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streamingcolors-gvf · 1 year

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Skin Deep - A Birthday Treat

Pairing: Josh Kiszka x f!reader x Jake Kiszka

Word count: 5.4k

A/N: This is mostly kind of unedited, so be kind and don’t judge me too harshly. I wanted to get this out yesterday, but life just sort of got in the way. Hope y’all enjoy!

Appreciate all the love, support and feedback!

Shout out to Nessa @asparrowofthedawn for helping me work through this “blurb” idea ❤️

Warnings: mentions of alcohol consumption, cursing, sexually explicit content - MINORS DNI! (Oral m!receiving, oral f!receiving, dirty talk, ice play, spit kink, degradation kink)

Masterpost

Skin Deep Playlist

You adjust the fit of your new lingerie, a set you had picked out specifically for this day, shimmying it beneath your matching sundress as you stand in front of the bathroom mirror. The guys had thankfully kept themselves occupied by playing one of their video games in the living room, giving you plenty of time to fix your hair to your liking, a half-up twisted knot. You had even gone as far as to pack your curling iron from your apartment to style the ends so they sit nicely against your bare shoulders. Leaning in so you’re a few inches from the mirror, you give a final swipe of the carefully selected lipstick across your bottom lip.

You look good. Really good.

It’s not that you never wore makeup or dressed up like this, but being around them gives you a sense of comfort like this was your second home. A place where you can be yourself and feel confident knowing that they’ll appreciate your natural beauty. Josh makes a point of it, telling you over and over that he finds you the most irresistible when you’re wearing nothing but a pair of cotton panties and one of his favorite t-shirts.

But today was special, and you’re more than determined to prove that to them. There’s no doubt you’re turned on by how quickly you’ve soaked through the panties you just put on minutes ago. You can’t help it, the thought of having both of them within your reach is nearly too much to bear.

You iron out the wrinkles of your dress with a pass of your palms while giving yourself one last internal pep talk. The little plan you’ve schemed is coming together, and now all you have to do is execute it.

The t.v can be heard echoing throughout the hallway as you make your way into the living room with each confident stride. Josh’s boisterous laugh cuts through the sounds of the game, making you smile before you even get into their line of vision.

Just like you predicted, Josh is the one to notice your presence first, breaking his focus away from the screen in a fleeting glance, only to follow it with a double take. As they lock on to you, his gaze lingers, making his eyes instantly light up as he takes you in, absorbing every single detail into memory. His smile, one that you think can’t get any bigger — the one that you adore so much — shows across his face until he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. He tosses the controller onto the coffee table with a loud thud and stretches back into the seat cushion.

Jake has only been paying attention to the game since you’ve been standing here and throws his hands up in frustration as he snaps at his twin, “Dude, what the fuck—“ But his thought is cut off once he sees you like his brain suddenly blanked out. “—Oh.”

He pauses the game and tosses his controller to the side to eliminate any distraction, an action you’re convinced is unnecessary based on how he’s staring at you right now. His eyes are wide in shock, giving you that cliche deer-in-the-headlights look — an expression you rarely ever see from him.

Normally you would fight the shy, bashful feeling that’s bubbling in your stomach from that reaction, but instead, you use it to your advantage. You let the rising blush show on your face while you play with the curled ends of your hair, dropping your eyes away from them to look down at the pattern of the hardwood floor.

You allow the tension of the moment to linger for a few seconds, giving them the time to study all the details you had put so much effort into. Pulling your eyes back up to Josh, you see him leaning back against the cushion, smiling at you like he always does. The glint in his eyes is telling you he’s onto whatever this is and is welcoming it with unbridled enthusiasm.

He decides to break the silence, with the tone of his voice saying more than the actual words, “Hey baby, we don’t have to be ready to go for a couple more hours.”

You feel Jake’s eyes following your every move as you close the short distance between you until you’re standing inches away from their legs. While making sure to give them both your attention, you say softly, “I know…but I wanted to give you both a present first.”

You follow through with your next move by sliding onto Josh’s lap with your hands braced on his shoulders, which makes your sundress ride up your legs as you sink onto him. You can feel the excitement radiating through him as you adjust, rolling your hips ever-so-slightly so you feel the rough fabric of his jeans grazing the back of your thighs.

You can feel everything through the delicate, sheer fabric of your panties, the friction of rubbing across the denim alone driving you right to the edge. His thigh muscles flex beneath you as he rolls his hips up, driving his already-hard erection into your core.

It’s no surprise to you that he’s amped up already. You had been teasing him with the idea all day since the two of you woke up this morning, even if it made you feel slightly guilty for making him wait as long as you have.

“But it’s my birthday, baby,” he whines against your ear with that certain rasp of sleep, a sound he knows is sure to make your thighs clench in need.

“I know…” You want to give in, to worship his cock for hours with no end in sight, to hear him plead from overstimulation, but you have other plans in mind. You gather whatever is left of your self-control through a shaky sigh, “…but you have to wait until later.”

His parted lips brush against the nape of your neck, tickling the tiny hairs with every languid sweep of his mouth. You have to give it to him for trying because you can’t help but grind your ass against him because of it. “You are a cruel, cruel woman. I think making me wait for birthday sex is the worst thing you’ve ever done.”

You giggle, imagining the pout on his face while separating him from your back with a nudge of your elbow. “For some reason, I think you’ll survive.” He retaliates with a nip at your skin with a squeeze of your breast through your tank top. “And stop trying to make me horny, Joshua Michael.”

“Oh, did you just full name me?” He scoffs as he props himself on an elbow to look over you. You bury your face into the pillow to muffle your laughter just as he leans in to place a kiss below your ear through a smile.“I’ll wait, but I will make no promises on that.”

His soft hands slide along the top of your thighs, slipping below your cotton dress to find the divots of your waist, pulling you even closer. While his thumbs trace along the thin band of your thong, he tips his chin up, breathing in the floral scent of the perfume that you’ve sprayed to the pulse points of your neck. “Giving me my present late, baby?”

You glance over to his left to see Jake acting restless as if he’s been contemplating whether to stay or go, most like a response from thinking this is a private moment between you and his brother. You hum in thought, redirecting your focus while taking Josh’s chin between your fingers and thumb. “I think you might have to share this one, Joshy.”

While you predict that there might be a spark of jealousy from your implication, you’re only met with Josh exchanging a certain look with his twin. One that’s mischievous and knowing given the grin that’s curling on the corners of his lips, causing Jake’s unsure expression to transform in seconds. Usually, silent communication is something you choose to usually ignore, accepting that it’s the product of this dynamic you share. This time, however, is one of those times you wish you could hear all of their inner thoughts.

You guide his attention back to you by bringing him in for a kiss, releasing your hold on his face, and letting your fingers roam over the path of buzzed hair to wrap around the nape of his neck. He’s impatient and greedy, licking across your lips to taste you without a care in the world that they are coated in a velvety-pink hue. He tastes like the tequila and soda he’s been sipping on throughout the afternoon, giving you a teaser of how your evening will pan out. His thumbs hook around the band of your panties while his fingers massage into the supple flesh of your hips.

Before you run the risk of venturing too far and losing yourself, you break away from him and lean into Jake. He’s startled at first by the brazenness of the action, but melts into the kiss nonetheless, deepening it with every reconnection of your lips. He’s more reserved than Josh today, staying cautious and calculated with the gentle passes of his tongue along yours. He holds your face with his hand as you’re hit with the strong tartness of lime as he had recently sucked on the wedge now floating in his glass only moments prior. You take a needed breath, and because you’ve caught him before he’s gotten ready for the evening and had the chance to put on his favorite cologne, the only things you smell are the detergent off his t-shirt and his natural scent.

The kiss is continued along his jawline, and he quickly offers you the expanse of his throat with the upward tilt of his head. You spoil his warm, soft skin with lasting kisses, following the delicious path to his ear, and whisper in your sultriest voice, “You can unbutton your pants now, birthday boy.”

While Jake scrambles to pop open his belt, you slowly sit back on Josh’s lap to admire your work of art before you — both your boys covered in a collection of your lipstick marks. Josh is grinning at you, basking in the afternoon sun with smears of pink across both of his lips. Jake is in a similar state, peering down at you through heavy lids as he palms himself over his boxer briefs.

“So this present…” Josh massages his fingers into your waist as he grinds himself against you. “Can I unwrap it?”

You bite at your bottom lip as you give him the go-ahead with an enthusiastic nod. He needs no other signal and grabs fistfuls of the dress that’s bunched up around the top of your legs, and before he can pull it off you, Jake interrupts with an extended hand, “Careful!” While Josh freezes his movements, he pauses to look at you before adding, “That’s a new dress, isn’t it, dove?”

You blush at the thought of Jake paying enough attention to you to know what’s new in your wardrobe. “It is. Do you like it?”

“I love it.” There’s something about the drawl of his gravelly voice that holds a deeper intrigue.

“Sorry, baby.” Josh watches his fingertips trace over the tiny roses on the pattern of your dress, traveling up the curves of your body until they stop at your neckline. They dance along the supple skin on the tops of your breasts until he decides to tug on the hanging strings that you’ve tied into a bow as he whispers, “I love it too. It’s beautiful on you.”

With Jake’s instruction, Josh makes a point to be more careful with removing the dress from you. He peels it up your body with your help of lifting your arms as he pulls it over your head. You arch your back to give them the best view of the lingerie set you’ve picked out, hoping they notice that your dress matches perfectly with its sheer white fabric that’s adorned with tiny embroidered pink roses.

You had chosen it for its soft and feminine details, so sensual in its delicate floral elements that carry a certain grace of spring — something that seems so fitting for this day. From what you can tell, it’s clearly stirring something in Jake for him to see you like this when he’s only ever witnessed you in black or red garments. Josh, however, would probably fuck you if you wearing nothing but one of those cheap Halloween banana costumes. To him, all lingerie you wear is a treat, even if it will most likely end up on the floor minutes later.

They both stare for several seconds, looking you up and down and in unison, mutter under their breath, “Fuck…”

Jake dares to reach his hand out, presenting the image of the skull inked across the top to the touch to the band of your panties resting on your hip before trailing his fingers toward the embroidered roses decorating the front. Josh is busy focusing solely on your chest, fixating on the same pink flowers on the cups and straps of your bra.

Josh lowers his mouth to your covered breast to graze his lips across your hardening nipple through the lace. The heat of his breath clings to your skin, adding to the sensation of his wet tongue licking across the fabric. You feel the metal of his piercing, which causes a whine to leave your mouth without warning. While he commits to showering your chest with attention, his open hands begin to roam up the length of your back.

Once Josh’s nimble fingers find the metal clasps, Jake interrupts for a second time, but with a noticeable desperation in his voice, “No, wait! Leave them on her.”

He abandons the hooks to play with the straps instead, mumbling into the hollow point of your throat, “Looks like these are a favorite, baby.”

Your preparation has paid off and you can’t hold back the smile forming as you kiss him again. He’s not as rushed this time by letting you take the lead, and while you stay for only a moment, you eventually leave his lips to make your way down his throat as you slide down his body. You take your time placing each perfectly pink imprint of your lips onto his golden-tanned skin until you’re stopped by the collar of his crewneck.

He throws his hands back behind his head as his throaty laugh fills the room. “I fucking love birthdays.”

You sink to the floor between his legs, thankful for the living room rug that’s padding your bare knees. Adjusting to the new position, you run your hands over his legs to massage the tops of his thighs, inching closer with each roll of your fingers over his tight-fitting jeans. He responds by shifting forward on the cushion, extending his back in such a way that gives you easier access to the button of his pants.

You can see he’s struggling to stay patient with how hard he is — his cock throbbing wildly within his right pant leg without reprieve. You add to the torment by ghosting over the very obvious erection and dipping your fingers underneath the hem of his shirt, pushing up the soft material up his torso to expose the sensitive skin of his belly. You linger around the metal button of his pants, playing up the act you’re putting on before popping it open with a flick of your wrist.

Jake disrupts the moment by speaking up, revealing some annoyance in his tone as he asks, “Why does he always get to go first?”

Before you have a chance to respond, Josh huffs out a harsh laugh, “Because I’m older, dipshit.”

His go-to remark makes you think back to the memory of that first night you had spent together in the tattoo shop, causing a smile and blush to appear. As much as you enjoy every intimate moment with each of them, the times like these always stirred something special in you.

“By five fucking minutes!”

Josh only taunts back, “And you’ll never live it down.”

To avoid ruining the moment, Jake concedes with an aggravated grumble, “Asshole.”

While they’re preoccupied with their immature bickering, you start pulling the zipper of Josh’s jeans at a painstakingly slow pace, taking his attention away from Jake and back to your hands. You peel the fabric away to the sides, revealing his white boxer briefs as you squeeze his covered cock through the denim.

Despite the fact you’re concentrating solely on Josh, Jake is the one to scold you, “Stop teasing.”

“I will when you stop playing with your boxers and decide to finally pull your cock out,” you quip back, giving him more attitude than you ever have before. You cast your eyes away as you can’t look at him directly in fear of what his next words will be. If it wasn’t for Josh acting as your buffer to save you from punishment, you probably wouldn’t have risked it.

The following seconds are thick with tension from Jake staring down at you and Josh’s stunned expression frozen on his face as he fights back the laugh that wants to escape him.

Jake eventually releases a heavy sigh, muttering under his breath, “Smart ass.”

A giggle escapes you and Josh quickly joins in, earning himself a painful smack to his arm from the back of Jake’s hand. “Ouch!”

Jake finally takes your cue and pulls himself out of the snug-fitting black cotton. You watch him while slipping your hand beneath Josh’s, causing a loud, visceral groan to push past his lips the second you touch him. He’s warm in your hand, the suede-soft feel of skin brushing against your palm as you wrap your fingers around his length. Feeling the heavy pulse of his heartbeat, you retrieve his cock from the restrictions of his pants and boxers, bringing him out into the open air.

You look up to see Josh peeking through his lust-draped lids, his mouth hanging open in anticipation with panting breaths puffing past his lips. He prepares himself for what’s about to happen by reaching for his drink that’s been sitting on the end table, and taking a large sip of the liquid courage. You extend your free hand, silently asking for a sip as well.

The tequila soda is watered down considerably at this point, but you’re not worried about the alcohol or taste. What you’re after is the cube of ice that you’ve now dropped into your mouth, stashing it safely against your tongue before handing the glass back to him. Without wasting another second, you place a chilled kiss on the head of his cock, causing a violent shiver to roll through his spine.

The muscles in his body go rigid as he sucks in a sharp breath when you slide him across your cold tongue. After a few seconds of keeping the ice pressed against the side of his cock, he begins to relax as it starts melting in the heat of your mouth. An unexpected grunt leaves him through this, and he follows the sound with a string of curses as the dual mixture of temperatures overloads his brain.

Josh wets his lips, mumbling out into the open, “Oh my god, that feels so good.”

