#did i dig out my external hard drive for nothing

[hailcolumbia]

“He’s a gamer. Slur.” 

[snugglesquiggle]

Tines of the Devil's Fork

Storm-veiled stars, frozen city ruins, knives in the sky. Railgun finished early, Uzi hunts.

here's something short and experimental. what if uzi repaired her railgun with Something Else?

i'd appreciate kudos and comments, but this is short enough i can put it all here on tumblr

i.

Stars, the few times Uzi saw them, shined all sorts of colors. Blue, yellow, red. Beneath the streetlamps, acid-tinged snow-flakes glittered, bright and scattered the same way, but they were only white. Crap replacement.

Uzi keeps eyes on the sky; she was savvy, knew to stay on-guard. Two scavengers chit-chat beside her, eyes on facial animations instead. But they listened as she’d ranted railgun electromagnetics and anime choreography. Seemed interested. She thought of Doll, back when they were sleepover-sisters. Crap replacement.

No time for angst, just action. Uzi holds her railgun, and thinks of Khan.

ii.

Shadows scowl and loom. Spooky streets. Uzi knew spooky all her life. In Doll’s sleepovers they played dare-games in closet darkness. Rumors said if you shut out all light, you sometimes felt watched. Doll did every time. Uzi too.

Dark is nice, sharpens senses. Uzi’d thought her railgun needed a glowing green spare part. A macguffin. Then she brought a copper-wrapped tuning fork to a room with no lights. Completion sung to her, and the railgun felt done.

Just needs a target.

Till then, it’s scavenging.

An apartment block stands, no lights powered, but copper’s in the walls.

iii.

Crack. Quin sledghammers wall-plaster. Pipes burst, water gushing out. Cracking piñatas, copper wire candy.

Streetlamps flicker outside. The wind stops, choked breath. Transformer fails — whole block in overcast night. One lamp left, shines a vigil.

Knife-whisper. When you see yellow, he’s already dead.

Neck cut, life gushing out. Cracking piñatas like color-inverted eggs. Quin-candy.

No angst, just action.

Anime choreography. Duck under wing-sweep, copper wire lasso, gotcha.

Acid burbles — vocalsynth fries — name’s Marina.

The railgun sings. Point-blank. Core bursts, scream-roars, blood gushing out. Street’s lit anew, green light like lightning.

Still no wind.

iv.

Uzi is cold-hot. Alone like a glacier. Angry like a simmering volcano.

Fatal Error beneath bowl-cut and pinstripe suit.

Fatal Error beneath blue-dyed fringe and crop-top.

Plug a wire, mount file storage like an external hard-drive, Uzi is looking for momentos, funeral fodder or catharsis to carry back. Searching just makes her feel hot.

She looks to the victory-defeat.

Materal Collection: initialization failed, retrying... beneath afro and sweater vest.

They don’t even die like us.

Kick and smash and kick and smash and it’s action but it’s nothing.

She’s smaller even when it’s dead.

v.

Digging through murder drone carcass, those bones and sacs, you still find electronics. Like a radio — buzzing.

Wind again, ice scratching her cheek. Electromagnetic humming — on-edge. Above glittering snowfall, that yellow glint. X marks your death.

Frickin’ cooldowns! No railgun. Detatched murder-claw? Crap replacement.

Cloud-crash, snow debris. No pouncing? Idiot ball?

“Yeesh. R got cooked by a toaster?” Wary, circling.

Shotgun-barrel jabs. “You reckon it bears the devil’s fork?” Still, focused.

“Hate seein’ a fork stuck in a toaster.”

Uzi blurts, “That’s right. My corpse-meal!”

Wary, focused – then blink. Quick as death, gone as wind.

vi.

Uzi’s frame rattled. Like digital adrenaline. Robot hormones.

Murder drones fled. She bluffed, they believed. She looked back, met eye with red error.

Better act the part, could be watching.

You wanted to carry back part of them. You wanted catharsis.

Murder drones probably don’t even taste like us. Right?

Intrusive thoughts didn’t make sense.

Uzi felt cold-hot. Ice makes stones crack. Electric voltage fries circuits. Uzi felt broken-growing. Hormones.

That was just angst. This is action. Hands cupped, plastic goblet for king’s wine. Queen’s royal jelly.

Railgun whines red overheat. Cool hands cradle it. She walks away.

vii.

Snow crested Uzi’s beanie, above icicle-feathers like an inverse crown. Her rime is undisturbed. Winds went still; clouds ran dry of false stars.

Digging through her bat-wing backback, you find extraneous electronics. MP3 player. Nightcore? Anime OPs? Not hitting. Corrupted file, howling static. That’s it.

Uzi groans loud in night, frame rattling. No one to talk to. Angst-abyss. She’s melting glaciers, she’s dormant volcanos.

Her feet crack like sledgehammers against ice-slick roads.

She’s remembering two smiling scavengers she’d left Outpost-3 with. Then thinking of Doll. Thinking of Khan.

Of her mother.

Her railgun cooled quiet.

viii.

The world’s different outside of Outpost-3. A different key, her core beating new tempos, orchestral remix.

Uzi knows how. Khan read door blueprints like bedtime stories. Never explained why Door Two, just what it was: a faraday cage. Canceling that fundamental noise of the light and iron: electromagnetism.

Murder drones use it to hunt: communication, triangulation, disruption.

Uzi runs a finger down the railgun’s barrel. Guess I use it to hunt, too.

In that dark room, watched and sung to, Uzi felt completion and it attracted her.

If she’d felt repulsed? Now she understands why.

Time to change keys.

ix.

Stars, the few times Uzi saw them, had four points. That’s how Light diffracted through lenses; squishy human eyes saw differently. They’re all messed up.

What do stars look like to murder drones? They don’t even die like us. Probably don’t see like us either.

That carcass was squishy inside. Muscles in place of servos. Crap replacement.

Last bridge back home is perilously slick. Last gust of wind tugs her hoodie. And she slips. Last moment, she ledge-grabs — with both hands.

Railgun tumbling down. One hand holding secure, the other’s thrown to reach out in a futile, dramatic gesture.

x.

Three prongs of purple code erupt in miracle-glow between splayed fingers.

It’s mirrored ten meters abyssward, cradling the fruit of months brainstorming, months tinkering, months hoping. The railgun that sung to her (in the same tonality murder drones hummed.)

Her replacement for — what?

It rises like snow never could. When it’s inches away, she stares at the symbol.

The devil’s fork.

Did she hate seeing it? Stepping off the bridge, her electricity hummed in the gun she cradled. She sees Door Three, and a rift high above.

Stars still shine, yellow and blue-red — three-pointed and ever-shifting.

[mariana-oconnor]

Fanfiction Deep Cuts

Tagged by @drgrlfriend Thank you!

tag a writer if you’d like them to share a never-before-seen playlist/moodboard/bit of background lore from one of their fics!

I don't do playlists or moodboards, so what we're looking at here is deleted scenes. So, hey, guys, guys, guys. Did you know that once upon a time there was a whole extra chapter to Silhouette?

Hell, I have a lot of deleted scenes from Silhouette and I've managed to dig out my external hard drive to find them. So here, have the original Chapter 4 of Silhouette, that both I and my beta agreed was unneeded and also stretched the suspension of disbelief a bit too far, even for an unapologetic identity porn fic. (I was so tempted to put the Tony & Bucky scene instead because I love it so much, but this one won out because Dog Cops).

Tagging anyone who wants to play because I never know who to tag for these things.

Silhouette Chapter 3.5: 30,000 feet

(under a cut to save your dash because it's almost 3k)

It’s weird, but since they’ve been chasing the world’s greatest assassination double act around, Bucky and Steve have wandered into some of the worst recesses and cesspools humanity has to offer: People trafficking in Barcelona, arms dealers in Alexandria, the cult leader and his brainwashing victims in Ottawa. Well, maybe that’s not the weird part. When you follow criminals, you’ve got to expect them to associate with criminals. The weird thing is that Hawkeye and Black Widow are taking half of these people down.

Bucky supposes that there’s no love lost between members of the criminal fraternity, but it feels different somehow. Even the marks that seem squeaky clean on the surface (the civil rights lawyer) turn out to be in the middle of some hideous act or three, and the evidence is always right there, like the pair of them plan their kills for the most incriminating times. All of which means that Bucky and Steve are getting a reputation for uncovering massive crimes and they’re doing very little of the legwork.

Not that they’re not doing any legwork. SHIELD hasn’t given them a jet yet, but the expenses they’re racking up on international flights have got to be raising some flags.

Take this one, for example. They’ve just been to Kuala Lumpur and now they’re following a lead to Rio de Janeiro. Coulson’s probably going to raise an eyebrow at that, but they’re pretty sure it’s a good tip. With the more they know about the pair, it’s got easier to tell what’s true and what’s not. It feels sort of like they’re getting to know them.

It’s been almost 6 months now. From what Coulson says, no one’s ever lasted this long before. Bucky knows that Hawkeye and the Widow must know about him and Steve, but he has no idea what they think of it. The small moments of communication they’ve had with them – the napkin, the tool dropped off at the hotel – indicate that they’re not angry about it. It seems more like a game to them and it’s starting to feel a bit like that to Bucky as well. He’s lost the anger at being led around, and he… maybe, slightly, is enjoying the challenge of it.

He shakes his head. This is one of the many reasons he hates long haul flights, even if this is one of the double decker planes that feels like something out of science fiction. Nothing to do but think, or watch whatever terrible TV or film is available.

Dog Cops, for crying out loud. Who watches Dog Cops?

The guy next to him, apparently. He’s been laughing for the past hour or so at what the animals on the screen are doing. Bucky doesn’t know what they’re saying, but he can’t imagine that it’s as funny as the guy seems to think it is.

It should be annoying, the constant chuckles and gasps, but it’s not. It’s not like Bucky’s going to sleep any time soon - sleeping sitting up is a surefire way to have nightmares since Afghanistan – and the guy’s got a nice laugh. Bucky’s the only one who thinks so, it seems, because the lady across the aisle is glaring every time the man opens his mouth. Not that it does any good. The guy in C62 is oblivious to everything but the antics of the four-legged detectives on the screen.

“Officer Wagsalot, no!” he says at what must be a crucial dramatic moment. It just looks like a dog licking another dog to Bucky.

“Shhh,” the woman across the way hisses. Bucky just looks at her. He’s got a very effective look. The only people it doesn’t work on are Steve, Hill, Coulson, and his family.

She shuts up.

The guy laughs again. At least someone’s having fun.

Steve’s got the window seat and Bucky’s trapped between him and the Dog Cops fan, which isn’t ideal, but he can endure it.

An hour later and Bucky’s given up on his book for the second time. He doesn’t know why he thought a thriller would be a good idea, given his day job, but it had been a choice between the latest adventures of Jack Montgomery, super spy, or one of those romantic novels with the soft pastel cover and the wishy-washy title. ’13 Minutes to Death’ had seemed more Bucky’s style.

Steve’s snoring isn’t helping matters either. Apparently the disapproving woman has run out of disapproval, though, because she doesn’t spare one of her judgemental looks for Steve, even though he sounds like a chainsaw. That’s the one thing the super soldier serum made worse, if anything. His old lungs couldn’t have held enough air to make this much noise.

Bucky takes a video just so he can guilt trip Steve later, and maybe to prove a point because Steve always complains that Bucky’s snoring keeps him up all night when they share a room – which is often because SHIELD are cheapskates.

“Friend of yours?”

It seems Dog Cops has finished because the guy has the headphones off and is looking right at Bucky. He’s got a weird beard that doesn’t suit his face at all, and wire rimmed glasses.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Not that I need more blackmail material, but why not?” C62 chuckles.

“He does sound like a machine gun.” Bucky laughs.

“So you ran out of dogs to watch, huh?” he asks. He wouldn’t normally start a conversation with a stranger these days, but what the hell else is there to do at 30,000 feet? And the guy’s attractive in an academic sort of way.

“I’m all caught up,” the guy says. “I’m away on business a lot, so I miss it half the time. Had to catch up on what’s going on with Officer Wagsalot and Mongrel Malone.” He looks at Bucky expectantly, as though he thinks that what he just says makes sense.

“Sorry, I don’t watch it,” Bucky admits. He feels a little guilty when the man’s face drops.

“What?! It’s a seminal work of American television!”

“I’m sure it is,” Bucky assures him. “But I travel a lot too. Not sure I’d be able to keep up.”

“You should try it. Only philistines don’t appreciate the greatness that is Dog Cops.” Bucky grins and nods past the guy at Ms Judgemental on the other side of the aisle.

“Some of our fellow passengers wouldn’t agree with you.” 63C follows the line of his gaze to give the woman a quick once over. She notices them looking and gives a very dismissive sniff as Bucky waves at her.

“She was probably worried about spoilers,” the guy tells him. At Bucky’s huff of disbelieve he holds up a hand. “That, my friend, is a true Dog Cops fan. We can tell our own. It’s like a secret society.”

“Right,” Bucky says. “Not sure she looked like a fan when she was shushing you.”

“She shushed me?” the guy asks. His face falls again. “I wasn’t really being that loud, was I? I’m terrible at judging volumes. My best friend’s always telling me to keep it down.”

“It was fine,” Bucky says. “I didn’t mind.”

“Yeah, well,” the man scrabs a hand across the back of his neck, then brings it round to scratch at his beard. “Sorry if I kept you awake or something.”

“Not like I was going to get any sleep anyway,” Bucky tells him with a shrug. “I can’t really sleep on airplanes.”

“Tell me about it.”

They both glance over at Steve, who is way too big to fit comfortably in airplane seating these days and looks a lot like human spaghetti. But he’s still fast asleep.

“He can sleep anywhere,” Bucky says. “Always, since we were kids.” Bucky doesn’t mention that it had been out of necessity for all the trips to hospital and all the pills he was on that made him drowsy.

“Tell you what I like to do,” the guy says, distracting Bucky from his weird thoughts. “People watch.”

“Yeah.” Bucky looks around. “Hate to break it to ya, but no one’s really doing a whole lot.” The guy shakes his head.

“Nah, not like that. I mean, everyone’s just sitting down, that’s dull. But like, there’s a word – sonder, it means that moment when you remember that everyone’s got their own lives, even if they’re just extras in yours.”

Bucky frowns, looking around.

“So I like to try to work out what those lives are. I mean, the woman we were talking about before, clearly she’s an archaeologist on her way to uncover a mythical lost city.” Bucky looks at her and tries to imagine it.

“I think she’s more likely a drugs mule,” he says. That startles a laugh from the other man.

“Dark. I like it,” he says. He looks over at the woman again and nods sagely. “You know, I think you might be right,” he says. “What about the skinny guy over there, with the headphones?” Bucky turns to look and considers the man for a second. His first instinct is student, but that’s obviously not the aim of this game.

“Alien,” he says finally. “He’s just here to observe us.”

They make up progressively weirder stories for each of the passengers. The old man two rows ahead is a retired dinosaur wrestler and the young girl behind them’s a time-travelling student from the future. Bucky almost chokes when the guy declares that a red-haired flight attendant is an international assassin.

“She’s a flight attendant,” Bucky points out.

“That’s what she wants you to think. Perfect cover. You get to travel all over the world and no one really notices you.”

Bucky considers the woman for a moment. She’s pretty in the polished way all flight attendants are pretty and she smiles her plastic smile as she serves the drunk man at the front another drink. She’s just another flight attendant.

“Nah… I don’t think you’re right about that one.” 62C smiles enigmatically. “So what did you think about me?” Bucky asks and the guy freezes.

“I… uh… I didn’t,” he says and Bucky smirks at the look on his face because he definitely did.

“Fine, then. What about now?”

“That would be cheating.”

“I didn’t know there were rules.”

“I already spoke to you. It’s supposed to be based entirely on looking at the person,” the guy says quickly. This is clearly going to be good.

“Well, I won’t say anything if you don’t.”

The man shifts uncomfortably and scratches his beard again.

“Go ahead. I swear I won’t get mad if you call me a lizard person.” Bucky sits back and gestures for the man to continue. It’s amusing watching him trip over his own tongue. 62C looks conflicted for a minute before shifting in his seat to face Bucky properly. He looks him up and down and it’s not a flirtatious glance or a joking one. Bucky tenses a little as he notices the sudden switch to serious.

“You’re American, New York from your accent,” the guy starts slowly. “I’d say ex-military – the way you sit and the way you look around a room. You prefer not to be noticed most of the time. You and your friend are very close, practically brothers.” He pauses, words hesitating on his tongue and Bucky takes a moment to draw in a quick, settling breath. The man looks him in the eye and shrugs. “And you’ve seen some shit.”

Bucky’s laugh is a little broken.

“I’ve seen some shit,” he agrees. His left hand curls into a fist. He sees the man look at it. It’s not a stare, not a question, just a glance and Bucky sort of wants to tell him, about the cave and HYDRA and the first arm, the one that was half rust and sent jolts of pain through him. He wants to talk about being strapped into the chair and knocked out with not enough anaesthetic. About coming to with someone drilling into his shoulder. His hand is shaking.

“Sorry,” 62C says quickly, holding up his hands in the universal non-threatening gesture. “I didn’t mean to…”

“No,” Bucky says. “It was a while ago. I… You were right about the army. I lost my arm in combat.” The truth fades into the civilian-friendly lie. “They didn’t have a lot of medical facilities where I was so…”

“But at least you got a cool cyborg arm,” the guy counters. It’s not the sympathy or pity Bucky was expecting and it makes him laugh again. 62C takes that as permission to continue. “I mean, that thing’s snazzy. Bet it comes in really useful when you need to punch through walls.”

“Which is something I do a lot,” Bucky concedes. It hasn’t come up, but he supposes it might. “So what do you do? Psychic?”

“Nah. Can’t you tell? I’m in a Mariachi band.”

