#makes it feel all neat and tidy which means i might get an A in ask games

[squidpro-quo]

15, 20, and 28 for that writing ask?

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

In terms of ao3 WIP status, that would have to be A Study in Myriads! I'd wanted to upload all my kaishin fics that I'd amassed over the years on here into a neatly organized collection, I'd even counted all of them so I could have an accurate chapter number to keep track, but alas. One goal for 2024 will be actually migrating all those vignettes to ao3 so I won't lose them all if tumblr burns down.

In terms of real WIPs, I have a gakuryuu body-swap au, a coda fic for that first year of Trigger's formation before the i7 story actually starts, and a Hidden Region gakuryuu au to work on in the future.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

Might be a recency effect but I think it's I want us to change each other's lives! Specifically the second chapter, the Houseki no kuni/Steven Universe/Pacific Rim fusion au. I just rewatched Pacific Rim with my family and I got hit with a need to read. It's such a specific combination of works that I'm not sure anyone else would either want to read it or have all the background knowledge necessary to piece together what I want the imagery to be, so it's also the most self-indulgent piece I've written too. But it does scratch a very specific itch for me, with the different combinations of 3p Trigger in battle and the perfect coincidence in them actually having a song called Diamond Fusion and the uniforms could be like military uniforms and the hangar spaces and everything, I just thought it was such great inspiration.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

Oof that's a hard question, I wrote a lot of gakuryuu and I love them in all variations and combinations! But I'll pick Their Own Legacy because I really like the space in canon-compliance that it occupies and it made me realize that Trigger really is the musical group of the series, and what the implications of that are. My one regret is that I wrote it for the i7 bang before BTP came out and I put Tenn as the one composing the music when it turns out Gaku is the one taking on that mantle, so now I feel the need to write a fic with Gaku composing to make up for that mistake.

I really liked these questions, thanks for your great picks!

[gatorbites-imagines]

Hello! I hope you're doing good

I saw your post the other day that you were accepting requests but I don't know if you still are, but if you are, I was wondering if we could get some Nolan Grayson content👉👈

Nolan Grayson NSFW alphabet

I was given the chance to write anything, so alphabet time. This is post season 2 Nolan, cuz hes my bbygirl, and I think hed be a better partner in general.

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

I don’t believe viltrumite culture really does aftercare. They sleep together to have offspring, or maybe as a dominance thing, but I can’t see them doing a lot of healthy kink stuff, or just cuddling afterwards. He probably did something akin to it with Debbie, but its only after leaving it all behind after season 1 and getting with you that he would start to see more importance in it, especially when you give him a lot of aftercare whenever you are in charge. Hes not the best at it yet, but he does try.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

On his partner, Nolans favorite part would be any muscularity they have, or if you happen to have a beard. If you have neither then its his partners thighs and hands. On himself its his muscles, especially his torso and arms.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

I hope you got a bucket, viltrumites get the kryptonian treatment in this house. Which means, theres so much cum. Nolan produces even more than Mark. Mostly because hes older and is in his “prime” if that makes sense. Unlike Mark though, Nolan doesn’t see the amount he makes as an annoyance, since hes still quite prideful. You do catch him puffing out his chest a little if you mentioned its something you find attractive though.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Has always had fantasies of being dominated or defeated in battle, whereafter the enemy will have their way with him. He has never once acted on these fantasies, but now that he’s with you and has gotten a reality check he might little by little try to step out of his comfort zone. Has had a few fantasies of being defeated, captured, and made into some kind of trophy wife, think like Leia in the slave dress type situation.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Theres no way to know how old Nolan is, but its assumed hes thousands of years old. This doesn’t mean hes got a lot of experience, since like I mentioned before, I believe viltrumites only do it to reproduce or for dominance. Hes probably gotten more game on earth than most of his life up till that point, so theres things you’ll have to teach him.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Any position that puts you above him or has you pinning him in some way, especially loves any position where you choke him in some way, be it your hands or with your arm. When hes feeling more dominant himself you better except him to pull an amazonian position or something like that.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Nolan is serious in most situations, and the bedroom is the same, especially since part of him feels a little strange just doing it for fun like this. But also because Nolan thinks he has to pay attention and learn, to make up for his less stellar experiences in the past.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Nolan doesn’t shave any of the hair on his body, except for his beard to get his usual stache. Viltrumites I believe would take pride in their bodyhair. He does keep it neat and tidy though, kinda like a controlled chaos.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Nolan doesn’t really know how to be way too romantic in the moment, since being in love without a purpose is still so new to him. He has his moments though, where he just kinda looks his partner in the eyes with the most love filled eyes. Saying it, is still difficult though.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)                                                                                                                                       

The normal amount for viltrumites his age, which I believe would be once a day or once every two days, just to keep themselves from backing up too much of it. up until recently hes probably mostly done it for his health, but after getting with you he starts to do it for fun.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Doing it in the suit, or just his cape for that matter.

Strength and power in general.

Blood kink, pain kink, what comes with fighting.

Sparring and training with his partner.

Powerplay

BDSM

Sensory deprivation

Asphyxiation and choking

Edging and overstimulation

Breeding (secretly, on him)

Roleplay (like the slave Leia and owner type roleplay. Getting this from him will be almost impossible though)

Dom/sub or master/slave

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Nolan could honestly do it anywhere, he doesn’t have a preference. That comes with being his age and having an ego like viltrumites tend to do. Hes a preference for doing it on battlefields or wherever you guys spar though.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Its not that hard to get Nolan going, but hes much better at containing it than Mark, but that’s more because of age and life experiences. The easiest way to get him going is to get his adrenaline up, so sparring or even outright fighting. That, or just jerking off somewhere nearby, cuz he will hear and smell it with ease.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Share. Nolan wouldn’t share himself or his partner with anybody, he is very possessive. Especially other viltrumites. It would be like putting to male hamsters together, one of them dies before its over.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Didn’t have much of a preference in the past since it wasn’t really anything he paid too much attention too. But with Debbie he preferred receiving, since it was the more “dominant” role. But with you he learns that he quite likes giving, he just has a hard time in the beginning getting on his knees below you.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Depends on the situation, but most of the time its slow and hard. But if its after you guys have sparred or fought, its faster and even rougher. He loves when you treat him roughly too. But there are times where its more slow lovemaking than anything else.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Nolan doesn’t have anything against quickies, its just not his favorite. If you both are in the mood, sure he enjoys it, but he prefers when you guys can take your time. But this also stems from viltrumites having so much damn stamina that one quickie doesn’t even scratch the itch.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Nolans for trying most things, even more dangerous stuff, unless you are vulnerable like a human or something else in that genre, he wouldn’t want to accidentally crush you with his thighs or anything.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

More stamina than you could imagine, you can’t even dream of keeping up unless you are a fellow viltrumite, like Allen, or some other species like that. Could probably go nonstop for days, if not a couple of weeks without having to slow down. In the end, even If you are a fellow viltrumite, you guys probably just stop more out of boredom or because you have other things to do than exhaustion.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Doesn’t own toys, and doesn’t really see the purpose for the most part. Of course, he still has fantasies where they fit very well, but Nolan won’t admit it even if you can tell hes thought about it from his blush.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Depends on his mood for the most part. If you guys are alone, I could see him getting handsy or mumbling the raunchiest of things. The type to “accidentally” rip your clothes just right, or his own clothes for that matter, just to show off a little. He loves when you tease him too, he’s just still very bad at waiting it out.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Not very loud, even if you’ve somehow gotten him deep into subspace. He’s mainly grunts and groans, and he clenches his teeth a lot, meaning you’ll have to put something in his mouth. But if you do put something in his mouth, you might get some gasped moans and whimpers if you’re lucky.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Has written multiple very successful adult novels under a penname when he lived on earth. One happens to be an extremely popular series based around his own most shameful (in his opinion) fantasies, involving a muscular warrior put under the boot of an even bigger and more muscular warrior. He’s not good at it, but Nolan likes to draw. It tends to mainly be doodles, but he’s surprisingly good at vehicles and landscapes.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Very big and thick, like, you are so lucky he turns out to like bottoming the most. How Debbie took it, you’ll never learn, but that woman deserves a damn medal. Both a grower and a shower, you think he’s big when he’s soft, you’ll be in for a surprise when he gets hard. Veiny and uncut.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Its always been quite average for a viltrumite his age and position, meaning he was fine taking care of himself up until now. Now Nolan finds himself fumbling every now and then, because he feels like an uncontrollable animal at times with how much he wants it. Nolan is able to suppress it though, more for his own pride and dignity than anything else.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Nolan doesn’t really fall asleep afterwards on the regular, its only if you’ve really wrung his dry mentally, by for example putting him in subspace or similar. But its almost impossible to get him physically tired enough to sleep. He does like to cuddle afterwards, even if he doesn’t like to admit it.

[ptersparkers]

I'd love to see Aaron visiting his pre-school teacher girlfriend. I've got a kiddo at work hat literally melts in my arms when mom drops her off with me. Would love to see his response to such a thing. If I could request her being plus size! 🥺💖

hi hi - currently thinking about aaron with a daughter and my heart is melting. also i feel like i write my fics with little to no physical body descriptions (except shorter than aaron bc im short as hell and im kinda into the height difference) -- and i didn’t know exactly how you wanted me to write so i didn’t really lean into anyone’s insecurities, as some fics do, just bc i want to be inclusive since all bodies types are very beautiful. 

HOWEVER! may this blurb and all my future writing be something you can relate to.

fem!reader for those wondering <3

***

It’s one in the afternoon on a sunny Friday when Aaron picks you up from work.

It’s a half day, meaning you get off of work earlier and the kiddos in your class are more energetic than the rest of the week because they know they’re going home early. Your classroom is as colorful as ever, the walls lined with number and alphabet charts, science posters framing the doorway, and art projects from your students hang above their cubbies where their backpacks are stores.

You walk around the room with your hands clasped behind your back and observe as the children tidy their desks, four of which face each other. A few students have to be told to slow down when they start to run because they’re holding colored pencils. Others follow your instructions while a few choose to talk amongst themselves instead of cleaning up.

It’s when they’re reminded their parents are likely waiting outside do the students hurry to clean their spaces. You walk around, one by one, giving each student a high-five when they’ve tucked their papers in their desk’s storage and when their notebooks and other materials are neat and organized. Each student automatically begins to grab their belongings and file in a single line against the wall by the door when you’ve dismissed them from their desk with appraisal for their neatness.

