#Multi Warehouse Management

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Scale US E-commerce in 2025: Why Multi-Warehouse is Key

US e-commerce brands: Unlock growth in 2025 with multi-warehouse fulfillment. Cut shipping costs, speed deliveries nationwide, and boost customer satisfaction. Essential strategies for resilient supply chains.

Read more: Why Ecommerce Brands Need Multi Warehouse Management to Scale in 2025

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What to look for in a 3PL warehouse management system

When you're managing a 3PL (third-party logistics) operation, choosing the right warehouse management system (WMS) can make all the difference. The complexities of 3PL services demand a WMS that is not just functional but also adaptable, scalable, and user-friendly. This article will guide you through the crucial features to consider in a 3PL warehouse management system, ensuring it enhances your operations and drives your business forward.

1. Scalability and Flexibility

First and foremost, scalability is crucial. As your business grows, so too will your warehouse operations. Your WMS should be able to handle an increasing number of clients, orders, and inventory without a hitch. Look for a system that offers modular features, allowing you to add functionalities as your needs evolve. Flexibility is equally important; you need a system that can be tailored to different clients' requirements and can adapt to various industries, whether you're dealing with retail, manufacturing, or e-commerce.

2. Integration Capabilities

A top-notch 3PL WMS must seamlessly integrate with other systems. This includes your existing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), TMS (Transportation Management System), and other critical software. Integration ensures smooth data flow across your operations, reducing manual entry errors and enhancing overall efficiency. An integrated system can also provide real-time updates, which is vital for keeping your clients informed and satisfied.

3. Real-Time Visibility and Analytics

In the fast-paced world of logistics, real-time visibility is non-negotiable. Your WMS should offer comprehensive tracking of inventory, orders, and shipments in real-time. This capability not only helps in better decision-making but also enhances transparency with your clients. Moreover, advanced analytics tools are indispensable. They allow you to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), identify trends, and make data-driven decisions. With robust analytics, you can optimize warehouse operations, reduce costs, and improve service levels.

4. User-Friendly Interface

A user-friendly interface can significantly impact the efficiency of your warehouse operations. Your staff, from warehouse workers to managers, should be able to navigate the system easily without extensive training. A well-designed WMS will have intuitive dashboards, easy-to-understand reports, and straightforward workflows. The easier the system is to use, the quicker your team can adapt, reducing downtime and increasing productivity.

5. Customization and Personalization

Every 3PL operation is unique, and a one-size-fits-all solution rarely works. The WMS you choose should offer customization options to meet your specific needs. This includes customizable reporting, workflow automation tailored to your processes, and personalized user roles and permissions. Personalization ensures that the system works in harmony with your existing operations and can adjust as your business processes change.

6.Inventory Management

Effective inventory management is at the heart of any successful warehouse operation. Your WMS should provide accurate and real-time inventory tracking, support multiple picking methods (such as FIFO, LIFO, batch picking), and handle various inventory types and statuses. Advanced features like automated replenishment alerts, cycle counting, and cross-docking can further enhance inventory management, ensuring you always have the right products in the right place at the right time.

7. Robust Reporting and Compliance Features

In the logistics industry, compliance with regulations and standards is crucial. A good WMS will offer robust reporting features that help you stay compliant with industry standards and client requirements. Look for a system that provides detailed audit trails, customizable compliance reports, and support for industry-specific regulations. This not only helps you avoid penalties but also builds trust with your clients by ensuring transparency and accountability.

8. Customer Support and Training

Even the best systems can encounter issues or require adjustments. Excellent customer support and comprehensive training resources are essential for maximizing your WMS's potential. Ensure that the provider offers reliable support options, including phone, email, and live chat. Additionally, look for a WMS that provides extensive training materials, such as online tutorials, webinars, and user manuals, to help your team get up to speed quickly and efficiently.

9. Mobile Accessibility

In today's fast-moving world, mobile accessibility is no longer a luxury but a necessity. A WMS with mobile capabilities allows your staff to access critical information and perform essential tasks on-the-go. Whether it's scanning barcodes, updating inventory, or tracking shipments, mobile accessibility can greatly enhance the flexibility and responsiveness of your warehouse operations.

10. Cost-Effectiveness

Finally, while the initial investment is important, you must also consider the long-term value. Assess the total cost of ownership, including implementation, training, and ongoing support. A cost-effective WMS should deliver a high return on investment through improved efficiency, reduced errors, and enhanced client satisfaction.

Choosing the right 3PL warehouse management system is a critical decision that can significantly impact your business's success. By focusing on scalability, integration capabilities, real-time visibility, user-friendliness, customization, inventory management, robust reporting, customer support, mobile accessibility, and cost-effectiveness, you can find a system that not only meets your current needs but also supports your growth and adaptation in the ever-evolving logistics landscape.

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Order Management Software | Dsd Route Accounting Software | Inventory Management Software | Fleet Management Software

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Revolutionize your supply chain with our comprehensive solutions tailored to optimize efficiency across multiple warehouses and elevate inventory management to new heights.

[kallie-den]

Cobra's Kiss

Huntress is one of the greatest superheroes of all time, a divinely-blessed amazon who is all but invincible in combat. So, there’s no way one little mind-controlling kiss could immediately defeat her… right?

A commission for Xander!

If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon!  For less than the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can get immediate, early access to everything I write - 4 pieces of hypno-smut a  month, including the latest chapters of all the multi-chapter stories I write. Your support helps me keep writing and is greatly appreciated <3

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As Huntress leaped from the next building and crashed through the already-broken window of the seemingly disused warehouse, landing with enough force to crack the bare concrete beneath her feet, a wild, vicious grin was spread across her noble features - though it dimmed slightly at the bleating protests coming through in her earpiece.

‘Huntress! Please, wait for backup! Qualia is still out of action, Flamespout and Radiance are being held up by other villains, and Axehead is still a long way out. You’re on your own here. It could be a trap. You can’t go in the-���

Huntress plucked the tiny device from her ear and crushed it to pieces underfoot. Farsight, the group’s coordinator, was always careful - but in this case, far too careful. After all, they had finally tracked The Cobra to her secretive lair. This was their chance to finally take the supervillain down, once and for all. What was Huntress supposed to do? Just sit on her hands until someone showed up to babysit her?

No way. Not in this lifetime. Not after everything The Cobra had done. This was personal.

“Sorry, ladies,” Huntress muttered, as she advanced towards the building’s depths. “This time, the glory’s all mine.”

What did she have to be afraid of? The Cobra was a mastermind and a diabolical manipulator, certainly. There was no telling who she might have turned into a mindless, fanatically loyal double agent with that power of hers. But here, now, in the flesh, all those plans and schemes would mean nothing. In a fair fight, The Cobra was little better off than a mere civilian.

Huntress, meanwhile, was a superhero with godlike strength - literally. She’d started out as a mere vigilante, hunting petty criminals and wrongdoers, but her will and determination had soon caught the attention of Dianae, the ancient maiden goddess of the hunt. Dianae had blessed her with many gifts: strength, stature, a hunter’s instincts, and her own divine armaments. Now, as the goddess’s avatar, Huntress stood seven feet tall, with an amazon’s body, clad in an enchanted, steel blue, leather bodice and cowl, with a colossal, heaven-forged war bow strapped over her back.

Yeah. The Cobra didn’t stand a chance.

Her resolve set, Huntress moved like a stalking wolf. For years, The Cobra had been a ghost. A curse, weaving her malign influence throughout the world without once leaving herself vulnerable to just retaliation. It was only through happenstance that Huntress managed to track her here, to what seemed like nothing more than yet another abandoned warehouse hidden deep within anonymous urban sprawl. It was the perfect place for a cunning supervillain to hide.

But The Cobra was about to learn that she was no match for the cunning of a huntress who had caught her scent.

The disused building was huge, and as Huntress headed into its depths, the open storage spaces gave way to cramped rooms and narrow, labyrinthine service corridors. Huntress moved quickly, faster than any mere mortal could have, but her senses remained keen to any danger and her hunting instincts guided her along a sure route towards her prey. She expected traps, tricks, maybe even minions - but there was nothing. No impediment to her progress as she made her way toward The Cobra’s lair.

Huntress let herself grin. It was so typical of villains. When you finally hit them close to their home, they were all but defenseless.

In turn, featureless, dusty corridors soon gave way to passageways that showed signs of recent use and renovation. Huntress’s superhuman ears picked up on the hum of electricity, and the walls were covered with wires; brand new fiber-optic cables, all of which seemed to lead inexorably towards a single point. Eventually, she came to a heavy, metal door, deep within the bowels of the building. Behind it was the nerve center of everything.

This was it. This was The Cobra. It had to be

Huntress swiftly unslung her bow from her shoulder, notched an arrow, and forced the door open with a single, mighty kick.

Inside, it was dark, even to Huntress’s enhanced eyes. Light spilled out into the large room only from a huge array of monitors arranged on the opposite wall. Before the monitors was a desk, and before the desk was a woman sitting in a chair, staring up at them. She didn’t look round, not even at the sound of the huge, heavy door to her lair crashing to the ground.

But Huntress didn’t need to see her face to know that she’d found her enemy. At last.

The woman was brunette and considerably shorter than Huntress; even from behind, Huntress would have recognized her anywhere. The true giveaway was what she was wearing: a tight bodysuit, so dark it was almost black, except that when it caught the light, it was possible to see a scaled pattern etched across its surface in the deepest shade of emerald.

“Cobra!” Huntress roared, as she stepped across the threshold. “It’s over! In the name of the goddess, I’m here to bring you to justice.”

There was no reply. The Cobra didn’t even turn. Information kept flickering across the monitors: maps, dates, statistics.

“You’re finished.” Huntress advanced another step. “I’m going to make sure you spend the rest of your life behind bars - and even that’s better than you deserve. You’ve killed a lot of good heroes. You killed my friend. Come on. Come face your reckoning.”

The Cobra still didn’t acknowledge her presence. She remained completely focused on the screens in front of her, and constant flickering as they chanced and scrolled. Huntress felt her choler start to rise.

“Face me!” she yelled. Another step. “I want to see the look in your eyes when you realize you’ve lost.”

Still, nothing. Huntress’s temper flared, and anger drowned out her more cautious urges. She’d had enough of this childish game.

“Face me!” she repeated - and as she stepped forward, she loosed an arrow from her bow. Thick as a spear, it flew through the air and hit square its target: one of the monitors to The Cobra’s left. Impaled, it flickered black and shattered, showering the supervillain in sparks.

