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qveerthe0ry · 9 months ago

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Lions Ain't the Kind - Part One

Summary: Frankie hasn't dated in years, but now he knows what he's looking for. He's just not so good at asking for what he wants, and you're willing to help him work on it. Word Count: 8,156 Pairing: Frankie Morales x NB/Gender-fluid! AFAB! Reader Rating: 18+ Explicit Warnings: 18+ mdni, subby!Frankie, soft dom! reader, talks about gender non-conformity, sickening fluff, Frankie is way too cute and sweet for his own good, kissing, making out, handjob (m receiving), anal fingering (m receiving), dirty talk, Frankie has a praise kink, no use of y/n, no physical descriptions of reader Beta: @perotovar (my angel ilysm) A/N: Sorry for talking about this for a month straight without posting it lol! The title is from the song (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear by Elvis Presley which I admittedly haven't listened to but I saw the lyrics and knew immediately it was my Frankie. I hope you enjoy, and I'm always open to criticism and thoughts and thots!

Frankie hasn’t dated in years. He hasn’t really had the time, between his first child being born and navigating co-parenting with his ex, along with healing some very deep trauma and getting and staying clean.

It just hasn’t been on his mind, if he’s honest. He’s been busy finding himself, as Pope calls it. And he’s not wrong. It’s taken a long while for him to be comfortable in his own skin, to come to terms with the things he’s done and the baggage he can now store in an overhead bin, rather than carry it around with him at all times.

But now, he’s ready. He knows himself, and as a result, he knows what he’s looking for.

Someone kind-hearted and down to earth. Someone who’s independent and established, but not just looking for a hookup. Someone with a sweet smile and a desire for enjoying the little things in life.

Someone like you.

He’d swiped right and left dozens of times on men and women alike, but as soon as he saw your profile on whatever dating app he’d downloaded, he was hooked.

You were gorgeous. He felt the heat from your smile through his phone screen, so happy and genuine and sweet.

You were funny, the answers to those weird icebreaker questions full of witty remarks.

You were smart, clearly, from your shoutout to your alma matter and the ‘boring’ job you mentioned in your profile.

He honestly figured he had no chance at all. His face is only getting more wrinkly, and his hair more gray, and he’s never been the sharpest or funniest guy in the room.

So when he swiped left and you matched, he was stunned. He was even more shocked when you messaged him before he could even think of what to say to you.

Hi cutie 🥰

Despite the fact that he was home alone on his couch, he had the sudden urge to look behind him, as if you’d be talking to someone else. The back of his neck got so warm, and your boldness only made him more into you.

So he messaged you back

Hi :) how are you?

I’m surprised we matched, honestly. Pleasantly surprised 😊

Same here :) Why the surprise though? I’m sure you match with everyone

Not at all, it’s hard to find people whose type I am on here. I usually use the queer dating apps but I opened this one out of boredom. What are the chances?

What are the chances, indeed, Frankie thinks, as he gives your profile another look over. Frankie doesn’t understand how you aren’t everyone’s type. He feels a little bit like he’s talking to a celebrity, looking at your pictures and just a snippet of who you are on this reductive dating app.

I like the odds :)

——

As your conversation continues normally over the next few days, Frankie learns a lot about you. He also learns a lot about himself.

It’s been so long since he’s played the field, so to speak, that he’s rusty as all hell and a bit awkward. He’s afraid to flirt too much, every message deleted and re-written at the risk of sounding too cheesy or too forward or too much.

You aren’t afraid to flirt. You send ‘good morning, handsome’ and ‘sweet dreams, pretty boy’ texts every day and night. You tell him your day would be better if you could cuddle someone, you tell him when you’re taking a relaxing bath that you wished he were there to join you.

And to say that Frankie likes it is a massive fucking understatement.

He adores it, he thinks about you constantly, all day long while he works without access to his phone, all evening long while he waits on your replies, all night long, when you’ve bid each other goodnight out of nothing but courtesy for each other’s sleep schedules.

You lead him along like a timid puppy on a leash, showing him new things with patience and care and it drives him insane. He wants to meet up with you so bad, or even just call you on the phone to hear your voice. He thinks about it, late at night, if it’s higher or lower in register, if it’s smooth or raspy. He wants to learn everything about you.

That being said, he’s not sure if he’s ever met someone who’s ‘non-binary/gender-fluid’ before. He doesn’t get out much, he hardly talks to anyone who he hasn’t known for years.

So he googles. It doesn’t really help. He understands what it means, but he doesn’t know what it means to you. He wants to ask you a million questions, but is afraid to bring up even one, and ruin the moment, or sound like an idiot.

You’re so kind though. So he bites the bullet.

Can I ask you a question?

Your response comes almost immediately, now that it’s evening time, both finished with dinner— his takeout vs. your leftover spaghetti.

Of course, pretty boy ❤️

He still flushes deep when you call him that, heat spreading all throughout his face and neck and chest.

How did you know you were non-binary/ gender-fluid?

He frets over the text a bunch before he sends it, making sure he worded it the same way you did in your profile. His heart pounds as he waits for your response.

I’ve always just kind of known I didn’t feel like a man or a woman. I used to think everyone felt somewhere in between, and it was just normal to not feel like I checked either box, but then I realized no one else around me felt the way I did. And then I learned all the terms and whatnot, later on, and knew that’s what I am. Just kinda in between, neither and both, sometimes one and sometimes the other. If that makes sense?

His smile splits his cheeks as he reads your in-depth response, eating up every bit of information you’re willing to give him.

That makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for sharing :)

It doesn’t scare you off?

Frankie scoffs, as if anything about you could scare him off. At this point, you could show up on his doorstep with a dead body in a bag, and he’d throw it in his trunk, dispose of it, and then ask if he could maybe kiss you.

Not at all. Nothing about you scares me :)

——

It’s a few more days before Frankie works up the courage to ask for your phone number. You tell him you were wondering when he was going to finally ask for it. It makes him itchy to think about you waiting for him to ask, making him be the one to do it. In a good way. In a way that kind of makes him stiffen up in his briefs if he thinks about it for too long.

But now, as he settles in from a long day at work, his grin splits his face from ear to ear as he reads your text.

Can I take you out tomorrow night?

He likes it… a lot. He feels so fucking new to all this, like a fumbling newborn calf taking its first steps, and how forward you are eases him so thoroughly.

I’d love that :)

Meet me here at 5 for dinner. Casual dress, but I’m sure you’ll be handsome in anything 😘

It’s the longest 22 hours of his life, and it’s the shortest, all at the same time. Texting you, making funny jokes like his bones aren’t about to creep right out from under his skin with all the nerves buzzing his body. Thinking about you, dreaming about you, one right after the other. When he wakes in the morning it’s like he didn’t get a wink of sleep, his anxiety drumming up a million different scenarios of how it could go right and wrong.

Calling Santi mid-morning on a Saturday when he knows he’s spending time with his family, because if he doesn’t talk to someone about this he may just float off into the ether.

“I’m so fucking nervous, Pope, what do I do? How do I act? Can you just stake out at the bar and feed me lines through an earpiece?”

“Pendejo, fucking— grow a pair man. You’re cute and funny, you’ve got this.”

Reading your texts with pupils shaped like hearts:

I can’t wait to see you tonight, cutie ❤️

and

I finally settled on an outfit

and

Is it weird that I’m not even nervous? I’m just excited to finally meet you

It is weird, Frankie thinks, but doesn’t dare tell you. It’s weird how he can’t even eat the plain toast he made for lunch without feeling bile rise in the back of his throat, and you’re just excited. It’s weird how he’s never, ever felt so gone over someone, and you haven’t even met yet.

It’s not weird, it’s sweet :) I’m excited too <3

It’s not a lie, but he’s omitting the truth a bit. He’s excited but he’s nervous, picking meticulously through his closet to find something casual but not too casual, something he likes the look of himself in, something he thinks you’ll like the look of.

It only gets worse as he stares at google maps. The restaurant is 2.6 miles away, 11 minutes from his house. It’s 4:30, and he wants to leave already, but thinks maybe it’s better to deal with the anxiety in the comfort of his home rather than the parking lot, in case you’re there early too, and you can see how much of a fucking wreck he is.

He watches the minutes tick up in the corner of his phone screen. At 4:36, he gets up, fusses in the mirror one last time, and leaves.

When he parks in the lot in front of the bar & grill, you’ve already texted him.

I’m here a little early, got all green lights. Saved us a table near the back. See you soon!

It’s 4:52.

He takes a deep breath through his nose, closes his eyes as he lets it out gently, counting just like his therapist taught him. And again. And one more time, and finally that anxious tingling in his fingertips is muted a bit and his heart rate is only slightly above normal.

4:54.

He pulls the key from the ignition, gets out of the car, and makes his way to the door.

He finds you instantly.

You’re looking at him, and you’re smiling, and getting up from your chair as he approaches you. He barely even hears you greet him with all his blood rushing in his ears.

“Hi, Frankie,” you say, and your arms stretch out to invite him in for a hug.

He melts into your arms, his strained “hi” muffled in the crook of your neck. You squeeze him tight to you, and he hears you chuckle next to his ear.

“Knew you’d be even cuter in person.”

He huffs out a laugh as you release him, and the tips of his ears burn. But you’re smiling so sweetly at him that it eases his nervous bones.

“You look— can I call you handsome?”

Fuck, he thinks, so fucking awkward.

But your grin gets even wider.

“Only if you mean it.”

“I do,” he sighs, “like straight out of the cologne ads I’d rip out of my older sister’s magazines.”

He holds his breath as you react, the flutter of your eyelashes and the quivering of your lips and your laugh, bubbly and bright and soothing.

And he isn’t lying, not even a little. You’re rugged but soft, romantic and alluring, and he can’t take his eyes off you.

Even as you take your seats across from each other, and the waiter comes to take your drink orders, and as your gorgeous eyes flit across the pages of the menu. He can’t stop looking, watching your mouth curve into a smile as you talk about your week and ask him about his.

It’s pathetic, really, when the waiter asks if you’re ready to order, and you ask if he knows what he wants, because he hasn’t taken a single glance at the menu himself. He just hopes to god the dim lighting of the bar hides his flushed face and tells you to order first while he skims the menu.

He ends up ordering exactly what you got, and floundering when your hand finds his on the tabletop. He watches your fingers trace his own from his nails to his knuckles, and flips his palm up for you to rest your hand in his.

“I’m glad you came out with me tonight,” you tell him.

His eyes flicker up from your joined hands to your smiling face, and his nerves completely melt away from the heat of your gaze.

“Thank you for asking me,” he says.

“Would you have asked me, if I hadn’t asked you?”

He bites the inside of his cheek, and there’s a teasing glint in your eyes.

“Eventually,” he nods, “I mean… probably.”

Your eyebrows turn up in question, and he realizes how that sounds, jumping to backtrack.

“Not like that! I just mean— You know… You’re uh… well, I feel like you’re way out of my league. And so maybe I’m a little… intimidated.”

You smile, then, and sigh, and squeeze his hand as you call him a sweet boy. It makes the room feel like it’s a hundred degrees warmer, like Frankie’s clothes are suddenly two sizes too small.

“You aren’t so good at asking for what you want, are you?”

He laughs then, and shakes his head.

“Not really, no.”

“We’ll have to work on that, then.”

He clears his throat, and tugs at his collar with his free hand, breaking his gaze away from your face as you chuckle. He looks to find a waiter, or maybe an HVAC guy that could crank the AC to sub-zero temps for the remainder of the date.

No luck.

The rest of the date goes well. Surprisingly well. Frankie was worried that he’d be so out of practice that he’d freeze up, or say something stupid, or do something stupid, like knock over a drink or get food stuck in his teeth.

But you’re just so easy to talk to, to click with. Of course, you’re the one who facilitates the conversation, asking him about his favorites— movies, TV shows, music, time of year.

But he likes to think that he keeps the ball rolling well enough, is aware enough to remember to ask for some of your favorites— holiday, food, cocktails.

By the time the check comes, he hardly realizes you’ve both had empty plates in front of you for a while, talking and laughing through your meals like you’re just catching up with an old friend.

He protests when you grab the check, because of course he does. You’ve given him this incredible night, your comfortable company, your sweet smiles, and he feels like his offerings pale in comparison.

“I asked you out, Francisco,” you tease him, having just learned his full name a mere 20 minutes ago.

And he can’t really protest anymore, what with the shiver that’s tingling his spine and the goosebumps he tries to hide by gripping the chair underneath him. So he lets you pay, and thanks the waiter, and feels a rush of sadness when they come back with the check to sign. He really doesn’t want this evening to end.

The apprehension falls second to the sensation of your hand on the small of his back, leading him out to the parking lot.

“Where’s your car? I’ll walk you there,” you say, your thumb pressing a soothing circle into the base of his spine.

So he walks to his truck, a little self-conscious about the out-of-dateness of it, and how he didn’t think to run it through a car wash before this. But mostly he’s just nervous about ending this date on a good note.

“This is me,” he says, barely above a whisper, stopping at his driver’s side door.

You smile at him when he turns to you.

“Thanks again for coming out with me. I really did have a great time.”

This makes him smile through the unease, even as your hand drops from the small of his back.

“I did too. Would you uh… wanna hang out again soon?”

Your face lights up, and Frankie wants to capture it in a bottle and take it home with him. Keep it at his bedside to use as a nightlight.

“Are you asking me on a date?”

He chuckles and looks down to his feet like maybe it’ll redirect the flush in his face. You grab his hand, hanging by his side, and luckily you don’t make him speak again because he doesn’t know if he’s even able.

“I’d love to. Really.”

He smiles when he looks back up at you, only briefly, because you drop his hand and take a half step back.

“Call me about it.”

“Wait!”