The red-headed flight attendant comes over to offer them another drink and the conversation ends naturally. It’s only a few minutes before the pilot announces that they’re arriving in Dubai for their overnight layover.

As the man, and Bucky hadn’t even got his name, stands up to grab his bag from the overhead locker their eyes meet and they both chuckle.

“Thanks for the company,” 62C offers, holding out his hand. Bucky shakes it gratefully, feeling warm calluses.

“I should be thanking you,” Bucky tells him. “Otherwise I would have just been stuck with this one and his snoring.” To his left, Steve is blinking awake. “Don’t suppose you’re heading to Rio?”

“Nah. Dubai’s my home for the next few days,” 62C replies.

“Strange that we just spent seven hours together and now we’ll never meet again,” Bucky says. He tries not to be sad at the prospect.

“Maybe not,” the guy shrugs. “Maybe we already did and we just don’t remember it – in a bar, or at a café. Or maybe you drove right past me in the street. Who knows? The world is full of weird coincidences.”

The doors are opened and everyone starts shuffling off. Bucky loses sight of 62C in the crowd.

“Make a friend.” Steve asks, grinning like the little shit that he is. Bucky elbows him.

“Yeah, we bonded over your terrible snoring!”

“I don’t snore,” Steve protests, and Bucky just pulls out his phone and presses play. Steve listens for a few seconds before cringing.

“Separate rooms tonight?”

“You read my mind.”

*

When Clint gets to the rendezvous point in the back corridors of the airport, Nat is waiting for him, peeling off her flight attendant gear to get into her new outfit, and wrapping the head scarf over her hair. A change in her make-up and she’ll be a completely new person.

Clint can’t get the stupid beard off his face quick enough.

“This stuff itches,” he tells her. He’s sure he spent half his conversation with Bucky scratching at it. The man must have thought he had some sort of skin disease. “And I think it’s given me a rash. Next time I want the old glue again.”

“I don’t complain about the wigs,” she points out.

“You’re not allergic to the wigs!”

She hasn’t mentioned his conversation with Barnes, and she probably won’t. He knows she doesn’t approve. She thinks he’s getting too involved and he is. When she’d seen that he’d deliberately arranged it so that his seat on the flight was next to Barnes and Rogers she’d given him her most piercing look, and she does keep glancing at him like she’s worried. It had been a risk, a huge stupid risk, but he hadn’t quite been able to resist. And it had been worth it. The flight had been ten times more interesting with Barnes to talk to, even with Rogers’ ridiculous snoring.

She huffs and grasps his face to examine it.

“You’re not allergic. It’s only red because you’ve been scratching at it. Now get changed. We’ve got a job to do and a time limit.”

Clint glares at her, but takes the duffle bag she holds out and starts stripping. He’s going from travelling academic to wealthy business man. It’s an easier change than Nat’s.

It is disturbingly easy to get out of the airport without going through security when you know what you’re doing.

“I still can’t believe you got us a job on the way to another job.” He hops into the new trousers. They are apparently very expensive, going by the label, which Clint’s actually heard of, but they don’t look it. “This is not what overnight layovers are for, Nat. They are for sleeping. I need to sleep!”

“If you hadn’t been busy flirting with Barnes then you could have been asleep on the flight,” Nat points out. Clint doesn’t really have a witty comeback for that, so he just pouts until she throws his shirt into his face.

“Put your shirt on. I don’t want to be arrested for indecent exposure.” He rolls his eyes, but does as she says. They tuck away their usual arsenal of weaponry. With the less revealing clothes, Nat gets to hide more than usual. With what she’s wearing today, she could hide pretty much anything, which could be useful as they’re gate-crashing an evil international business man convention today. Good times.

[maximuswolf]

Shadow of War QOL Mods reupload: Orcs Don't Speak; Equip All Skills; Remove Challenges to upgrade items

Shadow of War QOL Mods reupload: Orcs Don't Speak; Equip All Skills; Remove Challenges to upgrade items Idk if this breaks rules, doesn't seem like it but I'm a lurker not a poster. Forgive me if I mess up. Also, I'm posting the descriptions of these mods from memory, so take it with a grain of salt. Lastly, I posted screenshots of my installation folder for those of us who prefer visual aid. The paths to them start with "K:" instead of "C:", this is just my External Hard Drive. Don't worry. If you need to get to your Shadows of War folder, right click it in your steam library, click "manage", then "browse local files".https://ift.tt/3qvcuQs to ReaperAnon for Item Challenge Remover, Multi-Skill Equiper, and the DLL loader that supports both. I don't remember who did the Orc Voice remover, but if someone finds out, I'll edit this post.DLL Loader: A library mod that allows the Item Challenger and Multi-Skill Equip mods to work.Item Challenge Remover: Removes the quests you go through to upgrade the gear you find, so you can just upgrade it with credits as soon as you find it.Multi-Skill Equip: Allows you to activate all 3 of the skill modifiers around a base skill. Note that not all skills work properly when you do this, but most do. Feel free to test, you won't break anything, but a tip would be that if the moves directly conflict, it won't work. So you can't inflict Fire AND Poison/Ice damage with one move. You can, however, equip moves that allow you to CHOOSE between Shadow Strike OR Shadow Kill OR Shadow Drain, for example. By default, you use this mod by holding CTRL and Left Clicking skills you want to add. This can be changed in the multiskill.ini file by opening it with Notepad.Installation: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\ShadowOfWar\x64The 'Plugins' Folder and 'bink2w64.dll' should be in the same folder as 'ShadowofWar.exe'. 'Item Challenge Remover' and 'Multi-Skill Equip' should be inside the 'Plugins' Folder.https://ift.tt/XU3MWdk I believe this is the file that makes it so that Orcs don't rant before a fight. They usually scream in the cutscene and then attack. This makes encounters go much quicker, as their little battle cry only takes a fews seconds compared to their long-winded rants. Not every rant is removed, but most are. If this doesn't work, lmk, and I'll go digging for the file that does.Installation: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\ShadowOfWar\presentations.arch06https://ift.tt/sMCwTlt this helps. I've been using all of these since October, 2022 without issues. I tested all these today to make sure nothing had been broken by some update or another. It all worked without stress. I hope this gives you all as much fun as it did me. Submitted May 13, 2024 at 10:17AM by Tristamid https://ift.tt/I2cOdvB via /r/gaming

[ashintheairlikesnow]

I really wanna know what happened during the painful bath that Nanda promised Jameson a while back. Baths in whump have the potential to be so soothing and excruciating at the same time, which kinda fits Jameson’s whole character don’t you think?

CW: Pet whump, dehumanizing language, intimate whumper, dubcon touch NSFW (not explicit), implied dubcon (fade to black), referenced blood and whipping, sadistic whumper, creepy whumper, creepy comfort, drowning, talk of sui (to escape torture), implied death by drowning (unnamed oc)

r/LetsTalkTrueCrime

NEW VIDEOS of the Box Boy Killer! Never Before Seen!

•Posted by u/oshaycanyousee 14h ago

So I got a really good response to my short series on the mysterious Box Boy Serial Killer (you can find my previous write-ups here, here, and here).

Well, recently I discovered something entirely new that I think you'd enjoy getting a look at! Found among personal items belonging to Nathaniel "Nanda" Matthew Benson: a medium-sized external hard drive containing nearly 750GB of photo and video content.

The hard drive was labeled 'Personal'. Police stated there was a second hard drive labeled 'Professional', but what content was on there, if anything, has never been released.

Technically, neither has this. Someone from within the police department leaked a bunch of videos and photos at some point, and I was able to get ahold of them thanks to a friend of a friend (who shall go unnamed, don't want to tip off whatever FBI agent is watching his internet activity, haha... or is it her or their internet activity... FBI Agent will never know.)

In my writeup on Nanda Benson's life with his Boxie, I didn't have a ton of details on how they interacted with each other. Finding this trove of info definitely changed a few things on how I view their relationship.

Take a look and let me know if it makes you maybe reconsider a few details, too. FYI: This does have nudity and some spicy times! Nothing worse than you've seen on HBO or whatever, but like, fair warning.

[Embedded Video Player With Title: Bathtime With Boxie: NSFW and Yet Somehow Still Oddly Wholesome Kind Of]

The video begins with the tub already filled with water, hot enough to gently steam. It's a gigantic soaker tub, large enough for four people to easily sit without crowding, nestled alongside a window in a truly enormous, incredibly well-lit bathroom. Everything is in shades of white, which makes the person in the frame even more immediately the enter of attention.

A young man with short, shaggy brown hair and dark eyes sits in the tub. He looks up, wrinkling his nose and glancing away. Only then does a bright red mark, darkening already to a bruise become obvious on one side of his neck.

"Don't fucking tape this," He says. His voice is slightly rough-edged, as if he's been screaming, and he sounds exhausted. "That's weird. Not taping the fucking but taping the after bit."

Red welts are visible above the line of water, marking his shoulders and arms. The welts are a deep red that is nearly purple - they are surrounded by bright red irritated flesh.

"Oh, but I like you like this." The voice holding the camera is deep and amused. The camera wobbles slightly and then settles, and soon enough a second man enters the screen. It's clearly Nanda Benson himself, stark naked.

Where the Boxie is heavily bruised and beaten, Nanda himself would be spotless if he weren’t flecked with drying red spots that are clearly the pet's blood.

"Yeah, well." The pet shifts to the side as Nanda steps in, hissing softly in contentment at the sudden burst of heat when he enters the water. He settles down against a bench set in to the side of the tub, and opens his arms.

The pet moves immediately into them, without hesitating. His eyes flicker nervously back to the camera and then away again.

"Yeah, well-... yeah well what, pet?" Nanda laughs as he pulls the Boxie into his lap, toying one hand already damp from the tub over the ring at the front of his collar. "Cat got your tongue after that fun we had together?"

"Tongue's the only thing you didn't take," The pet responds, almost playfully flirtatious. "I guess you'd miss it too fucking much."

"If I took your voice, who would call me a fucking idiot before I fuck him into the ground, hm?"

The pet flushes, looking down at the water, at the slightest pink of his blood still running into it. "Sir-"

"Ssssshhhh. I like you insulting me. I like punishing you for it more." Nanda mouths at the unmarked side of the pet's neck, pulling him back-to-chest where he sits, so he's facing the camera directly again. The pet's back arches when Nanda's teeth dig in, making a soft, high-pitched whine as his head drops back onto the man's shoulder.

The camera picks up the quiet splash of water as the pet tries to move away and is pulled roughly right back, catches the refracted sight of Nanda's hands on the pet's thighs forcing them apart, each of his calves on the outside of Nanda's thighs.

"Please-... H-hurts-"

"You love it," Nanda whispers, and bites down again, right into the crook of the pet's neck where it meets his shoulder. The cry this time is wild with a mix of pain and something darker, the pet's hands moving helplessly up and back to clasp just behind Nanda's head. His back is nearly a bow, every muscle trembling with a need to escape and to hold perfectly still, both at once.

When Nanda pulls back this time, the camera picks up the blood smeared on his teeth before he runs his tongue over them. It finds the light glinting off the fresh blood welling from the new bite along the pet's shoulder.

"It's too much," The pet says, struggling to sit back up straight, turning to look at Nanda. For a moment, his shaggy damp hair and angle hides his expression from the camera's gaze.

The twist of his spine, though, shows the bloodied whiplashes making their way up his back nearly to the nape of his neck.

"It's too much," The pet repeats, in a whisper. "Please. Please, it's too fucking much, if you fuck me again I'll fucking die. Please."

"Now, pet," Nanda teases, flirts shamelessly, running his wet hands through the pet's hair. He grips on tight and forces his head back again. The profile of the pet's face shows the slight bump of a broken nose healed almost perfectly, but not quite. The gasp he makes when Nanda's free hand presses over the welts on his chest is loud enough for the camera to catch. "You know you don't get to say when it's too much."

"You'll f-fucking kill me," The pet protests, voice tight from the angle forcing his collar to dig painfully into his throat. "Please, I... everything hurts so much..."

"You love the pain." Nanda's eyes look up to meet the camera before a more sinister smile finds its way across his face. "I know what you can take better than you do, pet, and I think you can handle one more. Sssshhh, here we go. There..." Nanda exhales softly as the two of them shift in the tub, the pet making a soft pained sound, his hips rolling as he is worked slowly down into position.

Then Nanda chuckles and slides his entire arm over the welts marking the pet's torso, holding him tightly in place. "Now take a deep breath."

"Wh-what?" The pet's eyes widen, comprehension coming a half-second too late. "Wait, don't-"

Nanda's hand gripped into the pet's hair plunges him forwards, bent at the waist, forcing the Box Boy's head suddenly under the water. The pet struggles desperate trying to get his head back up to breathe. Nanda grunts in a rhythm as his hips snap up and down again. He groans, "So fucking tight, goddamn I love you, you fucking slut for me-"

[/END VIDEO]

The video cuts off there, but my friend tells me the rest of it is basically the kind of stuff you have to pay a monthly fee for everywhere else on the internet.

But there's another video, from way later, that I find a really interesting contrast and comparison. Same friend got me this one. It involves Robert, whose write-up you can see right here.

[EMBEDDED VIDEO: Titled Holy Shit, No Wonder He Killed Him]

The screen is black for a few seconds, with the sound of someone taking the cap off a camera before things come into blurry view and then slowly into focus.

The bathroom in this video is tiny. It's barely large enough for everything in it, and a person sitting on the toilet will damn near bash their knees into the side of the bathtub. The grout in the tile floor is dark with old stains, and the tile itself needs either serious scrubbing or an exorcism.

Sitting naked in the bathtub is a young man with long blond hair that hangs in filthy, dirty clumps down to his shoulders. His face is streaked with mud and worse, and he has a black eye that has nearly swelled his left eye shut entirely. His hands are bound with rope stained brown with dried blood, held up in front of him.

His one good eye, maybe blue, follows with a kind of resigned terror the person behind the camera.

He sits in water up to his waist, but by the way he is shivering, it's clear that the water is not even warm, let alone hot. Further bruises mark his ribcage and his legs. One leg juts out in front, and something about it seems like it might be broken.

The camera is handheld, panning slowly from the young man's torn and lacerated heels and feet through his bruised leg - one swollen - and then back up to his face.

"Tell me your name." The voice is Robert Weber's.

The young man's mouth twists in a snarl that fades as quickly as it came and he looks away, to the side of the tub marked with deep soap scum. When Robert's house is searched, there are scratches in the tub as though someone had clawed that deeply into the sides in an attempt to escape. "It's..." The young man inhales, winces at the pain. "It's twe-... Twenty-One. M-My name is... Twenty-One."

"Good. And-... what did we practice saying next?"

The man's jaw trembles visibly onscreen. Then he says, flat and numb, "My name is Twenty-One and I have... two weeks to l-live."

"Perfect. Now I promised you a good scrubbing if you played along downstairs-" The young man flinches, closing his good eye and curling up in the tub as best he can. "-and I will keep that promise." There's a pause, jostling as the camera is slotted into a tripod to continue filming. Then, Robert's voice is suddenly deafening. "Dog! Get the fuck in here!"

The door opens with the creak of hinges deeply in need of oiling, and then the Boxie moves into view. He's skinny, malnourished and underfed, and his hair is roughly cut short in uneven hunks. He has bald spots worn in by the muzzle that is buckled over his mouth, making his breathing an audible rasp. He glares with unhidden hatred.

"Give Twenty-One a bath," Robert says, and his hand moves into view as he pats the Boxie on the head. The Boxie flinches but then forces himself to hold still, closing his eyes as the pat turns into prolonged petting. His muzzle is unbuckled and then removed. Robert's fingers drift over his bald spots, play along the red marks pressed into his skin by the muzzle, move over a scar cut into one side of his mouth that wasn't there in the video with Nanda.

The Boxie is naked but for an old dog collar around his neck.

Robert hums, disappears entirely from view. The door opens and closes again. The sound of a lock clicks.

The Boxie looks at the young man in the bathtub, who doesn't look up. "Fuck this shit," The Boxie mumbles, but he moves - dragging one of his legs a little, and there are ropes tied around his ankles that ensure he can do little more than shuffle - and finally kneels next to the tub. "Are you going to be a shit?"

The young man looks at him with surprise. "You... I've never heard you talk before," He whispers, looking fearfully to the side towards the door.

"You've never seen me without the fucking muzzle before, either," The pet replies. His voice is far rougher than the first video, suggesting long-term damage to his vocal chords. "I asked you something. Are you going to fight me and be a shit about this or no?"

The young man hesitates, then shakes his head. "I couldn't fight if I wanted to anymore," He says, like a man confessing a sin. "It all hurts too much. You know? I had a girlfriend-"

"Stop it." The pet cuts him off and leans over, picking up a stiff washcloth and soaking it in the water until it's soft enough to use again, running it over the young man's shoulders. For all the edge of meanness in his voice, the pet's touch is clearly gentle. "You're going to fucking die here, better if you don't talk about stuff that gets you fucked up first. Forget her."

The young man leans over to give easier access to his back. The soft whimpers he makes show that there must be some grievous injuries back there that the camera can't see. "I-I know I will. Die, I mean. Do I really have-... is it really two weeks?"

"Yeah." The pet takes a bar of soap and runs it over his own hands, rubbing them together to work up a lather. The soap found in Robert Weber's house after his death is Irish Spring and Dove - it is believed he used different soap for different captives according to his own odd whims. "He's put little heart shapes on a calendar he marks off. He'll hurt you a little worse every fucking day and then make you beg for him to end it."

The young man slowly nods, looking at his bound wrists. There's a soft sniff, but he seems too tired for tears. "There's no chance of getting away, is there."

It's not really a question.

The pet answers anyway.

"You're the twenty-first, and none of the others have. What do you think?"

