#and they're not a full solve for a problem

[wildernessworship]

I feel like a lot of viewers didn't necessarily absorb just how fucked up Mari, Akilah, Melissa, and Gen's murder plot in the s3 finale actually was. The episode didn't do the best job of communicating what was actually happening, so I do get why people were confused about who was in on what plan. But once you understand the girls weren't involved in Natalie's transponder efforts and had no idea there was still a chance of rescue, the full degree of horridness becomes clear.

Their plan definitely wasn't a distraction to get everyone rescued. It was essentially a revenge plot to take out their most unstable teammates for ruining their chances of rescue, and just as importantly, for being a heinous bitch to them (Shauna with Mari and Melissa) and convincing them they were special (Lottie with Akilah). It was personal and premeditated, and at least as bad or arguably worse than anything Shauna and Lottie had done up to that point.

They poisoned the animals, their only ethical food source and the one thing that might have gotten them through winter without resorting to cannibalism. They baited Lottie and Shauna into calling for another hunt to serve as a distraction while they carried out their murders, nevermind what might happen to whoever drew the queen. Even if they had successfully pulled it off and only the targets died, it would have done little to improve their overall circumstances.

The reality of their plan was this: they kill and eat two problem teammates, but it only sustains them for so long because the group is still stranded in the middle of nowhere during the brutal winter without food. Removing Shauna and Lottie from the equation solves a few of their immediate problems, creates a temporary illusion of security, but it doesn't prevent further violence. In fact, it's easier, because now they have experience actively killing their friends. As they go hungry, they justify more hunts.

What Lottie says is true, "It's in all of us now." Everyone in the group is responsible for the violence and depravity they've devolved into. They've all permitted, escalated, participated in, and benefited from these horrific acts. They've also been deeply traumatized by them. They are all simultaneously victim and perpetrator. Everyone, including Mari herself, is responsible for Mari's death. They're responsible for Ben and Javi and Jackie's deaths. But that reality is so overwhelming and existentially horrifying, they can't acknowledge it and have to find convenient scapegoats to pin all the bad things on.

It's easy to understand how they got there, and Shauna's sadism and Lottie's religious zealotry do make them super easy targets for blame. But we, the audience, aren't traumatized teenagers trapped in desperate circumstances, so we don't need to resort to scapegoating. We should be able to recognize the obvious and severe mental health crises driving Shauna and Lottie's behavior. We should be able to understand a huge part of their deterioration is because they were used by the collective, isolated into damaging roles, and then written off as crazy and dangerous once it stopped being convenient to use them.

I just think every single one of these kids, no matter what horrific shit they get up to, is worthy of our empathy and understanding. Fiction is exactly the place where we can exercise this kind of radical acceptance of the darkest parts of humanity. I'd prefer to save the finger pointing for picking out my favorite unhinged cannibal, instead of looking for villains and heroes where they don't exist.

[unicornachos]

This week I have been learning about wheelchairs and 1. Just how fucking many there are 2. Just how fucking expensive they are 3. Processing my Feelings about it

[a2zillustration]

Does croissant and gale get married in your story?

It's certainly something they plan to do!

But not just yet.

🥐 Croissant Adventures Masterpost 🥐

[pianokantzart]

I think one of the many elements that makes Bowser's army so much more of a threat in the movie vs the games is that everyone physically capable of carrying a weapon is actually armed.

Every one of these guys is willing, able, and equipped to stab (or bludgeon if that's their area of expertise.)

[cynicaldesire]

I saw an anime that caught my interest on Crunchyroll yesterday, so I watched 10/12 episodes. Then my husband was off work and he didn't wanna let me watch the last 2 since he hadn't seen the other ones.

I ended up just reading the manga that night while he worked on his video game project. I finished off the rest of the anime's story that way and then we had to go to bed.

I got up today and gleefully watched the last two episodes, then polished off the rest of the manga chapters.

[malejesteress]

2 social games and roles i like:

town of salem: fav town is jailor, fav evil is framer, fav NE is exe

scp sl: scp-079. 049 if not that

from this you can deduce: i have autism + enjoy companionship

[ravenwolfie97]

i've been hearing this in some meme shorts lately but the full song is actually a banger and means something cool

[oduvnix-ts4]

🧃DRINKS OVERRIDE from SPECIALTY COFFEE BAR🧃

And here's another drinks override ♡ A new expansion pack recently came out that I've been thrilled with! We got a lot of goodies, including a new coffee bar:

But when I saw these drinks, I was left very disappointed, because again they are the ONE!!! They all look something like this:

Also, they're BROKEN! Yes, yes, it turns out it can happen... Even if your sim finishes his flavored coffee, the glass will still be full, even though it will start to smell....

But with my replacement, you'll solve two problems at once: both your eye will be satisfied and the bug will be fixed!

Here's what the new drinks look like now:

                              ✧ D O W N L O A D ✧ 

MAIN MOD: ~ EP18 Drinks Override ADDON: ~ Tuning Addon (fixes the bug, increases the number of "sips" from 3 to 5, and adds 50 calories to coffee drinks) ❗"Hobbies&Businesses" Expansion Pack is required

It is desirable not to put the files with texture replacement deeper than one subfolder in the Mods folder. Also, this mod will conflict with any mod that replaces these textures.

I really hope you like this override and your sims will order new drinks more often! I'll be happy to get any feedback 🤍

[malcolmschmitz]

The Insider and Outsider Detectives

So there's a lot of discourse about detectives floating around, ever since 2020 shifted a lot of people's Views on the police. Everyone likes a good mystery story, but no one seems to know what to make of a detective protagonist- especially if they're a cop. And everyone who cares about this kind of thing likes to argue over whether detective stories hold up the existing order or subvert it. Are they inherently copaganda? Are they subversive commentary on the uselessness of the police?

I think they can be both. And I think there's a framework we can use to look at individual detectives, and their stories, that illuminates the space between "a show like LAPD straight-up exists to make the cops look good" and "Boy Detective is a gender to me, actually".

So. You can sort most detectives in fiction into two boxes, based on their role in society: the Insider Detective and the Outsider Detective.

The Insider Detective is a part of the society they're investigating in, and has access to at least some of the levers of power in that society. They can throw money at their problems, or call in reinforcements, and if they contact the authorities, those authorities will take them seriously. Even the people they're investigating usually treat them with respect. They're a nice normal person in a nice normal world, thank you very much; they're not particularly eccentric. You could describe them as "sensible". And crime is a threat to that normal world. It's an intrusion that they have to fight off. An Insider Detective solving a crime is restoring the way things ought to be.

