rifle cracks through the air, through the window, through PC’s chest.

“Oh, good,” he says after a moment. “I thought we were done with guns. After the whole aliens thing.”

“Where the fuck are they shooting from?” Espeon says, clambering up his body to his shoulder, narrowly avoiding another shot that passes through his Awakening-given arm (no actual injury, just phantom pain and blood).

PC charges down the stairs and out of the house, sword ready, ignoring the feeling of imagined blood pouring out of his chest wound. He can feel Awakening flickering at the edges of the hole, feel it slowly restitching together.

As soon as he rounds the house into the field toward where the gunfire came from, another bullet comes at him, striking him in the abdomen. He swears; Espeon fires a ball of Psionic energy back in the shot’s direction.

Maybe they’re up in a tree, PC thinks.

He reaches the tree line, hunches behind a trunk, both hands now gripping the sword hilt.

Somewhere, a twig snaps.

Espeon leaps from his shoulder at the noise; once he’s sure she’s clear, he swings the sword blindly as multiple series of footsteps come at him—

PC wakes up in darkness.

His limbs are gone, there is only his core pillow self, squished into a space much smaller then he is. The sword is gone. Espeon is gone. The Hoard is not here. The Beholden isn’t either.

He strains to listen, hears nothing.

He strains to see, sees nothing.

“Alice?” he says.

The darkness breathes.

“So it can speak,” a voice answers.

A hand roughly grabs him by the area near his printed ear and lifts and he is brought into bright artificial light. He squints, squirms, feels his chest burn.

A choked noise sounds somewhere and his heart thuds to the ground at it - that’s the Beholden. He can’t see them yet, but that’s them.

Someone grunts, a deep male voice, and the Beholden whimpers.

Anger replaces fear. He blinks furiously to get his vision back.

They’re in a empty room, save the Beholden tied up in a chair at the center, a man standing near them with a baton. A second human is holding PC, fingers digging into the pillow’s self.

“Beholden—“ PC starts.

The Beholden shakes their head at him, and then yelps as the baton smashes against their knee. He glances over them- their eyes are dark, their face is bloodied, their legs are bruised. They look sick and tired.

“Beholden, it’s going—“

“Shut up!” they say, and it’s a cracked crying noise. The man with the baton swings it at their head, and they crumple in the seat.

The man holding him turns PC so he’s looking up into the human’s face. Cold grey eyes, a chiseled jaw, a chipped tooth when the man smiles.

“So the dog toy and the child weren’t lying,” he says.

“The what?”

“Me and Loaf,” groans the Beholden, before another sharp thwack sounds against their skull from the baton holding man, and they go silent.

“Leave them alone!” PC says, and it’s frantic.

“We’re done with them anyway,” says the baton man, and he tucks into a pocket. “It’s you we want.”

“Look, if you need something, you could just—“

The man holding him tightens the grip. “We were going to rule the world,” he says.

“What?”

“The Elders said we would be alongside them,” he continues. “We would be top of ADVENT, and when they were done with this world, we would move on with them to the next.”

“Oh, you’re collaborators,” says PC.

“But you killed them,” the baton man says. He is scowling. “You took that from us. You, who aren’t even a person.”

“You know the Elders aren’t — you know about AVATAR, don’t you?”

“We would be spared,” the man holding him says. “We are useful. Were useful. Are.” The grip tightens even more. “You ruined everything we had.”

“We’re going to get it all back,” baton man says.

“What - the world?”

The men look at each other. “Humans are flawed,” says the one holding you, “but they can provide aid. Refuge. You of all beings understand this too.

His eyes glow purple. The faint projection of a Ethereal rises above him, staring down.

“Shit,” PC says.

“Occupy him,” says the man to his bonded Ethereal. The purple gleam of his eyes blaze—

— and the world shifts just slightly as PC is dropped unceremoniously onto the floor.

He hefts himself up, feeling sick, which is impressive since he doesn’t have the organs to feel much of anything with.

He looks around nervously. They’re in that same empty room with the bright white light, but the men are gone— vanished. The Beholden has been removed from the chair and is slumped against a wall, hands and legs still tied together.

He shuffle hops toward them, manages to conjure a Awakened arm, a hand, and gingerly reaches out to touch them. Their head lolls as he caresses their cheek.

He feels shame burn like the bullet in his chest does still. “Wake up,” he says, although he is not even sure he is awake himself, if this is real, or a trick, or—

The Beholden makes a pitiful moaning noise. He works at the ropes on them, tugs them free, and then lifts their chin with his conjured hand so that they’re facing him.

“Wake up,” he says again. “Please, please, wake up.”

Hazel eyes flicker once, twice; he exhales as their gazes focused unfocuses focuses on him.

“PC,” they mumble, moving their face away. They rub at their wrists and ankles. “You—“

“Don’t talk,” he says. “I think they might have given you a- a concussion or something. Can you see me? I mean, obviously you know I’m here but—“

“You’re too ... loud,” the Beholden says, sounding woozy, and then collapses forward onto him. He lets himself deflate a little under their weight.

“Are you ok?” he asks. “What did they do to you?”

“Chosen bullshit,” they say.

He frowns. “That’s from the expansion,” he says. “That came out after the base game of XCOM 2.”

“The Elder’s Chosen,” the Beholden says, as if they are repeating something they’ve heard. “They... they’re psionic. They can do brain stuff. To your brain. Oh my god I want to sleep.”

“Did they do... brain stuff to you?”

They nod.

PC feels his eyes prickling with false tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t fast enough. I —“

“‘S okay,” the Beholden says. “I don’t think those guys are Chosen. I mean, maybe they’re analogous, but I think they’re just hosting.”

A pause. “You’re hosting too. I’m not really talking to a pillow... I’m talking to an Ethereal instead, right? Right...”

“No,” PC says.

“Hmm,” the Beholden answers. “I’m not used to audibly hearing objects but I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

“We’ve always been like this,” he says. “We just kept it secret.”

