#This is a ''free'' printed book :D I mean - other than walking to and from the library and construction and ribbons lol

[sysig]

Did you expect Rescuing Rusty in 2023??? (RR is @zeejax‘s ♥) (Patreon)

Trick question! Even I wasn’t expecting Rescuing Rusty, but since it was up next on my fics to vet for construction, I had to give it a reread!

Didn’t it turn out lovely 💕 There’s not a lot of sky-related imagery in RR, but I couldn’t not go with this colour - it’s an even richer rust colour IRL :D

The spine ended up being big enough that I was able to sneak in two bookmarks! One for Zoom (the black) and one for Rusty (the red)

Even though they sit separately, Rusty’s still crosses over Zoom’s hehe ♥

[arctichotch]

spencer reid x gn!reader fluff alphabet

feel free to send more requests! 

A = Admiration (what do they absolutely adore about you?)

there is not a single thing about you that spencer doesn’t adore about you tbh but he loves how you love him if that makes sense?? he loves that you’re like one of the first people in his life that he’s met that actually listen to him and don’t interrupt him when he starts spewing information out

B = Body (what is their favorite part of your body?)

he loves your lips tbh he just likes to kiss them and then when you’re not kissing he likes to think about kissing you

C = Cuddling (how do they like to cuddle?)

this man is a mad man for cuddling. he’s like a cuddle addict. any way he can have you securely in his arms is what he likes. but he does particularly enjoy having you tucked into his side with his arm around your shoulders and yours around his waist. he thinks this position is perfect.

D = Dates (what does their ideal date with you look like?)

he likes to go out to some little hole in the wall restaurant where he knows it will be nice and quiet. then after dinner he likes to take you out for a nice walk where the two of you talk about anything and everything

E = Emotions (how do they express emotion around you?)

he tries to be as open as possible with you. spencer being spencer has read a lot about relationships and is well aware of how important communication is in a relationship. he couldn’t bare ever losing you so if something is going on he makes an effort to talk to you about it

F = Family (do they want one? If they do, when?)

spencer would love kids. he has 100% day dreamed about your future together with little kids running around

G = Gifts (how do they feel about gift giving? What are their habits when it comes to this?)

he loves to give meaningful gifts. he remembers early on into your relationship when you got him a first edition print of a book he had been talking about for months and he remembers how he felt like his heart was going to burst. so he definitely tries to give as much as he can to you. he is a king at birthday gifts.

but to him, gifts have to have some kind of meaning. he’s not a materialistic kind of guy.

H = Holding Hands (when/how do they like to hold hands?)

spencer’s hands are *so* big so when you’re holding hands with him his hands completely envelop yours. he likes to always be holding your hands. in the elevator on your way to the bau office? he’s got your hand. walking down the street? he’s got your hand. it makes him feel safe

I = Injury (how would they act if you got hurt?)

spencer would be a total mess. he’s lost so much and can’t comprehend a world without you in it. so yeah he’s a mess. constantly going over statistics in his mind until someone nearly has to slap him out of his own mind. 

J = Jokes (do they like to joke around with or prank you? how?)

if you are shorter than him then he likes to pat you on the head as a joke or hold things above him until you give him a kiss to earn it back.

if you are the same height/taller than him, he likes to sneak up behind you and wrap you in his arms. it always makes you jump a bit but as time has gone on you’ve learned to hear him come.

he also likes to show you his physics magic and wow you with that.

K = Kisses (how do they like to kiss you?)

spencer loves a good spur of the moment kiss. loves to kiss you on the jet when no one else has arrived yet. loves to kiss you just as the elevator doors are about to open. he just loves kissing you. it’s like he needs it as much as he needs to breathe.

L = Love (how do they show you they love you?)

everything spencer does is with his love for you in his mind. dangerous unsub? he will make an effort to keep an eye on you even more than usual. he loves to show you things from his childhood like books he liked to read. he loves making dinner for you and surprising you with things like that.

M = Memory (favorite memory together?)

probably one of your few days off from work when you were both in his apartment cuddled on the couch. you watching tv or reading and him reading a book. he remembers in that moment feeling like everything in his life had finally come together.

N = Nightmare (what is their worst fear?)

losing you. spencer is no stranger to loss but to lose you? he doesn’t think he could ever recover from that

O = Oddity (what is one quirk they have?)

well... i mean it’s spencer. the man is made up of perfect quirks. but probably how excited he gets when reciting one of the numerous facts he has in his big brain.

P = Pet Names (what do they like to call you?)

he calls you by your nickname for the most part but he also sometimes comes up with random nicknames of cute things he sees. like that one week when all he did was call you duck.

you call him spence or babe which always makes him blush.

Q = Quality Time (how do they like to spend time with you?)

he loves reading with you. on the couch or in bed in one of your apartments. could be different books or the same one, either way he loves it. if you’re sharing a book, he obviously reads the page a lot faster than you and in that time while he’s waiting to change the page he loves to watch you. he just loves you.

R = Rhythm (what song reminds you of them?)

falling in love by cigarettes after sex

S = Secrets (how open are they with you?)

as i said in ‘Emotions,’ spencer tries to be as open as possible with you. he doesn’t like secrets because he knows they only lead to negative outcomes.

T = Time (how long did it take you to get together?)

it took a good while for you both to realise that there were feelings there that were more than just best friends. it seems everyone else knew before you. and when you both finally did realise there were feelings there, it took another while before you actually acted on them

U = Upset (how do they act when you’re upset?)

spencer being spencer notices immediately when you feel upset. the smallest things let him know. and he hates it. he never wants you to feel sad so he will do anything he can to help you feel better. a favourite of his is to run you a nice, hot bath and make your favourite dinner. then spend the evening cuddling together. he’ll always try to get you to talk through whatever upset you.

V = Vaunt (what are they proud of? Do they like to show you off?)

spencer is quite modest for a genius. he doesn’t like to flaunt how smart he is, or how young he was getting into the FBI. the only thing he ever shows off is his knowledge of everything but you don’t even think he realises when he does it.

W = Warrior (how do they feel about you fighting? Would they fight for you, beside you, etc?)

he’d fight for you and with you any day. for the rest of your lives together.

X = X-Ray (how well are they able to read you?)

spencer can tell when the slightest things is off with you and he can tell when you are feeling positive. he just knows you so well. he has known you for ages and is very in tune with your feelings.

Y = Yes (how would they propose to you?)

i think he would be nervous which would lead to him spouting off different facts about marriage. “did you know 50% of marriages end in divorce?” and you’ll laugh because where did that come from? then he pulls out a ring. “wanna be in the other 50% with me?”

Z = Zen (what makes them feel calm?)

you. just simply being in your presence makes him feel calm. he feels his heart rate slow and his mind calm down. you are all he needs to feel calm and relaxed.

[pitviperofdoom]

I really liked your 'Life Preserver' excerpt and I'd love to read more about it. I liked the interaction between Gerry and Georgie, their characterization and Gerry's description of his relationship with Jon, plus this exchange: “He thinks your mum’s a homophobe, you know.”“You know, he’s probably right? Think she might just hate the idea of love in general, though.”“Messy divorce, I take it,”“Rohypnol and garden shears were involved, so yeah, I’d say it was pretty messy.”

Thanks!

Yeah, Gerry and Georgie surprised me as a really interesting dynamic to explore. In spite of Georgie’s caution around the Entities, Gerry just feels like the kind of person Georgie would get along with, given the people she canonically ends up loving.

Anyway here’s another part I’ve written! This one actually has Jon and Gerry in it.

---

When Jon went in for his next shift, things went smoothly enough to be genuinely suspicious. Tina was his desk partner again, and she greeted him with the same cordiality as always. No one official-looking ever came by to speak with him.

The only hint that anything had happened that night was a campus-wide e-mail paying respects to Daniel Lattimer, one of the subject librarians, who was reported as having “passed unexpectedly”. The message held all of the usual official platitudes and nothing else; Jon had read it word for word several times to be sure.

Someone should have known, shouldn’t they? It wasn’t as if he had been careful about covering his tracks, beyond making his tip anonymous. The library had cameras. He was sure he’d left at least a few shoe prints in all the blood.

But nothing came of it. The first hour passed peacefully, with nothing more exciting than a couple of patrons he had to inform of overdue books.

Jon spotted the familiar dark figure out of the corner of his eye, even before Tina hissed a warning at him. He raised his head to watch Gerard Keay’s approach, chest suddenly tight with nervousness.

How on earth was he supposed to explain this?

“Hey.” Gerard was in front of him already, leaning his elbows on the desk as usual. “Any word on that book? I tried to come in yesterday, but you were closed.”

“R-right.” Jon hesitated. There were several ways he could answer this. He could, of course, be utterly truthful and tell him that he’d burned the thing on account of it being made of meat and killing one of the librarians. He almost laughed at the thought. At worst, Gerard would complain to someone about Jon being unhelpful; at best, he’d find it funny, but he’d demand a real answer once he was done laughing about it.

He could lie and stall by saying that the book was still on its way. But that was a temporary fix at best, and it would only lead Gerard to keep coming in and asking.

And would that really be so bad? Jon shook his head to clear away the thought.

“Right,” he said again. “A-about that. Unfortunately—” He slipped his bandaged hand behind the desk, out of sight. “—we were unable to find the book in storage. It seems to have been marked incorrectly. It happens sometimes. Though not very often, I assure you,” he added hastily. “But it’s been marked down as missing, I’m afraid.”

“Oh.” Gerard’s face was the very picture of disappointment. “That’s a shame. Really did need that one.”

“Terribly sorry for the inconvenience.” Jon tried to sound like he meant it.

It was hard to force down the sheer, overwhelming relief. Just last night he’d regretted his own paranoia, but now? If he hadn’t gone back, if he hadn’t checked for the book…

Well, the library might not have been closed yesterday. And he didn’t have the first shift at the circulation desk. And whoever did might have been someone who didn’t know, someone who wasn’t haunted by the name Jurgen Leitner, who might have taken the book from the cart and handed it straight over—

The unwelcome memory of Mr. Lattimer’s body rose up behind his eyes, juxtaposed over the young man standing before him.

As a child, he’d doomed someone else to a gruesome death that should have been his. So maybe this time… maybe he’d actually…

“Well then,” said Gerard, shaking him out of his bubble of thoughts. “Guess that’s—er, guess I’ll look elsewhere…”

“Right,” said Jon. “Unless there was anything else you needed…?” He tried not to sound too hopeful.

“No, thanks, that’s it,” said Gerard, already turning away. “Thanks for all the help.”

“Oh, I hardly—I mean, I didn’t really do much, in the end.”

Gerard regarded him for a moment, head tilted to one side with a thoughtful look. Then, quite without warning, he smiled at him. “Don’t sell yourself short. You were great.”

“O-of course,” Jon stammered as Gerard turned to leave again. “Oh, wait—wait a moment.”

Gerard looked back. “Yeah?”

Jon dug into his pocket, pulling out the lighter. “Is this yours?” he asked, placing it on the desk. “I found it on one of the tables in the reading room, and I remembered you had it the other day…”

Instead of taking it, Gerard simply flashed him one last grin. “Keep it,” he said. “I’ve got loads.”

“It’s really not good to keep ignition sources in a library,” Jon protested, feeling inordinately flustered.

Gerard laughed, a brief, bright thing, and—

“D’you want to get coffee?” Jon blurted out.

The smile froze on Gerard’s face, before giving way to surprise. “What?”

A stab of terror nearly robbed Jon of his words, before he found his voice again and forged ahead. “Do you—I mean. Do you want to get coffee sometime?” he repeated. Shit. Shit, he was doing this, how was he already doing this? “With me?” He wanted to kick himself, of course he’d know he meant it that way. “I—my shift ends at noon today. If you’re free. I-if you want to, I mean.”

Gerard blinked at him, so utterly bewildered that it might have been funny if Jon’s heart weren’t currently climbing into his throat. “You—wait. Is this… are you asking me on a date?”

He said it so incredulously, as if the idea that Jon would ask him on a date were utterly incomprehensible to him. Rapidly, Jon’s heart sank back down.

“Yes,” Tina leapt in helpfully. “He is. Aren’t you, Jon?”

She nudged him none too gently. “Y-yes,” he said, because it wasn’t as if he could dig himself any deeper. “That—that was the intention.”

“Huh.” Gerard shrugged. “Sure.”

The whiplash made Jon dizzy for a moment. “Really?”

“Yeah. Noon, right? See you then.” With that, he turned and walked out of the library.

Once he was out of sight, Jon slumped over onto the surface of the desk like a marionette with its strings cut.

Tina patted his back. “Proud of you. Go get that goth D.”

***

It wasn’t that Gerry didn’t know it was a terrible idea—just that he’d had worse ones before. He was still breathing after years of them, in fact. So what was one more?

Jon the librarian was far from the first scarred survivor he’d ever met. They weren’t common, precisely, but nor were they unheard of. Technically he was one, and Mum had been as well, before she carved herself up.

But Gerry knew he was an outlier, and as rare as surviving one brush with the Fears was, meeting two of the things and escaping uneaten from both was on a level of its own. But against all odds, when he looked at the wispy little librarian who’d spent the past week being so divertingly helpful, Gerry could see two separate, distinct marks on him, where there had previously been only one. And they really were distinct from one another. The Flesh was like a shark sometimes, content to take one good bite before losing interest and wandering off, while the wisps of the Web still clung jealously. A scar like that could have been left years ago or the day before they met. You could never tell with the Web.

That added to the risk, of course. For all he knew, this was some ploy from the Mother of Puppets to catch him and draw him in. A little cliche, maybe, but Gerry couldn’t fault it for its efficacy.

He’d said yes, after all.

In his defense, it wasn’t every day he met someone with a nice face, a taste for burning Leitners, and enough luck or fortitude to walk away from two different Powers. Nor was it every day a person like that asked him to… well…

People didn’t flirt with him, was the thing. Anyone who knew enough to be worth talking to either wised up and ran the other way, or turned around and tried to take a chunk out of him.

So, yeah. Might as well give it a shot. See what it was like, while he had the chance.

He had til noon to brace himself, anyway. Not enough time to go back to Mum’s and freshen up, which was a shame. She’d just faded out a couple of days ago, so he knew he’d have the place to himself.

Ah, well.

In spite of himself, Gerry found himself turning his face upward with a grin and an excited spring in his step. It’d be a bit like traveling abroad, or visiting tourist traps, or all the other things he indulged in when Mum was gone. See as much of the world beyond his own as he could, before she finally fucked up and got him killed.

A date! Who’d have thought he’d get to check that one off the bucket list?

[jupitermelichios]

10 Manga Recommendations for Quarantine (or any other time)

People seemed to like my previous recs, so I thought I’d do a few more while so many of you are stuck home with some free time to kill. I don’t read a lot of manga these days, and my tastes are somewhat ecclectic, but hopefully there’ll be something in here for you.

20th Century Boys - Naoki Urasawa

Kenji didn’t like that a new doomsday cult had started recruiting in his neighbourhood, but he wasn’t going to do anything about it. As least until a letter from an old friend leads him to realise that the cult’s symbols and mythology are based on a children’s story. A story he and his friends made up thirty years ago. Now he must track down people he hasn’t seen since middle school as he desperately tries to remember which of his friends knew the story... and figure out which of them is leading the cult.

This isn’t just the best manga I’ve ever read, it’s one of the best stories full stop. Even if you think you hate manga, I urge you to give this a try.

Claymore - Norihiro Yagi

Claire was never supposed to be a Claymore. But when Theresa of the faint smile saved her life as a child, she knew there was no other path for her. With few of the supernatural powers granted to her sisters, she struggles to survive as a monster hunter in a brutal world where death is always waiting.

This was serialised in Shounen Jump originally, and it shows in places, but mostly this is a compelling drama, with some of the most startlingly beautiful and horrible monster design in all of fantasy and scifi.

Drrr!!! - Ryohgo Narita (illustrated by Akiyo Satorigi)

Nothing in Ikebukero is quite what it seems. The Russian Mafia sell the best sushi in town, demons are haunting the chatrooms, there’s a new gang on the streets, and if you’re really unlucky, you might just meet the Black Rider. They say its bike whinnies like a horse. They say it killed three men who tried to kidnap a girl. They say it has no head. They say... that it just wants to do the job and get paid like everyone else.

Drrr!!! is an experience. It blends fantasy and realism in ways I’ve very rarely seen done, and delights in subverting your expectations. Characters who appears to fit into archetypes any manga fan will recognise never turn out to be quite who you think they are, just as the story never quite goes where you expect it to.

Petshop of Horrors - Matsuri Akino

Do you want a protector? A companion? A friend? A lover? A child? Whatever you need, Count D has the perfect pet for you (even if they don’t always look like animals). Just remember to read the small print, very very carefully.

While there is, sort of, an overarching plot, these books are portmanteu horror in the old style, a series of barely connected unsettling stories strung together by a shared narrator and a handful of recurring characters. Spoopy more than genuinely spooky, and occaisionally surprisingly touching, this is a great series to dip in and out of.

Death Note - Tsugumi Ohba (illustrated by Takeshi Obata)

“Let's just say this: you will feel the fear and pain known only to humans who've used the notebook. And when it's your time to die, it will fall on me to write your name in my death note. Be warned any human who's used a Death Note can neither go to heaven nor hell for eternity. That's all.“

One of the very rare examples where the source material does live up to (almost all) the hype. Clever, dark, surprisingly apolitical, and just the right amount of very very cheesy.

Tokyo Ghoul - Sui Ishida

Keneki Ken was an extremely ordinary guy, living an extremely ordinary life... right up until the girl he fancied tried to eat him. Now he’s part of the world of Ghouls, struggling to hold on to what’s left of his humanity as all his old moral certainties are stripped away from him. Ghouls are people, they have hopes and dreams and loves and they deserve the right to live just like anyone else. It’s just that to live, they have kill humans.

Did you want to be cool and edgy as a teenager but you never quite had the guts to do it? Congratulations, Tokyo ghoul is for you. Think of it as emergency rations for your inner Goth.

Black Cat - Kentaro Yabuki

Sometimes a family is a legendary hitman on the run from his past, his mysterious boyfriend, a recovering child soldier, and the bisexual thief who keeps inviting herself into their lives.

Okay technically Train and Sven aren’t a couple. Technically. Rins is canon bi though so that’s cool. This book is a lovely little time capsule of the days when shonen manga was inexplicably full of bounty hunters with bizarre superpowers going on wacky adventures, and I love it for that. Plus it’s full of that good-good found family trope and we could all do with a bit more of that in our lives.

Beauty Pop - Kiyoko Arai

Kiri Koshiba is no ordinary teenager. She has a secret, something she hides from even those closest to her. The only ones who know about her special abilities are those she rescues. You see Kiri is secretly... really good at giving haircuts.

This is a deeply silly book, full of deeply silly characters, in which hairdressing is treated with the exact same seriousness that sports animes treat basketball or tennis, and reading it just makes me smile. Sometimes when the world’s a bit shit you just want to read about an undercover hairdresser helping girls with their self confidence and giving them rad haircuts.

Bizenghast - M. Alice LeGrow

Dinah Wherever is more goth than you. She’s got the wardrobe, and the doomed love, and non-specific mental health issues. Oh, and she’s enslaved to Bizenghast, cursed to spend her nights laying to rest the unquiet spirits that haunt the graveyard there and if she fails, she’ll loose her life... or something worse.

The first volume is definitely the standout in this short series, with stunning artwork and detailed world building, but all of it is a fun, creepy, surprisingly dark story, full of the author’s love for old school gothic romance.

The Wallflower - Tomoko Hayakawa

Mine Nakahara is concerned that her neice Sunako is never going attract a wealthy husband with a mysterious heart condition if she doesn’t learn not to be such a shut in. So in desperation, she turns to the only obvious solution - give four well-meaning himbos rent free accomodation in exchange for them teaching Sunako to wash, wear something other than sweatpants, and talk about anything that isn’t horror movies.

Sometimes you don’t want drama, or angst, or deep plot. Sometimes it’s enough to watch four attractive and deeply stupid men try to teach the human equivilent of an angry raccoon how to walk in heels.

[themoonisalwayschanging]

Do you trust me? requested

REQUEST: Can you write about a female reader who meets Ashley and she just sees right through her, like the real her. It's about the first time they have sex and the reader is really self-conscious but ashley makes her feel really safe, and secure?

As I stand in the middle of the crowded room, alone, I curse Teagan under my breath for leading me here once more, she swore she wasn’t going to disappear, yet once again is nowhere to be seen. I text her repeatedly, hoping she tells me where she is so I can get my keys from her purse to leave.

Teagan is obsessed with Hollywood parties. She has been talking to some actor on instagram for a while and he invited us (her) here, while I came to make fun of all the Hollywood clichés together, she uses her time to hook up with the stars.

People all around the room are dancing, high couture and expensive alcohol. A drunk guy that was making out with Teagan earlier pushes me to make his way to the bar and I follow, resigned since Teagan won't text me back.

The bar is almost empty, there are a few guys on the side, shouting as one of them is drinking tequila shots nonstop, next to me there’s a girl playing with the straw in her drink, she is wearing a short skin tight silver dress over her body covered in tattoos and when I take a sit next to her she turns around and smile. She has deep hazel eyes, her nose is covered in freckles and her hair is long and black.

“having fun?” she asks ironically before sipping from her glass. She somehow fits here perfectly though, in this party and with this people, even when she is sitting here all alone. I realize she is someone important, probably famous, but I can’t tell who.

“You have no idea” I reply sarcastically. She offers me her glass and I doubt. She drinks again, showing me there’s nothing weird in it.

