#it was apparently an electrical car and like. electric fires are bad.

[ssaalexblake]

Well, my day Was boring till a car caught fire and kind of blew up on my street and I’m now nostalgic for the boredom 🤷🏻‍♀️

[puffin-smoke]

Redactedtober 21!! Missed out on the last couple days, had family around and I wasn't allowed to avoid them. ANYWAY Lasky. my beloved twink.

Lasko; Luck

(also this is earlier on in their relationship)

Lasko Moore was the unluckiest man alive.

He wasn't sure what he'd done to earn all this apparent bad karma, to be punished in every conceivable manner. Maybe he'd broken an unfathomable amount of mirrors in a past life or walked under an excessive number of ladders. He wasn't entirely sure why that was his fault in this life, but questioning it probably wasn't going to do him any good. Not when he was running so late.

To summarise the trainwreck that was his morning; he had overslept, spilled coffee down his shirt when he'd tried to combine getting dressed with eating breakfast, and gotten stuck in completely stationary traffic for about half an hour.

He'd arrived eventually, with frazzled nerves and a shirt that felt inexplicably like sandpaper on his skin, a string of swearwords firing under his breath and earning several dirty looks from various elderly couples.

Dear had suggested going to this park a little ways away from the city, going on about the sculpture trail and the evergreen trees. Lasko was never really a big fan of walking for the sheer fun of it, but he'd gotten a few hiking tips from Huxley. And the smile Dear had given him when he said yes had been more than worth a few blisters and a few hours in the middle of nowhere.

The look they gave him now when they saw him reminded him of that. They'd been sitting on a bench, eyes scanning their phones, lips slightly parted. Hair gently falling across one side of their face.

They glanced upwards and their eyes met his. They crinkled at the edges, gaze soft as their mouth moved saying what might have been his name.

In that moment all his nerves, all his frustration and anxiety running through him like electricity through a live wire. All of that was washed away and replaced by an all consuming sense of relief. They were here, smiling at him. Nothing else could go wrong, nothing he couldn't handle. Because they were here.

That feeling was promptly banished by the feeling of something cold and wet dropping onto his head. Running down his neck.

He reached up and touched it. Pulled away and stared at his hand, an inescapable sense of dread dawning on him. Bird poop. Coating the tips of his fingers.

A bird had just shit on his head.

Nope.

Not worth it.

He turned around and started walking back to his car.

He'd just say it was a work thing. He'd lie and text them and say that something came up. He would quit while he was ahead and go home. Where he could wear a shirt that didn't make him want to claw his skin off, where he could sit on a couch that wasn't made of wood and being hounded by mosquitoes, where he didn't have to hear dogs barking and flies incessantly buzzing in his ears and-

"Lasko? Hey, you okay?"

He was't sure when they caught up with him, but they had. They were walking next to him, trying to catch his eye as he marched forward. His hands suddenly felt leaden and awkward, alien. He picked at the edges of his shirt, at the fraying edges, trying to just mumble out a quick response. Naturally he wasn't brilliant at that. He was blabbering within the moment.

"I- uh- I just- the bird- I was going to-" he stopped in his tracks, trying to find comfort in the solidity of the dirt beneath him. He took a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his hands. "Would you believe it was a work thing?"

They chuckled. "I saw the bird, Lasko."

His hands twitched as he resisted the urge to bury his face in them. "Oh my god- I'm sorry, I'm such a mess, I should've just walked over and- but my whole morning has just been so- so- just shit. I freaked out, and I'm- I'm sorry."

They grabbed his hands. Their skin was soft, warm. They affixed him with a stare both steadying and comforting, like a hand on his shoulder, tethering him to the ground. Their eyes flicked down to his hands and to his face meaningfully, a question. He nodded. He liked it. They smiled. "Hey- hey, it's okay. Nothing to be sorry about."

They inclined their head down the path, towards the car park, gently tugging him forward. "How about we try this another day?"

"But you wanted to go, I-I really- you shouldn't leave on my account, I'm fine." He insisted through gritted teeth and the lingering cold of the substance on his fingertips.

They shrugged. "Another time. How about..." They looked him over, as though scanning him, planning out the rest of the day in their head. "...pizza and movie? I'm buying."

He swallowed and nodded. "That- that sounds nice."

"Good. Let me walk you to your car?"

He nodded, and the two walked in tandem, in a comfortable silence. Until Dear snorted.

"Sorry, sorry- that bird just had amazing aim." It wasn't a laugh at him. It was an olive branch. A way to slip into normalcy, to leave what had just happened behind like a bad dream.

He took it and let a tentative grin spread across his face. "I know- it was just my fucking luck, I can't believe it."

"Ah, I don't know, a lot of people say it's good luck." They said, opened his car door for him and smiled. "Guess we'll see."

[kira-bennett]

fucking stressed beyond belief right now

TL;DR: My savings? fucked. Family drama? Ongoing and getting worse. My health? Going down the fucking drain, apparently. The election? I really don't like waiting to find out if my friends and I are going to have our rights stripped away, or if we are going to be in danger because the fascists lost and think the answer to that is terrorism.

I'm going to put these in order of most to least important, but this is going to be a long one.

I am obviously extremely stressed about the election. I am a disabled (unilaterally deafblind) queer afab person whose friend group is made up almost entirely of people who are some variety of queer/neurodivergent/disabled/etc, and I am in a ruby red state. I desperately need Kamala to win because my local and state government isn't going to do anything to benefit my community, so I am 100% reliant on the federal government to restrict how badly they can fuck us over (or, you know, do things to help, but at this point I am willing to just accept "minimally fucked over.") My state is 100% ready to start stripping my friends and I of our rights as soon as they can, and if Trump wins they have the green light to do that, and I am fucking terrified of that happening. Between what he has done in the past, Project 2025, and what Trump himself has promised to do, I don't want to live in an America where Trump gets a 2nd term. You know what else I am terrified of? The fact that, if I get what I want and Kamala does win, these fascist assholes are going to throw a temper tantrum about it. We have already seen people threatened with machetes for voting, ballot boxes lit on fire, and bomb threats sent to polling places in GA. Just imagine how bad it will be when you tell these assholes they lost. I live in a state with 37 federally recognized active hate groups and I have run into members of 7 of them (thankfully, I have only had one coworker dumb enough to brag to me about being a member of one of these groups, and I don't work at that place anymore). (sidenote, but I highly recommend everyone familiarize yourself with the symbols associated with the hate groups active in your state). So even if Kamala wins the election and I don't have to worry about the president taking away my basic human rights, I have to go to work tomorrow and worry about these people looking to take their anger out on someone. I don't exactly look like a cis/straight/christian/republican woman, so I will probably look like a good target for them. I know two of my friends have to work tomorrow, so I have to worry about them being targeted (especially since they work nights and crime does tend to spike at night).

Now onto more personal issues. My sister decided to throw a full-blown temper tantrum over wanting to see a specific dentist for her jaw pain and, because she is one of my mom's favorites, my mom throws a fit until I just handed over the $2,250 for her to get her fucking dental splint and botox. This took a huge chunk out of my car savings ($1,500 from car savings, $750 from my "I get to actually go out and hang out with my friends now" fund). She promises she is going to pay me back, but given that she has "borrowed" $12k from me in just the past two years (so not counting the whole year when I first got a job, after being kept at home against my will mind you, and she took my card and spent anything that didn't go to bills/grandma's funeral payments) and hasn't paid any of it back (but can get mini fridges for my younger siblings rooms while complaining about her electric bill) I don't really have any hope of that happening unless a certain other family member (who I have contacted, and I am waiting to hear back from) pressures her into it. So now I'm just here, working on commission after commission hoping to make back my car money by the end of the year (although I may still have to ride out the whole commission season like this if I want my "fun with friends" fund back.) and find a way to convince her to give back my driving privileges or let me get lessons from someone else (something I also covered when I contacted that other family member). I know my mom is going to have a fit if that family member does choose to address this stuff with them, but I am left with no other choice. I can't just keep living in a hostage situation where I am led on by false promises while I watch her spoil other people, literally at my expense. I wish I could just throw a fit like they do where they hit, slam doors, break things, and yell at people until I get my way, but I have a feeling I wouldn't get the same results they do. Regardless of what happens, I am going to have to do "committing arson at Bath & Bodyworks" levels of burning the candle at both ends if I want to have any hope of having a car by the end of January. Now, there is some mental illness stuff that actually makes doing that much work easier for me (lets just say when I am home alone with no way of getting out for anything other than work, a part of my brain just starts compulsively working on anything to distract me from the fact that I am trapped here) but it's still a lot to have to deal with.

What isn't helping is that my health is just going down the toilet at a pretty rapid pace. I have always had issues with sleep, but I have started experiencing new difficulties with that, so sleep and I are almost entirely divorced. Additionally, I have been having issues eating, or, more accurately, my issues with eating have gotten worse. I have always experienced heartburn when I eat certain foods, but that used to be managed by just taking meds as needed/if I plan on eating something I know triggers a reaction. You know, normal people shit. Now it happens if I eat anything in any meaningful quantity, so I have been having to take more meds, and even then it doesn't always work. There have been too many nights in the past couple of weeks when I have to play "heart attack or heartburn." Additionally, I have been having issues just swallowing. This is a thing I have had issues with for a while. One of the downsides of not having a gag reflex is that sometimes things will just get stuck in your throat, and you just have to keep swallowing until it goes down. Before, it only happened every now and then. Now, it seems like it happens towards the end of every meal, and it's so fucking annoying. Thankfully, I should be getting my insurance card soon, so I should be able to get that checked out, but I still fucking hate it.

[spoilmesweetieforficssake]

So, I’ve been lurking in the Larissa Weems x Reader tag for a while and felt after all the fic I’ve enjoyed I should give something back.  New to writing X reader fic, but who knew it was the genre I never knew I needed.  That and these little ideas wouldn’t leave my head (where a certain Principal now apparently lives rent free)

Rumbled

You still weren’t sure quite how you’d ended up here.  Looking for a place to belong, a place you didn’t have to hide, you had come across mentions of Nevermore.  Quite how those mentions had ended up in you applying for and getting a job teaching there were still somewhat of a mystery.  You didn’t have any formal teaching experience, but apparently at Nevermore, that was not an issue.  No, apparently your attitude towards the students, your disdain for how they were often treated and your (at least to you) somewhat lacking CV were enough.  

And who knew, perhaps the Principal had it right when she said she thought you would fit right in.  Already, a few months in the place had started to feel like home.  Your colleagues liked you, for the most part your students respected you and no one had had a bad word to say about your lessons.  

As expected, in a school, there were always students who would pick on those they considered to be weaker than themselves.  Bullying was a universal theme, you were sad to see, but you prided yourself on trying to nip any issues you saw in your classroom in the bud.  Granted, perhaps picking on the bully was not the way to go about it but you had never professed to be good, or particularly good at your job.  And after discretely charming a certain student into becoming unable to speak anything but utter nonsense and having a certain timid little witch come to her aid, not a bad word had been spoken between the pair since.  

In any case, the matter, it would appear, had reached the ears of a certain Principal Weems and you hadn’t been fired.  Yes, you had received a gentle reminder to be careful of how you exercised your powers among and preferably not upon the students, but that had been the end of the matter.  You could still recall the wry little smile your ‘warning’ had been delivered with.  

At this point, you realised that you could probably recall every smile the regal looking Principal had given you.  It was terribly cliché, you felt, to fall in love with your boss.  But then, when your boss was a goddess among women, witches, vampires and werewolves with legs that went on literally for days who were you to resist?  

Still, you were aware you were not one of your teenage students.  You were a grown woman who could handle a ridiculous crush.  As such, your budding friendship with the Principal, Larissa, as she had insisted you now call her, had blossomed.  She seemed to enjoy the fact that despite your diminutive stature (especially in relation to her own) you did not back down from her.  You were not intimidated by the fact she was your boss and spoke to her as a person first and Principal second.  

You had been on your way back from Jericho one evening after picking up a few things, and had halted on the way back to your car on hearing raised voices.  In the distance, you could make out the figures of Wednesday and Enid among a group of students heading towards a Nevermore shuttle car.  Knowing Wednesday was a girl who could handle herself, rather too well, you stepped forward.  Not to intervene, you told yourself, not unless you had to, but to ensure no one got hurt.  Before you could even get close, however, an ever more familiar figure moved into sight.  

The proud and impressive figure of Larissa Weems came to stand in front of the girls.  For a moment, you breathed a sigh of relief, knowing the situation would be handled.  In the next breath, however, you felt your fingers tingle with electricity as another couple of locals appeared from the shadows, this time wielding baseball bats.  You were moving before you even had time to consider what you were doing, your powers reacting on instinct and emotion before logical thought had any bearing on them.  You stood before your Nevermore family, the skies above suddenly dark and stormy.  One of the men stepped towards you, bat raised, only to have the bat struck by a very specific strike of lightning.  

“Funny how the weather can just turn,” you say, your voice low and deadly.  “And you gentlemen don’t seem dressed for it.  Best run home and fetch a coat before you catch a chill.”  Your words are accompanied by a low rumble of thunder, sparks passing between your fingertips.  You watch as the men before you flee, saddened that they would ever try to wield a bat at those behind you just because they were different.  You’d be willing to bet that not one among them could even start to guess at what powers you and your fellow Nevermore family members possessed, yet knowing you were different was apparently enough to instil such anger and violence.  

You feel a gentle hand on your shoulder and turn to find a concerned Larissa looking down at you.  At her expression, you take a deep breath, the skies above you clear once more.  

“That was quite a display.”

You look from Larissa to the students, seeing them all staring at you, some rather fearful, some in awe and Wednesday with the hint of a smirk on her usually expressionless face.  “That’s why you shouldn’t misbehave in class,” you quip with a forced smile.

You duck your head, feeling a blush heat your cheeks.  “I didn’t mean to overstep, I-”

“Didn’t,” Larissa interrupts.  “It was quite something to stand up and protect the students like that.  I can only be thankful you were here to take action before anything further happened.”

The best you can offer is a shrug.  “I don’t like to see people being picked on for being different.  People meant to be able to be themselves here and not be faced with violence just for being who they are.”

You see Wednesday pass on the way back to the shuttle bus.  “Yeah, protecting the students.”  You turn a glare on her.  The girl is too perceptive by half.  

“A little storm cloud you may be, Addams, but I can be a hurricane when the situation calls for it,” you offer with a smirk of your own, watching as Enid hurriedly pulls her away.  

You turn back to find Larissa looking at you, eyebrow raised.  “If everyone is heading back I guess I’ll see you back at Nevermore?” you squeak, keen to be out from under her scrutiny.  

“You know you’ll make a point of it,” comes Wednesday’s parting comment as the door to the shuttle bus slides closed.  

Your cheeks flush as you catch the widening of Larissa’s eyes, making it clear that she also heard the young girl’s words.  “Isn’t she something?” you grind out, already planning to curse the keys to her typewriter.  Briefly, of course.  

Cat Nap

It took you longer than you’d care to admit to figure it out.  In your defence, however, Nevermore had become your safe space (despite the ever present danger to your physical and mental health that seemed to lurk or in some cases stand proud around every corner).  It had become a place where you didn’t have your barriers up all the time.  Granted, you were still wary, but there was no fear of being ‘outed’ of having to keep all that made you different to yourself.  

Apparently one of those things that did make you different, however, even at Nevermore, was your love of the library.  For the students, it appeared to be a place of brief visits to satisfy their fleeting curiosity into either a certain subject or a fellow student.  Since your more frequent visits, however, the latter had become less frequent.  A literal raincloud appearing above rather overheated students to help them cool down apparently had a rather off-putting effect.

Weekends were your favourite.  Even the librarian barely set foot in the place then, giving you the run of it.  It had allowed you time to explore unobserved and settle on your favourite little corner.  A fireplace on one wall with a comfortable chair you had dragged into just the right spot for when the weather was cold and a large window with a sill wide enough bask in the sun when it was warm.

Of late, it had also come with a little company in the form of a cat.  With its long, slinky silver fur it was a beautiful creature.  On first appearing, it had been a little timid, but over the hours you had spent in your quiet little corner of Nevermore, it had become bolder, finally settling on the arm of your chair one particularly cold day.  