“Like Toy Story?

“Exactly.”

The Beholden exhales into the back of his head. “Can I nap on you? You’re comfortable and they’ve keep me awake for a really long time.”

Every part of him wants to say no, wants to make them both get up and start walking around and trying to figure out if this is even reality but...

“Sure, Beholden,” he says, and feels a thrill as they work an arm around him for added comfort. “We can sit here and rest for a while.”

#buddy posts #asks #writing tag

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wintershieldedheart · 3 years ago

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Bold what best applies to your characters.

[ COLORS ] red. crimson. vermilion. tomato. burgundy. brown. tan. beige. ochre. sienna. orange. peach. tangerine. marigold. amber. yellow. citrine. mustard. butter. daffodil. green. lime. mint. emerald. olive. blue. royal blue. teal. navy. sky. purple. lilac. mauve. plum. amethyst. pink. coral. magenta. rose. blush. black. jet. ebony. licorice. bistre. white. ivory. snow. vanilla. champagne. grey. dove grey. charcoal grey. slate. ash. pastels. jewel tones.

[ ANIMALS ] lions. tigers. wolves. panthers. eagles. owls. falcons. hawks. vultures. swans. snakes. turtles. ducks. bugs. spiders. songbirds. whales. dolphins. fish. sharks. horses. cats. deer. dogs. rabbits. mantises. crows. ravens. mice. jackals. lizards. werewolves. unicorns. pegasus. dragons. foxes. phoenixes. peacocks. coyote. bears.

[ FOODS/DRINKS ] sugar. salt. candy. wine. champagne. hard liquor. beer. coffee. tea. soda. spices. herbs. apple. citrus. raspberry. cherry. strawberry. watermelon. vegetables. gingerbread. fruits. meat. fish. pies. desserts. chocolate. cream. caramel. berries. nuts. cinnamon. stew. venison. rice. ambrosia. bread.

#( about margot. )#( there is stardust in her eyes | dash games. )

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bogleech · 5 years ago

Text

Okay here’s the whole entire text of my original pokemon gen concept under a cut (sorry if that screws you up on mobile)

I’ve only ever sketched a tiny number of these (like my fly ideas here), but I can see most of them in my head pretty clearly and might sketch more of them by request someday. I originally set my fan-region in Florida, a place I hated living but still had a lot of interesting characteristics. This changed over once I moved to Oregon, and the thing about Oregon is that it has desert, forest, swamp, coastline and frozen mountaintops that are all pretty vast, ancient and in places relatively untouched compared to the rest of North America. This is not only a perfect setting for some really wild pokemon, but makes a believable choice because our Pacific Northwest is pretty popular in Japan.

The different biomes of this region have "deep" areas where the pokemon change. Some also have "polluted" areas. The region is environmentally themed and heavily deals with human interference on the natural world.

The villains are Team Bio, genetic engineerers lead by a mysterious old woman who narrowly survived the original Mewtwo experiment. Her underlings all use "mutant" pokemon, and she seeks to create a new species of hyper-intelligent, pure-hearted pokemon that will replace humans entirely. Along the way is a strange increase in reports of interstellar pokemon activity... I actually tried hard to minimize how many pokemon in this are just “my kind” of concept, but I think I failed pretty hard. It probably does feel like it leans a little more towards Mortasheen than something Pokemon would actually make, but for basically every pokemon that’s one of my “dream concepts” or “most wanted” I tried to come up with one that I thought would appeal more to somebody else’s taste than mine.

THE STARTERS

Grass Starter: a grass "lumberjack" pterosaur with an axe for a beak. Second stage has more saw-like beak, final stage is a grass/steel quetzalcoatlus (the pterosaur) with a beak and crest forming a chainsaw, no longer flies

Fire type calf whose black cow marks are actually soot. Evolves into cow with craggy black “helmet” and horns of charcoal. Final stage a charcoal-armored minotaur like fire/ground type.

Water Starter is a beady-eyed water shrew with big webbed flipper feet, known to steal shiny objects. Second stage more humanoid, said to dive for treasure. Final stage is water/dark lanky, stripey shrew with a black mask, said to rob boats like a “highwayman” of the river.

Meadows and forest:

Normal type mammal is a spherical porcupine, like a chestnut. Rubs its spines with noxious fruit juices, giving it a multicolored look. Evolved form is a colorful “punk” porcupine.

Early bug is a sticklike inchworm Evolves to cocoon resembling a wooden log on top. Final form is bipedal stick mimic grasshopper, evocative of a cute wooden puppet with a pointed nose.

Basic bird is a hummingbird Evolves to be four-winged and legless, never lands in its whole life. Final hummingbird is a fierce looking hunter that drains energy from grass types like a predator.

Grass type walking bud creature, looks nervous. Evolves to grass/flying orchid-like angelic flower. Alternate evolution is wilted, grey, grass/ghost goth orchid with tattered petals, cute but sad. (evolves this way if it levels up after a battle in which it sustained super-effective damage)

Ground type earthworm sticking out of dirt, cute flower-shaped head. Evolved worm looks like shark sticking out of the dirt, nose looks like its prevo

Electric/dark pikachu-like packrat holding a large coin. Electrically charges its treasure as a booby trap. Actually said to be employed as underlings by the water-type shrew starter.

MISCELLANY:

Bug/poison type grub with fangs. Only encountered in garbage cans. Evolves into a fly pupa Final stage is a gloomy looking, drooling anthropomorphic fly.

Single stage bug/fairy type: a beautiful Maleficent-looking parasitoid wasp. Evolves from any cocoon/pupa pokemon if they're holding a "suspicious egg" item.

Ocean

Water/grass nudibranch with flower on its back. Evolves to a glaucus, each "arm" a colorful flower that absorbs sunlight as it floats.