“bourbon” she says and I accept her glass, sipping slowly. “I´m Ashley” she offers me her hand playfully and I shake it. Her voice is beautiful, it sounds familiar, it's soft and raspy.

“nice to meet you Ashley, I’m y/n” she smirks and I feel my legs getting weak, she is extremely beautiful.

“Why are you here all alone?” Ashley wonders playing with her hair. The guys that were shouting seem to be over it now, and despite the whole party scenario, this corner is quite quiet, enough for us to speak without screaming.

“Ugh, my friend is nowhere to be seen and she has my keys, so I’m stuck here. Why are YOU here all alone?” she laughs, gosh her laugh is so cute.

“I hate coming to these things, but my friends are having fun” she says pointing to a group of people dancing on the side “at least I get free alcohol, right?” Ashley calls the bartender and orders two shots, she handles me one and I lift it up, she offers me a toast, laughing, “to the shitty party that led me to meet this beautiful girl” I blush and clash my glass against hers, Drinking all of the content inside of it.

After some time, Ashley leads us to the backyard and we spend all night talking.

“What do you do for a living?” she asks me eventually as we are sitting side by side with our feets inside the enormous pool that decorates the backyard of the house. She has been acting flirty since we started talking but I try not to get my hopes up since she seems to be too gorgeous to see me like that.

“Oh, I have nothing to do with all the people in here! I work in a small bookshop downtown and I’m majoring in English literature” she smiles widely “what do you do for a living? You seem to fit in here perfectly” Ashley laughs again.

“I'm a singer, I don’t go by Ashley though, Halsey is my stage name” She says this with a deep sigh, as if saying this was both relieving her from a burden and also scaring her. it took me a bit to realize what this meant, of course I knew Halsey, this confession startled me since I have plenty of her songs on my playlist, but I didn’t recognize her voice before.

“Oh my god, of course I know Halsey! You are so talented” she moves uncomfortably in her chair and when I notice I add “but I like Ashley better” she bites her lip and moves her hand on top of mine.

“so, do you like Ashley?” she asks and I realize the weight in my words. I nod, she smirks, leaning into me and I close the gap between us, kissing her eagerly, when we pull away she holds me and we spend the rest of the party talking and stealing kisses from each other in that backyard.

The night ends too fast, she asks me for my number and Teagan appears after what seems ages, she looks confused as she clearly recognizes Halsey in the first look but I introduce them anyway. When we left I was never expecting to ever hear from her again, she’s gorgeous and successful while I’m just not pretty in comparison, but a day later she asks me out again. We go to have dinner at a beautiful restaurant, and then another date and then one more. 

Since she has been the one inviting me to all of these dates, I decided to take the lead for once, inviting her over to my place for dinner and to watch some movies she has been telling me I MUST watch since the first time we met. I told her she can sleep over and she happily agreed.

 I'm good at cooking, so I take care of the food, making homemade pasta, her favorite. I finish the food by 7, she is coming over at 8. I set the table and wait for Ashley putting some comfortable clothes on, though it is true that I was still trying to look pretty for her.

I wore my hair down, a pair of Nike pink short shorts and a white tee, I couldn't help myself but wear cute underwear, just in case since all of our dates have limited to making out sessions, mostly because of me, since I have been quite insecure in this topic, especially considering the way Ashley looks and the way her exes do compared to me.

She arrives early, bringing a bottle of my favorite red wine with her. She kisses my lips briefly when I open the door for her and I invite her in. She is wearing grey leggings and a basic and tight shorts sleeve that ends mid stomach, fuck, she looks amazing. She moves around my place, my apartment Is small and its walls are mostly covered in books, she stops to read the titles and smiles with some of them.

“would you lend me one, pretty please? your choice” I nod walking up to where she is standing, she smiles.

“of course ash, what about this one?” I move in front of her grabbing one of my favorite books, she sneaks her arms around my waist and drags me closer, she is shorter than me but she manages to rest her face on the crook of my neck and I smile.

“That one seems perfect” she leaves a kiss on my neck, I close my eyes for a second, she grabs the book from my hand and takes me out of my trance. Ashley removes herself from my body and makes her way to the small kitchen. I ask her to sit down in the living room so that we can eat while we watch whatever she wants to show me.

I prepare everything on the coffee table quickly while Ashley looks for the movie she wants me to watch, “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”. She stands up from the sofa and pours some wine on each of the two wine cups resting on the table in front of her, I place the last plate in front of her and she compliments my cooking skills, “oh my god, baby, this looks amazing” we put our plates in our laps and rest comfortably in the sofa, Ashley press play and we start eating.

We ate in a comfortable silence, occasionally looking over to each other, the movie was actually amazing and I understand why she insisted on watching it so much. When we leave our plates on the table once we are done eating, she motions me to come closer and I wrap myself around her, watching the film ending with my head resting on her shoulder. When the credits start, we both feel tired.

“So? What did you think? It's amazing isn’t it?” Ashley asks me excitedly, interested in my opinion.

“it was great honestly, which one are you going to show me now?” Ashley yawns and I giggle “Ash, baby, wanna go to sleep and we can watch whatever tomorrow morning?” she nods, smiling shyly.

“I am getting old so I’m sure I won’t be able to stay awake throughout the three hour movie that’s left” I get up and leave the leftovers of our dinner in the kitchen, Ashley following with the cups on her hands. I wash the dishes quickly as ashley hums to some song looking at the few photos around the place. She finds herself in one.

“Oh my god, when did you print this one? You look so pretty in it.” I laugh, a bit uncomfortable because she looks like a goddess next to me. It’s a photo we took last week when she drove me home after one of our dates. I am smiling widely and I look happy but she looks even better. “What?” She says when she gets not response, “I mean it, you’re gorgeous y/n”. I roll my eyes and walk her way, sneaking my hands around her waist and I shrug her off. 

“Do you need me to prove it to you?” she asks, raising her eyebrows and grabbing my waist again half jokingly, but tighter this time. I freeze in my place under her strong gaze and she moves her hands slowly from my waist, up my back to my neck, where she moves my head so I'm looking right into her eyes. “Because I would like to do that” she adds, smirking and waiting for my reaction.

The truth is I have been over this scenario about a million times in my mind. Indeed the woman I'm dating must be the most beautiful woman on earth so it's just expected I´d fantasize about her a lot… However I can't help but get very self conscious when things escalate, I get afraid she might notice I am not as pretty as she seems to believe, because next to her, I'm definitely not. She notices I get lost in my thoughts and stares with a curious smile, I decide I might as well do as my body urges me too and surrender to the desire.

I move my face closer to hers, our lips almost touching and she closes the gap between them with a tender kiss. My hands find her face and I cup her cheeks allowing myself to let go for now, Ashley's smile grows bigger and she deepens the kiss, I oblige chucking softly at the sudden change in her mood.

“Can we move this somewhere else?” I ask, getting a little braver for a second, unconsciously biting my lip as I wait for her answer. She nods and asks me to guide her. Our lips meet again and I blindly guide Ashley into my bedroom. She takes control again when the kiss becomes rough and her hands find my ass. I let out the smallest moan and she smirks again, my body clearly reacting to her actions. 

Ashley pushes me on the bed carefully next,she is on top as her lips make their way down to my neck where she bites and kisses getting some loud moans from me, her mouth moves to the sweet spot in my ear and to my collarbone before she starts kissing on the fabric of my shirt.  She looks up to me asking for permission with her eyes “can we take this off?” I Nod and I help her take the shirt off, however, I notice my hands moving down to cover the newly exposed skin “why do you cover yourself in front of me?” Ash asks softly while leaving kisses down my collarbone to where my bra is  “you're really beautiful y/n” her hands grab mines and she uncrosses my arms from over my body, again she kisses down where my arms are not covering me “I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you, Y/N, Do you trust me?”

I don't know if I believe her, I don't know if I’m the most beautiful girl she has seen, but i do know I feel safe under her touch, in her arms, in this bed and exposed under her gaze. everything it’s okay just because she's here “I trust you Ash” I say unclasping my bra reassuring my words. 

Ashley compliments my body once again, staring at it as she takes off  the bra I unclasped for her “is this okay?” she asks moving softly over my boobs. I moan in return and even though I see a cocky smile on her lips she is waiting for my permission before doing anything. I shakily answer a simple “yes baby” and she is kissing me again. Her tongue meets mine and the kiss feels desperate already as she hovers over my body.

Her lips move down again, except this time there's no fabric when her kisses descend. her hand grabs my boob and her kisses tease my neck until loud moans leave my lips. Her hands replace her mouth as she takes my nipples between her lips and I don't longer try to hold them back. I want to press my legs together to get some relief and Ashley notices my squirming movements.  “What's wrong y/n?” she teases me “is everything okay?”

“Ash” 

“hm? what baby girl” she asks, drawing on my ribs with her finger.

“Please Ash, I need you!” Ashley chuckles, I notice she's holding back from teasing me any further when her lips meet my neck again and she leaves a wet path down her hand meets one of my boobs and her lips the other; when she bites on my nipple, my hands go to her hair and I pull, earning a little groan from her and I need to push her head further down. Her mouth keeps moving eventually until she finds the hem of my underwear where she stops one more time to ask for permission. I am close to taking off what's left on me myself as I tell her once again I need her touch. She seems satisfied with my answer as she pulls my shorts off in a quick move. 

Ashley uses her nails to scratch down my exposed thighs “Y/N, I love your body” she reassures me one again every few seconds. She is now kneeling in front of me, right in front of the place where I need her the most, and her fingers keep getting close to my sex all of her movements make me whimper in return. I attempt to close my legs once again due the impatience and she keeps them open and moves my panties to the side, touching my center.

“Oh baby, you are so wet for me” She says and I can only reply with a loud moan when her finger moves the wetness up to my clit and starts circling it slowly, I bite my lip to stop the sounds I'm making and she stops. 

I am about to complain as she pulls my panties down and ties her hair in a ponytail in a second. each of her palms rests on a thigh and she then holds them in place when she tastes my entrance with her tongue. I grab her left hand from my thigh as she pleasures me, intertwining our fingers. Her tongue persistently moves to my clit, and her free hand moves to my entrance once again, eventually introducing one finger. 

I cry out loud, pulling her hair carelessly, and she picks up a slow pace with her finger, matching it up with the movements from her tongue.  “Oh, fuck!” I mumble in between gasps. She hums, sending vibrations through my body, signaling she is proud of the reaction she is getting from me. 

She introduces another finger when I start to get used to the feeling of the first one, her movements are fast and steady now, and her tongue keeps teasing me. I notice the way my walls start to clench around her fingers and so does she. 

“Come for me, princess” she says, moving her fingers to my clit and her lips to my entrance. 

In no time I feel the orgasm hit me, hard. I scream her name as I climax, as if I was thanking her for it. When I come down from my high, I see Ashley licking on her finger that was inside of me before. Her eyes find mines and she smirks.

“Here, wanna taste yourself?” She brings her fingers to my mouth and I suck, feeling my own juices on her fingers “You are very sweet” she continues, seductively and proceeds to kiss me on the lips. I kiss her back, moving her underneath me and straddling her, the wetness in between my legs leaving a little spot on her clothes. Her hands rest on my ass when we kiss.

Her short tshirt leaves her abdomen exposed when I push her back in the bed and I move my hands underneath the fabric, slowly, my hands right under her breasts and our lips break apart again. My hands stop moving and my lips go to her neck.

“Can I?” I ask whispering in her ear. Her grip on my ass tightens and she nods.

“yes, please” she smirks.

Part two?

Please send your requests!

[superman86to99]

Superman #84 (December 1993)

Superman takes a short Paris vacation! Like, one day short. What's the worst that could happen?

Oh, man.

So, for the past few issues, we've been hearing about children being abducted in Metropolis. Now we see that they're being kept inside a giant toy house by some creepy bald man in Quasimodo clothes who seems to be obsessed with toys -- a "Man of Toys," if you will. Side note: no wonder the children haven't been found... all the articles about them are just gibberish! (See clip below.)

The kidnapper thinks that these kids' parents don't deserve them, and that they're much better off here, in an underground hideout with a man who threatens to starve them if they don't play with him. (And I do mean literally play, with action figures and stuff.) Meanwhile, as these children cry for help, Superman is having the time of his life. While helping move a stranded ship with some huge-ass chains, Superman spots a sunken galleon with a treasure chest inside and fantasizes about keeping the booty...

...before turning it over to the authorities anyway, the big boy scout. Then, he wakes up Lois at 6 AM and tells her they should go to Paris right now, which usually means your significant other is having a mental breakdown, but in this case they can actually do it. And so, after deciding that he deserves to use his powers for fun every once in a while, Superman and Lois drop everything and fly to France with super-speed for the rest of the day/issue.

Anyway: back to the child abduction! Cat Grant and her son Adam attend a Halloween party at Adam's school, but there's a disturbed weirdo in a hideous costume lurking among the crowd. Yes, I'm talking about Jimmy Olsen in his Turtle Boy suit.

Shortly after that, a guy in a dinosaur costume (see, all the creeps are dressed as reptiles) lures Adam out of the party with the promise of "superb video games." What child could resist that? Of course, that turns out to be the kidnapper and Adam ends up in his hideout along with the rest of the missing children and, worst of all, not a single "Lextendo" console.

The kidnapper gets angry at Adam when he refers to the toys at the hideout as "old-fashioned junk" (he was REALLY looking forward to those video games), and even angrier when Adam tries to free the other kids. Adam is brave and puts up a good fight, but...

And those were Adam Morgan's final words. "Uh-oh."

Next, we have a pretty harrowing scene of Detective Turpin letting Cat know Adam’s body was found, and Jimmy and Perry White taking her to the morgue to identify the body (most people probably wouldn't bring their former boss to something like that, but Perry sadly knows more than most about losing a kid). As for Lois and Clark, they were gone so long that the Daily Planet had time to print a headline about the murders. The issue ends when the lovebirds walk into the office smiling like two people who just spent the night fooling around in Paris... only to feel like jackasses when they find out what happened.

To be continued!

Character-Watch:

And that's it for little Adam Morgan who, unlike the also tragically diseased Jerry White, didn't even get any post-death appearances. Adam went from a little kid scared of Superman, to a huge brat, to a character who was approaching likeability as of last week. That's why I hate it when DC kills off young characters like Adam or Liam Harper: in long-form storytelling, children represent potential. Look at how much Wally West or Dick Grayson evolved over the years compared to their mentors! Sure, there's a huge probability that Adam would have ended up disappearing from comics for 25 years anyway, but who knows, maybe we'd now know him as Teen Gangbuster or something. GangbusTEEN.

This issue also represents a turning point for the kidnapper, who is never named or seen clearly in the story itself but I don't think I'm shocking anyone by spoiling the fact that he's Toyman (it's in the cover, for one thing). In his last two appearances before this storyline, Toyman helped Superman save some kids from Sleez and looked genuinely sad to learn about Superman's death, so this is a pretty dramatic change for the character. We'll find out why he went from big softy to child killer in Superman #85 (but don't get your hopes up).

Plotline-Watch:

The most disturbing part of the issue, all things considered, is still the part where Toyman climbs into a giant crib and hugs a huge stuffed bunny. Look at serial killer Tommy Pickles here:

Don Sparrow says:  “Even with the upgrade, Toyman is still just a man in a suit, a common complaint about Superman’s rogues gallery.” Funny you should say that, because I JUST shared an old Wizard interview in our Twitter in which Dan Jurgens talks about how Doomsday came out of his frustration with the fact that most Superman villains are dudes in suits (plus other interesting tidbits from the era, like how it was actually Roger Stern’s idea to bring back Hank Henshaw, so check out that link!).

Don again: “The entire Superman storyline of this issue feels like filler. Diving for buried treasure and soaring off to Paris -- it all feels like wasted time next to the Adam storyline.” I have a theory that the entire ship sequence is there as an excuse to put Superman in those big chains and make that Spawn joke (which I didn’t get until now, since I’ve always read this issue in Spanish).

Superman says that pulling that big ship was "a little easier than expected" -- that's either another hint that there's something going on with Superman's powers since he came back, or a subtle dig at the state of American ship manufacturing.

Another adorable "window tap" scene for the books, and this is the sexiest one so far. Is it me or has Jurgens started copying more than just Teri Hatcher's hairdo from Lois & Clark? (For anyone who thinks Lois has gotten implants, I refer you to this clip.)

While in Paris, Lois asks Clark if he's ever wondered what would happen if his rocket had landed in other countries. Don: “Clark’s conversation with Lois sounds like a bunch of concepts for Elseworlds stories. We eventually would see a Russian Superman, and a British Superman, but not yet the French Superman. (Hire us, DC!)” Yep, got my French Superman pitch ready, Jim Lee. Or just let us do Russian Superman again, since Red Son wasn’t even the first time you published that idea.

Don once more: “Another thing that makes no sense about the ‘new’ Toyman is his resentment of technological toys—when in previous appearances he himself had deadly high-tech toys to vex Superman over the years.” I especially resent his hatred of video game consoles. Incidentally, I wonder what types of games are available for Adam’s beloved Lextendo. Star Lex 64? Mega Man Lex? Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles & Lex?

No one is more upset at Lois and Clark for going AWOL than Whit. NO ONE. He's so furious that his usually grey mustache turned black.

Patreon-Watch:

As always, shout out to our patrons, Aaron, Murray Qualie, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Samuel Doran, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush and Raphael Fischer! Last month’s exclusive Patreon article was about the recently unearthed sequel to Superman 64 for the PlayStation, featuring Metallo, Parasite, and Lois looking even hotter than in this issue:

Hot damn. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99!

And believe it or not, Don Sparrow has even more to say about this issue. Read his section after the jump:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow​):

I should start off my section with a big caveat:  I flat out hate this issue. There were several weird decisions made in the post-Death-and-Return era (most of them along the same lines of making the Superman titles more grim-and-gritty), and this story was one of the worst of them.  My theory is that, despite the praise and record-breaking sales of the Death and Return storyline, the Superman creative team felt pressure to have more extreme storylines, perhaps in response to the wildly successful Image books coming out at the time.  Between this story, and the upcoming “Spilled Blood” storyline, the Super books take a hard—but temporary--turn into more violent and upsetting storytelling—even though these stories are by the same writers as the previous few years. While death has always been a part of comics, and Superman comics was no exception, there is a jarring glibness and unfeeling toward the way violence is handled in these pages that is quite different from the stories that preceded it.  It’s made all the more jarring by the fact that well-established personalities suddenly veer wildly out of character, Toyman chief among them.  

We start with the cover, and while it is technically well-drawn (by the familiar team of Jurgens and Breeding) it’s also a very upsetting visual.  I think they should have gone with the pieta type pose with Adam and Superman, OR the scary badass bowie-knife Toyman (who apparently has a Cheshire cat smile now) but not both.  But the cover is a good hint at the tonal dissonance of the comic within.

We open with a splash of the now-extreme 90s looking Toyman, with his serial killer shaved head and spooky cloak, ignoring the pleas of hungry kids he has locked up in a tiny jail cell for days at a time (if that sentence doesn’t ring alarm bells for how wrong this is for a Superman story, I don’t know what will). For much of the issue Toyman’s eyes are obscured by glare on his lenses, further de-humanizing a character who was once one of Superman’s more empathetic bad guys.

We cut to Superman tugboating a huge tanker with giant chains and it’s a cool visual (one repeated in the Batman V Superman film).  It feels especially out of place to focus on, given how upsetting this issue is otherwise, but throughout the whole comic, Lois is drawn smoking hot, especially on the two page spread on pages 9-10.

The scenes depicting the actual murder, while still wildly out of place in a Superman comic, are well done, and give a real sense of darkness and menace, which I suppose is the intent.  Perhaps my least favourite visual is the Big Bird stuffie, silently bearing witness to what’s about to occur.

The edges of the panels on get more slashy and off-kilter (to me, looking very much like the layouts more typically seen in Image comics of the day) and I suppose I appreciate the restraint of how little Dan Jurgens shows of the death of a child, showing only a bloody slash on a black background.  This is still a pretty baroque image for a Superman comic, but certainly less violent than it could be, given what is happening.

Cat Grant’s silent horror is well staged, and powerful in its way.   Lastly, Clark Kent bending in sorrow and regret is a powerful image.

While this issue is handled marginally better, and more maturely than other comics on the shelf at this time, I still believe it is one of the biggest mistakes of the era.  Giving a long-established character an unceremonious death for shock value is gross on its own, but making it a child definitely crosses a line for me.  Making it worse is that, while the Toyman is a criminal and a killer, he has shown in past issues (a similar kidnapping storyline involving Sleez) that he genuinely cares for the well-being of children.  So for a long-time reader, this also felt like a betrayal of a long-established, fully developed character.   Adding to the ugliness of this is that Adam dies heroically, trying to free the children who have been caged, unfed, for days, but even in that regard, he fails.  The headline at the end of the issue confirms all the children are dead.  Adam’s death did not buy the other kids enough time to get away. It was all for nothing. Had Adam died, but the other children lived, maybe this issue wouldn’t leave quite as bad a taste. [Max: It’s weird because it’s all told in a way where it’s told in a way where it would make sense, narratively and within the story universe, that the other kids survived, but then it’s almost casually revealed that nope, they died too. A scene of one of the kids relaying Adam’s heroism to Cat in a future issue would have gone a long way.]

Superman doesn’t come off well in these pages, either.  It’s honestly the type of story they should just stay away from, because the more you think about all the calamity that is going on around the clock, the less defensible the whole Clark Kent persona becomes. Superman carving out time to romance his fiancée directly led to the preventable deaths of innocent children—how do you come back from that?

