#i am so sorry lem

[lem-argentum]

hellooo it’s been a little.. how is everyone <3

[byakuyasdarling]

If you can guess which 6 Pok//emon rivals I had a crush on as a kid, you deserve a medal and me platonically smooching your cheek

[phildumphy]

me @ my next-door neighbor last night: please could you try not to smoke in the balcony right next to my window, I can smell it all and I'm allergic

my neighbor: oh I'm so sorry!! I know I'm a big smoker, really so sorry! I will smoke inside with the window open

my neighbor, tonight: *smokes in the balcony right next to my window while on the phone*

[sebsbarnes]

Heyyyy. i have no idea if ur taking requests right now but i have one for when you are. could u do tan x reader where tangerine has an exceptional soft spot for reader and they get on like partner in crime and whenever they are on missions together they are just great buddies who take the piss out of each other the whole time and tangerine kinda just wants to be around her whenever shes around like at gatherings (especially at little parties cuz hes kinda antisocial and shes sort of the same and doesnt want to be by ladybug and marias side all night cuz they are kinda lovey dovey and she gets a little sick of them not confessing their love to each other. i ship ladybug x maria they are just cutie patooties to me) or if she goes out for some fresh air after mission briefings hes by her side and the dynamic is kinda how him and lemon get on if that makes sense. lemon is kinda just amused and shocked that his brother is so fond of her and kinda just loves watching them interact and lemon, ladybug and maria are like amused parents just gossiping about them. i hope u can do this and that it makes sense. love ur works and ur an amazing writer :)

the soft spot i have for tang having a soft spot for the reader ahh<3 so cutie. thank you for supporting me and i hope you enjoy this :) also has everyone been seeing the new aaron pics lately phew!!

tangerine has a soft spot for the reader

warnings: none, prob grammar mistakes! unedited

masterlist

ON THE JOB:

thought lem and tan worked like magic?... Nothing on you and tangerine

you two almost fought over how seamless you worked together bc it would get so annoying sometimes

"c'mon love, i had him!" tangerine would fake tsk after you cut in front of him to shoot the man you were both fighting

"i'm sorry! i got ahead of myself!!"

he'd roll his eyes and pretend to sulk and you would immediately interrupt him- "literally. don't ever make that face again that was horrifying."

"y'know what was horrifying? that shot." tangerine would jest

sometimes even the people you were fighting would stop in confusion because you two were always laughing on the job

"should we continue...or...? we can circle back to this if you'd like?" the enemy would ask, using his gun to gesture between him and the duo

you always ended up way too injured after missions?? to the point it didn't even make sense. your task could be just stand and observe the surroundings without fighting anyone and you somehow ended up with a limp and a bruised shoulder??? no sense.

tangerine would worry so much because truly how did you become battered and bruised???

"do i need'ta stay with you?" he'd ask, the concern in his voice blaringly obvious, "cuz if i have to i'll make lem take on the rest of this job?"

tangerine would be eye-level with you staring so deep into your eyes it felt like he was had burned holes through them

"i'm fine really tang," you'd always wave off when he asked if you were alright

"i'm serious."

"and so am i tangerine, don't be ridiculous."

and even though you'd deliver the sentence with a smile tangerine felt a pang in his chest. he didn't think he was being ridiculous. he was genuinely concerned for your wellbeing.

you would dismiss your injuries and the aches and pains but tangerine would never

AT EVENTS:

tangerine isn't one for big work events... not even in the slightest. he'd rather take on 15 men at once with his bare knuckles then stand around and pretend to be jovial with people he could not care about

but with a work event that means one thing.... you were also be there! and boy did this make the night enjoyable

tangerine would get gloomy though because you were talking to people that you had previous jobs with

if he found himself extremely bored and you were chatting away with someone he would wander over to you and gently grab you wrist giving it a slight pull

you'd get the hint and excuse yourself before vanishing away with tangerine

and you didn't mind, you didn't prefer talking with many people. if you never worked with them on a mission you wouldn't even look their way or try and start a conversation. you were pleased with the small group of acquaintances you had, but ultimately you liked being alone

"thank fuck you pulled me from that conversation, i could see the gears turning in william's head that he'd ask about the kyoto job."

"and what would that old prick have to say, huh?" tangerine rolled his eyes

there was a lot of...criticism of how the job went down

"probably how the brief case went missing in the first place," you shrug

"well that was lemon's fault."

"welllll," your voice rang out in a high-pitched tone

tangerine's eyebrows pulled together, "now what's that all about? lemon was too busy playin' with his fuckin' stickers."

"you could've checked," you countered

"so it's my fault?"

"it's both of your faults."

"i'm about to get a fuckin' headache," he gruffed

you two would be hanging by yourselves observing the people scattered about before your eyes landed on ladybug and maria

"they should really confess their feeling to each other," you'd say nonchalantly and tangerine would follow your eyes over to the pair

"they like each other???"

you would just shoot tangerine a look like really? you can't tell

"ladybug is always talking about how he feels nervous around her and is at a loss for words. the man who never likes anyone calling or texting him because 'it will ruin his state of peacefulness' literally told me he waits at his phone for her to call and when she doesn't all day he gets upset."

tangerine slowly nodded his and he felt his cheeks warm up.

he was getting red because... he felt that way when you were around or when you didn't text him back

never in tangerine's life did he think he'd be able to relate to ladybug

"hey... what's going on with them?" maria asked lemon who had now walked up

lemon laughed a bit looking over to you and tangerine, both of you observing his phone intently

"y'know... i'm not quite sure. i can't tell if he's in love or if it's just friendly. and that asshole would never tell me anyways," lemon would shrug

EVERY DAY LIFE:

you didn't live with the twins but you did live next door

it was much like those sitcoms where the neighbor would just burst through the front door without warning and the owner didn't care

you were tough, don't doubt that, but sometimes you felt scared being in the walls of your apartment alone, even if tangerine and lemon were only separated by a hallway

you didn't admit your fears for awhile but one day after a mission as you stepped outside the building you felt the need to confess

the breeze had been a bit chilly as the sun was setting, you were leaned on the railing with closed eyes when you heard the door open and tangerine's familiar footsteps

"are you ever scared?" you asked him that day

you heard his lighter flick, "at times, yeah. i try not to dwell though."

"i'm terrified in my apartment," you said with a glance to him, the cigarette dangling from his bottom lip

"move in with us," he had said with such quickness

"i spend enough time there being a burden, i could never do that."

"you're never a burden in my eyes."

so while you spent countless hours in their apartment you would clean or cook for them as a form of thank you which they hated.

lemon wacked the cleaning solution out of your hand, "seriously, i'm going to have to start paying you. stop cleaning."

"but-"

"NO!" lemon would laugh, "just sit down and watch tv. you're stressing me out."

there of course were times they were pleased such as when you found yourself hunched over the stove cooking them dinner after a long mission

they'd mutter how good it smells as they approached the kitchen, their suit jackets thrown to the side and watches being unclipped

"this looks so good," tangerine said his body now next to yours

"how was work?" you asked, grabbing plates to set up the food

tangerine's arms cut you off, his arms sliding around your waist, his head coming to rest against yours. you felt his body relax around you and the weight of him leaning against you. he smelt of cigarettes, blood, and the faintest bit of cologne

"fine, now that i'm home," he muttered into your hair, he hoped you didn't notice the way his arms squeezed tighter when he said 'home'

lemon leaned against the wall of the kitchen, a knowing smile on his face as he observed his brother

[max-levchin]

Shamir Secret Sharing

It’s 3am. Paul, the head of PayPal database administration carefully enters his elaborate passphrase at a keyboard in a darkened cubicle of 1840 Embarcadero Road in East Palo Alto, for the fifth time. He hits Return. The green-on-black console window instantly displays one line of text: “Sorry, one or more wrong passphrases. Can’t reconstruct the key. Goodbye.” 

