#nothing like a timer to make me read faster

[sthenoaloraquest]

I have 23 chapters left of Iron Flame! About 9ish hours of reading to finish today. Which should be easy (as long as I stay away from doomscrolling). We are now counting down the hours til Onyx Storm release! 🥳

[fast-burn]

aliens with any pairing but maybe... max/GP and max is an alien?! or vice versa?

this makes me sooooo so happy, xeno stuff is my happy place 🥰🥰🥰 science fiction + erotica my beloved

in fact this made me so happy that it's 4.4k long, so you can read the fic here if you prefer it on ao3 😵‍💫

kink list here

XXX

Mx.V.33-1 was their longest-lasting subject at RB Research Labs Milton Keynes. He had large, wide set eyes and a plush mouth, a neat row of pointy teeth, webbed fingers tipped with tiny talons, and gills along the side of his neck. He had grayish skin that was blue in the right light; it was soft to the touch. When extremely inebriated, GP could be pressed into admitting that he found Mx.V.33-1 somewhat cute, though it was certainly his bias as the lead scientist on the project. He called Mx.V.33-1 Max, for short, and it had stuck with everyone else in the lab.

Because he was extremely sapient—had mastered four languages and was working on Latin, was good at chess, even better at FIFA, loathed coursework but put up with it for the sake of science—Max had free reign of the RB compound. It wasn't safe to let him wander far alone, but he could spend hours out of his deep, salt-water tank. He liked wearing white t-shirts and jeans. He liked going for rides around the countryside in GP's Mini, and more often than not got his way when he asked to get behind the wheel and turn donuts in farmers' fields. He liked dogs and cats equally. He liked raw beef, and chocolate, and tomato soup. For the most part, he liked the research team.

GP was fully aware that his reciprocal fondness for Max was far from professional, but it didn't stop him from feeling that way. In his heart, Max was his ward, not an experiment. That's why he was at the lab on a Saturday, happily covering for a junior assistant who wanted to go visit her mum in hospital.

He'd brought a whole tray of Kinder Eggs for Max, hoping they could while away some of the day by combining the toy parts to make some new mechanical monstrosity. Max's creativity was endlessly fascinating. GP could put the results in the daily report, but mostly he just wanted to watch Max have some fun, and make chocolate disappear faster than GP could unwrap the foil.

The lights were already on when GP beeped past the locked double-doors, set on a timer to mimic the sunrise and set outside. Max was nowhere to be seen from this side of the tank.

"You are not supposed to be here," Max's voice crackled through the lab speakers—a clever bit of engineering that could parse speech through the water. "You don't come on weekends."

"Well spotted, Max," GP said, rolling his eyes as he took off his sodden coat. It was raining to beat the band out there, but that was England for you.

"Why are you here?"

GP shuffled the computer mouse to wake up the screen, and started typing in his epic-length password. "Don't you want to see the present I've brought you?"

Max swam out of his privacy enclosure and up to the front of the tank. "Yes please," he said.

Something was very wrong.

"You're pink," GP remarked. Mostly pink, but in some places purple, and in others a coral-orange. He glanced at Max's basic vitals on the computer screen. His dual heartbeat was elevated, though nothing beyond standard range. "Do you feel alright?"

"Fine," Max said, except he shrank back from GP a fraction, body curling in on itself. "Don't worry."

If Max was just another alien plant or sponge or fungus in the lab, GP would be merely curious, or maybe downright intrigued, but Max meant so much more than that. Of course GP was worried. "I'll need to take a fluid sample."

Max grimaced. "Ugh, no. It's okay, this is normal."

"You have an established normal. It doesn't include pink."

"It's just...my time," Max said, cheeks blooming spotty shades of purple. He was embarrassed. Several things clicked for GP at once.

"You're in estrus," GP concluded, and Max retreated from the front of the tank entirely in a flurry of bubbles.

They hadn't done much experimentation into Max's reproductive system. Obviously Max had one, but all his gonads were internal and seemed somewhat inert, and so they didn't poke at it much. They were far more interested in Max's DNA and its ability to adapt, crucial data being generated in stem cell research. And there was, of course, the opportunity to observe a humanoid member of an alien species learn to communicate, and thrive.

Max always glommed on to the profane and inappropriate first in any language he learned, and was a delightfully naughty encyclopedia for dirty jokes—something that especially pleased the linguists in the lab. Other than that, Max hadn't displayed much in the way of reproductive attributes. He didn't even use his computer login to look at pornography, just watched a lot of late night Twitch streams. They each had their theories about it: lack of an appropriate partner, or impracticality of breeding in capture, or complex and ephemeral alien sexuality. It hadn’t really been relevant, and now GP was floundering.

"You're not supposed to be here," Max whined again, voice just as clear from wherever he'd hidden himself.

"Well, I am," GP replied. "Let's just get you sorted out. What can I do to make you comfortable?"

"Nothing," said Max, but he was a bad liar, tone going suspiciously flat. "You can go home."

"I'd appreciate it if you came out to the auxiliary tank and I could give you a check-up. After that, if you want me to leave, I will." GP sat down at the desk and loaded up the daily report. He typed the date. Mx.V.33-1 showing signs of he started, but then paused. He minimized the window.

When Max had been brought to RB, nearly a decade ago, Dr. Marko had rolled him into the lab in a tangled fishing net, with several hunks of debris trapped alongside him. Max was frightened, skin flaking and eyes darting about. Where there's one, there's a pair, Marko had said, and Horner next to him had actually rubbed his hands together with glee.

Maybe it was better if GP consulted his team on Monday, in person. He opened the software for the lab's cameras, and changed the settings to encrypt the day's recording to his thumbprint.

Max was a beautiful creature. This was far too private for the likes of the RB upper brass. 

GP heard the telltale thumping as Max swam into the smaller side tank. It was wide enough to hold four Maxes, but only as deep as a bathtub, designed to be comfortable for both subject and scientist. He grabbed the med kit and a laptop from the storage trolley, and rolled his chair over.

"I am only putting up with this so you'll leave," Max said, arms folded on the edge of the tub, his hair slicked back from his forehead and sticking up at all angles. His voice was softer in the open air, rather than the tinny recreation of the speaker. He smelled different than usual, too. More musky, but also more sweet, like burnt sugar. "Go ahead and run your experiments, if you must."

"Fuck the experiments," GP said with more feeling than he intended, and the expletive made Max quirk a smile.

Max unfolded one of his arms, and GP started attaching sensors. He was a dusty-rose colour all over, slippery because of the salt and the protective film Max's body started generating if he hadn't been out of the tank for a couple days. GP had to use special wipes so that the sensors would actually hold. Usually, Max was a very good sport and held perfectly still. Now when GP touched him, he jolted, just slightly.

"Tell me about what you're feeling," GP asked as the data started rolling in on the laptop.

Max's gills finally sealed shut and he started breathing through his nose. "Restless. Irritated. Sensitive, also."

GP looked up at Max, blushing purple again. "Sensitive where?"

"You know," Max said as he squirmed. GP had no idea where. He could make an educated guess, but that only went as far as extrapolating from human experience. Unless, of course, he touch Max and find out that way.

He changed tactics. "Is this the first you've had your—your time?"

Max snorted. "I have of course been alive for many years. This is my fourth," he said, "but I have not had one for a while."

"When was the last time?"

"Right before I was," Max looked down, and then at the wall. "Before I came here."

Ah. That told GP a lot. Max ordinarily went into an estrus phase more frequently than every eight years, and it made him very vulnerable, especially as he was recovering. He should be in his sexual prime, but something about being at the lab prevented that. And, just as notably, something recently had pushed him back into his regular hormonal cycle. GP didn't know how far in the data he had to review, but he made a mental note to look back three months, at least.

He broke a fresh tab out of its package and held the receptive end up to Max. "Lick, please," he said, and Max's tongue flashed out dutifully to wet it with his saliva. GP placed it into the scanner which whirred to life as it started calculating hormone levels. "Do you usually spend your time with a group, or a partner, or alone?"

Max scowled, and his heart rate ticked up on the laptop screen. "Are you asking if I have wild orgies or if I just jerk off by myself?"

"Something like that," GP said. He knew Max preferred him to be straight-forward with his questions, but it didn't stop Max from giving rude answers. "If you like, you can just tell me the standard. I don't have to know your personal sexual history."

"My personal—" Max balked and sank deeper into the water. "It is supposed to be with a partner."

"Sorry I can't help with that," GP said, thinking of how little interest Max had shown to anyone else in the lab, at least in that sense. It would be an incredible breach in decorum to ask anyone to help Max through estrus, but he knew any of them would still be happy to help.

Max's plum flush spread to the seashell curves of his ears. "I did not expect you to."

GP changed the subject. "Can we go back to the sensitivity?"

"I'd rather you just guess."

"Well," GP went on, "for example with the human species, we tend to feel—"

"Yes, I know all about it," Max snapped, popping back up with a soft splash. "It is the same for me, but slightly different. Go on and write it in the report. That's all you need to say."

"I'm not making a report," GP said slowly.

Max looked at the laptop screen for the first time. "You're not? But you're asking me questions like you are."

"That's because I want to help you. Max," he said, holding back the urge to make him look GP in the eyes, "fuck the experiments."

Finally, Max seemed to relax. He tugged at his ear, rubbed his thumb across his lips, the beauty mark there. "Okay, well if it's just you who wants to know, maybe it is better if I show you."

Max tugged on the zippered front of his navy wetsuit—clothing he insisted upon more for cultural adaptation than any real modesty. The base of his throat was pinker than his arms, legs, and face. His chest was a little swollen. And then Max tugged the zip over a bulge on his abdomen.

It was convex, like a wide bowl, or...like a baby bump, such a pale pink that it was almost white, the skin stretched taut over Max's distended stomach. GP refrained from reaching out; they had assured Max that he was welcome to scratch up anyone who didn't get permission to touch. But he wanted to , so desperately. He wanted to palpate it and soothe the ache, or maybe make it worse. The desire was so sudden and unexpected that GP was nauseous.

He sat with his fists curled on his knees, lips pressed together, and watched as Max leaned back and kept unzipping his suit.

The slit between Max's legs was gently parted and swollen, the tip of something bright pink peeking out from inside. That had to be Max's penis, or some kind of clitoral tissue. Maybe an ovipositor. It was hard to tell with the distortion of the water.

"This is where I am most sensitive," Max said, hands going to frame his slit, and spreading—

A blip came from the laptop, and GP turned his head instinctively to see the hormonal report load on screen. They had it set to display the standards along with new results so that they could see the differences, and a gradient map to show extremes. Several bars were deep red.

