#brass is made up of which metal

[stoopidpigeonxx]

⋆˚｡⋆୨✧୧˚ 𝑶 𝑪𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏, 𝒎𝒚 𝑪𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏. ˚୨✧୧⋆｡˚⋆ (PT. 2)

OKOKOK I MADE THE PART TWO PLS STOP YELLING AT MEEEE

NSFW under the cut. MDNI.

Characters/fandoms: Captain Curly, Mouthwashing Content warnings: Smut, obvi, p in v whatt, curly being a SLOPPYYYYY eater, praise (from you and him), boobs, tits even, curly being 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂, alot of dirty talking, etc. Our boy curlys a bit of perv.

-Manners? What manners?

Curly is a, what do you kids call it... a munch? Yes. If he goes down on you, and he most likely will, he will be SLOPPY with it. I'm talking drooling all over your cunt, licking it from top to bottom, shaking his head side to side and pressing wet kisses to your clit. It's ironic, really, since he's so polite in and out of bed, but he doesn't really care about a mess if it means pleasuring you. What's a little mess? Sheets can be washed.

"Sorry *kiss* about the mess, sweetheart.. *kiss* can't *kiss* help myself."

-Beautiful tits. And rack. Love it.

When asked the question 'ass, tits or thighs,' he's gonna pick tits. He's a titty guy. Sure, your ass and thighs are nice too, and he gives them an equal amount of love, but nothing can beat the feeling of shoving his face into your boobs when he's thrusting in and out of you. It has something to do with hearing your heartbeat and how fast it is, but mostly he just likes suffocating between your twins. And if he's particularly stressed, he'll just set you on his desk and lift your shirt up and go to town. Sucking, squeezing, rubbing, all that. His favorite stress balls. And god forbid the day you get nipple piercings... He's mindlessly playing with the metal with his teeth, enjoying the feeling of the cold brass on his tongue. You'll have to wear bandaids. (which he'll apply, apologizing profusely.)

-Praise me for sin.

Call this man a good boy and he's whining and shaking. It goes both ways with him. He loves getting praised, and he loves praising. A few of his favorites.. "You're doing such a good job." "Look at you, taking everything like a champ." "God, you're gorgeous." "Good girl." "You're so pretty, baby.." "Atta-fuckin-girl." He knows you fold every time for that kind of talk, so he makes sure to say at least one while you're getting naughty. On the other hand, some of his favorites to hear.. "That's a good boy." "Thank you." (Manners.) "I love you so much." "You're too good." "Fuck, that's good." Hearing how good of a job he's doing is only fuel for him to keep going, and gets him hard as a rock. So, use that mouth. (Unless its occupied, wink wink.)

-He babbles when he comes.

When he's right on that edge, he goes a bit dumb. You feel so warm and good, and he's so fucking close, and his brain just loses all ability to form coherent thoughts. So he just mumbles whatever comes out of his mouth in that adorable whiny subby voice. (You know the one.) "Fuuuuck too good too good too good.. baby.. g'na make me come, coming, coming." Or just a chorus of 'yes' over and over. Its really cute because he tries to be quiet with it, but his brain is so broken that he can't control his volume too well. He has to shove his face into your shoulder or a pillow to muffle himself so the crew doesn't overhear.

-Can't stop, won't stop.

Will not give up until you come, no matter how sore his cock is or how cramped his legs are. He wants you to come as many times as possible before the night is over, and he's willing to overwork himself to achieve that. You've told him its okay, but he doesn't really care. Feeling you clench around him and ride out your orgasm is the best thing he's ever felt, so he's gonna have you coming at least 3 times each session. Unless, of course, you're begging him to stop since its too much. He'd never want to hurt you. He'd pull out and lay with you for a while and let your body calm down before starting up again. "Take it easy, angel. I'm right here. It's okay, you're doing so well." (Why does his dirty talk sound like him coaching you through birth?? 😭)

[konigstigerr]

lesser metals are rather easily cannibalized.

Dudes will be like "I'm investing in precious metals for the fall of civilization" like bro you need to be investing in lesser metals like lead brass and copper.

[okay-babe]

this is for your prompt game- word count: 800

human!alastor whos starts to feel a bit guilty when he sees his darling worry about him after hearing about the various murders near his studio. maybe some cuddling after alastor comes home especially late, and reader freaks out?

tyy!!

Nothing on This Earth

tags: human! alastor x human! fem! reader, established relationship, alastor and reader are married, anxious reader, fluff, very mild angst note: This was such a cute request to fulfill, I had a really fun time with it :) I hope you enjoy, anon :)

"And in some rather frightening news, the police have revealed the recent discovery of yet another body, this one found partially buried just outside city limits, mere miles in fact, from this very radio station that I'm broadcasting live to you from now. Presently, the authorities have yet to reveal the identity of the poor soul, but he is believed to be yet another victim of our infamous NOLA killer."

Alastor hummed a popular tune as he made his way across the walkway that led from the drive to the house that he and his wife shared.

From outside, he could hear the oh-so familiar static of the radio as his late night replacement droned on and on endlessly between the evenings pre-selected songs.

With a marked lack of haste or impatience, Alastor listened on vaguely to the words his coworker spoke, scarcely paying them any mind as his long legs carried him casually along the stone path and toward the steps of the house.

Instinctively, his hand reached into his pocket as he grew closer to his destination, long fingers seeking the familiar chill of cool metal until they finally found what they were feeling for, allowing for him to properly grasp his keys between them.

Humming the same pleasant tune as before, the radio host smiled to himself as he slowly ascended the three wooden steps that led creakily up to the deck, upon which the front door could be clearly seen.

Quietly, his shoes tapped against the old wood as he made his way closer, the keys in his pocket jingling familiarly as he moved to pull them out.

Still clearly in no rush, Alastor moved casually as he raised the now slightly warmed metal of his house key to its empty socket.

Much to his surprise though, the brass device had only just grazed the mechanism containing the deadbolt lock when the door swung inward quickly, revealing quite the alarming sight on the other side.

There you stood, his darling wife, all wrapped up in that slightly sheer white robe of yours that his mother had gifted you for your wedding, arms crossed and expression fixed firmly into a frown.

If he hadn't known any better, perhaps Alastor may have even believed you angry at him, your jaw clenched and your eyebrows furrowed just so.

But, of course, as your ever so observant husband, he did know better.

He could see the anxiety hidden behind that veil of vexation as clear as day, made obvious by the constant shifting of your gaze and the way you nibbled at your lip.

Wordlessly, your love reached forward, pulling your trapped flesh from between your worrying teeth, his ring finger tilting your chin upward as he did so.

"Why hello there, my doe."

He all but purred as he stepped swiftly inside, his ankle moving to kick the door closed behind him.

"How very kind of you to wait at the entrance for me. Although, I do have to wonder," He began, leaning down toward you so that his breath fanned across your lips, "What a lovely, delicate creature such as yourself is doing up so late."

He teased, pressing a quick kiss to your mouth before pulling away and turning around to shrug off and hang his jacket.

"I was worried about you."

At those words, Alastor halted all movement immediately before his brow quirked and he spun on his heel, grin wide.

"Worried about me?" He asked incredulously, both of his hands finding yours before offering them a squeeze of reassurance. "Whatever for, my dear?"

You swallowed thickly, your words becoming caught in your throat as if the sheer weight of them were too much to manage.

"There's a killer on the loose, Al." You said fearfully, your returned grip on his hands tightening as you spoke.

"So when you're out so late like this, I can't help but think-" You paused there, as if unable to finish that thought for fear of it coming true.

Regardless, it seemed that Alastor understood your worries plenty.

He squeezed your hands once more.

"Oh chère," He all but crooned, "You're very sweet to worry, but I promise you that I am in no danger." As he said this, you felt him start to pull you in closer, until finally, you were chest to chest.

You sighed wearily, leaning into your love's touch almost instinctively in spite of your concerns. "But how can you be so sure, Al? There's no telling when or where-"

"My dear," Your husband interrupted gently as he began to sway the two of you rhythmically in time with the jazz that was now flowing through the speakers of your radio, "I can assure you that as long as I have my wife to come home to..." He paused to tuck a few stray hairs behind your ear, his gaze upon you filled with an almost overwhelming adoration as he did so,

"There is nothing on this earth that could keep me away from her."

[fab-bladesmith]

A Carolingian Sword and Scabbard, 9th century.

The blade has a 3-layer core of mild steel over high carbon steel, and high carbon steel edges.

Hot-welded in the fullers are the famous "+ULFBERH+T" mark on one side, and "III XX III" on the other, in pattern-welded 1075 and 15N20 steel - this latter thing being, in my educated opinion, no less important than the other side. Many things have been said about such marks, but the most important thing about them is that they exist (otherwise, to paraphrase Sir Terry Pratchett, it wouldn't be a real sword, just a very dangerous bit of sharp metal) and that they are but one aspect of the continuous function of the sword to carry a message/prayer/ritual thing, a thing appearing as early as the Bronze Age and which would continue up to the Renaissance if not after - working in conjunction with the scabbard to utter/read these spells when the sword is drawn or put back in the scabbard.

The hilt is inspired by sword FG2187 of the Germanisches National museum, found near Mannheim, and is mild steel overlaid in brass and silver (thanks to Matt Bunker for the close-ups), with silver details.

For the grip I drew inspiration from a sword found in river Shannon in 2012 for the placement of the linen threads under the leather cover, which provide both a decorative function and a nice feeling in hand. The overall shape of the grip was determined by stylistic elements of various swords of other types.

The scabbard is leather over linen over steam-formed wood, and lined with 100% wool cloth, stitched at the throat with pure silk thread. I chose not to give it a chape, the end being reinforced by a thick wrap of folded linen bands, as according to Dr Geibig's works. Decoration was made using thread glued under the leather cover.

Cheese glue was used for all this.

The suspension system of leather and brass is loosely made after the finds from the Isle of Man (Cronk Moar and Balleteare). The main issue I had was the bottom D-ring/strap thing, and here I propose a simple arrangement of a leather strap riveted to the buckle plate, and made to fit tightly the scabbard when wet. Upon drying, the strap would shrink and securely fit between the two risers.

The strap ends are in the Trewhiddle style, and were made using the historical process of drawing out a billet and chiselling in the decoration, accordingly to the PhD by Gabor Thomas. No casting involved there.

The making of this project owes a lot to the labours of Dr Mikko Molainen, to whom I address all my thanks.

This whole thing needed an awful amount of trial and error, and I am well aware that not everything is perfect there. Apart from the issues mentioned above, the main difficulties were the hot-inlaying/welding of the marks, but I do thing that most of them came from using modern steel - old/bloomery iron, especially with the proper content in phosphorous (wink at @gaelfabre) would have made the welding easier I think. I'll have to give it a try some day.

[saphig-iawn]

Bondage in Brushstrokes

One of the things I can provide is what I call a narrative hypnosis session. Its a longer trance in which I weave a story in your ears that begins to feel very real.

My subject today wanted one such session and we settled on a wonderfully transformative idea: sealing her inside a painting.

After some gentle fractionation, lulling her up and down, she settled deeply on my lap ready for a little tale.

She's stood before a grand wooden door, the brass of the doorknob warm from the sun in her hand. She felt a knot of nervousness as she turned it, even though the letter I sent her said that she was to just come in with no need to knock.

A wide and bright hallway greeted her, natural light spilling in from every window. The floor was clean and polished white tiles with smaller black tiles nestling at the intersections. A curved staircase winded up and out of sight. The walls were clad in a vibrant dahlia scroll with painted wood panelling at the bottom.

"Come on through, my doll!" my voice calls from the beyond the kitchen at the end of the hallway.

Her shoes echo in the hall as she moves through, and a rustic well-loved kitchen greets her. The smell of fresh baked bread fills her nose, almost lifting her up as if it was a cartoon. There was a wonderful spread of cheeses, fruits, pastries, and meats on the island.

"We'll tuck into that later, my doll, come come." Her fingers snap away from the roll of salami she was about to snack on.

She rounded the door and found herself in a tall domed conservatory. Glass and white painted metal arced above her. It felt like an exhibit at a World's Fair at the turn of the century. Deep verdant plants lined one side, massive monstera leaves bathed in the sun.

I stood up from my stool, wearing green overalls already splashed with paint, a soft, loose blouse underneath it, with a green bandana keeping my dark auburn hair away from my face.

"We're going to have a lot of fun, my doll."

SNAP

Her eyes widened as she began to strip. Her hands worked at the buttons of her dress automatically. She wondered when I wove this spell into her, but before she could finish that thought her clothes were pooled at her feet.

"Good doll, now for the finishing touch, kneel-"

She was knelt. Like she always had been. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt a ribbon grace the back of her neck. Cool and smooth on her skin, she felt it be brought to the front and tied into a bow. I held her chin with my finger and thumb.

"Perfect. Now pose for me darling." She feels her head moved by my finger and thumb and she sees a green chaise lounge. She feels herself walk over to it and recline. The green velvet is smooth to the touch, no matter which way her skin moved over it.

I move to a table behind her, take a hardback book from it and put it in her hand.

"Flick through the pages, see which one feels right to land on. You'll be looking at it for a while" I giggled.

She pressed her thumb in the side of the book and let the pages rustle past. Just before halfway she stops and looks at the page and felt a touch confused. The page was filled with one sentence over and over and over.

"I'm a good doll"

Confused, she goes to say something but finds no words leave her lips. Her eyes widen once more and tried to turn and look at me but her head will not move.

"It always takes you by surprise, doesn't it? But you're a doll, being still is what you're made for."

A warmth blossomed in her chest as those words entered her mind, and she began to embrace the stillness I had woven into her from the first time we had a session.

"You see, my doll, I had everything painted already, I was just missing my subject..."

I trailed off as I began to paint, the sound of the bristles on canvas tickled the air as I began my work painting her feet.

