#so when the big rescue happens
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
idk-bruh-20 · 2 years ago
Text
Irondad fic ideas #131
Tony Stark has been kidnapped. Barely a year after saving the universe, and fresh out of a coma -- he's gone. Everyone is doing everything they possibly can to find him. The Avengers, the government, the cops, everyone.
Well... everyone except Morgan. Nobody will let her help.
Irritated, determined, alone, and terrified, Morgan finally decides to take matters into her own hands. 
Her mom wants to keep her away from the search. The Avengers and other adults won't take her seriously. But she knows of one hero who might support her. A hero known for guiding kids to their lost parents (though usually the kid is the lost one, but her mom always says her dad is immature so he probably counts).
She remembers her dad's stories. This hero would understand her need to help, to do something, too.
It's weird that nobody has thought to call this person in for the search anyway, and it's weirder that FRIDAY doesn't seem to have any info on them, but Morgan is persistent.
She sets out to ask Spider-Man to help her find her missing dad.
This is a remix of an old fic idea (#44, which no one has done yet btw!) that I just thought of ^_^
108 notes · View notes
memento-morri-writes · 2 months ago
Text
I've been thinking a lot about how Rook's reunion with his former mentor, Zara, is going to go, and since I can't predict what the DM is going to have her do or say, I can only dwell on what I know is going to happen. Which happens to include taking off the illusion ring that's been hiding his injuries from her. So have a snippet of the description I have planned for that moment:
tw for description of (mostly healed) injuries
He hesitates, twisting a ring on his finger. Looking at it more closely, she can tell it’s very finely crafted, and must have been very expensive. A large emerald is set into the band. Rook sighs, and pulls the ring off his finger in one quick motion.  Immediately she’s struck by the difference in his appearance as the illusion melts away. He looks awful. His warm, healthy skin fades to a dull and sickly grey. There’s huge bags under his deeply sunken eyes, and his cheeks are hollowed, as though they have been carved out by an overeager sculptor. He looks like he’s recently risen from the grave.  While he was thin before, now she can see his ribs under the skin, and his collarbones are exaggeratedly pronounce. Thin white lines left by dozens upon dozens of recently healed cuts are scattered across his body. On top of that, faded bruises cover most of his visible skin, a mottled mosaic of purple and yellow. They’re clearly days, maybe weeks old, and she can only begin to imagine what they must have looked like when fresh. Bandages are barely visible under his shirt, wrapping around his back, hinting at even more injuries.
#morrigan.text#my writing#dnd writing#oc: Rook#oc: Zara#Poor Zara.#she's gonna feel so fucking guilty about everything that's happened to him in the last 3 years even though it's not her fault.#yes she pissed off Wolf but she had no way of knowing Wolf would go after Rook instead of her.#(I don't even know what she did to piss off Wolf. That's the Big Reveal that's going to happen when Rook sees her again.)#but yeah. Seeing him like this and knowing/thinking that it's because of her actions... it's going to destroy her and that kills me.#I don't know what she did but I *do* know that she never intended for Rook to get hurt. She loves him too much for that.#but Rook could never blame her for anything. He'd forgive her just about anything. And that will probably only make her feel worse.#Rook and his mentors will never ever fail to fuck me up big time.#his undying devotion and naive faith in them which is such a stark contrast to his usual distrust of people.#and it gets him hurt every time even though the don't *mean* to hurt him. But Sigmar's case was definitely much more malicious than Zara's.#this reunion is going to be such a huge turning point for Rook's character and his personal development as a character.#well really it's a combination of things all happening at once that are going to be the turning point.#1) the fact that the party rescued him from Wolf which has literally no other explanation than that they love him and care about him.#2) seeing Zara again and finally getting that closure that he never got three years ago plus being to reestablish the most important#relationship in his entire life. Plus she's just a good influence on him all-around a much-needed source of support after Sigmar's betrayal#3) getting gifted the Tide Breaker (Zara's old ship) and having to learn some responsibility for once in his life will be very good for him#and I guess you could also say that 4) my temporary character Val talking some sense into him has something to do with it lmao.#but we'll see how this all plays out bc while I know these things are going to happen they technically haven't happened yet.#I'm not gonna RP the conversation between Rook and Val bc it would just be me talking to myself for a long time but I am gonna write it up#when we get to that point so I can show it to the DM so he knows what they talked about. Plus it will be a very fun exercise bc Val was#literally designed to be Rook's opposite in just about every way. They're very wise and responsible and Rook is a reckless idiot.#(but I love him anyways.)#So it's gonna be fun to balance writing both of them in the same conversation.#anyways. these tags are SO FUCKING LONG already. If you read this far I'm giving you your favorite dessert and a hug if you want it.#and also pledging you my undying allegiance for life. <3
5 notes · View notes
whump-n-comfort · 8 months ago
Text
when you read a fic that gives you a hyper-specific whump scenario that you know would either A.) take forever to find in another story or B.) hasn't been written at all so the obvious conclusion is that you have to write it yourself
Tumblr media
#whump meme#~my stuff~#my brain hates me sometimes lmao#i just want a story where two characters are stuck in a broken down car in the middle of winter and having an argument#which leads to one stomping outside in some petty attempt to 'find help' while the other person doesn't realize#what is happening at first. they think their friend is just taking a quick second to catch their thoughts. not the best idea in a snow stor#but the other option is them tearing each others heads off so a little separation is fine. but then their friend starts walking away#and keeps going. so now they have to chase after them to corral them back into the car#because yeah its broken but its still somewhat warm unlike this suicide mission you are attempting!!#and then theres a big blow up because they have kinda been the shit-stirrer so their friend just is#im fixing it!! im being not annoying/useless/something related to whatever they were arguing about!!#so now they get slapped in the face with the fact that they've been taking out their bad day/week on their friend#who was simply being themself and trying to cheer them up/be nice#and when they eventually get back in the car the friend now feels like shit because they not only wasted heat from the car#but they also dragged their friend outside just bcuz they were being a brat so didn't they just prove the other person's point?#so now the two are just in a guilt huddle apologizing for being idiots as they inevitably wait for their rescue#bonus points if the rescue involves their rescuers trying to separate them and the other person just *refuses* to let their friend go#because they have a need to keep the first person warm after feeling like they essentially forced them out into the cold#is that too much to ask?? (i could turn this into an A talks to B scenario... also thinking about my OCs but when am i not lol)
14 notes · View notes
letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 2 years ago
Note
That's so weird because my reaction to S4 finale is it was the moment that convinced me Buddie was going to be endgame. Now two seasons later and we could be heading back to that same ending for the season depending on the events of the finale leaves me doubting things ngl. The only things I'm clinging on to are the couch theory, Eddie saying that relationships with people you meet at a rescue never works, and the fact that we're being introduced to these women so late in the season. It just seems like the writers even know they're giving this the most superficial things so that they can fix what they did in early S7.
To put it bluntly it just sucks that you know if this was gonna be the final 2 episodes that instead of going towards a story they've been telling since S2 they decide to put Buck and Eddie with women we don't even know their last name or anything about them. But they got renewed and will be moving to ABC so they can do the story they wanted to tell and I imagine these women will be kicked to the curb early in S7.
