#since a lot of the later ones were logging stuff

[pearwaldorf]

I hate that you can't see a tweet thread anymore if you're not logged into Twitter (as a gesture of disrespect I refuse to call it by its rebranded name). Here is a copypasta of a thread from Dan Olson, a Canadian documentary filmmaker, expanding upon camera quality, the guilt trips Somerton used to goose his Patreon subscriptions, and how the best tools will never make up for lack of dedication or patience. I have added clarifications in [[double brackets]] where I feel it is necessary.

START OF THREAD

Okay, so, back in April I snapped at James in reply to a tweet that was linking to this video (which James has since delisted but not deleted) and I want to talk about the full context of that but I don't want to make a video, put your beatdown memes away. [[The video has since been deleted. I can see the title of the video is "Maybe the end (not an April Fool's Day thing".]]

The first bit of context is that I initially got keyed into James to fact-check his claims about indie filmmaking in Canada. As a filmmaker the entire Telos venture was immediately obvious as a juvenile fantasy dreamed up by someone with no idea how to make a movie.

Just wild claims about their plans that weren't worth debunking because they bordered Not Even Wrong. But in watching one of these pitch videos I noticed that he had a $4000 current-gen camera in the background as a prop, and that seemed both pretentious and weird.

You don't use your best camera as a prop, you use your second best camera as a prop. So being an obsessive weirdo I needed to know, and I watched his BTS stuff until I spotted his main rig, a $6000 camera with about $1000 in accessories.

Now, these in isolation are unremarkable because his Patreon at the time was bringing in ~$8000 per month, his channel was a full on Business business, and so investing in some professional equipment of that level is maybe a bit indulgent but justifiable.

What was weird is that he doesn't shoot multi-cam, doesn't shoot outdoors, doesn't shoot on location, and in a studio the two cameras kinda really step on each others' toes. Basically if you already have one and don't need a B cam there's no reason to get the other.

Again, on its own, this says nothing, it's just indicative of poor financial decisions, maybe impulsive purchasing, Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Biblical sins, but not crimes.

Paired with the constantly inflating fantasy scope of the Telos films it was clearly an expression of a very, very common bad filmmaker habit of "if I just get the right gear then my movie will basically make itself" Buying stuff because it feels like progress.

At the end of February he tweets "I want to start shooting anamorphic" and then three weeks later in March he posts the worst, out of focus, under-exposed "I just got a new lens!" video I've ever seen, showing off his trash-covered bedroom.

Based on what's available for his cameras and the lead time, that's enough time to get a Laowa Nanomorph or Sirui Saturn from B&H but not enough time to get a Great Joy from the UK or a Vazen from China. And with the flaring blah blah blah, $1300 lens.

Again, [gear acquisition syndrome] is not a crime and these lenses are budget options. Bit of a pointless impulse purchase since he only used it for the Showgirls video. But this is what he was doing just a few weeks before that above video came out: effortlessly impulse purchasing lenses.

James has (had?) a habit of regularly, aggressively driving viewers to Patreon by claiming that videos were getting demonetized. While tacky, it is something a lot of queer YouTubers have dealt with, so there's precedent there. But people were noticing he did it a lot.

Mid-March he humble brags about needing to work so hard to make 6 videos in April because he has over-booked sponsorships.

Then March 29th James posts this whole incel screed on Twitter about how sex work should be "subsidized as a mental health service."

[two image descriptions.

1. "For the majority of people sex (and human contact) can be imperative to a healthy state of mind. A kind and talented sex worker can make someone feel wanted for the first time in their life. I know sex workers who have pulled people back from suicide just by being there for them." 2. "Not only should (sex work) be legal, but it should be subsidized as a mental health service."]

He spends several days getting absolutely *roasted* for this, just dragged across the pavement and read for filth, and doubles down in the replies the whole way.

So this is the context immediately surrounding James waking up on Friday, and posts the above video and the below tweet.

[image description: "We just got the lowest Patreon payout we've gotten in well over a year. Like, a "maybe we need to rethink things" kind of amount... NOT an April Fools Day thing btw. But I don't know if we'll be making videos much longer."]

Now, this unfolds in kinda two directions. The first is that I'm convinced he was just lying about this income shock in the first place.

There's a million theoretical edge cases about what maybe happened and if maybe he just misunderstood the data or saw a glitch and panicked, maybe one of those happened, I don't believe it, I think he just lied because he was salty about getting dragged and felt owed a win.

A big tell to me is that he doesn't blame Patreon. He says he doesn't know what happened, but let's be real, Patreon screws up all the time, they're the first people anyone blames if anything confusing happens, just as a reflex action, even if it's completely not their fault.

The only reason to not blame Patreon is if you already know that it's not their fault and that any investigation on their part might reveal embarrassing details.

Instead he indirectly blames his viewers for not watching enough, not sharing enough, and not turning on auto-renew.

So regardless of the unknowable truth, this segues into the second, far more offensive direction of the messaging itself. "I don't know if we'll be making videos much longer." "Maybe the end" He explicitly framed this as an immediate existential threat to his channel.

In the video he is vague about everything, leaves a ton of hazy room for plausible deniability on how long the channel can keep going, but the messaging is "I need more patrons right this minute or my YouTube channel is over."

He repeatedly evokes all the "fun stuff" they had planned that would never see the light of day if this didn't turn around right away.

And his audience received this message loud and clear. Tons of people making far, far, far less than him left very heartfelt messages about digging a little deeper to subscribe or up their pledge or unsubscribe from other channels to move their pledge to his.

1200 new patrons in one day.

Since I simply don't believe the income shock was real in the first place that would put his post-"Maybe the end" Patreon income at around $10,000 per month. US. Add YouTube income, he's spent the last seven months making around $18,000 per month.

I have seen creators scale back their capabilities to the bone purely to keep making videos for the love of just, like, making stuff even as their funding evaporated and they needed to go back to a desk job to cover their bills.

You'd have to be so outstandingly reckless with your finances as a channel that a one month spook leads immediately to "channel over, sorry about all the fun stuff we won't get to do with you, our patrons, specifically because you, our patrons, aren't giving us enough money"

And not a spook where you then spend a couple weeks crunching numbers. Oh no. A shock so violent where less than two hours later you're weeping on camera about the channel being over.

Three weeks later he brought a brand new Sony FX6v for $8000 CAD to add to his pile of cinema cameras despite the fact that he was, but scant moments earlier, in such a precarious position that a single bad month would kill his channel.

He stole your money, and for that I'm profoundly sad and angry. That's why I snapped at him in April. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the full context then, and I'm sorry if that anger upset you.

END OF THREAD

#james somerton #dan olson #hbomberguy #jesus christ tumblr #it won't let me format things the way i want #because this website is sometimes a piece of shit

[marthawrites]

Pretty Girl

Modern Aemond Targaryen x fem reader

Word count: 6.8k+

About: There's been some weird stuff happening in the woods and your boss buys top of the line security cameras. You definitely weren't expecting to hit it off so well with the tech guy who is much more than a tech guy.

Includes: Meeting, first date, some drinking, explicit sexual content (fem receiving oral, p in v)

Note: Hello lovely reader! This is my first modern Aemond story. This idea has been rolling around my head for a good month or two. I wasn't expecting to go so deep, but the ideas kept coming and I ran with them! Reader is nondescript and implied to be 21+ due to alcohol consumption. As always, please enjoy! ♥

read pt 2 here

-

The bright chime of your text tone cut through the mellow voiced narrator of your current podcast obsession: supposed real life horror stories. Perhaps not the smartest thing to listen to while alone ten miles deep into the forest in the ranger's cabin. But, whatever. What's life without a little risk, anyway? Swiping your screen open revealed your boss' message.

Hey kid. Running late. That tech guy is scheduled to be there for the installation at 9:30. We had a minor family emergency here. Everything is fine. I'm working to head out within the hour. Text you when I'm on the road.

It was already 9 and you knew there wasn't a chance in hell Joey would be there by the time the install person showed up. Great. You ran a hand down your face and, since you were alone, didn't fight the groan that adamantly broke free. Customer service – this could be considered customer service, right? – was never your forte. There was a reason you went to school for forestry. Mostly so you wouldn't have to deal with customers on the regular. You texted back:

I'm glad everything is fine! But, if I end up ax murdered by this freak I'm going to haunt you forever. Also, you're to take care of Charles. He's very needy.

A minute later the chime broke the podcaster's voice again:

Oh please. They're a very respectable family. How is a fish needy? Don't they just need tap water?

You laughed out loud, reading the message in Joey's rumbling baritone.

That's right, boss. Tap water and cheerios!

When you didn't hear back from him within the next few minutes you could only assume he started driving.

You had a good twenty minutes to kill while waiting for this person and weren't quite sure how to spend your time. A cool early-spring rain poured all morning, and an angry late-winter wind sent the trees swaying all around. You weren't going out there if you didn't have to. In fact, you threw another log into the wood stove and brewed up a fresh pot of coffee. No reason to stress about trying to look busy when you knew your boss would be doing the same thing if he were here with you waiting.

Once the coffee was finished you fixed yourself a cup and sat by the fire, completely absorbed by the tale in your ear: friends camping with no one else around, being taunted by something. A truly unsettling tale regardless it it were paranormal, a druggie, or a stalker.

A knock on the front door nearly sent the remainder of your hot beverage spilling and your fingers visibly trembled as they touched your earbud to pause the story. Jesus Christ. Did the person arrive in a fucking spaceship? You didn't hear anything coming up the gravel road nor parking in the gravel lot. Taking a few deep breaths to settle your racing nerves, you stood and walked to the door. You cracked it open to the width of your head, just enough to see the person standing on the, thankfully, well covered porch. “Can I help you?”

“Hm. You don't look like a Joey Wagner,” the man on the porch mat said, a single pale brow arching.

Holy shit. He was really handsome. “No. He's my boss. I'm one of the forest rangers beneath him. What can I help you with?” You opened the door wider in an attempt to get a sight of whatever vehicle he showed up in. Despite not having much knowledge in cars, you knew that “T” anywhere. So, you were right: he might as well have shown up in a spaceship.

“I'm Aemond Targaryen. I'm here to install the Vhagar security system and cameras,” he paused and looked around, curious of the exterior of the ranger's lodge and surrounding woods. “I'm.. a... I'm a little surprised you want such a system here.”

“You and me both. Apparently it's your best one, right? I dunno what's been spooking Joey but whatever it is must be pretty weird. That thing's probably my entire yearly salary and then some,” you laughed dryly, gesturing to the briefcase he held. “I'm Y/N,” you added with a smile. “He's running late this morning, but told me you'd be here. I was expecting someone more, uhm...,” you tilted your head and closed one eye as if you were looking at him through a telescope. “Nerdy?” You mused aloud, nose scrunching with the somewhat embarrassing admission.

That sent a grin across his face. His chin tilted up as he regarded you down the long straight line of his nose. “I could say the same about you and forest rangers.”

Beneath your green and tan uniform your skin prickled. Something in you thrummed. This was bad news. Very bad news. When the hell was Joey going to be here? You tried to shake off the sensation his sweeping gaze gave you. He had a long paling scar over his the right side of his angular chiseled face, and there seemed to be something off about his right eye too. You didn't say anything about it and tried not to stare. “Anyway, wanna get started? It's warmer in here, I promise,” you gestured a thumb over your shoulder and swung the door wide so he might step inside.

“Yeah, thanks. It'll take awhile to get all finished. The rest of today and maybe half of tomorrow or so, too,” he admitted as he strode inside.

You whistled lowly at that – at his remark, not his backside – unaware it'd be such an ordeal. “That long?” His hair was long and beautiful in a way you didn't often see men wear their hair; so blonde it was a silvery-white. He had it pulled back in a simple ponytail. It hung a little loose and you couldn't help but wonder if he put it up in haste this morning. Aside from his Adidas shoes (which stuck out adorably, you thought to yourself), he wore all dark colors. Blacks, grays, and only the barest hints of white. Jacket, sweater, the neck of what you assumed was a t-shirt, and straight legged pants. Casually and mindfully layered.

Inside was much warmer, indeed. So much so that Aemond immediately took his jacket off. The simple gesture sent clean laundry and the faintest trace of cologne wafting your way; the fine muscles behind your ears flexed with the reveal. His sweater looked unbearably soft and you hated yourself for being so drawn to a man you literally just met three minutes ago. He was unfairly good-looking, yeah, but what if he was a jerk too because of it? "You weren't lying," he said, giving you a glance from his left side. "It's cozy. Is it just you here?"

You gestured him to follow you through the place. "For now, yeah. Here's the security room. Everything's open and unlocked so you should be able to do whatever you need to. Joey will be here eventually." The room was a little cramped with multiple monitors, desks, cabinets, and general clutter; papers, writing things, wrappers, cups, the like. "Oh shit. Sorry sorry. I should have cleaned it up. I didn't realize the boss left it such a mess," heat rose in your cheeks as you rolled your eyes, annoyed.

"I'm not worried," he replied calmly, seemingly unbothered by the mess. Taking advantage of a clean space you just cleaned, he placed the briefcase atop it and opened it up. With your back to him he found himself giving you another glance or two, grinning privately. How could someone make that uniform look so good?

"Care for coffee or water?" You asked, all the counter space now clear of clutter. Various wrappers crinkled in your pockets and you held four empty cups between both hands.

"Coffee, please. Black," he answered.

You pushed the door further open with the help of your foot and butt, leaving Aemond alone to get started on the lengthy process. Once in the kitchen you gave yourself a few extra minutes to collect yourself. Frankly, you felt half-silly for being so enamored by this tall, lithe, long haired stranger. He probably had a girlfriend back home!

"Here you are," you said upon returning, placing a mug down for him.

"Thank you," he said, turning his gaze up to you appreciatively. "Do you ever see weird things on these in the middle of the night?"

Instead of sitting down you opted to stand with one hand on your hip and the other flat atop the desk. You leaned against the edge and turned your head to look over the various monitors in an attempt to not stare at him. "Sometimes," you answered honestly, weighing how much you wanted to divulge. "Lights with no apparent light source are a more common occurance. Sick animals can look extremely strange," you paused and chuckled nervously. "Of course, there's always random homeless people, vagabonds, and even drunk or drugged out people." From your peripheral you realized he hadn't taken his eyes off you and it sent a shudder of embarrassment down your back. Did you have something on your face? "What?" You asked, turning your attention to him, then, breath catching in your throat.

It was his turn for color to creep in his cheeks. "Ugh. I was staring, huh? Sorry. You're just, uh... really pretty," he said, caught and guilty, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was expecting a Joey to match that deep voice on the phone. Not like a Dawson's Creek Joey."

Before you had a chance to reply the front door swung open and the booming voice of the actual Joey called, "hey, hey, so sorry to be late! Damn dog killed another squirrel and my youngest was the one to find it. Poor thing nearly had a panic attack."

"Oh damn. Sorry to hear that, boss," you hollered back, cringing.

"Hard lessons for kids to learn," he said, appearing in the doorway sipping on his own cup. He was a big man and easily took up the whole width of it, and the chair he sat upon groaned beneath his weight. "Enough of that though! If it isn't Aemond Targaryen of Dragon Security! I was surprised as shit to hear it'd be you installing these. Don't you normally have grunts to do this work?"

Aemond chuffed and shook the older man's massive hand. "Usually, yeah. My dad's fixing to retire soon and my older brother doesn't want to take up the mantle. So here I am doing boots-on-the-ground training to get a feel of things before taking his place."

"Good boy! You'll be the youngest wealthiest mother fucker around!" He belly laughed and clapped his free hand atop Aemond's. "Now! Walk me through this. This ain't no joke. There's been some wild shit going on and I intend to catch whatever it is. If I get famous I'll be sure to mention you too, boy," he drank half his coffee in a single chug and put his game face on.

"I've got rounds to make. I'll check on you guys in a couple hours," you said with a grin. You lingered on Aemond a moment longer. When you caught his gaze you give him a little look, letting him know you heard him and thought similairly. At least, you hoped that's what you silently communicated.

You never believed in love at first sight. But, lust at first sight? Maybe that's what burned low in your belly.

Through the single window he watched you jump into one of the ranger's newer model orange jeeps. A perfect ride for out here, he thought, distracted as you backed the wrangler out and drove away – a stark difference to his Tesla.

-

Your rounds took much longer than originally anticipated and you didn't return until nearly 5 o'clock. Thankfully, the turn of seasons was happening and it was still light outside. Pulling in to park you were surprised to see Aemond's car still in the same spot. It seemed the day was longer than anticipated all around! With the assistance of your visor mirror you took your hair down and ran your fingers through it, glad to finally let it fall free after a day's work. Joey was still here too, and you wanted to at least say bye to him before leaving for the night. You hopped out and started making your way in that direction.

"I'm right here, don't let me startle you," the unfamiliar voice of Aemond called from the tree line. Thank God he said something because he would have startled you out there.

You let out a half strangled laugh. "Thanks for the heads up. But, what are you doing?" You asked, curious steps walking in his direction. He was on a ladder about halfway up a tree. Each time he reached up the hem of his shirt lifted to flash a peek of the pale skin of his lean abdomen and slender hips. Damnit. He must have ditched his sweater sometime ago for he only wore his plain white t-shirt now.

"Just finishing getting the cameras up. Twenty-four in total across the nearest five miles or so," he replied with a final click. "There." Despite the chilly temperature sweat still glistened on his face and neck. He tipped his head down and rolled his bicep up at the same time, using the arm of his tee to wipe his brow. As he came down the ladder you saw his ponytail was replaced by a sloppy bun instead. Loose strands stuck to the dampness of his skin, and some of the more wispy fly-aways stuck out at varying directions. If you thought him handsome before, he, somehow, was even more so now.

"Joey made you do that all by yourself!?" Five miles of carrying ladders and equipment? You wanted to smack your boss.

He shook his head as he landed on both feet, momentarily breathless. "No. We've been together until just, oh, maybe fifteen minutes ago. Wife called him," he gestured to the lodge.

"Oh. Good! I was gonna kick his ass." Secondhand tiredness crept into your bones. "I'm gonna go say bye before heading out. Need help with anything?"

He shook his head for a second time. "I don't think so. Mostly just want to get back to the hotel and shower. I feel disgusting." Lifting up the neckline of his shirt he used it to wipe his face dry, thankful to finally be on the ground to do so without fear of falling off. "And I am starving. What's the best place to eat around here?"

Was he fishing or were you wishing? "There's a really good sandwich place just as you're getting into town. That's where I'm stopping to get dinner anyway," you smiled, belly rumbling loudly in answer.

He sighed contentedly at the idea. "I'll be hitting it up, thanks. If I didn't have to stay and finish a few things I'd ask to meet you there, but...," he paused, eyeing your reaction. You didn't say anything, yet he must have caught the excited glimmer in your eyes. "Maybe next time."