Some clear-cut examples of Insider Detectives are the Hardy Boys (and their father Fenton), Soichiro "Light's Dad" Yagami, or Father Brown. Many police procedural detectives are Insider Detectives, though not all.

The Outsider Detective, in contrast, is not a part of the society they're investigating in. They're often a marginalized person- they're neurodivergent, or elderly, or foreign, or a woman in a historical setting, or a child. They don't have access to any of the levers of power in their world- the authorities may not believe them (and might harass them), the people they're investigating think they're a joke (and can often wave them off), and they're unlikely to have access to things like "a forensics lab". The Outsider Detective is not respectable, and not welcome here- and yet they persist and solve the crime anyway. A lot of the time, when an Outsider Detective solves a crime, it's less "restoring the world to its rightful state" and more "exposing the rot in the normal world, and forcing it to change."

Some clear-cut examples of Outsider Detectives are Dirk Gently, Philip Marlowe, Sammy Keyes, or Mello from Death Note.

Now, here's the catch: these aren't immutable categories, and they are almost never clear-cut. The same detective can be an Insider Detective in one setting and an Outsider Detective in another. A good writer will know this, and will balance the two to say something about power and society.

Tumblr's second-favourite detective Benoit Blanc is a great example of this. Theoretically, Mr. Blanc should be an Insider Detective- he's a world-famous detective, he collaborates with the police, he's odd but respectable. But because of the circumstances he's in- investigating the ultra-rich, who live in their own horrid little bubbles- he comes off as the Outsider Detective, exposing the rot and helping everyone get what they deserve. And that's deliberate. There is no world where a nice, slightly eccentric, mildly fruity, fairly privileged guy like Benoit Blanc should be an outsider. But the turbo-rich live in such an insular world, full of so much contempt for anyone who isn't Them, that even Benoit Blanc gets left out in the cold. It's a scathing political statement, if you think about it.

But even a writer who isn't trying to Say Something About The World will still often veer between making their detective an Insider Detective and an Outsider Detective, because you can tell different kinds of stories within those frameworks. Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote is a really good example of this-- she's a respectable older lady, whose runaway success as a mystery novelist gives her access to some social cachet. Key word: some.

Within her hometown of Cabot Cove, Fletcher is an Insider Detective. She's good friends with the local sheriff, she's incredibly familiar with the town's social dynamics, she can call in a favour from basically anyone... but she's still a little old lady. The second she leaves town, she might run into someone who likes her books... but she's just as likely to run into a police officer who thinks she's crazy or a perp who thinks she's an easy target. She has the incredibly tenuous social power that belongs to a little old lady that everyone likes- and when that's gone, she's incredibly vulnerable.

This is also why a lot of Sherlock Holmes adaptations tend to be so... divisive. Holmes is all things to all people, and depending on which stories you choose to focus on, you can get a very different detective. If you focus on the stories where Holmes collaborates with the police, on the stories with that very special kind of Victorian racism, or the stories where Holmes is fighting Moriarty, you've got an Insider Detective. If you focus on the stories where Holmes is consulting for a Nice Young Lady, on the stories where Holmes' neurodivergence is most prominent, or on his addictions, you've got an Outsider Detective.

Finally, a lot of buddy detective stories have an Insider Detective and an Outsider Detective sharing the spotlight. Think Scully and Mulder, or Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. This lets the writer play with both pieces of the thematic puzzle at the same time, without sacrificing the consistency of their detective's character.

Back to my original point: if you like detective fiction, you probably like one kind of story better than the other. I know I personally really prefer Outsider Detective Stories to Insider Detective Stories- and while I can enjoy a good Insider Detective (I'd argue that Brother Cadfael, my beloved, is one most of the time), I seek out detectives who don't quite fit into the world they live in more often than not.

And if that's the vibe you're looking for... you're not going to run into a lot of police stories. It's absolutely possible to make a story where a cop (or, even better, an FBI agent) is an Outsider Detective-- Nick Angel from Hot Fuzz was originally going to be one of my 'clear-cut examples' until I remembered that he is, in fact, legally a cop! But a cop who's an Outsider Detective is going to be spending a lot of time butting heads with local law enforcement, to the point where he doesn't particularly feel like one. He's probably going to get fired at some point, and even if his badge gets reinstated, he's going to struggle with his place in the world. And a lot of Outsider Detective stories where the detective is a cop or an FBI agent are intensely political, and not in a conservative way- they have Things To Say about small towns, clannishness, and the injustice that can happen when a Pillar Of The Community does something wrong and everyone looks the other way. (Think Twin Peaks or The Wicker Man.)

Does this mean Insider Detective Stories are Bad Copaganda and Outsider Detective Stories are Good Revolutionary Stories? No. If you take one thing away from this post, please make it that these categories are morally neutral. There are Outsider Detective stories about cops who are Outsiders because they really, really want an excuse to shoot people. There are Insider Detective stories about little old people who are trying to keep misapplied justice from hurting the kids in their community. Neither of these types of stories are good or bad on their own. They're different kinds of storytelling framework and they serve different purposes.

But, if you find yourself really gravitating to certain kinds of mysteries and really put off by other kinds, and you're trying to express why, this might be a framework that's useful for you. If your gender is Boy Detective, but you absolutely loathe cop stories? This might be why.

(PS: @anim-ttrpgs was posting about their game Eureka again, and that got me to make this post- thank them if you're happy to finally see it. Eureka is designed as an Outsider Detective simulator, and so the rules actively forbid you from playing as a cop- they're trying to make it so that you have limited resources and have to rely on your own competence. It's a fantastic looking game and I can't recommend it enough.)

(PPS: I'm probably going to come back to this once I finish Psycho-Pass with my partner, because they said I'd probably have Thoughts.)

(PPPS: Encyclopedia Brown is an Insider Detective, and that's why no one likes him. This is my most controversial detective take.)

[inbabylontheywept]

Kartchner Caverns

The first time I traveled to Tucson I was in a car full of zooted children. I would've preferred being one of those children, but alas, any medication that makes me sleep also makes me sleepwalk. And after an incident where I tried to climb out of the car while it was still going sixty (thank God for seatbelts), I was condemned to a childhood of car trip sobriety: No more poor-man's time travel. No more ambien. One less morally ambiguawesome parenting decision from my crazy-ass dad.

I was talking with him when it happened.