Okay, I'm gonna be real honest with you. I've seen that you've sent asks to a few of my friends, all generally saying the same thing. So to see you send me this ask makes me feel like you don't really want to have a discussion and aren't looking for actual support or positivity, you just want to keep being upset and tell people until someone agrees with you and tells you that your opinion that the writers made a shitty choice etc is valid.
So, to repeat a few things my friends have said:
They have not been doing Buddie since season two. I don't know why people persist on claiming this. Buddie was never the original plan. They did not decide to have Eddie get with Buck in season two. In fact in season two they seemed kinda unsure what to do with Eddie since he wouldn't be with Maddie any longer, but they still wanted the character, and Ryan, on the show. For my money, they started exploring the possibility of Buddie and discussing it seriously in season three, and season four was when they locked that in.
Now, I don't know about you, since you're a stranger on the internet, but to me, as a writer, it is a much, much better choice for them to have taken the risk rather than cram Buddie together, for a few reasons.
One: They cannot walk it back once Buddie is together. You're telling me you wanted them to sacrifice their story's integrity to give us a rushed unsatisfying get-together? Get out of my house. Watching television is, inherently, a gamble because it means you might get your stories unfulfilled. If you can't take that risk, then leave the casino. I am willing to risk it because I want a truly satisfying get-together, not something that was rushed and therefore isn't worthy of the delicious slow burn they're building.
Two: How many times do I have to scream at everyone to consider the behind the scenes issues before people start actually listening to me? Oh, forever? Because everyone is operating in bad faith and nobody wants to actually listen? Good to know. This will be the last I say on the matter.
We do not know what behind the scenes was going on in addition to the cancellation. What if certain Fox executives weren't supportive of Buddie? You're telling me that the writers and cast and crew should have, right when they'll need new jobs, guaranteed that their last employers will talk shit about them for disobeying orders and putting two characters together that they were told not to put together?
This is purely conjecture on my part, but I have seen time after time in fandom certain cast members and certain crew members and certain writers want a ship to become canon, and others not, and I have seen the way that back and forth played out, and guess fucking what? NOBODY WANTS TO LOSE THEIR FUCKING JOB. NOBODY WANTS TO BE PREVENTED FROM HAVING ANOTHER JOB.
Now, again, that's pure conjecture, but Fox really hasn't treated OG well for a while in terms of renewal, marketing, etc. And I have never, EVER, seen a show snapped up by another network so quickly. It's always "we got cancelled!" and then a few days or weeks later it's "we were saved by another network!" ABC was ON it. This gives me hope for a lot of things, like perhaps a 22 episode season. But given Fox's lack of promotion and appreciation for OG, it wouldn't surprise me if the cast and crew wanted Buddie and some people in the network didn't, and that is why we've been delayed on Buddie going canon. And while YOU may cry viva la revolution, it's much easier to have your principles when you've got a belly full, and while it may suck creatively there is no reason to piss off your bosses right when you need them to write you a recommendation for a new job because your show got cancelled - and while I'm sure they were hopeful, given the cast's social media I do not think anyone knew until it was publicly announced that they had, indeed, been saved and gotten another season.
My point is, this is just one theory I'm pulling out of a hat like a rabbit. We do not know what other BTS stuff is going on that made them choose to delay Buddie until season seven.
Three: To go back to point one, I do not think you've seen the reactions when a ship goes canon poorly. I was there, Gandalf. I was there the day that Booth and Bones got together. I was in the trenches. It soured SO many people, including me, on the show. To quote MBMBAM: YOU DIDN'T STICK THE LANDING! YOU JUST FLIPPED IN THE AIR FOR TWENTY MINUTES!!!
Sticking the landing when getting a ship together is possibly the most important moment in the couple's story. You cannot fuck up that landing. The writers chose to take the chance on it never happening in order to stick the landing the way they wanted. If that pisses you off, FINE. But stop coming into our inboxes to say the same thing over and over again about it, because we do not agree and we are never going to agree. We are at an impasse.
Now, to move onto some other points, WHY IS EVERYONE CONVINCED THAT EDDIE WILL STILL BE WITH SOMEONE WHEN THE SEASON ENDS!? WHEN DID WE DECIDE THIS!? He could be! But holy shit he could just go on one date with her that fizzles out! We have no clue! If someone in this fandom can see into the future and knows for sure this is going to happen then give me the winning lotto numbers right this second!!! Give them to me!!!! I need to fund my world domination campaign!!!
And finally, I feel like you've answered your own concerns, here. Given that you have sent similar asks to my friends, I don't think you're actually interested in allaying those concerns, because you keep answering your own questions and repeating yourself ad naseum. I could be wrong. Again, I don't know you. But this sure seems to be the case given that you're saying to me similar stuff you've said to my friends in asks they've already answered.
But to look at your own ask, you just said why we shouldn't be worried. "It seems like the writers even know..." YES. YES, THEY DO KNOW. I would love to know who the hell decided that television shows are made by the Television Fairy who creeps into the studio at night and waves her magic wand to create all the good stuff we see on our screens while the writers sit around with their thumbs up their asses.
Let's imagine you are a showrunner and you are going into the second half of your season, and you learn that it is extremely likely this season is actually your last. You guys start negotiating quietly with other networks to move the show, while hoping against hope this is not, indeed, the end. But this means you now have, what, nine episodes? To put all your characters in a place that is, if not ideal, at least somewhat positive for your audience?
You can't start any too-major arcs. You can't end on too bad of an emotional cliffhanger. This means some things will wrap up faster. Other things will get pushed forward. And some things have to be delayed, because they might never happen, and you can't give people a third or a half of an arc. Which means that you're going to be throwing in some filler for those characters instead, and doing things differently than how you might have wanted.
I do not know how many times I have to explain this, but television is not fanfiction. When I sit down to write a fic, there's not a damn person in the world who can tell me what to do. I write the story that I want, and if someone doesn't like it, they can hit the bricks.
Television is not like that. Television is one of the biggest group projects there is. Picture the worst group project you had to do in school and then times it by ten. Welcome to the television and film industry. The fact that any film or show, even the truly awful ones, gets made is nothing short of a miracle given all the people involved and all the ways the ball can be dropped. As a show runner, you are answering to multiple executives, to the creators, to the executive producers, to your own writers' room, and to the fans. You are trying to balance what everyone tells you to do, what the fans want you to do, and what you and your (hopefully trusted) writing team want and plan to do. I could never be a show runner and while there are quite a few with whom I've got bones to pick, I cannot deny that they all do a job I would never, ever be capable of pulling off. I'd quit on day three.
So, yeah, they gave Buck a temporary girlfriend as filler, to kinda cap off his current arc if this was the end, or to provide more layers to his full arc if they got another season. If you don't like that, then that's okay. Nobody is telling you to like it. When you come into someone's inbox like this, the assumption is that you're looking to be reassured, and so that's why you're getting the responses that you are. The previous people who've answered you have been trying to reassure you and allay the concerns you seem to have.
But it seems to me like you want a more full conversation, and possibly, that you just want to rant and vent. That's fine, but find a friend for that. Join a discord server. Because when you send the same stuff over and over again to different people, all of whom give you basically the same reply, it just makes you look like a very obstinate stick in the mud who wants everyone else to join them in being upset, and people don't much like having the same conversation multiple times, or being pushed into being upset when they're not.