There is nerd pandemonium all around us. James, our recently promoted VP of Engineering, just climbed the desk at a nearby cubicle, screaming: “Guys, if we can’t get this key the right way, we gotta start brute-forcing it ASAP!” It’s gallows humor – he knows very well that brute-forcing such a key will take millions of years, and it’s already 6am on the East Coast – the first of many “Why is PayPal down today?” articles is undoubtedly going to hit CNET shortly. Our single-story cubicle-maze office is buzzing with nervous activity of PayPalians who know they can’t help but want to do something anyway. I poke my head up above the cubicle wall to catch a glimpse of someone trying to stay inside a giant otherwise empty recycling bin on wheels while a couple of Senior Software Engineers are attempting to accelerate the bin up to dangerous speeds in the front lobby. I lower my head and try to stay focused. “Let’s try it again, this time with three different people” is the best idea I can come up with, even though I am quite sure it will not work. 

It doesn’t. 

The key in question decrypts PayPal’s master payment credential table – also known as the giant store of credit card and bank account numbers. Without access to payment credentials, PayPal doesn’t really have a business per se, seeing how we are supposed to facilitate payments, and that’s really hard to do if we no longer have access to the 100+ million credit card numbers our users added over the last year of insane growth. 

This is the story of a catastrophic software bug I briefly introduced into the PayPal codebase that almost cost us the company (or so it seemed, in the moment.) I’ve told this story a handful of times, always swearing the listeners to secrecy, and surprisingly it does not appear to have ever been written down before. 20+ years since the incident, it now appears instructive and a little funny, rather than merely extremely embarrassing. 

Before we get back to that fateful night, we have to go back another decade. In the summer of 1991, my family and I moved to Chicago from Kyiv, Ukraine. While we had just a few hundred dollars between the five of us, we did have one secret advantage: science fiction fans. 

My dad was a highly active member of Zoryaniy Shlyah – Kyiv’s possibly first (and possibly only, at the time) sci-fi fan club – the name means “Star Trek” in Ukrainian, unsurprisingly. He translated some Stansilaw Lem (of Solaris and Futurological Congress fame) from Polish to Russian in the early 80s and was generally considered a coryphaeus at ZSh. 

While USSR was more or less informationally isolated behind the digital Iron Curtain until the late ‘80s, by 1990 or so, things like FidoNet wriggled their way into the Soviet computing world, and some members of ZSh were now exchanging electronic mail with sci-fi fans of the free world.

The vaguely exotic news of two Soviet refugee sci-fi fans arriving in Chicago was transmitted to the local fandom before we had even boarded the PanAm flight that took us across the Atlantic [1]. My dad (and I, by extension) was soon adopted by some kind Chicago science fiction geeks, a few of whom became close friends over the years, though that’s a story for another time. 

A year or so after the move to Chicago, our new sci-fi friends invited my dad to a birthday party for a rising star of the local fandom, one Bruce Schneier. We certainly did not know Bruce or really anyone at the party, but it promised good food, friendly people, and probably filk. My role was to translate, as my dad spoke limited English at the time. 

I had fallen desperately in love with secret codes and cryptography about a year before we left Ukraine. Walking into Bruce’s library during the house tour (this was a couple years before Applied Cryptography was published and he must have been deep in research) felt like walking into Narnia. 

I promptly abandoned my dad to fend for himself as far as small talk and canapés were concerned, and proceeded to make a complete ass out of myself by brazenly asking the host for a few sheets of paper and a pencil. Having been obliged, I pulled a half dozen cryptography books from the shelves and went to work trying to copy down some answers to a few long-held questions on the library floor. After about two hours of scribbling alone like a man possessed, I ran out of paper and decided to temporarily rejoin the party. 

On the living room table, Bruce had stacks of copies of his fanzine Ramblings. Thinking I could use the blank sides of the pages to take more notes, I grabbed a printout and was about to quietly return to copying the original S-box values for DES when my dad spotted me from across the room and demanded I help him socialize. The party wrapped soon, and our friends drove us home. 

The printout I grabbed was not a Ramblings issue. It was a short essay by Bruce titled Sharing Secrets Among Friends, essentially a humorous explanation of Shamir Secret Sharing. 

Say you want to make sure that something really really important and secret (a nuclear weapon launch code, a database encryption key, etc) cannot be known or used by a single (friendly) actor, but becomes available, if at least n people from a group of m choose to do it. Think two on-duty officers (from a cadre of say 5) turning keys together to get ready for a nuke launch. 

The idea (proposed by Adi Shamir – the S of RSA! – in 1979) is as simple as it is beautiful. 

Let’s call the secret we are trying to split among m people K. 

First, create a totally random polynomial that looks like: y(x) = C0 * x^(n-1) + C1 * x^(n-2) + C2 * x^(n-3) ….+ K. “Create” here just means generate random coefficients C. Now, for every person in your trusted group of m, evaluate the polynomial for some randomly chosen Xm and hand them their corresponding (Xm,Ym) each. 

If we have n of these points together, we can use Lagrange interpolating polynomial to reconstruct the coefficients – and evaluate the original polynomial at x=0, which conveniently gives us y(0) = K, the secret. Beautiful. I still had the printout with me, years later, in Palo Alto. 

It should come as no surprise that during my time as CTO PayPal engineering had an absolute obsession with security. No firewall was one too many, no multi-factor authentication scheme too onerous, etc. Anything that was worth anything at all was encrypted at rest. 

To decrypt, a service would get the needed data from its database table, transmit it to a special service named cryptoserv (an original SUN hardware running Solaris sitting on its own, especially tightly locked-down network) and a special service running only there would perform the decryption and send back the result. 

Decryption request rate was monitored externally and on cryptoserv, and if there were too many requests, the whole thing was to shut down and purge any sensitive data and keys from its memory until manually restarted. 

It was this manual restart that gnawed at me. At launch, a bunch of configuration files containing various critical decryption keys were read (decrypted by another key derived from one manually-entered passphrase) and loaded into the memory to perform future cryptographic services.

Four or five of us on the engineering team knew the passphrase and could restart cryptoserv if it crashed or simply had to have an upgrade. What if someone performed a little old-fashioned rubber-hose cryptanalysis and literally beat the passphrase out of one of us? The attacker could theoretically get access to these all-important master keys. Then stealing the encrypted-at-rest database of all our users’ secrets could prove useful – they could decrypt them in the comfort of their underground supervillain lair. 

I needed to eliminate this threat.

Shamir Secret Sharing was the obvious choice – beautiful, simple, perfect (you can in fact prove that if done right, it offers perfect secrecy.) I decided on a 3-of-8 scheme and implemented it in pure POSIX C for portability over a few days, and tested it for several weeks on my Linux desktop with other engineers. 

Step 1: generate the polynomial coefficients for 8 shard-holders.

Step 2: compute the key shards (x0, y0)  through (x7, y7)

Step 3: get each shard-holder to enter a long, secure passphrase to encrypt the shard

Step 4: write out the 8 shard files, encrypted with their respective passphrases.

And to reconstruct: 

Step 1: pick any 3 shard files. 

Step 2: ask each of the respective owners to enter their passphrases. 

Step 3: decrypt the shard files.

Step 4: reconstruct the polynomial, evaluate it for x=0 to get the key.

Step 5: launch cryptoserv with the key. 

One design detail here is that each shard file also stored a message authentication code (a keyed hash) of its passphrase to make sure we could identify when someone mistyped their passphrase. These tests ran hundreds and hundreds of times, on both Linux and Solaris, to make sure I did not screw up some big/little-endianness issue, etc. It all worked perfectly. 

A month or so later, the night of the key splitting party was upon us. We were finally going to close out the last vulnerability and be secure. Feeling as if I was about to turn my fellow shard-holders into cymeks, I gathered them around my desktop as PayPal’s front page began sporting the “We are down for maintenance and will be back soon” message around midnight.

The night before, I solemnly generated the new master key and securely copied it to cryptoserv. Now, while “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa blared from someone’s desktop speakers, the automated deployment script copied shard files to their destination. 

While each of us took turns carefully entering our elaborate passphrases at a specially selected keyboard, Paul shut down the main database and decrypted the payment credentials table, then ran the script to re-encrypt with the new key. Some minutes later, the database was running smoothly again, with the newly encrypted table, without incident. 

All that was left was to restore the master key from its shards and launch the new, even more secure cryptographic service. 

