#the sets scale drove me insane

[kn-rainbowblood]

I'm so sorry for my sister who unwisely decided to tell me at midnight that there was Cats (2019) on the TV and had to listen to me rant for the next two hours.

[dnickels]

RE: 5x05. I have no idea how much I'm supposed to read into this, but that has never stopped me before:

It's VE Day. Havers is back in England. The post office, telephone system, communication infrastructure etc all still work. So where is Cap's sense of urgency coming from? He knows the full name and regiment of a serving officer, a letter will get where it needs to go, they're very good about that over there. Yes, Cap's been waiting, but its been six years, he can wait a little longer-- hang out in the bushes until he sees Haver's car drive away and bang on the window, if he insists on being an insane person (<3). Figure out where he's billeted. Japan hasn't surrendered yet, so I suppose there's a chance Havers could get shipped to Burma or something and potentially die there, but he's not going to go straight from the cocktail reception to the troop ship, especially if everyone there is about to get "Hitler defeated"-levels of drunk. ("They're all red tabs, surely decency and decorum--" they are going to roll those old soaks out of there in wheelbarrows)

The urgency isn't because Havers might die. I think Cap knew his time was short.

He's a middle aged man in tolerably good shape, all that ration food aside. He make good time on his morning jogs, and his biggest ailment is 'creaky knees'. "Widowmaker heart attack out of nowhere" isn't an unheard of COD for someone who seems otherwise fine, especially someone who has been under a fair amount of stress (six years of wartime, including the fucking Blitz would do a number on my heart) but his sudden relocation makes me pause. It's only been about a year since he got relocated away from Button House, right? What was all that about? It's presumably still requisitioned, given that they're throwing a swanky victory party there and Heather Button is nowhere to be seen, but has the weapons program been disbanded? Or was there some reason to pull the CO out of a high-stress position and send him to the beach to take potshots at seagulls? (I am being glib here-- the coast was NOT a stress-free place when you can see your enemy just across the Channel). I genuinely forget what he said he was doing in season three-- was he even still in the army at all, or did they send his ass to the Home Guard? Even they got a campaign ribbon.

I think Cap made one last push to get to the front, and while its very clear that this dingus should under no circumstances be on the front line (<3) they humored him with a medical-- and found something really troubling. Or maybe he went in of his own accord, the old flutter, or maybe it was just a routine checkup. Either way he got some very serious news, so sorry old boy, just one of those things, could be any day now-- best make sure your affairs are all in order.

Hence the single-minded desire to meet, once last time. Everyone else clearly drove-- did he walk all the way from the train station, down the country lanes? Did he feel a little short of breath scaling all those walls? Did every set-back and stressor make him more determined-- just give me a little more time, just a little more time...

It could also be that he just got yelled at so hard he died of it, which is almost certainly how I will go, but that was my immediate impression and it has not left me, nor have I known peace. I know there's a few holes in my theory but I haven't talked myself out of it yet. For me the kicker is that he experiences at least ten devastating emotions in the last moments of his life, but "surprise at entering cardiac arrest" does not appear to be one of them. It looks more like grim acceptance. Stoic in the face of death-- a soldier to the end.

[shadowy-suitcase-herring-neck]

Well, I suppose the most natural question about your new dragon AU is: What role do Nightmare and the gang play? Give me all the most likely tragic details.

tragic indeed. it gets rather dark. they are cursed. literally.

Nightmare was among the very first to ever get the curse (dream was cursed after Nightmare) so he has been around AWHILE. wasn't very nice at first after being cursed aka kill every living thing in sight from rage. He was trying to prove himself to the other hunters in his village via hunting. should have been more suspicious that he was offered to slay the last dragon of the nest. considering he was not very well liked... the hunters tried to kill him before the curse took hold by thhunrowing him in a frozen lake. long story short. Nightmare ended up emerging from the lake several weeks later in his draconic form and decimated his old village. part of the reason hunters think "phantom dragons" (false dragons/cursed dragon form) are omens that appear after a tragic accident during a hunt.

Killer and Dust came from the same outpost, they were sort of frienimies as in they where the only ones that could tolerate each other. where friends but acted like they couldn't stand each other. Dus is older than Killer and was able to go on a hunt before him. Killer would often jokingly complain that they wouldn't be able to have their first hunts together. Dust promised to bring him back a scale. that hunting party never came back. He was able to bring down the last dragon in the nest when separated from the main group of hunters. because of this the curse had time to take effect and he entered the crazed state that comes right after getting the curse and attacked the other members of his party. dieing afterwards from wounds and then reviving in his new skeletal body When Dust never returned from the hunt and it was reported that the entire party had most likely been killed by dragons Killer threw himself into training even harder. He would be the greatest dragon hunter alive. revenge drove him. Killer actually went on several dragon hunts and it quickly became clear he was good at it. too good. he was becoming a danger to the higher ranking hunters. they made a plan. all the higher ranking hunters know about the curse is that it drives an individual to insanity and eventually death. they do not know about the whole reviving part. or shape shifting. the plan was to simply make everyone else think Killer had snapped. this backfired immensely. Killer is very dangerous. Killer was eventually slain and revived a few weeks later. he wandered for a long time. but eventually he found Dust. not that they recognized each other at first.

Horror came from a hunter camp that had been newly set up so it was less supplied. one winter they got cut off from their supply route and they began starving. Horror found a lone dragon out in the woods. It just so happens to be a lone survivor of a nest that had about the same fate as horror's own camp.Horror was hungry and all he could think was dragon=food. and the curse claimed another soul. The dragon and Horror ended up killing each other.

Horror got a head injury from a hunter after being newly skeletonised and not releasing the hunter just saw a living skeleton.long story short horror has a hole in his skull and his draconic form is missing one of its horns. 

As For Cross. I was honestly debating if i should make him a part of the gang. Cross was the son of a high ranking Hunter. It was expected for Cross to take his place and it was never intended that he would get the curse. Like Horror Cross found a dragon in the woods. Likely a survivor from a recent hunt that hadn't had time to find a new nest yet. Cross was found a few hours later stumbling around the woods and immediately attacked the search party. someone was able to knock him off a cliff and into a river where Cross awoke on the shores of several weeks later. Cross is coincided the youngest of the cursed ones as no others have been made yet after his revival.

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2023-09-11

Oh shit that was today

Listening: Apocalyptica is a band that continues to perform because we love it when some guys do crazy shit to a cello. They put a performance of one of my favourites, Bittersweet, on YouTube the other day.

Songs that absolutely ROCKET me back to being 15 and listening to Apocalyptica on loop while practicing for the Lego Robotics competitions.

Reading: Trying and failing to track down the full set of papers by O. P. Kimball on "The Prevention of Simple Goiter in Man", he's the guy who was responsible for a serious government push on iodine supplementation, a topic I occasionally go insane about. There's 3-4 papers he wrote on his initial studies on the student population of some high school in the early 1900's but for some reason the first paper is very hard to find. Fascinating stuff though. This paper is the best of the originals I could find, and the next one is a decent retrospective from the 60's:

It was known before this that iodine was needed for thyroid function, before even the mid-1800's, but Kimball experimentally showed that it's actually really easy to provide enough iodine to people as a supplement to completely eliminate a huge source of disability and disease, and the successive work seems to be what drove grand-scale iodine supplementation which is one of the most effective public health operations pretty much ever.

Yeah.

Watching: The Mummy was up for Movie Night, a rare break from terrible movies for an actually good one. Few movies so rich in impeccable comedic timing and physical comedy.

Making: Now that I have a solution for storing my filament, I am slowly returning to printing, currently doing a few test runs to figure out how to make reasonably dimensionally accurate parts.

Once I get everything to size I can print the actual product, which is an adapter to run a coffee grinder on an electric screwdriver. There's such a tiny difference in the dimensions it feels unfair that you can't just drive it directly. I suppose the other option would be to mill down the driven hex on the grinder directly, but. I don't want to try and do that.

Playing: Breath of the Wild, I am dedicated to actually finishing this game. Beat the Naboris beast, you can check the tag for more details. Thunderblight Ganon was easy but tedious.

Tools and Equipment: I finally have a whetstone for sharpening my kitchen and pocket knives, and I have to recommend having some kind of decent knife sharpening situation.

Draw throughs can be good, I frequently hand them out as gifts. The main difficulty is that good draw throughs are hard to find, and not as useful if you also need to maintain other tools like pocket knives in addition to kitchen knives. I like the Worksharp Kitchen Edge, it's what I got for my parents.

There's some cool fancy sharpening systems that attach the stone to a sliding bar for highly reproducible grinds, but I have enough experience to use stones and they are a lot of fun.

[ionasadventures]

LA Adventure- Day 2! (Part 2)

We got to briefly stop and see around a real live sound stage! We weren’t allowed to take any photos of the inside as the show was still filming (they’d stopped for lunch!) but it was so fascinating seeing how they make these 3 camera sitcoms. The set was made up for “Bob <3 Abishola” (spelt with a heart symbol I��m not just being lazy haha) which is a typical sitcom like Big Bang Theory or Young Sheldon or Friends. They’re called 3 camera sitcoms because typically they only use 3 camera angles! One on the character speaking, one on whomever they’re speaking to, and then one for the wide shots with everything in it. The sound stage is laid out in a grid fashion, with 4 sets on each side of a narrow passageway. This passageway is referred to as camera alley because this is where the cameras will be! As with before, the sets don’t have ceilings on them to allow for lighting and the cameras are in a fixed position so as to not see the lights. It takes about 5 days to film one episode, and the sets are left as they are throughout the whole filming season as most of that time is dedicated to set up! After this the tour of the backlot continued, we drove past a few more famous locations! They have a massive jungle area with real plants from the jungle (as the climate will allow for it!). This was ESPECIALLY of interest to me as this was the area where they filmed the iconic T-Rex chase scene from Jurassic Park!! Warner Bros. let’s other studios use their facilities too, which is why some of the locations seem above are used in things like Breaking Bad, Jurassic Park and Spider-Man. They also have a big pit which can be filled with water to create a lagoon, or with dirt to create a graveyard. Versatile! After the outside lots - which were MASSIVE - we navigated to a warehouse area of the tour which had costumes and props on display. It was very cool to see! Costumes from Interview with the Vampire, Batman, Crazy Rich Asians, Space Jam, and of course a whole host of DC superheroes. They even had some from Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon. The costumers were intricately made, the detail was outstanding! For example on Aquaman’s suit there’s tiny iridescent scales all over. The props were cool too as they were primarily the Batmobile and other Bat-items from across the Batman movies. They had this cool area from The Hobbit which showed how they did the forced perspective trickery to make the Hobbits look small and Gandalf look big! The studio tour really made a point to showcase every aspect of the filmmaking process, detailing how costumes and props and sets were made. The amount of afford put in to each and every part of filmmaking is insane, no wonder it takes so long to make because so much detail is included, things you may not even see or notice unless you’re looking really close! Sam Warner (one of the Warner Brothers) advocated for the use of Vitaphone, the process of using sound in cinema, and it was fascinating to see how they would make the sounds for shows. For example, in the Spider-Man kiss scene, to prevent the fake rainwater from going up Tobey McGuire’s nose, they used a combination of cotton wool and Vaseline to plug up his nose! However this meant that he couldn’t speak properly, so he re-recorded his lines using the sound system to make himself sound clearer over the rain. If you go back and watch the film, you’ll notice that Kirsten Dunst as Mary-Jane only lifts the mask up to below Spider-Man’s nose, to prevent the cameras from picking up on the cotton wool! They also had things such as wooden boards and fake shoes to amplify the sound of actors walking on set, as typically the sets would have plastic floors to prevent the actors’ footsteps from drowning out their lines. Thus by dubbing over the footsteps, the sound department can control how loud they are and change the volume depending on the scene. Such cool stuff!! From storyboards to green screens to motion capture to physical makeup, it was incredibly to see behind the scenes and had given me an even greater appreciation for all those involved!