You might just have to agree to disagree, and move on. Find other ways to get this out of your system, because my inbox, and the inboxes of others, is not the place for your venting in circles.
Now, in spite of my firm tone, I hope you will believe me when I say that I hope you're taking care of yourself, and that you are staying safe in this scary world, and that you have a good rest of your day.
#lincoln answers things#pedropascale#I'm closing my inbox guys I refuse to discuss this any further#genuinely I mean this with all sincerity I think some of you need to go into the Supernatural fandom and learn about the backstage drama#because that was a BIG lesson for me as a fan in how BTS can seriously affect what you see on screen#and no I do not mean this in a shipper way#I mean this in a 'what the hell was going on during seasons six through eight' kind of way#for example all the jokes you're seeing about 'what happened last time we had a writer's strike'?#THAT'S SUPERNATURAL#DEAN WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO GO TO HELL#SAM WAS SUPPOSED TO LEAN INTO HIS DEMON POWERS AND EMBRACE THEM IN ORDER TO SAVE DEAN'S SOUL#BUT THE WRITER'S STRIKE HIT AND THEY SAID SHIT WE'RE OUTTA TIME UM. GUESS YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!!!#and then they had to GET HIM OUT OF HELL#so Sera Gamble (YUP IT WAS HER DON'T GET ME STARTED OR WE'LL BE HERE ALL DAY)#said hey what if we actually DID have angels#(previously angels were not supposed to exist. hunters were God's agents on earth. it was demons vs hunters. no angels.)#and one of those angels was sent to rescue Dean? since Heaven would be invested in this too?#(I don't know if they already had the Dean-as-Michael idea or if that came up along with the angels idea)#and so Sera Gamble created the angel Castiel#who saved the Righteous Man from Hell#AND SHOCKWAVES WERE SENT THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE POP CULTURE SPHERE#AND AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF FANDOM WAS AFFECTED BY THIS DECISION IN A DOMINO EFFECT ARGUABLY NOT SEEN SINCE AMOK TIME#I know we like the idea of our stories existing in a vacuum separate from the real world#and that our stories are told the way the writers want to tell them regardless of all else#but that is unfortunately not how it works when the story you're telling#requires millions of dollars and the involvement of dozens if not hundreds of people#we have GOT to give our creative teams some fucking grace for the realities of how their jobs operate#we must we must we must
22 notes · View notes
riosnecktattoo · 5 months ago
Text
my dog just keeps getting bigger I don't understand how but he gains a kg every month he's at 67kg now he was 40ish when I rescued him just over a year ago
4 notes · View notes
dentist-brainsurgeon · 8 months ago
Text
The older I get, the less I like Halo 3, like gameplay, music and set piece wise it's GREAT and I absolutely love replaying it for those aspects, but the story, slight aesthetic changes and bad characterization is just..... Bleh. The only weird characterization I like is Chief and Arby being bros and that's honestly probably the best thing in the game that unfortunately hasn't been explored much(outside of the books, even then still should be explored more)
Oh and Marty O'Donnell should [REDACTED]
4 notes · View notes
listen-to-the-inner-walrus · 11 months ago
Text
sometimes learning maritime history is just sitting there thinking like okay i get that all my why would you not Xs is money like its just who cares about safety when money BUT i feel like if all of you would agree on shipping lanes for lake fucking huron, youd probably save money on ship collisions, what do you mean these lanes didnt apply to canadian ships????
#kai rambles#shipposting#im just#like#safety regulations were just not a thing when it came to the early version of the modern shipping industry#i know that#safety regulations cost money so just dont have any#but like thats stupid for several reasons#like surely you would save money if less of your ships would like you know sink#or hit another ship#because that involves potentially having to pay out for that ships repairs#also like#you do have to pay some insurance to the families and survivors#granted thats not much considering in 1959 us steel was able to blame the sinking of the carl d bradley on GOD#so they didnt have to pay enough#but also like#the big pushes for safety regulations in maritime history is like not surprising as to when or why they happen#but its frustrating all the same#like after the titanic sank there was a big push to make sure all ships had enough lifeboats for all passengers when thats not really what#lifeboats were/are for? in a lot of the successful rescue efforts lifeboats were there to ferry passengers to another ship or shore#and then go back to the sinking ship to get more passengers#theres also a lot of times where you just cant release lifeboats full of passengers because they will not survive#modern lifeboats are more suited for survival in big bodies or water but older ones were death traps#and iirc lifeboats have killed more than theyve saved?#a lot of captains at the time were like this law change is dumb and is going to cause problems in regards to ships ability to float#because like extra weight and also this is probably not gonna help anyone but that legislation was pushed straight through#but investigating the kind of steel the carl d was made of and how it was that material that made the ship break in half?#fuck you weve decided its gods fault
3 notes · View notes
smiletimeisrunningout · 1 year ago
Text
I'm rewatching new girl and I had forgotten how much I shipped Jess and Schmidt of all things in s1 and at least first half of s2 (I don't remember when/if I stopped, but he's so HUMAN and genuine when interacting with her, especially when Jess vents over things, and Jess is always extra sweet with him?)
3 notes · View notes
thebleedingeffect · 2 years ago
Text
In my heart of hearts I truly do just want to write a self insert that interacts with the main story that's it really
#all of my self inserts are extremely indulgent and are locked into my Brain#but there's one concept that I've been thinking of lately that's vry fun and I've been tossing it about in my brain#they're a baby born from a templar father who managed to escape some time around 15 or 16#they began training from a very early age as their father wanted a soldier who could go head to head with the assassin's on their own turf#alot of cultish and bad stuff happened but they were managed to be rescued by a novice who became their first friend ^-^#most assassin's are still skittish and untrusting of her considering her templar upbringing but she was kinda... indoctrinated? from birth?#and had wanted to leave YEARS ago but only managed it in their teen years#but anyway. she usually works alone or with her two other assassin friends as one: no one really trusts her to begin with#and two: big BIG anxiety that makes it hard to work with people when they know that they're largely seen as a threat or liability#she's pretty high on the assassin ranking though! and their little team has a damn high success rate so vry few people have reason-#to complain. mostly newer recruits or those with a BIG grudge against templars in general#anyway physical description time. theyre like altair and that they only rly wear lighttttt armor. heavy or even mid armor is a big NO#vry vry sneaky and patient. is mostly an opportunistic assassin and relies more of stealthy tactics than brute force#but because of this they are NOT a super heavy fighter. usually tries to lean on surprise and skill rather than 1v1 fighting#if force comes to shove though they can most def fight. but tries to flee the moment they find an opening#is pretty mute! keeps things close to her chest and is still in the process of learning to trust anyone at all. even assassin's#wears black and white feathered earrings as well as small golden hoops. has a bunch of piercings#is much MUCH on the smaller. slimmer side but it actually kinda works cause most dont clock her as an assassin at first glance#this makes them good for infiltration and scouting work!#best pair for them is a more brute force assassin who leans towards defense :]#theyre a lil guy. I love them alot. they also have some isu bullshit going on that I might explain
3 notes · View notes
keeps-ache · 1 year ago
Text
mmm metals,
