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friendshipgirl · 2 months

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Hula Heat: A Brinky Story

Natsumi is taking the Animaniacs family on a vacation to Maui. While everyone got their own huts, it was nighttime when everyone was fast asleep. All except Brain and Pinky, the two lab mice who try to conquer the world. They were too busy making leis and grass skirts, not for world domination, but rather for fun since it was vacation time.

"Zort! This is fun Brain! Natsumi thought we’d really deserve this trip after the last plan backfired!" Pinky bubbled as he finished another lei.

"Yes, well, she said we work to hard," Said Brain, "And I have to admit, I needed something like this," He looked around, surveying their surroundings with appreciation, "I've been working in the lab so much of our life that I forgot how nice it felt to relax in the wild."

"Yeah, it’s better then when we got stranded in the jungle that one time. Poit!" Said Pinky.

"Pinky, did you really have to bring that up?" Brain asked, not liking the fact that they were indeed stranded and ran into Snowball that time.

"Of course! It reminds me just how lucky we are! Not only do we get the world's best queen, but we also get our own hut! And she’s taking us on a vacation to here, sweet Maui!" Pinky said.

The megalomaniac mouse couldn’t help but smile. Everything, even the world he usually calls unkind, is a whole lot better with Natsumi. As they continue their crafts, Brain couldn’t help but to sway his hips a bit as he hums. He had this thing with dancing ever since he seen Pixar's Turning Red. The way he moved reminded him of a firecracker ready to go off at any second, all fueled by passion, enthusiasm, and love. However, ever since New Years 2023, it can get erotic because obviously it was also Turning Red. Plus, Pinky did something similar once in the episode, A Little Off The Top. He does get a bit carried away and it could end up too arousing. Sometimes he just goes with it, sometimes he regrets it. But seeing how everyone one is asleep and how they have their own private hut, and definitely doesn’t mind if it was Pinky, he was safe to do a little.

"Huh... Grass Skirt..." he muttered to himself. After looking at it for a moment then at Pinky, Brain smirked. He might as well take advantage of the mood he was in.

He puts on the skirt and gave his hips an experimental wiggle. Then he puts on one of his leis and a flower behind his ear. It wasn’t long before Pinky noticed Brain from a short distance, right as Brain started dancing. The rodent immediately turned pink, blushing as his eyes followed Brain’s movements. Sure he seen Brain dance like that before, but in a hula skirt? To say he didn't find that sexy would be a lie.

He was a big fan of Brain's performances, but this one took the cake. Brain was actually flaunting his body, letting loose, and it made Pinky’s heart race and stomach turn. The way Brain swayed his hips and kept moving with his hands over his head gave Pinky goosebumps. It seemed Brain knew Pinky liked what he saw, because the shorter mouse turned around and looked directly at Pinky, grinning wickedly. Pinky immediately turned his head around, pretending to be oblivious, but Brain wasn’t buying it.

"Oh, yes, I see how it is," Brain whispered. When Pinky still didn't respond to him, Brain continued talking, "What's wrong, Pinky? Do you not want my attention?"

Pinky gulped nervously, but tried to play it off, "No, you're fine. Poit. Just a bit dizzy, is all."

"That's funny," Brain purred, leaning down to whisper into Pinky's ear, "I do recall being emotionally dizzy means a fight or flight instinct is often triggered when you feel anxious... And you look very anxious," Pinky froze, unable to move at all, until Brain leaned away and continued, "But that's okay, I think I'll give you some space to collect your thoughts."

Pinky watched Brain strut around the room as if he was the king of the world ( which fits his character ). But Brain wasn’t stopping there. He continued his little show in every way possible. Pinky glances over a few time, and no matter how hard he tried, he always got the 'good bits'. He even got a good view of Brain as he rolled his hips in a way that drove Pinky crazy. When he noticed Pinky staring at him, he winked and grinned. In return, Pinky flushed even harder and pretended to be focused on finishing his new lei. But it wasn’t enough.

"Naaaaarf... Brain," Pinky groaned, "I need to get more flowers. I’ll be back,"

Pinky then stepped outside before looking back at Brain, who blew him a kiss and winked again before Pinky left in a hurry and shuts the door. Once out, Pinky was shaking, very aroused by Brain's sexy dancing. Back inside, Brain smirked, resting his hands on his hips.

"Brain, for a future world ruler, you really know how to move," Brain said to himself, "Look at yourself. There’s no doubt you’ll make a fine ruler one day with your dancing. I think I’m going to like the Maui trip,"

#pinky and the brain #animaniacs #brinky #cute #hula #this is inspired by another story and I had to do this! So worth it!#follow me on da #short and sweet

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mythgirlimagines · 3 years

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It’s time for a brand new talentswapped Myth for this Tuesday! Brimming with passion, good sportspersonship, and boundless optimism, is Myth Anon, the Former Ultimate Team Manager!

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BACKSTORY AND TALENT

In her elementary and middle school years, Myth had an unbridled passion for sports and athletics, despite her scoliosis making heavy movement difficult for her, and in her middle school years, she even managed to secure spots in prestigious sports teams. Unfortunately though, all those dreams were crushed once she reached her high school years, when a freak accident costed Myth her legs and thus, her ability to walk and run. But the optimistic Myth wouldn’t let this sudden accident qstop her, for she decided to switch her career plans from improving herself to improving others, and that was how Myth became a team manager. Renowned amongst her students for her optimism and motivational spirit, she’s able to turn a ragtag bunch of amateurs into experts within a single season. In fact, Myth even managed to create Lil’ Ultimates and Jr. Ultimates within her career. Now that she is in her adults years, she is currently working with high school athletes and even created actual Ultimate athletes thanks to her stellar coaching.

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RELATIONSHIPS

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Lucky Student

As the reckless childhood friend of Myth, Wyre is always getting into all sorts of trouble and is lucky enough to get out of trouble, with the help of Myth. Unfortunately, when one of Wyre’s little shenanigans cost Myth her ability to walk, Wyre still feels guilty about it, even to this day, despite Myth’s constant reassurance. Wyre acts like a bodyguard of sorts to Myth, scaring off anyone who dares to pick on Myth’s handicap. Imagine Myth and Wyre’s mutual joy when Wyre was chosen via the Hope’s Peak lottery to attend Hope’s Peak alongside Myth. They both act like cheerleaders for each other.

Outfit: Bandages wrapped around her forehead, arms and hands, a green tank top with a darker green clover design, tan cargo pants, white socks and scuffed-up green high tops.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Traditional Dancer

Famous in certain circles for her dramatic stage presence and her beautiful dance moves, it was no wonder that Anon Scar joined the Hope’s Peak roster as the Ultimate Traditional Dancer. Myth may not be an expert in choreography, but even she can tell just how amazing Scar is at dancing. Myth quickly realized just how how seriously Scar takes her craft, underneath the whole “Queen of Yokai” schtick she developed for stage performances. The two girls quickly bonded over their motherly natures and overwhelming concern for others. Myth is currently planning on arranging an oendan group to cheer on Scar.

Outfit: A dark purple kimono with a red flower petal design on the bottom and a matching obi, flower decorating her side bun, white socks and brown geta, always carries a fan, has an oni mask on the side of her head.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Gamer

While Myth normally views video games as health-sapping distractions for lazy layabouts, she can’t fault Fusion for his hobby. Myth noticed that in MMOPRGs, Fusion usually acts a lot like Myth in the game world, healing his teammates and sending encouraging words via the game’s group chat, and he acts equally paternal in real life. Myth also notices that Fusion gets very hyperactive and passionate when talking about video game lore. Myth thinks that if Fusion applied that energy and paternal nature to sports and had a proper sleeping and eating schedule, he could potentially be an awesome team player and a star athlete.

Outfit: Black and red headphones on his ears, a hoodie colored like a Nintendo Switch over a black shirt with the GameCube logo on the front, black pajama pants with a white stripe on each side, white socks and red slippers with Pokeballs on the front, glasses from original design.

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Animal Breeder

As much as Fusion II tries to act like an apathetic and snarky delinquent and claim the scratches she gets are from gang scuffles, she is actually a regular volunteer at animal shelters and has a particular soft spot for cats, to the point of keeping a chubby black one named Cheezburger. As Myth eventually figured out, all of Fusion II’s snark and apathy are just a cover-up for her less-than-stellar social skills and desire to be seen as cool by her peers. Myth realized eventually that both of them have slightly-similar talents, with both of their talents involving caring for others: athletes for Myth and animals for Fusion II.

Outfit: A red shirt with a pawprint design on the front under a black sleeveless leather jacket, black fingerless gloves, brown cargo pants that hold pet care supplies, red shoes with a paw print design on the soles, scratched up arms and one scratch on her face hidden by a bandaid, sunglasses from original design.

Just Anon, Ultimate Animator

Despite Janon’s chronic procrastination, Janon’s fans claim that his animated works are worth the very long wait. Now this is one Anon that the normally kind and optimistic Myth has a serious grudge against. The lazy and cynical animator, who wants nothing more than to sleep all day long, would of course clash with the energetic and optimistic team manager who wants people to improve. Unlike the other Anons, Janon isn’t even trying to improve himself, and that just drives Myth up the wall. But Myth heard rumors that Janon has a particular soft spot for children, which would make sense, given Janon’s talent.

Outfit: A pink ski cap with cat ears and an adorable cartoon face, a white face mask with a cat’s mouth and whiskers, a blue denim jacket with several patches and pins over a white shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front, colorful pajama pants, pink bunny slippers.

Sparkle Anon, Graduated Reserve Course Student

Despite being passionate about both acting and puzzle-sloving, neither of those skills were enough for Sparkle to garner Ultimate status. Her rich parents managed to scrape enough money for her to take the test and get accepting into the Hope’s Peak Reserve Course though, and now that Sparkle graduated, she is currently chasing her dreams of becoming a top performer, despite her non-Ultimate status. Never before has Myth ever found someone with an even louder voice than her, but Sparkle‘s loud and dramatic voice made Myth consider starting an oendan group with her, and Sparkle was happy to oblige. Outfit: A white dress shirt and a sparkly pink tie, a skirt that matches her tie, knee-high socks, brown slip-on shoes, glasses from original design.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Princex and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Nurse

Egg is the current crowned princex of Desruc, a cursed locale in the middle of nowhere, and Wet Sock is the skilled field medic and excommunicated/exiled-royal-twin. But it seems their inventive customs don’t cross cultural boundaries, for their odd idioms and sayings just wind up grossing anyone willing to strike conversation with the foreign and cursed twins. Interacting with the Freak Twins may be internally painful for Myth, but she managed to power through and found out that the two are surprisingly caring, despite what their cursed dialogue would suggest, with Wet Sock being especially maternal in particular.

Egg’s Outfit: A green gakuran with golden details and shoulder pads, a red feather cape and matching earrings.

Wet Sock’s Outfit: A ragged black gakuran with blue details and shoulder pads marked with a Red Cross design, a black cape and hood.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Swordfighter

As the adopted child of a yakuza family and the loyal bodyguard of a yakuza heiress, Curious has been raised with one and only goal and purpose in mind: prevent Young Mistress Iris from ever getting harmed by foes. Just like with the other athletes on the Kibo-Con roster, Myth feels her maternal instincts kick into overdrive when she’s training them, probably helped by Curious being the youngest of the athlete roster. Despite being famed by Iris’s rivals as an emotionless brick wall, Curious is surprisingly impressionable and gullible, probably due to his less-than-stellar upbringing as a servant.

Outfit: Hair in a small ponytail, a black t-shirt and a red tie with Iris’s family logo on the front, black pants, always carries their sword in a black and red scabbard, shoes from original design.

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Musician

Famous for his loud vocals, his vulgar lyrics, and the pessimistic worldview of his lyrics, Nerd is the head of the infamous metal band, “DEBATE”, a band intent on showing people just what’s wrong with the world we live in, using nothing but the bare-bone facts. Just like with Janon, Myth has some serious beef with Nerd, thanks to their conflicting worldviews. Myth can’t stand Nerd’s constant and vehement negativity, and Myth’s stubborn optimism just nauseates Nerd. They get into regular shouting matches, that always have to be mitigated by the Brain Cells, much to the irritation of said Brain Cells.

Outfit: Wilder hair that covers his left eye and hides his scouter, a spiky black leather jacket over a white turtleneck, a red and black guitar slung over his back, black polished nails, torn black pants, spiky black boots.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Gymnast

Originally from the wrong side of the tracks, Eldritch taught himself parkour and gymnastics to avoid both muggers and bullies. Eldritch’s small and light form makes executing high-flying flips and rolls a cinch for him. Despite having never entered a single competition, talent scouts have noticed Eldritch’s mad parkour skills. Myth really wants to train this young athlete to his full potential, but for some reason, Eldritch shows a vehement distrust for just about everybody, and given his backstory, who can blame him? But Myth is determined, and she will show the tiny gymnast that people can change and are worth trusting.

Outfit: A black tanktop, a camo jacket tied around his waist, blue jeans, black ankle socks, white and blue sneakers.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Mechanic

Despite motorcycles being her main speciality, Dream can fix just about any mechanical device you throw at her, with her signature sunny smile. Despite not being an athlete, Myth quickly established Dream as one of her all-time favorites of the Kibo-Con roster. Dream and Myth quickly bonded over their overly optimistic and energetic personalities, and the two girls act like each other’s cheerleaders. Dream seems to show fascination with the mechanics of Myth’s wheelchair, and yearns to tune it up and soup it up with some rocket boosters or something, and Myth surprisingly doesn’t mind.

Outfit: A blue bandana wrapped around her head, a black tank top, orange and oil-stained gloves, a pink jumpsuit tied around her waist, an orange tool belt, tall black boots.

Iris Anon, Jr. Ultimate Yakuza

When Myth first found out that she was going to be chaperoning the heiress of one of the most dangerous yakuza families in all of history, she was prepared to be on her beat behavior, lest the heiress calls her folks to feed Myth to the fishies. But as it turns out, Iris is really friendly and superbly optimistic, despite what her upbringing would suggest. Iris is up there with Dream in Myth’s favorites list, and for the exact same reasons. But as it turns out, for all of her optimism, Iris is also really clumsy and falls, trips and bumps her head all the time. Myth is currently working on improving Iris’s balance and coordination.

Outfit: An entirely black gakuran with a red ribbon and her family logo in the form of a badge, black stockings and red shoes, glasses from original design.

Purple Anon, Ultimate Chef

Purple commonly cooks and caters for fancy high-class banquets, and her food is beloved by every upper-crust family that she serves. Purple’s work is commonly behind-the-scenes, and for good reason, because Purple is supremely timid, and often hides behind bigger Anons, when not in the kitchen. Purple is Myth’s go-to-Anon when it comes to nutritional advice, even if Myth needs help translating Purple’s overly-formal dialogue. Sometimes, when Myth is off to train her students, Purple stocks Myth up with crudités or finger sandwiches to give to the young athletes, in between or after practice.

Outfit: A white chef’s top with a purple cravat, black pants, shoes and beret from original design.

This series centers around an optimistic and hot-blooded team manager, trying to train her con-mates into only the best versions of themselves, and battling a couple of Negative Nancies (read: Nerd, Janon and Eldritch) in the process.

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APPEARANCE

Myth has shoulder-length brown hair with an ahoge on top and black sports glasses. For her clothes, Myth wears a red and cream colored tracksuit over a white tanktop, and matching high tops. Around her neck is a red megaphone, a golden whistle, and a golden necklace with resin in the middle that is colored like the bisexual flag.

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PERSONALITY

Myth carries herself with a loud voice and motivational words. Myth might just be one of the most optimistic people in the entirety of the Kibo-Con, for she can find the good points in just about anybody, and knows exactly how to weed the good points out of them. Despite being confined to a wheelchair, she has energy that is very contagious, which assists her in pumping up her students. But for all of her optimism towards other people, she doesn’t quite feel the same way about herself, feeling like the accident squandered her own potential and she advances other people’s development at the cost of her own. But Myth refuses to be seen as weak, so she never opens up about her actual feelings.

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I hope you like this talentswap, and please let me know what of this Myth! Don’t forget to watch out for brand-new content from yours truly!

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biotchthatmeows · 3 years

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#tw #suicideawarness #triggering #depression #suicide #substanceabuse

Ah! So suicide awareness month eh. Well I don't know where to burst out exactly because people don't really care about it but ok let's try it here at good ol' Tumblr.

So, where I live we don't have any suicide helpline or any awareness programs or anything at all regarding mental health. I mean don't get me wrong we would adapt western media full fledge when it's Valentine's Day or some other ridiculous thing but no one wants to talk about suicide because it doesn't bring trp and people are already sad and I agree it's true.

But we gotta talk about suicide, man, come on. I am sorry but at least I think I should.

I have never really openly said it but I have given hints many times. But I am openly saying it that I suffer from very severe depression and anxiety plus Bipolar personality disorder. Which means I am either going through maniac episode or depressive episode almost everyday (you can Google them).

And yes, I have tried to kill myself multiple times. And turns out like most things in my life I am not really good at it. Since, I am writing this. Which is why whoever is reading this, I am taking your time (thanks btw).

