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nataliasquote · 3 months

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Tattoos for troubled minds | n romanoff

Summary: Natasha struggles to trust anyone when it comes to touching her body. But that becomes rather difficult when a tattoo idea comes into her mind that she just can’t shake

Warnings: mentions of scars, tattoo needles, slight internalised homophobia

wc: 3.6k

note: I don’t actually have tattoos (despite wanting one so badly) so this is probably really inaccurate. I do apologise if this doesn’t make sense. also, I hate this so much but the guilt of not posting is eating me alive so I’m sorry

-⧗-

Natasha was a quiet soul. She kept to herself, usually sitting at her own table in the Shield cafeteria, eyes focused on her plate of food as she ate quickly, just wanting to get out of there. None of the other agents dared make conversation with her, too spooked by her fighting skills to approach. But that didn’t bother her. Her hyper independence made her hesitant to trust people.

Clint was the only one she spoke to outside of working hours. They weren’t exactly friends, but she tolerated him enough to flash a small smile if she saw him in the hallways or feel slightly relaxed if they were paired for missions together.

And he liked her too, especially since her first words had been a jab at his choice of weapon.

“Bow and arrow? What did you do, get your training in a forest?”

But he didn’t take offense to it. After all, he’d made the call to save her and she owed him her life. Which is how, two years later, she was sprawled on his couch, chewing on take out pizza for the second time that week with a scowl.

“I think I want a tattoo.”

Clint frowned at her, wondering where her brain cells had disappeared to. “What?”

“You know, the permanent drawing-“

“Yes I know what a tattoo is Tasha,” he rolled his eyes at her teasing smirk, already over her sarcasm. “But you know it’s a bad idea for spies to have unique markings like that.”

Natasha shrugged, tugging up her sleeve to reveal a strange shaped scar across her bicep. “I’d say I’ve got enough of those naturally. And it would be hidden on my ribs or something.”

Clint just shook his head and turned back to his food. He was used to Natasha’s odd comments and her tattoo phase probably wouldn’t last in his eyes. Just like her ‘wanting to be blonde’ phase didn’t.

But it didn’t end. A month later and Natasha had fallen down the rabbit hole that was tattoo designs on pinterest, courtesy of a fellow agent who introduced her to the app. She didn’t understand it at first, but now it was 3am and her tablet screen was still glaring bright in her face, a plethora of images scattered across her screen.

She saved a couple to a board, now set on design and placement, before placing it to one side with a grin on her face. Natasha climbed out of bed and padded over to her mirror, pulling up her shirt and smiling softly to herself. But the dim lamplight made her scars glisten and she caught herself, a sudden feeling of repulsion shuddering through her body. She looked like a freak and no tattoo artist would want to go near that. Her scars weren’t normal and she wasn’t ready for the questions yet.

Tears glazed her eyes over and her arms snaked across her stomach, her reflection in the mirror now blurry. Even as the salty tears dripped down her cheeks and soaked the collar of her shirt, she didn’t step away, too engrossed with how disgusting she felt in her body.

That stubborn hope that the redroom failed to squash out had ignited inside her once more, except this time she just wanted to laugh at it. Natasha would never be normal. She was what they’d made her into, and a tattoo was never going to change that.

Clint noticed the change in her demeanor when she sat down at breakfast. Natasha barely engaged in her usual small talk, more focused on her food in front of her.

“Did you do anymore tattoo research yesterday?” He asked, knowing that would catch her attention. But instead of the usual spark, she remained dejected, stirring her yogurt half heartedly.

“Yeah,” came her response, albeit rather forced.

“There’s probably a lot of places in DC that would kill to tattoo a shield agent.” Nat shot him a look. “Just saying!”

“Sure. But I don’t think I can anymore.”

Clint looked at her with a frown. “Why not?”

Natasha just looked down and tugged at her sleeve, suddenly feeling exposed in her tight fitting suit. The image in the mirror from last night came into her mind and she pushed her food away, no longer hoodie. And beside that, she didn’t trust people she worked with, so how would she trust a complete stranger to add something permanent on her body? Getting a tattoo would be nothing but a dream for her, she knew that, but it still crushed her.

Clint studied his best friend for a moment in thought, before he placed his hand gently on her arm. “I might know someone who can help.” Natasha looked up, now interested. Her face was still stony but Clint knew she was excited. “A friend of Laura’s, we helped her out even before you came here.”

“An agent?” Clint hadn’t mentioned anyone like that before and it confused Natasha.

But Clint shook his head. “No, nothing like that. She came to Laura and I when she was a teenager and had nowhere else to go. And you know my wife-“

“Can’t let anyone suffer,” Natasha finished for him, warmth spreading in her stomach at the thought of the soft woman she’d grown to adore. Laura really did have the biggest heart out of everyone.

“Exactly that. Y/n was fourteen, I think, parents kicked her out of the house. How she got to ours, I’ll never know, but she just appeared on the doorstep one night and Laura melted at the sight of her.” Clint’s expression softened at the memory. “But anyway, what I’m saying is that she’s a tattoo artist. She’s got trust issues just like you and I think she’ll help.”

Natasha scowled at the last part, wanting to protest his comment. But she knew he was right; her trust issues were what got her into this mess in the first place.

“But she’s a kid?”

“No, almost the same age as you,” Clint said with a laugh. “You’ll like her, but she can be a little scary.”

“Scarier than me?”

Clint smirked. “Oh, you’d be surprised. That glare of hers rivals yours.” This vague description intrigued Natasha and Clint could see the cogs turning in her mind. “She knows what we do and she’s seen my scars. Trust me, they won’t put her off.”

