#now I'm a little curious about what it is you've learned from me because I've definitely talked about renesmee before

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

If you've seen Werepapas, you must be just as baffled as everyone else during "that" scene, huh?

And if you didn't, trust me, you will.

I haven't been watching season six and, based on what I've heard about it, the only way I would ever watch it is if some form of payment was involved. However, I do know what scene you're talking about because I follow enough blogs to have seen the chaos.

For those who are a little more removed from the fandom, the new episode Werepapas just aired and, in it, Adrien's grandparents are akumatized via his amok rings. This is actually a nice bit of tension because we know that akumas can be overcome by talking it out instead of fighting, but we haven't seen what that looks like with the new butterfly holder. This episode provides a good way to show off what that looks like now, emphasizing how much harder it is to deal with Lila's manipulation and establishing that talking it out will not be as easy as it was in season four and five. It also gives Adrien a moment to shine as he obviously has to be the one to free his own grandparents since Marinette has no connection to them and you can't destroy the rings without killing him, right?

Right?

[Image description: Adrien's amok rings lying broken in Ladybug's hand. An akuma is coming out of them, but there is no feather]

Wrong! Let's just let Ladybug break the rings without consequences while Adrien is trapped in a trophy and left completely out of another fight with his family. That's way better story telling!

I know people are horrified by this and asking why Ladybug apparently didn't even try to find another way to free the akuma, but I'm just laughing because I called that she could probably do this months ago! Crocoduel logic fits the pattern! The rings probably had to be on fingers for the amok to go free or some similar bullshit.

Or maybe this is some new logic? Or maybe Adrien isn't a sentimonster after all! Or maybe Lila stole his rings offscreen/in the still unaired first episode! Who knows? Not me! The complete lack is logic is what makes it fun, though, right? Right?

Btw, since we're talking about Marinette and the rings, does anyone know how Marinette knows that the rings are Adrien's amok? Who told her? It wasn't Gabriel or Félix. Did it happen in the London special? Does she even know or was she only hesitant to break the rings because she knew how much they meant to Adrien? I honestly have no idea. I'm still not sure if she knows that he's a sentimonster since all she was canonically told was that Emilie randomly got pregnant after a long battle with infertility:

Félix: But even the best remedies couldn't seem to overcome their curse. (Marinette squints her eyes, immersing herself more in the story.) Félix: Until one day, the curious princess learned that she was expecting — (Both depict Emilie pregnant and Gabriel, with peacock feathers spreading on the background.) Félix: She was pregnant. (Marinette's eyes widen upon realization.)

And that Amelie also got pregnant soon after using the peacock:

Félix: The curious princess felt badly for her twin sister. So, she asked the tailor if he could do something for the good princess and the lord of war to have a child as well. (The scene switches to Félix, acting as Gabriel, talking to Kagami who is acting as Colt.) Félix: (as Gabriel) After much study, I have discovered a solution for you and your wife. But there will be a price to pay. You will give me your best knight to guard my future son. In exchange, I will lend you this magic amulet. It will allow you to give life to your dream and to control it. Kagami: (as Colt) Sorcery? Never! Félix: (as Gabriel) Well, it's up to you, of course. (Just as "Gabriel" is about to take back his offer, "Colt" chases after his hand and accepts this "sorcery" that "Gabriel" talks about, taking the Peacock Miraculous with him as well.)

Ah Miraculous, you never change. How a show for kids is so confusing is beyond me!

note this is all what I've picked up second hand so feel free to let me know if I got any details wrong

[aeolianblues]

I'm not an extrovert. At all. In everyday life, I'm a yapper, sure, but I need someone to first assure me I am okay to yap, so I don't start conversations, even when I really want to join in sometimes! It's just the social anxiety acting up. God knows where from and why I lose a lot of my inhibitions when it comes to talking to people about music. I don't know where the confidence has suddenly sprung from. I've made a crazy amount of friends in musical circles, either just talking to people about common music or (since it is after all in music circles) talking to bands about their own music. I let out a sigh of relief any time an interaction goes well, because in truth it's going against my every instinct. I wish I could do that in everyday life

[bookwyrminspiration]

Wait! Bella and Edward have a kid together????? I am so sorry I did not know this whatsoever. My knowledge of Twilight is you talking about it and this one Harry Potter/Twilight crossover fic that I read 4 years ago.

Anyway, why can’t vampire’s bodies change? Is it like how they can’t have tattoos due to their skin being very tough?

Also, if Bella was changed into a vampire midway through her pregnancy, how does she manage to actually have the kid?

.⚙️

Yep! It's a pretty significant part of the story, as in it is like the entirety of book 4. So almost 25% of the series is dedicated to Bella's getting pregnant and the aforementioned problems this new kid raises in the vampire world. And it's generally well known for the Jacob imprinting on Renesmee thing (which is a whole other situation/drama)

Her name is Renesmee Carlie Cullen, and she is the biological human-vampire daughter of Edward and Bella. Renesmee is a mix of the names Renee (Bella's mom) and Esme (Edward's adoptive vampire mom), and Carlie is a mix of Charlie (Bella's dad) and Carlisle (Edward's adoptive vampire dad). She hasn't reached physical maturity by the time the series ends, she's still a kid--but she's like, idk, the equivalent of a five year old perhaps? if said five year old was smarter than the most learned human alive

To get back to your questions: in the twilight universe, the way vampires work is that when you're turned, every cell and fiber of your being is frozen as is, in that state. It heals all blemishes like whatever injury/illness might've killed you if that was the situation (among other things like destroying melanin making all vampires pale...), but vampires do not age or develop past that. This includes physically, mentally, and emotionally. If you were turned at 14, you're physically, mentally, and emotionally 14 forever (that's why the immortal children I mentioned are a problem). Their bodies don't change. They don't age, their hair and fingernails don't grow, they can't grow or lose muscle or weight, there's nothing active or circulating in their system--their hearts don't beat, they don't need to breath, they don't have a life cycle, etc. There bodies stop changing and are stuck indefinitely at the time of turning. Which means vampires can't get pregnant or accommodate a growing, changing baby and body

As for Bella, she was changed at the end of her pregnancy, immediately after the baby was removed/born. The entire pregnancy happened with her still human. I could've been clearer about that. She was pregnant, and then the baby (half-vampire and therefore supernaturally strong and dangerous inside her frail human body) accidentally broke a bunch of bones and her spine a few days before their scheduled c-section, so an emergency one was performed. Baby Renesmee was removed, having gestated entirely in a human body, and Bella--no longer pregnant, but very much so dying--was injected with venom and bitten to transform her and save her life.

I hope that helps clear it up! But I may have also said things that raise more questions, so if so, feel free to ask!

[thatnonameuser]

A Wonderland Of Yanderes

Intro, Part 1,Part 3 here Tagging for the first time @blue-rae18 Minors DNI Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Rape and Non-con but it's a subtle.

You'd bitten your tongue bloody all the way through Crewel's opening lecture. There were so many questions. So many sick and twisted answers.

One class filled you with so much dread

A class about kidnapping, murder and brainwashing some poor innocent soul into Stockholm Syndrome. All shoved underneath the the guise of true love.

A 'darling', the name for someone who was the object of a yandere's unwanted affection. An innocent who spend the rest of their lives living in fear, while someone smothers and controls them with their obsessive love against their will.

And this is all being taught and treated as a normal.

As if it's fine to take someone hostage because you love them.

As if it's fine to kill someone they love if you love them more.

As if it's fine to do unspeakable acts to them and their bodies against their will.

With how much nausea and bile coursing through your stomach and throat it was a miracle you didn't throw in the middle of the lecture.

But that's not what scared you.

What scared you was how bored Ace was as Crewel spoke, how enraptured Deuce looked as he heard about this. How curious some of the other students were about the methods they could use to steal innocent people from their homes, families and lives. How excited some were hearing about some of the ways they would learn about the ways they would use to break the desire for freedom in their future 'partners'.

It was terrifying.

That your friends would kill for someone they love.

Would they kill you?

You don't want to think about that right now. Right now, you needed answers. Fast.

"Crowley! Crowley I need to talk to you!" You shout as you storm in Crowley's office. As soon as the lecture ended you got the hell out of dodge and headed straight to Crowley's office, ready to demand answers.

The door opens to reveal a smiling Crowley, but that doesn't soothe your nerves. "Ah! My dear, what has your feathers ruffled?"

You swallow roughly, "Crowley.......Why didn't you tell me about the fact that I could be........legally murdered here?!"

He tilts his head, "Oh. That must've slipped my mind." You look at him, bewildered.

"I could-" Crowley interrupts you.

"Fear not though. As I am gracious, I already have ensured that will not happen!"

You want to feel relief but you can't, instead suspicion fills you.

"H-How?" According to Crewel's lecture only one crime wasn't pardoned. Darling Murder, and you weren't a darling. You got here on accident and you're not apart of this world so there's no way-

"Crewel was kind enough to inform me of your reaction to his lecture, and I've seen you this past week, how you've tamed your fiery little familiar so quickly." The smile he makes while he speaks fills you with fear, "Only darlings act the way you do~"

"What?"

"As a result, I've had you registered as Darling on and off this island. No one will raise a hand against you." He pauses, "At least not enough to kill you," he laughs at that.

"B-but I'm not from here! What if someone tries to kidnap me, or drug me, or....anything else!? I have a family, friends, and a life back in my home world!" You reason, but Crowley just laughs.

"Ah, the usual darling spiel~ Fear not, I will continue to find a way for you to return home." You feel a sigh of relief bubble into your throat, but before you can release it, what Crowley says next makes your blood freeze.

"But if someone takes you as their own, I cannot and will not try to intervene."

"What!? B-but-"

"I'm afraid after someone stakes their claim, a duel must be done to relinquish that claim to another. You must understand, it would be such a hassle to do every time someone stakes their claim."

"W-wait a second-"

"Of course, I'll leave a way for you to return to your world, but whether you're allowed to leave is another story. You must understand."

"I-I didn't ask to be here, Crowley, you c-can't just-"

"My dear, perhaps the reason the carriage came for you in the first place was for you to belong to another here. Regardless of how you feel about it, my and your hands are tied."

"B-But-"

"Oh, and I should give you fair warning. Many of our students are well aware on the traits a darling like you tend to have. Some may already have their eye on you. Your little friends Ace and Deuce seem to."

You're stunned silent. Ace and Deuce might be, what?

"Y-You're lying...." you whisper.

"I'm afraid not, but as I am gracious I'll inform the ghosts in Ramshackle to keep an eye out for you. They seem to have taken a shine onto you." Why because, you lived with them or because they're obsessed with you too?

What's wrong with this world?

[jelloapocalypse]

Are there any opinions you've given (like in a video or on twt or something like that) that you eventually changed your mind on or grew to regret??

I'm curious because you seem like a very "I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL" type of person

Y'know, I honestly can't think of anything.