The three of us entered our passphrases… to be met with the error message I haven’t seen in weeks: “Sorry, one or more wrong passphrases. Can’t reconstruct the key. Goodbye.” Surely one of us screwed up typing, no big deal, we’ll do it again. No dice. No dice – again and again, even after we tried numerous combinations of the three people necessary to decrypt. 

Minutes passed, confusion grew, tension rose rapidly. 

There was nothing to do, except to hit rewind – to grab the master key from the file still sitting on cryptoserv, split it again, generate new shards, choose passphrases, and get it done. Not a great feeling to have your first launch go wrong, but not a huge deal either. It will all be OK in a minute or two.

A cursory look at the master key file date told me that no, it wouldn’t be OK at all. The file sitting on cryptoserv wasn’t from last night, it was created just a few minutes ago. During the Salt-n-Pepa-themed push from stage, we overwrote the master key file with the stage version. Whatever key that was, it wasn’t the one I generated the day before: only one copy existed, the one I copied to cryptoserv from my computer the night before. Zero copies existed now. Not only that, the push script appears to have also wiped out the backup of the old key, so the database backups we have encrypted with the old key are likely useless. 

Sitrep: we have 8 shard files that we apparently cannot use to restore the master key and zero master key backups. The database is running but its secret data cannot be accessed. 

I will leave it to your imagination to conjure up what was going through my head that night as I stared into the black screen willing the shards to work. After half a decade of trying to make something of myself (instead of just going to work for Microsoft or IBM after graduation) I had just destroyed my first successful startup in the most spectacular fashion. 

Still, the idea of “what if we all just continuously screwed up our passphrases” swirled around my brain. It was an easy check to perform, thanks to the included MACs. I added a single printf() debug statement into the shard reconstruction code and instead of printing out a summary error of “one or more…” the code now showed if the passphrase entered matched the authentication code stored in the shard file. 

I compiled the new code directly on cryptoserv in direct contravention of all reasonable security practices – what did I have to lose? Entering my own passphrase, I promptly got “bad passphrase” error I just added to the code. Well, that’s just great – I knew my passphrase was correct, I had it written down on a post-it note I had planned to rip up hours ago. 

Another person, same error. Finally, the last person, JK, entered his passphrase. No error. The key still did not reconstruct correctly, I got the “Goodbye”, but something worked. I turned to the engineer and said, “what did you just type in that worked?”

After a second of embarrassed mumbling, he admitted to choosing “a$$word” as his passphrase. The gall! I asked everyone entrusted with the grave task of relaunching crytposerv to pick really hard to guess passphrases, and this guy…?! Still, this was something -- it worked. But why?!

I sprinted around the half-lit office grabbing the rest of the shard-holders demanding they tell me their passphrases. Everyone else had picked much lengthier passages of text and numbers. I manually tested each and none decrypted correctly. Except for the a$$word. What was it…

A lightning bolt hit me and I sprinted back to my own cubicle in the far corner, unlocked the screen and typed in “man getpass” on the command line, while logging into cryptoserv in another window and doing exactly the same thing there. I saw exactly what I needed to see. 

Today, should you try to read up the programmer’s manual (AKA the man page) on getpass, you will find it has been long declared obsolete and replaced with a more intelligent alternative in nearly all flavors of modern Unix.  

But back then, if you wanted to collect some information from the keyboard without printing what is being typed in onto the screen and remain POSIX-compliant, getpass did the trick. Other than a few standard file manipulation system calls, getpass was the only operating system service call I used, to ensure clean portability between Linux and Solaris. 

Except it wasn’t completely clean. 

Plain as day, there it was: the manual pages were identical, except Solaris had a “special feature”: any passphrase entered that was longer than 8 characters long was automatically reduced to that length anyway. (Who needs long passwords, amiright?!)

I screamed like a wounded animal. We generated the key on my Linux desktop and entered our novel-length passphrases right here. Attempting to restore them on a Solaris machine where they were being clipped down to 8 characters long would never work. Except, of course, for a$$word. That one was fine.

The rest was an exercise in high-speed coding and some entirely off-protocol file moving. We reconstructed the master key on my machine (all of our passphrases worked fine), copied the file to the Solaris-running cryptoserv, re-split it there (with very short passphrases), reconstructed it successfully, and PayPal was up and running again like nothing ever happened. 

By the time our unsuspecting colleagues rolled back into the office I was starting to doze on the floor of my cubicle and that was that. When someone asked me later that day why we took so long to bring the site back up, I’d simply respond with “eh, shoulda RTFM.” 

RTFM indeed. 

P.S. A few hours later, John, our General Counsel, stopped by my cubicle to ask me something. The day before I apparently gave him a sealed envelope and asked him to store it in his safe for 24 hours without explaining myself. He wanted to know what to do with it now that 24 hours have passed. 

Ha. I forgot all about it, but in a bout of “what if it doesn’t work” paranoia, I printed out the base64-encoded master key when we had generated it the night before, stuffed it into an envelope, and gave it to John for safekeeping. We shredded it together without opening and laughed about what would have never actually been a company-ending event. 

P.P.S. If you are thinking of all the ways this whole SSS design is horribly insecure (it had some real flaws for sure) and plan to poke around PayPal to see if it might still be there, don’t. While it served us well for a few years, this was the very first thing eBay required us to turn off after the acquisition. Pretty sure it’s back to a single passphrase now. 

Notes:

1: a member of Chicagoland sci-fi fan community let me know that the original news of our move to the US was delivered to them via a posted letter, snail mail, not FidoNet email! 

[forusomimiya]

“I thought you would be a model student"

"Am I not?"

"Well... I just hate to have to call your attention to you repeatedly”

"Oh... I'm so sorry for that. You might have to punish me more often”

"Yeah, let's see if that teaches you the lesson for once” and with a quick thrust he sinks into you, bruising your fragile spot, but letting you adjust to him as soon as he starts to move. "Cause I don't think you'd want me to give you another warning, would you?"

"Oh, n-no please. Don’t wanna have to throw my magnificent academic record away" Your arrogant smile puts him on edge. He still hasn't gotten used to your manners. "Just come over more often in those tight black trousers. I love the view of how your cock gets hard from my desk. Do it and I promise I’ll keep myself busy"

"hah, how touching... but it's not the trousers that make my cock hard, honey" you continue to struggle to keep the volume down. Even though it's just the two of you in his office, the teachers room is close by and you're still on school time, but his deep thrusts steal all your energy and you can only faintly gasp for breath, enjoying every little burn in your stomach as you feel your orgasm nearing. "It's that pretty face of yours that makes me hard at the thought of how precious you would be moaning my name as you squeeze around me, just how you are doing right now" His confession takes hold of what little is left of you.

Sweet, wild words tingle in your ear as your lips continue moaning his name, holding you firmly to his desk and letting you spilling over it.

@sugaraddict301 @lem-hhn 🫶🏻

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

hey! so i hope this isn’t too creepy/nosey, but im a medical student and i was reading your possible fibromyalgia post and have a couple ideas lol. full important disclaimer that im only partly into my studies and im currently in the hypochondriac phase and also your summary was amazing but a real doc would ask way more questions, so please consult with an actual doc and take everything i say with a grain of salt! but like your symptoms aren’t nothing so i would def encourage finding a doc that you trust to do a proper exam and run some tests. also im operating under the assumption that you’re under 50 lol, bc if you’re over 50ish that’s a whole diff list of possible diagnoses.

so the thirst thing you’re talking about is often called polydipsia and is commonly associated with diabetes insipidus. that’s not the normal diabetes you think about, but happens when your body can’t regulate fluids in your body properly. id think of this if you’re also peeing a lot lol. your doc would have to do some kidney tests for that, which wouldn’t be part of the blood panel you mentioned. i’m a little skeptical that it’s hypokalemia bc that would’ve showed up on your blood test results. it could be transient electrolyte imbalances when you exercise so have one of those electrolyte packets when you exercise lol, bc it never hurts to try the easy solutions first, but chronic low potassium should’ve shown up? tho eating sweet potatoes has never hurt.