When your students are lined and eager to leave with their hands gripping the straps of their backpacks, you can’t help but smile at the group of children. You swing the door open and remind everyone to walk at an orderly fashion and watch as they exit the front doors into the front area of the building where other teaching aids are waiting.

The kids disperse when they see their parents and you watch from behind as their parents check in with the teaching aids before they go. It’s always amusing to you to witness their little legs climb into their booster seats.

Mary, your longest friend at this school who teaches the third grade, stands next to you.

“Up to anything fun this weekend?” she asks, bumping your cardigan-clad shoulders.

“I’m having a quiet weekend in with my boyfriend and his son,” you say with a grin.

“Ah, the mysterious boyfriend,” Mary says with a laugh.

Aaron’s been a bit of a mystery to your friends at work—always aloof and has never been to teacher-student functions because of his work schedule. You see him quite often given the circumstances but some people think you might be making him up for an excuse to stay at home. Mary’s the only person who’s met Aaron before, but she likes to pretend that your boyfriend is just a figment of your imagination to watch you squirm.

“You’ve met him before, dummy,” you say with a laugh. “Although I’m sure Laura probably thinks I’m making him up.”

“Or she thinks he’s an absolute troll of a guy,” Mary snorts. “It’s no secret that she’s pissed at you for receiving the ‘Teacher of the Year’ award this quarter.”

“She should bring it up with the district, not me,” you say, dusting off your shoulders for dramatic effect. “It feels like she’s had it out for me since day one.”

“Laura has a stick up her ass,” Mary whispers into your ear, which causes you to burst out into a fit of giggles. “Uh oh, the Wicked Witch is here.”

Laura’s on the other end of the pick-up area and you angle yourself so that you’re not facing her. You get a text from Aaron at the same time saying that he’s parked and walking towards the school. You grin at your phone and Mary snickers.

“Shush,” you mutter, knowing you have a lovesick grin on your face.

You spot Aaron across the street, donned in a dark grey suit and expensive shoes and tie to match. His hair flows perfectly in the cool breeze and his strides are long and confident as he crosses the road.

Aaron spots you easily and you keep yourself from sprinting into his arms. Careful to keep it professional at your place of work, Aaron presses a kiss to your cheek and embraces you for a short while, but it’s enough to inhale his cologne.

“Missed you,” Aaron says.

“Good day at work?” you ask.

“Actually yeah, everything went surprisingly well with no hiccups.” Aaron turns his attention to your friend. “Hi Mary, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Hey Aaron,” Mary greets with a wave. “Long time no see.”

Avery, one of your students, politely taps your hip to get your attention.

“What’s wrong, honey?” you asked.

“Can I wait with you?” Avery asks. “Mommy’s late today.”

“Of course, Avery.” You grab her hand when tears start to threaten to spill from her eyes—Avery’s mom works a bit farther than the rest of the parents and it isn’t unusual for her to be a few minutes late to pick her daughter up. But for a child, it feels like eternity.

“Did you like our lesson today?” you ask, bending down to her level while keeping your hands together.

“I really liked learning about dinosaurs!” Avery exclaims as if her worries were never there to begin with.

Aaron’s watching you from beside Mary, an adorning look plastered across his face. He’s too caught up in his fantasies about creating a family with you; Jack’s warmed up to you in the few years you’ve been dating Aaron, but he can’t help but wonder what you’d be like as a mother of your own.

You’re able to get Avery to talk about her interests to keep her from thinking about anything else. She obliges and you squat with a grin as she becomes animated with her storytelling. He makes small talk with Mary, who can clearly see how smitten he is with you, but he doesn’t think he cares too much.

“You guys would make cute kids,” Mary says to Aaron with a nudge.

“Mary,” he warns playfully.

“What good is a friend if not to meddle?” she chides before excusing herself to assist other students.

Avery’s mom arrives a few short minutes after Mary leaves and Aaron watches you greet her mother and send the girl on her way home. He watches with his hands in his pocket and accompanies you back to the classroom once your students have left the school grounds.

Aaron knows he wants kids with you. He just needs to ask you to be his wife first.

[drconstellation]

Chiastic Structure of S2

The post preceding this is Chiastic Structure of S1.

S1 was neat, tidy and simple compared to S2.

S2 was...difficult. I have a feeling this is because of the missing minisodes. There felt like there were "holes" in places, where there was a strong scene with no corresponding pair, and yet in others there were single lines matching up.

You will also notice its quite...skewed? The hinging midpoint is right at the end of Ep4, which means the last two episodes mirror the preceding the four! So there are gaps. For example, the conversation in the pub in Ep2 doesn't match with anything specific.

One of the things I hoped it might shed some light on was the purpose of the trip to Edinburgh, which seems like a bit of a dead end. It does, in a way - I will discuss it a bit further below, along with some other parallels that didn't fit the structure.

A: Before the Beginning B: Aziraphale meets Crowley C: "How much trouble can I get into just for asking a few questions?"  D: "I'm very good at forgiveness. It's one of my favourite things." E: Gabriel: "I love you, you're funny" F: Argument about helping the other G: Crowley offered Duke of Hell position H: Crowley apologizes to Aziraphale I: Hiding of Gabriel - 25 Lazurii miracle J: Shax threatens Crowley K: Jobs children are turned into geckos M: Aziraphale's Trial by Temptation N: Aziracrow see God talking to Job: AZIRAPHALE: I don't suppose he's getting any answers. O: AZIRAPHALE: That sounds, um…CRAWLEY: Lonely? P: An angel asks permission for entry to the bookshop Q: Aziraphale makes unauthorized changes to the Bentley R: CROWLEY: Oh, come on, Mr. Dalrymple, it's not brain surgery! S: BARTENDER: You'll be one of those investigative reporters, no doubt? T: Aziraphale goes back to offer assistance to Elspeth and wee Morag U: Aziraphale stalls on saving wee Morag, says he doesn't have permission V: The laudanum toast to wee Morag W: AZIRAPHALE: Will you get into trouble? X: Crowley does Operation Lovebirds - Calls tempest Y: CROWLEY: "What are we talking about now?" GABRIEL: "Who am I? What's happened to me?" Z: Crowley confronts Gabriel about Aziraphale - Its always too late AA: Shax saying to Aziraphale she heard Aziracrow were an item 90 years ago BB: Zombies kill - 1st brain eaten CC: Crowley talks Aziraphale into performing a bigger magic act DD: Aziracrow shake on deal to do more miracles if needed EE: Zombies kill - 2nd Brain Eaten FF: The Staging of the Bullet Catch GG: Aziraphale gives permission for Furfur to enter the dressing room HH: Furfur says to expect a legion to come for Crowley in the morning II: Furfur's audience with the Dark Council, is treated condescendingly 

● SHADES OF GREY  - you said "TRUST ME."

II: Shax is stopped by Demon Josh, is treated condescendingly HH: Shax wants a legion to storm the bookshop GG: Beez asks if Shax has permission to enter the bookshop FF: AZIRAPHALE: I can guarantee you it will be a night to remember! EE: Shax wants killers, 10,000 demons DD: Deal for Dr Who Annual with Mr Arnold CC: AZIRAPHALE: Maggie and Nina are depending on me BB: 70 demons and a malignant and creeping sense of unease AA: Nina asks Crowley about how long he and Aziraphale have been together Z: Crowley confronts Gabriel about Aziraphale - stops him before its too late Y: Nina: "I’m going mad" - is spoken to by all the people at the Ball X: Aziraphale does Operation Lovebirds - Maggie asks Nina to dance W: AZIRAPHALE: I think you're overestimating how much trouble we're actually in. V: SHAX:… they are toast. T-O-S-T E. Toast. Now! U: Crowley stalls Shax on attacking humans, asks if she has permission T: Crowley says he's coming back, won't leave Aziraphale on his own. S: CROWLEY: Officer, I need to report a crime. R: Aziraphale: It all looks so simple in Jane Austen… the brains behind the 1810 Clerkenwell diamond robbery. Q: An unauthorized demon enters Heaven, changes P: Maggie gives permission for the demons to enter the bookshop O: MURIEL: It's a bit lonely. N: Aziraphale opens the portal to Heaven: GABRIEL: I told you you could ask. However, I am the only First-Order archangel in the room, or, you know, the Universe, so I'm not gonna answer so much. M: Gabriel's Trial K: Gabriel puts himself into the fly J: Aziraphale declares war on Hell I: Reveal of Gabriel - memories restored H: Gabriel apologizes to Beelzebub G: Aziraphale offered Supreme Archangel position F: Argument about helping the other E: The Big Damn Kiss D: "I forgive you" C: "Always asking damn fool questions, too."  B: Aziraphale leaves Crowley A: Beginning of  the End – Learn of Second Coming

Discussion on parallels that didn't fit the structure:

1. Crowley is given permission to destroy all of Job's possessions /  Gabriel refuses to give permission to destroy the Earth aka Armageddon II

There is a repeat emphasis on licenses, permits and authority throughout S2, so I really thought Crowley's permit to destroy of Job's possessions would have a match. It did, but it didn't fit the structure! If you look closely some of the other permits and authority lines do slot in. I'm planning some metas on these topics in the near future, as the use of language around these concepts is quite interesting, and there is some history to throw into the mix as well.

2. Crowley deceives the archangels with the help of an angel

This pair is a reference to Crowley and Aziraphale teaming up in the Job minisode to restore Job's children, and then Muriel aiding Crowley to sneak into Heaven. I'd just like to point out that Crowley could have gone to Heaven on his own - remember Eric went up with the hellfire in S1E6 - but he doesn't know where to go and get Gabriel's file, that is what he needs Muriel for.

3.  Popping up to Edinburgh

Ah, the trip to Edinburgh! Why? WHY!!! Why go all that way for ... nothing?

Guess what - it's a parallel sequence to Crowley popping up to Heaven.

I was going to write a companion piece to this but...my to do list is getting a bit long at the moment. Let me know if you want me to expand on it.

4. Ignoring messages

So this one started as "Nina gets txt messages from Lindsay, Mrs Sandwich says not to look at them," at the start of Ep3, then during the Ball Crowley is trying to lead the humans out of the bookshop and Shax confronts him with another bundle of mail. Crowley is succeeding in ignoring his messages from Hell, but Nina isn't.

5. Muriel and The Interrupted Tea Ceremony

In S2 it noticeable that everyone except Crowley needs permission to enter the bookshop, whereas in S1 they could just walk in. Originally I made a comment elsewhere that I thought this part matched with a sub-story to the Ball, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and hospitality to angels, but then I came back and had another look and saw that there was a surface match - but I'm still going to do another post about the "cupperty" because it keeps getting lost in all the noise!