I'm the kind of weirdo who really likes to figure out why I feel a certain way about something. So if I feel really strongly about something, positive or negative, I tend to delve far into it to find out why whatever I'm thinking about is that way.

I'll read developer interviews and figure out behind-the-scenes stuff. I'll check out every other adaptation to see what the production team deemed important enough to keep from version to version. I'll look at who did what on the staff to figure out which ideas came from where. So once I've got a strong opinion about something, it's usually backed up by so much research and thought that my opinion won't change unless something massive shakes the franchise in question or it gets an entirely new adaptation.

I think the thing that happens most regularly for me is learning too much about an author's writing style and re contextualizing their work now that I know more about them.

For example, I like mystery novels. A few years ago I read a book called The Guest List by Lucy Foley and I really liked it. My favorite thing about it was its non-chronological framing device and the wild multi-step revenge story.

This year I read another book of hers called The Midnight Feast. The structure, setup, and pacing of the reveals was shockingly similar. So much so that I was actually able to guess about 40% of the twists early, not because I was picking up on them, but because I was already familiar with the storytelling tools the author used. I kind of ended up disliking the book, but only because I'd basically already read it. It made me want to revisit The Guest List. Is the only reason I didn't like The Midnight Feast because I'd read The Guest List first? Would the same thing have happened in reverse if I read them the other way around? I think that's neat.

Idk it's funny how learning about a creators little quirks makes you approach their work differently, like how Charles Dickens is addicted to making everyone Secretly Related for Surprise Inheritance Reasons.

[renatogpadilla]

Bright Ideas

To say she was surprised that Lux actually came back would be an understatement.

Jinx was beginning to think she'd put up that little target range outside her hut for nothing when the neigh of a very nervous horse reached her ears.

The glowy girl strode up to her with an air of... Scholarly whimsy. Like when you go to class and find out the fun teacher took the place of your most hated class. Like she was excited to learn.

Jinx had to wonder if she'd ever looked like that when she watched her sister shadow-box with the rest of the kids back in Zaun... She probably had. It wasn't often she wondered what she would look like today if she had learned to throw a proper punch back then, but there were moments.

And now, here came this little blond meerkat of a girl, with an absolute stallion at her back. White as a sheet and with two beady black eyes that seemed to go on endlessly into the void of the creature's soul... Or maybe that was just Jinx's imagination. Every time she tried to hold eye contact, Starfire neighed and turned its head away nervously.

"Once, I was the greatest criminal in two whole cities and brought upon Marshall Law by virtue of just existing nearby..." She thought, missing a little bit of those days... And the company they brought. Just a little. "Now, I freak horses out. What an upgrade."

"Hello, Isha." Lux said. "You look in good spirits."

Gods, it's barely bright, how is she THIS SUNNY this early?

"Flashlight! You didn't chicken out!" There was genuine surprise there. Most girls that ran into Jinx felt the imperious need to bolt in the other direction...

Most girls... Some didn't. Some got close. And when you're a walking jinx, whatever gets close has a tendency to explode eventually...

Focus. Don't think about that. Why would you even think about her at a time like this?

"It wouldn't have been very ladylike of me to refuse such a rare offer." Lux said. She... Didn't quite know where that came from. There was a buzzing in her today. She threw in a curtly bow, just because.

Isha answered in kind, albeit more mockingly.

"Consider me surprised AND excited!" Isha said. "Alright, Your Sparklyness! Let's see what you've got! Feast your eyes!"

She made the most showgirl presentation hand motion she could muster towards the makeshift firing range. A bunch of metal targets and dummies, cobbled together for the express purpose of being lit up by a girl Jinx had met only last night. What an honor.

Lux put a hand on her heart. "Oh, Isha, it looks lovely!" There were even little faces painted on some of them to make them look more menacing.

That was NOT the reaction Jinx had been expecting. Usually people felt like her little art exhibitions were scary or uncanny... This girl was either secretly a freak or in desperate need of getting out of the house. Did she live in a house? Maybe she lived in a castle like some fairytale princess made to give her author some semblance of excitement... Or Vi a wet dream every once in a while. She'd caught her looking at those story books in ways nobody should look at anything in public as kids... She just wished that princess kink (if that's what it was) hadn't led her to- Wait, she had been going somewhere with this train of thought. What station was this again? This was not her stop.

"Isha?" Meerkat eyes. Say something.

"Wuzzat?" Smooth, Jinx. Professional.

"Target practice? Isn't that why I'm here today?"

"Oh, yeah! It is!" Jinx got excited now. She'd get to see how dangerous this girl really was! "Here's what I've got: You knocked me on my ass while panicking, right? Well, that ain't easy, so I got curious to see what that glow of yours could do when you're actually trying. This is all you!"

Lux didn't know how excited she was about this precise moment until it was here.

To Lux, it saw an opportunity to let go... To let herself shine for once without regret or care of what others thought... A chance to be free and discover what that was like for once. But it was also kinda terrifying. What if she glowed too much? What if she hurt her new... Friend? Teacher? Experimenter? Huh. She hadn't thought of that. She'd go with "friend" for now. That felt the most appropriate.

She just hoped Isha didn't mind a little premature sunning.

She took a few steps forward, to the rim of the range, took aim at a dummy with a little metal top hat and what looked like a cupcake painted on its chest and attempted to shoot it.

Full disclosure here: Lux had never attempted to actively hurt anything before. Every time her magic had manifested, it had ALWAYS been in self defense.

Which might explain why, when she actually took aim and "fired", all that came out was a little stream of dancing sparkles. Not enough to hurt nothing, but they looked pretty! They splatted harmlessly against the training dummy and with a soft glow, silently disappeared.

Isha let out a chuckle. "Not bad! Maybe with A bit more practice you'll manage some sunburn!"

"It's not as easy as it looks." Lux retorted. "Every time I've done it I've felt something incredibly strong. Survival instinct, or anger or just... Something raw. I guess that's the best way to put it... It's harder when I push it."

Isha's face didn't get any softer, but she did seem to be turning some gears in her head.

"Okay, that's a start." Isha told her. And she let a huge grin grow on her face. "So we start raw!"

"Excusez-moi?" Lux HAD to have heard that wrong. Whoah. Accent slip... Reign it in, Luxanna.

"Bless you." Isha responded. "How did your powers first manifest? What made you light up the first time?"

Oh, that was an ask... Probably the scariest moment of her life at the time.

"I was..." Deep breaths, Lux. "I was out riding when it got late. I lost track of time, so I took Starfire here through a shortcut through the woods. I wasn't supposed to, but I wanted a thrill. Young and impressionable, you know?"

Yeah, she knew. She nodded and let her continue.

"I learned the hard way that some rules are there for a reason. Star and I were set upon by a pack of wolves." She was not exactly happy re-living that particular memory. "They chased us deeper into the forest and eventually knocked me off the saddle. I remember their breath, their fangs... One pounced on me and next thing I knew, the pack was gone and there was light coming out of my hands."

That had been the day Lux discovered she was a Mage. The day she started hiding.

Isha took a little while, looking pensive, or trying to, at least, until she finally spoke up.

"Well, I have an idea. But you're probably not gonna like it."

Don't be 'think about the fangs'. Don't be 'think about the fangs'! Lux thought.

"Think about the fangs."

Fuck!

"Isha..." She didn't notice how much she was trembling.

A supporting hand reached her shoulder.

"I know what it's like to come face-to-face with something traumatic." Especially when that something has fangs and claws and acts on survival instinct, she thought, but she wasn't going to bring up her dad now. Or ever, if given the choice. "But the thing about fear is that the moment always looks brighter in hindsight. And you, Lux, actually have the power to make things brighter! The fangs can't hurt you now. You're in control." She was REALLY glad nobody from Zaun could see her now. She had a psychopathic reputation to uphold!

Seemed to do the trick, though.

"Can't hurt me." Lux said, more to herself than to Isha. And then she sent her mind back. Back to that horrible moment of adrenaline-fueled fight-or-flight state from back when she had no fight in her yet...

Her breathing got faster. Shallower. Jinx thought she might be having a panic attack. Lord knows she knew the signs! "Um, Lux? Listen, you don't have to go that hard, maybe this was a bad-"

Then she hit the deck as fast as her Shimmer-enhanced reflexes allowed her. It happened instantly! Lux turned around, the palms of her hands starting to glow and then...

Well, funny thing about light: It doesn't usually make noise! Jinx had no frame of reference for when to get up... Until Lux's voice got to her.

"Isha? Are you okay?" She sounded guilty... Like her letting loose wasn't the whole point of being here today! "I'm so sorry, I hope... Gods, I really hope you didn't spend too much time on that."

Jinx got up, turned around, and faced the firing range. Or rather, the sunburnt, steaming, borderline-calcinated ash-splatter that used to be the firing range...

It was like a nuke went off. Whatever wasn't dust, or a black mark on the floor of the forest, was melted and twisted in ways Jinx couldn't replicate without a forge and a good few hours' work.

It was at this exact moment that she realized that she was NOT letting this girl go without learning to focus that. No way in Hell. There had been a LOT of facets of her life that blew up in her face (in fact, most of them did. It was honestly a miracle when one didn't), but if Lux decided to go nuclear one day... Jinx was powerful enough to tank several hits from the Atlas Gloves, her sister's "overdesigned bitch-mittens" that gave her super strength. She could move at speeds the eye couldn't track for short bursts of time. Hell, she could be put through a brick wall and walk it off like it was nothing... But an angry Lux?

She would NOT walk away from that.

"Well... She said, suddenly feeling like Fishbones was about to need an upgrade... "We can work with that."

[ms-demeanor]

sorry if you've answered this before, and i hope you don't mind me asking, how do you know so much about computers and what seems to me like everything in the world? how did you become so knowledgeable? it's amazing

i just know a little about a lot of things and I probably have a fair number of things that I've dug into more than most people and less than people who actually focus on that stuff! It's kind of an illusion!

I do know a lot about computers and that's because I've worked at a computer company for 12 years and have been deep into a computery subculture for about 20 years - I do genuinely know a lot about consumer computers. That I'll own and that's experience.

I know a fair amount about literature because I've got a degree in it!

I know a fair amount about journalism because I've got most of a degree in it and I worked with journalists for a long time!

I know a fair amount about nutrition because I've got most of a degree in it and because I've been focused on reading a lot about nutrition for more than a decade because of my own food issues!

But mostly I'm just someone who falls down rabbitholes and has a decent ability to recall what I find when I run down them.

Also I get curious about things and will just go. Experience them.

Like at some point i came across a site for people who own and use RealDolls and I got interested in learning more. The site required an application because they didn't want people just trolling so I applied and I ended up reading through the whole site and reading the magazines they sent out for years after because it was just interesting. The way these guys bought clothes or compared repair techniques and cleaning techniques, the way they constructed identities for their dolls - it was all interesting! So now I know about the proper way to store a RealDoll and how their skeletons are put together and the best way to prevent rips or clean inserts.

Now imagine that with everything.