"GP."

He looked back at Max.

"You're not paying attention," he complained. "This is very intimate, and you are looking at the computer."

"Intimate?" GP choked.

Max grasped GP's wrist and dragged him forward. "Here," he said as GP's fingers splayed over Max's belly. "Feel how full. Push down on it."

The skin was coolish compared to the tight grip of Max's hand. GP pushed gently, and Max groaned, an uninhibited sound bouncing off every surface in the room. There was a shift in Max's abdomen, and something squirted out of Max's slit. "Max—"

"Oh, yes," Max sighed, eyes fluttering. "Yes, thank you, GP."

GP looked down and pushed again, and watched a bright orange object shoot out of Max. It was slightly bigger than a marble.

"Is that an egg?" he asked, tongue buzzing in his mouth.

Max nodded and let go of GP. "I have more than usual. It is supposed to be less than twelve. You can't even see them from the outside, normally, but it has been so long."

The two eggs that Max had released rested on the bottom of the tub. "So you're a...carrier, then?"

"I can do both," Max said. "When I have my time, I produce the eggs of course, but I can be the other half whenever. It is very lucky, for us. Not everyone can be two in one."

Max was special; GP could have told anyone that. "That's wonderful. Well done," he said, and Max practically glowed with the compliment.

"Will you help me lay them?"

GP's fingers twitched on Max's stomach. "I can keep pushing."

"No," Max said. "There's a better way."

Desire stirred in GP, making his cock swell in his pants. He licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry. "What do you mean?"

Max pulled off his suit and tossed it on the edge of the tub with a wet slap. "I want you to fuck me."

GP swallowed. He'd never—he wouldn't. Max was his responsibility to care for. There were whole documents on ensuring that Max wasn't ever abused in his capture, and it all came down to what Max wanted. If what Max felt like doing all day was to play video games, that's exactly what happened. If Max stayed in his privacy enclosure for a week, they didn't drag him out.

Palpating Max's abdomen to induce spawning was one thing, but fucking him was—

Max pushed up against the edge of the tub and pressed his mouth to GP’s.

"What," GP started to say against Max's lips, but Max just kissed him harder. He was firm, and his nose dug into GP’s cheekbone.

"That's how humans start when they want to fuck, right?" Max said when he released him a moment later. "I saw two of them doing it in the corner over there when they thought no one was looking."

Part of GP wanted to ask which two because he had about a hundred quid on various office romance pools. "That's similar to what we do, for sure."

Max groaned, fisting his talons in GP's lab coat. "Then show me how."

GP tilted his head and kissed Max properly. Max's mouth was salty, of course, but also slick and soft. He learned quickly, like he did everything else, lapping at GP's tongue and then sucking on it. He nibbled on GP's lower lip with his triangular teeth, little blades that he was so, so careful with.

"That is weird," Max proclaimed when he pulled away, "but nice. Can we fuck now? You are wearing too many clothes."

"This isn't the most precious place for it," GP admitted. He couldn't easily take Max to bed, though the thought of having Max under him at his flat was deliciously tempting. Max, home with GP on the weekends, raiding his fridge and demanding sex at all hours of the day. Insatiable, bratty, gorgeous Max.

"It doesn't matter," said Max, climbing out of the tub. "Just get naked."

"Don't the eggs have to be in water?"

Max rolled his eyes and started tugging on GP's clothes, clearly annoyed at how GP wasn't dropping trou fast enough. "They are of course not fertilized. I just want them out."

GP's lab coat was a lost cause, huge holes shredded through the fabric already, so he took over for his sweater before Max could attack that too. Max sat back against the lip of the tub, apparently pleased to watch now. It was just after Christmas and GP wasn't too thrilled with his physique after gobbling down a whole roast he'd bought just for himself, but he did alright at the company gym. Max's body was sleek and chubby in places, like a seal, to keep warm in the water.

As soon as GP shucked his trousers to his ankles, Max was in his lap. The chair squeaked dangerously beneath them.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Max asked. That was another part of the care-and-keeping of Max: he had a right to his own internal life. If Max wanted to tell any of them a secret, it would stay between just those two.

"Of course you can," GP replied.

Max rocked in his lap, leaving a puddle of tank water and protective fluid. "I was thinking about you," he said, grinding his wet slit against GP's briefs and his erection. "Like this. I wanted to have you just like this. That's why all the eggs came." He leaned forward and spoke right in GP's ear, a soft murmur that none of the microphones around the lab would catch, "You knocked me up."

GP groaned, dizzy from the rush of blood down south. He clutched Max's hips without asking, but Max just pressed himself deeper into GP's lap. His pregnant little belly pressed against GP's stomach and a fresh splurt of wetness soaked them both.

He wrestled his dick out, hand already slippery from whatever secretion Max's slit was producing. "Put it where you want it," GP said, because he didn't know where Max's vaginal entrance was mapped compared to a human's.

Max wrapped his hot, webbed hand around GP's length and guided it until the tip was in the right place. Then he sank down on it, a perfect slick slide. The muscles he had inside rippled around GP's cock. "Fuck, fuck, that feels so good," Max said, swiveling his hips, getting used to the space. "Oh, GP, you're so big, you're so warm. And hard."

"What do you—" GP started to say, and Max took GP's hand to guide it to the front of his slit.

"Here, feel," he said, making GP press against the pink flushed member that GP had only glimpsed in the tub. It was slim, maybe five or six centimeters long, tapered at the end, coated in fluid. "Be gentle with me."

"Alright," GP agreed, stroking up and down the length with two fingers.

Max shuddered, his passage clenching around GP. "See? Very different. I'll tell you another secret: it's small."

"It's just the right size."

Max shook his head. He braced his hands against GP's shoulders, talons pricking slightly. "I am just stating the comparison. I don't have the standard length. But that is fine, because this is what I want," he said, pushing up and sliding down, riding GP's cock.

GP turned his head and kissed Max's neck, over the seal of his gills. He could feel the slight difference in texture, like a stretchmark or an old scar. Max whimpered and his passage clenched. He leaked more slick. GP rocked up into him, unable to help himself.

"Do humans kiss everywhere?" Max asked.

"Yes," GP admitted, lips moving across Max's gills again, making him pulse. "Everywhere."

Max got impossibly wetter. "Would you kiss my pussy?"

GP's mouth dropped open, shocked dumb enough that only an ugly grunt came out of him, and Max laughed.

"I am of course just messing with you. I know all about cunnilingus and oral sex," Max leaned back and smiled with his sharp teeth. "We can try it another time. Right now I need you to fuck me as hard as you can, or the eggs won't come out."

"You're really giving me a rough time, teasing me like that," GP said, and snapped his hips up.

Max moaned, liquid around him for a moment before he squeezed. "Is it working?"

GP thrust in again, using his hands on Max's hips to bring their bodies together.

"Harder than that, come on," said Max, and GP did. "Harder. Really hard, I won't break. Can't you feel how wet I am for you?"

It was a challenge in the rolling chair, but GP spread his knees for leverage and really thrust—a pace that he would have considered brutal otherwise, but Max just gasped and grinned. So GP kept going, a mindless, animalistic fuck, surely bruising. Max moaned like a pornstar, high and whining.

"Feel so good," GP said.

"Tell me," gasped Max. "I want it. Tell me a secret, tell me, tell me."

"Wet, slutty little cunt," he grunted, dragging up the nastiest parts of himself as he fucked into Max. "Gonna make you heat all the time. Look at you, you're so desperate. Can't do anything 'cause you just want my cock so deep in you, making you take it."

Max's belly tensed, his walls fluttering rhythmically around GP's cock. "Yes, I want that," he said. "Always."

"Tiny baby dick because you just want to be bred, don't you? That's all you're good for?"

"Please," Max whimpered. "So close. Harder, GP, please."

"Any harder and I'll fuck right through you." GP's legs were burning, back aching, but he kept going, driving himself closer to the edge. He rubbed Max's slim, short cock between his fingers. Max cried out, urgent. "That's it, go on. Come for me."

"I will, I will," Max chanted, his head tilting back and the base of his throat fuchsia, trembling with the rest of him. Suddenly, GP's cock slipped out of him on a thrust, and Max burst, eggs squirting out of him and splattering the floor as he screamed. GP pressed on Max's belly, helping it along, and felt it decompress under his palm, everything squeezing out in an orgasmic rush.

When it was done, Max's entrance drooled as he gasped, perched over GP's lap as he caught his breath. There must have been a hundred eggs on the floor, most of them orange, but a few more yellowish or more red. They were wet, and a couple rolled away, leaving shiny snail trails in their wake.

"Wow," GP said, which was an understatement. He pushed again on Max's stomach, but it was empty now, and Max just whimpered.

"If we were going to have a baby," Max panted, "you would have to come on the eggs."

GP's cock bounced, the crown smearing against Max's used hole. "I don't think it will work."

"Too bad." Max spread his slit open with his hands, just like he had earlier in the tub. "I guess you'll just have to do it on me instead."

It was only a matter of a dozen or so strokes, everything still so lubricated, absolutely sopping, and then GP aimed himself right at the soft, secret core of Max and climaxed, painting the folds with pearly release.

Max was a welcome weight in GP's lap afterward, and there was no scientific way to explain how they just rested and snuggled for the better part of ten minutes. It wasn't unusual for Max to be affectionate, but he was selective about it, and rarely did he want to endure it for long.

It was when GP's knees started shaking that Max finally got up. "I knew you would be good at that," Max said, smiling like GP was the experiment, gone perfectly to plan. "I might make eggs again, soon. This was so many at once, so I think next time will be a little different. But you will help me again." There was no room in his tone for GP to argue, but he wouldn't dream of it.

"I'm glad it won't be so messy next time." GP surveyed the general disaster zone around the chair and was already dreading the cleanup.

Max slipped back into the tub, and dove down for a moment before popping back up with the two eggs that he'd released in the water. He put one of them in his mouth and bit down, the squelch in his mouth like a cherry tomato.

GP must have given Max some sort of look, because he offered the second egg in his open palm. "Want one?"

"Absolutely not."

"They are an excellent source of nutrients. A waste if you don't eat them unfertilized, but I am not picking them up off the floor," he said. When GP still didn't take the offered egg, he shrugged and popped it in his mouth too.

GP felt his gut roll uncomfortably. "You don’t have to eat those. I brought you Kinder Eggs."

"What!" Max exclaimed. "GP, you did not say! How many? Can I have them now?"

"If you help me with mopping," he said, and Max hummed, considering.

"Just give me a minute," Max replied. "I can still feel your come on me. I should clean that first. And I want to see how it tastes."