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I’m always looking for hints that perhaps Jimmy or Perry know Superman’s secret identity deep down, and Jimmy’s anger at Lois and Clark on their return to the Daily Planet offices would seem to give that theory some credence, as he’s as angry at them as if he knew Clark really were Superman.  Either that, or he’s ticked that it fell to him, and none of them to escort Cat into the morgue. [Max: Has this issue finally converted you to the “Jimmy is terrible” side now, Don?]

I don’t think I’m the only one who disliked the new Toyman—SPOILERS BE HERE: years later, in Action Comics #865, Geoff Johns retconned this whole story, reverting Schott into the criminal who over-relates to kids, rather than the child-killer of this story.  Apparently the infantile Schott, who speaks to “Mother” a la Norman Bates, is a robot so lifelike it fools even Superman, and the “Mother” he’s constantly replying to was the real Winslow Schott trying to recall the malfunctioning robot. [Max: That’s one Geoff Johns retcon I really didn’t mind, even if it felt kind of derivative of his similar “all the Brainiacs are robots made by the real Brainiac” reveal.]

[gaasaku-fanfests]

Bottle Episode

Title: Bottle Episode Author: mouseymightymarvellous Rating: Explicit Word Count: 3,026 words Summary: Bottle Episode: An episode of a tv series designed to cost as little money as possible, wherein [typically] only the regular cast [or part of the regular cast] is filmed at a single location. Bottle episodes are often slow paced and focused on characterization and relationships, freeing up budget for a big, bombastic episode laden with special effects and action. bottle (n): a container, typically made of glass or plastic and with a narrow neck, used for storing drinks or other liquids. bottle (v): place (drinks or other liquid) in bottles or jars. to bottle something up: repress or conceal feelings over a period of time. Trope: Hokage!Sakura

.

Sakura shuts the door on a set of bone white grins with a decisive snap.

Konoha is the only diplomatic party left in Suna and Sakura recognizes Gaara’s favourite personal guards by sight (even if she—politely—wouldn’t ever admit to knowing their names), but even so, she refrains from sticking her tongue out at Sai when she leaves him at the entrance to coordinate her own personal guard. Appearances must be upheld, even if appearances involve the Hokage entering the Kazekage’s personal quarters holding a bottle of alcohol on the second to last night of the bi-yearly Kage Summit. The door shuts firmly, and Sakura pretends that she doesn’t hear the snickering on the other side. They can gossip all they like between the eight of them, as long as the gossip goes no further.

Or, well. Ino did leave the bottle of Sakura’s preferred local poison on the countertop of the kitchenette in Sakura’s favourite of Suna’s diplomatic suites. She likes the view from the bedroom windows in the morning, small as they are to keep out the sand. There is nothing quite like the sun breaking across the desert in all the world. The bottle was accompanied by a small card with a lipstick print in Ino’s preferred pink as the only signature. Sakura had definitely ignored the small foil packets Ino had also thoughtfully left next to the alcohol.

It’s not like that.

It’s just—

Well.

Even in Suna—the Summit concluded and the trade agreements signed and peace assured for a little bit longer—even now, Sakura cannot be free of the weight of the robes heavy on her shoulders.

“Sakura,” Gaara says, wiping his hands on a towel as he makes his way from his kitchen to greet her in the entryway.

It smells like cumin and baking bread and green things.

She’s spent the last week sitting both next to and across from him at various tables, each of them negotiating on behalf of their village and then negotiating together on behalf of peace. It’s almost strange to see him, now, in loose pants and a worn-looking tee with—inexplicably—the neckline cut out low enough that Sakura can see his collarbones.

“Sorry I’m late.” Sakura smiles at him, and doesn’t look at his hands or the soft hollow of his throat. “My last meeting at the hospital ran over with that new data on the flu your infectious disease unit has been tracking up north. There are some novel genetic markers—”

“Sakura,” Gaara interrupts, his answering smile a little wry and a little small, but still warm. “Unless someone is going to die overnight, I would like at least one evening to talk with you and not have it be about work. Is anyone dying?”

He throws the towel over a shoulder and walks up to her, gently turning Sakura with a palm to her waist.

Sakura moves with him, letting him have her back, and Gaara ease her out of her robe.

His fingers brush the back of her neck. They’re warm, and Sakura shivers.

“People are always dying,” Sakura retorts, sharper than she means to be.

Gaara carefully hangs her robe in the small hall closet, and bends down to pull her slippers out of the basket of house slippers he stores there. (Sakura knows he keeps them specifically for her because they are bright pink with cherries on them, and he’d been so pleased the first time she had come into his apartments to find them waiting for her. Sakura knows he keeps them specifically for her, and she has never known since the first time he shyly offered them to her what, exactly, to do about that.)

He’s kneeling as he carefully helps her slip on one, then the other.

Sakura does not put a hand on his shoulder or in his hair to steady herself; she’s a shinobi, she doesn’t need steadying.

Gaara does not drag his thumb along her instep.

Still, his eyes are green and growing like the plants that she knows will be overflowing his windowsills and tabletops and shelves.

Sakura looks away.

Gaara stands, warm at her side.

He’s not tall enough to loom over her, but Sakura feels delicate and sheltered as he fits himself around her space.

“Come, the food will be ready in a few minutes.”

Sakura follows him along the familiar walk to the kitchen.

They are just Sakura and Gaara, tonight, their titles left on the conference tables of the day, so the little kitchen table has been mostly cleared of what Sakura suspects—if he’s anything like her, which she knows he is, at least in this—is its usual pile of paperwork and briefs and books, leaving only a small, happily blooming succulent and a “thank you” card featuring a hand drawn smiling sun. The table is set with beautiful clay plates and bowls, and Sakura has spent enough time brokering trade deals to recognize Suna ceramics when she sees them.

Gaara returns to the small stovetop, and Sakura peaks into cabinets until she finds a small set of cups, appropriate for the mezcal.

“Here,” Sakura says, perching her hip against the counter at Gaara’s elbow and handing him a cup. “Cheers.”

With the hand not currently occupied stirring, Gaara accepts the cup, their fingers brushing.

“To food in good company,” Gaara offers.

“To no one dying tonight,” Sakura answers.

Their cups tap gently, and neither of them breaks eye contact as they both take a sip.

The alcohol is clear and shocking and bright on her tongue. and Sakura hums contentedly, letting her eyes flutter shut as she savours the warmth.

Like desert storms and the mid afternoon sun up above or lightning flashing down to kiss the sand.

When she opens her eyes, Gaara is still watching her.

Sakura reflexively wets her lips, her tongue catching the last kiss of alcohol there.

Gaara swallows heavily, and Sakura can’t help by watch the motion of his throat.

She feels hollowed out and filled, hungry and wanting and—

“Go sit,” he rasps out. “Food is ready.”

“Can I help with anything?” Sakura asks.

Gaara stops her with his palm ghosting along her side.

She doesn’t remember him turning away from the stove, but he’s facing her, now, and Sakura has to focus on keeping her weight balanced firmly on her heels.

“Sakura,” he chides, “you’re my guest. Go sit. I’m not going to throw you out because you aren’t being productive; I am happy to have you here.”

That catches in Sakura’s throat, and she is the one swallowing now.

She heads to the table, sits.

The food is delicious, and they speak about easy things between bites: Temari’s third pregnancy, Lee’s new genin team’s attempts to singlehandedly complete every D-rank mission in Konohakagure, the books they have read recently, the health of Gaara’s particular orchids, that time Ino got all of Team 10 arrested on suspicion of fermenting revolt when Ino was actually just flirting with the Daimyo’s youngest daughter. Gaara has taken up gardening and cooking in equal measure, and Sakura teases him gently about his eventual retirement and dotage as a little grandmother, her smile easy on her lips and around her fork.

The mezcal is also excellent, and Sakura pours with a heavy hand. It is not enough to erase everything they do not speak about, but it does mean Sakura’s shoulders relax inch by inch, until she can almost forget the weight she usually carries there. She is safe in Gaara’s space—she can hang her robes and her duties and her worries up in the small closet in the hall.

The mezcal and Sakura’s heavy hand also mean that Sakura does not move when she realizes that, at some point, their feet got tangled up under the small kitchen table they are eating at.

Gaara’s gaze on her is as clear and shocking and bright as the mezcal on her tongue, and Sakura wonders what he sees when he looks at her.

Her robe is hanging in his hall closet, but Sakura wears her inheritance on her forehead for all to see. The Konoha delegation will leave Suna in two days. There are eight guards standing watch on this suite of rooms. Sakura carries grief in the curve of her mouth, these days, as she has for years now, and she wonders sometimes in the early morning light if one day the strength she has carved into her bones will not be enough.

“Sakura.” Gaara touches the back of her hand. “Where did you go?”

“Why do you say my name like that?” Sakura demands.

She does not move her hand.

Neither does Gaara.

Gaara watches her for a long moment.

“I don’t—“ He falters for a breath, but steels his jaw, and Sakura is reminded that Gaara is not only growing things kept carefully in greenhouses and in kitchen windowsills, but also the desert storm brewing, the mid afternoon sun blazing overhead, the lightning strike kissing the dunes. He is wearing a t-shirt that he obviously stole from his brother, soft and worn, and, still, Sakura recognizes him as the boy who screamed whole nights for the demon that rode his soul, as a king crowned and bloodied. “I don’t want you to forget who you are, underneath it all. I don’t want you to forget that I see you, underneath it all. You’re my friend.”

Sakura flinches, and reflexively goes to pull her hand to her chest, standing fast enough that her chair topples behind her.

Gaara catches her by the wrist, his thumb flush to her pulse.

“Oh, Sakura, no. Please. Please don’t run. I know I can never keep you, but please don’t run.”

They have never fought and meant it. And Sakura is not one to overestimate her abilities. But she gave up diminishing herself a long time ago. They have never fought with the intention to permanently do harm, and yet they both know who would walk away in the end. (Sakura, equally, is crowned in legacy and blood. Her eyes, too, are green; she is a creature of fire and succession and devouring.) Gaara catches her by the wrist and knows full well he cannot hold her there.

HIs thumb flush to her pulse has Sakura rooted: glass and ozone where sand once danced or a barren lava flow.

“I don’t understand,” Sakura pleads.

Their dishes are mostly clear and the bottle of mezcal is more than half empty.

Gaara’s smile has always been a small and precious thing to tend, to watch grow; as particular as the orchids he loves and even more prone to withering away under the wrong conditions. Sakura has always wanted to pluck each one and press it into a book for safekeeping, all too wary that one day she might not have anything left to her of them but the memories.

Gaara’s fingers around her wrist are warm, and Sakura lets him tug her hand to his chest.

He’s even warmer there, her palm echoing with his heartbeat.

His shirt is as soft as she’s imagined, staring at him in the golden light of the kitchen.

“Sakura,” Gaara manages, helplessly, fond and sad and overflowing with so much they’ve never dared say. “You must know, after all these years. Surely, you must know.”

He bought her cherry covered slippers because he knew they would make her laugh when she was twenty-three and newly invested and feeling more alone than she had ever felt in her life.

Sakura digs her fingers into his shirt, and she thinks she can hear the crackle of the wire that is strung across the distance between their ribs.

Her palm to his heartbeat and his thumb to her pulse.

Gaara’s gaze is as clear and shocking and bright as the mezcal, and he tastes like it, too, when Sakura takes a step around the table so that she can kiss him.

Gaara tilts his head for her easily, her free hand going to his hair, his free hand finding the small of her back.

Sakura’s knee finds space on his chair next to his thigh, and then she’s in his lap and their chests are flush and she suddenly has two hands with which to rake her fingers through his hair, finding a spot behind his ear that makes Gaara hum in the back of his throat.

Gaara kisses her like rain in the desert, and Sakura—in the small part of her mind not currently devoted to cataloguing every inch of his body pressed against hers—wonders what he thinks will bloom in her.

And she is: blooming. She is clear eyed, every touch a shock of brightness lighting her up, the wire taught between their ribs snapped close and electrifying.

Sakura presses herself down into Gaara, and he gives way to her like mountains to glaciers.

The whole world is the two of them caught in the warm light of the kitchen, Sakura fingers tangled in the loose neck of Gaara’s shirt and Gaara’s palms steady against her back, the curve of her shoulder.

“Can I have you,” Gaara asks into the soft space between their mouths as they breathe, “for tonight?”

His eyelashes are painfully blond and Sakura wonders what they’ll feel like against the scars feathered along her stomach.

Sakura wishes she could promise him more than just this night, but her robe is hanging in the hall closet, and she cannot offer anything more: anything more is not hers to give.

“Tell me I can stay,” Sakura orders him.

“Stay,” Gaara begs her. “Let me make you food and grow you flowers and love you. Just stay.”

Sakura kisses him again, biting and clear eyed and resounding.

Gaara’s thumb presses to the pulse thundering in her throat.

“I’m not yours,” Sakura tells him, “I can’t be. But I wish I could belong to you.”

“Let me steal you for tonight,” Gaara begs her. “Let me steal you from Konoha for just one night.”

Sakura kisses him for that.

She would kiss him all night, so that she could make love to him in the dawn creeping through the windows, but they won’t have a morning. Not the two of them.

So, instead, Sakura pulls that stupid fucking shirt over his head, and lets it drop to the ground, drags her blunt nails down his chest, pauses with her palm to his stomach. Gaara gasps like she has gutted him, even has his hands scramble to pull her long skirt up around her waist.

He hisses through bared teeth when he slips his fingers between her thighs, and Sakura’s hips buck reflexively into his touches he presses on her clit through her embarrassingly damp underwear.

“Fuck. Sakura.”

“Yes,” Sakura agrees, “let’s do that.” And she stands so that she can wrench her dress over her head, the colourful caftan forgotten the moment it touches the floor.

Sakura stands in the golden light of Gaara’s kitchen in wearing nothing but her underwear and her desire.

She doesn’t have room to be self-conscious of the blush curving down her bare breasts, too occupied with watching Gaara watch her.

“Why,” Sakura demands, “are your pants so stupid?”

She doesn’t quite remember Gaara standing up, for all that the shock of his palms on her hips, urging her back towards the counter is ringing under her skin. She’s too busy to remember, because she is trying to figure out how his stupid fucking pants come off.

Gaara pulls at her damp scrap of underwear in response, and Sakura steps out of them as Gaara continues to walk her backwards, his hands on her ass boosting her up onto the countertop.

It is not remotely hygienic, but then Gaara is sucking bruises onto her breasts, and Sakura forgets to care.

“Fuck,” she spits out, giving up on his pants and instead slipping her hand down to pinch her own clit. “Fuck!”

Gaara’s hips flex, his cock bumping the back of her hand when he looks down. “Sakura. Fuck.”

“Get your stupid pants off, and yeah—”

He kisses her stupid mouth, kisses her stupid, and then bats her fingers away from her cunt.

Sakura whines against his cheekbone, and Gaara bites at the hinge of her jaw.

“I’ve got you,” he tells her, his lips to the soft skin under her ear. “Can I have you, Sakura?”

Sakura takes his cock in hand in response and tilts her hips so that he slips easily through her folds, head catching for a breathless second, slick and hot and shocking.

Gaara’s fingers press bruises into her hips.

“Sakura,” he chokes out, pleading.

Sakura shifts her grip and tilts the angle of her pelvis, and shivers and the stretch of opening to him.

Gaara holds himself completely still, his breath dammed behind his teeth, and Sakura slowly sinks her weight down, until their hips are flush and his cock is completely sheathed in her.

“Let me forget?” Sakura begs him.

Gaara isn’t a particularly large man, but he fits a hand to the small of her back and the other to her hip, shoulders curving around her, and she feels caught by the force of him.

“You’ll remember this,” Gaara promises her. “This is yours to keep.”

Tonight. The taste of his mouth. The warm kitchen light caught in the soft hollow of his throat, between his collarbones. The sweetness of his fingers on her clit as he fucks into her with purposeful strokes.

But not him.

Sakura kisses him again, and urges his hips faster with her hand to his ass.

Neither of them can keep the other.

So Sakura kisses Gaara like tomorrow is dead and there is only this breath and then the next.

Enough time, and glaciers can reshape the world. But they don’t have time for that. They have time only for this: lightning kissing the sand, and the glass left in the aftermath.

Sakura presses her forehead against Gaara’s, and lets herself believe in the blooming there, amidst all that green.

[vamonumentlandscape]

Mount Vernon and Charlottesville (again)

Josh’s Perspective:

I have fond memories of going to Mount Vernon when I was about five years old. I remember it was a chilly autumn night, so there was seasonal hot apple cider available. It was delicious! I do not remember much else though, not even the house tour. The visit during our research would allow me to get a better understanding of what the site continues to maintain about America’s first president. I joined Tomi and Dr. Sherayko in starting with the gift shop before heading up to the museum and mansion only to find many massive school groups gathered. Such a sight would have been unthinkable a few months ago, but it is great to see that people of all ages are getting to go out again. Tomi purchased a few items, but I decided to browse. It was enlightening to see books about Ona (Oney) Judge and other enslaved persons owned by the Washington family alongside material about the founding fathers.

When we entered the museum, we decided to start with the exhibit titled Lives Bound Together: Slavery at Washington’s Mount Vernon. Seeing this felt especially appropriate since we visited on Juneteenth, which celebrates the effective end to American slavery two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. The initial film that we watched set the tone for an honest presentation of George and Martha Washington as slave owners. The inclusion of voices from descendants of the enslaved is an indispensable element of the exhibit as they can tell the story of their ancestors better than any historian can. The material culture presented throughout the dim display cases provides visitors an opportunity to see what life was like for the enslaved community of Mount Vernon. There were a few things that did not seem right to me. At every turn, excuses were floated out for Washington. Yes, he expressed concern for the continuation of chattel slavery in the young nation, but he and his family were still slave owners for his entire life. When one of the panels mentioned that Washington only punished the enslaved when necessary, I got frustrated. Just because punishments were used occasionally does not mean he was good to the enslaved. There is no such thing as a good slave owner. George Washington only freed the enslaved persons that he owned upon his death when he did not need them anymore. For someone that our country holds in such high esteem, Washington was still a slave owner. That is an undeniable fact. I appreciated the narratives presented for famous members of the enslaved community at Mount Vernon, such as Ona Judge, Frank Lee, and Hercules. Their stories matter just as much, if not more, than the people that owned them.

After walking through the next exhibit in the Education Center, which was just a shrine to Washington’s military and political career (including a 4-D film experience), we were all unsettled with what Mount Vernon was doing. Monticello had done a much better job in presenting the full history, flaws and accomplishments, of Thomas Jefferson. We headed down towards the tomb of George Washington and the burial ground for the enslaved. I was glad to see that many people gathered around in the area of the enslaved burial ground. The memorial is located around a marker that was placed in 1929 by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. Since the language was a bit outdated, a new memorial was placed in 1983. It was designed by students of Howard University. So many stories are unknown about the many people buried in this place, and I wish we could know more. Some laminated cards seemed to be out only for Juneteenth informing visitors about a few of the enslaved, but there needs to be a more permanent piece of signage to respect the memory of all. I did appreciate the member of Mount Vernon’s staff playing solemn music on a fife as we paid our respects.

To conclude our visit, we headed back up to the mansion and saw some of the livestock that Mount Vernon cares for along the way. The wait to get inside for the tour took a little longer than any of us were expecting, but we rushed through as soon as we got inside. Some interpreters seemed a bit more knowledgeable than others and the experience was less than satisfactory. There was no real critique of the Washington’s when we were inside the mansion, which needs significant revision. I am not saying that George Washington is on the same level as Jefferson Davis and that we need to remove all statues that were put up in his memory, but we do need to be honest with ourselves. Washington was a man with flaws and his seemingly pristine legacy at Mount Vernon should be complicated. The private organization that owns and interprets the property can do a better job to ensure that everyone can see themselves equally. This may come with serious actions to increase diversity in staff and those that visit.

Though we were all fatigued after the day at Mount Vernon, we made a final stop in Charlottesville before returning to Lynchburg. The George Rogers Clark statue near the University of Virginia is slated to come down later this Summer. The reasoning behind this decision is the depiction of Native Americans. When we saw it in person, I was horrified to see the Native Americans being shown to be subservient and cowering in fear to the explorer on horseback. Colonization had disastrous effects on Native Americans throughout the North American continent. A negative presentation of any tribe or nation does nothing to help the survival of their culture. The University is making the right decision in taking the statue down and discussing a replacement to best honor the culture of the original inhabitants of North America. I am confident that UVA will do the right thing to show that Native Americans anywhere are not cowardly and disappearing people. That kind of monument and education is essential, especially for Virginia groups like the Monacan Indian Nation.

Tomi’s Perspective:

As with most of the sites we have visited, I had not been to Mount Vernon before. I was looking forward to seeing the historic home and museum dedicated to our first president. We entered the gift shop first since we were a little early getting to the site. I picked up quite a few things as I was very impressed with the wide selection of items. My excitement grew after shopping. We walked on a short path to the visitors center and even saw a very cute ram on the way. The funniest part about the whole day was that this little ram would end up being our favorite part of Mount Vernon. The visitors center was packed with guests eager to learn. The staff was kind and pointed us to the maps and audio tour devices. The maps were in a wide array of languages, making the park accessible to a diverse group of visitors. Since I am learning German in the fall and Dr. Sherayko speaks the language, we both picked up one of the German maps for fun. As we were looking where to go, the beginning of our misgivings with Mount Vernon began. The map was not very well done and I got extremely frustrated with this as it was not to scale. Josh and Dr. Sherayko both thought my map frustrations were funny, but by the end of the day we were all feeling that way towards Mount Vernon.

