#some of these cats have homes and are fed regularly

[victorian-vampir]

Hey.

Jekyll and Hyde is not about a DID system (it's about duality of mankind and repression)

Grizabella was not shunned from the jellicle cats because she was a sex worker (We don't know why she was shunned because it's not important. Also she's a cat, how the fuck is she a sex worker when she's a cat. Promiscuity is not an issue for the clan regardless.)

Victor Frankenstein is not at fault for his monster leaving. (He stood in his back garden for six hours waiting for the sun to rise before going for a walk. When he got back to his house the monster had left)

There are multiple interpretations of text and stories. However there's also times where the text blatantly spells out what it's try to say. Or it doesn't. And you end up with a cat who maybe did sex work and I have no idea how.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

You may notice I frequently comment on the assumptions people make about animal facilities based on their branding. Frequently, people assume accredited facilities are inherently better for animals than unaccredited facilities, or assume sanctuaries are inherently more moral / better at caring for their animals than zoos.

I want to show you an example of why I am always, always skeptical of these assumptions.

If you’re in the California area, you might have heard about Hank the Tank - who is actually a Henrietta, btw - the 500 pound nuisance bear from Lake Tahoe who broke into 21 homes in search of food. She was recently captured by wildlife officials and moved to a sanctuary in Colorado. The Wild Animal Sanctuary has three main facilities, two in Colorado and one in TX. To give you some context, it’s the biggest carnivore sanctuary in the country - they advertise somewhere between 300-500 animals, mostly large carnivores, between their properties. It’s where most of the Tiger King cats went. It’s PETA’s preferred placement for confiscated exotic animals. So, obviously, it’s got to be great, right? Except… take a look at what they posted about Henrietta’s arrival.

Here’s their post about Henrietta’s arrival at the Refuge, the large facility in Colorado that isn’t open to the public. Let’s take a closer look at that food trough…

What do we see here? An entire rotisserie chicken that is either blackened or highly seasoned, and a whole ham. Maybe a second chicken underneath the pile, I can’t quite tell. The sanctuary gets the majority of their bear food donated from groceries stores once it’s past the sell-by date, so we know those are older meats and they’re full of a ton of salt. Then, for fruit and veg, there’s a cantaloupe, mango, corn, avocado, grapes, and apples. Maybe a pepper or two, it’s hard to tell. That’s a lot of sugar and not a lot of fiber or roughage.

But… on top of it and to the right… are those Twizzlers?

Yes.

The sanctuary confirmed on Facebook that they fed this recently rescued obese bear what looks like almost an entire pack of Twizzlers.

I don’t know of any world in which it’s appropriate to feed candy to a bear. Maybe a piece or two as a really high value reinforcer for hard behaviors (that isn’t relevant here, it’s openly against this sanctuary’s ethos to do any husbandry or medical training). An entire pack of Twizzlers is just appalling. But it’s not uncommon for this facility! I have a book written about their operations and animal care (that I bought at their gift shop this spring) which openly discusses how the bears get fed bread, doughnuts, marshmallows, and all sorts of incredibly unhealthy food that comes in with the grocery donations.

But hey, this is apparently fine for the bears, according to the sanctuary’s founder. He was quoted in that same book as saying “Bears are the only animal I know of that can eat insane amounts of sugar and it never hurts them. It does not hurt their organs. They do not get clogged arteries. They do not have high blood pressure. In the wild they eat all these sweet berries in the fall, and they convert sugar to fat… so the more sugar they get the better… we would all love to have a system like that!”

Now while it’s true that bears have physiological adaptations that modulate their insulin production and sensitivity in ways that appear to prevent them from from developing diabetes, that does’t mean it’s healthy for them to regularly eat processed carbohydrates, sugar, and general junk food. And remember - Henrietta gained her fame because of how incredibly overweight she already is, and because she was seeking out human food, According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, a healthy weight for a normal adult black bear is between 100-300 pounds. So, obviously, the best thing to do is… continue to feed her candy.

Then, later on in the book, it details how they have to bribe a camel to sit tight for a regular medical examination (since they don’t train for medical behaviors) by letting him drink a can of Mountain Dew each time.

If a zoo was known publicly to be feeding their animals Mountain Dew or a couple Twizzlers - even just once, on a rare occasion - they’d be eviscerated in the media and by public opinion. But feeding out inappropriate junk food appears to be a pretty common practice at this place, and it just goes unscrutinized because everyone assumes sanctuaries are inherently better for animals.

So, long story short, never make assumptions about the quality of a facility based on it’s branding or accreditation. (TWAS is accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries). If you have concerns about the ethics or practices of a facility, always try to put your preconceptions aside, go and see for yourself, and think critically about what you see and what you’re told.

[suguru-getos]

“they’ll kill you!” — “can they?”

satosugu x reader — cnc

warnings: cnc!, degradation, prone!bone, doggy, use of toys, clamps, spreader, spankings. aftercare <3 pls note that it’s not beta’d there might be typos xx 💋

you were tired as you returned from work, footsteps dragging across from the stairs to finally reach the bedroom of the sato-sugu estate. this was the least thrilling bit of your day, no one was home. satoru was busy with a mission & suguru was outside — doing you don’t know what. you don’t question the morality of your husband number two. you’ve learnt to let him be in his element, just like satoru.

opening the refrigerator, you found satoru’s mochi, suguru’s favorite soup & a little bit of leftovers from the morning lunch prepared by the chef. they’re also on leave & at this point you’re conflicted between using the ordering in app in your phone, or cooking something for yourself. a grunt escapes you as you weigh down the options and settle down on the marvelous wood sculpted chair of the dining table. scrolling aimlessly through the various restaurants to get something that you desire. fucking hell! why is ordering food such a daunting task! when satoru and suguru return, you’d bother them & be clingy endlessly just cause you miss their brainless bickering. satoru would be just as aimless like you, fumbling through the menu and debating on what to order… suguru would have the same thing eaten on repeat. so much so that it annoys the both of you.

speaking of — it goes without saying how many ‘enemies’ your husbands have. one is a special grade sorcerer, the other is a bloody cult leader. both of them jacked & bagged with heaps of copius amounts of money & status in their own ways. you’re their silly little wife, someone capable of becoming a sorcerer, someone who could see curses and cursed spirits, yet choosing a life like nanami kento. a life away from the wretched world of sorcery.

a thud, takes your attention away from your phone a bit. who could it be? there are cats in the estate which are regularly fed, it could be your son (your cat that you and your husbands cherish equally). you roll your eyes and go back to checking the menu. fuck this, if you don’t have any ideas on what to order, you will order some spicy cheesy ramen & get go with your day.

after placing the order, you dragged yourself to the bathroom to take a shower, it would be better before bed after all, sleeping in plush clean pillows and letting your body heat come down as the cold water would drench your worries away.

your phone vibrated before you could take another step to the bedroom, it was suguru, “oh hey…” you chirped, smiling over the phone. “hey darling, reached home?” he sounds cheerful, mostly when he hears your voice of course. you’ve noticed suguru talks to you in the most gentlest of ways; enough to sound patronising at times. you know its not his intention though… “yeah, just reached home. when are you n’ toru coming?” you pouted over the speaker, and he chuckled. “give me an hour or two and i’ll be right there, next to my beautiful angel. mm?” you gnaw at your lip, nodding gently, the realization coming later that he can’t really ‘see’ your response and you hummed, “yeah, come soon to me mkay?”

where were you again? ah… the shower…

the doorbell rang, your eyes instantly mingling with the lit screen of your watch as you turned your wrist. jeez, it had only been 15 minutes or so since you ordered, the food is here so soon? you checked your phone, and the order was still showing ‘preparing’ status. weird… who could it be?

you walked towards the entrance, and the knock was more powerful, almost angry sounding & impatient. “who’s there?” you raised a brow, sighing a little to gather your patience and also your wits.

no answer…

then, the door was knocked off the hinges, you shrieked almost, walking backwards and pupils moving in fear. what was even happening? there were two men, one of them had bangs and the other white haired and scary looking. he smirked, walking closer to you and holding your face instantly, squeezing your cheeks into a forced pucker. “dumb little thing can’t even open a door? jeez?” he chuckled, rolling his eyes.

the dude with bangs held his shoulder, a knowing, close-eyed smile. “leave it be, she must be their weakling of a wife, gojo.”

he nodded, “weakling indeed, look at how she’s cowering.” he chuckled, leaning in and licking a fat strip of your neck, from your collarbone to your ear. you wince, struggling and trying hard to push him away. “SWOP IT!” you whined, the grip on your cheek turning harder and making it difficult to sound coherent.

“swop it!” gojo mimicks you, pushing you a little as he lets you go. “ we were here to steal the cursed tools but we might as well do some cursed thingys, no?” he snickered, and you shake your head, nauseated as your heart raced and you leaned back, unlucky enough to be stopped by a wall.

“m-my husbands- will be home soon… if you really care about your lives then leave!” you sounded as intimidating as possible, trying so hard to evade the bone crushing anxiety that the two powerful men were giving. “of course, we’d be gone by then.” the man with bangs replied, ignoring you and looking around. “nice house, your husbands don’t care about you enough it seems, why else would they leave their little wife alone in such a looming, large place?”

“shut up! even if you leave they’d hunt you down and they’d find you! suguru can deploy curses that are exceptional in hunting people down.” you only have your husbands and their skills to protect you right now. “did you hear that geto? she’s so mouthy and has such an attitude, damn!”

“about time we show her the world isn’t a good place… also, with a body like that? she’s practically asking for it.” the black haired man — geto, chuckled, rolling his eyes and walking closer.

your mind was hazy by now, and all you could see was the corridor to make a run to. you do exactly that, and how stupid— it took gojo exactly four steps to catch up to you by your hair and chuckle at your screaming. “let me go! let me go!” you winced, letting your feet dragged back to the couch. “would be fun to ruin her at this point.” geto hums, crossing his arms & smirking at the way you shake your head no, pleading almost.

“in the same bed her bastard husbands make sweet sweet love to her.” gojo chuckles, “aww, don’t look at us like thaatt? i’m sure they would understand that boobs like that would get ya into trouble.” gojo winked, smirking.

“ass, too.” geto added, smirking gently.

“piss off and die, rot in hell and fucking die!” you snarled, tearing up at the way they talked about you. “can’t handle them mouthy tell ya that.” gojo sounded almost feigning apologetic, bringing out a handkerchief out from his pocket and holding both ends diagonally.

you were about to be gagged, terror seeped through your eyes as you shook your head. but geto was faster, immediately hindering all your resistance by keeping you locked. his hands quickly wrapping around your wrist and holding it behind your back, his legs wrapping around yours, spreading your thighs apart vulnerably.

"aw good one!" gojo comments, smirking and walking closer. "stop it, stop it right now!" you screeched, using your last chance to speak anything at all. gojo came closer, tying the handkerchief across the parting of your lips. only incoherent struggles and whines could escape you now.

"there we go, perfect little muzzled bitch." gojo chuckled, and you teared up at that statement, it was humiliating to have two men out here, having their way with you in the absence of your husbands. you hated the way it made you feel, how the proximity with geto was making your pelvis warm, and your insides... warm.

"she's crying... stop being so mean. maybe we can call satoru to help her? maybe he can coax and coddle her while we ruin her?" you widened your eyes at that insinuation, shaking your head no and muffled groans escaping you.

gojo chuckled, "aw, she wouldn't want that? why? scared they'd abandon you cause your insides changed shape to our cocks?" he smirked, "no worries sweetheart, we could hire you as our personal cocksleeve."

you glared at the man, not saying anything and saliva dribbling down your chin. "only if she's a good cocksleeve though" geto hums, shrugging. "don't get the special treatment if you're not good enough. or not tight enough."

"time to check!" gojo rubs his palms together, walking closer with eyes fucking you already. his hands are quick to rip off any clothing off of you, your cunt and your tits exposed to the two strangers and the cool air of the mansion.

it felt humiliating, all bare in front of two merciless, wolf like men who only want to ruin you. "would teach those two a lesson too, no?" geto mused and gojo nodded, "yeah, think they own the fuckin' world? now what? your wife knocked up by two strangers.."