Your brow arches at him, because you weren’t really going anywhere, but Frankie’s mind is running a thousand miles a second. He thinks back to all the times you’ve goaded him into asking for what he wants, so far, and how it hasn’t bit him in the rear yet.

“Can we— I… Can I kiss you goodnight?”

Your smile softens, and you take that little half-step back closer to him, and he feels all the tension leak from his shoulders.

“Yes, you can. Thank you for asking.”

He huffs, and smiles at you, and you’re reaching out to cup his jaw and grab his hip, and Frankie closes his eyes far too early, but it’s okay, because he feels your body heat and then your lips.

He can’t hold back the hum that rumbles from deep in his chest, or the way that he goes a little boneless in your grasp. He finds your forearm and squeezes it, and your bicep too, anything to ground himself as your lips part and your tongue teases the seam of his lips.

But then you’re pulling back, and it’s over far too quickly, and Frankie is also acutely aware of how tight his jeans feel. His face feels like it could melt right off of his skull.

“Call me soon, Pretty Boy.”

He nods, speechless, and watches you disappear between the cars of the parking lot. On his way home, he’s already fretting over whether or not he should text you tonight, and what kind of date he should plan, and if his breath was okay when you let him kiss you.

——

Frankie is perfect.

You’re still not sure how you found this diamond in the rough that is Tinder. You thank every god you know the name of that you got bored and opened the app on auto-pilot that night.

First of all, he’s so cute. He’s handsome in such a boyish way, with his dimples and unruly curls and patchy beard.

But he’s also so kind, the way he talks to you like it’s a privilege, the way he asks careful and curious questions about you like he truly wants to know the parts of you that are deeper than what’s on the surface.

Every simple text from him makes you smile, the way he always tries to make you laugh or cheer you up when you’re overwhelmed with the demands of life, as you often are.

And meeting him in person solidified everything you thought about him.

He seems like the textbook definition of a golden retriever boyfriend, if you ever get to call him that much. You hope you do.

In fact, it seems like it’s moving quite quickly in that direction when Frankie asks if you’d be down for a movie night. Some blockbuster he missed in theaters is finally streaming, and he thinks you’ll like it.

You don’t tell him that you didn’t miss it in theaters, or that you thought it was just okay.

You do tell him you’d be down to watch it, only if he came to your place, where the walls are thin and your surrounding neighbors all know you and watch out for you. Just in case he’s really good at acting like a sweet, safe guy.

You find yourself giddy as the weekend approaches, daydreaming at work about how the night will turn out. You tell him to come in comfy clothes, because you’ll be damned if you wear jeans in your own home, even for this sweet man. He doesn’t seem to mind one bit, that’s my favorite kind of outfit :) is his cute response.

You get everything ready the day of; your coziest blankets hang off the arms of your sofa, your fridge is stocked with fresh fruits and your pantry with candy and microwave popcorn and chips (I’ll eat whatever you get :) his answer to your questioning of his favorite movie snacks, of course.)

And then you sit around and wait, excited nerves coaxing your body to straighten things up that have been straightened up a million times already. When Frankie texts you his ETA, you park yourself on the couch by the door and stare at it until there’s a knock on it.

You may count to ten before you get up to open it, just to hide how eager you’ve been to see him again.

Your throat does get a little dry when you answer it to find him in a dark blue t-shirt that hugs his arms and light gray joggers that hug… Other things.

“Hi handsome,” you smile, pushing down all the nerves and the less-than-PG thoughts.

“Hi. I um… I brought these. I noticed you ordered them on our uh– well, at the restaurant, and I didn’t want to show up empty handed.”

You watch a flush break out on his face, and his neck, and wonder how far under his collar it actually spreads.

He’s holding up a six pack of your favorite beers, and he’s smiling so shyly, and you have to crowd in closer to him to press a kiss to his heated cheek.

“That’s so thoughtful, thank you.”

He giggles— giggles, Jesus Christ— and you take them from his hand to let him come through the door.

You set the beers in your fridge to let them chill as he kicks off his shoes. You watch him from the kitchen as he takes in your place with his pretty brown eyes.

“It’s really cozy in here,” he tells you as he fiddles with his own hands.

“Snuggle up, get comfy, I’ll bring us some snacks.”

He nods, so obedient, and hovers by the couch before settling on the seat in the middle.

Sly move, you think, and you can’t hide your stupid grin as you gather some snacks.

When you turn off all but one lamp and deposit the junk food on the coffee table, you notice he’s inched himself closer to the arm of the couch, like he was second-guessing himself. That just won’t do, you think, as you settle in right next to him, so close that the length of your body is pressed against his.

He doesn’t look at you, just stares at the Roku City scrolling across your flat screen. For a second you think he might be uncomfortable, but the way his breathing is uneven clues you in on his nerves.

You reach over him to grab the blanket in the arm of the couch, and you feel his muscles tense up when you press against him.

“Frankie?”

“Huh? Sorry, yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head and sighs, heavy and long, before looking at you.

“I’m so nervous.”

He smiles in spite of it, lopsided, dimples so cute that your lips quiver with the urge to kiss them.

You smile back, and drape the blanket over both of you, patting his leg through it.

“Nothing to be nervous about, Francisco.”

It gets a laugh out of him, a huff through his nose, and his shoulders lower the tiniest bit. You slowly reach up to cradle his jaw in your palm, careful not to spook this little baby deer of a man, but his face leans into your touch.

“If it helps, I think it’s really sweet that you’re nervous.”

“Thank you… I think?”

You laugh at him, and watch as your reaction makes his eyes brighten. You want to kiss him. You want to smooch the absolute daylights out of him, but there’s still 3 hours of a pretentious movie to watch, and there will be plenty of time, if he’s amenable.

So you just pinch his cheek before you let go, and try not to look so smug at the heat that consumes his face as you get the movie up and running.

Fifteen or so minutes into the film, Frankie has relaxed into the couch, though he’s stock-still beside you with his arms glued to his own sides. You just want to cuddle, at least. You’ve been thinking about it for weeks— getting his warm, solid but soft body against your own.

You’re certain he won’t be the one to initiate it, but that’s all fine and dandy. You rearrange yourself a bit, and sling an arm over his shoulders. He looks away from the movie towards you, and you give him a smile that must be comforting.

He sinks lower on the couch, and leans against you, his messy curls pressed against your shoulder while his arm drapes over your lap. You think you hear his satisfied hum under the dialogue of the characters, and you let your head rest against his.

This is nice. Frankie’s so warm against you, the most comforting weight all lax against your side. Your hand creeps up from his shoulder to his head, and his hair is so silky when you finally work up the gall to run your fingers through it.

You can feel the way it affects him when he shivers and presses even closer into you. You watch the movie like that for a while, snacks untouched, fingertips stroking his scalp as his soft curls slip through your digits. Every once in a while his head tilts to look up at you, piercing brown, and each time you smile back down and ruffle his hair.

It’s just after the first big conflict of the film when you feel Frankie shift against you. His arm moves in your lap, and you watch his thick fingers grab your thigh over the blanket.

It shocks you how such a simple gesture makes your temperature rise. You hum and let your nails scratch more firmly against his head. You can hear him gasp, and feel him move impossibly closer, like he’s trying to fuse the two of you together. You glance down at him, past the curls you’ve lost yourself in, and his eyes are closed. Further, the curve of his nose and pout of his lips, his chest that’s heaving with his excited breaths, you notice a suspicious tent in the blanket, and you don’t want to assume, but the context clues are all there.

Frankie is hard.

You can’t blame him. You’ve been aroused since you pressed his body against yours, a slow simmering underneath the surface that’s made you feel so comfortably warm and relaxed.

You shift, and you swear you hear a barely-there whine leave his lips. You move just enough so you can press your free hand to his chest. Under your palm, you can feel his heart beating, a pace that’s concerningly higher than appropriate for sitting and watching dialogue in a movie.

His head turns toward you, his hair slipping through the grasp of your knuckles. He looks up at you with those puppy eyes and his pupils are so dilated that it makes you take a deep breath. He turns his body toward you next and there it is the hard line of his cock pressed against the outside of your thigh. You see him shudder at the friction, watch his eyes grow droopy as they flicker down to glance at your lips.

“Can I kiss you again?”

And he asks so sweetly, voice a little hoarse from the silence, that you couldn’t dream of denying him.

“Yes, Frankie.”

His lips tremble until they meet yours, so soft and chaste, a stark contrast to his scruffy beard and mustache. His breath hitches; you can hear it and feel it. His chest shudders under your palm and pushes air out to gust against your cheeks. You feel his prick, too, twitching against your thigh as your tongue peeks out to tease his pouty bottom lip.

He pulls back so much quicker than you want him to, but it’s also such a reward to look at him this close. His lips shiny, his cheeks flushed, his irises completely usurped by his pupils. His mouth hangs open and you can’t help yourself as you slide your hand from his chest to his jaw and pull him into you once again.

A surprised little noise works its way out of his throat, and his hips jerk forward, and then he’s groaning as his cock throbs against the outside of your thigh. The noise makes that feeling in your gut draw deeper, lower, and you make one of your own in response.

His hand rests dutifully still on your thigh, but you can feel his fingers twitching as your taste buds rub against his– a friction that has no right to be as delicious as it is. You want him to feel you up, to touch you all over, to give in to the desire that’s blatantly pressed against you. You want to hear these noises he seems to be holding back, the whimpers that just barely make it past his vocal chords before he cuts them off.

You pull away this time. Pride swells in your chest as you look at what you’ve already done to him. His curls are even messier now that you’ve run your fingers through them over and over. His eyes are all glassy when he looks at you, pouty lips slick and red.

He sits so still, aside from his heaving breaths, like he’s waiting for your command.

“Tell me what you want, Frankie.”

His eyes widen and christ, if they get any wider they’re going to suck you in like a supermassive black hole.

“I– I’m okay, I like this.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. He nods, trying to convince you, as he not-so-subtly pulls his erection free from its trap between his body and your thigh. His eyes cast downward, but you swiftly grab his chin in your hands to bring them back to you.

“Francisco,” you mumble, “ask for what you want.”

He gasps and bites his plush bottom lip, hard enough that there’s little indents when he opens his mouth. He shuts it again, and squirms against you, and finally opens it once more.

“I want you to touch me.”

His request comes out hardly above a whisper, all broken and breathy, and his gaze settles somewhere behind you.

“Is that all?”

He nods quickly, eyes snapping back to you.

“I swear– I just wanna feel your hands on me.”

Your smile widens as his face gets so serious, eyebrows knitting together.

“That’s good, that’s really good,” you mumble.

The shudder that visibly rolls through him is like a shockwave, sending every one of your nerve endings on-edge. You huff, an amazed little breath at this fucking guy in front of you, so responsive and timid and utterly fuckable.

“You like that? Like being good for me?”

He nods again, more apprehensive this time, but he can’t hold back his whine when his hips press against you. The possibilities of all the things you could do to this man stretch far and wide; it’s entirely overwhelming.

“Sweet boy,” you whisper, because he is, “c’mere.”

You pull the blanket off of you both, and Frankie reaches down to adjust himself so it isn’t so obvious, like you haven’t felt his cock twitching against you this entire time. It’s so endearing you think you could cry, but you’re much too turned on for sentiment at the moment. Instead, you guide him to straddle you, hands on his slender hips until his thighs cage your own.

For a moment you just watch as he sits patiently, obediently, waiting for your next words like his cock isn’t leaking a pretty little damp patch into his sweatpants. His chest heaves with every breath, and his tongue licks and bites at his swollen lips, and his eyes stay trained on your mouth in anticipation.

“So pretty,” you whisper.

His long eyelashes flutter at your compliment, and he turns his head to try and hide his reaction, but it doesn’t mask the way his prick twitches under gray fabric. Your hands find his waistband and tease the edge and you delight in the way he shivers.

You need to feel more, so you press your hands under his shirt and hum at what you find. A soft tummy and smooth skin that makes way for a small trail of wiry hairs. It’s all revealed to you a moment later when you hike his shirt higher, reach for pecs that are more solid than you imagined, and the smallest nipples you think you’ve ever had your hands on.

You look back up to his face for permission with a quirked brow, and he nods eagerly, grabbing the back of his collar to shed the material and bare himself and it’s so lovely. There’s so much tan skin, hardly any of it is obstructed by hair, just the errant freckle here or there. And you can’t help it, you have to lean forward and take one of his nipples into your mouth.

He gasps your name, but one of his hands finds the back of your head to keep you in place. You hum around the little nub, so small you have trouble getting your teeth to bite down on it, but you do and then he groans, his hips jerking in your hold on them.

“Is this how you wanted me to touch you?”

You lean your head back to look him in the eyes, to watch a pained expression flit over his face as he tries to come up with an answer he thinks you’ll like.

“I like this too,” he nods, “but I, um… fuck–”

He cuts himself off to hide his face in his hands. He is so cute and so sexy at the same time, it’s making your brain go haywire.

“Tell me, Frankie. Be good for me, Pretty Boy.”

He shifts on top of you as he looks up at your ceiling. You soothe your hands up and down his flanks and wait patiently for him to find the words.

He drops his hand from his face, fists clenching down by his sides, but he finally looks down at you and smiles, shy and sweet, just a hint of that dimple you adore rearing its head.

“Touch my cock? You got me so hard.”

You smile bright at his request, and nod, and press a kiss to his sternum.

“Anything you want,” you mumble, “just gotta ask. Just like that.”

He looks pretty proud of himself. There’s a twinkle in his eyes as you look up at him, and you take a playful bite of his skin and savor the gasp it coaxes out of him.

“Let’s get these off, yeah?”

Your fingers sneak under his waistband and his skin is so hot under there, searing. You only have a few moments to bask in the warmth before he stands up to remove his pants and briefs in one bashful move.

Jesus.

