#I want to be able to make some pocket money from my art at least (my biggest ambition is that someday I'll be able to make art my job)

[arttsuka]

I wanted to make a ko-fi or something, does anyone knows anything about it? The process, any experience with it etc? I live in Europe, so maybe that changes things..

[theoutcastrogue]

[From a 2014 article by John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats. He's talking about how a random spam email ended up inspiring a part of his book Wolf in White Van. Later, in 2020, the album Getting Into Knives came out, and I think it inspired its artwork too.]

"It took years for me to be able to just reflexively delete spam, or filter it so that I never see it at all. I blame the spammers for this; the quality of their work took a sharp nosedive at some point. But during whatever period of the internet’s growth you’d call the early 2000s, it seemed like you’d still get some winners: things that had been typed up by a person, sent out to a bunch of email addresses they’d bought or rented for 5 or 10 bucks from the only guy who was ever going to make any money in this particular exchange. Most of them went directly, if manually, into the trash; but once in a while, there’d be one that seemed to earn, at the very least, the minute it’d take me to read it.

The one I’m remembering here was subject-lined SUPPLY OF KNIVES. [...] The subject line opened on an all-caps email that boasted, in ornate, antiquated English appealing to the reader’s more refined sensibilities, about the high quality of the knives on offer at an external website. You shouldn’t click on links in spam email. I live my life on the razor’s edge! I clicked the link.

I want to tell you about these knives: They were beautiful. They were weird. They had elaborate designs in the handles, moons or stars of wolf heads, and special grips, and a variety of points. They were made from metals whose pedigrees were described lovingly, and had been struck — smithed? wrought? — via processes I knew absolutely nothing about, but that sounded fantastic, difficult, arcane. It’s the joy of specialized language: When you’re an outsider to it, it can’t help but sound cool.

Of course this is the whole idea of any operation like this. SUPPLY OF KNIVES could well have been, and probably was, a company in Ohio who’d stumbled across an old warehouse full of knives, and knew enough about sales to describe these things in the most exotic terms they could find. I’m pretty immune to pitches: Who likes to feel like he’s being pitched? But somebody involved with SUPPLY OF KNIVES had had just enough authorial flair — that, or true faith — to caption each knife’s mysterious, blurry accompanying JPEG with a description whose constant recourse to specialized vocabularies seemed to say, “You’re not even reading this unless you already know about this sort of thing. Let us therefore speak like the fellow travelers we are.”

It was like a trade catalog for roadside bandits in need of knives.

I can’t speak for everybody, but I know that when I was a child the life of the roadside bandit seemed like a pretty romantic way to go. I looked at all these knives and read the descriptions and was just generally delighted about the whole thing, so I saved the email in a “memorable spam” folder I used to keep that had maybe two other emails in it. A few years later, Apple came out with this robotic-arm-screen iMac you never see any more, and we were long overdue for a new computer so we got that; and then, after a while, I got myself a laptop, because I was traveling all the time, and eventually both the old iMacs ended up in the basement, and they were both asleep but alive until fairly recently, as far as I knew.

But when I went to check for the email, it was gone. The old blue iMac is dead, bricked, lifeless. Searches on the term “supply of knives” on this laptop and on good old robot-arm-screen find nothing. The backup CD for the blue iMac drive is probably in a drawer around here somewhere, but that’s like saying, “The coin I had in my swim trunks’ pocket is probably somewhere in the ocean.” There is no SUPPLY OF KNIVES. There’s only the memory."

[source]

And this is the wonderful cover art of Getting Into Knives. Back cover and promo material below. Note that "Knives International" and "Knives Wordwide" are not real companies, they appear to be a callback to that elusive spam email.

[prikarin]

Regarding Killer Trait Updates

Hello, everyone!

It's been a good minute since my last Killer Trait update, hasn't it?

A lot of people have been asking me about Killer Trait updates and when the full-game will be released so, after a lot of thought, I decided to make this post.

Here's the thing: my Patreon hasn't been doing well. It hasn't been doing well for several months now. While the decline started after Where Winter Crows Go's release in November of last year, it's gotten progressively worse from February 2024 onwards. And because of this I'm going to have to pause my billing for my current patrons from August onwards—at least until I have something new to post.

It'd be a lie if I said this didn't affect me, I'm only human after all, but I'm also well aware that Patreon is a tough thing to maintain in a way that's consistent and interesting.

Unfortunately, since I live in Argentina, my only real way to get funds for my games is through Patreon, donations on Ko-Fi and sales and donations on Itchio. While it definitely helps that I hire some people from Argentina for certain art related things (so I pay them in Argentine Pesos), most of the people I commission are from overseas, so it's always a must to be able to pay them in USD.

And that's the issue: since I don't have that much money anymore and I can't commission people as often... this inevitably delays my progress on both Killer Trait and Potion Pleasing (DEMO out now!) indefinitely. It's sucks for me too, but it's the reality: making games costs money.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Killer Trait will have re-designs for most of the characters (not counting Carl because his design was originally my own) since the ones in the DEMO were stock sprites I bought from an artist, not my own designs. And I want these characters to be 100% my own, which is why I decided to have them re-designed. I've talked about this in the past in more detail when I decided to have Crowe re-designed, you can find that post HERE.

Of course, for these new character sheets (with the exception of Oz's, which has already been finished) and the new sprites, I need game funds in order to commission the artist. Even after the sprites are done, there are a couple of backgrounds—the characters' rooms—that I'd like to have originally made (especially since the ones I bought from Minikle are very limiting and don't really fit with the characters' personalities). And this doesn't even account for CGs, which I'll probably have to postpone for a while because the sprites and the backgrounds are way more important.

Some might be thinking "What about Where Winter Crows Go?". While I was lucky that WWCG's first demo was so well received, I still spent a whole lot of money from my own pocket to make it. I bought a lot of assets and, when I got a few donations, I commissioned a few artists to help me. WWCG was NEVER a game made with only free resources.

Making the art book for WWCG was a way I found to get a little of that investment back, but I'm well aware that I'll never get all the money that I spent back. And that's okay! To this day, I don't regret having invested my money to make WWCG because it gave me a lot of experience, perspective and made me learn a lot.

Be that as it may, however, I can't realistically make the rest of my games free. As I mentioned before, game development is expensive in both money AND time. Without funds, it's a given that things are going to be delayed.

So... where does that leave things?

Well, after pondering on it for a while, I came to the conclusion that I'm not really ready for a crowdfunding campaign right now. Those are extremely hard and ALSO cost money to advertise well and make sure everything's in order. So... the temporary solution I arrived at is setting goals on Ko-Fi! 

How would this work? Basically, I would set a monetary goal of the amount of money needed for a certain asset in a certain game that needs to be made. For example: sprites & character sheets in Killer Trait. Once that goal is met, I'll commission the person in question so they can start working on it! After that, I'll set the next goal and so on 💪

I'm thinking of setting the first Ko-Fi goal once August starts. And from there... I'll see how it goes! If things don't go well, I'm also considering making Where Winter Crows Go paid for a while—don't worry, I would make an announcement first—because I honestly have no more ways of getting game funds for Killer Trait and Potion Pleasing and, as mentioned before, making games is really expensive (and I'm only one person).

Thank you so much for reading until the end and I hope you have an amazing day!

[tippenfunkaport]

Pickpocket AU

Short Version: I took Res's Glitra pickpocket idea and made it needlessly complicated

Long version:

So, previously on Tumblr, @resflower posted a short fic where Catra and Glimmer were fortune tellers who picked Bow's pocket. And I suggested that it would be funny if they thought they were picking his pocket but really he had picked theirs (given we see him do sleight of hand card tricks in canon). People enjoyed this idea and were like, "Write it!" but I never came up with a completel enough idea to feel like I had anything to post, just a few small scenes.

But here is what I have so far just for a taste. As is my brand, I have made it needlessly complicated.

Magic is thought to be extinct. That's the official line from the cities but people like Catra who live on the fringes of society know that's not true, it's just that anyone who shows any sign of having magic mysteriously disappears. Catra runs into Glimmer when she tries to rob her and decides to partner up with her for a big job… not so much because she needs a partner (she actually prefers to work alone) but because she's become an expert at sniffing out magic and she can tell that Glimmer has it and is trying to hide the fact that she does.

The two of them recently stole the moonstone, a relic of a necklace, long thought to be a myth. Now they are traveling to the edge of the city to the lawless wilds beyond where Catra has a buyer for the moonstone-- but what Glimmer doesn't know is she has a buyer for Glimmer too. Except the longer they travel together, the more she's starting to like the girl and not sure that she wants to turn her in after all. She doesn't know exactly what happens to people with magic but it doesn't seem like anything good and she's starting to feel a little protective of Glimmer.

They run an assortment of scams on their way across the country to make enough money for the journey and in one town they do their routine, Glimmer picking an easy mark in a young man (Bow) who's so innocent and trusting she almost feels bad about fleecing him. At least, she feels bad until she realizes that the innocence was an act and he swiped the moonstone.

Catra figures out he's a scholar in the city by his dress. Glimmer wants blood and Catra just wants their loot back so the two of them hatch a plan to infiltrate the Academy during the masquerade party on the coming night.

Meanwhile, Bow sneaks back into the Academy through his buddy Adora's room. Adora is soldier class and works as the personal body guard for Shadow Weaver, who leads the city (pretend I have given her some cool title). It's a boring gig because Shadow Weaver is barely around which gives her time to make friends like Bow. Bow himself is scholar class which is one of the highest classes there is because they are studying the nature of the darkness outside the city that kills everything it touches, but hates it. Instead he dabbles in the forbidden scientific arts, trying to find another way to keep the cities safe (because the secret the common people don't know is that the way Shadow Weaver keeps the city safe now is by draining anyone with magic she finds, effectively killing them and leaving them lifeless husks).

Bow's developed a device that can track magic and used it to trace down a device of tremendous power (the moonstone). He risked sneaking out to go get it because it's enough to power the city for decades and he's hoping if he gives it to Shadow Weaver she'll be able to use that to keep the city safe and no more magic people will need to die. He's planning to give it to her at the ball that night when she's actually going to make a rare appearance. (He justified stealing it from Glimmer bc he knew that the moonstone would only attract attention to her and probably get her killed.)

In the meantime, Glimmer and Catra have snuck into the ball. Glimmer has disguised herself and goes into the ballroom to try to find the man who stole from her. Catra warns her that they only want their goods back but Glimmer ignores her, fully planning to kill Bow as soon as she finds him. Meanwhile Catra is planning to watch Glimmer's back but she senses magic, so much magic it might be the moonstone. She follows the scent and finds... Adora.

Adora springs into action to fight the intruder! The two fight homoerotically, enjoying the challenge of having someone so evenly matched to fight with so they end up flirting, giving up easy chances to win to keep the fight going. Meanwhile Glimmer dances with / flirts / tries to kill Bow on the dance floor.*

(* I would have so much fun writing both of these scenes, you know I would. Fancy costumes! Flirting while dancing and trying to kill each other! Homoerotic flirting while fighting! Very much my jam!)

Then everything goes to hell when Shadow Weaver shows up. She goes to kill Catra and Adora protects her without thinking, accidentally activating She-Ra, a power she did not know she had. Shadow Weaver has been waiting for this moment, it was why she kept her close all these years, and goes for Adora to drain her (because she's not really draining people for the city, she's draining them to keep herself immortal.)

Meanwhile, in Glimbow's back and forth battle / dance of sexual tension Glimmer has gotten the moonstone back. She's got a knife to Bow's throat, ready to kill him but she can't do it. Then SW's head general, Hordak, appears. He's found out that Bow snuck out because Entrapta has independently invented the same magic scanning tech, and he goes after Glimmer, his scanner showing her to be full of magic. Bow tries to save her, knowing they'll drain her if she's caught, getting badly injured in the process. Hordak is about to finish him off, but Glimmer decides she doesn't want Bow to die after all and, in her desperation, activates power she didn't know she had, teleporting them both directly into the area outside the city they've been told is the darkness where nothing can live… but where they meet an old lady named Razz who greets them as the lost King and Queen of Etheria.

So Bow is dying and Glimmer is confused and Shadow Weaver has Catra and Adora and thaaaat's all I've got so far! shrug

For Inspired By Someone Else’s AU

[neitherabaron]

You mentioned that you've finished writing Gobelins, and I'm wondering if you're gonna raise money to produce it, or do it out of your own pocket? Either way, I'm very excited to hear it, hope your op goes well!

Thanks for a great question! There's definitely gonna be an Indiegogo fundraiser at some point before I start production, but the scale of that is going to need to depend on what my life is looking like at that time. In other words, when I’m physically able to devote time to the album again, I’m going to have to assess my capacity before deciding the scope of the project.

Basically, there's an "ideal" way I'd like to make Carnaval des Gobelins, with a physical edition, cool merch for backers, guest musicians and liner art commissions. I think it's gonna be the most satisfying experience for listeners and the best move from a "growing my business" point of view - producing that kind of stuff gives me a chance to order excess merch and another little revenue stream, which would take me a little step closer to making this my main job. But, it's also a big project to manage and as much as I want to do it that way, I'm not gonna bet on being physically well enough to do that until things are clearer. I'm pretty dang ill.

Then there are other options - like limiting that stuff to a digital version for Bandcamp and streaming, plus physical CDs that are a bit more pared-down in terms of liner content. And on the other side of the spectrum, there's just producing a digital album, like I did for The Wassailant, which while still a big project would be logistically simpler and would require the least amount of funding.

I'm going to run a fundraiser no matter what the scope ends up being and the reason for that is that I'm handling the production for C des Gs alone, in my studio. I have a great set-up and good technical knowledge nowadays and can make stuff with much higher production values without the spiralling costs of studio and engineer hire. However, to get the album done, I'm going to need to treat it as a part-time job for about a year and so I'm going to have to find a way to help me through that time financially. The reason I was able to finish The Wassailant within a year was because of all the time spent at home during the pandemic! I'm not going to start production until I find a new part-time day job anyway, so I certainly won't be trying to raise the sort of money to depend on! But I probably will be earning less from a day job while I work on the album and I will need a small amount to supplement that/keep for emergencies if something goes wrong for me in that time - so that I don't have to halt production part way through.

So the low-scope, digital-only version would still be a crowd-funded affair, just a fairly low scale one. For the big one with all the cool rewards and awesome CDs and everything, I guess my other mini-worry is I don't actually know whether the funding goals I’d have to set to produce all the awesome extras are actually realistic to what people can afford. I don’t know if I could fund a project at the same level as a Mechanisms album for example, because I don’t have the same reach the band did. But we’re probably looking at something comparable, cost-wise, to The Bifrost Incident (but closer to its goal, not the final amount it was pledged) to produce the “full scope” version. Plus, the last time I ran projected costs for the project was before the cost of living crisis, so I don't know right now whether the CD/merch suppliers' costs will have increased.