"I-I can't do this."

"You have to." The pet gets a red Solo cup sitting on the side of the tub, fills it with water, and pours it down the young man's back. He hisses and cries out softly in pain. "He doesn't exactly ask your goddamn preferences."

"Help me escape," The young man pleads. "Help me get out of here."

"I'm fucking hobbled," the pet snaps. "He'll be on us both before we even made it out of the hallway. You think I'm fucking stupid? I'm the only one who might not die if I stay good. Come on, lean forward so I can wash your hair."

The young man moves to obey, hands disappearing beneath the filthy bathwater, and then he turns, looking over his shoulder. He and the pet share a long, silent moment. Then he leans over far enough to put his mouth nearly to the pet's ear and whispers something so low that the camera doesn't pick up the words.

The pet inhales sharply.

He looks at the door, and then back to the young man.

"Are you sure?" He asks, and the edge is totally gone from his voice, now.

The young man nods, slowly. "Please," he says, a little louder. "If I have to-... please. Not him. I-I know you'll get punished, but... please. God, please, just this one thing." His hands come back up to grip onto the pet's hand where it lays along the side of the tub.

The young man leans forwards, and his forehead gently rests against the pet's. They are silent for a long moment.

"Please, don't let him be the one to kill me," The young man says. "I know I'm g-going to die, but... let me take that a-... away from him. Please. God, I don't even know your name, but-... please."

The pet swallows, then nods, tipping his head back to press a kiss to the young man's forehead. "I don't have a name. What's your name? I'll remember it. Your real name."

The young man's throat bobs and he whispers into the pet's ear again.

He sits back up, leaning over until some of his long hair falls into the water. "I'm-... I'm ready."

The pet takes a deep, deep breath, moves up to kneeling with his thighs vertical, lays both hands on the back of the young man's head, and says, "I hope it's better, wherever you go."

Then he pushes the young man's head underneath the water.

[/END VIDEO]

According to my friend, there's more to that video as well, but obviously it's been cut to take out the end of the poor guy. Now, my friend swears up and down the pet is crying at the end of the video, that he can see tears, but I'm not sure.

That doesn't really line up with the pet killing people before this, you know?

But one thing it does prove is that the Boxie knows the name of one of the unidentified victims. If he could be found, we could give that man back his name and get his family the closure they deserve.

I know some of you argued with me last time that the Boxie is clearly a VICTIM and not a PERPETRATOR, and I definitely admit this second video maybe suggests you're on to something there.

But I still think we have a Boxie killer on our hands here - I just think maybe I was wrong about why he's killing them at all.

I guess we'll find out if he kills again.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @boxboysandotherwhump @outofangband @whumptywhumpdump @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @endless-whump @cubeswhump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @whumpiary @burtlederp

​

[andromedasstarship]

i could not choose between 77-80 so i overbearingly ask u to use each of them with spencer reid if u wish 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

80. “Your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner.” + 77- “If you want to leave, we can leave.”

send a prompt + character from this list! 

pairing - spencer reid x gn!reader

warnings - stress?? mostly fluff 

a/n - tysm kenna for requesting this i love you and i loved writing this. i also went overboard on this one bye! ive also never posted something this long in an ask reply before so if this looks weird BYE!

Your car had long gone cold, but you still couldn’t find the energy to pull yourself out yet. It was futile to try and wrestle your emotions into a tightly sealed box; as soon as you crossed the threshold of the town-home you shared with Spencer, you knew he’d be able to read you like a book. Damn genius profiler skills.

Taking a quick look at the time you knew you had to suck it up and go inside; you were pushing how ‘late’ you could be without him worrying something had happened on your commute home. With a deep sigh, you grabbed your bag from the passenger seat and exited the car; taking your sweet time with locking the car behind you and digging your house keys out of the bottom of your bag.

To put it simply, it had been a difficult year. It was the final year of your Phd. program and while- all things considered- you had had an amazing time, the past few months had been both physically and mentally draining. What was once your lifelong passion had suddenly started to feel like a chore; a chore you felt you weren’t even good at anymore. Almost every day was spent either in your own classes or teaching undergrads. Almost every night was spent on the final edits of your thesis or grading work from your students. The few moments of freedom you found were spent doing the boring parts of adult life: housekeeping, getting your car fixed, calling elderly family members, etc.

Neither of you had formerly addressed it, but you knew it was taking a toll on your relationship. Spencer being busy was a constant, but it was normally balanced out by your typical 9-5 schedule. But recently, even on the nights he was home you’d be too wrapped up in your own work to even sit down and eat dinner with him. By the time you crawled into bed he’d be long asleep and in the mornings you’d been leaving for work earlier and earlier in order to get research time in at the university library. It felt like the two of you hadn’t even been awake in the same room for weeks, let alone do anything relationship-y.

Tonight was supposed to change that. Kind of. His team was having a fancy dinner to celebrate some major milestone that you couldn’t remember. It’d been on the books for months, but kept getting pushed back by surprise cases. It felt like everyone held their breath this week, waiting for a case to pop up, but instead everyone was left pleasantly surprised when no such thing happened. It was going to be a great night: classic Rossi pasta dish, all partners and kids invited. Even though the two of you wouldn’t be alone, it’d still be a perfectly good excuse to get out, put on some nice outfits and have a fun evening with friends.

Spencer had been particularly excited. The past week, you felt as if it was the only thing he ever talked about. Not that the two of you were having extensive conversations. He kept talking about how great it would be to get out of the house and how much he was looking forward to having a totally work free evening. His excitement warmed your heart.

Which is why you were taking so long to find your keys. Today had been one of the hardest day you’d experienced in a long time. The thesis meeting you had with your advisor- that you’d been staying up late every night editing for- had gone horribly; it was as if everything you prepared was wrong. Almost every student in the class you taught scored poorly on the latest assessment- on a unit you considered yourself an expert on-, something you viewed as a failure of your ability to convey the info. And to top it all off, even though you felt as if you’d spent hours upon hours working yourself to the bone the past week- in order to clear space for tonight-, you still felt as if you had piles of work to catch up on.

You knew the stress and tension of the day would read clear on your body as soon as Spencer got a look at you. And with how excited he’d been, you absolutely didn’t want to ruin the dinner. You’d hate for him to feel as if you were being selfish or that you couldn’t even prioritize him in your schedule.

You took one last deep breath, before going to put the key into the doorknob. Just as you touched the handle, the door swung open from the other side.

“Jesus!” You exclaimed, one hand clutching your chest as you nearly jumped out of your skin. In front of you was Spencer, smiling down at you with that irresistible grin of his.

“Did I scare you? Sorry. I thought I heard you car pull up earlier and when you didn’t come in I thought maybe something was wrong so I wanted to come check-”

You quickly cut him off- even though you did find his worrying a bit endearing- by pressing a quick kiss to his lips. 

“A good song came on just as I pulled in, couldn’t just get out.” You lied, adding a small laugh for effect. It was an on brand situation for you, something certainly believable. If Spencer had any doubts, he didn’t question you, simply moved out of the doorframe so you could step in.

Inside the house, you set your bag down by the front door like you always did. While kicking your shoes off, you pulled your jacket off, smiling when Spencer had his hands already open to hang it on the rack. You knew he had that ridiculous memory- and you had a pretty set routine-, but it still made your heart swell every time he anticipated your next move and went the extra mile to be helpful.

“So, how was your day?" Spencer asked, as the two of you made your way to the kitchen area. “What’d Professor Addams have to say in your meeting?”

You clenched at the handle of the fridge, grinding your teeth before pulling the door open. When you turned to look at Spencer, you saw he made himself comfortable on one of the countertop stools.

“Went well. They gave me some uh, um, some comprehensive revisions.” You said flatly, turning back to face the fridge; missing the skeptical look Spencer was throwing you.

“That’s good?” He said slowly, before adding, “well how was class? You just wrapped up the last unit didn’t you?” You both knew he knew the answer, but was just attempting to further the conversation. Had it been any other day you would’ve found it endearing, but today just wasn’t that day.

You slammed the fridge door shut, just hard enough to be cause for concern. “I thought tonight was absolutely no shop talk. Huh? Why don’t we just start that rule now.” You said, a slight edge to your voice. It’s not his fault, it’s not his fault.

“Are you okay-”

“Yes! I just don’t-”

“If there’s something wrong, you know you can tell-”

“There’s nothing wrong-”

“Do you need to stay-”

“Stop!” You exclaimed, bringing an end to the constant cutting each other off. “Everything is fine. Okay?” You said, unable to maintain eye contact.

Spencer slowly nodded, though you could tell he didn’t believe an ounce of what you had just said. Luckily for you, he seemed to let it go, falling back in his seat.

“I’m gonna go shower and get ready and then we can leave, alright?” You asked rhetorically. When he just nodded again, you very quickly walked up to him and pressed another quick kiss to his lips. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

---

The ride to Rossi’s was silent, something that normally wouldn’t have bothered either of you had it not been for the borderline argument you had in the kitchen. As you pulled up a few cars down from the house, you caught Spencer staring at you from the passenger seat, a slightly concerned look on his face.

“Stop doing that.” You huffed out, but there was no real bite in your voice.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked gently, reaching out to push a piece of your hair away from your face. God that was sweet.

You quickly nodded and threw a very forced smile his way, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m fine. I promise, come on.” You said, killing the engine and pushing open your car door.

Before you could fully open the door, Spencer’s arm shot out across your body and pulled the door back shut with a bang.

“Spencer!” You yelped, startled by his sudden movement. You turned and gave him a bewildered look.

“You always look over my head when you lie.” Spencer stated.

“Oh I do not-” You started, but letting the sentence fall flat as soon as you realized you currently were looking over his head.

“Your favorite song came on the radio, twice, on the drive here and you didn’t react at all either times.” He said. When you still didn’t say anything he continued. “What’s going on? You know you can tell me.”

The look he was giving you was making you feel all sorts of guilty. Of course he cared, that’s why you loved him so much. You just didn’t want to ruin something that’d been in the works for so long, all because you had a bad day.

“Spencer,” you started, giving him a very pointed look and making sure to hold eye contact, “I’m fine. Can we just go in?”

Spencer shook his head, externally searching your face for more clues while also internally thinking back to any clues from your kitchen fight. “We aren’t going anywhere, until you talk to me.” He urged.

It probably wasn’t the best move on his part, seeing as you both were incredibly stubborn. The two of you were unrelenting, both staring blankly at the other; hoping the other one would break first. After nearly 5 minutes of silence, it became very clear that neither of you were standing down anytime soon.

Spencer reached his hand out again, gently cupping your cheek; internally you cursed your body’s natural reaction to lean into his touch. “What’s going on?” He asked, voice much softer than earlier.

You were internally screaming over how caring he was. Damn him! You cursed yourself for not being able to just play the role of perfect partner for one night.

“I’m exhausted.” You said, voice quiet. “My meeting went horrible day. I absolutely failed at teaching my students the last unit. I’ve been bringing so much work back to the house I haven’t even been able to give you a second of attention. And now we have this dinner that you’ve been looking forward to for months and I don’t want to ruin-”

This time, it was Spencer that quickly cut off your rambles with a kiss.

“Do you want to leave?” He asked, as if it were the most simple thing ever

You gave him a shocked look. “Spencer, you’ve been talking about this dinner for weeks. I, I can’t ask you to put this off, you and the team rarely get time to-”

“If you want to leave, we can leave.” He said. His voice was so sincere it made the whole thing that much more difficult. He was too good.

“Spencer, no.” You said, putting special emphasis on the ‘no’. “We haven’t even walked in the door, there’s nothing to leave yet. I’m not going to ruin the dinner we’ve all been planning on for months. I’ll be fine for a couple hours.”

He didn’t answer, instead pulled his phone out and quickly started to type out a text.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Rossi, I’m gonna tell him you aren’t feeling well and we can’t come anymore.”

“We’re outside his house! It’s not a big deal-!

“Your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner!” Spencer cut you off, giving you a very pointed look. You weren’t sure your heart could take the swelling much longer.

“Spencer, you’ve been planning-”

“I don’t want to hear it-”

“You’ve wanted to get out of the house for so long!” You stressed, giving him a ‘duh’ look.

“We can go do something else!” He replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Just us, no pressure to be ‘on’ in front of anyone else.” That did sound good- No!

“I’m not gonna be the one who keeps their boyfriend away from his friends-”

“I see them every day. Every day. One dinner means nothing.” Spencer said confidently, clasping your hand tightly between his.

You contemplated for what seemed like hours; though it couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of something in my life.” Spencer said, giving you a very mock serious look; you couldn’t help but laugh at that. “There you are.” He said, smiling to match yours.

You turned the car on, clicking your seatbelt back into place. “So, where to pretty boy?” You asked.

“Well, I heard of this new ice cream place that just opened up. Their ‘claim to fame’ is they make over 50 flavors in store every single day. Did you know on average it takes nearly three hours from start to finish to make a single batch of ice cream? Or that when ice cream-”

You shook your head in amusement, chancing a couple glances in his direction as you were driving. You loved his excited ramblings and animated hand motions as he further explained the history of ice cream; as well as all the random facts about the place he was directing you to. As you got closer to your new destination, all you could think about was how lucky you were to, to be loved by someone who always knew just what to say.

---

permanent tags - @sunflowersandotherthings

[catrasredemption-moved]

Oh, maybe Catra confusing what's real and what isn't sometimes and not believing that this is real, because she thinks prime is still inside her head, messing with it and creating fake realities?

There were triggers.

It took them awhile to pick out the pattern, unfortunately. And the time in the interim did nothing to endear the princesses to Catra.

Netossa took the blame the first time, when she patted Catra’s head during the celebration party and Catra froze for a moment before whirling and lashing out. She missed, thankfully, her gaze distance and glazed over. She shook it off fast enough, stuttering an apology, but Netossa was easy going enough to apologize for surprising her.

Mermista was less accepting the second time it happened.

No one was really sure of the series of events - Mermista had found Catra and Melog in the hall, and Melog managed to knock Mermista out of the way before Catra struck. They’d pinned Catra down until reality reasserted itself, leaving her pale and shaken. There had been a rather pointed and cruel comment about Adora keeping her pet under control. And Bow had been forced to hold Adora back, lest she accidentally start a war with Salineas.

“What happened?” she asked Catra later, in the safety of their bedroom. Catra hadn’t had much to say in her own defense.

“I don’t know.” She was curled up against the wall, face hidden in her knees. Melog was encircled around her, shielding her from the world. “I felt... I felt like I wasn’t here, like... like this was a dream or something? I don’t know.”

Adora knelt in front of her, keeping her distance, hands up. “It’s okay. You didn’t sleep well last night, right? Maybe you’re just tired.”

She relaxed slightly, letting out a long breath. “Yeah. I guess. Maybe.”

The third time drove the point home that something was really wrong.

“Entrapta, are you sure you’re not going to break the table?” Glimmer asked tiredly, watching Entrapta rewire the war room table to connect it to one of her own machines.

“Absolutely! Ninety-nine-point-nine percent!”

“That’s not-”

“Here we go!”

The pink table flickered for a moment before turning a shade of lime green which lit up the walls in an eerie aura. Catra, who had been resting her head in her arms on the table, immediately shot up, wide-eyed.

“Sorry,” Entrapta said cheerfully. “This is from a hard drive Hordak helped extract from Horde Prime’s ship, it should give us a general idea of where to start with dismantling the rest of his empire and freeing the planets he’s taken over...”

Blood rushed through Catra’s ears, drowning out all external sound.

Little sister...

No. NononononononononononononoNO it couldn’t be, it couldn’t, he was dead-

Did you really think anyone would come for you? You said it yourself - your precious Adora doesn’t care about you. Your life is worthless. You don’t matter to anyone except me.

“No!”

Everyone jumped as Catra screamed, the noise almost immediately followed by her chair falling over as she staggered away from the table. Her back hit the wall and she dropped to her knees, entire body folding in on itself, eyes closed, hands against the back of her neck.

“Catra?” Adora stood, but was immediately blocked by Melog. Even the alien cat was keeping their distance, as if they knew Catra wasn’t in the right stand of mind.

She was back on the ship, listening to the sound of footsteps on metal floors, mechanical sounds whirring overhead, her hair slicked back against her scalp, the chip in the back of her neck-

It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real-

What’s not real? Horde Prime taunted her. Me? Or your friends?

“Entrapta, turn it off,” Glimmer snapped. The princess immediately listened, glipping off the switch and turning the room back to its regular color. Adora tried again to approach, but Melog growled, keeping her back.

“What’s wrong with her?” Frosta piped up from behind, almost sounding worried. Even Mermista couldn’t keep the shaken concern out of her expression. This wasn’t anything any of them had expected.

“I don’t...”

Catra had fallen asleep in Adora’s lap. Adora had panicked when she felt her (former?) friend’s grip loosen, but of course she was exhausted. The last few days must have been hell.

Bow and Glimmer set up a room for her, and Adora insisted on carrying her, refusing to let her go until she absolutely had to.

There was no warning before Catra woke, right as Adora was setting her down. Her eyes shot open, pupils immediately shrinking to pinpricks; Adora barely missed being clawed before Catra vaulted off the bed, hitting the floor with a painful thud.

“Catra-!”

“Shut up!” Her voice was surprisingly strong. She curled in on herself, hands clasped over the back of her neck. “What do you want?” The question baffled Adora into silence. “She’s not coming back, I already told you, she won’t, she wouldn’t, she...”

Catra drifted off into a dry sob. Adora tensed, teeth clenching together as realization set in.

Oh.

Adora straightened up, hands held out in surrender. “It’s okay,” she told Melog gently. They made a noise, ears falling against their skull, mane flaring purple. “I get it. Let me talk to her, please.”