I got interested in quack medicine so I ended up reading the entire back catalogs of quackwatch and science-based medicine.

I got interested in the history of aspartame as a scare-word and I ended up reading a couple of books, SEVERAL entire blogs with decades-long runs, purchasing a military magazine from the 90s, and submitting a FOIA request.

But, like. I don't own a RealDoll or work in that industry. I am not a medical professional. I am not a chemist who works with aspartame. So I get these weird little collections of information where I know what *seems* like a lot to someone who hasn't looked into it but I know a lot less than someone who has taken the time to actually dedicate themselves to that topic.

And sometimes it's a years-long dive and sometimes it's a months-long dive and sometimes it's a few hours of me digging online until I feel satisfied with what I've learned and I never come back to it, but I've got three more talking points than your average joe at a party would.

(Also though I've attended various colleges at various levels for ten-ish years now and I've taken probably more college-level classes on a lot of subjects than most people have because I've now spent several years just kind of kicking around at community colleges and deciding that a cartooning class sounds fun or that a mesoamerican art class fills certain transfer requirements or that I might as well brush up on spanish, french, and german. Access to low-cost college classes in california is a big part of this, and having the time and money to take classes while i'm working is something that I've been very lucky with)

I've also worked pretty much continuously since I was 18, sometimes holding multiple jobs at once, and I know a lot of interesting people who do a lot of interesting things and I ask them about their interesting experiences and if they offer me a chance to go do cool shit with them, like launch a high altitude balloon or blow up some dynamite that's about to expire or join a band, I do it!

I was also one of those kids who had no friends and spent too much time at the library so I'd do things like read through medical textbooks or pull a book of home chemical formulas out of the trash and read it or take it into my head that I was going to read all of Shakespeare before I got to high school so I was a really annoying twelve-year-old and that kind of thing never really let up.

I don't know! I don't think it's that unusual and I think most people do this kind of thing I just happen to have less focus than a lot of people and talk a lot more.

[l3vi-bby]

OK SO

M! Reader with Beel but reader is a chef/baker. Beel only learns about Readers talent when he eats one of their meals and finally feels full for the first time probably ever. Beel questions reader about the contents of the food and reader is like “idfk, made with love?” Because of this, Beel forces Reader to make him food as much as possible.

Small little thing I was thinking about, thought it might be cute.

𝙇3𝙑𝙄-𝘽𝘽𝙔 ;; ᵒⁿ ᵗᵘᵐᵇˡʳ ░ : ｡.｡

warnings / sum // he's full of your love and still wanting more. || beelzebub (obey me! one master), male reader, fluff

a / n // tysm for giving me my first ever request on here + i love beel sm so i was so excited to start writing this!!! [B. NAME] = bakery name (usually would mean "brother" but in this fic no)

# full of your love // beelzebub x m!reader ≟ ˚◦

: ｡.｡ ░ ᵒⁿ ᵗᵘᵐᵇˡʳ ;; 𝙇𝙀𝙑𝙄-𝘽𝘽𝙔

𝙄𝙏 — was known all across the Devildom that [F. NAME]'s baking was the best and not only that, but the [B. NAME] was also great, even Barbatos and Luke would agree so, their own pastries maybe put to shame. The bakery smelt of fresh sweets, toasted bread, and the clear aroma of caffeine. Everything in the building screamed a homey feeling, it brought a warm welcome to any person, demon, or angel walking in. A heaven in hell.

It was unsurprising that Beelzebub, Avatar of Gluttony, quickly found out about the place, and became a frequent patron. Not only that, he was the generally the sweetest and most supportive, having the money to buy all of the bakeries pastries if he wanted to. It was currently a normal day, it had begun to snow in the Devildom and demons all around looked for refuge in any open stores. Beelzebub sat down at a table, scarfing down the food given to him by [F. NAME]. The demon looked up at [F. NAME] as he munched, "your baking is always the best, [F. NAME]... mmm..." The [H. COLOR]-nette could only chuckle, placing more food before the other, "so I've heard, Beel." They continued to bask in each other's warm company, [F. NAME] soon pulling in a chair and propping his elbows up to admire his favorite customer. Beel gulped down the remains of the food with a good jug of coffee and sighed in content. He patted his stomach and realized an odd feeling. "... I feel so full, [F. NAME]." "I'd be surprised if you didn't, you've ate more than you regularly do." Beel shook his head, "no, you don't understand. I never get full." The ginger tightened his brows at the other, seeing as how the baker was not staring back quizzically. "That's interesting...?" [F. NAME] said, confusion in his tone. They stayed staring at each other for a minute or two, an awkward atmosphere still growing. [F. NAME] opted the conversation was done and stood up, grabbing a nearby platter and stacking the empty dishes, Beelzebub could only watch, a curious wilderment still evident. He suddenly snapped out of it, stopping the baker. "What do you put in your food?" Caught off guard, [F. NAME] opened his mouth to close it again. Shouldn't it be obvious...? Flour... sugar... salt — y'know, what else is one supposed to put in a pastry? "What else?" [F. NAME] softly smiled, "it's pastries." Beelzebub shook his head, not satisfied and repeated his question. [F. NAME], a platter still in hand, took his other and placed it on his chin in ponder. "Hmmm... love, I guess?" The silence came back at Beelzebub widened his eyes. [F. NAME] chuckled again, the melody of his voice filling the bakery as he went back to tidy up. Beel felt a feeling deep inside him, butterflies swirling inside his chest. The deepest red took over the avatar's face as he slowly raised his hand, grabbing [F. NAME]'s wrist. Both became surprised at the upcoming words. "Please, make me as much food as you can!" "U — uh? I'm sorry?" Beel stood up, his face now mere inches away from the other, "more! I need more!" [F. NAME] smiled, trying to stifle his laughter but soon blowing up. "Sure! Sure — haha, just — just sit down Beel, and I'll cook you all the food you want!"

𝙇3𝙑𝙄-𝘽𝘽𝙔 ;; ᵒⁿ ᵗᵘᵐᵇˡʳ ░ : ｡.｡ impo . // masterlist || req info / post

[somerandomdudelmao]

I am so sorry for asking this a second time if you've already seen it, but I think Tumblr went and gobbled up the original and I didn't get it back :p Hope this isn't a bother, but...

You mentioned at one point that you work as a storyboard artist, and I got all curious about that since it's basically my dream job! I wanted to ask, what's it like being a storyboard artist? Do you have coworkers, or work within a building with a couple other people, or is it a work-at-home kind of job? Are the deadlines hard to reach or are the manageable? Do you need certain equipment for this job or can you use any drawing/art program as long as its functional?

I have a few more questions but they're a bit more "Personal," (monetary junk that you probably don't wanna answer) so I'll save them for the actual job interview. Decided to re-ask this now since you're shadow-banned (Never knew what that meant until like 6 hours ago) and asks are easier to receive. Hope the ban gets lifted soon btw because I am IN LOVE with your comics! They never fail to make me smile.

Okay thanks for reading and answering if you do and sorry for bothering you with the same question twice I must ascend to the heavens now kk baiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-

I'm..hahah...so..hahahahhasnfkgn

Let me put on my clown costume real quick

So~ About my storyboarding experience~

I can tell you about it, but if you speak fluent English, your experience is likely to be VERY different from mine.

Because in my country the animation industry is practically dead.

So...haha yeah...my situation is a little unconventional I guess.

Basically, I have nothing.

No office, no co-workers, no requirements for the programs I use.

I kind of...work sitting on my bed with a tablet on my lap because I don't even have a fucking table lmao. Deadlines were really hard to meet when I first started, but after a year on the job I've learned to draw five times faster and it's no longer an issue.

My goal now is to learn English well enough to find a job in any country that isn't mine. And I have absolutely no idea what it looks like to work at a studio that pays you in dollars, not leaves :т

[girls--complex]

I just came upon your blog and it's given me Lots of Thoughts, even though I don't particularly believe in any God (that is to say, I think there might be something more out there, though I don't think it's God as it's portrayed by any religion and I need some sort of tangible evidence before I can confirm or deny that something like that exists. All that to say I'm agnostic lol), but I do think you have some very good points about a lot of things.

I find it kinda hard to understand some of the things you write since you use a lot of long and complicated words that aren't in my vocabulary since English isn't my first language and I've never left my home country, but I'm doing my best! (With the help of an online dictionary)

Either way, I really love your art and I'm taking some inspiration from your style to practice, if that's okay with you! I just really like how flowy, creative and loose it is and I really need to loosen up a bit about making things instead of constantly adding more detail and perfecting it until I lose interest because it becomes stressful instead of enjoyable to create something.

I also wanted to ask, since according to your comics you've done shrooms before, how would you recommend going about shrooms to someone who's not used to doing much of any substance? (I barely drink alcohol and I smoke weed so rarely every time I do it I end up extremely disoriented until I manage to calm down no matter how little I smoke).

I'm asking cause a friend of mine whom I've known for years recently told me they have some, and that he'd be willing to share them with me, and I'm curious about trying them out and seeing if I can learn something from that experience, but I wanna stay safe while making the most of it :3

Hi thank you for a long & thoughtful message

YOU ARE ALWAYS ALLOWED TO COPY OR "STEAL" OR WHAT EVER FROM MY DRAWINGS seriously this is so normal and allowed. I do this with other cartoonists and all the cartoonists I know also do this. We do it to each other. "I like how she draws eyes" or whatever and we absorb it into our own style. Or just copying drawings/ paintings/pages. This is good. Do it.

Thank you for taking the time to decipher my words. I know I use lots of large/obscure words N trying to get better at making me language accessible (& maybe use my beloved obscure words in enough context that a reader can figure out the meaning).

I think using psychedelics is something better to talk about with people who know U in person and can respond to your needs and goals. Maybe your friend can give some guidance or knows someone who has a shamanic streak that can. Or you can always go on erowid or reddit whatever kids are using now to do a lil research.

I don't really feel comfortable giving specific advice or even general advice that might color the experience in a certain way, hope u understand...

Thank u for saying Hi

[knightofthesevenfandoms]

Now that you've watched s2, I'm very curious to hear your opinion about it as an honourable IB shipper

My feelings are very mixed, while their flashbacks were pretty cute, the "confession" scene felt TERRIBLE to me. Why would these two old bureaucrats sing a cheesy song at each other in front of their respective courts 😭 Why were they speaking like 13 year olds. The ending just ruined the relationship becoming canon :(

Really long answer incoming lol.

Okay so. Essentially, yes. It was jarring/cringe because it was so VASTLY different than the vibe of their relationship that I had built in my head the last four years. I've always thought of them quite a bit more mature, sometimes combative, and really fucking kinky. But I wouldn't say it ruined it for me, and I'll explain why.

Initially it seemed SO out of character, the lovey-dovey, almost childlike affection they had for each other. But it's exciting for me to consider what if this WAS in their characters all along, they were just never given the opportunity/felt safe enough to let that side of their personalities be seen. Which is HEARTBREAKING but there's some subtle evidence to back this up.

