#ephemeral streams

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

For years, politicians, industry groups and environmentalists have argued over which bodies of water in the United States should fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act, a sweeping law, passed in 1972, that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to limit water pollution. While there’s consensus that the law applies to major rivers and lakes, there’s debate over whether federal protections should apply elsewhere, such as to nearby wetlands or streams that go dry for part of the year.

Environmentalists favor broad protections, arguing that these other bodies of water are important; homebuilders, some industry groups and conservatives oppose what they see as regulatory overreach.

In May 2023, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to restrict the scope of the Clean Water Act, with the majority ruling that the law should apply only to “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water,” as well as to wetlands that have “a continuous surface connection” to those waters.

That ruling effectively ended federal protections for up to 4.9 million miles of streams that flow only when it rains, according to officials at the E.P.A., which announced in August that it would follow the court’s guidance.

These temporary streams are often overlooked since they may look like unremarkable dry ditches for much of the year, said Jud Harvey, a senior research hydrologist for the United States Geological Survey, who wrote a separate commentary on the Science study. “But when it rains,” he said, “these streams convey a substantial amount of water” that ends up in rivers and lakes.

Mr. Brinkerhoff and his colleagues identified millions of ephemeral streams across the country and used detailed modeling to estimate how much water flows through them.

In the West, ephemeral streams flow only for four to 46 days per year on average, but contribute up to 79 percent of the downstream river flow, the study found. Ephemeral streams contribute roughly 55 percent of the flow in river basins across the contiguous United States, on average.

Mr. Harvey said he was surprised by the amount of water originating from ephemeral streams. “But it is a rigorous and detailed investigation using the best available data in the United States,” he said of the study.

Because so much water passes through these streams, the study notes, it matters greatly whether or not they are polluted. Sediments or excess phosphorus from fertilizer run off on farms could accumulate in dry channels until a heavy rainstorm picks up the pollutants and washes them into larger waterways.

Mr. Brinkerhoff said that the study did not try to quantify how much pollution was actually passing through those streams. That is a subject for future research. But, he said, these streams have a large influence on water quality.

[anotherdescentintomadness]

The Ephemeral Gaze

[posthumanwanderings]

[ Relaxing PlayStation 2 VGM Vol.3 Excerpt ]

[after-the-end-times]

every time I click on a tag or refresh my dash and it takes a buffering moment to load, I get a sick feeling in my stomach

[mossrockpog]

As a semi-limnologist I would like to say: the benefits are NOT limnited

IF ITS WATER AND NOT THE OCEAN ITS (likely) LIMNOLOGY

THE WORLD OF LIMNOLOGY IS VAST AND WONDERFUL. IT IS UNLIMNITED

Need Tumblr to understand that you are a marine biologist only if you study lads and urchins in the seas and oceans. If you study hooligans and whippersnappers in a lake or river you are in fact not a marine biologist, you are a limnologist.

[fjordandfir]

I wander through the forest, surrounded by trees,

Their leaves rustling softly in the breeze.

The river flows smoothly, its surface reflecting the sun's rays,

And its gentle voice fills the valley with a soothing melody.

As I walk along the winding stream,

I notice the subtle changes in its song,

From gentle murmurs to louder cascades,

Each ripple echoing through the forest, a perpetual hum.

My footsteps quiet on the mossy bank,

I breathe the fragrant scent of dampened earth,

And let the gentle lapping of the water soothe my skin,

Until the world narrows down to just the sound of the stream,

And I become a part of its eternal flow.

[mommykye]

back to bed

g!p!caitlynkiramman x fem!reader

Warnings: smut, caitlyn has a dick, cursing, men/minors DNI

Request are open

masterlist

The sliver of moonlight, a razor-thin blade of unexpected brilliance, bisected the heavy, wine-dark velvet curtains. It carved a stark, alabaster line across the otherwise impenetrable obsidian of the room, a sudden intrusion that felt almost violent in its sharpness. Within this illuminated corridor danced a myriad of dust motes, each a minuscule, ephemeral star caught in the silent galaxy of the bedroom air. The silence was a tangible entity, a profound hush that pressed against your eardrums, amplifying the subtle rustle of the silk sheets as you shifted your weight. A cool tendril of air, carrying the delicate, intoxicating perfume of night-blooming jasmine from the sprawling gardens below, brushed against your bare skin, raising a delicate constellation of goosebumps despite the room's otherwise comfortable embrace. You blinked slowly, your eyes protesting the sudden assault of light after the deep, dreamless slumber that had claimed you only a handful of hours before.

A tendril of unease, a subtle tremor in the placid surface of your sleep-drenched mind, began to coalesce as full awareness trickled back. You stretched out a hand, your fingers moving instinctively, seeking the familiar warmth and comforting solidity that usually resided beside you. The space was hollow, the linen cool and smooth beneath your searching touch, utterly undisturbed. Caitlyn. A tight knot of concern cinched in your chest, a sudden, unwelcome guest in the quietude. She was a creature of ingrained habit, a steadfast anchor in the unpredictable tides of life, especially when it came to sleep. Once she had settled into bed, the world outside could be teetering on the precipice of chaos, and she would remain a still, reassuring presence beside you.

You pushed yourself up, the luxurious silk pooling around your waist like liquid shadow. The intrusive moonlight now cast long, spectral shadows that mimicked your slightest movements, elongating your limbs and painting the familiar room in an eerie, unfamiliar light. The vast, silent expanse of the Kiramman estate pressed in on all sides, amplifying the stark absence beside you. Where could she be? Had duty called her away in the dead of night? A clandestine late-night meeting with informants in the shadowed corners of Piltover?

Slipping out of the silken embrace of the sheets, the cool air raising another wave of delicate goosebumps across your skin, you padded silently across the polished expanse of the wooden floor. Your discarded clothes lay in a soft, forgotten heap where you had shed them hours ago, but instead of reaching for their familiar comfort, your gaze snagged on Caitlyn’s crisp, white dress shirt draped carelessly over the back of a nearby wingback chair. It still held the faint, comforting ghost of her lavender soap, a delicate floral note interwoven with the faintest, almost metallic tang of gun oil – a constant, subtle reminder of the two distinct and often conflicting worlds she navigated with such unwavering resolve.

You picked it up, the smooth, cool cotton a stark contrast to the lingering warmth of the bed. You pulled it over your head, the oversized garment swallowing your frame. The starched collar brushed against your neck, the cuffs tumbled far past your wrists, and the hem reached a comfortable mid-thigh. It felt like a tangible embrace, a comforting piece of her in the unsettling stillness of the night, carrying her familiar scent like a whispered promise.

With a soft sigh that disturbed the profound silence, you padded out of the bedroom and into the dimly lit hallway. The Kiramman estate at night was a hushed labyrinth of understated grandeur. Moonlight streamed through the towering, arched windows that lined the corridor, casting intricate, geometric patterns of light and shadow on the richly woven Persian rugs that muffled your bare footsteps. The air was thick with the scent of old wood and beeswax, a testament to the estate's long and storied history, a scent that usually brought comfort but tonight felt heavy with her absence.

You moved with a quiet grace, your senses heightened in the oppressive stillness. Each minute creak of the ancient floorboards beneath your bare feet, each soft whisper of the night wind against the leaded glass of the windowpanes, seemed amplified in the echoing silence. You passed a series of imposing portraits of stern-faced Kiramman ancestors, their painted eyes seeming to follow your progress in the shifting shadows, their silent judgment adding to your growing unease. The only sound that dared to break the pervasive silence was the distant, measured tick-tock of a grandfather clock in the cavernous main hall, each beat a slow, deliberate pulse in the sleeping heart of the house.

Turning a corner, your breath hitched as you finally saw a thin sliver of warm, inviting light emanating from beneath the closed door of Caitlyn’s private study. A soft, almost imperceptible hum of focused energy seemed to vibrate through the heavy oak, a familiar aura that always surrounded her when she was deeply engrossed in her work. A wave of relief washed over you, a momentary respite from the gnawing worry, quickly followed by a familiar swell of concern. What could possibly be so demanding, so urgent, that it kept her hunched over paperwork at this ungodly hour?

You approached the door and hesitated for a long moment, your hand hovering just above the cool, polished brass knob. Taking a deep, steadying breath, you pushed it open silently, the hinges barely whispering in protest, and stepped inside.

The room was bathed in the warm, golden glow of a single oil lamp perched on the corner of her expansive mahogany desk, casting long, dancing shadows that writhed and stretched across the overflowing bookshelves and the chaotic stacks of scattered papers that dominated the space. And there she was. Caitlyn.

Hunched over the formidable expanse of her desk, her usually impeccably smooth brow furrowed in deep concentration, she was a picture of intense, unwavering focus. Her typically meticulously styled dark hair was slightly disheveled, loose strands escaping their careful arrangement and falling across her cheek as she leaned closer to the documents spread before her like a battlefield of ink and parchment. A half-empty cup of tea, its surface long since gone cold and a thin film of condensation clinging to its ceramic sides, sat forgotten beside a precarious stack of official-looking reports. The air in the room was thick and heavy with the mingled scents of aged paper, drying ink, and the faint, persistent metallic tang of gun oil that clung to her like a second skin.

She was so utterly engrossed in whatever held her attention captive that she didn’t immediately register your presence in the doorway. Her lips moved silently as she scanned a dense paragraph, her slender finger tracing a line of text as if to anchor her focus. The invisible weight of the city, the endless, suffocating complexities of its shadowy underbelly, seemed to rest upon her slender shoulders, a burden she carried with a relentless, almost obsessive dedication.

You leaned against the sturdy oak doorframe, watching her for a long, silent moment, a complex tapestry of affection and worry weaving itself within you. This was Caitlyn, the unwavering Enforcer, the relentless seeker of justice in a city that often seemed determined to resist it, even in the quiet solitude of her own study in the dead of night. But she was also yours, the woman who sought solace and warmth in your arms, the woman whose comforting presence you now so acutely missed in the cold emptiness of your shared bed.

Finally, as if sensing the weight of your gaze, a subtle shift in the atmosphere, she moved slightly, her eyes lifting abruptly from the sea of documents. A flicker of surprise, quickly followed by a soft, weary smile that tugged at the corners of her lips, touched her features as she saw you standing there, enveloped in the comforting expanse of her shirt.

“Love,” she murmured, her voice a little rough, a little husky with fatigue and disuse. “I didn’t realize you were awake.”

You pushed off the doorframe and moved slowly into the room, your bare feet silent on the worn, intricately patterned Persian rug beneath the massive desk. The oversized shirt billowed slightly around your legs with each soft step, the familiar scent of lavender and gun oil growing stronger as you drew closer to her.

“Couldn’t sleep,” you replied softly, your voice still thick with the lingering remnants of sleep. “You weren’t there.”

Caitlyn sighed, a sound that spoke volumes of exhaustion and frustration. She ran a hand through her already disheveled hair, leaving a faint, almost invisible smudge of ink on her temple. “I’m sorry, love. This case… it’s become an unholy mess. The Zaunite chem-barons are getting bolder, their operations more brazen, their disregard for the fragile peace of this city growing with each passing day. And the Council… well, they’re more concerned with the delicate balance of trade agreements and the flow of coin than the festering rot that’s slowly consuming the Undercity.”

She gestured vaguely at the towering stacks of papers with a frustrated wave of her hand, the gesture unsettling a precarious pile that threatened to topple. “Look at this. The shipping manifests are deliberately misleading, riddled with inconsistencies. The witness testimonies contradict each other at every turn, each account a carefully constructed lie. And someone high up, someone with influence and power, is clearly turning a blind eye, perhaps even actively facilitating this poison. It’s like trying to piece together a shattered mirror, and every shard you touch cuts you.”

You reached the edge of the imposing desk and leaned against its cool, polished surface, your gaze drifting over the chaotic arrangement of documents. There were stark black and white crime scene photographs – grim glimpses into dimly lit alleyways and makeshift laboratories, the stark reality of the city's underbelly laid bare. These were interspersed with meticulously detailed reports filled with arcane chemical formulas that looked like a foreign language and coded jargon that hinted at illicit dealings.

“It looks… intense,” you murmured, your fingertip tracing the sharp, unsettling edge of a particularly disturbing photograph depicting a grotesque, almost inhuman figure contorted in a final, agonizing spasm.