But she still didn’t move

Huntress frowned. She stepped forward, reached out to put her hand on The Cobra’s shoulder, and spun the chair.

It wasn’t her. It was some stranger, a woman Huntress had never seen before, with a passing similarity to the supervillain, dressed in her costume and sat in her chair, a telltale look of glassy-eyed, insensate pleasure on her face.

Huntress barely had time to process the sudden, sinking feeling in her gut before the trap was sprung.

The superhero wheeled and instinctively raised her bow - but without a notched arrow, it was useless. Before she could prepare one, she caught a glimpse of a slender outline, darting towards her from the shadowy corners of the room, holding some kind of large weapon that was already trained directly at the superhero. Huntress braced herself - but still, she wasn’t worried. Her divine gifts made her bulletproof. She was ready to take a blow.

What she wasn’t ready for was for the weapon to launch a set of long, segmented, metal cables at blinding speed. Huntress made to dodge - but caught off-guard, she was just barely too slow. The cables slammed into her with the force of a speeding truck. Huntress was able to hold her ground even against that, but she had no defense when the cables started to wrap around her body, flexing with their own momentum and pinning the superhero’s limbs to her sides. She dropped her bow and stumbled, and, before she knew it, Huntress was wrapped up tight from her shoulders all the way down to her knees.

“That’s better,” said The Cobra, as she dropped the heavy cable-launcher. She sighed with relief. “You’re not an easy woman to catch, you know. Even faster than I’d thought. But maybe now we can have a civilized conversation.”

Huntress just glowered furiously at her. The sight of The Cobra’s face made other faces flash through her mind. People she’d lost. People The Cobra had taken from her. At last, she was getting the confrontation she’d long craved, and Huntress wasn’t going to let anything hold her back. She started flexing and straining against the coils of metal binding her, drawing on all of her righteous anger and all of her divine strength. The cables didn’t break - but they groaned from the strain.

“This won’t hold me,” Huntress warned. “Not for long.”

The Cobra just shrugged. “Adamantite. It’ll hold for long enough.”

“We’ll see,” Huntress countered. “Backup is almost here.”

Infuriatingly, The Cobra wagged a finger and tutted. She turned her head, letting Huntress see the earpiece she was wearing. “I’m tapped into your comms. Backup is not almost here. Backup is being misdirected away, on a wild goose chase. No, it’s just the two of us.”

Huntress flashed her a nasty grin. “Bad news for you, once I break out of these.”

It was strange that The Cobra didn’t seem frightened. She hardly had the look of a larger-than-life supervillain. Compared to Huntress, she was slight and slender, with nondescript brown hair. Only her scaled bodysuit and the dark glint in her eyes hinted at her true nature. Huntress knew better than to underestimate the woman standing before her. She knew full well how many lives The Cobra had ruined.

“We’ll see.” The Cobra started walking towards Huntress, preening like a peacock, her voice soft, with just a hint of an alluring, sibilant, hiss. “Actually, I was hoping that if we spent a little time together, you might realize that we really don’t need to be enemies.”

Huntress just laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Huntress’s hatred for the villain was so thick she almost choked on it as she spat out her words. The idea that they could be anything but mortal enemies was absurd.

“Now, now,” The Cobra chided. She was within arm’s reach, and Huntress hated that she couldn’t reach out and strike her. The hero redoubled her efforts to break the metal coils around her body. “You never know. I might just turn out to be your type.”

Humor could only stretch so far. “Listen here,” Huntress growled. “I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what you do. No matter what, I will never, ever- mph!”

For the second time in as many minutes, the superhero found herself taken off-guard - this time, as The Cobra lunged forward and pressed their lips together in a kiss.

Huntress was no stranger to kissing women, but kissing a supervillain like The Cobra filled her with nothing but disgust. Moreover, she was entirely unprepared for the sensation of something long, slick, nimble, and foreign forcing itself into her mouth from The Cobra’s, exploring her mouth, dominating the kiss, and even beginning to push its way into her throat. Disturbed, Huntress tried to pull back, but with her limbs bound, there was no escape.

She was far more disturbed when, moments later, her body started to tingle and weaken, and a kind of strange, warm pleasure began to radiate from her lips.

“My, my,” The Cobra sang, as she finally drew back. “You taste good, Huntress.”

Her vision blurring, Huntress looked at her, and saw the foot-long, forked, tongue protruding from The Cobra’s mouth.

After a moment, her mind caught up with itself and she realized what had happened. This was The Cobra’s superpower, and the reason for her moniker. She had a very long serpent’s tongue, coated with a kind of supernatural venom that weakened the minds of those it came into contact with, drowning them in euphoric bliss and fostering a twisted sense of loyalty to the supervillain. It was the source of all her power: despite her lack of physical prowess, The Cobra could enact all her villainous schemes by using her tongue to turn people into kiss-drunk minions who would do anything to please her; she’d brainwashed civilians, government figures, corporate leaders - and even, at times, superheroes.

But not Huntress. Never Huntress.

“Your tricks will never work on me,” Huntress snarled. “I’m not like your other victims. I’m stronger than you.”

The boast came easy. It wasn’t a mere bluff. Beyond her superhuman strength and unmatched hunting skills, Huntress harbored another talent: her indomitable willpower. It was what had attracted the attention of her goddess in the first place: even as a mere mortal vigilante, Huntress had refused to let anyone or anything dim her spirit or distract her from her purpose.

Huntress was sure of it. Resisting The Cobra was a matter of willpower. And in a battle of wills, what chance did a mortal have against the divine avatar of an invincible goddess?

“Oh? Are you sure it won’t work?” The Cobra flashed her a smug smile. “Are you sure it isn’t already?”

“Of course I… I…”

Huntress grasped at her hatred like a blade, hoping to let it cut her, hoping to let its sting keep her sharp and clear-headed. Her voice faltered when she found that, to her surprise, her hate was dull. It was still there, certainly. All the reasons she should and did hate The Cobra remained perfectly easy to grasp. But it didn’t burn the way it had just moments ago. It didn’t inspire the same kind of biting rage. Her hate felt somehow distant; numb, like she was under anesthetic.

Huntress’s confidence suffered a hair fracture.

And the malevolent grin on The Cobra’s face grew wider still.

“R-ridiculous,” Huntress snarled. “You’re a fool if you think I can be beaten so easily.”

“I suppose we’ll find out.” The Cobra sauntered across the room and grabbed over another swivel chair, just like the one her double was seated in. After positioning it behind Huntress, she gave the superhero a swift shove. With her limbs bound, Huntress was unable to keep her balance and collapsed into the chair. “But you don’t look as confident as you did a few moments ago.”

Huntress was glad to find she still had enough hate to glower up at the villain. “You’ll pay for this. For everything. Very, very soon.”

She could feel the metal cables wrapped around her body beginning to stretch and distend from her efforts. They had to be just minutes from snapping.

“And then the big, bad Huntress gets me?” The Cobra mocked. She perched herself down delicately in Huntress’s lap; the weight was barely perceptible, but the frustration had Huntress growling. “You should remember something, darling. Cobras are hunters too.”

Huntress laughed in her face. Just a few minutes. “Let me tell you who I am. I am a hero. I am the divine avatar of Diana. I have been blessed with powers you cannot possibly comprehend. I have defeated foes the size of skyscrapers. I have defended our world from demonic entities and alien threats. I am Huntress, and I- stop, s-stop!”

As she delivered her monologue, voice booming, conviction in her belly, Cobra let her long, forked, dripping tongue drool out of her mouth again - and then drew it up the side of Huntress’s face in a long lick.

“What are you doing?” Huntress spat. She squirmed, trying to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. “That’s disgust… ing…?”

Cobra’s tongue came away with a wet smack, leaving the side of Huntress’s face coated with her thick, venomous saliva. This time, as it seeped into the superhero’s pores, she could feel it happening: the strange, pleasurable tingle that made her spine shiver in unwanted anticipation. The creeping, inexplicable euphoria that clouded her mind and stole the edge from her rage. Even with all her will and resolve brought to bear, Huntress couldn’t keep it from affecting her.

“Disgusting…” Huntress repeated, but she couldn’t fill the word with any force. The Cobra noticed at once.

“Wow,” she teased. “The almighty Huntress, weak to a little kiss. Who would have thought?”

“I’m nnnot.” The word came out slurred; Huntress tried again, but it didn’t help. “I’m… nnnnottt…”

The Cobra giggled maliciously. “Then what are you so afraid of?”

She licked her lips, and went in for another kiss, nice and slow this time, in a parody of romance. Huntress turned her head this way and that, trying to avoid the kiss, but her movements were already turning sluggish - and besides, The Cobra was on top of her. The villain pressed her lips against the hero’s, and with them coated in her venom, even that chaste peck was another to make The Huntress flush and heave with supernatural bliss.

“You know, maybe you’re not such a good kisser after all,” The Cobra remarked, kicking her legs against Huntress. “A little… limp. But maybe that’s what I should have expected, from the chosen of the maiden goddess.”

The sudden arrogance in the supervillain’s voice was like a red rag to a bull. Huntress tried to glare up at her, to prove her defiance with the fire in her eyes, but when she looked at The Cobra, she couldn’t help softening. Her vision was becoming hazy, and through the fog, The Cobra seemed strangely, undeniably beautiful.

"You…” Huntress gasped, suddenly full of awe. “What are… you…”

“Perhaps I just need to get you warmed up,” The Cobra mused, ignoring her. “Here.”

She leaned in for another kiss. Huntress was so dazed, only at the last moment did she realize the danger she was in. She jerked her head back, but The Cobra’s kiss still landed, just beneath her mouth. The supervillain kissed Huntress again, then again, then again, over and over, trailing kisses along her skin, before finally finding her lips and once again pushing her elongated tongue into Huntress’s mouth.

Huntress couldn’t help it. She let out a soft, faint, but undeniable moan.

“There we are,” The Cobra said, her voice a twisted mockery of affection. “Isn’t that better?”

Her victim was too addled to reply. Huntress was seeing white. She struggled to grasp what had just happened to her. Faster than she had ever believed possible, her formidable will had started to give way and sink into quicksand. Each kiss made her weaker, more susceptible. Her face was burning with flustered pleasure, and it radiated out, filling her body. It was getting harder and harder to think clearly.

“My goodness,” The Cobra cooed. “I have to be honest: it’s quite the power trip, having a literal demigod quaking and shivering under my every… little… touch.”