6. Threats and Declarations of War

Shax makes a number of threats throughout the series, to hunt Crowley down and to declare war on Aziraphale. So when Aziraphale inadvertently declares war on Hell with the halo toss, you'd think there would be a matching pair. There is, but not with a declaration of war, just a threat to Crowley. This is probably one of the weaker pairs.

7. Mysteriosity, audacity, ferocity and dangerocity

The Marvelous Mr Fell and his Mysteriosity has a pair with Shax's speech to her fellow demons about the unprecedented audacity of the attack on the bookshop, and how their lack of numbers will be made up for with their ferocity and...dangerocity. It should have fit, but it didn't.

[grazi-your-rockette-queen]

sami yaffa nsfw alphabet 😏😏😏

mwah ✿

a= aftercare sami loves to cuddle especially after sex, he just likes being as close to you as possible. after he makes sure you’re all comfortable, he’ll curl up next to you and probably fall asleep

b= body part i think that sami really loves your hands, mostly because they look perfect in his. he always needs to be holding them wherever you two go together

c= cum he most likes cumming in your mouth so that he can hold your jaw and wipe the excess from your red lips gently… but otherwise he’ll cum on your tummy

d= dirty secret he absolutely loves being topped by you from time to time… he definitely has a submissive side

e= experience after he’s been in one of the biggest glam punk bands throughout the world for a bit, he’s definitely become familiar with how to please a girl

f= favorite position he likes you to ride him, but aside from that, he probably likes missionary the most because he likes kissing your face and neck while you’re under him

g= goofy i would describe him as goofy, but he’s not always serious and rigid about it. he likes being playful and sweet more than being mean or anything in that direction

h= hair i get the vibe he doesn’t put too much effort into keeping shit neat and tidy down there but i can’t imagine it’s too bad

i= intimacy sami is very considerate and interested in hearing about what you like, romance-wise. as soon as he figures out something that you favorite, or something that gets you really turned on, he’ll never let go of it. he’s very sweet and wants to do anything that will make you feel the best

j= jack off like most musicians, he can’t take his girlfriend with him on tour most of the time, so he’s left alone… which results in him having to get off with the help of something that belongs to you that he stole for the road… such as a pair of your panties or a bottle of your perfume

k= kinks i think it’s safe enough to say sami is a fairly vanilla guy, but he does like the way you look tied to the bed. and on the flip side of that, when you take your turn on top, he loves being praised by you

l= location sami is very shy, and he’s overly afraid of getting caught in the act by doing anything anywhere other than your shared bedroom. though he’s not opposed to hotel sex, and you two have participated in a few quickies at parties, his favorite place is in your own bed

m= motivation the things that especially turn him on include you initiating any sort of foreplay. like i said, he’s shy and he doesn’t really want to brother you, so he always feels good when you ask for something instead of him asking. in specific, he loves when you dress up in pretty lingerie

n= no he’s not down for anything that he worries will hurt you. he’s just not that kind of guy. he’s a soft dom, at most. so no to most of the hardcore kinky concepts

o= oral he gets so hot and flustered when he’s eating you out, he becomes very intense and he might even start unconsciously grinding against the mattress. when you’re giving him head, he tries to be polite, but with the view he gets of you on your knees, it makes it hard for him to hold back any noises that might slip out

p= pace usually he’s not one to be overly fast or rough, he’s rather slow and takes his time trying to make you feel good. in some instances, he’ll be full of energy and emotion after a show and he might take it out on you in the bedroom, but otherwise he’s very thorough

q= quickies they’re not his favorite, because it usually means he can’t be as gentle and sensual as he wants to be. but if the time is right, he won’t pass up the opportunity

r= risk sami is very cautious, but he’s not boring. he’s open to trying new things as long as you’re into the idea, but he also has his boundaries

s= stamina you two usually enjoy one or two rounds of slow, intimate sex before you’re ready to cuddle up together and fall asleep, but on other nights, you might go for hours on end. it happens often on nights when he comes back from a tour because he’s missed you so much and wants to make up for it

t= toys i wouldn’t think he’s too invested in accessories or anything like that, if he wanted to experiment a little, he might borrow one of his bandmate’s pieces, such as handcuffs

u= unfair sami would rather do everything in his power to make you feel the best than purposely take it away from you. whenever he does try to tease you, all it takes is you begging him just once, and he’ll cave in

v= volume sometimes he’s completely unaware of the noises he lets out during sex… when you’re riding him or when he’s going down on you and grinding against the bed, he lets out pretty moans here and there, even if he doesn’t notice

w= wild card he also loves having his hair pulled, especially when he’s eating your pussy. it drives him even more crazy

x= x-ray around 6-7 inches in length

y= yearning i wouldn’t say that sex has become a part of the nightly routine between you and sami, but it does take place more days than not

z= zzz he gets tired quickly after a few rounds and making sure you’re situated and comfortable, you both are typically able to fall asleep together shortly after on most nights

a/n: omg i finished it in the middle of the night when i was half awake 💪 so i hope it doesn’t suck. anyways, here you go, sami lovers (@hirorythisdefisntrinsacc) ✿

[le-trash-prince]

adding another ask into our rotating collection sorry.

so I had a dream last night where [a person I love] was tenderly doing my nails and it got me thinking, because everything I think of these days is pit babe and because Kim (well Benz but you understand) has SUCH nice nails: one of his boys doing his nails. filing, shaping, smoothing, painting. maybe a little hand massage.

the act of service makes me think Kenta (he'd be so gentle and careful about it) but also Dean wears rings in a way that makes me think he understands the importance of nice hands. plus the opportunity for praise: doing a neat and tidy job, when he picks a nice colour. maybe he learns how to do cool designs?

(the only part of the process winner is interested in is the scratches that can be left with said nails)

idk it's just Very Important to me that Kim is well-cared for 🥺

🥺🥺🥺 Please don’t apologize for blessing me with this ask. This got me choked up because YES, Kim deserves to have his boys taking care of his hands??? Taking care of him???? And good god yeah his nails are so pretty wtf

I can see the little crease between Kenta’s eyebrows from concentrating so hard on doing a good job 🥹 But oh yes, Dean strikes me as someone who could really get into doing nails! He’d do it with a smile on his face because it’s something he finds fun (and yes praise kink), and he’d think about Kim when he’s out at the store and sees a color that matches Kim’s jacket. And nail art yes! Little black and white checkered racing nails 🏁🥺

Honestly I can see him and Kim doing each other’s nails on a regular basis, but if I think too much about how competent Kim would be at doing someone else’s nails and him touching Dean’s hands I might swoon AGDHFJJF (Inserting this clip of Benz here for the domestic visuals BECAUSE JUST LOOK)

which of the four do you think has the most sensitive hands asking for reasons

(can you blame Winner honestly. Im thinking about how he probably loves being marked up and im yelling)

Yeah Kim deserves to be pampered like royalty! 🥺 Why else would they always be kneeling at his feet. What a lovely dream and a lovely thought!!

I know exactly what you mean about associating everything to Pit Babe 😩 I was at the store earlier and I saw a dartboard and IMMEDIATELY envisioned Winner and Kenta smoking and playing darts at the bar!! Kim and Dean join in sometimes (and those are the loudest and most entertaining games), but it’s usually just the two of them and it becomes a little bonding ritual of theirs.

Winner doesn’t really stand a chance against Kenta’s precision, but he enjoys trying anyways. One game, he starts catching up, and he’s all ready to start trash talking until he notices that Kenta’s aim has been drifting—and when he looks over, he sees the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of Kenta’s mouth, which has Winner swearing at him (he’s still smiling though) coz he knows Kenta did it just to get on his nerves, because Kenta can go easy on him and still win. (And if Kenta shakes in silent laughter, will Winner’s poor heart even survive)

Anyways it just makes Winner decide to show Kenta how he really likes to win—sabotage (feeling Kenta up while he tries to stay focused).

[zoeykallus]

That recent request about tbb's habits that the s/o deals/helps with made me think of the opposite. What about s/o's habits that makes tbb go nuts. Like, something their loved ones do that really makes our boys really mad haha love u!

Aloha sweetheart!

Well, theoretically I wouldn't be averse to the idea, but how am I supposed to guess the reader's habits? I could make something up, but is that really what you want to read? 🤔 Or are you asking me which general habits the tbb boys can't deal with? Hmm... let me try something....

Okay please don't stone me or anything, that's just my HC's, so none of this is canon of course. PS: I don't know what I'm doing.

The Bad Batch x Reader HC's - How They Deal With Your Habits

Hunter

He can deal with most habits, as long as they don't include being rude. You can be a little sloppy, clumsy, nerd'ish and a lot of other things, but don't be rude or a snarky smart ass. He puts up with Crosshair because he is his brother, but he couldn't deal with a partner being like the sniper. Aside from that, he's actually really understanding and patient, he knows you put up with his habits too.

Echo

He's pretty patient, there isn't much that can unsettle or unnerve him. Then again, Echo has trouble dealing with short-tempered people, he actually does better than most of his brothers about this, but he's not really a fan, but if all the rest fits, he's putting up with it. If you are sloppy he cleans after you, he may grumble a little occasionally, but it's not a dealbreaker for him.

Wrecker

He puts up with pretty much everything. Uncomplicated fellow, very understanding and patient. But don't be rude or mean, if you tend to be like that, you probably won't be a couple for long. It's one thing to tease a little and joke around, but he really doesn't like meanies. And that doesn't only apply for your habits towards him, if you treat others disrespectfully for no real reason, he loses interest in you.

Tech

He's not judgy. Uncomplicated, even if it might not look like it at first glance. He has a lot of habits himself and is aware of that, he's the last one to judge. The only thing that might trouble him are habits regarding your physical hygiene, if you tend to be sloppy in this regard, he might feel repelled.

Crosshair

Okay, this one doesn't put up with much. He gets annoyed pretty quickly. There are maybe a few habits he puts up with, but not many. He's a pretty neat guy, so a messy partner wouldn't work well. The more straightforward and tidy you are, the better. If he really falls in love, he can overlook a few things, but he is by far the most critical and picky one of the guys.

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@puppetswithteeth

@palliateclaws

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@starwarsnerd111

[luna-the-bard]

Skeemus Main Storyline - Act II (Part 1)

The self-indulgent fan oc lore continues! Woo!

