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damienkarras73 · 11 months ago

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An essay on Furiosa, the politics of the Wasteland, Arthurian literature and realistic vs. formalistic CGI

Mad Max: Fury Road absolutely enraptured me when it came out nearly a decade ago, and I will cop to seeing it four times at the theatre. For me (and many others who saw the light of George Miller) it set new standards for action filmmaking, storytelling and worldbuilding, and I could pop in its Blu Ray at any time and never get tired of it. Perhaps not surprisingly, I was deeply apprehensive about the announced prequel for Fury Road's actual main character, Furiosa, even if Miller was still writing and directing. We didn't need backstory for Furiosa—hell, Fury Road is told in such a way that NOTHING in it requires explicit backstory. And since it focuses on the Yung Furiosa, it meant Charlize Theron couldn't return with another career-defining performance. Plus, look at all that CGI in the trailer, it can't be as good as Fury Road.

Turns out I was silly to doubt George Miller, M.D., A.O., writer and director of Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet One & Two.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is excellent, and I needn't have worried about it not being as good as Fury Road because it is not remotely trying to be Fury Road. Fury Road is a lean, mean machine with no fat on it, nothing extraneous, operating with constant forward momentum and only occasionally letting up to let you breathe a little; Furiosa is a classical epic, sprawling in scope, scale and structure, and more than happy to let the audience simmer in a quiet, almost painfully still moment. If its opening spoken word sequence by that Gandalf of the Wastes himself, the First History Man, didn't already clue you in, it unfolds like something out of myth, a tale told over and over again and whose possible embellishments are called attention to in the dialogue itself. Where Fury Road scratched the action nerd itch in my head like you wouldn't believe, Furiosa was the equivalent of Miller giving the undulating folds of my English major brain a deep tissue massage. That's great! I, for one, love when sequels/prequels endeavour to be fundamentally different movies from what they're succeeding/preceding, operating in different modes, formats and even genres, and more filmmakers should aim for it when building on an existing series.

This movie has been on my mind so much in the past week that I've ended up dedicating several cognitive processes to keeping track of all of the different ponderings it's spawned. Thankfully, Furiosa is divided into chapters (fun fact: putting chapter cards in your movie is a quick way to my heart), so it only seems fitting that I break up all of these cascading thoughts accordingly.

1. The Pole of Inaccessibility

Furiosa herself actually isn't the protagonist for the first chapter of her own movie, instead occupying the role of a (very crafty and resourceful) damsel in distress for those initial 30-40 minutes. The real hero of the opening act, which plays out like a game of cat and mouse, is Furiosa's mother Mary Jabassa, who rides out into the wasteland first on horseback and then astride a motorcycle to track down the band of raiders that has stolen away her daughter. Mary's brought to life by Miller and Nico Lathouris' economical writing and a magnetic performance by newcomer Charlee Fraser, who radiates so much screen presence in such relatively little time and with one of those instant "who is SHE??" faces. She doesn't have many lines, but who needs them when Fraser can convey volumes about Mary with just a flash of her eyes or the effortless way she swaps out one of her motorcycle's wheels for another. To be quite candid, I'm not sure of the last time I fell in love with a character so quickly.

You notice a neat aesthetic contrast between mother and daughter in retrospect: Mary Jabassa darts into the desert barefoot, clad in a simple yet elegant dress, her wolf cut immaculate, only briefly disguising herself with the ugly armour of a raider she just sniped, and when she attacks it's almost with grace, like some Greek goddess set loose in the post-apocalyptic Aussie outback with just her wits and a bolt-action rifle; we track Furiosa's growth over the years by how much of her initially conventional beauty she has shed, quite literally in one case (hair buzzed, severed arm augmented with a chunky mechanical prosthesis, smeared in grease and dirt from head to toe, growling her lines at a lower octave), and by how she loses her mother's graceful approach to movement and violence, eventually carrying herself like a blunt instrument. Yet I have zero doubt the former raised the latter, both angels of different feathers but with the same steel and resolve. Of fucking course this woman is Furiosa's mother, and in the short time we know her we quickly understand exactly why Furiosa has the drive and morals she does without needing to resort to didactic exposition.

Anyway, I was tearing up by the end of the first chapter. Great start!

2. Lessons from the Wasteland

Most movies—most stories, really—don't actually tell the entire narrative from A to Z. Perhaps the real meat of the thing is found from H to T, and A-G or U-Z are unnecessary for conveying the key narrative and themes. So many prequels fail by insisting on telling the A-G part of the story, explaining how the hero earned a certain nickname or met their memorable sidekick—but if that stuff was actually interesting, they likely would have included it in the original work. The greatest thing a prequel can actually do is recontextualize, putting iconic characters or moments in a new light, allowing you to appreciate them from a different angle. All of season 2 of Fargo serves to explain why Molly Solverson's dad is appropriately wary when Lorne Malvo enters his diner for a SINGLE SCENE in the show's first season. David's arc from the Alien prequels Prometheus and Covenant—polarizing as those entries are—adds another layer to why Ash is so protective of the creature in the first movie. Andor gives you a sense of what it's like for a normal, non-Jedi person to live under the boot of the Empire and why so many of them would join up with the Rebel Alliance—or why they would desire to wear that boot, or even just crave the chance to lick it.

Furiosa is one of those rare great prequels because it makes us take a step back and consider the established world with a little more nuance, even if it's still all so absurd. In Fury Road, Immortan Joe is an awesome, endlessly quotable villain, completely irredeemable, and basically a cartoon. He works perfectly as the antagonist of that breakneck, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote-ass movie, but if you step outside of its adrenaline-pumping narrative for even a moment you risk questioning why nobody in the Citadel or its surrounding settlements has risen up against him before. Hell, why would Furiosa even work for him to begin with? But then you see Dementus and company tear-assing around the wasteland, seizing settlements and running them into the ground, and you realize Joe and his consortium offer something that Dementus reasonably can't: stability—granted, an unwavering, unchangeable stability weighted in favour of Joe's own brutal caste system, but stability nonetheless. It really makes you wonder, how badly does a guy have to suck to make IMMORTAN JOE of all people look like a sane, competent and reasonable ruler by comparison?!?

…and then they open the door to the vault where he keeps his wives, and in a flash you're reminded just how awful Joe is and why Furiosa will risk her life to help some of these women flee from him years later. This new context enriches Joe and makes it more believable that he could maintain power for so long, but it doesn't make him any less of a monster, and it says a lot about Furiosa's hate for Dementus that she could grit her teeth and work for this sick old tyrant.

3. The Stowaway

Here's another wild bit of trivia about this movie: you don't actually see top-billed actress Anya Taylor-Joy pop up on screen until roughly halfway through, once Furiosa is in her late teens/early twenties. Up until this point she's been played by Alyla Browne, who through the use of some seamless and honestly really impressive CGI has been given Anya's distinctive bug eyes [complimentary]. It's one of those bold choices that really works because Miller commits to it so hard, though it does make me wish Browne's name was up on the poster next to Taylor-Joy's.

Speaking of CGI, I should talk about what seems to be a sticking point for quite a few people: if there's been one consistent criticism of Furiosa so far, it's that it doesn't look nearly as practical or grounded as Fury Road, with more obvious greenscreen and compositing, and what previously would've been physical stunt performers and pyrotechnics have been replaced with their digital equivalents for many shots. Simply put, it doesn't look as real! For a lot of people, that practicality was one of Fury Road's primary draws, so I won't try to quibble if they're let down by Furiosa's overt artificiality, but to be honest I'm actually quite fine with it. It helps that this visual discrepancy doesn't sneak up on you but is incredibly apparent right from the aerial zoom-down into Australia in the very first scene, so I didn't feel misled or duped.

Fury Road never asks you to suspend your disbelief because it all looks so believable; Furiosa jovially prods you to suspend that disbelief from the get-go and tune into it on a different wavelength. It's a classical epic, and like the classical epics of the 1950s and 60s it has a lot of actors standing in front of what clearly are matte paintings. It feels right! We're not watching fact, we're watching myth. I'm willing to concede there might be a little bit of post-hoc rationalization on my part because I simply love this movie so much, but I'm not holding the effects in Furiosa to the same standard as those in Fury Road because I simply don't believe Miller and his crew are attempting to replicate that approach. Without the extensive CGI, we don't get that impressive long, panning take where a stranded Furiosa scans the empty, dust-and-sun-scoured wasteland (75% Sergio Leone, 25% Andrei Tarkovsky), or the Octoboss and his parasailing goons. For the sake of intellectual exercise I did try imagining them filming the Octoboss/war rig sequence with the same immersive practical approach they used for Fury Road's stunts, however I just kept picturing dead stunt performers, so perhaps the tradeoff was worth it!

4. Homeward

Around the same time we meet the Taylor-Joy-pilled Furiosa in Chapter 3, we're introduced to Praetorian Jack, the chief driver for the convoys running between the Citadel and its allied settlements. Jack's played by Tom Burke, who pulled off a very good Orson Welles in Mank! and who I should really check out in The Souvenir one of these days. He's also a cool dude! Here are some facts about Praetorian Jack:

He's decked out in road leathers with a pauldron stitched to one shoulder

He's stoic and wary, but still more or less personable and can carry on a conversation

Professes to a certain cynicism, to quote Special Agent Albert Rosenfield, but ultimately has a capacity for kindness and will do the right thing

Shoots a gun real good

Can drive like nobody's business

So in other words, Jack is Mad Max. But also, no, he clearly isn't! He looks and dresses like Mad Max (particularly Mel Gibson's) and does a lot of the same things "Mad" Max Rockatansky does, but he's also very explicitly a distinct character. It's a choice that seems inexplicable and perhaps even lazy on its face, except this is a George Miller movie, so of course this parallel is extremely purposeful. Miller has gone on record saying he avoids any kind of strict chronology or continuity for his Mad Max movies, compared to the rigid canons for Star Trek and Star Wars, and bless him for doing so. It's more fun viewing each Mad Max entry as a new revision or elaboration on a story being told again and again generations after the fall, mutating in style, structure and focus with every iteration, becoming less grounded as its core narrative is passed from elder to youth, community to community, genre to genre, until it becomes myth. (At least, my English major brain thinks it's more fun.) In fact there's actually something Arthurian to it, where at first King Arthur was mentioned in several Welsh legends before Geoffrey of Monmouth crafted an actual narrative around him, then Chrétien de Troyes added elements like Lancelot and infused the stories with more romance, and then with Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory whipped the whole cycle together into one volume, which T.H. White would chop and screw and deconstruct with The Once and Future King centuries later.