We all know Bee is an angry, annoyed, high ranking demon with a lot on their plate. Even Crowley said "because they're always such a ray of sunshine" to Shax because it seems common knowledge to all of Hell that Bee is, well... an angry little shit. But they ARE a ray of sunshine when they're with Gabe, away from hell, away from their daily stresses, away from the expectations of running Hell. LOOK AT THEM.

We saw a hint of this in S1, when they showed a moment of vulnerability. When? In front of Gabe, at the airbase. They can't show weakness in Hell because they can't weaken their position as Prince (Grand Duke?), but Gabriel is the only other being in the entire cosmos they feel is an equal, and they can therefore let their guard down like they did at the airbase, and like they do a little bit more at every meeting with Gabe following Armageddon. Until they were actually showing the real Bee- who is a little unsure, kind of quiet, and a worrier. I always headcanoned that Bee absolutely WAS soft, underneath all their posturing, but only ever in private and only ever with Gabe. AND THEN I WAS GIVEN THAT HOLY SHIT.

Okay now on to Gabe. I always headcanoned that after Armageddon, he fucking broke. He snapped. He was SO TIRED of working toward goals, leading the host of Heaven toward said goals, and then the biggest one of all ended up a failure and essentially it fell on his shoulders. And that's basically what did happen in canon! It started, just like it did for Bee, at the airbase, when it was all falling apart, he turned to the only being he could that would understand his frustration.

He was always the hard-ass boss, albeit an idiot and a dick, but the memory wipe proved there was a sweetheart in there somewhere. Before the season aired, I assumed the memory wipe was what would show Gabe the error of his ways, and he would learn to be gentle and generous and loving through that trial. But it turns out HE ALREADY LEARNED IT BY THE TIME OF THE MEMORY WIPE.

Heaven seems so cold and lonely, and my god the scene where he says no one had ever given him anything. My heart ached for him. Heaven didn't even give him a desk. MURIEL, a 37th order, was given a desk but he wasn't. Away from the cold sterility of Heaven and his obligations, he heard Bee say they liked something, and he realized how happy their enjoyment made him. So he decided he liked it too. He never got to enjoy things (other than clothes), or his time around others, and Bee provided him that escape, simply by saying "I like this song." And then he miracled the song to play because he wanted to make someone, other than himself, happy. And he was ready to swan dive into Hell, give up the clothes he loved, because he knew he'd be okay, he and Bee would be okay if they were together.

Yes, their relationship is way different than I pictured it would be. But I'm framing it instead of being ooc, maybe we weren't seeing the real Gabe and Bee in S1. We were just seeing them as the result of their respective situations.

And the confession, to me, was used as a juxtaposition for the husbands confession, which uh. Did not go nearly as well.

So yeah, the singing to each other and their soft, innocent affection was cringe. But Bureaucracy has always been cringe, Bee is a gremlin and Gabe is an idiot. I'm looking forward to exploring their new dynamic in fic, and maybe filling some of the gaps that took them from where they were to where they are now.

[tia-amorosa]

Sunset Died - Alto/Wolff

The Others... and a secret

Note in advance: this episode contains a bit more text than in the previous parts. But it was important because it answers a few questions that some of you may have already asked yourself.

Nick went outside with Morgana and closed the bedroom door behind him. Then he took a few steps and leaned against the wall. “Thanks, I probably couldn't have done it on my own"/ ”like I said, it would have been better if I'd been informed earlier that she was expecting a child. Worse things could have happened”.

Nick paused for a moment before continuing. “You lack the means to properly examine the pregnant ladies in the city…"/ ”Mh, that's correct, yes. Above all, I don't have an ultrasound machine, there are so many things that could be detected and ruled out with it…"/ ‘It won't be long before… you'll have one of those machines at your disposal’ / ‘What do you mean?’/ ‘I've requested one’. Morgana was shocked and curious. “But where, by whom?"/…

“From people out there somewhere. I asked them for it. “/ “What… What kind of people are they?”/ “Hh… Some who have had me firmly in their grip for months. And it's up to me that… That nothing has happened here so far"/ ‘Mr. Alto…’/ ‘I value you as a very loyal person, Dr. Wolff, not just as a doctor’.

Morgana looked at him skeptically “You want to confide something in me and I'm not allowed to tell anyone, am I right?”/ “Yes, not yet. I'll talk to the people here soon, when I've got the hardest part over with"/ ‘and that would be?’. He looked at her seriously with tired eyes “Is there something you're particularly attached to, Dr.? What's the most important thing in your life?”/ “A few things. My own life, my husband, my child… My friends”.

“That's quite a lot. For me, it's been money for as long as I can remember. I learned early on how to get it, how to invest it wisely and how to spend it wisely. But money… It's also a tool you can use to manipulate people. Now I'm the one being manipulated. I have a lot of assets, it's not small. And that has gotten through to these people”

Morgana tried to follow and understand what Nick was telling her. “So… they want your money?"/ ‘All the valuables I own…’/ ‘And why don't you give them what they want?’. He took a deep breath. “Would you just give away something you've worked so hard for all your life?”. Morgana's voice became a little louder, as she seemed to understand what this was all about. “honestly, what do you have to lose except your money?"/ ‘hh… I know what you're getting at, Dr. Wolff’.

“You probably think now, just like my wife, that I'm stubborn. Yes, I am. But they also said that if I've given them everything, we won't get any more help from them…"/ ”What help have we had so far? We haven't seen any of it…”. Nick found it increasingly difficult to speak as his conscience began to torment him, “We were selfish, I…”. Her voice became more insistent. “Now tell me!"/ ‘They provided us with food and we weren't supposed to give any of it away’/ ”What…why?”

“Because there are other sick minds sitting there who want to know… how long the people here can get by without help and food now. So… Not only do they want all my assets, they also treat the people here like guinea pigs. When that meteor storm came and destroyed everything. That was just the right opportunity for them to test how humans cope in extreme situations…"/ ”Please what? I'm… Completely confused, excuse me”. Morgana had to sit down.

“They just wanted to leave us here to our fate? And you're going along with it, Mr.Alto?”. Nick couldn't look her in the eye. “They said if I lifted a finger, they'd stop supplying us"/ ”What supply? We…"/ ”For me, my family. As I said, the whole thing was an experiment”. Morgana was stunned. „And , how do they know what's going on here? Are there cameras here?”. He shook his head. “No, we should only ever observe and report. Gerhard and Nancy…"/ ”They should be spying on us, am I right? My God, that's really sick!”.

Morgana had to process the whole thing first. She was angry, surprised, many feelings overwhelmed her . “How… How did this contact even come about, Mr. Alto? How…”. Morgana hadn't really paid attention to it at first, because she had been looking after Vita the whole time. But she remembered this device in the bedroom. “Is that a Transmitter? Where did…”. Nick collected his thoughts again and tried to explain everything to her in detail. “The day before it all happened… I took it from the town hall because I wanted to do some restoration work on it. Actually, it was just an exhibit.”

“Now I remember, it was there in a bigger glass case in the foyer". He nodded. ”actually, it belonged in a museum long ago. Be that as it may. After the initial shock of the impacts was somewhat digested and we realized that the internet was down, I came up with the idea of getting the thing operational. Unfortunately, I just didn't know how to find a frequency. And then… they found me”.

Morgana had many questions running through her mind. “How did they contact you through this device? How did they know which frequency to select? How…"/ ”Believe me, I've often asked myself these questions too. Someone seems to have known that I have one of these devices. I just wonder who the hell it is. Maybe someone from here?"/ ‘That's nonsense!’.

Nick stood up and took a few steps across the room. “Why nonsense, Dr.?"/ ”Well, first of all, I don't think anyone else here has such a device except you. And I'd put my hand in the fire for every single person here. Who would come up with something like that? I would never voluntarily put my friends, my family or anyone else in the city I live in at risk. Do you understand?”.

Nick took a deep breath and exhaled. “I'm sure you're right, who would put up with such macabre nonsense here?"/ ‘You said… you get deliveries, right?’/ ‘Yes, food and other things for everyday use.’/ ‘Where do these deliveries come from?’/ „Where? I don't know, but definitely across the sea. There's a landing stage somewhere far away. The things were unloaded there and we pick them up by arrangement.”

“By arrangement… Does that mean they were never there when a delivery came?"/ ”No. We never knew when they were going to deliver to us. We were only informed by radio when the delivery arrived and we could pick it up. But apart from the goods, there was no one to be seen there, the ship was usually gone by then”. Morgana put her hands to her head. There was just so much information she had to deal with. “hh, my goodness… My head is spinning and I… I have to get back to my child”.

“Dr. Wolff…"/ ”If I've understood all this correctly, it's up to you whether we survive or perish here. I don't know how long I can carry this secret around with me now. You should talk to the people here urgently. Otherwise… I will do it” / ‘I'll do it, I promise you, as soon as…’ / ”You'd better not promise anything. Good night, Mr. Alto!”. Morgana picked up her things and made her way home.

After Morgana had left the house, Nick stood in front of the closed front door for a moment. And as he said, he had already made his decision. But he still didn't know how to deal with the consequences. He shook off his thoughts for the rest of the evening and went into the bedroom. “ssh, don't cry, o.k., I just wanted to take a closer look at you. Come here… My son”..

Nick could hear his wife snoring softly. She was still very exhausted from the birth, which had dragged on for almost a whole day. “So we haven't thought of a name yet, have we? I have a cousin, Alfonso, but we're no longer in contact. I would like that, Alfonso…Alfi, hnhn”. As he looked at his son, a few tears welled up in his eyes. Yes, as Cy once said, a little one like that changes something in you. “We'll find a solution, Alfi… Somehow”.

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

End of this part

@greenplumbboblover😊

poses by @poses-by-bee & @inkwisteria

[zoeykallus]

Do you take requests? I would love to read something with Hunter where he teaches you how to fight :))) smut is also welcome

Hmm, thanks for the input 🔥🔥🔥

Hunter x Fem!Reader One-Shot - Show Me What You've Got

Warnings: Smut/Strongly Suggestive/Soft-Dom Hunter/Training Turns To Smut/Sexual Content/Dub-Con(?)/Dirty Stuff/18+

_________________

You won't find much of a plot here 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, I'm so tired I could cry, so this is not proofread, sorry...

_________________

You are much too self-confident, actually you already know that before you visit him, so far you never beat hunter in a sparring session. But you want to try out the few moves you learned yesterday. And who would be better suited for that than Hunter, whom you like to get close to anyway? The man is downright outrageously handsome, with his dark hair, that striking face, those firm muscles under his toned skin. Combined with that deep, slightly smoky voice, the way he moves and looks at you, a cocktail that always makes your heart beat faster and fills your nights with wild dreams. Hunter really likes to be alone. You know that because he always makes sure he has a training room all to himself in the barracks. Basically, Hunter withdraws from others at every opportunity rather than seeking their proximity. You know why he takes time off whenever he can, trains alone, and spends as little time as possible with other soldiers besides his own squad. Hunter's extraordinary senses cause him to be quickly exposed to sensory overload, with things that others wouldn't even notice. Being continuously exposed to everything in this way, you imagine, is very exhausting.