Natasha’s head shot up, staring at her best friend with confusion. Was she that easy to read? Or did he just know her too well?

~~~

With the news of her favourite girls coming back home, Laura had been in a frenzy of cleaning and preparing. Clint had texted to say he was only minutes away so she left the dishes to soak and headed to the porch, anxiously staring at the track beside their house as she waited.

Anyone would have thought she was married to Natasha over Clint by the difference in reactions she gave them. Sure, Clint got a kiss and a hug, but Natasha truly got the special treatment, with Laura scanning her to make sure she wasn’t injured and quizzing her about how she was. Poor Clint was left to grab their bags as the women disappeared into the farmhouse.

Tea was poured and snacks were eaten in the cosy kitchen before the doorbell rang and Laura excused herself, leaving an anxious Natasha on her own for a moment. Muffled voices could be heard but she tried to go against her instincts of listening in and instead busied herself with a loose thread on the tablecloth. She heard footsteps approaching and turned in her chair, ignoring the way her heart thumped loudly in her chest.

The woman who walked in the kitchen doorway was stunning, Natasha couldn’t deny it, and her eyes darted to the patchwork of tattoos that littered her exposed arms. Their eyes met, and Natasha swore she could see the walls up in the other woman’s mind. But it didn’t scare her off. No. It brought her a weird sense of comfort and her body started to relax.

Clad in a black cropped tank and black cargo pants, Y/n hesitated in the doorway, duffle bag slung over her shoulder hitting the wall gently. Laura appeared behind her, gentle hands falling to her shoulders.

“Y/n, this is Natasha, the one I told you about.” The y/h/c girl made no effort to move. “She’s Clint’s partner.” Clearly not much of a talker, Y/n just nodded, not hiding the fact she was scanning Natasha from head to toe. She didn’t trust strangers, but she trusted Laura and Clint who seemed to love Natasha. So maybe she wasn’t a threat.

“Hi, you can call me Nat if you want.” No one called her Nat except Laura, but it was a feeble attempt to make the atmosphere more comfortable. Another nod came but Laura smiled.

“Do you want to go set up? All of your stuff is still exactly where you left it,” Laura addressed Y/n who adjusted the grip on her bag and disappeared down the hall without a word. Natasha’s eyebrows raised at Laura who watched her go, a fond look in her eyes. “She does speak, I promise.”

Natasha shook her head, brushing her off. “It’s fine, don’t worry. I can tell you care about her a lot.”

“She’s like a daughter to me, kind of like you are.” Natasha’s cheeks flushed at that. “She doesn’t have anyone except us, so I worry. She’s a real sweetheart though, she’s just been through a lot. Kind of like someone else I know.”

“I’ll be kind, don’t worry.”

Laura couldn’t help but smile as she stirred her tea. “Oh I know. She already likes you, you don’t need to worry about that.”

Natasha let out a sigh and started to play with the hem of her zip up jacket. It suddenly felt real, the whole tattoo thing. And whilst she weirdly trusted Y/n, it didn’t help ease her nerves any less.

The redhead sensed a new presence before she spotted her, standing in the doorway just like she was before.

“Ready when you are, Nat.” Her voice was slightly raspy from lack of use and she spoke quietly, almost as if she was scared she’d get into trouble. Natasha smiled softly at the sound of her nickname and squeezed Laura’s hand before she followed the y/h/c girl down the hallway of the house she considered her second home.

Clint’s office had been turned into a makeshift tattoo studio with all new equipment and furniture decorating the small space. The tattoo bed had a fresh paper layer on top and Y/n gestured for Natasha to take a seat.

“Ok, do you have an idea of what you want? And where?” Y/n sat down at a small table and picked up her pen before looking at Natasha expectantly.

“I’ve got a couple of reference pictures on my phone.” The small device was handed over and Y/n swiped between them, nodding in approval before setting it down. “The last one is just for placement ideas.”

“I’ll work up a sketch and you can tell me what needs changing.” Luckily Natasha’s design was incredibly simple and it didn’t take long for Y/n to hold up her page.

Natasha slid off the bed and slowly walked over, not wanting to startle the skittish girl. But Y/n just moved over, clearly welcoming the redhead into her space.

“I love that a lot,” Natasha praised, studying the simple lines. “But maybe it could be a bit smaller.”

“I can scale it down when I make the stencil, no problem. But is the design alright? Remember, it is permanent so I want you to be completely happy with it.”

Natasha studied it for a moment, a smile tugging at her lips as she imagined it on her body. Y/n had talent, anyone could see that even from such a simple drawing, and Natasha nodded before she slid the notebook back to her.

“I love it, I really do.”

Y/n nodded, grabbing her stencil paper from a drawer by her leg. She wordlessly began making the stencil and Natasha took this as her cue to return to her seat. She peered around the room, admiring a few pictures that were on the walls. Incredibly complicated tattoos which she guessed Y/n had done.

The young girl sketching away in the corner thoroughly interested her and something inside Natasha was drawn in. She wanted to get to know her because aside from the shy and hesitant exterior she was effortlessly cool and seemed sweet. Maybe Y/n could be the start of Natasha’s project to make friends.

“If you lie back on the seat and lift your shirt, we can make sure this is exactly how you want it before I start.”

Natasha took a deep breath and slowly lifted her shirt and lowered the waistband of her sweatpants so her hip bone was exposed. She shivered despite the room being warm, fully aware that her nastiest scar was on full display on her lower stomach.

But Y/n didn’t care. Or at least she didn’t make it obvious if it bothered her. “Is it ok if I touch your hip?” She asked, looking Natasha straight in the eyes. The redhead almost melted at her words, not used to ever being asked that question.

“Of course, do what you need.” Y/n’s fingers were soft and delicate as she placed the stencil on Natasha’s skin. She didn’t touch anywhere she didn’t need to and worked quickly, making sure it was fully stuck down before stepping back to allow Natasha to step over to the mirror.

Although it wasn’t permanent, Natasha’s heart was racing as she saw the way the black ink stood out against her pale skin. The symbol was small but perfect in her eyes, and she turned back to Y/n with a grin.

“It’s perfect!”

“Then I’ll get started.”

Due to the design being so small, it took no more than fifteen minutes for Y/n to complete. Her hand was incredibly steady and Natasha’s pain tolerance was so high she barely felt it. The room was silent aside from the faint buzzing, no conversation stemming from either woman. Questions spiralled around Natasha’s head but she knew this wasn’t the place to ask them.

Completely lost in her head, Natasha failed to notice the silence or the fact that her hip bone was no longer burning. Y/n kept working, wiping away the excess ink and making sure she hadn’t missed a spot. But it was perfect, as usual, and she gently tapped Nat on the thigh to snap her out of her head.

“You’re now free to look.”

Natasha grinned and hopped off the bed, holding up her shirt again as she looked in the mirror. Tears almost sprung to her eyes as she admired the finished product, and they probably would have tumbled down her cheeks if she had been alone.

A small spider sat on the front of her hip, legs slightly bent. It looked so delicate on her skin and for the first time in her entire life, Natasha actually liked looking at herself in the mirror.

“It’s so beautiful,” she began to ramble, unable to tear her eyes away. “You’ve got real talent Y/n, I can’t thank you enough. It’s so perfect.”

Y/n blushed and couldn’t stop the smile that graced her lips, catching Natasha’s eyes in the mirror and making the redhead freeze.

Her smile.

The young woman hadn’t smiled the entire time she’d arrived, but seeing her now was like a breath of fresh air. Smiling looked so good on her and Natash couldn’t get enough.

“If you want to show Laura, you can, but you’ll need to come back so I can wrap it safely.” Natasha glanced at her new addition and nodded, but hesitated once she was by the door.

“I think you should come too. The artist and her artwork.” Natasha spoke with a smirk and Y/n couldn’t ever imagine saying no to that woman. So she nodded again, her usual response, and meekly followed her back down the hall, pulling off her gloves as she walked.

Laura was already waiting for them in the kitchen and she placed her reading glasses in her hair to get a good look at Natasha who still hadn’t dropped her shirt down. She’d never seen the Russian with such a wide grin before, her usual collected expression completely out of the window.

“It looks beautiful, Nat, truly. You did such a good job Y/n.”

“You never told me how talented she is!” Natasha stepped to the side to allow Y/n to come forward, but the humble woman stayed where she was, already hating the attention. She didn’t see her art as talent, more like a form of escapism. But it made people happy and that was all she wanted.

“I wanted you to see for yourself,” Laura replied. “And besides, she never believes me when I tell her how good she is.”

“You’re really easy to tattoo. You don’t squirm or cry like other people do, so really I should be thanking you.” Laura was taken aback by Y/n’s comment, not used to more than three words coming out of the girl’s mouth. But the more she observed her, the more she saw her change. The darkness she’d noticed since Y/n was a teenager had lifted a little and she seemed a lot less guarded, looking over at Natasha with a soft expression.

And Natasha looked back at her just the same, purely in awe of how gentle she was. As Y/n gestured for them to return to the office and offered to hold Nat’s shirt, Laura felt like squealing like a child.

Two of her favourite people in the world had found each other and, despite both being so broken and fragile, fit together so perfectly it was like they were made for each other.

Natasha was strong enough and sure of herself enough for the both of them, and Y/n treated her with such delicacy and care that it slowly broke away Natasha’s trust issues and allowed her to open up. And Natasha’s protective nature came out around the other woman, wanting to keep her safe from the world.

With a quick word about going to show Clint, Natasha disappeared into the front yard with her newly wrapped hip, leaving Y/n to find Laura again. The older woman welcomed her with a hug and pulled a chair close to her own.

“You like her, don’t you?”

Y/n kept her gaze on the crossword Laura was doing, not wanting her eyes to give her away if she looked up. “She’s nice.”

“Hey,” Laura said softly, carefully taking Y/n’s hand in her own. She didn’t miss the way she flinched but unfortunately she was used to that by now. “You’re not back there. You’re allowed to like her if that’s what you want and feel. She’s a good person, but so are you, you don’t need to be scared.”

Y/n’s eyes followed where their hands were clasped up to Laura’s face, trying to find any hints that showed she was lying. But all that came back was the soft and caring face she’d grown to love, one that didn’t lie to her and didn’t hate her for who she was.

“I don’t like her like that.” Call her a hypocrite for lying, but Y/n had her reasons. Loving a woman was still unnatural in her eyes, despite her contrasting feelings that longed for it.

“Y/n…” Laura’s ‘mom’ tone was one she was used to and she knew she was caught out. “I’m not asking you to tell me now, but you deserve happiness, as does she. And I haven’t seen either of you that relaxed in a really long time. So please don’t push her away.”

Y/n didn’t know what to think. How could she? Her whole life had centred around hating who she was, so how could anyone ever like her like that? It messed with her head and Laura could see that.

But what was Natasha if not a life saver. She came strolling into the kitchen, her tshirt now tucked up into the band of her sports bra to allow her tattoo to be on full display. Y/n smiled slightly at the sight.

Sinking down into the chair beside her, Natasha noticed the clasped hands of the women and wondered what she’d interrupted. But that wasn’t her place to ask, so she turned to Y/n.

“How can I pay you? How much do you charge?”

Y/n shook her head frantically, pulling her hand away from Laura. “Nothing, honestly. You’re a friend, it’s no big deal.”

“Absolutely not. If you won’t take money, at least let me repay you another way.”

“Nat-“

“Dinner? How about you let me take you to dinner next week. You’re from the city, right?” Y/n nodded, her brows creasing. She turned to Laura for help but the older woman just smiled widely and nodded, giving her as much non verbal encouragement as she could. “Please, Y/n?”

She’d said yes before she could even process what was going on. After all, they were just friends going to dinner. People in the movies that she’d seen did it, so she could too.

What was so wrong with that?

#natasha romanoff #fanfic #marvel #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x female reader #natasha romanoff fluff #tattoos #clint barton

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mareastrorum · 23 days

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These are just initial thoughts, and perhaps I’ll learn something that changes my mind on it, but I’m glad to see Critical Role making the leap to their own subscription service with Beacon.

As a lead in: I’m an attorney that has some background in IP law, though it isn’t what I practice currently. I’ve kept in contact with several active practitioners, particularly those that represent small-time creators either in their own independent practice or via nonprofits. I do not have an extensive Rolodex of IP peers, nor do I spend the money to keep up on IP CLEs. I’m just someone who used to know a ton because I did heavy research and work in that space, and that hasn’t been the case for years.

So here’s my thoughts a bit on the IP angle:

The primary reason I’m happy to see this leap is that CR is taking active steps to keep control over its IP. It’s a boring thing to most people, but when I start paying attention to a specific creator (authors, directors, companies, etc.), I tend to be very attentive to how they use their IP. How freely do they license their marks to partner with other creators to make merch? How often do they allow others to make adaptations or derivatives of their copyrights? What is the quality of those products? What is the supply chain like? Are those third parties objectionable in some way? Were the other parties faithful to the original works or marks? Was this a cash grab or an earnest effort to make something worth the price tag?

Honestly, I like how CR run their business. They have a history of tapping fans and fellow small businesses when making new merch or spinoffs. They embrace the culture of fan-made derivative works, both by featuring fanart/cosplay and by sharing their success. Do you know how rare it is for a company to pay fan artists for their already-made and freely posted work and then sell books of it? Let me be clear: CR bought a limited license from each artist so they could print and sell each work in a physical book, then paid the cost of publishing that book with no guarantee that CR would make that money back, let alone profit. I have a copy of the collector’s edition art books: they’re actually very well made and the packaging definitely cost a pretty penny. That’s not a rainmaker idea, that’s genuinely risking financial loss to sell something people could access for free if they wanted to.

The art books aren’t a one-off either. Darrington Press is CR’s separate LLC for tabletop games. (It’s good business practice to split off companies that handle products in different industries.) CR has also made shows based on those games, and the Candela Obscura series has quite a dedicated audience. Everything about Candela belongs to them: the game itself, the rule book, all the art in the book, the web series based on the game, and merch. It’s so successful that they invested in scheduling a live show for Candela later this month. That’s HUGE.

Contrast that with the distribution of Campaign 1 and the first 19 episodes of Campaign 2. CR cannot host those videos themselves; Geek & Sundry still exists and still holds what I presume to be distribution rights (but I don’t have the contract to review). So G&S gets to host those videos on YouTube and reaps the advertising. I can’t speak to whatever share CR gets from that, but considering that CR is locked out of hosting their own copies of those videos, I doubt it’s much, if any, revenue. (If you’re wondering why CR just didn’t buy those rights back, I ask: what incentive does G&S have to sell something that’s making them money for no cost?)

Knowing that background about G&S, I was wary of CR choosing Amazon to host and distribute The Legend of Vox Machina. Originally, TLOVM was not the plan; CR had a kickstarter for an animated special based on C1. It was only because they blew past the goal that CR was able to make an entire season. The reasonable assumption is that choosing Amazon had to have secured CR additional funding for future seasons of the show, which seems evident from how quickly season 2 was announced, Mighty Nein Animated is also going to be a thing, and that season 3 of TLVOM is scheduled for fall 2024. CR had the option of just doing 1 season and keeping it purely in their control, but going with Amazon meant they could animate more of their works. Animation is expensive. I cannot stress enough how doubtful I am that CR would have been able to afford this many episodes and both campaigns if they had not gone this route. As wary as I was in the start, it paid off, and it’s going well—so far. Hopefully CR doesn’t regret that decision if Amazon tries something sleazy. But, as before, we don’t have the contracts and can’t know how secure CR’s position is if any dispute came up.

