#or like I can't log on before I drive to work and see what I can get done from home before going onsite

[arrowpunk]

Current mood: gosh I sure would enjoy my life more AND make a good bit more money if I was able to just do art full time- Like if I spent 8-10 hours a day on art for commissions and such I would probably make twice what I'm making at my current job- but also I don't have much visibility as an artist which is fine, and I don't have the time to churn out shit for free in order to grow my visibility and market myself (because yeah sure I know drawing fanart would get a lot more eyes on my shit but I just do not want to so I am not going to) but also IF I had the ability to use all the time I'm currently at work on art stuff I probably Would gain a big enough following to at least get a decent amount of commissions- I mean I'm skilled enough as an artist that it's definitely not unthinkable- but ALSO I cannot afford to quit my job or take the time off of work to Have enough energy to churn out art pieces consistently enough to build a following and get customers.

In conclusion: my life is a Sisyphean nightmare of no money and no time but have to go to job that steals all my time to get enough money to barely stay afloat because the only other option is completely sinking and that is not something I will accept.

[pearwaldorf]

I hate that you can't see a tweet thread anymore if you're not logged into Twitter (as a gesture of disrespect I refuse to call it by its rebranded name). Here is a copypasta of a thread from Dan Olson, a Canadian documentary filmmaker, expanding upon camera quality, the guilt trips Somerton used to goose his Patreon subscriptions, and how the best tools will never make up for lack of dedication or patience. I have added clarifications in [[double brackets]] where I feel it is necessary.

START OF THREAD

Okay, so, back in April I snapped at James in reply to a tweet that was linking to this video (which James has since delisted but not deleted) and I want to talk about the full context of that but I don't want to make a video, put your beatdown memes away. [[The video has since been deleted. I can see the title of the video is "Maybe the end (not an April Fool's Day thing".]]

The first bit of context is that I initially got keyed into James to fact-check his claims about indie filmmaking in Canada. As a filmmaker the entire Telos venture was immediately obvious as a juvenile fantasy dreamed up by someone with no idea how to make a movie.

Just wild claims about their plans that weren't worth debunking because they bordered Not Even Wrong. But in watching one of these pitch videos I noticed that he had a $4000 current-gen camera in the background as a prop, and that seemed both pretentious and weird.

You don't use your best camera as a prop, you use your second best camera as a prop. So being an obsessive weirdo I needed to know, and I watched his BTS stuff until I spotted his main rig, a $6000 camera with about $1000 in accessories.

Now, these in isolation are unremarkable because his Patreon at the time was bringing in ~$8000 per month, his channel was a full on Business business, and so investing in some professional equipment of that level is maybe a bit indulgent but justifiable.

What was weird is that he doesn't shoot multi-cam, doesn't shoot outdoors, doesn't shoot on location, and in a studio the two cameras kinda really step on each others' toes. Basically if you already have one and don't need a B cam there's no reason to get the other.

Again, on its own, this says nothing, it's just indicative of poor financial decisions, maybe impulsive purchasing, Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Biblical sins, but not crimes.

Paired with the constantly inflating fantasy scope of the Telos films it was clearly an expression of a very, very common bad filmmaker habit of "if I just get the right gear then my movie will basically make itself" Buying stuff because it feels like progress.

At the end of February he tweets "I want to start shooting anamorphic" and then three weeks later in March he posts the worst, out of focus, under-exposed "I just got a new lens!" video I've ever seen, showing off his trash-covered bedroom.

Based on what's available for his cameras and the lead time, that's enough time to get a Laowa Nanomorph or Sirui Saturn from B&H but not enough time to get a Great Joy from the UK or a Vazen from China. And with the flaring blah blah blah, $1300 lens.

Again, [gear acquisition syndrome] is not a crime and these lenses are budget options. Bit of a pointless impulse purchase since he only used it for the Showgirls video. But this is what he was doing just a few weeks before that above video came out: effortlessly impulse purchasing lenses.

James has (had?) a habit of regularly, aggressively driving viewers to Patreon by claiming that videos were getting demonetized. While tacky, it is something a lot of queer YouTubers have dealt with, so there's precedent there. But people were noticing he did it a lot.

Mid-March he humble brags about needing to work so hard to make 6 videos in April because he has over-booked sponsorships.

Then March 29th James posts this whole incel screed on Twitter about how sex work should be "subsidized as a mental health service."

[two image descriptions.

1. "For the majority of people sex (and human contact) can be imperative to a healthy state of mind. A kind and talented sex worker can make someone feel wanted for the first time in their life. I know sex workers who have pulled people back from suicide just by being there for them." 2. "Not only should (sex work) be legal, but it should be subsidized as a mental health service."]

He spends several days getting absolutely *roasted* for this, just dragged across the pavement and read for filth, and doubles down in the replies the whole way.

So this is the context immediately surrounding James waking up on Friday, and posts the above video and the below tweet.

[image description: "We just got the lowest Patreon payout we've gotten in well over a year. Like, a "maybe we need to rethink things" kind of amount... NOT an April Fools Day thing btw. But I don't know if we'll be making videos much longer."]

Now, this unfolds in kinda two directions. The first is that I'm convinced he was just lying about this income shock in the first place.

There's a million theoretical edge cases about what maybe happened and if maybe he just misunderstood the data or saw a glitch and panicked, maybe one of those happened, I don't believe it, I think he just lied because he was salty about getting dragged and felt owed a win.

A big tell to me is that he doesn't blame Patreon. He says he doesn't know what happened, but let's be real, Patreon screws up all the time, they're the first people anyone blames if anything confusing happens, just as a reflex action, even if it's completely not their fault.

The only reason to not blame Patreon is if you already know that it's not their fault and that any investigation on their part might reveal embarrassing details.

Instead he indirectly blames his viewers for not watching enough, not sharing enough, and not turning on auto-renew.

So regardless of the unknowable truth, this segues into the second, far more offensive direction of the messaging itself. "I don't know if we'll be making videos much longer." "Maybe the end" He explicitly framed this as an immediate existential threat to his channel.

In the video he is vague about everything, leaves a ton of hazy room for plausible deniability on how long the channel can keep going, but the messaging is "I need more patrons right this minute or my YouTube channel is over."

He repeatedly evokes all the "fun stuff" they had planned that would never see the light of day if this didn't turn around right away.

And his audience received this message loud and clear. Tons of people making far, far, far less than him left very heartfelt messages about digging a little deeper to subscribe or up their pledge or unsubscribe from other channels to move their pledge to his.

1200 new patrons in one day.

Since I simply don't believe the income shock was real in the first place that would put his post-"Maybe the end" Patreon income at around $10,000 per month. US. Add YouTube income, he's spent the last seven months making around $18,000 per month.

I have seen creators scale back their capabilities to the bone purely to keep making videos for the love of just, like, making stuff even as their funding evaporated and they needed to go back to a desk job to cover their bills.

You'd have to be so outstandingly reckless with your finances as a channel that a one month spook leads immediately to "channel over, sorry about all the fun stuff we won't get to do with you, our patrons, specifically because you, our patrons, aren't giving us enough money"

And not a spook where you then spend a couple weeks crunching numbers. Oh no. A shock so violent where less than two hours later you're weeping on camera about the channel being over.

Three weeks later he brought a brand new Sony FX6v for $8000 CAD to add to his pile of cinema cameras despite the fact that he was, but scant moments earlier, in such a precarious position that a single bad month would kill his channel.

He stole your money, and for that I'm profoundly sad and angry. That's why I snapped at him in April. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the full context then, and I'm sorry if that anger upset you.

END OF THREAD

[weaselle]

You came face to face with a wolf in the woods? What’s the story in that

ok ok so i'm driving through the woods down from Oregon to visit the fam in California, right? And right as i'm about to cross the border from OR to CA i'm like, oh shit, pops is the only one i don't have a christmas present for.

So i see this big weird log-cabin-ass liquor store and i'm all, he loves a unique bottle of wine, gotta be something in there he can't get back home so i pull in.

It's a building made of logs all by itself on the edge of the woods in the hills along the N. border of California. While i'm in there i ask to use the bathroom and they tell me sure, it's a small separate building behind the store

just walk down the foot path into the woods a few yards until you get to the fork and take the right side path to the little bathroom hut. Don't take the left side path unless you want to disappear all the way into the woods. Cool.

So i walk into the woods on the little trail, and i get to the fork in the path, and i can see the little bathroom hut off to the right. Before i take the right, as i'm standing there, i look down the left side path that trails off into the woods.

And right then this full grown wolf steps out onto the trail, about 15 feet from me.

it was in fact, this exact wolf. Altho he is older in this picture than when i met him. When he stepped out to come face to face with me that day, he was quite a bit thinner.

Now at 15 feet, i instantly knew he was a wolf. Not a coyote, certainly not a dog, when you're close and you look in their face it's just different in the snout and eyes.

So i freeze, and i'm looking at him but i'm not making any sustained eye-contact and i'm feeling that weird calm feeling i get when shit is too serious to panic. And i'm trying to look bored because that's the safest middle ground between acting like prey and acting like a threat and i'm like, shit. Shit. Okay. This is a wolf. This is a whole ass wild wolf in the woods, only about 3 body lengths from me. What is about to happen here. One of us is going to do something soon and it better not be the wrong thing.

Wolf is just standing there the same as me. Wouldn't surprise me if it was having basically the exact same thoughts

i wasn't working professionally with dogs yet, but even then i knew canines real well, and as i'm standing there getting a real good look i realize, fuck, this wolf is like, just under 2 years old.

This is very bad news for me.

See, an experienced adult wolf knows things. For instance, an experienced adult wolf knows exactly what it prefers to hunt (not humans) and has probably gotten good at hunting those things (and is therefor not desperate for food) and an older experienced wolf knows that it really can't afford to get injured in a fight if it can avoid one, and probably has figured out that humans are to be left alone.

But a wolf between a year and a half and two years? Is just becoming an adult. This is a wolf that meets an animal the same size as it and has questions.

Questions like "Is this a creature i want to eat?" or "maybe this is a creature that wants to eat me?" and the problem with both of those questions is the answer can easily wind up being "i should probably try to kill it"

Because a mature wolf will assess a threat for the safest way to deal with it, but, like a twenty year old person, a young inexperienced wolf is more prone to brash actions, such as preemptively attacking something it perceives as a threat.

I'm checking his body language and it is reading as uncertain, patient, fairly relaxed but ready for explosive action. Not great, but could be a lot worse.

All this is going through my calm calm head. Like of course i am frightened, but in emergencies my heart like, actually seems to slow a bit? and i get this weird calm clear feeling.

Anyway i'm standing there looking at this wolf, and this wolf is looking at me, and i start to realize... i'm the mature adult in this situation. I have to be the one to decide how this encounter goes.

It was at this point i recalled something i read in a book about cats.

In this book, the author goes to visit her father who is studying lions in Africa. He's staying in a village and when she gets there she is told she might stumble across a lion in the brush if she goes walking around outside the village for any reason (which is why her father is there) and that if she DOES come across a lion, for generations the locals have had a little social exchange worked out with the lions, so she should speak loudly but politely to the lion, and then walk purposefully away at an oblique angle to the lion.

So of course she's on a walk one day and a lion suddenly stands up not far from her. She freezes, unable to do the thing she had been told to do. After waiting and waiting, finally the lion makes a series of loud grunts, and then walks off at an oblique angle, as if to show her how it was done.

I remembered how much sense that made to me when i read it. An oblique angle is like, not straight ahead of you and not straight to the side of you, but sort of halfway between, like one of the branches on a "Y". An oblique angle is more toward than away, so it cannot be mistaken for any kind of running away, but it isn't directly toward the animal enough to be threatening. it is the physical communication equivalent of "You're in my way, but i'll be polite and go around you".

At an oblique angle to my right was the bathroom. So trying to seem like i didn't care about the wolf at all while simultaneously keeping very close track of its reactions, I walked kind of toward him, but way off to one side.

He relaxed more as i did so, watching me go. Then i was inside the little bathroom with the door shut and all my calm went away.

I didn't have my phone on me, and i was in a tiny room in the woods, and all i could think was, jesus christ that was a wolf. A fucking wolf. I just like, walked right by a wolf. A wolf, dude. What if I open the door and the wolf is RIGHT there on the other side? Can i get the door shut fast enough or will he be able to force its way into this cramped space with me? Have i just trapped myself in the woods with this wolf?

Since i was in there anyway, i peed and washed my hands... and then i cracked the door open with my heart in my throat. But that wolf was long gone -- probably melted back into the woods the instant my eyes were all the way off it.

I went back into the liquor store and told the lady in there that there was a wolf nearby, and she said they'd caught a glimpse of it a couple times, and they thought it was a dog jumped out of somebody's truck? I'm not sure she believed me.

Couldn't really blame her. As far as i was aware, there hadn't been any wild wolves in California in close to a hundred years.

So when i got where i was going and found some time to myself around a computer a couple days later, i looked it up.

Sure enough it turns out this wolf on the northern border of California was Wolf OR-7, who, wearing a tracking collar, at one and a half years old, became the first confirmed wild wolf to be in California since 1924, crossing the Oregon border within two days of my sighting him in that area. I found a thread online of people who had managed to get photos of him crossing their property, and while i'm not an expert at identifying wolves, it seemed to be the same wolf. And the right age. And confirmed to be on the border of California the same time I was. And was the only wolf in a hundred years to be there.

I didn't notice a tracking collar on him, but he's also wearing it in the above pic i included, so you can seen how i might have missed it.

So, I met wolf OR-7 face to face! And it was very memorable.

He did very well for himself. Went back up to Oregon and got himself a mate, and founded the Rogue Wolf Pack, the first pack in west Oregon in forever. Most wild wolves are lucky to see six years, but OR-7 (sometimes called Journey) lived to be 11. Some of his pups grew up and started their own packs.

Somebody wrote a book about him, and there's some kind of movie or TV documentary about him i haven't seen, it's called OR-7's Journey or something like that.

Here's a map of his travels

These are his grandchildren, sired by one of his sons

and here is some documentation of wolves in Oregon and California that includes, for example, that OR-7's daughter, OR-54, traveled over 8,000 miles around California and even into Nevada. This is her:

Anyway, that's the story of the time i bumped into a wild wolf in the woods!

[heeseung-min]

[13:25]

I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me

Papa-paparazzi

Click! Click! Click!

Sunghoon smiled widely at the result of pictures that he just took. It's not just a random picture of scenery but it is a picture of you. An exclusive picture that neither your fans or any reporter could get this.

"Fuck, y/n. Why are you so beautiful even when you are sleeping?"

Sunghoon stopped capturing your pictures and laid on the bed beside you instead. He started to caressed your body enjoying the smooth skin. Ahh, the pills he purchased really works. You sleep like a log and can't even heard when he came in or when he accidentally broke one of your plates. Don't worry he will get a new one for you. It's not like you will notice if one of it gone missing. For now, he just wanted to enjoy this moment before the drugs in your body started to wear off.

"Promise I'll be kind, but I won't stop...until you are mine y/n."

Sunghoon smirked to himself as he changed the lyrics of his favourite song aka Paparazzi by Lady Gaga. The first time he heard the song while he was driving it instantly became his favourite.

______________________________________

"Are you okay, Y/n?" Aira, your manager asked as she politely asking the staff in the room to leave both of you alone.

You were not in the mood and feel very weak. You don't want to suddenly cancel the shoot when people already prepare everything. However, your body feel so fragile right now.

"I don't know Aira. I think I slept a lot last night but somehow I still got headache and I feel pain on my body."

"Maybe you are still tired, Y/n. Plus, your schedule is so tight nowadays so probably you didn't get enough rest. I will leave you alone in this room and will be back in 30, okay?"

"Thanks, Aira."

After few minutes Aira left the room, you felt relief and slowly your breathing became slow and your eyes dropping and went to a deep sleep.

Aira also went to somewhere else and that left the front door with no guard. A man with completely black attire and mask came in and locked the door from inside.

Sunghoon took off his mask and smirked when he saw you were alone and sleeping peacefully. He went to crouch in front of you and stare at your face. Oh how sweet looking you are. The dress you were wearing right now slightly showing your skin making Sunghoon blushing at his dirty thought about you.

"Fuck, you can't torture me like this Y/n."

He muttered as he leaned closer to your face and stared straight at your lips. It wouldn't hurt to leave a peck on your lips, right? He's been holding it for a long time.

"Just one, baby."

And with that Sunghoon left a kiss on your lips. He groaned at the sweet taste of your lipbalm. He literally need to control himself from doing more. It's too risky to do it now.

______________________________________

Baby, you'll be famous

Chase you down until you love me

Papa-paparazzi

"Y/n, are you still cannot go out?"

"No, Aira. I- I'm scared."

"Look, I know it's a serious matter but we hired many bodyguards for you. You will be safe, y/n. It's been three weeks since you went out from your house."

