#types of technology fields

[lotusishere]

So the fact that Sophie and her crew (none of them) take time to learn life saving procedures Elwin can do is crazy. I think it’s important for them to know CPR and learning how to use cloths to stop bleeding or helping stabilizing a broken body part. But none of them know anything 😭 it’s a simple “call Elwin!” But what if they can’t get to Elwin or there’s not enough time? I think it’s important for at least one of them to train under his wing to know medical things. Just in case if Elwin can’t get to them as quick as they need they have a mini version of him to give them more time.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

wow not that i like. FORGOT. that driscoll is my Precision of Vocabulary character. but. damn they know WAY more terminology than i do lmao

[forensicfield]

Forensic Science E-Magazine (Aug-Sept 2023)

We proudly present the Aug-Sept issue (Vol 17) of your favorite magazine, Forensic Science E-Magazine. As usual, the magazine's current issue has helpful content related to forensic science. --------- #forensicsciencemagazine #forensicfield #crimescene

Continue reading Untitled

[reasonsforhope]

"A cure for HIV could be a step closer after researchers found a new way to force the virus out of hiding inside human cells.

The virus’s ability to conceal itself inside certain white blood cells has been one of the main challenges for scientists looking for a cure. It means there is a reservoir of the HIV in the body, capable of reactivation, that neither the immune system nor drugs can tackle.

Now researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, have demonstrated a way to make the virus visible, paving the way to fully clear it from the body.

It is based on mRNA technology, which came to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic when it was used in vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, the researchers have shown for the first time that mRNA can be delivered into the cells where HIV is hiding, by encasing it in a tiny, specially formulated fat bubble. The mRNA then instructs the cells to reveal the virus.

Globally, there are almost 40 million people living with HIV, who must take medication for the rest of their lives in order to suppress the virus and ensure they do not develop symptoms or transmit it. For many it remains deadly, with UNAids figures suggesting one person died of HIV every minute in 2023.

It was “previously thought impossible” to deliver mRNA to the type of white blood cell that is home to HIV, said Dr Paula Cevaal, research fellow at the Doherty Institute and co-first author of the study, because those cells did not take up the fat bubbles, or lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), used to carry it.

The team have developed a new type of LNP that those cells will accept, known as LNP X. She said: “Our hope is that this new nanoparticle design could be a new pathway to an HIV cure.”

When a colleague first presented test results at the lab’s weekly meeting, Cevaal said, they seemed too good to be true.

“We sent her back into the lab to repeat it, and she came back the next week with results that were equally good. So we had to believe it. And of course, since then, we’ve repeated it many, many, many more times.

“We were overwhelmed by how [much of a] night and day difference it was – from not working before, and then all of a sudden it was working. And all of us were just sitting gasping like, ‘wow’.”

Further research will be needed to determine whether revealing the virus is enough to allow the body’s immune system to deal with it, or whether the technology will need to be combined with other therapies to eliminate HIV from the body.

The study is laboratory based and was carried out in cells donated by HIV patients. The path to using the technology as part of a cure for patients is long, and would require successful tests in animals followed by safety trials in humans, likely to take years, before efficacy trials could even begin.

“In the field of biomedicine, many things eventually don’t make it into the clinic – that is the unfortunate truth; I don’t want to paint a prettier picture than what is the reality,” stressed Cevaal. “But in terms of specifically the field of HIV cure, we have never seen anything close to as good as what we are seeing, in terms of how well we are able to reveal this virus.

“So from that point of view, we’re very hopeful that we are also able to see this type of response in an animal, and that we could eventually do this in humans.”

Dr Michael Roche of the University of Melbourne and co-senior author of the research, said the discovery could have broader implications beyond HIV, with the relevant white blood cells also involved in other diseases including cancers.

Dr Jonathan Stoye, a retrovirologist and emeritus scientist at the Francis Crick Institute, who was not involved in the study, said the approach taken by the Melbourne team appeared be a major advance on existing strategies to force the virus out of hiding, but further studies would be needed to determine how best to kill it after that.

He added: “Ultimately, one big unknown remains. Do you need to eliminate the entire reservoir for success or just the major part? If just 10% of the latent reservoir survives will that be sufficient to seed new infection? Only time will tell.

“However, that does not detract from the significance of the current study, which represents a major potential advance in delivery of mRNA for therapeutic purposes to blood cells.”"

-via The Guardian, June 5, 2025

[otogariado]

lrb one of the problems with people treating any and all forms of AI as The Boogeyman that is undecidedly Evil At All Times is that its a slippery slope that is definitely susceptible to spouting ableist shit

[miedei]

nonexistent rizz

the team is shocked to see that… early seasons!spencer pulls?? and he has pulled???? (aka, the team discovers that early seasons!spence has a girlfriend)

a/n: first cm fic!!! super indulgent, deffo way longer than it had to be but I don’t care, I love love love the dynamic of the s1/s2 team and I NEEDED to write it (look at '#mystery girl!au' on my blog to see more musings about them <3)

cw: alcohol consumption, reader referred to as a woman, reader is around spencer’s age in s1/s2 (23-24), completely inaccurate early 2000s technology i think, cuties being cute, not edited in any way

wc: 2k

part two | part three | mlist

(reblogs are the only way to promote fics on tumblr! please reblog if you enjoyed it :) )

“‘O Keefe’s! My wonderful, wonderful sweethearts, we are going out!” The moment the team steps out of the elevator, Penelope is bombarding them, hands moving wildly as words seem to tumble out of her mouth. “And yes, Hotch, I am sure we have no cases lined up yet, and yes, I’m sure JJ can corroborate that the moment she gets to her office and no, you may not stay behind, tonight is compulsory. That stands for you too, Gideon!”

Hotch hasn’t even opened his mouth, shaking his head in defeat as he takes in Garcia’s determined face. Under the watchful eyes of the team, his shoulders slump, a tired hand scrubbing down his face. “Fine. We all have to finish our reports, but if we’re all done in half an hour, we can go. Gideon?” He turns his face, hoping for Gideon to find a way to bunk off, but there’s a glint of amusement in the older man’s eye. “Sounds like there’s no getting out of it.” With that, he walks off, to his office. 

Penelope whoops excitedly, “Okay! That means we’re all going! That’s the first time since Gideon came back,” but her face sets slightly when she meets Spencer’s eye. “No. No, Baby Genius, you will not do this to me,”

“Garcia, I have pl-” “No! You are coming out with us, and we’re going to have a great time, and whatever Russian indie film you were going to watch will still be there for you tomorrow. Okay? No more complaining, baby, you know I won’t listen.” With a pat on his shoulder, she flounces off. Defeated, he doesn’t move from the elevator area, shrugging helplessly when Elle, JJ and Morgan brush past him to the bullpen. 

With a sigh, he takes out his phone, pressing his newly-programmed speed dial and bringing the phone to his ear. From Derek’s vantage point in the bullpen, he can see Spencer, pacing back and forth in front of the elevator doors, and he can see the moment whoever is on the other side picks up. The younger man’s face lights up, like when he’s on the receiving end of a rare Hotch smile out in the field, but more spirited, buoyant. Only snippets of the conversation float in through the slightly-ajar glass doors, but they’re enough to give him pause, and still his fingers above his keyboard.

“...Garcia’s got this plan for us all, and…”

“Yes, I know, I do like going out with them, but that’s not what I wanted to do…”

“...I took the metro tonight, so I think I’ll just… Really? You want to?”

At that point, Spencer turns, his voice muffling, and keeping Derek from his vested interest in his conversation. But what little he heard is more than enough to pique his interest. He flicks a pencil onto Elle’s desk. “Greenaway. You know if pretty boy’s mom is in town or something?” Elle looks up from her monitor, head tilting, “Not that I know of. Besides, doesn’t she not like flying? I don’t think he’d have her come here. Why do you ask?”

Derek doesn’t reply, simply gesturing to the glass doors, where Spencer is walking inside, his mouth twitching to conceal his smile. His steps are measured, like he’s trying to feign calm. He settles at his desk, hunching his back in a way that can’t be comfortable, typing rapidly as his knee jiggles up and down. Elle turns back to Derek, eyes wide with wonder. 

“That is not how you look getting off the phone with your mother.”

The incident is quickly forgotten, however, when the BAU team are crammed into a booth in the back of the low-lit bar. Penelope has roped Hotch into helping her bring drinks back from the bar, and the rest are speaking a little too loudly, arms flinging and bumping into the empty glasses littering the table. 

All except for Gideon, who, despite having had three glasses of whiskey, is still just as calm and observant as he is fully sober. It is this that causes him to zero in on Spencer, sitting across from him, sandwiched between Morgan and the newly-returned Garcia. 

There’s a pink flush across his high cheekbones, and he’s incredibly giggly, all things that are completely expected for him, a few drinks in. However, what the experienced profiler picks up on, are his darting eyes. Spencer can often be found staring into the middle distance, or, since Gideon taught him the importance of building rapport with victims and officers alike, trained steadily on the space between someone’s eyebrows, but this time it’s different.

His eyes flick to whoever’s talking, feigning interest, but every few seconds, it turns back down to his lap, where something is clutched in the hand he keeps under the table. If it were Hotch, Gideon would know with absolute certainty that he was watching his phone, waiting for a text from Haley.

But this is Spencer. The youngest person he knows. The youngest person he knows whose technological knowledge is somehow worse than Gideon’s own. What on earth would have Spencer acting- 

Oh. Gideon nearly gasps at Spencer’s movements. On his fifteenth peek down at his lap, Spencer stiffens, then draws his hand up from his lap to get closer to his face. It is his phone, and Spencer Reid has somehow learned to text as quickly as Morgan does. His thumbs fly over the buttons on his phone, and he can’t hold back the smile that spreads on his face.

Gideon’s eyes furrow, and he can’t hold back from nudging Hotch’s shoulder, pointing in Spencer’s direction. Hotch pulls himself away from his conversation with JJ, and Gideon can see his expression morph from mild interest, to confusion, to complete bewilderment. After a beat, his face turns to meet Gideon’s and his normally stoic demeanor is shaken, eyes wide. 

Spencer, however, doesn’t even notice his mentors’ faces, still tapping away at his phone and craning his neck to look around the bar. 

It’s a while later, when JJ has pulled the team (minus Hotch and Gideon) onto the dance floor, a few drinks past tipsy at this point. She’s laughing out loud, holding Elle’s hand and twirling her under her arm. Penelope and Derek are mock-waltzing, bursting into laughter every few steps, and Spencer… 

JJ pauses for a moment, before Elle pulls her into moving again. Her head whips around, trying to find Spencer, before giving up. He must be back at the table with Hotch and Gideon, he was never very comfortable dancing anyway. 

The four on the dance floor quickly devolve into a mess, swapping partners until they’re all dizzy and laughing. JJ and Penelope are shimmying back and forth together, when Penelope gasps a little, tapping JJ’s arm without ceasing her movements. “Jayj! Look, see that girl at the bar?” She gestures subtly at a younger woman, probably in her early twenties, wearing a purple wrap top that has JJ sighing wistfully. 

“Pen, I think I’ve seen my soulmate. Would it be weird for me to crawl over there and beg her for her shirt?” Penelope giggles, gripping JJ’s forearms so they can sway to the music dramatically. “Just a little, my sweet. How about we go ask her where it’s from, though? I think that would be a little more…” She goes uncharacteristically silent, and it has JJ twisting to see what shut her up. However, Penelope tightens her grip on her arms, keeping her from moving. 

“JJ. My love, my heart. You’ll always be honest with me, won’t you?” Now she’s worried. JJ nods quickly, deciding to just focus on Penelope. “Yeah, Garcia, of course. What’s wrong?”

“I think I’m seeing things, and you are one of the most qualified people in the world to tell me if I’m going crazy. I’m going to turn us around, and you’re going to look at the woman in that gorgeous top, and you are going to either scream, or send me off to Hotch for a psychological evaluation.” Her tone is serious, hushed, and JJ nods solemnly. 

The intricate plan is conducted, and JJ is now facing the bar, her eyes searching for the girl, when she stiffens, sucking in a breath. “Yes! I’m not crazy, you see it right? What is going on!” Penelope smacks her arm repeatedly, but JJ can’t tear her eyes away from it. It being something she couldn’t possibly have prepared herself for, not in her wildest imaginations.

The girl is sitting on a barstool, sipping at a cocktail, and chatting to… Spencer. Spencer, the BAU’s Spencer, child-prodigy-lovable-dork-awkward-mess Spencer Reid, is stood in between her legs, smiling down at Mystery Girl without a hint of fear. It’s devastatingly sweet, his eyes soft in a way she’s never seen before, as he nods along with whatever she’s saying. Penelope jolts her out of her trance with a tap to the arm, JJ whispering, “He’s so… carefree.” 