All this to say: maybe Praetorian Jack looks and sounds and acts like Max because he sorta kinda basically is, being just one of many men driving back and forth across the wasteland, lending a hand on occasion, who'll be conflated into a single, legendary "Mad Max" at some point down the line in a different History Man's retelling of Furiosa's odyssey. Sometimes that Max rips across the desert in his V8 Interceptor, other times driving a big rig. Perhaps there's a dog tagging along and/or a scraggly and at first aggravating ally played by Bruce Spence or Nicholas Hoult. Usually he has a shotgun. But so long as you aren't trying to kill him, he'll help you out.

5. Beyond Vengeance

The Mad Max movies have incredibly iconic villains—Immortan Joe! Toecutter! the Lord Humongous!—but they are exactly that, capital V Villains devoid of humanizing qualities who you can't wait to watch bad things happen to. Furiosa appears to continue this trend by giving us a villain who in fact has a mustache long enough that he could reasonably twirl it if he so wanted, but ironically Dementus ends up being the most layered antagonist in the entire series, even moreso than the late Tina Turner's comparatively benevolent Aunty Entity from Beyond Thunderdome. And because he's played by Chris Hemsworth, whose comedic delivery rivals his stupidly handsome looks, you lock in every time he's on screen.

Something so fascinating about Dementus is that, for a main antagonist, he's NOT all-powerful, and in fact quite the opposite: he's more conman than warlord, looking for the next hustle, the next gullible crowd he can preach to and dupe—though never for long. For all his bluster, at every turn he finds himself in way over his head and writing cheques he can't cash, and this self-induced Sisyphean torment makes him riveting to watch. You're tempted to pity Dementus but it's also quite difficult to spare sympathy for someone who's so quick to channel their rage and hurt and ego into thoughtless, burn-it-all-down destruction. When you're not laughing at him, you're hating his guts, and it's indisputably the best work of Chris Hemsworth's career.

It's in this final chapter that everything naturally comes to a head: Furiosa's final evolution into the character we meet at the start of Fury Road, the predictable toppling of Dementus' precariously built house of cards, and the mythmaking that has been teased since the very first scene becoming diagetic text, the last of which allows the movie to thoroughly explore the themes of vengeance it's been building to. A brief war begins, is summarized and is over in the span of roughly a minute, and on its face it's a baffling narrative choice that most other filmmakers would have botched. But our man Miller's smart enough to recognize that the result of this war is the most foregone of conclusions if you've been paying even the slightest bit of attention, so he effectively brushes past it to get to the emotional heart of the climax and an incredible "Oh shit!" payoff that cements Miller as one of mainstream cinema's greatest sickos.

Fury Road remains the greatest Mad Max film, but Furiosa might be the best thing George Miller has ever made. If not his magnum opus, it does at least feel like his dissertation, and it makes me wish Warner Bros. puts enough trust in him despite Furiosa's poor box office performance that he's able to make The Wasteland. Absolutely ridiculous that a man just short of his 80th birthday was able to pull this off, and with it I feel confident calling him one of my favourite directors.

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isenkus · 4 months ago

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ex! izuku, one mention of the war. pro hero! y/n, who was also in the war. weird plot, but i had a dream about this with my ex. i need to cope and take my meds.

thinking of accidentally reuniting with your ex izuku midoriya, in one of the most common ways possible: both of you being invited to an arcade for a huge event.

it’s one of your mutual friend’s birthday, with the invite being a 'simple' arcade party. though, nothing about it is simple—you and your friends have the wallet of a pro hero, which meant a whole arcade building was rented for the night, with each one of the games filled with colorful costumes in case of an emergency.

and as soon as you stepped towards a big, down the clown machine, your heard someone clear their throat.

it was none other than izuku midoriya.

how long had you practiced no contact? was it four months? to you it felt like years, but you know what they say. when love truly blooms, times goes by in a flash. did this apply here? you didn't know, but you respectfully greeted him with a smile.

a forced one at that. things with midoriya went downhill after a year of dating, and if you were being honest with yourself, you couldn’t bear to see him. he smiled as he greeted you in return.

“it’s been a while, y/n, how have you been? you wanna play down the clown together?”

it had been exactly four months since the breakup, and yet your given name rolled off his tongue so naturally. chuckling, you reached for your arcade card inside your wallet. “sure, midoriya. though i think we’ve beaten bigger clowns than this one.”

ouch. izuku visibly winced at the mention of his surname. for a brief moment, his mind replayed the events of the war, and how he held you in his arms as tears slipped his eyes. a near death experience is sure to bring people closer, yet in this case, it felt like a riff that would lead you two apart.

you giggled as you swiped the card and watched as the colorful plastic balls fell towards you and him. you each picked one and started throwing them at the nine clowns standing before you. laughs and glances were exchanged, with a few victory cries as all clowns were down and gone, the machine spewing out tickets in return.

izuku cheered as he pulled you into his embrace, his arms wrapped comfortably around your waist. as he pulled back, his hand rested on your waist still, “do you wanna play some more?”

and a part of you wanted to say no. his innocence is far too much for you, constantly reminding you of what led to the end of what was the relationship of the century. even tabloids were confused as to what happened. the happiest couples are always the ones with more trouble in paradise.

yet, you nodded. his fingers intertwined themselves with yours as he drove you towards another game in the arcade. your heart pounded from pure confusion, your mind going back a year as you remembered…

him. this was the izuku midoriya you knew. the carefree, loving izuku midoriya who looked out for you always, and the one who loved you wholly.

as he and you neared a fishing pond, he and you grabbed the magnetic fishing rods. it was terrible, your attempts at catching the plastic fish failing miserably. izuku was always touching you in some way, whether it was his hand on your shoulder or the small of your back when you turned towards him with a pout, or his hand cupping your cheek when you finally got a fish.

“you never answered my question, y/n” he started, his expression completely serious. “how’ve you been?”

“i’ve been amazing, actually” you replied, arms crossing as you continued. “my agency’s teamed up with bakugo’s for some missions, and we’ve grown quite a lot!”

“i’m so happy for you!” izuku smiles, his hand on your shoulder, slowly dragging down towards your forearm.

well, it’s not or never, right?

“so, uhm, midoriya… are you seeing anyone right now?”

his eyes widened as his lips curled into a smile.

“yes, i am! her name’s—“

it was then when your brain stopped processing the words that escaped his mouth. unable to hear the name, you sighed in relief, as it was izuku's mixed signals that got you and him into a rough patch way back. it was a sign that there is no way to go around izuku midoriya without looking like a complete fool.

“that’s so great, midoriya! i’m so happy for you” you laughed awkwardly, “i knew you’d find someone good for you.”

and to be honest, it was during this moment that you were grateful his special person wasn’t you.

#now yall cant tell me he wouldn't be a complete oblivious idiot #my dream was actually squid games with ex midoriya but shhh #bnha x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #midoriya x reader #deku x reader #mha x reader #bnha x you #my hero academia x reader #izuku midoriya x you #midoriya izuku x reader #izuku x reader #deku x y/n #deku x you #midoriya x you #mha x you #my hero x reader

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skyscrapergods · 1 month ago

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ik this blog is in a bit of a lull rn, so no pressure on answering, but I've perused thru most of the posts on worldbuilding for ssg and I didn't see this question asked: one of the main traits of humans that let us become the dominant sentient species is our opposable thumbs. ponies don't have those! and yes, unicorns can control and move things with magic but thats a difficult process to learn and not readily available to everyone. most worldbuilding I see for MLP tends to leave this question ambiguous behind the veil of cartoon logic. what are your thoughts? how do ponies maintain technological advancements and perform everyday tasks despite only being able to hold things with their mouths or (in some cases) horns? and what of writing and art?

Horses have extremely dexterous lips for ripping up grass. So they use their mouths WAY more than they do in the show. Fine motor skills are all done with the lips and teeth.

For bigger tasks, many earth ponies have horseshoes made of ferrous metal, and have magnets on items they need to interact with. Tea pots with magnetic handles, but the handles look like big disks for the shoe to fit in.

In the show, all these things are human-shaped for familiarity (and because designing for hoofed apex species is a lot of work). But in my world, things like door handles, light switches, buckets, sewing machines, typewriters, and such are all converted to large-surface hoof levers, mouth pull-strings, pressure plates, tooth-grips, etc

Here's a look at an environment that is built for someone with hooves and mouth rather than hands.

youtube

See how he doesn't struggle to operate human-centric machinery?

Meanwhile, creatures with hands will struggle in ponyville, when presented with something that is meant only to be bitten to operate.

Likewise, areas with mostly-unicorn populations have doors, buildings, devices, utensils, bookshelves, food, and everything else built for form rather than function, since they don't need to use their hooves and mouths for anything. Think a teapot with no handles at all. Nothing on the back, and nothing on the lid either except embellishments. No post that sticks up for hands or mouths to grab, just fancy markings. Unicorns can just lift that smooth lid out of the way and telekinetically hold the pot under the water. For this reason, isolated unicorns are often shocked and horrified to see ponies and pegasus use their hooves and mouths. A unicorn with a broken horn would be able to function in a pony world just fine, but is severely disabled in unicorn-only society. Though, they would still struggle when faces with devices that require horse-teeth, since unicorns, being deer, lack upper front teeth. Their hard dental pad is useful, but it is more delicate than teeth and can be injured by using pony devices.