The shocking surge of cold, soothed with the intoxicating heat of your mouth is sending him closer to the edge than both of you expect. You swirl your warming tongue around his cock while keeping the base of him wrapped with a loose fist. You know everything that Josh enjoys, the feather-light flicks of your tongue beneath the head of his cock, the twisting strokes of your fingers, the gentle sucking with your lips sealed around him — a sensation that keeps his brain buzzing.

Your reward is the pitchy whimpers echoing in the base of his throat as his adam’s apple bobs with each harsh swallow, the clawing of his own fingers across his chest and legs, the way he throws his head back and clamps his eyes shut.

With one hand still wrapped around him, you feel across Jake’s right thigh with the other, taking his cock from his loose grasp and finding that he’s just as hard to the touch. You stare at him through your lashes as you start to stroke him at a lazy pace, watching his expression shift with every one of your movements. While holding your gaze, he tips his head slightly forward and parts his mouth, and allows a long, dripping trail of spit to fall from his bottom lip, down to the head of his cock.

It hits your hand as well, causing your now-wet fingers to glide over his length with ease. The lewd image takes your breath away, causing you to stall on Josh as he stays right below your lips, just as Jake intended. Satisfied, a cocky smirk hooks the corner of his mouth as he leans back against the cushion.

You twist your hand up and down the length of Jake’s cock, admiring every detail that makes him unique. He’s hot to the touch, throbbing against your fingers each time you slow

Josh doesn’t seem to notice the display and writhes against your arms in need of release. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful.”

The praise sparks your need aching between your thighs, and you push his cock into your mouth, sinking onto him in a single motion, nudging the tip of his cock as far as it can go. You relax the muscles in steady, deep breaths, opening your throat to push him that much farther. It’s another thing that takes him by surprise, causing his fingers to fly to your hair as he breathes, “Holy shit.”

You hear Jake’s raspy chuckle above you, “I taught her that little trick.”

The new technique combined with the dancing rolls of your tongue to the underside of him sends him over in seconds. His body simply acts out of his control now, causing his hips to buck, the grasp around your hair to tighten, and for him to whine with brimming urgency, “I-I’m gonna cum, baby. Baby—“

He pants your name like a mantra, erupting into the back of your throat through a shaky thrust, emptying on your tongue as you swallow his release down. You lick him up, not wanting to leave a single drop of him until the overstimulation starts to set in. You eventually come to a stopping point, and withdraw him from your mouth to place an open kiss on the cherry tattoo before biting at the soft flesh of his stomach just to feel him squirm.

While his chest heaves with every ragged breath as he collects himself, you slide away from his lap and slow yourself between Jake’s legs. He sweeps the fallen lock of hair from your cheek and tucks it behind your ear, giving you that recognizable devilish grin he always seems to have with you.

You continue stroking Jake as he tugs at your bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, showing your bottom row of teeth while cooing in a silken voice, “That’s a pretty shade on you, dove. What’s this one called?”

Before you answer him, you wrap your painted lips around his thumb, sucking it into your mouth to leave the faint pink ring around the base, pulling away enough to whisper in a heavy breath, “Love Trap.”

He moans at the feeling of your tongue licking across his skin, humming in approval, “Well, that’s fitting.”

You kiss the shaft of his cock as your fingers work around him, taking the opportunity to tease him before he ultimately takes control. Josh begins to move in his seat and reaches down to guide you up off the floor, repositioning you so that your knee sinks into the cushion with your other foot planted on the floor. You sense him dropping down to his knees behind you, feeling his hands explore the curves of your hips and ass.

You whine from the proposition and look over your shoulder. “Josh…the present was supposed to be about you.”

He giggles, watching your eyes as he buries his face between your legs so you feel the hot air clinging to your body with each drawn-out exhale. He kisses the fabric covering your core, making you instantly clench around him, before answering in a pleased sigh, “Oh baby, this is the present.”

You guide Jake past your lips just as Josh’s fingers feel the bands of your thong that rest on either side of your hip, pulling at them slightly to release with a teasing snap against your skin. He curls his fingers around them and slowly tugs them down, carefully maneuvering your legs to remove them from your body.

“Happy Birthday,” he calls out to Jake, slingshotting the lingerie over you for him to catch. You watch from below as he feels the delicate material between his thumbs as if entranced in his world by the garment alone. He then does something you don’t expect by holding them up to his face — burying his nose in the white fabric woven between his fingers — to breathe in your scent. As it fills his head and lungs, his fingers pull at your hair while his eyes flutter closed with a low groan rumbling deep in his chest.

Josh sucks at the sensitive skin of your inner thighs hard enough to bruise the flesh between his teeth, leaving little pink marks of his own while his fingers slip between your folds. You jolt at the feeling of him rubbing with firm pressure against your clit, and moan around Jake as he glides across your flattened tongue.

With one hand bracing your hip, the tip of Josh’s tongue glides through you in a single pass, the taste of you causing him to groan in satisfaction as he hears your muffled whimpers. He always loves to take his time and edge you, but you’re too impatient for that today and back into him, begging him for more.

There’s no denying that focusing on Jake is difficult, but you’re adamant to take the challenge. You use every trick you know, every learned detail that drives him insane. Whereas Josh prefers the drawn-out tease, Jake wants the full show. He wants to see the trails of drool leaking past your swollen lips and the black tears streaming down your face. You give it to him, playing off the sounds he makes in return, gauging how hard his fingers pull at your hair.

Meanwhile, Josh devours you like you’re his last meal on Earth, knowing that he doesn’t have much time with how close Jake seems to be, and abandons his usual method of teasing you for as long as you can stand it. The determined rolls and laps of his tongue across your swollen clit make gag around Jake through a groan, causing a growl to rip through his teeth, “Yeah, dove. Fucking choke on it.”

His hand snakes to the back of your head to push you farther down his cock, the pressure threatening to make your throat spasm around him again. You know Josh heard it from how he suddenly pauses every movement of his tongue, stalling inches from you before pulling away from you. “Jake…”

Jake doesn’t seem to register Josh’s concern, as this is a normal thing between the two of you. He’s falling into his role, emphasizing his point with a tug of your hair as you continue working your mouth around him, “Spit on her. She likes feeling it run down her pussy and thighs.”

You can sense Josh’s apprehension by the way his fingers press into your hips and the whispered curse slipping past his lips. He takes a second to think about it until he eventually obliges by spitting directly onto you, causing you a shudder to roll through you and your toes to curl as his saliva drips down your pussy and thighs — just as Jake had described.

Josh runs his fingers through the added wetness, mesmerized by your reaction, causing Jake’s ego to run at a high as he croons, “See? I fucking told you, didn’t I?”

You’ve been so turned on throughout the day, that it doesn’t take much for him to take you to the edge of your tipping point. You chase only it by forcing Jake as deep as he can go, impressing him with the skills he’s so clearly proud of you for. He’s fighting it through every drag of his nails across the dark wash denim of his jeans as he curls his fingers over his lap. His chest is tight with every strained breath his lungs push out as he tries to hold out for as long as he can, but there’s no secret he’s closer than you are.

It doesn’t take long for you to get to the point where you’re no longer concentrating on Jake, but rather on the work of Josh’s tongue licking and tasting you, gagging around his cock again. You pull him from your mouth to catch your breath and compensate with your hand, revealing how desperate you’re becoming when you cry out, “Josh… please don’t stop. I’m so fucking close.”

Your words must have affected him because seconds after your pathetic plea hits Jake’s ears, he unravels before you without the same warning Josh had managed to give you. The first shot hits your face as a cursed apology leaves his lips, making you flinch before you have the chance to wrap your mouth around him again. You can’t be bothered to care, taking your reward, swallowing him down just as you had done so with Josh.

Josh’s fingers dig into your hips with his determination to make you cum, filling the room with the obscene sounds of his mouth on you. With the final circle drawn over your clit with his pointed tongue, your orgasm comes crashing down, sending you into the unforgiving waves of your pleasure. He rides it out through listless passes from your entrance to your overstimulated clit until your legs begin to shake around him.

He finishes with a kiss and presses his sweat-covered forehead against your ass as he calms his breathing before sitting fully on the floor to rest the back of his head on the armrest. After taking the time to come down, you stretch out your limbs and stand on your feet, seeing Jake completely spent. You note the beads of sweat that also cover his forehead and brow, how his eyes are staying closed as he licks across his lips, the way his t-shirt is wrinkled beyond belief as his softening cock is between his stomach and the band of his boxers.

As per usual, Josh is the one to finally break the silence, “I think it’s safe to say that beats getting socks.” Jake even chuckles at the dumb joke, joining in the collective laughter between all three of you.

Suddenly aware of your disheveled state, you look down at Josh sitting cross-legged at your feet, and ask, “Is my makeup messed up?”

His gaze climbs your mostly naked form before it reaches your face to study the damage. He puts up a weak attempt to hide the smile while brushing his fingers across your outer thigh, admitting with that special glimmer in his eye, “Uh…I think we might have to freshen you up, baby.”

You giggle, wiping your finger beneath your eye to gather the wet mascara that had started to run.“That bad?”

He slowly stands to his feet, pulling you into a close embrace with hands locked around your lower back, and mumbles into your cheek, “Nothing a shower can’t fix.”

Realizing that Jake has no intentions of moving anytime soon, you follow Josh’s lead as he takes you by the hand toward the bathroom. Once you’re in the hallway, he pulls you in closer now that he’s out of earshot from his twin with concern laden in his voice, “Is that how he speaks to you? Do you like that?” You try to think of a well-thought-out response, but expression tells him everything he needs to know, making him shake his head. “I think I learn something new about you every day.”

TAGLIST:

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eldrytchcryptid · 4 months

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(Spoilers Ahead)

I wrote this review on Goodreads too but like every trans dude of like adult age needs to read this damn book-

A trans man, as a romance protagonist in an actual adult novel.

Have you ever loved the words on the page of a book so much you wanted to rip them from the spine and stuff the paper into your mouth and digest them?

I think I might sleep with this book under my pillow for the next year just to absorb it into my bloodstream through osmosis.

When I tell you I have been waiting years for trans men to be properly represented in romance (or just ANY adult media at all), this book decided to grab me by the throat and force tear after tear from my eyes until I was sobbing and hollering with laughter, slamming the book down on my bed to the point where I may actually get charged with abuse.

There were points in this book where I thought I needed to check my brain for cameras - I can't speak for every trans man of course, but having the ftm experience so seamlessly written from an actually confident trans man in his identity with the same inability to realise people actually want to be around him, and the same kind of trans dick jokes and mourning over childhood - at certain point, especially when they redid the photos I started crying only to realise that Eli was crying to like "Ye bro I'd be crying too in that scenario damn."

I have truly, truly never felt so represented in a book - and I was starting to give up hope that I would ever see a trans man in an adult book who was PROPERLY written that I-

I can only thank @tjalexandernyc for writing this and hope that this is the start of trans men beginning to come into their own to being represented as something other than in teen media.

Transness aside, the book is beautifully written with amazing humour and heartwarming scenes that ripped me into thin little ribbons.

And the only qualm I had is that Eli didn't dick Nick down. I need a novella of just them exploring each other. Please. The sex scenes were just exquisite and hilarious.

I'm also gonna put some of my favourite bits here cause I have to.

#tj alexander #second chances in new port stephen #trans books #lgbt books #ftm #trans man #transgender #trans #transmasc #book review #book recommendations #queer books

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saphig-iawn · 7 months

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Day 11 of Turning me into Me

So in light of yesterday's writing, I discovered a shop that I would never have expected to see in my town. An actual witch shop. I think the owner was out to lunch when I went so I couldn't look inside but I really hope to go in there soon. While I don't practice I've felt great comfort and support around women who practice witchcraft. There is a comfort and warmth those people emanate that I can't help but find myself drawn to them. They present this defiance and nonconformity that resonates with me. I'm not sure if I'd ever practice practice, but there are enough rituals in my life that I probably do but don't realise it. I must admit that getting a cat has made me feel more comfortable in my home so perhaps I am a witch. I'm going to try and see if I can catch them open tomorrow. A good witch needs a good dress after all.

As I was writing this I saw a wonderful post by @mechacringegirl that I reblogged that really resonated with me, so I think its worth me writing about when I knew I was trans.

So like @mechacringegirl wrote, I didn't always know I was trans. I feel that there's an overriding narrative that there needs to be this felt incongruence between yourself and your self, but that wasn't me. 2018 was the year I realised I was trans, in that I had a label for it. The word transgender existed to me but I had a whole knotted bramble mess of feelings that made that label unknowingly inapplicable (which I'll explain later). What cracked my egg was two separated moments. The first was a dream. I came out to my girlfriend and she was so happy and supportive and she even named me in the dream. The second was playing the game Endless Legend. I was happily minding my own business until I encounter a minor faction within the game, the Sisters of Mercy. Righteous warrior women who champion the trampled and oppressed. The image of their leaders and their warriors just struck me so hard in my chest. I felt my chest compress, my heart expand. I felt so overwhelmed that I cried. When I look back now, they embodied so much of femininity that I wanted. This moment made me realise that my dream wasn't a one-off. It took me 3 months to tell my girlfriend about it. I was so terrified of losing her, but she was so supportive but she laughed at her dream self for naming me Tiffany (if you ever meet me, you'll see I'm not really a Tiffany kinda girl).

From then to now has been an incredible journey of introspection and reflection. There is so much to talk about, but I want to focus on that big bramble knot. I've met a few lovely girlies on here and we've talked about this and found kinship and appreciation for one another so I feel it only right that I share these feelings in here in the hopes that it finds someone like me when I was trying to wrestle with these feelings. In short:

I was terrified that my feelings about myself and my gender were a fetish.

During my teens, I discovered that sneaking on feminine clothing made me feel different. Arousal was a part of it, but the overwhelming feeling was one of it being forbidden, or wrong (btw young Saphi, that was gender euphoria you were feeling too!). That lead me to discover very powerful NSFW content that had all manner of transformations. Genderbending, dollification, dronification, bimbofication, it was all there when I was discovering this, and I got sucked right in. Every piece of content I absorbed I always found myself wanting to be the subject of them. I wanted to be the hapless dude who became a pretty woman in a dress, or a guy who wronged a witch and got cursed to become a doll. If the outcome was a woman, I wanted it. But the feelings I was feeling were so much more than arousal, there was a deep yearning in my heart and I just thought that was me being horny for that content. So as 2018 approached, I would flit between feeling I was not cis and also feeling that I was just a crossdresser or a force-fem fetishist. From 2018 onwards, I would inflict deep hurt on myself by twisting genuine feelings of gender euphoria as a fetishisation. But some time a year or so ago, I encountered an incredible post from a transwoman who struggled like I did.

She talked of how she was infatuated with genderbending and transgender erotic content. She would get aroused wearing fem clothes, she would incorporate genderbending into her sexual life. But then after a while she had something click deep within her. She realised that the reason she was consuming so much of this content and envisioning herself as being a part of it was because in that world, someone else was making the decision to transition for her. If she was strolling down the street as a guy and a witch magically turned her into a woman then it wasn't her 'fault'. She was exonerated of the consequences of becoming a woman. She could rock up to work and be all "You'll NEVER guess what happened!" and it would all be fine. I was dumbfounded... it all made sense now. Why I wanted to be a turned into a doll in one bit of content, or forced to be a cute cheerleader in another, it was someone else making the decision for me.