Act I <- x -> Te'rra Intermission

Samus’s ship, and, by extension, her living space, is very neat. Being a bit messy isn’t unfamiliar to her, but at large her ship is very tidy & organized. Everything has a place, or at least an “everything bin”; it’s functional. Having someone sick to care for brought a reasonable amount of chaos into this tidiness. Samus found herself cleaning at least twice as often as usual - mostly throwing out used tissues and changing sheets, but also disposing of empty IV bags and syringes and all else that is medical in nature. She had to dig up some old T-shirts and cut them in the back to make them fit around the alien’s wings, because her old clothes had to be discarded both due to wear and tear and for the purpose of decontamination.

A couple days later, after the little alien’s fever goes down, Samus notices her watching, intently, as she goes around her day. The next morning she notices all the used tissues stacked up neatly in little squares at the edge of the bed. Samus appreciates the effort. She makes a mental note to buy a small bin for paper trash to put by the bed once they get to the nearest port - she didn’t really need one before, but it would make cleaning a bit easier now. Since that moment she regularly took notice of the little ways in which her guest tried to be as low-maintenance as possible.

It comes as a shock when one night, about a week in or so, the avian makes a nest out of pillows and blankets and refuses to let Samus leave for the cockpit where she’s been sleeping. Samus has to bust out the drawing pad, because she can’t understand what the little alien is trying to say, yet, and her just aggressively patting the bed could mean pretty much anything. Samus has to make sure everything is okay.

The situation turns out to be a lot more awkward than initially assessed. Turns out her guest noticed not only the fact that Samus has been sleeping in her pilot’s chair, but also the way it had been leaving her neck and shoulders more sore with every passing day. The alien made space for her to sleep besides her - she stopped being contagious as soon as the fever went down, and Samus had just changed the sheets this morning, but she hasn’t had to share a sleeping space since her days in the Federation Police - and even there, she still had an individual bunk. On the other hand, waking up sore every morning was a real pain in the neck… Literally. 

Samus makes perhaps the most uncharacteristic decision of this month - it’s only until Skeets fully recovers and she can drop her off back on Te’rra, what could go wrong?

Besides cleaning, Samus spends her time in passionate research. It takes her a week to even identify the girl’s species - the last publicly available entry on them is dating over two centuries old. Samus feels as if she uncovered an ancient relic. 

She soon learns the reason behind such lack of up-to-date information: Te’rra has left the big political scene almost exactly a millenia ago, cutting all communications and public relations with the rest of the world. It takes Samus another two days to find a textbook on their language - it’s in a private library of some old philanthropist, but to Samus’s luck there's a scanned version of it uploaded online; it even has an audiobook with pronunciation guides and exercises to go along with it. She meticulously follows them all, making good progress - at least good enough to learn some basic phrases and the word “hospital”, since that’s where she was about to take Skeets (they finally got to a planet with a big enough interspecies infrastructure). Although, she also had to learn the words “new” and “clothes'', as she realized that maybe going out in public in just an oversized t-shirt (which was only held together by makeshift ties at the back, at that) might be a bad idea, and the alien’s condition was stabilized enough by now to not need an ambulance ride. As much as Samus hates the idea of leaving someone unattended inside her ship, she has to do a quick shopping run, leaving A.D.A.M. in charge until she could return with some adjustable pants and shirts that would hopefully fit the little bird. (She guesstimates a little on the bigger side, so the alien looks especially tiny in comparison to her oversized apparel. It would almost be funny if only she didn’t look so.. sad and disoriented in an unfamiliar place).

Samus spends another hour or so filling out all the paperwork for Skeets before they go out - names were one of the first things Samus established once she found that textbook, so now she knew at least who she took in, and if Skeets needed something, she could call Samus over. She arranges a taxi from the port to the hospital, so they wouldn’t have to go through the overwhelming ordeal of navigating foreign public transit. 

They come back from the hospital with a portable oxygen machine and a new set of antibiotics. Samus spends the following month feeding Skeets syringes full of medication (she will never admit it, but she almost laughed at the way the little alien’s face scrunched up at the taste), studying terranian, and keeping contact with the Federation officials responsible for rehabilitation of the rescued group. Skeets asks for some textbooks to learn Common and Chozo too, catching up pretty fast with nothing else for her to do on the ship but study. She makes quicker progress with Chozo, finding unexpected similarities to her native language (they’re nothing more than a coincidence, but an advantage nonetheless). By the end of the month they can communicate somewhat well; nothing fancy or too complex, but it makes a huge difference. Skeets helps Samus with pronunciation and vice versa, so learning is going quite well. 

After a follow-up at the hospital, Samus is left with a long list of physical therapy exercises for avian species and a detailed recovery plan. It’s not really a surprise that a full month of inactivity and illness would have consequences, but what it hurt the most was Skeets’s wings - she hadn’t used them since the Space Pirates’s ambush.

They spend evenings looking through various parks and recreational resorts (some of them take up entire planets!), picking and choosing what seemed best for flying. Samus suggests a couple planets with reduced gravity to start them off.

She can’t get the feeling of Skeets’s dry, warm hands in her own out of her head for the weeks to come. They go flying almost every other day - and every time, Samus makes sure to hold Skeets steady at least for the first few minutes, lest a sudden gasp of wind catch her by surprise and lead to injury. She lets go only when she’s confident that the avian is safe. (Skeets is fully capable of flying in harsher conditions, even after two months of forced inactivity. She accepts the help regardless, out of gratitude if nothing else - she doesn’t mind soothing Samus’s worries.)

As they share the bed, the awkward space gap between them grows smaller and smaller; until one night, about half a month later, Samus realizes that whenever she gets cold at night and tries to cocoon herself into the blankets, Skeets drapes one of her feathery wings over her.

Act I <- Act II p.1 -> Te'rra Intermission

[heyheydidjaknow]

Hi!

If this is not too much to ask... Could you please do Light and L with suicidal s/o? Maybe even platonic one with Ryuk :)

(gender neutral or male pronouns)

Thank you! Have a nice day.

Disclaimer: The words of the fictional men are not to be heeded. For the sake of being in character they will suck to the degree that I believe that they’d suck, but they do for sure suck. If you are someone who is going through a hard time mentally, please talk to someone who can actually help you and do not listen to an antisocial gate kid, a mass murderer, and a death god for advice, please and thank you.

TW: Suicidal thoughts/actions. If anyone knows how to do community tags on mobile, please let me know.

If you are just coming to L with this information, his first response is confusion. Why are you coming to him of all people for help with your mental health? Is this you asking him to kill you? Because he isn’t going to do that; if he’s selfish enough to be in your life he’s selfish enough to not help you end your own life. Will probably refer you to the best psychiatrist he knows (which he will pay for) but will outright refuse to offer advice because his coping mechanism is to just work until he is physically incapable of thinking about it and that is not the appropriate response to that. If you refuse psychiatric help all he can really do is remind you how much you mean to him and that if you need to talk you can; for the sake of your bodily autonomy he’s hardly about to tie you up or anything. If you feel suicidal because of a specific thing he can help, but otherwise he is going to refer you to someone who can actually help you if at all possible.

Light is going to break up with you. You have no business being in a relationship given your mental state and it would be irresponsible of him to keep you in a relationship and to shift focus away from you actually trying to get the help that you need, regardless of whether he cares for you or not. Tells you to call the hotline. Kira is going to ask to marry you because you would be a 10/10 pawn and if you ever disobeyed him your killing your self would be a neat and tidy solution to that problem. He would view suicide as a show of incredible weakness, and as I believe Kira is incapable of love, it just means that using you is that much easier. Would use you for all your worth and then kill you himself.

Ryuk does not care and will say he does not care to your face. If you are a Death Note holder/user he will remind you of the no Heaven/hell stuff but you are not going to be getting any sort of good advice out of him. If you aren’t, he might suggest some fun ways to do it and make a comment about how much life you have left. Will also kill you first, but will be so kind as to kill you in your sleep if it looks like that’s something you’re going to do if he likes you. If you want to cut your human life shorter, that’s your business. Either way, entertainment.

[consumare]

i'm gonna take some time to talk about h.annibal's office today because that's what's on my mind.

this is his office in baltimore. i was thinking that maybe the building could hold several leases in it, like have different offices, but we know how h.annibal is with his money, so i have to assume he bought the whole thing. there's no way he planned to share anything, so the building is his to do with what he will. it was built in 1873, and it's neighbors with a fucking church. i could probably talk about how ironic that is, but that's for a different post. h.annibal liked this building because of the windows, how much light could be let into his office, and the architecture caught his eye. this was the third lease he'd look at, and this was the one he chose. it's a historical building that he took over and paid for out of pocket, most likely.

the interior is very interesting. there is an art nouveau style ( quoted as 'characterized by its use of a long, sinuous, organic line' ) and neoclassicism. there is a lot of danish furniture, which gives way to his european roots. the walls are a warm grey, but then there's an accent wall with a pop of red. i personally think this office was meant to make people comfortable, but have that little bit uncertainty. he wanted the space to feel welcoming, but overwhelming. there are hundreds of books on his shelves, some first additions even. the art, sculptures, books, they're all put there purposefully, since he has a meaning for everything in there ( quoted as 'a stunning library that has become a symbol of demonstrative, straightforward art and object collecting that reflect the course of a person's entire life' ). i think he decorated with a few intentions in mind, contradicting somewhat, wanting his patients to feel both ease and unease, so they couldn't really be comfortable there, even with how charming / open their therapist seemed to be. and they wouldn't really know why they couldn't get to that point, which is why hannibal did it - because it's amusing.

the rug is persian. the striped curtains are 13 feet high. i was trying to find what the photography framed on the walls might be, or what art he collects to put in his office, to no avail. will update if i find anything, though i did find this about the art in his waiting room -

quoted from this post - 'this painting in h.annibal's waiting room is part of a triptych called “suzumi no hotaru” (納涼の蛍 - “catching fireflies in the cool of the evening”). the triptych is part of a larger collection called “shiki no yuukan” (四季遊観 - “pleasures of the four seasons”) by utagawa kuniyoshi and it dates from around 1843.'

his desk is an original leif jacobsen design. he doesn't sit behind it when patients are in the office, he reserves conversations for the two grey leather chairs in front of it, to make therpy feel more open. his desk is always clean, always neat and tidy. he puts everything back where it belongs. found there are his therapy notes, several notebooks. in one of the drawers he keeps his sketches, pencils, and scalpel ( which he uses to sharpen his pencils ). the desk is reservd for after appointment work only, basically.

and finally the floorplan. there is a waiting room, and then there is also a foyer, which doubles as a private exit for his clients. outside the waiting room is where the receptionist would be if he hadn't eaten her.

edit: i found some of the art, cause i'm a boss.

the fall of the rebel angels from book i of paradise lost by john milton c. 1868.

summer: buckwheat harvest by jean-françois millet. c 1874.

i can't find anything concrete for this one. this piece could be another by utagawa kuniyoshi or perhaps utagawa kunisada, or it could be by anyone who used the triptych style, so i can't say for sure nor can i find this specific print anywhere.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

tbqh i‘m not a big fan of Janey and/or Barb being the sole purpose and reason Coop stayed sane all those years. obviously, in a lot of ways he hasn’t processed the betrayal of his belief system and the hurt, let alone getting closure. And I mean, from where he stands at the end of s1 and from what we learn about him, it makes total sense that he’s so driven to find his family.