It was then that a familiar smell caught your nose.  You hadn’t been able to place it at the time, but the next day, when you had sat next to Larissa at dinner it hit you.  Cats didn’t wear expensive perfume.  More specifically, cats didn’t wear that specific, expensive perfume.  It was possible that the cat frequented the Principal’s quarters or had also made her acquaintance and the scent had simply transferred.  In fact, had you been teaching at a normal school, there would have been no other explanation.  However, Nevermore was no ordinary school, and Larissa Weems was no ordinary woman.  

No, you thought, if Larissa Weems was what you thought she was, she was an even more extraordinary woman that you had first thought.  

*

The next Saturday, you had barely opened your book before the beautiful cat appeared beside you on the windowsill, settling in the little patch of sun that remained by your side.  Smiling, you had reached down to stroke the soft fur before returning to your reading.  Beside you, the cat purred happily, rolling its head back and forth under your gentle touch to help you reach just the right spots.  

You had been staring at the same sentence for the best part of twenty minutes, internally debating whether to reveal to the cat you knew her true identity.  If indeed you were correct at all.  Closing your book with a decisive thump, you let out a breath.  Placing the book down, you shifted on the windowsill, turning until your feet were dangling over the edge, the cat next to you looking up curiously at your sudden change in position and demeanour.  

“You know, if you want to spend time with me, you don’t need to take the form of a cat to do it.  I wouldn’t mind spending a little more time with you,” you said quietly, keeping your eyes on the wall opposite and determinedly not looking at the creature beside you.  “As you.  Just as you are,” you added in a whisper.  “I’d quite like it, actually.”

You felt a shift next to you and blinked as the fading sun shifted, interrupted by a new presence.  You smiled, turning to look at the stunning woman now sitting next to you.  “Hi.”

“Hi,” she whispered in return, her whole face flushed red with embarrassment.  You struggled to recall if you had ever seen a more adorable sight.  “How did you know?” she finally asked.

“Your perfume,” you offered.  “I figured at worst I’d be talking to a cat who was fond of spending time either with you or in your rooms, at best, I might be right.”

You watched as a myriad of emotions flitted over her usually impassive face at your words.  Trying to pick them apart, to decipher their meaning.  Pushing yourself off the windowsill, you turned back to her, offering your hand.  

“Fancy a little trip into down?  Hot chocolate at The Weathervane?”

With a tentative smile, she took your offered hand.

“Maybe with a little extra cream to satisfy your inner cat?”

Beauty, Bathed In Silver

You’re dating, and it’s nice.  At least you think you are.  You’re spending time together, getting close.  There has been hugging, sitting close together, hands touching when you’re out on walks together.  It’s been nice.  Really nice.  Too nice.  You could really do with it being a little less innocent though.  Not that you mind taking it slow.  You want this to be something.  To build something here, with this magnificent woman, and you refuse to mess it up just because you feel the temperature in the room rises every time she gives you one of those smiles or laughs at something you’ve said.  

In short, she’s driving you crazy.  The more you spend time with her, the more you want her.  The more you learn about her, however, the more cautious you are.  You’ve never considered yourself the one to take the lead, but you can’t help but feel that if you don’t, Larissa never will.  It’s all new to you, though, and you’re not sure how much more obvious you can be, how many hints you can drop before she’ll take the plunge.  At this rate, you’re going to have to wait until next Christmas and cover yourself in mistletoe before she plants one on you.  

You’re all in.  Of that you are almost painfully aware.  Wednesday hadn’t been wrong that night in Jericho.  It wasn’t the threat against the students that had your powers react quite so quickly.  Yes, you wouldn’t have let any harm befall them, but what had lightning at your fingers in seconds had been that man raising his bat against Larissa.  You’re quite sure that even with no powers at your disposal you’d have bodily thrown yourself at the man to keep him from hurting her.  

To what degree Larissa is in, however, sometimes leaves you at a loss.  Since her unveiling as Cat Woman, it’s clear she’s enjoyed the time you’ve spent together.  There are times she looks at you like you’re something precious, usually always blushing afterwards.  Times that she looks like she wants to devour you, only to pause, take a breath and collect herself.  Times that she seems lost in the moment when you happen to touch her, or she trails gentle fingers across your arm, only to snatch back her hand a few moments later.  It’s like there’s always something holding her back.  

You’re both sitting on the roof of the school, deck chairs and blankets set out with a small picnic laid out before you.  She had missed dinner on account of some dealings with the Mayor so you had planned the evening to try and make up for it.  You closed your eyes for a moment, concentrating on gently nudging aside the clouds that had covered the moon, ensuring the roof was once more bathed in its glow.  Opening your eyes, you turn to the side, smiling as you see her face lit up in the soft light.  Moonlight suits her, you decide.  

“The werewolves will thank you for that.”

“I didn’t do it for them,” you say.  “Did it to see you in the moonlight.  It suits you.  You look beautiful, ethereal.”

She blushes, looking away from you.  “You can’t say things like that.”

You frown.  “Why?”  You’ve given her compliments before.  Granted, perhaps not quite so openly, but if you can’t compliment a goddess when she’s bathed in moonlight when can you?

“It makes me feel things,” she mutters, sitting up and pulling her knees to her chest.  

“Good things?” you ask, watching her face keenly for her answer.  

Instead, she sighs, pushing herself to her feet.  “It’s not fair.”

Your frown only deepens.  “Fair?  What’s not fair about it?”

“This teasing me,” she hisses, turning away from you.

Now it’s your turn to get up, moving until you’re standing in front of her.  “I’m not teasing you.  Not when I say things like that.  Everything I’ve said I’ve meant,” you say earnestly.  

“But...”

“But what?” you ask, reaching out to grasp her fidgeting hands.  

“But you’ve never...”  She trails off, biting her lower lip and looking so unsure.  

It’s then that you see her eyes flicked towards your lips.  Is she serious?  If she’s been waiting for you to kiss her she’s been waiting far longer then she ought to have.  “I’ve never kissed you?”

She nods.

Before you can stop yourself, you’ve let out a bark of laughter.  “I was kinda hoping you’d get the hint and I wouldn’t have to climb you like a tree to do it!”

You watch her eyes widen in shock and soften your expression.  “I didn’t want to lunge at you and maul you,” you say with a soft laugh.  “I wanted to wait until you were ready.  I just assumed you wanted to wait, and –”

Your words are cut off by the gentle press of lips against your own.  Finally.  You open your eyes as she pulls back to see you grin before leaning in to kiss you again  

Finally.

Be you, for me

Giving a smile to Larissa’s secretary and getting the nod to head straight in you don’t bother knocking as you enter.  You see her head jerk up as you enter, not having expected the interruption.  

“Sorry to just barge in?” you offer, coming to stand in front of her desk.  “I just had to say that I can’t do-”

You can’t quite pinpoint when the shift happens but somewhere in your last few words you have triggered the silver haired woman before you who abruptly lurches across the desk.

“Don’t!  Wait!  Just tell me what I can do, who I need to be.”

You freeze.  You’ve never seen her like this.  Fear fixes her face, her breathing irregular.  “Okay,” you finally say quietly, holding your hands out and moving slowly as you approach her, almost as you would a scared animal.  “I’m not sure what just happened, but we’re going to rewind a second,” you say as you continue to take slow steps around her desk.  “What I was going to say was that despite my best efforts with the weather that midnight orchid is determined to flower tonight and Marilyn needs to harvest it.  The seeds are vital for quite a few potions and we won’t get another chance.  So, I was going to say I can’t our dinner in town tonight, but thought we could do something here instead and maybe make it into town for a few cocktails before last orders?”

You keep your eyes on her face as you speak, seeing a little of the fear leave her eyes as she sinks back into her chair, embarrassment bringing a flush to her usually pale skin.  Finally coming to stand in front of her, you perch on the edge of her desk, your feet either side of hers where she sits in her chair and reach for her hands.  “Now we’re going back to whatever that was.”

She ducks her head, avoiding your eyes.  

You sigh, letting go of her hands as you reach for the arms of her chair, pulling her closer.  You wrap your arms around her, guiding her to lean into you.  It doesn’t take long for her to loop her arms around your waist, burying her face into your stomach.  “You know all I need from you if for you to be you, right?” you ask, her words still rattling around your head.

You feel rather than see the answering nod.  

“It’s just hard sometimes,” she admits.  “The whole shapeshifter thing.  When you can be anyone, anything, anyone, why would you just be you?  Especially when you don’t always like yourself?”

You tried not to let your anger flare.  Larissa had told you of previous partners she’d had.  Those who would ask her to morph into different people, exes, celebrities when they had sex.  She would, but every time it would take her a little more of her confidence with it.  You had not so jokingly offered to drown them in the heaviest localised rainstorm you could muster.  “I like you.  Love you, actually,” you admitted, smiling to yourself at finally having said it out loud.  

Sitting back, you shifted until you could look at her face, steaked with tears, but blue eyes looking up at you with so much hope.  “I love you.  So be you, for me?”  

She managed a watery smile at that.  “I love you too,” she whispered before burrowing her face into your chest once more, clinging tightly to you.  

[niobefurens]

Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art.

By Ted Chiang The New Yorker; August 31, 2024

In 1953, Roald Dahl published “The Great Automatic Grammatizator,” a short story about an electrical engineer who secretly desires to be a writer. One day, after completing construction of the world’s fastest calculating machine, the engineer realizes that “English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness.” He constructs a fiction-writing machine that can produce a five-thousand-word short story in thirty seconds; a novel takes fifteen minutes and requires the operator to manipulate handles and foot pedals, as if he were driving a car or playing an organ, to regulate the levels of humor and pathos. The resulting novels are so popular that, within a year, half the fiction published in English is a product of the engineer’s invention.

Is there anything about art that makes us think it can’t be created by pushing a button, as in Dahl’s imagination? Right now, the fiction generated by large language models like ChatGPT  is terrible, but one can imagine that such programs might improve in the future. How good could they get? Could they get better than humans at writing fiction—or making paintings or movies—in the same way that calculators are better at addition and subtraction?

Art is notoriously hard to define, and so are the differences between good art and bad art. But let me offer a generalization: art is something that results from making a lot of choices. This might be easiest to explain if we use fiction writing as an example. When you are writing fiction, you are—consciously or unconsciously—making a choice about almost every word you type; to oversimplify, we can imagine that a ten-thousand-word short story requires something on the order of ten thousand choices. When you give a generative-A.I. program a prompt, you are making very few choices; if you supply a hundred-word prompt, you have made on the order of a hundred choices.

If an A.I. generates a ten-thousand-word story based on your prompt, it has to fill in for all of the choices that you are not making. There are various ways it can do this. One is to take an average of the choices that other writers have made, as represented by text found on the Internet; that average is equivalent to the least interesting choices possible, which is why A.I.-generated text is often really bland. Another is to instruct the program to engage in style mimicry, emulating the choices made by a specific writer, which produces a highly derivative story. In neither case is it creating interesting art.

I think the same underlying principle applies to visual art, although it’s harder to quantify the choices that a painter might make. Real paintings bear the mark of an enormous number of decisions. By comparison, a person using a text-to-image program like dall-e enters a prompt such as “A knight in a suit of armor fights a fire-breathing dragon,” and lets the program do the rest. (The newest version of dall-e accepts prompts of up to four thousand characters—hundreds of words, but not enough to describe every detail of a scene.) Most of the choices in the resulting image have to be borrowed from similar paintings found online; the image might be exquisitely rendered, but the person entering the prompt can’t claim credit for that.

Some commentators imagine that image generators will affect visual culture as much as the advent of photography once did. Although this might seem superficially plausible, the idea that photography is similar to generative A.I. deserves closer examination. When photography was first developed, I suspect it didn’t seem like an artistic medium because it wasn’t apparent that there were a lot of choices to be made; you just set up the camera and start the exposure. But over time people realized that there were a vast number of things you could do with cameras, and the artistry lies in the many choices that a photographer makes. It might not always be easy to articulate what the choices are, but when you compare an amateur’s photos to a professional’s, you can see the difference. So then the question becomes: Is there a similar opportunity to make a vast number of choices using a text-to-image generator? I think the answer is no. An artist—whether working digitally or with paint—implicitly makes far more decisions during the process of making a painting than would fit into a text prompt of a few hundred words.

We can imagine a text-to-image generator that, over the course of many sessions, lets you enter tens of thousands of words into its text box to enable extremely fine-grained control over the image you’re producing; this would be something analogous to Photoshop with a purely textual interface. I’d say that a person could use such a program and still deserve to be called an artist. The film director Bennett Miller has used dall-e 2 to generate some very striking images that have been exhibited at the Gagosian gallery; to create them, he crafted detailed text prompts and then instructed dall-e to revise and manipulate the generated images again and again. He generated more than a hundred thousand images to arrive at the twenty images in the exhibit. But he has said that he hasn’t been able to obtain comparable results on later releases of dall-e. I suspect this might be because Miller was using dall-e for something it’s not intended to do; it’s as if he hacked Microsoft Paint to make it behave like Photoshop, but as soon as a new version of Paint was released, his hacks stopped working. OpenAI probably isn’t trying to build a product to serve users like Miller, because a product that requires a user to work for months to create an image isn’t appealing to a wide audience. The company wants to offer a product that generates images with little effort.

It’s harder to imagine a program that, over many sessions, helps you write a good novel. This hypothetical writing program might require you to enter a hundred thousand words of prompts in order for it to generate an entirely different hundred thousand words that make up the novel you’re envisioning. It’s not clear to me what such a program would look like. Theoretically, if such a program existed, the user could perhaps deserve to be called the author. But, again, I don’t think companies like OpenAI want to create versions of ChatGPT that require just as much effort from users as writing a novel from scratch. The selling point of generative A.I. is that these programs generate vastly more than you put into them, and that is precisely what prevents them from being effective tools for artists.

The companies promoting generative-A.I. programs claim that they will unleash creativity. In essence, they are saying that art can be all inspiration and no perspiration—but these things cannot be easily separated. I’m not saying that art has to involve tedium. What I’m saying is that art requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate “large-scale” with “important” when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.

Believing that inspiration outweighs everything else is, I suspect, a sign that someone is unfamiliar with the medium. I contend that this is true even if one’s goal is to create entertainment rather than high art. People often underestimate the effort required to entertain; a thriller novel may not live up to Kafka’s ideal of a book—an “axe for the frozen sea within us”—but it can still be as finely crafted as a Swiss watch. And an effective thriller is more than its premise or its plot. I doubt you could replace every sentence in a thriller with one that is semantically equivalent and have the resulting novel be as entertaining. This means that its sentences—and the small-scale choices they represent—help to determine the thriller’s effectiveness.

Many novelists have had the experience of being approached by someone convinced that they have a great idea for a novel, which they are willing to share in exchange for a fifty-fifty split of the proceeds. Such a person inadvertently reveals that they think formulating sentences is a nuisance rather than a fundamental part of storytelling in prose. Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art.

Of course, most pieces of writing, whether articles or reports or e-mails, do not come with the expectation that they embody thousands of choices. In such cases, is there any harm in automating the task? Let me offer another generalization: any writing that deserves your attention as a reader is the result of effort expended by the person who wrote it. Effort during the writing process doesn’t guarantee the end product is worth reading, but worthwhile work cannot be made without it. The type of attention you pay when reading a personal e-mail is different from the type you pay when reading a business report, but in both cases it is only warranted when the writer put some thought into it.

Recently, Google aired a commercial during the Paris Olympics for Gemini, its competitor to OpenAI’s GPT-4. The ad shows a father using Gemini to compose a fan letter, which his daughter will send to an Olympic athlete who inspires her. Google pulled the commercial after widespread backlash from viewers; a media professor called it “one of the most disturbing commercials I’ve ever seen.” It’s notable that people reacted this way, even though artistic creativity wasn’t the attribute being supplanted. No one expects a child’s fan letter to an athlete to be extraordinary; if the young girl had written the letter herself, it would likely have been indistinguishable from countless others. The significance of a child’s fan letter—both to the child who writes it and to the athlete who receives it—comes from its being heartfelt rather than from its being eloquent.

Many of us have sent store-bought greeting cards, knowing that it will be clear to the recipient that we didn’t compose the words ourselves. We don’t copy the words from a Hallmark card in our own handwriting, because that would feel dishonest. The programmer Simon Willison has described the training for large language models as “money laundering for copyrighted data,” which I find a useful way to think about the appeal of generative-A.I. programs: they let you engage in something like plagiarism, but there’s no guilt associated with it because it’s not clear even to you that you’re copying.