She punctuated those three words with yet more kisses across Huntress’s cheek. The superhero moaned again. What was happening to her? She’d never felt like this before. So warm. So soft. So palpably malleable and weak.

It was wrong. She needed to fight it. Huntress just needed to keep that thought straight in her head.

“I’m… nnnot…” she slurred, despite how absurd the denial was. “I’m… gonna… get out of here… punish you!”

“You are?” The Cobra mocked. “That’s funny. But you’re not even trying to escape anymore.”

After a few moments of dumbfounded blinking, Huntress realized that the supervillain was right. Somewhere along the way, she had stopped straining against the metal cables binding her, succumbing to the warm, relaxing feeling The Cobra’s tongue offered.

Huntress blushed shamefully, and tried to start struggling again. But she found that her limbs had turned to heavy, iron bars and her muscles to sludge; try as she might, she couldn’t seem to apply much pressure to the cables. After just a few seconds, her strength failed her. The Cobra laughed as she watched Huntress slump, defeated.

“What was that you were saying?” she crowed. “You’re a hero? A divine avatar? Blessed with powers I couldn’t comprehend? To me, you look like nothing more than another one of my mewling little pets.”

Huntress thought back to The Cobra’s double, still sitting in the chair a short distance from them. She thought about the look of utter, mindless bliss that had been on the woman’s face. Was that what was going to happen to her? A fearful shiver raced down her spine.

She wanted to deny the very possibility. But hadn’t The Cobra already proven her wrong? Huntress’s sense of self-assurance was collapsing beneath her feet.

“And in a few more minutes, that’s exactly what you’ll be,” The Cobra went on. “Another brainwashed slut, addicted to me, doing anything I please just for one more kiss - even helping to bring those precious teammates of yours into the fold.”

That particular jab bit deep with Huntress - but struck iron. The superhero frowned, a fresh surge of anger lending her much-needed strength.

Defeat was one thing. Betrayal was another. Huntress had never once betrayed the principles by which she lived and fought. And she never would, not for anything. Certainly not for the hated supervillain currently perched in her lap.

Yes. Yes, she hated The Cobra. That was right, wasn’t it?

“I… will… never…” Huntress said thickly and slowly, enunciating each word clearly in turn, “do… your… will. Never. With… with all that I have… with all that I am… I’ll keep fighting. To the bitter end.”

She meant it. Every word. Even The Cobra seemed impressed. She cocked an eyebrow and whistled.

“Not bad,” she acknowledged. “But you still just don’t get it, do you? Watch.”

Huntress was braced for The Cobra to kiss her again, but she didn’t. Instead, the supervillain simply opened her mouth and let her serpent’s tongue hang lazily out of her mouth, slowly extending to its full length. That was all. The tips of her tongue’s forks twitched occasionally, tasting the air, and venom-impregnated drool formed thick, looping ropes beneath the supernatural organ.

Against all her wishes, Huntress moaned.

This time, it wasn’t her body, but her memory that betrayed her. Just the sight of The Cobra’s tongue held power over Huntress. It reminded her of everything that tongue could do, and made her throb with longing as memories of that warm, wonderful pleasure washed over her. Already, Huntress could feel her precious willpower once again starting to drain away.

“You see,” The Cobra cooed, her voice poisonously soft. “Don’t you want this?”

Huntress couldn’t help but let out a whiny, plaintive sigh as she realized that she did. That was followed immediately by a deep sense of shame. She shouldn’t want it. It was wrong. It was obscene. Huntress was a hero. She should be above such temptations.

Yet her body yearned for it. She knew, she just knew, that as soon as The Cobra’s tongue touched her skin, the sweet nectar of her venom would wipe away all of those shameful feelings.

“You do,” The Cobra pressed. “Don’t you?”

Huntress managed to shake her head, but the words wouldn’t rise to her lips. Every nerve ending in her body was screaming something else.

“I think you do,” The Cobra whispered to her. “And I think you’ll let me kiss you.”

She started to lean in for another kiss, this time moving tortuously slowly, giving Huntress all the time in the world to jerk her head out of the way. But she didn’t. Huntress couldn’t move. She was paralyzed by her conflicted desires. The superhero opened her mouth, hoping to protest, but the words still wouldn’t come, and her lips remained slightly parted and turned upwards, towards The Cobra’s approaching mouth.

Without resisting or even saying a word, Huntress let The Cobra kiss her. For just a moment, she hated how good it felt. Then, the oncoming pleasure obliterated even that.

Huntress couldn’t help it. As The Cobra forced her tongue into her mouth, she started leaning into the kiss. Embracing it. Kissing back with stupefied passion. It was impossible to do anything else when it felt so good. Every concern about her morals and principles, about the situation, about The Cobra’s schemes - all of them paled in comparison. The kind of euphoria The Cobra’s power inflicted allowed no room for doubts. As they kissed - as The Cobra started fucking Huntress’s throat with her tongue - Huntress was on cloud nine, and The Cobra herself was the object of all her newfound joy.

When The Cobra broke the kiss, Huntress whined. She wanted more.

“There we go,” the supervillain cooed. “That’s a nice dose. Isn’t that better?”

Huntress just nodded dumbly.

“Good.” The Cobra extended her tongue towards Huntress and licked her again. Huntress shivered in eager rapture. “See? Maybe we can get along after all.”

Again, Huntress nodded. That sounded good. She wanted to get along with The Cobra. Why wouldn’t she? The Cobra made her feel so good.

There was something else in her head. A different feeling that she felt towards The Cobra. Something spiky and bitter. Then, it slipped out of view.

“Excellent,” The Cobra told her, evidently pleased. “That’s my good little hunter.”

Huntress’s reward was another kiss. She accepted it eagerly. Each one felt better than the last. She looked up at The Cobra adoringly, panting for breath, a vacant, stupid smile spread across her saliva-slick face.

“Hey,” Cobra said. “Why don’t you tell me your name? Your real name, I mean.”

Alarm bells sounded in Huntress’s head. She had always kept her real name a secret. Allowing it to become public knowledge meant endangering all those who were close to her. She couldn’t.

And yet now, all those alarm bells were so far away, she could barely hear them.

“Susanna,” Huntress told the villain dreamily. “Susanna Callisto.”

“Susanna Callisto,” The Cobra echoed. “Incredible. But you know,” she added teasingly, “if we’re going to keep getting along, I’m going to need you to do some things for me.”

That gave Huntress pause. The Cobra’s phrasing was undeniably menacing. It made her cautious.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” The Cobra promised. Her face was twisted into an impossibly gleeful smirk. “I just want to get to know some of your friends, the same way I’m getting to know you. You can help me with that, can’t you?”

Huntress’s friends. It took her a long moment to understand what that was referring to. Superheroes. Superheroes like her. Didn’t being a superhero mean something important? She thought about what would happen if she brought them here, and let The Cobra work her tongue into their minds. It just seemed wrong, somehow, even if she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“I… can’t,” Huntress replied, more than a little apologetically.

In that moment, the reluctance was real. She longed to give The Cobra what she was asking for. But this was the final kernel of her willpower, buried so deep it had still yet to be touched by The Cobra’s venom. Even if she sacrificed all of her dignity, she couldn’t sacrifice this.

“You can’t?” The Cobra seemed surprised, even impressed, by any resistance even at this stage. “How amusing. Why don’t you let me change your mind?”

Huntress let out a groan, but there was nothing she could do as The Cobra started kissing her again. The kisses came fast and furious; passionate, almost, from the supervillain’s eagerness to overwhelm what remained of Huntress’s will. She kissed Huntress again and again, each one deeper and more dominant than the last, making the defeated superhero gag on her tongue and gasp desperately for each breath before the next kiss came.

“Are you sure?” The Cobra whispered to her, between kisses. “All you need to do is bring them to me.”

“C-can’t…” Huntress moaned, more out of instinct than true comprehension. “Can’t….”

It was getting harder and harder to refuse her captor. The more The Cobra kissed her, the more Huntress’s pleasure was starting to congeal into something else: into an instinctive, servile sense of obedience directed towards the supervillain. Disobeying was growing steadily harder and harder to conceive of.

It was simple. Pavlovian. Huntress had become a slave to her own pleasure, and the pleasure told her to listen to The Cobra.

“Bring them here,” The Cobra urged. “Whoever I ask you to. Tell them whatever lies I feed to you. Use that strength of yours to keep them nice and still for me.”

“Noo,” Huntress moaned, though she could already feel her will to resist fading. “Nooooo.”

The Cobra touched one of her fingertips to Huntress’s chin and used it to guide her, making the super stretch upward, begging with her body for yet another brainwashing kiss.

“Yes,” The Cobra said firmly. Compared to Huntress, she sounded so strong. So sure. It was impossible not to believe her. “You’re going to be my ultimate weapon, Huntress. You’ll subdue all those other heroes for me. You’ll bring them right to my bosom.”

“Nnn… mmrfff.” Huntress’s attempt to refuse collapsed into more moaning when Cobra extended her tongue along the side of her face, coating it in slick, wet, mind-warping saliva.

“Anyone who threatens me,” The Cobra insisted. “Anyone who opposes me. You’ll stop them. You’ll help me claim them. You’ll work to make them mine.”

Huntress thrashed and spasmed as pleasure tore through her. Her back arched. It was so easy to see herself doing it, and so very hard to disobey. She craved it now. Everything The Cobra was describing. She was about to break, and both of them knew it.

“Obey me,” The Cobra hissed. “Kiss me, and obey.”

As one final, desperate gambit, Huntress’s overtaxed mind seized upon the words that she’d used many times in moments of true hopelessness: a prayer, a plea, delivered up to the one who had made her what she was.

“D-Diana… s-save me!”

And, by a true miracle, the goddess did.

The Cobra was thrown out of Huntress’s lap and across the room by a sudden thunderclap. She shot to her feet, but found herself blinded by impossible, silver light. It was as if the moon itself had been made manifest inside her lair, but when the light dimmed and her eyes adjusted, she found herself looking not at a celestial body, but at a woman.

Not, not a woman. Diana, Goddess of the Hunt.

There was no mistaking her. In stature and beauty, she was even greater than Huntress, and her body still shone with a halo of moonlight. There was a great resemblance between Diana and her champion, The Cobra noted, although the goddess had the ageless quality of an immortal, and her hair was brilliant silver instead of platinum blonde. She did not have a weapon, but she clearly didn’t need one, either; her gaze spoke of immeasurable power and righteous wrath - and all of it was directed straight at The Cobra.