A message that I (personally) would find a lot more compelling though would be a possibility of a new life and closing the door on the past completely? In a way dwelling on the past keeps ourselves from healing, I think, and I really wish for Cooper to find meaning in the present and truly ‘take it as it comes’.

Ghoulcy brainrot aside, I think that it could be a nice way, narratively speaking, for Coop to let himself be soft and vulnerable and learn to trust someone (Lucy potentially) again? Like, he’s been in survival mode for the last 200 years, and there’s no question that there’s a lot to resolve with Vault-Tec, Barb, Hank etc. But I think it would be all backwards if his character arc would lead to him being a father again, without acknowledging how he changed in the meantime.

I mean, there’s a difference what a character THINKS they want, and what they really need. And I don’t see this tidy, neat, narrative bow of Cooper and Janey reuniting and going back to their old dynamic, happening. Which also completely negates Janey’s change and perspective (we still don’t know what happened to her and how she got separated from Cooper. Maybe she was lied to? there’s so many possibilities)

Sorry. All this rambling, just to say that I like the idea of Cooper finding his new purpose in the changed, new world, that is very different from the past, just like he is a changed man. And I hope that his character arc in s2 helps him get closure instead of ‘’’seemingly’’’ giving him what he wants, as in his family.

I agree that I wouldn't like the idea of it as his sole purpose in the ultra-literal sense I mentioned of it being the physical only reason he's alive, ie: he'd go feral if he got answers. That rubs me the wrong way, I think, because I feel like it implicitly denies the inherent value of his life and suggests he can't or shouldn't survive finding closure. Or, like I said, that he's 'already dead' and more like a ghost with unfinished business than someone who can find a way forward. Which I hugely dislike, thematically, because I always want the possibility of hope and healing to exist or what's the point investing in anything. I want characters to feel like they have narrative worth beyond their quests or immediate goals. He's been symbolically resurrected already because we meet him literally rising from his grave, and I want that to be resurrection not reanimation. I think he's alive and therefore still capable of choices and therefore still capable of healing etc etc.

They could take it in a hopeful direction (he's alive and can change) or in a bittersweet or tragic direction (Cooper died and the Ghoul is either his ghost or the wasteland is his Hell, he can serve only as a messenger or vengeful spirit).

I don't agree it's going backwards for him to 'become' a father again. He's never stopped being a father. He's the same person and will always be a father whether Janey is alive or not. To me, healing for him inevitably involves becoming more like he used to be, but that's not going backwards, that's reconnecting with his authentic self. It doesn't mean the intervening years are wiped away and nothing he's gone through since then matters, it just means he realises he buried parts of himself that he needs to be whole. That he doesn't have to let the wasteland turn him into its creature, there's ways to adapt and survive without discarding your soul.

He's already being confronted with that and already questioning himself just from the interaction he's had with Lucy so far. She's a mirror and a challenge for him and she's already showing him there might be another path, that it wasn't inevitable he ended up where he is now. He doesn't have to play this role he felt forced into to survive, it's not the only way.

I don't think you ever leave the past behind. It's part of you. To me it's not a binary between nostalgia and trying to 'go back' or drawing a line under it all and getting closure. His past is something he has to reclaim and reintegrate, not something to 'let go'.

If they're reunited, it will obviously never be the same, but that doesn't mean having a relationship with his daughter isn't something he should want. He'll always want that, that's a fundamental part of his identity. I don't think it's a simple bow to tie things in at all, because the most difficult part about it is that they'll have to figure out a way forward in the changed world. They can't go back to the way things were before. He can't go back, he can only reconcile.

I'd argue it'd be more of a challenge to his character if she's alive, because he'll have to deal directly with the reality of who he really is under the role he's taken on and be vulnerable just in order to even talk to her. If she's not alive, someone else would have to force him to do that.

Which I think can be Lucy, of course, because she's already made him reflect and confronted him just by being herself, but she can never create the emotional reckoning Janey can. The way his arc is going could be equally leading up to a reunion and a crisis or to him having to accept Janey's death. I think either is valid and possible, though again I think her being alive is more challenging and thus more likely.

If Janey is dead, that puts ten times more weight on his relationship with Lucy and makes their intimacy or lack thereof completely determinate of his trajectory, because he'd have no one else left to make him vulnerable. But like. He already dropped his exaggerated persona several times, including for Lucy simply because he empathised with her. I feel like he's more aware of what he's doing by playing a character to survive, and his authentic self is much closer to the surface, than people generally suppose.

[velvet-paradox]

Curious (Preview)

Fandom: Outer Banks

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Female reader + mentions of past relations with Topper Thorton

--> I've had this thot in my head for months and it's finally coming together, this a Noir AU; in which Topper seeks Rafe's expertise in finding the one who got away (you of course!) but will he give his friend the deets or attempt to keep you all for himself instead?

ENJOY!!!

He was thankful to be putting away that steel bladed fan, chipped army green base and all into one of the storage closest in the office, he hefted it, teetering just a little from the weight in the base out to the hall. He slicked back his hair, neat and tidy, back into place after dusting his hands of the thing. Autumn was coming, storm clouds and much needed and beloved thunderstorms were on the horizon. Rafe's favorite time of year.

The season when he wasn't sweating through his shirts, even the spare ones he had hung up in a cabinet in his office. He lost count of the times he had to strip himself of his shirts while he plugged away, hanging them on the window rod to dry out. The cat would be happy too, she hated the heat just as much, Rafe liked to think.

And speak of the devil and he (or she) will appear, the calico in question simply and appropriately named Penny pounced onto the windowsill. Rafe scratched her little head, pleased that she was purring and enjoying the cool night air when there was a sharp rapping on the frosted office door.

Rafe frowned and looked at his watch, one that his father had hand picked when he came home with another chip of sobriety. They were closed and he told the manly silhouette on the opposite side the same fact.

"Aw come on, open up Rafe it's me!"

He sighed and shook his head, he opened the door staring into the smooth face of Topper Thorton. Just a titch shorter in his brand new boat shoes, slacks and cozy looking cardigan. He was season ready as well, Rafe thought as he leaned on the door frame.

"Still means we're closed."

"Don't be like that!" Topper huffed and pushed his way past Rafe, who grumbled at the intrusion but didn't feel up to a fight tonight, so he let it go and shut the door behind him. "I've got a favor to ask and I'll even pay you this time."

"Damn right you're gonna' pay me! what mania is it this time or do I dare ask?" Rafe gave Penny another pat on the head before taking out a cigarette and leaning against the secretary's desk.

"I had a dream, you see. It was so incredibly real and vivid and when I woke up, I thought I knew for sure, without a shadow of a doubt it was completely real." Topper explained.

"That good, huh? what sort of pills are you on now then? I might have half a mind to ask for one."

"No Rafe, that's the thing. I was stone cold sober! not a lick of a buzz." Topper was on cloud nine from the looks of it, speaking most animatedly with his hands.

"So, you had a dream, thought it was real and now you're in my office after hours, for what exactly?" Rafe questioned as he smoked, clouds filling the air and right out the window, Penny took her leave and scurried around Topper's feet into Rafe's office.

"It was about a girl. And not just any girl, mind you. The one who got away."

"You mean the one you let get away. And rightfully so!" Rafe pointed his cigarette at him with a smirk, knowing exactly who he was referring. 

They didn't go to the same college but had kept in touch, pen pals and making sure all was swell for the other. On a random quiet spell away from the dorms, Topper had come back to the County and showed off a few small photographs of a few of his elite friends, girls and the ever regarded...

"Never mind all that, it was her. Y/N Y/L/N, what a gal. The best gal, if we're being honest. I haven't thought about her since college, since she broke my heart and put out my fire. But she was there, in my dream, clear as the day is long, calling to me ‘Topper come back, come back to me Top'..."

Rafe recalled your face, though a bit dodgy and mirage-like after so long but your exaggerated body language which wasn't the norm amongst other dames he knew, on the street, at work or between the sheets, was quite curious to him. That one photograph of you making a silly face, one that was usually seen in Men’s' dorms or between the same kin had made him chuckle and wonder about you.

Rafe had to snort at that. "Are you sure you didn't drink your dinner last night, Top?"

"Of course I'm sure! what do you take me as? Some rummy? No no, no hooch. I promise. But that dream got me thinking about the old girl and... dammit Rafe I need to know!"

"Need to know what?"

"What has become of her of course! How and what did she do in this life? Hw did she make her way in this world. Is she happily married with a couple of brats, is she just some spinster living out a lavish life on some yacht somewhere, with an umbrella in her glass. My mind has been reeling all day and I finally talked myself into coming down here and telling you all about it. So, will you be a real pal and help me out?"

Tagging: @synnersaint @cherienymphe @starkeyobx @outerbankspov @cockslutpadalecki @poguesarerogues @valeriiecameron

[elegyofthemoon]

9 14 and 22 with the landau siblings? :D

HI I FORGOT ABOUT THIS ASK THANKS NICK BIG HUG

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

Unfortunately I'm kind of a strict roommate just because it's a personal space. We could be wonderful friends but if you do something particular in my room, I might kick you

That being said, I feel like Serval would be a tricky roommate to have. I could see she's pretty tidy but I think if she gets too into her projects, it'll get messy in a heartbeat and I'm icky on keeping things a mess. We might be good friends (she's literally the best I love her), but something like this will make me go 3 _ 3

Gepard however I think I could be roommates but there'll be awkward tension. I think he could be neat and tidy or that he tries to be and I'm much the same. It's just that I can also see him being on the quieter side in terms of being roommates so that's when my anxiety will crank up and go oH GOD THIS GUY HATES ME and just panic everytime I walk into the room and he's there. But we'll manage I think lmao

Lynx wouldnt even be a roommate I'd just have the room to myself because she tries to stay out of the room and camps outside anyways LMAO

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

god im bad at fashion aesthetics <- doesn't care for fashion sorry i might skip this q orz orz orz

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to the character? Something you don't like?