You discovered about your stalker few weeks ago when you saw an envelope without any details on it. You were shocked to see your pictures like this person literally followed you everywhere. Studio, cafe, restaurant, shopping malls and there's even pictures when you travel to another country. At first, you reported it to Aira about it and continue living your day. However, it didn't stop. After the first envelope came, another one came and another one until you feel so scared to leave your house. You even asked the security guard if he saw someone suspicious but he denied that and even the CCTV didn't have any record of someone put the envelope inside your mailbox. You started to isolate yourself and only contact Aira when you need something.

"I'll wait at the lobby, okay? Just call me if something is happening."

"Alright, I'm sorry, Aira.

"No need, I understand what u feel."

You finally went out from your apartment and walked to lobby and saw Aira with few male behind her. You assumed it was the bodyguards she talked about at the phone just now.

"Y/n, this is your bodyguards. The director choose them by himself. They have a clean record and most of them know martial arts so it's good for you."

Everyone started to introduce themselves and you just nodded at what they said until the last man showing his hand for you to shake.

"Good morning, Miss Y/n. My name is Park Sunghoon. It's nice to meet you."

"Ahh, yeah hi Park Sunghoon. Me too."

You took his hand and shook it for few seconds. Maybe it's true you will be safe since you have few guys protecting around you. You won't get any letter from the stalker anymore.

Cause he become your bodyguard now. It's easier to look at you like this.

Aight finally im finish with this😮‍💨😮‍💨I wanted to post it sooner but ergghh I was too sick and weak🤧😔 I recently got better but still suffering a bit but its for yall😊😊 hope u guys enjoy and nope no part 2 for this one okay

Taglist: @obsessed1with1straykids @huggyuvita @stacey-stonem @duolingofanaccount @eeunoia

[edith-hyde]

Hey, I don't know if you still up for it ot whether you have some rules about requests, but I've seen your post about doing Peter Hale x reader and others. And I'd really like to see your general dating headcanons with Peter Hale or Chris Argent💛

I've got so many ideas for a Peter Hale series! I hope to start posting it eventually. I will gladly do a dating headcanons for him. And I'll throw in Chris too. Everything here will be safe for work, of course. Enjoy!

Dating Peter Hale

He was so scared to tell you the truth about what he was, but when you found out, you didn't care.

He loves showing off his money. Expect expensive gifts.

But he's not a fan of huge crowds, so no big fancy dinners. He much prefers to eat in private with just the two of you. Or maybe at some small place.

Does NOT like candle lit dinners. Nor a yule log at Christmas. Or grilling out.

You and he learn how to cook together because he's so used to just buying all his meals. There's a lot of burned chicken, but also a lot of joy and laughter and making out in the kitchen. (That's why it burned.)

He's very touch starved. When you first start dating, he flinches every time you touch him. It takes some time, but eventually he can't keep himself from reaching for your hand or laying on your shoulder. He's heavy but you're fine with it.

He wants to make all the plans so you don't have to worry about anything. Just trust him to know what's best.

If you have family, they probably aren't too fond of him. He brings expensive wine to get-togethers though, so that might put him in their good graces if they like that kind of thing. If not, he'll depend on his usual charms. It might take awhile, but they'd eventually accept that he's here to stay.

Expect calls in the middle of the night. Or he might just show up. He doesn't sleep well and he needs comfort from the nightmares. If he hasn't slept the night before, he will curl up in your lap on your sofa and sleep. Stroking his hair really helps. When he's truly comfortable with you, he's prone to just falling asleep just so long as you're somewhere nearby. He especially likes to nap while you're driving.

Loves to just walk with you in the woods.

He's surprisingly knowledgeable about furniture and helps you decorate your house or apartment.

He wants everyone to know that you belong to him. He purposefully nuzzles into your hair to leave his scent on you. He loves giving you his jacket too. All the werewolves in town know you're taken.

Despite his bravado, he's constantly worried that you're going to leave him. He needs regular assurances that you love him.

He gets jealous easily. Your guy friends might wanna watch out. And you might have to have a long talk with Peter and get it through his head that they're not a threat to your relationship. Once he's 100% sure, this calms down. But he still doesn't like men fliting with you.

You help him rebuild his relationship with Malia and he loves you even more for it. The three of you sometimes get together and do dinner. You're there to console her when she and Scott break up and you have to keep Peter from going to LA and trying to kill Scott for a third time.

He constantly brags about having you to Derek and anyone else who will listen.

He will listen to you rant about work and the people that bother you. Then he'll offer to take them out. You assume he's joking, but sometimes, if they really upset you, he totally means it.

He will show up at your work and pester you. It's distracting, but you love seeing him.

His name for you in his phone is "My Queen".

He gives great skin care advice and has a wonderful sense of fashion. Also knows all the best hair care products. He loves to take you shopping for new stuff and buys everything. He gets broody if you won't let him shower you in gifts.

Sometimes when he's emotional, his eyes will turn blue and he will turn away because he's worried about scaring you. When you kiss him despite his fangs, he knows you truly don't care. You're even kinda into it much to his amusement.

If he upsets you, expect a huge vase of flowers. If you're not a flowers person, he gets chocolates or some kind of jewelry. He knows he can't buy your affections, but that isn't going to stop him from trying. He will eventually give a proper apology, but he hates admitting that he was wrong. Consider yourself lucky if he does.

Dating Chris Argent

He's the sweetest thing on the planet. His tired blue eyes and sad smile make you melt every time.

He lights up every time he sees you.

He lets you pick where you go to dinner, though he usually surprises you with a home made meal. This man can cook and you love it.

Brings you coffee or hot chocolate almost every morning.

Mows your grass and fixes your car for you without being asked.

You like to watch him clean his guns after a mission.

Sometimes comes home with some pretty gnarly wounds. You always clean him up and make him promise it won't happen again. But it keeps happening anyways. He hates to make you worry, but he has a job to do.

Early in your relationship, he constantly tries to run. He's afraid that if you love him, you'll die like everyone else has. It takes you awhile, but you eventually manage to convince him that you're not going anywhere.

Date night is just diner and a movie on his couch. He's not a fan of hanging out in public. But he will go to the park with you on sunny days. If you have an interest in guns, he'll take you to a shooting range.

He likes to just dance with you around the kitchen when he's in a really good mood.

He takes you on trips to France after you've been together for awhile, and shows you all the best places away from the crowds.

If you have any family, they are wary of him at first, but then they love him. He's so respectful. Your mom wants you to marry him tomorrow.

He has some trouble sleeping and can often be found sitting on his back porch, having a beer at night. If you show up, he finds it easier to get some rest.

He will always do his best to keep you safe. He might even train you how to fight if you ask.

If he does train you, you like to distract him while sparring by kissing him. It works every time.

He often has Scott and his friends over for dinner. You love having so many fun people around.

In a perfect world, Isaac comes and visits often and once accidentally calls you mom. Chris thinks it's hilariously adorable.

If he upsets you, he gives a sincere apology. You can't stay mad at those sad blue eyes no matter how hard you try.

[citrus-moonlight]

Salvation is a Deep Dark Well

Chapter 3: Now When I Look In Your Eyes

[ Masterlist - Part Two ] -> [ Masterlist - Part One ]

Fandom: MCU - Age of Ultron, Black Panther Pairing: Ulysses Klaue x F!Reader Word count: 9.4K Chapters: 3/6 Rating: Explicit

Summary: You manage to distract yourself for long enough to make through the rest of the day, but when Klaue finally returns to you he still makes you wait, surprising you with something unexpected before finally making good on his promise.

Warnings: Explicit!, Mild Age Difference, Reader is Late 30s, Use of Pet Names, Teasing, Smut, Dirty Talk, Reference to Masturbation (F), Mild Size Kink, Soft Dom, Nipple Play, Oral Sex (F!Receiving), Begging, Overstimulation, Multiple Orgasms (F), PIV Sex, Cock Riding, Cream Pie, Praise Kink, Needy Dom, Very Brief Fingering, Cum Eating, Porn With Plot, Reader is In It Now Kids, More Accidental Feelings Oh No

Author's Note: Hello, friends, and welcome back! When I tell you I'm very glad I split up this chapter - this was essentially supposed to be a chapter "prologue" of maybe 2k, and then, well, *gestures broadly*. Klaue wants what he wants, what can I say. 😏

The next chapter is going to be an undertaking (gala!), and I can't really give a timeline at this point, but it's at least outlined and in the meantime you can read their little holiday interlude (which I accidentally wrote first, lol) and it'll now be in order! ☺️

As always, thank you for reading and for sticking with me, I hope you enjoy this next chapter! 💕

✨ Read on AO3 ✨

Chapter title is from "Come Alive" by Cannons

Now that you're by my side I get this feeling, get this feeling Like I'm hypnotized Now when I see your eyes I get this feeling, get this feeling I just come alive And I've been dreaming of you Do you dream of me too?

Through every ounce of will you can summon you somehow manage to last.

After stopping by your room to quickly wash and change, you realize once you get back to the industrial sector that there’s not enough of your shift left to justify starting on any new projects, so instead you occupy yourself with busy work - finally putting away your station that was left in disarray after the tense altercation earlier, and getting rid of everyone’s scrap that's been piling up in the workspace.

Then you trudge through a layer of fresh snow to finally finish the inventory that you’d attempted to start two days ago before everything had gone to shit.

Even as you try to focus on the tedium of the various tasks you inevitably find yourself turning over Klaue’s request - his command - in your mind.

Honestly, you probably wouldn’t have done more than think about it, having really just been wanting to tease him (which you’re starting to enjoy doing, perhaps a little too much), but on top of the natural frustration from being interrupted, then being told that you couldn’t? 

He'd managed to find a way to drive you mad even when he was nowhere near you.

Waves of heat roll through you as you make entries in the log, and every time you move you’re growing increasingly aware of the slick sensation between your thighs, a reminder that you’re already making a mess of your fresh panties.

And, so? What do you want?

Besides whatever he’ll give you.

Besides everything.

A thick index finger slowly sinking into you, dragging and curling while his thumb rubs your throbbing clit until you’re shaking.

Another tick on your paperwork and you circle the total a little more aggressively than necessary, leaving a little tear in the paper, ink marking the page beneath.

Locking up the first cage you move on to the next, feeling as though plumes of steam should be visibly rolling off of you, and eyeing a snowdrift you wonder if it would draw too much attention if you just lay down on it face first. It seems like the only thing that might actually cool you off right now as the overlap of memory and anticipation has an aching heat wrapping around your hips and flowing outward from deep in your belly.

His thigh pressed against your sex, but now you're bare for him, the hair on his leg dark with your arousal as strong muscles flex beneath you, and this time you rut against him for as long as you want.

And he's the first man who's made it feel like it’s alright for you to want. Unafraid of your desire Klaue instead seeks it out, coaxing you to surrender to it, pushing you to admit that it’s yours until you can't help but take and then, oh, the satisfied darkness in his eyes when you do.

As you continue to work you wonder if maybe he’s feeling the same way you are right now. Does it make him hard to think about you while he deals with his men and speaks to important figures? Is he shifting and adjusting himself at the thought of how needy you must be but forced to deny yourself?

Or is he calm, knowing that even now there’s a way that every thought is tethered to him, not thousands of miles away but right here in the same building, waiting.

The idea of him being distracted pleases you, but certainly does nothing to help the throb in your core. You think about how easy it would have been to find a release when you’d stopped by your room, and now you're growing so distracted that you’re tempted to go back or to slip away into a washroom. It would be quick with how worked up you are and then maybe you’d be able to actually concentrate.

After all, how would he know if you did?

And yet a part of you knows that it wouldn’t be satisfying, not really. That same part that connects to the tugging desire to be good, that wants him to be pleased that you’ve obeyed.

So you shake your head and fall back on a trick you use to help curb your emotions when you’ve had to deal with shitty people throughout your career, starting to rhyme off words in your head - glow, tomorrow, elbow, tempo, Orinoco Flow. Gradually your mind begins to calm a bit, and after several slow breaths the ache ebbs enough that you’re able to focus back on the tanks and the clipboard in your hand.

Once you settle into a rhythm you manage to finish the inventory pretty quickly, even if can’t completely stop your mind from spinning a little, and as you lock everything up and head back to drop off the paperwork with Tom, you finally have to admit to yourself that you knew what your answer was going to be as soon as Klaue told you to decide.

Several hours later the sun has fully set when you open your door to the welcome sight of Klaue standing in the hallway.

You want to reach out for him, to grab his shirt and pull him to you, but for now you simply watch as he walks in and slowly shuts the door behind him and turns to face you.

“Did you have enough water?” 

You can’t help but huff a laugh that the first thing out of his mouth is to make sure you’d listened to what he’d said, even though he must be more than aware that all you want is for him to throw you onto the bed.

“I’ve been drinking.” You assure him, though you can’t help rolling your eyes a little. 

His gaze narrows, not questioning but still eyeing the half-empty bottle on your nightstand.

“And you’re feeling alright?”

“I’m feeling like I might lose my mind if you don’t touch me soon,” you all but scoff.

“You know what I mean, darling,” he warns, sharp eyes flicking down to your lips.

For the love of god, please just kiss me.

“Still good, Ulysses, I swear. And I promise I’ll let you know if I’m not.”  you reply, sweetly frustrated, but you can’t help but smile at his concern.

He seems placated, but still doesn’t approach you.

“And did you work past your shift?”

You swear to god one more question and you’re just going to throw yourself at him, though this one still gives you pause.

It had been your instinct to, you can’t deny it, tempted to find more to occupy yourself so that you wouldn’t be quite so trapped with your thoughts. But you’d resisted, and once you passed off the paperwork there was no real reason to stick around.

“No. I didn’t.” 

You feel a little silly at the giddiness that follows your truthful reply and the pleased grin that twitches at the corner of his mouth.

“And you waited.”

These words are lower and there is no question in them. 

You’re certain that he already knows the answer, that he could tell as soon as he’d walked in the door. You’ve been antsy, unable to stop shifting on your feet, your restless hands unconsciously picking up your scarf from the table by the door and twisting the short fringe into tiny spikes during this exchange. 

“I did.” 

Slowly he steps toward you, plucking the scarf from your fingers and dropping it back on the table.

“I’m glad to hear it.” His voice drops, your breath hitching in anticipation when a hand lifts to finally reach for you.

But then he pauses, fingertips a hairsbreadth from your skin. Seeming to consider something he pulls back again and you have to bite back the frustrated noise that wants to escape your throat. 

“Come with me,” Klaue moves away from you, nodding toward the door. 

“I’d very much like to, thanks,” you think, the tingle of the near contact leaving your nerves buzzing, but while you're nearing your wit’s end you can’t help but be curious about what he’s thinking. 

Steeling yourself with a deep breath you nod wordlessly, but as you walk over to grab your key card from the bedside table you make a quick decision. Following the temptation of a thought that you’d been considering earlier you slide open the drawer to find something hidden within, quickly pocketing it along with the key and your phone.

Before you’ve gone very far, though, Klaue directs you to the canteen. You can’t say that this is what you were expecting but you wait quietly, curiosity knitting your brows as he starts to work one of the machines, hot water pouring over a black tea bag as he adds a packet of honey to the dark, steaming liquid. But then instead of drinking it himself he hands it to you.

“I know you didn’t drink enough water,” he chides.

Your mouth drops open though no words come out. 

You want to laugh, acutely aware that you both know the reason for the tea. Eyes wide, you glance around and even though you know that anyone who might be watching will continue on oblivious, when your eyes meet his heat flares between your thighs as you recall the tears that stained your cheeks while you gratefully licked his mess from your lips.

“Thank you.” Your heart races as you bite back a smile and finally wrap your fingers around the proffered drink, and then with a darkening look you feel a hand on the small of your back, swiftly guiding you on your way.

You really had felt fine but as you sip the hot liquid you have to admit that it feels nice as the honey soothes your throat, a frown and another swallow of your tea unable to tamp down the flutter in your chest that seems to match the sweetness on your tongue.

When you reach a familiar juncture you wonder if he wants to finish things where they’d started, but then you make a different turn and then another, leading you away from his office until eventually he stops in front of a door that appears to be down its own hallway. 

The cup freezes on its path to your lips when you notice the key card in his hand and the realization suddenly hits you: These are Klaue’s quarters. 

Oh shit.

It hadn’t even occurred to you as a possibility tonight. Not that you hadn’t thought about it - in fact you’d thought about it more than a few times - but you still feel like a deer caught in the headlights as the lock beeps and clicks open.

Your heart pounds as you follow him inside where you’re greeted by an insistent pinging coming from a workstation in the corner, and with an impatient sound Klaue walks to the desk with a scaled down version of what you’d seen in his office.

“Hm, I need to check on this. I’ll just be a minute.” 

You barely hear him. He could have very well told you that an Asgardian ambassador and the Queen of England were waiting for a video call with him and you’re not sure that you would have reacted. 