So you can understand his general reserve. Hunter is already waiting for you when you enter the training room. He has already spread out the large mat on the floor, which is supposed to cushion any possible falls. You examine him quickly, inconspicuously. Black muscle shirt, black sports pants, barefoot. Of course, he's wearing his bandana, as usual. He has bandaged his hands, probably he intends to go to the punching bag later, you have observed him secretly, fascinated sometimes. The flex of his muscles, the power behind each punch, his posture. You suppress a longing sigh at the thought. Hunter addresses you, snapping you out of your thoughts. "There you are. I've been waiting." You glance at the clock hanging on the wall of the room above your heads, and say dryly, "I'm five minutes early." Hunter smiles with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "I know, but you're usually in earlier than that" You blink, feeling caught. Does he know that you sometimes secretly watch him? But he distracts your thoughts again.

"You learned something new you wanted to try with me?" he asks curiously. "Um, yeah, right. Something Wolffe showed me." Hunter frowns briefly and asks, so casually it almost doesn't seem casual anymore, "Since when do you hang out with the wolf pack?" The way you look at him makes him feel like you're looking right into him and seeing through his curious question. So he looks down at his hands and pretends he needs to fix the bandages. Somehow you can't recognize his behavior for what it is at this moment. You shrug your shoulders and say, "For quite some time now, as a matter of fact, sometimes. Did I never tell you about it before?" "No, you didn't," Hunter says, clearing his throat and pulling his bandana a little tighter. "Well, now I've told you," you say lightly, unaware of why he's so interested. Hunter nods and says, "Okay, show me what you've got."

His gaze wanders along your body, your posture. Your black yoga pants hugging your curves, the shirt you wear is a little wider, but knotted in the back. Hunter is distracted and promptly lands on his back as you pull his legs away with a simple trick. He makes a startled noise before landing on the ground. Grinning, you bend over him. "Well, that was easy today," you say, amused.

"I wasn't fully on top of my game. That doesn't count." You snort and laugh softly, "Oh come on Hunter, no one on the battlefield cares if you're ready or not either". His eyes narrow, and he says suspiciously smoky, "Hmm, good point". In the next moment he's grabbed you, taken down your defenses, has you on your back and is on top of you.

"Damn," you curse softly and try to break free, but he holds you under him with ease. He grins at you and your heart really jumps out at him, but not only that, a gentle pulse has arisen between your thighs as your nether regions touch, and you feel every contact very clearly through the thin fabric of your pants. "Gotcha, once again," he says with a grin.

You smile back nervously. You are aware of how sharp his senses are, and he will notice the change in your mood and hormone balance very quickly. Finally, you see it in his face. His expression changes, the smile slowly disappears, he blinks and tilts his head slightly to the side. "That's new," he says softly. You don't even ask what he means, because you already know. You swallow and say just as quietly, "Sorry." You expect him to let go of you and seek distance, but he surprises you. Hunter grabs both of your wrists with one hand and pins them above your head on the mattress, his other hand gently moving to the back of your neck. "There is no need to be sorry, if you ask me".

He knows it's a daring move, but he cant help it, he has to take the leap and taste the waters.

Your heart almost jumps out of your chest as his face comes closer and closer. His lips touch yours, slowly at first, tenderly, and your pulse begins to race, your eyes closing. Hunter's tongue slides over your lips which automatically open for him, and as it slides in and touches yours, the pulse between your thighs intensifies. You moan softly into the kiss. Very clearly, you feel him slowly getting hard as his pelvis still rests on yours, between your thighs. The hand that is on your neck slowly moves down, over the fabric of your shirt, feeling your breasts, gently kneading them, probing. His thumb feels your nipples, which are erected, pressing through the thin fabric of your bra and shirt.

A shiver runs down your spine, a tingle spreads through your belly as he plays with your nipples through the fabric, still holding you captive beneath him and his kiss. Ever so slowly, barely noticeably, he moves between your legs, pushing his hard length through the fabric, rubbing over your pubic, sparking gentle, stimulating friction. Hunter's hand finally moves under the fabric, while the other still holds your wrists. You feel his bare fingertips on your skin, the rough fabric of the bandages on his hands as he pushes the cups of your bra up and off your breasts to get at the soft, velvety mounds beneath. Suddenly he straightens up, sitting between your thighs, and let's go of you. He points an admonishing finger at you with a dirty little smile and says, " Stay right there." You obey, not even thinking of contradicting him. He takes off the bandages, removes them from his hands and tosses them carelessly to the side before throwing himself over you again. He stops just inches away from your face, catches himself with his hands on the mat, and grins at you.

Hunter teasingly kisses your chin and the tip of your nose, then straightens up again, pulling your T-shirt over your head. "Be a good girl and come with me," he says in an almost whisper, close to your ear, just before he bites your earlobe very gently.

You swallow, but nod and let him help you up. Clad only in your panties, you follow him to a side chamber where other workout equipment is stored. Hunter leads you to one of the benches where people usually lift weights, puts his towel over it and gently but firmly pushes you onto it so that you are lying on your back in front of him.

With a little smirk, he says, "Good girl."

Hunter wanders down along your body, pulling off your yoga pants and murmuring, "I really need to smell and taste you." You blink, heat flooding your body the second you realize exactly what he means by that. Your pants land on the floor, then his fingers travel down from the base of your breasts to where your body is radiating the most heat. His fingertips ghost over the thin fabric of your panties, lingering on the wet spot, exerting playful pressure. Hunter is kneeling in front of the bench, head between your thighs, close to your pubic area, he takes a deep breath and shakily expels it. "Damn, what a scent!"

His cock is already twitching expectantly in his pants, your hormones, the luring substances your body produces in arousal, tingling under his skin, from crown to toe. His fingers finally wander under the waistband of your panties and pull them off as well.

You can't believe that you are lying practically naked on a bench in one of the training halls, Hunter's head between your thighs. He has reserved this room for himself, but it is not locked, someone could still come in. But this thought suddenly disappears from your mind when you feel his breath on your damp folds, and shortly after his lips and tongue.

He presses his tongue to your pussy, roaming through your folds, dipping into your sensitive, wet hole once or twice, making you twitch, before he focuses on your clit. His tongue, exerting perfect pressure, circles skillfully and nimbly on the bundle of nerves. You haven't noticed it yourself yet, but you're already sighing, moaning and gasping, fueling him in his efforts. Hunter feels exactly each of your reactions, knows exactly when and what causes your arousal to increase, and thus learns very quickly, to perfection, every pressure, every movement that sends you into ecstasy. You tremble with aroused tension, your thighs quiver gently. You are so horny, and yet a part of you is very aware of what is happening and can't quite grasp it. That's Hunter tonguing your clit as if he's been programmed to do just that. It feels so good, everything is tingling and vibrating inside you, your hands are gripping the bench above your head and clutching at it.

He is relentless. You hear the soft slurp, a repetitive soft aroused rumble deep from his chest as he holds your thighs apart with his hands. He's getting faster and faster, his tongue gliding over your swollen pearl more and more rapidly. Hunter is literally chasing you towards your orgasm. The knot that has formed in your belly loosens, a fiery tingle pulses through your clit, your pussy twitches and drips. Your moan is almost like a little scream. Hunter's tongue massages you through a prolonged, intense climax.

You dare only a brief glance and see his intense eyes, the pupils so dilated that his eyes seem almost black. His senses are full of you, your scent and your hormones have practically overpowered him. He lets go of your clit, just at the right moment, and you're just about to catch your breath when he moves further down and his tongue suddenly drills into your dripping opening and starts licking you out. "Hunter!" you exclaim, startled. Hypersensitive after climaxing, you twitch and tremble as he uses his tongue to fill you. He has to grip tighter to keep you from escaping his grasp and slipping off the bench with your twitching. You claw even harder with your hands on the bench. Hunter takes his time, absorbing every drop of your juices like a starving man. It takes a moment, but your arousal builds again. Suddenly his head comes out from between your legs and he takes a deep breath.

"What a feast, my good girl," he says in a voice rough with horniness. He straightens up, kneeling in front of the bench, his pelvis between your thighs, and you catch a glimpse of his hard length. His cock is thick, long, gently curved, the tip slightly red and swollen, leaking pre-cum. You lick your lips, knowing what's coming next, can't wait to feel him inside you. But you're also a little nervous. You know him, you know he won't hurt you, but this has all happened so suddenly and quite unexpectedly. As if sensing it, he looks at you and asks softly, "Are you ready for me, beautiful?" You blink, feeling a little breathless, but you nod and say, "I couldn't be more ready." He smirks, looks down, grips the base of his cock and guides the tip to your pussy. Hunter is hungry, very much so, but he takes it slow, applying only gentle pressure at first, prodding at your entrance, softly. You bend your legs and pull them up, opening your thighs invitingly a little wider for him.

Hunter applies more pressure, parts your wet folds and slowly advances between your slick walls. You watch him as he tenses his muscles. He licks his lips, looks down and watches in fascination as his hard length sinks into you. As he bottoms out in you, he closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. The feeling is intense, for both of you. For him as your wet heat closes around his cock, his senses full of you, and for you as he stretches and fills you. One of his hands moves to your hip and grips gently but firmly, the other moves to your pubic area. His fingertips gently glide over your clit, which is swollen, gently pulsing. Your legs clamp gently but firmly around his hips, showing him you're ready for more. Hunter smiles in satisfaction. He can definitely feel and smell your willingness. He knows that his fingers dancing on your pearl have got you going again. His hips pull back a bit and thrust into you again. A soft wet sound, accompanied by the impact of naked skin on naked skin, fills the room. He takes you slowly, but he gradually speeds up. You feel each thrust, erotically invading, combined with your pearl pulsing under his fingers, and you lean your head back.

Hunter watches you, your every movement, the way your breasts move with each of his thrusts, and again and again he looks down, watching your bodies merge. "This is so good, Hunter," you moan, pushing against his thrusts, using your hands on the bench to push. He's getting faster and faster. The accelerating, lewd sound of your bodies colliding with each thrust, mixed with your lustful sounds, is like music to his ears. The tension, the intensity increases, you feel it too. You automatically tense your abdomen, causing your pussy to close even tighter around his cock.

He lets out a half-swallowed moan. His fingers on your clit quicken, his whole body tense, hard as granite. You groan out in a near whisper, "So close." "Good girl," Hunter presses out breathlessly.