Pegasus settlements use their mouths and hooves too, but have additional devices and adaptions mean to be operated with their wings. They have a highly developed alula, which is is the free-moving digit at the wrist of the wings.

A pegasus can grab and move things with it, but it's not as deft as their cloven hooves and prehensile dewclaws.

This is especially helpful since pegasus mouths are made of a lot of hardened cartilage with feathery skin over it. This helps them preen their feathers, but lowers dexterity.

Thankfully, most areas of Equestria have been adapted to all three species. Places of business, housing, devices, and commerce have pullies, hoofpads, soft mouth-grips, and such. Unicorns learn to use their bodies to operate things, or they train themselves to press the right area with magic to get results.

Twilight's school of friendship is the most inclusively-built area os equestria, with desks, writing utensils, and classrooms fit for a variety of hooves, hands, claws, mouths, and more. This breaks down a major barrier than has kept pony and non-pony creatures apart from each other. Hopefully the rest of equestria follows in her hoofsteps.

#mlp #ssg #skyscraper gods #ssg lore #skyscraper gods lore

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aspidisnothere · 6 months ago

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Hi omg, I just discovered you and I LOOOVVEEE your art so much!! Could you draw Sapphire and Viktor in their “final” forms? Arcane ending got me crying😭

Yaaaa, here it is! Finally finished Machine Herald x Machine Maiden (Arcane OC, Sapphire)!

Thank you so much!! And I genuinely loved the ending, since I believe Viktor and Jayce didn’t die and teleported god knows where + Mel’s ending was both satisfying and sad. (I was rooting mostly for Jayce, Viktor and Mel, so I’m out of the debate about badly or not written Vi and Jinx endings lol)

Lore below the picture!

It's been a huuuge inner debate whether to make her white or grey. After discussing with friends, we concluded that while white feels more fitting for her character-given her role as his follower and her life's dominant colors of white and gold-grey also holds merit. According to her shared lore with Viktor, his agreement to undergo transformation was conditional on Ambessa's promise to place Sapphire by his side.

His refusal to ever be separated from her again led to a unique intertwining of their essences during the process, causing her body to adapt and absorb dual influences.

Take note of this detail: her exposed gold part are her literal bones, shattered and forced outward through her muscles.

Previously, I mentioned that Sapphire suffered from a genetic disease that caused her internal organs to rot. She survived thanks to runes etched into her bones at an early age, designed to suppress the disease. These runes kept her alive—until she agreed to live and work in Demacia, where her condition began to deteriorate.

During the transformation, the hexcore interacted with her runes in an explosive reaction. The hexcore's energy magnetized the runes embedded in her bones, violently pulling them out through her flesh and skin, reshaping her body in the process.

Tagging @renn-pumkin-head since they asked 😁

#arcane oc #oc #viktor arcane #arcane #arcaneoc #viktor #viktor league of legends #viktor lol #viktor x oc #viktor x reader #machine herald x you #machine herald x reader #machine herald #viktor machine herald #viktor x you #viktor fanart #machine herald fanart

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thefusioncelestial · 6 months ago

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Mix 14: Model Stirrer

Ah the modeling world, constantly shoving the prettiest, most handsome, most aesthetic people in our faces. But some of those models were not born that way, some had to be made.

In a series of valleys, no longer on any maps, is a series of modeling camps. For the most part, they seem normal: helping with health, modeling techniques, building connections, and all the shebang; but there is a secret program.

The program aims to reject nobody once they get in, but still wants its prospective models to actually try to get better. Thus the mix & match program.

The bottom 10% & top 10% are brought together & merged. For the cream of the crop, they assimilate members of the bottom 10% to improve "minor" things. There are also rumors that nepo babies who got to the top via connections are given total make overs via this program.

But more often than not, the bottom 10% are merged with each other. A mutual fusion.

Here is Yorden:

A part of the bottom 10%, he is was on the fitness model track.

Problem is that he could never put enough muscle on his frame. Many of the teachers disliked his beiber cut as well. Other than that, he performed well and every other measure. Had he had any connections, he could have gotten that make over that the top 10% gets.

Next is Elijah:

Same track as Yorden. Same problem exacerbated by his tall frame. A bit of a social butterfly, and that has made him a target. Some nepo baby wants his height and social skills for themselves.

The day before they were due to get assimilated by other model students, they hatched a plan.

"Will this plan really work," Elijah asked.

"It's either this, or we are someone else's lunch," Yorden responded.

Elijah pursed his lips for a moment, but silently agreed. Elijah found out that he & Yorden was due to get absorbed by Josh. Everyone hated Josh, he was a nepo baby who had the same bad marks as them in the physique areas, and even worse grades elsewhere except in runway & photo poses. Yet, he was on the top 10% in board rankings.

"I can't believe they want us to give ourselves to him to make him halfway good, all because his grandfather is on the board," Yorden said.

"Nah, we would catapult him to the 1%, give yourself some credit," Elijah chimed.

Yorden sniggered, he liked this about Elijah; a joker and is able to see the positive in many things. That position energy brought people towards him like a magnet, but even his connections couldn't save him. This large social network made him stick out like a sore thumb.

"Anyway, this has worked before, if we merge & are good enough, we can shave off getting eaten by Josh-turd, or we can fight him off tomorrow and absorb him instead, but we got to do it together," Yorden said.

Yorden was the ideas & plan guy. Every criticism, he turned into a basis for improvement. He decisiveness & work ethic is what led to him getting targeted.

The duo sneaked into a lab, the same lab where they were to meet their fates tomorrow.

It was a combination of blue, grey, & very dim. There were operating tables with other past students strapped on them in a state of sedation. They are shocked that isn't them right now, but the knowledge of their selection was not for them to know. Elijah's friend network was able to get that info to them.

But what they wanted was in the back of the lab. Three twenty foot cylinders that could pack four guys each. This is how they planned to merge. Each guy would stand in each side cylinder, and the process would merge them into singular new person who would come out the middle cylinder.

There was a problem, they needed a third person on the outside to activate the machine. So much for Yorden's plans. But where Yorden fails, Elijah succeeds.

Had Elijah chosen a more traditional path, he could be fielding acceptance letters from many engineering & computer science programs. That potential never left him.

"Get in one the cylinders, I know how to get around this," Elijah said.

He walks to a nearby computer console and begins typing away.

Yorden begins to walk to the cylinder furthest away from the console.

"How," he asked.

Elijah turns towards Yorden and smiled a big smile. Yorden remembered: Elijah was a tech wiz. He broke into the cafeteria system once and had the gluten free, sugar free sauce dispenser spray anyone who tried to use them.

Yorden smacked his forehead, he forgot about that quality of his soon to be other half. He was soon in the cylinder, within a few moments it closed shut. Josh was a shade of red for a month.

It was cool and surprisingly airy. Made sense, don't want the fusees dead from the lack of oxygen. It was like the rest of the lab and dimly lit. But in the middle was a pitch black circle. It gave off an energy that both drew you in & made you uncomfortable. Yorden quickly shook his head to get out of the trance.

"Hurry up before I get claustrophobic," he yelled.

Elijah was almost done. He had to change the settings, from assimilation to merge. He was tempted to assimilate Yorden, but he rather not just be another Josh and all the other top 10%'ers who devoured others for their personal advancement. A quick fifteen second delay for the activation, and he was ready.

He heard Yorden.

"Just a moment," he yelled. He pressed the activation button.

The fusion cylinder suddenly roared to life after the instructions were sent. This was Elijah's que to quickly get in the cylinder closest to him.

Elijah was soon inside the cylinder after a quick sprint. It closed behind him. Elijah was a little nervous, and that made him a little bouncy, but after exhaling a deep breath he calmed down.

The insides of the cylinders turned bright as the dim lights turned on, and made the insides look like an infinite white room with a pitch black circle in the middle. Yorden reached out and noticed that the infinity was an illusion, he could feel the cylinder walls after reaching out.

A large start up & then suction noise could be heard. A swirl of light could be seen forming inside the cylinders. It was barely noticeable at first, but soon turned in a spinning light show with Elijah & Yorden in the middle of each swirling rainbow light pillar. To get out of the delirium the spinning and random color changing induced, they both looked up at the pitch black hole at the ceiling. They noticed that the color show terminated there. The suction noise ramped up.

Soon they were both floating. They were approaching the black circle, coming closer. Eventually they reached the black circle and expected to bump their heads, but instead they notice they flowed into the circle with no resistance. From their perspective, they entered a pitch black tunnel and were flying through it with their clothes attached. From the outside their bodies were slowly floating up through the circle and were being swallowed by the dark entrance.

Soon they were gone, effectually in the pipes that connected the three cylinders. As they approached the center connection, low light random color shapes began to zoom past them. Eventually they were able to make out each other's shapes. They crashed against each other with a thud, but no pain was felt.

Then they began to move downwards in an accelerated rate & began to spin.

"This is it, it was nice knowing you," Elijah said.

"We are about to get to know a lot more about each other, everything in fact," Yorden piped.

Elijah closed his eyes, no turning back.

With what little space they had between each other, they nodded towards each other.

Their bodies glowed. Elijah red, Yorden blue. Their bodies of light swirled around each other and then mixed into one purple light.

The light that carried their merged being approached a tunnel of light. It entered the center cylinder and landed with a light thud.

The central cylinder suddenly let out a lot of steam & began to shake. The system was taking the different aspects of Elijah & Yorden and sending the result to this humanoid being of purple light.

It began to stand up. And began to groan as it did.

It gained Yorden's skin tone.

It began to breathe heavily.

It started off with Yorden's frame, but soon it doubled in muscle & grew taller. Shoulders, arms, legs, neck, & chest popped with new muscle.

