#never not thinking about harolds legs

[definegirlfriends]

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[jpitha]

The Oxygen Breathers: With one hand tied behind my back!

The human sat on the bench in the common area for at least one of their hours before the children worked up the courage to approach.

"You're a human right?" One of the children - an Innari - said as they approached the human. They were taller than the human, and seemed to have barely any bones. They moved and undulated like an octopus that was used to being out of the water.

The human's helmet flashed an cartoon icon of its face and smiled - without their teeth - broadly. "That's right! My name is Harold, but everyone calls me Harry. What's your name?"

"I'm Opian, this is Downward Draft, and standing in the back is Vizxxian." They gestured with their tentacle-like appendage. It had manipulators on the end which could be seen a little like fingers. Good for fine detail work.

Harry put up his gauntleted hand and spread his fingers. A wave. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. What can I help with?"

"Downward Draft says humans are the strongest of the Coalition peoples. Is that true?"

Harry sat up slightly. His icon continued to speak while he did. "Well, I don't rightly know if that's true, Downward Draft. I haven't met everyone. Of the ones I did meet, I have a hunch I might be stronger, but you also have to remember, we come from a heavier world than most of the other Coalition species. Earth's gravitational pull is half again what it is here on this station. There were gasps and noises of surprises from the kids. "That's so heavy!" Downward Draft rustled their feathers they caught the light and sparkled. "This station is already heavy for us; our homeworld's gravity is even less. I bet I couldn't' even walk on your planet!"

Harry's icon nodded. "You might be right, Downward Draft. But, gravity aside, it's nice here. I like the colors you use to decorate, and I like your plants. Everything back home is just different shades of green."

Vizxxian was working themselves up for something. Harry peered over Opian's head. "How about you? Do you have a question?"

Viz's eye slits squeezed shut and they blurted out "My parent says you're all a bunch of 'rock throwers' and that we should have never let you into the Coalition. They say that outside of your suits and ships, you're not so tough."

Downward Draft nudged Viz. "Don't be mean Viz! Harry is a guest here. You know how to treat guests."

Harry chuckled. "It's all right Downward Draft. We learn things from our parents. Part of growing up is trying to figure out what is true and what isn't. Now, I'm not mad, but you know that 'rock throwers' is a slur, and not a nice thing to say, right?"

Viz's ears wiggled in assent. "Yes, but that's the word father used. I know it's a bad word though."

Harry nodded. "Context is important though. I could say 'I picked up this rock and threw it' and that's not a slur, but if I said 'those rock throwers always go back on their deals' that is a slur. It's all right though, I'm not angry." Harry's helmet cleared. The kids looked across as his face became visible for the first time. Opian's eyes dilated in surprise. "So your dad thinks that we're not so tough outside of our suits? How about we place a little wager? I'll get out of my suit, and if any of you can touch my arm, I'll buy you a snack."

Opian shrinked back. Downward Draft raised their feathered arms in a gesture of dismissial. "You can't breath the atmostphere here! You'll die!"

Harry put up a hand. "It'll be all right. I'll wear a breathing mask, and the pressure and atmosphere difference won't hurt me for the time I'll be out of the suit."

"Oh we couldn't-"

"I'll do it!" Opian and Downward Draft turned in shock to Viz. They had stood to their full height, just a little taller than Harry and bent their legs just a little. "I can touch your arm."

Harry grinned. "Good. Let's see." Harry stood up, and touched the pad on his suit's arm. There was orange light that illuminated his face and he frowned and pressed more buttons on his suit. After a moment, it turned green, and lines appeared all over the suit. Joints. With a hiss of pressure and a whine of servos, his suit unfolded like a flower, and Harry stepped out.

He was much shorter than the kids. Just two meters tall if that. On the top of his head was a dark fur that was closely cropped, and he had fur all over the lower part of his face that was the same color. Under the outer, armored suit he wore a tight body suit that connected to the outer suit with thin wires. Harry reached down and unplugged them and they slid up into the suit he was wearing and disappeared. Opian was impressed. Their suits seemed to be far more advanced than ones of Innari make.

"There." Harry's voice was much lower than his translator made it sound. Maybe it was the difference in breathing gas? It was also a little muffled by his mask. "Okay Viz. Whenever you're ready."

Opian and Draft stood back and watched. Viz stood stock still and seemed like they were trying to decide what to do. Suddenly, Viz howled and ran towards Harry. Their long legs consumed the distance between them relentlessly. At the last half meter, Viz spun and in one fluid motion bend down and lashed out with one of their legs. Opian gasped. He was attacking Harry! That's a lethal kick if it connects.

Before Opian could react any further, Harry... wasn't were he was before. He was standing a meter to the side, and Viz was flying backwards into the bench. Viz jumped up, and roared again. This was a roar of frustration as well as a battle cry, and charged Harry. Once again, Harry stood there watching, and as Viz turned to kick him, he wasn't were Viz expected, and they went skittering across the smooth floor.

Harry stood with his hands on his hips. His eyes flicked to Opian and Draft. "Remember, strength isn't everything. Know your opponent. Know how they attack, watch for signs, paying attention and then you can move out of the way and dodge." Harry was grinning and put his hand out and curled his fingers towards himself. "Come on, Opian, Downward Draft, you try too!"

Downward Draft bent low and leapt towards Harry, using their legs to absorb as much potential energy as possible, releasing it as they sprung towards him with arms outstretched. Quicker than Opian could follow, Harry ducked underneath the Avar, and Draft sailed harmlessly overhead.

Harry, looked at Opian and raised one of the small lines of hair above his eyes. "What about you, Opian? Give it a try?"

"No, thank you Harry. I concede. There's no way I could touch you."

Harry's nodded. "That's all right. Mayb-"

Harry looked over and Downward Draft was standing mere centimeters away, with his arm out, and the barest edge of one of his iridescent feathers brushed against Harry's arm.

"Got you." Draft whispered.

Harry tipped his head back and laughed. The kids all took a step back in fear. "No, no, it's all right. that's a fair touch. You win, Downward Draft. I'll buy you snacks. Just let me get back into my suit. My skin is starting to itch."

It only took a moment for Harry's suit to climb onto him and fit around him as he stood there. "I have to say Downward Draft, you can move quietly."

They ruffled their feathers in pride. "Thank you Harry. On my world, moving without noise is a prized skill."

Harry darkened his helmet and his icon re-appeared. "Harry?"

He turned, "Yes, Viz?"

"You don't have to darken your helmet. We don't think you're scary anymore."

Harry's helmet cleared. He smiled without showing his teeth. "I'm glad to hear that Vizxxian. I'm glad to hear that."

[syrma-sensei]

Somewhere In Your Heart, Ch.3: Mirrors.

Pairing: Soldier Boy x Fem!reader.

Rating: Explicit.

Setting: In the early 80s.

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: Prostitution, angst, sexual innuendos, violence, cursing...

Summary: Soldier Boy lives through the ennui of his peak, but everything is about to change when he has a shift in his heart.

“That’s not what I fucking signed up for!”

Legend flinches a bit as Soldier Boy flings the glass of liquor in his hand. Legend's face twitches as he sees it splinter into tiny pieces, which makes him often wonder if he’d end up with his head bashed into pieces if he carried on his career in this damned place. Despite everything, Legend has developed a tight resolve when it comes to dealing with Vought's supes, Soldier Boy in particular.

“You wanted the gal, and now you have her.” Legend answers crudely.

Soldier Boy seethes, “I don't recall being consulted about her fucking pimp tagging along!”

Legend sighs at this point, “Mr. Harold's her manager, and he emphasised his inclusion to be thoroughly considered. He's been her tutor for years. And you heard her yourself, she wanted him in.”

Soldier Boy smacks his lips in deep frustration. Great. Now, he'd have to deal with her manager being up on their asses in their little game of cat and mouse. What he wants is simple, he wants her in his bed after he's won her over. He doesn't want that fuck face to get in his way. Soldier Boy sighs, passing an aggressive hand over his face.

“When do we start the rehearsals?” Ben asks in a tight tone, he's still finding this hard to digest.

“Tomorrow morning, because you know, she's quite busy at night.”

Legend's insinuated smirk didn't go unnoticed by Ben. The little shit.

“Good.” Ben replies, and dismisses Legend, because he too has a busy night.

Ben exhales deeply through his nostrils before he scooches by the swarms of dancing and drunk people. He's donned in a casual outfit for tonight. Casual yet fancy; Ben never skimps on his looks whether it's for business or in his private life. He dresses both to impress (the gals) and depress (the pals). He's aware of his effect on both sides and likes to swagger with his looks; he has black jeans on his legs, black jean jacket wide open to show off his chest which is accentuated by a white shirt. His feet are comfortable in a pair of brown and sleek boots.

Finding his way to the bar, his piercing green eyes catch the visage of a pretty girl by the bar. Once his eyes land on her, she flashes him a grin which he partially ignores on his way to his destination.

He sits on a stool, resting one arm on the bar counter, ordering a drink, then he turns around to have a quick scan on the dance floor. Most of the people dancing are between late adolescence and early twenties. When he was their age he applied to Dr. Vought's Compound V trials to win his father's favour. He scoffs between him and himself.

A real man doesn't take a shortcut.

The words still titillate a bitter taste akin to ash under his tongue whenever he remembers what his father spewed in his face after Ben saw God under those fucking trials. It was perilous and shrouded with uncertainty, but he was willing to do it for his father, to make him proud. He became America's first superhero, the golden son of the states, but what good the golden son title could do him if he was a disappointing coward in his father's eyes.

He closes his eyes for a bit, he can't believe it still haunts him after all this time. His dad is dead. Hell, he's older than him right now, hitting his fucking sixties with ease his dad would've wished he had. The bastard died of cancer, or so he'd heard. It was a long time ago. He doesn't remember, of course, why would he bother? He didn't even attend his funeral. The old bastard didn't deserve the honour.

He gobbles down his drink in one go when it's served, relishing in the momentarily burning sensation. Then, he orders another.

Fuck, sometimes, he wishes he was normal like those youngsters, he thinks melancholically. Hell, he can't even get drunk to forget, to make mistakes, to feel alive again.

He comes to places like this because it's easier to blend in. He's rarely recognised among drunk and stoned people who are looking for some ass.

Ben's head whips to the side when he feels a gentle hand on his arm, caressing it tenderly. “You look sad…” He raises a brow at the girl, she's the same gal he saw when he first entered the club. “I can fix that…”

He lets her despite the fact he knows she can't fix shit.

After hours, Ben is lying naked in one of the club's rooms, beside him the girl who offered him help, the help that did him nothing at all. He knew from the outset this wouldn't work, but he gave it a shot because the girl looked somewhat akin to Rita Hayworth whom he had a crush on growing up.

He rubs his eyes with a groan as he sits up, deftly swinging his feet down on the floor. This is not good. Sex is never not good to him, especially if it's accompanied with some toots on fine breasts like this one had. God, she has two watermelons for a pair of tits. And boy did he fucking like tits. Big, medium, small, he likes all of them.

Ben glances at her, fuck, he didn't even ask for her name, but Rita-Hayworth-knock-off is a new mom. He can sense the milk hormone kicking in her system which she's trying to dial down with meds. Ben twitches his eyebrows; it explains why she's taken this road.

He shakes his head, looking at her, she seems in her early twenties, he can hazard a guess and say it's the same scenario. She met Romeo, got knocked up, Romeo left, big old daddy kicked her out. And now she has hers and her baby's mouths to feed.

Ben grunts as he reaches for his jean jacket on the floor, he grabs something out before he gets dressed in his clothes. He leaves her some money under the pillow.

Rita-Hayworth-knock-off wakes up after a while to find her payment under the pillow, and a piece of paper above it, with no trace of the handsome man. Her eyes widen when she flips it back and forth trying to comprehend what's that.

It's for you and your baby, not for the fucking pimp.

Rita smiles with tears in her eyes, hugging the check to her chest.

When his pursuit of pleasure has failed, Ben heads back home. And by home it means one of his private properties, a penthouse. He sighs as he slips the jacket off, tossing it on the armrest of the leatherd big sofa in the living room. He ambles towards the wet bar and pours himself a drink. He lets out an elongated sigh, it almost sounds longing and craving.

“Fuck…” He groans. You really did a number on him. His bodys is fucking raging with want and nothing besides having you will regale that burning desire to claim you. He guzzles up his drink.

He fucking met a broad twice and his body is acting up like a pussy. He's fucking Soldier Boy, the Soldier Boy. One fleeting girl can't bring him to heels like that. But again, the image of your sensual features, the rasp in your voice, the mystery in your eyes, they're all so fucking tempting him to coax you down layer by layer. He wants to see the girl behind this facade. Oh, he knows there's one behind that eloquent, sagacious mask. He wants to meet the one who's grinding on his vainglory's gears. He wants that woman, and he's intended to own her.

The world of Vought is a dreadful and dangerous place to be, but however the people in charge of making it dazzle with such glamour, they earn each penny they make.

You were fast to acclimate to the somewhat new atmosphere. Jack was proud of you, and you were happy you managed to do so.

You're always on time, with utter competence and professionalism; any lack of diligence is frowned upon. Your business is mostly tied to none other than Soldier Boy, the greatest hero ever lived.

Working with America's son is amusing to say the least.

In spite of his big headed self, he's actually good at taking orders and exerting them like a good soldier would. Through the days in the rehearsals, he's been unexpectedly nice to you, which makes you wonder what he really wants from you. You're not an idiot. Jack made sure of that. You know that Soldier Boy wants you; him practically eye-fucking you is a bit of a giveaway. However, he doesn't verbally express anything of the sort.

During the days at Vought, you've come to learn more and more about Soldier Boy, bits reporters would kiss your ass to divulge to them. But of course your professionalism and the NDA you signed prevent you from doing so.