She then began to feel strange. No- not strange... different. Like her feet were being compressed, wrapped in tight bandages.

She was unable to say a thing.

Then the feeling rose, her calves, then thighs, like they were being tightly wrapped and encased.

"You have such pretty legs my doll" I mused, bringing deep blue shadow onto the chaise lounge where her legs rested.

Now she began to feel strange. Like the chaise lounge was pulling her in, like it was being flattened out wrapped around her, the velvet caressing her skin.

But still the feeling rose, a tight encasement creeping up her still form.

She wondered if her eyes had been open too long because the text of the book was becoming so blurry, but then she realised that her eyes were fine. The book had changed. The words now nothing more than close approximations, scattered marks of paint across the page.

But even then, when her eyes drank the facsimiles in, she felt their meaning deep in her body.

I'm a good doll

Soon the feeling was up her arms, her hands seemingly part of the book she was holding. Soon her chest and shoulders became part of her surroundings.

Then she felt the bristles of my brush across her lips.

A single stroke sealed them shut.

She wanted to bite her lip, to moan, to tell me how good she was feeling, but those feelings melted away when I dabbed my brush on the canvas for the last time.

A wave pleasure washed over her from head to toe. Every part of her sang with pleasure her total bondage was complete.

"Now where do I put you..." I wondered aloud.

Like a soft jolt on a car ride while she was happily asleep, she felt a shift as I took her off my easel. Confusion rippled in her painted mind.

She oblivious to the fact that the chaise lounge was now empty.

That the book was gone.

That was she was now nothing but paint on my canvas, encased and sealed.

Everything clicked as she felt an impossible warmth on her cheek. It was like resting her face on a loved one in a cuddle. The warmth moved down her body, across her breasts, down her arms, over her sensitive areas, and down her legs.

She felt so good beneath my fingertip.

"Now... I could put you in the living room, let all the dolls enjoy you knowing you're bound in there. Or I could put you in the bedroom, deliciously restrained from joining in the fun. Or maybe the kitchen so you could watch the dolls go about their day in their cute maid dresses."

I brushed my finger over her sensitive area.

Her whole body pulsed with pleasure. Every part of her connected in her bondage; the perfect conductor for pleasure.

I continue caressing the canvas, knowing the pressure is building in her. That delicious ache growing with every passing second.

She needed to scream. She needed to buck and rut and bite and dig her nails in. But my brushstrokes kept her still, the pleasure building even more.

But the rubbing wasn't stopping, and the pressure kept building, and the climax was coming, and the rubbing wasn't stopping, and the pressure kept building, and the climax was coming, and the climax was coming, and the climax was coming, and the climax was coming!

Her mind flooded with pleasure as she climax. Her painted bondage holding her still as the pleasure stormed across her. There was no part of her that wasn't lost in pleasure.

Her bonds cradled her as the afterglow settled in, easing her muscles, soothing her body, slowing her breath.

"I think I'll put you in the bedroom."

[powderblueblood]

HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc as enemies to star-crossed lovers

CHAPTER FOUR — HOT SKIN and a HALL PASS

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summary: rules, you've recently learned, are for breaking– sanity is also, apparently, relative. after making a statement in the cafeteria, you play hooky with eddie in main street vinyl. content warnings: MINORS DNI tension you would need a chainsaw to cut through, farm-to-table snarking, do they even know they're yearning, nancy wheeler i'm sorry i shittalked you again (it will get better i swear) word count: 4k

Dear reader, do you ever feel like you’re completely losing your grasp on reality? 

You’ve cruised through life almost seamlessly up to this point. Yours is a well-oiled machine, one you painstakingly built yourself. But do you ever feel like you’ve spent so much time constructing something so carefully that it doesn’t make sense to you anymore? 

Like you can’t see the forest for the trees, or the treason for the thrill. 

Do you ever want to light your whole life up in flames, just to see what’s really fireproof?

“So, which is it?” 

You’re standing at your locker, making a bad job of touching up your now-flaking under-eye concealer when a voice rings out from the other end of the hall. It bounces off the cool metal of the lockers, the tack of the linoleum. It makes your shoulderblades go tense. 

“Has little Lacy been hiding a pair of brass balls this whole time, or is she on a suicide mission?”

You’d roll your eyes, but your face is aching. 

“Showing up with me this morning would have been one thing, but sitting yourself at my little table of outcasts? At lunch? The most important social event of the day?” 

Munson lets out a low whistle from where he leans, a couple of lockers up from yours. 

The hallway is deserted save for the both of you; you, out on a forged hall pass and him, probably just ditching to ditch. You peer at him from behind your locker door. He’s standing slanted in a long, lithe line made bold and jangly by his carefully curated metalhead armor. 

You, and this comes with a hefty dose of begrudgery, have to hand it to him– he leans great. 

“Talk about blowing up your reputation beyond repair.” 

You know he’s making fun of you– he’s not exactly subtle about it, nor is he about anything. It’s all in the lilt of his tone, how ridiculous he thinks the interwoven politics of the cafeteria are, how dumb he thinks you are for considering that in the least bit important. 

Munson’s idea of survival in high school is attacking conformity with a nuclear bomb, whereas yours is a little more artful. 

“I know this might be hard for you to comprehend, Munson,” you sigh, and the sound rattles through your ribcage– you are tired, tired of him, “given that your understanding of object permanence has clearly been stunted at an infantile level, but the world does not revolve around you."

"No?!" he croons, sarcasm slicking out of him.

"I was catching up with Ronnie.”

“Right, because you guys have been such good gal pals up to this point,” Munson scoffs. 

His face, framed by those wild waves, materializes in the reflection of your locker’s mirror, peering over your shoulder. You slam the door and pivot to face him properly, impact ringing out like a gunshot. 

He does a little jump, a shadow of his shock at you on Harrington’s porch. 

That reaction is like a shot of espresso straight to the veins.

Good. Be afraid. Asshole.

You're sure as fuck awake now!

“Lab partner love never dies,” you say, leveling his stare. “You’d know that if you showed up for Biology once in a while.” 

“Maybe I need a tutor. I could use someone to help me brush up on anatomy.” 

“Sorry. I don’t teach remedial.” 

“Maybe you should start. Rehabilitate your image.” 

“Again, who died and made you my parole officer?”

His expression cracks; a gasp of a laugh. “Oh, so you remember all that?”

“My hippocampus is alive and kicking.”

“Your hip– what?”

Your lips purse, and just as you’re about to throw another verbal dart at him, the voice of Ms O’Donnell cuts through the both of you. 

“I hope you two have a damn good excuse for loitering in this hallway– because if not, Mr Munson, I believe you’re less than one detention away from suspension.” 

Munson’s got this terminal disease where he’s more smarm than charm, despite his warped perception of himself. There’s no way he’s going to handle this with the grace that’s necessary, because O’Donnell hates him anyway. 

He keens his head in the teacher’s direction, ready to roll out some useless excuse. 

Before he’s even got the chance to speak, you cut him off. 

“Hall pass, Ms O’Donnell.” You flash the fake yellow slip at her, careful to obscure the names– you’ve usually got one of these forgeries to hand, just in case you need it, and teachers generally trust you enough not to check them out. It comes with the whole work-life balance you’ve been treading for the entirety of your high school career; you’re well-liked and you’re maintaining an impressive grade point average. They don’t give a shit what you do other than that. 

“The Weekly Streak has run into a printer snag and Nancy Wheeler’s car is on the fritz. Eddie,” his first name, which you never ever use, feels weird and heavy on your tongue, “offered me a ride to the printers to make sure it gets worked out– it’s a big issue. What with the game this weekend and everything.” 

O’Donnell’s eyes narrow. You nudge Munson right in his funny bone– hard enough for him to wince. 

“Right?”

“Right! That big game. Front page news, Ms O’D. Gooooo Tigers.”

The teacher clicks her tongue against her teeth, her rock hard stare challenging the delinquent beside you– it’s entirely likely that Munson could have blown it for himself just by virtue of being alive and in O’Donnells sight line, but you know she’s got no reason not to believe you. 

See, your reputation at the school newspaper precedes you; it’s just about the only thing that really holds your interest within the monotonous structure of Hawkins High. With your finger on the pulse of Hawkins’ student body, it only makes sense that you serve as a fierce and unforgiving editor of the Streak’s society pages– funnily enough, that hardline professionalism included never giving Munson’s infamously lame Dungeons and Dragons club a single mention in them. 

Vetoed, you’d drawled at one of the more well-mannered members that had shyly approached you about writing a piece. Not Ronnie– she knew better than that.

How come? they’d whined, as their fearsome leader glowered near the lockers just like he was doing now. 

On grounds of irrelevance. I’m not wasting valuable inches on a make believe board game club. 

This activated Munson. Lacy, you wouldn’t know valuable inches if they rammed you in the–

“Make it fast,” O’Donnell decrees, and you feel her watch you as you take off down the hallway. With a snappy quirk of your painted fingers, you gesture for Munson to follow your lead. And you better believe he does, almost tripping over his ratty Reeboks trying to keep in step with you. 

You both heave open the double doors, squinting against the unseasonable late autumn sunshine. Heels of your ankle boots clicking against the concrete, you make an unconscious beeline for the parking lot– for Munson’s van. 

“So– what now?” he asks, dur-dur dumb as all hell. 

“What now is I just got you a free pass to play hooky,” you say, little miss cactus flower, prickly with annoyance. You shield your eyes against the blazing light. “Weren’t you ditching anyway?”

“Yeeaaah,” Munson hums, scratching the back of his head, “But… the plan kind of was to smoke a joint and go to the record store.” 

“Doesn’t sound like a complete waste of time,” you hear yourself saying before you realize it, yanking at the van’s passenger door. You pause, raising an expectant eyebrow at Munson. Isn’t this your cue? 

Baffled, bewildered, but grinning despite himself, he extends that silver ringed hand and helps you haul your ass into his beat up chariot. 

Completely losing your grip on reality.

–

It’s a fugue state. It’s an out of body experience– you’re watching yourself from outside your corporeal form and you have no logical control over what you’re doing. 

That’s the only way to explain why you’re standing in Main Street Vinyl, elbow to elbow with Eddie Munson. 

But that might also be the weed talking. 

You don’t know where the hell he gets this stuff, but it’s strong– way stronger than the shit he’s sold to your friends ever since he started dealing. Well, you guess it makes sense that he’d keep the good shit for himself. You’d do that too, if you were him. 

What if I was him, you idly wonder, peering up at him as he flicks through letters R through T in the metal section. His tongue peeks out of his mouth as his ringed fingers work though the vinyl, carefully considering each one. 

This is what you mean by obvious– you, for one, would have the good conscience not to look so stoned while you’re so stoned. 

You definitely don’t look stoned right now. 

No one can even tell that you’re looking at him, up from underneath those thick lashes of yours. 

He’s got thick lashes too, come to think of it. 

Munson is actually not completely unfortunate looking– but again, if you were him, there’s no way you’d wear your hair like that. You’d keep it long-ish, though, you think. He’s got a point there; a nice curl pattern. Maybe to your ears. And the clothes obviously have to go– that denim vest is a patchwork disaster. Did he sew all those patches on himself? 

A vision of him hunched over the thing with a needle and thread in hand flits through your brain, pricking himself more than he can pick up a stitch. He’s gone out of his way to make himself look like this– kind of similar to the way you pick up your skirts so they’re always impeccably just short enough. 

Now, the leather jacket you could forgive if at least the collar was different. Maybe one of those Brando-style biker jackets, you could rock that. Or a brown leather number, to bring out your eyes– which are his eyes, of course, his crazy dark empty universes of eyes. 

The kind of eyes with the kind of stare that nails you in place and makes you want to do crazy shit like ditch class and get loaded and stand dumbly in a record store. Those eyes.

That are staring at you. He’s staring at you. Right back at you. 

“I can read your mind,” Munson monotones, unblinking. 

You go flush, heat crawling all the way up to your ears. “Wh–what?”

Then he nudges you and snorts, breaking the spell. 

“You have gotta stop thinking such dirty thoughts about me, ice princess. You’re gonna melt.” 

You scoff, shaking your head– but the cartoonish move is more to ground you in reality than a reaction to him and his idiocy. You’re Wile E Coyote after blunt force impact with an Acme anvil, shaking the circling birds away. 

“They don’t even have what I’m looking for here.” 

Stalking around the stacks of records, with no clear direction in mind, you feel Munson’s laser stare follow you. “Yeah, they don’t usually file Madonna next to Motörhead, Lacy.” 

They’re both filed under M, aren’t they? is what you want to say. “I don’t listen to Madonna,” you protest instead, all quietly miffed and earnest with a crinkle in your brow. 

“Mm, don’t think that’s true,” Munson smirks, rounding on you around the rack. “You gave me a pretty spot on rendition of Like a Virgin– or does your hippocrampus not recall?”

“Hippocampus,” you breathe out, but it’s lost in the din of Main Street Vinyl’s quiet, carpeted atmosphere, “I don’t listen to her, like, recreationally. I can’t help if that song’s an earworm.” A beat. “I also can’t help if you’re a particularly serenadable virgin.” 

“She’s gonna touch me for the very first tii-iime…”

“That was a threat.” 

You make an active attempt toward tunnel vision as you slowly tread through the store, feeling the high starting to turn on you– this was the part smoking weed that you hated, the few times that you’d imbibed in it. That lack of control over the way you were coming across. For a girl trained in the art of saying all the right things, this was dangerous. Your tongue felt both loose and heavy in your mouth, like it could come out with anything and you couldn’t stop it, it’d just roll on out. 

The malevolent presence of Munson and your pathological need to one up him wasn’t helping matters. 

