#nagaina

[thecreativemillennial]

Happy belated birthday to Vanessa Rubio, who turned 39 a couple of days ago

[cxpperhead]

Nagaina is one of the snakes that's been in Copperhead's care the longest, about six years since he came to Gotham. He originally found her in a travelling circus way down south close to Arizona, featuring as part of a snake charmer's show. However her mouth had been sewn shut by her keeper, preventing her from being able to bite or spit while performing so Copperhead carefully cut the threads loose, laying in wait for her keeper to return.

Thinking he'd left her enclosure unlocked, her keeper mistakenly thought her to be harmless and went to pick her up, only to get bitten again and again for all the years of torment he'd put her through. His death was thought to have been a careless mistake rather than foul play as nothing was missing except the snake, leading authorities to believe it had simply managed to escape after a handling session had gone wrong. Years later and Nagaina is still with Copperhead, having no wish to leave nor return to the wild.

[theminecraftbox]

Mongoose Anon - I was def more thinking about their dynamic leading up to the finale, the tenacity with which Tommy goes after Dream(starting multiple conflicts, sitting a tree for days to watch him), doing the dangerous thing of following the snake into his hole (the prison, TWICE) and the consequences of blind, rageful hunting (Both dying from the nuke he and Tubbo set off) If I was running on more sleep but in general I think the imagery would work in a lot of ways!

Okay, sure, sure, yeah I can actually totally get behind that! 👍 😅I responded the way I did because often the snake-and-mongoose trope is confined to the mongoose as heroic defender of the innocent, Snakes R Evil etc, but tbh I don’t hate the imagery of associating c!Tommy with both tenacity (in negative and positive senses) and some trickster imagery too. c!Tommy as a mongoose fucking shit up and engaging in self-destructive hunts is fun to me. And then the finale subverts the trope idea of them as born enemies.

[solivar]

From the Annals of Unnatural Causes

Since today is Dr. Kieran Terrance Corben's birthday, I thought I would repost this snippet from 2012: Best Ever/While You Were Sleeping. Rated M for consensual sexy funtimes and supernatural violence, though not at the same time.

The evening clerk at the B&B caught his eye as they walked in, still slightly damp and smelling of sea salt, ylang-ylang, and sandalwood, exuding a certain unmistakable aura of freshly pampered. He nodded and, twenty minutes later, once they'd had the chance to change out of the clothes they'd been wearing all day and into something slouchier and softer (horrifying tie-dyed pants and that ancient, shapeless Grateful Dead tee-shirt for Terry, a pair of his surviving University of Washington sweatpants and an equally shapeless plain black tee for himself), a knock on the door heralded the arrival of a room service caddy containing a bottle of nicely chilled sparkling cider, two glasses, a tiny box of rose-scented cloth petals, and a platter of assorted sugary delights, which the clerk passed to him with a whispered, “Good luck!”

Nate was not entirely certain exactly how everyone, including apparently random strangers and hotel employees, knew he was utterly hopeless at the relationship starting thing, but it was beginning to become rather alarming.

Terry, bless his black little heart, was making things easy. Instead of turning on all the lights in their little semi-suite, he had purred in his own ineffable way over the gas fireplace and turned it on, snuggling down on the loveseat in front of it and laying his head on the cushioned back, his eyes closed. He looked about as boneless as it was possible for a healthy adult human not suffering from some atrocious degenerative spinal condition to be and didn't even open his eyes when Nate breezed past behind him, tray in hand, and set it on the coffee table. He did respond to the popping of the cork, however, lifting his head and blinking in the firelight, as Nate poured two champagne flutes of non-alcohol and handed him one.

“Well now,” Terry grinned and took a tiny sip, and grinned some more. “Living dangerously tonight, Dr. Harada.”

“The circumstances seemed to warrant it.” Nate grinned back and seated himself in one of the nicely padded chairs set directly off the side of the loveseat, extending his glass for a toast. “To your birthday, Dr. Corben. May you see many, many more.”

Terry made their glasses go ting and drank to his own honor. “What goodies did they bring us to help celebrate this most natal of days?”

“...Was that a pun? That was a pun. I should have thought of that first.” Nate laid out the provender: the tiny box of very delicious and very expensive Belgian chocolates, the plate of assorted fun-sized fruit tarts that he knew from past experience that Terry loved, the plate of cheese and grapes and little savory-sweet flatbreads. “And you should drink some more. Right now.”

“Right now?” Terry offered his half-empty glass for a refill and no meaningful argument. 

“Yes. Massage is wonderfully relaxing but you're going to be intensely thirsty in about an hour.” He provided the refill and a plate of goodies. “And fortunately there's supposed to be water in the suite fridge.” 

“But no sylphs clad in diaphanous tunics to feed me grapes and chocolates. Alas.” He made a comedically tragic face and fed himself one of each, sequentially, the tragedy transforming into bliss. “Wow.”

“I'm sorry about the sylphs, they wanted twice the going union rate to come out in diaphanous anything in October.” Nate considered the platter, found his stomach entirely too knotted up to cooperate with casual fine dining, and settled back in his chair. “So...enjoying your birthday?”

“Best. Birthday. Ever.” Terry bit into another chocolate and made a face that could be legitimately described as orgasmic.

“Really? Ever? Bear in mind that I've been to your family's vacation house and I'm finding that a little hard to believe.” 

“Oh, my friend. You have no idea. My parents' idea of a fun and relaxing birthday celebration is dinner at a three-star restaurant or possibly some fustily exclusive country club – black tie all the way, of course – and attended by somewhere between fifteen and fifty of their closest friends and associates, followed by a stimulating evening of cultural enrichment at the symphony or the opera or some gala art show opening. I mean, I enjoy the occasional art gallery or museum, but I usually prefer not to be one of the objects on display. And there is literally no such thing as a non-tragic opera. I don't care what anyone says. Aida. On my birthday. Really.” He contemplated the chocolate held daintily between his thumb and forefinger. “Whereas this is one of the best things I have ever voluntarily put into my mouth, and it comes following a day full of enjoyable things undertaken with a person that I actually know and like.”

“There are comedic operas,” Nate felt compelled to point out and desperately hoped he wasn't blushing as visibly as he thought. And the glass wasn't really big enough to hide behind, dammit.

“No. No, there are not.” Terry sat up a little straighter and grinned easily at him. “And this is one of the best days ever. And best things. Seriously, you have to taste this. We're talking angel kisses and kitten love, here.”

“I got those for you – “

“And I'm choosing to share them. Open your mouth, Nate.”

They were, Nate had to admit, exceptionally good chocolates. Terry's blue eyes did that little dancing with glee thing they did at his own theobromine-fueled O-face. “And I swear that they get worse every year. Much, much worse now that...” He paused, took a breath, and managed a half-smile. “Now that I'm single again. I think my Mom managed to find an unmarried Vanderbilt relation to throw at me, she was so crushed that I didn't want to come to Scotland with them for my birthday. Or possibly an unmarried countess.”

Nate managed not to choke on his mouthful of bliss. “...Why a Vanderbilt?”

“My Mom has always wanted to be able to say that she's related to the Vanderbilts. I have no idea why, it's just a thing with her.” Terry shook his head mournfully. “But I suppose that's still slightly better than having the lifelong ambition to be related to the Kennedys. But! I am not going to digress into a diatribe about the insanity of my parents today. Today I am going to revel in the glory that is.”

“I guess I'm sort of lucky that way – my grandparents always let me pick what I wanted to do on my birthday.” Nate firmly decided that he was not going to make any sort of inquiries about potential Vanderbilt in-laws, no sir and no way, and drained his glass, wishing that its contents might have been a tiny bit more alcoholic. 

“Not your Dad?” Terry handed him a plate of grapes and chocolate.

“Sometimes. He was home with me during the school year so he had to travel on business quite a lot during the summer months – he always called, at least. And sent plenty of cool presents.” He grinned, remembering the more than a little squashed boxes of summer festival sweets and painted carp kites that had arrived over the years. “I had a few cousins close to my own age that visited Granny Hanako and Grandpa Toshiaki for a couple weeks every summer, so we usually ended up having fun.”

“That sounds nice – most of our cousins were a lot older than us, and we traveled so much we were almost never in the same place for more than a birthday or two. It was usually just Rob and Mal and I when it came to friends.” Terry looked him dead in the eye with an air of utter seriousness. “And, believe it or not, my brothers were insufferable goobers when they were kids. Age has definitely improved them.”

Nate managed not to choke to death on a grape. “Goobers.”

“That is what I said.”

“Goobers.”

“It is a finely descriptive and entirely accurate term. They started out the worst brothers anyone could possibly want to have – Rob was was six different kinds of popular everywhere we went and was embarrassed to admit that he was related to us for most of our childhood and Mal was the sort of annoying kid brother that invariably found the older kids on base stealing his underwear and running it up the school flagpole. Then, at some point after we all went to high school or college, everyone became a couple orders of magnitude more tolerable.” Terry sipped meditatively at his cider.

“'We looked around and suddenly we were all grown up'.”

“Yeah, like that. More or less.” Terry's eyes danced again. “Though I'm pretty sure Mal still gets his unders run up the flagpole on occasion.”

Nate snickered helplessly and Terry laughed and for a time they lapsed into a comfortable sort of silence – Nate's stomach unknotted enough to actually enjoy what he was putting into it. “So, what's the best birthday present you've ever gotten? Before today that is.”

Terry accepted a refilled glass and, after a meditative moment, announced, “Haggis.”

“....Seriously?”