other things it could be is a lower motor neuron problem bc you mentioned twitches and muscle weakness which is typical for those. i def can’t say more without tests, but look into/get your doc to look into myasthenia gravis or LEMS and see if either of those fit. i think it’s possible bc these often also start with face/upper body symptoms, but would need way more questions/tests to know. it’s unlikely but could also be a glycogen storage disease called McArdle disease bc you describe a second wind thing when you exercise along with exercise intolerance. that’s super rare tho so it’s unlikely unless someone in your family has it/has similar symptoms.

also look into autoimmune stuff like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and sjögrens disease. i have way less useful info on that bc we haven’t gotten to it in class yet lol, but sjögrens looks promising bc you often get dry mouth with it, and it often goes along with rheumatoid arthritis which could explain the joint stuff possibly.

it’s also totally possible this is fibromyalgia, but i would be cautious diagnosing it bc it often comes with fatigue and cognitive stuff which you didn’t mention. it’s also more of a pain thing, and doesn’t include your twitches/dry mouth. it’s def possible, and it was def something i thought of when i saw your symptoms, but personally i would want to rule out other stuff first bc fibromyalgia is pretty vague and often a diagnosis of exclusion when other things don’t fit.

sorry for overwhelming you!! i just saw your post and was like hmmm those symptoms sound like Something. again take my advice with a big grain of salt, but i do really think it’s worth asking your doc about it and getting tests done, bc even if there aren’t cures there are def treatments to help with a bunch of this stuff. it doesn’t sound urgent, but at least from your post your symptoms don’t sound like run of the mill aches and pains. hope you figure stuff out!!

The problem with 'muscles don't work right ouchy and I am also tired' is that it's a symptom for Absolutely Everything That Can Be Wrong With The Body. Is it cancer? Is it a terrible diet and sleep schedule? Who knows!

The doctor ran a diabetes test with the blood panel and it came up negative, but I don't know if that checks for weird kinds of diabetes. (Diabetes does not run in my family until we get very old.) That test was memorable because I have stupid fragile veins that freak out and collapse at the mere sight of a needle so I had to get stabbed nine times, they didn't manage to get the middle reading at all, and in the end they resorted to just stabbing my thumb with one of those diabetes home blood test thingies and manually squeezing my blood out into a tube drop by drop.

I looked up polydipsia and I don't think I have that. I think I just prefer my mouth to be wetter than my salival glands want it to be. 🤷‍♀️I think most of my problems are probably not related to any rare chronic disease, but just run-of-the-mill autism making it hard to look after myself or properly notice and process my physical condition and adapt accordingly. I don't eat enough fresh foods because it's hard to plan with the very short timeframe to prepare and eat them in. I'm uncoordinated and damage my body a lot through overwork or using muscles incorrectly because autism makes it hard to keep track of those things. My mouth feels dry and my skin feels itchy and my muscles feel sore because that's what being autistic feels like. My sleep schedule is garbage because my executive function is garbage and even once I do manage to get myself into the bed I can't just "go to sleep", I pass out when I'm ready to pass out.

I'm not saying it's impossible for anything else to be going on, but I think the known factor is the simplest explanation here. It's 2:30pm and I've been putting off breakfast for five hours. Every time I go into the kitchen I get distracted by housework instead. I am very hungry. This is not behaviour that is conducive to a well-functioning body.

[ratwife77]

Height Headcanons

The Outsiders

(These are all during the book)

Pony- solid 5’5- I honestly forgot how his height is described minus being taller than Johnny.. so I think he’d be just average ish for his age

Soda- 5’9 is average ish so.. he’s what girls expect? He’s standard? But he does give a shorter vibe which is why he’s not taller

Darry- 6’2 do I need to explain?

Two-Bit: 5’11 he’s just lanky I can’t see him as being short

Dallas- 5’10 I feel like he’s sort of lean but not too tall, just above average.. intimidating presence but not a wall like Darry and not quite Two-Bit’s height

Steve- 5’7 he should be shorter but I think he should at least be taller than Pony.. give him that

Johnny- 5’4 he would have had some more growing to do, but he’d always be below average

Tim- 5’11 intimidating, sort of lean but more wall-like than Dallas.

Curly- 5’6 he has more growing to do, but not a lot.. he is pissed about his height ngl

Angela- 5’2 I don’t think she’d be above average

Cherry- 5’5 I think she’d be taller because she’d wear heels often but this is her actual height

Marcia- 5’7 she gives either short or tall vibes but I don’t like huge height differences for ships.. I’m sorry but I do ship Marbit on the side and 4 inches is enough..

Bob- 6’0 I think it’s important for the story- he needs to really look over both Johnny and Ponyboy, but I also want Darry to be a greater presence (to those against him anyway) so that’s why he’s shorter than him.

Randy- 5’11, similar build to Two-Bit, lanky

Sylvia- 5’9 no question.. just trust me I know she told me

Evie- 5’1 someone had to be my height okay

Sandy- 5’4 she, like Soda, is good looking so I think she should be about average so she’s perceived as the standard

Tex (please let there be someone who cares about Tex lol)

Tex- 5’6 I imagine him to have a sturdy, decent build like Pony, but be a little taller, maybe just a little muscular- he’s not in peak form but he’s well off

Mason- he was in basketball.. 6’1.. he’s slim but lean and able to kick butt

Johnny- 5’7, him and Tex are of similar build.. if they grew up together and are still friends, I’d like to represent them growing together metaphorically and literally

Jamie- 5’6 1/2, she’s gotta be taller than Tex I feel it in my bones.. but her brother is taller than her

Cole- 6’2 built like a brick wall- I want him to be taller than Mason because it’s kind of who he wants to be, literally looking up to him(at least I think, I don’t remember everything)

Robert- tbh I forgot who he was mostly.. I’m so sorry but I think he’d be 5’10

Pop- 5’10 this has a purpose. Mason is quite literally growing past him, resenting him for not living his other son, while during most of the book, Tex is stuck looking up to him

Lem.. nobody likes you but here- 5’9 just your average absolute slimeball (nobody likes Pop either I just forgot to put that because I got off on a ramble about symbolism through height..)

Mrs. Johnson- 5’7 (with heels nobody knows her real height), kind of an adult that is helpful to Tex so she’s taller than him.. you get what I’m saying, sort of like Pop

I had to look on the wiki to remember everyone, hopefully that’s everyone who’s important

Rumble Fish (I have a bad memory.. hopefully all the details are right)

Motorcycle Boy- everything hinges on his height, because everyone looks up to him. 6’3 final height (taller than Darry.. more separate from his world.. away from others.. you get it)

Rusty James- he grows to be as tall as Motorcycle Boy, emphasizing his ‘becoming’ him.. but during the book- main events anyway, he’s 5’7, tall for his age

Steve- 5’3 he’s short, sort of removed from Rusty, different

Patty- 5’5

Smokey- sort of under the radar and clever, so I’ll put him at 5’5 ‘under’ Rusty.. hopefully that makes sense

Biff- 5’11

B.J.- he’s probably like 5’6, above Smokey because he’s loyal, not low to the ground like a snake (I’m not making fun of short people I am one it’s just for metaphorical purposes)

Mr. James- sort of different like Motorcycle Boy, keeps up better than Rusty James if I remember correctly.. 5’10, closer to him

Mrs. James- idk I don’t remember but let’s say 5’4

Just noticed the error with Mrs. James- please ignore the pictured height for her

[ddagent]

@gabolange: okay but the science teacher arguing with the tour guide is *delightful* and should exist

Margo Madison had just spent the better part of the afternoon arguing with Thomas Paine about Pathfinder. She had been looking forward to spending the rest of her day in silence, approving performance reviews for the different department heads, before heading out to 11:59 to unwind. However, her late afternoon silence was shattered by muted yelling from the outside corridor. She ignored it. Kept ignoring it. Until, eventually, Margo had to intervene. She did not care if it was Ronald Reagan himself – they would be quiet.

In the corridor stood one of the NASA tour guides; a tall young man in a blue polo shirt. He was arguing with a blond man, with a visitor lanyard, accompanied by twelve high school students who were watching the scene with various levels of interest. Emma was trying to usher them both along.