I was always a little different since my childhood as compared to others. I liked being alone a lot and writing things instead of talking to a person. Because whenever I tried to make a friend I would do something wrong and they go away. So, at one point I stopped trying and I realized something that people around me dont really like me.

Even my teachers kind of didn't like me because I would just randomly ask the most peculiar questions. For example when we were reading *book spoiler* George Orwell's 1984, everyone in the class was worried for the hero when he was being tortured but I asked or told my teacher that 'okay so, his fear for the mouse was bigger than the love for the girl and it okay to betray her?' and everyone was like that was not the point. I am sorry, I got districted and I am sure most people wouldn't get the reference.

Anyway, my point is that I always had and have questions about things when people should keep their mouth shut. At least one shouldn't questioned these things.

But that is still the thing with me, when you or someone makes a prominent statement there should be a reason or at least an explanation behind it but I was called blasphemous for questioning them. And that was fine with me but calling me blasphemous didn't get you out of the position of not able to justify your statement.

So, throughout my life I was called many things, spoiled, brat, weird, drama queen, actress, attention seeker. I can go on and on.

I don't know about rest of the names but I am pretty sure I wasn't spoiled. My parents were never the type to hand over the money because you asked for it. They were kind of people who wouldn't even give you money even when you actually need and beg for it. They would give you the thing instead that you need the money for or you don't get it at all for example school picnics and events or the bag you really really wanted.

So, well when you don't get things. You eventually start doing bad things such lying a lot and stealing stuff. And it keeps growing and growing and even though deep down you know how wrong you are but then you don't know how to stop because you are getting things you want.

Okay, off the topic again. What I am trying to say that I was maybe lot of things that people said but I wasn't spoiled. I was physically abused and eventually realize mentally abused too. And things weren't really okay with me. I won't take it like most people do.

My brain wouldn't stop thinking about them and I was becoming more and more irrational as days goes by. And I was thinking what if I was dead and that would make things lot more easier for me and the people around me.

Eventually, that idea became more and more intense and growing around I always heard people say that if a person kills themself they would never be forgiven and it was the greatest sin ever.

But then those people would also say that not praying is the greatest sin and you won't be forgiven for that ever.

And then not believing in one God is also the biggest is of all sin and you won't be forgiven for that ever.

And then saying hurtful things to people is also the biggest sin and you won't forgiven until that person forgives you.

So, which one was the biggest sin? All of them? Because then those same people would say that God would forgive you for all your sins if you repent and because God is most forgiving. Even more forgiving then your own mother.

So, my curious brain once again started asking questions. For which again I was told that I shouldn't because it was wrong and blasphemy.

Meanwhile, my mental health was decling day after day but no one really noticed because in our society their is no such thing as mental health. Either you are crazy or lazy, hey that rhymes.

I was pretty much deemed both.

Mostly, lazy but then there is a solution for that in our society for as well. Get married! Tada! Because when you are married it fixes everything! And anything.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that I obviously despiced the marriage thing. Because I knew I couldn't do it.

Someone who can barely keep themself put together, cannot handle the responsibility of the marriage and of course I wasn't interested in anyone. I mean of course I had crushes and stuff but unlike most girls/women my age I never went as far as thinking about marriage all the time. Which was happening at that time all around me.

People were keen to get married or getting married.

And I don't know why people thought it's about time I should get married too and everytime the situation like that came along I would have the worst kind of panic attacks. I couldn't eat or drink or sleep and I had to fight and fight to make the situation go away.

But you can't win every time now, can you? Eventually, I was forced into getting engaged and I can't explain how horrible each second for me during that time was. But once got lucky enough get out of it and it was happiest day of entire life. Well just for me of course. Everyone around me was pretty bumped but I was selfish because I got out of it.

And the worst part of the whole thing that bugged me was that guy was honestly horrible. He called me fat and then his family came around to inspect me like a cattle because my family told them I wasn't fat. What a wonderful thing to your child. Really helped my self esteem.

He couldn't even spell aunty right. Yeah he wrote 'unty' and apparently his parents bragged he went and study in Australia. So, if Australians wrote aunty like that, then I suppose I was being a little judgy.

Anyhow, I was so relieved. It was like I could breathe again. But obviously it wasn't the end of it.

Things like that don't don't just end for people in our society. Situations like that kept happening and my parents was getting desperate at this point because duh! I was growing old and who would marry an old girl even when like they 10 years older her.

During the period of my engagement my mental health was at its worse and it was getting worse everyday. I was constantly having panic attacks and one day out pity I was finally taken to the doctor not a psychologist or psychiatrist but just a normal doctor.

Lucky for me that guy prescribed a magical pill which fixed everything, for a while and I loved it. The minute I would take that pill everything would become normal. I would even stopped caring about the engagement thing till that pill lasted.

I didn't know at first what it was but then I figured it out and I would go out buy shit ton of them because it fixed things for a while.

In short I was addicted to vallium and then I found out there are other pills like that such as Xanax and plenty of other and as long as I had money no one cared who they selling these pills too and it wasn't like I was buying them from some shady person. I was actually buying them from legit pharmaceutical shops.

So, whenever situations like those came around or at that any other point I faced problems I would take those pills but then I realized that eventually that they stopped working so I increased the doses for them to work and the doses increased and increased. At one point I was taking a box each day just for a moment of calm. And years went by and so did the amount of pills I was literally throwing my whole month of salary on them.

Then my family finally noticed that something was off because I never had money and I wasn't exactly

buying anything so where was the money going? Also I was sleeping a lot and starting to forget things which was pretty out character for me.

I was confronted and given an ultimatum. So, for a week or more I think I didn't take any pills but then I was taking them for years now and you are not supposed to suddenly stop them. But I didn't know that at that time.

And that was my first attempt to kill myself. But then things happen, bad things, and they kept happening and happening. Finally came a point where no one was to stop me from taking pills or trying to kill myself.

By then I had committed multiple attempts to kill myself. I was self harming long before that but after that it had gotten much worse. And my last attempt was this year but instead of dying I went into a seizure which lasted 48 hours and even after that I wasn't able move my tounge properly and certain part of my body for a month.

That was the first time I was scared of suicide. Because I was not able to do anything on my own. I bit tounge so hard that it bled and broke a teeth. It worse than dying.

I was finally taken to the hospital and a real psychiatrist who finally diagnosed me with my illness.

Yet still, some people think I make things up because I did them in the past but that shit was real and anyone who say I act crazy to get attention, then I swear to you that you wouldn't wish that condition on your worst enemy.

Talking about all this wasn't to let my heart out or anything. I just want to tell you and anyone who understands to realise that mental illness is very very real and it's a nightmare that doesn't go away. That only problem it is not visible like other diseases. It's just like having a cancer but imagine you can't see that cancer.

And being suicidal is not a joke, no one wants to end their lives on purpose. Everyone wants to live.

But just think for a moment from prespective of the person that their brain had been through enough that it thought that life is not worth living anymore. And if it's a sin then they are ready to go to hell because imagine life being worse than hell.

I know this is already a really long post but I needed to bring this up because recently I was having conversation with colleagues about what we should about suicide awareness month and I was like maybe make post to empathize with people who go through this horrible rough path but my colleagues suggested that they should put this religious script which says that anyone commits suicide will never be forgiven and will forever be in hell.

And this was coming from the person who doesn't pray at all. I was like what about you? I wasn't judging him. I was like so you won't go to hell and be there forever?

And he was like I will be forgiven but people who commits suicide they will not be. And he was so confident that he even said that you will see on the day of judgment that people who didn't pray will be eventually forgiven but there is no way for people who had committed suicide to be forgiven.

And I was like okay, wow! Because there is literally no point with arguing or trying to make people like them understand because they won't. And I know many, actually forget many but most people would agree with him. Because they don't even accept mental illness as illness at all and if you are sad/depressed you must not be praying or need to pray more.

But, I pray for those ignorants who make fun of mental illness and suicide and call it attention seekers or actors when it is desperate cry for help.

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sherrybaby14 · 5 years

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Clicking

Summary: Office AU, where Steve is your IT guy and he’s got his eyes on you.

Request: IT ex-boyfriend Steve completely obsessed with you

Kinktober prompts: (Did day 1) Spanking

Warnings: Non-con (please do not read if this offends you) (also, turns into dubcon), spanking, smut, light degradation (very minor name-calling/teasing).

Words: 2100

Could your day get any worse? You clicked at the mouse multiple times. Nothing. Computers were never your strong suit. You pushed away from your desk and walked out of your office.

Lunch break. Nobody was here. That meant one thing. Putting in a ticket with the Information Technology department.

“Ughhh…” You groaned at the thought. Those people were trolls. Always acting superior.

You pulled out your cell phone. Maybe you could work the rest of the day on the smaller gadget. It would be better than dealing with them. There was no way that was an option, so like ripping off a Band-Aid you went to your company’s website and wrote a quick request for IT help.

When you put the phone down you walked back into your office and plopped down at your chair. Your company was huge, there was no way they would send him. Still, you cringed hoping anyone but your ex showed up.

“Knock, knock.” The voice made the pit in your stomach drop.

“Steve.” You stood up. “How have you been?”

“Oh, you mean since you ghosted on me?” He shut the door behind him and walked around to your computer as you pushed away from the desk.

“Ghosted? We went on three dates; I didn’t think that merited a break-up.” You knew he deserved some explanation instead of zero response. “We weren’t clicking.”

“That’s your opinion.” Steve picked up your mouse and popped out the back.

He was handsome maybe you were too hard on him. He did make you laugh a few times. Steve fiddled with the thing and started moving the cursor around the screen, clicking on a few icons to test them.

“Trouble double-clicking your mouse. Why am I not surprised?” He turned around with a big grin on his face. “All you needed was a new battery dummy.

That was it. The reason you didn’t call again. Like most IT guys he had that ‘I’m smarter than everyone’s outlook. Plus you didn’t appreciate the innuendo

“Right. Thanks.” You folded your arms.

“This mouse clicks now.” Steve mimicked your stance. “Maybe I could help you with the other one? Dinner tonight?”

“I don’t think so.” You sighed. “Thanks for coming down, but I should get back to work.”

“Right.” Steve pressed his lips into a fake smile and stepped away. “Wouldn’t want to distract you with a life.”

“Excuse me?” You scoffed at him.

“You backed off because you actually liked me.” He stepped forward. “But that would mean not working eighty hours a week. Being something other than frigid from time to time?”

“I backed off because you throw around insults like candy at a parade.” You signaled for him to move. “So if you don’t mind, this frigid dummy has important business to take care of.”

“That’s genius Doll. You not liking insults? I bet your pussy got a little wet hearing them just now. Strong, powerful woman being put in her place? Yeah, that’s what you need.” He grinned at you.

Your mouth hung open in shock. Those few sentences alone were enough to get him fired.

“That’s right. Keep those lips parted. I can slide my cock between them easier that way.” Steve reached out and grabbed your chin, pulling it down.

“Are you insane?” You went to slap him, but he caught your wrist. “I could have you fired, you arrogant asshole!”

“But you won’t.” Steve squeezed down on your wrist and chin, holding your mouth open. “Because I’m right. You are wet. Aren’t you Doll?”

You tried to say no, but all that came out was a mumble. Instead, you shook your head.

“Wow. Not only are you a dummy and frigid.” Steve twisted your arm and dropped your chin. “You’re also a liar.”

You cried out as he manipulated your body so it was against his chest, your arm pressed between the two of you painfully.

“Let go of me or I’ll scream.” You tried to claw at him with your freehand, but he hoisted your wrist higher and pushed forward, making your chest go flat on your desk as he kicked your ankles apart.

“No, you won’t.” Steve’s other hand ran over the curve of your ass, squeezing your cheek. “First off, nobody is here. Second, they’d open the door to see you bent over, vulnerable, filled with lust.”

Before you could respond Steve started to bunch your skirt over your hips.

“NO!” You tried to stand back up, but he pushed you down against the desk.

“Quit lying.” SLAP! Steve’s palm came down hard on your ass.

You let out a little squeal as your cheek stung. CRACK! It came down again.

“STOP!” You tried to wiggle away, but there was nowhere to go.

“Wow, you are being loud.” SMACK! The burn spread. “Is that what you want? Everyone at the office to see the frigid dummy liar getting spanked like the naughty girl she is? Maybe smelling your cunt? Because this little room already reeks of sex.”

He was right, you had to bite your lip to stay quiet. WHACK! SLAP! SPANK! SMACK!

“I really like you.” Steve rubbed the burn on your behind. “You’re lucky I’m willing to put up with your shit, even after not hearing from you for weeks.”

“Please stop.” You tried to stand again, ignore the flame.

“I will when you stop lying.” He pushed you down with ease.

CRACK! SLAP! WHOOSH! Each stroke made your rear explode with pain. You were trying to stifle back all noises, biting your lip so hard it started to bleed by the time tears started to pool at your eyes.

“Don’t lie.” Steve rubbed his hand against your burning behind, almost soothing it. “Are you wet?”

You opened your mouth and shook as your brain told you to shake your head no.

“I’ll stop if you tell the truth.” Steve’s fingertips dug into your pained flesh.

“Yes.” You shut your eyes, shame-filled you. “Yes. I’m wet. Now let me go!”

“Why would I do that?” Steve’s hand went up to the band of your panties and pulled them down. “You were finally good. Shouldn’t you get a reward?”

“No!” You pulled at the desk to get away, but Steve pushed you harder against the wood.

“Shhhh.” Your panties went down your thighs. “None of that now. This is the fun part, well honestly I’m sure all of this has been fun for you.”

His hand cupped your sex.

“Wow, you’re not wet.” Fingers ran over your slit. “You’re soaked. When was the last time you got laid?”

You buried your face in your hand. Humiliation at the question and your physical response flooding in.

“No wonder you’re so frigid.” The pads of his fingers pressed on your clit, eliciting a moan from your body. “You know I could’ve helped you with that on the first date right? I’ve been obsessed with you since the moment I spotted you.”

He began rubbing in a circle. The human touch, the interaction. You had missed it. Your body stilled under his touch, the way he was pressing, giving your clit the attention it needed. Another moan came out.

“As much as I want to hear those noises, now isn’t the place Doll.” Steve leaned down, his mouth next to your ear. “Keep them up and I’ll shove your panties in your mouth. Or would you like that? Tasting how sweet you are? I bet it’s better than you smell.”

You tried your hardest to stifle the whine. Steve rose back up with a chuckle and dropped your wrist. He knew that your objections were slinking away. Your body too pleased with his motions to put up any fight.

He started to rub harder and faster. You found yourself bucking against him, grinding your clit against his fingers as your stomach started to coil.

“When was the last time you came?” He picked up speed. You clawed at the desk as your body ignited. You needed this. “Answer the question.”

“I….I….” Your head was swimming.

“That’s not an answer.” Steve slowed down, lessened the pressure.

“I don’t remember!” You gasped and tried to rock against him. “Please don’t stop!”

“Wow, first it’s please stop and now it’s please don’t stop?” His hand left your body and frustration started to fill you. “No wonder you’re so on edge. If you’ve waited this long, I think you can wait a few more minutes.”

The sound of his belt coming undone was unmistakable. You lifted your head to look around.

“What are you doing?” You pushed yourself off the desk as Steve sat in the chair, his cock yanked out of his pants, standing at attention.

“Giving you a place to cum.” He put his arms on the rests. “You want to finish don’t you?”

“I….I’m not having sex with you!” You stood up, your skirt still around your waist.

“Quit pretending.” Steve rolled his eyes and leaned forward, yanking your panties down further with one hand as he wrapped the other around your waist. “We went on three dates. I think that’s plenty. “You have thirty seconds to decide. Do you want to be the frigid bitch or the strong woman who takes what she wants?”

“And you think I want you?” The frustration was started to turn to anger.

“I know you want me.” He swiped his fingers over your pussy making you fall forward with a squeak. “Your body knows you want me. Quit lying. Take what’s yours.”

Steve pressed down hard on your clit again. A moan started to come forward, your lip was already swollen, you needed something to bite down on and without thinking you moved forward, even more, opting for his shoulder.

“Ahhh.” He brought his other hand to the back of your thigh, helping you straddle him on the chair. “Bite me all you like baby.”

You didn’t lift your head. His hands moved, one to his cock the other to the small of your back. His tip ran down your slit before stopping at your entrance. He put pressure on your back and you gasped as his cock split you.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” It had been so long, there was a slight pain as you lowered yourself. “You’re so big.”

“And you’re so tight.” Steve pushed you harder. “Fuck baby. You’re not a dummy or frigid, or a liar, when you’re like this you’re the fucking queen.”

He pulled your head hard against your shoulder as he flexed his hips and pushed your back. Impaling you on his cock. You cried out against his body as yours started to shake.

“A queen who can take whatever she likes. Whatever she demands.” Steve’s hands moved to your hips. “I’m nothing but her loyal subject.”

You were on top, but he was in control. His fingers guided you as you bounced on his cock, your clit brushing against his body with each movement. He was so large; you were so filled. You moaned into his chest as you tried to follow his lead, the heat, and desire for release returning.

“Please, Steve.” You were starting to lose control. “Please, I need to cum.”

“Then cum.” Steve nipped at your neck. “Nobody is stopping you. Take it.”

Your body shook as you pushed yourself, trying to take the lead from him. Moan in his shoulder as your hands dug into the chair. Rolling and rocking your body.