I can't remember exactly what we were talking about - something to do with our final destination in Mexico. But at some point, we woke up my little brother. 

(Nothing good happens from waking the dreamer. Best case scenario, the dream ends. Worst case, it doesn't.)

I remember starting when I felt one of his small cold hands reach up to grab my shoulder. Our dad did the same, and it jerked the car a little bit - startling someone whose hands are on the steering wheel has its risks. Dad and I both turned to look at him, but he wasn't even looking at us. He was leaning over the console, staring into the red and purple sunset ahead, watching the rolling skyline of Tucson like it was drowning in dreams. Like he was drowning in dreams. 

We waited for him to speak. It took a while. Normal social conventions don't apply to people when they're unconscious. The fact that he could talk was just some broken line code in the fabric of the world. 

"Wow," he said at long last. 

"Beautiful, isn't it?" my dad replied. And my little brother shook his head like he just heard the silliest thing in the world. 

"It's terrible," he said. "Awful. Is Mexico always like this?" 

"We're still in America," my dad said back. 

My little brother squinted into the sunset, doubt and derision etched into his face. After a few seconds, both emotions softened, and he nodded in wonder. 

"Eagle feathers," he said, chuckling softly. Like he'd just solved some clever little riddle. Then he fell like an angel into something deeper than sleep. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

(There is a word for angels that fall.)

𓆙𓆙𓆙

The second time I went to Tucson, I hid from the sun. 

You'd be surprised how easy it is to do down there. Society accommodates it in ways you just won't find anywhere else. When it's 109 outside with single digit humidity, of course you stay indoors. Of course the outdoor markets open at 6 pm, and of course they don't close until 11. Of course. You make the sun mean enough, and everyone becomes a vampire. 

So I roamed the streets at night, kicking up red gravel, watching coyotes wander in between the sea of strip malls. Strip malls are such an Arizonan atrocity. Nobody bothers to build up because there’s nothing to be gained from density. The city will never be walkable, because the problem isn’t infrastructure. It's the sun. And you can't solve the sun, so you might as well lean into driving. Mash the whole city flat and crawl through the dust like rattlers. 

(I met a man once, by the canals, that said the strip malls were some sort of American curse upon the inheritors of Johnny Appleseed. There's one God in this world, he said, and it's the god of don't-eat-apples. But then we invented apple pie and gave it to everyone. So this is our hell.)

Still. It made the days long down there. Lurking at night and hiding all day gives you something like cabin fever. I needed something to do outside. Something that was outside, but also, somehow, inside. What's inside and outside at the same time? What kind of klein-flask ouroboros nonsense fits that bill?

Kartchner caverns. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I wouldn't say the caves were like walking into Dante's hell - more like finishing the journey. At some point in my life, I'd blown past limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, and anger. I'd spent two decades plus change living in the fires of heresy. Every layer past would only get colder. 

And each step into that cave did. 

My tour guide and psychopomp was a friendly old man. Familiar in the way that all old people feel familiar to me. I view the world more as a pile of metaphors. He viewed it primarily as water-soluble minerals. 

It was a good work dynamic. 

"These here," he said, gesturing to a long, slender series of impossibly frail stalactites, "are called soda straws."

They were beautiful. I can wax poetic at the keyboard, but in real life, my exclamation of wonder is primarily Hot Damn.

"Hot damn," I said, and he nodded good naturedly. 

"They're pretty fun aren't they? Took a few eons to make 'em but I think it was worth the wait."

I was charmed by the way he talked. I knew it was just a fluke of tenses, but there was something funny about the way he described them - as if he personally oversaw each of the dainty little spires. We went further, and he pointed out more formations as we came across them. 

"Behold!" he said just a few feet further. "Fried eggs!" 

And I had to admit: There were fried eggs. 

"Behold!" he said further still. "A shield!"

And lo, there was a shield. It didn't look terribly shieldlike, but who knows - maybe he made the shields first and got better as he went along. The eggs were beautiful.

We kept walking, deeper, and deeper into the cave. At the surface, it had been hot enough for my sweat to dry into a stinging white powder. Down there it was cold enough to see my breath. The feeling of descending into hell was replaced with the feeling of being swallowed by some ancient, fossilized snake. 

"We call this serpent-stone," he said, gesturing to an expanse of wall. 

And then all I could see was the snake that was swallowing me. 

Now, I want to bring something up right about now. At this point, you might be tempted to write off the unease that I was feeling as claustrophobia. Which would make sense - caves unsettle a lot of people. But not me. I'm borderline claustrophilic. When I was a child, I didn't feel comfortable reading until I was wedged somewhere. Behind a shelf, or in a cabinet, or even underneath the beanbag my parents had intended for sitting. Those were my happy places. I liked being crammed into tight spaces. 

I did not like that cave. 

The section of serpent-stone narrowed the further we went. The room started off maybe six feet wide, but eventually it narrowed down. First to five, then four, then three. Two. And it didn’t stop at one. 

The old man put me in front at that point. Said that if I got stuck, he could just push me forward. Didn't occur to me until I'd gone another hundred feet forward, sideways, that maybe getting dragged out would be better. But I was strangely reluctant to bring it up. I’d already let myself get cornered. There was nothing to be gained from letting him know my thoughts. 

But the only way to keep them secret was by going forward. So I poured myself through the crack, slick as slip.  

There's a grain to the scales of serpent-stone, both in the shape of the formations and in the texture of the individual pieces. They're metamorphic, but there's enough sediment left to ‘em that they have a grain. They bite when you go one way, and slide when you go the other. It felt like I was ratcheting myself in. Even if I could slip forward more, I didn't think I could go back. Not without wearing myself down into something skinless and screaming. 

Water began to pool up in sections. It was cold enough to avoid the stink that still waters normally carry, but things stranger than algae festered in the waters beneath my feet. The puddles felt thick, almost slimy. A dozen steps later I saw little ropes of the stuff trickling down my feet. 

Eventually, it got so narrow I couldn't turn my head. I could still hear the old man behind me, but only through little things - the occasional sharp inhale, or steps just an eighth of a beat off from my own. But never words. I remember stopping at one point, just to get pushed, just to know he was there. And he refused. All I heard for fifteen minutes was his breathing behind me. 