Ever since the parking lot at school, you’ve been stalking around like there’s a target on your back. Evidently, you’re not the kind of girl that chills out when you smoke, which is equal parts a relief and a disappointment to Eddie. He wonders what you’d look like, mellowed out and floating. Your eyebrow unarched and your lips not poised for attack.

He’s also acutely aware that he wouldn’t know what the hell to do with you then, either. 

But he can’t tear his eyes away from you, a hyperfocus that he’s assuming is a symptom of his own buzz. Every little twitch and jump you do– it’s like it’s begging him to pay attention. Like if he looks away for even a second, he might miss something. 

“What are you looking for?” he asks, eyes trained on you while you thumb through the records. 

As much as you love music, and you do, you have a tough time describing exactly what you want to listen to. The notes in the songs that you revisit again and again read more like physical feelings, sparking off in your nerve endings. For example, listening to River by Joni Mitchell feels like something heavy is sitting on your chest. Listening to Hong Kong Garden by Siouxsie and the Banshees feels like you have fairy lights at the end of your fingertips. 

“I want something that sounds…” you say, noticing the distinct feeling of cottonmouth setting in, “Ticklish.”

“Ticklish,” Munson deadpans back at you. 

“Something that sounds like someone’s running a xylophone mallet down my spine.” 

He regards you for what feels like an excruciatingly long timewith this terrible, awful look on his face– brows ticked up over his glassy bloodshot eyes, pink mouth peeling into a grin, and this look, this look of wonderment. Like he can’t believe you’re real, and you’re here, and you’re saying shit like this to him. 

Join the club. 

“... You don’t get stoned a lot, do you?”

“Ugh!” you groan, a little louder than you mean to– the cashier shoots you a glare as you stalk past Munson, stalk past him, cheeks flaring pink. “I know what I’m talking about. I know it when I hear it– I heard a record just like that earlier this year! It’s like, some band from Scotland or something? Totally incomprehensible lyrics, yeah, but that’s what it felt like. It was like… bone deep.”

You hear Munson emit the teeniest hehe! and you just about snarl at him over your shoulder.

Rounding on the alternative section, limited as it is, you feel a welcome sense of familiarity. You haunt this corner when you can, when you’re out of sight from prying eyes. There’s only one other regular purveyor of this little corner of Main Street Vinyl that you know of. You trace a thumb over the spines of the cassette cases–it’s mostly tapes, rarely ever records because tapes are easier to import and harder to damage, and it’s always haphazardly organized–and then you spot it. 

Victoriously, you thrust it in Munson’s face, which is right over your shoulder. He’s frequenting that spot a lot recently. “Ha!”

“Oh!” he chirps, sounding almost pleasantly surprised and plucks the tape from your fingers. “... Cocteau Twins?”

You falter, eyelashes flickering as you look up at him. Dammit. He even pronounced it right. 

“You know them?” You hate how high your voice sounds.

He runs a thumb over the plastic casing, edging a little closer to you. That came outta left field. 

“This shit… sounds like what a haunted music box would sound like.” 

Aaand we’re back in the room.

“Okay…?”

“This is creepy, cursed doll music.” 

And the room is filled with assholes.

“Alright.”

“This is what you hear right before you’re about to get possessed by the ghost of Tiny Tim. The whiniest little bitch ghost of all time.” 

And all the assholes are named Eddie Munson. 

“I get it.”

“You better be careful with this stuff, Lacy-Wacy,” he teases, mocking that fraudulent concern ripped straight from an episode of Donahue. He taps the cassette case against your forehead. “Music like this is a gateway drug. A gateway drug to hanging out with, like, Jonathan Byers.”

You reach out and grab his wrist, tugging his hand and that damn tape away from your face. You’re shocked to find that the skin under your fingers is blazing hot–same as you felt through his shirt when he helped you to the door in your drunken stupor. 

Does he always run this warm? you wonder. Is it all that Satanic poseur poison coursing through his stupid veins?

“Well, it’s a little late for that,” you tell him, and you’re not quite sure why. Probably because every secret you swore would die with you is slowly but surely punching its gnarly hand from the grave, like fucking Carrie from fucking Carrie.

Munson doesn’t even express any overt shock, like he’s learning to roll with the punches of you revealing bits and pieces of yourself through sheer annoyance with him. He just cocks his head, challenging you with a silent, Really?

This chick. This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it chick.

“I ran into him in this corner a lot,” you explain breezily, tilting a shoulder up like it doesn’t bother you, like it’s never bothered you. “We’d always be standing next to each other at the listening booths, and I’d be listening to stuff I couldn’t take home and he’d be listening to stuff he couldn’t afford to buy and… We like a lot of the same music. We went out on like, one date if you could even call it that, and it didn’t work out.”

“Because he’s a creepazoid?”

“Because he was hip deep in it for Nancy Wheeler,” you supply, a green monster gurgling in the pit of your stomach. “Like every other respectable member of the male species.” 

It was the summer before junior year, a punishingly hot one even by Hawkins standards. You’ve never been good in the heat and that summer made your entire body feel ill-equipped, your skin ill-fitting. Main Street Vinyl had those big, big box fans right near the cash desk which was right near the listening booths, so you would spend the majority of your time there when you weren’t being forced to the lake or Skull Rock with your friends. 

Jonathan would look at you with alarm at first, like you were trespassing. Then he’d spy what you were listening to and sneak these small, shy smiles at you that you indulged in– at first, because you weren’t copping a lot of male attention from anyone else that summer. Eventually, it was because his shadowy eyes were always ringed with this tenderness, with knowing. Like you two were sharing a secret. It made you be able to look past the greasy hair and crippling social awkwardness. 

You know you rocked his world the day you breezed past him at the listening booth, leaned in and whispered, I love Linda Thompson's voice, don't you?

But still, the Love’s Baby Soft scented specter of Nancy Wheeler loomed large. You picked what you thought was a secluded spot in the park for your ‘date’, which included a conversation that was almost entirely cruise directed by you. Said conversation completely flatlined when you both spotted Nancy Wheeler cresting a hill, walking her family dog.

At this point, you and Nancy were most familiar with each other from the school newspaper– she, the peachy-cheeked junior, the rising star that was sure to make editor and you, the girl who knew where the parties were happening and where the bodies were buried. 

The picture of coquettishness, she offered you and Jonathan an awkward, stilted wave. Jonathan spoke a grand total of three words after she left, zeroing in on the spot where she appeared like a man possessed. 

You didn’t acknowledge his existence after that.

It’s not that you were particularly hung up on Jonathan Byers, but you didn’t expect someone like him to be able to elicit that cold sinking feeling you were used to experiencing at the hands of other boys and their ignorance. Maybe it hurt more because you thought you had something in common– something real, something that wasn’t shotgunning a can of Busch. Whatever it was, it made you sure of two things. 

You hated Nancy Wheeler, and she wasn’t going anywhere. 

You wished you didn’t hate her. But you also wished she’d dissolve into a fine mist.  

“Wheeler’s a priss,” Munson pulls you out of memory lane in a harsh left turn, face contorting into a half-grimace. It’s the general consensus on Wheeler– the shoes are too goody for everyone to be falling head-over-heels with her, if you want Eddie’s honest opinion. There’s no there there, not like with–

“I’m a priss.” It sounds like you’re defending her. In some weird way, you might be. 

I know what guys like you think of me.

“No, you’re a bitch.” 

His weight on the word bitch makes your knees feel unsteady. The way he says it. It’s not enunciated like an insult. It’s a dagger cloaked in velvet. It’s warm, like he is. It’s almost filthy. It makes you look at his mouth. 

“You’re a stone cold killer bitch,” Eddie’s voice hums low in his chest. His heartbeat is picking up, and he wonders if you can feel it where your freezing fingertips are squeezing his pulse point, “and I think–”

“You two truant assholes gonna buy anything today or am I gonna have to call the goddamn dog warden on y’all?” 

Heaved back into reality by the clerk at the cash desk. A trickle of cold sweat runs from the nape of your neck into the collar of your sweater. Heaved back into reality to see you’re still clutching Eddie Munson by the wrist, and he’s looking at you like you’re the last Popsicle. Cold shock in the middle of a summer’s day.

It gets so hot here in summer.

“I think,” you breathe as you unstick your fingers from him, suddenly aware that you’re parched and starving and your face hurts, “it’s time for me to go home.” 

“I– yeah,” Munson stumbles, also perturbed by the interruption. His red-ringed eyes gain a little more clarity. He’s seeing something you’re not seeing. He shouldn't be letting himself see that. “Let’s go.”

Let’s go back to the van. Let me make you look at me like that again. Let me see if you’re cold all over. I can fix that.

“No, I gotta…” Your head pounding, your thoughts swimming– the sharp and stupid realness of this whole afternoon coming into perfect view. What are you doing? “I need to walk it off.” 

He inhales sharply, a strangled chuckle– oof. That other shoe, that buckled heel of yours, clattering to the floor. He should have expected that, right? There’s no way you’d wanna… Because you’re you and he’s…

Eddie retreats back into himself a step or two; it looks like he’s gone all bashful, a little color dropping out of his cheeks. His hands clasping behind his back. His heart is in his big intestine. 

“That’s the second time you’ve turned me down today, sweetheart. Keep it up, I’m gonna start thinkin’ you don’t like me.”

Munson, get the fuck out of here before I ban you again! and Jerry, can’t you see me talking to somebody right now! explode in a cacophony, the boy and the keeper of the keys to the record store hollering at each other. You take this moment of interruption to nudge the door open with your shoulder. But you don’t start into the street without giving him one more look. 

“Lacy.” He’s grinning this dumb grin, eyes gone soft at the corners.

He’s giving this one last nudge.

Your heart thumps. A reminder– this is really happening. Shit. Fuck.

“That’s the thing, though,” you say, attempting to smooth your expression out with a frosty smile. “I don’t like you, Eddie.”

author's notes: of course, my eternal eternal ETERNAL THANKS for all the love you have shown this story and the anons you've sent!!! writing is crazy so thank you for caring about mine. onto the fun stuff because you know i love a reference: - he leans great. a shameless my so-called life drop but eddie to me is a kind of stunning midpoint between catalano (left back twice) and krakow (would go down on you for days) - someone in the tags said ronnie and lacy should hold hands and i don't disagree. lab partner love never dies! - there's never a bad time to listen to ace of spades by motörhead - there's also never a bad time to listen to treasure by cocteau twins, which is the album lacy is referencing - i always fee like the zombie hand reaching out of the ground motif is unfairly accredited to the living dead franchises or something like that, but of course the most iconic instance to me is from carrie (1976) because women own horror - god, we really need to bring back listening booths in record stores! like we really need to bring them back lest romance die forever. - richard and linda thompson, also forever!!!!! my headcanon for this re: jonathan byers is this particular record is a joyce byers influenced choice. joyce and lonnie loved this record (when they were happy... lol) and played it all the time when jonathan was a baby. their original copy got lost (or destroyed) and sometimes jonathan will play it in the main street listening booth but he won't bring it home because he knows it's painful for his mom. - all my stone cold killer bitches in the house make some noise - jerry from main street vinyl you will always be rob from high fidelity in MY HEART (eddie is barry even though he doesn't work there lmao) - ok my hellcats! that's all the cultural education for this chapter!! thanks again for reading, reblog and scream at me in the asks because i so appreciate (and need) the support and i'd also love y'all to send me prompts! don't be shy! i love an in-universe blurb!

[cambion-companion]

Teaching the Devil how to fuck

We all know Haarlep says Raphael is a terrible lover blah blah, and I certainly believe Raphael to be a very selfish lover. It's also hard for me to imagine he's taken someone other than Haarlep to his bed in a very long time. Scheming and planning ya know, it's time consuming lol And how would he be in bed with someone who isn't an Incubus, with whom he doesn't feel double the pleasure? Well, that's why I am writing this.

Raphael x Altheara (my female Aasimar OC) because I wanted to write wings and needed a warm-up

"Raphael, do you ever stop talking?" Altheara brushed her long golden hair, the entire time she'd been listening to Raphael wax poetic about his latest contract with the whole city council.

She turned on her vanity stool, tossing her sheet of hair over her shoulder and mirroring Raphael's terse expression back at him. "Have you any idea just how little I wish to hear about your newest soul conquest?"

Raphael raised an arch brow and his lips turned down in a sneer. "Were I a less magnanimous being..." He gestured with his hands, describing the scene. "...I would pluck your feathers and leave you skinned upon a rack for your continual impudence."

Altheara rose to her full height, still head and shoulders shorter than Raphael's devil form. She approached him in measured steps, her eyes glinting like topaz in the firelight. "You're more full of bluster than an autumn evening." She flexed her feathered wings and tilted her head up at his glowering face. "You need me."

"Ah, pet." Raphael's voice had taken on a gravelly edge. He took Altheara's chin between finger and thumb, stroking her cheek gently. "You are wearing out your welcome."

"Yet you are here, in my chambers, lingering long after my 'use' to you has expired." Altheara's amber eyes flicked between his. "Why?"

Raphael pulled in his chin, once again momentarily bemused by her directness. "Perhaps I want to see just how far I can make an angel fall."

During their long and tenuous partnership, Altheara had felt the tension between them building like water behind a dam. It was finally about to burst.

The fabric of her deep blue dress rustled as she moved, her wings urged on her movement with one sweeping motion. She pressed herself against the heat of the cambion, his hands cradling her hips as she kissed that ruby mouth of his. At last, silencing him.

Raphael met her embrace with surprise, then curiosity, which melted into fascination. He tugged her closer, his fingers exploring how her soft flesh felt under his probing touch, the silk of her dress slipping like water under his hands.

Altheara guided him non-gently to her bed where he sat, a brow raised as he looked amused and intrigued up at her.

"You are aware," Raphael mused, his hands resting either side of where he sat as she moved to straddle him. "That I have an incubus at my beck and call?"

