#this clearly reveals lack of constructivity

[lumiy-a]

pretty sure the people complaining that all the available fics about their blorbos are ooc and mischaracterizations thereof have (1) never considered blessing the world by writing a fic themselves to teach us how their blorbos should be written and (2) have not found the back button in their browser yet

[fattystoriez]

Preston’s 18th Birthday

Content Warning: Incest, Homophobic Slurs, Weight Gain

Preston was a normal teenage boy, except for the fact that he was adopted by a gay couple when he was born. His mother didn’t want him and he learned that some time after he was born, she died. He knew nothing about his biological father, but he never stopped looking, his dads didn’t even know who his father was. His dads were great, but Preston never stopped wondering what life would be like had he been raised by his biological father.

A couple months ago, Preston’s biological father reached out through Facebook. His profile had no pictures and seemed to be new, but he had the DNA test from when he was born to prove his relation. His name is Travis, he’s in his mid 40’s and he is a construction worker. Despite not knowing what his dad looks like, Preston started to talk with his dad more and more. His two dads suggested that he meet his father for his 18th birthday before the party, Preston thought this was a great idea and so did his dad. So they had made plans to meet, he would chat and have lunch and come back to his house for his party.

Preston’s Birthday

Preston woke up to a massive aching boner, one that was begging to be released. “Oh GOD!” He moaned loudly as he grabbed the hard on, his underwear soaked in precum. “Fuck I don’t have time to take care of this” Preston thought, “I’ll just take a shower and maybe it’ll chill out.”Preston’s cock calmed down after he took cold shower, but he could help but notice that he was still very horny. He threw on a t-shirt, a pair of briefs and some gym shorts. Preston checked his phone, it was 11:30am already, he needed to hurry or he’d be late for lunch with his dad. He went downstairs saying bye to his dads, got into his car and headed towards Travis’s place, his cock slowly leaking precum the whole way there.

Preston noticed as he was getting closer that his dad lived in a trailer park, which was fitting given he is a construction worker. He didn’t realize how nice he had it with his dads, living in a suburban home with a nice new car and electronics. Travis would barely be able to afford rent let alone all of Preston’s nice commodities. Preston knocked on the door, he heard heavy footsteps walk towards the door and it swung open to reveal Travis.

Travis was HUGE! His tight orange shirt couldn’t even cover his massive belly, and his underwear… or are they shorts??? They looked tight on his waist. His face was covered by a bushy beard, hair that the top of his head lacked. He still has some hair around the sides of his head, which only added to his grotesque appearance. “Preston!” The massive bear of a man said with a thick southern accent, he squeezed Preston in a tight hug, the contact making his cock leak some pre cum. “I’m so glad you’re finally here, I’ve been waiting to watch- I mean… see you all day!”

Travis showed Preston into the trailer, it was dingy and grimy, Travis clearly doesn’t know how to pick up after himself. Preston could tell he also didn’t smell the best, having a very distinct and vile musk that emanated from him “I’ve been excited too…” Preston noticed the massive amount of food that was over in the kitchen area. “Is that… for lunch today?” Preston was confused, there was no way two people could eat that much, even if Travis was a massive hog.

“Of course it for lunch big guy! You’re 18!” Travis said that as if Preston should know what that means, it was then that Preston felt his stomach gurgle in hunger. “But let’s start with your birthday cake, I made it special myself.” Travis walked Preston to the dining table and pulled out the most delicious cake Preston has ever seen.

“Oh you really didn’t have to do this much, there’s no way I’m eating all of this.” Preston said as he sat down, Travis cutting him a slice of cake. “Oh it chocolate, that’s actually my favorite.” Preston took a bite of the cake and it was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten in his life, it even made his cock stand back up. “Oh god… this is good!”

“I thought you might like it, made it with my own secret recipe.” Travis went behind Preston, massaging his shoulders as his son starts to pig out on the rest of the cake. “It’s a tradition for men in our family to eat like this on their 18th birthday, son.” Preston couldn’t stop himself from eating more of the cake, he couldn’t process what was going on. “When men in our family hit adulthood, we grow quickly into slobbish pigs.”

Preston was having a hard time processing the information, he couldn’t stop eating the cake long enough to worry about what was happening to him. “Oh god… daddy what’s happening to me?” Preston’s voice started to have a light souther accent that could barely be heard through the chewing.

Preston’s body started to plump up quickly, his abs from his years in track were fading away. “You can’t stop the change, son.” Travis started to feed Preston once the cake was gone, “Your faggot daddies couldn’t have prepared you for this son, they wouldn’t know what to do with a pig like you.” Preston’s head was spinning, his body getting fatter and fatter as his body gives in to his DNA.

Preston’s once smooth chest has pumped into two soft moobs that jiggled with every bite, his jawline started to fade as the fat started to accumulate. Preston was in a blissfully perverted shock as his whole life was being ruined by this pig of a man, his cock rock hard was leaking like a faucet, soaking his underwear. “Daddy… I’m getting so fat…” Preston moaned in between foods, “w-why do I sound like this daddy… w-“

“Shhhhhh” Travis shushed Preston as he shoved a greasy slice of pizza into his mouth. “You’re becoming just like your daddy, and your daddies daddy, as so on. You come from a long line of perverted hogs.” Travis gripped Preston’s cock with his other hand, “my daddy helped me out exactly like this, fattened me up real good.” Travis pumped Preston’s leaking cock as he told him how much of a pig he was going to become. “You’re gonna love it boy, you’ll be able to turn other men into fat hogs just like us. It one of our many talents, one that I can’t wait for you to use.” Preston was in a fattening bliss, listening to the hypnotic words coming out of his daddies mouth as he played with his own fattening body.

“Oh daddy… daddy I’m gonna-“ Preston released, soaking his underwear and his dad’s hand, this act of finishing sealed Preston’s already inevitable fate. “Oh god daddy, look what you’ve done to me…”

Preston’s belly was as big as his daddies, he couldn’t stop jiggling the soft flesh that had taken over his body. “I didn’t do nothin’ boy, this was your natural calling.” Travis took a doughnut, wiped Preston’s cum into it and fed it to his son.

After Preston was done chewing his specially glazed doughnut he wondered who he could make into a fat piggy himself, the he thought of his faggoty dads. “Let’s go visit my dads, daddy!”

“Of course boy, those faggots are gonna piss their pants when they see how big you’ve grown.” Travis helped Preston up and walked his half-naked fat ass to Travis’s pickup truck, the two whales could barely fit in it together. “We’ve got a party to get to, boy.”

Part 2?

[shiyorin]

Well I've been digging into each primarch one by one and Rogal Dorn's current state has my brain rotten. If, IF somehow, Dorn instead of died or rest on some planet in the 40k universe preparing for his comeback, he fell into the warp and traveled back to the 21st century, falls into your backyard, loss all his memory and now you have this gigantic stone face man missing an arm with his obsession of renovate your house into a gigantic fortress and somehow doing it well with his tiny construction tools that you bought him. I don't know if anyone has come up with the idea for this yet, but it's been in my head for few days now.

Yep, it is cute, slice of life with primarch seems nice. Surely Dorn will fortify your house and build you a beautiful fortress with a moat.

And I delulu this

The sunshine beat down on your backyard as you stepped outside, a cold glass of lemonade in hand. You'd been cooped up inside all day, binge-watching true crime documentaries and contemplating the general state of humanity. A bit of fresh air seemed like a good idea to clear your head.

That was, until you nearly choked on your drink at the sight before you.

There, sprawled across your meticulously manicured lawn, was a man. But not just any man. This guy was huge, easily twice your size, with muscles that would make bodybuilders weep with envy. His white hair was matted with dirt and leaves, and his clothes... well, they barely qualified as clothes anymore, torn and tattered as they were.

You blinked rapidly, wondering if perhaps you'd fallen asleep during your Netflix marathon and this was some bizarre dream. But no, the man was still there, groaning softly as he began to stir.

"Oh shit," you muttered, taking a cautious step back. Your mind raced through all the possible scenarios. Was he drunk? High? An escaped convict? An alien? (Okay, maybe you'd watched one too many X-Files episodes lately.)

The giant man's eyes fluttered open, revealing startlingly blue irises that seemed to pierce right through you. He sat up slowly, looking around with a mixture of confusion and... was that disapproval?

"This fortification is severely lacking," he rumbled, his deep voice sending vibrations through the air. "The perimeter defenses are non-existent. How do you expect to repel invaders?"

You stared at him, mouth agape. Of all the things you expected him to say, critiquing your backyard's defensive capabilities was not one of them.

"I... uh... we don't really worry about invaders in suburban Ohio," you managed to stammer out.

The man frowned, his brow furrowing in concentration. "Ohio? I am... unfamiliar with this territory. What sector of Terra is this?"

'Terra?' you thought, your confusion deepening. 'Great, not only is he huge and possibly dangerous, but he's also clearly delusional.'

It was then that you noticed something else odd about your unexpected visitor. Where his right hand should have been, there was... nothing. Just a cleanly bandaged stump.

The man followed your gaze and lifted his arm, examining the missing appendage with curiosity. "Curious. I seem to be missing a hand. I don't recall how this happened."

Your eyes widened. Amnesia? Missing limbs? This was starting to sound like the plot of one of your crime podcasts. Every instinct screamed at you to run inside, lock the doors, and call the police.

Instead, you found yourself asking, "Do you... do you know who you are?"

The giant paused, his face scrunching up in concentration. After a long moment, he shook his head. "I... do not. My memories seem to be as missing as my hand."

A wave of pity washed over you, momentarily overriding your common sense. Here was this massive, confused man, clearly in need of help. Sure, he could probably snap you in half without breaking a sweat, but he also looked like a lost puppy, if puppies came in 'giant' size.

"Okay," you said, taking a deep breath. "Let's... let's get you inside. We can figure this out."

As the words left your mouth, a small voice in the back of your head screamed, 'This is how people die in horror movies!' You promptly told that voice to shut up.

Getting the man inside proved to be a hard task. He was even larger up close, and while he seemed willing to follow you, he moved with a careful deliberation that made the short journey to your back door feel like an eternity.

"Your entryway is inefficiently narrow," he commented as you squeezed through the door. "It would be easily defensible, but limits rapid deployment of forces."

You chose to ignore this, focusing instead on not tripping over your own feet as you led him to the living room. Your sofa, which had always seemed perfectly adequate, now looked comically small compared to your guest.

"Here," you said, grabbing a large blanket from the back of the couch. "Why don't you sit down and... uh... wrap up?"

The man complied, lowering himself onto the sofa with surprising grace for someone his size. He took the blanket, examining it closely before draping it over his shoulders. Within moments, he had managed to cocoon himself completely, looking for all the world like the world's largest, most muscular burrito.

This sight is surprisingly… cute. Despite his imposing size and strange talk of fortifications, there was something endearingly straightforward about him. He seemed genuinely confused and lost, not threatening.

"So," you said, perching on the edge of an armchair across from him. "You really don't remember anything? Your name? Where are you from?"

The man's brow furrowed again, a look of intense concentration on his face. "I... I believe my name may be Rogal. Yes, Rogal feels correct. But beyond that..." He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Rogal," you repeated. "Okay, that's a start. Nice to... uh... meet you?"

Rogal nodded solemnly. "The pleasure is mine. Though I must say, your domicile seems poorly defended. The windows are large and easily breached. The walls appear to be made of flimsy materials. How do you sleep at night knowing you're so vulnerable to attack?"

You blinked, taken aback by his sudden shift in topic. "I... we don't really worry about attacks here. It's a safe neighborhood."

Rogal's frown deepened. "Complacency breeds weakness. We should begin fortifying immediately. Do you have any ceramite? Adamantium would be preferable, but I suspect that might be hard to come by in this... Ohio."

"I have some leftover drywall in the garage?" you offered weakly, not entirely sure why you were entertaining this line of conversation.

Rogal's face lit up with what could almost be described as excitement. "Excellent. We'll start there. With some ingenuity, we might be able to create a passable defensive structure. It won't hold against a sustained bombardment, of course, but it should repel most ground assaults."

As Rogal launched into a detailed explanation of defensive strategies and optimal fortification techniques, you felt a familiar throbbing begin at your temples. You should have called the police. You should have left him in the backyard. You definitely shouldn't be sitting here listening to a giant amnesiac man with one hand explain how to turn your suburban home into a fortress.

And Rogal continues to describe the benefits of a moat ("Impractical in your current setting, but highly effective against infantry").

Maybe those 'Only in Ohio' memes were real after all.

Yeah, that's it. I've already delulu Sigismund, Alexis, Helbrecht and some Crimson Fists appear but I am too lazy to write it. So just it.

[myfriendpokey]

Talking About Some Horror Comics

(Image: Richard Sala, "The Bloody Cardinal")

On Cohost a while back i wrote a little bit about comicbook inspirations for Anthology Of The Killer - I might repost it when that site goes down at the end of the year, but until then you can read it here: https://cohost.org/thecatamites/post/7154072-i-wanted-to-write-so

For part two I wanted to talk more about horror comics in particular.

I probably wouldn't have gotten into horror at all if it weren't for comics. Horror comics can feel like a "cold" take on a very "warm" genre - indebted to and playing off of a familiar ground of horror films, but without film's tendency towards emotionalism or immediate effects... Working on a far more compressed scale than even the cheapest 80-minute b-movie, amplifying abruptness or abstraction into something dreamlike and strange. And with the great advantage of taking place inside a totally constructed world. It's not strictly a horror comic but something like Jess Johnson's "Nurture The Devil" is unsettling in part because it's hard to place in relation to either a real world or the world of dreams - whether it's a stylised version of some more familiar content or whether the stylisation is a literal depiction of what's happening.

A comic as physical object can also be a relic - not something we experience in one go, rather something to pick up, put down, sift through, read and reread, with new meanings emerging from a mass of material of which the supposed narrative may not be the most important part. The dreadful, knife-wielding maniacs from Al Columbia's Pim & Francie are familiar figures, but seeing their obsessive repetition across the different collected scraps of abandoned or submerged narratives changes them into dream symbols rather than direct threats.

I like a lot of comics that draw on horror imagery - Mark Beyer and Rory Hayes, A. Degen's "Junior Detective Files" and Daria Tessler's "Cult Of The Ibis", Nicole Claveloux and Imiri Sakabashira. But I wanted to try writing here about some comics that made me interested as horror in a genre itself.

Junji Ito: you may not have heard about this guy.... I actually hadn't read any of his work before the Viz edition of Uzumaki a while back, and the sense of being late to the party didn't make it feel less of a revelation. I think part of it was the sense of comics that were totally distinct while at the same time feeling like they were working entirely IN a genre tradition rather than against it; there was a sense of almost impersonal originality in their laconic and assured pacing, the clarity of line and their lack of need to give too much away, which suggested they must be drawing from and distilling a whole surrounding tradition. And this impression persists even when you follow up on other horror manga and the stated influences and find these comics still feel mysterious even in that context. One of his best effects is a willingness to seem more anonymous than he is, or to give the impression even in his most original effects that he's just flatly transcribing a readymade idea or image. And I think this is his biggest influence on internet-era horror, which has tended to disguise itself (even more than is typical for horror) in anonymous and generic forms, a surface impersonality: as if everyone aleady knew about this, except you.