CR also partnered with Dark Horse Comics to make Vox Machina comics and Might Nein Origins comics. What’s especially surprising is that each of the cast had a hand in writing the MNO comics for their characters, with Matt listed for multiple. That isn’t very common with comic adaptations. Often times, IP owners let comic companies go ham with minimal oversight. Being listed as one of the authors comes with IP rights that have to be negotiated. That means that Dark Horse had to talk with CR about whether that warrants more or less revenue going to which party in exchange for that—or, alternatively, whether the comic gets made at all. That’s a ballsy move. You think people can just demand to write the comics that a publishing company is going to pay to print? Pffft. CR wanted some creative control, and that is a big ask. However, Dark Horse still has the distribution rights, both digitally and for physical copies. You couldn’t buy the comics from CR until they came out with the library edition, a book bound compilation of 4/8 comics. But the publisher is still Dark Horse; CR is just allowed to sell the book directly from their own site as well.

Contrast that with the novels about CR characters. CR partnered with Penguin Random House to publish novels about Vex and Vax (Kith & Kin), Lucien (The Nine Eyes of Lucien), and Laudna (What Doesn’t Break). Liam and Laura were vocal about having some say in K&K, whereas Madeline Roux said in an interview that she had full control over TNEOL. Both of those novels were narrated with CR voices, but narrating a book doesn’t come with IP rights, it just brings in a paycheck. There’s a lot less IP control in there compared to the comics, but this isn’t abnormal for book publishing. To be blunt, I doubt PRH would have agreed to publish the novels if anyone from CR had been a co-author or had heavy oversight over the author or the editing. I don’t think PRH even considered that as an option. Either an author that has already managed to sell X number of copies or nothing. Creative control over a book a huge ask, asks come with reduced revenue, and switching to books from a web series is already a leap. The fact that Laura and Liam had any say is surprising, really.

That was a long meandering tour of what we’ve seen CR do with its IP. The reason I bring up each of these things is that navigating the way to protect an IP in this space is rife with challenges. Different types of IP warrant different strategies because of the cost involved in creating each medium and the challenges placed by industries that have already sprung up around them. Any time that a third party is tapped to create an IP, it’s usually because they already have the funds and resources to create the work, and CR has to negotiate for revenue, creative control, distribution, and—the big one—who gets to be the owner. These are not easy, quick, or fun conversations, and CR is always going to be the smaller company at the table.

Knowing that, I’m not surprised or worried that CR is creating its own independent subscription service with Beacon. It tells me that they’re being careful with their IP whenever they can. A subscription service means they don’t have to trade away distribution rights or give up ad revenue to a third party. They’re in this for a long term investment, and that requires solid income not tied to third parties that can definitely outspend them in litigation in the event of a dispute. A subscription for bonus content is one of many parts in a diverse revenue stream.

(All that said, this isn’t meant to criticize creators that cant afford to do this type of thing. It took 9 years for CR to get to the point where Beacon is financially feasible and a desirable business decision. They have enough ongoing, popular content to warrant paying for a subscription, and they’ve built sufficient trust with their audience that more will be added. That takes time and an awful lot of money.)

As a final note, I take this step as a sign that CR definitely intends to stick around. This isn’t a move people make when they plan on ending the business after the current campaign. I’m glad to see CR is taking steps to secure their foundation and keep making new content.

I’m sure people will chime in on other issues (cost, content exclusivity, etc.), but I hope my perspective gives an idea of why this sort of thing is good for business generally and why it would be good for CR.

#critical role #beacon.tv #don’t trust me I’m a lawyer #I’m not your lawyer #I’m not CR’s lawyer #none of you paid me for shit #I do what I want

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hauntedestheart · 3 months

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Security Footage - Body Swaps (Part 1)

One of Trevor & Andy’s misadventures, a more detailed account of the sort described in Security Measures - Body Swaps

While the university claimed it was supportive of its professors doing independent research and experimentation, Professor Bernard Smith of the Humanities department suspected that "using ancient magics to take the form of one of his students" was a proposal that likely wouldn't make it past the review committee, so he kept his activities on that project private.

He thought of the past twenty years he'd given to academia and heaved a melancholy sigh- society didn’t really put much consideration to how emotionally taxing it was to be a college professor. Every day, year after year, he stood at the front of a classroom and looked out upon a sea of smiling youths hopeful for a bright future that he had already resigned himself against; he aged, but his classes never did. Every rakish young man was a reminder of who he’d never be, and beautiful young woman was a reminder of what he would never have.

After all, the clock only moved one way.

Or, he glanced down at the ritual items he'd assembled before him. Maybe there's a miracle waiting for me.

He lit a candle and the changes began.

🔀

Once it became clear that Andy's… situation wasn't going away, moving in together had just made sense, but in the back of Trevor's mind he had been worried about it. Old habits are hard to unlearn and he hadn't yet shaken the niggling doubt that if they spent too much together and the novelty of the relationship wore off, Andy would realize that he could probably find someone better and leave Trevor hanging for a second time.

Reality was much kinder though, and living together actually brought the two boys closer than ever. Between school, attempts at a social life, and their constant misadventures, their small apartment became a sanctuary where it could be just them and no one else.

Trevor grabbed his bowl of tortilla chips and made his way from the kitchen to the living room, where Andy was sprawled out on the couch clicking through options on the television. Andy gave a little wolf whistle at the sight of his boyfriend bending over to put the bowl on the table, which made Trevor roll his eyes, and he picked up a chip from the bowl and flicked it towards Andy's face.

The throw fell short and bounced off of Andy's chin, dropping down and settling atop the boy's pronounced bosom; he plucked it up and tossed it in the air. Trevor watched with mild bemusement as Andy actually caught it with his mouth then squinted his eyes shut while he chewed, scrunching his forehead up as if he were deep in thought.

"Mmm, I'm detecting notes of salt… a hint of corn… is this gourmet? It must be," Andy smirked up at Trevor then leaned forwards and grabbed another chip, popping it into his mouth with a crunch. "This is why I got man who can cook. I would starve without you."

He threw Trevor a wink and a smile, which Trevor responded to with an eye-roll and a smile of his own. Andy scooted back on the sofa and spread his legs, patting at the empty space in front of him, and Trevor slipped in to claim his spot; the larger boy wrapped his arm around the smaller boy's midsection and placed an absent kiss on his head before returning his attention to the tv.

"Is this what you picked for tonight?" Trevor asked, referring to the film queued up on the screen- some sort of anime movie he didn't recognize but vaguely recalled Andy mentioning before. He tilted his head up so he could see Andy's face above him. "Have you seen it before?"

"I have, but I want you to see it too," Andy smiled down at his boyfriend before giving a mischievious chuckle. "It's awful, you're gonna love it."

Watching bad movies had become something of a "thing" for the two boys as Andy (for some reason) thought Trevor's dry observations were hilarious, and if Andy was introducing the movie as awful, Trevor knew he was in for a good time.

As Andy clicked play, Trevor snuggled in closer to him and gave a contented sigh. His muscular boyfriend boy liked to joke that he worked out so much so he could give better hugs, and when those strong arms were wrapped around him, Trevor could believe it. Being with Andy had made him appreciate being on the smaller side for a guy because it meant they fit together perfectly, and Andy's broad physique made for an incredible pillow.

He leaned back and rested his head on Andy's firm pecs, relaxing as he felt the young man's belly pushing outwards against his back while they- wait.

Trevor bolted upright and looked over his shoulder to confirm his suspicions- Andy's body was changing, and from the expression of shock on his face, he was well aware of it. Surprised, Trevor slipped off the couch and fell onto his ass, and his new vantage point on the floor let him see that his boyfriend's toned muscles going saggy beneath his clothes. The transformation made it appear almost as if he were melting, and the sight of it made Trevor so queasy he had to look away.

"FUCK!" Andy exclaimed, staring down helplessly at his hands as his skin bubbled and his flesh grew softer. He hurled himself off of the couch and bolted out of the room, the slam of a door echoing down the hall a moment later.

Well, Trevor thought to himself. There goes our weekend.

🔀

Unbeknownst to the couple, in a house across town, a lonely old college professor was having a significantly nicer evening. The Egyptian ritual he had uncovered had gone off without a hitch and now, everything that Andy had lost belonged to him.

"Well, I'm definitely getting tenure after this!" Bernard announced to no one in particular. He'd just made a major breakthrough in his field by proving that magic was real, and the proof was staring back at him from the mirror!

He leaned in closer to the glass and stared into his new eyes, tilting his face back and forth to admire the enviable visage he'd stolen from one of his students. A smile, which made him look rather dashing, appeared.

Andy Douglass from his Intro to World Religions class was far from the first jock to pass through his classroom, but there was just something about the boy that had caught his eye. He was an okay student, often late with his assignments but otherwise unremarkable, but his appearance made him hard to overlook- the tallest boy in the class, magazine-worthy looks, and a sculpted body so good it was actually a distraction to the other students.

Professor Smith couldn't miss the way every girl in the class spent more time looking at Andy than at the whiteboard, even going so far as to arrive at class half an hour early just to stake out the seats closest to where he usually sat so they could ogle the way his biceps flexed whenever he raised his hand. But whenever the young women tried to chat him up after class, the stud never seemed interested in them. The professor thought he was an idiot for it- beautiful females were throwing themselves at him and he wasn't taking what was offered? The young fool clearly didn't appreciate what he had.

After a few weeks of classes the professor had begun to fantasize about what it would be like to be the one in Andy's shoes, to be the hot young stud who had his pick of all the girls in the school. If that were his muscular body he would use it right and plow through as many women as he could find!

So when he'd stumbled across a spell to "take the form of another" in one of the hieroglyphic scrolls he'd been translating, there had been no question about who he would use it on.

Words could not describe how incredible it had felt as the spell took effect and the years shed off of him, his body shifting until all traces of his old visage were gone and he stood there in the form of the student he'd so envied. The professor quickly divested himself of his clothes so he could perform a thorough examination of his new body to gauge the effects of the ritual- as a staunchly heterosexual man it was a bit strange for him to be studying another man's body so intimately, but since it was his now he relished the opportunity.

It was a literal weight off of his shoulders as his belly melted away into nothing and for the first time in decades he had a flat stomach- more than flat, it was cobbled through with abs. He could touch his abs now, and he couldn't bring himself to stop rubbing at them just to feel the rock hard ridges beneath his fingers. In his old body these muscles would be shriveled up from years of disuse and buried behind layers of fat but now they were fully on display, and they looked damn fine! This was actual six pack, the kind that came from countless hour of crunches and other such exercises that Bernard knew nothing about.

His entire body was now threaded through with muscle and he had no idea where any of it came from but he was grateful for it and he intended to have a lot of fun with it. Broad, well developed shoulders slithering down to powerful arms that hung down on either side of a set of hefty pecs that look like they belong on a Greek statue- and he felt as good as he looked! Everything about his new body was so tight and compact, built out of trained muscles that stood up proudly rather than weak flesh that surrendered to gravity.

Experimentally, he dropped to the floor and began doing push ups- he hadn't even thought of the exercise since his days in high school physical education class, but he was filled with a burning need to test out his new muscles. Back in his old body he’d usually collapse after one or two and then need an aspirin, but as he pumped up and down with his strong arms he felt like he’d never have to stop. Liquid gold was flowing through his veins!

Over and over again he sank so close to the floor that his chest almost touched the boards, but something else always touched down first- the pièce de résistance of his new body, Andy's penis. Given the unfortunate size of the cock Bernard had been born with he'd been certain that it would be an improvement no matter what his student was packing, but this was beyond his wildest dreams. Even soft it was a behemoth, and the heavy balls that accompanied it were equally impressive. He'd certainly made the right choice when picking a new body!

Grinning, he hopped back up to his feet, appreciating the simple joy of being able to stand without his joints protesting. The years had not been exceptionally kind to him but even in his youth he’d been something of a weakling, so being a strapping young lad was a novelty to him. One he intended to make the most of...

There were so many possibilities! His mind raced but ultimately he came to the conclusion that there were really only two things he really wanted: to drink and to fuck.

In his real body he got drunk often (partially due to the sting a lifetime of missed avenues and wrong choices, mostly due to boredom) but there was a difference between drinking alone and at a party... and as for the sex? Bernard turned his attention down again, admiring the young man’s enormous cock. He couldn’t imagine what lovemaking would be like with such an impressive tool at his disposal!

Tilting his face side to side he admired how handsome Andy was. With that strong jaw, those deep brown eyes, the manly stubble, he’d certainly have no trouble landing a pretty young thing! And a head full of hair too! He ran his hands through his hair, a bit surprised by its unfamiliar, wooly texture, but he wasn't going to complain because he was just thrilled to have anything on his head.

"Hello there ladies," he tested out his new voice, which was so deep and rich compared to his old one. If he'd taught classes with a voice like this, maybe students would have listened more! He leaned in to the mirror, letting him stretch his new wingspan, and imagined that he was talking to a group of admirers. "I don't suppose any of you pretty young things would be interested in showing an old man a good time?"

"No? Well how about a young stud like me instead?" he said cockily, making his bicep bounce a few times, and he pictured a classroom full of girls swooning. "Ladies, please, don't fight! There's enough of me to go around." He winked then reached down and took his new cock into his hand, wagging it around so its huge (even when soft) length danced, and he felt his balls tingle. "More than enough for all of you."

His mind drifted back to his ex-wife, who had left him after ten years of marriage because she "wasn't attracted to him anymore" and he cackled with delight when he looked at the young stud in the mirror. He'd like to see her try to say that now! But he wouldn't give an old broad like that the time of day anymore, no, he was more interested in girls "his own age," and on a Friday night he knew there would be plenty of them out there waiting for him.

Satisfied with his examination of his new body, Bernard hastened to get dressed so he could head out for a night on the town. He could work out the realities of his situation tomorrow- tonight he was going to have some well deserved fun.

None of his boring old clothes would fit a body like this so he'd thought ahead and picked out a new outfit to match his new body- something classy, unlike the baggy dreck that the youth of today wore. He slipped into a button up shirt, purposefully leaving it unbuttoned halfway down his chest to allow a tantalizing peek at his new torso, and he dabbed a bit of cologne on his wrists for good measure. The pants were a bit tighter than expected and he had to shimmy his hips to squeeze himself inside and leave the belt fairly loose, and when he looked in the mirror he realized why.

"Oh dear god..." he whispered, turning himself to the right and left to get a view of how his new butt strained at the back of his pants. He'd had to guess at the boy's measurements and he'd severely underestimated the size of Andy's posterior. Bernard never understood the fascination that young men these days seemed to have with their posteriors- what on Earth would any man need with such a giant backside?

But when he turned back around and saw the bulge in the front of his pants, the only thing he could think about was stepping out the door and finding someone to use it on.

"Get ready world," he boldly declared. "There's a new big man on campus."

#male body swap #Series: Security #This was not supposed to be two parts but I can't shut up so I had to split it up :\

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kywaslost · 9 months

