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digital-domain · 6 months

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Clean Slate

Part Two to Spring Cleaning

Alastor x Reader // word count 3.1k

In which new clothes are illicitly obtained, and quickly disposed of

Tags/warnings: yandere, invasion of privacy, power imbalance, stripping/nudity, Alastor is definitely watching you sleep

A/N: god, part twos are hard to write. But the people of ao3 asked, so you, the people of tumblr, get to share in their (dubious) reward

True to his promise, Alastor did not leave your closet standing empty. When you woke up this morning, it was already full, the wardrobe you’d collected over the course of your year in hell displaced and forgotten. You wrinkled your nose in distaste when you saw that a large portion of the space was occupied by dresses, none of which fell above the knee. Those, you were sure you would never wear. But there were other options. You donned the least offensive - a pair of black trousers and a soft, slightly oversized red sweater - and felt almost like yourself when you looked in the mirror.

In the drama of last night, Alastor had skipped over the rest of the small drawers of your dresser, so at the very least, you still had your own socks and the rest of your undergarments. The shoes lined haphazardly along the floor of your closet had been replaced by stiff, polished black flats, slip-on pumps, and other things that looked as uncomfortable as they did unfashionable, but he hadn’t noticed the pair sneakers that lay beneath your bed. You felt a strange thrill as you put them on, like you were getting away with something forbidden.

And then, you thought, why stop there?

Alastor tends to keep his distance from you during the day. You do see him, of course - it’s not as if you can avoid him, living in the same building - but he barely speaks to you, unless you happen to be the only two people in the room. He doesn’t seem to like the idea of sharing your company with others, or letting anyone else see the two of you together. It means that outside of your bedroom, you still have your freedom. On this particular morning, you’ve decided to use that freedom to walk out the front door. Alastor is in the lobby, and you tense slightly when you see him, but he doesn’t so much as glance in your direction. At least, not while you’re looking at him. You swear that you can feel his eyes on your back as you exit the building. But that could just be your own paranoia. It’s been very strong as of late.

You don’t know exactly where you’re going. Just that you want to end up somewhere he wouldn’t want you to go. There are plenty of places like that in Hell. Arcades, electronics stores, smoke shops that sell harder drugs out of their back rooms, bars that don’t know how to make a proper old-fashioned…you certainly have plenty of options. But of course, in the end, you find yourself at a clothing store. Not a lingerie store - that entire concept has been ruined for you, for the time being - but still not a place he’d ever visit himself. Everything here is casual, comfortable, unpolished. The opposite of your new wardrobe.

You select a soft, unassuming pair of gray sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt. When you pay for them, you decline the branded paper bag, instead choosing to stuff them into the canvas one you’ve brought with you. Once you make it back to the hotel, and into your room, without alerting any suspicion, you’re relieved. You take the bundle of cloth out of the bag, and stuff it under your pillow. You’re not stupid enough to wear them during the day, but they’ll be perfect to sleep in. The slip you woke up wearing lays crumpled in an invisible corner of your closet. You’d like to forget about its existence, but you don’t dare try to destroy it.

You don’t see Alastor for the rest of the day. He doesn’t visit your room. This isn’t unheard of; his appearances have become more frequent over the past several weeks, but there are times when two, or even three precious days go by without a trace of him. Once it’s late enough, past the time when he might call on you, you change into your contraband. It’s nothing special, nothing particularly flattering, but when you look in the mirror, you smile. When you crawl into bed, you’re almost at ease. Last night, it took you a very long time to fall asleep, but tonight, it comes almost instantly.

It does not last.

You wake up, and know immediately that it is nowhere near morning. You’re on your side, facing the wall, and you fight the impulse to roll over and check the time. You’re still half-asleep. You don’t want to move.

But you do. And once you do, the time no longer matters. The exhaustion bolts from your body. You’d like to bolt along with it, but you only manage to half-sit up, swinging one arm defensively over your body.

You are not alone.

This shouldn’t be happening. There are clear, unspoken rules to Alastor’s appearances - only when you’re alone, never past 10pm, never when you’re in the bathroom that adjoins your room. And yet, he is here. You can see his smile and his eyes far too clearly. It’s unnatural, the way they shine in the dark.

“I apologize for the late arrival, my dear. It’s been quite a busy day.”

You don’t believe him for a moment. “What do you want?” You’d like to scream at him to get out, but you can’t imagine that would end well.

“Do I have to want something to visit you?” He’s nowhere near the switch by your door, but the light still flickers, a shock to your eyes. It’s quickly extinguished, plunging you back into the dark. “Perhaps I merely enjoy your company.”

His hand is curled tightly around his staff. It’s another wrong thing about this image - he usually doesn’t have that, when he visits you. Your fingers brace against your sheets. You know why he’s here. He knows, somehow, about your little act of rebellion. How he knows…oh. You don’t want to think about that.

“I don’t expect you to return the compliment,” he murmurs, “but you could at least temper that awful glare in your eyes. It’s almost making me want to look away from you.” As he says this, he leans closer, bending at the waist until his unblinking eyes are mere inches from your own. “I always make an effort to control my unpleasant feelings. If I didn’t, I might make you uncomfortable.”

You can’t imagine feeling any less comfortable than you do now, with that terrible grin glowing before you. Your eyes are still adjusting to the darkness, but you get the feeling that he can see you with perfect clarity.

He straightens up, and uses the tip of his staff to flick back your covers, revealing the clothes you’re wearing underneath. “You must have thought so little of me,” he sighs, “to expect to get away with such a thing.”

You fail to catch your breath before it gasps out of you. He doesn’t sound angry, but you’ve learned that the tone of his voice is a poor indicator for how he’s truly feeling. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, eyes cast down. There’s nothing else to say. You purse your lips, and wait.

“I’ve tried so hard with you,” he continues, as if he hasn’t heard you at all. “I’ve been so patient. And just when I thought I was getting somewhere, you decided to act out.” The tip of his staff catches on the hem of your t-shirt, and you instinctively tug the fabric away.

It’s the wrong thing to do. His grin freezes on his face, its appearance now closer to a grimace than anything else. He rests the end of his staff heavily on the curve of your waist - you stiffen, and raise your hand as if to shove it aside, but quickly think better of it.

“An excellent decision,” he purrs. “I knew you had some sense. I’ve worked very hard to instill it in you, after all. I was just starting to be impressed by your progress…but it appears that there’s still quite a lot of work to be done.” His eyes flash, momentarily glowing an even brighter red, cutting through the darkness between you. “Stand up.”

He withdraws his staff, and although you want nothing more than to pull your covers over your head and pretend this isn’t happening, you instead feel yourself rising to your feet.

“Well done.” His voice is quiet as he steps forward. He’s not touching you - his hands are pulled behind his back, as they often are when he’s close to you. But you can hear his breath, make out every detail of his face despite the absence of light. “I detest being upset with you. I detest that these little things upset me at all. But it seems there’s nothing I can do about that. So.” He leans forward, and smiles indulgently. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s fix this little problem you’ve created, shall we?” His head tilts a bit further than would be natural for anyone else. “If you take those ridiculous things off, we can put all of this nonsense behind us.”

You instinctively take a half-step backwards, only to awkwardly shuffle your foot back to where it was before. The thought of changing back into the slip he gave you makes you shudder, as does the thought of how he might react when he sees you pull it from the floor of your closet, hideously wrinkled. Still, you find yourself nodding in agreement. “Now?”

“Now.” His control over his tone is beginning to waver - his volume oscillates, voice frays with harsh static.

“The slip…” Your voice is small, in stark contrast with the angered scream you were preparing to release just moments before. “It’s in my closet. I can go”-

Alastor abruptly flicks his staff upwards, turning it into a barrier between you and your closet door. “That won’t be necessary.” You feel very small, all of a sudden. You can’t quite tell whether it’s just the way he’s standing, or if he’s truly taller than he was a moment before. There’s an awful cracking noise - his head drops, neck contorts until he’s staring at you from a truly impossible angle. “You ought to listen when I speak to you, my dear.”

The way he says this now, it might as well be a curse. It propels you back, your feet moving of their own accord. But of course, the backs of your legs quickly hit the side of your mattress, leaving you feeling even more trapped than before. For a moment, you’re grasping at stray thoughts, trying to figure out exactly what you did wrong -

Oh. He didn’t say anything about the slip, did he? That was where you jumped in your head. But what he actually said -

Your breath catches, fists clench. You don’t want to be right. You can’t be right - he’s awful, but he wouldn’t make you do that -

“Hm.” Seeing your panicked response seems to calm him somewhat. He straightens, takes a deep breath. The terrible grin seems to shrink just a fraction. When he speaks again his voice sounds just as it always does, rolling off his tongue with the pleasant crackle of long-dead airwaves. “A delightful reaction, as always.” He shakes his head slightly, shiftily glances aside. His gaze returns to you, and there’s that familiar spark, the excitement that you’ve come to fear. “Now…” The tip of his staff catches once more beneath the hem of your shirt, and this time, you don’t even consider brushing it aside. “Off.”

What is wrong with you? You don’t know. You should have something to say, something to yell, a fist or a kick or a back to turn on him. Instead, you only manage a moment of inaction before casting your eyes down and pulling your t-shirt over your head, discarding it on the floor at your feet. You were wearing nothing beneath it. The blood rushes to your face so quickly that you imagine he can see it flowing beneath your bare skin. You can feel it, almost as intensely as you can feel his eyes burning into your face.

Your face, which you slowly, foolishly raise to look up at him.

His eyes do not wander. He is staring, yes, but at your expression more than anything else. His gaze is fixed and impassive, with much less appreciation than the night before, when you were clothed in the modest garment he’d conjured. There’s something in his eyes - vindication, perhaps - but nothing more than that, even now. His hands are behind his back, and show no signs of stirring.

“Go on.”

He’s certainly enjoying this. But not for any reason that makes sense to you. In his mind, you think, this is fair. To make you regret what you’ve done, in the cruelest, most humiliating way possible - to him, there’s nothing wrong with it. You should have been good. Then, this all could have been avoided.

Is that what you think? That this is your fault? You’re not sure. You don’t want to think about it. You move mechanically, sliding your fingers between your underwear and your waistband, tugging your sweatpants down your legs and nearly losing your balance as you step out of them.

“Well done.” He says this, just as you stumble, just before you catch yourself, and it’s so condescending that you’re seeing red. But it’s not like you can say anything about it. You seem to have lost your ability to speak entirely. “Now. If you can manage it, I would prefer for you to look at me, instead of at your floor.”

You bite down hard on the inside of your lip. Your arms are hanging at your sides. You cross them as you look up, but a gentle glove on your wrist sends them falling. You’re glaring, but it must appear more petulant than anything else, because he only laughs when he sees it.

“Just one more thing, my dear.” He leans forward, strokes one finger over the thin cotton that clings to your hip. His touch is so light that you can barely feel it, but it’s still enough to instantly tense every muscle in your body, to straighten out any slack that was left in the posture of your spine. “These didn’t come from me either, did they?”

You shudder, and set your jaw. Speak through barely parted lips. “No.”

“Don’t look away,” he murmurs. “You’ve nothing to fear, so long as you behave yourself.” He waits patiently until you force yourself to look into his eyes. They’re shining, and his grin, too, is far too bright, a lurid yellow gash in the dark. “If I intended to harm you tonight, you would already be well aware of it.”

Where are your hands? You realize that they’re clasped behind your back; the realization sickens you for reasons that you don’t take the time to understand. As if in a trance, you bring them forward, let them fall against your hips. He doesn’t need to say anything more - only to watch as you pry the last scrap of clothing from your body. When you’re done, you stand with your head bowed, praying that he doesn’t ask you to look up again.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything at all. Only sighs, satisfied, and lightly drags the tip of his staff up the side of your body - the outside of your thigh, your waist, your ribcage, your neck - and then presses it gently under your jaw, silently compelling you to raise your head.

You try to summon anger to your eyes, but find that you can only stare blankly, waiting.

“I almost wish I could stay upset with you,” he sighs, letting his staff drop to his side. “It would make things so much less complicated, if I could simply refuse to forgive you…” His chest rises, falls. “And yet, I can barely stomach the thought.” For just a moment, his eyes flutter shut. His fist falls from behind his back to clench at his side. He takes another slow, deep breath. Then, his eyes slowly open, their red light dim and hazy. “No…I couldn’t let you go, even if I tried.”

You’re rigid, feet frozen to the floor as he leans over and kisses you gently on the forehead - he doesn’t touch you anywhere else, but you feel that perhaps you’d prefer that to this. You’d understand it better, at least. You’d understand exactly what you were scared of.

You don’t think he quite understands what he’s doing, either. He looks almost confused, when he pulls back. Rattled, almost as much as you are. But he quickly suppresses it, the daze in his eyes replaced with the familiar vicious spark. “You look exhausted, my dear. I would apologize for waking you so suddenly, but I’m afraid it was necessary. I’m sure you understand.”

He stares until you nod in agreement.

“Lovely.” He pauses for a moment, then goes on with a lowered voice. “I’m sure I’ll have no need to do it again.”

Again, you nod mutely. It was a question, and one that you can easily answer.

“I certainly have no need to keep you awake any longer tonight.” He gestures to the mattress behind you. “Time for bed.”

You don’t think you’re going to fall asleep any time soon, but you still reach behind you to awkwardly pull back the covers. You do not turn around.

“Hm… ” His eyes narrow, grin twitches at the corners. “It’s a warm night, my dear. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable without anything covering you.”

There’s nothing to be done. You sit down, swing your legs over your covers, and lay on your back. Arms at your sides, although you itch to wrap them around yourself. You vaguely register that you are cold, but that barely matters. Perhaps you’re not cold at all. You could be shuddering for any number of reasons.

He leans over you one final time. “Sleep well, darling.” His eyes do not waver from your face. Nor do they blink. You’re not sure if they ever have. “You’re quite a restless sleeper…I do hope that you have better dreams tonight.”

By the time you’ve processed what, exactly, he’s just told you, he has shrunken into the shadows before your eyes, and silently disappeared. You lay stiffly on top of your blankets, and stare up at the ceiling. You do not move, and you certainly do not cover yourself, even as the chill seeps under your skin. When you do fall asleep, hours later, your dreams are cryptic, tinged in a red glow, full of shadows and whispers in voices that are almost familiar, but far too distorted to make out.

When you wake up, you’re shocked to see that your discarded clothes are still lying on the floor. Shocked - but not relieved. It only means that the task of their disposal has been left to you.

#alastor x reader #yandere alastor x reader #yandere alastor #tw yandere #tw invasion of privacy #tw abuse of power

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our-happygirl500-fan · 2 years

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So I’ve been digging around the Turtlepedia wiki, going through old tweets from the team who worked on Rise & watched videos covering the scrapped Rise episodes so this is basically a post going through some of the scrapped season 2 stuff for Rise that I have found:

Rise was first written under the basis of there being three seasons

JJ Conway’s twitter posted an episode guide which showed some of the episodes that were expected to be in season two:

As you can see ‘The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle’ was one of the last episode that was released that fit the original plan for Season 2 before most of the episodes got scrapped or changed & the Rise team had to rush to finish the series.

Some of the episodes we know the synopsis of while others still remain a mystery the scrapped episodes were listed in order as:

Wedding Smashers:

This episode involves Mikey & Raph going undercover as pretend villains ‘Shady Bug & Dr Rude’ to sneak into Ghost Bear’s Wedding after they accidentally gifted Ghost Bear one of Donnie inventions (a black hole generating toaster) as a wedding gift that they then need to retrieve.

The episode was supposed to introduce the character Ghostpepper, Ghostbear’s fiancé

The episode also brings up some continuity in having the characters be aware that Meatsweats has been missing since the episode Pizza Puffs where he got kidnapped by ‘Shadow fiend’ at the end, I wish this episode hadn’t gotten scrapped because it shows that the Turtles are aware that their enemies are going missing when Big Mama starts kidnapping them for her Battle Nexus New York.

This episode most likely would have shown Ghostbear be kidnapped at the end like how Meatsweats was kidnapped at the end of Pizza Puffs & Hypno was kidnapped at the end of The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle.

Warren Stone 2:

Donnie: Stand back total stranger we are fighting our greatest foe

April kept the arm that she cut off Warren in ‘Warren & Hypno Sitting in a Tree’ & the arm ended up growing into a second Warren Stone, despite April raising this second worm in secret Warren Stone Two ends up becoming the ‘turtles greatest foe’ after Warren Stone Two captures the Turtles, April & the original Warren Stone team up to save the Turtles & defeat Warren Stone 2

Parts of the episodes storyboards can be found on youtube, a running gag appears to be Mikey referring to Warren as ‘that other worm guy whose not Warren two’

T-Hex

The episode T-Hex covers Mikey desperately wanting a robotic toy but Splinter saying no & Mikey having to sneak the electronic pet into the lair. Though the robot is adorable Mikey learns that it’s not as innocent as it seems & is actually a trap set by Baxter, the episode would have introduced Baxter in an Albearto mech

Psyched Out

Shred Dead Redemption

After the events of Manny Unhappy Returns the Foot Shack has shut down, Foot Lieutenant & Foot Brute open up a cupcake shop selling flaming cupcakes called Fire and Icing which Raph wants to investigate

The episode would have involved the Turtles doing a stakeout, a chase scene & the Foot clan putting themselves at odds with Big Mama as they investigate if her new champion ‘Shadow fiend’ has a connection to the missing Shredder.

The Island of Dr. Noe

Dr. Noe, the evil dentist from Todd Scouts ends up kidnapping Raph & Leo ends up having to lead the team in order to rescue Raph & stop the evil dentist.

Something interesting about this episode is when the Rise team were discussing this scrapped episode it was revealed that Leo wasn’t supposed to become the Leader at the end of Season 2, that’s right the iconic ‘Blue You Are The Leader Now’ wasn’t originally supposed to happen, instead Leo was supposed to be pushed into roles where he had to take charge throughout season 2 & the season would end with Raph & Leo as co-leaders.

Battle Nexus NYC (a full 20 minute episode) which was used in the series as Battle Nexus New York, the main difference between the original plan & the episode we got is that originally instead of Cassandra taking the Shredder from Big Mamma, the Grand Nexus Hotel was supposed to have fallen into the Hidden City with both Big Mamma & Shredder leaving The Foot to have to venture into the hidden city to try & retrieve the Shredder.