“Are you the Queen?” Steve flexed his ass, poking the tip of his cock against your cervix.

“No.” You weren’t going fast enough, chasing the need to finish. You needed his help. “You’re the King.”

You looked up at him with glassy eyes. A smile spread across his face. In a swift movement, he hoisted you in the air and set you on your back on the desk.

“Fuck yeah I am.” His hands dug into your thighs as he started to pound into you without mercy.

You brought your hands to your mouth to bite down, but Steve swatted them away.

“I don’t care anymore. Let them hear you. Let everyone know you’re getting fucked. I want them to hear you.” He didn’t slow up, his threats and demands sending more pleasure through your body. “Cum now. Do It. NOW.”

That was all it took. You started to explode around him, creaming yourself as his cock railed into you. Your head floated away, and you didn’t hold back the moans as your body went limp from the euphoria.

Steve bottomed out one last time before pulling away. He reached for something and pressed it against his cock. His face contorted from the release as he joined you in the release.

You tried to steady your breathing as Steve's hands grabbed your ankles. He was sliding your panties back into place. You looked down to see his seamen against the fabric.

“Don’t even think about taking these off.” He lifted your ass and his cum pressed against your pussy. “I’ll pick you up at seven for dinner.”

You didn’t think before nodding in agreement. Steve leaned down and kissed your forehead before tucking himself away. You didn’t even get off your desk before he left the office whistling, door wide open.

#Steve x reader #steve rogers x reader #marvel fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #steve rogers #captain america #marvel au #marvel #captain america x reader

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skeptycats · 4 years

Text

Vicky Archives #2

FOREST OF SECRETS - A mother’s decision

Vicky Holmes, the former editor of the Warriors series, has been doing short extract readings on Facebook since the start of the UK lockdown back in March. There’s some really cool anecdotes hidden within some of these videos, so I decided to begin penning them down for posterity and easy reference.

I won’t be transcribing filler, hedging and false starts but I’m including some amount of preamble just to be comprehensive.

Vicky started splitting the readthroughs into three parts starting with this one: the reading itself, ‘behind the scenes’ discussion, and topical creative writing exercises. I will be transcribing all three sections under different headers.

---

Hello! Welcome to my kitchen today!

My reading today is going to be from the third book in the first series, Forest of Secrets. This was the first book I wrote with Cherith Baldry.

For the first book, Into the Wild, we took writing samples from several writers, a dozen writers, even, and Kate Cary was a new writer to my company and to me. We felt like she had an amazing voice and a real grasp of the sensitivity of the cats, a real feel for the story. And that’s how we chose her, through auditions.

For this book, I went straight to Cherith. I worked with her already on a series called Puppy Patrol by Jenny Dale, I think on a couple of other projects as well. I knew her well, I worked with her very well, and I knew that she loved cats, which was good to balance out my natural antipathy towards the feline species. So I just had a hunch she would be great, and of course, she was.

We’re going to read the prologue:

Cold gripped the forest, fields, and moorland like an icy claw. Snow covered everything, glittering faintly under a new moon. Nothing broke the silence in the forest except for the occasional soft rush of snow sliding from the branches of trees and the faint rasping of dried reeds when the wind swept through them. Even the murmur of the river was stilled by the ice that stretched from bank to bank.

There was a flicker of movement at the edge of the river. A large tomcat, his bracken-colored fur fluffed up against the cold, emerged from the reeds. He shook snow impatiently from his paws as he sank into the soft drifts with every step.

In front of him, two tiny kits struggled forward with faint mews of distress. They floundered in the powdery snow, the fur on their legs and belly matted into icy clumps, but every time they tried to stop, the tomcat nudged them on.

The three cats trudged along the river until it widened out, and they drew level with a small island not far from the bank. Thick beds of reeds surrounded it, their dry stems poking up through the ice. Stunted, leafless willow trees concealed the center of the island behind snow-covered boughs.

“Almost there,” the bracken-colored tom meowed encouragingly. “Follow me.”

He slid down the bank into a narrow frozen pathway through the reeds and leaped onto the dry, crisp earth of the island. The bigger of the two kits scrambled after him, but the smaller one collapsed on the ice and crouched there, mewing pitifully. After a moment’s pause the tomcat jumped down beside it and tried to nudge it to its paws, but it was too exhausted to move. The tomcat gave its ears a lick, roughly comforting the helpless scrap, and then picked it up by the scruff of the neck and carried it onto the island.

Beyond the willow trees was a stretch of open ground broken by bushes. Snow covered the earth here, crisscrossed by the pawmarks of many cats. The clearing seemed deserted, but bright eyes gleamed from shelter, watching the tomcat as he led the way to the largest clump of bushes and through the outer wall of tangled branches.

The icy chill of the air outside gave way to the warmth of the nursery and the smell of milk. In a deep nest of moss and heather a gray she-cat was suckling a single tabby kit. She raised her head as the tomcat drew closer and gently set down the kit he was carrying. The second kit staggered into the nursery behind him and tried to scrabble its way into the nest.

“Oakheart?” meowed the she-cat. “What have you got there?”

“Kits, Graypool,” Oakheart replied. “Will you take them? They need a mother to look after them.”

“But…” Graypool’s amber eyes were shocked. “Whose kits are they? They’re not RiverClan’s. Where did you get them?”

“I found them in the forest.” Oakheart did not meet the she-cat’s eyes as he spoke. “They’re lucky a fox didn’t find them first.”

“In the forest?” meowed the queen, her voice rasping with disbelief. “Oakheart, don’t talk to me as if I’m mouse-brained. What cat would abandon her kits in the forest, especially in weather like this?”

Oakheart shrugged. “Rogues, maybe, or Twolegs. How would I know? I couldn’t leave them there, could I?” He nosed the smaller kit, which was lying completely still except for the rapid rise and fall of its tiny ribs as it breathed. “Graypool, please…Your other kits died, and these will die too, unless you help them.”

Graypool’s eyes clouded with pain. She looked down at the two kits. Their tiny mouths gaped pink as they mewed pitifully. “I have plenty of milk,” she murmured, half to herself. “Of course I’ll take them.”

BEHIND THE SCENES

So that was the prologue of Forest of Secrets. I don’t think it’s a massive spoiler to say that was Oakheart taking his and Bluefur’s kits into RiverClan after Bluefur, who we know better now as Bluestar, made the terrible decision to give up her kits in order to become deputy of ThunderClan. She knew that a nursing mother would never be allowed to take position. She had to make that ultimate sacrifice. She had three kits, one of them died in the snow on the way, and two kits remained.

Now, when I started writing Forest of Secrets and coming up with the storyline... this series, you have to remember, was very much flying under the radar. It was still just a little series about cats. Yes, we were going to do six books instead of just the one, but it wasn’t selling very well. HarperCollins wasn’t promoting it massively, they didn’t feel the need to. It was just a bread-and-butter series. And because of that, I’m not going to say I was allowed to run riot, but I certainly had a lot of freedom with the storylines, and that meant I could come up with all these backstories for cats.

It’s so long ago, I can’t remember how I had the idea that Bluestar had given up kits, but I do know at the time I was very personally aware of the conflict between a mother, with young children, and a career. As a parent, and especially, I think, as a mother even in this day and age, you have to make really hard decisions. You can’t be the best mum in the world and the best at your job. It just tears you in half. And I wanted to demonstrate this. It was what I was living through at the time, and I wanted to demonstrate this in my books. And so, I made Bluestar the ultimate career woman, and she gave up her children. With terrible consequences. So that was the first freedom that I was allowed.

The other great freedom was that I was writing about cats, and therefore I could write about old characters. Now, when you’re writing children’s books, and as you know I’ve written many, many children’s books, normally your protagonist, your central character, will always be the aspirational age of your readers. So, for example, if you’re writing a middle-grade series, which is for ages 8-12, your central characters will be 12, because that’s the age your readers will identify with and want to be. It has this slight glamour for the younger children, and the older readers will think ‘yep, I get them, that’s what I’m living at the moment’.

However, because I’m writing about cats, cats age far more quickly, obviously, than humans do. So my characters could start off as kits, but within a book they would be apprentices, and then within another book they’d be grown-ups, and having a job, and having great responsibility, including over life and death. And they’ll be able to get married and have children, basically, in the cat world. That meant I could have central characters that aged, and that felt very new at the time, and very fresh.

Therefore, I was able to have in Bluestar a central character who had not only had children, but she had given up those children for the sake of her job. Including losing the life of one of her three babies in the snow, and then had had to live with those consequences all through her career. And it destroyed her mind. Therefore, in Forest of Secrets and all of the rest of the first series, I was able to show an old character, her mind disintegrated. I think if Bluestar was human we would’ve said she had symptoms of dementia. She certainly had symptoms of massive depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. We don’t need to label it, we just need to empathise.

We can really see how she was destroyed by giving up her children, and as series one progresses and the trouble with Tigerclaw emerges and she faces losing her whole Clan, it seems to her that her sacrifice was for nothing. And the pain of that is, well, I think it’s probably more than I could contain in words. And both Kate and Cherith, both mothers themselves, just captured that I think, the disintegration of an old person.

It’s safe to say that for Into the Wild and Fire and Ice, I didn’t love Warriors. It was part of my job, I was working on other things that I much preferred. Didn’t really like cats, didn’t really see where these stories were going... you know, just ‘bash them out’. And that sounds awful, but that kind of was the truth. Forest of Secrets? I fell in love. Fell in love with Warriors, I fell in love with what these characters could do, I fell in love with what I could do with them, and this is when the series became me. Became personal. When I opened up my life onto the page.

CREATIVE WRITING PROMPTS

So I’ve read my prologue, and I’ve talked a little bit about the freedom that writing about cats gave me, and especially writing from the perspective of an old person. If you’d like to use this for your own creative writing today, I’d like you to have a think about writing from the perspective of a grandparent, or someone who’s lived hundreds of years and is looking back over their lives. How would they see the world differently? What sort of extra perspective do you think that gives them?

Ordinarily, as an English teacher, when we’re encouraging our students to write from the perspective of an older person we often say go interview your grandparents, especially if they’ve lived through the Second World War, because that was a time when society was very different and very alien. We are in the unique position now of living through our own version of that war. Society is different now than it ever has been before, and so what I think might be interesting is to imagine yourselves way in the future, having gone back to living very normal lives, hopefully having families of your own or surrounded by children from your neighbourhood.

What would you tell them about this time now? See if you can get into the old person’s perspective, would you look back on this and say it was a positive time for connecting with your family and learning the good of the Internet? Would you perhaps be nostalgic? Are there things you might miss about this time?

But you can also be realistic about how scary it was, especially if you’re younger you might feel particularly that you can’t control it and you don’t know what happens next. I’ll let you into a secret: I’m a grown-up and I don’t feel in control, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m very, very worried about my family especially.

Have a go at writing today from the perspective of an old person. It doesn’t have to be about now, it can be something perfectly happy. Do your bones ache? Does the sun warm your skin? Think about how it would be to be someone else, someone of a different age.

As well as creative writing you could also look at your own books and check out the ages of the protagonists, check out the ages of your central characters. Do you have any books which present events from the point of view of an elderly person? At the moment we’re all about inclusivity in children’s literature, writing from all the different viewpoints, which is just a fabulous thing and I’m learning as much as anyone else about it. Old people have a lot to say, and it’s worth listening. We have a good perspective, even though I’m not nearly as old as I would hope one day to be.

#vicky archives #warrior cats #warriors #bluestar #forest of secrets #not designs

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floorbed · 4 years

Text

pen playlist tiem. brain full of thoughts i think this is my longest playlist ever . lyrics and annotation and sections under the cut for funsies heh

home

me and my husband - mitski

and i am the idiot with a painted face / in the corner taking up space / but when he walks in i am loved / i am loved / me and my husband we’re doing better / it’s always been just him and me together / so i bet all i have on that furrowed brow / and at least in this lifetime we’re sticking together

turf war - momma

the kings and queens are on the court / they’re sitting pretty on the floor

this charming man - the smiths

a jumped up pantry boy / who never knew his place / he said return the ring / he knows so much about these things / he knows so much about these things

utopia - cowgirl clue

living in a great utopia is quite nice is quite nice / living in a great utopia you pay the price you pay the price / living in a great utopia roll the dice kiss goodbye / living the dream living the dream living the dream

bubblegum bitch - marina and the diamonds

got a figure like a pin up got a figure like a doll / don’t care if you think i’m dumb i don’t care at all / candy bear sweetie pie wanna be adored / i’m the girl you’d die for / i’ll chew you up and spit you out / cus that’s what young love is all about

…

oh dear diary, i met a boy

(do the) act like you never met me - tv girl

the hidden kisses / the clumsy conspiratory glance / but i don’t really mind it no / i always liked the way you danced

it will come back - hozier

don’t give it a hand / offer it a soul / honey make this easy / leave it to the land / this is what it knows / honey that’s how it sleeps / don’t let it in with no intention to keep it / jesus christ don’t be kind to it / honey don’t feed it it will come back

real men - mitski

little boys cry and look around for comfort and / always get what they want

song against sex - neutral milk hotel

and he said oh boy you are so pretty / enough to wrap tight in rice paper string / and when i finally kissed him / the whole world began to ring / lost like a bell that’s tipping over / with two cracks along both sides / and i knew the world was over / so i took a look outside

(running away before the trial and seeing the world for the first time vibes!)

exile, early party

april and the phantom - animal collective

i’m sorry april / but you’ll be fine till then / i’m the phantom / i’m the phantom / i’m the phantom

(Pens First Summoning Dot Mp3)

insects are all around us - money mark

(from pens very first introduction in session 1 when he was walking in the woods and was described like looking like a lil insect)

bug - alex g

and when you go there / you stay there / bug in the crosshair / you stay there

king of carrot flowers pt 2 & 3 - neutral milk hotel

i love you jesus christ / jesus christ i love you yes i do

you’ll miss me when i’m not around - grimes

if you don’t bleed then you don’t die / cross my heart and hope to fly / if you like it then you’ll make it out alive / if they could see me now / smiling six feet underground / i’ll tie my feet to rocks and drown / you’ll miss me when i’m not around

rich bitch juice (HANA remix) - alice longyu gao

don’t you dare talk to me / bitch

fool - moonbounce

you could’ve let me think im right / i could’ve tried to keep my cool / i could’ve followed my own rules / i could’ve used you like a tool / i could’ve played a fucking fool

isle

hooped earrings - the front bottoms

and you have gotta do this now or you can never come home again / yeah you have gotta do this now or you can never come home again / and there are not so many options / there’s not so many ways that this could possibly end / so you have gotta do this now or you can never come home again

wicked boy - alex g

real men walk / on the outside / on the outside / on the outside / and they take it for the team

black hair - alex g

it’s not what you are / it’s just what you did / don’t hang up the phone / i love you to death / eternal return / eternal return / eternal return / eternal return

rabbit heart - florence & the machine

this is a gift it comes with a price / who is the lamb and who is the knife / when minas is king and he holds me so tight / and turns me to gold in the sunlight

oh ana - mother mother

i’ll fake god / i’ll fake god / i’ll fake god / i’ll fake god today / hop up on a cloud and watch the world decay

i am my own hell - teen suicide

i’m learning all kinds of tricks / how to drain the blood from my face

brick - alex g

i know that you’re lying / you think i don’t but i always fucking do

come back - alex g

made my promise and i’m keeping it for kicks / yeah i really didn’t think that it would stain like this / yeah i really didn’t think that it would stain like this

river of the night

trick - alex g

(this is what his Contract Signing Dream sounded like that’s all)

call this # now - the garden

call this number now / if you wanna check it out / well just do yourself a favor and just call this number now / call this number now

long way down - teen suicide

you’re a spoiled kid who’s never gonna get / anything that you deserve / i know this life’s gonna be just fine / but with any luck you know the next one’s gonna hurt

business man - mother mother

talkin bout the business man / devil with a sunday plan / buddy with a stupid laugh / just talkin bout the business man / pretty little baby / pretty little monster / went to the good school / left with honors

king rat - modest mouse

deep water / deep water / senseless denial / i went down like a rag doll rat of a child

oh lucky lucky lucky lucky me again / i said it looks like i’ve got to use my feet again / well i just spent my last one hundred dollars / god i’ll pay my bill again

after dying and being saved

new gods - grimes

hands reaching out to new gods / you can’t give me what i want / but what do i know? / i wanna i wanna i wanna let go / i wear black eyeliner / black attire yeah / so take me higher and higher and higher

…

only brand new gods can save me

home again - carole king

sometimes i wonder if i’m ever gonna make it home again / it’s so far and out of sight / i really need someone to talk to and nobody else / knows how to comfort me tonight / snow is cold rain is wet / chills my soul through the marrow / i won’t be happy till i see you alone again / till i’m home again and feeling right

miracle - paramore

and have i told you / i’m not going / cuz i’ve been waiting for a miracle / and i’m not leaving / i won’t let you / let you give up on a miracle / when it might save you

(Pen And Ori. Pen Telling Ori He’s Not Going To Stay At The Castle [Bc He Couldnt Imagine Not Seeing Her Everyday.] Pens Naive Optimism + His Want T.o Make Her Feel Better Abt The Future and The World And Everything)

dinner and diatribes - hozier

i knew it from the first look of / the look of mischief in your eyes / friends are a fate that befell me / head is the talking type / i’d suffer hell if you’d tell me / what you’d do to me tonight