But what I do feel gets underplayed about his work in particular is also how funny it is, and how indebted to comedy timing. Compare the monstrous reveal in an Ito story with one by Umezu (RIP) - in the latter the frame is pushed right in on someone's face, eyes bulging, screaming, the image repeats, gets even closer, we're in that portion of a nightmare where we feel immobilized by horror, stuck in a pit that we can never escape. The same moment in an ito story tends to be one of ironic equipoise - when the horrible thing finally appears it's depicted clearly, powerfully, it's almost this beautiful and static image. The onlookers stand frozen at the edges of the frame, mid movement, eyes wide but expression not yet changed, a single drop of cartoon sweat on the edge of their heads. There's a contrast between the assurance of the thing and the hapless rabbitlike fascination of the character regarding it, who becomes, like us, an aesthetic spectator - for a moment. When the spell breaks, when we see them screaming, running, it's comic because something of that mood of still contemplation that remains intact. Their eyes bulge, their mouths scream, but they're rushing backwards, away from the panel, and we regard their fear with the same attitude of detached interest with which we saw the full outline of the monstrous shape a panel earlier. To me this sense of humour is apiece with the disconcerting flatness of his approach to setting, in which the usual horror sets - gothic, extraordinary places outside the everyday - feel replaced by something anonymous and shabby, a kind of just-expired contemporary. The monsters rarely need to be explained; it's as though our own world has gradually become too worn down to have any purchase or power on these creatures of dreams that walk the landscapes and alleys with impunity.

Richard Sala - sometimes the artists I end up most fascinated by are ones I spend a while bouncing off of first. I read a few Richard Sala stories over the years and for a while I didn't know what to make of them. Great art, stylised and weird, but as narratives they were hard to place - too stylised and exaggerated to feel like straight horror but too obviously serious about and committed to those genre elements to feel like mere parody or pastice. I think I needed to read Uzumaki before I could get what he was doing, because it relies so much on a sense that genre horror was worth taking seriously; seriously enough to treat neither as a punchline or a heritage piece, something you could bring your own offbeat sensibilities and aesthetic to without condescending to the form, because there was something there. In some great interviews he did with the Comics Journal he was explicit about what he valued in the form: the dreamlike and symbolic qualities of b-movies, the ritual and fetishistic nature of repetition, the way pulp artists in an overlooked form could evolve a private vocabulary of forms, structures and images which worked like surrealist procedures to be mined and combined for new discoveries over time.

He was also interesting to me for the way his work changed over time. The shorter early pieces collected in comics like "Thirteen O'Clock" are recognizably art comics using a vocabulary of found horror images: the secret society, the leering face behind a window, are representative symbols of states of mind rather than presences in themselves. But his first longform serial "The Chuckling Whatsit" inverts this. Here the horror elements are given full play - it's a crazed pile up of characters, murder plots, conspiracies, odd locations, dreams, gimmicks, knives and masks, and while none of these feel like straightforward symbols of authorial expression there's obviously still something being worked out underneath that surface narrative, something warping all the pieces into new directions. The scene and the plot seem to abruptly change direction with every page; new characters are introduced and killed off again, constantly; the longest explanation of the plot we get is delivered by a lady with a cartoony moose-end-sqvirrel phonetic accent, but somehow it never loses either a sense of mysterious inner coherence or a sense of dread.

For me his middle period is from "Reflections Of A Glass Scorpion" (reprinted as "Mad Night") to "The Hidden". His art improves and he plays more with colour; the narratives slow down and there's more of a willingness to let them breathe. Characters become more important - my favourite is Judy Drood, the crazed Nancy Drew analogue crashing through a world of horror. Some of the books in this period feel less essential, as though having established what a "Richard Sala" comic would look like he was happy to spend a while doing the Richard Sala version of a vampire story, or an evil clown story, or a YA book. But he kept developing his style and "Delphine", towards the end of this period, is maybe his best single book: spare and serious and strange, as if he had reached a point in his craft where he no longer even needed to resemble himself.

But strangest of all is his late work, which maybe comes closest than most comics careers to the famous "late style" identified by Adorno in his essay. After increasingly subtle and quiet, almost slick, works, there's suddenly a return to the garish - rather than horror the model seems to be sleazy eurospy b-movies, the kind where masked girls in leotards run around machinegunning each other in underground bases. I don't think the biggest Richard Sala fan would think of him as primarily an action cartoonist but that's what we get here - panel after panel of firing handguns wildly into a crowd ("the simplest surrealist act" - andre breton) of milling henchmen, unkillable figures of vengeance running wild. And at the same time, just as startling, there's an abrupt and explicit emphasis on politics - the figures being shot are crowds of ghoulish Bush-era congressmen, executives, cops, sneering militia creeps, guffawing yuppies, movers and shakers. There's a sense of deliriously vindictive wish fulfilment that he's obviously having fun with, and what's not to love about a comic where a masked supervillain named Super-Enigmatix (shortened by the text as "S.Ex") breaks into the chambers of the Supreme Court to shoot the judges with a raygun known only as "the dissolver" in a single panel. But there's also a kind of sadness in the fury with which these characters are obsessively killed and re-killed; the flat, declarative way the political content declares itself has a kind of contempt, as if it weren't worth dressing up any other way. Rather than the politics of horror we have politics as horror, horror as the only form with which politics can adequately be represented.

Sala's last published work was "Poison Flowers & Pandemonium" - a collection of four(!) volumes unpublished at the time of his death, one of which is a collection of cavegirl-themed cheesecake art a character in the book itself winningly describes as "the dumbest thing i've ever read". The first book, a sequel to the late period work "The Bloody Cardinal", is one of his best - tensely paced and cohesive despite swerving crazily across genres, characters and settings (and also involving an evil mummy who exists in two dimensions). But the very last book, Fantomella, haunts me the most. It takes place in a world where the murderers have won - a vaguely futuristic tower in which dumb, bullying assholes, in costumes that are unsettling combinations of paramilitary gear, medieval torturer outfits and old-timey superhero costumes, spend their days in inscrutable violence or tangled, careerist infighting. The heroine, the title character, climbs up the tower level by level and kills absolutely everyone who gets in her way. The guys in the tower bicker and betray each other and bark orders over walkie talkies and then die and die and die; it's as though, having spent the last decade establishing a whole imaginative taxonomy of These Types Of Guy, there were no need for them anymore; they could be erased, one by one, in the perfunctory way of a henchman being offed in the final five minutes of a cheap film. Eventually Fantomella gets to the top of the tower; there's an ending reminiscent of stated lifetime influence Franz Kafka. Did I mention that this book is placed right after the sexy cavegirl story? Art can be powerful, when we let it be.

Mike Mignola, Guy Davis, John Arcudi - yeah, from B.P.R.D. These are spinoffs from Mignola's own Hellboy comics, and as will be the case with spinoffs I think they never quite got the respect of those other books. They're less quiet, less offbeat - they lack the quality in Hellboy of a mysterious folktale logic that we're barely able to glimpse. But that's the thing for me - in Hellboy many characters have some kind of knowledge that they act on, often piecemeal or imperfectly. What makes B.P.R.D. distinct is the sense that nobody knows what's happening at all; not the heroes, not the villains. Stuff just happens and happens and happens and maybe later on some of it is concluded in ways nobody notices because they're dealing with some other shit - the bits of narrative closure we get are as abrupt and unwilled as a long-forgotten gun that suddenly goes off. Maybe someone will accidentally glimpse the resolution of some other thing they had no idea was happening, in the shape of e.g. a nazi millionaire in a homemade skeleton outfit being pulled screaming beneath the earth by a plague of human frogs. Who was that? There's no time to worry about it, because the world is ending.

There's a lot of these comics and I can never keep track of what order they're in, but I want to suggest that one of the deep pleasures of longform serial narrative is reading it out of order and trying to figure out what's going on. You'll see someone pop up for a panel or die or do something of unexplained importance to the rest of the book and then keep going and maybe read an earlier one where you glimpse the setup that you saw finally paying off - if you can still remember. It's maybe an odd one for me to recommend, as someone who aggressively does not care about apocalypse shit, or military shit, or lovecraft shit. But in addition to the fun characters and offbeat storytelling and Guy Davis's typically great art I think what made this stick with me so much was an odd formal parallel, between the slow, shambolic, weirdly believable end of the world it depicts and the nature of serial storytelling itself. Details pile up, beyond our ability to keep track or notice them. The doomed task of remembering, of cultivating the little pile of our perceptions as they spill out and roll away, feels horribly similar to the efforts of the characters to hold a catastrophe in place; a catastrophe that no-one really seems to know the start or meaning of but that we're all stuck living out regardless.

It's a longrunning comic so there are lots of issues. You can try following it from the start and still find after a certain point that you no longer have any idea of what's happening, that "the start" is itself not really the start, just the latest in a series of dubiously reliable origin stories that seem to have no lower bound. You can spend a lot of time on wikis trying to combine the pieces and figure it out, just like the characters in the comic, the ones who inevitably end up going "AIIIEEE!" as they're blown up by a big machine or by some cosmic thingamabob they only realise too late they maybe never really got. Or maybe if you're lucky you can be a bit-part character; here in some pages, missing in others, with fate uncertain, deferred by an error in issue numbering, or a failure of memory.

[waynes-multiverse]

The Exit Strategy – Part 2

Summary: Russell is ready to hang it all up and retire, open up a brewery, and enjoy the rest of his civilian life. However, there’s one important thing missing before he can take the big plunge. Luckily, he knows just the right person to help him find it.

Pairing: Russell Shaw x Female!Reader

Warnings: +18, language, minor injuries, a bit of angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, a reunion, more secrets and revelations 😉

Word Count: 6.3k

A/N: Guess, the cat's outta the bag! Couldn't reveal too much about the reader beforehand without ruining the surprise now, could I? 🤓 Cozy up in your favorite chair with eggnog. Hope you have some lovely holidays, guys ❤️

Main Masterlist || Series Masterlist || Tag List

Part 2: This Is a Russell Mission

If Russell hated one thing in this world, it was playing The Waiting Game. The thought of being helplessly stuck inside a car with his hands metaphorically tied behind his back nearly wrecked his sanity. Well, whatever was left of it, anyways.

Colter had a point. Russell knew he could be a little paranoid sometimes, but considering everything he’d seen and done in his life, who could honestly blame him? It was only natural to feel a certain level of paranoia in his particular line of work. It kept him on his toes and, therefore, alive.

But maybe it had nothing to do with the job as he had always told himself. It might have been just a family trait he had inherited. And, well, he hated that fact even more than The Waiting Game.

As he impatiently watched a set of doors once more, he pondered if he was still seeing things clearly or if his kooky mind was playing tricks on him. Adjusting to civilian life wasn’t always easy.

What normal people would see as a perfectly nice, faithful woman picking up mail from the post office, Russell saw as a dead-drop pick-up.

There was a construction crew about three hundred yards to his right that seemed to be on constant break by their lack of work ethic. They also took turns to watch the supermarket closely. Ever wondered why there was so much street construction seemingly everywhere and yet America’s roads were still full of potholes? Russell didn’t.

And then, there was the cashier who handed you a flyer of some sort, which you accepted with a polite smile and stuffed in your purse. Live drop, Russell noted as he watched you walk out of the store hand in hand with your supposed husband.

It was all so abundantly clear to him, he almost couldn’t believe no one else could see it. It certainly worried him that Colter couldn’t.

What if…

What if he was in fact seeing things? Things that weren’t actually there. Ghosts of his past. No drops, live or dead. No secret surveillance in disguises. No fake husband – just a very real one.

Was that even legal? He figured it was under your new identity.

Russell shook the uncomfortable thought out of his mind and concentrated back on you. You stopped short by a row of shopping carts, exchanged a few words with your “husband”, and headed back inside. His little brother, of course, was hot on your tail, following you back in too.

That was when several alarm bells went off in Russell’s body. His head felt like the Liberty Bell on the Fourth of July. Experience told him: If it smelled like an ambush, it usually was.

Jumping into gear, Russell’s gaze snapped to your husband, who not only unloaded the groceries into the trunk of the car but also loaded a pistol and hid it underneath his sweater vest before heading toward the supermarket again.

Russell sprung into action rather quickly then, snatching his own semi-automatic from the glove compartment. Soon enough, he heard two familiar voices flowing out from a back alley behind the main building. There was no doubt in his mind that it was you and Colter.

As he rounded the corner, he had to stifle a laugh once he saw his little brother down on the ground, straddled by your legs. Russell had found himself in similar positions with you, but they had been mostly out of pleasure.

“If it helps, my name is Colter. Colter Sh–”

“Shaw.”

Russell watched as your hold on his brother swayed and shock claimed your expression.

“Hiya, sweetheart,” he greeted your eyes with a cheeky smile as warmth spread through his heart.

Fuck, he had missed you.

“Russell?!”

Your jaw had fully dislodged itself as you slowly got back onto your feet and let go of your prisoner. But the shock of seeing your ex here of all places didn’t last long till it made way for your anger.

“Are you fucking insane?” You stormed towards him, shoving his chest. Whoa, broad! Shit, what had he done? Spent more time at the gym? “No, wait, don’t say anything. I already know the answer to that one!”

“I’ll second that,” Colter chimed in with a groan and dusted off his jeans. He stretched his sore muscles briefly before glaring at his older brother, who only offered him an apologetic smile and a half-assed shrug of one shoulder.

“Did you tell him to follow me?” you asked and pointed an accusatory finger at his younger brother while still glaring daggers at Russell. The similarity between them suddenly struck you, and you cursed yourself for not putting the puzzle pieces together sooner. “What was the plan here, huh?”

“Oh, trust me, he had no plan,” Colter muttered sourly, still recovering from your attack.

Russell clicked his tongue and sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “Look, he’s right. There wasn’t a plan. I just-… I had to see you. But once I did, well… here we are.”

Full disclosure: There might have been a little bit of a plan. Just tiny, really. Not worth mentioning at all.

You scoffed and shook your head. “You, of all people, should know better. You could’ve blown our cover. Months of work down the drain…”

“I think your cover’s still good,” Russell assured you with that same old lazy grin of his that was scarily charming and glanced at your partner. “Might wanna call off the cavalry, though.”

You shared a look with Tom, your partner during this mission.

“I’ll signal them. Clean up here,” he said, unamused, and disappeared back to the parking lot.