As you wait for him you force the analytical side of your brain to kick in and try to observe some of the details, noting that his room is almost identical to your own quarters, just bigger: An open layout, a closet in the same spot, but with something that could actually be considered a proper window. 

The main difference is the additional space akin to an office with the desk and electronics connected to several monitors, which doesn’t really surprise you: Klaue doesn’t strike you as the type to ever really stop working - at least not for very long.

Aside from the cool light emanating from the corner where he’s sitting the room is dim and unexpectedly warm, and as you look around your eyes inexorably stray to the bed (his bed), partially made, the covers and sheets a stoney grey and roughly pulled up to where crooked pillows sit against the headboard and- 

Jesus, you need to sit down. 

Unfortunately the only place to sit right now would be the bed, which just makes you need to sit down even more, and-.

Oh god.

Squeezing your eyes shut you take several slow inhales in an attempt to get your pounding heart under control.

“So..” 

You nearly jump at the sound of his voice, and when your eyes fly back open you see that he’s finished, the monitors now sitting dark behind him.

“Have you decided, darling?” Klaue’s words are deceptively casual, belying the heat in his eyes.

He’s back now, focused entirely on you again, chin propped against his knuckles as his hungry gaze slides over your body, and you can’t help how your own eyes immediately stray to his spread thighs and the prominent ridge between them that’s growing evident even in the low light.

“I have.” You manage to keep your voice soft, but you can’t hide the tremble in your reply.

Pushing himself up out of the chair Klaue slowly saunters over to where you still haven't moved, stopping when he's close enough that you can feel the heat of his body, invisible tendrils of need reaching out for him, desperate to close the gap.

“And?” The word is low and breathless and sets your nerves alight.

Finding it difficult to meet his eyes your teeth catch your lower lip, a shy flush working its way through your body even as your desire flares hot again. 

“Well, it wasn’t easy.” You glance at him through your lashes. “I had a lot of time to think. And there are so many ways that you make me feel good.” 

As you speak he finally reaches out to you, fingers grasping the hem of your shirt and tugging it up until you lift your arms to allow him to pull it over your head.

“Go on.” Klaue prompts, leaving you to swallow a moan when he suddenly drops to his knees.

Looking up at you expectantly his hands slide up the backs of your thighs, briefly cupping and squeezing the curve of your ass before moving to your waist to seek the bare skin there.

“Well, I was thinking about…letting you watch me.”

Fingertips still in their ghosting path just above your waistband.

“I thought about letting you watch how I use my fingers to make myself come when I’m alone here. Alone and wishing you could hear me every time I moan your name.”

You can see that his breathing is going rough at your words, and licking your lips you continue.

“Or maybe…using this.” Slipping your fingers into the pocket in the side of your leggings, you pull out what you’d tucked next to your phone earlier, shining silver and not much bigger than a tube of lipstick.

Brief confusion followed by a sharp look of understanding flashes across Klaue's face as he realizes what you’re holding.

“A vibrator?” His voice is intrigued, a brow arching as he takes the small device from you and turns it over in his fingers, perhaps imagining you using it, writhing in pleasure yet unsatisfied because it’s not him. 

But at the same time you can tell he wasn’t expecting this, his expression coloured perhaps with a shade of disappointment. And that shouldn’t make you feel as good as it does. 

He looks like he’s going to say something but holds it back, he’d laid out the parameters, after all. He’d told you that you had to decide how you were going to come, but he didn’t actually say that it had to be him.

“I thought about you watching me with this against my clit, until you decide I’ve had enough. Until I beg you to let me stop.”

You can see his mind working though he’s uncharacteristically quiet, the fingers of his free hand digging into your hip so hard it’s beginning to ache.

“But…then I changed my mind.” 

“Yeah?” Klaue’s voice is strained as he seems to go still as stone, hardly seeming to breathe now, waiting for you to continue.

“I want your mouth, Ulysses.”

A look of pained relief glints across his eyes before hardening back into a vehement blue, and without waiting for you to say anything else he roughly tugs at the waistband of your leggings, peeling them halfway down your thighs, and then with a groaned sigh his lips are suddenly pressed against your clothed mound.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” 

Klaue’s breath is warm through the fabric of your panties, his tone indicating that it may have been less hope and more desperation. 

“Tell me why.” His command is the rumble of a distant storm that sends a shudder through your body.

“Because…I couldn’t stop thinking - I can never stop thinking about it, Ulysses, oh-” 

You gasp when his tongue is suddenly on you, pressing to easily part your cleft before sliding down to taste the damp spot where your arousal has soaked through the fabric.

“Is that all?” He asks with an infuriatingly coy smile, waiting for you to continue. 

“I need your mouth between my legs, I need you to taste what you do to me, what just the thought of you does to me, oh my god-”

He rolls his tongue against your clit, the slick friction quickly growing rougher and more demanding. 

“And because…because I can feel that you want it too, and that makes me feel really fucking good.”

Arching against his mouth your words trail off to a moan, but just as pleasure begins to swirl hot and insistent Klaue pulls away, his fingers tugging your panties down as well, and your hands brace on his shoulders as he helps you out of everything.

“There’s very little in this world I want more, darling. I love feeling how wet you get when you’re desperate for my tongue."

As you watch his fingers moving it occurs to you that he often seems intent on being the one to undress you, calloused palms running over the skin he's revealed, that's his to reveal, eyes dark and riven with need as though seeing you for the first time.

Once you’re stripped down to only your bra he pauses, hands fitting around your waist, forehead resting against your hip. Warm breath washes over your skin and although he’s so, so close to where you’re aching for his touch you find yourself pausing with him, your mind growing quiet.

It’s a different kind of quiet from the way he so deftly empties your head with his fingers or his cock, every thought supplanted by pleasure. There’s still a trembling anticipation that can't be ignored, electricity buzzing steadily through the air between you, but for a moment you both surrender to the calm, hovering in that space between heartbeats.

Your hands explore the backs of his, playing over his rings, over the leather cuff on his wrist, and when they trail over his forearms you can feel the faintest tremble in his muscles as he holds you against him. 

Your fingers find a salt and pepper curl and brush it away from his face, needing to see him, the breath nearly knocked from your lungs when his shining blue gaze finds yours. He almost looks surprised, perhaps unused to your tenderness, but after a breath the crease between his brows softens as he leans into your touch. 

It’s not long, though, before the air begins to crackle again and with his eyes still on yours he shifts, slowly dragging the tip of his nose along your cleft with a deep inhale and a sigh, and just that warmth against your sensitive flesh has you whimpering, the calm quickly ebbing away as your aching need swiftly flows back in.

Your hips flex forward to seek more and your breath catches in anticipation of his tongue, but instead he pulls away, and before you have a chance to protest he's standing again, reaching quickly to unclasp your bra, sensing a crack in his composure in the brief fumble of his fingers as they work the metal loops. 

Now standing naked in his room Klaue moves in close enough that as you breathe the peaks of your nipples brush against his still clothed chest, and when he leans in you instinctively tilt your head.

“Tell me again.” Lips ghosting across the skin beneath your ear sends fresh heat to your core.

“I need your mouth, need you to make me come on your tongue.” You pause before adding. “As many times as you want. Please.” 

“That's right, you will.” Klaue replies, his voice low and tight with need. “Now, on the bed, darling.” 

Without hesitation you quickly make your way over to sit on the bed, the scent of him swirling around you as you adjust the pillows and settle back, and when you glance back up you're greeted by the intoxicating vision of Klaue standing at the foot of the bed, fingers frozen on the bottom button of his now open shirt.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about you here in my bed.” He says with a rough sigh, fingers freeing the last button as his gaze slides up your legs and over the soft swell of your breasts.

“Can’t be more than the number of times I’ve thought about being here.” You admit in turn, a smirk beginning but quickly falling as you watch him peel off his shirt, muscles flexing beneath the ink that paints his chest and shoulders.

“I have to say, it seems I was right, Mot.”

“About what?” You frown.

“About how lovely you’d look, right there.”

Caught off guard by the sweetness in his words a reply falters on your lips, and you squeeze your thighs together as though it might help you to hide from the way he makes you feel. But of course he notices.

“Would you spread your legs for me, please?”

Biting your lip you meet his eyes and begin to slowly straighten your legs, sliding them down towards the foot of the bed before letting your knees fall open. At first it’s just enough to give him a teasing peek but the heat of his gaze has you helpless to keep yourself from him. 

Spreading your legs wider you pull your knees back and open, and when the cool air hits you exposed skin you’re immediately aware of just how wet you are, and not just your sex - you can feel the insides of your thighs have become damp with your arousal as well and judging by the look on his face he can see it.

Slowly you shift down a bit more, giving a little upward rock of your hips for his benefit as you tuck one hand up behind your head, letting the other rest across your hip, attempting to look much calmer than you feel.

Following to where you’ve made a lovely display for him on his bed he removes the last of his layers, freeing the deliciously thick curve of his cock to hang heavy and twitching between his thighs, and standing above you he tilts his head appraisingly. A flush of heat crawls through every inch of your body as he takes a moment to drink in the sight of you, then slowly sits down on the edge of the bed..

Reaching out a hand he lets his fingertips alight on your knee before dragging them up over the skin of your inner thigh, his eyes staying fixed along the path they take, watching intently as your muscles flex and quiver beneath his touch.

“Not my fingers, then? You’re sure?” Klaue teases, smirking when your hips cant up against the air. With significant effort you manage to drag your thoughts away from how good it feels, how easy it would be to let him relieve the ache in your core.

“YesI’msure,” you blurt in a rush, quickly reaching down to stop his hand where it hovers inches from your sex.

“Both hands.” He says quietly, eyes flicking above your head in explanation. “And keep them there. Understood?”

“Yes. I understand, Ulysses.” You nod, the vice of your fingers slowly releasing him.

Once you’ve tucked your hands up and between the two pillows you’re resting against, he seems satisfied and moves the rest of the way onto the bed, positioning his body over yours.

He’s warm and heavy and you can feel the grin when his lips find the hollow of your throat, your hips beginning to roll slowly beneath him, acutely aware of his hard cock nudging against the inside of your thigh.

“I’ve thought about you here like this for so long.” Klaue murmurs, his tongue tasting your skin, trailing slow kisses up one side of your neck and then down the other, making his way down your chest before pausing at your breasts.

Then you think you hear something else, something quieter, whispered against your heartbeat.

“Want to keep you here.”

But you're distracted by his mouth again before you can really register the words, overwhelmed by how you’re already trembling and clenching just from the drag of his lips across your inflamed skin, and maybe you imagined it anyway. 

When his tongue flicks over your nipple none of your thoughts don’t stand a chance, a moan immediately sliding from deep in your chest. He spends just enough time on each to leave them peaked and aching, but when he starts to move further down you stop him.

“No, wait! More please, please..”

You look down at him, breathless and imploring, arching your chest up to encourage him, sighing with relief when his tongue returns to swirl over the pebbled flesh, and soon you’re moaning again as he alternates from one to the other, kissing and sucking until you’re writhing beneath the solid weight of him. 

Just when you think you can’t take any more he holds a nipple between his lips, just the very tip of his tongue flicking quickly until an ache starts to build deep in your belly, everything growing hot and tight and then suddenly your back is arching hard as you let out a broken cry, and while his tongue continues to work a hand cups your other breast, his thumb circling there in a matching rhythm as your cunt clenches around nothing. 

It doesn’t have the same peaking intensity but it still feels like you're coming, like if he keeps doing this you just might, and only when he pulls away does the desperate tension finally release from your muscles with a gasp.

“Another night I’m going to find out how many times I can make you do that.” He looks up at you, his expression more than a little smug. “But right now I think it’s time I made good on my promise, don’t you?”

You’re unable to respond with more than a nod, still panting and shuddering as he resumes his path downward. Your skin shines in the low light as his lips and tongue lave along your stomach and over your hips, and as he finally reaches the juncture of your thighs Klaue adjusts himself, setting there so that he’s lying with his erection pressed firmly into the mattress.

He pauses then, using his thumbs to gently spread you open for him, his mouth hovering just over your aching sex to let you feel his breath before you feel his touch.

“God, you are soaked for me, aren’t you?” 

Before you can form any kind of reply he presses his lips against you, kissing just above your swollen bud, teasingly close to where you need him so badly that all you can do is whine for it.

“What was that, my darling?” He prompts you, gently taunting.

“I need your mouth on my pussy, please I needohhgod-”

He cuts you off with a flick of his tongue, then another, at first grazing you gently but then unable to resist he licks a hungry stripe through your folds, and the sudden slick warmth combined with the vibration of his moan through your cunt has you greedily rolling your hips.

Watching him as his tongue continues to move between your legs you can sense the tension in his shoulders gradually softening, that tension he holds as part of his natural state, ever curled and ready to react drains away as he gives in to your honeyed musk, his arms sliding around your thighs to hold you snug against his mouth.

You want to reach down, to run your hands over his neck and shoulders and through his curls, but you resist, gripping the pillow tighter in an effort to keep them where they are, not daring to take the chance that he might stop.

But then he does pull off of you suddenly, silently looking up at you with heavy lidded eyes.

“What- what’s wrong?” You pant, confused and trying not to be concerned.  

“You’re not a dream, are you?” Klaue murmurs, resting his cheek against the inside of your thigh, plush beneath the scratch of his beard. He watches you for a long moment as though he were a parched man in the desert afraid that you were a mirage, and if he’s not careful he might lose sight of you. 

“I don’t think so?” Relief floods you and you laugh softly.

“No. You taste too good to be a dream.” 

Seeming reassured his mouth is on you again, lips soft and warm as they slowly, slowly close around your clit, and the gentle suction he adds now has your breath stuttering in your chest.

Your body begins to tremble, and seeming to anticipate it his arms tighten around your thighs just as you buck, keeping you in place as everything grows achingly bright and you arch against his mouth until you’re crying out, the pillowcase twisting in your fists as his hum of approval around your clit finally sends your orgasm surging through you hard and swift, pent up hours of thwarted desire finally finding its release.

And even when the pulsing waves begin to soften, he has no intention of stopping.

At times it feels like he’s trying to tease you apart at the seams, at others it seems to want to devour you all at once, and while Klaue has never been shy about exploring you he seems to relish taking his time tonight, soaking in your heat, teasing and licking every inch of you to find new patterns that make you sigh and roll your hips.

Your desperate pleas grow less and less articulate as his fingers dig into the flesh of your hips so that he can grind your cunt against his tongue, and as overwhelming as it is you find yourself sinking into it. Letting the only thing you need be his mouth against the soft place between your legs you eventually lose track of how much time passes, simply focusing on the susurrus of heat and pleasure that flows out from your center as the sheets below you become soaked with your release.

Eventually when you start to whine and try to pull away Klaue sees fit to give you respite, suckling instead at the sensitive flesh of your inner thigh until bruises begin to bloom there, and as his lips drag slowly across your skin you take the chance to watch him, your eyes catching the movement of his hips, his perfect ass flexing as he slowly ruts against the bed. 

He must be achingly hard now, and you find yourself breathless at the thought of the stain he’s leaving on the sheets beneath him. Fresh heat spreads through your core as you imagine how his cock is twitching and leaking for you, and it’s not long before he notices your needy movements starting to seek him out again, eliciting a whimper when he presses a soft kiss against your clit.

This time, though, he waits, letting his mouth simply rest gently against you, warm and soft and shockingly patient, until just as he senses you starting to fully relax he suddenly sucks your clit between his lips and you’re gasping at the heated pressure around your bundle of nerves, his fluttering tongue unrelenting until you’re his name is the only sound your mouth can form.

Even now, sweaty and blissfully exhausted as he chases the last twitches of pleasure from your sex, you’re surprised that you can still feel the heady swirl of need humming through your tender flesh. And yet, although you have no real desire to pull away, and even though he told you that he was going to decide when you were finished, the thought still tugs from the back of your mind that he’s given you enough.

“You don't...don’t have to keep going.” You manage to stammer between panted breaths.

Pulling his mouth off of you Klaue looks up, his beard and full lips glistening with your juices.

“If you think I wouldn't spend the entire night with my mouth against you warm, sweet cunt." He punctuates this with a firm lick that has a moan lilting in your throat. "Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to work a little harder to turn off that mind of yours."

It's tempting, god it's so tempting to let him continue. You can feel yourself growing dangerously addicted to his unabashed hunger between your legs, yet you can’t deny that there’s a growing need for something else.

Because he hasn’t even put his fingers inside of you, only his tongue occasionally dipping down to tease at your entrance, and you’re fucking aching for more, imagining the arch and flex of his back as he fucks into you instead of wasting it on the mattress.

So you tilt your hips up to give him a more open view of where you’re dripping for him, a soft whine in your throat.

“What's the matter, darling? Tell me.”

“You said- you said if I was good…”

“Yes?” His eyes are fixed on yours as he mouths at the sensitive crease where your thigh meets your hip.