Now, that kind of content appeals to me for what it is, which is all about power dynamics and such. Ever since then, I have never doubted my transness, and it has helped me embrace the sexual nature of my new self with not even a pinch of shame.

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ask-shane · 6 months

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this has already probably been asked, but what's yor opinion on the other bachelors and bachelorettes in town? (you don't have to do ALL of them! just do a few if you want!!)

i'm not one to usually talk aloud about my neighbors, but let's give this a shot. for all intents and purposes.

might as well go through the whole list while we're at it. and hey, just a fair warning: my opinion is always subject to change. i'm just speaking based on what i know for now.

alright. prepare for some blabbing. if you're not interested, there's your cue to bounce.

alex: alex is complicated. he's a little self-absorbed. and arrogant. but he's also not as mean as he seems. he just has this whole "bad boy" image he likes to put on for whatever reason. at his core, i think he's actually a pretty nice guy. we both like gridball and can chat over that so i can't really complain too much. sebastian: i hardly see this guy around. maybe during town festivals or at the saloon playing pool, yeah, but i can count on my fingers the amount of times we've talked one on one. it's possible he's just not much of a talker. i can't figure out if he's reserved or just doesn't have a lot to say. dude's doing his own thing most of the time and that's fine by me. elliott: his speech and outlook on life can come off as kinda pretentious or egotistical, though to be fair... if i were him, i'd be the same way. he's done well for himself. he's a little hard to catch since he never leaves the house, but if you get him talking about books, his passion is pretty admirable. it's just hard to connect with him because he always seems to have this "mysterious elusive writer" image up.

sam: i don't mind this guy, actually. he's my co-worker too which i guess is a good thing. he's laid-back and doesn't sweat the little stuff. super easy going, just wants to chill out and have a good time... we're not close buddies or anything, but from our short break room chats, it's clear he's pretty passionate about music. almost reminds me of myself when i was younger. he's got a good head on his shoulders. harvey: what can i say? he saved my life when i was at my lowest. i've got a lot of respect for the work he does and for taking me in that night. sure, he's dorky, but he's way smarter than i could ever dream of being, so who am i to judge? he's like the dream kid every parent wishes theirs could be. hope the guy's not overworking himself. knowing him though, he probably is... emily: she's one of the closer friends i have in this shitty town. she's been incredibly optimistic for as long as i've known her and normally that'd piss me off, but i actually find her tolerable. maybe it's the way she accepted me and stayed kind even when i was being a piece of shit. i gotta appreciate her for that.

abigail: i know she's pierre's daughter and that's about where my knowledge stops. like sebastian, i hardly ever see her, let alone find a reason to chat. she's a mystery to me. i do wonder if she has any hard feeling towards me, considering my job at joja right across from her dad's store. knowing the trouble that corporation's caused them, i'm not sure i'd forgive me either. hopefully she gets that it's not my call though.

haley: i never thought i'd say this out loud, but she's kind of the stereotype for spoiled city girl. she thinks she's all that and you just get the sense that she thinks she's better than you. she probably sees me as nothing more than dirt beneath her shoes for all i know. although honestly, i think it's just a defense mechanism for some deeper insecurity. i can see right through that.

penny: she's jas's teacher and also the only teacher for the kids in town. that's gotta be a handful. thankfully it seems like she really loves what she does. i have a feeling she just wants to do the right thing, which is hard to find in people these days. she also has to deal with pam's alcoholic instability at home but never gives up or lets herself become hopeless and i admire her for that. good for her.

maru: while i don't know her personally, i know she's accomplished. from what i've seen and heard from her proud dad, they work together on science research projects and whatnot. with a strong support system like hers she's set up for a future making headlines as an astronomer or something like that. she strikes me as someone who struggles to take things easy but that's pretty normal for goal-oriented people. i don't have much to say about her aside from that. leah: she's my neighbor, if you can even call it that. every time i see her art in the town square, i've gotta admit, it gets a nod of approval from me. i try not to knock other people's art, but every now and then i see these abstract pieces going for a million g that make me think i could've made them at home for a buck or two. so i gotta hand it to her. her craft is impressive.

#ask-shane 🐓#long post

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cherrifire · 1 year

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[Treebark week] Day 7 - Past

[Martyn] Statement of Ren Diggity Dog and Martyn InTheLittleWood, regarding their shared domain. Statement taken directly from subjects erm- it was July 22nd, 2022 before the world went to hell. Audio recording by former Archivist, Martyn.

(Takes place after day 5 but before day 6)

Word count: 2022

[Click]

(Barking from a small dog)

[Ren] What is it, Obi?

(Pause)

Uhh... Martyn! Martyn, there's a problem!

[Martyn] (Distant) What? What's wrong?

(Footsteps)

[Ren] Would you rather I tell you or drop it in your hands?

[Martyn] If it's anything like the last thing you put in my hands, no thanks. Not a huge fan of fangs in my cookies Ren Dog.

[Ren] (Laughter) Dude, I couldn't see them! Sunglasses, remember?

[Martyn] Don't lie to me, Ren. You knew exactly what you were doing.

[Ren] No matter, you're getting distracted! Here, just- just listen.

(Silence filled by the gentle sound of a tape recorder turning)

(There's static for only a moment)

[Martyn] Is that...

[Ren] Yeah...

[Martyn] I hate these things...

[Ren] Should we give it a statement?

[Martyn] Oh man, it's been a while since I've done that. I don't know Ren...

[Ren] Maybe it'll help. Especially since you can't give me nightmares about it anymore. The recorder wouldn't be here if it wasn't important, right?

[Martyn] I guess so... I don't think my connection to The Eye is strong enough to compel so if you start to ramble like you always do, it's not my fault.

[Ren] (Laughter) That's fine, dude. Now say your archivist words.

[Martyn] Oh geez, you're really putting me on the spot- alright.

Statement of Ren Diggity Dog and Martyn InTheLittleWood, regarding their shared domain. Statement taken directly from subjects erm- it was July 22nd, 2022 before the world went to hell. Audio recording by former Archivist, Martyn.

[Ren] Shall I start?

[Martyn] If you want.

[Ren(Statement)]

When I woke up the day everything changed, I couldn't see anything.

At first, I thought you were just doing something in the other room so I wasn't scared. I never am. Whatever you do with The Dark is not really my business. So I just ignored it, and tried to go back to sleep. I heard creeks in the floor and distant screaming in the hall but that was pretty normal for your rituals. Nothing I hadn't slept through before.

I did find it strange that it was happening in what would have been early morning. You would think for an entity called "The Dark" I expected to only see you do that stuff in the dead of midnight. But I wasn't going to question it. Not when your circumstance was so... unique.

I hadn't realized something was wrong until I started to get this strange sense crawling up the back of my neck. A familiar shiver. It was the same feeling I used to get when you were head archivist. When you would listen to every detail, observing.

It shocked me to my very core, pulling me out of my bed to look for answers. Something was very wrong and I wasn't just going to sit there and let it happen. On the way through the hall, I tripped on pretty much everything in our apartment. It's really annoying how much junk you leave on the floor, y'know? Despite the mess, I found your room eventually.

I don't know how to explain it, but your room felt darker somehow. The entire place was engulfed in a pitch black but your room... it wasn't just blocking out the light. Your room was absorbing and extinguishing it.

I called your name into the empty room but you weren't there.

In that moment, I was hoping that if I couldn't find you, I could at least find whatever was making me feel like your ghost was haunting me. Because I knew it was you. Or at least related to you? The bizarre mix of darkness and watching was just too similar to be anything else. So I started looking through your things.

And for the record, Martyn has the messiest room I've ever had the displeasure of searching through. Even if there was something I could have found in there, I don't think I could have in the void we like to call Martyn's room. I tripped on discarded laundry, ritual junk he just refuses to put away, and a ton of anime books he can't even read anymore!

[Martyn] First of all, it's called manga.

[Ren] Whatever it is, you need to clean it off your floor!

[Martyn] And for the record, I bought them before I lost my eyesight so I don't see the issue. Pun intended.

[Ren] For the record, I'm rolling my eyes.

[Martyn] For the record, you're getting off-topic. You can complain about my organizational skills once The Eye- or whoever is sending these tapes- is satisfied with our statement.

[Ren] Well, if I must continue I'll do it... for the record.

[Martyn] (Laugh) Get on with it.

[Ren] (Laugh) Alright, Someone’s impatient.

I didn't find anything. But the longer I searched, the terror itching under my skin started to grow stronger. At some point, I stopped looking for whatever was causing the darkness and instead started looking for you. Or well, any sign to tell me where you went. Or that you were still alive. It took a while, but I found a single piece of long fabric I immediately recognized as your bandana.

Now, I know you hate it when I use my abilities to track you down. Something about really hating feeling like prey. But in my defence, I hate being left in the dark and I was really starting to panic. You never go out without your bandana. So I thought it might have been a cry for help. Something you left behind for me to find and use to hunt you down.

In some cases, I'm glad you left it. Though, in the moment, I was pretty peeved I had to find my way out of our apartment completely blind.

[Martyn] Oh no, how tragic for you.

[Ren] I’m choosing to Ignore Martyn's sarcasm.

The darkness stretched out into the complex hallways and stairways. I swear if I closed my eyes, nothing would change. It was all black anyway. Keeping a hand on the wall and walking slowly helped keep me on a steady and calm path. Yet, I felt something sink into the pit of my stomach when I reached the stairs. The anxiety of falling down with no one around to hear was creeping into my mind. But it was nothing compared to the ever-growing terror of losing someone special to me. So I pressed on.

[Martyn] Aww, Ren, that's really sweet of you to say to me.

[Ren] I was talking about Obi, dude.

[Martyn] I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.

[Ren] Your thing is literally listening!

[Martyn] Do you hear that Obi? I think it's the sound of a huge liar.

[Ren] Said the biggest liar on the planet.

[Martyn] How dare you-

[Ren] How dare you interrupt my statement, again.

[Martyn] For your information, it's actually our statement. Not just yours.

[Ren] Then why don't you tell the friendly tape where you'd been when the freaking apocalypse started, hm? I'm sure you'd love that.

[Martyn] Actually- it's okay, please continue.

[Ren] Thank you.

Climbing down the stairs was rather stressful but otherwise simple and easy. I was worried for a moment that they might go forever. That I had been the unlucky guy to get stuck with at least 3 entities messing with him at once.

But I could feel The Hunt dragging me closer to the mark. The target's scent danced in the air and I felt their fear along with it. At that point, I had forgotten who the target was and just found myself getting lost in the adrenaline of another hunt. Something more familiar to drag me out of the dark.

A foolish part of me expected it to be brighter once I stepped outside. I wanted to feel the sun on my face and in my fur. But when I desperately busted out of the apartment complex, all I felt was the taste of something rotten in the air slowly getting closer and choking itself in my lungs. The sound of a howling wind without an actual breeze to accompany it.

When I stared up into the sky, it stared back.

But I found you. In the middle of the street, staring straight into the pupil of it. You were trapped in some sort of trance, speaking into the sky as if the eye was listening to you. You just kept talking. Words about misery and destruction spilling out of your mouth, unending.

When you stopped, you silently slipped a pair of sunglasses onto my face and everything returned to normal. At least, it looked normal. I had trouble adjusting to the light of the sun at first. But our street looked the same as it always had. The sky was actually quite beautiful.

You said something about everything being okay before taking me back to our apartment.

I still don't... I still don't understand what happened. Or what is happening. I still feel like I'm being watched. A shiver constantly on the back of my neck. I've just been... trying to ignore it.

(Static)

[Martyn(Statement)]

The Archivist calls it The Age of the Beholding. I call it The End of All.

An entire change to reality itself along with all who inhabit it and brings nothing but inevitable destruction. A playground and slaughterhouse for those we can not comprehend. Listen close to the howls of agony on the breeze and helplessly behold as people crawl and scrape and dig for an ounce of freedom.

But of course, you can't see it, can you?

There's no need to survive here as whatever watches over our suffering ensures we don't die. Not really. Some may find themselves lucky, placed within a domain where it comes to an end, as all things do. But not us. We, among most others, will be kept alive to be feasted on within our domains. Our fear fuelling their ever-expanding hunger.

But what's there to be afraid of? I have you and you have me. There's laughter and joy within our walls so there's no need to look beyond the curtains. It's safe here, of course.

I moved hell and Earth to protect my partner. A pair of sunglasses keeping him blissfully ignorant of the world outside. Unaware our gardens are made of blood and bone. Our home is shrouded in the black of night today but I keep it at bay. He'll never know what crawls under our floorboards and in our walls.

But he knows I'm hiding something from him.

"It's better this way," I say.

Neither of us can see the amalgamation of our abilities stalking the halls. A monster of our own creation, our predator. The shadowy hulk hunting the both of us but in turn can't see us either. But I know you hear it too. It snarls and growls deep in what we pretend is night. Feel it breathing heavily down on the back of your head.

Yet we ignore it. Keep your eyes closed and discard them. I couldn't stop the apocalypse so pay it no mind. I can't fix the world so let me keep the one we made.

This is what comfort feels like, right? Or perhaps it's just been long since either of us has felt a sense of true Solace. The fear of losing what we've made, of losing each other, is ever-present. Preventing us from ever feeling truly at ease. It's only a matter of time.

After all, this is our domain. We are both the creators and it's only prisoners.

(Static fades)

[Ren] Martyn? You there my dude?

[Martyn] I'm... I'm sorry, what happened?

[Ren] What happened is you scared the living heck out of me!

[Martyn] Oh geez, did I space out again?

[Ren] Yes! Started talking non-stop and I couldn't pull you out of it.

[Martyn] I'm sorry man, if I could stop it, I would.

(pause)

You still can't hear a word I'm saying when I do that, right?

[Ren] Not a word. It's incredibly creepy, dude.

[Martyn] That's good. It's better this way.

[Click]

#treebark #treebarkweek #adventreebark #adventreebark2022 #the au is meant to be /p but could be /r if you wanted #cherri.writes #decided I wanted to do one more TMA AU piece for this event :)#I've never posted a fic before so I hope you guys like this one

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ghostradiodylan · 8 months

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This is from last summer but I’m newish to the fandom and hadn’t seen it and I thought it was kind of cool to see the counselors ranked based on how good someone familiar with camp thought they’d be as actual counselors! I think Nick should be a little higher given the rope course pee pants incident he apparently handled quite gracefully and Max was left off, I assume because he’s barely playable, but should be in the upper half because he’d have all the kids saying stupid shit like “son of a binky bonky” in no time, but otherwise the reasoning seems sound.