GP sat down hard in the chair, and when it skidded backwards on the slick floor, another handful of eggs went racing jauntily away across the lab.

[numericalc4t]

DAY 1(dirty talk)

My first commitment to kinktober!!

Warnings- nsfw(obvi), bad, slight degradation, toji?

The air was thick, almost suffocating as the people around you mingled and chattered. You stood awkwardly occasionally saying hello or talking about your pets. You were forced to go to work event conveniently on the same night as October 1st. You and your boyfriend has both agreed to clear you night schedules to try and participate in kinktober this year but lo and behold your job interfered again. So instead of being at home in bed with toji, you were stuck here. You wanted nothing more than to get away but alas your boss said you had to stay for at least an hour.

#1Broke ass: [1 image]

#1Broke ass: Look at what you’re missing because of that stupid ass party. I say just ditch it.

You bit your lip at the explicit photo and turned down your brightness in hopes no one else saw.

You: as much as I would love to ditch and go home to take care of that little issue, I have to stay for another… 45 minutes. I could risk loosing my job.

#1Broke ass: [2 images]

#1Broke ass: the longer you make me wait the worse your gonna get it tonight.

You pressed your thighs together at the sensation of the growing heat between your legs. You really hoped no one noticed you shifting uncomfortably and the uneasy aura coming from yourself. You contemplated just leaving and heading home to help him but then you thought about your bosses words, “you all have to stay for at least an hour to make it look like you actually wanna be there. My boss will be there do NOT make a fool of me. There will be consequences if I find out you left early.” You groan out in frustration and glance at the clock. Only 10 minutes have passed?! The time was ticking by agonizingly slow and the heat pooling between your legs only continued to grow. You tried to distract yourself by heading to the snack table and scarfing down some cookies. Glancing at your phone you frowned as you realized you had no idea what to do to make the time pass faster. After what felt like forever you felt a vibration in your pocket. When you took your phone out to check what it was you realized it was the timer you set. 45 minutes was up and you were free to go. Before your boss could change his mind you quickly bobbed and weaved your way through the crowd until you reached the door. Stepping outside the cool air kissing your skin you pulled out your phone to send toji a message,

You: hey I’m omw home now. Be ready.

Read:9:50

You sped walked to your car and quickly hoped in. Before you could even turn on the heat you were reversing out the parking lot wanting to get home as fast as possible. The drive home was a blur as you rubbed your thighs against each other to try and help simmer down the arousal pooling between your thighs. Before you knew it you were parking in front of your home and stumbling out the car. In your hurried attempt to get inside you left your stuff in the car, telling yourself you’ll get it in the morning, you kicked open the front door and slammed it shut. Kicking off your shoes in completely opposite directions you were almost running to the bedroom. Upon entering you was toji lying there in his boxers and wearing a deep frown on his face. When he saw you he damn near pounced on you, pinning you to the wall he began devouring your lips like a starved man. His kiss was far from gentle as he nipped at you bottom lip. You gasped in suprise and he took the opportunity to slip his toungue into your mouth. You moaned into his mouth and he drank up every last bit of it. He broke the kiss and began kissing down your neck, sliding a hand up your dress only to stop when he feels that you have no underwear on. He pulls away with a surprised look. “Fuck baby, no underwear? I bet you just wanted me to fuck you right when you walked through that door huh? Wanted me to treat you like the white that you are?” He moved back to your neck kissing and sucking leaving marks you would later scold him about. Moving down from your neck to your collarbone sucking and licking on certain spots eliciting moans in the process. He pulled off your dress and damn near ripped your bra as he took it off with urgency. You arched you back slightly as he latched onto you breast and began sucking and lightly nipping at it while fondling your other. Soft moans and gasps fell your lips as he continued his work, switching to the other boob after a while making sure to pay equal attention to them. He pulled away, a string of saliva connecting him to your body as a whine fell from your lips. He smirked at you and grabbed the plush underneath of your thigh, he pulled you up and you wrapped you legs around his waist. His slightly chapped lips move fast and rough against your own as he takes steps forward from the door to the bed. When he reaches the bed he throws you down onto the bed.

“Spread your legs for me.” Before you could even think your body obeys and he chuckles at the sight of your slick running down your folds. “Did seeing those photos really turn you on that much?” Your cunt clenched as if that was his answer and his smirk grew wider. He leaned down and began kissing down your inner thigh all the way until he reached your sensitive folds. His hot breath forcing its way through your folds as he hovered for a moment before he dove in. He began eating you like it’s the first time he’s eaten in years, lapping up your folds, all your juices. You back arched off the bed and you yanked on his hair as he held your hips down with bruising force. Your moans grew loader as you could feel a familiar knot growing in your stomach. “please toji ‘m gonna cum! Please toji” you trained to clench legs around his head as the knot grew tighter with your rapidly approaching climax but he forced them open as he continued not slowing down at all. “Then cum for me, whore” your eyes screwed shut as your orgasm ripped through you and you screamed out tojis name. He continued to eat you out through your orgasm and you could feel the pleasure subsiding and the overstimulation kick in. “Please toji no more ‘s too much.” You desperately tried to push him off but to no avail. He stuck two fingers inside of you and began to rapidly pump in and out of your cunt as squelcing noises and your moans filled the room. You pulled on his hair as if to try and pull him off from you but he showed no sign of moving. Your vision went white as your eyes crossed. Your back arched so far off the bed as you whole body began convulsing, your legs clenched around tojis head with crushing strength as the knot in your stomach came undone for the second time tonight. As you began to come down from your high toji slid off his boxers and climbed up on top of you. He lined himself up and began slowly pushing in, he placed your ankles on his shoulders as he leaned forward holding your hips. He folded you into a mean mating press, muttering curses as his fat tip pushed past the rings of muscle. “F-fuck baby your cunt is sucking me in so tight. Fuck mama loosen up.” Your gummy walls flutter against his cock at the nickname and he groaned, ready cum right then. He slowly pulled out and rammed back into you and he did this multiple times until he started speeding up to a brutal pace. He was pounding into , his heavy balls slapping against your ass leaving a stinging feeling as he showed you no mercy at all as you cried out. “T-Toji! Please hah fuck it feels so good. A-Ah please don’t stop.” His tip was repeatedly hitting your cervix with bruising force and you felt the coil in your abdomen tightening. His head dipped down near your face and you could hear the soft moans he let out. “Fuck baby you feel so good.” Your eyes began to the back of your head as the coil snapped. You screamed out “Toji! Fuck ‘m cuming fuck!” You legs began to shake as he didn’t let up on his pace. “Fuck baby I’m so close. Fuck yeah you’re tight. Fuck your taking me so well mama.” He looked down at your face and you felt his cock twitch as he spurt his load into your weeping cunt. He gave a last few thrust, fucking them cum into you, before pulling out and laying next to you. He pulled you on top of his chest and wrapped his arms around your quivering frame. He stroked your hair as your heavy eye lids began to shut as you slowly drifted off to sleep. He placed a kiss to your forehead and drifted off to sleep with you.

[anomaly-hivemind]

Collar ID || collaring w/Yuri Briar x Afab! Reader

Kinktober Masterlist

Word Count: 1609

Tags: dom! reader, POC reader,flogging, latex, cock stepping, groveling, cunnilingus, vaginal fingering, degradation, praise kink, squirting

I was sitting in bed, bonnet on snuggly , with a can of fruit in hand. Watching some random comedy horror that I found on netflix. It was only to pass the time while I waited for my boyfriend. It was around the usual time that Yuri would be on his way home if nothing came up. I scroll a bit on my phone when I get a notification from Yuri.

“Gonna be a bit late coming home, I got a bit of paperwork I want to finish. “ The message read and I let out an annoyed sigh. I don’t feel like waiting for him to finish work because I know that just means he's not going to get home until I was long asleep. I smile, as a mischievous idea comes to mind.

I take my oversized top off, my naked breast getting the blunt of the cold air from this bedroom. I lay on my stomach and posed so that my butt was in the view of my camera. I push my tits together and set my timer so I can take a photo. When the picture was taken I sent it to Yuri.

“Can't wait for you my pet, I miss you ;]” I sent the message right after the photo and waited.

Read.

Wow this was my breaking point. He couldn’t even dignify my unadulterated sexyness with a whiny emoji or anything!

I dropped my phone on the bed and went to my closet. I pushed past my regular clothes to where all my lingerie was. Silk was soft, coquette, not the vibe I was looking for. Lace? No, no it still had an air of delicacy.

Here, perfect. Latex. I hadn’t worn this set before. I smirk as I slip into the snug latex body suit. The suit hugged my curves tightly, had a boob window, the back out and the crotch exposed. If anything, it was a shame, I didn’t wear it as often. I sent Yuri another photo this time in my bodysuit.

“I don't appreciate you leaving me to read ):( ” I text him, and again get left on read but faster this time. What the hell is he doing?

A few minutes pass and the house opens and an out of breath boyfriend walks into the house. Yuri walks over to me with a desperate look on his face, his strong grip on my shoulders.

“I’m so sorry baby,” Yuri dropped to his knees and kissed me on my neck.

“I’ll only give you a light punishment since you came home earlier than normal.” I kept a straight face even if his kisses felt good.

“You're still gonna punish me… but I came home early.” yuri whined as he tried to give me the puppy dog eyes. Too bad for him that shit hardly works on me.

“Maybe if you beg for my entire forgiveness I'll let you go.” I smirk, my words were a set up and I'm sure he knows it. But that doesn’t matter, he was going to do what I said anyway.

Yuri dropped to his knees in front of me, he leaned down and placed a kiss on my foot. A smile grows on my face as he does, I stare at his cute butt. He looked out at me and I could see the lust in his eyes. I moved down to sit on our bed, he started to kiss up from the ankle to my upper calf.

“Strip.” I lean over to a drawer beside the and up out a dog collar, my eyes never leaving Yuri. I watch with a smile as he slowly takes off his uniform. I clip the collar around his neck, the cold dog tags make his skin shiver. He was shirtless and was making his way out his pants. He was hunched over in his boxers, his erection twitching and was practically begging for my attention. I pressed my foot against his crotch, giving his cock a light shove. He let out a little whine that made my cunt throb. I tilt his chin up so that he is looking up at me.

“So do you have something to tell me, pet?” I hold his face in place, squishing his cheeks slightly.

“I’m sorry….”

“For?” my toes pinch his balls and he tenses up, the dog tags of his collar jigging as he moves.

“Leaving you on read?” I nod.

“And” I ran my hand through his hair.

“Always co-coming home late.”