Some have claimed that large language models are not laundering the texts they’re trained on but, rather, learning from them, in the same way that human writers learn from the books they’ve read. But a large language model is not a writer; it’s not even a user of language. Language is, by definition, a system of communication, and it requires an intention to communicate. Your phone’s auto-complete may offer good suggestions or bad ones, but in neither case is it trying to say anything to you or the person you’re texting. The fact that ChatGPT can generate coherent sentences invites us to imagine that it understands language in a way that your phone’s auto-complete does not, but it has no more intention to communicate.

It is very easy to get ChatGPT to emit a series of words such as “I am happy to see you.” There are many things we don’t understand about how large language models work, but one thing we can be sure of is that ChatGPT is not happy to see you. A dog can communicate that it is happy to see you, and so can a prelinguistic child, even though both lack the capability to use words. ChatGPT feels nothing and desires nothing, and this lack of intention is why ChatGPT is not actually using language. What makes the words “I’m happy to see you” a linguistic utterance is not that the sequence of text tokens that it is made up of are well formed; what makes it a linguistic utterance is the intention to communicate something.

Because language comes so easily to us, it’s easy to forget that it lies on top of these other experiences of subjective feeling and of wanting to communicate that feeling. We’re tempted to project those experiences onto a large language model when it emits coherent sentences, but to do so is to fall prey to mimicry; it’s the same phenomenon as when butterflies evolve large dark spots on their wings that can fool birds into thinking they’re predators with big eyes. There is a context in which the dark spots are sufficient; birds are less likely to eat a butterfly that has them, and the butterfly doesn’t really care why it’s not being eaten, as long as it gets to live. But there is a big difference between a butterfly and a predator that poses a threat to a bird.

A person using generative A.I. to help them write might claim that they are drawing inspiration from the texts the model was trained on, but I would again argue that this differs from what we usually mean when we say one writer draws inspiration from another. Consider a college student who turns in a paper that consists solely of a five-page quotation from a book, stating that this quotation conveys exactly what she wanted to say, better than she could say it herself. Even if the student is completely candid with the instructor about what she’s done, it’s not accurate to say that she is drawing inspiration from the book she’s citing. The fact that a large language model can reword the quotation enough that the source is unidentifiable doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what’s going on.

As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.

Not all writing needs to be creative, or heartfelt, or even particularly good; sometimes it simply needs to exist. Such writing might support other goals, such as attracting views for advertising or satisfying bureaucratic requirements. When people are required to produce such text, we can hardly blame them for using whatever tools are available to accelerate the process. But is the world better off with more documents that have had minimal effort expended on them? It would be unrealistic to claim that if we refuse to use large language models, then the requirements to create low-quality text will disappear. However, I think it is inevitable that the more we use large language models to fulfill those requirements, the greater those requirements will eventually become. We are entering an era where someone might use a large language model to generate a document out of a bulleted list, and send it to a person who will use a large language model to condense that document into a bulleted list. Can anyone seriously argue that this is an improvement?

It’s not impossible that one day we will have computer programs that can do anything a human being can do, but, contrary to the claims of the companies promoting A.I., that is not something we’ll see in the next few years. Even in domains that have absolutely nothing to do with creativity, current A.I. programs have profound limitations that give us legitimate reasons to question whether they deserve to be called intelligent at all.

The computer scientist François Chollet has proposed the following distinction: skill is how well you perform at a task, while intelligence is how efficiently you gain new skills. I think this reflects our intuitions about human beings pretty well. Most people can learn a new skill given sufficient practice, but the faster the person picks up the skill, the more intelligent we think the person is. What’s interesting about this definition is that—unlike I.Q. tests—it’s also applicable to nonhuman entities; when a dog learns a new trick quickly, we consider that a sign of intelligence.

In 2019, researchers conducted an experiment in which they taught rats how to drive. They put the rats in little plastic containers with three copper-wire bars; when the mice put their paws on one of these bars, the container would either go forward, or turn left or turn right. The rats could see a plate of food on the other side of the room and tried to get their vehicles to go toward it. The researchers trained the rats for five minutes at a time, and after twenty-four practice sessions, the rats had become proficient at driving. Twenty-four trials were enough to master a task that no rat had likely ever encountered before in the evolutionary history of the species. I think that’s a good demonstration of intelligence.

Now consider the current A.I. programs that are widely acclaimed for their performance. AlphaZero, a program developed by Google’s DeepMind, plays chess better than any human player, but during its training it played forty-four million games, far more than any human can play in a lifetime. For it to master a new game, it will have to undergo a similarly enormous amount of training. By Chollet’s definition, programs like AlphaZero are highly skilled, but they aren’t particularly intelligent, because they aren’t efficient at gaining new skills. It is currently impossible to write a computer program capable of learning even a simple task in only twenty-four trials, if the programmer is not given information about the task beforehand.

Self-driving cars trained on millions of miles of driving can still crash into an overturned trailer truck, because such things are not commonly found in their training data, whereas humans taking their first driving class will know to stop. More than our ability to solve algebraic equations, our ability to cope with unfamiliar situations is a fundamental part of why we consider humans intelligent. Computers will not be able to replace humans until they acquire that type of competence, and that is still a long way off; for the time being, we’re just looking for jobs that can be done with turbocharged auto-complete.

Despite years of hype, the ability of generative A.I. to dramatically increase economic productivity remains theoretical. (Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs released a report titled “Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”) The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

Some individuals have defended large language models by saying that most of what human beings say or write isn’t particularly original. That is true, but it’s also irrelevant. When someone says “I’m sorry” to you, it doesn’t matter that other people have said sorry in the past; it doesn’t matter that “I’m sorry” is a string of text that is statistically unremarkable. If someone is being sincere, their apology is valuable and meaningful, even though apologies have previously been uttered. Likewise, when you tell someone that you’re happy to see them, you are saying something meaningful, even if it lacks novelty.

Something similar holds true for art. Whether you are creating a novel or a painting or a film, you are engaged in an act of communication between you and your audience. What you create doesn’t have to be utterly unlike every prior piece of art in human history to be valuable; the fact that you’re the one who is saying it, the fact that it derives from your unique life experience and arrives at a particular moment in the life of whoever is seeing your work, is what makes it new. We are all products of what has come before us, but it’s by living our lives in interaction with others that we bring meaning into the world. That is something that an auto-complete algorithm can never do, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

[blugnettabutterflies]

Outcasts, Chapter 1

"I found him."

(Criminal Case: The Conspiracy Spoilers in general, mainly of Case 60, Blaze of Glory.)

TW: Heavy description of bruises and anatomy.

Beginning - Previous Ch - Next Ch - Ending

There are a lot of things a profiler can do. Usually, their job is to take every single detail they can grasp on their fingers of anyone he meets, even if it's a friend, and analyze their behavior coming from those objects, chats, and even by only looks and hand movements. It's both a blessing and a curse.

For example, one thing Gabriel knows now is that when Gloria is nervous, she drives fast. Very fast. Constantly ignoring every driving sign she could encounter.

But, given the context they are in, it's not like the driving signs even matter. And the reasoning is also on par, understandable and valid.

They just saw the Dome explode. And it was a powerful explosion, given that he still has a sensation of trembling in his ears from the sound of it, and the vision of the dust and fire going up is still as clear as day.

They weren't even that close to the Dome and still felt like they were a few blocks away. 

And what's worse, they were informed just a few minutes ago that both of his teammates were in the position the explosion took place. That explains why Gloria was running the car as if her life depends on it. Maybe some lives do depend on this.

That also explains how he hasn't said a word ever since he got in the car, only looking through the window to see if the ambulance is following them.

It took less than half an hour to get to the epicenter of the explosion. The damn Dome. The same place that was full of mysteries, a whole Conspiracy going on, experiments and science, and many, many deaths and trouble for them, now is just reduced into rubble and debris, with a few structures still barely holding up.

- Here, let's start searching... they cannot be that far. - His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Gloria speaking and her door opening. That led him to do the same thing, almost automatically.

Before she departs, she indicates her whistle. Everyone has one, in case of an emergency. In this case, if they find any of the two.

Now, both have to be careful. Not only were they searching for their friends, but now they have to be on the lookout if any neohuman was nearby, ready to slit them open.

It's incredible how much those two individuals usually get themselves into trouble. Ever since this person who everyone calls as Player reappeared in the city, everything was turned upside down. And that apparently wasn't their first rodeo.

Either they have a magical intuition to let this happen, or it's just bad luck. 

He just wants to think that it is a mere coincidence.

And lately, all the luck has been happening to his closest companion. 

He thinks about this member for quite some time while searching. A lot has happened to this member. From finding and trying to ally old enemies of his that end up dead, to finding out that his girlfriend was without any memory, only to recover it with his help and murder someone. To then be killed.

He sighs. This member is prone to be explosive, no pun intended. His emotions are always extreme. Not that is a bad thing, but he thinks he never learned to keep an eye on them, and those can turn against him, as it did almost a week ago, almost ending with his own life.

Still to this day, he feels that he could have done something. Sure, now he looks better but the process is hard and emotionally draining, he knows that. Especially for someone like him. Maybe he could have made a little more in his journalism to find more stuff to address. Or maybe he could have found a way to...

No. Just find him now. That's your only objective. Find them both. Find them alive.

Both enter the hall and see fire. More fire than the normal they got already used. Debris everywhere, and tons of rubble around.

That was the epicenter.

They observe the place that has the most fire. An electric motor, or at least what remains of it, is destroyed into pieces.

- What on earth... - Gloria asks herself, with a very small volume. Gabriel can't give himself the answer even if he wanted to, he's just as shocked.

They keep advancing. He kept thinking about that as he kept going with a few paramedics near him. Still holding the whistle he was given so the rescue team could find him.

Suddenly, Gloria is the first to whistle.

- I found Player! - She exclaims, as she tries to take rocks that were from a supposed wall out of them. They were unconscious. 

Aside from the bruises caused by the rubble, there weren't major injuries involved.

- C'mon hun, wake up. - Gloria says in a concerned tone as she tries to move Player in order to wake them up, with no positive results.

A few paramedics were already on the way to attend to them, so he didn't get closer.

"Alright, one found. One more to find." Was his train of thought as he kept on walking, almost running. He still can't find him.

- Hey! Is anyone there?!

No answer for the general call. He tries again. Maybe he just reacts to his name. Common reaction under shock.

- Hello?! J-

There is some debris going in one particular place that caught his eye. More than that, there was like an object, a lump of... something, that just fell out to the ground, prompting a sound loud enough to give some attention to it.

He approaches it, hoping it's not what he thinks it is. He even was telling himself to not think about it. It can't be.

"It can't be him. Don't let it be him." He thinks, almost prays.

But as he was approaching the lump, his suspicions were (unfortunately) getting more accurate. The lump was taking more form. He then noticed that the lump had arms.

And legs...

And a face.

A barely recognizable face.

The vision was almost nauseating. The clothes were ripped apart, with the exception of his jacket, which the back and part of his left arm took a bad hit. He can still see the ashes. The body had so many burns, he can't determine if they were second or third-degree... he can even see one part of the body not being in the right place. He can only explain to himself that he was the closest to the explosion.

His face took a major hit. This "lump" had a painful face, unconsciously feeling all that his body went through. Especially on his eyes.

They were bleeding (or at least one of them) as much as the top of his head.

The last time he saw that much blood in a body, was when he found Zoe Kusama in the psychiatric hospital.

"Oh no..."

And she was dead.

- GLORIA!!! - was all he could yell in the chaos that became his mind for a second. He didn't need the whistle, she came really fast. - Are you okay?! What happened?! - She asks while running to the position. - ... I found him.

She covers her mouth as soon as she gets to see the sight. He can tell that her mind became a fog, and honestly, his mind probably wanted to do that as well.

He blows the whistle to keep his brain from doing it. The sound keeps him on the ground.

They didn't even try to wake him up or move him. They just waited for instructions for the paramedics, who came running, applying everything they could apply to the lump of a human being that they call David Jeremiah Jones.

[artemis-fowl-incident-report]

Here is my contribution for Fowl Fest day 2 (should I make this a full story?)

Diary of André Price, 16 years old, Portland Oregon (aka the Baby from the wrestling match in the Atlantis Complex)

Dear Diary

Okay, brain very loud right now, need to vent.

Kind of a lot happened today. New guy finally arrived, you know the one everyone was convinced must be some juvie reject because he was being transferred in from out of state. Turns out no, his dads in the military, and new guy’s been dealing with long covid. His names Jayden, he’s really cute. I give him an 8, no 9, no… 9.5/10 (still not quite up there with Jacob, but got just a little more rizz than Liam).

Not the point, moving on.

When we were let out to lunch, Em was waiting for me outside class (she never does this, since it’s embarrassing enough to be my sister, let alone people seeing us together, but I digress) said she had to talk to me. Something weird happened this morning when she was getting on the bus (I drove in today, so I missed this). She spotted all these guys in big SUV’s scoping around the woods near the river. They apparently didn’t look like the normal military we get around here, and they had these devices in like a backpack thing and were scanning around the area. She looked really freaked out, because apparently they were scanning the area where I usually go to practice.

Em is the only person who knows about my powers. Thank God it wasn’t Sophie. That 10 year old little weasel would have ratted me out to Mom faster then I could have bribed her. Downside, Em has been treating me like her own personal science experiment ever since (perks of having the local town mathlete/spelling bee/science fair champion around, while you are but a smooth brained gay little lizard) but I guess it’s not all that bad. I know way more about my powers now then I did at the start of the year. I’ve gone from lighting little fires when I look at twigs hard enough to being able to jumpstart my car with electricity.

But maybe that’s not such a good thing.

After school Em and I drove out to investigate. We decided not to get too close, giving ourselves an excuse to be there by picking up Mr Hernández’s dog Chika (still the most adorable Pitbull I’ve ever seen, and a total wimp) and taking her for a walk since he’s still recovering from surgery.

Em was right, a whole swarm of men in black vans with the word A.C.R.O.N.Y.M, stitched onto their uniforms (none of them were even slightly attractive! Total let down). But they were scanning around the old well, exactly where I’ve been practicing for months. That must mean they’re looking for me.

We must have made a noise or something, because one of the men pointed and shouted in our direction. We ran, they ran after us, but they didn’t catch us. I think someone on the team, someone who likes to believe they have sense, must have told them to let us go. After all, we were just kids being curious (shows what they know).

Instead of going home, Em suggested we pick up Dairy Queen and hang out for a few hours. She said it was to throw off suspicion in case these A.C.R.O.N.Y.M guys decided to keep an eye on us. I think she just wanted to get me to pay for Dairy Queen, since I’m not reckless with my money like she is. We got Chika a puppuccino from Starbucks (such a spoiled puppy, but she deserved it after our fright in the woods). While we were there, we saw flyers being put up for a wrestling event that’s coming to town next week. Apparently the Jade princess is gonna be there (you’d think our family’s collective obsession with wrestling would have died down somewhat since that accident when I was a baby. Nope.) so we'll probably all being going.

We were just about to head home when I saw something else weird. Four people parked up outside the general store arguing. There was this tall, bald muscle guy (a 10/10), a tall blonde who looked like tall guys sister (Em informed me she was a 10/10. She was totally having a case of lesbian-itus), this small child in an oversized hoodie (Very loud, could hear them over the entire parking lot), and a dark haired guy in a suit (a 100/10, are you kidding me??? Edward Cullen wishes he looked like this dude!!!). I only took notice of them because I heard the kid in the hoodie shouting something about “magic” and “human babies”. I mean… that’s me! I was a human baby (Shocking I know) and I do have powers (maybe magic???). It felt like too much of a coincidence for both the A.C.R.O.N.Y.M guys, and the hottie bunch (+small child) to all be here on the same day.

All this, and I still have algebra homework to do.

Update.

Hot vampire guy is downstairs with muscle man and blonde lady. They’re asking for me!

[clanofjones]

The (Un) Secret Garden: Chapter One

Finally posting this!

My first ROTTMNT fic, I hope you all like it!

EDIT: The entirety of this fic is posted on my writing blog, @jaywritesturtles! Subsequent sequels will be posted there too.

Next Chapter

Ao3: complete!