You smiled and unintentionally fluffed your hair up from the roots, hip propped out with your casual stance. "Sounds fun. Good night, Aemond. Drive safe," you said before turning and walking with a little too much purpose to the lodge, gravel crunching beneath your heavy work boots.

"Hey, Y/N," he called after you after a moment, long strides closing the distance between you. When you stopped and let him catch up, he asked, "can I get your number? So I can warn you when I'm here tomorrow. You looked a little scared this morning. Don't wanna do that again." His features remained neutral. His eyes (eye? that one seemed almost completely unresponsive and you weren't sure if it was even real), however, sparked with a mischief that sent your stomach flipping. Obviously you barely knew the guy, but you swore his voice dropped a little lower with the new closeness.

You exhaled. "I was that obvious? Dang. I was hoping I played it off more cool," you tsked yourself beneath your breath, pulling your phone from its pocket. He did the same and you both swiped them open to exchange numbers. His thumb tapped a few times on the screen and your phone dinged. 'Aemond' appeared at the top and a single dragon emoji was the only thing his text read. Despite yourself, you smirked.

"See you in the morning, ranger girl."

-

The next morning you found yourself fixing another fire and pot of coffee, peacefully idle and waiting for the others to arrive. Your phone chimed. It was a message and photo from Aemond.

Hope you're hungry. The girls at your fave sandwich place knew your order. On my way now.

Attached was a photo of a paper food bag seat belted into his passenger seat. Something more than excitement rose in your belly and you actually giggled. Handsome and sweet? No way he was single.

Fifteen minutes later he arrived with a soft knock. "You didn't have to get me breakfast. Way too kind of you, honestly."

He squinted and smirked softly. "Good morning to you as well." He stepped inside and closed the door behind, happy to be where it was warm. "It really wasn't a bother. Gives me an excuse to spend a little more time with you," he winked.

"Were your ears tingling last night? I only thought about texting you fifty times, at least," you admitted, flirting back.

"Should have. Hotels by yourself are terribly boring."

You two ate fully loaded breakfast sandwiches and you were more than a little surprised he ate all of his. Those things were huge! Before any time at all passed, it was already noon and you and Aemond had chatted the morning away in the security room. Everything seemed to be working well. He'd done a fantastic job at setting the cameras up yesterday and Joey beamed in excitement.

"I need to do my rounds before I don't. Catch you both later," you said reluctantly.

Just as you were stepping out of the room, Aemond called after you, "hey Y/N! Before you go..." His face spelled mischief. You arched a brow at him, waiting. "About Lord of the Rings and Frodo's journey...," – your conversation a few tangents ago – "why didn't Gandalf just call the eagles for them to fly to Mordor? Seems like that would have been a lot faster and smarter."

You were dumbfounded. "Excuse me?" You asked, fluttering a series of blasphemous blinks at him. "Seriously Aemond? And here I thought we were vibing. We're not friends anymore." You slammed the door but not before flipping him off. With both middle fingers. In the hallway you snorted and laughed in disbelief.

The door did little to block Aemond and Joey's uproar of laughter.

Handsome, sweet, and a jerk in good humor? How dare him!

-

The next day you didn't hear from Aemond, and you weren't going to lie to yourself: it kind of sucked. Despite knowing him for so brief a time, you missed him!

Thankfully, it was time for your weekend though. It was full dark by now and you were worn out from the week. You quickly changed into pajamas and flopped on your bed to find something to watch. Settling on reruns of one of your favorite shows, you found yourself staring at the black screen of your phone. Should you text him? As if your thoughts had traveled miles away right into Aemond's brain, it chimed with his message.

Hey ranger girl. I wanted to swing by the lodge today but wasn't able to. I'm in town for a few more days and was wondering if I could take you out to dinner before I go?

Holy shit holy shit holy shit. You texted back embarrassingly fast.

Only if you swear to never talk bad about LotR again.

Pinky promise. Tonight?

You looked down at yourself and snorted.

Definitely not, sorry. Tomorrow?

Yes. God I can't wait to see you out of that dorky uniform.

You had nothing appropriate to say and left him on read, lest you say something humiliating you'd regret.

-

The following evening was a clear cool night and you were glad you wore pants instead of a dress, and a leather jacket instead of a cardigan. Part of you was sad to leave the toasty confines of your 4-Runner, but it quickly dissolved once you saw Aemond standing outside the bar and grill restaurant talking to someone on his phone. He wore an elevated version of the outfit you originally met him in. What caught you off-guard, however, was his hair. Those long silvery-white tresses were pulled back into an intricate braid and you couldn't help but gawk. He looked devastatingly handsome. You saw him notice you, and butterflies turned in your belly at the heat and weight of his gaze.

"A leather jack and red lipstick? How did you know that was my favorite?" he asked as you hopped up next to him, twirling playfully for his attention. "Shit, you're lovely. I'm so glad you said yes to this."

You smiled at him, pretty white teeth beaming as you tired to reel your excitement in. "So are you. I'm going to have to sit on your lap so no other girls think you're free for the taking," you half cooed, black lashes giving your eyes an opened appearance that only elevated your playfulness.

He hummed and gave you a long look, tilting his head in direction of the entrance. "You'll get no argument." He reached out and you took his hand, suddenly bashful as his long fingers laced between yours. His palm was very warm; thoughts and images filled your mind of those hands all across your bare skin. The natural bow of his mouth lifted in a little smirk.

The restaurant was fairly busy tonight: you were lucky to snag a booth by the window. You both ordered a drink and agreed to skip the appetizer to instead indulge on something from their dessert menu. Him, an old fashioned bourbon, and you, a gin with pomegranate liqueur and lemon juice. Conversation flowed easily while you waited, the ambiance of the restaurant absorbing both of you in with ease.

With the help of a little liquid courage, you found yourself asking a question that'd been on your mind since first meeting. "I gotta ask," you started, looking over the scarred half of his face curiously. "What happened?" You gestured over your own face letting him know what you meant.

He briefly bit at his bottom lip. "Childhood accident," he answered with a sigh. "It was pretty brutal, actually," he added with a dry half-laugh. "One of my nephews got me with a knife. We were wild boys. Them moreso than me, but still, wild like boys can get. I ended up loosing my right eye and opted to get a prosthetic one instead of having an empty socket."

You gasped, truly in shock, and reached across the table to squeeze his hand. "Oh my God, Aemond. That's horrible."

He wasn't hot or sweaty, but your skin was delightfully cooler than his and he got more comfort out of it than you realized. "It was. The scar actually looks much better now than in the past. I've learned to live with it well enough. Driving is sometimes a struggle because of it, though. That was a big learning curve."

The waiter came back for your food order. Aemond chose the pork tenderloin with apricot almond chutney, herb roasted potatoes, and broccoli, and you chose the crusted ahi with cucumber, bell pepper, and red onion salad topped with a ginger soy vinaigrette – with no onion. Red onions, raw or cooked, destroyed your palette.

Both of your drinks were nearly gone by then; you couldn't speak for Aemond, but you were definitely feeling looser. Not drunk by any means, but a warm buzz that blushed your cheeks, hooded your eyes, and made your smile all the easier. "So, Aemond Targaryen of Dragon Security, what else do you do in and outside of your work?"

"You looking like that across from me is making focus very difficult," he replied, idly trailing the tip of his finger around the rim of his glass. He leaned back and flashed you a little smirk, the lovely color of his eye seeming to shrink. "It's a family business. We make high quality security cameras. My brother's invention, the Sunfyre system, specializes in daytime monitoring, and my sister's invention, the Dreamfyre system, specializes in nighttime monitoring." He sipped at his drink, wetting his lips with the smooth, fragrant liquor. "And mine, the Vhagar system, takes and elevates both. The beefest and strongest system by far. So, whatever your boss wants to find in those woods, he'll have the absolute best chance with what I set up for him."

You listened, genuinely interested, and did your very best to focus on his words and not the he sat across from you. "Honestly that's an entirely different world than anything I know," you shook your head amusedly. "Gross rich people stuff."

You continued talking about it until your meal came. It looked and smelled divine. "I'll check on you again shortly," the waiter said with a wide handsome smile.

Sticking out like a sore thumb was a pile of red onions atop your salad. All it took was a single glance between you and Aemond for him to know you wouldn't mention anything about it to the waiter – instead choosing to pluck them off your plate and try to enjoy your dinner regardless.

He wasn't about to let that happen. "She asked for no onions," Aemond said flatly up to the other man, one of his pale brows arching up in silent judgment.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! Let me have them remake it for you," the waiter said apologetically, disappearing with the plate quicker than you could say it's okay.

You wanted to sink down into the booth and disappear. Before you could stop giggling, and before Aemond could wipe the smug expression off his face, your new plate arrived. As well as a refill of your drinks.

"Her entree and both beverages are on the house tonight," the waiter said brightly as he placed everything down. You reached for the drink and sipped appreciatively.

"Just a refill for the lady, thank you. I'm driving," Aemond said with a hint of that same expression as before. That worked for the waiter and he was off again, busy with other tables. "Hey," he muttered to you, lower and softer than you've heard him before. He scooted closer to the window and patted the spot next to him. "Come sit by me, pretty girl."

An excited blush crept into your cheeks as you did so, and you leaned your knee against his beneath the table. His free arm draped across the back of the booth, engulfing you with the warmness of himself. You both ate and chatted, and you found out he travels far and wide. "French is my favorite language," you admitted blissfully. "So lovely to listen to. I can't speak it for the life of me, but listening to it?" You made an approving gesture with your hand.

"I don't quite have the accent down, but I'm fairly fluent in it...," he said, low and husky, as he tipped his head closer to yours. He whispered by your ear, and his breath fanning across your skin tickling your spine. "Je veux parler français entre tes cuisses."

A satisfied sigh escaped your lungs. You reveled in the way the natural rasp of his voice sounded with the language. "What did you say?"

"I want to speak french between your thighs."

A breath caught in your throat and you nearly choked on it. "Shut the fuck up. You did not just say that," you sputtered, immediately turning your head to meet his gaze.

He chuckled, palm trailing across your thigh beneath the table. "I did say that. And I do mean it."

"Aemond Targaryen...," you whispered in return, looking him square in the eye. You were pleasantly buzzed and the courage it gave you prompted your next movements. "Let's say we get out of here and you can show me that boring hotel room of yours." With a tilt of your head you slowly pressed your mouth to his, kissing him with the fire that began building in your core.

He hummed into the kiss and deepened the affection, holding the side of your neck with a need of his own. Pulling away, he quickly laid more than enough cash on the table, not bothering to wait for the tab.

The smear of your lipstick matched the faint stain of it on his own lips as he lead you out of the restaurant.

-

In the room, Aemond closed the door with a deliberate click and wasted little time in pushing you up against the nearest wall; your arms draped over his shoulders all the while, lips barely leaving each other. "You have no idea how bad I've wanted to do this since I first saw you at the lodge," he rasped against your mouth, kissing down your chin and throat with sloppy need. His hands were somehow all over you at once: waist, hips, ass, throat, everywhere.

You gasped, arching between him and the wall, shuddering in anticipation and excitement alike. "You should have," you murmured in reply, hands tugging off his jacket in near desperation. "I almost had a heart attack when I saw your hair in that stupid bun. I should have taken your clothes off to help you cool down right then and there," you teased in response.

A groan came from the back of his throat. "Je suis peut-être tombé amoureux," I might have fallen in love he rumbled with a smirk. You didn't know what he said but you also didn't care, because next thing you knew his teeth sunk into the slope of your neck and shoulder and you moaned. "Like being bitten?" He asked, doing it again in a slightly different spot.

"Yeah," you managed to gasp out, turning your head to entice him along. His laugh vibrated against your neck as he sucked the sensitive skin between his teeth, aiming to leave a mark. "Hey!" You gasped, giggling.

"Not gonna let you forget this, pretty girl." He tore your jacket off and threw it near his, already gripping the hem of your shirt. "Plan to make you feel it tomorrow," he added smugly, lifting your shirt off and tossing it aside. You wore one of your fun bras, lace and straps accenting the curve of your bust. "Oh, fuck, look at these beautiful tits," he groaned again, immediately bending to kiss and lick over your bare cleavage.

"You're a big talker. Are you sure you can follow through with all of that?" You questioned as if your skin wasn't already goosebumped, nipples weren't already pebbled with need, and the apex of your thighs wasn't already hot with the primal desire to be fucked and stuffed full.

He growled with your challenge, single eye looking down at you darkly. "That's the plan." In three motions he wrapped an arm around your waist, turned with you flush to him, and stepped to push you onto the bed. You landed heavily, thighs clenching as you watched him discard his shirt. He was long and lean like a swimmer, with a pale patch of hair at the center of his chest and trailing below his navel to disappear beneath his pants. A new wave of warmth pooled between your thighs and your pants felt much too tight.

"Stronger than you look too, Targaryen," you taunted, squeezing your thighs together. You looked up at him with heavy lidded eyes. Lust burned through your blood and you couldn't help the heave of your breasts.

Both his hands moved to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his pants to ease some of the pressure on his obvious arousal. He made no move to do anything else. "You're a big talker too." Kneeling at the edge of the bed he pulled you further down the mattress, calculating and amused. You helped him help you out of your pants, hips squirming so he could pull them down your legs. Carefully, he parted your legs and laughed a deep mocking sound. "I haven't even touched you and you're wet through your panties. So needy," he crooned, thumb barely grazing down the line of your covered slit.

You shivered, unaware and unable to bite back a whimper. "Aemond...," you gasped, the shocks his touch gave you sparking yet even more heat to pool inside you.

"And sensitive," he purred, watching your face as he continued to slowly trace along you; heavy eyed and smeared lipstick made you look all the more adorable. "Si amusant à manger. Embrasser. Lécher." So fun to eat. To kiss. To lick. He kissed the inside of your thighs in punctuation, the sounds of them sending embers up your spine. Wide hands trailed up and down your legs, over your belly, across your hips. He kissed your covered mound until the full length of your legs tightened.

"Take 'em off... move 'em to the side. Something," you panted, eyes already threatening to unfocus with the tantalizing teasing.

He had nothing to say, his mind just as clouded with lust as your own. Tugging the damp center of your panties to the side, he licked a long line up through your soaked, silky folds, groaning a hitched sound from the center of his throat.

You rolled up against him while your hands flew down to his head, fingers sinking through the smoothness of his intricate braid. Pleasure left your parted mouth.

A little moan of his own answered yours. Lick, suck, kiss. Over and over again with varying speeds and pressure, pulling more of those lovely sounds from your pretty mouth. The combination was nearly obscene; wet, lewd, eager. He carelessly pulled your panties full off and discarded them.

"Oh my God...," you drawled, gripping into his hair as he continued his delightful assault on every part of your pussy. Sucking your clit, sinking his tongue inside your saturated walls, licking over everything as if his own orgasm depended on it.

Stopping for only a moment, he reached up to the front of your bra and pulled the cups down to send your breasts spilling free. He palmed over them roughly, squeezing the soft flesh until you hissed between your teeth, body arching for his mouth's attention once more. He pinched at your nipples as his head dipped down again, hot tongue and handsome lips going right back to work.

"Yes... please, fuck! I'm so close!" Your core burned and tightened, and you were past caring if anyone in the neighboring rooms heard you.

"That's right... be a good girl and come so I can really fuck you," he hummed, delving right back in until you were trembling beneath him.

The intensity of your climax left your fingers tingling and toes curling as your thighs squeezed around his head. You were sure you'd rip some of his hair out, but the near desperate groan that left his throat told you he fucking loved it. He eased his actions on you but never truly stopped, increasing and lengthening the waves of your pleasure as you rode them out.

Once you were done, basking in the afterglow of your orgasm, he finally stood and joined you on the bed. "Open the front pocket of my bag right there. Yeah, that one. Grab the condom for me," he said as he kissed over your jaw and neck, beginning to shift out of his own pants.

"I have an IUD. We're not using that bullshit," you replied cheekily, helping him out of his pants. He kicked them off and his briefs followed, and you instantly saw why he made sure you came first. Not only did he have a beautiful cock, but it was big.

"Fuck, babe, you're gonna let me come in your pretty pussy?" He asked, gripping your body to roll you onto your belly.

You moved with his prompts and nodded. "Yeah," you said and looked up at him from over your shoulder, shifting your legs to prop your ass up. It accentuated the natural curve of your spine and that sight alone would have gotten him hard.

With one hand he held onto the soft meat of your hip while the other held himself, lining up with your hot little cunt that was on full display for him. He inched in, drawing back once half of him had sunk into you, only to plunge into you all at once. "Shit...," he hissed, grip denting harshly into your flesh.

You fisted the sheets, whimpering at the absolute fullness of his cock buried in you. While nestled in you, he unclasped the back of your bra and helped you out of it, briefly lingering on the faint lines it left on your skin; an odd sort of intimacy making him appreciate the sight. "Take me," you whispered, breathless, belly slowly building up with a new coil of bliss.

Pulling his hips back, he snapped them forward against you. "Taking me so well, pretty girl," he praised. Using both hands, now, he propped you up into a better position, steadily rocking into you as he did so. The sounds that poured from your mouth were a mix of elation and lust, desire taking hold of all your senses as your body yielded to his intrusion. The way he slid in and out of you, the way your tight walls gripped around him, and the way the muffled whines that came from you each time he rammed into your deepest parts made him half insane. "Getting sooo messy, baby," his words were accented by his pelvis slamming against your upturned ass; sticky, squelching, skin on skin.

You were embarrassingly close again, eyes rolled closed. "Feels so good," you cooed from beneath, mind fully drunk on him.

"Yeah? Gonna fuck your pretty face into the mattress. Can't have you so loud that someone comes knocking," he said as he fisted into your hair, turning your head into the blankets and pillows that smelled like him. His pace grew faster, sloppier, and you knew he had to be close too. That deep sensitive spot inside you was being absolutely bullied; cockhead slammed against and past it, meeting your deepest wall, only to drag backwards along it, over and over.

"Aemond!" The mattress muffled your cry of pleasure and your second peak left you numb and weightless, mind totally blank save for the man who drove you there.

With a final push he drove into you with a guttural groan. The full length of him twitched inside your pulsating walls, coating your insides with his release. An obscene mixture of your creamy arousal and his seed oozed out from around him to dribble onto the bed. You both laughed in the aftershocks, static buzzing your brain as the lewd, heady scents of sex filled the air around you.

"Fuck, that felt good," he rasped, slowly pulling out of you and watching his cum leak from your core. "I'll get us a towel in a minute. I just need to catch my breath," he added with a lazy, glorious smile, laying flat on his back with momentary exhaustion.