Altheara ignored him, she began pulling at the heavy metal of his skull-adorned belt. "This is utterly hideous, by the way."

"That whatever pleasure you offer dulls in comparison to what they can give me."

Altheara glared at him, her teeth clenched, her brass wings folding slightly as an innate sign of her sudden doubt. "Yet here you remain, quite the willing companion."

"I admit my curiosity, yes." Raphael indulged the Aasimar, his infernal eyes glimmering from within. "I've made no secret that I find you a most alluring creature."

Altheara leaned into him again and kissed at his neck and throat, her hands sliding up under his shirt to caress his sides. "Then stop being an ass."

"So spoke the 'aasimar'." Raphael groaned quietly as Altheara bit the skin of his shoulder in response, then he chuckled, still not touching her in return. "Shall I set the mood, my dear?"

He clicked his fingers and Altheara breathed in sharply, pulling her head back as both she and Raphael magically lost all of their clothing.

Her eyebrows raise and she fought to not grimace. "Raphael...that does quite the opposite to 'setting the mood'."

A slight frown tainted Raphael's confident smirk. "Not the response I was seeking, angel."

"Put my clothes back on, devil." Altheara spoke firmly, her hands moving to cup his face and smooth down to his shoulders. "It seems I am to educate you on how passion is played out."

Raphael was loathe to obey orders from anyone, especially a celestial entity. However, he found himself intrigued what she wished to have happen.

He magicked their clothing back onto their bodies and Altheara smiled. "Good. Thank you."

Altheara took her time. She slowly undressed Raphael, her lips following where her hands went, never touching but close enough for him to feel her warm breath on his skin.

She pressed her weight against the cambion's towering form, her mouth almost touching his heated chest, teasing, until with a low grumble he pressed forward against her in return. She smiled as she began pleasuring him, allowing him some control yet also taking an equal amount for herself.

Reticence turned into heated exchanges, hands ran over flushed skin and Raphael at last carefully pulled Altheara's dress over her head and tossed it blithely to the floor.

His hands explored her, and she gasped as he groped her chest roughly, grabbing his wrists with a furrowed brow. "Gentler." She showed him and after a moment he took over, squeezing and pinching.

Raphael reclined onto his back, pressing into the bed as he gripped her thighs possessively. "Show me more of what you can give."

"I'd think a devil would have better grasp on the concept of give and take." Altheara sighed through her pleasure, her wings spreading behind her for balance as she began moving more earnestly. "This is an exchange, Raphael."

The reply was torn from his lips as she sunk upon him, connecting their bodies with her own gasps of both pain and bliss.

She leaned over him until their mouths met in yet another fierce kiss. Raphael ran his hands up her back and into her downy feathers, his sharp nails digging into them. Altheara tensed and broke their kiss to look into Raphael's lidded eyes. "We have a contract."

"I will not harm you." Raphael's touch was sharp but didn't pierce her skin. "So eager, but still a flighty little thing."

"Move with me." Altheara pressed her hands to his chest, then his sides, gripping him tight as her wings flapped gently, her body shuddering as Raphael began to move his hips as well.

"So demanding." Raphael groaned again, his pleasure building slower than her own. "It's a wonder I tolerate you."

"You want me." Altheara's breath caught in her throat.

Raphael gripped the arc of her wings, his torso flexing as he curled up into her. "Yes."

The little death that followed led to many others. Many more nights of exploration exchanges of intimacy. Like twin fire suns orbiting each other, Raphael and Altheara could not pull away from each other. And for the first time in centuries, Raphael found himself willing to learn.

[tassjis]

I want to talk about the Vault Gods and my design process

Each idol was drawn as though they were statues or altar peices, something of worship not necessarily what the gods look like but what the villagers would interpret their looks to be.

First I wanted to ensure that they looked like villagers, or have a villager template. The initial drafts has them with their arms together in a villager pose.

Each design had multiple aspects I gave them, a material, a gem, a minecraft mob, and an item

Idona The Malevolent, kill and sacrifice the marked to appease this god

The idol is designed after cinnabar a toxic red material with high levels of mercury.

Idonas item is the vault hunters altar with reference and designs inspired by Mayan and Aztec sacrificial alters.

They are designed to look like a bat and a Wolf with lots of sharp angles and shapes, with cultish and sacrifical undertones

The eyes are rubies, a gemstone that symbolises life force. They are cut with a 5 point star facet and bezel with means the eyes are also pentacles, there is also a hidden sacrificial knife in the eyes.

They say experience makes you wiser, but is it wise to give it up for treasure? Sacrifice your experience and knowledge to Tenos the Omniscient to be granted treasure beyond your wildest dreams.

Tenos is made of silver or iron, a pure metal that is reflective

Tenos has the enchanting table book, a potion of enchanting and xp balls

They are designed with a lot of softer rounder shapes compared to its counterparts and is based on a polar bear with angelic bird wings to give it a wise and pure vibe.

The eyes are sapphires, with a gemstone meaning of focus and inner vision. Tenos also is the one one to wear a gemstone accessory to give the allusion to a third eye.

Velara The Benevolent, sacrifice your health, sacrifice yourself to appease Velara, only then will you gain the riches

The idol is designed to look like oxidised copper. I wanted Valara to look like an old and ancient god from a forgotten religion, the kind where you find a forgotten statue in a forest overgrown with new life.

The like all the idols, it focuses on a theme relating to what you use to open the altars, so Valaras design is health or in this case life.

Velara has the fern and tall grass as its minecraft item.

Initially designed to be more rabbit like the design ended up becoming vague in animal and more bug like.

The eyes on Valara are emeralds that symbolise rebirth and growth.

Wendarr The Timekeeper, you only have limited time, will you sacrifice some of it to this god for riches?

Wendarr is a brass idol, a very common metal for clocks and timepieces to be made from.

Wendarr is designed to look the most like a villager with wings similar to that of DaVincis flying machine.

Unlike the other gods, Wendarr did not receive a minecraft item as I felt the minecraft clock did not fit the ancient and old aesthetic. Instead, they received an hourglass and an alluded clock face in the background, and some rococo inspired designs in the foreground.

The eyes are made of topaz, which apparently stands for manifesting clarity and astrology?

Anyway that's my thought process and some small details about each God and my designs.

[sarkos]

To get across the vibe of the Dark Place, Alan Wake 2’s hostile otherworld, Alanko tested and recorded the way instruments sounded when left to ring, or when compressed or dampened. He experimented with feedback, with recording sounds above the range of human hearing and bringing them within range to see how messed up it sounded. He played with the inharmonic, with screeching, he pushed woodwind and brass to their limits within the matrices of high-end recording software. “Eventually some of Remedy’s basement wonders were brought in, too,” he says. “They happened to have a lot of very interesting instruments down there, namely the Mega Marvin and the Apprehension Engine.” 

The Apprehension Engine – made famous in unsettling films such as The Witch and The Lighthouse – was once called “the most terrifying instrument ever made” by Brian Eno. Stephen King had a visceral reaction to hearing it in action for the first time (which is very fitting, when you realise how closely Remedy’s “new weird” games tread to King’s oeuvre), but for Alanko, it was the key to the mysterious, hostile ambience that Alan Wake 2 needed to conjure in its Dark Place. “I can tell you it’s one effed-up thing to master, or even to play,” smiles Alanko when I ask him about the curious instrument. “Imagine the most horrific things in any instrument, all put into one, and its sole purpose is to make noises. Sometimes the noises have some tonal content, sometimes they don’t, and usually it seems it has its own mind to do whatever it wants to. People say you’re an OK player if you’ve put 10,000 hours into practising an instrument. With Apprehension Engine, you’re not even close. You begin with a total void and stay in it for a long time. It has a spring reverb tank, metallic rods that resonate or tick-tock-tick-tock, two string instrument necks, several strings, a nyckelharpa rank, an e-bow, active mics, a heavily distorting preamp … all in one.”

(via ‘It seems it has its own mind’: the bizarre and terrifying instrument behind Alan Wake 2’s soundtrack | Games | The Guardian)

[fanaticsnail]

You Kissed the Clown? Part 6

As much as I wanted to reunify our beautiful clown captain with his lass in this chapter, it just didn't read quite right. I want nothing more than our sweet boy to join again with his queen once more; which I am aiming to do in the next chapter!

Part 5 back here.

Word Count: 2,398

Under the brightly lit beams from the lamp atop the workbench, you began to use several tools to understand the task that was bestowed to you by Klahadore. You were hunched over, using several magnifying glasses lay atop each other in your left hand while tweezing and prodding the brass tips of the metal caps that were fixed to the tips of the black, cotton gloves.

You could feel the unnerving proximity of Klahadore as he continued to gauge your temperament as you undertook this task. You kept yourself distracted away from his attention as you continued setting to work of comprehending the inner workings of the potentially deadly weapons you were working on.

“Do you have any of the blades intact or will I be smithing them for you?” you uttered below your breath as you creased your brows. You heard the butler extend a stifled gasp in what you could only assume was surprise at your question.

“I have the blades,” he purred with a slight arrogance displayed in his tone. You nodded, placing the magnifying glasses down on top of the workbench and turning your body to bring your sights to him.

“I will need them if I am to reattach them, as per your request,” you stated, your voice unwavering in your declaration. He hummed and quirked his left eyebrow slightly up, a sinister smirk beginning to pull at the corner of his lips once more.

“I will retrieve them,” he uttered, bringing leaning slightly over to bring his face closer to yours and extending his gaze to the space behind you, “do you have an estimate on the amount of time you will need to apply them?”

You leant back into the back of the chair, finally allowing a small amount of nerve show over your features as you teeth began to shudder behind your closed lips. You took a moment to collect yourself before glaring at him through narrowed eyes.

“If they are in pristine condition,” you quirked your head to the side before continuing, “your sentimental item not intended for use will be repaired within the hour.”

He narrowed his eyes in turn, baring his sights directly into you. The increase in uneasy tension building between you kept your senses on edge. He reached behind his body and placed ten full-sized, weighted katana blades down with a rough clang; holding his hand over them and inched his body closer to yours. You inhaled a shaky breath through your nose, noticing he was pleased by the amount of unease he was bringing to you.

“Have it done in thirty minutes,” he whispered, his breath tickling against your lips as he held his uncomfortably intense gaze on your eyes. You assumed he was taunting you with his intimidating proximity, but you held your ground and continued to attempt to mask how truly rattled he made you.

“Yes, sir,” you said hastily before bringing your attention back to the workbench and hunching over the objects, assessing them for any damage before reaching for several items you required to successfully reattach them.

“Good,” Klahadore purred in praise before bringing his body away from yours and adjusting his uniform before bringing the palm of his hand up to fix his glasses further up his face. You twinged your head slightly to the side and allowed a displeased snarl momentarily extend your upper lip up in displeasure.

You heard him turn towards the door and pausing one last time before he proceeded to exit the room. Once you heard him turn the knob, open the door and exit the room, swiftly closing the door behind him and trail a light tap of retreating footprints did you finally allow the amount of emotion withheld from fear overcoming your body.

You gasped air through your parted lips slightly before rubbing your hands over your upper arms and smooth over your forearms to soothe over the bumped hair follicles raised as your uneasiness fully erupted from your body. You breathed out a shaking breath as you fully comprehended the danger you were truly in while thinking of the task you were attempting to undertake.

You pushed all uneasy thoughts form your mind by huffing out a firm breath and rolling your shoulders back and shaking your head.

“Just get it done,” you uttered to yourself, “you can do this. This is second nature to you.”

You panted out a breath and shook your hands to remove any prior tingles or apprehension from your movements.

“Thirty minutes,” you mocked Klahadore’s tone with a small huffed laugh, “I can get this done in fifteen.”

You scoffed slightly, raising a weighted blade into your hands after placing an iron poker into the naked flame on your counter. You twirled the poker against the flame and began singing to yourself a tune from your childhood. Your voice flittered lowly between notes absentmindedly as you brought the hot iron to join the hilt of the first katana to the brass tipped thumb of the glove; successfully angling it to attach with ease.

After attaching the first sword against the material, you managed to truly understand the materials you were working with. You learnt exactly how to master the fixture and one by one, you managed to complete your task with haste.

Slumping back into your seat, you wiped your brow with the back of your right hand and smoothed over your skin. Your strong beverage remained untouched, the condensation dripping down from the rim and leaving a circular watermark on the surface of the work bench. You decided against drinking from the glass, instead rising to your feet and retire to the guest suite where you assumed the crew awaited your return. You left the gloves in a neat pile atop the workbench alongside the untouched liquid and briskly made your way from the workroom, clicking the door closed behind you.

Silence befell the hallway as you ventured through the hall, your shadow dancing as you continued towards your room.

You found yourself completely and utterly alone, as your crew were yet to return to quarters to sleep through the night. Deciding to pay this fact no mind, you began to shed your fine clothes you borrowed from Ms Kaya and change into your sleep attire behind the screen.

You placed yourself beneath the sheets of the plush bed and scuttled your feet fully down the bed as you savoured the familiar feeling of resting in the security of a stationary bed, rather than a hammock rocking against the waves as they clashed with the hull of the small rigging you were travelling on. Immediately, exhaustion overcame you as you slipped into a peaceful slumber; blissfully unaware of the events about to transpire throughout the night.

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

Buggy fell back onto the hard floor, slipping into unconsciousness as a blow to the head issued by the fishman Kuroobi successfully incapacitated him. He awoke to find himself bound with his hands behind his back and a sandy hessian bag thrust over his head, shrouding his sights from his surroundings.

As the hood was suddenly pulled from his face, he began frantically searching the darkened arena for the figure who lifted the course material form his head. A blue-lit spotlight cascaded over his body, ensuring it to be nearly impossible to locate the newcomer. He decided to utilise his favourite coping mechanism to deal with this unnerving situation.