“Okay, not the haggis itself. That was pretty nasty and required half a bottle of HP sauce just to get past the texture and I'm pretty sure it's the reason that I can't stand the taste of liver to this day.” He sat down his plate, the better to talk with at least one hand. “Making it, however, was my first real lesson in cooking – my grandmother's housekeeper, Mrs. Carmody, caught me lurking around the kitchen being surly and antisocial and put me to work. Granny wanted a Burns supper and didn't feel like waiting until January to get it – and so I found myself sitting in front of a cutting board covered in freshly boiled sheep innards that I was allowed to chop to my heart's content and serve to my brothers without even a whiskey chaser to soften the blow.” He grinned in fond reminiscence. “Next week she taught me how to make poor man's beef Wellington. I think I'm always going to miss that woman.”

“I know you've said that you were a terrible thirteen year old before, but I seriously cannot imagine you being surly. Or antisocial for that matter.” Nate shook his head.

“Well. Thirteen was sort of peak terrible teens for me.” Terry's smile went crooked again. “You?”

“I'm reasonably certain that I was the most mopily wangst-driven seventeen year old on the face of the Earth.”

“Seventeen has never treated anyone well but, in this case, I was asking about your favorite birthday present.”

“Oh!” Nate physically repressed the urge to facepalm. “Oh, man. I had so many nice things as a kid – it was just my Dad and I for the longest time and he spoiled me absolutely rotten when it came to toys that I wanted. But the very best, most what the fuck thing? A beer stein.”

Terry's eyebrow migrated toward his hairline. “You don't drink.”

“No, I do not. I have never drunk, not since my doctors told my Dad I would likely be sensitive to sulfates my whole life.” Nate refilled his own glass for emphasis. “Nonetheless, on my twenty-first birthday, Dad was in Germany on business and sent me a beer stein to celebrate that particular socio-cultural milestone. And not just any beer stein, mind you – it wasn't one of those cheap touristy things. It's made from hardened waxed leather, banded in horn and polished wood, and covered in this really fancy decorative carved leather work. Yggdrasil and Nidhogg. Oh, and it's the length of my freaking arm, so I'm assuming that it was probably a beer stein intended for use by a frost giant.” 

“I so need to meet your father one day.” Terry accepted a refill of his own. “Where is it? I'm pretty sure I would have noticed a frost giant beer stein in your apartment.”

“Granny Hanako uses it for extra large sized flower arrangements.”

“I need to actually meet your grandmother one day, too. I know!” Terry smiled a bright eyed smile of impending trauma. “We'll go to Oregon for your birthday this year. Clear you calendar, Dr. Harada.”

“I'm pretty sure she's already half in love with you, so a meeting couldn't hurt. If I put in for it now, I might even get the time off.” Nate smiled wryly. “Be warned, my grandmother will probably try to hook you up with one of my unmarried cousins. She apparently doesn't have enough grandchildren yet.”

“She can't possibly be more rabidly baby-bit than my own mother, I assure you. One granddaughter and suddenly she can hear her biological clock ticking again. Of course,” He had that dance in his eyes again. “You could always introduce me as your boyfriend, which would – “

Fifteen minutes later, once he'd stopped coughing all the cider out of his lungs with the aid of a few solid whacks and some therapeutic rubbing between the shoulder blades, Nate managed to croak out, “Well, yeah. Okay, that might work as a means of discouraging the cousin-throwing.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, well, nearly kill you.” Terry looked quite sincerely contrite which, for some reason, made Nate feel utterly wretched. 

“Not your fault. It's – It just surprised me. I – “ Nate stopped, realized he had no idea how he wanted to start that sentence, much less finish it, and soldiered on. “We're a pair, aren't we? Your folks want you to hurry up and get over that whole tragically widowered at a traumatically young age thing  and get on with the remarrying and making more grandchildren. And my folks want any option that renders me something other than a creepy recluse whose only close friends are corpses and case files.”

“Amazing, isn't it, how what you want to do with your life never seems to enter into it, even when you're all grown up?” There was a more than trace element of bitterness in Terry's voice.

“Astonishing.” Nate reached for the bottle with hands that were considerably less steady than they'd been a few minutes before, and poured for them both with exaggerated care. “Do you...want to be married again?” 

Terry accepted the glass but didn't drink, turning it slowly between his hands as he found sudden, passionate interest in the patterns of firelight on the carpet. “Someday. With the right person.”

“Ah.” Nate took a quick breath and found that not entirely sufficient to dispel the sudden, strangling tightness in his chest. 

“Which isn't to say 'never' but – “ Terry flashed him one of those quick, fantastically bright smiles. “Nate? Are you okay?”

“Fine. I'm fine. Really.” From somewhere, he dredged up the artful approximation of a smile.

Terry was Not Going For It, and Nate felt a little twinge of alarm in his gut joining the torturous cardiac contortions making themselves known in his chest. “What about you?” Softly.

Oh please don't DO that. Don't ASK that. Too late, he'd asked. “You've probably noticed that I suck with an audible sucking sound at that whole 'having a relationship' thing.”

“I don't know – I think we've got a pretty good relationship going on right here.” Terry inclined a single questioning brow and Nate wanted to sink through the floor.

“Friends. I'm good at being friends. Not so great at everything else.” He put down his glass and stood, rubbing his suddenly damp palms on the legs of his sweats. “In fact, I'm really epically terrible at everything else. I'm fairly sure that Rin's kids are going to be the ones picking out my nursing home.”

All the nervous energy suddenly bubbling out of where it had lain in wait for just this moment forced his legs to move, one stride, then two, and a few heartbeats later he was looking out the doors opening on the balcony, which itself overlooked the garden, at the moment a basically amorphous glob of wind-blown foliage in the night. Terry stayed where he was, which didn't help at all because Nate could feel the weight of his gaze, that intensely earnest blue-eyed look that belonged to a man who helped people cope with their emotional fuckedupedness for a living.

Whatever made me think this was a good idea? “Have I ever told you about my last...relationship-shaped...thing?” Nate heard the words emerging from his mouth with the sort of dull, disconnected horror he usually associated with dreams of walking into work naked.

“A little bit.” Oh so calmly neutral and Nate wondered, briefly, if throwing himself off the balcony would be enough to kill him or just hurt really badly. They probably weren't high enough up to make it totally painless unless he landed just right on his head. “Mostly that it ended really badly. Also that your ex is a colossal dick, which is a sentiment I can fully empathize with. I've got some exes that could only be improved via gravity slingshot into the photosphere of the sun.”

“Yeah...that would more or less describe it.” With massive reluctance, he turned around, but couldn't make himself pace back, leaning against the decorative door molding in case his legs decided to get all wobbly on him, which was looking like a distinct and unfortunate possibility. “I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not like that with everyone I used to – used to date or see or however you want to put it. I'm still friends with both the people I went out with in high school – Christmas cards and everything! But those weren't what you'd call relationship relationships, either. We were just doing the stuff that teenagers do, movies and pizza and necking in the backseat of somebody's first car and it wasn't really...serious emotional involvement. We liked each other but it wasn't...”

He absolutely could not say what he was thinking and look at Terry at the same time. He took a shaky breath and looked back out the window. “Like I said, I do friends really well. Sometimes even friends with benefits if it's the right friend. But I'm – I can't – “

“Nate.” Softly.

“I'm really bad at making other people happy. At even really knowing what would make someone happy. Long-term happy, I mean. Short term happy is easy – that's just basic paying attention and contingency planning. The rest? That's...beyond me. Totally beyond me, even when I try and I've really tried, I promise you that. But...trying isn't enough. It's just not.” He closed his eyes against the prickle of completely and utterly embarrassing tears and he was not going to start crying in front of Terry on his freaking birthday. “We...do have a good relationship going on here. A wonderful relationship. You're the best...the best friend I've had in years. And I...don't want to do anything...I don't want to say anything that would screw that up.”

“What makes you think you could?” Again, so very softly.

“Because I always do. Always. I say something or I do something – or I don't say something or don't do something – and that's it. Over. And I don't – want this to be over.” Darwin's fucking finches, he was, in fact, almost in tears. A head-first dive at the hydrangea bushes was starting to look better and better.

“Well, that's good.” Terry had obviously taken some stealthy like ninja classes at some point in his education because he very simply materialized right there next to him, leaning against the locked balcony doors in a manner that suggested he knew exactly what Nate was thinking just then and believed an intervention might be in order. Hell, he might – Terry was scarily good at that sort of thing. “Because I don't particularly want this to be over, either. Why might it be over, Nate?”

“Because I think I'm in love with you. Seriously, completely, emotionally involved with love for you and you – you're – my friend.” Was that his out loud voice? It was. He had said that out loud. “You're my friend and I'm in love with you and I always screw up being in love, I can't do it right, and can we just pretend I never said anything? Please? Please? Let's just...stay friends and be friends because I don't want this to end.”

Far, far too out loud for that, in all likelihood, and he buried his face in his hand before he could complete his self-actualized utter and abject humiliation by crying on top of everything else. He almost jumped out of his skin when Terry's hand closed around his wrist and pulled his hand down and he was totally crying right there in front of him and Terry was, he could not help but notice, smiling. And his eyes were dancing. 

“Nate, what if I told you that I don't want to be just friends?”

Nate took a shocked, gulped-in breath that came back out as something close to, “Oh?”

Not really a question, per se, or any other sort of sensible response because that was all it took for Terry to step in close and pull him closer and he tasted like chocolate and cider and Nate's mind temporarily shut down in self-defense as his back came to rest against the nearest wall. When his brain finished rebooting he was mildly astonished to discover that he wasn't experiencing a post traumatic relationship-related hallucination, that Terry's hands were really resting on his hips and Terry's soft, warm lips were really gently brushing his own, and his own hands were clinging helplessly to Terry's shoulders. When they parted, it was with an audible little moan of dismay on his own part and a sigh on Terry's. He swayed away from the wall at the gentle tug on his hips and into the warmth of Terry's body, burying his still-wet face against the junction of his neck and shoulder, Terry's hand against the small of his back, stroking his hair.