Caitlyn nodded grimly, her gaze returning to the papers with a weary resignation. “Intense is an understatement, love. This isn’t just about stolen goods or petty theft, though there’s plenty of that to go around. This is about a new strain of shimmer, something far more potent, far more volatile, than anything we’ve encountered before. It’s warping the minds and bodies of its users, turning them into… monsters. And the flow needs to be stopped, choked off at the source, before it spills out of the festering wounds of Zaun and infects the entire city.”

She leaned back in her heavy leather chair, the aged material creaking softly under her weight, and rubbed her tired eyes with the heels of her hands. “I thought I had a lead, a solid connection to one of the primary distributors, but it turned out to be another dead end, another carefully constructed illusion. Hours wasted chasing shadows, following whispers that dissolved into nothing.”

Her frustration was palpable, a heavy, suffocating weight in the already thick atmosphere of the study. You stepped closer, placing a hand on her tense shoulder, your thumb gently kneading the tight, corded muscles there.

“Come back to bed,” you urged softly, your voice a low murmur in the quiet room. “You can’t solve the city’s problems in one night, Caitlyn. You need rest. You need to take care of yourself.”

Caitlyn leaned into your touch, a momentary softening in her rigid posture, a brief surrender to the comfort of your presence. “I know, I know you’re right. But I’m so close, I can feel it, like a faint vibration in the air. There’s a pattern here, a subtle connection, a thread I’m just about to grasp…” Her gaze drifted back to the scattered papers, her focus already beginning to slip away again, drawn back to the intricate puzzle that consumed her.

You sighed softly and moved a little closer, your other hand now resting on her other shoulder, mirroring your touch. The crisp fabric of her shirt felt cool beneath your palms, a stark contrast to the heat radiating from her focused mind. You leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the top of her head, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of her hair – a blend of lavender and something uniquely hers.

“Let it go for now, Caitlyn,” you whispered, your breath warm against her scalp. “Come back to bed. Let me hold you. Let me remind you what else is important.”

She made a small sound of protest, a soft groan of reluctance, her eyes still scanning a line of dense text. “Just… just give me a few more minutes, love. I just need to…”

You knew that “a few more minutes” in Caitlyn-time could easily stretch into another hour, a self-imposed exile in the world of crime and consequence. A different tactic was needed, a more direct appeal to the woman beneath the Enforcer.

With a slow, deliberate movement, you shifted your weight, stepping closer until your legs brushed lightly against hers beneath the expansive desk. She didn’t seem to notice the subtle contact, her concentration still fully absorbed by the labyrinthine documents.

Taking another breath, you gently pulled her heavy leather chair forward an inch, the subtle scraping sound of the aged wood against the rug barely audible above the soft, steady hum of the oil lamp. Her thighs were now pressed more firmly against yours through the thin fabric of her tailored trousers and your borrowed shirt, a spark of warmth beginning to bloom between you.

“Caitlyn,” you said again, your voice a little lower this time, imbued with a different kind of urgency. Your fingers left her shoulder and gently traced the sharp, elegant line of her jaw, your thumb brushing softly against her cheekbone.

Her eyes flickered up to meet yours, a hint of awareness finally breaking through the intense concentration that held her captive. “Hmm?” she murmured, her gaze still slightly unfocused.

You didn’t answer with words. Instead, you leaned in and kissed her, a slow, lingering press of your lips against hers. Her lips were dry and slightly chapped, tasting faintly of stale tea and the metallic tang of worry. For a fleeting moment, she remained still, her mind still seemingly tethered to the chaotic landscape of papers on the desk.

Then, with a soft groan that seemed to emanate from a deeper weariness than just physical fatigue, she deepened the kiss, her own lips softening and parting slightly beneath yours. Her hands, still smudged with ink, came up to cup your face, her touch surprisingly gentle despite the tension that still radiated from her. The papers were momentarily forgotten, the weight of the city lifting ever so slightly from her slender shoulders as she surrendered to the simple comfort of your touch.

Breaking the kiss, you moved with a fluid grace that belied the oversized shirt you were wearing. You lifted one leg and then the other, slowly straddling her lap, your bare thighs now pressing firmly against hers through the layers of fabric.

Caitlyn gasped softly, her eyes widening in surprise, a flicker of her professional composure momentarily abandoned, before darkening with a familiar, welcome desire. The grim reports and complex diagrams on her desk suddenly seemed very far away, their urgent pronouncements fading into the background.

“Love,” she breathed, her voice thick with a burgeoning arousal, her hands now sliding down from your face to grip your hips, her fingers digging slightly into the soft fabric of her shirt you wore.

You leaned in close, your chest pressing against hers through the layers of cotton and linen. “Come back to bed, Caitlyn,” you murmured against her ear, your breath warm against her sensitive skin. “Let me take care of you. Let me remind you what it feels like to simply be held.”

Her grip on your hips tightened, a silent acknowledgment of your words. You could feel the hard ridge beneath her tailored trousers pressing insistently against your thigh, a familiar and welcome sensation that spoke of a different kind of focus. A low growl, a primal sound that rarely escaped her usually controlled demeanor, rumbled in her chest.

“You’re… you’re being very distracting,” she managed, her voice a little shaky, a hint of a smile playing on her lips despite the protest.

You nuzzled your face against the curve of her neck, inhaling the intoxicating mix of her shampoo and oil, a scent that was uniquely and powerfully Caitlyn. “That’s the point, Enforcer.”

Her hands moved restlessly on your hips, her fingers tracing slow, deliberate circles before digging slightly into your skin. Her gaze flickered down to your mouth, then back up to meet your eyes, a silent battle raging within her between the relentless pull of duty and the undeniable tug of desire.

“There are… things I need to finish,” she said, her voice a little breathless, her eyes still flicking back towards the tempting chaos of her desk.

You trailed soft kisses along her jawline, down the sensitive curve of her neck to the pulse point beneath her ear, feeling the frantic beat of her heart against your lips. “They’ll still be here in the morning, Caitlyn. The city will still need you. But right now, I need you.”

Her head fell back slightly, granting you better access. You could feel the rapid pulse throbbing in her neck, a frantic drumbeat against your lips. Her focus was definitely shifting, the intricate web of her case beginning to unravel under the heat of your touch. The papers on the desk remained, a silent audience, but the intense concentration that had held her captive had waned, replaced by a growing heat in her dark eyes.

“This isn’t… exactly conducive to reviewing evidence,” she murmured, her hands now reaching up to tangle in the hair at the nape of your neck, her grip tightening slightly.

You chuckled softly, the sound vibrating against her chest. “Is that a complaint, Enforcer?”

A small, reluctant smile, a genuine, unguarded expression, tugged at the corner of her lips. “Perhaps not a complaint, exactly.”

You pressed another kiss to her mouth, this one deeper and more demanding, a silent promise of the pleasure to come. Her lips parted willingly, and you could feel the last vestiges of her professional detachment melting away as she surrendered to the moment. Her hands tightened in your hair, pulling you closer, deepening the kiss with a newfound urgency.

The scent of ink and parchment still filled the air, a testament to her earlier preoccupation, but it was now overlaid with the heady, intoxicating aroma of arousal, a primal scent that spoke of shared desire. The dim light of the oil lamp cast long, intertwined shadows on the walls, the chaotic stacks of papers bearing silent witness to a different kind of entanglement, a far more intimate investigation.

With a soft groan that vibrated against your chest, Caitlyn shifted in her chair, adjusting you more comfortably against her. Her hands roamed freely beneath the oversized shirt, her touch sending shivers of anticipation down your spine. The case files lay forgotten, the city’s myriad problems momentarily eclipsed by the more pressing, more immediate matter at hand. The only investigation now was the mutual exploration of each other, a familiar and desperately needed distraction in the quiet intimacy of the night.

You tapped her hip, a silent, insistent demand for her to shed the remaining barriers between you. Her eyes met yours, a spark of playful defiance mixed with a burgeoning, undeniable desire.

With a sigh that spoke of both surrender and a delicious anticipation, her hands moved to the button of her tailored trousers, her gaze never leaving yours. The crisp fabric whispered against itself as she deftly worked the fastening, her fingers then sliding down to the zipper, its metallic rasp a sudden, intimate sound in the quiet study. With a slow, deliberate movement, she pushed the garment down her legs, revealing the soft cotton of her boxers beneath, which soon followed suit.

Her impressive length, already straining against the confines of the fabric, was now revealed in the warm, golden lamplight. It pulsed with a life of its own, a thick, dark veins tracing its length, a testament to her growing arousal. You could feel the heat radiating from her, a tangible manifestation of her desire.

Without breaking the intense connection of your gazes, you shifted your weight, your thighs parting wider, an unspoken invitation. The oversized shirt rode further up your legs, exposing your bare skin to the cooler air of the study, a stark contrast to the building heat between you. You reached down, your hand finding the smooth, turgid head of her erection, your fingertips tracing its sensitive curve, feeling the slick pre-come already coating its surface like a delicate dew.

With a slow, deliberate movement, guided by your hand, you lowered yourself onto her lap. Her breath hitched, a sharp intake of air, as you took her in, the sensation a familiar yet always breathtaking fullness, a deep, visceral connection that resonated through your core. You gasped softly, your hands instinctively finding purchase on her shoulders as she filled you, the intimate friction igniting a fire in your belly.

You settled onto her lap, the soft rasp of fabric against skin the only sound besides your quickening breaths. Your hands tightened on her shoulders, your fingers digging slightly into the firm muscle beneath the crisp fabric of her shirt. You began to move, a slow, rocking motion at first, savoring the deep connection, the intimate slide and release. Caitlyn groaned, a low, guttural sound that vibrated against your chest, her hands tightening on your hips, guiding your movements, urging you deeper, closer.

The soft, steady hum of the oil lamp on the corner of the desk seemed to blend with the increasingly rhythmic sounds of your bodies moving together, the aged leather of her chair creaking in time with your rocking motion. The scent of ink and parchment, the lingering aroma of her work, was now thoroughly infused with the musky, intoxicating scent of your shared desire, a primal perfume that filled the small study.

As your rhythm intensified, Caitlyn’s head fell back against the worn leather of the chair, her usually sharp, focused eyes now half-closed in pleasure, a veil of sensual abandon drawn across them. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, each exhalation a soft puff of warm air against your skin. You could feel the powerful thrusts building beneath you, her hips bucking against yours with increasing urgency.

“Love…” she murmured, her voice thick with passion, a raw, untamed sound you rarely heard. Her hands, no longer guiding, now gripped your waist, holding you tightly against her, as if afraid you might slip away.

You leaned forward, pressing fervent kisses to her neck, your hair falling around her face, a dark curtain obscuring you both from the silent scrutiny of the overflowing bookshelves. The urgency between you escalated, the slow, deliberate dance transforming into a frantic ballet of raw, unadulterated need. You could feel the potent power of her arousal building, the insistent pressure against your inner walls sending dizzying waves of pleasure through you.

Suddenly, her strong hands slid beneath your thighs, lifting you with surprising strength. You gasped, your intimate connection momentarily broken, before she shifted you expertly, your back now pressed against the cool, smooth, unforgiving surface of the mahogany desk. The scattered papers beneath you rustled and crinkled, a stark, almost comical contrast to the heated intimacy of the moment.

Caitlyn stood between your legs, her gaze locked on yours, her eyes blazing with an unrestrained desire that mirrored your own. Her hands gripped your hips, her thumbs pressing into the sensitive skin of your lower back, anchoring you to her.

Without another word, a silent language passing between you, she began to rut into you, her powerful thrusts driving you further onto the hard surface of the desk. The impact sent jolts of pure sensation through your body, each movement deep and demanding, stripping away any lingering pretense. You cried out, your hands finding purchase on her shoulders, your nails digging instinctively into the crisp fabric of her shirt for purchase.

The carefully stacked reports and arcane chemical diagrams on the mahogany desk became unwitting casualties of your escalating passion. With each deep, insistent thrust of Caitlyn's hips, the precarious towers of paper swayed precariously, then tumbled, cascading across the floor like fallen leaves in a sudden, violent storm. A half-empty inkwell, perched precariously on the edge of a stack of ledgers, teetered for a moment before succumbing to the rhythmic vibrations, spilling a dark, viscous pool onto a particularly detailed schematic of a suspected Zaunite chem-lab.

The rhythmic slapping of your bodies against each other and the polished wood of the desk echoed in the sudden, charged silence of the study, punctuated by your ragged breaths and Caitlyn's guttural moans, sounds that spoke of a primal need finally being met. Her hands tightened on your hips, lifting you higher as she drove into you with a primal intensity that banished all thoughts of duty, all remnants of investigation, leaving only the raw, visceral connection between you.