Water type fish that "sails" on the sea's surface with its fins. Sleepy looking stingray evolution. Final form is water/dragon deep sea fish, combines some traits of anglerfish and viperfish with eyes on stalks. Only evolves from stingray when you're in the sea trench.

Water/flying marlin with huge, dazzling butterfly like fins.

Water type baby dolphin, fuzzy like a seal pup, only evolves if it has fainted more times than the number of its current level. Evolved form is water/dark, shaggy-furred, fierce looking, battle scarred dolphin with legs instead of flippers, a throwback to the doglike ancestors of delphinidae.

Polluted inlet

Water/poison oil slick with two tentacles and beady white eyes, signature ability changes it to water/fire type if it uses a fire move. Evolved form is an oil slick rising into a cartoon octopus with x's for pupils.

Water/steel fish hook with tiny head and eyes, like a barbed metal worm. Water/steel fishing jig, googly eyes and everything.

Barren Island - just a very big rock in the middle of the inlet

Ghost/poison: a greenish "dodo bird" with a face like a biohazard mask, the ghost of a species that went exinct due to sickness.

Sea Trench

Water/fire bristleworm "snake" Water/fire tube worm "dragon"

Water/ghost wailord skeleton draped in pink fuzz and a garden of one-eyed bone worms.

Swamp

Electric/flying bird resembling a lightbulb kiwi. Evolved form resembling a neon light lawn flamingo.

Grass/fairy giant sloth with sleepy face, completely covered in shaggy moss with various flowers and mushrooms. Protector of the swamp, able to control plant life.

Grass/psychic sundew, just a pair of sundew leaves atop a sleepy looking oddish-esque bulb. Evolved sundew is mostly a big circular sundew rosette, but a humanoid flower rotates in the center like a music box to lure prey.

Water/fighting borzoi pup with long legs, acts like a water strider. Evolved form is an elongated, elegant borzoi "ballerina" that dances atop water

Water/ground red leech slightly evocative of a vacuum cleaner. A healer that sucks poison from the body instead of blood. May mysteriously appear in your team after walking through swamp water.

Deep Forest:

Grass/ground banana slug with colorful mold spots, learns spore. Evolves into mold splotched, brown banana peel creature, more like a big squid.

Grass/dark autumn leaf in the shape of a bat, has levitate. Evolved form redder, bigger "vampire cape" leaf-bat.

Psychic/ghost cheshire cat with Meowth-like proportions, bright crescent smile. Evolved form just huge smile and cat eyes hovering in the air, beastly cat body fading into view only for physical attacks or when struck.

Rock type humanoid made of transparent amber with a strange mayfly-like bug sleeping inside. Outer body can "break" at low HP and release faster, more offensive pure bug form.

Rock: incredibly huge, stony looking moose with long white fur draped over its eyes and back. Comes in size variations like Pumpkaboo line and said to never stop growing. A truly titanic one is used as transportation through the deep forest.

Snowy patches

Bug/ice velvet worm that spews a freezing liquid. Silly looking, almost like wiggler from mario.

Ice/flying fluffy white bird resembling a tiny Japanese style snowman. Evolves to resemble western style snowman with clawed bird feet, pointed beak nose. A flightless pure ice mountain dweller.

Electric/ice with levitate: a crystalline "UFO" sky-jellyfish with many colorful lights, core body looks like a cute pikmin-esque "alien" inside. Catch by fishing off of ledges into the sky. Mistaken by locals for alien activity.

Lava Tube Caves

Psychic type bipedal pink salamander with no eyes. Evolves into beautiful milotic-like psychic/dragon blind olm.

Rock/fighting spearhead with feet, eyes are just round holes through blade. Evolves to gain a stick-figure sort of body.

Abandoned town

Normal/bug filthy dog, a shaggy pile of fur with goofy eyes and pink tongue. Little black specks jump about it. Ability changes normal moves to bug moves. Evolved form more obviously a dog but still very shaggy, surrounded by constant cloud of black specks.

Grass/electric "christmas tree" made of holly and lights. Found in a burned down house, glowing eyes peer out from beneath it.

Ghost: has a colorful quilt for a body and a pincushion for a head. Found inside houses.

Garbage dump - accessible through abandoned town, possibly what drove people away (includes piles of toys you may investigate to encounter a banette, mimikyu or klefki)

Water/poison: cartoony fish with blank eyes and humanoid pair of legs. Fish for in toxic green garbage pools. Evolves into ground/poison skeleton fish with four limbs, walking like a lizard.

Steel/bug rusty orange silverfish. Eats junk metal. Evolved form so big it wears a rusty car for protection with just its legs and feelers sticking out.

MICROPOKEMON - enlarged artificially in a laboratory where you can also take your fossils.

Bug/fighting flea - spiny black flea with big jagged white teeth. Create from the "pest sample" an item carried randomly by the normal/bug dog.

Poison/fairy germ - fuzzy multicolored mold ball with eyes, stalked suckers. Retrieve "germ sample" from the dodo ghost.

Water/fairy tardigrade - transparent, cute bug stylized almost like a "gummy bear." Retrieve "dew sample" from moss sloth.

Pseudolegendary:

Rock type baby gargoyle creature. Evolves to winged gargoyle with levitate and a few mossy patches. Final form is an elegant griffon-like rock/dragon with an elaborately carved surface

SPACE ARK DRAGON This location is itself a dragon/fairy legendary pokemon so massive you can enter its body. It exists to collect and preserve species from dying worlds. Most common wild pokemon inside is duosion and sometimes Reuniclus. You can also collect "gene samples" from crystalline pods to replicate the ultrabeasts in the same lab you enlarge the microbes and resurrect fossils.

Bug/dark parasitic alien, a little like weird yellow plant suckered to the ground, red flower-like head with an eye on each petal ala the yokai parasite, gyochu.

Bug/dark parasitic alien, a colorful worm with cute eyes and beautiful mothlike wings, a little like the yokai parasite koshi-no-mushi.