“In my personal experience,” Terry said quietly, “being friends isn't fundamentally incompatible with being lovers. Pretty much the opposite, in fact. I've never loved someone I haven't liked first. And I like you. I've liked you since we first met, that weekend when we both volunteered to stay at the office and you brought Cards Against Humanity to keep everybody entertained. I started falling in love with you every time you got fire-spitting pissed or cried with someone's family or snarked at some asshole defense attorney or reporter. So many people lose themselves to the work we do – let it peel chunks of their humanity away and go numb because caring hurts too much. But you...don't do that. You care. You feel. And I love you. I love you for that. I love you for you. And I freely confess that I want to find the asshole who made you think that you weren't enough, weren't worthy of being loved just for who you are, and psychoanalyze the living holy fuck out of him.”

Nate laughed, helplessly, holding on tight, the sound coming out suspiciously like a sob, and if anything Terry held him closer. 

“So no,” Terry's hand climbed up between his shoulder blades. “This isn't going to be over. Not because of this. I've wanted this for so damned long now...”

Nate took a deep, shaky breath and looked up just as Terry was looking down and it only took a bit more effort to finish the motion and bring their lips together again, a little less soft this time, a little less gentle. Terry's hand tangled tighter in his hair and his tongue brushed against the curve of his lower lip and Nate whimpered helplessly and let it slip inside. Chocolate and cider, stronger than before, and under that Terry himself; sandalwood and almond oil and musk filled up his head and sent his heart pounding off at a thousand miles an hour. A sudden, convulsive movement on somebody's part brought their bodies even closer together – which Nate hadn't thought physically possible – and made it absolutely, blindingly clear that he wasn't alone in the blood flowing swiftly condition.

“Terry,” He gasped, when the kiss finally broke and their hips ground together again and it was all he could do to keep his knees steady against the rush of pleasure this provoked, “we should probably get away from the window.”

“...Good idea.”

Nate wasn't quite sure who actually started the backwards motion away from the window and toward the fireplace and its cosy little sitting area – there was too much going on with hands and mouths and the head-spinning rush of having someone touching him with genuine desire again. Terry's hands were under his shirt, fingers spread wide across his skin, and then his shirt was over his head and the loveseat was behind his knees and they were tangled together, Terry's weight on his lap pressing him into the cushions and both their bodies together. Terry started working his way south, becoming distracted en route with the apparently irresistible allure of his neck and chest and collarbones and the delight to be found in licking and sucking and kissing and covering all of the above in a necklace of bites and Nate took advantage long enough to rid him of his own shirt, placing all that ink adorning Terry's shoulders at the tips of his fingers, and the tip of his tongue, happy to explore. A surprisingly back-arching, breath-catching, desperate writhing and moaning exploration, to be sure, Terry half trying to get away and half trying to get even closer, as though those tattoos were the most severely erogenous zone ever applied to any living creature on the face of the Earth, just waiting for human contact to set them on fire. 

“Nate,” It was easily the most desperate thing he'd ever heard in his whole life, Terry's voice at that moment, and the way their bodies ground together and then everything went a little sideways.

The rush of it came over him so suddenly he almost didn't have a chance to yelp a warning, his head going light and prickles of warmth running all the way up his body and his own spine bending at a rather acute angle. Terry blinked down at him, half startled and half dazed with lust, and he found himself blushing furiously.

“Sorry,” He croaked, fighting the urge to sink through the floor again. “It's been a long time. A really long time. And you're just so...so...Yeah.”

“Oh, Nate. Don't be sorry. I'm an idiot.” Terry kissed him, gently, and climbed off, helping lever him to his feet.

“No you're not. Stop it. Shut up.” He slithered out of the rest of his clothes and used the first available piece of clothing – that ancient Grateful Dead tee, so very appropriate – to sponge off a bit. “Get on the bed.”

The look on his face was not a single conclusive expression so much as a collision of emotional reactions, none of which resulted in an immediate response to what Nate felt was an extremely reasonable request. With a sigh, he grabbed the loosely knotted tie of Terry's horrific pants, pulled it loose and them down in a single smooth motion. He wasn't wearing underwear. Which explained a few things, actually, and he blushed gorgeously, and Nate took him firmly in hand on the way to the very nice King-sized bed with the mountain of pillows and goose down coverlets. Those tattoos and their erotic possibilities really required a more thorough and comprehensive examination, especially since just running his fingers over them  caused Terry to shudder and whimper and beg for more. Especially the ones wrapped in serpentine coils around the base of his spine and the delicious indentation of his navel and slender curve of his hips and the long muscles of his thighs. Milk white skin and a dusting of pale freckles and fine coppery hair, looped with jet ink, and he wanted to touch it all, kiss him, lick him, make those hungry noises of pleasure come out of his mouth. And that was, he was willing to admit very quietly to himself, something he was good at. One of Terry's hands found its way into his hair, gripping almost painfully tight and that was wonderful, almost as wonderful as the taste and smell of him, salty and musky and so very good. He couldn't keep his hips still for even a minute, between Nate's mouth and his hands spread over his hips and over his thighs, stroking and sliding and finding all the places that made those long, shuddering moans flow up his throat. The sound he made at the end was the sweetest thing Nate had heard in years, a helpless little mewl of ecstasy, and then his back arched and his hips tensed and Nate drank him down, milking him until there was nothing left to taste.

Terry's eyes fluttered open again as he settled down in the pillows next to him, running a hand through the fine dusting of coppery hair on his chest, a fingertip over the curling spiral of ink ringing one pebbly nipple. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head again and he reached up to capture that hand, holding it flat in place while he caught his breath. Nate leaned up and kissed him long and slow, nibbling a lip, sucking languorously on his tongue, and when they parted, Terry whispered, “You don't have any idea what you do to me, do you?”

“I think I can guess.” Nate smiled wryly and lay back in the pillows, tangling sweat-soaked red hair in his fingers, curly and imminently pettable.

Terry arched his head into the stroking and rolled onto his side, nuzzling gently at Nate's neck again, which apparently hadn't gotten quite enough attention or visible marks of possession just yet. “I feel that I have somehow fallen down on my half the deal here...”

“It's your birthday.” Nate pointed out, and kissed him again – and abruptly found himself pinned down in the pillows as Terry rolled a long leg over him and hoisted himself somewhat unsteadily astride.

“True, it is. And I freely confess, I've always been the sort to indulge in giving myself presents.” He rocked back and Nate arched helplessly himself as his body responded to the heat and friction and sweet sweatiness of it all, already more than half-stirred, and came all the way back to life. “Do we have any lube?”

Nate swallowed with some difficulty around the constriction of his throat and the sounds trying to crawl out of it occasioned by the teasing circular motions of Terry's goddamned wanton hips, croaking out, “Beside the table.”

Terry crawled to the edge and fished around in the little toiletries bag that Nate had almost decided not to bring coming back with a bottle and a little foil wrapped square and a gentle, nipping kiss. “Thank all the gods you didn't get that self-warming crap. It's awful.”

He poured out a generous dollop and massaged it between his hands, smiling the sort of lazy cat smile that made Nate acutely nervous in most situations but in this one seemed strangely exciting instead. “Close your eyes.”

He did so and was rewarded a moment later by the sensation of Terry's warm, slick hand cupping him, fingertips painting teasing circles in water soluble lubricants and it was all he could do not to whimper. Foil tore. Terry made a low sound in the back of his own throat and, an instant later, his grip shifted, sliding Nate's length from tip to root, once, twice, and his eyes flew open in shock as Terry's position shifted higher. He rocked down, slowly, and Nate's hips bucked as he was enveloped in smooth, slick heat, an inarticulate moan escaping him at the sensation and the sight of Terry taking him in, hands braced on his own thighs, back arched with the pleasure traveling all the way up his spine. Terry laughed, breathless, at the look on his face and rocked his hips and then all chance of actually saying or doing anything went utterly away and all he could do was hold on, catching hold of the curve of his hips and rocking up to meet him, their bodies moving together in a rhythm as old as blood pulsing and breath rushing and it was very simply too good, too right, too perfect. Every nerve in his body sang with how perfect it was, to please and be pleasured by this man, to love him and be loved by him, to know he'd give every drop of his blood and his every breath just to see that smile and those dancing blue eyes, hear that voice and hold that body, knowing it was the house a beautiful soul lived in. His head went white with it and his body went light and he let himself fall into it without a fight, let those wanton noises come out of his mouth, drank Terry's moans, and allowed the pleasure to drag him down into a warm and flawless darkness.

He wasn't sure how long he floated there in the tenebrous warmth inside his own mind, his own body, but it was still dark in the room when he woke, firelight casting shadows on the walls, Terry's warm weight pillowed against him, still trembling and breathing raggedly. He wrapped his arms around his lover's body, ran a hand through the sweat painting his back, curled into the curvature of his arms. 

Terry lifted his head and kissed him long and slow and sweetly. “Best. Ever.”

***

Kieran had, on the occasion of their first time sleeping together, expected Nate to look younger at rest than he did while awake. He had the face and build for it – a solid foot across the line that separated beautiful from handsome, as long and lean and wiry as a man a good ten years his junior. To his very great surprise, that had not at all been the case. The tension never seemed to leave the line of his neck and spine and shoulders, not even at rest – he seemed, even then, to be bracing himself, tightening up to take a hit, or else picking himself up from one. Even at his most bonelessly relaxed, curled up next to him by the warm glow of the firepit with the Orinids falling just beyond the shadow of the trees overhead, he wasn't genuinely at peace.

He was now.