Toddler Mutant Ninja Turtles

A Mikey focused episode where a ‘bank robbing immortal jellyfish’ zaps Raph, Leo & Donnie, turning them into Turtle Tots & making Mikey the oldest brother for the episode. The episode is said to be inspired by the 1987 series episode ‘Adventures in Turtle Sitting’

Dog Dale Afternoon

April’s friend Dale who we first see in ‘Hypno! Part Deux’ gets turned into a werewolf by a witch & Donnie & April team up to try & turn him back to normal

Bee Story

Goyles Just Want To Have Fun

Huginn & Muninn reunite with Draxum, only to be confused when they find him working as a lunch server. Not wanting Huggin & Muninn to know how soft he’s gotten since his redemption Draxum begs the Turtles to help him look good in front of his former minions.

Rampagin’ Raph

Mikey & Leo have become more skilled in using their mystic powers making Raph feel left behind so Raph tries to practice in secret only to end up stuck in his giant form, Raph goes to to Draxum for help who ends up separating Raph & his mystic projection however the mystic projection ends up rampaging through the city becoming bigger & more powerful with the more things it destroys leaving Raph to have come clean to his brothers about what happened so they can save city.

Hot Thrash

Gourd Almighty

Donnie grows a giant pumpkin for competition & has to have his brothers help him find a way to get the giant pumpkin out of the lair

Two pages of the episodes script were posted on Ron Corcillo’s twitter

A Spiders Web Widens

Hidden City Heroes

Gone Goat

Draxum walks out after having a fight with the family but then gets kidnapped by the Foot. While attempting to rescue Draxum, the family has no choice but to resolve their issues relating to him.

The Key (a full 20 minute episode)

Karai was supposed to be introduced in this episode, she was supposed to have a larger role training the Turtles & with the family spanning around 10 episodes but due to the Rise team rushing to finish the series most of Karai’s episodes were scrapped.

The rest of the episode titles were not finalised however Ron Carney’s twitter posted a schedule board where possible episode titles can be seen.

Though Ron Carney also admitted that some of these titles are fake, the episode April Showers Mayhem Flowers might be real as the team admitted to wanting to do an episode about Mayhem & their status as an agent of the Council of Heads

The Return of Monty Moose is also probably real as we can see Monty Moose appear in the Rise Movie’s scrapped intro so the team probably had plans for the character in season 2

Monty Moose is a toy line only character from the 1987 series so Rise introducing him as an actual character is kind of cool

#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #tmnt

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local-diavolo-anon · 15 days

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i'm back!

ok so 2/3 days ago i found this youtube video where op turned Springtrap (or well, William Afton) into a fully build DnD character, and if i say so myself: things got out of hand fast

so here is my take on DnD Springtrap and specifically on that build (adding more infos under the cut for who is interested, i suggest to watch the video first)

starting with saying that unless you're playing in a scifi setting, this build is either not for you or to be modified, since in later levels spells are heavily centered around technomagic and electronic devices; personally when i will play him i will probably tinker around with the chosen spells and cantrips to make him less violently niche and/or more versatile

which kinda saddens me because it takes away not little of the characterization but, given most dnd stories take place in a medieval fantasy or high fantasy setting, a cantrip like On/Off or a spell like Remote Access are NOT particularly useful; so i will go for more psychic damage or necromancy oriented abilities, maybe i might take more than just 4 levels in artificier as well (especially given that again, all of those warlock spells at later levels are all technology oriented) but i need to see what those offer

however it is a kinda tank-y build given that with a shield on you can get up to a 27 of Ac, so even with low damage and not much hp you would not struggle too much to stay alive, and i like that!

as for the character himself, i put too much effort into my interpretation not to share it, so if anyone wants to play this guy as well, i fabricated a possible backstory that might come useful:

The character goes by the name "Dave Miller" (or whatever variant you want to use), and was originally a human artificier who created constructs for a living, mainly with the goal of offering aid to who needed it for whatever reason.

After losing part of his family to some kind of accident he became terrified of death, so with age he started replacing his own body parts with machinery to delay his last days (which made him a cyborg), until the point where he was very very close to become just a robot.

There however he ran into an issue, that being that a robot need a power source, and his own heart and lungs could not sustain a whole robot by themselves.

Through particular and very much not illegal experiments tied to necromancy he discovered that the life force of a living being could be shared, and used as a form of fuel. (possibly: age lived of the creature used= amount of extra months you get)

Here comes the second problem: this only worked with intelligent creatures, and more specifically, it worked best with creatures of your own race, which meant that he either went around murdering people or he found another solution. Non same-race creatures worked as well but not as good and there were not easy to find in the middle of a city and with a shop tied to your name.

And here is where and WHY he'd join a party of adventurers: after some time, his reserves or fuel were running VERY thin, and running into a group of adventurers was a god sent because by joining their party he essentially got a free pass to kill whoever he wanted, and reduce them to a dried raisin after sucking some life force out of them. Doing so you learn that the mowe powerful the creature is, the more energy it produces as well.

Your goal, that you as the player are following, when role-ing your character? essentially slay whatever powerful BBEG your Dm throws at you and suck all of that juicy fuel out of them, so that you can return to your little shop in the middle of the capital and return to create and sell whatever weird construct, doll, or robot comes to your mind for another few decades undisturbed.

And this is it. I think this might be a good backstory that could fit pretty much any setting you want to play this guy into, be it classic dnd or some scifi futuristic thing.

of course you don't NEED to use this one line per line, make up your own without looking back if you don't like it lol, dnd is the "make up shit and have fun" game after all!

Edit: also no his outfit makes no sense, i just went with vibes and decided a tanktop dress shirt, a twin tailed gilet and suspenders OVER said gilet was a good choice.

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steddieas-shegoes · 10 months

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love confessions in line

Another stupid little thing because I’m in the car and bored. It’s not edited or really anything much beyond just putting these boys in love in situations.

Rated t | tags: love confessions, established relationship, robin being so fed up with them

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“Why do we have to be here so early? My dinner hasn’t even digested properly yet,” Robin complained.

And, okay. It was cold and there were a lot of people standing in line outside of the only Walmart carrying the very specific guitar amp Eddie wanted. He’d called every Walmart in Indiana. Multiple times.

But he had to go all out for Christmas this year. Eddie had already said he’d gotten Steve something he’ll never outdo, never even believe. Obviously, that meant Steve had to do better than the Metallica hoodie that was stashed in his closet for the last four months.

“It’ll be worth it. There’s hardly anyone in line ahead of us and if we go straight to the electronics in the back—“

“You mean where everyone is going?” Robin interrupted, folding her arms across her chest.

Steve sighed.

“Yeah, well. I’ll run. It’ll be fine. I doubt anyone else here is interested in a guitar amp.”

As if the words ‘guitar amp’ were magic, someone who looked a lot like Eddie walked up to one of the security officers standing by the front doors.

Robin noticed at the same time as him.

“Is that…?”

“It can’t be. He said he was going fishing with Wayne in the morning and didn’t wanna end up stuck in crowds shopping,” Steve said.

But then the man turned back to the line.

“Steve?” Eddie yelled, eyes going wide when he realized Steve and Robin were there.

“Uh.”

“Um.”

“I thought you guys were going to Indy for this!” Eddie smiled as he walked up to them. “I don’t think this store will have what you’re lookin’ for.”

Steve panicked. There’s only one thing Eddie could be here for. He could go anywhere else. He could have stayed in Hawkins for that matter.

“Uh. Just wanted a change of scenery.”

Eddie’s brows furrowed as his smile fell slightly.

“O…kay. Well, I’ve got an amp to buy so I guess we’re all in this together now.”

Steve ignored Robin’s snort and mumbling.

Eddie glanced over at her with a questioning face.

“You two are unbelievable. Truly.”

“What? Why?” Eddie asked, genuinely curious.

His finger traced along the back of Steve’s hand subtly, out of sight of the people behind them in line.

“I.” Steve sighed.

Oh well. Maybe he could just try to get concert tickets the next time Ozzy came to Chicago.

“I was gonna get the amp for you for Christmas. I’ve been planning it for weeks,” Steve said, looking down at the ground.

Eddie was surprisingly quiet.

Absolutely no response.

After a full minute, Steve made eye contact with him.

He had tears building in his eyes and Steve felt himself start to tear up, too.

“You were?” Eddie choked out. “But this is-“

“The only place selling it on sale in the state, yeah.”

Robin was grumbling to herself again, but neither of them were paying attention anymore.

“How did you even know?” Eddie asked after a deep, calming breath.

“You mentioned it last month after a gig. Said you needed a new one anyways and this was top of the line or something. That a lot of the bands you like were switching to this kind for studio recording or whatever because of the…crisp? Sound? And then when no one else was selling it at all, I had to call around the Walmarts to see who had it on sale because $300 is a lot of money, Eds, and I wish I could afford that, but I don’t really have that lying around after paying for school and rent so when this place finally said they’d have it for $100, I made Robin promise to come with me since you’d be busy. And I guess you’re not that busy, but. I needed to do my best to get it.”

Eddie’s smile grew the longer Steve rambled. Robin was already walking away, probably back to Steve’s car, halfway through his speech.

“I love you.”

Steve’s jaw dropped in shock.

They’d been saying it in every way except this way for months, nearly a year, really.

It started as Steve taking care of Eddie when everyone else was busy taking care of the Upside Down.

It kept going as Steve was the one listening to Eddie slowly pick the guitar back up, working through the crying about his fingers not working right or his arm getting tired too quickly.

And then five months ago, Steve kissed him.

Took the plunge and kissed him.

They’d done everything together since. They’d become boyfriends. They came out to their group, together, always together.

And now, in a Walmart parking lot during the busiest shopping day of the year, Eddie was telling Steve he loved him.

“Because of the amp?” Steve asked, hesitant.

Eddie knew what he was really asking.

Because I’m buying you something nice?

“No, sweetheart. Because you listen to me. You know what makes me happy. You’re doing something for me that no one else would have even bothered to try to do.” Eddie laughed. “I have never wanted to kiss you as much as I want to right now.”

“Not even that time I wore a crop top and your boxers?”

Eddie groaned. “That was an outlier. You know how that affected me.”

“Oh, I sure do,” Steve smirked. “Too bad we’re in public.”

“The doors open in an hour right?” Eddie asked, checking his watch.

“Yep.”

“And then you have to take Robin to her parent’s house?”

“Probably should.”

“And then what?” Eddie asked, already knowing exactly what.

“And then I’ll come to the trailer and I’ll walk right to your room and hopefully-“ Steve cut himself off to whisper the next part. “You’ll be naked.”

Eddie’s brows raised. “You want me naked? What about Wayne being home?”

“Wayne’s been sleeping with ear plugs for months now. Can’t hear a thing,” Steve pats Eddie’s blushing cheek. “Said he didn’t need to hear what his nephew got up to.”

“We really should just move my stuff into your new place,” Eddie suggested for the fifth time in as many days.

Steve wasn’t opposed at all.

In fact, he’d planned on asking him to move in once he got more settled.

But.

“Wayne wanted another Christmas with you at home, baby. He won’t say it, but when I brought up you moving in with me, I thought he was actually gonna cry.”

“Yeah, yeah. With this new amp, he’ll change his mind.”

“What makes you think you get this amp before Christmas?” Steve put his hands on his hips.

“Because now I know you’re getting it!”

“Uh-huh. And it’s getting wrapped with your other gift to be opened on Christmas morning. No early gifts on my watch.”

“Steeeeeeve. Please! I could use it at our show next week!”

Steve shook his head. “Your amp works fine. Christmas is only a month from now.”

“You’re getting revenge on me,” Eddie pouted.

“Revenge for what?” Steve snorted.

“You know what.”

Steve did. He felt his cheeks and neck heat up with a blush.

“Fine. Yes. Maybe it’s a little bit revenge.”

Eddie huffed, but didn’t argue further.

“You know I love you, too, right?” Steve whispered.

And Eddie forgot about everything else except the way Steve was looking at him, like he needed Eddie to understand how much he loved him.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I do.”

———————

Three days later, Steve set the amp up in the second bedroom of his rented house.

When Eddie came over, he pushed him into the room and wrapped his arms around his waist.

“You can play it here, but I’m still wrapping it up for Christmas and you aren’t allowed to bring it to shows until after. Okay?”

Eddie was bouncing on his toes and squeezing Steve’s hands so hard he was losing feeling.

“Okay! Thank you, thank you! I love you! Thank you!”

Eddie smacked a kiss on Steve’s cheek before pulling away and running to the amp.

“You need your guitar, honey,�� Steve laughed.

“Right!” Eddie ran from the room to grab his guitar from his van.

Steve shook his head, but couldn’t help his fond smile as the front door banged open.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #drabble #Black Friday is a curse but if you think I’m not gonna write these idiots in the situation #robin buckley

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bootleg-nessie · 10 months

Text

Things that will happen in the future (based on my own experiences with time travel):

***FAQs at the end***

*All of these observations are copied directly from my notes in roughly the order I took them in

*Don’t ask about the interchanging use of past/present/future tense, you know how that stuff is with time travel

Women just started all growing three boobs instead of two. Scientists baffled

Genetically engineered catboys (no literally)

The great pyramid of Giza has been converted into a Bass Pro Shop

The entire state of Rhode Island was bought by some rich tech CEO who promptly dug a 500 foot wide trench around the entire state so that it could in fact be an island. It was soon converted into the world’s largest parking lot

Pollution has gotten so bad that fresh oxygen is now delivered straight to most homes via a subscription service

Basic necessities such as food, water, and housing are now provided for free by the government, but only for the top 1% of wealth holders

Insulin now costs twice as much as rent. “Get fucked,” say pharma companies

92.6% of new electronic appliances now have smartphone integration and require a monthly subscription to use

Most billionaires have real estate on earth’s moon

As an ongoing film experiment, Taika Waititi successfully convinced a Nebraska man that he’s been raptured and is now in heaven. He actually got Truman Show’d and now millions of viewers tune in every week to watch God (played by John DiMaggio) manipulate Robert into confronting his own views, battle cognitive dissonance, and face the realization that he might not have been as good of a person on Earth as he thought he was

Carrots have gone extinct, as have highland cows

Species of extinct animals and plants now are being posthumously renamed after the billionaires and elites most directly responsible for killing then off

Researchers discovered a sentient colony of fungus off the coast of Chile, it prefers to go by Fleebo and appears to have a incredibly complex intelligence far greater than any other observed organic being

Nobody knows where Ireland went. It literally just disappeared off the face of the earth one day and nobody bothered to question it. The story couldn’t compete in the news cycle with the recent news about a company in China that made the first real life pokemon. An entire civilization of people gone and I’m the only one who seems to remember it or even care

Fleebo and its offspring have annexed Madagascar and are threatening any retaliation with nuclear warfare and “making The Last of Us a reality.” Nobody knows if Fleebo actually has the capabilities to do this, but after the Lovecraft incident we’re all TOO goddam scared to fuck around and find out

Large snails have replaced cats and dogs as the most common household pet. Snail culture has largely taken over the world, especially Japan

The president of the United States is now decided with an oiled up twerking competition. Most people were hesitant at first but this has produced vastly more competent leaders so now everyone just kinda goes along with it

With the cost of living crisis only worsening with time, selling tattoo space on your body to advertisers has become common as people struggle to afford rent and pay their bills

North and South Korea have reunited into “Korea 2.0”

Germany has split up into East and West Germany again

Belgium and France have been annexed by West Germany and renamed “Wester Germany” and “Westest Germany” respectively

The entirety of Florida is now underwater. Most of Kansas is too for some reason that scientists refuse to explain because they’ve “sworn an oath to the eldritch gods” and that “much worse things would happen” if they did

The melting ice caps in Antarctica unveiled a lost civilization of intelligent creatures descended from a species of lungfish, predating human civilization by millions of years. They planned on hibernating for another 10-15 million years to observe the course of evolution on Earth and are very very angry at humans for waking them up prematurely and ruining all of that with global warming

The politically correct term for lungfish people is “Dipnoid” but most people refer to them by a variety of slurs, such as “finwalker” and “kelp muncher” (not that they even eat kelp)

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has now increased to nearly half the size of what was formerly known as Canada and has been colonized entirely by pirates (the flag is actually pretty cool). The pirate nation has the 17th largest economy in the world and is projected to surpass the United States in GDP

Africa is about 2% smaller. Nobody knows why. Most people point to Fleebo, who denies having any involvement

All human-Dipnoid interaction was promptly banned by most world governments, except for the GPGPRP (Great Pacific Garbage Patch Republic of Pirates), whom the Dipnoids rely upon extensively for trade

Scientists have used DNA from fossils to recreate other species of humans. We now live alongside them like we did for thousands of years before everyone besides Homo sapiens went extinct. Racism is at an all time high

Class C and above robots are now legally recognized by most progressive countries as people

The United States government has been exposed for secretly funneling billions of dollars into the GPGPRP and using it to fund terrorist operations all over the world.