Bug/dark parasitic alien, a pale, red and white striped "lizard" with six spindly limbs and a tubular proboscis, inspired by the yokai parasite kagemushi.

Fairy type alien medic, looks like a cute flatwoods monster with heart motif and nurse coat. Flees from all battles unless you have defeated at least one of each of the parasites.

LEGENDARIES:

Dragon/electric: the ark dragon's smaller offspring, looks like an electronic space whale.

Dragon/steel, menacing, sleek black starship creature. Rival to the ark dragon, a "world reaper" that attempts to destroy planets that it thinks are already dying.

Psychic/fairy little white, fluffy mothman-like being, an observer that casts judgment on suffering worlds to call one of the dragons (version based)

Normal type legendary is the most human-like pokemon we've ever seen, a serene floating figure with long hair and black, almond-shaped eyes. A genetic experiment to supplant humans.

Electric/fighting: a hulking humanoid beast, almost frankensteinian with asymmetrical features, a failed early experiment.

A "glitched and scrambled" two dimensional pokemon. The result of the earliest known experiments in digital pokemon transfer. Actually literally typeless.

POISON FUSIONS created in the garbage dump:

Weezodor - poison/flying - Garbodor/weezing hybrid, like a jellyfish bag with smog tentacles.

Mukking - poison/water - Weezing/muk hybrid, like a koffing with slime appendages.

Garmuk - poison/ground - Muk/garbodor hybrid, like a giant slug made of trash.

MUTANT POKEMON: mutations of classic first-stage pokemon into creatures slightly tougher than even their original final stages.

Mutant Caterpie - bug/dragon - huge, dragonlike Caterpie with more menacing eyespots, clawed limbs.

Mutant Paras - pure grass - giant paras with far more mushrooms of different colors, body pure white with no mouth and white sphere eyes, actually made only of fungus.

Mutant Venonat - bug/dark - same old venonat with a big shaggy monster body

Mutant Zubat - Psychic - somewhat larger than crobat, has actual legs and a pair of clawed arms instead of wings. Much bigger ears.

Mutant Voltorb - electric/steel - a Voltorb even bigger than Electrode, otherwise looks normal besides angrier yellow eyes...until it splits open to reveal sharp teeth.

Mutant Tangela - grass/fairy - more like its scrapped Gen II evolution but perhaps a lot taller, with two very very long arms.

Mutant Geodude - rock/fighting - HUGE spiky arms and hands but head/body are the same as always.

Mutant Shellder - water/steel - it's the spiraly slowbro one!

Mutant Exeggcute - psychic/poison - bigger and more plentiful but "rotten" looking eggs with gloomier eyes and dark purple goo.

Mutant Eevee - normal - bigger than any of the eeveelutions, shaggy and beastly with the "camouflage" ability. Learns strong attacks of every eevee evolution type.

Mutant Doduo - fighting type with only one head

Mutant Luvdisc - the only one based on a non-evolving pokemon. Angry "broken heart" Luvdisc with record offensive stats for the series, but even worse defenses than regular luvdisc.

Mutant Trapinch - dragon/bug - giant turtle-like Trapinch, redder, spiny, second mouth inside jaws.

Mutant Dratini - dragon/fairy - huge long dratini with longer feathery wing ears, identical wings down body.

Mutant Larvitar - dragon/dark - big, armored green reptile, still has larvitar type head with craggier, meaner horn.

Mutant Bagon - dragon - huge, more t-rex proportioned bagon, spiked shell on head.

Mutant Deino - bigger and shaggier with a ring of five long-necked deino heads

Mutant Gible - dragon/fighting - only usually seen as a huge sharky fin sticking out of the ground. When it emerges, its body isn't much bigger than regular gible.

Mutant Goomy - psychic/dragon - giant goomy with gaping mouth, antennae are much longer, green and stripey.

Mutant Jangmo-o - dragon/steel - same old head but more ankylosaur-like big body, entirely a dark iron color with more pitted looking scales.

ENVIRONMENTAL VARIATIONS no mechanical or typing difference, but new color schemes and decorations on existing pokemon, totally an aesthetic change. Have their own shiny forms.

SEA TRENCH FORMS: Entirely pale pink golisopod line with closed eyes transparent red tentacool line with darker red nodules dark maroon inkay line with blue lights red and purple feebas line

CAVE FORMS: White, eyeless venipede line White, eyeless magikarp line

DEEP SWAMP FORMS: crocodile-green Sandile line with lily pad on head black shelled "freshwater" shellder line with green algae growths pure red and purple colored bellsprout line

DEEP FOREST FORMS: braviary with more hawklike colors foongus line with no pokeball pattern...the original foongus? wolf-spider colored joltik line

POLLUTED INLET FORMS: Dewpider line with all black body and limbs, yellow glowing eyes in dirty green water Grey wailmer line draped in red algae, clumps of barnacles (presumably degenerated binacle) Wingull line with grey and black oil-splotched feathers, tin can on head

GARBAGE DUMP FORMS: Bounsweet line with only grey, brown and black colors, dark spoiled looking splotches Black bag trubbish line with green trash, copper colored pipes Rusted looking klink line, rotates only once every few seconds.

----------GYM LEADERS -------------- In this region the gyms are dual type, and bring back past mechanics and gimmicks as their focus.

flying/normal: a blind, wheelchair-bound old man who specializes in dog and bird pokemon. Uses a baton pass team.

Steel/electric: an astronaut commanding his gym by remote feed from the station. Uses Magnezone, Rotom forms and, surprisingly, a random steel or electric ultrabeast.

Poison/bug: a germophobic lady scientist ironically obsessed with pollution pokemon, always wearing a biohazard suit. Has weezing, garbodor, the fly pokemon and Yanmega. Uses Z-moves, but it's random whether she uses a bug or poison one and on which pokemon.