Beneath his hand, Nate's back was one smooth line of bone and muscle and almost impossibly soft skin, still gently scented with massage oil and sea salt and more recently with sweat. His head lay pillowed on Kieran's shoulder, one long arm laying sleepily possessive across his stomach, their legs welded together from hip to knee. His hair was damp with sweat and his lashes were sooty shadows above his still gently flushed cheeks and his mouth was full and lush and kiss-bitten and through all the places they were still in contact, Kieran could feel the echoes of pleasure still ringing through all the places in his mind and soul that he usually kept locked up tight. Pleasure and more than pleasure. Exultation. His heart was singing with it.

And not alone. He pressed a kiss to Nate's temple and shivered slightly as, even asleep, he responded, squeezing the last microns of space from between their bodies, his arm curling up over his chest, sending a frisson of pleasure that echoed through them both, from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. A slow stroke the length of his spine made those ridiculously long lashes flutter, brought a noise past his lips that was half moan and half plea and more erotic than either sound alone. 

Beautiful, the thought crawled through Kieran's head, along with shared and tangled and mutual ecstasy still humming in every nerve and inch of skin, the heart-song and heart fullness and gentle wash and curl of emotion twining together. So beautiful precious wonderful mine. My own. Belonging to me.

He had not thought – had never really allowed himself to think – that he would ever be this happy again. And yet here he was, with his beloved and his heart's-ease laying warm and safe in his arms. Nate's breathing deepened as he fell further into sleep. Rain drummed slow and steady against the roof, a breath of cool air finding its way through the seams of the window casements. Against the far wall, the shadows cast by the fireplace joined and parted and joined again.

He wasn't quite certain how long he slept but when he woke it was immediately and all at once – without the slightest trace of disorientation and with every nerve ringing like the strings of a harp struck by a two year old. 

Something ghosted across the edges of his awareness, something swift and subtle, flirting with the warded boundary he'd built around the perimeter of the building when they'd checked in earlier. Powdered silver and salt and more than a trace of his own blood, that not even the rain could wash away – not that it was raining now. The only sound from outside was the wind, rushing through the trees with a roar not unlike a stream in full flood.

...witchthing...

It curled through him, through his mind and soul, like the first breath of winter, ran needles of ice deep into his gut. Next to him, Nate stirred in his sleep, responding to his own sudden tension, and he bent and soothed him back down with a kiss and a comforting murmur and a quiet inner caress. Slowly, carefully, he eased out from under Nate's arm, rested his head on his own warm pillow and drew the covers up over him – even with the fireplace, the room was cool and damp now, though how much of that was psychic chill and how much was the weather blowing through he couldn't quite tell. He found the clothes they'd discarded earlier, dressed swiftly and silently, opening the inner ward he'd forged around the suite itself barely a sliver and closed it tight behind him as he went.

Outside, the wind nearly clawed the loggia door out of his hand, storm-front strong and breath-stealingly cold, the roar of it in the trees easily drowning out any other natural sounds. But not the unnatural ones. The scrape of claws across densely patterned defensive energies, looking for some weakness it could make or exploit in the weave. Inarticulate gutturals and hissed sibilants, filled with rage and frustration and no small amount of pain. Morpheus was certain that he'd hurt it badly and the confirmation gave him a coldly happy grin as he started off across the vast expanse of beautifully manicured lawn in the direction of the equally manicured garden. He felt it sense him in motion, felt it catch his scent – and more, Nate's essence mingled with his own in the most intimate of ways, the quarry it had always been hunting. Felt it peel away from the house and begin limp-loping after him, low to the ground and more invisible than not, but far, far less sleek and strong and fast than it had been. Felt it gather itself in long, leaping strides and launch itself at his back, forelimbs stretching into scythes, smooth, serpentine head splitting into a muzzle lined in razor-fine needles – and slam face-first into the already active first line of his personal wards, the defenses it had bypassed practically without effort weeks before, filaments of power flaring into eye-searing visibility brighter than a stroke of lightning. It limned the creature's shifting-twisting body as it writhed in the net of the wards' power, seeking the shape that would let it escape, or at least break the circuit of punishing energies connecting them.

Kieran called them back down before the thing could find it, pulling the net of his protections in – not quite skin-close but near to it. The creature landed in an ungraceful, mostly-visible sprawl in the muddy, leaf-strewn lawn, form flickering as it struggled to hide itself again. He shook a gently chastising finger at it. “Now. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, and a thousand generations of my ancestors will rise from the grave specifically to kick my ass for embarrassing them that way.”

Clever witchthing, It keened at him, form losing visible definition even as he watched, springing away to try to circle him again, hoping to shake his perception. Should have eaten your heart when I had it in my claws. 

“Yes, you probably should have.” He replied, mock-commiserative. “But since you didn't...? Well, sucks to be you.”

He broke for the garden at a sprint, skidding on mud and wet grass and leaves as he went, the creature howling rage and hate and hunger at a pitch inaudible to human ears – human minds were another story – and leaping after him in ground-eating strides. He hit the entrance to the boxwood hedge before it could reach him and slid into the maze with his feet barely under him, skinning his palm on the field stone pylon marking the entrance as he grabbed it and took the corner at a dead run. Behind him, expensively cultivated and embellished greenery snapped and tore and he couldn't help wincing a bit because it was a very nice garden and he genuinely felt somewhat bad about wrecking it – but he rather suspected that the house was not really an ideal alternative venue for this sort of thing. His Eye snapped open and the path he'd traced earlier in argent and crimson and white leapt out at him, a shimmering thread in the otherwise absolute darkness. He held the wards tight around him, masking his presence as best he could at the cost of losing his finer sense of where the creature might be at any given moment – it hardly mattered, since it would chase him down no matter what, in order to get at what it really wanted.

Clever witchthing, the thing's soundless voice curled across the surface of his mind. Feeding the halfthing its magic. Cleverclever. Will like eating your heart.

He clamped down hard on the urge to taunt back – it was too close, would be on him too fast, for that to have the desired effect. 

Smell the halfthing onyouinyou, the sensation that accompanied those words churned his stomach in spite of himself, grotesque and vile and obscene, knew you would have liked helping with him, witchthing. Too bad.

The creature slammed into him from above, claws briefly finding purchase in his shoulder before the wards could engage, flung away before they could bite deep or cause serious harm, the recoil of energies slamming him into the ground and the creature through a few layers of hedge. He fought for air and staggered back to his feet – the center of the maze was only a few more turns away – the creature howling and thrashing and coiling in on itself in agony.

The center of the maze, the hotel's brochure had informed him on the way in from the city, was marked by a spectacular display of seasonal flowers. It really was impressive when he'd visited earlier, all Japanese anemone and monkshood and helenium and autumn crocuses, arranged in an inwardly curling spiral of color and perfume. The wind hadn't done it any favors and neither had the rain and neither were his feet as he ran across it, coming to a halt at the innermost point of the whorl of vegetation, the creature crashing through the final border of the hedge only a few breaths behind. He stopped, breathed, and his wards flowed out around him again, forcing the creature back a pace or two, its form flickering briefly more visible as it snapped and growled, its eyes lambent in the dark.

Witchthing, a purr. Should have stayed inside.

Overhead, the wind finished shredding the last of the cloud cover. The moon, full as it had been on the night of his birth, spilled her radiance across the vault of the heavens, bright enough that it washed the color out of even the stars, and cast hundreds, thousands of tiny, sharp-edged shadows across the parterre stones of the garden. Cast his own shadow across the creature, lending its shape a form and solidity that it otherwise lacked.

“Well – one of us should have.”

The creature shrieked, a hideous psychic ululation, as the shadows pierced it, wrapped around its throat and limbs in skeins of barbed darkness to bind it in place, deny it freedom of movement and shape, spears carved of night's own substance driving through its hide and setting its blood flowing. 

“I'm really thinking that was you.”

The creature's struggles slowly ceased, its shrieks dying away to desperate whines of distress, its eyes rolling in its head.

Witchthing witchthing –

Then, he heard it, beneath the creature's own voice.

Kagemasuta.

“Guilty as charged.” He smiled thinly. “Hellcaller.”

A hiss – a double hiss, one from the creature and one from the thing riding its senses, trying to force it to keep acting even as it died. Finally, finally died.

“I know you can see me. I know you can hear me.” Kieran replied, softly. “So I strongly advise you to listen to me now. He is under my protection. If you raise your hand against him again, I will find you and I will end you. And nothing – nothing you can do, not the Serpent, nothing in this world or beyond it – will save you.”

He spoke the word that released the shadows bound into his own flesh, the ward structure that held them quiet and quiescent folding in upon itself, and they reared out of him hungry. He almost felt sorry for the creature, and the human-shaped monster on the other end of it, but not for very long. It took longer, by far, to wrestle his personal darkness back under control, the sky beginning to go gray with false dawn and the creature little more than an unfortunately gooey blotch in the middle of the thoroughly wrecked hedge maze, though at least part of that could be explained away by the ferocity of the last night's storm. He did, however, make certain to scrape as many crushed flowers as he could off the bottom of his shoes, and take them off on the porch, before he padded upstairs to the room where his lover lay sleeping.

[anaki-boo]

“NOT SCARY AT ALL”

This stone bird appeared in the second half of winter. Even at Christmas she was not there, and in February she was already looking at Harry with her blind stone eyes. The bird was definitely conjured, because it was one with the tombstone, as if it was born from it. It was a raven with folded wings and a slightly open beak. As if he wanted to say something.

One could only guess who decided to decorate the grave of the professor, and why it was a raven. Not some bat, not a snake, finally. A raven. Perhaps it was the symbol of wisdom and death. Yes, Harry even read about it specifically in Agatha Daredevil's book "Symbolism in Magical Transformations".

"Raven," she wrote, "has long meant mind and has been associated with death. He embodies prophecy and insight. Crows in stories often act as psychopomps connecting the material world with the spirit world."