You find Soldier Boy — or Ben as he emphasised to call him, is an interesting individual, as expected from a man of his rank and fame. But as any performer he's a complete hypocrite. Just like yourself. The first time in which he almost made you gasp was when he invited you to his headquarters in the tower so you could sniff some crunched crack with him. To kick back, as he put it. That shit is good, I'm telling ya. You discovered that America's golden son isn't as godly as his media pretence claims to be.

He's flawed, tremendously so. Just like you are. He has a short and firing temper that threatens to blow off at any second. And he isn't kind to those who don't make him happy. One time, he burst in the face of a poor assistant for not bringing his right order of coffee. Iced. He snarled at him.

And to add insult to injury, he's hard to please.

However, and oddly enough, he isn't as crass with the gentle sex. Especially with you. Maybe the fact he would fuck you at some time has something to do with that. Be that as it may, you enjoy the companionship of the supe, because there's a lot to him that intrigued you. Despite everything, his what is akin to giddiness that he shows when he's with you is growing on you.

Anywho, within the deepest layers of you, you envy him. He isn't on a leash like you. He comes and goes whenever and wherever he likes. He takes shit from nobody, and does whatever he wants. You wish you had anything close to what he had. The power, the money, the connections. You want to be like him, and not some bitch tied to her owner for life.

Today's the day you and Soldier Boy officially record the cover song after days of arduous rehearsals with the latter. Again, he's hard to please; you can't help but to think whether he made you and the rest of the crew reiterate when he didn't like that note, or when he disliked the harmony of the rhythm, or he was doing that on purpose just so he can spend more time with you.

You internally sigh, you shouldn't read much into the lines, but considering, you relish in the attention and you give him yours, the thing he wants the most as of yet. You wonder when he's going to get bored of you. Up close, Soldier Boy is the kind of a man who falls fast into ennui. It's only a matter of time before he tosses you aside and moves on to his next stimuli.

You're playing with fire, and you know that. Much like he is seeking the pleasurable sting, so are you.

Despite Soldier Boy's faults, he knows how to get the job done, whether it's on field or up on the stage, Legend muses. The latter can't but acknowledge that Soldier Boy is a talent. A magnificent and pure one at that.

Legend is glad about the fact this gal is being in Vought's favour. She has the voice and the looks, and he can feel it, everyone working in the studio can feel it. The chemistry between the two. Maybe, just maybe, he can consider making them a screen couple after the song hits the audience on cloud nine.

It's been a good day today. The records are going smoothly. The only thing that might've disturbed it was Jack Harold's presence in Soldier Boy's. The latter has a thing about the former. And casting professional shit aside, the man is hubristic and kind of unpleasant. Luckily, he doesn't come by often. Jack dropped by from time to time to establish his presence. Nothing harmful, yet.

Legend only hopes Soldier Boy keeps his cool in front of Jack just for a couple of days more. Legend watches the duo sing in a flawless consonance.

Everything is at ease until a rambunctious Noir barges in the studio, seeing red.

The music of “Just The Two Of Us” slowly dwindles away, as yours and Soldier Boy's melts into the walls of the recording room.

“You’re standing in my place, Soldier Boy.” Noir enunciates.

Soldier Boy wries a brow the young supe.

The palpable tension is a clear cue for the crew to scramble out of the recording room, because they know better not to get in between two supes. Legend watches from the control room, he notices that you aren't running like the rest of the staff. Instead you take the spot behind Soldier Boy.

The latter can hear your heartbeat quicken up and can distinguish it from Noir’s; each has its unique pattern like a thumbprint. And at the moment, Noir's is gushing with fury, and yours… Well, yours is bumping with fear and… excitement?

Soldier Boy scoffs at Noir, a small grin playing on his lips. “Your place?” He snickers, “Listen up, kid—”

“No, you listen to me, Ben.” Noir spits, “This is where you fucking stop getting in my way!”

Soldier Boy bursts out laughing, “Getting in your way? Kid, this is my hit, before your old man knocked up your mama.”

That's it. Noir couldn't take more insult into his wound and marches forward, launching an attack at Soldier Boy. However, the more seasoned supe grabs his fist in his first with ease.

Soldier Boy tilts his head, glancing at you over his shoulder, “You might as well get outta her, sweetheart, things are gonna get a little bit messy.”

You don't need to be told twice. Your feet hit the air as you scurry out of the room. But… Noir takes the shot and hauls you in his free hand and hurls you to the wall. You wail as you fall on the floor.

“You little shit!” Soldier Boy grits his molars and grasps Noir’s arms and fixes him to his spot before he headbutts the younger supe. Three hits were enough to make Noir stagger backwards, giving Soldier Boy the chance to punch Noir's cheeks, then depositing him unconscious onto the floor.

Soldier Boy lips twitch at the pathetic little shit, before he walks in your direction, crouching down to your level.

“Hey, are you okay, sweetheart?” Unlike the brutal scene from moments ago, Soldier Boy's touch is gentle when he holds you up to check for any injury. Luckily, and thanks to Soldier Boy, Noir couldn't exert enough power to cause any severe damage to you but manageable bruises and a sprained ankle.

Legend watches at the mess from behind the scenes as supe crisis staff pour into the room to clear that mess up. He doesn't heed anything of his attention but how Soldier Boy insisted on carrying you up in his arms to get patched up in his own personal quarters.

Legend lights up a cigar and wonders what kind of spells you cast on Soldier Boy that he's so smitten with you. Could it be you're a supe with hypnotising powers? Maybe, but if so, you'd have been within Vought's records.

But nothing of the sort was found on you. You're just a human with a pretty face and vocal talents that happened to captivate the mind of the current most important asset of Vought. He expected Soldier Boy to get bored and toss you aside after a couple of days when he was done with you. But Legend was gravely mistaken. For the past weeks, Soldier Boy only got more enamoured by your charms and was putty in your hand with only a bat of your pretty eyelashes. Legend kept an eye on both of you everyday to see how that was coming along, and it surprised him to say the least.

Perhaps they can use you to their benefit for a better communication with the supe, Legend says. Because as the days pass by, Soldier Boy is only getting older and out of touch with each day. He's become more tenacious and hard to deal with each day. Maybe you could become a key for a new affair. Who knows, maybe when the song is all the rage in the country, people will like the idea of pairing you together better than Soldier Boy with Countess. People would find a human girl paired up with Soldier Boy more appealing and more relatable. Legend flick the cigar in the ashtray on the dashboard in the control room. He shakes his head, and gets back to reality. There are two injured people in the mess today which makes him release a series of expletives as he huffs a vapour of smoke.

He sighs. The things he does for talents.

“Oww!” You groan as the medic dabs an alcohol-soused piece of cotton on your ankle.

“Careful with that one. She's delicate.”

Soldier Boy tells the medic as he patches you up.

When he's done, he leaves you with several plasters on your body and a swollen ankle wrapped with a white bandage.

Great. Now you're gonna be useless for few days. You sigh, already picturing the querulous frown on Jack's face. You're gonna miss a couple nights at his clubs.

“Relax, you’re gonna be fine.” He offers you a glass of whiskey with rocks. “I know you're no snowflake.”

You take a gulp of your drink and the searing sensation temporarily numbs the bitterness you've held for the most of your life.

You sigh again, placing the glass on the coffee table in front of you. In times of vulnerability like this, you can't be but haunted by the memory of your brother. The only family you had before your life took a shitty turn and snatched him away from you. Before you met Jack. Before you've become this.

You drown yourself in self pity and scoff. Life wasn't just a bitch by depriving you of your care-taker and protector, it also threw Jack Harold in your way who moulded you into what you are now. A complete hypocrite, who lives off kissing ass and sucking dicks.

Soldier Boy studies you before he pours you another. He knows you need another shot.

“You know…” You say after you feel the tantalising burn in your esophagus. “I didn't remember being roughhoused by one of you folks in our contract. Plus, what did he mean by you getting in your way?”

You usually won't care, but you're really curious what rubbed Noir the wrong way that he hurled you across the recording room. For all you know, and from what you've heard from the halls of Vought, he was on a solo mission.

Soldier Boy jeers. “The kid's delusional. He thinks I pulled the song from under his feet when in fact, Legend begged me to do it.” He swallows a mouthful of his drink.

You sigh again, “But isn't he a member of Payback? I thought you guys are like family.”

Soldier Boy sneers, “The kid needs to be reminded to respect the chain of command every once in awhile. He shouldn't have crossed me with such impudence.” Then through his fleeting ire, a sly grin pulls at his lips as he tips your chin up, “And he shouldn't have touched what belongs to me.”

A bemused shiver roils through your spine at his claim of ownership of you. You can't be his. You're Jack's. The latter made sure of it. Being Jack's property would be a dread to any woman, but wanting to be Soldier Boy's is frightening. You saw what he did to Noir with a sliver of his strength, the fact he can snap you in two halves like a toothpick makes your bowels liquid. However, you can't ignore the twinge in your core when he said it. No, no. You learnt how to lie and be a fake bitch to other people, but not to yourself. You don't misinterpret the aching throb between your legs for this man. No, no. You crave to be his, you wish he'd snatch you away from Jack the way life snatched your brother away from you; once and for all.

You drum up what remains of your deteriorating aplomb and keep your chin up. “I wish to be compensated.”

Soldier Boy quirks a brow up. “You want compensation?”

You nod at your bruises, “If you want me to be yours, you must show me.”

He falls silent for a moment that elapses like a year. Then, another grin curves his lips up. “Show you…”

“I want you to show me something I've never seen… Can you do that?”

His grin widens, it almost resembles a shark's. “I think I can, dollface.”

After a few days, and after your bruises fade away into yellowish smudges, Soldier Boy keeps his words.

He sneaks you out of Vought after you two finish recording the damn song. Pleasure after business as he told you. You only thank Christ that you conducted the visuals a day before Noir came back and almost ruined your work.

He takes you to a building in the heart of the city, the sliding spyhole glides open, an eye peeks through it, and as soon as it perches on Soldier Boy, the door immediately clicks open.

You step in, dogging Soldier Boy's steps. He turns to you and smirks. “Welcome to Herogasm, sweetheart.”

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[apomaro-mellow]

Runaway Royalty 4

Part 3

Since the hunt was on, the camp stopped sooner than they had planned, setting up so that they could hunker down and figure out just where to find the lost royals. Eddie was pacing around while the older members knocked around a few ideas. That if all three had truly been kidnapped, it might be by someone with designs on them. But there was also the idea that they simply ran away from their duties.

“If they ran, I bet they went west”, Gareth said. “They’d have enough coin to charter a boat and head off the continent.”

“You think they’d actually go that far?”, Harold questioned. “They’d get tired before reaching the coast.”

Steve was about to take offense to that when he remembered he wasn’t supposed to be one of the lost princes. So he kept his mouth shut. The less he said the better.

“Why are we even bothering with them?!”, Eddie threw his hands up. “Did it ever occur to you lot that once we have them, we’d have to transport them back to their castles? Is that what you want? To play escort to a bunch of pampered pups?”

“We can handle some uppity folk, right Jeff?”, Gareth turned the question to him.

“Oh, yeah, sure”, Jeff rolled his eyes. “They can’t be any worse than our Bandit Prince. You can give them the royal treatment.”

Eddie scoffed, arms crossed as he started to pace again, more furious this time. “I don’t want anything to do with them. Have you heard what they say about Prince Stephen? Spoiled rotten to the core. No thank you.”

Steve stood up straight at that. “I’m sure Prince Edwin is no prize either. If the rumors about him are to be believed.”

Robin kicked his leg. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“Let’s get our ears to the ground”, Greenley said. “Someone has to know something about them.”

There was a bit more talk, names thrown around - contacts, Steve surmised when someone told him to go to the river to fetch some water. He frowned.

“Why do I-ow!” He glared at Robin when she kicked him again. The problem was she wasn’t subtle at all. And his ankle was beginning to suffer from it.

“You got away not helping with camp last time”, Gareth said. “Everyone here has tasks to do. And yours right now is to get water.”

Steve frowned. But he remembered Eddie’s words about spoiled Prince Stephen. Someone had to get water for them. And he wasn’t doing anything else. So while he knew nothing about fetching water from a river, he was given a couple buckets and sent off. He got a good distance away from the camp when he heard someone approaching from behind. When he turned, he saw Eddie. The other man barely got out a ‘hey-’ before Steve turned his nose up and walked on, the river not too far ahead.

He could hear Eddie behind him, calling out and trying to catch up. Steve ignored him and stopped at the river’s edge. It ambled along calmly for now. It could probably turn to a raging current after rain.

“Hey, did you hear me calling you? What’s your problem?”, Eddie asked once he got to Steve’s side.

Steve’s head whipped to him. “My problem is-” His mouth hung open and then he snapped it shut. Because how ridiculous would it be for him to be offended on Prince Stephen’s behalf? So he had to switch gears as Eddie looked at him questioningly.

“I’m not looking forward to playing host to Prince Edwin is all”, he said as he approached the river to start filling the buckets.

“Oh. Are you not a fan of His Highness?”, Eddie asked.

“I haven’t really heard anything good about him.” Steve knelt down and let the current fill the first bucket. “I heard he’s always talking over others despite never having anything interesting to say. That he’s notoriously dim-witted too.”

“Well that’s something he and Prince Stephen would have in common”, Eddie said. “If the rumor mill is to be believed, he’s often slow on the uptake.”

Steve slammed the bucket down on the ground, sloshing some of the water and making it spill over the top. He knew that’s what people thought of him. And he knew that he wasn’t as academic as his brilliant sister. But it was still a sore spot that people equated that to being completely brainless. 

“Well then he and Prince Edwin would be a perfect match, wouldn’t they?”

Eddie was scowling now. “I don’t wanna have to deal with them any more than you do. But the pack has spoken.”

“Why did you follow me out here?”, Steve asked, exasperated. 

“Because I know you and your sister aren’t common travelers”, Eddie said, noticing the way Steve tensed up. “I don’t know what you’re running from, but it’s obvious you come from money. And I thought you might appreciate some help.”

“I’m fully capable of putting water in a bucket”, Steve said, going ahead and doing so with the second bucket. Then he stood up, grabbing both by their handles and lifted, hoping the alpha couldn’t see the way his arms shook.