“Good boy, What do you think I should do now? Forgive you or pushish you?” my smirk grew a bit as i already knew what my little freak would say.

“My love, please forgive me, I want to taste you” he shuffled a bit closer, pushing my foot harder against his weeping dick. He whimpered from the pressure but I wasn’t going to cave. I could feel his dick growing harder under my foot and pressed my hut down harder.

“You would like that wouldn't you.” I adjusted the strap of my latex bodysuit, loosening the strings so I could move it better as I pleased. I put more pressure on his cloth cock practically stepping on him and he groaned.

“Please, my love…” Yuri moaned breathlessly.

“No. You won’t tempt me, you seducer, and I’m sick that you keep trying to get out of your punishments.

“But-“

“Hush, Pet, now bend over. I’ve had enough of this disrespect.

Yuri gulped hard, “Yes ma’am,”

Yuri walked over to the storage drawers in the closet and pulled out. A leather flog, I rubber by thumb over the braided handle of the flog I make sure to pull him fully out of his boxers.

“Baby, please.” he pouts and holds back a whimper.

“You better keep count or I'm going to start over, nut i guess I slut like you would like that.” I swing the flog over his asscheek.

“One…” Yuri made sure to say through his yelp. We repeat this fourteen other times before I'm somewhat satisfied to stop. Yuri had hot adorable tears threatening to drop down his face, it would almost make me feel bad if I hadn't known how much he enjoyed this.

He had his tell-tell signs; like how his dick was pretty much begging to cum or how he tried to hold back moans and groans with each solid impact I made on his body.

“Okay now if you can make me cum I’ll forgive your little behavior,” I said, placing one hand on my hip and the other soothingly rubbing Yuri‘s ass.

“Yes ma’am,” Yuri said, straightening up.

I laid back on the bed, spreading my legs open to expose my glistening pussy. Yuri inches closer, I could feel his breath on my folds.

“Go ahead, I know a loose man like yourself is dying without your fix,” I said and without hesitation Yuri dived in.

His tongue runs a slow stride to my clit, he was savoring the taste as he let out a pleased murmur. He was slurping up my juices like he didn't drink anything in months. Lapping up my arousal like he was on a mission and knowing my lover boy, he definitely sees this as such. He was a military man after all, working for the police and such.

But none of that was really important right now. I was too busy feeling the great action of Yuri sliding his fingers into my wetness. The way he curled his digits against my walls, made me fall back onto the bed and let out a moan. He alway knew how to get me going, how to push me closer and near to the edge. I could feel him smirk against my cunt and I pulled his hair in a quick yank that made him moan.

Yuri starts to focus more on my clit, making sharp circles on the nub, and long sucks that make my toes curl. His fingers thrusted onto my spot and I let out a short cry, he was going to make me cum any second now.

The feeling was winding up in my core, a coil ready to snap at any moment.

“You’re such a good slut, isn't that right?” I asked, running my fingers through Yuri’s hair. He hummed, against my muff the soft vibrations traveling through the mound of flesh..

As Yuri’s fingers stroked my g-spot and he sucked on my clit, something finally snapped. Warm fluid gushed from my pussy making a mess on Yuri’s face but like a good pet he lapped it up, and licked off what ran down my folds. My hips bucked from the sensitivity of having just cum, into the air and subsequently against Yuri’s face.

“Fuck. That was good.” I said breathlessly, my body sliding down so I was laying down more than sitting up.

“Does that mean all is forgiven… Ma’am” Yuri asked with his pathetic boy slut face.

“Fine, I forgive you now. But if you do that shit again I'll come up with a way harsher punishment. Understand. “ I said sternly even if I was a bit out of breath my point came across the way it was supposed to be and that's all that mattered.

“Yes ma'am.” he nods and licks his lips off my juices.

“Good now, come up here, I want to cuddle.” I pull him into a hug as soon as he gets close enough to fall into my grasp.

[nathanbatemanfucker]

hey bestie! for your little blurb thing how about mountains with marc spector? i’m excited to see what you come up with <3

Searching

about this: marc spector x gn!reader. prompt: mountains. cw: meetcute, awkward flirting, coffee mention. wc: 918. not beta’d!!

send me a prompt from this list + a character!

There could be a lot of things wrong with the man in front of you right now. He certainly is much stronger than you, possibly faster. Usually, running into a person on these trails— especially a man— would make you bolt back the way you came. You come here for solitude, are always hopeful for safety. But, there’s something about him that’s different.

Endearing even.

He’s built well, with broad shoulders and hands. He’s holding a map, his thick eyebrows furrowed together as he attempts to read it. His full mouth is moving, like he’s whispering to himself, talking through where he is. He looks so incredibly serious— not to mention handsome— but even so, something about him seems calm. Gentle.

As you wonder how to approach him you shift slightly, and he looks up at the sound of your sneakers scraping together. All of that gentleness is overflowing in his deep brown eyes, and it sends a round of butterflies through your stomach.

The two of you simply stare at each other, like two startled animals. When you think about it…that’s exactly what you are. You smile at him sheepishly but still, your mouth moves to say nothing. You think he tries to smile back, though it seems he’s a little out of practice. It makes you curious, and a little sad.

“Hi,” He says finally, awkwardly. His voice is much softer than you anticipated even with your kind conceptions about him. It’s sweet.

You clear your throat, twisting your hands together, “Hi. First timer?”

He grimaces, “That obvious?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with a map on these trails.”

He gestures around with one of his hands, the softest edge of playfulness in his voice, “Everyone just knows where to go, huh?”

You grin, shrugging, “Something like that. You aren’t from around here I imagine?”

“No. Chicago.”

“You’re a long way from home,” You murmur curiously.

He shrugs, his eyes going past you as if he’s thinking about something. Then he says, “Home is where you make it.”

Humming softly in agreement, you take another step toward him. “Want some help?”

Marc hesitates but then your smile widens, head tilting in encouragement. He sniffs, nodding, “If it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience.”

“Not at all. Where are you trying to go?” You ask, coming to stand beside him to take a look at his map.

“If I’m reading this right, there’s supposed to be a coffee cart about 10-15 minutes from here.”

“Yeah, here,” You agree softly, pointing to the landmark on the map. “It gets a little convoluted around this part with all the different shoot-offs. I was headed that way, I can just walk with you.”

Marc looks up from the map to glance over at you, his cheeks tinging a soft pink at your offer. It’s been a long time since he’s been interested in anyone, and though he doesn’t expect this to go anywhere his heart flutters in his chest. So far removed from any action that just a stranger simply asking to help has his palms sweaty— Steven and Jake will never let him hear the end of this.

“Sure. Yeah. I’d appreciate that,” He nods, quickly folding up the map.

You and Marc start the correct way, exchanging names as you put one foot in front of the other. You point out how confusing it can be to pick the right path as you all pass a bunch of off-shooting trails. It makes Marc feel a little better about being turned around, though your kindness has been helpful in batting away his shame.

The walk flies by, conversation coming much more easily than either of you anticipated. Marc is reluctant to let you go, wishing that the coffee cart would materialize a mile away. There are few patrons in line, waiting to order so you both linger— you’re not quite ready to end your time with him either.

“Uh, thanks for helping out there, usually I’m not so turned around,” He says after a few beats of silence.

“Hey, no problem. If you keep heading this way you should make it back to the beginning of the park.”

“Right, yeah. Thanks,” He holds out his hand to you.

“It was really nice to meet you, Marc,” You say earnestly, shaking his hand firmly— it’s warm, a little calloused, fits perfectly in yours.

“Yeah, you too,” He says, and he means it. For the first time in a long time, Marc is content to interact with someone other than his alters. It feels like a breath of fresh air.

You give him a genuine smile despite your disappointment in him not asking you to join him, the tiniest wave before you start back the way you two came from. He watches you, watches as the first person to make him really feel something in ages starts to walk away from him.

This whole hiking though the mountains, getting in touch with nature thing was part of his soul searching after everything. And though he hadn’t been completely sure what he was going to find when he stepped onto this trail that much is clear now.

“Could I buy you a cup of coffee? You drink coffee don’t you?” He calls after you before you can get too far.

You let out a breath you don’t realize you were holding in then, turn back toward him, the smile on your face returning. Nodding softly you call back, “Yeah, Marc, I drink coffee.”

[study-core-101]

Popular Study Methods I dont like

(By Jay)

A list of study techniques that dont work for me at all. But study methods can work amazing for one person and then just complicate studying more for another. If they work for you, awesome, i'm happy about that. These are my personal experience with them, a lot of people wont relate and thats fine, people are different. But if you relate why these common/popular methods dont work for me, know you arent the only one and that there are more options. People might tell you "this method is amazing, you should do this" and there for you is shit.

Memorazing

Avoid this. When you memorize you dont learn. You cannot conect concepts because you dont understand. One thing is memorazing formulas, which is nessesary, but memorazing everything doesnt work. Understandment is way better. Yes, we need to remember and storage the information in our memory, but memorazing is different. Knowing the theory ord by word is shit if you cannot explain it in different words, conect it wit other concepts or put in practise.

Flashcards

Yep, studyblr favourite study method. Bear with me.

For me, it is a really passive way. When i make the Q&As of the flashcards, i remember the answers. I dont think. I associate the words. And then, when the test has the questions phrased different, my mind goes blank. It seem liked i learned because i remember but i wasnt actually learning.

Now you are probably thinking "use it for vocabulary". That doesnt help me either. Maybe it helps for knowing the meaning in a reading, but writing? I cant remember the spelling. For learning to spell a word i need to write it down. Use it in a sentence. Reading it over and over doesnt do anything.

All-nighters

Oh god, there is nothing worse than an all-nighter. One all-nighter will ruin your sleep schedule for weeks and tired=learn less. Plus, too much all-nighters lead to burn out.

With better time management, all-nighters wouldnt probably exist, or at least, be reduced by a lot

Also, as someone with chronic migraines, an all-nighter'd only give me a week straight with only terrible pain and i prefer failing a subject than that (i'd had to learn the hard way that lesson. always prioritaze your health)

Pomodoro

It's a little bit hypocrital of me to put it here, as I usually reccomend it to others. But personally? It just de-motivaties and stresses me. (disclaimer: it is a good technique, thats why i recomend it even if it doesnt work for me).

I'll explain why. The only way i can do a lot of productive stuff together (or just a long assignment) is to "get in the mood" or have like a "streak". I usually have to power through the first 5-10 minutes of studying and then i get super motivated and do a lot until my brain asks for a break. When the timer rings, it breaks it and i have to repeat the rutine again. It wouldnt be so bad if it wasnt that i work 3 or 4 times faster when i motivated than when i am powering through.