“You said I could come on your cock. And I waited. Like you said.”

“Yes, you did.” He pauses, considering. “But you were a tease, too, weren’t you? Pretending you wanted your little toy.”

Shit. Of course he’d figured you out. Your mind spins quickly, trying to figure out a way to keep what you’d been hoping for from slipping away.

“But I wasn’t lying, I did think about that.” 

“Oh, I’m sure you did. But it was never going to be what you asked for, was it?”

You suck at your lower lip to keep from pouting and you have to swallow the lump forming in your throat. 

What the hell has this man done to you? You’d lost count of how many times he’d made you come already and yet you’re on the verge of tears at the thought of not getting to fuck him tonight. But you hardly get to see him, after all. It’s not fair.

“No,” you finally admit meekly. “Ohh ‘m sorry.”

You whimper when the tip of a thick finger begins circling your entrance, but as soon as you tilt your hips to try to encourage him deeper he pulls his hand back.

“No, please, I need you.”

“Would you like to be a little more specific for me?” Klaue asks, watching your face intently as his finger slowly returns, and you know he can feel the flutter of your muscles as he dips teasingly into you.

“I need you inside me.” Saying it out loud sets an invisible spark alight, pushing out thoughts of anything else as your words continue to tumble out in a rush.

“God, do you have any idea how perfect your cock is? How wet I get when I think about you stretching me open? And I think about it it every fucking day. I need you to fuck me, Ulysses, need you to fill me with your cock and your cum, please I need you so fucking bad, I need you, I-”

The last words are cut off when your voice hitches, fighting to hold back the tears that prick hot at the corners of your eyes. 

Desperate with need you’re only dimly aware that he’s moving, shifting himself to the head of the bed so that his back is against the pillows and then he’s tugging you up, causing you to let out a startled “Oh!” as your hands quickly move to catch yourself on his chest, quickly reminded of how strong he is as powerful arms lift you until you’re straddling his lap.

The thick length of him is hot and achingly hard, and he sucks a breath through his teeth when he slides through your folds, parting your cleft until the head, flushed and drooling, bumps against your swollen clit.

“Since you asked so nicely.” Klaue hums with a satisfied grin.

You’re nearly giddy with relief as you feel another upward flex of his hips, a heated slide of skin against slippery skin, and then you press your mouth against his, moaning when you taste yourself on his lips. He responds quickly, his tongue delving into your mouth, your kiss deep and full of desire as the rock of both of your hips grows more insistent.

Bracing more firmly on your knees you lift up, allowing him to slide further down until your kiss is broken by a moan when his cock catches at your entrance, your muscles already trying to clench around him.

Impatient now you reach a hand down between your legs to grip him, gasping at how hot he is beneath your fingers. He gives you a stuttered groan when you drag the mixture of his precum and your arousal along his length before shifting to line him up with your opening, and then finally you drop your hips firmly down. 

Your head tips back with a sigh as you revel in the delicious ache of his girth slowly nudging into you, his mouth immediately moving to nip at the column of your neck, whispering praises against your skin.

“Needed my cock, hmm?” Klaue's voice pitches low. “That's good. I want there to be nothing else you can think about. Don't want you satisfied unless you're full of me.” 

You feel a fresh surge of arousal at his words, your slick already dripping down his cock as you rock down harder, desperate to fit him inside of you.

“Yes, fuck, you feel so good. You're the only one who's ever made me want to beg, Ulysses.”

His eyes darken at your admission, groaning as your walls clench around him.

“I'm a lucky man, then, because you're so beautiful when you beg, klein Mot.”

Bliss continues to spool out through your body, and you’ve been so distracted by the sweet relief that you’re just realizing that he isn’t moving, that there’s a tension in his thighs and in the muscles of his jaw as he fights to keep himself still, focused only on watching you split yourself open on him. 

Keeping your pace slow you allow yourself to luxuriate in every sensation, in the ridges of his cock as he slides deeper into you, the heat of broad hands roaming over you skin, dimpling the flesh of your thighs and then sliding to grip your ass, spreading you obscenely as you work yourself further down his length.

You’ve never been able to watch him like this and you’re nearly delirious from the sight, from the way he reacts to every flutter of your pussy around him, his arms flexing as his grip on you tightens in an effort to hold himself back. As you continue to ride him your own hands can’t help sliding greedily over the firm muscles of his shoulders, over the hair that covers his chest and belly and then down to where, although he’s softening with age, you’re still you’re keenly aware of the strength that resides beneath your fingers. 

But as good as this feels there’s a frustration building, because although it’s gotten easier to take him he’s still so much, and you’re struggling to take him as deep as you want. 

And judging by the look in his eyes, he can sense it.

“More,” you plead, the movement of your hips growing more insistent.

“What's the matter?” He asks with a wolfish glint of gold. “You said you needed my cock, darling. So take it.” 

His bitten words are harsh, lightning crackling behind his teeth.

A surge of adrenaline courses through your veins as your hands slide around to grip the back of his neck in search of more purchase, fingernails digging crescents into his skin as you rock down harder. You can feel a low growl that you slowly realize is coming from your own chest as you desperately work to take all of him, and determined now you don't stop until your hips are snug against his, every inch of you finally stretched and spread open on his cock.

Breathing through the ache of it you take a moment to savour the prize of him fully buried in you, moaning when you give a firm roll of your hips and feel the slick friction of coarse hair at the base of him pressing and dragging against your folds, your eyes slipping closed with a blissful smile.

“Look at you.” Klaue rumbles, his fingers reaching to brush sweat-damp strands of hair away from your face. “That's my good girl.”

Tugged back by his words your eyes flutter open again as you rise up and slowly drop back down, your breathing mirroring one another as you find a rhythm. When you begin to add a rolling motion in time with each downward plunge you’re gratified when his mouth drops open, head tilting back to knock against the headboard with a groaned curse, though he still watches you through dark lashes, taking in the pleased curve of your lips and the bounce of your tits as your movements start to grow rougher.

Because you’re not sure if it's the angle from being on top and him sitting up like this but every slide of his cock into is you drawing an intoxicating flush of pleasure, tension swiftly coiling deep in your belly and licking a path up your spine as your breath comes in shorter and shorter gasps, and already being so overstimulated you’re unprepared for how quickly you can feel your climax approaching.

“Fuck, that’s it.” His voice is rough with hard fought restraint. “Use my cock like the needy little thing you are.”

Sweat beads on your skin, threads of pleasure stringing tight as the first inevitable surge begins to build, but then your thighs flex and your back arches and with the change in angle and the way your muscles are starting to tighten around him he’s suddenly slipping from where he’d been perfectly rooted deep inside you and you can feel the heated pleasure pulling away. 

You were so close that you can’t get out anything more than a mixture of frustrated pleas, but then his voice cuts through the haze, dark and driving straight to your core.

“No.” Klaue growls. “Stay down.”

Gripping your hips tight he finally takes control, a hoarse cry ripped from your throat as he roughly forces his cock back into your clenching cunt, and startled by the sound that escapes you bite your lip hard, trying to hold it back.

“None of that,” he grits. “You're going to let me hear you, yeah? Because those lovely noises you make, they’re mine. The way my name sounds when you come, that's for me.”

Both of his arms encircle your waist and then you’re surrounded by him, by his grip, his voice, his musk, all of it demanding your pleasure, and your mouth drops open as you succumb to his command with a ragged moan.

Your thighs are burning now as you ride him, but with the edges of your climax gathering again you wouldn’t stop even if you could, and this time when your muscles tense and you buck suddenly against his grip he’s ready, powerful arms holding you in place.

You cling to his shoulders, desperate to hold on to something as you feel yourself tipping, the nearly unbearable friction against your clit drawing everything to a bright point, a silvery haze creeping in at the edges of your vision as you hover over the line between blissful agony and release.

“Going to come so hard for me, aren’t you?” His rasping words are more a plea than a question, rough from the rhythm of your hips as you grind helplessly against him. “So fucking beautiful.”

Finally you gasp a lungful of air as though hitting a shock of cold water and then the breath is forced from your lungs by a sob, tears you hadn't realized were pooling in your eyes spilling over as your orgasm crashes through you, his name falling in a tattered cry from your lips.

Your inhibitions are completely lost as you fuck yourself on his cock, chasing wave after wave of pleasure that rolls through your body and you can feel the rush of your release slicking the skin between you as you fall utterly apart, the heat of it only just starting to ebb when his gruff words bring you back to him, cutting through the din of ecstasy.

“Fuck, Mot don't stop. Need to come in your pussy, I'm-” Klaue stammers, his voice cracking with need.

“Ohh please,” you can only moan through hitched sobs.

Not able to thrust into you the way he normally wants he instead grips you tight, bracing his heels against the mattress and rutting his hips up as best he can while roughly grinding you down, his eyes squeezing shut as he focuses on keeping himself buried as deep inside of you as he can.

“Look at me,” you plead, your voice thick with tears and want.

Klaue’s eyes snap to yours, bright with the flame of a sapphire sacrament  and after a few more broken thrusts he jerks beneath you, the muscles of his thighs flexing against the insides of yours, his bruising grip holding you down until relief floods his features and you feel the first hard throb of his cock, your name a honeyed plea on his lips as he comes deep inside you.

The tension in your body has finally begun to soften and as you regain some control you force yourself to hold as still as you can, wanting to feel everything, to feel every pulse as he spills himself inside you, soaking in the delicious sound of every grunted sigh as the thick warmth of his cum fills you.

He continues to twitch and throb inside you as you both catch your breath, large hands beginning to soothe over your back and sides and then back down to your hips, a satisfied hum rolling through his chest as his touch follows the lazy cant of your hips.

Sweat damp skin slides against skin and your moan matches his when he grips your ass and rocks you slowly up and then back down on his still stiff length, and though he hisses at the overstimulation he does it again, and then again, until wet sounds are filling the room as you writhe languidly against each other, the sticky slick of both of your leaking out from where you’re deliciously swollen and sore.

“God, the only thing better than the sweet taste of you, darling, is how pretty your pussy sounds when you’re full of my cum.”

“Jesus, Ulysses.” Your reply is half moan, half delirious laughter. “You’re going to kill me, I swear.” 

He sucks a breath at the flex of your muscles around him when you laugh, though he still looks rather pleased with himself. 

“Just returning the favour,” Klaue teases, though there's a sweet edge to his smug grin. 

Giving him a watery smile you tuck your head down to rest your damp cheek against the slope of his shoulder, and when you start to work your hands between his back and the pillow he adjusts so that you can slide them around his broad waist.

Gradually you both grow still, the only movement for several moments is the rise and fall of your chests as you quietly rest against one another, the claw on the cord around his neck pressing into you to leave a mirrored indentation in your skin.

Slowly you nuzzle your cheek along the scruff of his beard, seeking every bit of contact he'll give you, relaxing further when the weight of his arms settles around your waist, and as you sit wrapped in each other you allow for the thought that maybe he's just as reluctant as you to untwine just yet. 

And that maybe you did hear him say it earlier.

“Want to keep you here.”

Still, you don't want to overthink what he meant, so for now you let yourself simply enjoy this, here, tracing the salt of inked skin along his neck with your lips, though perhaps still hoping that, for tonight at least, he’ll want to keep you a little longer. 

When you do eventually separate you're both still content not to get up right away, bodies relaxed and half pressed against one another, a hand splayed across a waist, hip and thigh meeting.

You're not sure when he does get up but as you drift in and out of sleep you hear Klaue in the shower, although you have no interest in moving yourself, not caring about the mess between your thighs enough to do anything about it just yet. You might even admit that you're rather enjoying it.

Eventually he returns to where you lie in a half-twilight, your eyes blinking open when the mattress dips beneath his weight.

“You don't have to leave, darling, but I do need to go,” he says. “I won't be able to come back tonight, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you'd like.”

Pushing yourself up you begin to protest but his mouth quickly finds yours, silencing you with a swipe of his tongue. The kiss is firm and slow, a hand moving to cup your jaw, working with his lips to guide you back down to the pillow.

“It's really no problem to go back,” you start when he releases you, “I can-”

He kisses you again deeper this time, a little more demanding, coaxing your mouth open as his tongue slides against yours until you’re wondering what your reason was for arguing at all, and when he releases you this time you can only look up at him with a glassy-eyed smile.

“Rest.” He murmurs, a thumb drifting across your cheek as you nod.

Before he stands to go, though, he draws your attention to something in his hand that glints in the low light.

“I'll be keeping this here, by the way.”

Your mouth forms a silent “o” as you watch him tuck your vibrator into the drawer of his night table and slide it shut. 

“I forgot about that.” You whisper with a bashful smile.

“So did I,” he admits, his fingers tugging down the sheet that's covering you to reveal your naked form. “And when I did remember, I wasn't really in the mood to share.”

His hand coaxes a knee open, his jaw clenching when he catches the mess still shining between your legs.

“But you might not be so lucky in the future.” 

There's a glint of a warning when his eyes return to yours, but before you can say anything you’re gasping when he suddenly slides two fingers into you, thrusting deep before pulling back out and you moan when, instead of offering them to you, he takes them into his own mouth, a satisfied hum rumbling through his chest at the taste of you mixed with him.

You’re still staring at him half stunned when he stands back up, licking his lips as his eyes sweep appraisingly over your body, as though he's trying to commit the image of you like this to memory.

“And you say I'm a tease. Do you have to go??” You try not to sound too needy, though you're pretty sure the way your hips are shifting again gives you away.

“I'm afraid I do, darling. Believe me, if I didn't...” He gives a rough sigh, frustration plain on his face. “But I'm here for two more days, and I will be taking advantage of them.”

“I certainly hope so,” you reply, a lazy smile curving your lips.

He gives you one last look as he closes behind him, and almost immediately you can feel sleep starting to steal over you again. You don't plan on staying very long, though, and as you turn over and tug the sheet back up you tell yourself you’re just going to close your eyes for a few more minutes, however it's several hours later when you open them again and realize that it’s now late (or early, rather). 

Once you manage to orient yourself in the unfamiliar space you have to laugh, entirely unsurprised at this point that you’d passed out almost immediately.

After showering you actually don't rush to leave, but strange as it is to be here without him you find yourself unable to resist the chance to observe his room a little more closely.

While this obviously isn't a permanent space it still has details of him scattered around; you'd noted a razor and shaving bar next to the sink, one of his khaki shirts hanging on a hook in the bathroom.

You take a peek at a shelf by the door, full of books that for the most part you don't recognize or aren't in English, but you do spot Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein”, a small wood carved stingray next to it. 

Hanging on the wall beside the shelf there's a framed photo of the ocean that looks like it was taken by a 35mm camera. Is it from somewhere he's been? Did he take it himself?

Sitting back down on the bed you intend to check your messages but your mind still wanders. You wonder if he does have somewhere that’s…maybe not home, but a place where pieces of him might be a little more embedded, that looks and smells familiar when he returns from time away. Somewhere that he rests.

You know it's time to head back to your room so you can get ready for the morning shift but you’re hesitant to get up just yet. Glancing at the bed and the mussed sheets, your hand slides over the pillow he'd been leaning against, acutely aware of the scent of him surrounding you, and without really thinking you lean down and press your nose into the creased fabric.

Immediately you're overwhelmed by the heady scent of him that infiltrates your senses: His musk beneath the soap, sweat and a faint trace of oil, all tied up with the still present scent of your mixed arousal, and it's only when you take a shuddering breath that you realize you’d been holding back a sob.

Sitting back up your hand quickly flies to your mouth, breath caught in your chest as you blink away the tears.

Shit.

The intensity of it honestly doesn't surprise you anymore, Klaue makes you feel - seems to revel in making you feel - more than you ever thought you could, teasing away the layers, revealing pieces of you that you didn’t even realize had been hidden. 

“I don’t know what this is.”

“And I don’t know if I can tell you.”

None of this feels any clearer now yet there's a certainty settling in your chest, and it feels like that part of you that's been unsteady since you’d met Klaue in Utrecht is finally starting to right itself. And at the same time, maybe for the first time, you feel something unlocking in you, opening to the possibility of perhaps letting someone else help you find your balance.

So although you have no idea where this path leads, you're starting to accept that you aren't going to be able to stop until you find out.

AN: Once again, thank you so much for reading! 🥰 As I said this next chapter is going to be a beast (already trying to talk myself out of splitting it up again if it comes to that, lol), but I'm looking forward to continuing to exploring things between these two idiots, and I hope you'll come along for the ride!

[fuck-customers]

I work corporate IT now, switched from customer service, but so many of the skills I learned in customer service are unfortunately useful. Like for people who have thick skulls.