(Pen And Juni Anthem)

funny - the scary jokes

and i laughed and i laughed and i gasped and i cried / and i tried not to think of my love as a punchline / but i knew the truth would catch up with me sometime / and oh what a funny joke am i

(pen crying on the bed in castle ravenloft dot mp3)

pretty funny - dogfight (lindsay mendez)

isn’t it funny? isn’t it funny? aren’t you funny? / pathetically naive and desperate to believe you could always find some good / well you misunderstood or you’ve been dreaming / cus people are just cruel

(pen crying on the bed in castle ravenloft dot mp3 Part 2)

until it goes - john congleton

oh my vengeance i swear will be biblical

…

my bride my bride how do i silence / this restlessness inside me / inside i see it kneeling through keyholes / my bride i need no absolution / on this day of my execution / just stay with me stay with me stay with me stay with me until the horror goes

(abandonment issues pen be like *stay with me stay with me stay with me stay with me noises*. also one day i want pen to hurt everyone who has severely fucked with him and thats all [m****** and d******])

beautiful - carole king

you’ve got to get up every morning / with a smile on your face / and show the world all the love in your heart / then people gonna treat you better / youre gonna find yes you will / that you’re beautiful as you feel

don’t ask me to explain - of montreal

i’d like to marry all of my close friends / live in a big house together by an angry sea / am i the devil’s marbles don’t move on without me / who will be watching my body when i sleep / who will i believe in

(Pen Be Like I Love Ori And Juni And Alba And That Is My Disease. )

100 years - florence welch

i believe in you /and in our hearts we know the truth / and i believe in love / even the darker it gets the more i do / you try and fill us with your hate and we will shine a light / and the days will become endless / and never turn to night

...

a hundred arms / a hundred years / you can always find me here / and lord don’t let me break this / let me hold it lightly / give me arms to pray with / instead of ones that hold too tightly

#mel talks #penance the jester #dnd tag

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hisgirlwonder · 5 years

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House of Wolves - Part Three

Length: 3.5K words Warning: Implied smut – sex and oral, hateful angst Synopsis: You’ve been offered an apprenticeship at Kineros Robotics and you couldn’t say no; you’ve been dreaming about working in the field for as long as you can remember. Will it be everything you’ve been building up in your mind, or will it all come crashing down around you? Notes: Elizabeth Johnson in this story, if you don’t know, is the human name of The Countess. She’s going to make an appearance in another part which I will get to soon enough (and maybe she will be more than just a brief mention?????) so keep an eye out!

That morning was relatively busy but you enjoyed it all the same - between organising all of the various meetings, conferences, and dinners, there wasn’t much room to breathe sometimes. The thought of “when do I get to work with Jeff and Mutt?” constantly pricked its way into your thoughts; this was superseded time and time again by an overwhelming desire to help Michael. You didn’t dare breathe a word to anyone about how you thought you’d been sent there for more than just an apprenticeship.

“Thanks, Pierre. I’ll be in touch before next Friday if there are any further changes but for right now I think we have enough,” you confirm to the person on the other end of the line – you’d been put in charge of organising an event for prospective investors in Kineros Robotics. The second after you told Michael that Elizabeth Johnson, the heiress of an elite hotel chain, was in town he immediately jumped at the chance to schmooze her. He’d been a fan of her late husband’s work and figured there would be a way the two of them would be able to work together.

A familiar voice sings out your name; it was Michael and the way he said it you knew he wanted something. It was similar to a child asking its mother for sweets from the supermarket even though they’ve been naughty. You break eye contact from the screen to see that he’s peeking around the corner, hands around the doorframe.

“I know you’re probably busy right now…” he trails off, knowing the amount of work you had to do for this event. If the Elizabeth Johnson was going to show up then you knew you had to use every ounce of energy inside your body to make this something to remember.

“Yes, Michael?”

“Is there any way you’re able to proof the file I have open on my computer? I left it to the last minute and foolishly wrote it late last night. I’m going to rip apart my pride for a moment and say that it needs your touch.”

“Did you really do that after what happened last time?”

“I know, I know,” he rolls his eyes, “I’m so stupid. Can you do it? I’ll do anything.”

“Anything, hmm?”

“Y/N, please?”

“For you? Of course, Michael.”

He mouths thank you with his hands in a position of prayer – as if to say I’m more grateful than you’ll ever know then disappears into his office and you look back at what you were doing; clicking your way to compose a reminder e-mail to yourself. Moments later Michael reappears with bag in hand and you can’t help but grin when you see it - You’d specifically told him to go one to make things easier and he did. Granted, it probably cost more than your wages in a month but it looked good on him. He informs you he’ll be back around lunchtime and, like always, don’t take any shit from her.

The way Michael pronounces the word her when referring to Venable always made you laugh. Speaking those three syllables left a bad taste in his mouth so he opts for a three letter word instead. He didn’t believe she was deserving of wasting more than a small breath. The event you were organising was equally as important because Michael wanted to open up the new branch so he could finally send his least favourite person away, sooner rather than later.

“Yes, daddy,” you bring your hand up to your forehead and salute him, “No shit taken from the Queen. Got it.”

Even with your spine now strengthened from confidence at the development of your close professional (yet somewhat personal) relationship with Michael, you were too naïve to see that he retreated a little because of his enjoyment at your use of that word. His actions secretly backed by the fact that he’d fantasised night after night about you wrapping yourself around him, flesh against flesh, and purring that word in his ear like it was his birthright to be called it. For you, the naivety sprung from your air of innocence and the thought that a man such as himself wouldn’t be interested in a child. To you, Michael would be better off with a woman like Elizabeth Johnson than someone who was barely an adult.

Warm, heartfelt smiles are exchanged and then a moment later he’s gone. You always hated seeing him leave.

Upon sitting you notice Michael’s seat is still slightly warm and you’re comforted by the feeling against your skin paired with the scent of his cologne swimming in your nostrils. Your eyelids fall and you melt away into your own fantasy – he’s freshly showered and standing in front of the bedroom mirror, towel barely holding itself up around his hips, the sight of hair from his belly button to his pelvic area leaving saliva pooling in your mouth, and his hand gripped around a bottle of cologne that he’s spritzing all over himself. You, in this fantasy, up behind Michael and one of your soft, delicate hands grace over a bicep. You rest your chin on his shoulder and now run both manicured hands over his strong, sculpted body.

You force yourself to snap out of the dream and back into what you were doing.

Oh, this is what he’s writing about?

You read over the document four or five times (the technical jargon in parts was a bit too much for your tired brain) and decide that, besides a few grammatical errors, it was perfect.

You hadn’t noticed it earlier but he has another file open. You drag the mouse over it, hovering over the icon on the taskbar, weighing up whether or not you should open it. The title was a bunch of random letters which made absolutely no sense; mostly in lowercase but a few uppercase. Unbeknown to you, you’d click what it meant after you maximised the mystery file he’d been working on.

The strength of your will is weak when it comes to Michael which means you give in to the curiosity and bring it up – you immediately notice that it’s over 10,000 words long and this doesn’t surprise you but the first few sentences do. You try hard to avoid making any kind of assumptions but the two characters had been written with very similar names to yours and Michaels which only meant one thing.

It was almost as if Michael had invented the English language the way he crafted those sentences laid out before your very eyes; as if he was Michelangelo creating a written version of the Statue of David. It was decadent, and beautiful, but also very sinful. For example, he wrote of how the man was starving for the peach hidden between her thighs and you gasp with the realisation he’s talking about her cunt.

Your mouth waters because even if you lacked sexual experience you still understand how sweet a peach tastes; how it melts the moment your teeth sink in and drips its juices over your fingers and lips. You imagine this is what it’s like to have a man between your legs – once his mouth is on your folds, your body secretes your own nectar from the arousal. Heat swirls between your legs and beckons you to keep reading; leaving you helpless and causing you to lose the fight against the lust gnawing inside.

Every composed thought becomes drowned in the wish, the want, the need to be this girl that Michael has brought to life. The semblance between you and her was unsurprising and anyone within a five-mile radius knew that but you shrug it off as you get sink deeper into the depths of his words.

What started off as actions akin to that of the picking of a flower out of your grandmother’s garden, soft and sweet, become more voracious over time. This man becomes so driven with lust for the girl that even smelling something resembling her perfume made him have to leave a room and take care of himself; spilling his seed messily in hiding like an addict. One day she walks in on him and he’s so loud he doesn’t hear footsteps but she notices him, in his office, with a video of her in front of him on his tablet. He’d gotten so drunk from want that all other sounds were drowned out by the moans of pleasure.

She interrupts him but he doesn’t stop which makes her stutters and stammer because after all she’s a virgin who has never been around a naked man before but she’s pined for him for so long. There’s no denying that they both want it and something draws her to him, like a magnetic, unable to resist and finally opening up herself and her legs like a flower blooming in Spring.

That girl, that lucky girl, is devoured by him on his desk – first with his lips and then with the aching swollen member he had previously held loosely inside his right hand as his other holds his weight up on the desk. He knew without a doubt that there’s no way a girl like her was on birth control so he had to finish in a condom but it was safe to say that being inside her with a condom on was better than going raw inside anyone else.

The story ends like the movies do in the way that the two of them continue this only for him to realise he’s fallen in love with her and vice versa. The sappy ending did nothing to dampen the fire that spread from your groin throughout your body.

You’re treated to a rude awakening when Michael appears before you and he’s waving a hand in front of your face. He’d come back and now you were like that male character in the story; too distracted in your own fervour to hear anything or anyone else.

“I got you a hot chocolate with three pink marshmallows inside; your favourite.”

The slack jaw is replaced with a meek smile and accompanied by cheeks tinged with pink. You were blushing because Michael had caught you and you didn’t know if he could see, or smell, the after effect of those grossly inappropriate thoughts or from the deception that dwelled within. You attempt to fan away the heat and embarrassment away with a weak hand to no avail.

“Are you okay, Y/N?”

“I’m uh, fine, I think? I think I just need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Whatever you need. Take your time, okay?”

How you managed to get to the bathroom safely you’ll never know. Every limb ached and felt hollow, your knees especially wanting to buckle at any moment. You turn on the cold tap and run your hands through the water to dropping them a good 10 to 15 degrees before resting them on the back of your neck in an attempt to cool down. You catch your reflection in the mirror and while you are somewhat pink, you’re mostly pale. Then a thought hits you like a ton of bricks.

Did I minimise the story? Is he going to see it up on his screen? Oh, fuck.

Before you can think, you run fast back to the office and nearly collapse into the doorframe. The sting of breathlessness felt like it was ripping apart your lungs and you were trying to gain your breath back but bit of oxygen also choked you. Michael sounds and looks more worried than before; his eyes shot a look of concern at the girl standing before him struggling to breathe.

You nod, holding yourself up by hands on your thighs. You manage to catch your breath enough to say, “I’m better.”

“Well, in that case, can you come here?”

Guilt and shame wash over you like you’d killed someone as you’re travelling over to his desk. Your eyes glance down and see that you didn’t leave his dirty novel open up and that he was merely asking for advice on flowers to pick.

“Which one screams ‘I think you’re amazing’?”

This was it. The moment your mother had warned you about. He wasn’t the man in the story because he didn’t outwardly lust over you. You, being the nineteen-year-old you are, didn’t think for one minute there was another explanation besides he’s finally found a woman. Pangs of jealousy stab into your gut and you bend over, wincing in pain.

“M-M-Michael? I’m going to go home, okay? I really don’t feel well.”

You think that the stomach grab and wincing must have looked pretty bad because the sadness on Michael’s face is evident; that mouth, usually grinning at the sight of you, has fallen into a pout and his eyes showed he felt some kind of pain as well.

As you turn the handle to open the door, Michael asks you to let him know how you are later. You answer with of course I will and a piss poor attempt at smiling; sadness is brewing in your gut and you don’t know how long you can hold it down for.

For fucks sake, really?

Venable is on her way into Michael’s office and you two meet in the entrance. You had grown used to her cold, callous demeanour and what once seemed to scare you now just annoyed you. She’s trying to restrain a smirk and pretends to feel bad but you can practically feel her thoughts as if she was saying them out loud to you.

You rush past and throw open the front door to the building when you arrive to it. Had it not been for the adrenaline from the anger she made you feel you probably would have collapsed before you arrived at your car but, luckily, you make it there in one piece. Your hands are unsteady and you almost smack your door in frustration but know this won’t help and instead pull the keys out of your bag and attempt to unlock your vehicle - the first few tries fall flat when you can’t get the key in and then drop them on the ground. You take a deep breath in and exhale slowly, trying to steady yourself and do it again. It works.

Once you’re finally sitting back in your seat, you drape your hands freely over the steering wheel. An eruption of rage comes suddenly pouring out and causes you to yell out fuuuuuuuck while hitting your hands against the steering wheel multiple times before collapsing into your arms.

I forgot to ask Y/N if much needed to be changed but as far as I’m aware this is great. I really hope she’s okay.

Michael scrolls down to the next page to begin reading but is interrupted by an unnerving voice - Venable. He already knew she had no qualms about destroying someone else but her words, had anyone else heard them and didn’t know her, would make them aware of just how awful she is. She taunts Michael and tells him just how hurt Y/N was when she left. She left in quite a state, what did you do to her, lover boy?

He explains that she’s gone home because she wasn’t feeling well. Venable stays quiet as she tiptoes to the front of the desk where Michael is. She reaches out and grabs the bottom of his Gucci tie to inspect it and with a frigid yet sinister tongue continues to taunt him, “Yeah, like she’d seen the face of her worst nightmare meeting her.”

Venable was talking about Michael – knowing exactly what Y/Ns parents had told her about Michael Langdon when they found out their precious daughter got the job. Venable also wasn’t stupid and knew Y/N had gone home because of Michael but it was as if he was the last one to click on. She throws the tie down and leans onto the table, staring directly into Michael’s eyes.

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you? Maybe you were born yesterday but I wasn’t.” She growls and pushes herself off the desk to stand up straight. “Yeah, we both know why she’s not feeling well. I’m sure that meek little girl you call your assistant has something wrong with her. She’s probably only twelve years old mentally. Her attachment to you is sad.” Venable pauses and points a finger at Michael, resuming the abuse, “And yours? Yours, however, is pathetic.”

Michael is holding back his desire to break off her hand right at this moment. Her bullshit was enough to deal with without her waving herself around him like she was the boss. Venable can sense how pissed off he is but she won’t stop in her tirade. Michael decides he’s had enough, rising to stand and fume at her, “Why do you insist on speaking to me like this? I’m your superior.”

A heartless glare followed by a taunting eye roll is shot at him before cold-blooded Venable makes a beeline for the door to escape. She’s reaching out to get a grip on the door handle to pull it open but Michael slams his hand on it, holding it shut. It was glass, yes, but reinforced so it didn’t break easily. The hit was a bit too hard but Michael was fuelled with so much animosity over the insults towards Y/N that he didn’t notice the pain beginning to sear through his extremity.

She spins around on her heels and looks Michael dead in the eyes, pretending to yawn, claiming she’s tired of him. Venable knows she shouldn’t call him it but she says Michael in the most condescending tone you can think of.

He doesn’t take too kindly to this, jumping down her throat about if he ever gave her permission. Venable makes it known that Michael isn’t the only one who can raise his voice when she barks back, yelling louder than him, “When did I ever give a shit about what you thought? Your little fantasy comes waltzing in and all she has to do is smile in your direction and you’re like a weak puppy dog. Yes, Y/N. No, Y/N. You can call me Michael, Y/N.”

“Get out of here before I make you regret it.”

The feisty faux redhead inches closer to Michael, slathering her pigheadedness in his face when she pushes back on his threat. “Or what, huh? Or you’ll write some bad words and tell everyone how mean I am?”

The two bodies now practically face to face, noses almost touching, Michael throw his hands against her chest and shoves her away with a bit of force so she staggers around from the impact.

“Everyone knows how mean you are, you prudish cunt.”

She mocks Michael, bringing a hand to her chest and opening her mouth in a display of fake shock, “You called me a bad word? Oh no, I better run home and tell my mommy. Oh, wait, that’s what little girls do. I bet your little lamb is crying on her bed and her mother is trying to comfort her. Oh honey, what’s wrong? Did you have a bad day? Yeah mom, I did, Michael is not a very good man.”

“I swear to God if you don’t get out of my fucking office right now-”

“Don’t worry, I’m going. I’m going home and don’t you dare think about stopping me.”

She throws open the door and storms out of the room. Michael's voice becomes louder when he begins bellowing at her, “You’re a stupid bitch for even thinking that because I won’t. You’re lucky I haven’t already fired you. I only keep you around because I feel sorry for you since nobody else would put up with your shit.”

Venable doesn’t bother to look at him and instead throws a middle finger up as she’s leaving the building while she screams how Michael better have fun without her tomorrow because she wouldn’t be in.

Michael’s chest is full of agitation and he sharply exhales some of it out. There was no way to know exactly why Venable hated Y/N so much but he was determined to find out. His temples throbbed from the rush of blood and jump in his blood pressure from her insolence. Without thinking twice, Michael decides to escape before his meeting for a drink to calm down and not let a tyrannical monster like her ruin the rest of his day.