8) Emma Mountebank

If you’ve finished The Quarry, you might be surprised to see Emma taking the bottom spot. There’s another person (who’s coming up very soon) who many would probably assume is the worst counselor of the bunch, but I actually think it’s Emma. The first clue is how much she’s on her phone the second she gets it back from the director Chris Hackett. Now, being on your phone isn’t anything new for directors to deal with. In fact, it might even be the biggest issue most directors have if they have a no-phone policy.

The issue with Emma is that she seems even more obsessed with it and her image than most normal teens. That hints to me that she’s a very self-absorbed counselor who is probably just here because she thinks it’d be fun or look good on a resume. If the game had said Emma had come to Hackett’s Quarry as a camper, I wouldn’t be surprised. You see that a lot where campers think counselors are cool so they want to be one when they get older — even if they have no desire to work with kids. Then, they just buy several sets of skorts and hang out by the tennis court all day without actually teaching anyone to play tennis. Not that that scenario has ever happened to me or anything.

These are the worst counselors. They never want to do anything and are just waiting for their next off day so they can get away from the campers. Emma tops it off by basically confirming she’s been sneaking off with Jacob all summer. I wouldn’t knock anybody too much for that. I mean, that’s how I met my wife, so I’m not going to throw much shade, but it adds up and gets her the bottom spot on my list.

7) Jacob Custos

This is probably who most people were expecting to see at the very bottom. Jacob is always hanging out with Emma, oversells his own abilities, is incredibly reckless, and is kind of an idiot. I mean, the dude pointed a loaded gun at his fellow counselors. That’s probably enough to get sent home at most camps if you’re doing that around kids.

However, we don’t see Jacob around kids and there are some hints that he could at least be the “cool counselor.” Notice, I didn’t say good, but Jacob proves several times that he’s always down to have a good time. With the right guidance, you can use someone like that to pump up kids ahead of games or pull a kid out of a bad case of homesickness.

That doesn’t make him a good counselor, but I definitely can see a world where Jacob could at least make it to mediocre. I’m not sure if I see that same potential for Emma. If nothing else, I would absolutely be getting him on the stage to do the Peanut Butter Pops song to call in campers for snack time at least once a session.

6) Nick Furcillo

Because we just don’t see much from him Nick has to rank low on this list. We do witness him being a consummate wingman for the other male counselors, which can be a good thing. If you pair him with someone like Jacob in a cabin, he can balance out that puppy dog energy and make sure kids aren’t using sunscreen for shampoo (yes, that actually happened).

Nick is firmly in the solid category of counselors, at least based on what we see. He could very well be the best of the lot, but his story doesn’t give us much time to learn about him. Though, I shouldn’t end without mentioning that his accent will definitely be a conversation starter for campers if my experience tells me anything. Just slap on that Aussie charm and at least half the camp is going to automatically think you’re the coolest dude there.

5) Abigail Blyg

Is Abigail a bad counselor? Probably not. However, we learn early in the game that she essentially doesn’t leave the art room. Some camps have counselors with specific jobs, but I’d prefer someone who’s willing to move around a bit. Even if you absolutely love the arts (or theater or sports), not doing anything else is going to make for a boring summer. If you’re getting bored, just imagine how the campers feel.

Sure, being in the air conditioning all summer is great, but the best counselors really put themselves out there and try just as many new things as the kids they’re working with. Live a little, Abi!

That said, we also see Abi being the most sensitive member of the bunch. Being more in touch with your feelings can make you an exceptional counselor if you’re paired with someone that’s a little more assertive in the cabin. I’d put Abi with someone like Kaitlyn in my youngest girl’s cabin and be pretty confident they’ll be in great hands. Abi simply ranks a little lower because she doesn’t seem as versatile as some of the other counselors and could turn into a pushover if partnered with older campers.

4) Ryan Erzahler

Ryan seems like a great counselor on the surface. Chris seems to trust him as his number one guy in the trenches and he’s usually taking charge in high-pressure situations. We also know that he’s a veteran camper, which can come in handy, especially when werewolves are stalking the camp, looking for their next bite to eat.

The issue is that Ryan seems to misuse the trust Chris gives him. Not only did he sneak his phone into his cabin (a huge no-no in the camping world), but he’s also telling ghost stories to young campers. He knows that Chris will always have his back and appears to be using that in this favor, which is never a good look for a veteran counselor. Yes, you’ve been there before, but when you start getting too comfortable, you start making mistakes.

Ryan also is a bit of a loner. We’ve got nothing against dudes who love the undead, and not every counselor needs to be as in your face as Jacob, but we need some more pep in that step, Ry-guy. I’m not expecting you to run into the mess hall singing for breakfast because I’d never ask anyone to do something I won’t. We just need some energy in that voice when we’re hanging out with campers. Some days you have to convince them they’re having fun and Ryan couldn’t do that even if they’re going to Disney World with that monotone voice.

3) Laura Kearney

Laura is probably the toughest to place. That makes a lot of sense considering she never actually came to camp for the summer. Instead, she was dealing with werewolf-adjacent things that we won’t spoil here.

What we do see is someone that’s resourceful, willing to do the dirty work, and works well with others. We also know she was set to be the nurse assistant (which isn’t something I’ve ever seen a counselor do, but every camp is different). Considering how well she handled a certain slashing during her story, we think she can probably tolerate any scrape or bruise a camper can throw at her without much problem.

Unfortunately, we don’t see enough of Laura interacting with her co-counselors to place her any higher. She might be the best counselor of the bunch, but those pesky werewolves kept us from coming to that conclusion. At the very least, we’re wholly confident that she can take care of any snake or raccoon problems the camp might run into.

2) Dylan Lenivy

Even as I made this list, Dylan’s placement surprised me. He’s kind of an idiot who’s always looking for the next quip and calls emergency services “ninety-one-one.” Can you trust someone like that? It also doesn’t seem like Dylan really believes in his director, which probably isn’t the best thing for a young counselor and, like most of these counselors, has quite the vulgar vocabulary.

However, Dylan is legitimately funny at times and kids tend to appreciate the effort even if you aren’t that funny. In fact, they tend to laugh at a lot more bad jokes than most adults I know if your delivery is on point. Plus, we see Dylan taking real initiative as both a camper and counselor in setting up and keeping the camp radio running.

That’s huge for a director. If you have someone you can trust to take something off your plate, you might well treat them as valuable as a silver bullet. Dylan might not be the best of the bunch in terms of interpersonal relationships, but he’s an asset that I’d love to see on the first day of a new summer. I just hope his taste in music is better than some of those “jokes.”

1) Kaitlyn Ka

Kaitlyn is easily the best counselor out of this bunch. She is the definition of leadership material. From the jump we see Kaitlyn taking her role at camp seriously. The majority of camp injuries happen when the counselors let their guards down and are hanging out without the campers. Even with everyone gone, Kaitlyn still maintains range discipline during Jacob and Nick’s shoot-off. She still has a good time, but lives by a director’s favorite rule: “safety never takes a holiday.”

We also know that she took over Laura’s role as the nurse assistant when Laura didn’t show up. Like Dylan, I want people on our staff that take initiative and solve problems for us. Missing two counselors for an entire summer is going to have a huge impact. If you have someone like Kaitlyn who can step up and fill that role (while still keeping up with her own responsibilities), that’s somebody you want to hold onto.

All I’m saying is that if Chris makes it through the night and isn’t calling Kaitlyn to ask her to be his assistant director next year, something’s wrong. Heck, seeing as how Chris put his entire group of campers and staff at major risk for like six years, maybe the Hackett family should just give Kaitlyn the director position at this point. At the very least, she isn’t going to be getting anyone mauled by supernatural beasts if they stick around for an extra day at their favorite summer destination.

#the quarry #the hacketteers #dylan lenivy #ryan erzahler #kaitlyn ka #Kaitlyn Ka supremacy #nick furcillo #abigail blyg #emma mountebank #jacob custos #laura kearney #max brinly #summer camp counselors

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thatoneguy031 · 11 months

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Okay, DnD fans, can I get a bit of criticism here? I'm reading the 5e handbook, and I'm still a little confused about some things. Here's my character so far(I didn't even want to touch the stats yet, in fear that I have to use the guidebook's stats for his species).

Meet Blackthorn, often known as just Thorn. He's a young, red kobold(He's a kobold's equivalent to about 16 or 17 years old) that is also a sorcerer(For now, anyway. I might make him a fighter or rogue). He's gained his power from his dragon(Who is now unnamed, I'll come up with one later), who acted primarily as his guardian/babysitter, for him as well as many other kobolds in his den. The only two worth mentioning in his backstory are Hydra and Armari.

*Their names are based on the three primary colors: Red, yellow and blue. If you get pricked by a thorn, you're likely to bleed, so that's how Thorn earned his name(Along with the fact that he's a pit of a pain in the neck due to his sense of adventure). Hydra is short for Hydrangea, which is seen as a blue plant on occasion. And Armari sounds a little like amarillo, a translation of the color yellow if I'm not wrong. Yes, they also appear as their respective colors.

Their alignments: -Thorn is Neutral Good(He's pretty willing to break the law if he knows it's for the better, but tends to avoid that option if he can) -Hydra is Lawful Good(He often scolds Thorn for doing stuff like that) -Armari is Chaotic Neutral(She is the most likely to become a full-blown psychopath out of the three of them. She's basically Thorn's devil in most situations, and Hydra is his angel).

They're pretty good friends, and if something does happen to go wrong, you can almost always blame all three of them for it. They do have their own friend groups, but they most often hang out with each other for some chaos.

One day, Armari wanted the three of them to have a competition: Whoever could not join a party and become a proper adventurer, but also complete a total of three missions, would win... something(I'm not too sure on what yet. Let's say they'd win bragging privileges for now).

Of course, Thorn agreed, wanting to go on yet another adventure. Hydra also agreed to it, but he was way more reluctant about it because he didn't want to get put in an early grave.

With that, they headed off, and would meet up with each other every few days to check how they were doing.

After a while, Thorn thought that the adventurer's life was pretty sweet, and continued on his journey, even after the competition was over(He won, by the way, but no one ever learned that, not even him).

Thorn(At least, how he is now), is a pretty solid magic user. He's either gonna specialize in fire or plant magic(Or whatever it's called, I honestly have no clue). His only real downside is that his spells aren't very... good? Like, they're fine, but they're just fine, you feel me? They do their job, but that's it.

If it's possible, I'm basing Thorn's spells on moves you'd find in Pokemon, like Absorb or Fire Spin. His level-up moveset is going to be very similar to the Joe-Schmoe's starter.

I didn't think about it for more than 30 seconds, but I feel like Thorn would have an Outlander background. He's technically a wild dude, not knowing what a true civilization looked like, but he'd still be able to speak Common well enough to be generally understood, although he'd be more fluent in languages like Draconic(Again, he lived with a dragon). He'd probably not understand how human things work, but Arceus dang it if he isn't gonna try.

Again, if there's something wrong, or if I missed anything, I am DESPERATELY accepting revisions.

I'll add more things in future reblogs, as I progress more with his character.

#dungeons and dragons #dnd #dnd 5e #dnd 5e character #kobold #help

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personasintro · 2 years

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Mimi ch 53 was a rollercoaster ride like my mind can’t absorb what was happening. But first let me thank you for working so hard on this and every other one of your story and sharing this with us 🫶🏼🫶🏼 Anyway some of my thoughts…

1. Its good that jk told his family about what happened. Sometimes we do need time on our own to process and accept what happened and him feeling like it is okay to share the burden now, somehow feels like he is finally ready, really ready to let go and move forward with his life. 💝

2. Ohhh them finally doing it raw is like the sexiest smut I have ever read. The teasing, anticipation then finally going at it is like okay. Yn riding his face and her squirting omg she’s so hot like dude give her to meeee 🫠

3. Yn moving out and Jimin calling them out on their situationship.. I kinda feel like there’s something more out this and it will affect how the rest of the story will pan out which leads me to my next one

4. Jk inviting Ester and missing on the communication like he suddenly brought this up a few days before the trip itself. I dunno but when yn was still living with him from ch 46-52, they never really argued. They communicated the best and now that they did the deed, and yn out of his apartment, it kinda feels like jk doesn’t care anymore and he can do whatever he wants. That is just me though. Yn might have overreacted a bit, but jk calling her selfish and childish and saying ester is his friend too like her and yn are on the same level is.. uncalled for I guess. Can we just go and inhale the Busan air back?? 🥲

5. When they were in Busan, jk acted so clingy and so boyfriend to yn. Which makes me think like finally, things are looking up and these two might fall in love with eo. But after this chapter it seems to me that jk only ever sees her as a bestfriend and that all it is is just fun and casual sex with him as what they tell their friends that they are JUST hooking up- for him it might be what it is. I cant say the same for yn because it seems like she’s falling for him even if she’s not yet aware about it.

Anyway sorry for this long ask. I thoroughly enjoyed the story even its giving me a a bit of anxiety hahaha excited to see what Yoongs will bring to the table. If his and ester character will bring the positive - yn and jk realising they like eo more than friends. Or not so positive as in yn and jk starting a relationship with other people. Either way I just hope they don’t actually ruin their friendship. You did such a good job of portraying the characters like readers genuinely love them or hate them, that’s how great you are as a writer!! Also, you keeping us on our toes all the freakin time is genius! I swear I don’t know where the story is leading us for sure but we’re here for the sweet long ride 🫶🏼

Thank you for reading this chapter and sending this in!! 💗

1. It does feel oddly freeing, doesn’t it? It would be completely fine if he decided not to tell them. Partly, he did tell them because he saw they see a few changes in him. But he told them when he was ready and that’s the most important thing 🫶

2. 🔥🔥🔥 that’s all I’m saying hehe glad you enjoyed those moments!!

3. Jimin definitely thinks this is not a good idea!

4. I mean… he can still do whatever he wants 🫢 in jk’s defense he did tell them as soon as he saw them, maybe he didn’t even consider it as big news or something that should cause an argument. If you look at it generally, it’s not a big deal at all. Only y/n made it a big deal. But yes, you’re right he definitely shouldn’t compare them but jk is still a man, there are a few things he doesn’t see like we do haha 🤭 Busan air is well needed in this situation!

5. Well, firstly they’re friends than anything else. From their point of view, they’re having fun. They have an amazing chemistry 🌪️

Thank you so much for this feedback! There are a lot of exciting things about to happen, I can’t wait to read them!! 💗🫶

#ask #ask: mutual help

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purplesurveys · 1 year

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1663

What were an average day’s tasks at your favorite job you’ve had so far? Working with big brands/clients = campaigns around the clock, all year long. That said I’m constantly brainstorming for and conceptualizing PR proposals for consumer campaigns; looking for 50-100 influencers at a time who can best fit my running campaigns; I write a lot and cover stuff from press releases to event scripts to lifestyle articles; working with suppliers for stuff like PR kits, mounting events, brand sponsorships; and I help in handling even financial aspects like ensuring talents are paid after they fulfill their contract. The work is very 360º in nature, is fast-paced and you can usually tell early on if a new hire is gonna last or not depending on how fast they can adjust/keep up.