He’s so gorgeous, bare for you, vulnerable, excited. His foreskin is all pulled back, revealing a delicious looking string of pre-cum from his slit. You desperately want to lean forward and taste— but he didn’t ask for that, and you won’t give it to him unless he does.

Stunned a bit silent, you pat your lap, urging him to settle back over it. Much to your delight, he does, quick and obedient. An approving hum bubbles up out of your chest, and he preens as he sits on your thighs.

There’s a very wicked feeling in you as you stare at him, completely naked, while you haven’t shed a single layer of clothing. Control, and trust, and power. It’s overwhelming in a way that makes your lungs feel too inflated for your rib cage, to know you could take advantage of it, and to know you never ever would.

“Good boy,” you whisper, finally, testing those waters.

Frankie’s dick twitches between you two, and you huff and smile and wonder how something so perfect and precious has literally landed right in your lap.

He’s been more than good, and so with one hand you grab his hip to steady him, and the other takes his cock as gentle as ever. A sharp inhale inflates his chest as you stroke the smooth skin, a teasing, feather-light touch that makes his legs tense up in your lap. You watch him disappear and reappear through the loose circle of your hand, watch another clear droplet bead from his slit when you squeeze him tighter.

“Does this feel good?”

He’s watching your hand work when you look back up to his face. He nods, a jerky movement that seems to shake his entire body, and he’s so on-edge. You feel it in the way he shifts his weight on top of you.

“Words, Frankie,” you urge, a soft smile on your face.

“So good.”

You hum, taking in the way his eyes flutter open and closed, the way his adam’s apple pokes out when he leans his head back.

You reward him by speeding up your strokes. You squeeze his hip with your free hand, kneading at the soft flesh there, while you lean forward to press kisses into his virtually hairless chest. His skin is so hot it feels like it could burn you, flushed such a pretty color, just like you knew it would be.

He whines when you gather up more pre cum with your thumb and gently massage it into his frenulum. You look up to find him staring down at you with glassy eyes, bottom lip tucked tight between his teeth.

“Can we kiss more?”

His voice is breathy, and you nod, and a fresh wave of arousal flushed through your system when his lips eagerly meet yours.

It’s sloppier, this time. Noisier, too, as you tighten your grip on his cock and begin to properly work your hand up and down his length. You steal his breath and his noises straight from his lungs, feel every shudder he pushes out when you twist your wrist just right or squeeze tighter.

His hips start to meet your thrusts, rutting into your hand, such a desperate little thing on top of you, all for you. You want to encourage him to take his pleasure from you, and so you slip your hand back from his waist, find the perfectly pert globe of his ass with your palm.

“Haa— shit.”

His words muffle into your kiss as his hips stutter in rhythm and you lean forward to smirk into the bald patch of his beard.

“Yeah?”

A gasp wrecks through his heaving chest as he nods.

“Please, fuck— please.”

You hum into his jaw and squeeze his cock and his ass respectively.

“Please what, Pretty Boy?”

He leans back. You watch him squeeze his eyes shut and shake his head from left to right.

“Tell me what you want, Frankie. Know you can.”

A big gulp of air, and then he opens his eyes to look at you, then blinks them shut again as his head lolls back in his shoulders.

“Touch me there. I— I can’t—”

“Shhh,” you take mercy on him, bringing your hand up from his backside to cradle his jaw in your palm. He tilts his head into your touch and opens his eyes.

“I got you, sweet boy,” you remind him.

He nods in understanding, shifting to kiss the heel of your palm. You let him rest his lips there as he catches his breath, feel them quivering every other upstroke of your hand on his prick.

But as he makes to move, you hold his jaw steady in your hand. His eyes flicker back to your face, and you wonder if you look as wrecked as you feel, if he can tell how beside yourself you really are.

Slowly, so he can pull away if he wants, you trace the pad of your middle finger along the seam of his lips. You’re awestruck at how they instantly fall open for you, greedy, something you’re definitely looking forward to exploring more later.

For now, you watch with hooded eyes as he takes it into his mouth, tongue curling and lapping at it. You briefly wonder if fingers are erogenous zones, beyond turned on at how warm and wet the inside of his mouth feels, how he suckles and releases, bobs his head over and over until you snap out of it.

“Good boy. Fucking perfect,” you sigh.

He gets a cocky little goofy grin on his face at the praise, but his prick twitches against your grasp. You squeeze it for good measure, and more of his pre-cum dribbles over your knuckles.

You lean into him again, and he leans into you, holding each other up. Your mouth finds his pebbled nipple once again as his prick drags across your shirt and saturates it. He hisses at the friction, then gasps when your hand grabs his ass cheek again.

You pull it as best as you can with one hand. It isn’t too difficult with how it fits so perfectly round in your palm. You squeeze it, massage it, note how the littlest hint of peach fuzz feels against your clammy hand. You wonder how it would feel under your tongue, too, how it would taste, how the fatty flesh would feel between your teeth.

His hips stutter forward when your finger, slick with his saliva, strokes the very top of his crack. And you don’t mean to tease too much, but his jerky movements and satisfied sounds when you do are like music to your ears.

Finally you find his hole, fluttering around nothing, so little and tight, all for you.

“Ohmygod.”

Frankie sounds pained, so much so that you look up from nuzzling his chest to watch his face. His brows are drawn tight with how his eyes are squeezed shut, and his mouth is hung open, slick with a little drool around the corners of his lips. Without context, maybe he would look pained, too, but the way his cock throbs and dribbles in your hand paints a completely different picture.

And what a pretty picture he is, gulping for air above you, thrusting his hips back into your finger and forward through your fist, like he’s so out of his mind that he can’t even make it up.

You apply more pressure to his impossibly tight pucker and sink your teeth into his skin at the way he whines for you. You do it again, and again, a patient little rhythm until it relaxes and the very tip of your finger slips into his warmth.

He groans, clenching tight around you.

“Okay, Frankie?”

He laughs, a little puff of air, and you feel it where you’re inside him.

“Gonna make me come,” he chokes.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, don’t— fuck— please don’t stop.”

You hum into his chest, squeeze your hand tighter around his prick as you speed up your strokes. He’s groaning now, deep and low and constant, like he couldn’t hold it back if he tried.

You wiggle your finger against his rim, tugging him open for you, toying with the elastic muscle. He’s so pliable everywhere, opening up to you, happily taking what you give him.

In a stiff moment you think he isn’t into it, because he freezes up and goes silent. You make to slip out of him, but his warmth just drags you in.

And then his cock jumps in your grasp, and his hole clamps around your finger as he gasps your name, and he’s coming.

He shakes with it as he soaks your shirt and drips over your hand. You stroke him through it and marvel at the way he feels in your grasp and around you, violent waves of pleasure that you can sense where you touch him.

You look up to watch him tremble through it and he’s gorgeous. Sweat drips from his messy curls at his temple and paints a glimmer down his neck, all pulled taught as his head hangs back. His chest tastes salty under your tongue where it heaves, you can’t get enough of the flavor, or the wicked beating of his heart under your lips.

And his noises, fucking delicious, wrung-out curses that just keep tumbling from his red lips. His stomach trembles with his shaky breaths, and he sounds so wrecked as the last bit of his orgasm tricked down the back of your hand.

His whispered chants of “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” slow to a stop just as his joints unlock and his muscles relax. You take it as a sign to loosen your grip on his spent cock and carefully slip your finger back out of him. It earns you one last whimper before he sags into you, a boneless little heap in your lap.

You unhand him to hold him against you, wipe your hand on the discarded blanket beside you so you can stroke his back with one hand and his fuzzy little buttcheek with the other.

You tell him how good he was for you, how pretty he is when he comes, how much you loved getting to do that to him.

It takes a while for him to catch his breath, and his huffs tickle that sensitive spot on your neck just below your ear.

“Holy shit,” he sighs.

You nod, because he’s correct. Holy shit, indeed.

His voice is a little hoarse, and you’re conflicted. You want to hold him as long as he’ll let you, but you know you should get him some water and at least a towel.

You shift under him and he whimpers, wraps his arms tighter around your shoulders.

There goes that idea.

You hold him closer, and smirk at the contented sigh that leaves him.

“I think… I think I just imprinted on you.”

It startles a laugh out of you, and he chuckles too, a tiny happy sound against your collar bone. You turn to kiss his heated cheek, and he lets you, before he turns his own head to fuse his lips to yours.

This kiss is lazy, unhurried, and the adrenaline from making him fall apart is slowly making way for more of that sticky-sweet arousal from earlier.

“I wanna make you come,” he mumbles against your lips.

You shake your head, but kiss him some more, as to not give him the wrong idea.

“Another night, Pretty Boy.”

He makes a disappointed sound, but continues to kiss you until you have to part for air. His brow is turned upward in question when you pull away.

“Did I do something wrong?”

You’re shaking your head before he even finishes his question.

“Not a single thing, Frankie. Just wanted to take care of you tonight.”

His shoulders relax at that, but his face is still confused. It’s a cute look on him, with his pouty lips and big brown eyes.

“You’d tell me right? If I made you uncomfortable? You can tell me. I don’t wanna upset you.”

And christ, you feel your heart melting and oozing through your rib cage at how earnest his voice is.

“I promise, I’ll tell you.”

That seems to quell his nerves, as he sinks back into you again with his sweaty curls pressed against your shoulder.

You’re sticky in more ways than one, and Frankie’s only getting heavier in your lap the sleepier he gets, but a giggle bubbles up out of you when you realize you’ve never been more comfortable than you are right now.

Frankie huffs in response, and you press him even tighter against you.

You don’t know where one-and-a-half dates and one sickeningly hot orgasm places the two of you. And maybe it’s greedy to think about with a handsome, sweet man in your arms, but you can’t push down the overwhelming feeling of wanting more.

next part

#x reader #sub! frankie morales #frankie morales x reader #nb reader #gender-fluid reader #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #frankie morales #frankie morales fanfiction #ppcu fanfiction #pedro pascal cinematic universe #frankie morales smut #triple frontier fanfiction

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ashlingiswriting · 1 year ago

Text

for @narcolini

Kitchen, dead. Should've been empty long ago, but you stopped by on your way home to pick up your only functioning phone charger, and you found him here.

There’s a long island of countertop, the closest end perfectly clean and white under overhead light, the opposite end fading into the shadows. Standing in the middle is Luca, leaning on the counter, full weight on both forearms. Fingers interlaced. If you knew him a little less, you'd say he was just finishing prayer or just beginning. His eyes are open, focused on nothing. His phone is on the counter by his elbow, dark, asleep. The whole world asleep. His back one curve, contained and coiled.

You say his name, once, soft but a little louder than you meant to. Blame the booze for that. Another day you might not have said anything at all.

He remains still save for his mouth, which does something so subtle, prelude to twist, and then he turns his head away from you so that all you can see is his hair, gold and darker gold, one clean-shaven slice of neck, blue shirt.

There's no excusing this. You should go. You put down the phone charger at the end of the table, and he doesn't move at the sound. Sculpture, except sculpture can't radiate like this.

You walk towards him, each quiet step too loud, and then you stop. He's on your right. You plant your left hand on the edge of the counter and your right hand on his lower back. It's not a question. The heat of him bleeds through the shirt right away, and his spine cuts through the center of your right palm just like the counter's cold edge does on your left.

Still turned away, he bows his head until you can see, though not hear, the exact moment when his temple hits the cool countertop. His back moves under your hand. One long rise, one long fall. Deep breaths. No shaking. Just deep breaths, one by one.

You listen to them. There is no sense of time, only waiting. He gets acclimated to you slowly, like water seeping through dense dry ground, and then, only then, do you move. It's no attack. You're not doing it to break him. That's somebody else's job.

You press your hand against him a little harder, his spine cuts your hand a little deeper, and your fingertips make individual dimples on his skin. Slow as an ache, you slide your hand up the curve of his back. He's taught you patience and care. That feeling when every part of your body is attuned to every tiny detail, every sense, smell taste hearing sight and touch. There's nothing that needs it more than this. There's a tiny bump on his left shoulder blade that the pad of your middle finger just skims. You keep going. He's shuddering a little on the inhale.

Finally, you reach the nape of his neck. You anchor on the right side, your hand gripping the muscle between neck and shoulder. After a second, he turns his head. It's dead on now, his forehead against the countertop. You don't have to see to know his eyes are closed.

You lean down too. You press your forehead just left of the nape of his neck. The neckline of his shirt nudges back against your nose, and it's warm skin above, a vague ghost of of balsamic reduction in the cotton below.

You say it in another language, and you say it into his shirt. Sure thing, safe. He doesn't understand it, but after a second, he lifts a hand and puts it over yours on the countertop. You thought that would be all, but then he interlaces your hands. You're all over him, but with his fingers sliding tight between yours, it feels like he's all over you.

It drains away on his exhale, until his back is no longer taut underneath you. His breathing begins to ease. You smooth your thumb once over the little knob of bone just behind his ear, and wait. And wait.

#the bear fx #readerfic #luca x reader #the bear imagine #the bear x reader #the bear fanfic #the bear fanfiction #ficlet #mine #oneshot #idk man. this what happens when you're friends with mj

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ivanttakethis · 2 months ago

Text

End of Round 13 - Tov’s Log

Jae (64) vs. Vii (35) - Jae Win

————————————————————

Wren found Tov again that night.

Round 13 had just finished.

64 - 35

Jae won decisively.

Vii was dead.

The guards allowed both classes to mingle during free time in the hour prior to curfew.

Most people chose to stay inside. Tov and a few others ventured out into the fields.

At night, the simulated daytime of the Anakt Garden dome was switched off, allowing those inside to see the true night sky above.

The stars seemed further away somehow, but they were no less beautiful.

It was a perfect night for stargazing.