Sighing, Margo waded in. "You know, people have work to do in this building."

Emma's shoulders dropped, immediately launching into apologies. The tour guide, a young man by the name of Tim, began to apologise as well. "Director Madison, I am so, so sorry—"

"—you are Margo Madison?" The blond man with the visitor lanyard addressed her. "Finally, someone who knows what they are talking about." Tim spluttered. "Director Madison, your...guide here has been delivering faulty information all day. I can tolerate it no longer."

Margo stared, somewhat amused, at the audacity of this man. They come through every once and awhile; they read up about the space program, maybe built rockets in their garage, and thought they were worthy of being NASA engineers. This high school science teacher was nothing Margo had not seen before. She crossed her arms and stared him down. "With all due respect, I've been listening to you two argue for about twenty minutes now. I think you reached your toleration point a while ago."

She half-expected him to turn his ire towards her rather than poor Tim. Instead, he actually smiled. "I have no appreciation for factual inaccuracies, Ms Madison, especially when I am with my students. Your...guide has been giving my students inaccurate data regarding trajectories, fuel requirements, even the amount of people who land in the LEM." He glared at Tim. "I am surprised he was even able to tell them who first landed on the Moon."

"Well, Mister—"

"—Bezukhov. Sergei Bezukhov. I supervise the Aeronautics Club at our school." He handed her a clipboard of detailed notes. "I have listed the inaccuracies in red."

It was at this point that Tim intervened, defending his work. "Director Madison, everything I deliver has been double and triple checked by NASA public affairs. It is one hundred percent accurate. Some people—" Tim glared at Mister Bezukhov. "—are clearly misinformed."

Margo looked at Sergei Bezukhov's notes. His criticisms were incredibly detailed, with calculations in the margin that would not look out of place in any of the engineering labs. They were also one hundred accurate. She passed the notes back to Mister Bezukhov, before turning to Emma. "Get me the head of NASA public affairs. I want to review all tour transcripts." She then turned to Tim. "There will be an updated transcript for you on Monday. Learn it. Also, everyone knows three people go up but only two actually go down." And then, finally, to Mister Bezukhov. "Bring your students back next week. There will no longer be any inaccuracies and I expect no more arguing."

Sergei grinned. "How can you be sure? I would hate to bring my students back only to once again be met with inaccurate data and inadequate information."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to give you the tour myself then."

Margo nodded at the assembled group before retreating to her office. As she retook her office chair, she still wasn't quite sure why she had agreed to give this man and his students a tour. But a part of her relished the prospect of going toe-to-toe with Sergei Bezukhov. Finally, a worthy opponent.

[seriowan]

star-crossed lovers (tech x f!reader)

“I could name every star after you,” he whispered honestly, eyes latched onto your own, “But none could ever compare to your beauty.”

summary: the one where tech and his starry-eyed lover go stargazing

rating: X (18+ ONLY) — outdoor sex w/o protection (don't be irresponsible irl!), PiV, lots of fluff and cheesy love

note: I AM BACK!! this is my first fic on tumblr in a really long time and i'm so excited about it!! this is also the first installment of my valentine's day special (which I know will probably last until the day after because *college lectures*) so if you wish to be added to this taglist, let me know in the comments or in my inbox! there will be one lovey-dovey-spicy ficlet for each batcher!

masterlist ♡

“Okay, what’s that one?”

   The blanket shuffled. Tech tilted his head, pressing his temple against your own as he followed your pointed finger to the stars. You smirked, certain to have caught him at a standstill, only to groan when he stated confidently, “Canerius Minorus, though it is more commonly known to the natives of this planet as Fenios.” 

   You sighed, palming your face. “Every time we stargaze on a new planet, you know all of their constellations. Are there any that you don’t know?” 

   “Of course,” he chuckled, “But I will not say which.”

   You shifted onto your side, propping your head in your hand as you gave him a suspicious, narrow-eyed look. “I smell deception. Please tell me you’re not looking up the information before we land so you have the upper hand.”

   He pursed his lips, slowly smiling. “Ah, then I suppose I won’t.” 

   You gasped, playfully shoving his shoulder. Though you tried to look betrayed, you couldn’t help but laugh and roll your eyes when he turned over, curling his arm around your waist to pull you back into his side. You caught the slip of a smile before he nuzzled his face in the crook of your neck, his cold goggles causing your skin to prickle. 

   Silence settled as you basked in the moonlight, enjoying the cool wind and the warmth of his body pressed against yours. You couldn’t recall the name of this planet but it became apparent that it was now one of your favorites — even at night, the winds weren’t too cold for your dress and the moon was large enough to see every crater and beautiful blue shadow. The stars formed shapes in the beautiful navy sky — constellations that looked like warriors and animals and, at least to Tech, a model-3 speeder he once saw in a catalog back on Ord Mantell. 

   He had no idea, but you fell in love with him all over again right then and there. 

   With him leaning into your side, his arm around your waist and his face pressed tenderly against your neck, you ached to freeze the moment. To capture the vulnerability that he rarely showed. Tech wasn’t always affectionate but when he decided to be, it was as physical as it was affectionate. He loved you in his own way, just as you loved him enough to follow him across the stars. Through toil and trouble, you would always be there for him, just as he would be for you. 

   “Tech?” 

   “Yes, my love.” 

   “What about that constellation right there?” You stretched your arm up to the sky, pointing at a cluster of flickering yellow and blue stars. “The one that looks like an astromech.” 

   He chuckled. “Your imagination never fails to amaze me. That is Etrion, the fabled prince of Kamut.” 

   “Tell me about him.” 

   “Well,” he hummed, raising his arm to point to another constellation. “The tale follows Etrion and his love for the warrior Lem. It is that constellation a few meters off…” Raising your hand, you dragged your fingers up his arm before placing your hand atop his own, mimicking his pointed finger. You purposely pointed in the wrong direction, giggling when he chuckled and murmured lovingly, “No, it’s right- I know that you are humored by this but I did want to tell you the story.” 

   “Okay, sorry,” you chuckled. With a dip of your chin, you kissed his head. “Keep going. I like when you tell me stories.” 

   Even in the dim white moonlight, you caught the slight flush in his cheeks and bit your lip, holding back from peppering his entire face with obsessive kisses. 

   Clearing his throat, he pulled at the collar of his civilian’s shirt. With a huff, he scooted up the blanket, intertwining his fingers with yours as he pressed his temple to your own once again. 

   “There are various adaptations of the story, but the general consensus is that Lem and Etrion secretly fell in love in the sacred palace gardens. As the years passed, Lem grew tired of their silence so he went with confidence to ask the king for his son’s hand in marriage. Because Etrion’s father would not allow his son to marry someone of low status, he sent Lem to complete an impossible task: to name every star in the night sky before he could return to the kingdom and marry the prince. Because of his devotion, Lem set off to do as he’d been told. He went to a barren planet of sand and forced himself in solitude. The first constellation that he ever named was Etrion as a tribute to his beloved.” 

   Keeping your hands intertwined, Tech raised your knuckles to his lips and kissed them. 

   “Many rotations passed before Etrion realized that he could no longer last without his lover.. Leaving behind his riches and status, Etrion fled to the sand dunes. Nothing was heard of the two for years before a scavenger came across a prince’s robe, folded and laid neatly beside a warrior’s armor and an astronomical map with the names of thousands of constellations. Most were written with the hand of a warrior while the final, most eloquently written constellation was labeled Lem.” He pointed back up to the two constellations. “There is no assurance that the two were real, nor is there any evidence that they truly disappeared, but nonetheless, Etrion and his lover remain immortalized in the stars.” 

   “Bound together forever,” you whispered, turning to look at Tech. He followed, facing you with a distant, loving smile on his face. “Immortalized by the stars… Would you do the same for me if you were in Lem’s place?” 

   Tech didn’t hesitate to nod. “Of course.”

  You were definitely in love. In fact, you were more than just in love. You were infatuated with his starry brown gaze and that gentle but present smile on his lips. You adored his knowledge and his stories; his enthusiastic info dumps and that adorable red circle that’d crease around his eyes when he’d remove his goggles. 