Summary: The thing with an impromptu apocalypse is that it forces people - even those who hated each other prior - to join forces for the sake of survival. However, when the aforementioned apocalypse is averted - and by proxy, no stressed bonds are forced - then enemies are liable to remain enemies. Casey Jones never got that particular memo. Or: Big Mama manipulates Casey and the Disaster Twins gotta help him out.

Chapter One: Don't Crash Cars, it's Bad for the Economy

April's POV

"Go topside, they said. It'll be fun, they said!" April O'Neil grumbled as she, Cassandra Jones, and her son from the future, Casey Jones, sat in police custody.

A more accurate statement might be that April and Casey sat in government custody. Cassandra was hitting and kicking the bars as a policeman confiscated her bent naginata, Casey's tech-saw, and April's bat, shouting at levels previously thought not to be possible by human(?) lungs. 

The only good thing about it was that the policeman couldn't hear a single word from the other two. 

Or, rather, he wouldn't have been able to. Casey hadn't said a single word since being pulled over.

April nudged the future boy. 

"You doing okay, Jones?"

"I think all the police were dead by the time I was born."

It was a very good thing Cassandra was making so much noise. Unless they had much more open minds since April had last been pulled over, then it would have been a very interesting conversation.

On April's last bout to the police station, it hadn't been her fault.

It had been Donnie and Sunita's fault.

April made a mental note to check if her friends could pass for humans as well as drive in a non-apocalyptic fashion that happened to spare any and all adjacent fire hydrants.

The policeman walked up to the temporary cell they had been placed in, apparently unperturbed by Cassandra's incessant screeching until she decided to spare her lungs. April looked at the officer 

"Can we have our phone call?"

April tugged on the cord gently as the phone rang. Cassandra glowered at a man who was clearly actually incarcerated, and Casey's leg twitched as he shifted anxiously on a cold, hard bench.

"Chello~?"

April could make out Mikey's voice through the receiver and frowned slightly. She had called Donnie, right? But a garbled voice on the other end confirmed her suspicions.

"Mikey! Stop 'Chello~'ing a possible enemy!" That was (probably) Raph.

"And stop stealing my things!" Definitely Donnie...

"Hey, Donnie's stuff is fair game!" Leo.

"When did we decide that?" Donnie again. April sighed on her end and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Guys!" she said in a tone just below a shout.

"April!" Mikey exclaimed over the other end.

"Why are you calling from a station phone? I gifted you a Genius Built tech - trademarked, obviously - phone for a reason, April."

April cleared her throat and rolled on the balls of her feet. "Welp," she began, drawing out the 'e' in 'welp' before deciding to just bite the bullet and do it. "Remember when I said I'd take Casey and Casey topside to teach 'em driving?"

"Yes, we have the you-know-what all ready for them upon your return..." Donnie said skeptically.

"Well... We might've gotten into the smallest little crash ever," April could feel the crushing, expecting silence as her voice trailed off as someone dropped something. "And Casey jumped out of the window of the driver's seat, so Cass grabbed the wheel so we wouldn't crash into a pet store, and we crashed into a fire hydrant."

Silence on the other end. April chanced a glance at Cassandra and Casey and saw that Casey seemed to be expecting the electric chair. Cassandra, on the other hand, wasn't paying attention at all and was about five seconds from turning a staring-contest-turned-battle-of-wits into an actual fistfight with a definitely actually incarcerated prisoner.

"Is Casey okay?"

April nodded before she realized that they couldn't see her.

"Yeah, he's good. This lady shouted at him for a bit for jumping out of a car window and in front of her car, but he's fine now."

After a moment in which her friends on the other end seems to be taking the information in, April continued: "In any case, we still have a car with a busted hood, one grand to pay for the fire hydrant, and another three hundred apiece to Cass and Casey for driving without licenses. Mine's been revoked for a couple of weeks. If we can pay the fines now, then maybe we can get off without either of them serving any time," April explained.

"If Michael would give me my phone, then you'll be out before Pizza Week." April knew full well Donnie didn't need his phone to pay their fines, but there was no use bargaining with Donnie once you stole his phone. "Nay, within the hour!" Donnie amended, and April bet the first slice that he was posing dramatically if Leo's snickers were anything to go by.

"Thanks, Donnie. See ya in a few," April said as she placed the phone on its base.

Casey looked up at her with mild interest and pulled his jacket around himself slightly. 

"Everything's fine. Knowing Dee, we'll be out in about an hour. We'll just have to stay off the roads for now, and maybe we can practice your and Cass's driving in Repo Mantis' junkyard if Mikey can convince him."

That seemed to placate him enough, although he still looked plenty guilty as his feet shifted awkwardly.

"Sorry about the car." If April hadn't seen his lips move, then she likely wouldn't have heard him.

"Pssh, it's fine. I'm sure Donnie would have lost his mind with all his genius energy and nothing to do with it if nobody ever broke anything. Think of it as us three keeping him sane." 

Casey allowed himself to smile as April eased Cassandra out of her confrontation (fight?) by covering the ex-foot general's eyes and dragging her back by her hoodie, smiling awkwardly at the convict.

"Unhand me, O'Neil!"

April sighed as Cassandra allowed her to guide her to their holding cell.

"Good news is we're out in an hour or so. Donnie's taking care of the fees."

Cassandra pried April's hand from her eyes so that she could cast the convict one last glare, and pointed at her own eyes with two fingers, then flicking them to the convict, in an 'I'm watching you' gesture. However, even as her feet dragged on the cold floor, she allowed April to move her, which April supposed was a good sign.

As the lock clicked behind Casey, and April relinquished Cassandra, the latter sat with her legs crossed. April lay on her back with her legs propped up against the stone wall. She was suddenly exceptionally glad that they all had jackets on them, even if Casey's 'just in-case' hand warmers had been confiscated, along with everything else in their pockets and hands.

April supposed there were worst times to have been arrested, not even counting if any of them had been caught from the pictures taken during what Mikey had abbreviated to the 'Krangvasion' because boy would that have been a loaded conversation. At least by now, her human friends had learned to dress like humans, even if they couldn't drive like them.

Casey had situated himself in a corner, every few seconds his eyes would make repetitive rounds around the cell as if he were waiting for Krang to slither through the barred windows or the vents in the ceiling and floor. April sighed to herself -- the future boy hadn't given up his paranoid behaviors for anything since the invasion, barring pizza dinners and whenever the future boy played Mario Kart.

It was almost curious - Casey seemed to be trying to look for every conceivable problem known to humans, turtles, rats, or yokai whilst looking out for all of the aforementioned.

Looking back to Cassandra, April saw that the former seemed to have given up on demanding that their weapons be returned, as retrieval was imminent. Cassandra had situated herself nearest the bars in a perch-like stance.

An embarrassingly small amount of things followed in the stretching silence, especially since these were the two oddest, funniest humans she knew.

April supposed it was to be expected, especially considering that she hadn't exactly given the turtles the full story. The crash hadn't been strictly Casey's fault, and even so, he had reacted as April would have expected.

What had shocked Casey happened to be a relatively small portion - only about a foot or two in length, no more than half a foot tall - of Krang slime had emerged from a manhole.

If the phone call was anything to go by, none of the turtles were aware of it. Leo was the only one remotely capable of lying, and when it came to the Krang, the most popular reaction was to either break something or end up in a turtle pile - sometimes both, sometimes with the latter including their human friends. Either way, the turtles didn't know about the Krang's small return, and April intended to keep it like that unless Casey deemed it important enough to share.

Of the three of them, it was more his grounds for revelatory truths than April or Cassandra's.

However, after a numbing silence that stretched itself out, leaving recent events to linger with the three of them for who knows how long, April heard a familiar voice.

"Hey, girl!"

She sat up and saw Sunita - her slime yokai friend who so happened to be a cute fantastic friend and fighter - with her cloaking brooch on securely this time around, walk up to the holding cell as the hatch popped up, and she swung the door open by proxy.

"Sunita!" April cheered, and the Joneses' looked up as well. "Cass, you remember Sunita, you fought her when Leo and Donnie were dressed like old ladies and we were playing Lazer tag, remember?"

"I do recall. Lazer Tag is sacred." April and Sunita nodded.

"What's Lazer Tag?" Casey asked in a small voice, and Sunita's gaze flicked to him.

"Oh, you poor soul! I'm taking you to Lazer Tag. Saturday good?" Sunita asked instantly, and Casey blinked.

"Is it?" he responded in a tone of slight hysteria, like he wasn't sure if Saturday was cursed or not.

"Yes, you need to get out more," Cassandra said before turning to Sunita. "You were a worthy opponent, friend of April O'Neil," Cassandra said and extended a hand for Sunita to shake. "I am Cassandra Jones. You may call me Cassandra, Cass, or Casey."

"Nice to meetcha on the same side, Cassandra! I'm Sunita," the yokai said with a dashing smile that caused April to feel a little warm around the general region of her face, even if it wasn't directed at her. "Maybe you wanna come with me and your friend to Lazer Tag?"

"I shall attend!" Cassandra announced and pumped her fist into the air.

"And you've already met the other Casey," April continued, drawing Sunita's attention to her as she gestured to Casey, who was standing up as he watched Sunita carefully. Not unkindly, April made sure to note as she spoke. "Bit of a long story, so we'll tell you on the ride back."

Sunita waved to Casey, who waved back after a moment, as if realizing that was the appropriate thing to do, before offering a slightly belated smile of his own.

"Nice to meet you, Casey. Leo and Donnie are waiting for us with their ride, so we just gotta grab your stuff before heading out!"

Upon doing so, all three of them were significantly disenchanted upon the realization most of their weapons and tools had all been tampered with.

Cassandra's naginata had been visibly bent back into its original shape, although she re-bent it almost immediately.

Casey's hockey stick's chainsaw function had been removed, the small blades on their track removed separately, and he gathered them in a bag for reassembly.

Casey also managed to keep several weapons on his person, the same as his mother. Upon determining from fingerprinting that neither of them had committed any war crimes, Casey's grappling hook and Cassandra's blades were all returned, although promptly thrown out by the two, both claiming that any sort of tracer was dangerous. Besides, as Casey was quick to point out, they had a surplus back at the lair.

April's bat, it appeared, had remained untouched. She counted herself lucky Casey had used up his stash of the herbicide chemical that April had taken from one of Eastlaird's biochemistry labs that turned out to be lethal against the Krang, and the very same that Donnie had been replicating for such an occasion as today. If he hadn't, then there surely would have been questions, none of which any of them could safely answer.

But, one part of April's brain reminded her, Donnie would notice that Casey, the one whom you could count on to use resources sparingly, if nothing else, was out of the chemical, and he was the only one who had left the lair with any.

April had only just realized it as they stepped over the threshold, and saw the turtle tank within walking distance from the parking lot.

"Casey," she whispered to the future boy, and he leaned over to hear her properly. "I think we're going to have to tell Dee about the you-know-what. You're out of the chemical from my school that kills it, and you know how he gets about using it for anything short of another apocalypse."

Casey seemed to be slowing down as he took it in. "So, it's either we tell them or Donatello finds out."

April nodded. Cassandra had also slowed down, and April supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that her former enemy had been listening to the entire exchange.

"Do you want to tell them, or should Cass and I?" April whispered back, and Casey shrugged subconsciously before delivering his answer.

"I'll tell them. I crashed the car, after all."

April shared a small glance with Cassandra before Sunita turned around to look at them.

"Are you three doing good?"

"You betcha, Sunita!" April hurried to supply as the other two rushed to confirm it and picked up the pace. April could see the tank more clearly now, next to a car dealership. The large doors opened, and the four of them all checked a rough 360 degrees before entering, Cassandra pulling up the rear, and walking backward.

Casey's POV

Casey was currently regretting absolutely everything. The only good news he could gleam was that inventory wasn't ever taken until Donatello could spare more than ten minutes, back at the lair.

"Hey, could you drop me off at the Met? I've got a project I should get started on over there," Sunita - Commander O'Neil April's friend asked Donatello. Casey couldn't recall a Sunita from the apocalypse, so he figured she was either frequently gone, or had been one of the first to be killed or lost abroad.

Donnie must have nodded or something of the like because Sunita started heading towards a seat with a smile. As April and Mom Cassandra started towards the area where he assumed Sensei Leo was, he figured that was likely a better option than standing by the doorway. The retrieval was done, and he wasn't even the one retrieving, he was the one to be retrieved.

"Well, Case, good job," Casey turned abruptly and saw Leo standing there with an expression portraying vague pride, smugness, and utmost correctness. "You crashed your first car!" He held a three-fingered fist up but didn't follow through on what Casey had been sure would be a soft hit to his shoulder.

"What are you-"

"It's a fist bump, Case." Leo was looking at him like... Well, Casey wasn't sure how  Leonardo was looking at him. It wasn't a face he'd ever seen the ninja make before, closer to a soft grimace than anything else.

"You make a fist," Leo waited for Casey to follow through, "and bump it against mine!" 

Tentatively, Casey brought his fist against Leonardo's, and the latter grinned smugly, like always.

"Good job. Sometimes people do an explosion with a fist bump -" As he saw Casey's expression move in time with his rampant confusion (why would anyone have a bomb for a fist bump) he moved to explain: "Not an actual explosion! Like this, watch."

Casey did so as he lowered his fist, and Leo brought his own two fists together in a soft bump before drawing them away from each other, expanding his fists into open-palmed hands and making an exaggerated explosion sound.

Casey raised his fist again, and they brought their fists together, making that exaggerated explosion noise again.

"Nice," Leo said. Casey smiled to himself with the knowledge that he had done it right.

"Sincerest apologies for the interruption, but crashing a car is not an achievement, Nardo!" Donnie called from the driver's seat, spinning in it so that for about half a second, you could see a glaring softshell from any given angle.

"Hey, we've all done it, hermano.  That makes it an achievement."

"Since when have I ever crashed a car, dearest brother?"

"Since you tried the auto-drive program on this very tank that you came up with, as I do recall!"

With a huff, Donnie spun his chair back to the windshield. "Well, I didn't give that elderly woman a heart attack, who is, might I remind you, the same woman whose 95th birthday our dear, dear brother Raphael ruined."

"Oh yeah, how's she doing?"

"Dead! Very, very, dead, Leo! Deader than the deadliest death that has ever been accosted by you dum-dums!"

The tank came to an abrupt stop, and Casey could see from his limited view of the windshield that they were in front of a grand building, the paint job on the upper-east region looking like it had been scrubbed with a giant piece of sandpaper, due to the Krang that had, until recently, been doomed to reside on it, and very nearly did so for more than a few hours.

"Your stop," Donnie said, spinning slightly to look at Sunita, who chirped out a 'thank you' to Donnie and a 'goodbye' to the rest of them before disappearing into the crowd.

"So... How was prison?" Leonardo asked, leaning back so he had Casey, Cassandra, and April all in his line of sight.

"It wasn't prison, blue one. We were briefly contained," Cassandra spat back, with a sour look on his face.

"In a jail cell. That goes on the record, you know."

"Whatever you call it, it was boring," April said, leaning even further back and landing on her back. Casey took the moment to pull her up, and they caught each other's eye, exchanging a glance with anxious overtones.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked without hardly moving her lips.

After a small pause, Casey nodded, equally inconspicuous.

"What's everyone whispering about?"

Apparently not as inconspicuous as they had both apparently thought, as Leonardo leaned over to better hear their conversation.

"Uh- Nothing! Just something Casey's gotta talk to you guys about!"

Casey swallowed nervously. Now there really isn't a way out of this, he thought to himself. He sent April a small glare, to which she gave him a look reminiscent of one he recalled Commander O'Neil using several times whenever anyone was being particularly dense.

"Alright. Don-Tron! Casey's got something he wants to tell us."

Donnie spun around, raised an eyebrow, held a soda can, and offered it to Leo.

"Spittake," he explained. Well, there was definitely going to be a use for that, Casey thought as his internal struggle increased. "Just don't get it remotely near the controls or I will dropkick you out of this tank."

Ignoring the threat (if it was even a threat anymore), Leo just nodded before responding: "Good thinking, hermano. Watcha got for us, Case?"

Casey took a deep breath as he chanced a glance out the window - the tank was maybe two minutes out from the lair. At least that was good.

"Well... It's about the crash. It-"

Leo cut over him before Casey could deliver the blow.

"It's fine, I don't know a single person who hasn't crashed a car. If they can drive a car, they've crashed it."