"ruined, by two strangers." geto corrected gojo.

"ahhng- nn" you tried to manage to speak, unable to say anything coherent at all. only wiggling in resistance. you stop once you feel geto's semi nudge your ass though. this could do more harm than good.

"oh god she's grindin' already?" gojo smirked, walking closer and crossing his arms. "let's take her to the bedroom." they nodded, reaching that decision fast enough. when geto relents his hold on you, you're quick to hit his jaw with your head, feet landing aiming right at gojo's crotch. he holds your ankle and geto laughs, "couldn't even give me a nose-bleed, little one?"

you're the most terror-struck as you've ever been. you fucked up. pupils moving and heart racing. no way these two would let your silly little stunt go.

"she needs proper taming i'm telling you. like literally..." gojo laughs, almost looking impressed. "bend her over the couch."

"actually, i have a better plan" suguru muses, while your heart only gives out at the prospect of them discussing what to do with you. you hate how it's making you feel down there, and pretty sure they'd see that soon when your body betrays you.

gojo and geto only knowingly smile at each other, as if they were easily able to read the other's mind and they stride towards the bedroom. once you're placed on bed, this time gojo forces you on all fours, ignoring your whines and hand gripping your nape as he nails you to the bed. geto seems to be searching for toys you and your husbands indulge in from time to time.

he lets out an "aha!" when he finds them, smirking and taking out the clamps, the cuffs, the spreader, and the vibrator. your hands are cuffed behind your back and the spreader keeps your legs from closing. you are truly under their mercy now.

"mmgh mmf" you really wish you could do something, anything about it... "is that fucking cunt wet?" gojo is quick to dehumanize you for it, laughing. "don't tell me they've been pampering a slut as their wife?" it stings, his words sting and you close your eyes in disgust, a feeble attempt at closing your legs not gone unnoticed.

"why else would she be so embarrassed?" geto smirks. attaching the clamps to your nipples with some weights. satosugu have never tried the weights and the delicious tug on your tits only makes you whine more. he flicks the weights to let it jiggle like a pendulum and you cry out at the feeling. shuddering and whimpering at how your pussy clamps around nothing because of it.

"don't think this is enough, she needs proper punishment for trying to hit us." gojo scoffed, using the clamp right at your clit after testing it on his hand. you let out a surprised shriek, struggling with all your might against it, though you realize that would only worsen the ache in your tits. your pussy oozed out in your juices and fluttered as they bit your clit just right.

geto nods, slapping the fat of your bare ass with his hand, letting his handprint break out in a single hit. they really weren't playing around. every hit after that, makes you lurch forward, and makes the clamps wiggle and makes you cry out. gojo chuckles, watching your ass bruise with the spanking now. you lost count after ten, in your head, but you feel your mind float away, it's around 18 hits or so, that geto stops, when your whines and screams turn soft and dejected. when you give up.

you're so edged but the clamp on your clit wouldn't let you cum. "look at her, finally can't resist anymore?" he smirked, and upon not receiving a response, gojo tugs at your clit-clamp's chain a little. you cry out in pain, finally letting him remove the clamps altogether.

"yeah, finally someone's learnt how to behave." he smirked, and your whines turned into wheezing when the blood flow rushed back to your tits and clit, swathing you in a coughing fit as you choke on your spit. "oh jeez, calm down..." gojo scoffed, removing the gag from your mouth and watching the imprints of it on your face.

"you okay?" he's looking sympathetic and worried, and at the first chance of getting to speak again, you snap. "you're a fucking bastard with no manliness of your own, bet you don't even have a cock half as big as satoru"

he smirked again, chuckling and rolling his eyes. "the gag goes back on it seems." he looked at geto who shrugged, "no, let her scream when she realizes we're bigger and better than her husbands." before you could resist, you could feel the spread in your cunt lips from his fingers and the splitting apart sensation of his cock inside you.

crying out at the feeling, edged beyond belief, your cunt immediately hugs him down, his hand quick to un-do your cuffs and pulling you closer, letting your back collide against his chest as he drills your poor pussy apart, rutting without a single thread of restraint.

gojo only watches your breasts jiggle and jump at every thrust, leaning in and wrapping his warm mouth around the tortured, perked bud. his tongue languidly soothes over the bite mark of the clamp and he suckles, one hand pinching and kneading your tits to ensure the blood flow is back, the other rubbing circles at your clit. he undoes your spreader finally.

you moan like a whore indeed, this feels too good, you hate how good it feels and you despise how your senses are burning at this. the knot in your pelvis snaps and you gush all over geto's cock like a needy little girl, sending him reeling down also. you shake your head, the prospect of his warmth inside your cunt only makes you hate it further, "no- no no don't cum inside NO DON'T!" you cry out, shaking your head as his palm covers your mouth, muffling any cries as he churns your pussy by tucking and thrusting his load deeper.

you gasped and cried once geto finally comes to a halt. shoving you into a prone bone. "hey i'll take over, let her husbands discover a cum cocktail inside." gojo snickers, watching your body limping after the first orgasm as his cock shoves inside you easily, pistoning like a needy dog in a rut. the thrusts are powerful enough to feel like spanks of their own, and you only moan and whimper crudely; gritting your jaw at how amazing it feels and crumpling the mattress into your fists. this should not feel good... this should not feel this good. you're a cheater... your husbands would hate you.

"say what if they knew you had no problem cumming on our cocks?" geto chuckled watching you glance up at him teary eyed. "i hate this, i don't- AH" your sentences are reduced to moans already, and he chuckles.

the force on your tummy with the mattress nudged against it, and gojo's precise thrusts makes you twitch again. "uh uh... she's clamping again." he smirked at geto, "couldn't ask for permission from me, make sure she knows how to behave well now."

“we’ll just spank her swollen little clit this time around then” gojo smirked, and you widened your eyes in fear. your husbands long established that you only like it in a certain degree. these strangers knew nothing about you. you shake your head, squeezing your eyes shut. “no- no- stop it.” before long, you we’re trying your best to squirm away from him, only getting locked in a headlock though, when gojo’s hand wrapped around your neck, arching your back.

“then ask for permission…” he laughs, only rutting deeper and more spitefully. your eyes are losing focus and you can sense your pelvis tightening, the familiar knot in your gut was about to snap again. “would rather fucking die!” you managed to put up a fight again, though your body betrays you again & you’re tipping off the edge. gojo’s timed thrusts against your gspot made you squirt a little. absolutely humiliating…

“oh oh not only did she came she fuckin’ squirted on another man’s cock? do you wanna be our hired cocksleeve that bad?” he muses, filling you up with his seed, his jaw muscles are tightened at the way your pussy takes him… while, you’re getting light headed with the headlock & the orgasm, eyes losing focus and mouth agape.

before your mind could register anything else, geto has you manhandled, holding your legs apart by hooking his arms under your knees and then holding your wrists as he gravely whispered, “told you to ask for permission, brat.”

“n- no no- no no no no no please please” you’re shaking your head, thrown off your post orgasm bliss instantly and shuddering, “no please please…”

“no please- please…” gojo mocks, slapping across your swollen cunt instantly. you cry out and wince, tearing up once again & reducing to weak sniffling. “no- no-” you resist and cry out.

he raises his hand again, feigning another hit and observing you flinch, close your eyes and look to the side, bracing. you look up when he doesn’t hit though…

“give me another orgasm on my cock since you’re so eager.” he hums, and your mind has just about had it. your body has had quite a ride filled with different emotions & a squirting orgasm. you shake your head no, biting my lip. “no.” you looked at gojo, and he raises a brow, “no?”

“no” you pouted, sniffling a little. “my husbands are coming soon, gonna kick your ass. they’ll kill you.”

“would they?” suguru hums, relenting his grip on your feet and your body, craddling you closer to him and leaning you against his chest, peppering your face with soft, tender kisses. you sniffle & nodded, “mm~ yeah…”

satoru sighs, pouting, “you okay? princess?” he’s shaking a little, hoping you don’t end up hating him. “you’re okay?” he asks again, pouty and looking like a kicked puppy. “i was so mouthy wasn’t i?” he’s about to spiral. “no it was so fun.” you snicker, looking at him with a huge grin. a huge wave of relief washes over his face as he pulls you from suguru, holding you plush and kissing all over your face, your lips, passionately running his hands through your hair.

“good girl, gosh you handled it so well.” he muses, suguru humming, kissing satoru’s forehead and yours. “my angel, you were so good you know that? we didn’t mean anything we said, you know that right?” he soothes over your ass. you nodded, “mm~ yeah, i know daddy.” you coo, kissing his cheek.

“good, good… fuck- never again!” satoru scoffs, pouting big and harsh. “i know he’d say that.” you chuckled and looked at suguru, who nodded, tight lipped. “uh… i second that.”

you nodded, you knew both of them were indulging only because you read a fanfiction of one of your favorite characters and wanted to try. “fine, fine… i’m the one who should behaved traumatized!” you chuckled, and they pout together.

“oh please i was about to break character so many times, i knew you would kick my ass so i didn’t.” suguru hums, nuzzling his nose against you. “OH YEAH SAME!” satoru dramatically yells, “when she coughed i was about to lose it oh gods no-”

“let’s take a shower…” you coax their conversation, kissing both their foreheads.

“alright…”

“i love you both.” you mumbled, loopy and so subby.

“we love you too!” they hummed together, kissing your cheek.

[annwrites]

no sound but the wind. part one.

— pairing: adar x fem!reader

— type: part of mini-series

— summary: adar finds personal use for you as a slave of a different kind.

— tw: non-con

— word count: 3,212

— tagging list: @emilynissangtr

“And do you swear allegiance to Adar, father of the Uruks?”

You stare ahead at the man he speaks of—if he is even truly a man at all—observing his long, black, silken hair, his gray, sallow skin, the ruined sides of his face where the skin is pulled taught from scarring due to, you presume, fire—his thin lips tightly pursed while he awaits your answer. And it’s then that you notice his pointed ears.

His is an elf. How—how could he let this happen? How can he partake in it? He is meant to be wise and strong, yet gentle and fair. Not…whatever he has instead become.

It does not much matter how he has come upon the path which he now follows. What’s done is done.

All is now lost that once was to you because of it. That you’d most loved. That which had brought you joy and much more.

Like your village, where trees had flowered and bloomed year-round. Those of almond and chestnut, apple and peaches, sour lemons and limes. Some, which ivy grew upon the trunks of, while blossoms were peppered throughout green leaves that dappled the ground below in sunlight, which rays shone through from a clear blue sky above—white, fluffy clouds slowly floating past.

Or lush, soft, green grass which you would lie upon and nap. Clear, cool running water in streams that were always warm in the summer, and crisp in the autumn when those same sticky apples fell into the soil, feeding it until the year next when farmers would tend their fields of potatoes, carrots, pumpkins, lettuce, and strawberries—the various types of crops nearly endless. Mayhaps a few bushes of berries were to be had, as well.

Animals grazed the fields: cows and sheep and goats alike, and chickens would peck about around the settlement while pigs oinked in their pens, lazy cats slept upon windowsills, and pups ran along after smiling, playful children—their adoring parents watching along after them as young couples in love strolled into the small market in the middle of town to purchase goods.

Like spices and cured meats, colorful fabrics and dresses, woven baskets and pillar candles, pots and pans, and shimmering, beautiful glassware, among so much more.

And there would be gatherings in the square quite regularly: dances and festivals, competitions in archery or axe throwing, or quilt-making and pie baking.  Woodworkers and blacksmiths would presents their creations to all for purchase, for the cost of a pretty, shining coin—celebrations abound. Music and delicious foods were to be had, young maidens with flowers in their hair waiting for a kiss as their dresses of chiffon and tulle swayed round their slippered feet.

In the evenings, fireflies would flit through the air like tiny sparks of light while you and your mother would prepare dinner, your father always tending to something. Whether it was in your household’s small stables outside—where horses would quietly whinny as he fed them or brushed them down—or inside, fixing something in the cottage where the three of you lived contentedly.

And you would listen through open windows to crickets and cicadas while you quietly read your parents a story or two from a novel you’d retrieved from upon the mantle your grandfather had designed when the home had been his and your grandmother’s—the books hers—the three of you sitting before a small fire in the main room’s hearth.