That’s the only way to describe it. He’s looking down at her, eyes locked onto hers, and he’s still. His hands aren’t tapping, his leg isn’t shaking. He’s just looking at her. 

JJ can feel Morgan and Elle huddle near her, questioning Penelope about what they’re looking at, before shutting up as they see it. She hears them take twin gasps, and huddle even closer. They stand in silence, surely a hindrance to the people dancing, but they can’t tear themselves away. 

It’s only when Spencer shatters their worlds once more that they finally find themselves able to move. Four pairs of eyes follow him, as he leans even further towards Mystery Girl, and they all bulge at once when he raises a hand, carding his fingers through her hair. Penelope whispers, “oh my god”, Elle grips JJ’s arm in a vice grip, and Derek makes an unseemly noise, before gripping their arms, tugging them back to the booth. 

They collapse in the seats, faces pale as they look at each other, next to a very confused Gideon and Hotch. 

“What? What is it?” Hotch questions them, brow furrowed deeply. None of them speak, however. Only Elle lifts a weak hand to point. She directs their attention to the sight at the bar, and they all turn back to it, gasping once again. They’re… “kissing,” Derek breathes, shocked. Hotch and Gideon stiffen, but still crane their heads until their eyes fall on what has rendered their highly trained team speechless. And their reactions are just as silent.

Mystery Girl has stood up, her arms around Spencer’s neck, and he’s leaned down to meet her lips, hands braced on her hips. It’s honestly not that scandalous, a lazy, casual kiss that they part from with twin smiles, but the FBI agents can’t handle it. They don’t say a word, straining their ears to hear whatever she is saying as he holds her hand (Penelope lets out a squeak at that), and walks with her towards the door, not even noticing that his coworkers have returned to the booth. Her voice is low, but Hotch manages to pick up a few of the words. 

“...go home and watch that movie I was telling you about? Metropolis, I think you’ll really…” And they’re off. Spencer Reid has left a bar, holding hands with a girl (that he’s apparently spoken to multiple times? Who refers to a place as home for both of them?), acting like it’s the most normal thing in the world. 

The group sits in silence, unable to muster a comment, when Penelope’s phone buzzes. She checks it, and silently turns the screen over so they can all read it. 

BOY GENIUS: Hey Garcia. I wasn’t feeling well so I decided to go home. See you Monday :-)

“What?”

[aggroindustrial]

is it really a bad thing to disobey god?

summary. natalie, the stranger who works for your father, makes you question everything you've ever known.

pairing. natalie scatorccio x fem!reader

word count. 3.3k

warnings. smut, smoking, drinking, brief mentions of violence, religious themes, loss of virginity

fic note. i'm honestly not sure if this is even good since it's my first time writing a full fic lol. also my first time writing smut so yeaaa expect some mistakes maybe. and i’m also terrible at writing summaries and the amount of time skips might be a warning as well. anyway please enjoy ^v^

+18. minors do not interact

Longhorn Ranch, located in a forgotten town in the middle of nowhere. Just a name barely hanging onto a rusted highway sign, swallowed by weeds and time. The type of place that feels abandoned, where technology seems like only a rumor, and the sky always looks a sickly shade of blue. The kind of place that truckers speed past without a second glance.

The town had once had promises—a gorgeous train station; wide, thriving and golden wheat fields. Now, the station was long forgotten, only inhabited by rats and insects. The fields were all scorched, victims of too many merciless summers.

It was late June. The sun was high and mean, making the air feel suffocating. Dust from the road clung to the air like a dense fog, crawling down Natalie’s throat with every breath, mingling with the bitter smoke of her cigarette and the old, musty breath of her beat-up truck.

After her latest “incident”, her father pulled the old favor card on her and forced her to offer a helping hand at his friend's ranch for the rest of the summer. It was either that, or spend a few months behind bars for beating up a guy who insulted her friends, Tai and Van, at a bar.

The ranch looked like it had seen better days and only its bones remained. The two-story house, its wood weathered to a dull gray. Wind chimes hung from every corner of it, their eerie jingles the only sound above the distant bleats and calls of livestock.

A sun-bleached and stiff scarecrow standing in front of the house almost seemed to be telling Natalie to abandon all hope out here.

The man met her outside, a rifle slung over his shoulder, his boots dirty with mud and something darker that could've been dried blood. Natalie hopped off her truck, and he greeted her with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

“Your father says you're good with cattle.” He rasped, voice like sandpaper, as he shook her hand.

“I know how not to get kicked by one.” Natalie nodded, shielding her eyes from the sun with the back of her hand.

“That’ll do. You’ll learn.” He nodded. “Hop back in. I’ll give you the tour.”

Natalie nodded again and went back into her truck. He climbed in beside her with a grunt, laying the rifle across his lap.

She caught a glimpse of a person observing her from a window on the second floor of the house, but glanced away without thinking too much about it.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

From your window, you saw her arrive. A brunette stranger. Everything about her screamed sin and regret—from the dark makeup around her eyes, to the sleeveless black shirt and ripped jeans she was wearing.

Your father had mentioned someone would be spending the summer at the ranch to lend him a hand, but you never expected it would be someone like her.

Her sharp gaze met yours, and suddenly your thighs tensed, your hands white-knuckling the windowsill. As much as you tried to ignore it all, thousands of images ran through your head, that you definitely shouldn't be thinking about.

She was everything you were always told to avoid—the big, bad wolf to watch out for, who always lurks in the shadows, waiting to pounce. Ready to devour, to take you away from God's side.

It's what your mother always told you, to never talk to the other men from your small town. But then again, this stranger wasn't exactly a man, so did that mean she wasn't a threat? She sure felt like one, but not the kind you feared.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

A couple days later, Natalie was laying on a thin mattress in the barn loft, staring at slivers of moonlight leaking through the roof. She had discarded her work clothes long ago. Sweat clung to her like an extra layer of skin. It was too damn hot to sleep.

Below her, the cows stirred. One of them let out a quiet huff. She tried not to think about the rifle the man had leaned against the barn door before locking her in for the night.

“Just in case of coyotes.” He said. Natalie didn't think coyotes came that close to the house, but she decided not to question him

She lit another cigarette and took a swig of her now-warm beer.

And then she heard it—the sound of footsteps trying to be quiet but failing miserably.

The door creaked open, just a little. Not enough to let in moonlight, but enough to see a silhouette framed in the crack.

You.

Natalie sat up, and she could feel her heart speeding up in her chest—mostly because she wasn't really looking forward to finding out how your father would react if he saw you with her.

“You got chores, and you got rules. Stay outta the house unless I call you.” He told Natalie while cleaning his rifle. “Don't bring mud inside, my wife hates it.” His gaze lifted from the gun and stared at Natalie pointedly. “And keep your eyes off my daughter. That clear?”

“You lost?” Natalie asked, and stubbed out her cigarette.

You didn’t answer and stepped in, and closed the door behind you.

“I heard noises.” You whispered. “And I couldn’t sleep.”

Her head tilted slightly to the side in curiosity, and the corner of her lips twitched. “And your first idea was to come out of your house and all the way here?"

You blinked, as if you were just now realizing the weight of your actions. It was almost adorable to Natalie, watching the way your innocent, wide eyes filled with nervousness for a second.

“You smell like smoke and beer.” A small mumble left your lips as Natalie took a step closer.

She hummed, and shrugged. “Better than smelling like the shit I have to clean every day.”

You flinched at her words, just a little. But even then, you didn't leave. No, you stayed and observed her like she was the most interesting thing you'd ever seen in your life.

Natalie should’ve told you to go back inside. Your father's rules were clear. That nothing good ever came out of moonlit visits and soft voices, and most definitely out of disobeying a man as scary as him.

But she didn’t. Instead, she watched you like someone watches a flame dancing too close to gasoline.

“My mama says people like you are to be avoided if I do not want to stray from God's path.” Your fingers played with the small, golden cross hanging around your neck.

Natalie stared at you, as if studying you. “What do you say?

Your gaze flickered down to the ground for a moment, but then lifted to look at her again. Even behind that undeniable hint of fear in your eyes, Natalie could notice something raw and hungry, eager to go against everything you've ever known until now.

“I don't know.” You whispered. “I think God is mad at me for thinking stuff I should not be thinking about.”

Her gaze dropped down to your lips, and you seemed to notice. Your shoulders stiffened.

Before Natalie could even think of moving any closer, you took a step backwards immediately, your cross still clutched between your fingers.

“Please don't tell my father I was out of the house.” Was all you said before you hurriedly ran out of the hayloft, leaving a confused Natalie behind.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

The next few days passed in silence.

Natalie kept her head down—cleaning stables, feeding animals, brushing horses. You avoided her like the plague, as you were supposed to.

Although the discreet, curious glances over meals and the quick nervous smiles were gone, too.

Perhaps it was for the best, Natalie thought while she watched the angry rain falling from the cloudy sky.

Getting involved in any way with the daughter of an eerie religious couple didn't seem like the smartest idea.

She worked until the sun hid itself behind the horizon. The rain hadn’t stopped. Not even after she showered and shared a quiet dinner with your family.

That night, thunder cracked like a whip, and rain sneaked through the cracks on the roof. Natalie lay on her mattress, a cigarette burning between her lips.

Her thoughts unraveled—until they were interrupted by the sound of the hayloft door, accompanied by the electric snap of a thunderbolt.

Natalie turned.

There you were—standing in the doorway, soaked, shoulders trembling. You looked frightened, caught between a nightmare and waking.

“I'm scared.” You whispered, staring at Natalie with an almost begging look in your eyes. “Can I please stay here with you?”

It was a dangerous request. Many, many things could go wrong—from your father finding out you sneaked out to be with her, to the temptation of repeating the mistake she’d almost made nights ago.

But she nodded. “Of course. You can come sit, if you want.”

The ghost of a smile passed over your lips for a brief second, before another thunderclap made you flinch, and you crossed the room to sit beside her.

“Thank you.” The words left your lips with a shaky breath. “I’ve always been afraid of thunder.”

“No problem. I get it,” Natalie said, though her hands sat uncharacteristically stiff in her lap. “I used to be afraid, too.”

“That… seems unlikely.” You let out a quiet laugh that lit your face for a short moment. “You look like you’re not afraid of anything.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I may not look like it, but have a heart, too, you know.”

You giggled again, softer this time. Then silence. It fell between you like a curtain—gentle, yet charged. The kind of silence that trembles with things unspoken, resembling a rubber band wanting to snap with all the tension.

Natalie caught the way you looked at her. The way you swallowed nervously.

“You don't have to be afraid of me. I can tell you are.” She wanted to tell you. But the look in your eyes wasn't fear, unlike she'd first assumed. Not anymore. It was something else—something repressed and caged, practically begging to be set free.

The thought had Natalie's head spinning a little.

Your tongue flicked out to wet your lips, and Natalie’s eyes followed, heat rising in her skin. It felt like you were doing it on purpose to tempt her, but she knew better. You couldn’t possibly be that calculated in that matter.

“Please.”

It was an invitation. A spark. A permission.

It was almost ironic. How your parents had raised you to be their perfect devout daughter, clean of all sin. Only for a stranger to come along and ruin it all by staining your very existence forever.

“You sure?” Natalie asked, voice barely a breath, as she leaned closer—giving you a chance to pull away, to back out and run back into the house like last time.

But you never did.

All you did was nod, and Natalie didn't dare to question you again, selfishly afraid that you would vanish into the night.

Natalie closed the distance between you, her lips brushing yours in a slow, reverent kiss. You were hesitant, unpracticed—but it didn’t matter. She led you gently, her movements careful, tender.

Her hand slid to squeeze your thigh, and you pulled back with a sharp inhale.

“Sorry,” she murmured, eyes searching yours. “Too much?”

“No.” You shook your head, cheeks flushed. “Just… surprised. But I like it.”

Natalie’s fingers danced over the soft fabric of your nightgown, and she kissed you again. This time, there was a hunger behind it. As if she was desperate and ready to consume you whole.

She guided you down onto the mattress gently, her hands coaxing, and her mouth never leaving yours. Only when your lungs screamed for air did she finally pull back.

Small pants and gasps escaped your lips as soon as Natalie moved down to trail her own lips down the column of your neck.

“Let me make you feel good.” She breathed against your ear, taking your earlobe between her teeth.

“I don't know how.” You whispered back while your hands gripped her shoulders. The amount of new sensations and emotions were making you dizzy, heat burning in your stomach and between your legs.

“You don't have to do anything. I'll do it all.” Natalie shook her head and pulled back to look at you. “Only if you want it, too.”

You thought about it for a moment. The cross sitting around your neck was a reminder of how bad all this was. God was probably observing you from Heaven, disappointed that you were so weak for someone you barely knew at all.