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Good day! Could you make a Ciel x reader where the Ciel has a crush on the reader who is Lizzy’s sister (for the sake lest say Lizzy and Ciel ended to engagement) the thing is the reader is the only one in the Midford family to have dark hair (from a grandparent) and she gets very insecure about it, feeling like a black sheep in her family. Lizzy and everyone is very kind to her it’s just she constantly feels left out because she has a very different personality compared to her sister and brother. She feels very out of place during photo’s with her family. And especially during parties when people talk about her either being adopted or the cause of her mother being unfaithful. She just is naturally much more moody, and she doesn’t have as many friends unlike Lizzy because she just brings the mood down.

Sorry if it’s a lot, have a good day!

Odd One Out - Ciel Phantomhive

A/N: I decided to post this one a day early! I only have one class today and have a lot of free time at the moment. So sorry this took so long!

Not gonna lie, I had to do some research for this one. I’m a sucker for genetics, and so I got super excited for this one. Blonde hair is an autosomal recessive trait, meaning both parents have to be blond. Since both Midford parents are blonde, all of their children have to be blonde, that’s how I learned it. But I did some research to see if there’s mutations or something that can cause dark hair in children born from two blondes. I’ll try my best to simplify what I’ve found.

Melanin is a polymer, and it is most often known as the polymer that gives skin, hair, and eyes its color. By what I can understand, there are two types of melanin: eumelanin and pheomelanin. Lots of eumelanin produces black or brown hair, whereas pheomelanin produces red hair. Blonde hair is produced by very little eumelanin. Melanocortin 1 Receptor (MC1R) is responsible for determining hair color. Mutations in the MC1R gene can cause red or auburn hair.

For the sake of this fanfic, let’s just say there’s a mutation in the reader’s production of eumelanin cause I can’t find any way for two blonds to produce a dark-haired kiddo. And yes, I know this is a fanfic but listen people my love for science is strong so fiction or not I’m gonna make my details as accurate as possible. Anyway, hope you enjoy, and here are my sources <3

You were the black sheep of the family in every way possible. Literal or not, others found great joy in pointing out every difference between you and your siblings, especially when it comes to your appearance. It’s difficult to explain to others why you bear little resemblance to your family. Sure, you had your mother’s build and your father’s eyes, but that was as far as it went. You didn’t have the same hair color as your parents and siblings.

It’s common knowledge that two blonde parents bear a blonde child, yet you had dark auburn hair. After years and years of torment and rumors of your mother being unfaithful, or that you were adopted, you began researching why you were the way you were. There wasn’t much out there, but you did discover that you had some type of genetic mutation dealing with hair color. That’s why it was so difficult to explain to others why your hair was so different from your family’s, they didn’t have the same extent of knowledge as you did.

It didn’t help that you were also extremely different personality wise. Your sister Lizzy was very outgoing and extroverted, never hesitating to host parties or to meet new people. Your brother Edward, on the other hand, was very stoic and serious. He didn’t tolerate much of anything, and was very protective over you and your sister. But you weren’t much like your siblings. You often kept to yourself, only spoke when spoken to, and were generally just very independent. Growing up, the only real friends you had were your siblings, and your twin cousins.

Now that you’re older, you are even more independent. You spent less and less time with your family, often opting to stay in your room or going off on your own into the city. Your family constantly tried to get you to go to events with them, such as going to balls, parties, and even things as simple as family outings, but you couldn’t help but feel out of place. People constantly stared at you, and you couldn’t help but notice their hushed whispers as you walked by with your family.

You were grateful that your family didn’t see you the same way the rest of the world did. Your parents treated you no differently than your sister and brother. If anything, they tried their hardest with you to try and make you feel more comfortable and confident in yourself. Lizzy constantly wanted to be with you, doing your hair and makeup to spend some quality time with you. She took you dress shopping, and tried to cheer you up in that sort of way.

Because of your discomfort around your family, you often spent a lot of time with your cousin Ciel. His servants never treated you any differently than they did the rest of your family, and the boy’s Estate overall felt like a safe place for you. Ciel was always willing to let you vent to him, whether it be about how people had been treating you or how you were thinking of yourself, he always had advice to offer.

What he never would confess, however, was his feelings for you. His engagement with Lizzy ended just over a year ago, and it was all because he realized he had feelings for you instead. Watching you change throughout the years broke his heart, how you became more independent and less willing to socialize and go out.

You were staying a few nights at the manor to spend some time with Ciel. You had been having a particularly hard time, and you thought it best to spend some time with the boy. He greeted you with open arms, and immediately ordered Sebastian to prepare your favorite meal for dinner. You fell into your cousin’s arms, tearing up as he held you tightly.

“May I ask what brings you here?” CIel asks calmly as he hugs you. He can feel your tears soaking into his shirt and he becomes even more worried.

You sniffed as you pulled away from Ciel, wiping at your eyes. “I’m sorry, it’s just been a really long week.”

Ciel frowned, gently taking your arm and leading you inside. “Come, tell me about it.” You were led inside the Estate and to the sofa beside the fireplace. Ciel draped a light blanket over your shoulders as he sat beside you. Taking your hand in his, his blue eye met your E/C ones. “What happened?”

You began to cry harder as you recalled the events of the past week. Ciel listened as you told him about the hushed whispers and not-so-hidden stares followed your every move at a ball you attended with your family. Then how you stepped out of your comfort zone to speak to girls your own age at said ball, and how they giggled to each other as they ignored you and walked away.

Ciel wrapped you tightly in a hug, pulling you so your legs are draped over his lap and your face is buried in his shoulder. “Look at this,” you sniffle, reaching for your bag at the end of the couch. Ciel released you from his arms as you dug through your bag, pulling out a photo. You replaced yourself on CIel’s lap, handing him the photo. His warm hands brushed against your own as he took the image.

“This is a lovely photo,” he smiled softly. It was a printed image of the most recent family photo taken three days ago. Your father held your mother’s waist, Edward on his other side and Lizzy standing beside your mom. You were beside your sister. Ciel was right, it was a lovely photo. But the longer he looked at it, he noticed everyone’s bright smiles, and then you. It looked as if you were near tears, barely able to hold your smile long enough to take the photo.

“Honey,” Ciel coos quietly. This was very uncharacteristic of the Earl. He never showed this much empathy and emotion towards someone before.

“I hate this photo,” you cried as you rested your head on his shoulder once again.

“Why?”

“I look so out of place!” You pointed to yourself in the picture. “I hate that I was born this way! Why did I have to have this mutation?”

Ciel set the picture aside, wrapping you in his arms again and running a hand down your back. “I think you’re beautiful,” his voice was soft as he whispered in your ear. “Genetic mutation or not, I love the way you look, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.” CIel continued to hold you until you fell asleep in his arms. As he carried you to your designated room, he whispered to you.

“I don’t understand why others treat you this way, and I wish they would stop just as much as you do. But I love you, Y/N, and I would give everything to have you in my life. Genetic mutation or not, you are beautiful just the way you are.”

#comfort #x reader #platonic #ciel x reader #ciel fantomhive #black butler ciel #ciel #ciel phantomhive #ciel phantomhive x reader comfort #kuroshitsuji #black butler #black butler fanfiction #black butler x reader #black butler comfort #ciel phantomhive x reader

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flowerprincesscherryblossom · 1 year

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kitty kookie

pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Female Reader word count: 1719 warnings: smut, explicit language, cat hybrid kook, scent marking, nipple play AO3 A/N: request - Can you do a Jungkook x reader where he is a cat hybrid and he is a obsession for reader's breast so he wants to suck on her nipples anytime he can? Hope you like it and that you have a wonderful day wherever you are💜

You once heard that cats were the most independent pet.

Your cat hybrid Jungkook tended to fall on this specter the majority of the time, he could take care of himself as any other cat or person could - he could cook; clean after himself; he'd play video games or watch television or whatever else he did online; and other shenanigans.

Honestly, sometimes if it weren't for the fluffy black ears and tail you had doubts about him being a hybrid.

Jungkook was a lot like this, especially when you first adopted him. He tended to keep to himself, barely talking to you, always in his bedroom or sitting on the couch, the only time you actually saw more of him was when you shared meals together.

At first, you thought it was because he still needed to get used to everything, but as the days went on and he kept the same attitude you grew to fear that maybe, he was uncomfortable in your house and that maybe you would have to return him to the shelter.

You told him as much one night - you didn't want to return him, you wanted him to feel comfortable and safe, that the house was his as much as it was yours and that if he couldn't then you had failed as an owner and didn't see any other option.

At your words Jungkook suddenly stood up and yelled a passionate 'No!', startling you and making you slightly jump in your seat. Seeing your wide eyes, Jungkook cleared his throat and retook his seat before sighing and explaining.

His previous owners had put him in shelters because sometimes he was a lot needier and attention-seeking - they really liked the independent side of him but when it came to the side that still needed care and love they hadn't signed up for that. He didn't want that to happen again so when you adopted him he decided to show a less needy side of himself.

Through all of his explanation you didn't utter a single noise, just patiently listening to his every word, your hand laying on his as your thumb softly grazed his knuckles. Once he was done you assured him that it wouldn't be the case this time and that he could ask for as much attention as he wanted.

Jungkook was still a little doubtful of you but that seemed to melt away once you started petting his head and ears, his tail flicking as purrs kept leaving him.

Afterward, his demeanor changed completely. He still his usual things but he also was around more and would often ask of pets and just wanting to be around you.

Jungkook was especially fond of using his cat form as a way to get attention. You would be fixing up dinner and suddenly hear meowing and feel him bunting against your legs, or you would be doing nothing in particular and the bombay cat would throw himself on the ground and begin to roll around. When you would tease him he would either lick your hands or climb in your lap.

But his favorite would have to be kneading. Jungkook especially loved doing that to your breasts. Every night since your conversation he would enter your bedroom, once he thought you were asleep, and would just knead your shirt, more specifically where your boobs were, doing it carefully so that he wouldn't wake you or hurt you with his claws before snuggling close to them as his purrs lulled you both to sleep.

You didn't know how to feel about it - on one hand, you thought it was cute, the small black cat using your boobs as pillows and, after research, you knew that cats would knead their owners as a way of expressing adoration. On the other hand, Jungkook was also a grown buff man with a fixation on your breasts, something that made you feel hot and bothered.

It wasn't like you would deny that Jungkook was attractive, multiple were the occasions where you had to stop yourself from gawking when he would walk around the apartment in something that puts a special emphasis on his arms or thick legs. And that's without counting the random moments where he would be shirtless and in sweats - those were images that haunted your every moment.

Laying on your couch, you were pulled out of your thoughts when you felt a sudden weight on your body, the black cat was sitting on your stomach simply staring at you as its tail moved relaxed from one side to the other.

"Jungkook," you said with a sigh. "We need to talk."

In a flash he was off of you and switched back to his human form and taking a seat next to you, tail swinging wildly and ears high on alert.

You reached out to pet one of his ears and hopefully calm him down. "It's nothing bad, just a simple conversation." that didn't seem to do anything but the two of you really needed to have this talk.

With a sigh, you began. "Jungkook, I don't have a problem with giving you all the attention that you need and I do think it's cute when you do those things…" you started playing with your fingers, not exactly sure how to go about with this. "B-but sometimes, certain things you do make me uncomfortable, for the lack of a better word."

"Oh! I, hum, I'm sorry you feel that way," his black ears dropped and his tail simply laid still beside him.

"I don't mean this as a bad thing," you reached for his hand and started to rub circles with your thumb. "It's just a bit weird when you knead me."

Though you had whispered those words, Jungkook's ears had picked them up and thus, perked up at them and his tail started swinging again with newfound curiosity. "Why?"

"W-Well, b-because…" you cleared your throat, beginning to feel flustered at the direction the conversation was going. "Because, well, you kept doing it on my chest." you kept your eyes away from him as the words felt your lips.

"Is that a problem?" you didn't need to look at him to know that he had a smirk on his lips. "It means I like you."

Jungkook scooted closer to you and started to nuzzle against your neck as his thumb rubbed circles in your thigh. "I-I know, b-but-"

"Don't you like me showing how much I like you?" his tail replaced his hand and wrapped itself around one of your legs as his hands started to slowly make his way higher up your body.

You felt him lick a stripe of your neck and you immediately bit your bottom lip to stop any noises from coming out.

"Now what's this?" he bit your neck, making you let out a gasp, before licking and sucking on the spot. "I show you how much you mean to me and you can't even let out a noise? I'm hurt."

Successfully laying you under him on the couch, Jungkook continued to lick, bite and scent your neck and collarbone, his hands under your shirt massaging and squeezing your breasts and tail rubbing the wet patch between your legs that started showing in your shorts.

You were biting your hard enough to draw blood, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, but that was proving to be incredibly difficult with everything he kept doing to you.

"You wanna know why I love to knead your tits so much?" he pulled your shirt off and pinned your hands before you had a chance to cover yourself. He started trailing kisses from your neck to the valley of your breasts, leaving behind licks and marks in its wake. "Because I can't stop thinking how they would feel in my hands, how they would look with my mark on them and my cock between them, how much I want them in my mouth."

Jungkook started to slowly rub circles in your nipples and releasing his warm breath on them. Long gone was your need to keep quiet, moans and whines kept leaving your lips at his ministrations.

"That's my good girl." taking both of your wrists and holding them with one hand, his other hand pinching one of your nipples while flicking the tip of his tongue on the other.

Taking your breast into his mouth, he kept licking and sucking on your nipple while pinching, twisting, and pulling the other between his fingers. He didn't seem to get enough of your boobs.

"Jungkook!" you arched your back when you felt him nibble at your nipple, his eyes never leaving your face, taking great pleasure in knowing he was the one that was making fall apart.

With one last bite on your right breast, he then switches, licking and sucking on your left one while twisting and pulling your right one. With his tail still rubbing between your legs it wasn't long before you found yourself at the brink of orgasm.

"J-Jungkook, I'm g-gonna…" you couldn't finish as a loud moan left you when you felt him bite at your left breast.

"Do it baby." both of his hands on your tits and his mouth kissing your neck, all it took was a harder twist on both your nipples and a bite on your neck to push you over the edge, cumming all over your panties and clenching around nothing, a loud moan of his name that you were almost sure could be heard outside of your apartment leaving you.

As you worked on catching your breath you felt your black cat petting your hair, his tail now swinging behind him.

"You okay?" Jungkook took his rightful place and snuggled closer between your breasts while rubbing circles on your waist.

You let out a chuckle, your mind trying to associate that the shy and scared hybrid you adopted and the one that had just made you cum without being inside of you were the same. "Y-Yeah, just catching my breath."

"Now that we did this, I hope you know that it's going to happen again and again." gripping your chin and forcing you to stare at him, his voice an octave lower. "You're mine dear owner, just as much as I am yours."

#bts #bts fanfic #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook smut #jungkook x reader #hybrid bts #hybrid jungkook

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darkmagyk · 10 months

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Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving

In honor of his 30th Birthday, have a fic about Percy Jackson's 14th Anniversary. Check it out here on AO3.