And now… Now the once-fertile and emerald hills are unrecognizable. They have been, instead, replaced by black sludge and darkened, smoking ash—the skies overcast and always looking to be on the verge of an ugly storm as these hideous beasts rape the land for all it is worth.

They take and they take, and for what? Perhaps merely just to destroy for the sake of the act.

You will not willingly partake in ruining your beloved homeland. You would rather die and be with them: your family, your friends—forever to live upon those rolling hills once you shut your eyes for the last time.

You raise your chin, ignoring how it trembles when you meet his black, empty eyes.

He does not react. Does not so much as raise a brow in interest as he gazes back at you.

Something shifts behind you, and you steel yourself—refusing to look. You will not tremble in the face of death which calls you home.

And then he raises a hand from where it rests beside him, upon the arm of his make-shift throne—but barely, at that.

“Wait,” he calls quietly.

You hear something settle into the dirt and gravel behind you once more.

He rises slowly, descending step after step in measured moves, until he’s standing before you.

He places an index finger beneath your chin, tipping your face upwards, forcing you to meet his eyes.

He studies you for a moment, his expression unreadable.

“Comely little thing, aren’t you?” He says softly, his voice monotone.

You keep your mouth shut.

He nods infinitesimally. “Take her to my tent. Ensure she’s watched carefully. I’ve use for this one.”

One of the monsters he commands takes hold of your upper-arm, his other hand coming to tug at the shackles which bind you, pulling you away.

“Kill me!” You finally shout, tears brimming in your eyes.

He turns slightly from where he’s begun ascending his throne once again, looking at you from over his shoulder.

You tug against your restraints, pulling free of the revolting thing that touches you.

“I want to die, so kill me. I’m of no use you to here. I do not know how to…”

You shake your head, grasping for words in your panic. “How to carve wood, or assemble structures, or break apart stone—”

He chuckles lowly, turning round fully, coming back to you.

He slides his rough hand along your soft cheek before cupping the back of your head. He tangles his strong fingers in your hair, yanking your head back by those same strands, causing you to whimper in pain.

“You think I desire you for hard labor?”

You gulp in fear.

“I have far different plans in-mind for you. You will serve me well in other ways. Ones more…”

His eyes trail slowly along your body, before meeting your own once again. “Suited to your feminine form.”

You choke back a sob, realization filling you, along with an unbridled sense of terror.

He releases you again, nodding toward his crony.

You’re taken in-hand once again, and led away—your pleading cries falling upon deaf ears.

Adar’s tent is nothing exceptional—somewhat opposite of what you’ve expected it to be.

His bed is not a cot, surprisingly—certainly large enough to fit two, if not two-and-a-half—and he has a rather cluttered war table, which you’ve been informed, quite firmly, that you are not to touch. So you look at it, instead, from a distance from the wooden chair you’ve been provided.

You see small metal and wooden figurines placed about—construction plans, you assume.

You fail to understand what he could possibly want with the now-destroyed land, but decide you ultimately don’t want to know. You’d rather remember it as it’d once been instead.

You glance to the entrance of his tent, where an Uruk stands guard—the flap pulled back, allowing you a peak outside as the others like him mill about, coming and going and working.

Bile rises in your throat at the sight of them. They’re wretched. Cursed. Vile.

You won’t let him touch you.

You’ll do whatever you must to instead give him cause to drive a blade through your beating heart instead. You will not dishonor yourself—not even for the sake of survival.

You will die as you had lived: as yourself.

You’d waited so long for him to come—rehearsing in your head all the ways you might achieve that which you most desire at his hand; but nevertheless of your own causing—you’d fallen asleep.

You jolt awake when heavy footsteps enter the tent, staring in fear as bastardized elves carry inside a large, wooden tub full of steaming water.

They settle it into the middle of the space, retreating just as promptly as they’d come.

And then he steps inside, the once-open curtain flapping closed behind him.

He settles his arms behind his back as he gazes down at you.

He glances to the tub, then back to you. “Bathe. Once you are finished, I shall next.”

He goes to his war table, seating himself heavily, opening a scroll which lies atop it, and he begins reading over the item in his large hand.

You remain seated, too terrified to move.

“I need…privacy,” you say—your voice breaking, tears filling your eyes.

He keeps his back turned to you. “And you have it. Now, do as I bid you.”

You slowly stand, feeling unsure on your feet—your movements hesitant and wavering—as you come closer.

You study the back of his head, nervously flitting your eyes about the table before him, searching desperately for a weapon.

“I would not attempt it.”

You jerk in surprise.

He sets the parchment aside, retrieving a small, sharply pointed figure in the shape of a diamond. “You’d do well to make things easier for yourself. Obey me, and your days will be easy. Don’t—”

You interrupt. “I’ll never give m-myself to you willingly. I’ll—I’ll kill you,” you say, the threat sounding far more like a question than anything else.

You do not see how his lip twitches in mild amusement.

Finally, he sighs, pushing out his chair, standing.

You shuffle backwards, desperate to get away from him—from this place as a whole—from all of the rot and disease that has now claimed this land you’d once called home. Once you’ve backed yourself into a solid pole, which upholds the side of the tent, you stare up at him.

“So you should instead kill me,” you finish.

He softly shakes his head, cupping your cheek gently, brushing his thumb along the apple of it.

“You merely think that you wish for death. I have quite…creative ways to make you obey, until death is so far from your grasp that all you can see ahead of you is more of whatever I’ve been forcing you to endure. Until you break. Until you are ready and willing to do as I please just to make the pain stop.”

He cups your other cheek, holding you firmly in-place.

“I have been here for a very, very long time. Longer than your young mind may ever comprehend. I am not a man who is easily swayed. Nor am I merciful to any others than my children. It is not in my nature. But, for your sake, if you do as I command, I may consider a more gentle touch.”

He releases you. “Time shall tell.”

Your face crumples and you begin to cry, all hope fleeing you of obtaining a different fate than whatever he has in-store for you.

He seats himself once more.

“Now, do as I’ve told you. I will not ask again.”

You tremble violently and feel distant from your body, but you still manage to strip yourself of your soiled, stained gown, letting the heavy material pool at your feet, before ridding yourself of your smallclothes next.

You keep your eyes on him—never removing them—as you step closer to the tub, and then ease yourself into the hot water, sucking in a sharp breath as you seat yourself.

 You grab the small bar of soap you’ve been provided, lathering yourself.

You wish to be finished sooner than late, but also want to take your time—to savor this final moment of something…nice. Because you will do it: find a way tonight to make him take your life.

You’ll not stop until he does.

The two of you remain silent as you cleanse yourself—desperate to get the stench of this new environment from your skin. It is no longer that of fresh air and flowers. It is now that of something pungent and oily.

Death.

That is what it is.

Eventually, you rise, drying yourself with a small towel, and then you glance around in a panic for clean clothes.

Just as you think to dress once again in your previous garments, he gestures toward the small wooden dresser beside the table where he sits.

“You’ll find clean tunics in the second drawer.”

Once you’ve put one on, you take a step back. “What of…trousers, or smallclot—”

“You won’t be needing them any longer,” he replies, rising, the two of you staring at one another as he unbuckles the belt from his waist which holds his sword, setting it atop the previously-occupied table.

You promptly look away, your nose growing warm and eyes stinging as you seat yourself at the foot of the bed, watching as shadows pass by the curtain at the front of the tent.

You tightly grip the blankets beneath you, considering, watching intently.

You hear water lapping, and then a quiet groan as he leans back, enjoying what heat still remains in the water that fills the tub.

“I wouldn’t,” he states in that rasping voice which barely reaches above a whisper.

You bristle.

“You’ll not make it more than a handful of steps before my Uruks return you to this tent. To me. You won’t enjoy what happens to you next.”

He sighs. “Save yourself some pain.”

“Why’re you doing this?” You ask tearfully.

He begins to wash himself, keeping his eyes trained on you. “What is it which you refer to?”

“You’re an elf. You’re supposed to… Meant to be kind. Wise and—”

“You think I value that which I come from?  You think the high elves of this land care any more for your life than they do my Uruks? Pride is their virtue. They see themselves above all else, including men. Because they’ve made it so. They would see us all sequestered away to darkened corners of Middle-Earth if it meant all could be theirs once again.”

A tear slips down your cheek. “You destroyed my home. Took everything from me. And you think I mean to give myself to you? Willingly? To play at being your—your—”

“You will be my concubine. And nothing else. That is your role now. In time…you may come to see matters differently. Come to see me differently.”

“That will never happen,” you whisper.

He rises from the tub—his damp strands dripping at the ends as he shrugs on a clean tunic, padding toward you.

He grips your chin, forcing you to look up as he towers over you. “In time, I believe it will. For your survival, if naught else. Even if you find such a prospect to be of little value to you now.”

He grabs you roughly by the arm then, forcing you to your feet.

Your chest presses against his own as tears slip from your exhausted eyes—your heart pounding like a hammer against cloth at him being so close.

“I’ll give you one final chance, child. Give your body to me willingly, and be given mercy, or don’t, and I will unleash upon you pain unlike any you’ve ever known.”

You make a split-second decision, praying it be your last.

You swing your free arm upwards, swiftly, and slap him as hard as you possibly can.

He barely reacts as he turns his head back in your direction, shaking it lightly.

“Pain it is, then.”

He throws you back onto the bed, swiftly removing his tunic, settling all his muscled weight atop you, weighing you down—forcing you into place as he forces your own garment up and over your head, ignoring your screaming, pleading, panicked protests as you battle against him.

You squirm and pound your fists against his chest, and kick your legs and wail in terror, but he acts as if he does not even notice.

He grips each of your wrists tightly in his hands, holding them above your head while he knocks your legs apart with his knee.

You suddenly still, fervently shaking your head, choking on your own tears as you struggle to draw in even one steady breath.

“Please—Please don’t. I beg of you! Please, not this! Please, please!” You scream shrilly.

“I gave you another way and you refused it. Now, you will learn.”

He plunges inside of you with one forceful buck of his hips and you choke on your own saliva at the excruciating pain which manifests between your thighs. Burning. You feel as if you are on fire where his body now connects with your own.

And he is anything but gentle, just as he had promised you he would be.

He ruts away inside of you, grunting quietly, his skin slapping against yours as his long, throbbing member plunges in and out of you while he searches for his peak against your will.

You stare upwards, at the billowing canopy, desperate for it to end. Desperate to die. To disappear.

This is nightmare from which you will never wake, and you have naught to comfort you from it.

No home.

No family.

No friends.

No warm bed of your very own where you may rest.

No village which is full of joy and safety.

No nothing.

Nothing is left.

Not even that which you’d hoped to one day give to your husband.

He has taken every single thing, and intends to take even more yet still.

You break then—far sooner than expected, than you'd hoped—resigning yourself to letting him have it.

You will instead go away inside yourself, back to the place you most wish to return to.

And you find peace there. In a quiet field where vibrant butterflies flit about, and chimes which hang upon tree branches tinkle gently in the wind.

You close your eyes, humming in contentment as the sun warms your skin, listening as sheep baa at one another close by.

And then you are ripped from the fantasy and forced back inside that claustrophobic tent as he pours himself deeply inside of you, moaning as he takes his final thrusts—pushing his rotten seed further into your core.

Finally, he collapses beside you, heaving for breath.

You do not move. Not an inch.

Hot tears slip silently from the corners of your eyes while he runs out of you elsewhere. Your body begins to gently jerk against your will in shock, and you sniffle and whimper in pain and fear.

After a moment, he rises, washes himself off, then pours for himself a mug of water, downing it quickly.

He pours himself another, leaning back against the dresser across from where you lie.

“It will get easier when you let it,” he states.

He takes another long drink. “It’s been…many years since I’ve had a woman—a maiden, even more-so.”

You refuse to look at his blood-stained member.

He returns to you, seating himself upon the edge of the bed, his leg bent at the knee as he gently grasps your chin, his fingers ghosting along your hot skin.

“As such, I don’t intend to let you go. So, do what you must.”

He sets his mug atop the bedside table, climbing atop you once more.

“I shall do the same,” he states, sheathing himself inside your slick core once again.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for continuing to give treats to the neighbor cat?