“Is this the best way to ask for an autograph?” he called into the room, continuing to dart his eyes between the convex walls of the circular tent, “I mean, sheesh! Fans have gotten so toxic!”

He paused a little, teetering laughter off in a small snicker before his tone turned serious; “alright, what do you want? Tickets to the show? I can get you house seats, they’re pricey.”

A large thud resounded within the hall, causing Buggy to gasp in shocked response. Large firm footprints pounded against the floor in a slow approach.

“Oh,” a voice growled in their approach, “I am no fan of yours.”

Buggy was immediately drawn to a figure appearing from within the shadows. The purple-skinned pirate lord, Arlong, bearing a sinister snarl with his lips protruding to reveal sharpened teeth bared in an intimidating manner. A low, guttural growl was again pulled from the mouth of Arlong as he continued to prowl over to the kneeling position Buggy was currently in.

“Arlong?” Buggy uttered in a hushed tone while widening his eyes in shock.

“I run things here in the east blue,” Arlong spurled in a low rumble, before raising his voice, “and I’m here to remind you of your place in the food chain.”

He leant his tall body over Buggy as he continued to gawk at the sword-nosed fishman, allowing an air of absolute terror overcome his features.

“You pull a job in my seas, you gotta pay tribute,” the fishman circled Buggy’s kneeling body as a predator would their innocent prey.

“Arlong, baby,” Buggy pleaded with a small laugh, “you don’t gotta worry about me! I’m small potatoes! Pirating is more of a side-gig.”

Arlong halted his prowl and clicked his tongue in disapproval at the explanation Buggy provided.

“Kuroobi tells me you ransacked Orange Town,” Arlong said, keeping his sights fixated on the kneeling clown.

“Ransacked?” Buggy laughed, “you should’ve seen the place before I got there, okay? It was a real fixer-upper.”

This comment prompted Arlong to place a firm grip on the scruff of his neck and bore himself down onto him with a threatening; “you bore me, clown.”

Arlong growled and proceeded to bring his teeth to sink his teeth into Buggy’s flesh, prompting the clown to let out several repetitions of pleading the word: “wait!”

His plea seemed to halt the extended teeth baring down unto Buggy’s exposed neck. Immediately his thoughts were brought to centralise around you as his life was threatened by the looming fishman above him. He couldn’t die here at the hands of another pirate in the here and now, he had plans. He needed to see you again; to inform you that he not only reciprocated your feelings of affection, but to show you exactly how much he truly cared for you. He wanted you in his arms. He wanted to remove his gloves from his hands and feel just how soft your hair truly was beneath his fingertips. He wanted to dance, holding your body flush against his own and twirl you in a beautiful poofy blue dress within the canvas walls of the big top tent. He needed you. He needed to get you away from your crew and spirit you away to be with him and only him. And at that thought, an idea came before his mind.

“You know who’s out there really disrespecting you?” Buggy searched the snarling face of the purple pirate before him, drawing his gaze into his beady and predatory eyes; “It’s the little rubber prick in the straw hat; goes by the name, Luffy.”

Arlong placed his wide grip now bracing against the larynx of the clown pirate, choking him with a firm hold.

“Never heard of him,” Arlong growled, successfully bringing further panic to the clown.

“He just knocked over a marine base in Shells Town,” Buggy spluttered, eyes remaining wide and fixated in fear on the hardened face before him, “and then he stole a map to the grand line, talking shit about finding the One-Piece.”

Arlong threw Buggy against the ground, releasing him from his firm grip. Buggy let in a large gasp, praising himself at his quick thinking. Hopefully his actions would allow him to “kill two stones with one bird,” as he was sure the saying went.

Arlong began a monologue, of which Buggy truly had no desire to engage with. He was frantically searching his mind for further quick-wittedness at enabling for him to look like the rescuing saviour in your eyes without having any harm come to you at the hands of the fishman tyrant before him.

“Listen, why don’t you let me live, and then I help you find Luffy?” he attempted to use an air of charisma to charm the fishman. This offer had the firm grasp again clasping the scruff of Buggy’s neck which he gasped again in both pain and fear.

“And how do you plan to do that?” Arlong said once bringing his face down to meet the gaze of Buggy with his sharp teeth again exposed in a snarl.

“I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere,” Buggy broadened his grin, laughing at the cruel in-joke he had with himself at the knowledge that his small ear was currently tucked within the bedsheets resting beneath the pillow you were currently sleeping against.

Arlong joined him in his laughter before promptly replacing the musky hessian sack over Buggy’s head before using a small blade to successfully carve his head from his body. Buggy shrieked slightly in surprise as his body fell against the floor with his hands continuing to be restrained behind his back.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Buggy protested as his body was separated from his head, “what is the big idea?!”

The echo of Arlong’s laughter continued to resound within the canvas walls of the circus tent.

“I don’t require all of you,” he growled with an audible smirk, “devil-fruit user.”

“No, no, no, but I need all of me,” Buggy protested as his head began to sway within the dirty bag, “at least the fun parts!”

Arlong growled again, thrusting the bag containing Buggy’s speaking decapitated head into the arms of Kuroobi as he turned to exit the tent and make his way towards the straw-hat pirates.

“Bring the body,” Arlong directed to another member of his troop which promptly hoisted Buggy’s restrained form into the air and sauntered slowly behind Arlong.

Buggy gulped, swallowing down his neck as he came to terms with the fact that once he was brought before you again; he would not in fact be able to perform any of the beautiful moments he intended to share with you. He would just be an unnerving decapitated head, powerless to enact any of his desires as his body would not be joining him. He hoped he was still able to woo his queen without being able to humble all of himself to fall before her.

Part 7

Tag List:

@thesadvampire @a-phan-of-youtube

[germiyahu]

I loved your post on affordable Judaica

Synagogues will have Shabbat siddurs, for everything else there's debit MasterCard a bunch of different, free, siddur apps. They have apps for the megillot, too, which I download ahead of each chag/fast for easy access. There's even an easy online page for funeral rites.

Fancy Kiddush cups tend to have either an annoying plastic insert or leave a metallic taste in your mouth. Lots of people I know have moved on to these stylized glass/crystal cups. Much less expensive, dishwasher safe, and equally beautiful.

also, if you sidle up to Israeli Tumblr or Facebook, you'll probably be able to find someone willing to mail you stuff and/or someone travelling who's able to bring you stuff. Judaica here is like shampoo—there's the fancy boutique stuff, but there's also supermarket brand things (literally; we bought our Hanukkiah in the supermarket) that are perfectly nice and perfectly affordable, but naturally don't ship overseas.

It can very well be considered צדקה to donate Judaica, so if you genuinely can't afford anything, and if you genuinely have nothing appropriate to use (though one of my classmates uses a ceramic mug he and his wife made on their honeymoon so the limit on what's appropriate is pretty far off in the distance), there is no shame in asking people for help.

You're not commanded to buy Yair Emanuel polished brass Tree of Life Shabbat candlesticks... you're commanded to beautify the Shabbat table. It's not about money, it's about what you find beautiful. What you find meaningful. I would recommend saving for a more expensive item, at least one, if you plan on starting a family, so that you have something to pass on to your kids. But at the end of the day, what's more valuable? A Kiddush cup made of real silver or real crystal, or the story behind your chintzy little ceramic mug that your grandchildren will be telling stories about?

At the very least, a benefit of being involved in a Jewish Community is you will inevitably interact with people of older generations, which I think a lot of Gen Z is just not really doing these days? These people have tons of experience and can give advice, for what to get and how to find it and how to budget for it.

Also a Shabbat siddur can get you through weekdays, depending on your level of observance. Especially considering most shuls don't even have weekday services, so the prayers you do at home are going to be similar, and the main difference from what I can tell is the Shabbat siddur has more in it, so it's a process of cutting out things you don't need on the weekdays. Again it depends on your stream and level of observance. But you are going to need a Machzor.

[decaying-words]

The Innocent

All chapters Jonathan Crane x Reader • 18+ Explicit • 4.1k words TW & tags: NonCon, fear kink, masturbation, awful everything AO3 • All my stories

"She whimpers audibly, her scent turning acrid and pungent now; fear, she reeks of fear. I pant, a hundred meters behind her, putting enough distance to remain a formless creature while still appearing very much real in the dim light. The soft tremor turns into heavy shaking when she turns her head behind her shoulder, as if to convince herself that this is just a dream, just like the others she’s had. Then she screams, oh! she screams…"

The Innocent

Foreign music notes of a perhaps forgotten song vibrate in my dry throat in low hums, barely covering the insistent scratch of the fountain pen darkening the cream coloured papers splayed on my antique desk. The watch which delicately sublimes my bony wrist with its dark brown Italian leather and finely carved metal hands indicate three hours and fifty-six minutes in the afternoon; I still have four whole minutes, I realize with a palpable excitement that is most unwelcome in my line of work. My patient is, without a single doubt, already waiting in the other room; I will not greet her before the time has come, for it is absolutely crucial to not reveal any ounce of delight or impatience. In fact, I must remain perfectly professional, detached and clinical, or else I am taking the risk of exposing my ulterior motives and intimate desires. 

Four minutes is exactly the amount of time needed to adjust my tie (dark brown as well; a color not too contrasting to my marble pallor and which makes me look distinguished and inspires confidence, a key component in my profession), inspect my impeccable tweed vest made of Irish virgin wool dyed an exquisite amber color, and delicately clean the lenses of my round glasses with a microfiber cloth. Three hours fifty-nine; the last notes fade on my chapped lips when I leave my cognac leather armchair and direct my wiry frame to the door, spidery fingers holding the brass handle which feels pleasantly cold against my tight skin. 

Within my aging ribcage are percussions worthy of Ravel’s Bolero; intense in nature and laced with the fruitful musicality of controlled nerves. The entrance is methodical, natural and restrained, with a smile, polite enough to be welcoming but faint enough to remain professional, and soft crow’s feets rolling in a pleasantness that seems genuine. There are no emotions in my eyes; yet, dissimulated behind my glasses it might be hard to tell. My voice is warm and comforting, despite the crystal-like brokenness of its undertones which has been forged through the years.

Her smile, painted in a shiny coral red, is wide and transpires a heavy relief. She has been looking forward to our session all week long, I am sure; she reminds me of a teapot in the way she lets her worries fester until they turn ugly and make her completely dysfunctional. Her fingers cross and uncross nervously on her lap, as if incapable of knowing what to do with her own body, before she stands up, flattening her perfectly ironed marine blue pencil skirt, and retrieves her matching blazer jacket. I hold the door open and she penetrates my office with a footstep so light it could have belonged to a ghost; I notice the floral notes of her perfume, horrifyingly sweet and childish.

Through the nine sessions we had together, it is worth mentioning that her outfits are always delicately picked, colors matching and completed with a set of earrings (one on each lobe), a gourmette bracelet with her name engraved (a baptism gift, I reckon), and a now very familiar pearl necklace which I abhor passionately. Her hair is always impeccably styled down and her face painted just enough to be womanly without looking like a whore; something important, I suppose, for it matters greatly to her father. She reminds me of a ventriloquist’s doll, carrying a fabricated superficiality that betrays the profound emptiness of her soul. I am not certain she likes her appearance very much, the short heeled suede shoes, the old-fashioned manicure or the vulgar pearl necklace; but rather that she likes the simulacre of control on her life this shows on the outside, especially to her father, a figure we never cease to talk about.

My patient does not sit down until I instruct her to, the anxiety to pick the wrong choice and disappointment still viciously anchored in her childhood; an emotionally absent and academically demanding father tends to create such complex insecurities in the younger hearts. I would know. As always, we will be talking about it; and as always, she will unravel the same pointless secrets in an uninteresting logorrhoea that could very well bore me to death if it weren’t for the topic of her recurrent nightmares, cautiously sprinkled in her stories and immensely more fascinating —from a clinical point of view, of course. 

I am taking place in the armchair in front of hers, crossing one leg on top of the other, not dissimilar to two long and pale sticks enveloped in soft and tasteful fabric. My elevated ankle reveals the smallest ounce of marble skin, adorned with arched tendons which roll and disappear beneath the dark Egyptian cotton of my socks. I sense her heavy gaze following the slender silhouette of my legs to the tip of the deep brown leather of my derby shoes; a rosy tint blooms on her cheeks and my lips twitch in amused curiosity while she plays nervously with the pearls of this dreadful necklace which she is, in my humble opinion, either too old or too young to wear. She feels desire for me, despite being a couple of decades older than her; an expression, I believe, of her yearning for a paternal love, approval and affection.

My notebook lays graciously on my lap, angled in such a way that makes it impossible for her to see what I will be writing down, my treasured pen already in my hand. Adjusting my glasses on the long bridge of my aquiline nose, I offer her yet another muted smile, a silent invitation to begin the session; she appears flustered, blushing some more as I seem to have interrupted her train of thoughts —probably too vulgar for the image of herself she is desperately fabricating. I wonder if she is a virgin still, having spent the essential of her miserable life catering to her father’s needs and putting aside her own intimate desires; this would explain the subtle perfume of her throbbing sex floating in my office.

I find myself more than passively listening to her most uninteresting week in a way that freezes my nerves and makes me question my career choice, gently guiding her back to the heart of her confusing weaving as she wanders and rambles incoherently. None of her anecdotes are of importance to me, subtly urging her to open the can of her anxieties and core reason for her very presence on my couch; her recurring and unexplained nightmares. 

A couple of months ago, this patient reached out to me in an attempt to exorcize her most intimate thoughts and find a more peaceful slumber. When asked the nature of her night terrors, she confessed, with great difficulty and restraint at first, having this peculiar dream for years now in which she finds herself wandering around the unknown alleys of a surrealist city reminiscing of a dark and sterile-looking maze. She can never tell where she is, every window and every door looking the same, every turn sensibly similar to the next, the streetlights aggressively cutting harsh shadows against the smooth walls of the buildings. 