“Who dares defile my champion?” the goddess spoke, in a voice that made the heavens quake.

Every little hair on The Cobra’s body stood on end. She turned her head left and right, desperately looking for something, anything, that might save her. There was nothing, of course. This was a goddess. What did she have? A long tongue?

“I see,” Diana pronounced, even though The Cobra hadn’t spoken. “Your heart is black. I will deal with you in a moment. But first…”

She turned to Huntress, sitting slumped in the chair, still bound. Diana touched just one fingertip to the metal cables wrapped around the hero’s body, and they dissolved into nothing more than fading sparks.

“Be free,” Diana said to Huntress affectionately. “I have no doubt you will recover, in time. Your firm will has always been your greatest blessing.” She rounded on The Cobra. “Which is why I cannot forgive that you would tarnish it.”

The Cobra started backing away. Dread overwhelmed her. She was still thinking furiously, but she couldn’t come up with any plan or ploy that could help her. The sheer unfairness of the situation was almost comical. She was barely a supervillain, and this was a goddess in the flesh. A petty little trick like using a double wasn’t going to cut it.

There had to be something. There had to be. But what? Her venom was the only asset she had, but even that seemed like a stretch.

“Damn it,” The Cobra hissed to herself. “If I could just hold her still for a moment…”

It turned out, Huntress wasn’t the only one who could have her prayers answered.

And Huntress herself was the one who answered them. The superhero abruptly rose to her feet, seemingly shaking off whatever dim-witted pleasure-trance she’d sunk into. Diana noted her sudden recovery with nothing more than a pleased smile, and kept all her attention on The Cobra.

Until Huntress grabbed her goddess’s limbs and used all of her divine-given strength to pin them to her sides.

“What?” Diana exclaimed, confused. “My champion, what are you doing?”

But The Cobra knew. She could see it in Huntress’s eyes: the telltale, glassy glint of adoration and eagerness that marked those who had tasted too much of The Cobra’s venom.

Slowly, a grin started to creep back onto The Cobra’s face.

“Release me!” Diana bellowed. “My huntress, you must resist this witchcraft!”

The Cobra was already moving towards her by the time Diana started to struggle in earnest. It was immediately clear that Huntress couldn’t hold her for long. A demigod was no match for a goddess. But The Cobra’s commands had taken root deep in her mind, and the brainwashed superhero was every bit of her strength to keep Diana restrained for long enough for The Cobra to reach her.

The supervillain had no idea if her power would work. Her heart skipped a beat as she stretched up on tiptoes and kissed the goddess of the hunt.

The Cobra kissed her the same way she kissed all her victims: long and deep, pushing her tongue into her mouth to make her feel her presence and drink in as much of her venom as possible. She wasn’t sure what to expect from kissing Diana; fierce resistance wouldn’t have surprised her, nor, amusingly, would have prodigious skill.

What she hadn’t expected was for Diana to all but go limp immediately, after just a few clumsy, sophomoric attempts to dominate the kiss.

That gave The Cobra a little optimism. But she still didn’t dare to hope as she pulled back and inspected the formidable goddess towering above her.

Not until she saw the dull, dreamy, blissed-out look beginning to dawn on Diana’s face.

“Oh my god,” The Cobra breathed. “It… it worked.”

The goddess came over flushed, and it was clear that her struggles were weakening. Her eyes flitted back and forth in confusion.

“What…” Diana breathed. The Cobra couldn’t believe she was seeing a goddess look dizzy. “You… mortal… what did you do to me?”

The Cobra couldn’t help it. She started laughing. It came slow, building and building, until it came out as a manic howl that filled the room.

“Oh my god!” The Cobra cackled. “I can’t believe it - although maybe it’s exactly what I should have expected from the so-called maiden goddess. Not a lot of experience with kissing, huh?”

“I… don’t…” Diana bleated. She looked so lost all of a sudden, but The Cobra didn’t miss the hint of eagerness in her parted lips.

“Huntress,” The Cobra instructed, “why don’t you help our pretty little goddess take a seat?”

“Yes, Cobra.”

Huntress’s eyes shone hopefully at the mere prospect of getting to obey her new owner’s instructions. She guided Diana over to the chair she’d just been sitting in. The goddess didn’t struggle. Pathetically weak to The Cobra’s kisses, she was already beyond that.

“It’s OK that you don’t have much experience,” The Cobra hissed, as she poured herself into Diana’s lap and let her tongue drool out of her mouth once more. “I like girls that way, sometimes. And I’ll be more than happy to… educate you. Then, we can see what I can do to the world with a goddess in tow.”

She started kissing Diana again, and the supervillain’s lair filled with wet, smacking passionate sounds as she began to brainwash the goddess into nothing more than an obedient, pleasure-drunk thrall - just like her champion.

—

I would like to express my gratitude for the generosity of all those who support me on Patreon, and to give a special thanks to the following patrons in particular for their exceptional support:

Artemis, Chloe, Grillfan65, The Secret Subject, Morriel, Dex, orangesya, dmtph, MegatronTarantulas, Vanessa, Madeline, BTYOR, Sarah, Mattilda, Emily Queen of sloths, Neana, Shadows exile, Abigail, Hypnogirl_Stephanie_, Jade, mintyasleep, Michael, Be_Be, Tasteful Ardour, Chris, Dennis, Full Blown Marxism, Morder, S, Brendon, Drone 8315, Jim, Erin, HannahSolaria, hellenberg, Kay, Miss_Praxis, Violet, Noct, Charlotte, Faun, BrinnShea, B, Foridin, Jennifer, EepyTimeTea, Slifer274, Phoenix, Jim, Sebastian, Joseph, Yaoups, Thomas, Liz, naivetynkohan, Basic dev, SuperJellyFrogEx, Katie, Lily, spyrocyndersam13, zzzz, Mal, Bouncyrou, Anonymous, Nimapode, Kunoichiru, FemKUltra, Ash, Artemis, Geckonator, TheRealG, Anonymous, J, nathan, GladiusLumin, Ada, Marina, Space Prius, Alex, Michael, Thomas, Dasterin, Jackson, Djura, Christopher, Pluto, Daedalus, Joe, Stuart, Mattilda, matthew, Ana, proletkvlt, DOLLICIOUS, Yodasgirl, Allie~

[takaraphoenix]

May Schedule

A more detailed version of my updating schedule that I keep on my AO3 profile!

As always, feel free to drop me an ask if you want to hear more about any of them ;)

Mischief's Demon Wolf (Steter)

At one point during this month, I'll start posting this fic, but due to a lot going on, I don't know when exactly. The plan is for this story to be regularly updated on Fridays. It will be a multiple chapter fic, I do not know how many chapters yet though.

Before being blinded, Deucalion was close to the Stilinski family, Claudia used to be like a sister to him. But after what Gerard did, Noah asks for distance, to keep Stiles safe. Deucalion is not impressed when he returns to Beacon Hills to realize that Mischief managed to still get into trouble and danger all on his own. He is also not impressed by the former Hale Pack's Left Hand sniffing around his cub.

!! No updates between April 27th and May 4th, because I'm on vacation with my best friend !!

05/05: Wolf in the Woods (Steter)

Alternate ABOverse take on episode 1, where omega Stiles goes into the woods alone to look for the body... and instead finds a hot werewolf. Peter wanted to turn a Beta for his pack, but when the pretty little omega starts smelling of arousal, his plans change.

05/07: West Coast Wolves, Part 2 (Stetaliopher)

Let me clarify that this story did not run away from me, okay? I was sick for a week, work was busy and now I have my vacation coming up and I just did not have the time to put everything into the fic that I wanted to. So, instead of not posting anything on April 23rd, I decided to split the story into a two parter at an appropriate moment and post part 1 this week and part 2 after my vacation. Part 2 is going to feature more on the Chris-Deucalion side of figuring out the foursome's relationship.

05/10: Emissary of the Hale Pack, Chapter 1 (Stetopher)

This is going to be my 150th Teen Wolf fic AND my 50th Stetopher fic, so I wanted to post something special for the occasion! A multi-chapter time-travel fix it fic to prevent the Hale Fire.

After losing his entire pack, Stiles goes back in time, far enough to prevent the Hale Fire. And then he's... stuck, in the past. The only one who knows he's from the future is Talia and Peter's mother Dalia, a druid and the former Emissary of the Hale Pack who can sense the time-travel magic on him. Out of gratitude for what he has done, she decides to take him on as an apprentice, giving him a place to stay.

05/12: The Demon Wolf Biker Bar (Stalion)

Stiles' Jeep breaks down and soaked from the rain, he finds shelter at a shady looking biker bar just to fall for the owner and Pack Alpha Deucalion and to be more or less accidentally adopted by the werewolf pack who runs it.

NEW: 05/14: Silver Lining (Stargent)

*deep sigh* Okay, look. I do not control these stories, yeah? My best friend bullied me into writing a post basement Stargent fic while we were on vacation and since it'd be ridiculous to put the nearly finished fic at the end of the schedule and try to scramble and write what is next, we are... pushing back and squeezing the post basement Stargent fic in between here.

05/17: A Spark Into a Flame, Chapter 3 (Stetopher)

Peter takes Stiles home after the warehouse and they talk, about Kate and Claudia.

05/26 05/19: Creeps and Cherries (Steter)

Someone is sacrificing virgins and Stiles is really worried about his life. Peter, the selfless and helpful man he is, offers to help Stiles out with his little problem.

(a mild adjustment because the next Mischief Monday would have been another Stargent and I do want to space the rarepairs out a little to keep y'all well-fed)

05/14 05/21: Coffee and Crime (Stetopher)

Chris and Peter go and hire an assassin to take out Gerard, the bigoted politician father of Chris, so the two can be together. The Black Fox exclusively communicates through notes left in a small café's menu and while negotiating, Chris and Peter fall for the café's owner, Stiles.

05/24: The Alpha Pack's Spark, Chapter 3 (Stetalion)

Peter and Deucalion finally get to seal their matebond and Stiles gets to ask Marin more questions about the Magic Council.

05/19 05/26: Princess Problem (Stargent)

Noah and Melissa are hosting a nice family dinner to celebrate Scott and Allison's engagement. Until Chris asks "Can you pass me the salt, princess?" and both Allison and Stiles reach for the salt shaker. That... was not how Chris or Stiles had planned to tell their families about their relationship...