   With one smooth swing, you curled your leg over him and sat up atop his waist. His hands sought the warmth of your thighs, sliding up to your hips. Slipping your fingers underneath the hem of his shirt, you slowly moved your hands up his chest, smiling when you watched his adam’s apple bob up and down with a thick swallow. 

   “I could name every star after you,” he whispered honestly, eyes latched onto your own, “But none could ever compare to your beauty.” 

   Right then and there, you melted into love like Etrion and Lem melting into the stars. 

   Leaning down, you pressed your lips to Tech’s, offering the gentlest kiss that you could. The sweet gesture burned brighter as he returned the kiss with stronger fervency, moving a hand up your back while the other cupped your head, holding you close. 

   Your tongue glided across his bottom lip, sliding into his mouth to elicit a faint little moan. Tech’s hands slid higher up your hips, lifting your dress higher… higher… until you finally realized his goal and smiled into the kiss. Tech sat up, keeping you on his lap while he took off your dress. The breeze was warm but ticklish, causing you to shiver and him to chuckle. 

   “Are you cold?” 

   “With you here? Not at all” you teased, giving him a wink when he scoffed and playfully rolled his eyes. Clothed in just your undergarments, you lifted Tech’s shirt in an attempt to even the playing field. He pulled it off of his head and tossed it onto the grass, grinning when you pointedly tapped your nail against the lens of his goggles. 

   Tech cupped the side of your face, eyes of adoration dancing across your face. When his lips returned to your own, his kiss was slow and timed, patient and indulgent in the moment. He kissed you as if he wanted to savor every moment, sculpting hands touching your marble body. Slender fingers unclasped your bra, exposing you to the moonlight as he tossed it aside. The same touch traveled down your spine, a fingertip caressing every bumpy ridge of your back. 

   “I love you,” you whispered against his lips, moving a hand down his chest. He reached down, guiding your fingers to the zipper of his trousers. Tech’s breath hitched when your fingers slipped behind the waistband of his pants, fingertips skimming his erection. 

   Someone’s eager, you amusedly thought to yourself when you noticed his slight grimace of sensitivity. You tilted your head, lips stamping kiss after kiss along his jawline, down his neck, all the way to the dip in his collarbone where you sucked just lightly enough to make him shiver.

   A sudden ripping noise made you break away, eyes flicking right at the knife in Tech’s hand. He’d sneakily retrieved it from his bag, using it to tear the edges of your underwear and make way for a clean removal. Tech gave you a loose smile as he tossed it alongside your discarded underwear, arching his brows as if asking, Impressed? 

   You giggled, slipping his stiff cock out from underneath his grays and aligning it with your impatient heat. With a slow descent, you sheathed yourself atop his dick, eyes rolling back as the fullness of his length and girth filled you up. You didn’t stop until you were sitting flat atop his cock, watching with a drunk gaze as his eyelids flickered, lips parting for a gasp. 

   With your hands on his shoulders and his hands on your hips, you slowly began moving, alternating between a grind and lift. Up and down, back and forth, you moved with the ease of a calm ocean, gentle waves guided by his hands. Tech looked jaded with ecstasy before he leaned forward, dipping his head into the crook of your neck. 

   Sliding your hands around his shoulders, you curled your fingertips through his hair, raking your nails along his scalp while riding out the high of his touch; the stuffed fullness of his dick as it moved in and out, hitting the very spot that made you see stars. With a deep, shaky breath, you rocked your head back, breasts lifting just enough for him to dip his head and capture your nipple between his teeth. He rolled the hard nub between his lips and traced his tongue in circles. 

   Tech let go of your nipple with a pop, wet kisses shifting to the valley of your breast. He suckled the sensitive skin, glancing up at you through his long brown lashes. A fervent adoration of beauty sat in his gaze as he watched you, bodies moving in synchronization while chasing a shared high. 

   Tech’s hands returned to your hips in an effort to help you move faster. He guided you up and down, eyes flickering back and forth between your blissful expression to your bouncing breasts.  Wetting his lips, he stamped kiss after kiss across your chest and up your neck, biting and pulling on your earlobe to make you exhale a giggle. 

   You could feel it then: that bubble just begging to pop. It built up slowly but surely, edging you closer and closer towards the edge of satisfaction. When his hand suddenly grabbed the back of your neck, pulling your head down as to press your foreheads together, you barely had the chance to moan before Tech fiercely kissed you, biting and pulling on your bottom lip out of pure need. 

   It took just a moment before you felt a shiver jolt up your legs. The pressure between your thighs became hot, nearly overwhelming as you ground against him, clit rubbing against his adonis with every wave of your hips. Tech’s eyes screwed shut as you scraped your nails down his back, relishing in his faint moans and whimpers. 

   One final grind was all it took before Tech immediately lifted you off of his cock, darting a hand between your thighs to fulfill the emptiness. His long fingers curled right where you needed it while the heel of his palm rhythmically ground against your throbbing bundle of nerves. It didn’t take long before you were gasping and trembling, clenching around his fingers. Tech fell into step right after you, white ropes of release spraying across your stomach. 

   He slowly eased his fingers out of your sensitive cunt before lifting them to his lips. It sent jolts of electricity buzzing through you when he carefully and nonchalantly licked his fingers clean of your release. Then, as if he wasn’t tired at all, Tech stretched an arm toward the edge of the blanket, plucking a small yellow flower right out of the ground. 

   Gentle hands tucked the flower behind your ear before sliding to the back of your neck, drawing you in for another slow, love-filled kiss. 

   “You cannot fathom how much I love you,” he murmured into your mouth, arms wrapping around your waist. Pulling you close, he laid his head on your chest while you combed your nails through his hair. Briefly glancing up, you caught the constellation Etrion and followed the path of stars leading to the prince’s lover Lem. Their story made you smile and when you glanced back down at Tech, he was already looking up at you with his chin on your sternum, the stars twinkling in his eyes. 

   “Enough to name every star for me?” 

   The corner of his mouth twitched upwards and he nodded. 

   “Enough to spend eternity in the stars with you.” 

taglist (+ people who might be interested !) : @discarded-beskar @lucyysthings @corona-one @eloquentmoon @maulslittlemeowmeow @misogirl828 @theclonesdeservebetter @frietiemeloen @pinkiemme @torchbearerkyle @witchklng @ivela3 @kaminocasey @daddykin-skywalker @sunflowerrex @agenteliix @twistedstitcher27 @neon-junkie @tech-deck @queenquazar @nahoney22

taglist form

[gh0stsp1d3r]

Okay I apologize for the Dad!Tangerine mood I’m in rn now LOL, but can I please request a Dad!Tangerine x daughter!reader where the lil girl and Tan’s dynamic is much like Sully and Boo from Monsters Inc? The lil girl’s personality is like Boo. Tangerine and Lemon are on a job (taking out super bad people), and just as they’re about to leave (them two being the only living people left standing), they hear a little cry, and they follow it (being really concerned) and find a 2 year old girl all by herself, said little girl immediately stopping crying when Tangerine starts talking to her, even when Tangerine is all grumpy, it just makes her giggle, and Y/n starting to call Tan “Daddy”. (At first The Twins definitely weren’t planning on keeping her with them, but she quickly melts their hearts hehe) After being with them a bit, she starts pointing at Tangerine and going, “Daddy!!” And he’s like, “No no no, I am not your Dad kid”, but she just keeps going, “Daddy!!” And giggling (much like when Boo called Sulley “Kitty”). Tangerine gradually accepting the title, Lemon being fully on board the moment she calls him “Uncle Lemon!!” Also you know Lemon would be getting her ALL of the Thomas the Engine merch LOL… Tan accepting the Dad role as Y/n has him (and Lem) wrapped around her little finger

AHH I LOVE. Sorry this took me so long Cece, I wanted this to be good 😭

The girlfriend of Tan is one of my oc’s 😭 , no warnings really

Tangerine took the knife out the man’s chest, and he fell to the floor.

“How many was that?” He asked.

“14.”

“What? I thought that it was 15.” He said.

“Well, either way the file said 16 people were here.” Lemon argued, looking around the warehouse.