As her journey progresses, she notices a shadowy form following her every step and which does not make a noise aside from an ominous buzzing that makes the lights crackle; though it has not touched her yet, its presence alone is dreadful and suffocating enough to make her survival instincts kick in. She runs through the maze-like alleys in a vain hope to escape the figure, never successful in her doing; the shadow creeping at every corner, slipping through the cracks of the building like a liquid void, looming over her like a toxic cloud, and always watching her with empty eyes and whispering incomprehensible and otherworldly things in a gnarly voice resembling a sinister borborygmus.

She wakes up screaming, in tears and drenched in sweat before it can seize her.

There is an obvious answer behind her anxiety, one draped in the cloak of her oppressing father; and yet, despite the last few unproductive sessions and unfruitful attempts to take in my hypothesis, she rejects all and any idea of daddy dearest being the root of her misery. My poor sweet girl. Through her almost touching callowness if it weren’t laced with pungent naïveté, I find great intellectual pleasure in studying her profound fear; sometimes, when the moon hits and soaks my office in a creamy light, I dissect my numerous notes, each scribbled word reminiscing me of her giant doll-like eyes turning glassy with emotion, her painted lips aquiver with wretched anguish, her neatly cared eyebrows knitted in visible despair. She reminds me viciously of a newborn deer, frail and fragile; a sight so delicious it never fails to make my turgid sex throb in interest. I have learnt since to keep my legs crossed in front of her, of course.

Her fear is at the image of her personality; carefully crafted by her visceral fantasies which she struggles to control, as if her fabricated identity would cease and disappear if she knew how to confront it. There is something delectable in her innocent emotions, something exquisitely cruel in how laughable of a person she is, and I find myself morbidly curious to see her façade break and release her true self, dying and being born again. It is exhilarating really, the prospect of witnessing her weak mind shatter and rebuild itself, morphing into something pure and liberated, surpassing her ugly cocoon.

Fear is the most sublime emotion, a capricious mistress that transforms all beings into primal creatures; there is a beast inside all of us, I firmly believe, a döppleganger, infinitely mightier and profoundly fascinating, that only fear can free and liberate. I based my entire life on understanding the beauty of fear and how to elevate and transcend it, achieving our most glorious form; prying at people’s most intimate insecurities and feeding them the putrid fruits they truly do need to alter their mind irremediably, for their own benefit, I am certain. As such, it is past the clinical need but rightfully with a voracious desire and spiritual intention that I wish to see and unravel my Innocent’s breaking point. 

The sound of her trembled sob wakes me from my contemplative state, and I realize with great indifference that I missed her last couple of sentences, which I believe gave her yet another heartache. My occulted gaze devours the sight of her pained face, glassy eyes crying perfectly round and warm tears, her bunny nose reddening; I do not care much for her grief, an emotion I find particularly repulsive and grotesque and which she seems to feel quite frequently; this might be why I find her so unpleasant to be around. Instead, I hand her the tissue box that she politely accepts, wiping her tears and runny nose. 

The corner of my mouth twitches in disgust when I see her nervously touch her pearl necklace once again. This abominable pearl necklace that embodies everything about her that I hate; her child-like appearance despite being well into her thirties, her synthetic demeanor forged by an unyielding desire to be loved, her emotionally incestuous relationship with her undeserving father and her complete and total lack of self-esteem. 

Today’s session comes to an end and I am afraid we did not progress much, to my great dismay. I offer her the same frigid smile in which she always seems to find comfort when I open the door and shake her hand, a stark contrast to the warmth and subtle stickiness of her skin. She thanks me profusely and I nod in return, wishing her a pleasant rest of the day; I will be seeing her next week.

My simulacre of a smile fades as soon as she exits my office, a boiling irritation tinting the tip of my ears a crimson color, akin to a single rose in a snowy garden. I take an involuntary peek at my reflection in the window as I run a wiry hand in the dark feathers of my hair, silvering at the temples, a few gray strands adorning the generally brown mass. My thick eyebrows are knitted together in profound frustration, collecting today’s notes and sitting at my desk to study them. I cannot be satisfied with the glimpse of her unfledged anxieties, our exchanges do not nurture me professionally or otherwise ; slumping heavily in the leather armchair, a deep sigh swelling my tight chest, I lose myself in the labyrinthic corners of my mind, all the while ignoring the aggressive hardness of my sex, its throbbing feeling like the greatest treason in this precise moment.

I will not bring myself to completion tonight, for I find her fear vulgar and unworthy of my seed, a womb so barren it feels utterly meaningless. I will not even touch myself, I decide, denying her the attention and importance she desperately yearns for, refusing to besmirch my pride for such an insensitive mind. She is spoiling the sap of her soul in a way that is perfectly unacceptable to me and makes her look profoundly hideous; and I refuse to harvest the rotten fruits of a putrid heart. Instead, I will spend the night lost in my thoughts, with deep indignation for sole company.

It took me a complete day to recover from my turmoil and hatch a plan I deem satisfying, and four more to establish a detailed inventory of her nightly habits; following her at a reasonable distance in a now familiar fashion, carefully noting down any information of importance, I managed to know exactly when she finishes work, which Café she frequents, where she goes grocery shopping, which metro she takes home… During the day and in between two consultations, I conscientiously study the map of her neighborhood, carving in my memory every alley, every path, every building until I have a clear representation of my hunting territory. Victorious is a word that comes to my mind after such rewarding labor.

Tonight is the night. I am wearing my real skin, flesh made of burlap and soiled rag, fur made of dry straw and rotten thread stitching my articulations together. The used rope rolls like tendons around my throat, the noose loose enough to breath but not enough for it to be comfortable; a simple pleasure that will leave bruised memories on my neck like a passionate lover would. I caress my clothed form, the sensation unpleasant and rough to the touch and yet so deliciously stimulating, a sensation that never fails to make me hum appreciatively, heartbeat inappropriately lively for a Scarecrow .

It is ten hours and forty-five minutes on a Thursday night; she has been to the library tonight, devouring romance novels with her third cup of herbal tea –something horrifyingly fruity, I assume. An activity she indulges frequently, seeking refuge and comfort in the elegant place, something I cannot blame her for, considering the depraved state of the rest of Gotham, in stark contrast to the magnificence of the old architecture. This habit will also work in my favor, draping myself in the thickness of the night, my elongated figure barely noticeable in the corner of the street; at best, two glowing orbs pierce the obscurity, reminiscent of an animal of some sort, or better yet of an unsettling monster.

I hum the broken notes of an unknown song, a simple habit that feels right, lured in the dark and waiting for her to penetrate the first alley; I recognize her ghost-like footstep, short heels clacking subtly on the pavement, naive and unaware. Oh, my sweet girl.

She does not sense me for the first two hundred meters, her oblivious demeanor both entertaining and frustrating. There is something viscerally exquisite about seeing without being seen, teasing a very particular part of me; an almost erotic melange of power and impunity. I came to realize with age and experience that hunting is not dissimilar to foreplay, and therein lies my current problem; foreplay is not endless teasing, for I am neither patient nor interested in maintaining myself on the edge of my pleasure. And when I am being ignored for too long, I cannot help but feel somewhat insulted; ultimately, I want her to see me.

My fingernails tap and scratch the cold bricks, an abominable gurgling noise escaping my fatigued throat. She freezes instantly, and my sex twitches in sensible interest which I attempt to calm down, a feverish excitement pooling in my stomach. I distinguish the tremor in her silhouette and her breath hitching ever so slightly, a subtle perfume floating in the air, one that I know by heart now and makes my mind sing and mouth salivate. She does not look behind her, a wise choice I would say under more normal circumstances, her pace quickening in the narrow alley right between the first and third street of Gray Avenue. 

I inhale the acidic perfume of my body; I would like to say that my entire form is impregnated with the residuals of an old chemical toxin I’ve developed decades ago, but perhaps it is simply my own essence, now corrupted to its very core. I am certain that the delirious effects of these quasi pheromones will soon hit her as well and change her like I expect her to.

As she navigates through the almost pitch black alleys, fingertips grazing at the walls to help her find her way, I wheeze a wretched noise from within my ribcage, dreadful sounds I have been practicing since I was born and which never seems to get old. My poor girl is sobbing earnestly now, an arm wrapped around her middle section as if to seek comfort, almost running away from me, her short heels making a music akin to a typewriter in the night of Gotham. I am fully aware I have her complete attention, but I wish she would just look at me.

I run after her, vomiting more guttural gibberish from my distorted voice, fingernails hitting and scratching every surface in a pleading cacophony. She whimpers more frankly, I can tell how delicate her nerves are at this very moment. In her panic, she picks the wrong turn. Exquisite.

She looks around her with agony and confusion, persuaded that she would be welcomed by a bridge crossing the river of the Old Street; instead, she is met with a damp and sinister dead end. She whimpers audibly, her scent turning acrid and pungent now; fear, she reeks of fear . I pant, a hundred meters behind her, putting enough distance to remain a formless creature while still appearing very much real in the dim light. The soft tremor turns into heavy shaking when she turns her head behind her shoulder, as if to convince herself that this is just a dream, just like the others she’s had. Then she screams, oh! she screams…

Her crystalline voice breaks and shatters, pure and visceral, high pitched and perverted with terror; I am so hard I could hammer a nail in raw wood. I move in a dislocated fashion, long limbs akin to spider legs, the nightmarish look making her trip and fall on her bottom and crawl back, fingers desperately digging in the cold pavement until a nail breaks, curling her form into a ball in a damp corner. She cries so hard her face turns ruby red, smeared mascara leaving dark streaks on her puffy cheeks, glistening saliva bubbling on her screaming lips – oh, how beautiful she is, my sweet girl. My cock feels heavy in my now awfully tight pants; under different circumstances, maybe I would have offered her a different fate. 

She hides her face in her arms, fingers grabbing ferociously at her hair as if trying to wake herself up, but she doesn’t, no, she doesn’t wake up, and the reality is sinking in, especially when I am standing not even five meters in front of her. There is a bitter, stinging smell in the air, and a recognizable warm golden puddle underneath her shaking body that glistens beautifully under the moonlight; I purr in between two groans, witnessing her weakest form dissolve and collapse into the void of her mind that I have conceived. I want to create her anew, an abomination made of flesh and terror, and she will recognize me as her cruel Creator. My low distorted voice echoes in the muted alley, inspired and impassioned.

Are you afraid, child?

She screams louder, screams for help, screams for her life. But no one will save her, not here, not in Gotham, not this pathetic piss soaked girl . I mock and taunt her, towering over her as she chokes on her own sobs, desperate and painfully lonely. Why won’t anyone save me , she must be thinking. Why did Father lock me in this cell, she must be thinking. Why did Father abandon me in the cornfield. My laugh sounds more like a croak, sinister and penetrating, while she begs me for her life. 

Do you know who I am, child?

She does not. I blame it on her delirious state, on her body pumping her full of adrenaline, and most probably the toxins my body produces and which she’s been inhaling. This will not do, however; I want to ruin her in a way that matters, and for that to happen I need her to know who I am, what I represent. 

I crouch in front of her weaker form, barking her name and demanding she looks at me, which she does, obediently so; I reiterate my question, my hands hunched like claws scratching the walls around her. She cries harder, but her body produces no more tears, exhausted and drained; she screws her eyes shut and so I have no other option but to grab her hair viciously, forcing her to look at me.

And she does, oh she does , giant glassy eyes that lost their innocent spark and instead glow with a fury only trauma could forge and terror could sublimate. She sees the humiliation and the absence, the neglect and the judgment; she sees what she could have been if it had not been taken away from her. She does not say it but she mouths it, the two syllables of her misery.

Father.

My cackle is nothing short of demoniac, entire body jerking wildly enough to remember my turgid sex still leaking its filth in my ruined pants, heartbeat frantic as I am slowly but surely reaching my peak; release is not only needed but deserved , I believe, as my hand crawl inside my pants and free my cock, seizing it in a vicious grip that is mostly pain under her terrified and disgusted gaze. I take in her beautifully wrecked face as I pump myself with vigor and intent while croaking heavy moans, my eyes devouring every single wrinkle, every tear and tremor, swallowing the sight of the tense tendons of her throat choking on her sobs until I hiss in disgust at the repugnant pearl necklace. 

She does not need it anymore, I believe. And so, in a movement aquiver with lust and desire, my knotted fingers slip under the chain akin to a snake closing its embrace. She shrieks in pain when I pull tightly, a most needed evil I am afraid although ephemeral, the horrendous necklace eventually giving in to my brutal punishment and breaking. I hear the clattering of the pearls falling and rolling on the pavement, hand still tightly locked around my cock as I fuck my fist earnestly in deliciously wet noises; she caresses the skin of her bare neck, as if understanding something, her terrified eyes turning back at me and begging me to let her go. Oh, my sweet child, be certain that I will miss your honeyed pleas…

My orgasm comes quickly, long spurts of milky cum spilling on her throat, the soft flesh now adorning a unique, more appropriate and beautiful set of pearls. A generous gift, one she will remember fondly, I am certain. Her lower lips tremble as more tears roll down her cheek, although not a sound comes out of her mouth. I understand, it is a lot to process. Therapy can be difficult sometimes.

I left her alone to collect herself. Once home, and after a quick yet invigorating shower, I became busy writing down in great detail tonight’s experiment and, one must admit, its most triumphant outcome.

The day before our scheduled appointment, she informed me that she would not be able to come, pretending to have a cold. I understood, of course, and asked her if I would see her next week then. She said that she wasn’t certain, and that she would call back. She never did.