05/28: Stiles' Seduction Skills (Stetopher)

Stiles has a suspicion that Peter and Chris might be interested in him, but he is absolutely not going to risk embarrassing himself by confronting them, in case he's wrong. So he has the foolproof plan of seducing them so they will act first. Chris and Peter are suffering and struggling to behave themselves, because Stiles seems to be even more tempting than usual.

05/31: Little Red and the Black Fox, Chapter 6 (Stetopher)

Stiles talks to Marin to deal with the aftermath of the kidnapping and contemplates the various horrible things that happened to him throughout his life.

05/21 05/28: Grand and Mighty (Steter)

The fourth installment in my Size-verse! The Hale Pack has to face the Darach and Stiles gets to prove just how good he's gotten at mastering his Spark.

EDIT2: I have no excuses, I suck at this, I know, but Grand and Mighty thinks it should be a multi-chapter fic and not a oneshot and I found myself agreeing with it *tired, frustrated sigh*

[snapmite1998]

Darth Maul's ambitious plan to leverage the chaos from the aftermath of the Clone Wars has led to suffering of refugees and the forgotten inhabitants in the Galactic Underworld is a calculated strategy to build power and influence from the shadows of Coruscant. Here’s how he could orchestrate the operation with Dryden Vos and Crimson Dawn:

Step 1: Establishing the Humanitarian Front

1.1. Employing the service of Dryden Vos:

Maul has Dryden Vos, a cunning and ruthless leader of Crimson Dawn, to manage the operation. Vos’s experience with the criminal underworld allows him to navigate the complex networks of power and resources.

1.2. Creating a Cover Story:

To gain the trust of the public and the underworld, Vos crafts a narrative that Crimson Dawn is a humanitarian organization aimed at alleviating the suffering caused by the Clone Wars. This includes distributing food, medicine, and financial aid to refugees in the Undercity.

Step 2: Mobilizing Resources

2.1. Gathering Supplies:

Crimson Dawn uses its vast resources to acquire supplies through both legal and illegal means. This could involve negotiating with sympathetic suppliers, stealing from warehouses, or even using bounty hunters to procure goods.

2.2. Distributing Aid:

Vos sets up distribution points throughout the Undercity, staffed by Crimson Dawn operatives disguised as charity workers. This provides a façade of legitimacy and allows for the gathering of intelligence on local populations and potential recruits.

Step 3: Building a Network of Support

3.1. Community Engagement:

Crimson Dawn engages with local leaders and influential figures in the Undercity, providing aid in exchange for loyalty and support. By positioning themselves as benefactors, they begin to build a network of allies among the downtrodden.

3.2. Recruitment of Disenfranchised Individuals:

As the humanitarian efforts continue, Crimson Dawn identifies individuals with skills, such as former soldiers, mechanics, and navigators, who are desperate for work and a sense of purpose. These individuals are offered roles within Crimson Dawn, often with promises of wealth and protection.

Step 4: Covert Military Training

4.1. Training Recruits:

Under the guise of providing vocational training, Crimson Dawn begins to train these recruits in combat and guerrilla tactics. This training is conducted in secret, ensuring that the recruits remain loyal to Maul’s larger goals.

4.2. Establishing Cells:

The recruits are organized into small cells that can operate independently within the Undercity. This decentralized structure allows for flexibility and deniability, making it harder for the Republic or Jedi to trace these activities back to Maul.

Step 5: Strategic Operations

5.1. Sabotage and Disruption:

As the network of recruits grows, Maul directs them to conduct sabotage operations against Republic supply lines and infrastructure, further destabilizing the situation on Coruscant and inciting unrest among the populace.

5.2. Building Public Sentiment:

Crimson Dawn uses propaganda to portray the Jedi and the Republic as oppressors, framing their actions as a necessary rebellion against a corrupt system. This narrative can draw more individuals to their cause.

Step 6: The Endgame

6.1. Coordinating a Large-Scale Uprising:

With a significant force built from the ranks of the disenfranchised, Maul plans a coordinated uprising within the Undercity. This would catch the Republic off guard, leading to chaos that could spread to the surface levels of Coruscant.

6.2. Sacking Coruscant:

The ultimate goal is to create enough unrest and chaos to launch a full-scale attack on key locations within Coruscant, allowing Crimson Dawn to seize control and establish a new order under Maul’s leadership.

Conclusion

Through this multi-faceted strategy, Maul aims to exploit the vulnerabilities exposed by the Clone Wars, using humanitarian efforts as a cover for building a loyal army. By manipulating the suffering of the populace and positioning Crimson Dawn as their savior, Maul seeks not only to gain power but to position himself as a formidable force in the galaxy, ready to strike against the Jedi and the Republic at the opportune moment.

[legendary-defender-of-fandoms]

Some Spoiler Free Thoughts on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

It’s obvious that everyone had the time of their lives working on this movie! You could see the joy in Willem Dafoe’s eyes in every scene he was in.

Much like the first movie, the cartoon, and the musical, every single character is a goddamn weirdo. And I am HERE for it! Give me your weirdos, your oddballs, your nonconformists.

The effects. Dear God, it was SO fucking refreshing to see stop motion animation, real-ass puppets, prosthetics, makeup, props, EVERYTHING!!!! Years from now, people can go through the Warner Brothers Studio Lot or their prop warehouses & find all the amazing stuff they made for this movie, and say “Holy crap, they made real shit for that movie!” No mocap pajamas or tennis balls on sticks for Mr. Burton. Take notes, Disney - THIS is the good shit we want more of!

The shrunken head guys are obviously piggy-backing off the Minions success. But they’re not in the movie for very long & don’t say anything, so it’s tolerable. Also Bob is best boy.

It’s important to remember that Movie Beetlejuice is NOT Musical Beetlejuice. I went in to this sequel knowing they were two VERY different interpretations & continuities, and I wasn’t expecting Movie Beetlejuice to suddenly grow a conscience or get all sentimental because of the musical. And I’m not saying one version of Beetlejuice is better or worse than the others - I think it’s awesome how there can be three wildly different & beloved takes on a single character. But you can’t forget that they are different, especially when Movie Beetlejuice does some things that Musical Beetlejuice would never, or even Cartoon Beetlejuice would have some moral questions about. It’s best to think of it as a Multi Verse - on one timeline Beetlejuice is a shameless pervert who lives to make others uncomfortable, on another Beetlejuice is a chaos gremlin who’s always down for a little mischief, and on the third Beetlejuice is a demon who just wants a hug, a friend, and an orgy.

All that being said, it can’t be denied that the musical had SOME influence on the sequel. It might be reaching to say that one of Lydia’s lyrics from “Say My Name” managed to work its way into the movie, but everyone acknowledges that a major plot thread from the musical was adapted to the movie as one of the many subplots. And while I think the movie did ok with it, the musical handled it far better.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Somehow, Through the Storm

Summary:

Living in the slums of the Warehouse District, Kaz and Inej are struggling to cling on to life through a seemingly unending winter. Wrapped up in a stranger's overcomplicated marriage contract that he is convinced is key to solving the merciless weather, Kaz remains busy and distracted for days on end, putting everything else at risk. So when a storm ravages the city and sweeps Inej into danger, the offer of safety, food, and a place to stay is an overwhelming one - no matter the cost. Terrified of mounting threats, Inej signs a contract - not knowing she would land herself trapped at the Menagerie. Kaz signs a contract that states if he can walk all the way through the city and back to the Warehouse District with Inej behind him, never looking back at her, they will both go free. But this is the Barrel, the darkest part of the city where the rules of physics can change with the stroke of a pen; the journey back will not be the same as journey there…

This is a Hadestown-inspired reimagining of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, casting Kaz and Inej as our main characters and heavily featuring our beloved Crows, set in an alternate version of the Grishaverse with a different magic system based entirely on contracts.

Tags: @lunarthecorvus @marielaure @multi-fandom-bi @igotthisaccountunderduress @thelibraryofalexandriastillburns @devoted-people-hater @spraypaintstainonawhitewall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list let me know <3

Warnings for this chapter: homelessness, implied threats, food scarcity, implied loss of parents/family/loved ones

AO3 link:

NOTE: I know I said that the first two chapters would come out today and I am still hoping to get chapter 2 out later on today but I'm not 100% that will be possible as I have a lot more left to write than I initially anticipated, but it will at least be coming soon!

Chapter 1 - Inej

Some flowers bloom where the green grass grows; our praise is not for them, but the ones who bloom in the bitter snow. We raise our cups to them

- We Raise Our Cups, Hadestown 

This is an old story. It has been told many times, in many ways, with many different faces, and yet we tell it again. This is a sad story. And yet, we tell it anyway. That’s our role, in all of this, and we are nothing if we do not fulfil it. This time, it started - as Inej’s stories seemed to have begun to do so with concerning frequency - with getting kicked out. 

“No- please, wait-” her pleas were cut off by the dull, painful thud of a bag being hurled into her chest. 

She gasped, winded, and as she stumbled backwards her foot slipped from the top step. Hendrija huffed what might have been a short, breathy laugh as she watched Inej fall, but Inej managed to regain at least some of her dignity as she rebalanced on the gravel. She was shorter than Hendrija anyway, and glaring up at the older woman standing above her on the porch she felt incredibly aware of her smallness. 

“Move on,” Hendrija jutted her chin vaguely down the street, “You ain’t wanted here, girl,”

“Please, Hen, I swear I’ll get you the money-”

“No you won’t,”

“I will,” she promised, “Please, just a couple of days, I swear, I just need a couple of days, I’ll get you-”

“Three months. I gave you three months grace, and I haven’t seen a cent. You’re done, now get off my property before I call the stadwatch,”

“No, Hendrija- Hendrija!”

The door slammed in front of Inej’s nose and she screamed her frustration at the apathetic panels. That was it, then: she had officially been thrown out of every hostel in Ketterdam. Brilliant. 

There was, unbeknownst to Hendrija, almost one hundred kruge tightly hand sewn into an inside pocket of Inej’s jacket - but last time she’d tried to pay her with ‘that type of cash’ Hendrija had refused it. 

“You don’t come in here and give me someone else’s money, girl,”

“I didn’t-”

“You earn some money for a room here, or you don’t keep one. You got it?”

Inej wasn’t sure what else Hendrija expected her to pay with, though. There weren’t any jobs to find. Not now. Not ever.  

“Fine,” she’d said, “I’ll earn something. How’d you-?”