It had Elijah's abs, but soon his his abdominals grew in size. It's skin restricted & squeezed giving it more defined obliques.

Both of the fusees were not well endowed, but together their family jewels and rods combined on the being to be longer and girther.

It's butt double in sized like blowing two balloons.

It kept Yorden's facial features as a base and then began to morph. It had Elijah's dark hair, jawline, nose, & eyebrows. It kept Yorden's eyes only a little bigger, and kept his ears & chin. The mouth was mix.

After a few more pops and gradual changes in other areas, the merger was done. The being stood fully up.

The purple light faded away & the central cylinder opened up. It stopped shaking and steam flowed out of the bottom of the cylinder.

It walked out and as it did, it thought of its new name.

"Zachary, I am Zachary," he exclaimed.

He looked down and noticed he was wearing a combination of his fusee's clothing. He had airpods in his ear, but messing around with them revealed that they were interfaced with the lab's security systems.

The Elijah part of him remembered the layout from the maps given to him via his social network, and bucked it to the nearest bathroom. He lifted up his shirt to check out the new him:

He was overjoyed.

And the gambit worked. The timeline shifted so that Zachary was never up for assimilation.

Here he is the morning before graduation:

He'll continue to model, but maybe he will pursue that tech potential that Elijah gave up.

#male merge #thefusioncelestial #musclegrowth #muscle #muscular #male body merge #absorption #male fusion #male pred #male body transformation #Fusion #merge #merging #body merging #merging tf #male transformation #transformation

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peaceqi · 1 year ago

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★ what kind of music each love & deepspace boy would listen to! ★

hcs of zayne, rafayel, and xavier's music taste ♫꒰･◡･๑꒱

pairing: lnds boys x reader

warnings: none

zayne:

he listens to classical music 90% of the time. it's not because he particularly likes it, but he just got used it after listening to classical music to focus while studying 12 hours a day as a med student. now, in pavlovian fashion, he'll play it while performing surgeries to really get him in the zone. the other 10% is, surprisingly, cutesy kpop girl group songs. think "russian roulette" by red velvet, "magnetic" by illit, and "only" by leehi. he doesn't go out of his way to find these songs, but he'll hear them in passing and get one stuck in his head. he's one of those people that'll get hooked and listen to a song over and over again, especially while he's working out or when he needs an energy boost. he's embarrassed about it, so he'll try to hide it from you, only listening to music with his earbuds in. but there's been times where you catch him:

"zayne, i didn't know you were into red velvet," you stifle a giggle. you hold his phone up to him, the song "russian roulette" on the lock screen. he crosses his arms, ears turning pink, "what's so funny about that? ...it's catchy." "nothing! i just didn't expect that from you," you laugh. you hand him his phone back, "i can teach you the dance, i know it by heart," you tease. "hmm," he raises an eyebrow, an amused look on his face. "i'd like to see that."

xavier:

he likes a few different genres of music, but he tends to like classic rock and alternative the most. some of his favourite songs are "little dark age" by mgmt, "eyes without a face" by billy idol, and "let it happen" by tame impala. he doesn't like to explore new music often and will usually just stick to what he already likes. he'll often blast music through his through his earbuds when he's fighting wanderers alone or when he's trying to stay awake. he's had a lot of time on earth, so his taste spans a lot of different music eras. there's been a few times when he's complained about how he "just doesn't get music nowadays." sometimes he'll show you a super old song and be surprised that you've never heard of it before:

xavier hands you an earbud, the other one in his ear. he shows you a song on his phone that you don't recognize. after a few seconds of listening, you shake your head, "i don't know this one." "really?" xavier looks at you shocked. "this song was huge in the 80s." you hand him back his earbud, "see that's why i don't know it, i'm not 40," you tease. "they just don't make music like this anymore," he sighs. you laugh, "xavier, that makes you sounds so old!' he smiles back at you, "i think those songs are just timeless."

rafayel:

he's into artsy stuff. he's one of those people who listens to a song or album multiples times to dissect and analyze every part of it, appreciating it as an art form. some of his favourite songs include "my love mine all mine" and "washing machine heart" by mitski, as well as "movement" by hozier. he plays music while working on paintings, because apparently, "listening to complex music helps with the artistic process." he also experiences sound-to-colour synesthesia, which explains why the music helps him paint. he has a really pretty singing voice and will often hum or sing his favourite songs, but will get shy when you ask him to sing for you. despite his usual pretentious music taste, he'll occasionally get hooked on some generic top 40s song, like something by drake.

rafayel had been humming the same song over and over again while working on a painting of you. you couldn't help but close your eyes and focus on the melody, "what song is that?" you ask. he pauses from humming, his concentration on his painting unwavering, "my love mine all mine by mitski." "it's nice, i've never heard of it before," you reply. "i'm not surprised, i have spectacular taste, you know," he boasts. you stare at him blankly, "wasn't your top song last year passionfruit?" holding back a laugh. his ears and cheeks turn bright red, "those are never accurate anyways."

#love and deepspace #zayne love and deepspace #xavier love and deepspace #rafayel love and deepspace #zayne #xavier #rafayel #lnds #zayne x reader #xavier x reader #rafayel x reader #lnds xavier #lnds rafayel #lnds zayne #love and deepspace x reader #divider by @gigittamic

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sunsets-and-crows · 2 months ago

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I Wanna Be Yours - Chapter 8

Pairing: Sylus X Reader

Words: 4.4K

- - -

Tasked with infiltrating the life of Sylus, the most wanted man in the N109 zone, you're torn between what is right and feels right, blurring the line between duty and desire. As danger escalates, you must decide whether to carry out your mission or succumb to the magnetic pull of the man you're meant to destroy. In this game of power and obsession, betrayal could cost you everything.

Content warnings ⚠️

Dark Themes, Yandere! Reader and Yandere! Sylus! Power play. Violence and Gore. Smut: mutual masturbation. Stalking/surveillance. Reader slowly losing her mind. Sylus being hot and a menace. OOC Sylus (probably) TRIGGER WARNING: stalking and dubious consent. Graphic deptictions of violence.

If you feel there’s any other warnings I need to add then please reach out and let me know!

The rhythmic clicking of keys filled the air, a steady, relentless cadence that you could not afford to let falter. The edges of the screen in front of you, holographic and pulsing with a cold light, blurred slightly at the edges as you processed the words faster than your mind could consciously register. Your hands flew over the keyboard, skimming through reports, signing off on routine assignments and clearing out the back-log of paperwork you had been tasked with with a speed that felt almost mechanical.

It was easy - in comparison to sleuthing around in the N109 zone - monotonous, dull. The kind of work that would usually take an entire team the better part of a day, you finished in two hours. This wasn’t even a challenge for your level of focus.

Your office was as cold and sterile as the rest of the Hunter’s Association, designed for efficiency rather than for comfort. A sleek curved desk sat in the centre, illuminated by the soft light of the systems interface. The tempered glass walls granted a reprieve from the stares at least, a sense of privacy, lined with frosted panels to dull the view of the ever-bustling headquarters outside. Even with your focussed mind, you could hear the faint buzz of activity beyond the door - hunters passing by, comms channels flickering to life, reports being exchanged. None of it interested you now.

The only reprieve from the cold, artificial setting that had once been your daily comfort, was the window. A real one, overlooking a perfectly manicured courtyard with trees that stood defiant among the steel and glass. A rare piece of nature in an otherwise mechanical world. You hadn’t noticed it much before, but recently, you found it drawing your gaze more often than you liked to admit.

The clock on the wall broke you from your extremely brief reprieve with a tick tick tick. You refused to look at the damned thing, already far too aware of every agonising second that crawled by.

Seventeen days. Seventeen long, maddening days since you’d last seen him. Since you’d felt that pull, that raw need. Even the memories of him weren’t satisfying you like they had before. You’d almost forgotten the warmth of his skin as his hand brushed yours. The longing sat heavy in your chest, but again you shoved it down, channeling everything you had into the task at hand.

The way you were driving yourself, your forced efficiency, had not gone unnoticed. Your fellow hunters - seasoned professionals, hardened trackers and fighters - cast sideways glances at you, their faces almost… afraid? It wasn’t unheard of to have reports and sign-offs completed ahead of schedule, but blazing through them like a machine? That was another matter entirely.

“Has she always been so…fast?” you heard someone murmur near the break station.

“No way! No one is that on it for no reason! She’s pissed about getting pulled.” another speculated.

“I would be too, that case was the kind that could make your career.”

They weren’t exactly wrong with their hypothesis. But they weren’t entirely right either. Not that you cared. You had too much else on your mind to let yourself be distracted by petty gossip.

A shadow loomed at your office door. A hesitant tap tap tap followed by an unwelcome and concerned voice.

“Hey!” Xavier’s usual calm tone carried a hint of concern. “You look…busy.”

You flicked your gaze up for barely a second, just long enough to confirm, yes, of course you were busy. “Yep! Very busy. You know what the paperwork is like here,” you said with a noncommittal shrug, as if it hadn’t been the very reason you got kicked off your case.

“Right,” he replied, almost hesitantly. “You need anything? Coffee? A break?” He checked the time on his watch and looked at you with hopeful eyes. “Lunch?”

You sighed, dragging out the breath. “Nope!” You bit off the final p, sharp and dismissive, watching as he flinched. You felt a twinge of guilt, but not enough to stop. And, as expected, it didn’t deter him.

“You’ve done so much work that the rest of us have barely anything to do. Come on, take a break. It’s hard to watch you like this.” His kindness used to sway you. The softness in his voice, the pleading look in his eye - in the past, it would’ve convinced you to pause. But not anymore.

“Xavier, I appreciate the concern but really I’m fine.” ‘Fine’ was definitely not the word to describe you but you needed to assuage him. “Unless it’s really important, please, I have a lot to get through.”