I (33F) started feeding a stray cat several months ago. I have since adopted him and he is now an indoor only cat. This post is not about him. It is about the second cat who started coming by while I was feeding the first and begging for treats. At the time I thought he was a stray too. Even now that Cat Number One is safely indoors, sometimes Cat Number Two will come to the back door while I am feeding my own cats inside and start WAILING at me through the glass. Now normally I’d open the door and give him some treats because well he’s a fairy cat (black cat with white patch) and it’s bad luck to ignore a fairy cat. Today he came by though and he had a collar on. I now know he is someone’s indoor/outdoor cat who has been bumming food off the neighbors. WIBTA if I gave him a few cat treats when he shows up to say hi? He shows up once every couple of weeks, for context.

Why I think I might not be TA: It’s just a few treats and it’s not an everyday occurrence.

Why I think I might be TA: I know he has a home now. That means he’s getting fed regularly and I don’t know how much he gets to eat at home. If he’s got a special diet I’m worried I might ruin that with kitty treats.

Additional info: I have put out a post on Nextdoor hoping to reach the owner, and if I get in contact with them and they want me to stop of course I will stop. I’m asking specifically if I would be TA if I gave the cat treats in the interim.

What are these acronyms?

[nametakensff]

Cat For Grabs (D/isco E/lysium) (M)

Okay, here is 4.3k of cat allergy K/im K/itsuragi because why the fuck not 🐈‍⬛️💞

J/ean and K/im arrive on scene at a murder, where the victim's pet cat takes a particular liking to K/im. Allergic misery ensues