“Road crew in front of the store?” was all Russell asked. You confirmed it with a simple nod. Internally, he celebrated his little win. His instincts were still intact.

You exhaled a deep breath and threw your hands up. You had been so incredibly relaxed before that menace of a man waltzed back into your life – with a goddamn wrecking ball, no less. Now, the tension was crawling back into your shoulders.

“Russ, what the hell?”

Your question wasn’t filled with anger, however. You were just exhausted by today’s surprising turn of events. The life of a spy…

And probably the life with Russell, too.

“I know. I know, okay?” Russell held up two placating hands. Large hands. Warm. “Can we just talk? Somewhere… I don’t know.”

With some reservations, you still nodded. “There’s a church picnic at First Presbyterian tomorrow. It starts at one. We can talk there.”

There had never been a day in your relationship where you had denied that man a thing – till that last day at least.

“Church picnic?” Russell cocked a brow but was only met with your glare.

“Don’t mock. Be there,” you told him firmly and walked back inside the building. You still had to buy that damn milk. Covers were complicated to maintain – much like relationships.

Once you were out of sight, Russell let out a long sigh of relief, followed by a laugh of happiness. Step One was done. Only when the high of his meeting with you subsided, did he notice his brother’s exasperation.

Colter threw his hands in the air and stared at his sibling with incredulous eyes. “What the hell, Russell? What was that, man?”

“Right, yeah.” Russell bobbed his head calmly, smacking his lips. He knew he owed Colter an explanation at this stage of the mission.

“So, I’m guessing she’s not an old Army buddy of yours,” the younger Shaw started.

“No, not quite. She’s in the CIA,” Russell explained at last. He couldn’t help the grin. He was sure Colter would laugh about it eventually, too. Well, here was to hoping he would. “We worked together when we were both stationed in Baghdad. You know how it goes. We met, and a couple of hours later, we were doing it on the kitchen island of some safe house.”

Well, alright, that was braggy. There was a lot more going on than that. Best night of his life, really. But Russell considered it classified.

“Romantic,” Colter scoffed with sarcasm lacing his voice. Honestly, a part of him was happy for Russell. Another part, though, was incredibly furious for obvious reasons. “But I’m sorry – you had me stalk a CIA operative? During, what I assume is, some elaborate undercover mission?”

“It’s actually not that elaborate,” Russell quipped with amusement. “You shoulda seen half the things I’ve seen her do, so…”

“Oh, hilarious!” Colter shook his head at his childish brother. “Are you nuts?!”

“I think we’ve already established that,” Russell chuckled.

“You know, if Reenie finds out about this, she’s gonna kill me,” Colter said, and Russell swore his brother seemed close to breaking into a sweat. “Oh, you think this is still funny, huh? Guess who she’s gonna kill right after? You.”

Russell rolled his eyes at the unnecessary theatrics. “She’s not gonna find out unless you tell her, brother.”

With pursed lips, Colter nodded in defeat. “Can’t say I like you a lot right now, Russell.”

His older brother only snorted a laugh in response. “Oh, c’mon!”

“You probably would find it less funny if you had been beaten up by a 5’4” woman,” Colter continued and pressed a hand to his ribcage, wincing. “Yeah, pretty sure she cracked a rib or two…”

“Don’t be a baby. Soldier up! You’re fine.” Russell patted his back roughly and inspected the swelling nose for good measure, causing Colter to groan in pain once more. “And by the way, pretty sure she’s only 5’3”.”

“What?! No! She’s at least… 5’4”, okay? Probably even 5’5”,” Colter argued, following Russell back to the truck.

Russell’s lips rose to a teasing smirk. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself whatever gets you to sleep at night, little brother.”

“I will, thank you,” Colter deadpanned and unlocked the car. “So, you’re gonna go to this church picnic thing tomorrow?”

“Oh, no, not just me. We are going to this church picnic thing tomorrow,” Russell said with a cheeky grin and slid into the passenger seat.

“Well, you know, technically, I’ve already… found her. This is usually where my job ends,” Colter said with a tight smile and popped the key into the ignition.

“Yeah, well, not this time,” Russell replied, chuckling. “This ain’t a Colter mission. This is a Russell mission.”

“Oh, I got that, yeah. Thank you,” Colter said with a laugh that made his bruised ribs ache. “You know, you could’ve at least told me she was in the CIA.”

“Yeah, probably. But this was more fun,” Russell grinned.

“Did you know this whole time this was a clandestine operation?”

Russell sheepishly twitched his shoulders. “Well, not when we first got to town, but once I saw her in that outfit, I had a pretty strong inkling. I’m tellin’ ya, even if she had changed her entire life and personality, there’s no way she would have accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and savior. I mean, maybe if she suffered a traumatic brain injury…” Russell mused and then grinned. “Or if she got abducted by aliens!”

“Oh, not the UFOs again,” Colter sighed with a shake of his head.

“It’s UAP, man. U… A… P,” Russell corrected him once again and let the last letter pop from his lips for emphasis.

“Uh-huh… Did you even need me for this?” Colter leaned back against his seat and quirked an eyebrow.

“Hell yeah!” Russell assured eagerly before changing course. He dialed his enthusiasm back a little. “Well, honestly, I just needed your op analyst. I could’ve used one of my guys, but then that would’ve flagged it with someone upstairs, so… But c’mon! This was fun, right?”

“I don’t know, Russell. I usually prefer my fun to look a little different,” Colter deadpanned.

“With Reenie?” Russell wagged his eyebrows. The huge smirk on his face spoke volumes.

“Would you stop?!”

“‘Sides, this is nice, isn’t it? Us… hanging out?” Russell’s sly grin then morphed into a much softer and genuine smile.

“I guess, yeah,” Colter reluctantly agreed and shrugged his shoulders. But the tiny smile on his face wasn’t missed by Russell.

“Alright, let’s get some fuel,” Russell announced and playfully slapped his brother’s chest. “I’m starving. We also need to find a place where we can park that Airstream of yours. Maybe get a nice fire going, drink a few…”

“What is this? A sleepover? Did you just invite yourself?” Colter really wasn’t used to family members dropping in like this, but he couldn’t deny that it felt sort of nice, too.

“Yeah, I am. I mean, you didn’t offer. Would’ve been the polite thing, you know, considering I saved your ass last time,” Russell retorted puckishly.

Colter exhaled a humorous breath, shaking his head with a chuckle. “Alright, okay… Consider yourself invited.”

“See? Wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

Russell’s nerves leaped through the roof as he set foot onto the church grounds. A part of him expected his boot soles to leave burn marks in their wake on the perfectly green and trimmed lawn, considering his extensive list of sins.

Families, children, couples, and the elderly had all gathered in front of the church. There were picnic tables, blankets, even balloons and a banner. His green eyes, however, landed on the giant buffet, his mouth already beginning to water.

That’s also where he spotted you, handing out cupcakes and slices of pie with a pious smile on your face. Your hair was stuck behind your ears, a headband keeping it tightly in place. Your dress looked the same, only the flower pattern varied, with a tight cardigan around your shoulders that hid any naked skin.

Deceptively innocent, Russell thought, causing his mouth to water for a different reason.

“You okay? You nervous?” Colter checked with a curiously raised brow.

“Nervous? Me? No.” Russell gave a quick shake of his head, but his eyes were transfixed on you. “Gotta admit. That outfit’s doing something to me, though.”

Colter patted his shoulder blade. “Yeah, might wanna keep it in your pants, Russ. Pretty sure you get kicked out for impure thoughts.”

Russell snorted a laugh. “Yeah, probably.”

The Shaw brothers then made their way over to your stand. Russell’s heart thumped louder with every new step he took towards you. And once he was so close he could smell your irresistible perfume, his smile only widened.

You, on the other hand, played your role flawlessly and pretended you didn’t know either brother in front of you. Your brows knit in question, but your devout smile remained the same.

“Gentlemen, how can I help you? I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” you said and subtly gestured your head to the pastor next to you.

Russell’s brow raised in understanding. He cleared his throat. “Oh, me and my brother just moved here. Looking for a new church. Heard this is the place,” he stated loud enough for the pastor to hear. “You know, we are very devout Christians. I mean, especially my brother here. If he doesn’t pray at least ten times a day, he gets real cranky.”

Colter threw him a look but decided to play along. “Oh, yeah, I just-… I hate that. Can’t pray enough, right?”

“Amen,” you said with all the sincerity you could muster. On the inside, however, you were bursting with laughter. Leave it to Russell to make you smile brighter than the sun.

“Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place,” the pastor chimed in with a cheerful smile that spelled kumbaya all the way through as he shook the brothers’ hands. “I’m Pastor Jeff. Welcome to our little congregation, folks.”

“God can never have enough sheep, am I right?” Russell quipped and wondered how long you’d already been undercover, playing your dutiful role as a Christian housewife. Five sentences in, and he already was at his limit.

“That’s right!” The pastor grinned broadly. “Please help yourselves to our delicious buffet.”

“Well, lookey, what do we have here.” Russell’s eyes zoned in on a plate of apple pie, rubbing his palms in delight.

“Oh, you have to try the pie,” the pastor eagerly suggested and put an arm around your shoulders. “Our Nora here is an excellent baker. Her desserts are a real trend in our community. It is downright sinful. But shhhh, don’t tell the big man upstairs.”

“Secret’s safe with me, pastor,” Russell grinned slyly before meeting your eyes for the briefest second. “Say, do you do marriage counseling too?”

The glare you shot him had enough power to kill him from afar. You might as well have ordered a missile strike on him.

“Oh, my, yes, of course!” the pastor eagerly replied, causing your frown to deepen. “Are you married? Having a little trouble with the missus?”

“You could say that,” Russell earnestly played along and propped up his hands on his hips. “Everything was going fine, you know? And then one morning, just whoosh, gone. No explanation, no letter, no anonymous call from a pay phone…”

“Wow…” The pastor was stunned and enthralled by Russell’s colorful storytelling at the same time. You weren’t, however.

“Well, I’m so sorry to hear that,” you feigned your sympathies with tight lips and a fierce glare at your former lover. “But you know what they say, the Lord giveth and he taketh away…”

“You know, Nora here is right. Our Lord does work in mysterious ways,” the pastor chimed in agreement.

“Amen, Pastor Jeff,” you said, smiling contentiously. “Do you have any idea why your wife left?”

“Oh, I’m afraid she’s as mysterious as the Lord,” Russell replied.

Crossing your arms over your chest, you forced a tight smile. “I don’t mean to overstep, but it sounds like someone was having a little trouble with commitment.”

“It does,” Pastor Jeff agreed. “Why do you think that is?”

Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Russell’s head bobbed, his tongue poking the insides of his cheeks. He was definitely feeling a spotlight on him. Even Colter seemed to curiously lean in. Then, the oldest Shaw clicked his tongue. “Rough childhood.”

Amused, Colter scoffed under his breath behind him. “You could say that.”

“Oh no.” The pastor sent the brothers a pitying look and turned his attention to the younger Shaw. “And what do you do?”

“Oh, uh… Well, before I moved in with my brother here, I lived in a trailer and traveled all over the country.”

“Sounds… lonely,” Pastor Jeff stated worriedly.

“Yeah, this one is a big lone wolf. He has commitment issues too,” Russell replied, earning him a scolding look from his brother.

“Uh, I don’t think we need to overshare, Russ.” Colter gave an awkward smile, turning to you and Pastor Jeff. “He’s kidding. I don’t have commitment issues.”

“It’s a sin to lie, Colter,” Russ noted. His tone was serious, but the twinkle in his green eyes was impish.

“What happened to your face there?” The pastor cocked his head and inspected the younger Shaw’s injuries.

Oof, he looked rough. The skin under his eyes and bridge of his nose were swollen and bruised, ranging in color from blue, purple to black. A thin burgundy line also graced his throat. You had done quite a number on him.

You should kick Russell’s ass for setting you both up like this. Who would do this to their little brother?

“Uh, you know, moving boxes…” Colter stammered with a shift of his weight from one foot to the other, pursing his lips.

Russell was a better liar than him, you noted.

“Yup, walked straight into one of those wood planks,” Russell added, oozing just the right amount of charm and humor to wrap the pastor around his finger. “Tiny thing, honestly, but still got him good.”

Oh, he was so proud of that too, you could tell. He smirked right at you. Well, they were both terrible liars.

“Not that tiny. Big, big plank,” Colter corrected. Apparently, you had bruised his ego, too. “Lucky to be alive, really.”

Yeah, he really was.

“Well, speaking of taking things away, I still have to get the eggs from the chickens,” you said, segueing the conversation to an exit strategy. “Excuse me.”

“Oh, you have chickens here?” Russell enthusiastically slapped Colter’s arm. “Did you hear that? They have chickens.”

“Yeah, uh, very exciting,” Colter said, subtly clearing his throat.

“We’ve always wanted chickens,” Russell clarified for the pastor, joining you by your side as you rounded the table. It wasn’t true, though. The brothers actually had a chicken coop at the cabin when they were kids and hated it. The hens were noisy, the rooster was the worst, and it was always a mess to clean up. “I love those clucking little buggers. And now that we have a big backyard… Mind if I come along and check out your setup?”

“Not at all,” you replied with a friendly smile.

“Great. Be right back,” Russell told his brother, hurrying after you before he eloquently made a U-turn back to the stand and grabbed a plate of pie.

“Take your time,” Colter said through a pressed smile, although he wondered how long he’d be stuck here for with the pastor and your fake husband.

“Clear,” you said and held the creaking wooden door of the coop open for Russell to follow inside. As soon as it fell shut behind you two, you crossed your arms. “Okay, talk.”

“What? Here? Now?” With squinted eyes and a cocked brow, Russell looked around the small and dark space full of farm fowl, hay, and feathers.

You threw your arms up in exasperation. “You said you wanted to talk, so talk. What’s wrong with this place?”

“Nothing,” Russell said timidly and swallowed. He scratched the back of his neck. “You know, I just imagined this conversation a thousand times in my head, and it never happened in a chicken coop on church grounds.”

“Adorable,” you commented unamused, your brow knitting even more.

“All I’m sayin’ is, this just takes some time gettin’ used to…”

“Get used to it faster.”

Russell sighed. Then you did.

You softened your stance, crossed arms falling freely to your sides. “I’ve missed you,” you said earnestly and gifted him a small smile, taking in his changed appearance for the first time in detail.

He was hairier than you remembered. That you knew for sure. If you went back even further, he was also a lot broader, too. When you’d met, he was just a kid – as were you. It was only in the last few years of your relationship that he started to gain some serious muscle and really began to fill out his uniform. And all of a sudden, the tall and broad-shouldered soldier became more threatening – and more protective.

Now, clean-shaven, young, somewhat naive, and rule-following was replaced by a rebellious, midlife-crisis beard and the matching hair.