You laid on your belly beside him, taking in the angles of his face and how they softened in his post-sex bliss. "No. Not yet. I'm not finished with you yet," you said slyly, pushing yourself up to flip a leg over his middle. You bent and kissed him, pushing your fingers through the damp hair from his hairline to his crown, braid no longer neat. Already half hard again, it didn't take long for him to catch his breath beneath you; fiery and refueled from your display of sensuality.

"What about you car?" He asked, biting the top of your shoulder.

"What about it? We can get it in the morning. I wanna ride this big cock."

There very well might have been some noise complaints from his room that night. Neither of you cared. Once you were both finally satisfied to the point of silliness, sleep came easy. When the morning came and he drove you back to the restaurant? You were mesmerized at how his features glowed golden with the cloudless sun.

"A 4-Runner? Lots more room in there than mine...," he teased and gave you a questioning look, testing the waters.

You hummed thoughtfully, returning his look. "Well, yeah. But, might need to put it to the test. Just to, you know, see which one is better."

-

thank you for reading! if you enjoyed, please consider a follow and reblog as I have plans to create and share more writings ♥

Here is my masterlist

tag list: @melsunshine @iiamthehybrid @rottingviserys  @arcielee @nina2697 @darylandbethfanforever9 @sahvlren @aemondsdaemons @obsidian-hearts @bellaisasleep @watercolorskyy @ruby-dragon @aemondmama @meggiemay82

#house of the dragon #aemond targaryen #modern aemond #aemond x reader #aemond smut #fic

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not telling someone I wasn't their bully 100% of the time

Hey so I was a shitty kid and i willbe TA for most of the story. However the ambiguous non-ending spins around my head nonstop

! In high-school I met a friend, Lacy (mtf) who had recently come out. We bonded over mutual Fandoms and shared classes and ended up pooling friends. I was already tight friends with one other girl we can call Sam. Sam went to another school but me and her had been best friends for many years and talked constantly online. After spending a lot of time with Lacy, and with L and S in a group, I started to get a little crush. Me and Lacy had this habit of passing comic notes to eachother between classes and they were just so fun. Anyways I ended up passing them one asking them out and she agreed. We talked about it casually after and I kept the note. In the background, me and Sam talk constantly about Lacy. Outside of school, online, Lacy often goes on long rants and tangents and caps it off being painfully self depreciating and insinuating self harm. I honestly don't hold that against her too much, given how young we were and how much stuff was going on. Very quickly I realize this tiny crush evaporates in the heat of her stomping rants. My gut sinks when Lacy mentions we are dating. It's been less than a day. Sam messages me immediately and I make the terrible snap decision to lie. I lie about it and I have the evidence so my version becomes correct. I tell Sam I didn't *really* ask Lacy out, blah blah. The lie doesn't end. Lacy has an explosive breakdown about it, well warranted, and I lie to adults and school administrators as well. We were friends, I guess she got too attached, we talk all the time but no. I never asked her to date. Papers signed, case closed. Lacy blocks me everywhere. The year ends. I resign to never speaking to her, as the unquestioned bully in this situation I wouldn't have the right to approach her about it. I think I send one anon ask completely unrelated to her or our lives, then block her back as is only fair.

Short hop forwards a month or two. Sam sends me a message about an update to Lacys blog. Lacy is otherkin and Sam is laughing at the kin list, sending anon messages mocking Lacy about the choices and identity. Very unfamiliar with otherkin but struggling with gender thoughts myself I don't respond much.

Fast forward a few years. Me and Sam don't talk much now. I got a boyfriend and couldn't help love how much he ignored me. Everything else fell through cracks. Working at my restaurant job one day, who else comes in but Lacy. We are very busy, I try to be quick, don't make eye contact. "Party of....for Lacy?" She nods. The lobby is full so they walk out the door and never come back. Later when my shift is over I unblock and check her blog. She's made a post saying I was her abuser and had sent her constant anon hate since bullying her in hs. Checking her ask tag I see Sam on anon sends 3-6 hate messages a year. I do nothing and leave everyone be and move on.

Another 3 years goes by. Sam reaches out. She's terminally ill, and we speak stiffly for a few IMs. I don't forgive myself for leaving her and decide it's best we don't keep talking. Another few years and Sam passes. Our old friends go through Sam's papers and pc files reminiscing and find pages and pages of shared chat logs between me L and S. It really was a harsh reminder of how cruel I had been, speaking behind Lacys back and lying. I don't doubt I caused her lasting trauma with my actions.

Part of me wanted to reach out to Lacy and apologize, explaining myself and the misunderstanding and clearing the lie not because I wanted to feel absolved I just that it's finally done now. But it feels so cruel to do it when 1. As the original bully it's still not my place to seek closure 2. I can't just toss my friends corpse under this bus for no reason.

It's soon a decade since we all left school so the time seems well past. I just can't stop thinking about all the mistakes. And there seems no reason to bring it all up after all Sam can't say anything about it anymore and nobody is hurt believing i said these things. So, AITA for not telling Lacy it wasn't me bullying her most of the time?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[dtupdates-archive]

♡—DREAM posted on Twitter. Transcript under the cut.

“-stuff from last year-

Thousands of likes on this is crazy. Using a 10 second clip to purposefully spread misinformation and lie is so disgustingly vile. I did not “admit to doing horrible things”, at all, literally the exact opposite happened. Here’s summarized context for those that want to see what was actually said;

“No one was groomed. She lied about taking legal action, she lied about providing more proof later, and lied about almost everything that was shared. It’s been over a year since she said she would provide proof. I have and will be releasing the Snapchat data, Instagram logs, twitter history, and timeline, which proves by a matter of fact that she deleted certain messages, lied and hid context, and that she never provided these easily obtainable logs because they contradicted some of her own words.

I primarily used Snapchat as a messaging platform before I revealed my face because I was hiding what I looked like and everything else about my life IRL. I had many people from online games & content creation on it, and used it for everything, so I didn’t look at Snapchat as a big deal. I changed my mind on that before this even happened and made a private Snapchat for close friends.

Her story contradicts itself many times. with her saying that we planned a local meet up, while I was faceless and would literally leave the state just to go to the dentist, and hadn’t shown my face to even my best friends yet. with her liking and replying to tweets of mine and defending me from criticism, only a week before she posted about how horrible I was. with her not posting a single screenshot, video, log, or ANY BIT of evidence of anything that she claimed, other than that we had friendly conversation. With her DMing me from her IRL Instagram, with no fan posts and only her real life info, deleting posts, and actively hiding that she was currently a big parasocial fan.

On top of that, she had something in her bio insinuating that she was an adult, so I had no reason to even think about her age. Nothing inappropriate happened so I wasn’t looking into whether she was 17.9, 18, or 30. It doesn’t even matter if she wasn’t an adult, because we were just having short friendly conversation, she wasn’t groomed, and we weren’t even friends. I even (provably) tried deleting her from my Instagram inbox multiple times but Instagram doesn’t let you unless you block someone.

I did not reply in detail publicly (besides denying the accusation immediately) at first, due to waiting on her claim that she was taking legal action & providing more proof, and advice from a lawyer. She never did either. I did not lash out publicly in frustration, because I had to be very careful and think about how my response could impact future victims willingness to come forward against an abuser. I’ll be going into more organized detail later in a video on one of my channels, with far more than this, and just uploading all of everything for anyone to go through. but there’s a lot to say and it’s a delicate thing to talk about in general.””

#dt.update #dreamwastaken #d.twt #tw grooming #drituation

[thatbanditqueen]

Aphrodite's Curse

The last of this year's Elvis-o-ween one shots.....

A hastily written spooky smutfest that may be my worst writing yet?

Summary: Loosely based on Elvis' affair with Elisabeth Stefaniak, this one shot finds our boy during his Army service living in Bad Neuheim and playing the field, much to the chagrin of his shy, live-in secretary and girlfriend Bettina.

Warnings: MINORS DNI Sex stuff, infidelity, angsty angst, lots of typos and probably nonsensical sentences.

WC: 6.2 K

Thursday, September 9th, 1959

Goethestraße 14, Bad Nauheim, West Germany

Approximate 10:45 p.m.

Bettina watched from across the room as Elvis whispered a joke to the Australian girl sitting beside him on the piano bench. What was her name, Julie? Cynthia? Her shriek was so loud and jarring it made Bettina bite her lip, and she winced at the coppery taste on her tongue, mad at herself for being so jumpy. Elvis hit a minor key and lost his place in the song, which made him turn and yell at Charlie.

“Watch ya chords now, watch it Foggy Bottom Boy. Made me loose my place. Some times I think ya head got water logged crossin’ over.”

Elvis sighed, then went back to tinkering around on the keys, settling on singing the ballad “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” directly to Julia, whose giggles now filled the room. There were a handful of people over tonight, in addition to the Aussies that Lamar had brought home from the beer hall. No doubt he had hoped to get lucky with one of them, but both girls had been hovering around Elvis since they arrived, and Lamar had now plopped onto the couch with a pout. Bettina caught Rex looking over at her, and she rolled her eyes and tilted her head at Elvis, trying to get Rex to smile. Elvis had been singing this song all week. But there was more than just teasing camaraderie in Rex’s eyes. There was sympathy too in the way he narrowed his gaze at her. Bettina frowned and turned her eyes down to stare down at her shoes. She pulled on her necklace and crossed her arms around herself as tight as she could. You wished for this, you are living the dream, she told herself as she leaned further into the shadows.

Meeting Elvis last year had been her dream. Was it only a year ago? How had her life changed so completely in one year? She had left that shy, inexperienced eighteen year old girl who had spent her nights hoping to get Elvis’ autograph back in Graferwohr. The night Rex noticed her and took her to meet Elvis had been the happiest night of her life. Elvis had walked her home and kissed her good night against the tree in front of her apartment building. His lips had been so sweet, his hands so tender. They had lifted her off the ground and she was pretty sure she had just floated up to her bedroom knowing nothing in life would ever top this experience.

But then Elvis had shown up at her door, her door, again the next night and invited himself to dinner. He spent the week at their apartment, flirting with her mother, playing their piano and then kissing her good night when she walked him out. No, nothing could ever top this.

But then, as she braced herself to bid him farewell at the end of his training he invited her to come live with him in Bad Neuheim and be his secretary. You could have knocked her over with a feather. Because Bettina knew from the way he kissed her that he was not just asking her to be his secretary. She knew he was bringing her home to be his girlfriend, and make all her wishes come true.

If only she had been more specific and wished to be his only girlfriend.

Now here she was, spending her evenings unsure if Elvis would spend the night with her or another girl he met. The music stopped and Bettina glanced up to see Elvis whisper again to the girl sitting next to him. His hand caressed the girl’s shoulder and then she blushed and nodded. A minute later she stood and disappeared through the door on the other side of the living room toward the back staircase. He thinks he is being so clever, Bettina thought. In ten or fifteen minutes he’ll declare himself ready for bed and go join her. It was a performance Bettina knew all too well.

Elvis continued play songs on the piano, singing “I Asked the Lord” next and then a few other American pop songs. Charlie was harmonizing with Elvis, but now he, too, was shooting her a sorrowful look. Ugh. Bettina felt a prickle behind her eyes and had to blink back her tears. She wanted to recede through the wall.

But that is not how walls work. They do not just open up and transport you to a better place when you feel uncomfortable. Had she ever felt more alone than she did here in a room full of soldiers, wives, dates and random women who all ignored her ?

Thinking of this, Bettina sucked on the part of her lip that she had bitten and decided to flee to the kitchen. She grabbed a Fanta and the sweet, citrus drink stung her lip. But she kept gulping it down, forcing herself to drink it all. At least it got rid of the bitter taste of blood in her mouth.

The other Australian stumbled through the swinging door to the kitchen and dipped her head as she took a Dr. Pepper from the ice in the sink.

“Oh hiya. Gosh, our own private Elvie concert, eh? Must be sweet as honey working as Elvis Presley’s secretary, faffing around with him and this lot all the time.”

Bettina took another sip of her drink, looking the blonde up and down. “Ja, sweet as honey. It is, as they say, the most.”

“Yeah, s’what I thought, ol Elvie is so much more handsome in person, and so fun too. We’re all just mad for him back in ‘straya.”

“Hmmm, ja, he is so fun.”

Bettina smiled and nodded big before she excused herself and made her own way upstairs and then down the narrow hallway to her bedroom. She could hear Dodger snoring in the room next to her's. Stopping outside Elvis’ room,  the faint sound of girlish giggles hummed through the door, followed by a loud THUMP on the bed. It made Bettina’s tummy drop, and she had to steady herself against the wall. She didn’t even brush her teeth, she want straight to bed. All she wanted was to slip under her covers and disappear into oblivion. The taste of orange Fanta was still on her lips, sweet and bitter.

It was before dawn when she heard the door to her room creak open. Half asleep, Bettina stirred and straightened her back as she felt someone climb into bed behind her. A tall, long lanky someone. She knew without looking it was Elvis. Still miffed, she kept her eyes closed and turned her head away as he pulled her into him.

“There she is, can’t sleep without ma little Fog Horn.” His breath was warm on her neck, and he nuzzled his chin into her shoulder. ”Ugh, honey, I’m plum tuckered out.” He leaned over her, giving her a final kiss on her ear before settling in with his arms around her.

When Bettina woke up she was in his arms and her head rested over his chest, her breath keeping time with each lift and fall of his body. His palm was flat against her back and she could feel his fingers trace circles slowly into the silk fabric of her night dress. The dim light of dawn shone in through the window, painting the room in a pinkish dreamy haze. She thought of all the things she wanted to tell him. How she could still smell a foreign perfume on his bare chest. Or ask him in a snarky tone what happened to his other friend. But then his mouth was crushing into the top of her forehead and each kiss reminded her that he was there, with her. Not anyone else. And the reassurance of his physical body, here and now, longing for her, made her heart swell with desire. His fingers stroked away all her hurt and jealous qualms like sunshine chasing away the clouds, and she was his completely once more.

Bettina tilted her head to meet his lips and he moaned into her mouth. “Aw Betty, this is always ma favorite part of the day.”

The smell of Elvis’ musky sweat and pomade filled Bettina’s nose when he shifted himself over her. His knees grazing hers as a goofy, bashful smile spread across his face. Below her waist his fingers pulled at the hem of her night dress.

 “I mean it honey, s’only thing that gets me through the day.”

His eyes turned downward, and Bettina shivered with anticipation as he languidly rolled the beige silk fabric up her thigh, inch my inch, savoring the way he gasped out at the sight of her white panties. She lifted her hips to help him pull them off and sighed out when he slide his fingers between her legs. Then his breath was at her neck and he was nibbling her ear, all the while flicking his fingers back and forth over her sensitive nub.

“She’s such a pretty baby. Prettiest baby he ever found. He’s so lucky to find a lil angel like hers in Germany.”

Elvis awkwardly fumbled at his belt, shaking his head as he had to sit back to  to get his pants off. Bettina rolled her teeth over her lip, feeling the sensitive spot where she had bit herself again. She was happiest right here, looking up at Elvis as he eagerly struggled to get his clothes off and make love to her. The warmth of the sheets enveloped her and she gave him a single nod of approval as he parted her legs. Her hands clutched  his back, roving over his shoulder blades as he thrust gently into her. Moaning out, she focused on his eyes and how intent they were as she relaxed and opened herself to him.  His lip hung open in apt concentration and she bucked into him as he steadily rocked back and forth.

An aching tingling pleasure coiled in her belly each time their hips met, and Elvis leaned down closer as he sunk further into her. Kissing her neck and whispering sweetly about how pretty she was, and how much she meant to him. He found the spot that made her cry out, and the metal frame of her bed began to bang lightly against the wall as he increased his rhythm. She could hold back no longer and moaned out as her orgasm burst through. Just then the door to Grandma's room slammed shut and Elvis quickly covered her mouth with his hands to muffle the sound of her cries as Dodger’s footsteps echoed through the hallway on the other side of the wall.

He shook his head, sssshing her with a michievous grin. Bettina made a face, as if to say she couldn’t help it and Elvis’s grin became a squeezed, pained expression. His movements become more erratic and he began to stutter before he pulled out and finished over her belly. Afterwards, he caught his breath and fell back into the pillows panting, drawing Bettina into him as the sweat cooled over their bodies and they heaved together. She leaned into his chest hair and whispered “Ich liebe dich,” and he stroked her head, mumbling “me too, baby, me too.”

At five a.m. he kissed her forehead and pulled on his pants, looking both ways out of her door before departing with a wink.  Bettina waited until he showered and went downstairs before she got up to follow.

6 a.m. Friday, September 10th 1959

Goethestraße 14, Bad Nauheim, West Germany

Dodger was pouring another cup of coffee for her son and grandson when Bettina came into the dining room and blushed at the sight of Elvis’ grandmother.

Some nights he snuck into her room late at night, some nights he would whisper for her to see him in his bedroom. Either way, she was certain the old woman could hear the creak of the mattress from their late night and early morning activities. For that matter, Bettina guessed that Elvis’ father Vernon also knew how things were between his son and her. But whatever his thoughts on the matter were, Vernon kept them to himself.

Elvis stood to leave with a mouth still chewing bacon, egg and tomato sandwich. This did not stop him from kissing first Dodger and then Bettina on the cheek and wishing his babies a good day. Bettina downed a cup of coffee and helped Grandma clean up.

“God knows that youngun’ has the world on his shoulders. S’too much for one boy to bear. He is lucky to have a nice girl like you, Betty.”

Dodger looked her in the eye, before lifting up the loaf of cornbread that Vernon’s new girlfriend, Dee, had brought over. Dodger sniffed it with a tight grimace before tossing it in the trash.

“That Stanley woman has about as much business messing with corn bread as she does messing with my son.”

Bettina giggled, and the two woman made quick work of clearing up the kitchen together before Bettina went to work sorting through Elvis’ fan mail and sending back photographs that she signed for him.

It was a cheerful, fall day, and the house was in high spirits when Elvis came back for lunch to eat with Lamar and Cliff. It was only after Frau Pieper, the house keeper, brought Bettina the latest stack of mail that she felt her spirits waver again.

There on the top was a pink envelope addressed to Bettina. This was what Elvis told his girlfriends back in Memphis to do in order to make sure their correspondence didn’t get mixed up with the fan mail. Looking at the return address, this letter was from Anita Wood.

Frau Pieper muttered under her breath in German as she watched Bettina hesitate.

“Ack, you should be ashamed of yourself, cheapening your body for that American. You will never be anything more to him than a bed warmer.”

Bettina stared down at the wood floor, studying the grain and the scratches there.

“You are just jealous, Frau Pieper.  I see the way you look at Elvis, how you hug him. You find him just as irresistible as I do.”

The housekeeper grinned. “If I were your age, I would be visiting Golde Wolff for a love spell.”