A new major religion revolving around Dave Grohl has skyrocketed in popularity. Grohilsm is now the world’s largest religion, second only to Fleeboism

Scientists discovered a new continent in the Pacific Ocean, and then promptly lost it again. Most people are convinced this was just an elaborate practical joke, but scientists “swear it definitely happened”

For a brief period of about 30 years, everything in George Orwell’s 1984 happened almost exactly as written in the book. Literally 1984

It was revealed that Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself. He actually faked his death and spent the next few years in a drug-fueled episode of psychosis making sock puppets in a cave in Italy and then molesting said sock puppets until he died from a sock puppet related illness

Bigfoot was discovered off the coast of Georgia doing cocaine with a congregation of alligators. When questioned, he said he normally lives in Montana and was only there on vacation. He is now a celebrity, and has been featured in a number of tv shows and films, two of which he won an Oscar for. Last I checked, he was a washed up actor living in Hollywood with a reanimated Neanderthal woman

The GPGPRP raided most of England’s museums with the object of “doing exactly what they did for the last few centuries” England was understandably furious, but the rest of the world found it rather amusing

England declared war on the GPGPRP, which it promptly lost after hackers brought down the entire country’s military overnight. Much like in the 21st century, England is the world’s laughing stock

The entirety of Luxembourg relocated itself to the moon

Russia attempted to take over most of Eurasia. In retaliation to the full global effort to stop them, they launched nukes at the world’s 600 most populous cities outside of its current territory. Most of the warheads were stopped in time, but a few major metropolitan areas got hit pretty badly, including Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Mexico City, and Istanbul. Japan was understandably super pissed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked for a second time

In the wake of the nuclear holocaust, Canada assumed control over what was formerly Russia and assimilated many of its citizens and leaders into its own society and government. Under the new rule of formerly Russian leaders, Canada became a puppet state for the second coming of Russia. It annexed much of the United States, Mongolia, China, and a handful of other countries, becoming “the world’s first megacountry.” Crungolaska now controls a majority of the northern hemisphere

As part of a practical joke by Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks was actually marooned on a desert island like in Castaway. He lasted less than a week before he died. When I left this era of the future, Adam Sandler was serving a lifetime sentence in prison for murder

Fringe groups of crows with above-average intelligence have started popping up around the world. So far they have been observed forming small communities, crafting relatively complex tools, using rudimentary speech, performing rituals, and creating music

Aliens visited earth and had a formal meeting with many of our world leaders, but decided to leave us alone for a few thousand more years because humanity is “not yet mature enough to handle the responsibilities of interstellar travel.” They have incentivized us with a the blueprints for an Alcubierre Drive and a means to produce the exotic matter to fuel it once they deem us as being ready

The original colony of settlers on Mars has declared independence, officially becoming the first country not on Earth

We sent Tom Cruise back to space but this time we just left him there

The tether for the space elevator broke. The town known as Vatorville, famous for being the location of the takeoff point of the elevator shuttle on Earth, was completely decimated as tens of thousands of miles of steel cable came crashing back down. There were no survivors

Most people in first and second world countries have mandatory microchip implants that serve as a personal ID

Last Thursdayism has been largely denounced by quantum physicists. Current theories now revolve around “Next Thursdayism,” the belief that the entire universe was created in the future and that we all exist as a memory in the past

Synthetic organ farms for transplants and research have become a massive industry worth billions of dollars. However, there is still a huge black market for organically grown human organs, as they’re much cheaper to acquire and aren’t taxed at the exorbitant rates that lab-grown organs are

China dug a hole all the way to the center of the Earth. Turns out it’s hollow and there are people living inside. Who knew?

A university reconstructed the entire city of Rome as it was in its early days during the Roman Empire. It’s actually pretty historically accurate, except for the fact that there’s a lot less sex because it’s run by a bunch of sweaty history nerds

After Rome 2 resulted in the creation of a cult revolving around the Roman god of the dead that gained traction as a minor religion, Pluto was officially reinstated as a planet by NASA when cultists picketed their headquarters every day for nearly 3 years straight. “Fine, we’ll give these fucking virgins what they want so they’ll finally shut the hell up,” said NASA’s administrator in chief

In a display of the biotechnical prowess of Disney’s Imagineers, all the animatronics in Disney’s Hall of Presidents were replaced with clones of the originals, which went about exactly as well as you’d expect. After reports of the presidents hurling a series of racial slurs and other obscenities at the first black family to enter surfaced, the project was shut down almost immediately after it had opened. Minority admission to Magic Kingdom plummeted to 2.3% of its numbers from the previous year, making it the second whitest place on earth after a taylor swift concert

Plastic now makes up about 3% of every organism on earth by weight

Public officials are now required by law to take shrooms before running for office

Trees are considered a rare and highly sought after commodity, and are usually only owned by public institutions and the rich (the vast majority of oxygen farms use algae to produce oxygen)

FAQs:

FAQ: What time period(s) did you go to?

A: I have no fucking clue. The world stopped using the Gregorian calendar in 2063 after a gamma ray burst hit the sun. The GRB led to stellar ablation, which changed the length of a year on Earth. The sun would continue to lose mass at an accelerated rate for several more years, with the length of the year changing slightly from year to year. The world adopted a variety of different calendars which kept being updated frequently and were often super confusing and contradictory. I traveled to about a dozen different points in time, which based on my best estimates spanned within a few millennia of the current date.

FAQ: How did you obtain a time machine?

A: I think it was the 17th or 18th of June, 2055? That night, a large sci-fi looking box thingy roughly the size of a VW Bus appeared a few hundred yards away in the open field in front of my house. I tried to take a picture of the box, but for some reason the closer I got, the more the image on my camera started to become fuzzy, and by the time I got close enough to take a decent picture, the camera had stopped working altogether. I pulled open a door to reveal a corpse inside that was charred beyond recognition, who appeared to have suffocated and/or burned to death during a fire that damaged most of the interior. I also noticed a number of strange tumors and growths on the body. I pressed a random button on the remains of what I believed to be a control panel, expecting nothing to happen, but the door closed automatically and I suddenly lost consciousness. When I came to, I exited the box, expecting to still be in the field in front of my house, but instead found myself a ways outside of a small snowy village that based on my best estimates, was somewhere in northern Asia around 2-3 thousand years ago. The villagers started coming after me with spears, so I quickly ran back to the box and pressed another button, hoping it would return me to from whence I came. This time, the people I found (who were thankfully much nicer and spoke a dialect of English that I could mostly understand) told me that it was the year 506 of the PGRB-Δ4 calendar (the calendar that the United Territories was using at the time). I repeated this maybe a dozen more times trying to get home until I landed in 2023, which as far as I could tell, was the closest I had gotten back to my original time so far. It was at this point that I decided to stay and seek medical attention, as I was rather concerned about some nasty new growths on my arms and legs similar to that which I had seen on the corpse.

FAQ: Where is the time machine now?

A: No idea. It disappeared a few days after I landed in 2023. My best guess is that some poor sap found it and ended up sometime else.

(I never ask for likes/reblogs but I literally spent fucking WEEKS on this one so if you liked it pls show me some love <3)

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secretgamergirl · 10 months

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How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

#computers #computer science #history #electronics #education #relays #transistors #vacuum tubes

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cherryxkush · 4 months

Text

risky business | pjm, jjk (m) | 1

synopsis: you’re a successful entrepreneur in the beauty industry and after your assistant/best friend sees the spread in Korea GQ magazine of a popular k-pop artist, she gets him on the first flight to California to start a sponsorship deal, and it was none other than the world-renowned fuckboy you met at a product launch party for Gucci two years ago.

pairing: jimin x female reader x jungkook

rating: mature (18+)

genre: enemies to lovers, love triangle, angst, fluff, smut

warnings/content: swearing, employer/client relationship, past situationship, fuckboy!jimin, celebrity!jimin, love triangle, tattoo artist!jungkook, jin is reader’s lawyer best friend

explicit content: varies between chapters, this one is reader x jungkook, protected sex (good job jk), oral sex (female receiving, but mentions of wanting to give a bj), slight hand/veins kink, multiple orgasms, missionary, doggy style, spanking, jk has a daddy kink, jk calls reader babygirl/princess

disclaimer: this is entirely a work of fiction, and in no way does it reflect thoughts or acts of bts in the real world (:

𝗇𝗈𝗍𝖾: 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝗂𝗌 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 𝗑 𝗃𝗎𝗇𝗀𝗄𝗈𝗈𝗄 𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗒, 𝗃𝗂𝗆𝗂𝗇 𝗐𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝖺𝗉𝗉𝖾𝖺𝗋 𝗂𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗇𝖾𝗑𝗍 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋. 𝖾𝗇𝗃𝗈𝗒 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗂𝖾𝗌 ♡

Next chapter

“Please make sure you actually take off the lens filter before shooting this time,” you told your assistant and best friend, Naiya. You were already behind on shooting and editing the photos for your product line, and you couldn’t afford any more mishaps — otherwise the new launch would be late, and it wouldn’t just be your pay that you had to worry about.

“It was one time!” She rolled her eyes before double-checking that the lens filter actually was off, and then she started taking some photos of the models that were standing against the backdrop. Between each shot, she looked down at the electronic viewfinder on the camera, assessing what could be tweaked and what needed to stay.

She smiled at the models, telling them to take a 10 minute break before walking back over to you. “So, here are the shots so far,” The both of you looked at the screen as she pressed the button to proceed to the next photo, and you were genuinely impressed. “Some of these we can use. They’re great, aside from just a few things to edit. I can do that in post, of course — but, I do think we could use a high-profile male model.”

Your eyebrow rose in question, “High profile? You don’t think we have enough models already?”

“We have a good amount, sure, but finding someone famous will bring more exposure to the brand. Which leads to more inclusivity, more press, more deals — and more coin. Plus, you sell men’s skincare products too, so it’ll look even better for the optics,”

You were actually speechless. Partly because you hadn’t thought of it before (not even the head of your advertising department did, which is a shame), and partly because she was absolutely right. Getting someone with a lot of recognition to model for your beauty brand would create a massive amount of exposure for your business, and could finally land you a spot working with a brand you’ve dreamed of collaborating with since your teenage years.

You were successful in your industry, yes, and it took you a long time and a lot of hard work to get where you are, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t strive to be even better within the industry. Following your passion came with sacrifices, and you weren’t about to let those dark times be for nothing.

But at the same time, this product line that you were about to put out was going to be the bread and butter of your business, so you needed it to be great. Almost perfect, even, and you didn’t know how long it would take to find someone to fit the bill, for the deal to work in both of your favors. It seemed like it was too risky.

You sighed, “Yeah, you’re right. It would really help and we could get tons of publicity from it, but it’s just cutting it too close, Nai. We can’t have this product launch be anything less than damn near perfect.” You walked over to a work desk that was in the studio, pulling out the chair and sitting down before stressfully running a hand through your hair. “I mean, who would I even reach out to? Would we have to do model calls again? The launch is in less than two months now,”

“Girl, look at these,” Naiya said as she walked over to you before plopping down on top of the desk and reaching over to grab her laptop. She took a sip of her drink, opening up the Adobe Photoshop application before turning her laptop towards you. “These are some of the finished shots from the other day. We didn’t even think we’d be able to finish editing these in time, and look how amazing they turned out,” She wasn’t lying — they were stunning.

“They’re beautiful,” you agreed and she beamed, proud of herself. She was your go-to for everything photo and video and she’d wanted to get into that scene long before she actually started, so she had a lot of knowledge and skin in the game in regard to what would look the best for the vision you were going for. She definitely had your back, but there were still some things you were unsure about business-wise, that neither of you were really familiar with. “You’re great at what you do, but what about the other stuff? Making a deal and all the legal things that go along with it? We’re not just talking about influencers that get a commission from sales here, you know?”

“You let me handle finding the person and closing the deal, you go talk to Jin about starting a contract and all the legal shit that goes with it.”

“Absolutely the fuck not.” Jin eyed you with a blank expression as he sat comfortably with his hands folded, judging you.

“What the hell do you mean?!” You exclaimed before turning to examine yourself in the mirror again. “This is cute!”

“You got asked out to dinner after being dry for like 2 years and you can’t do better than leggings and a sweater?”

You rolled your eyes. “First of all, this sweater was expensive,” You walked over to the rack inside your closet, grimacing at the idea of having to wear a dress or skirt. “Second of all, you just want your women to be as high maintenance as you.”

Jin laughed, “This is true, but you would definitely increase your chances of getting laid if you put in more effort,”

“Who says I’m trying to get laid?”

“Your attitude and the fact that you used one of my charging cables for your vibrator.” You felt your face heat up at Jin’s comment, and you wanted to proceed to crawl into a hole, lie in the fetal position, and stay there for eternity.

“I hate you,” you frowned and Jin smirked.

“I love you, too, and wear the black dress. It’ll suit you.”

You spotted the dress at the end of the rack. It was made of a sleek material, smooth silken fabric with mesh, tulle-like sleeves. You’d bought it about 2 years ago after an event in Los Angeles. It was nighttime and on the way back to the hotel, you walked passed the prettiest little boutique and fell in love with the dress immediately — but you never wore it.

You frowned, silently questioning if you could pull it off. It was a different time back then, one where you felt on top of the world and you thought you’d found someone that would sweep you off of your feet and you’d beam at seeing his glimmering eyes rake upon your beauty in the dress. But it didn’t happen that way. In fact, it didn’t happen at all.

In an effort to distract yourself from your thoughts, you decided to ask Jin about the modeling contract.

“Okay, fine, but there’s something I need to talk to you about first.”

“And what’s that?” He raised his eyebrow in question.

“So, you know how I’m releasing a new product line soon?”

He scoffed, “About damn time! Of course I’m already handsome, we all know this, but men need good skincare too,”

You rolled your eyes, “Hence the reason I’m putting out this line, Jin. Anyways, Naiya proposed the idea that we should have a high-profile male model, preferably someone really famous who can bring us a lot of publicity,”

“Okay, and did you find this person yet?”

“Naiya’s working on that. But I do need your help with creating a contract and all the legal shit that’s included,” You grabbed the dress off of the rack hesitantly.

He brought a hand up to his chin as if he were thinking before meeting your gaze. “Alright, say I do it. What do I get out of it?”

“Um...my love and support as your best friend?”

“Will love and support pay my bills?”

You glared at him, “No, but you sure do eat a lot of my food to not pay my grocery bill.”

He laughed nervously, bringing up a finger to rub at his temple, “Well played,”

“Will a full-size bottle of that serum you like be good enough?”

“Throw in those little eye patches too, I don’t care what anyone says about me for using them — my bags are horrendous these days.”

You laughed and Jin cracked a smile. “Deal.”

jungkook [8:31pm]: i’m outside pretty, buzz me up?

you hearted a message from jungkook

You happened to meet Jungkook about 2 months ago when you decided to get a tattoo for the first time. You were really excited about the journey you were on with your business and the woman you were becoming, so you decided to get a self love tattoo that really resonated with you, and Jungkook was your artist.

During your session you couldn’t stop ogling at him due to his good looks and his many, many tattoos — he boldly asked for your number afterwards and you gladly but shyly gave it to him. After talking for a couple months and your busy schedules finally coinciding, Jungkook had been adamant about taking you on a date.

You walked over to the buzzer next to the door of your luxury condo and pressed the button to let Jungkook through the downstairs entrance. Your heart fluttered at the fact that he chose to come all the way to the fifth floor of your building to come get you instead of asking you to meet him downstairs.

You heard a gentle knock before opening the door, meeting Jungkook’s gaze as he presented you with a bouquet of flowers.

You grinned with rosy cheeks, “Aren’t you the gentleman?”

“I try,” He smiled smugly.

“You definitely succeeded,” You walked over to put the flowers in a vase with some water before leaving out. “You really didn’t have to do all this, Jungkook. This is beyond sweet,”

“I meant it when I said I wanted to take you out and show you a good time,” He grabbed your hand as he met your eyes, just as you finished putting away the flowers. “Come on, we don’t wanna be late for our reservation.”

You blushed even harder. “Y-you made a reservation?”

“Of course, you’re too pretty for me not to,” He flashed you a grin before grabbing your hand and interlacing his fingers with yours, and you felt like your heart was going to beat out of your chest.

The date went well. Jungkook had taken you to a restaurant that had really good food even though it was overpriced, and you liked the vibe of it. It was fancy, with the wait staff dressed in black-tie attire and you were happy that you went with the dress Seokjin suggested. Jungkook took every opportunity to compliment you and he didn’t just compliment your looks, but your conversation as well.

He’d also told you about his career as a tattoo artist and how he’d loved it, having opened up his own shop about a year prior, and you shared details about your journey into the beauty industry. It was almost endearing, the way that he talked about his job, and you felt the same way about yours. Although it could be really stressful, you couldn’t see yourself doing anything else, and you could tell Jungkook shared that with you. It was a connection beyond the physical attraction; it was mental, too, the way it seemed you both complimented each other.

Although, the physical attraction was definitely there.

He’d absentmindedly roll up his sleeves a bit showing his veiny arms as he focused on talking with you, his lip ring glinting in the moody lightning. It made you want to bite your lip, and you shuffled a bit in your seat, growing flustered at the sight of the man before you.

He was fully dressed, engaging in conversation, and you found yourself enamored with him, in awe even though he hadn’t even touched you. Seeing his dimples when he smirked made you want to whimper. Clock it to maybe the fact that you hadn’t been laid in a couple years, and Seokjin’s words had started to creep into your mind, but Jungkook had you hot and bothered without even trying.

“You okay there?” He smirked, not missing the pinkish tint to your cheeks.

Slightly startled because you’d been caught, you replied sheepishly before clearing your throat, “Y-yeah, I’m fine,”

He wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin after taking the last bite of his food and seeing that you were done with yours, suggested you both do something to wind down, but not end your date so soon.

“Do you wanna take a little walk in the city for a bit? I remembered you saying you hadn’t been to this part of town in a while,”

There go the stupid butterflies again.

You arrived outside of your apartment building, Jungkook skillfully parking his sleek car as close as he could to shorten the walk.

He turned off the engine, the both of you relaxing in each other’s presence before either of you decided to leave. He was mesmerizing, lax in nature yet attractively attentive and his scent drove you crazy; it was an earthy, musky scent, one that made your mouth water and your thighs instinctively rub together.

His eye contact sent a delicious chill down your spine, and you missed the burn that his lips left on your hand after giving it a gentle kiss.

Instead of kissing your hand you wanted him to kiss other places, and suddenly his spacious car became too cramped and stuffy for your liking.

To put it plainly, you wanted him out of the car and in your bed. And even though you were shy as hell, this was one opportunity you definitely didn’t want to let pass you by.

You blinked at him, trying to steady your breath before speaking, but it still came out a little bit more breathy than you’d like, and unbeknownst to you, made Jungkook’s dick jump in his pants. “Would you want to come up?”

His eyes went wide with surprise before he tried to shake it off. He cleared his throat, not expecting you to ask, but he took you up on the offer.

In usual Jungkook fashion, he smirked. “Lead the way, Princess.”

You took the elevator up to your condo, hastily putting in your key once you got to your door. You stepped in, taking off your jacket and offering to hang up Jungkook’s.

He closed the door quietly before pinning you against it, his face dangerously close to yours.

His voice was just above a whisper, thick and gravelly. His gaze switched back and forth from your eyes to your lips, and he absentmindedly brought his tongue out to wet his own. “Let me make this clear, do you want this? Because I do,”

You swallowed thickly, already feeling desire pooling in the pit of your stomach at the hold that Jungkook had on you right now. You couldn’t help but nod to answer him, not finding the strength to use your voice. Jungkook wasn’t too happy about that.

“Use your words, baby,” He moved to your ear before dipping just below it to leave a kiss there, a kiss that added to the fuel that was already him hovering over you like this.

“Y-Yes,” you croaked. “I want it,”

“Want what?” He probed, chuckling softly as he continued to pepper kisses along your skin, slowly moving from your ear and down your neck. He could feel you shifting, your thighs squeezing together to give yourself some relief. “If you want more, you gotta use that pretty mouth of yours and tell me,”

He kissed a particular spot that made you gasp softly and offer more of your neck to him. He sucked on the spot, making you whimper and flutter your eyes closed before he pulled away entirely.