He'd called my bluff. There was nowhere to go but forward. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I don't know why it took so long to get dark down there. I wasn't carrying a flashlight, and if the old man had been carrying one, I'd have seen it bob with his steps. There was a sort of soft glow to everything but that had faded hour by hour. Eventually it didn't matter that I couldn't turn my head sideways - I wouldn't have been able to see the man if he'd been two inches in front of me. I walked, and I walked, and I walked, and just when I was about to get stuck for real - stuck in a way where I wouldn't be able to step forward, where I'd have to be pushed (or dragged back along the sharpness of the scales) - I popped out of the serpent stone crevasse like a cork from a bottle. 

Plunk. 

I can't tell you the relief that I felt at that moment. It didn't matter that I didn't know where I was, or how I got there. I'd never been claustrophobic in my life, but at that moment, I couldn't stand even the proximity of the crevice. I scrambled forward, stumbling over the rough cave floor, desperate and eager to find the next wall. To get some sense of where I was. 

I never did. Even as I calmed down, even as the relief of being free of that infernal vice sat upon me like a crown, I never found another wall. Anywhere. I walked until fear made me crawl, as low and blind as any worm. I crawled until my pants tore and my knees bled and my spine ached. 

And I found nothing. 

When the vastness of the space truly sank in, when I realized that leaving that first wall had been a mistake, I turned back. But some choices can't be unmade. There were no walls. Not anymore. No matter how far I crawled, how hard I tried, there was no end. There was nothing but perfect darkness, broken stone, and endless snaking trickles of cold cavern water. 

I dipped a finger in one of the rivulets. Just to feel it. Just to ground myself in something. I felt the waters slither past, and I found something like sight in their motion. 

Water always goes down. Whatever else I lacked down here in the stone, in that moment, I knew up and down. And for the first time in hours, I had a choice. A real choice. No instinct or panic or too late realizations: Up or down. 

I went down. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I’d visited a rope factory once. Watched the threads dance and spin and weave into something mighty. I got a blind man’s sense of that from my trickle. I felt it meet more of its kind, braiding into them like thread. I liked pretending it was still my rivulet, but eventually, I had to admit it was lost in the mess. Picking out one thread from a rope would be easy, compared to picking out one trickle from a river. 

Funny how water can drown in itself. 

The first contaminant to the water was iron. I could smell it in the air -  strong as blood. It should have unsettled me, but I’d smelled water like that before. My grandpas well-water stained everything it touched rusty red. His sinks, his showers, his fields. Even his teeth. He was wealthy enough that he could've wiped the stains off decades back, but he told me once that he liked the way it made other people uncomfortable. The way it reminded everyone who saw him smile that by sacrament or soil, they too drank of god. 

The next contaminant was the thick water from before. Apparently, the stagnant pools weren’t as still as I’d thought. Somehow, over strange eons, they too could seep through the stone and make their way into this deep river. It was scentless, but I could feel it catch around my ankles on some steps. It seemed like a memory from a different life. I just didn’t feel like the same person that crawled through the serpent-stone crack. I was just some stranger wearing his shed skin. 

Then at long last came a smell of deep sulphur 🜏. It was an odd contrast with the sharply cold air, and the strangely warm waters. It was the least pleasant of the bunch, but I endured it well. I followed until the tears streaming down my cheeks felt as normal as breathing. Until the rush of the river was replaced by the pounding of waves. 

I’d arrived on a beach. I couldn’t see the ocean in front of me, but I could hear how vast it had to be. There was a terrible stench, worse than the sulphur - the smell of some vast death. Godly carrion. A wound in the world long left to fester. 

I sat there on the beach of that ocean. Afraid to let those dark waters touch me. Thinking and waiting and worrying about what would happen next. 

A voice spoke just twenty feet behind me. I recognized it. I never would’ve recognized it before, but there was a knack to the way this place wore me thin. Like a razor getting sharpened instead of a shirt going ratty. 

“You’re very close,” the old man said, and I remembered him from all those years ago - sitting cross-legged in the moonlight by the bank of the canal. Looking up at me, eyes dark, and calling me over to tell me a secret. 

There's one God in this world, he said then. One God. And it's the god of don't-eat-apples. But then we invented apple pie and gave it to everyone. 

So this is our hell.

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I turned around. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t have been able to see him. I shouldn’t have been able to see anything. But I could see the outline of where he was on that shoreline. Not as a  bright thing, but as a darker shade of absence. A little hole in the dark. 

I could have run. But that would’ve required taking my eyes off him, and at that moment I couldn’t bear the thought. He was the only thing to see down there. The only reason I had eyes. But somehow, more important than the joy of seeing was the feeling that as long as I kept my eyes on him, he was trapped. Pinned to this world like a butterfly on cork. 

There was a half second pause. The voice was a memory, but seeing through the gaps was new to me. The thing in front of me wasn’t an old man. It wasn’t even good at pretending. I was oddly embarrassed that I’d ever been fooled by it. What I was looking at was something older than this cave. Something trapped down here so long it could not bear the thought of light. The dream of something dead. The sloughed skin of a snake. 

The first apple eater. 

I could see shades of absence. More than the hole in the dark. I could look at the thing and feel the place where its wings should have been. Its first ones, at least. 

It lunged for me. 

I’d forgotten it could do that. 

It slammed into me like the water from the bottom of a dam. The power was nothing compared to the cold. I couldn’t see a thing, but what I could feel made bile climb up my throat. 

It was melting. Running down itself in little streams, like snow melting in the sun. Like the river I followed all the way down here. A hand ran over my face and I could feel it pouring into me, and in my fury I did the only thing I could think of: I reached up, and I wrapped my hands around its neck, and I clenched so hard that I could feel the tendons in my wrist sawing up through my skin, taut as piano wire. 

It was like squeezing wet clay. It deformed under my touch, stretching longer and thinner and smoother even as the muscular length of his impossibly long body wrapped around me. At some point the fists beating on my chest turned into wings. Stolen wings, to replace the ones that were stolen from it, and there was a scream in the cave it was so awful that I prayed it wasn’t mine. 

It was a terrible race. We were killing each other the same way. There was no question about someone dying here in front of the empty throne of god. I just didn’t want it to be me. 

Eventually, it could stretch no more, and my hands could crush more than just nightmare and shadow. The wings beat on me weaker, and weaker, until eventually some cartilage in its great neck snapped under the pressure of my thumbs.

It was like cracking a glow stick. There was a flash of light, brief as thunder, and I could see the waves in front of me. An ocean of rotting meat and bones. The outline of some great, dead serpent, fifty feet tall. And a tower of dead bodies, stretching back to ages that I could not recognize. The only corpses I could recognize were those at the top, with their strange helmets and iconic breastplates. 

Conquistadors. 