“Golde Wolff? A love spell?” Bettina turned back and arched her eyebrows, unsure she had heard Frau Pieper correctly.

“Ja, the old Jewish witch on Friedensstraße.”

Bettina rubbed her hands together. “I heard there were no Jews left in Bad Neuheim after -”

“Ja, Golde Wolff is the last Jew, she hid in a basement of one of the abandoned houses for ten years. They say she only came out during the darkest nights to forage for herbs and food.” Frau Pieper leaned in, whispering in a hushed tone.  “The men who burned the synagogue and marched the Jews to the trains died tragically. All of them. At different times. She cursed them with her magical spells.”

“Hmmm, you don’t really believe that, do you?”

Frau Pieper put her hands in her apron and leveled Bettina with a look as sharp as a knife.

“I do. My sister took my niece Elfriede to Golde Wolff when no doctor could cure her fever. Today, Elfriede is married and lives a full life. If you want to fix that boy who treats you like a pig, go to Friedensstraße.”

Bettina laughed, and then grabbed Anita’s pink letter, as if to show Frau Pieper how aloof she was, how accommodating and at ease she could be knowing she was one of the many women in Elvis’ life. Frau Pieper was just another ignorant, superstitious small town old lady. Witches. Honestly. It was just how the old guard masked their prejudice to Jews today in 1959.

“It’s women like you who are holding this country back.” She muttered in English smiling all the while at the housekeeper, knowing she didn’t speak English.

But Frau Pieper’s words were harder to dispel and Bettina found they stayed with her through the day.

You will never be anything more to him than a bed warmer. The boy who treats you like a pig.

These words poked at her, digging deep into the recesses of her subconscious, the part of her that was not cool and aloof. The part of her that wanted more. That told her if she was just prettier, funnier, more charming Elvis would not want to be with other girls. And she could have him all to herself.

A darkness settled over Bettina’s mood. Not even the bright light of Elvis’ smile could fully put her at ease when he got home and squeezed her waist, teasing her with a mouth full of coconut cake. No, her mood only darkened as the night wore on, and it got harder to cover it with a forced smile after the two Australian girls returned and gleefully smiled when Elvis invited them both up to his room. He did not visit Bettina that night, and the next day she heard him bragging to Lamar and Cliff at lunch.

“Man oh man, ain’t nothin’ like a pack a wild Australian gals. Almost too much, jack. I’m tellin’ ya. Pounced on me like a couple a tigers. Grrrrr. Know what I mean? All I gotta say is, look out.” They laughed. “I don’t know bout all that, like my girls to act like girls, ya know? Them cats was too aggressive. Think I got some scratch marks.” This was followed by another round of sycophantic laughter, and a joke from Elvis about how Lamar likes his guys to act like girls.

It was all Bettina could do to keep her smile steady when she met Elvis in the hallway and accepted a farewell kiss on the cheek.

“There’s my gal.” His crooked smile melted her heart. “Why can’t every gal be like you, Betty? Ya just pretty and so sweet.”

That’s why you don’t need every girl, you just need me, she thought to her self.

It was not long after this that Bettina  gathered her things and ventured out to find Friedensstraße.

It was not late, only half past three when Bettina got down to the town square. Yet for some reason it was already getting dark. The uneven cobblestones in the street  rose to meet Bettina’s shoes as if they were trying to trip her, and she felt as if the town was progressively getting darker as she made her way through what must have been the old Jewish quarter.  Bettina walked all the way down Friedensstraße, but there was no sign or business that looked like it belonged to a witch. She wasn’t sure what kind of store front a witch would have. She hadn’t wanted to give Frau Pieper the satisfaction of knowing she was taking the old women’s advice, and so had just gone to town hoping she would find it. It was only on her third trip sauntering back up Friedensstraße that she noticed the dark, narrow alley and the little flag sticking up from a basement several buildings down. Bettina’s heart beat faster as she stumbled toward the sign, finally able to read the tattered cloth in the dark depth of the alley: “Der Apotheker.”

The rail at the top of the stairs down to the basement door was wet, and Bettina gripped it tightly, unsure whether to go through with this visit. She didn’t believe in witches, she didn’t believe in magic. At the bottom of the stairs was a door painted black, and in the middle a faded yellow star. It almost looked as if a circle or marking had been drawn around it, and Bettina was just squinting to try and make it out when the door flew open and she felt the wind push her forward until she was stumping into a dimly lit parlor.

“Come here, mine kindela.”

A soft throaty voice called from the back of the room, where a short, stout older women stood. Her hair was cut in a short grey bob, and her dress was a smart mustard yellow floral print. The kind popular after the war had ended. A golden dragonfly pin lifted the hair off the right side of the women’s face, and adiamonds sparkled in the dragonfly's wings.

This was the old Jewish witch? She was trim and clean and friendly and could have been someone’s grandmother. Comparatively, Frau Pieper looked more like a fat old hag. But then Bettina noticed something eerie about the way Golde Wolff smiled at her

“I ve been waiting for you. Have a seat, have a seat.” Golde motioned to the chairs at a dark red table in the center of the room.

Bettina looked around as she sat, the walls of the basement were painted a dark, burgundy color. Underneath her was a Persian rug with navy, gold and burgundy detailed patterns swirling around. As Bettina tread over it she could almost swear the patterns were moving. Shelves lined the back half of the parlor, stacked with glass jars filled with plants and powders and god knows whatelse. A stained glass lamp decorated with dragonflies in the mosaic and around the metal base was the only light in the room, save for a candle burning in the middle of the table.

“I’m, I’m not really sure why I’m here.”

Golde sat down across from her, folding her hands on the table.

“You want a spell. A love spell, no?”

Bettina nodded, her mouth hung open.

“if I do this, you can never go back. There is no remedy. Do you really want to make someone love you?”

 “I - he, uh. He already loves me. He tells me all the time. I just want, I want him to love only me.”

Golde nodded, petting the black cat who suddenly appeared and jumped up into her lap.

“Ah, yes, a spell to bring forth feelings that are already there. Focus them. Well, there will be a price.”

“Would I have to sacrifice something I want, like not being able to have children?”

“No, no. A cost, forty marks to be exact.”

"Oh, ha."

Bettina pulled out her wallet, that was half a week’s wages. She swallowed hard and handed over the money. Golde smiled and put out her hand.

“I need something of yours and something of his.”

Bettina pulled out the white, ivory bone comb she had found in Elvis’ room before she left, and then plucked a hair from her own head, placing the the black and brown strands into the witch’s palm. 

Whack! The cat jumped on the table and began to rub against Bettina’s shoulder, purring.

“Wait here, Rumi will keep you company.”

And so Bettina scratched Rumi behind his ears and watched as the witch pulled out jars and poured ingredients into a mortar, grinding it up with a pestle. Twenty minutes later, Golde was pouring the mixture into a glass jar and handing the deep red candle to Bettina.

“You must say your intention out loud then light the candle immediately and let it burn over night. Put it somewhere well protected where the flame can burn strong, creating a robust foundation for your love. When the candle has burned out, your spell will be complete.”

Bettina lit the candle the minute she got back, and left it burning on top of her dresser far from the window or the door. She could tell the magic was working immediately. Elvis was sweet to her the whole night through, pulling her on to his lap as he cajoled Cliff to entertain them with some of his stories, and keeping her near him all evening. His hands were at her waist, caressing her back and forth with his thumbs, his knee between her legs, naughtily pushing up and down. And when it was time for bed, he put his hand around her shoulder and guided her upstairs in front of the other guests.

 5 a.m. Saturday, September 12th , 1959

Goethestraße 14, Bad Nauheim, West Germany

At dawn he was furtively rubbing against her, half asleep with a full erection, and Bettina turned into him, bringing him between her legs for their morning love making ritual. She sighed as he pressed his dry lips to her neck, and peppered her clavicle with kisses as they banged the metal frame into the wall clumsily rocking and grunting into the day.

The candle had burned down to the bottom when Bettina checked it, and she smiled with satisfaction as she cleaned herself off and skipped down stairs to help Grandma with breakfast.

At midday she looked up from her work in the office to see Elvis jumping the high wooden fence that bordered the back yard and emerging at her window, smirking as he tapped her window. She opened it and laughed as he jumps through, helping to pull him in and then falling back against the desk.

“There is a door, you know, ja?”

Elvis’ lips curled into a wider grin and his hands held her tight. “This way was more fun. Better view.”

He waggled his eyebrows and kissed her lips, a glint in his eye.

“You are a naughty little boy.”

“Nah uh, ain’t true.” He mumbles, lifting her on to the desk and knocking over her carefully stacked piles of fan letters and autographs. “He’s a good little boy. He’s her good little boy.” Then before she knew it he was telling her to be quiet as he settled on his knees and removed her panties, and his head disappeared under her skirt. At first, his tongue tickled her, she had yet to feel totally at ease letting a man do this. But Elvis had been dutifully working all year to make Bettina comfortable being kissed between her legs. There. At her pleasure point. His voice hummed into her as he pulled her to the edge of the table. He lapped at her gently, moving his index finger into her, his tongue feathering over her at first, then gradually flicking her nub before kissing it again. Lingering, he now possessed her completely with his mouth. Bettina knocked over more stacks of mail as she tried and failed to to find the edge of the desk to hold something as her whole body began to vibrate and thrash with the overwhelming sensation of her second orgasm of the day.  She was still heaving and shuddering from the aftershocks as Elvis wiped his face on her inner thighs and licked his lips, a devilish glint in his eye.

“Mhmmm mhmmm mhmm. Guess I had my dessert fore ma meal. S’what you do to me, Betty boo.”

Bettina stayed in the office over the lunch hour, trying to compose herself and smiling. The spell had worked. She could feel it.

The spell had clearly not worked. There was no other explanation, Bettina thought, as she stood in her usual perch at the edge of the living room and watched Elvis talk and flirt with Heli, one of the other pretty young German girls he was dating. Bettina thought of the intimate moments she had shared with Elvis just hours ao. This made her tummy do several more summersaults until she could no longer stand to watch them anymore. Instead, she calmly turned and fled to her office. Moments later the door handle turned, and she looked up with excitement, knowing Elvis must have been stymied by the spell and told Heli to get lost.

But it wasn’t Elvis.

“Please Rex, I’d like to just be alone, I - I have a headache.”

Rex inhaled, and instead of leaving, walked towards where she stood, looking out the window. He grabbed her wrist.

“I can’t bear to see him treat you like this, Betty. You’re so beautiful.”

“Rex stop - what are you doing? You shouldn’t be here. You know what he will do if he finds you talking to me like this.”

Rex stepped closer.

“I don’t care, I can’t stop thinking of you. I love you.”

Bettina blinked, and pulled her hand from his, looking around the room to get her bearing. She didn’t know what to do, so she slapped his face, then jumped back as if she had been the one struck. Rex floundered for something to say, but Bettina didn’t want to hear it and shuffled out as if the room was on fire, sequestering herself in her bedroom alone.

The sound of Elvis mattress bumping against the wall across the hallway drove a knife deeper and deeper into Bettina’s heart.

8 a.m. Sunday, September 13th , 1959

A dark alley off Friedensstraße,  Bad Nauheim, West Germany

The air was chilly as Bettina made her way down the steps to Golde’s door, rapping against the black paint loudly until the witch finally opened up.

“Good morning, my child, it is early for —”

“Your spell didn’t work.”

Bettina pushed her small frame through the cracked door, eyeing Golde’s gold and burgundy robes as she entered the witch’s parlor.

“That is not possible.” Golde announced, closing the door behind her.

The smell of pinewood wafted through the room, and Bettina gazed into the flames of Golde’s fire, watching them dance as she warmed her hands.

“Well, this time it is. But that is ok, I no longer want him to love me.” She turned to the witch, fists clenched. “What is the price for you to curse him?”

Golde put her hand on Bettina’s shoulder, as Rumi slinked over, mewling at the witch’s feet. “My child, you are so quick and changeable. Yesterday a love spell, today a curse. I cannot in good conscience do this. You must be mistaken, my spells always work.”

“Yesterday, he made love to me in the morning and was in bed with another women by nightfall.”

Golde stroked her chin, and walked over to the table, motioning for Bettina to join her.

“And you are certain you brought me his hair?”

“Yes, I found that comb on the floor of his room.”

“You said he loved you already. So, the spell I made for you was one for a natural love, a spell to acquire his undivided devotion where love already existed. The only explanation is that you are wrong. He does not love you. He is just using you for his carnal pleasure.”

Bettina nodded. “Ja, he seems so earnest, so sincere. But you must be right. All the more reason I want to put a curse on him.”

“You are certain? Once done, it cannot be undone.”

Bettina folded her hands, looking down at where Rumi’s black tail now wound around her ankle.

“ I was a virgin a year ago, besotted with this man. He brought me to live and work with him, he lied, telling me he loved me. And now I am stuck working for him, in love with him, watching as he romances woman after woman in front of me, and then when he is bored, he comes back to me for comfort and companionship. I do not have the strength to leave him. If I cannot have him, I want him to feel the same way I do.”

“60 deustch marks.”

Bettina sucked in her breath. Then pulled out her wallet, 60 was all she had on her, it was the most money she had ever spent on anything in her adult life. Golde stood and rummaged around in her cabinet until she pulled out a black candle, while Rumi jumped up and made himself comfortable in Bettina’s lap.

“I do not need anything except his name. After I light the candle, we must hold hands and you will recite the fate you want to blight on this man. Understood?”

Bettina shivered as a cold wind blew through the parlor.

“Yes, I understand.”

“His name?”

“Elvis Presley.”

The witch raised her eyebrow, but lit the candle never the less. She took Bettina’s hands and began to mutter an incantation in a language Bettina did not understand. Maybe it was Hebrew, but she was not sure. Somewhere amidst the doleful recitation she heard the name Elvis Presley repeated a number of times.  Then Golde stopped and raised her voice.

“Oh spirits, we beseech you, hear this poor girl’s plea.” She nodded at Bettina to continue.

“Curse him with unrequited love, may he fall in love with someone who is everything he despises, a succumbus starved for sex and male attention who wants only to use him for his fame and fortune. Whose faithfulness will match his own. Whose betrayal will make him want to die. “

WHACK!

The front door blew open, and the rushing sound of the wind filled the basement, knocking over the lamp and making Rumi run under the couch on the other side of the parlor, mewling louder and louder. Golde did not flinch, she only gripped Bettina’s hands tighter, calling out loudly.

“Here us, oh spirits, curse this Elvis Presley with the affliction of an unrequited love for a woman who embodies all that he despises, may she be the opposite of his ideal and break his heart. And when they meet he will only see her as a reflection of his ideal, his one true love, and by the time he realizes his mistake may it be too late.”

The blast of air circled them in a spiral that tangled their clothes and pulled up their hair, spinning and spinning around in a whirlwind until it blew out the candle’s flame. The front door thwacked shut. And Bettina fell back against the chair fatigued and almost unable to stand.

Somehow she summoned the strength to trudge back along the cobblestones to the house on Goethestraße. None of the guys were there when she returned, just Grandma Presley there to greet her with a pinched smile that made the old woman's cheeks cave in. Bettina thought about Mrs. Presley. Most days Grandma was her only companion. Guilt washed over her briefly for the cursing this kind women’s grandson. But then Bettina thought of Heli and the wound that still ached in her chest from hearing the sounds of their love making this morning. She thought of Julia and Cynthia. She thought of the countless times Elvis had asked her to accompany him on dates as his translator. She knew many of the women he had gone out with better than he did. And then to find that he did not even care for her? It was too much to bear. Exhausted from a hard morning of casting spells, Bettina made her way up stairs and lay down.

It was well past 7 o’clock at night when she woke up again, and she was surprised to see Rex on the floor of Elvis room as she walked past the door.

“What are you looking for?”

Rex stopped, and stood. “I haven’t been able to find my comb in days. It’s a nice, ivory number, I think Elvis and the boys took it as a prank, they were with me when I bought it in Paris.”

Bettina gasped. “No.” She faltered and fell back against the hallway. Her stomach dropped to the ground.

“What is it, my darling, are you ok? Even peaked, you are still the most beautiful -”

Just then Elvis bounded up the stairs, and Rex jumped back a mile.

“There’s my sweetheart, c’mon baby, need my best gal by my side.” Elvis hands were around Bettina’s waist, cradling her into him as he walked down stairs, yelling back at Rex.

“Looking for something Rexadus? You didn’t go and loose that fancy ass comb you bought in Paris already? You shudda seen him, Betty, made us late for our show that night, prancing round buyin that thang.”

Bettina nodded, half dazed. Her mind was racing as she pieced together the mistakes she had made over the last few days, wondering if there was any way to undo the love spell, to uncurse the curse.

She barely heard the doorbell ring or Elvis snapped at Charlie to go answer as he made his way to the piano and sat Bettina next to him as he played. She couldn’t sit still, and began to fidget with her nails. Elvis pursed his lips, and was just about to give her a lecture on proper posture when something caught his eye. Bettina turned to see his friend, Currie, being led into the room with his wife, Carol and a beautiful, shy young girl with porcelain skin, dark brown hair and an upturned nose. Elvis whistled and stopped playing to stride over and introduce himself to the newcomer.

“Howdy, I’m Elvis Pretzel.” He stammered out with an awkward laugh.

Bettina rolled her eyes as she watched him eagerly run his hand through his hair. The young girl blushed demurely.

“A pleasure, I’m sure. My name is Priscilla. Priscilla Beaulieu.”

Happy Halloween.........

tagging a few friends:

@missmaywemeetagain @ellie-24 @be-my-ally @vintageshanny @lookingforrainbows @ashtag6887 @deniseinmn @ab4eva @i-r-i-n-a-a @j-v-9-2 @peskybedtime @shakerattlescroll @arrolyn1114 @lialocklear @everythingelvispresley @artlover8992 @dkayfixates @kingdomforapony @louisejoy86 @notstefaniepresley @literally-just-elvis-fics @whositmcwhatsit

#elvis presley #elvis fanfiction #elvis x oc #elvis presley fanfiction #army elvis #spooky not scary #elvis-o-ween #ughhh oh well here goes nothing #halloween

[cherrifire]

Archived in the Southlands: Martyn's Mix

Case #0211905-C

Original recording from Martyn Littlewood's personal supplemental tape.

[Martyn] Ello, ello! I'm Martyn Littlewood, also known as the Archivist. I reckon I've had that title for about 3 years now? And this is my new personal supplemental tape.

Word count: 2244

Be sure to read Case #0211905-A and Case #0211905-B before this one.

[AU Masterpost]

[Click]

[Martyn] Ello, ello! I'm Martyn Littlewood, also known as the Archivist. I reckon I've had that title for about 3 years now? And this is my new personal supplemental tape.