Tov stayed close to the main buildings, tucked away around back, out of view of anyone passing by.

She knew the spot from childhood. It was a good place if you wanted to be alone for a while.

“There you are!”

At least it was…

Wren sat down in the grass beside her, crossing her legs and mirroring Tov’s position.

“I figured I would find you out here.”

Wren’s tone raised her hackles.

Tov furrowed her brows, turning to look at her, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Wren shrugged, but kept her eyes on the sky, unbothered by the slight edge in Tov’s voice. Her white hair seemed to glow in the moonlight. Even her roots were white.

“You seem to like the stars, and they’re awfully pretty tonight.” She said.

Tov couldn’t argue with that, so she didn’t.

“They are pretty.” She nodded, looking back up at the constellations hanging overhead.

The two were quiet for a moment, before Wren spoke again.

“What was it like performing on stage?”

Tov tried to think back to Round 10, but her mind drew a blank. She couldn’t recall much of anything.

Only fragments of that night remained scattered around the void in her memories.

The stars.

The heartache.

The first line of her song.

The gunshot.

The smell of blood.

The way Nyx hugged her like she was something fragile.

Everything else was gone.

“I don’t remember much.” She said quietly. It almost sounded like a confession. “I wasn’t really thinking about the stage, or the crowd, or the cameras.”

“Then what were you thinking about?” Wren asked, “That emotion in your voice didn’t come out of thin air.”

Tov’s eyes found Tallis’s constellation instinctively.

Was she really about to spill her sorrows to a stranger?

Regardless of how friendly Wren behaved, they didn’t know each other.

But… who else did she have in her life to talk to?

Cassio? No.

Nyx? He had enough on his plate preparing for his upcoming round.

Himei? Tov didn’t know if she would ever talk to her about this; about what she and Tallis said and did.

She’d already been isolated once because of all this grief they found themselves neck deep in.

Tov wasn’t going to add to that, or make things worse. It would just make the situation more confusing.

She briefly closed her eyes and sighed, “Did you watch Round 7?”

Wren nodded in her periphery. “Of course. I watch every round.”

How can you stomach it all?

Tov didn’t ask that thought aloud.

“The contestant that lost…”

“Tallis?”

She almost winced at the sound of his name. The wound was still too raw.

“Yeah… him.” Tov swallowed around the growing lump in her throat. “He… he meant a lot to me.”

Andromedas, why is this so painful?

“He was a friend of yours?”

She shook her head immediately, “No.”

The word “friend” was far too reductive to encompass everything that Tallis meant to Tov.

But how else could she describe their relationship?

Even with her face placidly neutral, Wren still managed to sense Tov’s internal frustration.

“Ah, more than a friend.” She mused. “Did you love him?”

“I did— I do.” Tov amended. Nyx’s words came back to her then.

“Just because he's gone doesn't mean he doesn't still love you.”

Guess that meant she didn’t have to stop loving him either.

“When I was singing, I was thinking about him.”

“I see.”

This time, the ensuing silence bordered on comfortable. Tov’s chest felt a bit lighter too. Maybe talking about it isn’t so bad.

“You named a star after him.” Wren said it like a statement, not a question. It startled Tov.

“How did you—” Her eyes snapped to the odd grey gaze staring back at her, expectant but already knowing.

“You keep looking at the same spot in the sky.” Wren explained. “You kept looking up at the stars when you performed too.”

Tov felt strangely exposed, like Wren could see through her skin and straight into her soul.

It was different from the way Tallis looked at her, though. But she couldn’t put a finger on why.

“It’s a constellation.” She conceded, finally.

Wren smiled a little, almost giddy, “Ooh which is it? Wait, wait, wait— let me guess!” She scanned the stars intently and her brow furrowed in concentration.

It made her look much younger than she probably was.

How old is Wren anyway?

She pointed upwards with one eye closed for accuracy, “Is it that one there? The one shaped like a cresting wave?”

“No, that one’s for Azure.” Tov said.

“That guy from Round 1? With the sea green eyes?”

Something about Wren’s description of Azure made Tov huff out a chuckle.

“That’s him,” She nodded. “The song he performed was called Nouvelle Vague, ‘new wave’. I thought it was fitting to name a wave shaped constellation after him.”

“It fits him well.” Wren nodded, then pointed to another constellation nearby, “What about the one that looks kind of like a thought bubble?”

“That’s Moran’s.” Tov said.

“Ah, the redhead from Round 2!”

“Yes, she was a good friend of mine. A great friend, really. She taught me a lot about philosophy; always thinking.”

Tov took over from there, pointing out each constellation she’d named after those she cared for.

Stasya. Minori. Flor. Even Min.

Min protected Himei when she didn’t have to. She was the only reason her closest friend was still alive.

For that alone, Tov cared about Min too.

“That one,” She said finally, pointing to the cluster of constellations in the shape of a harp, “That one is for Tallis.”

“I believe in you.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

For once, Wren quieted first.

Tov felt her eyes on her, but she didn’t break the silence; content to simply look at stars.

It still hurt. But it was better than the numbness from before.

“You know…” Wren started, “You look at everyone else’s constellations the same way you look at Tallis’s.”

Really?

“Really.” Wren said.

She paused for a moment. Then two.

“If you ask me, it seems like you loved all of them.” Wren murmured.

At that moment, something in Tov’s heart clicked into place. A gentle warmth unfurled inside her rib cage.

Oh.

Maybe… maybe I do…

The realization brought tears to Tov’s eyes. Her heart ached in a new, novel way.

Bittersweet. Melancholy.

It made her laugh for some reason. She hadn’t laughed in a long time.

As she stared up at the celestial memorials of everyone she’d lost, Tov found herself smiling ever so slightly.

What a terrible time to realize it was all love.

————————————————————

We love sisterly bonding, even if one of them doesn’t know it yet 😌

Plus a little feelings realization and healing, as a treat!

Tov has a lot of love for others, even if she doesn’t think she does. Only now is she beginning to realize how deeply her relationships have affected her as a person.

Tov’s current thoughts about Wren are like: “this girl is kinda weirdly friendly, and there’s something odd about her aura, but I would rather die than talk to anyone else in my life about my problems, so I will continue to trauma dump on her since she’s cool with it”

My girl probably needs a therapist, but we don’t have time for that lmao

Next up: End of Round 16!!

Jae belongs to @kofeedoggo.

Min and Vii belong to @starry-skiez.

Nyx belongs to @rockwgooglyeyes.

Tallis and Himei belong to @lookatmysillies.

Azure belongs to @azureitri.

Moran belongs to @geospiral.

Stasya belongs to @billwasnot.

Minori belongs to @minori-dash.

Flor belongs to @sotogalmo.

#alien stage #alnst #alien stage oc #alnst oc #alnst oc: tov #alnst oc: wren #alnst oc: tallis #tovallis #alien stage fan season #alnst fan season #alien stage season 39 #alnst season 39 #alien stage season 40 #alnst season 40 #tw blood mention #tw gun mention #tov’s log

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goldkirk · 1 year ago

Note

OKAY WAIT i saw your analysis on the loop earplugs!!! i've been needing something like this! i think i'm going to get a pair of Engage plus, and would need them for when i'm out and about. what was the experience like wearing them: -in a public place? (grocery store community park) -listening to music (was it out loud?? were you wearing headphones (that one kinda stumped me lol) ) -in a quiet conversation? -in a loud conversation? when i get these, they're mostly to help me sleep/go out in places where i usually get overstimulated for long periods of time. once again, thanks so much for this! <3

MY FRIEND YOU ARE IN LUCK, just last week I got the Experience ones and some Loop Mutes to use with them (and my Engage ones), so I actually can give some useful info.

If we use a scale where 0 is no sound reduction at all, and 10 is the maximum you can get, I'd say the Engage is a 4/10, the Experience are a 5-6/10, and the Quiet are a 7-9/10 (depending on your environment).

The Engage are definitely better for hearing people in conversation, and definitely reduce the occlusion effect where you hear your voice/chewing/walking loudly somewhat (it's still there plenty, though!). They turn down the sounds around you but still make you feel like you're hearing all the things you need to hear for safety and for conversation.

The Experience are very like the Engage, but it's not as easy to hear conversation. Music sounds significantly better through the Experience compared to the Engage, but I can't put my finger on why. They seem to lower maybe a little more sound than the Engage. I haven't worn them next to something like a busy road yet, so I can't say for sure.

The Quiets are soooooooo nice for sleeping and significant focus, but the occlusion is definitely worse. These don't have any kind of accoustic filter, they're just solid silicone. They're very soft and comfortable. I would not feel safe navigating in public with these most of the time, whereas I would with the Engage or Experience.

The Loop Mute (which the Experience Pro and the Engage Pro both come with) definitely increases the sound lowering when you pop it into the Loops. It takes the sound much closer to the Loop Quiet level than the Engage and Experience normally are, although they're still going to let in sound a bit more than the Quiet. It's really handy to be able to pop in a bit of extra sound reduction--I like using it when I need to focus or when I'm mentally starting the 1-2 hour wind down for the night, but I'm not ready to put the Quiet earplugs in yet and go to bed.

In loud conversation, I found it doable with the Experience, and pretty easy with the Engage. In quiet conversation, the Engage made me a lot more likely to hear the other person clearly, but there were a few moments where I still struggled--not badly though. The Experience make it harder to hear quiet conversation.

Music-wise, things definitely sound cleaner/crisper/clearer through the Experience, but still sound acceptable through the Engage. The Quiets are obviously like listening with earplugs in, so the sounds are muffled and not as clear. I listened to music out loud via a speaker and it was fine, and live today in the city and it was fine, and I put on my over-the-ear headphones and listened, and it comes through fine too, although you have to put the volume up pretty high.

Using them in public--definitely they help a lot. It's not like they muffle the sound around you (the Quiets do, but I mean the Engage and Experience), it's that they just turn it down and somewhat filter it so it's much more in order of importance. When I popped in the Engage earplugs in the grocery store, the overhead music and background clatter went down to very low awareness levels, and the shrillness of a kid's voice several aisles over was still clear but somehow less grating? And I could hear everything I needed to hear but only what was more relevant. When I'm on the sidewalk, I hear the cars and people and other noises, but the overall background NOISE is way reduced. It's much easier to think my thoughts and be in my head with my attention not being pulled around by all the sounds all the time. (It's also helped my PTSD hypervigilance and reactivity too because of that.)

If you're a front or side sleeper, you won't be comfortable in the Engage or Experience ones at night. The Quiet ones that are soft silicone are more comfortable.

Hope this is helpful! If you have more specific questions let me know, I'm happy to answer. :)

EDIT:

Got frustrated trying to find a discount code for more than 3% so I signed up for their Loop Community thing and got a referral link for 15% off if any of you want it. Since it’s a link and not a coupon code it shouldn’t expire.

For transparency purposes:

#loop earplugs #loopearplugs #loop experience #loop engage #loop quiet #katie answers asks #anonymous

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yandere-to-express · 1 year ago

Text

The wrong cranium

Gender neutral

Part 4

"He won't eat pickles," the harried mother said, one hand carrying a baby and the other feeding french fries to the bigger child, one by one, the grease coating all five fingers, bringing a dull, worn shine to the wrinkling skin, the blood-red lacquered nails. Her claws embedded into the crispy yellow sticks, she carried the great haul en-mass into the maw of the child, which opened languorously to accept the filial offering.

You could not avert your gaze from the repulsive sight. Your hands, which are holding a palm-sized notepad and a cheap dollar store pen, had gone stiff, shaking, holding back violent urges you had never felt before.

"I understand," you murmur robotically, letting yourself cling to the walls of your skin. Your hand writes down something. "I will bring a replacement."

"Wonderful," the mother praises. "What a good employee. Did you hear that, Tom? Don't cry anymore."

The child's eyes are hazy, his face slack except for the mouth. Tear tracks are lining his cheeks, but they have already gone dry and salty. You note, with a shiver going through you, that there is mucus leaking out of his nostrils, which means there will be used napkins left on the table. Please, put it in the plate. Put it in the plate. Put it in the plate, with the other messes.

"Sure thing," you talk aloud, not addressing anyone.

Absentminded, you make your way back to the kitchen. The line cook, Hannah, takes one look at you and grabs your notepad, skimming the orders and doing her work without a word of complaint or a whisper of friendliness. The notepad is stuffed back in your hands, and you're left to stand alone on the door threshold. The skin all over you has pebbled in aggression, the feeling astringent against your psyche.

You un-tense your shoulders, swallowing it down. How long has it been? All day, all you could do was watch the outside wistfully, tracking the shades of blue behind clouds drifting in and out. Darker and deeper it went, but never dark enough, never changing hue to the lovely orange that awaited the end of day. Your uniform has grown damp and saggy around your figure too. As a sweat drop drips down your temple, you notice the rigid curve of your spine, vertebrae packed tightly together.

No wonder. You feel smaller. The work has worn you down in more ways than one. You look down at your hands— and see your wrist bones, jutting out. Your veins are swollen under your skin, and when you turn them over, you can watch the visible proof of your pulse, desperate with each pump, blue and green intertwined.

Thump.

You trace it down your inner arm, dipping into your elbow. It jumps inside your bicep, like the whimper of a wound.

Thump.

Inside your neck, it climbs to your skull. You tilt your head back, unblinking, staring at the tiled ceiling and the sharp fluorescent light overhead, staring back at you. Dark flowers bloom in your vision.

…Thump.

Your neck cracks, bringing relief. You inhale, but the process is chopped. It clings to your throat before surrendering, disappearing into your lungs; you feel its function distinctly with every motion. Your chest rises almost exaggeratedly, and caves in with equal fanfare through every breath. Mechanical. A step in the algorithm.