When the light went out, the body went with it. Most dreams don’t leave anything behind. Even when they’re made by gods. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I don’t know how I left the cave. 

I followed the river up. At some point, it stopped being the river I followed down. The tributaries feeding into it spread out like a fan, and fool that I am, I kept picking left. It shouldn’t have worked. Part of me wonders if I somehow bent the river to my will. Filled in for the dead thing bobbing in the lake, or the echo that I strangled on that starless shore. 

Or maybe I just got lucky. 

I can remember finally breaching the incline and seeing an exit into the desert. Not the one I stepped in through, but good enough. I can remember getting closer and closer, before stepping out into the burning sun. I thought it was finally over.

I thought wrong.  

I can remember looking into the bright blue sky and seeing exactly what my little brother saw on that drive all those years back. 

I don’t know what I killed down in the cave. Some dead thing in the dark, dreaming it was alive. An altar of blood and bone, designed to hold a fragment. 

But the real thing sat there in the sky. Curled up so tight and so smooth, you could mistake it for a ball. Waiting, and watching, and hating. Alive but dreaming death. The mould that stamped out the form of what lay in the cave. 

Quetzalcoatl, I learned later. The feathered serpent. 

I moved the month after that. Went somewhere north, somewhere cold, somewhere that a snake wouldn’t follow. Most days now, I look up, and I just see the sun. A flaming ball of gas. A little, red, star. 

But only most.

𓆙𓆙𓆙

𓆙𓆙𓆙

𓆙𓆙𓆙

𓆙𓆙𓆙

𓆙𓆙𓆙 𓇳

Thanks to @qsatisfaction and @foldingfittedsheets for being my editors on this piece. And thanks to @dr-robert-chase-apologist for providing the prompt.

[not-yossarian]

I hate software I hate people who make software I hate computers. For a small stipend, I could make some of the software on some of the computers slightly less broken. I couldn't possibly be any worse at this than the people who do it now. But nobody will let me, because of the economy

[differenteagletragedy]

What if you are married to Simon but you still have eyes and Price is right there, what then ↓

It's so hot. The sun is beating down outside, summer in full swing, but inside your house the heat is oppressive. It's suffocating.

"Simon, just call someone to fix it," you whine, walking around until you find your husband with his shirt off and sweat dripping down his back, reading something on his phone.

"Don't need anyone to fix it," he mutters, not looking up at you. "Can do it myself."

You groan, because it's painfully clear at this point that he in fact cannot fix it. It's been three days since the air conditioning went out, and three days of Simon trying everything he can think of to fix it. He's been flipping breakers, messing with the thermostat, taking tools to the unit outside, but nothing's worked, because Simon does not know what he's doing.

"I'm going to die," you tell him, sinking down onto the couch. "I'm going to perish and it's all going to be your fault."

You see him smirk, but he still doesn't look up. Instead, he tells you, "You're going to survive this, sweetheart. Going to have it up and running by tonight."

"Why won't you call an actual repairman? Why are you insisting on whatever this is?"

"Cute," he says, finally glancing up at you with a grin. "You're the one who married a stubborn bastard, what do you think?"

You think it's a mix of pride and sheer unwillingness to be outsmarted by a hunk of metal and parts, but you don't say that. Instead, you continue whining.

The next morning, Simon still hasn't figured it out. You tell him more directly, dramatics aside, that you're very uncomfortable and would just like to solve the problem in a normal, reasonable manner.

He makes a deal with you. He's not ready to completely give up and call in outside help just yet. But he will call Johnny.

"Does Johnny know how to repair a heating and cooling unit?" you ask, entirely unconvinced.

He answers, "Johnny knows a lot of things."

A couple of hours later, Johnny comes over, his own tools in tow, and he's brought along a surprise -- Kyle.

You keep your groan to yourself this time and just bring the men drinks while they work. Or, well, while Johnny and Kyle nod while Simon tells them everything he's done that hasn't worked. It doesn't take them long to switch from water to beer, and at this point you're pretty sure you're actually going to die.

"You know," Kyle says at one point, carrying the latest round of empty bottles to the trash, "I think the captain had something like this happen a few years back. I seem to remember overhearing him talking to the missus about it in a call."

"Is that why she divorced him?" you ask. "He wouldn't call a repairman and kept telling her he could fix it himself?"

Simon gives you a look, and you give it right back -- you know you're being cheeky, but the heat really is miserable.

But Kyle only laughs and shakes his head, saying "No, I don't think that's what did it. He got it fixed, I believe, he's pretty handy with things like that."

It's your turn to shoot Simon at look. Your husband shakes his head, twisting the top off another beer, and says, "Absolutely not."

"Simon."

"Sweetheart."

"Please."

An hour or so later, John arrives. And, ever so slightly, the atmosphere shifts. Simon, Johnny and Kyle stand just a little bit straighter, their voices get the tiniest bit more business-like. They're not standing at attention now that the captain is here, it's not that notable, but now it's clear that someone is in charge.

It's cute, you think as you watch them. You smile softly, watching Simon as he gives John a debriefing on everything he's tried so far, and you don't notice that John's eyes linger on you just a fraction of a second longer than what might be considered acceptable.

The captain is the one who finally gets the air conditioning running again, but it's no small effort. From the window, you watch as Price tinkers with something within the unit, and you smile when you hear it kick on, a nearby vent starting the work of circulating cool air through the too-hot house.

"What did you do?" you ask John, a bit of wonder in your voice, when they all come back inside to make sure everything is in order. "Simon's been going at it for days and you got it in half an hour."

The older man gives you a small, tight smile, reaching out to tap Simon's shoulder lightly.

"Just a blown capacitor, love," he tells you. "Easy enough fix."

You return his smile like you always do -- you like John. Always have. It's something, you think, about how similar he can be to Simon. Both men are strong and solid, deeply masculine in a way that's natural, not forced. They both have deep, rumbling voices that you feel in your chest when they speak. And sometimes, though you don't know John as well as you know Simon, of course, you think that the captain has something wild in him, too. Some kind of ache that runs deep through him, one that he's muzzled and tamed long ago.

Your Simon struggles with it still, though less since you married him. It's why he still wears a mask on the job, and why he wrestles, on a base level, with the idea of being seen.

John, you think, wears a different kind of mask. You can see it when he comes over for dinner some evenings, in the way that even after a full meal, dessert and a glass of scotch, the tension stays in his shoulders. You've never seen the man relaxed, and from what Simon's said of him, he hasn't either. It's his tight grip on control, of himself and those around him. He clings to it.