[changethecircumstances]

after finally playing all the mainline entries, here's my opinion on them (put them in the order i played them cause that probably affected my opinion):

REmake 15/10 (never played the original but reading up on the differences and what they added like holy shit talk about what a remake should be it was so fun and sold me on fixed camera angles honestly)

RE0 8/10 (got used to there not being an item box pretty quickly but actually finding and picking up items was surprisingly hard, maybe it was the console i was playing on but it made some parts really annoying when i couldn't see what i needed to pick up otherwise story and characters were great)

RE4 -100/10 (i'm sorry i hated it, it started off ok but by the half way point i seriously had to force myself through it and for someone who does not mind QTEs, who even enjoys QTE games like Detroit Become Human, oh man they drove me insane in this god damn game, hopefully i'll like the remake better)

RErevelations 8/10 (a nice mix of what i enjoyed with REmake and RE0 plus more modern controls made me really enjoy this one and the story was top notch)

RE5 6/10 (gameplay wise it was fine and a step up from RE4 with the combat while being a step down with the puzzles, some of the bosses were confusing and i died a couple of times but i'd replay it for the Chris and Wesker bits, also Sheva was amazing i'd love to see her again)

RErevelations2 10/10 (improved on everything the first revelations did with an awesome story and a really cool use of reusing the maps plus multiple endings which was great)

RE6 3/10 (i liked Chris' section and some of Jake's was ok but even the parts i liked were just so damn boring and linear that it was a slog to get through plus the UI was awful, only reason i don't dislike it more than RE4 is cause i never had to replay a section a million times over)

RE7 9/10 (this was a breath of fresh air after the more action heavy RE games; despite having seen gameplay of it ages ago it still scared me and was fun to play despite me not being a fan of first person)

RE2make 10/10 (like the remake of the original this is how you do a remake right the only reason why i don't rate it above the scale is probably because i knew what to expect whereas i went in blind to REmake so it just made a bigger impact and impressed me more)

RE3make 8/10 (i know and understand the issues with it and as a remake it probably doesn't stand up to the original but as i knew what i was getting into, i loved it for what it was and it was probably my favorite more action heavy RE title)

RECodeVeronicaX 10/10 (i'd definitely say this was the hardest game in the series but it felt the fairest; loved the story the characters the settings and the puzzles only complaint with this one was that stupid pillar where you crush the crystal otherwise i barely died)

RE8 6/10 (I thought I'd enjoy this one more but the pacing of the story just felt off; thought it felt like a solid sequel to re7 but it didn't always feel like a solid re title if that makes sense and I didn't enjoy the locals like I thought I would they just felt weird being in an re title and it made me just miss zombies; gameplay was solid though)

[behindtheb]

I didn’t ask for this . I didn’t ask for this life. I didn’t ask to be like this & quite fcking frankly YALL MADE ME LIKE THIS . The people out there YALL DID THIS TO ME . You traumatized me & Y’all ultimately drove me to insanity …

I know I can do more and be better . Or is that the “being too hard on yourself” // “u set too high expectations for yourself “ — what is the scale ? What if I cut back and now I’m lazy ? !

I am too hard on myself, 10000% . But whatever I’m doing rn in my (highly ) medicated state … well, can I do more ? Can I be better ? Faster ? Stronger ?

I don’t know the line between too hard on yourself vs laziness therefore I stay busy or attempt to however I can . But I can’t even do the damn dishes or laundry … I have no energy to do that . It drains my whole body of energy. So , would that make me lazy ? I never want to be referred to as a “lazy person “ . I truly just have THE HARDEST time getting out of bed and getting dressed .

I can do better . But I do feel I’m trying my best on how to make this situation in my life work but I CAN DO MORE . I can be better . I need to push myself more .

Gotta get this launch soon! 🚀 I’m dyiiiing inside not being able to speak yetttt.

Just working on my confidence & the fact @ woe is a COMPLETE REBRAND brand new . . .

I’m trying my best to stay sane BUT can I push myself more ? ! Ugh

[heretic-altias]

I’m going to write the essay version of this actually now that I’m not tired.

As someone who’s lived through a lot of grief and loss, I’m always surprised people emphasize more on Emet’s grief than Nidhogg’s. Emet is grieving an entire world lost to an apocalypse - something most of if not none of us will ever experience. Nidhogg is grieving his sister, one individual that meant the world to him. That’s something most of us will probably experience in our lives if we haven’t already. I’ll put a cut to go into detail bc this might get long.

I love both Emet and Nidhogg as villains and characters in this game, but I’ve just always found Nidhogg more relatable for the reason I just mentioned above. I assume most of Emet overshadowing Nidhogg so much is that the game was much more popular during his two expansions (he was major in EW too after all) and in part bc he’s a human character and I’ve noticed people tend to pay more attention to humans as characters. But Nidhogg really has so much to offer as a relatable character and I’ve always liked him more than Emet personally.

I’m going to set the stage here so you can understand my view point before I talk about each character. I lost my dad to cancer only a couple years before I started xiv, which I picked up during the SB patch cycle. I definitely had a lot of unresolved grief when I played HW, so my bias could be in part that Nidhogg was the character in the right place at the right time, as I was in a much better mental state by the time ShB came out. Grief has been a major theme in my life as a whole, so I relate to grief driven characters a lot and that will be the general viewpoint for what I say here.

Emet is a FANTASTIC character. I like him a lot, and I’d agree with everything that says he’s one of the best FF villains of all time. But in terms of being driven by grief? He obviously was. But it wasn’t familiar relatable grief for me. He was grieving an entire world, something on such a large scale that my brain couldn’t connect with it bc I couldn’t comprehend the feeling behind losing quite that much. The same way most of us can’t connect with the WoL’s battles emotionally bc we will never experience fighting a god. His grief was huge, and interesting. But it was so beyond what any of us are likely to experience that I wouldn’t call it super relatable. Some parts were. I could see it in his final breakdown at the end of ShB. And in the final dungeon before that. It became more relatable in Endwalker when we met Hythlo and heard about Azem bc it put some individuals he had lost in front of us. But his downfall in ShB didn’t feel like it connected to their loss as much as the entire world’s. I loved Emet’s arc. I felt bad for him. I related to him in a few places. But I just can’t emphasize with him as much, he doesn’t feel like he’s looking directly into my heart as he speaks and acts.

Nidhogg is different. I understand him on a fundamental level. And I still consider having to kill him one of the biggest tragedies of HW. Bc I know with the right help he would’ve been able to live and heal. I remember being so depressed and so angry in the height of grief. I remember wanting something to blame, something I could rip to shreds for what had been taken from me. Nidhogg was the personification (dragonification?) of exactly how I felt. His fire was real and could burn down the world. And he had a direct target, an exact cause to his pain. I understand what drove him to destroy and torment Ishgard, to lock them into a war of suffering. I don’t think I can ever explain exactly how this connects to anyone who hasn’t experienced grief, but Nidhogg’s actions felt exactly like my mental state, like the darkest and most insane desires the mind has when broken and battered. His grief was just so familiar I couldn’t help relating to it. His sister was dead, and the world was just continuing without her. He hated her killers and I hated them with him. And I genuinely think had we not been stopping an imminent attack, we wouldn’t have had to kill him in the Aery. Hypothetically I think with enough time and no lives at stake, we could have gotten through to him. The emotional turmoil thinking about him this way is a big part of what makes him my favorite villain in FFXIV even with Emet being as a great as he is. Nidhogg’s story felt like it was talking directly to my heart in a way Emet’s just didn’t.

I genuinely am surprised people don’t talk about Nidhogg more in this context. Bc I really do find him inherently more relatable than Emet, but I see Emet used in these kinds of conversations instead all the time. Nidhogg’s grief is just so familiar, so similar to what many people will experience in their lives at some point while Emet’s is a distant concept that we’ll most likely only see in fantasy.

Everyone always talks about Emet-Selch being destroyed and motivated by grief, but never Nidhogg.

Nidhogg was the original ‘destroyed by a thousand years of grief’ FFXIV villain.

[c0rpsedemon]

i think i'd like to build my own dollhouse. i think i'd make it a castle

[starshipsofstarlord]

All mine

liam dunbar x reader / masterlist

summary; alec, scott’s new beta has a thing for liam’s girl, and sufficed to say, liam is anything but happy about the predicament / warnings; jealousy, smut, some choking, fucking in a playground, daddy kink, mentions of masturbation, mentions of phone sex, mentions of exhibitionism, oral sex (fem receiving).

the boy with anger issues was feeling a rage boil in his veins; they were in scott’s home, he had came back from college for a break, and thus, alec had joined in meeting with their alpha, though, not all his attention was reprised upon said pack leader.

there was a movie flashing upon the screen, you sat cross legged on the couch, whilst liam had been sent to the kitchen to grab a bowl of popcorn. he could feel his hand putting amble pressure on the plastic bowl, as he watched you explain every dumb thing occurring in the motion picture film.

alec was acting clueless on purpose, he could tell, more so since when he had first joined the pack, he had made such moves on you. and spoiler, eventually they had been successful. you were the same age as scott, meaning that you too had returned to beacon hills for your half term clause in the higher education, and liam wanted you to spend every moment with him, not this stray.

it took all his supernatural strength to restrain the growl threatening to rumble from his chest, his claws bent into the flesh of his palms, drawing a pooling of blood to the tether down from the self inflicted wound. scott smelt the blood, and wrinkled his nose at the scent that invaded his nostrils; he thought liam had his issues under control, but supposedly not entirely.

he couldn’t help himself, alec was trying his best, slyly glancing down your top, and he got he was only a hormonal teenage boy, same as him, but you were his girl. a rumble, resembling the natural force of thunder echoed around the living space, drawing all eyes, human and otherwise, in his direction.

the growl that had erupted from his chest had been possessive, a warning to the young, adopted beta, who quickly adjourned his arm away from the back of the couch, and shuffled from right beside you.

“li, are you good?” in an instant you removed yourself from where you were sat, walking towards him, and smoothing his shoulders over with your palms, watching as he heavily breathed. amber eyes flickered up to you, making you gulp; you now understood what had him so relentless and blunt with his aggression.

“i want to leave.” it wasn’t a question, it was a defiant statement. in turn, you nodded, grasping anything you needed, such as you jacket, and pulling it over your arms, liam quickly heading out, without bidding either of the boys a goodbye.

“see ya.” you waved at the pair, you would apologise for liam’s behaviour later to scott, he of course understood the situation nevertheless, he had been his alpha for a long time now. a hand grasped you as soon as you exited, pillowing roughly into your skin as he dragged you down the street, his pace quick and daring.

“you think i didn’t notice that beta’s eyes drifting down to your cleavage or him practically pawing for your attention.” he had stopped the two of you outside of a playground, you gulped, listening to him with an adjacent inclination.

“liam, there’s no need to be jealous.” your words had the priority of calming his angered exterior, though it happened that you had done rather the opposite. there was a firm line deposited between his dark brows, a frown that was aimed towards you directly.

“me, jealous? oh no, i know that you’re mine, but it comes to the question, do you?” he bit his lip, tensing the bridge of his nose as he moved his face closer to your own. “for all i know, at college, you don’t even let anyone know that you’re in a relationship, it could be your little secret, so you can fuck whomever you want.”

“that’s something i’d never do, you know that!” his accusations were flimsy, that much was liable, though although knowing that all his words came out of a place of secluded insecurity, you still felt the necessity to defend yourself. if you played his game, it would make him subconsciously doubt himself, and possibly believe the things that he was saying were true.

“do i?” the beta pried. liam made directories closer towards you, taking steps to discern your defence, letting his hand ravel up, and close around the front of your neck. your breath instantly hitched, as he wordlessly stated the power he had over you; not to mention, he was stronger, and he was irked, meaning that he would go to any lengths to prove his point, or lack of one.

“liam.” your hands came up to scratch at the exterior of his, worried that he would do some prominent damage, but rather than releasing his grip, he tightened his fist, triggering a hitch in your breath, and a uncoordinated, surprising moan to fly from your lips, as though your body was inherently howling at him for more.

“does my girlfriend like that? i think she likes daddy having his hand around her throat, don’t you baby? are you daddy’s dirty girl?” his slick words made your brain disintegrate into a contortion of confusion; more specifically, riddled with uncertainty, searching for a reason as to why his mature words were affecting you so.

there was no question about the matter, he was well adorned with the specifics of how it was affecting you. the reverberating of your heart thumped in his ears, like drums of a sacred matter, telling him how your hormones crazed, thundering with potential submission, that alternately had your knees quaking, fighting to remain standing.

then, there was the intoxicating aroma that scaled up to his nose from between your legs. that alone was a dead give away, he was lucky that it hadn’t killed him in the dead of night yet. being apart from you for so long had drove him borderline insane, one touch from you had him swooning, wanting nothing more for your hands to drift and intimately pet him.

phone calls, as erotic as some of them were, was just enough. the two of you were sectioned off for education in different counties, the distance pained him, in more ways than one. sometimes he’d wake up with a throbbing appendage between his thighs, begging for attention, more specifically, yours.

his hand got by, completing the job, but it wasn’t the same as the feeling of your sweet velvet walls encasing him likes an umbrella pouch, hugging his shaft tight as he rammed his length inside of you, preening moans of ecstasy out of your sinful mouth. the thought of such scenarios would have hun instantly hard in the school showers, leaving him frustrated for the rest of the day.

and though you had returned for a couple of weeks, he remained prominently stressed, never having enough contact with your skin that he had missed so much. he wished for nothing more than to spend it in a godforsaken rut, trapping you in the confines of his bed as he thrust in and out of you, but it so happened that isn’t how your return had panned out.

the luxury of the bed was not present, in its place was the soft breeze prickling at your skin, making every lingering, and restraining touch that he gave to it that more sensual. it was like nature was biting at your skin, plucking up the courage to adorn your flesh in small bumps, coercing your nipples into being erect, although, that was admittedly not all down to the wispy air.

your boyfriend had turned you on, his methods of doing so far different from anything that he had ever embraced before. whom would have ever thought that the once youngest member of the mccall pack would not forlorn in his youth, but instead want to demean his title as something as sexual as ‘daddy’? you sure as didn’t, but you couldn’t deny, it was kind of hot.

okay, more than hot, a lot more. “answer me y/n.” that’s right, you had gotten swept away with this whole new side to your partner, to say that you were drooling was an understatement, if he pointed it out, you’d blame it on him choking you. choking you! damn, he really had been reading up on some kinky shit whilst you were away.

