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gallusrostromegalus · 1 month

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Move To A Darker Place

This is a story of Man Vs. Machine.

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Last March, my father attempted to file his Taxes.

My beloved father is a Boomer. Unlike most Boomers, my father is rather handy with technology because he was one of the people that had a not-insignificant hand in Developing a hell of a lot of it. He was studying Computer Science at Cal Poly before the computer science degree existed. I have many fond childhood memories of skipping through the aisles of various electronic and computer part warehouses while Dad described something that either terrified the staff or made them worship him as a God. He taught himself how to use his smartphone. Internationally.

So when he saw the option to file digitally with the IRS through the “ID.me” program, he leapt at the chance to celebrate the Federal Government finally entering the Digital Age.

It was all going swimmingly for about six hours, until he was ready to file and the system told him that it needed to verify his identity.

“Very Well.” said my father, a man unafraid of talking to himself and getting something out of the conversation. “It wouldn’t do for me to get someone else’s return.”

The System told him that it needed him to take a “Digital Image ID”.

a.k.a: A Selfie.

“A-ha!” Dad beams. Dad is very good at taking selfies. He immediately pulled out his phone, snapped one, and tried to upload it.

Please log into your Id.me Account and use the provided app to submit your Digital Image ID. The System clarified.

“Oh. You should have said so.” Dad pouted, but used his phone to log onto the ID.me account, do the six security verification steps and double-checked that the filing looked the same as it did on the desktop, gave the IRS like nine permissions on his phone, and held up the camera to take his Federal Privacy Invasion Selfie.

Please align your face to the indicated grid. Said The System, pulling up a futuristic green-web-of-polygons approximation.

“Ooh, very Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry would HATE this!” Dad said cheerfully, aligning his face to the grid. My father is a bit… cavalier, when it comes to matters of personal information and federal government, because he’s been on FBI watchlists since the late 60’s when he was protesting The Vietnam War and Ronald Regan before he’d broken containment. Alas.

Anyway, there is very little information the federal government does not have on him already, but he’s as good at stalking the FBI as they are at stalking him, and had worked out a solution: He has something approaching a friendship with the local Federal Agent (Some guy named “Larry”. Allegedly), and got Larry hooked on Alternative Histories and Dad’s collection of carefully-researched “there is very likely buried treasure here” stories, and Larry is loath to bother his favorite Historical Fanfiction author too much.

But I digress.

After thinking for a minute, The System came back with an Error Message. Please remove glasses or other facial obstructions.

And here is where the real trouble began.

See, my father wears glasses that do substantially warp the appearance of his face, because he is so nearsighted that he is legally blind without them. His natural focal point is about 4 inches in front of his nose. While Dad can still take a selfie because he (approximately) knows where his phone is if it’s in his hand, he cannot see the alignment grid.

He should ask someone to take it for him! I hear the audience say. Yes, that would be the sane and reasonable thing to do, but Dad was attempting to do taxes at his residence in Fort Collins, while his immediate family was respectively in Denver, Texas and Canada. He tried calling our neighbors, who turned out to be in Uganda.

He looked down at the dog, Arwen, and her little criminal paws that can open doorknobs, but not operate cell phones.

She looked back at him, and farted.

“Well, I’ll give it a try, but if it gives me too much trouble, I’ll call Larry, and Larry can call the IRS about it.” Dad told her.

She continued to watch him. Arwen is an Australian Kelpie (a type of cattle-herding dog), going on 14 years old, deaf as a post and suffering from canine dementia now, but she still retains her natural instinct to Micromanage. She was also trained as a therapy dog, and even if she can’t hear my dad, still recognizes the body language of a man setting himself up for catastrophe.

So, squinting in the late afternoon light next to the back door, Dad attempted to line his face up with a grid he could only sort-of see, and took A Federal Selfie.

The System thought about it for a few moments.

Image Capture Failed: Insufficient Contrast. The System replied. Please move to a darker place.

“...Huh.” Dad frowned. “Alright.”