“You think I don’t know you ain’t worked a day since you got here?” Hendrija nodded to the purple bills tucked between Inej’s fingers, “Where’d you get it?”

Inej squared her shoulders, pretending not to feel the pit crumbling inside her stomach, as she told her where the money was from out loud and apologised, again, to her Saints inside her head. Hendrija’s cheeks blanched. 

“At the very least, lass, if you’re gonna steal, don’t steal from him. Nasty way to go, when he gets to you - and he will. Always does,”

Inej had given her a sincere nod, then brushed off the conversation without another thought. It didn’t matter what anyone she stole from might do if they caught her, because they wouldn’t catch her. No-one ever did. 

She lingered for a brief moment on the porch of the rooming house, as though Hendrija might open the door and say that she’d changed her mind, or that was only teasing and oh dear, Inej, don’t you take things too seriously. But, of course, she didn’t. Inej didn’t really want her to, she supposed, other than that it would be easier than trying to find somewhere else to sleep tonight. She shouldered her bag, appalled to feel herself stagger slightly beneath the weight. When had she last eaten? There was nearly a hundred kruge sewn into her jacket, yes, but she hadn’t dared to touch it yet. It had only been hers for a couple of days. Inej wasn’t exactly an expert, but she thought it might be best to wait a while before she used it in case someone got wise somehow. The last thing she needed was to end up in a prison cell. 

Although, an upsettingly convincing voice added inside her head, at least it would be a place to sleep. Somewhere dry, with a pillow and a blanket. Somewhere she could stay still, lie down and close her eyes, eat once - maybe even more than once - a day and never have to feel the wind. Inej almost laughed out loud at herself. What had she become? What had this city turned her into? She used to be good. Now she would do anything for a bed, for food, for a roof the weather couldn’t chase her through. 

A gust of wind prickled down the back of Inej’s neck, sending a shiver running over her, and she reached to turn her collar up against the breeze. It was going to rain soon, she was sure. Where was she going to sleep tonight? She sighed into her jacket, creating a brief pocket of warmth, and began to walk. Prayers first, then food, if she could find something. She had hours until sundown. She’d figure something out. 

The Saints didn’t require a Chapel to hear their prayers, but there was a small one in the North of the Warehouse District for anyone who preferred an organised service. Inej attended when she could - she tried to light incense for her parents at least once a week, but more realistically did so about once a month, maybe twice if they were lucky. She leant against the wall of the building next to the hostel, just out of sight if Hendrija was sticking her nose out of the window, and began to dig through her measly bag of belongings. Should she change her clothes to go to Chapel? Her only other shirt and trousers were probably no cleaner than the ones she was wearing, but she ran a comb through her hair and did her best to pull it into a quick, neat braid. At least she’d tried to make an effort. She didn’t think her Saints cared, but people definitely did. 

There was a little matchbox in her bag as well, but when she slid it open with trembling fingers she was overcome with the sudden desire to scream and hurl it into the street when she discovered it was empty. She settled for holding it so tightly that the thin card crumpled in her fist, then shoving it back into the bag. She could just leave it for the day; find something to eat and start looking for a place to stay, try to buy matches once the money in her pocket felt safe. But when had she last been to Chapel? Not for several weeks. She couldn’t not go, and she couldn’t afford to turn the matches into an excuse not to return. Her parents deserved better than that. They deserved better than any of this. 

She sighed again as she stood back up from the wall and slung her bag across her shoulders, then ventured slowly into the street. It was busy, or busy enough anyway, and she knew that everyone here would have just seen her and Hendrija arguing on the porch bare moments ago so she wasn’t really expecting much when she wove into the crowd, going unnoticed until she parted her lips to venture: 

“Excuse me? Does anyone have a match?”

People glanced down at her, or between themselves, all with the same expression as they stepped away and a ring of space was created around Inej. She tried to step forwards and, as though she were a drop of oil in water, wherever she moved the strangers stepped away from her, pace for pace. 

“Please, sir,” she tried, turning to try and focus her quiet appeal on the closest individual, “Would you happen to-?”

He shook his head, turning away. Inej dug her fingers deeply into the cuff of her sleeve as she watched him pull a cigarette from his pocket as he walked away. She tried again, and then again. 

“Please,” she said, again, as the crowd parted around her, “I’m sorry, but does anyone have a match that I could use?”

From behind the shape of someone’s dusty red coat as they moved away, a boy appeared in Inej’s field of vision. He looked up and caught her eye, then seemed to sigh as he beckoned her towards him with one gloved hand - the other remaining secure over the carved handle of the cane he leant against. He was taller than her but Inej would guess they were a similar age, though his face was aged by the little scars that crossed his pale skin.

“I can help you,”

Inej paused.

At the very least, lass, if you’re gonna steal, don’t steal from him. 

Inej had stolen from him twice. The first time nothing happened, except for Hendrija refusing the money - as if her boarding house weren’t full of criminals and as if she didn’t damn well know it - but if he’d gotten wise? What if someone at the house overheard something and passed it on? She swallowed tightly. 

“I didn’t ask for help. I asked for a match,”

“I can give you a match,” he said, reaching one of those leather-clad hands into his pocket, “I can also help you,”

Inej frowned. For a moment she studied the matchbox that he held out between them, and then it was in her hand and the boy was pulling away and she didn’t know why but it felt like something… something had happened.  The air felt calmer now. She was part way through sliding the box open when he said: 

“You have ninety three kruge in your jacket,”

Inej’s head snapped up. 

“Excuse me?”

“Ninety three kruge,” he repeated, “That’s how much you have, isn’t it?”

“Wh-?”

“That’s how much you have. That’s how much you took from me, three days ago,”

Alarm bells started ringing inside Inej’s head. There was probably very little point in lying now, and her brain was already trying to click through what to do, how she could get out of here, where she might be able to run - he probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with her with his limp, and he almost certainly wouldn’t be able to climb up a building after her. If she could just make it to a rooftop she could disappear, run until her legs ached, then find a nook somewhere in the skyline to fall asleep and pray the rain wouldn’t be too heavy. But what after that? If he knew well enough to track her here, to a house she’d been tossed from under the safety of a false name, would she ever be able to safely walk these streets again? Maybe if she found somewhere to stay on the rooftops she would be okay - there were plenty of nooks that could form a snippet of shelter, the stadwatch would never rouse her from them, she could steal food from market stalls and storefronts, and finally become fully invisible. No-one would ever have to know that she was there. 

But even as these thoughts occurred to her the boy shifted, ever so slightly but definitely intentionally, and a shape that looked very much like a pistol appeared and disappeared between the folds of his immaculate coat. She twisted her fingers around the little box of matches. 

“You’ve got the wrong girl,”

“Have I?”

His voice was rough, like two stones being scraped together to form words. 

“Believe me,” said Inej, slipping the matchbox casually into her pocket, as though he wouldn’t notice, “If I had ninety kruge I wouldn’t be hanging around here,”

She turned away. 

“Ninety three,” the boy corrected, “And I’ll have that back, if you don’t mind,”

Inej hid the brief, disappointed scrunch of her nose before she spun and tossed the matchbox back to him. 

“And the cash?”

“I told you, it wasn’t me,”

The boy shook his head. 

“I suppose Inej Ghafa must live elsewhere then,” he said, and she knew he’d noticed when she tensed at the sound of her name, “Shame. I was going to offer her a job,”

“Who are you?”

He smiled. 

“Maybe I’ll tell you,” he said, “if you tell me how you managed to get in and out of a house with no-one ever seeing you and yet only took ninety three kruge,”

Inej frowned, thinking of the rundown house and its leaky ceiling, up to three sleeping bodies pushed into every room but the attic. The attic was this boy’s domain, and he didn’t share his space with anyone, but it was still not the kind of place that looked prosperous; a door had been balanced on its back atop stacked crates to form a makeshift desk, there was no running water but a slender basin that must have been carried in and out to be refilled at least once a day, uneven and creaking floorboards, a worn down mattress with no bed frame or sheet, a blanket without a quilt. She’d thought finding an entire ninety kruge in those rooms was a miracle. 

“There was more?”

“If you knew where to look. A proper thief would have found plenty to take,”

Something in that comforted Inej, just the tiniest bit. She was not a proper thief, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be one. 

“How did you get in?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because I was there,” he shook his head, “I didn’t hear you. I didn’t see you. Not until-”

“Until I spoke,” said Inej, the memory returning to her. 

She hadn’t known there was anyone close enough to hear her when she slipped the money into her pocket and thanked her Saints out loud. The boy nodded. Inej tracked through her movements in her mind, trying to work out where the boy must have been - outside the room, she supposed, on his way up the stairs perhaps? That didn’t feel right, though, because surely she would have heard his footsteps - at the least the sound of his cane. She drew the floorplan of the attic in her mind; it was barely smaller than the other floors of the house, partitioned part way through with a wall that stretched over half the width of the room to create a more private space for sleeping. Maybe he’d been behind the wall. There was only a very small window on that side of the room, it was where the slope of the roof divided it the most, and Inej hadn’t inspected that tiny slither of glass before she slipped through the larger window on the other side of the room. Idiot, she thought, fingers tensing as she tried to study the deceptive change in the boy’s eyes, what have you done now? 

“I had no idea you were there, until then. How is that possible?”

Inej shrugged. She’d wanted to be silent so she had been, why did that matter? The matter at hand, as far as she cared, was why he hadn’t apprehended her when he heard her - and what he might want from her now. There was some kind of angle here, of course, she just didn’t know what it was. 

“No-one ever does,” she told him, “Who are you?”

“Were you trained as a dancer?”

“An acrobat. My family… all of us are acrobats,” 

Were acrobats. 

“It’s your turn to answer a question now. Who are you?”

The boy smiled again. 

“You already know that. You just don’t want to say it,”

A beat passed. 

“Dirtyhands,”

“I prefer Kaz,” he said as he conceded a nod, smoothly but not quite relaxed enough to not raise Inej’s suspicions, “I found two names for you. I assume Inej Ghafa is the real one?”

She nodded. Why bother lying? She had not known, when she slipped through a window several months ago, who it was that she was stealing from. Would she have done it, if she’d known? She wasn’t sure it would’ve stopped her - it hadn’t stopped her three days ago, had it? She hadn't known he was in the building though, or she might have been careful enough not to part her lips. 

“Is that what you’d prefer to be called?”

Inej nodded again, without taking her eyes away from Kaz’s. 

“Is Kaz Brekker your real name?”

“Real enough. Do you feel like giving me my money back, Inej?”