A framed portrait of a stern-faced Kiramman ancestor, perched precariously on a teetering stack of ledgers detailing generations of family finances, rattled violently against the wall with each forceful impact. Finally, with a sharp crack that echoed through the room, the aged wood of the frame gave way, sending the portrait crashing to the floor, the protective glass shattering into a myriad of glittering shards that mingled with the scattered documents, a sparkling testament to your unrestrained passion. Neither of you paid it any mind, your senses consumed entirely by the raw, visceral connection that bound you together in that moment.

The oil lamp on the corner of the desk flickered precariously, its warm glow casting wild, dancing shadows that writhed and intertwined on the overflowing bookshelves, mimicking the frantic movements of your bodies. The scent of spilled ink now mingled with the heady aroma of your mingled sweat and desire, creating a potent, intoxicating atmosphere that was uniquely yours.

Caitlyn’s breath hitched in her throat as she reached the precipice, her body tensing, her movements becoming shorter, more frantic, her powerful thighs trembling beneath your touch. You could feel the powerful contractions beginning deep within her, a series of insistent pulses that squeezed and released you with exquisite intensity. You cried out, your own release building rapidly in response, the waves of pleasure washing over you in dizzying succession, pulling you under their intoxicating current.

Her low growls intensified into guttural roars as she rode out her climax, her body shuddering violently against yours, her grip on your hips tightening to the point of pain. You clung to her shoulders, your own orgasm exploding through you in a series of intense, shuddering waves, your muscles clenching in time with hers, your cries mingling with her primal sounds. The world narrowed to the feel of her inside you, the taste of her breath on your skin, the frantic rhythm of your hearts beating as one.

Slowly, gradually, the overwhelming intensity subsided, leaving you both breathless and trembling, your bodies slick with sweat. Caitlyn collapsed against you, her weight heavy, her forehead resting against your collarbone, her breath hot against your skin. Her grip on your hips loosened slightly, but she remained intimately connected to you, the throbbing remnants of your shared climax still echoing between your bodies, a lingering warmth in the cool night air.

The silence in the study was now thick with the aftermath of your passion, broken only by your ragged breathing and the occasional soft sigh that escaped Caitlyn’s lips. The disarray surrounding you – the scattered papers, the spilled ink staining the intricate diagrams, the shattered glass glittering on the floor – served as a chaotic yet beautiful testament to the ferocity of your lovemaking.

After a long, still moment, Caitlyn shifted slightly, lifting her head to look at you, her eyes still glazed with the lingering haze of desire, softened with a deep contentment. A small, satisfied smile played on her lips, despite the smudge of dark ink still adorning her temple like a warrior’s mark.

“Well,” she murmured, her voice still husky with arousal, a low rumble against your chest, her fingers tracing slow, languid patterns on your back. “That was… certainly a more effective method of stress relief than my usual late-night tea.”

You chuckled softly, a wave of warmth spreading through you, a deep sense of satisfaction settling in your bones. “Sometimes, Enforcer, the most direct approach yields the most… satisfying results.”

She leaned down and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your lips, her taste still lingering on your tongue, a potent reminder of the intimacy you had just shared. “Indeed. Perhaps we should make this a regular method of… case review. For particularly challenging files, of course.”

You smiled against her mouth, the corners of your eyes crinkling with amusement. “Only if all your cases are this… stimulating.”

Caitlyn chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through her chest. She shifted again, carefully disengaging from you, though she kept you close, her hands still resting possessively on your hips. The cooler air of the study sent a shiver down your spine, a reminder of the disarray around you.

She looked down at the chaotic state of her desk, a thoughtful expression crossing her face, the remnants of her professional demeanor slowly returning. “I suppose,” she said slowly, her gaze sweeping over the scattered documents and the dark pool of spilled ink spreading across the intricate schematic, “that I should probably… clean this up.”

You reached out and gently brushed a stray strand of dark hair from her forehead, leaving a faint smudge of your own moisture on her smooth skin. “Let it wait until morning, love. The chem-barons aren’t going anywhere tonight. And neither are we.”

Caitlyn looked back at you, her eyes softening, the fierce intensity of a moment ago replaced by a tender, loving affection. “You’re right,” she sighed, a hint of weariness returning to her voice, but now tinged with a deep contentment. “It can wait. Everything can wait.”

She reached out, her hand finding yours, her fingers intertwining with yours, her grip strong and reassuring. “Come,” she murmured, her gaze softening further. “Let’s go back to bed. Let me hold you properly this time, without the distraction of paperwork… or gravity-defying acrobatics on my desk.”

You smiled, a genuine, heartfelt expression that reached your eyes. “Sounds perfect.”

[lillyjen]

AI generation may use less energy than photoshop on your computer, but that's because the images aren't generated on your computer. The statistics on water & power usage refer to the vast supercomputers/databanks that do the actual number-crunching, & do actually require that much energy, whether you think it "sounds real" or not.

As for becoming more efficient over time, that doesn't really hold true for large data processing centers, because of physics:

Electricity is a type of energy. When energy is transferred (e.g. through a circuit), some of it is lost as heat energy. The better the transfer mechanism (e.g. circuit), the less heat is lost, but it is impossible to eliminate this loss altogether. This is why electronics get hot.

When heat is already involved, the transfer becomes less efficient, because the existing heat makes it easier for more energy to convert itself into heat energy, rather than whatever energy its supposed to be being used as. The hotter it gets, the more heat is lost, slowing down the energy transfer more & more, until it eventually stops working. This is why overheating is the enemy of electronics.

Because you cannot stop electronics producing heat, & the more heat you have in one place, the more heat is produced, having a lot of electronics in one place produces a lot of heat very fast. The more electronics you have, the more heat is produced, the less efficient they become. It doesn't matter how efficient the individual electronics are, this still holds true. (Well, it does matter, in that they will still be more efficient than the same number of less efficient electronics, but the rule of "the more electronics you have in one place, the less efficient they will be", still holds true.)

As for the water "just passing through the system" or "evaporating",

a) does it pass repeatedly through the system? Once the water is heated (by doing its job as a cooling agent) it then needs to be cooled in turn. Rather than ending up with an infinite string of cooling systems, the most efficient way to do this would be to remove that water from the system (sending it to be reprocessed) & replacing it.

b) every time water is used for one purpose, it must be reprocessed before it can be used for another purpose. Yes, even if it evaporates & falls as rain (which is something we have no control over, & also means that the water that evaporates from one place & falls elsewhere as rain, must be piped/pumped back to the place it evaporated from/it is needed). When we are talking about water being wasted, we are acknowledging the fact that this processing requires time, labour, various chemical agents, & many other resources. No, technically the water itself isn't "wasted", since it still exists ~somewhere~, but the fact that we are unable to access it whilst it is being processed (or floating around in the atmosphere) means the net result is the same.

c) There aren't 16floz in the system. There are gallons & gallons of water in the system. (Gallons & gallons that cannot be used for drinking, bathing, watering crops, etc. Gallons that are not currently part of the water cycle.) 16floz (roughly half a litre) is how much is used Per AI image. That's a lot. (Especially as prompts often generate multiple images. If a single prompt produces 4 images, that's close to 2 litres. If you then decide to refine the prompt....)

(Bonus reason data centers need cooling: environmental factors. Such large centers need a lot of land, & wide, flat expanses of land are often found in deserts, i.e. hot places. Others are built in cities, on ready-cleared land, which are also places that generate a lot of heat.)

I don't think it would be challenging to make an image generator that "respects copyright" (you could train it on public domain art and photos but you could also license massive libraries of stock photos and TV shows and book/album covers etc. from the media companies that hold the rights to them) and I think the existence of such a generator would not lead people currently mad about AI to suddenly be cool with it because it's really not about copyright.

[occamstfs]

AL:IV Everycop

Streamers everywhere have a chance to try out Auto Larceny: IV before it drops. After being forced into playing as a police officer in game Ethan Davies finds himself fitting the shoes more by the second.

Back to a longer story here's my take on a Cop TF- Sorta sucked into a video game Ethan rapidly becomes an ephemeral everyman of a cop! MG, mental change, and corruption abound! Hope you enjoy! -Occam

Auto Larceny: IV was supposed to be the game of the year. It wasn’t Ethan Davies’ standard fare but the streamer simply couldn’t miss out on the revenue bubble that’s sure to occur when the game first drops. Honestly he wasn’t sure why he got an early access copy of the game but he’s so early in his career that any shortcut to get ahead had to be taken. Still, he’d need to familiarize himself with the game before going straight to streaming it, which is where things began to go off kilter.

The intro cinematic to the game was fairly rote, the franchise was so massive that even disinterested parties were aware of the tone and gameplay. Ruffians driving down the sidewalk being chased by helicopters, wide shots exploring some amalgam of every city in California, drag racing down every major thoroughfare, Ethan was well familiar with the action movie parody tone of the world despite having not picked up the remote to play any game in the franchise before now.

Expectecting to click through menus and make his character, Ethan is surprised to instead be greeted by roulette wheel and a message: ‘In this edition of AL player characters and story modes will be randomly assigned to keep the game fresh! After completing story mode feel free to start New Game+ where you can choose from any of the hundreds of hand-crafted player characters!’ Ethan grimaces, quite a lot to ask of the player to jump into a rpg with absolutely no choice as to who you’re playing. It really doesn’t seem on brand to take player agency totally out of the players hands and there are certainly a good number of roles that he personally would prefer not to play.

Still, contract signed, he does need to stream the game at some point. Tired of being waylaid from playing the game proper he quickly clicks through terms of service and gameplay warnings, accidentally mashing himself right into rolling the wheel of AL:IV characters. Druglords, regressive women, and larger than life drag racers rush past in a circle as the wheel begins to slow with an sonically unpleasant clicking sound. Almost stopping it slowly twirls past Mike Malone-Midtown Vigilante before it slowly rolls onto, Emile Brighton-Billionaire Playboy. He purses his lips thinking how both of these experiences sound pleasant enough before the wheel clicks forward one final time. Ethan immediately clicks his own tongue and complains, “Oh what the fuck. Literally who is this in the game for…” Ethan has been assigned the role of Peter Clarkson-Cop.

Before the game has a chance to explain who his character is Ethan decides in no uncertain terms that he’s not playing as a pig in AL:IV. This game is infamously about playing criminals and ruffians. Even ignoring his IRL issues with the police he wasn’t about to spend any amount of his life walking in their shitty shoes. He resets the system and waits for the game to power back on so he may take another spin of the wheel. They know their fanbase, there literally has to be a way to game the game to play as who you want. 

In the meantime Ethan browses his phone while the system begins starting up once more. Oddly enough he sees a few fellow streamers already tweeting about their time in the game which is more than a little surprising. Even more peculiar, a few of them seem to be putting on affectations to shill for the game? Even some of the straighter shooters are getting into characters Ethan couldn’t imagine them choosing to do. Seeing his friend and fellow streamer Chris Walters tweeting like a surfer bro Ethan scratches his chin wondering if he accidentally missed some bizarre lines in the contract he signed to do promo for the game.

No time to worry about that now though, as his game is finally spinning up once more. The AL:IV logo flashes red and blue as a siren blares and the intro begins once more. Only this time, the whole cinematic seems to have a decidedly more cop-forward tone. Opening in what is unmistakably a police cruiser there's a laptop jutting out from the dash with lines of text soaring past. The thick, suspiciously veiny arm of the driver clenches at a wheel as he chases a speedy scofflaw down the road before following the reckless driver onto the beach. He hears a deep raspy voice bark orders from a receiver on his belt which he quickly yanks to his mouth to shout his own mumbo-jumbo into.

Before the second frame hits Ethan is filled with a desire to shut the game down yet again. Unfortunately, before he can act on that instinct of self-preservation his attention is irrevocably drawn to the cinematic as if he’s possessed. Finding it more engaging than any piece of copaganda he’s seen before, Ethan is completely rapt as he sees the patrol car slide to a stop on the beach, somehow creating a steam trail against the sand. The camera twirls before zooming in onto a figure eating a donut sitting on the hood of his car. Ethan can’t quite make out any details of the man’s face, it’s ephemeral and yet every shifting angle and foggy detail is unmistakably masculine and powerful. He hears the officer’s voice shout Auto Larceny VI, Officer Peter Clarkson reporting for duty.