“Okay.” You nodded slightly, already out of breath and Natalie hadn't even begun yet.

Perhaps with enough prayers, you could repent for your sins someday.

At some point, her kisses began to turn sloppy and uncoordinated. The desire and passion increased, like a fire engulfing the two of you until all that was left was pure and raw longing for more.

Your forehead rested against Natalie's as her hand gently squeezed one of your breasts. Your fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“I'm ready.” The hushed words slipping from your lips almost made Natalie moan out loud. Instead, she nodded and let her hand move down your torso slowly, wanting to engrave the feeling of every curve of your body in her mind.

Her fingers lifted your nightgown slightly, and she caressed your leg tenderly.

“Are you really sure about this?” She asked once more. “We can stop right now, if you want. It'll be okay.”

But the thought of stopping almost felt like a crime to you.

“I want it.” You reassured her, and cupped her cheek with your hand. “Please, Natalie.”

The sweetest lamb she'd met in her entire life, so innocent and pure, begging to be taken like this.

Natalie wondered how many good deeds she'd done in her past lives to earn this.

Her fingers caressed your panties, slowly moving to the apex of your thighs. You had absolutely soaked through the undergarment, and Natalie's eyes almost rolled to the back of her head at the feeling.

She let out a shallow breath, and began dragging the piece of cloth down your legs slowly while she stared into your eyes the entire time.

Your legs instinctively clamped together after your panties were gone, and Natalie's free hand came up to caress your cheek gently.

“You don't have to feel shy.” She mumbled softly. “I think I'm just as nervous as you are, honestly.” A small smile grew on her lips as she showed you how her hand was trembling slightly. “See?”

It was the first time Natalie felt nervous like that. Not even during the night she lost her own virginity.

The action seemed to help you calm down a little and you let your legs spread open again slowly.

Natalie kissed you. Not like earlier, desperate and hungry—no, it was gentle and sweet, guiding you through the moment.

Her knuckles brushed against your wet folds, making you breathe sharply and pull back from the kiss. She was afraid she'd hurt you somehow, but the quiet mewl that escaped your lips said otherwise.

She repeated the action, and her fingers moved against your clit in slow circles. Your eyes immediately shut and your head dropped down on the mattress with a small thud.

Natalie glanced down and let out a shaky moan when she saw the way you were completely drenched and your hips were moving slightly to meet her touches.

“Fuck…” She whispered, increasing the speed of her movements just a little and it immediately earned a whimper from you. “You're doing so great. Do you like that?”

You nodded at the question, unable to form any words at all.

The sound of your wetness reached your ears and it should've been embarrassing, but you couldn't bring yourself to care about anything at all.

If it's a sin, why does it feel so good? You asked yourself for a moment, but the thought disappeared from your mind when you felt Natalie's finger poking your entrance gently.

Carefully, she slipped it inside of you. She gave you a moment to adjust to the new feeling and kissed your cheek several times to distract you from the dull sensation of pain.

Her thumb found your clit again and pressed against it while she slid her finger in and out of you slowly, earning moans and quiet whines from your throat.

Your arms wrapped around her neck and you pulled her closer for a kiss that she returned eagerly. Ragged breaths and pants left both of your lips as she sped up her movements, to the point where you couldn't kiss her back anymore.

“I think…” Your voice trailed off quietly as your nails dug into her shoulders. It almost made Natalie hiss out of pain.

“Let it happen.” She whispered, kissing your lips one last time. “It'll feel so good, I promise, baby.”

Her voice drowned out, replaced by the loud sound of your heartbeat in your ears as you neared your climax, until you couldn't hold it back anymore.

Your teeth dug into your bottom lip to avoid moaning out loud and your back arched against Natalie. Your legs shut around her hand and she watched you crumbling down under her.

It was the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen.

Natalie helped you come down from your high, whispering sweet words into your ear while her free hand wiped the single tear that rolled down your cheek.

She removed her hand from between your legs and wiped your juices on her shirt with a shaky sigh.

“How are you feeling?”

The question drew a breathless chuckle from you as you opened your eyes.

“Great,” You answered, curling into her side as she lay beside you. “It was good.”

She nodded and kissed the crown of your head, wrapping her arm around your shoulders to hold you close.

The rain still fell, but the thunder had moved on.

“You’ll have to go back to the house soon, huh?” Natalie mumbled, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I… kinda wish you could stay.”

“Yeah.” Your voice was quiet now. “I wish I could, too. But you know how he is.” The thought of your father finding you like this with Natalie made your blood run cold. “Thank you for tonight. Really.”

Natalie turned her gaze to you and offered a soft smile. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

You began sitting up, reaching for your ruined underwear with a sheepish grin.

“Hopefully there’ll be another thunderstorm tomorrow.” She joked, and you turned to her with wide, scandalized eyes.

“Hey!” You laughed, blushing furiously. “That’s not funny at all.”

She chuckled, biting her lip. “I know. I’m sorry.” She brushed your wrist with her fingers, and leaned in for a quick kiss. “Go. Before he shoots both of us.”

You sighed and nodded, heading to the door. Just before stepping out, you glanced back with a small smile and a wave.

Natalie watched you disappear behind the door. She lay back, the mattress still warm, the memory of you already carved into her mind like a secret prayer.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Days pass again.

You didn't speak. It wasn't exactly a problem—you weren't even supposed to talk to each other, anyway.

But Natalie still longed to hear your voice, to see you smile at her again with that sweetness of yours, like you were handing her a sacred secret.

One night, weeks later—after a long day spent beneath the scorching sun—Natalie returned to the hayloft and found something tucked into the hem of her pillowcase.

A torn page, folded neatly. Your handwriting—neat and elegant.

“Even the stars envy us. Even the saints must have sinned once.”

A slow smile spread across Natalie’s lips, soft and involuntary.

And in her chest, something stirred. Sincere hope, soft and fragile. Blooming like wildflowers after a storm.

[michellesneptune]

𐙚short astro observations (lowkey spicy, aka exposing myself)°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

i’ve noticed many women with heavy scorpio placements (especially sun) to be successful in scientific and medical fields. e. g. Marie Curie and Hedy Lamar, both bringing revolutionary ideas and discoveries to the world of physics, chemistry and technology. personally, i also know scorpio women passionately pursuing medicine! i think there’s something physical, deep and carnal in scorpios that makes them want to discover these things.

you should think twice before messing with someone that has heavy mercury in their chart while also possessing cancer placements. those individuals are extremely intelligent and sensitive simultaneously. thus, they will use their intellect to protect themselves no matter what. good luck winning with them lol, great manipulators.

idk if you’ve heard, but virgo placements are sooo kinky. virgos are associated with routine, practicality and health. but they’re connected to the earthy, bodily, primal pleasures more than others. they pay attention to things that others don’t. human biology=human sexuality, they find it oh so fascinating.

mercury in leo are great conversationalists! i love their big, warm energy. they’re down to talk about anything for hours. funny and charismatic, paired with significant virgo/gemini/cancer placements can gossip a lil too much… the type to know everyone’s business and secrets.

scorpio venus/8h are so insatiable and greedy in love (exposing myself rn😭) they want to posses all your thoughts, your feelings, know what you do behind closed doors. extremely afraid of betrayal, i feel like sometimes the anxiety might be a self-fulfilling prophecy🥲🥲 we sabotage ourselves a lot ok🥲

alsooo they’re said to be those super sexy dark femme fatales, but i just feel desperate and needy all the time and sometimes unable to be loved😭 pls help how do i unlock the divine feminine energy??

what’s surprising is that taurus mars (mars is in detriment in this sign) and cancer mars (mars’ debilitated here) are sooo giving in bed (i won’t tell you which one i am😶😶) they make for passionate lovers, they need to please.

thank you for reading, lots of love!

~Michelle

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[girlfromflor]

super soldiers!141 x new to the unit!reader | this is dumb and poorly written, i'm sorry, just needed to get it out my mind

thinking about a sci-fi, future-ish au where human soldiers became sort of a social experiment on a large scale after machine soldiers have proven to be inefficient against certain “threats” because of their lack of motivation, incentives. purpose. machines needed things to make sense, they couldn’t be encouraged to do some tasks. they would follow orders, of course, but they – for themselves – were not ethical at all. 

machines didn’t care if it was a child, a man, a woman or an animal, if it was their target they were going to put it down at any cost and that caused problems. a lot of different problems throughout their years of usage. especially if a mission needed fast changing of target. but they were a single mind distributed in countless bodies of wires and hard plastic, and that was their biggest strength. if one knew, they all knew. if one was given an order, all the others knew what it was and what should be done to reach it. it was visceral, a core knowledge that no human was capable of achieving by natural means – of course. 

so the government started to support the return of human soldiers on field, with the exception that they required new training, one to make them more united, more like one living force. they also had to work within a task force – the fewer people in a group, the better. in the first two years of this change of scenario, higher ranked soldiers started making their own task forces in order to choose the people that they worked more in sync with, and proceed through training to get them all to feel in synch as well – until the whole group felt like there was no doubt ever, just pure certain and mutual understanding.

after a sufficient number of task forces were completed and started to act on the field again, it became clear that intense training wasn’t enough. they kept running tests to understand exactly what these soldiers were lacking to improve their performance. after a few months scientists developed a new device, one that should answer their remaining questions. it was an extremely small piece of technology that was injected into the soldiers and that allowed them to communicate better – they needed fewer and fewer words to understand one another. of course, that didn’t really last long until they became obsolete and were replaced by new ones.

that technology kept on evolving until, a few years after, a special type of “device” was achieved. it half worked like a hormone in the human body – heightened senses mostly, that allowed an insane capacity to deeply understand things in a visceral matter. some people suspected it was made from specific DNA traits of animals highly skilled in things that mattered in the military – like hunting –, but in reality no one really questioned what it was. the results were all very natural – as far as they could possibly be in human terms. it worked, and that was all that mattered. it was almost totally customized, the injectable liquid had a different composition depending on what it was that the task force needed to improve as a whole. everyone in the same group received the same sample, they weren't repeated because it changed accordingly with the task force.

the truth is that task force 141 never really needed any of this shit, since day one they were a highly effective unit in all matters. with a total of five years in and out of test devices, they one hundred percent relied on their personal interaction – as any other unit should do. to say that they had each other's back was a total understatement, they completely trusted each other in an extremely vulnerable way. of course it required a deep amount of reliance to reach that, but they had come a long way anyway – with all the training plus the training with the previous test devices. but as time passed and it became law that “all working units shall have a dose to optimize their performance on field”, they had no other choice but to accept. which they were silently glad for, but they were never going to admit it. 141 was the best unit since new training began and human soldiers were a thing again, they were the very proof that human connections were necessary to certain tasks. but after they took their dose? oh boy, they were the best of the best. no questions asked, they all became more sensitive to nature itself. gaz started knowing all significant changes on the weather two day before it happened even if he was in blindfolds, soap somehow managed to always calm stray animals with his mere presence on the empty concrete forests that they had to visit every once in a while, ghost could tell how many people were inside of a room even several floors apart and captain price stopped needing to bark orders, he simply acknowledged them and then the boys seemed to simply know what to do.

they slowly morphed into one consciousness, not like the artificial intelligence prior to them, but like a new evolved version of themselves. suddenly ghost understood every sensation gaz ever talked about, gaz just knew what went through soap's mind, soap didn't even need to touch price to feel his tense shoulders anymore because everytime their captain got worried, they felt it. not like they felt their own feelings, but it was there. like they understood the very idea of their emotions. 

eventually, they grew used to their new form, an emotionally charged bond that held them together. if they felt something hard enough they made the others feel it too. it wasn't always nice. one time kyle and johnny fought and that created an atmosphere where they all kept feeding off their anger, until captain told them to knock it off already and then he was mad at them like he felt both their ire – he did feel it, and it sucked. but then sometimes it was outstanding, like when ghost was so horny on a random ass tuesday and he kept horny for the rest of the week and the week after. when he finally managed to get his sweet, sweet relief, he dragged all his boys with him – even though he was alone in his room and they were all doing their respective chores. they all felt that knot loose in their lower half and just knew exactly what it was – who it was. after that they all tried to rile each other up with only their weird telepathic bond.

things were fun and enigmatic, they didn't need scientific explanations to things they simply knew. and understood. it wasn’t a problem to be solved by any means, they all simply embraced this new scenario and tried to make the most of it. and it worked, they got to a level that some things didn’t even have to be said because they would know from the moment that the others acknowledged it as well.

until one day they were chilling in the living room of their house, watching tv when a small pang of anxiety sparked somewhere low in their chest. cap furrowed his brows looking at johnny for an answer but he was just as confused. he turned to simon to see his visible discomfort at the foreign sensation. simon turned to kyle, the only one who seemed rather unbothered by it, although just as confused, and asked “what is it?”, even though he knew it wasn't kyle, and he knew kyle didn't know either.

kyle simply shrugged, “dunno, but it's weird as fuck.” it was his way to cope with the strange feeling, trying to not let it consume him. he wondered where it was coming from, since it wasn't from any of the others.