After deciphering the ultra confusing map, we ended up at the museum. We were all very excited to see the Lives Bound Together exhibit on Washington and the enslaved. This exhibit was a breakthrough for the organization as it came out in 2016. It was only supposed to last one year, but the foundation got grants for it to spend extra time in the museum. Once the pandemic hit, the exhibit was extended again. It will finally go on as a travelling exhibit after July 11, 2021. As soon as you walk in you are faced with large panels in a circular room with Washington’s bust in the middle. All of the panels detail the “complex and painful” story of slavery at Mount Vernon. Each of them was honest and told truths about Washington’s slaveholding that had not been shared so explicitly before. One of the hardest hitting facts was that there were over 500 enslaved people at Mount Vernon over Washington’s lifetime. In the beginning here, we noted that it also said he freed his 123 slaves in his will and that he was the only founding father to do so. Though this is true, this fact was unpacked a little more as we went through. The exhibit itself was long and had a lot of reading. This one exhibit was in a space the size of the Tredegar Civil War Museum’s exhibition room. For us, having seen so many different sites over the past few weeks, we know that to truly grasp your typical tourist an exhibit cannot be so long winded. Of course Josh, Dr. Sherayko, and I analyzed the panels as best we could, but even to us it began to be saturated. The worst part was that there was a lot of repetition. It seemed every panel restated something else in different words. Remember back to the fact I shared earlier: Washington freed his 123 slaves in his will and was the only founding father to do so. As we entered the third room, there was yet another panel on the wall about this, but this time there was more to this fact in smaller print than before. Yes, Washington did free his slaves in his will, the ones that he owned himself, but not after his death. In his will his slaves were to be freed at the time of Martha Washington’s death. Mind you, not only did Martha own slaves, but she had over 30 enslaved people she had inherited from her family. Martha owned 153 slaves when Washington died. Why was this mentioned in small print? Just as Josh mentioned our concerns over the extended praise the exhibit was giving to Washington, this was another part that did not sit well with the group. The long, repetitive, overly praising, and not so clear Lives Bound Together exhibit was overall very disappointing. It is wonderful they are talking about the lives of the enslaved and including descendants, but we all feel like the exhibit could have been much better.

After experiencing Lives Bound Together, we went to the other part of the museum entirely devoted to Washington. Sadly, it was hard for me to enjoy the very patriotic exhibits to Washington. I do believe that we can look at the legacies of our founding fathers and be proud of their brilliance in creating the United States. But, it was very hard for me to do so when there isn’t complete honesty about their slaveholding pasts. When comparing the honesty of Monticello and Montpelier, Mount Vernon was subpar. I wished that I could have enjoyed our 4-D experience, the walk through Revolutionary times, and all of Washington’s history, but I could not.

On our way to the mansion tour, we made a few stops at the enslaved peoples exhibits. These were well done in preserved Slave Quarters. This was enlightening to see after the experience we had in the museum. It was interesting to note that there had once been a store dedicated to Martha Washinton in one of the Slave Quarters. It was still on the map and there was still a sign on the door, but it seemed to have been closed for a while. I wish I would have asked one of our guides why this was changed. We were all happy to see many visitors by the enslaved peoples quarters and learning about their roles at Mount Vernon. After this, we walked to the enslaved people’s burial grounds and to the Washington’s family tomb. Of course it was moving to see the site of our first president's burial, but when we walked over to the enslaved people’s cemetery, we were all moved to near tears. With a flutist playing Amazing Grace and other beautiful songs as we observed the solemn site, we read through some of the stories of those who were buried there. It was powerful to stand where so many men and women that had once been forgotten about, but now remembered by name, had been laid to rest.

After climbing the hill from the cemetery, we were only 10 minutes away from our house tour. Sadly, they were running very behind and our tour that was supposed to be at 2:10 ended up being at 2:30. During those 30 minutes standing in the heat, Dr. Sherayko filled the time by teaching us new German words like enttäuscht. The house tour only lasted 15 minutes and was quite an odd experience. In the first room, our tour guide slipped up and used the word “servant” to describe the enslaved population. In the end she corrected herself, but that shows where Mount Vernon’s interpretation has been. Going through the home quickly, seeing the horrid green paint on one of the walls that was said to be Washington’s favorite, and then to end with a really odd tour guide sealed the deal for us to head home from Mount Vernon.

On our way out we stopped by the new Ona Judge National Historic Sign. I was beautifully done and we were so happy to end such an up and down day at Mount Vernon on such a high note. Josh and I were happy to end our trip smiling together in front of this wonderful sign.

Despite all of us being deliriously tired, we made a pit stop in Charlottesville to hit Trader Joe's and grab dinner. At dinner Dr. Sherayko reminded us of a statue we forgot to see on The Corner at UVA that is due for removal. Even though we were all spent, we made the trip. The statue of Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark does little to show his heroism. He is best known for defeating the British in quite a few battles and earning the French’s trust, but he also has another legacy that is shown in the monument to him. “CONQUEROR OF THE WEST” is the title given to Clark as he sits on his horse, reaching for a weapon to use against Native Americans. Clark fought and took Native American land in many battles. After the Revolution he was even given the position as Indian Commissioner. Though this statue may accurately represent one of his legacies, it puts it in a celebratory light. Celebrating the destruction of indigenous peoples lands, people, and assets is nothing to be proud of and have a statue for. We are all quite happy UVA is choosing to take this statue down.

After grabbing some delicious ice cream at Kilwins, we randomly saw Dr. d’Entremont, our American History professor, walking across the street. I embarrassingly stuck my head out of the window and called out to him. We pulled over and chatted about what we all were doing in Charlottesville. He mentioned to us another site we should check out that is actually no longer there anymore. There was a Confederate statue on the courthouse lawn that was removed last summer. There isn’t even a base left, so in our initial trip we would have had no idea to look for it. We all mosied up the street together and looked where the old statue used to be. We ran into a resident of apartment buildings right across the street who expressed fond memories of the old statue, the Lee statue that was only a few blocks away, and the Clark statue. She told us about walks along this street with families, how there would be a live nativity scene at Lee Park, and how her fathers law office was right across from the Clark statue. She understood mostly why they were being taken down, she said, but she felt like it robbed her of childhood memories. We all listened to her touching story, but what she may not understand is that there is a significant population of African Americans and other citizens who are unable to have such fond memories. These statues that are entrenched in the Lost Cause and have racist sentiments leaving the monument landscape allow for a more inclusive community where all can create similar memories to hers.

[monstersandmaw]

Male lizardfolk x female reader (nsfw) *Commission*

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

A commission for @ivymemnoch, featuring a nerdy lizardfolk boy (colouring/design based on a European green lizard) and a tall reader. This is the first of my five commissions to be completed and posted on here, and since it’s a paid commission, it doesn’t get early release on Patreon. Enjoy!

8144 words, no warnings, only fluff, some geekery, and some nsfw at the end. I will add though that I discovered that snakes aren’t the only reptiles to have two penises... lizards do too.

---

After a draining, all-day session in the recording studio, the last thing you wanted was to step out of the soundproofed booth and hear the relentless thrumming of raindrops on the windows.

The producer called over to you, briefly drawing your attention away from the foul weather, and grinned. “That was great! You really nailed her character. I think we can press on with the next section on Monday.” The sphinx smiled at you and stretched slightly before adding, “You have a good weekend now. Rest that voice of yours!”

You smiled and turned to look out of the nearest window with a grimace sliding onto your face. “Ugh. What a day to leave my umbrella behind,” you muttered. “Anyway, see you.”

Lingering just a moment more in the doorway of the recording studio, you eyed the rain and then - resigned to smelling like a wet werewolf - made a dash for it. Three seconds after you’d left the building, it doubled in strength and began to thrash down. Up ahead, still illuminated despite the fact that it was after five o’clock, was a shop you’d often thought about going in, but had never made time to venture inside. With an indignant squawk as the universe nudged you not-so-gently towards the comic book store by dripping water down your collar, you hurtled across the empty street, splashing through rapidly-forming puddles, and shot inside, soaked.

Standing on the mat for a moment, you shivered and gazed around at the room beyond. The walls were lined with bookshelves containing relatively ordinary looking books, and in the centre of the room was a lower stand displaying comics. On the top of this shelf, however, was a small army of figurines from a plethora of games and movies, and as you spotted a favourite of yours, you grinned. This place was nerd nirvana.

At the back of the room, surrounded as if in a shrine by a small alcove dedicated to arts and crafts and prop-making supplies for tabletop games, was the counter and cash register. The figure sitting behind it had looked up as you burst into his slice of peaceful heaven and the movement of his colourful head drew your eye over to him. Tall, slim but clearly muscular, with lime green skin speckled with gold and a wash of vibrant blue across his throat and up his cheeks towards friendly, golden eyes, the lizardfolk looking at you in mild surprise was frankly gorgeous.

You blinked stupidly for a second and then blurted, “I promise not to drip on any of the books.”

He grinned, a wide, warm smile that showed a row of pointed white teeth. “Appreciate it,” he said. His amber, unblinking gaze shifted to the rain and he said, “Gods, it’s really throwing it down out there.”

“Yup. I didn’t make it more than a hundred yards from work before bolting for cover. Nice place to duck into though,” you added, eyeing the figurines and graphic novels around you.

“You work near here?” he asked, setting down the tiny model he’d been painting. His clawed fingers were surprisingly slender and delicate.

You nodded. “Currently, at least. I’m a voice actor. The recording studio is just round the corner.”

“Sweet!” he exclaimed. “You voiced any characters I might know?”

You shrugged. “Maybe? I mean, Eliana from Ice Dragon Chronicles is probably the one I’m most known for? Mostly it’s just small parts for all sorts of things though. She was a rare break…”

“No way!” he breathed, “That’s awesome! Oh wow…” and he practically giggled with delight. His blue throat flushed a darker, more vibrant colour too. “That’s so cool. I’m sorry - you probably just wanted to browse in peace, or even just stay out of the rain. I’m sorry.”

Laughing softly, you said, “You know what? I’ve always wanted to check this place out, but I don’t really know where I’d start… I’ve read a few Manga, but I’d like to try a graphic novel…”

He stood, revealing just how tall he was. You were pretty tall yourself, for a human, but he stood easily a head higher than you. He blinked slowly and grinned, twitching his head towards the shelves along the walls. “Here’s one I always recommend to get people started. I warn you though, it’s a slippery slope… If you like this one, you’ll be obsessed in no time. I’m Bik, by the way.”

“I think I can handle it,” you smiled and he chuckled, handing you a slim but beautifully designed book with a dragon on the front and a female knight on a chestnut charger.

The art style was gorgeous and the writing seemed pretty good quality too, and as you leafed through the first few pages, you found yourself drawn in to the story about the female knight and the dragon. Finally you glanced up at him and said, “I’m assuming you don’t want me to read it all here right now…”

“It’d be nice if you bought it,” he grinned playfully.

He’d just reached out to take it from you when the door opened and a hunch-shouldered werewolf pushed inside, having just shaken the worst of the weather off on the doorstep all over their companion. The person behind her was a tiny, slender, and extraordinarily pretty young woman with pastel lilac hair that for some reason looked natural rather than dyed. Despite her almost innocent, childlike looks, she seemed decidedly furious about the soggy insult from the werewolf. In turn behind them came a figure who would have blotted out the daylight in the doorway had there been any to speak of outside.

You’d never met a hobgoblin before, and you tried not to stare as he lumbered in after the other two who had come to an abrupt halt at the sight of Bik and you standing together with your new graphic novel between you. The grin on the werewolf’s face made you think of feeding time at the zoo, and Bik clearly noticed it because his lithe tail swished a few times behind him in annoyance.

“Shall I take that for you?” Bik asked, offering his elegant hand again for the book and leading you over to the till so that you could pay for it.

You smiled and nodded, aware that the small group behind you were muttering between themselves. Bik was obviously aware of it as well, and seemed irritated by it, though you weren’t sure why. As you fished out the right money from your wallet, he muttered, “My D&D group… We meet every Friday. I’m sorry about them.”

“They seem nice,” you smiled, trying to reassure him. “You know, I’ve never played.”

“Really?” he asked, his golden eyes flashing brightly for an instant.

You shook your head and took the book from him, sliding it into your bag to keep it dry. “One thing at a time, eh?” you grinned before he could invite you to join in and he laughed.

“Hope to see you back again,” he added sheepishly. “There are some others I can recommend to you, whether you like that one or not.”

You nodded. He seemed so cute with the way he tilted his head and blinked his big eyes every now and again. His colouring was also astonishingly pretty, looking like a mosaic of gold and green all along his back, with that vibrant zing of blue around his throat. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” you said as you turned to go, and you really meant it.

While you were walking down the row of books towards the door, grateful that the rain seemed to have lessened considerably, you heard the werewolf dig her friend in the ribs and mutter, “Talk about your type!”

“Shut up,” Bik hissed. “Or she won’t come back.”

Of course, you did find yourself returning to his shop, though not on a Friday evening. You were sure his friends were nice, but you weren’t really there to meet them; at least, not just yet.

Bik’s face lit up when you stepped inside and he hopped down off the counter where he’d been sitting like a naughty schoolboy, swinging his legs and reading a comic which sat in his lap. “You came back!” he chirruped as he set it aside and came over. He wore tight-fitting jeans with a big hole tailored in the back for the thick root of his tail, and a blue t-shirt with a faded print on.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” you asked, aiming for playful but still coming across as a little shy, perhaps even coy. “You said you had more recommendations for me…”

“You liked it then?”

“Loved it! The twist at the end was amazing.”

His toothy grin made your stomach flip over and you glanced away as a blush rose up your cheeks.

You spent the next half an hour dissecting every detail about the first book he’d recommended, and from there, he chose three others that might suit.

Over the next few weeks, you returned to the shop regularly, and on one blustery August afternoon, you found him preparing some props for his next D&D session. Instead of talking books, you asked him about them, and he tilted his head in that adorable way he had, glancing over the half-finished figurines and what looked like a maquette of an old castle ruin or something.

“Did you make that too?” you asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah. It helps with the game, but honestly I just enjoy making stuff…”

“They’re beautiful! You could work in the props department at a film company or something.”

His blue throat became so vibrant in contrast with his lime green skin that it almost hurt to look at him, and he half turned away. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I get a lot of free time in the shop; fellow nerds aren’t too thick on the ground here, if you know what I mean. Hey, listen,” he added, scratching the back of his head with a clawed finger. “I’ve… uh… I’ve been wondering if maybe you’d like to come along to a session one day? You don’t have to take part or anything if you don’t want to, and we are, like, halfway through this campaign, but if you wanted to you could fill in for one of the NPCs or something… But… uh…” He trailed off, embarrassed and picked up one of the half-finished mimic chests on the counter top.

You watched as he turned it over in his delicate fingers and then chuckled. “You know what? I’d love to.”

At that, he dropped it and spun back around. “You’re serious?”

“Sure! Why not?” you asked, stooping to pick it up and handing it back to him. “Should I bring snacks?”

“Oh my god, could you get any more perfect!” he blurted and then laughed, staring down at the miniature mimic in his hands as if hoping that it might just eat him up on the spot. “Snacks would be amazing, but you don’t have to. Usually we take it in turns to bring something. It’s Oleander’s turn this Friday.”

“Oleander?”

“I don’t know if you remember her, but she’s the tiny one with the purple hair. She’s half fae and all sass. She bakes the most amazing sugar cookies though…”

“Got a sweet tooth then?” you asked and he nodded.

“Duly noted. Tell me about the others? Was the big one a hobgoblin?”

Bik nodded. “Yeah, that’s Jos. He’s kind of shy, but he’s great once you get to know him. He’s playing this tiny elven bard, and she’s -” he broke off, realising he was about to go off on a long and potentially quite boring waffle about their characters. Clearing his throat, he said instead, “Anyway, so yeah, that’s Jos. The werewolf is Emma. She’s… a bit brash and loud at times, but she means well.”

“How do you guys all know each other?” you asked, moving over to examine the figurines on the counter while he talked.

“From school, actually,” he laughed, setting the mimic back down. “It’s the typical - stereotypical I guess - thing of a bunch of rejects forming a bit of a ragtag band, and we’ve just been best mates ever since.”

With a fond smile, you firmly agreed to come to their next session.

You showed up with a bag of cookies, not wanting to seem tight but equally not wanting to try and one-up the resident baker in the group. You were also running a tad late after the recording session had run over, and the door was locked when you arrived at quarter past seven, and you had to bang on the glass repeatedly until Bik scuttled out to rescue you.

“I’m so sorry!” he said as he stepped to one side and let you in. “I thought I left it off the latch for you! I should also have given you my number. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine!” you laughed as he cringed. “But I wouldn’t say no to having your number…”

He went still and then smiled.

You followed him into a storage room at the back of the shop which had been decked out with flickering LED candles, and in the centre of the room was a round table set up for their game. They hadn’t really started yet, and Oleander was, to your surprise, sitting in Jos’ lap. He pecked her affectionately on the top of the head and picked her up, setting her back down on the ground. The werewolf, Emma, snuffed at the air and turned around, tail wagging from between the slats of her chair.

“Hey!” she grinned, leaping up and stepping over to hug you. “I’m sorry. I’m a hugger. You made it though! And…” and she sniffed ostentatiously, “And you brought goodies!”

“I couldn’t not bring goodies,” you chuckled, handing the modest bag of cookies to Bik.

“Tibikthio,” Emma said in a mock-formal tone to Bik, “You picked a good one.”

You turned slowly to the lizardfolk who had closed his eyes in semi-horror. “I hate it when you use my full name,” he groaned.

“Tibikthio…” you repeated. “I like it…”

You caught the tiniest flicker of something cross his face but it was gone a second later.

“Well he hates it!” Emma barked. “Come on, pull up a chair.” She adopted a silly accent, like some old crone, and added, “There’s plenty of room, m’dear!”

Smiling, you glanced at Bik, who still looked a bit embarrassed about the whole name thing, and then you settled in between him and Emma as the game began.

To start with, you stayed on the periphery, letting them tell their story and act it out. Some of them would have made good voice actors, though Oleander tried a bit too hard in places. But they were having an absolute blast. Bik was the dungeon master, weaving elements of improv and story-crafting seamlessly into one narrative, though there were some gaffes and hilarious moments when it all fell apart. By the end of the session, you had cried tears of laughter until your stomach hurt, and had had your heart in your mouth for the entirety of one fight in a long-lost temple.

It was past ten when they wrapped up, and Bik insisted that they just leave everything there for next time. “It’s late,” he said, “And who wants to tidy up now anyway…?” He was met with a chorus of nods and yawns.

Your stomach growled though as you stood and you felt a bit light-headed.

“You ok?” Bik asked, head tilting quizzically. “You look a bit squiffy… Didn’t make you queasy with all the guts and goop at the end of the fight, did I?”

Reassuring him, you told him you had just missed supper that night because of work, and he looked horrified. “There’s a place round the corner that’s open til midnight. You want to grab something?”

Your initial reaction was to refuse politely and say you’d rustle something up when you got home, but you happened to catch Oleander’s violet eyes as she looked from Bik to you with what could only have been described as a look of hope on her face, so you took a gamble and nodded. “Sure, I’d like that.”

Bik shut up the shop and bid his friends goodnight. Oleander winked at him but offered no comment before demanding that Jos carry her home, which he dutifully did. Bik caught you looking at them and smiled. “They’ve been together since they were sixteen. Real high school sweethearts.”

“They’re adorable,” you offered. “I mean, they’re kind of polar opposites, but… it’s nice.”

“There’s hope for those of us who tend to prefer other species…” Bik muttered playfully. “Come on, it’s not far.” As you walked along the empty street, he asked, “Did you have fun?”

“I did,” you replied honestly. “I had no idea it was so…” you waved your hand while you searched for exactly the right word.

“Nerdy?”

You snorted a laugh and corrected him. “Complicated… involved… complex…”

He shrugged casually and shivered. “It’s what you make of it, I guess. We’ve been plotting this particular campaign for months. It’s nice to be able to play it finally!” He shivered again and hugged his bare arms around himself, claws scratching slightly on his rough skin.

“Are you cold?”

He nodded. “I forgot my jacket. I’m not very good with the cold. It’s a lizardy thing.”

The evening wasn’t particularly chilly, but you supposed he was cold-blooded.

“You want my jacket?” you asked. “I think your shoulders are slim enough that it’d probably fit you.”

He shot you an odd look. “Isn't the guy supposed to be the one to offer that to the girl?”

“Only if you stick to stuffy old gender roles,” you grinned. “You want it or not?”

“Yes please,” he mumbled and took it off you with a grateful smile. He looked odd wearing it, but he burrowed into it for the remainder of the short walk to the late-night restaurant.

The two of you sat down and chatted, and you remarked on just how relaxed it felt.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s… It’s nice. I’m glad you got rained on all those weeks ago…”

“Me too,” you laughed. He was a dork, but you liked that he felt genuine, and that his sense of humour was a bit off the wall.

The restaurant wasn’t fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but the food they served looked amazing. Run by a big Highland minotaur with a massive belly and a hearty laugh, it offered exactly the kind of meal you needed after not having had much all day, and the two of you took a seat in a quiet corner on some comfortable, diner-style benches.

The lizardfolk who took your order reminded you of a gecko, and had pinkish colouring and large, blue eyes. While you had always been drawn to lizardfolk, somehow no one seemed to compare to Bik lately.

While you waited for your food, Bik interrupted your musing and asked, “What made you get into voice acting? Maybe next time you can voice some of the other characters they meet…?”

“I think I’d like that,” you admitted. “Normally everyone just asks me to do impressions of famous people, you know, because I have an ear for accents and all that.”

He smiled and rested his chin in his hands, staring at you unblinkingly. It might have made anyone else seem a bit intense, but with him it just seemed endearing. As much as he loved to tell a story, he seemed just as happy to listen to one too.