Dark/fire: an elderly biker lady. Has no gym and in fact roams around the region. Surprisingly challenges you to a third-gen style beauty contest with her frightening selection of pokemon.

Grass/fairy: witchy pharmacist and botanist who lives out in the woods, all of her grass types are mushroom based. Unusually has you team up with her in a double battle against a random pokemon of unusual size and strength, like Alola's totem pokemon.

Ground/fighting: an extremely frail little nerdy guy who likes amazingly fearsome pokemon, hates bullies but kind of is one. Makes you face a horde battle with all of his pokemon vs. only one of yours at a time.

Dragon/rock: a boisterous monster movie director who dresses his pokemon in costumes, gym is a cardboard city. Uses a dynamaxed pokemon.

Ghost/psychic: a horror author, Vincent Price like, lives in a mansion and makes visitors face scenes from his books. Instead of a single battle, he has you face a series of singular mega pokemon behind each "scene." THE LABORATORY This location is of course secretly associated with the villain team, but you can free it up from them in the endgame. Here you can make fossil pokemon, micropokemon, regional forms from past generations, ultrabeasts and even mega stones, but all require you to spend one or more “gene crystals.” You’re handed a number of these through the storyline but it would be very challenging to farm more than that (think Gen 7 bottlecaps). Spending more crystals at the lab would allow you to finally alter abilities, natures and IV’s at a whim, and for an exceptional cost you could upgrade the BASE stats of any L100 pokemon permanently. This is a percentage increase applied across the board to all of its stats at once, and stops at either 100 total points beyond their normal limits, or a final base stat total of 530 (equivalent to a fully evolved starter) MISC STUFF:

Your mom this gen asks you if you hope to have an easy, challenging, or very challenging adventure. You can return to her at any time to adjust the difficulty again.

When you beat the game, you can make a custom trainer for online battles using the models of other NPC trainer types, i.e. you can finally be a swimmer/scientist/grunt/etc. You can unlock some popular ones from past generations.

You can select one pokemon as your main partner, which not only has it following you, but involves it a little more in the storyline (special events based on its first typing) and gives it some in-game perks.

A special item attached to any one of your pokemon allows your whole team to “share strength,” meaning that their weaknesses are mitigated for each teammate they share a type with. This allows for type-themed teams to be more viable but wouldn’t completely eliminate their weaknesses, and the effect diminishes proportionately for every pokemon that faints.

You can designate a seventh pokemon to be your “team mascot,” a non-combat role with different effects depending on species/type.

A single team can have either the mascot, a z-move, a dynamax/gigantamax form or a mega, cannot mix these.

Legendary pokemon now suffer a stat nerf for every other legendary pokemon on the same team. A team of six legendaries would actually be somewhat below-average in stats.

#pokemon #fakemon

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unholyhelbig · 5 years ago

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Part Two of the lifeguard/ blood moon thing? I like that universe

Read on Ao3 | Send me more Legacies Prompts!

Title: Uncharted Waters [P2]

Ship: Hope Mikaelson/ Lizzie Saltzman

(Read Part one here)

Electronic music hissed and pounded, the windows of the small house shaking with the tempo. Lizzie couldn’t bring herself to exit the car. Not with the group of people crowded on the front step, taking easy gulps of whatever cheap alcohol filled red plastic cups. With each wary glance towards the Chevy, she tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

Josie reached across her in a fluid motion, turning the key until the engine didn’t purr anymore. “People wouldn’t be staring if you turned off your headlights.”

“They’re staring because I almost let a kid drown.”

Lizzie kept her eyes forward. She was sure that she had the license plate of the car parked in front of them memorized. WTV-2869. It was an obnoxious shade of yellow that had once been white- Virginia is for Lovers, it read, but she wasn’t feeling any of it.

Kaleb was accustomed to throwing the end of the summer parties filled with alcohol and at least three bad decisions. It was a celebration of a good season and a flaunt of money that each of them had struggled to save up over the past three and a half months of being crammed in hot plastic chairs and mopping up fluids no one wanted to identify, not fully.

“That was almost a week ago, Lizzie.” Josie’s voice was tender and her fingers traced the seatbelt across her chest. She wanted to unclip it and pad up the front steps until she ran into the other girls that worked at the snack shack. All of them smelled like fried dough and artificial cheese but Lizzie never mentioned it. “I’m not saying you should get over it, it’s scary, I know. But no one else is holding it against you.”

Lizzie scrunched up her nose “Hope Mikaelson is, even though I apologized and thanked her for saving my ass.”

She finally conceded after a pointed glare from her twin, because yes, she had been talking about it non-stop for the past couple of days. Lizzie couldn’t shake the odd feeling she got when they walked past each other at the park or ended up being the last two in the locker room again.

The auburn-haired girl had switched all of her shifts to early mornings and refused to make eye contact. Lizzie had the deep and running feeling that Hope Mikaelson was avoiding her like the black death- and the only explanation she could conjure up was a fit of running anger from her own lack of awareness when manning the wave pool.

Both girls exited the powder blue car and breathed in the last summer breeze the season had to offer. There was a hint of autumn in the air that made her want to fold into herself with a good book. The grass vibrated with the sound of the latest pop song, neon lights flashing against the dirty windows. Kaleb knew how to throw a party, and a small part of her admitted that.

Lizzie stopped short of the drive and blinked up at the blanket of stars. The moon, she had noticed, was finally at its full peak. It shone bright like a crimson ornament in the sky, hung expertly on the best branch.

“It’s kind of cool isn’t it?” Josie smiled softly, craning her neck “And spooky.”

Lizzie tore her gaze away and growled “I wish people would stop saying that. Come on, if I absolutely have to be here, I can’t do it sober.”

And maybe Josie was right; she didn’t’ feel the looming eyes of her coworkers prosecuting her for her mistakes. No one even dared a glance at the two of them, not right away. MG stood against the mantel with his own cup of mystery liquor, and he gave a slight dazzling wave.