#just me hi#i bit the inside of my cheek by accident lol-#i dunno why mouth blood tastes better than skin blood. or maybe that's just me hfhvf#//hey why are hotdogs so gross#why are they. textured like that .-.#very bad i can't even describe how much it's like Eegs#eegs... eggs... eags.... it's all the same........ peave and love............#and they can taste quite gross!! i don't understand what happened to my taste hvhfhd#one day it's a-ok and the next it's Euw. Summin Is Wrong Here#//HEy i need to find that post with the little orange snake with its little dragon helmet‚ it was so cute :>#snakes are neat! i'm still scared of them but they are pretty cool#still disappointed that giraffe necks don't work like that :// coulda had the worst creature to ever exist#elephants are too big but a giraffe is smaller so that makes it Much scarier#//hm. ykno i am significantly more scared of small creatures than big ones#at least a big one i know it's the end if something happens‚ or my dumb luck'll somehow rescue my hapless self again#but small ones?? there can be So Many. Like SO Many. Like I Would Rather Drink Pool Water Than Deal With Them#bugs </////3#when i was younger i was scared of butterflies so that should put it into some perspective hbvfhsvja#i don't like... their legs.......#Dear Bugs!! You Are Very Nice But Please For The Love Of All That Is Good Don't Touch Me :)#/hey but big cats are kinda medium. cows are Little Scary‚ big cats are Mid Scary and a bunny with rabies is Big Scary hh#little cats though ?? little bitty baby cats ??? the scariest thing on the planet i am only partially joking#it'll be like 3 a.m. and a little kitten has no sense of rudeness so!! it'll just Attack you! spitting clawing biting and if your blanket i#too thin you are F u n k e d. and you wake up in fight-or-flight and realize you're STILL being attacked by a tiny little creature that you#canNOT (repeat; canNOT) fight so you kinda just get to the point where it's like an old western stand-off until one of you leaves the room.#usually the kitten hvhfh#//it smells like some kind of cleaner in here and :< it smells baad#baaad... baaaa :>#baaaaaa#//ok i'm going to spin in circles now uvu
2 notes · View notes
moth-mart · 5 months ago
Text
Outlaw status reachieveeed 🎉🎉🎉
#oh god [''🥁'' - ⛔️ bnndndk shut up] i dont even know where to begin with this one#when you try to break up with your crazy powerful girlfriend who's been having conflicting feeling about the fact that she might actually#care about you when that goes against everything she is and needs to be and in her confliction and anger she retaliates and kills you and#keeps you captive in secret and then promptly fires your boyfriend because hes partially to blame and eventually he catches on to whats#happening so he busts in to rescue you and fights her and wins by unlocking some hidden power then he takes you and runs but she comes to#find you and with help you all manage to capture her but in that time the three of you realize some things about eachother and so against#everyone's better judgement you free her and make her promise that shes going to change and she accepts and you both run off but now youre#public enemy number one of the people who helped you and you lose your house but its fine because youre living with her now finally and a#few days later you figure you should probably call your boyfriend and tell him youre not dead and explain yourself a little and you do to#which he chews you out but hears what you have to say and eventually gets rehired by her with the understanding that shes on thin ice and#will have to regain everyone's trust. so you go back to fighting vampires and stuff now much closer to your partners and rebuilding from th#ground up but making it work in ways you all havent before#''what the fuck are you two doing to sonav over there🃏'' big brained scheming you wouldnt understand ''he wouldnt understand⛔️/j''#¯\_(ツ)_/¯ extremely Dubiously cannon. probably noncannon. bgnjd but we both took it and ran so#sonaverse#god mode stylus pogggg. gets blacklisted from Iris but they never really liked him to begin with ''not much of a loss there [shrug] -⛔️''#lore dump#ramblings
1 note · View note
why-animals-do-the-thing · 6 months ago
Text
I promised you some lions! Let's talk about manes, males, and management.
This is Tandie, the current male lion at the Woodland Park Zoo.
Tumblr media
Notice anything odd about him? He's got one of those hilarious awkward teenager manes. Except... this cat is nine years old.
Tumblr media
I was, of course, immediately curious.
Manes serve a lot of purposes for male lions, including being an indicator of health and fitness - it's actually a sexually selected trait and a social signal. Mane texture / hair quality / length is dependent on nutrition and the body having energy to grow (and carry around!) that much hair! The color is also a signal: males with darker manes have been found to have higher testosterone levels.
In one research report, wild males were much more likely to avoid a lion decoy when it had a longer or darker mane - but the girls really loved a dark mane. It's thought this is because a long, dark mane is an indicator of mate quality. Males with longer, darker manes have higher testosterone and were pretty healthy: meaning they had more energy for fighting, had a better chance of recovering if they got injured, and generally had a higher rate of offspring survival. Manes matter!
So, back to Tandie. He was actually born at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2014 alongside two brothers, to dad Xerxes and mother Adia.
This was Xerxes (rip).
Tumblr media
Obviously, a very large, dark, lush mane on Xerxes here. So where did these blond muttonchops come from on his son?
I asked the zoo docents and got an answer that didn't make a lot of sense. They told me that after the three cubs grew into adolescents, they were moved to the Oakland Zoo together. But living together suppressed his testosterone, and he never grew a mane.
Hmmmm.
Here's a photo from 2016, when the brothers debuted at Oakland. They're a year and a half old in this photo.
Tumblr media
(Photo Credit: Oakland Zoo)
And here's from an announcement for their third birthday.
Tumblr media
(Photo credit: Oakland Zoo)
Okay, so these dudes obviously all were growing manes as of 2017. I think Tandie is the one on the left in the first photo, and laying down in the middle on the second. What happened?
I was just in the Bay Area for a zoo road trip, of course I went to Oakland and tracked down a docent to ask some questions.
It turns out that shortly after the brothers turned three, they started acting like adult male lions: they started scuffling regularly. It's a normal social thing for male lions to live in groups, called coalitions, but according to my lion experts there's generally a baseline level of some social jostling within them. It wasn't quite clear from what the docent said if they couldn't manage the boys together, or if they just wanted to avoid the scratches and small wounds that result from normal lion behavior. Regardless, they put all three of the boys on testosterone blockers in order to be able to keep them together as a social group.
Now, I don't know a lot about the use of hormone alteration as a form of captive animal management, except in the case of birth control. I don't think it's something that's unethical - there was just a webinar on it that I saw go by - but I don't think it's commonly done with big cats. Lions have kind of complicated reproductive cycles, and for instance, we've been learning that female lions can take much longer to come into estrus again than expected after coming off hormonal birth control.
In males, testosterone blockers (or being neutered) means they lose their manes. This is why a lot of rescues will do a vasectomy on their males instead of a neuter - it allows them to keep their mane and the social signals that accompany it.
Tandie returned home to Woodland Park Zoo after Xerxes passed in early 2022, and the docent told me all of the lions had been off their blockers "for while." I'd guess those things happened around the same time, since bringing the trio down to a duo at Oakland would reduce some of the social tensions.
Hormones are such interesting things, though. One of Tandie's brothers has a full mane again, and the other is still totally mane-less.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
As for Tandie, his mane is growing back in, and it looks like he might rival his dad for length and coloration.
He started here, in February:
Tumblr media
Yesterday:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
What a difference four months (and maybe proximity to a girl) makes!