“we will know soon enough,” john said, the soothing tone a bit unusual in the captain's voice, but it was welcome nonetheless. it managed to work the boys' nerves, and soon enough none of them felt the small, irritating poke of anxiety.

it wasn't four days later that realization washed over them. it was price who received the news – of course, like always – but they all immediately knew that something was up. they wordlessly gathered at john's office door exchanging glances until his voice cut through the silence. they didn't knock but he knew that they were standing there, “come in already, will you?”

johnny opened the door, simon and kyle stepped in first as he held it open for them. he closed the door behind him, watching john's expression. they all knew they needn't worry, but they also knew it wasn't easy news. no one said a word, simply watching silently as price lit up a cigar and rubbed a hand down his face, then his hand scratched his beard. he sighed, taking a few seconds to find the right words, he took one final drag and settled his cigar down.

he wasn't stressed, just tired – and that said a lot, it also soothed the boys. they could help him relax in their own way if he was tired, but if he was stressed he never really allowed them close – that required a great deal of work, he never wanted them to feel stressed too. john took a breath, opened his mouth to say something more elaborate, but he couldn’t, he was just as surprised as the boys would be. so he just spilled the words out.

“we are getting an addition to the unit.”

a/n: i have no idea what to think of this. | series masterlist

[thecloudsaremyhome]

☆Yandere platonic cult x reader part 1☆

Summary: you and your friends have been forced to go on a trip to Sweden so they could finish their research paper for extra credit, honestly you were just tagging along for the fun of it not having the chance to go out as much as you’d like to, little did you know your stay at the community would be long overdue.

Tw: religious themes, sacrifice, yandere themes, infantization, death, violence, manipulation. the cult is very yandere for you, mental health issues, panic attack,readers friends are rude.

Taglist: @lilyalone, @stove-top96, @shadowytravelerlover, @dirtydiavolo, @bellethesleepypotato, @kawaii-cakes, @ratterpatter, @violets-in-spring, @yandere-enthusiast @caged-birdies-blog @ridlike

Word count: 8k

“Come on (name)! Hurry up! We ain’t got all day!” You sigh in annoyance as you look towards your friends and yell back, “I’m coming jeez! Jeez, give me a second okay!”

Your friends look at you with an annoyed expression but shrug it off. You carefully pull your luggage out from the trunk of the rental car you all rode in.

Honestly, it was already exhausting enough having to fly in a plane for 6-7 hours straight and the worst part is, is that you didn’t get one ounce of sleep thanks to your friend's snoring.

So not only are you physically exhausted but you're mentally as well. Just great.

You sigh in relief as your finally able to get your last piece of luggage out of the van.

you close the trunk door and decide to observe the scenery around you. It’s magnificent, you think to yourself.

From the tall yellow-like grass to the crops growing nearby filled with vegetables and fruits.

Then there are colorful flowers of all types surrounding the other side of the field, each being carefully taken care of to the fullest extent.

It mesmerized you To be honest, you've never seen anything this beautiful before, the only extent is the park in the middle of your city and even that can never compare to what you are looking at right now. No wonder people say Sweden is one of the most beautiful places to be because it hasn't been tainted by technology.

The sun reflects down onto you and you can feel the heat radiating off of your skin, but luckily there is a strong breeze to soothe that heat, it's perfect weather today you think to yourself as you continue to admire the fields surrounding around you and your friends, it seems like its endless.

“(name)! Get your ass over here! We ain't got time to dilly dally.” your friend says in an annoyed tone.

You snap out of your trance-like gaze and look towards your three friends, you sigh in annoyance as you pick up your backpack and suitcase and walk over back towards them.

“finally took you long enough.” your friend Mia says in annoyance scanning your form in a scrutinizing gaze, she was always the more moody one out of your group of friends, always having a stick up her ass.

She had dark brown curly hair and hazel irises with freckles littering her tan-like face, she was mostly slender having some curves here and there. “sorry I just got distracted by the scenery.”

you mumble annoyed at her attitude, Mia rolls her eyes, and states

“whatever let's get a move on before it hits sundown I want to get this shit over with anyways.”

Your two other friends Jacob and Cady nod reluctantly cady has long ginger hair with freckles and brown eyes while Jacob has dark brown hair with blue eyes and a more slim build.

and thus began your walk down the fields toward the desolate forest ahead.

“Mia, do you even know where we are going? Did the professor even provide us a map at all?”

you ask nervously having this gut feeling that nothing good is going to come ahead but maybe it's just a feeling.

You haven't really traveled outside of the U.S before so maybe it's just the anxiety of being in new places?

“yes actually i do know where we are going, don't be such a scardy pants and yes the professor sent me the map since I am the team leader.”

she taunts you sigh rolling your eyes at her cocky behavior.

You four continue down the long rocky path which results in you taking a look at the surrounding forest.

The forest honestly had humongous trees well bigger than the trees you've seen before when growing up, which caused the tree's height to block out most of the sunlight.

The rocky terrain your walking on looks worn down like it's been used for years which it probably has. What amazes you the most is how many flowers and wildlife are in the forest your walking through.

Youve honestly never seen so many animals in your life just from being here for liek 30 minutes it truly impresses you.

You occasionally glance at some of the logs or cut-down tree stumps next to the path finding interest in whatever inhabitants are abiding in it.

But you shake your head trying not to get to side tracked while you're here.

You're not here to explore the forest or play with the wildlife your here to work, so that's what you're going to do.

After a least an hour of walking and complaining from Cady you four finally arrive at what looks to be like a wooden gate with two strange-looking people standing in front of it with spears and animal like mask?

Okay well that's very creepy, “what the fuck”

you heard your friend jason mutter in absolute disbelief. It seems he was just a shocked as you but it seems like mia is paying no mind to it as she flaunts towards the gait confidently looking over the two guards and their appearance, you do the same but from a safe distance.

They both seem like males that's for sure from their muscular build to the lack of clothing they are wearing, it seems they are wearing on robes with metal plates on their shoulders acting as a shield.

What you also take notice of is both of them have a wolf mask.

What is even more strange, one of the guards has long wavy blonde hair while the other has short dirty blonde hair. Maybe there siblings?

You shake your head trying to rid your thoughts before you start to overthinking, you refocus back on the scene of Mia trying to flirt with the blonde-haired guard.

Which makes your two other friends sigh in annoyance at her behavior.

You three walk over to where mia is standing infront of the two guards, cady then clears he throat in annoyance

“you done mia so we can get a move on?” mia sighs at cady comments and nods her head

“yes in fact i am done i was just conversing with these two gentleman~ here but they've been ignoring me like a brick wall! And the worst part is, is that they won't even let me in!” mia states dramatically, whining like a puny child.

This causes Cady and Jacob to raise their eyebrow in confusion at her statement of not allowing her inside.

“they won’t? Why the hell not did you tell them that we came here for the research paper? Surely the professor notified the community of our arrival right?” Jacob states in pure bewilderment.

“I don't fucking know I tried to tell them! But nothing seems to go through to them! Like i said their brick walls!”

Mia states loudly which causes you to flinch from her tone of voice which of course your friends don't notice as they start to argue acting as if they arent just talking about the guards in front of them.

You sigh ignoring your friend's argument as you decide to step forward toward the two guards

“Hello there! Me and my friends here are here for a research project on your community, i don't know if you are aware of it or not? But could you please let us in?”

You state nervously, finally the guards look towards you and examine you like your a piece of prey, which unnerves you, to say the least.

But what surprises you the most is when the blonde-haired one speaks.

“So you are the one’s the great one has spoken about”

the blonde man states looking at you with a blank and unnerving expression behind the mask not that you could see or notice it though.

“I-i um yes?” you say confused about who the great one is.

The guards notice this and nod reaching to unlock the wooden gate this of course catches the attention of your arguing friends.

They turn to look at the two guards and you with a surprised look but quickly school it to a neutral one not wanting to piss the guards off.

When the gate finally opens to another pathway straight ahead your friends take this opportunity to push past you and the guards and enter the community.

Of course, this startles you to some degree but you quickly are able to reign your cool.

You then quickly thank the guards before rushing after your three friends.

This action very much surprises the guards having been used to rude and disrespectful behavior from “outsiders” so you doing behaving the opposite of disrespectfully is surprising to both guards but it also is nice that there are at least still some good people out there in the corrupted world outside of their sanctuary, its refreshing to say the least.

You sigh tiredly as you finally catch up with your three friends as they continue to walk down the more clean path.

You all finally make it towards what looks like a town square with a fountain in the middle and multiple other houses around it.

The houses look like they are made out of wood with a brick-like roof on the top of most of the houses. Strange you thought to yourself as you continued to examine the center of the community.

But you finally snapped out of your thoughts when Jacob nudges you in the shoulder to grab your attention. Which causes you to turn to look at him curiously.

That's when you notice the multiple stares directed at you and your friends.

You then look towards the source of those stares and find yourself faced with multiple people surrounding you and your friends, all of them having animal-like masks on.

But what catches your attention the most is the tall lady at the center of the people surrounding you.

She seems to be at least 6 feet tall with her long chocolate-like brown hair flowing down her back with her being nothing but dressed in a pure white dress with golden patterns to it that reaches her feet.

That's when you notice she's barefoot as well.

Strange you think to yourself but you snap out of your thoughts again when the lady clears her throat.

“hello their visitors you must be the foreigners our leader has spoken of, we are enlightened to be in your presence i hope you have a wonderful stay here. I will have one of our members show you towards your sleeping quarters.”

and with that before you and your friends coil question her at all she takes her lead with some of the community members following suit behind her.

“That was strange” Cady muttered anxiously “Yeah no shit” Mia states looking at the community members in a scrutinizing gaze.

You sigh ignoring your friends' spiteful comments, you then hear someone clear their throat which stops your friend's rant.

“if you all are done, I will be showing you to your sleeping quarters.”

you then gaze at the person speaking in a monotone like voice and are met with a tall slim man dressed in a similar fashion to the other community members just with a cow like mask to his face.

Your friends clearly embarrassed clear their throats and mutter a quick apology before returning their gazes to the man.

The man nods approvingly paying them no mind as he starts to walk down the town square, towards where you four will presumably be staying.

You and your friends follow after him at a steady pace.

Of course, you are more distracted than your other three friends, with the agriculture the community has to offer.

This annoys your friends of course but they do not say anything about it.

You four continue to walk down the cement path trailing behind the man. You all start to walk more towards the outskirts area of the community.

after a few more minutes of walking you four come face to face with a cabin-like structure that’s smaller than the houses the community has to offer.

It has a rustic type look with cobwebs poking out on the outside of the porch.

The porch in itself looks like it could've seen better days with some chipped wood poking out with dents on it.

It clearly looks like it has not had inhabitants for years now.

The condition of the cabin causes your friends especially Mia to grimace in disgust.

“Is this seriously what we have to stay in!” Mia states loudly, glaring at the man.

This causes the man to turn back towards her looking at her as if she's a spec of dirt underneath his shoe.

“Would you like to say that again?” he says coldly which causes Mia to flinch as she stutters out “I-I u-um N-never m-mind.”

the man then scoffs but pays her no mind as he walks towards the cabin.

You sigh as you reluctantly follow after him with your three shell-shocked friends. You both stand behind him as he unlocks the door with a wooden-like key, he opens it and motions you all to step inside.

Mia then sighs and steps inside first followed by cady and josh then yourself once you enter you take a good look at the interior presented in front of you.

Its old thats for sure from the rustic interior and the dusty floor all the way to the cobwebs littering the place with broken furniture and a animal like rug placed infront of the living room randomly.

Alomsot like someone didint even want to bother to atleast hide it or place it correctly.

Mia sneers at the predicament clearly unsatisfied with the conditions presented to her. “What the fuck is this shit show?”

she esclaims loudly which causes you to flinch at her loud outburst which doesnt go unnoticed by the man.

He glares at her disapproingly “i suggest you lower your voice and watch your language young lady that is no way to speak to your elders.”

he says calmly but with a hint of annoyance to his tone.

Mia looks baffled by the way he is treating her like some sort of child which of course angers her causing her face to heat up in embarrassment.

Cady and jacob start giggling at her sudden embarrassment finding it amusing that their friend is getting put in her place. You sigh at mia’s obvious childish behavior.

“I apologize for mia’s childish behavior she shouldnt have acted out like that.’”

you say with a tired tone looking at the man waiting for at least a irritated or unbothered response instead your surprised when his gaze softens towards you “oh its alright honey you friends are vert rumbunchs but nothing that we can’t handle”

he says softly with an almost fatherly look in his eyes from what you can tell.