Taglist: @avesatanormalpeoplescareme @sensitivethot @sacredlangdon @sammythankyou @langdonsdemon @taintedaffairs @queencocoakimmie @violett124 @1-800-imagines @1-800-bitchcraft (If you’ve asked to be added to my list and I can’t tag you then I can’t add you in :( )

#american horror story fanfic #ahs fanfic #ahs apocalypse fanfic #michael langdon fanfic #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon x you #michael langdon x yn #ahs smut #american horror story smut #ahs apocalypse smut #michael langdon smut #fanfic #writing #ahs imagine #american horror story imagine #michael langdon imagine

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twilights-800-cats · 5 years

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<< Allegiances | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | From the Beginning >>

Chapter 13

“So that’s what you saw?”

Tinystar nodded. “It was bizarre – unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.” His paws still trembled when he thought of the wall of flames, of his face morphing into a striped tiger.

The medicine den was quiet and empty but for Tinystar and Brackenfur. Mosspaw had been sent outside when Tinystar had rushed back to camp, leaving his patrol to finish their hunting trip. There was just no ignoring the urgency of that message.

“I am the Tiger,” Tinystar murmured hesitantly. “It’s me.” It seemed fitting, like Tigerstar were still apart of him somehow.

Brackenfur nodded. “It seems to be. Lion means LionClan, and Tiger means you… the pieces are falling into place.”

“But what is Fire?” Tinystar wondered. “Have you had any idea?”

Brackenfur shook his head. “I know not. Tigerstar once mentioned to me that he was called fire, by a medicine cat long before me, but that doesn’t apply to this. This Fire is your test, part of your destiny. That much is clear.”

Tinystar shuffled his paws. “A test…” He swallowed. Brackenfur had once mentioned that Tigerstar’s suffering, his lack of faith in their warrior ancestors, was his test. If this was truly Tinystar’s test, it was clear it would shake him to his core, at the very least. If not kill him.

“If the Lion is LionClan,” Brackenfur repeated, his tone thoughtful, “and Tiger is you… then the Fire may be some other party we don’t know.”

Tinystar started at the thought. “Another party?”

Brackenfur shrugged hopelessly. “Some other cat, or group of cats... maybe LionClan and you, the Tiger, will join together to defeat it? Maybe Fire will sweep through the forest after a battle between Tiger and Lion? I…” he broke off with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Tinystar – I just don’t know.”

Tinystar murmured sympathetically. Brackenfur placed a lot of pride, even if he denied it, in his connection to StarClan and his ability to follow their will. To not fully understand a prophecy this major would no doubt upset him.

“I just want peace,” Tinystar breathed. “For all this to end…”

Brackenfur touched his nose to Tinystar’s. “I know,” he meowed. “So do I, my friend. This test is clearly going to be the culmination of your destiny, possibly the very reason you came to the forest in the first place, those seasons ago. Even the tiniest cat can change everything – Yellowfang told me that once, and now I know… she must have been speaking of you.”

Tinystar flattened an ear. “Another prophecy? Around me?” He chuckled half-heartedly. “Too many more of these and I’ll have to be a medicine cat.”

Brackenfur didn’t chuckle back, but he did give half a smirk at the thought. “You’d be terrible,” he decided.

“Now, that’s not fair!” Tinystar huffed.

Brackenfur mrrowed with amusement, butting his head against Tinystar’s shoulder, a gesture full of affection. “No,” he decided, “your destiny is not to sort leaves or dole out poultices – it’s to change the forest, for good. That much is clear.”

Tinystar blinked at his friend, grateful for his uplifting words and his place by Tinystar’s side. Where would he be without Brackenfur, so solid and dependable? Despite all the unknowns, Tinystar felt much better.

On his way out of the medicine cat’s den, Tinystar ran into Mosspaw.

“You two are done talking?” the patched she-cat asked, eyes wide. “It must be really important, if you wanted to be alone.”

“We are,” Tinystar meowed as the leafless fern stems scraped against his back. He paused before the gray-and-white she-cat. “I’d like to speak with you, actually – before you go back inside.”

Mosspaw worked her paws into the hard earth. “Of course,” she meowed. She sounded confident, but her pale eyes shimmered with a bit of hesitation. It was, after all, the first conversation she’d ever had with her leader – at least that Tinystar could recall. “What is it?”

“I need to know how you and your littermates are doing. I’ve heard some… things,” Tinystar stated. “Has any cat been bothering you, Mosspaw?”

Mosspaw’s tail twitched. “Well, no,” she admitted. “Some cats give me funny looks when they think I’m not paying attention, and I catch the elders occasionally hushing up real quick when I appear with their medicine – but that’s about it for me.” She shrugged. “Being a medicine cat apprentice means cats don’t really feel right gossiping or being mean to you.”

“I see,” Tinystar mused. Lucky. “What have you noticed about Mistypaw or Stonepaw? I’ve spoken to them myself but obviously I can’t always get the full picture. I need to know how I can help them adjust to life in ThunderClan.”

“Well, Mistypaw gets frustrated sometimes,” Mosspaw meowed earnestly, her tail twining, “but she always gets a little upset when things don’t go the way she thinks they should. I’ve always been able to calm her down when some cat says something snide. But Stonepaw…”

Tinystar frowned. “Yes?”

Mosspaw looked away. “Stonepaw lets things stew and hides them. He’s harder to read, and even harder for any cat to console. I’m really worried about him.”

Tinystar touched his nose to her forehead. “I understand,” he meowed gently. “I’ll try talking to him and seeing what I can do.”

Mosspaw nodded eagerly. “Thanks, Tinystar!” she purred. “I’m so worried about them, honestly – I don’t have all the time in the world on my paws! Brackenfur needs me to help him and I can’t always be their shoulder to lean on, even if I want to be. It’s hard having littermates!”

“Go on,” Tinystar told her, nodding to the medicine cat den. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Mosspaw stepped away, purring. Tinystar turned himself towards the clearing, taking a deep breath of the chill air before setting out to look for Stonepaw. He didn’t recall Whitestorm assigning the apprentice to any patrols that morning, which meant that he was either in camp or with Sandstorm.

If he hasn’t run off without her again, that is, Tinystar thought. He could only imagine Sandstorm’s temper flaring – his had been tested many times by Cloudtail when she had been at her most rebellious.

He had to do something about Stonepaw soon – Tinystar had a creeping suspicion that time was running out when it came to him. Something was going to happen, and Tinystar just wished he knew what it was. If I was deputy, or even a warrior, I might have more time to figure this out, he thought sadly. But I’m leader, and so many things require my attention... it’s hardly been a quarter moon and it feels like so much is falling through my claws!

The last thing he wanted was for his own cats to think him a stranger.

Tinystar peered across the clearing, opening his jaws to scent the air. Stonepaw’s scent crossed his glands, but it was faint. He idly padded past the apprentice’s den, taking a quick glance inside – but all he saw was Ashpaw, sleeping off his watch the night before. Stonepaw’s scent was stale in his nest, which was almost merged with Mistypaw’s off to the side.

Worry mounted in Tinystar’s chest. Wherever Stonepaw was, he’d been gone a while.

“Tinystar!”

Willowpelt’s voice pulled Tinystar out of the apprentice’s den. The queen was coming from the dirtplace, her tail fluffed and eyes wide with worry.

“What is it?” Tinystar wondered, detecting fear-scent coming from the pale gray she-cat.

Willowpelt’s whiskers were at ends. “Have you seen Sorrelkit? I went out hunting with Cinderpelt earlier to stretch my legs but when I came back, Frostfur said that Sorrelkit had disappeared! We can’t find her anywhere, and Rainkit and Sootkit don’t know where she went!”

Tinystar flattened his ears. “Calm down, Willowpelt – where have you searched?”

“All the dens,” Willowpelt reported. “A-And the dirtplace. I caught a trace of her scent near the camp entrance but it was stale! Oh, StarClan…” The pale queen’s sides heaved with her panicked breathing. “Where is she?”

Tinystar rested his tail along her shoulders. “We’ll find her,” he decided.

Willowpelt sniffled. “I hope so,” she breathed. “I just k-keep thinking… what if the dogs aren’t gone? Or a badger finds her? She’s so much like a little Tigerstar, sticking her nose in everything and being brave…”

“Tell Oakheart to send a search party. I’ll be heading out towards Sunningrocks myself.” Tinystar scanned the clearing. “Mistypaw!” he called.

Mistypaw turned to face him from the elder’s den, where she had been adjusting the lichen that draped over the hollow log. Her ears perked, and she immediately stopped what she was dong to pad over to his side.

“Yeah?” she wondered, glancing at Willowpelt. “What is it?”

“We’re going to look for Sorrelkit,” Tinystar told her.

Mistypaw’s tail bushed. “So that’s what the fuss was?” she mewed. She turned to Willowpelt. “I’m so sorry – if Dappletail hadn’t been talking my ear off, I would have helped you!”

“It’s all right, little one,” Willowpelt offered.

Mistypaw nodded to Tinystar. “Ready when you are!”

“Keep your nose sharp,” Tinystar told her. “Kits aren’t mouse-brained. If Sorrelkit didn’t want to be found, she’d try just about anything to make it so.”

“Understood.”

Tinystar turned to Willowpelt. “We’ll find her,” he told her. “Don’t worry.”

Willowpelt nodded hesitantly, and Tinystar knew it would take more than words to reassure a queen missing her kittens. Tinystar raised his tail and led Mistypaw through the gorse tunnel and into the forest, setting their paws on the path to Sunningrocks.

She went there before… he thought. She might have gone back.

A feeling of unease settled in his belly as he recalled Stonepaw and Sorrelkit appearing from the forest from Sunninrocks’ way, arguing and bristling with one another, and Sorrelkit insisting that Stonepaw shouldn’t have been doing… something. What that was, Tinystar didn’t know.

Perhaps Stonepaw is there, too… and I’ll get my answers.

———————————————————-

“Tinystar, I think I’ve got it.”

Tinystar pricked his ears. He emerged from the tangle of brambles, grimacing as thorns tugged at his pelt. Mistypaw was beside a clump of flattened bracken, her tail-tip flicking back and forth. She gestured at the bracken with her paw.

Sorrelkit’s scent was there – faint, but there. Tinystar breathed it in. A tiny paw print stamped down the bracken stems, hidden inside an even bigger paw print that smelled faintly of… Stonepaw.

Tinystar frowned, glancing at Mistypaw. Had she scented her brother?

I don’t like this, he thought, glancing around. They were on the trail to Sunningrocks – Tinystar could see the pale stones looming through the sparse leaf-bare forest ahead. His patrols had reported that many cats were living and patrolling the river now – LionClan. It would be very dangerous for a ThunderClan cat – and kit – to be anywhere near LionClan territory.

“Do you smell Stonepaw?” he asked.

Mistypaw frowned. She bent and sniffed the bracken again. “Y-Yes,” she admitted. “Very faint, though.” She looked at Tinystar with wide eyes.

Tinystar raised his tail and led the way. Sorrelkit’s scent was faint, stumbling over stones and tree roots. The kit had little experience traversing the forest. Stonepaw’s fainter scent lay beneath, winding through the forest just off of the usual paths the warriors took. Both Mistypaw and Tinystar increased their pace, worry pricking their pelts.

Together they broke through the treeline and into Sunningrocks, gravel and stones scattering beneath their paws. Tinystar dropped low, ordering Mistypaw to do the same with a flick of his tail. They crept behind one of the stones, peering around the side.

Sorrelkit was with Stonepaw, near the top of the slope that led down to the riverbank. Stonepaw’s spine was bristling – the gray tom was clearly frustrated. Sorrelkit was bouncing on her paws, her eyes blazing.

“For the last time – get back to camp!” Stonepaw snapped. “Leave me alone, kit!”

Sorrelkit thrust her muzzle into his face. “Stop treating me like I’m a mouse-brain!” she hissed. “You’re the one that needs to head back to camp! You’re the one that sneaks out all the time!”

Mistypaw trembled beside Tinystar. He soothed her with a flick of his tail against her flank.

“Shut up!” Stonepaw hissed, clearly flustered with the kit. “Do you have any idea how much trouble--”

Tinystar stood. He padded around the rock, revealing himself to Stonepaw and Sorrelkit.

Stonepaw shut his jaws. His eyes widened as Mistypaw followed Tinystar out from behind the rock.

“T-Tinystar!” Sorrelkit stammered, falling to her haunches in shock.

“M-Mistypaw?” Stonepaw wondered. “What’re you doing here?”

“We came to find you, you mouse-brain!” Mistypaw gasped, bristling. “What do you think you’re doing, sneaking out like this?! LionClan is just across that river!”

Stonepaw flattened his ears crossly. “I can take care of myself!” he snapped, his blue eyes blazing. “Stop trying to mother me!”

Mistypaw flinched, her eyes flashing hopelessly.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Tinystar growled, eyeing Stonepaw. Inwardly he cursed, knowing that there was no way he could easily confront Stonepaw with Sorrelkit here, too. From the scent of things, Stonepaw had been here often the past half moon or so, which was an alarming thought. “But it’s stopping. You are both heading back to camp. Immediately.”

Stonepaw shrank beneath Tinystar’s icy gaze. But he got to his paws and padded past, heading back on the trail that would take them back to camp. Sorrelkit followed, her tail dragging in the dirt. Tinystar squared his shoulders and followed behind, Mistypaw padding silently by his side.

———————————————————-

Sandstorm paced before Tinystar, bristling. “I’m so --! I am at my whisker’s end with him, Tinystar, I swear!” she hissed.

Tinystar frowned. “How often has he disappeared?” he asked. They were in the shade of the Highrock, away from prying ears – though many ears had pricked at the sight of Tinystar returning with not just Sorrelkit, but Stonepaw. Willowpelt was giving her kitten a thorough washing and scolding over near the nursery and Stonepaw was sulking outside the apprentice’s den, where Tinystar ordered he stay until he was done speaking to Sandstorm.

“Too often!” Sandstorm snapped. “Sometimes in the mornings, sometimes in the evenings – but almost always when I need him for something! StarClan help me!”

“He needs to be kept in line,” Tinystar told her firmly. He knew his mate could handle his words. “But we can’t go overboard. Too much hassling and he’s like to bolt, or take out his frustrations on his Clanmates. We need to find a way to talk to him that won’t set him off.”

Sandstorm’s tail lashed. “I’ve tried!” she admitted. “He won’t talk to me! Or anyone, it seems.”

Tinystar shook his head hopelessly. “I wish I knew what started this behavior…” he breathed. “If I did…”

“I’m sure some cat or another said something they didn’t mean,” Sandstorm told him. “Or Ashpaw was being a bully – but there’s only so much we can do about anything like that.” She stopped pacing to rest her muzzle on his forehead. “I’m frustrated, but I know that we can’t do everything.”

Tinystar was grateful for the gesture.

“Sorrelkit keeps sneaking out to follow him,” Tinystar pointed out.

“Maybe she knows what he’s really doing when he leaves?” Sandstorm guessed. “We ought to talk to her.”

“Agreed.”

Tinystar waved his tail to catch Willowpelt’s attention. It took a moment, but the queen finally acknowledged him with a tilt of her head. She ushered Sorrelkit away, pushing her towards Tinystar. Sorrelkit plodded over, head and tail low.

“I’m sorry, Tinystar,” Sorrelkit mewed apologetically, not meeting Tinystar’s eyes. “I won’t do it again.”

“Sorrelkit, I need you to tell us what you’ve noticed with Stonepaw,” Tinystar insisted. “Why do you keep following him?”

Sorrelkit raised her head, flattening her ears. “Uh… well, I mean… I was just curious about where he was going. When he went off, it was always alone. Cats don’t normally do that. So I wanted to see what he was up to.”

“And what was he up to?” Sandstorm urged.

Sorrelkit shrugged. “He just goes over to Sunningrocks and sits there a while, staring across the river. Sometimes there’s another cat that he talks to, but I stay out of sight…” She twitched her white ear. “It’s hard to hear, so I just watch.”

Sandstorm shared a look with Tinystar, whose tail was winding with worry. Meeting another cat across the river… it could only be a LionClan cat! But which one?

“What did this cat look like?” he wondered.

Sorrelkit shook her head. “I don’t really know… they hide well. I usually just see their tail, or their muzzle. They’ve got a darker pelt, though.”

Tinystar kneaded the earth. I’ve a few thoughts on who that might be, he thought grimly. Likely the only other cat in LionClan other than Bluestar who would care about Stonepaw… Darkstripe.

Sandstorm’s expression betrayed that she was having the same thought.

Tinystar leaned close to Sorrelkit. “Sorrelkit – you shouldn’t have gone out of camp and worried your mother like that – but next time you see Stonepaw leave camp, I want you to let us know, okay? We’ll track him down together, and figure out what this is all about.”

Sorrelkit’s eyes shone. “Really?”

Tinystar nodded. “You can tell Willowpelt, okay, but just her – and she needs to know that this is a secret mission, okay?”

Sorrelkit’s head was a blur of nodding.

“Good,” Sandstorm praised. “Now, go on. And be sure to do whatever Willowpelt tells you to do! You still snuck off without permission!”