Don't ask why Harry needed to know about the raven. And even more so, don't ask why he visited the grave of his former professor so many times in a row. He didn't quite know the answer himself.

They say that criminals are drawn to the crime scene. But it was there—in the Screaming Hut, where he left him to die all alone, bleeding. But here… This grave was just a pit with a stone coffin in which Snape's remains were placed — evidence of Harry's crime. But he remembered the basics of first aid, he remembered, and then for some reason he thought that he was powerless before fate itself.

Harry still dreamed of Snape, paralyzed by Nagaina's poison, unconscious. His light warm breath, his eyes glazed with pain (but not from death). How long had he been lying there when they left before he died? A couple of minutes? An hour? Or maybe more?

Harry first visited his grave in June. He came alone and at dawn, sneaked in there like a thief. He was going to make some kind of speech, ask for forgiveness. But even though there was no one to eavesdrop on her, Harry couldn't get a word out of himself. Instead, for some reason, he burst into tears like a child. At the funeral — Lupin and Tonks, Freddy, baby Creevey, Snape himself — did not cry. But then... the speech was successful only in August.

Since then, Harry had been dropping in on the professor at least once a month, on one of the extra-curricular Saturdays. I told him about my life, shared all sorts of nonsense. He did not ask for forgiveness, as if he knew that the professor no longer holds a grudge. And as if he understands.

***

“Do you mind if I sort out your things?” Harry asked in May.

Only yesterday, the Hogwarts cemetery paid tribute to the memory of those who died in the battle. Today, the usual silence reigned here again.

“No one has touched them all this year. However, the elves have recently collected... how should I say... personal — clothes and all that. There are papers left in your office. No one knows who would need them, and I told McGonagall that I could take them. Not all of them, of course. But... something important. She said she would have given it to my mom if she were alive. But she's not alive, and you're out… So you don't mind, I think.”

The grave did not answer, nor did the raven. Their tacit permission was granted.

There was a warm spring calm. The sun was hot, the back and the back of my head were hot. It was like someone's tight embrace.

***

Surprisingly, there were few papers. So — study plans, several business and personal letters (Harry decided not to poke his nose into envelopes with the Malfoy coat of arms, but to forward them to Draco) and books, most of which were with a library seal, and over which Madame Pince then groaned.

"Professor Snape was constantly delaying the delivery of books! But about this one — he lied to my eyes in an impudent way, said that some scoundrels stole it and burned it!".

In the top drawer of the desk, under stacks of blank paper, Harry found an old, battered diary. The entries in it were completely irregular, sometimes Snape forgot about the diary for several months. There were potion recipes, whole phrases in runic notation, addresses (Harry assumed they were potion customers or ingredient suppliers), and drawings and squiggles that Harry remembered from the Potions textbook.

The guilt that seemed to have calmed down over the past year came flooding back to Harry. He randomly leafed through this old notebook and thought about how much he had personally deprived the magical world. If Harry had stayed, he would have helped Snape, if he had called for help, the professor could have been saved. And with him — his developments. Dozens of useful potions and spells. Cured diseases, solved problems and saved lives…

Harry shifted the notebook to his other hand and started leafing through from the end. On the last filled page, at the very bottom, a bird was drawn in ink. Smooth body, large open beak and folded wings. It was the same raven that appeared on Snape's tombstone in winter. Words written in the professor's familiar small handwriting seemed to fly out of the raven's mouth:

"Feed the bird."

In the lower right corner there was a postscript made in pencil:

"If you go to feed, take a broom."

Harry loved riddles, but he didn't like being overcome by excruciating excitement. Like, for example, this time.

***

Harry took with him a broom and treats for the raven. There was a piece of bread and a sausage wrapped in a paper bag in his pocket. In his mind, the raven would definitely have been treated to some of this.

It looked stupid. He was standing in the middle of the cemetery with a broom and trying to stuff his breakfast into the mouth of a stone statue. She refused to eat.

“Feed… Feed the bird. But how?!” he muttered, feeling himself getting angry.

Why did he even think that this was the same bird? What makes him think that the professor left him a hint? And what was he going to find anyway? A hiding place? A cache with something important? For example, by a will? Snape didn't care about earthly things, and he had nothing to bequeath, except for the old house, which, as McGonagall told him, he hated with all his heart.

Angrily, Harry threw the spoiled food on the ground and began sorting through everything he knew about crows in his head. As a child, these birds scared little Harry. Aunt Petunia knew about it and said: "Don't look at them, or they, bloodthirsty creatures, will peck out your green devilish eyes."

“Bloodthirsty… Bloodthirsty creatures," Harry whispered thoughtfully and bit his finger with his teeth.

The blood did not appear immediately, it had to be squeezed out of the wound. Harry put his hand to the bird's beak and smeared it with blood.

The stone moved. At first, the raven moved its head, then cawed soundlessly — just opened its beak several times. Then he spread his wings, stamped on the spot and fluttered up.

Then Harry understood why the broom was needed.

***

"Why the hell were you going through my papers? Arrogant, stupid, curious, shameless... why are you silent? Can you feel your hands? Do you feel it or not?!”

Snape was furious, his eyes were shooting lightning, but Harry was not afraid. To see him—pale and with bloodless lips—on the floor of a Screaming hut, to see him off on his last journey a few days later, to come to his grave for the first time — that was what was scary. But now I'm sitting in a chair, leaning closer to the fireplace, licking drops of firewhisky from my lips and watching the professor rub his stiff fingers… It wasn't scary at all.

Let his hands be completely frozen from the long flight, let them turn red. Let this village house be unfamiliar and creepy, and it looked like no one had lived here for a long time and only recently a person had settled here. Let Snape, aged and with a torn, scarred throat peeking out of the collar of his robe, shout at him (thank Merlin, his voice remained the same). Harry was happy. And he couldn't get a word out of himself.

“Do you feel it? Are you going to answer me?”

Harry nodded, somewhat drunkenly and sluggishly, and only then did Snape leave him alone.

He sat down at a table—a long one and probably intended for a large family that once lived here, and now almost completely covered with dried herbs- and began to unwrap one of these dried bouquets. His fingers nervously fingered the thin stems and selected suitable ones.

“I…” Harry finally managed to say, but then he trailed off.

Snape looked at him sternly, and there was a threat in that look.

“I was hoping it would be Minerva. Or, in extreme case, Miss Granger…

“Weasley”, Harry interrupted automatically. Hermione, who had been Ron's wife for three months now, was constantly correcting her acquaintances who called her by her maiden name. “She's Mrs. Weasley now”.

Snape snorted. As he was doing it before — ironically , disapproving and arrogantly.

“ I had a better opinion of her. Well… What the hell did you want in my desk? What were you looking for there? Memories? My diary, in which I confessed to crimes? They wanted to sell his Skitter, probably, and…

"I wasn't looking for anything," Harry interrupted him again. "McGonagall gave me permission to take your papers, that's all. The office had to be vacated for a new teacher. She allowed it… She allowed me to take what I think is necessary.

“Allowed you? And why on earth would that be?”

“I needed it.”

“Why did you need it? Couldn't leave me alone even after death?

“Couldn't," Harry muttered, reaching for a bottle of firewhisky. It was standing at his feet.

The esophagus burned with heat, it became difficult to breathe at first, and then immediately felt better. Even the excitement has subsided.

“Why would that be? Tormented by guilt?”

"No, no guilt," Harry lied. “ I just fell in love. You know, it happens like this… You know a person for many years, and then he dies, becomes less disgusting and malicious, and you even have a communication. So you can fall in love. Even... with such a… you.”

He took two more big gulps, and a very pleasant heat spread in his chest.

Snape was silent and stared at the herbs on the table. It seemed that now they would break out and a fire would start.

“And how did you...? The antidote? Or did someone help?”

"Someone helped," Snape echoed and, apparently deciding that Harry had had enough to drink, called for a bottle with non—verbal and non-verbal spell.

He waved his hand — and it jerked and flew to the table, hitting the bottom on the edge.

“Malfoy? I've seen his letters… You were friends, right? … Are friends, I mean”

"Can you take the stairs?" Won't you wring your neck? Or do you need to be levitated?

It took Harry a moment to realize what the professor meant.

“ Are you inviting me... to stay? After what I…”

“ You won't be able to fly back in this condition. I won't let you apparate drunk, and I don't have a sobering one. You will spend the night here, and in the morning I will erase your memory.”

“ What are you going to do to me that you will have to erase my memory?” Harry laughed.

“I don't like you, Potter...” Snape looked at him as if he suspected some kind of bad change in him or someone else's evil influence.

“Yes, to be honest, I don't like myself ... but you…” Harry paused, feeling like a drunken fool. “Don’t erase my memory. I'm coming back anyway. In a week or a month…”

“Yes, you are coming back. I have no doubt in your stickiness, Potter.”

A few things didn't happen next morning. Firstly, they did not quarrel, although they could have. Secondly, Harry did not apologize for what he said drunk in the living room yesterday. As if he felt it was wrong to apologize for telling Severus the truth. Thirdly, Snape never erased his memory.

And, to be honest, Harry didn't go anywhere. Neither in the morning, nor in the evening, nor the next day.

[monsoon-of-art]

more doodles of party members, ft Nagaina and Forte

[friendly-neighborhood-imbecille]

Crushing an egg

4k words, some description of gore, will be crossposted to ao3 and ffn

When William Edward Lancer first started teaching at Casper High, he knew there was a risk of danger. It’s a horrible thing to think about, but there was a very real chance of an intruder, or even one of his students bringing a weapon with the intention to harm the other students. But never back then, had he thought the risk of harm to his students would be this large. 