Also, having the self-impose deadline of a pomodoro (i know it isnt technically a deadline, but for some unknown reason, my brain processes it as one) makes me nervous and gives me anxiety. Just knowing the timer is going to go off anytime un-focus me. It's unnesesary stress.

[reborrowing]

reaching out

i forgot how limited tumblr formatting is so hopefully this is readable. if not, it's kind of angsty nothing anyway part of Stranger Swap

Azalea Heeren

Her profile came up before Val could finish hopping across the screen to spell out her name. This wasn’t the first time they’d looked for her. The square framed icon stared up at them, the familiar face making their guts twist out of place. They missed her. They hated her. They needed her.

They crept forward and opened a new message. They’d gotten that far before too. This time, they were going to pace back and forth to type something out and send it.

It would be easier on a phone than the tablet, with all the buttons close together, but Phoebe had her phone with her on campus. Val wanted to do this during the day, so Zee would be awake, and they hadn’t exactly told Phoebe that they were searching socials for their old friend. And they’d had a fight about if Val should be online when she wasn’t even allowed to mention them and…Val just thought it was better if she didn’t know.

Z its Val, hi!

They sat on the edge of the iPad and waited. And waited. They finished darning their sleeve. They poked around a little more. Her profile said she’d been online. They went back to their unanswered message.

Um little Val that is Cookie

Three bouncing dots. Val watched them eagerly.

fuck off riley

What? I don’t know a Riley. This is Val

A long wait.

…send me a pic then.

OK one second

They didn’t like to keep pictures of themself, given the whole secrecy thing. And it was tricky to take a selfie—or any photo really—with the tablet. They couldn’t prop it up like they did the phone, not without help or building up a whole system. They had to fiddle with the app to remember how to set up a timer, then dashed to lean over the front camera and wave.

The pic was blurry and dark, but looked passably like Val. Presumably not so much like Riley.

Miles away, the photo loaded and Azalea shrieked.

IT IS YOU OMG VAAAAALLLL I WAS SO SCARED YOU DIDNT MAKE IT! Mulch never came back to tell me ANYTHING BABYYYYYYYY OMG!! IM KISSING YOU ALL OVER!!!

The messages kept coming, a lot faster than Val could hope to respond.

You’re not back at the house right? I’m not there, I moved out so it’s just dad…so I hope you’re still at that apartment Mulch had me take you. Either way I can come get you! Tess can probably give me a ride out there when her lab’s done—she’s nice, I’d trust her with you Not that I’m letting go of you again so soon, I’ve missed you so much!

Val paused, an “I miss you too” waiting to be sent. They did. They missed her terribly. They wanted to hear everything she’d been up to, to feel her laughter, curled up against her collarbone. They loved her, or they had. But the thought of her coming here, looming over them again, taking them away from Phoebe…it filled them with an unwelcome, all-new dread. They didn't want to see her again, they just wanted...something. They wanted her to know they were alive, at least.

The messages kept coming.

can I call or video? I know typing takes you awhile lol are you even somewhere you can talk? somewhere safe I mean? I’m so serious about coming to get you, just tell me when and I'll rescue you from the dust I’m sorry I couldn’t before

Val stared at the chat until it blurred out of focus, chewed their lip until they tasted blood. Their eyes were watery. They didn’t read the rest. They logged out and pushed the iPad away from them. They didn’t want to be afraid of her again. They liked the memory they had of her, probably more than they hated her. They could convince themself of that. They loved her, mostly.

But they were right the last time they had logged in: they shouldn’t have messaged her.

[autisticlancemcclain]

The music gets more intense — heavier bass, faster drums, and the shrill screech of an alien instrument he can’t name.

Lance smirks. Oh, hell yeah. He is going to crush this level.

Heh. ‘Crush’. Because this dinky game is an alien version of candy crush, basically.

Lance takes a deep breath, narrowing his eyes and squaring his shoulders. He sweeps critical eyes over the shining little animated pictures of alien plants, carefully assessing which ones are all lined up, ready to make his final winning move and —

The game freezes.

“No!”

A loading symbol turns for a couple seconds, and then a green pop-up covers half the screen — preventing Lance from playing the game, but not from seeing the timer in the corner of his phone tick down to zero.

He lost.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Now, losing a game to a pop-up is annoying. Be it for an operating system update, a text, whatever — all frustrating.

But this particular pop-up?

Oh, this popup is a thousand times worse.

It’s bright green (like, in-your-face, kelly green), with dorky black typewriter font, and a very familiar, bespectacled icon siting proudly to the left.

Pidge.

Lance grabs the pillow next to his head, shoving it in his face and screaming as loudly and for as long as he can. Of course it’s one of Pidge’s dumbass pop-ups, and of course it came up in the middle of his game. Because Pidge has an uncanny ability to know when she can be as annoying as possible, at any given time.

After screaming himself hoarse, Lance whips the pillow at the wall, sighing. He’s already lost, and it’s not like he can out-hack Pidge. The only way to get the damn pop-up to go away is to fucking interact with it. Ugh. He glances back to his screen, reading the stupidly persistent thing.

Your phone just got hacked, loser. LOL.

Lance scowls. God, she is so fucking annoying. He angrily presses the ‘okay’ button at the bottom, because it’s the one and only option. It clicks to a new popup.

However, I have just one question for you…

Lance hits ‘okay’ again, trying to get this shit over with. He wants to go back to his game, so he can finally beat the level. (It’s humiliating, but Lance is kind of addicted to candy crush-type games. There’s something about the deep, gravelly voice that plays when a level is cleared successfully, praising you for a game well played…well. There’s no action in space, okay? Lance is deprived. If a sexy disembodied voice telling him he’s doing a good job is the only action he’s going to get, then he’s damn well going to take it.)

(In fact, when he first was blasted into space, after the whole Sendak debacle, he was bored as hell in the stupid MedBay cots for a checkup that he played the game for hours, just to hear the voice. Of course, his phone eventually died, and then he realized that even if he did bring his charger to space, there was nowhere on the stupid space castle to charge it. He now had, in place of a phone, an electronic brick, basically, and that meant no photos of his family, no texts to look back on, nothing. And he didn’t know when he’d see them again. He’d cried for hours. Thank God for Altean mind-meld helmets that doubled as memory projectors, or Lance would have cried himself into space sans helmet.)

(But, anyway. Back to Pidge’s annoyance.)

Just one, teeny-tiny, baby question… the stupid popup reads.

Lance presses ‘okay’ for what feels like the millionth time, wondering what the hell Pidge needs so badly that she’s being a shit about it.

…Can you please bring me a sandwich?

Oh, Lance is going to kill her.

He’s going to kill her dead.

With a fury he didn’t know he was capable of, Lance slams the ‘no’ option as fast as he can, and continues to slam it when it just leads him to more pop-ups that ask the same question.

“For fuck’s sake, Pidge!” he shouts, after several minutes of unsuccessful refusal.

Ugh! Little sisters are so fucking annoying. Lance hates not being the youngest anymore. How dare the universe punish him for being an annoying younger sibling for so many years.

Gritting his teeth, he finally concedes, clicking the ‘yes’ button and scowling as a stupid happy face pops up. He stomps over to the kitchen — he knows damn well that if he doesn’t bring her a stupid fucking sandwich then she’ll keep sending pop-ups because she is a jerk — and assembles the most mediocre sandwich he could possibly make, taking care to pick the only plate in the kitchen that Pidge hates (it makes a horrible screeching noise if you accidentally scratch it with your nails) to place it on. Then he stomps over to Pidge’s workshop, kicking to door open and practically slamming the plate on her workbench.

She grins at him sunnily, placing her hands under her chin and tilting her head as if she is the picture of innocence.

How dare she. How dare she use the move that Lance uses when he’s being intentionally frustrating.

“Thank you,” she says sweetly.

Lance glares at her. “Texting is an option, you thick-shelled cockroach.”

She shrugs. “You would’ve ignored my text.”

“You could always — oh, I don’t know, make your own damn sandwich!”

“Not a chance, Lance-pants,” she says, turning back to her laptop. “Not a chance.”

Lance mimes strangling her when her back is turned, Homer-Simpson style. It makes him feel marginally better.

As he stomps back to his own room, he resolves to get her back. He may not be a tech genius, but —

He smirks.

He has four older siblings. Pidge only has one. Lance has been perfecting he art of driving siblings insane since he could walk — longer than she’s been alive.

He’ll get her back.

———

based on this post

[booksndpoetry]

Numbers at 2:00 a.m.

A Lee Felix Fanfic

m.list

A/N: Nothing quite like a midnight snack, if you ask me. Reblogs are appreciated .

Characters: Lee Felix X Gender-Neutral Reader

WC: 420 words

Genre: Fluff

Triggers/Warnings: Implicit mentions of Insomnia

Felix woke up quite abruptly due to the lack of warmth, and pulled the blanket up to his neck. Sticking an arm out, he felt the bed only to be met by empty space. Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, he read the time to be exactly 2 a.m. in the morning.  He groaned, knowing he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep without a certain someone.

Accepting his fate, he got up from the bed, wrapping the duvet around himself like a cloak and marched forward towards the kitchen. 

You sighed, rolling your shoulders and stretching your neck. You had fallen asleep after struggling to do so for a good 4 hours. Along with which, the position you’d fallen asleep in was not feeling good for your spine. Still, nothing quite like a midnight snack to revitalize yourself.

You’d rummaged through all the cabinets in the kitchen, even the ones with too many spoons and chopsticks, to find something edible but to no avail. At last, you’d found a loaf of bread and a bar of chocolate. Eyeing the microwave oven, you’d set to work determined to feed your stomach. Sandwiching the bar of chocolate between two slices of bread, you plated it, set it inside the microwave, and set the timer to 120 seconds. As the timer started, unconsciously you started counting too. 

“일, 이, 삼, 사, 오, 육, 칠, 팔, 구, 십. 십일, 십이, 십삼, 십사…”

Felix, having materialized at the entrance of the kitchen, fondly looked at you before advancing. Coming closer, he heard what was like barely coherent counting. But only when he drew closer, did he realize that you were counting, in Korean.

“Hey baby”, he whispered softy, wrapping his arms around your waist.

“What are you counting to?”.

Startled, you quickly turned around only to relax upon sensing him.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” you asked him, leaning further into his hold.

“Well, someone decided to sneak out of bed, leaving me cold”, he playfully glared at you.

“Why are you counting in Korean though?”.

“Oh, well I wanted to learn it, because then, I could understand you better. Besides, my tutor told me to count in my target language so I could learn it faster.”

“You’re so precious” he told you, eyes glazing over.