But to start, this tape is NOT meant for research or theories. I get enough conspiracy theory rubbish at the Institute. Something destroyed the place I was living at with BigB and Grian. And if I have to think about that case one more time, I'll crawl into a grave and let the Buried claim me.

I genuinely just needed a personal tape of my own to ramble on to. Lots goes on in this massive brain of mine. I just need something to talk to and get those thoughts out. This could technically be used as a memory log? Something for me to just look back on later down the line. I actually used to keep a log like that before the Archives and I kind of miss it.

I'm going to leave this tape in my flat so I don't get it confused with the hundreds of other tape recorders floating around the Archives. Maybe I'll be able to catch some fun stuff of my new flatmate too.

Speaking of Ren, I'm going to try and convince him to grow more than just roses. He seems to know a lot about caring for flowers, so I wonder if I could throw him off his game with something completely different. Oh, maybe something we can eat would be cool! I'll mention it next time I see him.

Though, I'm not sure when that'll be. I've noticed he tends to go out a lot, but that doesn't surprise me. He probably gets invited to all sorts of parties and events. Probably for the best.

(a pause)

Oh, good grief! For the record, I am NOT turning this into a gross emotional audio diary either!

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Martyn] Someone knocked on the door today looking for Ren. I'd never seen him before but he said his name was Doc. The name reminded me of someone I used to know, but again, I'd never seen him before.

It's not unusual, people come by looking for Ren all the time. It's actually really sweet how many folks just stop by to check on him.

So sweet, it makes me sick. He's usually never here, but I always like to take messages and relay them back to him when I see him. It's hard to forget things nowadays, so it's not an issue. Though, I guess it doesn't really matter, since I like to change the message anyway, just because I can.

When Ren gets home, I'm going to tell him that Doc wants to make a diss track with him about Grian.

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Martyn] I wouldn't do it.

(Jimmy's voice is coming through a phone speaker)

[Jimmy] Martyn, I promise you, I'm quitting if you do it.

[Martyn] (laughing) Right, but I wouldn't do it.

(Movement is heard as Martyn starts to look for something.)

[Jimmy] (frustrated) No- but you're saying it like you are going to do it!

[Martyn] But I wouldn't though!

(something falls, making a 'thud' sound as it hits the floor)

[Jimmy] I can hear you rummaging through your things!

[Martyn] (wheezing) But I-

[Jimmy] If I walk into the archives tomorrow and you scare me with a stupid party popper again I promise you I will leave.

[Martyn] (wheezing) I just wouldn't though.

(another object falls)

[Jimmy] Martyn.

[Martyn] I wouldn't.

(something else falls. Martyn is probably doing it on purpose)

[Jimmy] STOP!

(Martyn laughs)

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Martyn] I think my favourite thing about Tim is that I could tell him anything and he'll think I'm messing with him. I told him today that I was looking into a case about a cult dedicated to darkness. His immediate response was:

(mocking) "That's not funny, Martyn, stop it!"

(Martyn laughs)

(a pause)

I’ve known him since we were kids, but Jimmy doesn’t know me enough to tell when I’m joking, I guess.

(static)

Ah, wait-

(a pause then a light knock on the door)

Come in!

(door opens)

[Ren] Hey dude, is there a reason your rent paperwork has a completely random name on it?

[Martyn] Oh, Martyn Littlewood isn't my legal name. It just sounds cooler.

[Ren] That checks out. I looked at the name on this thing and was like "who is this loser?" 

[Martyn] (laughing) I'm a different person now. My loser days are behind me.

[Ren] Well, thanks for letting me know, Phillip Watson.

[Martyn] Don't you dare!

(Ren laughs as he closes the door.)

[Martyn] If he starts calling me Phil, I swear to God-

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Martyn] That play Ren's been rehearsing, The Rise of the Red King–it's starting to grow on me. I remember helping him practice a little the day I moved in, but I'm forcing him to let me help more since I caught him rehearsing it on his own again.

He was in his room just repeating the lines quietly on his own. I imagine he was only holding back so as to not disturb me, but the unfortunate curse for the beautiful Archivist is I hear everything.

Which means I heard the awkward silence between each line he read out. So I took it upon myself to start responding, to fill that gap.

He said something like, "and as you know, every king must have a hand."

And I, charming as ever, poked my head in and said, "two is preferable, so you can hold things."

Then he continued, "I can think of no greater person than you." 

And the accent he chose for this character was like a mix between Scottish and Irish with like a bit of pirate. It was so bizarre. I'm doing the best I can to imitate it but I just can't do it like Ren. And I-

(door opens)

[Ren] Good afternoon, Martyn.

[Martyn] Good day, my liege.

[Ren] Martyn, will you do the honour of being the Hand of the King on this fine day?

[Martyn] Oh my word. Do I get a little pin badge?

[Ren] Definitely, dude.

When a kingdom is formed, loyalty must be proven. Later there will be a test for you. And if ye pass, it'll be ye and me to the end!

(Ren clears his throat and returns to speaking normally)

It's shopping, your test is grocery shopping. I'm heading out, did you want to come?

[Martyn] Only if you do that voice in public.

[Ren] You're insane, dude.

The King likes it. And you shall follow in his footsteps! Today, both our mettles will be tested.

[Martyn] Oh geez. I don't think my metal is very dense, so I'm gonna struggle.

[Ren] Alright, chat over. Let's get out of here, dude. But um- are you recording this?

[Martyn] Ah-! 3 years and I still always forget to turn these-

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Martyn] Good evening, my liege.

[Ren] Hand of the King. To what do I owe the pleasure?

[Martyn] The carrots, m'lord! It will be a bountiful harvest!

[Ren] Oh, dude! No way! Show me right this instant.

[Martyn] I took your teachings and successfully grew a small handful of carrots. Come see!

(a pair of footsteps then a sliding door being pushed out of the way)

(Sound of dirt shifting as a carrot is pulled from the soil)

Ta-da!

[Ren] (excited, high-pitched) Oh! Dude! Look at that!

[Martyn] That's right boss, fresh produce right here in our garden. They're a little small, but size isn't everything.

[Ren] Let's get these out of the ground and wash them. We could make a carrot cake with these!

[Martyn] This is why you're the boss. I would have never thought of that.

[Ren] (laughing) But what's a King without his loyal Hand?

[Click]

-

[Click]

(the recording starts while Martyn and Ren are in the middle of laughing)

(there's the sound of cake batter being aggressively stirred underlining the recording)

[Ren] Martyn, you're wasting batter!

[Martyn] You said to mix well!

[Ren] Dude! Not that well! You're getting cake giblets all over the kitchen! Stop it!

(Martyn and Ren laugh)

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Ren] (mocking) Statement of Ren Diggity Dog

I have no idea what you actually do at the archives, but I bet that's what you sound like.

[Martyn] Dude! What are you-

[Ren] Yes, I'd like to talk about my strange roommate-

[Martyn] Ren, don't even joke like that! Now give it here-

[Ren] You always use this to record me anyway. Why? Is it your personal audio diary?

[Martyn] No! That's not what that is!

[Ren] Then what is it?

[Martyn] How about you just hand it back and-

[Ren] (laughing) You're deflecting, dude! Oh, this is definitely a diary.

[Martyn] (laughing) Ren, give that-

[Click]

-

[Click]

(all sound is muffled as if through a wall)

[Scar] Knock knock!

[Ren] Scar-

[Scar] Ren! It's been a while!

Oh man, I missed this place. It's been, what? Four months since I last saw you?

(a pause, then Scar laughs)

As talkative as always.

How's your new roommate? I haven't seen the Archivist in ages! Is he good?

(a door opens and Scar's voice is no longer muffled) 

Oh wow. There's a lot of interesting stuff in here.

(Scar hums something as he thinks)

(he starts to rummage through Martyn's things)

Ah! There it is.

Ren, you won't miss these, right?

[Ren] No- No, you can have them.

[Scar] Wonderful. Pleasure doing business with you, Ren.

[Click]

-

[Click]

(extended silence)

[Martyn] I thought I could trust him...

(a pause)

(Martyn makes a frustrated sound and tosses the tape onto his bed)

(fading as he walks out) Ren, did you touch the thermostat again!?

[Click]

-

[Click]

(door opening)

(silence)

[Ren] Sorry, Martyn.

(Ren sniffs the air then he enters the room)

(extended sound of papers being rummaged through)

[Ren] There you are- erm, whatever you are.

Statement of Pearl Moon. Okay. I can work with that.

(a pause then footsteps approach)

[Ren] When did this turn on?

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Martyn] (whispering and panicked) Ren has been standing on the other side of my door for an hour now. Waiting...

I don't know what he wants. I know he's been taking Hunt statements, but I have no idea why. I can't even tell how far gone he is or why he's hunting m-

(a knock on the door)

(Martyn holds his breath)

(extended silence)

(distant footsteps as Ren walks away)

Yeah, fuck that. I'm not sleeping tonight.

[Click]

-

[Click]

(distant sounds of screaming, everything muffled as if through a wall)

(there's a collection of a dozen heavy footsteps all quickly getting further away along with the screaming)

(Ren and Martyn are also muffled through the wall)

(Ren is laughing, hysterical and manic)

[Martyn] Ren, get a hold of yourself!

(Ren continues to laugh)

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Martyn] Hang on, I'm just going to grab a few random statements then we can go!

[Ren] (distant) Take your time!

(sound of a small handful of papers being picked up)

[Martyn] It's going to be fine...

(Martyn takes in a deep breath)

(he releases his breath, quivering like he's cold)

(a pause)

Fuck...

[Click]

-

[Click]

[Ren] (whispering) Martyn passed out the moment his head hit the couch. The statements he read helped heal his wounds a little. They're still... bad, but at least he's sleeping through it.

Me, though? I think I'm going to be awake for a while.

So I'm trying what Martyn does. Talk complete nonsense into a tape just to turn thoughts into words. I had to grab his audio diary from his room since the one we had ran out of tape. I'm sure he won't mind this one time. Plus, I know he listens back through this one all the time and I...

I kind of want him to hear this.

I guess first, Martyn looks terrible. I'm staring at his filthy face right now from across the room. He's covered in dirt and his sweater is completely ruined. Although, I guess that's my fault. But he's been wearing that same sweater for months now. Good riddance, I say.

I'll find him a proper style when he's ready to go out again.

(Ren chuckles to himself then pauses)

Only if he wants to, of course.

(another pause)

I think... I think he's stuck with me now. After my... change, he said the hunt was over but... I know he only put it on hold. I can feel my blood waiting, itching for him to run so I can chase him down again. He said he wasn't going anywhere but...

[Martyn] (groggy and distant) Ren?

[Ren] Oh- Martyn. I'm sorry, did I wake you, my friend?

(movement as Ren gets up and walks towards Martyn)

[Martyn] No. I've been up this whole time. Listening.

[Ren] I didn't mean to keep you up, dude. My bad.

[Martyn] Can I have the tape?

(the recorder is passed to Martyn)

Ren, did you know the cold is typically an attribute of the Lonely?

[Ren] So what's your theory on the snow back at Dogwarts, then..?

[Martyn] My current theory is that you're too much of a social guy to be attracting the Lonely.

(a pause)

[Ren] Oh, Martyn...

[Martyn] I meant it, okay? I'm not going anywhere. I'm with you.

[Ren] It's you and me to the end.

[Martyn] Yeah. To the End.

[Click]

#cherri.writes #the southland archives #trafficblr #renchantyn #renchanting duo

[a-solitary-sea-rover-backup]

Underwater Urban Legends: Jacques Cousteau's Secret Discovery?

(Carthago vol. 3, “Le Monstre de Djibouti”, by Christophe Bec and Milan Jovanovic, 2013)

When I first got interested in ocean creatures as a little girl in the late 90s, we had several oversized white-covered books about Jacques Cousteau's ocean expeditions around the house that my parents let me page through, even though the text was way too small for me to read. A little later on, I read the Cousteau Society's young readers' magazine Dolphin Log/Cousteau Kids every month at the library, especially the selections from Dominique Serafini's comic book adaptations of the Calypso crew's adventures.

As an adult who's still interested in marine science, I've read several of Cousteau's books, and seen some of his documentaries. In 2019, I even got to hear his grandson Fabien speak at an event at the American Museum of Natural History.

Across film, TV, literature, comics, and even music, the Cousteau family’s underwater adventures are pretty well-documented. But one persistent bit of sea-folklore I've come across in various forms and places is an urban legend that at least one adventure wasn't. Somewhere in the world, these stories say, Captain Cousteau saw (or heard) something underwater that was so shocking that he kept it a secret from the world. (Except, presumably, from whoever is repeating the story.)

Could there be any truth behind this fantastic story? What was this "secret discovery"? And where and when did all of this happen? Like most urban legends, there are a lot of conflicting accounts and not a lot of proof.

I'd love to see a site like Skeptoid do a deep dive (heheh) into this story someday, but since they haven't yet, my research is below the cut.

A Secret Discovery?

It's alleged that after a submarine expedition, undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau said, "The world isn't ready for what's down there." (How Stuff Works)

As a reader and a writer, I have to say, this is an excellent pitch for a story. A world-famous explorer who witnessed all kinds of undersea wonders and environmental tragedies choosing to keep a remarkable discovery a secret for some unknown reason? Wouldn't you read that book? I'd read that book!

In fact, I did read that book! The French comic Carthago, first published in 2007 and translated into English in 2014, features a character based on Cousteau named Major Bertrand, a famous ocean explorer who made a discovery so shocking that he not only kept it a secret, but retired and lived the rest of his life onshore afterwards. The actual scene shown in flashback is a beat-by-beat retelling of the "Red Sea Monster" version of the story we'll discuss below. According to an interview with the comic's writer Christophe Bec, that scene (and the comic itself) were inspired by an article in the French paranormal magazine Le Monde de l'un découverte (The World of the Unknown) published in February-March 2001. That article is in French here.

Here are the broad outlines of the story as I've seen it in various places online:

Cousteau surfaces, shaken from a dive, OR

The Calypso crew recover either a shark cage that has been destroyed OR

An underwater camera or hydrophone that has recorded something

Cousteau says some variation on "The world is not ready for what I have seen"

Cousteau orders any film or audio recordings of the incident (taken by either divers, underwater equipment, or film crew aboard the ship) to be either destroyed or suppressed and hidden away in a safe

(Some accounts have people saying they actually saw the incident happen on TV, which is unlikely as I don't think any of Cousteau's documentaries were live broadcasts.)

Cousteau is so shaken by what he saw that he never returns to the site of the incident

The Red Sea Monster

The most famous and detailed version of the story, and the one Carthago adapts, sets the action in the Gulf of Tadjoura off the coast of Djibouti, near where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. Investigating legends of a sea monster in a cove called the Ghoubbet al-Kharab, or Gulf of the Demons, Cousteau's team lowered a camel carcass within a shark cage. When the cage was raised, it had been badly damaged, perhaps even destroyed.

[The Ghoubbet al-Kharab is the little inland bit at left almost cut off from the sea x]

The article in Le Monde de l'un découverte says this incident happened sometime before 26 June 1995, when the secret was revealed by a writer(?) named Stéphane Swirog, and that it had also been discussed on French TV in 1987. (I cannot find any information about a “Stéphane Swirog” online except in reprints of this story, although there is apparently an MMA fighter with that name. Is this one of those hoax articles with backwards names where “Goriws” sound like something hilarious in French that’s lost on me?)

This is a plausible part of the world to set this story, because Cousteau very famously did explore the Red Sea several times! A lot of his film The Silent World was filmed there, and his Conshelf underwater habitat was on the floor of the Red Sea off Sudan. In 2004, Cousteau's son Jean-Michel and grandchildren Fabien and Céline returned to these sites fifty years later for a new documentary you can watch here.

And we know Jacques Cousteau actually DID explore the coast of Djibouti in 1967-68! In his book Life and Death in a Coral Sea (1971), he says that when docked there, his crew, err, heard a strange story...

...we decided to visit the Goubet, a famous gulf of the Red Sea. Before leaving Djibouti that morning, one of our crew had by chance asked a local Arab diver about the Goubet. "Ah, sir," the man had replied, "it is a most extraordinary place. It is bottomless, and it is inhabited by monsters so large that they can drag down lines attached to 200-liter cans. Moreover, in 1963, Commandant Cousteau went there with Fredéric Dumas and his best divers, and they were so terrified by what they saw that they ran away." Naturally, we were eager to see the place in which, according to local gossip, we had earned so ignominious a reputation. I must report, however, that the Goubet was a disappointment. It is an inland sea or gulf that connects with the Red Sea by a narrow pass in which there is a very strong current, running up to seven knots. The surrounding area is very beautiful, and very wild, being dominated by volcanic mountains bare of foliage and marked in shades of red, yellow, and black. Once in the Goubet itself, we lowered the diving saucer to a depth of over six hundred feet without catching sight of even a small monster. The divers then suited up and went down also, but they saw nothing more remarkable than some very large sea urchins. There seemed to be very few fish of any kind. It is my guess that the "Goubet monster" of Arab legend was originally a manta ray, seen by some shepherd from a hill top. Manta rays are plentiful in this area, and it must happen occasionally that they wander into the Goubet and – because the inlet is so narrow and because mantas are not the most intelligent of beasts – have trouble finding their way out again. (Page 42)

(This is one of those "white-covered books" I still own a copy of!)

That's right, this story is so old it was told TO Cousteau in the late 1960s! It's the only version of the story he seems to have actually heard and commented on, and it was to deny the monster story.

It strikes me that two of the fearsome feats attributed to the Red Sea Monster— pulling air-filled cans/barrels underwater and destroying a shark cage— are things the shark in Jaws also does. While Peter Benchley’s novel came out in 1974, several years later, he did research sharks when writing it, so I wonder if “pulling barrels underwater” was just a bit of shark lore that was going around in the late 60s.

(At least the way it’s shown in the 1975 movie, the MythBusters showed a great white shark is strong enough to briefly pull barrel floats underwater but not to hold them there.)

The more embellished 2001 article post-dates Jaws and may be inspired by the cage-destruction scene in the film.

The Depths of Lake Tahoe

Apparently, years ago, Cousteau went scuba diving in Lake Tahoe. He emerged from the water shaken, but not with cold. He said, “The world is not ready for what I have seen.” (Jennifer Skene, “Rumors and Truth in Lake Tahoe”)

Another common account of the “secret discovery” story says that it didn’t happen at sea at all, but rather in the depths of landlocked Lake Tahoe, on the California-Nevada border. This is the version of the story most commonly associated with the “the world isn’t ready” quote. The Lake Tahoe version usually keeps things vague, speculating that perhaps Cousteau saw local legendary lake monster Tahoe Tessie OR a layer of hundreds of perfectly-preserved bodies of Chinese railroad workers or mafia victims floating eerily in mid-waters, OR some other mysterious thing too horrific to describe.