[stevieharringtonwifeguy]

i keep thinking about my changeling steve au that i posted about here like. What About His Parents

this ended up so long i put it on ao3 too, you can read it here

like steves known he’s a changeling for a few months now, and in that time his parents still haven’t come home. he hasn’t really thought about it, except during his weekly scheduled 3am identity crisis. eddie’s told him that based on what he knows about changelings (just from old stories and things, neither he nor wayne have ever actually met one, which makes him kind of useless as a guru but like. points for trying), their human parents usually have a human baby that gets replaced and they don’t notice until the kid grows up Wrong. honestly, it figures that his parents just never got around to noticing.

at least that’s what he thinks. but one day, he’s walking past his dad’s office, struggling to carry a huge pile of laundry bc he put it off too long and ended up having to wash like literally every piece of clothing he owns. and a tshirt slips right as he passes the door. he reaches out for it on instinct, brushes his hand against the handle, and it hurts. hurts so bad he drops his laundry, instinctively drawing his hand in to cradle the pain. did he overestimate his strength again? he’s been doing that a lot lately, kind of embarrassing to break his hand or something punching a doorknob by accident. but then he looks at his hand, and he doesn’t have the kind of mark he’d expect from just whacking it really hard. it’s red and shiny, like a burn in the exact shape of the doorknob

it’s an iron burn. none of the other knobs in the house are iron.

honestly of all the restrictions placed on him now that he’s become Fully Fae, he thought the iron sensitivity would come up more often. turns out not much is made of iron anymore. all the other doorknobs he’s touched have been aluminum or brass or something. so far the whole ‘needing to be invited in to places’ has been way more annoying. the kids don’t know about the whole fae thing yet and also have no manners, so he’s been doing a lot of loitering outside their open doors until their parents notice and politely invite him in.

he looks at the doorknob again. it doesn’t look like iron. it looks like all the other knobs in the house, sort of light and shiny. he brings his hand near it again, and he can feel the heat coming off it before his skin even touches the metal.

he’s not allowed in his dad’s office. it’s one of the few rules his parents ever enforced, his dad glaring at him if steve happened to be in the hall when he opened the door, like he thought steve would try to make a run into the room in the three seconds of open door time he was given. steve could take a hint, even as a kid.

now though, there’s something prickling at the base of his skull, that new sense he has for something being wrong screaming at him that it’s certainly odd that the one room in the house that he’s not allowed to enter is also the one room in the house with a door he can’t physically touch.

he does what any reasonable fairy would do. abandons his gigantic pile of laundry on the floor and runs downstairs to call a witch.

eddie shows up about five minutes earlier than he reasonably should have, which probably wasn’t magic but instead him fucking flooring it the entire way to steve’s house. he’s got a big messenger bag over his shoulder, and he pulls a smaller bag out of it and displays the bunch of weird bent pins inside with a conspiratorial eyebrow wiggle

‘i have literally always been looking for an excuse to use these. you’re my hero, stevie.’

steve snorts and leads eddie upstairs. the witch kindly doesn’t mention the laundry strewn all over the hallway, just kicks a pair of (clean!!!!) boxers out of the way and kneels down in front of the door, inspecting the knob closely.

‘it doesn’t look like iron.’

‘tell that to my hand, man. i spent the entire time you were driving over here running my hand under cold water and it still fucking hurts.’

eddie hums, absentmindedly grabbing steve’s hand as he continues to squint at the knob. he runs his thumb over the burn mark and the pain is instantly gone.

steve looks at his hand. it’s totally fine, no mark at all. ‘thanks,’ he says, and eddie shoots him a little smile over his shoulder before turning back to the door.

‘no magic on it,’ he mutters. he brings a nail up and scratches lightly at the knob. the silver of it flakes a little, exposing something darker underneath. it’s painted. iron painted to look like the aluminum of the other knobs in the house. steve and eddie exchange frowns.

eddie quickly grabs his picks, shoves them into the lock and wiggling them around for a bit. like a while. steve’s about to tease him for his apparent lack in any actual criminal ability when something clicks, and eddie turns the door handle with a whoop. the door swings open, and eddie sniffs for a minute, like alarm magic has a scent component or something, before shrugging and rushing in.

and steve goes to follow. well, he tries. when he lifts his foot to cross the threshold of the room, something physically stops him. it’s like a strong wind is coming out of the room, blowing back his leg anytime it gets too close. eddie looks back at him in confusion, before his eyes land on something on the doorjamb and his face falls into something cold. steve follows his line of sight and his heart stops for a second.

there’s a small horseshoe nailed to the doorjamb.

until now, steve realises he’d been hoping there was a reasonable explanation for the iron handle. maybe when they were building the house the store ran out of aluminum ones so his dad just got an iron one because it looked the most similar, something like that. but there’s no reason for the horseshoe. no reason except that someone wanted to keep fae out of this room. which means whoever put it there knew fae entering this room was a risk.

his parents fucking knew what he was. they just never said or did anything about it. nothing except block off this room.

eddie shifts a little in the middle of the room. ‘steve?’ he asks. his voice is soft, hesitant, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. ‘are you okay?’

steve wrenches his eyes away from the horseshoe, focusses on his feet. when he catches a glimpse of his clenched fists by his hips, he realises he’s glowing again, sparks dancing up and down his veins and lighting him up from the inside like a human lava lamp. well, not so human. that’s the problem.

he takes a deep breath to get his magic under control before he accidentally lights something on fire. looks up to eddie, still standing in the middle of the office like he doesn’t know what to do. ‘he’s hiding something in here. find it.’

part of steve, the human part, feels bad for ordering his friend around like that. but eddie just nods with determination, rooting around in his bag for something.

‘i’m not sensing any secrecy charms or alarms or anything in here, which means i can use...’ he takes a travel mug out of the bag and brandishes it with a flourish. ‘this!’

steve snorts. ‘a cup of coffee?’

eddie rolls his eyes, shaking the mug for a second and then opening it to check on the contents. ‘it’s a brewed spell. it shows hidden things.’

‘and you put it in a travel mug?’

‘oh i’m sorry, i was running a little low on fuckin’. crystal flasks. what the hell else was i supposed to put it in?’

‘i just thought with your whole... satanist metalhead deal you’d be a little more dedicated to the witchy aesthetic.’

eddie huffs, grumbles something that sounds suspiciously like i’ll show you witchy aesthetic, before upending the travel mug onto the floor.

what comes out isn’t really liquid, more like the soupy fog that comes out of a fog machine, except it’s a pleasant sage green colour. the fog quickly covers the whole room, before seeming to pool in two areas: one under the desk and another over the little throw rug in the middle of the room.

‘okay, we got two hidden things, which one are we checking out first?’

steve considers. ‘the desk one is probably just boring shit. pictures of his mistress, or, i dunno, evidence of tax fraud or something. try the rug.’

eddie nods decisively, throwing back the rug and inspecting the wooden floorboards until he finds one that seems a little loose. he pulls it back with a bit of a grunt, and immediately sticks his hand down there and starts rummaging around like he wouldn’t start screaming bloody murder the second a spider touched his hand. after a moment, he makes a triumphant sound, and pulls out a book.

it looks old, maybe a hundred years or so, and steve has the fleeting thought that if nancy found out his dad had been keeping a fragile antique book under the floorboards, she’d probably rip him that new one she’s been threatening since steve brought her to a family dinner and his dad called her ‘lower middle class’ like it was a bad thing.

‘it’s a grimoire,’ eddie says, sitting cross-legged on the floor and gently opening the book. at steve’s confused silence, he adds, ‘a spellbook. sort of. looks like this one isn’t a witch’s grimoire, it’s mostly human magic, judging by the table of contents.’

‘i thought regular humans couldn’t do magic.’

‘they can’t do like, spells. but there’s little stuff, especially when it comes to dealing with other creatures. like, uh,’ a pained look crosses his face as he inclines his head to the horseshoe still denying steve entry. ‘the horseshoe. technically magic. if they’d just hung it for like, decoration, it wouldn’t keep you out. there’s gotta be intent behind it.’

steve huffs, glaring at the horseshoe. ‘so what, they figured out i was a changeling and they got a whole book to figure out how to herd me like a sheep?’

eddie winces at steve’s tone, but hey, who can blame him. this is a lot. ‘maybe. there’s a lot of stuff about fae in here. descriptions of types, etiquette stuff, protections- oh shit.’

steve snaps his head back to eddie, who’s currently staring at the book like a spider’s just crawled out of the binding. then he seems to gather himself, muttering furiously under his breath as he flips through the pages, no more care shown for the book’s antiquity. ‘what is it?’

eddie settles on a page towards the back of the book, reading through with a furious look on his face. he gets up, walks over to steve still standing helplessly in the doorway, and thrusts the book towards him. steve looks down.

the words are a little hard to read, handwritten with spidery loops and the ink a little faded, but steve eventually gets the gist.

it’s instructions for summoning a changeling child.

steve, stupid, forgiving steve, thinks for a moment that this isn’t so bad. maybe his parents couldn’t have biological kids or something and this seemed like their only option. weird to not just adopt a human child, but whatever. and then he reads the paragraph extolling the virtues of having a changeling in the house- how they bring good luck, how they have a nose for finding treasures, and he realises no. his parents never wanted a kid (like he didn’t already know that), they wanted a superpowered pet. the final nail in the coffin is when he reads that the summoning process involves a human child, too. they’d had their own kid at one point, biologically or adopted, and they’d traded them in for a newer, more exciting model probably without a second thought.

and then they’d abandoned the newer model too.

steve barely even realises when he sets the book on fire, the glow that’s been simmering under his skin since he first saw the horseshoe spilling out from his fingertips in a shower of sparks. eddie doesn’t even really react, just calmly bats the flaming book out of steve’s hands and uses one of the sweaters littering the ground to smother the fire. he doesn’t mention the way the lights are flickering, pulsing light so strongly they’re in danger of blowing out. just softly wraps his arms around steve’s torso, murmuring gentle words into the crook of his neck as he strokes his hair.

the first tears that fall from steve’s eyes dissolve into harmless sparks of light against eddie’s shoulder. eddie doesn’t seem to mind, just keeps stroking steve’s hair as he whispers that it’s okay, eddie’s there, eddie’s got him.

steve doesn’t know how long they stand there like that. when he pulls back to wipe his eyes, his light-tears are still hanging in the air around them like an asteroid belt made of hundreds of little still fireflies. eddie pokes one. it glows brighter.

rubbing his face, steve sighs, waves the lights away with a motion of his hand. eddie looks put out for a second, before catching the determined look in steve’s eye and watching him warily.

‘what are you going to do?’ he asks, a little apprehensively.

‘i’m going to call my dad,’ steve replies, stalking off towards the stairs before eddie can even get out a strangled ‘okay?’

steve’s already punched in the number for his dad’s office by the time eddie catches up. his secretary picks up, asks who’s calling, and steve musters all the charm he can to try and convince her to put him through. she usually doesn’t, apologetically explains that his dad’s in a meeting, or out of the office, or swamped with work, or a hundred other excuses, but that she’ll tell him steve called and he’ll get back to him as soon as possible. he never does. steve’s not sure if she knows that; the guilt in her voice could just as easily be because she’s sleeping with him and feels bad for ruining their ‘perfect family’.

either way, steve’s not taking chances. he’s never tried to magically charm someone over the phone before, doesn’t even do it much in person either, it feels skeevy (although he has gotten out of a suspicious amount of detentions, even before he fully came into his magic. whoops.). but wouldn’t you know, this time she says he’s called at the perfect time, his dad’s just got out of a meeting and she’s sure he’d be thrilled to hear from his loving son. steve has to physically bite back a cutting remark as she puts him through.

for all his rage, steve doesn’t really remember much of this conversation. he talks like he’s in a fugue state, his brain packing everything away into some dark corner of his mind the second after it’s said, focussing instead on the way eddie’s face gets steadily more distressed where he can see it out of the corner of his eye.

he knows he asks his dad to come home so they can talk about something important. he knows his dad scoffs, tells him he can’t possibly come home right now and steve can’t possibly have anything to say that’s so important he can’t say it over the phone. knows he tells his dad he found the book under the floorboards. knows the silence on the other end of the phone is so loud it’s deafening.

the rest of it is fuzzy. honestly, it probably goes exactly how he expected it was going to go. there’s some yelling, some accusations, his dad calls him a disappointment once or ten times. and at the end of it his dad tells him if he’s going to be so ungrateful he can pack his bags and get out of the house the real harringtons are paying for.

eddie hangs up the phone for him when he hears that. hard not to hear it, the way harrington sr. is screaming through the phoneline. if steve tried hard enough, he could probably still hear him yelling all the way from indianapolis, and he probably wouldn’t even need to use magic.

they stand in silence for a moment. steve staring at the phone, eddie staring at steve. and then steve feels an itch under his skin.

he’s no longer welcome in this house.

he’s got a couple minutes before the nausea sets in, probably, so he books it upstairs to fit as much of his shit in his sports bag as he can fit. it’s mainly clothes. god knows he doesn’t give a shit about any of the things his parents- no, mr. and mrs. harrington- picked out for his perfect boy’s room. there’s the walkie, a couple gifts from the kids. that’s it.

and then he’s out, stumbling a little over the threshold when the magic finally locks in and physically boots him from the house. eddie’s following behind, frantically grabbing his bag and his jacket as he shouts for steve’s attention.

‘what, you’re just gonna leave? immediately? you can take more time to get your stuff-’

‘no,’ steve says, the word ripping itself from his throat, short and harsh. ‘‘no i can’t actually. don’t have an invitation.’

and isn’t that look on eddie’s face heartbreaking. steve doesn’t want to cry out here- it’s a little early for firefly season and the lights would get too much attention. so he throws his bags in the backseat of the beamer, gets in the driver’s seat, and just. sits for a second.

eddie gets in next to him, gives him a gentle look. ‘are you alright?’

steve snorts, giving eddie a side-eye.