I genuinely feel a ton of support and goodwill from people like you who really want to listen and I know there are plenty of you! But also I truly don't want to assume anything from you, so we'll have to see how realistic it is to make the full bells-and-whistles version, financially or in terms of my capacity, nearer the time. The way I'm feeling as I type this is that I may run the Indiegogo with a lower inital goal and just a couple of reward tiers (aiming to fund production and release the digital album and a simpler physical edition) and try to do some of the other stuff like an expanded liner or producing merch (and making merch available at discounted rates to backers who want it) as stretch goals.

Anyway, that is almost definitely a much longer answer than you were looking for, so I'll stop now. I really do appreciate the great ask; having the chance to thing about a proper answer has helped me straighten a few conflicts in my head that were causing me a little worry. Hope you have a great day!

If you've read this far, thanks! Please reblog this if this sort of thing is something you'd be interested in supporting and would like to spread the word. I don't know when I'll be ready to start a campaign, but I want more than anything to get dates for my ops, recover to the extent I can, and do it soon.

[janedoewrites]

Did you self-publish? If yes, what was it like? Any advise for writers looking to publish?

I did self-publish, yes.

How I Did It

It was easier than I thought it'd be, at least, the way I approached it. Caveat that I went through KDP (i.e. Amazon) for a number of reasons that basically came down to a) ease of publishing b) availability of hard copies c) the shipping of hard copies on a global scale (not all countries are available but it's a decent amount) d) it's a place people often go to for books period e) the cost of publishing (the way it works is that print is done "on-demand" it's slower but I don't have to pay out of pocket for X print copies that I then have to sell to make the money back). f) fairly good royalties g) the general terms and conditions and 'ownership' of my material.

There are downsides in that it's through Amazon, whom nobody likes, and that there's return shenanigans in that if I get money from a purchase and if someone chooses to then return the book then that money gets taken away from me personally. (This has gotten better, recently, with ebook purchases as now if a reader reads past a certain percentage they're considered as having 'bought' it where before a lot of people treated it like a library and didn't realize it was the author they were fucking over and not Amazon who makes sure they're not the ones taking the cut).

And look, to those who want to give me flack, we live in a society and people buy books on Amazon. Them's the breaks.

There are other ways to self-publish and platforms you can pay to be a part of where they'll work to not only get you listed on Amazon but bookstores such as Barnes and Noble but it's a little more complicated/does cost some amount to do.

What Was it Like

It's a fairly simple process through KDP at least. What you do is set up an account with tax information/agree to terms of service/so on and so forth. You can then manage your books through a profile and the manuscripts you can write in pre-provided document templates that have the print structure for whatever size book you want to write (e.g. 6"x9").

When you're finished and have your page count in the formatted text, you go and see what size covers are required for hard copies (if you're interested) and can either use stock images to generate covers or else cover images that you own (e.g. you do it yourself or commission it as a book cover by an artist). For e-books they give specifications on the quality your cover should be for the best resolution/results.

You then submit your manuscript/cover art for copyright review, get an ISBN (KDP provides this for free for hard copies if you use them), and decide on digital rights management, promotion options, and pricing structure (where you're told up front the cost of printing/the amount you get after KDP's cut of the royalties).

It sits in reviews for up to 72 hours and provided all goes well you're then live, you get an author page and links to your works, and you can distribute how you want/tell the world to buy your book.

In other words, it was stupid easy.

Should You Self-Publish

There are pros and cons to self-publishing vs. publishing in general.

One great pro is nobody tells you what to do and so long as you follow terms of service (which hopefully you do as it's things like: don't write about the glorification of violence, glorification of sexual violence, so on and so forth) you can publish what you like without having to necessarily be 'marketable'.

Remember that published books are intended to sell and they generally either target extremely niche markets in a very deep way or else try to cast a very wide net with a book everyone can enjoy. One thing you'll see a lot of if you go the publishing route is "I as an agent enjoy unique stories. Now, tell me at least five books that are exactly like yours that were published in the last five years." There are exceptions, but it's generally not a field that likes risk or shaking the boat. They want to be able to sell books.

Another great pro is you're depending only on yourself. You can publish the book as soon as you're finished editing without having to convince someone else it's great stuff.

And of course, there's the pro that you don't have to get an agent or publisher to say yes. The way it typically works is if you want the big or prestigious publishers, you have to have an agent and that agent usually has to have some in roads with that publisher. Which means you have to submit a few pages of a manuscript/a summary and other things to them and hope they get back to you on that. This can be very time consuming (as they generally allow a window of 4-6 weeks) and annoying.

The cons is that you have to market yourself and you don't have the leg up that publishing would otherwise get you (where you are associated with whatever books they already have published just by being published by them, they may or may not run marketing campaigns and advertising for your material, and they can get your books distributed on a much wider scale). What this means is that if you don't have a large-ish platform already and care about sales/intend to make a living on this then you're going to have a very rough time getting a foot up.

The other part of this is that obviously you don't get a forward/amount of money before any books are sold as you otherwise might with a publishing agency. You only get the royalties you earn through sales.

Any Advice?

The self-publishing bit is easy enough that the hardest part is the writing and the editing. Obviously, I haven't gotten far in at this point, and I'm also not all that concerned about sales (I have no intentions of quitting my day job and becoming an auteur any time soon) so I'm perhaps not the person to ask at this point in time.

If you go Amazon worth thinking about is if you want to go the Kindle Unlimited route or not. I haven't as of yet, because I'm not feeling the burn for promotion.

What it is for those not familiar is that Amazon will market your book much more internally (e.g. that stuff that pops up on your kindle when you turn it on), run sales and promotions on it, but your ebook version can be read for free/lent to others for free with you getting a small amount of money depending how far readers make it into the book. The idea being that as you reach a much larger audience, you get more money than you otherwise would have. It's a good way to market if you have no platform/following already and a good way to proliferate the book but you lose out on people actually buying it.

[creatureculture]

The podcast might go down and you should be mad about it

Hey, hi, this is Colin. We haven’t talked in a long time. If you still follow Creature Culture, I hope you enjoy Gnoll’s occasional reblogs of cool monster art. I normally just watch her throw a cool lizard creature onto the feed every once in a while, but something happened today that I feel like I have to post about and probably should have posted about a year or more ago when it would have really mattered.

It’s looking like the federal hearing over whether or not the Internet Archive has committed book piracy is going to rule in favor of five incredibly rich publishing houses. If punitive damages are high this could likely destroy IA and everything it does entirely, regardless of whether or not content hosted on it is deemed illegal. What does that have to do with us? Well, Creature Culture is entirely hosted via the Internet Archive.

Back in 201x or whenever Gnoll and I decided to make the podcast neither of us had made one before. I’d guested on a few shows before and had some background skills for audio editing but that was the extent of it. We were also both too desperately poor to even afford the $10 a month for hosting fees. So what did we do? Well, we stuck my wife’s yeti microphone in a cardboard box lined with a bathrobe and some towels, I pestered a couple of friends for good presets to gate background noise, paid a dollar fifty for the intro/outro music that to this day I still love, and then we uploaded it to the Internet Archive. Because the Internet Archive will let you host any work be it a painting, novel, or even a podcast about decolonizing monster cultures in RPGs on the internet for free. It’s not the best hosting: if the show had ever gotten popular we would have had to actually invest money into getting it real webspace. And it doesn’t even do everything you need for a podcast that a website could do: a big reason the show has a tumblr is because tumblr at the time was the only way to generate an RSS feed we could submit to iTunes for free.

The important thing is that Gnoll and I had a cool idea as an excuse to spend time together and thanks to the Internet Archive we got to share it with all of you instead of just blathering at each other alone over a kitchen table. I’m sure there are those of you out there that wish when we were making the show we monetized it in some way so you could have helped support us. It’s kind of a natural instinct to share things you love out of the kindness of sharing not to get anything from it but from knowing that others are better for it and that it’ll make it easier for them to share the things they love with you, too. That’s what the Internet Archive is all about: making sure that our digital reality has at least one space explicitly built around sharing.

A bunch of publishing magnates looked at that, ignored the fact that most people who “pirate” a thing and like it will go out of their way to pay for it, and decided to tear down one of the sole archival institutions in the digital space. Creature Culture is hosted there. We put it up there in the best of faith of with IA to distribute it. Hell, we could have and maybe even should have used IA’s own process to put it up under creative commons. But if IA gets taken down for “lending too many books” because it doesn’t want to cave to some draconian capitalist bullshit to line a publishing execs pockets, the podcast goes with it. Maybe I’ll be able to get the show rehosted or maybe I won’t. Either way, we hosted the podcast on the Internet Archive because that archive should exist until the death of mankind. I wish I had a call to action of what you can do. When I find one I’ll post one. But in the meantime, please, just get mad and get ready.

[ashsomethingart]

Good evening my loves!

I hit a bürnøut wall pretty hard a couple days ago, and it’s been a rough one. I’m gonna have to power through recovering and get back to work soon, because rent is coming up fast, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about this issue.

As all of you may know, I’m a 100% independent artist. I don’t work for a company, instead I work for all of you who order commissions from me.

That being the case, it comes with a lot of work that people don’t ever see. This month has brought some absolutely phenomenal changes to me in the form of tech/setup which will make some parts of the process a lot faster and easier, but the reality of what I do is that 95% of my job is not art, and all of that side and back-end work can be soul crushing.

I’ve talked about it in the past, but to upkeep what I do I have to do constant commission hunting, create marketing materials and maintain a constant social media presence, continuously update my portfolio, constantly learn new techniques and art programs, as well as keep up with doing the art, planning and completing my personal projects, keep my merch and print shops up to date, and so forth.

My biggest roadblock as an independent artist is having no base income; meaning a consistent amount of money I get at regular intervals. Every dollar I make is either from commissions or tips, and currently I can work upwards of 100 hours in a week without earning a single dollar, because none of that 100 hours ends up being art that has been paid for, but work to help me BRING IN new paid work.

It’s incredibly rough on me and I’m always on the lookout for ways to make it easier; I tend to go through this ebb and flow of doing 1-2 months of work with a crazy amount of output that ends in 2-3 weeks of intense burnout where I’m totally nonfunctional, then come back to the grind.

I do not have a social life. I wake you to work and I tend to work until I crash for the day, then rinse and repeat.

Not having a base income means I can’t plan for savings. I can’t set aside money for upgrades to my business; I have no emergency funds. If any single thing goes wrong I can be set back by months.

It also means that every month, when the 1st rolls around I have to make a mad dash to the finish line to meet rent and I never know if I’m going to have it all in time or not.

The last two months I was on time, but for around 6 months prior to that I was over a week late.

When I explain all of this, most people fall back on that argument of “Well why don’t you get a real job” and I’m not going to explain my reasoning here but suffice to say; I can’t. It’s this or nothing for me.

All of that said, I have a business plan for myself that hinges on all of you; the start of that plan is (and has been) to build myself up a base income that I can rely on every month, and once I have that, start expanding what I do.

It’s no secret that I have big plans that don’t seem to go anywhere, and the reason they don’t is because I’m CONSTANTLY grinding trying to upkeep my bills and rent, and I have no energy to put into those plans.

I want to move forward with my tarot decks.

I want to start a new endeavor that I’m calling Something Strange. I want to start actually publishing my webcomics.

But I’m not fortunate like some artists who somehow manage to land the startup funds I would need to be able to focus on just those things. I currently HAVE to rely on commissions while slowly building my base income up.

Which is where I come to my point.

I was on Patreon for ages, and I did fairly well there; however it was really only pocket change I managed to get from that platform and I got hit with a warning every few months because they didn’t agree with my content.

Eventually, I left Patreon and founded my VIP Funpass membership, which I host right through my website.

I need to build this membership up to the point where I’m making at least $800 a month on it, and I’m asking you all to support me in that endeavor. Please.

On the VIP Funpass you choose how much you pledge each month: I have four tiers; $5, $10, $25 and $50.

In the past I’ve gone on about what YOU get if you join up, but you can find all the info about it on my website.

If I can build my VIP Funpass memberships up to the point where I am making $800 a month through my site, and only my site, that covers my site ent ($675), my phone bill ($50) and my Internet bill ($25) plus the fee my seller platform takes.

It will remove around 80% of my daily stress and help me stop needing to grind myself to burnout.

This will mean I can put more focus on finishing commissions, cut my turnaround time in half, and allow me to divert energy into my passion projects.

So, I’m asking everyone who follows me to consider subscribing to my VIP Funpass Membership; the way I see it is, for the same cost as a single fast food meal every month you can help me change my life for the better; support an independent artist and help fight back against AI image generators all in one go.

So, do with all of that info what you will; if you want to learn more about the VIP Funpass Membership you can check it out here.

[snowmuttgetsweird]

7/26/24, early evening

Roommate just left. He's going on a two week long vacation with his partner to visit his family and introduce them to one another.

I'm nervous for him but also nervous cause it's been a minute since we weren't together and I think I'm gonna get lonely and worried about him.

Trying to look on the bright side. I DO like living alone and being independent because I like not being beholden to someone else's needs and schedule, but like, it's not like he's just some guy I don't really know that well that is just paying the other half of rent- he's my best friend- so it doesn't usually feel like a burden or anything to work within one another's schedules and needs

Besides my day job I'm gonna try to keep myself pretty occupied while he's gone.

Got a couple other friends I'll be trying to engage with to play pickleball or Digimon or just to shoot the shit.

Gotta try hard to make more money- I haven't got any commissions this month yet. I guess everyone must just be broke atm. I even filled out the commission form myself just to make sure it was still working and was populating my spreadsheet properly. Everything works, just no one wants art/is able to get art from me atm.

Gonna be hitting the gym pretty hard these next two weeks too. I've got stuff for some protein powder overnight oats, salmon bowls with brown rice (I'm gonna try to substitute mayo with some cottage cheese and blend that with some sriracha into sort of a sauce for 'em and top with furikake), and dinner will be kinda variable, but I'm prolly gonna try making a sorta broccoli and pepper steak type thing tonight or tomorrow, and I wanna take another stab at red beans and rice since they'll have plenty of protein and I can stretch it for a while. There was a B2GO on Andouille anyway.

It's kinda nuts how fast the body adapts to new situations and stressors. I've been doing push-ups in my room (almost) every morning for the past week or so, just to try to build the habit and to be able to say that I'm making an effort. Last week I was struggling a lot, but today I can crank out 3 sets of 10 pretty easily, which isn't much but it's pretty good for me, and it's cool to have something in my life with tangible progress.