You frowned out of disappointment and opened your eyes to see his smug face, lips curled into an amused smirk. There was a glint in his eyes that made your mouth run dry.

“If you don’t want to use your words, I can’t help you, and by the looks of it, I think you want me to,” He bit his lip as he surveyed you, looking you up and down and your tongue came out to wet your lips, “But consent is important, and I need to know if you want it too, and that I’m not reading this wrong,”

You struggled to meet his eyes, simultaneously wanting to crawl into a hole and crawl under him, having him hover over you with his silver chain dangling in your face. You managed to find the courage, though, and the butterflies turned into searing-hot sparks.

“Y-you’re not reading it wrong, I want you, Jungkook. I want you to touch me,”

He cockily grinned at you before closing the gap between the two of you, “Thought you’d never ask.”

He brought his lips to yours, sending all of your nerve endings on fire and creating a heat that pooled in the pit of your stomach. He grabbed the back of your neck roughly before his fingers found themselves in your hair and he tugged slightly on the strands, causing you to moan.

“Oh, she likes that, huh?” He slid his hand down your body before toying with the hem of your dress. “You look so pretty with this on,”

“It would look prettier off,” You quipped, bothered that he wasn’t where you needed him to be.

“Someone’s eager,” he chuckled deeply before dragging his fingers upwards, letting you feel the rough pads of his fingertips on the skin of your thighs. He lightly grabbed the bottom of your dress before pulling it up to your hips. He traced the fabric of your thong with his finger, “Cute,” he said, distracting you a bit from his hands before he firmly pressed a thumb on your clit over your underwear, rubbing in small circles.

“Fuck,” you whispered, throwing your head back against the door, relishing in his touch. You started grinding against his hand, desperate for relief, and he didn’t hesitate to call you out on it.

“So fucking needy,” he growled, and you felt an electrifying jolt run through your body again. He rubbed harder and you gasped, rolling your eyes back. “I barely touched you and you’re already soaking through your panties.”

You brought your hand up to rake your manicured nails along his scalp before pulling, earning a grunt of approval from him. You smashed your lips onto his in fervor and he grunted, opening his mouth to allow you entrance and your tongues battled for dominance. He held you closer, cupping your scantily clad ass in his big, veiny hands before slapping your ass hard. You let out a small, surprised yelp before relishing and moaning at the sting.

He did it again but harder, and you were positive you were in fact dripping down your legs at this point.

You pecked him a couple of times before grabbing his hand and leading him after you. “Room. Now.”

Once you got to your room, Jungkook proceeded to turn you around to face him and continued kissing you, bringing up a hand to cup your face.

He walked you backwards and when the backs of your heels reached the frame, he pushed you onto the bed.

He stood over you, skilled hands working at undoing his belt and you could see how hard he was. Throwing your head back, your hands reached your clothed breasts and began to fondle them, fingertips enclosing and twisting your nipples, and Jungkook’s mouth watered at the sight.

His belt flew to the floor somewhere and he grabbed the back of your calves to pull you closer to him at the edge of the bed. Your dress was covering too much, he decided.

“Take your dress off, babygirl, unless you want me to rip it.”

You almost moaned at his words. The dress flew somewhere too, and you lie in front of him, clothed in nothing but your thong, tits on full display.

He licked his lips and as you saw his face coming toward you, you could’ve sworn it would’ve been to take one of your tits in his mouth, but he placed a kiss above your belly button. And you shivered as you saw that he kept going lower.

He peppered soft, slow pecks along your skin until he was face to face with the source of your wetness, and Jungkook leaned in to lick a strip on the material of your panties. Your hands fisted the blanket as he teased you at an agonizingly slow pace, moving his tongue anywhere but the place you actually needed him, making you squirm.

He hooked his fingers underneath your underwear before ripping it off of you, the frail piece of lace no match for his strength as it tore.

“Will just have to buy you another pair.” He winked before kissing you again, but this time right above your clit, his breath warm and his touch sending you into overdrive.

You spread your legs for him eagerly and his long fingers spread your lips, stopping to admire you. You self-consciously had half a mind to close them as he gazed upon your lower half, but he held them open and finally licked a strip from your hole to your clit.

“S-shit,” you moaned as he held you open, his tongue meeting your clit as he swirled it in tight circles before giving it a hard suck. “Fuck!”

“Mmm,” He moaned against you, causing you to shiver again, hips bucking into his mouth. “You taste good, gonna make you cum on my tongue first.”

He lapped at you like you were the dessert he craved but never had, as if you were the best thing he’d ever taste. He licked at you, flattening his tongue before circling your clit again, and you had to try your best not to scream.

And you didn’t scream, until he started sucking on your clit again.

“Fucking shit, ‘Kook,” You moaned loudly and he hummed at the nickname. You had never been eaten out this good before, and you were so close to cumming on his tongue in so short of a time that you were almost embarrassed.

One of his fingers teased against your hole before diving in, and your toes curled before he added another. “Gotta stretch you out,” He mumbled against your pussy before swirling his tongue again. He curled his fingers expertly, reaching the spongey part within you that made tears prick your eyes from the pleasure.

You arched your back, hips leading away from his mouth before he tightened his grip around them with his other hand and held you so close you were worried you’d suffocate him.

He made eye contact with you and it had you feeling like you were going to combust. You reached down to tangle your fingers into his hair and he created a faster pace with his digits, darting in and out of you so quickly that you were sure you’d cum in 5 minutes flat.

His let go of your hip to rub your clit as his tongue took a break, and the coil in your stomach tightened even more, tears rolling down your face at how good he was making you feel.

“Look at how well that pussy takes my fingers,” he mused, “Fuck, you’re so pretty,”

Your pussy tightened around his fingers and he slapped your clit lightly, “Fuck, yes!” you were shouting, and it made his heart swell at the pleasure he was giving you. He wanted to make you cum hard, and fuck if he wasn’t gonna taste it. He wanted all of you.

“I’m so close,” you said all breathy, your vocal cords nearly strained, and you had so much more to go. Jungkook’s goal was to make sure you couldn’t walk the next day.

“Cum for me, pretty,” He rasped, before sucking on your clit hard, and watching you come undone on his tongue.

“I-I’m gonna cum, I’m — Jungkook!”

He hummed as he lapped up your juices, tasting you as he let you ride out your high and when you came down from it, you thought he’d give you a break. But he wasn’t done.

He stood up and brought his fingers up to his mouth, sucking them to get every last bit of you off of them. He leaned in to hover over you and kiss you, your tongue colliding with his as you tasted yourself. To your surprise, it only seemed to make you wetter.

He took off his boxers, cock springing up to slap against his stomach. It was leaky, the tip oozing precum and you wanted so badly to have him in your mouth but when you’d suggested it, he declined and you pouted.

He grabbed a condom from you don’t even know where and ripped it with his teeth before rolling it on. “Uh-uh, tonight’s about you. You can take care of me another time, babygirl,” He said before winking at you and pumping himself a couple times before lining himself up with your entrance.

He grabbed your legs by your ankles and put them over his shoulder, pushing into you and you mewled at the stretch. He stopped to let you get acclimated to the size and waited until you gave him a nod to continue before backing out of you and snapping his hips in a pace that was so rough and so fast it damn near knocked the wind out of you.

You screamed so loud that were sure your neighbors would hate you, but you didn’t care, not one bit.

“S-Shit, your cock is so good,” He groaned as he continued his pace while you were clutching the blanket so hard your knuckles were turning white. “Do it again,”

He snapped his hips into you again, hitting your cervix. “Babygirl likes that, huh? You like when I slam my cock into you?”

“F-fuck, yeah, I l-love it,”

“How is your pussy still so tight after fucking you with my fingers like that,” He was gritting his teeth, trying not to empty his load into you already. He can usually hold out but your pussy was too good, so slick and tight and sucking him in.

You clenched purposefully and giggled and he groaned, damn near having to stop to pace himself because of you. Nonetheless he kept going, and he was determined to wreck your pussy and make you crave him afterwards.

He grabbed your legs and pushed so you were bent at the knees and you were holding them in place. Then he started speeding up again, snapping his hips into you and you were seeing stars.

“Fuuuuck, J-“

“Say my name baby, who’s fucking you this good?”

“You are, J-Jungkook, fuck,” you threw your head back into the pillows, eyes rolling back and toes curling.

He was holding onto you so tight, thrusting into you so hard he was going to leave pretty little bruises for you to remember the night by.

“Your pussy is s-so good,” He reached down to rub your clit, and you arched your back again, clenching around him and he moaned. “W-wanna fuck you in doggy before I make you cum again,”

He slid out of you, leaving you feeling empty and missing his warmth before he helped you turn over, positioning you face down, ass up.

He smacked your ass with force and you whimpered at the sting before wiggling your bum and teasing him so he’d do it again.

He did it harder this time and the pain had you gritting your teeth, but it sent a delicious chill along your veins that was intoxicating, and you wanted more.

He lined himself up at your entrance again and as you felt him lined up perfectly, his head peaking at your hole, you slammed back against him, ass meeting his pelvis as he bottomed out. You moaned into the blanket, grabbing fistfuls of it.

“Fuck!” He yelled, eyes rolling back and you felt the coil winding up again at him being vocal. “Babygirl wants back shots from Daddy, yeah? If you wanted me to drill you, Princess, all you had to do was ask.”

Oh shit.

Ohhhh shit.

He pulled almost all the way out of you before snapping his hips again, bottoming out and hitting your cervix so good your toes curled and your back arched so much you knew you’d be sore afterwards.

He continued his relentless pace and you met his thrusts, his balls slapping delectably against your clit and you moaned pornographically in response.

He reached forward to grab your hair and pull you up so that your back met his chest, and the burn made fire ignite in your belly, so much so that the coil was going to snap any second now.

It was too much and not enough all at once. You wanted more and more of whatever he was willing to give you, you wanted to be so drunk on his dick that you forgot your own name.

He reached down to rub circles on your clit and that’s when you lost it.

“J-Jungkook, I’m cumming!” You creamed on his cock with a cry and a shake, quaking from the sheer amount of pleasure of your orgasm. He coaxed you through it as you rode out your high, his fingers still playing with your clit as he rubbed it just the way you liked.

He led you down to the bed, gently as he slowed his pace inside you. “I’m almost there, Princess. Daddy’s gonna cum for you,”

You moaned loudly, leaking even more at the name. You loved how vocal he was and how sexy he made you feel. It was addicting.

And to try to repay him for how good he made you feel, you managed to have the strength to throw your ass onto him, hard, to get him to cum. You wanted his load in you.

“F-fuck baby, I really will cum if you keep doing that,” He bit his lip, toying with the ring and you were glad you had turned around slightly in time to see it. When you faced back forward, Jungkook was in for a treat.

You pushed back with force, arching your back so well that he hit the right spots all while clenching your pussy like you wanted to milk him and he loved it.

“S-Shit, baby, I’m gonna cum,”

“Cum for me Daddy,” you said with a sensual tone, one that had his eyes rolling back into his head as your ass met his hips one last time before spilling his load into the condom.

He came with a hiss and holding onto your hips for dear life. You were sure to have marks tomorrow, and neither of you were mad about it.

After coming down from his post-orgasm high, he gently pulled out of you before proceeding to take off the condom and tie a knot before throwing it away in the bathroom connected to your room.

He was rummaging in there for what seemed like a tad bit too long, and you were puzzled although you were too tired to see what he was doing. You heard the sink run for a few seconds before being turned off, and then you saw him come out of the bathroom, damp towel in hand.

“Sorry about that,” He smiled sheepishly. “I wanted to get something to clean you up,” He gently wiped your juices from your body. It was relaxing and gentle, soothing you. You smiled in appreciation before thanking him, grinning as you met his eyes.

“Still the gentleman,” He winked, sending butterflies roaming around your stomach again. It was becoming a regular thing with Jungkook, and you liked it.

“I try,” He laughed and you threw a pillow at him while laughing too.

You got up to go pee before changing into some underwear and a loosely fitted t-shirt. You glanced at the clock and saw that it said 3 am before turning off the lights and climbing into bed, Jungkook cuddling up next to you and you laid your head on his chest.

The light coming from your phone was bright as it flashed and you heard the familiar tone of an incoming iMessage, but you chose to ignore it, as Jungkook was too warm and this was the best you’d felt in a long time.

You were in for a big surprise tomorrow, but for now, as comfy and giddy as you were, maybe you could get used to having Jungkook around.

2 unread messages

naiyaaa [3:02am]: srry i know it’s hella late, i fell asleep at like 7 while watching my show lmao

naiyaaa [3:02am]: just wanted to tell u i got somebody to model for u!! it’s park jimin, he’s super famous in south korea bitch. we going worldwideee

author’s note: 𝖺𝗁𝗁𝗁!! 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗂𝗌 𝗆𝗒 𝖿𝗂𝗋𝗌𝗍 𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾 𝗉𝗈𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖺 𝖿𝗂𝖼 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗂 𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝖼𝖺𝗇’𝗍 𝖻𝖾𝗅𝗂𝖾𝗏𝖾 𝗂𝗍 𝗅𝗈𝗅. 𝗂 𝗁𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖺𝗅𝗅 𝖾𝗇𝗃𝗈𝗒𝖾𝖽 𝗂𝗍 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗉𝗅𝗌 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 & 𝗋𝖾𝖻𝗅𝗈𝗀 𝗂𝖿 𝗌𝗈, 𝖿𝖾𝖾𝖽𝖻𝖺𝖼𝗄 𝗂𝗌 𝖺𝗉𝗉𝗋𝖾𝖼𝗂𝖺𝗍𝖾𝖽 <3 𝗆𝗈𝗋𝖾 𝖼𝗈𝗆𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗌𝗈𝗈𝗇 ♡

if you’d like to join my taglist, you can do so here!

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charminglyantiquated · 7 months

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So, I’m seriously looking into getting into tall ship sailing (waiting on follow-up from an interview rn) and I’m wondering for getting into it more long-term -

what do people do after sailing tall ships? Like, it’s a pretty physical job, and I’d assume there’s a point where your joints just can’t keep up with it.

Are there other jobs in the industry that people move to? I’m not really keen on the idea of moving up in the ship’s hierarchy- admin and being someone’s boss both aren’t really my thing. Do people retrain in completely different careers? Go back to whatever they were doing before they started sailing?

Anyway, I know your sample size might not be super large so I’d appreciate anything. Thanks a bunch!

This is hard to answer directly - on the one hand sailing tall ships is such a niche industry that there are limited pathways for straightforward advancement. But on the other hand, it overlaps with such a large number of other industries, and requires such a jack of all trades skillset - tourism, carpentry, history and preservation, hospitality, marine electronics, etc. etc. etc. - that there's a lot of ways forward for what I guess I'd call lateral advancement: moving to another job which uses most of the same skills. So there's no one answer, but if it helps, here's some things my tall ship deckhand friends have ended up doing, after no longer deckhanding tallships:

Get a captain's license and keep sailing. Captains often have it a bit easier physically (balanced out by the mental stress lol), and are paid better. Owning your own boat is optional; plenty of companies hire captains by the season to sail the boat, while the management of the company is dealt with by the actual owners. (This is what I did! I don't have the sail-hauling arms I did as a deckhand, but my knees and bank account are both in better shape).

Bosun, first mate, engineer, some other specialized non-captain crew member, usually involves licensing or other education that's useful down the road if you switch to an adjacent career

Racing yachts

Captain for hire on private vessels

Outward bound guide, other wilderness education programs

Harbor cruises, lobster tour guides, and other motor-powered tourist boats, both as captain and as crew - you have the patter and the safety skills but you don't want to deal with the hassle of sails

Water taxis, ferries and other passenger vessels

Lobstering, fishing, aquaculture, tugboats, other non-tourist waterfront industries

Marine surveyor, marine electrician, other specialized technician

Working in a shipyard - good fit for all the fit-out skills of sanding, painting, varnishing, covering and uncovering the boat

Cruise ship hostess

Train conductor (the passion for the early 1900s carried over well)

Working at a a museum focused on local maritime history

Tour guide for local buses, walking tours, etc

Boatbuilder (IYRS, Wooden Boat School)

Teaching the captain's license courses (nota bene: there were obviously some other steps between deckhand and teacher, notably ten years of being a captain in between. But this is what they settled into when they decided sailing was too physically taxing, so I want to include it).

Carpentry, house painting

Designing and selling custom made van-homes (apart from the technical skills, living on board a ship helps familiarize making use of every square inch of space)

Sailmaker

Of course there's other friends who went on to try something completely new and unrelated - I think because so many of the people who start sailing tall ships are here for something completely new in the first place, that's not an intimidating prospect so much as an exciting one. But many of them did make use of tall ship skills even when moving on from tall ships, so I hope the above list is helpful in giving a broad sense of what can follow!

#schooner bum life #i am probably forgetting some tbh #for fun. some unrelated post-sailing jobs:#artist #dog mushing in alaska #cheese making #sword maker #chocolatier #orchestra conductor #model #looking at that i think there's probably also something to be said for the confidence it takes #to pursue something you find interesting #even if it means starting from scratch #the same leap of faith that gets you on a tall ship can take you somewhere else

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thetechbuyer · 1 year

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#sell apple devices #sell your iPhone #sell iPhone online #where to sell used electronics #sell broken macbook #sell old ipad #The Tech Buyers

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danieyells · 3 months

Text

One of the Vagastromers had eagerly come back with some fascinating winnings from Sinostra--some Frostheimer had bet their new car and lost. While the gambling was certainly to be gently chided over, the minor victory over Frostheim was of more value to the Vagastrom general students. There was, however, a small problem that the whole house couldn't figure out--the electronic key hadn't come with the car, and they couldn't turn it on in the first place.

Alan, after examining the vehicle, went to the only person he knew could help.

"Oooh, not a bad ride." Leo circled the car, dainty fingers running over the smooth, shiny exterior. "These things aren't even a year old. You really screwed that guy, I bet his daddy'd whip his ass if he were here."

He sat atop the car's hood, enjoying the eager eyes on him. "Yeah, I could crack one of these. Shouldn't be too hard."

He resisted the urge to wince as the bunch whooped and high fived with the secured victory. Always so loud at the littlest things. Alan gave him a nod and Sho sighed, going to fetch Leo's 'work' laptop for him.