He nodded, sighed softly at your clear dismissal and turned to leave but he paused. “You know, that new hunter has had no luck with him. The elusive Sylus.”

Your eyes flitted up to meet his, feigning surprise as you tilted your head. “Oh, really? But he’s such a seasoned hunter.” You let the words linger, just a touch too sweet. “I thought he had so many undercover operations in his file that this would be easy for him, right?”

His lips twitched, his smirk beginning to deepen. “You don’t seem surprised in the least.”

Your head righted itself and a small, self-satisfied smirk grew on your own lips. “Why would I be? I worked my fucking ass off for months and I barely got close enough to speak to him never mind the rest.”

His expression darkened just a fraction, a subtle raise of his brow. “So you knew it would be a dead end?”

You sighed through your nose, realising you’d said too much. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy.”

He studied you like he was searching for something - cracks in your composure, some hidden tell beneath your indifference. If only he knew how much effort it took to keep your mind from straying exactly where you didn’t want it to go.

“Right,” Xavier said after a beat, pushing off your desk. “Just… don’t lose yourself in all this, yeah?”

You didn’t bother responding. As soon as he walked away, you resumed typing, your focus snapping back into place.

The brief moments you allowed yourself to pause always led your gaze to the window. Out there, beyond the cold sterility of the Association, the trees stood unwavering, branches weighed down with dark-feathered bodies. A small murder of crows you’d come to recognise, their sharp eyes scanning the world below. They were a rare constant in your routine, a tether to something beyond reports and directives, beyond the ceaseless hum of the headquarters around you.

One of them was watching you.

Perched among the branches, its sleek frame blending seamlessly with the others, a certain mechanical crow adjusted its focus. Mephisto’s tiny cameras whirred softly, his gaze fixed on you through the tempered glass. Silent. Unnoticed. The perfect spy.

You remained oblivious, exhaling sharply as you leaned back in your chair. Your work was done - cleared with ruthless efficiency, every report signed off, every task completed. And yet, the satisfaction was hollow. A poor substitute for what you were meant to do.

This wasn’t the pulse of the hunt. It wasn’t the intoxicating thrill of tailing someone untouchable, someone even the most hardened hunters hesitated to approach. It wasn’t him.

And for 17 days, you’d felt the absence like a phantom pain.

A new file blinked onto your screen, ruining your perfect record of completed assignments. Your fingers hesitated over the interface, eyes drawn to the name stamped across it. The new hunter, assigned to the N109 zone. Your replacement.

A small satisfied grin curled onto your face, amusement. Thanks to Xavier, you already knew what the report was going to say before you opened it. But that didn't stop the thrill that ran through you when you read the contents. No progress. Your replacement had made no progress. None. He hadn’t been able to track Sylus, hadn’t been able to find even a whisper of him. He might as well have been hunting a ghost.

A small part of you was disappointed. Maybe even seeing his name on the report would have dulled the ever-present ache in your chest, quieted the screaming voice that whispered, find him. Take him. Make him yours.

No progress was good progress. No progress meant you had time. No progress meant that he was still yours.

A slow, satisfied smirk pulled at your lips. No progress meant one could be as close to him as you.

You dismissed the report with a flick of your wrist, the blue light of the screen flickering as it vanished. The data didn’t matter. The damned association’s mission didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting through the next few hours, maintaining the illusion of compliance.

You plugged in your personal hard drive, and pulled up your notes. Tonight, you had a plan.

The auction.

There was a high stakes auction happening in the middle of the N109 zone and you were absolutely going to be there. Conveniently, your replacement would be off work tonight at his son’s cello recital of all things. The thought of anyone putting anything above Sylus grated on you slightly but it served you more than anything so you were grateful for his loyalty to his family.

You didn’t know if Sylus would be there. But if he was, you wouldn’t waste the chance to see him. To be close. He had attended in the past though, and being that he was a creature of habit, you made an educated guess that he would attend again.

You had your reasons, the tracker. You planned to slip into his car. The truth was simpler, more raw.

You just needed to see him.

To remind yourself that he was still yours. That no matter how much distance they tried to put between you, he was still within reach.

Mephisto’s camera eye flickered, capturing the image in sharp detail. The file transferred in an instant, delivered straight to the only person who mattered. His master would see. And, inevitably, he would act.

You were as bad as each other, and if the poor bird had the programming to do so, he would roll his eyes. Alas his orders were to keep them focused on you at all times, his master would have it no other way.

You weren’t the only one who was suffering though. In the chaos of the N109, Sylus had slowly been unravelling as well.

Seventeen days.

That was how long it had been since Sylus last saw you, since the last auction. Since the moment he finally allowed himself to indulge, to bask in your presence, to approach you.

The days since had been maddening to say the least. An endless loop of greyer mornings and darker nights. It was as though the light had been stolen from the N109 zone altogether. The days had been pointless, feeling nearly identical and repetitive. The same darkened rooms, the same figures moving in and out of his space, the same business, the same blood. His life had become a precise, mechanical thing, fine-tuned and predictable.

You had been the anomaly. The spark in the dull machinery of his days, surprising him with your tenacity, your unwavering fixation on him.

And now, you’d been ripped away.

Not taken, not exactly, but it felt that way. He had half a mind to march into the Hunter’s Association and slaughter whoever was responsible for removing you from his case.

At least he could watch you.

Mephisto made sure of that.

He knew your routine now. Knew that you’d been working yourself ragged, clearing your desk to focus only on him. It pleased him in a way that was almost soothing. You were just as devoted as before at least. Forced separation hadn’t made you forget him. You hadn’t looked elsewhere. And for that, he was grateful. Because he didn’t want to consider what he would’ve done if you had.

So he watched, just as you had watched him. It was only fair wasn’t it? After all the hours you had spent studying him, observing him, pulling him apart piece by piece like your own little art project. He didn’t mind. He would be whatever you wished him to be.

Still, it wasn’t quite enough to calm his restlessness. A few stolen glimpses through a mechanical crow’s eyes? Pathetic.

He needed you in front of him, preferably bare, spread open and trembling, impaled on him and begging for more. But that would have to wait. His rapidly increasing desires would have to be squashed, for now. He was nothing if not patient.

Lately though, patience had become harder and harder to maintain. Moments of weakness crept in, his mind spiralling to thoughts of you, more often than they should and throwing him off his game. He had to pinch himself at times, drag his focus back to business, remind himself to just focus.

Sylus adjusted his cufflinks, steady fingers betraying none of the turmoil beneath his skin. In the mirror’s dim reflection, he was composure itself. Refined, unreadable, his hunger coiled beneath the surface, wound tight like a spring.

The simplicity of his outfit was intentional. Black slacks, black shirt, black jacket. A shadow in a den of predators. But the fit? The fit was a weapon, meticulously chosen. Every stitch, every inch tailored to ensure your gaze would linger on your favourite parts of him. The broad lines of his shoulders, the sharp taper of his waist, the way the fabric strained just slightly over his arms when he moved.

His lips curved as he slid on the fourth of his rings, the silver and stones catching in the low light. You had given yourself away so easily last time. The way your gaze had caught on his fingers, flickering down to watch them move, not to mention your at home shrine dedicated to them.

You probably thought you’d been discreet. You hadn’t.

Sylus had never been one for rings before. But now? Now he wore them with purpose, he wore them for you. He liked the way they looked when he curled his fingers into a fist, liked the way they felt as they tapped against glass. Liked knowing they’d capture your attention. He’d even been brazen enough to buy a matching one for you.

You just didn’t know it yet.

He reached for the final piece, a sleek black mask covering the top half of his face.

And just like that,his mind was wandering again. Seventeen days ago.

The last auction.

The moment had been inevitable. The moment he entered the space and saw you there, bathed in golden light and looking absolutely exquisite in a simple uniform, he was done for.

He would never admit to the nerves that twisted low in his gut as he approached you, walking slowly, methodically in an attempt to remain as calm as possible. Would never voice the irrational jealousy curling in his chest as he watched you polish the glass in your delicate, steady hands. He refused to acknowledge the sheer insanity of feeling envious of a glass, it was so beneath him.

And when he finally stepped forward and made his way over to you, you noticed. Your eyes met his and in that second Sylus had the absurd urge to make you keep your eyes on him, to trap you in his orbit right then and there.

You made him a drink.

A simple thing. A small thing. And yet, he had taken a slow sip, watching her the entire time. He praised you and your pupils dilated. Just like that he was fucking addicted, his heart racing with the desire to get that reaction from you again.

His jaw clenched now, fingers flexing against his palm.

Yes. That was what he wanted again. What he craved. And tonight, he would have it.

This new hunter was clearly a fucking amateur, no matter what his record said about him. He didn’t have your understanding of his world, his movements- of Sylus. Granted part of that was due to Sylus’ own actions. The poor fucker couldn’t very well get to know Sylus after the way he’d been iced out of the N109 zone. But seriously? To miss such an important event like this, was more than sloppy work.

The auction hall had been beautifully decorated, even for Sylus’ standards, he was nearly impressed. It was a cathedral of decadence, gilded chandeliers spilling golden light over exquisitely dressed patrons. Art worth small fortunes lined the walls, and the hush of wealth draped over the room like a perfumed veil. It shimmered off crystal glasses and polished marble bathing everything in a soft honeyed glow.

Whispers and false laughter rippled through the air, thick with masked intentions and velvet-coated threats, the lifeblood of these gatherings.

The masquerade theme was just another layer of excess, a pretense that any of them had secrets that could be peeled back. It was amusing, the idea that something as simple as a mask could hide who or what someone was.

Sylus stood off to the side of it all. Watching and waiting for his prize, the reward for his patience. Patience that was dwindling by the second and kicking up a storm within the man. Nothing about the softness of the light or the comfort of anticipated danger could soften the razor’s edge of his rapidly souring mood.

His crimson eyes scanned the room, seeking out every corner, every shadow, anywhere that might be your hiding place. The bar, again? The balcony? The clusters of masked figures swathed in silk and tailored suits?