Percy had been a morning person for a very long time. He thought it was probably something to do with being an East Coaster in his heart. And that connection between the beach and the sunrise. He and Frederick had had a conversation about that, once, about how much they both disliked watching the sun set over the ocean, knowing in their veins it should be the other way around. There was a reason neither of them lived in California anymore, after all.

He was alone in that, at least in his bedroom, however. Frederick Chase had thought that the sun should rise over the ocean, not set on it. But he didn't much want to see it, except for on very special occasions. And his daughter was the same.

Annabeth was a night owl. Because of course she was, what else would she be? A lark? He suppressed a laugh at the idea of calling her that, careful not to wake her as he rolled out of bed. She needed her beauty rest. It was a Friday, but she'd taken the day off, and he intended to let her sleep in, just like she preferred.

She deserved it. Working so hard, and all that.

He didn't ever work on Fridays. His classes were all on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he preferred to do research at home on Mondays and Wednesdays. Sometimes, he got dragged to campus because of a departmental meeting, but he'd made it pretty clear to the chair that he saw his academic career connected to a university as a fun hobby, and if they tried to drag him a second longer away from his family that he was okay with, he'd leave it behind in a second for stay-at-home-dad-hood, or at least independent scholarship or a school that would give a classics prodigy everything he wanted. So they were pretty decent about not pushing for committees that did meet on Fridays, or when he wanted to be elsewhere. Who knew being a demigod made you such a hot commodity in the world of academia?

He had a plan though, because it was not just any Friday, it was a very special Friday. And he wanted to celebrate it like it deserved.

But he was a little surprised, when he got to the kitchen at 6:30 in the morning, to find what had been spotless when he'd gone to bed, now very much not that. There was a pile of flour on the counter nearest him, and something else on the kitchen island that might have been sugar. There was melted butter all over the cookie sheet. The sink was full of two of his stand mixer bowls, a shield--the baking kind, not the weapon kind, though that had happened once before--and the dough hook and whisk, plus two wooden spoons and two more normal mixing bowls.

“What are you doing up so early?” Junie demanded. She kept repositioning herself, trying to stand in front of the stand mixer, which is clearly going on, and shooting looks out of the corner of her eye at her little sister. The secret message being sent was apparently being understood, because Lucie was standing in front of the ovens, trying to raise her hands, presumably so Percy could not see what cooking was happening.

Behind Junie, on the counter, about a third of a bottle of blue food coloring was leaking onto the granite. He once again applauded his wife’s choice to go with the blue marble.

“I’m always up this early,” he pointed out, he glanced between them. “You aren’t, though.”

“I am,” Lucie chimed in.

“I know you are; I’m surprised you're not watching your cartoons.” Lucie, all of seven, was all Annabeth. Blonde curls and gray eyes and a warrior’s cunning. But in her sleeping habits, she was all him. That was one of his favorite things about having kids, picking out the pieces of him and Annabeth, and learning all about the awesome people they created together.

“This is more important than cartoons,” Lucie said.

“What are you doing?”

“Lucie,” Junie snapped, mouth tight.

Lucie snapped her mouth closed.

Percy looked between the two of them, going back and forth to see if either of them would crack.

They were holding up admirably well.

But though they were legacies of Athena, with all the wisdoms and battle acumen that might have afforded them, Percy had a work around.

Even wisdom had to bow to strength, sometimes. So, Percy walked up to Lucie, who looked up at him, staring at him gilessly. The eyes of a little girl who could steal from a gift shop and not even feel bad about it. He loved his kids so much.

He reached down, hooked his arms under her arms, and lifted.

The reaction was instant. She shrieked. Her kicks were not wild flailing, but rather well aimed and deliberate. Which was actually to his advantage, as it meant he could anticipate them a little bit, and tense up as he turned and set her back down.

“Shh, you don’t want to wake your mama or your sisters,” he said lightly, while he peered into the oven. He had already guessed it was a cake. He could only sort of make out the cake through the little window, in the dim yellow light. But it was clearly blue.

“Junie,” He said, not looking away from the oven, “would you please make sure the food coloring doesn’t drip on the floor?”

She gasped a little bit, and by the time he straightened back up. She was ripping a wad of paper towels from the under counter holder.

“It was supposed to be a surprise.” Lucie said.

“Well, I’ve got to make Mama her breakfast.”

“It’s your birthday, shouldn’t she make it for you?” Junie asked.

Percy raised an eyebrow, and Junie nodded, conceding his point. Annabeth Jackson was one of the most amazing people to ever have existed. She could slay monsters and fell giants and design monuments and lead armies and kiss booboos and sew historically accurate high medieval princess dresses from late Byzantium. But she could not cook.

“Right,” Junie said, and then she started nodding. “Exactly, Mama can’t cook. So, she never makes you breakfast, or special treats for your birthday, like you do for all of us.”

“So you two decided to make me a cake?”

“Yeah,” Lucie said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Happy birthday, Daddy.”

“Thank you, Birdie.” She grinned up at him. She was missing a tooth. It was horribly adorable.

“Happy birthday, Dad,” Junie said, with much less enthusiasm.

“What’s wrong, Honey Dew?” She frowned at the childish nickname. Because his baby had just turned ten two weeks ago.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” she said. “A special surprise.”

“It’s both,” he assured her. He kept a hold of Lucie but shuffled over to Junie, hugging her after turning off the stand mixer. The buttercream was more like sweet, blue butter at this point. But that was alright. They should probably wait until the cake had cooled before worrying about frosting. “Thank you for thinking of me.” He ruffled each of their sets of curls, and held them close. They were so grown up now. Able to wake up early and make a mess in the kitchen.

The smell of baking was filling the air, and it smelled like they’d probably done it mostly right.

“You’re welcome, Daddy,” Lucie said.

“Tell me about how you got the idea.”

“It was mine,” Junie said, her mother’s daughter, always eager for credit for her brilliant ideas. It had already cost her two schools, which was a lot for a rising fifth grader, though not quite his record. So he counted it as a win. “We’ve been having Mia teach us.”

“That was very nice of Mia,” Percy said. He really had hoped, after ten years, his mother would have gotten over her deep resentment over having a grandchild before she was forty, which had resulted in her absolute refusal to be called anything with the slightest hint of Gran in it.

Some of the skepticism must have leaked into his voice.

“I’m allowed in the kitchen unsupervised,” Junie said defensively.

“I’m pretty sure there was more to that agreement,” Percy said, chief among them being ‘the ten-year-old does not count as supervision for her little sisters.’ Though that was kind of in a gray area with Lucie, who just needed to not get distracted around heat. It wasn’t like they were worried about knives and their kids, after all. “But you’re not in trouble, baby, I promise. I am so happy you did this for me. But I am going to need help cleaning up. And then we’ll re-make some butter cream. And then you can start helping me prep the olives for Mama’s anniversary breakfast?”

At 9:30, he was something like done with breakfast. The spread of homemade cinnamon rolls, bacon, sausage, quiche, and olives were all laid out on multiple trays.

Left her to own devices, Annabeth would have liked to sleep later, but he knew she wouldn’t be. He went back into their bedroom, Junie and Lucie carrying other things, to find her sitting up in bed. Sophia in her lap and Thalassa next to her, the three of them acting out a Greek tragedy with stuffies.

“Happy Anniversary,” he said. Reminding Lucie to put the giant tray of Olives on the bedside table and Junie to set the rest of the quiche down and go get more plates so they could all eat together.

They settled in together, the six of them, sitting on the bed to eat breakfast. Their bedding was going to require a lot of washing when this was over. But that was okay, because fiber crafts were just one of Annabeth’s many talents. She was great with laundry. Everyone had cinnamon rolls, Thalassa got cream cheese icing in her hair, and Sophia sucked on a piece of bacon, while Junie and Lucie recounted their cake decorating adventure. Percy had to leave at one point to get another jar of olives. Proof, he thought, of how much he loved his girls.

When he got back, they had all shifted enough that he was able to sit right next to Annabeth. She leaned into him as Junie used the stuffed animals to explain the Allied powers' aviation strategy during World War II, because she spent a lot of time with her grandfather.

He felt Annabeth’s hand start fishing for his, and he grasped it, squeezing tightly. “Happy fourteenth anniversary.” Percy whispered, turning his head to plant a kiss on her close-cropped curls.

“Happy thirtieth birthday.” Annabeth replied.

“Best one yet.”

“You say that every year.”

“It's true every year,” Percy said, “every single birthday since my sixteenth has been getting better and better.”

“Well, I’m hoping this one can get better. I have plans, and they involve your favorite foods that I can buy from restaurants in New York City, and a Moana/Finding Nemo double feature, and my dad taking the girls for five hours after lunch.”

“Better and better, like I said.”

Something Junie had said caused Thalassa to break out into a pile of giggles. Not wanting to be left out, Sophia copied her.

Percy felt it in his heart, all of this. Happiness and love, and his perfect family.

“Happy birthday to me,” He whispered to himself before joining in the laugh.

#percy jackson #percabeth #pjo #pjo fic #percabeth fic #my fic

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witch-off · 1 year

Text

“How to heal a broken bone.”

SPOILERS FOR THE BAD BATCH S2

Rating: Explicit +18

Pairing: Tech x (F)Reader

Synopsis: Tech is very frustraded after breaking his femur, to say the least. He can’t go on missions. He can't fix his ship. He can't even walk straight with crutches. Luckily you are there to help him.

Warnings: Established relationship, poly relationship with the rest of the Batch, a little bit of angst, smut, fingering (female receiving) and oral sex(male receiving).

You hear Tech sigh for the 10th time. Or maybe it was the 15th time. You were already losing count.

Your eyes move from your current task to Tech sitting in the pilot's chair. He seemed bored while staring at his datapad, which was something unusual. "Bored" was one of the last words you would use to describe him. He always seemed to be involved in some research or working on something with his hands. But now he was navigating through files in a distracted way in search of some interesting information.

The culprit of this situation was the cast that went from his foot to half of his left thigh. Luckily, the fracture in the femur wasn’t serious, it would take 3 months for him to recover, but with the help of AZI and a lot of bacta Tech would be back much sooner. Unfortunately, this also meant that he couldn’t go on missions for quite a while.

The others had left early to explore for supplies, but you had chosen to stay and make some improvements to the ship. But it was an obvious excuse to stay with Tech and take care of him. You hated the idea of leaving him alone, especially in these conditions.

Tech lets another frustrated sigh escape and you can't help but copy him.

"Do you need anything, darling?" You ask from your place on the floor where you been fixing some wires on the wall.

"I don't think you can fix my leg. So no, thank you." He answers without even looking away from the datapad.

"Watch your tone, Mister. I know you're upset, but it's no reason to talk to me like that." You use a warning tone and Tech quickly turns to you with a guilty expression.

"My apologies, dear." He says in a softer voice this time. That’s more like it."I didn't mean to sound so rude. It's just that I'm so..."

"Bored?" You suggest.

"Frustrated. But ‘bored’ also works."

You shake your head slightly, getting up to go to him. Tech's mind it’s never quiet, it wasn't a surprise that he was so antsy. His good leg kept bouncing up and down nonstop while he was reading. You were afraid that at any moment he was going to snap and rip out his own cast.

You put one hand on your waist, using your other forearm to prop yourself against his chair to get a good look at what he was reading. From this angle you can finally see that It was a medical article about the speed of regeneration of a broken femur. You couldn't blame him for his impatience.

Luckily, the Batch managed to find a pair of crutches for Tech, but he could barely get around with it. So most of the time Wrecker helped him move around the ship. Tech also needed help when it came to showering and getting dressed, and as happy as you were to help him, having your independence taken away is something horrible.

"I should be out there helping or at least doing something useful. But I'm here, being a dead weight for the team." He complains, letting his body sink against the chair.

You frown, tugging slightly at his ear. Tech does a little “ouch” sound and rubs the bruised skin with his hand. "You know that's not true. Everyone's glad you're okay. I'm glad you're okay. We just want you to rest now."

The proof of your words was right there. His leg was on a small stool, resting on a pillow that was given by Omega as a way to make him more comfortable. The whole Batch wanted to sign his cast - Even Cid wanted to be a part of it. Omega's name had little stars doodles. Wrecker's was the one that occupied the largest space with an imitation of an explosion around it. Hunter's was accompanied by a small drawing of a skull while Echo's was only his name written in blue. And of course, yours was accompanied by hearts.

He sighs, nodding with his head. "You're right. It's just that this reminds me of Kamino. Clones that didn't heal fast enough were sent to maintenance work or just... decommissioned.”

You can feel the weight in his words. You can't even imagine what it's like to be discarded so easily. Clones were considered replaceable, so it was likely that several of them were thrown away just because the Kaminoans didn’t have the patience or empathy at all.

"Well, this isn't Kamino. You have all the time you need to recover, we'll still be here when you’re done." You pass your fingers through Tech's hair, feeling him relax with your touch.

"Thank you." He gives you a small smile, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing deeply as your hands continue to caress him.

"At least I'm here to keep you company." You say. "I can take a break for now. We can play Sabacc, what do you think?"

He seems to consider your proposal, but he gives up quickly. “I've played 5 times with Wrecker. And 4 of Denjarik with Omega. I still don't know how she always manages to win." The last part was definitely a blow to his ego. "Besides, I want to do something with my hands. Something constructive."

"Well, I can’t carry you around like Wrecker. But maybe I can bring you something to work on?"

"No, stay here. Please." Tech tilts his head back, staring at you with his big brown eyes behind his lenses. His hand pulls the hem off your blouse gently, making a silent request.

You could never say no to him.

You lean towards him until your lips met. The angle is a bit awkward, but the kiss is deep and sweet. He lets a deep sound slip from the back of his throat, something needy for more. You need to hear it again.

One of your hands holds the back of the seat to keep you balanced, while the other goes to his face, stroking his cheek with your thumb. This time it’s you who let out a low moan as his tongue invades your mouth, exploring it eagerly.

A shiver runs through your body as Tech partially lifts your blouse, the cold air of the ship hitting the skin of your belly. But soon his warm hands are on you, grabbing everything they can reach. His calloused fingers sending shockwaves through your nerves.

You feel them creeping up your ribs, coming too close to your chest and you know where this is going. You hold his wrists, moving his hands away from you. You already miss them. "Hold on, baby." You sigh. "You're still hurt."

"But it's been so long since we've done anything." He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, raising his forefinger in the same way when he’s about to explain something. "Exactly 3 weeks, 4 days and 16 hours."

You roll your eyes without being able to contain a smile. But it was true, it's been a long time. Between missions and taking care of Omega there was not much time left and no privacy to do something more intimate.

You stare at the cockpit door, mulling over what to do next. You probably had a few more hours alone, and the Batch used to let you know when they were on their way back.

"All right, but we need to be quick. What do you want to do, pretty boy?"

His face lights up, as it always does when he gets something he wants. "On the control panel, I want to touch you."

You chuckle, starting to take off your clothes with the confidence of someone who has undressed more than once in the cockpit. "So when you said you wanted to do something with your hands you were talking about me?”

You lean against the control panel, just in your underwear, feeling the icy metal bite your backside. You put one leg on his lap so he had better view, being mindful of his cast. He can’t turn fully in your direction because his extended leg, but it is good enough. "I'd rather do you than anything in the galaxy."

You hate how flushed you get just from that. You're still not used to this kind of sweet talk and how it makes your insides turn. "Really smooth." You mock him, pushing him slightly on the shoulder."Come on, I'm freezing here."

Tech fix his goggles once more, giving you a mischievous smile before starting. His palm moves slowly along your calf to your thigh , blooming chills along it’s path. He stops when his fingers bump against your panties, toying with the hem.