Does your house have an separate laundry room? Idk if it counts as a room...but we did erect this makeshift ‘room’ at the rooftop for laundry stuff. It’s basically a super tiny customized room we had made to fit the washing machine because those things just take up so much space indoors and usually end up being an eyesore.

Do your parents still help you financially? Technically, yes. I never ask for money anymore (unless I have to borrow) and I always make a transfer every payday, but they do remain in charge of managing the bills and buying groceries. I imagine whatever I contribute becomes absorbed in the bills and whatnot, but for the most part it’s fair to say they still support me.

List 3 things you can see from where you’re sitting? I can see my phone, the TV, and my earphones.

Do you go by any nicknames? I just go by Robyn most of the time, but I have a few relatives who call me Byn.

Are you a very talkative person? Depends on the crowd.

What stereotype about your age group do you definitely live up to? I’m obsessed with social media and it’s a must for me to check each of my feeds on a daily, hell hourly, basis. Except for TikTok I guess as I find that shit annoying and most edits cringey for the most part.

When was the last time it rained where you live? Thursday. Such a refreshing sight, too; it hasn’t rained in months.

Where is your local polling place for elections? My village’s clubhouse.

What was the topic of the last documentary you watched? It was that new MH370 documentary that came out on Netflix a month ago. Around that same period I also started on In the Name of God which is about Korean cults, but found it too upsetting to be able to finish it.

Does your car have a backup camera? I’m not sure what a backup camera is but I do have a dashcam in case some idiots mess with my car and pretend to get run over.

Have either of your parents ever been in trouble with the law? My mom for some minor traffic violations. I don’t think my dad’s ever run into an issue; he’s barely in the country anyway HAHA.

What was the last restaurant you ate at? It’s a local coffee shop called Daily Habit.

Are you in the same mood most days or are your emotions all over the place? The only time I’m all over the place is when I’m nearing my period; otherwise I can manage my emotions quite well.

Have you ever had a pet that lived to be really old for its breed/species? Kimi lived to be 14, which was way longer than I ever expected. I thought that little dude was going to last forever with how he always bounced back from every single health scare. 14 years is above average for a dog, but I’m still very impressed and amazed by him.

Do you have a preferred brand of bottled water? I avoid bottled water whenever I can since all of them have a ~taste.

Have you ever spilled food or drink in your car? Once or twice. My bigger issue is when the dogs throw up in the car hahaha. Much harder to handle and clean up.

Is your skin more oily, dry, or combination? Dryness is a major problem for my skin at the moment.

Have you ever been in a relationship that was progressing faster than you wanted it to? I don’t think so. My previous one had an okay pacing for the most part, but it was the rapid crashing and burning towards the end of it that really threw me off-guard and messed me up mentally.

What kind of flooring is in the room you’re in? Hardwood.

Pop quiz! Who is the prime minister of Germany? Germany doesn’t have a Prime Minister. < Ok there you go then, haha.

What was the last strong scent you smelled? My black forest-flavored coffee. Not the biggest fan of this variant but it’s the only kind left in the pantry (and it’s the only one left since I avoided it this entire time hahaha), and I wanted to drink coffee before sleeping so here we are.

Are you more prone to overthinking things, or being too impulsive? I’m a very toxic combination of both. Overthinking makes me impulsive. When was the last time you wore an article of clothing that wasn’t yours? A month ago when I borrowed my sister’s sweatpants for an event.

Which one of your friends do you see the least often? My college friends BY A MILE.

Do you know anyone with a life-threatening food allergy? A number of them have food allergies but idk they themselves don’t seem to concerned by it?? Like all they need are antihistamines and that’s all I ever hear about it.

When was the last time you were outside? This morning when my family went to Sunday mass.

Who was the last person you sent a birthday card to? How old did they turn? I don’t send birthday cards...not a practice here.

[A/N: another two-in-one just because]

- Past -

Are you happy with your upbringing? No. I know my elders tried their best, but sometimes the best still isn’t good enough. I grew up in a very crowded half of a duplex; my parents were barely home (something for which I hold no grudge – they were just working to make us as comfortable as possible back then); I had relatives who drank and smoke on a sickeningly regular basis – sometimes leading to embarrassing, loud, public, and physical fights that the entire neighborhood would be witness to; and there was rarely a platform to be a kid. We never did anything during summer vacations and I can’t remember most of my childhood birthdays because there had been no plans for them.

I’m not resentful and have moved past that shitfest, but I imagine I’d do everything in my power for my hypothetical kids’ childhood to be entirely different.

Who was your first best friend? Someone in kindergarten named Kaye. Who was your first love? Not naming any people we’re trying to healthily move past :)

Did you ever attend any school dances? Like...prom? Yeah I had to go to my school’s own prom because it was required (ew), then I got invited to be a date at another school’s senior ball.

Did you play any sports growing up? Table tennis. I’m pretty sure I had potential in football/futsal because we had to take up a few sessions in school and was surprisingly an ok goalkeeper lol – even the PE teacher pointed it out – but I never pursued it.

Did you have a special blanket when you were younger? I didn’t.

What movie reminds you of your childhood? Toy Story, Shrek 2, and Finding Nemo.

Were you a picky eater as a child? Very picky. I only liked eating eggs and hotdogs. Took hours to finish anything else.

What’s your favorite memory with a family member? Growing up with my eldest cousin on my mom’s side. He’s always been an older brother rather than a cousin.

Did you ever have to share a bedroom? Yes I shared one room with my parents and siblings until I was 10.

Are there any smells that remind you of the past? There’s a very specific coffee smell that would hurl me right back to my childhood if I ever smelled it again. My maternal grandparents always drank coffee together in the morning, and they always used the same combination of brands (instant coffee, creamer, etc) that would result in the same aromatic smell every day.

Did you play outside or inside as a child? Outside. Indoors was crowded enough with more than 10 people squished in three small rooms, so if we wanted to run around and be kids we had to ask permission to play outdoors.

What was your first favorite song? Continued from last weekend. Idk man, something from Hi-5 maybe? Or High School Musical? Were you ever pranked at a sleepover? Hmm, I don’t think so.

- Present -

What’s your favorite color to wear? I like olive green, burgundy, and mustard yellow.

Who is your favorite musical artist? Currently and has been for a while, BTS.

Do you have any pets? I have two dogs. Kimi also hangs out with them in the living room, just as an urn on the coffee table hehe. :)

If so, how many and what kind? I have a beagle and a Yorkie.

Do you live with your parents or on your own? I live with my parents and siblings.

Are you in school? Nopes.

Do you have a job? I do.

If so, do you like it? I don’t love it, but like I’ve also got no plans to leave it any time soon. I’m still learning and I work really well with everyone; there’s really no reason for me to leave.

How often are you on the internet? Everyday...this survey must be quite old, because I think a good majority of people have at least one reason to go online at least once a day at this point.

On average, how much time a day do you spend on your appearance? 0 minutes, 5 minutes if I have to show up to work or at a work-related event.

Do you have any children? I don’t have any, no.

Are you in a relationship? Nope.

Are you subscribed to any streaming services? Spotify, YouTube, Disney+ yeah.

What time do you usually go to sleep and wake up? These days I’ll sleep anywhere between midnight to 2 AM at the latest; I usually wake up at 7.

- Future -

Do you have any long-term goals? Sure, but they’re all leisure-related – like going to Wrestlemania or traveling to a different continent and experiencing jet lag for the first time hahaha. I’m not a fan of making work/career-oriented goals; it brings in unwanted pressure more than anything.

Do you want children? (Or more if you already have any) I used to want to have kids, but ever since my failed relationship made me stoic I’ve been emotionless about the idea of having a family. I’m just not interested anymore; and kids annoy me these days lol so.

Where would you like to be in your career five years from now? In a higher position, with an even higher salary. Only time will tell if I’ll still be on the agency side or actually make the switch to the brand side by then haha.

Do you think you’ll ever move from the city you’re in? For sure. I have plans for that anyway; I’ve stayed here for more than 20 years and I know that eventually I’ll crave a new environment.

How do you hope your life will look in 10 years? I hope I’ll be more independent by then.

Do you think you’re heading in that direction? Bit by bit, yeah.

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spaceiis0daz · 2 years

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obligatory forgotten land ramble post

GOD. mind if i ramble about kirby and the forgotten lands ending. because holY SHIT. i know i beat the game like in march when the game came out but that doesnt matter. in this essay i will

incoming ramble, plus obvious katfl spoilers lol

now let me just say, i came into this game thinking that maybe the ending would be less insane, yknow, cause new game, new beginning n stuff, may wanna take it easy a little, NOPE. not at ALL WHAT HAPPENS. and honestly? i am sO glad they took this route dude.

during the lab discovera elevator scene i was literally trembling, just.. i KNEW this id-f86 creature was gonna be some horrific eldrich abomination we were gonna have to fight and i was TERRIFIED. like, the genuine terror they created in this scene is fucking immaculate. and the jaunty happy little elevator remix of the main theme just adds to it, just makes the scene all the more unsettling, and i fucking loved every last second of it.

then when i walk into the ominous glowing door i am greeted with THIS son of a bitch:

this thing struck genuine fear into my heart and what made this even SCARIER for me was because I didn't see that elfilin was safely locked away in another container right next to forgo, so i thought this thing was a horribly mutated fucked up elfilin. yeah

honestly i kind of wondered what it would be like if that were the case, because the idea of the cute happy little big eared creature you've spent most of your adventure with being mutated into this fetus-like abomination would have been absolutely HORRIFYING.

oh yeah, and about that! WHY DID HAL PUT A LITERAL FETUS IN THEIR GAME HOLY SHIT

honestly ive found fetus imagery in a horror context is just. YES. so good. i LOVE kirby's horror side just as much as the cute cuddly happy side, best of both worlds, but i digress

side note: unpopular opinion but leon's battle theme actually SLAPS its seriously underrated and for what

anyways back on track, i LOVE the emotion leongar's voice actor put into his voice clips, like he genuinely sounds like hes in EXTREME amounts of pain with his attacks, especially in the first phase, and. AUGHGHGH THIS GAME /POS

oh yeah. none of this fucking COMPARES to the cutscene after all this. and just. the fact that forgo is so angry with you it doesnt even care about its plan anymore. it just wants to kill kirby at that point. so it talks THROUGH LEONS BODY (i headcanon this wasn't even leongar's voice, it was just flat out forgo's voice) and just. the way forgo talks is also terrifying like. holy fuck

and the DETAIL they put into its eyes, it really just adds to it all, like it looks so realistic and horrifying. i know kirby games get dark, i've been a longtime fan but holy SHIT this entire ending is comparable to zero ripping its fucking eye out.

oh and the flesh wall. ooooOOOOOOHOHOOOOOOHOO BOY DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THE FLESH WALL.

call me a piss baby all you want, but this was the first time a kirby game EVER made me feel GENUINE fear

like. the more you look at it the more terrifying it gets, and just. the two tongues it has, the heads of all the enemies you've encountered throughout the game, just. GOD yes

OH YEAH!!! AND HERE'S A FUN LITTLE DETAIL I HAVEN'T SEEN TOO MANY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT

at some point during the forgo chase theme, there's a segment where you can hear a series of terrified animal yelps. thats right. fucking ANIMAL yelps. the creatures absorbed by forgo aren't just dead! THEY ARE STILL ALIVE AND ARE TERRIFIED AND ARE PROBABLY IN HORRIFIC AMOUNTS OF PAIN. HOLY FUCK HAL ARE YALL OKAY OVER THERE

honestly, i'm NOT complaining about what we got at all, but dude, just iMAGINE how much scarier this could have been. imagine if there were alarms n shit setting off because forgo escaped, and the pre-recorded voice of the tour lady echoing through the hallway, and if it touches you, youll die instantly or if the boss was just harder, just. GOD i love this ending so much

imagine for when we see the concept art for forgotten land, GOD i cant wait for hal to drop the concept art for it to see if they had any even more horrifying ideas

im tired its like 8 am im gonna wrap this very long post up and ill write a sequel to it sometime lmao

#kirby #katfl spoilers #kirby spoilers #kirby and the forgotten land #fecto elfilis #leongar #fecto forgo #elfilin

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asingerofdreams · 2 years

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Kin assigning The Good Place characters entities from The Magnus Archives

ok, this came to me in work so I thought I'd share it - mind you, I'm on S2 of The Magnus Archives, so my knowledge of how avatars and affiliations work is based on minor research and fanfic alone. Anyway, here is my guess as to the alignment of our main characters from The Good Place:

Eleanor is, without a doubt, originally an avatar of The Web - just look at her job. Perhaps also connected to The Spiral. I think she slowly learns how to use it for as much good as possible as the series progresses, but I don't know if she ever detaches herself from it.

Chidi is an avatar of/affiliated with The Eye. Come on. Wanting an answer for everything? Believing that every problem has a solution, you just need to work hard enough? His entire life is the perfect set-up for being an avatar of The Eye. But I think he would also hate the unnecessary pain and cruelty of The Desolation and The Slaughter very much.

Tahani was hard, but I think she would be a victim of The Lonely and The Vast. She tells the story of how she wanting to so badly be in that VIP section of the yacht, and then nobody was there? Something about that obsession with fame to the point of isolation and her rift with her sister most of the series feels very The Lonely to me. She also deals with feelings of insignificance throughout the series - only throwing parties while Eleanor leads the experiment, for example, hence why I also put Vast. Does she find her way out of it, eventually? Yes. I think all of our main four finds a way out or how to use their affiliation for good - or they disconnect from it entirely.

Jason is... kinda fearless, in my opinion. He is also, however, running on 3 braincells half of the time. But we love him for it. I'm saying for now he'd become affiliated for The Desolation, because Molotov cocktails, and a general willingness to run into danger.

Michael is also tricky. Can avatars unintentionally be bad at their jobs? If so, I'd say The Web or The Spiral. I think also potentially a victim of The Lonely, given how much he values his friendships later in the series?? I'm trying to remember his character growth in S2&3. Also maybe The Vast. Idk it fits him for me.

Janet is an avatar of The Eye. Pretty much every Janet is affiliated with The Eye in some way. It comes with knowing the territory (see what I did there?)

Shawn is hilarious, and also tricky. I want to say he'd be an avatar of The Slaughter - senseless killing does feel very on brand for him. But he also does it because its fun - he craves the fun of the cruelty. So I think he might have ties to The Hunt or The Spiral.

Vicky just wants to be a good actress. For her being an actress alone, I put her as affiliated with The Web. She's not very good at it, though.

Mindy St. Claire has encountered every single entity and said, "eh, I'll just stick with my coke." She is fearless, and would either die unafraid or survive the entire apocalypse for lack of trying. Either that, or she's a mediocre End avatar.

Trevor is the worst, and I hate him. He's affiliated with both The Stranger and The Spiral, and he's good at it.

The Judge is... absolutely self-absorbed. Clearly, either a direct incarnation of The End, or an avatar of it. Idk how these things work.

Doug Forcett, god bless his soul, is so pure hearted. The Buried isn’t just his aesthetic, it is what makes him afraid of doing anything wrong that might send him to the Bad Place.