Ever since the ghosts started appearing, the school had been subject to constant attacks. And now, the severity of the attacks had been steadily increasing. At first, it had just been pairs of humanoid ghosts, who were mostly uninterested in harming humans, using the school as their battleground. Then, every once in a while, the occasional low to mid-powered animal ghost would attack. But recently, more and more mid to high-powered animal ghosts had been seen rampaging the halls of Casper High. Trampling anyone in their path and blindly attacking anyone they deemed a threat, obstacle, or annoyance. 

Two students had already been hospitalized due to injuries received during one of these attacks. There was talk of installing a permanent ghost shield, replacing the temporary one already installed. Although it would use far more power than the school district could ever afford. 

At the moment, the best they could do was hope for the attacks to stop, and be ready for when they inevitably didn’t.

“Now, it’s important to view the story from all angles. It’s easy to understand the protagonist’s point of view, but what about the antagonist? Now, Nag and Nagaina planned to attack the family for the same reason Rikki destroyed their eggs: fear. Why do you think their actions were viewed as evil, while Rikki’s actions were viewed as good?” 

The class was silent. Some students stared blankly at his face, some out the windows, others at the clock behind him, counting down the minutes til the class ended. 

Edward sighed. “You don’t have to answer, I just want you all to really think about it.” He waited a couple seconds before moving on. “This story was written about a hundred years ago, but it can still relate-” He heard a sharp gasp and stopped in the middle of his sentence. Daniel Fenton was frantically scanning the classroom, as if he was searching for danger.

“Mr. Fenton, are you alright?”

His head snapped forward, and he visibly forced himself to relax. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine, but I really have to go.” He started anxiously tapping his fingers against his arm. “I, uh, forgot the, the, the book in my locker.” 

Edward looked to Daniel’s bag, trying to read the text on the book barely poking out. “I thought I saw the textbook on your desk a minute ago?”

Daniel reached over and zipped the bag closed. “Yeah, that was the science book. I grabbed the wrong one. They both say Pearson on the front, so I mixed them up. I’ll be quick, like, five minutes tops.” He started tapping his foot and quickly glancing between Edward and the door. Though it was very possible that Daniel had indeed grabbed the wrong book, he doubted it. But there was no use fighting against this. Even if he said no, Daniel would keep pestering him until he inevitably walked out without permission.

Edward sighed and ran his hand down his face before relenting. “Alright, please be quick.”

“I will, thank you.” Daniel grinned sheepishly and grabbed his bag before running out.

Edward scanned the room. It didn’t look like much had changed, but he attempted to engage the class anyway. “So, how does the conflict between the animals in this story mirror the conflicts we see in our modern day human society?” Surprisingly, he saw a hand slowly raise to answer the question.

“Yes Kwan?”

The boy looked towards his friend, Dashiel Baxter, as if waiting for something. Mr. Baxter waved his hand in a ‘go on’ gesture, and Kwan began to speak. “Well, the snake and the mongoose are at each other’s throats. The snakes are dangerous to the humans, so the mongoose wants to kill them. But then he kills, uh, breaks the eggs, which haven’t done anything wrong. Like, they had potential to be dangerous like the other snakes, but they were completely innocent. So I guess it’s sort of like-” Before he finished his sentence he was cut off by a loud blaring alarm.

“Attention all students and staff, a level 7 animalistic ghost has entered the building. All students and staff are to evacuate immediately.”

The class was panicking. Students were grabbing their bags and crowding to the door, knocking down desks and tables, and pushing others down to get to the front.

Level seven was high. So far, the detection system had only alerted to a few level sevens, all of which were humanoid. A ghost with that much power could easily kill a student. And with it being animalistic, it wouldn’t likely think to avoid doing so.

“Okay everybody please line up single file, stay calm, don’t push or shove, and stay together.” Edward tried to take control of the situation, but the students’ fear far outweighed their reasoning. He followed them out the door, helping up students that had been pushed down, and tried to move to the front of the group. Luckily, his classroom wasn’t far from the nearest exit. It wasn’t long before they were all safely hidden underneath the bleachers next to the football field, along with several other classes taking refuge there from the danger.

He took a second to catch his breath before counting his students. None of them were absent that day, so he shouldn’t have been missing any. He counted one short. He recounted and got the same result. He went down the list alphabetically and stopped once he got to the Fs.

“Where’s Daniel?”

The class fell silent. Some students began to search nearby crowds for their classmate, and Elena, one of his more observant students, stepped forward. “He, he left to get a textbook, remember?” She stuttered out.

Edward froze. His head started to heat up and it felt like a rat was frantically trying to claw its way out through his chest. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and brought it up to his mouth. “I’m missing a student, does anyone have Daniel Fenton with their class?”

A couple seconds went by. He didn’t move, he didn’t breathe, he didn’t even think. He just listened and stared back at the school building, as if willing his student to suddenly burst through the doors and run towards them. The shield started to materialize around the building, trapping whatever ghost that was there inside. Every class had already made it out.

The walkie-talkie buzzed to life and emitted the one sentence he was dreading to hear. 

“Nobody’s seen him.”

His stomach dropped. All of the students knew to stay with a group, any group, when there was an attack. The only reason a student would be completely missing is if they were cornered by the attacker, which could only mean one thing. “Gone with the Wind, he’s still in there.”

The Fentons were fast, but even they would need time to gather supplies and get to the location of the attack. And by then it might be too late. Daniel Fenton was not an athletic child, he didn’t stand a chance against whatever was in there with him. 

“Star, you’re in charge. I want you to bring the class over to Mr. Falluca. Tell him the situation and don’t let anyone separate from the group. I’m going back inside.”

Star reached over and grabbed Paulina’s hand before nodding. “Okay.”

Edward looked towards the school, gathered his breath, and ran. He ignored the confused and concerned shouts of the students and staff, he ignored the burning sensation in his legs, he ignored the fear rising up from the pits of his stomach and the back of his throat. He needed to do this. His student needed him.

He passed through the shield, feeling nothing but a slight buzz as he went through, and threw himself through the doors before stilling and holding his breath. He needed to be smart about this. He couldn’t just launch himself into danger, that wouldn’t fix anything. He needed to be calm, careful, and quiet.

 He slinked through the halls, careful to not make a sound, and searched through every unlocked classroom he walked by. He could hear shrill squealing from every possible direction, but it was the ceiling that shook and shuddered. The ghost was above him.

He hastened his movements, whisper-calling his student’s name into the doorway of every room, hoping to find him before he himself was discovered. No one answered. He went to the basement floors, raising his voice slightly, and running from room to room. Nothing. Maybe Daniel had found his way out of the building and away from the threat. Maybe he was putting himself in danger for nothing. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and raised it to his mouth once again. 

“Does anyone have Daniel Fenton with them?” 

He heard loud booms and crashes from above, followed by shouts and animalistic screeching. The shouting sounded human, the voice was masculine and young sounding.

The walkie-talkie buzzed. “None of us have him.”

He knew where Daniel was.

He ran to the stairs and scaled them as fast as he could, not caring whether or not he made noise. If he did, it would certainly be masked by the squeals and screeching of the ghost above him. 

He tripped halfway up the second flight, but continued scrambling his way up. He couldn’t waste any time, his student was in danger.

He made it to the top of the stairs and looked down the hallway. It was completely still, silent. If it weren’t for the cracked floor tiles and walls he could almost pretend there hadn’t been a ghost here at all. It felt wrong, but he couldn’t dwell on that. He had to find his student. 

He ran into an empty classroom and searched, but found nothing. He peered out the door but saw no sign of the ghost. He ran to search the next classroom, ignoring the trail of glowing green beneath his feet. Empty, just like the last one. 

What if he was too late? Daniel was by no means a particularly strong or brave child. The boy was terrified of ghosts and would likely be too overwhelmed with fear to try to think of an escape route if cornered. 

He searched the next classroom, still no sign of the boy. Suddenly the animal ghost burst through the walls of the classroom, barreling towards him and roaring with anger. He scrambled to hide behind one of the tables that had been knocked over and braced for impact, but it never came. 

He heard an ear-splitting screech of pain followed by a large thud and the scraping of hooves against tile. The scraping gradually faded off and Edward was left alone again.

He took in a deep breath and quickly began to hyperventilate. He could have been killed. God, he nearly was killed. Maybe he was the wrong person to do this. Maybe he should leave and let the Fentons handle this when they arrived. Maybe he should just hide and hope he isn’t discovered.

But if he did that, what would happen to Daniel? As a teacher he had two main responsibilities, to educate his students, and to protect them. To protect them even if that meant sacrificing his own life to save theirs. 

Daniel was his student, and he wasn’t going to sit back and let his student die.

Edward stood up and left the classroom to continue his search. He sped from room to room, trying to ignore the furious screeches threatening to split his skull open, trying not to think about what might happen to him if he was caught by the beast emitting them, trying not to think about what would happen if Daniel was caught.

Distressing images flashed through his head. Images of his student, abdomen ripped open and organs spilling out, mouth open, eyes vacant and clouded over. Worse, head crushed underneath hooves, skull fragments and teeth scattered across the floor, a leg detached from the rest of his body, being gnawed on by the beast as if it were a dog’s chew toy. He shook his head and tried to get rid of them, but they refused to leave. 

Thrown down a flight of stairs, neck broken and skull cracked from the impact. Head bitten off by powerful jaws. Pierced through the stomach and left to slowly bleed out. Eaten alive, still thrashing and screaming, begging to be let go- 

He heard the yelling again, Daniel wasn’t dead yet. If he followed the sound, he would find Daniel. And if he found Daniel, he’d be able to help him escape. He ran down the stairs and sprinted to the west side of the school, the shouts growing louder and louder, and the inhuman screeching growing along with them. He forced himself to ignore the screeches, he needed to protect his student, he couldn’t run away from danger this time. But right as he reached the source of the screaming, he froze. 