Ah, the t-shirt… Mötley Crüe. He found that thing eleven years ago at a thrift store in Arizona. It had a (bullet) hole on the left side of his lower back that you had patched – thrice. Once even with teething floss in a tent.

“How have you been?”

Russell’s head bobbed. He shrugged. “So-so.” Then he smiled. Soft and warm. The first few rays of sunshine on frozen winter skin. “I’ve missed you, too.” Then, the smile disappeared from his lips, replaced by contempt. “Got your divorce papers. Not signing them, by the way.”

“Good.” You smiled weakly. “I didn’t want you to sign them. I just sent them to get your attention.”

The relief that surged through Russell’s body was ineffable. For months, he thought he’d lost you – that you’d finally given up on him for good.

“How’s the new job working out?”

Russell’s lips drew a smirk, flirtatious charm glimmering in his forest green eyes. “What, you keeping tabs on me, sweetheart?”

You matched his expression. “Who do you think recommended you, huh?”

Russell stumped for a beat. His lips pursed, eyebrows drawing into a wondering v. “Well, they said someone did. Just didn’t think it was you.”

All this time, he’d believed you had crossed him out of your mind with a red pen as soon as you’d walked out the door that very morning.

“I told you. I’ll always look out for you,” you replied simply, a caring smile dancing on your lips. “So? Did it help? Are you any closer?”

“Yeah, guess so…” He paused for a moment, his gaze focused on the tips of his boots as he thought. “Not sure it was worth it, though. Actually, I’m fucking sure it wasn’t.”

You exhaled a long breath. You knew this day would come eventually. You knew he’d come back for you. Granted, you had expected him on your goddamn doorstep years ago, but he never showed. Sending divorce papers was a last resort in hopes he’d wake up then. That had been nine months ago.

“Why are you here, Russ?”

“Things have changed.”

Ah. That made things perfectly clear.

Lifting a brow, you crossed your arms again. “Is that why you brought your little brother along? As a show of good faith?”

“Kinda.”

“Poor Colter… How’s his nose?”

Russell wiped your sincere concerns away with a shrug. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. Just a scratch.”

Just a scratch…

“It’s weird… seeing you two together,” you said. For more than fifteen years, you had wondered. A part of you thought this day would never come, so maybe Colter being here was indeed a show of good faith and Russell was finally, finally dealing with his shit.

That man could easily fill the Denver airport with his baggage.

“You look good,” you noted. You were trained to control your heartbeat, but he had always made your job harder. “Different.”

His fingers brushed his beard as if to emphasize the newness. “Yeah? You like it?”

“Well, uhm, I don’t hate it,” you said rather coyly. Did you want to give him a win? No. But if he stepped any closer, you would falter. Your cheeks blushed as the tip of your shoe drew circles in the sandy ground. Why did your ears suddenly feel so hot?

Russell smiled as heat crept to his cheeks as well. “Your new look is somethin’, too.”

“God, shut up.” You rolled your eyes at him but couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face.

“Oh, I don’t think you’re allowed to take the Lord’s name in vain here,” Russell teased. “Don’t let good Pastor Jeff hear ya.”

You laughed, scoffing. “I hate that man.”

“Pastor Jeff? I can tell,” Russell chuckled in amusement and finally stuffed his face with the first bite of pie, chewing a mouthful as he spoke. “But c’mon, he ain’t half bad.”

“Really? You don’t wanna shoot yourself after spending five minutes with him? ‘Cause I do. And it’s been months for me,” you said. “You don’t know what that man does in his office.”

“You bugged his office?”

“And the confession booth. Two words: game changer,” you said, wide-eyed. Russell whistled lowly. You narrowed your eyes at the half-eaten plate in his hands and the pie crumbs in his beard. You raised a scolding brow. “Did you really have to bring the pie?”

“Do you even know me at all? Of course I did.” Russell then shoved the last bite into his mouth to prove his petulant point. “Did you actually bake this?”

In expectant offense, you stepped back a little, crossing your arms again. “Why?”

“‘Cause it’s good.”

“Do you even know me at all? What d’you think?”

“Thought so.” Russell gave a shrug of his shoulders. “The first bite of this didn’t give me immediate food poisoning.”

“Fuck you. I’m a great cook,” you huffed but couldn’t help the grin on your face. You had missed this – the bickering, the bantering, the fun. And Russell, the sly asshole, knew that, judging by his own smirk.

“There’s a lot of reasons why I love you, but your cooking skills ain’t one of ‘em, sweetheart,” he quipped.

“I’ll use you as shooting practice, Shaw,” you threatened playfully. Russell laughed, but it sounded more secretive than a laugh about a joke. “What?”

Russell’s eyes found yours. “Nothing. This is nice, right? We slid right back into it. Like the last three years never happened.”

“Russ…” You sighed, your heart hurting. For you, they happened.

“Just saying it was easy. That’s all,” he said with placating hands. “How’s the family? How’s your dad?”

That caused you to suck in a breath. You had wondered when he would finally dare to ask. You knew this was the real reason why he was here. “Dave finally married Jill last spring. It was a nice wedding. Florence, Italy. Got to wear a sun hat.”

“That’s good.��� Russell smiled softly, although it stung that he wasn’t invited. He had always imagined he would be, once your brother popped the question to his longtime girlfriend. After all, Russell was the one who introduced the couple in the first place.

“They wanted to do it sooner, but because of the pandemic…”

“They shoulda done it ten years ago. I kept telling him to lock it down,” Russell quipped, the irony not entirely lost on him. He knew even if something was locked down, didn’t necessarily mean it would stay forever.

“You did,” you remembered with a fond smile. “They wanted you there,” you added, noticing his saddened expression. “It’s just-…”

“No, I know. Don’t worry about it,” Russell brushed it off with all the coolness he could muster at that moment.

“Russ…”

“I said it’s fine,” he repeated and forced another smile. “So, how’s the old man?”

Silently, you bit your lip and sent him a look that spoke volumes.

“Uh-oh. That bad, huh?”

“It’s the reason why I moved back here. To be closer… As close as I can be with this job. Figured it was best for everyone,” you explained. “In the beginning, he had a lot of good days, you know? Now they just all seem… bad.”

“Yeah… I’m sorry,” Russell replied, dumping his empty plate by the chickens. He stepped closer.

Uh-oh. Now, you were in trouble.

“I’m sorry, too.”

Russell’s brow jumped up. “What are you sorry for? It’s your dad.”

“I know. But… he kinda was yours too, right?” Russell’s green eyes meeting yours confirmed your statement. “He still talks about you on his good days. God knows you couldn’t throw a football before you met him.”

“Hey, that’s not true. I could throw the old pigskin around perfectly fine,” Russell defended.

You snorted. “You could not,” you argued with a teasing smile. “You knew how to kill sweet little forest critters and turn your pee into drinking water. But you did not know how to throw a damn ball.”

“You’re never letting the pee thing go, are you?”

You shrugged. “It was a very memorable trip.”

Russell laughed at that. Then the melancholic sadness returned to his face. “How’s-, uhm, how’s Lewis?”

He’d made it through the list of your relatives, finishing with the most important one. And it stung so unbearably much it broke your heart for him. But in the end, you knew he’d done it to himself.

Fighting the tears in your eyes, you forced a smile to your lips. “He’s good. He’s a sweet boy. Keeps asking questions about his daddy that I don’t know how to answer…” you scoffed humorlessly but decided to forgo the pettiness. It would be so easy to be mad at him, but not even on your darkest days could you do it. “He’s starting school this fall.”

“School, huh?” Russell huffed a devastating chuckle, the tears brimming in his eyes as the lump in his throat only grew. “Shit…”

It was getting to him, you could see, and he hadn’t expected that it would. Knowing Russell, he probably figured he could push through the pain and be fine. But he had never really been fine since the day you met him – and he wasn’t this time either as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to blink the tears away, and turned his back to you with a hand clasped over his mouth.

“Should I stop?”

It felt like you were torturing him with a cruel new method of some PsyOp. Even if you had cursed this man for the past three years, your heart refused to see him hurt.

But Russell shook his head, finding your eyes again. He offered you a weak smile. “No, uh, don’t. Just tell me something about him, okay? I’m fine. Please.”

Sighing, you nodded in acceptance. “When my dad was better, he and Dave would take him fishing a lot. He loved it. He’s in his ‘backyard adventures’ phase,” you said, giggling softly. “He’s catching frogs and releasing them in the house. Never imagined I’d wake up with an amphibian on my head. It’s been a delightful experience.”

Russell laughed, but it was feeble at best. “I can imagine…”

And I can’t imagine I missed it all, he thought self-punishingly. But the hard part still hadn’t come yet.

“And, uhm…” Russell wrung for words, taking a deep breath. “How’s the baby? Is it–”

“She,” you stated, watching him swallow upon your correction. “Her name’s Amelia. She turned two in April.”

“Huh, girl…” His heart beat faster, grew bigger, and painfully yearned. His feet trembled to get home, wherever that was, and see them, but he knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t so easy, after all. “Guess I was right…” he said with a sad smile.

You had been sure you’d have another boy. However, Russell had bet you ten meatball subs – your craving at the time – that it wasn’t.

“What happened to Ann? Thought that’s the name we picked,” Russell teased in hopes of lightening the mood.

“Yeah, well, if you wanted a say, maybe you should’ve been there…” you retorted.

Russell should’ve known winning you over wouldn’t be as simple as spelling the ABC.

“You’re the one who left,” Russell muttered finger-pointing-ly under his breath.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know why,” you bit glaringly.

Russell swallowed lightly, nodding. “You’re right. I do. I’m sorry.” Pausing, his eyes glanced around the coop before he gestured with a hand at your outfit, looking you up and down. “So, speaking of the kids, what’s going on here? Thought you were done with the deep-covers,” he changed the subject with a clear of his throat.

He knew if he continued talking about what he’d missed, he wouldn’t make it out of that chicken coop for the next several hours, sobbing uncontrollably in the hay with the hens.

“I was. Had a desk job. Kinda…” A desk job in the CIA still never really was a desk job. “I was station chief in Paris.”

“Paris, huh? Fancy,” Russell said, but the joke didn’t reach the crinkles around his eyes.

“It’s the job I took after I left. We only moved back to the States in the beginning of the year,” you explained. “The kids loved it there, though. Lewis still gets a craving for crêpes every once in a while.”

Russell chuckled, even though every story added another bruise to his heart.

“Anyways, I got a job at Langley. Desk. Bought a house not too far from here, actually. It’s nice. Got a big backyard. Even bigger oak tree,” you told him with a smile. “Lewis wants me to build him a treehouse, but I’m not sure I can swing it.”

“I could help,” Russell offered, trying to keep his eagerness at bay when truly all he wanted was to race there and build the damn thing now. “I mean, if I can come by sometime…”

Your heart sank. “You can always come home. You always could, Russ.”

Home.

That four-letter word filled him with so much warmth and longing it brought back the tears in his eyes.

“So, uhm, why are you here and not there then?” This time, he switched the topic because he would’ve kissed you if he hadn’t. “You running a sting on the pastor or…?”

“One of his sheep.”

“Ah.” Russell nodded. “Need any help?”

“From you and Colter?”

“Yeah.”

“No, thank you.”

“Oh, c’mon, just lemme help. The faster you get this done and over with, the sooner you can stop clutching your fake pearls and get home to the kids,” Russell reasoned.

You sighed, knowing he was partially right. You did hate your disguise as much as you hated the annoyingly nosy pastor. Moreover, you missed your children a fucking lot. It had already been three months. Fall was coming soon, and you had promised your son you’d be home by his first day of school.

“C’mon, how did they lure you back in, huh? Who’s the naughty little sheep you’re working?”

“Can’t talk about this here,” you told him, automatically lowering your voice. It was hard to remember who you were right now, when what you were used to be was standing right in front of you.

Russell quirked a brow. “Did you bug the coop, too?”

“No, the pastor’s scared of the chickens, which is why I didn’t bother. But you never know if someone else isn’t listening. We’ve already shared too much. We shouldn’t do this here,” you insisted, and Russell nodded in agreement. He knew the dangers as well as you did.

“Then where?”

You exhaled a deep breath and thought for a moment. You wanted to see him again. You knew he didn’t just come find you to catch up and then leave again.

“Come by the house tonight. Make it look natural. I’ll invite you guys to dinner as a sort of friendly welcome wagon to the neighborhood. The pastor is gonna buy it in a heartbeat. Just give me a good reason to invite you over.”

Russell nodded in understanding. “Alright.”

Part 3: This Is a Heart-To-Heart

Welp, seems like Russell omitted having a wife and two kids... 🙈😂

I'll post the next part in the beginning of the new year or straight after Polaris has finished. We'll see ☺️

Enjoy the rest of your holidays, loves! Can't wait to read your comments on this one 😉🤍

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[oftenwantedafton]

personal space | steve raglan x f!reader

chapter seven

Explicit content, 5.3k words, new 5/27/25

ao3 link

Steve Raglan holds onto you as if you are the only thing keeping him from shaking apart.

As if his exterior will crack, revealing the monster buried inside at last, the facade he’s so carefully constructed and maintained fracturing, the atoms scattering, forever lost.

His fingers dig into the bare skin of your thighs, pressing colors there—indigo and cobalt and deep amethyst, marking you, mimicking those his mouth has pulled from your throat, from your neck and shoulders in hues reminiscent of overripe raspberries.

You’re his, and yet he’s not quite certain the reverse is entirely true, no matter how much he might like it to be, because the lie of William Afton had nearly escaped for a moment there, slipping free at the apex of his pleasure, possessive and jealous and demanding, a demon wishing to be appeased, carnal cravings shifting to bloodlust. How long it’s been since he’s felt his prey’s lifeforce spill over his hands, hot and sticky and metallic. Almost, but not quite surrendering. He’s still in control. You’re safe.

His forehead lifts from yours, and he regards you for long moments. His conquest’s eyes are red rimmed and puffy from the tears you’d shed on his behalf, your lashes clustered into angry points. Your lips are swollen from the fury of his kisses, parted slightly, the air dragged roughly in between them, thin and reedy, almost an asthmatic’s whine. “Alright?” He grates softly, his own throat raw.

You nod, clutching his tie. He finally shifts a hand from your leg to smooth back a damp tendril of hair clinging to your cheek. “Why now? Why did you change your mind?”

The older man sucks in a sharp breath of air, then exhales slowly. “It wasn’t about changing my mind. I’ve wanted you for a very long time.”

“But you wouldn't…”

“No. But after what happened earlier…something broke inside me. I couldn’t deny this anymore.” He pauses, watching you slowly digest these statements. You look nervous; a deer, spooked and cautious, deciding between lingering and fleeing. “Are you still planning on quitting and running away from me?”

You shake your head, worrying your bottom lip. “You’ve hurt me, Steve.”