John Wheaton is affiliated with The Eye. Come on. Gossip? Dude. The Eye.

Simone is also affiliated with The Eye - a deep desire to find experimental results, even if it means lying and hiding her plans from her partner? But also perhaps The Spiral - she does wholeheartedly believe its her mind lying to her when she first dies and has a great time believing it, so....

Brent Norwack is... the worst. Worst-er than Trevor. I think he'd be an unwitting victim of The Spiral - his self-denial of being bad is, in my opinion, proof enough.

I am completely open for correction on incorrect facts and for any thoughts. But this was on my mind most of work yesterday and I kind of had to share it. please please please reblog and your opinions too, this is just a starting point and I had to get the AU out of my system. also, if you think someone matches up with a character, please please tell me. I want to know.

#the good place #tgp spoilers #tma #tma spoilers #the magnus archives #cocaine mention #eleanor shellstrop #tgp chidi #tgp tahani #jason mendoza #tgp janet #tgp eleanor #tgp michael

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self-loathing-angel-of-thursday2 · 8 months

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Beautiful Spouse’s Rewatch Thoughts S07x19 Of Grave Importance

“What are we eating? Taco Nacho? Taco Macho?” “Is it Tacos Macho? There’s an S in there” “Open 24/7. Hot something” “Who’s Annie?” “Do we know her? I’m confused. I don’t mean to be frustrating. I’m sorry” “Why do you want to make out in an abandoned house?” “Definitely not cops” “You’re all fucked now” “I don’t remember this one” “like I think I do but I don’t” “well shit” “He’s digging for dick OR he’s digging dick” “I mean, there’s an excuse for ya” “I can’t remember for shit what he’s trying to say” “I just wonder if it’s been long enough that we’ve seen these seasons that I don’t know’ 🎶blue hat bobby🎶

“Those sheets are awful” “but you’re a ghost. You don’t have to sleep” “I have a sneaking suspicion that Bobby is going to save the day” “holy shit” “friendly dress” “beeping ringing vibrating buzzing away” “yeah figured as much. That’s no good” “So we just meet her the once and she’s dead. Damn” “takes a lot of juice apparently” “fancy” “well shit” “that was a cool effect” “does this dude fast track on ghost abilities?” “He’s really that incapable of calming his mind for 2 seconds?” laughter

“I wonder how long that took in makeup” “the fuck” “oh I figured it was something else” “Bobby didn’t like hanging with them every single day beforehand. He’s probably going crazy” “That’s not ominous at all” “Hello” “it was bobby” “dude I’d be losing my shit right then. I mean you hunt ghosts and shit but you could be thinking it’s a demon or whatever hunting you” “is that like some cardboard statue.” “Definitely not a cardboard statue” “well that’s kinda hilarious” “could have gotten away” “oh shit” “He can absorb ghosts or something” laughter

“Why does she wanna be…oh sure whatever. I feel like he’d notice” “OH yeah it’s the secret passageway” “need me a good secret passageway” “Mom’s old farmhouse had one between two of the bedrooms” “What happens if he doesn’t end up back in the car?” laughter

“Well I mean isn’t that just going them away anyway.” “I guess I missed how they got trapped there” “well now you’re going to wish you left the flask in Dean’s pocket. Fkn Idjit” “Why weren’t there more episodes with Annie? She’s a decent character” “he’s groping” “I mean he’s not there now because he’s with the boys, but when he gets back, you’re fucked” “that’s rather unfortunate” “that’s what she said” “They invited a character and killed her in the same episode. I’m sure I complained about it before but goddamn” They do that all the time

“I guess it makes it easier to watch as independent episodes later easier, but it makes it more frustrating in the future” “what the fuck” “oh yeah, he can choose when to appear or what” laughter

“You’ve got like 10 seconds” “why did bobby have to do the thing? Couldn’t he just walk through the wall as a ghost?” “That’s confusing” laughter

“So did half of Bobby’s essence get evaporated? I’m so confused” “a while? That’s the worst response ever. Tell me minutes, hours, days, weeks” laughter “apparently” “What’s that phrase mean? It sounds weird, because he’s attached to the thing and he’s telling them to suck it off” Patrick Swayze in ghost

“Wait. Oh yeah they burned the dude already” “This whole time I was waiting for that guy to come out and fuck one of them” “Maybe he just can’t cope with the fact that this is Bobby’s version of heaven” “if bobby can carry his own flask around, he can just go fuck off in the woods somewhere” “Helluva a lotta light for the side of a vehicle on a 2 lane road” “fucking ufos landing in the field in Nebraska as you’re driving through. What the fuck”

#beautifulspouserewatchesspn #supernatural rewatch #supernatural #supernatural s7

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deerydear · 1 year

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“You mustn’t believe everything you hear, Drinn.” He walked to the door of the inn, and Molly followed him. There he turned and beamed at the folk of Hagsgate, hunched in their finery. “I would like to leave you with this last thought,” he told them. “The most professional curse ever snarled or croaked or thundered can have no effect on a pure heart. Good night.”

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The problem was simply that people convinced me that my heart was not good. So I chose to believe that, because their fear gave me power... but I could have had them afraid of me for no good reason, and carried on my merry way, eh? Let them be fools! I was so aware of this balance. I allowed rats in, who chewed at my foundations.... simply because I thought it better to have rats for company, than nobody at all! Well, let Anonymous in, won't you?

I'm reminded of old King Theoden's tale of resurrection. BUT before every time that I was degraded, it was simply because I was impatient in waiting for what was truly meant for me. I knew this crap wasn't 'mine', but I was bored... Maybe that's what they mean by "idle hands are the devil's playthings". Not to work yourself to death, but simply to continue to improve on your own desire. THEN AGAIN, 'the devil can quote scripture for his purpose', but I just like trying to work shit out in my head and figure out what the original authors meant. I never got noooo formal edumacation on this here bible. There's a bajillion different sects of that religion where different people take the same text to mean different things, or it's a fucking cosmic game of telephone.... whatever. I decide my own shit. I'm my own dude. I'm me. Hello.

--------------------- I think that I had absorbed the idea that "everything that christians think is sin is actually normal, and everything that they think to be good is unnatural". I.E.: people bragging about embodying the seven deadly sins, because they're rebelling against their preachers, who are only human. "lol I'm so gluttonous, I ate a bag of potato chips" I guess maybe that's the thing that's so sad about some people, is how they can get all twisted up inside. I used to never worry about it, and I probably still should carry on that habit. I think worrying just made me twisted like a tree, too. The point of bringing this up, again, was to say that I managed to convince myself that "wanting to be good" was a prelude to getting fooled. --That "being the better person" meant doom. It wasn't true...

There were all sorts of other people to bolster this decision I had made, but I am the one who makes the decisions...... Like he says, "no curse can ever have an effect on a pure heart." I am my only enemy.

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The long road hurried to nowhere and had no end. It ran through villages and small towns, flat country and mountains, stony barrens and meadows springing out of stones, but it belonged to none of these, and it never rested anywhere. It rushed the unicorn along, tugging at her feet like the tide, fretting at her, never letting her be quiet and listen to the air, as she was used to doing. Her eyes were always full of dust, and her mane was stiff and heavy with dirt.

Time had always passed her by in her forest, but now it was she who passed through time as she traveled. The colors of the trees changed, and the animals along the way grew heavy coats and lost them again; the clouds crept or hurried before the changing winds, and were pink and gold in the sun or livid with storm. Wherever she went, she searched for her people, but she found no trace of them, and in all the tongues she heard spoken along the road there was not even a word for them any more.

Early one morning, about to turn off the road to sleep, she saw a man hoeing in his garden. Knowing that she should hide, she stood still instead and watched him work, until he straightened and saw her. He was fat, and his cheeks jumped with every step he took. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, you’re beautiful.”

When he tugged off his belt, made a loop in it, and moved clumsily toward her, the unicorn was more pleased than frightened. The man knew what she was, and what he himself was for: to hoe turnips and pursue something that shone and could run faster than he could. She sidestepped his first lunge as lightly as though the wind of it had blown her out of his reach. “I have been hunted with bells and banners in my time,” she told him. “Men knew that the only way to hunt me was to make the chase so wondrous that I would come near to see it. And even so I was never once captured.”

“My foot must have slipped,” said the man. “Steady now, you pretty thing.”

“I’ve never really understood,” the unicorn mused as the man picked himself up, “what you dream of doing with me, once you’ve caught me.” The man leaped again, and she slipped away from him like rain. “I don’t think you know yourselves,” she said.

“Ah, steady, steady, easy now.” The man’s sweating face was striped with dirt, and he could hardly get his breath. “Pretty,” he gasped. “You pretty little mare.”

“Mare?” The unicorn trumpeted the word so shrilly that the man stopped pursuing her and clapped his hands to his ears. “Mare?” she demanded. “I, a horse? Is that what you take me for? Is that what you see?”

“Good horse,” the fat man panted. He leaned on the fence and wiped his face. “Curry you up, clean you off, you’ll be the prettiest old mare anywhere.” He reached out with the belt again. “Take you to the fair,” he said. “Come on, horse.”

“A horse,” the unicorn said. “That’s what you were trying to capture. A white mare with her mane full of burrs.” As the man approached her, she hooked her horn through the belt, jerked it out of his grasp, and hurled it across the road into a patch of daisies. “A horse, am I?” she snorted. “A horse, indeed!”

For a moment the man was very close to her, and her great eyes stared into his own, which were small and tired and amazed. Then she turned and fled up the road, running so swiftly that those who saw her exclaimed, “Now there’s a horse! There’s a real horse!” One old man said quietly to his wife, “That’s an Ayrab horse. I was on a ship with an Ayrab horse once.”

From that time the unicorn avoided towns, even at night, unless there was no way at all to go around them. Even so, there were a few men who gave chase, but always to a wandering white mare; never in the gay and reverent manner proper to the pursuit of a unicorn. They came with ropes and nets and baits of sugar lumps, and they whistled and called her Bess and Nellie. Sometimes she would slow down enough to let their horses catch her scent, and then watch as the beasts reared and wheeled and ran away with their terrified riders. The horses always knew her.

“How can it be?” she wondered. “I suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns, or if they had changed so that they hated all unicorns now and tried to kill them when they saw them. But not to see them at all, to look at them and see something else‌—‌what do they look like to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?”

Sometimes she thought if men no longer know what they are looking at, there may well be unicorns in the world yet, unknown and glad of it. But she knew beyond both hope and vanity that men had changed, and the world with them, because the unicorns were gone. Yet she went on along the hard road, although each day she wished a little more that she had never left her forest.

Then one afternoon the butterfly wobbled out of a breeze and lit on the tip of her horn. He was velvet all over, dark and dusty, with golden spots on his wings, and he was as thin as a flower petal. Dancing along her horn, he saluted her with his curling feelers. “I am a roving gambler. How do you do?”

The unicorn laughed for the first time in her travels. “Butterfly, what are you doing out on such a windy day?” she asked him. “You’ll take cold and die long before your time.”

“Death takes what man would keep,” said the butterfly, “and leaves what man would lose. Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks. I warm my hands before the fire of life and get four-way relief.” He glimmered like a scrap of owl-light on her horn.

“Do you know what I am, butterfly?” the unicorn asked hopefully, and he replied, “Excellent well, you’re a fishmonger. You’re my everything, you are my sunshine, you are old and gray and full of sleep, you’re my pickle-face, consumptive Mary Jane.” He paused, fluttering his wings against the wind, and added conversationally, “Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name.”

“Say my name, then,” the unicorn begged him. “If you know my name, tell it to me.”

“Rumpelstiltskin,” the butterfly answered happily. “Gotcha! You don’t get no medal.” He jigged and twinkled on her horn, singing, “Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey, won’t you come home, where once he could not go. Buckle down, Winsocki, go and catch a falling star. Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover, so I should be called kill-devil all the parish over.” His eyes were gleaming scarlet in the glow of the unicorn’s horn.

She sighed and plodded on, both amused and disappointed. It serves you right, she told herself. You know better than to expect a butterfly to know your name. All they know are songs and poetry, and anything else they hear. They mean well, but they can’t keep things straight. And why should they? They die so soon.

The butterfly swaggered before her eyes, singing, “One, two, three o’lairy,” as he whirled; chanting, “Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, look down that lonesome road. For, oh, what damned minutes tells he o’er who dotes, yet doubts. Hasten, Mirth, and bring with thee a host of furious fancies whereof I am commander, which will be on sale for three days only at bargain summer prices. I love you, I love you, oh, the horror, the horror, and aroint thee, witch, aroint thee, indeed and truly you’ve chosen a bad place to be lame in, willow, willow, willow.” His voice tinkled in the unicorn’s head like silver money falling.

He traveled with her for the rest of the waning day, but when the sun went down and the sky was full of rosy fish, he flew off her horn and hovered in the air before her. “I must take the A train,” he said politely. Against the clouds she could see that his velvet wings were ribbed with delicate black veins.

“Farewell,” she said. “I hope you hear many more songs”‌—‌which was the best way she could think of to say good-by to a butterfly. But instead of leaving her, he fluttered above her head, looking suddenly less dashing and a little nervous in the blue evening air. “Fly away,” she urged him. “It’s too cold for you to be out.” But the butterfly still dallied, humming to himself.

“They ride that horse you call the Macedonai,” he intoned absentmindedly, and then, very clearly, “Unicorn. Old French, unicorne. Latin, unicornis. Literally, one-horned: unus, one, and cornu, a horn. A fabulous animal resembling a horse with one horn. Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold and the mate of the Nancy brig. Has anybody here seen Kelly?” He strutted joyously in the air, and the first fireflies blinked around him in wonder and grave doubt.

The unicorn was so startled and so happy to hear her name spoken at last that she overlooked the remark about the horse. “Oh, you do know me!” she cried, and the breath of her delight blew the butterfly twenty feet away. When he came scrambling back to her, she pleaded, “Butterfly, if you really know who I am, tell me if you have ever seen anyone like me, tell me which way I must go to find them. Where have they gone?”

“Butterfly, butterfly, where shall I hide?” he sang in the fading light. “The sweet and bitter fool will presently appear. Christ, that my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again.” He rested on the unicorn’s horn once more, and she could feel him trembling.

“Please,” she said. “All I want to know is that there are other unicorns somewhere in the world. Butterfly, tell me that there are still others like me, and I will believe you and go home to my forest. I have been away so long, and I said that I would come back soon.”

“Over the mountains of the moon,” the butterfly began, “down the Valley of the Shadow, ride, boldly ride.” Then he stopped suddenly and said in a strange voice, “No, no, listen, don’t listen to me, listen. You can find your people if you are brave. They passed down all the roads long ago, and the Red Bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints. Let nothing you dismay, but don’t be half-safe.” His wings brushed against the unicorn’s skin.

“The Red Bull?” she asked. “What is the Red Bull?”