"It's not the fact that we crashed a car, it's..." Casey paused and tried to think if there was any way to sugarcoat what he was about to say, dress it up and soften the blow. He decided that there was not any sort of way to do so and that the only way was to bite the bullet and spit it out. "It's the 'why.' The car crashed because we came in contact with a small portion of Krang--"

If anyone ever cared to check the Turtle Tank's camera footage, they would be able to time it down to the exact second that everything spiraled out of control.

Casey paused mid-sentence to gauge the two turtles' reactions as to whether or not he should continue. As it happened, he discovered that he should not, thank you very much, as of about two seconds later, and the tank descended into the lair. Donnie inhaled as Leo continued to stare at Casey as if he had been Krangified.

"I'm sorry, for a second there I thought you said that the Krang are back?" Donnie asked, and his voice shook at the name.

"Only a little bit," April helpfully interjected from a few feet behind Casey.

"What car did you use, I will find it and scour it until I can find how it got in there, it will be gone in a matter of-"

"It wasn't in the car," Cassandra said slowly, cutting Donnie off, and the soft-shelled turtle tapped his hand on Leonardo's shoulder a few times before Leo blinked and took a breath, leaning against the wall of the tank.

"I saw it in the road and kind of freaked out," Casey continued. "Then I grabbed the chemical that Donatello replicated and used it all on the Krang. So, sorry for wasting-"

"Sorry for..." Leo repeated Casey in a low, soft voice before trailing off, and letting out a huff of air. "Casey, we have so much of that stuff, right, Don?" Donnie nodded, looking just as stricken as Leo looked and Casey felt. "Right. So that is the least of our concerns,  mi amigo.  Right now we have to figure out how the Krang got there and found you."

"Right, right," Donnie said distantly, but Casey noted that his death grip on the chair was tightening with each moment. Leo's own gaze was banging off the walls, ceiling, and floor as if expecting the Krang to jump out from nowhere. Casey would be lying if he wasn't paranoid at the moment either, and he cursed the policemen for dismantling his own weapon.

"Well, it came out of a manh-" April cut herself off, and Casey whirled around to look at her, and his mind was firing on all cylinders again, hoping upon hope that he wouldn't see the Krang spreading across her, eyes where eyes shouldn't ever be materializing-

But there was no pink slime, no off-colored or extra eyes, no scalene tentacles or spikes protruding from the wrong places. Just the April O'Neil of twenty-two years ago (or the present, time travel was still so confusing) with a fist closed over her mouth in an expression of deep thinking.

Then her eyes widened, and as Casey reflected on his ex-Commander's words, his own followed suit.

"What? Where'd they come from?" Leo asked, a nervous laugh teetered on the edge of his tone.

Casey cleared his throat of the bile gathering there and prayed that his tone would remain steady.

"Um," Great, one word -- no, not even a word, an onomatopoeia -- in and he'd failed at that. "The Krang are in the sewers."

Chapter Two ->

[voidselfshipp]

JAEGER-TECH OCS

Ezequiel Rojas

Profession: jaeger interface programmer

Place of Birth: La Serena, Chile

Age: 29

Biography:

Born and raised in Chile, Rojas was a carefree and free spirited young Man, only child from a middle class family of engieneers.

Just as the kaiju started to attack more frequently, Ezequiel had found his passion for coding, and he decided to volunteer to become one of the first j-tech interface coders of the Lima shatterdome.

He was always used as quality controll, which meant he never participated in the actual making of the interface. His opportunity arose when he heard of a specially tricky jaeger under the name of Blasting Supernova, and he volunteered to code the skeleton of the interface.

His superior, Dolores Quispe was the one who allowed him to try, and upon the code proving succesfull he was allowed to code the rest of the interface with a small Group that he led.

What was peculiar with this jaeger was that apparently the Core would Fire "random" electric pulses that would make the systems crash, and Rojas, being the stubborn and persevering young Man he was, found a way to work with the pulses and adapting the code to it.

Using the research of Dr.Lightcap he managed to create the first four people drift program.

Psicological Report/Personality:

Zodiac Sign: Leo

MBTI: ENF/T P

Positive Traits: enthusiastic, creative, supportive, playful, friendly,free spirited. Patient.

Negative traits: can be reckless, doesnt follow protocols, snores a bit too loudly(and Denies it)

Likes:

Coffee, coding, spending time with his family, solving problems, partying, dancing.

Dislikes:

Noisy keyboards, bad coding, arguing, cold food.

Dolores Quispe

Profession: Chief J-tech engieneer.

Place of Birth: Callao, Peru

Age: 35

Biography:

Born as the oldest of three, Dolores was no stranger to being in charge, always looking out for her sisters while her parents worked long hours to make ends meet.

When the kaiju hit the world and jaegers were built, Quispe saw a chance to give her family a better life, so she balanced her engieneer carreer and taking care of her sisters for ir.

She soon proved to be dependable and hard working, and slowly she made her way to chief j-tech engieneer.

Quispe was tasked with overseeing the construction of Blasting Supernova, a very peculiar jaeger given that its Core was not from this earth.

Dolores managed to create a unique electrical system that would handle the output of energy the Core had.

She managed to build a small team for the creation of Blasting supernova, working alongside its pilots to perfect it. Now her team are the permanent maintenance crew of B.S once the Lima shatterdome was shut down.

Psicological Report/Personality:

Zodiac Sign: taurus

MBTI: ISFP/J

Positive Traits:

Nurturing,helpful, flexible, realistic, considerate,hardworking,dependable.

Negative traits: overthinker, takes on a lot of responsability and hesitates to share the load.

Likes:

Cooking, dancing, making people laugh, help people, create things, tinkering.

Dislikes:

Carmen Garcia

Lazy people, loved ones being threatened, waking up early, opening up.

->struggles with anxiety.

Profession: jaeger repair crew/jaeger paneling welder

Place of birth: Manta, Ecuador

Age: 30

Biography:

Youngest of two siblings, from a family of blacksmiths and welders, Garcia was enthusiastic of following her family's traditions, taking up the mantle instead of her older sibling.

Carmen always liked to create, Wether it was makeshift jewelry, the hoods of cars or other kind of metalworks. For a long time she lived off of that kind of work, until jaegers were starting to get built and the PPDC needed metalworkers for the outer Shell of the jaegers.

Because of the demand, she was barely interviewed and shipped off to all the latin shatterdomes, where she worked on solar prophet and other latin jaegers.

When Blasting Supernova was being built, chief j-tech Quispe requested her inmediately. and Carmen, never being the one to back down from a challenge, accepted enthusiastically.

Psicological Report/Personality:

Zodiac Sign: aries

MBTI: ENFP

Positive traits:

Enthusiastic, creative,optimistic, playfull.

Negative traits:

Doesnt follow deadlines or schedules, easily angered, perfectionist.

Likes:

Metalworking,tinkering, spending time with Friends, making gifts for loved ones, working on jaegers.

Dislikes:

Not being able to concentrate, people hurrying her up, deadlines, overtly sweet food.

-> has ADHD that manifest in hyperactiveness, RSD, and having a difficult time regulating her emotions.

Francisco Benitez

Profession: jaeger mechanical engieneer.

Place of Birth: Asunción, Paraguay

Age:37

Biography:

Born in Paraguay,Francisco's mother raised her son in a garage, showing him the ins and outs of car/motorcycle engines and by the time he was 15 he could pull appart and assemble back almost any car engine.

When the kaiju attacked, he felt powerless to help, until his mother suggested that he could help with the mechanical aspects of the jaegers.

And so he did, he studied to be a mechanical engieneer,and while balancing with learning all there was to jaegers, he completed his carreer in no time,graduating with honors.

He worked in Lady Danger, Solar Prophet (where he met Carmen and worked alongside her for some years), Nova hyperion and Coyote Tango.

Benitez was called in by Dolores Quispe to work on Blasting Supernova, and after getting all the information (at least the non confidential bits) and seeing how peculiar the Core was, he decided to take it.

Soon he solidified his place as B.S' mechanical repair Man, and remains in this position to this day.

Psicological Report/Personality:

Zodiac Sign: gemini

MBTI: ENTP

Positive traits:

Helpful,creative, charismatic, easy to get along with, hardworking, friendly, inventive,versatile.

Negative traits:

Takes a Long time to wake up, drinks a lot of coffee, doesnt respect meal times, overworks himself to the bone.

Likes:

Grease on his hands, going out with Friends after a long day of work, repairing cars, helping people.

Dislikes:

Messy workplace, people grabbing his tools without telling him, not being able to shower after being elbow deep in jaeger engines.

Alma Morales

Profession: jaeger weapons specialist/ j-tech engieneer.

Place of Birth: Monterrico, Guatemala

Age:25

Biography:

Raised in a big family, Alma is the youngest of six siblings, all of them male. This Led her to have to solidify her place in the family and prove her brothers she was just as (or more) capable as them.

She was raised in a loving family however, often indulging and spoiling their kids while also teaching them respect, humility and hard work, while also promoting friendly and healthy competition (which would manifest in helping their parents unload groceries, help around the house, and helping eachother).

Encouraged by her siblings, Alma decided to join in on the jaeger proyects all around the world, proving herself to be incredibly resourcefull and creative.

After some debating, she was taken in by the Lima shatterdome, who positioned her as a J-tech repair crew woman, though after sharing some ideas with her superiors,she was put on charge of taking care of the jaeger's weapons.

Though her biggest challenge would arise when Dolores Quispe requested her for Blasting Supernova.

With some schematics, a lot of allnighters and powernaps, Alma created the most varied Arsenal for B.S, equipping the jaeger with a bo-staff that could superheat, a claymore metal sword that could catch on Fire (much like striker eureka's stingblades) plasma and Fire cannons.

Psicological Report/Personality:

Zodiac Sign: scorpio

MBTI: INFP

Positive traits:

Creative, loyal, caring, optimist.

Negative traits:

Kind of a mad scientist, overworking.

Likes:

Tinkering, drawing, taking breaks on jaegers, cooking, spending time with her siblings, watch movies.

Dislikes:

People moving her tools out of place, losing, the smell of burnt Rubber, when her inventions dont work.

《♡♡♡♡♡》

J-Tech ocs! Finally!

+ their designs:

->Only mutuals allowed to reblog.

-> they exist on the context of Del Toro's movie Pacific Rim.

♡lovely taglist: @tex-treasures @malewifepatrickbateman @mercuryships

[kariachi]

Next round of new pokemon opinions! 33-43

Capsakid

Have you ever watched Puff the Magic Dragon? Remember the living sneezes? They’re all I can think of with this one. It’s green though, sorta like it you took one and turned it into a kind baby dino? With an eggshell hat? It looks like it causes problems on purpose. Grass type, Spicy Pepper Pokemon. The more sun it gets, the spicier it becomes, and people use it’s shed front teeth to add heat to dishes because this gen is more food focused than some dogs I’ve owned.

5/10, it’s not bad, but I can’t put it higher, not with the association and the fact people eat it’s teeth. I’ve found my line.

Scovillain

We have a grass/fire dual type! Once you give Capsakid a fire stone it becomes this fucker, with a vaguely humanoid dino-body and two heads on stalks. The red head breathes fire, while the green head is so spicy it’s become vicious and goes on unstoppable rampages.

5/10, it’s just, not better or worse than it’s preevo

~

Tadbulb

It’s a tadpole, it’s a lightbulb, it’s got a big dopey smile, how can you say no? It’s the EleTadpole Pokemon for fuck’s sake, pure electric type. It’s German name is Blipp. It used electricity to float, floats higher during thunderstorms, shakes it’s tail to generate electricity, and it’s response to danger is to blink on and off to warn it’s allies. Precious sparky baby.

8/10, is baby

Bellibolt

Give Tadbulb a thunder stone and it becomes, wait for it, the EleFrog Pokemon! I do love Bellibolt, not just for being out only decent electric type so far this gen, at least that I’ve seen, but also for being adorable. Looks like a stress toy. And the teal and orange go well together. It generates electricity in it’s belly button by expanding and contracting itself, then discharges that power through the eye-like organs on it’s head.

8/10, is squishy sparky frog

~

Varoom

The Single-Cyl Pokemon, a steel-poison type. It’s like a one-cylinder engine but built partially out of rock. It’s not bad, but that’s all it is. Ah, the pokedex says that the metal parts are it’s real body, and it clings to rocks so it can convert them into fuel. Also that stories say Varoom came into being when an unknown poison type possessed an engine in a scrap processing plant.

7.5/10, I kinda wanna take it home with me I don’t know why

Revavroom

The Multi-Cyl Pokemon. It’s got a proper face along with more cylinders, and also has converted it’s rocks into a little car. How sweet. Oh it’s specifically an 8-cylinder engine, it converts poison and rocks into gas and then ignites it to power itself, it revs itself to scare off other pokemon, it’s mouth is on top of it’s head.

7.5/10, I think I’m a Varoom line apologist now

~

Orthworm

The Earthworm Pokemon, pure steel type. It’s literally just a robo-worm. That’s it. Robo-worm. Mecha-worm. Has a new ‘Earth Eater’ ability, heals instead of taking damage when it’s hit with ground-type moves. Lives in deserts and eats iron to keep itself in good repair, apparently tendrils come from it’s sides that it uses to punch enemies into submission. Boxing-worm.

5/10, it’s a robo-worm

~

Tandemaus

The Couple Pokemon, normal type, they’re simple bipedal mice that come in twos. Just, white mice. Two of them. That count as one pokemon like with Exeggcute. Um, that might be weird shading or one might have a blue top and the other blue pants. I don’t know. Aww, pokedex says they always stick together and split their food evenly, and also work together to steal pieces of material for their nests.

6.2/10, not a very interesting design, but I’m a hopeless romantic at heart

Maushold

The Family Pokemon. It literally just adds one or two more little tiny mice. Usually two but 1/24 evolve to just have one. Apparently they just randomly evolve after hitting level 25, whether they’re in your party or the box. That’s too damn accurate. One of the pokedex entries for each form describes how the little one(s) just appeared one say and while it’s assumed they’re related nobody is quite sure. Meanwhile one of the entries for the 1 Bab form notes how they make nests with multiple rooms for multiple purposes, while the 2 Bab form notes that the big ones protect the little ones during battle, but when things get rough they all come together.

6.5/10, still not big on the designs, but the lore, I am weak

~

Cetoddle

Is a tiny, less colorful Cetitan with big eyes and only one horn. Well, ‘tiny’, it’s like 4 ft tall, but still. Is baby. They’re distant relatives of Wailmer that came on land a long time ago and now live in pods of around five individuals.

6/10, for being cute

Cetitan

Give Cetoddle an ice stone and it evolves! We’ve all seen this land-whale fucker. It’s big and spiky and makes Cetoddle look like a toddler. Personally not big on it, but then I’ve never liked cetaceans in general. It’s central horn generates freezing temperatures, it’s built of fat and muscle, and it wanders snowy regions.