8K notes · View notes
niteshade925 · 3 months ago
Text
Saw these tags in a reblog of my Chinese museum posts, and thought I have to make a response just so everyone is clear on how archaeological studies are carried out in China:
Tumblr media
^Well, the Shaanxi Archaeology Museum is a Chinese museum displaying artifacts found in China, it's not the British Museum lol.
But anyway just so everyone knows, modern Chinese archaeology has a rule, which is that unless it's absolutely necessary, an ancient tomb/mausoleum should not be disturbed. This means that many of these artifacts in the museums are found in a few main ways:
Tombs that absolutely had to be excavated because there were clear signs of grave robbing present, for example when tunnels left by grave robbers were found near a known tomb. This is called "excavating to rescue" (抢救性发掘), it's done by teams of archaeologists, the artifacts found will then be studied and eventually find a home in museums in China. In comparison, actual grave robbers would steal artifacts and sell them for money; many stolen artifacts would end up in auctions, mostly outside of mainland China. This is why there is no "general positive sense" in the phrase "grave robbing with grant money" when it comes to archaeology in China. Modern Chinese archaeology and grave robbing are simply not comparable in any way whatsoever.
Tombs that absolutely had to be excavated because new infrastructure will be built in that location. Such exacavations are also included in excavating to rescue. Examples include tombs in Xi'an city that had to be excavated because a metro was being built. Since Chinese people and Chinese culture are native to China, there are no ethical problems whatsoever, this simply a question of what matters more, the welfare of living Chinese people or the abstract afterlives of ancient Chinese people. Obviously, the welfare of living Chinese people is a more important matter. As for the argument of "but this goes against traditional culture", first, a culture is only alive if the people of that culture is alive and doing well, otherwise that culture is as good as dead; second, a major part of traditional Chinese culture IS focused on the welfare of descendants (ex: the belief that the spirits of ancestors will protect their descendants), so I'm sure our ancestors would be proud to see us doing well.
Tombs that were excavated because archaeologists were absolutely sure that artifacts discovered within would make major contributions to the study of Chinese history. This is pretty much the only exception to the rule of "excavating to rescue", and it is very rarely allowed. An example is the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project (夏商周断代工程), where the main focus is to gain a clearer picture of the timeline of ancient Chinese history, when dynasties began/ended, when major events may have happened, etc.
Artifacts that were found when arresting grave robbers. These are called "recovered artifacts" (追回文物).
Artifacts that returned to China from foreign countries, these are called "returned artifacts" (回归文物). A big portion of these artifacts ended up in foreign countries precisely because of grave robbers, and another big portion were and are still lost for the same reason as why the British Museum has so many artifacts from around the world.
Artifacts that were discovered scattered throughout China. There are three facts to consider here: 1) China has a long history and as a result, there are vast amounts of existing artifacts; 2) tombs are material things and thus are subject to the elements; 3) not everyone is an archaeologist. Combine these, and you have situations were valuable artifacts were found in places like the chicken coop of a farmer (this is how the eagle-shaped pottery ding was found).
Donations. Some artifacts were family heirlooms that were donated to museums.
3K notes · View notes
lizardho · 2 months ago
Text
I came out to my dad as bisexual at 14 and I was PANICKED because I had a crush on a guy in my Boy Scout troop and thought I was Going To Hell Forever and he was so kind and understanding of my distress, but he had NO idea what bisexuality was. He just said “yeah but you like girls too? This is normal. Everyone is like this.” And I love my dad and trust him with my life to this day and the idea that the concept of bisexuality had not occurred to him had not occurred to me so I put it off.
By 16 though I had a crush on like THREE boys. Three entire boys in my Boy Scout troop. I felt like my sin was slowly advancing, until like an untreated cancer it had become metastatic. I remember bawling my L’il limp-wristed sissy eyes out in his big rumbly truck on the way home from a scout meeting and him telling me that it was OK, that he still loved me if I was gay, but that he knew I wasn’t gay because I still had crushes on women and that meant I was straight. I didn’t quite know how to explain that those felt *~*different*~* and that I felt like I was losing a fight to evil inside me but I again felt comforted by his reassurances and his genuine fatherly love.
At 18 I was like “hey I’m realizing all my friends are going on missions. I don’t wanna do that. Idk how to say that and I don’t have a ‘good enough’ reason to not wanna go.” So I just put it off. Again, my parents were extremely supportive of the information I gave them (I blamed it on perpetually forgetting to start the paperwork.) and one day my mom texted me that she had done the paperwork for me! And that all I needed was to get a physical! So I did that (it was awkward af tbh, my hernia check was done by a trainee doctor and she spent like 3 minutes fishing around my inguinal canals before her attending rescued me) and was sent to Mexico City where I learned that in addition to dipshit himbos with strong hands and scruffy guys with artistic hearts I was REALLY into chubby Latin men with strong personalities who bullied me a little when I lived in Mexico.
I remember my first companion got annoyed with me during an argument and said we were just gonna wrestle and whoever won the wrestling match won the argument (I stg I am dead serious this happened.) I was like…SWEATING when he tore off his tie and threw his white button-down shirt onto the ground (I won btw, don’t ask me how).
I remember one of my companions with this really intense, almost manic energy telling me that he was gonna make sure I was safe in a new area I didn’t know very well. He cooked breakfast for me and we’d go shopping together on P-Days and in the mornings before breakfast he’d jog around and do pull-ups with his shirt off and I’d do anything but look at him because my face would break out in a sweat so intense he’d think I was crying and come over to see if I was OK and somehow make it worse. He let me play D&D with myself in the evenings even though it was against mission rules because he knew how lonely and stressed I was.
I remember one of my companions was a big chubby man with a loud voice and a great sense of humor. He was kind and direct when addressing conflicts with me, and always bragged about how he knew the secrets of women’s minds and it felt like he really did since it almost always boiled down to “Treat Them Like People and Love Them a Lot. Don’t Stop Being A Person For Them. Also Eat Them Out Sloppy Style.” Our P-Day activities sometimes felt like dates, and it seemed like he was more attentive to my emotional state than I was since he was always the first to suggest we slow down our Divinely Mandated, God-Ordained, Super Sacred Work and Wonder to get a snack or check out a Pawn Shop (I love Pawn Shops).
I remember another companion who asked me to bully him every time he did something against his goal of losing weight. It was like he gave me Carte Blanche to take out my crush on him by being a nuisance and I LOVED that. I remember having a breakdown one day after we’d spent the afternoon frantically cleaning our disgusting-barely-habitable mission house to make it look less vile that it was (not our fault imo?) and I started bawling and he pulled me into a hug and he smelled good and he told me he knew it wasn’t just the house and that I was mad at him for being a Huge Dickhead for about a week (true) and that he would work on it. (He’s also a huge chaser but that’s a separate thing.)
I remember one of my companions waking up early (and our schedule is already built for sleep deprivation) to make me a “birthday cake” from knock-off Nutella and bread. He used matches for candles and woke me up, lit the ‘candles,’ pulled them out, then smashed it in my face and took a bunch of pictures while I was still madrugada and disoriented as fuck. He had the same sense of humor as one of my HS crushes and I could push his buttons pretty easily which was so fun.