The butterfly started to sing. “Follow me down. Follow me down. Follow me down. Follow me down.” But then he shook his head wildly and recited, “His firstling bull has majesty, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he shall push the peoples, all of them, to the ends of the earth. Listen, listen, listen quickly.”

“I am listening,” the unicorn cried. “Where are my people, and what is the Red Bull?”

But the butterfly swooped close to her ear, laughing. “I have nightmares about crawling around on the ground,” he sang. “The little dogs, Tray, Blanche, Sue, they bark at me, the little snakes, they hiss at me, the beggars are coming to town. Then at last come the clams.”

For a moment more he danced in the dusk before her; then he shivered away into the violet shadows by the roadside, chanting defiantly, “It’s you or me, moth! Hand to hand to hand to hand to hand…” The last the unicorn saw of him was a tiny skittering between the trees, and her eyes might have deceived her, for the night was full of wings now.

At least he did recognize me, she thought sadly. That means something. But she answered herself, No, that means nothing at all, except that somebody once made up a song about unicorns, or a poem. But the Red Bull. What could he have meant by that? Another song, I suppose.

She walked on slowly, and the night drew close about her. The sky was low and almost pure black, save for one spot of yellowing silver where the moon paced behind the thick clouds. The unicorn sang softly to herself, a song she had heard a young girl singing in her forest long ago.

Sparrows and cats will live in my shoe,

Sooner than I will live with you.

Fish will come walking out of the sea,

Sooner than you will come back to me.

She did not understand the words, but the song made her think longingly of her home. It seemed to her that she had heard autumn beginning to shake the beech trees the very moment that she stepped out into the road.

At last she lay down in the cold grass and fell asleep. Unicorns are the wariest of all wild things, but they sleep soundly when they sleep. All the same, if she had not been dreaming of home, she would surely have roused at the sound of wheels and jingling coming closer through the night, even though the wheels were muffled in rags and the little bells wrapped in wool. But she was very far away, farther than the soft bells could go, and she did not wake.

There were nine wagons, each draped in black, each drawn by a lean black horse, and each baring barred sides like teeth when the wind blew through the black hangings. The lead wagon was driven by a squat old woman, and it bore signs on its shrouded sides that said in big letters: MOMMY FORTUNA’S MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL. And below, in smaller print: Creatures of night, brought to light.

When the first wagon drew even with the place where the unicorn lay asleep, the old woman suddenly pulled her black horse to a stop. All the other wagons stopped too and waited silently as the old woman swung herself to the ground with an ugly grace. Gliding close to the unicorn, she peered down at her for a long time, and then said, “Well. Well, bless my old husk of a heart. And here I thought I’d seen the last of them.” Her voice left a flavor of honey and gunpowder on the air.

“If he knew,” she said and she showed pebbly teeth as she smiled. “But I don’t think I’ll tell him.” She looked back at the black wagons and snapped her fingers twice. The drivers of the second and third wagons got down and came toward her. One was short and dark and stony, like herself; the other was a tall, thin man with an air of resolute bewilderment. He wore an old black cloak, and his eyes were green.

“What do you see?” the old woman asked the short man. “Rukh, what do you see lying there?”

“Dead horse,” he answered. “No, not dead. Give it to the manticore, or the dragon.” His chuckle sounded like matches striking.

“You’re a fool,” Mommy Fortuna said to him. Then, to the other, “What about you, wizard, seer, thaumaturge? What do you see with your sorcerer’s sight?” She joined with the man Rukh in a ratchety roar of laughter, but it ended when she saw that the tall man was still staring at the unicorn. “Answer me, you juggler!” she snarled, but the tall man did not turn his head. The old woman turned it for him, reaching out a crablike hand to yank his chin around. His eyes fell before her yellow stare.

“A horse,” he muttered. “A white mare.”

Mommy Fortuna looked at him for a long time. “You’re a fool too, magician,” she snickered at last, “but a worse fool than Rukh, and a more dangerous one. He lies only out of greed, but you lie out of fear. Or could it be kindness?” The man said nothing, and Mommy Fortuna laughed by herself.

“All right,” she said. “It’s a white mare. I want her for the Carnival. The ninth cage is empty.”

“I’ll need rope,” Rukh said. He was about to turn away, but the old woman stopped him.

“The only rope that could hold her,” she told him, “would be the cord with which the old gods bound the Fenris-wolf. That one was made of fishes’ breath, bird spittle, a woman’s beard, the miaowing of a cat, the sinews of a bear, and one thing more. I remember‌—‌mountain roots. Having none of these elements, nor dwarfs to weave them for us, we’ll have to do the best we can with iron bars. I’ll put a sleep on her, thus,” and Mommy Fortuna’s hands knitted the night air while she grumbled a few unpleasant words in her throat. There was a smell of lightning about the unicorn when the old woman had finished her spell.

“Now cage her,” she said to the two men. “She’ll sleep till sunrise, whatever racket you make‌—‌unless, in your accustomed stupidity, you touch her with your hands. Take the ninth cage to pieces and build it around her, but beware! The hand that so much as brushes her mane turns instantly to the donkey’s hoof it deserves to be.” Again she gazed mockingly at the tall, thin man. “Your little tricks would be even harder for you than they already are, wizard,” she said, wheezing. “Get to work. There’s not much dark left.”

When she was well out of earshot, sliding back into the shadow of her wagon as though she had just come out to mark the hour, the man named Rukh spat and said curiously, “Now I wonder what’s worrying the old squid. What would it matter if we touched the beast?”

The magician answered him in a voice almost too soft to be heard. “The touch of a human hand would wake her out of the deepest sleep the devil himself could lay on her. And Mommy Fortuna’s no devil.”

“She’d like us to think so,” the dark man sneered. “Donkey hooves! Gahhh!” But he thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “Why would the spell be broken? It’s just an old white mare.”

But the magician was walking away toward the last of the black wagons. “Hurry,” he called over his shoulder. “It will be day soon.”

It took them the rest of the night to pull down the ninth cage, bars and floor and roof, and then to put it back together around the sleeping unicorn. Rukh was tugging at the door to make sure that it was securely locked, when the gray trees in the east boiled over and the unicorn opened her eyes. The two men slipped hurriedly away, but the tall magician looked back in time to see the unicorn rise to her feet and stare at the iron bars, her low head swaying like the head of an old white horse.

The nine black wagons of the Midnight Carnival seemed smaller by daylight and not menacing at all, but flimsy and fragile as dead leaves. Their draperies were gone, and they were now adorned with sad black banners cut from blankets, and stubby black ribbons that twitched in the breeze. They were arranged strangely in a scrubby field: a pentacle of cages enclosing a triangle, and Mommy Fortuna’s wagon lumping in the center. This cage alone retained its black veil, concealing whatever it contained. Mommy Fortuna was nowhere to be seen.

The man named Rukh was leading a straggling crowd of country folk slowly from one cage to the next, commenting somberly on the beasts within. “This here’s the manticore. Man’s head, lion’s body, tail of a scorpion. Captured at midnight, eating werewolves to sweeten its breath. Creatures of night, brought to light. Here’s the dragon. Breathes fire now and then‌—‌usually at people who poke it, little boy. Its inside is an inferno, but its skin is so cold it burns. The dragon speaks seventeen languages badly, and is subject to gout. The satyr. Ladies keep back. A real troublemaker. Captured under curious circumstances revealed to gentlemen only, for a token fee after the show. Creatures of night.” Standing by the unicorn’s cage, which was one of the inner three, the tall magician watched the procession proceeding around the pentacle. “I shouldn’t be here,” he said to the unicorn. “The old woman warned me to stay away from you.” He chuckled pleasantly. “She has mocked me from the day I joined her, but I have made her nervous all that time.”

The unicorn hardly heard him. She turned and turned in her prison, her body shrinking from the touch of the iron bars all around her. No creature of man’s night loves cold iron, and while the unicorn could endure its presence, the murderous smell of it seemed to turn her bones to sand and her blood to rain. The bars of her cage must have had some sort of spell on them, for they never stopped whispering evilly to one another in clawed, pattering voices. The heavy lock giggled and whined like a mad monkey.

“Tell me what you see,” said the magician, as Mommy Fortuna had said it to him. “Look at your fellow legends and tell me what you see.”

Rukh’s iron voice came clanging through the wan afternoon. “Gatekeeper of the underworld. Three heads and a healthy coat of vipers, as you can see. Last seen aboveground in the time of Hercules, who dragged him up under one arm. But we lured him to light again with promises of a better life. Cerberus. Look at those six cheated red eyes. You may look into them again one day. This way to the Midgard Serpent. This way.”

The unicorn stared through the bars at the animal in the cage. Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “It’s only a dog,” she whispered. “It’s a hungry, unhappy dog with only one head and hardly any coat at all, the poor thing. How could they ever take it for Cerberus? Are they all blind?”

“Look again,” the magician said.

“And the satyr,” the unicorn continued. “The satyr is an ape, an old ape with a twisted foot. The dragon is a crocodile, much more likely to breathe fish than fire. And the great manticore is a lion‌—‌a perfectly good lion, but no more monstrous than the others. I don’t understand.”

“It’s got the whole world in its coils,” Rukh was droning. And once more the magician said, “Look again.”

Then, as though her eyes were getting used to darkness, the unicorn began to perceive a second figure in each cage. They loomed hugely over the captives of the Midnight Carnival, and yet they were joined to them: stormy dreams sprung from a grain of truth. So there was a manticore‌—‌famine-eyed, slobber-mouthed, roaring, curving his deadly tail over his back until the poison spine lolled and nodded just above his ear‌—‌and there was a lion too, tiny and absurd by comparison. Yet they were the same creature. The unicorn stamped in wonder.

It was so in all the other cages. The shadow-dragon opened his mouth and hissed harmless fire to make the gapers gasp and cringe, while Hell’s snake-furred watchdog howled triple dooms and devastations down on his betrayers, and the satyr limped leering to the bars and beckoned young girls to impossible delights, right there in public. As for the crocodile, the ape, and the sad dog, they faded steadily before the marvelous phantoms until they were only shadows themselves, even to the unicorn’s undeceived eyes. “This is a strange sorcery,” she said softly. “There’s more meaning than magic to this.”

The magician laughed with pleasure and great relief. “Well said, well said indeed. I knew the old horror wouldn’t dazzle you with her twopenny spells.” His voice grew hard and secret. “She’s made her third mistake now,” he said, “and that’s at least two too many for a tired old trickster like herself. The time draws near.”

“The time draws near,” Rukh was telling the crowd, as though he had overheard the magician. “Ragnarok. On that day, when the gods fall, the Serpent of the Midgard will spit a storm of venom at great Thor himself, till he tumbles over like a poisoned fly. And so he waits for Judgment Day, and dreams about the part he’ll play. It may be so‌—‌I couldn’t say. Creatures of night, brought to light.”

The cage was filled with snake. There was no head to it, and no tail‌—‌nothing but a wave of tarnished darkness rolling from one end of the cage to the other, leaving no room for anything but its own thunderous breathing. Only the unicorn saw, coiled in a corner, a baleful boa; brooding, perhaps, over its own Judgment on the Midnight Carnival. But it was tiny and dim as the ghost of a worm in the Serpent’s shadow.

A wondering gawk stuck up his hand and demanded of Rukh, “If this big snake do be coiled around the world, as you say, how come you to be having a piece of it in your wagon? And if it can shatter the sea just by stretching of itself, what’s to keep it from crawling off wearing your whole show like a necklace?” There were murmurs of agreement, and some of the murmurers began to back warily away.

“I’m glad you asked me that, friend,” Rukh said with a scowl. “It just so happens that the Midgard Serpent exists in like another space from ours, another dimension. Normally, therefore, he’s invisible, but dragged into our world‌—‌as Thor hooked him once‌—‌he shows clear as lightning, which also visits us from somewhere else, where it might look quite different. And naturally he might turn nasty if he knew that a bit of his tummy slack was on view daily and Sundays in Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival. But he don’t know. He’s got other things to think about than what becomes of his belly button, and we take our chances‌—‌as do you all‌—‌on his continued tranquility.” He rolled and stretched the last word like dough, and his hearers laughed carefully.

“Spells of seeming,” the unicorn said. “She cannot make things.”

“Nor truly change them,” added the magician. “Her shabby skill lies in disguise. And even that knack would be beyond her, if it weren’t for the eagerness of those gulls, those marks, to believe whatever comes easiest. She can’t turn cream into butter, but she can give a lion the semblance of a manticore to eyes that want to see a manticore there‌—‌eyes that would take a real manticore for a lion, a dragon for a lizard, and the Midgard Serpent for an earthquake. And a unicorn for a white mare.”

The unicorn halted in her slow, desperate round of the cage, realizing for the first time that the magician understood her speech. He smiled, and she saw that his face was frighteningly young for a grown man‌—‌untraveled by time, unvisited by grief or wisdom. “I know you,” he said.

The bars whispered wickedly between them. Rukh was leading the crowd to the inner cages now. The unicorn asked the tall man, “Who are you?”

“I am called Schmendrick the Magician,” he answered. “You won’t have heard of me.”

The unicorn came very near to explaining that it was hardly for her to have heard of one wizard or another, but something sad and valiant in his voice kept her from it. The magician said, “I entertain the sightseers as they gather for the show. Miniature magic, sleight of hand‌—‌flowers to flags and flags to fish, all accompanied by persuasive patter and a suggestion that I could work more ominous wonders if I chose. It’s not much of a job, but I’ve had worse, and I’ll have better one day. This is not the end.”

But the sound of his voice made the unicorn feel as though she were trapped forever, and once more she began pacing her cage, moving to keep her heart from bursting with the terror of being closed in. Rukh was standing before a cage that contained nothing but a small brown spider weaving a modest web across the bars. “Arachne of Lydia,” he told the crowd. “Guaranteed the greatest weaver in the world‌—‌her fate’s the proof of it. She had the bad luck to defeat the goddess Athena in a weaving contest. Athena was a sore loser, and Arachne is now a spider, creating only for Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival, by special arrangement. Warp of snow and woof of flame, and never any two the same. Arachne.”

Strung on the loom of iron bars, the web was very simple and almost colorless, except for an occasional rainbow shiver when the spider scuttled out on it to put a thread right. But it drew the onlookers’ eyes‌—‌and the unicorn’s eyes as well‌—‌back and forth and steadily deeper, until they seemed to be looking down into great rifts in the world, black fissures that widened remorselessly and yet would not fall into pieces as long as Arachne’s web held the world together. The unicorn shook herself free with a sigh, and saw the real web again. It was very simple, and almost colorless.

“It isn’t like the others,” she said.

“No,” Schmendrick agreed grudgingly. “But there’s no credit due to Mommy Fortuna for that. You see, the spider believes. She sees those cat’s-cradles herself and thinks them her own work. Belief makes all the difference to magic like Mommy Fortuna’s. Why, if that troop of witlings withdrew their wonder, there’d be nothing left of all her witchery but the sound of a spider weeping. And no one would hear it.”