"Is that thing really working?" Johnny asks, grabbing another beer. "It's still hot as hell in here."

"It'll take a while to cool down, but it's working," John answers.

He's as sweaty as the others, but he doesn't complain. Instead, he lifts the hem of his t-shirt up to wipe his face. You look down -- your eyes just tracking the motion, you tell yourself -- to see his belly bared, covered in a thick coating of dark hair and just the slightest bit soft.

When you pull your eyes back to his, he's giving you a grin, but if he caught you staring, he doesn't say anything.

"You wanna get Price a drink?" Simon asks, smirking at you. "For saving your life and all."

You nod, turning back to the kitchen, pulling out the scotch you keep just for him and trying to clear your head.

Sure, John is an attractive man. So is Kyle, so is Johnny. And for that matter, so is Simon. Your husband.

But still, when you return to the group of men gathered in your living room, your fingers brush against John's as you hand him the drink. And you can't help but think about what that beard would feel like against your cheek, between your thighs. How it would feel if, even for just a little while, you were the thing he felt that desperate, innate need to control.

[astrolook]

🌀6th Lord in Houses - Enemies, Health, Daily Life, and Inner Battles 🌀

Note: These are all my personal observations and patterns I've noticed over the years. Take what resonates with you more and leave the rest. Lemme know in the comments if it hits home!

There are general interpretations. The signs on the house can make things different. Look at your Vedic chart!

6th lord in 1st - You're used to being underestimated and so you overperform. Your daily life is in survival mode by default. You're always fixing things, not just your own, but others' messes too. You care too much, even for people who don’t deserve it. Can have a "resting face". Might run on caffeine. Migraines, weak immunity, nail biting, or neck pain can be seen here. Your worst enemy is...yourself.

6th lord in 2nd - Feeling of never having enough. Attract "users", not partners. Either a stingy or a spendthrift. No in-between. Throat surgery, in some cases. You pretend you don’t care about status, but lowkey feel like a failure when you’re not “ahead.” Jaw tension. Messy relationship with food. People either depend on you too much or disappear when you need support. Stays loyal to family members even though they're not good for you and just sucks it up. You give advice to people but might not follow it yourself. Dental issues, blood sugar irregularities, PCOS, metabolic disorders, food allergies, binge eating, or anorexia can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is comfort that becomes a cage.

6th lord in 3rd - You’ve had full-blown arguments in your head that never happened IRL. Enemies = frenemies. Especially the ones who “joke” too much. Arguments with your sibling, if you had one. Dehydration. Nervous disorders, in some cases. Might keep a journal or vent everything into a Notes app or to any unfortunate soul that happened to be there at the time. You might try to do 5 things at once and feel ashamed of not finishing any. People can gaslight you. You want to be heard but hate attention, like explain that lol. You might dream of moving away from your hometown, starting afresh, or ghosting your friendship(s) forever. ADHD, hand/wrist pain, insomnia, neck/shoulder pain from poor posture, or breathing issues can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is the loud voice that sounds like yours but isn’t.

6th lord in 4th - You grew up learning to stay quiet. Might even walk quietly. You might have had strict or helicopter parents, in some cases. Home isn't a safe place. You crave comfort but don’t know what it really feels like. Might say "sorry" a lot. Love feels like walking on eggshells, because that’s what it’s always been. You try to fix your family by being the “good one,” even when it’s killing you. You second-guess your feelings because they were dismissed growing up. Ulcers, gastritis, acid reflux, menstrual cramps, belly, asthma, and hormonal imbalances can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is emotional guilt disguised as family loyalty.

6th lord in 5th - You give your heart to people who treat you like a "score". Fun feels like something you have to “earn.” When you are happy, you just know that it's gonna be taken away from you soon, or you know that it's temporary. You lowkey want someone to fight for you, not with you. You learned early that attention had conditions. Be impressive, be useful, be entertaining, or be invisible. You fall in love with people who feel broken, because fixing them feels safer than being truly seen. Irregular periods, fertility concerns, hormonal swings, risk of heart palpitations or minor arrhythmias, bloating, or digestive issues can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is drama you confuse for passion.

6th lord in 6th - You don't avoid problems, you solve them in silence. You’re the person everyone depends on, but no one checks in with. OCD in some cases. You attract situations that test your patience, boundaries, and sanity daily. You hate asking people for help. You attract jealous coworkers, messy “friends,” and one-sided relationships. You might feel responsible for everything, even things that aren’t yours to carry. Long-term health conditions, autoimmune disorders, inflammatory disorders, constipation, lower back pain or knee pain can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is... the belief that struggle equals virtue.

6th lord in 7th - You are loyal to the wrong people or stay too long with the wrong partner. You attract partners with baggage, and they leave you carrying it. You're afraid that if you set boundaries, they'll leave. Your depression, anxiety, and health issues would skyrocket when you're in a bad relationship. Your BODY KNOWS! You might fix others' lives while yours fall apart. Enemies to lovers, and after the breakup, it's lovers to enemies. If things are calm, you assume something’s off. You sometimes end up in legal conflicts, debt, or moral dilemmas because of a partner's decisions. Skin issues like eczema, rashes, acne or UTI, yeast infections, food poisoning, nausea, blood pressure swings during fights, clinical depression after a breakup or a divorce from their loved one can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is... the person you love/trust the most.

6th lord in 8th - You’ve survived things you don’t talk about, and most people wouldn’t understand anyway. For example: emotional or sexual abuse, dangerous situations, a rare disease, or a complex surgery, etc. Your enemies don’t announce themselves, they hide in family, in lovers, in you. You're the black sheep, the scapegoat, or the cycle-breaker in your family. You learn through loss. Each time something is ripped from you, a new version of you is born. You’ve experienced spiritual or psychic awakenings that were triggered by crisis, not choice. Sex can terrify you, in some cases. Might completely refrain from doing so. PCOS, endometriosis, hormonal dysfunction, bowel issues, sleep issues, nightmares, sleep paralysis, pelvic pain, STDs can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is silence that hides the truth.

6th lord in 9th - You didn’t just lose faith. It got torn from your hands by people you trusted. Your mentors, gurus, or teachers might have disappointed you or could have been harsh, and it cut deeper than betrayal. You’ve questioned your entire worldview after one painful experience. You want to believe in justice, karma, truth…but the reality you’ve lived makes that hard. Travel may bring conflict regarding visa issues or financial setbacks. You might have been punished for asking too many questions. Racism, in some cases. Enemies can come in the form of know-it-alls, fake spiritual leaders, or moral superiority complexes. Liver/kidney issues, vitamin/ protein deficiency, nervous disorders, leg accidents/surgery, can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is blind faith in broken systems.