You only smiled in response, before stepping out of his hold, to retrieve your midnight feast and hold it out like a peace offering.

“Wanna share?” My love & my heart, you wanted to say, but the words didn't quite make it past your lips.

But Felix smiled a knowing smile, “Thought you’d never ask”. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

© booksndpoetry 2024. All rights reserved. Please do not plagiarise, translate, repost or steal my works in any way. All idols used in this piece are just inspiration for characters. They do not reflect the real people in any way.

[grapecaseschoices]

Thank you Dakota for yet another beautiful commission!! This still fucks me up whenever I read it, whew.

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

Kendis is mine. Rei and Kendall are Dakota's characters from their IF @theunseelieif

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“Babes, I don’t know all that much about cooking,” Rei calls from where she’s slouched over on the kitchen table, “But I’m pretty sure cake batter doesn’t need to be whisked into oblivion.”

“Shut up,” Kendall interrupts her with a sharp hiss.

You resolutely ignore both of them, staring down at the mixing bowl below you. You’d like it if you had a one-track mind right about now, if you could wholly focus on this task and nothing else, but you’re not so lucky. The doubts creep in from all angles, and you wonder if you could have done something different.

Perhaps something that wouldn’t have left you with another scar, something that wouldn’t leave you with blood beneath your nails that you can never get out. No matter how hard you scrub, your hands are still stained with it-

“Kendis?”

The word is quiet, hushed, spoken into the vacuum that your thoughts have created. You look up to see Kendall hovering next to you, brows furrowed and hands twitching from holding back.

“Yeah?” You ask, your nonchalance bordering on desperation.

His eyes drop to the already-healed wound on your shoulder. His is still bleeding sluggishly through the bandage wrapped around his shoulder and upper arm. You wonder, briefly, what kind of freak heals faster than a werewolf.

You, apparently.

He doesn’t ask if you’re okay, instead reaching his hand out in a silent offer. You see the way his fingers tremble; it’s not easy for him, either. Neither of you express affection like Rei, with her easy touches and gentle hands.

Your nod is stiff, and his hand rests on the small of your back with painful devotion. Rei has come over as well, leaning against the counter and tilting her head to see your face.

“The cake won’t bake itself,” You insist, forcing a sort of positivity you don’t really feel into the words.

But it’s fine. It’s fine. You’ll make it fine.

Because if you show your emotions now, what lies beneath the veneer, you won’t be able to stuff it all back in. Your guts will spill all over the floor, bloody and messy and raw, and you’re not sure you’ll be able to stitch yourself up yet again.

“And my hand won’t hold itself either,” Rei pouts slightly.

Kendall sighs, “Please, for five seconds-”

“No! I saw a bit of a smile, so shut up and let me work!” She leans across you to shove a hand in Kendall’s face.

He bats her away with minimal annoyance, too used to her antics to be anything other than fond.

You can’t help the laughter that spills over, and Rei’s smile is so bright and pleased it feels like you’ve been punched in the chest.

“Let me finish this,” You say, “And then-”

And then. Then what? Then you’ll lay on the couch while the oven timer ticks down slowly, holding two of the people you love most with blood-soaked hands?

“Fine,” Rei sighs gustily, “We’re waiting, though!”

She drags Kendall off to the living room, and he goes without complaint. You realize that, yes, you are going to hold them. Carefully, so as to not leave claw marks in something so precious, but you will hold them. You will. But something still makes you pause in the doorway, watching them for a moment before you enter.

The way Rei practically lays on top of Kendall, blabbering on about something that happened two weeks ago that she’s told you both about four times already. Kendall listens all over again as if he’s never heard the words, though, nodding as he strokes a hand up and down her back.

You take a step forward and pause. They’ve heard you, though, and they’re both looking up with hopeful eyes. So you force your feet to move again, one foot after the other before you carefully sink down to join them.

There’s a bit of shuffling as legs tangle together and bodies shift. Kendall is half on top of you, and your head is pressed against his shoulder while Rei remains comfortably situated on his chest. Your eyes feel heavy, but you stubbornly keep them open, both so the cake doesn’t burn and so you don’t miss a moment of this encompassing warmth.

[theuglybujo]

My (ADHD) focus/organization strats

Here's some stuff that I've found works, and is working for me this semester! I want to go back and make cute graphics for this but. We'll see.

Doing a reading: Going for less visual clutter (tip: throw everything in a box, a pile behind you, or tucked behind your computer so you can't see it). Just need:

Computer to keep pomodoro timers and use with...

...Overear headphones to (1) block out distractions and (2) give me enough stimulus to stay present. My fav is white noise + the lofi study stream (nothing else fits my brain's requirements of no voices, round not sharp sounds, minor or no fading/switching side-to-side)

Critically, mini notepad for distracting thoughts. Anything that's not the reading (cool websites, chores, people to text, games to try...), write it down, deal with it when you're done. By which point it will probably not feel as important lol

A notebook if the reading is digital, or the reading + stickynotes if it's physical (bc I take notes like this but without the rewriting part usually)

Taking notes: Going for faster & easier writing, reviewing, & remembering

Color code classes and use that color in my headings, boxes (if we watch a video, i'll box my bullets on the video so I can differentiate from the lecture content), and...

...Pictures/diagrams, esp during lecture for Speed. Easier to look at and easier to remember than words.

Color code annotations (underlines/highlights in my notes, or the sticky note colors). I use big point, subpoint, new term / names / etc stuff I'll probably be tested on, and my thoughts/stuff i like

Annotate everything. Add your emotions, reactions, connections, examples, questions, ideas. I give these their own color. They go good in margins. Easier review, better remembering.

Surviving lecture: Thankfully my professors are very engaging this semester but I still use some strats

Fidgets omg. I got over myself and started bringing a fidget spinner and popit to class and it saves my life

Chop up video lectures, this is Prof. Mary Latta's idea she gives us 2-3 shorter video lectures instead of 1 long one. Pomodoro it.

Get involved with people. This is hard and took me years but it's awesome. Complement people and ask questions (stickers they have? their outfit, hair, nails, tattoos? work? major? interest in the class?), because you can (1) get friends/study buddies/people to sit next to, and (2) break the ice to asking for help and getting different perspectives. Hang out a little after/before class, ask for their reactions, examples, ideas. Gush your excitement or confess your confusion to the prof, or overhear someone doing that and jump in if you relate. None of us know 100% what's going on and it feels great to fill the gaps (or validate asking the prof for clarification!)

And important addition, when you get the pomodoro breaks (and before you start), ACTUALLY TAKE A BREAK. Do you need a shower/snack/water. You probably need to stretch. You might even need to move locations or get a different chair or move the light just to shake things up.

[blackknightax]

So today, I’ll be choosing a character for the Kirby franchise. Kirby is the franchise that belongs to Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai so of course Kirby is here. That being said, Kirby is a franchise with 3 characters and a lot of stages and even a couple items. Kirby is represented quite well here. Kirby’s 3 characters are it’s most reoccurring characters and almost inarguably it’s 3 main characters, Kirby, Metaknight and King Dedede. It can be said that the Kirby franchise already has all of it’s important characters in the game and for the most part I’m inclined to agree as kirby has a LOT of characters who, while they are very much loved, only appeared in one game. Kirby likes to tell very detached stories and rarely has a reoccurring bad guy outside of Dedede and the former main baddie of Dark Matter, who appeared in 4 maybe 5 games. So let’s discuss what I personally would add.

So when wanting to add more characters there are a couple routes to go. The first is chosen by the fans most often. This being the Bandana Waddle Dee, the spear wielding waddle dee that first appeared in Kirby Superstar Ultra and has been kinda appearing ever since but got a personality of sorts when he first appeared in Kirby’s return to dreamland for the Wii. All in all, i get him as a choice but, i don’t think he’s the best one. The other options are the many dream friends, and some of the villains who only appeared once. If you want me to be frank, what I’d personally love to see represented is Kirby 64’s power combo system but you can’t justify giving that to anyone but Kirby. But I can’t have what i want in that regard. Oh well. So Let’s show who I would personally add given the power to choose.

It’s Gooey! I love this goofy little guy. In his first appearance he was trapped in a bag and occasionally showed up to give Kirby extra lives but in his second appearance he was a co-op partner and even had Kirby’s copy ability. He later appeared in Kirby Star Allies and was given all the abilities he was able to copy back in his second appearance all at once. Obviously this will be the source of his moves. Though a little more basic than Kirby, his normals will consist of him using his tongue to whip enemies and will have a chain grapple like Seamus and Toon Link that can be used in the air to grab the ledge. Unlike Kirby, he’ll only have 2 jumps like the rest of the cast. Because even though he derives from Kirby he isn’t identical to him. So let’s begin

For his Neutral B he will perform a eating move like Yoshi’s neutral B but then he’ll gain the character’s Neutral B like Kirby does but he’ll use it his way, a way that differs from how the character themselves uses it, for example his Mario fireball has a low bounce but longer distance bounces. When he inhales kirby he gets nothing.

For his Up B he transforms into his Mock Matter form. He then flies around with the player’s influence for a limited time, pressing A makes him fire lasers directly ahead of himself in a straight line. Firing the laser reduces how long he can stay in Mock Matter form, and when the timer ends he goes into special fall.

For his Side B he uses Burning, not much to say here, he sets himself on fire and dashes forward doing damage to everything he makes contact with while doing so. This does not put him in special fall but can only be used once per jump similar to other moves like it.

For his Down B he uses Stone like Kirby. Nothing to say, it works almost identically to Kirby’s. Maybe he transforms and falls faster but does less damage?

In the grand scheme of things, i kinda designed Gooey as an Echo Fighter for Kirby but this makes sense. But he’s definitely more unique of an echo fighter than others like say, Richter and Lucina.

I think Gooey would be a great and fun unique addition to the game with this move set. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

[supersonicsteaktacular]

Some thoughts on Miraculous Ladybug in general under the cut. Don't peek if you haven't caught up because i will be discussing season 5 including the finale.

Apologies if this is an incoherent read, i'm just writing as i think, this is just going to be a total mental vomit.

Ok so i had some complicated emotions when watching the finale. It was great in a lot of ways. We had some of the best fight scenes that miraculous has ever had and some undeniably cool moments, but i can't help but feel a little let down?

I think that's partly because of how long it's taken to get here. To call the pacing in miraculous glacial would be an understatement. Nothing much happened to shake up the status quo of Ladybug and Chat Noir fighting a villain of the week for like 4 seasons. Almost everything was world -building up until Gabriel got his hands on the miraculous.