They circled it, and they didn’t realize the other room. They heard a loud wail, as well as whining. Tangerine and Lemon looked at each other, and held their guns out. They both hid behind the doorway, and looked around and were about to shoot when they noticed you. A child. No older than 3 years.

They looked at each other.

“What the hell?” Tangerine mumbled, and they both put their guns down. You crawled away from them and were now backed up to a wall.

“Shh, sh, sh.. it’s alright.” Lemon said, as they both approached you. Your cries got louder.

“‘Ts alright, Its alright. We’re not gonna hurt ya.” Tangerine said quietly and softly, he crouched down to your level. Your cries stopped and you looked at them.

Lemon slowly picked you up, and carefully held you in his arms. You looked at the both of them with a curiosity in your eyes.

“Guessin’ we killed her parents.” Tangerine sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“Probably.”

“Wait.. is she the 16th person?” Tangerine thought.

“Wha- oh, shit. You’re right. It’s not like we can jus’ kill ‘er, mate. That’s way against my morals.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t really plannin’ on it.” Tangerine said, angrily now. “But what the hell do we do with her now?”

“Dunno… maybe we jus’.. put her up for adoption? Leave her at a fire station?”

“The first ones not bad, but the second ones dangerous. They could miss her. Heard they ran over some baby cause they didn’t see her.”

“Yeah. Well, guess we could jus’ put her up for adoption. But how would we explain how we have her?”

“Never thought of that.” Tangerine sighed, and groaned. You made grabby hands to tangerine, and he quirked an eyebrow as Lemon laughed.

“Think she wants you, mate.”

“No way. Nope.” Tangerine looked the other way. Lemon went up to him, practically forcing you into his hands. Tangerine sighed and held you, you smiled and giggled, babbling at the mustached man.

“Dada!” You said, it didn’t exactly sound like that, but they knew that’s what you were trying to say.

“Nope. Nope.” Tangerine groaned and put you back down onto the cold floor, you stared up at him still while he stared down at you. You walked around the room for a little, and motioned for Lemon to pick you up again which made him smile and laugh quietly.

“Aren’t you just adorable.” He booped your nose, and you giggled at the man, grabbing at his finger, his large hands looked like a giants to you.

“Don’t say it.” Tangerine mumbled when Lemon stared at him.

“We should keep her-“

“No.”

“Look at ‘er! She called you dad.” He hit tangerines shoulder.

Tangerine groaned again and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“No. I’m not having this conversation-“

“I can be uncle lemon. I’ve always wanted to be an uncle!” He said, practically begging at this point.

“Uncle.. lewmon?” The pronunciation sounded w weird coming from you but it made lemon smile widely.

“Oh my gosh. See that? She jus’ called me uncle. We have to keep her.”

“I don’t exactly know how to care for a bloody baby!”

“All we gotta do is clean her diapers, which I’ve done, feed her, clean after her, and keep her safe. C’mon man. I’m sure your girlfriend would love her.” Lemon teased him.

Tangerine narrowed his eyes, picking up his phone and texted his girlfriend “how do you feel about a child? Specifically 2 years old or something?”

“Uh… why? Aaron, if this is another joke..”

“It’s not.” He texted back.

“I mean I like kids, yeah. Do you mean like.. as ours?”

“Yeah. Kinda. Found one on a mission, we can put it up for adoption but she seems to like me and Lemon too much.”

“I mean… I’d love too, yeah, but wouldn’t it be a lot? The adoption process and all.”

“Don’t worry bout that, love.” He said, and put his phone down with a sigh.

“Well.. looks like she’s ours now.” He told lemon with a shrug.

Lemon smiled “All cause of your girlfriend?” He teased.

“Yes. Shut up.”

———————————————————-

“Alright, alright, let’s give uncle lemon a break.” He picked you up, taking you away from his brother who desperately needed a break from watching you for hours.

“Thanks man.” Tangerine said to him, patting his shoulder.

“Yeah. It’s nothin’. Anything for my only and favorite niece.” He smiled at you and Tan again, while Tangerines girlfriend came running down the stairs.

“Alright, let’s go. Thank you lemon!” She had said, and quickly left him alone in the house.

He sighed “Man, can’t believe I went from an assassin to a full time babysitter.”

[lem-argentum]

the moral of ff.xiv is that you can’t kill yourself or else ali.saie lev.eilleur will be really mad at you

[unsoundedcomic]

Lem, I am so sorry. That middle panel has me throwing up and that last panel has me screaming into my hands. But. The combination of that last panel + him looking into Farold's has me picturing A Muppet Christmas Carol. I can't stop laughing about it.

Alderode always tends to have Christmas vibes when the panels aren't full of grisly murder :3

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

Hello!! I am a big fan of you work. Could you write about tan falling in love with his best friend? Who is totally different from him. :)

hii!! thank you sm that’s so sweet :( sorry for the delay, I had a break and didn’t get around to this beforehand. my thoughts under the cut💌

I feel like he tries to keep his feelings hidden, I mentioned this in another ask, but lem def picks up on it. he notices lem pay her more attention than others, maybe tan makes eye contact for a little too long. gets heart eyes :((

when tan likes someone he likes him, and he likes them hard - he gets a tad obsessed !! and wants to be around them all the time kinda thing

he doesn't want to make his sudden interest obvious, so he tries hard to keep it as inconspicuous as possible - not wanting you to find out just yet (or at all)

maybe he hopes it's just a little crush, and one that will pass bc you're his best friend, and he does NOT want to ruin that. he doesn't want to be rejected by you and thinks that keeping his romantic love locked away and hidden is the best way to prevent that. if he can't have you as a gf, he's okay with having you as a best friend - but there's only so much he'll be able to take (would hate to see you get interest from another guy, he just wishes it could be him)

maybe he's worried that you'll see him as no more than a friend. you lead very different lifestyles, complete opposites, so he feels like you deserve to be with someone better - someone more like you. he knows he'd be a great bf to you (would love you SO hard and protect and care for you) but again, thinks you deserve better

but what he doesn't know is that YOU feel the exact same!! you've liked tan romantically for quite a while, but same as him - you're scared he won't feel the same. maybe you fell first but he fell harder (just love that trope sm!!)💔

even though you're opposites, you're more similar than you thought :((

— — — — — — — — — — ☆ — — — — — — — — — —

no taglist as don’t wanna spam you guys

[howlingday]

MONSTER

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

Little: (Squeaking)

Ruby: Oh, hello, Little the Mouse, because I call all the mice of the Ever After by their names. How are you today~?

Little: (Squeaking) Blake! (Squeaking)

Ruby: Oh, I'm sure Blake wouldn't do that. Let me go ask her~!

Ruby: Blake, Little here tells me you ate Builder the Mouse. That's not true, right?

Blake: ...You name your food?

Ruby: ...

Ruby: Blake, I don't like the implications of that sentence.

Blake: Oh! (Chuckles) You're not gonna like the straightforward version~. (Laughs)

Ruby: Uh... Builder was the only one, though, right?

Mouse: (Squeaks)

Ruby: She ate Sower?!

Buck: (Squeaks)

Ruby: AND Spinner?!

Doe: (Squeaks)

Ruby: Oh my god, they want to reinstate the death penalty for you! SPECIFICALLY! What did you do?!

Curious Cat: Oh, it was just dreadful~! Like, I know I'm a cat and it's just in my nature to catch, play with, and sometimes eat mice, but watching her eat them- It was so horrific that I formed morals! That's how sick it was! Like- God!

Ruby: Wait, she was so disgusting that you evolved past your primitive instincts just so you could process the horrors you were witnessing?

Curious Cat: YES! And now I can comprehend my nightmares, which I've had ever since seeing them, so fuck you, Blake!

Blake: Erm, no one forced you to watch, lem-ay-oh~!

Curious Cat: Wow, there is not a single good quality in you- G-God damn!

Ruby: Blake, this- This all sounds terrible! How can you be okay with all that?!

Blake: ...

Blake: I'm gonna live in the jungle and try to kill you if you go near me now.

Fun Fact! She does this TWICE!

Ruby: ...WHY?!

Blake: (Fades into shadows)

Curious Cat: ...Okay, I believe you just let a demon into my realm.