This causes you to flinch not used to nicknames you stutter out an embarsset response which of course he notices and chuckles in amusement.

“your a shy thing arent ya? It’s very cute.” he says in a playful tone which causes you to blush in embarrassment.

Your friends awkwardly stand by as the conversation between you and the man unfolds, Mia then butts in and clears her throat before looking at the man “I think we're fine here its starting to get dark and we still have to unpack.”

she states in an annoyed tone clearly not wanting to be around the man any longer than she had to.

This of course disappoints you having enjoyed the man's company but you push the feelings aside.

The man turns around again to face mia and stares at her indifferently “Very well then have a good night and please if you all need anything, just ask you are our guests after all,”

he says in a dark tone which causes shivers to run up your spine but you shake it.

finally the man exists through the front door leaving you and your friends in a tense silence.

“Well, that was creepy.” Cady says with a nervous tone to her voice.

Jacob nods his head in agreement “Yeah no fucking kidding this whole place is giving off bad vibes and the way they talk to us is patronizing.”

Jacob said in an annoyed tone clearly irritated by the whole ordeal.

“let's calm down okay? How about we start unpacking our stuff and get a good look at this place?”

i say with a skittish tone trying to calm down the clearly pliable tension.

“Fine whatever” cady states as she puts her duffle bag and suitcase on the ground and moves towards the kitchen.

Jacob does the same following behind Cady which leaves you and Mia alone.

“Mia you okay?” I say in a worried tone not used to Mia being so quiet throughout the whole ordeal. “ yeah I'm fine.”

she says in an annoyed tone which causes you to flinch.

It doesn't go unnoticed by Mia as she smirks in response, she then turns around towards the old couches and places her backpack, duffle bag, and suitcase on the dusty couch.

You sigh setting down your luggage near hers as you decide to explore, not wanting to make the tension worse.

You decided on going down the hallway nearest to the kitchen, deciding its the best option to explore first. You could find some bedrooms, This cabin is pretty big after all.

You sigh as you slowly start to trudge down the dark hallway you finally approach what looks to be an old door clearly worn down from the lack of usage.

You reach your hand out to grab the door nob but before you can you hear a loud bang coming from the kitchen which causes you to jump in surprise. You rush back towards the kitchen panting.

“What was that noise what happened.” you say in worry, only for Cady and Jacob to laugh.

“jeez such a scardy pants, aren't you? Dont worry, Jacob just accidentally dropped the pan we were gonna use to cook.”

Cady says in a teasing tone while she playfully smacks Jacob on the shoulder. Jacob sighs, annoyed and glares at her which earns another laugh from Cady.

You sigh in relief “s-sorry just something about this place keeps me on edge,” you say as you try to laugh it off to lighten the atmosphere.

Which of course doesn’t work as Cary shakes her head In Amusement before turning back around to start cooking.

You sigh in annoyance as you leave the kitchen, deciding to at least find a bedroom you can lie in, completely forgetting about the door you were previously going to open.

You walk down the opposite hallway and finally find one of the bedrooms, which is pretty extravagant to say the least compared to the rest of the house.

You look at it in shock, from the pure red blood bed sheets with golden tips to the golden headboard with silver butterfly piercings indented into it.

Then, there's the pure white carpet placed in the center of the room. Finally, there is a wooden closet at the end of the room.

You gasp in shock at how pretty it is before taking notice of the basket of fruit placed directly on the bed. You tilt your head in confusion before finally entering the room.

You approach the basket placed on the bed and finally take notice on a note placed next to it, written in another language.

Whatever you think to yourself as you decide, you should show the rest of your friends the basket.

“Hey guys I found this basket in one of the bedrooms!”

You say as you finally enter the kitchen, which causes Cady and Jacob to turn their heads towards me in curiosity. “Oh, you did What's in it? Let me see,”

Jacob says as he snatches the basket from your hands and searches through it.

Cady sighs in annoyance at his eager behavior.

“Damn it theirs nothing interesting in here just a bunch of fruit and crap.” jacob sighs in annoyance and throws the basket back towards me which causes me to stumble and catch it.

Cady glares at jacob “ stop being an ass jacob” jacob rolls his eyes and mumbkes a whatever before getting back to cooking with cady.

You sigh as you exit the kitchen and enter the living room. You place down the basket next to Mia.

you notice her annoyed expression. “Whats wrong Mia?” mia look towards you and shakes her head in defeat “i cant get any damn service out here!”

you chuckle at her whining behavior in return she pouts towards you but finally takes notice of the basket next to you both “whats that?” she says as she points towards the basket.

“It's just something I found in one of the bedrooms I came across while exploring i dont think it has anything interesting in it all it has is fresh fruit.”

Mia sighs and nods before standing up to grab her backpack and open her laptop and grab her papers.

“since dinner's cooking do you wanna help me fill out these papers, the professor said we had to document everything so might as well start.”

you nod your head in agreement mumbling a sure before being handed a few papers to help fill out.

Finally, for what seems like an hour, cady comes back towards you both to inform you guys dinner is ready which causes you and Mia to sigh in relief.

You both make your way towards the kitchen, which has four plates of pasta placed out on the counter for you all to grab you and mia mutter a thanks as you make you way back towards the couch to coutinue your work, which leaves Cady and Jacob to eat together.

After three more hours of work you and mia finally completed the worksheets needed for today sighing in relief you then state

“I’m going to go and get ready for bed ill see you tommrow mia, dont try and overwork yourself okay? You need to get rest as well since we have a busy day tomorrow.”

mia sighs in annoyance at your worry and nods “yeah yeah dont worry about me just get to bed sleepy head”

you sigh at her nickname and nod your head in amusement as you rab your luggage from the couch and make your way to one of the bedrooms in the cabin.

You pass Jacobs and Cady's room, them having already fallen asleep beforehand.

You finally approach the bedroom you explored beforehand, having decided you'll just sleep in there for the night.

But before you can enter, you hear a strange noise coming from inside,which causes you to halt in your footsteps.

Suddenly, you feel like you're being watched, which causes a shiver to go down your spine. You shake off the feeling before finally entering the bedroom again.

You place down your luggage next to the wooden closet. You sigh as you crouch down next to your suitcase and open it to grab a fresh pair of pajamas and your medication for the night.

You finally finish changing as you hop into bed, laying down on the plush pillows You reluctantly try to fall asleep.

You still feel like you're being watched, but this time, you can't brush the feeling off, which heightens your anxiety.

But after an hour of staying awake, you finally fall asleep only to be woken up again by the noise of the door to the bedroom being opened, which causes you to freeze, you then hear quiet footsteps approach your bed which causes you to hold your breath silently.

You then feel a cold hand on your forehead caressing you like a parent would to your child as the figure starts to hum a soft lullaby which reluctantly causes you to drift back asleep.

But before you fall asleep you hear one last word from the person “dont worry baby youll be home soon.” but before you can process the words you fall asleep.

You yawn as you open your eyes to the sun drifting into the room through the slightly cracked window placed next to your bed.

You rub your eyes in exhaustment as you sit up to look around in the room. What catches your attention though is the piece stuffed animal placed next to your bedside table.

You widden your eyes at the plush lamb finding it absolutely cute your carefully pick it up and inspect it before placing it down on your bed deciding to keep it.

You stand up from the bed ad yawn walking towards your suitcase to grab your clothes.

You finally finish changing and step out of your bedroom as you walk towards the kitchen were jacob and cady are up conversing while mia is doing her makeup in the living room.

“Hey sleepyhead did you sleep well?”

cady says in amusement which causes you to nod hesotantly still thinking abou the events that happened last night.

“well we got a busy day today so you better be prepared to walk alot!”

jacob says as he bites out of a piece of bacon presented on the counters which you nod in agreement.

Mia finally exits the living room “are you guys ready to go? I already have the gear ready so we can document.” you, cady and jacob nod in agreement.

You then go towards the living room to grab some of the gear with the help of Jacob and cady.

You all then exit the cabin and walk down the same long pathway towards the town square of the community.

You sigh in relief as you all finally enter the twon square which causes the commonity members to stare at you all as you enter.

“what’s first on the list of stuff we have to do?” you ask in curiosity “well first we have to gather information on the resources they grow and make here so maybe we hould interview some of the farmers first?”

mia says qustionly, you nod your head in agreement. Jacob and Cady also nod their head, agreeing with Mia.

“alright then, off to the fields we go!” mia says as she approaches a female wearing a lamb mask. “excuse me Ms. if you dont mind could you point us in the direction of the feilds were the farmers work?” mia asks confidently which causes the female to nod and point ahead downanother path.

Mia mutters a thank you and walks off. You three follow behind her as you examine your surroundings.

But you can't help but feel like you're being watched again, which causes you to look around frantically, paranoia creeping up on you.

Finally, after a long walk, you four make it to the grass fields were some community members farm fruit and vegetables. This amazes you, to say the least, on how much effort these people put in to keep the community afloat.

“Okay, (name) you can stay here while we go and interview some of the farmers. Don't wander off, okay?”

You nod in agreement as your friends walk ahead and leave you on your own. But something catches your attention.

A community member struggling with a basket of fruit. You rush over to help her with the basket as you help her put it down.

Then you take notice of how old she looks and a worry look crosses your face.

“oh well thank you dearie for the help my old back hasnt been like it used to be when i was younger.” the woman says in a motherly tone smiling warmly at you behind the tiger mask over her face.

“Its no problem, ma’am im just glad i could help. Is your back okay?” you say in a worried tone. Which causes her to chuckle in amusement. “Oh, im perfectly fine dearie ive been through worse but i do appreciate your help this is the first time outsiders have been as nice as you.” you stare at her in confusion at her statement which causes her tone to turn solemnly.

“we haven’t had the best experience with outsiders as a whole. There have been few that have been here before hand that werent the nicest but of course, we took care of them!”

you look at her sympathetically, but her last sentence catches you off guard. What could she have meant by that? But before you could ask her, she was already walking away.

You sigh in annoyance but shrug it off, deciding to sit down in the grass fields and wait patiently for your friends to return. Hopefully, they’ll be back soon, you think to yourself as you gaze up at the sun.

fiddling with the dandelion in your hand as you slowly start to doze off. But before you could fully fall aslee,p you feel a small tug on your shirt.

And you're surprised to be faced with a child no older than 6 sitting next to you and fiddling with your shirt. You hadn't even heard him approach you. But you smile softly at him, which causes the little boy to flinch.

From what you can tell, he has strawberry-blonde hair and blue eyes with the same white dress that you see all the other members wear he also wears a bird like mask on his face.

“hi, little one do you need something?” you say in an affectionate tone.

You always did have a soft spot for kids. He looks up at you in wonder before muttering, “I... I like your s-shirt,” he says timidly, which causes you to soften your gaze at his timid nature.

You carefully pick him up and set him in your lap.

He continues to fiddle with your shirt as he cuddles against you, which causes you to chuckle as you comb your fingers through his silky soft hair.

He cuddles closer to you before finally falling asleep. The scene just looks to serene and feels so peaceful.

You don't remember the last time you felt like this. Felt at peace.

But of course that peace has to be interrupted at some point as your about to close your eyes, you hear the talking if your friends as they approach you.

I guess they finished you think to yourself.

The noise causes the little boy to wake up in confusion but when he sees your friends approaching his grip on your shirt tightens as he galres at them This suprises you of course.

Your friends stop in their tracks as they quietly wisper to each other but to break the tense silence,e you wave them over.

They hesitantly approach causing the little boy to glare even more,e but he still grips onto your shirt.

“hey guys, are you done doing interviews with the farmers?” you say hesitantly trying to ease the tension forming. “yeah, we finished.” Jacob says sharply, and you can sense hes on edge, which causes you to furrow your brows in concern.

“Did something happen? You all seem..tense.” you say in concern as you inspect them. “Well-” but before Jacob could finish what he was saying Mia interrupted him sending a glare to jacob “nothing happened, so you dont need to worry now lets continue our interview so we can get it done before the so-called banquet we were invited to tonight.”

Mia says in a snipped tone clearly not wanting to waste any more time. You flinch at her harsh tone and nod reluctantly in agreement.

Your flinch doesn't go unnoticed by the little boy though as he glares even harder at your friends.

Of course, this goes unnoticed by you, but your friends do clearly notice and their shoulders tense at the harsh glare the boy is receiving to them.

You grab the little boy and place him off of your lap and stand up and dust the grass off your clothes. This causes the boy to pout behind the mask, having wanted to stay next to you a little more longer. But he doesn't voice this because he doesn't want to upset you, you ruffle his hair as you turn to face your friends as you happily converse with them.

But unnoticed to you the boy is having an inner turmoil of his own. Why do they have to capture your attention.