It's a slow coming realization, impeded by exhaustion: there's no instinct to your body. It moves, it acts, but it doesn't know. It obeys you. But it doesn't obey as it has done for the past decades you've had it. It obeys because it's yours, because you know it should do certain processes in the background of your daily life. It's pure, unknowing, a blank slate of renewal and reduction both.

"It's not empty," you whisper. "I'm not empty. I'm okay."

A clatter draws your attention away. In the other room, TK is helping Hannah prepare orders, which reminds you of the hours and hours left of your shift. You hurry over to help them and deliver the dishes to their respective buyers, taking payments and receiving new orders. Cleaning abandoned tables.

In one, you stop in your tracks.

The slimy napkin you dreaded to death is sitting alone in the middle of the table. You can feel the disgusting paws of the sullen child all over it, soaked into the very air it is surrounded by.

Utilizing a second napkin, you pick it up. Drop it in the plate. Done, you tell yourself, wishing away the trembling. It's over.

You go back to the kitchen. You carry perhaps a dozen plates in one weak hand, though it doesn't quiver— it doesn't have the energy to. They're put beside the sink, just like every other dish that's passed into your hands. Without hesitation (but with a certain resignation) you start washing. Rinse, soap up, scrub, rinse. Metal wool, sometimes. Extra soap for grease. Twist furiously inside the mouths of cups, then let the frothing tap water outpour down the rims, bathing your hands dull beige.

As the water keeps running, you look at the vortex above the drain and exhale.

Chest caves in, rises back up.

It's dark inside. You can see the hint of dark, murky green, laden with moss or something worse that you cannot imagine, but you don't look away.

It's so… unending. You visualize a round, wide-open mouth in its place, and think of the amount gulped down its gullet. You cannot calculate it (too tired, too uninterested) but it makes you freeze and stare a little more intently. How parched, how hungry would you need to be, to consume so wholeheartedly?

You move the cup aside to see it more clearly. The drain keeps working, and the water keeps going, and the smell of wet metal wafts over to you. The vortex, over time, loses its color, then its lines…

Then its sound.

The drain is dark and quiet. There's no telling what lies inside it, but you know. You don't need to see to know, bu̟t̰ ̫y͙o͍̼u̻̪ ̠g̤a͎z̡e into its dept̶h̸s̶,̷ ̴d̸o̶w̵n̷,̴ ̵d̶o̷w̴n̶ ̵t̶h̴e̷ ̷p̶i̵p̴e̴,̸ ̶a̶n̸d̸ ̷s̵q̴u̸i̷s̴h̶̢͍e̶͚ḑ̸ ̷̳i̸̭̱n̴̦͍s̸̫̞i̵͚̠d̶̢ę̷ͅ ̴̣t̵̗̰h̶͔ę̸ ̸̩ț̷̘i̷̩g̷̪͉h̷͎t̵͎ ̶̖t̶͚̣u̴̢n̶̻ͅn̴͓e̵͖l̷̠̬s̷̢ ̶͜a̶̟ṋ̸̪d̴̘͓ ̷̖l̶̖̼a̴̺b̴͈̖y̷̥͙r̷̮̙i̶̙̼n̵̬̦t̵͉h̶̻̞i̶̫ṇ̴̱e̴̫ ̵͎̻n̶̮ḛ̸t̷̗̣w̸̠o̴͓r̷͓k̷͇ ̷̼̩o̵̢ͅf̴͇͜ ̸̡n̶͉o̴̡̞t̶̢̖h̵̥̝i̵̗n̸͍g̵̣̹n̸̫e̸͈͇s̴̯s̶̟̲,̴̼ ̶̲y̶̥o̴͉̫u̷̖̼ ̸͚f̶̖̩e̴ͅe̵̠̜l̷̤̹ ̴̰i̵̯t̵̮ ̴̧͎p̵̱u̴͉l̵͎̥s̴̨͍̖͉̤i̸̞̞ͅn̵̞̤g̸̖̘,̴̪̱̭̝ ̴͖c̶̮͔͕͜o̴̘̰̳̖n̸͔s̵̺̳t̷̗̩r̷̲̭̖͜i̵̩̜̯c̴̡̡̣̪ͅt̴̡͍͇ͅį̵̹͓̙n̶͇̼͎g̴̤̥̠̬.̸͚̘͎̤̼ ̸͖̦͔̗D̵̨̡̼̳r̷͕̗̣͖̜a̵̜̼g̶͙͍̫̤g̴̠̣̲ͅi̶̤̯̝̭͜n̵̨̬̠g̷̨̢͈͔̭ ̵̹̬̩̤̮d̵̡͍̺ͅͅȩ̷̳̣e̷̡̞̩p̴̝̲̳̪e̸̡̳r̴̖̯ͅ,̵̫̘̤̩ ̴̙̞͖̣̝f̶̢̡̼̼͇e̵̙͕̝̤e̷̗͈͕͍ḑ̶̜̭̝̮i̷̼͉̜̪ṉ̵͚ģ̶͍̼ ̴̱̟͙o̴̫n̵͚͉ ̸̡̦͉y̷̯o̶̢͕̣̲u̶̟͓—̷̢

01101000 01110101 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110100 01100001 01101001 01101110 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100110 01101001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01100101 01110011

||SAVE//:01100110 01100101 01100001 01110010||

You stumble back with a desperate, raspy inhale, your chest rising and stuttering in motion. Curled inward, you watch the running sink, the shards of a broken cup crunching beneath your feet.

Some animals eat their prey whole, don't they?

You shudder, sinking to your knees, uncaring for the shattered ceramic. The sharpness sinks into your skin, but doesn't break. Like how play-dough cannot be hurt, because it's not meant to be. You repeatedly and rapidly attempt to restart your breathing process, but something is not responding. The respiratory structures and organs below your neck aren't working.

There's no air. Why are you so calm?

You try to wheeze for a breath. It doesn't work. If anything, it's complicating your work. You try harder. It resists harder. You cannot breathe, you cannot breathe— you drag your hands along the floor where you're lying on your knees, thinking you could crawl away to safety.

"Hey."

You hear a voice, saying your name. It puts a new knot in your throat.

"Are you there? I heard—"

The door opens to let in TK, their eyes searching and worried. When they spot you, they are quick to run to your side.

"Oh my God," they whisper, horrified. Their hands hover for a moment, snapping left and right like they can't decide what to do, and then settle behind you, clutching your shoulder and rubbing your back. "Hey—" Your name, spilling so easily out of their lips. "Come on, calm down, it's okay. You're okay. I— Follow my breathing, okay?"

You stare at them with dead eyes, and unwilling flesh. Nevertheless, they narrow their eyes determination, and begin making their chest move. It rises, rib cage flaring, diaphragm flattening, blood rushing, and you try to follow the rhythm.

A wheeze of air passes through.

"That's it," TK encourages, voice alike a sob, as if mirroring your utter anguish. "The muscles tighten, air comes in… And they soften, air goes out."

Their chest falls back, pulse calming down. You can hear it moving inside them, the friction of bone and ligaments, and the relief of air, blooming into blood.

Your lungs let go. Air passes through, out, and when you breathe next, it goes in as it's supposed to, without error or stubbornness.

TK relaxes. "Yeah. Just like that. You're a natural, aren't you? Passed with flying colors." There's a placid, but worn lull in the atmosphere. "Are you okay?"

Are you ever? You manage a small nod, not trusting your voice— to not crackle or to not burst into wails, no idea which. You've never felt such a wild, discomfiting mix of emotions before; things that have no right lingering close had suddenly tangled together, all without your consciousness noticing.

You imagined that this is how a newborn baby, just out of the womb, would feel. Overwhelmed. Frightened. Lonely, yet not. Out of control, but simultaneously in control for the first time of its existence.

You settled on 'overwhelmed.'

"Good," TK replied, rubbing your back a bit more. "Wait, let me get you some water—"

They stood up to get it, carefully side-stepping the ceramic shards. You should probably ask them not to, but you couldn't even muster the strength to lift your head, so you couldn't protest when TK held the cup tilted for you, matching the flow to the speed of your gulps.

"Dehydration worsens everything," they said. "I remember my mom nagging me about it. She never let me leave the house without drinking a tall glass of water, and the habit stuck. Once I got into college and had my first taste of freedom, I decided I'd cut myself some slack and relax on routine."

"Didn't work?"

TK snorted. "Nope."

They took the cup and washed it at the sink. You remembered that your job won't wait for you, and the customers won't either, so you attempt to stand up… only to flinch away at the sound of clattering shards, falling from your limbs.

TK turns to look at you, but you can only stare at the debris and your unscathed arms. The fragments aren't safe— their edges are sharp, glinting like chef's knives spread out before stove fire, but despite this, as you turn your forearms over and back, you can only see unmarred flesh, without any scarring visible.

What the fuck happened to me, you think.

You were fine this morning. There was no complicated existence to panic about. While you sat beside Peter and talked about nothing, everything felt as pleasant as can be. And here you were now, frozen in fear. Unable to finish even one waiter shift because you were too busy stressing about a defective body.

"Hey," TK calls out to you, "I think you should clock out now."

"Huh?" You can't. The shift's not over yet. And in the game, wasn't today exceptionally busy? You couldn't leave TK to handle it alone— well, technically you could, but you'd feel guilty. You don't want to get used to someone picking up the slack for you, because there was a very real chance that you'd snowball down that rabbit hole.

"Thanks, TK, but I don't wanna push my luck today," you said, kneeling down, and started to collect the shards by the handful. If they didn't hurt you, why not use it to your advantage?

"Jesus— don't just scoop them up! Use a broom at least, what if you get hurt?"

"It's fine, they aren't sharp."

TK didn't seem convinced, but let you clean the mess anyway, taking over dish washing duty instead. You were grateful for that. You didn't know what looking at the drain again would do, and you intended to avoid that fate for as long as you could. Collecting all the fragments on your apron, you dropped them into the trash bin and swept the remaining dust off, rushing out to collect orders and clean tables.

All day, you slaved away in the restaurant; cleaning, serving, dealing with idiots. While you worked, you did your best to hold yourself together, to keep your pieces in one place until the time when you could fall apart, a shattered body all over the couch.

Your lifeline, as it were, was the promise of a nice night out. As you mopped the floor tiles, tidied tables, and topped up coffees along the counter row, your mind went out to the fantasy of a quiet, chilly night, the smell of earth and grass under an empty space. Maybe after the date, Peter could take you to the park? You resolved to ask him about it… once he came back.

You checked the hour: four thirty. Fifteen minutes left until your shift ends. When was he going to arrive? At the very end? That would be incredibly suspicious, and for his sake, you prayed to a higher power that he'd refrain. You didn't mind, per se, but you were the type to just blurt things out without care for propriety, and the more obvious Peter got, the more effort required to keep your fucking mouth shut and not give it away.

Sighing, you threw away an abandoned receipt into the trashcan below the register, and wondered whether it was worth it to keep quiet. He'd catch on eventually, and you'd have to talk.

That's what's scaring you, isn't it?

"Alright," came TK's voice, "out with it. What's up?"

"What's up… with me?"

"Yeah." Obviously, was what followed naturally, but you had learnt that TK had a modicum of tact, so of course they would leave it out. "You've been working here for weeks now, but never have I ever seen you sigh in all our time together— not even when the boss threatened to sack us without severance pay."

Okay, scary. Original Y/N was double scary. Props to whoever they were. "It's… kinda complicated, and I don't think I can explain it without sounding like a maniac."

They grinned. "A dash of intrigue? No prob. Just know that you can tell me any time, any day, alright?"

You seriously didn't deserve this person's kindness. You just didn't. This was such a fact that it didn't even make your heart twinge. When it all crashed down and your life was in shambles, you would have to send them some sort of consolation gift, to thank them for their care.

"Thanks, TK. I wish I could tell you."

"Glad to hear that. By the way, could you check in with Hannah? I think she needs a line chef in the kitchen— I'll handle the customers."

They glance out the window panes, squinting behind their glasses. "Oh, geez. Guess who's knocking on our door? The evening rush."

You turn to look, only to freeze at the sight of a familiar silhouette, barely visible behind the reflection. Same height, same shirt, same gangly limbs, and when you shifted for a better view, you were able to glimpse the face under the hood: a pair of wide-open, bright blue eyes, and a smile curving horrifically.

Yup. That's him.

"Is it me, or… is that guy looking in?" TK asked, discomfited.

"Lookin' in, sorry. That's, uh, my boyfriend."

"Your—" Their head span around in a perfect hundred-eighty degree to goggle at you. "Your— what? This guy? Your—"

They looked back, as though checking whether or not they were hallucinating the creep factor, but no, TK, you thought, that's one-hundred percent natural. All bio creep. No preservatives or artificial coloring added, honest-to-god, bona-fide creep. I'm so fucking sorry to subject you to this.

"Your boyfriend," they said.

"Yeah."

"Just so we're clear, it's not the eighty-year-old man leaning on the cane, but the two-meter tree branch with fangs, right?"

"You're absolutely correct."

TK stared at you speechlessly, mouth moving without words, and you let your vision zoom out into distant lands, resolutely watching the yellow leak stain on the ceiling. Please, end the conversation. Right now.

"You know what," TK said at last. "This is not my problem… If he turns out to be a serial killer, let me know and I'll call the police for you."

"TK, please stop talking. I'm dying."

"You will once he drags you into an alleyway."

You know what they say: first impressions last forever. In Peter's case, it seems he's ardently devoted to push this rule to its worst potential, constantly disturbing the peace in hopes on garnering even the slightest bit of distrust. Why was he watching you creepily at the diner when he could just hang out by your apartment window? That was perfectly private! This is public!

You caught his gaze through the glass, and waved at him. Despite his eerie appearance, Peter broke into an angelic smile, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, and waved back. Seeing as you were paying attention, he began mouthing words: Hello. Something that looked like 'darling'. I'm here, followed by a pointed finger at his feet. Then, lifting his wrist and putting his index finger on it, miming a wristwatch. Okay?