“Okay. Well I’m not playing this.” He says, shaking off his delirium as he wanders through menus and looks for the way to delete whatever paltry save date that has him pegged to play Officer Clarkson. He pauses for a second slightly shocked that he’d refer to the character by his title rather than take another jab at the pig, er, cop. He exhales from his nose and chides himself, joking about how taken his subconscious must be with the vaguely hot parody of a parody of a cop. Ethan then scoffs as he successfully navigates through the deliberately obfuscated settings to find the ‘Erase All Data’ button greyed out.

Growing rapidly irate at the game doing everything it can to put him in the leather shoes of a man he’d never deign to play as, Ethan dials the customer support number given to him by the developers in the hopes they’ll help him out. He taps his foot impatiently as he hears jarring ambient noise from the game, rather than kitschy hold music. Eventually as sirens blare he groans and accelerates his tapping, unaware that he has begun to sweat as the temperature begins to unnaturally rise in his room. The noise from his phone similarly  begins to increase, or at least it seems it does which only exacerbates the man’s nerves. Feeling his shirt begin to grow damp from sweat and stick to his back he discards it and begins whinily cursing to himself. 

“God why did I even agree to play this shit! I knew it was a bad idea.” Head in hands his glasses begin to steam as his body grows warmer with each passing second of irritation at the game and himself for agreeing to stream it. Before his sour mood could develop any further he flinches back like a loaded spring at the sound of a representative from the company. Shouting once more in shock as his body releases tension he was shocked to find himself carrying at such a low-stakes moment, “Fuck!”

There’s a moment of pause before the voice on the other end speaks up once more, her voice robotic and  uncaring, “Excuse me Sir, this is Kayleigh Moore with AL:IV did you need assistance with your copy of the game?” Ethan’s face tinges red with embarrassment, coupled with his already burning body his eyes almost water as he clears his throat to answer, “Uhm so sorry about that, Miss.” He tilts his head at reflexively calling her Miss, “I was wondering if there was a way to start over, I think my copy’s glitched out or something?” Kayleigh quickly responds, “Of course, for the record is this Pethan Clavies?” 

Ethan pulls the phone away from his ear, her calling him Pethan was unmistakable. Still it’s not like she’s going to pull his leg right? She’s on the clock, it must just be a genuine mistake, “So sorry Mi- Kayleigh, did you say Pethan?” emphasizing the out of place P. “That’s right sir.” Ethan rolls his eyes, obviously that’s not a name, let alone his name, he clears his throat again to hide his still present irritation, “No, my name is Pethan, Pethan Clavies.” Tonelessly she responds, “Right sir. That is what I said.” Pethan’s voice catches in his throat. That’s not. He’s not? God it’s so fucking hot in here.

Getting lost in his head for a few seconds Kayleigh, ever cordial and acting on information Pethan clearly doesn’t have, she gets back to work. “So sorry Mr. Clavies but unless you have a genuine problem with your game I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do. Enjoy your day officer.” Mr. Clavies. Officer. Pethan fights the urge to throw his phone against the wall before realizing how out of sorts he must be right now. I mean, he forgot his name Pethan after all. Even now thinking that to himself, his neck reflexively clenches and one of his eyes slams shut as a headache stings. 

Then it hits him. He’s burning up, drowning in sweat and has hair trigger rage. All signs suggest that he’s just come down with a fever. One he wanted to take out on that poor chick, er. God what’s up with him. Still, he sighs in relief at figuring it out, some tension leaves him though he is still racked with soreness. Stretching an arm he finds the pleasurable burn that usually follows workouts. Or that would follow his workouts, he’s not really one to workout. He thinks. Walking to go sleep off the fever he scratches at his chest and halts as he feels muscle at all where there should be none. Furrowing his brow he sprints to the restroom and clasps at his mouth when he sees his figure.

God he looks fucking hot. Something swimming through his mind knows this can’t be right, it must be the fever. But as he feels rows of sweaty abs under his fingers how could he dispute the evidence. Scratching at chest hair spreading towards his nipples and a treasure trail now inching well past his belly button he struggles to understand how his fever is also making him hairier. Nor too does he understand the dark green stains on his arms that seem like tattoos he’s never gotten. Mmm they must just be bruises he’s missed, convincing himself just enough as he flexes a new bicep at himself in the mirror and begins to chub up.

Somewhere in his fever-ridden head a streamer still kicks around and, unsure if he can trust his own eyes, he takes out his phone to snap a pic of his hard new body. He groans as he wonders who he should send it to. Stumbling to his bed his mind produces an answer, who else but his fellow streamer Chris Walters. He mumbles as his body temp continues to rise, “Chris’ll- huh?” Checking his contacts he struggles to find his friend. In fact a number of his online friend’s contacts seem to have changed, he shakes his head and his clumsy fingers accidentally click on the number for Chase Waves. Oh duh. He laughs at himself, embarrassed for having forgotten his friend’s name, before sending the shirtless selfie off and collapsing into his bed. Swiftly conking out in a pool of his own sweat and snoring as drool snakes out of his mouth onto a cheek that will be itchy by morning.

Indeed he woke up scratching a sweat and drool covered beard that he shouldn’t be able to grow in a million years. His hand briefly gets stuck in the thick new tangle on his face before he wrenches it out with a crunch. Before his eyes are open he stretches, moaning as his bones have put on years of aging and over a foot of height overnight. Consciousness slowly loading into his heavier new body he feels his meatier hands bump against the wall and his sock-torn feet hanging off the edge of the bed. “Bwugh, wuzzat!” He shouts alarmed at nothing as he sits up with a start in his bed, rubbing his thinned hairline and scratching at a treasure trail as thick as his pubes. 

Pethan stumbles to his feet, his head throbbing with a headache as he adjusts to his new height and struggles to ignore new instincts boring their way through his mind. His hand yearns to reach for something on his belt only for him to scoff at himself. He’s of course not wearing a belt, having only gone to sleep in his compression shorts. He ignores his bulging dick and heavy balls to instead check the phone sitting on his bedside table, barely remembering he texted Chase through the haze of his mind.

Checking again he smirks as he sees the picture of himself he sent, “Heh always a stud.” Pethan ignores that he apparently sent this message in a dating app rather than as a standard text. So too is he unable to realize the picture displays him a completely different man than when he went to bed, and even further away than what any image he should recognize as himself. Any conclusions on the matter that could be made however are shelved as he tears his eyes away from admiring himself to see Chase’s response, “Heyyy Brah~ Huhuh, u know what i think fckr!! ACAB LMAOOO good luck finding sum other sucker 2 fuck pig”

Indignation burns bright in Pethan’s chest as he grumbles at the message, anxiety at getting this message from his, uh his friend? He thought they were friends? Pethan furrows his brows and groans at the mismatch, his voice sinking lower as his eyes keep rereading the surfer’s dimwitted message. His hands clench and veins pulse larger as his arms threaten to grow even larger in his rage. Two diametric ideas vie for dominance in his mind, the former just falling short, an angry yet self-pitying ‘upstanding citizens can’t get any dick anymore!’ loses out to the realer concern burning through Pethan Clavies’ mind. One that he shouts at the top of his larger lungs, “I’m not a fucking cop!” Forcing his hands down to his side in a petulant manner he springs up yet another inch in height and is struck lightheaded from the vertigo.

Pointedly moving on from his being shot down by a degenerate he isn’t sure he could label a friend anymore, Pethan stumbles into his living room in search of something. What exactly? He isn’t quite sure. Digging through his mind what for only brings confusion to the forefront, just need a cup of joe and a donut, he shakes it off and grimaces. Need a protein shake before the gym. Need my uniform and my service pist-. Jaw cramping from how hard he’s clenching it to put down these thoughts the, perhaps still, streamer turns on a speaker to blare out the voices in his head as his deeper breaths begin to give way to hyperventilation. Pethan turns into his streamer room which unfortunately brings him no peace. 

His eyes glaze over as they alight on the game, AL:IV still playing. Somehow in the meantime it has abandoned the looping intro video and begun playing proper. The officer he was penned to play as idles in the lobby of the police station as Pethan unconsciously meanders towards the screen. He is less than aware of his movements as he goes to pick up the controller, his clumsier sausage fingers accidentally pause the game, bringing up the character’s stats menu. The first thing he reads is the character’s name: Officer Petan Clarison. His whole body twitches as he instinctively reads it and feels it overwrite his identity once more. That’s not what it said yesterday was it? Well of course it is, he typed in his own name didn’t he?

His head twitches to the side as a wave of old memories are now locked behind his new reality. Unaware of this Pethan endeavors to grasp something hard of his past self to hold onto. Unfortunately any attempt just releases a brief stabbing pain, almost to deliberately discourage Petan to dig deep enough to remember himself. Looking across his stats he finds himself quickly losing interest in the game despite his being unnaturally drawn to it. His eyes glaze over as he looks at his low intelligence, something inside him says he usually maxes that out. After a pause he questions that. When would he have ever even done that before? He’s not even that much of a gamer is he? His neck twitches again as if some neuron tries to fire but can no longer connect. 

He shrugs moving on to see low charisma as well. Petan grimaces before deciding who needs charisma when you have authority. Pride burns in him as he puffs up his chest. Were he wearing a shirt the noise of straining fabric would surely sound as burgeoning pecs begin to bulge. He doesn’t need to persuade or to sway, he simply needs to state. His words are. He is the Law. Or, god. No. He groans as he finds his ability to dispute the assertion increasingly tenuous, “I’m not a fucking pi- not a p- not an, urgh, police officer.” He clenches his jaw finding himself not even able to call himself a pig. Or no, cops at all pigs. Not himself. Cause he’s not, he’s not a cop.

Petan forces his attention back to the game with a good deal of effort as the loud sounds and bright lights begin to actively deter his interest. His investment absolutely does a 180 however when he sees his strength stat not maxed out. Seeing red and exhaling in indignation he looks down at his own body compared to the one slowly spinning on the screen and sneers. Why does he look like a shrimpy little punk. Ignoring the dozens of pounds of muscle he’s put on thus far, Petan quickly tosses the controller down, done with stupid games forever as he makes for the nearest gym.

Keys in a bowl on the counter shine and glisten, somehow asking to be picked up and he thinks about grabbing them before feeling existential fear at discovering what they might unlock. He convinces himself it’s better to get cardio in on the way anyway, god knows he’s not going to step foot on a treadmill. Sprinting out the door he sees a black and white Challenger and his cock pulses at the sight. Before any further thoughts, or other substances, can spill at seeing the vehicle. His vehicle? He grunts and tears his eyes away from the pristine cruiser and sprints away, clearly hard cock bouncing in his athletic shorts. Off to the races Petan purses his lips wondering if he knows where the nearest gym is actually?

Oh, well there’s the one at the station? Groaning to himself at  how quickly that idea sprung to his mind he picks up speed running towards a building with a massive veiny bicep hanging over the door. Hands adroitly cutting the air in front of him as if he were chasing a perp, ugh, running for fun, expertly. As one does. He forces his lips into a tight line as a mustache grows thicker out of his beard and tattoos stretch further across his large arms. He feels something shift in himself as he crosses the threshold into the gym. His beard thinning into stubble as his face shifts and hardens. More importantly his body begins to surge larger, straining his workout attire before he even touches a weight.

Petan stretches at the entrance, seemingly deliberately blocking the doorway as his body rapidly puts on weight simply from entering the gym. Once again immediately damp with sweat his chest packs on weight. Hitherto present but undefined mounds on his chest become two massive muscled pecs, apparently recently shaved. Scratching at his now stubbled face he wonders where his beard went, mumbling something to himself about regulation before he saunters into the gym. Taking wide steps as he adjusts his gait for the heavier package dangling loosely in his athletic shorts. 

He takes a deep sniff in the air which makes his cock even more noticeable as the musk of the gym brings him pleasure immeasurable. The massive man ambles around the place, hooking his thumbs into the elastic band of his shorts, sneering as he feels there should be something harder there, something leather keeping his pants tight above his admirable defined ass. Grumbling to himself as he meanders about the gym as if he owns the place, ogling at the other burly men working out. All of them seem vaguely familiar, and jarringly stereotypical. Burly men wearing oil stained wife beaters arguing at the free weights, playboys with platinum blonde hair pouring water over themselves on ellipticals, some greasy hackers in the corner seemingly out of place, though they’re decidedly more shredded than any man in the van should be.