His thrusts become irregular, he bites his lower lip, his hand on your hip grips tighter. Your climax pulses through the center of your body, makes your pussy twitch, and your thighs shake. A curse comes across your lips. The next moment you hear him let out a deep, drawn-out moan, feel his warm seed coating your walls. Two-three more slow, firm thrusts and Hunter pauses, breathing heavily. You both catch your breath, only now noticing that everything here smells musty like an old gym, mixed with the distinct tangy, salty smell of sex. He leaves your body, gently cleans you with the towel. Then, finally, your eyes meet again. You look at each other for a moment, then both of you grin. "That was an interesting workout," you say, laughing softly. He chuckles and says, "That's something Wolffe sure didn't show you." You look at him cheekily and say, "How would you know?" Hunter frowns, his smile disappears, he doesn't seem to know quite what to say. You can see his shoulders tense. You chuckle and say, "You should see your face. Relax Sergeant, you're the only soldier who's been between my thighs so far."

Hunter's shoulders relax again, he raises a brow in amusement, "If you don't mind, I'd like to remain the only one in the future"

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

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[thinking-through-some-things]

Curious about your EPIC rework because I was also disappointed by it

like i mentioned in my other post here (before i gave up), this definitely isn't the only possibility; you could focus the musical around something else. for my version, though...

as i said, i would build the musical around the idea of duty vs desire, and tie that into mercy vs ruthlessness. i think it would focus less on odysseus's guilt overall, which seems to be the real focus of the musical, and focus it more in this direction. still plenty of angst, but a little more pointed.

a lot of my changes probably take the musical further away from the odyssey. i'm actually not too concerned about trying to faithfully follow the source material; i think it's more important to actually tell a coherent story, and when you're abridging the material, you need to cut stuff. just be clear that's what you're doing.

(also i'm not going to cover everything i think needs to be fixed. mostly just elements to support my theme.)

i think it's a given that the saga format doesn't work for the final draft of a musical. no shade, it was a really smart way to gradually release the musical. ultimately though, it limits the story because then they were blocked into sticking with a theme, and you end up with too many epic finale songs... but i'll stick with it to help organize here. i'm just not sticking with a "theme". mostly because i'm getting rid of the wisdom saga to better distribute its songs.

unsurprisingly, i've written far too much and it's poorly organized, so this is just act one. i'll reblog with act two.

act one

overall, i would say act one is by far the stronger of the two. i'm probably going to cut at least 30% of the current act two, but act one mostly just needs editing. some songs might need more work, but mostly they still get to stay in the same place. add some spoken dialogue and you've got a pretty decent start.

the troy saga:

most of the troy stuff is fine. i think it helps to set up this idea of ruthlessness, and shows the peacekeeping side of odysseus. could it be stronger? yeah. but i like it setting this whole thing up. i have 2 main changes here.

1) every time odysseus mentions penelope and telemacus, he needs to mention anticlea. the musical has a bad habit of not introducing characters/elements until they're relevant, and i think it suffers for that. including odysseus's mother in the list of people he wants to get home to makes her death more impactful. i was so confused when she showed up the first time; she needs to be in here from the start.

2) to go with my theme, i would do this: the reason odysseus needs to kill the baby is because the baby would grow up to kill him; however, that doesn't necessarily mean ithaca would suffer. zeus can word it really carefully - i don't think that distinction needs to be immediately clear to the audience, but after you know how the story ends you can go back and realize that when you re-listen to it. this doesn't require much tweaking, but it helps to really set up the idea of making decisions for the greater good vs for selfish reasons (maybe he could have raised the kid? and only he would have died in the end? i want the audience to question this!)

moving into the second half of the saga, i think we need to introduce odysseus's men earlier. maybe a scene of him commanding them in troy? since i'm talking about a full musical instead of the current format, this might just be dialogue, not a song. but i think we definitely need a little more of polites before he dies. i don't really like having odysseus start out untrusting and jumpy, which is how he comes across to me in open arms. it doesn't make sense for this to be a lesson he needs to learn now, after being king of ithaca for well over a decade. originally i was just going to cut him, but my fiance persuaded me to let him stay. plus his death to polyphemus is a very brutal turning point.

instead, i would have a song/scene where we set up eurylochus and polites as odysseus's two advisors, two different sides of his leadership. you could rewrite open arms to fit here. polites argues for presuming peace, and eurylochus views things with suspicion and wants to attack first to keep the men safe. this really helps set up mercy vs ruthlessness. it shows odysseus is already a leader who balances peace and action, and it makes polites's death all the more tragic, because he represents the death of odysseus's inclination towards peace.

finally, i find athena's introduction and focus on being ruthless in this and the next saga confusing. she's mad at him for not being less emotional and more ruthless, but i don't see what that has to do with him being a "warrior of the mind". instead, i would make it clear that she thinks he isn't being cautious enough. she's mad because she thinks he isn't being shrewd, not because he's being nice.

athena and eurylochus should be coming from the same place: we need to be overly cautious and strike first, because that's how you stay safe. and rather than having a jumpy odysseus being taught to trust people by his soft bestie, i think he should be a general, exhausted from fighting for 10 years, jumping on the idea of relying on trust so he can relax and not feel so jumpy. his duty is to balance these two ideas, mercy vs ruthlessness, but because he chooses only mercy without remaining vigilant, polites dies and now he only has eurylochus to give him advice, meaning no one else is trying to suggest mercy. (i don't think eurylochus is bad - actually, he clearly prioritizes the crew and is always suggesting whatever is best for them. but often what is best for you isn't the best for those you come across, which is why it's the leader's job to balance those two things - again, the theme i'm going with in this version.)

anyways, athena needs to focus on pushing odysseus to be more suspicious and calculating, not more ruthless. she scolds him at all the same points, but now it actually makes sense. i don't love their flashback, but i don't have suggestions to fix it, so we'll leave it alone for now.

the cyclops saga

not too many notes here. getting to see the crew more gives it a little more weight (the stage production needs a tiny dialogue scene where you get quips and comments from nobodies so they're a little more recognizable when they die! make people even sadder!), but this is a really chilling series. the exposition bits need rewording (and again, a stage production has the benefit of 1) spoken word, and 2) stage directions so you can just show things happening).

odysseus's convo with athena needs work. as is, this doesn't seem like a good place for "what good would killing do when mercy is a skill more of this world could learn to use." this is supposed to be the stance athena takes at the end of the musical, but this particular act of mercy seems to lead to the death of most of his men in the very next act - which really makes it weird that athena apparently agrees with that sentiment.

i don't hate everything about this line, especially if we actually see athena ruminating over the line over the next 10 years. but it needs to be clear that it is not mercy but pride that leads to the death of his men. or, if we want to make it about mercy instead of pride, it shouldn't be as the sort of threatening brag that it currently is; instead, frame it as "even now, when we've beaten you, we're still choosing to let you live. because i, odysseus, king of ithaca, have chosen to show you mercy." obviously yes it's still his pride, but then when everyone blames his "mercy" for getting his men killed it makes more sense.

(coming back to really hone in on the idea that mercy isn't the problem here - maybe eurylochus notices something is off before polyphemus starts singing, tries to point it out, and gets brushed off as being too suspicious and bloodthirsty? yet again, i find the musical's stance on mercy confusing. is it good? they seem to want it to be - that's definitely what open arms implies, especially since it gets repeated so often. except the musical stresses that mercy is *why* everything went south here, and it rarely actually shows mercy working. it's confusing. i think this whole thing should feel more like odysseus was reckless, the only thing athena calls him that actually makes sense, and that's why this didn't work. the characters don't need to say it directly, but the musical needs to better frame it that way.)

(an aside, but they still grab sheep on their way out? obviously they're still starving but like. i'm side-eyeing the way everyone (in the musical) acts like he was so "merciful" for leaving polyphemus alive, but even after he learns the sheep are polyphemus's friends and their deaths are what drive him to violence, he still makes a point of stealing and killing them... this isn't a serious criticism i'm just poking fun at it. but hypocritical much?)

athena's anger in my goodbye makes no sense to me - not that she's not justified, but that her reasons make no sense. she calls him "sentimental" and "soft", but that's absolutely not the problem here. she should yell at him for being prideful and cocky. accuse him of sparing polyphemus just to feed his own ego, or of being short-sighted - she mentioned the danger of leaving him alive in the last song, why not bring that up again? why doesn't she scold him for foolishly giving up his name? it's really weird that she keeps harping on the idea that he's "emotional".

odysseus's retort is good, but also a bunch of people just died so it's weird that he's so confident about how right he is. "my friend is dead, our foe is blind. the blood we shed, it never dries" from the last song, and "unlike you, every time someone dies I'm left to deal with the strain" in my goodbye are really good lines. more of his position needs to come from his exhaustion, because odysseus is smart. he's a brilliant general. this does a better job of explaining why he's making so many mistakes early on, and why he's pushing back against athena so hard despite the fact that he just fucked up real bad. he was wrong. he should have acted faster like she warned him to. but making him a man, exhausted from a decade of fighting, desperately trying to grant mercy where he can? his pushback makes more sense.

also, him jabbing at her for wanting "to be known" and being alone? really weird. the musical frames athena as this loser whose only friend was odysseus. i don't get it. especially when you're calling her a goddess who doesn't understand feelings right before that? which is she, a powerful goddess or a lonely girl? stick with him accusing her of not understanding human emotions and interactions. it still gives her a reason to stick around - she can be offended by the insinuation that there's something she doesn't understand, and it gives her a reason to dwell on his comments and eventually change.

the ocean saga

eurylochus needs to call odysseus out; if he'd listened to him, if they'd acted faster against polyphemus, they might not have lost those men, including polites. obviously that might not be true, but it feels like that's what his position should be. it's really weird that they're nervous about the wind god because "your luck might run out" rather than "you did just make a bad call that got people killed". especially when odysseus says "i took 600 men to war and not one of them died there." sure, not there, but you just lost a couple to a cyclops. this more deliberate questioning makes the sidebar with "i can't have you planting seeds of doubt" a little more serious. it's not just "what if you're not lucky," but also "what if you're not as sharp? what if you're making mistakes and bad calls?" the luck thing works for the rest of the crew, but eurylochus's role in this musical is to question odysseus and challenge him as a leader, to make sure odysseus is doing what will keep the men safe.

eurylochus questioning odysseus more pointedly makes the betrayal in the next song make more sense. we should already have the sense that he's starting to doubt odysseus's judgement. his "luck running out" doesn't really explain why you're doubting him with the wind bag; but if you think he's hiding things or making bad decisions, suddenly it makes a lot more sense. i think the implication in the show is that it's just curiosity, and we don't even hear eurylochus asking about it. now, if we have already established eurylochus is already questioning odysseus's judgement, it's a little less weird when we learn he's the one who opened it.

again, we need a mention of anticlea, and she should sing with penelope and telemacus.

honestly? basic take here but i like ruthlessness. i'm fine with not changing my theme to use a better word because this one is a banger. and the one animatic with him as a creepy horse? more horse poseidon imagery, please.