Sorrelkit didn’t seem to care. She pelted across camp to her mother, tail up. Willowpelt looked shocked that her daughter didn’t seem at all chastised, even looking disbelievingly at Tinystar over her kit. But Sorrelkit caught her attention again and bent her ear, no doubt telling her about her “mission”.

Sandstorm heaved a sigh. “I hope that was the right thing to do,” she breathed.

Tinystar got to his paws, pressing his pelt against his mate’s. “I don’t know if it was. Look at him – he’s upset. Whatever we uncovered, he’s likely to be more careful from now on.”

“I just hope that he stops going altogether.”

Tinystar watched Mistypaw approach Stonepaw with a thrush, obviously wanting to share – to make amends. But Stonepaw said something snappish, turning his back on his sister and sitting with his head on his paws. Clearly hurt, Mistypaw dragged her meal over to the stump near the apprentice’s den and sat with it, her appetite clearly having disappeared.

“I don’t think he will,” Tinystar admitted. Sandstorm shifted, her gaze falling to her paws. “But at the very least… we may be able to stop whatever happens next.”

He gazed over at Stonepaw’s tense shape again.

And hopefully, we can finally resolve whatever is eating at your heart, Stonepaw…

#tb au #tb the darkest hour

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unsettlingshortstories · 3 years

Text

A Sound of Thunder

Ray Bradbury (1952)

The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water. Eckels felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness:

TIME SAFARI, INC.

SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST.

YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.

WE TAKE YOU THERE.

YOU SHOOT IT.

Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels' throat; he swallowed and pushed it down. The muscles around his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk.

"Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?"

"We guarantee nothing," said the official, "except the dinosaurs." He turned. "This is Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past. He'll tell you what and where to shoot. If he says no shooting, no shooting. If you disobey instructions, there's a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus possible government action, on your return."

Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue. There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame.

A touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant, beautifully reverse itself. Eckels remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter. Out of chars and ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irish-black, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes, rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time before the beginning. A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touch of a hand.

"Unbelievable." Eckels breathed, the light of the Machine on his thin face. "A real Time Machine." He shook his head. "Makes you think, If the election had gone badly yesterday, I might be here now running away from the results. Thank God Keith won. He'll make a fine President of the United States."

"Yes," said the man behind the desk. "We're lucky. If Deutscher had gotten in, we'd have the worst kind of dictatorship. There's an anti-everything man for you, a militarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual. People called us up, you know, joking but not joking. Said if Deutscher became President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it's not our business to conduct Escapes, but to form Safaris. Anyway, Keith's President now. All you got to worry about is"

"Shooting my dinosaur," Eckels finished it for him.

"A Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in history. Sign this release. Anything happens to you, we're not responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry."

Eckels flushed angrily. "Trying to scare me!"

"Frankly, yes. We don't want anyone going who'll panic at the first shot. Six Safari leaders were killed last year, and a dozen hunters. We're here to give you the severest thrill a real hunter ever asked for. Traveling you back sixty million years to bag the biggest game in all of Time. Your personal check's still there. Tear it up."Mr. Eckels looked at the check. His fingers twitched.

"Good luck," said the man behind the desk. "Mr. Travis, he's all yours."

They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine, toward the silver metal and the roaring light.

First a day and then a night and then a day and then a night, then it was day--night--day--night. A week, a month, a year, a decade! A.D. 2055. A.D. 2019. 1999! 1957! Gone! The Machine roared.

They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms.

Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale, his jaw stiff. He felt the trembling in his arms and he looked down and found his hands tight on the new rifle. There were four other men in the Machine. Travis, the Safari Leader, his assistant, Lesperance, and two other hunters, Billings and Kramer. They sat looking at each other, and the years blazed around them.

"Can these guns get a dinosaur cold?" Eckels felt his mouth saying.

"If you hit them right," said Travis on the helmet radio. "Some dinosaurs have two brains, one in the head, another far down the spinal column. We stay away from those. That's stretching luck. Put your first two shots into the eyes, if you can, blind them, and go back into the brain." The Machine howled. Time was a film run backward. Suns fled and ten million moons fled after them. "Think," said Eckels. "Every hunter that ever lived would envy us today. This makes Africa seem like Illinois."

The Machine slowed; its scream fell to a murmur. The Machine stopped.

The sun stopped in the sky.

The fog that had enveloped the Machine blew away and they were in an old time, a very old time indeed, three hunters and two Safari Heads with their blue metal guns across their knees.

"Christ isn't born yet," said Travis, "Moses has not gone to the mountains to talk with God. The

Pyramids are still in the earth, waiting to be cut out and put up. Remember that. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler--none of them exists." The man nodded.

"That" Mr. Travis pointed "is the jungle of sixty million two thousand and fifty-five years before President Keith."

He indicated a metal path that struck off into green wilderness, over streaming swamp, among giant ferns and palms.

"And that," he said, "is the Path, laid by Time Safari for your use,

It floats six inches above the earth. Doesn't touch so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree. It's an antigravity metal. Its purpose is to keep you from touching this world of the past in any way. Stay on the Path. Don't go off it. I repeat. Don't go off. For any reason! If you fall off, there's a penalty. And don't shoot any animal we don't okay."

"Why?" asked Eckels.

They sat in the ancient wilderness. Far birds' cries blew on a wind, and the smell of tar and an old salt sea, moist grasses, and flowers the color of blood.

"We don't want to change the Future. We don't belong here in the Past. The government doesn't like us here. We have to pay big graft to keep our franchise. A Time Machine is finicky business. Not knowing it, we might kill an important animal, a small bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying an important link in a growing species."

"That's not clear," said Eckels.

"All right," Travis continued, "say we accidentally kill one mouse here. That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed, right?"

"Right"

"And all the families of the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice!"

"So they're dead," said Eckels. "So what?"

"So what?" Travis snorted quietly. "Well, what about the foxes that'll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren. The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one caveman, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!"

"I see," said Eckels. "Then it wouldn't pay for us even to touch the grass?"

"Correct. Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion. Of course maybe our theory is wrong. Maybe Time can't be changed by us. Or maybe it can be changed only in little subtle ways. A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and finally, a change in social temperament in far-flung countries. Something much more subtle, like that. Perhaps only a soft breath, a whisper, a hair, pollen on the air, such a slight, slight change that unless you looked close you wouldn't see it. Who knows? Who really can say he knows? We don't know. We're guessing. But until we do know for certain whether our messing around in Time can make a big roar or a little rustle in history, we're being careful. This Machine, this Path, your clothing and bodies, were sterilized, as you know, before the journey. We wear these oxygen helmets so we can't introduce our bacteria into an ancient atmosphere."

"How do we know which animals to shoot?"

"They're marked with red paint," said Travis. "Today, before our journey, we sent Lesperance here back with the Machine. He came to this particular era and followed certain animals." "Studying them?"

"Right," said Lesperance. "I track them through their entire existence, noting which of them lives longest. Very few. How many times they mate. Not often. Life's short, When I find one that's going to die when a tree falls on him, or one that drowns in a tar pit, I note the exact hour, minute, and second. I shoot a paint bomb. It leaves a red patch on his side. We can't miss it. Then I correlate our arrival in the Past so that we meet the Monster not more than two minutes before he would have died anyway. This way, we kill only animals with no future, that are never going to mate again. You see how careful we are?"

"But if you come back this morning in Time," said Eckels eagerly, you must've bumped into us, our Safari! How did it turn out? Was it successful? Did all of us get through--alive?"

Travis and Lesperance gave each other a look.

"That'd be a paradox," said the latter. "Time doesn't permit that sort of mess--a man meeting himself. When such occasions threaten, Time steps aside. Like an airplane hitting an air pocket. You felt the Machine jump just before we stopped? That was us passing ourselves on the way back to the Future. We saw nothing. There's no way of telling if this expedition was a success, if we got our monster, or whether all of us meaning you, Mr. Eckels got out alive."

Eckels smiled palely.

"Cut that," said Travis sharply. "Everyone on his feet!"

They were ready to leave the Machine.

The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky, and those were pterodactyls soaring with cavernous gray wings, gigantic bats of delirium and night fever. Eckels, balanced on the narrow Path, aimed his rifle playfully.

"Stop that!" said Travis. "Don't even aim for fun, blast you! If your guns should go off "

Eckels flushed. "Where's our Tyrannosaurus?"

Lesperance checked his wristwatch. "Up ahead, We'll bisect his trail in sixty seconds. Look for the red paint! Don't shoot till we give the word. Stay on the Path. Stay on the Path!"

They moved forward in the wind of morning.

"Strange," murmured Eckels. "Up ahead, sixty million years, Election Day over. Keith made President. Everyone celebrating. And here we are, a million years lost, and they don't exist. The things we worried about for months, a lifetime, not even born or thought of yet."

"Safety catches off, everyone!" ordered Travis. "You, first shot, Eckels. Second, Billings, Third, Kramer."

"I've hunted tiger, wild boar, buffalo, elephant, but now, this is it," said Eckels. "I'm shaking like a kid."

"Ah," said Travis.

Everyone stopped.

Travis raised his hand. "Ahead," he whispered. "In the mist. There he is. There's His Royal Majesty now."

The jungle was wide and full of twitterings, rustlings, murmurs, and sighs.

Suddenly it all ceased, as if someone had shut a door.

Silence.

A sound of thunder.

Out of the mist, one hundred yards away, came Tyrannosaurus Rex.

"It," whispered Eckels. "It......"

"Sh!"

It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker's claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangled out front, arms with hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight.

It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons. It moved into a sunlit area warily, its beautifully reptilian hands feeling the air.

"Why, why," Eckels twitched his mouth. "It could reach up and grab the moon."

"Sh!" Travis jerked angrily. "He hasn't seen us yet."

"It can't be killed," Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly, as if there could be no argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. "We were fools to come. This is impossible."

"Shut up!" hissed Travis.

"Nightmare."

"Turn around," commanded Travis. "Walk quietly to the Machine. We'll remit half your fee."

"I didn't realize it would be this big," said Eckels. "I miscalculated, that's all. And now I want out."

"It sees us!"

"There's the red paint on its chest!"

The Tyrant Lizard raised itself. Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green coins. The coins, crusted with slime, steamed. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch and undulate, even while the monster itself did not move. It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness.

"Get me out of here," said Eckels. "It was never like this before. I was always sure I'd come through alive. I had good guides, good safaris, and safety. This time, I figured wrong. I've met my match and admit it. This is too much for me to get hold of."

"Don't run," said Lesperance. "Turn around. Hide in the Machine."

"Yes." Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them move. He gave a grunt of helplessness.

"Eckels!"

He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling.

"Not that way!"

The Monster, at the first motion, lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one hundred yards in six seconds. The rifles jerked up and blazed fire. A windstorm from the beast's mouth engulfed them in the stench of slime and old blood. The Monster roared, teeth glittering with sun.

The rifles cracked again, Their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great level of the reptile's tail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf and branch. The Monster twitched its jeweler's hands down to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram them into its teeth and its screaming throat. Its boulder-stone eyes leveled with the men. They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris,

Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell.

Thundering, it clutched trees, pulled them with it. It wrenched and tore the metal Path. The men flung themselves back and away. The body hit, ten tons of cold flesh and stone. The guns fired. The Monster lashed its armored tail, twitched its snake jaws, and lay still. A fount of blood spurted from its throat. Somewhere inside, a sac of fluids burst. Sickening gushes drenched the hunters. They stood, red and glistening.

The thunder faded.

The jungle was silent. After the avalanche, a green peace. After the nightmare, morning. Billings and Kramer sat on the pathway and threw up. Travis and Lesperance stood with smoking rifles, cursing steadily. In the Time Machine, on his face, Eckels lay shivering. He had found his way back to the Path, climbed into the Machine.

Travis came walking, glanced at Eckels, took cotton gauze from a metal box, and returned to the others, who were sitting on the Path.

"Clean up."

They wiped the blood from their helmets. They began to curse too. The Monster lay, a hill of solid flesh. Within, you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest chambers of it died, the organs malfunctioning, liquids running a final instant from pocket to sac to spleen, everything shutting off, closing up forever. It was like standing by a wrecked locomotive or a steam shovel at quitting time, all valves being released or levered tight. Bones cracked; the tonnage of its own flesh, off balance, dead weight, snapped the delicate forearms, caught underneath. The meat settled, quivering.

Another cracking sound. Overhead, a gigantic tree branch broke from its heavy mooring, fell. It crashed upon the dead beast with finality.

"There." Lesperance checked his watch. "Right on time. That's the giant tree that was scheduled to fall and kill this animal originally." He glanced at the two hunters. "You want the trophy picture?"

"What?"

"We can't take a trophy back to the Future. The body has to stay right here where it would have died originally, so the insects, birds, and bacteria can get at it, as they were intended to. Everything in balance. The body stays. But we can take a picture of you standing near it." The two men tried to think, but gave up, shaking their heads.

They let themselves be led along the metal Path. They sank wearily into the Machine cushions. They gazed back at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armor. A sound on the floor of the Time Machine stiffened them. Eckels sat there, shivering.

"I'm sorry," he said at last.

"Get up!" cried Travis.

Eckels got up.

"Go out on that Path alone," said Travis. He had his rifle pointed, "You're not coming back in the Machine. We're leaving you here!"

Lesperance seized Travis's arm. "Wait."

"Stay out of this!" Travis shook his hand away. "This fool nearly killed us. But it isn't that so much, no. It's his shoes! Look at them! He ran off the Path. That ruins us! We'll forfeit! Thousands of dollars of insurance! We guarantee no one leaves the Path. He left it. Oh, the fool! I'll have to report to the government. They might revoke our license to travel. Who knows what he's done to Time, to History!"

"Take it easy, all he did was kick up some dirt."

"How do we know?" cried Travis. "We don't know anything! It's all a mystery! Get out of here, Eckels!"

Eckels fumbled his shirt. "I'll pay anything. A hundred thousand dollars!"

Travis glared at Eckels' checkbook and spat. "Go out there. The Monster's next to the Path. Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth. Then you can come back with us."

"That's unreasonable!"

"The Monster's dead, you idiot. The bullets! The bullets can't be left behind. They don't belong in the Past; they might change anything. Here's my knife. Dig them out!"

The jungle was alive again, full of the old tremorings and bird cries. Eckels turned slowly to regard the primeval garbage dump, that hill of nightmares and terror. After a long time, like a sleepwalker he shuffled out along the Path.

He returned, shuddering, five minutes later, his arms soaked and red to the elbows. He held out his hands. Each held a number of steel bullets. Then he fell. He lay where he fell, not moving.

"You didn't have to make him do that," said Lesperance.

"Didn't I? It's too early to tell." Travis nudged the still body. "He'll live. Next time he won't go hunting game like this. Okay." He jerked his thumb wearily at Lesperance. "Switch on. Let's go home."

1492. 1776. 1812.

They cleaned their hands and faces. They changed their caking shirts and pants. Eckels was up and around again, not speaking. Travis glared at him for a full ten minutes.

"Don't look at me," cried Eckels. "I haven't done anything."

"Who can tell?"

"Just ran off the Path, that's all, a little mud on my shoes--what do you want me to do--get down and pray?"

"We might need it. I'm warning you, Eckels, I might kill you yet. I've got my gun ready."

"I'm innocent. I've done nothing!"

1999.2000.2055.

The Machine stopped.

"Get out," said Travis.

The room was there as they had left it. But not the same as they had left it. The same man sat behind the same desk. But the same man did not quite sit behind the same desk. Travis looked around swiftly. "Everything okay here?" he snapped.

"Fine. Welcome home!"

Travis did not relax. He seemed to be looking through the one high window.

"Okay, Eckels, get out. Don't ever come back." Eckels could not move. "You heard me," said Travis. "What're you staring at?"

Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there. The colors, white, gray, blue, orange, in the wall, in the furniture, in the sky beyond the window, were . . . were . . . . And there was a feel. His flesh twitched. His hands twitched. He stood drinking the oddness with the pores of his body. Somewhere, someone must have been screaming one of those whistles that only a dog can hear. His body screamed silence in return. Beyond this room, beyond this wall, beyond this man who was not quite the same man seated at this desk that was not quite the same desk . . . lay an entire world of streets and people. What sort of world it was now, there was no telling. He could feel them moving there, beyond the walls, almost, like so many chess pieces blown in a dry wind ....

But the immediate thing was the sign painted on the office wall, the same sign he had read earlier today on first entering. Somehow, the sign had changed:

TYME SEFARI INC.

SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST.

YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.

WEE TAEK YU THAIR.

YU SHOOT ITT.

Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling, "No, it can't be. Not a little thing like that. No!"

Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.

"Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!" cried Eckels.

It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time. Eckels' mind whirled. It couldn't change things. Killing one butterfly couldn't be that important! Could it?

His face was cold. His mouth trembled, asking: "Who who won the presidential election yesterday?"

The man behind the desk laughed. "You joking? You know very well. Deutscher, of course! Who else? Not that fool weakling Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with guts!" The official stopped. "What's wrong?"