The unicorn did not want to look into the web again. She glanced at the cage closest to her own, and suddenly felt the breath in her body turning to cold iron. There sat on an oaken perch a creature with the body of a great bronze bird and a hag’s face, clenched and deadly as the talons with which she gripped the wood. She had the shaggy round ears of a bear; but down her scaly shoulders, mingling with the bright knives of her plumage, there fell hair the color of moonlight, thick and youthful around the hating human face. She glittered, but to look at her was to feel the light going out of the sky. Catching sight of the unicorn, she made a queer sound like a hiss and a chuckle together.

The unicorn said quietly, “This one is real. This is the harpy Celaeno.”

Schmendrick’s face had gone the color of oatmeal. “The old woman caught her by chance,” he whispered, “asleep, as she took you. But it was an ill fortune, and they both know it. Mommy Fortuna’s craft is just sure enough to hold the monster, but its mere presence is wearing all her spells so thin that in a little time she won’t have power enough left to fry an egg. She should never have done it, never meddled with a real harpy, a real unicorn. The truth melts her magic, always, but she cannot keep from trying to make it serve her. But this time—”

“Sister of the rainbow, believe it or not,” they heard Rukh braying to the awed onlookers. “Her name means ‘the Dark One,’ the one whose wings blacken the sky before a storm. She and her two sweet sisters nearly starved the king Phineus to death by snatching and befouling his food before he could eat it. But the sons of the North Wind made them quit that, didn’t they, my beauty?” The harpy made no sound, and Rukh grinned like a cage himself.

“She put up a fiercer fight than all the others put together,” he went on. “It was like trying to bind all hell with a hair, but Mommy Fortuna’s powers are great enough even for that. Creatures of night, brought to light. Polly want a cracker?” Few in the crowd laughed. The harpy’s talons tightened on her perch until the wood cried out.

“You’ll need to be free when she frees herself,” the magician said. “She mustn’t catch you caged.”

“I dare not touch the iron,” the unicorn replied. “My horn could open the lock, but I cannot reach it. I cannot get out.” She was trembling with horror of the harpy, but her voice was quite calm.

Schmendrick the Magician drew himself up several inches taller than the unicorn would have thought possible. “Fear nothing,” he began grandly. “For all my air of mystery, I have a feeling heart.” But he was interrupted by the approach of Rukh and his followers, grown quieter than the grubby gang who had giggled at the manticore. The magician fled, calling back softly, “Don’t be afraid, Schmendrick is with you. Do nothing till you hear from me!” His voice drifted to the unicorn, so faint and lonely that she was not sure whether she actually heard it or only felt it brush against her.

It was growing dark. The crowd stood in front of her cage, peering in at her with a strange shyness. Rukh said, “The unicorn,” and stepped aside.

She heard hearts bounce, tears brewing, and breath going backward, but nobody said a word. By the sorrow and loss and sweetness in their faces she knew that they recognized her, and she accepted their hunger as her homage. She thought of the hunter’s great-grandmother, and wondered what it must be like to grow old, and to cry.

“Most shows,” said Rukh after a time, “would end here, for what could they possibly present after a genuine unicorn? But Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival holds one more mystery yet‌—‌a demon more destructive than the dragon, more monstrous than the manticore, more hideous than the harpy, and certainly more universal than the unicorn.” He waved his hand toward the last wagon and the black hangings began to wriggle open, though there was no one pulling them. “Behold her!” Rukh cried. “Behold the last, the Very End! Behold Elli!”

Inside the cage, it was darker than the evening, and cold stirred behind the bars like a live thing. Something moved in the cold, and the unicorn saw Elli‌—‌an old, bony, ragged woman who crouched in the cage rocking and warming herself before a fire that was not there. She looked so frail that the weight of the darkness should have crushed her, and so helpless and alone that the watchers should have rushed forward in pity to free her. Instead, they began to back silently away, for all the world as though Elli were stalking them. But she was not even looking at them. She sat in the dark and creaked a song to herself in a voice that sounded like a saw going through a tree, and like a tree getting ready to fall.

What is plucked will grow again,

What is slain lives on,

What is stolen will remain—

What is gone is gone.

“She doesn’t look like much, does she?” Rukh asked. “But no hero can stand before her, no god can wrestle her down, no magic can keep her out‌—‌or in, for she’s no prisoner of ours. Even while we exhibit her here, she is walking among you, touching and taking. For Elli is Old Age.”

The cold of the cage reached out to the unicorn, and wherever it touched her she grew lame and feeble. She felt herself withering, loosening, felt her beauty leaving her with her breath. Ugliness swung from her mane, dragged down her head, stripped her tail, gaunted her body, ate up her coat, and ravaged her mind with remembrance of what she had once been. Somewhere nearby, the harpy made her low, eager sound, but the unicorn would gladly have huddled in the shadow of her bronze wings to hide from this last demon. Elli’s song sawed away at her heart.

What is sea-born dies on land,

Soft is trod upon.

What is given burns the hand—

What is gone is gone.

The show was over. The crowd was stealing away, no one alone but in couples and fews and severals, strangers holding strangers’ hands, looking back often to see if Elli were following. Rukh called plaintively, “Won’t the gentlemen wait to hear the story about the satyr?” and sent a sour yowl of laughter chasing their slow flight. “Creatures of night, brought to light!” They struggled through the stiffening air, past the unicorn’s cage, and on away, with Rukh’s laughter yapping them home, and Elli still singing.

This is illusion, the unicorn told herself. This is illusion‌—‌and somehow raised a head heavy with death to stare deep into the dark of the last cage and see, not Old Age, but Mommy Fortuna herself, stretching and snickering and clambering to the ground with her old eerie ease. And the unicorn knew then that she had not become mortal and ugly at all, but she did not feel beautiful again. Perhaps that was illusion too, she thought wearily.

“I enjoyed that,” Mommy Fortuna said to Rukh. “I always do. I guess I’m just stagestruck at heart.”

“You better check on that damn harpy,” Rukh said. “I could feel her working loose this time. It was like I was a rope holding her, and she was untying me.” He shuddered and lowered his voice. “Get rid of her,” he said hoarsely. “Before she scatters us across the sky like bloody clouds. She thinks about it all the time. I can feel her thinking about it.”

“Fool, be still!” The witch’s own voice was fierce with fear. “I can turn her into wind if she escapes, or into snow, or into seven notes of music. But I choose to keep her. No other witch in the world holds a harpy captive, and none ever will. I would keep her if I could do it only by feeding her a piece of your liver every day.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Rukh said. He sidled away from her. “What if she only wanted your liver?” he demanded. “What would you do then?”

“Feed her yours anyway,” Mommy Fortuna said. “She wouldn’t know the difference. Harpies aren’t bright.”

Alone in the moonlight, the old woman glided from cage to cage, rattling locks and prodding her enchantments as a housewife squeezes melons in the market. When she came to the harpy’s cage the monster made a sound as shrill as a spear, and spread the horrid glory of its wings. For a moment it seemed to the unicorn that the bars of the cage began to wriggle and run like rain; but Mommy Fortuna crackled her twiggy fingers and the bars were iron again, and the harpy sank down on its perch, waiting.

“Not yet,” the witch said. “Not yet.” They stared at each other with the same eyes. Mommy Fortuna said, “You’re mine. If you kill me, you’re mine.” The harpy did not move, but a cloud put out the moon.

“Not yet,” Mommy Fortuna said, and she turned toward the unicorn’s cage. “Well,” she said in her sweet, smoky voice. “I had you frightened for a little while, didn’t I?” She laughed with a sound like snakes hurrying through mud, and strolled closer.

“Whatever your friend the magician may say,” she went on, “I must have some small art after all. To trick a unicorn into believing herself old and foul‌—‌that takes a certain skill, I’d say. And is it a twopenny spell that holds the Dark One prisoner? No other till I—”

The unicorn replied, “Do not boast, old woman. Your death sits in that cage and hears you.”

“Yes,” Mommy Fortuna said calmly. “But at least I know where it is. You were out on the road hunting for your own death.” She laughed again. “And I know where that one is, too. But I spared you the finding of it, and you should be grateful for that.”

Forgetting where she was, the unicorn pressed forward against the bars. They hurt her, but she did not draw back. “The Red Bull,” she said. “Where can I find the Red Bull?”

Mommy Fortuna stepped very close to the cage. “The Red Bull of King Haggard,” she muttered. “So you know of the Bull.” She showed two of her teeth. “Well, he’ll not have you,” she said. “You belong to me.”

The unicorn shook her head. “You know better,” she answered gently. “Free the harpy, while there is time, and set me free as well. Keep your poor shadows, if you will, but let us go.”

The witch’s stagnant eyes blazed up so savagely bright that a ragged company of luna moths, off to a night’s revel, fluttered straight into them and sizzled into snowy ashes. “I’d quit show business first,” she snarled. “Trudging through eternity, hauling my homemade horrors‌—‌do you think that was my dream when I was young and evil? Do you think I chose this meager magic, sprung of stupidity, because I never knew the true witchery? I play tricks with dogs and monkeys because I cannot touch the grass, but I know the difference. And now you ask me to give up the sight of you, the presence of your power. I told Rukh I’d feed his liver to the harpy if I had to, and so I would. And to keep you I’d take your friend Schmendrick, and I’d—” She raged herself to gibberish, and at last to silence.

“Speaking of livers,” the unicorn said. “Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else’s liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that.”

A few grains of sand rustled down Mommy Fortuna’s cheek as she stared at the unicorn. All witches weep like that. She turned and walked swiftly toward her wagon, but suddenly she turned again and grinned her rubbly grin. “But I tricked you twice, anyway,” she said. “Did you really think that those gogglers knew you for yourself without any help from me? No, I had to give you an aspect they could understand, and a horn they could see. These days, it takes a cheap carnival witch to make folk recognize a real unicorn. You’d do much better to stay with me and be false, for in this whole world only the Red Bull will know you when he sees you.” She disappeared into her wagon, and the harpy let the moon come out again.

Schmendrick came back a little before dawn, slipping between the cages as silently as water. Only the harpy made a sound as he went by. “I couldn’t get away any sooner,” he told the unicorn. “She’s set Rukh to watching me, and he hardly ever sleeps. But I asked him a riddle, and it always takes him all night to solve riddles. Next time, I’ll tell him a joke and keep him busy for a week.”

The unicorn was gray and still. “There is magic on me,” she said. “Why did you not tell me?”

“I thought you knew,” the magician answered gently. “After all, didn’t you wonder how it could be that they recognized you?” Then he smiled, which made him look a little older. “No, of course not. You never would wonder about that.”

“There has never been a spell on me before,” the unicorn said. She shivered long and deep. “There has never been a world in which I was not known.”

“I know exactly how you feel,” Schmendrick said eagerly. The unicorn looked at him out of dark, endless eyes, and he smiled nervously and looked at his hands. “It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is,” he said. “There is much misjudgment in the world. Now, I knew you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so must I be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes. We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. Still I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference ’twixt the two‌—‌the false shining and the true, the lips’ laugh and the heart’s rue.” His quiet voice lifted as the sky grew lighter, and for a moment the unicorn could not hear the bars whining, or the soft ringing of the harpy’s wings.

“I think you are my friend,” she said. “Will you help me?”

“If not you, no one,” the magician answered. “You are my last chance.”

One by one, the sad beasts of the Midnight Carnival came whimpering, sneezing, and shuddering awake. One had been dreaming of rocks and bugs and tender leaves; another of bounding through high, hot grass; a third of mud and blood. And one had dreamed of a hand scratching the lonely place behind its ears. Only the harpy had not slept, and now she sat staring into the sun without blinking. Schmendrick said, “If she frees herself first, we are lost.”

They heard Rukh’s voice nearby‌—‌that voice always sounded nearby‌—‌calling, “Schmendrick! Hey, Schmendrick, I got it! It’s a coffeepot, right?” The magician began to move slowly away. “Tonight,” he murmured to the unicorn. “Trust me till dawn.” And was gone with a flap and a scramble, seeming as before to leave part of himself behind. Rukh loped by the cage a moment later, all deadly economy. Hidden in her black wagon, Mommy Fortuna grumbled Elli’s song to herself.

Here is there, and high is low;

All may be undone.

What is true, no two men know—

What is gone is gone.

Soon a new catch of spectators began to come sauntering up to see the show. Rukh called them in, crying, “Creatures of night!” like an iron parrot, and Schmendrick stood on a box and did tricks. The unicorn watched him with great interest and a growing uncertainty, not of his heart but of his craft. He made an entire sow out of a sow’s ear; turned a sermon into a stone, a glass of water into a handful of water, a five of spades into a twelve of spades, and a rabbit into a goldfish that drowned. Each time he conjured up confusion, he glanced quickly at the unicorn with eyes that said, “Oh, but you know what I really did.” Once he changed a dead rose into a seed. The unicorn liked that, even though it did turn out to be a radish seed.

The show began again. Once more Rukh led the crowd from one of Mommy Fortuna’s poor fables to another. The dragon blazed, Cerberus howled for Hell to come and help him, and the satyr tempted women until they wept. They squinted and pointed at the manticore’s yellow tusks and swollen sting; grew still at the thought of the Midgard Serpent; and wondered at Arachne’s new web, which was like a fisherman’s net with the dripping moon in it. Each of them took it for a real web, but only the spider believed that it held the real moon.

This time, Rukh did not tell the story of King Phineus and the Argonauts; indeed, he hurried his sightseers past the harpy’s cage as quickly as he could, gabbling only her name and the meaning of it. The harpy smiled. Nobody saw her smile except the unicorn, and she wished that she had chanced to be looking somewhere else at the time.

When they stood in front of her cage, gazing silently in at her, the unicorn thought bitterly, Their eyes are so sad. How much sadder would they be, I wonder, if the spell that disguises me dissolved and they were left staring at a common white mare? The witch is right‌—‌not one would know me. But then a soft voice, rather like the voice of Schmendrick the Magician, said inside her, But their eyes are so sad.

And when Rukh shrieked, “Behold the Very End!” and the black hangings slithered back to reveal Elli, mumbling in the cold and the darkness, the unicorn felt the same helpless fear of growing old that set the crowd to flight, even though she knew that it was only Mommy Fortuna in the cage. She thought, The witch knows more than she knows she knows.

Night came quickly, perhaps because the harpy hurried it on. The sun sank into dirty clouds like a stone into the sea, and with about as much chance of rising again, and there was no moon, or any stars. Mommy Fortuna made her gliding rounds of the cages. The harpy did not move when she drew near, and that made the old woman stand and stare at her for a long while.

“Not yet,” she muttered at last, “not yet,” but her voice was weary and doubtful. She peered briefly at the unicorn, her eyes a stir of yellow in the greasy gloom. “Well, one day more,” she said in a cackling sigh, and turned away again.

There was no sound in the Carnival after she was gone. All the beasts were asleep, save the spider, who wove, and the harpy, who waited. Yet the night creaked tighter and tighter, until the unicorn expected it to split wide open, ripping a seam down the sky, to reveal‌—‌More bars, she thought. Where is the magician?

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