“i do.” it was an honest answer, traded from you to him. though, it wasn’t entirely what he wanted to hear, you recognised that as he promptly squeezed your air way, causing your tongue to dip out of your mouth as you momentarily gasped for an ounce of breath. to spare you a second to respond, he pardoned his grip, stroking down the side of your face with the back of his stern hand.

“answer properly this time babe, else, i’ll fuck you over the swing set.” gulping, you locked eyes with liam, rubbing your thighs together at his prospect, inhaling heavily, as you felt him soothe his thumb rub upon the crevice of your chin, moisturising your own saliva into your skin.

“i love you choking me, daddy.” the word had a strange affect on your body as it rolled almost effortlessly off your tongue. instantly, verbalising the phrase had you feeling meek under the cold gaze of your boyfriend, a smirk ruling his face, as he clasped his knuckles into the dips of your waist, tugging you close.

“good girl.” he ushered the words into your ear as though he were a pro at doing so, lowering his palms to grab both your ass cheeks, a shocked squeal clawing out of the colander of your throat. “but i’m still going to fuck you over it, and i expect you to grasp onto the chains like you’re holding on for your life, and wail like a banshee that you are all mine.”

a slither of a sound, radiating utter betrothal escaped your withering lips, it was something between noise of a whimper, and a small moan. liam took that, and rightfully so, as approval to proceed with his intentions, and thus, he lead you through the gravel of the empty playground, directing his footsteps to the swings, and pushing you to be in front of him.

he bent your waist a little, so that you were hunched over, offering the perfect angle to generate pleasure for the both of you, as he began to tug your jeans down, letting the tight material meet with the croons of your ankles, and remain tethered around them.

“shit, you’ve already soaked through your panties baby.” liam soothed his fingers over the wet patch that opted through the thin material, brushing directly over your sensitive bundle of nerves, causing your mouth to wantonly drop open, in a silent beckon for more. “i can smell you too, you know, and damn, do you smell fucking divine.”

“daddy please.” the beg fell comfortably from you, there was no sudden recital to saying it once more. peculiarly, it felt natural, the dynamic between you and your partner being a stable structure to begin exploring further aspects that spectated in intimacy.

“sit on the seat, daddy will help you out darling.” trailing around the side of the metal structure, you carefully strode to do as liam has said, perching your ass on the swing, it lightly swaying from the impact of your weight upon the small dipped hammock. “there we go.”

liam knelt, scathing his covered knees upon the ground, as he ran his eager palms along the insides of your thighs, plucking at the band of your panties, before shuffling them down far enough so that he had all the access that he hungered for. the brisk whim that waded through the nighttime air had your pussy clenching, feeling the cold integrate against your folds, as liam puckered his lips.

he blew hot air upon your labia, enforcing your grip around the malleable metal chains to tighten, as you lightly shuffled the way that you were sat, spreading your legs a little wider, as your toes scratched relentlessly inside your socks, digging the front of your sneakers into the tarmac below.

your boyfriend leant forwards, swiping his tongue up your folds, causing you to press your head back, as you airily sighed from the contact, loving the way that his tongue delved around the area of your clit, swirling the bud in his mouth, as his teeth gently pinched the sensitive fumble of flesh.

“li- ah, daddy.” he had nipped at your outer lips, serving his actions as a form to correct how you had labelled him. “fuck, you’re so good with your tongue- shit.” his tongue slipped down into your entrance, thrusting the part of himself in and out of you, as you almost fell out of the swing seat.

“mmh.” your so called daddy hummed, sucking once more on your clit, before pulling his head away, as he stood, dragging you with him to force you to stand, delving his saturated tongue into the depths of your mouth, giving you no other option than to taste yourself on his buds. “what do you say baby?” his hand crawled into your hair as he bit his lip, staring with heavy lids at your flushed expression.

“thank you daddy.” a strong nod, he swiftly rotated you around, giving a light smack to your ass cheek, pinching the flesh, as he hurriedly undressed his bottom half, after fishing a loose packaged condom out of his back pocket. his tongue toyed with his top lip, as he ripped open the plastic square, rolling the condom onto his erect cock, giving himself a couple of jerks, as he steadied himself behind where you had hunched over once more.

he grasped his heavy cock, sliding his length through your smothered folds, teasing you as he tapped your clit, resting his hips flush against your own, as he pressed inside of you, causing an elongated string of obscene sounds to cast out of your mouth, playing a tune out of your melodically fawned lips.

a grunt tore itself out of his chest, as he clenched his fine jaw, digging his thumbs into your ass cheeks, as he began to move; delving deep within you, before pulling out of your tight walls, and rutting himself back inside of you. “fuck, feels so good da- ah!”

your natural sounds of pleasure drowned the surrounding area in an epitome of adulterated musings. adjoined with the sounds of liam’s skin slapping against your own, it was a surprise that no one had intervened, nor walked by. though, liam would have heard if they were in a nearby radius, with his supernatural hearing, that he had gotten through a set of canines digging urgently into his wrist, as he hung solemnly off the side of the hospital.

“you’re all mine, you hear that? those frat boys can keep their pervy gazes off of my girl, otherwise i guess i’ll just have to pay you a visit, and fuck you loud enough for anyone to hear.” he began panting, flowing his breath down upon your lower back. “yeah, you like that idea baby girl, how about i take over in the lecture hall and bend you over that desk, drilling into your tight cunt in front of every one so that they know that you belong to me?”

his half conceived promises, his taunting of you had you rolling closer to the edge, backing your hips backwards as you urgently met with his thrusts, forcing him to hip deeper into your cervix, a light growl prowling out of his chest, as he leant against you, angling his waist lower as he thrust upwards, his chest flat against your back.

“yes- fuck! please daddy, i wou- love that. love for you to fuck me for everyone to see, fill me with your cum, make me cu-um.” his heated breath strained against your skin, as your eyes fluttered, feeling succumbed to a white flush inside your veins, your body halting with it’s stability, resting helplessly over the swing seat, a she kept you steady.

“all mine.” your boyfriend stated, as he made you fall over the edge, ravenously thrusting into you to chase his own high. “gonna fucking cum.” a minor roar yelped out of his mouth, as his eyes strung shut, his shoulders relaxing as he emptied his seed into the condom, pulling out of your sopping cunt, as he removed the layer of protection, throwing it successfully in a bin a few feet away.

hazily, you went to stand, liam helping you pull your bottoms up, as he did so to himself too. he held you up, as he hoisted a passionate kiss onto your lips, a satisfied smile on his face once he pulled away. “i miss you so much when you’re away, i love you y/n/n.”

an appeased expression faulted your expression, as you reached up to entwine your hands together at the back of his neck. “i’m all yours li, or should i call you daddy?” you teased, causing a blush to fathom the apples of his cheeks. he looked down, an embarrassed poise covering his face.

“shut up.” he jokingly prompted, wrapping his arm around your shoulders as he began to walk you home, as you continued to tease him about his newly revealed kink, or multiple.

[dominantslasherking]

Arthur Harrow with dominant Male S/o

My Stories are meant for the much more mature audience, 18+. YANDERE Arthur

Backstory: He thought Ammit was the one he needed, but he was so very wrong. Arthur found a new god, he was going to worship, whatever it takes.

You weren't a god that was typically worshipped, it was because most of the gods despised you, because their avatars and worshippers would always seem to be drawn towards you, their power on earth was rather feeble when you were in the picture.

Ammit's judgment soon tried to reach you, She sat by Ma'at scales to figure out what you truly were, but the scales broke, Ammit took it into her own hands to judge you, but she couldn't, it nearly drove her insane, were evil, were you good?

The destruction and chaos you brought down were like hell itself, but at the same time, the peace, and forgiveness, you gave were revolutionary, it was also heaven itself. The gods didn't know what to do so they locked you away, and imprisoned you, much to multiple gods that favored you dismay.

Set tried to forcefully get you out of this prison, with the help of other gods such as Khonsu, Anubis, and Hathor. unfortunately, they were unsuccessful and mourned their fellow god for not being able to see or be around them, the other gods put this betrayal on Kohnsu considering he was already despicable in their eyes, even though the other gods and goddesses tried to defend him it ended in vain.

"[Name]," Ammit whispered right before her own capture, if one person would be able to free her, it would be him, or his Avatar which he hasn't taken one in...yet.

<<>>><<<>>><<<>>>><<<>>><<>>><<>>>><<>>><>>>><<>>>><>>>>>

"Well, Well...Look who is here." You purred out in the bleak and plain area of nothingness. Ammit seethed out looking around in the prison.

The other gods and goddesses were quite lazy with their prison making...they would send all the same gods and goddesses to the same place of nothingness.

Ammit, stood up in all her glory looking at you before she let out a sigh. "Must, I really be trapped in here with YOU?" Ammit shook with annoyance as she bobbed her crocodile head.

She curiously looked at you to see you seated at a table with a game of---what is that? Ammit curiously looked at the cards.

"It's called Uno, Apophis brought it to me, he pops in on occasions..." You shrugged, "Apophis..." Ammit slowly spoke out, hatred in her eyes and voice as Apophis was a deity who embodied chaos.

Ammit slowly made her way over to you, taking a seat. "Very well.."

<>

Ammit flipped the table over with intense rage, "I HATE UNO, AND I HATE YOU-" Ammit stalked off into the nothingness and grumpily stomped around.

It has been over two thousand years, since playing Uno none stop with you, but for you, it has been longer, Ammit, didn't know how you did it, being able to play the same game over and over and over and OVER- And the fact that you could leave whenever you wanted even boggled her godly mind more...so she stayed with you hoping you would break out, obviously you were content on stay where you were.

She suddenly froze in her spot, slowly turning around to face you. "My power is being used..." Ammit purred out with delight, Her eyes frantically looking around as if seeing something that isn't there.

Smirking, "Luckily I won't be here for long." Ammit sat down, you knew what she was going to do, I mean, when playing Uno you both did talk a lot...she told you her plans about making the earth a peaceful place, devouring all the evil souls.

It sounded boring, I mean, there were heroes for a reason...but killing children before they could do evil that they would do in the future, sounds harsh, but who were you judging.

You looked how happy Ammit seemed to be-- A large sinister smile placed itself on your face. I mean she was one of the goddesses that placed you in this prison...

"So your...Avatar--is your way out....Well, he isn't your avatar yet huh..?" You lulled out, her nodding as she daydreamed.

"HAHAHAAHAH-" You began to laugh and hold your stomach while looking at her. "Well, it looks like I have a worshiper to woo~" You smiled got off your seat, and looked at the bleak floor below you.

"What?" Ammit was confused, you would escape this awful prison just to get back at her would yo----A portal...no a way out formed below your feet, as Ammit screeched and quickly tried to rush over to pry herself out of this prison.

But it was too late, you were gone, along with the way out!! Screaming and raging Ammit, threw out all her anger.

<<>>><<<<>>><<>>>><<>>><<>>><>>><><>>>><<<<>>>><>>>>><<>>

Arthur looked at Mark, before calmly speaking, "Kohnsu, told you yet another lie, [Name] the god of, destruction, hatred, and yet also held the title of god of peace, and forgiveness...He is not real, there has been no record of this god." Arthur slowly spoke not knowing that it was the complete opposite.

'That makes utterly no sense, if he wasn't real why would Kohnsu constantly speak about him, I mean it's not like there is a purpose of him telling us about [Name], it's not like he's trying to use the god's name for anything...' Steven blabbered to Mark, meanwhile, Mark was closely watching Arthur.

Arthur was obviously trying to bring Mark, and Steven's trust in Kohnsu down some of it working but they still persist in stopping Arthur.