The pungent scent of weed leaked from the upstairs floor and greasy pizza littered the granite countertops in the kitchen. A few lifeguards loitered by the fridge, laughing quietly about the Polaroid’s tacked up with alphabet magnets.

Lizzie wandered over to one of the counters and fished through the ice bucket filled with alcoholic lemonade and bud light. She opted for the off-silver can, pushing off the extra ice and water. She was content with a slight buzz and staying to herself in the corner, Josie rushed off once she found her usual shift leaders crowded around a table converted for beer pong.

Jed was lingering at the edge of his pack of friends, hand wrapped around a glass bottle and eyes flashing towards her every once and a while. Lizzie pretended not to notice and instead started to scroll through her camera roll like it was something more engaging, setting the nearly empty can on the counter.

“Hi Liz,” He had moved closer, smelling of aftershave and sweat and whatever masculine scent his car had adopted. “I didn’t think you would show.”

Lizzie snapped her gaze up and shoved her phone in her pocket. “And why wouldn’t I?”

“You nearly let a kid die?” Kelsey had pushed herself close to the island in the middle of the kitchen, running a hand through dirty blonde hair that threatened to be greasy. She lifted the oil-stained lid of a pizza box before frowning and letting it fall back down. “I’m sure a party beats a jail cell.”

“Oh well, it’s never too late.”

She shoved herself from the counter, fully intent on joining MG next to the fireplace. Even if she did just stand there and listen to his off-handed conversation about who would best win in a fight between Superman and the Green Lantern. Jed took a step to block her path, giving a wolfish grin.

“Okay, Jockstrap, maybe you should get out of my way.” She knew her voice had gotten darker with the amount of patience she had left. People had never classified her as friendly, especially when she had a saint for a sister, but she had adopted the persona of intimidating.

Kelsey laughed, taking a long gulp of her own drink, “Sweetheart, we just want to know how on earth you even passed your entrance exam?”

Lizzie felt her nails dig into the palm of her hand because she knew she was a damn good lifeguard. She was human and she made mistakes, never had it been one that dire before and her mind was still grasping at that. She had studied for weeks and passed with flying colors- but she wasn’t about to give Jed or his little lackey the satisfaction of her fighting back.

“Leave the girl alone.”

Both lifeguards tore their predatory gazes away from Lizzie and situated them on the entrance of the kitchen; Hope Mikaelson seemed to stumble upon them, once again saving the day. Lizzie felt her blood boil because she had it handled. Much unlike the situation at the wave pool.

“Hope?” Jed had taken a half-step back “I didn’t’ think you were going to come tonight.”

“Funny, I was under the same impression.”

Kelsey swallowed loudly and lifted her chin in defeat, maybe even acknowledgment before the two of them stalked off and out of the kitchen entirely. Hope’s eyes were dark, darker than she had ever seen them before. Darker than that night in the locker room. She let out a sigh that was deep enough to echo a growl.

“I didn’t need your help.” Lizzie protested.

“Oh really? It seemed like you did. Jed and Kelsey would have eaten you alive, trust me.”

Hope turned away at once and left the kitchen through the hallway entrance. A small passage lined with photos of Kaleb’s family, one on the beach and two graduation shot’s. Lizzie pretended to ignore the fact that there was none of him. She followed her quickly.

“You can’t keep doing that.”

“Doing what?” Hope asked innocently.

“Swooping in like I’m some damsel in distress and you’re the hero that saves me from certain doom. I’ve got it covered, okay?” Lizzie reached forward and grasped at Hope’s wrist, trying to stop her halfway through the corridor.

Her back was suddenly against the drywall, the picture frames shaking at the strong impact. Though she had a few inches on Hope Mikaelson, she felt her heart rate spike. The other lifeguard had her pinned, a hand splayed next to her head and a dangerous hint in her stare.

“Don’t touch me, Saltzman. Not tonight.”

Lizzie gulped in the scent of vanilla and something metallic that she couldn’t’ place. Her voice came out a slight whisper and Hope’s impossible gaze flicked down to her lips. “What’s so different about tonight?”

“Coming here was a mistake.”

Hope tore herself away from the situation and pushed towards the front door. Through a group of people too stubborn to move. Lizzie blinked twice and tried to clear her head of the intoxicating allure that she had never registered before. She followed her again, instant relief washing over her once she was away from the stuffy house.

Anger still bubbled like an unchecked stew. What Hope had just done was shockingly intimate and her skin tingled where her hands had all but lingered. She glanced up at the moon sparingly and padded onto the walk where she searched either direction, but no Hope.

A thicket of woods surrounded the back of Kaleb’s house and for some pulling reason, Lizzie decided to brave it. The neon light of her cellphone was enough to make up for what the Blood Moon didn’t- and really, it wasn’t so hard to move along the wet trees and the subtle sounds of crickets.

“Hope!” she called out, breaking the near silence.

Lizzie shouted out a few more times before she stumbled into a clearing surrounded by stars. The stretching grass reached her knees and swayed like a crimson ocean in the scattered light. A deep pit formed in the center of the blonde's stomach; because maybe this was a terrible idea. The hairs on her arms stood up at attention. She didn’t feel alone.

She scanned her eyes against the tree line as the wind picked up until they landed on a set of eyes. Too low to the ground to be human, glowing like the moon above as they bored into her. She had read somewhere that in the face of an animal you had to make yourself look bigger but all she wanted to do was shrink.

Lizzie was rooted in her spot, helpless as the creature slowly stalked from its home in the shadows. Large and black and bigger than any type of dog that she had spotted before. Its eyes were a dark red and a deep growl erupted from the wolf’s chest. Lizzie felt like her own was on fire.

Another, smaller wolf, that was spotted in gold followed, its stance strong and offensive. Now would be a good time for her to run, or to cry, she wasn’t sure which instinct would latch onto her first but with the way her eyes felt heavy she considered it was the latter.