I came home from my mission and started back at BYU where I became actively and aggressively suicidal. I had a stalker the year I moved up there and my dad’s solution to that was to get me a gun. I know he wouldn’t have bought me a gun if he could have read my mind, but I had a loaded pistol under my bed during a trifecta faith/sexuality/gender crisis and that was not helpful. I remember that the day I decided to kill myself I figured I’d call the BYU CAPS and see if I could get into therapy because it felt like what I was “supposed to do” so I could check my suicide boxes. My therapist was the guy who’d helped me pick a major the year before and was this drop-dead gorgeous Hawaiian man who cried when I told him how I’d been feeling.
A few weeks into therapy I met another stunning man with soft eyes and a scruffy illegal-at-BYU beard he kept pushing his luck with. He was funny, kind, patient, married, and wouldn’t give me the time of day if he knew I was crushing on him. We were in my history of psych class, which was inarguably the worst psych class I have ever had, and we studied together for every assignment and test and I realized that my feelings for him and for all the men I’d already mentioned were in direct conflict with my faith and relationship with God. My already agonizing spiritual conflict became even more wretched and as a result of this plus some other tightly-packed experiences with Mormonisms bullshit, I left the church.
After leaving the church I decided to move back to AZ and transfer to ASU. My mom helped me get a dog since I think it had started to dawn on my family that my mental health was barely getting me through the day, and she knew that we both loved dogs. Madi made my last year at BYU livable while I got my shit together and transferred. In that last year, I went on a date with quite possibly the only semi-openly-out trans person on BYU campus. It was not a great date imo, I was not doing well, but the person I spoke with was fun and fascinating and talked to me about Gender Dysphoria and it really cemented my need to go. To leave and never come back to that fucking school.
I started at ASU a month after my last semester at BYU and within a very short time frame it felt like I was coming back together, like a puzzle magically putting itself together in an environment that wasn’t slowly draining that puzzle’s will to live.
On the 4th of July, the year I started at ASU, I saw a transition timeline photo of a gorgeous happy beautiful happy radiant happy woman and her former Mormon missionary self and I realized the light that was on in her eyes was the light that was off in mine. I looked into transitioning for 3 days, sleeping about 10 hours total during that time. I started talking to other trans people on Reddit (one of whom is now my beautiful fiancée @cintailed) and after about a month of making preparations to be disowned and kicked out, something I was not sure would happen but was ready to go through to Turn On The Lights, I came out to my family and it was amazing. I started HRT a month after that. I secretly dated some dorky guys for about a year while I applied to grad schools. I got into a great grad school for me and my needs. I got FFS. I did my trainings and classes. Me and my fiancée moved in together after some LDR shenanigans. We’ve lived together now for 4 years of basically marital bliss. We have a cat named Grandmother Esmeralda Weatherwax who bites the hell out of my feet about three times a day. My bi-cycle continues to be part of my life but now it’s not as scary. Baby gays in my life have started to look to me for advice. Idk how this all happened so fast. When the years, months, weeks, days, and hours seems to crawl by so slowly now they are rushing past me so fast it’s almost bewildering. Whereas before I felt like I was living on borrowed time, past my ‘expiration date,’ now it feels like I can Fucking Breathe. I’m training myself to slow down now and it feels worth it to Live In The Moment.
Idk why I wrote this. Idk why these thoughts only seem to come up on Sundays when I’m supposed to be writing my dissertation. Idk why I’m crying rn or why I feel so happy. I’m gonna post this shit then get on with my dissertation I guess. Read more Terry Pratchett and give yourselves the time you need. Get a pet. Talk to someone. Re-examine the events that brought you here. Be gayer. Love y’all 💕
2K notes · View notes
moonlight-records · 2 months ago
Text
Paddock Throuple | OP81 & LN4 (sm!au)
pairing: oscar piastri x reader x lando norris
summary: an insight to the paddocks favorite throuple outside of f1 before a race weekend
warning: none!
fc: none!
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
oscarpiastri tagged yourusername and landonorris
Tumblr media Tumblr media
liked by yourusername, landonorris, yourbestfriend, carlossainz55, arthur_leclerc, and 1.6m others
oscarpiastri this is why lando and y/n need to be supervised when they're together
view all 982,403 comments
user025 LANDOSCARY/N NATION WAKE UP!!!
user842 what are they doing in the first photo?? 😭
user5936 THE PURPLE HOODIE IS SOOO CUTE WHERE IS IT FROM???
↳ user382 i think it's lando's hoodie on his store! ↳ user5936 runNING RN I NEED IT
carlossainz55 is lando trying to...crawl into the game?
↳ oscarpiastri yes but not to shoot since he's bad, the balls got stuck ↳ landonorris RUDE OMG??? ↳ yourusername don't cry cause he's right ↳ carlossainz55 they're right you are not...the best ↳ landonorris THE SLANDER IS--WILD
logansargeant y/n! grab me a coke while you're up there 🙏
↳ yourusername i got you bestie! 💕
user8739 YES OFF TRACK PHOTOS WE'RE SO BACK!!!
yourusername YOU LOVE US AND YOU KNOW IT!!!
↳ landonorris YEAH, WHAT Y/N SAID!! ↳ oscarpiastri just because I love you both, doesn't mean my statement isn't wrong. ↳ landonorris BOOOOOOOO ↳ yourusername 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅
Tumblr media
yourusername tagged oscarpiastri, landonorris, logansargeant and alex_albon
Tumblr media Tumblr media
liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris, logansargeant, alex_albon, arthur_leclerc, and 1.1m others
yourusername someone say mclaren & williams double date? 👀
comments on this post has been limited
logansargeant did someone say adventure?
landonorris we should run it back like NOW
alex_albon best night ever!!
arthur_leclerc what is happening in the second photo?
↳ alex_albon lando and oscar trying to hold logan up but it back fired so i came to his rescue ↳ landonorris alex failed at his rescue mission ↳ alex_albon SHUT UP 😫 ↳ logansargeant i think alex did a great job at saving me 🥰 ↳ oscarpiastri well if someone didn't scare us, it would've been a perfect photo ↳ yourusername oops?
charles_leclerc you are all menaces together i love it
↳ landonorris i was about to say we weren't better when streaming 😂
lewishamilton44 did someone win me something?
↳ yourusername yes king 💪💪
oscarpiastri okay i'll admit it, the amusement park was fun
↳ yourusername YES I WIN!!!
Tumblr media
landonorris tagged yourusername and oscarpiastri
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri, alex_albon, arthur_leclerc, carlossainz55, maxverstappen, and 1.6m others
landonorris pre-race date night ft. spiderman 🥵🫢
view all 1.1m comments
user9473 stop y'all are so CUTE 🥹🥹
user34 omg omg I WAS AT THE SAME AQUARIUM AND THOUGHT I WAS INSANE ↳ yourusername not insane! ↳ user34 OMG YOU RESPOND!!!
alex_albon IS THAT SPIDERMAN?!
↳ oscarpiastri yes, yes it is ↳ landonorris met a REAL celebrity today ↳ yourusername ugh soooo upset i missed spidey 😫
user406 THE SPIDERMAN ONE AHAHAHA
user3857 please tell me y/n is coming with y'all to Singapore!! PLEASE!!!