The ghost, a ginormous and terrifying boar with tusks sharp as daggers protruding from its jaws and a single spiral horn erupting from its forehead, and a small body pinned to the wall, pierced through the middle by its horn.

The screams hadn’t been coming from his student.

It had been another ghost.

The phantom.

He shouldn’t get involved. He should just leave. This was a dangerous situation. He needed to leave and find Daniel. But one glance at the smaller ghost’s eyes and he couldn’t. His hands were shaking, his heart was accelerating, his breathing was getting faster and faster. He grabbed the legs of a desk and, with a strength he didn’t know he had, struck the boar in the face with it.

The boar screamed and fell to the ground, releasing the boy from its hold. It attempted to stand back up, but Edward struck it again and again. His arms felt like they could fall off, but he continued to strike the boar. His legs felt like they could no longer support his weight, but he continued to strike the boar. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t think, but he continued to strike the boar. It wasn’t until his legs gave out and his arms refused to move the desk again that he realized that the boar wasn’t going to get up.

He knelt there, staring at the creature, breathing heavily and trying to understand what had just happened. The horn was broken off of its head and into two pieces, the core of it glowing green and sparking, yet gradually dimming as the seconds passed. The face was caved in, and there was ectoplasm everywhere. Had he really done that? The boar began to melt and bubble away, slowly simmering into nothingness.

“Are you alright?” Edward snapped his head towards the source of the question and winced when his eyes met the large wound in the phantom’s abdomen. It was gushing out ectoplasm and he could even see some of the boy’s organs inside.

“Shouldn't I be asking you that?” Edward replied. “Do you need help? I could get you a first aid kit if you’d like.” 

The phantom’s face scrunched up in thought. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be outside with everyone else? There was an evacuation, wasn't there?”

Edward jumped as he remembered what he was doing before. “I’m missing a student. He didn’t evacuate with all the others and I-”

“Daniel Fenton?” Phantom offered, then flinched slightly, as if he regretted saying anything.

“Yes. How did you know?” Edward looked at him curiously.

“I,” Phantom looked around the room, seemingly hesitant to give up the answer. “I helped him get out.”

Edward let out a relieved breath. “So he’s safe?”

Phantom looked down at his wound and paused before speaking. “Yes. he’s safe.”

It felt like a large weight was lifted off his shoulders. His student was alive. He looked back to the wound in Phantom’s abdomen and winced. “I’m going to go find a first aid kit so I can help fix your wounds. Don’t move from this spot, I’ll be right back.”

He ran out of the room and down the hall, quickly losing his breath. Now that the threat of imminent danger was gone, it seemed that his limits had been put back in place. He slowed to a halt and leaned against the wall next to him to catch his breath. He would have to walk.

He was almost to the nurse’s office when he began to hear hushed voices.

“...ectoplasmic readings…faded gradually… cut off like usual…could mean…not sure…”

He crept closer to the source of the sound, careful to not be heard, before realizing there was no danger in being observed. He began to walk normally, yet still relatively quietly towards the source of the sound, feeling rather silly for his earlier actions.

The voices soon became clear as he came closer, and before too long, he could see the familiar orange and teal jumpsuits of Jack and Madeline Fenton. “...knew we should have brought the tracker.”

“There’s still an ecto-signature in the building. He has to be around here somewhere.”

Edward cleared his throat, causing the other two to jump and face him. “Drs. Fenton, might I ask what exactly you are doing here?”

Jack and Madeline both jumped before turning to face him, Jack looking confused and Madeline with a smile on her face. It was a sweet smile on the surface, he had seen this smile a million times on a million different faces. But rather than feeling warm and inviting like it usually would, it felt cold, condescending. He felt insignificant under her gaze. “Oh, Mr. Lancer, we were alerted to an attack here. We just wanted to make sure everything was alright.”

Edward steeled himself and forced his emotions to remain hidden from her dissecting gaze. “And I do appreciate that. But, I do believe that the attack is over now. Am I correct?”

Her smile strained a bit, but she was quick to cover it up. “Yes, that ghost boy must have captured it. And we’ll be out of your hair as soon as we have him” Madeline attempted to step past him, but Edward moved to block her. Edward started to feel his temper slip and by the looks of things, the same could be said for both Jack and Maddie.

Edward crossed his arms and let out a breath to attempt to calm himself down. “I see, and is this ghost boy an immediate threat to the safety and wellbeing of the students?” 

“No, but he’s up to something,” Jack answered with fake enthusiasm. He was grinning from ear to ear, but somehow it seemed more like a baring of teeth. “We just know it. We need to capture and interrogate him, maybe do a bit of ripping apart if we can, and figure out what he’s up to, right Madds?”

“Exactly. We’re so close to figuring this out, and now we have him cornered. This might be our only chance for months. So if you would please excuse us-” She forcefully pushed Edward out of the way and along with her husband, began to march down the hall towards the room where he had left Phantom in.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, I-”

Madeline turned her head to face him, the same perfectly condescending smile on her face. “Doctor Fenton.” She corrected.

“I’ll call you whatever I damn well please.” Edward nearly shouted. Every shred of subtlety was stripped from his demeanor. The pair froze in their steps and whipped around to face him. “The agreement here was that you lend aid when needed. That you help when a ghost attack threatens the lives of our students and staff and leave when the threat has passed. The agreement was not that you use this school as a trap to corner and shoot down children based on a hunch. You have no authority here, the only reason you are able to hunt the ghosts that attack here is because we allow you.”

Madeline’s entire face turned red with fury while Jack stared down to the ground, barely suppressed rage clear on his face. Madeline marched forward towards Edward and spat out her retort like venom on her tongue.

“The reason we are able to hunt the ghosts who attack here is because we are the world's leading experts in ectoplasmic behaviour, biology, and most importantly for this case, extermination. It is not just a hunch. You’ve seen firsthand what he’s capable of and yet, he still has you fooled. Though with what I’ve seen of your intelligence, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. That thing is extremely dangerous and could turn on us at any moment. Can’t you see, he’s using all of us for his sick-”

“That’s enough.” Edward cut her off, face deliberately cold and expressionless. He looked down at her with the intent to instill the same feeling of insignificance she gave him earlier.

She stomped her foot, seeming like a stick of dynamite with a fire almost to the base of the fuse. “No, I don’t want to hear any of your-”

“Please exit the building. If you don’t in the next five minutes I will contact the authorities. The same goes for if I see you lurking in the parking lot or circling the building.” 

And just like that, the flame sputtered before finally going out. She glared at him with a look that could break the bravest of men, turned around, and marched towards the entrance, followed shortly behind by her husband.

He watched as they passed through the door, entered their abomination of a vehicle, and left before he let out a relieved breath of air. If it were up to him, those two wouldn’t be allowed to enter school grounds, ghost attack or not. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. He continued on his way to the nurse’s office, grabbed a roll of gauze, disinfectant, and whatever else seemed useful, and made his way back to the classroom he left the phantom in.

He just couldn’t understand some people. Yes, it was good to be cautious, but never to this extent. To attack a child for a crime you have no proof he will commit, it was the coward’s way out. There had only been two instances where the phantom had been reported doing anything immoral, and both had been proven to be falsely incriminating. The Fenton’s had even confirmed this, however reluctantly they were to do so. It was extremely unjust, not to mention selfish, to attack Amity Park’s greatest ghost defence on nothing but baseless accusations and prejudice.

Edward forced himself to calm down. There was no use in getting so upset, especially now that the cause of the frustration had left. He reached the door of the room he had left Phantom in, took a deep breath, and opened it.

Phantom was nowhere to be seen.

He stood there for a minute, frozen, unsure what to do, before calmly looking around the room for the missing ghost. All he found in his search however was a sheet of notebook paper, torn at the edge with just two words written on it.

Thank you. 

He supposed he should have expected this. After all, he had never heard of anyone before ever getting that close to the phantom without capturing him first. It would make sense that he would flee to take care of his own wounds rather than stay to accept help. 

He left the medical supplies in the room. Just in case.

[caos-headcanons]

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. REWRITE IDEAS:

Lilith doesn’t kill Ms. Wardwell. She puts her into an eternal sleep and wakes her up at the end of Part 2.

The Weird Sisters are more flashed out and their individual personalities are more empathized and they all have individual hobbies and interests. Prudence likes to read and expand her horizon, Agatha likes to dance and starts to get interested in being a DJ, Dorcas is artistic and loves to do creative projects.

When Sabrina goes full time to the Academy, she interacts with other witches aside from Nick and the weird sisters.

Only the Weird Sisters wear these dark dresses with lace collars. The other witches wear outfits based on the time periods of their 16th birthdays. Witches who turned 16 in the 80s wear 80s based outfits, those who were 16 in the 90s wear 90s outfits etc.

Sabrina actually explains to Harvey how the Witch World works and she also explains to Nick how the Mortal World works.

There are more interactions between Sabrina’s mortal friends and her witch friends.

We will see the familiars of Faustus, Constance, Prudence, Agatha, Dorcas, Melvin and Elspeth.

We actually get to see Zelda bringing new witches, including Heather into the coven.

After the Church of Night becomes the Order of Hecate. The witches start to pursue their personal hobbies and interests.

Mambo Marie doesn’t go to the Underworld.

Prudence uses Nagaina’s Head in order to get rid of Blackwood, because Petrification does not mean that someone is dead.

[the-arkham-librarian]

"Would you like to hold Nagaina? I think she is quite curious about you." Copperhead says as the female king cobra sifts gently through his hands, tongue flickering calmly as she comes to a stop. Fierce but intelligent eyes look on at Eliza, but Copperhead keeps ahold of the giant snake, not handing her over until given the okay to do so.