4.5/10, not my taste and without the cuteness factor

~~~

There’s interesting ideas out here, the question is what hits and what doesn’t.

[coridallasmultipass]

Vent / personal / s.i. / sh mention / long post / extremely negative dont read

I rly wanna fucking stop existing man life is too fucking hard I cant do this shit

My grandpa basically blamed me for the house's electricity usage when i literally only used my computer for one week last month and like 2 days this month. Anything else this month has just been phone charging or running my 2 small aquariums. Idk why i have to take the blame for that just because im a young person when my grandpa literally has been using large machinery in the garage and we rent out our guest house which has an a/c unit running ALL the time (our house does not have a/c or any internal system. Utilities are included in the guest house we rent so we pay for that person to stay cool while we sweat over here lmao.)

Ive been suffering for weeks in the 90-100 degree weather with no fan because my bathroom flooded due to grandpa installing the wrong fixture in my toilet (i literally only needed to replace the flap which required no disconnections! But he insisted, and now my only clean fan has been stuck in my bathroom with the window open letting in all the heat). Like. I enjoy the heat. Im fine with no ac. I tolerate it fine. But i need an occasional few minutes of being in the fan if the windows have been letting in all the heat. Normally id keep my blinds closed and the shower curtain closed so the heat doesnt get extreme but because i need to air out the bathroom i cant do that ((Literally when i lived in nyc w no ac, i would just go out to the living room and turn a/c on for like 1 minute while i stand in front of it, and then off again and i was fine for the rest of the night, i cant sleep with ac or a fan on or else i get hypothermic - i actually started getting hypothermic the other night because my blankets fell off the bed on a cooler night, it sucked lol))

Im so sick of having to wear shoes in my bathroom due to the carpet being pulled back, its uncomfortable to traverse that mess while having an injured back. Im sick of all the wildfire ash thats poured into my bathroom and probably my room too. (I had JUST changed my last air filter the day before the fire started lmao probably used up the whole thing already, i never got to keep my clean air room i had just started).

I had to deep clean the kitchen and deep vacuum the entire house with my back thats been injured since MAY since grandpa wont clean up after himself, and apparently my mom has also not been cleaning for years in her room (and my mom has the nerve to judge me for having a clean but cluttered room! Its her fault its cluttered because im not allowed to have anything of mine except food downstairs!). I havent been able to get treatment for my back because my mom has the only car and shes been out of town for the past month+.

Im fucking scared as fuck because i couldnt get ahold of a doctors office for a prescription for my endo and so now ive been having to take the leftovers i had of a lower dose. I live in a dead zone so a lot of the time i cant make phonecalls, idk if the issue was my end or the doctors and im just too stressed to try again bc if i think ab endo im gonna have a mental breakdown, its already bad enough having EXTREME phone anxiety due to not being able to understand people when they talk especially over a garbled phone connection. Im supposed to quit this med at the end of the month and idk how im gonna survive. I might not. I was completely su// ici// dal during the last couple flare ups. Endo is incurable and apparently im resistant to medication and surgical treatment. So its untreatable for me too.

Then theres my whole depression. This just fucking kicked off a really terrible mood swing and ive been like crying and moping in bed for hours trying NOT to think about where i know the things i used to s.h. before are packed. Bc that hasnt ever stopped being on my fucking mind since before i even started as a teen lmao. I cant stop thinking about how im existing against my will. Theres just no good way to die. Id feel guilty too because of how expensive my jaw treatments are and i havent even finished.

Speaking of, my jaw is still fucked and not getting any better lmao. Im in constant pain and headaches because of the aligners on my teeth. Im making myself sick from eating depression foods because by the time i take the things off my teeth to eat and drink, my mouth hurts, my jaw hurts, my head hurts, my tummy hurts, and after i eat anything i feel sick and tired and lightheaded from not being able to snack or drink when i want at my own pace, and then suddenly having to eat a whole meals worth of food in one sitting. (Not that i do that lmao ive been eating really lightly bc i am not physically up to the task of cooking or eating anything. I CAN cook. Just not physically, or mentally any more). So ive been eating terribly within my already limited diet. (And my jaw wont stop popping and cracking painfully every time i chew anything which is so humiliating and frustrating and painful and i cant eat a lot of foods i used to.)

There just too much going on all at once and im fucking sick of everything. I was already at my fucking limit before my mom fucked off to do pet sitting for a relative and went back on her word that she'd bring the dog to stay at our house. Which means ive gone since May without treatment for my back except for the chiropractor i see right after my therapy appointment. Which i dont think is doing enough. I dont know what more can be done when i constantly have to do back breaking things around the house. And when i told my mom ab how im not able to get the care i need because of her leaving, she turned it on me and said it was my fault for not making an appointment. Fucking gaslighting asshole. How the fuck am i supposed to get to an appointment 30-40 minutes away when i dont have the car? (Because theres no where local that will take my insurance, and i dont think even the places 30-40 minutes away will take it either.)

I dont know how anyone manages to live. Just existing is constant pain due to fibromyalgia and arthritis. Its constant hypervigilance and fear from the endo. Its extreme treatment-resistant depression (i fucking wish antidepressants worked on me lmao but that was the most miserable 5 years of my life trying every class of them). Its gender dysphoria and i cant transition because i cant work or live independently (its not safe for me to come out or transition while living in grandpas house hed kick me out). Its loneliness because i have like 2 friends i occasionally talk to online but no one close and were not on the same circles even, not like i even have a stable internet connection to do anything more than just over messaging. I dont have the mental energy to be friends w anyone either bc i have nothing to offer. Existing while alive is a full time job with no pay or benefits. I dont even know anyone irl thats not relatives (im not close with anyone in my family at all) or a doctor. I dont have a license or car because family wouldnt let me practise when i did have permits and i certainly can't afford the $12k a year it costs to own a car in Cali, let alone to purchase one. I cant work but im not disabled enough to be legally disabled. Certainly wouldnt be able to afford to live in this area/county even if i could do some work beyond an occasional online resale, which sucks because this is where my tribe is and i just wish this area was a better fit for me. Just doing things around the house is what caused my back to go out in the first place and now its a chronic fucking issue, and i can barely walk to the mailbox or do grocery shopping. Its not safe for me to live alone either, probably, even tho i cant handle living with roommates because im too asocial for them.

Im so sick of everything. Why do i have to be blamed for the electricity. Im an artist and apparently using the skills i spent 4 years learning at college and countless hours improving on my own is using too much electricity if i turn on my computer to participate in a week of a drawing challenge. What if i had a fucking work from home job?? (Not like that would ever happen, grandpa wouldnt choose the cheaper and faster internet plan i told him to go with and instead chose a more expensive plan with a different company that has a data cap, so now it sucks for no reason other than that he doesnt want to take advice from either a woman or a young person! [Im not a woman but he doesnt know that]). I cant even try to apply for any kind of work from home job bc of the internet. Its hard enough trying to make a call over data, having to put it on speakerphone and reach my phone against my room window while i lean over the counter. I was already unemployed before the pandemic due to the same mental health issues i havent stopped suffering from.

I wish that i wanted to live and do better for myself but whats the fucking point any more. I dont even want to live. I have no fucking reason to. At all. Im only alive bc there's no good way to die. Every day i think about how much i wish i didnt exist. It sucks and theres no fucking treatment that works. Therapy probably helps but its not making improvements for me when there are too many things out of my control making my life completely fucking miserable, its just damage reduction at this point.

I even exercise. Often. Despite the pain in my back and everywhere else. It does not help when i have fibromyalgia. Im in extreme pain even with the lightest exercise. But ive been exercising since the last endo flare up in fucking march in the hopes itll make my next endo flare up a little less worse if im stronger. Who knows if its working. Guess ill find out after the end of this month. God im so fucking scared.

I dont want to do anything rn im just so fucking miserable. But now my room is heating up since its the end of the day and im sweating too much to keep lying in bed being miserable. Idk what im gonna do. Besides ignore the ideation and knowledge about where my sharp objects are. I was working on sewing but i lost steam because of grandpa blaming me for the electricity sending me down a spiral. As if im not already doing enough cleaning up the whole fucking house and trying to prevent mold growth from the leak he caused and then laughed it off and wouldnt help me move (not my) furniture to prevent water damage.

Fuck i still have to measure the carpet padding so i can buy more later. At least the carpet itself is safe. Its getting dark out and i threw that padding shit outside and forgot about it last week so i dont wanna deal with measuring that right now. Ugh.

What do i even do when im too fucking depressed to do anything at all?? No one fucking prepares you for how fucking miserable being alive actually is.

[lancerservice]

How to Know If Your Porsche's Fuel Pump Needs Replacement?

The fuel pump, located inside the fuel tank, remains out of sight to perform its assigned task. Because of its remote location, it does not get much attention. The only time the fuel pump gets looked at by a professional technician is when something really serious happens and it is believed that the pump is at the root of the problem. Knowing when your Porsche's fuel pump is giving up can save you a lot of inconvenience.

Porsche Fuel Pump: How Important is it?

If it is to be put in a nutshell, the fuel pump is the central hub of your Porsche’s electronic fuel injection system. It is because of this component that pressurized fuel is delivered from the fuel tank to the injectors and finally sprayed into the individual cylinders. If it malfunctions or its circuit gets damaged, the entire fuel delivery system will suffer. Fortunately… before the fuel pump shuts off, it starts to give some signs that you should be aware of.

Porsche Fuel Pump: Signs It Is About To Give Up

Hint #1- Engine fires then dies

Has your Porsche engine been struggling to start lately? And, even when it starts, it dies right away… More often than not, the occurrence of such a problem indicates a malfunction in the fuel pump. For the injectors to spray the right amount of fuel into the individual cylinders, there must be enough fuel available inside the fuel rail. If there is some fault in the fuel pump, the delivery of fuel to the fuel rail will be disrupted; which may result in intermittent starting trouble.

Hint #2- Intermittent stalling issue

Another common occurrence in vehicles with a faulty fuel pump is intermittent engine stalling issue. Faulty spark plugs are usually blamed for such an issue… but guess what??? A flaw in the fuel pump can also result in engine stalling and sputtering in Porsche cars. Therefore, if your Porsche engine has been running rough and stalling recently, the network of parts responsible for delivering the required amount of fuel to the engine should be professionally checked.

Hint #3- Buzzing sound from fuel tank

Another telltale sign that your Porsche's fuel pump is about to give up is the origination of a buzzing or whirring sound from the fuel tank. The fuel pump, just like any other car part, can malfunction due to old age, circuit failure, and an electrical issue. So it is important that you check your vehicle's fuel pump from time to time and if it is making strange noises or any other unusual behavior, get it checked by a certified professional to see if everything is fine with it.

Hint #4- Reduced engine performance

A bad fuel pump can render your Porsche's entire electronic fuel injection system useless. This is something that can contribute to sluggish engine operation and numerous other performance issues. If there is something wrong with the fuel pump, the idle RPM count of your Porsche engine will also fluctuate irregularly. Apparently, fuel pump failure isn't the only thing that interferes with the engine's torque output. There are numerous other things that can also contribute to sluggish engine performance.

Hint #5- Bad mileage

Increased fuel consumption can also point to fuel pump-related issues in a vehicle. Clogged fuel injectors, flawed spark plugs, broken throttle systems, problematic ECU, and damaged sensors are some of the other known reasons why a vehicle's gas mileage may get adversely impacted.

Porsche Fuel Pump: What to Do If It Gives Up?

It is because of the fuel pump that your vehicle's electronic fuel injection system works the way it's supposed to. If it gives up because of a bad circuit or a mechanical flaw, the fuel supply to the engine will be adversely impacted. Destabilized fuel supply to the engine can contribute to all sorts of performance issues in a vehicle including poor acceleration, bad gas mileage, cylinder misfire, stalling, sputtering, etc…

Ensuring the upkeep of a vehicle's fuel pump is therefore important. If you come across any of the above-said signs, it is important that you have your Porsche's fuel pump tested at the nearest European auto service center.

The Gist Of The Discussion Is…

Being the central hub of your Porsche's electronic fuel injection system, the fuel pump requires special care. If it occurs to you that there is something off with your Porsche's fuel pump, you better consult with a certified mechanic to get to the bottom of the issue.

[my-weird-news]

🚀 Decoding Elon Musk's Unbelievable Success Secrets!

Musk: The Quirky Space Cowboy 🚀 Elon Musk, the real-life mad scientist and rich dude extraordinaire, is like the modern-day version of Ozymandias – just without the ancient ruins and desolate wastelands, and with way more Twitter followers. This guy is like the king of the nerds, ruling over a kingdom of electric cars, reusable rockets, and memes that sometimes make even less sense than his grand plans. Picture this: one moment he's dancing like no one's watching (but everyone is) at a Tesla event, and the next he's launching a car into space like it's just another Wednesday. He's so rich that his net worth could buy you a whole fleet of Teslas, yet he tweets like he's just discovered the internet. Elon's CV reads like a superhero origin story. He's the CEO of not one, but two major companies. He owned the social media platform that birthed keyboard warriors, and oh, by the way, Marvel used his swag to craft Tony Stark. Talk about goals! Remember when Elon first sashayed onto the scene? He had this epic to-do list: end climate change, make Mars a vacation destination, unravel the mysteries of the universe using AI, and maybe just save humanity in his spare time. No biggie. For years, Musk's fan club treated his plans like gospel truth. Sure, he hadn't taken anyone to Mars yet, but he did make rockets that are basically the Energizer bunnies of space travel. And let's not forget how he jump-started the electric car scene – he basically made electric cars cool, like James Dean for the environmentally conscious. To decode the enigma that is Musk, we turn to Talulah Riley's book – not because Musk was her second and third husband (seriously, that's more commitment than I have to finishing a bag of chips), but because her romance novel Acts of Love sounds suspiciously like Elon's life. It's all about a misandrist writer who falls for a biotech billionaire on a mission to save the world. Sound familiar? Musk's public image is like his secret sauce. Back in the day, he was as socially awkward as a penguin at a disco. He even worried he wasn't as glamorous as the competition. But this dude turned things around – he morphed from "Shai Agassi, Founder of Glamour" to "Elon Musk, Lord of the Universe." Elon's social ascent was like a rocket launch. He needed people to know him to buy rocket parts, so he decided to become Mars' number one hype man. It worked, and suddenly everyone was like, "Hey, there's that dude who's all about Mars!" Then came the infamous year of 2018 – Musk called someone a "pedo guy," smoked weed on a podcast, and tweeted that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private. Whoopsie daisy! Lawsuits rained down like confetti at a New Year's Eve party. But wait, there's more! In 2020, Musk said, "To hell with nice," and ditched his PR team. Now he's the press release king, and his favorite email response? The poop emoji. I kid you not. You know how they say a new Musk scandal a day keeps the actual news away? Well, it's kind of true. With a Musk controversy buffet, it's hard to focus on just one serving. It's like trying to pick a favorite ice cream flavor at Ben & Jerry's – you end up with brain freeze and no answers. So, is Musk a bad boss or are his employees just slackers? Acts of Love's Radley Blake could clear this up. Radley's a control freak who only fires people who don't give "maximum effort." His employees are so motivated they don't even need Red Bull to sprout wings. But in real life, Musk isn't exactly the "Employee of the Month" poster child. People report him stomping through Tesla factories, red-faced and firing folks like it's a carnival game. One executive said they had to stoop in meetings to seem smaller than Musk – like they were at a toddler tea party. And don't even get me started on workplace safety. Tesla factories were apparently more dangerous than your grandma's staircase in a haunted house. Musk's dislike for the color yellow (yellow tape, yellow paint) led to some questionable safety practices – it's like he's running a risk assessment in a Tim Burton movie. But Musk is a romantic hero in his own right. He's got a tragic past and a longing for love. Childhood bullies, check. Troubled relationship with his dad, check. He's like a wounded bird in a billionaire's body. No wonder he's looking for someone to save him from all that money. The dude's been married more times than I've accidentally sent screenshots to the wrong person. He's got enough kids to start a soccer team, and he's probably planning to send them to Mars for summer vacation. But hey, at least he's not alone, right? He's got Twitter, his second favorite significant other. So there you have it – Elon Musk, the eccentric entrepreneur who turned himself into the star of his own romantic novel. One minute he's making rockets, the next he's tweeting like a kid who just found out they can use their teacher's chalkboard. Will he save the world? Maybe. Will he keep us entertained? Absolutely. 