I didn't think I'd struggle this much with wanting to focus so heavily on my upper-body. Gotta convince myself to do squats- it's pmuch a perfect exercise anyway- but I really wanna bulk up my chest and shoulders more than anything. Gonna mostly be doing dumbbell presses, flys, front raises, and lateral raises for those I think.

Tbh I think my favorite thing to work on is my forearms. I know they don't really NEED any direct focus because they're used in pretty much everything else that I do with my upper body, but they recover lighting-fast, and I really like the way they look and feel with a good pump. I really like hammer curls and wrist curls. I'm thinking of getting a rice bucket too- I hear it's great for the micro muscles in your forearms and for your wrist health, which are both relevant to me as an artist and frequent keyboard warrior.

I'm having a hard time connecting with my triceps and my upper-chest. Triceps are used in pmuch everything and I plan to really dig in on push-ups so I'm not that worried, but I've read that upper-chest is really hard to build up, so I'm gonna dig into that a lot. I don't really know what to do for my back and core either. Crunches and lat pull-downs...? I don't have a pull-up bar right now, but I wonder if I could manage one now. I used to be able to do at least a couple when I was in Tucson. Just need more research.

Besides that... I'm not SUPER focused on losing weight, but I would really like to lose the muffin top, or at least dial it back. It's kinda droopy and I've got a lot of extra flab in my lower back, and it kinda creates this illusion that I have absolutely no butt whatsoever. All the more reason to do those squats I guess. >_>;

Anyway, I've got some exercises in my back pocket and plans for some high-protein meals and snacks, so I guess all that's left is to execute. Obviously there's more research to be done for other things I haven't really touched on yet, but the important thing is that I'm doing it and making the effort and building the habit, right? Right.

Wish me luck. Will prolly be more active here while my roommate is gone so it feels like I'm talking to someone. Ttyl.

[eviesessays]

34. If you could choose any talents to have, what would they be?

There is no end to the list of talents I would wish to have.  I would have loved to have been a recognized mathematician.  I would, in fact, have just settled for liking Calculus.  I could only on my wildest dreams see any hope of being a great singer or painter.  I would have been jubilant to skate like Barbara Ann Scott, who in 1948 won the Olympic Gold Medal for Canada in figure skating.  Since my earliest memories, I wished I could play the piano.  When I retired just prior to age 65, I bought a piano thinking I would now have time for lessons and practice. I am now 87 and have yet to arrange for my first lesson.

That I was never a mathematics wizard would be no surprise to anybody.  I hated mathematics classes and homework which is no useful approach to learning anything.  At no time in my life did I make a great effort to master trigonometry.  It simply passed me by and these days I am content to be mathematically endowed enough to add my Dominoes score

in my head.

I think the clear recognition that I had absolutely no singing talent was due, at least in large part to the fact that I do not hear properly and likely haven’t for most of my life.  As a child I had frequent earaches and when I was in my mid 30’s my otolaryngologist put tubes in my ears.  That put an end to burst ear drums every time I flew. What a gift to be able to hear and be pain free at the end of a trip or the start of a vacation.  I still cannot sing or recognize most notes beyond middle C on the piano but although limited, I still hear. Great singers are rare so no being in the ranks is quite understandable.

In Washington I took a painting course at Catholic University and hoped to one day produce memorable works of art.  I loved painting but with a growing family time was of the essence.  A dogged dedication seemed to be the basic requirement.   One day when I was pregnant with Peter  I was busy painting as the girls napped. My neighbor came running over to tell me President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas.  The world has not been the same since that day.   My neighbor. Rose and I stood all night in the November rain to file past the coffin lying in State in the Capital rotunda.  Some time later I took out my easel and paints again.

Today, I have only two of my paintings. One is a still life with a tankard and apples, a pear and knife on a bare wooden table.  Kalote wants this canvas and I am glad of that. At this time Jay was separating from the family.  he was absent more often than he was present and most financial support of the family was also increasingly absent.  Money for canvas as not in the budget.  One day I was gardening and emptied a bag of peat moss. It was a burlap bag. I opened the seam, washed the bag and stretched it on a 36 by 48 inch frame.  I painted it with two coats of gesso and voila, I had a canvas.  this is now the second painting I still have.  It pictures women huddled from the cold probably in New York.   It is reminisent of Kirshner in the early 1900’s.  Both Jaylyn and Anne want this painting so it will find a home and my talent will be somewhere long after I am gone.  

My skating talents were sufficient to impress my grandchildren as we skated on a small frozen pond on the farm in Warner.  That was satisfying enough.  I still wonder  at times if I could still glide easily around a rink and stay upright. I never get curious enough to make the attempt.

So here I am feeling certain I have no finely honed or even discernible talent.  I am glad I have always had enough curiosity to try many things.  I am not a seamstress by any measure but I have sewed my children and grandchildren things to wear.  Anne once told me she liked the jumpers I made her for school because they had big pockets.  Harry wore his granny made pyjamas until the bottoms were knee high.  My great grandchildren get hand stitched baby blankets as my fingers become more arthritic and my Parkinson’s has  more influence on my needle  work.  

I still enjoy gardening, not to be interpreted as a talent but I am grateful for what I am able to do.  I am grateful for the talents God has given me, if in fact, he is the deliverer of talents.  No talent i acquired reached an “expert” level but all were useful and for that I am truly thankful.

[ayanagiann]

4 December 2023

As the days have gotten colder, my apartment has naturally gotten cozier. For what feels like the first time since moving here, it really does feel like it's the holidays in my space. And it's not even that I've gone all out with the decorations (aside from the 8/9ft Christmas tree near the window, haha) it's just.. the feeling. There are so many little moments and corners that I've come to enjoy. Something about being surrounded by thoughtfully curated vignettes that makes me feel right at home. This space is sacred, personal, and filled with so much love from the (almost) 4 years that I've lived here.

This has been the year that I've collectively spent the most time in this apartment -- I'm realizing it's a similar vibe to the senior year I spent in the Berkeley house, single & during the peak of covid. There was no where else I had to be, no splitting my time between my place and a partner's, full free range and free time to decorate & re-decorate my home the way I want.

I woke up this morning and I could feel it. This isn't just a unit I'm renting out for awhile. This has evolved into my most ultimate sanctuary to date. This is my home. I can pick up random books and artifacts, point out random pieces and objects, and recall the memories of when I got them and where they came from. I can look around and see the history of my adult life collected in one place. Some would call this incredibly mundane but to me? It feels like a milestone. There's something genuinely empowering in the ability to have a place that you can call your own.

Every now and then it hits me that there will come a time where I won't live here anymore. To my core I know I was never meant to be here forever. I take in the fresh air from my fire escape, soak in the sun from my windows, enjoy the peaceful sounds from the gardens outside. It's my pocket of heaven in what some consider a quintessential "city" neighborhood, and a set up that I'll never be able to replicate after I leave.

I think about my future self, how I hope she'd look back on my time here.. money spent here... and reassure me that it was all worth it. That she'd remember this place and attribute it to some of the most formative and beautiful years of my life.

They say that your home should look and feel like an extension of who you are. That it's not about the price of things or the quantity of how much you have, but about the richness in character and authenticity in what you choose to put there. I look at my space and I see someone who loves comfort, simplicity, balance... art, travel, literature... music, fashion, and giving new life to old things. I see someone who doesn't keep anything unless it serves a purpose, who's intentional and patient with the process of curating a home.

I'm looking around at all the things that I've earned the right to call mine and I'm making it a point to once again, be grateful. Because if I'm being completely honest, I think it's too easy for people to take the nice things they have for granted. What I have here is at the very least, a nice thing. A place that turned out better than my younger self could've ever imagined, a place that my current self feels so lucky to have now, a place that I am proud to call my home.

[straycatboogie]

2023/07/18 English

BGM: INXS - New Sensation

Recently I can't get enough time to enjoy reading, therefore I couldn't have read Shuntaro Tanikawa's another collection of poetry. Today I worked early, and after that I wrote a poem at the lunchtime. I can see that my poetry archive has been enriched. How many poems will I be able to collect? Indeed, my mood is not stable so it will become "I will stop it because it is really troublesome", but now I am thinking "I want to keep on writing as long as possible" and "I hope I could make only one collection of poetry". A female friend draws her pictures, so I think how about using one of her work as its front cover... I even try to think about the title of my poetry collection (of course, I have to write the content!). I am the type of thinking its "outside", its "package" of my work, not thinking its "content". Like thinking the name of my rock band, not making its songs. In addition to, I just copied other people's work as "sampling", but all I just have done was just doing the imitation. Now, I am saying my name as "throbbing disco cat". This is from Takkyu Ishino's album's title. Not my original (Takkyu might think that he wants to beat me by his fist).

Once I was just an easy-going person who thought "All I want to do is just copying, not making my original". But that might be the creation, creative activity. At least, I am never a genius so I can't make any original works from nothing. I just do copy from other artists' masterpieces. I try to fit myself to the outer things. I train myself belong with outer rule like making myself by doing pushups or squats, or like young writers did their efforts of copying older writers' works or reading. During those copying, you find that your originality will appear from those imitation. Remember Haruki Murakami. He once tried to do the imitation of American literature, but his originality start sprouting from his writing (but you would say that he is "still" copying the great American literature. I can see what you would say). It is interesting that thinking about originality like that. We can see that it would be an unique expression if you try to do copying only, not relying on your originality. Andy Warhol's art, Pizzicato Five's music.

Now a lot of art can be seen within our archive. You can refer to easily. If you do googling, you can find its "sampling source". We are carrying a huge library within our pocket of the clothes or bags. Along with the currency of the era, poetry and literature must change. Although I am not a critic so I can't see how the change will go, but now we can find that "sampling" has become an usual of expression, not the way of expressing "Only professional audiences can understand what he/she tries to say" and "Great audience only". How can we think of "completely unknown/unseen things" and "enigmatic things"? Oh no, my "sleepy head" starts working if I think about this kind of creation actually. Theodor Adorno said that "Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric". I believe that people like us need poetry and literature as our "soul foods". Indeed, Adorno criticizes that those poetry and literature must become any "commercial items", therefore they must become "mild" things and lose their "thorns" to criticize our reality. But I need the time and space to discuss about this issue. I run away from this topic. Sorry!

After today's work, I wrote my poems on the notebook again. I went to the English conversation class to learn the "expressions and slang" (today's lesson was different from ones we usually have). We learn how slang the English people have. For example, "chill/chilling" and "vibe/vibing", etc. We also learn some idioms, as "the tip of the iceberg" and "Strike while the iron is hot". After that the students started showing how slang and idioms they have known. In Japanese, we use "Kami (this means 'God')" often as "Kamitteru", "Kami taiou". I remembered that "a bookworm" and "Time is money", and also the writing words of "Lmfao" and "Lol". I thought I could write a poem based on the knowledge of slang I got from today's lesson. I also want to go to the library and borrow a collection of sonnets... Cynical people would say that "Writing your poor poetry after Shakespeare is foolish". But I move actively, maybe because of autism. I just try to think it's OK because I can't control anyone else.

My Way, My Style

They must hate me that's I decide Some are still standing by my side I don't care the boss who would ride I try to live like the Bonnie and Clyde

Yes it would bring me a certain hate They probably say that it's too late It must be a mistake just like Eve who ate But I try to do by my own, open the gate

This is the style of mine I just choose I want to live like Oasis I sing good blues That attitude might bring me very sweet fruits

Autistic people might be... no, must be mad Understand this decision, or I would feel sad But I have a good spirit made by my hot blood

[gigslist]

The Markle Debacle

Was trying to keep my gob shut out of respect for the English royal family. My family are not so distant cousins, from New Zealand. Yet it’s become obvious this is a wonderful learning opportunity for you my wonderfully weird GigListers. If it’s not weird it’s not different. If it’s not different, it’s not original. You gals and guys, and undecided, are weird and that’s what I love. 

Oh goodness where do I start? I’m writing as I think. My ALister and royal friends will know what I’m talking about. There’s a couple of items that crossover with A-list and royals. Apart from both are forms of monarchies, one inherited and one by clicks. 

AList are not only chosen for talent and popularity. The same as a person is not a “royal” because of who they marry. AList and royals go though many years of training and practice. Since they’re little kids or teens in many cases. Since little kids for all real royals. 

Regarding royal titles. My blood rank is higher than Harry’s mum. I’m from Prince Philip’ side, Harry’s grandad. Which makes me a duchess without a duchee. AKA I have the training, community work resume and title, but without a small country of my own to look after. “Look after” is the key phrase. Royals don’t rule people, they look after their people. That’s how it’s aways been since before recorded history. 

Anything from Hollywood is fake news, start with that, since the 1920s. Hollywood started with a political agenda and ideology. People are writing history books with it like it’s real history. And it’s biting today’s industries and all levels of society, religion and culture on the arse. The stuff people need to exist and be happy. People today are wondering why history books don’t make sense navigating to today. It’s because history books today are fake.

Royals’ real job is to make sure there’s enough good farmland for food. And make sure the government in place are trained properly and aren’t being assholes. Royals invented and pay for hospitals, schools, animal shelters, social services and community centers and pay for security to keep their people safe. From their own pockets, often sending themselves broke. Even in the 21st century. 

    If it weren’t for royals, you’d all be living in mud huts with mass disease and scavenging for food. No medical doctors or cars or wifi or movies or light bulbs or washing machines. No museums or public arts, no police or ambulance or rescue teams to call for help. Study real history to disprove it.  

There’s a reason why monarchists wear elaborate hats on group outings, such as public events with royals and weddings. It’s for everybody to be able to wear a tiara and feel equal with royals.

Sharron Osbourne got asked about the Markle Debacle in an interview recently. Her answer the most eloquently modern. Sharron’s my inspiration for writing this piece. In as many words my beloved show biz heroine, Sharron Osborne, said “Some people can’t handle money or fame.”  

San Francisco was built by royals and wealthy gold industry and agriculturalists. Moving film was invented here. Somebody else bought the technology and moved to Hollywood for cheap rent. Hollywood expects you to look Hell wealthy, at least for looks, to impress San Francisco and New York.

What makes a real ALister is grace and poise, calm and nice and being genuine and able to keep your shit together like a real royal.  Be professional! No diva attitude! Dress as much diva as you want, but don’t think you’re shit doesn’t stink like every other human being’s. Who wants to work with a self-entitled asshole? Certainly not AList producers and casting directors or international diplomats. Their time is money, big money, and sometimes people’s lives. Every producer, diplomat and casting director is on a schedule and not an unlimited budget, even the AList. 