“More hands make for a lighter load”, Eddie said, taking one of the buckets from him. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re incapable.” This close, he could tell how Steve’s scent went from something sour to something light. It was something buttery and sweet.

“Do you think there’s a true chance of finding them?”, Steve asked.

Knowing his determined crew, they’d make a dogged attempt. There was a good chance they found at least two of the nobles. But Eddie wasn’t about to say something so specific that would get Steve asking about the third.

“I think the royal guard will find their lost wards first. What are they good for otherwise?”

They walked back to the camp and Eddie handed one of the buckets off to someone whose name Steve hadn’t learned yet. He also took Steve’s and Steve felt a bit miffed that the other man carried both off with ease. The sounds of laughter caught his attention and it was none other than his sister in the middle of it.

“Didn’t know your sister was such a fan of Princess Robin”, Harold said through tears of laughter.

Robin beamed while Steve glared. 

“I just think the kingdom is in good hands with her”, Robin said. 

“Is it just because she’s your namesake?”, Eddie asked.

“Now how would that work? She and I are like the same age”, Robin said, squeaking when Steve pinched her side.

“Yes, she’s your name sake”, Steve said through gritted teeth. “Because you were born a few months after her.”

“Does that mean you were named for the princess’ brother then?”, Jeff asked.

“No, Steve here was named for our mother’s previous lover”, Robin joked.

This time when Steve pinched her, he did it openly. His ears burned at the laughs at his expense but it was better than anyone catching on. He hadn’t thought about coming up with a fake identity. His nickname would have been enough of a cover. It became a little less inconspicuous when he was traveling with his sister who hadn’t gone with an alias at all. They really should have spent more time thinking of fake names for themselves.

“Excuse me while I speak with my sister in private”, he said before grabbing her by the arm.

Once they were a good distance from everyone, she pulled her arm away from him and glared. “What’s going on with you?”

“We need to keep a low profile. And you’re chatting yourself up with these people?”, he hissed.

“They’re the ones who brought up Princess Robin. And I’m not going to lie about myself.”

“When you run away from home it’s kind of a package deal”, Steve said.

Robin crossed her arms and cocked her hips. “So I can’t like a royal because people will suspect I’m her? Don’t be silly, Steve.”

“Someone’s going to start making connections if you keep singing your own praises.”

“And you badmouthing Prince Edwin is any different? Keep doing that and people are going to start wondering why you’re so biased against him. Almost like a scorned lover.”

“I can’t be a scorned lover when we were never lovers.”

“Look, they’re not gonna put their greenest members on such a grand scheme”, Robin said, her posture relaxing. “We’ll probably be given chores around the camp. And they can’t find us out there if we’re always here.”

Steve’s tensed up posture began to relax as well and he let out a sigh. “You might be right…”

“Might be? I’m as bright as Princess Robin. And as we all know, her intellect rivals the greatest minds in history.”

“You’re also as insufferable as the princess, whose own brother has described her like a buzzing gnat”, Steve said, turning to walk back to camp.

“And how would you know what the prince thinks, hm? Suspicious~”, Robin teased as they came upon the others. “What’d we miss?”

Eddie held out a cup of sticks. “We’re all drawing straws to see who gets to go into town with Rick to meet up with his contact.”

“They don’t like big groups”, Rick said, his long hair graying on both his head and his beard. “So I can only take two with me.”

They all drew without looking and most opened their hands without much fuss. But there were stakes involved for three of them. So when Steve caught a glimpse of color on Robin’s, he knocked into her, causing her to drop her stick.

“Sorry, clumsy me”, he said, pretending to drop his as well. He picked them both up, switching in the process.

Most didn’t pay attention but Robin could tell what he did. Her face pinched and he stared at her hard, hoping she didn’t say anything.

“Looks like it’s me”, Steve said, announcing his draw.

“And me”, Eddie added, showing his own. 

“Well get ready young buck”, Rick said to Eddie, then looked Steve up and down. “And doe. The next town is a few miles away. We need to get there before sundown.”

Steve nodded and this time Robin pulled him off to the side. “Why did you do that?”, she whispered harshly.

“Because between the two of us, I’ll draw less attention.” Robin had changed neither her appearance nor her name. And they were sure to draw up posters searching for them soon.

“I can’t let you go alone with two alphas!” Robin’s eyes held a very real fear for him and Steve remembered that he had wanted to go alone. He didn’t know how he could have been so cruel as to leave her without a word.

“I’ll be fine. You’ve seen Eddie, he moves like a fish out of water. And Rick looks like a gentle shove would knock him out.”

“Still”, Robin took her dagger from her side and handed it to Steve. “Should they or anyone else have any ideas.”

Steve took it and within the hour, he, Eddie, and Rick were all making the trek to the nearby village. Rick did most of the talking, telling him about his contact. Said he was a real piece of work but also knew more about anything than anyone he’d ever known. Steve didn’t absorb most of it. He reminded himself that Robin was safer in the camp than she was roaming about town. Prince Edwin’s disappearance also weighed on him.

Not that he cared for a man who hadn’t even kept up regular missives with his betrothed. But what had happened to him. He and Robin had run away, but was it possible that the prince had been taken? If so, by whom? He knew it didn’t concern him anymore. Still, if there was someone out to get the royals, that was all the more reason for him and his sister to keep their heads down until they settled somewhere safe.

Part 5

[arrietty-rune]

Hello there ! Updated my AU The Steam Tales of Elmore and redesigned some characters since the first drawings were a bit meh

The story happens in a steampunk version of Elmore so news features and locations in the city, outside this, the citizens are (almost) the same as the show.

The story follow mainly the kids, being older here, having the routine as always. But strange things happens everywhere in the town and are called anomalies. They are recognizable by glitches and have different forms, like objects, weird crack on wall, floor and even... entities.

As they're shown to be dangerous to citizens, they have to be destroyed. A group of teens are working to fix or eliminate them as quickly as possible, but finding them could take a while. Nobody know where they are coming from and why they attack people.

You can like/rb this post without reading what's next!! For some being interested by more (including a small description of each character), here we go ♡

These characters are the common/main ones, idk about a main protagonist ngl !! Here's a small description of each of them !

Gumball Watterson (15 years old): An optimistic kid who always tries to be the hero but mostly fails due to unknown knowledge from the enemy… Alco because he acts before he thinks, despite being smart sometimes.

Darwin Watterson (13 years old): Gumball's little brother who is very nice and seems to be very innocent and like to comfort the others. He was a family pet before he grew lungs and gain the ability of speaking, but unlike in The Origins, he never grew legs. His mechanic ones were gifted thanks to charity.

Penny Fitzgerald (15 years old): A friendly and helpful girl. Though she like to give help and support, she's a bit reserved. Her family wears shells in tradition but broke hers when she was a toddler. The mask she wears are the remains of it.

Rob Needlemeyer (16 years old): A smart and tall kid who think and do planning before acting. He lost his arm 3 years ago after being in contact with a glitchy crack and is replaced by a mechanic one. As being able to be extended, he uses it commonly in routine, especially to help with one of his dads' works. (nb: Rob was never sent to the Void and isn't aware of its existence.)

Tobias Candella (15 years old): An energetic kid that, like Gumball, act before thinking. He used to be a selfish kid and a troublemaker in the past and tries now to be nice, despite being impulsive. As a playful boy who was addicted to video games once, he like to put references from it. He loves Dnd with passion and is very good as being the Dungeon Master.

Rachel Candella (18 years old): Tobias' big sister. She is smart and careful toward her loved ones but act reserved most of time. She usually works alone and is able to know easily the locations of entities compared to others. (nb: Tobias and Rachel have their mom's family name here since she and Harold are divorced)

Clare Cooper (18 years): A quiet girl that prefers to act or analyse the situation before sharing anything to everyone. She can be rude and is sometimes annoyed of stupid people.

Julius Oppenheimmer Jr. (16 years): A kid used to be a troublemaker. Being nicer today, he still can lost his temper when someone annoys him. As having good fighting skills, he can lead the other kids at fighting anomalies in a easier way.

And voilà ! I hope this give you some interest !! Feel free to ask about this, I'm planning to work on it a lot ♥

[darkshelbyfiction]

The Price to Pay (Cillian Murphy Blurb)

Warning: Dubious Consent

When you arrived in New York, at the tender age of eighteen, you never thought that life could be so cruel. You had just completed your freshman year, and an internship at a top-notch talent agency seemed like the perfect opportunity to gain some real-world experience.

You were keen to get your foot in the door of the acting world, having a fondness for drama throughout your adolescence. Who knew that this internship would plunge you into the depths of a depraved, immoral world in which you were nothing more than a plaything for the rich and famous?

"You know how women in this business get ahead, don't you?" your employer , a sleazy, overweight man named Harold, leered at you during your first week at the agency. "It's all about who you know and what you're willing to do for them," he said, suggestively licking his lips and letting his eyes roam freely over your petite figure.

"I am not going to do this kind of thing. I never even had a boyfriend before. This is disgusting!" you told Harold, thinking that this would shut him up but, much to your surprise, a week later, he made you a proposal.

"I have a client who is rather famous . I think he could help boost your career. I just need a small favor in return," he said with a sly smile.

You felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as your gut twisted in dread.

"What kind of small favor?" you cautiously asked and Harold became rather direct. 

" Well, that client of mine has requested a meeting with you. Unfortunately, he cannot keep his hands off young, attractive girls like yourself and you are most certainly his type. And if you want to get anywhere in this industry, you need to play the game."

"So, you're offering me a choice between my integrity and my career aspirations? That's just great." You muttered, feeling a heavy weight settle in the pit of your stomach.

"Come on Y/N, all you need to do is spread your legs for two hours or so and let him stick  his prick inside you and then you'll be on your way to stardom," Harold said with a drunken grin.

You were disgusted at the thought, but you were also aware of your own naivety. You only had $100 in your bank account, and you couldn't afford to pay your rent or tuition. You knew that if you didn't take this job, you'd be back at square one.

"Okay , I'll do it," you said reluctantly, your voice barely above a whisper, causing Harold to grin triumphally before setting up the date.

"If you see Lisa, she will tell you what to expect. She slept with him a couple of times before to get parts in movies," Harold added and it was indeed what you did. 

Lisa was just one year older than you and had acted in several movies and Cillian was one of them. She too had sex with influential men to get ahead in her career. She looked young, but her eyes held a thousand stories you could never compete with, and you were grateful to have her guidance.

"He was the first guy I ever slept with. I had just turned 18. It was on his 46th birthday and Harold organised it," Lisa began, her voice barely above a whisper.

"And you never had sex before?" you asked Lisa , your voice wavering slightly as you struggled to process this new information.

She chuckled lightly and shook her head. "No, I was as nervous as you are and I think that is what gets him off the most. He likes being the first ," Lisa shared, her voice monotonous and distant. "I slept with him a few times, but the first time was the hardest. I remember staring at the ceiling, feeling his body on top of me and knowing that I could never get that moment back. I was vulnerable, and he knew it. I don't think I even uttered a sound, except for a slight whimper when he pushed in to me."

"God, the pain was unbearable," she continued, her voice low and filled with a heavy dose of shame. "I remember he came inside me, so much so that it ran down my legs and I was so sore the next day that I could barely walk when I auditioned for a show. But I kept my mouth shut," Lisa said, her voice trailing off. "I knew what I had to do to make it in this industry, and I was determined to do whatever it took."

The following day it was your turn to do whatever it took.

The door clicked shut as Harold left you alone in Cillian's luxurious penthouse suite after delivering you there and making the necessary introduction.

The silence was crushing as you took in your surroundings. Your pulse raced, your palms slick with sweat, as you nervously glanced about the elegantly decorated space. A beautifully carved wooden headboard, perfectly positioned to overlook the sparkling skyline, drew your attention, your heart sinking as you realized this is where the violating act would take place.

"Would you like a drink to calm your nerves?" Cillian asked you as you stood there trembeling  , staring at the plush carpet. His voice was smooth and silky, a complete contrast to the rough and raw pontential of what he was about to do to your young, innocent body.

"I-I don't know..." you stuttered, unsure of how to respond as he assessed you, his manhood already straining against the expensive fabric of his trousers.

The idea of a drink repulsed you, but the thought of being alone with him in such an exposed state made your stomach turn. Reluctantly, you nodded, and he waved a hand towards the ornate bar in the corner of the room.

As he poured out a glass of amber liquid, you tried to steady your shaking hands. Liquid courage, that's what you needed. You took a tentative sip and felt the burn of the alcohol course down your throat, warming your trembling body.

"Harold tells me that you just turned eighteen and looking to make a name for yourself in this industry," Cillian said smoothly, his eyes fixed on your slender frame.

You nodded slowly, wondering where this was heading. Your mind raced with questions, but your fear kept you silent.

"Well, if you are good girl for me , I can definitely help you with that," Cillian said, his voice dripping with lewd intentions as he guided you towards the bed .

Your mouth went dry as you tried to shake your head, to protest, but your voice was caught in your throat. You knew what was coming next, and you couldn't stomach it.

"I don't really want to do this ," you stammered, your voice trembling.

"I know, but think of all the opportunities this could bring you, " Cillian purred, inching closer to you before he wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him.

"Come on, I will be gentle and promise it won't be that bad, " he whispered, nuzzling your neck.

"It's just, I never had sex before, " you confessed, your voice barely above a whisper.

"Even better, " Cillian murmured, his hand reaching up to cup your breast, giving it a squeeze through your dress. "This means that I get to pop that cherry of yours," he told you and you gasped as his other hand slid down your body, making its way beneath your dress.

He slipped his fingers beneath your panties, groaning as he felt your bald , shaved pussy. "Fuck, your hole is tiny," he growled, his fingers now tracing your slit.

"P-please don't do this," you stuttered, feeling tears spill from your eyes as a fresh wave of fear and resistance flooded through you.