Petan fights the urge to assert himself over these groups. His chest thrums as he forces his legs to still as there’s a desperate pull to go brawl with the rowdy men. To force the suave white collar criminals if they don’t fork over some cash to him. To just go shout at the mousy sure to be cybercriminals and hope they piss themselves. He sneers at the idea and is really only held back from doing any of them by the desire to do all of them. The rising lust for action, to dominate and enact his rotten will trips whatever sense of self, whatever shreds of Ethan remain and he shakes his head, eyes widening at how much he seems to be losing himself as he feels a weight growing in the pocket of his athletic shorts. 

His eyes then light on another perp, er, civilian. One he knows without a doubt. He sees Chase Waves and nods his head. Keys jingle in his pocket as he swiftly heads over to the man, something deep within him, growing deeper by the second, suggests that is a man he can trust. Seeing the hulking figure saunter over, chest forward, Chase rolls his eyes and puts up his guard. Head down and smile uneasy he speaks up before Petan can issue an order, “Heyy brah, er officer.” Flinching back as he feels treating the man before him with anything but respect would break bad quick.

Petan furrows his brow at this odd intro. Why is this man so on edge? His lips twitch as instinct swirl, he’s my friend, or was my friend, right? Why does he not trust me. Various muscles within the no-longer streamer twitch and grow as he begins to lose whatever ground remains. The surfer must have done something wrong. Petan’s body inches taller, wider, veins bulge down arms as they bulk. His chest presses against his workout shirt as it begins to darken. 

Sleeves quickly appear as the garment shifts black. He grunts as a collar presses out of the neckline before performatively clearing his throat and speaking up, his voice dry and perpetually on edge, “Why’re you so nervous son?” His hair straightens into station standard as he sneers down at the surfer who audibly gulps. He feels his shorts begin to hug his ass and crotch as the fabric grows rigid, thickening as they expand and lengthen down his defined calves.

Waves responds, “We’re just uh, surprised you’re here is all uhhh, sir? Usually your type keeps to the station unless there’s trouble.” Trouble. Petan’s jaw hardens and widens as he looks down at the man, his tennis shoes rapidly thickening into a dark shined leather as the heels raise him even higher over this obvious delinquent. He clears his throat as he feels the cotton sleeves of his workout shirt grow firm and hug his massive biceps. Flexing just to hear his arms strain the tight sleeves he hears fabric tear down the whole front of his shirt as his pecs burst it wide open. Just as soon as his now hairy chest is exposed, buttons pop into existence and struggle to close it back up, still hugging impossibly tight. Trouble. What is there in this gym other than trouble.

Still wordlessly staring he can’t help but feel delight at the discomfort he has evoked in the typically chill surfer bro. Living a life almost deliberately to avoid men like Petan and yet, face to face what can he do. His memory lights to this morning when this twerp DM’d him ACAB, is he just going to let the punk say that to him? Petan’s brow hardens as his shoulders hunch and his back widens. One hand clenched at his side ready to reach for something on his waist that’s not there, the other scratching at his stubbled, or no, bearded face?

Seeing sweat trail down the blonde’s tanned face as he almost shivers in fear of the cop backing him into a corner, some impossibly frail shred of conscience cries out and fills Clarison with disgust at his domineering actions. Fear in his own eyes Petan steps back which only sets Chase more on edge. The surfer bumps into some equipment as he backs away. Hands raised as he speaks up and eyes an escape route, “Ah sorry for the trouble officer! Hope you have a pleasant day!” He sprints off into the locker room and Petan turns to see the commotion he’s raised, every patron in the gym now turns to look at him scowling. His hands once more go to his waist only this time he finds the leather belt he has been so craving to wear.

Biting his lip as weight begins pulling the belt down at every angle he struggles between pleasure and fear as bulky black items begin to appear from nowhere on his belt. Each new yank on the belt fills him with contentment as he finally has the tools of his trade, pepper spray, his trusty taser, his receiver. He audibly moans as he feels the weight of his service pistol finally arrives on the scene. Anyone keeping even half an eye on the officer would see his cock throb through his uniform pants as he does so.

Standing in the gym moaning in delight and struggling not to fondle his crotch only draws more attention to the out of place cop. Men as large as himself begin to rise across the gym and eye the officer with suspicious and disdain. Knowing when it’s time to beat feet Petan makes a note to rub one out later, when he uh? Gets back to the station? Twitching larger as he lets that slide without dispute he shakes off his masturbatory plans and sets to the crowd. Petan shouts over the din of clanking weights with bluster and authority that shall never leave his tongue again, “Yew all can return to yer business. Keep it clean and we’ll have no trouble.” He makes a decidedly not commanding expression as he looks so uncomfortable at the volume and weight of his words. Despite this everyone seems to listen and obey, cock throbbing once more as he sprints out the door, new car keys already in hand.

He clicks the keys and his pristine patrol car sounds off, he hops in the Challenger the station yoinked from some drag racer and speeds off. There’s a badge hanging from the rearview, P. Clarkson. Peter without a thought or hesitation yanks it off and throws it on, comfort filling him as he feels he just found the final missing part of himself. Leather seat creaking under him as his huge form shifts larger yet again, clearly unhealthy veins bulge down his arms as he speeds down a thoroughfare, unconcerned with the other drivers as he goes to the only place he can think of. The only place that matters to him. The station.

His face shifts yet again as he enters a different part of the city, smiling as he nears what may as well be his home. It is his home. Tattoos shift in the same ephemerality that apparently encompasses the whole of his form. Some other scofflaw runs a red light and his hand flashes to press a button that activates his sirens. Shaking head to stay on target he instead uses the sirens to run the red light himself before simply keeping on his way to the station. Each inch closer he finds himself drifting permanently away from the streamer he once was. Good riddance he thinks, twerp probably pirated games anyway.

Theme music from AL:IV begins playing from his game stereo and he smacks it until it begins playing the theme of Officer Peter Clarkson, that of the police force as a whole. Shifting in his seat as his bulge hardens and fills his pants and his butt forces him to sit higher in the seat. Officer Clarkson swerves across lanes and finally pulls into the station, expertly drifting to a stop. His eyes take a few seconds to adjust as he hops out of his car, as if the world were loading in around him. He gets out to sit on the hood of his car and his form shifts again. Body mind and face becoming one of a million combinations that Peter Clarkson is to embody. In the game Officer Clarkson doesn’t quite matter. He’s a grunt. He’s a sheriff, he’s the chief. He is whatever the role the force needs to fill, and some unfortunate sod had to take that bullet.

Uniform shifting military green as his torso alone bloats heavier than the whole of Ethan Davies’ body once took up. He thoughtlessly shoves his pistol in his pants for easy access as he goes to sit on his hood and eat a donut as prophesied in the officer’s intro, rather, his introduction cinematic. He sits and waits as the cracks of who Officer Peter Clarkson is begin to fill just enough that he can indeed become anything demanded of him within the world of AL:IV. Oozing authority and dripping with unearned condescension his mind goes blank enough be anything from intro mission cannon fodder grunt to the stogy commander of the department as a whole.

Flashes of his programmed life, of his shifting lives, sear through him. Basic enough to fit any dreamed role as needed, thorough enough that anyone who cares enough to inspect the officer would find substance. Officer Peter Clarkson leans back on the hood of his car as he feels his potential, smirking and fondling his bulging package as the hood creaks underneath him. Bad cop, ‘good cop,’ new blood, hardened detective. Brawny, bulky, wiry, wounded. Officer Peter is a blank slate for the programers to work like putty. Each one of course having the chauvinism and fragile masculinity that they saw fit for the character to embody. 

Officer Clarkson feels in his the roles that he is perfect to fulfill. Overtly virile officers to spar with vigilantes and players who prefer to play as seedy criminals. Goody-two-shoes fresh faced straight shooters who step in to apprehend those the good guys wish to see behind bars. Perhaps preferably for the man he once was, the game was rated M for a reason after all and on the more erotic side of things Peter steps in to be the cop stripper that any male-interested players can see fit to ogle or play with to their heart’s content. Perfectly sculpted body speckled with as much or as little body hair as they so choose.

AL:IV is at the cutting edge, a truly living and breathing game. One that is made more perfect with each and every player. Thanks to fame seeking steamers like Ethan eager to immortalize themselves online, the developers have ensured that even the least compelling characters and storylines are teeming with personality. When time comes that the litany of waivers and contracts signed by any parties involved in the making of the game are up, any content creators ready to move on are absolutely free to return to the lives they lived before. Though who knows, at that time AL:V is sure to be right around the corner.

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Here the results of our Rio do Rasto formation stream! A very relaxing piece to do after the high stakes of Hell Creek. This formation is mid Permian in age and preserves a bunch of weirdos from Brazil.

The environment preserved here, in the upper member, shows ephemeral bodies of water, streams and dunes. Despite the desert like conditions a rich flora is also known from here, which sustained quite a few large herbivores.

While the lower member of the formation has a few fish and shark they are nearly absent in the upper strata, pointing to a further aridification. Temnospondyls on the other hand become a common sight as you can see in this size chart by discord member JW.

[posthumanwanderings]

Ephemeral Fantasia - Magic Mirror from: Relaxing PS2 VGM Vol.3  

[vandaliatraveler]

The spring ephemerals, making the most of the warm weather and rain before the canopy closes in May, are pushing hard in the lower elevation woodlands around here. One of the best spots locally to enjoy the spring wildflower bounty is Toms Run Preserve, owned by the West Virginia Land Trust.

From top: Elizabeth's Woods showing a bit of early spring green; sharp-lobed hepatica (Anemone acutiloba, Hepatica acutiloba or Hepatica nobilis var. acuta) and foliage, whose leathery, thrice-lobed leaves give it the common names of liverwort and liverleaf; a scarlet cup fungus (Sarcoscypha coccinea or Sarcoscypha dudleyi), whose luminous fruiting body appears in late winter through early spring; smooth yellow violet (Viola eriocarpa), distinguished from downy yellow violet (Viola pubescens) by smooth stalks and the presence of one or more heart-shaped, basal (base) leaves; early blue cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum) and foliage, whose herbacious, shrub-like habit is one of the most beautiful sights in Appalachia's spring forests; bluntleaf waterleaf (Hydrophyllum canadense), whose mottled, early spring foliage illuminates the dull leaf litter of the forest floor; cutleaf toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) with pink-tinged rather than pure white petals; yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum), whose sprawling colonies in the preserve, spread by clonal reproduction, could be hundreds of years old; azure bluet (Houstonia caerulea), also known as Quaker ladies, whose delicate clumps bounce in the wind along trail edges and in open meadows; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), a member of the poppy family with red, poisonous sap; Toms Run at full flow from recent rains; great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), which forms vast clonal colonies on moist hillsides and along streams; red trillium (Trillium erectum), also known as purple trillium, wake robin, and stinking Benjamin, the latter beause it draws in its primary pollinators - carrion flies and beetles - with the odor of rotting flesh; and rue anemone (Anemonella thalictroides orThalictrum thalictroides), a member of the buttercup family and closely related to hepatica, wood anemone, eastern red columbine, tall thimbleweed, golden seal, and the meadow rues.

[scoutofmymind]

Saw that someone said Luigi’s Reddit had a post where he eluded to a pretty heavy drinking habit in college, which then makes me think about drunk ex!luigi. I’m sorry, but you write angst too well

Unlearn Me — { Luigi x Reader}

Content: SFW, angst, yearning, slight pining, mentions of canon back pain, ex’s reminiscing, heartbreak all over again.

Wc: 4,336 (holy shit)

Notes; Two semesters of carefully crafted distance crumbles at 3AM in the computer lab when your final project implodes hours before the deadline, leaving you with no choice but to seek help from the one person you've been avoiding since the breakup.

Before we continue, I cannot ignore that wildfires continue to ravage Los Angeles, countless families have lost their homes and livelihoods. I urge you to consider supporting those affected through any of these donation links, additionally, Roadogs on Instagram is looking for fosters for mass evacuations of shelter dogs in California.

Foster or donate if you can. xo.

Now, let’s go.

"Mother fucker," you curse, attacking your keyboard with increasingly desperate keystrokes.

Each combination might be the one to salvage this disaster, but deep down you know it's hopeless — your software has corrupted itself into oblivion, taking six months of work with it.

"You can ask for an extension," Emma suggests, her voice carrying the weight of exhaustion that matches your own. Your roommate had burst into the media center still wearing her pink silk pajamas, immediately launching into a nervous tirade about after-hours permissions and potential expulsion risks.

Her constant hovering and worrying grates on your last nerve, and you tell her to leave.

Predictably, she refuses.