Ah, was he trying to hurry you up? Was that a guilt-trip thing, or just an innocent 'Is your shift over?' You'll never know because you'll never ask, and even if you asked, he'd obviously answer with the latter just to gain brownie points. This wasn't the right time to be honest yet. For neither of you.

Before you could get tangled up in unnecessary thoughts, you sent him a thumbs-up and went back into the kitchens. Hannah did need help— there were simply too many orders at once, and Stephan just wasn't good enough of a multi-tasker to handle the extra load. You helped until the workload went back to normal, then clocked out, waving bye to TK as you went back to the entrance.

While you were gone, the sky had darkened, rain clouds gathering above to drizzle drop by drop. When you stepped a foot outside, you were immediately caught in a pair of arms, warmth swallowing you up.

"I missed you all day," your stalker whined, covering the top of your head with his chin. "How was it? Did you get fired?"

You relaxed into the heat, the embrace, releasing a frigid breath. Your head was silent for the first time since this morning, unburdened by worries or distractions. No clutter to push out… Nothing to sigh about.

Just Peter's scent, and his hug, and his excited, pleasant voice.

"Darling?" he asked concernedly. "Was it bad?"

You wrapped your arms around him in return. Mustering the energy to speak was impossible, so you sank further into the comfort, not even feeling the rain soaking your jacket.

"Heh, not that I'm not enjoying this… but are you okay? Do you need— Do we have to reschedule? I don't mind. We definitely can. Anything you want, okay? Just, will you please talk to me?" He sounded a bit shaky. "It's… ha ha, just, it's weird to not hear you when I chatter. You know?"

You force yourself to speak. "It was—"

s̨̺͇̝o̺̱̣ą̡̪͇͇p̨̥̹͎̹̳ ̨͓͕͜u͙̣̫p̥͍̻͙̠,͎ ̢̨̤̙̹͓s̝̼̝̲͜c̡͎̭̭͚r̡͎̗̞͙̥u̺b̧̢͙̬̠͜ ̪͚E̻̞͈̫̦͇X̙̦͓̱͙T̙͓̮R̙Ạ̭ ̧͓̩S̲̗̟͎͎Ǫ͇̲̲͖A̦͕͕͇P̗͇͜ ̘̝͖͇̞f̧͚̥̹o̖͔͈r̙͉̤̪ ͍G̟̺͖R̨͉̤̠̫͓E̲͚E̲̥E̟̯̹E͕̻͙̼̟ḚA̰̮̘͉͈̼S͙̞̳E̬̻ ̢̬͚̼̗̱01101111 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110111 01110011r͎̬̭ͅo̼̘̩̯ͅụn̗̱̹̝͈d̩,̨̪̦̭̝͕ ̧̤̜̱ͅw̡͈͖̬̙͕i̱͇d̨̠̯̙͍e̙-̰̳ọ̺̩͍͕̝p̦̦̘̙ȩ͍̹̳n̩͎ ̤͓͍m̢̡͚̣̫͍o̫̰u͙͚̞t̢̜͎̮ḩ̡̜ ͓̝̥̲F̙̘͇̠E̥̪̳͕E̤̲̫̗̯D̫͜ ͍̣M͔̩E̹͕̭ ̳T͍̗̜Ḥ͓͕̭ͅȨ̗̠ ͙W̻͈O̧R̨̙̱̥L̢̨̨̯͜D̥̲ ̞̤̖D̡̗͈̻ ̧̢͓̘D̹̗ ͍̫̙̮̝̬D̫̗͉͚͉ ͉̯̣̠̙T̨̪̮̙H̡̢͇̭͖̦E̘̲͖̜ ̦T͖̗̮H̺E̩̪̳ ̲̻͇̳͖̣T̲͖̞̺͈ͅH̦̠E̗̳ ̩͔̫̞͜I̯̙͓I͙͖̤̬I̧̬̲̱͕͕I̜I̧͕̭͚̭̳I̥I̬̝I͙̦̭̫̝͎I̡̘I̞̺͎̦̬I͎̻̻I̢̢̱̲̹I̡͎̘̰I̤̥I̻̺̞̖̖

d̷̢̢̟̏̂a̶̛̬̘͊͒̾ŗ̵̣̯͇̽͐͊̑k̷̤͎͙͙̎͑̑̌ ̶̻̞̞̻̏͊͑̏d̷̳͉̱̯̽́̆ạ̸̥͙̔͂̊̾r̷͇̿́k̶̥̼̲̐́̈̏ ̵̗̪̯̪̎͆d̴͍̤̞̓a̷̰̟͚͛̊͐r̶͇̋̈́͒k̸̺̻̰͎͆̿̄͠ ̸̡̹̊̀̾͗a̴͈͉̱̻̎̀d̵̝͈̄́̓ã̵̲̩͖r̵̪̞̗̓k̵̗̊͗̀̍ ̷̛̪̖͔̗͒̌ď̵͓̊̅̈́ǟ̴̡̜̈k̶̨̘͚̈̀́ȓ̴͓̽͑k̶̳̺̙̈́̐͛k̶̖͐ ̵̡̪̄͒́̄d̴͍̥́́ȃ̷̺ȓ̶̗k̶͎͊ ̴̯͕̀͑͠k̸͈̝̗̎̑̏f̷̠̳̭͉̍̒̀k̷̛͔̓̾k̵̞̃͋͝k̸̞̎̋k̸̝̀͛̓̕ ̶̈̀̇��̟͚̩ḍ̸̙̫̣̋̕a̴̲̦͓͒r̵͙͑̂͗k̶̨̻̽̃ ̷̓͜d̶̢͍̳̔͌ã̴̧̬̠͖̉̈k̸̖̞̾͊̇͝r̵̲͔̼͝ ̷̘͚̀̒̿̕k̴̰͈͠d̴̜̭͇̙̐̂͋ã̵̤͔ṙ̷̯̭͂k̶͍̇̑̅̒ ̶̠̥̮̓͘d̵͈̖̃́̏̄á̷̳͔̲̏̈́̚r̶̦̋k̴̨͛ ̴͍͉̄̓d̴̯̓a̵̯̓͋̿ͅr̸̦̻̟̖̄̅̈́̄k̷̲̓̆ ̴̤̤̅d̴̢̖̀̀ͅã̷̡ͅk̷̢̢̥̬̒̿̆̽r̸̥̘͌̀͑͜ ̷̻̔͝W̴͙̱̬̮͒͋̏͝W̷̘͎͠W̸̖̺̃͌̇Ẅ̶̪͙͉́̈́́W̷̔́͋̀̀̈́̔͂̔̂̄̚͝͝͝W̵̍̓͛̂̒͘͠W̸͑̽̃̐̓̒̈́W̷͊̋͑̽̌̈̈́̀͗͊̈́̇́͘͠W̶̆̎̐̊̎́̈́̌̋̀̕̚W̵͌͆̃́̅̇͐̎̑͐͘Ŵ̸̛̀̈̈́͆̈́̎̆̒̀W̶̊̏̒̋̏̐̌̈́́̚W̸̉̋̅͑͆̍͘Ẁ̴͛̂͗̓͆̐͑͌͐͒̕W̶͝ and at the bottom of the drain, you stood, awaiting y̤̏̓̐̕̚͠o̘͆͝ú̢̞͚̲͈̟̲̅̾̄̓r͍̟̝̐̾̃ͅs̢͍̤͂́͝ḙ̰̆̓̿̾̕͝l̛̟͕̬̯̬̲͇̩f̩̻͚̫̽ in your own stomach /// when will you S̸̛̥T̵͖̚O̴̯͌P̸̪̅ ̸̫̀S̸͈͗T̵̲͆Ȯ̴̜P̶̪̑ ̷̲̐S̸̠͊T̷̖̊Õ̷̬P̷̤̉?̴͎͋ ̵̱̉?̸̳̎?̴̖́ fear consumes you, pushes you down its gullet, and you stand here wondering when did you die? M̸E̵E̴E̷E̶E̶ 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01101011 E̵E̴E̸E̷E̶E̸E̶E̸E̸E̶E̵E̶E̶—

"—fine," you answer. You were stopped from lingering on it. You recognize it now. "I missed you too. All day."

"You did?" Peter asked. "Really? Missed me? When, how did that happen?"

"Do you want me to describe it like, a case report? Like an interrogation tape? 'Where were you last night, what was your purpose' style?"

"Why not?"

Well, there was it: why not? Maybe it'd make him happy.

"The first time," you started, burying your face into his shoulder. "I was taking orders, and this middle-aged lady came in and tried to ask for a second order on the house because she dropped the first one on the pavement. But in a really polite, aggravating way. You know how some rude people act well-mannered? I wanted to punt her into the curb."

"And then you thought about me?"

"Yeah. I wished you were there so I could get you a second order on my paycheck."

"…You mean, you weren't thinking of me because you wanted someone more reasonable, but because… actually, I don't know. Why did you think that?"

"Well," you murmured, "obviously, because I like you."

Suddenly craving contact, you removed your tired arms from around his waist and put them over his shoulders, around his neck. You had to stand on your tip-toes for that, but somehow, the position wasn't as taxing as it was in your before-life.

Luckily, Peter was there to support you. He crouched a little to reach your legs, then hauled you up under your thighs, carrying you on one bicep with no visible strain.

...Woah.

You were abruptly eye to eye with him— and better, you were privy to the tender little flush on his face, close enough to savor the sight without shame.

"So you'd— put up with me being an asshole just cause you… like me."

You averted your eyes. This closeness seemed to be a two-way street, unfortunately. "Not exactly 'put up with'. I imagined you there and thought, even if you were being a jerk, I'd give you a meal cause you'd look cute eating it."

Was that weird? Double standards existed for everyone--- people would have different thresholds for different people, right? You weren't abnormal in that regard. Were it anyone else, you'd be insulted, exasperated, impatient— with him, your priorities lay somewhere else. You'd have rather died than compensate that customer, but somehow, the image of him stuffing his face full warmed you head to toe.

Your mind flashed back to your dinner date last night. The glow of Peter's round cheeks, the happy sigh of relieved hunger, his languorous, steady heartbeat as it pulsed under your touch. A healthy, full heart. Flowing blood.

Uh, you thought, embarrassed for no reason. Let's not linger.

"You know what," you said. "This is mortifying. Let's talk about something else."

He made a cute little snort, then laughed with bared teeth, molars glinting in the street light. You could barely suppress the urge to smash your mouths together. How dare he smile like that? How dare he make you so happy, with only the movement of his face? You released the want through your breath, let it dissipate.

"Let's go to the van," Peter suggested. Without waiting for a reply, he started carrying you across the crosswalk, one hand gently braced on your hip.

"Peter? Peter! Oh God, I can walk, I can walk I can walk I can walk— let me down, people are gonna look!!"

He paid no heed to your desperate wails, merrily making his way down the road. What an asshole, what a bastard. Your heart was so warm, so squished, so warm.

#your boyfriend game #peter dunbar #yandere #yb #yb peter #your boyfriend #ybf #tw: yandere #yb fandom #yandere games #your boyfriend peter #ybgpeter #yb game #yb fanfic #your boyfriend fanfic #peter yb #peter king

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swede1952 · 8 months ago

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Sky Hunter

I took this photo of a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) flying overhead about a year ago.

"The oldest known wild Red-tailed Hawk was at least 30 years, 8 months old when it was found in Michigan in 2011, the same state where it had been banded in 1981." - allaboutbirds.org

You know, the photographs that I post here are not quite a vivid as the same photographs that I post at my pixel's gallery, because here, I reduce the size of the photos and usually make a slight reduction in the quality of the photos to make them easier to load.

Take a look: https://swede1952-photographs.pixels.com

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titoist · 2 months ago

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two coexistent facts

when i was young, i would browse Google Earth satellite imagery. i would slowly study the earth from a bird's eye view. i don't mean that i would just appreciate it: i would look, really look, i was trying to create a systemic model of our whole world. maps have an agenda. people see the world not as it is but through internalised political maps or, worse, road maps; the earth reduced to an overhead google street summary. in creating a map, you must consciously choose certain elements to accentuate and others to exclude. there is never any thought given to the entire earth itself. i would try to viscerally feel the interconnectedness of all matter. the constant motion. the truism that Capitalism encompassed the entire globe took on a more direct and material meaning -- i observed the cross-sections of suburbs, zooming and panning, swooping and diving across the surface of the planet. it made me angry and paranoid. it overwhelmed me. it made me feel sick and cry. it made me have wonderful panic attacks and filled me with incandescent rage. i used it to pummel a sense of scale into my consciousness, no matter how horrific. a shadow of violence hung over everything later in my life, this passion would be echoed in becoming obsessed with the video game 'Hearts of Iron IV' at 14 years old. it is a grand strategy game played entirely on the plane of a political map of the earth circa 1936-1945. as part of it's design philosophy, it holds lots and lots of abstractions and reductions to make the player feel more comfortable slamming dolls of the most destructive, violent, and genocidal war in human history together without ever feeling culpable of commodification. despite the embarrassing length of time that i wasted, less so playing it than using it as an excuse to not think and only incidentally interacting with it's functions in my automechanic state, i was never able to swallow down the essential discomfort of seeing the world dumbed down to a collection of contextless colors, flags, names, armies

to this day, nothing fills me with calm quite like rewinding google street view of my city back to 2013. it is the kind of calm that makes you tear up. maybe it isn't calm, i'm not sure. it's an emotion people aren't supposed to feel

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elsa16744 · 12 days ago

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Unlocking Value Creation: How Private Equity Firms Benefit from Strategic Outsourcing

Private equity firms prefer efficiency. That is why they adopt strategic outsourcing. Doing so ensures that private equity (PE) professionals have an advantageous position vital to unlocking value creation. In PE strategies, that value creation must encompass all portfolio companies. This post will explain how private equity firms benefit from strategic outsourcing.