A royal’s tantrum isn’t to get to wear a Tribes-people’s ancient and sacred ritual tiara. Why do you think everybody dresses up when they wear tiaras?  It’s an ancient sacred rite and part of recorded history. It’s not to be Princess Barbie. It really is an actual ancient tribal rite. Our tribe’s been around so long that the tiara’s and crowns developed from feathers and hand spun thread into diamonds, rubies and pearls. 

The jewels aren’t from invading other countries, but from international diplomacy. Important ritual gifts exchanged by monarchs of different countries to keep international peace and trade. They are treated as sacred to show respect for the country and people the jewels came from. Regardless of wars. Royals are not taught to be ideological, all people are equal. Royals an monarchies come in all colors and creeds.

The tiara  Markle Debacle insulted many millions of people from the countries the jewels came from. What fabulous adventures and inspirations to create a wonderful world are stolen from you! That’s just a snippet of how anything out of Hollywood is fake news. And also kind of predatory, stealing what’s the peoples’ for themselves. 

A real royal tantrum is to get real stuff done. Like getting a hospital re-opened and updated for mentally ill, disabled or elderly. Or advocating for eco friendly technology. Whenever you saw Her Majesty get upset, it was for real reasons. Not for clickbait!

Real royals don’t wear a theatre mask. They will put on a smile, but people are allowed to see behind the smile. Such as passing of a family member or friend. We saw it in Princess Kate. Princess Kate put on her best, but her people were allowed to see the … I don’t know how to say it. You saw the emotion of it it in her eyes. Holding back real tears. From a classical portrait artist’s perspective, that can’t be faked. Especially not for days of being out with their people. (I trained at Heatherlys in London UK. Specialists in life drawing, fine details of humans.) 

Royals don’t go out and greet the people and do selfies for charities to get a salary. Public royals are trust fund babies or have day jobs. They start doing community work when they start day school. They work for their people for mostly free for life, until actual death, because they love their people. They can opt out anytime, gutsy real royals don’t. It’s the toughest job in the world, but real royals don’t play victim. 

If you can’t handle the role you’re cast for, bitching about it won’t do you any favors. Certainly no favors in London, Paris, New York or San Francisco. The tribe’s sacred royal tiara incident was totally gutter, racist and unethical. Read Dr King’s full speech. Royals traditionally lose their titles when they marry non-royals. The British royal family were being modern, but look what happened!

 If you don’t know how to handle it, you can’t handle it. Bow out gracefully and go back to acting and etiquette school and read the 8 Beutitudes from the Bible. Stop doing damage to yourself and others, including disrespecting your own ancient heritage.

In Australia just about everything is trying to kill you, including the cute stuff. You know what one of Australia favorite poems is? 

I love a sunburnt country

A land of sweeping plains

Of rugged mountain ranges

Of drought and flooding rain

I love her far horizons

I love her jewel sea

Her beauty and her terror 

The wide brown land for me

Dorothea Mackellar’s poem, “My Country,” published 1908 as “Core of My Heart” in The Spectator in London. On a visit to England, Dorothea was 23 and homesick and wrote her ode to Australia. How she loved her country and her people so much, she’d endure danger, fear and hardship for them. 

Dear Delete Negative Megan Markle News team. One of GigsList’s long time followers and personal friend and festival coworker is an entertainment lawyer of big projects. He’s now a court judge. So go for it baby cheeks! GigsList is from San Francisco, a city and big bay of fabulously crazy and weird and fearlessly independent creators, founders and real talent. When one stands down, another stands up. Also my audience are all influencers in their own right. Everybody has followers here!

Only top shelf for my GigLister people <3

Deborah

Photos: The Crown Chronicles https://thecrownchronicles.co.uk

I didn’t gramma check. The poem keeps making me emotional.

[ratmonky]

Death Drive

Word Count: 5.5K

Warnings: non-con, mild blood, choking, biting, fight/violence, burns, tentacle

AO3 Link

A gift to my lovely friend who also drew this gorgeous piece for this fic,  @bacterialheaven​  <3 (Your art fascinates me so much ahh T^T)

Although most of the devil hunters have the life instinct, I think Hirofumi doesn't care much about survival while doing his work, making him the perfect example of an individual with a death drive. Just like Kishibe (:

The depths of the ocean had many things hidden at the bottom where sunlight never reached. Fish still yet to be discovered, monsters and devils.

Swimming in the ocean was something you could never do since the thought of never knowing what might be hiding underneath the dark waters was horrifying.

However, the terrifying creatures of the ocean could never get you as long as you stayed on the land.  