A person was having a login issue yesterday. Those are pretty easy - usually they’re just entering in the wrong thing. But it was a phone call and we kept getting disconnected. And the disconnect kept happening before I knew which laptop she was using so i could remote into it. Finally we got a connection long enough to learn which laptop it was. I kept telling her “on the underside of the laptop there’s a label that says which laptop this is.” “But I can’t get into the laptop to tell you!” “Its on the bottom of the laptop!” “Oh, hang on.” Like i hadnt said “underside” several times. But I finally got which laptop it was before we got disconnected again. I’m trying to contact back while I can see her continue to enter in the wrong thing while trying to log in.

Finally, i use our remote access software to cut off her inputs and login to a shared account that we maintain for purposes such as this. I open notepad and leave a note, all the while i know she’s watching. “This is your username, the password you use is the same for your email, that’s all you need to enter. I’m going to turn your keyboard back on so you can login.” And did so.

She closed notepad and didn’t log out of the shared account. Went to go find her emails. There’s a message option with the remote software that I seldom use - it’s easy to ignore and I find notepad much easier. So I use the message option to say “this isn’t your account, none of your stuff is here.” I typed like four messages and she closed the window every time. Now, I’m the kind of person who won’t give you any more help than you ask for, and she was continually closing out my help, so I’m like “fine, deal with it yourself, if you need me you know where I am”, and closed my connection.

A short while later, she called back. “I’m logged in but my emails aren’t here.” Which. Yeah. I told you. You closed my messages. Which i say as politely as possible, but I can tell she’s getting irritated too. Which I get but that is not my fault. I say “Let me drive,” which is what we say to tell the user, “I’ve got this, I’ll show you.” She kept moving the mouse. “You’re not letting me drive, (name.)” With an annoyed tone she stopped doing things (possibly because I turned off user inputs again.) I went to the login screen, entered in her username. Had to reset her password which isn’t uncommon, and she set it back to what it was supposed to be. And we got in.

She then said “i don’t know how but I’m in.” Excuse me, you don’t know how? I walked you through everything i did in plain English. Flabbergasted, i said “that was me. I did that.” Never so glad to get an issue over with.

I would think by that point it's more about her being lonely and wanting to talk to someone than about her actually needing help to log in.

Unless she can't read. There was a guy I worked with at the depot of offices that said when he worked tech support in the 80's he was on the phone with a guy for his whole shift because they had to go over everything one letter at a time because the guy didn't know how to read. My co worker said he was getting frustrated because he thought the guy was being difficult purpose and once he understood what the issue was it went a lot easier.

-Rodney

[wolfjackle-creates]

Answer My Call

As promised, this is the first chapter of @gilbirda's Wrong Number AU all fixed up. A lot of it is the same as the original version, but a lot has changed. It went from 3,059 words to 5,392. I'm gonna try and get somewhere with the next chapter of this, but no promises on time-frame. Also working on transferring at least the first chapter of all my WIPs over to AO3. This'll be the only time I tag a bunch of people for this as I'm gonna set up subscription posts.

Find the original prompt and fill here.

Find the Subscription Post here.

And the AO3 version here (locked to logged in users, reach out if you need an invite).

Story Summary: Jazz, Sam, and Tucker manage to help Danny escape the GIW, but they can't follow him and are under too much surveillance to communicate with each other. Sam snuck Danny a phone as he ran and Jazz sends him a text every day, hoping to hear he is all right. But he's not the one getting the texts.

Jason was away for several months on a mission with the Outlaws. When he finally returns home, he is surprised to find dozens of messages from an unknown number begging a Danny to tell her he's okay. Looks like there's not going to be a break between missions this time around.

----------

Jazz sat in a Nasty Burger booth and stared at her food. She'd ordered Danny's favorite, but her stomach was so in knots she didn't think she could eat.

All of this was her parent’s fault. If they weren’t so close minded and horrible, if they’d just accepted they were wrong…

Her circling thoughts were interrupted by a balled up napkin landing on the table next to her tray. Jazz was half to her feet ready to yell at whomever threw their trash at her when she saw Sam in a frilly yellow dress walking to the counter with her grandmother.

Huffing as if annoyed, Jazz settled back down and straighted the napkin. In messier-than-normal writing, Sam had scrawled the message:

I got him an old phone before he ran. His number is XXX-XXX-XXXX.

As surreptitiously as she could, she pulled out her own phone and saved the number to the encrypted folder Tucker had set up. Then she destroyed the napkin by soaking it in her unfinished pop and throwing her entire tray away, uneaten food and all.

Well, there was nothing else she could do in Amity. Might as well start the long drive back to Boston.

Upon reaching the edges of town, however, she realized leaving wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought. A GIW checkpoint had been set up and all incoming and outgoing traffic was being questioned.

Two agents approached her car before she could turn around and try a different way out. She did make them knock on her window before deigning to lower it just an inch, however. After what they’d done to Danny, she would never willingly play along with their games again.

“Ms. Fenton,” said the agent as soon as she realized she wasn’t going to open the window any further, “we need to search yourself and your vehicle. You are a known ecto-entity sympathizer and are suspected of assisting in the escape of subject P1. Vacate your vehicle immediately.”

“All I did was come back to my hometown to find my missing brother. I’ll need to see a warrant before you search my car.”

“Ms. Fenton, I don’t think you understand the situation. Due to the escape of the highly dangerous specimen P1, the town is under our a state of emergency. Mayor Masters has instated martial law to ensure the safety of all citizens. You can either vacate your car or you will be under arrest.” He grabbed a packet of papers from an inner pocket of his suit jacket and pushed one end through the crack in Jazz’s window.

Jazz took them and skimmed. The agent wasn’t lying; anyone caught breaking curfew or suspected of harboring or otherwise assisting a ghost would be arrested without bail immediately. All because her brother escaped that torture chamber. She stepped out of the car.

It took over an hour for the agents to search every inch of her car, purse, and luggage and convince themselves she didn’t have Danny hidden away somewhere. By the time she was allowed to go on her way, her jaw hurt from how hard she was clenching her teeth and her eyes stung with tears.

She hated Vlad. And the Guys in White. And the US Government. But finally she was free to leave.

And then she realized the white van was following her out of city limits. Really? Was she going to have to deal with them tailing her, too?

She ground her teeth and eased up on the gas pedal, moving to the right lane. Her father had taught her how to drive, but she’d learned better from the internet and recorded driver’s ed classes. She followed the speed limit exactly, only changing lanes to pass or allow others to merge on. Through it all, her focus remained on the white van behind her. She recognized Agent O as the driver.

Every so often his attention would slip and he’d wind up closer to her than intended. And then, finally, forty-five minutes after she started her perfect driving, she saw him yawn.

“Eat dust, creep!” Jazz shouted as she slammed her foot on the gas and jerked the steering wheel to swerve into the next lane. A chorus on horns followed her as she crossed the median and began going in the opposite direction. She had learned some things from her dad.

Two exits closer to Amity, she got off the highway and stopped at a Target for a burner phone which she activated at a local library. Then she got back on the highway east.

To her satisfaction, it took Agent O three hours to find her again.

-----

That night at a motel in who-knows-where Pennsylvania, Jazz double checked the locks on the door and that the curtains were closed before pulling out her new phone.

Her fingers trembled as she typed a message and sent it to the number Sam had given her.

Hey, Danny, it’s Jazz. Sam passed on the number for the phone she gave you before we were all separated. Please let me know you’re safe. Love you.

Jazz stared at the phone, hoping for a reply.

She woke with the phone clutched to her chest, but no new messages. Her breath caught and then she was curled around the phone crying.

“Danny, you’d better be okay,” she mumbled through her sobs.

But then her main phone alarm went off and Jazz forced herself up from the bed and into the shower. She could get through this. She had to.

An hour later, with her makeup applied and secret phone well hidden in her bag, she was back in her car and getting on the highway, a white van keeping pace behind her.

That night she was back in her dorm room in Boston. Her roommate tried to ask her questions about how her trip home went, but Jazz brushed off the concern. If she’d been honest, her roommate wouldn’t know how to reply anyway.

Instead, she waited until the other girl was taking a shower to pull out the burner phone and send another message.

Made it back to Boston. They’re following me now. Please don’t come here. It’s not safe. I know they’re keeping close tabs on Sam and Tucker, too. But they don’t know about this phone. Love you. Let me know you’re safe.

The next day, she got a phone call from an unknown Amity number during her Literature class. With a hurried apology to the professor, she gathered her supplies up and rushed out of the classroom as she answered the phone.

“Jazz speaking.”

“Hello, Ms. Fenton. My name is Detective Ramirez. I’m calling regarding your brother, Daniel—“

“Danny,” Jazz corrected automatically. “He prefers Danny.”

“Right, Danny. It appears he’s missing.”

Jazz’s breath hitched. She knew that, of course. But hearing a stranger say it so bluntly hit different. She walked faster, there was a single stall bathroom just a floor up.

“His teacher, a Mr. Lancer, reported his disappearance yesterday and your parents admitted they didn’t know his location either when we went to check on him. Do you know where he may be?”

“I don’t.” Finally, there was the bathroom. She rushed in and shut the door behind her, locking it before sliding to the ground. “Have— Have you figured out how long he’s been missing?”

“Near as we can tell, it’s been a week. Do you know why your parents wouldn’t have reported him missing?”

Jazz let out a mirthless laugh. “Are you from Amity, detective?”

A pause, then he said, “I am.”

“Then you know my parents. They were probably too busy trying to torture a ghost to notice Danny.”

“Would it be possible for you to stop by the station to answer some questions?”

“I’m in Boston for school, detective. You can come here or I can answer any questions you have on the phone. I will not be going back to Amity unless it is to see Danny.”

“Very well. Did your brother have any motivation to or history of running away?”

And so began an hour long interrogation. Jazz played her part to perfection. She cried, she begged, but she didn’t give him anything.

That night, after her roommate went to bed, she sent another text.

A detective called today to see if I might know where you are. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him anything. Maybe next time I’ll let slip some lies, send the GIW on a wild goose chase. Love you. Let me know you’re safe.

It became a ritual. Every day she’d keep her head down and go about her classes ignoring the agents following her and once a day when she could guarantee her privacy, she’d send another text to Danny. Each one ended the same way.

It’s been a week since you escaped. Did you make it to the realms? Love you. Let me know you’re safe. The detective actually came all the way to Boston to interview me. Can you believe it? I cried on him and begged him to find you and may have mentioned how much you loved visiting Aunt Alicia who lived off the grid. Hopefully that’ll distract them. Love you. Let me know you’re safe. Agent K tried to wait for me outside my Psych class today. I just met his eyes and glared until he said something into his walkie talkie and left. Love you. Let me know you’re safe. Today is your birthday and you're still not responding to me. I don't know what I'll do if you die a second time on me. Love you, let me know you're safe. Sam, Tucker, and I can't talk. We're under too close of surveillance. I think Sam is being home schooled now and Tucker got a scholarship and his parents sent him away from Amity. I don't know if it was the GIW or Vlad, but promise me you won't return to Amity. Love you, let me know you're safe. I got a call from the detective. They've basically given up the search. Of course they couldn't find you. I guess mom and dad made the call to have you declared dead. You're funeral is next week. Strangest part about this is it's 3 years too late. Love you, let me know you're safe. Dani was able to visit today. She’s safe and trying to find a way to the realms. We worked on finding ways to mask her ecto-signature and we’re finally happy with the results. I think she’ll be safe now. Love you. Let me know you’re safe.

Jazz didn’t mention how the study room they’d been practicing in was raided by GIW agents less than twenty minutes after Dani had left.

I’m back in Amity. Your funeral is tomorrow. I hate it here. I hate even more how much it still feels like home. Love you. Let me know you’re safe. They didn’t even show up. Love you. Let me know you’re safe. I miss you so much. I hate how useless I am. I’m not you. I can't build a portal or boo-merang to search for you. You'd better come home soon. Love you, let me know you're safe.

-----

The first thing Jason did upon returning to his Gotham apartment was shower. The second was sleep for a solid eleven hours.

And when he woke up, he made himself a huge breakfast, reveling in the opportunity to put a kitchen through it’s paces for the first time in months.

But the first non-essential thing he did was plug in his phone and turn it on. After months away, his notifications would be insane and he wanted to be rested and full before bothering to skim through the family group chats.

Unsurprisingly, his messaging app showed over two thousand unread texts. What was surprising, however, was that 71 of those were from an unknown number.

He opened that thread first and skimmed the most recent message.

Agent K tried to pull me aside to question me and search my bag twenty minutes before an exam. Asshole almost made me miss it! But I managed to run and got to my classroom just in time. Love you. Let me know you’re safe.

Jason raised an eyebrow and scrolled to the top of the thread. By the time he’d finished reading, his vision was tinted green.

Looked like he wasn’t going to have those relaxing few days before his next big case.

With a sigh he turned on his laptop and searched Amity. All he could find was a generic government website proclaiming it “The Most Haunted Town in America!” Every link on the page was broken when he tried to click it.

He ground his teeth and searched for “GIW” and “Agent K.” Neither yielded any useful results either.

By five o’clock he was nearly ready to scream in frustration and the green wasn’t leaving the edges of his vision. Looks like he was going to need backup.

He stomped out of his apartment, got on his motorcycle, and ignored all speed limits as he rushed through Gotham.

Traffic and noise decreased the further from Gotham proper he got until city streets were replaced by McMansions with their fancy landscaping and long drives.

He continued until he got to B’s home and made his way up the long drive. Though he quickly turned to the smaller path that lead to the kitchen entrance rather than continue up to the main doors.

After cutting the engine, he continued to sit on the bike for a moment as he stared at the door to the kitchen. Was he really going to do this?

He closed his eyes and phrases from the desperate texts filled his mind. With a deep breath he stood up and walked through the door.

As expected half an hour before dinner, Alfred was in the kitchen getting everything ready.

“Master Jason!” he exclaimed. “Give me just a moment.”

Jason watched with a slight smile as Alfred stirred the gravy and lowered the temperature. “Hey, Alfie.”

Alfred made his way towards Jason and pulled him into a hug. “Welcome home, my boy.”

“Got in yesterday. There enough food for one more? Who else is around?”

“There’s always enough food for you. Now, help me stir the vegetables. Masters Bruce, Damian, Duke, and Tim are all home.”

Jason hummed as he got to work helping with the last of dinner prep. “Is the replacement up to anything big right now? I was thinking of asking for his expertise on something.”

Alfred clicked his tongue. “You’ve only just returned from an extended mission. I haven’t even had the chance to check you over for new injuries yet. Can’t you rest for even a day?”

“Come on, Alfie. Don’t you know us better than that by now? No rest for the wicked as they say!”

Alfred gave him a Look. “You are hardly wicked, Master Jason.”

Jason looked back down at the vegetables he was helping with. “I think these are done. And you know I wouldn’t ask Replacement a favor unless it was important.”

“I know you know his name is Timothy,” Alfred said as he passed Jason a bowl. “But he is not working on anything time sensitive at the moment that I know of.”

“And you know everything.”

“Hardly. Now, help me set the table.”

Jason did as instructed and the two fell into an old routine.

Bruce walked into the dining room as they were laying things out. “Jason. When did you get back?”

Jason took a deep breath forced himself to stay relaxed. “Yesterday. Figured I’d grab some of Alfred’s cooking tonight.”

“How did your mission go? Have you filed a report yet?”

God, couldn’t he just ask how Jason was like a normal person?

Alfred stepped in before Jason could snap. “Master Bruce, you know I do not allow shop talk at the dinner table.”

“I’m doing great, B,” he said with fake cheerfulness. “Had the best breakfast this morning and slept amazingly, thanks for asking.”

“Jason—”

“I’m gonna get the last of the dishes from the kitchen, Alfred,” said Jason before Bruce could say anything more.

In the kitchen, Jason leaned over the counter and breathed as he counted to ten. He shouldn’t have come here. Not with the pits so close to the surface after seeing those messages.

But he was bat-trained and he couldn’t leave a mystery alone and he needed someone with better computer and hacking skills than he had. So here he was.

He could do this. It was just dinner then a question.

He grabbed the last two platters of food and returned to the dining room. Duke and Tim had arrived in the meantime.

“Hey, Jason,” greeted Duke.

“Hey, kid. How’s Gotham been treatin’ ya?”

“Same old, same old. Glad to see you’re back and in one piece.”

Jason grinned at him. “The other guys aren’t so lucky.”

Duke laughed. “I’ll bet.”

Tim piled food onto his plate. “You should’ve said you were back. Dick would’ve made the trip out here to join us. Barbara, too, probably.”

“It was a last minute decision. Where’s the demon brat?”

“Here,” said a voice from behind him. “Todd. You appear to be healthy.”

Jason blinked at the kid a few times as Damian walked around him and took his own seat. “Uh… yeah. Thanks. You appear… healthy, too.”

Nonplussed by the lack of aggression, Jason took his own seat and began serving himself as well.

Over dinner, the others filled him in on the major family drama as well as what had happened in Gotham while he’d been gone. Even Bruce seemed to be trying after his initial missteps.

But then they were finishing dessert and Tim got up to leave.