"Listen, I'm not just gonna leave you here on your own." She leans across your workspace, her body pressing against your laptop screen until it tilts halfway closed. You freeze, fingers suspended above the keys, terrified of losing what little progress you've made in this digital archaeology expedition. "There's - like - a murderer on campus."

"One girl said she was followed home," you gently remind. Under normal circumstances, Emma's mother-hen routine would be endearing — charming, even. But right now, with your project in shambles and deadline looming, her protective hovering feels suffocating. "Not murdered, Em."

"May as well have been." Emma fixes you with that look — the one that screams why am I the only rational person here? While her nails tap nervously against your desk. "Probably hasn't left her room since. And you know what? Smart girl.”

You scrub your hands over your face, your eyes fixed on the projector's word vomit — an endless stream of error messages and unintelligible code painting the drywall from a tired projector like some twisted modern art piece.

Not exactly what you were going for.

Emma stands mesmerized, "How did you even do this?" She watches the cryptic display crawl across the wall, her eyes tracking each line as if she could decode it. "This reminds me of-" she catches herself, the name hanging unspoken between you. She's learned that lesson the hard way. "This is wild.”

You can't help but notice.

Notice how she almost speaks his name, how these meaningless strings of letters and numbers somehow bridge the gap to memories you've tried so hard to bury — promises whispered under star-sprinkled skies, fingers intertwined beneath the cosmic glow.

Moments that felt eternal then, ephemeral now.

Your gaze drifts to your phone, lying face-down like a surrender.

You blink several times, trying to clear the ghosts from your vision before speaking, your voice emerging barely above a whisper, as if the words themselves might shatter something in the air, "Should I text him?" You ask, offering the idea as if it was something too controversial to be spoken aloud.

Emma shifts her weight, both from exhaustion and the sudden weight of responsibility.

Your night's trajectory now rests in her hands — she who has witnessed every shade of you, from triumph to devastation. Her own memories of him surface: the way he'd raid her ice cream stash only to replace it with a premium pint the next day, how he'd tackle the dish mountain without prompting, those small gestures that made him feel like family.

"He was my favorite boyfriend of yours," she'd told you once, in a moment of wine-honest conversation. "He was a good boy."

A good boy who made a couple mistakes.

But those mistakes had compounded like interest on a debt you never agreed to pay, until the rift between you and Luigi widened into an ocean.

Everything good had been pulled out with the tide — your trust, your shared future — swept away to depths where no light could reach.

"I-" Emma's hand finds the back of her neck, her expression cycling through a slideshow of conflicted emotions. You can see her internal struggle; the desire to crawl into her bed warring with her loyalty to you. And she knows you well enough to realize you'd stay here until sunrise if necessary. "I mean — babe, I love you, but you can't fix this." The admission seems to pain her, as if acknowledging your limitations feels like betrayal. "We aren't techies."

You stare helplessly at your gutted gallery, stripped bare by your own accidental digital vandalism. Your artwork, your portfolio, your future — all reduced to incomprehensible strings of code projected onto an indifferent wall.

"Do you think he'd come?" The question escapes before you can stop it, your eyes magnetized to your phone as if your stare alone could resurrect that old text thread, buried beneath months of careful silence.

"Of course he would."

A soft, defeated whine escapes you as you turn back to glare at your corrupted work, as if you could intimidate it into fixing itself through sheer force of will.

Emma's voice softens, "Hey, he's mature enough to understand you've exhausted your options."

A violent shudder runs through you at the thought of Luigi being your last resort.

You'd managed to exile the visceral memories — the heated arguments that left you gasping for air, the promises that turned to vapor in the morning light.

"Which are?"

Emma looks down at her Pokemon-clad self, then back at you. "Me." She gestures vaguely in your direction, "and you."

The campus sleeps around you, everyone else lost to their dreams or late-night calls home. Just the two of you remain, trapped in this dimly-lit purgatory on a Wednesday night, while error messages mock your existence with their endless scroll.

"Slim pickin's," you mutter as your fingers betray you, finding Luigi's contact with muscle memory that refuses to die.

How many times had you pressed these same digits before?

But this is different.

Different because you haven't spoken since that night in your kitchen, when you stood with your back to him, voice steady despite the trembling in your hands, "So, we aren't going to try to figure this out?" You asked, and he’d responded with some pretentious comparison about your relationship being like corrupted code, fundamentally flawed, destined to fail its own quality test.

The irony isn't lost on you — the very metaphor he used to end things is now the thread that might pull you back into his orbit. Your only connection besides the elaborate dance of avoidance across campus, treating each other's paths like holy ground neither dares to tread.

Opening the thread, you're greeted by your last exchange — your final words to him blazing across the screen in angry blue bubbles: "I want my fucking shit back or I'll make your life a living hell." Such poetry. Your new message hovers in the text box, simpler, desperate in its brevity.

Hey need help with somethin. U up??

You thrust your phone at Emma like it's burning your fingers, watching her eyes widen as they catch on those months-old texts — digital artifacts of your rage that should have been scrubbed before tonight's desperate plea. "Jesus," she whispers, amusement dancing in her expression. "I'd still be licking my wounds if I were hi-"

The familiar buzz cuts through the air, a notification chime that once made your heart leap but now makes it sink.

"What'd he say?" You mumble, gaze fixed on the mocking projection that bathes the room in its sickly digital glow, code continuing its relentless march across the wall.

Emma settles into a chair, hunching over your laptop's makeshift altar. "Said he's at Ruddy's." She squints at a fresh message. "He said 'what do you want?'" She deepens her voice into a cartoonish baritone, making him sound like a caveman discovering text messaging for the first time.

You can't blame him for the cold response — you’d scorched that earth thoroughly.

But a selfish part of you wants to delete the whole exchange, pretend this moment of weakness never happened, go back to the careful choreography of avoiding each other's existence.

But you can't.

The corrupted gallery looming on the wall is a stark reminder that pride is a luxury you can't afford right now.

His icy reception is the natural consequence of your scorched-earth campaign, those venom-laced messages sent in the throes of heartbreak and confusion.

You'd played the role of the woman scorned perfectly, even though you'd written your own tragic script.

"Just send him a picture." You wave listlessly at the wall, where your work continues its digital decomposition, folding in on itself like a dying star. The error messages stretch into an endless serpent of nonsense, each iteration making less sense than the last.

The artificial shutter sound of Emma's photo breaks the silence, followed by the soft swoosh of sending. The wait feels eternal until-

Ding

Emma's attention snaps to your phone resting on her thigh, her eyes widening. "He's typing like he-"

Sorry;m,, I’m fucked uo

Up

I am

fucked up

Emma clicks her tongue and rises, crossing the room to lob your phone into your lap, screen up. "Guess some things don't change." You manage a weak half-grin, memories flooding back unbidden — Luigi stumbling into your dorm in the small hours, wrapped in whiskeys warmth, all soft edges and desperate hands.

"Well, make up your mind." Emma's yawn threatens to unhinge her jaw, arms wrapping around herself like armor. "Are we done here, or are you gonna have him come take a look?"

I’n be there son

I’ll be rherw soo

I’ll be there soon

You stand to wrap your arms around Emma’s shoulders who reluctantly curves her arms upward to squeeze your shoulders. “Go home.” She seems reluctant to listen, staring at your phone screen as if it would take her home itself. “I promise, I’ll be just fine.”

The space between you pulses with that unique warmth reserved for someone who shares your roof, your darkest secrets, and the monthly struggle with Con Edison. "Just don't make any brash decisions."

"Oh, Em." You press a kiss to her forehead. "You think I'm so much cooler than I am."

Emma's laugh follows her as she spins toward the door, collecting pieces of herself like breadcrumbs — the scarf draped over a chair, the coat hung forgotten, the backpack abandoned when the day still held promise.

Each item a marker of how long this digital nightmare has stretched, from sunshine to moonlight.

And as if summoned by cosmic irony, the lab door swings open to reveal Luigi. "Oh - hey, E." The surprise flickers across his face before he schools his features back to neutral.

"Hey, Lu." Her greeting carries the easy familiarity of their old routine, like NPCs in a cozy game exchanging preset dialogue, their paths crossing exactly as programmed.

"You g'na help me with this?"

Emma shakes her head, patting his shoulder as she passes — a gentle handoff. "I did my time." You want to protest, but words fail as you absorb the sight of him, eight months of careful avoidance crumbling in an instant.

"Ahh-" Luigi waves, feigning disappointment through the druken haze. "Need a walk back home?"

Ever the shepherd, guardian of late-night wanderers.

It didn't matter who you were — friend, stranger, ex-lover’s best friend and roommate — his self-appointed mission to ensure everyone's safe return never wavered.

You'd once wondered if it stemmed from some deeper anxiety, his mind unable to rest until every sheep was accounted for in its fold.

Tonight though, the alcohol has mercifully dulled that protective instinct. Emma's potential disappearance into the night ranks lower on his list of concerns than usual, although Emma herself had been the one earlier to warn you of the murderer on campus.

"You still got my location," Emma reminds him — a callback to conversations past, to the day she'd granted Luigi permanent access to her whereabouts, a level of trust you'd wisely withheld.

"Right."

She presses a kiss to her fingers, flashing you a peace sign with the same hand before it briefly lands on Luigi's shoulder. Then she's gone, disappearing into the snow-globe world he'd just stumbled in from. He stands before you now, arms hanging like dead weight, his eyes somehow both wide and narrow.

"Hey," you whisper.

"Hey."

You gesture weakly at the wall where your work writhes in digital agony. "So, uh — remember that time you salvaged Professor Wren’s entire thesis when her drive crashed?"

Luigi's eyes follow your hand, professional interest temporarily overriding the awkwardness. He steps closer, squinting at the corrupted display, "Jesus," he mutters, "what did you do to it?"

"Would you believe me if I said nothing?" The laugh that escapes is more nervous than you'd like. "It just. - it started disintegrating during final checks."

He's already pulling out his laptop, muscle memory from countless late-night tech rescues. The familiarity of it hits you in the chest — how many times had you watched him do this same thing, hunched over his keyboard, bottom lip caught between his teeth in concentration?

"I can try," he says finally, not quite meeting your eyes. "But no promises. When's this due?"

"Tomorrow at nine."

"Of course it is." He drops into the chair beside you, close enough that your elbows almost touch, but enough of a distance to still feel far away. “Okay, walk me through what it's supposed to look like when it's not — uh - whatever this is."

For a moment, Luigi stares at the corrupted display where red pixels bleed and stutter across the wall. His fingers hover over his keyboard, then pause. "Wait. This is your circulatory modeling project? The one you were-“ He cuts himself off, remembering this was before the eight months of silence.

"Yeah." You swallow. "It was working perfectly until an hour ago. Real-time hemodynamics, pressure differentials, vessel elasticity. Everything." Your voice cracks slightly on the last word, feeling more helpless when you verbalize it.

He nods, already typing with uncanny precision despite the slight sway in his posture. "Show me the base code. Did you save any backups?"

"Three. All corrupted." You lean forward, careful not to crowd him as you pull up the mangled files. "It's like something got into the core simulation and just - I dunno - started rewriting them."

"Hm." His eyes scan the screen with that laser focus he somehow maintains no matter how much he drinks, that familiar furrow appearing between his brows. "These values are cascading. One corrupted variable triggering a chain reaction through the whole system." He glances at you, slightly overshooting before correcting. "When's the last time it ran correctly?"

You check your phone. "6:43 PM. I have a screen recording from then."

"Good. That's good." He pulls up a second window, his typing still flawless even as he reaches with his free hand to steady himself against the desk. "We can compare the execution logs, maybe isolate where it started going wrong." His fingers fly across the keys with a precision that seems to mock his clearly inebriated state, and for a moment, it feels like those eight months never happened. "I'm going to need coffee for this." He looks up at you from where he sat, “Or more booze.”

You land on coffee, your feet carrying you down the familiar path to the kitchenette.

The fluorescent lights flicker dimly at this hour, casting strange shadows across the linoleum, the lab's overpriced espresso machine hums to life under your touch, its gentle whirring a counterpoint to the distant sound of Luigi's typing.

Suddenly you're back in that first year, both of you hunched over at 3 AM, him teaching you the proper way to pull a shot: “You're murdering it, stop torturing the beans”, your quiet laughter echoing through empty halls.

"Got it.” His voice carries down the corridor, slurred but triumphant, snapping you back to present.

You return to find him illuminated by screen-glow, his tie loosened and dark hair disheveled. The paper cup lands in front of him — double shot, one packet of raw sugar.

He doesn't stir it, never has.