“Honestly, I kind of fell into it. I did music and drama at college and was all set to go down the ‘traditional’ acting line, but I found I was more comfortable bringing characters to life with my voice than my entire body. It’s still really hard work though. Most people reckon that if you can do a few accents or a funny voice, that’s it, but it’s so much more than that.”

He nodded in agreement. “Oh absolutely! I mean, I think I gathered as much just from what we do in our little amateur group. We all sit round a table and we say our ‘lines’, and we all bring our characters to life as convincingly as we can. We’ve been doing it for years, but we’re still not very good!” Bik grinned at you, showing all his teeth, and you smiled back. A moment later he added, a bit dreamily, “I still can’t believe you voiced Eliana. She’s one of my favourite characters ever! I love that game. I wish she’d been a playable character…”

You laughed, honestly a bit bashful.

Before it could become awkward, your food arrived and the two of you chatted some more around mouthfuls of delicious, humble, homely food until you thought you were going to burst.

“Oh man,” you groaned, sitting back in your seat. “I won’t need to eat for a week!”

Bik smiled and said, “I actually probably won’t eat for a week.”

“Wow, that’s…”

“Economically beneficial?” he snickered. “True. I’d rather be like that than like Jos. He has to eat six meals a day just to fuel his body.” He leaned on the table and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper, “And you know what? Oleander eats just as much as he does.”

“No way!” you gasped. “But she’s tiny! How does she do it?”

“She’s half Fae,” he said. “There’s probably magic involved.”

“Lucky her,” you muttered. “Though on second thoughts, grubbing up six meals a day sounds like a lot of effort. But seriously though, I am so full.”

The minotaur who owned the place came out at that moment and said in a heavily accented rumble, “Ach, too bad! I was gonna offer you’s some dessert!” He waggled a pair of menus at you hopefully.

“We’ll just have to come back next week,” you said and the minotaur laughed heartily.

Bik seemed sleepy after the heavy meal, but he walked you back to your place and you exchanged an awkward hug on the threshold. You got the sense that it wasn’t just you who wished it had been more, but neither of you was ready to make that leap just yet.

That first Friday was the first of many trips to the shop to watch them play D&D together, and after only a few weeks, you began to join in more activelyn. And so you found yourself lending your vocal cords to street merchants and beggars, high nobles and sea captains as the unlikely group made their way across their fictional land. The tables had turned a bit, and now it was you who made them helpless with laughter, even mimicking Oleander’s very particular speech patterns when the group ran into a mimic.

“That’s amazing!” she said. “Are you sure you’re not Fae?”

“No,” you said, “I mean, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m very ordinary…”

“You’re not ordinary at all!” Bik blurted and everyone burst out laughing.

“We all know that Bik’s got the hots for you!” Emma grinned.

Oleander chimed in with, “Well, as much as a cold-blooder can have the ‘hots’ for anyone…”

“Oi,” Bik grunted. “I’m sitting right here you know!”

“Better speak up more often,” Oleander teased playfully, chucking him affectionately under the chin like he was a favourite hunting hound or something, “Or she won’t notice you…”

“I’m going to write you all into a jail cell next week,” the dungeon master grumped. “Then you’ll be sorry.”

After that session, he claimed he was tired and begged off going to supper with you. Of course you said it was fine, but you had grown used to your private suppers together and fought off the lump of disappointment that lodged itself unexpectedly in your throat. He waved and slouched off down the street, leaving the rest of you outside the dark and empty shop.

“I think you went a little far this time,” Jos commented in his deep, gravelly voice to the two girls and they sighed. “He’s always been very sensitive about… you know, ‘matters of the heart’…”

“Yeah. Poor thing,” Oleander said and she looked at you with her large purple eyes. “The more he likes someone, the more awkward he can get. I’m sorry we butchered it tonight for you though. I’ll make it up to you. Fae’s honour.” After a pause, she added, “You do like him, right?”

“Very much,” you admitted quietly. “He’s very gentle. It’s nice.”

“He used to play lacrosse back in high school,” Jos grinned. “He wasn’t gentle then! But he’s sweet when it comes to people he cares about. He looked out for me at school.”

You shot him a surprised look and he laughed. “I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “You just don’t look much like the type who needs anyone to look out for them…”

Oleander patted his colossal forearm and cooed, “Ol’ Jos here wouldn’t say boo to a housefly, would you darling?” He smiled affectionately at her and said nothing. “We’ve always been the outcasts and misfits I guess. Bik’s the most normal one of the lot of us, all things considered.”

Emma announced with a sudden curse that she was running late to meet her girlfriend, and loped off into the night on all fours with an accompanying farewell howl, her backpack bouncing around on her shoulders, and Oleander and Jos bid you goodnight and headed off towards the bus stop, leaving you to make your own way back. It was strange not to have Bik by your side that night, and it made you realise how close you’d become to him over the last few weeks.

Back home, you curled up on the sofa, not ready to start thinking about bed just yet, and had just got your phone out to drop him a text when your message tone chimed at you. The way your heart clenched with excitement at the sight of Bik’s name on the notification made you pause a moment and wonder just what this affection for him was turning into. Images of his bright green skin and golden eyes darted across your mind; the sound of his laugh, the way his tail coiled itself off the ground when he walked, the way his clawed hands held the little props he liked to make… You’d been telling the truth when you’d admitted to Oleander just how much you liked him.

‘Hey’, his text began. ‘Sorry I bailed like that. Did you get home ok?’

‘:) yeah,’ you replied. ‘And it’s fine. I get it, but they meant well. And I’m looking forward to the next session already!”

Jos was the one who finally insisted that you had to become a permanent member of their fictional gang. Casting a look at Bik as you all loitered in the main shop after the session, you saw the way he bit his thin lips and coiled his tail around one ankle. “Should I?” you asked.

You’d grown in confidence around them, glad to have been welcomed into their group, and he nodded mutely.

“That doesn’t seem very enthusiastic…” you shot with tongue-in-cheek humour dancing in your eyes.

“Obviously he’d love that,” Emma said. That day she wasn’t in her wolf form, and it was one of the few times you’d ever seen her as such. She had ash blonde hair with a harsh side-shave above her left ear while the rest was long, tied back in a ponytail. Her body was strong and muscular, and honestly she was utterly gorgeous.

You cocked an eyebrow at him and adopted the tone of one of the temple guardians you’d voiced for them earlier that evening. “Come now,” you said with mock sternness, “Speak the truth, young dragonling…”

Bik immediately caught on and followed the joke as he spoke in the voice of his dragonborn bard, quavering and simpering. “Please… oh Great One, don’t make me speak more on the subject… I’m only a worthless wyrm…”

You closed the short distance between the two of you and leaned in close. His jaw slackened slightly, his throat bobbing, and his beady, amber eye locked onto your face. “You are no such thing,” you smiled. Biko’s throat worked nervously. Drawing back, you added, “And I’d love to join the group. You’ll have to help me think of a character.”

Bik still looked like he’d suffered a minor heart attack, but Jos whooped and Oleander giggled. “Great!” they said as one.

You turned to Bik and said, “Maybe you and I can chat it over after dinner, if you’re still up for our usual post-session snack?”

“Definitely,” he croaked, voice sounding thick and slightly awestruck. He looked a bit stunned, but you decided it was in a good way.

He held the door open for you and you stepped close to him as you headed out into the late evening, pressing a hand flat against his chest as you passed, and murmured, “Thanks.”

He recovered quickly, though he did seem to be concentrating very hard on the task of locking up the shop, and as the two of you walked away from the others, he kept glancing down at you.

“What?” you finally asked with a giggle.

“Nothing.”

“It’s clearly something…” you pressed, turning and walking backwards so you could look at his face. “Regretting your decision to let me join the gang?”

“Not at all!” he replied, apparently horrified that your thoughts had gone there. “No… The opposite actually…”

“Oh,” you sighed.

He breathed your name and then stopped. You drew to a halt as well, watching him with a hammering heart. Starting to talk again seemed tricky, but he managed it. “I… Uh… I’m really glad you’re… you know… around… Ah, shit… I’m so bad at this…”

“I’m glad I’m around too,” you said, and you slid your hand into his. His skin was rough and cool, and your first thought was that you would very much like it against other parts of your body.

Bik tightened his grip on your fingers briefly and let out a breathy, nervous laugh. “I’ve never, uh… courted a human before… Is that even the right term for it?”

“You can call it what you like,” you said. “And you don’t have to do anything special or different. Just… keep hanging out with me. Maybe we could watch a movie or something some time?”

“Ok,” he said, swallowing thickly again. “Let’s go somewhere different for dinner?”

You turned your eyes from his to the restaurant sign just up ahead. “But we always go here,” you said. “And we’re almost there… Where else is going to be open at this time of night?”

“You could… come back to my place?” he asked. “I mean, it’s nothing special, but… I’m a tidy reptile, I promise! No hoards of strange things either. I’m not a dragon…”

You had to laugh at his oddball sense of humour that only got quirkier the more apprehensive he got. He also couldn’t stop his throat from fanning slightly too, the reptilian version of sweating nervously you supposed. “Alight. I’d like that.”

The upper storey of the old house where he lived was open plan, with beautiful bare rafters and sloping ceilings, and hardwood floors. His claws clacked adorably on them when he moved about. He also had the heating on stupendously warm, and you took your coat and jumper off immediately. “Sorry,” he said when he saw what you were doing.

You reassured him, and started to look about a little bit while he busied himself in the kitchen and poured you both a drink.

There were bookshelves on practically every available space, and as well as containing a collection of rare first editions and hard-to-come-by novels, they also sported photos, some in battered frames and others just propped up here and there. Most of them featured lizardfolk who looked a lot like him. “Family?” you asked and he came over to stand beside you.

“Yeah. We were a big clutch,” he said as he held the glass out for you. “Poor mum! There are twelve of us.”

He told you the names of each of his siblings, and what they were up to now, but you were really only half listening to the words. There was something magical about his voice, some unearthly quality it took on when he began to tell a story, regardless whether that was a story about his own life or a fantasy tale made up with his friends.

“What?” he asked softly.

“I… I like the sound of your voice,” you said honestly, and you reached your fingers tentatively up to touch the blue of his throat. He drew in a shaky breath, eyes closing as his reptilian head tilted upwards to allow you better access to him. “You’re very beautiful,” you whispered. “The colour of your skin is incredible… I like this bit too,”  you added, running a finger down his cheek where it blended from green speckled with gold to intense blue.

Bik brought his hands to your shoulders and looked down at you, blinking slowly. “Really?” he asked. “It’s not very… I mean… most males of my species have much deeper blue… I mean, just look at my brothers,” he added awkwardly, nodding at a picture behind you.

“I like your blue,” you chuckled without turning around.

Embarrassed, but obviously deeply flattered, he brushed his knuckle against your cheek and said, “Would you like that supper or do you have other things on your mind?”

With a grin, you said, “I suppose I could be distracted by food…” you admitted grudgingly as your stomach rumbled.

You watched him walk away to the kitchen area of the loft apartment, and sighed. This was turning into exactly what you’d hoped it might - a friendship blossoming into something deeper.

Wanting to test that theory, you crossed to join him and, while he still had his back to you, you slid your arms around his slender waist and hugged him. “You need a hand?” you asked, pressing your cheek against his back.

“I… I was going to suggest takeout,” he said bashfully, glancing back over his shoulder at you. “But if you want me to cook, I can?”

You shook your head. “It’s getting late,” you said, releasing him. “Another time. Let’s get takeout.”

While you waited for the food to arrive, you bickered playfully over movie choices, finally settling on some cheesy old film about a dragon who shared his heart with a selfish boy. It was actually pretty good, but it was still horrendously dated in places. It didn’t matter to you though. The food was really good, and the two of you snuggled up on the sofa to eat, with you leaning against his side.

“I couldn’t do this with many people,” you said, nudging him gently with your elbow.

“Do what?”

“Cosy up under someone’s arm. I’m usually too tall.”

He chuckled and swallowed. “Never dated an orc then, I take it.”

You shook your head. “Not dated all that much at all to be honest.”

“What? But your gorgeous,” he blurted and his skin flushed a much darker green. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” you said and put your hand reassuringly on his thigh. He jumped and then slid his arm around your shoulders, setting his empty takeout box down on the coffee table beside the sofa.

He gazed at you, a more serious look in his eyes, and said, “You know, I couldn’t help noticing your choices of media…” You flicked him a frown and he went on. “Ok, the first graphic novel with the dragon was on me, but everything else has also had dragons or lizards in…”

“You detecting a preference here?” you sassed gently.

“Am I?”

With an ostentatious roll of your eyes, you said, “I mean, I’ve always thought your kind extremely beautiful, but my interest in you is to do with you. It’s not some empty kink. You know that, right?”

He nodded slowly. “Just checking.”

“And what about you?” you said, also setting your empty food box down and shifting your position so that you came to rest astride his lap, the film almost over, forgotten and playing in the background. “I have to admit that your dragonborn seems to like humans rather a lot… Have you got a thing for us warmbloods?”

His throat worked and he didn’t meet your eye for a moment. “I mean… yes…” he said, and his clawed hands found your wide hips. He ran a circle carefully over them and moaned, his own hips shifting a little beneath you. “But when you walked into my shop, all bedraggled and soaking wet, I’d honestly never seen anyone more beautiful in my whole life.”

You laughed and kissed his cheek. He turned his head slightly as you moved away and drew you back for a proper kiss. His claws raked gently through your hair, messing it up as he gripped you firmly but tenderly, and his tongue slid slowly out to taste you, savouring the kiss. It wasn’t a conventional kiss like those you were used to, but it worked perfectly well. You rolled your hips against him once again and he broke the contact, letting his head fall back against the sofa cushions. His tail coiled and uncoiled beside you on the sofa and you reached for it.

“Can I touch you here?” you asked and he nodded breathlessly.

He gasped as you stroked your fingertips along the slightly rough skin of his tail and he brought the tip of it up to caress the back of your hand.

“Kinky,” you grinned and he snickered.

Bik, somewhat slack-jawed and clearly aroused, brought his blunt muzzle to the curve where your neck met your collarbones, and inhaled the scent of you deeply. His tail coiled tightly around your wrist for a moment before unravelling and falling limply onto the sofa again. “I want you,” he rasped.

You let your hips grind into him again and he gasped and uttered a soft curse under his breath as he stared almost reverently up at you. You nodded, and his claws hooked the hem of your top and lifted it up carefully, revealing your bra and he made short work of the clasp. Taking the weight of each breast in his hands, he caressed you and then, with pupils blown wide and dark so that his irises were a mere halo of gold, he took your nipple delicately between his sharp teeth and very gently sucked, moaning softly as he repeated the gesture on the other one. His rasping tongue curled around them too as they hardened under his attentions and you gave a shaky exhale.

“So beautiful,” he whispered as he let go, leaving you throbbing and tingling. “Gods, you’re so beautiful.”

“Bik…” you groaned when he stopped touching you so that he could simply stare at your half-naked body in his lap.

He smiled and to your immense surprise, simply stood up, hooking his arms under your thighs as you gripped his waist instinctively with your legs. He was a lot stronger than he looked and you nearly yelped in surprise. “I’ve got you,” he said as he carried you towards his open bedroom door, nudging it shut behind him with his tail.

He laid you down on top of the duvet and undressed the rest of you slowly, savouring the sight of you as he gradually revealed your body. You looked up at him dazedly and saw the tent straining against his jeans. “Bik… Not fair,” you said. “You’re still dressed.”

More nervously now that the attention was on him, he took off his own t-shirt to reveal a pale, creamy green stomach and chest. He was still stippled with other hues of green and even a few freckles of black, but his front was mostly pale. His lean waist and narrow hips looked deliciously inviting and you sat up and ran your fingers around the inside of his waistband just to watch him shiver beneath your touch.

His hands hung quietly by his sides as you undid the button of his jeans and he stepped out of them carefully. His taloned feet were as delicate as his hands, and you marvelled at them too before letting your gaze sweep up his slim, strong calves to his thicker and more muscular thighs and to the tight, black boxer-briefs that hugged every single curve of his body.

Bik lay down beside you without taking them off and raked his claws up the length of your legs and, applying a little pressure to your hip, pushed you onto your back. With his tail, he tugged your right ankle close to his body and parted your legs enough for him to run the pad of his thumb in a slow, teasing circle around the soft, sensitive skin above your clit.

Your body lurched joyously at his touch and you sucked in a breath. You began to tingle all over, heat prickling beneath your skin as he woke your whole body up with reverent kisses and touches.

“Can I taste you?” he asked a while later after he’d reduced you to a writhing, whimpering mess, and you nodded.

After you moved further up the bed to give him more room, he reverently placed both palms on your hip bones and nosed gently at your sex. His tongue licked a long, slow stripe and you cried out and arched your back as he laved over your lips and just flicked your clit with the tip of his tongue.

“You taste so beautiful,” he said before returning his attention to your body. He circled and nudged at you, dipping his tongue deep inside you as well, always coming back to your clit until you were almost screaming with want.

“Bik, please… Please make me come,” you panted. “I’m so close…”

“Can humans only come once then?” he asked with over-accentuated ignorance, and you knew from the tone of his voice that he knew the answer to that already. You growled inarticulately at him and he pulled back. “I’d better stop then.”

“No!” you half sobbed. “Please…”

Smiling softly, he stared at you and moved his thumb back to your swollen clit. His claws were too sharp for him to work you inside, but the pattern he made on your skin with his tongue was enough to drive you right to the edge, and then as the white heat built inside you, you felt your orgasm rolling over you like a great ocean breaker and you cried out, grasping at the sheets. As you came, he pressed his tongue hard against you, savouring you as you came against him.

When you eventually slumped back against the pillows, breathing hard and almost dizzy with how good you felt, you half opened one eye to find that he had lain down on his back and was palming his erection through the fabric of his boxers.

“Bik?” you asked in a slightly slurred whisper. Your fingers moved to the waistband and he tensed slightly. “Bik?”

Licking his lips nervously, he nodded and you drew his boxers off. At the top of his legs was a mounded sheath which quite obviously contained not one but two cocks. Neither was necessarily all that large, but they were very beautiful, and fully erect.

“We’re not exactly built like humans,” he said bashfully as you stared openly at him. “I… I was worried that -” he cut off with a deep grunt as you trailed your fingers around the edges of his sheath. His twin cocks - both a bright vibrant green tipped with blue - writhed slightly, coiling around one another and glistening with the same clear fluid that slicked his sheath.

“You’re beautiful, remember?” you reminded him, shakily propping yourself upright on one elbow to get a better look at him. You repeated the gesture, running your fingers tips around his sensitive sheath, and he accepted your words as truth as you started to worship him with the same careful tenderness he’d just shown you.

As you lavished attention on him, he started to unravel.

Soon his spine bowed up off the bed and his hips squirmed as you worked his twin cocks in one hand. The tighter you gripped him, the more noise he made as they twisted together beneath your fingers, and you finally wrung a deep, guttural, low-frequency rumble out of him that reminded you more of an alligator than the more delicate lizards he resembled.

“Gods,” he rasped, “You make it feel like spring…” and you knew he was referring to the traditional lizardfolk mating season. You’d just lowered your mouth to the tip of one of his cocks and given it a tentative suck when he blurted, “Can I come inside you?”

You nodded, and he switched positions with you so that he was on top. The heat of his cocks was a delicious contrast to the constant coolness of the rest of him and you bucked upwards against him just to feel them pressing against your sensitive clit.

“Both?” he asked warily and you nodded again, shifting so that he could line himself up. He kissed down your neck and between your breasts again before he nudged the tips of his cocks to your entrance. As he slid into you, slowly stretching you full, you watched his face carefully. Again, he began to rumble softly and he almost couldn’t speak as he hissed, “So tight… so hot… gods, you’re so hot…”

With a final push of his hips, he slid all the way inside you and paused a moment, clearly fighting the instinct to come almost immediately. Recovered, breathing steadily, he began to slide in and out, his rhythm increasing in tempo as he lost himself in the sensations of your body. The way his cocks felt inside you, twisting together and shifting in a way that no toy could ever hope to replicate, was unlike anything you’d ever experienced and you knew you were going to come again in no time.

“I’m…” he grunted.

“Me too,” you said, grabbing his rough-skinned arms and pulling yourself even further onto his cocks. “Bik, I’m going to come again.”

“Fuck,” he croaked as you clenched tight around him with a cry.

You wrenched his orgasm from him with the force of your own and he arched his spine, hips driving him deep inside you as he released, and he yelled out, voice hoarse, the sound cracked and broken. His jaws parted to reveal his sharp teeth and you kept your grip on his arms as you came a second time.

He shuddered violently, grunting and breathing hard through flared nostrils, and then fell forwards, barely catching himself in time on his forearms. He was spent and exhausted and so beautiful. His blue colouring shone in the dim light of his bedroom and you trailed your fingers lazily along the bridge of his nose towards his lips.

“That was incredible,” he whispered when he’d got his breath back. “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No,” you smiled and he hugged you briefly, lapping a little lizardy kiss on your forehead before pushing himself up on shaking arms and sliding free of you. His cocks coiled briefly in the warm air and he rolled onto his back beside you. With your thighs still slick with his release, you tucked yourself up beside him and took your time in exploring his relaxed body. Where before he had been tense, almost nervous, worried that his non-human body would be too strange for you, now he seemed to have fallen peacefully into a haze of bliss, and he let your hands roam all over his torso and down to his hips while wearing a soft smile the whole time.

His cocks lay soft across his skin, occasionally twitching and drooling a little, but eventually they began to shift back into his sheath. He slid his hand down and adjusted them, and shot you a look. “You really do like lizardfolk, huh?”