"Sshhh, it's alright," he murmured, his mouth suddenly on yours again, kissing you hungrily as his fingers played with your labia. "I know you are scared, but just relax and let it happen."

His words were muffled as he spoke them around your lips and tongue, his fingers now dipping between your folds, exploring you gently and curiously, like a man trying something for the first time.

"Now why don't you take your clothes off for me," he murmured, as he pulled away from your mouth, his oceanic eyes meeting yours.

You hesitated for a moment, your heart pounding in your chest and your hands trembling with fear and anxiety, but the threat of his looming presence, towering over you, made your compliance instinctive.

You undid the buttons of your shirt slowly, his gaze devouring your young body with each piece of clothing you shed and, eventually, all you were wearing was some white cotton panties featuring a small stain of blood from when he had fingered you.

It was that innocence that excited him the most.

"Such a good girl," he praised you, sliding his hand over your collarbone and down your chest. You quivered under his touch, wishing you could disappear. Your fear mingled with disgust as his finger traced the outline of your breast, lingering on your nipple, hardening it. "Harold wasn't wrong. You are a stunning little thing."

Your skin crawled at his words, but you remained frozen, submissive under his touch, too paralyzed with fear to fight back.

He undressed himself quickly, revealing his toned physique, exaggerated by the soft glow of the dimmed lights. He was completely naked now, and you gasped at the size of his manhood.

"Lie down, sweetie," he commanded, and you obeyed and, with a shivering body, laid down on the large bed while he stroked his cock provocatively.

'Spread your legs for me,' he ordered and with a deep breath, you obeyed. You heard him gasp at the sight of your pure, perfect body before him. He noticed your blood-stained panties and his chest heaved at the prospect of claiming your innocence.

"Ah, sweetie, I see your panties are stained from when I fingered that virgin hole of yours. Let's have a look at it, shall we?" he drawled as he reached for the hem of your panties, slowly sliding them down your legs. He paused for a second, marveling at your bare pussy, the folds pink and tight. "Perfect," he murmured as he spread your legs wider, exposing your bleeding slit to the cool air of the room.

He then ran his fingers over your blood soaked slit , causing you to whimper at the intrusive sensation.

"Such a tight little thing you are," he growled as he slipped a finger into your channel, pushing against the barrier of your virginity before pulling it out and wiping it on the sheets.

"It's going to be a snug fit ," he mused, admiring the sight of you lying there, exposed and vulnerable under his gaze. Your skin was flushed, your pulse quickened at his words. He was sizing you up, like a predator would its prey, and you couldn't help but feel like a lamb led to the slaughter.

"Well, let's see if we can stretch that hole a bit, shall we?" he smirked, climbing on top of you. His legs pinned yours down, spreading them wider apart.

The head of his thick cock nudged against your slick entrance, causing you to be startled by its girth and you squirmed under his weight, his hands gripping your hips fiercely, preventing you from moving.

"Wait," you whimpered, your voice trembling with uncertainty and fear. He looked down upon you, his piercing gaze holding your own. "Aren't you going to wear a condom?" you asked, swallowing hard and looking up at him with wide, scared eyes. 

"No, I want to feel you bare. It's so much better that way," he replied eagerly while running the head of his cock over your slit. 

"But, I'm not on birth control," you stammered, realizing how foolish it was to say such a thing at this point.

He smiled and braced his arms on either side of your head. "That's okay. I will give you the morning after pill when we are done," he whispered, before he began pushing the tip of his swollen cockhead against your entrance. The pressure of the head pressing against your innocence made you squirm and protest underneath him, but he didn't heed your pleas.

"Oh god, it hurts ," you cried out as he pushed in another inch, stretching your cherry to the brink.

"I know. It's alright . Just relax, baby," Cillian whispered soothingly, despite knowing that the pain was inevitable. "You are such a good girl for me," he told you , as he began pushing deeper, slowly and deliberately, tearing through the thin barrier of your innocence.

You couldn't help but let out a yelp, a combination of surprise, pain, and discomfort, as you lay there beneath him, legs trembling, hands fisted at your sides, nails digging into the luxurious sheets of the elegant suite. Your whole body tensed, tears streaming down your face, as he kept pushing forward until his entire length was buried deep inside of you, groaning out in pleasure.

"Fuck, you're so tight. I knew it was going to be good, but goddamn," Cillian muttered, starting to thrust in a slow, deliberate rhythm, savouring the feeling of your virginity tightly wrapped around his cock.

"Please...it hurts," you whimpered, trying to hold back the tears as you felt your body stretched and invaded beyond belief.

"Just relax and let me stretch you out," he grunted, slamming all the way inside of you, filling you up with his thick, swollen cock.

Your tight pussy burned with a throbbing sensation, your body still adjusting to the sheer size that was previously unknown to your innocent body.

Cillian smirked as he felt your virginity broken, your blood glazing the length of his shaft.  You cried out in pain, your fingers digging into the plush fabric of the bedsheets beneath you. He reveled in your discomfort, savoring the feeling of your tight pussy clenching around him as he thrust deeper into your young, innocent body.

"God, you feel so fucking good," he grunted, his hips driving into yours with a ferocity that made your breath catch in your throat.  "Look at me while I fuck you."

You yelped in pain, tears streaming down your cheeks as he mercilessly thrust himself into you, ripping through your innocence. Your young, untouched body screamed in protest, but Cillian showed no remorse.

"I am going to cum deep inside you," he growled, his hips slamming roughly against yours.

You felt disgusted, helpless as he ravaged your body, pushing himself to the hilt with each brutal thrust.

He grabbed your wrists, pinning them above your head as he buried himself deep inside of you. You whimpered softly, fighting the urge to cry as the pain intensified.

"Almost done , little one," Cillian grunted, breathing heavily as he slammed into you forcefully. With a final groan, he ejaculated, releasing himself deep inside your tight channel.

It felt like a burning hot poker stabbing you relentlessly, the sensation unbearable. The intimacy of his release within you made you shudder from its intensity. The aroma of his sweat hung heavy in the air, mingled with an undercurrent of blood - your blood, invading your innocence and leaving a trail of crimson on the creases of your thighs.

His grip on your wrists slackened, allowing you to wriggle free from his grasp and when he pulled out of you, you could feel his semen oozing out, coating your inner thighs in a slick, wet mess.

The pain radiated through your body with a vengeance, and you couldn't help but wince as you shifted on the bed, the sheets sticking to your damp skin.

"There are towels in the bathroom," Cillian said casually, gesturing towards the en-suite with a nod. "Clean yourself up."

A flush rose to your cheeks, as you looked away from him, the embarrassment lodging itself in your throat like a fist.

You had heard stories of young girls like yourself being taken advantage of in the entertainment industry, but you never thought it would happen to you. 

When you stood up quietly, you felt his cum leak out of your pussy, a mix of pain, discomfort and shame pulsing through your veins. Your muscles protested as you walked on shaky legs towards the en-suite bathroom. Once inside, you locked the door behind you, and stared at your reflection in the mirror. 

You cleaned up , using a warm washcloth to wipe the cum and bloodstains from your thighs, feeling the painful throb radiate from within and when you retreated from the bathroom, Cillian handed you a packet containing a single pill.

"Take this. It's the morning-after pill. Make sure to take it tonight. Filming starts tomorrow," Cillian said, his tone flat.

His words echoed in your ears as you took the pills from him, feeling numb with shock and disgust. You wanted to scream and shout, to tell him that he had no right to do this to you. But all you could manage was a weak "thank you" before turning away from him and gathering your things. 

[leakyweep]

BOA DOM! BOA DOM! BOA DOM! (I will wait patiently..)

I just picture her being so giving. That is, after she puts you through hell to get it.

Boa Hancock x afab!Reader -- Earned It

A/N: I need her. I need her exponentially. I need her abundantly. That is all. Also I heard "Hearts Don't Break Around Here" by Ed Sheeran while listening to this and it adds to the experience just do it. HAPPY FUCKING PRIDE MONTH BITCH !!!!!!!

Words; 1.5k

Warnings: Afab reader, she/her pronouns, they're lesbians harold, fingering, face riding, so, so much pussy eating like damn why cant this be me, praise, this was not proofread i wrote this in a fit of gay desperation, 18+ MINORS DNI

Boa Hancock was not the woman she seemed on the outside, and it took time for you to learn that. Her exterior was tough, selfish, and uncaring of others unless they served her some kind of purpose. However, after getting to know the Empress, she's vulnerable, traumatized; but kind-hearted. You had learned this on those late nights laying beside her; stroking her long, black hair as she poured out her heart to you about her past.

After those sleepless nights, she began to pack you lunch, complete with notes wishing you good days. Bouquets of your favorite flowers wound up on your doorstep, adorned with a note of the same nature that accompanied your lunch. Invitations to her palace quickly increased, and you found yourself warming her bed more often than not, holding her through the good and bad nights alike.

Though you had your disagreements with the woman, she was one of the most down-to-earth and caring people you had ever been with. When you had asked her to be your girlfriend, she was ecstatic. She had never gotten to know a person before; she always used her beauty to get what she wanted. With you; that felt so, so wrong. She never wanted to use you. Your smile, your looks, the way you gazed at her as if you really saw her, not just her exterior beauty but the complexity and elegance of her soul; it all made her feel so special.

Boa always took care of you; this was true for outside and inside the bedroom.

So, when she gave you that half-lidded look, the one that was filled with so much lust you felt it was tangible, you giggled. You had just gotten back from a mission with the Kuja, your leather armor still donned. You had been gone for a week; and every night Boa found her fingers between legs, thinking about your fingers instead.

She knew how hard missions could be from experience. So, after the bath she had prepared for you- complete with bubbles, wine, and your favorite book- she laid you down in her canopy bed, her hands tangling in your hair as she passionately caught your lips in her own. She had been looking forward to this moment, when you finally returned and she could be intimate with you. So she could take care of her blossom.

After a heated and desperate makeout session, here she was, teasing the daylights out of your dripping cunt. She ghosted her fingers over your slit, tugged pieces of your hair, left marks in that spot between your neck and shoulder that always made you writhe- anything but touching you where you wanted her most. Soft whines of her name and "touch me" escaped your puffy, red lips. She only chuckled softly, those lust-blown pupils staring at you boldly.

"My darling, you'll get exactly what you want in time..." Her long, slender fingers ghosted over your stomach, running down the already sweaty skin there. She pulled away from your body on the bed to grab a silken ribbon, tying your wrists above your head, leaving you completely defenseless to the goddess that was about to ravage you.

Boa smiled as if you were a treat for dessert as she crawled closer to you, her full breasts hanging below her. The sight of her like this was intoxicating to you; and it only made you wriggle and whine for her more. You knew that's what she wanted, she loved to play the power game.

"Aw... my lover is so cute when she whines for me. She wants me so bad, doesn't she? She wants me to touch her needy little pussy, right?" Her hands rested on your thighs, pushing them apart to position her face level with your throbbing pussy. She could see your wet dripping from your entrance, and she ran two of her fingers through it to collect it on the tips of her digits. She lifted them to your mouth, shoving them past your lips and scissoring her fingers in your hot mouth.

She pulled her fingers back, running them around your pussy lips, through the coarse hair that grew there. You had to will your legs not to squeeze her head as you just whispered, "Please, Hancock, please..." through shallow breaths. Your eyebrows were knitted together, your eyes pleading. Boa felt as if she was seeing stars, hypnotized by the desire in your gaze. No one had ever wanted her like you do, and just the thought of your devotion made the heat between her legs warmer.

"You've been so good for me, my love. You've earned it..." She smiled up at your desperate face, watching as pleasure invaded your senses at the feeling of her tongue pressing flat against your clit. You let out a loud moan, louder than you had anticipated. You hadn't realized exactly how badly you had needed- wanted- yearned for her touch.

Your hips gyrated against her tongue, your wrists struggling against the satin as her wet muscle dragged around your clit, pleasure pooling in the pit of your stomach. Wanton groans escaped your lips, her name being sung like a Psalm in church as she slurped up your cunt.

She hummed against your pussy, her nose sliding against your clit as her tongue migrated to your entrance, quickly claiming the inside muscles she could reach. You watched as she hungrily devoured you with a fire in her eyes. She had clearly missed you; she had never eaten you out with such severity. You had- many times- as she loved the feeling your tongue blessed her with. Now, it was her turn to give back.

Her fingers prodded at your entrance, her tongue moving back up to lap up your clit. she inserted two well-manicured fingers into your pulsing walls, biting her lip at how tightly you held her digits.

"My baby had been waiting for me all week, hm? Your hips are grinding against my hand so unashamed..." Her words were muffled by your pussy, and you couldn't find the words to respond as you felt your muscles contract at your incoming orgasm. Your mouth fell open in an 'o' shape, calls of Boa's name on your tongue.

"Yes, my goddess, 'missed you," You sighed. The pink blush of your cheeks matched Boa's as the hand she wasn't using to poke at your g-spot grabbed a handful of your ass, squeezing the doughy skin in her palm roughly. She pressed her thighs together, looking for friction as your moans increased in volume and number. She could feel the waves of your climax starting; she sucked down on your clit, her tongue swirling as her fingers stilled deep inside you, her middle finger kissing your spongy sweet spot deliciously.

Your toes curled and hands struggled against the restraint as your orgasm shook your body, pleasure washing over you like a wave. You called Boa's name like a mantra; like if you said it enough times you'd be blessed- which you already were to have such a woman as her. Stars exploded into view as her fingers dragged deliciously against your walls as they were taken from your pussy. You whined at the empty feeling, your eyelids finally opening to reveal a pussy-drunk Boa. She looked at you with doe eyes, her lips curling into a hazy smile.

"My turn, darling." She untied the satin from your wrists, positioning herself above your face, sitting on it with her pussy positioned perfectly above your mouth and nose. You grabbed her ass desperately, devouring her wet cunt as if you hadn't eaten all week while you were away and she was your feast. She slid her hips desperately against your mouth, her clit brushing your nose as she swayed back and forth on your face.