‘yeah, okay, fair,’ eddie replies with a weak huff of a laugh. ‘you got a plan?’

shit. no he didn’t, actually. ‘i mean, worst comes to worst, i guess i could sleep in a tree? i just figured out how to get in one, pretty good timing, huh?’

eddie looks at him like he’s grown a second head. not impossible, but steve thinks he’d notice. ‘sleep in a tree? what the hell does that mean?’

steve shrugs. ‘like, just climb inside. it’s kinda like putting on a jacket, really, but like. 360 degrees. could probably only do that to sleep, though, i haven’t really figured out how to not like, become the tree. And trees don’t really do anything, so it just makes me sleepy.’

eddie continues to stare at him a second before he shakes his head dramatically, like a dog getting out of a bath. steve huffs a laugh despite himself. ‘whatever, don’t sleep in a tree man, that’s crazy. you can stay at mine, if you want.’

‘what?’

eddie shrugs. ‘i mean, it’s no 360 degree jacket, but it’s nice. lots of amenities that trees don’t offer: shower, stove, tv, et cetera.’

‘that’s-’ that’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever offered him. eddie’s looked out for him since he came into his magic, and they’re friends, yeah, but this is... so much. he’s been to eddie’s place, knows he doesn’t have a lot of space, but he’s still offering to share it with steve, so easily it’s like it’s not even a question whether he’s welcome. steve can’t accept. ‘what about wayne?’

eddie just snorts. ‘dude, excepting, like, me being his nephew/adopted son whom he loves dearly, he likes you like. way better than me. you’re the little sports son he never had. frankly if he found out you’d been kicked out and i didn’t offer to give you a place to stay he’d probably kick me out. well, no he wouldn’t. but he would give me that ‘im not mad im just disappointed’ look and that sucks too.’

‘you’d do that?’ and steve hates how small his voice sounds right now. he’s had a day.

but eddie just looks at him with those big, gentle eyes of his. says ‘of course’ like there’s no other response he could give. so steve smiles. thanks him softly, and drives them to the munson trailer. neither of them mention the firefly-tears that fill the car like fairy lights strung from the ceiling.

and they get to the trailer. eddie offers steve his bed, and they argue good-naturedly about it until they both give up and settle in together, eddie petting steve’s hair as they cuddle in a way that’s probably not all that platonic, but neither of them seem to care. it’s nice. soft.

it’s ruined a bit when eddie sits bolt upright with a ‘shit! my van’s still in loch nora!’ but the way they both laugh so hard they can’t breathe is nice too.

steve’s only been here for a few hours, and he’s already never felt more at home.

and here’s the tags! this is literally the first time anyone has asked me to tag them for more, thank you for making me feel like a celebrity lol

@fairytalesreality @swimmingbirdrunningrock

[izpira-se-zlato]

Milan, 27.03.24

Gig report! Can't believe there's only two to go after this one :o (for me)

I showed up at 4:45pm (bc I'd chosen to get food at the station) and was still a lower number than in Munich at 2pm. Yeah.

didn't really queue thus, which always makes gigs a bit… different. I miss chatting with people before gigs, but I hadn't wanted to fly (even though after the venue move that would have been even easier. But also catching a 7:30 flight the morning after a gig. Yeah, no)

the queue kinda fell apart because you needed a membership card to get into the venue. We didn't have to pay. But they had to handwrite it for us. Emotions ran a little high

the venue was. Something. Sorta a… festival tent? Not quite outdoors, but definitely Interesting

due to the proximity to the airport, the radio frequencies from planes kept interfering with the equipment. Bojan attempted to explain it to us, but he didn't know it himself and thus mostly listened. I feared for the worst at that point, ngl. They didn't look particularly angry to me, but Bojan was like, "Don't be angry, Jan!" so I was like 😬

Bojan tried to get Jure and then also Nace to jam while they were figuring out their tech issues (Always Something Problem), but it meant Jan couldn't hear himself enough and so we just watched him wander on stage while Bojan tried to entertain us

We got ASTP and Proti Toku for soundchek. My first ASTP in 12 gigs on this tour! Curious to see what we'll get today

Bojan repeatedly called Jan "Jenzo" and then later claimed "Just so you know, Jan's Italian name is Jenzo!" with which the crowd disagreed (and let him know that it should be Gianni)

soundcheck was pretty cold and I almost regretted not having taken my jacket (but it did warm up)

the opener was a brass band. Unexpected but actually fun. Fit the gig, somehow

they played a lot of medleys of known songs and the crowd was pretty into it

JC! God, I barely can believe that it was the second-to-last tie I saw him live like that. I love his acoustic set a lot (in particular the first and last songs xD)

He accidentally unplugged his guitar last night. Kinda a funny moment

pretty sure the hype list was changed. Dirty Little Secret made it into the cut, and to our surprise, Zitti e Buoni didn't. Weird choice, Primož (or so I assume)

Actual gig!

We got Jan in a capybaster shirt and Nace in the cosy sweater and Bojan in a buttoned shirt he got gifted during soundcheck and Jure in the gorgeous metallic sweater and Kris in another cozy sweater

The Jance was off the fucking charts, jfc I hate them idk what was in the air. Probably hadn't seen each other all day (I'm not actually complaining)

We got SSOL opener into… Ne Bi Smel into Ona into Tokio

During Ne Bi Smel Jan was standing in front of Nace's mic so Nace had to push him away to sing the backing vocals (grinning all the while)

Bojan went, "This night is gonna be multilingual" so I was like, oh, Tokio, but no! "We had English, then Slovene, now we're gonna add some Serbian!" Changing his quips for the final stretch, huh?

Nace singing fucking "Dok tebe sunce greje, mi amore" at Jan. I hate him (While the sun warms you up, my love, according to lyrics translate)

They also played at each other during NBS because of course they did

Jan back on Jure's snare drum for the end. Multi-instrumentalist

Tokio! I didn't catch it on video, but Nace leaned in and bumped his nose into Jan's breast? Kissed his coat? I have no clue what he did but I was like ??? Nace?

At the end, they chased each ohter in circles again, and Nace either went down on one knee in front of Jan or almost did so. When the lights came back on, Nace patted Jan's chest while laughing (couldn't make out Jan's expression)

before NGVOT, Nace was thrown bread. A plushie? Actual bread? I don't know

Nace kept looking over at Jan during NGVOT, and when Jan finally met his gaze, he turned to him so they played at each other. Jan was making a mock-surprised grimacing face and playing? And then they just. Turned back to the front. What the fuck, guys

they just. kept looking at each other. Jan looking at Nace while Nace was doing backing vocals. Nace looking back as soon as he was done. Them swaying in sync while Nace smiled smugly about it. And at the end, they did the swaying like. In opposite cycles? So both sawying in and both swaying away, until Nace turned and bent his knees a little and yelled up into Jan's face. Yeah idk.

we didn't only get Bluza but got it before Šta bih ja

Kris came over to hug Jan during Bluza 🥰😭

Jan's expressions during the ending were. Something 😂

more silliness from Jan and Nace during Šta bih ja

Bojan: "This is a new song! Why do you know it"

also uh. Synchronised hip thrusting while facing each other at the end of the song. Yeah. Jfc remember you're on a stage, guys

Jan either messed up the opening of Demoni or his guitar gave out for a hot second but he was wearing a very oops expression

Jan grasped Nace's shoulders during Demoni and I think spoke the words at him? Or said something else? But that wouldn't make sense? Nace nodded and patted Jan's chest in turn

Got the Demoni scream

PiJano Padam. Bojan looked really tired during that song. Jfc get this man to take a break

Intense staring at each other at the beginning of Umazane until Nace said something to Jan and then both grinned and Nace wandered off

Nace was pretty silly at the start of the karaoke bit and like. gestured at Jan theatrically and then mimed falling over. Dork

We got the OG OG Umazane Misli chorus. The one Bojan wrote in a hurry the first time they performed it. Made my night -- and Kris's because it's where the very smiley/laughing Kris pics during UM came from

@kurooscoffee/@jokeroutsubs had prepared UNO reserve cards to make the boys sing. Which made the rounds already but gaaah it was !!!!!!

Jan declaiming the verse because "[he] can't sing so [he's] not gonna sing. [He's] gonna interpret it." And interpret he did😂

Nace with the "oh oh" before he started jfc the dork

Jan ducking under Nace's arm to play his bass after he failed to catch Nace's attention to offer, and then just. Going for it.

Nace slinging an arm around Jan

Nace singing "morning smells like you" right at Jan while Jan keeps looking up at him from playing chords on Nace's bass

Kris "Jan! Play, play the melody, I need the harmony!" (and Jan did)

god we need more Kris singing plssss

Kris sang the verse mostly at Nace

Jure going "oooh fuck!" and not knowing the entire lyrics 😂😂 Jance this and Jance that, but that made my night

I didn't see Bojan at barricade cheering his band mates on but he was and just. Gah. It was such a wholesome thing I hate them

Nace posed for pictures with a silly expression, and then Jance posed for a combined heart for someone

Plastika saw Bojan caress Nace and then hug Jan from behind (no choking tho)

During Novi Val, Jance stood off to the side being Jance for quite a while, while Jure had his hand weirdly on Bojan's back?

They looked really exhausted by the end which. Mood.

Post gig:

The venue had a scrolling LED screen that scrolled "Everybody's Waiting At The Ball" (thanks, Kris, for the restory!)

Had a chat with Dean (lovely) and JC Stewart (also lovely) and learned that JC and Conor used to live together which is why JC was out with Conor to be introduced to the boys (allegedly before Christmas, though JC wasn't 100%)

hung around the gate after the show even though it was pretty clear they wouldn't say hi, but it gave us a chance to see Mark (who'd surprised the boys with a visit) as he was waiting for someone to let him off the venue grounds. "Well, they'll have to open this at some point, they ordered McDonald's!"

Spoiler: they did not open the gate for McDonalds. Primož tried to scale it, which almost worked but looked dangerous, and so the delivery person threw it over the top. It was a spectacle

by that point, Mark had been let out the old-fashioned way though

[stevebattle]

S.A.M by "Bill" (1978). "S.A.M (Short for "Sentient, Autonomous Mechanism" or "Smart Ass Machine", depending on his (and my) mood on a given day, was one of my first real robot projects, started in 1978 when I was around 15. His "brain" was a single-board Z-80 computer (the big square object in the middle of his "back" in this picture), with many bits of TTL I/O, a couple of serial ports, a bunch of counter-timers, and several D/A & A/D channels. The base was taken from the book "How to Build a Computer Controlled Robot" by Todd Loofbourrow - I had built the robot in the book, and had used my KIM-1 to control it. Later, I decided that just a little platform was kind of boring, so I added the upper torso shown here. The torso (mounted on a "lazy-susan" turntable bearing) is rotated by a heavy-duty gear motor driving a chain and sprocket assembly from a bicycle. The base is powered by two of the (apparently no longer available, which is sad) all-metal rubber-tired "motorized wheel" assemblies that Herbach & Rademan used to sell, with a large rubber-tired caster in front. The head platform (mounted on a small "lazy-susan" bearing) was originally rotated by a surplus gearbox from a Mattel "Big Trak" with some rubber-tired wheels mounted on the output shafts. This arrangement was later replaced by a small gear-head motor driving a large gear mounted to the center of the turntable. The device in the head with the tubes sticking out the front is a directional light tracking device. Each tube has a CDS photocell at the bottom, and is painted flat black inside. A comparator circuit tells the computer which direction the brightest light is coming from. This device could also tilt up and down with a small gear-head motor, to track light sources vertically. Most of the circuitry was installed on small plug-boards from Radio Shack, mounted in a card rack below the CPU card. This rack could be tipped back 90 degrees to facilitate easier access for testing. In addition to motor driver circuits, there was a "Sweet Talker" speech synthesizer board so he could talk. Power came from a large "gel-cell" marine battery (for powering trolling motors on boats), which was slung near the ground in the center of the base. Two 6V lantern batteries (later replaced by a 12V motorcycle battery) provided separate power for the electronics. All motors were isolated from the electronics via relays and/or opto-isolators. After these pictures were taken, a set of metal panels was installed on the "facets" of the base, with lever switches behind them for collision sensing. A Polaroid sonar range-finder was also added later. If you check out the other photos of S.A.M., you will notice an "arm" sticking out the front. This was a prototype made from an old swing-arm desk lamp and some "fingers" from a robot hand design using brass tubing, bicycle chain, and 1/16" steel cable to allow natural bending of each finger. It was later replaced with a much heavier duty aluminum framework arm operated by two 12VDC linear actuators." – My Home Robot Projects, by Bill.

[themostuselesspotato]

Drumbot rabbithole!! *warning for disconnected thoughts lmao

So. To start, I would like to preface this by saying that I dont know how/if this connects to canon, or if something else is said entirely. I honestly don't know much of the Brian lore yet, so this is just random thoughts that I wanted to put into writing.

Ok. So. It is implied that Brian is made of brass, both from certain lines and the color of the facepaint, so that's what this all spirals off of. I'm in band and previously played trombone, so I ended up connecting the dots of most metal instruments also being made of brass, which I find interesting. Brian is in a band, and made of the same stuff as most band instruments! Thats cool! Then I started going on a brass tangent, so here's some other stuff!:

- brass is a copper alloy and is partially zinc

- because it is a copper alloy, it is antimicrobial, which means it kills bacteria

- brass does tarnish, but not green like copper. I've seen a lot of Drumbot art where his skin is oxidizing green, and this would contradict that (once again, not saying I'm right with this, just talking about brass). When brass tarnishes it gets dark, dull, and splotchy

- brass tarnishes with interaction with oxygen and skin oils! That means that although brass will darken when in oxygenated air, it will darken more when in contact with (supposedly human) skin.

- brass is a relatively soft metal

- brass has a relatively low melting point

Yeah thats all I have for brass. These are just things I wanted to write about and incorporate into my own art!! Enjoy idk