↳ yourusername 🤭
Tumblr media
yourusername tagged landonorris and oscarpiastri
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, charles_leclerc, alex_albon, arthur_leclerc, maxverstappen, logansargeant and 1.3m others
yourusername pretty boyfriends and prettier helmets 😮‍💨😮‍💨
comments on this post has been limited
maxverstappen i swear they never can agree on the weather
↳ yourusername of course not! one is always too hot and one is always too cold
landonorris i feel like you're only dating us for the helmets
↳ oscarpiastri and the paddock passes ↳ yourusername 😮...what?
logansargeant y/n i got our drinks ready
↳ yourusername LETS GOOOO!!!
landonorris you know i didn't get a good luck kiss
↳ oscarpiastri i second this. how are we suppose to do good without our good luck kiss to start the race weekend? ↳ landonorris we can't ↳ yourusername oh you big babies, i'm coming!!
1K notes · View notes
yeyinde · 4 months ago
Note
(sighs dreamily) i loooove the way you write fucked up and gross simon. the size kink and somno drabbles have been living rent free in my mind for almost two weeks now. the recent stalker piece was also so deliciously terrifying, i actually had a dream/nightmare today that was a mixture of stalker!ghost and not-dog!soap 😭
are you planning on writing any more for either of those?
ahhh thank you!!!! this had me wondering how i could maybe blend the two and this happened.
stalking. HEAVILY implied noncon somno. size difference.
Simon decides your dog, your baby, needs a man in the house. and since you like to call yourself his 'mama,’ then it’s only right that he becomes the daddy both of you need.
Your dog does not like strangers.
He's a rescue and the sort of life he lived until now, until you, is mostly a mystery. You found him on a rainy day, panting under your awning - a gnarled mess of matted fur glued to bone. Too skinny to survive another winter. You took him in right away and gained his trust. His love. But whatever he had left to spare (lots, it seems) is strictly reserved for you. Everyone else is a threat, a worry. Even the vets he's known since you found him all those years ago still get the same wary glances, the same growls then they lean in too close to whisper something in your ear.
He's just—special. The sweetest thing ever when it's just you. Your baby. People joke—slightly nervous—that he treats you like his mother. Following you closely with his big, glossy eyes tilted up to stare at you. Loving. Cuddly. Rests his big head on your lap at night with a great, big sigh. Tired from a long, hard day of protecting his house from squirrels and the stray delivery driver.
But when it comes to others—anyone, really—he’s aggressive. Territorial. All the vets and trainers say that it's his breed. That he just needs to be trained. Exposure therapy. Behavioural. And it works for all of two weeks before he's back to his stubborn self. Snapping at anyone who gets too close to you.
You post warnings on your fence. Your front door. Take precautions when you walk him. Warn anyone who gets close that he doesn't like anyone. Full stop. No exceptions. And it works. Helps ease the stress. He still goes to therapy. To training lessons. But he's smart enough to trick them into thinking he's learning.
And it's fine. People can't get too close to you. To his house. His territory.
Or so you thought.
But he's been acting strange lately.
You caught him barking at something through the fence a few months ago; spittle flying from his muzzle as his lips peeled back, snarling and vicious. If the fence wasn't reinforced, you think he would have broken it down to get at whatever was behind it.
It continued like this for a few days. Each time you went to check and see what was there, all you find is littered cigarettes. The teenage son of your neighbour, you think. He likes to hide in the dense woods so his parents can't find him. You'll talk to him about it later. Ask if he can do it a little further away from the fence so he isn’t disturbing Baby. 
As the days grow, his growls and snarls diminish before stopping outright. In the interim, your unease grows.
It's small—at first. 
He wants to be outside more. Always whining at the back door, scratching at it with his paw. When you let him out, he runs right to that spot by the fence. Sits down, and just stares. When you go out to look, there's nothing there. Just a dark, sprawling coppice. Cigarettes on the ground. But something catches his attention. Keeps it. Holds it.
He leads you to that spot sometimes, too. Nudges you with his big, furry head to your thighs. Shepherding you to the fence, and then sits back, clearly preening. Proud.
"You're mama’s silly boy, aren't you?" you coo, scratching his ears. It must be the neighbour. Maybe a stray deer wandered by. You catch a flash through the tree line. Twin puddles of black peering through the tangled weeds. Your dog perks up, looking towards it. A deer, you think. A stray buck. You huff, patting his head. "Made a new friend, huh?"
But you can't shake the feeling that something else is out there. That something is staring at you.
Nothing, you tell yourself, fighting off a shiver. It's fine. Fine. He sneaks off at night sometimes. You hear him playing in the hallway. Wandering around the house. The tack-tack-tack of his nails against the hardwood as he walks back to your bedroom lulls you back to sleep. You feel the bed dip. Something warm against your back. You sigh, melting into the sheets—
There's nothing to worry about.
He'll protect you.
But the next morning, you find him locked outside. The patio door shut. The deck is dried from the sun, but his fur is wet. It rained last night. You drifted in and out to the patter of it on your window. The soothing weight of his body curling around you—
He must have gotten out in the morning. Rolled around in the grass. But when you put him in the tub later to scrub the rainwater off of his cost, his belly is dry.
It's nothing. He was in bed with you last night. It's fine. Fine. Everything is easy to explain away as coincidence. Nothing usual. The feeling of being watched. The missing food from your fridge. The creaks of the old house at night. Things shifting around—keys missing only to turn up somewhere else. Rodents chewing through your landline. 
The panties you shed, tossing into a corner before getting into the shower going missing—
They’re just—lost in the wash. You must have thrown the leftover food away when you cleaned earlier and forgot. The lingering scent of cigarettes. Smoke in your bed. The cloying scent of loam, humus. Fresh dirt. The stains on your bed. The strange smear in the gusset of your panties when you peel them apart.
Something thick, firm between your thighs—
Fine. You tell yourself. Everything is fine. At best, it's a gas leak. At worst—well.
Baby will protect you. 
Always. 
But the next day, he brings his favourite toy to the back door, asking to be let out, and this isn't—
It's not normal.
He's possessive over his toys. Keeps them on his daybed and refuses to let anyone touch them. Only you. He doesn't bring the. Outside, either.
But when you peer outside a few minutes later, the toy is lying by that spot near the fence. He's sitting down, tail wagging. Happy. Excited. It continues like this for the next few days. He brings his toys to the fence, coming in later, licking his lips. When you brush his teeth at night, you smell something gamey on his breath. Meaty. 
Getting out of bed a few hours later and playing in the hallway. Going to sleep with you at night, but somehow getting out in the early hours of the morning, waiting for you on the patio when you remember the huff of his breath over your neck less than an hour ago—
No. You're just—
Getting the time wrong. It's fine. He'll protect you. He doesn't like anyone but you.
You hear footsteps in the hallway at night next to the click-clack of his nails. When you jump out of bed to check, it's just him. Sitting by the back door, head craned over his shoulder when he heard you coming. His favourite toy is sitting on the ground in front of him. You fight a shiver. The feeling of eyes burning into you churns your stomach.
"I'm going crazy, sweetheart," you coo, but feel the threads of your sanity begin to snap one by one. "But you'll keep me safe, right?"
His tail wags. You pretend not to notice the gap in the patio door. Opened just a crack. You shut it, forcibly telling yourself to remember to close it next time and fight the memories of locking it before settling on the couch to watch old re-runs. You drag him back to bed, burrowing your head into his fur, listening to the thud-thud-thud of his heart in your ear. 