Melog considered her for a moment before backing up and settling beside Catra. Adora took a few steps forward and knelt, still giving Catra space. She was whispering to herself, too soft to be fully heard, her claws digging into her neck almost enough to draw blood.

“Hey.” She kept her voice soft, noting the shudder that went through Catra’s body. “Catra, look at me.” She shook her head. “Please?” Another head shake. “This is real, I promise. It’s not a trick.”

“She wouldn’t come back for me.” The broken defeat in Catra’s voice was like a knife in Adora’s heart. She ignored it, forcing her laugh.

“And somehow I’m the dummy here.” Catra’s ears flicked slightly. “Do you really think Horde Prime would just fake his own death to trick you? We both know he’s way too egotistical for that.”

Catra choked out a little laughed, although her body didn’t relax. Adora took a chance, reaching out to rest a hand on Catra’s knee. It didn’t immediately spark an attack, which she took as a good sign.

“He’s not real.”

She’s not real.

“You’re here. You’re safe.”

She would never come back for you.

“I love you.”

She’s lying.

Catra shook, letting out a small sob. “Stop...”

Adora’s fingers tightened on her knee. “Focus on me, Catra. I’m here. I’m real. It’s okay.”

Melog’s pulsing mane slowly faded back to blue as Catra retracted her claws. Adora held her breath, waiting. “How do I know you’re real?” she finally whispered.

“Because I kicked Horde Prime’s ass and I’d do it again if I had a chance?”

One hand slowly slid down to rest over Adora’s. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

Catra unfurled a bit, allowing Adora to drag her into her arms and hug her tight.

They weren’t flashbacks, exactly - more like hallucinations. That was how the healer in Mystacor tried to explain it when Catra talked to her (after nearly three days of Glimmer trying to convince her that it would be good to talk to someone who understood mental trauma in a way that could help). They were things that hadn’t happened, but that Catra was afraid would happen - that she would wake up back on that ship, that Adora had never come to save her, that she was still Horde Prime’s willing little sister.

Melog helped as an active buffer; a third party who hadn’t been present at any point in Catra’s life before Prime, and something her mind couldn’t really make up. Adora learned a few ways to help Catra ground herself. The problem was that anything could be a possible trigger, and the only way they could learn what set Catra was off was by waiting. They figured out color and touch pretty quickly, but there were other things, like certain words or phrases that would put Catra right back on the ship like she had never left it.

“Maybe you should’ve just left me there,” she muttered dejectedly into her pillow one night. Adora immediately abandoned the map she was working on to sit with Catra, gently brushing her hair back.

“The fact that you thought I really would leave you there is a bit insulting, you know,” she joked.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend your hero complex.” There was no heat in the words. “What good am I if I can’t even keep reality straight?”

“You can’t judge yourself based on something that you have no control over.” Adora’s fingers paused over the back of her neck, inches from the scar left by the chip (now surrounded by several fresher, lighter scars from various flashbacks or hallucinations).

“Doesn’t make me any less dangerous.”

“The only person you’re a danger to is yourself.” Adora lightly traced one of the newer scars. Catra shivered slightly. “If I tell you I love you and it’s worth it, can you at least believe that I believe that?”

“Of course I believe you believe that. You have a bleeding heart.”

Rude, but fair. Adora lied beside her, pulling her into a hug. “Then believe that I can make my own choices and I don’t need you to protect me from you.”

Catra was still for a long moment before she leaned into the hug, relaxing. “Remember those stupid drawings we did on your bunk?”

“Our marks, you mean?”

“Yeah, something to remember us by when we were ruling the place as adults.” Catra smiled into her shoulder. “Which one was red and which was blue, again?”

“Uh, I was red, obviously.”

“Why obviously? Red isn’t exactly your color, princess.”

It was one of their small ways of grounding Catra. A lot of their memories had conflicting details despite being shared - even things as tiny as which of Octavia’s eyes Catra had scratched out (Adora swore it was the left eye, Catra would die thinking it was the right eye). Horde Prime’s illusions had never been detailed enough to think of Adora’s memories being different - Adora would have just agreed with anything Catra said. Possibly the most unrealistic thing of all.

“You don’t even know what red is.”

"Oh yeah? Did you hit your head hard enough to fix being colorblind at some point?”

“Are you asking me about brain damage? Seriously?”

They never did get around to figuring out who was what color, but it didn’t really matter - Catra had accomplished what she had wanted to do.

This was reality. No matter how much her brain tried to tell her otherwise.

[coldtomyflash]

I've seen your speech pattern analysis on Flash characters. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to create speech patterns for OC characters?

oh heck this is one of the coolest questions i’ve ever received.

i’m gonna try not to go overboard/overwhelming and just give a bit of advice, and then if you want more details please come back and follow up!

There’s a few things to think about up front with character voices / speech patterns. The biggest and most obvious is language and cultural background. The second is personality. The third is personal history. Fourth, briefly, is gender. And the final one I’d say is idiosyncrasies to avoid ‘same voice’.

Culture and Group Dynamics

Depending on the setting, there’s a decent chance you’ll be writing characters from different cultural backgrounds. Even if you’re focusing on a single culture, there will be subcultures. Even if you’re focusing on a single narrow group of people, there will be age and generational differences.

Think about where your character is from. If it’s a fantasy world, that’s still (and even more, in some ways) important. What country, what ethnicity, what mother tongue? Did they grow up urban or rural? High socio-economic status or working class? What sort of educational background and peer group did they have growing up (and presently) and how does that factor into their vocabulary and mannerisms, if at all.

All of these can influence how people talk. There are regional accents and different modes of speaking to signal your group membership. There is code-switching across groups, for those who have had to learn multiple linguistics codes to survive and thrive in society. 

How much slang does this group and therefor this character use? What references (modern, outddated, topical, etc) do the rely on? What kind of references (pop culture, music, academic, etc)? What colloquialisms and proverbs do they say? Are these the same or different to their characters, even within the same culture, subculture, or group, and is it because they’re from a different place/sub-group or because of their idiosyncrasies?

You can use these to help your reader get to know more about your character’s background without having to spell it all out directly. Speech patterns and style are a great way to show instead of tell when it comes to details that are hard to drop in organically in other ways.

An important caveat: don’t write a bilingual character who switches languages in speech unless you’re ready to do a bit of research on that. In AATJS I did an absolutely horrific job of this because I was thinking more about fronting the fact that character was Italian rather than thinking through how people actually talk, and it came out exotifying and embarrassing. It’s important to make sure that the way you use language to bring in a character’s cultural and/or ethnic background feels authentic and manifests is a way that respects that language and its users. You can write a character with a complex cultural history without using multiple languages if you’re unprepared to do research and talk to bilingual speakers.

Personality

Probably the most salient thing in a writer’s mind when they’re trying to write character voices: is this the funny character? the serious one? the brainy one? etc.

Don’t overuse stereotypes and archetypes for creating speech patterns (or characters in general) if you’re trying to make a rounded, 3-dimensional character. Instead, go about three levels deeper.

Think about whether they’re introverted or extraverted, whether they are neurotypical or neurodivergent, whether they are introspective enough to express their own emotions clearly or whether they stumble when asked why they did a particular thing or feel a particular way (most people don’t or can’t clearly articulate exactly why they did something or how they feel, and come at things a bit sideways to circle around their motives and interior realities when pressed to make them external and concretely verbal).

Is this character calm, is their voice soothing, do they speak slowly? Are they excitable and loud and is their speech free-flowing? Are they angry? Do they swear? Do they use references for humour or are they more into puns? Do they laugh at their own jokes? Do they talk with their hands?

This character has social anxiety: how does that manifest in her speech? Does she clam up and get very quiet when she gets nervous, or does she go rapidfire and a little too loud (does she process by turning in or by distracting herself by turning outward)? Does she get very careful and deliberate in choosing her words (is she a bit high-strung?)? Ask yourself which fits best with the other elements of her personality and what you want the reader to know/interpret about her. 

This character is incredibly smart and a bit awkward: how does that manifest in their speech? Do they tend to use 5-dollar words, or do they expend a lot of energy choosing their words more carefully (how considerate are they to their audience when speaking and does that influence their speech)? Do they stumble over their words and explaining things, or are they good at making points with clear language learned from a lifetime of tutoring and helping others?

This character is the bff, who tries hard to make sure everyone else is happy first: how does that manifest in his speech? How does he switch between his happy-mask versus his more authentic self, and what changes in tone, word-choice, and inflection come in when he does?

-

Personal History

I’m only drawing a distinction between this and personality (archetype, really) so that I can draw attention to ways to add simultaneously unique and shared layers to characters that are distinct but related to group dynamics.

Here’s sort of what I mean: the level of education of a mother (or primary caregiver) of an infant can determine that infant’s vocabulary size. While we can break down all the ‘why is that’ layers to this, the one I want to point is to the simple truth that the more education a person does, the more specialized language they end up learning over time. This doesn’t have to be formal education though -- the more you learn about something and the more you read and access new knowledges and perspective, the more and more words you learn, and then if you start using those words, they trickle down to those close to you.

So.

What’s your character’s educational background? Is it the same as their friends who you are also writing? Is the same as their family’s? How does this character’s family influence their speech? Are they formal, informal, warm, authoritative? 

If you’re writing siblings, they’ll have some shared things! But also some very different ones! Me and my sister talk nothing alike in terms of vocabulary, but a lot alike in terms of mannerisms whenever we spend a bit of time together!

If your characters grew up around each other, they’ll have a lot of the same references. People from the same cities or regions will have things specific to that region, either due to sub-culture effects or because of local references. 

The city of Calgary, Canada for instance has the Plus15 which are a connected pedway system between the buildings in downtown, so named because they are 15feet above the ground. Drive 3 hours north to the city of Edmonton, and you have an underground pedway just called the pedways, no special name. Go a few provinces east to Toronto and their underground pedway system downtown is called PATH. These are all known to locals and part of the vernacular, but are opaque to people outside those cities. And the whole idea of them is probably opaque to people who aren’t from super cold cities that don’t require building-connecting pedway systems for pedestrians to get around high-density areas like downtown (or university campuses) without going out into the cold. 

Friends, families, and groups are like that too. In-jokes, shared histories, speaking in references. What are your characters’ relationships to each other and how does that history influence the way they approach talking to each other?

-

Gender

I don’t want to spend too much time on this one because ugh, gender. What even is it?

But like it or not, it has an impact on our speech patterns. There are cultural and societal norms in how men and women are likely to speak, and breaking those norms will be noticed regardless of whether you’re trans, enby, queer, or not. There are norms that people who are queer may fall into as well, sometimes without even noticing at first. A lot of these aren’t about word choice per se but instead about mannerisms and tone and body language, but some overlap or are specific to language.

Speaking in broad generalizations here, women use more emotional language and tend to speak with more hesitancies/qualifications. So more “i think, i feel” and less “it is”. More conversations that front emotions and dig deeper into those, with longer sentences to explain in detail. The obvious caveat is that personality matters more (i.e., is this a person who likes to talk about their emotions in detail or not) but it is something to consider because there will be general but subtle differences that you can use to help further distinguish your characters’ voices. 

Sidenote: this can also be exacerbated by different cultural backgrounds and languages (a simple example is Japanese which has different words for “I” depending on your gender as well as your personality, familiarity with the other persons in the conversation, and situational appropriateness, so interesting ways that gender and social expectations intersect in language).

Anyway this isn’t typically a huge problem except that I’ve found that a lot of writers have a tendency to overgeneralize the speech patterns that fit with their ascribed gender due to early-life socialization, or conversely to overgeneralize patterns that fit with their gender identity (when not cis) either due to heavily identifying with their gender identity’s speech model (or sometimes possibly due to a knee-jerk sort of backlash). I say this as an enby who both struggles with it and notices it and tries to edit and correct for it. 

I could get into all sorts of examples of ways this can lead to voice issues, but in general i think the point here is to make sure you’re writing any given character in view of that character’s personality and history, with gender only as a modifier for how some of these might come out in subtle ways but which can be important to help tell us about your character (and if you’re writing queer characters, it’s all the more important to consider how their relationship with gender and socialization might impact which speech models and styles they identify more with).

-

Idiosyncrasies

So, you’ve got a character. You’ve got their personality and history down. You know how they manifest in their speech. And you’re still getting some ‘same voice’ issues.

People really are unique snowflakes. Let that be reflected in their speech.

This person uses contractions differently than that one. This one says “ain’t” and that one says “isn’t.”

This person makes Simpsons references and that one doesn’t like Simpsons, and makes Brooklyn Nine Nine references instead. That other one doesn’t use referential humour much at all. This one loves old movies and hasn’t seen any of the new stuff so they make references all the time but no one ever notices.

This one loves the word “excoriate” and that one doesn’t even know what it means because what the hell, who uses the word excoriate?

This one talks about food a lot, it overlaps with their interests. This one uses metaphors. This one grunts in response. This one exclaims. This one says “like” and that one hates it. That one refers to themselves in third person. This other one uses reflective language an usual amount (e.g., “love me some candy”). This other one keeps misusing the word inconceivable and that one speaks almost without contractions but still comes off as more charming and humorous while correcting him.

I have an aunt who says “girl” or “girlfriend” a fuck-ton and she has been my whole life and I don’t know why because none of her sisters do, but she does and it annoys me so much the way she says it. I swear a lot when I’m feeling casual despite never ever doing it in a professional or even slightly-less-than-relaxed space, so the idiosyncrasy of comfort levels has a massive impact on my vocabulary in ways which, I promise, almost no one who meets me first in a professional space expect.

Let your characters be individuals and try to make them as unique as possible without overdoing it, or over-relying on a single verbal tendency or habit. 

-

And ... that’s all I’ve got for now. Completely failed at being concise. I meant to give like 2-3 bullet points or examples for each, not paragraphs, but here we are. That’s one of my verbal tendencies: long flowing verbosity :)

Hope this helps! 

[lovingmyselfcore]

Skate Into My Heart

Chapter Three; Uh oh

BESTIES

I'M ALIVE AND I DID THE WRITING THING

@ciaraloves (or @perseusjackson-jasongrace ig) LOOK AT ME DOING THE THING

As soon as Nico left the locker room, Piper pounced on him. Literally.

He was forced to take a step back and caught her by the shoulders, “What’s up?”

She was practically vibrating with excitement, “Annabeth’s back!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Come on!�� She grabbed his hand and yanked him through the hallways and into the main rink where a crowd of people had formed next to the bleachers.

It was the rest of the team and in the center was Annabeth, a duffle bag slung over one shoulder, looking exhausted as all hell but she was grinning as the team peppered her with questions and play-by-plays of the practices she’d missed.

Piper shouldered them into the center so Nico was directly in front of Annabeth, Piper on one side and Calypso on the other.

“Hey, Nico,” Annabeth said, still grinning. She stepped forward for a hug and he let her, burying his face into her neck and breathing, already feeling the responsibility leaking from his tight shoulders. Annabeth was like a big sister to him, not that he’d ever admit that, but still.

“You want to get out?” Nico whispered into her neck.

“Yes,” She whispered back emphatically. Nico could barely stop himself from laughing but as they pulled apart he saw the genuine relief in her eyes and felt himself worrying. He needed to talk to her, about the team and skating, about Will and of course, if she needed to talk about why she’d been gone for so long, he’d do that too.

Apparently, Calypso recognized that too and, bless her heart, muttered something to Leo, and together they captured the team’s attention, allowing Nico to tug Annabeth away from the crowd and out of the rink. She sighed as soon as they were ejected onto the city streets. Nico stuck an arm out and she smiled and linked their arms.

“Where are you headed?” Nico asked as they walked the short distance to the car garage.

“Oh, probably just my apartment.”

Nico nodded, “I wasn’t sure if you’d be staying with your dad or not.”

She shook her head, “He doesn’t even know I landed yet. I’ll head over in the morning.”

Her voice was stiff and Nico took that as his cue to change the subject. “So I have something to confide in you.”

She perked up almost immediately and he swallowed hard. But she just looked at him with those gray eyes and he reminded himself that this was Annabeth. That she wasn’t going to get angry with him.

At least, he hoped not.

“I’m talking to one of the hockey players,” He said casually.

Her grip on his arm stiffened and he braced himself but she was still just looking at him.

Finally, she grinned, “So when you say ‘talking to’...”

He groaned and felt himself flush, “Oh, shut up! Just friends.”

She hummed and released his arm to dig for her keys in her jacket pocket. “Is he nice?”

“No, he’s a dick,” Nico said sarcastically.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling. “I don’t know why I even bother.”

“He’s blonde,” Nico offered.

“Oooh,” Annabeth drawled.

He rolled his eyes and she burst out laughing, her voice echoing off the stone walls of the parking garage.

“Is he gay?” Annabeth asked.

Nico nearly flinched and passed it off with another eye roll, “I don’t know, Annie, that’s not something that’s come up in casual conversation.”

She glared at him and Nico, being the mature adult he is, stuck his tongue out at her. She did it back then shook her head. “Too much time with Percy,” She muttered and Nico snorted. She grinned at him.

“So he’s okay?”

That sobered her immediately. “Yeah. Well, as okay as he can be. I’m only here for like two weeks because he insisted I come back, but I’m leaving as soon as possible,” She glanced sideways at him, “Not to leave you alone again, though.”

He shrugged off the flash of selfish hurt he’d felt, “I’m good, Beth.” But he wasn’t good. He’d just told her about Will, and not even the start of the way his stomach would twist when he saw a new text from the hockey player and not the same twist when he panicked. And that also meant his chances of performing solo again were climbing. He didn’t know how to feel about that part.

“Stop that!” She exclaimed, halting once they’d reached her car.

“Get some sleep, Annabeth,” He said genuinely then smirked a little, “It looks like you need it.”