Right?

~~~

Hitchhiking wasn’t as dangerous as you had anticipated. When you told your close friends that you would be making your way out of the city by hitchhiking, they warned you about the dangers of getting in the car with someone who might want to hurt you. No matter how much you tried to explain to them how you had to lay low and stay away from any public transportations to not get caught, they didn’t listen.

However you hadn’t listened to them either, that was why you were sitting on your luggage near the roadside. You were only a couple of towns away from the city but you still had a long way to travel.

It had taken you more than a dozen rides to get to here from where you had started. Normally it would take two hours by car to travel here but it took you eight hours to get where you were now.

It was getting late, your last ride had promised to drop you off next to a place you could stay the night but the man was too creepy to look at and you felt uneasy to be stuck in the truck with him.

Naturally, you had insisted that he dropped you off on the first roadside diner.

You regretted it now. It was the middle of the night, you didn’t have any place to stay and the roadside diner you had been planning to eat was out of your budget.

Either you had to get a ride now to save money to travel to a cheaper roadside diner or go out of your budget and stay the night here feasting on food… The latter option was the worst. Saving money was more important.

You knew how to attract a ride anyway. Smile in a friendly way, hold up your ‘going to the countryside!’ sign, and hope for the best. You wouldn’t wait any longer than between ten to fifteen minutes before hitching a ride but it was almost impossible to get a ride at night.

There was no way that someone would drive you to the next town or somewhere you could sleep. Everyone was on the edge because of the devil attacks that had started happening more frequently.

No. Don’t think about devils. Not now. Not ever.

With a long sigh, you redirected the light from your flashlight onto the map. You could wait until the morning or start walking on the side of the road until you came across a gas station; however, it all felt like a waste of time and effort. This side of the city didn’t have anything but trees on the roadsides. It could be dangerous to walk close to the forest at night too, you had heard the devils who lived in nature would come out at night.

The sound of your stomach grumbling brought you out of your frantic thoughts.

You were starving, the last thing you ate was a granola bar in the morning. It had been quite a while since you had last eaten but if you went over your budget, you might not be able to make it to your destination.

“Where are you headed?”

Startled, you turned your head to the man who was talking to you. He looked around your age, he had black hair and a rather creepy smile tugging at his lips.

“Um, the countryside.”

“Oh, you’re all alone?” he asked.

You nodded to confirm. Then internally yelled at yourself for telling him that you were alone. He could be someone dangerous.

“I’m headed to the countryside too, want me to give you a ride?” He gestured towards a black car parked in front of the diner.

You would have taken his offer if it weren’t for the sinister smile on his face.

“Thank you but I wouldn’t want to be a burden.” You averted your gaze from him and shone the light back on the map.

“It’s dangerous to be out this late at night.” He put his hands in his pockets, shrugging slightly. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing I didn’t take you to safety.” He gestured towards the parked car behind him once again. “I'll give you a ride, free of charge.”

He had cornered you, there was no reason for you to refuse his offer. You were still conflicted though, you would have turned him down if it wasn’t this late in the night. He didn’t look like the type of person to take no for an answer either. You couldn’t say no to his generous offer but you kept hesitating. If you were to find the perfect excuse maybe he would leave. However, you didn’t have any excuses.

Ugh!

Why were you even hesitating? You needed a ride and here was this guy, offering to take you away from the doomed city. You hit the jackpot!

“A-are you sure?”

“Come on, I was about to leave.”

“Ah, I can’t thank you enough.” Gathering the stuff you had with you and putting away the flashlight, you forced yourself to smile at him. “You saved me from waiting who knows how long for another ride.”

He didn’t say anything as he led the way towards his car. Opening the baggage, he let you put your luggage in the back and closed it. As you were walking around the car to open the door and sit on the back seat, the guy spoke before he hopped on the driver seat himself.

“I have stuff in the back, sit on the front.”

You stared inside through the window to see two large black bags on the backseats. Reluctantly, you reached to open the front door and climbed inside the car.

“So, where are you exactly headed?” He asked as he put on his seatbelt.

His question brought you out of your frantic thoughts. “Somewhere remote.”

“Hmm, so no specific destination? Don’t you have a family member who’s waiting for you? Where are you going to stay?”

You didn’t have anywhere to stay. At least not yet. Your plan was to find a motel and stay somewhere remote until people forgot about you.

Most importantly, it didn’t feel like he was asking these questions to start a conversation. You changed your mind, wanting to get out of the car.

You turned your head to tell him that but his unsettling stare left you speechless.

He asked a more particular question. “Do you have a specific address you want me to drop you off to?”

“I-in front of the first cheap motel we come across would be perfect.” You clutched on your small shoulder bag. You felt nervous when people stared at you for too long.

He hummed in acknowledgment as the car rolled forward.

“You seem to have a lot of luggage. Moving somewhere?” he spoke again, taking a turn and getting on the highway.

Your head jerked up, looking at him. “Um, uh.” You were hesitant to lie. “I’m just backpacking around the country.”

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to bike instead of hitchhiking?” He wasn’t even facing you but you could tell he was smirking at your utter stupidity. “Or rather do it with a group?”

Although your throat felt dry, you didn’t dare to swallow. “Probably but I wanted to have a little adventure for myself, alone.”

“Don’t backpackers usually have a backpack and not a luggage?”

“I just have too many things I need with me.” Ahh, you were so bad at lying. Stop fidgeting with your fingers and looking around like that. He will notice. Just… change the subject. “A-anyway, I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m (name), what’s your name?”

“Hirofumi.” He grabbed the gear shift, changing it to a higher level and speeding up. You sank deeper into your seat and started to panic. Only then you realized you hadn’t put on your own seatbelt. While you were hurriedly trying to put it on, Hirofumi pressed on the cigarette lighter button. You hoped he wasn’t going to smoke inside the car but failed to notice how there weren't any cigarette tar stains on the interior of the car.

He took a sharp turn, you grunted but managed to put your seatbelt on. As you sat back in your seat, the first thing you noticed was that he was driving down towards a road leading towards the forest.

“Um, I think you took a wrong turn,” you said, bringing it up to his attention.

“It’s a shortcut.” He kept his eyes on the road that was only being illuminated by the headlights, everything else was dark, you had no idea what kind of shortcut he was taking.

There was this feeling of being in the middle of the ocean. You could feel something sinister was lingering in the deep dark water underneath you. Something was about to emerge and grab you by your ankle, pull you down, and drown you.

You knew how to swim.

However, could you swim if whatever thing was pulling you down turned out to be a lot stronger and scarier than anything you had ever faced?

Could you struggle when you were this weak?

Could you fight when you had nothing to fight with?

Without your weapons.

Without your badge.

Without your devil.

“You know, hitchhiking was a great idea,” he said, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he continued smiling. “It was a smart option but for someone as dumb as you, there was a way to ruin it. You went and told all of your dumb friends about your plan.”

You stared at him for some sort of explanation but you didn’t need any. Yet you still asked him, whimpering, “W-what are you talking about?” Your bottom lip had started trembling.

He knew.

“For a devil hunter, your sense of danger is too low.”

A tremendous wave of panic washed over you when he sped up.

“Who are you?” Did you even need to ask? He was one of those private hunters. Makima had most likely sent him after you.

Despite being a devil hunter from the city, you were now weak. You had resigned from your work without notice and broke the deal with your devil. Although it had been an impending decision rather than a sudden one, you had left your work abruptly.

After watching so many people die and losing who you had thought would be your friends for a long time, the bitter truth of being a devil hunter had resurfaced.

Devil hunters were destined to die on the job, sooner or later.

The money you earned from being a devil hunter could let you live in comfort materialistically until the day you died but having to suffer from nightmares every single time you put your head on the pillow or closed your eyes could never be comforting. It wasn’t worth it.

You didn’t want to lose more people or see any more grotesque devils murdering civilians but once you started working under Makima’s orders, leaving wasn’t that easy.

That’s why you were on the run.

Even though you had sworn to protect the people of your country, you were running away from the job that gave you a purpose to your insignificant life like a coward.

How childish.

The cigarette lighter popped off with a soft click sound, bringing you out of your hectic thoughts.

He was taking you back… He was going to hand you over to Makima. You were going to work until you died.

“You should’ve gone up north, going south was predictable. Well, at least if you hadn’t told your friends about the hitchhiking part, maybe you’d go under everyone’s radar. However you’re a chatty one, aren’t you? Some ‘friendship comes before work’ type of person, huh? That would explain a lot-”

Hirofumi’s words didn’t reach you anymore. The color drained from your face and your ears started ringing. Your whole body started to shake, and tears started streaming down your cheeks. “Please,” you sobbed, your voice came out shaky, pathetic. “Please don’t do this. I did nothing. I’m just tired of all of the deaths and I can’t handle it any-”

“You can’t talk your way out of this,” Hirofumi said as he took another sharp turn, driving deeper into the forest.

You found yourself stuttering, ”Y-you don’t understand.” You looked at Hirofumi with tears in your eyes. “I’ll be killed.”

“What are you so unhappy with?” Hirofumi spoke again but he wasn’t even facing you. “It’s not like you were living contentedly up until now, were you? In that case, it makes no difference where you live or what you do for a living. Or if you’re killed or not.”

Your face found a new shade of pale. He wouldn’t understand. He was one of those crazy devil hunters who had shut their humanity off.

“You only had to kill demons for a bit and you got rice every day. It might as well be heaven but I guess you weren’t a real hunter.” His smile grew wider as he was watching the trees creep towards him slowly before zooming past the window. “You can die in peace now.”

You got quiet but your tears didn’t stop.

With a vicious smile on his lips, Hirofumi turned away to face you. “You know, a pro devil hunter wouldn’t cry.”

Everything was spinning, it made you believe that your head felt fuzzy. It didn’t even occur to you that he was driving at a normal speed now. Almost immediately you tried to think of an escape plan. Could you manage to run away if you were taken to the headquarters? There was no way you could and that was why you had to fight with everything you had to refuse to go with him. You looked out of the window, the forest could be a great way to lose him. The trees and the darkness could cover you, giving you the advantage to sneak away without having to face this guy in a battle. What was your next move going to be?

You didn’t know but you had to get away.

You stared at the door lock, it was locked but you could lift it even without him noticing. The speed was still accelerating but if you managed to jump out of the car you would have a head start by running. The car wouldn’t stop until his shock wore off and that would give you the great advantage of looking for a place to hide.

There weren’t many people or devils out in the forest at this time of the night. Hopefully. It would be easy for you to run without being seen by another person who could tell him where you went.

What if a devil attacked-

Getting overwhelmed, you took a sharp breath and exhaled loudly. You had to calm down. You didn’t have much time to think over the plan, you just had to do it. If you waited for too long you were going to lose this chance of getting away.

Hesitantly, you glanced at Hirofumi. To your luck, he was only focused on driving.

Cone on. Come on. Come on.

Your heart was pounding, a single cold sweat droplet trickled down from the burning skin of your temple to your cheek as you carefully and suddenly unlocked the door. But you forgot about the most important thing. Your seatbelt. Your biggest mistake was forgetting to unbuckle your seatbelt. As you had twisted your body to jump out of the car, you had found yourself stuck, slammed back into your seat from the force of the seatbelt itself.

Hirofumi stared at you as if it wasn’t a big deal that you opened the door of the moving vehicle or how you were trying to escape. He lifted his right hand up while he crossed his middle and index fingers, “Octopus.”

Your blood ran cold as a giant tentacle emerged outside of the car from a dark cloud and slammed the door closed. You were frozen in your seat as if your muscles had dried up and turned to stone.

What was that?

No, you didn’t want to know.

The car decelerated until it slowly rolled to a stop.

You didn’t dare to look at Hirofumi but you knew he was smiling at you. You knew he had that sinister smile plastered on his face, glowering at you with his big dark eyes.

“Ink.”

He turned off the engine, the headlights flickered off and it became pitch black. Darker than black. It all swallowed you whole. It was as if light didn't exist, the only thing you could see was the dangerous glint in his eyes.

Hirofumi calmly plucked off the burning hot cigarette lighter and held his hand out towards you but you couldn't see. “Ms. Makima told me to bring you to the headquarters,” he said, pausing momentarily as you were trembling in fear, unable to move a muscle. “Dead or alive. I get paid either way.”

You gulped audibly. This was it, wasn’t it? The end.

There was another long pause before he sighed and pressed the cigarette lighter on your thigh. “Look me in the eye when I’m talking to you.”

The sharp pain made your eyes widen and your mouth popped open in pain. You could run away, you just had to unbuckle the seatbelt and bolt out of the car.

However, as soon as your hand went to the buckle to pop the latch plate out, he firmly pressed the metal lighter on the back of your hand.

Yowling in agony, you refused to retrieve your hand and instead unbuckled your seatbelt. Without giving him another chance to attack, you opened the door.

As soon as you fell on the mud, you took a couple of wobbly steps before finally gaining your strength and used the ground as a springboard to start running without looking back. Things weren't as dark now, you could see well but you still were confused about things. Without actually having a clear idea of your whereabouts you kept running deeper into the forest but you couldn’t run in a straight line, you had to confuse him with which way you were running. Abruptly, you stopped to look around to see where you could run. The sudden movements made you lose your balance, stumble and fall down. You scraped your knees. Without checking your injuries, you got up to make a sudden bolt to your right.

Your own heavy footsteps were echoing each time your foot made contact with the wet mud. Or... no. Those weren't echoes of your own footsteps they were more like- They belonged to someone else-

“You’re running too slow.” A scoff.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him running next to you. He wasn’t out of breath like you were but he lifted his hand towards you, pointing his forefinger at your face before crossing his middle finger over the other digit.

He was going to call out his devil again.

With a sob, you made a move to change your direction but it was too late.

“Octopus.”

Black smoke appeared behind him. From the dark mist, a tentacle emerged, abruptly grabbing you by the waist, you flailed violently as soon as your body crashed onto the tentacle. It lifted you up, punching the air out of your lungs from the force of its grip around your body. You started hitting the tentacle’s slimy skin, crying and yelling at the same time. “Let me go, let go!”

Hirofumi pressed his hand on the tentacle and walked towards you while dragging his hand on it. “You’re more fun than I thought.”

As he was getting closer, you struggled within the tentacle’s hold by kicking helplessly at the air. “Get away from me!”

He stopped in front of you and looked up at you with that same disturbing smile before tapping on the tentacle twice. “I took a liking to you.” The tentacle lowered you down until Hirofumi tapped on it again to stop. “You’re quite interesting.”

The tentacle tightened its grip around you and forced your arms to be pressed against your chest. You were getting crushed, you kept trying to inhale but no air was going inside your lungs.

“However it still would be less of a hassle for me to take your corpse to Ms. Makima. You’re just too annoying.”

Fear came rushing back, the bitter reality of how insignificant your life was a harsh truth to accept. Hirofumi could kill you without batting an eye, he would be fine with taking your life because at the end of the day he was going to get paid for doing his job.

You opened your mouth to beg for his mercy but nothing would come out. Your face was turning blue from lack of air instead.

Hirofumi said something you couldn’t hear. Instantly the tentacle’s hold loosened around you. With the pressure gone,  you greedily inhaled air, filling up your lungs and coughing.

“I’ll make it quick,” he said, this time frowning instead of smiling. “What a shame though, I thought we’d be able to work together in the future.”

“W-wait!” you coughed, trying to catch your breath to talk to him. “No, no, no! Please, I’ll do anything. Please,  I won’t try to run again, I’ll sit patiently and- and-”

He was very quiet, almost silent, but resolute. The blood in your face drained away when you heard his cold and terrifying tone asking you a question with three simple words, “You’ll do anything?”

Your eyes widened as you tried to process the meaning behind his words, you could feel your blood being pumped through your veins but something was wrong, there was a heavy feeling of something crawling under your skin.

“I’ll do anything.”

That sinister smile returned to his face.

The tentacle lowered you, now, your feet could touch the solid ground.

“I want you to prove me wrong,” he said, stretching his arms above his head.

“Huh?” The tentacle unwrapped around you but remained at the back while you stared at the guy in front of you in confusion. “Prove what?”

He positioned himself in a fighting pose. “Prove that you’re a devil hunter worth keeping alive. Let’s duke it out.”

He had to be kidding. You were nothing without a weapon or your devil. It was unfair to you and-

Hirofumi landed a sudden kick on your stomach, doubling in pain, you took a couple of wobbly steps back.

When you glanced up at him, you saw him jumping in his place as if he was only warming up. He was taunting you, don’t fall for it.

Yet you knew he wasn’t kidding about you proving him that you were a good hunter. He had made it clear. So you had no choice but to take him down if you wanted to live.

You aimed a kick towards him but he caught you mid-air by your ankle. Whimpering, you tried pulling your leg back to no avail. The panic of the situation started to settle in as he got closer to you. “That’s cute, you didn’t even put any strength behind your kick.” He tucked your leg around his waist, closing the distance between the two of you. His face had gotten awfully close, his hot breath ghosted over your face. For the first time tonight, you looked at his eyes directly, his pupils were dilated to the point of being completely black. You could see your own terrified expression being reflected back to you in them. To put it simply, you were at his mercy once again, balanced only on a single leg with no way of escaping his hold.

“You lose,” he grinned. “You really aren’t cut out to be a devil hunter.”

“Please,” you began but he interrupted you, his other hand pressing on the small of your back and sliding down your curves to squeeze a generous amount of the supple flesh of your ass. Your breath hitched, the uneasy feeling of being powerless against a higher rank like him made your stomach churn in fear.

“Let’s have some fun before you die.” You could hear the smile in his voice.

With that, the tentacle returned, abruptly going under your shirt, pulling it up and over your head. You didn’t even get the time to react as Hirofumi let your leg down to shove you forward against the tentacle. Gasping, you planted your hands against the tentacle in a pathetic attempt to push yourself up but it was now impossible with his weight pressing you down. His hands were holding your hips in a death grip and rubbing your clothed ass onto his own clothed crotch. You were moving away from his hips helplessly, unaware of the tentacle pushing your bra up to let your tits bounce free. Only when the cool air hit your bare chest, you became aware of what the tentacle was doing. Your nipples perked up and the slimy skin caressing your skin made you flinch, the feeling of one of its suckers on your nipple was enough to make you shriek in disgust.

Hirofumi chuckled, his hands on your hips slid up, feeling your curves before dragging you against his clothed cock. He couldn’t help but grab your hair to pull it as he grinded against your ass with a little too much force. You could feel him growing bigger, he had to be a twisted creep to get off to this.

“Stop… no more…” Begging, you turned your head to look at him. With the way he was pressing you down, you couldn’t meet his gaze, instead found your cheek being pressed flat against the tentacle. Ignoring your pleads, Hirofumi pulled himself back to yank your pants down hurriedly as the tentacle latched one of the suckers on your nipple, toying with the sensitive nub. You started to breathe hard as the realization of how vulnerable you actually were hit you hard. All you could do was to pathetically attempt to get away from Hirofumi to be assaulted by the tentacle instead.

Then the loud sound of his belt buckling made you jolt, the tears and begging for him to stop came right after. You would do anything for him to stop. However your cries were ineffective, they didn’t stop him from pulling down your panties and drinking up the sight of your naked lower half. They only seemed to spur him on even more.

“Stop…” you whimpered and struggled. Tears started streaming down your face as a choked sob left your lips. He smiled against the skin on your shoulder in response while lining himself on your entrance. Twisting your arm behind your back to keep you still, he put his entire weight behind his hips to surge them forward and buried the entire length of his cock in your cunt.

Wincing, you gasped. Hirofumi took it as a signal to move. You were awfully wet, each time he pulled back himself to slam his hips forward, the squelching sounds of your pussy filled the silence of the forest. If that wasn't gross enough, your cheek was being grazed against the slimy skin of the tentacle, its fishy stench started to overwhelm you, making you gag.

“Ahh, you like this don’t you?” He tentatively pulled his hips back to abruptly slam them into your pussy.

“No…” You bit back a moan, closing your eyes and begging for all of it to stop internally.

“You’re getting off to this, you’re sopping wet.” Hirofumi mounted you completely, you could feel his entire weight settle on your back. “Be a good girl for me, will you? Be honest, it’s just the two of us here.”

You grumbled in response.

“Makima isn’t listening.” He nosed some hair out of his way to whisper in your ear. “Only I will hear your confessions. You can tell me anything, trust me.”

“Go to hell,” you hissed. If he was going to kill you, so be it! You weren’t going to give him the pleasure of humiliating you. All you had left was your pride and you were planning to keep it until the very end.

He slammed his hips forward, hitting your sweet spot on the first try. His firm thrust was all it took for you to silently scream, with the air in your lungs completely gone from the impact, you were clenching around his cock. You opened your mouth to take in some air but the tentacle wrapped around your neck, squeezing tightly around you to prevent you from breathing. The tip of the tentacle forced its way into your mouth and swirled around your tongue before diving deeper down into your throat. Hirofumi placed his hand on the tentacle, tapping twice for it to loosen around your neck. The tentacle left your mouth with a disgusting pop sound. Then he replaced the tentacle with his own hand, shoving his fingers into your mouth and grabbing you from the inside of your cheek.

Now, when he thrust forward and picked up his pace, you couldn’t bite back your moans. To your utter horror, it worked. Every thrust of his hips left you moaning, gasping for air. His merciless, rough thrusts remarkably sped up, especially in comparison to before. He was humping you like a rabid dog now and he responded to your surprised moan with a long, pleased hum.

Your drool started to spill out from your mouth and down to your chin since you didn’t have the luxury to swallow the saliva with three long digits prying your mouth open. You moaned audibly and threw your head back when his cock stroked a specific spot along your insides, Hirofumi took this opportunity to bite into your nape hard enough to draw blood, on a second note, you started to think he could be an actually rabid dog.

A scream left your lips, more out of pleasure than pain.

Hirofumi’s teeth sank deeper into your flesh as he felt your gummy walls pulsate around his cock, clenching and begging to be filled with his seed. He gave a muffled chuckle against your flesh, chewing on the raw skin. Although you weren’t honest in the slightest, your body was.

The tentacle’s tip went between your legs and the sucker latched onto your clit, catching you by surprise and making your entire body shake in pleasure.

How cute.

With a delighted smile, Hirofumi stopped biting your nape. He licked your blood off of your skin all the while he was fucking you frenziedly, thrusting in and out your pussy with sloppily wet sounds that started to make your knees unbuckle. Swallowing down your pride, you gave in to the pleasure so you could move your hips and arch your back to meet his frantic thrusts. At the same time, the tentacle toyed with the sensitive nub. It all made your legs trembled under you as your moans got louder than before.

Hirofumi's pace suddenly slackened when his cock throbbed upon your walls clamping on him. Taking his hand from your mouth, he placed it on your shoulder to grab you. He pulled his hips back and abruptly slammed forward, punching the air out of your lungs one last time as you felt the slight twitch of his balls on your skin before a pleasing warmth filled your belly.

The tentacle moved in tight circles around your clit and you clenched around Hirofumi’s cock for the last time, milking more of his seed using your pulsating walls inside of your cunt. Even after the tentacle left you alone, Hirofumi continued fucking his cum into your pussy, gross squelching sounds from his seed gushing out from your abused hole had become a white noise to you at this point. By the time he pulled out of you and let you go, your legs gave up from under you. Before you could crash on the dirty mud, the tentacle caught you, holding you up in a gentle grip.

Hirofumi was tucking himself into his pants while you watched him in exhaustion. He noticed your stare and gave you the same unsettling smile. “I think you’d be a great devil hunter if you were partnered up with me. Makima would agree if I said so. Won’t you agree too?”

You couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore but you managed to blink slowly in response, mouthing a ‘yes’ in defeat.

Hirofumi’s eerie smile grew wider, his eyes squinted from his cheeks puffing up. “I look forward to working with you in the future.”

The depths of the ocean had many things hidden at the bottom where sunlight never reached. Fish still yet to be discovered, monsters and devils.

Swimming in the ocean was something you could never do since the thought of never knowing what might be hiding underneath the dark waters was horrifying.

However, the terrifying creatures of the ocean could never get you as long as you stayed on the land.  

Right?

~~~

Hitchhiking wasn’t as dangerous as you had anticipated. When you told your close friends that you would be making your way out of the city by hitchhiking, they warned you about the dangers of getting in the car with someone who might want to hurt you. No matter how much you tried to explain to them how you had to lay low and stay away from any public transportations to not get caught, they didn’t listen.

However you hadn’t listened to them either, that was why you were sitting on your luggage near the roadside. You were only a couple of towns away from the city but you still had a long way to travel.

It had taken you more than a dozen rides to get to here from where you had started. Normally it would take two hours by car to travel here but it took you eight hours to get where you were now.

It was getting late, your last ride had promised to drop you off next to a place you could stay the night but the man was too creepy to look at and you felt uneasy to be stuck in the truck with him.