You felt the weight of her muscular thighs surrounding your face, her scent and the sound of her moans invading your senses; physically and mentally encompassed by her. Your fingers dug into the plush skin of her inner thighs, pulling her closer to your face to pull those sweet moans from her mouth. She held onto the headboard of the grand bed to grind her hips into your tongue perfectly.

"L-love- right there-" She sighed shamelessly loud, her hips now bouncing frantically against you, your hands traveling from her thighs to her hips to help her set her pace.

After lapping, sucking, and fingering her cunt, you felt her walls hugging your digits tightly, a loud shout of your name tumbling from her lips as she gushed her juices onto your fingers and face, your eyes closing to be submerged by her. You licked your lips and around your mouth as much as you could, slurping up her juices. Everything about her was perfect to you.

She fell softly next to you, her tall, slender frame bringing you into an embrace. She grabbed the satin ribbon from earlier, wiping the remaining cum from your face and eyes gently. A soft smile adorned her lips as she laid her head on your chest; long, soft legs intertwining with your own muscular calves. You both let out a sigh of contentment, relishing in the feel of each other. The emotion and love between you two was unabashed, and as you fell into your own dreamworlds, you whispered a soft, "I love you," into her hair. She hid her blushing face as she returned the sentiment, leaving a soft kiss between your breasts.

[justforbooks]

The word “great” is somewhat promiscuously applied to actors. But it was undoubtedly deserved by Sir Michael Gambon, who has died aged 82 after suffering from pneumonia.

He had weight, presence, authority, vocal power and a chameleon-like ability to reinvent himself from one role to another. He was a natural for heavyweight classic roles such as Lear and Othello. But what was truly remarkable was Gambon’s interpretative skill in the work of the best contemporary dramatists, including Harold Pinter, Alan Ayckbourn, David Hare, Caryl Churchill and Simon Gray.

Although he was a fine TV and film actor – and forever identified in the popular imagination with Professor Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter franchise – the stage was his natural territory. It is also no accident that, in his private life, Gambon was an expert on, and assiduous collector of, machine tools and firearms for, as Peter Hall once said: “Fate gave him genius but he uses it as a craftsman.”

Off-stage, he was also a larger-than-life figure and a superb raconteur: a kind of green-room Falstaff. I have fond memories of an evening in a Turin restaurant in March 2006 on the eve of Pinter’s acceptance of the European Theatre prize. Gambon kept the table in a constant roar, not least with his oft-told tale of auditioning for Laurence Olivier as a young actor in 1963 and cheekily choosing to do a speech from Richard III; but the next night Gambon gave an explosive rendering of Pinter’s poem American Football that threatened to blow the roof off the Turin theatre.

However, Gambon’s bravura was also mixed with a certain modesty. In the summer of 2008 I met him for tea in London and found him eagerly studying the script of Pinter’s No Man’s Land, in which he was scheduled, several months later, to play Hirst. He told me that he had started work on it so soon because he found it difficult to learn lines at his age.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I sleep with a script under my pillow, or just carry it around in my raincoat pocket, in the hope the lines will rub off on me.” I think he was genuine; but with Gambon, one of life’s great leg-pullers, you were never entirely sure.

Gambon achieved greatness without either the formal training or genetic inheritance that are often considered indispensable.

He was born into a working-class Dublin family that had no artistic background; his mother, Mary (nee Hoare), was a seamstress, and his father, Edward, an engineer. When the family settled in Britain after the second world war, the young Gambon went to St Aloysius school for boys, in Somers Town, central London. On leaving at the age of 15 he signed a five-year apprenticeship with Vickers-Armstrongs, leading to a job as a tool-and-die maker. With his mechanical aptitude, he loved the work. But he also discovered a passion for amateur theatre and, having started by building sets, eventually moved into performing. “I want varoom!” he once said. “I thought, Jesus, this is for me.”

With typical chutzpah, he wrote to the Gate theatre in Dublin, creating a fantasy list of roles that he had played in London, including Marchbanks in Shaw’s Candida; in the end, he made his professional debut there in 1962 as the Second Gentleman in Othello. His best decision, however, on returning to London, was to sign up for an improvisational acting class run by William Gaskill at the Royal Court.

Gaskill was about to join the newly formed National Theatre company at the Old Vic and recommended Gambon for an audition: hence the celebrated story of Gambon’s first encounter with Olivier, which ended with the young actor, in his excess of zeal, banging his hand on a nail in an upstage column and bleeding profusely. Far from being the nail in Gambon’s coffin, this led to a productive four years with the National in which he progressed from walk-ons to substantial roles such as that of Swiss Cheese in Gaskill’s revival of Mother Courage.

On Olivier’s advice, however, Gambon left the National in 1967 to hone and pursue his craft at Birmingham rep – a shrewd move that saw him, at the astonishingly early age of 27, playing his first Othello. He moved on later to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in 1968 made his first foray into television with the leading role in a BBC adventure series called The Borderers.

However, it was through working on another TV series, The Challengers, that he made a contact that was to transform his career. His fellow actor Eric Thompson was moving into directing, and in 1975 was set to do an Ayckbourn trilogy, The Norman Conquests, at the Greenwich theatre. He cast Gambon, against type, as a dithering vet.

He revealed, for the first time, his shape-shifting gifts; and the sight of him, seated at a dinner table on a preposterously low stool with his head barely visible above the table’s edge, remains one of the great comic images of modern theatre.

This led to a highly productive working relationship with Ayckbourn including key roles in Just Between Ourselves (Queen’s theatre, London, 1977) and Sisterly Feelings (National, 1980).

At the same time, Gambon began an association with Gray by taking over, from Alan Bates, the role of the emotionally detached hero in Otherwise Engaged (Queen’s theatre, 1976).

That was directed by Pinter, for whom in 1978 Gambon created the part of Jerry in Betrayal at the National. It was a production beset by problems, including a strike that threatened to kibosh the first night, but Gambon’s mixture of physical power and emotional delicacy marked him out as a natural Pinter actor. That power, however, manifested itself in the 1980s in a series of performances that staked out Gambon’s claim to greatness.

First, in 1980, came Brecht’s Galileo at the National: a superbly triumphant performance that brought out the toughness, obduracy and ravening intellectual curiosity of Brecht’s hero. It was a measure of his breakthrough that, as Gambon returned to his dressing room after the first night, he found the other actors in the National’s internal courtyard were shouting and roaring their approval. Two years later, Gambon returned to the RSC to play both a monumental King Lear and a ravaged Antony opposite Helen Mirren’s Cleopatra.

But arguably the finest of all of Gambon’s 80s performances was his Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, directed by Ayckbourn at the National (1987). It helped that Gambon actually looked like Miller’s longshoreman-hero: big and barrel-chested with muscular forearms, he was plausibly a man who could work the Brooklyn docks.

Gambon also charted Eddie’s complex inner life through precise physical actions. He stabbed a table angrily with a fork on learning that his niece had got a job, let his eyes roam restlessly over a paper as the niece and the immigrant Rodolpho quietly spooned, and buckled visibly at the knees on realising that a fatal phone-call to the authorities had ensnared two other immigrants. In its power and melancholy, this towering performance justified the sobriquet once applied by Ralph Richardson of “the great Gambon”.

When you consider that the decade also saw Gambon playing the psoriasis-ravaged hero of Dennis Potter’s TV series The Singing Detective (1986), you realise his virtuosity and range.

And that became even clearer in 1990 when he played the mild-mannered hero of Ayckbourn’s Man of the Moment (Globe theatre, now Gielgud, London), had another crack at Othello for Ayckbourn in Scarborough and appeared, in 1989, as a romantically fixated espionage agent in Pinter’s TV adaptation of Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day: that last performance, alternately sinister and shy, was one of Gambon’s finest for television and deserved a far wider showing.

In later years Gambon successfully balanced his stage career with an amazingly prolific one in film and television. In Hare’s Skylight at the National in 1995 he combined the bulk and weight of a prosperous restaurateur with a feathery lightness – a skipping post-coital dance across the stage with the balletic grace often possessed by heavily built men.

Gambon was equally brilliant as a disgusting, Dickensian, accent-shifting Davies in a revival of Pinter’s The Caretaker (Comedy theatre, 2000), as a perplexed bull of a father in Churchill’s A Number (Royal Court, 2002), as a Lear-like Hamm in Beckett’s Endgame (Albery, 2004) and as a brooding, alcoholic Hirst in Pinter’s No Man’s Land (Duke of York’s, 2008). Even if Gambon’s Falstaff in a 2005 National Theatre production of Henry IV Parts One and Two did not quite match expectations, his work for the theatre revealed an ability to combine volcanic power with psychological depth and physical delicacy.

Ill health and increasing memory problems forced him to retire from stage acting in 2015, but not before he had given memorable performances in two Beckett plays: Krapp’s Last Tape (Duchess, 2010) and All That Fall (Jermyn Street theatre, 2012), where he played, opposite Eileen Atkins, the sightless but stentorian Mr Rooney.

He also continued to work in television and film for as long as possible. He belied the whole notion of the small screen by giving large-scale performances as the black sheep of a big family in Stephen Poliakoff’s Perfect Strangers (2001) and as a reclusive plutocrat in the same writer’s Joe’s Palace (2007).

He was nominated for awards for his performances as Lyndon Johnson in an American TV movie, Path to War (2002), and as Mr Woodhouse in a BBC version of Jane Austen’s Emma (2009). Later TV series included The Casual Vacancy (2015), Fearless (2017) and Little Women (2017).

In film, he had a rich and varied career that ranged from the violent hero of Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989), to a heavyweight mafia boss in Mobsters (1991), the aged Lord Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited (2008), a cantankerous old director in Dustin Hoffman’s Quartet (2012) and the bearded Hogwarts headteacher (whom he privately referred to as “Dumblebore”) in six of the eight Harry Potter films, taking over the role for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) following the death of Richard Harris.

He also provided the narration for the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016) and voiceovers for the two Paddington films (2014 and 2017).

But Gambon brought to everything he did, in life as well as art, enormous gusto, a sense of mischief and a concern with precision: he was almost as happy restoring old firearms as he was working on a new role.

In 1992 he was appointed CBE, and six years later was knighted.

He married Anne Miller in 1962, and they had a son, Fergus. From a subsequent relationship with Philippa Hart, whom he met on the set of Gosford Park, he had two sons, Michael and William.

He is survived by Anne and his three sons.

🔔 Michael Gambon, actor, born 19 October 1940; died 27 September 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[tdjustess]

You know those asks people send from a list of prompts about ships? Well I answered one myself for Trustin

Who cooks normally?: I have "food headcanons" so please hold on. Trent knows how to cook rice, pasta and eggs. That's it. He doesn't like touching uncooked food (📽️). Justin never learned how to cook but while on the band he figured out he should learn the basics because it is a life skill and all Cody, Harold and Trent did was order out. Which became a whole thing with Cody and Harold enjoying his food fine and Trent constantly fighting being a picky eater but still wanting to support and showing his appreciation for Justin. Listen, I have A LOT of food headcanons for Trent, it's bad, it makes no sense, I have so many...

How often do they fight?: Not often. If Justin has an issue with something he makes it abundantly clear and Trent is incapable of hiding when he's upset with something. Which actually works great as that means there's no time to hold grudges or let something go on for longer than it needs to, they'll have to talk it out.

Who is more likely to pay for dinner?: Both, they don't really care about that (upper middle class kids)

Who steals the covers at night?: Justin. He hates Canada with a burning passion but that it's still not enough to keep him warm at night. He demands cuddling every night and Trent is more than happy to help

What would they get each other for gifts?: Justin either gives Trent something he already said he wanted or something Justin thinks he needs (usually clothes). Trent always tries to go all out for anniversaries and christmas, even if the "all out" is simply cancelling everything on their agendas and let Justin have a lazy day off, with trashy reality tv and ice cream if it's a cheat day. But they're always gifting each other little things anyway, just because it reminded them of the other

Who remembers things?: Trent. Justin can't be bothered

Who cusses more?: Neither really. They save their "fucks" for when they're very angry about something. Which is a great warning for everyone around them

What would they do if the other one was hurt?: CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE because Trent knows how much these kinds of things freak out Justin and because Justin knows Trent could break both legs and never mention it not to bother people

Who kissed who first?: Justin

Who made the first move?: I have a whole fic plot for this and it's hard because they kinda both did?? At different times??? Trent tried his luck but Justin didn't catch on so he stoped, BUT THEN Justin tried too and Trent thought he was seeing signs because he was looking for them and didn't flirt back for a while and yeah. Not a "slow burn" cause i hate those but they are a bit dense

Who started the relationship?: Justin because Trent wouldn't get off his ass. Later on, Justin really appreciated the space Trent was giving him to do as he pleased with no pressure, but he sure would've liked for Trent to tell him that months earlier!

[olderthannetfic]

audience question: what books/movies would you give (or have given) your kids to become their formative media? i'm interested to see what makes the cut 👀

--

I'd let them have access to my library. If it's a book, I'll let them figure out when they're ready to handle it.

(Works fine as long as you're a decent parent and answer questions that come up without being a weirdo about it and freaking them out so they never ask you anything again.)

For films and other things... hmm... it's tricky because all of the formative tings for me were the genre I'd call Weird Art Films About Weird Sex.

If my kid were shaping up to be that kind of weirdo at 14, maybe I'd leave some of these around, but I think it would be pretty intrusive to thrust them upon anybody outside of a film school seminar. Maybe Harold & Maude. My parents rented that when I was a tween. It made An Impression. It's rare for me to see something even two or three times, but Harold and Maude I've seen dozens.

I still think the opening to Harold and Maude is one of the best of any film:

You immediately know what kind of people both of these characters are and that this isn't going to be a simple comedy, dark or otherwise.

The first time I watched it, I knew nothing about the film and was surprised at both this and all of Harold's other antics. It's hilarious until it isn't. It's a movie about zest for life vs. wanting to die, and it walks an interesting line tonally. I remember rewatching it to show it to friends in college... and for the first time understanding that look Harold gets when he sees Maude's arm.