Okay so admittedly, I don't read a lot of fics. The only fics I do read for star rail is actually for Serval and specifically Serval/Cocolia :'D And from those that I've read, I love how thorough people write out Serval and Cocolia's relationship. The game itself gives us a good basis and explains what they were to each other as is, but it's so nice to see the way people write out certain memories and also the grieving process. I mean, Serval's companion quest still stands as one of my favorite companion quests out of all the quests I've done (? which I think is all? except for if there was any in this recent update. I'm unaware LAKJDSFH)

So it's just nice to see this for Serval!! But I haven't run into anything for something I don't like for how people write Serval. Maybe if people say that she's stupid but that's less likely and most folks acknowledge her as a STEM girlie so <3 good

I ACTUALLY WANT TO LOOK MORE INTO GEPARD FICS TBH but my problem is that its all shippy fics and i !!! DONT WANT THAT!!!! I WANT A CHARACTER ANALYSIS !!!!!! I WANT A CHARACTER STUDY OF SEVERAL PAGES ON MY DESK >:( do I have to do everything myself? come on guys--

Lynx I may look into a Lynx/Pela fic? but Lynx doesn't cross my mind as often as Serval and Gepard aldksjfha sorry Lynx I'm sure you're great it's just you got overshadowed by Pela so all I can think of is Pela when I think of Lynx 😔😔

[writinglittlebeasts]

The Lurch - a short horror story

in 2021, i wrote a horror story from the perspective of a paranormal magazine journalist (think, like, an online publication) chasing down an urban legend in made-up town, pennsylvania and getting a bit too close for comfort

without further ado (under the cut): the lurch (i took a screenshot of the title in my document because i love this font, sorry lmao)

content warnings for animal death (mentioned and implied) and personal injury

_________________________________________________________

You come by a lot of stories about monsters in the mountains. It’s hard to avoid them, honestly, when the light from any given street or home seems almost snuffed out at the treeline. Forests so thick that you can’t see the neighbors. As these things go, it’s often children who tell these stories; shapes in the dark, noises they haven’t yet familiarized themselves with and can’t place, and on. The rumor mill of the elementary school playground works quick and constant, and there are always new stories to go around. If you look hard enough between the lines you’ll find glimmers of real fear inside. In between the boogeymen and the bullshit there are things that your cleverest parents can’t explain. If schoolchildren make the most monsters-- and if stories of this nature so often trickle down --then it follows that to get to the root of the truth and the source of the story, you need to look to the teenagers. 

My introduction to Trailhead, Pennsylvania was idyllic, in a word. When you look at it, it feels very clean; touristy. The taxi stood on the curb before a small park, a bubbling fountain in the center and trimmed hedges in neat rows at neat intervals between cobbled footpaths. There were three motels, catty-corner to each-other and almost ringing the park, their parking lots deserted in the off-season. The street was quiet, several shops were closed while others hosted one or two employees that I could see through their large front windows. It was very centralized, as these places often are, waiting to shake off the last dredges of winter and open their arms to waves of transients. Waves pouring out the doors of these three motels, one of which I would call my home while I researched idyllic Trailhead’s darker tales. 

One tale in particular had caught my eye. 

Schoolyards work the same way in every town. Mine is no exception, and my niece regales me with rumors while I pack her lunch in the morning and while I help her tidy her room before bed. On one such evening, poring over her homework, she told me a story that one of her classmates had told her, one he himself was told on a family trip to Trailhead, Pennsylvania in the fall. To hear her tell it, somewhere in the woods, up the mountain, is a monster made of sagging skin and limp hair which drags itself over the ground by its boney fingernails. She explained to me that it eats small animals and leaves traces of itself where it passes, though she was unsure what these traces might be. Between her mother’s scolding and her pencil etching short lines into her workbook she told me that its name is The Lurch, and that it was all the rage in Pennsylvania. 

The nature of my work means that I didn’t immediately dismiss this story. I was interested in its origins, how much I could find. Whether it was local to Trailhead or was more widespread, like your jackalope or your killer clown. I found nothing online. Other lurches exist, but not of the sort that my niece described. On the heels of my last article, I brought this curious story to my editor. They agreed that it was interesting, but had no contacts in Pennsylvania who might know more. I had my own, but the fact that I made the trip to Pennsylvania in person might tell you that they knew nothing at all. 

Setting my bag on the floor and turning back to look out over the parking lot, over the park and quiet street, I couldn’t help but feel that I knew nothing at all. It was hard to look at these little brick buildings with their white roofs and pristine surroundings and imagine that it could birth a monster like The Lurch my niece had told me about. The next day I would venture into town and the suburb that sprawls around it, and if I was lucky I would find out just how it might have. 

In the morning the sun woke me even through the dark motel curtains. I thought, quite optimistically as I hadn’t come out of sleep and to my senses and likewise hadn’t been in town for very long, that the sun itself wanted me to start my investigation. 

I started it in the donut shop where I ate my breakfast. I say donut shop, but it felt like a waystation. There were no tables or chairs, only a long room with a door at one end and a counter packed with toppings at the other. They fried your donuts fresh, just behind the counter and to order. While my donut-- a large, advertised as they were by size on a menu board over the workstation --fried, I spoke to the baker. When I asked him if he had ever heard of The Lurch he set his gloved hands on the counter between us and looked up at the ceiling for a long moment, only the sound of dough fighting oil filling the air until he finally shook his head. 

“Can’t say that I have,” he said, and turned back to his fryer. Tonging my donut out of the oil he continued, “But I don’t think you have to worry about it, you know?” 

After assuring him that I did and collecting my donut, I thanked him for his time and ventured back out onto the street. Shops that had been dark and empty yesterday were now cheerfully lit and their employees bustled about inside like they were waiting for me to come in. They probably were. It seemed like I was the first new face they’d seen in weeks. 

I toured through every store on the main street, exchanging polite greetings and answering the same questions about where I’d come from and how I was enjoying the town. Asking these shopkeepers my questions was somewhat less predictable. A few didn’t want to be interviewed at all, which I had to accept though it frustrated me. Most of them knew a little of the story, second or third-hand from one of their children, but could only nod along with my retelling, offering no details of their own. 

One shop’s register was tended by a young individual who couldn’t have been more than a year out of college who was intrigued by my article and offered a similar outline of The Lurch’s story to that of my niece. The Lurch was a monster made of misshapen flesh that ate small animals and dragged itself along the ground. They did add one detail that my niece had missed, however: that The Lurch would eat any animal that it came across, including human beings. It was a small victory, but any information is useful information when the story seems so small itself. I thanked the individual and left their shop, knowing that I would need to go deeper to learn what I wanted to know. I would need to go to the source. 

My interviews with the teenagers were informal. The town of Trailhead is small and amusements are largely expensive, but in posting myself up at a diner close to the high school I was confident that I would get to speak to many of its students, and I was right. They poured in in groups of two or more and sat around large baskets of french fries, some milling from table to table when they would recognize friends who arrived after or before and escaped notice. I approached them in their larger groups with my notebook in hand. Of course, the table quieted when I appeared beside it. It was only after I explained myself and told them what I was hoping to learn that they started to open up to me, some students even waiting expectantly for their turn at my ear. I found it refreshing, in a way, after the enthusiastic but dry interviews I’d conducted that morning. 

Before I name any names, I want to make it clear that all of those names have been changed to protect the identities of both the minors who have assisted me and of other individuals who would rather not be associated with my article or larger publication. I make this clear because I have to, but I word it in this way because Andrew (which is not his name) didn’t believe that I would and threatened to read my article to ensure that I had. The fiend. I hope that you enjoyed the lengthy passage above, Andrew (which is not his name), which I’m assuming that you had to read to find this disclaimer, and that the disclaimer itself met your expectations. 

The first student to answer me, I will call Josephine. They were bracketed on either side by school friends and soft drinks, and the longer we talked, the more of their friends joined in to add details or contradictions, the more enthusiastic they became. Josephine told me that The Lurch was a local legend, a so-called cryptid that the teenagers used to scare younger kids around town. I asked if that meant that they didn’t believe in The Lurch, but they shook their head and told me that they did. Rather, they told me that they did, almost. They wanted to believe in a flesh-eating monster living in the woods outside their town, but it was hard without any proof. When the story was so fantastic. I asked which parts of the story seemed fantastic, and a second student answered: “All of it.” 

Different students chimed in, some from adjacent booths. One said that The Lurch had arms but no legs, and I nodded. As there were no known species of animal with only one or the other, I took it down in my notebook. One said that The Lurch had no mouth and was shouted down by everyone at his table, who then insisted that eating small animals was a tenet of the legend and therefore it had to have a mouth. Nothing could survive without a mouth, they said, and he was forced to concede. I took it down in my notes regardless, interested in any variations to the story. You really can’t help but wonder how a creature might eat small animals without one, even if it is irrelevant. Others told me that my investigation was a waste of time, as The Lurch couldn’t have been real. When I asked what they meant, one of the students told me very matter-of-factly that if pets were going missing with any real frequency then they would have heard about it by now. I had to agree. I made a note of it. 

I next asked if any of them had stories of encounters with The Lurch. None present had personal experience, but I heard six stories in that diner. The rough outline of each, with variations only on minor details, involved someone (whose name was a topic of debate among the group) stumbling upon a creature which dragged itself along the ground in the middle of a meal. The observer would hide themselves, and in the disgusting fashion of any good story about a monster they would hear the blood-curdling screams of The Lurch’s victim. Of the six stories, five took place at night. The sixth wasn’t popular with the students, who insisted that if someone had seen The Lurch in a gas station parking lot during regular business hours then it would have been all over the news. 

I asked before I left if any of the students had ever heard of The Lurch eating humans. Every one of them had, but they assured me that somebody at school must have made that up to scare elementary schoolers. They couldn’t answer when I asked who had done it. I wasn’t about to try to interview elementary schoolers, either. That lead was a bust, but I didn’t cross the note off of my list. It was part of the greater story, and I hadn’t gotten to the bottom of it yet. 