A few hours(and a non-insignificant payment) later, and Leo handed the Vagastrom student's phone back to him. "There. Bluetooth car key. Make sure your phone's charged or no getting in the car without me."

The general student eagerly thanked him, promising to return the favor later despite already paying him, then turned to his friends as he opened the doors, telling them to get in for a ride. Another little chorus of cheers went through them and they made their way into the vehicle for a drive that hopefully wouldn't get the car confiscated by Darkwick.

"Good job." Alan grunted from where he'd been looming above Leo quietly, having finished maintenance on some of the vehicles in the garage shortly before. Leo predicted his next move, carefully catching his arm with both hands.

"Nope!!!" Leo yelped, tilting his head away to glare up at the Captain. Alan flinched a little, uncertain what was wrong. "Do not pat my head with those oily hands, Cap! We are not getting that shit in my hair today."

"Ah." Alan pulled his hand away to examine it. Although he's been wearing his gloves while working it was, in fact, blackened with motor oil and grime. Leo examined his own hands and clicked his tongue in irritation. He'd saved his hair, but not his skin. "Sorry."

"C'mere." Leo sighed, shutting his laptop with his elbow. He stood and shuffled and scooched it under his arm without using his hands, then grabbed Alan's large wrist and began to guide him to the stairs. Alan, having had gotten closer to Leo and Sho than he'd intended, was oddly becoming used to being led by the little influencer and followed him up the stairs.

When they reached Leo's door he paused and glanced at his hand again before grimacing. He reached over and wiped the oil on Alan's shirt(which hardly bothered Alan himself, as it was already somewhat oily) to the best of his ability before opening it and bringing Alan inside. He'd just wipe it down later.

Finally, Leo led him into his spacious bathroom and the broad vanity top, turning the hot water on high in the sink. Immediately he thrust Alan's hands under the flow of water.

"I know how to wash my own hands. . . ." Alan grumbled as Leo helped to spread the hot water over Alan's large hands with his small ones. "The water's too hot."

"Hot water gets oil off. Suck it up." Leo pulled Alan's hands from under the stream and grabbed the bar of soap he used for washing his hands before placing it into Alan's hands. He rubbed and lathered it into a frothy, sweet-selling lather all over his fingers. Leo grabbed the soap and rubbed it a over Alan's wrists and an inch or two further up before he could wash it off, then grabbed a small brush with hard bristles and furiously worked the dirt out from under Alan's nails. "Your nails are disgusting. I don't just mean from the dirt--why are they so chipped. And your cuticles--I'll be here all day if I keep this up."

Stopped himself from forcefully manicuring the nails of someone who wouldn't appreciate it, Leo shoved Alan's soapy hands back under the steaming hot water and let him rinse them clean. "Dry them with the blue striped towel. Don't touch anything else!"

While Alan dried his hands, Leo washed his own, grabbing a paper towel to dry them with and shut the water off. Alan resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck, sure he would somehow end up being made to wash his hands again if he did so. "Thanks. They're just gonna get dirty again, though."

Leo hummed in acknowledgement and watched Alan impatiently, arms crossed. Alan, confused, looked towards the exit behind Leo. Leo cleared his throat in exaggeration and glared up at him.

". . .What is it?"

"You can pat me now."

Alan blinked and took a moment to process this. "Ah. Got it."

Alan sat his large hand on top of Leo's head, and pat him a few times. Leo smiled, proud of himself, and lifted his head into it, even standing on his toes a little. He tilted his head so Alan's hand would land against his cheek, then grabbed his wrist to hold him still again, rubbing his face into Alan's freshly cleaned hands like a cat. Uncertain what to do, Alan held his hand still until Leo released him.

"Alright! I'm satisfied! Get out." Leo chirped with a smile, moving past him to fix his slightly disheveled hair.

"Oh. Alright." Alan dropped his arm back to his side and made his way out the bathroom and back to the main part of the garage. "Thanks for helping that guy."

"I made money off of it, he gets to ride his fancy car, some nobody in Frostheim lost, everyone was happy. It's whatever! Don't touch anything but the doorknob on your way out. I already have to clean the floor after your filthy boots were in here. . . ."

#tokyo debunker #leo kurosagi #alan mido #danie yells writing #danie yells at tokyo debunker #i just wrote this because I wanted to erite Alan patting Leo 👍🏾#could be read as ship. or not. live your life!

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bonezone44 · 1 year

Text

Too Depraved 4 TV (ages 56+)

Joel x afab!Reader x Ezra x Tommy

Word Count: 2500

--I'm not doing my usual set-up for fics, LOL! This is F I L T H. It's "Daddy Joel", "Uncle Tommy" and "Uncle Ezra."

oral (m & f receiving), fingering, p-in-v, creampie

special thanks to : @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog for the idea and @toxicanonymity for 'Uncle Tommy' and also @iamasaddie for sharing a Tommy photo this morning. We're all going to burn in hell together. 🙏😘

++++++++++++++

“Uncle Tommy and Uncle Ezra are downstairs watchin TV,” says Joel. “Why don’t you go join ‘em and I’ll meet you there in a minute, alright?” He stomps over to the fridge, thoroughly dismissing you.

The two men’s eyes light up as you make your way down into the basement. The room is small and cramped. The walls are wood panels and the floors are cold concrete. There’s a wall of boxes on one side of the room next to a computer desk. The computer is off and the monitor is black. You’ve seen Uncle Ezra use it the most, selling electronics on eBay and watching funny videos. Anytime Uncle Tommy was around, he was lounging on the couch, much like he is now, with a beer in his hand.

“Hey there, sugar,” greets Tommy as he puts his beer down on the coffee table in front of the TV. “How ya been?”

“Fine,” you say, shifting awkwardly. You look at the thick, plush couch, unsure where to sit. The recliner is open, but you know that’s Joel’s.

Ezra finishes his beer and tosses the can into the trash by the computer desk. It’s close enough to be difficult to miss. “You wanna come sit down, baby?” asks Ezra, patting the space between him and Tommy. “Uncle Tommy and I were just watchin the game.”

“O-okay,” you respond and follow suit. You can feel their hungry eyes watching you. Your skin burns. You keep your legs in close and your arms are crossed protectively over your stomach. You feel your shoulders up by your ears. There’s dampness between your thighs.

“Ain’t seen you in a while,” says Tommy as he shifts closer to you. “Joel been keepin you all to himself, huh?”

“I don’t know,” you answer.

“Yeah, that’s Joel for you.” Ezra chuckles, his eyes lingering on your body. “I find his possessiveness unnecessary, though Uncle Ezra understands why he would be wary to allow his pretty pet to wander without her leash.” His warm, calloused hand finds the bare skin of your thigh. His thumb rubs back and forth. “She is quite the prize, don’t you think?” he says. “Uncle Tommy?”

Tommy grins. “She’s somethin special,” he murmurs, his body shifting closer.

You feel crowded. The heat from their bodies, the smell of beer on their breath, ‘Uncle’ Ezra’s hand gently stroking your thigh. The ache in your cunt.

“Curious,” Ezra says as he scoots next to you, causing you to gasp for air as his body is now pressed along the entirety of your left side.

“What’s that?” says Tommy, whose eyes are locked onto your face, studying your every response and expression. His own hand finds your other leg, smoothing up and down your thigh, inching closer and closer to the billowing heat between your legs.

“Curious as to what or … who–” Ezra traced his nose along your temple. “–could have swayed Joel’s selfish nature.” He hums and it’s as if your entire body vibrates in harmony with his vocal chords. “He is not a man to acquiesce easily.”

“What? You think she asked for it this time?” Tommy eyes you curiously. His hand slides from your thigh, cupping your mound over your shorts. You feel his amusement as you tense and gasp with your eyes closed. “Wasn’t us just beggin for a taste?”

Ezra smiles. “Little pets get hungry, too, Uncle Tommy.” Ezra’s finger glides along the bottom of your chin. You open your eyes to see his, hazy and warm, looking back at you. “This one looks ravenous.”

“Only one way to know for sure,” says Tommy, biting his lower lip. He slips his hand under the waistband of your shorts and you tilt your hips forward instinctively, guiding his searching fingers to their imminent goal. You moan as two fingers graze your entrance before sliding between your folds. Tommy laughs. “Oh yeah,” he says, lightly toying with your clit. “She’s starving.”

“Is she now?” says Ezra. “Methinks Uncle Ezra wants a taste, as well.” His mouth finds your neck as his hand finds your breast. His teeth gnaw into your skin–his tongue laving. His fingers dig into your flesh. You feel his hard cock pressed against your side.

You gasp and moan, overwhelmed by the sensations. By their body heat blanketing your sides. The TV is on low and in the back of your mind, you can hear Joel stomping around upstairs. You don’t know how he’ll react when he finds out the two men have begun without him. You don’t know what to say. You couldn’t stop them even if you wanted to. And you really really don’t want to.

“Let’s get ‘er out of these clothes, Uncle Ez,” says Tommy.

“Don’t know why she bothers wearin anything anyway,” says Ezra.

The two men strip you like a doll. Ready and eager to play with you how they please.

Goosebumps rise on your skin briefly before they’re back on you. Ezra sucks on your nipples, toys with your breasts. Tommy’s hand stays between your legs. He slides a finger inside of you, slowly breaching your entrance and pushing it as deep in as he can. He wriggles it around a couple times then pulls it back out, spreading your slick around your lips. Your skin sticks to the pleather of the couch. You can’t bring yourself to check, but you’re certain there’s a wet spot beneath you, glistening in the bright light of the TV.

“Think he’ll let us fuck ‘er this time?” asks Tommy.

Ezra pulls back from your breast. His lips are plush and wet. He hums. “Let’s see what she wants.” His eyes find yours. “What do you think, baby? Hmm?” His eyebrows are high in his forehead. “You want Uncle Ezra and Uncle Tommy to fuck you? You want us to put our cocks in that tight little hole?”

Tommy laughs and plunges two fingers inside of you, stroking your walls, making you writhe and gasp. “I think she likes the idea.”

Ezra chuckles. “I think so, too,” he says. “I think she wants Uncle Ezra and Uncle Tommy to stuff her full and leave her hurtin.” He grins. “I wonder how long it would take for her muscles to recover from such a pleasurable incident.”

“Weeks, prob’ly,” Tommy groans, pressing his hardness into your side. “If we do it right.”

“How’s that sound, baby?” asks Ezra, his lips pressed against your cheek as his fingers pluck your nipples. “Want Uncle Ezra and Uncle Tommy to tear up your little pussy?”

“HEY!” A loud bellow stops everyone in their tracks.

Your eyes open wide to see Joel stomping down the staircase. He’s wearing the same jeans and denim button-up as earlier, but it looks like he’s combed his hair back and away from his face.

“What the hell is goin on?”

“Oh, come on, Joel,” moans Tommy, his fingers no longer curling inside of you. “What’d you expect?”

“I expected you to fuckin wait,” he snarls. “Two grown goddamn men can’t keep it together for five fuckin minutes.”

Ezra began. “If you would, please, Joel, give audience to our–”

“Don’t you fuckin start with me.” Joel points at Ezra. “I don’t have time for your fuckin diatribes.”

Ezra rolls his eyes with tight lips.

Joel doesn’t say anything else. He simply kneels in front of you and tugs your hips forward, tossing your legs over his shoulders. His mouth latches onto you. He tongues and sucks your pussy lips, flicking over your clit and diving into your entrance. His tongue is moving so fast and his fingers are bruising your skin.

You stare down at him with your eyelids barely open. Your mouth is open and moaning.

Joel slaps his brother on the leg and gestures at you.

Tommy sighs. “Oh, thank god,” he murmurs.

Out of the corner of your vision, you see Tommy stand up and unzip his jeans. He pulls his pants and underwear off completely before climbing back up on the couch, standing haphazardly on the cushions.

“Alright, sugar.” He says with a grin. “Open up for Uncle Tommy.”

You comply, not sure how you’re going to maintain your focus with Joel eating you out so voraciously.

Tommy slides the tip of his cock back and forth on your tongue, before tapping it a few times. You keep waiting for him to shove the whole thing in–you’re braced for it. Readying your throat. But instead he teases you, teases himself. Tommy holds your head in place and you flick the tip of your tongue onto whatever surface of his cock that he’ll give you.

Your mouth stays open and you can feel saliva spilling out the edges of your mouth. You’re getting hungry for it. Desperate for him to fill your mouth and throat. You try to push your head forward and suck it in already, but Tommy’s grip is tight.

He laughs. “What’d you say, Uncle Ez?” He taps your tongue with his cock. “Ravenous?”

Ezra chuckles, his hands groping your breasts while Joel is still between your legs. “Downright famished for some cock, isn’t she?”

“It would appear so,” says Tommy, mocking Ezra’s cadence.

You start panting, your body trembling. Heat is building up from between your legs and quickly. Joel’s tongue works against your clit with a wet clocking sound. He’s a silhouette in front of the bright light of the TV. Your orgasm hits you like a punch and you keen loudly–just in time for Tommy to finally fill your mouth.

“Kinda tickles,” says Tommy, laughing at you while you moan on the comedown.

Joel pulls his mouth away from you. “Hurry up and get whatcha can,” he says to the two men. “‘Cause once I start fuckin’ her, you’re not gettin anythin else.”

Ezra’s eyes go wide and he rushes to remove his pants. Tommy’s satisfied enough to glide his cock in and out of your sloppy mouth.

Ezra settles himself between your thighs. He holds his cock, thick as a can of Coca-Cola, against your entrance. He moves it around in tight circles to help stretch you out. “Uncle Ezra has been dreaming of this day, precious,” he says, licking his lips. “Dreaming of–” he thrusts in a little. “--sinking myself into this–” he thrusts in a little more. “--hot, wet hole.” He pushes himself in deeper and deeper and slowly more deeper until he’s in you, full-hilt. He looks up at Tommy. “So hot and wet,” he grins. “She’s tropical.”

Tommy and Ezra start laughing. You can’t see Joel, but you hear him huff.

Your body is exploding in pleasure from Ezra’s slow strokes against your stretched out walls. It didn’t take long for the hurt to give way to warm goodness. You’ve been so focused on sucking off Tommy that your jaw and neck are sore and aching. Your fingers are braced into the cushion beneath you as you try to maintain some kind of composure, lest you sink into the couch and away from Tommy’s salty member.

You get lost in the haze of Ezra’s thrusts and the taste of Tommy. Fire and sparks dance across your skin and you can feel a second orgasm building up inside of you. For a moment, your breasts feel cold and bare, but Ezra leans forward and begins sucking the skin of your neck. Ezra begins murmuring filth as his thrusts pick up in pace.

“Uncle Ezra takes good care of you, don’t he?”

“You like Uncle Ezra’s big cock?”

“You want some of Uncle Ezra’s hot seed?”

Your second orgasm hits hard and Ezra has to quickly pull out. He pants and moans as he jerks himself off and finishes on your stomach. He falls to the side of the couch with a dazed look in his eyes.

“My turn,” Tommy grins and pulls himself from your mouth.

But as he begins to situate himself between your legs, he’s interrupted.

“Too late,” says Joel.

Tommy curses.

Joel shrugs at his brother. “Y’all took too long.” He stands up from the recliner, still fully clothed but his pants are tented. He walks over to your limp body. “Come on,” he says and pulls you up, guiding you back over to where he was before.

You stand on shaky legs while Joel unzips his pants and pulls them down his thighs. He plops into the recliner and pulls you on top of him. For how thick Ezra is, Joel is thicker. You slide down his length with a whimper.

“That what you needed, baby?” He coos with soft eyes as he rolls his hips upward. “You needed Daddy Joel?” He asks with a nod.

You nod back, relishing in the feeling of Joel inside of you. Your hands cradle his face, thumbs scraping along his scruff. You lean in and kiss him, hot and heavy. He moans into your mouth. You glide your hips up and down, stroking his length with your wet cunt. His broad hands are your asscheeks, tugging and pulling your flesh apart as you slowly ride him. His mouth tastes so good, you wanna swallow him whole.

You hear Tommy jerking off behind you. He and Ezra are murmuring low to each other on the couch. You wonder if Ezra is jerking off, too. You like to think he is.

Joel pulls back and stares into your eyes. “Come on, baby. Bounce on Daddy Joel’s cock. Come on.” He punctuates with a smack on your ass. You pick up the pace. “Daddy Joel loves his baby’s sweet little pussy,” he groans and smacks your ass again. “Gonna fill that pussy up,” he grunts. He starts thrusting upwards into you, meeting your bouncing hips. “Gonna make a big ol’ mess o’ that tiny little pussy, baby.”

“Daddy Joel’s gonna fill you up–gonna fill you up,” he groans and his fingers dig bruises into your ass.

Your body is a blur of pleasure and movements and hot sparkling heat expanding and billowing out until it’s so so tight and then it SNAPS–your cunt clenching around Joel’s cock as he comes in thick, heavy spurts inside of you.

He groans, long and low as he continues to roll his hips. His come trickling out the edges of your used pussy as you sit in his lap. “Good girl,” he sighs and brings a hand to your breast to pinch and tease your nipple. “Good little pussy.”

You don’t hear the two other men behind you, so you assume they finished, too. You’re briefly disappointed you didn’t get to fully experience Uncle Tommy’s cock, but it was enough to taste it.

You curl into Joel’s chest as he wraps his arms around you and kisses your crown.

++++

Author's Note: NO ONE LOOK AT ME !!!!!

#joel miller x reader #ezra x reader #tommy miller x reader #uncle!ezra

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hetrosjistin · 8 months

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All of you talking about how Alastor is bound to Lilith are sleeping on Zestial.

Seriously, all of you are ignoring ALL the signs. Been talking this over with a friend several nights in a row, and it's such a better theory than assuming that Lilith owns him (that's not to say that Alastor and Lilith aren't in cahoots SOMEHOW, but that's something for another post)

Now there's not a large sample size, but let's start with this one. Alastor's contract chains do not match his emissive colors at all, nor the colors of his magic. He has red and black as his demonic magic motif. Why does this matter? Well the only other sample we have for contract magic is Valentino with his smoke chains on Angeldust, which is identical to his magic.

Above you can see Valentino's emissive color, the color of his magic in full force, and the color of his contract magic. Now let's do this with Alastor

Emissive colors, magic colors when he's personally about to fuck someone up without calling on his shadow minions... and... his contract magic... huh...

Extra ones of him doing deals with charlie as a bonus:

So a bit of wild theory crafting now.