--

There was definitely media I loved pre-puberty, but the things I remember are all like Nancy Drew.

I consumed vast quantities of mystery, and it's probably why I'm a mystery novelist today, but I don't remember anything specific that feels formative in other ways. I wouldn't try to stop a kid from reading trash. I remember how infuriating it was to have adults constantly trying to make me read something "better" than Nancy Drew. But I wouldn't specifically hand my kid those or any of the other formulaic junk series (Sweet Valley High et al.). They'll find whichever ones are popular at the time just fine.

--

There's a very particular feeling of my brain lighting up that I remember mostly from my teen years. Those media made me quiver and have to pause the movie. I felt seen or maybe I felt too much to handle. That's the feeling I associate with formative media for me.

Here are the ones that instantly spring to mind even after all this time:

Velvet Goldmine - Music fan investigates the glam rockers of his youth, meditating on his sexual awakening and trying to solve the mystery of where one of them went. Ewan McGregor's tweet is the sequel. I will accept no other outcome.

Crash - James Spader at the peak of his beauty falls into the world of car crash fetishists who are dealing with the ennui of modern life and the alienation of the big city and technology by becoming perverts. Contains people going down on scars and tattoos, fetishy leg braces, and what teen me assumed was homoerotic subtext. (Spoiler: it was not subtext.)

Matador - A serial killer murders her victims like a bullfighter would; she stalks her favorite retired bullfighter who is also a serial killer. Antonio Banderas plays a dweeb like always in Spain. (The rest of Almodóvar's 80s and 90s movies were also favorites.)

Kissed - The fluffy necrophilia movie

The City of Lost Children - Less horny, but what is up with Miette and One's vibe? Visually a feast. Ten times the movie Amélie is. Sorry, not sorry.

Cemetery Man - Rupert Everett kills zombies in this bizarre Italian horror movie based on a comic book character drawn to look like Rupert Everett. My stepfather thought it looked like something I'd like and rented it for one of my birthday parties in high school. Around the time of the quasi necrophilia sex scene I realized 1. he'd chosen well and 2. he had clearly not read the back too carefully.

The Pillow Book - Japanese-Chinese novelist named after Sei Shonagon has a battle of literary wits with the publisher who blackmailed her father into sex with him. Involves a lot of calligraphy on naked men, including Ewan McGregor.

Sex, Lies & Videotape - Unfulfilled housewife has her world turned upside down when her shitty husband's college best friend comes to visit. This dude has become unable to be with women after a bad breakup and interviews and videotapes women discussing their masturbation habits for his own private use. Contains a famous and stupid quote about men falling in love with the people they sleep with and women becoming more and more attracted to the people they love, but the movie is far less gender normative than the character saying that.

Tesis - Uptight film student who pretends not to like violence decides to do a thesis on violence in Spanish media. Her advisor dies while watching a mysterious tape he got from somewhere. She steals it, finds out it's a snuff film, and investigates with the help of a creepy horror film nerd.

The best scene is when they're watching some violent shit she asked him for ("for her thesis") and she says "What kind of people watch this stuff?"

He answers: "You, for example."

That one I discovered when my roommate in Japan was watching it a couple of years after college. Many of these I saw in high school. That's the range where I remember things being particularly formative. Or maybe it's about what I'm open to at different points in my life: I think weird art films can still make me feel too much, but I don't always like that feeling, and I don't seek them out as much now.

Knife+Heart made me flash back to that era though. It's a neon-drenched period piece about a lesbian director of artsy gay male pornos investigating a serial killer targeting her actors. The sheer levels of meta insanity and horny murder scenes, my god!!!

Running through all of these are themes of ambiguous sexuality, often queer but also non-genitally-focused, massive quantities of voyeurism, meditations on what it means to be a fan, and a boatload of death=sex=death vibes.

--

That's not quite what you asked, but basically, my own formative media isn't something I'd share with just anyone. If people want to watch necrophilia-filled art films of the 90s, I think they need to choose that for themselves.

I guess all that access to Beatrix Potter and watching basically no TV other than Mystery! or Masterpiece Theater (i.e. UK costume dramas catering to a teaboo market and co-funded by the US) during my early childhood had an effect. So did going to schools where we studied Asian American history and read Dragonwings.

None of those media stand out. I'd share them with my kid, but one example is as good as another. Knives Out delivers substantially the same experience as most of them. Watching whatever anime is hot now will be as good as watching the anime I liked when I was young.

[veeluvss]

My Girl, Lily Prentiss (3)

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

"I knew you'd still be here," Rossi sighed, stepping into Emily's office. "Hi Dave," Emily sighed, putting some hair behind her ear. "How are you doing?" "How would anyone be doing right now?" she snapped but then felt bad. "Sorry, I just," she took a deep breath. "How about you head home? Get some rest so you can think clearly," Rossi suggested. "I can't do that," she said, holding up her file. "Work to do." "Have you eaten?" "No, I'm not hungry," Emily replied. "Emily," Rossi said gently, he came around her desk and closed her laptop softly. He sat one leg on the desk, lifting himself up and turned to the raven-haired girl. "This is going to be so much harder if you don't look after yourself," Rossi told her. "I'm fine." "Don't bullshit me," Rossi said, so calmly. Emily couldn't help but laugh. She leaned back in her chair and turned to him. "I know it hurts. I know it's hard. You need a clear head to get the quickest and best result in finding her. Go home and rest." Emily groaned and nodded. "I can't believe I let this happen. If I'd known they were treating her like-" Rossi stopped her with his hand. "I know. That's why you need to protect her now."

That night, Emily slept heavily, the stress of the day exhausting her. She dreamt of Lily, now. Being her own. She dreamt of waking up to her brunette baby beside her in bed after a nightmare, holding her close, and smelling her hair. She dreamt of taking her girl out to the park, on a walk or out to dinner to treat her. She dreamt of her girl's laugh, her cry, her smile. She dreamt of her having Lily back, as her own.

"Right, if I'm Lily, where would I go?" Morgan asked, standing around the table.

The team had concluded that Lily had originally run away from home however, the lack of contact had been disturbing. The last she was seen was getting in a black SUV outside a gas station, 20 miles from her home. There were two people in the front of the car and Garcia, for the life of her, couldn't trace them or the vehicle. "I'd find someone to love me," Tara said, honestly. "Skyla told me that Lily regularly told Tori she didn't feel loved." "Is that not what she was trying to do online?" Morgan asked, writing it on the board nonetheless. "A young girl reaching out for validation on her body is very different to finding someone to love her," JJ explained. "Perhaps she had a boyfriend." "All of her chats I could find were all her deals, none of them even slightly resemble a relationship," Garcia shrugged, tapping on her laptop. "Could she have had a boyfriend in person?" "Her teachers doubt it, she spoke to no one. When she was in school that is." "What about out of school?" "Again. Everyone agrees they've never seen her with other people." The group went silent, all deep in thought. "Has anyone spoken to her biological parents?" Reid asked, suddenly thinking. JJ nodded, "Prentiss is there now."

Keeping her hands at her side, Emily walked through the prison. She waited for the guard to push open the door then clenched her jaw. Harold Addams. The sight of the man in front of her made her unbelievably angry. He destroyed her life. "Prentiss, Prentiss, Prentiss," he sniggered, folding his arms across his chest. "Long time no see." "Addams," she said sternly, sitting in the chair opposite him. "What did I do to deserve such a pretty reward hm?" He asked. Emily felt sick. "Where's your daughter?" "Lily? Well, shouldn't you know that?" "She's been missing for three days. Where is she?" Prentiss wasn't playing around. "How would I know? I'm locked up." He was answering questions with questions. "Have you been having any correspondence outside these walls?" "Only with you beautiful lady," he glistened, leaning forwards. Emily scoffed, "usless."

Garcia sat in her tech cave, searching through every bit of this girls life. She'd unsealed records, she'd logged into all her accounts, read her messages, her emails, her bank statements. Lily was loaded with sugar daddies and in a normal instance, Penelope would be jealous. She hummed as she tapped away on her computer, trying to find even a trace of some sort of dodgy deals behind the scenes. She groaned, picking up her laptop and heading to the round table. Reid was there with JJ, scoring through the printed documents.

"Doesn't it make you wonder why Emily was so connected to her?" Reid asked, as Garcia sat down. "It was a failed undercover mission, Em was trapped in there with Lily as her only mental escape," JJ explained, shrugging. "She was only seven, she didn't understand," Reid siad, frowning. "That's the point," Garcia said. "It's like me looking at all these baby animal pictures," she smiled and sent them to the screen. She cooed at the fluffy baby cows with flowers in their mouths. "Yeah, her break, her way to realise there was still innocence there," JJ explained.

"Why do you think they used the little girl though?" Tara asked, coming into the room also. "People show a more vulnerable side with kids," Spencer said. "Statistically, 68% of abductions are more successful if a child is involved to lure them in." "So they used Lily as a way to get women to them?" "Yes. That's what they did." Emily confirmed, coming in the room. "They would look after her, bathe her, treat her like a princess and then if she did the slightest thing wrong, her dad would rip them away - rape them so she could hear them and then hand them back all bloody and bruised. If the women did something wrong, he'd beat Lily in front of them." "Jesus," Rossi groaned, taking a seat. "Emily, what role did the brothers have? These cases keep-" "That's it! The brothers!" Spencer said suddenly, standing up. Everyone looked at him. "Richard Addams and Thomas Addams. Look here," Spencer said, grabbing a piece of paper he discarded. It was chats between LILLIL, URB0YISR1CH and TOMCATDADDYRAT. It looked like normal texts to the naked eye but now with an idea on the names, Spencer began circling certain parts of the conversation: 'Gas', 'Law and order', 'back' , 'love', 'daddy's girl'. Every second word made a sentence on it's own. The boys were giving her a meeting place.

"Guys..." Reid said. "They were telling Lily to be at the gas station at 3am in order to avoid the cops and they could stay hidden. They want her to feel the love, the one her daddy gave her." He read out, like a robot.

"What does that mean?" "That means they're just as bad as their father." Emily spat out. "Find who these boys are Garcia," she added, walking away. "Now!"

Emily paced up and down her office. This wasn't possible. Richard was dead. Emily had killed him. She had no idea how it was possible. She remembered hearing Lily's screams and Richard's groans in pains. She could hear Thomas screaming for his brother to move. He begged him to move, to breath. Thomas was praying his brother wouldn't die - not like this. Lily scrambled into Prentiss' lap, assessing her brother with the agent. "Richy," the small girl whimpered, touching the blood pouring from the boys chest. "Get her out Prentiss!" Emily heard one of her team members say and she nodded. She grabbed the girl's weak body. Lily clung to her, hiding her face in her neck as Emily shielded her from the gunfire. They ran through the warehouse, Emily trying her hardest to remember the way out.

Eventually, she escaped into the sunlight and dropped to her knees, cradling the crying girl in her arms. "It's okay sweetheart," she whispered, brushing Lily's bloody hair from her face. Her blonde hair, now splattered in red. "Emmy's got you."

Emily had shot Rich in the chest, they both watched him bleed out. It wasn't possible he was alive now. There was a knock on her office door and she just opened it. JJ stood there, wringing her hands together. Emily let her in, closing the door behind her without saying a word. "We've spoken to Thomas's foster parents, since he turned eighteen, they haven't seem him at all," JJ told Emily. "Okay." "Garcia is running their information, trying to find out anything she can on the boys." "Okay." "Em," "He's meant to be dead." Emily said, staring out of the window. "I killed Richard Addams and now he has come and taken my baby away," she whispered. Her hand rested on her chest and she felt the pain.. "We'll find her Em, and the boys too. They won't get away with this," JJ said, she rested her hand on Emily's shoulder, offering support. "Damn right they won't," Emily said. She turned abruptly and walked out the door, leaving JJ behind in her office.

Tara and Morgan were back at Lily's house, looking for any sort of sign she knew her brothers. They'd searched everywhere they could think of until Morgan got a call from Garcia. "Please tell me you have good news Baby Girl," "She keeps talking about a cabinet." Garcia said. "'I keep special pictures locked in the cabinet for you,'" Reid quoted through the phone. "Okay, what does that mean pretty boy?" "I think the pictures might be some sort of coy. Maybe its information, is there any sort of cabinet there?" Reid asked. Morgan looked around her room, phone at his ear. "Not an obvious one." "What about anywhere else in the house? The Bathroom?" "Why would she keep secret things in the family bathroom?" Derek asked but walked towards it nonetheless. "Nobody will think to look there," Garcia added. Morgan shrugged and investigated the cabinet. Then he saw it, the pill bottle with writing on both sides of the label. Instantly he peeled off the sticker, looking on the back. It was an address. Tara was over his shoulder.

"Let's go." They said together.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ table of contents

[gaytotaldrama]

duncney week day 2: behind the scenes

we never get to see what duncan and courtney get up to after beth wins, so here's a taste.

duncney song of the day: 'nothing compares 2 u,' sinead o'connor (RIP)

also on my ao3!

"And the winner of Total Drama Action and one MILLION dollars is...BETH!"

The crowd erupted into cheers as Beth leapt to her feet, flapping her hands and looking on the verge of passing out, but Duncan stayed silent, slouching in the throne. He liked Beth, he really did. She was a good person. But it still hurt to lose out on the money...for the second season in a row.

The apparently real Brady was hugging his girlfriend around the middle so hard, he was lifting Beth off the floor, while Leshawna, Harold, Tyler, and Lindsay chanted Beth's name. Chris had barely thrown Duncan a second glance when it came down to it - the minute he'd read out the last vote, no one was paying attention to him anymore. Good, he thought. I like it that way. No cameras in my face to film my humiliation.

No one was paying him attention anymore...except of course, she was. The only person still seated, her beautiful face stained with blue ink - Duncan could just imagine her in the voting booth, impatiently shaking the pen and crying out with frustration when it inevitably exploded. Suddenly desperate to be on his feet, he stood from the too-narrow throne, moving over to her and offering his hand. 