"I missed that." Tech whispers, leaning over to kiss the inside of your leg. "I missed you."

"You see me every day." You try to joke, but your voice gets breathless when his fingers start approaching your core.

"You know what I meant."

"I don't know if I quite follow. Can you show me?" You bite your lip, giving him a playfully look.

You can see the desire burning in his eyes. The way his pupils are dilated behind his lenses. How heavy his breathing gets. Tech doesn't bother to pull your panties to the side, his thumb stimulating your clit over the fabric while his other fingers cupped your vulva.

You moan softly, your hips moving in sync with his hand, searching more for that feeling. But it's just enough to keep you on edge. It's not what you need to scratch that itch.

"Tech, come on." You pull the last part with a whimper, to close to begging already."Give me more." It’s really been a while, you didn’t notice how needy you were until now.

"I enjoy taking my time, dear. You know this better than anyone." He says while applying a little more pressure to your throbbing clit.

You let out a breathless laugh that quickly becomes a moan. "I think what you enjoy is to torture me."

Tech doesn’t deny it, only giving you a small smirk. But he finally gives in to your pleas, his fingers entering your panties and stroking your folds.

"You're soaking wet." He says the obvious with a smug look.

The answer on the tip of your tongue disappears when he penetrates you with one finger. You let out a silent scream, holding his arm to ground yourself. Tech begins to move it slowly, letting you get used to the stretch. But it’s not enough and soon you’re begging again.

The second digit comes shortly after, throwing you in the borderline between pleasure and pain. Tech watches you closely in the same way he does his experiments. You can't help how even your ears get warm under his insistent gaze.

You feel your leg start shaking, trying it’s best to keep you standing while holding your weight on it’s own. Your free hand grab the edge of the control panel, stopping you from falling.

Tech rotates his hand, causing his thumb to brush against your clit every time this fingers thrusted deeper, hitting your spongy spot. The wet sound of skin against skin fills the cockpit, being only overcome by your loud moans.

“Take off your bra. I want to see you.” You think you would do anything he asked as long he didn’t stop.

With one shaky hand you pull up your bra, your tits jumping out of its confinement. Tech watch hungrily as your breasts bounce with each movement. He lick his lips before giving the next order. “Now touch yourself.”

You do as you’re told, pinching your already hard nipple. You decide to give Tech a good show, since you knew he liked to give extra attention to them during sex. You pant softly, sweat running down you temples as you pull and pinch your nipples before soothing the tender skin.

You stare at Tech's parted lips in a greedy way. You wanted to ravish them, to kiss him until you two were out of breath. But the angle didn't allow that at the moment. You're content with his fingers moving inside you for now. More than content actually.

"Are you close, dear?" You can hear his voice through the hum of your ears, nodding your head weakly. "Good. Just relax and come for me."

That definitely wouldn't be a problem for you. You chant his name while your orgasm is ripped from you, making your legs tremble with the intensity. Tech continues with the deep thrusts, prolonging your high until you’re too sensitive. Your head falls back as your chest rose with every breath.

You put your other feet on the ground for balance, both still fragile with the aftershocks. Your heart melts a little inside your chest when you realize the way Tech looks at you. Like you're the most amazing thing he's ever seen.

"You're beautiful." He mumbles.

You cover your face with a grunt. "You can't say that kind of thing while you have two fingers inside me."

"Oh, my apologies." He finally seems to realize that he's still deep inside you, pulling his fingers out slowly. You hiss softly, felling empty all of a sudden."I must say, it definitely helped me get less anxious." Tech says while analyzing your juices in between his digits.

You shake your head at him. Tech was sometimes unbelievable.

Your back complains about being in so many strange positions for so long, but you don't hesitate to duck your head to capture his lips again. Tech looks surprised, but returns the kiss quickly, pulling you to him.

You squeeze him over his pants, making him moan against your mouth. You could feel the hard line of his cock against your palm, applying a little more pressure to hear his desperate groans. Unconsciously, Tech tries to move his hips against your hand, causing a painful grunt from him.

Your eyes widen and you stop immediately. "Are you okay?" You'd hate to have to explain to Hunter that Tech got more hurt during sex. That you shouldn’t be having… because his femur is broken. Kriff.

"I'm alright, don't worry. I just moved my thigh in the wrong way." He tries to pull you for another kiss, but you push him gently against the chair.

“Relax, pretty boy. I will be taking it from here.”

You push away his good leg just enough to get in between them. The ground is cold against your knees, but you're more focused on what comes next. Tech watched you closely as you unzip his pants, pulling his cock out. He was throbbing in your hand, a drop of precum dripping down his head.

You always though Tech had a nice dick. It wasn’t very thick like Hunter or Wrecker, but it was quite long. He always managed to reach that sweet spot inside you that drive you crazy. You almost want to try to ride him, but you couldn’t risk hurting Tech or broking his cast. So that was a idea for another time.

Your fingers close around the base of his cock, letting your breath ghost along his shaft. Tech whines with the tease, pushing his hips in your direction.

You place a hand on his waist to keep him in place. “Stay still for me, love. I don’t want you getting hurt.” He just nods in agreement, desperate for you to continue.

Oh, but you don’t have the heart to tease him for too long. He has been so good to you. You want to give him whatever he asks for.

You stroke him a few times, his cock craving for the attention. You lap at him, taking your time as your tongue explore him slowly. You stare at him, drinking from every sweet expression of pleasure on his face.

Your lips wrap the head of his cock, felling his taste invading your mouth. You start bobbing your head up and down, going deeper each time.

Tech places a hand on your nape, not forcing you down, only resting in there.

You love how vocal he his during sex, but in moments like this, when your mouth is around him, Tech can hardly form a word to save his live. Just letting out broken praises and little pleas. It’s like song to your ears.

This time, it's his moans that reverberate through the walls. You want to smile satisfied with yourself when you hear his little whines every time you suck a bit harder, but that would mean having to take your mouth off Tech, and you wouldn't allow that.

When he hits the back of your throat Tech starts speaking gibberish.“If you keep it up like this I’m going t- Oh maker.” You take him deeper, hollowing your cheeks. His face scrunching in pleasure.“Please, it’s been a while, I c-can’t.”

"I don't want you to hold back, love." You stop for a moment to catch your breath, but keep stroking him with your hand. You fold his balls with the other and it’s cute how hard he’s trying not to move his hips. Without any warning, you go down on him again, leaving Tech in a speechless mess.

Tech gives a weak moan before coming, filling your mouth with hot strings of cum. You close your eyes, savoring his musky taste. You keep milking him until he's totally spent, humming around him before removing his soft cock from your mouth.

You make sure he’s watching while you swallow and lick your lips. You rest your head against his thigh, smiling sweetly at him.

"Feeling more relaxed now?"

He strokes your head, letting out a deep breath. "Oh, Yes. Definitely. Thank you, dear.”

“You know I’m always happy to help.” You rise from the floor, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Do you think you'll be okay while I go take a shower?"

He nods, eyes half closed. “Yes, I will be here waiting for you.” His voice is sleepy and you can see how hard he’s trying not to fall asleep.

You give him a sympathy look, petting his hair. “Go take a nap, I will be back in a minute.”

You have enough time to clean up and finish fixing the ship. No one suspects anything when they return with a crate full of supplies. Well, except Hunter, who gave you a quick side eye.

But you couldn't help but realize that for the rest of the day Tech didn't sigh or bounce his leg, not even once. Maybe you found the cure for his agitation after all.

#the bad batch #bad batch tech #tech x reader #tech x you #bad batch Tech x Reader #tbb tech x reader #tbb s2 #the bad batch season 2 #tech tbb #poly relationship #poly reader #star wars reader insert #star wars fanfiction #star wars smut #the bad batch fanfiction

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todaysbird · 1 year

Note

thoughts on falconry?

So, upfront, I’m going to say that this is not my area of expertise and what I DO know is largely US-based, so some falconry practices in different locations may differ. I have only personally worked with parrots, finches, and other common (unregulated) birds in a professional capacity, and while I have done independent research for fun, I do not have any hands-on experience with raptors.

My opinion on falconry growing up was mostly concern beyond the ‘cool’ factor, because I thought the birds were ‘kidnapped’ from their families and then kept lifelong. This went against everything I knew about handling and treating wildlife, so it initially seemed pretty messed up to do to a native bird.

However, beyond the initial shock value, and as I learned more, I found that falconry has actually shown to be very beneficial to birds. Falconers were largely behind the ongoing Peregrine Falcon restoration after the species was almost wiped out. Also, raptors have a VERY high mortality rate in their first year. Falconers keep young raptors taken from the wild in safe enclosed mews for their vulnerable years, while providing them with food while they hone their hunting skills. When the raptors are released (it’s very rare for a falconry bird to be kept permanently), they have a better set of skills to navigate the world. Temporarily captive birds = more healthy adult birds. With most raptor species on the decline due to habitat loss, climate change, introduced species and other impacts, this is a good thing.

Falconers also may use their birds to hunt for invasive species by taking them to areas where they are common. This is not a surefire thing, as raptors do not recognize species-specific commands - they will take down any rodent regardless if it is a squirrel or rat, for example. But some falconers have been successful in decreasing numbers of problematic species like starlings, Norway rats, and others (at least on a local level).

The downside is, like with any animal caretaker, bad falconers exist. It is possible to not give a bird enough free flight and let them actually become a poor hunter. It’s possible to provide improper nutrition in captivity and make your bird sick or fail to thrive. Injuries and accidents happen. But again, this is more on the shoulders of individuals than falconry as a whole.

With that being said, falconers DO have to complete licensing programs, so a bad/uninformed falconer is less common than most domestic animal owners, because you can’t legally go out and get a kestrel on a whim because it’s cute.

Overall, tldr: when performed by knowledgeable individuals, falconry can really benefit the birds and the environment.

(For a great beginner’s resource on falconry, read this - I also recommend checking out @raptorsandpoultry and @ordinaryredtail)

#asks #falconry

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cellarspider · 3 months

Text

13/?? Science interlude!

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

We return to Prometheus, where I am taking a break to ramble about my job. A thing that I love. It will be a nice change. Also: weird blood!

I have been informed that some methods of accessing tumblr do not play well with long alt text rambles. To keep the flow between the main text and alt text separate, I’ll be copying the longest ones below the main text and citations. Captions that I think are going to be long enough to need this treatment will be marked with “Overflow Ramble [number]”, so they’ll be slightly easier to find. It’s not a perfect system, but Tumblr is not a perfect website.

And I am going to need the overflow space this time, because we’re getting into genetics!

After electrocuting a decapitated alien head until it exploded into a shower of green gore, the creatures that claim to be scientists stuck a bit of the goop in some sort of very science-y DNA machine, leading to this:

“Let's have a look at its DNA. Isolate the strand. Okay. Compare it to the gene sample?”

“[Overlay… Processing… Processing… DNA MATCH.]”

“Oh, my God. It's us.”

I want this preserved for posterity, because this made me absolutely hoot. They avoided fake science technobabble by going so far in the other direction that it becomes equally meaningless.

What the scene is trying to say is “this alien shares the vast majority of its genetic material with humans, indicating that they are in fact related.”

I will get to how one would actually determine that, but first: The head turned into green goop. Green goop. Humans are notably not prone to turning into green goop. Otherwise Nickelodeon would’ve probably been shut down within a week.

(Image credit: Rich Fury/KCA2021/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)

This annoyed me so much that years later, I dug up a possible explanation that backfills this with cool biology.

Humans, and almost all vertebrates have hemoglobin-filled blood. And on a tangent that I must follow: The only vertebrate that doesn’t is the icefish Channichthyidae family, commonly known as the white-blooded fish.

You’ll never guess what’s special about them.

Yes, somehow these fish manage to live without hemoglobin, their blood only having 10% of the oxygen carrying capacity of their red-blooded cousins. Hell, most of them also lack myoglobin, which stores oxygen in muscle. The loss of myoglobin isn’t just a one-off event either, genetic studies have shown that these icefish have seen four distinct branches of their family tree lose myoglobin independently of each other. They have a wild series of adaptations to permit this, but basically they were already in such cold-oxygen rich water and moving so slow that they didn’t need all that extra oxygen-having stuff. They lost it, kept going, got bigger hearts, weirder muscles, and just kept going. They’ve actually expanded their range in the past 30 million years or so!

I love them! Evolution is wild. You know what’s also wild? There’s green-blooded vertebrates. Yes. You read that right. Yes, they still have hemoglobin. What they also have are staggering levels of biliverdin, which human bodies only produce when breaking down hemoglobin–when a bruise takes on a greenish hue, it’s because the dismantling of the blood under your skin has created biliverdin. While it’s generally been thought of as just a breakdown product, some research suggests that it also has protective effects against a number of diseases. In moderation, though. If you have enough of it to actually turn a bit green, you’ve got jaundice, which is not a thing you want to have.

But for a number of fish species, bush frogs, and skinks, they have way more biliverdin.

(Austin, C. C., & Jessing, K. W. (1994). Green-blood pigmentation in lizards. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Physiology, 109(3), 619-626.)

Humans usually don’t have much circulating biliverdin at all, so the table above compares someone with untreated jaundice to a number of other species–fish with two to fourteen times that amount, and the green-blooded skinks have twenty-two times as much! These creatures have green blood and turquoise-colored bones, and we still don’t know why. Maybe it’s protection against diseases, maybe it’s protection against parasites like malaria, maybe it’s to make them really blend in with foliage. Could be all of those at once, could be none of them, we don’t know! What we do know is that, as with the icefish, the green-blooded skinks in particular have independently evolved this feature four different times. (Rodriguez, Z. B., Perkins, S. L., & Austin, C. C. (2018). Multiple origins of green blood in New Guinea lizards. Science Advances, 4(5), eaao5017.)

(https://australian.museum/blog-archive/amri-news/amri-three-tiny-green-blooded-frogs-sing-like-birds/)

(https://web.archive.org/web/20180619143048/https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/09/30/why-do-mysterious-lizards-have-green-blood/)

We have no mammals identified with biliverdin-filled green blood, you would need a lot of tweaks to how our bodies function to make this work. But it’s not literally impossible, like I thought in the theater! I’m quite sure the prop department didn’t do this level of research on the subject, but think about it!

I love biology! It’s! So! Weird!

And because I love biology, you’re not getting rid of me yet. My chosen field is genetics. This movie has presented me with a laughable sci-fi depiction of what we do.

So! What do we actually do, when we want to find out how related we are to another species?

I’m going to get into excruciating detail, so here’s the top-line summary: We extract the DNA, mash it up into readable little chunks, use some wicked cool machines to do the actual reading, and then we compare the target DNA with our DNA, and do some cooler stuff the movie isn’t aware of. A competent analysis would not only be able to tell you how much overlap two genomes have, but also be able to estimate how long the two species have been genetically distinct.

Is this way more than the movie needed for this plot point? Yes. But they didn’t actually have to do this at all, they could’ve just said the truth that science fiction usually ignores for budgetary reasons: “there’s no way these beings independently evolved to look so much like us, we have to be related.”

(Although even Star Trek, despite being the classic example of “putting a rubber thing on an actor’s forehead to make them an alien”, actually does acknowledge this. Precisely once. TNG s6e20, “The Chase”. It has never been mentioned again in the main line series, possibly because Rick Berman didn’t like it.)