The improvement of operational efficiency translates to better profitability, and professional PE strategists recognize this. After all, similar enhancements boost the companies’ growth potential, making them attractive investments to future buyers.

The Need for Private Equity Outsourcing

PE firms can benefit from additional leverage and outsiders’ specialized expertise in investment research services. They can, for instance, successfully decrease costs while fostering more core competencies. Therefore, it is no wonder that faster business transformations powered by strategic outsourcing are popular. Eventually, portfolio firms will yield higher returns on investments, allowing for better exit options.

How Can Strategic Outsourcing Benefit Private Equity Value Creation?

1. Cost Efficiency and Operational Improvements

One immediate advantage of embracing strategic outsourcing in PE activities is cost reduction. It not only saves tremendous expenses but also facilitates economies of scale. As a result, the efficiency of the processes skyrocketed.

PE firms and strategists have been dealing with standardization challenges. However, professional private equity support teams sport some of the latest in tools and technology to address them. Similar to how an IT enterprise outsources operations to independent specialists, many cost overheads will undergo distribution between the private equity firms and their external associates.

The sharing of liabilities may involve maintenance, tech upgrades, and cybersecurity considerations. That also entails more effective resource allocation to protect the interests of clients and support providers.

Outsourcing further allows PE firms to initiate operational improvements rapidly. In this way, PE firms can leverage the expertise of third-party providers to acquire best practices or access the latest technology.

2. Focus on Core Competencies

In an industry with high competition, focusing on core competencies is critical for portfolio companies. Otherwise, they will struggle to grow and differentiate themselves. Strategic outsourcing gives a private equity company the ability to transfer some of the auxiliary tasks to others. Doing so helps secure more management bandwidth, which will be necessary to concentrate on integral business activities that deliver robust growth.

This approach allows leadership teams to focus more time and effort on innovation. They can also enrich customer engagement and strategic initiatives by focusing more on process and vision alignment. Consequently, private equity firms will witness a faster business expansion trajectory.

More agile business operations to become a stronger market player will further PE firms’ objectives, like seamlessly securing the most attractive acquisition deals.

3. Quicker Workflow Transformations and Growth Initiatives

PE firms want to take portfolio companies, focus on value creation, and exit the investments at better returns. In other words, rapid growth acceleration allows private equity firms to exit earlier or ensure better gains. Strategic outsourcing allows scaling capabilities and speeds up the changes, operational or structural, for agility.

Therefore, if the firm wants to enter new geographies or experiment with alternative trade channels, PE outsourcing service providers could help. They will optimize the capital needed to conduct deal operations while supply chain and leadership evaluation become straightforward.

Conclusion

Modern private equity firms use strategic outsourcing as the most effective pathway for value creation across their portfolios. They have acknowledged that outsourcing can help reduce costs, create operational efficiency, and prioritize core practices.

Besides, screening companies, entering deals, and exiting the market becomes easier as the related sharing of liabilities accelerates growth and resell strategy implementations. Given the hurdles in finding the best talent to plan, lead, and execute private equity transactions, the worth of strategic outsourcing can only be appreciated.

#investment research services #private equity support

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sky-squido · 2 years ago

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USING CELESTIAL NAVIGATION TO LOCATE THE KINGDOM OF HYRULE

PART TWO: The Part With Actual Celestial Navigation In It

*part one is here*

oh yeah, quick heads-up that I’m a LinkedUniverse fan, so I do make a casual reference or two to the comic and characters, but this analysis is about—and solely based on evidence present in—the games themselves. so, general LoZ fans who have no knowledge of or interest in LinkedUniverse whatsoever, this analysis is for you, too! go wild, friends!

Okay, SO! In part one, we came to one conclusion: Hyrule does in fact, slide around gratuitously between games. This is good! Because that lines up exquisitely with my celestial results. Ah jeez, now I have to figure out how to explain what I even did to get these results. Here goes!

Section Three: Explaining How, Mechanically, This Is All Going To Work

Let’s break it down into only the essential basics, the stuff I did in like the first half of the semester (this checks out, because the second half involved using the moon, stars, and planets, the motions of which are… interpreted creatively in the 3D Zeldas released thus far). Basically, it’s time to talk about the noon reduction.

(You can just skip to section four if you want the answers, but I have an excuse to ramble about my hyperfixation and I will take that, thank you very much.)

*long inhale* okay so if you drew a line from any celestial body to the center of the Earth, that line would pass through some point on the Earth’s surface. If you were to stand on that point, your object of choice would be directly over your head. The spot in which you’re standing is called the object’s geographic position. We only care about the latitude of this position (or how far north or south it is from the equator), also known as the object’s declination. On the equinoxes, the sun’s declination is zero—at noon, it passes overhead on the equator. If you were in the northern hemisphere, you could see the sun by looking in the southern sky. If you were in the southern hemisphere, you could see the sun by looking in the northern sky. Does this make sense? If it doesn’t, shout at me in the notes and I’ll draw diagrams. But yeah, this is important: If you’re north of the equator and the sun’s over the equator, you have to look south to see the sun. This is why, if you’re in the northern hemisphere, the northern sides of buildings never see sun—the sun’s always in your southern sky.

On the solstice in June (the summer solstice for all you northern-hemisphere-dwellers), the sun’s declination is 23.5°N. It’s because of the Earth’s tilt, whatever, don’t worry about it. If you’re at 23.5°N (also known as the Tropic of Cancer), the sun is directly over your head at noon, now. Equator-dwellers (and everyone else south of the tropic) have to look to their north to see the sun, everyone north of the tropic has to look south to see it. You’ll notice that when the sun is in the northern hemisphere, it makes it nice and toasty and that thing we call summer. The southern hemisphere is, at that moment, missing their sun rather fiercely and would like to not be so cold anymore. On the December solstice, (winter solstice for the northern hemisphere), the sun’s at a declination of 23.5°S, ditching the north, baking the south, equator-dwellers have to look south to see it, Tropic of Capricorn dwellers can see it directly overhead at noon, etc. etc.

So, as you’ll notice if you’re one of those clever observant types, the height of the sun at Local Apparent Noon (LAN) varies by your latitude and by the declination of the sun. What’s LAN? Great question. Basically, thanks to time zones and the sun’s inability to hold itself to a decent schedule, it doesn’t always hit its peak for the day at 12:00pm by your watch. LAN is what we call whatever time it is when the sun does hit its peak for the day. But we don’t care about times right now, just the sun’s altitude at LAN.

That’s another thing—altitude. Everything in celestial navigation is measured as an angle (even distances; ever wonder why latitude and longitude come in degrees?) which makes doing math and measurements really freaking convenient. Because of this, the height of the sun above the horizon, or its altitude, is measured as an angle: 0° means it’s on the horizon, 90° means its directly overhead, and 45° means its halfway between the two.

So, the sun’s declination varies over the course of the year between the range of 23.5°N and 23.5°S. If you know where in the world the sun is overhead (that’s declination) and you know how far the sun is from being over your head (that’s altitude), you can figure out how far you are from that place where the sun is overhead (that’s gonna give you your latitude). Clever, right? Don’t worry if you’re not retaining any of this—this is tumblr, not a textbook. I just think it’s neat.

So, if you’re following my train of logic (quite a feat, as I’m notoriously convoluted), this all means that if you know how high the sun is in the sky in a Zelda game, you can figure out at what latitude the game takes place! Kind of. We also need to know the time of year, which will tell us what the sun’s declination is. If the sun in a given game passes directly overhead at noon, we could fall anywhere in that 47° band between the tropics, depending on the time of year.

There are two problems here: firstly, how do we measure the altitude of the sun—Zelda items are very cool but none of them are sextants (sextants are basically just really fancy protractors for measuring angles in the sky) and secondly, how do we account for the fact that we don’t know what the declination of the sun is?

The first solution is honestly rather simple. We use shadows. Sun hits Link, sun hits ground, line from Link’s shadow’s head to Link’s head points to sun. You’ll see plenty of these diagrams later, so I won’t bother explaining all of it here.

The second solution is more finicky, took me weeks to figure out, and I’m still not entirely sure how it works, but I brute-forced it with my Nautical Almanac, Excel, and several hours of tedious number-wrangling. Because, while 3D Zelda games understandably make no attempt to accurately model the movement of the moon and stars (and don’t even include planets), the sun gives us another clue.

I don’t know how many people know this, but “the sun rises in the east and sets in the west” is actually an approximation. Contrary to what the 3D Zeldas would have you believe, the sun does not, in fact, rise at 090°T (directly due east) and set at 270°T (directly due west) every single day of the year. It varies, sometimes rising north of east, sometimes rising south of east. There’s an equation that takes your latitude and the declination of the sun and calculates how far away from east and west your sunrise and sunset are, but that’s not actually useful here, because, as I alluded to previously, Zelda games don’t account for this. Fortunately, there’s another clue! I wonder if any of you are mentally shouting it at me right now. Spoiler alert: It’s the length of day and night! Is day longer than night? The sun’s closer to you (northern declination, which means northern hemisphere summer). Is night longer than day? The sun’s farther away from you (southern declination, which means northern hemisphere winter).

The really really nice thing about using the sun’s altitude at LAN and the length of the day and night is that between the two of them, we have almost all the information we need to get a solid fix on when and where these games take place. And the second nice thing about this is that, unlike the sun always rising and setting exactly due east and west, the sun’s noon height and day length vary appreciably and reasonably between games! …mostly.

To compile all this nonsense into something practical, here’s the plan: we crack open a 3D Zelda game, wait for the sun to rise and then we start a timer. See if the sun, after rising in the east, scoots to the north or the south or heads straight overhead. Now we know what hemisphere we’re in (give or take). Wait until LAN (the sun is always either directly due north or due south during LAN, because it rises in the east and sets in the west and it’s all symmetric and stuff) and then we snap a picture of our boy and his shadow. Wait until sunset and then lap the timer. Spend the night cycle screaming over how screwed up the moon and constellations are, then bop the timer once the sun rises. Now we know how long the day/night cycle is and what fraction of that day is spent in the sunlight. We do math to figure out how many hours long the day and night would be if the day/night cycle were actually 24 hours long. Then we grab that picture we snapped at LAN, literally just measure the angle with a digital protractor because trying to take the distances and do trig is way too much work and honestly probably less accurate, and then BAM, we’ve got everything we need to massively narrow down our game to a specific latitude and one of two possible dates. I say two possible dates because the sun hits a given declination twice a year—once between the equinox and the solstice, and then again when it doubles back to head to the next equinox. If that doesn’t make sense, think about the fact that the day before the solstice and the day after the solstice are both the same length. Cool? Cool.

Alright, let’s see what happens when we actually try this!

Part Four: Finally Getting to the Gosh Darn Freaking Point of All This

Sorry Leg, Four, and Rulie, but your games aren’t going to be very helpful here cuz we get to see neither the sky nor any pronounced shadows cast by stuff in the sky, so you’re off the hook.

Of the remaining Zelda games, Termina doesn’t actually take place in this dimension, but hey, maybe it’s somewhere neat! We might as well.

Okay, so we’ve got six canon 3D Zeldas. (Yeah, sorry both Hyrule Warriors’s (even though one of you is apparently canon), I couldn’t be bothered to actually boot you up and start measuring angles—doing these ones was enough work already and you don’t even have day/night cycles).

Of the six Zeldas I am using, all of them have day/night cycles except for one, Skyward Sword. As much as I’d like to slap it on the pole and say the entire game takes place near the solstice, celestial nights do in fact demonstrably exist, they’re just not looped into the gameplay, so we’ll have to figure something out.

Of the five remaining Zelda games, two of them feature in-universe clocks—which isn’t actually all that useful anyway, since longitude is way more arbitrary than latitude and I don’t know where Hyrule keeps its prime meridian—and those are Breath of the Wild and Majora’s Mask. The final three Zeldas—Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess—have day/night cycles that just loop evenly along time spent in the overworld, which is handy.

Okay, so let’s do this!

Ocarina of Time: Our day lasts 2 minutes and 40 seconds and our night lasts 1 minute and 20 seconds. The full day/night cycle takes 4 minutes. 2 minutes and 40 seconds is actually exactly two-thirds of 4 minutes, so we can just apply that to 24 hours and BAM, we get a 16-hour day and 8-hour night. Those of you living in Canada, Northern Europe, and Patagonia are familiar with this phenomenon. And, when Link is both a child and when he’s an adult, the sun’s altitude at LAN is 70°.

Now let’s plug these two data points into the chart I bruteforced! Isn’t she pretty? I love her

Okay, so it’s kind of just outside the range of what’s possible—for a day that long to happen, you have to be pretty far from the equator. But, when you get that close to a pole, the sun doesn’t get all too high in the sky. We can give Nintendo a few degrees of wiggle room, though, and put Ocarina of Time on the summer solstice (June 21st) at 47°N. Wow! And those seven years he’s asleep for are exactly seven years because it’s still the solstice when he wakes up. 47°N is, for context, about the latitude of Seattle (Washington, USA), Munich (Germany), and Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia).

This is the most straightforward of all the Zelda games we’re going to cover. Majora’s Mask is exciting because Termina is a hellhole so we’ll skip to…

Wind Waker: Day: 5.5 minutes. Night: 4.5 minutes. Full cycle: 10 minutes. If 10 minutes became 24 hours, 5.5 minutes would become 13 hours and 12 minutes! The sun at LAN gets up to 54°

Now let’s plug that bad boy in—I’ll just use the version of the chart with all the games already on it to save space (sorry for the spoilers, I know you must be heartbroken).