What happens if you are bound to someone else and you go around and get someone to sell their soul to you? What if your soul contracts roll up to the guy who owns your soul? So your contract magic uses THEIR colors?

Okay, then who DOES have the same emissive colors (those used for magic in almost every case).

Zestial is the only one who comes close, even if he's more yellowy, I blame that on the overall lighting of the scene.

Further evidence?

The ONLY time Alastor looks even REMOTELY frightened is when he's speaking with Zestial. Even when he's with other overlords he's irreverant and playful, NOT with Zestial, he's cagey, he's polite, he's watching what he says.

Further, during this conversation the subtext is CONSTANTLY on a back and forth of 'oh I know where you've been, and YOU know where you've been, but we're in public so we have to speak in code' plus the scene CONSTANTLY focuses on the fact of how they are under observation either by direct persons or through electronic means (but stealthily elides this by implying it's just the impact 2 overlords walking around in public would have on society)

Oh, and did you notice? The demonic stitching that appears on Alastor's body? Same style as the stitching we see Zestial's hat and other bits of clothing.

Then there's the fact that he's one of the only characters with consistent COLOR THEMING to his songs, whenever he does songs, (ESPECIALLY those having to do with deals or trying to maintain his deals), he's got green and... purple?

Why the fuck purple? Purple doesn't turn up anywhere. This is where the theory falls apart a little, but if I had to guess? It's an allusion to something. What could it be?

But why then is his contract magic showing in these songs? Does Zestial have some deep interest in the hotel?

I think not, but Alastor has very DEEP contract related reasons for his interest.

Let's take a quick aside to another of Alastor's song pieces. Let's consider the pit as Alastor prepares to leave his tower during his breakdown song in the season finale. The center of Alastor's power is his broadcast tower, it's painted everywhere in his colors, from top to bottom. The last time he sang in here, all of his emissive colors were black and red... hell, even when he ENTERED it, it was HIS colors.

but now with him beaten, broken, and focused on the deal he so desperately wants to escape...

Oh look, Zestial's colors again.

Alastor's power is a shadow cast by Zestial's light. He is chained to it, it's what keeps him alive and gives him his power... but all the same, he wants out.

He's looking for a loophole. A way out of the deal.

If you get to heaven, can a Overlord still own you soul?

This helps explain why Alastor was willing to come out of hiding fo the hotel, why he's so nervous around Zestial, why Zestial is poking for reasons, subtly, about what the fuck Alastor is doing in their conversation with one another going to the overlord's meeting.

So smart money says that Alastor made a deal with Zestial before he died, and became Zestial's catspaw. How was he able to fuck up everything and everyone he came across the moment he turned up? Because he had a tutor and a big old battery backstopping him. Zestial is the most subtle of the overlords, he wants to remain in the background, he wants to play things safe and is always happy to be underestimated and underrated... so he comes along and takes the hammiest, loudest, most attention grabbing soul he has in his portfolio the moment they get down to Hell, and puts him to work CLEANING HOUSE.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #alastor #radio demon #zestial #zestial hazbin hotel #the radio demon #hazbin #Thank you to the one who helped spot these <3 you're wonderful and you know who you are!

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82mitsu · 4 months

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{18Trip} <PROLOGUE SIDE-A: Still blank> 000-A05 The man who sells flowers

A translation of 18TRIP's PROLOGUE SIDE-A by 82mitsu. ENG proofreading by sasaranurude.

(Kafka’s voice)

07/01, 1st of July— I snuck out of the hospital.

The first trip in my life…

As promised, Kaede-chan took me with him.

My heart was beating as fast as it could… Whether Kaede-chan felt this excitement through our intertwined hands—it was all I could think about at first.

I’m sure that I'll never, ever forget about the trip I took today.

The sights I saw, the food I ate, the people I met… the smells, sounds and colors— the warmth of holding Kaede-chan’s hand.

This is what a trip is—an unforgettable experience that etches itself within your heart.

That’s why I thought of something. One day, I… as the 0th Ward Mayor of HAMA… I want to be the one giving hospitality to all the tourists that come here—

Kaede: I knew it…it’s a voice memo from when I secretly took him with me out of the hospital, and we went sightseeing around HAMA together.

Kaede: (Kafka, you really… held that trip close to your heart.)

Sakujiro: One day as a Tourism Ward Mayor, he says. As you would expect from the son meant to inherit the 0th ward governing over HAMA-18…. harboring such noble ambitions since his boyhood.

Sakujiro: Anyhow, currently we must locate the Young Master posthaste. For the sake of conducting the search as efficiently as possible, I suggest we operate individually.

Kaede: Yeah, I agree. Then I’ll be—

Kaede: (I don’t believe Kafka left that cassette lying around without any thought.)

Kaede: (I thought to trace back my steps following the route planner I made for Kafka that day, but…)

Kaede: I made that plan while super excited, so the scope of it was huge. I want to find him as soon as possible, though…

(Kaede bumps into something)

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Huhn~? Didya just like, bump into my shoulder?

Kaede: Ah, sorry.

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Haaah!? Ya bumped into him and that’s it!? You hit his shoulder, yanno!? Are all fellas from HAMA just a buncha rude asses or what!

Kaede: No, uh…

Kaede: (I messed up… Because of this area becoming desolate, a bunch of weirdo delinquents started gathering around here, or something along those lines.)

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Y’know, we really went outta our way and took two whole ass hours to come here! All the way down to HAMA!

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: To beat the ever living shit out of other dudes!

Both delinquents A & B: Gyahahaha!

Kaede: Picking fights… why would you…?

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Get with the times, old man. Nowadays every goddamn place is on full lockdown by security robots, ain’t no room for the baddies to stand out.

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Going off that, HAMA’s management is in freaking shambles, which is why big cat right here can claim the whole sidewalk for himself with his big ass shoulders.

Kaede: (They’re saying some awful things…)

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Which leads us back to this, so c’mon, hand it over. The thing you pull out when you've pulverized someone else’s shoulder.

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Reparations, to be clear.

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Hand it over, scoundrel.

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Reminder that cops don’t bother with civil affairs, scalawag.

Kaede: Um… I’m a little bit tight on cash…

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Don’tcha get all stingy on me! Look, look, electronic payments are where it’s at. Which one’s your main?

Kaede: No, I’m not…!

Man selling flowers: Excuse me~ ….Don’t you want to buy a flower?

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Haaah?

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Where’s this fella suddenly popping up from.

Man selling flowers: Money is accepted through most electronic payment services.

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Wha… what’cha yapping about there!

Man selling flowers: Do you have a favorite flower? Even if only by color… Ah, actually I can provide assistance by reverse searching flower language based on your favorite word and pick one out like that too.

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Flower language? I ain’t bilingual!

Man selling flowers: Let’s see… my recommendation for you two would be…

Man selling flowers: This, here—would you like an amaryllis.

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Hell no, don’t want it!

Man selling flowers: Is that so… then…

Man selling flowers: Muscari?

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Just straight up no! It ain’t like we want any other kinda flower! We don’t want flowers in general!

Man selling flowers: My last resort then. Coming down to my precious savings…

Kaede: (H-he pulled out a horsetail out of his pocket…!?)

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: Haaah? What’s with that grass thingie…

Man selling flowers: I was keeping this to use it for dinner later. The price tag is at 0, so no need to thank me either.

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: I lost the plot…

Delinquent of amazingly short height A: L-let’s bounce.

Delinquent with dangerously low pants B: Right, let’s get outta here.

Man selling flowers: HAMA nice trip.

Kaede: (A-amazing. He chased off delinquents with a horsetail. More importantly…)

Kaede: Um, that right now…

Man selling flowers: Hm? What?

Kaede: HAMA nice trip… is what you said, right?

Man selling flowers: Yea. I did. It’s a greeting for when tourists come to HAMA. I came up with it.

Man selling flowers: But, it never ended up sticking. Use it too if you’d like.

Kaede: Y-yes. It’s a nice saying…

Kaede: Ah, that’s right! Thank you so much for saving me!

Man selling flowers: It’s not like I did that much. If anything, it seems like it’s going to rain later.

Kaede: Rain? What do you–

Kaede: …Huh? Is that…

Kaede: I knew it… A page from the sightseeing guide I made for Kafka in the past. It’s a copy but… what’s it doing here?

(Guide page)

Let’s improve the economy with inbound tourism (※foreigners traveling to Japan)!

With this, it has been decided that Yokohama’s “Chinatown” will be the most important tourist attraction, based on the concept the country came up with.

They hit the jackpot with this idea, so Chinatown’s attracting huge crowds! Our recommendation is to enjoy some high quality siu mai!

Kaede: (---Aah, that’s right. Back then, HAMA was in its heyday, full of life and people wherever you went…)

Person from Chinatown A: Oh my oh my, such little customers! Did you come here together?

Person from Chinatown B: Oi, you lil’ rascals over there! Have a bite of this! Don’t need no money, it’s just a sample!

Person from Chinatown C: Are you perhaps lost? Where would you like to go… Aah, in that case, it’s opposite direction of the station. Right over there, follow me!

Kaede: (All kinds of people treated us with such kindness… And that wasn’t just because we were two little kids out and about.)

Kaede: (At least, back then, it wasn’t as deteriorated as it is now…)

Kaede: ….All of it has changed.

Man selling flowers: Uuum, you okay?

Kaede: Ah, sorry. I was lost in thought there…

Man selling flowers: Anywhere you wanna go? I got a bike, so I can bring you if it isn’t far.

<<previous chapter / next chapter>>

prologue directory: A01 / A02 / A03 / A04 / A05 (x) / A06 / A07 / A08

#18trip #823_tl #prologue_sideA #hachinoya nagi

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serasfanfiction · 5 months

Text

CW: For Valentino being Valentino. He doesn't do anything, but he does say some things.

oOo

The closer they came to V Tower, the more loud everything became.

Paper posters gave way to bulletin boards. Every street was lit with flashing signs and arrows, pointing the way to different businesses down the main strip. Advertisements were nearly plastered on every single available surface, competing with each other in a cacophony of bright colors and promises to make all of one's troubles go away, if only one bought the product.

Sinners wandered the streets, some glued to their phones as they typed out a text message, watched a video, or shouted at someone on the other end of a phone call. Some sinners loitered around various shops selling televisions, each screen showing an advertisement for the latest gadget VoxTek was selling.

The Vees made it ridiculously easy to learn their faces, as none of the trio were shy about plastering their likeness all over their wares. Vox was clearly unafraid to throw his reputation behind anything he supported, one advertisement proclaiming, "I'd buy it." Valentino left nothing to the imagination - figurative or literally - on what he was selling, with various larger than life posters that featured the moth scantily clad and in suggestive poses. Velvette was significantly more reserved, in comparison, with only a billboard advertising her perfume, named, Love Potion.

Quite frankly speaking, it was all a bit overstimulating.

Walking nonchalantly at his side, Alastor barely gave any of bombastic sights around him a second glance. He had made little commentary since they had set out from the hotel earlier in the day, falling silent as they had entered the Vees territory. Where all of this technology was practically invented yesterday, as far as Lucifer was concerned, Alastor had lived on Earth when most of the technology around them was still in its infancy stages. Advertising, likewise, was hardly new. Humans had been shouting at each other to buy this or to buy that since they'd first come up with the idea of selling a product. They may not have had flashing lights in the 1920s or 30s, but there had been posters, billboards, and radio ads.

Modern technology just made everything more... flashy.

Lucifer watched a group of sinners standing before an electronic shop, TVs stacked up in the window. Each TV was showing the same thing: an advertisement for the latest cell phone. He was a little surprised he still cared enough to be sickened as Vox straight up hypnotized the viewers into buying the phone. He shook his head in disgust a they passed group turned mob making a mad dash into the store. "Quite the salesman, Vox is," Lucifer commented, not trying to hide his judgmental tone.

Alastor snorted. He glanced at the group scampering out with their new cell phones as he drawled, "Vox has always had a... persuasive sales pitch."

It was Lucifer's turn to snort as they passed another poster of Vox, this time just the overlord and his VoxTech logo. His ever present slogan, Trust Us, curved around the logo. "You mean he hypnotizes people into doing what he wants." It was good to know in advance. No one had ever tried to hypnotize the Devil himself before and he wasn't keen to find out if it was possible.

"Hm," Alastor hummed in agreement. "Just so."

V Tower was easy to spot, even with all the noise going on in the background. The number of surveillance cameras also began to increase the closer they got to the trio's headquarters. Lucifer eyed one as it followed their trek down the street. "So much for keeping our arrival a surprise."

The redhead smirked, obviously pleased about something. Sing song, he assured, "I wouldn't be too sure about that."

The blonde sighed. He was walking right into it, he knew he was. He was going to do it anyway, because damn his curiosity. "Oh?"

Alastor twirled his staff around his fingers like a baton. "All the cameras we've passed so far have been laughably easy to take out." With a practiced hand, he caught the staff, it's tip pointing at the offending camera. As they passed it, the little button on the side of it blinked from green to red. "Vox isn't paying attention to his little toys. Dear me, he must be away from his surveillance room."

Lucifer squinted at the camera dubiously. "You can tell we're not being watched, by, what? The camera not coming back on?"

Alastor laughed, short and cutting. "Oh, it's more than lack of interaction." He leaned in close, as if he were parting with a juicy secret. "I can tell when Vox is watching." His smile was sharp and cruel and said everything about how pathetic he found the overlord in question. "His attention has a certain... desperation to it."

Lucifer wasn't certain which part of all of that to focus on first: the fact that apparently Vox had flat out stalked Alastor to the point Alastor knew when he was being watched or the fact that Alastor clearly found the whole thing hilarious.

Father, these sinner could be fucked up sometimes.

Lucifer grinned, unable to pass up the opportunity he'd just been handed to needle the deer demon. "Didn't do much about the camera that recorded the fight."

Alastor's expression soured around the edges. His ears flattened as he resumed his previous position, snide as he pointed out, "Yes, well, I was a bit distracted by doing all the work. You should try joining in next time."

Alastor hadn't let him get involved in any of the attacks, insistent that he had everything covered, and they both knew it. Lucifer had let him because he always half hoped someone would kill the asshole.

Lucifer let the conversation drop with little more than a roll of his eyes, his mind drifting as he processed this new information. If Alastor could indeed tell when Vox was watching (which, creepy) and had been surprised by one of the attacks being filmed, one could infer that Vox was keeping the hotel under a certain level of constant surveillance.

After returning from their day out, he had hauled himself up in his room as he scoured the news for mention of any attacks. Had tracked down the news reports Rosie had mentioned. There had only been a number written reports and many more reposted written reports, with a single video dedicated to the subject. The video itself contained footage from the first attack, despite the news articles having all been posted fairly recently. Judging from the general comments under the articles and the video, few people were interested in the hotel itself beyond wanting to know if it still stood or not.

They had been lucky the fight had forced the drone to retreat or risk being destroyed. Distance had rendered the video quality poor enough his bleeding hand wasn't visible for all of Hell to see. Everyone already knew angels could be harmed, killed even. It wouldn't do for anyone to get it into their pretty little heads that angel weapons might work on him or Charlie, however.

(Lucifer tried not to think about the main image he had seen, again and again, in those news articles. Tried not to think about how reverent Alastor had looked like as he reached his hand out to the Devil, as if he were the only God the sinner would ever be able to touch. The framing of the image had made it appear like it was something so different than it had really been.)

Light pressure on his shoulder drew him out of his thoughts. Out of the corner of his view, he caught Alastor withdrawing the hand he'd used to get his attention. It was a good thing he had, as it took a second for the sensor above the door to register their presence and trigger the door to open. He could only imagine what the media would have thought if a camera had caught Lucifer running right into the front doors of V Tower while lost in thought.

They stepped through the doors into a lobby themed in oranges and reds with purple accents. Hearts were definitely a motif, accenting arches and their support columns. Purple lanterns dotted every other column, more decoration than function. Lucifer took in the additional advertisements, some on the walls, some on a-frames. A large, flat screen tv displayed the VoxTek logo, but there was nothing currently playing on it.

There were a number of employees dotted around the lobby. A sheep sinner carrying a precarious stack of tablets raced off in one direction, while a horned rabbit sinner ran in another direction with an armful of clothing. A trio of sinners loitered off to the side, whispering back in forth in a frantic, hushed argument about what sounded like bottom lines and stocks. Near the back of the lobby, a blue and yellow sinner shouted about "messy actors" and "shitty wardrobes" as he frantically slammed his finger into the up button of the elevator.

At the center of the lobby, themed similar to the surrounding columns, was a welcome desk, currently being run by a white haired, fuchsia skinned sinner. Her tiny bat wings fluttered and drooped as she fielded calls. Distracted as she was, she failed to notice anyone had entered the lobby until Alastor and Lucifer had already reached the desk.

"One moment, please," she said to them, showing that she had at least noticed they were there. "Now where did Velvette say she wanted her calls sent to today...?" She bit her lip, finger hovering over one of a quite frankly insane number of optional extensions. Her eyes darted back and forth between two of them, before she shrugged and for all intents and purposes flat out guessed which one to send the line to. "Thank you for waiting," she said in a practiced, albeit polite monotone. "How may I... help..." She trailed off as she finally laid eyes on who had walked into the lobby, eyes going wide. She gaped as she recognized Lucifer but went completely blank as she took in Alastor's presence. The blonde was fairly certain that if he could read minds there wouldn't have been a single thought going through her head at that moment.

Lucifer fixed an equally practiced polite smile on his face. "Excuse me, miss," he began, only to pause when she failed to regain her senses, apparently still too flabbergasted by his companion. Brow twitching, he rapped his knuckles sharply upon the marble surface of the desk.

The noise seemed to do the trick, the sinner snapping out of her trance to jerk her head around. "Yes! Um." She swallowed, casting one last nervous glance at the Radio Demon. Between looking at Alastor and looking back at Lucifer, he could see her clawing her professional mask back on with the kind of experience that came from needing to remain calm when one's life was on the line. "How may I help you, sirs?" Her voice didn't even shake a little.

Noting the reaction and shelving the topic for later, Lucifer said, "Please let Vox know we are here to speak with him."

The sinner blinked, disbelief clear as day on her face despite her best efforts not to show it. "You..." Lucifer had the distinct impression the 'you' here was Alastor, even if she wasn't looking directly at him. "Wish to speak with... Vox?" Her tone suggested that had she not been speaking with Lucifer Morningstar, the literal king of Hell, she might have asked him if he was smoking something.