“I know. And I’m sorry for that.” Seeing your lack of response, he continues, “I don’t know how else to apologize. Do you want me to beg for forgiveness? Go down on my knees? I’ll be perfectly honest, my joints aren’t what they once were,” he jokes, hoping to earn a little smile; but your features remain solemn and he abandons the attempt. “I’ll do it, if that’s what you want.”

“No.” You huff at his proposal. “No, of course not.” You squirm slightly on the counter, frowning. “I really need a shower.”

“Me too. Should we go do that and talk after?”

“Okay.” He braces you as you slide down off the island’s butcher block surface. You bend to retreive the things he’d swept off of it during the moments of passion, collecting your panties and gesturing for him to follow you.

Steve secures the button on the waist of his pants, leaving the belt dangling open as he’s guided into a small bathroom with a bathtub, toilet, and sink. You seem to realize then the state of your dress, your fingers tracing over the missing buttons, lost near the door to your apartment in his haste to be intimate with you.

“Sorry. If you’ve got a sewing kit handy, I’ll fix that for you afterwards.”

“You sew?” You inquire, clearly surprised.

He nods. “Had to learn. Costumes need frequent repairs…”

“Oh.” Your eyes watch as he pulls his tie free and sets in on the counter, working now on unfastening the cuffs of his sleeves. He halts abruptly when you step closer, each button of his shirt surrendering beneath your movements, the material eventually shucked and tossed to join his accessory. Your hands slide beneath the hem of his undershirt, running over the soft, slightly padded stomach, your fingers tracing over the patterns of the springlock scars.

Desire flares anew, rushing in through his nostrils, making him finish what he’d started earlier, parting you from your ruined dress, jerking it roughly over your head before capturing your mouth.

He doesn’t wait for any further assistance before pulling the remainder of his clothing off while you unhook your brassiere, the final garment you’re clad in. He follows you into the tub, stepping over the lip and then crowding close behind you. You’ve scarcely begun lathering with a bar of soap before he snatches it from your fingers, ignoring your noise of protest, admiring its evolution into a sound of pleasure when his mouth sucks at the side of your throat, his foamy hands now caressing your breasts. They work their way downward, one slipping between your thighs to clean your sex, eliciting another muffled keen. He sets the soap on the shelf nearby and tugs you gently backward, allowing the spray of water to rinse your body, his fingers still moving long after the last of the suds have vanished.

He presses one finger inside of you, then two, an obscene noise filling the air as he digs into that place his cock had occupied not so long ago, that place he’d pumped weeks’ and weeks’ worth of pent up frustration. His mouth waters, imagining the taste of you, deciding that he’s going to discover that flavor very soon. Slick coats his probing digits, a different kind of wet from the water spilling over you, thicker, like oil, gushing past his fingers. He smears it over your swollen, unhooded clit and you whimper, your head lolling back against his chest.

“That’s it, honey. Cum on my fingers.” He coaxes another orgasm from you, your mouth searching for his once you’ve begun to recover. Then he presses the soap back into your hand, drinking a last wet kiss from your lips before you turn around to face him.

You seem intent on touching every one of his scars, mapping the long-healed marks along his torso, his arms, down his spine and both legs. Your fingers curl around his hardening cock, giving a few lazy tugs before your begin stroking in earnest. He groans, cupping your jaw and lapping along your throat while his other hand grasps your pistoning wrist. “Save it. I want to fill you back up again later.” It won’t compare to the load he’s already given you, of course, but he wants it there just the same. On top of you next time, pressing you down and pumping that tight wet pussy of yours full of his seed.

Once you’ve finished bathing there’s a brief intermission to towel off. You seem to notice the marks he’s left on your then, your eyes wide as you stare at the scattered bruises reflected in the mirror. Most can be concealed by clothing, but the ones along your neck are blatantly obvious. Love bites.

You seem almost shy when you lead him into your bedroom after throwing the laundry in the washing machine, his eyes immediately landing on the Hello Kitty plush resting between the pillows.

“I’ve had her forever,” you murmur, lifting the cat into your arms, clutching her to your breasts.

Forever for you, he thinks, is quite different than my version.

“I’m here now. You won’t be needing it to hug tonight,” he says, plucking the stuffed animal from your fingers and setting it down on the mirrored dresser nearby.

You nod, pulling the light floral quilt and top sheet down to the foot of the bed. He admires the view, moving to squeeze each globe of your buttocks.

“Lie down in the middle of the bed,” he instructs softly.

“I thought we were going to talk?”

“Is that what you want me to do with my mouth?” He sees you shiver and smirks, sweeping back some of your damp hair.

You climb onto the matress, adjusting the pillows so that they stack on top of one other, then lie back against them. He cages your body, kissing your forehead and cheeks and lips, your collarbones and shoulders and nipples, moving down and down and down, spreading your labia after you open your legs. He could tease you a little longer; blow air over your pussy and nibble your inner thighs, but he wants to taste you, right here, right now.

His tongue slides through the flesh he’s exposed, his thumbs still keeping you open to him. You whimper and writhe, resting a hand along your pubic mound, pressing down and pulling upward, your clit popping upright, begging to be sucked. He needs no further invitation, delivering a series of sharp flicks with this tongue, delighting in how much that stiff bud quivers beneath his touch. It’s nearly too much; he can tell, and yet he’s relentless, sucking that morsel into his mouth, the fine hairs of his beard prickling your moist pink tissue. He introduces one finger, then a pair, pumping in and out while ravaging your clit.

He thinks about doing this to you at work; placing you on top of the desk blotter, pushing whatever skirt or dress you have on out of the way, panties dragged off to expose this delicious treat. Eating you out instead of having lunch, then dumping a load of cum down your throat so your stomach isn’t empty. His hips rock gently against the mattress, his cock drooling onto your fitted sheets. Then he’d flip you over and take you from behind, fuck you fast and hard doggy style. He’s always taken his job seriously, no matter how tedious it’s become, but he’s more than willing to set aside that professionalism in favor of a good session of debauchery with you.

It doesn’t take you long to find your third climax, your hips lifting off the bed and grinding against his face, your fingers now buried in his graying hair. He licks and sucks you until you’re limp and boneless, until he’s fingered enough arousal from you to saturate a broad circle of moisture into your bedding.

A sob of pleasure escapes you when he replaces those fingers with his cock, his mouth now on yours. Your taste is heavy on his tongue, your scent clinging to his face. He fucks into you slowly, giving you time to recover before moving in earnest, burying himself to the hilt over and over. Thoughts of splashing his cum all over your womb send him over the edge; your answering release, a fourth wrung out series of sparks, milks the remainder of his sperm. He collapses beside you, pulling you into a messy tangle into his arms. You’re covered in sweat and cum again. He’s halfway tempted to finger his leaking cum back into your cunt, but decides to let you rest for now. He could use a break himself, truth be told. It’s been a long day. A long week. A long everything.

He hugs you more tightly, closing his eyes, his body finally lulled to sleep.

***

Your eyes open.

The display on the digital alarm clock beside your bed informs you that it’s early evening. You’ve napped about two hours.

Steve’s arms are still wrapped around you. It sounds like he’s snoring. You can’t blame him for being tired. Not after what you’d just done together.

And fuck if it hadn’t met all your expectations. Exceeded them. Maybe it’s good you’d waited this long. Maybe it wouldn’t have been the same if you’d started this right away. Whatever this is.

You suppose that’s one of the things you need to talk about. Are you just his fuck buddy now? His girlfriend? Were you supposed to keep this a secret from everyone at work? Not that you wanted everyone in the office to be involved in your personal business, but still.

Have you really forgiven him for everything he’s said and done?

That’s perhaps even more difficult to answer. You’re still hurt. Still unsure. You wish this could have happened a little differently. You still hate the idea of working in a separate office. Of course you’d known that couldn’t last forever.

You wish there’d hadn’t been the insults. The continued rejection. Even if his intentions were good, they still stung, each and every time.

You still don’t understand why he’d pushed you away so many times. Why he’d claimed once that he’s not who you think he is. That strange transformation that had occurred in your kitchen. A foreign person staring back at you. Into you. Tipping over into the chasm of bliss before vanishing. Maybe your imagination. Maybe not.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Steve murmurs against your ear.

“Mmm…nope. Not good enough. I need at least a quarter.”

“Extortion,” he mutters, chuckling softly. “But fine. A quarter it is. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. I really needed a nap.”

“Me too.” He gently kisses the side of your neck.

“Are you staying the night?”

“Unless you’re throwing me out, yes, I was planning on it. Thought we could pick up dinner, rent a movie…”

A happy little flutter stirs your stomach. “That sounds nice.”

“Good. That’s settled. What’s next?”

You push gently against his arms, extricating yourself from his embrace and rolling over to face him. “I need to know some things.”

“Okay,” he replies warily.

“First: What are we, Steve?”

The bearded man exhales. “Starting off with the hard questions, huh? Fine. Dating, if that’s what you want.”

“Is that what you want?”

“To be perfectly honest, I want a cheeseburger and a beer. And that mouth on me sometime within the next eight hours or so,” he murmurs, underlining your bottom lip. “But yes. I want you to be mine.”

“What about work?”

“What about it? Are you asking if I’m rescinding that evaluation? The answer is no. You’re ready to be on your own. That doesn’t mean I’ll never see you. That doesn’t mean you can’t pop into my office to ask me a question. That doesn’t mean we can’t have lunch together. Or go to some seminar and half pay attention, then fuck each other senseless afterwards. It’s not as doom and gloom as you’re making it out to be, I promise.”

You pause, taking all of these statements in. “Okay. I guess we can give it a shot.” You touch his cheek. “I want to have dinner with Vanessa. The three of us. If I’m going to be your girlfriend, I feel like I should get to know her.”

Steve frowns. “That’s a more difficult request than you might imagine. Vanny is…very headstrong. Very stubborn.”

“Like her dad.”

“Worse than me. A million times worse. I can’t guarantee she’ll agree to it, or if she does, how she’ll behave. She’ll be civil, of course, but if you’re looking to make another friend, I wouldn’t count on her.”

“I still want to try.”

“I’ll see when she’s available,” he murmurs, still looking reluctant. “Anything else?”

“What are we telling people at work? About us, I mean.”

“Honestly, and you’re just going to have to defer to my age and wisdom on this, you don’t want people getting involved. I recommend you don’t advertise it. It doesn’t mean I’m ashamed or anything like that,” he hastens to reassure you. “It means I think it will be better for both of us if we keep a professional facade up inside the office. When the doors are open, at least, and we’re on company time,” he adds, leaning over to kiss your mouth. “During lunch, or after work, though…”

You melt against him, surprised to find a tingling warmth stirring in your core. The man is insatiable, and your body doesn’t seem to mind that fact one bit.

You begin to wonder where you should go for dinner, thinking it’s better to choose someplace close by that’s fast, so you don’t waste too much time that could be better spent doing—“Shit, I forgot to throw the laundry in the dryer,” you curse, shifting to sit upright. As of right now, your lover has no clothing options.

“It’s alright. It’s Friday evening. Places are open later. We could always just get something delivered.” He folds his hands behind his head, readjusting so that he’s lying on his back. The man looks completely at home already.

“I’ll go take care of it anyway. You’re going to need to wear something eventually.”

“Says you.”

“Steve!” You shove at his ribs and he grins. “Hey, I just realized…where are your glasses?”

“Left them in the car.”

“Can you see anything right now?”

“No. You’re just a blur.”

“Wait, seriously?”

He maintains your gaze steadily, then cracks another smile. “No, I’m teasing. I’m near sighted. It’s distance that’s the problem.”

“Oh.” You run your fingers over his chest. “Final question.”

“Ask.”

Your eyes meet his. “Are you hiding anything else? Is there anything else you think I should know about you?”

“No.”

You continue to study the man’s features, trying to discern any hint of deception, but you detect nothing amiss.

“I guess that’s it for now. I’m going to go deal with that laundry.”

Steve emits a wolf whistle as you rise to your feet. “Shush, you.” You grab your plush from the dresser and toss it to your former mentor.

He catches it neatly, turning it around to regard the cat’s features before cradling it against his chest. “It is soft,” he concedes.

“See? I knew I was going to convert you one of these days.”

“But you still throw like a girl,” he teases.

”You're lucky I like you so much, Steve Raglan.”

”Trust me, I’m well aware of that fact.”

You return his smile. “Okay, I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

***

Steve steps inside his home the next evening, nearly tripping over the luggage he still has tucked beside the front door.

He’d completely forgotten it’s still waiting to be unpacked. He’d been so busy writing your evaluation after getting back from the trip in Vegas. So distracted by all the events that had followed.

The house is quiet.

As it should be, since he lives alone, but it feels strange to him. Wrong, somehow. After spending Friday night and most of Saturday with you as well, he’d gotten accustomed to your presence. The vibrancy and warmth and tenderness of you.

Coming back to this emptiness feels like a slap in the face.

He can already see the flashing light on the answering machine from here, and he knows who it is, too. He actually winces when he thumbs the button to play the message, bracing himself for the torrent of anger that’s about to issue from his daughter’s mouth.

“Again. Really, Dad?” Vanessa has forgone the customary greeting, getting straight to the point. “We just went over this. We agreed no more disappearing acts. Honestly, how hard is it to make a phone call just to let me know what’s going on? You’d better be out on some hot date right now, because if not…”

The phone rings and he answers it, interrupting whatever else she’d been about to say.

“Hello?”

“Dad.” The relief is palpable in Vanny’s voice. “Where were you this time?”

“Out on a hot date, like you suggested.”

“Oh, come off it.” She pauses. “Wait. Seriously? Did you actually go on a date with that girl from work?”

“Yes,” he replies reluctantly, already regretting his next words before he even utters them, “and that woman, by the way, would like us all to have dinner together.”

“You’re joking.”

“Afraid not.” He sits on the couch, sighing. “So figure out your work schedule and let me know when you’re available.”

“Dad.”

“Yes?”

“You promise you’re not going to use her for one of your experiments if this doesn’t pan out, right?”

“Of course not. I told you that already.”

“I know, but…what about your past?”

“She doesn’t need to know,” he replies stiffly, his unoccupied hand tightening into a fist.

“This isn’t fair, what you’re doing. You know it’s not.”

“We’ve already spoken about this exact topic. You voiced your opinions. I gave you mine. The matter is settled. She wants to meet you. Let me know a day and time, Vanessa.”

“I’m off next Saturday. Anytime is okay,” she mumbles.

“Fine. Be here for five o’clock, then. And make sure you’re on your best behavior.”

“Says the serial killer to the police officer.”

“Vanny,” he cautions through gritted teeth.

“See you next weekend.”

The call disconnects and a dial tone hums loudly in his ear until he powers off the cordless phone.

***

Monday morning finds you back at work bright and early, pulling beside Steve Raglan’s sedan in the parking lot.

The impulse to run into his arms nearly overwhelms you but you force yourself to remain calm, softly greeting your new boyfriend. “Hey.”