“Good doggie,” Lizzie held her palms out and lowered them because she saw it in a Chris Pratt movie about dinosaurs once. But the animals kept approaching and her legs felt like Jell-O. “Nice doggie.”

The larger one snarled and crouched lower to the ground. Its tail tucked and nose crinkled, and suddenly it was increasing its speed. Lizzie dropped to her knees and clenched her eyes shut, and she waited for impact.

For the warmth of blood and the sound of her own screams. The thought of News Vans and police officers and yellow caution tape flashed in front of her instead of some poetic movie of the good parts of her life. Maybe they wouldn’t even find her body because it would be picked clean to the bone.

Instead, she breathed deep on the scent of soil as she felt it work its way under her nails. There was another noise, one that was louder than her own heart. A yelp of fear low enough to only come from the animal lunging at her.

She propped one eye open and saw the black wolf on its back, hissing out in what could only be described as palpable fear. The yellow one had its tail tucked and eyes averted, golden and flashing in the light of the moon.

Lizzie dug her heels into the dirt of the clearing and pushed herself back a couple of inches, propping up on her elbows. Another wolf, smaller than the black one and so gray it was almost white like snow, emitted a loud and commanding rumble.

She felt her hands dig right into the roots of the grass as if she gripped it for stability. The black wolf rose from its position and let out a huff of air before dashing back into the cover of the trees. Inky and all too consuming.

The newcomer sent out another warning growl before the second animal scampered away entirely. But Lizzie could still feel the fear in the air like electricity as the white wolf shot an accusing glare at her, leaking with the annoyance of something larger.

The hair on the wolf’s back suddenly smoothed out and its ears were flat, head dipping and brilliant golden eyes shrouded with worry.

Lizzie conjured her words “I’m okay. Thank you.”

She sat and stared at the creature for a long moment, feeling the sting where her palms had scraped against rocks and dirt. It cocked it’s large head to the side as if questioning her, and took a daring step forward.

“You’re not so scary, huh?” She leaned up a little bit and the wolf let out a huff of air as if to protest the statement. “Oh? And you can understand me too.”

Maybe this was a fever dream, she realized suddenly. She had fallen in the woods looking for Hope and had hit her head on a log or a rock. Someone would come looking for her eventually and she would wake up in a hospital bed with enough ammunition to get even with Hope Mikaelson for saving that kid.

“Lizzie!” The call of her sister broke the world that they were in and the wolf took a few ample steps back. Those brilliant marigold orbs scanning the tree line.

“Wait, don’t-“

But the wolf had already caught wind of the scent and was rushing in the opposite direction of the way it carried. Fluid and so strong in its motions that Lizzie was entirely sure that none of this could be real.

Her sister, covered in muck and dirt, sprouted through the trees, nearly falling over herself. Lizzie felt bad for the worry on her face and the pure fear that soon followed. “MG said he saw you run out of the house and go into the woods- what are you doing out here?”

“I needed some fresh air.” She didn’t even buy that.

“Then why are you on the ground?”

“Looking at the moon, you’re right. It is kind of cool.”

Josie suddenly got a pensive look on her face as she squinted at the apple-red color in the sky. She shook her head and reached a hand down to her sister, not minding the dirt or the possible blood that coated her own palm. She pulled her to her feet and glanced around apprehensively.

“Come on, it’s creepy out here and I’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

Lizzie didn’t’ answer, instead, she followed Josie and hoped that the shorter of the two knew where she was going. But her nerves eased as the electronic sound of the party's music started to fill her ears once more. She couldn’t help but agree;

This was too much excitement for one night.

#hope mikaelson #lizzie saltzman #lizzie x hope #hizzie #Hizzie fanfic #Legacies #legacies fanfic #legacies fanfiction

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longislandartificialgrass · 1 year ago

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For a safer yard for your pets, install artificial grass for dogs in Long Island, NY. Learn how its padding can reduce the risk of injuries.

#artificial grass for dogs long island #artificial grass long island #synthetic grass long island

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artificialgrassopedia · 2 years ago

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Learn how to install artificial grass for dogs in Long Island, NY with this step-by-step guide.

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inexpensiveprogress · 4 years ago

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Stack Dwellers

Below is an artical by the Earl of Cranbrook for the Shell Magazine ‘Land’, in volume 12, 1962. It was illustrated with drawing by John Nash and photos by Geoffrey Kinns. The ‘Land’ booklets were large and colourful, illustrated by famous artists and designed by the typographer John Lewis.

I remember an old man in my Village telling me when I was young that the inhabitants of a neighbouring village were ‘that backward they call meece meezen’. Outside that backward parish, when a late threshed stack in Suffolk was overrun with mice, it was said to be ‘full of everlasting meece’ in fact, for those who don’t use combines today, it still may be, if it is not full of rats. In my experience you don’t find many mice in a stack that is full of rats or many rats in a mouse-infested one.

It may be because the rats eat young mice or that the two species are mutually antipathetic. Be that as it may, the mice you find in stacks are not ‘country mice’ but ‘town mice’, not field mice but ordinary house mice which live on and with man almost throughout the world. I say ‘almost’ because there are places which man has reached but which the house mouse has not. House mice cannot live in competition with field mice in the open or field mice in competition with house mice in habitations. When the island of St Kilda was evacuated, there were house mice living in the crofts and field mice in the open. But, deprived of man on whose stores of grain, food, etc. they lived, the house mice disappeared when the human inhabitants left and are now extinct.

The field mice are still there. Another island off the west coast of Scotland, evacuated some 20 years before St Kilda, had no field mice, only house mice. Though deprived of the support of men, there was no competition from field mice; so the house mice were able to colonize the whole island and came back into the deserted crofts when these were reoccupied by a party of visiting naturalists many years later. House mice, therefore, can travel from place to place only with man and his goods. I know an isolated croft on the west coast of Scotland approachable only by rowing boat: there is no pier, the mail boat has to lie off and a sack of coal and other stores are tumbled into a rowing boat to be taken ashore. No house mouse could hide itself in that little load, and the local field mice come into that croft to eat the cheese in the larder. In townships with a pier, when a large boat with ample accommodation for mice can lie alongside overnight, you find house mice in the houses.