Ruby: I am so sorry! I'll get the Bible!

[whumpbug]

you know what i need more gene and cassidy physical contact rn actually…..don’t care they can be at each other’s throats i just need it (shaking them in a little jar that is my mind)

HI MELLO i wanted to make this into a fic so. here you go. it was originally going to be a silly fluff fic but then the Voices (lem) gave me an idea and i ran with it.

i was literally Sad writing this. gene is in the trenches, the TRENCHES i say. its so bad. you get small, but meaningful physical touches and Angst.

DISCLAIMER: this is set like. a little earlier in their relationship. this is meant to be The moment that gene started realizing he perhaps Wanted this man. i'll make a timeline at some point bc the stuff i've written is not in order IM SORRY GUYS

cw: drunkenness, period-typical homphobia, internalized homphobia

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“No. No. Y’get away from me, Deputy Dipshit. Not today.” Cassidy slurred. “You ain't takin’ me away.”

He nearly fell off of the barstool when he turned to shoved an indignant finger in Gene’s direction, catching himself on the side of the counter with a small “woah!”

Gene narrowed his eyes. “Did you just call me Deputy Dipshit?”

Cassidy suddenly let out a loud snort and, this time, really did fall off the barstool with a solid thump. He only kept cackling and clutching his sides.

“Deputy Dipshit!” He cried, breaking out into another round of laughter.

“I really am sorry to bother you Delaney,” Mr. Stetson, the bartender, began. “But he was causin’ some problems and pickin’ fights. Can’t have that in my saloon.”

“Of course, sir. I understand. I’ll take care of it.”

Gene sighed.

“No! Don’t you take one step closer Delaney, I ain’t going with’ya!”

Gene took a step closer. “I ain’t gonna arrest you, Silver. Just gonna sober you up.”

“Hmm.” Cassidy squinted up at Gene, and now Gene could really see how drunk the idiot was. 

His cheeks were flushed. His hair was mussed and his eyes were half lidded and glazed over, but he had this dopey, infuriating smile plastered across his face. He was slowly getting himself to his feet, but his foot caught on a crooked plank in the floor and it sent him listing forward, and Gene rushed to meet him, catching him by the arm.

“Woah.. s’all spinny..”

“Yeah, well, moonshine’ll do that to you. Can you walk?”

“Yep.”

Only Cassidy made no move to take even a single step. Even with Gene’s large hand around his bicep, he was swaying in place, like he was rocking on a ship. 

“Jesus, Silver,” Gene breathed, pressing himself flush against Cassidy’s side and wrapping his arm around his waist. “Come on.”

Cassidy simply hummed softly and put practically all his weight on Gene. The pair staggered their way out of the saloon and into the empty street.

“Where’re we goin’?” He slurred, letting his head loll towards Gene’s shoulder.

“We’re gonna book you a room at the inn so you can sleep this off. Ain’t no point in trying to get you on your horse.”

“Mmh.. yeah.. Scotch don’t like me ridin’ drunk..”

“I’ll bet.”

The two arrived at the small inn down the street with relatively no issue, until they reached the steps. Cassidy's boots must have been made of lead, because the man simply refused to lift his feet.

Eventually Gene sighed, and lifted the man by the armpits and set him on the porch.

Gene adjusted his grip around the man’s middle and stepped up to the front desk. The woman looked up at him, unamused.

“How can I help you, Delaney?”

“Just bookin’ a room for my friend here. He had too much to drink. Anything available?”

The woman flipped through the log book before turning her deadpan gaze back to Gene.

“Third room to the right. Don’t leave a mess.”

“Yes ma’am,” Gene replied, pulling out a few bills from his wallet and depositing them on the counter. The outlaw was going to owe him.

Cassidy let out a soft groan as Gene led him down the hall. He thanked the stars that they didn’t have to climb any stairs, or else he might have had to throw the man over his shoulder like a damn sack of potatoes. 

Cassidy mumbled something unintelligible.

“What was that?”

“I said,” He lifted his head from where it was lazily slouched over. “M’glad you’re here.”

“Weren’t you just telling me not to come near you--”

“Shaddup. I just.. Montana’s not gonna let me back in’ta camp tonight. I pissed him off.” Cassidy hiccuped lightly, letting his head fall toward Gene once again. “Would’ve slept in the woods tonight.”

Gene didn’t know what to say. Part of him felt like he wasn’t supposed to hear that in the first place.

Gene had his fair share of run-ins with Montana. The man was mean and cold. In all honesty, he sort of scared Gene. He certainly couldn't imagine being raised by the man. He was ruthless.

With Cassidy, at least Gene had a certain sense of security that he wouldn’t be shot dead at the drop of a hat. Their relationship had progressed as of late. Gene saw him less as a criminal that needed to be locked away, and more as the complicated man he was. He couldn’t quite explain it.

Maybe it was more akin to companionship that Gene would have liked to admit.

So he said nothing. He simply half-dragged Cassidy into the small room and deposited him on the bed. 

Cassidy groaned and let himself fall onto his back, blinking blearily at the ceiling.

“Why’re you helpin’ me.. in the first place,” He slurred. He didn't look away from the ceiling.

Gene began to work on removing Cassidy’s boots for him. “‘Cause we can’t have a crook out on the streets, now can we?” 

“Mmmh.. then why didn’t’ya put me away.” Cassidy hiccuped quietly.

“In jail? Guess I didn’t feel like walkin’ that far, is all,” Gene huffed. “Sit up.”

Cassidy obliged, squeezing his eyes shut at the wave of vertigo that overtook him. He swayed where he sat. Gene stepped closer, leaned closer, and began to methodically unbutton his coat for him. He could smell the liquor on his breath.

For a brief, fleeting moment, he thought that perhaps this was not something that two men should be doing together. It was intimate. Too intimate, especially for a deputy and an outlaw. 

Suddenly, Cassidy reached a clumsy hand up and found Gene’s large, calloused one. He gripped it firmly and lifted his flushed face.

“D’laney.. You.. you’re a real good guy..” He hiccuped. “Wan’ you t’know that.”

Gene felt the blush creep up his ears.

He averted his eyes. “Stop talking. You’re drunk.”

“Hah. Yeah.”

Gene worked Cassidy’s arms out of his coat and with that, the latter flopped unceremoniously onto the bed. He let out a slow, sleepy groan.

Gene huffed a small laugh and hooked the coat on the bed post. He watched Cassidy blink dazedly for a few moments.

“Turn on your side, Silver.”

Cassidy simply grunted, but didn't move.

“Christ.” Gene leaned over the bed and pulled Cassidy to lay on his right. Some hair fell over his eyes, and Gene reached up to brush it away, but--

He did not expect such a visceral pit to form in his stomach when Cassidy leaned into his hand.

The man relaxed, burying his nose into Gene’s fingers and sighing contentedly. His eyelashes fluttered against Gene's palm.

Gene's heart stopped.

Before he thought better of it, Gene gently, tenderly cupped Cassidy's cheek and ran a thumb along his cheekbone. In the dim candlelight of the room, Cassidy looked something out of a grecian myth.

Never had he seen something so beautiful. Gene thought he was going to be sick.

He snatched his hand away as if it had been burned.  

“I’ll get goin’ now,” He said hurriedly, crossing the room to the doorway in a few strides. He needed distance. He couldn’t be near that damn outlaw, not when it felt like his heart was going to beat out of goddamn chest.

Cassidy was already snoring, curled in on himself and pulling the pillows tight to his chest. He looked peaceful.

Gene felt anything but.

He shut the door behind him and bid the woman at the front desk goodnight before all but racing out of the inn. His head was spinning so much, he started to wonder if he was the drunk one.

A drink didn't sound too bad, either way.

He found a small space between buildings and sank down the wall, lowering his head. He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to quell the fire that burned in his chest.

Why did he feel like this? What was wrong with him? Cassidy was a man. Cassidy was a criminal.

And yet all Gene wanted to do was march back into that room and pull Cassidy into his arms and let the world fall away. He wanted to be near him, to be with him, and that thought terrified him.

Gene’s hands flitted to the ring on his necklace. He shut his eyes.

Christ, help him.

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