”Good morning.”

”How was the rest of your weekend?”

”Busy,” he declares, moving towards the building, and you fall in step beside him. “We’re having dinner with Vanny next Saturday at five, by the way.”

”You got her to come!” You squeeze his arm enthusiastically. “That’s great. Thank you, Steve.”

”Don't thank me yet,” he mutters darkly.

”It'll be fine.” The other social worker holds the door for you and you enter the DSS office building.

”If this is an attempt to repair the rift between my daughter and I, I’m going to warn you right now that the gesture is futile.”

”Why is there so much tension between you two, anyway?”

”The answer to that is very lengthy. Messy. Unpleasant.” He watches you thumb the call button for the elevator.

”Well, maybe someday you’ll feel comfortable telling me.” You pause when you arrive at your destination, freezing in the reception area.

”What’s the matter?”

”I don’t know where I’m going. I mean, what office is mine?”

Steve smiles. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

You follow your former mentor curiously. So far, the path is identical to the one you’d been taking for all of these weeks. You pass Steve’s office. The restroom. The breakroom.

”Right in here.”

You blink in surprise, slowly entering the room he gestures to. It’s minimally furnished with the typical office essentials and there’s a large box seated on the desk. “Wasn’t this someone else’s office before?”

He nods. “Yes. I pulled a few strings, managed to convince the former owner to swap with something further down that had a nicer view. I know you’d rather be overlooking the more scenic rear of the property, but it’s the closest office I could get you, and I thought that was a prior—” He cuts off as you abruptly stretch up on your toes to plant a kiss on his lips.

”Oh, Steve, sorry, I forgot…” You glance around hurriedly but it seems like no one is around to notice your transgression. “It’s perfect. Well, as close to perfect as it can be, other than being in your office with you. What’s this?” You point to the box.

”Open it and see.”

”Is this from you?”

His lips twitch. ”Maybe.”

”It is from you. How did you have time to get this in here?”

”Slipped a little bribe to the cleaning crew late last night.”

You lift the flaps and peer inside.

There’s a desk calendar and appointment book. A rack to sort your mail, in the shape of Hello Kitty. A small bamboo plant. Pens and pencils and other stationary supplies. The items seem endless.

”This was so sweet of you. I don’t even know what to say.”

”I’m glad you like it. Let me know if you need anything else. Oh, and use filtered water for the bamboo. They can manage fine without sunlight, but tap water is a no-go.”

”Okay, good to know.” You pause, then step around him to shut the door. “Is it okay if I reward your generosity with a kiss?”

”I think that would be very okay.”

You twine you arms behind his neck and he bends to kiss your mouth, licking it open and stroking your tongue.

”Jesus, Steve,” you gasp.

”I missed having you in my bed the last two nights. Let’s do something about that tonight, yes?”

”Yes.” You barely get the word out before his mouth crushes yours.

It’s difficult to finally separate, breathing heavily as you survey each other’s appearances, adjusting clothing and accessories and hair.

”I’m so nervous,” you confess, casting an anxious glance at the clock. The start of your shift isn’t that far away.

”You’ll do great. And I’m right across the hall if you need anything.” He presses a final kiss on your forehead, then opens the door and leaves.

You turn back towards your desk, squaring your shoulders determinedly.

Time to get your office set up.

***

The work week flies by.

Saturday arrives even more swiftly, Steve’s anxiety about the upcoming event mounting. He tries to relax, to keep busy with errands and dinner preparations, but you’re shouldering most of the burden in that regard, leaving him to pace the living room back and forth.

“Steve, come on, why don’t you sit down?” You usher him to the couch, as if he doesn’t know where this piece of furniture is in his own home, but he stills his tongue and acquiesces, settling onto the microfiber cushion.

He jumps up like he’s been stung by a hot poker when the doorbell rings a few minutes later, yelling out that he’ll get it as he strides briskly to answer the front door.

He realizes he hasn’t seen his daughter out of uniform in a long time. Her hair is loose today, flowing in golden waves to kiss the top of each shoulder. She has a short sleeve blouse and slacks on, and is carrying a bouquet of flowers.

“Dad,” she greets him.

“Vanessa,” he replies, mimicking her clipped, formal tone. “That really wasn’t necessary, but thanks,” he says, pointing to the floral arrangement of daisies, carnations, and baby’s breath.

“Very funny. They’re not for you,” she says, rolling her eyes, then tries to peer around the tall man curiously. “So where is she?”

“In the kitchen.”

She attempts to ascend the remaining step, clearly intending to enter, but he smoothly blocks her. “Best behavior, Vanessa. I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The blonde nudges his arm until he finally surrenders and steps aside, granting her access.

“Vanessa, hi! So glad you could make it!” Steve hears your enthusiastic greeting moments later and shuts the door with a sigh.

“Thanks for the invite. Dad isn’t much for family dinners,” she replies.

Already. She was starting already and she’s barely past the threshold.

“These are for you,” Vanny hands the flowers over.

“Thank you! I’m going to go put these in water. Steve, do you want to help me get dinner on the table?”

“Oh, I’ll help you with that,” his daughter quickly interjects, joining you on your trek back to the kitchen.

The career counselor massages the bridge of his nose. Maybe this is finally a long overdue punishment for his multitude of sins.

He doesn’t think he’s going to survive this night.

***

The meal is laid out and three adults are seated around a table that hasn’t known more than one occupant for years.

Steve takes a large swallow of iced tea, halfway wishing he’d chosen something alcoholic as a beverage. He keeps shooting warning glances across the table at his daughter, who seems to be choosing to ignore him for the most part, her attention focused on his girlfriend seated beside him.

“So, how was the trip to Vegas? I’m surprised Dad agreed to go. He’s never been much of a gambler.”

“Oh, yeah, it was good. I’m not really a gambler either. We just went for the conference, mainly.” You take a bite of pasta. “Have you ever been?”

“Me, in Vegas?” You nod and Vanessa laughs. “No. That’s definitely not my scene. I’m a small town girl at heart.” She samples a piece of garlic bread slathered in melted butter, humming in approval before speaking again. “How about you? Where are you from originally?”

“Salt Lake City.”

“Wow. That’s a hike, huh? Must be a good four hours.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“And you came all this way to learn from him, huh?” She glances at Steve.

“Yes, I did.” You offer him a small smile that goes unnoticed as he glares daggers at Vanny.

“How much longer are you on orientation for?”

“I’ve actually completed it. I’m on my own now.”

“Congrats.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re enjoying your job so far?”

“Yes, for the most part. It’s very rewarding helping people. I’m sure you feel the same way about your position. Did you always want to be a police officer?”

“I…not exactly. I went through the usual round of childhood fantasies, I suppose: astronaut, veterinarian, archaeologist—I know, I know. Blame it on watching too much Indiana Jones as a kid,” she says, chuckling over your surprised expression at this last career choice.

“So what finally led you to pursue law enforcement?”

The smile slips from the blonde’s mouth. She clears her throat. “That was my father’s suggestion. Right, Dad?”

Steve grunts, suddenly occupied with his salad.

“I think it’s your turn to contribute to the conversation,” his daughter presses.

“You were doing just fine without me,” he replies, digging the tines of his fork deeply into a piece of greenleaf lettuce.

There’s an awkward pause, then Vanny rescues the day, smoothly inquiring about your Hello Kitty addiction. He’s once again spared from participating.

The meal eventually draws to a close. His daughter passes on offers of second helpings, insisting she help clear the table while you relax in the living room.

Vanny follows her father into the kitchen, arms loaded with dirty plates and utensils. He immediately begins loading the dishwasher, eager for the evening to end. “Plastic wrap is in the third drawer,” he points to the pantry closet.

“I know where it is, Dad. Same place it’s always been.” She pulls the box out and sets it on the counter. “Nothing’s really changed, has it?”

“What do you mean?” He reaches for a soiled serving spoon.

“You’re still…you. You can change your name and disguise your appearance, but you’re still the same man underneath.”

Steve’s eyes widen slightly. “Keep your voice down,” he hisses, hastily dumping the utensil into the flatware rack.

“Why are you with this girl? Why are you letting her get so close?”

“I tried to push her away. So many times. But she was relentless. I finally got tired of saying no.” He drops a dishwashing tablet into the compartment and snaps the lid closed.

“Do you genuinely care about her?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should have kept pushing her away. You can’t do this. You can’t keep lying to her.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Vanny throws her hands up in the air in frustration. “Don’t worry about it? How many people have I watched you destroy? And now you think you’re just going to play house with this poor innocent woman and pretend that everything’s okay? It’s not okay, Dad. It’s never going to be okay.” Her eyes pool with tears. “I miss Mom, and Mikey and Evan. Every single day. Do you ever think about them? Do they ever enter your mind at all?”

“You’re too old for these theatrics,” he mutters, looking uncomfortable.

“Don’t do this to her,” she pleads. “She’s too nice. Too normal to be part of all this. I don’t want to stand by and watch you ruin another person’s life.”

He rests his hands on the counter behind him, turning to fully face her. “Then don’t watch. This isn’t the first time you’ve walked out that door, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

Vanessa blinks and stares, open mouthed. Then she shakes her head and scrubs at her eyes, dashing away the tears and sniffling before she exits the kitchen to make her farewells to you.

Steve releases a shuddering breath after his daughter departs, leaning back heavily against the counter. He should go after her. He should say goodbye at the very least. Instead he does what he’s always done when things got rocky between them.

He does nothing.

[nothorses]

https://www.tumblr.com/rq-lif3styl3s/752949689078431744/bahhahahagaggag

Yeah okay, I've got juice in the tank for this one.

So, for anyone who doesn't wanna click links from anons, this is a link to a post about "transracial" and "trans-abled" people. Specifically, this post is arguig that transracial and transabled people Are Valid.

I mostly see people dismiss these ideas as obviously wrong and shitty rather than actually engaging with them, and like, fair. But I have the energy right now, so fuck it. Let's learn!

The thesis of this post is "gender, race, and ability are all basically the same, so being trans-gender/racial/abled is all the same." I think this demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of all of these concepts, and frankly, I think this is a deeply incurious way of thinking.

This person clearly has at least a surface-level understanding of transgender theory, and they've gone ahead and applied that understanding to everything else without doing any deeper thinking or learning. That sucks. Gender, race, and dis/ability status are all very much social constructs on which systems of oppression are based, but these are social constructs with very different histories and frameworks.

For example: pretty much every culture has had some concept of "gender"- most of them resembling the "male/female" binary we're familiar with today- since time immemorial. Gender roles are fluid with time and culture, and trans identities (and even culturally-sanctioned gender roles/terms) have also been present as long as gender itself has. Gender in various cultures has not always been a construct on which systems of oppression are based, nor is that system of oppression always a patriarchy.

"Race", by contrast, is a concept that sprung up in the 17th century as a justification for colonization and slavery.

Another example: "Disability" is a more modern term, mostly referring to a system of power and one's position in it. There have always been disabled people, but they haven't always been thought of as disabled, and a lot of things we consider "disabilities" in our present culture weren't always thought of as disabling (i.e. pathologized). A lot of things that are disabling are also not thought of as "real disabilities", and a lot of people who are disabled don't think of themselves- and thus are not thought of- as "disabled". It's fluid in a very different way than gender is fluid.

Racial identity is also fluid for very different reasons than the others: a lot of the reasons someone might experience fluidity in their racial identity have to do with their context, and their individual relationship to white supremacist power and oppression.

I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging or exploring the overlap between these things; I personally am super interested in the overlap between cissexism and ableism, and I've explored it a lot in the last couple of years of schooling! Medicalization and pathologization, medical needs and gatekeeping, the understanding of bodies as "natural" and "pure" vs. "unnatural" and "disfigured"- it's all fascinating.

But learning more reveals a lot of differences between gender and transgender folks- things that are entangled with power, but do and have existed separate of power- versus race and disability, which describe relationships to systems of power on a very fundamental level.

It's a mistake to ignore the differences like this, and it reveals more ignorance than anything. Learn about the histories, complexities, studied frameworks, and lived experiences of trans people, disabled people, and people of color! Learn about what makes us similar, and what makes us different! Learn about the issues unique to each of us, and the conversations we're having about theory and systems of oppression!

I'm here for the inclusive mindset, and also, like, there's a reason people treat these things differently. Please learn.

[semperama]

I have also been in the RPF trenches in various fandoms for the better part of 15 years and it is always such a delight when something happens in a fandom that tips people into the RPF stages of grief speed run to acceptance. It hits every time. Join us in the sandbox friends it is actually fine in here 😂

Yeah, I mean, I can see why it initially feels weird to people who aren't used to it! But RPF has a very, very long tradition, and some of the biggest and most popular fandoms are based entirely around RPF (so much so that all of us have probably read a 1D RPF fic or a hockey RPF fic even if we were never in those fandoms lol). So I don't want to shame anyone for feeling their feelings about it, but I really do think RPF is normal and even good and we shouldn't have to like, self-flagellate or perform many ritual apologies before participating.

Here is a really good article if anyone wants to think about it from an ~academic sense for a while. It also contains one of my favorite things ever said about RPF:

Unlike much of the tabloid press, which purports to tell the truth, RPFers consciously declare their writing to be fictional. RPF writers clearly separate their stories from rumors, even when their stories are immediate responses to real-life events. At the same time, however, they refuse to follow the cliché of declaring the public performances of pop stars a fiction and the band members fake and fabricated; instead, their stories often reveal deep empathy and sympathy for the stars they depict. Writing stories about celebrities often requires immersion in the available material. RPFers, far from objectifying them, deeply care about the stars and frequently defend them against accusations of falsity or lack of talent. Rather than dehumanizing the real people by making them a character in their fiction, RPF writers re-humanize the personas artificially constructed for and by the media by giving them inner lives, often making them question their fame and struggle with their constant visibility. Rather than reducing celebrities to their favorite color and animal as many teen magazines do or completely dismissing them as artificial and unauthentic as most their critics are wont to do, RPF writers create fully formed, intricate and interesting characters with flaws and vices, doubts and insecurities. Moreover, I'd argue, they ultimately extrapolate and create a version of the character they (and their readers) find attractive; they shape and alter the celebrity to their own specifications, making him more interesting, intelligent, or vulnerable, and thus more desirable, identifiable, and available. Often the characters are more literate, more sensitive, or simply more self-aware than we might extrapolate from the media portrayal, and the particular aspects the writer chooses to foreground are indicative of the personality she wants to create or explore, the characters she want to understand, care for, maybe even identify with.

The ONLY thing we have to do is maintain the 4th wall. Don't bring RPF to the attention of the subjects. (Obligatory: this is easier to do if you keep it off Twitter, and you know, maybe delete your Twitter account while you're at it because why are you still on there.)