So, that puts Wind Waker at a comfy 44°N in either early April or September. Wondering where those dates came from? Every little dot on this chart is a data point, and every one of those is from the 21st of a month, either March (the spring equinox), April, May, or June (the summer solstice (in the northern hemisphere)). Then you can just interpolate between them. So if Wind Waker lands between my solstice dot and the one next to it, it’s near the solstice, but on the summery side, so very early September or early-mid April. No Zelda games have nights longer than days, but if that were the case, you’d just read the X-axis’ “Length of Day” as length of night and the points to the far right would represent the winter solstice instead of the summer one. Don’t worry if this doesn’t make sense to you—this barely makes sense to me and I’m the one who made it.

But now we’ve gotten ourselves in a little pickle—is it April or September? You could use whatever in-game clues you’d like to try and figure this out, or research the prevailing winds and ideal sailing seasons at the relevant latitude, but I’ll be going off of celestial cues to the best of my ability, so here goes!

April. It’s April. Wind’s birthday is probably like April 9th or something and I like that a lot. Fits his vibes. How did I figure this? Well, let’s start by taking a look at the night sky:

Yeah, okay, it’s fricked. I’m not gonna get into into why the moon is so bad in every Zelda game, but this article does a good job of explaining it. All the nonsense that happens in there applies to Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, too—Ocarina of Time doesn’t have any moon phases, which is probably a good thing. Skyward Sword has its own issues and you don’t need me to tell you that the moon in Majora’s Mask is a problem.

Orion, however, offers us a clue. This little lad pops up in Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, and for some reason, Majora’s Mask. I couldn’t find him in Ocarina of Time’s sky, but I think I found Cassiopeia and the Summer Triangle. It’s not like any of this matters that much, cuz the stars are fricked in all the games and positioned in direct contradiction to the sun and also each other, but if we have two dates and we’re just trying to pick between them, we might as well give Orion his time in the spotlight.

Again, I’m not sure how many people know this, but the stars move over the course of a year and over the course of a night. They move a lot every night (about sixteen degrees an hour—just a little faster than the sun), and, since they’re speedy little fellas, they get just a little further along their path every night. This means—and I’m really sorry to all the fanfic authors who use this as a plot device in their fics—that you can’t just look up and know where and when you are. If you know when you are (exactly, like in time to the minute), you can guesstimate the where, and vice versa. My final project for this class was actually trying to see if I could figure out both when I knew neither, and the answer is yes, but it takes a lot of work and finagling and also you need to know what year it is and have a lot of celestial information about that year in particular. If any of you suddenly have a hankering for a fic in which the LinkedUniverse boys freak out over being celestially disoriented from both the time and location changes, stay tuned ;)

Okay, so my point is that if the stars are just up there, frozen in the sky, like they are in all the 3D Zeldas, it gets tricky to figure out what time of year it is. I mean, we could just… assume these are their midnight positions? Spoiler: it doesn’t actually matter because the stars are all fricked to heck anyway. We just need one little pointer to try and figure out which of the two possible dates we ended up with.

Slight tangent, but of all the constellations, why do they insist on putting Orion of all people in all their games. He’s a winter constellation! All the Zelda games take place in or near summer! I mean, yes, he’s a summer constellation for the southern hemisphere, but most games don’t take place down there! Does Nintendo have some sort of personal beef with Altair, Vega, and Deneb that I don’t know about? Are they a joke to you??

*cough* Anyway. Orion in Wind Waker is visible in the southwestern sky. Were it September, Orion would rise pretty late in the night, coming up in the east, and he’d scoot his way through the southern sky, but just after he crosses the meridian (due south) and is about to head into the southwestern sky, the sun rises and we can’t see him anymore. That’s no good! How about April? Well, yeah actually! The sun sets, and, blinking into view on the meridian is Orion, scooting through the southwestern sky before eventually setting at about midnight. So, Wind Waker probably takes place in early April at a latitude of 44°N!

But Squido! I hear you shouting, doesn’t the game take time for Wind to beat? And isn’t Hyrule big enough to span multiple lines of latitude? You were just talking about how big it was in part one of this post series! You can’t seriously be suggesting that the entire game takes place on a single day at a single latitude! And to that I say, you are, indeed, correct. This measurement can’t possibly apply to all of Wind Waker, just as my previous assessment can’t possibly apply to all of Ocarina of Time.

My solution? Hand-wave it. Seriously, Nintendo is not programming a fully accurate year-long celestial cycle that tracks the number of in-game days since you started and changes the positions of the stars and everything by your latitude. That would be badass, but hardware limitations are a thing and Nintendo has its priorities (somewhat) straight. We can say my calculation represents the starting point in time because I still like Wind having an early April birthday and this gives him the whole summer to adventure around while the daylight hours are long. We can say the latitude in question is, I dunno, towards the top of the map. There’s palm trees around, so I hesitate to put us any further north than the 44°N I calculated. That is about the latitude of Toronto (Canada), Milan (Italy), and Sapporo (Japan) after all. Maybe that’s the upper bound of the map. I honestly don’t think it’s that important.

Twilight Princess: We’re old hats at this by now! Day: 8 minutes. Night: also 8 minutes. We’ve got ourselves an equinox—12 hours of each! LAN altitude is 55°, so that puts us at a lovely 35°N in either late March or September.

Orion is in the southeastern sky so, as I said in the Wind Waker portion, that would make sense in September. So it’s September 21st! It find it fitting that a game about the balance between light and dark takes place at the time of year when light and dark are perfectly balanced. This latitude, for context, is about the same as Charlotte (North Carolina, USA), Albuquerque (New Mexico, USA), Tehran (Iran), and Osaka (Japan). I always knew he was a southern boy.

Breath of the Wild: Yeah, I was going in chronological order by release date, but Skyward Sword doesn’t have a day/night cycle and that complicates things, so I’ll just do Breath of the Wild now while we’re in the groove and—hey, isn’t that spunky! The sun and moon pass through the northern sky, did you ever notice that? That means this game takes place in the southern hemisphere! And not just any ol’ southern hemisphere latitude, it freaking commits. I mean, you ever notice how long those sunrises and sunsets always seem to last? How the game seems to draw out dawn and dusk as much as possible to minimize how much time you spend trying to find your way around in the dark? Well, that’s because Breath of the Wild has a seventeen hour day! How exciting! The sun rises at 0400 (4am) and sets at 2100 (9pm). Its LAN altitude is a groovy little 43°, leaving us at a latitude of 63°S in early either February or November (this is the southern hemisphere, so these are summery months now).

(oh yeah, my Switch is modded so I can play as Zelda instead of Link—it’s called Zelda’s Ballad and it’s pretty sick. My awesome little sister set it up for me :3)

And wow, if 63°S isn’t an exciting latitude. That’s level with *checks notes* Ross Island, Antarctica!! Wait, what? Yeah, Breath of the Wild takes place in Antarctica, apparently. I wonder if the Sheikah tech holding the moon in place is also responsible for the climate control.

But yeah, I looked real hard, and found something that I thought might be Orion, but I’m honestly not convinced. If it were him, he’d be in the western sky, which would check out for February but not November. The trees in Akkala have red leaves, which could mean fall (which, in the south, would make it February), but then again, I hesitate to take ecological cues from trees that are apparently growing in Antarctica. A spring month fits with the themes of the game—rebirth, life rising from desolation—and that would mean November. I dunno, this one’s up to the Zelda Lore Afficionados.

Majora’s Mask: Yeah, you know it’s all going to hjeck when I put Skyward Sword off because the alternate dimension in which the moon is crashing into the planet and you’re forced into a time loop is easier to do celestial navigation to than Skyward Sword is. Here’s the scoop:

Sun rises and sets at 0600 and 1800 (6 am and pm) so that’s another 12 hour day. But the sun is really overhead-y. Like, 80° overhead. That puts us in the tropics, so there’s actually a few latitudes and dates we could be at. We could be at 10°N on the equinoxes—in late March or September—or we could on the equator, 0°N, in mid April or August. This is pure conjecture, but I feel like the equator is oddly fitting for this game. A liminal space between hemispheres, where the normal rules don’t always apply…

But, when I was looking for other clues, I found something very fun. Okay, so you know how I said the sky is fricked, right?

Like, okay, we have some familiar friends, but you can see that they’re all screwy. The angle between the Big Dipper’s pointer stars towards Polaris and Orion are an acute angle in Majora’s Mask and an obtuse angle in real life. And why are they so close to each other?! It’s just… so weird. But anyway, here’s where it gets funky. The sun passed to our south at LAN, so we know we have to be north of it, though just barely. We’re either on the equator or north of it but then… Orion is to our north. Orion is directly over the celestial equator, which means he’s like the sun on the equinox—if you have to look north to see him, you’re in the southern hemisphere. So we must be in the southern hemisphere, even though I just said we were in either in the northern hemisphere or on the equator. As if that wasn’t bad enough, if you look at the Big Dipper’s orientation, the pointer stars that point towards Polaris are pointing over our head! Even if the star I circled isn’t actually Polaris, the real Polaris would have to be somewhere around there. Which means, since Polaris is the pole star and the whole point of it is that it’s directly over the north pole, to have Polaris directly over our head means we’re on the north pole. We are in the southern hemisphere and on the equator and on the North Pole. No wonder the moon got sick of us and wanted us gone.

Speaking of the Big Dipper and Polaris real quick, Wind Waker actually has a refreshingly accurate depiction of them. The Big Dipper is angled a little funny for this time of year, but eh, it all works out. You can see that the direction that the pointer stars are indicating that Polaris is in is actually to the north! That’s pretty neat! Polaris is also at about the right height, give or take, that it should be for the latitude we calculated. So hooray for Wind Waker!

Skyward Sword: So. Uh. This went downhill very quickly. I was like “hey, maybe the sun is just frozen in its LAN position cuz it doesn’t move, right?” WRONG. If it were LAN, the sun would be directly due north or due south. But NOPE, it’s to the southeast. That means its still morning. At least, when we’re in Skyloft. When we go to Faron, the sun’s due west. Eldin? Southwest! Lanayru? North of west. But wait, you may be thinking, this is handy! We get a few snapshots over the course of a day, and we can put them together to get a feel for what a day looks like here, right? WRONG!

I tried that. You know what I got?

THAT’S NOT HOW THE SUN WORKS!!!! That looks nothing like either a sine wave or a parabola. But I was like, you know what, maybe it’s okay, maybe my puny mortal mind cannot comprehend this. Let’s let Excel work its magic and give me a parabola.

Okay, that’s not too terrible, we’ve got an LAN height of like 55°, which is workable. Hey, now that I think about it, what if we extended this parabola to find out where the altitude is zero! We’d basically get the compass directions in which the sun rises and sets, and I mentioned earlier that I can use that to calculate latitude and declination! So let’s just extend this little parabola here…

nOPE! Here, let me try to explain why this is so bad. You could make a chart where you graphed the sun’s altitude on the Y-axis and the sun’s azimuth, or the compass direction you’d have to face to stare straight at it, on the X-axis. You’d have a graph that intersects the X-axis twice, once at near 090°T and another at somewhere around 270°T. When it gets to the meridian, or 180°T, that’s where your peak, or LAN, would be. This graph does not do that. The sun is modestly in the sky to your north. The sun climbs, passing to your east, and then to your south. It hits its peak just after passing the meridian (that’s not how the sun works?? That’s not how any of this works?!??) and then begins to fall a little as it slopes to the west. It passes west, though, scooting through the northwestern sky before passing north again and continuing to circle towards the east, gradually making its way down to the horizon just before completing its second full rotation around the entire sky.

I joked briefly before about Skyward Sword being at the north pole in the summer so the sun never sets, but that actually seems to be the case?? At latitudes like that in the summer months, the sun can do a lap or two around the sky before touching the horizon. This wouldn’t be a huge problem, if for the fact that you can sleep until nightfall. Which could mean Link passes out for anywhere from a full day to a number of months. Does daytime come back around again? We’ve returned to another one of these strange infinite days, which means that Link has slept for approximately ONE ENTIRE YEAR. I know everyone calls him a sleepyhead, but that’s a bit much, don’t you think?

Furthering my hypothesis that Skyward Sword takes place uncomfortably close to the North Pole, there’s Polaris! Nice and high in the sky, so we must be close to the place where it is overhead—the North Pole. BUT WAIT! What direction is Polaris in? It couldn’t possibly be to the north, could it? No, the north star? In the north?? No, Skyward Sword got it right when it put Polaris IN the SOUTHEAST?!!??!!

Orion is just vibing up there at if we’re comfortably close to the equator, but no, that can’t be the case.

ALSO! I’ve been ignoring the moons cuz they’re all wonky, but THE MOON IN SKYWARD SWORD IS DIRECTLY DUE NORTH!

WE ARE NEAR THE NORTH POLE AND THE MOON IS TO OUR NORTH. For those of you unaware, the moon tends to stick to the same path as the sun, just that what the sun does in a year, the moon does in a month. The sun is never, ever, ever overhead at the North Pole, SO NEITHER SHOULD THE MOON BE!

The only possible explanation?

SKYWARD SWORD TAKES PLACE IN TERMINA.

You ever notice just how big the moon is in Skyward Sword? Yeah. Yeah, me too.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

To summarize: Ocarina of Time: 47°N, Summer Solstice (June 21st) Wind Waker: 44°N, early April Twilight Princess: 35°N, late September Breath of the Wild: 63°S, November or February Majora’s Mask: 0°N (maybe), mid April or August Skyward Sword: Who Freaking Knows

#squido rambles #squido's op #linkeduniverse #squido's navigational escapades #loz #linked universe #legend of zelda #well that's several days? weeks? months? depends how you count but it was a long time #and it was like five thousand words ellemayo #i'd apologize but i'm not sorry the slightest

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