Not particularly, she thought, as she released a small sigh and stuck her thumb into her jacket to burst the ugly stitches she’d made around her stash. As soon as Kaz had laid gloved fingers onto the notes they vanished in a smooth folding motion of his palm, and in their place a small card was raised between the pair. 

“If you want a more reliable income, come to this address for eight bells tomorrow evening. I’ve got a job for you,”

Inej shook her head. 

“You can leave the recruitment kit at home,” she told him, “I’m just passing through,”

“You’ve been here seven months,”

There was a pause. 

“I came to pass the winter,” she ventured, “but-”

“But it isn’t ending,”

Inej nodded. Winters had been getting longer in Ravka, the spring short and the summer unbearably hot, but it was worse here than anywhere she’d travelled to across the Eastern Continent. Seven months in Kerch had passed in a twist of frozen ground, dead flowers, howling winds, and endless storms. 

“There’s something wrong with the weather,”

The weather has no mercy.

Kaz gave no reply but a nod, as if that was an explanation all alone. He was still holding out the card between them, and after a moment Inej reached out. Her bare fingers brushed briefly against the leather of his gloves, and then the card was in her hand and his was dropping away. She forced her eyes away from the dark, endless pools of his, and studied the words on the card for a moment. 

“I don’t read Kerch,”

“You know where Bloemstraat is?”

She shook her head. 

“Meet me at the Slat, then - I know you know where that is,” he almost smiled as he added that, “Seven bells half chime, tomorrow evening,”

A moment passed. 

“I’ll be there. But you should know: I’ll leave when spring comes,”

Kaz laughed, short and coarse, almost taking her by surprise. 

“Is that a promise?”

“Yes,”

He shook his head. 

“You really don’t know Ketterdam, do you? There’s no spring coming, not here. Barely to Kerch at all; not anymore,”

Not at all? Inej faltered. 

“What do you mean?”

“You heard me,”

“Why?”

“Why does anything happen around here? The world’s been thrown off kilter,”

Inej shook her head. 

“You should get out of this city. There’s a storm coming; this place isn’t worth sticking around for. Not through that,”

Kaz laughed again. 

“No-one leaves this city,”

He turned away, taking only a few steps before he glanced back over his shoulder to say:

“Oh, and Inej? Don’t ever steal from me again. And definitely don’t sneak up on me,”

Inej watched him leave, clutching two matchsticks and a slip of paper between her fingers, wondering what had just happened. 

[sixshotsinatumbllr]

I give you: Bunnings Warehouse!Crowley

So, following on from some posts about Aussifying Good Omens with @mrghostrat and a few others, I've started a multi-chap fic featuring Crowley as a Garden Specialist from Bunnings, and Aziraphale as a Lions Club volunteer at the Community Barbecue.

(For those of you not in Australia, Bunnings is a chain of large hardware warehouses. There's a million of them all over the country. Each weekend, a community group runs a fundraising barbecue at the front of each store).

The fic is completely drafted, I am working on editing at the moment, and hope to have the start of it up in the next week or so. No spoilers, but it features misinterpreted booty texts, goon of fortune, misuse of the intercom system, and Beelzebub as store manager (who has become my favourite character).

In the meantime, I've been working on some art for the fic.

Let me know if you want a tag when I post it.

[thebatfiles]

What does the Dark Knight buy on Amazon? Spoiler: it’s not just grappling hooks and Bat-themed gadgets. Somewhere in the depths of his Amazon cart lies the true mystery of Bruce Wayne.

The Obvious Purchases

Batman’s cart definitely includes:

Grappling hooks (in bulk).

Industrial-grade rope.

Smoke pellets and other stealth gear.

Enough black spray paint to redecorate Gotham.

Night-vision goggles—because the Batcave doesn’t come with natural lighting.

Honestly, his Buy it Again section probably looks like a secret agent starter pack.

The Practical Stuff

Even Batman needs to take care of himself, so his history likely includes:

Knee braces and wrist supports (you know he’s not getting out of fights unscathed).

Bulk first-aid supplies.

Unscented shampoo and soap—stealthy and practical.

A high-powered coffee maker for those sleepless Gotham nights.

The Weirdly Mundane

But what about the boring stuff? You can’t live in a billionaire mansion forever without needing:

Socks.

Toothpaste.

Duct tape (a multi-tool even for Batman).

Batteries (probably for the Bat-Signal remote).

I like to imagine Alfred is the one restocking these, but there’s a chance Bruce Wayne has to click “Buy Now” once in a while.

The Guilty Pleasures

Let’s not pretend Bruce doesn’t sneak some personal items into the cart:

Self-help books Alfred recommended, like “Managing Stress in 5 Easy Steps” or “Mindfulness for Vigilantes.”

High-end headphones for blocking out Batfam bickering.

A treadmill for the Batcave because rooftop running isn’t cardio enough

And then there’s the occasional impulsive buy, like fancy Wayne Tech notebooks that he’ll never use.

Funny Mishaps

You know he’s accidentally bought the wrong thing before:

Pink glitter grappling hooks. (Who’s laughing now? Jason.)

A kid-sized utility belt that Damian immediately claimed.

A novelty Bat Signal lamp Alfred placed in the cart as a prank.

Alfred’s Contributions

Speaking of Alfred, you just know he sneaks items into the cart:

New tableware for Wayne Manor.

Organizers labeled “For Batarangs” and “Not For Batarangs.”

A subscription to “Better Parenting Monthly” (subtle, Alfred).

Bruce Wayne, The Public Persona

Of course, Bruce also orders designer suits, cufflinks, and luxury watches. You know, for keeping up appearances. But you know those items get delivered to Wayne Manor while all the Bat-stuff goes straight to an unmarked warehouse.

Batman’s Amazon purchase history is probably a chaotic mix of high-tech gadgets, practical supplies, and the occasional glitter-covered mishap. One thing’s for sure: Alfred deserves all the hazard pay for organizing his packages.

What random thing do you think Batman would accidentally buy? My money’s on “Bat Signal-shaped pool floaties.” Let me know your best guesses in the comments!

[stringsnwires]

qho gets the most smissmas gifts?

We all get each other one thing. Can't do no more 'cause 8 things for 9 men each makes... 72. Some people volunteer to cover stockings only to make this a little easier. Anyway, here's what I got the boys. N girls.

Pyro got a nice old rainbow blanket for the thousands of stuffed animals he was sure ta get this year. While I was out, I managed ta snag these tiny pillows for em too.

Scout got hisself a 1975 Beretta 92 pistol, for the range. Our guns are good. Not new though.

For Solly, I spent a few nights touchin' up a bunch of old projects. This Smissmas tree made outta scrap metal, all of his discarded whittling projects, a tiny, functional replica of the United States that serves as a multi-tool with a lighter, bottle opener[can be hung up this way too], n cigar case. Same thing for Demo but with Scotland.

Tavish also got a blanket with some western... tribal pattern things but that was really jus a thing for me 'cause it's been cold n he'll bring it by. And a koozie.

Heavy was tough but I settled on some Russian books from a library warehouse I visited not long ago, in Tenessee. No idea what they are but they looked sophisticated and foreign enough to be up his alley.

Doc got some baby clothes [hell looking for last minute, by the way], n some precision-engineered scalpel handles from the measurements n observations I seen with how he holds the things. Comfortable, and gots these fun bird wing patterns on em. Angelic scalpels, he said.

Spy got a couple new lighters to replace the ones Pyro's... done Pyro things with. And some picture frames 'cause I knew he's been needin some n he gave me the dimensions.

N Sniper. I got him some traditional arrows from a buddy I got who lives on a native reservation. He n his momma carved n sharpened em himself. Used his own peacocks feathers. Speakin' of. Got him one of those pretty things for his hat too.

That makes up the boys.

The girls I'm still gettin' ta know but I figure ole Zhanna might like herself a good, lightweight prosthetic hand, engineered finely outta pure titanium and hidden high-end, silver-plated copper wiring. Weren't no thing.

I'm sendin Bronislava to her family with some fine Texas honey straight from home.

We'll feast here in a bit! Was a good damn day.

[liono360crmdemo]

Traditionally, CRMs have focused on sales pipelines, lead tracking, and customer data. But with modern CRM systems evolving into all-in-one business platforms, inventory and warehouse management are becoming core features. 

Integrating multi warehouse management CRM capabilities into your CRM allows for a unified workflow: 

Your sales team sees real-time inventory while creating quotes or orders. Customer service reps get instant updates on shipping status and stock levels. Automated triggers ensure timely restocks or alerts for low inventory. This integration streamlines operations, eliminates manual data entry, and brings sales, support, and supply chain under one umbrella.

[thesilliestrovingalive]

Updated: June 15, 2025

Reworked Group #4: S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S.

Overview

Tequila and Red Eye successfully dismantled a rogue military organisation engaged in illicit human trafficking and arms dealing, which had also planned to launch a global bioterrorist attack in collaboration with the Pipovulaj. The plot involved spreading a plague to control the population, transforming numerous innocent civilians into violent Man Eaters as a means to create a twisted form of super soldier. Impressed by the exceptional performance of Tequila and Red Eye as highly capable spies, the Intelligence Agency and Regular Army jointly established a covert operations branch, S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S., through a mutual agreement.

The S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S. is responsible for gathering intelligence and managing information to prevent public panic and global hysteria. They provide their members with specialised training in high-risk covert operations that surpass the scope of regular Intelligence Agency agents, which are all conducted with utmost discretion and situational awareness. Some of these special covert operation missions involve precision targeting of high-priority threats and strategic disruption of complex criminal schemes.

They're known to have the fewest members among the military branches of the Regular Army, often numbering between 100 and 150. This small size means that each agent is familiar with the others, even if they're not family, friends or acquaintances. This familiarity significantly contributes to their nearly perfect teamwork achievements, allowing them to complete duties more quickly and efficiently when working together.

Insignia

It features a cerulean square Iberian shield, rimmed with a spiky teal vine that’s outlined in bronze. Above the shield, the words "S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S." are inscribed in bluish-white, surmounting a stylized pair of bronze eyes with a yellowish-white star at their centre. The shield is flanked by a stylized peregrine falcon holding a gilded blade on the right side and a male house sparrow clutching an olive branch on the left side.