🚀🎉# Musk: The Quirky Space Cowboy 🚀 Elon Musk, the real-life mad scientist and rich dude extraordinaire, is like the modern-day version of Ozymandias – just without the ancient ruins and desolate wastelands, and with way more Twitter followers. This guy is like the king of the nerds, ruling over a kingdom of electric cars, reusable rockets, and memes that sometimes make even less sense than his grand plans. Picture this: one moment he's dancing like no one's watching (but everyone is) at a Tesla event, and the next he's launching a car into space like it's just another Wednesday. He's so rich that his net worth could buy you a whole fleet of Teslas, yet he tweets like he's just discovered the internet. Elon's CV reads like a superhero origin story. He's the CEO of not one, but two major companies. He owned the social media platform that birthed keyboard warriors, and oh, by the way, Marvel used his swag to craft Tony Stark. Talk about goals! Remember when Elon first sashayed onto the scene? He had this epic to-do list: end climate change, make Mars a vacation destination, unravel the mysteries of the universe using AI, and maybe just save humanity in his spare time. No biggie. For years, Musk's fan club treated his plans like gospel truth. Sure, he hadn't taken anyone to Mars yet, but he did make rockets that are basically the Energizer bunnies of space travel. And let's not forget how he jump-started the electric car scene – he basically made electric cars cool, like James Dean for the environmentally conscious. To decode the enigma that is Musk, we turn to Talulah Riley's book – not because Musk was her second and third husband (seriously, that's more commitment than I have to finishing a bag of chips), but because her romance novel Acts of Love sounds suspiciously like Elon's life. It's all about a misandrist writer who falls for a biotech billionaire on a mission to save the world. Sound familiar? Musk's public image is like his secret sauce. Back in the day, he was as socially awkward as a penguin at a disco. He even worried he wasn't as glamorous as the competition. But this dude turned things around – he morphed from "Shai Agassi, Founder of Glamour" to "Elon Musk, Lord of the Universe." Elon's social ascent was like a rocket launch. He needed people to know him to buy rocket parts, so he decided to become Mars' number one hype man. It worked, and suddenly everyone was like, "Hey, there's that dude who's all about Mars!" Then came the infamous year of 2018 – Musk called someone a "pedo guy," smoked weed on a podcast, and tweeted that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private. Whoopsie daisy! Lawsuits rained down like confetti at a New Year's Eve party. But wait, there's more! In 2020, Musk said, "To hell with nice," and ditched his PR team. Now he's the press release king, and his favorite email response? The poop emoji. I kid you not. You know how they say a new Musk scandal a day keeps the actual news away? Well, it's kind of true. With a Musk controversy buffet, it's hard to focus on just one serving. It's like trying to pick a favorite ice cream flavor at Ben & Jerry's – you end up with brain freeze and no answers. So, is Musk a bad boss or are his employees just slackers? Acts of Love's Radley Blake could clear this up. Radley's a control freak who only fires people who don't give "maximum effort." His employees are so motivated they don't even need Red Bull to sprout wings. But in real life, Musk isn't exactly the "Employee of the Month" poster child. People report him stomping through Tesla factories, red-faced and firing folks like it's a carnival game. One executive said they had to stoop in meetings to seem smaller than Musk – like they were at a toddler tea party. And don't even get me started on workplace safety. Tesla factories were apparently more dangerous than your grandma's staircase in a haunted house. Musk's dislike for the color yellow (yellow tape, yellow paint) led to some questionable safety practices – it's like he's running a risk assessment in a Tim Burton movie. But Musk is a romantic hero in his own right. He's got a tragic past and a longing for love. Childhood bullies, check. Troubled relationship with his dad, check. He's like a wounded bird in a billionaire's body. No wonder he's looking for someone to save him from all that money. The dude's been married more times than I've accidentally sent screenshots to the wrong person. He's got enough kids to start a soccer team, and he's probably planning to send them to Mars for summer vacation. But hey, at least he's not alone, right? He's got Twitter, his second favorite significant other. So there you have it – Elon Musk, the eccentric entrepreneur who turned himself into the star of his own romantic novel. One minute he's making rockets, the next he's tweeting like a kid who just found out they can use their teacher's chalkboard. Will he save the world? Maybe. Will he keep us entertained? Absolutely. 🚀🎉 Read the full article

[hagansmotorpool]

How Do I Know When To Replace My Porsche Alternator in Rochester?

Thus, the main purpose of the alternator in your car is to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy for charging the battery and running other electrical systems while running the engine. Moreover, it is an important piece of machine that is found in the internal combustion engine for running the car efficiently.

If the alternator of the Porsche is failed for any reason, then your car stops working, and need to replace the alternator as soon as possible to run the car again. Due to these reasons, perform the scheduled service and maintenance of the car for enhancing the lifespan of the alternator. The following points define the signs to replace the failed alternator in Porsche.

Dead battery

When the car is running, the alternator is charging the battery and provides power to several electrical systems. In this way, the battery is starting the car and supplies the electricity required for running the different electrical systems.

If the alternator is failed, then the battery is not getting its charge and may cause depletion of the battery. Driving the car with a bad alternator cause starting issues because the battery no longer provides power to start the engine. In this case, you will notice that the car stops quickly and need immediate replacement of the alternator.

Bad smells

Moreover, the alternator in your car is running in conjunction with the numerous belts. If you notice that the belt of the alternator is not moving efficiently, then it will generate excess friction that can heat up the belts and produce a burning rubber smell while driving on the road.

On the other hand, the slipped belt on the alternator pulley is producing a whiff of smell just like an electrical fire. When it happens, it is always advisable to tighten the belts. If the smell is not reduced in this way, then it is better to evaluate the alternator by a professional mechanic.

Dim lights

In general, the alternator is an important part of the electrical system in your car that can provide the right amount of power to operate the starter, ignition, and other electrical accessories. But, when the alternator is going to fail, you will notice that the headlights or the other dashboard lights are starts to dim.

Apart from the dimming of the headlights or dashboard lights of the car, it can also affect the functions of the other electronic accessories such as the power windows or the power seats are not performing as well. So, bring it to a professional automotive technician for replacing the alternator to run the car smoothly.

Unusual noises

For producing the electrical current in your car, there are different parts are spinning inside the alternator. If any part of the alternator is failed or wears out, then it can produce unusual noises like grinding or whining noise from the car. Apparently, the bad bearings inside the alternator are causing unusual noises in your car.

Subsequently, the bushing which is mounted by the alternator is failed; it will produce strange noises like whining or growing-like noises that need immediate replacement. In this case, you have to check out the alternator from a reputed mechanic.

Warning dash light

If you found that the warning dash lights are turned on in your Porsche, then you will notice that the alternator output is either showing below or above the specified limit. Subsequently, the warning dash lights are indicating the alternator issues while driving the car.

Generally, the computer system of the car is monitoring the alternator’s voltage output. If the output voltage is showing any wrong output, then the warning dash lights are linked to the system and activate automatically. So, when it happens you have to bring your car to a reputed mechanic for diagnosing the alternator as early as possible.

Conclusion

Due to numerous reasons, the alternator of the Porsche failed that needs to be diagnosed and repaired right away. If you found that the alternator of your Porsche failed while driving on the streets of Rochester, then bring it to a reputed local and professional mechanic for diagnosing the causes behind the problem and repair or replace it if needed.

[sleepdeprivedqueer]

Dancing In The Rain

Werewolf!Ace x GN!Reader

Chapter 16

You woke up to a empty but warm bed, it smelled of cinnamon and freshly baked pumpkin pie. It made all your insides warm and comfy, shuffling over to the other side and nuzzling into the pillow. It seemed to make you feel better, it also made you fall a sleep again. You seemed to do this over and over, waking up, inhale the scent and just pass out. Nothing could help whatever you did while sleeping. Even when it came to Ace checking on you, and it really surprised the werewolf.

How you grabbed him with such sudden strength and pulled him in the bed with you, cuddling and curling up to him. Ace couldn't escape, hell he didn't want to, he's never had a animal lay on him. He's heard that it's terrible because they don't want to move, they can't, it was apparently illegal. He now knew that feeling, and he knew it would feel very illegal to move. Looking at your peaceful face, body rising and falling from breathing. He loved it, it was so fucking adorable, just the thought of moving made him feel terrible. Slowly and unsure if it was okay if he wrapped his arms around you, but he did. Holding you close as you nuzzled into his body all so innocently. It just made him really happy and stomach twisting and turning, god it made him feel all weird. But somehow, and for some reason, the fact that you were comfortable in his arms made him really happy and proud. Almost calming as well. Looking down at you sleeping body, trusting him, even after what he did. It made him happy and, made him feel loved.

He snuggled into your hair and tried to sleep himself, Ace got up at least three hours before the sun rise to hunt deer down. It wasn't that hard, only getting hit with a antlers once by one buck. He hanged them up and did the usual thing when you get deer, saving the pelt to maybe use for a coat when winter came back. Breaking the meat from the bones and cutting off any area that smelt bad or looked weird along with the fat. Just throwing it far far away, he would have to go around and out his scent out. Just in case if anybody got too cocky. Then he did another round of cleaning, taking more stuff out of the car and putting things away, trying to get things to work. The hardest thing he had to do, was ignore Isuka that was calling you. The times the phone just rang and rang while doing things, his body just itching to cave in. Eventually he just turned your phone completely off and just continued to work, he got the electric to work. Sadly there wasn't no air conditioner, the only thing that was there was the fire pit.

But from the time he stayed in the little place, the dirt and stuff kept tried to keep it warm, even during summer it was freezing which was a problem. Plus the forecast was usually always rain around the area so it would be cool in the place, even if the air was hot and humid outside. It wasn't always a good thing, but hey, fresh water. Although, he didn't know how you were going to take it that the only fresh water was from the rain to drink, the sink didn't work, but the bathtub did. It was really odd, but hey, at least you got to wash. Just thinking about it made him extra tired and thankfully made him fall asleep faster once he got into bed. Happy that you felt safe and trusted him, it made him feel very loved, it was almost scary.

When you woke up, a very muscular chest was flush against your face, titties on both sides of your head. They felt squished against you a bit, the sound of a steady heartbeat and that fresh fall like smell. A small smile made it's way up to your lips as you felt his chest rise and fall, the little snores that Ace always made. They were so adorable. Laying there for a few minutes, not moving, enjoying the warmth while it lasted because you had a feeling that the place was going to be cold. You started think about all the stories you heard about werewolves. How they're dangerous creatures without any mercy for creatures. How vile and wild they can be. The way they would howl and pray on humans during the night. Movies all about vampires vs werewolf/lycans. They were always made to be the bad guy in almost every story, but, it was so hard to believe.

Preparing yourself to get up and start out the day by maybe looking to find a store near here to buy food. Wiggling a bit in his arms made his body go stiff before relaxing and pulling you even closer. It was squishing you, barely giving you space to breath. Your ribs were being squished and your back even popped. He stunk, it made your nose scrunch up a bit as you tried to scoot back away from him. Because you couldn't scoot back so you scooted down, being careful to not trigger his arms. The thought of being hit while he was sleeping didn't sound good, because it wasn't, from the last time it happened. It was working until you just had to get your head out, and boy was that hard.

Little wheezes left you as you struggled out, it was like Ace was purposely keeping you in a headlock. But you got out, after however long, probably like a half a hour. Taking deep and heavy breaths as you sat up, looking back at Ace's sleeping face. Drool slowly come out of the corner of his mouth. Face was relaxed and squished a bit, it was cute to see him so soft like that. You softly rubbed his head, watching as his head followed your touch. Pushing some stray hair out of his face and cupping his chubby face. It wasn't hard to imagine his puffed out face and lower lip as he poured about it. How adorable, without thinking of it much, you leaned over and pecked his forehead. Not really caring for it, you were tired and just wanted to try and get things done. Standing up quietly and trying your best to tip toe out of the room. The doorknob was cold to the touch which surprised you, the room was actually warm. The floor wasn't even cold, and now that you thought about it that surprised you. But it also scared you, if the room was nice and warm, then would the rest of the house might be cold.

Turning the doorknob and opening it, you were met with the faint sound of rain that was pitting and patting against the roof. Or really the dirt above, and you were right about the rest of the house, it was freezing cold. Looking back into the room your eyes landed on one of the thick blankets that must of fell off. Tip toeing back to the bed you grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around your body. Then softly opening the door once again and walked out, closing it behind you as you looked down the hall. The bedroom was the very last door in the hallway, it was dark and cold, almost like a horror pixel game. Taking a deep breath of bravery you walked down the hall, listening as the rain seem to come down harder. There was another door on your left, but for some reason you didn't want to, you didn't trust it. Which was odd but you didn't question it too much. When you got to the end of the hallway you saw the living room. The place was way cleaner that you remembered. Did Ace clean the area up? No! No way! He seemed to lazy to do that. But you shrugged your shoulders and just continued walking around. Looking at the random little things like trinkets, random little jewelry.

Creaking the front door open to look outside, it was pretty cloudy and rain dropped from the trees and bushes. Squinting your eyes a bit you saw in the little clearing out in front of the house were five, gigantic containers taking the rain. Not only that but there were a lot of FUCKING DEER CARCASSES AROUND THE FUCKING TREES! The opened bodies were on full display, making your stomach twist and turn. Slapping your mouth over your face as you quickly closing the door. Taking deep breaths to calm your stomach and keeping anything from your stomach from coming out of your body. Opening your eyes they landed on the kitchen, your eyes widened once again at the sight of all the meat. What the hell was Ace doing while you were asleep!? There was also some plants on the other end of the counter, looked like some wild carrots, raspberries and blackberries, mint leaves, apples, and kale? It looked like kale, looking at it up close to make to be sure that it was kale. Along with the rest of the things to make sure they were what they looked like. Not anything that was going to be able to poison them.

It all looked ok, thankfully, but the meat was still another problem. Why was there so much cut off meat? You knew Ace LOVED meat but this just seemed like too much. Why would he need to hunt? Wasn't there already food here or at least some canned food? Opening the fridge you were met with a disgusting rotten and mold like smell, quickly shutting it and turning away. Blocking your nose and coughing while gagging as well. Walking away very fast and even throwing the door open to get fresh breath, fresh damp air, it was better than the fucking rotten food or whatever was in that fridge. Taking deep breaths and trying to not throw your all of your organs up.

A sudden crash coming from the woods beyond made you freeze, eyes widened as you scanned the tree lines. The trees were mostly tall cedar trees or red cedar trees. The rain hit the ground with loud thinks, large water droplets, it was getting harder to see. There was a loud yelping sound from from the thick woods, you've heard stories about urban legends that lived in the deep woods. Creatures that smelled of rotten meat, screeched loudly and could mimic voices. You never did believe them, but you never believed in werewolves either but you're staying with one. Closing the door swiftly but quietly, taking deep breaths and slowly walking back. If this was really what you think it is then you were fucked, especially with this meat. Grabbing the meat and looking around to try and see if you could hide it anywhere. The only thing you could think was the bedroom or the bathroom. But when thinking about the bathroom that feeling came back again, so you just went to the bedroom. But then a sudden screech went through the underground house.

It was followed by a long and sorrowful wail of sadness, like some kind of mother crying out for it's child. It shook you to your core, the way it cried and cried and cried like it was calling out for something it lost. But you continued to the bedroom, knowing that when you got there Ace could protect you, right? He was going to protect you, even though you have raw meat in a bowl that's in your hands. He would still protect you. You weren't sure that he fully would, Ace did still have some dog like features. His head would turn from side to when he didn't understand things, sniffing the air and then following said scent that you can't smell, those sharp fangs.

Just thinking of the fangs made every bite on your body suddenly burn and pulse. Leaning against the wall as you took deep painful breaths through your clenched teeth. There was bangs on the door. Someone, or something was definitely there, but when you actually heard the noise, every liquid nearly left your body.

It made a noise of a zombie. A zombie. A FUCKING ZOMBIE!

Every horror film with zombies ran through your head, World Z, Resident Evil, The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead, Zombieland, 28 days later. Every way they moved and screeched, how rotten their bodies were. Not only that, but how they bit into people, how they tore them apart and ate them. Tears started to flow and your knees shaked, was it a fast or slow zombie!? How intelligent was it!? Did the meat attract it!?