[Unspeakable horrors such as dinky maps found on Bing]

Both Tessie and the well-preserved bodies are urban legends seen discussed elsewhere without the Cousteau connection. Other legends speculate that the lake hides sharks, mermaids, an underground tunnel to Pyramid Lake, a crashed WWII bomber, and a fortune in gold bullion. Just your ISO standard set of underwater legends, really.

However, unlike the Red Sea, there is no evidence that Jacques Cousteau ever visited Lake Tahoe, let alone dove there!

According to other explorers who have explored the lake’s depths, the cold, clear waters do provide eerie visibility to the shipwrecks and sunken trees found there. While people have died in and around the lake and bodies are sometimes found, the more sensational claims of uncanny preservation and bodies eerily floating in mid-water, never rising or sinking, do not fit with Lake Tahoe’s known physical conditions.

The Screams of Hell

Indeed, the French diver Jacques Cousteau was swimming over Cuba some years ago, and he heard screaming noises at the bottom of the ocean. ... And Jacques Cousteau was so shaken up by what he had heard in the seas off Cuba, he never swam there again. ... He heard what he believed to be screaming, shouting, people being tortured, just as the Bible teaches. ("Ex-Catholics for Christ")

Yet another version of the story says that Cousteau heard the sounds of agonized screaming underwater, either while diving himself or recorded on a hydrophone, and possibly considered them the screams of souls in hell. These versions of the story tend to be vaguer, not always naming a time or place when this happened. (That version put it in Cuba, another in Greece, others vaguely “somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle”.)

That's probably because this version is just an adaptation of another, more well-known urban legend about Soviet geologists digging into hell and recording screams that has been repeated in various places since the 1980s. (You can see some of the problems with that story at the site linked.)

(Cousteau did explore Cuba’s waters in the mid-1980s as seen in the documentary, Cuba: Waters of Destiny. You won’t hear any screams from Hell in that documentary, but there is a guest appearance from Fidel Castro!)

Another religion-related urban legend about Jacques Cousteau is that he converted to Islam after discovering the Quran was correct about the mixing of the waters of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. This isn't true, either. In some places I'd seen this repeated in the same context as an equally-untrue claim that Neil Armstrong converted to Islam after hearing the call to prayer on the moon, and misremembered this as a claim Cousteau had heard the call to prayer underwater for a less-disturbing twist on the idea that the secret discovery was something heard underwater rather than seen, but as far as I can tell, that isn't the case.

Bells in Random Order

Do you know Jacques Cousteau? Well, they said on the radio That he hears bells in random order Deep beneath the perfect water ("Perfect Water")

The Blue Öyster Cult song "Perfect Water" has the lyrics above, which may be a reference to the "secret discovery" legend and specifically the above idea that it was a mysterious sound heard underwater. The band is known for having many references to legends, conspiracy theories, and the supernatural in other songs. "Perfect Water" was on the album Club Ninja, released in December 1985, post-dating Life and Death in a Coral Sea but predating the most famous accounts of the “Well to Hell” story. I can't find any other sources talking about Cousteau and mysterious bells.

This website instead thinks the lyrics are referring to Cousteau's actual descriptions of walruses as making sounds similar to bells in his writings and films. You can hear a walrus making a bell sound here.

Ask Me Anything

During an AMA session on Reddit in 2018, Fabien Cousteau (FCNomad) was asked about three different versions of this story (Djibouti, Lake Tahoe, and Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana.) He seemed most familiar with the Lake Tahoe version.

sotpsean: Hello, Mr Cousteau! It's an honour. When I was a child, family lived in Djibouti, Africa,(my father was a French Foreign Legionnaire). There was a local legend about a "sea monster" living in Lac Goubet. I've heard that your Grandfather might have investigated Lac Goubet in search of this "monster". Locals have thought it to be a prehistoric shark cut off from the sea. I've always wondered if someone might be able to shed light on this subject. Have you heard of this? Thanks for doing this AMA! FCNomad: Great to chat with you. French foreign legion? Serious stuff. There are legends of "sea monsters" in every body of water out there. Until we explore them we will not know for sure ;-) Lets go see! [x]

-

HulkVomit: Why did your grandfather never want to dive in Ft Peck Reservoir again? Would you ever come dive in it? Account-002: I am also REALLY curious about this. My Dad thought it was because if the siltyness of the water, combined with a possible encounter with multiple giant catfish/paddlefish that put him off. FCNomad: That does seem plausible and potentially sound due to the potential risks. He was focussed on filmmaking and if you can't see anything its hard to tell a visual story… [x]

-

TeddysGhost: Hi there, I live at Lake Tahoe and it is a common story around here that your grandfather went into the lake once and when he emerged he warned people that the world isn't ready to see what's down there? What do.you know about that story? Is there even a shred of legitimacy and if so what did he see? FCNomad: Ive heard this rumor as well. We were supposed to investigate on a new TV series but we never got the chance… [x]

Conclusions

...yeah, all versions of this story sound pretty fake to me. Sorry.

As Fabien says, almost every body of water has sea and lake monster legends attached to it, because the world’s waters really are mysterious, unpredictable, and dangerous. But over time, your local legendary water monster can become familiar, almost a sort of community mascot.

When reading the archives of The Liberator, a famous anti-slavery newspaper published in Boston in the mid-1800s, I found several articles where the writers referred to the New England sea serpent in these kinds of familiar terms, since to Bostonians it was a “local” monster. They even called it “our American sea serpent”— the children and grandchildren of the Minutemen, still defining their identity as Americans, could boast that England didn’t have such a cool monster.

In modern times, of course, a local monster legend can also be a major tourist attraction. Most of the sites I found repeating the Djibouti and Lake Tahoe versions of the story were… travel sites for Djibouti and Lake Tahoe (especially diving travel sites).

To present your local monster story as “verified” by a famous underwater explorer like Jacques Cousteau makes it sound authentic. It certainly spices things up for people planning their vacations, especially divers. And to say that your local monster scared away a globetrotting adventurer like Cousteau who had faced so many other perils all over the world definitely adds to the “local pride” angle. In Djibouti, a French colony that was having a vote in 1967 about whether to become independent, a story about a local monster scaring away a famous Frenchman may have had an appealing nationalist undertone.

The writer for Le Monde de l'un découverte, however, probably just wanted to tell a rip-roaring sea story. The presumably-French writer, writing for a French magazine, would have been writing for an audience who had grown up following Cousteau’s adventures. Perhaps they combed his writings in search of any mention of sea monsters that could fit in their paranormal magazine, found the passage about Djibouti in Life and Death in a Coral Sea, and created a more sensational version that conveniently left out Cousteau’s own debunking. For an audience who had grown up with Cousteau, what could be more exciting than hearing about one more adventure of their late hero, totally new and unseen, and a discovery so shocking it was being kept secret?

And, like I said, it does make for a great story! No wonder it inspired Christophe Bec to write his own version! And with the decades-long tradition of fictional stories parodying and homaging Jacques Cousteau, I can’t blame you if this piece has inspired you to write your own version of the “secret discovery” story— just please, make it clear that your fiction is fiction.

#jacques cousteau #the mythical seas #song of the sea #urban legends #underwater

[iceprincessviviane]

Chapter 3 - New in the town.

Heritage series.

Pairing: poly!BTS (Demons) x Female!Shy!Skinny!Chosen!Reader

Type: dark romance, horror au, soulmate au, ploy relationship, slowburn, yandere.

Warnings: Horror themes, some religion themes (mostly demonic), gore, blood, dreams, manipulation, witchcraft, magic themes, death (side characters), mentionings of forced marriage, mentioning about past, loss, yandere, obsessive, possessive, swearing, low self-esteem,dealing with grief, sugestive content and silly jokes created by me. (If there is more to add let me know.)

Previous chapter. Next chapter.

Summary: new town, new peopple. Accomodating might be hard, but small steps should be enough. As long as there is not any problems, everything is good.

Author's note: this chapter also might be longer because of town's description. I hope the introduction of members won't be too cheesy and cringe 😌 English isn't my first language so sorry for any mistakes.

MINORS DNI

Y/N woke up without any alarm's help. The night was peacefuly, she even dreamt about the forest around the city, for the next three day, she didn't have to log in the work, so had all time to figured out things with mansion. After doing a morning routine and eating yet again sandwiches, she got a text from Jungkook, he'll show up with a man who can rent her a car. Y/N went outside since it was pretty warm, got a closer look to an old tree and through gate to separted garden, then opened main gate. Not even five minutes went by, when two pick ups parked, from first got out Jungkook, now in baggy clothes and free failing hair, from second man in his mid fifties with a cigarette and hat.

"Good morning miss." He shook her hand.

"Good morning, nice to meet you." She said with little smile.

"So Jungkook told me you looking for a car to rent. It happens that this one is sitting at garage for like two months and I don't need it, but well it's quite a big one."

Y/N glanced at blue, goodlooking pick up. It clearly looked like not used, because there wasn't a personal stuff.

"I just need something to be able to get to the town down below and back here." She explained honestly.

"Oh, so it's perfect it's nice and reliabe car, just my brother left it, because he's abroad."

Man proceed to show her all the papers, confirming that it's well treated car and it won't just let her down.

"I think it's what I am looking for. What's the price of the rent?" She asked really convinced.

"We can summed up things right before your leaving, I don't want to take too much since you'll be just using it in town." Man said honestly.

Jungkook was observing their conversation quietly. His car was bigger and was black. He leaned on it's door and crossed his arms.

"Okay, I will fill it if it'll be necessary and maybe you have someone to confirm about the bills?" Y/N suggested little clueless.

"Yea they know me at gas station, so they'll know that you are renting my car." Man smiled.

Y/N signed the contract and they have exchanged the hand shake. Jungkook showed his bunny smile.

"Thanks Jungkook."

"It's okay buddy, get in the car I'll drive you to the town." He said and opened door for a man.

"I'll be also going there but a little later. Gotta buy some groceries etc." She said honestly.

"Sure, there shouldn't be a lot of people that early. Call me if you'll need something." Jungkook flashed her bunny smile and entered the pick up.

They drove away and Y/N came back into mansion. She grabbed bag with wallet, remembering to have her driving license, along with some plastic bags to carry groceries and list. After closing each window and door she opened earlier, than main gate, everything was ready to set off. Drive to town wasn't long, she even parked right under supermarket, nice it wouldn't be problem to pack it. There were also shopping carts so another advantage. Inside were a lot of aisles filled with everything, than further ones with fridges, fruits and vegetables, general food, meat and even with clothes, AGD and supplies. It was perfect, Y/N needed everythig at once. First she went with food, buying everything with long expiration date, some fresh fruits and vegetables, some meat to freeze and left for then. A lot of drinks like juice, water, tea and some coca cola. She equiped herself with a lot of clearing tools, bags for vaccuming, pair of gloves and trash bags. Then went bathroom and kitchen supplies. Her cart was almost full, when she was checking what left and turned out Y/N forgot transparent foil. She was about to reach for it, don't know who thought that placing it on higher shelf was a good idea, unfortunately she tripped and fell straight into a stranger, which was also buying something. He let go of book holding under an arm to catch her and helped stand straight.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry, I'm clumsy." She apologized looking up.

Her eyes met chocolote ones with glasses and concerned face. He was way more taller than she, thick arms and silver hair. Y/N breathed heavily in, second handsome man she met in span of two days. Except that he wore crisp, neat shirt with rolled sleeves and ubuttoned a little. Trousers were from fine, checked material and leather, elegant shoes.

"Eveything all right, you good Miss?"

"Yes, yes." She released breath shakily. "Your book!"

She crouched down to pick it up. She took it carefuly and glanced at title, small gasp left her lips and small smile appeard on them.

"Dante Alighieri Divine Comedy?" Y/N asked looking at stranger suprisingly.

He smiled back and nodded. "Yes, it's occupying lately my mind." He took it from her. "Did you read it?"

"Yes, around year ago and I liked it a lot."

"I'm on Prugatory. Still have a to read it and then Paradise."

He glanced at her cart full of different things and his smile widened showing the cutest diamples she has ever seen.

"Are you that newcomer?"

"Oh... yes, it's me." She said meekly. "The news are spreading fast here I see."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Kim Namjoon." He gave her his hand.

"Y/N L/N. I'm really sorry." She grabbed and he shook it firmly.

"It's okay, you wouldn't want to know how many times I've dropped it in the past." He scrated his nape and giggled nervously. "How's your residence here so far?"

"Ugh I've arrived here yesterday, I just checked the mansion and everything is working but I'm missing basic supplies."

"It's that one on a hill right?" Namjoon asked tilting his head slighty to left.

"Yes."

"It's a beautiful one. I'm living in another one, which is closer to town, but still in the woods."

"Oh really, you are owning it?" She asked with surprise.

"Yes, I like to nap there and sometimes inspire myself." He nodded pushing his glasses back on the nose.

Y/N could swear that this made her knees weak. She hid her heating cheeks and shuffled with cart a little.

"So are you an artist?"

Deep laugh filled the silence and smirk showed up on Namjoon's lips. He narrowed his gaze a little and looked at her from toes to head.

"No, I'm a businessman, but I do enjoy literature and art."

Y/N nodded shying away from his gaze. Who would think that such man is going to stay here? But he had right, the views and scennery were stunning, so maybe taking a break from work here worked very efficient.

"Isn't it a lethal combination?"

"Tell me." In his eyes flashed sparkle of approval.

"I think it is." A little smile appeard on her lips.

"It was nice to meet you, but I need to go. If you would want to we can grab a coffee or tea sometime." Namjoon suggested softly.

"It would be really nice."

They exchanged phone numbers and Y/N tried to hide small, plesant smile and heated cheeks. How lucky was she? Meeting another handsome and nice man during such situation? Truly strange. She paid, then left the shop with cart and put everything in car. A lot of things had to be in fridge, so it was necessary to come back to mansion. After putting everything in place and make some orders Y/N again got in the car - this time to drive around and meet the area. The main square and road was easy, but gas station was a little bit further, when the road was going into another direction. In the forest were a lot of different paths, some were just porches into forest entrances, with wooden railings, parking spots and atmospheric bowers. When she got into another one there was small, woden cabin between few trees. Y/N parked that anyone could pass through and took off, the air was fresh and full of spine smell. Silence was only but by birds and she felt warm sunshine kissing her skin. Suddenly an elder woman appeard, also with groceries obviously going to cabin direction. She looker like granny and was visibly struggling with holding the items. Unfortunately the plastic bag has given up and all things rolled into ground. She gasped and Y/N immediately rushed to aid her.

"Please let me help."

She crouched down to pick up food first to prevent dirtying it. She used her spare bag from a purse and put those in, the focused on rest.

"Do you live here ma'am?" She asked pointing at cabin.

"Yes my dear, thank you for help." Elder give her geniue smile.

"It's nothing."

They both reached cabin older woman opened the door revealing small and cozy living room with an table, couch, chairs and plush armchair on which was lying small, black as night cat with emerald green eyes. It rose head when women appeard and observed them carefuly. Room was shared with open kitchen which was filled with cupboards, stove, countertops under a walls and small fridge. Y/N put everything on a countertop.

"Is it everything? Do you need anything more?"

"Yes sweetie, thank you a lot." Grandma said and sat on the chair to take a breath.

Cat jumped off the armchair, stretched out and walked to owner, rubbing it's whole body against her legs. She smiled and petted it's head affecionate. Y/N smiled at sight, but in no time white cat with black spots in whole body appeard and meowed softly.

"Do you have a catfood here? I can set it up, since you have to nap ma'am."

"It should be in the bag."

There was a bowls under a wall, so she filled them with food which was bought. Three more cats showed up and black one abandoned owner to eat.

"Oh there's a lot of them." Y/N smiled.

"Mostly they are stray, but I feed them since this forest is dangerous."

"Oh I heard about the wolfs."

"You are the newcomer right love?"

"Yes it's me Y/N L/N" she introduced herself and nodded respectfuly.

"You can call me Annise, looks like Emerald started to already like you."

They both looked down and saw the black cat rubbing it's body against her legs, with tail high standing.

"Can I pet it?"

Grandma nodder and Y/N crouched and ran her fingers through cat's smooth fur. It purred softly then meowed and looked at her with big, green eyes.

"It's beautiful."

"Yeah, Emerald is a one handsome boy."

"Do you have a phone ma'am? I can help you a little when I'm free, you live pretty far from main part of the city."

"I have it, thank you but I don't want to bother you sweetie. I heard rumors that you are here for an important thing." Elder woman stated with shy tone.

"Well yes, but it seems it'll take a time and now don't even started so I can be helpful."

Grandma smiled and they exchange phone numbers. She also suggested Y/N to stay a while, when she prepared tea and took out a cookies from a shelf. Emerald jumped on her lap, when she sat at the table, she explained briefly how the case with mansion is going and described how it looks for now.

"You a brave girl coming here all alone." Annise summed up with respect.

"I kinda had no choice, but when officials issued everything, it wasn't that scary. The manor is very big and I admit that it's overwhelming, but I hope everything be all right and I wanna take care of it in a sake of my late aunt."

"Yes, but also living now deep in the forest for a town girl might be uncomfortable." Grandma looked up at her.

"For now I'm trying not to complain but nature here looks beautiful."

"Just be careful and watch out about a weather."

Y/N nodded and the conversation went for a while. After an noon she excused herself and thanked for a cookies. She had to come back and eat a dinner, also wanted to look after a mansion a little. Emerald didn't took off his shining eyes of her, till the door closed. Cat looked at his owner.

"Gosh she's lovely..." Annise stated with sad sigh.

"We have to start act immediately." Emerald growled a little and stretched again.

"Yes... the necklace won't be enough."

}*{

When Y/N came back to the mansion, it was late noon and she could feel her stomach growling. After preparing something ready to eat, which she bought in the shop, the tour around the mansion begin once more, but now she chose locked garden. The gate creaked loudly when she opened it with rosary key and looked inside. The stone path was cleared and grass actualy was cut and neat. It was a little strange, but maybe some gardener was sent here before her arrival. Y/N went deeper, where the trees starter and dry fountain can be found. Some birds were chirped and warm sun went out of the clouds shining at sunclock. It felt unreal, like she got transported into another time and world. Good thing that garden was cleared, Y/N had zero experience with such plants and places, maybe it would need water later, those flowerbeds looked like someone would have to care about them. Something took her attention. On one of the bush branches was hanging a stick tangled with feathers and grass, she frowned a little, touching it carefuly. Was it some of children making? Some sort of bird thing? She decided to left it, when she recalled that indeed there were a nightingale living around the manor.