With a wry grin, you shook your head and said, “I really do just like you.”

—

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[sparrowwritesforobeyme]

NSFW Alphabet x Diavolos Dad

@fellulahh started a movement, which I fondly call “the devil daddy stan-squad”

It is very inspiring!

So to support this great developement...have some NSFW-Alphabet promts for Dias father.

(Since he is not an actual character in the game (yet!) none of this is remotely canon!I wish....hahah)

A-ftercare

This mass of a man is not used to real affection. He never took a real interest in anybody, neither did he have the time for that.

It actually takes him a while to open up, but even after he feels more comfortable with the relationship, his way of showing affection is more subtle.

For instance he will pull you into him in order to “straighten up the sheets” on your side of the bed. You can be sure that he will just not let you go again.

B-ody

Like his son, this man is huge.

The Demon King takes pride in his impressive height. He loves the way he tower over his lover wherever they go, but also in bed.

You could say that he has a decent size kink!

The thing he lovey about his lover would be their hips and butt.

I headcanon that he is a booty fan! Small booty, big booty, he approves!

You can be sure that his hands constantly leave prints on your deicate flesh from how hard he grabs you.

C-Cheesy

If you thinks that this man is all grim and moody...you are on the right path. He had an image to uphold!

But seriously...I believe that he has the ability to be Cheesy, at least with his lover.

Diavolo probably inherited it from his dad!

But his goofy side will not show during the act itself. Sometimes he´ll tease you during foreplay, but this man prefers passion over goofyness in bed.

D-irty Secret

Is this man the ruler of a whole realm? YES!

Does he enjoy to have his lover ride him once in a while? Hell Yes!

Please give this man the right to watch his lover be on top of him once in a while!

E-xperience

The demon lord is almost as old as time itself, to be fair, he spent a big amount of it in a slumber...but he gained experience.

Demons are just not able to resist temptations!

The Demon King puts his experience to use with his lover, he has a lot of great ways to make you loose control in the sheets (and probably every other surface of the palast)

F-avourite Position

finding positions during sex is quite difficult for the two of you.

while his height has many advantages....sex isn´t one of them

you actually tried quite a few ones, but many tries ended not as expected

Positions like 69 will simply not work out for the two of you

He actually went to the human work in secret and got a book for sex positions to find something that suits the two of you. He´´ll never admit it openly and you can´t deny that it did something to you when you caught him being engrossed in a book about “human mating” (it probably was a porno magazine..this man has no clue of human media), while sitting at his table, looking all serious.

If he feels more emotional, he´d want to spoon you during sex or sprawl you out on the bed in front of him. Looking at you during the deed is the epitum of intimacy to him!

after a while you found many position that work out for you.

His favourite ones include bending you over a piece of furniture or having you ride him.

G-oofy

The only time he´ll break his serious stance in the bedroom is during foreplay

He´ll tease you A LOT

“Hmmm...so wet for me already...quite desperate my love”

“cat got your tongue? How unfortunate...I came up with one or two ideas  how you could use it!”

H-air

The demons King strikes me as a rough type of handsome, but that does not mean that he just let´s everything grow wildly!

He always makes sure to groom his royal area to perfection.

Also he read about humans facination of the happy-trail...he makes sure to adapt

I-ntimacy

being intimate with the devil in person is quite a challenge sometimes.

He is very busy, but when he finds you, he´ll make sure to make up for it in any way you can imagine

Sex with the Demon King (he needs a name srsly) can be either extremely passionate or extremely intimate, this man does not make compromises!

One thing is clear...you are his Queen/Partner and he will make sure that you are satisfied, even if it means that he has to man up and share his deepest desires with you

J-ealos Sex? 

you´re in an entanglement with a King...he knows that there is no one better than him, at first sight at least.

He might have a hard time to admit it to himself, but sometimes he wonders whether he is really capable of making you fully content, since he has so little knowdledge of the human world and it´s culture.

This adorable mass of a man spents his free time listening to you or reading human-literature in order to fully grasp what humanity is about.

So if you actually went to the human world and there was a person that connected with you or talked about some human thing he is not able to understand just yet...he will get jealous.

How cam a peasant believe they can just walk up to the queen of devildome and pretent to be better than the King himself!

He absolutely will show you that he understands you and your body better than anybody else, when you get home,( or in a secluded area nearby)

K-ink

like already mentioned he loves the size difference. It does not matter whether you are tall or short, in comparision you are tiny, also you should not forget that he can influence his human form and he may or may not make sure that he hovers over you at all times.

Demons have their own way of showing affection to their chosen one, one these ways is marking their partner

The Demon King would proudly show off his partner plus lovebites he left on them.

If his partner is a female the next stage for him would be breeding. I can see him getting exited by the thought of seeing his woman swelling with his son growing inside of her, showing the world that she is his.

L-ocation

What use does a palace have if you can´t use it?

He´ll want to sleep with his partner in any place they can imagine, but his favourite places, would be either his throne (serious powerplay...just imagine you riding him, while he sits on his massive throne) or your shared bed (because he knows that you´re most comfortable this way)

M-otivation

Many things get the King going, but his absolutely biggest trigger is you being the Partner/Queen you are.

Seeing you tending to Devildomes Subjects with love and care will make him want to sweep you off of your feet and carry you to your shared bedroom.

Another thing that gets him going is praise. When you call him “my King”, “Your majesty” or simply “love”....you are in for a ride

N-O

What he absolutely would not do is having a threesome with anybody, especially not Diavolo!

Another thing he´d not even want to try is BDSM on him or you. He can get a bit rough with you, but he is scared to hurt you too much if you tried implementing pain in your sex life.

His sadism is dangerous sometimes.

O-ral

He just adores the sounds you make when he goes down on you ang god---- he is skilled!

He likes receiving just as much as giving.

Watching you go down on him, clearly having a hard time taking all his glory in, will make him painfully hard in your mouth.

P-ace

His pace depends on his mood and the situation that lead to sex.

If the two of you jokes around and indulged in a more playful kind of sex, he would be on the faster side, relishing in the lovely souns he can get out of you

If the two of you have a more passionate session, he would take his time and force every little bit of pleasure out of you.

Q-uicky

Due to the time issue Quickies are normal for the two of you, though he prefers to make you scream all night.

Usually Quickies re some sort of teaser to prepare you for whats going to happen this night.

Saying that it happened once or twice that a Quick Round activated his hunger, poor Diavolo( and Lucifer) had to take care of all the work, because the King himself had a meeting to attent

Of course they know his true intention and tbh it´s still hard for them to accept that their friend is now the partner of the Demon King himself, especially since they both showed an interest in you as well

R-efraction Period

a matter of minutes..demons have just more stamina than humans do.

But he will make sure to stop, when you can´t take it anymore!

S-ecret

He was aware of you way before he officially “awaked”

after a while he fell for you, only after that he decided to make a move and claim you as his

The Demon King was aware of his sons plans and watched it all unfold (not being happy at all) but you piqued his interest.

“A weak human making pacts with some of the strongest demons of Devildome?”

T-oys

The Demon is old-fashioned, he prefers to be the the thing giving his lover pleasure, not some damn piece of plastic

Also he is not advanced in technical knowledge, it was quite a shock to him to wake up to a modern devildome

U-nfair

BIG TEASE

it goes hand in hand with his powerplay-kink

the King just loves to see you loose your mind, almost begging for him. It does wonders for his ego!

V-olume

Entirely depends on the situation you guys are in

W-ild Card

Usually he just grunts or groans, but if you have a particularly passionate session, he´ll press orders to his theeth

“Shi- look at me! Don´t look away!”

“Tease me one more time and I´ll make sure you won´t walk for the rest of the week, lttle one”

He enjoys having you nearby at all times, even during work. Usually when he works you lay on a couch in his study and do shoolwork or read, etc

He´ll get moody if you can´t be there due to you having a life outside of the palace and friends.

He wouldn´t say it out loud, but he is slightly jealous that the demon brothers get to spent so much time with HIS Partner

X-Ray

Oh Boy...not saying numbers, but it takes some time to prepare you. This man does not only have big hands...

Y-earning

The Demon King can be needy behind closed doors

From the outside he appears cold....angry at best, but when you´re alone he yearns for his lovers affection.

He´s touch deprived, even if he´s had some...company in the past, it was never on a real intimate level.

This is completely new terrain for him, so he needs to learn how stop the intense craving for you

Z-zzz 

He slept centuries...he needs no sleep

The King knows that you need your sleep and he makes sure you get enough, but as soon as you fall asleep after a rather long session of love-making, he impatiently waits for you to wake up, slowly falling asleep after pulling you close to him.

[reading-while-queer]

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel

Rating: Great Read Genre: Graphic Novel Representation: -Lesbian ensemble cast -Racially diverse ensemble cast Trigger warnings: Reclaimed D-slur, animal death, cheating, divorce, cancer, casual transphobia, biphobia, and ableism, difficult topics ranging from war to AIDS to 9/11. Note: Not YA; sexually explicit

If you’re familiar with Fun Home or Are You My Mother? you’ll know what I mean when I say that Dykes to Watch Out For is no entry level work - though Dykes to Watch Out For is difficult for different reasons.  While Bechdel’s ruminations on her childhood, psyche, and sexuality require a decent amount of outside reading to be fully appreciated, Dykes to Watch Out For requires an equally rigorous knowledge of the political landscape of the past forty years.

But on the other hand, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The wars, elections, discourse, and protests are not so unfamiliar.  If I had to pinpoint Dykes to Watch Out For’s continued importance to lesbians today in just one idea, it would be this: “Against the sweeping backdrop of history... everyday life pretty much continues” (371).  

It’s not a major theme of the work, yet it is the shape of the final tapestry.  Politics, discourse, trauma, and sickness make their ravages, and here we all are, much the same as we ever were 10, 20, 30 years ago: this pattern, far from intentional, emerges from the tide-like flow of 30 years of comics.  But it’s why Dykes to Watch Out For is so special.  And we have the privilege of going back to look into that reflection of the 80s, 90s, and 00s and recognize familiar features. The political scenery may be different (or, honestly, not so different) but has daily life changed much?

I first tried to read Dykes to Watch Out For as a curious high schooler, and my eyes glazed over.  Without having absorbed enough recent history through cultural osmosis, nor having developed a taste for gray morality, I just didn’t get it.  Two characters would have an argument on the page, both of them would make provocative points, and then Bechdel would refrain from telling her reader which was in the wrong.  Neither character was a straw man; it almost felt like Bechdel was arguing with herself, trying to decide what was right - if there even was a right answer.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, especially when the vocabulary and context were both tantalizingly out of reach.

Reading now, I found the once alien discourse all too familiar.  The same exact discussions were being had in 1985 as are being hashed out on Twitter.  One of a hundred examples is whether gay marriage is a buy-in to the privilege bestowed by heteronormativity. Bechdel asks if marriage is a patriarchal model that can be salvaged, but she doesn’t have an answer for you, just a prompt to chew on.

Another example is Bechdel’s discourse on the outliers of lesbian spheres: trans lesbians, trans men, genderqueer people, and bisexual lesbians (Would you believe that term is used in the text - and equally as contentiously?).  These are conversations we are all very familiar with.  However, this discourse is especially interesting in a work that took 30 years to write.  The reader combs through 30 years of metamorphosis in just a handful of hours.  Bechdel’s tongue-in-cheek “Whatever will they come up with next?” is printed in the same volume with genuine consternation on who is allowed to be a lesbian.

Trans women start as a punchline.  But on most topics, Dykes to Watch Out For tends, eventually, to stop itself to re-evaluate.  Thirty years later, one of the main characters IDs as genderqueer, finds herself meeting trans men and doing drag king shows, fights with her friends over their trans exclusivity, and in the end, ends up advocating for and co-parenting a teenage trans girl, who ends up a main character in her own right.  It’s one of Bechdel’s firmer positions on right and wrong, although she doesn’t hesitate to mouth the opposite argument, too.

Plenty of sympathetic characters say transphobic things which just hang in the air, unaddressed.  It’s maddening - but in sticking with the material, I got to see the characters who flubbed the pronouns and complained about gender confusion eventually get in line - changes which are not commented upon and happen so gradually in the thirty years over which the comic was written, that they mimic how change happens in real life.  In our own lives, change may seem impossible, but then you blink, a decade has passed since you first came out, and half the homophobes have come around.  Much the same for Dykes to Watch Out For, which is almost as much a memoir as Fun Home (albeit of Bechdel’s discourse rather than her life).  I think every cisgender lesbian should read it - it’s a powerful antidote against TERFism, not because it lays down the law, but because it meets you where you are and gives you the chance to say your piece without ridicule, before taking you by the hand and showing you something kinder. If Dykes to Watch Out For has anything to teach us, it’s that hard lines in the sand make you look like a dick thirty years later.  Take Sparrow’s story arc.  Mo, Lois, and Ginger are thrown when their friend Sparrow starts dating a man.  They say some rotten things about how betrayed they are, how they don’t know if they can trust Sparrow anymore, or her politics - but when they are overheard, the “discourse” suddenly becomes real.  That’s their friend, and her feelings are hurt.  What else can you do for your friend who has spent decades of her life as a lesbian, whose identity is culturally and socially interwoven with lesbianism, and who identifies as a bisexual lesbian - except love her?

A frequent lesson is that anyone can be reactionary - even the left-est of leftists.  Years later, when Sparrow faces an accidental pregnancy, her friends overwhelmingly pressure her to keep the baby, not because of their politics, but because of their excitement - yet the impact, if not the intent, is anti-choice.  It’s ideas like these being brought to the forefront that make Dykes to Watch Out For something special.

In her introduction to the book, Bechdel frets over both keeping up with the changing current of discourse (XVI) 

...and her own role in shaping that discourse (XVII)

But her work speaks for itself: if we are to do right by one another, we must prioritize one another, not the rules.  The same conversations will be had again, and again, and again, from 1983 until we all go blue in the face.  We can’t control someone angrily shouting into the room (or Twitter timeline) “but WHAT about BISEXUAL LESBIANS?” and the chaos that follows - but we can accept that someone will shout it again in twenty years, and that the following chaos will be so nearly identical to the previous chaos as to challenge whether it is chaos at all, or just the universe putting on a matinee performance of the same old song and dance.  Is it useful to put on your tap shoes and sing along?  Or do you end up hurting the feelings of a genuine friend who just happens to be one of the outliers this time around?

Dykes to Watch Out For is thought-provoking (as you can see, my thoughts have been well and truly provoked), occasionally in poor taste, but mostly surprisingly sympathetic, both to its more marginalized characters, and to its wrong-doers - this comic doesn’t have any villains.  The initial gag, that Bechdel would write a catalog of lesbians like a lepidopterist giving clinical attention to a series of specimens, works to her favor.  There are no bad lesbians and good lesbians.  At least, not essentially.  This approach lends Dykes to Watch Out For more staying power than it might otherwise have had - it’s relatable.  You know these people.  You’ve had some of these arguments, and hurt each other’s feelings over them.  Your friends live in the mildewy house that’s kept at 64 degrees in the winter, where you’re as likely to be walked in on in the bathroom as not, a home where everyone in the friend group feels free to stop by.  

Here in the future, we have the immense privilege of watching how these parallel lives to ours play out.  The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For may be a comic for a different generation, but Bechdel has given us something fascinating from both a history and literary perspective.  She has put to paper a sprawling epic about lesbians growing from their twenties to their forties, getting married (or not), progressing their careers, having children, having PTA meetings, having affairs, and doing civil disobedience with their kids.  Rarely do we see the map from here to there laid out so meticulously.  I read this book voraciously, both the earlier chapters that relate to life as a new adult, and the later chapters, which serve as a window into what life was, and could be.

For more from Alison Bechdel, visit her Twitter here.

[confused-android]

DGHDAtober, day 1: Farah - Youth

––––––––––– 

Mr. DiBatista hands back the graded tests when there are still five minutes left in the period, but Farah keeps it upside down, doesn't join her classmates in crowing or whining about their grades.

It's not an F, she tries to reassure herself. I studied. I stayed up all night and I studied, and I think it all made sense. It's not an F. It's definitely not an F. Mr. D doesn't give out Fs, he said. It can't be an F. I couldn't have failed. Right? I mean, I probably didn't fail. He did tell us that he was disappointed in our scores as a class, though. Oh god, what if I'm the one he's disappointed in? Maybe I dragged down the class average. If I failed and no one else failed, I've messed up the whole curve. Crap, I've ruined his whole grading system.

She clutches the test to her chest as the bell rings, wrinkling the paper, and rushes into the hall. She doesn't turn it over until she's back at her locker, and steels herself with several deep breaths.

It's an A-.

She cries anyway.

–––––––––––

Farah clears the table and tries to make it take as long as possible. She even offers to do the dishes for Eddie. He shoots her a sympathetic look, but shakes his head.

It's a too-short walk back into the dining room, where their father is still sitting at the head of the table, waiting. She digs into her backpack and pulls out the graded calc test, the marked up essay on Grendel, the rubric for her history presentation, and lays them in front of him, silent.

He looks through them slowly as Farah stands by his side, hands locked behind her back, trying to not fidget. It seems like hours before he looks up at her, and shakes his head. "What happened, Farah?" he asks. He sounds sorrowful, like the A- affects his mood as much as it affects his respect for her.

"I transposed one of the equations," she says, trying not to stammer. He hates it when she stammers. "Mr. D gave me –"

"Mr. DiBatista," her father says firmly.

"Mr. DiBatista gave me credit for doing all of the work correctly, given the incorrect equation, but I got the wrong answer."

Hm." He flips through the English and History papers, both an A+, and doesn't meet her eyes. They're placed back on the table and he picks up the Calculus test again.

A-.  

I failed. He knows that I failed, and he thinks I didn't try my hardest. Maybe I didn't try my hardest. If I had tried harder, I wouldn't have screwed that up. It was so easy, and I missed it. I messed it. I didn't give it my all, and he's always telling me that I need to try harder, that I need to focus more, that I can't let myself get distracted by other things, and I must have been distracted. I must not have tried hard enough.

"Well," he says. "This won't do. Type me up a clean copy of the test and print it out at the library tomorrow. You can add that to your homework over the weekend."

"Yes sir," she says.

"And Farah." He looks up at her again, dark eyes disappointed. "This is a waste of my time, to have to go over this with you again. You know that I don't have much free time. I didn't want to spend it on this."

On you, her mind fills in.  "Yes sir," she says. She manages to hold back her tears until she's in her room and the door is closed.

–––––––––––

Training is the only time Farah feels focused. Present. At all other times, her mind is going a million miles an hour, worrying and planning and thinking ahead and catastrophizing. At the gym or her kickboxing class, everything melts away. She has a routine and she has goals, and she knows where she is.

There's something so centering about moving her body.  She's good at it. She can make her hands and her feet and her thighs and her waist go where she wants them to go, be where she wants them to be.

It also helps that this is a place where she is as good at Eddie. She can match him, she can even beat him sometimes, and when she does, her father looks at her with something approaching pride.

It feels amazing.

It also takes up all of her free time.

"When are you going to write that essay?" Angelo asks after fifth period. He leans against her locker and flips through the book they're supposed to have finished reading. They're the only non-white kids in the AP track, and they stick together more out of defense than common interests.

She shoves him aside to reach the lock, and starts pulling out the textbooks she needs for the second half of the day. "I'll have to wake up early tomorrow, and do it before the bus comes." It's not ideal, but it's the only way she can finish her chores, do her math homework, fit in shooting practice with her dad, and still go to the evening kickboxing class.

"Your dad is crazy," Angelo says flatly. "You can't keep doing everything, every single day."

"My dad isn't crazy," Farah says, trying to sound firm. "He wants what's best for me. He knows what I need to learn to get into the Rangers. Or the FBI."

"You don't have to join the Rangers," Angelo tries. It's a familiar argument, and she doesn't bother responding past rolling her eyes. "Seriously, Farah! You're like a freaky math genius. You could be an engineer, or a math teacher. You could be an accountant! Accountants are all organized and shit."

"I'm not going to be an accountant," she says, shutting her locker and settling her backpack evenly across both shoulders. "I'm going to be in the service, and I'm going to be good at it."

I hope I will. I know I'm not as good as Eddie, and I don't meet the FBI readiness measures yet. I need to be faster. I need to be better. I need to know more things and I need to be good at them. I need to study more, or I really will be an accountant. I just need to be good enough. I need to be better.

Angelo scoffs and punches her shoulder. "Skip something, Farah," he says, walking backwards away from her, towards his next class. "You need a break."

I don't need a break. I just need to be better. I just need to make dad proud.

–––––––––––

The room is full of shapes and colors and glitter, and Dirk and Todd are right there, right in front of her, and she loves them so, so much. "He hated me," Farah says, and realizes that it's true. "He always make me feel like I was such a disappointment, you know? Like I was never good enough. But I know that that's bullshit now, you know? That's not real!"

And it's the best thing she's ever known. She's finally where she's supposed to be.

[tallstales]

Day 4 Books (13 Days of Halloween)

There are so many books perfect for reading in the fall. Many people read with Halloween in mind at this time of year and I happen to be one of them from about July through mid November. At this time of year, we gravitate towards Stephen King and now Joe Hill or the latest big name. Sometimes we forget about the classics that started it all or we don’t think to look in our own backyard for new favorites.

Today I’m going to share a list of 13 of my favorite spooky classics mixed in with brand new hits on my to read list. And as a bonus, I’m including a list of Rhode Island authors of Supernatural fiction, Mysteries, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Thriller, and more to keep you enthralled as we get closer to Halloween.

Let’s check them out!