She threw a balled-up receipt she’d found in her bag at him, “Dick!”

~~~~

“Hey, Nico.”

Nico nearly leaped out of his skin, spinning to see Persephone in the living room.

She snorted, “Didn’t mean to scare you, sorry. Did practice go well?”

His phone buzzed in his pocket, “Yeah. Annabeth’s back.”

Persephone hummed, reaching up to untwist her hair, sending it cascading down her shoulders, “That’s good. I know you’ve missed her,” She said with a knowing look in her eyes that made him shift uncomfortably.

“Yeah, definitely, um, I’m tired we learned some new moves for Regionals today, so,”

“Yeah of course.” She was still smiling.

“‘Night Persephone,”

~~~

Nico flopped face-down onto his bed with a groan. He knew Persephone though he had a crush on Annabeth; he didn’t blame her, he’d never really made it a point that he didn’t. He wished he could come out to her and his dad, he didn’t really have a reason why he hadn’t besides the weight of anxiety on his lungs.

His phone buzzed again, and he wriggled upright to yank it out of his pocket.

Will: Distract me

Will: My mom is driving me insane

Nico grinned to himself, both of them were dealing with mommy issues at the moment.

Nico: idk how you expect me to distract you

Will: Just tell me about snakes or smth

Nico: you think i just have fun facts about snakes on hand?

Will: Yeah?

Nico: good

Nico: cause i do

Will: :)

Nico: snakes can slither 12.5 mph

Will: Good lord

Nico: snakes have internal ears but not external ones

Will: ??

Nico: they can’t create their own body heat which is why theyre in the sun all the time

Will: Hmmmm

Nico: they smell w/their tongues

Will: I thought they had nostrils??

Nico: they do

Will: what

Nico: it’s their Jacobson’s organ my dude it works in mysterious ways

Nico: not really but yk

Nico: sCieNcE

Will: ok….

Nico: if you get bored of snakes i’ve also got a bunch of random cheetah facts

Nico: i love cheetahs

Nico: very cool

Nico: fast cats

Will: Lmao go ahead

Nico: but first

Nico: why’s your mom driving you insane

Nico: if you want to tell me ofc

Nico: not trying to be weird

Will: Nah you’re fine

Will: She wants me to focus entirely on med school and not hockey

Will: She’s trying to get me out of it, actually

Will: Do something ‘respectable’

Will: Not turn out like my dad

Will: Even though dad has literally NOTHING to do with hockey

Will: And in my opinion he’s not bad. Not great. Not awful yk

Will: But hockey’s what’s putting me through med school so

Will: Gods, I really just burdened you with that I’m so sorry

Nico: med school huh

Nico: now i can say i know a doctor

Will: In training

Nico: close enough

Nico: you’re a great hockey player and you're going to be a great doctor

Nico: and you can always talk to me, will

Nico: you’re not burdening me with shit

Will: thanks <3

Nico didn’t understand why he blushed. It was a goddamn emoji. Calm down, Di Angelo.

Will: So we’ve been talking for a few weeks now. Can I call you my friend yet?

Nico snorted, feeling like he was fifteen again, sprawled on his bed, in the dark (because for some reason he didn’t turn his lights on) late at night, texting his- well, anyway.

Nico: yea dumbass

Nico: we’re friends

Will: Nice

Will: Now give me cheetah facts you adorable nerd

~~~

WILL

“Will? You good?”

Will blinked, Jason coming in to focus in front of him. “Uh, yeah.”

“That was believable,” Clarisse said sarcastically from behind Jason.

Will attempted to shake the fog from his head, “Yes,” He repeated.

Jason just blinked at him and Will was formulating an excuse for why he was so tired besides the fact that he’d spent all night talking to a cute figure skater with a ridiculous amount of animal facts stored in his small body when Coach Hedge’s voice boomed from his seat on the bleachers, “Solace! You alive?”

“Yes, coach!” Will shot back.

“Then why are you just standing there? Get back to the game! You too, La Rue and Grace!”

“Yes, sir!” They all barked back.

Clarisse gave him a once over before skating back to her goal and Jason went over to Will’s spot with him, “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, just tired.”

Jason opened his mouth, probably to question why the mom friend of their group was tired enough he nearly tripped over his stick but Will just said, “It’s fine, Jase. It’s not a big deal.”

“Grace!” Coach Hedge screeched.

Jason gave up on trying to interrogate Will and skated back over to his spot.

~~~~

“Mama, please,” Will tried, but his mother cut him off.

“Willaim. Hush. How’s that girl you said you were dating?”

What?

He was silent for a beat too long.

“Oh, baby,” His mother’s thick southern accent drenched her words. “You broke up? I’m so sorry.”

Oh gods, Lou Ellen Blackstone.

Will and Lou Ellen had dated for two months a long time ago, and when they were still dating he’d told his mother about her to get her to back off of his personal life a little. Their break up hadn’t had a huge fallout, Lou Ellen had told him through tears in his living room that she was aromantic. They were still friends, had been even before they dated, actually, and talked to each other pretty regularly.

But the problem was, that had been three months ago, and he hadn’t told his mother about their breakup. He knew she’d ask why, and he didn’t want to out Lou Ellen or make her a devil in his mother’s eyes. So he’d procrastinated coming up with a reason until he’d forgotten about it entirely.

And now it had come back to bite him in the ass.

“Yeah we broke up a little while ago,” He forced himself to sound choked up, which wasn’t hard, giving the way his panicked brain was now sprinting in circles on his lungs. “I just didn’t disappoint you.” Probably the most honest thing he’d said in weeks, but that’ll be unpacked later.

“Honey,” She sighed sadly and Will didn’t know whether or not that was on his behalf or hers.

“Well, it’s okay, because I’m dating someone new.”

“Oh?” He could hear her spine straighten. “Is it someone I know?”

No, mom, it’s not one of the country girls I grew up with.

“No,” He winced at how southern he sounded. He’d been talking to his mother for five minutes. “You don’t know him.”

HIM. Good Gods, Will. Yeah, you came out as bi to your mom, but still, you haven’t actually mentioned a guy to her yet.

She was silent for so long his heart joined his brain in the track meet happening on top of his lungs. “What’s his name?”

He was so she’d spoken that he blurted, “Nico.”

What. The. Fuck. Willaim.

Apparently, his heart had won that damn track race.

“Well, what I was leading up to before you told me about what happened,”

Will hummed non-committally, trying not to sound like he was taking relieved breaths as she spoke.

“The family’s come for a reunion and you should bring that boy!” Will choked on his spit.

“Mom, I don’t know about-”

“No, William. There isn’t a set date yet so we can work around your schedule,” Fuck. “I insist, Will. I need to meet this boy you clearly like very much, even though all you’ve said is his name, a mother knows.”

Umm, what.

“Sure,” Will said, sounding a little strangled. “But we have a game this weekend.”

“Alright, William.” She sounded the way she always did when he brought up hockey. “But as I said, we can work around your schedule and his. Talk to him about it, and let me know.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Will repeated. “I’ll do that.”

She hung up and he was left staring at the wilting daisies at his kitchen table.

What had he just done?

[horrorslashergirl]

Chromeskull with the teenage reader (15-16) after she runs away from her abusive home. He meets her after she kills someone in self-defense and he takes in as his daugh...I mean apprentice.

Chromeskull x Teenage!Reader (Platonic)

Hunting is the practice of seeking, pursuing, and capturing or killing wild animals, and in Jesse's opinion, humans were just that, especially the female kind. In his 40 years of life, he saw all types of predators; leeches that sucked the life out of people with some good looks and a promise for a good time in luxury hotel rooms.

Many men fell for the doe-like eyes and cute pout, but Jesse saw through the fake facade that tried to impress; he was mute, not blind and he saw right through them, just skin-bags full of bone and guts wrapped up in glittery cocktail dresses.

That's how he found himself into a more abandoned part of Jacksonville with a platinum blonde piggy by his feet with her tits cut off and fingerless; the bitch had the audacity to slap him across the mask. It didn't hurt Jesse, but sure as hell ignited the fire and it was a quick kill in his opinion. Usually, it took hours and he savored each cut of the flesh, but this one took up just one hour.

His car was just outside the deserted building, so he exited to get a black bag from the trunk to stuff the body of that rude piggy, when he heard a cry, more like a whimper coming from across the street from a dark alleyway. Nitrile covered hands were onto the handles of his knives tucked inside his dress-jacket, ready to slice if he had too.

Another whimper.

Probably a homeless person; most likely.

He stepped with precaution across the street and into the alleyway, expecting anything, but the scene before him; a dead body of a man with a switchblade impaled into his neck.

Dying by massive external hemorrhagic.

Brown eye moved from the corpse and his gaze stopped on a much smaller body, this one alive, whimpering into the corner.

It was a female, but inspecting her better, Jesse could tell she was a teenager, perhaps no older than 14? What really pulled onto his curiosity were the bruises and cuts; her lower lip was busted, long bags under her eyes, she probably hasn't slept in days, then the purple almost black bruises on her neck and her shoulder looked so out of place, surely dislocated.

Her dull eyes looked up at him, half-lidded, trying to stay awake, but she was exhausted. Jesse took a step towards her, her lips parting, trying to say something, but her throat hurt and she let sleep overtake her.

Jesse huffed, ready to get back to his actual business and he did that, turning away from her, but stopping, glancing back at her. Jesse wasn't feeling pity, that wasn't his style, but when he glanced back at her, it was like he saw himself.

He wasn't one that has to endure physical abuse directly with fists and kicks, but he knew what it was like to be small and insignificant. That's how he found himself picking up the girl in his arms and marching towards his car, putting her into the backseat.

Most would say that he was getting soft with a piggy, but she was no piggy. In Jesse's book, there was a difference between piggies, women, and little girls. He never went for little girls; sure, he liked them young, but he wasn't one for abducting kids and in his eye, the girl in the backseat was a child.

Jesse sighed, looking at her from the mirror then his gaze moved to the road, starting the engine and driving off into the night.

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

You could feel fingers digging into your neck and you tried to pry them off you, but there was nothing, perhaps an invisible force; all you could see was blackness then a scream pierced your ears.

You jolted up awake from the bizarre nightmare, eyes wide opened and trying to keep your breath even, our eyes taking in your surroundings. You were laying on a bed, very comfortable, unlike the hard mattresses you were used to sleep on. The room was very clean and everything was put together.

Your gaze averted from the luxurious furniture to your hands, seeing them bandaged, as was your shoulder. You were completely confused.

All you remembered was running away from your foster home if you could even call that hellhole home. There was also a guy trying to chase you down and you started to panic. Did he kidnap you? Did he rape you?

You were pulled out of your thoughts when the door opened and in stepped a man; tall, bald, and his face seemed off, but you tried not to stare, knowing it would be rude. He looked at you then he set a silver tray on the nightstand. It was a glass of water and some pills.

'Painkillers. They will help with your headache and shoulder.' an electronic voice spoke, startling you.

You nodded, taking them and gulping the water down, your sore throat still hurting, more so from the bruises on your neck, you were afraid your throat might be broken.

'You know what happened?' that makeshift voice was eerie and it gave you the chills. Maybe the guy was mute.

"I run away from the foster home. All I remember before I blacked out was someone trying to crush my neck." you replied with a raspy voice, trying not to force yourself that much.

'You killed a guy.'

Your eyes widened at that; sure you did remember that you tried to fight back, but killing?

"I-I.....I was afraid." Your response was pretty dull and the man huffed.

'No shit. What's your name?'

"[Name]..." you replied, looking down.

'Jesse Cromeans.'

There was a dead silence following then he moved towards the door.

"H-Hey! Where are you going?" you asked, a bit afraid.

He stopped and turned to look at you over his broad shoulder.

'Work. You should rest.'

With that, he left you all alone and all you could do was lay back on the bed and rest, millions of thoughts running through your head. At one point you were afraid because you don't know him and the other part was a little relieved. You guessed that if he wanted you dead he would have left you in that alleyway and he wouldn't bother himself to patch you up.

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

Jesse was leaning into the armchair, scrolling down the information about you that Spann sends him. Your father was unknown and your mother died of a drug overdose, and since you had no relatives you were left in a foster home. He could only guess what kind of life you had in there.

Taking a sip of whiskey Jesse debated what he should do with you; surely you were no piggy and children weren't into his type of victim list. In his eye, children were only pups, little things that still needed to learn to walk through life and make a choice.

You were still a pup, an innocent little thing that had experienced probably things adults haven't. He knows what is like to experience the morbid at a fragile age, but he ignored the memories. It was the past.

Then one idea crossed him. Adopting you?

Sure, he always wanted to experience fatherhood, but ever since his wife blew her brains out, killing herself and the child, not to mention the events that made him lose his face, he gave up on that dream.

What women would be willing to have a family with him?

Maybe he didn't need one. He had you and slowly he started to think of yourself as his daughter. He always wanted to have a baby girl, one that he can protect and guide in life so she wouldn't end up like these piggies that waltzed the streets at night in skimpy clothes.

No way were you going to end up like that. You weren't a piggy.

All you needed was someone who could guide you in life.

[bellasweetwriting]

Fix His Broken Heart

Jess Mariano x f.reader

(not my gif)

masterlist

request: Hiii, i want a jess fic🥺 theres not enough jess mariano fics here, how about after rory goes to visit him at truncheon he meets the reader and she helps him move on from rory and he falls in love with reader. 💞💞

requested by: @beautiful-thinking

note: I’m a big literati shipper so this was hard but also fun to write I really love this

warnings: movie references, drinking, gilmore girls s2,s3 and s6 spoilers, some fancy vocabulary, Logan hate

word count: 1,7k

reading time: 7 min

And he saw her walk away to his arms. She found comfort in another guy. She moved one.

He hated himself for realizing that after all these years of knowing this person, still, it isn't enough. He and Rory evolved separately, they don't have the same goals or the same resources. As much as they try, it seemed like destiny didn't want their paths to cross one another.

He realized that he lost her as soon as she walked out of that door. She was gone. What now?

He'll probably see her again at Luke and Lorelai's wedding; hell, he'll even see Logan there also. The way he despited that guy. He cheated on her, and still, there she was, madly in love with him.

Logan is better than him in Rory's eyes, and he couldn't do anything to change that. He was a forgotten part of her story, an item locked inside a box that she opens when she feels lost. She probably doesn' think of him anymore like she used to.

But he thinks of her at least once a day. When he walks through the bookstore and notices the new edition of Dawn Powell's My Home Is Far Away, or when his friends bring coffee and offer to him, reminding him of her slight coffee addiction. Who's he kidding? There's nothing "slight" about Rory Gilmore's coffee addiction, it's concerning.

Any little thing reminded him of her and the fact that now he's sure she doesn't think of him anymore... saddens him.

Everyone was celebrating the success of the event that day, while Jess drowned his sorrows in a cold beer, also glancing over the girls that walked past him.

"I should warn you that if you are planning to Kurt Cobain on my bar, don't." That expression provoked an immediate reaction on Jess's face. "Not a fan of dark humor?"

"Not when it comes from the mouth of a stranger, not," he replied, making the girl chuckle. "Do you always attend your costumers like that, Rick Blaine?" Asked Jess naming the main character of Casablanca, who happened to owned a bar/restaurant in the 1940s.

"Rick Blaine? Don't tell me you are one of those guys who listen to The Clash on repeat and think they are better than the rest of the world because they know references from black and white movies and have read at least one book by Bukowski in the last three months." Jess drank from his beer, making the girl opened her mouth widely. "Oh, God, you are! A living Danielle Steel novel main character drinking alone in my bar." He laughed.

"I used to be that guy," Jess corrected her. "I've changed."

"A girl?"

"A breakup with a girl, to be fairer. I work at a little bookstore called Truncheon. We are all independent writers, and to give you some credit, some of us do look like Danielle Steel's characters. Not that I have read anything by her, though."

Jess wasn't like that. He didn't tell people he doesn't know about himself or his personal life, but for some reason, probably the effects of the alcohol in that beer were making him loosen up a bit with this complete stranger. Yeah, a significant event has happened in his life. The girl he thought he was going to be with forever decided to be with someone else rather than him, and he hasn't thought of anyone else romantically. He's so used to being alone, so used to not having anyone to actually talk to, that, maybe, liberating his internal thoughts and regrets with someone he isn't going to see again is probably for the best.

Not a therapist or a friend, just, someone external who isn't going to dig dipper in his subconscious to understand his situation and actions or someone who is involved in the story; someone who just―listens.

"You read one, you read them all." She commented. "Independent writers, huh? Have you published anything I have written?"

"Probably not," he said with that typical modesty he has earned through the pass of the years. "I just have one book out, is a self-published, so..." She nodded. "I actually did a little road trip, trying to make independent bookstores like mine to put them in the store. Probably, by the end of the month, I'll have twenty bucks and a sticker that says: «keep trying, champ.»"

"How poetic," the barista murmured, and both chuckle.

"Do you have a copy of your book?" She asked, and he nodded, giving it to her. "The Subsect, by Jess Mariano. Truncheon Books," she read before turning it around and reading the back cover. "«A self-published, prominent and dark-humored coming of age short novel following the unique life of J., a seventeen-year-old with no place to call home.» That's dark. How much for it?"

"Twenty bucks and a sticker," she chuckled, "or, a free beer."

"Sounds like a fair deal, Jess Mariano." He smiled at the mention of his name. "I'm Y/N."

"Nice to meet you, Y/N." She placed the book inside her apron with a tiny smile. "So you work here."

"Oh, you said that because of the apron and the fact that I'm behind the counter? No, I'm just a big fan of... college bars in Philadelphia." The sarcasm in Y/N's voice made Jess grin. "My brother owns the place. He lets me live upstairs while I go to college, and I pay rent by working here. The books you see behind me are mine. I study on my break."

"What are you studying?"

"English. I want to be a screenplay writer." He sighed before shaking his head. "What?"