When you dream that night, it's of a big, scarred hand making its way between your thighs. A rasping, masculine voice in your ear commanding you to be good—
You wake up with your thighs sticky, wet. Your cunt pulsing. There's an ache there; a sting. It twinges when you move, tapering into a sore throb as you swing your legs over the side of the bed, woken up by the strange dream—fingers between your thighs, a head resting on your belly, calling you a good girl—and a noise.
A low murmur comes from the living room. You wince with the first several steps, forcing yourself to ignore the uncomfortable feeling between your thighs. The wetness that drips down your leg, some of it already dried, sticking to your skin. It’s fine. You just had a—
A wet dream.
—everything is fine. Fine. Your heart lurches. Lodges in your throat. Each beat feels like a fist against your tissue trying to break down the prison of your flesh to flee. 
You slowly inch toward the hallway, the sound, making excuses for the fear that curdles in your belly. The itch in the back of your head that calls you stupid. Demands you go back to bed. To sleep. You’ll wake up in the morning to Baby slobbering over your chest, drooling as the time ticks away in a slow crawl towards his usual breakfast. 
It’s tempting. The sleep congealing in the corners of your eyes, weighing heavy—molasses-thick—over your sense of awareness: cobwebbed in that strange, uncanny realm of sleep and wakefulness; hypnagogia turning shadows on the walls into human shapes. The whisper of wind into the brassy drawl of a voice. 
Through it all, the prickle rears. Says something isn't right. Hasn't been right for a while now. It's fine. Everything is—
It doesn't make sense at first. Your brain tries to wrap around the images your eyes feed it. Untangling the dizzying sense of confusion that runs along your hindbrain like a jagged knife; grazing tissue, scraping over nerves. The picture comes together quickly. There's no misinterpreting the shapes.
A man is lounging on your couch. Legs kicked up on the coffee table, ankles crossed. The remote is held in one hand as he lazily flicks through the channels on your television screen. The picture of ease. So relaxed, so comfortable in your space, that you begin to feel a little bit like an intruder. A voyeur peering between the curtains.
This feeling is reinforced when you peel your eyes away from the horrifying mask on the man's face—a black balaclava—and find your dog lounging beside him. Resting with his head over this stranger's thick thighs. His head perks up when you approach, tail wagging, but he doesn't get up from his spot. Content to bask in the half-hearted attention the man doles, a hand buried in his fur. Dragging over his ears. Down his back. Monotonous flicks of his thick wrist, nearly the same width as the barrel of a baseball bat.
And that just trembles down your spine in the worst way.
He's the same height as you are sitting down. Takes up two cushions on the couch with his absurd bulk. Massive, you think. And then it all rushes through you. The knife slips into your cognisance.
There's a man in your house. Petting your dog,
your dog who tries to bite the same vet he's had for years. Who trusts, who likes, no one but you—
You make a noise. Something strangled in the back of your throat. Muffed, unable to escape through the clot of your heart getting there first. It tangles around your pericardium and is too late to take back. To swallow down. 
It doesn’t matter, though. 
The man has been watching from the beginning. 
Dark eyes (a dark, black flash between the leaves—) drill into you. Staring. That familiar, unease feeling is back again, creeping up your spine. It's been him the whole time, you know. The thing behind the fence. Must be. The same brand of cigarettes you found on the opposite side is sitting on your coffee table, right beside his feet.
His chest expands with his inhale. You smell stale smoke. Something wild. The scent of the forest after a summer's rain shower.
"Finally up, are you? Thought you were gonna sleep all day." His voice is deep. Brassy. The growling roll of an approaching thundercloud. You shiver. Jerk back, but—
Baby growls.
He's never done that before. Never barked. Never snarled. Never nipped.
But right now, his teeth peel back, muzzle wrinkling as he lifts his lips. And you know it's playful. Seen this look on his face when you throw the ball across the yard. It's just him being his silly self. He won't attack you. Won't maul you. 
The man lifts his hand and your dog limbers up. Shakes. He jumps off the couch and trots toward you. Nothing is threatening in the way he moves. It's the same lumbering gait, the same happy wag to his tail, but he moves himself around you. Stands between you and the only escape.
"Baby—?"
"Taught 'im a few tricks," the man drawls conversationally—like he wasn't a stranger in your house. "Got a good boy on your 'ands. Jus' needed a bit o'trainin'—”
He snaps his fingers and Baby moves. Bumps his head into the back of your thighs. Pushing you. Nudging you toward the man. It’s so horrifying familiar that you find yourself moving without a thought. Following along. 
"He jus' needed a man in the house, didn't he? A father figure—" 
You're going to be sick. Think you would have been already if your heart wasn't lodged tight in your throat, keeping everything down. 
The man lifts his hand. Curls his fingers. 
"C'mon, mommy," he taunts, voice a derisive roll. "Come sit on Daddy's lap. It's movie night tonight."
Baby pushes you forward happily, tail wagging, wagging—
Happier than you’ve ever seen him as this stranger reaches out, grabbing your waist and hauling you onto his lap. You think about fighting immediately, struggling to get out of his hold, but he moves back and the unmistakable, blunt press of a gun sends shivers rolling down your spine. You still instantly. Back drawing tight. Fear is a wet, hot pulse behind your ribs. 
“Don’t fight it, birdie—” You feel the warm, damp press of his mask against the shell of your ear. The ridges of his lips move beneath the fabric as he speaks. 
You hear him inhale, drawing in the scent of your shampoo—your fear: an oily thick miasma pooling behind your ears, against your nape—and feel tears pool against your lashline when a surge of familiarity wells up at the solid, firm weight of his chest against your spine. His thigh slips between yours, spreading them wide over the arch of his muscle. Limp, dizzy, you fall back into his chest when he pulls you in, slotting a burly arm over your ribcage. Locked in tight. A shackle. 
“Ain’t go’ nothin’ t’worry about,” he continues, hips shifting. Moving. And—
It’s a not gun. You know it isn’t. When you whimper, it throbs—
There’s the echo of a groan in his voice when he huffs, lips pursing into a kiss. “Nothin’ at all. C’mon, Baby—” 
And Baby obeys eagerly, jumping up on the couch beside him. His snout is warm, wet, when he presses it to your arm, sniffing. Please, you think, staring into his eyes as tears swell, pooling down your cheeks. Please—
But the man lifts his arm, and Baby circles the cushion before falling against his side with a deep, content sigh. Hope is snuffed out of your chest in an instant. The man’s hand falls to his head, rubbing his skull affectionately. 
“Good boy.” Baby perks. His happiness is a palpable thing that swells around you as he melts, eyes slipping closed. “Gonna be a good boy while mum an’ dad spend some time together, ain't you, boy?”
His arm tightens around your waist. Chin notches over your shoulder as he shifts back, legs kicking out to spread your thighs further apart.
"Now," he drawls, hand sliding down to the mess between your thighs. You shiver against him, toying with the idea of running, fleeing—but he must know. Senses it, maybe. He lifts his hips, pressing the gun into your spine. A threat. A warning. But with the way he swallows you up—broad chest closing in on you, trapping you on all sides—you know it's futile.
He has you.
Your submission makes him purr.
"Baby's sleepin', so now let daddy take care'o mommy—"
2K notes · View notes