So we had a story that was going slow suddenly going at a breakneck pace in season 5. Suddenly after 4 seasons of nothing happening, everything happens at once. Gabriel is coming out and fighting the heroes personally, Ladybug and Chat Noir are making plans that very nearly beat him and Gabriel gets wounded in a way that puts a timer on the plot. Things now HAVE to start moving faster.

In addition, the love square dynamics change for the first time in the show. It took 5 seasons to do what everyone wanted since season 1. Everything was exciting again!

And then they kinda blew their load on the first jerk??

Gabriel quickly went back to his villain of the week plans, the changes to the love square came and went within the first half of the season and ended up settling on the end of the love square with the least exciting dynamic?

It's pretty telling that the Love square is the most popular hetero ship on Ao3 in terms of number of fics. It has something like 10'000 more fics than the next most popular hetero ship. The love square is exciting in a way that no other ship is and there are people more eloquent than me on here that will wax philosophic as to why that is.

So it's a tradegy that nothing really changed with the love square until 5 seasons in, and then those changes were over in a flash. Flipped Ladynoir was gone in a few episodes, Marichat fucking burned twice as bright but a half as long and poor Ladrien never got a chance. Now i do like Adrinette but it's just a typical high school romance once you take away all the rest of the love square stuff. It's cute, but guess what? So are all of the other ships that i like. They took away what made the love square exciting enough to write 35'000 fics about.

So just about the only things left by the halfway point of the season to look forward to is defeating Gabriel once and for all and an identity reveal.

And NEITHER HAPPEN.

Gabriel actually ends up winning in the end. He gets to make a wish. In the final scene i was literally saying to my screen "WHERE'S THE CATCH??" but apparently there isn't one? Turns out all that pontificating about how a wish cannot be made without a huge sacrifice was for nothing. Maybe there will be a catch but we'll have to wait and see, and who knows how long we'll have to wait to see that plot point come to fruition.

And of course there was no identity reveal. In fact Chat Noir just flat out doesn't participate in the season finale. Let me repeat that. THE AGRESTE DOESN'T PARTICIPATE IN THE FINALE OF THE AGRESTE SAGA. You deserved so much better than being locked in your schrodinger box Adrien. You absolutely should've been there to deck your father in the face.

Sorry if this has come across as a whole bunch of complaining and salt. I just needed somewhere to reconcile my own thoughts. At the end of the day i really do love Miraculous. There's a reason i've been invested since season 1, there's a reason why i've always looked forward to new episodes releasing and why i've spent the last year desperately trying to avoid spoilers. It's clearly has something special even if i can't quite put my finger on it.

[lighthousenewsnetwork]

MANCHESTER, NH — In an unprecedented campaign announcement that has sent shockwaves through the political establishment, third-party candidate Marcus Singleton unveiled his groundbreaking single-promise platform Thursday, pledging to "absolutely, positively never run for president again" if elected. "My fellow Americans, I stand before you today with the most honest campaign promise in political history," Singleton declared to a crowd of increasingly intrigued voters at his campaign launch. "Unlike my opponents who promise everything from lower taxes to solving climate change, I promise just one thing: you'll never have to see my face after my term ends. Not in campaign ads, not in cable news interviews, not even in those weird political documentaries Netflix keeps making." The bold strategy has resonated with voters weary of career politicians, with recent polling showing Singleton surging to 23% among Americans who describe themselves as "completely done with this whole thing." His "One and Done" super PAC, funded entirely by citizens who want politicians to permanently go away, has already raised millions. Singleton's campaign website features nothing but a countdown clock to the end of his theoretical term and a legally binding contract promising to "fuck off into obscurity" immediately after leaving office. The site's only button reads "Click here to make me go away forever (after four years)." Political analysts are struggling to attack a candidate whose primary qualification is his commitment to future irrelevance. "How do you criticize someone who openly admits they probably shouldn't be in politics?" asked veteran strategist James Carver. "It's like trying to fact-check someone who begins every sentence with 'I might be totally wrong, but...'" The candidate's "No Second Chances Tour" has drawn surprisingly large crowds, with supporters wielding signs reading "Singleton 2024: The Last Political Ad You'll Ever See From Me" and wearing T-shirts featuring countdown timers to his political retirement. When pressed about his stance on critical issues, Singleton maintained his refreshingly vague position. "Look, we all know campaign promises are usually BS," he explained while deliberately shrugging. "So instead of pretending I have all the answers, I'm just promising to give the job my mediocre best and then disappear forever. Think of me as a substitute teacher for democracy." The strategy has proven so successful that other candidates are scrambling to match his commitment to future obscurity, creating a paradoxical race of politicians competing to quit politics faster. One rival candidate recently promised to "resign even quicker" while another pledged to "become so forgettable that people will think this election was just a weird dream." Singleton's campaign headquarters, operating out of a month-to-month lease in a strip mall, sends the same auto-reply to all emails: "Thank you for your interest. Don't worry, we won't keep your contact information. In fact, we're probably going to lose it anyway because our campaign manager is already looking for other jobs." As of press time, Singleton was leading in polls among voters who described their political affiliation as "just wanting this all to stop." When asked about his surprising success, the candidate remained true to his brand: "My fellow Americans, I promise to be the most forgettable president in history. Vote for me, and I'll set you free — permanently. Also, please don't try to follow me on social media after 2028. I'll be blocking everyone."

[clairethecutepup]

Weekly Update: 5/8/23 - 5/13/23

Creative Work:

I'll admit it: I just had to drop everything and make fan art of C2ndy2c1d's "Assassin AU" for the Ed Edd n' Eddy series... I'm sorry, when I saw the mother and the Kizuki of the spider family, in Demon Slayer, the puppeteering and cutting threads just reminded me of the alternate Sarah and Jimmy. So, I had to draw fan art of them replicating said slicing and puppeteering. I'm doing the "bases" traditionally, via pencil-sketching, and utilizing my lightboard and glue to overlay cut-out "pieces" for an easier outline completion overall. Trust me, better to draw over illuminated notecards than to sketch overlapping features on other parts...

To be honest, part of me is screaming at myself over not using the "faster" tablet of mine to make the bases instead; but then I scream back at that part how I hate doing sketching digitally, and I only ever wanna digitally draw when it comes to outlines and coloring. I know, I know, doing the sketches digitally allows for easier manipulation and all, but it just feels easier to whip up a pencil "base" and do the fancy-pants digital stuff after scanning it. Perhaps it's the fact that with DIGITAL sketching, I also had to basically draw everything TWICE: not just the basic shapes, but the hair/eyes/etc. as PART of the base, then tracing over it all for the final outline? I dunno, with simple, blank "bases" on traditional paper, I can easily just draw the fancy-pants digital lines only ONCE while outlining everything...

As for Getting Your Goat, the first chapter image is almost completed, too: it simply needs to be colored in and have the appropriate lettering added. That'll be my next priority, once I get that fan art image out of my head and onto paper/file.

I'm also still enjoying some "writing practices" on the side, particularly another EEnE themed one. Honestly, it may technically count as a "series" at this rate, given the consistent factors... The main characters of interest always seem to be Sarah, Jimmy and Claire (You, whenever the 2nd person POV isn't changed); each "entry" has some focus on characters learning an overall theme of being better to others/yourself; and some other things. But still, it's something meant to improve writing abilities for actual "mainline" stuff from me. Still, I'd recommend seeing if you simply enjoy it as a fan fiction fan, if not to critique it.

Personal Life:

So far, I think I'm seeing results from exercising during the weekdays, instead of saving it all for a back-to-back session on the weekend. Of course, that could also be the factory work helping shape those calories into muscles. Nothing like an after-work workout, with some fun cartoons to serve as your "timer" with their overall runtime. Don't forget the 2 minute "rests," though!

I've also heard word the factory plans to switch to a "9-4" schedule: 4 days of 9 hours, with the addition of only 4 hours on Friday. I'm hoping to use that to my advantage, somehow, when it comes to creative work and all. I can already plan ONE idea of how: no more overtime on the weekends~, so plenty of time to do stuff then.

Misc.:

I'm thinking of just getting rid of my traditional monitor and keeping my tablet as the unofficial "gaming/creating laptop," made courteous of my wireless keyboard. Seriously, you find some good stuff at thrift stores-- referring to the keyboard, though, no way you'd find something like the drawing tablet I have now there...

Also, it's amazing how, even as an adult, you'll still feel fear toward certain characters in animation... I don't think I'll fully get over my anxiety of Brak, the space cat pirate, and even Sarah and Jimmy can still be a bit intimidating. ... What? Sarah is undoubtedly stronger, no matter how ripped I'd get, and Jimmy can be a cunning fiend. I'm not ashamed to admit, I felt a bit anxious and terrified the night I went to the wiki for the unnofficial EEnE "sequel," titled "Peach Creek," and read he'd be a rather conniving individual. I dunno what it is, but I've a strong fear toward helplessness, and they can be a duo of outclassing brain and brawn. Those "Assassin AU" versions of themselves up the antae, now that Jimmy's supposed to be as physically capable, and the duo's main gimmicks are puppet strings and equally physically manipulative acupuncture. I know, I just deserved to have an inquisitive eyebrow raised at me, at times...

[metropolitanmutantofark]

The Messenger, Eclipse

Part 1, Chapter 4 - A Drawing of an Analumine

Tracie's wardrobe was far bigger than I expected. Admittedly, I shouldn't have been quite so surprised - I didn't expect a giant mechanical bubble inside a camper van either, so if it was that spacious inside, I should've expected a fairly large wardrobe. We were dressed similarly enough to pass as friends - both of us wearing white dress shirts with black ties and slacks. Eclipse had brushed his hair back, and mine was tied up into a bun, with matching black reading glasses on to make the look a bit more complete.

Eclipse swung the van's side hatch shut when I was out, looking down at a saddle-bag I was now wearing. "Not sure anyone's gonna notice," he started, carefully judging my look. "But that bag's not exactly Earthen-ish, if you get it. That fabric won't be brought down until Earth joins the standard galactic trade, just thought I'd let you know."

"Really? Well, I needed somewhere to put my car, and this was the only other bag you've got in there." I reached inside the bag and pulled out the brown package with my shrunken car in it. Two hours remained on the timer. Really, I guess I could've been faster looking for clothes. "For a messenger, you don't really carry many mail sacks or messenger-bags."

"Too expensive. Rule six - for business expenses, either everything's on sale, or nothing's on sale. I'll try to explain what that means later. Earth's commerce is pretty unique, I'll just leave it at that, but if you want some quality Earth trading, you should see Rel-de-Pein. Big moon, down to the second layer it's nothing but mall shops. Won't be established for another thousand years or so, but three hundred years of that is gonna be construction."