Eckels moaned. He dropped to his knees. He scrabbled at the golden butterfly with shaking fingers. "Can't we," he pleaded to the world, to himself, to the officials, to the Machine, "can't we take it back, can't we make it alive again? Can't we start over? Can't we"

He did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering. He heard Travis breathe loud in the room; he heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon.

There was a sound of thunder.

0 notes

susan-gampre · 6 years

Text

Death Would be too Kind, part 1

Mood

The following is a collab effort between three cultists of the Order of the Red Temple ( @redtemple-wra ) and myself!

Time was non-existent in the darkness.

There was only the constant drip of water splashing the same corner of the basement floor. There was only the occasional squeak of a mouse that stirred the Madam awake once again. But essentially just as now, it is always the rattle of the creaky old door being deprived of its heavy chains that really roused her to full alert.

Three different pairs of feet shuffle down the steps, bringing the skiddish Madam to crawl backward along her molded mattress, sneering and straining against the confines clinging to her wrists: “Stay the fuck away from me,” she demands, confidence unwavering despite her current vulnerable position.

Warning, viewer discretion advised beyond this point. Themes including blood, gore, torture and the mistreatment/abuse of a pregnant woman are involved.

Cooing ever so gently would a woman’s voice murmur to the captured figure, “Shh... Shh-- You need only answer my servant's question. Or else things will get... Bad,” pausing would allow the speaker greater effect in hissing: “As in, rip the baby from you and burn it, stuff you in a crate and make you stay there for a month bad.“

True, these words had sway over Susan. It was a frightening thing, being threatened by people as bold as these ones. Especially when you were, otherwise, at their utmost mercy. There was some comfort, Susan felt, in the fact that this was essentially an interrogation.

Susan sets her lips into a firm line, remaining set in her place, the blindfold tied about her head shifting as she attempts to leer through the thick fabrics-- to no avail. And thus she scoffs, spitting venom in the form of a murmur: "You'll not kill me, what would be the point of bringing me here if you didn't want information? You don't frighten me, squirrel!"

For a moment the Madam heard nothing but the shuffle of hooves against the stone floor, shuffling that lead her to flinch backward into the wall of which her confines were attached to. In the back of the room, Susan could hear a second female voice whining: “Awww, don't hurt the pretty too bad. I was hoping she'd be mine, next!”

And thus Susan’d began to feel the sensation of two fingers invading her nostrils. Confusion would set in-- walked to Susan, until she felt both bursting with flames. Essentially, the inner of her nose would burn, the sensitive mucus membranes quickly charred. Mere seconds would pass before the fingers are removed, the performer of such a cruel tactic seemingly satisfied with the results as Susan instinctively jerked away to be rid the pain and ache whilst her hands clung to her face after the pained yelp that followed the initial assault. As if this small gesture of protecting her face was enough to, all in all, ensure the cultist could no longer hurt her.

There was no remorse in the cultist;s words as she hissed to Susan: “Come, you don't answer our questions, we go for the eyes next. Answer the questions as they come, whore queen.”

Still the Madam clung to her nose with one hand, the other carefully reaching to cling to her belly. Her brows knitted together, tears already managing to leak and soak into the cloths of her blindfold before her confidence wavering whilst she inquires shakily: "W-Why do you wanna know shit about us, huh?"

."Does it really matter at the end of the day?"

There was absolutely no comfort from this response. Honestly, everything about this evening had the maiden completely unnerved and frightened. Though before she could manage to compose herself came the looming presence of the final person in the room. A darkness casting over her, the heat of a maw breathing heavily against her face, revealing it to be at the very least a beast of some kind.

He had walked over to Susan, kneeling before her. His claws firmly placed on the back of her neck, his razor sharp nails threatening to dig into her skin, "Lets be a little tactful 'madam'. You simply give us the information we seek, do so willingly and there wont be no torture needed.. However resist, well what the goat did is a simple example. Or... Should we get some iron rods and warm them? Maybe some proding and burning of flesh will make her sing, hmm?" He suggested.

Silence fell upon them, such a silence that gripped and consumed the Madam to lose her confidence a smidgen.Suddenly she wasn’t all too certain she was guaranteed her life in leaving this room when they finished with her. And if it all leads to the same sudden painful ending, why sell out?

"Now tell us the names of your officers? The locations of their homes." He asked,

Kendari... Gilithos. Lel. Ren. People she thought of highly,people she trusted deeply. Employees who she looked to as her own to protect... Within the woman swelled a need to protect what was her own. Before she could immediately retaliate came next a mockingly chipper voice of the secondary woman, the one who hadn’t burnt the insides of the Madam’s nosrils, “Yes. Pray tell, pretty!”

The Madam couldn’t help it, either. There was some sort of lack of common sense in the Gampre women when they were a mixture of scared and angry, such a lack that their sass had no bounds. Thus, Susan’s sassiness managed to leak through, "Where else do you expect a buncha sinners to live, you fuck? In the fucking Brothel. Isn't that a right fucking shock?"

The male gruffed and huffed in aggravation, muttering beneath his breath, “You’re going to pay for your clever mouth if you don’t watch it, bitch. Now.. Your father, does he live there in the Brothel?"

The Madam’s shoulders slump, confusion befalling her as she strained against her blind fold in an attempt to leer at the male of the trio, “I don’t know that piece of shit...”

There was a general feel of distrust that nearly choked the woman. The air was so thick she could have sliced it with a hot knife through butter. She could feel it in her bones. They didn’t believe a thing she said, doubted her. She was on thin ice, and it chilled the woman to her core..

The original assaulter -- revealed to be a draenei -- scoffed, her tone sharp, “The dapper man? Ponytail? Mad you went missing?"

Susan remains silent in that moment, adrenaline beginning to pump blood in her ears with the realization-- Edwin. The man who she had essentially appointed her father, he whom had essentially stepped in as her father all too willingly. He was upset?

Somewere, beyond the fear and the regret, a swell of hope caused the Madam’s heart to murmur and skip beats. Of anyone, she knew Edwin wouldn’t give up looking for her. ... She only prayed he wouldn’t be too late.

Though it seemed Susan’s inner quarrel was enough to anger the cultists, for instantly the male rose to his feet, turning to casually regard one of the women with a: “Have at her,” before moving away.

Almost instantly Susan stirs to life, tilting her head toward the gruff male voice before she'd swiftly begin to crawl along the floor, heaving out a shaky breath, "You're all a buncha fucks-- Attacking pregnant women?! Fuck you!"

For a moment it was.... Completely silent.

And then it began. The steady clicks of hooves against the grimy flooring lead the Madam to cower, clutching desperately for her midsection, her breath hitched in her throat as the anxiety of the situation became so heavy it could choke.

As the clicks increased in volume the closer the woman came to Susan, it suddenly ceased. And that was when the Madam knew she was upon her.

It started... as a swift jab to her left eye. Essentially this would be enough to cause a mass amount of discomfort, but not enough to hurt with the blind fold doing well to protect her-- But Susan knew something was awry when she saw, first, a blinding flash of light in her left eye, and then darkness consumed her vision once again.

Slowly, as the sound of hooves retreating were heard, the pain would begin to set it. Such a pain that brought, first, a whimper, and then a yelp. Such a pain that seared so deeply into her brain that she’d begun to howl in agony. Such a pain that she had never experienced before. Sensations so grotesque and overwhelming it nearly caused the woman to faint. But she wasn’t so lucky to outright fall into slumber. No no, she was wide awake and forced to endure this bought of unimaginable torture.

Effectively, it was nothing but Intense white pain.Searing and boiling hurt before something... popped.

There was an unusual feeling of liquid rolling down the woman’s cheeks. To Susan, it could’ve been tears for all she knew, but the longer she was able to acknowledge it? The liquid was warm. Oddly so.

“Aha! You made her eye go pop!”

This statement from the gleeful cultist praising her counterpart caused Susan’s chest to tighten, her head lightening with blinding fuzziness. She was astonished, first, and then completely... Overwhelmed.

Her sobs became screams, stuttering breaths and an accelerated heart beat was enough to assure the Madam she was having a panic attack. The cherry atop this eye-exploding-sundae was the sensation of feeling a large, droopy ball of mush being shoved into her mouth.

Sputtering and choking on hacking coughs the Madam spat outward to free her mouth of the unwanted object, the disgusting sensation of liquid of eye juice left over from the blistering combustion mixed with blood remained on her tongue like a lingering bad taste. And without even a hesitation the Madam would begin to vomit and retch so violently before, with a shaky breath inward, her remaining eye rolls into the back of her head.

With the hysterical laughter of the cultists surrounding her, Susan fainted backward. The remaining pain she felt was when the back of her skull slapped the grimy floor, the black hole that was her left eye socket staring blankly at the ceiling of her prison.

#Susan's pov #Order of the Red Temple #Shoddy piecing together #I am ashamed of myself

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archerrvdz316-blog · 5 years

Text

Use Western Pest Control To Help With Ants And Mosquitoes

"Everypest control service provider should understand one unique word that perfectly explains city pests: synanthrope. A synanthropic types is one that previously lived in a wild environment today thrives in city locations. Unlike the huge bulk of animal types, synanthropic animals actually take advantage of human-made environments.

The following is a take a look at why urban pests such as raccoons, mice, rats and pigeons prosper in our cities. It likewise recommends Integrated Insect Management (IPM) as an efficient method of managing the city pest populations around your house. All animals (consisting of humans) need food, shelter and water to survive. Our cities offer these bare needs, along with a few more helpful circumstances for synanthropes, as explained below.

Couple of or No Predators.

Urban bugs delight in a substantial advantage over their nation cousins: There are practically no predators in city environments. Peregrine falcons are among the few predators that actually thrive in cities; researchers think peregrine falcons become more nighttime in cities, where they utilize streetlights to stalk their prey.

One would think that people might be thought about major predators for these bugs, however some cities really prosecute killers of raccoons and other synanthropes for animal abuse. For example, last month a Toronto local was arrested and charged with animal cruelty for striking an infant raccoon in his back backyard with a shovel. (Insect control business can generally rid your house of metropolitan bugs without you needing to stress over being prosecuted for animal ruthlessness.) Even with shovel-wielding human beings about, city insects can breed more freely than they would in the wild.

Plenty of Food.

Your trash is a synanthrope's treasure. Although you might think Carrie Brownstein's efficiency on ""Portlandia"" makes her the queen of dumpster scuba divers, metropolitan insects have her beat. A number of them make it through on human refuse 365 days a year. Some metropolitan insects, such as pigeons, even receive handouts from people. In basic, metropolitan insects don't need to work extremely tough to have their food requirements fulfilled in huge cities.

Insect control professionals who practice Integrated Insect Management understand how various pest types consume; they can use this knowledge to help you eliminate pesky pigeons, rodents and insects.

Excellent Shelter.

Think your home is relaxing, comfortable and captivating? Urban pests agree. Numerous synanthropes utilize buildings for shelter - some are even totally dependent on human construction for nesting premises. Gulls see tall buildings as cliff-sided islands. Pigeons can roost on narrow racks on the sides of buildings, or in storm drains pipes. Home sparrows are professionals at building homes under roofing system eaves. Human building offers city bugs plenty of places to raise their young.

Integrated Pest Management professionals understand insects' shelter needs; pest control service companies who utilize IPM practices can inform you how to change your home to make it less attractive for nesting metropolitan bugs.

Huge Brains.

Biologists have actually discovered that much of the types that are successful in urban environments have big brains. Larger brains allow these animals to quickly adjust to the scenarios they find in the city. Some property owners even wonder if their anti-pest measures are causing raccoons and other city insects to get smarter about things like how to burglarize trash cans. Much of these big-brained animals succeed in the city since they are generalists. Coyotes, for instance, can make it through in a wide array of environments since they are able to alter their behavior according to what they find in cities.

youtube

Insect control experts ought to comprehend the insects they handle from the within out. Your pest control service associate must even be able to ""believe"" like a rat or a mouse, for example, in order to identify places where these rodents could enter your home.

Synanthropic Adjustments.

Some animals simply got lucky in the evolutionary draw and naturally have qualities that prepare them for city life. For example, pigeons originate from the deserts of the Middle East. Their feet are perfectly adapted for walking on hot desert sand - and for strolling hot city streets.

Other animals have actually changed their habits to benefit from the city environment. For circumstances, more and more Canadian geese are learning that they save energy for breeding by remaining at golf courses and city parks year-round, instead of moving with the seasons.

Upon very first seeing a raccoon or opossum in the city, one's response may be delight at having a wild animal in such close distance. However, it's best to rid your home of synanthropes, no matter how charming they may initially seem. Urban insects can carry nasty diseases like rabies and even the pester. Moreover, urban bugs can trigger long-term damage to a house if they find a method into your attic, crawl area or basement. Lastly, some of these bugs are so irritating that it's nearly impossible to deal with them. (Bed bugs come to mind).

If you see urban pests around your house, it's finest to seek assistance from a pest control company. Pest control service specialists can use an earth-friendly Integrated Bug Management method to eliminate raccoons, sparrows, bed bugs and other urban bugs without utilizing harmful chemicals that might harm your family or animals."

#pest control #pest

0 notes

travispfua843-blog · 5 years

Text

The Importance of Hiring the Right Commercial Pest Control Service

"Everypest control service provider need to know one unique word that completely describes city bugs: synanthrope. A synanthropic types is one that formerly lived in a wild environment now grows in city locations. Unlike the large majority of animal types, synanthropic animals really take advantage of human-made environments.

The following is an appearance at why city pests such as raccoons, mice, rats and pigeons prosper in our cities. It likewise recommends Integrated Pest Management (IPM) as an effective technique of controlling the metropolitan pest populations around your house. All animals (including people) require food, shelter and water to make it through. Our cities supply these bare requirements, in addition to a couple of more helpful situations for synanthropes, as described below.

Few or No Predators.

Urban insects take pleasure in a big benefit over their country cousins: There are almost no predators in city environments. Peregrine falcons are among the few predators that in fact grow in cities; scientists think peregrine falcons end up being more nighttime in cities, where they use streetlights to stalk their victim.

youtube

One would think that humans could be considered major predators for these bugs, but some cities in fact prosecute killers of raccoons and other synanthropes for animal abuse. For example, last month a Toronto homeowner was arrested and charged with animal ruthlessness for hitting an infant raccoon in his garden with a shovel. (Pest control business can generally rid your home of metropolitan insects without you having to worry about being prosecuted for animal cruelty.) Even with shovel-wielding humans about, city insects can breed more freely than they would in the wild.

A lot of Food.

Your trash is a synanthrope's treasure. Although you may think Carrie Brownstein's performance on ""Portlandia"" makes her the queen of dumpster divers, urban pests have her beat. Much of them make it through on human refuse 365 days a year. Some metropolitan pests, such as pigeons, even receive handouts from humans. In general, urban pests don't have to work very difficult to have their food requirements met in big cities.

Insect control specialists who practice Integrated Pest Management understand how various bug species eat; they can use this understanding to help you get rid of pesky pigeons, rodents and insects.

Excellent Shelter.

Think your house is relaxing, comfy and lovely? Urban insects agree. Many synanthropes use buildings for shelter - some are even absolutely reliant on human building and construction for nesting grounds. Gulls see tall structures as cliff-sided islands. Pigeons can roost on narrow racks on the sides of buildings, or in storm drains. Home sparrows are specialists at developing homes under roof eaves. Human construction gives metropolitan bugs plenty of places to raise their young.

Integrated Bug Management experts comprehend pests' shelter needs; insect control company who use IPM practices can tell you how to modify your home to make it less appealing for nesting city pests.

Huge Brains.

Biologists have actually noticed that a number of the types that succeed in city environments have large brains. Bigger brains permit these animals to rapidly adjust to the situations they find in the city. Some homeowners even wonder if their anti-pest measures are triggering raccoons and other urban bugs to get smarter about things like how to get into trash cans. Numerous of these big-brained animals succeed in the city because they are generalists. Coyotes, for example, can make it through in a variety of environments since they are able to change their habits according to what they find in cities.

Insect control specialists ought to understand the pests they deal with from the within out. Your bug control service rep need to even be able to ""believe"" like a rat or a mouse, for instance, in order to find places where these rodents could enter your home.

Synanthropic Adjustments.

Some animals just got lucky in the evolutionary draw and naturally have attributes that prepare them for city life. For example, pigeons stem from the deserts of the Middle East. Their feet are perfectly adjusted for strolling on hot desert sand - and for walking hot city streets.

Other animals have actually altered their behavior to benefit from the city environment. For example, increasingly more Canadian geese are finding out that they conserve energy for reproducing by staying at golf courses and city parks year-round, instead of migrating with the seasons.

Upon very first seeing a raccoon or opossum in the city, one's response may be pleasure at having a wild animal in such close proximity. Nevertheless, it's best to rid your property of synanthropes, no matter how adorable they may at first appear. Urban bugs can carry nasty diseases like rabies or even the afflict. Furthermore, urban insects can trigger long-term damage to a home if they discover a way into your attic, crawl space or basement. Finally, some of these insects are so frustrating that it's nearly impossible to cope with them. (Bed bugs enter your mind).

If you see metropolitan pests around your house, it's best to seek help from an insect control business. Pest control service professionals can use an earth-friendly Integrated Insect Management technique to get rid of raccoons, sparrows, bed bugs and other city insects without using poisonous chemicals that might hurt your family or family pets."