"I would love to hold her!" Eliza is thrilled to be handed the snake. "Perhaps she smells Medusa?" Holding out her hand, Eliza waits to let Nagaina come to her.

[doggygirlie]

we lost nagaina yesterday, so that's what's been going on.

[mataglap]

author recs? always. 

in no particular order (I’m going through my bookmarks), with a sample excellent fic for taste:

CommonNonsense -- Adaptation motorghost - catch yourself leoandlancer - More than Most Nagaina - Ghost Stories on Route 66 spinel - Customary fishpoets - Foxhole Dreaming coinin - Pine Woods wyntera -- The Siege of Kakōgan Castle EtLaBete -- A Man Is His Actions

many of those use Cassidy’s old name, so if that sours your reading experience, I recommend the Word Replacer II extension for Chrome. 

[sencilla-mentelibros]

The Jungle Book

I didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did. I mean, I wasn’t expecting anything really. I had seen the Disney movie, yet I wasn’t expecting it to be the same. Disney is known for retelling stories and the original ones tend to be sometimes a little bit darker or full of warnings, quite different from the sugar coded stories that the little mouse brings us. That being said, I can tell you that this is one situation where the story is loosely based on the characters of the book. Remember «I, Robot»? Where we are told different stories by the book about different robots, each at a different time and place; yet in the movie we are shown Sonny’s story…, remember that? Well, this is similar. It turns out Baloo is not as goofy and Kaa is not an antagonist, but an ally. It seems that there is some of the story of the movie based on the three tales of the book, but it is not the same. I am not dissing nor undermining the movie, I just wanted to clarify that it’s a different work. Unlike «Little Women» that remains very similar to the books.

Now, the reading of Kipling’s tales has been wonderful. He creates its own universe and, although it is set in India, it feels universal. I would go to say that what Asimov does for robotics, Kipling does for the fantasy jungle life. He establishes a world where there are laws to follow and one must abide to those laws. This brings a lot of consistency to the book, since there is a frame within which we can move, or the jungle people can move. We can submerge into the jungle as well as our characters and although Kipling doesn’t stop to depict every leaf, rock or flower; you can feel yourself as one of the jungle folks.

This Law is taught by Baloo to Mowgli, because he is in charge of teaching young cubs the rules they must follow and, we are told by the narrator, Mowgli even needs to learn more than the young wolves because he is a man’s cub. How did this man’s cub arrive among the Free People ―the wolves―? How does he survive his life in the jungle? What is his fate? This is all carefully narrated by Kipling within the book. However, the adventures of Mowgli are not the only ones.

The book is divided in seven chapters:

1. Mowgli’s Brothers: we read about Mowgli arriving to the jungle and how he became one of the pack.

2. Kaa’s Hunting: and adventure brought by the Bandar-log ―the Monkey Folk― to Mowgli, starring the python Kaa.

3. Tiger! Tiger!: another Mowgli story featuring Sheere Khan, the tiger.

4. The White Seal: Kotick’s journey, the white Seal’s journey.

5. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi: the story of a mongoose that finds himself domesticated.

6. Toomai of the Elephants: it’s all about the elephants

7. Her Majesty’s servants: a conversation among the animals of a regiment.

Each one of them ended by a poetic song that highlights an important moment in the story and not all of them about our beloved characters from the big screen: Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera, Raksha, Kaa, etc. We follow the journey of Kotick, for example, the only white seal ever seen, who travels all the oceans to find a safe place for its people. We root for Rikkit-Tikki-Tavi in his fight with Nag and Nagaina to defend his family. And so on.

What I love the most about the book is that the author is very good at building a pact with the reader. What is plausible in this world. What can we do and what can’t we do. Also, these short stories are full of sentiment despite their length and show a sense of camaraderie and companionship reflected on its characters.

I don’t know if these are fables, but I can’t extract a moral teaching from the texts. Might be that I am not really good at it, but if you can tell me what they teach, I’ll be more than glad to listen. I also don’t believe this are children tales or readings. Starting with the language, with its archaic vocabulary, and ending with some scenes that I wouldn’t read to children. I think you need to have a certain maturity and knowledge or moral compass to differentiate fiction from reality. I don’t know if this ever was children literature or if the values have changed, but I think there are other readings better suited for young children.

Anyway, for me it was a fantastic read and I recommend it, as well as the edition. This is a Harper Design edition with illustrations by MinaLima and it has amazing drawings. It is all very interactive. I give it five stars.

Fecha original de publicación: febrero 11, 2023.

[cxpperhead]

Serpentine eyes gaze down at the city streets below, watching as people do their last minute shopping in anticipation of tomorrow. He's not a great lover of chocolate and other sweet treats most people are into at this time of year - he can smell them in the air even from as high as up here but tomorrow he's got a fruit basket to look forwards to, his biggest meal since the year began, along with a delicious steak and plenty of treats for the other snakes in his care.

[theminecraftbox]

guys I’m so fuckin sad about Nag and Nagaina

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

Jukebox reviews part 51! For context, see my post “A Project” under  this same tag. If you want to see a full list of his EMCSA stories,  they can be found here, sorted alphabetically.And if you want to see some of his drabbles, check out his blog at @jukeboxemcsa​

Boy Problems

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5/23/2020                                     mc mf md rb

Nope. NOPE. The *moment* a Boy pushes on a gal who's ace I'm out. I can't. (Compare this to the story "A Kind of Girl I Could Love," and ... oof.)

 The Ultimate Vacation

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5/30/2020                                     mc mf ff md fd

This is an interesting way to tell the story, and their screening process is thorough and clever, but also. The sheer sameness isn't a thing I enjoy and it's something that I honestly find to be a turnoff.  But the narrative, the approach, is super cool and fun even if the outcome is more than a little meh to me. Give it a read just for the style, if nothing else! 7/10 spirals

 Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family

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6/6/2020                                       mc

... Jukebox likes horror. I don't. That flavors my opinion on stories such as this one that are as much horror as erotica, if not moreso. This isn't for me, it just isn't. But if you like the vibe of folk being hunted by a cult or ... something like a cult? I guess? I dunno, whatever they are... you'd probably enjoy this one much more than I did. 4/10 spirals

 Keep Your Eyes Open

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6/13/2020                                     mc mf md

I appreciate this post highlighting some of the myths about hypnosis that people like to believe, for all of course the hypnotist doing so has his own nefarious motivations for doing so. I do think he pushes it a way I don't like so much, but I can go past that because I enjoy the basic set up so much. But the poor cop who just wants to help this one arrested gal so much, falling into this trap.... it's a good story with seriously good hypnotic language and double bind set-ups. 8/10 spirals 

 Dream Girl (Jukebox)

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6/27/2020                                     mc ff rb

CHARITY! Oh, yay! I like her! (So not only is this another Girls(tm) story, but a direct sequel to "You're not an Ordinary Girl") I love how she's so invested in this entire everything, and it's just so FUN to see the reality of A Hypnokinkster in this world where the Girls(tm) are all hypnotists. I don't get the Nagaina thing, that's never been my kink, but it doesn't matter. Charity's enthusiasm is all the connection I need to this story. 10/10 spirals 

 Mindless Self Indulgence

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6/27/2020                                     mc mf md ma

This is another story that starts withh someone trying to break up with a hypnotist/mind controller/etc, the exact role doesn't matter for the trope and it's a trope I'm just not fond of. The control being used to overwhelm someone's attempt to advocate for themselves just turns my stomach and I can't give it a fair rating, But hey, if you like that trope, it's a story for you. 

 You’re My Temptation

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7/4/2020                                       mc

.... Narrator, friend, there are literal hypnokink conventions you could go to and find brilliant, clever ladies to melt into a puddle with their consent. I know *multiple* people who would love most if not all of that fantasy. Though I understand the temptation, and as I remind my girlfriend on a regular basis, you can learn to resist anything but temptation. (I mean, I used to be a good Catholic, I know you can resist temptation, but the longer you think of it as a temptation the harder it is to resist, so ... anyway). I don't know that I like the ending - though my brain has decided that she was asking about the pendant as a way of flirting with someone she thought was a hypnotist, because then I enjoy the story more, so y'know, reader's choice there. It's a lovely sort of story that's a lovely series of fantasies and the importance of language, and I really enjoyed it. 9/10 spirals 

 The Abduction of Margaret

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7/11/2020                                     mc ff ma

This one is dark in ways that are absolute turnoffs for me. The cold, dispassionate approach, the threats of killing her if she isn't useful... all of it just puts me off. But if you like cold and dispassionate, you might like this one? 

 Plain Gold Ring

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7/18/2020                                     mc mf md

Ahhhhh these two are so cute and shy and I like them so much!!! Rosita and Mateo just feel real in that way some of Jukebox's best (to me) stories do, including the adorable bits of awkwardness that never tip into secondhand embarassment somehow. And seeing Mateo be so very respectful and ethical, even when Rosita blurts out something while entranced that she never meant to share ... well. They're cute and I hope there's more stories involving them in the future, that's all. 10/10 spirals 

 It’s All About Feeling Good

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7/25/2020                                     mc

I don't think I've mentioned how much I appreciate how JB prefaces these inductions - a clear statement of what's to be included, and a clear statement that the reader/listener can choose to ignore any suggestions they don't feel safe and comfortable accepting. It's a really nice preface. And this induction also includes a permissive definition of pleasure - sexual, sure, but not necessarily; quite explicitly it could just be "happiness or joy" or any other sort of way the listener wants to interpret pleasure. This isn't a set of suggestions I get much out of - I'm quite good at the skill it's trying to teach, personally, after years of practice - but for folk who are less skilled at feeling that pleasure on command? It's a lovely file and as always, technically solid. 10/10 spirals