Y/N left the garden, it didn't need any clearing now so she decided next is a library. It was huge room with second floor, both filled with tall bookshelfes, another fireplace with cozy couch anr armchair, the windows were going through backyard, very back part of the garden. Whole library was dusty to the second floor were leading circling stairs and it was in fact a balcony, with more bookshelfes and a place wiqth desk and chair in the back, near big window. There were also sculptures and paintings, probably everything needed to be write down and inspected. Some books appeard to be very old, some were having even wooden covers. This place will definitely need some vaccuming and clearing. She came back to master bedroom, when already was an laptop and some of her things put in the order. It came out that mayor emailed her - the government started to look for an specialist and in the attachment was a list of all things which needed to be catalogued and written down. There were thousands... Y/N sighed and send it to her phone, maybe she'll find time for that. After some nap she went to close main gate, evening just started and she probably won't go anywhere, she also checked the garden, but an surprise waited for her under main door. Cat with intense grey fur and mix of yellow and green eyes waited for her and meow when she came into it's sight.

"How did you got here?" Y/N asked and animal just rubbed it's body against her legs.

It also allowed to pet it's head gently and reached a paw towards her. Girl's heart just melted and cat was allowed inside the mansion. Suprisingly it sat in the middle of big space looked around and them started to follow her upstairs. Inside her room, started clearing whole body, when Y/N was thinking what to do with him. It might be one of Annise's cat or another stray - so she couldn't let him outside on that time, if the area is really that dangerous. She had a fresh piece of fish, so she put it on a plate and filled wide bowl with water. Cat accepted it after cleaning himself. It was avarage size, for sure adult and actualy an handsome gentleman. When she briefly looked at list sent by mayor - it was so long, because there was a sections filled with books, second most wide was furniture one. After some time, the night overtook the world, the moon peeked into bedroom and Y/N decided to go to sleep. After fast shower she went into a bed and cat decided to curled near her legs which caused her heart to melt again. The shadow shapes seemed like stretching towards canopy bed, but all jumped into cat's shadow caused it to be more darker, only when it opened eyes. Nothing else dared to enter bedroom this night.

Taglist:

@hadesnewpersephone @lalavione1309

#yandere bts x reader #bts x reader #yandere bts #bts soulmate au #poly bts #supernatural #mystery #dark romance #yandere x you #horror au #demons #bts jin #bts namjoon #bts yoongi #bts hoseok #bts jimin #bts taehyung #bts jungkook #bts ff

[celestesparlour]

if bursonas play minecraft;

argbur's avatar standing there dumbfounded when simpbur keeps stuttering and trying to tell him that he can't JUST place his bed next to his own bed while argbur just doesn't understand what's the big deal since hes new to minecraft entirely

simpbur is more experienced with minecraft and thought if he wow'd argbur with his knowledge then surely argbur would think he's cool! unfortunately, moments after thinking this, he has fallen into a pit of lava and died in front of him

people have no idea why simpbur's avatar and argbur's avatar just stand still in the game, looking down until they realized they were just sleeping in call together

simpbur once pranked pogbur and lmanbur by putting their beds together, and then later saw in chat that they both died at the same time, and then died again due to smacking each other when they respawned

revivebur would put way too much effort into gathering lots and lots of materials, and hoards a lot of them in his already full, disorganized storage space— has too many building projects scattered across their land that were just left unfinished; they have no idea where revivebur is, most of the time, because he's always deep into the mines or exploring in other biomes.

whenever he comes back, its always to the craziest shit ever. he was days late into finding out that lmanbur and pogbur had just divided the land into two sections but then proceed to grief each other's builds + houses

revivebur always asks for someone to accompany him though, which is usually ghostbur. gets very anxious when playing alone; ghostbur and revivebur are oddly much more sweet to each other in chat, since revivebur allows himself to verbally reciprocate

only times revivebur stays longer at their base is to help ghostbur with building + tending the flower garden, bee farm, as well as the enclosures for friend.

revivebur had to build him a house bc "you sleep outside because you placed your bed out the fences— of course you need a house!" whenever revivebur returns, they would put the flowers he got into their garden (revivebur being stingy with his stuff but giving/sharing ghostbur any of his doesnt surprise all of them)

ghostbur hadn't slept for days because he spent all his time fixated on this one thing (building his area) and kept expanding on it; does not even have the essential materials. does not even wear armor. they shut off the server for breaks daily bc of this

phantombur brought capitalism in that server all so they can scam everyone; grinds a lot, and is the richest there— they give discounts for ghostbur and revivebur (only cuz ghostbur insisted too)

phantombur gets shy whenever playing with people with the full intent to befriend them, so they think bribery would help

one night limbobur was playing with just lmanbur and pogbur, he was reading the chat where they had this massive argument— heard the door slam from another room, before hearing an noisy, aggressive make-out session and then—

they didnt log back on for weeks

simpbur's the one that dies a lot to the point that a lot of people come with him just to regularly hold his stuff; argbur is the least trustworthy with his stuff because he keeps stealing it to tease him. argbur got his armor once, worn it and never taken it off again even when simpbur kept whining in call

ghostbur and simpbur have this thing where they both crouch and jump up and down while nodding their heads like they're having a conversation

pogbur kept hissing like a creeper; they all lightly tease him for it, but lmanbur said out loud that he genuinely thinks it's cute— proceeds to get bullied by revivebur while pogbur is silent on call, face red bc he thought the compliment was lmanbur mocking him

when they get together, it feels weird to the other burs to watch them on the new minecraft server— and they don't start any fights or grief-offs, or anything; they just build their dream house together and kept acting like they're married

#parfaits rambles </3 #bursona #bursonas #qpr revghost #lpog #argsimp #revivebur #ghostbur #argbur #simpbur #lmanbur #pogbur #phantombur #implied ghost^2; can be taken as either romantic or platonic #one of our alters spent the entire day. playing stardew valley #i wrote this while body is absolutely sleep deprived

[inkblot22]

You Pull It Into Your Lungs

Tell me why I logged in to web today and my theme was no longer what I set it as?? Tumblr, please. I love you but we can't keep doing this. Anyhow, it's here! Part II of The Saltwater Beckons. Hopefully it makes sense, during this chapter I was just trying to set up a very obvious plot conflict for later.

This fic is for: anyone who can handle it! It is going to be more self-indulgent than my others, but I'm going to make a very serious effort to not describe any bits when we get to that point. While I myself am black, there are also no allusions to skin color (ex. "cheeks turned red/pink") in this either, although there could be.

TW for: injury, blood mention, bruises, lots of weird speculation about non-human sentient species, crude flirting (if you squint), some primal stuff but it's not written in a sexy way, Floyd and Jade Leech because they freak me out and I know I'm not the only one. They might be a bit OOC in this, I'm working on it.

The prefect was lucky that Floyd didn’t barge into the shower while they were ridding their body of saltwater and blood. The bite on their shoulder stopped bleeding after a bit of pressure. It was odd that it didn’t stop bleeding faster, like puncture wounds tend to, but it had already begun bruising, darker patches mottling the skin around the bite like some kind of warped galaxy picture. 

They sighed and got dressed, surprised to see Floyd, still wet, waiting boredly for them at the door of the natatorium.

“I thought you left.” They said, a cordiality underlying the bluntness.

His hair dripped on his collar  and he was leaning somewhat awkwardly on the doorframe, looking at them as though they’d told him the moon was made of cheese, “No. Let’s go.”

Floyd was walking a little strangely, stumbling every few steps and losing his balance, sort of like a toddler learning to walk. They watched for a moment, sort of confused.

“Are you… Why are you walking like that?”

“Shrimpy,” Floyd giggled, halting his movements so abruptly that it was unnatural and turning slightly to look at them. It was less of a beginning of a sentence and more of a warning. 

That primal part of their brain screamed. 

“Let’s just get you home and then you can keep trying to think.” He said, turning on his heel and walking. 

Over time, despite the journey from the natatorium to Ramshackle being short, he did improve in his gait, but it wasn’t until they remembered that he’d been in the water that they realized why he was having issues walking now.

They felt silly for not realizing earlier. 

Floyd opened the door to Ramshackle. The prefect never locked it when they went anywhere, since they didn’t have a key for the front door, and who locks a dorm building anyway? They walked up the stairs, took another shower to rid themself of the saltwater feeling, changed into their pajamas, then decided they wanted some tea. When they went downstairs, Floyd was still standing there, playing with various things in the living room.

The only sensible thing they could think of doing was screaming in terror and dashing around the corner. What was he still doing here?! They thought they were alone.

Floyd didn’t pursue, which was something of a surprise. From their spot in the hallway leading to several dust filled rooms, they heard Floyd’s lazy drawl.

“It’s cute how you wanna play, but I’m not in the mood for hide and seek right now. Come over here.” It was less of a request and more of an insistent statement. Not quite a demand. Almost there, though.

The prefect slowly exited their shoddy hiding spot and Floyd’s mismatched eyes were pinning them to the floor almost immediately. He smirked, breaking into a toothy grin as his eyes dragged up and down their form.

“Hmm. I don’t know why I thought you’d have sexier pajamas.” He said before turning back to the knick-knacks over the hearth. He plucked one of them up and looked at it curiously, “What’s this supposed to be?”

He threw it at them with his underhand. They narrowly dodged and the knick-knack made a heavy thunk as it dented the wood floor.

“You could have hurt me! And… I think it’s a whole avocado, but made of brass?” The prefect said, picking the heavy thing up. Crowley was gonna kill them if he ever noticed that spot on the floor. “And what do you mean, ‘sexier pajamas’?”

Floyd snickered as they got closer to him, sliding the brass avocado back onto the hearth. They looked up at him and he responded by slinging an arm around their shoulders.

“I dunno, Shrimpy,” he slurred, leaning far too close to their face as he hooked a finger in their shirt and yanked on it, “Land people are so uptight about wearin’ lots of clothes. The sexiest thing you could wear to sleep is nothing, like me.”

The prefect absolutely didn’t need to know this information. The revelation set a hot burn in their cheeks as their eyes widened, and Floyd spun them out of his grasp, giggling.

“Heehee… it’s so cute that Shrimpy is shy. Well, see ya.”

“Huh?”

“What, you want me to stay the night?”

“Oh! No.”

“Mmm-hmm. Grim’ll be back in the morning. Night.”

And with that, Floyd strolled out of the doors of Ramshackle. The prefect watched him go, grabbed a nice little midnight snack, then went back upstairs and slept.

Their dreams were fitful. The sting in their shoulder didn’t really ease as they woke up every few hours. The moonlight was blinding as they tried to sleep. Without Grim, it was too quiet. Perhaps it would be worth it to ask the ghosts to make some noise, but a glance at the clock revealed that it was around three, so they’d likely all be busy. It was a shame. Usually by now they’d be awake anyways because he had his claws out and was digging his feet into their back, mumbling in his sleep about how powerful he was. It was annoying, but it was familiar.

And familiar was not something they had often in this world.

~*~

The next day, as the prefect was wandering in the halls, lost as they tried to remember how to get to the mess hall, they bumped into a familiar chest.

“Oof!”

“Why, good afternoon, prefect. Where are your friends?” Jade smiled kindly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It never did.

“Oh, I stayed back so I could get my ‘special student work.’ Because I’m not magic.” They looked up at Jade, “They’re at lunch.”

“Oh, really?” He used that coddling tone he adopted with Floyd sometimes, “And why aren’t you with them?”

“I got lost.”

Jade laughed, somehow politely. His gloved hand curled into an elegant fist covered his lips as he giggled, eyes closed in mirth. The prefect laughed along for a moment and then began walking past him, and his eyes flashed open. He stared straight ahead for a moment, his brow furrowing ever so slightly before he grabbed the prefect’s arm and dragged them into a nearby empty classroom.

“Uh… Jade?” They mumbled. “What’s gotten into…?”

Jade hastily loosened their tie and ripped their shirt open, somehow without snapping any buttons off before he tapped his nose against the crook of their neck, taking in a deep draw of air.

Although merfolk, beastmen, and fae did not exist in their world, as far as it had been explained to them, things like this should not happen. They should not be getting pulled into an isolated place and… smelled. They very gently eased their hands onto Jade’s shoulders and he tightened his grip on their shoulders, enough to make them wince.

“Jade, what’s going on?”

Jade leaned up to his full height. He wasn’t smiling. His face had fallen into a very tense frown, and it made their blood run cold. He carefully tugged the clothing from their bitten shoulder off, sucked his teeth, then  buttoned their shirt and retied their tie. When he was done, he grabbed them by the upper arm and silently walked them to the mess hall. Once there, he turned to them and regarded them.

His smile twitched back into place and he sighed, “My brother. Heh. Always so hasty.”

“What?”

“Your friends are waiting for you, prefect. Enjoy your lunch.”

They walked in, as he said. Generally, the non-human interactions they had with their fellow students were benign, such as Grim falling asleep if they pet him for too long, or Leona’s voice being growly, but that… that was strange. The prefect took a seat with Ace, Deuce, and Grim, glancing at the doorway. 

Jade was no longer there, but the bite from Floyd somehow stung worse than the moment they got it.

#twisted wonderland #tw: dark content #disney twst #tw: dark themes #twst #tw injury #tw blood #tw blood mention #tw bruises #tw primal play #tw primal #tw floyd leech #tw jade leech #tw possibly ooc #possibly ooc characters #twst races #beastmen #merfolk #fae #etc #yandere floyd leech x reader #yandere floyd x reader #yandere floyd leech

[jtl07]

jtl07 fics, spring 2024

We interrupt the posting about various water animals with my first fic recap of 2024!

An admission: I’m still in a rollercoaster of a headspace (also still open to song recs so I can make noises on the guitar btw) - I was, gently, reminded that it’s not even been a year since life upended itself and there’s been a lot that's happened in the past couple months, even more in the past couple weeks, so. We’ll take it one step - one water animal, one guitar riff, one fic recap - at a time.

General stats

Total on this pseud: 5

Fics posted (in chronological order):

Cat’s Cradle security checkpoint logs - Just a snapshot in the form of the contents of folks' bags

tell me all the things you believe - or: one year later

even though you're not mine - or: Ava comes back, but not hers; or or: Princington's artwork strikes again

i see you clearly now (i hold you dearly now) - or: on touch and waiting and wanting; or or: Ava comes back invisible

nineteen, again - or: Ava at thirty-eight

(Per usual, more numbers and thoughts under the cut)

More numbers

(As of last night; some of the numbers seem to have changed but only slightly)

Total words: 26,369

Shortest fic: 813 - Cat’s Cradle security checkpoint logs

Longest fic: 19,010 - i see you clearly now (i hold you dearly now)

Average/Median word count: 5,274 / 1,676

Most hits: 2,128 - i see you clearly now (i hold you dearly now)

Least hits: 555 - Cat’s Cradle security checkpoint logs

Average/Median percent of *interactions to hits: 21.3% / 22.0%

Highest percent of interactions to hits: 23.1% - nineteen, again

Least percent of interactions to hits: 18.7% - i see you clearly now (i hold you dearly now)

*where “interaction” = kudos, comment threads, bookmarks

General thoughts

None of the regular stats (all the word count stuff) were a surprise to me, so I added some new stats looking at interactions and hits. Interaction totals seem to correspond with hit counts (hence why I didn't note those above) but what was interesting was the percentages. Yeah, it's a difference of only a couple percentage points but the nerd in me is intrigued. As in: I wonder if the length and premise of "i see you clearly" was both draw (hits) and deterrent (interaction)? Also several comments mentioned liking the setting age-wise of "nineteen, again" so that plus the fact that there were a lot of familiar faces was perhaps folks knowing what they were getting into? idk, really can't draw any conclusions - it can also just be simple reader behavior.

Actually, speaking of which, another interesting thing I observed: I did an initial pull using the bookmarklet on the 25th, then updated the numbers last night. The numbers that changed the most were hits and, surprisingly, bookmarks (kudos were next, and comments hardly changed). I hadn't realized that bookmarks were utilized so much.

Fic that surprised you:

Technically "i see you clearly now" fits this prompt - but then again, it fits every prompt in this recap lol - but the fic I want to talk about here is "even though you're not mine. I had fully expected not to post anything for February (context: I have a soft personal goal to complete something every month) but then @princington had to go and be amazing lol. I distinctly remember seeing their art (linked above) and immediately being beset by two different ideas. I then went for a walk and during said walk, lines starting coming for the shorter idea. Near the end of the walk, the ending for the fic came to me as well, and by that time I was speedwalking to get back home and write it all down! It had been a while since I'd felt an idea take hold of me that quickly and completely - it's such a rush and was fun to write. That one definitely would not have happened without Prince's fantastic work <3

Fic that you're proud of:

Okay now I'll talk about "i see you clearly now" lol - everything about it was terrifying, from the length, the content, the style. It really was unexpected because the opening came fully fleshed out early on, which usually points to a quick little fic. But I remember hitting 3k and looking over what I had so far, and thinking very clearly: ohshit, this is going to be long. But I think what won out over the fear was this curiosity - I wanted to see where this fic was going to lead me. There was something in it that kept drawing me back, even though I didn't know at all where the story was going, something in me felt surprisingly, idk safe exploring what was, for me, uncharted territory.

Fun fact #1: I think it was around the 5k~6k mark - before I'd gotten anywhere near the ending, mind - I'd had this thought (which I'd fully written down in my notes lol) of having a fun spicy one-shot as a follow up. And then shortly thereafter, I realized how crucial physical intimacy was to the story and how it there wouldn't be a follow up - it had to be integrated into the fic. A lot of internal screaming ensued lol

Fun fact #2: I surprisingly didn't do a lot in terms of editing. The biggest was a rewrite of the phone conversation between Beatrice and Mother Superion. I remember feeling a bit iffy about it and @gohandinhand (best beta ever seriously!) gently highlighted it as well. I guess it was one of those scenes where I needed to know what the story was before I could really write that scene in a way that fit everything else. It was interesting because I felt that's how it was writing the fic as a whole - it wasn't very linear, it was more like I'd write one scene near the beginning, which gave some inspiration for a scene near the ending, which then brought me to a scene near the middle. It felt quite intricate, seeing how adjusting one area affected another, affected the whole.

Fun fact #3: Before I wrote the reunion, I sat down and studied a bunch of fics because I'm a nerd lol - there's that one post, which I of course can't find now, about how there's nothing more embarrassing than writing smut that doesn't turn anyone on, which I felt very keenly lol - I was like, jt, if you're going to do this, you better damn do this well. So I went through some other fics and studied structure, word choice, pacing - it was quite enlightening actually, and something I think I'll do more of this year. (Studying, I mean. Not the - well, I shouldn't promise anything about what I will or will not write lol)

Fic that was the hardest to write:

Much as "i see you clearly now" terrified me, it actually wasn't hard to write. Similar to Beatrice's arc in the story itself, I as the writer had to just be patient and allow it take form in the time it took. I mean, even that rewrite that I mentioned came on fairly easily.