He moved to the middle of his office, away from the back door, lit only by the house lighting and indirect sunlight, and tried again.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“What?” Dad asked the universe in general.

“Whuff.” Arwen warned him against sunk costs.

Dad ignored her and went into the bathroom, the natural habitat of the selfie. Surely, only being lit by a light fixture that hadn’t been changed since Dad was attempting to warn everyone about Regan would be suitably insufficient lighting for The System. It took some negotiating, because that bathroom is “Standing Room Only” not “Standing And Holding Your Arms Out In Front Of You Room”. He ended up taking the selfie in the shower stall.

As The System mulled over the latest attempt, Arwen shuffled over and kicked open the door to watch.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move to a Darker Place.

“Do you mean Spiritually?” Dad demanded.

“Whuff.” Arwen cautioned him again.

Determined to succeed, or at least get a different error message that may give him more information, Dad entered The Downstairs Guest Room. It is the darkest room in the house, as it is in the basement, and only has one legally-mandated-fire-escape window, which has blinds. Dad drew those blinds, turned off the lights and tried AGAIN.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move To A Darker Place.

“DO YOU WANT ME TO PHOTOGRAPH MYSELF INSIDE OF A CAVE??” Dad howled.

“WHUFF!” Arwen reprimanded him from under the pull-out bed in the room. It’s where she attempts to herd everyone when it’s thundering outside, so the space is called her ‘Safety Cave’.

Dad frowned at the large blurry shape that was The Safety Cave.

“Why not?” he asked, the prelude to many a Terrible Plan. With no small amount of spiteful and manic glee, Dad got down onto the floor, and army-crawled under the bed with Arwen to try One Last Time. Now in near-total darkness, he rolled on his side to be able to stretch his arms out, Arwen slobber-panting in his ear, and waited for the vague green blob of the Facial grid to appear.

This time, when he tapped the button, the flash cctivated.

“GOD DAMN IT!” Dad shouted, dropping the phone and rubbing his eyes and cursing to alleviate the pain of accidentally flash-banging himself. Arwen shuffled away from him under the bed, huffing sarcastically at him.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“MOTHERFU- hang on.” Dad squinted. The System sounded strange. Distant and slightly muffled.

Dad squinted really hard, and saw the movement of Arwen crawling out from under the bed along the phone’s last known trajectory.

“ARWEN!” Dad shouted, awkwardly reverse-army crawling out from under the bed, using it to get to his feet and searching for his glasses, which had fallen out of his pocket under the bed, so by the time he was sighted again, Arwen had had ample time to remove The Offending Device.

He found her out in the middle of the back yard, the satisfied look of a Job Well Done on her face. She did not have the phone.

“Arwen.” Dad glared. It’s a very good glare. Dad was a teacher for many years and used it to keep his class in order with sheer telepathically induced embarrassment, and his father once glared a peach tree into fecundity.

Arwen regarded him with the casual interest a hurricane might regard a sailboat tumbling out of its wake. She is a force of nature unto herself and not about to be intimidated by a half-blind house ape. She also has cataracts and might not be able to make out the glare.

“I GIVE UP!” Dad shouted, throwing his hands in the air and returning to the office to write to the IRS that their selfie software sucks ass. Pleased that she had gotten her desired result, Arwen followed him in.

To Dad’s immense surprise, the computer cheerfully informed him that his Federally Secure Selfie had been accepted, and that they had received and were now processing his return!

“What the FUCK?” Dad glared. “Oh well. If I’ve screwed it up, Larry can call me.”

---

I bring this up because recently, Dad received an interesting piece of mail.

It was a letter from the IRS, addressed to him, a nerve-wracking thing to recessive at the best of times. Instead of a complaint about Dad’s Selfie Skills, it was a letter congratulating him on using the new ID.me System. It thanked him for his help and expressed hopes he would use it again next year, and included the selfie that The System had finally decided to accept.

“You know, my dad used to complain about automation.” Dad sighed, staring at the image. “Incidentals my boy! My secretary saves the state of California millions of dollars a year catching small errors before they become massive ones! He’d say. Fought the human resources board about her pay every year. I used to think he was overestimating how bad machines were and underestimating human error, but you know? He was right.”