You shouldnt even be looking in their direction your friends are just a waste of space, not worthy of your presence because your his, his sister and he would be damned to let these insects ruin that.

Mama always have said outsiders are nasty people and now hes starting to believe it. But he hopes you can stay here forever with him and the community. Hes sure youd be very very happy.

Plus it's not like you’d miss your own boring life anyways right? You could have everything you need here. A loving community that is ready to do whatever it takes to keep you. And he hopes that that's what his community decides to do. Because he wants you to stay no matter what it takes.

You're extremely tired after four long hours of interviews and interactions with the other community members, you're finally glad the banquet came around the corner faster than expected because you were starting to grow extremely hungry.

Of course you weren’t the only one you noticed how antsy Jacob has been getting, clearly he’s hungry as well.

But the strange is that the little boy from earlier has been following you like a lost puppy which is cute of course but it still bothers you that his parents havent come looking for him at all and when you asked him he just said

“mama and papa are just busy! But thdey know im safe!” which of course has you smiling in relief but you still held that sense of worry.

As the hours stretched on your finally learnt his name, it was Abner. It was a cute name to say the least. But back to the present at hand, you four finally finished all interview needed for the first day and were getting ready for the banquet at 9:00. Which of course, Mia told us we had to dress “presentable” whatever the hell that means.

Of course, you didnt pack anything presentable to her standards so you opted for a black dress shirt and some formal pants with sneakers.

You sigh in contempt as you finally finish brushing out your hair and styling it.

You then exit your room. Then head towards the living room to wait for the rest of your friends to finish getting ready. You then spot jacob already dressed and ready to go as he scrolls on his phone.

Your smile softens when yo see him you then take a seat next to him on the old couch. He notices your presence and smirks “ look at you all fancy looking you look hot.” he jokes as you nudge him in the shoulder, playfully muttering a shut up.

After 30 more minutes of waiting Mia and Cady finally enter the room in ruffles dresses and high heels you sigh and roll your eyes at their so called “presentable outfit” “that’s what you all are gonna wear its not a ball you know?” you say jokily which earns you a galre from Mia and a scoff.

You chuckle again, putting your hands up in mock surrender but before mia could respond cady cuts in.

“stop teasing okay? We have to get a move on so we wont be late we are meeting with the leaders of this so called community. So we have to make a good impresion so we can get as much information as possible so we can pass this extra credit.”

Cady states sternly which causes you all to nod your heads reluctantly in agreement. Not wanting to argue any further you and jacob stand up and make your way to the front door ready to go, cady and mia follow behind you two.

You four exit the cabin and make you way down the path leading towards the community center. You look up towards the moon shining down on all of you.

You’ve always been fascinated by the moon and how it reflects. In your opinion, you say its absolutely beautiful everything about this place is beautiful

Finally, after minutes of walking, you all arrive at the community center and walk towards another pathway leading towards the great hall, an imposing structure that is made out of wood.

After 5 minutes of walking, you all finally arrived at the entrance of the great hall You can see the light peeking out from the large imposing door.

You four walk up the wooden stairs, and Jacob opens the wooden door allowing you three to enter in first.

Mia goes in first then cady, then you as you finally enter the great hall you are in awe at the scenery and design of the place.

From the flower decorations hung up on the walls to the candles and fruits then their is white tablecloth placed on the tables with a bunch of fresh food.

From chicken and beef to vegetables and fruit. All sorts of varieties littered the table which makes your mouth water and your stomach grumble in hunger.

You then take notice of the statue of a naked man standing at the end of the room with a large star like window placed behind him.

It's amazing how people who only depended on natural resources could make all of this happen.

Then you noticed the hundreds, maybe thousands of stairs boring into your back. You look around, finally noticing the community members are not only staring at your friends but specifically at you. Which creeps you out, to say the least.

But what shocks you even more is the 6 imposing figures placed infront of the imposing statue placed infront of the star window. To say they are intimidating is an underestimating it, they loom absolutely terrifying.

But one of the members you recognize as the pretty lady from yesterday which makes you widen your eyes in shock. She catches your gaze a smiles softly standing up to approach you.

You stagger back in shock to shocked to speak “hello its nice to see you again foreigner i would like to request that you join us for supper our leader would like to formally meet you as well as our officials.”

You look at her in shock but realize that you don't have any room for argument, noticing the serious tone her voice holds.

So, with a heavy heart, you nod in agreement, which causes her to light up and smile warmly. She grabs your arm and pulls you forward which causes you to stagger back.

But you reluctantly follow her to the table she pulls the chair out for you and allows you to sit down next to a very tall man. She then takes her seat next to you

“our leader will be here very soon so please dont mind his tartiness. Oh! I never got to introduce myself! My name is Ezra! Whats your name little one.” you pause deciding whether or not it would be a good idea to tell her but you decide to.

“My name is (name).” you say timidly, which causes the female to coo at your shy nature. Which causes you to blush in embarrassment with earns a chuckle from the other 5 officals. Which makes you blush even more in embarrassment.

But before you could respond a the great hall door slams opens as the gaurds from yesterday are stationed next it, bowing to what seems like a very large man maybe 7 feet tall? With long dark white hair that looks almost unnatural, he is wearing something totally different a robe with golden pattern designs with black dress shoes with golden designs as well.

He wears a bear mask, and from what you can tell, he is very muscular and has baby-blue eyes.

This unnerves you, to say the least. He's very intimidating, with a golden robe hanging off the side of his shoulder, and his steps seem precise and planned.

This also unnerves your friends as they glance nervously at you. But you notice the man is staring right at you. His eyes bore into your very soul with an intensity that is so extreme that it makes you uncomfortable. What is his problem?

You think to yourself, nervously picking at your skin as the man approaches with steady footsteps, as all the community members stand up to bow before his presence like he's some sort of god.

This unnerves you even more as his eyes continue to bore into you, analyzing every twitch and breath you make.

Finally he arrives at your table, standing right infront of you, ezra then stands up and bows the official sitting on the right of you does the same thing so does the other four officials.

But he doesn't respond to their formal behavior as he continues to stare at you motionlessly as you anziously pick at your skin.

He then reaches out and imoblizes your wrist from continuing to pick at your skin this leaves you in shock as you freeze in anxiety.

You can clearly see the size difference between the two of you. His hand can fit fully around your wrist like he could easily snap it at any time which scares you to say the least.

His intimidating frame adds even more to the tense atmosphere “ dont do that anymore child; you'll hurt your delicate skin, and we dont want that do we?” he says in a very soft tone which surprises you to say the least, not expecting his voice to sound so soft and velvety.

Which comforts you to some extent that hes not trying to intentionally scare you.

But he keeps a form hand on your wrist letting you know that he won't be letting go of it any time soon.

“I-i just do it out of habit i cant really control it sometimes when im really anxious.” you mutter timidly, not daring to face his gaze as he stares intently into you.

His gaze softens slightly, and he rubs circles into your wrist to soothe your growing anxiety.

Which doesn't exactly work as you can still feel him staring into you, including all the community members and your friends.

You’ve never liked being the center of attention so you're surprised you haven't gone into a full blown anxiety attack right now.

Maybe it's the way he's trying to ground you that prevents that from happening. You don't know, and you don't care you just want to get this over with so you can get back into that comfy bed and sleep.

But before you can dwell on the thoughts plaguing your mind you feel the mans hand let go of your wrist. He turns around to look at everyone else with a calculating look before that look softens to a more serene expression. “ let the feast begin!” he shouts.

He then walks over towards the seat standing right next to the statue. The chair looks more like a throne than anything with its golden pattern designs and the red velvet texture to it, you would think a king would sit on it.

You sigh as you snap out of your thoughts when a plate of food is placed infront of you with apple juice? The food looks absoulty delicious on your part.

From the perifcally roasted beaf with mash potatoes and vegetables on the side to the white rice with chicken in it. Damn you mutter under your breath as your mouth starts to salvate.

But then you take a look around and notice all the adults oncluding your freinds got some type of alcoholic beverage but you just got apple juice.

Thats weird you think to yourself but shrug it off not wanting to dwell on something not worth your time.

You start to dig into your food quickly which causes ezra to chuckle in amusement a she Coos at you.

“Don't eat so fast honey, we don't want you to choke do we?” this causes you to blush I. Emmbaresment putting your hea down in shame which causes her to chuckle even more. But when you took a sip of th apple juice it tasted very sour.

Which is weird but you shrug it off not bothering to worry about it but before you could take another bite, the chattering decreased in the great hall as the leader stans up to approach the center of the room, this of course catches your attention instantly.

“Brothers, and sisters daughters and mothers, fathers and sons tonight our banquet has been honored by the cesilatial god himself to bestow us and our community a blessing and so to thank him we will preform our ceremonial sacrificial ritual for our god and our guests as a thanks.”

he says in a soothing tone and you can tell his voice has a deep effect on these people her from their adoring looks to their devotion you can feel radiating off of them. It awes and unnerves you at the same time.

But what do they mean by a sacrafical ritual?

You think to yourself as you anxiety starts to grow. You look towards you friends who are sitting at a table near you and you also notice their anxious expressions.

But before you could dwell more on your thoughst the great hall door opens as two of the guards carry in a struggling woman.

Which makes you widen your eyes in shock and horror. The guards put down the woman oto the cement like structure of the statue and tie her in place.

Then you notice another community member come in with a large tray of candles a book and a dagger.

This unnerves you even more as you start to shakinly pick at your skin from the growing anxiety creeping up onto you.

What the fuck…what the fuck are they going to do to that poor woman. You think to yourself as you stare in horror at her as she screams and struggles and pleads.

This causes you to close your eyes and put your hands over your ears. You take shaking breaths as you feel an oncoming panic attack. But of course your friends don’t notice or are to shocked to care.

You return you sight to the scenes I front of you as the woman pleads but it falls on death ear as the leader grabs the dagger from the tray

“låt dem vara ljusa och låt vår gud ge dig g��van av evigt stycke unge” he says to the woman before impaling the dagger in her lower stomach then into her right breast and finally into her forehead the blood from the stand leaks out of her lifeless limp body onto the floor.

You feel like your going to throw up as the community members stand up to clap in celebration like what he did was completely normal.

And you can’t hold it back anymore you dip down and realealse all what was in your stomach to begin with. You gag at the smell and pant feeling tears rolling down your eyes. Then you notice everyone is looking at you now again.

You need to get out of here now you think to yourself as you eyes look up towards your friends who are as equally shocked and disturbed at what took place.

But before you could say or do anything you feel the tightening hold of Ezra rubbing your back soothingly this disturbed you even more at how calm she could be when just witnessing a murder!

You can’t seem to wrap your head around it and your heart is pounding so fast you think you’d have a heart attack any second and maybe that would be for the better because you don’t know what’s going to happen next and you don’t want to find out.

You just need to get out of here now no matter what it takes you refuse to die.

Authors note: y’all I work so hard on this sooo please comment and like a lot I would like this to reach at least 1,000 likes that would be the world to me and I definitely am going to make part 2 which is way more darker and that’s were the more intense Yandere behavior comes in!

[riversenchanted]

Where your mercury is placed is where you have intelligence at in your birth chart

Mercury 1st house/ Aries: Intelligent about knowing how to express themselves/fashion geniuses. These people are typically multi talented and able to be highly skilled at anything they pursue. They are like sponges for information!

Mercury 2nd house/Taurus: Intelligent about money,investing, and material possessions. These people are likely to own their own businesses or be investors of some kind. They may have multiple streams of income. A highly abundant placement to have!

Mercury 3rd house/ Gemini: The jack of all trades! Intelligent speakers, communicators, learners, teachers. People can learn a lot just by being in their presence. Their brains move just a little bit faster than the world around them. Sometimes this placement is prone to adhd.

Mercury 4th house/ Cancer: intelligent about family, emotions, counsel, cooking, home life. These people are commonly psychic/claircognizant. They always know the right thing to say. These are the people you go to when you need advice snd support.

Mercury 5th house/ Leo: intelligent about the arts, romance, children, self expression. These people bring light into the room. They have a creative genius like no other and a magic in the way they think and operate. They have a strong creative intelligence.

Mercury 6th house/ Virgo: intelligent about analysis, health, structure, and logic. These people make excellent doctors, judges, and politicians. They have a strong memory and interest in bettering others lives and keeping things balanced and fair. They analyze things deeply and are always looking for ways to help and improve any situation they face. They’re always calculating and taking in information.

Mercury 7th house/ Libra: Intelligent about relationships, justice, counsel, influence. These people are strong communicators and have the power to influence others and bring people together. They are diplomatic and fair. Always looking for the gray area and middle ground in any situation.