As most of us know to our shame when we have left a stack too long, the mouse population can build up to enormous numbers. It has, of course, unlimited food and shelter from its enemies: nature does the rest. In these slum conditions the female mice seem to lose all sense of decency. Normally, mice have fairly strong ‘territorial instincts’, each male defending his own territory and each female her own nest. But, in the overcrowded conditions which exist at the bottom of a stack, one finds communal nests with litters of every age from naked new born babies to three-quarter grown fullyhaired adolescents. Mice kept in captivity, with unlimited food and in a high tier of intercommunicating nest boxes with runs, seem to develop a sort of hierarchical ‘peckorder’. At the top of the tier are found the most successful, one to each nest box, fighting to preserve their own territory against interlopers from below. Half way down are the middle classes, slightly overcrowded but, in their turn, resisting climbers from the grossly overcrowded slum at the bottom. There, two, three and even more females have to share the same box.

Curiously enough, if the inhabitants of the uppermost nest boxes are removed, there are a few days of fighting and a new peck-order develops: after the revolution a new race of aristocrats ensconces itself in comfortable exclusiveness in the place of the old. It is some years since I saw a mouse-infested stack but my recollection is that, as the sheaves were thrown onto the platform of the drum, one found a very similar picture. Half way down, the Erst mice appeared and an occasional individual nest; it wasn’t until one got towards the bottom of the stack that one found mice in scores or hundreds and communal nests. Another mouse which is not uncommon in stacks, especially stacks of cocksfoot or other grasses harvested for seed, is the harvest mouse. Very small, with bodies about two-thirds the size of a man’s little finger and with long tails, these mice vary very much in colour from a bright foxy red to a reddish brown. In my part of the world. they are often called ‘red rannies’ ‘Ranny’ is a shrew but they are like the long-nosed shrews only in size.

Their noses are, in fact, shorter and rounder than those of house mice and field mice. Conventionally animals of cornfields, the same picture of harvest mice climbing on stalks of wheat is reproduced in nature book after nature book. In fact they seem to be much more animals of the water side, living as much in rough overgrown meadows and grassy scrub by streams as on arable land. 'l‘heir nests are found at the base of reeds in fen ditches and I have known them in young plantations and far out on salt marshes. Harvest mice are often said to be much less common than they used to be indeed, this has been said for generations, and the sail reaper, binder and combine have all been blamed in turn. In fact each in turn has, I suspect, been indirectly responsible for this statement. The man with a scythe saw more harvest mouse nests than the man on the reaper, the man who tied the sheaves behind more than the man on the binder and I certainly haven‘t seen a harvest mouse in a stack since I had a combine. I can, though, usually catch one in a rough grassy poplar plantation by the river ifI want to. A harvest mouse quickly becomes tame if kept in captivity and makes an entrancing pet.

It is the only British animal that uses its tail as an extra hand, Curling it round a twig or corn stalk as it climbs about. It is rats, though, which remind one of the halcyon days when the dogs lay panting, too exhausted to do more than snap at the last rats which ran from the stack bottom as it was turned over, and one looked ruel‘ully at one’s palms, blistered by the sharp edges ofa thatching spick pulled from the roof at the beginning of the day. Overcrowding amongst rats has the same effect as amongst mice communal nests and the like but rats are less ‘territorial’ than mice. It is said that you can put your hand into a sackful of rats, huddled peacefully together, without getting bitten but I have never got beyond the point of thinking it might be an interesting experiment to try. Rats are comparative new-comers to this country, first reaching Europe from the East in the middle ages. Certainly the Romans had no word for ‘rat’ though they had one for ‘mouse’: the scientific name ‘Rattus’ is an artificial latinized form of the French ‘Rat’. Be that as it may, however and whenever they came, rats are an unmitigated pest. Inere isn’t much excuse, though, today for being overrun with rats. It was an uphill struggle all the way with traps, dogs, ferrets, nux vomica and extract of squills. With the new poison Warfarin, it’s a different story. It is often said that rye, producing bread corn from the poorest soils, is the greatest gift of God to man.

Warfarin and myxomatosis are close rivals. I have said that these stack dwellers have shelter from their enemies, but weasels come pretty often into stacks and breed there amidst an abundance of food on the hoof. In most parts of England indeed on the continent of Europe too many countrymen maintain that there are two sorts of weasel, the ordinary weasel and the ‘mouse hunt’. The latter is said to be smaller than the ordinary weasel and to be the one which is most frequently found in stacks. In fact, weasels are one of those animals in which the males are always much larger than the females: an average male is about a foot from nose to tail tip, an average female 8 9 inches. I have had a number of ‘mouse hunts’ sent to me as a locally known disbeliever in the existence of two species of weasel. With one exception, they have all been females, the exception being a normal male weasel 12 inches long. I never allow weasels to be killed, so have never examined one from a stack. But, from the fact that nests of young weasels are not uncommon in stacks, would expect that most stack dwelling weasels are females. In any case, weasels or mouse hunts, I would sooner have a stackful of weasels than a stackful of mice and rats: with owls and kestrels they are the best friends a farmer or forester can have, killing large numbers of rats, mice and voles _ and any rat killer is a good friend to a game preserver. I must confess that I sometimes regret my combine and am sorry for the boys of tomorrow who will never run after rats as they come from a stack or have the opportunity of studying the habits of the common, but none-the-less interesting. animals which infest it.

#John Nash #Shell Mex #Photography

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homelawncare · 4 years ago

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certifiedgorewhore · 4 years ago

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BOLD WHAT APPLIES TO YOUR MUSE

TAGGED BY: @txctonic

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