6th lord in 10th - Bosses either love your work ethic or exploit it. Usually both. You attract jealous coworkers, fake allies, and silent competition. Career setbacks feel personal. You hold everything together until one tiny thing breaks you. You're scared to be seen struggling, so you smile harder. You've had to work twice as hard to earn half the recognition. Can develop an "impostor syndrome" in some cases. Sleep deprivation, dark under eyes, headaches/ migraines, upper body weakness, high blood pressure can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is your boss/co-worker.

6th lord in 11th - You’ve felt loneliest while surrounded by people. You're everyone's emergency contact, but no one’s first thought when they’re celebrating. Your biggest haters sometimes came disguised as your biggest fans or supporters. You carry guilt for outgrowing people who aren’t growing with you. Collaborations often turn into one-sided labor for you. Allergies, autoimmune disorders, rare syndromes, weak eyesight, mental health issues can be seen here in some cases. Can attract clout-chasers, energy vampires disguised as friends in your circle. Your worst enemy is the friend who envies you but smiles anyway.

6th lord in 12th - You’re always tired, but you don’t even know why anymore. You wake up drained, go to sleep anxious, and live in a body that feels like it’s carrying something ancient. Your enemies don’t announce themselves, but they whisper, sabotage, and fade out. Sleep issues. You carry shame from things you didn’t choose, didn’t cause, but still feel responsible for. You escape when it gets too much through fantasy, oversleeping, alcohol/drugs, doomscrolling, or even disappearing from your own life. I mean, you’re so used to emotional isolation that real connection feels foreign. Hates loud noises and crowds. Can have psychic dreams that show you the truth about people who hide things from you. Sleep paralysis or nightmares, mysterious illness, poor gut health, hypersensitivity to medication, noise, light or psychological issues can be seen here in some cases. Your worst enemy is... the pain you won’t/can't name.

💌For readings, check out my pinned post for pricing! ✨💌🪐

[star-anise]

Warnings: Doomerism, climate grief, child death

The thing about having studied history and the psychology of trauma so much is that I can't pretend to myself that the world used to be better at sometime in the past.

Don't get me wrong; things are absolutely terrible right now and need to change, quickly.

But also, they're better than they've ever been for us as a species. It is literally mindblowing how much worse life was for us historically.

Have you seen one of those charts of the human population over time? Have you thought about what it actually means?

Because here's what I see: Humans have always loved things like living to old age, like having sex, like raising babies. Those are things we have always wanted to do. It's not like pre-industrial humans were giant pandas like, "Nah, rather not reproduce as a species. No thanks," and suddenly the Victorians discovered horniness.

Instead, for most of human history, we have died. At terrifically young ages. The few who made it to adulthood could make babies as much as they liked, and then overwhelmingly watched pregnancies miscarry, births end in tragedy, or babies die. Their own lives were constantly at the mercy of a world that could kill them without a second thought. To be human meant to live in a world full of a million little tragedies, all the goddamn time.

And then what happened was: The babies stopped dying. The effects of a lot of things from higher agricultural yields to public health efforts to mass communications made us the master over the diseases and maladies that once had us by the throat.

When we look ahead at catastrophe and terrors, yes, they're bad. But they'd have to be extremely bad indeed to measure up to the number of people who wouldn't even be alive in any other century.

And even the obvious bogeyman then, overpopulation—did you notice what's already happened? On that chart, there's the green measure of total population, but the thin purple line is the rate of population growth. Please notice that it peaked in 1968. It is, in fact, projected as entirely possible that within a century it could go lower than it was twelve thousand years ago, at the end of the last big ice age.

The moment babies started to live longer, people went, "That is too many babies. An absolutely unsustainable number of babies. People are crying out for help because taking care of that many children is completely overwhelming. We need to be able to fix this problem," and they invented birth control and fought to get it legalized. It hit the market in the late 1950s and in less than a decade, it had caught on like wildfire.

To me, this is the absolute opposite of an argument for passivity and political inaction. It's not that everything's going to be okay so why even try. It's that as it turns out, the human capacity to grow and thrive and make the world better is absolutely reality-defying. I don't have faith that all of our problems will be solved, but I do have faith that those problems are all the subject of passionate obsession of millions of people.

And apparently we have a really strong track record at that kind of thing already.

[parasolemn]

X7 Acts 4-5 Summaries Transcription

Acts 4 and 5 (mostly 4) are the most likely to have errors since they're never completely clear, so please take this with a grain of salt! Suggested edits are appreciated.

I've already transcribed acts 1-3 here. Double check that the version you're reading is the most up-to-date one. :-)

(Updated as at 13/04/2025 at 2PM AEST)

Act 4 - The Doubt

Summary

Size: Large Playtime: ~5 hours Energy: Medium Emotional tone: Creeping doubt & feeling like an Outsider 70% Talking; 30% Action 50% Comedy; 50% Darkness

"Arriving in the Fourth Act, Cuno is officially furthest from his home that he's ever been, while Cunoesse is coming nearer to hers than she has been in the years after she escaped, and this [distinction?] is starting to get difficult to ignore. The presence of Hämärä Maa looms over them both, as the fabled archipelago lies just across the bay, across the [...]. Having disembarked from the Train virtually in the middle of nowhere, Cuno and Cunoesse come upon the Rhöne-Tréville (Royal) Penal Colony or the Tréville, but most people call it: a [...] centred around a former Royalist prison-labor camp. Being that geographically [...] to Hämärä Maa, the small community represents the closest point of contact between the archipelago and the world, participating in the trade of goods, legends and the profitable psychedelic marrow of an endemic cave fish. Meeting the locals, the kids will learn about the impending relocation of the surprisingly harmonious community-sustaining prison complex, and the complicated [...] between the coordinate [...] of freedom, imprisonment, community and [reunion? tension?]. They will also begin on their [...] is a growing sense of dread that Cunoesse got herself into something that is much darker and more morbid than he could have expected. In order to progress to Hämärä Maa to find out for themselves, the kids must [...]. [...] they must [...] Cunoesse's half remembered [...] family connections among the marrow traders, some of whom are now in the prison, or they might win their way forward with [...] and sneers, stealing a toy raft from a gang of violent girl children."

Player experience

[...] begin to suspect we are approaching a sinister [...] with the things we've been avoiding all along.