(Set in the kind of AU I've cobbled together where H/arry and K/im are an item, maybe like 8 months post M/artinaise. They hook up with J/ean regularly)

~~~~~

Content:

M/M/M mentioned and ongoing but mostly in the bg, cat allergy sneezes, spray, handkerchiefs, rapid sneezes, stifles, nose blows, mentions of anal sex, mentions of hay fever sneezes, mentions of blowjobs, H/arry has a sneezing fetish (but he isn't here), J/ean and K/im flirt a lot

CW: Graphic descriptions of a dead body at a crime scene, K/im performs a brief autopsy, mentions of gun violence, they are cops so you know. Just doing cop things

NSFW - Minors DNI!

Jean was the first to arrive on the scene, alone. Absolutely not ideal – he was at real risk of danger if the shooter – or multiple shooters – were still on the property. The precinct was in absolute maelstrom - an unprecedented amount of crime this week, even for Jamrock. Jean had driven here by himself once he realised Harry was entirely incapacitated. He’d fixed him a look of annoyance until the older man had returned it with a look of his own that said ‘please don’t be mad at me, I’m drowning.’

Jean had sent out a general radio request for backup to any nearby officers for this apparent shooting, which had taken place in a fairly quiet and respectable part of town. He’d been grateful to hear Kim’s confirmation that he would be there within minutes, as well as some other patrol officers affirming the same. Jean should have waited outside, perhaps, but he had a gut feeling as he pulled up to the small, bungalow-style apartment that it was empty. A quick search with his gun held steadily in front of him confirmed that he was entirely alone.

Unless you counted the gory remains of the sole resident splayed out on the kitchen floor.

“Well.” He said to the corpse, nudging its ankle with the toe of his boot. “You’re certainly very dead.”

The metallic scent of blood in the air was overwhelming. An even more overwhelming and unpleasant scent of sewage indicated that the bullets littering the torso of the corpse had also passed through the colon multiple times. Jean wrinkled his nose and covered it with his hand. He almost wished his hay fever was still hindering his ability to smell.

But god, this was a bloody, violent murder. The surrounding cabinets were littered with bullet holes that appeared to have been sprayed in wide arcs across the room indiscriminately. It had to be the work of an automatic weapon. Jean spared another glance at the corpse, then made his way back into the living room. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

He thought it better to wait for Kim to perform a conclusive field autopsy. He didn’t want to leave himself distracted and vulnerable to any potential attacks by performing one alone now. And, if Jean was being honest with himself, Kim had a stronger stomach for corpses - perhaps thanks to his time and experience in Processing - and a markedly weaker sense of smell. He glanced at his watch. Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.

He peered round the room. It always felt intrusive entering people’s apartments like this if he had spare time to overthink. This particular home was exceptionally drab; hardly any items or photographs to indicate personality or interests. Just ugly greys and browns and lumpy furniture. There were a few books stacked on a coffee table, but their covers looked just as banal as everything else.

A sudden shuffling sound to his left made Jean jump and reach for his gun. He looked round frantically, cursing himself and half expecting to see some crazed gunman crouched behind one of the armchairs, ready to mow him down like the man in the kitchen. Thank the lord, he did not. What he did see, however, was a visibly well-fed cat with thick black fur emerging from underneath a nearby bookshelf. Heart beating wildly in his chest, he let out a long sigh of relief and regarded the doddering approach of the supremely rotund animal. Come to think of it, he had noticed a litter-box in the bathroom.

The cat slumped at his feet, looking incredibly at ease and not at all as if its owner’s bullet-riddled corpse was resting in a pool of his own red-black blood just one room over. It mewed at him, butting his boot with its head before rolling onto its side. Jean couldn’t resist kneeling down and getting closer. He scratched gently behind an ear and smiled as the tip of a little white fang stuck out of the cat’s closed mouth, giving it an endearingly goofy appearance. A small blue collar was secured round its neck (no bell, just his luck) with a metal nametag hanging from a loop of metal. He lifted the tag up with his thumb and forefinger to examine it.

“’Beau’.” He read the name out loud. “Well, you are a handsome boy, aren’t you?” He cooed down at it, stroking it from head to tail once it was clear he wouldn’t be leaving the encounter in receipt of a mauling.

Around thirty seconds later, he could hear the familiar rumble of an approaching Coupris motor car. He kept his hand on his gun just in case, allowing his arm to drop to his side when Kim made his way through the living room door, gun outstretched before him. His orange bomber jacket was a sight for sore eyes against the surrounding bleak topography. Once Kim spotted Jean on the floor looking back up at him, he lowered his own gun in relief.

“My apologies, Detective Vicquemare – I came as fast as I could, there was some congestion nearby.” He peered at the cat for a moment, then back at Jean’s face. “The premises is secure, correct?”

“Would I be on my knees playing with a cat if it wasn’t?” Jean muttered, scratching under the cat’s little chin and smiling in adoration as it closed its eyes in pleasure. “We have a single body, in the kitchen.”

Kim nodded, holstering his weapon and scanning the living room with a perfunctory glance. The cat shifted under Jean’s broad palm, turning to face the source of this most recent disturbance. The second the lethargic feline lay eyes on Kim, it jumped to its feet and strode away from Jean and towards the Lieutenant, tail raised high. Kim froze in his tracks and glanced down in what looked to Jean like mild dismay as it drew closer. The cat began without a moment’s hesitation to wind itself lovingly between Kim’s ankles, nuzzling into his legs and pressing every inch of itself against him. It meowed loudly between little rumbles and purrs.

Jean couldn’t deny that it was both an endearing and amusing sight. The cat had certainly been friendly enough to accept his pets, but for whatever reason, it appeared to be especially enamoured with Kim. He didn’t think the feeling was reciprocated; Kim lifted an ankle, tsking as the cat, instead of moving away as intended, reached up with its front paws until Kim put the foot back down. It then resumed its figure 8 of adoration whilst Kim looked down in a gentle kind of exasperation.

“He really likes you.” Jean smiled at Kim, getting to his feet and brushing cat hair from the knees of his uniform.

“I can see that.” Kim did smile softly then, regarding the happy little creature, but made no move to reach down and stroke it. If Jean had been on the receiving end of that magnitude of love from a cat, he would have scooped it up into his arms in seconds.

“Not a fan of cats?”                     

Kim looked up at him for a moment, then back down at the cat, frowning slightly as it increased the intensity of both its purring and nudging.

“It’s not that. I like them well enough. It’s j-just…!”

His breath wavered, and Jean watched as he brought a gloved fist up to his face. He recognised the desperation of the pre-sneeze expression on the Lieutenant, and patiently waited for him to finish. Under normal circumstances and with anybody else, he probably would have looked away for the sake of the other person’s dignity - but he’d seen Kim sneeze more than enough times in extremely abnormal circumstances to bother with any pretence.

He didn’t share Harry’s interest in sneezing in quite the same way, but there was an element of enjoyment in watching Kim fall apart. No matter how he sliced it, he couldn’t deny the analogous nature of sneezing and orgasming; Harry had long since hammered that into him. And so, he watched with a certain degree of appreciation as Kim’s eyebrows drew up and his jaw fell open in surrender, before his entire expression cinched tight, the tickle cresting.

“Hh! Hh’gxkt! Ng’xt! Hh’Ddtch!! NGxt’tsziew!”

They were quiet, polite and almost perfectly restrained – much like the Lieutenant himself. Both he and Kim were prone to multiple sneezes, but it seemed to take a lot more out of the older man to strangle them into submission. Jean had always sneezed in small, ticklish fits that rarely resolved the irritation without multiple repetitions. Every now and then he was prone to a more productive and vigorous sneeze, especially following prolonged attacks that forced him to take in a final, desperate gasp of oxygen to round off the fit. It didn’t make too much of a difference to him physically whether he stifled them into silent little shivers or not. It honestly depended on company whether he would bother.

He wasn’t sure why Kim bothered holding back when it was just the two of them. He’d save himself a lot of congestion and sniffling down the line if he let those sneezes out now - Jean could honestly say he knew that from numerous past observations. But he wouldn’t mention it - it was best to leave Kim alone and let him do what he wanted. He was a bit of a control freak – not that Jean could really fault him for that, being a stubborn ass himself – so there was no point in nagging him. He himself hated when others commented on his frequent and persistent sneezing, especially when his allergies were killing him. Most of the Major Crimes unit now knew to leave him well alone, particularly on his most miserable – and therefore volatile – hay fever days.

With the exception of Harry, of course. In a completely inconvenient and Pavlovian fashion, he had almost come to associate his hay fever with sexual gratification. Both he and Harry knew his initial rejections of Harry’s advances were merely for show, and a matter of pride. Every time his superior officer would sidle up to him and suggest they find some privacy, he would eventually break and let the older man fuck him, or suck his cock. He may as well get an orgasm out of the endless torture that plagued him throughout late spring and summer. It wasn’t even that bad, being fucked and sneezing your head off at the same time. Aggravatingly, if he were to be honest, it was actually rather fun. He supposed he was more or less an expert at this point.

Kim was more recently initiated into the whole fucking and sneezing thing. For what it was worth, he seemed like a perfectly kinky motherfucker who enjoyed watching Harry squirm. And there was almost no better way to do that than to tease him with this fetish, which Kim took to like a duck in water. Jean had to admit whenever the three of them fucked around and Harry inevitably begged to be indulged, it was reassuring – and very fun – to know that they had the numbers against him. Brothers in arms. God, what a life.

Kim lowered his fist with a shaky exhale, looking worn out by the onslaught for just a moment before his regular placid countenance was restored. His nostrils flared briefly with an audibly damp sniffle.

“À tes souhaits.” Jean offered.

“Merci.”

Kim looked up at him and flashed him a sheepish sort of ‘haha. Look at us. Sneezing in the wild’ conspiratorial glance. Jean smirked at him.

“As I was saying. I don’t dislike cats. I just dislike that they tend to make me sneeze.”

Jean nodded and looked round at the flat. Cat hair covered most surfaces, if only sparsely. A beam of sunlight coming through one of the narrow windows illuminated a few stray hairs dancing round on the currents of air. He winced a little in sympathy. The sight even made his own nose tickle a little; he subconsciously reached up to rub the side of it with a crooked finger.

“You’re shit out of luck, then. It’s cat hair heaven in here.”

Kim sighed wearily, accepting his fate. As if picking up at last on Kim’s less-than-satisfied state of being, the cat paused in its motions to drape itself over the toes of Kim’s boots and glance up at him with a sweet ‘Mroww’, which Jean could swear lilted up in pitch as if to question the Lieutenant. Kim looked down at the cat with soft eyes.

“It’s not your fault, little one. Don’t worry.”

He hesitated for a moment before reaching down and gingerly stroking the top of the cat’s head with a gloved hand. It was an awkward and brief motion; he pulled back before the cat could nuzzle its docile head into his palm. Both Jean and Kim watched as even the minor scritches unearthed a tiny cloud of soft black fur. Kim jerked upright almost violently, and Jean had to stifle a laugh.

“I’ll be paying for that in a while,” Kim sighed again, rolling a pair of black nitrile gloves over his leather ones with a pleasing snap. He gently shifted the cat off the toes of his boots one foot at a time; it went easily, seemingly exhausted by its own outpouring of affection and allowing itself to sink into the carpet like a puddle of fur. It really was a lazy motherfucker. Jean was quite in love with it.

“Excusez-moi.” Kim muttered as he stepped over the liquid pile of cat, purring happily in its heap.

He looked up at Jean as he made his way over, doing a small double-take as he noticed the way Jean was beaming at him.

“What?” His lips quirked up ever so subtly, thankfully taking the taller officer’s grin in good humour.

“Nothing. You’re just cute with animals. Awkward.”

Kim just smiled at him, warmly.  

“I should really get to work.” He said, moving past Jean into the kitchen. “In here, you said?”

“Yep.” Jean followed behind him. He could see that the numerous rotations the cat had made around Kim’s legs had deposited a great deal of soft black fur sticking to the camo. He would help Kim get rid of it all before he got back into his MC. He watched as Kim knelt next to the body, careful to avoid the coagulating puddle of blood that spread outwards on the cheap linoleum floor.

“Have you had a chance to examine the victim?” Kim ran his hand over the chest of the body – it was practically shredded through with bullet wounds. He performed a brief ‘Stations of the Breath’ ritual before resuming his inspection.

“Not extensively, but enough to see all of this.” Jean gestured to the wounds and the endless shards of glass spanning the ground. “Looks like he was shot through the window with an automatic rifle. He fell onto the glass, and some of it is implanted following the initial explosion of the window shattering. Most of, but not all of the blood is from the bullet wounds.”

Kim nodded, inspecting the body more thoroughly. Jean continued.

“He looks to have died around the time that gunshots were reported forty-five minutes ago. Definitely not long enough for his cat to start eating his face.”

Kim wrinkled his nose at that, uttering a small sound of disgust.

“Gross.”

“Not as gross as this mess.”

Kim nodded his head in grim recognition. He dictated notes to Jean as he conducted the examination but couldn’t find anything counter to Jean’s initial conclusions. The cause of death and injuries to the body were easily explained. The reason for this extremely violent murder – not so much. Kim extracted a wallet and driver’s license from the victim’s jeans – not a name or face either of them were familiar with from any ongoing gang related investigations.

“This was overkill.” Kim murmured, righting himself and removing the nitrile gloves. “Far too extreme for a run-of-the-mill civilian.”

“I agree.” Jean nodded. “Since the shots are from outside, and I can see no sign of disturbance inside the apartment, it doesn’t look like a break-in or burglary. I – oh.”

He paused, noticing the slight sneer Kim was wearing as he fought off another allergic tickle, nostrils flared wide. He was wildly unsuccessful, whipping round and into the raised collar of his bomber jacket seconds later with a violent series of sneezes.

“HdDDZT’Tzshieww!! Hgkt’tsh!! ‘TTSCH’uu!!”

The first one burst out of him in angry, dizzying rush of spray through teeth clenched just a moment too late to provide any effective suppression.  The next two he managed to bite down on, barely, shoulders jumping under the pressure. Jean reached out to grab him firmly by the bicep as he shook, threatening to unbalance himself and, heaven forbid, topple down onto or next to the corpse. Though not remarkably loud, the sneezes were forceful and audibly desperate. The smaller man sighed once he was done, and Jean released his arm.

“Bless you!” He offered, a little impressed by the display. He imagined Harry would have jizzed on the spot.

“Ughh, Merci. Désolé.” Kim replied, sniffling and blinking one itching eye shut. A single tear of irritation started a slow descent down his cheek. Jean reached under the frame of Kim’s glasses and swiped it away with his thumb on a whim, before realising he had been petting Beau with that same hand. He felt relieved when Kim didn’t fight him on it, perhaps not even realising his mistake.

“Carry on, detective.”

Jean continued to explain his theory surrounding the murder whilst Kim pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief and tended first to his bleary eyes, then to his twitching, irritated nostrils. The skin on their rims was left slightly pinkened after some uncharacteristically rough manhandling. He must be more allergic than he let on, Jean thought, and began leading the pair of them out of the apartment.

He jumped when in the living room Kim jerked forward with another desperate fit, halting their progression and eliciting a sudden, loud meow from Beau. Said cat watched on with expressionless green eyes from his position stretched out on the sun-warmed carpet as Kim shuddered, sneezing into the hastily raised cover of his elbow.