Nothing. You were nowhere to be seen.

He released a slow exhale, willing his irritation to stay beneath the surface. A quiet tightening of his jaw and the press of his tongue against the inside of his cheek. No one here was sharp enough to notice, but Luke and Kieran flanking him? Of course, they did.

Luke tilted his head slightly, a hint of a smile visible beneath his own mask. “Boss looks like he’s about to commit a massacre.”

Kieran snorted. “Someone should tell him that glaring at the crowd won't make a certain Miss Hunter appear. Maybe she’s not coming?”

The boys were clearly far too comfortable with playfully ribbing him like this. Perhaps the fact that everyone was masked as they usually were was enough to peak their confidence. Whatever it was, it grated on Sylus’ nerves.

He turned his head slightly. The weight of his gaze was enough warning to have them standing a little straighter and their lips closing around whatever quip was going to come next. “Hush.”

They knew better than to push. Sylus was a dangerous man after all and he was particularly touchy around the subject of you. Still their quiet amusement resonated between them.

He was irritated. Not with you of course, god he could never be angry with you. With himself.

He’d wasted time, time that he have, on getting ready for this, for you. Everything, exactly to your taste, down to the way the open collar of his shirt exposed just enough skin to draw eyes, though none of them belonged to the one person he wanted looking at him.

And for what? To among the same people he saw at every one of these damned things, waiting for someone who should know better to test his patience? Mephisto had no clue the trouble he was going to be in if you didn’t show up.

His fingers curled into a fist against his knee before he forced them to relax.

You should be here.

Where the fuck were you?

A call of the auctioneer came loudly through the opulent hall, breaking through Sylus’ silent fuming. He exhaled sharply, and walked through the double doors to the auction room, sinking into his seat with a practiced ease, the deliberate weight of a man who regretted coming.

The auction hall was just as opulent, gilded walls, more glittering chandeliers, more of that soft, golden glow that radiated warmth and wealth. All of it was giving Sylus a migraine, he couldn’t stand the sight of it. He pinched the bridge of his nose and rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, jaw tight. His fingers danced a steady beat, drumming once, twice, against the armrest before he forced himself to regain his composure, to still.

You weren’t a tardy person, you should’ve been here by now. You weren’t coming.

The twins took their seats to the side of Sylus, making low conversation with each other. A hint of a smirk visible beneath their masks. Kieran cleared his throat and schooled his features, trying desperately to look less entertained than he was by his boss’ palpable irritation. His gaze flickered towards sylus.

“Are you sure your date hasn’t stood you up?” Kieran mused. “That would be a shame since you dressed up so pretty for her. Did she know this was a date?”

Sylus shot him a glance, sharp enough to cut glass, which just made Kieran grin more.

“It's not a date,” Sylus stated calmly. “And I didn’t dress up for anyone. Unlike other people, I always try to look my best, it’s better for… business.” That was a lie.

He had dressed up.

And now, it was wasted.

The chair beneath him felt hard and stiff. Uncomfortable. The noise of the room was grating against his nerves, worsening his already terrible mood. He didn’t need to be here. He could leave. He should leave. The muscle in his jaw twitched.

A particularly loud gaggle of women passed by, giggling shrilly about some heirloom or bag or something. Whatever it was, it was the last straw for Sylus.

He turned to the twins. “We're leaving.”

Both boys broke out into small grins, already mentally preparing for the way they would tease their boss on the way home.

He sighed again and prepared to leave when-

Bang!

The heavy double doors flew open and the noise in the room quietened instantly.

Sylus’ vision tunneled to the open double doors.

There you were, a vision of pure indulgence.

A goddess draped in swaithes of molten gold, wrapped in wealth that made people desperate. His breath caught in his throat, almost choking him. The soft waves of your hair shimmered under the low gilded lights. Every movement of yours was intentional, unhurried. Like you had all the time in the world to destroy him.

And you were destroying him. Completely and utterly undoing the very fabric of his very being.

Sylus swallowed, but his throat had gone dry.

You’d managed to throw him off, to surprise him in a way that no one else had managed to do and god was it delicious. He expected you to be incognito, to hide in the shadows as you always did. But this? This was completely unexpected.

That dress. That fucking dress. It was like an extension of you, satin clinging to curves he wanted to trace and memorise with his hands, his mouth, anything you would let him. It pooled around your feet, whispering against the marble floor as you walked. The slit at your thigh flashing enough skin to make him grip the armrest of his chair hard enough to ache. To leave him breathless and yearning to reach out to you. But you didn’t even look his way.

He should be furious.

Not only had you made him wait, smouldering in his own anticipation, but now you were gracing everyone except him with your attention. Allowing your eyes to linger on even Luke and Kieran by his side. Not once did you allow him the relief of meeting your eyes.

He couldn’t be mad though, not when he was finally seeing you after so long. You were an oasis after being in the desert, a breeze kissing his skin.

Fuck, he couldn’t stop looking at you.

So this was Seraphina. He’d known it was only a matter of time before he met this version of you, your second alias, woven from deception and luxury. And damn, had you outdone yourself. He would have to thank Axel for crafting the persona so well, for shaping an alias that fit you like it had always been yours. A background that set you apart. Made you untouchable.

Wealth clung to you, draped over your skin like it had always belonged there. Like he had always belonged there. Gold suited you. Power suited you. And Sylus would make it his mission to ensure you kept them both.

The curve of your neck as you lifted your chin, playing the socialite so well. The slight part of your lips as you took in the room, your gaze flitting across the crowd, assessing them, weighing them and deciding who was worth your attention. God he hoped it would be him.

But it wasn’t. Not yet.

Heat blazed across his skin, settling low in his stomach. Dark and restless. Something curling its fingers into his ribcage, his heart squeezing. His pulse beat so frantically that he could feel it in his teeth. A slow, agonising thud, thud, thud, setting every nerve ending alight.

Kieran exhaled sharply. “Wow.”

Luke let out a low chuckle. “Boss man looks wrecked.”

Sylus couldn’t even hear them.

Because you were walking right past him.

Close enough that the soft scent of your perfume curled around him, something intoxicating, designed to ruin, pulling him in closer and closer. He wanted to reach out, to touch your skin as you walked past and feel the way your pulse danced beneath your wrist.

You didn’t falter in your step, your strides remaining composed and unhurried. And you never, not once, turned to meet his eyes. Fucking temptress.

Instead, you descended gracefully into the front row, your back to him, your hands smoothing over the delicate folds of your gown.

Sylus could do nothing else but return to his chair. Composing himself after nearly coming undone at the mere sight of you. He exhaled slowly, releasing the tightness from his jaw and muscles as he rolled his shoulders back and his neck side to side. He was on edge, chest rising and falling in a way that felt too obvious. You had come. You had made him wait. And now, you were making him suffer.

➽──────────────────────────────────❥

I know you all said you didn't want a cliffhanger but it had to be done right here! The good news is that I'm already working on chapter 9 so hopefully it shouldn't take a month for me to get that one to you! Thank you for waiting so patiently!

❥ Like, reblog, comment, message me, ask me something, literally anything - I live for your feedback on this ❥

#love and deepspace sylus #lads sylus #sylus #sylus x reader #lnds sylus #love and deepspace #l&ds sylus #sylus qin #sylus love and deepspace #sylus x you #sylus x mc #sylus lads #qin che #yandere sylus #yandere reader #yandere #obsessed Sylus

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feminist-space · 8 months ago

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"Officers raided the facility on Oct. 18, 2023, and detained the lone female employee while they searched the business, the lawsuit said. However, they didn’t find a single cannabis plant and only saw a typical medical facility with rooms used for conducting x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRIs, the owners said.

The officers then released the employee and told her to call a manager, the lawsuit said, while they continued to wander around various rooms of the facility. The plaintiffs say the officers’ behavior was “nothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures, or even a hint of coordination.”

At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine. MRI machines are tube-shaped scanners that use incredibly strong magnetic fields to create images of the brain, bones, joints and other internal organs.

An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit."

Read the full article here: https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/lapd-cannabis-mri-raid-19789448.php

#1312 #lapd #this is what happens when you refuse to learn anything #MRI #magnets

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hsmagnet · 8 months ago

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How Air Gaps Impact Magnet Strength

How Air Gaps Impact Magnet Strength In the world of neodymium magnets, the air gap refers to the precise distance separating a rare earth magnet and its intended attachment surface. In most cases, this intended surface would be another magnet or ferromagnetic object, such as a steel disc. Air gaps are a big deal because they give you an effective way to manipulate, calibrate and control the…

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oldguydoesstuff · 2 years ago

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Machine-readable text goes all the way back to the 1950s, when the banking industry developed MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) to allow automatic processing of checks.

The system used a distinctive numeric font set that made it easy to read via magnetic sensors, while still being human readable as well. The style became associated with computers and futuristic technology and fonts inspired by MICR were a staple of 1960s and 70s Sci Fi movies and book covers.

#typography #retro computing #retro science fiction #1960s style #fonts #vintage scifi #micr

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commodorez · 2 years ago

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What was the purpose of the panels of blinking lights on those big mid-century computers? Were they showing calculations in progress?

Excellent question, this is one of my favorite subjects! Blinkenlights serve a number of functions. Hollywood tended to use just the lights to make it look like a computer was busy doing something, but real computers had more than just lights on their front panel. Let's walk through a few examples of use cases with photos of computers I've seen over the years at museums and vintage computer festivals:

Some front panels were built to be used for diagnostics. Computers like these were primitive enough that they required constant care and debugging to do their jobs, especially the early vacuum tube machines (everything pictured here is transistorized). You could tell what peripherals were being used, but also check the status of registers, carry flags, status flags, data, various buses, etc. It was also a way to see if a program had "gone off into the weeds" and started doing things that were irregular, possibly due to a software bug, or a problem with the hardware.