Now. Time for me to take you all on a grand tour of DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. You are all getting into the Willy Wonka boat with me. You have no choice.

So! You have a sample you’ve taken from a non-human mammal, one that’s never been genetically analyzed before. You are very lucky. You get to do fun stuff.

But before you get to sequencing, you have to purify any DNA in the sample. Your sample is full of all sorts of other biochemical gunk, and when cells are happy, DNA is packed away in the nucleus–you need to crack those open to get at the DNA.

Next, you need to break the DNA into chunks, that’s #1 on the diagram above. For most of the past twenty years, this has meant chunking DNA down into pieces 25-50 letters long–just enough to probably get something unique over most of the genome, though you will have some areas that look identical at that tiny scale. In recent times, we’ve been getting better and better at what’s called “long read sequencing”, which at this point means fragments of several thousand DNA letters in length–though that’s still pretty short, compared to human chromosomes though: the average length of a human chromosome is 134 million letters long.

Depending on the sequencing technology and its needs, the sample may also need “amplification”: getting copied over and over using a protein originally harvested from hotspring-loving bacteria (#2). I always love that bit just as a concept: it’s one of many places where the modern study of genetics uses the microscopic, biological machinery of proteins for our own use!

After everything’s prepared, Then the sequencing itself can occur. That too is wild–the most common versions these days use tiny little fluorescent proteins to tag each letter of the DNA and read the sequence of lights (#3!). Some use infinitesimally tiny electrical modulations as DNA passes by a microscopic reader. There’s loads of different ways, anything works, so long as it can be read by a computer.

All this takes place in machines that are either small enough to fit on a countertop, or big enough to look like a fridge, and come in Apple White or Cheap Plastic Appliance.

Because you have a new species, you’re building what we call a reference genome. This tries to capture as much of the entire genome sequence as possible. Here’s an interesting wrinkle, though–A lot of samples won’t be just DNA from your target species! You might be picking up microbial DNA along the way as well. That can be really interesting and worth knowing about, though! Some people spend their whole careers studying the genomes of microbes found on people’s skin, or in their bodies. You’ll be computationally sorting out which sequences are in contiguous, mammalian chromosomes, which are from mitochondrial DNA (those cute little powerhouses have their own genomes!), and which come from microbes.

At the end of it, you have sequenced an entire genome. Because you want to find out how related it is to humans, you compare it to our reference genome–The human reference genomes we use is an assembly made from multiple individuals.* We use the reference genome as a common point of comparison that we refer to when studying genetic variation.

*Though if you’re working with data form the Genome Reference Consortium as is usually standard, one anonymous African-European donor, RP11, is still the backbone of the reference, accounting for 70% of the latest assembly.

(https://mk.bcgsc.ca/telomere-to-telomere-human-genome-assembly/posters.mhtml)

So, we’d compare this new mammalian genome to our own–how much overlap would we find? A lot. How you define our similarities and differences from other species can change the answer, but you’ll expect a lot of overlap. Some areas of the genome diverge faster than others, others are highly conserved–generally the more stable it is, the more important it is for our function.

Through many, many, many studies and corroboration with the archaeological record, we’ve worked out how to estimate how long ago two species diverged from each other. Actually, you’d rarely be comparing between just two species at this stage–get out all the other relevant reference genomes you’ve got! Compare them all! Build a phylogenetic tree–the modern version of that “tree of life” idea that Darwin popularized. Then you’ll have a more accurate sense of how your mystery species relates to everything.

(https://www.embl.org/news/science/a-new-tree-of-life-allows-a-closer-look-at-the-origin-of-species/)

I’m going to go off on a tangent to end this post, because that’s just the start, taking the entire genome of a single individual. This is what most people think is what we always do. But no! That’s expensive overkill for most experiments. Once you’re familiar with a species, and you’ve sequenced DNA from many individuals, you can identify areas where lots of them have sequence variants. These can be completely benign, differences that make us all unique, or make an individual more susceptible to disease. This allows us to target what we want out of DNA sequencing: Are we trying to diagnose an illness? Identify a person from a tissue sample? Or are we doing something more exploratory?

Depending on what you want, you select anywhere from a handful of locations, up to tens of thousands. The closest many people have gotten to this stuff is through ancestry services like 23andMe, which uses this kind of sequencing.

But that’s not all! There’s so many different targets to choose from, depending on what you want to do! So many techniques to get DNA in different ways! And we still haven’t gotten to the part that I actually work on.

I’m a computational geneticist. I get all the gigabytes of data that comes out of these experiments and I get to dig into the details, the patterns that emerge between genetic code and the details of the organisms we study, the connections between genome sequence and other, wilder things we can collect data on, the dizzying complexities of what goes on every microsecond of every day in every cell in your body.

I love my job.

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Citations for alt-text rambles:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_YuTMDkWfI 2. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.116129 note: this source lists the image as credit to “J.M.B.”, which is not how I’m used to seeing images credited. Those are the initials of one of the authors, but I thought it meant “Journal of Molecular Biology”, so I went on a half hour wander around the internet trying to find where the hell this fish blood came from. 3. https://www.thebhs.org/publications/the-herpetological-journal/volume-13-number-4-october-2003/1729-01-hyperbiliverdinemia-in-the-shingleback-lizard-tiliqua-rugosa 4. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0264.2009.00952.x 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrill#Characteristics 6. https://www.vogue.com/article/dune-part-two-costumes-jacqueline-west-interview 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.29564.08327 8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357946568_New_approaches_and_concepts_to_study_complex_microbial_communities 9. https://karobben.github.io/2023/10/30/Bioinfor/PacBio/

Overflow Ramble 1

the fuckin “DNA MATCH” machine. I already wrote a 380-word alt-text about this thing last time. I’m not doing it again. I’m going to talk about things I like instead. Such as Dune: Part Two! Yes! I mentioned it last week and then didn’t ramble about it after seeing it. Well, NOW I WILL. tl;dr it’s good, go see it. I only vaguely remember the book, but I liked the changes they made to center the fact that no, Paul becoming Lisan al-Gaib is not actually a good thing.

Man, it’s nice to see a movie where the costumers and set designers got good time to work on their craft. (cite 6) Even the generic Harkonnen soldiers looked great–reminded me a lot of my beloved Warframe, probably because the costume designer was using H.R. Giger for inspiration there. Everything felt real. Even the stuff that definitely wasn’t–the gigantic spice harvesters and ships felt like living, physically present beings. The sand worms looked great. The movie did a fantastic job visually communicating the massive size of so many things. Especially because the camera remains restrained: no weightless zipping around, the camera itself follows paths and finds locations that make sense.

Chakobsa continues to be a fantastic conlang, now the work of both David and Jesse Peterson. It’s heard a lot more in this movie, and there are some great flourishes with it. While there isn’t as much Arabic vocabulary in it as in the original books, I remember from DJP’s work streams that he definitely was using the grammar of Arabic as one of his touchstones. Most key words remain Arabic though–jihad was removed, but it made me double-take in the theater when Stilgar referred to Paul as the Mahdi.

I’m of two minds about lowering the Arab influences on the Fremen–on the one hand, missing representation, which included some explicit ties to real world anti-imperial struggles in North Africa and the Middle East. On the other, these first two movies are about how the Fremen are manipulated by a colonial power, using their adherence to a faith that was manipulated by a different colonial power. They become both hapless victims and also perpetrators of colonial violence, with only Chani seeing through it.

I think the general decisionmaking process on cultural changes was motivated by a desire to remove some of Frank Herbert’s bad ideas–particularly around the Harkonnens, thank fuck. That seems to have been the thinking around altering the Fremen a bit as well. Did it succeed? Not my place to say. On all other notes, I have no reservations recommending the movie. It’s a very earnest attempt to bring that world to life, and I think it succeeds.

Overflow Ramble 2

A figure showing the basic steps of the standard Illumina sequencing method (cite 7). It is broken into four sub-figures:

Library Preparation. The genome is snipped into small fragments, then adapters are attached (“ligated”) to stabilize the molecule and make it behave. This creates a “library” of DNA that will be read from.

DNA library bridge amplification. The adapters on DNA fragments stick to a prepared plate, which is covered in little clusters of molecules that specially attach to those adapters. Biochemical processes are then carried out in repeated cycles to duplicate (or “amplify”) those fragments in such a way that the clusters on the plate are all filled with copies of just one DNA fragment.

DNA library sequencing. The DNA is modified so that the four letters it’s made out of all glow a specific color, with each DNA letter shining in sequence. This is pure awesome and I love it.

Alignment and data analysis. Because of some details on how step 1 is done, you have lots of fragments that create an overlapping patchwork of sequences. This allows (most of) the genome to be pasted back together by looking for overlaps (“contiguous sequences”, or “contigs” for short).

Congratulations! You have just attended an abridged graduate-level introductory lecture on Illumina sequencing.

Overflow Ramble 3

A diagram of PacBio Systems’ sequencing technology, Single Molecule, Real-Time Sequencing, or SMRT Sequencing, because scientists love acronyms. Pretty much every step is different from how Illumina does it. I cannot find a diagram that’s both brief and also good at explaining what it’s showing, so this is the best I could find. It’s split into four parts with attendant text, which I’ll try and explain as well.

“SMRTbell template. Two hairpin adapters allow continuous circular sequencing.”

Library preparation basically involves taking a longer chunk of DNA and splitting it in half lengthwise, in such a way that the two strands of DNA will form a single-stranded loop. This is called a SMRTbell library. Why? I have no idea!

“ZMW wells. Sites where sequencing takes place.”

Then, these are fed into SMRT Cells, which contain zero-mode waveguides (ZMWs). I was once told what this means, and I have completely forgotten, but it sounds like something from Gundam.

“Modified polymerase. As a nucleotide is incorporated by the polymerase, a camera records the emitted light.”

What I do understand is that at the bottom of each of these little holes, they stick a molecule which the DNA sticks to. This molecule, a polymerase, has precisely one job: make more DNA, an exact copy of what it’s latched onto. So you give it this loop of DNA, feed it a soup of free DNA letters, and it starts cranking out a new strand.

“PacBio output. A camera records the changing colours from all ZMWs; each colour change corresponds to one base.”

Each one of the DNA letters given to the polymerase has a special modifier, on it which flashes a color when the polymerase slots it into the new strand it’s making. A camera picks up this flash. And, because the DNA is a circle, the polymerase doesn’t know where to stop–it just keeps going and going until something breaks or it runs out of letters to work with. This means that even if the camera misses a flash the first time, it will have more chances to see it, and confirm what it already saw.

Wait what in the fuck this figure was from somebody’s thesis (cite 8), but that wasn’t what actually got this into search results. What got it there was a github page with a vtuber avatar sitting in the corner?? What??? (cite 9)

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#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012)#I go rogue and refuse to talk about the movie #or rather I spend 4600 words talking about a quarter of a scene as a springboard to talk about my job and how cool it is #I kind of envy people who work on wild population genetics #but also their sample sizes are tiny and bad for my particular specialty #so I'm giving a broad overview on how reference genome assembly works and I've only ever done phylogenetics on intraspecific variants #yes this is how much I talk about bits of my job that aren't even directly my job #because working in genetics is SO COOL #tomorrow we'll be back to analyzing inexplicable characters and androids poisoning people don't worry

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driftwithme · 10 months

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Hopeful Pacific Rim Headcanons!!!!

Getting exposed to the anteverse made Raleigh healthier, somehow. The theory is that the breach did something to him when it scanned his genetic code, the same as Mako.

Newt and Hermann only know about it 'cause they drifted with that kaiju brain and recognised the strange part of their blood samples. They are also currently working on their memories to see if they can learn more about the kaijus and prevent another breach from happening.

Mako, Newt, Hermann and Raleigh are not entirely human anymore? They are not sure either way.

The closing of the breach, as violent and unexpected as it was, warped Earth time frame. It took LOCCENT some hours to notice that Sttiker Eureka seemed to be floating in the ocean as if nothing had happened. It didn't cure Pentecost like it happened with Raleigh, but it kept them (Stacker and Chuck) alive.

Herc doesn't believe in miracles and he doesn't give credit to the kaijus for the good in his life. For him, getting Chuck back is entirely a product of the skill of the rangers he works with. Humanity doing the impossible time and time and time again.

As an apology for defunding the jeager program and almost dooming humanity in the process, the United Nations kept the PPDC running. There's not enough money to return the jaeger program to what it was, so they all have to adapt.

The PPDC focus is on an hypothetically second invasion now.

J-techs work on creating a new mark of jaegers, smaller, safer, cheaper, but still enough to face a kaiji and win. There are some improvements they want to make as well, like a mechanism of defense that protect the jaeger limbs, maybe spikes or something like that; new escape-pods for the pilots; a kaiju dna detector/radar; and many more.

Along with the classic studies, K-science now includes a whole side dedicated on studying the social and possibly cultural aspects of the kaijus and the anteverse. Another side is dedicated to a better use of the kaiju remins and parts, lile studies on how to regenerate skin or reverse brain damage or use the same system of the kaijus to help the decontamination of the planet.

With the experience of former jaeger pilots, the program's updating the whole cadet training. New simulations based on double and even triple events with Slattern as a possible enemy, new fight techniques for underwater and on air scenarios, a basics of kaiju anatomy and strategies... The pilots also help with the majority of the research nd development of the other areas!

The UN also granted the PPDC the right of working independently of any nation and the exclusivity of jaeger creations. Super important to avoid military forces trying to create their own jaegers to use against mankind, or companies trying to use the drift technology for cold profit, with no ethics attached.

The PPDC allow teens above 16 years old to start their studies in ares like k-science and j-tech, but to join the jaeger pilots program the person must be 18 years old and only become legal rangers after their 22th birthday. Without the kaijus threatening the world, the PPDC has the luxury of going slow with the cadets, selecting only the best and even providing a lot of experience and grow before putting them in charge of a real jaeger. That's to prevent another Scott Hansen, or to prevent teens like Chuck and Raleigh from jumping into the fire before properly maturing, since there's no need of being in such a hurry.

The wall becomes a giant memorial, with artist allowed to practice their crafts on it as they pleased. It's also a reminder: humanity is not alone, the kaijus could come back. Yet, as long as the jaeger program exists, there's always hope to cancel the apocalypse, stop the clock.

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weirdowithaquill · 8 months

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Traintober 2023: Day 18 - Blueprints

Crovan's Gate Works is Home to many Blueprints:

Crovan’s Gate Works is one of, if not the, largest steamworks in the United Kingdom – and the single best equipped. It services steam locomotives from all four of Sodor’s railways, as well as engines from across the country and further. Many of the engines who appeared in the infamous ‘The Great Race’ movie – especially those from Europe – were actually engines being overhauled at Crovan’s Gate when Mattel sent people to do research for the film. The works has machines that can make any part needed for an engine on the Fat Controller’s railway, and beyond – but that’s not all they have.