“Hh’GXTSsshhh!! ‘GXT’Tchieww!! HDd’TZSchh!! ‘TSCH’oo! Ahh, mon dieu.”

These sneezes were particularly viscious, wrenching themselves out of Kim and leaving him bleary-eyed and shaky in the aftermath.

“God, Kim. Bless you.” Jean offered, his hand rubbing absently at the small of the Lieutenant’s back.

“Thang’k you. Let’s go.” Kim said, snuffling into his handkerchief and walking out through the front door without a second to spare. Jean cast a glance at the cat, mewling again as its beloved Lieutenant marched away, and followed him out of the door without a word.

“Hmm. No known or suspected connections to any street gangs or drug cartels. He may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Seen something he shouldn’t have.” Kim offered as they leant against the wall of the building. He blew his nose softly. It didn’t sound at all productive as his sinuses started to swell. “Somebody meant to silence him.”

“Maybe.” Jean took a drag on his cigarette. “But the MO is unlike any of the regular gangs in this area. I mean, a machine gun?? For one unarmed guy, at home? It’s too messy, outlandish and loud – in other words, way too risky.”

Kim nodded and paused for a moment. Jean wondered if he was going to sneeze again, but he spoke up after a beat.

“There…was another murder, a few months ago – on the other side of Jamrock, with fatal injuries confirmed to have been sustained via an automatic rifle. I’ll have to check, but the circumstances are shockingly similar. That victim also had no apparent connections to any gangs, or a previous criminal record.”

Jean made a small noise of recognition. He remembered, now – the case was still ongoing. It had intrigued both Harry and himself, but had been brushed aside as several more inflammatory and pressing cases had arisen. They’d passed it off onto some junior officers that had recently joined the Major Crimes unit, enticed by Harry’s newfound sobriety and the assurance of Kim’s fastidiousness. He would be taking that case right on back.

“That was also a murder in a residential area – some kids say they saw somebody hop a fence but couldn’t give us any more details.”

Kim looked up at him, nodding. He scrawled a couple of notes in his notebook before slipping it back into his pocket.

“We should look into that. It’s not much to go from and the cases appear unrelated, bar these few details but – we can’t afford to write it off. They’re both too irregular.”

Jean put out his cigarette on the wall next to him, ignoring Kim’s look of disapproval.

“Right. I’ll call in to the station and update them.” He looked at his watch in annoyance. “There were supposed to be more officers on the scene twenty minutes ago. Where the fuck are they?”

“Before I left the station earlier it seemed frantic – I think it’s just a particularly bad day.”

Jean grumbled but conceded. The entire reason he had arrived alone and Kim had joined him en route from another crime scene was because Harry was buried with the recent influx of crime on top of the years of unprocessed paperwork. He knew that. To Harry’s credit, he had cut down the latter a significant amount, despite the slow and confusing process of dealing with his memory returning in sporadic and often extremely stressful bursts. Jean was secretly very proud of him, if he even had any right to be.

“We need to get in contact with the victim’s relatives, if any – can you do that?” Kim asked, sounding a little shaky as he finished. Jean turned to watch him shudder into a fairly rapid-fire quadruple of sneezes.

“hh’dztch-T’zschh-Tschht! Huh-!! AESSCH’uu-!! Merde!”

He had sneezed entirely uncovered and straight out in front of him. Jean pretended not to notice the resultant light aerosol that hung in the air for a fleeting moment, glittering in the late morning sunlight. Kim clapped a hand to his face immediately afterwards as if suddenly remembering he was on public display, sighing into the leather of his glove.

“Bien sûr.” Jean answered. “And bless you, again. You’re starting to sound like I did over summer.”

Kim replaced his hand with his handkerchief, scrubbing at his pink nostrils through the soft cotton. He pushed his jostled glasses back up his nose when he was done.

“Thank you. Fucking cat hair.”

Jean smiled and lit another cigarette. It was always delightful to hear the Lieutenant drop an F bomb. He and Harry were clearly rubbing off on him.

“I’ll sort out the family – and once the other chuckle-fucks arrive, we can start questioning witnesses and get the body taken to the morgue.” Jean offered.

“Good. I need to head back to the station and submit some reports – I can relay what we’ve discussed here to Harry.”

“Great.” Jean exhaled heavily, thankful for the soothing rush of nicotine. He’d seen enough dead bodies this week to last anybody a lifetime – Kim probably twice as much. But c’est la vie. There was always another body.

“Can you wait until the cavalry arrives?” Jean asked him. “I know things are fucking batshit insane right now and you’re needed elsewhere but I’d rather not be the only officer here.” He looked pointedly at the surrounding houses and the curious faces lingering in the windows. More pressing than warding off curious bystanders, however, was the very real risk of the murderer returning to the scene and spraying him dead with bullets.

“Of course.” Kim patted his arm. “You should never have been here alone – I’m sorry I didn’t get here faster.”

“Thanks.”

They spent a couple of minutes in companionable silence, interrupted only by another small fit of sneezes from Kim and an emphatic blessing from Jean whilst they listened out for the sound of approaching sirens. Kim sniffled a couple of times while Jean was working on his third cigarette, audibly stuffed up. Jean said nothing. Harry would be fretting over Kim more than enough once he got back to the station, anyway.

“Hopefully the victim has family that can take on the cat.” Kim broke the silence.

Jean beamed at him.

“His collar said his name was ‘Beau’. You sure you don’t want to adopt him?” He smirked around his cigarette.

“Funny.” Kim deadpanned. He was struggling to pronounce his ‘n’s around the congestion.

“Maybe I’ll take him.” Jean teased. “He’s a cutie. And then he can visit you.”

“That would mark both the end of our friendship and my capacity to engage with you on any level beyond professional.”

Jean laughed.

“You’re no fun.”

“That’s not entirely true.” Kim smiled at him, voice low and flirtatious. “Don’t you dare let Harry know that a cat is up for grabs. Contrary to what I let him get away with, I do like being able to breathe through my nose.”

“Something I’ve discovered,” Jean took a drag on his cigarette before continuing. “Is that orgasms are actually pretty effective as a decongestant.” His eyes glittered as he looked over at Kim.

“Good to know.” Kim returned that look with an equally mischievous glance from behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “But I think I’ll leave Beau out of this arrangement. Three is already a crowd.”

Jean choked on his latest puff of smoke, laughing and coughing in turn. Kim looked incredibly pleased with himself.

“Compose yourself, officer. This is a crime scene.”

Jean wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of one eye.

“Yes sir.”

[hussyknee]

Jiminy fucking Christmas on a pop tart.

My absolute brainless nincompoop of a five month old kitten went missing for two hours. They never wander far from me, but Éka is an escape artist with a fixation on the wet earth in the garden. I'll be shouting for him all over the house and finally find him sprawled lazily in the damp under a flower pot or in a bush. It's the only time he's quiet; otherwise he regularly echolocates wherever he is because he's 1) eternally dissatisfied with life and wants me to fix all his problems even when he doesn't know what they are, 2) his ADHD ass will follow a dandelion in the wind, and then panic when he realises he's all alone or he's climbed too high to get back down by himself.

This time though, the guy disappeared into thin air. We flung open all the cupboards, ripped apart the whole house, and my sister and the handyman we had in to repair the sink both went all around the house calling for him. Then I took their packet of kibble and walked my chronically ill, very fat ass all around the neighborhood, in Satan's own heat, yelling for little shithead. (Once following our dog, who was flattered but turned out to have no idea why I was stalking him, and once following our tomcat Kaha, who is usually vocally affronted by the kittens very existence, but turned out to have been yowling on general principle.)

Got home and collapsed in a puddle of sweat and misery, crying and hyperventilating for half an hour, only for the numbskull to wander in from the back of the house, yowling to remind me that it was lunch time and he hadn't been fed in one thousand years. Snatched him up to cover his idiot face in kisses and found he'd been investigating something interesting and stank like a hog. Immediately hauled all three of the brats into the bathroom and bathed all of us. We're now in each other's doghouses; the kittens damp, consternated and betrayed, their six collective braincells unable to fathom the reason for this cruelty, and I, flesh still sizzling like steak on a hibachi grill.

I've decided I need to 1) get some kind of religion, and 2) rename Éka. They say there are no atheists in fox holes, but being solidly unconvinced of divine intervention sucks worse when your idiot baby is missing. For the second, my former father in law, for all he is a twatwaffle, maintained that you should only name an animal something you can shout up and down the neighborhood without sounding like an asshat. This wisdom turned out to be pretty solid, because yelling for "That One! THAT ONE!" in Sinhalese* far and wide was quite embarrassing, panic notwithstanding. He's now going to be known as Mau-Mau, for his distinctive cry and chronic supplication to a higher power (me). It's what ancient Egyptians called cats, and they were really dead on about it. That there is definitely a Mau.

*The kittens' names are Éka, Méka and Moo, which in Sinhalese translates to That One, This One, and This One (emphatic, deragatory). Context:

(Five months ago.)

Mum: "Do not name them, because we're NOT going to keep them!"

Me: "Well, what are we supposed to call them meantime?"

Le Asshole, henceforth named Mau.

[self-indulgent-paw-patrol]

Sorry for inactivity here.

I'm still at my friend's - Pablo said he won't release me to go back home until I'm strong and properly fed again. We're getting there, despite having a couple days when I just flopped in his bed all day without any will to eat.

I'm taking a lot of my time here to sleep (YES, SLEEP, IT'S SO GOOD) and to draw. I've drawn more in a couple weeks time than I did in the last five months. It sure is a bless sharing a computer with only one person instead of other two. He uses it at night, I use during day. This way I was able to get back to drawing the several months pending Art Commissions and even got reasonably active in this year's Art Fight! If anyone's interested on catching me Art Fighting, my username there is Larytello. My Paw Patrol OC Penny has been receiving so much love/attacks there I'm so happy???

I'm still working on older pending Commissions but, as my money is REALLY SHORT now that my classes ended and I don't have any others to teach due to it being currently winter vacations time (no teaching, no pay), I keep open for new Commissions (not only Paw Patrol style, though that's what I've been advertising here in this blog) and instead of drawing everything in order, I've been mixing the new requests in between the old ones so everyone's happy. My clients who have been waiting the longest assured me they don't mind the mix, as long as I'm getting paid so I can kick out my house's bills and provide for my family and pets from here. I didn't get to pay the energy bill this month but it's alright, we should get it done by the end of the month, they're not gonna cut off my house's power so quickly so no worries there.

Other than that, I'm also back at regularly watching some Paw Patrol episodes, which I didn't find the time to do so anymore when I was back home. Last night I finally started the 9th season, after also finally seeing the introduction of the Cat Pack. On one side, I preferred Wild's first design, while Pablo said that one made him look like Kion (The Lion Guard) LMFAO. On the other side, both Pablo and I loved Shade. And we also saw the first Big Truck Pups episode and loved it, then he went to his computer time and I went to sleep XD

Today will be drawing Commissions day again for me, but I'm online. That's just the reason why I haven't been very active here, mostly focusing on the pups askblog, I've been drawing A LOT XD

Well that's it for the updates, I hope everyone's alright, take care of yourselves and REMEMBER TO KEEP DRINKING WATER OKAY, not a whole glass every time but just a sip every 15 or 30 minutes will be a great help. Your body and your kidneys will thank you dearly.

[just-some-random-blogger]

Out of 9

Dream of the Endless x Reader, Corinthian x Reader

Summary: Headcanons of how Dream and Cori would exact revenge to whomever left you broken after the death of your cats.

Word Count: >600

Warnings: Depictions of (as mentioned) your pet cats dying, animal abuse, mentions of violent intent, crude language, nsfw content for Corinthian, hurt/comfort, fluff, typos, etc.

A/N: yeah i will never get over how my cat (Mochi) died. i thought of this whole idea as i was petting my cat (Jinjin) and realized he was most definitely God sent, because of how similar his personality is with my Mochi.

You were too kind for your own good. He could not even fault you for it, for it was precisely what drew him to you in the first place. Your light could fight the darkness in him. And yet the tenderness of your heart was both your greatest strength and weakness. You regularly bought canned cat food on your way home from work. It bothered him that you routinely lingered in dark alleyways at night, but then again, had that alley not had the cover of darkness it did, he would have never hid there and met you. His worries were regrettably materialized when you bawled at him over the news that they were all dead-- from the adults to the kittens, all the strays you fed were dead. Someone poisoned their food, the food you had left them. It crushed you to know those hungry kitties saw the food and ate it, not knowing some monster tampered with it. It made you reevaluate your choices heavily. Indeed, the thought of someone being comfortable enough to kill those helpless creatures was unsavory, but it was the fact someone did that and could have harmed you, had you been there, was what really sent him off the rails. And so:

Dream

would find the person who did such cruelty and repay them with nightmares.

He would haunt them by trapping them in the mind of a cat, who had the unfortunate fate of meeting the wrath of the very people like them.

The King of Nightmares would make it so that the murderer would understand the value of strays, understand their pains,

and then would inspire mice to multiply in their abode.

All the while he would bless you with dreams where you could still be with your darlings.

He would hold you while you cried,

and rub your back as you emptied your sorrows on his chest.

He would remind you that it was not by your kindness that the evil sprung out,

but that evil had a poisoning nature and grew wherever there was festering hearts.

Dream would even have Death visit you, to reassure you that the souls of your lost cats bore no scorn.

Your grief would never truly leave you, but you were eternally grateful by the comfort of both siblings,

especially because the usually withdrawn Endless made efforts to draw you closely.

Corinthian

would destroy whomever fucked around with that poison.

He would make sure to pepper you with kisses and make you cry over his dick instead,

but he would meticulously plan how he'd catch the rat who thought up the bright idea to increase their population by killing those strays.

And so he would lure them and coolly wait in the alley before butchering the cretin in the very spot those cats souls were robbed of tomorrow.

Corinthian would reassure you that the vermin would get what they deserved soon enough as you wept against him.

He would cradle you in his arms while he hushed you,

and faded your sorrowful grunts into moans of pleasure when he ate you out.

The Nightmare would never admit to killing the cat killer, knowing it would break you, but he did continuously reassure you that people like them would get what they deserved for causing someone as sweet as you such heart ache.

All the while he would worship your being,

because he really was no different than who caused you great pain, with his murderous tendencies,

and yet he had your love.

Damn anyone hell and back who causes his love to grieve.

Fuck around and find out.

[satanstruemistress]

@technomaestro You have no idea what you’ve just unleashed 😂😂😂

Between my roommate and I, we have 6 of the little bastards! (Affectionate)

Here they all are:

That particular one is mine. Her name is Pumpkin Leigh, she’s the only girl, and she was found outside my mom’s old house. She adopted me. She’s obsessed with me. All the boys look at her like she’s the reigning queen. (She is). She has zero interest in returning to her stray ways. She takes one look at the outdoors and goes “Ew, no thanks”. Addicted to cat nip. Plays fetch. Like a weirdo.

(Punkin on a Punkin)