"Don't you think it's a little dangerous, telling me that?" I asked. "From what I understand, you're not supposed to bring information from the future to the past. What if you telling me that sparks some chain reaction that ends up turning that moon-mall-thing into a wasteland or something?"

"Well, it doesn't work like that, really." He started walking, readjusting his tie while he beckoned me to follow. "A lot of people think of time as a straight line, but it's really not. If you go back in time with a plush bunny-rabbit from the future, for instance, and then disintegrate it before you pick it up, it won't disappear - but you won't be able to go back to the future and pick up another bunny. Does that make sense?"

"Not really," I answered. "Why wouldn't it fade away? You stopped yourself from being able to pick it up."

"No, I stopped-" He pinched the bridge of his nose. I assume he was trying to wrap his head around it in human terms. "Have you seen the movie K-PAX? It's kind of like that. Each individual atom in the universe operates on its own string of time. This thing that we call 'time travel' is really more like bending the string around, and letting it touch another string for a little while. Eventually, the string loops back on itself, and at the end of everything, so does the universe. That's the big circle of life, or whatever you want to call it."

"Yeah, but that doesn't answer why the bunny doesn't fade," I added.

"The bunny doesn't fade because it doesn't technically exist," he answered. "Anything that time-travels ceases to become a fixed factor in time, but it can still affect things that happen. Kind of like Tracie and I. In an objective look on the timeline, you're pretty much talking to a jumble of dark matter, even though I'm still here."

"Isn't dark matter a bad thing? Am I going to be disintegrated or something if I touch you?"

"No. Well, kind of, but it would take a long, long while. I'm not really- well, just call it dark-ish matter, that... more surrounds whatever travels in time, rather than constructing it. Point being, once you make a change, it sticks. Unless something can reverse your actions, which we literally can't prove exists or doesn't exist, you can't undo a change, you can only fix it. That's why it's so important to keep out of your own timeline," he explained. "Right now, time is a messy circle of yarn. If you act on top of your own actions, you fray your timeline into branches and strings, and branches and strings form knots. If you interact with yourself or other time-travelers too much, you change time's shape from a strict progression of cause-and-effect, into a... a big ball of w-" Eclipse interrupted himself and stopped, looking down at what he was wearing while I passed him. "Wendy, hold on, I thought you said people didn't wear hot clothes in Florida."

"Right, people don't," I answered. "Unfortunately for us, nerds aren't people." I opened the door to the D Building and tugged him along. "My card only takes us so far. Professors don't like it when people enter without being enrolled." I led Eclipse upstairs to the second floor, keeping my eyes open for any sort of unusual activity or anything that looked alien.

"I doubt it would be a normal class if it's already been established as hostile," Eclipse reasoned, finally reaching the top of the stairs. "And if I were you, I'd try not to look like you're looking for anything alien," he added. "If they're a primitive species, like yours, they could be jumpy."

I turned around and slapped Eclipse.

In a short time, we'd reached room 204. After peeking inside, Eclipse pulled out his magnetic key. "Lucky for us, nobody's inside," he remarked.

"Come again?" I asked. "There's supposed to be a class in session, that's why we dressed up like this," I explained. "It's synchronized classes today, they're doing a deep-clean of the whole campus later. The AM classes are all supposed to be at 7:30 and run through to 11:00."

"I thought you said three hours."

"My class is three hours," I answered. "That's usually how long it takes before his desk catches fire."

Eclipse twisted the key. I could hear the same noise as before as he opened the door, the lock clicking out of place and sliding back into the open position.

The room inside was a mess. Glass was shattered all over the floor, two computers were missing from their desks, and the cabinets had been opened, with their contents spilling out onto the carpet. One desk had been overturned - and as we pushed a little further into the room, we saw that the second missing computer was here - only a chunk of the monitor had been removed, as if something had torn through the monitor and tossed aside the tower.

I stopped Eclipse from moving too far in, taking some careful steps forward to check around the computer. "Where did the other half of the monitor go?" I asked, gesturing him to start looking around.

Eclipse stayed where he was, instead looking down at the glass on the floor. "Either destroyed or disintegrated, those are my best guesses." He crouched down, using his tie to pick up one of the bigger shards of glass, holding it up in the light.

"That's another question," I added. "The monitors here don't use glass screens. The school's cheap, so most of the monitors have this plastic film instead of a screen. If the windows are fine, then where did the glass come from?"

"It's not glass," Eclipse answered. "It has this rainbow reflection in it, and it's a little blue-ish. Also, most of these shards are too thin. Glass is maybe twice as thick." As I turned to face him, I looked at the scene from a new angle - something was bugging me, but I couldn't figure out what. "Wendy, what would have been in those cabinets?" he asked, looking into the small pile of now-garbage on the other side of the room. It was mostly paper.

"Textbooks, installation discs, spare computer parts," I answered. "Stuff for a business class. Stationery, too."

"They still use CDs?" he asked. "It's 2023. I made sure of that when I landed here."

"Like I said, the school's cheap. We-" I stopped myself as I was talking, suddenly thinking of a different idea. "We had, like, sixty of them in one class, one for the business applications and one for the school software," I recalled. "What would take out the CDs and crush them up?"

Eclipse shut his eyes, hanging his head for a minute. "Wendy..." he started, holding his breath. "Could you check around for any clothes in this room?"

On the suggestion, I stood, and took a lap around the room, opening drawers and wall-mounted cabinets, until eventually I found a wad of formal clothes in the professor's desk - a white shirt with khakis, and a set of socks and shoes. They were wrinkled, and slightly dirty - I could still see cat hair on the shirt. The khakis had a wallet inside - one I was immediately searching through, to see if the ID was still there. "I found some," I answered. "One set of clothes, and a wallet, but there's no ID. I think it was the professor's."

Eclipse nodded, and stood. "Analumines," he answered. "Whoever that teacher was, he's gone," he softly spoke, clutching his tie a little tighter in-hand.

I shook my head in disbelief, dropping the clothes. It took all of my willpower not to scream and alert people over, or maybe it was just easier to keep quiet since I wasn't totally faithful in Eclipse's conclusion. "He's gone?" I repeated, picking up the clothes again.

"Dead, most likely." He approached and spread the clothes out on the professor's desk, looking for something. "Right here," he pointed, directing my eyes to a warped portion of fabric towards the arms. "Analumine hands are too strong to handle weaker fabrics. You can tell if one's around if you find clothes bundled up like this."

"Wait, what? So how did they get the clothes off of him, then?"

"I should've rephrased that," he stated. "Their hands are too strong. They're a tripedal species, and they walk around with their knees bent in small spots. Their hands are more like crane claws - three fingers with giant nails as fingertips. That's how you wind up with the warped fabric, here - when they try to bundle up the clothes, they grip it too hard."

"I still don't understand. Why would they want to take his clothes in the first place? And what happened to his ID?"

"They probably took his ID first," he explained. "Their anatomy is all jumbled around. You can tell a lot about a species' nature based off where its organs are." Taking out a piece of paper, he did a quick, rough sketch of what one could look like. "See, here."

"Where's it's neck?" I asked. "It's just... two eyes and a mouth on top."

"Five eyes, and a mouth on top. I didn't draw the two eyes on the back, sorry. They can't move back and forth very fast without zig-zagging, so they have to see in every direction at once. And you'd be surprised how many species don't have necks. Necks are pretty rare in this part of the galaxy."

"That's four eyes," I pointed out, counting them out again in my head just to make sure. "And what does their anatomy change about their nature?"

"Two answers at the same time. It's not pretty, but like I told you, their organs are all jumbled around. Their heart is in their head, for instance. They've got this big, long cavity running down, and their tongue is a tube that runs from the top of it down to the bottom." He traced another outline of one, this time to show his approximation of where things were. "The mouth opens up directly into the stomach when the tongue lets things through, and from the stomach, it passes the fifth eye, which in turn, is wired up right next to the first brain."

"First brain?"

"First brain. The second is more of an... auxiliary brain, right next to the heart," Eclipse explained. "The first brain does the thinking, and the second brain does the sensing - save for the fifth eye." He grimaced as he thought of it, balling his hand up into a fist and drawing in the parts he spoke of.

"Their digestive system is roughly 60% of their body," Eclipse explained. "All other systems are pretty bare-bones, but their digestive and nervous systems are well-developed. Actually," he began, putting in what I assumed were intestines into the drawing, and then adding some small additional lines. "Your species is primarily cardiovascular and nervous," Eclipse explained. "The most important systems in your body are those two. Food feeds into the blood, and blood feeds into the brain. Analumines are a primarily digestive and nervous species," he added. "Their nerves run directly through the digestive system, and all their... sense sensors are placed in spots accordingly. The eyes are up by the mouth and in the stomach, their version of ears are small rings going along the outside of their body, and so on."

"So what's the fifth eye for?" I asked. "Hardly seems like it would be very useful for anyone to look at what they're eating after they eat it."

"That's where you're wrong. Analum V is a hostile planet. Every piece of organic material is out to kill you. They had to evolve a second digestive tract to filter out toxins. That's where the eye comes in." He ripped off a small corner of paper and doodled a drumstick onto it. "Something goes into the stomach. If it's good, it goes and gets digested like normal. If it's bad, it gets funneled through the poison chute until it is normal." He crumpled up the little corner of paper and tossed it aside. "Trouble is, evolution happens. Eventually, Analumines become sentient, thinking members of society, just like humans. Their whole body is meant to eat everything around them, and then think of how to make things easier and easier to eat. As they get smarter, as they evolve into scientists and thinkers, their fifth eye evolves too, and it gets better and better at analyzing whatever goes through its mouth-"

My heart stopped beating as I realized what that implied, and I cut him off before he could say anything further. "And eventually, they learn how to look at something and understand it after eating it," I finished, head beginning to feel dizzy and lighter all of a sudden.

"That's what happened to the monitor, and the second computer," he explained. "They probably only needed a single bite to tell what the monitor was made of. The computer would've been a bit more complex." Eclipse stood up and turned around, sighing. "And it probably had another Krotwen on it," he concluded. "That must have been the hostile intent. An Analumine is a genius. It could probably tell what was on a computer based off of how the processors reacted to its stomach enzymes. I'd be willing to bet that that's what it was trying to do with the CDs."

I sat down at the desk and looked over Eclipse's drawing once again. "So we've got an alien twice our strength loose somewhere on the campus, whose sole motivation is to eat anything it finds, and we've got to find some way of stopping it?"

"No. You're actually wrong about that," Eclipse answered, looking back towards me. "It's more like twelve times our strength."