Instead, he tips the cup back, and you hear that familiar crunch of sugar crystals between his teeth, a sound that used to drive you crazy, until somewhere along the way it became endearing.

Still, the jumbled code taunts you from the screen, though its chaos seems less threatening now. Under Luigi's touch — steady despite the alcohol — your final project is slowly remembering its original shape.

"You should have texted sooner," Luigi murmurs, tilting his head back to collect the last sugar crystals from his cup. The movement exposes his throat, his collar wrinkled where he's been tugging at it all night.

"Well," you say, watching the way his fingers dance across the keys, each stroke precise despite his obvious intoxication, "takes a minute to swallow something as big as my pride."

The corners of his mouth twitch upward, eyes never leaving the screen where broken code is knitting itself back together under his attention.

"Oh," he huffs out a laugh, the sound low and dangerous in the quiet lab, "I've seen you swallow far bigger things before."

It strikes like summer lightning — quick, bright, and leaving the air charged in its wake. The innuendo lands with no real bite, yet you find your jaw slack, a startled laugh shaking loose from your chest.

"Kidding," Luigi says, his eyes flicking from screen to you and back again. There’s a ghost of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth, softened by the alcohol but still sharp enough to cut. You wave him back to his work, grateful for the blue glow of monitors that hides your flush. "You kinda set that up perfectly, though."

He squints up at the projection where your broken code still bleeds across the wall, letting out a soft grunt of frustration at some digital roadblock. "Just mean — ya know, you could have caught me two beers deep instead of seven."

You shrug a shoulder, watching as the projection slowly crystallizes into something recognizable. "Seems you work better under such conditions."

The lie tastes metallic.

You both know the truth.

Luigi would have come if he was sober as sunrise or drowning in bourbon. Would have come with broken ribs or pneumonia or his heart barely beating. Would have traced these familiar hallways blind, deaf, or dying — because that's what the two of you do.

Have always done.

You've seen him at rock bottom, curled into himself on cold bathroom tiles at midnight, trembling hands pressed against his mouth as if he could physically hold back the pain that wracked his body. Watched him try to explain to puzzled doctors how someone so young could hurt so constantly, the frustration in his voice when they suggested it was all in his head.

You were there through the trials of medications, the nights when existence itself seemed too heavy to bear.

And you've seen him soar; standing tall in that charcoal suit that made him look older, more polished, shaking hands with tech giants who saw in him what you'd always known was there, his future spreading out before him like a golden road, brilliant and boundless.

Now he sits here, seven drinks deep but coding like he's never been clearer, and you realize that maybe both versions are equally true.

Maybe that's what makes him Luigi — the ability to contain multitudes, to be simultaneously broken and brilliant, wounded and wonderful.

He catches you watching him and raises an eyebrow, the gesture slightly delayed, which means you must have been a bit too obvious. "What?"

"Nothing.”

His fingers pause on the keys, and even through the alcoholic haze, his gaze pins you like a butterfly to cork. "No, really. What?" The words have a slight blur around their edges, but his focus is knife-sharp.

You could deflect again, but there's something about 4 AM and code that glows like dying stars that makes honesty feel less dangerous, perhaps you’re finding comfort in the fact that Luigi is drunk, although you’re stone cold sober.

"Just thinking about that time in the Thompson building bathroom." Your voice comes out softer than intended. "When you couldn't stand up, and I had to convince the janitor you had food poisoning."

He doesn't flinch from the memory like he used to.

Instead, his mouth curves into something caught between a smile and a grimace. "You told him it was from the cafeteria." His fingers resume their dance across the keyboard, but slower now. "Got the whole place investigated by health services."

"Yeah, but got us three days off while they checked fucking everything.” you remind him.

"Got me through that week," he corrects quietly, and for a moment, the mask of that brilliant-drunk-techie slips, showing the man underneath who still remembers what it feels like to be held together by nothing but someone else's faith in you.

Then he blinks, and the vulnerability is gone, replaced by that familiar crooked grin. "Though I maintain the cafeteria deserved the inspection anyway."

The projection flickers, another section of code healing itself under his touch, and you wonder if he knows you'd do it all again.

Every bathroom floor, every late-night crisis, every moment of putting him back together - you'd choose it every time.

"Speaking of which," you venture carefully, watching his hands move across the keyboard. "How's the new treatment working?"

His right shoulder shifts in what might be a shrug, but there's a shadow of a real smile playing at his mouth.

Not the sharp, defensive one he wears like armor, but something softer, more genuine. "Six months post-op and I actually slept through the night last week. First time in -“ he pauses, considering, "Fuck, I don't even remember how long."

The admission hangs in the air between you, weighted with the two years of 2 AM phone calls, of nights spent pacing, of pain medications that never quite touched the core of the problem.

Watching him try to code through hands that wouldn't stop shaking.

"Still hurts sometimes," he adds, almost absently. "But it's different now. More like background noise than a scream." His fingers still on the keyboard, and for a moment he looks almost surprised by his own words. "Guess that's what normal people feel like all the time, huh?"

The question carries an edge of wonder, like someone who's lived in darkness suddenly discovering dawn.

You watch him roll his shoulder — a gesture that used to be followed by a wince but now flows smooth and unconscious — and think about how strange it must be, learning to live without constant pain after it's become part of your identity.

"Though I kind of miss having an excuse to drunk-code at 4 AM" he adds, but you both know it's a lie.

The code blurs on the projection as silence settles between you, charged with something that's been building for ages — through bathroom floors and hospital visits, through triumphs and failures, through pain and healing.

The alcohol has stripped away Luigi’s careful boundaries, leaving raw honesty in their place.

"You know," Luigi says slowly, finally turning from the screen to face you fully, "I never thanked you properly. For all of it."

"You don't need to-"

Your diagram pulses back to life, the holographic heart rotating lazily against the wall.

Its red glow bathes the room in a surreal warmth, catching on the sharp angles of Luigi's face, softening them into something almost dreamlike.

The light flickers across his cheekbones, turns his eyes to amber, makes the whole moment feel suspended between reality and imagination.

"I do." His voice is quiet but firm, steadier than someone seven drinks deep should manage. "Because I've been thinking — now that I can actually think clearly without-“he gestures vaguely at his back, at all the years of pain, "I've been thinking about how you're the only constant. The only person who never-“ He trails off.

You lean a little closer, drawn by the vulnerability in his voice. "Never what?"

"Never saw me as broken." He turns himself toward you, and there's something desperate in his eyes, something the alcohol has finally given him the courage to show. "Never treated me like I needed fixing. Just stayed. Through everything."

Your lips part, but the words catch in your throat. He takes your silence as a sign, turning back to the screen with a sharp exhale that might be resignation or relief — you're not sure which would be worse.

"Lu,” you say softly, and something in your voice makes his fingers still on the keyboard. "Look at me."

He does, slowly, like he's afraid of what he might find.

The neon bathes half his face in crimson, leaving the other half in shadow, and you see the moment his carefully constructed walls start to crumble.

"Time hasn’t changed that much about me.” you say, each word deliberate, heavy with meaning.

His breath catches audibly. You watch the impact of your words ripple across his face — surprise, understanding, and something else, something that makes your heart race against your ribs.

"Hasn’t it?” Luigi is focusing on you now, the reason he really came here now practically completed but pushed aside until further notice. “Eight months is a long time to hold onto -“ he gestures vaguely between you, as if he can’t quite say what it was. Hopeless devotion, the right person, wrong time.

“Not long enough to forget.”

“Forget what?”

“You.”

His breath catches again, a sharp inhale that seems to pull all the oxygen from the room. When he speaks, his voice is rough and ragged, “Maybe that’s the problem.” His gaze drifts down to watch as you lick your lips, and back up again. “Maybe you should have.”

[devilander]

rain falls in love

homelander x gn reader. fluff, hurt/comfort, mentions of past abuse

Cozy Corner Domaystic: Thunderstorm

You were a light sleeper. Even minor disturbances would wake you instantly; your cat meowing, a neighborhood’s TV turned on, cars passing through the street. Whenever Homelander and you slept together you couldn't help but be slightly envious of how he could turn off the whole world—he slept like a stone, slept like the dead. 

Today, though, you doubted many could sleep through the thunderstorm that split New York’s sky. Each thunder louder than the other, sequences of lightning turning the apartment clear as day. And, courtesy of your boyfriend's gigantic windows, you felt enclosed in the roar of the night. 

For some, it could be an entertaining spectacle; nature's power a soothing balm, a way to make you contemplate how much of your worries were small and ephemeral—in the end, there was only the earth and the rain. 

You could, in theory, see the poetry of it. But all you felt was an overwhelming fear. The loud noises reminded you of your father's booming voice, the cracking of electricity too similar to his heavy hands landing on you. 

John was away, having left a week ago in some undisclosed mission. Undisclosed to the public, of course, because he told you in detail how, actually, he was going to take part in a non-authorized invasion of a terrorist cell. Or so he called it. 

You were alone. Only you and the storm and Popsicle purring in your lap, indifferent to his surroundings. 

After another furious thunder nearly frightening you to death, you decided to call John. Tears streamed down your face and you felt ridiculous—it’s only rain. And yet. 

He probably wouldn't pick up. If he did, he'd be too busy, what could he do?

In the first ring, however, he answered. “Hello, sweet face. Awake at this hour?”

“Oh, it's nothing.” You tried to disguise your sniffles, suddenly beyond embarrassed. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Silence, and then—

“Is it the storm, sweetheart?”

“Yes, yeah. I can't sleep, it keeps reminding me of… you know. I'm sorry for bothering you.”

“Don't you ever apologize to me for that, ever,” he retorted, voice tinged with anger, though you knew it wasn't aimed at you. 

“Can we—” Another thunder, and this time you yelped, scaring Popsicle so that he ran to hide under the bed. “God, I hate this,” you whimpered. “I just want you here. I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too, you precious thing. Fuck, this is bullshit. A fucking week here and we accomplished shit. They sent me the most incompetent team of motherfuckers, I'm up my ass with their whining and ‘but sir, mister Edgar said we should be cautious’.”

You laughed. “Sounds like a trifle.”

“Ugh, fucking tell me about it. A week without you for this bullshit. Y’know what, I'm out. Hold on there, honey, I'll be with you in a moment.” 

And he hung up. And the storm raged on, but you felt a giddy warmness settling on you. 

Not before long, he barged in, completely wet, but you couldn't care less. You ran to his arms, letting the raindrops seep through your clothes as tangible proof of his devotion. 

“You didn't need to come.”

“Ah, but I promised, didn't I? I'll be with you anytime you need me, and you need me now, don't you?”

You giggled, forgetting all about the fears. It was washed over. “I do. And you need a hot bath.”

“Hmph. You too, little baby. C’mon, join me.”

You sat behind him in the tub, washing his hair, enjoying every second of this quiet moment. He moaned at the contact and squeezed your thigh as it circled his waist. 

If the storm was a demonstration of nature's power, John was both its likeness and antithesis—he himself was a force to be reckoned with, an amalgamation of sheer strength and might. Created by men, but a victim of them. You could understand that, quite intimately.

He gave you security in his power, and you gave him peace in your tenderness—the value of a whisper to a snowbank. 

“John,” you whispered. “I love you. I'll keep you forever, because you belong to me and I to you. Will you let me?”

You felt, more than you saw, his deep breath, swallowing back tears you knew were spilling down his cheeks. You didn't care what they said, what he did looking back in anger, because this was the only truth. 

“Yeah…” He choked up, but soldiered on. “Yeah, my love. I'm never letting you go. I fucking love you to pieces.”

As you lay in bed together you decided—in the end, there was only he and you. 

[clara-maybe-ontheroad]

Thank you @waitmyturtles , and the first part of your post is exactly why I'm struggling to write meta about this show even if I so badly want to.

I feel like I know these people.

They're too real, and it's hard to analyze them without feeling like I'm potentially projecting people that I actually knew on them and bringing too much personal bias into it.

There is so much drama, huge blow up scenes, yet they kinda go nowhere : the fight in the bar ? Mew breaking up with Top ? Hell even Boston ending up thrown in a pool ? All these scenes end like sure it's a mess but it's also just another day to get through. You keep going because in this chaotic world that's what you do.

And trying to reinvent yourself is just a story you'll share next month like it happened an eternity ago. Sure Mew is feeling all the rage and burning this shit to the ground, he wants to go all scorched earth. But he's not actually destroying anything. He's taking risks, but he's not taking it to the end, he's not willing to ; even with Ray, he knows he can backtrack, and that's why he's going to feel comfortable enough pushing it a bit further.