On many of these machines, you can enter programs directly into the main memory using the front panel, but it's an incredibly tedious process -- something to be avoided if possible. Consider it a last fallback.

Other times, it's a starting point, which we call "bootstrapping" (this eventually evolved into the term "booting"). You aren't likely to program everything on such a limited interface, but you are more likely to enter in a small program that can tell the computer how to run a more complex peripheral, like a paper tape or punch card reader, or maybe some type of magnetic storage device. Once you can get a program loading off of a larger permanent storage device, you can load up software to interface with a terminal of some kind which is much easier.

Eventually, the microprocessor made home computers a possibility, but many were only equipped with a front panel out of the box. You would have to add in a serial card, more RAM, possibly some ROMs, and either a teletype or glass terminal in order to get a more sophisticated and intuitive interface from the computer, capable of programming in a higher level language. Some were considered more like trainers, or hobbyist devices, and simply lacked that ability, meaning all you got was a front panel with switches and lights.

I made my own front panel to see what the experience was all about:

Then everything changed in 1977, with the introduction of these three machines: the TRS-80 Model I, the Commodore PET 2001, and the Apple II. They were what you might call "appliance computers" and they had no need for a front panel.

Hopefully that answered your question!

#front panel #blinkenlights

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xvazx · 29 days ago

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The Beauty of Our Chaos

Part 7 - Chills

Prev. Part / Next Part

WARNING: suggestive and explicit content ahead. (18+ mdni)

The morning after my dramatic stadium escape felt like waking up after a very vivid, very public fever dream. I hadn’t even had time to process anything. Because the moment I opened my eyes, Kaylee had already spilled everything to Mariel.

Mariel was mid-speech. “How is it possible,” she began, voice rising in disbelief, “that you treat a man like that and he still kisses the ground you walk on?”

I was flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, questioning my life choices and whether I could crawl under my duvet and disappear.

“I’m just saying,” she continued, “if you like him, you better learn how to treat him like it, or he’s going to get the wrong idea.”

“You see how much crap I deal with from Missy?” I mumbled. “Maybe this whole thing is just a sign from the universe.”

“Not even you believe that,” Mariel scoffed. “You two are chaos magnets. He’s basically waiting for you to jump on him.”

“Wey ya” I groaned, throwing a pillow over my face like a shield. (Dude, stop)

Before I could find peace, my phone buzzed with a chorus of notifications. I peeked from under the pillow.

First one:

💅🏻Georgina 💅🏻

‘Party checklist. The decorations and liquor just arrived. Missy says come down or she’ll come up 😬.’

Second one:

🤓Luigicito🤓

‘Still not showing me your costume?’

‘Hmm nope but I’ll give you a hint: It’s a team...’

‘What?’

‘You’ll get it 🙄.’

Mariel raised an eyebrow. “Was that him?”

“Nope, the devil’s calling,” I muttered, standing up. “Time to go test my patience.”

“I’m free after two,” she said. “Text me if you need help.”

“Gracias nena.” (Thanks babe)

Downstairs, the riot had begun. The entryway was full of cardboard boxes: streamers, fog machines, jack-o’-lantern lights, and several suspiciously heavy boxes I suspected were liquor.

I checked off items on my checklist, one by one. Decorations? Check. Lighting? Check. Booze? Double check. Snacks? All here.

The dining room had been converted into what looked like a sorority war council. Missy sat at the head like an evil queen, flanked by Georgina and a few other sisters. As I walked in, they all looked up in synchronized judgment.

“Everything’s here,” I said, holding up my clipboard like a peace offering. “We can start decorating.”

Missy tilted her head. “Did you double check?”

I blinked at her. “Triple.”

She smiled. The kind of smile a villain makes right before the plan unfolds. “Good. Sit down. I want to go over your role in the fundraiser”

Great.

I sat. I listened. And it was worse than I thought.

Apparently, I was Missy’s “official assistant” for the event. Which meant: organizing fittings, making spreadsheets, coordinating with the caterer, and making sure everything was perfect. All while pretending not to be in the most awkward fake wedding triangle of the century.

Missy handed me a printed itinerary like she was blessing me with the Ten Commandments. “You’ll be my right hand. Basically… you make my life easier.”

“And mine more difficult,” I muttered under my breath.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘can’t wait.’”

She beamed. “You’re a doll.”

With a fake sweetness that could rot teeth.

I got up, grabbing the clipboard. “I’m gonna go… decorate.”

“You’re such a team player,” Missy chirped, flipping her glossy hair.

After an hour of climbing on ladders, untangling spiderweb lights, and fixing a voice box from an animatronic ghost that refused to work, Delta Nu was officially transformed.

Our pristine white-columned sorority house was now a Haunted Mansion—complete with flickering lights, fake portraits that blinked, cobwebs over our signature Delta letters, and the scent of cinnamon candles mixing with the smell of fake fog and real vodka.

It was time.

Upstairs, our room was an explosion of makeup, curling irons, and push-up bras.

Kaylee worked the blow dryer like a pro, flipping my hair back and forth while Mariel lined her lips. We were all in robes, fully hyped, and yelling over each other about which lashes were better for each character.

I sat at the vanity and followed Mariel’s instructions as she barked at me to “blend that contour like your life depends on it.”

“They fit like a glove,” Kaylee said, twirling in front of the mirror, now in her tight suit.

“Credit to the plug,” I said. “I told him I wanted quality, not Party City.”

“I still can’t believe you got all this cool stuff,” Mariel said, holding up my garment bag. “Ready to suit up, nerd?”

I took a deep breath and cracked my neck like I was heading into a boss fight.

“Hell yeah.”

That’s when my phone rang.

Incoming Call: 💀 Missysippi 💀

10:30 p.m. And right on cue, guests were arriving.

Ignore.

“I put everything together. I deserve, like, an hour without her orders,” I said. “She can play host solo.”

I stepped into the bottoms, adjusted the fitted corset, and Mariel helped zip it up carefully. I added my boots, accessories and props.

One glance at the mirror and— Holy Fuck.

I love Halloween.

11:00 p.m. Too late to care. And my phone rang again.

Incoming Call: 🤓Luigicito🤓

“Ciao” I answered, playing it casual. (Hello)

“We’re here. But there is a shit ton of people. Are you finally telling me what you’re dressed as?”

“Nope,” I teased. “You’ll have to find me.”

LUIGI’S POV

She hung up on me? Of course she did.

God, this woman.

“What did Princess Daisy say?” Damien joked, adjusting his Mario hat while drinking out of a drink he brought from the house.

“Funny.” I rolled my eyes. “She told me… actually, commanded me to find her.”

Mark was already scanning the room. “It shouldn’t be hard. She’s probably dressed like a hot vampire. Or a hot devil. Or a dominatrix…”

“Definitely not that one,” Damien said, cutting him off and pointing toward a group in DIY animal ears. “She’s got standards.”

Then he paused. “And that? That is definitely not her.”

I muttered under my breath, already regretting this. “Please no.”

Missy appeared like a feathery specter. “Luigi! OMG, you look so cute!” she squealed, clinging to my arm.

I looked down at my costume.

“Thanks… um, you look nice. What are you?”

She twirled, her wings flapping. “Victoria’s Secret Angel, duh.”

“Right.”

She was gearing up to talk more when a sudden shift in the crowd caught everyone’s attention. Whistles. Cheers. Phones out.

Missy turned mid-sentence.

“What’s the fuss?”

I followed the crowd’s gaze.

Then I saw them.

Kaylee as Batgirl.

Mariel as Supergirl.

And her—her as Wonder Woman.

And not just any Wonder Woman. The classic, comic book 1970s one. Red, gold, blue stars, boots, everything.

Fuck

“Oh man,” Damien said, covering his crotch. “I’m in love.”

BACK TO (Y/N)

The second we stepped into the crowd, I knew we nailed it.

The sorority house exploded with compliments. Our costumes weren’t just good—they were legendary. Handmade, accurate, and styled to perfection. If this was a competition, we just stole the trophy.

“Babe, I hate you,” Jessica, one of the sisters, laughed. “You look perfect.”

“Thanks, Pilates do make wonders” I joked.

I had wanted to be Wonder Woman since I was eight. But not the modern, armored one. No. I wanted to be Linda Carter. Full hair, star-spangled shorts, and the golden lasso of truth. Childhood dream: unlocked.

After we took what felt like a hundred pictures for the Delta Nu page, I heard a familiar whistle.

“Ay Dios mío!” Damien shouted, stumbling through the crowd. (Oh My God!)

I turned—and there they were.

Mario and Luigi, literally.

I laughed, covering my eyes in mock embarrassment. “Of course.”

“You—wow,” Luigi said, eyes wide. “Just… wow.”

“I know we look hot,” Mariel said, flipping her cape.

“I think I peed a little,” Damien mumbled, genuinely starstruck.

Luigi finally found words. “It looks just like the original TV show suit.”

Bingo. Nerdy dirty talk.

“I know, right?,” I said, already blushing. “I’ve been planning it for weeks.”

“You look… amazing.”

Oh baby.

“Thanks… and this was your ‘lame but safe’ costume?” I teased while touching his lil green hat. “Zero originality points.”

He shrugged. “What else would I be?.”

We stared at each other for a moment.

Then Damien, the eternal mood-shifter, clapped his hands. “Easy, tiger. Can we start drinking?”

….

Many drinks later, we ended up in a circle for a drinking game, and that just made things worse. Or better. Depending on how you looked at it. Every time mine and Luigi’s fingers brushed, I felt my pulse skip. He kept leaning into me during dares and whispering jokes that made me laugh mid-sip.

And then it happened. One of the girls—Tina, who was already two drinks past functional—pointed at me during a round of “Truth or Dare.”

“I dare you to request a song and dance to it. Center of the room. No backing out!”

Everyone whooped. Damien did a little drumroll on the table with his fingers.