[...] more and more about Hämärä Maa [...] borders of a bad neighbourhood, like walking alone at [...] realising your GPS is leading you in the direction of [...] you've realised way too late to do anything about it.

[...] are more frightening if they are unseen. Hearing [...] tales about Hämärä Maa before we've had [...] establish what's there will build up the sense of dread [...] for the game's climax location.

[...] for the later endgame where Cuno breaks free of the bond.

The power balance between Cuno, Cunoesse and the player's conscience will again be tested as Cunoesse urges Cuno to brutally fight one of the Tréville girls in order to steal her raft.

The small self-sustaining community will present the player with the opportunity to engage with the full set of game systems, including game economy, Thoughts, substances, exploration and multiple-approach problem-solving.

Act 5 - The Arrival

Summary

Size: Medium Playtime: ~2 hrs Energy: High Emotional tone: [...] & Reality-Twisting 60% Talking; 40% Action 30% Comedy; 70% Darkness

"After all the fear and the mayhem, Cuno and Cunoesse are finally there: landing on the shores of Hämärä Maa, their promised shadow-land. Greeted with the sounds of shamanic singing and solemn drums, the kids will catch the locals in the midst of a funeral ceremony, gaining a glimpse into both the cultural practices of the Näkki and the strange and colorful faces of the island's population. The island has changed since Cunoesse has last called it home. Only her impossibly old grandfather remains, and her [sins?]. She knows she must do one last thing before she can plead to be readmitted into her tribe. Under the pretense of a Hämärän naming ceremony, Cunoesse pressures Cuno into ingesting the bone marrow of the psychedelic cave fish. As Cunoesse takes on the role of his fucked-up trip shaman, Cuno grapples with the growing clarity that her goal is deeply sinister: to bind him to herself, or kill them both trying. Cunoesse embraces him and throws them both off a pier, pulling him deep under water, triggering the stylish climax sequence of the game: the Underwater Psychedelic Trip. Reality will [...] as you seemingly sink for an eternity, fighting for your life and your identity as Cunoesse's true intentions come to light - to use the drug to manipulate Cuno into total and irrevocable ego death, and make him believe that he is Jaakko, the boy Cunoesse killed in the caves three years prior. That was her plan all along: to bring Cuno all the way from Martinaise to buy herself passage back into her community by replacing what she has broken. All she needs him to do now in order for her plan to work is to play along, *really* play along, so deeply that he will never recall being someone else ever again. Their showdown under water will determine whether Cuno will let go of his identity in one [...], or if he is willing to kill his other half in order to remain who he is. The Act spins off into up to five possible endings, depending on which one of the kids lives, dies or is brainwashed."

Player experience

We want a sense of culmination in every way -- the culmination the journey, of finally getting to see what Hämärä Maa is truly like and what Cunoesse truly is.

This should be a streamlined sequence, funneling the player [seamlessly] towards the end. We want the player to be unable to [...] the game once they've landed on Hämärä Maa, similarly to how Harry's story spirals tighter and tighter towards its resolution from the moment he steps onto the Deserter's Island.

We want the player to feel as if they are performing cultural [contact?] with an ominous insular community, something like Midsommar but with degenerate alcoholics instead of tradwives.

This is where everything we've tried to do over the course of the game comes to count. All the dual-character systems that make the player roleplay as both Cuno & Cunoesse, all the story beats that make the player internalise their respective stakes, all the emotional connection to this feral superorganism, if we can make the player feel like we're making them choose between two halves of themselves, we've achieved what we set out to do. If they feel torn apart, agonized over their choices, we've won.

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

I can stay silent no longer. Viktor and big tits. Guys.

Viktor can't stop looking at your tits, and he’s trying oh so very hard to not be obvious about it, because of how embarrassing it is. He's doing his best to stay respectful, but his eyes constantly drift downwards whenever you move and your bust shifts or bounces. He can't even focus on his notes when you're standing nearby, the calculations in his mind gone in a puff of smoke every time you pass by him.

More often than not, he finds himself staring at the way you rest your chest on your desk to help with your back pain; whenever you look up and catch him in the act, his cheeks get so red he has to hide them underneath his hands. He pretends he's deeply focused on reading the book of ancient runes in front of him, but in reality, he's been stuck on the same sentence for the last half an hour.

An insubordinate, nasty little voice in the back of his head whispers that he could help you: he knows a lot about back pain after all, doesn't he? He could be so good for you, if you only let him touch you…

The worst is when you come to ask him questions, just slightly pushing your tits against his back to lean over his shoulder; he can't count the number of times it's almost made him fall over in panic (excluding the times it has actually landed him right down on his ass). It’s gotten to the point where he has to excuse himself to the restroom for a few minutes at a time, just to remind himself how to breathe and to make sure the tent forming in his pants is fully dead and gone.

If his pride doesn't kill him first, with how flustered and unnerved you manage to get him by simply existing in the lab, then the constant, awkward falling at your feet like an enamoured fool surely will.

For your birthday, he ultimately decides to get you a nice, fancy jacket to put on top of your blouse while you work. Lab assistants aren't supposed to wear these, usually: they're reserved for professors and their own assistants. But it closes right where that damn, one little button stretches the fabric to its very limits, creating a large opening that leaves nothing to his already very active imagination. No one would fault him for bending the rules a little if they had any idea of the struggle of completing a single task around you in that forsakenly translucent top.

It's not a perfect solution, by any means, but he hopes it'll at least allow him to start thinking in his own damn lab again. Just a temporary fix, until he gets his feelings for you under control. You seem delighted by the present, so he figures he's fixed the issue in a relatively acceptable and satisfactory manner.

The next day, you show up with the jacket.

Only the jacket.

You've discarded the white blouse, and there's nothing but your bra underneath the piece of clothing he naively thought would solve all his problems. There’s now nothing stopping him from fully, openly gaping at your exposed chest every time you bend, or lean forward even slightly.

He's made it worse. So much worse. It's quite possibly his biggest failure as an inventor, because he's effectively trapped himself into getting a full face of your tits every time he even glances in your direction.

Viktor has engineered his own fucking demise with nothing but a jacket.

Next time, he's simply going to get you a full-body suit to wear around the lab; you know, as a safety precaution, for wielding sharp tools and participating in dangerous experiments. He wouldn't want his most efficient assistant to get hurt in a preventable work-related accident, after all.

It’ll protect him and his dwindling sanity far more than anything else, but you really don't need to know that.