“Hey, Replacement, by the way, can I get your opinion on something? My computer skills don’t seem to be enough to get me the information I need.”

“Really? You’re gonna call me ‘Replacement’ at the same time as you ask for help? Fuck you?”

“Language, Master Tim.”

“Sorry, Alfred.”

“Look, Tim,” Jason corrected himself, “apparently someone contacted me months ago for help and I only just found out because I’ve been gone. It seems to be time-sensitive. Now, I can spend days or weeks more trying to figure this out on my own or you could probably do it in an hour or two.”

And of course Bruce had to butt in. “Who contacted you and what is this case?”

Jason shrugged. “Dunno. Looks like a case of wrong number, actually.

“A wrong number?” That caught Tim’s attention.

Jason hid his grin. Hook, line, and sinker. “Yep. She thinks she’s texting someone named Danny. I’m the one getting the messages.”

Tim sighed. “Fine. Give me a ride back to my place and I’ll see what I can do.”

-----

“What the fuck, Jason.”

Eight hours later and they were both tired and Tim still hadn’t gotten anywhere with his search. But he had fried two computers.

“It’s not supposed to do that, is it?” asked Jason staring at the Lazarus-green screen covered in bright blue gibberish. “Is that color combination even legal?”

“You’re worried about the colors? Dude! This isn’t even code. I don’t even recognize half these symbols!”

The computer let out an awful screeching-wail that had Jason covering his ears. Then it started to smoke and the screen when black. When Tim tried to check out the hardware, it had overheated so badly the plastic casing was melted.

“I think it’s time we try calling this Jazz woman.”

“Yeah. Would it be better to call her as Jason or Red Hood?”

Tim just raised and eyebrow at him and Jason sighed as he opened up his messages and hit call, setting it to speaker phone.

He winced when a woman picked up instantly with a cry of, “Danny!”

“I’m afraid this isn’t Danny,” said Jason.

He counted the seconds until the woman spoke again. Seven. “Please, just delete all the messages. If anyone finds out about them, I’ll be arrested. And the guys in white aren’t gentle with prisoners.”

Tim’s eyebrows rose and Jason bit his cheek to hold back the curses.

“You’ve got the wrong idea. I might not be Danny, but I want to help. You’ve reached Red Hood. I was unconctactable for the last few months while on a mission and I only just saw your messages. Red Robin is with me and we plan to help you and Danny. But we need more information.”

Another pause and then Jazz spoke again. “I’ll need some proof you are who you say you are.”

“Seems reasonable,” agreed Tim. “Give us fifteen minutes to get into costume. We’ll take a selfie. You can even specify the pose and any features you want included. Sound fair?”

“Fine. I want Red Robin to give Red Hood rabbit ears and Red Hood to give Red Robin Moose antlers."

Jason groaned. “Seriously? Can’t it be literally anything else?”

“Nope. I want to be sure you’re not just stealing something off the internet. I’ll also be doing a reverse image search on whatever picture you send, just to confirm.”

Tim laughed, the asshole. “Smart. We’ll send the photos soon as we’re changed and in position.”

“Very good. I’ll also have some questions for you, you understand. My record with those associated with the government has not been very good. Which is why my brother, his friends, and I never contacted the Justice League.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t associate with the government then, isn’t it?” asked Jason.

“That’s the only reason I’m even considering telling you the truth, Mr. Hood.”

-----

It ended up being half an hour before they could both get in uniform and agree on a spot where they could take the pictures. Jason finally convinced Tim they should pose next to his favorite grotesque and the pictures were sent off.

Five minutes later, his phone range.

“Cute gargoyle,” said Jazz before they could even get out a greeting.

“It’s a grotesque, actually,” corrected Jason on autopilot. He could feel Tim’s eye roll even with the mask.

"Why can't I access anything from the town of Amity or find any information on the GIW you mentioned? I fried three computers trying to track down information. Literally. Had to disable the smoke detectors."

Now it was Jason's turn to roll his eyes. Tim always got so intense when it came to research.

“You certainly don’t waste time. But before I answer your questions, I need to ask my own.”

Tim frowned, but there was no sign of frustration in his voice when he spoke. “Of course. What do you need to know?”

“What do you know about ghosts?”

“One of my teammates is a ghost,” said Tim.

“And there’s another one who works with Justice League Dark,” added Jason.

A pause, then a surprised, “Really? I didn’t know that.” She hummed and Jason wished he could see her face to see what she was thinking. “Do you know about the Anti-Ecto Acts?”

“The what?” asked Tim even as he started typing into his watch. “Wait, if I search for this, will my device burst into flames?”

For the first time, Jazz laughed in genuine amusement and Jason felt he was getting a glimpse into who she really was. The sound pushed the green back from the back of his head and his breath seemed to come a little easier.

“No, the acts are fine. Here, I’ve got the code number.”

Tim searched the number Jazz related. Thirty seconds after pulling it up, he let out a low whistle. “What the fuck. The League has no idea these laws exist. I can promise you that. Martian Manhunter and all Lanterns would leave immediately.”

“What’s it say?” demanded Jason, trying to read the tiny screen over Tim’s shoulder.

“These Ectoplasm Dependent Entities, are they the ghosts you mentioned?”

“Yes. More specifically, the ghosts referred to are sapient creatures from a parallel dimension called the Infinite Realms by its residents and the Ghost Zone by some humans. Ectoplasm, and this is an oversimplification to the point of being incorrect, is required by ghosts the way living creatures on Earth need carbon. Hood, the Anti-Ecto Acts declare all Realm Ghosts as non-sapient, excluding them from the Meta Protection Acts. It also states that they are to be turned over the to Guys in White, more formally known as the Ghost Investigation Ward and abbreviated to GIW, for experimentation and elimination.”

“Well shit. And I assume Danny is targeted by this group?”

“Got it in one.”

A chill went down Jason’s spine. “That’s what you meant by his funeral being three years too late.”

She sighed, all hints of laugher gone and Jason wished he could bring it back. “My brother is different. I won’t tell you more than that. He’s still alive, though. Or at least he was when he escaped the Guys in White about three months ago.”

Jason and Tim exchanged glances. She was definitely holding a lot back. So Jason decided to change tactics. “You mentioned another Dani, too. With an i?”

“She’s my brother’s clone. We consider her our little sister, but our parents don’t know about her. We haven’t been able to provide a stable home for her and she loves to travel and is more than capable of protecting herself, so we just keep in contact and hope she’ll come when she needs help.”

Tim perked at the word clone. “We can offer her safety,” he promised. “One of my teammates and best friends is a clone.”

Jazz hummed. “I'll let her know the next time she reaches out. No promises, though. She's even less trustful than I am.”

Jason took deep breaths. “How old are you, your brother, and sister?” She sounded young and had mentioned college many times in her messages.

Jazz hesitated. “We’re all teenagers. Dani was created three years ago, but was aged up.”

Jason spun and kicked the wall hard. Tim caught his arm to keep him from overbalancing. “Okay. Of course you are. Because adults can’t help but force children into roles they should never have to take.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Bit hypocritical of you to say that.”

“Yeah, well, look where it got me,” Jason retorted, voice a growl.

“I feel like I’m missing some context,” said Jazz.

“It’s nothing,” said Jason. “I just hate when adults put kids in danger or don’t help them get out of danger.” And it was definitely time to change the subject. “You mentioned two other people? A Tucker and Sam? Do they need help?”

“They’re not in danger like the Dannies. But the Guys in White suspect the three of us of collaborating with ghosts and are keeping a close eye on us. Our main phones are tapped and any messages we send will be read and all calls recorded. The instant they have proof we’ve assisted or plan to assist ghosts, we’ll be arrested and detained.”

“What can I do to access information on these Guys in White and Amity?” asked Tim.

“You need a computer that’s ectoplasm-compatible. I don’t have a spare, but Tucker would. He’s at a tech school in San Francisco.”

“What’s that mean, ectoplasm-compatible?” Tim was still typing away at his watch and Jason was jealous of his ability to read and listen at the same time.

“Tucker can explain it better than I can. But basically, things from our world don't work around ectoplasm. It gives off it's own form of energy and our gadgets, and bodies, can't handle it. But if something is exposed to low quantities over a long period of time, they begin to change. The ectoplasm is incorporated. This allows the device to display video and pictures of ghosts. Computers that are not ecto-compatible can't even connect to ones that are. An ecto-compatible computer, on the other hand, can access information from a non-compatible one.”

Jason couldn’t help but latch onto one specific word. “What do you mean bodies? Can humans become ecto-compatible?” The idea sent a shiver down Jason’s spine for reasons he couldn’t quite name.

“It’s complicated. Ectoplasm is dangerous for humans. Really dangerous. My brother and friends and I have done some research on how it interacts with living matter from this dimension and… Well, its far too complicated to discuss over the phone with people I don’t know if I should trust and who don’t have the requisite background knowledge to understand it anyway.”

Tim hummed in a way Jason knew meant he wasn’t satisfied and wouldn’t rest until he got all the information he could. “Would Tucker be willing to sell me an ecto-compatible computer if I reach out to him? How much would he want for it?”

Jazz laughed, but this time there wasn’t any happiness in it. “If you’re really going to help Danny, he’d give it to you for free. And if you can get him to trust you, he’ll show you all the backdoors he’s made into the Guys in White’s servers.”

“Fantastic. How can I contact him?”

Jason let them talk specifics as he stared out over the city. Not even twenty-four hours home and he was right back in the thick of things. When it seemed like Tim and Jazz were wrapping things up, he added, “I’d like to speak to you in person.”

“I’m in Boston,” she said with a laugh.

Jason made the calculations, adding time for a ninety minute nap. “I can be there in seven hours.”

“I’ve class in seven hours.” She sighed. “But I’ll text you a time and place. I need to make sure I get somewhere the Agents following me won’t be able to find right away.”

“I can go in civvies,” offered Jason. “I’ve more than a few fake IDs. Might be easier to hide what we’re talking about.”

She hummed in consideration. “I’ll let you know. I have your number after all.”

“That you do. I’ll head your way sooner than later so I’m at least close by when you manage your escape.”

“Very well. Then I suppose I’ll be seeing you soon. Will you both come to Boston or are you going to Tucker first, Red Robin?”

“I’m going to go to Tucker. I need that computer and access to the relevant information. Then we can start to plan. Before Red Hood leaves, I’ll make a few communicators so you can contact us on a secure line. And I’ll give one to Tucker, too. At least then you’ll be able to talk to each other.”

“Thank you.” Jazz’s voice was quiet and filled with emotion. It made Jason’s heart clench. No way was she faking that. But she gathered herself and her voice was strong again when next she spoke. “And Gentlemen?”

“Yeah?” asked Jason.

“If it turns out I was wrong to trust you? Your bodies will never be found. My friends and I have been keeping Amity safe from ghosts and ghost hunters alike for the past three years on our own. We have access to resources you can't even imagine. And if we are no longer held back by the fear of putting both Dannies in more danger, well, we can do a lot of damage."

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Jason. “You can trust us.”

“I hope you’re not lying,” she said before disconnecting the call.

Jason let out a whistle. “I like her.”

Tim huffed a laugh. “Of course you do. You know, this could only happen to us. What are the chances of a wrong number text reaching one of us?”

-----

Far away, in a tower in another dimension, a being smiled. His appearance changed from child to middle aged to elderly and back as he watched the lives of many on the mirrors that covered every surface of his home.

“Just a little longer, my Prince,” he said as the threads of time wove a pattern that glowed just a little bit brighter.

----------

Next

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[jams-sims]

I wrote a whole ass essay for Philza now Im gonna do it for Jaiden. In defense of the lack of content with Jaiden in it (real quick). Being an old goat of fandoms I can explain it (don't worry this won't take long and also it plays into her character's overarching narrative of a grieving mother.) Plain in simple women in Minecraft are notorious for getting shit on by the collective fandom. (Everyone has to take part in making sure that it stops happening.) She is mainly a YouTuber which makes a dissonance between mainly youtube viewers and Twitch watchers. So it's harder to catch her just because you have to go to another site. Also, she doesn't stream as often as everyone else. This makes for a lack of content, just because Jaiden is just a low-key person. This is the recipes for a lack of content BUT that does not excuse people who are being weird to her or think she's in the way of any ships etc etc.

BUT

Narratively speaking all of those things above make for perfect storytelling. (below the cut I go deep into Jaiden character I mean I go DEEP)

Even though Jaiden has the support of the whole island. At the end of the day- she goes back to that same house. Climbs to the very top and she fall asleep on the chair facing the sunset. This means that everyone else has moved on, especially Roier. She is forever stuck in that same place.

I can't be the only one who noticed every single stream, she logs out at the house. BY HERSELF (I think Roier built? Someone corrects me if I'm wrong.) It's so subtle that you wouldn't even notice it at first.

When asked where she was living by Etolies. She doesnt say her and roier house, she doesn't even say where bobby use to live. She specifically says " I am squating in Roier old house". She puts herself on the outskirts of what is further from the truth. Shes not squating in roier house im 100% sure Roier shares everything with her. It is her home too!

Next when it came to the marriage between cellbit and Roier. She was surprised that she was even invite. Its as if as soon as Bobby died all her friendships and relationships died with him. No matter how many people are around her she has this ice wall of isolation and deep lonely-ness.

Her grieiving is less theratical than Charlies its so sudtle that you can miss it. While Roier throw himself into drink and into a relationship. (Which has admitedly worked out in his favor. He gets a husband a new son, a world of love. Something that can lessen the sting of Bobbys death.)

Jaiden on the other hand threw herself into a a impossible task, "protect the eggs." She doesn't know anything about any group or fractions. That is her only wish and the federation saw that and picked her to use. She has nothing everyone else has seemingly moved on of course. They haven't stopped investigating but they death of Bobby mostly everyone has moved on. Besides Jaiden this is her driving force so no one will suffer like she did. (on a side note her and Charlie should team up for lore and to both work for the federations.)

ITS PREFECT! Oh are you greiving has everyone else seemingly moved on? Your friendly neighborhood bear has a book full of instructions. Don't think, I'll guide you.

Before it fell apart the federation was going to secretly use Jaiden and she was going to do everything alone. But because Jaiden can't keep a secret to save her life. This leads to everyone realizing how at risk Jaiden is at being used. They are all with her in an instant. But part of her character is now that she sides with the Fedration and no one sees it yet. While everyone else think they are the bad guy. Her story is shifting because cucurucho is there, because cucurucho is nice to her, because Jaiden is cucurucho favorite.

She is being drawn in whether she knows it or not to be om their side. Think of it this way-

Fit is team: Spy thats off the island

Cellbit and Crew are team: AntiFederation

Jaiden the one that is left alone is the perfect choice to slowly pull her onto the federation side. It's perfect! The self isolation, the want to connect but feeling like she can't. It would be so easy for someone to take advantage of that.

[shock]

This one is definitely my favorite so far in my collage solar system, so I wanted to post it. Hopefully I'll get some nice scans once all the pieces are done, but here's a spotlight on Neptune Side 1, "MEMORY".

The photos on the left are all pictures I took as a kid with film my gammaw got me before she died, and most of them are from the same day we took a walk together. The photos on the right all include her except for one. I can't remember HOW I managed to get ahold of the time they hired a stripper for her birthday, but I've always found that set of photos to be really evocative and I feel like I found the perfect use for them! 🤣

The text reads:

One fine day in 2006, a wild deer wandered into a Target store. When animals are traumatized, we make careful, logical calculations. Which is what the deer did.

After falling down the stairs, skidded around for a half hour, like when Odysseus opened a bag of captive winds, would surrender for a second, then dash from one event to the next. Until out of sheer frustration, I threw a bucket. But it made the deer race right through the window.

"F---ed up beyond all recognition."

If I had known what that maneuver would cost, I would probably have let the deer go.

A couple of days before she died, she took me to the ocean.

My log adds, I had some nice things to eat. I have never seen a being, human or animal, always so full of joy. Talking to her filled me with the power of the sun.

I wanted to hug her, but I didn't. I literally forgot to put my arms around her. We talked again that night on a ship-to-ship radio frequency. You weren't supposed to talk long on that because others might need it.

The next day, she died. I went into the woods, trying to clear my head. I could hear the deer breathing in the darkness. It was weird.

The day after she died, I called and cried. I don't like to yell or scream, but a bad storm brings something out of me. Not until I knew there's be no response did I realize how much pleasure I had taken in calling her. I bellowed up at the approaching storm: All right, you have the power of life and death! Love's no good! I know it! I had so many meetings with different people, I forgot! I'm sorry! So deafen me with your thunder! Go on, then! Scorch up my brains! I defy you! I'll defy you to my last breath!

Who was I defying? God? The deer? The storm? It didn't do any good to make noises of my own.

Sleeping helps. In dreams, I reach out my hand and grab the disease with my fist, drive that f---ed cancer back across an entire wavelength, refuse to contemplate the distant future, have a great talk with her held safely inside my arms.