I spent the next morning interviewing employees at the Trailhead ecology center. It was small, and it was closed when I arrived. Both employees had jobs at a university out of town, but lived in Trailhead and maintained the center for local outreach and coordination with the Trailhead school district. I was interested in animals that could be found locally, more specifically local predators. How they could have impressed themselves into the local consciousness as a monster. The employees were very helpful, but I couldn’t make any determinations based on what they told me about local carnivorans. Hoping to make any progress at all I inquired after any animals that may have only forelegs, but they had no knowledge of any animals like that in the area. I thanked them and returned to my last haunt: the diner.

It took some convincing, and then a little more convincing by way of a cash bribe, but I found a group of teenagers willing to take me up the mountain. On my insistence, Josephine’s older brother agreed to come along. His name is not Andrew, and he used to frequent trails up the mountain before he settled into his career at the local auto repair. He was skeptical of my motivations until I reminded him that I was a strange woman paying a handful of teenagers to follow me into the woods, and agreed very quickly after that. 

There were five of us in all when we met for our first leg of the search; myself, Andrew, Josephine, Charlotte, and Nathan. None claimed to have seen The Lurch themselves, but the students wanted to see what I found-- if I found anything --and were more familiar with the woods than I. Josephine and Nathan alternated leading the charge, conferring with one-another before deciding which forking path to take or how far to stray off of it. Saturday and Sunday we found nothing at all, picking our way up the trails with our eyes on the ground for any evidence of a body crashing through the undergrowth or of animals that body might have eaten. We managed three trails in one afternoon, turning back when we deemed we’d gone too far. 

It’s poor investigation, but our determination of ‘too far’ was arbitrary. I am no woodsman, and while the trails were beautiful they were also very boring and offered little by way of tracking a monster which may or may not have existed based on very little evidence of behavior. Charlotte shared my opinion, and on the third day of our search she decided to discontinue her involvement with the investigation. I racked my brain for information that might prove more forthcoming but came up empty-handed. 

The students had a test on Thursday for which they needed to prepare, so on Wednesday I languished in my motel room and tried to make sense of my findings. I don’t go into these situations expecting to find a monster or a creature; it’s even rare for me to arrive expecting an animal. After all of my interviews and days in the woods I still had little evidence. The stories were consistent, but was this a hint of fact or a story that had been concentrated by time and tale? I didn’t want to admit that there was nothing to find, even though all of the signs seemed to be telling me so. Like something stuck in my teeth I couldn’t help but think about The Lurch. It was possible that someone had made it up, passed it around until it became a local legend, but something as absurd as a creature of flesh, subsisting on any meat it could find and dragging itself along the ground, with very few, relatively plain second-hand accounts of encounters hardly had so much sticking power in the public consciousness as The Lurch seemed to have in Trailhead. Even children grow bored of tall tales eventually, but The Lurch persisted like it were being told in a round. I left the motel to perform more interviews. If I went further from the motel, if I could find a grocery store or a neighborhood park, maybe I might find someone who knew more. 

I didn’t make it to the grocery store, but I found myself passing an auto repair shop. Directionless and curious, I paid a visit to Andrew. He was in the middle of something when I let myself into the open garage, elbows-deep in someone’s chassis. 

I asked Andrew if he knew of anyone who might know more about The Lurch, its habits or its diet or its location. I explained my fruitless research at the ecology center and I told him that I was ready to branch out-- that perhaps there were parents who knew more, or otherwise older members of the community. 

Andrew seemed uncertain for a moment, but he admitted that he hadn’t been entirely honest with me. Now that I write it down, I wonder if my comment about students’ families seemed accusatory. I was frustrated, but I wasn’t angry; often in my line of work people will withhold information out of fear of looking foolish, or superstitious. I don’t mean to sound proud when I tell you that I know I am embarrassing company to keep. He didn’t need additional prompting to begin his story, which I dutifully took down in my notebook. 

He was in high school at the time, senior year, with finals preparation in full swing. He told me that he would regularly be awake past midnight to study or whittle away at essays for his college applications, and that if he recalled correctly this occurred at just past one in the morning. From his parents’ kitchen he could see out the wide front window and onto the lawns of his neighbors across the street. He told me that he wouldn’t have seen it at all if the bulb of a streetlamp hadn’t burst while he stood at the refrigerator. After the initial flash and the sudden flood of darkness in its wake, leaning in against the glass of the window Andrew could see something on the ground. It could have been a trash bag, or it could have been a person. A darker lump in a dark space. 

He told me that what he did next was stupid, and I’m inclined to agree. Andrew opened the front door. 

He recalled a wave of heat, not moist like the air in the late spring that it would have been but dry and thready like the heat of an oven. It came over him on the breeze and died down again when the air stilled, but he could still feel it radiating from yards away. As his eyes adjusted Andrew stepped further out of the house and down the lawn. The lump he’d seen from the window was taking on no clearer shape the more the moonlight fell across it or how much closer he came to it, but he could hear the scratch of something moving over the grass and feel the same strange heat on his face and arms. 

The closer to the creature he came, the more unbearable that heat became. He described a choking feeling, the hot air uncomfortable in his nose and mouth. There was a point where he could move no closer, and I’m thankful that he didn’t. What he next described I have taken down word-for-word so that I don’t twist the events to fit my own perception.

Andrew said: “I couldn’t step onto the sidewalk because it was too hot to approach. I could feel the heat burning my toes through my shoes. It just didn’t seem safe. Instead I walked further down the street, kind of, I guess, parallel to the sidewalk. It was making that rustling, like it was dragging itself, and I heard something smacking into the ground. It was moving so slowly I didn’t notice at first, but it really was dragging itself forward. I could see thin shadows where I thought it must have arms-- or legs. Limbs. I think that it was pulling itself by its fingers. I didn’t have a long time to think about it, because all of a sudden the thing shot across two lawns like it was nothing. It moved so fast that I almost lost it, but I didn’t try to follow it. Something yowled, like a cat-- it was a cat --and it hissed and it screamed, and I could hear something like a release of steam. I didn’t even get a good look at the thing, but I went back inside.”

After locking his front door, Andrew returned to the halo of light in his kitchen. He told me that his skin was red, like a sunburn, and felt warm to the touch. The next day Andrew walked to school with a friend who lived down the street, and as they passed the lawns crossed by The Lurch he noticed that the grass was scorched and blackened in an uneven trail, fish-hooking onto the street and disappearing. Andrew finished his story by admitting that one of his friends at the time, another student at Trailhead Public High School, had shared the story behind his back. 

It wasn’t a long story, but it was a first-hand account of a creature that, until that point, I had only glimpsed through hearsay. As these stories often do, it rippled out from the high school and into the middle school, the elementary school, into children’s homes. His encounter had been scrubbed clean out of the story over the years, iterations replacing him with anything from the school janitor to a friend’s younger sister, the cat with any imaginable animal, and the location was lost in the same way. The suffocating heat, though, was a detail I hadn’t heard before.

“Unless it wasn’t,” I said, implying that the stories of other encounters may have come out following his own, and that in the natural way of things they had twined together. I don’t know if he caught my meaning, but I didn’t give him the time to ask if he did not. 

Something about Andrew’s words had struck a chord with something else I had noticed about the town of Trailhead, Pennsylvania. It was something easy to shrug off until that point, an aesthetic choice, maybe, or a practical one for the sake of maintaining aesthetics. I wrote while I was speaking, brain on fire with possibility. “There are a lot of bricks in Trailhead, for a tourist town whose draw is nature trails.” He seemed to be realizing it for the first time, himself. Even after speculation we don’t know what this means for the town, but we can guess. You can’t see a smoldering trail in the grass if there is no grass to burn. Unsure of where to proceed, I said my farewell to Andrew and returned to my motel room. If I could take him at his word, who was to say that The Lurch was in the forest at all? Maybe I was on the wrong trail. Maybe I needed to reconsider my understanding of the story. 

It snowed overnight. Not an incredible amount, but surely enough to obscure whatever trail we might find based on what Andrew had told me the night before. The snow would cover everything I’d thought to look for, in fact, and so it was no surprise when our group reconvened at the edge of the forest that everyone seemed a bit chafed. They’d had the same reservations as myself, but after some convincing we began our search again. Our next trail would be half-way up one which we’d already explored, a branch we hadn’t had time to follow on Tuesday. 

Even the trails themselves were harder to follow in the snow, light as it was. The trail was marked at its head by a colored tree marker, but past that point only the footpath led hikers on. Nathan and Josephine occupied themselves by scouting ahead, looking for landmarks that would naturally lead hikers around the path. Andrew walked between myself and the students, as I lingered occasionally to theorize in my notebook. The next hour passed in much the same way that every previous search had, with no clear evidence and no clear trail to follow. However, in the next hour, Nathan pulled our small group to a halt. 

Some ways off the trail, the soft blanket of snow simply stopped. In a small enough patch this would have meant very little to us, but for as far as we could see the ground was brown and dry. We approached and eventually stepped into this patch of leaves. I exchanged a glance with Andrew. It was warm enough here to melt the snow. 

I led the group, now, trying to measure every change in temperature. The air was warming the further we walked, something I was tracking to the best of my ability in my notebook. The air wasn’t humid, but flat and dry; without wind. The dead leaves, which had until this point been soaked underfoot by the snow, were now curling in on themselves as they were leached of moisture. I told Andrew that the radius of heat was much larger than I anticipated, but didn’t share any more of his story with the students nearby. The rest of the walk was under a heavy air of excitement and a blanket of worsening heat. The hotter it got, the harder it was to avoid tearing off my winter coat, the closer we got to The Lurch. 

Walking ahead, I saw the creature first. It was a mass of solid flesh, emanating heat without disrupting the air around it. I stood in its scorched trail, surrounded by the unburning, blackened detritus it had pulled itself over. I moved closer to examine it.

You’ll forgive me, but from this point on I can hardly read my shorthand. The carefully constructed narrative ends here, and I’ll be supplementing what I can not read from my memory. I’ve done my best to lay everything out as objectively as I can, but my words will doubtlessly be tinged by the effect that these events had on me as a participant. As a journalist my words and meaning are always a point of contention, the fingers of an agenda never far from mine on the keyboard, but I want you to understand that everything I write here is true and to the best of my recollection. 