Mark suddenly jumped forward getting ready to attack, but before he could even lay a hand on him, he was thrown back by a rough force of magic power coming from Arthurs's staff.

The man let out a sigh, as he slammed his cain down, and quickly summoned Jackals, "I'm afraid this will once again be our parting." Arthur spoke, letting the Jackals deal with the avatar(s).

Arthur and the other cult members of Ammit made their way from the scene.

"Who is [Name]?" One of the female cult members asked gently, Arthur suddenly froze once she asked this question before slowly picking up his pace, after a while of walking he decided to speak.

"A made-up god, that I wanted to dedicate my life to after Kohnsu promised to let me go...He made up this god to string me along into his path of hatred and death." He slowly declaimed, letting out a sigh before giving a smile, "But it is all right, We, have Ammit now." The cult members slowly nodded.

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Arthur gently leaned back observing the view from his balcony of Siwa located in Egypt. "Paradise..." He slowly whispered closing his eyes, imagining the life of happiness that Ammit would bring.

Slowly opening his eyes, he heard someone yawn from behind him, slowly turning around he was met with a figure on his bed, relaxing while looking at him.

"It's quite rude to enter unannounced..." Arthur spoke, watching as you stretch your arms and sit up instead of laying, giving him a better view of your handsome features, your hair slightly a mess

Carefully observing your movements, his eyes trail to your outfit, before quickly stopping himself from having unpure thoughts.

"So, you want to release Ammit?" You asked standing up, and slowly making your way over to him, your body wasn't a large size like the gods loved to portray themselves to their avatars or any mortal, it was simply a normal size.

Arthur simply nodded his head, "I hope you were not sent here to stop me, the world can become a paradise, Ammit will stop any crime before it has happened, and she will devour the souls of the people who already have done bad...-" Arthur tried to sway you as he would do with anyone, he didn't want people to die really, however it was for the greater good.

His breath slightly halted as he got a better look at you, you looked exactly like how the god [Name] was described by Kohnsu.

"You use to be an avatar of Kohnsu...yes? It does really make me angry how the other gods belittle him..." Letting out a gentle hum, you slightly towered over Arthur who looked at you in awe, you should see him ever so slightly shaking.

Placing your hand on his forehead, you suddenly whispered, "Are you alright? I know how you humans are prone to sickness..." You slowly felt on his forehead, it was a normal temperature for a mortal.

"[Name]?" Arthur pronounces, his voice becoming slightly breathy. His eyes became slightly hazed with admiration and worship.

"Yes..." You asked out, watching as Arthur fell to his knees, the sounds of glass could be heard in his shoes from falling down as it made a slightly scratchy noise.

Arthur needlessly drops his cane throwing it aside slightly. His head leaning down on your legs, taking in all in, that you were real, and in front of him.

"I'm sorry, I doubted your existence- I'm sorry for my unforgivable past--" He stumbled on his words, gulping down the saliva stuck in his throat. "I'm...sorry for worshipping another- --" Arthur stopped speaking as you sightly gripped his hair, forcing him to look up at you.

Gently caressing Arthur's face with your other hand and gave him a smile watching the tears fall from his face. "It's alright, you were mine from the very beginning, hm?" You gently state as Arthur leaned into your touch.

"Good, thing you were trying to free Ammit, I mean it did give me a reason to leave the place...I was also getting tired of being imprisoned..." You muttered to him, before asking the soon-to-be ex-cult member of Ammit.

"Would you like to be my avatar?" Arthur looked at you in astonishment before eagerly nodding before using his words, "I am--Unworthy to be your avatar I--" Arthur was cut off by you helping him stand up.

"Shush, say yes, I know you want to." You smirked as he nodded his head, "Very, well.I am very---" A sudden wave of power entered Arthurs's body as he couldn't even finish speaking feeling your power glaze over his entire body.

"Most, gods use, these weird oath things on their avatars.....but I just prefer the shock on their face once they feel power entering their bodies." You explain as Arthur slowly regained his composure.

"The glass in your shoes..take them out, it makes an irritating noise when you walk." You disclose with a look of disgust.

Arthur stared at you, with a small smile on his face.

[captainlevisteacup]

Perhaps you could do some SFW Fluffy & some NSFW headcanons with the brothers in a relationship with a Shapeshifter MC who frequently changes their form?

Like, they keep their natural/signature features to be recognizable, but they do regularly change their gender, height, & sex organs 😏 (Why? Because they can and they find it fun) They’re also total Dom no matter what form they are in, and will happily talk about the various ways they used their abilities to make sex more..exciting (Ex being Tentacles, two huge dicks, a big dick AND a vagina, forming a tongue designed specifically for their partner so they can perfectly give blowjob/eat them out, things like that)

This MC also uses their abilities in some way on the brothers when they are having sex, wether that be fucking them with a dick while pressing their boobs against their back/front, or doing something more..hentai related

On the fluff side of things, MC totally regularly turns into the Bros favorite animal whenever they are stressed and just lets them pet them, or if the brothers are feeling overly worried they might hurt Mc she just turns into a demon. (Which MC does whenever they want to do an activity with the brothers a human can’t do)

This also works out for them aswell, as this Mc is essentially gender fluid and just changes their form to whatever they want to when they are feeling dysphoria (Though they typically go by they/them because of how confusing it can get to go by specific pro-nouns fitting the form they shift into when they rapidly change forms throughout the day)

Sorry this was so long!

*cracks knuckles*

AAAAALLLLLLLLRRIGHTTTTTTT LET'S GO!!

No need to apologize for the long ask, I absolutely LOVE requests and this gives me a lot to work with!

The brothers with a Dom! Genderfluid *Shapeshifter* MC

***WARNINGS: HEAVY NSFW, 18+ ONLY***

Lucifer

Slightly wounds his pride that try as he might, he just can't dom MC

Something about them just renders him helpless against them

He loses his usual confidence and natural leader abilities around MC

Speaking of abilities

The things MC can do to him; the things they can make him feel

Mc can access any and every end of any possible spectrum

His favorite thing they can do is shifting themselves into having a truly impressive cock, complete with a set of plump breasts and a very, VERY long tongue

Impressive as that alone is, what MC uses it for is even more so

Pegging him mercilessly from behind, breasts bouncing and scraping against his back while that damned tongue snakes around his waist to pleasure his own member

He never knows just how to focus on any one thing when everything feels so incredible; Their dick ramming into him with reckless abandon, those globular tits bouncing onto his back, or that tongue with a lewd amount of saliva dripping off of it and onto Lucifer's body, massaging his throbbing member

MC'S gifts aren't JUST used for sex, though

They'll often use their abilities to calm him down when he's stressed

They'll make their hands impossibly soft, and run them lightly all over his body in soothing motions

Light circles on his arms, lazy lines on his face, and light massaging through his hair

Mammon

Has no problem whatsoever with MC domming him

Absolutely loves their abilities

Comes completely undone when MC stands right behind him, whispers about how they need him to be their little slut in an alluring feminine voice, and presses their intimidating member against his ass

He knows what comes next

MC ripping his shirt off of him, and pushing him down onto the bed.

Mammon takes this time to admire them; their pert breasts, their smooth skin, to their thick cock, perfectly accentuated with smooth veins, and the beautiful, somehow always moist pussy right below it

This was a skill that had startled Mammon at first. Shapeshifters aren't that common, so for it to be used sexually like THIS? Oh, Mammon was in euphoria.

MC had experimented with many different positions, but the one that drove Mammon over the edge was the one they used the most

MC on top, riding Mammon as if he were a prized mare, their dick slapping harshly against his chiseled abs, the lewd sound echoing throughout the room

Once MC came, not only was Mammon's dick enveloped by their wet vagina, but their hot seed sprayed onto his toned stomach.

Outside of the bedroom, MC would shift their hair to match Mammon's whenever he wasn't feeling well. It never failed to cheer him up, seeing MC with the same white hair made him so happy.

Levi

The biggest bottom to exist

MC takes FULL advantage of the otaku

Shifts to have the exact same body as Ruri-chan

Huge tits, exaggerated waist, and slender legs

Shifts so that their pussy is unbelievably tight, and during sex they tighten and loosen it to provide further stimulation

MC shifts to have slight fangs, so that they can drag them along Levi's skin

Often turns into a snake and rests on Levi's shoulders, sometimes they do this during class if MC doesn't want to attend their's that day

MC can stretch or shrink their vocal cords to mimic certain Anime characters

Occasionally, MC will do this doing sex and moan Levi's name

This drives him insane

If the two are in public and MC wants to tease or arouse him, all the have to do is adopt the anime girl voice and say something along the lines of "Gomenezai, Oni-sama"

Levi immediately gets hard

Mc then drags them off to relieve him *wink wink*

Satan

Cat ears.

CAT EARS

MC knows damn well what this does to him

Satan prefers rough sex, so MC will shift into having chiseled, muscular arms capable of holding him down, with a chest to match, all topped off with a well-built cock complete with subtle ridges all along the shaft

MC will pin Satan's arms to the wall with one hand, and harshly jerk his chin towards them with the other while rubbing their cock in between his legs, teasing his sensitive balls. Then, as a cue, MC would make the cat ears appear

In a flash, Satan would be shoved onto his hands and knees and roughly taken from behind, the ridges on MC'S dick creating deliciously painful friction

Mc would knot their fingers into his hair and yank his head back, often earning a yelp from his lips

Outside of sex, MC is almost always either fully a cat or has some aspect of a cat (cat ears, subtle fangs, or sometimes a tail that he loves to play with

This is because it really helps suppress Satan's temper for some reason

Since MC likes to change up the color of their fur when they go into a full cat, Lucifer becomes convinced Satan has snuck multiple cats into the House of Lamentation, because he keeps finding the fur

Satan refuses to let MC tell him, because he finds it hilarious how irritated it makes Lucifer

Asmo

As SOON as he found out MC could shift their body, had a whole list of things he wanted to do with them

The first on that list was being fucked by two dicks, both belonging to MC

MC made him agree to being stretched out first, so as not to hurt him

Every time MC fucked Asmo, they would use a differently shaped and textured cock, each ever so slightly larger than the last

After Asmo took an unfathomably large member from MC, he was deemed ready

Asmo watched in awe as MC shifted to possess two large and vastly different cocks.

One was girthy, with a perfectly smooth shaft and a bulbous head

The other was more slender, with diagonal ridges, almost scale like, running all along it's length.

MC slid them in one at a time, allowing Asmo to adjust

Once both of their dicks were fully in Asmo, they slowly began to pull back

Their dicks dragged painfully slow along the insides of Asmo, creating a brutal friction that threatened to make Asmo crumble right then and there

Outside of sex, MC was Asmo's dream come true

Well, inside of sex too, but that's besides the point

MC often shifts their body to mimic different body types, and Asmo styles their outfits based on how they decide to have their body that day

Same thing goes for hair, as MC can adjust their hair to any length, color, texture, and width

Asmo loves trying out and practicing different styles

Beel

Face fucking.

His favorite. No arguments.

MC shifts into having a cock even bigger than Beel's (a true feat), and a tight pussy just beneath it.

Beel loves it when they shove his head onto their cock, fingers fisting into his hair

Forcing his head to move onto their cock, tears pricking in his eyes and they fucked his mouth, his throat, mercilessly

MC doesn't allow Beel to sit and do nothing, oh no

Beel fingers their wet pussy as they fuck his face senseless

If Beel isn't moving his fingers fast enough, MC shoves their dick even further down his throat

Huskily whispers into his ear "Come on, Avatar of Gluttony, surely you can swallow more than that"

Outside of sex, shifts into a demon so they can play with Beel and the brothers.

At first, the brothers wouldn't let MC play any sports with them (mostly Beel), out of fear for MC getting injured

So, MC proceeded to shift into a whole ass demon.

Shocks everyone and utterly destroys all the brothers

Belphie

Cowboy

Like cowgirl...but not.

MC shifts so that their body is substantially bigger than his

This makes Belphie small enough in comparison to easily fit in MC'S lap

Ironically, MC shifts to have a cock roughly the size of a bull. They would never dream of making Belphie take it all....