"Wanna get out of here?" he asked.

"I don't usually go out with losers," she replied, lips twitching at the corners. She laced her fingers with his.

"Yet here I am asking you out." He pulled her up, brushing the hair out of her face, his knuckles coming away smudged and blue. "Seriously. Dinner or something? Let's get out of here."

Courtney grimaced. "The ink'll never wash off in time. You can come by my hotel room. We could order room service."

Duncan smiled at her, deciding he liked that better than being out in public. "First time we see each other in weeks and you're already trying to get me alone in bed with you."

"Shut up." She swatted his shoulder, but there was no real venom to it. "Come on, lover-boy. I need a shower. BY MYSELF," she quickly clarified, as Duncan opened his mouth to ask if he could join her.

Courtney's hotel room looked like no one was renting it out at all. The sheets were turned down, the desk pristine, Courtney's suitcase neatly tucked into a corner by the bed. It was very her, but Duncan had a flash of the rock n' roll challenge, the way she'd utterly trashed that set. He kind of wanted to see her do it again. He kind of wanted to help her.

He found a rerun of the third A Nightmare On Elm Street, settling back on the bed (sneakers still on, of course) while she hopped in the shower. The one girl was getting her head sucked into the TV box, and Duncan watched, half-interested. He'd seen it before, of course; it was just noise, to keep him distracted from his loss.

When Courtney finally emerged from the bathroom (shit, but the girl took long showers), her face was scrubbed pink and raw, the faintest trace of ink remaining under her skin. Duncan snorted, about to make a teasing remark, but somewhere in the middle of staring at the long brown legs coming out from under Courtney's towel, the words died on his lips.

"What are you looking at?" She gave him a once-over and wrinkled her nose. "I think you need a wash too, after that finale."

"Or," said Duncan, opening his arms in welcome. "You could just get over here and kiss me."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you," Courtney snarked, rolling her eyes. "But what makes you think I want - Gah! Duncan!"

He had grabbed her wrist and pulled her on top of him, grinning up at her like a cat. She hadn't blow-dried her hair yet. It was dark and limp around her shoulders, but Duncan didn't care. "If I had won the million," he told her, leaning in close so his lips brushed her ear and she shivered. "I would've spent so much of it on you."

"That's..." She bit her lip, flushing, and he knew he had her. "Well, you didn't win. So that hardly means anything now, does it?"

He shrugged. Somehow, that didn't seem to matter as much anymore. "I said if."

Her mouth opened like she was about to say something, but she seemed to think better of it, hesitating slightly before lowering her face to kiss him, long and slow. Their make-outs were so often harried and slightly destructive - somehow, he'd forgotten how incredible her other kisses could be.

She broke off first, nipping at his upper lip one last time before saying, "Now..."

"Yeah, Princess?" Whatever she was about to ask him, he would do it, no second thoughts. He would do anything, for her.

"Go take a shower or I'm kicking you out of my room," she told him, and he laughed. And so did she.

[randommusicalfluff]

Tyler (TD) Tickle Headcanons!:

He’s extremely accident prone, so he tends to walk himself right into tickly situations

Doesn’t mind being tickled! He just finds it a little embarrassing especially if he’s surrounded by the other dudes

Super freaking ticklish! Honestly didn’t really know how sensitive he was until he met Lindsay

Has suuuch a dorky laugh, Linds is just obsessed with it!

Dude can’t stay still for the life of him while he’s being wrecked, he’s also really good at slipping away and making a run for it. Until he trips and falls a second later

Cannot STAND teasing oh god it has him pleading

Flusters super easy, the guys get a kick out of messing with him

Has had (multiple) experiences where Alejandro wrecks the hell outta him for seemingly no reason

(Al in a ler mood targeting the easy one on his team, at least that’s what he says)

He never really minds when Alejandro tickles him, because it’s usually very sudden and it bursts

Also he usually deserves it

His favorite ler is definitely Lindsay though, she’s so sweet but she can also be so ruthless

Has a hard time fully realizing when someone’s about to wreck him, so by the time he realizes they’ve usually already pinned him down

Theres been a lot of moments where he’ll get stuck in a trap or something and it leaves him as prime real estate  for anyone looking to wreck him

His worst spots are definitely his thighs (his entire leg really), under arms, and stomach!

Don’t let the fact he gets wrecked more often than not fool you, he’s a great ler

Can be lowkey ruthless if he’s getting revenge, he’ll work you up until you’re pleading and crying

But if he’s not looking for vengeance, he’s a pretty chill and fun ler

He doesn’t really try to tease, but most of the things he says come off super teasy

“Whoa dude! Who knew you were this ticklish?” “Cmon man, don’t cover your face! I wanna hear you laugh!”

He’s managed to tickle almost everyone he knows at least once

And lets just say the results of that weren’t pretty

Love love loves wrecking Lindsay and Alejandro

Lindsay has one of the cutest laughs on earth, he swears

She’s not super ticklish but he knows what buttons to push to get her all giggly

He gets soooo lovey dovey when tickling her

Alejandro is a favorite victim of his because that dude needed to be taken down a peg, plus revenge purposes (Also he thinks he’s cute)

Really really genuinely teasy when he tickles Alejandro, it’s keeps him from immediately retaliating and turning the tables

They do fight for a little whenever Tyler tries to wreck Al, because the latter is usually expecting it

The rest of their team knows to stay out of it when those two are at it

There’s no hard feelings though, if anything it became a little competition to see who could wreck the other more

Currently Alejandro is in the lead, he’s better at the whole “element of surprise” thing

Tyler’s also very found of wrecking Noah, Cody, Harold, Geoff, and Trent!

Not super into using tool, but not opposed to trying them out!!

[iiitsnotbase]

Sweet Satine

BASED ON @romeoandjulietyouwish 's BROADWAY AU. THIS STARTED AS SOMETHIGN SMALL.

Keyleth had never felt like she was more unsuited to a role than fucking Satine, of all of them she had ever played this one was so far out of her comfort zone. It’s not like she was doing it alone, though. Percy was Christian and Gilmore was Harold, and Vax was Toulouse, which made Nature Boy a lot more emotional. She had Vex as well, with a scene in the show where their two characters described each other as ‘sisters’ in. And she couldn’t fucking breathe. She was gasping for air through her warm-ups and her rehearsal today, and was sure Percy had noticed it. The door opened and in rushed Gilmore, who had his hands around her waist in the next second. Thank god her entrance was not until 15 minutes in. 

“Gilmore, hack,” She said, curling into him. 

“I know they talk about method acting, but this is too much darling. You need sleep.” Keyleth shook her head, but still curled closer into Gilmore. “I’ll make you some tea, yes?” She nodded, “Save your voice, no talking until you’re out on that stage. If you’re still bad at the end of act 1, you’re leaving.” Keyleth could do nothing but nod, and hack above her dressing table. “Oh dear, your lipstick has smudged. Here.” Gilmore took a make-up wipe and gently reapplied it. “Let’s go.” 

From the stage, Keyleth could hear Vax beginning his song. 

“I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh.”

~

Keyleth had always been afraid of heights. She coughed gently into her elbow and looked at the swing in front of her, sitting down. It was, arguably, the best entrance in the show. If she could hold off her coughs for a little while, she could get through it. Her legs swung and she felt herself lower. Hundreds of people were expecting the diamond. She could show them Keyleth. 

“Diamonds are forever,” She began, letting go of the grip of one of the handles, she continued the song as her feet landed on the ground, and if slightly less effort was put into the notes so she could do Crazy Rolling extremely well later? That was a secret only she got to know. She was, mostly, fine. 

~

Something was wrong with Keyleth. Vex didn’t know her as well as her brother did, but she could still tell something was off. There were too many well-placed coughs in the show where there weren't before, and it took a little extra effort to pull her off the floor during Sparkling Diamond. “Vax.” She said, backstage. A risk she was willing to take, because the audience may have been able to see her. 

“What on earth are you doing, Stubby?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Something’s wrong with Keyleth.” Vex said. “I can see it when I get behind her. She’s slightly weaker.” 

“Oh no the exits not a good…” Vax, in his panic, looked back to his sister, who was already gone before she could elaborate and he was making his entrance. He was supposed to look at Keyleth, Satine, anyway, and when he did there was no way she wasn’t ill. “Idea.” Even under the thick stage make-up, he could see dark circles under her eyes. When the three boys went away to argue, she coughed into her arm. 

~

The second the curtain fell on act 1, Keyleth collapsed into Percy’s arms and started coughing a little too violently. Percy held onto her as she coughed and prayed nobody in the audience could hear her. Method Acting was going a step too far with Keyleth tonight.

“Keeks.” He said. “Are you sure you can keep going?” Keyleth coughed some more in response and looked up at him. She was panting for breath. “Actually, don't talk. Come on, let’s get you sat down.” She leaned on Percy all the way to her dressing room, where she sat down on her chair and had a blanket draped over her shoulders and handed her a notebook and pen. Vax came in immediately after that, still in costume, closely followed by Vex. 

“I think you should go home.” Vax said, “When does Pike’s show finish? Maybe she can take you home.” Vax was always like this when any member of the group got sick. “Vex can go on for you.” Keyleth began to scrawl in the notebook. 

I’m fine. She coughed off to the side again, Check my temp. Percy raised an eyebrow. 

“If it’s raised too high, you’re leaving.” He said, “We’re calling Cass.” It always looked strange seeing Vex with the blonde Nini wig on, Keyleth thought. Not many people knew that her natural hair colour was a deep, dark brown. She nodded at Percy, who went to fetch the kit, and Vax bent down next to her.

“What’s wrong, love?” Keyleth touched her throat. “Voice hurts?” She nodded, “Want me to go on for you?” She tried not to laugh, and spotted Gilmore in the doorway. She waved him and Scanlan in. “What, I have great sexual tension with Shaun and Freddie.” 

“No doing well then, Dove?” Gilmore asked, and Keyleth nodded. Vax had launched into an intentionally bad rendition of Firework. “Vocal rest would be the best thing for you.” 

“Want me to call Kaylie?” Scanlan asked. “She could get here in ten minutes.” Keyleth rolled her eyes and wrote something in her notebook. 

I don’t want to delay the show. Vax was still doing his bad rendition, but he was doing the choreography to Chandelier with it. It made a complete mess of the song, but Keyleth was smiling. Percy and Vex returned with the thermometer, and Keyleth allowed the momentary discomfort of it being shoved in her ear before it beeped and Percy read the temperature. 

“It’s fine.” Vex said. “But-”

“No buts.” Keyleth croaked out. “If it was fine. I could stay.”

“You sound like you’re dying.” Scanlan pointed out. 

“Method acting.” Keyleth shot back. 

“Sing for me.” Gilmore said, and because Keyleth could not hold her tongue, she launched into Christine’s run from Phantom of The Opera. It sounded fine. It wasn’t going to get her any crazy standing ovations, but it sounded fine. “Well. No more talking until you’re on that stage, yes?” Keyleth nodded again. One by one, they filed out of the room until it was just Keyleth and Vax. 

Vax leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, and then he was gone too. 

~

“You need a doctor, Ke- Satine.” Vex (as Nini) insisted after almost messing up the line and during the scene that Nini and Satine shared after Satine had revealed her illness to the other members of Moulin Rouge. She had to notice that Keyleth’s breath caught in her throat, which only made her cough more. Vex was by her side in a second. 

“I am fine, Nini.” Keyleth said, “I will open the new show and- hack.” That wasn’t in the script. Keyleth could not stop coughing. Whatever she did next had to be in somewhat character until they could get the show back running, but her chest was so tight and the coughs were so violent and she didn’t know whether her microphone was on or off. 

“Deep breaths, love.” Vex said, so close to her character Keyleth could not tell whether she was faking, “Harold will understand.” Vex found the pocket of her costume where they kept the tissue, and handed it to Keyleth. 

“Nini- I can’t breathe.” Keyleth said, falling over and into Vex. Vex, in all her good grace, picked her up and carried her off stage. People were talking all around her and she was vaguely aware of orders being yelled by the stage manager and an announcement of a brief show stop. 

“Vex, go get on for Satine, Vax-” 

“I’m staying with Kiki.”

“I know. I’m telling you to make the both of you sparse so we can use this area for make up.” Keyleth was aware of strong hands by her side and Vax gently lifting her up and towards her dressing room. She didn’t have a car and neither did he, so they’d have to get the subway back to Keyleth and Pike’s tiny apartment, unless they signalled a cab. 

~ Keyleth woke up the next morning to a post from Moulin Rouge’s official twitter account and more replies under it than was natural. Vax was asleep on the floor next to her as she scrolled through the replies. Percy had once called this ‘doom scrolling’, but she couldn’t help herself. 

@MoulinRougeBway: For the remainder of tonight's performance, Satine will be played by Vex’ahlia De Rolo and Toulouse-Lautrec will be played by Kynan Leore. We thank you for your patience. 

It was calm, it was reasonable, it was professional, it was everything that the official account for their job should be. The responses were always rough to get through, but Keyleth did it anyway. 

@BellaSmith: WTF?? Came all this way to see Keyleth and she can’t even do the show. 

@NCDR: Calm down Bella. 

@Cheffery: Wishing you all the best Keyleth! So lucky to get to see yours and Vex’s Satine in one night…You both bring something good to the role. 

@Strongjaw: Get well soon Kiki!!!!

Her phone was covered by a hand and pulled out of her grasp by Vax, who had woken up.

“How’re you doing?” He asked, and she hadn't tried speaking yet. “We need to get you to a doctor, yeah? Satine is emotionally and vocally demanding. I know you don’t want to think about it but better safe than sorry, yeah?” 

“Vax-” Keyleth’s voice was still cracking at every single chance it got. “-Fine. I’ll go see a doctor.” Vax kissed her on the forehead again. 

“I love you. Please don’t kiss me, I don’t wanna get sick.”