Naturally, you had insisted that he dropped you off on the first roadside diner.

You regretted it now. It was the middle of the night, you didn’t have any place to stay and the roadside diner you had been planning to eat was out of your budget.

Either you had to get a ride now to save money to travel to a cheaper roadside diner or go out of your budget and stay the night here feasting on food… The latter option was the worst. Saving money was more important.

You knew how to attract a ride anyway. Smile in a friendly way, hold up your ‘going to the countryside!’ sign, and hope for the best. You wouldn’t wait any longer than between ten to fifteen minutes before hitching a ride but it was almost impossible to get a ride at night.

There was no way that someone would drive you to the next town or somewhere you could sleep. Everyone was on the edge because of the devil attacks that had started happening more frequently.

No. Don’t think about devils. Not now. Not ever.

With a long sigh, you redirected the light from your flashlight onto the map. You could wait until the morning or start walking on the side of the road until you came across a gas station; however, it all felt like a waste of time and effort. This side of the city didn’t have anything but trees on the roadsides. It could be dangerous to walk close to the forest at night too, you had heard the devils who lived in nature would come out at night.

The sound of your stomach grumbling brought you out of your frantic thoughts.

You were starving, the last thing you ate was a granola bar in the morning. It had been quite a while since you had last eaten but if you went over your budget, you might not be able to make it to your destination.

“Where are you headed?”

Startled, you turned your head to the man who was talking to you. He looked around your age, he had black hair and a rather creepy smile tugging at his lips.

“Um, the countryside.”

“Oh, you’re all alone?” he asked.

You nodded to confirm. Then internally yelled at yourself for telling him that you were alone. He could be someone dangerous.

“I’m headed to the countryside too, want me to give you a ride?” He gestured towards a black car parked in front of the diner.

You would have taken his offer if it weren’t for the sinister smile on his face.

“Thank you but I wouldn’t want to be a burden.” You averted your gaze from him and shone the light back on the map.

“It’s dangerous to be out this late at night.” He put his hands in his pockets, shrugging slightly. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing I didn’t take you to safety.” He gestured towards the parked car behind him once again. “I'll give you a ride, free of charge.”

He had cornered you, there was no reason for you to refuse his offer. You were still conflicted though, you would have turned him down if it wasn’t this late in the night. He didn’t look like the type of person to take no for an answer either. You couldn’t say no to his generous offer but you kept hesitating. If you were to find the perfect excuse maybe he would leave. However, you didn’t have any excuses.

Ugh!

Why were you even hesitating? You needed a ride and here was this guy, offering to take you away from the doomed city. You hit the jackpot!

“A-are you sure?”

“Come on, I was about to leave.”

“Ah, I can’t thank you enough.” Gathering the stuff you had with you and putting away the flashlight, you forced yourself to smile at him. “You saved me from waiting who knows how long for another ride.”

He didn’t say anything as he led the way towards his car. Opening the baggage, he let you put your luggage in the back and closed it. As you were walking around the car to open the door and sit on the back seat, the guy spoke before he hopped on the driver seat himself.

“I have stuff in the back, sit on the front.”

You stared inside through the window to see two large black bags on the backseats. Reluctantly, you reached to open the front door and climbed inside the car.

“So, where are you exactly headed?” He asked as he put on his seatbelt.

His question brought you out of your frantic thoughts. “Somewhere remote.”

“Hmm, so no specific destination? Don’t you have a family member who’s waiting for you? Where are you going to stay?”

You didn’t have anywhere to stay. At least not yet. Your plan was to find a motel and stay somewhere remote until people forgot about you.

Most importantly, it didn’t feel like he was asking these questions to start a conversation. You changed your mind, wanting to get out of the car.

You turned your head to tell him that but his unsettling stare left you speechless.

He asked a more particular question. “Do you have a specific address you want me to drop you off to?”

“I-in front of the first cheap motel we come across would be perfect.” You clutched on your small shoulder bag. You felt nervous when people stared at you for too long.

He hummed in acknowledgment as the car rolled forward.

“You seem to have a lot of luggage. Moving somewhere?” he spoke again, taking a turn and getting on the highway.

Your head jerked up, looking at him. “Um, uh.” You were hesitant to lie. “I’m just backpacking around the country.”

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to bike instead of hitchhiking?” He wasn’t even facing you but you could tell he was smirking at your utter stupidity. “Or rather do it with a group?”

Although your throat felt dry, you didn’t dare to swallow. “Probably but I wanted to have a little adventure for myself, alone.”

“Don’t backpackers usually have a backpack and not a luggage?”

“I just have too many things I need with me.” Ahh, you were so bad at lying. Stop fidgeting with your fingers and looking around like that. He will notice. Just… change the subject. “A-anyway, I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m (name), what’s your name?”

“Hirofumi.” He grabbed the gear shift, changing it to a higher level and speeding up. You sank deeper into your seat and started to panic. Only then you realized you hadn’t put on your own seatbelt. While you were hurriedly trying to put it on, Hirofumi pressed on the cigarette lighter button. You hoped he wasn’t going to smoke inside the car but failed to notice how there weren't any cigarette tar stains on the interior of the car.

He took a sharp turn, you grunted but managed to put your seatbelt on. As you sat back in your seat, the first thing you noticed was that he was driving down towards a road leading towards the forest.

“Um, I think you took a wrong turn,” you said, bringing it up to his attention.

“It’s a shortcut.” He kept his eyes on the road that was only being illuminated by the headlights, everything else was dark, you had no idea what kind of shortcut he was taking.

There was this feeling of being in the middle of the ocean. You could feel something sinister was lingering in the deep dark water underneath you. Something was about to emerge and grab you by your ankle, pull you down, and drown you.

You knew how to swim.

However, could you swim if whatever thing was pulling you down turned out to be a lot stronger and scarier than anything you had ever faced?

Could you struggle when you were this weak?

Could you fight when you had nothing to fight with?

Without your weapons.

Without your badge.

Without your devil.

“You know, hitchhiking was a great idea,” he said, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he continued smiling. “It was a smart option but for someone as dumb as you, there was a way to ruin it. You went and told all of your dumb friends about your plan.”

You stared at him for some sort of explanation but you didn’t need any. Yet you still asked him, whimpering, “W-what are you talking about?” Your bottom lip had started trembling.

He knew.

“For a devil hunter, your sense of danger is too low.”

A tremendous wave of panic washed over you when he sped up.

“Who are you?” Did you even need to ask? He was one of those private hunters. Makima had most likely sent him after you.

Despite being a devil hunter from the city, you were now weak. You had resigned from your work without notice and broke the deal with your devil. Although it had been an impending decision rather than a sudden one, you had left your work abruptly.

After watching so many people die and losing who you had thought would be your friends for a long time, the bitter truth of being a devil hunter had resurfaced.

Devil hunters were destined to die on the job, sooner or later.

The money you earned from being a devil hunter could let you live in comfort materialistically until the day you died but having to suffer from nightmares every single time you put your head on the pillow or closed your eyes could never be comforting. It wasn’t worth it.

You didn’t want to lose more people or see any more grotesque devils murdering civilians but once you started working under Makima’s orders, leaving wasn’t that easy.

That’s why you were on the run.

Even though you had sworn to protect the people of your country, you were running away from the job that gave you a purpose to your insignificant life like a coward.

How childish.

The cigarette lighter popped off with a soft click sound, bringing you out of your hectic thoughts.

He was taking you back… He was going to hand you over to Makima. You were going to work until you died.

“You should’ve gone up north, going south was predictable. Well, at least if you hadn’t told your friends about the hitchhiking part, maybe you’d go under everyone’s radar. However you’re a chatty one, aren’t you? Some ‘friendship comes before work’ type of person, huh? That would explain a lot-”

Hirofumi’s words didn’t reach you anymore. The color drained from your face and your ears started ringing. Your whole body started to shake, and tears started streaming down your cheeks. “Please,” you sobbed, your voice came out shaky, pathetic. “Please don’t do this. I did nothing. I’m just tired of all of the deaths and I can’t handle it any-”

“You can’t talk your way out of this,” Hirofumi said as he took another sharp turn, driving deeper into the forest.

You found yourself stuttering, ”Y-you don’t understand.” You looked at Hirofumi with tears in your eyes. “I’ll be killed.”

“What are you so unhappy with?” Hirofumi spoke again but he wasn’t even facing you. “It’s not like you were living contentedly up until now, were you? In that case, it makes no difference where you live or what you do for a living. Or if you’re killed or not.”

Your face found a new shade of pale. He wouldn’t understand. He was one of those crazy devil hunters who had shut their humanity off.

“You only had to kill demons for a bit and you got rice every day. It might as well be heaven but I guess you weren’t a real hunter.” His smile grew wider as he was watching the trees creep towards him slowly before zooming past the window. “You can die in peace now.”

You got quiet but your tears didn’t stop.

With a vicious smile on his lips, Hirofumi turned away to face you. “You know, a pro devil hunter wouldn’t cry.”

Everything was spinning, it made you believe that your head felt fuzzy. It didn’t even occur to you that he was driving at a normal speed now. Almost immediately you tried to think of an escape plan. Could you manage to run away if you were taken to the headquarters? There was no way you could and that was why you had to fight with everything you had to refuse to go with him. You looked out of the window, the forest could be a great way to lose him. The trees and the darkness could cover you, giving you the advantage to sneak away without having to face this guy in a battle. What was your next move going to be?

You didn’t know but you had to get away.

You stared at the door lock, it was locked but you could lift it even without him noticing. The speed was still accelerating but if you managed to jump out of the car you would have a head start by running. The car wouldn’t stop until his shock wore off and that would give you the great advantage of looking for a place to hide.

There weren’t many people or devils out in the forest at this time of the night. Hopefully. It would be easy for you to run without being seen by another person who could tell him where you went.

What if a devil attacked-

Getting overwhelmed, you took a sharp breath and exhaled loudly. You had to calm down. You didn’t have much time to think over the plan, you just had to do it. If you waited for too long you were going to lose this chance of getting away.

Hesitantly, you glanced at Hirofumi. To your luck, he was only focused on driving.

Cone on. Come on. Come on.

Your heart was pounding, a single cold sweat droplet trickled down from the burning skin of your temple to your cheek as you carefully and suddenly unlocked the door. But you forgot about the most important thing. Your seatbelt. Your biggest mistake was forgetting to unbuckle your seatbelt. As you had twisted your body to jump out of the car, you had found yourself stuck, slammed back into your seat from the force of the seatbelt itself.

Hirofumi stared at you as if it wasn’t a big deal that you opened the door of the moving vehicle or how you were trying to escape. He lifted his right hand up while he crossed his middle and index fingers, “Octopus.”

Your blood ran cold as a giant tentacle emerged outside of the car from a dark cloud and slammed the door closed. You were frozen in your seat as if your muscles had dried up and turned to stone.

What was that?

No, you didn’t want to know.

The car decelerated until it slowly rolled to a stop.

You didn’t dare to look at Hirofumi but you knew he was smiling at you. You knew he had that sinister smile plastered on his face, glowering at you with his big dark eyes.

“Ink.”

He turned off the engine, the headlights flickered off and it became pitch black. Darker than black. It all swallowed you whole. It was as if light didn't exist, the only thing you could see was the dangerous glint in his eyes.

Hirofumi calmly plucked off the burning hot cigarette lighter and held his hand out towards you but you couldn't see. “Ms. Makima told me to bring you to the headquarters,” he said, pausing momentarily as you were trembling in fear, unable to move a muscle. “Dead or alive. I get paid either way.”

You gulped audibly. This was it, wasn’t it? The end.

There was another long pause before he sighed and pressed the cigarette lighter on your thigh. “Look me in the eye when I’m talking to you.”

The sharp pain made your eyes widen and your mouth popped open in pain. You could run away, you just had to unbuckle the seatbelt and bolt out of the car.

However, as soon as your hand went to the buckle to pop the latch plate out, he firmly pressed the metal lighter on the back of your hand.

Yowling in agony, you refused to retrieve your hand and instead unbuckled your seatbelt. Without giving him another chance to attack, you opened the door.

As soon as you fell on the mud, you took a couple of wobbly steps before finally gaining your strength and used the ground as a springboard to start running without looking back. Things weren't as dark now, you could see well but you still were confused about things. Without actually having a clear idea of your whereabouts you kept running deeper into the forest but you couldn’t run in a straight line, you had to confuse him with which way you were running. Abruptly, you stopped to look around to see where you could run. The sudden movements made you lose your balance, stumble and fall down. You scraped your knees. Without checking your injuries, you got up to make a sudden bolt to your right.

Your own heavy footsteps were echoing each time your foot made contact with the wet mud. Or... no. Those weren't echoes of your own footsteps they were more like- They belonged to someone else-

“You’re running too slow.” A scoff.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him running next to you. He wasn’t out of breath like you were but he lifted his hand towards you, pointing his forefinger at your face before crossing his middle finger over the other digit.

He was going to call out his devil again.

With a sob, you made a move to change your direction but it was too late.

“Octopus.”

Black smoke appeared behind him. From the dark mist, a tentacle emerged, abruptly grabbing you by the waist, you flailed violently as soon as your body crashed onto the tentacle. It lifted you up, punching the air out of your lungs from the force of its grip around your body. You started hitting the tentacle’s slimy skin, crying and yelling at the same time. “Let me go, let go!”

Hirofumi pressed his hand on the tentacle and walked towards you while dragging his hand on it. “You’re more fun than I thought.”

As he was getting closer, you struggled within the tentacle’s hold by kicking helplessly at the air. “Get away from me!”

He stopped in front of you and looked up at you with that same disturbing smile before tapping on the tentacle twice. “I took a liking to you.” The tentacle lowered you down until Hirofumi tapped on it again to stop. “You’re quite interesting.”

The tentacle tightened its grip around you and forced your arms to be pressed against your chest. You were getting crushed, you kept trying to inhale but no air was going inside your lungs.

“However it still would be less of a hassle for me to take your corpse to Ms. Makima. You’re just too annoying.”

Fear came rushing back, the bitter reality of how insignificant your life was a harsh truth to accept. Hirofumi could kill you without batting an eye, he would be fine with taking your life because at the end of the day he was going to get paid for doing his job.

You opened your mouth to beg for his mercy but nothing would come out. Your face was turning blue from lack of air instead.

Hirofumi said something you couldn’t hear. Instantly the tentacle’s hold loosened around you. With the pressure gone,  you greedily inhaled air, filling up your lungs and coughing.

“I’ll make it quick,” he said, this time frowning instead of smiling. “What a shame though, I thought we’d be able to work together in the future.”