The noise, or lack there of, reached his ears. The general hustle and bustle of when they had entered had completely died down to be replaced by whispers and murmurs. Even without turning, he could feel all eyes on them. Lucifer glanced at Alastor, whose Cheshire Cat grin suggested he was internally laughing at all the fuss his being here was causing. His ears flicked to and fro as he followed different conversations.

Smile fixed in place, he affirmed, "Yup!" He waggled his fingers in the direction of her phone. "Now, please."

The receptionist stared off into the middle distance, the same blank look in her eyes he'd seen on soldier's who'd died at war. In the fatalistic tone of someone who didn't expect to have a job (or possibly be alive) in the morning, she said, "Whelp, this job sucked anyway."

Someone, a little too loudly, stage whispered, "Oh, I would not want to be in her shoes, right now."

Without turning, the receptionist flipped the person off with one hand while picking up the phone with the other. She pressed a seemingly random button as she put the receiver to her ear, a down right manic smile crossed her face.

Lucifer (and likely everyone in the lobby, as well) could tell the instant the phone was answered on the other end. A voice that matched the one's he'd heard in the advertisements bellowed, "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT INTERUPTING MY MEETINGS?"

Taking advantage of the fact that it sounded like Vox was a sinner who needed to breathe on occasion, the woman said, voice picture perfect cheerful, "The King of Hell and the Radio Demon are here to see you, sir."

A very long, audible pause, both on the phone and from the lobby around them. Then, "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN ALASTOR'S HERE??"

Lucifer raised an eyebrow at the redhead, incredulous. Seriously? What kind of history did these two have that Alastor showing up at V Tower was causing this kind of fuss? It was almost enough to make him forget he had been totally overlooked in that last statement.

Around them, every camera in the lobby suddenly came to life, zeroing in on them. Lucifer could tell by their synchronous motion, someone was likely watching them. Alastor's whole posture changed as he turned on one of the cameras, head tilted just so and smile lazy as he waved at it.

As one, those very same cameras began to sizzle and pop as they were all taken out.

Lucifer noted the redhead looked far too pleased with himself for that to have been anything other than deliberate. He knew Alastor hated being recorded, but that was just petty. Turning his attention to the receptionist, it was only because of his heightened sense of hearing that he was able to hear Vox, voice considerably more in control and at a much more reasonable volume, telling her to send them down.

"At once, sir." She set the phone down at leisure, as if she hadn't just had her eardrums tested by her boss shouting in them. Still looking at something only she could see, she said, "Vox will see you now." She pointed behind her to a set of elevators. "Please use the elevator on the right, as this is the only elevator with access to Vox's personal office." Placing her hands on the desk in a deceptively casual way, she finished, "Please have a hellish rest of your day."

"You, too," Lucifer said on reflex. He watched her as they made their way around the desk, throwing glances over his shoulder after they'd passed it. Under his breath, he asked of Alastor, "Think the hotel needs a receptionist?"

They had a front desk, didn't they? And a land line? Maybe? There was no mail service in Hell and Alastor had to get communications somehow, seeing as he refused to touch anything more modern than a radio. He'd check on it when he got back.

"Ha!" Alastor side eyed him. "Come now, your Majesty, you don't want poor Husker to be out of a job, do you?"

Lucifer belatedly remembered that apparently Husk doubled as not just their bartender, but also as their receptionist. He guffawed. One the one hand, Husk was indeed an great bartender, even willing to be a patient ear for one's troubles, if he tolerated them. He was certainly an exceptional judge of someone's character. On the other, was he a good receptionist? No offense meant to the avian feline in question, but, not in the slightest.

Lucifer added the mental note to check in on the receptionist later to his growing list of things to do.

The elevator opened without them pressing any buttons, suggesting that Vox, the creep, had other ways of keeping tabs on them. Lucifer and Alastor stepped in, the former not thrilled with how tiny the elevator was. There was just enough room for the both of them to stand side by side with little to spare. Insult to injury, the most obnoxious elevator music he had ever had the displeasure to have inflicted on him played over head. There were no buttons to chose from, but there seemed to be none needed as the elevator began its decent on it's own.

Lucifer reiterated: what a creep.

More to fill the silence and distract himself from the growing need to destroy the speaker putting out that horrible noise, he asked, "You ever been here before?"

In the same way most people would say, 'I'd rather die, thanks,' Alastor scoffed. "Absolutely not! I'd never inflict such poor company on myself willingly." Still, it wasn't hard to notice the little ways Alastor was on high alert, very much aware of the fact that he had walked willingly into enemy territory. His ego didn't allow him to worry, but it still paid to be alert to potential surprises.

Thankfully, the elevator didn't take long before reaching its destination. This new room was vast, with a color scheme nothing like the lobby's. Where the lobby was warm shades of orange, red and purple, this room was all cool shades of blue, red, white. The room was dark, only illuminates by dozens upon dozens of screens, most glowing with white light, a handful with red light. Red light filtered up from what appeared to be a deep pit surrounding a bridge-like walkway. Attached at the end was a round platform and attached to the platform was a seat surrounded by even more monitors.

This wasn't an office. This was a surveillance room.

Walking down the walkway was none other than the founder of VoxTek, Vox himself, striding along with all the confidence of someone who was at the top of their industry and knew it. His smile was wide and Lucifer immediately pegged it as the fake kind he usually saw on car salesmen. "Your Highness! Welcome!" Vox greeted. When he was close enough, he offered his hand out for a handshake.

Lucifer eyed it, just long enough to make it look like he wasn't going to take it. He didn't expect anyone to actually bow to him in greeting, but something about this guy left him half tempted to push for it now. Taking the hand, he allowed Vox to shake it to be polite.

When it came time to greet Alastor, the TV demon merely gritted his teeth and said, voice dripping with venom, "Alastor."

Alastor didn't appear bothered in the least by the rude greeting. Matching vitriol with amusement, he merely said, "Vox."

Lucifer looked from Vox, to Alastor, and then back to Vox. Man, he was so sorry he hadn't asked for more details on these two before they'd gotten here. Predicting this could go on a while if they were left to their own devises, Lucifer pointedly cleared his throat.

Vox's smile smoothed out, salesman mask back on place. "Yes, of course. Now, your highness," the sinner held out his hand towards the bridge, indicating he'd like them to come into his "office" proper. Lucifer didn't fail to notice there was only one seat down that way and it was meant for Vox. "May I call you Lucifer? Lucifer--"

Oh, absolutely not. They were going to have to nip that in the bud. Even Alastor, who had somehow become his rival for his place in his daughter's life and literally lived down the hall from him, was smart enough not to call him by name.

"The word you're looking for is 'Majesty'."

Vox paused, body tensing. The fallen angel got the impression he wasn't used to being interrupted. "Excuse me?"

Lucifer effected a bored stance, one hand settled on his cane as he explained, deliberately just this side of hostile, "Your Highness is how you would address my daughter." He looked Vox dead in the eye, making it pointedly clear he was deadly serious and there was going to be none of this BS about who was calling the shots. "Your Majesty is how you address your king."

Vox interestingly grew more calm in the face of his king's ire. "Of course, your Majesty," he said, immediately correcting course. He offered they move the conversation to the platform again. This time, Lucifer nodded. He followed as Vox lead the way, noting how the TV demon never quite turned his back on them, seemingly uneasy having Alastor at his back, even this deep into what was his own territory.

Lucifer took the time spent crossing the bridge to exam the pit around them. While the red light obscured the bottom itself, he was able to make out what appeared to be a very large tank behind equally large glass walls. Swimming around without a care in the world were what appeared to be several glowing sharks. He followed one as it made its way from one side of the pit to the other, able to sense there was nothing natural in their design. These creatures may have appeared to be alive, but they were all circuits and wires, through and through.

When they reached the platform, Vox showed sense by not going for his chair. He did stop in the center of the circle, a subtle attempt to regain some control of the situation. "Now, your Majesty," he began, just sincere enough it was impossible to tell if it was fake or not. "Please, tell me how I and VoxTek can be of assistance today."

Lucifer watched him. Watched the way his face was turned to Lucifer, but his eyes kept ticking to Alastor. Noted the way his body was tilted ever so slightly in the redhead's direction, as if drawn by a magnet he couldn't resist. Vox may have been putting on a show of talking to Lucifer, but he very much only had eyes for Alastor.

Someone was obsessed.

Someone was obsessed really badly.

Something that felt suspiciously like possessiveness reared its head deep within his chest. Lucifer had no more of a claim on Alastor than Vox did, but Alastor had chosen to live under his roof and was his daughter's hotelier. Finicky to the last, with all the loyalty of a feral, stray cat, Alastor was theirs.

Smile all teeth, eyes gold on red, Lucifer raised his free hand until they were right under where Vox's nose would be if he had one. He snapped his fingers, once, twice, sharply.

Vox nearly went cross-eyed, as he zeroed in on the offending digits, leaning slightly back.

"I know Alastor is very eye catching," Lucifer drawled, voice deepening as he let his displeasure seep in. "But you are talking to me. Do you understand?"

The TV demon had the grace to raise his hands, not necessarily in surrender, but certainly in a pacifying manner. It was easy to see him cycling through possible responses, as he fished for the one that would deescalate the situation the fastest. "I apologize, you Majesty, for any offense," he settled on, tone so polite it reeked of falseness.

Lucifer let him have it because it seemed Vox was finally cottoning on to the fact that there was a larger predator in the room then either of the two sinners. The reluctant king withdrew a step, pleased when Vox's eyes followed him, with not a single glance at Alastor. Now that he had the CEO's full attention, he decided it was time to get this show on the road. "I have a message for everyone in the Pride Ring. I've noticed how many people have a TV or a cellphone. I've also noticed VoxTek's reach." Lucifer said this last part only because it was true. However they had managed it, VoxTek has even managed to make it's way into the other rings.

For the first time since they'd arrived, Vox's smile actually appeared real. It put into stark light how fake the one he had been wearing up until this moment had been. "We would be thrilled to feature you on one of our television shows, your Majesty." He was smart enough not to look at Alastor, although it was obvious the next part was directed towards him. "Our viewership ratings have been going through the roof over the last few years. Statistics show that almost every household in the Pentagram City has a TV these days."

It was a good sales pitch. It might even have been true. The hotel had even had a TV, although Lucifer had explicitly forbidden anyone from bringing one into the palace, the exception being the live-in servants' personal quarters. Regardless, Vox hadn't said that to try and sale anyone on anything, he'd said it to rub it in Alastor's face that Lucifer had chosen to pass his message along over Vox's medium, instead of Alastor's.

Although they hadn't discussed it ahead of time, Lucifer found himself saying, in all the casualness of it having been a given, "If Alastor wishes to broadcast the message simultaneously over radio for our viewers who prefer the medium, he's more than welcome to do so, but we're not here to discuss that." He was fairly certain, even without turning around, that Alastor hadn't given it away that this was news to him.

The idea was reinforced by the way that Vox's eye twitched before he could regain control over it. "Yes, of course we want it to reach all of the intended audiences." Hands coming to rest at the small of his back, the TV demon attempted to steer them back on course. "Now, about the content of the message."

Lucifer tilted his head to the side. "Does it matter what the content is? Unless you prefer I go somewhere else to do this." Something that was also true. Mammon may lack any talent of his own, but he knew a cash grab when he saw one. He jumped onto the bandwagon that was television sets, TV shows, and moving advertisements as soon as the technology had hit Hell. The only reason none of his products where seen in the Pride Ring was because Lucifer limited his exposure to sinners were ever he could. If he gave him the green light, Mammon would topple VoxTek within a matter of months, if not less.

Vox paused, sensing he was in troubled waters, but not quite sure from which direction. "No, no. We here at VoxTek simply prefer to make sure that all the content we put out is content we stand by--"

Lucifer leaned in. If his tail were out, it would have been thrashing. "Are you saying your king could say anything VoxTek wouldn't support?"

Vox's screen left eye widened ever so slightly, the sclera going from a solid red, to more hypnotic red and black. It was there and gone in the blink of his eyes. His voice sounded glitchy as he gritted out a, "No."

"May I suggest something, your Majesty?"

Lucifer broke off what was quickly becoming a staring match with Vox to turn his attention to Alastor. The redheaded sinner had been standing behind him, seemingly content to watch the drama unfold from the side as Lucifer took the lead. Considering their rivalry, Lucifer was a little hesitant to allow Alastor to enter the fray, lest he potentially make things worse. However, he did appreciate the fact that these two knew each other better than he knew either of them.

Giving away the floor, at least for now, Lucifer gave a single short nod, for him to proceed.

Alastor stepped up until they were side by side.

Unable to resist now that the redhead had center stage, Vox immediately shifted to face him, Lucifer all but forgotten. He frowned, almost all pretenses of being a businessman all but thrown out the window. "What are you doing here, Alastor?" He snipped at the redhead. "I know you'll take any opportunity to move up in Hell, but I didn't take you as a kiss ass."

Alastor smiled at him, as if he were a short sighted child. "We hadn't gotten to that part, have we?" He gave his staff a little spin, noting the way Vox's eyes narrowed as he took in it's repaired state. "His Majesty asked me to stand with him as he gave his address."

Vox snorted, doubtful. "You'd never agree to appearing on screen." He actually started to laugh at the idea, until he realized Alastor was completely serious. "Wait, you said yes?" Gaping, he turned on Lucifer, seeming in his shock to forget who he was talking to. "What the hell did you do to get him to agree to show up on TV?" He glared back and forth between then, baring his teeth as he asked, "What, are you two fucking or something?"

Lucifer narrowed his eyes, lip curling back. In one fell swoop, Vox had just reduced himself to less than scum on the bottom of his boots. The only reason they were continuing this conversation was because he didn't feel like dragging Valentino down to the Greed Ring. "Maybe you just don't know how to speak his language," he snipped back, mouth moving before he could think about what he was saying or how much it gave away.

Before Vox could think too deeply on it, the redhead cleared his throat. For all that he preferred to be an unseen voice on the radio, Alastor did how to play his audience in person. "Let me sweeten the deal," he said, his hand running down the pole of his staff, eyeing the TV demon as he did so. "If you agree to broadcast our King's message, I'll do that one little thing you wanted me to do when you asked me to join you." He pointed the microphone end at Vox, the tip perilously close to his screen. "From when you agree to the end of the broadcast."

Vox stared at the microphone. Slowly, he raised his eyes until he met Alastor's. Something that looked suspiciously like sadness peaked through his anger, although Lucifer was certain they weren't supposed to see it. "You'd really do that. For him?"

Alastor withdrew his staff, tucking it under his arm. With his free hand, he reached out until a single claw rested under Lucifer's chin. Encouraging him to look up at him, Lucifer let Alastor tilt his head up and around to meet that fond expression on the redhead's face. "As his Majesty said, he knows how to speak my language."

Vox's eyes widened, a dawning expression coming over him. Real horror followed shortly behind it. "Holy shit," he whispered, staggering back. Lucifer tore his gaze away from Alastor's just in time to see him drop into his chair as if his strings had been cut. Dragging a hand down his face, Vox said with absolute certainty, "You actually made a Faustian Bargain."

He said it like this was his worst nightmare came to life.

Beside him, Alastor practically radiated smug triumph. It was all the affirmation he needed to give.

All of the fight hadn't been been cut from Vox just yet. Unhappy as he was with this set back, Vox was already trying to figure out how spin this in his favor. An elbow resting on each arm of his chair, the knuckles of his joined hands pressed to his lips, he countered, "Alright, Alastor does his thing and I'll broadcast whatever you want." His grin took up most of his screen, all pretenses of friendliness dropped. "Give me an hour to prepare the studio for you."

Before Vox could run off, Lucifer placed one last little condition on him. "Vox. Make sure the other Vees are in attendance." At the TV demon's questioning tilt of his head, the blonde merely said, "I wouldn't want anyone to miss my message."

Whatever Vox thought of this was hidden behind his joined hands. Instead of bothering with any of the usual ways out of the room, Vox transformed into a bolt of electricity, disappearing into one of the monitors.

Silence descended over the room. Then, "You two have history."

Alastor snorted. "You know how to use your eyes, your Majesty. I'm impressed."

Lucifer ignored the sarcasm and the insult in favor of observing his companion. The redhead's brows were furrowed with concentration, eyes closed and the very air around him warped to a noticeable degree. To Lucifer, a creature who had existed before physical matter, picking up on the way Alastor was enhancing certain electromagnetic waves around him was child's play. Hoping to kill two birds with one stone - learning more about their shared history while figuring out what the sinner was doing - the little king gave into his curiosity and asked, "What did Vox want you to do?"

Alastor didn't answer for a moment, whatever he was doing taking quite a bit of his concentration. Lucifer patiently waited him out. Several minutes ticked by with nothing by the hum of the monitors and the swimming of the sharks to keep him occupied. Cracking open a single eye a slit, Alastor reached a point in whatever he was doing where he could split his attention. Lucifer noted the pupil of the visible eye was a dial.

"Do you know how the technology in that silly little device in your pocket works?" Alastor asked by way of response.

The only things Lucifer tended to carry on his person were his cane, which was in his hand, and his cellphone, in case Charlie tried to call him (rare that it was). His cellphone, which was indeed in his pocket. Fishing it out, he eyed it. He knew it worked. He knew how to work it. Did he really need to know more? Besides, it wasn't one of VoxTek's cellphones, which made him less wary of it. Confused as to where this was going, he said, "It works, isn't that all that matters?"

"Such a pedestrian response." Alastor hummed, his microphone coming over to point at the little device. "You device works because it's able to transmit data via radio waves." He used his staff to gesture to the room around them, his eye falling shut now that he no longer needed to see to engage in the conversation. "Vox's specialty is electricity. He can interact with anything that uses it."

Lucifer remembered the way the TV demon had disappeared into his monitor, a chill running down his spine as he imagined what all else he could likely interact with.

"Radio waves, on the other hand, are my specialty," Alastor continued. This fit with what Lucifer had observed both in the current moment and back at the radio tower. "Usually I simply use them to connect myself to any radio in Pentagram City, but I can also enhance them." His edges of his smile tightened. There was no strain in his posture, but Lucifer was suspicious they might see hints of it if this carried on too long. "When Vox wanted to introduce wireless technology to Hell, he suggested that we team up. He would create the technology and the demand, and I would enhance his reach." His expression sharpened into a sneer. "I had no interest in being a mere tool in elevating him to the top."