But they can try

Belphie sits on their lap, legs spread, facing MC so they can see the fear and pleasure mix on his face

MC slowly teases him with their tip, entering one inch at a time before pulling out, pausing, and suddenly shoving back in, an inch deeper each time

Their hands holding Belphie up by the hips the whole time

Outside of sex, will shift to have a very soft stomache for Belphie to lay on

When Belphie is feeling depressed or lonely, MC shifts into a very, VERY soft wolf for Belphie to stroke the fur of as a grounding technique, and to sleep with on the nights he feels alone

This happens so often that MC just relaxes around the house in a wolf form

This never fails to scare the shit out of Mammon, which, in turn, brings a rare smile to Belphie's face

[dramat-ique]

velosarahptor said: I think it really improves once it gets to Drug and Drop since the characters start to feel like characters instead of… BL tropes… like they do in Legal Drug >> BUT YES I’m also itching to find out what happens next oh man. The connections to Wish drove me INSANE (in a positive CLAMP YOU FUCKIN’ BASTARDS sort of way)

Oh yeah, for SURE. Like legal drug is... a different creature really. Not entirely without it's interest points but deffinitely hard to read without cringing a little at the tired tropes. But I really did start to feel differently when Drug and Drop came around and I really did wind up getting attached to the characters once they, you know, became characters with solid personalities. Which I can appreciate but it makes the series as a whole a bit of a hard sell even with as much personal enjoyment I can draw from it, which is a shame.

THAT BEING SAID. I need to know more. I need it to make sense. When wish came into the picture I lost my shit and I have not regained it since. I have so many questions that I will be incomplete without answers to. Even outside of those connections!! Like occassionally I remember that Kazahaya straight up absorbed that scale into his hand and then we got like two lines about it. Like surely that happened to set stuff up and I'm just sitting here in anquish over it because it has litterally done nothing and I need to know what's being set up here so badly.

basically what I'm saying is CLAMP put in just enough pieces to own my whole ass and then bounced and I'm suffering.

[letsunity]

Not Afraid - Chapter 5

Summery -  

The Bad Batch go to Tatooine to resupply and avoid the Empire. As per the usual, Omega gets separated from the group. Fortunately for her, Krayt's Claw just so happens to be nearby. Bossk and Embo guide her to Boba Fett, who takes interest in why the Kaminoans want her. It's a reluctant partnership, with the Bad Batch having to rely on Krayt's Claw to navigate non-military life.

The war left many without homes, jobs, anything to live for. Their only option was the criminal life, stealing to survive.

The camp is small, with junk and scrap lying across the ground. The boss was building something they could sell to get credits, enough to leave Lothal safely. Even so, they'd have to start stealing from the city; the farms didn't have enough.

This Empire has to be better than the Republic. Unless it involved the war, the Jedi ignored those suffering, even turning a blind eye to slavers. The Empire promised food, shelter, pay; all people had to do is apply. A few in the camp had that plan, preferring the new military than eating scraps for pocket change.

As the boss was paranoid, they had several mines strewn around the camp. That would end up being their greatest enemy, however.

Blasters fired from above, striking the buried mines and setting them off. The explosions burned their eyes, heat and scrap flying into the air. The ragtag thieves scattered, confused and frightened by the sudden attack.

Smoke grenades landed nearby a boy, the bellowing smog obscuring his vision. As Alex looked around, desperate to find safety, he met the blaster of another boy. This one was only a year younger than him, maybe two, but had the eyes of a monster. He could've sworn that they shimmered yellow for a moment as the end of it hit his head.

Boba pulled a knife from his suit, throwing it at a thief's knee, practically removing it from their body. The mask over his nose and mouth shielded him from the smoke. He didn't need his eyes to acquire the targets; he just needed their terror.

One decided to attack him, which was a mistake. A female Twi'lek tried shooting him, but her aim was atrocious. Boba ducked down, his spiked boot striking her shin. As she fell, Boba grabbed her arm and rolled her over his back, sending her to the dirt. Calmly, he kicked away her blaster and placed cuffs behind her.

That's three down.

Another bandit tried their shot, using a machete instead. Boba's armour was fitted against primitive blades and slugs, so this was a pathetic attempt. Boba rose his arm to block the slash, scowling into the man's frightened eyes. With him distracted, Boba drove their arm into their chest, the machete sticking through his spine.

He spat blood on Boba's face, shaking in terror. He twisted the machete, listening as life gargled from the man's body. He kicked the corpse's stomach, ripping out the machete as he threw it into the shoulder of another.

Boba counted fifteen, a majority of them younger than twenty-five. They weren't a challenge, just part of the job. Given their lack of weapons, they're only grunts, worthless to the big guy.

"Got 'im!" Wrecker yelled, having caught somebody. "He's a squirmer, too!"

Boba walked towards the hulking clone, a grin growing on his face. The Phindian spat, despising the tiny clone.

"Great catch," Bossk complimented, hissing at the angry caught man. "How the mighty have fallen, huh, Eve?"

"Do not call Moralo Eval that degraded nickname. He will each your liver!"

"You know this guy?" Echo questioned, dropping a tied up girl. "Looks like a friend of yours."

Bossk raised a scaled brow at the jab, lips shifting back to hint at his teeth. Echo tried mimicking him, expecting it to be an intimidation display.

"Moralo Eval. He helped General Kenobi and Cad Bane attack the Chancellor," Hunter named, glaring at the man. "What're you doing on Lothal? Doesn't match your type."

"Moralo Eval escaped prison, not too difficult. He was pursued and crashed here. He'd have done the work himself, but better safe than sorry. Fortunately, since the Empire started their occupation of the capital, he's met many local rats."

The first person thing was always annoying. Bossk assumed it to be part of his narcissism.

Wrecker sat him down as Tech placed the cuffs, glaring at the angry Phindian. The sociopath analysed them, planning ways to escape and leave the planet. Jango's son knelt, staring the man into his deranged eyes.

"Jabba's going to love you, Eval," he grinned maliciously, imagining what the Hutt would do to him. "You help us, and I'll delay his pet getting a taste of Phindian. Know that if you refuse, I'll have to remove your limbs, given your expertise at escape. Bossk is always hungry."

Next was a staring contest, seeing who would back down first. Boba felt him mulling over his options, Bossk snarling behind him, snapping his jaws threateningly.

Echo was going to interfere, but Hunter raised his hand to stop him, wanting to see what happened next.

Having been told to 'guard' the ledge, Omega skipped over, interested in what went on. There were some people on the ground, some with blood on them. She'd seen it before, but not freely pooling around people.

Seeing some distress, Wrecker was quick to pick her up, keeping her at a distance from the battle. She wasn't ready to see any of that yet.

"What is it that Boba wants?" Moralo relented reluctantly, sneering at the teen.

"Biological chips are making the clones behave like droids. They follow any order given. That means if asked, they'd make you into a bottom bitch. If the clones have free will, they'll be easier to manipulate, exploiting their 'compassion'. We'll be helping each other further future endeavours."

In a second, it went from hostage to business deal. The sudden whiplash seemed normal for them, another part of this career. Even though it was wrong to help this guy, they got a lot out of it. Hunter wanted to understand this process more, understand how to proposition enemies into reluctant allies.

It's evident that these two hate each other but were willing to cooperate for a common goal.

"Moralo Eval will assist in this goal, though only for himself. Once complete, Moralo Eval and Fetts cease working together. Agreed?"

"Until we're done, you've got a deal," Boba nodded, using Wrecker's knife to cut through the cuffs. "Dengar's going to love this."

"That one is still alive?" Moralo said, genuinely surprised. "He expected Dengar to be dead by now."

"He continues to disappoint," Bossk added, suddenly friendly with the Phindian.

Despite having seen it with his own eyes, Echo couldn't fathom what he was looking at. Were all bounty hunters insane? They appeared to be!

"What do we do with the kids?" Hunter asked, motioning to the ones tied up. "The ones alive, anyway."

"Give 'em to the farmers and get our credits. The loth-wolves will clean up this mess," Bossk answered, looking up. "And it would appear that we have an audience."

Hunter looked up, his eyes meeting Fennec's orange helmet. Now discovered, Fennec slid down the ridge, shooting at the group.

"Amateur," Moralo sighed casually as he rummaged through the garbage.

He lifted a makeshift flamethrower, unintimidated by the sharpshooter. With a manic smile, Moralo burst a stream of flame towards the woman, the range further than it should be. Hunter was eager for round two, running alongside the fire to engage Fennec.

"Wrecker, help Hunter. I'll get Omega outta here," Echo ordered, helping the girl down. "Bossk, protect those kids. No them, no credits," he added, playing into the money motivation of the lizard.

"Not exactly, but fine, I'll keep them alive," the lizard huffed, sulking towards the targets. With the usual threat of eating them, he shoved them to their feet and started moving.

"I wanna help," Omega said, worried for Hunter and Wrecker. "I know she's after me, but I can still help."

"You are helping, Omega," Echo sighed, kneeling to be at her level. "By knowing that you're safe, the others don't have to worry. We're going to stay at the farm village and wait for them to come back, ok? It's a tactical retreat."

While she wanted to stay, Echo was right. By staying away from Fennec, they could handle her. With Echo, she reluctantly ran away with him, hoping that they'll be alright.

"Pateesa, Koose Shag Wata," Boba growled into his comms, shooting at the woman. Wrecker had no idea what he said, but he understood the next bit. "Throw me."

"Eh, what?"

"Just throw me," he repeated, still holding Wrecker's knife.

Wrecker shrugged and picked up the teen. With a running start, he happily lobbed the teenager, interested in what he'd do.

As anticipated, Wrecker threw him over the other hunter. The Phindian got the idea fast, shoving her into the location required. Boba threw the knife, getting the woman in the leg. He tucked and rolled, getting back on his feet with a few bruises. Angrily, she turned back and planted a well-placed blaster shot in his chest. If not for his durasteel, he'd be deader than Rako's career.

Hunter exploited this as he elbowed her, glaring.

"Why did they send you?" Hunter demanded, lifting her. "Why do the Kaminoans want Omega?"

"It's not part of the job to ask," she spat, headbutting him again.

She jumped out of another stream of fire, scowling at Moralo as he threw the empty item at her. Boba fired at her, not aiming for the head as Hunter wanted him to.

"Bounty Hunters aren't allowed to kill one another," Moralo provided, guessing that the clone was new to this way of life. "Moralo Eval is greatly interested in this 'Omega' you spoke of. He presumes she is part of this 'chip' business."

"Probably," Wrecker shrugged as Fennec ran back into the trees. "Should we go after her?"

"No," Boba answered, rubbing his chest. Before Hunter asked, Boba lifted a tracking fob with a smirk. "With any luck, we'll be one step closer to figuring things out."

"She'll find it. She's not stupid," Hunter sighed, feeling like a fool.

"That is what the fake ones are for," Moralo added as if it was obvious. "Moralo Eval is eager to learn of these chips. He likes the stupidity and incompetence of clones."

That is somehow supposed to be a compliment, but Hunter didn't like it. Wrecker looked over to Bossk, who was hissing and yelling at their pay. Curious, he walked over, counting thirteen.

"Don't ye worry, we're only gonna give ya to the farmers, no problem," Wrecker declared, punching Bossk's shoulder. "Yo nephew is mad. Told me to lob 'im!"

"Just like his dad and granddad," Bossk sighed proudly, sneering at the captives. "Any of you got a name? Calling you numbers is more of a Government thing."

"Alex," one of them said, glaring at the two. "I'm going to join the Empire and get rid of people like you."

"I look forward to seeing you try and fail," the reptile shrugged, casually lifting the boy like he weighed nothing. "How are you going to stop a guild that has outlasted not only the Republic but the previous Empire? Set your sights on something achievable, boy."

"It's Alex Kallus, and you'll fear me!"

"Aww, he's kinda cute," Wrecker said, unaware that the boy interpreted it as teasing. "Can we keep him?"

"No!" Hunter yelled, his new dad senses tingling.

He'd known these people for all of fifteen minutes, but Moralo found this group oddly entertaining. He did lust for chaos, and they were drowning in it.

"Moralo Eval finds this group entertaining. His cooperation is heightened."

"Your whole third-person thing is really annoying; you know that?"

"Moralo Eval is very aware, and it entertains him. Your irritation feeds him."

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

Fennec leaned against a tree, ripping her outfit to cover her heavily bleeding leg. Though her armour hid it well, the flamethrower burned.

She'd heard about Jango, having been a little girl when he came to her village. On his own, he decimated a small group of Death Watch remnants, a force of nature. After seeing him shove a grenade down one's throat, she couldn't help but be enticed. It inspired her to enter the underworld, to be like him someday.

She grieved when he died, but it wasn't surprising considering who he faced. Only that Jedi could ever kill Jango Fett; not even the ketamine frog would stand a chance.

There were even rumours that he faked his death, as he'd done so before.

Given that Fennec spent her life becoming a master huntress, she didn't expect much from a child. That mindset almost got her killed, as he missed her artery by half an inch. Maybe the stories were true, where he destroyed a Star Destroyer and beheaded the Quarzite dictator. She doubted it, but then again, he'd been trained by the master himself.

Guild law be damned; her next shot would be between his eyes.

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

When Highslinger was told to bring Slave-1 to the boss, he did not anticipate seeing Moralo again.