“W-wait!” you coughed, trying to catch your breath to talk to him. “No, no, no! Please, I’ll do anything. Please,  I won’t try to run again, I’ll sit patiently and- and-”

He was very quiet, almost silent, but resolute. The blood in your face drained away when you heard his cold and terrifying tone asking you a question with three simple words, “You’ll do anything?”

Your eyes widened as you tried to process the meaning behind his words, you could feel your blood being pumped through your veins but something was wrong, there was a heavy feeling of something crawling under your skin.

“I’ll do anything.”

That sinister smile returned to his face.

The tentacle lowered you, now, your feet could touch the solid ground.

“I want you to prove me wrong,” he said, stretching his arms above his head.

“Huh?” The tentacle unwrapped around you but remained at the back while you stared at the guy in front of you in confusion. “Prove what?”

He positioned himself in a fighting pose. “Prove that you’re a devil hunter worth keeping alive. Let’s duke it out.”

He had to be kidding. You were nothing without a weapon or your devil. It was unfair to you and-

Hirofumi landed a sudden kick on your stomach, doubling in pain, you took a couple of wobbly steps back.

When you glanced up at him, you saw him jumping in his place as if he was only warming up. He was taunting you, don’t fall for it.

Yet you knew he wasn’t kidding about you proving him that you were a good hunter. He had made it clear. So you had no choice but to take him down if you wanted to live.

You aimed a kick towards him but he caught you mid-air by your ankle. Whimpering, you tried pulling your leg back to no avail. The panic of the situation started to settle in as he got closer to you. “That’s cute, you didn’t even put any strength behind your kick.” He tucked your leg around his waist, closing the distance between the two of you. His face had gotten awfully close, his hot breath ghosted over your face. For the first time tonight, you looked at his eyes directly, his pupils were dilated to the point of being completely black. You could see your own terrified expression being reflected back to you in them. To put it simply, you were at his mercy once again, balanced only on a single leg with no way of escaping his hold.

“You lose,” he grinned. “You really aren’t cut out to be a devil hunter.”

“Please,” you began but he interrupted you, his other hand pressing on the small of your back and sliding down your curves to squeeze a generous amount of the supple flesh of your ass. Your breath hitched, the uneasy feeling of being powerless against a higher rank like him made your stomach churn in fear.

“Let’s have some fun before you die.” You could hear the smile in his voice.

With that, the tentacle returned, abruptly going under your shirt, pulling it up and over your head. You didn’t even get the time to react as Hirofumi let your leg down to shove you forward against the tentacle. Gasping, you planted your hands against the tentacle in a pathetic attempt to push yourself up but it was now impossible with his weight pressing you down. His hands were holding your hips in a death grip and rubbing your clothed ass onto his own clothed crotch. You were moving away from his hips helplessly, unaware of the tentacle pushing your bra up to let your tits bounce free. Only when the cool air hit your bare chest, you became aware of what the tentacle was doing. Your nipples perked up and the slimy skin caressing your skin made you flinch, the feeling of one of its suckers on your nipple was enough to make you shriek in disgust.

Hirofumi chuckled, his hands on your hips slid up, feeling your curves before dragging you against his clothed cock. He couldn’t help but grab your hair to pull it as he grinded against your ass with a little too much force. You could feel him growing bigger, he had to be a twisted creep to get off to this.

“Stop… no more…” Begging, you turned your head to look at him. With the way he was pressing you down, you couldn’t meet his gaze, instead found your cheek being pressed flat against the tentacle. Ignoring your pleads, Hirofumi pulled himself back to yank your pants down hurriedly as the tentacle latched one of the suckers on your nipple, toying with the sensitive nub. You started to breathe hard as the realization of how vulnerable you actually were hit you hard. All you could do was to pathetically attempt to get away from Hirofumi to be assaulted by the tentacle instead.

Then the loud sound of his belt buckling made you jolt, the tears and begging for him to stop came right after. You would do anything for him to stop. However your cries were ineffective, they didn’t stop him from pulling down your panties and drinking up the sight of your naked lower half. They only seemed to spur him on even more.

“Stop…” you whimpered and struggled. Tears started streaming down your face as a choked sob left your lips. He smiled against the skin on your shoulder in response while lining himself on your entrance. Twisting your arm behind your back to keep you still, he put his entire weight behind his hips to surge them forward and buried the entire length of his cock in your cunt.

Wincing, you gasped. Hirofumi took it as a signal to move. You were awfully wet, each time he pulled back himself to slam his hips forward, the squelching sounds of your pussy filled the silence of the forest. If that wasn't gross enough, your cheek was being grazed against the slimy skin of the tentacle, its fishy stench started to overwhelm you, making you gag.

“Ahh, you like this don’t you?” He tentatively pulled his hips back to abruptly slam them into your pussy.

“No…” You bit back a moan, closing your eyes and begging for all of it to stop internally.

“You’re getting off to this, you’re sopping wet.” Hirofumi mounted you completely, you could feel his entire weight settle on your back. “Be a good girl for me, will you? Be honest, it’s just the two of us here.”

You grumbled in response.

“Makima isn’t listening.” He nosed some hair out of his way to whisper in your ear. “Only I will hear your confessions. You can tell me anything, trust me.”

“Go to hell,” you hissed. If he was going to kill you, so be it! You weren’t going to give him the pleasure of humiliating you. All you had left was your pride and you were planning to keep it until the very end.

He slammed his hips forward, hitting your sweet spot on the first try. His firm thrust was all it took for you to silently scream, with the air in your lungs completely gone from the impact, you were clenching around his cock. You opened your mouth to take in some air but the tentacle wrapped around your neck, squeezing tightly around you to prevent you from breathing. The tip of the tentacle forced its way into your mouth and swirled around your tongue before diving deeper down into your throat. Hirofumi placed his hand on the tentacle, tapping twice for it to loosen around your neck. The tentacle left your mouth with a disgusting pop sound. Then he replaced the tentacle with his own hand, shoving his fingers into your mouth and grabbing you from the inside of your cheek.

Now, when he thrust forward and picked up his pace, you couldn’t bite back your moans. To your utter horror, it worked. Every thrust of his hips left you moaning, gasping for air. His merciless, rough thrusts remarkably sped up, especially in comparison to before. He was humping you like a rabid dog now and he responded to your surprised moan with a long, pleased hum.

Your drool started to spill out from your mouth and down to your chin since you didn’t have the luxury to swallow the saliva with three long digits prying your mouth open. You moaned audibly and threw your head back when his cock stroked a specific spot along your insides, Hirofumi took this opportunity to bite into your nape hard enough to draw blood, on a second note, you started to think he could be an actually rabid dog.

A scream left your lips, more out of pleasure than pain.

Hirofumi’s teeth sank deeper into your flesh as he felt your gummy walls pulsate around his cock, clenching and begging to be filled with his seed. He gave a muffled chuckle against your flesh, chewing on the raw skin. Although you weren’t honest in the slightest, your body was.

The tentacle’s tip went between your legs and the sucker latched onto your clit, catching you by surprise and making your entire body shake in pleasure.

How cute.

With a delighted smile, Hirofumi stopped biting your nape. He licked your blood off of your skin all the while he was fucking you frenziedly, thrusting in and out your pussy with sloppily wet sounds that started to make your knees unbuckle. Swallowing down your pride, you gave in to the pleasure so you could move your hips and arch your back to meet his frantic thrusts. At the same time, the tentacle toyed with the sensitive nub. It all made your legs trembled under you as your moans got louder than before.

Hirofumi's pace suddenly slackened when his cock throbbed upon your walls clamping on him. Taking his hand from your mouth, he placed it on your shoulder to grab you. He pulled his hips back and abruptly slammed forward, punching the air out of your lungs one last time as you felt the slight twitch of his balls on your skin before a pleasing warmth filled your belly.

The tentacle moved in tight circles around your clit and you clenched around Hirofumi’s cock for the last time, milking more of his seed using your pulsating walls inside of your cunt. Even after the tentacle left you alone, Hirofumi continued fucking his cum into your pussy, gross squelching sounds from his seed gushing out from your abused hole had become a white noise to you at this point. By the time he pulled out of you and let you go, your legs gave up from under you. Before you could crash on the dirty mud, the tentacle caught you, holding you up in a gentle grip.

Hirofumi was tucking himself into his pants while you watched him in exhaustion. He noticed your stare and gave you the same unsettling smile. “I think you’d be a great devil hunter if you were partnered up with me. Makima would agree if I said so. Won’t you agree too?”

You couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore but you managed to blink slowly in response, mouthing a ‘yes’ in defeat.

Hirofumi’s eerie smile grew wider, his eyes squinted from his cheeks puffing up. “I look forward to working with you in the future.”

[wheelsup]

the taming of the shrew | two

if i be waspish, best beware my sting

after some setbacks, penelope is willing to do anything to get you back on board. but has spencer already ruined things?

A/N: hello! im so sorry that this posting schedule is super inconsistent. the more i thought about this chapter, the less i liked the more technical aspects of it. but! i hope you enjoy to plot aspect of it nonetheless <3 thanks for reading!

category: fluff, slow burn series, spencer reid x fem!reader

wc: 4.4k

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Since that phone call with Penelope, she’d been over nearly every night for a week with plates of treats and onslaughts of apologies. Each time she came knocking, you told her there was no amount of persuasion that could change your mind. And yet the following night, she’d be there, a new type of pastry in hand and a new set of reasons why Spencer was worth the trouble.

First, she brought blueberry muffins and reasoned that deep below that prickly exterior, he really was everything she promised –– sweet and caring. But that must be deep, deep down. Like, The Lost City of Atlantis, deep down, because you didn’t expect it to surface any time soon. 

Then, she brought fudge brownies and explained that his behavior wasn’t personal –– he was getting snippy with everyone lately. And while you maintained that anybody would have a hard time getting along with Spencer, you were absolutely positive that it was now impossible for you. 

Quite frankly, it wasn’t just Spencer who was unwilling to play nice. You hated him. More than you’ve ever hated a stranger. 

You wished him a lifetime riddled with minor inconveniences that would drive him to the edge of insanity. You wanted him to miss all his trains by just a quarter of a minute; close enough so that he could see it leave the platform, knowing he almost made it on. You wanted him to constantly feel like he was about to sneeze. You wanted his socks to be perpetually wet, and if he should happen to put on a dry pair? You hoped he stepped in a puddle.

That was all you could think about as you laid out on your couch, munching on one of Penelope’s lemon bars while she paced around your apartment. She kept going on and on advertising Spencer to you. As annoying as it was, she was also saving you a ton on groceries that week. 

For the most part, you filtered her out. Not a single word that came out of her mouth was believable anymore, especially not when she was talking about Spencer. Despite what Penelope thought of him, you saw in him what she refused to accept. 

As her speech came to a close, she looked at you like she expected a response to dignify her prattling. 

“Give it a rest, Penelope. He’s a lost cause,” you laughed dryly. “He doesn’t need –– nor does he want –– anyone in his life.” At the very least, he definitely didn’t want you. 

“Yes, that’s the problem!” If you’d been listening to her, you would’ve heard her saying the same thing. “He doesn’t want to date!” 

Your head just about exploded when she said that. 

There had been countless, fruitless conversations about this, and all along she saw the gaping hole in her supposedly airtight plan?

“If he doesn’t want to DATE, then WHAT was the point of this?!” Your fingers pressed the bridge of your nose; you suddenly felt a headache coming on. Funny how it always happened around the time of day that Penelope came to visit.

Penelope stopped pacing. She stalked over to your couch, picked your legs up by your ankle, and moved them to make space for herself. You begrudgingly sat upright as she took her place beside you. 

“Because he’s not himself anymore. He’s not open like he used to be. Not to the people who care about him the most, and certainly not to the world.”  

Penelope toyed with the hem of her dress, distracting herself from her quivering lip before pressing on, “Spencer Reid has always wanted love. And it’s not right that he no longer believes he can have it.” 

You hadn’t seen Penelope look so desperate until now. It was concerning. Because what could make her look so hopeless? What could make Spencer so hopeless? 

“Penelope, I don’t know what’s wrong with your little friend, but… there’s a lot more bubbling inside him than you’re letting on.” 

She chewed up the insides of her cheeks, wincing to herself at your incredibly accurate claim. 

“You are hiding something, aren’t you?” You narrowed your eyes on her. You were no detective, or whatever exactly her team did, but she was just awful at concealing her thoughts.

“It’s not my story to tell,” she murmured. 

She could already feel herself about to give it away and doubled down her mental defenses against it. Focusing extra hard on keeping Spencer’s privacy intact. If only you knew her track record with secrets, you’d be proud of her for staying quiet this long.

“What isn’t your story?” 

“That his girlfriend died last year.” 

She spilled it before she even realized what she was saying. You’d just asked so nonchalantly that she forgot she was talking aloud. Penelope turned purple, terrified now that the whole truth was out there. 

You couldn’t even take satisfaction in the fact that your trick worked. You were just as mortified as Penelope, and if you weren’t already sitting down, you knew you’d need to. You assumed there was something deeper going on with him, you didn’t think it was a dead girlfriend. That was some Nicholas Sparks shit. 

“He pretends like he’s fine but I know he’s not. And if he found a way to move on, maybe he’d start feeling as okay as he claims to be,” she sniffled before snot could run from her nose, tears lining the rims of her eyes. “I know I should’ve given you the full picture, but I didn’t think you’d go for it if you knew…” 

You were too floored to process it all right away. This added a whole new layer of complicated to an already uneasy arrangement.

“Well, I know you’re right about one thing. I would’ve said no.” 

She gave you a set of pleading eyes, praying you’d see where she was coming from. 

“I know,” she whispered defeatedly. “But maybe... now that you know, you can understand why he acts out the way he does.”

“Penelope, I can’t just… make someone move on, or –– or get them to believe in love! Especially when it’s fake.”

How on Earth did she expect you to pull that off? Did that guy from A Walk to Remember move on when Mandy Moore died? You hadn’t seen the ending of the movie, but you assumed not. 

“I’m sorry, this is just… a lot bigger than the favor I thought it was ––”

“What if I could return it?” she cut in. The gears in her head started to turn, figuring ways to patch up the holes she made. 

“There’s nothing I need from you.” 

That couldn’t be true. Penelope looked around the room and it didn’t take her long to think of it.

“I can help you sell your art,” she tempted, gesturing to the scattered canvases. “You make all your income from this, right?” 

You didn’t want to give any fuel to her fire, but you nodded. “What if… what if you didn’t have to settle for local buyers? What if I told you that you could make way more money selling them to the whole world?”

You chortled at her idea. 

You were a local artist, through and through. Your art got put in local galleries and sold to local buyers. Nothing more, and that was fine with you. You realized it a long time ago that it was just a pipe dream to think you’d be more. 