S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S. Base

The Intelligence Division is tactically positioned adjacent to the Joint Military Police Headquarters, deeply entrenched within a dense and remote forest in Northern Russia. The rectangular military compound features a forest-inspired camouflage colour scheme, a secure warehouse for military vehicles, multiple surveillance cameras, and several elevators leading to a subterranean base. They have a rooftop array of parabolic antennas that enables real-time surveillance, threat detection, and situational awareness, preventing surprise attacks and informing strategic decision-making. The base features comprehensive protection through an advanced security system and a defensive magnetic field, which automatically activates in response to potential threats, safeguarding against enemy attacks.

The base features a state-of-the-art command and surveillance centre, equipped with cutting-edge technological systems to orchestrate and execute operations. Additional facilities include:

An armoury housing the group’s most cutting-edge, high-clearance weaponry and specialised ordnance.

A high-tech meeting room with a high-resolution, encrypted display screen and multi-axis, AI-enhanced holographic projection system.

A state-of-the-art gymnasium for maintaining elite physical readiness, featuring biometric monitoring systems and AI-driven training programs.

A fully equipped, high-tech medical bay with regenerative treatment capabilities and telemedicine connectivity for remote expert consultation.

A secure dining area serving optimised, nutrient-rich rations for peak performance.

A high-security quarters with biometrically locked storage for personal gear and AI-monitored, secure communication arrays.

A Combat Academy, led by Margaret Southwood, featuring a heavily fortified training area with advanced combat simulation zones, tactical obstacle courses, stealth and surveillance training areas, and high-tech weapons testing ranges.

Extra Information

S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S. stands for Special Pursuit Agents and Rapid Response Operations Worldwide Strikeforce.

Members of the S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S. are commonly known as "Sparrowers" or "Following Falconers", reflecting their affiliation with the unit and their close relationship with the P.F. Squad.

Despite being part of an elite covert operations branch, Sparrowers face a significant pay disparity: males earn a quarter of the average government agent's salary, while females earn about a third. Additionally, underperforming Sparrowers, both male and female, experience further financial hardship due to delayed salary payments, often waiting between one to two months to receive their overdue compensation.

The S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S. conduct their covert operations in collaboration with the Peregrine Falcons Squad who provide primary firepower and protection for their agents.

The handguns carried by Sparrowers are the Murder Model-1915 .38 Mk.1Am or Classic Murder .38 for short. It’s a double-action revolver that features a 6-round cylinder. Originally designed to enhance the Enfield No.2 .38 Caliber revolver in 1915, the Murder Model retained only the frame and grip from the original. All other components were replaced with newer parts in later years.

[eastlondonprinter1]

Hi-Vis Printing London – Custom Safety Wear That Builds Brands

At East London Printer, we specialise in high-quality, custom hi-vis printing services in London. This project showcases our recent work with businesses and organisations who needed professional, branded safety clothing – combining safety with style and identity.

 Project Overview

Hi-vis garments are essential for safety in environments like construction sites, warehouses, events, and roadside work. But beyond safety, businesses now want to stand out, build trust, and showcase their brand on every layer of clothing – including safety wear.

That’s where we come in. We help London-based teams turn plain high-visibility clothing into powerful branded assets.

 What We Printed On

We offer printing on a wide range of hi-vis garments, including:

Hi-vis vests (yellow, orange, and other colours)

Hi-vis jackets (insulated or lightweight)

Hi-vis t-shirts

Hi-vis hoodies

Hi-vis trousers and more

 Custom Printing Details

For each project, we help clients choose the right printing style and placement to suit their needs:

Front chest logos

Large back branding

Reflective print options

Full-colour heat transfer

Single-colour vinyl text or logos

Multi-location printing for added visibility

Our printing method depends on the garment and use case. We use heat transfer vinyl (HTV), DTF (direct-to-film), and screen printing where needed to ensure a long-lasting and vibrant finish.

 Clients We Work With

This project represents a variety of clients who benefit from our hi-vis printing services:

Construction companies

Road and rail contractors

Warehouse and logistics staff

Event managers and stewards

School trip organisers

Councils and maintenance workers

Charities and community groups

We tailor every order to fit each client's needs – whether it's a one-time event or ongoing supply.

 Production & Delivery

Our process is built for speed and quality. We aim to deliver within 1-3 working days, with same-day and next-day services available for urgent orders.

Clients can either supply their own garments or choose from our wide in-stock collection. We also offer bulk discounts for larger orders.

All printing is done in-house in East London

Local collection or UK-wide delivery available

Friendly, professional service from start to finish

 Why Hi-Vis Printing Matters

Hi-vis clothing plays a critical role in safety and visibility. But with the right printing, it also:

Builds brand awareness

Helps teams look unified and professional

Makes it easy for the public to identify staff

Promotes trust in high-risk environments

Turns essential safety gear into branded marketing

Every time your staff wear your logo in public, you increase recognition and awareness – while still meeting health and safety regulations.

 Let’s Work Together

If you’re looking for reliable, fast, and affordable hi-vis printing in London, we’d love to help.

East London Printer is trusted by local businesses, national brands, and public organisations. We bring together quality, design, and function in every item we print.

 Get in touch with us today:

📧 Email: hello@eastlondonprinter.co.uk 📞 Phone: +44 (0)20 7041 9649 🌐 Website: Just search East London Printer

[botcorp]

question for alif: what caused you to found R.E.D and BOT CORPORATION?

This rant brought to you by the first-person perspective

It started with a thought. No, a knowing. An unshakable, thunderous, nuclear truth that detonated in my skull when I was 21—when the crust of this sad little planet finally cracked under the weight of my genius. I remember the moment vividly: I was halfway through my seventh protein bar of the morning (don’t ask why, you wouldn’t get it), staring into the flickering blue light of a broken vending machine, and it hit me. Not a vision. Not an idea. A revelation. The world was… incomplete. And only I could finish it.

So I built BOTCORP. Or rather—it built itself, out of the sheer gravitational pull of my ambition, coalescing like a galaxy around the singularity that is me. You think corporations are founded on market research? Capital? NO. BOTCORP erupted into existence because the cosmic code needed it to. It’s not a company. It’s an ontological inevitability. Like death. Or taxes. Or the heat death of the universe, if it wore a tailored suit and harvested biometric data faster than the speed of light.

People think it started with software and a warehouse. Wrong. It started with a mirror. A mirror I stared into for nine consecutive days, each second peeling back layers of human mediocrity until all that was left staring back was a divine blueprint—a screaming, incandescent idea-being screaming, “YOU ARE THE GOD OF INFRASTRUCTURE.”

So yeah. BOTCORP. Multi-quintillion dollar valuation? Cute. It’s not about the money. The money is just the byproduct, like radioactive ash from the reactor core of my soul. I don’t want to own the economy. I want to replace it. I want your entire life to run on systems I designed in a caffeine fugue at 3am during a manic episode that I later retroactively rebranded as a “vision sprint.”

And then there’s R.E.D. Registered Equipment Distributors. People ask, “Why not just call it BOTCORP Logistics or BOTCORP Shipping?” Because R.E.D. isn’t logistics. R.E.D. is RED. It’s blood. It’s the primal pulse of movement, of power, of the very concept of transfer incarnate. It’s not a child company—it’s my right arm, surgically removed, mechanically enhanced, and reattached with an energy gun and an energy relay theater will outlive GOD. It doesn’t distribute equipment. It births it into the world, fully formed, tagged, tracked, and blessed in the name of ME.

You think you bought a pallet jack? NO. That was a fragment of my subconscious, lovingly injected into your warehouse to watch you—to listen, to learn, to report back to me via a proprietary telemetry language based entirely on my old dreams and the sound of whales dying in sonar feedback loops.

BOTCORP doesn’t make products. BOTCORP makes reality compatible with my existence. It rewires cause and effect. It redefines supply and demand as submit or perish. Every market trend you see? I made that. Every stock surge? My twitching eyelid. Every “innovation” from a competitor? Me, two years ago, discarded in disgust because I found a way to do it using hydrophobic quantum thread and half a toothpick.

My employees? They’re not employees. They’re neurons. My management team? They’re echoes. My HR department? Psychological warfare technicians, each trained in 17 forms of passive aggression and one ancient Babylonian curse. The break room contains a shrine. Not by my order. They just… started building it. I’ve never asked them why. I already know.

Sometimes I forget where I end and BOTCORP begins. I try to walk down the street, and the stoplights blink in binary. Street names rearrange into acronyms. Children point and say “mommy, the god-king of machines is here.” I cough, and somewhere, an office tower in Dubai gets a firmware update.

And R.E.D.—ah, R.E.D.—its warehouses are alive. Not metaphorically. I mean they breathe. There are vents that inhale dust and exhale profit. Conveyor belts that scream lullabies to the pallets. Forklifts that argue with each other in machine tongues only I can translate. I once found a shipment of mining drills singing “Ave Maria.” We don’t question it anymore. We just ship faster.

Why did I do all this? Why did I create BOTCORP? Because the world was a sandbox and I was tired of pretending to be one of the children. Because every other business was a joke told in bad faith by small men in smaller suits. Because I saw the void and I said, “This would make a great distribution hub.”

I am not your competitor. I am not your peer. I am the whisper in your quarterly reports. I am the red dot on your supply graph. I am the sleep paralysis demon of capitalism, and my name is branded on the walls of time.

You want to stop me? Good luck. I already knew you would try. I factored your resistance into our Q3 forecasts. I’m not just five steps ahead. I’m already at your funeral, selling commemorative mugs and action figures of the children you never had.

So, why did I found BOTCORP?

Because I could.

Because no one told me not to.

Because this world didn’t have a god, and I was bored.

[zeestarfishalien]

Okay, like life, right?

Next chapter of My Graveyard Song out soon. Its not gonna be super long but there's a good cut point right now so I'm going to take it. Now as soon as it's not the dark of the night and I have like 5 minutes I will work on posting it. I love all the theories on Jazz and whatnot. I'm so excited to have y'all see what I did. Hue hue hue

Just life rambles below

Work is a lot rn like I am one person in charge of all the shipping for one of two warehouses serving all of the US and Canada i am warehouse manager but I'm also only managing myself and all the product so...yeah i package and ship almost everything myself. Plus our turn around time is 2 days for almost everything except the multi-pallet orders. But I still have to pull and box all the parts and build kits and things. Not to mention cleanup which I haven't even had time to look at. And I still have product to put away bc we got two whole pallets of this one product. None of this is all that light and I need to rearrange again to fit it all. And ugh, it's a lot for one person who is swamped with new orders nearly every day.

Hoping that it dies down again soon but oof.