I think It's worst than a nightmare. It's slow torture, it will drive you crazy, cunningly spooled and folded scenarios spin out in your mind.

Two years ago, I watched tapes of her that only reminded me of how I wanted to hear live people. It took me years to learn how to use them.

It is always interesting to see how situations change and people move from one to the other. Then you walk around a rock, and there it is: names and drawings, graffiti, all of one trade— MEMORIES carved in the rock:

Her life was a gift to me. She'd given me a greater one.

She sounded good.

I got the message. Follow the noise.

Retrace my route between the images of a continuous narrative. I went to the spot where she took her last breath. By then I could hear the deer running through the brush. I called again. This time, with a smile.

It worked. I made contact again.

Of course I knew this time she couldn't come, so my approach changed:

All right, REFLECTIONS can't support life.

That's okay. Keep moving.

GO AHEAD AND FREAK OUT.

Keeping busy helps, too— She lived every moment as though it were her last. It was wonderful.

I love her very much.

Do you want to know a secret?

I transformed into something grown for the pure happiness it brings me.

I feel really good now.

My attention most days is on the here and now.

It's the only real escape there is.

[zoeykallus]

Hi Zoey,

Thank you so much for your head cannons.☺️ Our Queen of Head cannons! Anyway today has been kinda a bad day for me; and since your stories have always cheered me up. Some backstory so you can understand what I’m asking: when I have bad days I have a hard time forcing myself to eat. Would you be willing to write a hc about it. That would be wonderful if you would. Gn character with bad batch and anyone else you would like to write with it.😇🤗 Thank you! Even you don’t write it that’s ok.

Aloha! First off, I have to apologize for taking so long. This request dates back to February 😨

Apart from requests piling up, the time between January and April was hard on me. Sorry! Enough with the excuses, let's get to work...

The Bad Batch x Reader HCs - Take Better Care Of Yourself

Warnings: Suggested Eating Disorder

__________________________

Hunter

As patient as he can be, he doesn't like it when you neglect yourself. Especially when he perceives it repeatedly, he intervenes. "I know you're not feeling very well right now, but you need to keep up your strength". You can argue or whine back and forth all you want, you see Hunter standing in front of you, arms crossed in front of his chest, brows drawn together critically. He won't listen to any excuses. He doesn't want to grumble, and he knows you're not really doing it on purpose, but from his life with his brothers, he only knows the path of severity in situations like this. "Eat at least half, I don't want you to pass out on us here," he finally growls, also making sure you do just that. He takes you aside later, massages your shoulders and talks to you gently, trying to relax you and bring you to other thoughts, hoping that he can drive away the gloomy thoughts and maybe stimulate your appetite again. He will leave no stone unturned to help you.

Echo

He can't take a joke when it comes to food, especially since he puts so much effort into preparing it. And Echo is a fantastic cook. When Wrecker is already reaching for your portion because you're not eating again, Echo slaps him on the wrist. "'Stop that! That's not your plate." "But-" Echo's critical, stern look makes the giant fall silent, pouting. You can't help but feel guilty, Echo has a knack for just looking at you and making you feel guilty about food or generally how well you take care of yourself. However, Echo also knows that he can't force you to do anything and might even make things worse. Instead, he'll prepare a picnic basket filled with all sorts of things you like best and arrange to whisk you away to one of your favorite places together at the earliest opportunity, hoping to stimulate an appetite there. He'll also take you up on that food problem. "How can I help you? What can I do to make you feel better, love?"

Wrecker

At first, he doesn't think much of it. There are rare moments when he loses his appetite, but he has already experienced with his brothers that this can happen. He gladly accepts the extra portion you offer him. But he notices that this pattern repeats itself, and he starts to worry. "You can have my portion too." Wrecker frowns, you see his expression suddenly look worried. "Again? Aren't you hungry?" "Not really," you admit. Wrecker seeks advice from his brothers before discussing the problem with you. He tries everything possible to stimulate your appetite. He gets your favorite snacks, creates a special ambiance, takes you hiking to make you hungry, gives you relaxing massages. Wrecker has no shortage of ideas. Wrecker wants you to be healthy and happy, he makes it his mission to make sure you have everything you need. In this, he is very persistent and lovingly determined.

Tech

The first few times, Tech doesn't say anything, but he notices and makes mental notes. In fact, he keeps a sort of mental log of all your mannerisms and things you do, among other reasons, to better understand you. Finally, you do it again, leave the food, and Tech looks up from his datapad. "You have an eating disorder." Surprised, you look at him. "What?" "Your strange behavior, regarding your food intake, indicates that you have an eating disorder. To be honest, that worries me greatly," he says matter-of-factly, pushing his goggles with his index finger and examining your body with his gaze. He explains to you in gruesome detail how this can affect your health, what diseases and disabilities can be triggered by the lack of certain essential nutrients over time, how they show up, the symptoms, and the less-than-pleasant end results. Tech doesn't hold back on this, even though he sees you squirming. He thinks it's extremely important that you're aware of any consequences. "Perhaps we should consider therapeutic measures before it gets to a point where we may be left with invasive, medical options. Force-feeding, is probably extremely uncomfortable." He may seem very matter of fact and maybe even cruel, but Tech is worried, he is approaching this in such a logical, almost clinical way because that is his way, that doesn't change the fact that underneath the matter of fact facade sits an anxious Tech who is in agony out of fear of seeing you suffer or even losing you. Communicate with him, tell him what is bothering you, what exactly is preventing you from eating. Give him the opportunity to work with you to find a way to address this problem.

Crosshair

He is very attentive and notices your eating behavior immediately. "You're not one of those who stuff themselves with food when no one's looking and then puke it back out, are you?" You look at him in surprise. "What?" Sourly, he says, "I swear, if I catch you doing that then-" Crosshair interrupts himself, he doesn't really know what to threaten you with himself, basically he's just worried and can't really handle it. He's going to ask his brothers and get information elsewhere to find out what he can do. Crosshair wants you to be well, even though it may not seem that way at first. He is not angry at you, but at the helplessness he is pushed into in this situation. It will take a while, but he is adjusting and doing his best to accommodate you helpfully. He will leave no means untouched, whether they are interpersonal, therapeutic, or otherwise medical.

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

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

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@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

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@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@starwarsnerd111

[gamerbunny1996]

Jock Jschlatt x reader

Chapter 2

The next morning came and she saw she had a text from schlatt. Opening her phone she read the message. “Be ready by 7 I'm picking you up” she looked at the time and saw it was 6:46 she jumped out of bed and hurried and got ready for the day. A car honk was heard and y/n looked at the window seeing Schlatt’s car waiting. Y/n picked up her bag and ran out the door. Walking up to the car she opened the door. “Good morning” y/n greeted schlatt. “Morning, you know you're in trouble right” he said, staring her in the eyes. Y/n pit her head down in shame.

“I'm sorry. I really did try” y/n said. Schlatt kept looking ahead at the road. He looked pissed “if you were trying you wouldn't have typed Chicken nuggets are the best” he told her. “It was chicken nuggies are the best” she corrected him” he shot her a glare. Y/n shut up really quick. The rest of the drive was quiet. Once they got to the school the two went right for the library. Sitting down at the table, Schlatt pulled out a laptop and handed it over to y/n. “That's yours I got it for you last night” y/n eyes grew wide “no I can't take that it's to much money”

“And just take it you need it”

She opened it up and it looked so new. Y/n was so excited. Schlatt told her the password to get in. Once all logged in, Schlatt had her start working on her assignment. He was working on his own just waiting for when y/n needed him.

Once the bell rang, the two walked to class together. Schlatt sat back in the back and y/n was in the front. “Alright class you guys can sit anywhere and work on your essay. Just please don't be too loud” mis Carlton said. Schlatt stood up and walked to y/n. He sat down right next to her. “Don't you have friends you want to sit with?” y/n asked. He rolled his eyes at her “well I need to help you don't I that's the whole point of me being here” y/n nodded her head in agreement.

Y/n just looked at the screen getting frustrated cause she didn't know what to write. Schlatt noticed and looked over. “You got at least write something”

“I can't I don't know what to write this whole assignment is stupid”

Y/n throw her hands up in frustration. “I'm not smart for this,” she said.

“You are you just got to try” schlatt pulled the assignment paper out to help look over it so he can try and help y/n out.

“NO”

Y/n walked out of the classroom frustrated on the whole thing. “Y/n get back here you can't leave the classroom without permission” the teacher yelled out to her. “Mis Carlton let me deal with her,” Schlatt told her. “Alright then but be quick I can get in trouble for taking you out of class” Schlatt nodded and ran to catch up to y/n.

He saw her walk into the girls bathroom. Walking fast he walks in. “Y/n” he yelled out. He could hear crying in one of the stalls. Walking up to it he knocked. “Go away” y/n shouted. “I did not come all the way into the girls bathroom just to be pushed away” schlatt sat down in front of the stall. “I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on” he could hear her sniff a little. “I just don't understand it. No matter how many times someone explains it I just don't get it. I hate English and I wish we didn't have to learn it” y/n explain through the sniffles. “Is there anything you do understand in language arts?” he asked. “I love to write. I can write stories but I only know how to write what I want. I can't write argumentative writing. Or how to spell. Or where you should add periods and when sentences are too long I just like to write” y/n opened the stall door with tear stained cheeks. Schlatt pulled her into a hug. “I don't want you to fail because of me, that was so unfair,” he rubbed her back. “I'll find a way so we both pass” he whispered out to her. “Now let's go back before we get into trouble” y/n nodded and they headed out of the girls restroom.

Back at the classroom y/n went to sit at her seat while schlatt went to the teachers desk to talk to her. Y/n watched closely waiting for something good to happen for once in her life. Soon she saw Schlatt nodding his head in agreement then started to walk back over to y/n. Y/n panicked looking at the laptop like she wasn't trying to spy on their conversation. “You're not that smooth I saw you staring” he said sitting in his seat next to her. “So we made an agreement for you. You have to write a 8 page short story about whatever as long as it's school appropriate and you're getting graded on punctuation and spelling still. It will still follow a rubric she is going to whip up real quick” schlatt explains the whole thing soon adding. “You're lucky she can't really do this but she wants you to pass but still put work in so yeah” y/n eyes grew wide in excitement. “And I'll check it all and help fix all mistakes so you can get a good grade on it”

Y/n jumped into schlatts arms “thank you” she whispered out to him. He hugged her back with a small smile. “Of course now get to work so I can help fix it” nodding her head fast she started to write away. Not much longer the bell rang dismissing the class for next period. “Met me by the lunch room for lunch,” Schlatt told y/n. “Yes sir” she said, saluting while starting to walk away. Getting to her next class period math she sat in her seat. Soon a girl walked up to her. “What with you and Johnathan I saw the whole thing happen during last period” the girl slamming her hands down on the desk. “Ummm he…he got forced to help me on my assignment” the girl scoffed “yeah right just so you know Johnathan is mine you hear me only cheerleaders and jocks are meant to be together not retards with jocks.” Soon the teacher walked in making the girl leave to go sit down. This made y/n very upset because she is allowed to talk to anyone plus she's smart maybe. Her thoughts start to run wild. And start to make her sad realizing she isn't actually that smart. She's barely passing math. Failing English extremely. And don't get her started on science passing by a hair with a D-. The only classes she was good at were culinary and drawing. History was kinda okay with a C. Man, maybe the girl was right.

Lunch came and y/n was so hesitant to go meet schlatt in the lunchroom. Maybe she would just lie if he asked where she was. But then again she might die but missing because he can get very pissy about things. So she went even if something bad will happen to her as long as Schlatt wasn't mad at her. Making it there she sees him standing waiting. It wasn't hard to miss him; he was a Giant for only being 17. He saw y/n walking up. “Alright let's get lunch” he said, starting to walk away. “Ummm I think I'll pass today, I'm not that hungry” y/n spoke out. Schlatt raised his eyebrow. “I know for a fact you didn't eat breakfast so you gotta eat something now” he said.”no really I'm okay” he looked her dead in the eyes he could see she was lying. “You're lying, why won't you eat?” he asked. “Man you're too good at reading me fine. I don't have money so I only eat dinner because that's all we can afford alright "Schlatt raised his eyebrow. “I'll just pay”

“NO, please You've already did plenty for me. Plus I need to lose some weight so it just helps” Schlatt grabbed her arm and dragged her to the lunch line, placing her in front of him. He kept his hands on her shoulders so she wanted to leave. “Your eating I've if I have to force it down your throat”

Once they got up to the register Schlatt paid for both meals to y/n dismay. Walking out with their food y/n soon notice the girl from math class staring her down. Feeling scared she hid behind Schlatt following him to a group of people. “What up bitchs” schlatt yelled out to the group. “Sit” he told y/n. Y/n sat down next to him eating her meal quietly until someone said something to her. “The names Ted what's yours” y/n looked over to see a boy with glasses on holding his hand out. “Umm… y/n” she said in a whisper, scared to talk to someone she doesn't know.

“Nice to meet you, welcome to the group” Ted announced. Now the whole group was looking at y/n she started to get super scared so she shoved her face to the closing thing and it so happened to be Schlatt’s arm. “So you have been missing because of your new girlfriend that's low” someone said across from her. Y/n slowly peaked out to see who said that. Some kid who was clearly a freshman said it. Before y/n could say anything about the two not being a couple schlatt bet her on it. “And so what” y/n eyes grew wide when he didn't even correct him about them not dating.

Right when he said that a girl from earlier came up to the group. “Heyyy boys so I was wondering if I could speak to you Johnathan” schlatt looked at her up and down. “No” is all he said to her. She looks pissed now. Y/n slowly backed away accidentally running into Ted. Ted leaned down to y/n ear. “You good” turning her head she sees Ted looking down at her. Whispering to Ted “she kinda was really mean to me earlier” Ted stood up almost making y/n fall “hell no. No one is mean to anyone to the group” y/n was shocked by the way he reacted. Schlatt looked so confused by all this. “What the hell is going on” he asked “this bitch try to threaten our girl and I don't stand with that”

“I just met you, what do you mean our girl” y/n spoke confused. Schlatt stood up fast, now pissed. Getting in the girl's face “what did you say to y/n” the harsh tone he used even scared y/n and it wasn't even detected to her. “You little bitch you said shit you're going to pay” soon schlatt cut her off. “Your not going to do anything you hear me I find out and your life is screwed”

The girl just walked away pissed. And now a very confused y/n. Schlatt sat down and continued eating his lunch. So much has happened today y/n doesn't even know how to react to it all. The group went back to their conversation and y/n just sat eating her lunch not knowing what to say in any of the conversations.

The school day is now over and y/n sat in her spot watching the baseball players practice. They had state games starting on Friday. This was y/n favorite part of the day because she got to see Schlatt in his tight uniform. His pants shaped his ass perfectly. Y/n shake her head, getting that thought out of her head. Schlatt had her take a break from working on the English assignment. So she just sat and watched. She didn't even pull her sketchbook out. Earlier conversation popped up in her head. Why didn't Schlatt defend the fact they're not a couple? It confused her so much. This whole day was so strange. Her thoughts got cut off when she heard her name. Looking up schlatt stood there all sweaty drinking from a water bottle. “Sorry wasn't paying attention what you need” schlatt raised his eyebrow in question at her. “Practice is over dummy”

“Oh then let's go” grabbing her bag the walked to the locker room. She sat out side waiting for him to come out. Soon popping out the started to walk to his car. “You have been off since lunch you okay did that bitch say something again” he asked question. Y/n looked up at him. “No not that just lots going on today”

“Yeah but I can read you like a book your very easy to tell that your lying”

“Well when that boy in your friend group said I was your girlfriend you didn't really defend the fact we're not even dating it just confused me”

“What you don't want to date me” schlatt smirked

“NO. I mean yes. I mean, I'm just going to shut up now”

Laughing he put his arm around her shoulders “it's just easier not to fight Tommy he is a small freshman with to much personality sometimes”

“Oh. That makes sense sorry I shouldn't have even thought about it just shocked me that's all”

“We only just started talking like two days ago so give it time maybe I can take you on a date after a while”

Y/n eyes lit up “really?..... I mean cool”

Schlatt laughed again “let's get you home” he opened the passenger door for her. She got in waiting for him to hop in as well. They drove to y/n place before she got out schlatt stopped her. “I'm picking you up again same time got it. Alright see you tomorrow” y/n waved goodbye and walked to her appointment door. He made sure she got in before driving away.

[tegantales]

Basgiath U chronicles: Part 2 of Lumberjack Garrick

He chops wood. I really need to stop and go to sleep now.

“Hey! It's open,” Garrick stopped short just inside. “Whoa, check it out!”

Imogen pushed at his right side to get by. “Let me in and I'll check it out.”

“Sorry,” Garrick stepped to the side and ushered her in briefly touching the small of her back. Had he always made gestures like that?