[gravitasmalfunction]

Finished Love of Nirvana, although I cheated and fast forwarded through a lot of the last 4 eps because I find war plots tedious. I have thoughts on lots of things but I mainly want to comment on how well constructed the quiet horror of the emperor's arc was. In the beginning he seems sympathetic - he's buddy-buddy with Wei Zhao, appears to treat him well, and shares a bond of grief with WZ's over the sudden and tragic death of the emperor's favourite and WZ's older sister, Consort Wei. WZ beats the emperor at Go on a regular basis with only mild complaining from the emperor! Granted, WZ declaims the wins as gifts from his majesty but the fact that he can win against the emperor at all seems to point to the emperor as being a kind and tolerant ruler. He is often asking his chief steward for reassurance that his actions will be taken in the kindly spirit in which he intended them.

All of this makes Lady Rongguo and General Lu seem positively unhinged in comparison! Their hatred for him and frothing-at-the-mouth, worst-faith readings of his actions seem so out of proportion to the threat (or rather lack thereof) he presents from the perspective of the audience. The show seems to say, look, of course they hate him, they're looking to justify their desire to rebel. We're presented with them plotting their conspiracies and crimes on screen, and recklessly causing suffering and harm to ordinary people in the process. Clearly Lady Rongguo and General Lu are the real villains of this story. Right?

When the secret of Jiang Ci's parentage comes out, and the emperor first orders her to the palace and then that she will stay there (a situation that's basically Jiang Ci's personal hell), it's tempting to brush over the emperor ignoring both Jiang Ci and his late brother's wishes for her to be free and to stay the fuck out of the palace, the court and politics, and to take his speech about showing love for her and his desire to give her a home and her rightful place in his family at face value as genuine, albeit unwanted concern for her well-being.

When he grants Pei Yan the wedding, and after the coup is put down and Lady Rongguo leaves with her head held high despite her defeat, and he turns away from the carnage of the side hall and Jiang Ci sobbing over the body of her shifu lying dead in her arms, and says to Wei Zhao, "Tomorrow, I want everything to go back to normal," well, maybe he's just had a hard day? Tactless, perhaps, not to consider anybody else's hard day, but he's the emperor so can we be surprised if he makes it all about himself? But this comes after failing to consider Jiang Ci's feelings on the marriage to begin with, and joining the dots, we start to suspect he was merely pretending to care about Jiang Ci all along, and under stress has given up attempting to do a good job of it.

Then there's the family banquet poisoning affair, and its aftermath, and the evidence is stacking up that his majesty is actually fucking awful. Wei invades and he has to reinstate WZ temporarily to protect the country but that doesn't stop him trying to get WZ killed one way or another.

But WZ survives against all the odds and lives to be able to confront the emperor about the murder of Prince Qi in front of the three victorious armies and the people of Yueluo, except he can't because the emperor has arranged a horrible ambush-slash-hostage situation with the civilians of Yueluo. The emperor takes WZ alone up the hill to the place where Prince Qi died and finally reveals the truth - he didn't kill his brother, Prince Qi. He just stood by while Prince Qi killed himself to resolve the emperor's worries about the succession and clear the way for him to inherit the throne (Wei Zhao and the audience: but you see how that's worse, right? Right???)

And what about Consort Wei? The emperor says: she shouldn't have said that to me. (Because she asked the emperor if it was true that he killed his brother.)

Anyway, great character! Really skin-crawlingly terrible! Death by crushing was way too good for him, etc etc. There were other storylines that didn't work for me how I hoped they would, but with the emperor it was the opposite - I wasn't expecting a lot, and instead I got served.

[grishamanimationstudios102]

My thoughts on Brainy Smurf from The Smurfs (1981)

Thinking about Brainy Smurf in The Smurfs (1981), especially across those later seasons, is like watching a character slowly lose the qualities that made him both frustrating and oddly endearing at the start. In those early seasons, Brainy was pompous and overconfident, sure, but it came from a genuine place. He admired Papa Smurf, wanted to be useful, and maybe just needed some guidance on how to get along with others. When he lectured or acted as if he had all the answers, it wasn’t to put everyone down—it was his way of finding connection and self-worth, even if it meant mostly bossing around Clumsy, the one Smurf who tolerated his quirks. 

In The Smurfiest of Friends, for example, we see Brainy’s softer side shine through his friendship with Clumsy. After a spat where they end their friendship, Brainy quickly realizes he’s lost one of the few Smurfs who actually puts up with him. This vulnerability is amplified when he tries to befriend an imp, who initially seems like a great new friend but soon reveals a sinister agenda. When things go awry, it’s Clumsy who comes to his rescue, reminding Brainy just how important their friendship is. The resolution, with Brainy and Clumsy making up, adds a layer of genuine warmth to Brainy's character, showing that beneath his bossy demeanor, he really does value his friends—especially Clumsy, who’s his only consistent ally.

Then there's Papa's Worrywarts, where Brainy and Clumsy team up with the Pussywillow Pixies to help transfer Papa Smurf's worrywarts to a Wartmonger. Though Brainy isn’t the most selfless character, he’s surprisingly proactive here, working with Clumsy (and putting up with his antics) to achieve their goal. This episode showcases a Brainy who, despite his flaws, is capable of helping others and even shows a certain level of bravery in taking on a risky mission.

By Season 6, though, Brainy’s personality had really taken a turn. It felt like he was no longer a character trying to prove himself; instead, he’d morphed into this caricature of ego and ignorance. Instead of showing glimmers of understanding or empathy, he doubled down on his lectures and became almost clueless in his obliviousness. He began to act like he didn’t care about anyone, only focused on making himself look smarter—ironic, considering how often he was clearly wrong. His speeches got longer, but they were increasingly empty, lacking any depth. Brainy wasn’t that well-meaning Smurf just trying to do right by Papa Smurf and his village anymore; he was now so self-involved that it felt like he didn’t even understand the consequences of his own actions.

Take The Smurfy Verdict, for instance. Brainy, who once genuinely cared about his friendships (especially with Clumsy, who had been his one consistent companion), frames Clumsy for Baby Smurf's disappearance. He shows no remorse whatsoever, even as Clumsy suffers for something he didn’t do. It’s a stark contrast to the earlier Brainy who, despite his flaws, would never have taken such a mean-spirited stance, especially toward his one friend. This version of Brainy isn’t trying to maintain any real relationship with the other Smurfs—he’s just intent on proving his own point, no matter who gets hurt.

Or look at Papa for a Day, where he gets a chance to lead, something he always seemed to want in the earlier seasons. But instead of trying to do right by the village, he botches even simple decisions, like organizing construction work. Rather than a loyal assistant to Papa Smurf, eager to prove he can handle responsibility, he seems to be on a power trip, making decisions that have no real logic or consideration for others. There’s no drive to support the community, no understanding of what being “in charge” actually means. Instead, he’s just trying to flaunt authority, showing how much he’s drifted from his earlier self who had some genuine interest in helping and learning.

The show itself was shifting, too, almost like it had stopped trusting its original appeal. In the beginning, adults could enjoy the Smurfs right alongside kids; the humor, the situations, and even Brainy’s flaws were all layered enough to appeal to both. But around the time Brainy’s character shifted, the show itself felt like it was doubling down on broad humor and simplified storylines that catered mostly to younger audiences. It was disheartening to see a once-interesting character, someone who brought an oddly complex mix of arrogance and vulnerability to the village, devolve into a hollow version of himself.

[mywitchyblog]

A lot of the people who are so against race changing make no sense. I saw this one that said that “If you shift for empathy reasons, you have low empathy.” And then five seconds later said “you can’t understand because you’re not a poc!” what is it? Do you want me to have empathy, or am I suddenly not allowed to because apparently according to you only black people have experienced oppression and can understand that feeling?

Do they not realize that there are people who qualify as white and still face racial discrimination? People who are German, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Iranian and Egyptian, and many more?

The hypocrisy and double standards are annoying and it makes no sense.

Fundamentally, race is a social construct with no scientific or biological basis. To legitimate something we often see in society: that there is only one race, the human race, and the so-called other "races" are just a sign of a superiority complex that has festered far too long in humanity, bringing us nothing but strife and pain. To claim that some individuals who engage in race changing during reality shifting lack empathy is not only hypocritical but fundamentally flawed.

The idea that race-changing is a sign of lack of empathy or moral failing is untrue. It's clear to see that the condemnation of race changers often blurs the context of oppression and suffering, which exists in countless forms over a very wide spectrum.

It is always important to remember that oppression does not form one solid experience solely for any one group; it takes place in many different contexts, and yet all are based on prejudice of physical appearance or place of origin.

Although the following examples do not reveal racial oppression in its classic sense, they certainly can be viewed as forms of marginalization that rely on superficial factors, such as how a person looks, comes across, or where they are from. It needs to be taken into consideration by anyone that while the experience of oppression varies widely for many, there is a shared foundation of discrimination.

The race-changing controversy in the reality shifting community shows a mirror to this hypocrisy and double standard around most of these arguments, especially people who shift into "fictional" races. Many people will shift into races that are clearly meant to be allegories for real-world POC populations, such as the Na'vi in "Avatar," whether in white or BIPOC spaces.

Why is it then that shifting into a fictional race, oftentimes one that serves as an allegory for the struggles of real-world oppressed groups, is considered acceptable, while shifting into a different human ethnicity is considered to be taboo?

A prime example is the Na'vi from "Avatar."

I have seen white people and BIPOC shift into this race, completely unconcerned, because it is "fictional." But, well, of course this race is basically an allegory for Indigenous peoples: fighting colonization, preserving their culture. Shifting into a Na'vi could be described as shifting into the experience of being Native American with some blue paint on top of it.

But when someone is asked what urges them to become Na'vi, most people reply that they want to "discover the culture," "understand what it feels like to resist oppression," or "experience the beauty of their world." But it is because the Na'vi are considered fictional that they don't receive the same attention as the human ethnic group. This is the core of the hypocrisy: those who bash one for shifting to a different human ethnicity are doing the same, only it is in a supposed "safer" context—around fiction.

They overlook the fact that both types of shifting are fueled by similar, often innocent and pure-hearted intentions, only to explore, understand, and relate with experiences other than the ones outside of one's original identity.

By holding such double standards, critics ignore the broader implications of their arguments and reveal more about their own comfort with real-world racial issues than about any supposed moral failing on the part of those who engage in race changing.

Engage in all discussions here, with consistency and empathy; understand that reality shifting—whether it be into a fictional or human race—can serve profoundly in your tool of personal growth, empathy development, and deeper cultural understanding.

[madlificent]

Break Room I

A yawn wormed its way out from Sorochi’s chest as she gently pressed her ID card to the wall-mounted scanner. The confirming beep and soft hydraulic hiss of the door were nearly imperceptible to her, smothered beneath the soaring highs and pounding drums of a prog rock band. The break room’s oppressively bright and washed out lighting continued an uncomfortable pattern of visual hell that Sorochi had yet to get used to. Not a single spot existed in the whole of the research base that wasn’t overexposed in the harsh fluorescent glow. She’d hardly been here a week and the adjustment period had already given her a number of headaches.

And she wasn’t certain if the headache that sat low, yet ever-present was from another round of fluorescent onslaught or her lack of caffeine, but at least the latter was immediately solvable. As she made her determined stride over to the chunky teal coffee machine, Sorochi’s eyes briefly landed on the broad, dark-haired man stood just a few feet to her target’s right. He was slouched into a half-sit against one of the room’s three long folding tables and his attention flicked from the quiet telescreen to Sorochi as she approached. Sorochi felt a knot form in her chest, a nervous little tension that only deepened when he gave her a polite wave.

She managed a curt little wave that hardly lifted from her side and kept her eyes from lingering on the dull steel prosthetic that replaced the lower half of the man’s left arm. Swiping a sturdy paper cup from atop a towering stack, Sorochi plopped it down in the machine. With a slender pale finger she tapped an icon that roughly matched the cup’s shape and size on the touch screen. With a chime the screen transitioned to a white smiley-face-adorned coffee mug beneath a row of four steadily filling gray dots and the machine sputtered to life. And as Sorochi lost herself in the instantaneous aroma of the dispensing coffee, a mass of army-green and deep gray shifted past her periphery.

The man had stepped over to the wall just beside the coffee machine, now leaning back against it with his hands loosely planted in his pockets. Emblazoned across the chest of his t-shirt in a lighter shade of military green were the letters “ADF” in bold font and Sorochi felt that tension cinch a bit tighter. She folded her arms across her chest and shifted her focus back to the coffee machine in hopes he just might get the hint…

“You’re the new lab tech, yeah?” questioned the man, clearly undeterred by Sorochi’s body language. Despite his physical size, his voice occupied little space in the room. With a quiet internal sigh, Sorochi reached up and silenced the angelic voice serenading her right ear above shredding guitar riffs. A wide closed-lip smile revealing the copper glow of his cheeks, he extended his gloved right hand out towards her. “Aurora. I work security here.”

The gesture widened Sorochi’s eyes, catching her fully off-guard. Familiar with the cold-tempered, stoic troopers of her own basic training days, she half-expected him to just brush her off after the initial wave. Hardly any of them had been this… pleasant. Leery and uncertain, Sorochi’s hands didn’t budge and she only gave him the smallest flicker of eye contact.

“Sorochi.” she stated plainly before turning her focus back to the last gasps of the dispensing coffee. After patiently awaiting the fall of the last few dribbles, Sorochi carefully lifted the cup and transferred it over to the counter. Aurora was still there in the corner of her eye, but to her relief he made no move beyond running his rejected hand through his curly dark hair.

Sorochi snatched a sugar packet and dumped its contents into the steaming drink. The silent awkward tension of the room was undercut by the babbling of a news anchor who proudly reported record galactic export profits following the construction of the Cargo Sling. Sorochi rolled her eyes and watched the telescreen transition to drone b-roll of the gargantuan tax sink that was a glorified slingshot.

“My dad helped construct that hunk’a’steel.” Aurora spoke up, fully unprompted, with the smallest hint of disappointment in his voice. Sorochi offered him a quick glance and a slight unenthused lift of her brows before returning to her gentle mixing of cream and coffee. Idle conversation about… well, anything really, was the last thing Sorochi had signed up for this early in the morning, much less about that colossal eye-sore. Thankfully, her final unenthused glance had apparently hit its mark.

“Well, I oughta get my gear before my CO comes barkin’ up the place. A pleasure to meet ya! I’m sure I’ll see you around!” Aurora’s tone was enthusiastic, amicable. Heavy footfalls of sturdy boots signaled his crossing behind Sorochi and she turned slightly to watch him step out. Fingernails polished with matte black tapped rhythmically on the smooth countertop. Admittedly, Aurora had perhaps been the first person to approach Sorochi with a sincerity that didn’t come across as forced by corporate eyes. And maybe if he had approached her a bit later in the day -and perhaps with a bit more time spent at the base- she would have been more receptive to his greeting. Seven in the morning with a droning headache and new employee nerves, however? No chance.