Mercury 8th house/Scorpio: intelligent about solving mysteries, uncovering truth, emotional depth. These people make good investigators. This placement shows a strong desire to uncover truth and have a deeper understanding of why things are the way they are. They tend to see through peoples facades easily. These people can be psychic or empathic.

Mercury 9th house/ Sagittarius: intelligent about philosophy, religion, travel, culture. These people have a wide variety of knowledge. They are the type of people who will have random facts about everything. They will spark conversation with anyone. Always eager to learn and very tactile in the way that they learn as well.

Mercury 10th house/ Capricorn: intelligent in business, work, legacy, and reputation. These people are extremely detail oriented. They have sharp minds and don’t forget anything to easily. These placements are adaptable and flexible. Willing to face challenges head on and grow from them. May have remarkable careers and be well known for their skills in the work field.

Mercury 11th house/ Aquarius: intelligent in networking, community, problem solving, innovation, technology. These people think 10 steps ahead at all times. These are the visionary’s. Their minds always at work and looking to the future. An inventors mind. These people bring others together to solve a common issue and work efficiently with others.

Mercury 12th house/ Pisces: intelligent in creativity, psychology, intuition, spirituality. These people have rich inner worlds but may have difficulty expressing it fully. They spend a lot of time in deep contemplation and are highly observant. They have a talent for compassion and deeply understanding others. They see things from multiple points of view and therefore have the ability to problem solve from multiple angles.

[ihrthoney]

[ typing this laying in bed forcing myself to sleep but my brain wants to write so headcanon format it is. ]

thinking about ak!jason who has no idea that after his ‘death’ that you went insane looking for him. but you were no detective, you weren’t in the police field, you were just jason todd’s girlfriend.

but you damn well did everything you could, from begging bruce, to sneaking into offices, looking for nightwing, anything.

you taught yourself to use a gun to search places alone. jason would scold you for doing such a thing for him but you didn’t care, not when you knew he was alive.

you didn’t know.. but your gut feeling told you he was. a body was never found, nothing. you refused to believe it.

“you didn’t find anything? no pieces of his suit? no blood? nothing!?” you screamed and cried at batman, desperate, grieving.

“i’ve looked-“

“no! you didn’t! because if you did look everywhere you would’ve found something! all this technology and you still couldn’t track the location?”

“it’s not that simple.”

“right, because you aren’t the greatest detective in the world”

you tried to distract yourself with work but it was no use, not when you came home opening the spare bedroom door to your mess of a room. papers everywhere, maps, pictures, you would’ve seemed insane to any normal person.

you were exhausted, too many dreams of him in front of you but that’s all it was. dreams.

one night, you felt someone push your hair behind your ear. instantly, like jason taught you, you grabbed the knife under your pillow and went to slash at the intruder but the knife made a thud as it hit the floor.

a hand, gently, wraps around your wrist.

you blink your eyes awake, taking in the person in your home.

jason.

no. it’s another dream.

“you’ve gotta be quicker than that, sweetheart.”

you don’t speak, still taking in what’s going on. the light from the moon just barley shows his face.

“hey don’t cry baby, it’s okay.”

you back away, unable to take another hallucination.

“no.. this isn’t real. you can’t be here. i haven’t found you yet.”

“i’m right here, baby.”

shaking your head, you back into the corner of your bed, making yourself as small as you can.

“no, i have to find him. i have to find jason!”

“look at me, sweet girl.”

you can’t tear your face from your arms, so he softly pulls your face up with both hands, wiping your tears,

“i’m right here. i’m not going anywhere ever again.”

the closer he is, the more you notice the difference in his features.

the j on his face, the scars, but his eyes,

his sweet beautiful eyes still look at you with love.

“i’m so sorry.” you give in, real or not, you hug him.

he hates it, after everything he’s been through he can’t take the affection. but for you? for you he’d do anything.

so he lets you cry into him, squeezing him tight, even if he can’t be the jason you loved, he holds you all the same.

sobbing into his chest, “i tried so hard to find you”

“i know you did sweetheart, i saw the room. but it wasn’t your job to find me.”

“don’t say that, you’re the love of my life. i would rather die than stop looking.”

“you did good.”

“i didn’t. you still had to find me.”

“i’d climb out of my grave and crawl back home to you, i’ll always find you.”

“please don’t let this be a dream.”

“i’m right here.”

he holds you until the sun rises, rocking back and forth slightly. he’ll tell you about it all later, for now, he just wants you close.

edit: i will be making this into a fic later ;p

[leyavo]

Hacker!reader that joined the military as a political prisoner. You were found as part of a freedom fighter movement, forced to use your skills for a small military operation in exchange for prison or worse sent back to your strict cult family.

You now work as a hybrid technician in the field, still got a very short leash though. - tracker injected into the back of your arm. Maybe one day you’ll earn that freedom you desperately seek.

Freedom, is something you’ve fought for years. Escaped the cult you grew up in using technology. Nothing but a busted up phone and a concussed group leader, the type of grit and determination Captain Price likes when he reads your file. Slipped into databases and breached security systems like you’ve built them yourself. All in the name of bringing down shady operations and war criminals just like John Price.

He’s a lesser evil though if you want to help the greater good.

Taught to obey the same hand you were trying to break, the system you were trying to destroy. And your superiors all knew that, even gave you special treatment (not that type though). You’re more of a feral dog, a stray tied up to a lamp post and made to beg for scraps.

That’s how you get your call-sign, Lucky. Some sick, twisted joke of how your superiors liked to remind how fortunate you were. “Lucky, you’re still breathing…” when you’re in fact on the floor, your blood dripping on the training mat as a lieutenant looms over you. “Lucky I ain’t knocking you out.”

“Should think yourself lucky, I’d rather you rot away in a cell.” - everyone telling you to be thankful, to kiss the hand that trapped you. To play the good little soldier and be rewarded with a decent meal, a bed or a moment of silence without someone breathing down your neck.

The task force 141 changes that though, your handler pissed at how they can go above him and request your presence without him. Doesn’t stop him from controlling the situation. How your hands are cuffed to the bar on top of the table, left to wait five hours till John Price enters the interrogation room. A thick file thudding in front you, yours.

“This just might be your lucky day,” John says, flicking your file open and jabbing your mugshot clipped to the first page.

Gone is the handler whose boot presses on the back of your neck, the one to keep you down. You’re thrusted into the base with buzzing computers, whirring drones and you can’t help but lean into the hum of machines lining the task force’s room.

No, you’re new handlers a ghost. A silent observer that watches you from afar and gives you space to work. Lieutenant Riley, you don’t know if he cares about you really. Like it’s all part of the job working with the enemy. Doesn’t speak to you much, only barking orders out in the field or when he requests some research, intel.

The only one you can stand is sergeant Garrick, some sort of moral compass and voice of reason within the team. Someone you learnt to stay on side with as he’d probably be the only one questioning your wellbeing. Johnny Mactavish or Soap as they call him, too brash…the type your mother would wash their mouth out, make them hold the bar of soap until they stop speaking with such disgusting tongue. He gets the job done though, pulled you out by the scruff of your top a few times whilst bullets were flying.

Captain Price though, he’s oddly fair and you convince yourself it’s his way of manipulating you to do what you’re told. Not used to scheduled check-ins on your work or the good job he throws your way when you do what’s asked of you. In the back of your mind though you remind yourself what these people really are…

[Masterlist]

[lowultima]

Knockin’ Boots…

Cowboy!Sevika

Slow burn NSFW

—————————————

Note: not a clue who’s artwork is in the middle- tried to find the source off Pinterest but I ain’t that good at nothin with technology. kudos to their work! IT. AINT. MINE.

EDIT: someone messaged me saying that the art is by slechyiris on twitter!! So sorry I didn’t post that originally but I checked out their page and it is fucking AMAZING. Please check them out at:

@slechyiris

On Twitter.

Anyway, enjoy!

—————————————————————————

Sevika was never the type to indulge in much.

She worked hard, and had a heavy meal with a glass of whiskey at the end of a long day- and she liked it that way. Cattle ranching was never something she thought she would see herself doing at nearly forty years old, Though- she didn’t know where else she’d be.

The Montana wilderness was a gift to experience- and a greater gift to survive. The Zaunite ranch was so far out- the nearest city was nearly five hours away and the nearest town was an hour and a half. People lived, worked, breathed and bled ranch life.

24/7, 365.

Sevika didn’t indulge in much..she didn’t even realize she wanted to..until…

You were a cook for the family meals on the ranch. With nearly forty plus employees, it was likely that those who did such hard labor were going to need a hot and ready meal at the end of the day..and you were perfect for the task.

You came from the south, generally speaking. You traveled across the country after coming across the position on an old, barely used, website for farmers to hire farm hands. You had been working for nearly four months, had your own bunk- and stayed in the kitchen working, saving money to get you to wherever you wanted to be next after maybe a year or two of being there.. You stayed in your lane, and in the kitchen, makin no fuss..and that was plenty enough for you..

When Sevika saw you for the first time, You had no idea…

She was always the first one up, before dawn- In her spurs before the rooster crowed. Sevika would always spend the early mornings cleaning up her tack and getting a check in with her horse. Breakfast was usually ready long after sevika had already left for the fields, and she was fine with missing out…

until she noticed the coffee had been set out earlier- and a small collection of breakfast items earlier too… eggs, some meat, maybe some fruit at the beginning of the month when the budget wasn’t spent. Someone had noticed her.

She had noticed the meals were definitely better than they were previously- definitely well seasoned to say the least, but she realized she had no idea who was making them…that was, until she saw you one morning, carrying two bags of flour over your shoulder as you trudged back from the storage hold a couple yards from the kitchen entrance..At three in the morning.

Apron tied tight around your waist, sleeves pushed up to your elbows, hair tied back- and you cursing under your breath as you kicked open the steel door..

The way you moved in those boot-cut jeans..

She wondered why anyone other than her would be up so early- but she began to appreciate the meals you cooked more as she realized just how laborious and continuous your job was..

You started your shift long before dawn, just after the PM became the AM- up early enough to hand mix the biscuit dough. The ranch-hands needed meals that would stick to their ribs, and nothing raises morale in the cold mornings like fresh coffee and home made biscuits every day.

Now that Sevika had seen you once, she had started seeing you everywhere. Carrying grains, opening gates for the cattle trucks, sleeping in a rocking chair on the little front porch of your bunk house- worn boots messily laid a couple of feet away.

In the early mornings, Sevika would sometimes hear you huffing behind the door of the kitchen as you picked things up and set things down- metal clanging along with your movements. She wanted to wait until you came out to serve breakfast one day- just to thank you for what you did.

Though she was sure you were paid well, appreication went a long way. The ranch took care of Sevika and all her fellow ranch hands, mutual respect- not just money for labor. She thought you deserved the same…Fair and balanced and all.

But…Sevika realized she didn’t really know what to say. She usually wasn’t much for words…

She glanced to the breakfast table, noting a pad of sticky notes and a pen, a discarded note with the words ‘cheese eggs, pastries, venison sausage’ in quick scribbled letters…. She grabbed the pen and wrote a few words- before leaving the pen and pad on the desk, taking a deep sip of coffee from one of the old mugs, and heading out to the barn…

As you bounded out of the swinging kitchen door,slightly sweaty as you set down the food items noted on said notepad, you glanced to it to scratch down your so far checked off list for the day… only to find..

‘thanks for the food.

Like the grits. Biscuits too.’

It was short. Simple..kind of sweet. You knew some of the ranchers got up early (which had been the reason you put out some breakfast earlier in the morning), but no one had ever acknowledged your presence- much less thanked you. You smiled, drawing a smiley face on an empty page, and wrote the question:

‘ Any suggestions? ‘

before sticking it to the wall beside the breakfast table, and carrying on with your day. Another note was passed the next morning- a piece of tissue paper placed near the coffee machine.

‘ you made some… round sausage and cheese ball things a month ago. Very good- easy to eat in the field. Like em a lot- guys like em too. If it ain’t much trouble. ‘

You smiled as you read it, your mother used to make you bisquick sausage balls before going deer hunting in the fall. Easy to take for lunch. Easier to make. You had no problem whipping them up every other day for breakfast- always packaging a hearty amount in a paper sac next to the coffee maker for your mystery note giver.

This messaging went on for weeks, passing quick notes back and forth. One time, the pad of notes was slid under the kitchen door- but when you walked out to see who had done so, there was no one there..

Only to slide your reply under the doors at 3 am the next morning, unsure of when the mystery note giver would return.

Frankly, you looked foward to the blunt praise of the notes, as well as the polite requests. You soon started paying more attention to those around you, trying to figure out which ranchers got up early enough- who seemed to be the type to write little notes…but it was hard to be a detective when you had another much more important - job to do.

Until, one morning- you passed the barn on your way from your bunk after you had forgotten your jacket…

“Hey pretty girl..how we feelin, huh?”