The cabin was quaint and well kept. It was a single room, maybe 300 square feet. There was a small kitchenette, a wood stove, a table with 2 chairs, a loveseat, and a bookshelf with a number of books, games and puzzles available. And what looked to be a queen sized bed. How convenient.

Imogen paused just inside the door, she could feel her heart rate pick up as she continued to look at the bed. It was unmande but there was a chest at the foot of it that presumably held linens and pillows. She swallowed and turned her gaze towards Garrick, who was rummaging through the two kitchen cupboards.

“We just had Subway an hour ago, Garrick. What are you looking for?”

“Just looking. I can't not look now that we are in here. And my efforts have been rewarded!” Garrick turned around triumphantly, a tin of Tim Hortons hot chocolate held up like a trophy. His triumphant stance made slightly awkward when he smashed the tin on the ceiling. That made Imogen laugh. Serves him right for being such an idiot. A tall idiot. With an idiotic grin on his face.

Imogen shook her head at him, still laughing. “You're such an idiot. What? You want to actually drink that hot chocolate? How old is it?”

“Who cares. But it can't be that old. Bodhi's uncle comes up at least twice a year,” that's right, it was Bodhi's uncle on his dad's side who owned this place. Garrick opened the tin to look inside. “Besides, we might as well stay, there's a bed and everything. You said you didn't want to drive back.” He looked up from his hot chocolate tin perusal expectantly. Did he think she'd put up a fight?

Imogen made a point of looking at the bed, then back at Garrick, working her jaw as she did so. She shrugged as if it made no difference to her, “I guess so. I'll get water bottles from the car for your hot chocolate. How are we going to heat it?”

The cabin had no running water or electricity. They'd have to heat it in a pot in the wood stove.

“I'll go see if there is any wood for the stove,” Garrick set off around the side of the cabin. Imogen retrieved the water bottles and set them next to a pot and two mugs she found. She heard something that sounded like a crack outside and ran to check on Garrick.

CRACK.

Time stopped. Imogen knew she'd always remember this moment.

Garrick Tavis was chopping wood.

Her mouth went dry, her heart fluttering in her throat as she tried to catch her breath. She'd never pretended not to appreciate Garrick's physique. She knew the effort he expended to maintain his build, shoulders that could carry her with ease, abdominals she could play like a piano. It would be rude of her to not notice. And maybe she'd been noticing a bit more acutely of late.

He had the sleeves of his flannel rolled up to his elbows, showing off his tanned forearms, corded with muscle. He was turned slightly away from her and she chose not to interrupt him. For safety reasons, of course. She swallowed as she watched him wind up the ax and came down again on the log.

CRACK

The wood didn't quite split and the ax stuck, Garrick slammed down twice more on the stump. A few dark curls fell onto his forehead as the log finally split. Imogen licked her lips before pressing them together as he turned towards her to get another log.

“Hard wood?” she asked. Her voice came out rough, lower than normal, and she resisted the urge to clear her throat.

[mlmvoreconfessionals]

Able to do some mass vore and disposal with a willing spiderman pred?

That sounds like a good idea.

He knew he was going to be next. It was supposed to just be a simple robbery, and it had been! They'd gotten the money and were back at their hideout, they should've been safe! But they'd been followed back, and now he's the only one left. He can hear the wet slurps of someone being devoured, followed by a belch that echos throughout the warehouse. That was the last of his partners. And he's going to be next. With nothing else to lose, the man makes a break for the door, hoping to get to the car and drive off before he can be caught. Five men disappeared, after all. Surely that's enough to slow the bastard down! But it wasn't. He feels something sticky hit him in the back and he's being pulled up into the air yelling. He looks up to see S.pider-man on the wall, his engorged gut hanging down low with his partner's bulging it out. And then all he sees is that wide open maw and...GULP! Down he goes. With the last of the robbers gone, S.pider-Man pulls his mask back down over his face. His stomach is stretched tightly, bubbling and churning wetly over the sounds of all their yelling. "I guess the others have started being a bad influence on me..." S.pidey was one of the few heroes that didn't devour people all too often. But between the A.venges and guys like V.enom and D.eadpool...well, it was hard not to start falling into those same habits. On the plus side, he's gotten pretty good at hanging from stuff with so much extra weight in him. Six guys in his gut and he's still hanging onto the wall just fine! Though his stomach is pressed pretty tightly against it and it sounds like it isn't all too pleasant for those guys. Then again, digesting alive in a cramped gut can't be either, and that hasn't stopped S.pidey yet. He presses his gut closer to the wall, letting out a harsh belch as his works on pulverizing his meals. "I know you guys are just a bunch of petty robbers, and you probably don't deserve this, but..." He pushes down again. Something snaps inside of his stomach and he shivers when he feels one of those men start breaking down. "...I seriously can't get enough of this. I'm a busy guy though, so we just need to...speed...this...up...!" Grinding his stomach against the wall and flexing it, S.pider-Man is making short work of all those goons. They scream and yell for a bit, but they all break the same. With enough crunches and cracks, their bodies fall apart in S.pidey's stomach as he wastes them in record time. A few meaty belches are the most they can amount to as the hero's stomach rounds out and shrinks down. S.pider-Man jumps down from the wall, landing on his feet with his round stomach wobbling a bit. A deep fart blows from his ass and...well, he's glad he's got the mask on, or his red face would be exposed. "Guess that's your cue..." He squats down and starts to push. Ever since he started eating like his friends, he'd modified his suit to handle his new diet, so there's no need to take it off as thick logs of crap slide out of his ass and right out of the suit, steadily piling up in a heap under him. He spends about five minutes making a mini-mountain of crap, broken bones decorating the otherwise brown mass. Once he's done, he gives the pile a small salute and heads out the window he used to get inside, taking the stolen goods with him. So long as they're returned, no one will care what happened to the thieves. S.pider-man can at least assure they won't be repeat offenders.

"W-Wait, please, don't eat me! I haven't done anything!" the man begs. He's dangling in the air, stuck in webbing, and just below him is the wide-open maw of S.pider-Man. He's not even the first guy to walk into his trap--the hero's stomach is large, putting his spandex suit to the test as it bulges out with his various meals. "Sorry, no hard feelings," S.pidey says, "but today's been a slow day and someone has to feed me. Being a hero is hungry work, after all!" He lets go of the web he was holding, and the civilian gets out a short scream before plunging straight down into that open maw just like everyone else before him. S.pider-Man didn't even need to gulp--the poor guy dropped straight into that deadly gut. With that settled, S.pider-man scales the wall to get to the webbing he'd made higher up and out of sight so he can lay on it. Hands behind his head, his gut sticking up in the air, he lets out a massive belch and relaxes. Ever since he started eating like a hero, his appetite has been insatiable. He can usually settle it on the various goons that populate the city, but that much eating is bound to lead to more shortages and slow days. But the amount of crime does not change his need for lots of live meat, and S.pider-Man eventually realized he has to start snacking on the people of the city when there's nothing else to eat. He'd honestly had fewer hangups with the idea than he thought he would. Bad guys or good guys, his stomach doesn't seem to care. All it needs is live meat and it's happy. So he's set up these hunting spots around the cities. He finds back alleys that have just enough foot traffic that he can pick off meals for a little while and then sit back and digest it all after. Sure, the random civilians he eats don't really like it, and they aren't exactly going to have a fun time boiling into a thick stew in his stomach, but it's all in the name of protecting the entire city, right? S.pidey needs to eat to keep everyone safe and sometimes that means he has to eat a few citizens to do so. They're at least being sacrificed for the greater good. That's something, right? It's at least a good enough justification for the hero. And besides, the pile of shit he's going to leave in one of the dumpsters back here won't be able to complain about it anyway. He'll melt all these meals down over the course of a couple of hours, dump them out in the garbage, and swing off with no one the wiser. A harsh belch rumbles out of S.pider-Man and he pats his stomach a few times. He can already feel it melting them down...before long, there's just going to be more S.pider-Man, and a few less people he has to protect.

"Urgh...dammit all..." S.pidey feels like there's no end to it! Each time he pinches off a massive log, there's just another one right behind it that he's pushing out! This is definitely his biggest pile to date...biggest meal, too. He'd cleared out some goons working for his villain of the week when D.eadpool called him up and asked for some help. He'd wanted to say no but...couldn't get out of it, and wound up having to devour half of a crime lord's gang thanks to him. He got maybe an hour to digest everything when another villain decided to strike, and S.pidey was stuck eating his hostages. He's still not even sure how he messed that up, but the villain at least seemed to have given up once he ran out of lives to hold over S.pidey's head. After that, though, he ended up being cornered by some fans who did not seem to care about how stuffed his stomach was or how badly he wanted to just go and digest all that meat, so he had to eat them, too to get them out of his way. Then he somehow got stuck dealing with a bunch of prisoners after the cops basically begged him to eat a few...he ate the cops for the trouble, too. By the time he was done, he was basically dragging his gut around, and he was far too heavy to swing away. He's lucky he was able to find a place to hide out and sleep all of it off. It took all night but his body has at least learned what to do with all that meat and pumped it all away by the time he woke up. But that's lead to his current dilemma. He's been shitting for at least half an hour and he still doesn't feel like he's done. Each log is thicker than both of his legs put together and dense, too, packed with bones and clothes from all those guys he ate. He can almost make some of them out, like the ruined cop uniforms and those suits from the crime lord gang. But by now he just wants the whole thing to end! He's left a pile bigger than himself already and it's become annoying. Plus...his stomach is starting to growl. Even dumping the biggest shit of his life and the horrible smell that comes with it hasn't stopped his body from demanding more food. It lets his mind wander to what he plans to eat for the day as he continues pushing out yesterday's feast. He'd just about decided when he felt the last of it finally drop out of him. With a groan, he stands up again and glances over his shoulder. The pile is taller than him at this point, made up of thick logs that a person wouldn't guess a human made, let alone S.pider-Man. All the skeletons sticking out of the crap leaves it pretty morbid...but S.pidey's gut growls again, reminding him he has places to be. So he's quick to swing away, leaving the mass of waste behind. Hopefully, no one minds too much that he did his business in the middle of the park...he's sure the city will get it all cleaned up in no time.

[project-do-over]

Bookwyrm1982 has logged in

Bookwyrm1982: Hi :)

Violet_M00n: Hello again 💜

Bookwyrm1982: what's that?

Violet_M00n: huh?

Bookwyrm1982: after your message there's like an empty box, what does that mean?

Violet_M00n: Oh, sorry, that's an emoji. It's like a little picture you can send, like an emoticon.

Violet_M00n: I think they technically exist already but they're really only in Japan.

Bookwyrm1982: oic

Violet_M00n: so... Did you have any questions for me?

Bookwyrm1982: yeah, lots. Is it okay if I ask them now?

Violet_M00n: of course, fire away!

Bookwyrm1982: OK, well, first of all, how does time work for you?

Violet_M00n: :')

Violet_M00n: I tell you we're a girl now and that's your first question?

Bookwyrm1982: Is that OK?

Violet_M00n: yeah of course, and I really shouldn't have been surprised, but lol!

Violet_M00n: The short answer is, I'm not entirely sure. I just downloaded this app that promised to let you talk to your past self, the actual mechanics are proprietary.

Violet_M00n: To be honest, I just assumed it was going to be an AI I would talk to.

Violet_M00n: But you seem to know things that no AI could know. So I guess I actually am talking to my past self?

Violet_M00n: From what I can gather by googling, it looks like the company was set up in 1985 and has been working on this tech ever since.

It involves quantum entangled particles, and the reason you can only go back as far as 1985 or so is because that's when the "reference block" was first set up.

Bookwyrm1982: oic. I really meant more, is an hour for me an hour for you?

Violet_M00n: Pretty much, except I think the chat client can skip forward when chat is idle.

Violet_M00n: so like, if I log in it will jump ahead to the next time you log on too, even if it's days or even years after the last one, without me having to wait.

Violet_M00n: I think it works the other way around too.

Bookwyrm1982: interesting. The app I'm using is ICQ, is that the same for you?

Violet_M00n: actually it's just one program that links into MSN and AIM and a bunch of other apps too. I just picked ICQ mostly for nostalgia's sake. And because I still remembered my ICQ number heh.

Bookwyrm1982: oic. Interesting.

Violet_M00n: Do you have any other questions? Maybe something about *gestures vaguely at me being a woman now*

Bookwyrm1982: I mean, I do, but... I'm not quite ready yet.

Violet_M00n: that's okay, I understand. It's a lot to take in all at once. We can talk about something else if you want. What do you want to know about the future?

Bookwyrm1982: Do we have flying cars?

Violet_M00n: lol no! You can't trust most drivers in a two dimensional plane, you really want to add altitude to that? Haha!

Violet_M00n: We do have self-driving cars though, at least they're being developed.

Violet_M00n: We live in the Bay Area now so we sometimes see them on test drives, but you can't buy them or anything.

Bookwyrm1982: We live in San Francisco!?

Violet_M00n: Well, South Bay, but yes. We moved here four years ago. Just before the pandemic.

Bookwyrm1982:... There was a pandemic? The future sounds awful.

Violet_M00n: yeah, it could be better. But some things are better. For one, LGBTQ+ people are less discriminated against. Though the fight is still ongoing.

Bookwyrm1982: What's that, like a club?

Violet_M00n: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, etc.

Violet_M00n: What we are, basically.

Bookwyrm1982: I don't think I'm gay...

Violet_M00n: You learn a lot of things about yourself. But most importantly, you learn being gay is okay actually. I fsct, it's pretty dang awesome. You should really think about it.

Violet_M00n: Although by "gay" you'd technically be saying you're into women, which you already know.

Violet_M00n: But men can actually be okay too, you really should give them a try.

Bookwyrm1982: Thanks, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet. And besides, I can't even ask a girl out, could you imagine trying to ask out a guy?

Violet_M00n:... I'm picturing it now. It's adorable.

Bookwyrm1982: *blush*

Bookwyrm1982: Sorry, dinner time again. Can we talk later?

Violet_M00n: I'll be here. Literally any time you want.

Bookwyrm1982: Thanks. Cya!

Violet_M00n: toodles!

[sleepy-hart]

So while working through game concepts and deciding what to work on next, I've been refreshing my Godot skills. Wanting to get back into 3D and prepare for doing more narrative heavy games. Made this demo to learn nathanhoad's excellent Dialogue Manager addon and also test drive Kenney's new Godot platformer kit.

I'm really, really enjoying Dialogue Manager so far and feel it has a tonne of potential. Think it covers a lot of things I've been looking for:

Direct engine integration is super useful, as well as using custom resources to store dialogue. They're also text files so can still use external editor to update

Straightforward syntax, reminds me a lot of ink and yarn. As well it's named node approach feels familiar

Able to access global game variables for conditionals, and having conditional based loops and choices is very straightforward

Also able to call methods directly within dialogue, which is super powerful when combined with signals (showing/hiding coin UI mid conversation, playing sound effect)

Lots of options for random dialogue choices - just used the single line ones for now but in docs have seen they also have option for setting custom probabilities, just ncie to add more flavour

Hyped it has a built in approach for translations (create IDs and reference CSVs) that looks like integrates with Godot's localisation tools - a bit of a future thought but glad it has stuff to help built in

Docs you can mention you can create dialogue resources at runtime. Can imagine this being very useful - an example would be creating a record of all lines seen to replicate Ren-py's "log" feature.

The methods for displaying dialogue are super flexible. At the moment just used their example balloons but looks like it should play nicely to let you build custom GUI - and maybe even multiple forms (e.g. dialogue scenes vs flavour barks in main game world). Think next experiments will focus on this.

There's a few more things I'm keen to learn and see if they're feasible with this - "disabled" choices that still appear but can't be accessed would be nice, also looking at how you can integrate this with an audio system for voice acting - I think they have an example that includes voice acting?

Only thing I'm a bit nervous of is it looks like it can only grab variables from autoload/global scripts, so when putting into actual game will need to take care with save systems and methods for loading choice variables into a choice master global so we aren't keeping too much in memory at once. But if I'm wrong on this assumption, or others have approaches, more than happy to be corrected on this!

Also really enjoying Kenney's 3D platformer kit and it's been fun and . Making the shopkeeper bot was super simple. All the details on the original character model are modelled so just adjusted the face and for changing colours just had to move UV islands for limbs and face to different parts of the pallete textures.

Haven't tried this technique for modelling and texturing before but seen it crop up a few times so will definitely experiment with this in the future. Also might help with optimization - I think most of the materials in the pack refer to this single image texture? By default the pack only has the model glbs and a single colormap png so assuming that's how it's working.

Original plan was to fill in the shop with another pack so there's a few little platform challenges within this, but they all needed collisions adding so might add that in future. But main aim was focusing on the dialogue and think we've got a good approch going forward, and highly recommend the add on for other Godot devs making narrative games!