Judging from the short interaction he'd observed, Lucifer was suspicious Vox had wanted much more than just to use Alastor as a tool. Vox had done little to hide the depth of his anger and hatred, and no one reached that level of emotion without having swung in the opposite direction first. Lucifer wondered if Alastor had really turned Vox down because of his own lust for power or if Alastor had seen the way Vox had looked at him and hadn't been interested.

Since that question was more likely to shut down the conversation then receive an answer, resigned himself to never knowing. Either way, he supposed he should be happy that Alastor had turned Vox down. Lucifer didn't want to think about what they could have accomplished if they had somehow found a way to work together.

Instead, he went with, "So, you can interact with anything that receives radio waves, then. Not just radios?"

In response, his cell phone dinged. The screen lit up to the lock screen, showing he had a new text message. Though it should be improbable, there was nothing in the place of a sender's name. Lucifer silently frowned at it, suspicious of who was the sender, but unwilling to open anything he didn't know who it came from.

As if sensing his distrust, Alastor crooned, "Go on. I promise it's not spam."

Lucifer was still wary, but he unlocked his phone. If this was malicious ware, Alastor was getting him a new phone.

The text message was indeed not spam. When he opened it up, there were simply two words:

You suck!

Lucifer glared at the message. "So, what? How would this help Vox?"

Alastor wagged a finger at him. "I'm currently high jacking every TV and cellphone with it's WIFI turned on. 666 News has never been more popular than it is right now." He paused, as if searching for something. "I excluded most of the phones in the hotel, but I do have Angel's."

Lucifer whistled, giving credit where it was due. That was honestly incredible. Terrifying in it's reach, holy shit, but incredible. A thought crossed his mind, an unholy grin slowly spreading across his face as he wondered, "Wait, if I reply to this, will the message go straight to you?"

"Ha!" Alastor shook his head, using his microphone to bop the top of Lucifer's hat. An impressive feat, considering his eyes were still closed. "Sorry, but I'm merely a transmitter and an amplifier. My abilities don't work that way."

Lucifer straightened his hat, half tempted to try anyway, just to see if it were true. Perhaps he would another time.

He was interrupted from any further questions by one of the monitors coming to life over Vox's chair. A moment later, the sinner himself reentered the same way he had left. Vox settled back in his chair, legs crossed and significantly more calm than when he left. "The studio will be ready for you in half an hour." He glanced once at Alastor, who had opened his eyes upon the TV demon's return, before returning back to Lucifer. "Let's relocate there now, shall we?"

Lucifer nodded. Instead of leading them towards the elevator they'd come down in, Vox merely joined them in the center of the platform. It became apparent why when the very middle suddenly began to rise, revealing there was yet more ways in and out of the surveillance room. Once they were back in the lobby, he led them over to elevator on the left, only sticking with them long enough to press the button of the floor with the studio, before pulling back out of it. "I'll meet you up there."

The door closed, once again leaving just the two of them and that horrible elevator music.

Lucifer glanced at Alastor. He still looked fine, but he was definitely putting out a lot of power. Feeling concerned (Alastor had agreed to do this for him) and wary of insulting him, he asked, checking in, "You doing okay, still?"

Alastor's ear twitched, the widening of smile showing he wasn't insulted, but rather amused. "Oh, don't worry your little head, I'll be just fine, your Majesty." Eyes aglow with more than just the power it took to carry out his promise, he added, "But I expect a reward when we return to the Hotel."

Lucifer felt a jolt run up his spine. The chain around his neck didn't manifest, but he could feel it tightening ever so. Alastor was invoking their deal, officially giving him his 12 hour notice. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised, as Alastor had yet to actually invoke the deal since making it with him. Tilting his head so his hat hid his expression from both Alastor and the camera's gaze, Lucifer grumbled, "Should have known you'd do nothing for free."

The doors to the elevator opened, illuminating the redhead's sinister grin. A few sinners had paused to catch a glimpse of them as the doors opened, only to pale at the expression on Alastor's face. They quickly scurried off to carry out their tasks. Lucifer stepped through the doors, taking in the chaos in front of him. Numerous demons were running around, similar to the frantic energy he'd seen in the lobby, everyone getting the studio ready. A stack of papers and angry shouting from a blonde woman in a red dress (what was her name? It started with a K) suggested that something else had been planned for this hour, but had been cancelled due to Lucifer's abrupt interruption.

Lucifer might have felt bad, if it weren't for the fact that he knew without a shadow of a doubt this particular reporter was likely going to find some way to verbally eviscerate him later. He may not have remembered her name, but he did remember her particular brand of cutthroat journalism and the outright nasty things she had said about his daughter in the past. And her casual abuse of her co-reporter.

As if sensing she was being watched, the reporter turned her head a full 180 degrees, her smile down right unhinged and full of promises.

Not for the first time since landing in Hell, Lucifer almost wished he was still capable of creating Holy Water. There were some situations one just needed a spray bottle full of the hard core stuff for.

"Your Majesty," Vox pipped up, appearing from seemingly nowhere. The only reason Lucifer didn't jump was because he was still caught in a glaring match with a literal reporter from Hell. "This way, please."

Lucifer carried on glaring at her, right up until he physically couldn't. "I don't care who you've got sitting with me, I don't want her anywhere near me."

Vox followed his gaze, snorting when he saw who he'd been making a stink eye at. "Oh, no worries." He turned his own glare on Alastor. "I'll be copiloting right along with you."

Lucifer took in the two chairs. If he was sitting in one and Vox in the other, Alastor was going to be left standing. Judging from the gleam in the TV demon's eye, this was on purpose. Vox pulled out the seat on the right, the malicious reporter's coworker's usual seat, a smile so fake one would have to be blind to think it sincere spread across his screen. "Just a few more finishing touches, and then we'll be ready to begin." He turned on his heel and disappeared back into the bowels of the studio.

Lucifer blinked down at the seat. He could already feel the sheer number of eyes from the people in the studio, watching and waiting to see what he was going to do next. This was the first time almost every single one of them had ever seen him in person. He already hated everything about this. It was more than enough to make him want to retreat back to his room at the hotel and not come out for the rest of the month.

A gentle brush, an almost tickle, against the back of his neck, the feeling almost shockingly intimate, startled him. He inhaled sharply, not having noticed that he had stopped breathing. Instinctively, he turned his back on the growing crowd, his hand coming up to half way, before he aborted the motion. Turning to face him, Lucifer noted that Alastor appeared to have not done anything, standing in that default pose he favored. The only reason Lucifer could tell it had been him that touched him was from the way the redhead was watching him.

"Smile, your Majesty," Alastor murmured, voice pitched low and soothing. "The hardest part is almost over. I'll be with you the whole time."

How out of sorts had he been that even the Radio Demon was taking pity on him? That the reassurance was a comfort?

Lucifer breathed in slowly through his nose, breathing out even slower through his mouth. His racing heart began to calm, as he reminded himself that he had taken on far more terrifying beings than a room full of nosey sinners. This was all for Charlie and the safety of her dream, and for that, he could handle anything.

He dropped into the offered chair, the anticipation of a battle falling over his shoulders like a weathered cape.

A door opened off to the side, one that he hadn't seen anyone coming and going through. Stepping through were none other than Valentino and Velvette themselves. Velvette was typing away on her phone, muttering about an interruption to her photo shoot.

Valentino paused as he caught sight of Lucifer and Alastor. "Oh! If it isn't papito, himself!" The grin spreading across his face and choice of wording caused the blonde's skin to crawl. Sauntering over, Valentino nearly draped himself over desk, bringing his and Lucifer's faces far too close together. "You wouldn't want to hang around after this little show for some one on one time, now would you, mi pequeño rey?"

Lucifer had barely managed to do more than lean back in his chair, trying to escape the heavy stench of smoke and hard drugs that hung around the Overlord like a second skin, when a weigh settled heavily on his shoulder. He glanced up, finding that Alastor had stepped up beside him, hand placed in such a way that it wrapped possessively around shoulder and was beginning to snake around the back of his neck.

"Valentino." Alastor's filter was grating, a warning despite his pleasant smile.

Valentino lazily blew out a thin pink, heart shaped mouth of smoke. It hit Alastor in the face. His smile was filthy as he gave the deer demon a once over. "Don't be jealous, venado, my offer is still open to you, too."

The static glitch of a record screeching. It wasn't hard to pick out Alastor's distaste with everything from the offer to the Overlord himself. "Pass," he quipped back, shotting down the offer with extreme prejudice.

The pimp shrugged, viewing it as his loss. He turned his attention back to his original target. "What do you say, papito? We could--."

"Val." Vox's voice was barely recognizable through whatever filter he was using, the noise causing Lucifer to flinch as it grated at his ears.

Valentino pouted, somehow making it look aggressive. "Vox, querido, what have I said about using that tone with me?" He twisted around in a way that accented his figure. "Don't be upset because the Radio Demon's already turned you down."

"The show is about to start, Val," Vox pointed out evenly and sternly, despite the dig. Lucifer was beginning to pick up that when it was anyone other than Alastor, the TV demon might actually be able to keep a cool head. "How do you think it will look if we don't start on time?"

Valentino's pout to edge in the direction of a normal pout. "Spoil sport." He leaned back until he was facing Lucifer. He reached out, running a single finger along the underside of the blonde's chin. "Call me if you change your mind." Offer made, he thankfully, finally got off the desk and made his way back over to Velvette.

Lucifer was going to take a long, hot shower when he got back to the hotel. With acid. Regrow some nice, new skin that Valentino had never touched.

Alastor pulled him from his thoughts, giving the back of his neck a squeeze. Lucifer was almost sad for the loss of contact when he pulled his hand away so he could resume his prior position.

From where he stood, Vox watched the two of them, his expression unreadable. Several minutely later, the blue and black themed sinner dropped into his own seat, calling out to the cameraman as he did so. "How's the camera holding up?"

The cameraman peaked at Alastor, indicating this question was because of the redhead's tendency to take out anything with a camera around him. The sinner studied his monitor and then gave a thumbs up.

Vox clicked his tongue. "So," he gripped, irritation heavy in his voice. "You can be recorded without destroying my electronics."

Lucifer couldn't see Alastor from where he was standing almost directly behind him, could only hear the tapping on his fingers on his microphone. His taunt was malicious as he came back with, "We both know I can be photographed ...when I want to be."

The TV demon grimaced, the hit landing where it obviously hurt. He had little time to recover, as the cameraman began his countdown. As he hit zero, Vox's smile was back in place, just a lot less real.

"Top of the hour, folks!" Vox's voice was loud and boisterous, the rhythm and pace almost break neck. "Breaking news: in a rare interview, we're joined by none other than the King of Hell and the Devil himself, Lucifer Morningstar!" Vox leaned over, holding a hand out to indicate the fallen angel sitting beside him. "Please, give your people a little wave, your Majesty."

Lucifer resisted the urge to flip him off. Gave the camera a little wave with little enthusiasm.

Vox carried on, unphased, "Equally rare and unlikely to never happen again, fellow sinners, we also have radio talk show host, the Radio Demon himself, Alastor!"

Alastor didn't wave. He grinned straight into the camera, as if staring into the very souls of the views, eyes and teeth alight as reality itself threatened to warp around him.

The camera gave an alarming whine. The cameraman gave an alarmed cry as it threatened to give out.

Point made, Alastor seemed to remember he was supposed to be behaving. The camera stopped whining as reality returned to normal.

Vox's eye twitched. Smile strained along with his chipper tone, he said, "Your Majesty, I assume your being here is because of the attacks on the hotel your daughter is running?"

Lucifer gave him his own chipper smile. "You mean the attacks you only know about because of your voyeuristic habits?"

Vox laughed, a touch nervously. "You've clearly never dealt with the paparazzi, sire. One has to cross a few boundaries if they want to get the exclusive first."

Was that what he was going with?

Either blind to it or ignoring it, Vox glossed over Lucifer's offense, moving on to, "Please, tell us, do you have any idea who's behind the attacks? We're dying to know."

Lucifer highly doubted that. Or at least, doubted Vox cared. It was more likely he wanted the hotel to fail or get taken out, judging from his poorly concealed eagerness. He leaned his elbow onto the table, chin resting on his palm. "I'm not here to waste my time nor the listeners' with an interview." He took delight in watching Vox falter for the first time since the interrogation began. Over his shoulder, he called sweetly, "Alastor?"

Alastor's voice was just sweet and still more bloodthirsty. "Yes, sire?"

It was a show of how in tune Vox was with Alastor's moods that the TV demon was already beginning to sweat. He was doing a good job of hiding it, Lucifer would give him that. It was a pity he was sitting beside someone who could see right through him, when he chose to make the effort. Lucifer rose from his chair, the blue and black sinner nearly taking a screen full of wings as they manifested. "Be a doll and make certain Vox doesn't get any ideas. Like interfering."

"With pleasure." Alastor's words were nearly lost to his filter. The air around them crackled, the shadows in the corners of the room growing unnaturally dark. Vox dropped all pretenses of pretending he wasn't unnerved, leaning back as much to avoid the wings as to distance himself from the redheaded sinner.

Red and white wings fluttered, giving Lucifer the lift to make stepping up onto the desk look effortless. Papers flew everywhere and a few people made startled noises as they were hit with a few errant pages. His wings fanned out, allowing him to gracefully fall into a seated potion on the other side of the desk. He leaned to the side, placing his weight on the hand braced on the desk, head rolling until he was facing the other two Vees. "Velvette, if you value your life just sit there and look pretty for a bit."

Velvette narrowed her eyes to slits at him. "What the hell?"

Valentino waited to see what advice he had for him. When he received none, the pimp blew out a lung full of pink smoke. His expression turned sultry. "Nothing for me, pequeño rey?"

Lucifer didn't respond, not wanting to give the game away too soon. Relaxing his control over his form, he allowed the full extent of his corrupted, angelic form to appear on full display for all of the viewers to see. Far too many eyes focused in on not just the camera, but the cameraman and the sinners directly around him. Each of them instinctively shied away, hindbrains warning them they were out in the open and too exposed. Vox attempted to push his chair back, the area around the desk suddenly a little too hot, only to be stopped by the end of Alastor's strategically placed staff locking the chair in place.

Lucifer rolled his head back around, until he could easily stare into the camera. "Now, to clear up a few things: I could care less about sinner politics." He grinned in that way he knew looked off, even for a creature of Hell, leaning into the fact that he wasn't human and had never been human. "How you decide to throw away the one good thing you stupid, stupid little humans have going for you is up to you." His pupils were lost in a red glow as his temper spiked, the flame of hellfire blazing between his horns. " What I do take issue with is someone sending hitman to threaten my daughter over something as silly as potential lost contracts."

He slid off the desk, the sinners in front of him all collectively taking a step back. Only the cameraman stayed in place, too frozen to move. "Perhaps it's my fault, I've been away a while." He held out a hand, fingers searching until he found the particular contract he was looking for. "Perhaps it's yours for never reading the fine print." His hand closed around his desired target, a chain made of pink, translucent smoke, deceptively fragile, coming into being. One end led out the doors. The other end led off to the side, leading over to a certain Overlord.

Valentino's and Angel's contract.

The pimp held up his wrist, confusion evident on his face. "The fuck?"

Lucifer's grin was all teeth. He wrapped his hand around and around the chain until he had a nice, solid grip on it. Without warning, he viciously yanked on the chain.

Valentino was pulled so hard, his shoulder nearly popped out of its socket. The pimp yowled like a cat dropped into pool as he was sent crashing to the floor. Lucifer didn't give him the chance to recover, reeling him in like a particularly resistant fish, the Overlord shouting and cursing as he was dragged across the floor. The Devil gave no quarter, even when he had him where he wanted him, pressing his heel into Valentino's back and twisting moth's arm until it was just short breaking.

"You see," Lucifer carried on, tone bored and voice raised over the slew of insults being thrown his way, "There's this little clause in your contracts that say I have the final say in every single one of them."

"You little shit!" Valentino hissed, twisting in a way that should be impossible for someone who purportedly had a spine. "We had nothing to do with the attacks on that shithole your hija is running."

Lucifer pulled on the chain until he could hear the shoulder pop. The sinner's claws dug into the ground beneath him, glare baleful. "Maybe," Lucifer said, almost nonchalant. "But you're the lowest kind of sinner: the kind that profits on selling human flesh and locks people into contracts so they can never escape."

The moth demon snarled, composure gone. "Every one of those whores came to me willingly. I made them stars. They would be nothing without me."

The Devil peered down at him, unmerciful. All of Valentino's sins where on display for him to see and judge and he found him wanting. "Nothing gives you the right to abuse another human being."

Lucifer returned his attention to the camera. He wrapped his free hand around another section of the chain, pulling the links tight between his two fists. "Let everyone remember that your little deals mean nothing if I say so."

Without further ado, he pulled almost effortlessly on the chain, Valentino's strength that of a kittens next to his. A link, just off center, gave, pulling apart until it shattered. Each one of the links similarly followed suit, falling from his hand like crystalline shards. They vanished like the smoke they had originally appeared as before they could hit the ground.

Valentino's arm, free of the chain, fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

Lucifer stepped off his back, releasing him. Stepping around the desk this time, he held his hand out to Alastor. The Radio Demon blinked back at him, something delighted behind his gaze.

It looked a little like victory.

He took Lucifer's hand.

"The Hazbin Hotel and every one of its residents are under my protection," Lucifer declared into the stunned silence, voice projected loud and unearthly, raising the hair on ever sinner's head, save the one in front of him. He looked upon each of the sinners in the room, gaze coming to rest on the camera lens. "I will not have mercy upon anyone looking to cause my daughter anymore trouble."

To his right, a portal appeared. Without another word, he stepped through it, pulling Alastor along with him.

As everyone continued to stare, the portal vanished and they were gone.

tbc

Translations:

-Papito: Little daddy

-Mi pequeño rey: My little king

-Venado: Deer or venison. I chose this word as a way for Valentino to make a dig at the fact that Alastor's demon form is a type of food source.

-Querido: Darling, used if you love or like someone. Chosen as a shoutout to the affair they're clearly having.

#radioapple #alastor #lucifer morningstar #hazbin hotel #deer lucifer fic #someone on twitter pointed out how wifi works #and then i looked into how cellphones and wifi works #and couldn't resist playing around with it #why stop at playing with lucy's powers #when i can play with everyones?#ps i only took a semester of spanish #so sorry if i botched anything #i did double check everything #so here's hoping its all fine #i'm going to have to add so many new tags to ao3 when i post this chapter #lmao

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