More bangs on the door for you out of your thoughts, more painful and hungry groans/screeches came from it. Not wanting to wait any longer you stood up and charged to the bedroom. Opening the door and closing it softly to try and not alarm the rotting monster that you were in the house. But it may of been too late. Setting the bowl in the empty closet and rushing to Ace.

"Ace! Ace!" You whisper yelled as you violently shook him, "wake up wake up!"

"Mmmh, five more minutes luffy-" he went back to snoring.

"Ace! Please wake up! There's a monster, a zombie and it's trying to get in!" You got louder and started to sniff because of the snot running from your nose.

The werewolf shot up from the bed and grabbed ahold of you, a tight hug that blocked your view. All you knew was that he was moving very swiftly.

Suddenly you were shoved under the bed and blocked in with a pillow, blanket along with some kind of rock crystal thing. There was also a flashlight and a, cowboy hat?

"Stay here no matter what, and hold onto that rock or whatever until I get back. I'm going to block you in real good so it looks like there's no room underneath the bed. I'll be back," and with that he out boards all around the bed, even the head of the bed even though it was against the wall.

There was thuds and doors opening and closing, the bangs getting louder and more violent. It made your stomach turn and nearly made you sick. All those zombie movies, what if Ace couldn't beat it? What if he turned into a zombie himself!? A zombie werewolf!? No, don't think of that, you needed to calm down. Taking deep and soft breaths through your nose and out your mouth. Calming your body along with your heart beat while looking around, letting your eyes adjust to the darkness. There wasn't much room so it would be hard to stay comfortable. But you tried, fluffing the pillow up quietly and curl up under the thick blanket. Despite being shut in, it wasn't hot or sweaty, just really fucking cold.

But what was odd was that the hat he gave you was warm, like, his body temperature warm. Did he give it to you for that reason or to help keep you calm? Or maybe it would help heat the room up a bit? You weren't sure. But, it was something you've never seen before. Like, how the hell did he keep this hidden from you, along with that damn weird jolly roger tattoo on his back! Ugh, you would ask him about that later-

"Luffy! Stop biting him he's a damn zombie! You're going to get infected yourself, hell I don't even know if you can be infected!"

That was Ace's voice yelling at, a person named, Luffy? Wait, didn't Ace say something about a person named Luffy when you were waking him up?

"Luffy! Wait, hold on! You can't go in there!" Ace yelled closer this time, way closer. Two pairs of heavy stomping footsteps came closer.

"But I smell meat!"

It sounded like a man, maybe a young adult? The bedroom door suddenly burst open as two bodies stumbled in.

"What! Luffy stop! Sabo help me dammit he always liked you better!" Ace yelled at another person.

"What, both of us know we can't stop Luffy from eating meat. Even if it's raw, you used to eat raw meat when we were little, remember that?" Another male said.

"Yes I know I used to, but I was a stupid child! I was teething and hungry and every animal near by smelt good and it made me extra hungry. My senses were kicking in then! It's not my fault!" Ace whined like a child.

It made you giggle, but you quickly learned that you shouldn't have done that.

"Ace, who's here?" The male that was talking before asked in a serious tone. You were screwed.

"No one, it must of been a mouse, or a rat! I haven't been here in the really long time-"

Just then, one of the boards were pulled out and a hand grabbed your shirt. Pulling you out from under the bed, the face you were met with was that of a teenager. Large eyes and a scar underneath his left eye, black shaggy hair, a big large piece of bloody raw meat hanging from his mouth. You screamed, grabbing the board and with all your might you hit him with it. Even when he was down you continued to hit him.

"Hey! Wai-"

"Gah! Luffy! Ace do something!"

"What do you want me to do!?"

A gloved hand grabbed your wrist, turning your attention from the boy to a blonde big eyed older looking boy. Around Ace's age, a large scar over his left part of his face. You screamed again and this time started hitting the blonde with the plank.

You didn't know how long you did that until large warm hands grabbed you and pulled you away. You were kicking and shouting, swinging the plank around till hitting someone.

"Ow! Y/N calm down!" Ace said, suddenly grabbing and plank and throwing it.

"No! Why should I!? They came and grabbed me while you just stood there! You grabbed me really roughly and scared me, especially when they have large eyes!" You cried, eyes closed tightly because you were afraid of seeing them.

"Oooww, Ace, why'd you have them under the bed? That's not a very comfortable place to put someone," the young adult teenager boy said.

"Yeah, why the hell were they under there! We're you keeping them hostage! There's no way you have a lover, absolutely not! You must of been keeping them hostage!"

"What! No they're not my lover!" Ace argued back.

"Then why are you trying to hide them!? Are you afraid that we'll embarrass you infront of them!? I feel offended!" The blonde said with a huff.

"Yeah, it's just like that time you hid all those meat plushies in your closet when we came to visit you."

You stopped your tantrum of fear and opened your eyes to look at Ace. His tan freckled face had a bright hue of red across if it.

"You had meat plushies?"

"No! They're lying! I'm a big grown strong man, psh! Plushies are overrated!" Ace said trying to act cool.

"Yes he does, he has tons of them and likes to cuddle with them all. Some of them smell like actual cooked meat so sometimes he wakes up with stuffing in his mouth because he tried to eat some in his sleep!" The young black haired male laughed. Which made you laugh as well, really loudly.

"What! No I don't, I would never! I have a role to uphold!" Ace argued back and was know the one throwing the tantrum.

"Awh, how adorable, do you want some kind of burger plushie or maybe a fried chicken plushie~" you baby talked to him, scratching under the poor werewolf's chin.

"I don't need any plushies!"

Chapter 1

Previous Chapter

Tags

@catgirlwannabe @whatamidoing89

[kiridarling]

[a/n: is this a week late? yes. happy belated-valentine's day angels <3]

—ᴛʜɪs ɪs ᴀɴ 𝟷𝟾+ ʙʟᴏɢ. ᴍɪɴᴏʀs ᴅɴɪ

𝐊𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨𝐮; 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐥

→ Definitely went to work that day

→ Not a huge romantic but wake up to find a hot breakfast with a note left on the counter.

Happy Valentines Day, dumbass. Love you.

— k.b

→ When he returns from work, Katsuki buys you roses and shoves them into your chest with an eye roll. You thank him and he responds with a grunt before insisting you put on something nice because he’s taking you out on a dinner date whether you like it or not.

→ Katsuki takes you to the fanciest restaurant—so fancy you feel a little bad that he has to pay, even despite his Pro Hero status. But you’re his, and spoiling you might as well be his love language.

→ Halfway through dinner, Katsuki starts getting a little frisky. Sliding the rough leather of his oxfords up the inside of your thigh, winking and biting his lip. You tell him to stop but you only half-mean it, and the knowing grin on his face lets you know he knows.

"Careful, baby. You don't want the waitress to know how much of a dirty slut you are, do you?”

→ He’s condescending as fuck but you’re totally here for it, and the second he pays for the meal you two are speeding down the highway to a love hotel (per Katsuki’s plan, apparently). You barely make it to the bedroom before you’re all over each other, and if it weren’t for that family of four in the elevator, you definitely wouldn’t have.

→ He tells you to get on the bed and strip, and who are you to deny him of such a luxury? He pulls a plastic black bag out of a different bag—it’s clearly full. With what, you may ask?

→ Sex toys!

→ Katsuki’s endgame is simple—make you cum until you can’t anymore. Not that he’s told you explicitly, but he’s got a Hitachi pressed to your sex and two fingers slamming into you just the way you like it. With your wrists comfortably tied above your head, it doesn’t take him long to bring you to your climax, cheeks burning and thighs shaking.

→ Peering at you under the sweaty mess of ash-blond hair, the fire in Katsuki's eyes only adds fuel to the burning of your gut as the vibrator continues whirr. The realization settles in with a shiver. Oh. Oh fuck, he's not stopping.

“Again.”

→ So, you cum again. And again, and again, and by the time you’re on the fifth it gets a bit hard to feel your toes and you’re so sensitive your thighs burn. All you want is his cock, but for some reason, it’s fucking impossible for him to give it to you.

→ Upon voicing your concerns, Katsuki’s devilish smile only grows wider.

“You want this cock that bad, slut? Yeah? Fine then, fuckin’ choke on it.”

→ It’s basically cannon that one of Katsuki’s favorite things to do is watch you struggle to take all of him, but in this position, all you can do is lay back with bound hands as he fucks your face. It’s sloppy and your eyes and throat burn, but it's totally worth it to hear Katsuki fall apart in your mouth.

“S-So good—fuck—such a good whore, taking all of me, aren’t you?”

→ Katsuki pulls out before he cums in your throat in favor of flipping your limp body into downward dog and stuffing you full of cock in one swift move, the bastard.

→ Katsuki’s never been one to take things slow in bed—to him, it’s all hard and fast and now. You’re scrambling for purchase in the sheets as he pounds into that sweet spot he knows you love, and you feel your fully spent sex twitching back to life anyway. Fuck, fuck. Are you going to cum again?

→ Katsuki seems to catch onto this as well, sweaty chest dropping against your back and the cool of his dog tag tickling your neck as his hand rubs between your legs, muttering dirty nothings in your ear.

“You gonna cum for me, baby? Yeah? Gonna make a fuckin’ mess all over yourself like the slut you are? Fuckin’ do it. Fuckin—fuck—”

→ You two cum at the same time, toes curling and ribcage shuddering, and then—

→ Darkness.

→ You wake up in a few hours, properly clean in fresh sheets. Turns out baby boy fucked you so hard you passed out, but it's okay because he’s found reruns of your favorite show on and is fully prepared with water and snacks.

→ (And he’ll never tell you, but he fully panicked and called Eijirou. Obviously, he knew you were alive, but…what if you passed out because of a problem? A concussion? Internal bleeding, maybe?)

→ (Eijirou ensures him that though this should NOT happen every time, it can happen from exhaustion. To say Katsuki relaxes after that is an understatement.)

(Stay safe angels <3)

And speaking of Eijirou...

𝐄𝐢𝐣𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐮 𝐊𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐦𝐚; 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐤𝐞

→ Definitely did not go to work that day.

→ Today, Eijirou plans to treat you like the princess you are. Cooks you breakfast in bed (after almost burning down the kitchen trying to make bacon but shhh we don’t talk about that) books you a full day spa and has Mina take you shopping for a new outfit for your "fancy date" that night.

→ The location? A surprise.

→ It’s dark by the time you and Mina pull up, but the moment you hop out the car she speeds away. Um. She could’ve at least said bye.

"[Y/N?]"

→ Looks like Eijirou brought you to a lake. You wonder who helped him bundle the fairy lights in the trees and set up the picnic because knowing your man and his coordination, it would’ve taken a forever for him to set this up.

→ But all those thoughts shatter the second you see that he’s on his knees, clutching a velvet box with a gorgeous diamond ring sat in the center. Not too flashy, but not too dull.

“U-Uh.”

→ Eijirou swallows then blinks, the only sign that he’s the least bit nervous for this.

“See…I swear I had planned something to say, but you look…holy shit, um—stunning, you look stunning.”

→ His compliment goes over your head though. Of course it does, he’s holding an engagement ring. He chuckles, averting his eyes to the ground.

“Listen, um, you can say no...B-But uh, I love you a lot—obviously—and I’ve been thinking about this a lot, kind of, because you’re like…the love of my life, ya know? I mean, I know everyone says that and everything but like, I really mean it? But if I’m going too fast o-or you just don’t wanna get married or something, I totally get it because obviously this is outta the blue and everything b-but um…yeah.”

→ You let him stutter through the whole thing because, well. It’s cute.

→ ...And then you tackle Eijirou to the ground with renewed passion and slam your lips onto his. His “babe! The ring!” is muffled but you snort anyway, blindly groping for it through the grass. The moment you find it, you shove it into his palm and stick your hand in his face, and with a (very sexy) chuckle, the redhead slides it onto your ring finger.

“I’ll take that as a yes then?”

→ No shit, Sherlock.

→ Either way, the picnic in the dark is abandoned in favor of yanking Eijirou's pants off and giving him the best head of his life. Because goddammit, you love this man so much and he needs to feel it.

→ Afterward, he insists on returning the favor. A wild Gentle Dom Kiri appears and as he eats you out, he mutters a deadly combination of the sweetest and dirtiest things you’ve ever heard.

“Fuck, you feel so good. So tight and wet. And it’s all for me, isn’t it, baby?"

“You’re gonna cum, angel? Do it. Cum all over Daddy’s face.”

→ Once you semi-recover from your orgasm, he flips you on your hands and knees and slowly pushes inside of you (though not without putting on a condom because safety first, angels). You tell him to speed up, but he denies your request. This time around, Eijirou's going to take the time to love you.

→ As he slowly fucks you under the stars, he dips his chin into your neck as his bigger hands encompass your own. As he starts to play with the ring on your finger, you watch something wet hit the picnic blanket, followed by a sniffle.

“Gosh, fuck—I love you so much. A-And I’m really happy you said yes. I…”

→ You cum first and Eijirou isn’t far behind, shuddering against your spine. Your fiancé unceremoniously rolls onto the picnic blanket next to you, his temple kissing the crest of your skull as the two of you use the comfortable silence to cool down, half-naked under the milky way.

→ In your comfortable silence, you lift your left hand to the stars, fingers splayed to reveal the twinkling diamond solidifying the bond between the two of you. Eijirou hums, hooking his chin on your shoulder.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐤𝐢 𝐊𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢; 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐲

→ Both of you are painfully single and most importantly, strangers. Strangers who think alike and had the glorious forethought to drown your sorrows at a nightclub with a lot of alcohol.

→ Denki, as he does, accidentally knocks over his liquor-filled cup, completely drenching your bottoms. He apologizes and insists on helping you clean up though getting awfully close to your crotch, but both of you are too tipsy to notice.

→ After the liquor spill, you swap embarrassing love stories and lament over the “hardships of being single.” (Denki’s words.)

→ A few hours pass. You’re tired and ready to go home and Denki requests to walk you home to make sure you get back safely. Not that you live far, maybe ten minutes, but by the time you reach your door, you feel like you've known the electric blond your whole life. After saying goodbye and almost closing the door, Denki blurts out a half-drunken confession...or something like that:

“I—uh, y-you are—uhm, no…this is—“

→ You give him a look, a half-smile at best, and it seems to churn the gears in his brain again.

“This was uhm, really fun and uh, I think you’re really cool.”

→ So naturally, when you invite him inside, he squeals.

→ After a few more drinks and a few more spillages (Denki’s never been a deft drunk), you two finally get over your inner thoughts and start kissing on the couch. It’s hot and messy, and the alcohol in your veins makes it oh, so hot.

→ Denki doesn’t expect you to offer head but when you do he nearly cries, scrambling to pull his pants off while you make space for yourself between his thighs.  Due to the fact that there’s alcohol pumping in Denki’s veins and he hasn't been touched by someone else in at least a year, he’s extra-sensitive. And vocal. 

"F-Fuck gorgeous, you're so good at this...o-oh shit, do that again—yeah, yeah just like that."

→ His hips quiver, and he bucks into your mouth on accident. It earns him a glare and a light slap on the thigh, and you make a mental note to unpack the broken moan that interrupts his apology later. 

→ It doesn't take Denki a long time to cum—five minutes max. He plans to give you a warning but his orgasm runs up on the electric blond so quickly he doesn't even get a warning. When Denki orgasms in your mouth with a choked moan, it's only natural that you pull away in alarm, ribbons of semi-translucent cum flying just about everywhere.

→ To say you're pissed is an understatement (because your poor, poor carpet), but Denki feels terrible and is already reaching for the roll of paper towels you left on the coffee table from your cleaning spree this morning, apologies flying out of his mouth like an auctioneer.

→ Obviously, he's going to make it up to you. Not only for making an absolute mess in your living room (seriously, Denki doesn't know if he's ever come that much in his life) but for the bomb head, and he wants to make you feel just as good as you made him feel.

→ Both of you stumble to your room, the mood miraculously rekindled, and you're not sure what to make of Denki's desperation as he claws at your bottoms, pupils blown to the size of dinner plates. And though it's cheesy, you can't help but shiver when he finally gets eyes on your sex, wetting his bottom lip and the grip around your thigh tightening as he catcalls the apex between your thighs before diving in.

"Hello pretty~"

→ Like any pervert with a vivid imagination, Denki's got a mental warehouse of sex tips and tricks and burns to watch you squirm from his touch. He wants you red-faced and breathless and isn’t shy about it, actively paying attention to your reactions when he curls his fingers or uses his tongue just right.

"Oh, you taste so good sweet thing. So pretty and wet...did I do all this, gorgeous?”

→ Also, electro-stimulation? Yes please.

→ Denki's tentative about it at first because he’s not sure how you’ll react, but once you give him that pretty little moan you've been holding back all evening, you two are going nowhere but hell.

→ His dick hurts from being hard for so long and the second you cum, he’s practically begging to fuck you.

“Please? Please gorgeous? Shit, you felt so good in my mouth I just wanna—I need to—please?”

→ Like you needed any convincing in the first place.

→ You ride him per his request—and will definitely make you repeat things back to him, just because he likes how embarrassed and blushy you get. If you refuse? He’ll be an absolute tease about it. (But only for a bit, because we all know his patience isn’t that great.)

"Yeah? You like this cock? Tell me. Tell me how good my cock makes you feel, gorgeous."

→ There's no way Denki lasts very long (again)—definitely with you in his lap. When he cums, it’s cute and breathless, and his nose scrunches into his eyes. But if he came twice, you should too right?

→ The next morning, Denki's gone. But in his place, there’s a note with his number and an explanation:

had to go to work! lol i have the fattest hangover kill me now ty. either way, you should text me. i wasn't kidding when i said i thought you were cool lol.

(xxx)-xxx-xxxx

— kaminari

[a/n: gah XD my brain melted from writing that um-

also don’t worry about the family of four at the love hotel...they were...um...forced to stay there due to an emergency...lol :) see you soon, angels <3]