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

For those who know me well, they know the special love I have for The haunting of Hill House. Last year I even got the crazy opportunity to direct the play at the Rhode Island Stage Ensemble because they knew of my crazy obsession. I might talk about this book too much. That being said, I will keep it brief today. Read it! Go! No, you have not experienced it through Netflix or even the play. They’re wonderful, amazing interpretations, but they are very different.

To truly know Hill House and the people staying there to study it, you need to read this book and get trapped in the mind of its not quite reliable narrator.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Speaking of Netflix, on this list is another psychological haunted house thriller that has just been made into a streaming hit in The Haunting of Bly Manor.

The Turn of the Screw is a short but not so sweet story with an atmosphere of slowly growing tension. This is a great quick read for a rainy day home alone to get your nerves just the right amount of frayed for when the trick or treaters start knocking.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Another classic is the travelogue Dracula! With any other title, people would question how a travel journal could be scary, but Dracula needs no introduction. If anything, time and popular culture has added so much to this story that when we go back and look at the original tale we are terrified all over again by the simplicity of atmosphere and characterization over props, costumes, and all the other added layers.

There’s a scary bit of truth to this tale as well, one that even connects back to Rhode Island! Did you know that Bram Stoker was inspired by the story of Mercy Brown? Yes, news of her tragedy and horrific exhumation made it all the way to London! Stay tuned this week for our 13 Haunted RI Tales for more on Mercy.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

While we’re in the Victorian Era and talking about classic monsters, we can’t forget about Frankenstein’s monster! This is another one that’s been taken apart and put back together by so many different writers, directors, and actors that we forget how terrifying the original is.

What really makes this story stand the test of time even past the language changes that can make other stories written in the same period slog along, is Shelley’s understanding of human nature.

We all question the meaning of life and death and Frankenstein has a way of helping our imagination come up with the most terrifying answers.

Edgar Allan Poe

How could we discuss Horror classics without the twisted tales of Edgar Allan Poe? I can’t even pick a single story to discuss for this list, just trust me and get a collection of his stories if you don’t already own one. You won’t be disappointed.

Haunted houses? Evil animals? Disease? Death? Human Nature? Poe has covered all of the best horror tropes and even invented a few himself. If I had to choose a favorite to start with… one that sticks with me and makes me shudder to even think about is The Lighthouse. It’s the rats. They get me everytime and unlike the suspense they bring in The Pit and the Pendulum, the rats in The Lighthouse just bring terror and an overall sense of disgust. Happy reading!

His Hideous Heart Edited by Dahlia Adler

While we’re on the subject of the laste, great E.A.P. I bring you a fairly recent edition to his fandom.

His Hideous Heart is an anthology put together by 13 well known YA authors for a new, contemporary audience. Edgar Allan Poe may be gone, but his works and their themes have stayed with us and in our classrooms with a love their surprising and unsettling nature.

Contributors include Dahlia Adler (reimagining “Ligeia”), Kendare Blake (“Metzengerstein”), Rin Chupeco (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”), Lamar Giles (“The Oval Portrait”), Tessa Gratton (“Annabel Lee”), Tiffany D. Jackson (“The Cask of Amontillado”), Stephanie Kuehn (“The Tell-Tale Heart”), Emily Lloyd-Jones (“The Purloined Letter”), amanda lovelace (“The Raven”), Hillary Monahan (“The Masque of the Red Death”), Marieke Nijkamp (“Hop-Frog”), Caleb Roehrig (“The Pit and the Pendulum”), and Fran Wilde (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Continuing to move forward in time, I find myself thinking of Ray Bradbury. Bradbury has a wonderful way of slowly seeping discontent into the reader but with Something Wicked he seems to put pedal to the metal.

This is the only book on my list to feature a nightmarish carnival and Bradbury might be why. I somehow walked away without a fear of clowns or carnivals but reading about them… still gives me the heebie jeebies. Now that I think about it, this book might have something to do with why mirrors creep me out too.

Readers be warned. Something Wicked This Way Comes has all the marks of a beautifully written coming of age tale, but the themes stick with you like a shadow well into adulthood.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

If you haven’t read this book, you have definitely heard of it. That book with the weird typography, with the backwards words and print in the margins and all that weird stuff? Yes, it’s House of Leaves and “all that weird stuff” makes for one exciting and unsettling ride. People I give this book two either firmly LOVE it or HATE it, but I recommend it today because 8 out of 10 are on the love side and passing around their copies to others because it’s hard not too.

As you read, you follow two stories. The main story is about the Navidson family moving into a new home where some very strange things begin to happen. The second story takes place in the footnotes where we follow a man named Johnny as he finds, reads and obsesses over the first story which is referred to in the book as The Navidson Record. Now, I have set out with the mission of not spoiling anything for anyone today, especially since most the books on this list are of the thriller or suspense genre so I will stop here, but know I really, really want to tell you everything that happens and everything I think of it! Go read this crazy work of art and message me. We’ll talk.

Twelve Nights at Rotter House by J.W. Ocker

I said it earlier and I’ll say it again, I have a soft spot for a good haunted house. Now, haunted by people or haunted by spirits… I think both are the best kind. Those who have started reading my series The Monsters Within can probably guess that I love the “Humans are the Monsters” horror trope. And, well, nothing brings out the monsters in humans faster than the particular fear that comes with staying in a haunted house. Or at least, a house perceived to be haunted where your mind can play such glorious tricks on you.

Twelve Nights at Rotter House is admittedly slow to start, but I like and recommend this title because that slow pace is there for a reason. We get comfortable when nothing much is happening, when the pace is slow and friendly. I think it makes everything that comes next that much more exciting. Give it a chance and let me know what you think.

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

The Twisted Ones is a delicious cocktail of Suspense, Thriller, Horror fiction, Psychological Fiction, Occult Fiction. It’s everything I wanted M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village to be when the trailers came out back in 2004 and everything it wasn’t for me. Add into it the the main character is cleaning a hoarder’s house in the woods… yeah! Sold, this is creepy and gross and sets off all my alarms, I’m reading it with ALL the lights on.

And somehow, through not being able to put it down and finding myself breathlessly speed reading , I still found time to laugh. There are these little gems in the main character’s personality and the story telling that are so relatable and likeable that it adds an effortless humor on top of the effortless horror. This is the only work I’ve read by this author, but she is absolutely on my follow list and I hope she makes yours as well.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Some might recognise the name Leigh Bardugo from popular YA fantasies but fear not (or do for that matter) Bardugo can write the hell out of terrifying adult themes. Ninth House is almost impossible to out down in its fast paced, constantly twisting and turning mystery and terrifying ghost story.

[Now, I feel the need to mention before we move on that this is an award winning piece and it is loved by too many to count, BUT if you are on my blog then you may be here because I write about mental health and mental illness and all the emotions dark and light that come with psychology. I try my best to do so in an educated and realistic way that relates back to what I’m going through with good intentions. I try my absolute best to write realistically without including triggers. That being said, as someone who has mental health issues, this story did trigger me. Did I still enjoy the read and do I think you would too, absolutely! I wouldn’t have it on my list otherwise. But if you have anxiety, depression, ptsd, or are overcoming assault you may want to do some further research into the adult topics of this novel before reading. Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments regarding this topic. Thank you.]

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Moving into this year’s releases there is the ever popular The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. This is another one that seamlessly works in some brilliant comedy into the spooky plot.

Some have compared this to Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula and I’d just like to throw in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the cherry on that brilliant summary sundae.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

I had the pleasure of studying under Emily Danforth while going after my BA in Writing at Rhode Island College. At that point, she had just published The Miseducation of Cameron Post and I was completely enamored. That being said, I have kept up with her writing and oh man am I glad because Plain Bad Heroines was GREAT!

There are so few great additions to their horror genre that I just want to paste gold stars all over this beautifully written, funny, sexy, and utterly disturbing coming of age hit. I hope you love it as much as I did and if you do, be sure to review! This book is brand spanking new and new book sales depend on reviews to help audiences find them. Get out there and post what you liked or even what you didn’t about everything you read. In the end, even negative reviews help new readers find something they will enjoy.

Supernatural/Paranormal

Lorne J. Therrian Sr.

Jeanine Duval Spikes

Alexander Smith

Elizabeth Splaine

D. R. Perry

Sheryl Lynn Kimball

Lisa Jacob

Paul & Ben Eno

Christine Depetrillo

Roland Comtois

Daniel Cano

J. C. Brown

Horror

Alexander Smith 

H.P. Lovecraft Lisa Jacob

Christa Carmen

Science Fiction

Rachel Menard

Tabitha Lord

R. K. Bentley

Fantasy

J. Michael Squatrito, Jr.

Lorne J. Therrian Sr.

Angelina Singer

Scott William Simmons

C. K. Sholly

Heather Rigney

Rachel Menard

Paul Magnan

M. A. Guglielmo

Heather Dunn

Susan Catalano

A. Keith Carreiro

Daniel Cano

Noel Anne Brennan

Tim Baird

Mystery

Anne-Marie Sutton

Elizabeth Splaine

Dusty Pembroke

Risa Nyman

Rick Marchetti

Jean Kelly

Sam Kafrissen

Ilhy

Daniel Currier

Judy Boss

Julien Ayotte

Thriller

Heather Rigney

Glede Browne

Judy Boss

David Boiani

David Aiello

DON’T FORGET TO COMMENT BELOW!

13 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN IS A SPECIAL TREAT FOR ME AND MY READERS. ON HALLOWEEN, THERE WILL BE A VERY SPECIAL GIVEAWAY I’D LOVE FOR YOU TO TAKE PART IN. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO TO ENTER IS COMMENT OR SHARE THIS POST TO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA.

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING AND BEST OF LUCK!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: 23 Mar 2020 (Free Tacocat game, Adafruit's open source PPE, coronavirus jubilee, Private Kit, Italian mayors enforce quarantine)

Today's links

Tacocat, a free print-and-play game from the Exploding Kittens team: Super smart endgame!

Adafruit offers open source PPE manufacturing: They're retooling and available to help

It's time for a coronavirus jubilee: Debts that can't be paid won't be.

Medicare for All is an economic stabilizer: Private health insurance turns recessions into depressions.

Private Kit, a free/open app to give you control over your location history: Doing contact tracing without invading privacy.

Italy's mayors berate quarantine-breaking citizens: "Does your dog have an inflamed prostate?"

This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Tacocat, a free print-and-play game from the Exploding Kittens team (permalink)

Need a game to play while stuck at home? Elan Lee and Matthew Inman, creators of Exploding Kittens, have just released a free, print-and-play game called Tacocat, which we just played at home, and it's fun!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15UT6cElLNpxHG4er68DLxXwSrqbOTq2JFNFYzrmfO8I/edit#heading=h.8osmzd2mkump

It's a card game that's a bit like War, but with tons of little strategic gracenotes, including a totally brilliant endgame that makes the win up for grabs all the way to the very end. It took a couple of hands to figure out this complexity, but once we did, — wow!

Adafruit offers open source PPE manufacturing (permalink)

Some of the all-time heroes of the open source hardware revolution are the folks at Adafruit, a woman-owned, 150-person OSHW company in lower Manhattan. They've been deemed an essential industry and are retooling to make PPEs.

https://blog.adafruit.com/2020/03/22/covid/

They're VC-free, debt-free and profitable, and they're paying their 150+ employees through the crisis. They're manufacturing open source hardware face shields, ventilator components and electronics.

If you need manufacturing, design, logistics, or production support for PPE projects, contact covid19@adafruit.com.

It's time for a coronavirus jubilee (permalink)

The word "jubilee" comes from Hebrew for "trumpet," because every 50 years, the trumpet would be blown to signal the forgiveness of all personal debts. New kings once routinely announced debt forgiveness upon their ascending to the throne.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/21/debt-jubilee-is-only-way-avoid-depression/

Forgiving debts meant that the workforce stayed intact and productive, instead of falling into debt-bondage or mass migrating (think of Greece and its mass exodus after the recent imposition of debt austerity by the EU).

2008 represented a chance to write off bad mortgages. Instead, we evicted. Today, wealth inequality is far worse than during the last crisis. The new crisis has the potential to make inequality go supercritical.

The decision of Germany's creditors to force the country to pay war debts after WWI caused mass immiseration and paved the way for fascism. After WWII, the allies wiped 90% of Germany's debts off the books, triggering the nation's "economic miracle" and soaring prosperity.

As Michael Hudson writes in the Washington Post, if the US can afford a $4.5T quantitative easing package, it can afford jubilee for student debt. And private creditors who wipe out bad loans – ballooned by fees and penalties – will long have been made whole on the principal.

Leaving the "accruals" (fees, etc) in place, "actually subsidizes bad lending."

"Debts that can't be paid won't be. A debt jubilee may be the best way out."

(Image: Paul Miller, CC BY)

Medicare for All is an economic stabilizer (permalink)

The pandemic is revealing the extent to which private health insurance makes a bad situation worse. At the exact moment that we need more coverage, people are losing their jobs (and their coverage).

As Nathan Tankus writes, Medicare for All would be a great, countercyclic automatic stabilizer – buffering economic shocks for faster recovery. The current US system is an accelerant, making bad situations worse.

https://nathantankus.substack.com/p/medicare-for-all-is-a-great-automatic

Losing your job (and coverage) due to coronavirus, then losing your savings due to a broken ankle or a kitchen-knife slip? That's a recipe for turning deep recession into a new depression.

In discussion with Matt Taibbi this week, Noam Chomsky makes the point that private health care treats excess capacity as uneconomical and inefficient: "You should have just enough beds for what you need tomorrow. You shouldn't prepare for the future."

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/noam-chomsky-covid-19-useful-idiots-podcast-970047/

Under the finance sector's theory of shareholder capitalism, maintaining an extra hospital bed is a form of theft from your investors.

Neoliberalism treats all redundancy and resilience as "waste" and neoliberal raiders delight in selling it off.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/05/warner-chappell-copyfraud/#righttoresilience

Whether that's the corporate raiders who bought up newspapers and restaurant chains and sold off their real-estate and rented it back – leaving them grievously vulnerable to rent shocks – or the airlines' hub-and-spoke system that means one airport outage tanks the system.

Our supply chains – offshore, dependent on single points of failure – and the use of DMCA 1201 anticircumvention rules and other dirty tricks to suppress independent repair and third-party parts manufacture turn the devices we rely on brittle, making emergencies into crises.

What's worse than having your only computer go down at the start of a pandemic lockdown? Having your only repair depot shut down for the duration with no way to retrieve it.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/21/apple-store-repairs-coronavirus/

As Chomsky says, neoliberalism leaves us totally unprepared for a crisis. "What we're good at, what our leaders are good at, and have been very good at for 40 years, is pouring money into the pockets of the rich and corporate executives while everything else crashes."

(Image: Elvert Barnes, CC BY-SA)

Private Kit, a free/open app to give you control over your location history (permalink)

Private Kit is a free/open location-tracking app that does not expose your location data to third parties (including the app's authors) until you explicitly authorize it.

https://github.com/tripleblindmarket/private-kit

It's intemded for use in pandemic mitigation, "allowing you to share information with health officials accurately and quickly," but only when you explicitly opt in, and only for as long as you remain opted in. The authors' paper on this is "Apps Gone Rogue: Maintaining Personal Privacy in an Epidemic," which digs into the reasons that potential (or confirmed) carriers might be reluctant to participate in contact-tracking, and how privacy tools can help.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nwOR4drE3YdkCkyy_HBd6giQPPhLEkRc/view

It also discusses the rise of blackmail scams in South Korea in which criminals demanded payments not to falsely accuse businesses of being sources of new coronavirus infections (!!).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/06/more-scary-than-coronavirus-south-koreas-health-alerts-expose-private-lives

Private Kit allows for user location-history sharing directly with health authorities, without requiring third-party (carrier, app maker) intervention, aggregation or other high-risk activities.

This is an excellent example of the principle that "privacy" isn't the same as "secrecy." Privacy isn't "Nobody knows your business but you." It's "You decide who gets to know your business."

http://privatekit.mit.edu/

Italy's mayors berate quarantine-breaking citizens (permalink)

Our household can't stop marveling at this highlight reel of Italian mayors berating their stubborn residents for denying the quarantine orders. It's magnificent.

https://twitter.com/GiuliaRozzi/status/1241859350060093442

"We will send the police over. With flamethrowers."

"I can't formally ban you from leaving your house, Fine. I will ban you from setting foot on public land."

"Where the fuck are you all GOING? You and your dogs!* They must have inflamed prostates!"

"You can't play ping-pong. Go home. Play videogames."

"How can I spell it out? You can't stay in the streets. We need their girlfriends here. With clubs."

"Getting in your mobile hairdressers?! What the fuck is that for? Don't you understand that the casket will be CLOSED?"

"I saw a fellow citizen jog up and down the street, accompanied by a dog* who was visibly worn out. I told him, 'Look, this isn't a movie. You are not Will Smith in 'I am Legend.' You have to go home."

*Dog walking is a popular pretense for breaking quarantine.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Reflex: brilliant, page-turning sequel to Jumper https://boingboing.net/2005/03/23/reflex-brilliant-pag.html

#10yrsago: Secret ACTA fights over iPod border-searches http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2010/03/acta-de-minimus-proposals/

#10yrsago: Demonstration against Digital Economy Bill tomorrow at Parliament, London <a href="https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/disconnection/>https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/disconnection/

#5yrsago: Backchannel: computers can talk to each other with heat https://www.wired.com/2015/03/stealing-data-computers-using-heat/

#1yrago DCCC introduces No-More-AOCs rule https://theintercept.com/2019/03/22/house-democratic-leadership-warns-it-will-cut-off-any-firms-who-challenge-incumbents/

#1yrago British schoolchildren receive chemical burns from "toxic ash" on Ash Wednesday https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/08/children-end-hospital-burns-heads-toxic-ash-wednesday-ash-8868433/

#1yrago Procedurally generated infinite CVS receipt https://codepen.io/garrettbear/pen/JzMmqg

#1yrago Video from the Radicalized launch with Julia Angwin at The Strand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbdgdH8ksaM&feature=youtu.be

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/), Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/), Alice Taylor (https://twitter.com/wonderlandblog/), Four Short Links (https://www.oreilly.com/feed/four-short-links).

Currently writing: I've just finished rewrites on a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I've also just completed "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel next.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: The Masque of the Red Death and Punch Brothers Punch https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/16/the-masque-of-the-red-death-and-punch-brothers-punch/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

[sirjustice410]

My sirjustice tumblr account starts with sirjustice1 - sirjustice1000 and even upto sirjustice10,000, keep checking dude, read as well utwo tumblr a/c meaning u r sick in local jargon to see the rough inside homes many long not the smooth ones we got, things different from others we got Vatican blood wants. Many hardworking tribes got bukina Faso blooded tribe which is know with Key like penile made when having sex with their women when that pussy not bought as Kenyan Kikuyu buys from Burkina faso deed kids or women or even Germans which now makes many want not Women from disturbing tribes like luo/kikuyu as the same can be done and give to another woman dude. King of the jew another version to remind us dude

Like malindi Kenya has up-to 1 km off-shoreline shallow water that do not reach the height of electric power line, to make a big city, u can as well build estates other island apart from the city as building cities in fertile lands breeds curse as discuses previously, so inch part of the city falls on that land to be small, rather build island on water than encroach on fertile lands yet we got deserts bro. Enoch taken to heaven. TALK ill on ya on ya misbehavior cause they got loopholes to block ya like with exams which if u got like tamblr a/c to store they are left with stumbling words 4 the same and like what they cherish put on credit 4 every1. U Negros get to USA or red Indians of old Gabon Kamba blood not of ya tribe whose dirty side in ya was eliminated as per the bible like kikuyu/luo blooded to be eliminated now. Get ya self together and get to the same USA u say its poor shifting attention to Russia cause it has gas which now know how to make as much as wheat grows in much lands to share profits, moreover Russian 1 hinders brain working as Rusian thmselves has payed ya to officiate AE technologies in FB a/c kevinelson wandeterading ombuorading which u cant now hack so a detriment to ya shown in ya hush kamba and Russian portrayed character of wanting free things as internet they thought they will have 1st many nations have come up with as much as what they produce as military vehicle dude. Stop Kamba, with ya character of disturbing people with ya kids u cant go to another nation as later ya kids will disturb that way, cant u see dude, now that Kenya is poor not as u thought with flowers and tea to make u rude as saying its like a flowing river will never atrophy like minerals but can be made in boom process. If u get to ya home, another nation can accept ya as ya kids can hustle when they lost the grip that u got, not doing the same as u do dude, cant loose the whole generation bro

The winding road of good Samaritan parable in the bible currently the old eten road as Italians wants ya to accept it was the same as they got no military hardware making technology and fear the thing Russians did to Christ which now they got to have the same courage as shown above which if u dont accept not tantamount to actions of war.

King of the jew, they got kiyo/mirror without such the guard could have gotten them, they prayed when they knelt down and miraculously the door opened as in the link below

https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-google-coop&q=true+story+prison+break+from+pretoria+sa

The rocky not tarmacked RIFT VALLEY road, Road to emus Jericho not Kericho as K was omitted 4 J as many insinuates, another version parable

Do not investigate me if i want to be with ya, stop dude, my mission is international, then come cut me at night it ends, u poor braggart where rusinga island was a head land like 1.5 km off land then dug its side to form narrow path to cheat people u head debris to get to the island, who know not ya plan which draws much people b4 they had idea of making big rocks using garbage and placed cut lemon in the boom process. As in the links below

https://sirjustice409.tumblr.com/

https://earthporn.tumblr.com/post/625297970388189184/seascape-serenity-vancouver-island-oc-8256x5504

https://sirsermons.tumblr.com/

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/utwo

My sirjustice starts with sirjustice1 - sirjustice1000 and even up-to sirjustice10,000, keep checking dude

Uranium made with pineapple juice placed inside is cut lemon, cabbage pieces or raw mango pieces in the boom process.