Now that I think about it, I do remember "tell me all the things you believe" being difficult to write. Yeah, quite a number of afternoons sitting at a nearby Starbucks pulling at my hair lol The main prompt for that was simply to mark the occasion (that being my own 1 year of writing Warrior Nun/Avatrice). I think what I'm learning is that things are much easier when an idea is couched firmly in a character or an emotion. (For example, I mentioned a while ago having a hard time with i walked with you once, which could have also been due to not having formed a good grasp of JC's character)

Oh I also had not a difficulty writing, but a difficulty posting Cat’s Cradle security checkpoint logs - I'd thought it was too simple yknow? But ultimately I thought hey, this is all just for fun, not everything needs to be complex and worldchanging so why the heck not.

What's next?

Gosh that's a question I've been carefully avoiding what with being in the midst of so much transition. I've been doing a lot of resting and found myself being drawn to studying structure again - kishoutenketsu in particular (I recently found some studies I'd done a couple years ago, I might clean those up and post them here), and how to layer complexity onto that. Which is timely because there's a couple ideas that came to me late last year that I immediately knew were going to be complex and kinda put them on the shelf because I didn't think I was ready to write them. Writing "i see you clearly now" has made me question that thought so hopefully the studying will help bring up my confidence to at least try.

In any case, there are still plenty of ideas (Beatrice voice: "there's always more") it's just a matter of figuring out which ones feel right to write. I'll likely continue to be a little quiet here - save for the posts of the water animals lol - but I'll be around.

Anyway, huh, apparently I had much more to say than I thought I would for this recap. If you made it this far, wow, a virtual cookie for you! Hope the end of March brings some rest and comfort <3

#jt writes fic #words about my words #jt's fic recap

[dnalt-d2]

QSMP Prison Day 3: Finale

This was…An interesting day

I'm still not sure what to make of it, so this is mostly just gonna be a run-down on what happened, with a few less analyses than I usually do. Maybe I'll go more in-depth on stuff later if I manage to think of anything

We had WAY too much happen today, and I'm not sure I can get through it all, or if I even saw it all (I'm going through the event twitter to make sure I get anything relevant)

Like how upon waking up, the prison was almost completely overrun by mobs, nearly all of which were wearing prison jumpsuits for some reason. Even the spiders for some reason???

There were the interviews that all the guards started conducting, asking very strange questions. Like "Where would you like to go after you die? What would you like your last meal to be? Who will you miss the most/least?" Very strange questions indeed.

We had the resolution to the Ghostbit/Abueloier subplot, with Phil and Slime exorcising Ghostbit, though Phil wasn't sure that was the correct move

Then of course, we had the breakout

The first thing they needed to do was get the water-breathing turtle helmets required for the escape, and the guard that had them was VERY suspicious. In that he CLEARLY knew that the prisoners were planning on escaping, but gave them the helmets anyway, making them do strange tasks in return (Like killing someone, or stealing something) And not everyone got them anyway lol, so Quacki had to give them some normal turtle helmets. But regardless, it's strange that the guard was just letting them escape

This could mean that this guard was either disgruntled in some way, not caring if they escaped, or undercover, helping to facilitate the escape (And having fun the whole way lol) Either that, or even the Federation expected the Islanders to all escape, and let this happen. Which means they all played into the Fed's hands. (Obviously meta-wise it was meant to happen, but in this case, I mean canonically)

Speaking of Quacki, btw, she seems to have been adopted by Phil after he murdered her. So that's fun

There's also the matter of those weird vans that were there. We don't know what the deal with those were, or what they were really intended for. It seems strange that they'd be there to transport the prisoners, but only the Islanders and not the Eggs. And that they were basically hollow, with nothing inside. Almost like they were never meant to be used

Then they finally actually got out of the prison, activating a red button via a Create puzzle, then saw a video showing two faceless Fed Workers, one of which got sucked into a Nether Portal??? And Phil said that could've been the two Cucuruchos, with the one being sucked in having turned into the evil Cucurucho. Or as I call him, Cucurubro. And that actually makes a lot of sense to me. We saw what happened to other people who entered the Nether for extended periods of time, so it makes sense that this is the case. Though I can't help but wonder where Osito Bimbo fits into that. Maybe the wacky younger sibling?? Idk

Either way, something activated and caused some sort of Island reset, with the Server shutting down for 4 days. What does the reset mean? Who has the nine keys required for it? And who were the people shown being logged off before it all went down?? What happened to Arin/Luzu after being lassoed into the horizon by the Code Monster??

Also what was that Crucifixion gonna be if it actually happened? Would Saint Felps truly have died for our sins once again??

These are all great questions

Anyways, can't wait to go into hibernation until like Saturday. I imagine BBH and Tubbo will be doing the same, since we all know they have a debilitating addiction to this Minecraft server

It's kinda unfortunate that none of my theories were correct, but oh well. There's a reason I'm not a theorist after all lmao. It's better to put it out there and get it wrong than not try it at all, you know??? But like Quackity said, there's no use getting upset about something that was never confirmed

NOW SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE, EVERYBODY! I DON'T REALLY HAVE MUCH MORE TO ADD HERE

#Once again #Idk what to add in the tags #So yeah #Enjoy the break everyone #Get some work or whatever done #That's what I'm planning on doing lol #qsmp #qsmp theory #qsmp prison

[inactive3x3]

"having a hard day ?"

-> prompt: ayato notices you're having a bad day so he lets you talk about it

-> genre: fluff/comfort

-> warnings: short

-> character: kamisato ayato

-> pronouns: none

"love i'm going to go to a commissioner meeting now, i'll be back later today. would you like me to grab you anything while i am outside?"

he heard mumbling come from behind him, looking over to see you lying face down on the couch as if you were a log, head buried into a pillow. a sigh left his throat, i suppose i can be a few minutes late. then he chuckled at how depressed and sad you looked (not that he found it funny, he just found it humorous how you were face down), "oh love, what's happened to you?"

you groaned into the pillow again, still not moving. ayato walked over and sat next to you on the couch, sitting by where your hips were with most of his legs off the couch.

"darling you need to stop groaning into the pillow so i can comprehend what you're saying."

reluctantly, you rolled over. he held back a small laugh when he saw part of the fabric imprinted in your skin, trying to focus on your eyes. ayato leaned down and pressed a kiss to your fabric-imprinted forehead, smoothing it out with his thumb shortly afterward.

"alright, what happened?"

"a lot of stuff," you sighed, looking at his face – porcelain skin with the most deep and mischievous blue eyes you've ever seen. "i guess it's just been a bad day."

"tell me about it," he said, grabbing your hand gently and holding it in his gloved ones. "it's better to talk about these things than let it fester."

"i could say the same about you."

"we're not talking about me right now, love," he teased.

"i know i know…"

you told him about the chaotic morning and early-afternoon that you had. first, you woke up late and missed your appointment with a designer to get a new outfit ready. on the way back to the estate, you ran into one of the most annoying people you know, which made you very irritated and took up so much time. when you finally got home, you slipped on the porch that thoma freshly mopped. luckily no one was around to witness it, but it was still super embarrassing. after you hustled your way inside, you ended up spilling some of your lotion on your clothes, making you have to change. ever since you changed, you decided to just stay on the couch.

"i see... how are you feeling now?" ayato mindlessly saw the clock and how it had taken over thirty minutes to finish your ranting session. oh well. i don't think it'd really matter anyway. i'll make sure to reschedule the meeting. "do you want to do something fun now?"

"what about your mee-" you cut yourself off after looking at the clock. "oh… i am so sorry ayato… i made you miss your meeting..."

"it's alright," he comforted you. "besides, i can just reschedule it. you always come first. now, what do you want to do to cheer you up?"

"can we go feed the animals?"

he chuckled, "that's all?"

"and maybe get food at komore teahouse," you said cheekily. "only if you have time though. i don't want to make you miss anything else."

"that's alright with me," he said, letting go of your hand and pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek. "let's get going then."

no matter how hard of a day you've had – whether large or small – and no matter how busy he got, ayato will always be there to help you with your problems. because as he always told you, you're his first and his main priority.

#ayato x you #ayato x reader #kamisato ayato x reader #kamisato ayato x you #genshin x you #genshin x y/n #genshin x oc

[landofzero-archive]

Ougonten - Account of the Dragon's Ascension 1

Writer: Kanata Haruka

Season: Winter

(Location: Starmony Dorms Common Area)

Mika: Heave-ho…… Fuu…… Thanks a bunch, Shiratori-kun. Let’s take a break here fer now. 

Aira: We should. The unexpectedly large luggage wore me out.

Mika: Sorry fer draggin’ ya into this.

I was plannin’ on takin’ home some of my personal stuff from the handicraft club before I graduated, but it turned out to be more luggage than I expected.

Aira: No no, I had free time too. Actually, it was a feast for the eyes to see the treasured works of art belonging to Kagehira-senpai!

Also, while we were returning together, I got to hear a lot of behind the scenes stories about Machina.

As an idol otaku, it was a time of ultimate bliss♪ I’m super happy!

Mika: I appreciate ya sayin’ that. I feel bad that I can’t do anythin’ to thank ya fer yer help though……

Aira: Being able to talk about Machina with Kagehira-senpai is more than enough thanks!

Even thinking back on it now, I’m overwhelmed by that fantastic universe.

Mika: Ahaha, don’t praise me too much. Since it’s about me, I might get too excited over it.

Aira: That can’t be! From my point of view, I can’t say enough about it!

I got it! The Machina live show was good, but the show before that, “Test World,” was also amazing!

Mika: Eh!? Sh-Shiratori-kun, how do ya know about Test World!?

No one would know about that unless they were logged into that virtual world.

Aira: Ah, I didn’t see it directly! I saw the video.

Someone recorded a video of what happened in Test World and posted it on SNS.

I was so disappointed when I saw that video. I wondered why I couldn’t have gotten to see Valkyrie’s bravery with my own eyes.

Itsuki-senpai and Kagehira-senpai’s appearance at that time…… Even when I remember it, I can’t help but sigh as my tears fell.

The sight of you two looking down on everyone from above and bringing the end of the world was truly divine!

The highlight was the innocence of Kagehira-senpai, when you made money rain like hot water saying, “Art is an explosion~!”

MIka: I-It’s spread to that extent!?

Aira: Yep! I watched that scene so much I thought I was going to pierce a hole into my phone!

Mika: Don’t look at me like that! That’s where I think I got too carried away!

Uuu…… I guess I did too much by throwin’ away the money. That’s usually a punishment.

Aira: No no, I think it was a good thing!

I loved Kagehira-senpai in that scene so much that I couldn’t help but share my thoughts about it on SNS.

Kagehira-senpai’s appearance at that time, the sparkling money was like—

Mitsuru: (Whispering) Mika-ni~chan should have entered this room. I’ll sneak inside and investigate……

Mika: Ah, that’s Mitsuru-kun ain’t it. Welcome home~. What’s goin’ on, sneakin’ around like that?

Mitsuru: Uwah!? Mika-ni~chan was still in front of the door!?

Aira: Ah, sorry! Now that I think about it, we were standing in front of the door talking for a long while.

Mika: Ngah~ we’re gettin in the way of people comin’ in later. Sorry for scarin’ ya, Mitsuru-kun.

Mitsuru: I-it’s okay!! I’m going back to my room now, so Mika-ni~chan and the others can enjoy chatting~!

Mika: Eh, Mitsuru-kun!?

…… He left. Since he came into the room, I assume he had somethin’ to do but…

Did I say somethin’ to annoy Mitsuru-kun?

Aira: Hmm~mm…… Maybe he was just too surprised?

Anyway, it’s not a good idea to just stand around and talk like this. We shouldn’t surprise anyone coming in like Tenma-senpai again.

Mika: Alright. I don’t know if I can drag this luggage to my room.

Aira: That’s true…… But first, let’s have some tea and take a break. It’s never too late to carry your luggage.

Besides, I want to chat with Kagehira-senpai a bit more!

Mika: Haah. If you're serious about it, let’s make some hot tea first♪

(Location: Starmony Dorms Hallway (1F))

Mitsuru: Fuu…… That was dangerous. I almost got caught by Mika-ni~chan.

But with this I was able to learn more about Mika-ni~chan again! I’ll make a note of it right away.

“Mika-ni~chan was a good god who enjoyed standing and talking with his friends,” and…

Hmm…… It seems like this isn’t enough after all~!

A~lright, let’s find more and more divine aspects of Mika-ni~chan!

Directory | Next

#ensemble stars #enstars #enstars translation #mika kagehira #aira shiratori #mitsuru tenma #era: !! #type: scout

[cuties-in-codices]

so, could you find stuff that looks like what the demon on top of the pillar VII of the Chauvigny Saint-Pierre collegial church?

answer below the cut :)

hi! since you said 'demon' in singular i assume we're talking about the the squatting creature in the middle? (on wikipedia it says that this one is the devil, flanked by two demons.) i can't say that it reminds me of any particular demon/devil, but it also doesn't look atypical to me at all. demons/devils in medieval art come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and to my eyes this one just looks like another variation of the recurring 'themes' of demon depictions. here's the devil on another pillar of the same church:

so, he seems to have fur, a tail, wings, some kind of claws or paws for feet, relatively human hands, spiked hair, spiky ears and a kind of half-human/half-animalistic face. all of those features are very common in the demon/devil depictions i've come across.

just as a random example, here are some demons from a 15th c. bavarian manuscript that share a lot of the same features:

(Berlin, SBB, Hdschr. 300, fol. 2r and 26r)

same goes for these two:

(Paris, BnF, Français 22971, fol. 28v)

the squatting position as well as the facial expression kind of reminds me of this depiction of the devil in the 'livre de la vigne nostre seigneur' (france, c. 1450–1470):

(Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 134, fol. 67v)

all of the illustrations shown above were created several centuries later than the (early 12th c.) saint-pierre pillars though, i should add. you would have to ask somebody else if you're interested in an art-historical classification of the st.-pierre devil.

EDIT: i focused on the devil's phenotype, but i just saw on your blog that you're actually interested in the x-shaped cross he's holding, which the (german) wikipedia article calls "a symbol of death, with a tilted cross and dots in the triangular areas". i also have a hard time finding other references to this "symbol of death" anywhere, but in this list of cross symbols the "schrägkreuz" (english wiki calls it "saltire, also called saint andrew's cross or the crux decussata") is said to have originally symbolized the crossed logs of a sacrifical altar (for fire sacrifices) and is thus found in depictions of the sacrifice of isaac and in depictions of the widow of sarepta/zarephath. there seems to be more information on it this in this lexicon:

Gerd Heinz-Mohr: Lexikon der Symbole. Bilder und Zeichen der christlichen Kunst, S. 177. Eugen Diederichs Verlag, München, Neuausg. 1998.

possibly also here? (also german, sorry)

Rickert, Arnold: Über Kreuz und Schrägkreuz als Figuren im Raum. In: Symbolon. Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Symbolforschung Bd. 6 (1968) S. 56-71.

#demons #devils #ask #btw every time i answer any questions please keep in mind that i'm not an expert on any of this #saltire #saint andrew's cross #crux decussata

[anxiouscowboy]

A Wholesome GBU Fic Draft/Idea

"Hey, Tuco?"

"Yeah, what? Can't you see I'm trying to sleep?" Tuco turned over on his sleeping roll to face the little boy, still wide awake, looking hopefully at him from across the campfire. His eyes were bright and brown like Tuco's, and for a moment, it felt as if he was staring into the face of his younger self. This kid, ha. Eight years old, four feet tall, and endlessly curious, this kid had been following him and Blondie since they'd reunited in San Antonio. How long had it been, two weeks now? He said his name was Santiago and he came from a village nearby, that his parents were gone and that one day he was going to be a great and famous cowboy...typical kid shit as far as Tuco was concerned. Why not just hogtie the boy and leave him back in town, he'd suggested, but Blondie wouldn't hear of it. That was the strangest thing yet. Blondie, aloof, unfeeling Blondie---he had let the boy tag along, and Tuco had no earthly idea why. We'll drop him at the next town, he'd say, but they never did. So here Tuco sat, the still of a peaceful desert night spoiled once again by the same inquisitive little bastard.

"Sorry," Santiago said with a smile. "I was just wonderin'...Did you really do all the stuff they said?"

"All the stuff that who said?" Tuco glanced at Blondie, propped up against a fallen log, but he was sound asleep.

"The preacher man with the Bible who talked a lot when you were doing your trick with Blondie. He said you did all kinds of bad things and asked God to have mercy on your soul?"

"Mm."

"Well, did you?"

Any other night, Tuco would have told him to shut up and go to bed, or at the very least, go bother Blondie, but tonight he lit a cigarette and puffed thoughtfully for a moment before answering.

"There are two kinds of people in the world, my little friend." he said, "Sinners and Saints. My brother Pablo, he's a Saint. Blondie, he's a Saint sometimes too. But me? Heh. No." he blew out the smoke with a wistful smile. "I guess every angel needs a devil to keep him on his toes, huh?"

"Well," Santiago said matter-o-factly, "I guess I gotta pray for both of our souls then, 'cause I'm a sinner too."

Tuco blinked, completely taken aback, then threw back his head and roared with laughter.

"You little tramp! What the hell have you ever done to call yourself a sinner?"

"Oh, all kinds of stuff! I've tied the girls' pigtails together, put a rat in Mary's lunchbox, took candy from the jar when my teacher wasn't lookin', set my Abuela's rug on fire, 'course that was an accident..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it---you're a real criminal like me!" Tuco chuckled.

"No I'm not!" Santiago giggled, all too excited by the idea. "I think everybody does bad stuff sometimes," he said a moment later, suddenly serious. "I don't think you're as bad as they say you are. I think you're a good man."

Tuco's stomach dropped. He took a deep breath and hoped that the kid hadn't seen the shock on his face. Eyes prickling, he managed a smile, but no words would come.

"G'night, Tuco." Santiago murmured, rolling over in his sleeping bag and holding his blanket close.

"Good night," came his hoarse reply.

Tuco stared into the fire for what seemed like an eternity, his eyebrows knit together as the little boy snored beside him. He'd been called a lot of things in his life, most of them curses, and well-deserved ones at that, but a good man? That was a new one. He shook his head and looked up into the sky. The stars twinkled brightly beside a waxing crescent moon and Tuco watched them for a moment. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, or why. A good man. Little bastard. Shaking his head, he finished his cigarette and flicked it into the fire, settled in under his blanket and drifted off to sleep.

#the dollars trilogy #the good the bad and the ugly #clint eastwood #lee van cleef #eli wallach #blondie #angel eyes #tuco ramirez #cowboyblogging