[gremlinservant]

WC: 1515

Ships included: Tomzen, Frenrey in background, old men in background

@inkzectz idk if I should continue this, but here's a free trial of university professor x military recruiter. i opened the wiki so much i've learned so much. Forzen is canonly stupid, stubborn, and a compulsive liar

-Story begin-

Professor Tommy Coolatta, early as he normally is, watches as the new recruiter starts setting up his table by the entrance.  The previous one, a young man called Corporal Shepherd or something like that, got called back to the frontlines.  The new one is dressed in full military gear, something most of the students have probably never seen before.  His face has a nasty scar running over the left side of his face, and there’s a notable gap where his left eye should have been.  He notices Tommy staring and pulls an eyepatch over his eye, shooting the professor a glare.  Tommy, ever the oblivious one, decides to greet the man.

“Hello!”  Tommy smiles at the recruiter, holding his box of papers aside so the man can see him better.  “What’s your name?”

“Forzen.”  The man grunts, unfolding a chair and setting it by his little stand.  He takes a deep breath and stands up straight, looking Tommy in the eye.  He’s a little shorter than Tommy, although Tommy is abnormally tall.

“Well, hello Forzen!  I’m Dr Tommy Coolatta.  I take it that you’re the new recruiter here?”

Forzen sighs and glances away.  “...yeah.”

“Uhm…”  Tommy trails off, his smile turning a bit more awkward.  It’s hard to talk to somebody who doesn’t really respond.  “What, uh, squad are you part of?”

“Team-S Nice.  I’m the only one in it.”

“Oh, that’s cool!  You must be highly skilled to be in your own team.  Your boss must think highly of you.  What rank are you?”

“O-5.”  Forzen pauses.  “I’m a, uh, sergeant.”

“Alright!  I teach Biotechnological engineering in room 404, if you ever want to chat.”  Tommy waves.  “See you later, Sergeant Forzen of Team-S Nice!”

As Tommy walks away, he reflects on the conversation.  That was weird, wasn’t it?  What does “Team-S” even mean?  And what kind of name is Forzen?

He bumps into Professor Jason Bubby, who snarls out a curse.  Bubby had been holding a cup of hot coffee, and was now trying to get said coffee out of his shirt.  Tommy quickly apologizes and moves away.  Bubby didn’t like anyone, but that’s okay.  He’s going to retire soon.  Tommy still kind of liked the man, in a weird way.  Yeah, Bubby is rude and has very few redeeming qualities, but he’s a very efficient professor.  He’s so friendly with his husband, Dr Harold Coomer, that it gave Tommy whiplash the first time he saw them together.  Bubby lights up whenever he talks about Dr Coomer, even if the subject is gruesome.  Like that time Bubby went into detail about how Dr Coomer needed a colon replacement, and how Dr Coomer uses Biotech legs and forearms.

Tommy shows his school ID to the guard at the door, who lets him in with a disinterested hello (what was his name again?  Barrey?  Bourey?  Oh, right, Barney.  Officer Calhoun).  Tommy gives Officer Calhoun a quiet hello back, then waves as he sees another guard following a fellow science professor.

“Hello, Mr Freeman!”  Tommy calls over.  “Hello, Officer Benrey.”

Professor Gordon Freeman and Officer Benji Reymond wave back, calling a greeting.  Everybody shortens Benji Reymond’s name to Benrey, the first three letters of his first and last name smushed together.  Gordon, despite having a PhD, preferred going by Mr Freeman over Dr Freeman.  He says Dr Freeman makes him feel old, which he’s not, he’s only 27.  Benrey… well, nobody knows exactly how old he is, or if he’s human.  He doesn’t really act human sometimes.  Dr Coomer is 69, and potentially has minor dementia.  Bubby doesn’t tell anyone his age, sarcastically saying a very wrong answer when he’s asked, such as 6, 420, and newborn.  Tommy thinks that he’s about 60 or so.

“Hey Tommy!”  Gordon calls, walking over.  “Did you see the new recruiter?”

“I did, yeah!  I met Sergeant Forzen just a moment ago.  Do you think he’ll be around for the whole semester?”

“Yeah.”  Benrey leans against their partner.  He grins, smiling with a mouthful of sharpened teeth.  “He had to fill out a form saying how long he planned on staying, since he requested room and board.”

“He looks kind of like you.”  Tommy notes, peering under Benrey’s helmet.

“Huh?  What’d you mean?  I don’t look anything like him.”  Benrey blinks slowly.  Benrey has always looked a bit sickly with his grayish skin and yellow-tinted eyes.  That shade over his eyes… Tommy had assumed that it was because of his helmet, but his helmet is tucked under his arm at the moment.  His hair looks like the color at the bottom of a bottomless pit, matching the shadow over his eyes.  Tommy supposes he shouldn’t judge Benrey.  After all, he isn’t exactly fully human either.

“I mean, he sounds like you and kind of acts like you.”  Tommy corrects himself.  If this were a game, Benrey and Forzen would probably have the same voice actor.

“That doesn’t mean anything though?”  Benrey stares at Tommy.  “I- uh, does he have his, uh… passport?”

“WHAT.”  Gordon butts in, his mouth dropping open.  “Why would he have his passport??”

“It’s a, uh, rule.  Gotta have your passport.”  That was true, actually.  All staff members needed to bring their passport.  It’s a new rule.  Good thing Tommy brought his, although it seems that Gordon didn’t.

“Why the F-”

Tommy leaves them to their bickering, instead choosing to continue his way to room 404.  It’s upstairs, in one of the smallest classrooms.  The dean had told Tommy that he didn’t need a bigger room, because of how niche his class is.  Tommy passes Bubby’s class, already starting to fill up, then Gordon’s class (which only has a sleep-deprived looking young adult drawing at one of the tables).  He goes up the stairs, pausing only to grab a soda from the vending machine.  He greets former students as he passes them.

After Tommy’s class, he heads for the library.  He needs to print out some papers, and that’s the most convenient place.  Yeah, he could go to the computer lab, but that’s in the furthest building.  The library is just one building over, in the English department.  He waves hello to Forzen again just as a snowflake hits his nose.  The forecast had called for snow, but Tommy had hoped it wouldn’t start until 3, when his classes ended.

“Hello, Sergeant Forzen of Team-S Nice!”  Tommy calls over.  Forzen wrinkles his nose at Tommy, evidently not pleased by the name.

“What.”  Forzen spits out.  The sleep-deprived young adult looks up at the sound from where they were scanning over the papers that Forzen had laid out.  Tommy doesn’t recognize them.

“Aren’t you cold?”  Tommy stops by the stand.  He’s not exactly sure what to do.  Should he smile?  Say something more?  He settles for putting his hands in his pockets.

“Why do you care?”  Forzen gives Tommy a nasty look.  The young adult looks trapped, like they really want to leave but they don’t want to be rude.

“Because I’m a nice person.”  Tommy shoots back at Forzen, turning his attention to the young adult.  “Hello!  I haven’t seen you before.  I’m Dr Tommy Coolatta.  Are you a freshman?”

“I, uhm.  Yes…?  I’m… I go by a lot of names.  Maybe Fae?  No.  Uhm…”

Tommy takes pity on the young adult.  “How about Sam?”

“Oh, that works!”  Sam lights up.  Forzen scoffs.

“That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard.”

“Nobody asked you.”  Sam snaps, then immediately makes a face of regret.  They quickly excuse themself and hurry off, heading for the dorms.  Poor Sam.

“Why are you such an a-”  Tommy whips his head to Forzen.

“UGH, so annoying.”  Forzen interrupts.  Tommy pauses, mouth half-open.  He sputters out a few offended sounds as Forzen gets to his feet.  Forzen’s spine makes a popping noise, which Forzen pauses and grumbles about.  Tommy watches, flabbergasted, as Forzen casually strolls away.  Forzen pauses for a moment.

“Je ne t'aime pas, même si tu as un beau visage.”  Forzen shoots over his shoulder.

“What does that mean?”  Tommy, despite being fluent in multiple languages including Latin and Ancient Greek, never learned French.  He’s the leading edge in Musica Orationis, or as it’s commonly known at Black Mesa University, “Sweet Voice”.  Benrey often spoke with the strange musical bubbles.  Tommy had used some of the alien DNA the biology department had to make Sunkist, and Sunkist ended up speaking in only Sweet Voice.  This led to the idea that Sweet Voice isn’t actually a language at all, but is instead biological.

Forzen, of course, only flips Tommy off and continues walking.

[josquarebox]

*cracks knuckles* sooo have you ever heard about Hytale?

This Game has been my neurodivergent obsession for a few years now, despite having never actually played it, since its not even out lol.

If you dont know what Hytale is, buckle up because you are stuck with me here and will have to listen to me rant about it >:)

Hytale is a Game being made by Hypixel Studios, an offshoot from Hypixel inc. who run the Hypixel minecraft Server. The Game has been in developement since somewhere around 2016 and has yet to release. Why so long, you might think? Well, its complicated.

Back in the ancient year before memorial (2016), Minecraft was at an all time low in terms of player numbers due to many factors, both a lack of interest in the games updates, minecraft being considered cringe and other games such as fortnite having pulled both players and creators away from the Game.

Dont get the wrong impression though, Minecraft was still being played a lot, but not very much talked about, and especially java editions days seemed numbered by a lot of creators, including the owner of Hypixel, Simon, as well as Noxy, who will be important later.

Simon, as far we know is a cool guy, and has made stonks with the Servers revenue during Minecrafts peak, but these times seemingly would never be coming back.

Minecraft just lacked the aspects nececarry to sustain its community, be it the lack of content updates, creator support through a modding api or freedom in policy through recent eula changes.

Due to these and other factors, the Hypixel Team realized that running their business long term in an enviromen, where so many sweeping large changes outside of their control could end their entire livelihood, they realized that there was basically nothing stopping them from just making their own minecraft, free from the restrainst of their creativity, community and buisness, and thats why Hypixel Studios, the Game company, was born.

As stated by noxy and Simon back in 2016, they had over 25 people working full time, funded by simon in an aruably risky move to build their own legs tto stand on, and by 2018, they were far enough into developement to share their project with the wider Hypixel community, and mabe even the entire Minecraft community...

In late 2018, Hypixel Studios released a Trailer on their Youtube channel for a new Game they had been working on for over 2 years called Hytale:

Hytale was advertised as a Blockgame Sandbox RPG, utalizing simmilar voxel based terrain as minecraft, but other than that completely different: Where Minecraft was an open-ended Sandbox for the player to shape the way they like, Hytale was designed to be an Adventure RPG with a Story/Campain, Lore, more in depth combat, a fully realized fantasy World with Bosses and dungeons and content galore, but also open for other people to create their own experiences inside the game using modding support, live scripting a model maker and so on. Not to mention an upgraded version of their minecraft server, now unchained from minecraft and let loose on a Game under their full control.

Simon and the others new that there was interest for that kind of game, but the response from the wider Gaming community was beyond their wildest Expectation:

Their Prediction laid at around 100, mabe 200 thousand views on their first look trailer, but boi did they underestimate:

The Trailer now sits at 60. Million. Views. 60. MILLION.

Many AAA Studios wuld dream of that kind of success, and now they were sitting there, with the pressure to perform in front of the entire Minecraft community, they were harolded as the bringers of Minecraft 2, the ones who would give them what minecraft was sorely lacking, they were now asked to bear a community of that size on their shoulders, and well, they marched on.

On their Twitter Account, they said they were aiming for the game to be in everyones hands by 2019, but as we all know, that never happened, but why?

They decided to delay the release until 2021 to try and reach the expectations now put on them, expand the team, explore new possibilites and see how they can harness the attention the game had gotten.

Over the course of the next two years, they would release blogposts after blogpost updating exited fans on the developement of the game, sharing details on how the game shaped up, and sometimes announce new hires, along with simon handing of the torch to noxy as head of the company.

At the Start of 2020, theythen announced that Hypixel Studios had been aqquired by a major Studio called Riot Games, that would be funding the further developement as well as oversee and give advice to the rapidly growing Team. For many, me included this sounded dangerous, since as gamers we were well to aware of the many cases where studios like Electronic Arts have acquired smaller studios, only for them to ruin their future games and close the studio after a small failiure.

But as we now know, this did not happen in this case, in fact, riot is built on very simmilar ideals and spirit of entrepreneurship, their flagship title, league of legends, was inspired by Dota, a popular warcraft 3 mod - a journey not too dissimilar from what Hypixel went through with minecraft.

If we now skip until today, Hypixel studios has grown from somewhere around 30 employees to over 130, they have hired talent from the minecraft community, like the developer of sodium, they hired people from the pre-release hytale community, they have hired people they themselves grew up playing games made of, and as stated by their Game director John Hendricks, a former Mojang employee, they have now largely ,,Charted the iceberg" in terms of what is now in their scope to expand hytale into: Hytale is now not only a big game, its a Plattform for People to come together, explore and create, for people to go on the same sort of journey they themselves took initialy with the project.

This has obviously meant that, to utalize the immense amount of talent, reccources and experience, they need time, and this has pushed a possible release farther and farther back.

The Game that was being developed back before 2020 is now left to be an overengineered prototype of their full vision, while they rebuild the games technical side from the ground up to have an engine durabe enough for over a decade to come, and take their time doing it, not under pressure from riot to crunch developement, as other publishers and parent companies have done in the past.

As for me, I have been exited for what they do with the Game since that announcement back in 2018, and I have hopes and dreams of what playing and creating in hytale will be like. I cant wait to explore the world of orbis, play minigames and explore what others may create, or create myself.

The Game Industry is a tough place, where funding, good management, talent, experience, and an exited playerbase cannot guarantee a good game, but mabe, just mabe, lightning will strike exactly where I want it to, and mabe Hytale will be the game I have hope it has the potential to be.

If you have read this far, thank you. I may post more in the future about this kinda stuff, but for now I hope to have relieved myself of some of that hype that has been pressure sealed behind my fingers. I hope you have a great day, and may this post age well ;D