--

Hello! Welcome to a whole new series I am starting as a playground to explore both my writing style for Crystal Heart and for various art experiments in the lead up to working on Crystal Heart proper. This series covers a span of three years -all before the events of Crystal Heart- and focuses on the relationship between Sorochi Melnik and Aurora Wolffe and how it ends up in a complicated spot at the opening of Crystal Heart proper.

The standard format of these pieces will be a single illustration coupled with a short story. This first one is available to everyone at the same time! Subsequent parts, however, will be posted on Patreon two weeks before my other socials. I'll also be posting WIPs and other behind-the-scenes content for this series and all of that will be exclusive to Patreon.

So if you're reading this and this piques your interest, check out my tiers! Each one has a 7-day free trial enabled, so you can take a look at all of what I've posted so far and decide for yourself if you'd like to support the work that I do! And even if you don't, sharing this page with someone who you know might be interested does wonders for exposure and traffic! All support is equally appreciated! ^_^

Cheers

Maddie <3

[sepublic]

The existence of Ing-possessed Dark Metroids in Echoes does bother me a little, because this is a game that came out after Fusion, and with Fusion we know the Metroids have an insane immune system; They were designed to fight the X, and are probably the only living thing unable to be infected by them... Except maybe the Dachoras and Etecoons, it's ambiguous. Regardless, Metroids are the ultimate bioweapon, and can drain energy. So it does bother me a little that an Ing can possess a Metroid without being consumed in the process; The series is named after these things, they deserve more narrative respect than just being another killable enemy!

But I am reminded of a log scan where it's revealed that the Ing fight for the privilege to possess the Space Pirate Commandos; Only Hunter Ing are even considered viable for this. So the Ing have a constructed social hierarchy in which they compete for better, stronger hosts... Okay. Given what I've mentioned about Metroids being the titular monsters of the series and galactic-scale threats, let's play with this in regards to a hypothetical Metroid series; Like it or not, Dark Metroids are enemies from the game, and a variant of THE titular creatures, so they should be adapted regardless.

So consider a scene: Samus is exploring Dark Aether when she comes across some commotion. She checks it out, watching from behind a corner; It's a whole congregation of Ing at an arena, and at the center is a cage in which a lone Metroid is angrily clawing at its containment. It's hungry, eager to devour the Ing on the other side; But the holes are too small for it to squeeze through. Surrounding the cage are a couple of Hunter Ing.

There's clearly some sort of ritual going on; One of the Hunter Ing slips through the cage from the other side of where the Metroid is. The Metroid notices, screeches, and lunges for the Ing. The Ing maneuvers around the Metroid, then lashes out with its tendrils; They enter the Metroid from its sides, as the Hunter Ing possesses the Ultimate Warrior.

The Metroid screeches, darting around as its body clouds into an Ing color. It falls to the floor, scraping its claws across and leaving marks; There's a clear battle of wills here. But in the end the Metroid wins out; Its nuclei flash red and the Ing coloration disappears as it drains energy, devouring the shadow. Watching from all sides, the Ing murmur, unimpressed and disappointed.

Cue the next challenger; This Hunter Ing watches as the Metroid rises back into the air, and then latches onto the nearest wall, still insatiable and hungering for the prey on the other side. This Ing circles around the cage, until it's sure the Metroid has singled it out.

Without any hesitation, the Ing launches through the cage the Metroid is latched onto, right into its mouth; The force sends the Metroid flying back from the cage. The Metroid absorbs the Ing, same scenario as before, same struggle. Only this time, the outcome is different; The Metroid's nuclei flash amber, and then its body undergoes a transformation as it struggles, darkening into blackest shadow as it's enveloped, the shape changing. Its voice deepens and becomes more Ing-like.

Finally, a single glowing eye emerges from the Metroid; The black coloration clears to reveal a new, Ing-possessed Dark Metroid. It rises into the air, triumphantly screeching as the Ing around it chant in celebration. Samus watches, deeply perturbed; The Metroids are the ultimate weapon, held back by their lack of strategy and inability to be tamed; This latter issue was how the Space Pirates were defeated the first time, because they lost handler Mother Brain. For the Ing to be able to control one...!

At this point, the Dark Metroid stops and notices; And then its eye looks up, directly at Samus. Metroids can sense energy signatures, down to those of individuals; It's how they can distinguish X mimics from the real deal, and track them down. By possessing a Metroid, the Hunter Ing has inherited the same abilities, and can sense Samus through the walls. It screeches, alerting the horde as all of the Ing turn and head towards the intruder.

Samus is forced to flee, and probably eventually fights this Dark Metroid. With a small army of Ing allies cooperating alongside it, this makes the Dark Metroid much more difficult to handle than a regular one; In particular, any energy it drains from Samus or even a lower Warrior Ing, it can transfer to one of its allies to heal them. Said allies will even take an Ice Beam or Missile blow for the Dark Metroid, to protect it.

The stakes are raised further; If the Ing take all of Aether's energy, Dark Aether will take its place within the dimensional plane. And if it does, who's to say the Ing won't colonize other worlds as well, because of their Emperor's greed and selfish hunger? With the ability to control and essentially BE Metroids, the Ing could start their own breeding program, and succeed where the Space Pirates had failed in using the Ultimate Warrior; There's no single, load-bearing controller for Samus to destroy, as there was with Mother Brain! A second Metroid crisis could be on the horizon... At the very least, Metroids are efficient trackers and weapons, so the Ing's chances of winning the war on Aether, and defeating Samus, have just risen significantly. Pair them up with some Dark Pirate Commandos and it’s like it’s Dark Zebes.

This ritual differentiates itself with the competition to possess Space Pirate Commandos; With those, a possession is guaranteed, so the distinguishing criteria is for Hunter Ing to fight each other to earn the privilege of that host. But for a Metroid, they don't need to fight one another. Instead, a Hunter Ing will prove itself worthy of possessing a Metroid, by actually being able to possess it to begin with; The only other outcome is to be destroyed by their attempted host. Thus, Hunter Ing don't need to fight one another directly for that honor, they can skip that formality to answer directly if an individual Ing is even capable of controlling a Metroid at all. And not all of them, not even all Hunter Ing, can pull off a Metroid possession.

[occasionallycoinpin]

it is at this moment i reveal i feel nothing but resentment to tapwater118. “ooh go my 4 infinity passwords hidden across all of the website including NOT OCP for some reason I WAS ON THE FLOOR OF MY BEDROOM FOR 20 MINUTES JUST scroooling through all of the posts AND FOR WHAT this is what her stupid security system gets. her stupid smug mug “oouh im water :3“ shut up. i hope she spills and loses all of it THIS IS WHAT SHE GETS for WINNING IN JACKBOX good lord the only thing i can applause at this point is that shes still at it but ocp is very clearly quantity over quality at this point. shes also a NERD. it is with nothing but hatred in my heart i give you this

#8RA1N#132#5T3M9#A#P5P4NN3R#

take her account. fuck shit up. i believe in you evil red ghost. pleasure doin business ?

Very interesting tangent but I'm not sure how-

PASSCODE ACCEPTED

What.

RETRIEVING gb_log_20150623.txt ...

ERROR: PORTIONS OF FILE CONTAIN CORRUPTED DATA. DISPLAYING INTACT PORTIONS.

have been rather fascinating to read to. Ancient Yoyleland science had made much more progress than I had ever thought before! Despite lacking some of modern science’s most earth-shattering breakthroughs, Yoyle scientists had uncovered laws of nature that modern science has only begun to expose. One particularly fascinating paper describes a setup for what I can best translate as a "False Universe." The basics involve an unaltered spacetime (which is referred to as a "White Void") and concepts and ideoforms to be injected into that spacetime. Notably, the narrative dimension must remain below 1 for the spacetime to maintain stability (haven't quite figured out why that would be yet). The concepts injected into this False Universe may be manipulated by its creator(s) as any constructed narrative would, however the key aspect of this construction's utility comes from the fact that the concepts gain a form of noospheric magnetism, which can draw in related concepts, even those unknown to the creator(s). This "Memory Plumbing," as the translation so poetically calls it, can be used to dig up ideas and knowledge that have long since been lost to the passage of t---------//////////////

That's enough of that.

Wh- you.

I'm fed up with your meddling. I should have reduced your dimensionality as soon as I got all the useful ideas out of you.

Well, better late than never.

What are yoUP_HROEQUVI# R!&TRN&*($%) G!@#H(%&*)#G@$T&(*!#())#*CT HUQ#GOG&T@#G*@Y$T *UYG $TIUGOWYEGTIOPU GYGIIOU G3957GT3THEVI75NGT 3734T824 9Y-HQ948 Y97Y&^*T*( #&C^T*^#C #Q Q

[bijoumikhawal]

Nubian clothes from Costumes of Egypt by Shahira Mehrez

For the most part Mehrez only discusses the jerjar or girgar, a black dress similar to the Delta style galabiya bi sufra, as it developed and shifted from a tob style dress with the neck placed so there was a small train at the back, and how it replaced the rahat. Traditionally the rahat, a belt with leather strips hanging from it, was the main garment worn by unmarried girls. It is still worn today by many Sudanese women for parts of their wedding ceremonies. Mehrez thinks it's likely the tob sebleh was adopted in response to increasing Western incursion into Upper Egypt and Sudan. This would not be surprising as many Westerners still gawk at a bare chested woman and behave very inappropriately towards her. The gergar is always black and usually translucent, as it is worn over another dress. In recent years lace has become a popular material. In these images you can see the shift of the garment from a T shaped robe, to a yoked garment with gusseted sleeves and pintucks and ruffles, to a yoked garment with set in sleeves and pintucks and ruffles. Interestingly, the most recent stage here has done away with the train, and other photos of more modern girgar I've seen also lack a train.

Mehrez pretty outright dismisses discussing the shugga, which I find annoying. It's a wrap garment, similar to a melaya leff or a sari, so the construction itself isn't especially interesting, but the fabrics and wrapping styles would be. The women here certainly aren't wearing their shugga the way modern Sudanese women wear their toubs, and analyzing if this style was worn by Sudani contemporaries of these Nubian Egyptians would be interesting, as well as seeing if the wrapping styles in Egypt changed before the shugga seems to have fallen out of use (I have not seen a photo of a Nubian Egyptian in a shugga that's any more recent than 40~ years ago). In two of the photos she gives there are distinct wrapping styles already. Further, there's a trained modesty garment that's also called the shugga in another part of Egypt, and I've long been curious as to why there's a linguistic connection.

If I'm being a bit uncharitable, I think Mehrez dismisses the shugga because it is not personally interesting to her, and not because it is actually uninteresting. She admits outright to not discussing men's clothes for this reason (which is fine, even if I wish men's clothes were covered more). She clearly has an ideological argument that all or most Egyptian traditional dress has the same source, using an argument of homogeneity to argue against the mistreatment of minorities. This was an under current for most of the book; but a few paragraphs near the end became rather offensive as she implies Copts were not historically oppressed all that badly because her collection's dresses (none of which date back to earlier than the 1870s at the very most) have crosses on them. I won't get fully into why I think this conclusion, or her appeal to homogenenity, is erroneous here (I think it's obvious why I, as a Copt, found it offensive). However, I think it implies her attitude towards Nubian dress as well. Not only is the section one of the shortest (and given the other two shortest were about telli, which is covered extensively overall, I'd comfortably call it the shortest in subject), the dismissal of the shugga reads as stemming from the fact that it cannot be connected to Non-Black Egyptian culture in her mind.

This isn't even necessarily true outside her perspective, as nearly every region of Egypt has a similar modesty wrap that can be draped around the body very similarly, but Mehrez devotes no real time to those either, despite them sometimes being noted as very distinctive regional markers (for more on this I would recommend Reveal and Conceal by Andrea Rugh, though I have criticisms of her work as well), with the patterns, colors, material, and more making them distinct. The wrapping styles seem to have possibly been distinct at one point as well, though I have no particular discussion of this I can find. It's more that I've noticed several distinct wrap styles while looking at and collecting antique photos.

Perhaps this is owed to Mehrez's position as a (from what I can tell) not especially religious person, and (by her own admission) a member of the wealthy land owning class who in her youth, didn't think much of the Delta galabiya bi sufra that she saw those working her family's land wear. These wraps in her life would have been used in the day to day of religious peasants, the melaya leff having last been fashionable in the cities of the 1940s. Notably- Mehrez also entirely excludes cities like Alexandria and Cairo in the first place, assuming them too tainted by their interactions with the west. While her work is valuable, there are multiple faults within her methodology and holes in her research. I respect that she mostly notes these herself, but find myself frustrated that the very first section of the book about clothes is seemingly, subject to holes she does not wish to fully admit. It is doubly frustrating given the particular cultural loss Egyptian Nubians have suffered due to being ethnically cleansed and displaced for the sake of the Aswan Dam, and their severe mistreatment by the government- including, according the experiences of some Nubians, discrimination or informal bans of their dress.

[omegaphilosophia]

The Ontology of Things

Ontology, the study of being and existence, seeks to define what it means for something to be. When applied to "things," ontology explores what constitutes an object, how things exist, and what differentiates one entity from another. This question has been central to philosophy, science, and metaphysics for centuries.

1. What Defines a "Thing"?

A "thing" can be a material object, a concept, or even an event.

Classical metaphysics (Aristotle, Kant) often distinguished between substances (independent entities) and properties (qualities that describe substances).

Modern debates question whether "things" exist independently or are merely human-imposed constructs.

2. The Physical and Conceptual Aspects of Things

Realism argues that things exist independently of perception (e.g., a tree exists whether or not we see it).

Nominalism suggests that things are just names we assign to collections of properties, without intrinsic existence.

Process ontology views things not as static objects but as dynamic events in a constant state of becoming.

3. The Boundaries of a Thing

How do we define where one thing ends and another begins?

A chair is clearly a thing, but what about a wave in the ocean? Is it a separate entity, or part of a greater system?

This leads to questions of identity over time—if a thing changes (e.g., a ship that has every plank replaced), is it still the same thing? (See: Ship of Theseus Paradox).

4. Digital and Virtual Things

The modern world introduces virtual objects, such as digital files and cryptocurrencies.

Are these "real things," or do they exist only as information?

Some argue that virtual things have functional reality—they impact the world despite lacking physical substance.

5. Things and Human Perception

Do things have meaning outside of human perception?

The philosophy of phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger) suggests that things only appear to us through experience.

Some traditions, like Buddhism, argue that all things are interconnected and lack an independent, fixed identity.

Conclusion

The ontology of things reveals deep questions about the nature of reality. Are things defined by their physical existence, their properties, or how we interact with them? As technology advances and the world becomes more digital, the definition of "things" continues to evolve. Understanding their ontology helps us navigate both the material and conceptual landscapes of existence.