#pest control #pest

0 notes

sethrcxo154-blog · 5 years

Text

Pest Control: 3 Common Ways Bed Bugs Can Gain Access Into Your Home and How To Prevent Them

"Everypest control company need to understand one unique word that completely explains city bugs: synanthrope. A synanthropic types is one that previously resided in a wild environment but now prospers in city areas. Unlike the vast bulk of animal species, synanthropic animals really gain from human-made environments.

The following is a look at why metropolitan insects such as raccoons, mice, rats and pigeons thrive in our cities. It also suggests Integrated Bug Management (IPM) as an efficient technique of controlling the urban bug populations around your home. All animals (consisting of human beings) require food, shelter and water to survive. Our cities offer these bare requirements, in addition to a few more useful circumstances for synanthropes, as described below.

Couple of or No Predators.

Urban insects delight in a big advantage over their country cousins: There are almost no predators in city environments. Peregrine falcons are among the couple of predators that really flourish in cities; scientists think peregrine falcons become more nocturnal in cities, where they use streetlights to stalk their victim.

One would believe that humans might be considered major predators for these pests, however some cities really prosecute killers of raccoons and other synanthropes for animal abuse. For instance, last month a Toronto citizen was arrested and charged with animal ruthlessness for hitting a baby raccoon in his backyard with a shovel. (Bug control business can usually rid your home of city insects without you having to worry about being prosecuted for animal ruthlessness.) Even with shovel-wielding human beings about, metropolitan bugs can reproduce more freely than they would in the wild.

Plenty of Food.

Your garbage is a synanthrope's treasure. Although you might think Carrie Brownstein's performance on ""Portlandia"" makes her the queen of dumpster divers, urban insects have her beat. Much of them survive on human refuse 365 days a year. Some metropolitan pests, such as pigeons, even receive handouts from human beings. In general, metropolitan pests do not need to work really difficult to have their food requirements fulfilled in huge cities.

Pest control specialists who practice Integrated Bug Management comprehend how different pest species consume; they can use this understanding to assist you eliminate pesky pigeons, rodents and bugs.

Exceptional Shelter.

Believe your home is comfortable, comfortable and lovely? Urban insects concur. Many synanthropes use buildings for shelter - some are even completely reliant on human building for nesting grounds. Gulls see high structures as cliff-sided islands. Pigeons can roost on narrow racks on the sides of structures, or in storm drains. Home sparrows are experts at developing homes under roof eaves. Human construction offers city insects lots of locations to raise their young.

Integrated Pest Management specialists comprehend insects' shelter needs; insect control provider who utilize IPM practices can tell you how to modify your home to make it less appealing for nesting city insects.

Huge Brains.

Biologists have actually seen that numerous of the types that succeed in city environments have big brains. Larger brains enable these animals to rapidly adapt to the circumstances they find in the city. Some property owners even wonder if their anti-pest procedures are causing raccoons and other city insects to get smarter about things like how to get into garbage cans. Much of these big-brained animals succeed in the city due to the fact that they are generalists. Coyotes, for example, can survive in a variety of environments because they are able to alter their habits according to what they find in cities.

Bug control professionals should understand the pests they handle from the within out. Your bug control service rep ought to even have the ability to ""believe"" like a rat or a mouse, for example, in order to identify places where these rodents could enter your house.

Synanthropic Adjustments.

Some animals just got lucky in the evolutionary draw and naturally have attributes that prepare them for city life. For example, pigeons originate from the deserts of the Middle East. Their feet are completely adapted for strolling on hot desert sand - and for strolling hot city streets.

Other animals have altered their behavior to take benefit of the metropolitan environment. For example, increasingly more Canadian geese are discovering that they save energy for breeding by staying at golf courses and city parks year-round, instead of migrating with the seasons.

Upon very first seeing a raccoon or opossum in the city, one's response may be delight at having a wild animal in such close distance. Nevertheless, it's finest to rid your residential or commercial property of synanthropes, no matter how cute they might initially seem. Urban bugs can bring nasty diseases like rabies or perhaps the pester. In addition, metropolitan insects can cause long-term damage to a home if they discover a way into your attic, crawl area or basement. Lastly, a few of these insects are so irritating that it's almost impossible to cope with them. (Bed bugs enter your mind).

If you see metropolitan bugs around your home, it's finest to seek aid from a pest control business. Insect control service experts can utilize an earth-friendly Integrated Pest Management approach to eliminate raccoons, sparrows, bed bugs and other urban pests without utilizing hazardous chemicals that might hurt your family or animals."

youtube

#pest control #pest

0 notes

coutelier · 7 years

Text

The Little Queen - Prologue, Part Two

Part two of the prologue as I’m rewriting my first novel. As I explained last time, this is the bit in which, toward the end, Jen’s dad basically just explains the main theme of the series, and other things that will be talked about and referred to later. This part is shorter than the first part as well. So here it is:

Prologue, Part Two

The children were guided out to a world more baffling than the underground one they’d left. There was a mad flurry of activity with white vans parked all along the road and around a nearby field, men and woman rushing to and fro shouting orders while the silver suits poured in and out of the tunnels, the entrance to which they had erected a plastic tent.

Jennifer couldn’t focus on anything being said, although she recognized the logo on the vans - Stag Corp. That was where her father worked. Even so, the noise, the strange people, the flashing lights… it spun and spun around her so she hung on tightly to Kaya’s hand, terrified that they would be separated.

Those fears did not come to pass. Instead they were shepherded into another tent where a woman who said she was a doctor asked them all sorts of questions and wanted to look at them. She seemed very concerned with the cut on Kaya’s palm then jabbed a needle into her and then Jen’s arm extracting a small amount of blood, congratulated them both for being brave and took the samples to some machine. At least it was a little quieter in here, and whatever was happening out there seemed far away.

“They give you a lollipop for that in school,” Kaya moaned as she rubbed her sore arm. “Freaking assholes.” Jennifer frowned. Kaya’s legs swayed slowly over the edge of the table they’d been seated on as she furtively averted her eyes. “Sorry,” she said.

Jen forgave her. Unfortunately there wasn’t much either of them could do for the time being but sit and fidget awkwardly. Jennifer guessed that by now her dad had been called and was on his way here, seeing as he worked for the company out there. She had a head full of questions about what she’d seen and why they were destroying it. She assumed there had to be a good reason since her father always told her how important it was to be a good person and wouldn’t be involved with anything bad. Of course he would have questions too about what she was doing and why she hadn’t come home at the time he told her she needed to, and she needed to figure out a way to frame it in such a way that she would be allowed out to explore in the future. Unfortunately she hadn’t finished working that out when he did arrive.

He rushed into the tent looking tired, scruffy, and a little damp. He told the doctor lady that he would look after them from here then, when she had left, he turned off the blood machine and removed one of the vials, slipping it in his pocket as he said to the girls, “It looks like neither of you has an infection, at least, but I was worried sick. You’re lucky your mother is away or the scolding we would both get, that we’ll probably still get…”

“I’m okay,” Jennifer assured him.

“Me too!” Kaya grinned.

Jonathan, Jen’s father, turned to face them, exhaling as if releasing all the worry and anger he’d been keeping inside all evening. “Well,” he said, “I suppose that is what matters. Come here.”

Jennifer hopped down and ran into his arms. Kaya didn’t join in the hug - just wrinkled her nose and looked away awkwardly.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Jonathan said. “But I might have to consider grounding you.”

Jen immediately pulled out of the hug and looked up at him aghast. She’d expected it, but it was still shocking to hear due to the unjust nature of it. He was the one who encouraged her to explore and investigate the world around her so in many ways this was his fault and if anyone he should be grounding himself. “You wouldn’t!” She gasped.

“I would,” he assured her, then sighed, “the real question is whether I could. Just please don’t scare me in future and don’t stay out after dark.”

Jennifer sagged as her indignation dissipated under her father’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said. Then she remembered her own questions. “But, why are all these people here? Why are they burning all the mushrooms?”

Jonathan squeezed his eyebrows together. It was clear he was thinking about whether he could or should explain. “What you saw down there,” he said slowly, “was something we developed in the lab that a fool let out some time ago. Don’t worry - it’s harmless. Except that if it’s just left to grow like that it will force all the other fungi and plants out of the area.”

“Who let it out?”

“It doesn’t matter now. They’re long gone. We’re safe now.”

That seemed to be a relief to him, but only left Jennifer more confused. What were they safe from? Was the glass spider from the lab as well? Why would anyone have done all this? But given that she had managed to avoid a severe telling off and still had to face her mother when she returned, Jen didn’t want to push any more. Her father had said they were safe, and she believed him.

Kaya yawned a little theatrically, obviously tired of being left out. “Mom says scientists shouldn’t screw around with nature,” she said. “She saw a documentary about modified food and she said we’re only eating natural stuff from now on.”

“Your moms an idiot,” Jen told her. “You know she wouldn’t be able to sit and watch TV all day if someone hadn’t figured out how to make all that work.”

Kaya didn’t rush to her mother’s defense, but Jonathan did say, “no - she’s right. Science is understanding nature and working with it. But Alvin, he thinks he can conquer it, control it, make it do what he wants. I told him it was too soon, but he…” he paused as if he just noticed the two girls blinking up at him. “I’m sorry - I was just rambling. Let’s get the two of you home.”

And so they all went back to Jen’s house where they had tea then played blackjack for a while. Every time Jen said ‘hit me’ she yelped as Kaya then did exactly that. It was a terrible joke but to Kaya at least it got funnier every time. Jennifer didn’t know that in casinos gamblers just used hand signals for exactly this reason - there was always a joker. So she just started saying ‘tickle me’ instead, and once that hilarity had ended, it was time for bed.

Jennifer found herself alone in the woods. The sky was Grey - she couldn’t tell if it was night or day. All she heard were whispers being carried by the wind, but knew not what they were saying. Just gargling voices that resembled speech but with no words, until from the chaos one formed:

A i r h a r t

Someone, somewhere, wanted her to follow, but she didn’t trust its chill and wanted to run. And so she did. She ran and she ran, the shadows trying to grab, but there was no end to the forest and eventually she could run no more, and then…

Her body jolted and she awoke in her room covered in goosebumps and short of breath. She knew it had to be her imagination, but why? Why did she keep having this dream? Now she was losing sleep because of it and that was annoying. It was like a part of her brain wanted something but instead of just saying what it was just kept sending cryptic clues and now she was exhausted and shivering and hadn’t the energy to negotiate with it.

Kaya was sleeping peacefully, which slightly annoyed Jennifer as well. But she slipped out of the room as quietly as she could. In the black hallway her heart jumped at every creak and shadow, but downstairs she knew was a place that was safe.

Her father was in the study poring over a monitor and notebooks when she arrived, weary and bleary eyed. “What’s wrong sweetie?” He asked. She didn’t answer. She just padded across the floor and onto his lap. “Bad dreams?” He guessed. Jen nodded. “There’s nothing to worry about. It was just a nightmare.”

Jennifer knew that. She wasn’t five anymore. It didn’t change how she felt or that the dream gave her goosebumps. Her father’s chair rotated side to side, gently rocking her. Eventually she felt secure enough to ask him, “what are you doing?” “It’s just work,” he said. “It’s not important. Not so important as you anyway.” She remembered the giant glowing mushrooms, the spider, and silver suits with flamethrowers, and that she’d never really got answer to why any of that had happened. “What is it you do there, at Stag Corp?” She asked.

He chuckled and asked rhetorically, “how to explain?” The chair spun round to his desk and on it was a wooden statuette of an owl with its wings spread that he picked up and handed her. “You see, long ago, people used to look at the birds in the sky and dream of what it would be life to fly up there with them. People couldn’t just grow wings, but eventually they learned how to rise above the earth in balloons, and then to glide and fly in planes and then in rocket-ships higher than any bird could ever reach. And that’s what we do - we take a dream and try to turn it into something real, or as close as we can get.”

Jennifer’s eyelids were getting heavy as she thought about the owl. She’d seen an owl catch a mouse once, gliding and descending silently through the air so neither she nor the mouse knew it was there until the very second it struck. It was an ethereal and hypnotic thing to behold, although she felt very bad for the mouse. She supposed that was its nightmare which came true. Jennifer yawned, resting her head on her dad’s shoulder. “Some dreams are scary,” she said.

“I know,” her father said, holding her close. He stared through the window, into the inky blackness beyond, and he shivered. He couldn’t take his eyes away even as he patted and kissed his sleeping daughter and held her tighter. “I know.”

#writing #writeblr #writblr #sci-fi & fantasy #the little queen

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stgeorgesmovielover-blog · 7 years

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Baby Driver

Director, Edgar Wright's, latest offering: Baby Driver, has raced into cinemas with the momentum of a race car driver- but is it actually any good? Firstly, Baby Driver feels like an amalgamation of many films: Drive, Heat, The Fast and the Furious, and even La La Land, but that is definitely no bad thing! With more brains than The Fast and the Furious franchise, more pace and action than Drive, and less musical cheese than La La Land- but still all the class of Heat, Edgar Wright has certainly created a blockbuster hit with Baby Driver. This is a film that sees a concerted shift in focus, bold confidence, and freedom within the filmmaker's journey and it signposts an exciting change in his career after the charming, but niche, likes of Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, and even Ant-Man. A rather simple, yet efficiently executed story, the film's titular and main character is, the mostly silent, Baby (Ansel Elgort), a young man that lives with his deaf foster parent, Joseph (C. J. Jones), and moonlights as a getaway driver for Doc (Kevin Spacey), a criminal mastermind, to whom he owes a considerable debt. To add to the story (and as an excuse for the banging soundtrack), Baby also suffers from a bad case of Tinnitus, which he manages to suppress thanks to his omnipresent earbuds and his impressive iPod collection; playing hits after hits that superbly, brilliantly and utterly set the pace and fuel the action for this flick! Indeed, this is one album you will want to buy immediately as the definitive soundtrack to your life (much in the same way as the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack stole the show for the 2014 blockbuster). But further on the music, later. Back to the action, boy oh boy, is there bags of it! Baby Driver is, after all, a heist thriller at its core and this plot formula is not only clever, but cleverly executed throughout. Doc designs heists to ultra, military-grade, precision and he never uses the same crew twice- though believes that Baby is his 'lucky charm'. Meanwhile, outside of the driver's seat, Baby meets and falls in love with doe-eyed diner waitress, Debora (Lily James), and the lovebirds decide to run away after Baby completes his 'one last job'- and thus completely pays off his debt to Doc. Sadly, however, the course of true love never did run smoothly, and it's not long before their plans are thrown into disarray when paranoia, distrust and macho posturing between two of Doc's regulars, Buddy (Jon Hamm), and Bats (Jamie Foxx), come to a head and things unravel into a deadly fight to double-cross each other, with Buddy squarely in the middle of the whole ordeal. Needless to say, there's a definite feel of Bonnie and Clyde, between our two lovebirds, Baby and Debora, who are forced to take matters into their own hands for a chance at the freedom they both crave so desperately. This is a tightly wound, fast-paced plot that works well with the talents of our cast, especially Elgort, himself, who plays Baby so effortlessly, that it's hard to ever imagine him having played another role- such as that of the dying teenager, Augustus (Gus) Waters in The Fault in Our Stars. He is every bit as cool and understated as his character and yet keeps the tempo moving, throughout the film with, oh so much, sincerity. Back to the music, though, Wright has well and truly woven a humdinger of well-curated tunes to set the ambience for his action, including such icons as: Queen, Barry White, and Blur, and other amazing artists such as: T.Rex, The Damned, Golden Earring, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Danger Mouse, Dave Burbeck and Young MC. At the very least, this soundtrack will have you toe-tapping your way through the action, if not completely (albeit, internally), rocking your way through the film and straight to your local music shop, or online retailer! Perhaps the greatest difference between Baby Driver and a film such as Drive, is that the latter takes itself far more seriously and is rooted, quite firmly, in the existential elements of the Film Noir genre, but Baby Driver is unafraid to be over-the-top, offbeat and even a little cartoony its style, and this works wonders for the film, ultimately bringing it a more rounded and (overall) entertaining feel. Now, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Drive, but I'd be lying if I said I thought it would beat Baby Driver for all-round entertainment, and that's even after my considerable love for Ryan Gosling! No, it's undeniable that Wright illustrates a clear skill for crime fiction storytelling- a skill we did touch upon in Hot Fuzz, though not as brilliantly executed (and not on such a grandiose scale) as Baby Driver. The 'cartoony' style works like a charm, especially when Wright shows off his alchemy and applies his magical touch to some epic chase scenes and in-camera car stunts that are not only jaw-dropping, but honestly make some of the stunts in other, heavily-CGI'd, car chase films look like child's play! Wright's is a surprisingly simple film executed with absolute craftsmanship and dexterity, which serves a much-needed respite from the other run-of-the-mill, overly bloated blockbusters that clog up and over-saturate the big screen, particularly during the Summer months. This is a superb film; sleek, action-packed, witty, impressive and bold and I'd be surprised if Baby Driver leaves anyone unimpressed as we roll on to the Summer big-hitters. Quite frankly- this is already the action flick to beat this year! Bring it on, Hollywood! 5/5

#Babydriver Movielover review moviereview

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