This confused looking fellow is Oliver George. He’s my roommate’s cat. I love him. He hates humans in general? He has a crumply ear because he had a boo-boo of some sort. It got fixed, and it gives him character. He likes Pumpkin and my sister. He tolerates everyone else. If he escapes the house it’s at least an hour getting him back in, and it often ends with someone (me) getting shredded. He looks at me and says “You’ll never take me alive!” And proceeds to fight with all his ten-pound might. And then is super sweet when I finally return him to the house.

2-for-1 special, this is Jack Daniel (black) and Potter Maxwell (orange) they’re brothers from the same litter. Mom was a short haired calico and Dad was a long haired black cat. Jack got mom’s coat and dad’s color, Potter got mom’s color and dad’s coat. They’ve never been apart a day in their lives. Potter has the worst RBF I’ve ever seen on a cat, and Jack will only let you love on him while you’re trying to wash your hands. Any time Ollie escapes, Jack has a meltdown when he comes back in, because apparently he doesn’t recognize him.

This is Sylvester James and I think he needs 3 pictures to really hit home how fuckin’ insane his transformation was. We found him outside a friend’s house, and we thought he was just a normal sized escapee, bc he looked healthy enough, but then he got fed regularly and a safe place and he turned into that enormous, majestic, long-haired beast. He’s so soft. It’s like petting a cloud. He also talks a lot for no reason. Also an occasional prison breaker. If Ollie refuses to go quietly, Sylvester is the opposite. If he escapes you can just pick him up and you can hear his little pea brain go “Rats! *finger snapping noise* Foiled again!”

This fucking chaos gremlin is the baby, Floki Alexander. My roommate’s ex bf left him with us when he got dumped until he could get stable. He’s so sweet. He’s fucking insane. He’s almost three, and still has insane kitten energy. Loves kisses and cuddles and unattended glassware. If there’s a cup left sitting, Floki will knock it off and break it. Sits by the door, contemplates escaping. Ultimately does not.

Bonus:

This is Daisy Mae, she’s technically my brother’s dog but she’s really not friendly so he couldn’t keep her where he was living, so I took her and I’m working on socializing her better. He will have to pry her out of my cold, dead hands if he ever wants her back.

She loves her kitties so much. She gets kisses and snuggles and ear cleanings from them.

She’s also fucking rotund because the only way my ex-roommate could get her to warm up to him was by human food. She’s on a diet now, and we go for walks.

I was going to add more pictures to really solidify how cute they all are, but alas there’s a 10 picture limit on mobile apparently.

[negative-speedforce]

Okay, your turn (sort of)

Madison has asked your OCs to take care of Bravo (her 150lb wolfdog) for a week while she's out of town. He's well-trained and generally pretty friendly, but still a big and somewhat scary-looking animal, and he'll need to be walked regularly and fed specialized meals (raw meat, raw eggs, bone marrow, etc. on top of his kibble), so it's not quite like taking care of a normal dog.

Who agrees, who says no, and how does it go?

Says "no": Siv, Hailey, Gina, Esme, Cat, Max, Eric, Jacob, Ameerah, Rania, Director Hawke, Meredith, Torryn, Myopia, Onnie, Jessi, Qiara, Marie, Soraya, Nyx, Laila, Athena, Thalia, Ariadne, Rue, Pyrrha, Aldrich, Samira, Sohelia, Victorie, Dolores, Kayla, Dori, Gabi

Jay: Immediately agrees. He's got experience taking care of one dog, what's one more between friends? As long as Bravo and Stella get along, the week will go by easily.

Cassandra: Only agrees because Jay agreed. She'd prefer not to take care of another animal, but hopefully Bravo will get along with Stella well enough.

Ember: Hesitantly agrees, since they're somewhat worried that Bravo will try to eat his chihuahuas. Instead, the chihuahuas are the instigators, and cause all the trouble. Bravo might be a little traumatized when Madison gets back.

Arya: Spends the week mostly in the form of a dog, hanging out with Bravo and playfighting, only going back to their human-adjacent form to feed him and stuff.

Kyle: Mostly just lets Bravo run around in his backyard all day with one of those tennis ball machines. He'll probably invite Jay and Stella over at some point.

Khalil: Takes good care of Bravo, but isn't overly affectionate. Maybe if one of his makeup clients has kids, Bravo can occupy them while he's working.

Antonio: Tries to take Bravo home, but his parents won't let him. Instead, his older brother will take care of Bravo in his apartment.

Reggie: Takes great care of Bravo. Unfortunately, due to xer magic being slightly out-of-control at xer age, Madison may come home to her dog having purple fur, or being able to speak Japanese.

Kelsie: Once she's 100% sure that Bravo's friendly, she might ask Madison if she can bring him in to a few of her therapy sessions, since she mostly works with metas who have PTSD, and a giant, fluffy dog might be helpful.

Cory: Takes great care of Bravo, and makes him Instagram famous. Now, Bravo has an online cult following, and people might approach Madison in the street like "OMG is that Bravo???"

Pippa: Takes good care of Bravo, but ends up making her neighbors concerned because most people... don't carry around 150 lbs wolf-dogs like they're little lapdogs.

Hyun-Ki: It goes fairly well, as long as Bravo and his cat can get along. Otherwise, one of them is going to get shut in the back of the house until Madison gets back.

Liah: She takes great care of him at first, until the Borg or the Klingons or something attack, and she ends up having to pull a 36-hour shift in Engineering. She'll set the replicator to make food for Bravo at certain intervals until she's back, that way he won't starve or anything.

Arissa: Same as Liah

Carena: Brings Bravo up onto the bridge, until Captain Al-Sharif tells him to get Bravo away from her, since she's quite allergic to dogs. From there on out, she leaves Bravo on the holodeck when he's on duty, chasing holographic squirrels and stuff.

Reyna: Takes great care of Bravo, but Madison may come home to her dog having a translation matrix in his collar that allows him to speak in 46 different human and alien languages. Hopefully, Reyna being a felid species doesn't trigger some kind of "chase the cat" thing in Bravo.

Iloriya: Takes great care of Bravo, though he might not be a huge fan of her boyfriend, who's Dylae and therefore smells like a cat to him.

Arien: Look, Arien would take great care of Bravo. 10/10. However, if Nyx found out? Bravo (and Madison) are so screwed.

Matt: As long as Bravo and Moshe (Matt's German Shepherd) got along, he'd agree, and take pretty good care of Bravo. Since his joints aren't great and he can't walk Bravo too far, he'd probably just let him loose in the Hunters' Camp most of the time, since it's fenced anyway.

Vanessa: Probably spends the whole time napping face-down in Bravo's thick fur, muttering something along the lines of "so.... fluffy...."

Ellis: Does not know how to take care of a dog, but agrees anyway because they feel bad not doing it. It'll take a miracle for this to go well. Good thing that miracles are something Ellis is quite skilled with.

[voskhozhdeniye]

For the last several months, a city at the heart of Silicon Valley has been training artificial intelligence to recognize tents and cars with people living inside in what experts believe is the first experiment of its kind in the United States.

Last July, San Jose issued an open invitation to technology companies to mount cameras on a municipal vehicle that began periodically driving through the city’s district 10 in December, collecting footage of the streets and public spaces. The images are fed into computer vision software and used to train the companies’ algorithms to detect the unwanted objects, according to interviews and documents the Guardian obtained through public records requests.

Some of the capabilities the pilot project is pursuing – such as identifying potholes and cars parked in bus lanes – are already in place in other cities. But San Jose’s foray into automated surveillance of homelessness is the first of its kind in the country, according to city officials and national housing advocates. Local outreach workers, who were previously not aware of the experiment, worry the technology will be used to punish and push out San Jose’s unhoused residents.

City employees are driving a single camera-equipped vehicle through sections of district 10 “every couple weeks”, said Khaled Tawfik, director of the San Jose information technology department. The city sends the training footage to participating companies, which include Ash Sensors, Sensen.AI, Xloop Digital, Blue Dome Technologies and CityRover.

Some of the areas in district 10 targeted by the pilot, such as Santa Teresa Boulevard, are places where unhoused people congregate, sometimes with the city’s encouragement. The light rail station on Santa Teresa Boulevard, for example, is home to the city’s only designated safe parking location for RVs, often used as homes.

There’s no set end date for the pilot phase of the project, Tawfik said in an interview, and as the models improve he believes the target objects could expand to include lost cats and dogs, parking violations and overgrown trees.

“If the City were to productionize this technology, we envision the cameras to be on our fleet motor pool vehicles that regularly drive throughout city limits,” a city employee wrote in a 22 January email.

Ken Salsman, chief technology officer for Ash Sensors, said his company, which specializes in sensors that monitor the structural health of buildings, had not explored homelessness detection before learning of San Jose’s pilot. The experiment provided an opportunity to create potentially marketable technologies by solving challenging computer vision problems, such as distinguishing an empty RV parked outside a home from an RV that is a home. He said the company was training its algorithms to detect proxy signs of habitation.

“Are the windows covered inside the vehicle? Are there towels to provide privacy? Is there trash outside the vehicle, suggesting they’re using food and having trouble getting rid of the waste?” Salsman said. He added that successful detection of lived-in vehicles would probably require frequent scanning of city streets in order to establish whether the vehicles have moved.

A report from the company Sensen.AI shows that its system detected 10 lived-in vehicles in footage collected from two streets on 8 February. Several of the vehicles pictured in the report have tarps spread across windows or rolled up and tied to them. Another has traffic cones next to it. Sensen.AI did not respond to a request for comment.

Tawfik said the goal of the pilot was to encourage companies to build algorithmic models that could detect a variety of different objects from car-mounted cameras with at least 70% accuracy. The participating companies are currently detecting lived-in RVs with between 70 and 75% accuracy, he said, but the accuracy for lived-in cars is still far lower: between 10 and 15%. City staff are following the route of the camera-equipped car and confirming that the vehicles are occupied.

‘We’re not detecting folks. We’re detecting encampments’

City documents state that, in addition to accuracy, one of the main metrics the AI systems will be assessed on is their ability to preserve the privacy of people captured on camera – for example, by blurring faces and license plates. Tawfik said that the city did not “capture or retain images of individuals” through the pilot and that “the data is intended for [the city’s housing and parks departments] to provide services”.

The data use policy for the pilot states that the footage cannot be actively monitored for law enforcement purposes, but that police may request access to previously stored footage.

“We’re not detecting folks,” Tawfik said. “We’re detecting encampments. So the interest is not identifying people because that will be a violation of privacy.” However, in its report identifying lived-in vehicles, Sensen.AI wrote that its system included optical character recognition of the vehicles’ license plate numbers.

Tawfik said San Jose had delayed its release of a citywide AI policy in part to allow the department to examine its proposed guardrails through the lens of the object detection pilot.

Residents have complained to the city’s 311 phone line about homeless encampments 914 times so far in 2024. They reported illegal dumping 6,247 times, graffiti 5,666 times, and potholes 769 times last year. The goal of the surveillance pilot is to address these complaints more efficiently, according to Tawfik.

According to Tawfik, the city’s response might include sending outreach workers to visit a single tent before it can grow into an encampment, he said. The San Jose housing department and non-profits providing aid to unhoused people said they had not been involved in the pilot.

“Our ability to help the individuals directly is not really part of the pilot,” Tawfik said. “We’re still learning what can be done. And then once the program is mature, then we can look at the data and see what makes sense.”

That approach worries people like Thomas Knight, who was formerly unhoused and now serves as executive member of the Lived Experience Advisory Board of Silicon Valley. The group, made up of dozens of current and formerly unhoused people, has recently been fighting a policy proposed last August by the San Jose mayor, Matt Mahan, that would allow police to tow and impound lived-in vehicles near schools.

“If their whole purpose is to better provide responses to calls to 311, then that means that this computer system is going to identify tents and lived-in vehicles that are in places that the city has deemed they shouldn’t be,” Knight said. “The truth is, the only people you’re going to be able to give [that data] to to fix the issue is the police department.”

San Jose is one of the least affordable housing markets in the country. In order to afford the average effective monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city, a renter would have to earn $96,000 a year, according to the latest available data. The city’s unhoused population has grown from approximately 4,200 people in 2009 to more than 6,200 in 2023. More than two-thirds of those people are living outdoors and in vehicles rather than the city’s overwhelmed shelter system.

Amid a lack of temporary shelter beds and permanent affordable housing, San Jose officials have cracked down on tent encampments and people living in cars and RVs. Housing advocates fear that identification of encampments by roving AI would add to those efforts.

“The approach to homelessness is to treat unhoused people as blight consistent with trash or graffiti,” said Tristia Bauman, directing attorney for housing at the non-profit Law Foundation of Silicon Valley.

Last fall, the city cleared dozens of people out of tents and vehicles along a half-mile stretch of the downtown Guadalupe River trail and then announced plans for a “no return zone”. This year, police distributed 72-hour notices ordering people to leave a nearby encampment in Columbus Park in order to clear space for the opening of a five-acre dog park.

San Jose: a technological bellwether

In addition to providing a training ground for new algorithms, San Jose’s position as a national leader on government procurement of technology means that its experiment with surveilling encampments could influence whether and how other cities adopt similar detection systems. The city’s IT department is leading a national coalition of more than 150 municipal agencies working to develop policies for “responsible and purposeful” deployment of AI technologies in the public sector.

Tawfik said his staff had discussed the object detection pilot with coalition members and hoped that other agencies would participate in the review process. Companies participating in the pilot have also expressed interest in the “scalability” potential the coalition represents, according to emails they sent to IT department staff.

“As we see more interest from other cities to participate, we’re sharing notes and hopefully that advances the program faster,” Tawfik said.

Knight, from the Advisory Board, said the city’s focus on perfecting a technological solution ignored the root cause of the housing crisis in San Jose.

“If you have no place to put people, it’s pretty much useless,” he said.

[slashingdisneypasta]

Update kitten Jason is now regularly standing up for himself against Freddy kittens. Jason knocked Freddy into my wicker laundry basket and sat on the lid then slept on the lid Freddy spent 5 hours in there before i found him... Freddy seems not to have learned a damn thing about picking on his brother.

I know you're probably curious about how Jennifer cat came to us dad found some awful teenage boys shooting at her with a BB gun dad chase them off and apparently threatened to beat their asses if he saw them again he brought her to the vet she didn't have a chip so after she was patched up dad brought her home. So Jennifer has gone from stray to spoiled house cat who is now content to lay on a windowsill and watch the outside world sometimes she in the garage with Dad while he's doing his wood working he made her a cat house it's like a dog house only for a cat. A few days after Jason and Carrie were born she would randomly bring them to my dad put them on his lap.

Freddy was a sickly kitten at birth we nearly Lost him he needed mouth to snout resuscitation he needed to be syringe fed then bottle when he got bigger I was the one took care of him it was Worth all the sleepless and worried-filled nights wondering if he was going to make it. because he's now a healthy energetic 1-year-old cat who runs around and plays and brightens our days with his shenanigans to spite as much of a butthole as he can be is the best gift I could have asked for.