He handed me the image.

My father was, technically, in the image. A significant amount of the bottom right corner is taken up by the top of his forehead and silver hair. Most of the image, the part with the facial-recognition markers on it, was composed of Arwen’s Alarmed and Disgusted Doggy face.

“Oh no!” I cackled. “Crap, does this mean you have to call the IRS and tell them you’re not a dog?”

“Probably.” Dad sighed. “I know who I’m gonna bother first though.” he said, taking out his phone (Dad did find his phone a few hours after Arwen absconded with it when mom called and the early spinach started ringing).

“Hey Larry!” Dad announced to the local federal agent. “You’re never gonna believe this. My dog filed my taxes!”

Larry considered this for a moment. “Is this the dog that stole my sandwich? Out of my locked car?” he asked suspiciously.

“The very same.” Dad grinned.

“Hm. Clever Girl.” Federal Agent Larry sighed. “I figured it was only a matter of time before she got into tax fraud.”

---

I'm a disabled artist making my living writing these stories. If you enjoy my stories, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi or Pre-ordering my Family Lore Book on Patreon. Thank you!

#Family Lore #Dogs #arwen #Arwen the Crime Dog #Taxes #Ronald Regan mention (derogatory)#long post under the cut #this one is funny this time #I could really use some extra tip money this month

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adreamfromnevermore · 6 months

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AU Where the Justice League forms as usual except for one slight difference where Bruce just so happens to have been the one superheroing for the longest. (Excluding Diana, who got up to it in World War 1 and then mostly didn't while she learned about Man's World)

Bruce helps form the Justice League, ignoring all of the comments as they come to the sudden realization that Gotham's baby cryptid story is actually a man in a very intimidating armored suit who can and will break your arm if you cause problems for him. They are unaware that this is not the first team he's led, and actually he's used to teams full of mostly teenagers who also happen to be his children. This should be easier, this team is primarily adults.

He realizes rapidly that he doesn't understand these people.

His kids take bonding activities to mean learning a dozen different ways to break someones leg. That doesn't fly with these people. And that is most of Bruce's ideas, hell when he was a kid Alfred took every opportunity to get him out of his room and mostly that was with the agreement that Alfred would teach him how to defend himself. He's come by it honestly.

This team is not easier. They have more drama than when his house was actually full of kids. It's insane. He doesn't know what to do with it, usually he just sent the kids to their rooms or grounded them from patrol. That doesn't work here.

He comes to a strange crossroads. That falls apart when he forgets who he's working with and snaps at Hal with a full room of heroes that the next person to throw a punch or an insult without a reason too will be sparring with him.

A long standing rule in the batcave that worked two fold to prevent infighting between the kids and too ensure that they were well and truly trained.

It works wonders. No one says a word out of line for the rest of the debrief. Bruce becomes the unofficial mediator of the league over Clark because anytime he walked in on a fight it suddenly became 10 times more civil out of sheer terror of what he'd do to them in a sparring match.

Eventually they actually meet his kids. Well, one kid.

Half way through a mission (one of the rare ones in Gotham) the Bat comes to a complete stop at the edge of an alley. Every single league member on the team comes to a stop behind him. Slowly from the shadows of the alley a man in a red helmet stalks out to greet them.

"You don't call, you don't write"

"Red Hood."

"Don't Red Hood me! We've been worried sick!"

"I was at the cave last night."

"You didn't answer my texts B. You always answer my texts."

Somehow it ends with big and scary following them through the rest of the mission with a running commentary of how much Bats has let him down in his failure to respond in a timely manner to a text send less than an hour before he ran into them in the alley. It only ends when Red Robin shows up.

And even then it only ends because Hood can't keep himself from throwing a punch and Bruce has to snap at him that if he throws another one they're sparring when they get home.

And by god is Jason giving up the chance to punch his brothers.