You suddenly paused- like the deep, husky female tone had stricken you. You hear a horse huff softly, and then you hear the voice again. “I know..last day of the week, then you can have a break..I’ll put some extra apples in your feed..how ‘bout that?”

You slowly lean around the corner to get a look, and you watch the woman stand- fuckin Janna she was tall-

Her hair tied back a little, a cigarillo between her lips as she tightened the saddle strap around her horse. You watched her inspect the leather closely- you guessed to make any notes of wear or rips. You were familiar with horses- but only because your mother was a farrier…

You used to ride with her, your mother..occasionally-help her with the difficult ones that needed their feet trimmed or feed treats to help smooth out the process of hammering metal shoes into their hooves, (which of course- didn’t hurt the animal. It was just keratin after all), but it had been a decade since you’d saddled up. Since you saw her..

You watched the woman tighten her brown leather chaps, rolling her neck with a satisfying crack. Her body was definitely conditioned for her work- hell, she was gorgeous. When she turned to lead her horse out of its stable, your eyes widdened at the sight of her face. Deep lines etched in her dark skin- her eyes had experience. History.

The last realization you made- one you wouldn’t have even mentioned if it weren’t for how badass it looked- was her arm. The prosthetic one, that is…well, maybe both.

It’s copper-toned metal glinted beautifully in the warm but dim light of the barns’ lamps- its joints moved with fluidity, almost claw-like digits clenching in a way that rivaled flesh. Nearly surpassed it. You wondered who this ranch-hand was, and how in the world someone like her ended up in a place like this..

“It ain’t polite to stare.”

You finally heard, realizing the womans’ gaze was on you. Sevika had noticed you merely seconds ago- but she recognized you by your apron, still dusted with flour.

Your mouth felt dry for a second. God, even her demeanor was badass. You were more-so embarassed than flustered.

“M’ sorry, it’s uh- it’s early…you just…you care for your horse well, is all.” You said, stepping out into the open entrance of the barn. You paused, but her silence and raised eyebrow make you awkwardly laugh.

“ sorry, you probably haven’t seen me around here. I’m the cook- Make all the meals and whatnot around here.”

“I know.”

“Oh..uh- really? Didn’t think anyone knew who I was around here”

“You think a ghost was passing you notes?” She asked, lips curved up slightly as she took a deep drag of her cigarillo.

Your eyes widdened a bit, and then you took a step forward- smiling.

“Well I’ll be damned. I’ve been trying to Nancy drew out who’s been my mystery critic was for weeks.” You said, holding out your hand.

“It’s good to finally put a face to yer kind words.”

Sevika paused, metallic arm under her cloth poncho- as if it was a practical effort to hide it…though, she eventually clasped her prosthetic hand into yours- waiting for your awkwardness, or tension, or even disgust..

But you shook her hand proudly- deciding not to make mention of it. It was just an arm- nothin to get all worked up about.

Sevika looked at you, before letting out a little breath of a laugh- letting her arm prosthetic fall to her side, living hand still holding onto her horses reigns.

“Ain’t nothin really, good food brings everyone together- gives em’ somethin to look forward to..names Sevika.” She said.

“Nice to meet ya..I don’t mean to keep you from yer work- but if you’re gonna be coming into the kitchen, sit and have some coffee with me sometime- I’d welcome the company. Not everyone is keen to be up at four in the mornin” you offered.

Sevika was quiet for a second, before nodding. “If I get the time- I will. Someone’s gotta get the herd gathered.” She joked softly, tipping her hat to you.

“Nice you meet ya darlin’”. Her voice was gentle to you, looking you in the eyes before walking around and stepping into the stirrups of her saddle, resting on her horses back, and riding away- cigarillo still between her lips. You watched as she went, smiling softly. You couldn’t help but wonder if she called everyone

Darlin’..

—————————————————————————

Like sevika, once you noticed her- you saw her everywhere. She was always in the fields, or by the loading dock helping to herd slaughter or seller cattle into their respective trucks. She rode with her living hand, keeping her mechanical one under her poncho as she rode.

Every time she’d pass you, she’d tip her hat. You’d smile at her, and she’d quickly look away, hiding beneath the shade of her attire in the sun.

Everytime you slept on your front porch, sevika would leave a note for you to get more sleep, and you’d leave one in her tack cabinet that if she wanted to eat- you’d have to work.

It was nice..looking forward to her notes..

One morning, you were sweeping room and singing softly as you began to start your shift.

“Black birds singin’ in the dead of night…” you then hummed out.

You were brewing coffee and had already set out a spread… when you heard her voice.

“Didn’t know you were a musical type.”

You froze, and looked up to Sevika standing a few feet away. You haddnt even heard her come in. “I-I try..can hardly carry a tune in a bucket though..” you chuckle.

“You’re at least better then them men I work with. They sound like howling dogs in heat when they jeer about at bonfires..” sevika said

You laughed softly, and set the broom down, pouring two mugs of coffee “come into the kitchen if you’ve got some time- I got some snacks I made for you to take out into the fields.” You said gingerly, passing through the metal swinging doors.

Sevika grabbed her mug off the counter and followed behind you, finding a spot leaning against a metal prep table as she took a look around the large industrial kitchen. As you brought over a little pack of food. Sevikas eyes widdened a little when she realized the care that you’d put into making sure she was fed well...All wrapped up in cheesecloth with a little bow.

Sevikas face flushed, her cheeks growing pink as she looked up at you. “I-you..you didn’t have to do that..” she said, southern drawl seeping through like honey. You shrugged. “Yeah but…you’re like..the only person around here that, ya know..talks to me.”

You brushed your hair back, walking around the metal prep table and chopping up some carrots. “Makin’ stew tonight..” you smiled, and sevika came over, looking into the comically large stock pot. “Smells good..” she said, you slid the sliced carrots into the pot, and you grabbed a tasting spoon, dipping it into the pot and bringing it up to her.

Sevika looked down at you, and then the spoon- she smiled softly, and took a sip. “Y’ like it?” You asked, before you felt coarse skin graze your cheek, and brush a stray hair out of your eyeline. Sevikas’ warm gaze had you feeling dizzy, heart beating fast as she looked into your eyes “damn near the best stew I’ve ever had..”

You look down bashfully as you try to hide your smile, but sevika pulls your face right back up to meet her eyes again. You suddenly feel your feet feel a bit unsteady, and your back pressed against the steel countertop opposite of the stove-still looking up at her. “You…” you muttered, feeling sevikas large hand smooth across your cheek, holding her thumb against your jaw as her other fingers grazed into the hair behind your ear- palm settling on your neck.

You shuddered. “T-that feels…i-um…I like women…cuz y’ need to know that..” you said quickly- almost as if it was a warning to her…

sevika suddenly paused- before slowly chuckling. “Darlin’ I know.”

You let out a pathetic sigh.

“..you think a straight woman stares down a woman cowboy like you did?…jaw on the floor, eyes wider than a doe in front of a bow..” she chuckled. “If it makes you feel better though..” she said, mechanical arm hissing to life as it moved from beneath her poncho, and caged you against her and the table.

She leaned in close, and you swore you could feel your panties actively dampen. “I tend to be fond of absolutely breathtaking women such as yourself..”

You whimpered softly, she was so close, you could smell the leather and cigarillo smoke against her collar. Dirt and field- horses and sweat-

“Yer gettin me all riled up..” you whispered softly against her cheek.

Her thumb brushed against your cheek once- twice- three times, and she looked into your eyes.

“Can’t make a move unless a ladies’ willin’..” she muttered, and your hands ran up her pearl snap flannel..taking her by the collar.

“I’m plenty willin..” you whispered, before pulling her in. Her lips were a little chapped, you could taste the Tobacco on them..and you liked it. Sevikas hand slowly traced down your body, and squeezed your hip as the two of you kissed each other. You let out a shaky sigh, licking your lips as the two of you pulled away for a quick second- but sevika pulled you back in.

You whined against her lips, licking over the plush bottom one as her mouth opened to accommodate you. You felt her large tongue slide against yours, and you gripped into her collar as you sucked on her tongue, pulling away and nipping at her lips enthusiastically.

“Holy-“ you gasped as you were suddenly lifted, placed on top of the metal countertop. Sevika had a wolfish grin on her face, one you haddnt seen before, you felt like a type of prey- and for some reason- you liked it.

“The hell you learn a trick like that pretty girl?” Sevika asked. You chuckled softly “been around the block a few times..ain’t no buckle-bunny lookin for her next fix..” you said, hands threading in her surprisingly soft hair. Sevika huffed out a laugh. “Mhm..seen the way you lift those flour bags..” she leaned into your ear as her metal claw-like fingers gripped into your hip, her other hand slowly sliding down your flannel to reveal your toned, worked arms underneath.

“I like a woman that won’t take no shit.” She grunted, leaning in to kiss your neck. “F-fuck..” you choke out, gripping against her. “Mn..don’t..don’t y’ gotta get out to the fields soon? What if-“

Sevika sucked into your neck, teeth grazing your pulse as her fingers fumbled with your blue jeans’ button. Sevika was panting, you could feel her tongue graze your skin as she licked her lips. “Darlin…I don’t think you realize how long it’s been since I’ve had someone.” She said, finally pulling back to look at you. Eyes hungry.

..you realized you might be in deeper shit than you originally thought.

Sevika brought you to the edge of the counter top, your boots falling from your feet as the dangled. She glanced down, knowing a good pair of boots shouldn’t be dropped like that.

“S’ fine- they’ve got a shit ton of holes in em’ anyway..” you ramble as your jeans clumped up on the tile floor. “Fuck- what if someone-“

“Darlin…you want me to fuck you or not?” Sevika stated, a little pissy since, well, she wanted to feel what the inside of you felt like.

You nodded quickly, legs spread on the countertop that your inner food-safety inspector would be cringing at. Her fingers were large, hands were large- hell- sevika was large. “Been a while since I’ve done this..” you whispered as sevika pulled your pretty little panties to the side.

“Fuck..I knew your pussy would be perfect the moment I saw you in those damn bootcut jeans..” sevika whispered, and you giggled “sevika, didn’t think you had such a dirty mind..” you teased, before you gasped as she pressed a finger inside you. Effortlessly. “Takes quite a woman to make me think the way I think about ‘cha..” sevika said, her finger moving in and out of you, occasionally spreading your warm slick over your clit.

“Fuck….” You whined softly, you suddenly began to hear voices though- male voices. “Sevik-“ you began, before your mouth was covered by cool metal, and Sevikas fingers plunged into your sweet heat. Your eyes rolled back, legs twitching as you felt yourself go limp against her.

You could hear them, talking about the work day ahead of them- wondering what was for dinner that night- hoping the case of liquor they ordered from Costco would be picked up by their shipment company soon. You then gasped.

Deep, slow, almost brutal thrusts of her fingers rocked your core- the curl of them was almost too much to bear. You pushed her metallic arm out of the way, and pulled her closer- sucking deep, purple bruises into her dark skin. Nipping, biting- you felt like a caged animal. And all you wanted was sevika.

“That’s it darlin, take ‘em like a good girl..” she muttered against your hair, pressing a kiss to your head as you held onto her for dear life. Sevika felt like she was breaking you in almost..she almost couldn’t believe your experience..you were so damn tight.

Eventually, the men’s voices trickled out as they went into the fields- and your head tipped back. “Go on, make some pretty noises for me..” she whispered- thumb pressing and circling your clit. You moaned softly, licking your lips as you looked up at her. “‘Yer gonna be lat-“

You let out a loud moan as sevika thrusted her fingers into you good and hard. “I don’t give a fuck.” She stated, her pace brutal as you felt your stomach flip in that way that made you fuck back against her fingers

“Please- please please please, sevika please-“ you whined, gasping out as your clit was firmly pressed into- and you boiled over.

“That’s it baby girl, ride it out…ride it out..” sevika assured you, fucking you through your orgasm as you twitched and whined in front of her, cum dripping onto the tile floor.

You panted loudly as she held you tight, and you hugged her back.

“Fuckin god…that was the best sex I’ve ever had..” you muttered, looking up to her, before you realized she was getting down on her knees.

“Well, a good cowboy always cleans up their mess.”

….ffffuck.

[sardineroutine67]

More ppl shld talk about how Kaveh and Alhaitham subvert the stereotypes of their respective fields of studies. Like the sterotype for the humanities people are that they're the more emotional, romantic, kinda all over the place types, and the STEM people are the rigid, blunt, may come across as cold kinda people.

Basing it off their darshans, Alhaitham's area of studies aligns with the humanities (linguisitcs and semiotics), but hes the one that seems to be the "antisocial intellectucal" character. And Kaveh is from Kshahrewar (leaning towards technology) but hes the emotional character– and UUdjsidhdkdkbd