"Hey, Sling," Omega greeted, happy to see the droid. "How're you?"

Highslinger provided a thumb up, a signal of contentment. He calmly rose his middle digit to Moralo, intent on getting revenge for his shtick on Naboo.

"You're still upset about that?" Moralo teased, waving off the droid's irritation. "He isn't going to apologise. You'd have done the same."

That didn't change Highslinger's feelings on the matter.

"Bitching later, recovery now. Pretty sure my sternum's cracked."

"I can apply a bacta-patch," Omega chirped confidently. "Nala Se taught me how to do it when she was too busy."

"I'll show you where they are," he sighed, his chest burning like it was on fire.

As a Mandalorian, he knew how to tolerate pain. It was something his father taught him long ago.

Highslinger stepped aside as the boss showed the child into the ship. He liked the girl, finding her interesting and curious.

Part of working with the boss was the stance on children. He had few rules which he wouldn't bend, something other syndicates danced around. It was consistent, the pay was always equal, and Boba didn't screw him over. In fact, Boba looked at Highslinger like he was another person, not just a droid.

Droids are property, no rights in the future. Funnily enough, Clones were similar, so there was empathy.

Just being talked to like an individual was enough for Highslinger to swear loyalty to the young Fett. Not hunter loyalty, but the commoner's idea of it.

"Nala Se, Jango once spoke of that one. She's the sadistic one," Bossk hissed with disgust. "Dibs on biting through that one's throat."

"Stand in line," Hunter said firmly, getting an amused grin from Moralo. "What?"

"Moralo Eval is most curious. You lot aren't designed like the common fool duplicates, and neither is she. What's so special about Omega that makes her more of a priority over you?"

"We're trying to figure that out," Echo answered, disturbed by the thing's interested gaze. "Hunter and Wrecker have genetic mutation enhancements. Wrecker's strong, and Hunter can feel electric frequencies."

"As someone aware of the cloning process, Moralo Eval must disagree. Mutations do not equal such abilities; that's something else. Moralo Eval is invested in learning what that something is. It may answer why the long-necks desire the 'Omega' girl."

Inside the ship, Omega took off the helmet, feeling safe within the ship. Her eye ached slightly, but nothing that she couldn't handle. Boba sat on a seat, starting to unbuckle his armour. As he directed her to the compartment, Omega opened another one, seeing the faint gleam of silver and blue.

It looked like armour, but it made sense for him to have backups. She took out the medkit, opening it on the floor. Finding what she needed, Omega walked up to the teenager.

Thanks to being a medical assistant, she was familiar with scars. Boba was smothered in them, having one on each part of his body. His back and shoulders were far more interesting, though. It looked like a tattoo, similar to what Hunter had. Unlike Hunter, it wasn't imprinting an image onto the skin.

It was like something had pierced his skin and ink injected into the wound.

"Never seen one like this, huh?" the teen said, somewhat amused. "It's a thing my clan does; it's a ta moko. It's painful but worthwhile."

The scars were still visible on his back, but there wasn't any attempt to cover them. He had no concern with having them, even the few on his face. Given his job, it made sense that he'd get scars.

"What was that language in the Toydarian's house?" she questioned, placing the patch onto his bruised chest.

"Mando'a. Haatyc or'arue jate'shya ori'sol aru'ike nuhaatyc."

"What does that mean?"

"Better one big enemy that you can see than many small ones you can't," he translated, ruffling her blonde hair. "You're small; they're going to underestimate you. When they do, you will show that you aren't the Kaminii's pet anymore. Nobody is more in control of your life and body than you."

Her body is her own, nobody else's. She chose to stay with Hunter, and that's where she was staying. Boba, her sort of cousin, casually brushed away every comment Nala Se used to say.

"My body is mine. I could get a haircut, or what you have?"

"Your body, your rules. Unless you give permission, nobody can touch you where you don't want them to. You've got a right to privacy and comfort. Not just that, but you're free to find your own path in this clusterfuck of a universe."

She liked the idea of that. She can be a Bad Batcher like the others, be strong just like them. Nala Se couldn't dictate what she did anymore.

"I wanna learn Mando'a."

"I'm very pleased that you do. How about after we get paid, ad'ika?"

[scripts4dreamers]

Just one drink. pt 2.

Part One, Part Three

AN: A road trip with Spencer Reid takes an odd turn  Characters: Spencer Reid Pairings: Spencer Reid x reader Spoilers: None Warnings: Mentions of crime and violence, drinking

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

“You’re late,” Spencer pointed out as you walked past his desk, looking up from the stack of case files and giving you a small smile.

“I’m not late, you’re just early,” you smiled back, dropping your bag next to your seat, “and even if I was late, I'd be totally justified considering how long it takes to stir in five sugars into this monstrosity.” you teased, plopping the massive cup of take-away coffee you’d brought on Spencer’s desk.

“You bought me coffee?” he smiled again, his dark eyes lighting up with excitement as he took a sip, “it’s perfect!”

“Of course it is,” you teased, “I got it didn’t I? When have I ever gotten your coffee order wrong?”

“Not once,” Spencer admitted, “you get one for yourself?”

“Finished it on the way over,” you explained, collapsing into your seat at the desk across from his, “that the Miriam file?”

“Yup. Your paperwork is a mess by the way.”

You pressed your hand to your chest in mock outrage and laughed, “Ouch.”

“What? It’s true!” Spencer teased, “Your handwriting and case notes are basically illegible.”

“Messy handwriting is a sign of high intelligence I’ll have you know.”

“Sure it is,” Spencer replied with an eye roll.

“Asshole,” you teased.

He smiled and, without saying anything else, you turned back to your work. It had been a few months since that night at the bar and, since then, it had become a semi-regular occurrence. You and Reid would spend time together outside of work as often as you could and, at work, you’d become a pretty reliable team. Morgan called you the dynamic duo.

Having someone to rely on really had changed everything for you at the BAU. It was still stressful, still draining. You still had days when your work seemed pointless or overwhelming, when the sadness of it all got to be too much, but now you had someone to turn to, someone who you could call. Reid really was an incredible listener, not that you’d ever admit that to him of course.

The problem was that he was too good a listener. So good that your little crush has blossomed into full scale feelings. You were absolutely smitten

“Where’s everyone else?” You asked, looking around the near empty unit.

“Prentiss and Morgan are running training seminars for new recruits, Hotch and Rossi are in Atlanta, doing profile training.”

“JJ?” You questioned.

“Visiting her family with Will.”

“So it’s just us then?”

“Yup, and we’ve got our pick of the litter. We can stay here and finish compiling the data from our last few cases or we can head to Colorado for an interview with David Arcturor.”

“The Midnight Maimer?” You exclaimed, “He said yes?”

“Yup, word came in last week. He’s agreed to a full interview, film and all.” Spencer said, “You wanna do that?”

“Hell yeah I do, that case is legend.” You agreed, already packing up your stuff, “Let’s go.”

“Hotch and Rossi took the jet, so we’ll have to drive,” Spencer warned, “that’s a 25 hour drive non stop, you sure you’re up for that?”

“So long as you promise not to play that awful music of yours the whole time,” you joked, shooting him a wink.

Spencer smiled at you, his eyes glinting with mischief as he slung his bag over his shoulder.

“Then let’s go.”

—————————-

As it turned out, Spencer let you pick the music and he wasn’t kidding, it was a long drive. The floor of the car was littered with wrappers; every kind of fizzy drink, chocolate bar and sour candy gas stations had to offer. The miles flew by, the countryside rolling past the window like scenes from a movie, or memories from someone else’s life. It was peaceful, beautiful and exciting all at once, and your blood thrummed with excitement. You felt like a kid going on a secret adventure, and Spencer was going with you. It was perfect.

“Admit it, you like my music,” you said, poking Spencer in the shoulder.

“I’m not sure this qualifies as music,” Spencer retorted.

“You were literally just singing along!” You laughed, “You love it!”

“I’ll admit that it’s catchy, but that doesn’t make it music,” he said, a smile flickering at the corners of his mouth.

“You love it,” you repeated with certainty.

Spencer rolled his eyes, but there was no malice in it. You watched him for a moment, just drinking in the sight. He was leaning against the windowsill, the sleeves of his button up rolled past his elbows, with one hand draped casually on the steering wheel. He was insanely beautiful with the warm afternoon sun on his skin and his hair glinting in the light. Spencer looked over, the hint of a confused smile on his face when he caught you looking back.

“Y/N?” He asked with a nervous chuckle.

“You look different out here,” you explained, “more...relaxed.”

“Well yeah, it’s just us and the open road out here. Usually there’s a lot more danger involved in what we do,” Spencer retorted.

“I suppose,” you agreed, “still, it’s nice. I like Open Road Spencer.”

As soon as the words left your mouth you realized how they sounded and you swore loudly in your head. Spencer looked stunned, a pale pink flush creeping up his neck. You looked away, embarrassed, and started worrying at your bottom lip.

“Thanks, Y/N/N,” he said softly, “I-uh-he likes you too.”

———————

Spencer was so screwed. Your comment was bouncing around his brain like a ping pong ball, drowning out everything but the knowledge of how close you were. Even with both eyes on the road he was just so aware of you. Every movement, every stretch, every time you drummed your fingers against the dashboard it drove him just a little bit crazy.

He understood what you meant, there was something about being so far from the office, with nothing to do but talk to you and think that was so...intoxicating. It made it easy to just let go and be himself, blurring the lines between work and play that he was usually so good at maintaining.

���Oooo, Spence!” You called, “Look, sheep!”

The way your face lit up with excitement made something in Spencer’s chest stutter. If he was honest, he’d started blurring that line long ago, if it had ever existed at all.

“You grew up in the city.” Spencer stated.

You smiled, “Nice profiling, doctor Reid.”

“I’m not profiling, it’s a simple observation, that’s all.” He countered.

“Mmhhmm,” you hummed, “sure it is.”

Spencer felt his face flush, “I’m sorry, force of habit.”

“It’s okay,” you assured him, “I don’t mind. What else do you see when you look at me?”

Spencer’s eyes widened, “You’re serious?”

“Yeah,” you smiled, “I wanna know.”

“Y/N, I’m not gonna profile you.”

“Please?”

“No!” Spencer laughed nervously, “You’re my friend, not an UnSub.”

“Fine,” you sighed wistfully, “be boring. Do you wanna go over the Maimer case?”

“David Arcturor, 48, serving life in prison for the kidnap and murder of eight women in Boulder, Colorado. All his victims were in their mid twenties, professional and well respected, and they were all sexually assaulted, tortured and then posed after death.”

“So he’s arrogant,” you said, “a sexual sadist.”

“He also left messages for the police describing the women as whores and loose women.”

You raised your eyebrows, “And an extreme misogynist. Ugh, men are the worst.”

“Agreed,” Reid sighed.

————————

You chatted back and forth about the case for hours, until the sun started to set and Spencer conceded that you probably had to find somewhere to spend the night. Luckily, traveling for work meant that you could charge a nice hotel to your work account and, since neither of you could stand the idea of a motel, a nice hotel was a must.

You booked two rooms connected by an adjoining door and started settling in. It felt odd, you noticed, being suddenly apart after spending so long together. You shook off the feeling of “offness” and hopped into the shower, sighing with pleasure as the water washed over your body.

As you lathered your hair with shampoo, your mind drifted. You wondered what Spencer was doing right then, whether he was showering just like you, rinsing off the long drive and letting his stuff muscles relax under the hot water. The thought made you flush. A naked Spencer Reid was way more than you’d could handle right now, especially when you were still getting over your massive fuck up earlier that day.

“Thanks Y/N/N, I-uh-he likes you too.” You heard past-Spencer say again, sending goosebumps across your skin.

It was the way he’d looked at you when he said it that stuck. His eyes had clung to you for a moment too long, searching yours for something.

You shook your head, stepping out of the shower. There was no point in wondering what Spencer was thinking, he was too good at avoiding detection when he wanted to. Still, there was no denying that there was something going on between you, something more than just a friendship or work partnership.

You looked at your hastily packed overnight bag, fingering an outfit you’d packed on the off chance you’d get some time off.

“What the hell,” you shrugged, “might as well give it a go.”