"A film writer? Why?"

"I love films. I love watching them, reviewing them, analyzing them. I want to write masterpieces. What's wrong with that? At least I'm not writing coming of age short novels."

"It's not a coming of age novel, that's just the hideous synopsis that my poet friends come up with for the book. It's actually a lot deeper than that."

"The only way of finding that out is reading it, right?"

"Right."

Both looked at each other for a few seconds before she asked for his glass to refill that free beer she offered him.

"How about... if I come tomorrow, take you out, and you buy me that beer? How about that?" Y/N chuckle before agreeing.  He didn't believe it actually worked. He had tried to ask girls out in the last two years, but they've always said that they weren't interested. But there was something different and intriguing about Y/N that had caught the young writer's attention. "At what time do you finish class?"

"Pick me up at eight here, I'll wait."

"Cool."

"Cool."

...............................................................................................................................

He was nervous.

A date. Jess has never even been on one before. Not even with Rory. He never took Rory on a date like a dinner or a movie before they started going out. He used to tease her, and she fell for him, God knows why.

He took Rory on dates when they were dating, although if you count the car ride as a date. No, it wasn't a date. She was Dean's girlfriend at the time, and he crashed her car.

Why did she even like him? He crashed her car for God's sake. If he was Rory, he would have hated himself.

He hated himself already.

It wasn't like in books. Girls are complicated, and the male writers he is so used to reading about usually don't talk about dates and how to get a girl; the girl is already in love with the main character.

She did mention Danielle Steel. Did she read that kind of dramas, like Nicholas Sparks and John Green, where the characters just die in each other's arms like a shoddy Shakespeare tragedy imitation? Did she like that? He didn't know how to be a "romance" kind of guy. He still used the "bully her because you like her" technique, and maybe that's the only part of him that hasn't changed with the years.

He still didn't know how to communicate and express himself. He still wasn't used to talking about his emotions or being in a healthy relationship where there's no such thing as privacy. He wasn't born to assist to cotillions and balls, wear tuxes like James Bond and use fancy words gentleman-like, such as "Farewell," "Luxury," "Eloquent," and "Hope you had a marvelous evening, thanks for joining us in our humble and splendid gathering."

But that was Rory's world. Probably Logan used words like that without even knowing the meaning of them.

He quickly noticed that thinking about his ex-girlfriend before a date wasn't a good sign.

Maybe he should stand her up? No, that is an old Jess move. He is a changed man, he doesn't treat girls like that anymore. He is better, he is more mature, he wants to achieve something, actually becoming a better and selfless person who thinks about the consequences before acting. He wasn't going to stand Y/N up.

By a quarter past eight, he was standing on the bar's entrance, making eye contact with the barista from the previous day. Y/N smiled at him before saying goodbye to the guy next to her, grabbing her purse and walking towards Jess.

"Thought you wouldn't show up, Romeo."

"Can't believe you took me for a coward."

"In my defense, I saw you drinking your problems away yesterday." He nodded before putting her coat on her shoulders for her, making Y/N smile. "What a gentleman."

"There are so many things you don't know about me. You would surprise yourself."

"Oh, let me guess: you've never been on a date before."

"What? Why would you say that?"

"Well, because we are walking instead of driving."

"I have a dark past with cars and girls. You wouldn't want me to be behind the wheel while you are inside the car after you hear it, believe me."

"Good to know." Both laughed as they walked under the streetlights of Philadelphia. "I've never been on a date either," she admitted, taking him by surprise, but not as much to make a comment about it.

Jess has never felt more comfortable. Next to her, he felt like he was free of judgments. Starting a new story, blank page, blank notebook. He felt safe, and he hasn't felt safe in another person's arms in such a long time.

This was good for him. To finally... move on.

And who better than her to fix his broken heart.

[raccoonhearteyes]

Clarke vs. The Hot Customer

Meanwhile in DC, CIA Agent Lexa Woods and NSA Agent Anya Forrest sit across the desk with Homeland Security General Indra Beckman.  

Beckman starts, “Last night at 18:00, CIA operative Costia Daniels was killed in action. Before her death, she sent the entire Intersect Project to a civilian, a top-secret mission known only among those with the highest clearance in the CIA. The project consisted of every CIA mission and intel since the CIA’s founding in 1947. All contained in a supercomputer. The goal was for the intel to be downloaded into the human brain. While it has yet to be tested, it would give the agency’s top agents every piece of information necessary to complete their missions, without having to read every file, look through every photo, and analyze every document. This project is now in the inbox of one Clarke Griffin. As I’m sure you can guess, this is not ideal. The recipient’s unsecured g-mail means that every terrorist and their mother can track who it went to. And they will go after them without hesitation in order to get their hands on our intelligence.”

“Why did she send it to a civilian instead of a CIA contact?” Anya asks.

“We don’t know. As far as we can tell, she’s just some random college dropout. She works at a Buy-More. Your job is to find Clarke Griffin, find out what she knows, and download the e-mail yourselves so our nation’s secrets are not floating around in the head of some idiot civilian.”

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

Clarke wakes up on her bedroom floor to the blaring alarm on her nightstand. She’s groggy, and doesn’t quite remember why she apparently passed out on the floor instead of changing into pajamas and climbing into her bed.

Slowly, the memories of last night trickle in. She remembers a hot pocket, going to her room to play video games, and… an e-mail from Costia? That can’t be right. They haven’t spoken in years… But she distinctly remembers getting an e-mail from her, then a bunch of weird pictures, and that’s it.

She goes over to her computer to try and reread the email, but the thing won’t turn on. It seems to be fried from the inside. “Great, so not only did Costia ruin my life, she sent me a computer virus that destroyed my computer?” Clarke wonders.

Clarke’s still a little woozy from the unending strobe light of incomprehensible images her brain was exposed to the night before, so she skips breakfast, and thanks her past self for not even changing out of her work clothes so she can just walk right out the door and head to the Buy-More.

Raven is sitting at the Nerd Herd help desk waiting for her.

“You never logged on to LoL last night,” Raven complains. “Yeah, I got a weird e-mail from Costia and it torpedoed my computer.”

“I’m sorry what? Costia? Costia Daniels? The one that ruined your life and got you stuck working at a Buy-More with me?”

“The one and only.”

“What did she want?”

“I don’t know. It was a weird e-mail. It spazzed through a bunch of images and then fried my hard drive.”

“What a bitch.” “Yup.”

It’s a slow day at the Buy-More so Raven and Clarke spend most of the day chit chatting about nothing, planning their next video game all-nighter, and talking about starting their own electronics company to beat out the Buy-More. It’s an idea they’ve talked about for years, but is nothing more than a pipe dream. Neither of them have the capital to get that thing off the ground. No matter how many engineering degrees Raven collects. Eventually they fall into a game of “Guess what that customer is thinking.”

“I am going to hoard this for when the nuclear apocalypse hits us and toilet paper is scarce,” Raven says about the guy with 100 rolls of toilet paper and nothing else in his cart.

“I need a copy of Die Hard for every TV in my house,” Clarke gruffs about the old many with 8 copies of Die Hard in his basket.

The two are so enthralled in their game that they hardly notice a customer approach the help desk.

In a high-pitched valley girl voice, Clarke says, “I’m getting this video camera so I can finally make a sex tape with my boyfriend!” Raven laughs way harder than Clarke thinks the joke earned, but then the customer clears her throat and Clarke whirls around. The customer raises her eyebrows in surprise.

“Um… I… did you? That wasn’t… Hi, welcome to the Nerd Herd. How can I help you?”

Clarke chokes on her tongue a little when she realizes just how beautiful the customer is. She’s wearing tight fitting jeans, a tank top, and an unbuttoned flannel over her shirt. Clarke’s gaydar lightly pings in the back of her mind. Her hair is a mane of curly brown locks. She has a pair of sunglasses perched on the top of her head, and the greenest eyes Clarke has ever seen. When her gaze flicks back up to make eye contact, there’s something… intense about the way this girl looks at her.

“I’ve been having phone troubles. It doesn’t seem to be receiving calls.”

“Can I have a name for the intake form?”

“Lexa.”

“Well Lexa, I’ll see what I can do.”

Clarke fiddles around with the phone, looking for external damage or immediately obvious reasons for malfunction. When she finds nothing evident, she tells Lexa, “It must be something internal, I’ll take it to the back and see what’s going on. Come back in about an hour, and it should be all set.”

“That sounds perfect. Thank you…” Lexa pauses waiting for a name

“Clarke.”

“Thank you, Clarke. I’ll see you in an hour.”

As Lexa turns to walk away, Clarke stares at her ass and says a quiet, “Bye Lexa.”

“HEY CLARKE! You telling this customer goodbye or are you announcing that you’re bi?” Raven says a little too loudly for it to not be intentional.

Lexa turns to flash a smile at Clarke, and Clarke turns to Raven and says, “Reyes, I will kill you in your sleep.”

An hour spent tinkering in the repair shop, and the phone is back to fully functional. Clarke waits at the help desk for Lexa to return. This time she ensures that she’s not mid-game so she doesn’t embarrass herself a second time in front of this customer. She most certainly notices when Lexa walks into the store. This time, the flannel is tied around her waist and Clarke stares at the tattoo curling around her bicep. Then she stares at the biceps themselves and considers tracing the lines with her tongue. Scolding herself for being just as big of a perv as fellow Nerd Herders Jasper and Monty, she smiles and pointedly does not stray from making eye contact. Lexa is less successful as she sneaks a peek down Clarke’s shirt that may have one or two fewer buttons done up this time around.

“What’s the verdict doc?” Lexa asks, leaning into Clarke’s space at the counter.

“All fixed,” Clarke smiles.

“How do I know it works?”

Clarke grins, “Aha, watch this.”

She digs her own phone out of her pocket and dials a number. She waits a few seconds until the phone in Lexa’s hand starts to vibrate and “NERD HERD HOTTIE” pops up on the screen.  

“See? Good as new”

“Thank you, Clarke. I really appreciate it,” Lexa says, and turns to leave the store. Clarke’s bubble of hope pops as she watches her walk away. But then, after a few steps, Lexa picks up her phone, scrolls through a screen and lifts the phone to her ear.

A few feet behind her, Clarke’s phone buzzes on the counter. She answers.

“Do you want to get dinner tonight?” Lexa asks.

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

They agree to meet at Grounders at 7:00. Lexa arrives 15 minutes early and waits at the entrance. She’s wearing a green button up, tight grey pants, and her hair is done up in a neat braid. She has a stun gun tucked into her jacket, a knife hidden in each boot, and a blade laced within the braid. But this is supposed to look like a first date, not a mission, so she tries to make herself look nervous by shifting her weight from one leg to the other, and gets ready to flirt some information out of her mark.

Clarke steps out of an Uber at 7:06 wearing a light blue sundress that makes her look even more like a ray of sunshine. It’s a stark contrast from the unisex Nerd Herd uniform, and Lexa can’t help but give her a once over. Twice maybe thrice if she’s being completely honest. “I thought you might have changed your mind,” Lexa confesses, looking at her watch.

“Of course not! Just bad LA traffic,” Clarke replies and leads them into the restaurant.

Conversation is easy. They make each other laugh. The waitress comes over three times in 45 minutes before either of them have even glanced at the menu. Lexa assures the waitress that they do, in fact, know how to read, and a few minutes later they actually order their food. Neither can stop themselves from long looks and bashful smiles. Clarke learns that Lexa just moved to town and is still looking for the right fit job. They talk about their childhoods and interests. Eventually, they stumble on the topic of whether or not it’s weird that Lexa asked out her phone repair woman. Clarke immediately reddens at the memory of the first words Lexa heard her say. Clarke apologizes for her having to overhear the game she plays with Raven at the Buy-More.

“Speaking of which, how does a girl as beautiful and smart as you end up working for the Nerd Herd?” Lexa asks incredulously.

“That’s kind of a long story. The spark notes version is that I am one semester shy of a computer science degree at Stanford. My senior year, my former best friend and roommate Costia framed me for cheating and got me kicked out of school. No explanation. Since then I haven’t really had the drive to finish the degree. Or trust anyone. I’ve really just been surviving ever since. No sense in living when everything you loved is gone, right? Sorry, that was probably a little heavy for a first date…”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Lexa assures. The name Costia did not go unnoticed, so Lexa presses on, “What ever happened to that Costia girl?”

“The funny thing is I haven’t really thought about her in a few years, but the last two days it’s been at nagging in my mind. I actually got an e-mail from her yesterday, but all it contained was a virus that fried my computer,” Clarke shrugs.

The waiter interrupts to fill their wine glasses, and Lexa’s opportunity to press more about this e-mail vanishes as Clarke switches the subject completely, and they fall back into easy conversation, longing and somewhat thirsty looks, and grinning at each other.

Lexa pays their check while Clarke runs to the bathroom, and they have decided that 3 hours taking up this restaurant’s table is probably long enough. Yes, it’s a mission, but Lexa is genuinely enjoying talking to this girl. She’s sweet and funny, and looks damn good in that dress.

“Can I drive you home?” Lexa asks.

The drive is a comfortable silence. Lexa’s hand rests on Clarke’s knee and mindlessly draws patterns on her thigh until Clarke intertwines their fingers. The drive ends too quickly as they pull up to the complex where Clarke lives.

Lexa walks Clarke to her door. Clarke’s walk slows to a crawl, trying to prolong her time with Lexa as much as possible. But the trip from the car to the stoop is only so long, so she settles for pretending to struggle to find her keys. God she wants to kiss her. She wants to kiss her so badly she hasn’t listened to a word Lexa has said because she can’t think about anything else. Lexa pauses in front of the door, and shuffles a bit closer to Clarke.

“Goodnight, Clarke”, she says as she leans in. Clarke closes her eyes in anticipation, and then feels Lexa’s lips land just left of the mark. Lexa places a chaste kiss on the corner of Clarke’s mouth, then turns to walk away. She turns back with a wink and a wave as Clarke unlocks her front door, and melts to a puddle once she’s crossed the threshold.

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

Lexa paces outside the front of the Buy-More while on the phone with the General. “Beckman, she’s just a normal girl. She hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t even think the e-mail made it to her. She said she hasn’t heard from Costia since college!” “Agent Woods, Daniels was one of our top agents. There must be a reason she sent it to her. Now, go find out if she’s just a really good liar, or if she’s actually as innocent as you seem to think.” She hangs up without a greeting or dismissal.

Lexa tries to shake off the conversation, and walks through the Buy-More doors to go find Clarke, who at the moment is helping someone pick out a blender. Lexa pretends to be interested in a video camera and presses random buttons while waiting for Clarke to be free.

“Looking at cameras for our sex tape?” Clarke asks with a cheeky grin.

Lexa rolls her eyes and replies, “No, I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to say hi. I had fun last night.”

Clarke lights up with a goofy grin and thinks about how she didn’t kiss her last night. Clarke eyes her lips, and catches Lexa doing the same. She does a quick scan of the floor, hoping to confirm that no manager is there to catch her making out with a girl while on the clock. She’s made it almost a full 360 when it happens.

She sees a man standing in the DVD section. He doesn’t look that much different than a normal customer, but once she sees the scar on his neck, images flash before her eyes. The scar. The man’s name, and seven different aliases. A Russian Prison manifest. A rank within Russian Intelligence operations. They flash before her eyes in rapid succession, pulling the information to the forefront of her brain, and making her a little dizzy with the completely unconscious recall of information she doesn’t remember learning in the first place. The images stop and her eyes refocus

“Lexa, this is going to sound crazy, but that man in the DVDs section is a Russian spy and he

is armed to kill. Don’t ask me how I know that, I just do.”

 Clarke watches Lexa’s eyes widen in alarm. “Holy shit, you downloaded it.”

“What?”

“The Intersect.” “The what?” “I have to get you out of here.”

Lexa grabs Clarke’s hand and pulls her towards the back of the store.

“Lexa, what is going on.” She doesn’t answer. Instead she goes into the breakroom, punches a series of numbers into the vending machine, and watches the machine slide to the right to reveal a passageway. Lexa pulls Clarke through, ignoring her questions and utter shock at what is going on. Clarke is led down some stairs into a conference room with screens taking up a full wall, a wall full of weapons, and a video conference call happening at the table in the center. An angry looking Asian woman sits at the table talking to the screen with a black woman with more medals on her military coat than Clarke knew existed. 

Lexa interrupts their conversation with, “She’s the Intersect.”

“She what?”

“She’s the Intersect. She downloaded it. She just recognized a Russian operative upstairs.”

The other women in the room and on the screen look shocked and horrified.

“So it works?” the woman on the screen asks. “WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. WHERE AM I? WHAT IS THE INTERSECT? WHY IS THERE A SECRET BASE IN THE BUY-MORE? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?” Clarke yells, finally getting Lexa’s attention.

Lexa starts, “My name is Lexa Woods. I work for the CIA.”

“Anya Forrest, Colonel in the NSA.”

“And I’m General Indra Beckman, head of Homeland Security”

Clarke begins to laugh hysterically. “Did Raven put you up to this? She always goes WAY TOO BIG or way too small for pranks. Jeezus how much did she spend on this?!” She wanders the base touching weapons, poking screens, and searching for a hidden camera.

“This isn’t a joke, Miss Griffin,” Beckman interrupts.

The tone sobers Clarke immediately.

Beckman continues, “Three days ago, CIA operative Costia Daniels sent you an email. That email contained every secret the CIA has in what was called the Intersect Project. That information is now in your head. Until a new Intersect can be built, the CIA and NSA’s number one priority will be protecting you.”

“I’m sorry, what now?” Clarke asks.

“You will assist in missions as needed.”

Clarke is, again, much too stunned to grasp anything that was just said. Instead, she asks every question that has run through her mind since she thought she was about to kiss Lexa at work to the current moment. Costia was CIA? Why did she send it to me? How does it work? Can I get it removed? You’re sure this isn’t an over the top prank? Costia is dead?