Again with the ephemerality: so many blow ups that do have real consequences, but people keep on living their lives (ie : running the hostel, going to parties, I think for Top laying on their back getting a blowjob because that's my personal theory for that scene at the end), they keep up with their low level toxicity and their insecurities because that's what you do at that age and it's both a revolution and just another Saturday night.

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 7 ("YOU GOT TO KNOW WHEN TO HOLD 'EM / KNOW WHEN TO FOLD 'EM") EDITION

Whew, baby. Well, I found this episode particularly brutal.

I've been noodling this week on the following theme: the mundanity of toxicity. The everyday-ness of bad in people. I think this episode captured this well (cc @lurkingshan, @neuroticbookworm, and @bengiyo, who all got a little preview of this thinking).

But I caught some other themes in this episode, too, which I'll quickly hit and list:

2) The elements of life, and 3) Gambling.

As a devoted meta writer, writing about Only Friends is hard. Because: I want to think that there's a lot more to what I'm seeing. I am certainly missing cinematic references that Jojo and team are making (I haven't watched Queer As Folk, for instance). Mew's face popping out of the bathtub? That has me wondering if I'm missing a cinematic reference there.

But at the same time, I wonder if by just observing the Only Friends crew, that I'm picking up on enough. When I was in my twenties, living in New York City, going to college...I was still trying to figure people out. I was absolutely SURROUNDED by people, and I couldn't help but think, everyday -- what is it that makes these people tick?

And I found myself regularly shocked at how mean people were. Very often, I'd just be like -- what the actual fuck, why are you trying so hard to be a massive dick? And, who knows -- maybe people were thinking the same thing about me.

That was when I was young. I just -- I didn't know that much about people. Really, what I didn't know -- and what I really NEEDED to know, and what I learned about myself in that decade and the next -- was how to manage myself around anybody, so as to preserve myself from any unpredictable pain that might come from someone else. In other words... I needed to fucking grow up.

Part of that self-management was trying on identities. Could I fake being a stronger person? Sure, I definitely tried. I tried with clothes, with new slang, with trying new activities, with drinking. That's just normal for a lass in their twenties.

The Only Friends crew -- they are assholes. Many of them were trying on change a couple of weeks ago. Mew experienced a HUGE identity shift during this episode.

But what they all embody to me, in this moment in their lives, is a kind of everyday toxicity -- a self-absorbed perspective, so tunneled internally into each and every one of them, that none of them are realizing that the energy they put out is colliding and having effects on others.

Like -- it's kind of shocking and twisted to watch. But when I think about it, when I remember what it was like to be in a huge city and to be in college and post-college: there's a part of me that remembers being CONSTANTLY surprised that people were just massive jerks, everyday, and again, who knows -- I think people likely thought that I was a jerk, too, for thinking of myself and leading myself with my life.

People, most people, grow out of these stages, as they get older, get more experienced in their years, maybe get more political in their dealings with others. I can't condemn this group of university students fully, as I hold hope (I'm a mom, damn it) that they'll grow into more fully robust and empathic people. But they ain't there yet. I'm not sure my turning stones gives me more insight to them than in relating to my own experiences as a former twentysomething. It has me thinking, as someone who loves turning those stones in my beloved dramas.

That all being said. Those two other themes in this episode have me thinking -- the elements of life and gambling.

We saw Mew play with fire (fucking finally, my man). And we saw lots of water -- water in the pool, water in the tub with Sand and Ray.

Water puts out fire. Mew tries to fake-drown (lol) Boston in the pool. Later on, Mew lets Boston know that he (Mew) can take Boston down, but won't. Mew is trying to control the fires that he's lit, and the ones that have already been burning.

My question to Mew is: do you know how to do what you are doing, or what you want to do?

I don't quite think so, and I think that "Welcome to Las Vegas" shirt he was wearing at Boston's house indicated as much.

(Uh, first of all, chain life, Book! MORE, MORE!)

Mew has decided to become a gambler. Let's think of all the metaphors! Mew has decided to roll the dice and possibly move past the pass line. He's decided to play his odds. He even STACKED his odds -- going to a new gay bar, enticing Drake Gap, going back to Gap's place, stealing the sex tape from Gap's computer, threatening Gap with reporting him for a crime, going to BOSTON'S HOUSE, TALKING TO BOSTON'S DAD, showing Boston the copy of the sex tape, THREATENING BOSTON, MAKING BOSTON BEG, showing MORAL SUPERIORITY OVER BOSTON, throwing the flash drive at Boston, and walking away. Like, if that were a metaphor for actually playing craps, first of all, lol, the pit guy would check Mew's ID, get him a players' card, and encourage him to move to the high limits room, being like, WHAT is this motherfucker DOING, but we want him doing more of it, he'll make us more money -- once he starts fucking things up.

Mew's trying on a new identity. He already was on the road to it, getting that LASIK for Top. He's just continuing to move forward with it. He's going to play with nastiness, but still try to come out on Top.

Trying on new identities. It is so normal when you're young -- I did that. Trying on what fits for whatever reason you are feeling at that moment -- if you're rebounding, if you're healing, if you're bored. Mew is embarrassed, maybe even ashamed, maybe even regretful that his first relationship ended up as a failure.

And now he's figuring out how to recover -- by taking a gamble, and playing with the exact same mundane, everyday nastiness that he's seen in everyone around him.

P.S. Ephemerality and permanence? That fire burned the memory that Top tried to create with Mew (cc @twig-tea and @lurkingshan here). And, gambling? SO ephemeral. Buh-bye, money and pride. Ray switching back and forth between Mew and Sand? Ephemeral crushitude. (SAND. SMDH. I KNOW RAY'S DAD SAID SOMETHING TO YOU, BUT STILL, SMDH.) Nick turning on Boston. Boston begging Mew to hold back on the permanent impact of the sex tape on Boston's dad's career.

And the ephemerality of movement: the clothes in this episode said it all. Las Vegas, NYC, Stanford. These young folks can just... disappear if they want to. And they just might.

(G'DAY, EPHEMERALITY SQUAD! @ranchthoughts @slayerkitty @distant-screaming @twig-tea @neuroticbookworm @lurkingshan @clara-maybe-ontheroad @thatgirl4815 @chickenstrangers @wen-kexing-apologist)

[thatlittlered]

lovefool | aaron hotchner

warning(s): 18+, detailed description of sexual acts (m!masturbation) under the cut!

GIF by @scuttling

previous parts

author's note: feast on this, my metaphorical children, because more and better things are coming very soon. I also made a masterlist for your reading convenience.

Follow me @MadeofLilies at Ao3 and let me know if you want to be tagged here.

-.-.-

Aaron finds himself quite disoriented when he wakes up next to you. Smooth cotton on his cheek, mellow morning light peeking through the blinds. The warmth of a soft body prevails over all. Chests touching, limbs entangled. It is almost becoming too warm under the covers, or it might just be the rush of realization.

The lovely smell of your freshly washed hair brings him closer; so close that he might nudge your cheek with his nose if he moves a single inch but he doesn’t dare. It would be the first ever act of intimacy between you in daylight.

You must have felt his breath on your face because you stir until there’s no space left between you. There is nowhere to look but in each other’s eyes.

It should feel weirder than it does.

He looks so young under this light; his face littered with moles that you would like to kiss. His hand dares to move to your eyebrow and settles the hair there tenderly before moving downward. The touch of his thumb might as well be a kiss when he’s tracing your cheekbone, your nose, your mouth.

“Good morning.”

His voice is hoarse and it makes you laugh.

“Good morning, Aaron.”

Neither of you wants to move, but you decide to take the plunge, “I’m going to make some coffee, okay?”

“Okay.”

He takes his time getting up, looking around your room for more pieces of you to remember. He is drawn to your vanity where your perfume and hairbrush lie. You’ve left out a toothbrush for him; ever thoughtful.

When he finally joins you in the small kitchen, you’re a sight for sore eyes and you smile when you see him, pushing a steaming cup of coffee his way.

“Are you hungry?”

He sits so sweetly across from you on the kitchen island.

“I’m okay, thank you.”

Your feet touch, but neither of you moves away.

“You don’t eat breakfast?”

“I have cereal with Jack, mostly because he asks me to.”

The ease with which he had touched and kissed you the night before has dissipated, ephemeral confidence melting away to leave behind a man unsure of what to say or do. He wishes you had met a long time ago, when he could have given you the best parts of him. His best now is… meager. Those parts of him seem long gone, or more accurately, forcefully taken.

Now everything is an impossible decision to make. Every moment of intimacy comes with the fear of imminent darkness. He must dare to break way.

“We have cereal.”

You get up to grab the box from the shelf and when you turn around, he’s almost caging you between the counter and his body. His hands are on your face again, holding you in place so he can kiss you with the taste of coffee on his tongue, which begs for entry.

You both willfully ignore the tension building up between your bodies and how easy it would be to give in completely right now. It’s too soon, way too soon. He was simply taken with the smallest bit of skin that had peaked through when you reached to grab the box; wanted to remember what you taste like, to break away.

His hands are still on your face as he speaks, forehead to forehead.

“I can’t stay long; I have to pick up Jack from his aunt’s. I promised him we’d spend the day together.”

“That’s okay, I understand.”

He kisses you again but lingers, one last taste before he has to go.

“I would really like to take you out to dinner on our next day off.”

-.-.-

The days that follow are torture. You’re all drowning in backed up cases and the endless stream of paperwork that follows. The peaceful night of sleeping in each other’s arms and the coffee laced kisses are but a distant memory amidst this chaos.

Yet, in the rare moments when everything slows, it’s hard to keep his eyes off you, especially today. Especially when you’re wearing that red blouse. Aaron’s seen it before, appreciated it just as much as then against your complexion, but there’s something exhilarating, sinful about having seen it hang in your closet. It puts everything in a new perspective; this tantalizing secret between the two of you waiting to be realized again and again and again, if he can help it.

If only you had the time.

It takes all the self-restraint he can find within him not to approach you at the hotel. It would be easy, so easy, wouldn’t raise the faintest suspicion if he just knocked on your door after hours and you could talk – just a little. But, he can’t. He won’t. There are still limits.

Emotional exhaustion is a trap, with the mind begging for rest and the body ignoring its pleas till collapse. His body begs for you. Pleads to be held and kissed and gently lulled to sleep now that it knows the feeling.

The shower pressure is sharp, unkind, nothing like you, but the warm fog that follows… he can almost see before him the soft plane of your bare shoulder, the drops of water on your collarbone. He had not dared to look past, but he can only imagine and oh, he does. He could have surrendered himself completely, laid on top of you in the small bathtub in a mess of clothed and naked limbs. He could have allowed -begged of you- to touch him, feel any part of him you wanted to and then grant him the gift of doing the same. The smoothness of your wet body under his hands, the desperation in your kisses.

He can almost feel you on his fingertips right now, so, he gives in. Takes himself in hand to relieve the almost painful feeling. It’s muscle memory really, there should be nothing truly sensual about it but he can’t keep the images out of his head. His body recalls every detail of your touch and his mind takes advantage.

Images and feign sensations of your feather light touch on his stomach, trailing down to pay attention where he most needs you to. Your thumb presses delicately on the head, teasing him into a desperate awakening of his every sense. He is leaking for you already and you don’t let it go to waste, dragging your thumb up and down slowly until his precum spreads all over. It makes it easier to go further, pull the extra skin down gently and enjoy the sheer magnitude of him.

He jolts in your hand at the movement, but stays perfectly still after in fear that you will stop. You wouldn’t, not ever. A large vein runs on the bottom part of his cock and you can’t help but trace it, watching the way he reacts. He jolts again, begging for more, more of whatever you can give him and you take the hint. Your hand wraps around his base completely, enveloping him in softness he would die for, before beginning to move up and down in long, slow motions.

You kiss his cheek, his jaw, his neck and he is about to collapse in front of you, nothing but a desperate, needy mess for you to play with. He is painfully close, can’t possibly even keep his eyes open and you can tell, so you go faster, harder. He comes with your name in his mouth.

Everything slows down from there. The spell of the warm shower fog once again wears off and when he opens his eyes, it’s painfully clear you’ve taken over his whole existence, so much so that he must fantasize about the things he’d like to do to you, and things he’d like you to do to him, in order to get through the night.

Come morning, when you’re all gathered in the jet and going home, he can’t look you in the eye.

You notice.