—————————

taglist: @ourfavoritesergeantbarnes

[unsettlingshortstories]

The Laughing Man

J.D. Salinger (1949)

IN 1928, when I was nine, I belonged, with maximum esprit de corps, to an organization known as the Comanche Club. Every school day afternoon at three o’clock, twenty-five of us Comanches were picked up by our Chief outside the boys’ exit of P. S. 165, on 109th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. We then pushed and punched our way into the Chief’s reconverted commercial bus, and he drove us (according to his financial arrangement with our parents) over to Central Park. The rest of the afternoon, weather permitting, we played football or soccer or baseball, depending (very loosely) on the season. Rainy afternoons, the Chief invariably took us either to the Museum of Natural History or to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saturdays and most national holidays, the Chief picked us up early in the morning at our various apartment houses and, in his condemned-looking bus, drove us out of Manhattan into the comparatively wide open spaces of Van Cortlandt Park or the Palisades. If we had straight athletics on our minds, we went to Van Cortlandt, where the playing fields were regulation size and where the opposing team didn’t include a baby carriage or an irate old lady with a cane. If our Comanche hearts were set on camping, we went over to the Palisades and roughed it. (I remember getting lost one Saturday somewhere on that tricky stretch of terrain between the Linit sign and the site of the western end of the George Washington Bridge. I kept my head, though. I just sat down in the majestic shadow of a giant billboard and, however tearfully, opened my lunchbox for business, semi-confident that the Chief would find me. The Chief always found us.)

In his hours of liberation from the Comanches, the Chief was John Gedsudski, of Staten Island. He was an extremely shy, gentle young man of twenty-two or -three, a law student at N.Y.U., and altogether a very memorable person. I won’t attempt to assemble his many achievements and virtues here. Just in passing, he was an Eagle Scout, an almost-All-America tackle of 1926, and it was known that he had been most cordially invited to try out for the New York Giants’ baseball team. He was an impartial and unexcitable umpire at all our bedlam sporting events, a master fire builder and extinguisher, and an expert, uncontemptuous first-aid man. Every one of us, from the smallest hoodlum to the biggest, loved and respected him.

The Chief’s physical appearance in 1928 is still clear in my mind. If wishes were inches, all of us Comanches would have had him a giant in no time. The way things go, though, he was a stocky five three or four–no more than that. His hair was blue-black, his hair-line extremely low, his nose was large and fleshy, and his torso was just about as long as his legs were. In his leather windbreaker, his shoulders were powerful, but narrow and sloping. At the time, however, it seemed to me that in the Chief all the most photogenic features of Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, and Tom Mix had been smoothly amalgamated.

Every afternoon, when it got dark enough for a losing team to have an excuse for missing a number of infield popups or end-zone passes, we Comanches relied heavily and selfishly on the Chief’s talent for storytelling. By that hour, we were usually an overheated, irritable bunch, and we fought each other–either with our fists or our shrill voices–for the seats in the bus nearest the Chief. (The bus had two parallel rows of straw seats. The left row had three extra seats–the best in the bus–that extended as far forward as the driver’s profile.) The Chief climbed into the bus only after we had settled down. Then he straddled his driver’s seat backward and, in his reedy but modulated tenor voice, gave us the new installment of “The Laughing Man.” Once he started narrating, our interest never flagged. “The Laughing Man” was just the right story for a Comanche. It may even have had classic dimensions. It was a story that tended to sprawl all over the place, and yet it remained essentially portable. You could always take it home with you and reflect on it while sitting, say, in the outgoing water in the bathtub.

The only son of a wealthy missionary couple, the Laughing Man was kidnapped in infancy by Chinese bandits. When the wealthy missionary couple refused (from a religious conviction) to pay the ransom for their son, the bandits, signally piqued, placed the little fellow’s head in a carpenter’s vise and gave the appropriate lever several turns to the right. The subject of this unique experience grew into manhood with a hairless, pecan-shaped head and a face that featured, instead of a mouth, an enormous oval cavity below the nose. The nose itself consisted of two flesh-sealed nostrils. In consequence, when the Laughing Man breathed, the hideous, mirthless gap below his nose dilated and contracted like (as I see it) some sort of monstrous vacuole. (The Chief demonstrated, rather than explained, the Laughing Man’s respiration method.) Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man’s horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him. Curiously enough, though, the bandits let him hang around their headquarters–as long as he kept his face covered with a pale-red gossamer mask made out of poppy petals. The mask not only spared the bandits the sight of their foster son’s face, it also kept them sensible of his whereabouts; under the circumstances, he reeked of opium.

Every morning, in his extreme loneliness, the Laughing Man stole off (he was as graceful on his feet as a cat) to the dense forest surrounding the bandits’ hideout. There he befriended any number and species of animals: dogs, white mice, eagles, lions, boa constrictors, wolves. Moreover, he removed his mask and spoke to them, softly, melodiously, in their own tongues. They did not think him ugly.

(It took the Chief a couple of months to get that far into the story. From there on in, he got more and more high-handed with his installments, entirely to the satisfaction of the Comanches.)

The Laughing Man was one for keeping an ear to the ground, and in no time at all he had picked up the bandits’ most valuable trade secrets. He didn’t think much of them, though, and briskly set up his own, more effective system. On a rather small scale at first, he began to free-lance around the Chinese countryside, robbing, highjacking, murdering when absolutely necessary. Soon his ingenious criminal methods, coupled with his singular love of fair play, found him a warm place in the nation’s heart. Strangely enough, his foster parents (the bandits who had originally turned his head toward crime) were about the last to get wind of his achievements. When they did, they were insanely jealous. They all single-filed past the Laughing Man’s bed one night, thinking they had successfully doped him into a deep sleep, and stabbed at the figure under the covers with their machetes. The victim turned out to be the bandit chief’s mother–an unpleasant, haggling sort of person. The event only whetted the bandits’ taste for the Laughing Man’s blood, and finally he was obliged to lock up the whole bunch of them in a deep but pleasantly decorated mausoleum. They escaped from time to time and gave him a certain amount of annoyance, but he refused to kill them. (There was a compassionate side to the Laughing Man’s character that just about drove me crazy.)

Soon the Laughing Man was regularly crossing the Chinese border into Paris, France, where he enjoyed flaunting his high but modest genius in the face of Marcel Dufarge, the internationally famous detective and witty consumptive. Dufarge and his daughter (an exquisite girl, though something of a transvestite) became the Laughing Man’s bitterest enemies. Time and again, they tried leading the Laughing Man up the garden path. For sheer sport, the Laughing Man usually went halfway with them, then vanished, often leaving no even faintly credible indication of his escape method. Just now and then he posted an incisive little farewell note in the Paris sewerage system, and it was delivered promptly to Dufarge’s boot. The Dufarges spent an enormous amount of time sloshing around in the Paris sewers.

Soon the Laughing Man had amassed the largest personal fortune in the world. Most of it he contributed anonymously to the monks of a local monastery–humble ascetics who had dedicated their lives to raising German police dogs. What was left of his fortune, the Laughing Man converted into diamonds, which he lowered casually, in emerald vaults, into the Black Sea. His personal wants were few. He subsisted exclusively on rice and eagles’ blood, in a tiny cottage with an underground gymnasium and shooting range, on the stormy coast of Tibet. Four blindly loyal confederates lived with him: a glib timber wolf named Black Wing, a lovable dwarf named Omba, a giant Mongolian named Hong, whose tongue had been burned out by white men, and a gorgeous Eurasian girl, who, out of unrequited love for the Laughing Man and deep concern for his personal safety, sometimes had a pretty sticky attitude toward crime. The Laughing Man issued his orders to the crew through a black silk screen. Not even Omba, the lovable dwarf, was permitted to see his face.

I’m not saying I will, but I could go on for hours escorting the reader–forcibly, if necessary–back and forth across the Paris-Chinese border. I happen to regard the Laughing Man as some kind of super-distinguished ancestor of mine–a sort of Robert E. Lee, say, with the ascribed virtues held under water or blood. And this illusion is only a moderate one compared to the one I had in 1928, when I regarded myself not only as the Laughing Man’s direct descendant but as his only legitimate living one. I was not even my parents’ son in 1928 but a devilishly smooth impostor, awaiting their slightest blunder as an excuse to move in–preferably without violence, but not necessarily–to assert my true identity. As a precaution against breaking my bogus mother’s heart, I planned to take her into my underworld employ in some undefined but appropriately regal capacity. But the main thing I had to do in 1928 was watch my step. Play along with the farce. Brush my teeth. Comb my hair. At all costs, stifle my natural hideous laughter.

Actually, I was not the only legitimate living descendant of the Laughing Man. There were twenty-five Comanches in the Club, or twenty-five legitimate living descendants of the Laughing Man–all of us circulating ominously, and incognito, throughout the city, sizing up elevator operators as potential archenemies, whispering side-of-the-mouth but fluent orders into the ears of cocker spaniels, drawing beads, with index fingers, on the foreheads of arithmetic teachers. And always waiting, waiting for a decent chance to strike terror and admiration in the nearest mediocre heart.

One afternoon in February, just after Comanche baseball season had opened, I observed a new fixture in the Chief’s bus. Above the rear-view mirror over the windshield, there was a small, framed photograph of a girl dressed in academic cap and gown. It seemed to me that a girl’s picture clashed with the general men-only decor of the bus, and I bluntly asked the Chief who she was. He hedged at first, but finally admitted that she was a girl. I asked him what her name was. He answered unforthrightly, “Mary Hudson.” I asked him if she was in the movies or something. He said no, that she used to go to Wellesley College. He added, on some slow-processed afterthought, that Wellesley College was a very high class college. I asked him what he had her picture in the bus for, though. He shrugged slightly, as much as to imply, it seemed to me, that the picture had more or less been planted on him.

During the next couple of weeks, the picture–however forcibly or accidentally it had been planted on the Chief–was not removed from the bus. It didn’t go out with the Baby Ruth wrappers and the fallen licorice whips. However, we Comanches got used to it. It gradually took on the unarresting personality of a speedometer.

But one day as we were on our way to the Park, the Chief pulled the bus over to a curb on Fifth Avenue in the Sixties, a good half mile past our baseball field. Some twenty back-seat drivers at once demanded an explanation, but the Chief gave none. Instead, he simply got into his story-telling position and swung prematurely into a fresh installment of “The Laughing Man.” He had scarcely begun, however, when someone tapped on the bus door. The Chief’s reflexes were geared high that day. He literally flung himself around in his seat, yanked the operating handle of the door, and a girl in a beaver coat climbed into the bus.

Offhand, I can remember seeing just three girls in my life who struck me as having unclassifiably great beauty at first sight. One was a thin girl in a black bathing suit who was having a lot of trouble putting up an orange umbrella at Jones Beach, circa 1936. The second was a girl aboard a Caribbean cruise ship in 1939, who threw her cigarette lighter at a porpoise. And the third was the Chief’s girl, Mary Hudson.

“Am I very late?” she asked the Chief, smiling at him.

She might just as well have asked if she was ugly.

“No!” the Chief said. A trifle wildly, he looked at the Comanches near his seat and signalled the row to give way. Mary Hudson sat down between me and a boy named Edgar something, whose uncle’s best friend was a bootlegger. We gave her all the room in the world. Then the bus started off with a peculiar, amateur-like lurch. The Comanches, to the last man, were silent.

On the way back to our regular parking place, Mary Hudson leaned forward in her seat and gave the Chief an enthusiastic account of the trains she had missed and the train she hadn’t missed; she lived in Douglaston, Long Island. The Chief was very nervous. He didn’t just fail to contribute any talk of his own; he could hardly listen to hers. The gearshift knob came off in his hand, I remember.

When we got out of the bus, Mary Hudson stuck right with us. I’m sure that by the time we reached the baseball field there was on every Comanche’s face a some-girls-just-don’t-know-when-to-go-home look. And to really top things off, when another Comanche and I were flipping a coin to decide which team would take the field first, Mary Hudson wistfully expressed a desire to join the game. The response to this couldn’t have been more clean-cut. Where before we Comanches had simply stared at her femaleness, we now glared at it. She smiled back at us. It was a shade disconcerting. Then the Chief took over, revealing what had formerly been a well-concealed flair for incompetence. He took Mary Hudson aside, just out of earshot of the Comanches, and seemed to address her solemnly, rationally. At length, Mary Hudson interrupted him, and her voice was perfectly audible to the Comanches. “But I do,” she said. “I do, too, want to play!” The Chief nodded and tried again. He pointed in the direction of the infield, which was soggy and pitted. He picked up a regulation bat and demonstrated its weight. “I don’t care,” Mary Hudson said distinctly, “I came all the way to New York–to the dentist and everything–and I’m gonna play.” The Chief nodded again but gave up. He walked cautiously over to home plate, where the Braves and the Warriors, the two Comanche teams, were waiting, and looked at me. I was captain of the Warriors. He mentioned the name of my regular center fielder, who was home sick, and suggested that Mary Hudson take his place. I said I didn’t need a center fielder. The Chief asked me what the hell did I mean I didn’t need a center fielder. I was shocked. It was the first time I had heard the Chief swear. What’s more, I could feel Mary Hudson smiling at me. For poise, I picked up a stone and threw it at a tree.