YAY FOR JASON KITTEN!! <3<3 We are all routing for him ^^

And- Jennifer and Freddy 💕💕💕💕 Please give them cuddles for me! ^^

[th3-art-of-dying]

Why we call Simba, Mufasa.

When I met Simba, he was dying. He was malnourished, skinny and sickly. He was so desperate for food, he wandered out of his safe hiding place under the porch and approached a human, (me) having had no prior experience with humans. This is not exactly normal behavior for a kitten born outside of captivity.

Simba was one of a litter of five whose mother left to go hunt and never returned. I knew this because the porch they lived under belonged to my friend who was also a cat lover like myself.

When I saw Simba I knew instantly he needed help. He was clearly dying. I believe he used his very last bit of energy to approach me and "meeeeeeeeooooow!" I scooped him up and we went in my friend's house. "There were two out there last night." she told me. "There were five to begin with, their mother got ran over." Needless to say I was a bit upset. She let five kittens, knowing their mother was gone, die one at a time and did nothing?!? She did not even consider telling me, someone who is known for rescuing kittens?!?

Dissapointed, I went out to look for the other Survivor but it was too late for the little guy, simba was the last one.

I fed him milk out of an eye dropper to start. Later, I got him kitten formula. His routine for the first few days was eat, sleep, eat, sleep. He sat in my lap from the time I met him and that became my routine.

He had just started to show signs of regaining his strength when he got pneumonia. His eyes were the start of it. They were infected and would fill with pus regularly and surprisingly quickly. If he took a nap,(which he did often) his eyes would seal shut and when he woke up he would not be able to open them.

Simba and I became a duo, anywhere I went, so did simba. I could not leave him anywhere knowing that he would take a nap and wake up unable to see and I would not be there to clean his eyes. I could not live with that on my conscience. Everyday, I cleaned his eyes 10 to 15 times, fed him multiple times a day out of an eyedropper until he was strong enough to drink on his own.

Unfortunately, the disease in his lungs progressed. He began to have a very difficult and painful time breathing. Every second with him was heartbreaking. However, the way he fought to survive was amazing.

Finally, when he started to take a turn for the worst my girlfriend and her mother agreed to take him to the vet. I mentioned that he needed antibiotics and to make sure and get some from the visit. The night before they took him I thought for sure he was going to die. He was looking worse than he did when I found him. The malnourishment from his mother's disappearance and now the pneumonia together had served to stunt his growth drastically. At a month old he still looked like he was a week old.

That night my girlfriend, Simba and I sat in bed watching a movie but I was distracted. Simba's breathing was terrible. It was hard to listen to. I pet him and talk to him all night. I told him, "I put too much work into this for you to die now, Simba. I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal. If you don't die I'll upgrade your name to Mufasa and we will call your first born son simba."

I went on like this with him really just for the sake of talking to him. I told him about all the things he will get to do if he lives. Chasing mice, sleeping all day, leftovers from my girlfriend's mother's cooking. Plus I had five other young kittens around he could play with. At any rate, it was all I could do at the moment.

The next morning they took him in to see the vet. The vet had a look at him and told my girl and her mother that there was no way the little guy would make it, the disease had simply progressed too far. A heartbreaking thing to hear. Luckily for me my girl opted to not mention what the vet had said.

She told the vet that she could not come home without Simba and antibiotics. That if she did I would be upset. So they returned with Simba and antibiotics.

I gave him the medicine as prescribed and Simba became Mufasa. Within 3 days he started regaining his strength. He begin eating on his own, he was walking around more and more and not just to go potty. The little guy had actually done it, he pulled through for the name upgrade!

After the meds were all gone and he was beginning to seem like a normal kitten again, he got pneumonia..... again. I was very upset thinking that there was no way he will make it through all of that again.

Three days into it, all at once, he simply got better. One day we woke up and he was fine.. again. I was skeptical but happy.

At this point, by my account, he had used three of his nine lives but he was alive! All of these events have made Mufasa become quite attached to me, he is the most affectionate cat I've ever seen. For the longest time he would try to drink milk from my goatee apparently thinking I was his mother. Mufasa is, to this day my favorite kitty, we are still very close.

As a final thought on the matter, I should mention, he now has a son who looks almost exactly like him named Simba. Also, Mufasa has decided that, with his new chance at life, he is going to pursue his dream of becoming a rock star. Here is a pic of him singing 'roxanne' by the police!

As I finished Mufasa's story, I looked up to gauge my audience's reaction.

"So now you can clearly see why Mufasa is my favorite right?" I asked. All I got for feedback were blank stairs. I understand, my cats can't talk, but I like to think that in that moment if they could talk they would have said "food?"

Thanks for reading much love to you all

[rosysugarr]

so this is unrelated to anything but I just wanna share a story about some stuff I've been up to with my family irl that makes me super happy.

SO, I live in an apartment complex, and there are some cats who hang out. Mostly, Jasmine, who belongs to a family a couple of apartments down from me, and Loki, who belonged to the dude directly across. Loki is a sweet baby angel of an orange and white tabby, obviously not more than a year old and sooo affectionate and playful.

So one day I'm outside walking my dog and a neighbor next door to the dude who owned Loki hollers to me and tells me that the dude who owned Loki fucking MOVED OUT. AND LEFT HIM HERE. right at the start of autumn and bad stormy weather and shit. Several apartments here have already been putting out food for the boy, and I've caught several neighbors giving him affection, but we were super worried bc he didn't have anywhere safe to reliably hide away when it gets cold or stormy. We really want to bring him in and adopt him fully as ours, but we already have an older male cat who is VERY territorial, and we worry he would hurt the younger boy if we bring him in.

SO. What my mom did is get into contact with her people-- my mom is big into animal advocacy and rescue and helps people network to get the word out about abandoned animals and get them safely picked up by people who will take them to the vet and find them a good home and stuff, and who work to help local strays, including running catch and spay/neuter and release programs. Through this, my mom actually managed to get a really nice little cat house with a heated pad in the bottom (it's automatically temperature-controlled so it doesn't risk catching on fire if left unattended or anything.)

We put that little red house outside and ever since, for the past couple of weeks, I see him curled up in there every night when I take my dog out for her evening walk. Literally every single night since we put the house out there, he's been sleeping there. It just makes me SO happy to know that, even if we can't bring him inside right now, we could give him a safe and warm place to sleep and hide away if the weather gets stormy or cold. It even has clear cat flap doors to keep rain out!

(he does also have a food and water dish outside his little home, so we make sure he's fed regularly and gets fresh clean water to drink!)

[malcriada]

heads up, long personal post dealing with pet loss and grief

exactly one year ago i lost my sweet baby P. to cancer. she had beaten it once before but this time it had spread too much and was too big to be removed completely. even chemotherapy would have not been able to cure her, just prolong her life (probably).

she came to me as a chronically ill foster with complications from a first (botched) cancer removal surgery. we had to go to the vet together a LOT and she had to go through multiple additional surgeries. here is a picture of her in her hated cone she had to wear so often.

she was a stray, missing all her teeth and bleeding out of one ear when a neighbor who frequently fed her took her to the vet. she saved her life by doing so. there P. was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery to have the mass in her ear removed. they did a procedure called total ear canal ablation which rendered her partially deaf. during the surgery a nerve was damaged which led to her right eye not being able to close fully anymore (after this she needed multiple daily ointments to keep her eye from drying out). the surgery wasn’t done very cleanly and some cartilage remains were left inside her, which led to her having frequent abscesses.

despite all her issues and her age (she probably was a senior already) she adapted so well to life in my home, together with J., another foster she had lived with before. both of them came to my home in july 2018. here they are together, being adorable little menaces.

despite them not being the best of friends; J. was a lot younger and more active, he wanted to play, she just wanted to relax and sleep, they tolerated each other. while she was shy and withdrawn the first month after moving in, she underwent a total transformation shortly after and i could clearly see her sassy personality shining through more and more. she gained so much confidence, climbing on top of everything, hissing and swatting at the much bigger and stronger J. and of course demanding love and cuddles from me.

i never intended to adopt them. they were always meant to be my temporary fosters. but after 2 years, when i still hadn't found potential adopters, i decided to keep them. at this point i was deeply in love with both of them already and couldn’t have let them go anymore.

is it silly that i related to P. the cat and started to project my own issues onto her? probably, lol. but a cat that had such a hard past and numerous health issues just seemed like a perfect fit for me. i related to her hardships and was determined to do everything in my power to make the rest of her life comfortable. i knew she was not going to be in my life forever and that our time together was probably very short, so i decided to make every day extra special. i pampered her as much as i could, fed her the best food i could afford, went to the vet regularly and tried my best so she could have a nice and relaxing rest of her life.

she loved to sleep and she loved warmth (another thing we had in common lol). she would lay outside on my balcony in the searing heat (that made me panic a bit and i tried to get her to come inside again lol), loved to lay on top of heated pillows and comforters. but most of all she loved to cuddle. she would lay on top of me and burrow her face into my chest.

we spent ~3,5 years together and with every passing day my love for her grew. it became clear to me that she loved me just as much. she wanted to be close to me, loved sleeping on top of me and was the first cat i managed to successfully calm down while at the vet. i have never been able to do this before. if i put my face close to her, she started purring, even without me touching her. one time after one of her surgeries she was extremely distraught and scared, but after i opened her carrier in the backseat of my mothers car she wobbled out, still shaky from the anesthesia and into my arms immediately. she proceeded to lay on top of me and i stroked her fur, kissed her little head till she fell asleep, purring.

here she is, being an adorable little distraction while i was working on my computer. obviously i was too much of a sucker to ever say no to her.

in 2021 her cancer came back, this time in her other ear. she had to have a second total ear canal ablation and was pretty much deaf afterwards. there was one specific whistling i did whenever it was time for food that she could sense the vibrations of i think? that made it so she came running to the kitchen lol. i tried to adjust to this new life with her. in fall of 2021 i noticed a lump near her ear and took her to the vet immediately. the vet took a tissue sample and confirmed it was cancer. again. (still?). i payed a lot of money for a CT scan to make sure another surgery would really remove *all* of her tumor and not just part of it. i really thought we would beat this again and finally be done with it.

unfortunately this turned out to be very, very wrong. i was awaiting a call of her vet telling me the date of her upcoming surgery. he did call, but immediately told me he had bad news. her tumor was too large to be removed completely, possibly fused with her bones already. there was nothing that could be done. chemotherapy would only serve to prolong her life, not cure her. at first i was adamant at trying out whatever, just for a chance to have her with me for longer till i realized how incredibly selfish that was.

she hated the vet, she hated every procedure that had been done to her so far. there was no chance to cure her cancer, as multiple vets told me (if there had been i'd have gladly plunged myself into debt to pay for her chemo). her vet gently recommended not doing any other procedures and just wait till she was sick enough to be euthanized. he told me as long as she wasn’t in too much pain and still eating, we could just try to enjoy our remaining time together.

those last few months with her were among the most painful times of my life. her cancer advanced very quickly, i could see her tumor grow as the weeks went by. but she was on pain killers, still eating and overall had more good than bad days. during all of this i monitored her and kept in close contact with her vet to assess her quality of life.

as the months went by, i noticed a change in her behavior. she wasn’t able to sleep properly anymore, just doze off a little bit. her favorite resting spot was on top of me, where she managed to sleep a bit more than otherwise. though she was still eating i sensed it was time to let her go. i never wanted her to suffer and was always adamant that her life shouldn’t be prolonged more than necessary if her qol declined too much. in my mind it was better to euthanize too early than too late.

on december the 2nd i called the vet. he came to my apartment free of charge and performed the euthanasia there which was an incredible gesture i will never forget. on this day, shortly before the vet arrived, she was still purring and looking for me, wanting to be pet. this only made me cry harder lol. no matter how bad she felt, she still sought me out because i made her feel safe (sometimes i can't comprehend how this little animal could love me so much lol). when the vet came, i gave her a big spoonful of butter to lick (her favorite treat that she wasn’t allowed very often lol). after giving her the first injection he told me to take my time and say my goodbyes. i stayed next to her while she was struggling to stand and trying not to fall asleep. stroking her fur i told her i loved her very, very much and she was my special little girl. i told her to not be scared, that i‘d be by her side always. when she fell asleep i carried her with me to the sofa, where the vet gave the second injection that stopped her heart. i don't think she felt a thing. she fell asleep peacefully, while being in my home where she felt safe. i like to think i was able to give her a good death.

after the vet left a good friend of mine came over and she took this picture of the two of us. some may say this is morbid but i wanted one last picture of us together before burying her and saying goodbye forever.

this is the longest post i have ever written on tumblr and it’s about my very good friend P. who unfortunately went away from me and broke my heart in the process. i still miss and cry over her every single day because i love her so, so much.

if you’ve read this far: thank you. i‘m bad at socializing and connecting with others on here (partially bc of the tism but also by the way tumblr is designed lol) so there is a good chance we are not close and you’re just reading the babbles of a random tumblr user that mean nothing to you. but to my like, 10 followers and mutuals on here that are still active: meet P., she was a sweet and kind cat and every friend of mine who met her fell in love with her instantly. she was a real cuddlebug and so very loving (she never bit or scratched anyone, not even the vet who she was terrified of).

i think i will miss her till the day i die.

some other random pictures of her:

she looked pretty rough when she came to her first foster home (not me) but i like to think we helped her achieve a pretty good transformation. first pic is her after her (first) cancer surgery. second pic is her after living with me for a while ♥️

some other favorite pics include these of our cuddle sessions. we had this thing where she would press her head against my chin when she was laying on top of me.

despite her old age she was still playful and enjoyed a good hunting session. not for too long though, lol

she was a sweet and curious girl and this is how i'll choose to remember her.