Lexa, Anya, and Beckman patiently answer every question Clarke has. For the most part, they are very understanding of the barrage of questions. The questions continue for about thirty minutes, but eventually die down. This is real. Clarke will be working with the CIA. Other countries will try to find the Intersect, so she is in danger. She is now their most important asset, and they will protect her at all costs. She doesn’t really have a choice in this.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Clarke states. “We know, but your country is calling,” Beckman answers.

General Beckman hangs up the call, Anya goes back to cleaning an enormous gun, Lexa starts to organize files, and Clarke… Clarke sits at the table staring at her hands. Deep in thought, and too stunned to form coherent thoughts. After ten minutes, she takes a deep breath and addresses Lexa.

“So that date then?”

Lexa reads the implied question and answers, “Was part of my mission to find out what you knew.”

“Ah.”

“Clarke.”

“I don’t know why I thought it was anything else. No one that model hot dates a girl from the Nerd Herd. Is that like a requirement for spy work?”

Lexa cocks her head like a confused puppy.

Clarke glances between Anya and Lexa, and waggles her fingers between the two of them. “You know, the mind-blowing hotness? I mean, it works. Girl that looks like you asks me to jump off the roof and I’d probably do it without asking any follow up questions. Of course it was all fake. You’re probably straight. Really deluded myself into this one. Big yikes.”

Anya looks up from the barrel of her gun and chuffs, “Definitely not straight”

Lexa blushes but doesn’t disagree with Anya. Instead she addresses Clarke directly. “You do realize that we will need to continue dating, right?”

Clarke continues rambling to herself about being an idiot for thinking a girl like Lexa was into her, but then the content of Lexa’s question sinks in. Her brain jolts like a record scratch. “Huh?”

“It’s the perfect cover for why I’m suddenly in your life and may suddenly vanish from it. I can keep a close eye on you when you’re not at work, and it won’t seem suspicious if I stay over. During the day, Anya will work at the Buy More with you.”

Clarke still hasn’t wrapped her head around “continue dating” so instead asks, “I’m dead, right? That Russian operative in DVDs killed me and I’m bleeding out on the Buy-More floor, right? Because there is no way the US government just asked me to fake date a bombshell agent for the safety of our country.”

Anya finishes reassembling her gun, looks up at the newly christened fake couple, and says, “Believe it, babe.”

[theyanderespecialist]

Daddish Mccree (One Shot) Jesse Mccree X OC  (YANDEREISH, Overwatch)

[Hello My Sexy Readers finally back with Marie and this one we made it with some daddish Mccree not age play and Marie is 20 in this but just Mccree being a a daddy I like to fuck and all that we hope you all enjoy this chapter here!]

(Maries pov)

I woke up and let out a groan seeing my boyfriend was already gone, his spot on the bed already cold. I looked around and saw his drawers slightly open, like normal. I walked out shuffling as I yawn. "OH that's a big yawn Darling" I hear.

"Sorry--"

"it's alright darling, can you hand me the screw? It's a flathead." He said as I picked up the screw driver seeing him working on his arm as My eyes went to his hat. I always did want to try it on but I didn't want to make him uncomfortable by asking.

"I can feel you staring Honeydew."

"...can I try your hat on?"

"my hat?" He asked confused as I mentally cussed. He probably didn't like that I asked. I looked over only to see him grab the hat with his one arm and plop it on my head as he laughed. "There you go, now, I gotta work." He said as I held onto the hat as I looked at him.

Seeing him leaning over, concentrating.. we unfortunately never got intimate, I've been to scared but seeing him like this.. I go back to the bedroom wondering how ill let Him know. I sigh and lean back when I felt something to see his poncho. He never puts his laundry away. I go to put it away before an idea hit me.

(Timeskip)

"Jesse."

"Yes honeydew?" He answered, back still to me.

"You need to look."

"I'm busy Honey.. dew." he trailed as he turned around.

(Jesse pov)

She was in my hat and poncho and JUST my hat and Poncho a toy vibrating clipped on her clit making her nice a slick.

"Well? Do I look good enough to eat?" She asks.

"I-I well god damn." I say and walked over in two strides and kissed her deeply.

(Is it just me or are you hearing this in Jesse two cause now I am externally horny XD)

(Oh definitely)

(XD I know right damn his voice is like butter Hot melty sexy butter)

She had to get on her toes to properly kiss back what with her short little, we'll everything.

I grip her shoulders, my hands slowly going up to her cheeks and cupping them in the kiss before pulling away.

"You are a little troublemaker ain't you darling?" I asked, my voice turning to more of a playful growl like tone.

"You were so busy with your arm you forgot about me~" She purred teasingly. "How else am I supposed to get your attention."

"Well, you could have waited." I said slowly as she smiled and laughed lightly. "Well.. if you want to get back to your arm.." she managed to struggle out of my arm and turn around, raising the poncho ever so slightly, showing the curve of her ass. "Then you can get back to work.. and I'll get dressed."

"Oh no darling~" I say and pull her in the arms

She smirked up at me as I kiss her forehead

"You don't know what you do to me darling~" He says. "I am going to make you mine~"

Her face went red as I held her close as she leaned into me. "You are now?" She asked as I pushed the hat over her face and picked her up as she gave a soft yelp.

I smirked and carried her to the bedroom. "Oh darling you look so pretty like this in my clothes~" I say and kiss her deeply

She kissed back before pulling away. "Does that mean I can have them?"

"No, but it does mean that your free to wear them, especially like this." I said kissing her again as my hands trailed up. This was probably the most I've seen of her body, typically she's in bulky sweaters and pants. So I was excited to finally see her.

She moaned as my hands moved to her chest. "I like that~"

She blushed before she suddenly pulled the poncho down, just enough to show her breasts.

(His weakness xD

My face went red like a tomato I never knew the size of her breasts not that it matter. I mean I love her for her and she is mine. But damn I have a weakness for big boobs. All she has to do is show them and I am a weak man.

(XD You called it XD)

(XD)

(XD)

She took my hands, slowly placing them back on the bare flesh as she gave this look to me, one that just begged me to be the one to take charge. I smirked and did just that massaging her breast rather roughly and she moaned and I pulled on her nipples making her arch her chest into me for more of that. This was a dream come true that's for sure~ I pull again while my mouth goes to her other, biting it softy as she let out a small whimper as I stopped briefly as she looked at me, but instead she asked me to continue as I smile a little relieved I don't have to hold back to much with my sweet honeydew. I sucked on her nipple and moaned this was everything I wanted then I felt something enter my mouth and taste sweat Vanilla.

She stopped as did I as I see her face turn a dark red. "I-'m s-sorry."

I smirked and pulled away. "No I love it darling~ Your milk is just as sweet as you my honeydew~" I purr and dive back in sucking with more vigor.

She let out a moan mixed with a breathless thank you as her hands gripped my hair as she pushed my hat back on my head before her arms wrap around my shoulders, digging into the flesh on my back. I did not mind. She trusted me to love her and she wants me just as much as I want her.

If anything it was attractive. Hell I can handle a few scratches, ain't nothing I haven't felt before, and certainly not the worst. I bit down on her nipple gently and her body convulsed and I realized she just came from being having her nipples played with a sucked. I look at her and then smirk as I pulled her into a heated kiss as I slowly pulled her body so she was laying flat on her back as I climb on top of her as I struggle with the belt before she helped me

He quick little fingers got my belt off fast and then she pulled down my pants and boxers and she gasped as my cock spring out. It was not the longest but really thick eight inches erect a three inches thick erect.

I kneeled down, placing a quick kiss on her head. "You just tell me when you need to stop okay? I ain't going to make you do anything you don't want to." I said as I wasn't going to make her suck me off, but I definitely was going to use her tits

I place my cock in-between her breasts and she squeezes them around me and I start to fuck her cleavage and she moaned and I groaned. God she felt like silk~ I felt my whole body shudder from her. God she has already got me so close~

I out of reflex, pushed her head down leading to her taking my head in her mouth suddenly. I gasped and came hard and she swallowed my seed as best as she could.

"I am sorry darling I did not mean t cum in your mouth!" I say panic as I catch my breath.

She coughed as I looked at her worried before she looked up at me. ".." She didn't speak for a moment before she gave me a look. "I-It's okay.. I really liked when you took charge there... Daddy." She said softly

I blushed like a red tomato and the kisses her savagely. Oh my sweet darling~ She moaned into the kiss as her arms wrap around me as I pick her up as I rip the vibrator off her clit as I hold the back of her head, tangling my fingers in her hair.

She cried out in pleasure and rubbed her pussy into me wanting more

"You want it Darling?" I asked as she let out a strained moan grinding into me, the feeling of her wet, warm slit on me was enough to drive me crazy

"yes Daddy~!" She moans. "Give it to me~ Fuck me~!"

"You really want it, huh Darling~ Alright, I'll give you the choice, want it bad enough for me to go in right away or--"

"N-Now please!~"

I smirked and lined up with her, already hard again and thrust in. I felt her hymen tear and she cried out in pleasure digging her nails in me hard and I sank all the way in. She panted as she gripped into me, Her moans sounding more like a mewl and whimper. I smirked and she soon started to rock on me up and down and I smirked and started to pull out than thrust back in and she moaned a yes and soon we are fucking each other hard and fast.

She let out loud moans as she eventually started screaming my name as I grip onto her with one hand, the other one groping her breasts as I could hear how wet she is. God I loved it. She dragged me into a kiss as she came a second time and I was milked a second time as well as we came together. She panted as She fell back as I didn't pull away kissing her still. We rode out our orgasms and then she promptly passed out. I smile she was now mine and mine alone~

[WOOOOO I hope you all enjoyed and stay sexy my friends!]

[ephemeral-afterlight]

Day 23: Bleeding Out

(Run from the masquerade.)

Whumptober 2019 Day 23: Bleeding Out

Word Count: 1661

Relationships: DLAMP (romantic)

Warnings: Stab wound, blood, knife, dissociation (? kinda), assassin, identity theft/false identities, morally grey Patton (Patton was conditioned and trained from childhood to be a killer, though not by choice)

A/N: sorry that this is late. i've lost my second source of wifi and am now on an unreliable schedule. please forgive me. anyway, i know someone wanted something patton-centric, so hopefully this is okay! i know it's not super whumpy, but i've been playing around with this idea for a while and thought it was interesting.

Who am I?

Words filter through Patton’s brain, drench themselves in an apathy far removed from expression of ideals. Breaks and cracks and trials and tribulations rip throughout his head, shake him to the core, and it’s like his train of thought has switched to a west-bound track at the very last second. Nothing seems to be tangible here, impalpable in the bleak, bleached whiteness of the room itself. Existing in an echo of itself, pictures hung in thin air as residual temperament of times past.

Where am I?

The blank space pushing a pressure on his mind shifts and morphs into something new, amalgams of amorphous nothings twisting and braiding strands of senses, whispering gold in artificial light. Walls rise up, looming and hollow, and Patton wants to hide inside a diamond box until the last bit of oxygen is expelled from his lungs. A roof closes over top, securely snapping into place as if it’s been there all along.

Am I alive?

Dreary greys arise from bleeding spots of discolouration in the new room, pooling out to coat a shade darker like a storm cloud just before it fades away. The attempt at colour is pathetic, and wholly a failure, and none of the words seem to stay in Patton’s brain anymore. There are magicians to tell him no, dancers leaping and twirling as they snatch up every bit of coherency Patton didn’t know he still had. They spin away, leaving him with nothing.

What happened?

A true question, valid and fair, but it doesn’t stop his mind from unconsciously raising a red alert that trails for miles long. The query is stolen away, bartered by thieves of the night for the tiniest splash of the colour magenta, and touching that dot of flat paint sends a shock through his system. The new colour shoots out from every fingertip, shades of red falling heavily over the room to muster shadows and highlights and shapes that are now clear enough to be recognized. A bookshelf, a couch, a table. Blurs of wine, marred by time, falling behind, undefined, stuck in line…

Am I awake?

Taken into consideration, broken and under construction in wavering hands that fall to his sides.

Am I asleep?

Movement blossoms underneath his skin, sparks and compels to bring his tired fingers to wrap around his stomach.

What is that?

A real shape, a real feeling, cylindrical rubber and plastic. It’s a handle, ridged and beaten-up and misshapen, malformed, and Patton grips it hard. Pulling at it is like agony, feeling despite the whims of the shallowly merciful, diluted promises to echo brightly in his head. Each word digs into him, digs deep enough to release his cyan blood, and along with the red comes blue and purple. Azure skies spill from his stomach, coat his hands and stick to his clothes, and the clouds are missing.

How did I get hurt?

The knife rests easily in Patton’s hands, forming to the curvature of his digits like a malleable putty slipping between with the viscosity of caramel. Happy accidents reset the logistics of nightmares, pertinent to the matter of when and where and how and why. The who is him, a stolen identity and a fake face, masked with indifference to the things he had to leave behind. Yellow shines through his chest, rays of light splitting him in half, and the full painting bursts into being.

Patton gasps in a choked breath of much-needed air, pupils blown wide in the dim light of the room he’s in. He shoots up from the concrete, the smell of garbage and petrichor wafting up from the alleyway he resides in. Rain splashes down all around him, filling the city’s atmosphere with a staticky, white noise to offset the far-off ambience of horns honking, vague lyrics, and the occasional police siren. The water soaks through his clothes easily, chills him to the bone in the cool night air, but that doesn’t matter because there’s a huge gash in his abdomen, and a bloodied knife discarded on the ground beside him. Hypothermia is the least of his problems right now.

The pain is acute, ripples deep through his flesh as nerves spark like fireworks under his skin. The wound leaves a bitterness in Patton’s heart, calls forth a litany of self-destructive, self-righteous, asinine introspection, things that usually would remain locked deep in the chasm at the back of Patton’s mind. It’s not as if he necessarily wants to die, but maybe it’d be easier to fall asleep here, lay in the flood and accept each pool of regret as they really are.

Maybe not.

After all, his boyfriends are waiting for him at home. The four of them know about Patton’s job and yet stay with him anyway, despite the danger it’s brought upon them all, something Patton regards with a bittersweet outlook. Yes, the show of sentiment is warming, unconditional love acting as a buffer between himself and his karma that he knows he doesn’t deserve, but it also makes them reckless, loyal to a fault. They will all die if they continue to be with him, something Patton has stressed to them multiple times, but the warning never seems to get through their heads.

Roman and Virgil are similar, in a lot of ways, despite how drastically opposing their personalities are. Virgil is unerringly cautious, finds it easy to betray the powerful under the motivation of bettering the masses, and is rebellious despite his paranoia-- it’s what drew Patton to him in the first place. Roman, on the other hand, prioritizes by not prioritizing at all-- every single person is born equally with the ability to do good or evil, and their path is a result of external factors rather than wholly internal. Setting aside his own wants isn’t losing, not really, because no matter what he chooses he will always find gratification, a trait that Patton does not share but respects anyway. Together, they tend to fight and clash, opposing ideals dancing around each other under a common drive and purpose. This overhang is what brings them together, in the end, as two who refuse to stand on the sidelines and let those who cannot fight for themselves be taken advantage of.

Logan is complicated, mainly because of the very nature that forces him down into commonality. He is inconspicuous in every sense of the word, prefers to work in the shadows rather than the limelight, and it’s this trait that allows him to sneak around those he’s manipulating like a puppet master. His intelligence is boundless, never held down by narrow perspective or innate complacency from where he stands as an individual in a society that constantly seeks to strip him of that title. He’s calculating, assesses every possible outcome before he makes a decision, which makes him extremely dangerous. Exactly the kind of person who would be very high up in the hierarchy in Patton’s line of work.

Ethan is the one out of the four of them that acts as an outlier, the one on the other side of the glass. He’s drastically different to the others, sharing very few commonalities, which made getting to know him much more interesting. Ethan is a coward, bravery having melted away long ago, as if it were never there to begin with, and maybe it wasn’t. He’s opinionated, and fierce, and protective, but when push comes to shove, he will hide in the shadows under an umbrella of regret to part the downpour. He means well, but his fear holds him back, leaves him susceptible to panic. However, this doesn’t mean he’s weak; he’s far from it. While Ethan may crack under direct pressure, when he’s allowed to operate in the flanks, fight by proxy, he’s unstoppable. A worldview untainted by inherent decharacterization pushes him far beyond the rest, an allowance of growth never wavering throughout any success he garners.

They’re all unique, special in how they deal with what the world throws at them, and it’s why Patton hasn’t just killed them all yet. The way he grew up, he was always taught to take advantage of anyone who can provide what he needs and then kill them off when he’s finished with them. Being an assassin means no baggage, not a single suitcase taken along, and shedding identities like the skin of a snake is just another part of Patton’s daily life. He can’t allow them to stay. It’s a terrible idea, leaves him with weaknesses if anyone ever found out. And yet he still refuses to give them up, like an idiot. A lovesick fool, just waiting for an enemy to take revenge and the lives of the ones he cares about.

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? He does care, dreadfully, impossibly so, and it strips him of his advantages. That cold, detached front he’s worked for years to achieve is easily smashed to pieces any time Logan gives him a stress massage, or when Virgil gently holds his hand, or when Ethan curls up with him under a warm blanket, or when Roman gives him soft kisses early in the morning. There’s no way to be the sharp, clinical assassin known as The Heartbreaker while not confronting the fact that he’s also Patton Etienne (for now, at least), a weak, fun-loving secretary from a small town in Florida.

And when his boyfriends finally get sick of him, he will become Jace, an accountant from Manhattan, or the poor artist Kaden, or Mark, the neighbour from down the street. He will blend in like a chameleon for the express purpose of staying on the down-low, put on a new mask every day to get closer to his target, and then he will move onto the next victim and the higher payout. 