i think poseidon needs to call out specifically how hypocritical odysseus is more. lean into that "false righteousness". the problem is that he isn't being "nice" or "merciful", at least not in those moments, not in how he's currently behaving. most of this interpretation is already there; honestly, just changing the delivery of some of the lines would go a long way. "you are far too nice" needs to have the last word almost spat out - poseidon doesn't actually think odysseus is nice; nice is just a word odysseus is hiding behind to justify his actions. i'm sure it could use more work, but at a glance i really like this one.

it goes without saying that the ending sucks ass though.

i can't imagine anyone thinks that was a good ending. idk how to fix it because the current one is so bad it's hard to think of any way to have something good there. you just can't have the jaunty "open this bag" music in there at all. i know they like to mix in motifs and call back to other songs, but it fucking kills all the momentum in what is otherwise a very dramatic song - and we need to be able to take this song seriously, because it's what the entire rest of the musical is based on. i'm open to a completely different ending, but if you want it to stay relatively close to the current staging: poseidon and odysseus stare each other down. poseidon asks "any last words?" and you think odysseus is about to say something dramatic and instead... he yells "eurylochus!" poseidon is confused, but eurylochus responds with "captain!" and, understanding what he's asking for, throws odysseus the wind bag (he helped odysseus close it, so maybe he got it then, or at some other point, idk). and then odysseus opens the bag in poseidon's face. then everything poseidon does is the same, the effect is the same, you just don't get the musical equivalent of a wet pool noodle slapped across your face.

the circe saga

first! an addition! the musical wants athena to be a foil to odysseus, but they do such a poor job of exploring her character or logic at all, it just doesn't work. her character revolves way too much around odysseus. she says goodbye, and then we see her 4 sagas later (half the musical) where, apparently, she's decided odysseus was right because... maybe if she'd agreed with him they would still be friends. and then she defends everything he's done... look, i'm getting rid of god games, so i won't go into that now. yeah, odysseus is still what prompts her to change her mind in my version, but he's just the start of that journey. she's going to have other reasons. i want to add in a couple songs throughout the musical, just to show the transition a bit. additionally, they can help show time passing in odysseus's story by breaking it up a bit.

this first song is a small one. it's just telling us what athena is thinking and what she's going to do. it's basically her mopey and angry that odysseus insulted her. but she's a goddess of wisdom and intellect, so she's kind of intrigued - maybe there is something to learn about leading with kindness. i haven't decided how she ends up back in ithaca, but she's decided to investigate this. i know the popular (not academic, more fandom-related) interpretation of greek gods is that they're all stubborn and that's the whole point, but for the sake of this story and the theme (and also the character), i think athena should take the stand that if there is wisdom to be gained, it is her duty to learn it. again, this one is pretty short - a verse of angry, and then she talks herself down, and then she's setting out to investigate - a little bit to learn something new, maybe a little bit to prove odysseus wrong.

the athena song can also go at the end of the circe arc. i was going to put another one in there, but the pacing and time line don't match well, and monster is definitely the finale to act one. i wanted to fit something along the lines of the start of the wisdom saga in here, but i think i'm going to put it at the beginning of act two, so. only one extra song for now.

onto the actual saga: i think it's done pretty well. some of the phrasing is awkwardly fit into songs, but that might just be me, and it's overall not egregious. i will confess that "she had us in just two words" "come inside" "damn" does make me giggle every time like a 12-year-old boy. i didn't mention it in my post on the musical's women because i don't think the text directly addresses it, but there's a definite implication that circe is as harsh as she is to protect her nymphs from sexual assault, which they might have faced before. removing the undertones of that from her relationship with odysseus was the right call - i don't think that's a conversation this musical actually wants to have, and it muddles her justification for how she handles the men.

circe is also gives us someone to compare odysseus's leadership to; she's basically the only other leader of a cohesive group that we see. her harsh policy stands in direct contrast to odysseus's earlier choice to start with unchecked "mercy". in turn, her nymphs are safe. we see her later learn that there are times where you can extend mercy and trust, so she even has character growth. (you could make a very interesting comparison between circe & her nymphs and the sirens, but that's a discussion for outside of the musical, so i'll leave it for now.) i wouldn't be surprised if other people have criticisms, i just haven't been able to find basically any critical discussion of the musical, so.

you could mostly leave this saga alone, but i'm inclined to take my red pen and make some bigger changes. i'm just not sure how to. i really don't like hermes and the flower being inserted here - again, i think there's too much bloat in the musical of "oh here's a thing that's in this specific bit, clearly just because that's what happens in the odyssey, and then we won't talk about it again." hermes does appear in two songs, but actually, does he need to? i'm of the opinion that the musical needs fewer characters so that it can better focus on developing the ones that actually need to be in here. the only problem is that odysseus needs the flower from hermes to explain why he has magic in the next song. okay, so what if no magic is used, and he just uses his wit to convince her? except that's basically what the plot of the next song is. so at this point i've basically gotten rid of two songs and completely changed the third, and that doesn't really work. or need to happen.

i stand by wanting to remove hermes. i think you can just give odysseus some line to eurylochus about having heard about a plant on these islands that makes one immune to being transformed by magic for a time. i don't think it's important - it's literally a small, one-time detail just to explain why circe doesn't immediately turn him into a pig. he doesn't need magic in done for - he can just fight with a sword while circe is slinging spells at him. and then you can still go into there are other ways.

the one change that i think does need to be made is that odysseus needs to spend a year on the island. he needs to be stuck here. it does mean you have to basically cut the song in half, but that just means the second part, where circe decides to help odysseus, needs to be a reprise. i think you have circe trying to seduce odysseus, and then she's shocked when he rejects her. the difference is that he doesn't fully win her over; instead, she decides to give him and the rest of his crew one year. for one year, his remaining crew recovers on the island and rebuild the ship, helping the nymphs with whatever tasks they ask and basically proving "not all men" are terrible. finally, odysseus shows that there's payoff to being a merciful leader! he saves all of his men! as they're finally preparing to leave, penelope shows up, we get the reprise, and she sends them to the underworld. all is well!

the underworld saga

or, all is not well.

this is where i spell out my theme: while a good leader is merciful, mercy takes time. and that extra time can be detrimental to personal goals.

this is why it's important to mention anticlea earlier, and why the crew spends an extra year on circe's island trying to save the rest of the men. taking a year to save his men makes odysseus a good leader, yes, but it might have cost him a chance to see his mother before she died. it doesn't matter when she actually died in the odyssey - what matters is that this is really what makes odysseus question the cost of mercy. this is where he starts to put his own desires over the safety of the crew, because the cost of taking too long is suddenly real - as is the cost of taking time to be merciful.

i actually don't have too much to add. some edits might need to be made to fit with other changes, but overall it's fine.

okay, there's act one! this is definitely long enough, so i'll reblog with act two. suggestions and conversation are welcome; again, my fiance already changed my mind on one part. i haven't actually see any discussion on changes yet, so i'm happy to consider other changes, or for mine to be challenged (by something other than "actually this is perfect").

[chaos-the-stinky]

Waiting to get a copy of tbob. Uhh The Great Gatsby

Chapter 1

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.

I never saw this great-uncle but I'm supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father's office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep-school for me and finally said, "Why—ye-es" with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm season and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

"How do you get to West Egg village?" he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the "Yale News"—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man." This isn't just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion. Or rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he'd left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

Why they came east I don't know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it—I had no sight into Daisy's heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are." We were in the same Senior Society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

"I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore.

"It belonged to Demaine the oil man." He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside."

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness."

She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

At any rate Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way east and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.

"Do they miss me?" she cried ecstatically.

"The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all night along the North Shore."

"How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" Then she added irrelevantly, "You ought to see the baby."

"I'd like to."

"She's asleep. She's two years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"

"Never."

"Well, you ought to see her. She's—"

Tom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.

"What you doing, Nick?"

"I'm a bond man."

"Who with?"

I told him.

"Never heard of them," he remarked decisively.

This annoyed me.

"You will," I answered shortly. "You will if you stay in the East."

"Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry," he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. "I'd be a God Damned fool to live anywhere else."

At this point Miss Baker said "Absolutely!" with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.

"I'm stiff," she complained, "I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember."

"Don't look at me," Daisy retorted. "I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon."

"No, thanks," said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, "I'm absolutely in training."

Her host looked at her incredulously.

"You are!" He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. "How you ever get anything done is beyond me."

I looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she "got done." I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.

"You live in West Egg," she remarked contemptuously. "I know somebody there."

"I don't know a single—"

"You must know Gatsby."

"Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?"

Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

"Why candles?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

"We ought to plan something," yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.

"All right," said Daisy. "What'll we plan?" She turned to me helplessly. "What do people plan?"

Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.

"Look!" she complained. "I hurt it."

We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.

"You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a—"

"I hate that word hulking," objected Tom crossly, "even in kidding."

"Hulking," insisted Daisy.

Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here—and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

"You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy," I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. "Can't you talk about crops or something?"

I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an unexpected way.

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—"

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California—" began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and—" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. "—and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.

"I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?"

"That's why I came over tonight."

"Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night until finally it began to affect his nose—"

"Things went from bad to worse," suggested Miss Baker.

"Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had to give up his position."

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

"I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he?" She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation. "An absolute rose?"

This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing but a stirring warmth flowed from her as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.

Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said "Sh!" in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.

"This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor—" I said.

"Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."

"Is something happening?" I inquired innocently.

"You mean to say you don't know?" said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. "I thought everybody knew."

"I don't."

"Why—" she said hesitantly, "Tom's got some woman in New York."

"Got some woman?" I repeated blankly.

Miss Baker nodded.

"She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don't you think?"

Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.

"It couldn't be helped!" cried Daisy with tense gayety.

She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and continued: "I looked outdoors for a minute and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away—" her voice sang "—It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?"

"Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the stables."

The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even Miss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.

"We don't know each other very well, Nick," she said suddenly. "Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding."

"I wasn't back from the war."

"That's true." She hesitated. "Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything."

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.

"I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything."

"Oh, yes." She looked at me absently. "Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?"

"Very much."

"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

"You see I think everything's terrible anyhow," she went on in a convinced way. "Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything." Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated—God, I'm sophisticated!"

The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.

Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the "Saturday Evening Post"—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.

When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.

"To be continued," she said, tossing the magazine on the table, "in our very next issue."

Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.

"Ten o'clock," she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. "Time for this good girl to go to bed."

"Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow," explained Daisy, "over at Westchester."

"Oh,—you're Jordan Baker."

I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.

"Good night," she said softly. "Wake me at eight, won't you."

"If you'll get up."

"I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon."

"Of course you will," confirmed Daisy. "In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—"

"Good night," called Miss Baker from the stairs. "I haven't heard a word."

"She's a nice girl," said Tom after a moment. "They oughtn't to let her run around the country this way."

"Who oughtn't to?" inquired Daisy coldly.

"Her family."

"Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going to look after her, aren't you, Nick? She's going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her."

Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.

"Is she from New York?" I asked quickly.

"From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—"

"Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?" demanded Tom suddenly.