In a dark, slightly dusty room underneath the main offices, there are filing cabinets. Row upon row of the things which stretch out through the basement. And in these filing cabinets are the blueprints. There are thousands of these blueprints carefully sorted and filed away in this room. Everything from the designs of the A1X Terrier through to the Streamlined Coronation class. It’s all in this one room.

And it was originally the folly of Sir Topham Hatt I, back in 1897.

When he was the CME of the Tidmouth, Knapford & Elsbridge Light Railway (TK&ELR), Topham Hatt began collecting old blueprints. Some people collect stamps, others collect coins – but Topham collected blueprints. He had already copied many of the Great Western’s blueprints during his time as an apprentice at Swindon Works, and these he kept with new plans sent to him by his friend William Stanier in his office.

When building the TK&ELR Coffee Pot engines, he consulted a huge number of blueprints, trying to find something he could build considering the extremely low amount of resources he was allocated. And he did utilise some ideas from the various blueprints he had acquired – specifically a redrawing of the ‘blueprints’ used for the Novelty from the Rainhill trials… only the blueprints Hatt had were extremely well-drawn fakes, which did a bit of messing with the exhaust system. Topham Hatt mixed these blueprints with several others, but the exhaust system became infamous for spewing out dirty brown water.

This led to Topham Hatt deciding that the best way to avoid such an embarrassment in the future was to get more blueprints. He managed to bargain the blueprints of almost every engine he ever bought into the deal, with one notable exception: Henry.

Henry was built using stolen blueprints which were muddled and half-right. Hatt never managed to nab the stolen blueprints for himself, which made diagnosing Henry all the more difficult. It was actually Richard Hatt – Topham’s great grandson – who found the formerly stolen blueprints. He managed to find them in a garage sale!

Percy was another engine whose blueprints did not fully arrive with the engine. The warehouse Hatt bought him from had a grand total of around 59% of his original blueprints, with the other 41% being scattered across the West Country, the Midlands and Wales. If you can believe it, Topham Hatt went on the hunt for these blueprints all throughout the 1930s, and was able to snag the last one from the wreck of a bombed house in Cardiff in 1941.

When British Railways was formed in 1948, the now Sir Topham Hatt utilised his new position on the board of the company to gain access to every blueprint British Railways had under its control. Carriages, trucks, engines – even railway adjacent lorries, ships and buses all had blueprints that Sir Topham was able to have copied and sent to Crovan’s Gate. These were all placed in a special room and have been updated since.

Sir Charles Topham Hatt also added to this collection – but for a very different reason. In the 1960s, as Sodor gained more independence – and more diesels – it became increasingly clear that the island had to repair its engines on its own. To this end, Sir Charles began having copies of engines he bought sent to Sodor so that in the event of repairs, the works at Crovan’s Gate would be able to use the original blueprints before beginning the overhaul, saving time and allowing the workers to know what parts the engine might need. Sir Charles also had updated blueprints of all of his engines drafted, as many of his older engines had been heavily modified since arriving (such as Edward, Henry and Gordon), meaning that new, accurate blueprints were required. The first of these would be Edward’s when he went in for an overhaul after his ‘Exploit’ in 1965.

Today, there are thousands of blueprints kept at Crovan’s Gate Works, with new ones added each year. These are often copies of blueprints for locomotives built outside of the UK, as it is believed that Crovan’s Gate Works has a copy of the designs for every British locomotive, carriage, and wagon to have ever run – bar those which never had blueprints.

Back to Master Post

#fanfiction writer #weirdowithaquill #railway series #thomas the tank engine #railways #traintober 2023 #traintober #crovan's gate works #thomas the tank engine analysis #ttte henry #ttte coffee pots #ttte sir topham hatt #Sir Topham Hatt I

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xtarotdollx · 4 months

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Attempting one of those long ass literary analysis posts because my friends have told me I should please enjoy this long ass ramble

Okay so like Jekyll creating Hyde is itself a crime right? Like it is it’s a horrifying event filled with body horror and pain like Jekyll creating the potion and creating Hyde is an objectively Bad Thing ™ but like why??? Jekylls motivations for doing so are both sympathetic and relatable (and intentionally so) so why are his actions considered the literal original sin of his story?? Anyway I was bored and fucked around and found an answer and I need to share it because fuck me I can’t be normal about Jekyll.

Anyway review time our buddy Jekyll is sad gay and alone and comes to the conclusion that people contain multitudes. And I say multitudes because Jekyll himself admits in his own research that there’s more to his theory and than just good and evil,

“I say two, because the state of my knowledge does not pass beyond that point.”

“… I hazard guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens.”

and that he splits himself into good and evil because that’s what he’s most familiar with (aka it’s the split that he can use for his own benefit.) But like, homeboy was kinda on to something. The idea that humans are complex and multifaceted with multiple conflicting ideas and identities has been a thing across psychology and even whole cultures for like forever, and considering that Jekyll and Hyde was written around and about the the creation of the psychology as a scientific field, Jekyll is has (for lack of a better word) discovered something very profound, important, and massively influential to the world around him. And positivity influential to!! It’s that iconic quote “if each could be housed in different Identities, the world would be relieved of all that is unbearable” I think he’s getting ahead of himself here and kinda self projecting but there is very real truth to the idea that studying the difference facets of human identity could improve people and society. And even if he’s dead fucking wrong still putting out the information would end up benefiting societies collective knowledge. Kinda like how Freud was so influential to psychology because some of his theories were so buck wild and wrong that people had to come and correct him, widening the scientific field as a whole.

And Jekyll doesn’t do that. This life altering information is kept to himself, for his own personal use, benefit, and pleasure. And that’s so fucking wild and horrific for so many fucking reasons. Like it goes against so many rules of behavior it’s FOUL. First of the selfishness and gate keeping is inherently just cruel, but this man is a DOCTOR, and a SCIENTIST. This motherfucker took an OATH BEFORE GOD to provide the best care to the people, and now that care, or at least information that could lead to better care, is being squandered for personal gain. That’s fucked. That’s criminal activity right there.

But also I dare you to find me a scientist that doesn’t want to share their research and passion THERE IS NONE. I may be basing this analysis off of a stereotype but I believe it’s a stereotype based in reality but isn’t this the very thing people who go into fields of science and research do??? Like, they are unified by their desire to explore and SHARE knowledge??? Even if like the Jekyll wasn’t a professional doctor with his Hippocratic oath just doing things for shits and giggles, how is the goal not to tell people about this?? This doctor isn’t doctoring the way doctors should. Jekyll keeping his discoveries to himself is also just borderline non human behavior to me because who actually in real life does that. Again how is the end goal not to share this discovery? Humans are social creatures we want to share things. Swapping stories around a campfire is like the oldest human tradition ever. If you’re out in the woods and see a cool frog the immediate reaction is to call your friends over to look, or take a picture, or something similar. WHEN I THINK OF NEW WAYS TO VIEW AND INTERPRET JEKYLL ANS HYDE, THE IMMEDIATE THOUGHT IS TO SHARE IT WITH MY FRIENDS. I cannot FATHOM how secrecy is Jekyll’s immediate desire as a fellow human who lives on this earth.

And this actually slots in with really well with Jekyll and Hyde as a social critique of the upper class. Keeping super important info to yourself is NOT a human activity in any capacity, but it is an institutional one. The best thing I can think of to describe and compare it to is oil companies history of actively suppressing information about climate change to stay in business. It’s a modern example but I feel so deeply that there is an 1800s equivalent that I just can’t think of or don’t know in this moment. But the point is, Jekyll isn’t a person (metaphorically speaking), he’s a institution of wealth and power doing what large institutions do best, profiting off of the the control and suppression of the people below them, in this case the control of information.

But of course, Jekyll literally speaking, is a person. He’s just some guy, and seeing a very very human character act without any human instinct so casually is freaky and 10/10 horror. Jekyll’s creation of Hyde isn’t a crime or a sin because Hyde is an evil thing that will do evil things, it’s horrifying because Jekyll’s choice to do so is inhumane in every definition of the word thank you for coming to my TedTalk have a nice day

#jekyll and hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #gothic literature #literature #henry jekyll #edward hyde #txt post #long post #my rambles

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talesfrommedinastation · 9 months

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My redneck neighbor Doug on Tech's Looks

(Me: "Doug, so you know, a lot of people are unhappy that the Bad Batch was made to be lighter then the regs. It's a hot topic."

Doug: "Well, here's my theory on the matter. I hope the kids on the Internet (his words for Tumblr) don't get too spicy over this. It's all in good fun. I hope it makes 'em smile and think a bit.")

After having a firm, peer-reviewed discussion (and by that, I mean endless texts with Doug) it has been concluded that Tech has lighter skin and hair, and a slimmer build, due to the Kaminoans leaning harder into the hillbilly part of Jango Fett’s genes, whereas the regs got the nicer, prettier, more amenable genes.

In short, Tech looks the way he does…because he is a blue-collar white guy from the American South.

A Florida redneck, specifically.

And let me (by way of Doug) tell you: rednecks do not have beautiful tans, flawless fades, snatched waists, muscular thighs, diamond-sharp cheekbones, the ability to follow directions, or perfect matching armor, all of which a reg has.

(Sorry, Howser, go back to guarding Ryloth or posing for GQ or whatever it is you do.)

Back to Tech. Look at that man and tell me the shit he gets up to would not be constantly at the top of r/floridaman

A lot of people might clutch their pearls, and be shocked at this revelation.

“He has a fancy accent! He’s persnickety about certain things! He’s my fancy pretty boi and I’m going to dress him up in a gold thong in my fan art!”

You do you, kid. But let Doug and his neighbor here, Dr. Meat Muffin, defend this deranged argument, here. Using anthropological research applying autoethnographic methodologies that they conducted independently at one point.

(By that, we mean that Doug is from the bayous of Louisiana and has lived in the Florida Panhandle before moving Up North. Dr. MM attended graduate school in a redneck hot zone, lived in said redneck hot zone for a while, and married a Texan as well. Hook 'em gig 'em and wreck 'em)

After all, if you want an army to win over the galaxy and work with the Jedi, you want well-mannered, shiny, handsome men with melanin and agreeable personalities.

You do not want a pale-assed weirdo in jeans and a receding hairline who can’t get off his phone to work closely with orphaned space wizards.

Tech’s an anarchic Floridian piece of tornado bait and that’s why he look the way he do, says Doug.

Here's why Doug says Tech is a Redneck:

Mandalorians are Space Rednecks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trx7fDdlIo0. I do not own the rights to the video, but my God, it is perfection. A masterpiece. Mandalorians are rednecks in space, who end up colonizing Space Florida, no questions asked. Our theory is Tech is merely the concentrated, Waffle House-fistfighting, chew-dipping, Mountain Dew chugging, part of that. The Kaminoans just leaned into the trailer park part of Jango Fett hard when designing Tech, because no one can fix cars while shooting a gun and yelling at his crazy brothers like a redneck (more on that below).

Hell, all of the Bad Batch are different brands of Florida Man:

Grizzled long haired tan guy with skull tattoo, obsessed with tracking, knife fighting, and hiding from normal society? Hunter.

Bald tanned dude with weird scars who loves blowing shit up and screaming for no reason? Wrecker

Pale, freaked out man who was kept in a cult’s closet for years? Echo

Creepy, old, Second Amendment loving white guy with a gun themed tattoo who can’t seem to die? Crosshair

Maladjusted orphan left behind at a bar by her inexperienced caretakers and almost drowns in the ocean? Omega

His love of vehicles: We never see Tech whip out a manual to fix anything. The man says it’s because he has an exceptional mind, but that’s edging dangerously close to “Ah don’t need no schoolin’, hoss, I can fix any Ford!”. Doug thinks it’s just because Tech loves playing with car parts, which is some grade A, hillbilly tomfoolery. And what is more redneck than some white guy ripping apart a vehicle in the dirt while the rest of his family bitches at each other in the heat? It happened right here in Season 2 (this exact scenario has played out many-a-time in Pensacola, trust me). All they need is some Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting in the background to make the picture complete.

His clothing color scheme: “Oh, no!” you wail. “He just changed his colors to reflect Mandalorian heritage!”

WRONG.

Tech’s redneckery is blatant here, because his colors switch from

Hot Topic goth to…UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA.

“We’re loyal to each other,” says Hunter. And by that, he means the Gators, beloved of many an NCAA following redneck in the Sunshine State and beyond. Orange and Blue, indeed.

Notice how we first see him in these colors, is while he’s parked his stolen work vehicle on a beach while his brothers are busy being chased by huge-ass crabs as their sister is quietly fishing?!

This is PEAK FLORIDA MAN.

Tech was probably trying to get ESPN+ to work on the Marauder, because the Devil works hard, but the SEC works harder during football season. I wonder if he has a tattoo of Tim Tebow on his buttcheek.

His home is his car: Tech, as well as his unemployed brothers and underaged sister who the cops are looking for (how trashy is THAT sentence), live in the Havoc Marauder now that their home was destroyed in a fire fight with the government.

("Jesus Christ, this argument just writes itself now, don’t it," -Doug)

This attack shuttle, for all intents and purposes, is a stolen work truck that they live in. It’s filled with posters of guns, as well as other weapons and explosives, and has all the comfort of a Jacksonville gas station at 2 AM. All you need is some cigarette burns on the fender and some empty take out bags from Bojangles and it might as well be parked down by the river in Suwannee County. Just Florida redneckery. Speaking of which….

He loves guns and explosions: Won’t go into detail, but the man knows how to use multiple pistols, rifles, and different tactile maneuvers with glee. Tech’s only notable complaint regarding explosions is making sure Wrecker’s new fancy boom-booms aren’t parked next to his bunk. And the look of calm joy when his sister tells his brother ‘Do some damage, Wrecker!’ as Tech pulls a Bo Duke and flings his vehicle across a locked up work site, while his deranged brother giggles and fires some guns at a government-owned power plant from the back seat. PURE. UNADULTERATED. REDNECK.

He’s a racer: It is a fact (with peer reviewed research) that rednecks really, really love them some racing. NASCAR, motocross, BMX, you name it. And if you’ve seen ‘Faster’, well, that’s all you need to know about the man.

He has no fear of large animals: We’ve never seen him hunt, but Tech knows how to distract massive amounts of nasty animals using light, and the first response to seeing a terrifying monster isn't running away screaming, but whispering ‘FASCINATING’., before, ya know, firing a gun at it. It’s one step away from ‘IT’S COMING RIGHT FOR US’. You KNOW that man would be sponsoring gator wrasslin' contests if he could.

His actions towards His family: This is where Tech truly differentiates himself from the typical ‘geek’ character and leans hard into King of the Hill territory. Whereas a normal nerd character might nag and panic when his sister falls down a hole while drilling for explosives in a cave (dear God Doug, how much more redneck examples can you keep pointing out, I’m exhausted), Tech merely YEETS HIMSELF down into the abyss. Or when his brother picks a fight in the mess hall? Does Tech run away, or just start punching people like it's past closing time in the Applebee's parking lot in Daytona and the Dolphins lost? And let's not discuss the season finale :(. Rednecks are some loyal folks, family first, and that’s our man’s right there.

There you have it, says Doug. Tech isn’t lighter because he’s better than the regs. The opposite.

You can not be a deranged, adrenaline filled, sassy, goggled weirdo flying throughout space and blowing shit up and not be pale AF with twiggy legs and a receding hairline that’s edging towards Hunter S. Thompson level, born out of America's Sunshine state while a hurricane chases you out.

::turns up ZZ Top::

#tbb #the bad batch #tech the bad batch #my neighbor doug #star wars theories #cajun doug #doug does star wars #thebadbatch #clone force 99 #redneck doug #rednecks in space #mandalorians #white washing #florida man #tech is florida man #guys i don't believe any of this #please don't hurt me #doug why #doug if the internet comes for me i know where you live

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