But right now, under cover of the night and the rain, Patton clutches his stab wound, struggles to his feet, and limps home.

[sentherefortherescue]

My submission for the Halloween thing :3

For @heather-likes2review

[[MORE]]

"The mission is pretty simple this time Thunderbirds 2; there is a mine in Phoenix Arizona that has had a cave in while three miners were decommissioning it. Our job is to locate the missing miners and seal off the cave entrance once we are finished." 

"FAB Thunderbird 5, Scott and I are on our way, eta one hour, five minutes."

"Simple would be nice, especially considering what day it is. We almost got away with not having a rescue on Halloween, thanks to the time difference though…" Scott said as we leaned back in the co-pilot seat of Thunderbird 2. 

"Yeah I get it. Last year did not go well. All the freaky stuff happens in October. At first I thought it was just superstition, now not so much." Virgil set Thunderbird 2 on autopilot and began preparing the mole pod. 

"What do you mean?"

"Well I mean, last year we had that whole 'mysterious figure lighting fires in the middle of nowhere, only for John to see no human heat signatures' situation. Or the 'gigantic flying bat ramming into buildings' problem in New Mexico. It's never just a small, simple rescue on Halloween." 

"Fair enough, my old buddy Kevin from the air Force works as an EMT now and he says he hates working Halloween. So many stupid calls like "I dressed up as a clown to scare people and got stabbed!" Scott exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air mimicking a dumbfounded teen. 

"Haha ouch. Although it kind of sounds like he deserved it?"

"Kevin said it was the guys sister who stabbed him too, in their own house… haha so yeah, he had it coming. But he's fine so it's ok to laugh about it."

_____________________________________

"We are approaching the mine," Virgil stated as he prepped Thunderbird 2 for landing. 

The thunderous bird landed, kicking up all of the loose dirt and dust around it. Scott was already down in the mole pod ready to deploy. Thunderbird 2 rose on her struts and opened the pod door allowing Scott to drive out.

After positioning the pod outside the cave entrance, or what used to be the entrance, Scott bounded out of the pod and joined Virgil. 

"This is International Rescue, can anyone hear me?" Scott called into the comms. 

A few seconds of silence met the boys until a small static click was heard and a man started speaking. "International Rescue? Thank God you're here! Please hurry she has gone nuts!"

Exchanging looks Virgil asked, "sir? Can you repeat that?"

"It's Maria, she said she was hearing voices earlier, b-but we just played it off as her being nervous. Now she's gone batty! It started with her talking frantically and then she began physically shaking us and telling us we weren't alone. She's saying the voice is getting louder but we can't hear anything. I don't know what's going on man!"

"Okay sir, please stay calm, we will get to you as soon as we can." Scott answered the frantic man. 

"I told you… never normal." Virgil stated as he walked to get to his Exo-suit. 

Virgil donned his Exo-suit and walked over to the cave entrance. "Sir, my friend and I are going to be using a drill to get to your location, you and your other co-workers, need to step away from the wall approximately 25 feet." 

"Okay." Another pause of static before the man's voice returned telling the boys that he and his coworkers were far enough away. 

Scott started up the drill and began chipping away at the wall while Virgil moved some of the rocks out of the way to make the opening larger. It wasn't long before a hole was made long enough for the workers to climb out of. 

Virgil walked to the entrance and removed his hand from his Exo-suit offering it to the workers as they climbed out of the cave. It wasn't long before a dark figure came barreling out of the cave at top speed. 

"Maria, wait!" One of the men shouted. That was all Virgil heard before he was impacted by the small bodied woman. The woman had enough adrenaline running through her that when she made contact with Virgil, she actually made him stumble backwards a few steps. Unfortunately she had taken the brunt of the hit and ended on the floor unconscious with multiple impact points visible on her body. 

"What the?" Virgil grunted as he stumbled to regain his balance. The other two men slowly emerged from the entrance of the cave to see their co-worker sprawled out on the dusty ground, a sizable amount of blood seeping from a cut on her face. 

Scott launched himself out of the pod and slid down at the woman side. "What happened?" He asked looking at the workers then to Virgil. 

Both workers were speechless, and all Virgil said was that he didn't know. Virgil shed his exo-suit and began examining the girl. "She has a mild concussion and a few small cuts from where she impacted with my suit, but other than that she should be okay."

"Good," Scott answered. "Let's take her to the med bay in Thunderbird 2, then we'll come back and seal the cave."

"FAB."

_____________________________________

After insuring that the three workers were safe and as comfortable as the could be in the back of Thunderbird 2, Scott and Virgil began to walk over to the cave entrance. 

"Virg, do you have any idea what happened?"

"Aside from potentially being spooked from being trapped in a cave for a couple hours, type of claustrophobia insanity I really don't know." 

"The one male worker said that Maria had said that they weren't alone…" 

"Do you think that we should go in and look for someone else?"

"I'm not picking up on anyone else on my scans, but it couldn't hurt to go and take a quick look. If you don't mind going in, I'm going to ask the workers a couple of more questions. Something isn't sitting right with me. Bring your exo-suit, we are not sure what you'll find down there."

Virgil entered the cave, calling out to what felt like an Abyss of rock and darkness. The only light was from his shoulder torch. 

"This is International Rescue, is anyone here?" He called out again.

Nothing. 

"Scott, it's been about 20 minutes and I haven't found any other signs of life and after running new scans there are no new heat signatures, so I'm going to make my way back up to the mouth of the cave."

"FAB Virgil. I talked to the workers and they said that when Maria got there she was fine and wasn't being weird at all, but after approximately 15-20 minutes after the cave and she started acting erratically and started showing signs of unexplained paranoia."

"Is she awake yet?"

"Yeah, she woke up about 10 minutes after you went into the cave. She seems calmer now, she’s still a bit frantic, but not nearly as easily frightened as she was before."

"Good. I'll give her a more thorough check-up when I come back." 

'Hellllo? Can you help me?'

"Hold on Scott! I may have found someone."

"You did?"

"I think so, adjusting comms so you can hear around me." Virgil adjusted his comms so Scott could hear the noises around him in the cave. 

"This is International Rescue. Can you hear me?"

'Help, please.'

"What is your name?"

'Sandra… please stay with me.'

"Sandra please keep talking, I'm going to try to follow your voice."

"Umm Virgil? I can't hear who you are talking to."

"You can't? Hmm weird, maybe she's just too quiet."

'Free me, save me.'

Virgil wandered deeper into the cave ignoring the previous comments by Scott. He didn't think it was possible, but Virgil swore it was getting darker and colder. 

'Stay with mmm...'

"Sandra? Sandra? Please keep talking. I can't find you with my scans, you have to keep talking."

'They left me, just like you'll leave me.'

"I promise I won't leave you. We'll get you out, stay calm."

"Virgil?" Scott called, "What's going on?"

"Not sure, she's muttering about someone leaving her. You still can't hear her?"

"I can only hear you. Hold on. Thunderbird 1 to Thunderbird 5, John can you run a scan of the cave again for life signs?"

"Sure Scott." A small pause before John continued, "I have three people inside Thunderbird 2, you and Virgil."

"Is there any reason why someone wouldn't show up on the scan?"

"The rock is not deep enough for a type of material that would be messing with my scans. Why?" 

"Virgil is talking to someone in the cave, but I can't hear her through external comms and she's not showing up on any heat scans."

"Now that you say that Virgil's brain activity is quite spiked right now. It could be just because of stress." 

An audible yell was heard from the comms. "Virgil?" Scott yelled, "Virgil what's going on?"

"She's not human Scott!" 

"Not human?" Another grunt as Virgil fell onto the ground. The whirring of his exo-suit amplified over the comms. 

"She's dead Scott! She's not...!" 

Virgil was obviously spooked. Wasn't making any sense. "Hold on Virgil, I'll be right there!"

Scott was met with no response other than Virgil huffing and puffing as he ran towards the entrance of the cave. Sandra crawling after him, her nails digging into the dirt. Long brown, dirty hair fell from her face and sunken eyes stared him down as he ran. 

It wasn't long before Scott nearly ran into Virgil as he bolted past him. "Virgil!"

"Run!" Scott took a look behind him, but saw nothing. He couldn't hear anything either. 

'You said you'd save me.'

"It's hard to save you if you're a ghost!" Virgil yelled back and saw that Scott was not following him. Virgil skidded to a halt, "Scott what are you doing?" 

"Virgil," Scott turned around to look down the cave, then back at Virgil, "there's no one there!"

Virgil's breathing was rapid and distressed, "but- but she's right there…"

Scott took one last glance towards down the cave, just to make sure. 

"Come on Virgil," Scott said as he began to lead Virgil out of the cave. Virgil turned around to see Sandra waving at him, then she sulked back into the shadows. 

_____________________________________

*Back at Tracy Island*

"Hey," Scott asked as he walked into the living area with two cups of coffee in hand. "Feeling better?" 

Graciously taking a cup Virgil settled back into his spot on the couch. "Yeah, but I don't know why? Did I just lose it?" 

"G-good new-news." Brains said as he entered the living area with his tablet in hand. After a few hand swipes he brought what was displaying on his screen to be viewed on the main monitor. 

The screen showed scans of Virgil's brain waves at various times during the mission, as well as a graph and another diagram that had something to do with an element. Scott didn't quite understand, but Virgil did. 

"Wait, what?" Virgil asked. 

"Brains, what is this?" Scott asked as he and Virgil both leaned forward. 

"T-this is a scan of Virgil's b-brain, with a corresponding gr-graph and the elem-mental properties of an unknown t-toxin."

"Toxin?" Both boys asked. 

"Y-yes.  In 2056 there was a-another small cave in an-annd afterwards miners reported getting headaches and hearing s-strange n-noises. It seems that there was a small u-underground explosion around the a-area of the cave which seems to have caused the cave in.

"After doing some r-research using the data taken around the area at that t-time I compared it to the data from t-today and noticed a similarity. To put it simply a m-mineral in the mine was m-mixing with a gas from underground. These two elements mixed together cause hallucinations, both a-auditory and visual." 

"So the second explosion was larger causing more of the elements to mix, increasing the hallucinations effects?" Scott turned to Brians. 

"E-exactly!"

Virgil released a large sigh he was holding. "Thank God, I thought I was going nuts."

"Not yet little brother," Scott said as he clasped his hand on Virgil's back. "When that time comes we can blame Alan and Gordon."

Virgil slumped back into the couch, "see I told you, Halloween is always weird."

Brains chuckled slightly and began walking down to his lab. 

Unbeknownst to the boys, Brains left something out of his report. 

There had been a previous accident in the cave back in 2054, two years before the explosion. A support beam had collapsed and a woman named Sandra Torres perished having been trapped, and left behind.  

[wahbegan]

Golden Dawn Reading for Kristin

All right here you go, a reading for (heh) @maryreadings courtesy of Aleister Crowley and the book of Thoth. This is the Golden Dawn Reading, which is literally the biggest pain in the ass in the entire world, BUT also reveals the most helpful information. Now, lemme just start with a lil diagram of how the cards are read

As you can see from my incredible drawing, the first 15 cards drawn are read in a spiral configuration because symbol of infinity and life and blahblahblah point is. I won’t refer to them by the order in which I drew them, but instead their placement otherwise it gets fucking confusing

The middle three indicate the state of the querent (i.e. YOU), the three on the upper right are the path you’re currently on. The upper left, depending on whether they compliment or contradict the upper right, are either an extension of that path or an alternate path that you may take if certain decisions are made. The lower left gets into your head, the psychological/emotional reasons your shit the way it is, and the lower right are “karma” cards. Things which are, essentially, unavoidable. 

It’s my first time and Crowley’s Unified Theory of Everything as put forward in The Book of Thoth is insanely dense, convoluted, and frought with symbolism, i’m just going for the most basic divinatory meanings of the cards or I’ll dig deeper if I have to. Helpfully, for the minor arcana, they’re kinda spelled out. The trumps though hoo boy that’s...that’s some other shit. Anyway, point is, first time doing this for real, be gentle. This ain’t your granny’s Rider-Waite reading.

I’ll break down three at a time following the same spiral so you’ll get yeah Your shit, your possible future shit, a different or maybe the same possible future shit, the role your heart has in your shit, and finally your ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY GOING TO HAPPEN future shit.

Let’s begin.

Cards 1-3: The 3 of Swords (Sorrow), The Queen of Disks, The 9 of Wands (Strength)

Your present state as indicated by the 3 of Swords is sorrow, melancholy, fear, abandonment, but frankly I don’t need any cards to tell me that. HOWEVER, The Queen of Disks indicates a sort of motherly, nurturing presence watching over you that can guide you. This can be internal of external, and the card may be telling you to stay grounded and to have compassion, to take care of yourself and of those around you. Your hard work is paying off. Also, the 9 of wands indicates the ability to overcome exhaustion and what you may think impossible if you can be introspective, if you can draw on your inner reserves of strength and find balance and harmony, you can achieve what your heart is set on. You’re in a state of sadness and fear, essentially, but you’re stronger than you know and need to draw on your inner strength and on your inner “motherly” in this case it just means nurturing calm down nature to take care of yourself.

Cards 4, 8, and 12: The Tower, The Three of Cups (Abundance), The Two of Disks (Change) 

Ahhh, ooh boy. Okay. The path you are currently on. So, one possible future starts out with The Tower. Destruction, ruin, turmoil, anger, grief, depression. The Tower basically signifies nothing good in Thoth. However...whatever experiences may come, you can grow from them. Out with the old, in with the new. The third card seems to imply that’s what will happen, but more on that in a second. The 3 of Cups is kinda weird, it doesn’t fit as neatly as the other two do. It represents the birth of something (good), a time of, well y’know abundance, all the captions on the minor arcana are basically one word super-simplified summaries of divination meanings, a time of joy and spreading your joy with others, it’s...unambiguously positive and it’s strange that it’s right next to The Tower. Except...Change. The Two of Disks means nothing’s set in stone, that your fortunes are in flux, that you need to keep your feet on the ground. That harmony will be found by following the currents of life. If I had to guess at all three together, I’d say that following some ruinous event, keeping your feet on the ground and accepting the change and adapting will lead to a state of happiness and abundance in this possible timeline.

Cards 5, 9, and 13: The Ace of Cups, The Hermit, The 7 of Cups (Debauch)

The Ace of Cups is a chance for your cup to be filled, emotionally speaking. It’s about opening your heart and letting love in. In this future you open yourself up, you become vulnerable, you let your love flow through you. The Hermit usually means withdrawing from people or a situation to get a better insight into it, but the main thing of it is illumination. Finding inner wisdom and realizing a truth. Then the 7 of cups...”indulging negative behaviors” feeding into things we know aren’t healthy for us. Addictions of any kind, self-destructive behavior...poisoning yourself. This future seems to be a different path than the first one, one that will happen if certain decisions are made, one you may have some level of choice over. Whereas your first path started with grief, anger, and ruin but led to change and abundance, this started with love and ended with indulging negative emotions, self-destruction. The Hermit seems to represent the turning point at which you realize what you’ve poured into your cup is poison.

Your paths therefore, are...what? A traumatic conflict that comes to make you grow as a person or a love you come to realize is poison? That seems to be it...seems to be.

Cards 6, 10, and 14: The Princess of Disks, The 3 of Disks (Works), The Moon

Now, onto your mind. The Princess of Disks is someone in touch with nature ha again didn’t need your cards Aleister buddy but thanks for the confirmation, someone peaceful by nature and therefore who deals poorly with conflict. Someone benevolent and empathetic in touch with what’s truly important to them, following and protecting that no matter what. Devoted, protective, nature-bound, conflict-averse, empathetic. You know what matters to you and what matters to you MATTERS to you. Works means, well, working hard and dedicated, and should be...in this position, since it’s not about the future per se, I think it speaks more to your belief that your work should be rewarded. That you work hard at what fulfills you, and you want to reap the rewards of your works. The Moon is a REALLY fun one to get in this position though because the Moon basically means you’re a lunatic. No, no, that’s wrong, but it does indicate deception, in this position I’d assume self-deception, traumatic memories, repressed problems from childhood, and deep problems with your shadow self. You are empathetic, protective, peaceful, and in touch with what matters to you. You work hard and want to be rewarded. But your shadow and your past lie unaddressed, and you deceive yourself.

Cards 7, 11, and 15: The Prince of Cups, The Emperor, and the 9 of Cups (Happiness)

These I feel are the only category that should all be interpreted one at a time, as they represent three distinct forces that are beyond your control, unlike the previous two future sets. Now, the Prince of Cups is creative, passionate, driven, and has a lot to give, but is not an integrated whole of a person and can be reckless and secretive...the court cards seem more used to describe people than the future, but for divinatory purposes, the Prince of Cups here seems to mean...here, from the Book of Thoth: such people good will, sincerity, and right mating are the essentials of success; their danger is overweening ambition.

That was the main thing I could find in terms of forces beyond your control...beware the power of your own passion and ambition. The volatile power of your drive for what you seek will always affect you.

The Emperor, however, is all about responsibility. Self-sacrifice, discipline, surrender to a greater cause. Both of these cards speak much more about the character of a person than the outside world, and you got both for forces beyond your control you need to adapt to. Very interesting. Although...although, The Emperor here could mean a drive in you to be self-sacrificing and/or a leader and/or responsible will always affect your fate...OR it could mean that the need for you to step into such characteristics will affect your fate. I think it may be that second one.

Now this, this is a lovely note to end on. The Nine of Cups is one of the most unambiguously positive cards in the Deck of Thoth. Fulfillment. Getting what you want. It was the very last card in the spiral, the end of your journey, so to speak, but...it did show up eventually. I believe you’ll always find happiness. Apparently, so do the Graeco-Roman and Egyptian Gods