It was much larger than I imagined it to be. Its size was contested in every iteration of the story, and in Andrew’s it had been no larger than a person. In front of me, its flat body could have been the length of a school bus and the width of two. As Andrew had told me the night before, the air was almost suffocatingly hot this close to the mass. It moved and churned but I could see no musculature underneath. Across what I must call its back for the sake of clarity it bubbled like it were boiling, the skin popping without breaking, only disturbing the long wefts of hair that were pulled underneath the surface, or else pushed through it. Closest to me on the ground I could see the ends of the grass and the crusting of dead leaves blackening. In its center, the mass roiling around the trunks of trees singed them without settling light to them. I was focused both on watching this creature for every detail my eyes could absorb and on scribbling down my notes-- its physical features but also the smokeless, hot air, the way it unsettled physics itself --and so I did not notice its slow roll towards the toe of my boot. I was very close to it, and it pulled in and pressed out over the ground as it moved. Andrew took my shoulder to pull me back before it could touch me. I started. 

It’s strange to break objectivity so late into the story, or even so far into my career, but at that moment I felt that The Lurch was looking at me. It recognized that I was standing there and it turned its eyeless gaze onto me. It may have been fear clouding my senses, so you can choose to read on and disregard me, but I felt like I was in its headlights. My throat felt like it had caught fire and I couldn’t tear my dry eyes away, nor could I move anything else. The mass jolted over the ground, and from its far edge I could see thin, boney arms pull into view. Its fingers dug into the leaf litter and it heaved itself towards me. Too close to its now rioting body, I was already in its grip. 

I didn’t see what happened, but I could feel its flesh closing over my foot and squeezing. Through my shoe my foot started to burn. The sensation climbed up my ankle and it started to pull on me, strong and fast though it had no momentum to draw on. 

Andrew pulled me out of the mass. It took him some time, which I know because it was only his hard grip around my shoulders and waist that grounded me in space. I had nothing outside of physical sensation: just the stifling of my breath, the heat and pressure as The Lurch tried to absorb my foot, and the rough tug that pulled me free. 

I was not carried down the mountain. We didn’t have the time. For minutes we ran-- Andrew and myself bringing up the rear while Nathan and Josephine crashed down the trail some feet ahead of us. We stopped at one point, realizing that the oppressive heat was gone. All was quiet in the woods around us, and we’d re-emerged into the brisk cold of the snow, the typical Pennsylvania winter. There was no way to know if The Lurch was still following, or if it even could at this distance. We descended more slowly after that, one or the other of the group supporting me as I hobbled down the trail, but we didn’t stop again. The threat of what was behind us hung heavy in our memories and we didn’t want answers to our questions.

As I write this my ankle is elevated, wrapped in a bag of ice which is itself wrapped in a towel. I’m unsure whether or not I’ll take it to the hospital. It’s painful, and red as anything and sure to bruise, but I managed the walk to my motel the same way that Andrew presumably managed to drive himself and the children home. I look at it, propped in a nest of motel pillows that I can see cresting over the edge of my laptop, and I have to wonder how I feel about knowing without a shadow of doubt that The Lurch exists. My life has been dedicated to the origins of local legends for so long, but it must be years since I’ve thought about the reality of monsters. Am I excited? Perhaps I will be once the shock of my encounter has worn off. Perhaps I won’t be, when the reality of what The Lurch will mean for Trailhead and its surroundings sets in.

I’ve contacted the local news network-- I’ve emailed them. I even emailed the networks of the towns surrounding Trailhead. It’s very late at night, and even if they do respond in the morning I am not hopeful that they’ll be receptive to what I have to say. Regardless, I must get the word out. The Lurch is coming down the mountain and it is crawling towards Trailhead, Pennsylvania. Its progress is slow but it will arrive. I don’t know what, if anything, can be done to stop it. I implore you to begin making plans to leave Trailhead before it is too late.

[suginami-division]

When the most reputed history professor of Kuraha University returns to the staffroom after the long run of teaching few sections in a row, there he finds an unfamiliar package resting on his table with one letter written in a neat handwriting;

“To Prof. Umemoto of Kuraha University.

Apologizing for the surprise, I’m afraid I have to clarify beforehand that this isn’t a suspicious package or something inappropriate of sorts. My cousin and his friends have just asked me to relay their presents for your birthday since I happened to have an appointment at your campus for a short while. Maybe the reason they didn’t include their names as the senders is that perhaps they’re going to have their participation in the upcoming rap battle (Not so sure either, just caught some wind of it). By the way, I hope you enjoy your birthday. Your students seem to like you a lot.

Best regards,

Hasuto Minazuki

Kyoto City University of Arts”

Curiously taking a peek inside, there he sees a neat and tidy roll of cozy scarf, a pack of Castella Cheesecake decorated with fuchsia lace ribbon, and a deck of Hanafuda in a black wooden box which has plum blossoms and a Japanese bush warbler delicately painted on its cover.

———Meanwhile… somewhere faraway in the city of old ambience and a herd of wild deer wandering around.

“I feel a bit bad for disturbing Hasuto-san to do us a favor, but I guess our package have been sent and Umemoto-san would have seen our presents by now.”

“Ehehehe, It would be great if sensei likes my freshly made Castella! This time I chose the nanbangashi one instead of the typical wagashi I usually make because I heard that he likes cheeses. Still, as for the history professor; I wonder whether he would like some January namagashi for the next time.”

“No one wants to refuse your sweets, Hi-chan. I’m sure he’s going to love it.”

“Thanks! And hey~ what did Yuuyu send?”

“It’s gonna be cold these days so I think of sending something warm might be a good gift.”

“Ah, I see. That’s so like you! And what in the world did our old man send this time? I think I got a glimpse of something really, really colorful; perhaps they’re some picture cards, but what’s their name again?”

“How come you don’t know Hanafuda, you dumbass child? They’re so famous not only in Japan’s traditional card games but also for their many mentions in literature and in a heap chunk of artwork. And if I remember correctly, there’re similar ones from Korea called Hwatu. However, the thing I don’t get the most is why do people from other divisions keep sending birthday presents to someone who’s gonna be their rival? Are they out of their minds? They’re your fucking RIVAL.”

“C’mon old man, don’t be so mean. It’s not like we’re going to be enemies forever or something —Hasn’t this kind of attitude got you no friends in the first place?”

“Eh, but the ume blossoms and that bird make a good meaning though? How kind of you, Saigo-san!”

——————————

[ Note: Probably my first attempt of writing. Sorry for a bit bad grammar. ]

Finding the gift in the staffroom during Maki’s coffee break was certainly unexpected. Sure, staff and students alike have given their gifts to him either in person or by leaving it in places like lecture rooms or his own office to find later. But the breakroom for the staff was the last place he would have expected to find a birthday gift. With a cup of tea in hand, Maki took the time to read the letter, slightly puzzled at who the gifts were from. That was until he looked into the package and found the three gifts, all of which he was acutely aware of who each gift was from.

“So, we have a new group to face in the future?” Maki could only hum to himself coolly. In his mind, Maki wondered if this was doubling as a declaration of competition. But, only time could tell, since they had yet to truly debut.

Folding the letter up, Maki put it together with the gifts and lifted it. Balancing it in one arm, he used the other to refill his cup with more tea before making his way back to his own office to finish going through the school papers he had to grade. Of course, that wasn’t without taking little glances at the gifts throughout the day, unexpectedly excited to put his gifts to use (specifically, to irritate the rest of his team in a game of koi-koi with his new cards).

Thank you! I’m glad I found your division finally and I can’t wait for you to reveal your team! They’re already super interesting just from your team’s pinned post and receiving a gift from them makes me even more curious askldfjalskdjfi

[sinistermaximalism]

why, this is hell - Get Out (2017)

you don't need me to tell you what Get Out is about. you know what Get Out is about. it's one of the best horror movies of the 2010s! and part of the reason it's so brilliant is because it's so meticulous. nothing about it is left to chance, every word and every angle is serving the story.

so OF COURSE the production design is all very deliberate and intentional, and of course we should take a look at what it's telling us.

so this is the Armitages' house, in upstate New York. as a Brit, I basically know nothing about the significance of different states or different districts in the US, but everything about this house screams money. it's huge. it's got tons of rooms. and it's all incredibly ""tasteful"". by which I mean it looks like the house of old rich white people.

just have a look at this shot, for starters. the bookcases frame the shot, and the books on them look well-thumbed (and expensive). there are at least three different types of wood, from the shelves to the floor to the door to the cabinet to the chair legs, and you just know that's all solid wood. no IKEA laminates here. also, it's so shiny! you just know it's all kept well polished. you can almost smell the wood polish just looking at the still.

right in the middle of the shot, like a spooky eye, there's one of very few curved objects in this room. it's a portrait, right? some old-timey-looking thing like you'd find in a museum or art gallery. these people have ancestors worth painting pictures of. we're talking old moneyyyyyy baby.

here's some more of the house, and again we're seeing straight lines, neutral colours (so much goddamn beige) and framed art that suggests wealth, significance, history. (it looks like a map - does it have something to do with former colonies? I would not be surprised.)

there's no colour here, no joy, no life. remember the beginning of the film when we get to see some of Chris's photography? yeah you're not gonna find anything that looks like that here.

though... maybe not for lack of trying.

speaking of things in this house being kept shiny, look at that kitchen island! it's huge! and like a mirror! the copper pots, too, are spotless and beautiful. the green of the plants and the yellow of Georgina's gloves are almost shockingly bright compared with everything else. beige, beige, beige, everywhere you look. but clean, no traces of debris, no food, nothing that looks lived in.

this is rich people shit. they've got enough cabinets to hide anything that might look messy. they've got enough employees to keep everything neat and tidy.

the cracks don't show.

it's interesting how creepy that all feels. aren't we all supposed to aspire to this aesthetic? it's what you see on those reality shows, all those empty kitchens that you know no-one ever cooks in, all those spotless living rooms with their stiff-cushioned sofas, all those perfectly selected pieces of art sitting on those empty shelves. there's nothing welcoming about any of it. it's not warm, not safe, not comfortable. it's like the decor has been set up specifically to make you sit up straight, watch your manners, and worry about spilling your coffee.

you're supposed to want to live like that.

who wants to live like that??

ooh look at this. it's the torture basement, or, well, it's probably the "den", isn't it, but it's where the brainwashing happens. there are definite echoes of the first still I included here, with all those straight lines framing the shot and directing you to a round image at the back - this time, it's a dartboard, a target - but it's darker down here. the brown wood has become oppressive. there's no daylight. you're not meant to get out.

maybe the one worn object in the house is that chair Chris is sitting in, because I guess the Armitages don't care about the people who sit in it, but that's a big mistake on their part. that chair is an ally. it's been around long enough to see some shit.

this room really makes me think of secret societies, the kind created by bored rich guys who like to chat about the supernatural while getting drunk and abusing sex workers.

if you have a room that looks like this in your house, I'm scared of you.