I stood up, buzzed and reckless. “Fine,” I said. “But you asked for it.”

Wow, alcohol really does make me more easygoing.

People assumed I’d do something sexy, or silly. That’s what the dare usually meant. But they didn’t know I learned choreos for fun.

With a tipsy smirk, I strutted over to the DJ booth and whispered my request.

He looked confused for a second but nodded.

The music stopped.

A few people groaned.

Missy gave me a death glare from across the room like I’d just committed a felony. I saw Mariel nudge Kaylee. Luigi was watching me with curiosity, drink halfway to his lips.

And then…

The beat kicked in.

🩸Thriller🩸

The crowd gasped, then laughed at me.

I stepped into the center and channeled my inner Jenna Rink.

Mariel screamed, “OH MY GOD. High school play flashbacks!!”

I hit the first move right on cue, popping my shoulders and doing the movement. The crowd lit up.

I kept going—hip rolls, the dramatic claw hands, the walk, the snap. My boots thudded on beat. The buzz and the music filled every inch of me.

Damien clapped like a proud dad. “I stand corrected, she is also a good dancer.”

This is fun.

Mariel jumped in, still remembering some of it. Kaylee followed a second later, giggling as she tried to keep up. Only a few others joined in too, half-dancing, half-vibing.

Psychology of the young human. Nobody wants to look like a dork, but sometimes being cool means stepping out of the box. So fuck it.

Then I saw him standing there, smiling. Watching me.

I pointed at him, motioned him forward with a come-hither curl of my finger. “ALL of you,” I mouthed.

They nodded in disagreement.

Mariel and I walked over and dragged the guys in with us just as the final chorus hit.

“I don’t dance,” he said, laughing awkwardly as he tried to match our steps.

“You should know this. It’s a canonical moment in pop culture,” I teased.

“The video scared the crap outta me as a kid. I never finished it.”

I gasped sarcastically. “Aww pobre” (Aww poor you)

He fumbled through the zombie arm wave, then caught on. And soon enough, we all were doing the final iconic moves, just in time for Vincent Price’s laugh to echo through the house.

The crowd burst into applause. I bowed dramatically. Mariel hugged me. Kaylee did a little spin.

And then Missy stormed over.

Her lips were tight, smile fake, voice sweetened with venom. “That wasn’t in the playlist. We spent hours doing it.”

I looked her dead in the eye, still breathless and sweating.

“I gotta pee,” I said with a shrug and a scrunched nose. “Now you can go back to your playlist.”

And with that, I turned on my heel and walked away, leaving her behind.

I slipped past the party and made my way to my room. The music thumped faintly through the walls, but it was distant now, like the world had muted itself just long enough to let me breathe.

I shut the door behind me and sank onto my bed, adjusting the golden tiara on my head. My heart was racing from the dance, from the attention, from him.

I stared at my ceiling and exhaled.

Silence, peace…

Knock, knock.

“Mar, I promise I’m fine,” I said, dragging myself upright as I padded to the door.

I opened it.

“Not Mariel,” Luigi said with a small smile, hands in his pockets. “Sorry.”

My breath caught in my throat. He had no business looking that good.

I stepped aside. “Alright, come in.”

It was strange seeing him here. He looked around curiously, eyes scanning the Kill Bill Vol. 1 poster and the pristine working desk right next to my vinyl record collection, perfume bottles, and pictures.

“So,” he said, glancing at me with a teasing smirk. “Kill Bill, Elvira, Wonder Woman, Justin Bieber, Criminal Minds, choreographed dances… Anything else I should know?”

I laughed, sitting back on the edge of the bed. “I’m really good at Tetris.”

He grinned, leaning against my desk. “We’ll see about that.”

But then something clicked in my head.

My eyes narrowed. “Wait. How do you know I like Criminal Minds?”

He froze for half a second, caught.

“You remember your little… runaway moment?” he asked, trying not to laugh.

“Unfortunately,” I muttered, arms crossed.

“Well,” he started, rubbing the back of his neck, “before you passed out, you kissed me.”

Uh-oh

“You confessed you liked me, and that my only competition was the Spencer Reid guy.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?!” I stood up, freaking out.

“I just. I didn’t want to make it awkward between us.”

“Well, awkward is my specialty,” I muttered.

“Considering we’re on the same page.” he also stood up.

“Huh?”

“Yesterday’s kiss,” he said, now standing so close I could see the curve of his grin.

“It was a Kiss Cam,” I said quickly, arms flailing for effect.

“You could’ve said no.” He was close now—really close. “And you did admit you wanted it to happen.”

“Did I?” I blinked, playing dumb. I deserve an Oscar.

He nodded, that infuriating smirk now playing at his lips again.

“I think,” he said softly, “the feeling is mutual”

“What feeling?” I played coy, heart racing.

He moved just a little closer.

“The craving of doing it again,” he said.

My breath caught. His eyes flicked from mine to my lips.

Screw it.

I grabbed his green shirt and pulled him in.

And this time, no audience, no cameras. Just us.

The kiss was intense. Slow at first, then hungry—weeks of glances, tension, frustration melting into one moment. He kissed me like he meant it. Like he’d been waiting for it, too.

His hands found my waist. Mine tangled in his hair, making his hat fall unto the floor. My knees went a little weak, not from the heeled boots or the booze—but from him.

He guided our bodies to my bed, sitting down and positioning me on top of him. My body pressed against him, feeling the hardness of his arousal through the fabric of my costume. A moan escaped my lips, muffled by a kiss. He growled in response tightening the grip on my hip.

I better not be dreaming this time.

He broke the kiss, panting as he looked up into my eyes. “Is this okay?,” he said, his voice low and rasp.

“Yes,” I whispered barely audible.

That was all the encouragement he needed.

He kissed a trail down my neck, caressing his lips against my skin, making my head falling back as he nipped at my collarbone. “Luigi,” I moaned, gripping his shoulders for support. “Please…”

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his lips trailing back up to mine. Then I felt his hand leave my hip and explore lower, dangerously lower.

His hand slid under my tiny blue shorts, his fingers finding the edge of my panties and pulling them aside. I gasped as his fingers teasingly brushed against my core, making my hips buck involuntarily.

Susan Sarandon was right. Heavy petting did led to trouble and seat wetting.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he murmured, his voice thick with desire. “Can I tell you a secret?”

I nodded, my breath hitching as he slowly slid a finger inside, his thumb pressing and toying against my clit.

Oh, thank God he knows.

“Mhmm…” I moaned, one hand clutching at his shoulder for balance and the other stroking against his crotch.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” he whispered as he added a second finger, moving on an even pace against a certain spot. “About how you’d feel, how you’d sound.”

“F-uck” my voice came out on a pathetic moan that he replied with a chuckle and a cocky grin.

Game on.

Instinctively, my hand figured out how to undo his belt and jeans, swiftly making its way into his underwear.

I didn’t know I was so dexterous.

“But this is so much fucking better.” His body reacted to my touch, whispering sweet nothings in my ear.

My back arched as we got closer and closer to the edge. “Ah-ah, si…no…pares…,” I begged as I grinned against his hand . (yes, don’t stop)

I even forgot he didn’t spoke Spanish.

“So good,” his lips brushing against my neck, moaning from his own pleasure.

I smiled weakly, my hand still wrapped around him.

He groaned as his hips bucked into my hand. “Fuck, (Y/N). You’re going to kill me.”

Simultaneously, his fingers continued to follow a delicious rhythm, sending shocks down my spine.

“I-I’m…“, his voice trembled, making me cut him off with a kiss, swallowing his desperate moans.

And then—

Knock, knock and Click.

The door creaked open making us flinch and turn towards the door.

Busted.

Georgina was there, her eyes wide as dinner plates.

She blinked. “Shit sorry!”

And she immediately shut the door.

I’m fucked… Figuratively speaking.

Almost literally.

We both froze, lips still hovering, breathing heavy.

I pulled back, horror crawling across my face.

“What the fuck?,” I whispered.

A second later, came another knock.

Georgina’s voice called through the door. “I really need to to talk to you!”

I pulled away from Luigi, breathless, heart pounding. He looked dazed, still coming back from the interrupted climax.

Quickly, I moved to the vanity to grab the makeup remover wipes and went to town. I threw the wipe package to the bed so he could clean whatever the hell just happened.

I opened the door just enough to squeeze through. Georgina looked pale. “I didn’t mean to interrupt! I swear!… But I think Damien just broke his foot.”

��What?!”

I turned around.

Back in my room, I glued my eyes to him, now standing, pants zipped and waiting for some kind of resolution.

“So..”

“Yeah, woah, that was…,” I said while fidgeting from my frustration.

Then I remembered the most important part. Damien is dying.

“Oh right! Umm, Damien just broke his foot.”

“What?!” he asked, already on the move.

I followed him towards the stairs but he paused mid-step and turned back to me.

“You okay?” he asked as he gently brushed my cheek.

“Yeah, yeah. Go.”

He nodded and took off down the stairs.

We both ignored the fact that we walked out of the same room at the same time. No one asked. Or maybe they were too distracted.

By the pool, Damien was sprawled across one of the lounge chairs, clutching his foot and trying not to cry. Kaylee was holding his hand like Rose from Titanic.

“He wanted to cannonball, and took a leap off the deck… ,” someone whispered.

“I slipped on a damn White Claw can!” Damien wailed.

“and landed on wet concrete.” Kaylee added.

Luigi and the boys quickly jumped into action, organizing a ride to the ER.

“Killer party, ladies!” Damien called out, laughing through the pain as they lifted him up. “Let’s do this again next week!”

“After-trauma adrenaline rush,” I said, shaking my head.

I followed them out to the car. Luigi turned to me. “Gotta go”

“Drive safe,” I said, reaching out to squeeze his arm.

He surprised me with a quick kiss on the cheek before jogging off.

And I’m red again. Now? Now I’m a prude?