“I’m serious! You could get a separate painting studio, and stop living in one? Huh?” She wrapped her hand around your shoulder, waving the other in the air, urging you to picture it with her. “Imagine this: a kitchen that’s separate from your living room. A bed, inside it’s own four walls, and more than twelve feet from where you cook your meals.”

Pushing aside her so blatantly insulting your apartment, if that were a possibility, you’d want nothing more. But it already sounded foolish and you hadn’t even heard how she planned to pull it off. 

“Penelope, I’m fine where I am. I make the money I need, and that’s... it’s fine.”

She gave you a pointed look. “You know, I can hack all search engine results to make sure you are what comes up first anytime someone enters the word ‘painting’, right?

An airy chuckle left your lips. Of course she could. You patted her thigh twice and stood up, prompting her to follow you to your door –– hopefully, so she can show herself to the other side of it. “Still no, Pen.” 

“Just take some time to think about it!” Her voice carried through the wood as you shut it on her.

*

There was this one bench in Kenilworth Park – the one that overlooks the crystal clear pond – that you’d always been able to rely on to fix any problem.

There was hidden magic in the bushes that sprawled out from the edges of the water, surrounded by spiky green blades of overgrown grass. A simplicity you loved in baby ducklings paddling into the tiny body of water, swimming close together so they don’t get lost in, what seems to them, a whole ocean. And clarity provided by the freshest air in the world, under the shade of the big oak trees on a late summer afternoon.

But at the present, none of that came close to being enough.

The artist’s block started off as a minor inconvenience, but without your permission, had stretched into weeks of steadily declining motivation. Each new idea felt even worse than the last, and you were acutely aware that there would come a point where you’d officially hit maximum capacity for how awful they could get.

Still, that didn’t seem to light a fire under you. You happily coexisted with the blank pages of your sketchbook. Staring down at them, laying open on your lap in their stark-white glory, you felt like you were playing a waiting game. If you stared long and hard enough, maybe they’d flinch. 

Unfortunately, you never got to find out who won, because your phone rang inside your pocket. As if the caller had interrupted an incredible genius at work (which couldn’t be farther from the truth), you hastily raised the phone to your ear, slamming your sketchbook shut.

“Hello?” Your voice wasn’t as kind as it could be for someone with nothing better to be doing. Two seconds later, you learned who was calling and came to regret it.

“Hi, This is Rebecca from District Arts, calling with a message from Andre ––”

“Oh, hi!” you tried to walk back your previous tone, straightening up in your seat and pitching your voice higher, “Yeah, I’ve been waiting to hear from him!” 

While Rebecca intimidated you, Andre happened to be your closest friend at the gallery. He worked closely with the artists to curate their collection and help them make sales. 

“Does he want to sort out what to set the opening bid prices at for my new pieces?” A handful of days ago, you sent him pictures of your new work and were waiting to hear his thoughts. You’d always been able to trust his opinion, and a vote of confidence from him might be just the thing to inspire you.

“Uhm…” There was a criminally long pause on the other side of the line, ended by Rebecca’s weary inhale. “Unfortunately, we’re calling to inform you that your pieces will not be included in the next rotation.”

For a minute, you weren’t sure what to make of what she said. You’d never heard those words before.

“What – what do you mean?” you laughed nervously. She probably misspoke. Perks of friendship aside, Andre always included you in sets. 

“Ugh, let me just get him…” her voice faded away as she put the phone down. 

That wasn’t exactly the reassuring statement you were looking for. In the time it took for the call to switch hands, your confusion finally melted in. And then quickly boiled into anger.

The District Arts gallery changed their entire collection every two months. The pieces shown accepted rolling bids throughout the full eight weeks, finally selling at the end of term to their highest offer. After that, the pieces got taken down, sent to happy new owners, and the entire gallery reset with entirely new works. 

So if you missed one rotation, that meant waiting two months to get back in.

“Andre, how am I just cut from the gallery!” you barked before he could get a word in. If he didn’t like your work, he could’ve just said so. 

“No one said that ––”

“Okay, let me rephrase.” You pinched the bridge of your nose, something you found yourself doing quite frequently lately, and took a deep breath in and out. It was seemingly just for show because it did absolutely nothing to calm you down. “Why wouldn’t you put me in the next set? I’m in all of them!”

“I know you are!” He sounded just as upset. “It’s just that… we give you the biggest space we have, because you always manage to fill it up. But this time… I’m not so sure you can.”

“That’s ridiculous,” you scoffed. “What makes you say that?” You asked that, but you knew.

“You’ve only finished three pieces… I’m worried how you’ll deliver seven more before we set up.”

“But… it’s four weeks away, I could do ––”

“And it took you four weeks to make what you have... I’m sorry. We couldn’t take that gamble.” 

He took your silence as an opportunity to turn off the work talk and speak, just friend to friend. 

“You know that I trust you and I’d hold that spot if I could. But, I also know what you’re going through right now, and… I don’t know, maybe letting yourself rest would be a good thing?” 

Your heart paused. By, “knowing what you’re going through”, you assumed he didn’t mean the little artist’s block.

“If you’re implying that I can’t do my job because of what happened with Cyrus –”

“I’m not, I’m not....” he backtracked as quickly as he could. “But take another look at the paintings you showed me and tell me if they feel like you.”

Even if he was right, you wanted to fight him. You wanted to cry. You wanted to beg that you didn’t need that big space; you were willing to downsize and just turn in the three that you had. Even if they got shoved into the corner where hardly anybody bothered to look. You just couldn’t afford to go two months without the income. 

But even with tears beading up, you realized that the gallery couldn’t afford it either. They needed to bring in money and you couldn’t do that for them this time. So they were right to go to someone who can.

“Right,” you sniffled, recollecting yourself so he can’t hear the shakiness in your voice. “I understand. It’s a big risk, like you said… It’s for the better.”

Andre tried to thank you for being understanding and spewed some sort of encouragement. The words flew over your head. You managed to toss in a few ‘mhmm’s and ‘sure’s at the right places to coast you along until the call finally ended. 

As soon as it went dead, you dropped your phone to the side and brought your hands to your face, rubbing them furiously over your cheeks. Your fingertips pressed hard into your eyelids, trying to forcibly reabsorb the tears threatening to spill. 

It almost worked, until you tried to breathe. 

A full sob escaped in that one gulp of air and you succumbed to it. But the loud crunching noise of some pedestrian walking over the falling leaves destroyed your sense of privacy, and you quickly wiped away all signs of your breakdown. The crunching stopped just short of your bench and on instinct you flicked your eyes up to see who the intruder was.

You did a double take. It was him. That fucking asshole.

He was standing there, looking dumber than you could even remember, with his hands in his coat pockets and a curious look on his face as he watched you cry. Tucking your sketchbook under your arm in haste, you made it a point to stand up with as much aggression as possible, rolling your eyes at him.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” you barked. “No need to yell at me this time.”

You bristled past him, barely refraining yourself from checking his shoulder as payback. You wanted to believe you were better than him, but it did sound incredibly tempting. He stood there for a moment before turning on his heel and following you.

“Wait,” he groaned.

You didn’t listen, neither stopping nor slowing down.

“I said wait,” he huffed as he caught up to you, popping up at your side and jogging along as you kept going.

“Yeah, because I need to listen to a guy who yells at strangers in bookstores.” 

Now that you’d brought up the elephant in the room, your feet started moving even faster, working double time to get you away from him.

Damn the fact that he had those long legs. He didn’t even break a sweat trying to keep up. He was inescapable.

“Well, if you waited like I asked, you would’ve gotten an apology for the ––”

“Gee, thanks!” you yelled, stopping for only a second to turn to him and give him a mocking bow of your head, hands clasped together like you were praising at his altar. “I was waiting with bated breath for that! Thank you, kind sir, for now my life can go on.”

“Look, I’m actually sorry,” he snapped. Then in realizing the irony, softened his voice, “I’m sorry for being rude. I was having a bad day… not that that’s an excuse.”

You stared at him blankly, just watching his mouth moving quickly and waiting until it finally stopped. 

“Did you need something?” 

“Did you… did you not hear what I just said?!” 

“No, sorry,” you smiled, voice sweet like sugar. “My ears filter bullshit. Wanna try again?”

He scoffed, looking away like he couldn’t believe you before stepping even closer. “What’s your problem?”

“Me!? The fuck –– what the fuck is your problem?” You turned and stormed off again, seething at his audacity. Spencer just couldn’t relent his annoying tendencies and followed yet again.

“My problem is that I’m trying to be nice, and you’re not letting me!”

You got a good, hard laugh out of that. “Okay, first of all, having to apologize for yelling at me and pushing me isn’t exactly the best starting point for the journey of becoming a nice person.”

“Like I said, I was having a bad day.” 

Under your breath, you muttered, “Well, I hope this one’s even worse.”

“Why are you such a ––” He stopped himself from finishing that thought. Even in his worst mood, he wouldn’t cross that line. 

But he didn’t need to finish it, you knew exactly where he wanted to take it. The soles of your shoes scraped against the loose gravel as you came to a grinding halt, ears ringing.

“A what?” You turned to face him, a sarcastic smile on your face growing wider as he started to shrink more and more. You got up close in his face, daring him to say what he really wanted to. So he could reinforce your belief in exactly the type of person he was. “A what?” 

Spencer pursed his lips and shook his head, refusing to say it no matter how much you challenged him. If he wasn’t going to have the balls to say it, you decided to take it upon yourself.

“Tell you what, you keep thinking about it and get back to me the next time you’re in a cunty mood.” 

The word he was thinking of was probably not as bad, but you had a habit of escalating things. Even if you took this one too far, you didn’t care. 

Before you tried to take off again, Spencer’s hand flew to your elbow. He tugged you back, forcing you to turn around and face him. He didn’t know his own strength; without any resistance, you came stumbling into his chest, at risk of falling over if it weren’t for his tight grip on your arm.

It took you a beat to push him away with both your hands on his chest, vocalizing your disgust for being so close to him. 

“Can you stop trying to disagree with me for a second? I’m trying to tell you that you’re right, I was being a… well, you know…” He avoided the word. Apparently ‘cunt’ was where he drew the line. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it.” 

Your nostrils were still flared and blood hot as ever, but he made you pause. He looked sincere, if not a little tinged with guilt as well. You were suspicious of it.

“You saw me crying and felt bad, didn’t you?”

He laughed darkly. “Well, I saw you, yes. Did I feel bad? No.” 

“Oh, my God,” you growled, berating yourself for getting close to believing he might be capable of decency. 

“I’m joking! I’m joking.” He squeezed your elbow twice in earnest. “I did feel bad, but that’s not why I wanted to say it.”

“Okay.” You weren’t ready to give him a real smile, so you flattened your lips into a thin line and nodded once slowly, and left it at that. 

You still weren’t a fan, but the apology did dampen some of the resentment. Maybe he wasn’t the worst person alive. You’d settle for saying top ten most annoying, instead.

Minutes later, you came to the startling realization that he was still on the path, just two paces behind you. You flinched when you saw him out of the corner of your eye, not expecting him to still be here. 

“Uhm. Where are you… why are you still following me?” 

“I’m not. My car’s that way,” he gestured to the parking lot at the end of the long walkway. “I forgot my loaf for the ducks.” He didn’t mean to offer that information up, it just slipped out. He could practically see your smug expression coming before it even got there.

“You’re not supposed to feed bread to the ducks. It’s bad for them.”

“I don’t.” He didn’t care to explain this to you, but he couldn’t have you thinking he was any less competent than he really was. “It’s a special bread made from water and seeds that were ground into flour. It’s duck-safe.” 

“They make duck-safe bread?” Now that was something you’d never heard before. 

“No… I make duck-safe bread,” he said softly under his breath. 

You didn’t know how else you were supposed to react to that besides laughing wildly. 

“You make it?” He nodded like you were the crazy one here. As if he wasn’t the one spending his spare time grinding up seeds and baking loaves of bread for ducks, donning a frilly pink apron and oven mitts as he did so. At least that’s how you imagined it. “Why not just feed them the seeds?”

“Because, loose seeds will sink in the water and can potentially clog waterbeds and cause foreign bacteria growth in the pond.” 

“So you… hand-make the seeds into a little loaf of bread so it doesn't do that?”

He confirmed. You pondered silently for a moment, then absolutely had to ask, “You ever eaten the duck bread before?”

Spencer was caught off guard by that question. His cheeks deepened to a rosy color.

“Yeah, well, it was the house so…” he laughed nervously and stared at his sneakers. “It’s actually not too bad.”

You weren’t entirely surprised by that. You remembered what his grocery basket looked like, and given those same options, you probably would’ve tried the duck bread too. Still, you cracked the smallest of grins at knowing he makes bread for ducks. The one, sole redeeming fact you’ve learned about Spencer. 

You reached your car first, and Spencer stopped in front of it with you. 

“I’m actually sorry, you know,” he whispered once more, hand resting at the top of your car door as you opened it. He wasn’t talking about the incident at the bookstore.

“Yeah…” For a while you were so busy being angry at Spencer that you forgot about your own problems. 

He noticed your nose was still red around the edges, eyes still a little bleary. “Are you okay, by the way?” His voice was too soft, too genuine.

You shook your head no.

“Is there anything I can do?” You shook your head again. And then you had an awful thought.

You knew he was just offering to help just to say it, because that’s how people react when you say you’re not okay even if they don’t care. But there actually was something he could do for you… Something that Penelope could do.

“Uh, no but…” you fixed your hair and tucked it behind your ear, seamlessly switching to a flirtier voice. “If you still feel bad about the other day, you’re welcome to make it up to me.”

Spencer cocked his head to the side, unsure of how he could do that. 

“Hang out with me sometime.”

“H-hang out?” You could tell that it flustered him, even if he tried to play it off. He swallowed thickly, nose twitching and brows scrunched together.

“Relax, I really do just mean hang out.” You were lying through your teeth. He didn’t need to know that. 

As if he didn’t want to think about it for a second longer and just get out of this conversation as quickly as possible, he agreed without thinking it through. He didn’t even ask why an almost complete stranger would want to hang out with him. 

You stuck your hand out, expecting him to hand over his cell so you could put your contact into it. He rocked on the balls of his feet, watching as you input your contact and sent yourself a text on his phone.

“Hi, this is…” you read out your message as you typed, pausing at just the right place. “What’s your name by the way?”

“Oh-uh, I’m Spencer.” 

A devilish grin took over your face, hidden from his view while you were looking down at the screen. He was going to be easy to fool.

-

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agh! im still not in love with how this chapter is turning out, but it came to a point where i just had to stop fiddling with it and just post it. any feedback or comments about this story is very much appreciated 💕

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