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whateveriwant · 3 months

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Actually I'm not done talking about Mr. Simon Fucks-Himself-Stupid Riley just yet :(

I'm picturing a scenario where you, a civilian, are visiting your boyfriend at his base. Maybe you're there to deliver something, like a file he forgot at home or the lunch he said he didn't need. Either way, whatever your cover story for being there is, the end result is the same: you, on your back, knees up by your ears, sprawled across Simon's desk as he fucks you like his life depends on it.

Being a Lieutenant grants him the luxury of having a private office where he can engage in such extracurriculars, but that doesn't mean it's without some major risks – namely, prying ears that might be lurking in the hallway outside.

But being discreet shouldn't be an issue, should it? I mean, a man known infamously as “Ghost” should have no problem staying quiet, right?

Wrong.

Turns out, not only does that tight hole of yours reduce your boyfriend to a dumb, drooling mess, it makes him a dumb, drooling mess who can't keep his fucking mouth shut.

So while you have the wherewithal to clamp a hand over your lips to try muffling your lewd noises, Simon is out here moaning and groaning unabashedly like something sent forward in time from the Paleolithic. You could try asking him to cover his mouth, but it seems an impossible task; his hands are a little preoccupied with making sure he doesn't fuck you right over the edge of his desk.

While you don't want to stop, you also don't want to get caught, so you settle for urging him to keep it down. It's after a third softly gasped ‘N-Need to be qu-quiet, Si’ that your warning finally worms its way into his brain, and he acts in a way to appease you, just… not how you expect.

Swiftly, Simon removes his hold of your waist and brings one of his arms forward. He grabs for the center of his t-shirt, tugs the material up, and quickly stuffs the fabric into his mouth.

It only takes a split second for the action to happen, but immediately, you see how effective it is. The moment that standard, army-issued tee is captured between Simon's teeth, there's a drastic reduction of noise in the room.

Now, he can fuck into you with reckless abandon, and he snaps his hips forward with enough force to make your whole body ripple. Even as you pulse and constrict around him (sometimes inadvertently, sometimes not), the sounds that climb their way up Simon's throat are heavily dampened by his cotton gag.

It's as Simon begins the ascent to his peak that the cloth in his mouth really comes into play. As he pumps into you, he starts grunting lowly, gutturally, exhaling through his nostrils in quick, harsh bursts. It's a deep sound, animalistic in nature, like a bull huffing before it digs its heels into the dirt and charges.

His thrusts turn sloppier and sloppier the closer he nears his high, his hips propelled forward only by some basic hindbrain instinct. His lashes start to flutter, his eyes roll towards the back of their sockets, and when he cums, he throws his head back in a full-blown snarl.

Simon's a bit shaky on his feet after he climaxes in you, but he manages to pull out before he stumbles backwards, plopping down heavily into his chair. As you start cleaning yourself up, you see how he makes no attempt to move. He just sits there, completely brainless, pants around his ankles and t-shirt still tucked between his teeth. You have to walk over to him and purposefully tug on the shirt to get him to release it, and once it's freed, you see the damage that's been done.

In the center of Simon's shirt rests a big, blotchy wet spot, like he's tried to do his own slobbery take on the classic Rorschach test. The fabric's been wrinkled to all hell and there's a few imprints left behind from where his teeth had bitten down, and if you were to inspect the hem closely, you'd see where he popped a stitch or two in his ecstasy.

The sight of his mangled shirt has you tutting in disapproval. He can't walk out of his office looking like this, and he certainly can't forgo wearing a shirt altogether. What would the people around base say if they saw their normally put together Lieutenant looking so unkempt? You don't think he'd ever hear the end of it, nor would you for that matter.

In the meantime, as you wait for Simon's brains to un-liquify themselves, maybe you can scrounge up something else for him to wear. There's got to be something lying around here to help make him presentable once again. It's too bad as part of your cover you didn't think to bring an extra set of clothes to change into.

You'll have to remember for next time.

#ok now i'm done :)#simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon riley smut #ghost smut #cod smut #ghost cod #ghost mw2 #simon riley x you #cod x reader #call of duty x reader #cod mw2 #call of duty #modern warfare 2

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