We took the field first. No business went out to center field the first inning. From my position on first base, I glanced behind me now and then. Each time I did, Mary Hudson waved gaily to me. She was wearing a catcher’s mitt, her own adamant choice. It was a horrible sight.

Mary Hudson batted ninth on the Warriors’ lineup. When I informed her of this arrangement, she made a little face and said, “Well, hurry up, then.” And as a matter of fact we did seem to hurry up. She got to bat in the first inning. She took off her beaver coat–and her catcher’s mitt–for the occasion and advanced to the plate in a dark-brown dress. When I gave her a bat, she asked me why it was so heavy. The Chief left his umpire’s position behind the pitcher and came forward anxiously. He told Mary Hudson to rest the end of her bat on her right shouder. “I am,” she said. He told her not to choke the bat too tightly. “I’m not,” she said. He told her to keep her eye right on the ball. “I will,” she said. “Get outa the way.” She swung mightily at the first ball pitched to her and hit it over the left fielder’s head. It was good for an ordinary double, but Mary Hudson got to third on it–standing up.

When my astonishment had worn off, and then my awe, and then my delight, I looked over at the Chief. He didn’t so much seem to be standing behind the pitcher as floating over him. He was a completely happy man. Over on third base, Mary Hudson waved to me. I waved back. I couldn’t have stopped myself, even if I’d wanted to. Her stickwork aside, she happened to be a girl who knew how to wave to somebody from third base.

The rest of the game, she got on base every time she came to bat. For some reason, she seemed to hate first base; there was no holding her there. At least three times, she stole second.

Her fielding couldn’t have been worse, but we were piling up too many runs to take serious notice of it. I think it would have improved if she’d gone after flies with almost anything except a catcher’s mitt. She wouldn’t take it off, though. She said it was cute.

The next month or so, she played baseball with the Comanches a couple of times a week (whenever she had an appointment with her dentist, apparently). Some afternoons she met the bus on time, some afternoons she was late. Sometimes she talked a blue streak in the bus, sometimes she just sat and smoked her Herbert Tareyton cigarettes (cork-tipped). When you sat next to her in the bus, she smelled of a wonderful perfume.

One wintry day in April, after making his usual three o’clock pickup at 109th and Amsterdam, the Chief turned the loaded bus east at 110th Street and cruised routinely down Fifth Avenue. But his hair was combed wet, he had on his overcoat instead of his leather windbreaker, and I reasonably surmised that Mary Hudson was scheduled to join us. When we zipped past our usual entrance to the Park, I was sure of it. The Chief parked the bus on the comer in the Sixties appropriate to the occasion. Then, to kill time painlessly for the Comanches, he straddled his seat backward and released a new installment of “The Laughing Man.” I remember the installment to the last detail, and I must outline it briefly.

A flux of circumstances delivered the Laughing Man’s best friend, his timber wolf, Black Wing, into a physical and intellectual trap set by the Dufarges. The Dufarges, aware of the Laughing Man’s high sense of loyalty, offered him Black Wing’s freedom in exchange for his own. In the best faith in the world, the Laughing Man agreed to these terms. (Some of the minor mechanics of his genius were often subject to mysterious little breakdowns.) It was arranged for the Laughing Man to meet the Dufarges at midnight in a designated section of the dense forest surrounding Paris, and there, by moonlight, Black Wing would be set free. However, the Dufarges had no intention of liberating Black Wing, whom they feared and loathed. On the night of the transaction, they leashed a stand-in timber wolf for Black Wing, first dyeing its left hind foot snow white, to look like Black Wing’s.

But there were two things the Dufarges hadn’t counted on: the Laughing Man’s sentimentality and his command of the timber-wolf language. As soon as he had allowed Dufarge’s daughter to tie him with barbed wire to a tree, the Laughing Man felt called upon to raise his beautiful, melodious voice in a few words of farewell to his supposed old friend. The stand-in, a few moonlit yards away, was impressed by the stranger’s command of the language and listened politely for a moment to the last-minute advice, personal and professional, that the Laughing Man was giving out. At length, though, the stand-in grew impatient and began shifting his weight from paw to paw. Abruptly, and rather unpleasantly, he interrupted the Laughing Man with the information that, in the first place, his name wasn’t Dark Wing or Black Wing or Gray Legs or any of that business, it was Armand, and, in the second place, he’d never been to China in his life and hadn’t the slightest intention of going there.

Properly infuriated, the Laughing Man pushed off his mask with his tongue and confronted the Dufarges with his naked face by moonlight. Mlle. Dufarge responded by passing out cold. Her father was luckier. By chance, he was having one of his coughing spells at the moment and thereby missed the lethal unveiling. When his coughing spell was over and he saw his daughter stretched out supine on the moonlit ground, Dufarge put two and two together. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he fired the full clip in his automatic toward the sound of the Laughing Man’s heavy, sibilant breathing.

The installment ended there.

The Chief took his dollar Ingersoll out of his watch pocket, looked at it, then swung around in his seat and started up the motor. I checked my own watch. It was almost four-thirty. As the bus moved forward, I asked the Chief if he wasn’t going to wait for Mary Hudson. He didn’t answer me, and before I could repeat my question, he tilted back his head and addressed all of us: “Let’s have a little quiet in this damn bus.” Whatever else it may have been, the order was basically unsensible. The bus had been, and was, very quiet. Almost everybody was thinking about the spot the Laughing Man had been left in. We were long past worrying about him–we had too much confidence in him for that–but we were never past accepting his most perilous moments quietly.

In the third or fourth inning of our ball game that afternoon, I spotted Mary Hudson from first base. She was sitting on a bench about a hundred yards to my left, sandwiched between two nursemaids with baby carriages. She had on her beaver coat, she was smoking a cigarette, and she seemed to be looking in the direction of our game. I got excited about my discovery and yelled the information over to the Chief, behind the pitcher. He hurried over to me, not quite running. “Where?” he asked me. I pointed again. He stared for a moment in the right direction, then said he’d be back in a minute and left the field. He left it slowly, opening his overcoat and putting his hands in the hip pockets of his trousers. I sat down on first base and watched. By the time the Chief reached Mary Hudson, his overcoat was buttoned again and his hands were down at his sides.

He stood over her for about five minutes, apparently talking to her. Then Mary Hudson stood up, and the two of them walked toward the baseball field. They didn’t talk as they walked, or look at each other. When they reached the field, the Chief took his position behind the pitcher. I yelled over to him. “Isn’t she gonna play?” He told me to cover my sack. I covered my sack and watched Mary Hudson. She walked slowly behind the plate, with her hands in the pockets of her beaver coat, and finally sat down on a misplaced players’ bench just beyond third base. She lit another cigarette and crossed her legs.

When the Warriors were at bat, I went over to her bench and asked her if she felt like playing left field. She shook her head. I asked her if she had a cold. She shook her head again. I told her I didn’t have anybody in left field. I told her I had a guy playing center field and left field. There was no response at all to this information. I tossed my first-baseman’s mitt up in the air and tried to have it land on my head, but it fell in a mud puddle. I wiped it off on my trousers and asked Mary Hudson if she wanted to come up to my house for dinner sometime. I told her the Chief came up a lot. “Leave me alone,” she said. “Just please leave me alone.” I stared at her, then walked off in the direction of the Warriors’ bench, taking a tangerine out of my pocket and tossing it up in the air. About midway along the third-base foul line, I turned around and started to walk backwards, looking at Mary Hudson and holding on to my tangerine. I had no idea what was going on between the Chief and Mary Hudson (and still haven’t, in any but a fairly low, intuitive sense), but nonetheless, I couldn’t have been more certain that Mary Hudson had permanently dropped out of the Comanche lineup. It was the kind of whole certainty, however independent of the sum of its facts, that can make walking backwards more than normally hazardous, and I bumped smack into a baby carriage.

After another inning, the light got bad for fielding. The game was called, and we started picking up all the equipment. The last good look I had at Mary Hudson, she was over near third base crying. The Chief had hold of the sleeve of her beaver coat, but she got away from him. She ran off the field onto the cement path and kept running till I couldn’t see her any more.

The Chief didn’t go after her. He just stood watching her disappear. Then he turned around and walked down to home plate and picked up our two bats; we always left the bats for him to carry. I went over to him and asked if he and Mary Hudson had had a fight. He told me to tuck my shirt in.

Just as always, we Comanches ran the last few hundred feet to the place where the bus was parked, yelling, shoving, trying out strangleholds on each other, but all of us alive to the fact that it was again time for “The Laughing Man.” Racing across Fifth Avenue, somebody dropped his extra or discarded sweater, and I tripped over it and went sprawling. I finished the charge to the bus; but the best seats were taken by that time and I had to sit down in the middle of the bus. Annoyed at the arrangement, I gave the boy sitting on my right a poke in the ribs with my elbow, then faced around and watched the Chief cross over Fifth. It was not yet dark out, but a five-fifteen dimness had set in. The Chief crossed the street with his coat collar up, the bats under his left arm, and his concentration on the street. His black hair, which had been combed wet earlier in the day, was dry now and blowing. I remember wishing the Chief had gloves.

The bus, as usual, was quiet when he climbed in–as proportionately quiet, at any rate, as a theatre with dimming house lights. Conversations were finished in a hurried whisper or shut off completely. Nonetheless, the first thing the Chief said to us was “All right, let’s cut out the noise, or no story.” In an instant, an unconditional silence filled the bus, cutting off from the Chief any alternative but to take up his narrating position. When he had done so, he took out a handkerchief and methodically blew his nose, one nostril at a time. We watched him with patience and even a certain amount of spectator’s interest. When he had finished with his handkerchief, he folded it neatly in quarters and replaced it in his pocket. He then gave us the new installment of “The Laughing Man.” From start to finish, it lasted no longer than five minutes.

Four of Dufarge’s bullets struck the Laughing Man, two of them through the heart. When Dufarge, who was still shielding his eyes against the sight of the Laughing Man’s face, heard a queer exhalation of agony from the direction of the target, he was overjoyed. His black heart beating wildly, he rushed over to his unconscious daughter and brought her to. The pair of them, beside themselves with delight and coward’s courage, now dared to look up at the Laughing Man. His head was bowed as in death, his chin resting on his bloody chest. Slowly, greedily, father and daughter came forward to inspect their spoils. Quite a surprise was in store for them. The Laughing Man, far from dead, was busy contracting his stomach muscles in a secret manner. As the Dufarges came into range, he suddenly raised his face, gave a terrible laugh, and neatly, even fastidiously, regurgitated all four bullets. The impact of this feat on the Dufarges was so acute that their hearts literally burst, and they dropped dead at the Laughing Man’s feet. (If the installment was going to be a short one anyway, it could have ended there; the Comanches could have managed to rationalize the sudden death of the Dufarges. But it didn’t end there.) Day after day, the Laughing Man continued to stand lashed to the tree with barbed wire, the Dufarges decomposing at his feet. Bleeding profusely and cut off from his supply of eagles’ blood, he had never been closer to death. One day, however, in a hoarse but eloquent voice, he appealed for help to the animals of the forest. He summoned them to fetch Omba, the lovable dwarf. And they did. But it was a long trip back and forth across the Paris-Chinese border, and by the time Omba arrived on the scene with a medical kit and a fresh supply of eagles’ blood, the Laughing Man was in a coma. Omba’s very first act of mercy was to retrieve his master’s mask, which had blown up against Mlle. Dufarge’s vermin-infested torso. He placed it respectfully over the hideous features, then proceeded to dress the wounds.

When the Laughing Man’s small eyes finally opened, Omba eagerly raised the vial of eagles’ blood up to the mask. But the Laughing Man didn’t drink from it. Instead, he weakly pronounced his beloved Black Wing’s name. Omba bowed his own slightly distorted head and revealed to his master that the Dufarges had killed Black Wing. A peculiar and heart-rending gasp of final sorrow came from the Laughing Man. He reached out wanly for the vial of eagles’ blood and crushed it in his hand. What little blood he had left trickled thinly down his wrist. He ordered Omba to look away, and, sobbing, Omba obeyed him. The Laughing Man’s last act, before turning his face to the bloodstained ground, was to pull off his mask.

The story ended there, of course. (Never to be revived.) The Chief started up the bus. Across the aisle from me, Billy Walsh, who was the youngest of all the Comanches, burst into tears. None of us told him to shut up. As for me, I remember my knees were shaking.

A few minutes later, when I stepped out of the Chief’s bus, the first thing I chanced to see was a piece of red tissue paper flapping in the wind against the base of a lamppost. It looked like someone’s poppy-petal mask. I arrived home with my teeth chattering uncontrollably and was told to go right straight to bed.