"Did I?" She looked at me. "I can't seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—"

"Don't believe everything you hear, Nick," he advised me.

I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called "Wait!

"I forgot to ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West."

"That's right," corroborated Tom kindly. "We heard that you were engaged."

"It's libel. I'm too poor."

"But we heard it," insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. "We heard it from three people so it must be true."

Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn't even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come east. You can't stop going with an old friend on account of rumors and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.

Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he "had some woman in New York" was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.

Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and turning my head to watch it I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.

Chapter 2

About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.

But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.

The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress.

The fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious to see her I had no desire to meet her—but I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon and when we stopped by the ashheaps he jumped to his feet and taking hold of my elbow literally forced me from the car.

"We're getting off!" he insisted. "I want you to meet my girl."

I think he'd tanked up a good deal at luncheon and his determination to have my company bordered on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do.

I followed him over a low white-washed railroad fence and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckleburg's persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it and contiguous to absolutely nothing. One of the three shops it contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a garage—Repairs. GEORGE B. WILSON. Cars Bought and Sold—and I followed Tom inside.

The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me that this shadow of a garage must be a blind and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead when the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He was a blonde, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.

"Hello, Wilson, old man," said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. "How's business?"

"I can't complain," answered Wilson unconvincingly. "When are you going to sell me that car?"

"Next week; I've got my man working on it now."

"Works pretty slow, don't he?"

"No, he doesn't," said Tom coldly. "And if you feel that way about it, maybe I'd better sell it somewhere else after all."

"I don't mean that," explained Wilson quickly. "I just meant—"

His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:

"Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down."

"Oh, sure," agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity—except his wife, who moved close to Tom.

"I want to see you," said Tom intently. "Get on the next train."

"All right."

"I'll meet you by the news-stand on the lower level."

She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his office door.

We waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a grey, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track.

"Terrible place, isn't it," said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg.

"Awful."

"It does her good to get away."

"Doesn't her husband object?"

"Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive."

So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York—or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.

She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At the news-stand she bought a copy of "Town Tattle" and a moving-picture magazine and, in the station drug store, some cold cream and a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxi cabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavender-colored with grey upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and leaning forward tapped on the front glass.

"I want to get one of those dogs," she said earnestly. "I want to get one for the apartment. They're nice to have—a dog."

We backed up to a grey old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller. In a basket, swung from his neck, cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed.

"What kind are they?" asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly as he came to the taxi-window.

"All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?"

"I'd like to get one of those police dogs; I don't suppose you got that kind?"

The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck.

"That's no police dog," said Tom.

"No, it's not exactly a police dog," said the man with disappointment in his voice. "It's more of an airedale." He passed his hand over the brown wash-rag of a back. "Look at that coat. Some coat. That's a dog that'll never bother you with catching cold."

"I think it's cute," said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. "How much is it?"

"That dog?" He looked at it admiringly. "That dog will cost you ten dollars."

The airedale—undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked delicately.

"That dog? That dog's a boy."

"It's a bitch," said Tom decisively. "Here's your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it."

We drove over to Fifth Avenue, so warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon that I wouldn't have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner.

"Hold on," I said, "I have to leave you here."

"No, you don't," interposed Tom quickly. "Myrtle'll be hurt if you don't come up to the apartment. Won't you, Myrtle?"

"Come on," she urged. "I'll telephone my sister Catherine. She's said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know."

"Well, I'd like to, but—"

We went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment houses. Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighborhood, Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases and went haughtily in.

"I'm going to have the McKees come up," she announced as we rose in the elevator. "And of course I got to call up my sister, too."

The apartment was on the top floor—a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom and a bath. The living room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance however the hen resolved itself into a bonnet and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of "Town Tattle" lay on the table together with a copy of "Simon Called Peter" and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went for a box full of straw and some milk to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large hard dog biscuits—one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door.

I have been drunk just twice in my life and the second time was that afternoon so everything that happened has a dim hazy cast over it although until after eight o'clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom's lap Mrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes and I went out to buy some at the drug store on the corner. When I came back they had disappeared so I sat down discreetly in the living room and read a chapter of "Simon Called Peter"—either it was terrible stuff or the whiskey distorted things because it didn't make any sense to me.

Just as Tom and Myrtle—after the first drink Mrs. Wilson and I called each other by our first names—reappeared, company commenced to arrive at the apartment door.

The sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty with a solid sticky bob of red hair and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face. When she moved about there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms. She came in with such a proprietary haste and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked her she laughed immoderately, repeated my question aloud and told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel.

Mr. McKee was a pale feminine man from the flat below. He had just shaved for there was a white spot of lather on his cheekbone and he was most respectful in his greeting to everyone in the room. He informed me that he was in the "artistic game" and I gathered later that he was a photographer and had made the dim enlargement of Mrs. Wilson's mother which hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since they had been married.

Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.

"My dear," she told her sister in a high mincing shout, "most of these fellas will cheat you every time. All they think of is money. I had a woman up here last week to look at my feet and when she gave me the bill you'd of thought she had my appendicitus out."

"What was the name of the woman?" asked Mrs. McKee.

"Mrs. Eberhardt. She goes around looking at people's feet in their own homes."

"I like your dress," remarked Mrs. McKee, "I think it's adorable."

Mrs. Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain.

"It's just a crazy old thing," she said. "I just slip it on sometimes when I don't care what I look like."

"But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean," pursued Mrs. McKee. "If Chester could only get you in that pose I think he could make something of it."

We all looked in silence at Mrs. Wilson who removed a strand of hair from over her eyes and looked back at us with a brilliant smile. Mr. McKee regarded her intently with his head on one side and then moved his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face.

"I should change the light," he said after a moment. "I'd like to bring out the modelling of the features. And I'd try to get hold of all the back hair."

"I wouldn't think of changing the light," cried Mrs. McKee. "I think it's—"

Her husband said "Sh! " and we all looked at the subject again whereupon Tom Buchanan yawned audibly and got to his feet.

"You McKees have something to drink," he said. "Get some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody goes to sleep."

"I told that boy about the ice." Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. "These people! You have to keep after them all the time."

She looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there.

"I've done some nice things out on Long Island," asserted Mr. McKee.

Tom looked at him blankly.

"Two of them we have framed downstairs."

"Two what? demanded Tom.

"Two studies. One of them I call 'Montauk Point—the Gulls,' and the other I call 'Montauk Point—the Sea.' "

The sister Catherine sat down beside me on the couch.

"Do you live down on Long Island, too?" she inquired.

"I live at West Egg."

"Really? I was down there at a party about a month ago. At a man named Gatsby's. Do you know him?"

"I live next door to him."

"Well, they say he's a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's. That's where all his money comes from."

"Really?"

She nodded.

"I'm scared of him. I'd hate to have him get anything on me."

This absorbing information about my neighbor was interrupted by Mrs. McKee's pointing suddenly at Catherine:

"Chester, I think you could do something with her," she broke out, but Mr. McKee only nodded in a bored way and turned his attention to Tom.

"I'd like to do more work on Long Island if I could get the entry. All I ask is that they should give me a start."

"Ask Myrtle," said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as Mrs. Wilson entered with a tray. "She'll give you a letter of introduction, won't you, Myrtle?"

"Do what?" she asked, startled.

"You'll give McKee a letter of introduction to your husband, so he can do some studies of him." His lips moved silently for a moment as he invented. " 'George B. Wilson at the Gasoline Pump,' or something like that."

Catherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear: "Neither of them can stand the person they're married to."

"Can't they?"

"Can't stand them." She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom. "What I say is, why go on living with them if they can't stand them? If I was them I'd get a divorce and get married to each other right away."

[concerningwolves]

Hey-- coming here from your profanity vs vtt post.

How have you found the transition to using voice to text? Has it been frustrating? What have you done to help it understand you better? Are there ways to make it understand specific things you want to say like an odd name, or do you have to swap back to typing? How do you manage swapping between the two?

I have chronic pain in my hands and many people have told me to try vtt bc im a programmer for work and a writer for hobbies and honestly typing too much. I'm curious bc the things I asked about are worries that have held me back from trying it, bc i have a low frustration tolerance when I'm in enough pain to require using it

I... do not know if I am the best person to ask because I am deaf and have a speech impediment that, although minor, is significant enough that I think voice to text is going to be more difficult for me than other people. But I also love giving my opinion on things lol (just bear in mind my experience will skew a little ways off the typical).

I am still very much in the teething stage - getting used to what it can and can't do, and trying really hard to work against my own very low frustration threshold. Everything you've asked about also held me back from it for ages until now, when I had deadlines to meet and no other option. The big thing I have to keep reminding myself is that vtt learns as you use it. I don't know if they all do this, but the built-in Windows one I'm using on my laptop does. So, yes, you can make it more accurate – by using it more often. Also, not all vtt software is made equal: Some other vtt programs have vocab lists so you can add in words and train it, some are better at automatically filtering filler phrases like um or uh, some handle background noise better, etc. at some point I'm going to look more into all the alternatives out there but Im going to get used to it on what I have first.

Coming back to the whole "it gets better the more you use it" thing. At the moment I am making myself use it at least a little bit every day, in short bursts, focusing on repeating and enunciating any phrases that it does not understand. I think I've noticed some improvement over three days! But I really recommend doing this before you are forced to use it out of necessity, which is something I didn't do and I'm now absolutely paying the price for. It's frustrating trying to wrestle with vtt AND deadlines AND pain 🙃

It's pretty easy to swap between vtt and typing. On my phone (how I dictated this answer) I just hit the microphone button. On the laptop a voice to text bar remains on screen so I can toggle it on and off with a click. When using the full voice control feature all I need to do is tell it to enable voice access or disable voice access (then correct or type by pecking with my single pain free finger). Windows vtt also has built in voice commands to delete and select text, insert punctuation, and start new paragraphs. How well these commands works DOES depend on your program though – backspacing doesn't work in Scrivener, for example, but works fine if I dictate a post on Tumblr in browser and the whole thing functions best in Microsoft Word. Of course. Because Microsoft want you to use their products.

So all in all, yeah. It's frustrating. Or at least, it's a serious learning curve. The essay I've been doing for uni using vtt is.. a terrifying mess, but at least vtt now understands me when I say the name Orsino, which is certainly hopeful. And knowing I at least HAVE an alternative to just exacerbating chronic pain + hypermobility has helped with my sharp downward emotional spiral that I always get when my pain is bad. Just wish I'd adjusted to it before I had to learn via trial of fire.

Oh, and top tip from my experience so far: DRINK FLUIDS. water is probably best but I think as long as you do not do what Charles Dickens did and suck down like five different alchocolic drinks before speaking, you're fine with most anything. Point is, if your mouth gets dry/too full of saliva and/or your throat gets sore, enunciating is harder, so the vtt engine will struggle more and then YOU struggle more. So drink. (I do not think I have ever been so well-hydrated)