They could have killed many races as those who knows how to make gadgets but when the writings herein are printed even the few that survives in that country has still the same to merge. Using the dredger technology to cut fissures unto the world crust to use E-cargo drone technologies to get there dude.

Plastic apparels like toothbrush, jerricans are made using garbage, rye, wheat dough solution and more as mentioned below and placing like condom or cut flower inside synonymous with plastic chairs and of similar stature in the boom process while the like water plastic bottles are using the same placed inside Tropical not all that tiny leaves of trees like osiala in local jargon and bougainvillea tree leaves and many similar apparatus which come out not, try with many tree leaves or fruit grain even wild around ya by placing many people to try to come out with the same.

Even the tiny medical gadgets like thermometer and medicine bottles make mini-missiles mixed with the uranium technology as explained above to make the detonator and with big missiles using made plastic bottles as above.

With saucer jets that stand on her stand like a stove made like American football shape, is made when such leaves that makes the plastic chair or the chair itself inserted in Garbage or solutions as named below or above and still the leaves that made like the water bottle inserted or the bottle itself with its water in the boom process makes that saucer jet explained above

Teaching little kids to kinda act like grabbing ya manhood which if u refute them breeds quarrel with people in the estate, teach ya kids manners dude, u kamba blooded not early prostitution bro, peleka hunger ukambani, i did not write ya a letter inviting u to locality i leave neither did i append my signature, take ya hunger bull by its own, u who is turf headed, was a blessing Kenya made 1, so we know ya, so it hampers your movement later when all gets well cause without knowing u with money we wont have known ya to get ya bad side, we need bad people without money and vice versa dude, rather its vice versa bro as Jamaica people got the former syndrome as they are Kisii blooded dude, good with u when both are poor when u did not know how to make gadgets but once u know the same needs the reverse bro. Ya turf headed now cant bring food unto the table bro

As in the link below dude

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Lw9YWLVts

Baby star-soft, either made with white guava, tangerine, banana, yam, bringanya and flowers in the boom process inserting all the below into the grinned solution of the above.

Gear bolt remover auto-matic and hand rotated as with the pulley, too soft that u realize not u r untied the bolt from the nut dude as in the below link

https://alexnld.com/product/3-jaw-inner-bearing-puller-tooll-kit-inner-hole-bearing-pull-maintenance/

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk01nkADmgIQC-YVWfoySyjuiCcoEGw:1596346626448&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=automated+car+wheel+remover+machine+alibaba+images&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjn_e3M5vvqAhUJfBoKHWAPBJ8QsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1280&bih=910

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Ctp89AH58

House super drum size armored glass where on the edges to the ground, it has sweeping on the ground normal bullet proof cloth as with most African lorries or buses mad guard.

When subdued but still wanna continue to claim people their own yet with bad character b4 they tell u to feed their own which aint ya shit again which if u refute they organize ya attack must end, when many who knows how to see those who see things on the eye are employed to settle the dust of disputes. Mr Hindu now time is ripe to get to ya nation. mFalme wa yawhodi to bring the fact of many such people from different walks of like who have known how to make military vehicle and missiles yet partake corpse not as u claim.

Small medical bottles like surgical spirit or eye/ear drop bottles when place inside rye, Garbage or dough, fruit juice and the below as hay, cut raw mango pieces, groundnut husks, African broom stick, pineapple, purple fruit, charcoal water, pumpkin pieces, okwaju outer peel makes mini-missiles like in the link below that uses the solar generator as explained earlier in other following tumblr a/c

https://www.edrmagazine.eu/idex-2019-lig-nex1-unveils-40-mm-mini-missile

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fweaponews.com%2Fimages%2F2019%2F05%2F05%2F7242c9080cf140bab7ad1cbf52884f0f.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fweaponews.com%2Fnews%2F65350426-turkey-showed-a-mini-rocket-yatagan-and-bought-ukrainian-missiles-cone.html&tbnid=KZP6nw-NbbywPM&vet=12ahUKEwjbhYLQ6PvqAhVGiRoKHSe2DTgQMygEegUIARCsAQ..i&docid=dSAwRLgDX_yjmM&w=800&h=436&q=south%20korea%20mini-missiles%20images&client=firefox-b-d&ved=2ahUKEwjbhYLQ6PvqAhVGiRoKHSe2DTgQMygEegUIARCsAQ

http://earthfinds.co.ug/index.php/features/item/778-man-making-missile-in-hoima-wants-to-meet-museveni

At the red houses adjacent or opposite to White Gate Kisumu along odinga oginga road on ya way to kibos sugar factory, harbors a super drum size hole which detective from different nations can come to see to atest that what is in book about the earth crust radius is a hoax as its from 10 -16 KM as Some Nigerians and Ghana men have made it here to attest the same above yet Mr white man still want to bother or rule us with day time lies. Fuck u dude synonymous with the bible, was made that way so a blessing in disguise to us.

Skyscraper and roads, u make holes with like bore hole digger machine, then mix much ya city garbage with sewer or just normal water, fill the hole, inside insert the explained/mentioned above along wire cut wires, bolts and nuts from hardware then with high intensity water pump, hurl cold water in the boom process or spit saliva from up high and boom ya building or road as per your style gotten from internet pictures or PS4 OR 5.

Must have for ya kitchen if still living in traditions, now that artificial charcoal also made using garbage and inserting the name above inside alongside sample of charcoal real or from photos making such Kg prices to reduce by up-to 70% cause involves not cutting down trees with lawn moving, grass cutting machines that required earlier robust men to eliminate such as now we need semi-weak men, of respect to the law, not all generous and outside the house thinkers as partially business oriented to move the world as can not spoil human race or not snoopers as chicken out dude as 2 fold homey, houses as well and welded gates window can be made as charcoal above to eliminate the pride of robust men with women once and 4 good

https://goldsen.en.alibaba.com/product/60229068498-805560538/TOLHIT_Small_Handheld_Speed_Variable_Metal_Wood_Steel_Cutting_Saw_Machine_Pneumatic_Portable_Band_Saw.html

U mean Nija still reach, yet our attention was shifted to that side with women as calabar, men, i feel like i want to puk as vomit, where will we turn to to get the women we have desired 4 life,maybe middle east dude. Yam can be sold to nations in the temperate world who produce such not and make shampoo, baby star-soft and soaps we did not know bro, see that market dude

my cooperative bank of Kenya a/c no 01116294445000, name is kevin nelson omondi, ID no 26540140, car and electric or plane, boat, submarine company who wish to pay me tribute send me dem cash into that bank a/c number as wire, away out of no way dude to tell me shit again to get to the counter, i debit my money anyway i wanna Mr Lazy!!! As in the link below

https://transferwise.com/gb/swift-codes/KCOOKENAXXX

Gold good than steel as makes ya head shape-full as rye bread and small and always thinking as good feeling synonymous with Manhattan island NY.

Cut carrot juice also when placed take the place as mentioned below, hay, pumpkin, coconut leave dry stick, purple fruit, Ginger, groundnut, broken sticks pineapple, lemon, orange outer peel, yam, sweet potato, raw mango or water lily as u can try many people with every machine to see which comes out good and even charcoal water or mix all that dude

Candy can be made like sugar, where in that juice like orange, pineapple, purple fruit or any fruit that makes juice u place the above as orange outer peel and boom ya candy or cough drops as with it u can mix need leaves with Ginger and lemon and boom ya cough drop or syrup dude

Carrot, human feces brown 1, red guava makes gold in the boom process when placed in sewer water or garbage and even corpse of rude people. Soda make as candy above as with cut oranges, sprite with female pee, Bitter lemon with cut lemon while stony with cut Ginger as the above all placed to remove the benefit of doubt dude. Coke u mix neem plant leaves with Wild sunflower, add much water in the boom process

Negro its up to u, to desist other tribes as not u as u have learnt as well to make Gadgets dude, maybe white-men playing dice to depict ya of being rude to facilitate ya annihilation by another nation cause u got no-sense which aint our problemo but yours dude

Ice cream is even made with ice placed in yogurt in the boom process or u place bubble gum as same in the boom process and ya ice cream as it builds cities like Chicago which when other spheres have learnt the same, its collapse dude. Hay or gum tree sticks can also take space of ice or use interchangeably. Ice cream IC, Jama-ic-a, icu, bury me dude, ica in local jargon. Tryna playing my insanity as portrayed in my writings which much i got from people on other tumblr a/c, aint mine dude, and if so my being insane has led to almost 2 thirds of world countries making airplane, military vehicle, missiles, cars, buses, phones all ahead of them, which if they as portrayed above they could have made it 1st or if were mine and could rob them their self-hood, they could have annihilated me to officiate such innovations which now they want to delete of what they cant delete, meaning they are insane claiming me to be them yet i don’t give them what they have ever wanted most to give them leverage well ahead b4 any other world tribe. Dem insane dude, AE your u claim, my writings on tumblr yours as those countries made machines as airplane or phones, u want to sue them dude, the above can also make paints with rye dough, flowers or gum tree extract dude

SAUCER JETS as in the link below are made with inserted yellow egg albumen or sweet potato in garbage as planes can be made using the same as above heaped with much cut used water bottle to have the metallic shinny appeal not as dry synonymous with many made African emerging airplanes

https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=nasa+saucer+jets+images&client=ms-google-coop&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihjcCn8_nqAhXvA2MBHVAVD_QQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1280&bih=891

Maroon Kenyan money note is made with cut strawberry where many spit and boom ya cash after placing all mentioned above.

Known Kenya is poor when her cash crop can be made well in the boom process but still wants the leisure associated with many inland lakes like Victoria and trukana, the Negro blooded and that’s it dude as TZ or UG lakes are much deeper like Tanganyika 4 the above, Get to chad or Malawi dude, go shallow inland lake that can offer u the same as above dude

When u place purple fruit as Zambarau or yam or orange peel in the boom in Garbage, solution makes even range rovers, Cadillac, heavy machinery, electrical appliances and accessories, jets, planes, military vehicle, when what u want u place their cut diagonal photo as well. When it fails with charcoal water, pumpkin, pineapple, coconut leaves/sticks or as those mentioned above try as well with the above and even the Fanta black currents u can add into the solution 4 more results with other gadgets that has not been made as u keep on trying to get the best results dude.

Germans time is the essence, u sponsor some men who behaves like your own to say shit in my ears, i cant dude, take it all away, who is greatest, what has disturbed u 4 ages, here i come and i give the client like nation b4 u like Uganda, Tz and Jamaica and still not ashamed like Internet and pay TV, phones and home appliances. Cant u see u r a toddler to me, get ya way dude, what i can do great to ya, is sleep with ya woman not to marry but to pay as will bring bad disturbing kid without respect. U r the epicenter, u came with Illuminati and must eradicate it lest u r annihilated dude.

Shinny airplanes like the USA or air peace Benin made 1 are made with Garbage but much ripe mango of the same magnitude added to give it that feeling dude or rye as u add made or after the plane made, repaint it with shinny paint as with like Burkina Faso or Mali 1 in the links below which aint shinny

https://allafrica.com/stories/201906300137.html

Getting money online thinking u got by as a head of ya pals, then shortly u r forced to pay like with 2goinvoice, even getting jobs 4 kids and building homestead 4 respects, which eliminates the same altogether so u get back to insulting ya long ago homies 4 no apparent reason. U Mexican as u heard carli or Texas were the same so wanting good life 4 ya kids and connected with Mexicans 4 that to happens as enjoy bar kalare make u insane water now can be made much in the boom process as in tumblr a/c sirjustice350, so ya plan fails so harsh with others. Eblotong'i bwana, warn them if u r not their described dude and Christ thing infused on 1 now failed, eating corp of this tribe or person made u to be innovative, so sell the same to the whole world to get cash as failed dude. Go to hell and die, where now are ya long time plans, dead and gone dude, stop ya shit bro lest 1 cut ya with machiethe

Rye paints or unhurt u add sweet banana in the boom process then ya paint or rubber tree extract like 1 in Liberia or other cut banana u add purple fruit or egg shell and boom ya paint bro, or detergent in water then add sweet potato and boom ya paint bro

Iran fighter jet in the link below

https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/kowsar-fighter-jet/

[weaselle]

pay no attention to this collection I just need to post it so I can find it

hit walls and floor... tall inside of my skull; if I never fall at all, clever's awfully dull - so if "push" says the door you'll be watchin' me pull - 'cause I only shop for china when I'm walkin' with bulls

Order me sit? dope, I'm askin' how high; I out right hope my notes are causin' outcry - where do I fit? miles as the cow flies - statistically shit, climbin' slopes to outlie

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I can juggle knives, and proselytize, and wink my eyes in flirth (or mix words like mirth and flirt, like, ask what planet Dirt is wearth) I can lift a person by their soul, or... even let them down; I can fit myself to any role: demon, prophet, clown. I can write like frightened squid, or read a book from any shelf- but a lifeguard out at sea can drown, and I can't save myself

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I want an adventurous crew, less than 100 and much more than 2; I've got an idea or four to do and believe that "to lead" isn't "ordering you" - I want be thicker than thieves: if one of us cries, everyone grieves; stacked deck for success, form small companies so that every ace dealt goes up all of our sleeves - I wish I had Boromir's horn; I stand full of arrows, small and forlorn I'd summon an army as sure as you're born and we'd rend every obstacle / mend what is torn

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yo when it's late I don't know if debate is a pro that I'm prone to or con I conflate; yawn ok great it's the dawn of new date too soon gone like a pawn in a perilous state - do I wander or wait, keep closed yonder gate or transpose these ten toes 'til exposing my fate? if not off to bed nodding off head berates and refuses to do more than snooze/obfuscate

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I don't have time enough to tell the clock to stop its ticking talk, while I'm sublimely sleepy, still ensconced in twos of shoes and socks; I'm staring off in awful need of themes that breed these searing thoughts- I breathe more air when all unfair reality congeals and clots; when sleep is claustrophobic, fear near stoic in its static stay, I ride my nightmares into mounts more suited to the dreams of day

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time for me to be known from home to home, on the campaign trail like when Romans roam, I'mma do the damn thang, prevail and own every twist in this life-line vine I've grown

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sick like a little bit with a bad tum and sniffle it's not a badda-boom bat beating but a wiffle hit; sleep like the bleeping sheep gotta wring it outta me, sore like a freaking score that you sing without a "c".

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i got nothing to say, i'm all bluff in this play, i mean i'm here to swerve some verse it's clear i'm thumpin' away at the buttons with the letters on whenever it’s day like a cat attacks a sweater, just pretending it’s prey - I need to catch the thing I’m chasing, like, it’s gotta get caught, and so I jot it down a lot to try to capture the thought; but though the plot is often written out in dashes and sketches, i rarely cash in those checks, i need more carry than fetches, so I’m dreamin’ and dumpin’ out all the schemin’ or somethin’ and like, even if it’s meaningless these keys I’ll keep thumpin

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with the internet i’m magic and i’m casting a spell call a song out of the air to here as clear as a bell private playlist from the A-list like i’m famous as hell making music moving quickly so I’m faster as well

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“oh no” I shout “Where’s Trusty my phone?” I don’t know the whereabouts, must be shown- adjusted the tone of the ring to silence now trying to find it brings me to violence; really need to locate as I motivate to go today I throw the flippin’ sofa pillows hopin’ for a stowaway... but oh no way it’s gone I pray this song will make a tiny spell; a lesson less on lost forlorn and more intent on finding cell

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pocket full of humbug, some'll argue/ some shrug but damnit my whole planet's stupid like it's on the Dumb drug will there be a U.S. war? (I mean ANOTHER on our list) maybe something civil: neo-drivel vs. power fist... maybe accidental, mental trump insulting china's boss I fear these pale tears will steer us straight into a giant loss

so many people on the earth are searching for a safe life the rich'll keep their swords but lord they'll take away our steak knife Nothing free for you and me our banking fees are never waved; an act by black or poor is "crime" for white or rich it's "misbehaved" They're pouring us an ethanol and calling it an eggnog - time to run away and trade these reindeer for a sled-dog; the season of the commie christ whose message hasn't landed yet: money only isn't evil if the people's needs are met

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no thanks on the news, yo crank up the tunes, don't bank on the crankiness taking a snooze unless I get dressed from neckless to shoes and charge the horizon more wise than confused __________________________________________________________

hear the too late beep, missing two days sleep, and the road to a dream is a two way street; so the mood stays bleak though I do make sweet this coffee with cream and the brew ain't weak

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been a While since I styled out the verbs and tenses, went around the Gates and straight hopped the fences; penUltimately gotta be a sultan of self: master mind, rule body, find my worth-and-my-wealth; if i'm quiet too long I'll have sloth not stealth so I try to move along and get my words off the shelf.

my projects: objects I invent/books writ - that shit won't pay the rent; throw fits, I have, it don't prevent: what's real from feeling devil-sent.

so I must be clever, do each: sum total; whatever needs eating this dead-beat goat'll; ask what is the art in a pace grown sickly? cut to the part where the chase goes quickly

Now hook or crook I must prepare, to tell each truth/take every dare stand hand on hips, and one in air, you can kiss my lips, or my derrière

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got me a hit list, swear i'ma get this done til the sun goes under the business; witness, this is crazy and witless, lazy lately: maybe the wiz kid just hid restless - put to the test his quiz is bested get to the rest it's now or not again, get that got and then kill it til the whole damn lot is a slaughter pen, sweat til the wet drip drops gettin' hotter than the metal that your kettle corn kernel keeps poppin' in; hoppin' and hippin' and readin' what's written i gotta be gettin' to the List no skippin'! slippin like fall, new leaves i'm flippin - givin' my all just to keep on grippin'; breakin' what doesn't bend wrong way through, as i make it to the end of the long To Do

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i post at the prompt, chew big what i've chomped; grew kid to a ghost haunting most of this pomp; listless within this to do list i'm swamped - spirit in fits, corpse slow to go romp

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incautious swatches of saying; watch as he washes the playing: switching the swerving and swaying into some terms of conveying wishes conditions occurred in which this envisioned un-blurred digit could get itself heard and flip politicians the bird

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in the trace of the face off you tasted last, is the scent of the sense made fading fast, so your dreams leak sieve-like hiking past a scared nightmare crew of an all-you cast

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got me a pallet of shall get around to, climb out of shallow kie, it's not about you; just look at the play and see where the props ain't, take out a brush but don't rush it you'll drop paint; stop sayin' you're praying for planet like damn saint but get out and do, do it, do, 'til you feel faint; yes do it, true get into some writing, what you must chew is how much off you're biting, i dust off the lightning and plug it right in, if i play hard enough then my bluff just might win, all this tin in my pocket while walking about til the hat-caving camptown will clean me all out- my ten other projects, pretend money fudge it, i'll sell all my objects and end up with budget; i'd love it if some of my ideas ran, but i'll finish the one and be one happy man

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each piece is news, new peace in reach; tho a few of you choose nude tweets of Preach- but the rest got best bits fittin' here, what tests my pets must sit and hear: forget that past rush last two years going mash-gas fast 'til we're clashing gears, it's clear no room for fear to be, but the info flash is a blast to me- from the crashing sea to the land locked loam, we're lashed to the new word womb to tomb; and it's all fantastic like plastic foam that'll patch like magic a tragic home, or a tech part heart in 3-d print that'll let docs talk too intelligent; it's so elegant, that an elephant could do operations like he hella went: to harvard med my head is full but the school yard's sharp like a shaving tool; i'm a raving fool, but i drink it in, article particles 'til i sink and spin, win wonder i'm under delusions grand- will i sunder illusions and understand? or is it too much fuss will i cuss and worry, will i do what's just 'mid the dust and fury all i know is i go with the flow i find, tryna rein in my brain while i fill my mind

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so often was the A.M. spent prayin' for mayhem, like seeing riots firing inspired me to 'amen'; i'd hate when the job sucked, my robbed luck, i'd get stuck- attempts at free society my hopes and dreams were all fucked; but lately (don't hate me) the game is less crazy- i bust twice as lustrous if bosses don't make me; So new to the bragging, i catch up from lagging and write down solutions more lucid less nagging

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no sleep awake i sit and wait until the mill will dim/abate some whim shall take my fancy fate is to be sleeping dreaming state my eyes won't close i'll type i 'spose i'll write a night time rhyming prose those words i've heard but rearranged their meaning seeming weird and strange i've changed but how i could not say i only know no other way yet days gone by then who was i my mind was mine but what i tried to bind untied it flies! it runs! i rue what once i 'knew'; so dumb- untruth undo what time has done i can't so chant of what's to come oh spin oh sing oh show such things oh paint me what the future brings if won't be still then say your fill i pray my brain abstain from frills and spill the beans and give me scenes of things that help divine the means which plan to make which paths to take? i sit and wait no sleep awake

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rework this

i want things to be different, starting with me; like to find me a new mind, with new eyes to see; like to start a new life, with new ways to be; can't be hard to do right, or this dude might flee- but i like the older version, no aversion to he: the kid who up and did lots, and got up from knees; who figured bigger sub-plots, and thought it was neat; who questioned syncopation, by stepping off beat; so i'd like to start a nation, a tribe or a team; one with no reservations just, a vibe and some steam; a group think to shout out 'thou shalt know peace' and to try it they're provided with some elbow grease; what i mean is, i think it's, so nice to be me; and the thing is the scene seems a singularity; but my brain goes, down more roads, than the branches of trees; and with more crew, i might do, more glancing with ease; so for multiples of loyal, one/two/three: i might try it royal, and become true We

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